That headline from Zhang Musheng, one of China’s most influential intellectuals according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald.
From the article:
A new study by the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency shows China now emits far more greenhouse emissions than any other country, with emissions doubling between 2003 and 2010.
China’s carbon emissions rose 10 per cent last year alone, to 9 billion tonnes, compared with 5.2 billion tonnes for the United States.
The report showed India’s emissions also rose rapidly, by 9 per cent, although its total emissions are still only one-fifth of China’s.
The most startling finding, however, is that China’s per capita emissions are now higher than several rich nations including France and Italy. China’s per capita emissions could even overtake the US within six years, the study said.
…
”If the current trends in emissions by China and the industrialised countries including the US would continue for another seven years, China will overtake the US by 2017 as highest per capita emitter among the 25 largest emitting countries,” said the Netherlands report, which was sponsored by the European Commission and is based partly on BP energy consumption statistics.
Despite the other issues about China, I would expect that Zhang Musheng will become the next victim of the Romm-DeSmog Sliming Industrial Complex.
I suggest the next place for wild eyed protestors like Bill McKibben is to “occupy” Bejing, perhaps Tienanmen Square. I’m sure they’ll get a warm welcome there. Check out the protestor with the purple hair just before McKibben.
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_Jim says:
October 8, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Listed are 106 possible causes for hysteria or mania including:
Maybe if we can get Kathleen Sibelius to list Liberalism as “a mental disease”, as documented by Dr. Savage and otherwise obvious, then mandate “free” coverage, they’ll get checked out for all possible causes and have a chance for cure. Otherwise, they’re doomed. One liberal woman I know was complaining about Big Pharma’s advertising, so I asked her about the pages and pages of alternative medicine advertisements I’d seen for supplements. Unphased, she immediately almost boasted that once she was taking “31 supplements” at the same time, which finally landed her in the hospital with some “liver” problems. Another liberal couple I knew was giving their 3 year old massive doses of minerals, and they were taking them, too, and even showed me a book written by guy who claimed he’d developed his [un]remarkable physique simply by using minerals. But the child instead developed a condition resembling a rare form of “repetitive infantile seizures”, involving hundreds a day. Luckily, he had to get checked out.
Zac, Oso, Kevin, Kohl, Curt
“Why do wind turbines only have 3 blades?”
Wind is a prime source of energy and 3 is a prime number!
Okay, seriously, here are some good ideas:
http://www.quora.com/Why-is-3-the-optimal-number-of-blades-on-a-windmill-generator-instead-say-5-or-more
The Chinese official opposition to the AGW scare is nothing new. See the 2010 book “Low-Carbon Plot” by Gou Hongyang ISBN: 9787807672890 Published by the: Shanxi Economics Publishing House.
“The Developed Countries [EU,USA+etc.] are attempting to use the Greenhouse Effect to lock up the development of the Developing world with Morality Manacles…..This is what Developed Countries are most afraid of, the development of the Developing Countries poses an enormous threat to their way of lives.”
One, two, three and five are all prime. Lame joke, John.
Ok. I’ll answer this again. Five blades would add to the expense and not gather any more energy from the wind, probably four does the same. Three might strike the optimum balance between gathering energy and cost, but there are commercial units with two, and I have seen turbines with one. I know for certain you can capture just about all that is possible with one blade. Like all engineering problems, one tries to achieve an efficient compromise of some sort. The aeromotors on the prairie windmills have 18 blades–steam and gas turbines have more.
Installing and maintaining the big blades very high up in the middle of
windfarm (a place where high natural winds are expected to occur most of
the time!) is very, very difficult – very deadly in fact. (Wind energy kills more people than coal in the Western world.)
An odd number of blades means that one (the “empty” hole for the blade being installed
for example) is always vertical and so easier to work on with a 300 foot crane boom.
Also, you need to look at what the windmill is built for: the “farm”
windmills were almost always first built for pumping water from shallow
wells before electricity was available. (Some – not all – were also
powering grain mills or grinders or shop tools, but water pumping was
their primary task.) A water pump requires slow speed starting against
tremendous loads: You have to lift the pump rod (300 feet of steel rod,
plus the weight of the water trapped above the pump foot valve) from a
dead stop. So the large multi-blade “fans” work best at producing large starting torque at very low speed.
Also, the water can be stored in a tank until needed for cattle or horses or the farm
house. So the high efficiency of a “aerodynamically perfect blade” means nothing if you can’t lift the water up the well pipe.
Power production (electricity production) requires a completely different
process. High speed, very, very low (almost none at all) starting
torque, small speed droop at higher wind speeds, but good blade
efficiency is essential at high speeds. So the shape of the blades HAS
to be different for electricity generation.
ZT says:
October 8, 2011 at 10:54 am
“China’s most influential intellectual (eating from pot by windmill):
‘Windmills are a good source of protein – the eagles in particular are delicious’”
Elite Ruling Class Road Kill. John Kerry can party with the good ole boys.
From the article:
“…Mr Zhang, whose father was secretary to China’s former premier Zhou Enlai, blasted Chinese policy makers for encouraging Chinese companies to buy foreign intellectual property in order to manufacture vast quantities of renewable energy equipment.
The Chinese-made equipment helps the environment in other nations while leaving China with only financial and environmental costs, he said.
”Lots of solar panels are made in China and the pollution is left in China but they are used overseas,” Mr Zhang said. ”The low-carbon economy, carbon politics and carbon taxes are actually driven by the West as the foundation for a new cycle of the virtual economy.”
They’re really beginning to see the light.
The environmental rules, the legal hurdles, the unions requiring more and more benefits have forced countries to move overseas. As a result, the “developing countries” have absorbed all the environmental consequences the US would have had to shoulder.
They’re both correct. China’s neo-Capitalists are beginning to despise the USA neo-Communists.
Now that’s funny and ironic right there.
And sad too.
October 8, 2011 at 10:26 am
Peculiar; we see it as a communist conspiracy.
———————————————————————————————————–
No, we see it as a Global Socialist conspiracy. Not Communist….. The Chinese national identity is just as much a danger to Global Socialists as is Australia’s national identity or America’s.
The Socialists want a Hegemon of their own…. Not American or Chinese hegemonies in competition.
As for China, the Chinese Communists are more into a phase of National Socialism with a large emphasis on corporate cronyism….. There is no representative government in China, no free speech and no democratic processes, no free market…. the judicial system is controled by the state as is the media…. What we are told is “capitalism” is nothing but a period of political adventurism posturing as “freedom”. This new found “freedom of enterprise” is granted as easily as it is taken away… China’s constitution is still written as a Communist article and remains in place unchanged.
Those would read just the Guardian can only conclude that the US is the biggest polluter on this planet. China is that poor developing country that needs additional support through zillions of carbon credits.
I somehow hope the the normal Chinese, suffering from enormous pollution in their cities, will stand up to their Party’s politburo and demand a longer life for themselves.
Today, the biggest rogue financial institutions may reside in the US, but those in industry reside in PR China.
Just a bit of background for those not in Australia. John Garnaut writes some very good articles on China. He knows the country very well, and can cut through a lot of BS. That said, he writes for the Fairfax press, which generally has a leftist stance. There’s a family twist, too. His father is Ross Garnaut, who was Australia’s ambassador to China in the 1980s. More recently, Ross Garnaut was the author of the infamous Garnaut Report, which recommended that Australia introduce an emissions trading scheme. It was a local version of the Stern Report, full of dodgy assumptions in order to reach the conclusion that “we can’t afford to delay action”.
My company does some consulting work in China and I have what I think is a funny personal story that is highly relevant to this topic.
This past year, I attended a multi day conference in China that addressed a variety of environment and energy topics. On one of the days, I had been invited (as a foreign specialist) to do a full day training course which was done with simultaneous language translation for the 300 to 400 attendees. The agenda for the final day was much more ad hoc and as it turned out, they had a speaker arrive that morning from the Ministry in Beijing along with a contingent of high level Ministry officials. As the agenda for the day proceeded, this speaker took the podium for a couple hours and talked about what the current state of climate change policy was for different countries around the world, what China’s position was, what climate change mitigating efforts China was embarking on already, what the future held and so forth. From the translation, it seemed that the talk was fairly matter of fact without a lot of conviction of ‘we must do this’. What I did not know in advance was that there was going to be a panel discussion after this speaker and the next thing I knew was that I was being very strongly coaxed to participate in this panel discussion. Much to my host’s chagrin, I refused claiming that this was not my area of expertise and thus commenced the rounds of very high level insistence from the conference organizers that I participate which were of course rebuffed by me….I have strong opinions about this topic but to be unexpectedly asked to speak from the podium on a moment’s notice to a large audience was another story.
Anyway, the panel discussion started without me and after an hour it was almost over… my translator was well aware of my opinion of climate change issues and thus I got the appropriate commentary. As this was concluding, the most senior official in attendance from the Ministry stood up to make some final closing statements. What he said was essentially “It’s been a wonderful conference….. blah blah… good ideas were exchanged….we still have much work to do to put these ideas into action….blah blah….the panel discussion was very helpful in defining what we need to think about as policy is set…..oh and by the way, I noticed that we did not have our visitor on the panel and I would very much like to hear his opinion to get a more western perspective on this topic”. You can imagine what I was thinking….”what a sneaky way of putting me on the spot”. However, to be fair I don’t think that the Ministry official doing these closeout remarks was aware that I had refused to participate to the organizers.
After a long pause while thoughts were being collected, I got up and started prattling on about what I thought were relevant issues….”that while I didn’t disagree with the previous speaker, it was really policies that would provide clean air, water and ground that were needed as a focus, that there are actually many scientists who don’t hold the view that ‘manmade climate change’ due to the burning of fossil fuels is a real concern, that a closer review of climate data doesn’t appear to support the earlier views that temperature is rapidly rising and the media is simply not reporting these views…blah blah… that if energy supply is a concern then China should continue to improve their efforts of improving industrial efficiency where they have made great strides in recent years…..but it is important to remember that economic progress while keeping air, water and ground clean should be the focus and not let some other unproven and clearly erroneous drivers come in and hijack those efforts.” Partway through these impromptu comments, I could start to see a number of folks in the audience vigorously nodding in agreement (who previously during other panel members were quite silent and quiet) so it was apparent that there were at least a few people on board with my comments. There were a bunch of questions afterwards that went on for a bit and eventually the conference ended.
That evening, I was wandering around the lobby of the conference center when an elevator opened up beside me and of all people, who should walk out but all these same Beijing Ministry officials. They recognized me and there was some bows and pleasantries exchanged…. one of the group had a very poor grasp of English but he could say a few things on behalf of the others. We were just about to part company when the ‘big boss’ from the Ministry tugged on my sleeve and motioned to the one fellow to translate something for him. With the big boss smiling broadly and nodding his head, what the fellow doing the translating said was….. “Big boss from Beijing wants me to tell our visitor that his comments were very well received. Right on target. Most refreshing damn thing he heard all day.”
Not at all surprising that they have surpassed France with its big nuclear industry and underdeveloped Italy with a nuclear industry (which in their lunacy will be cut back). Their emmissions are not increasing as fast as before so in technological normalised fashion- they will be having falling emmission.
It’s very interesting yet unsurprising to see the Chinese adopting such a stance. After all, the Chinese Communist Party is in control of the country, and according to Communist thought, ideology merely reflects underpinning economic interests, thus it is in China’s interests not to wish to restrict its industrial growth and the energy use that it requires to fuel this.
The press are getting excited in the UK because one forecaster has claimed that the UK is heading for a record cold winter. What is for certain is that there are many players in the debate who use the pretext of global warming for their own political or corporate ends. Here in the UK, our Government uses it as justification for increasing taxes on gas, electricity and petrol and for increasing overseas aid whilst cutting domestic spending. Conversely, the oil industry funds the opponents of global warming for very obvious reasons. Meteorology has made great strides in recent years with respect to forecasting up to about five days ahead, but beyond that, the weather and climate system is simply too complex to be modelled fully. More here: http://durotrigan.blogspot.com/2011/10/uk-winter-forecast-2011-2012-blowing.html
So, one logical question would be: Would there be some similar reason why industrialists like the Koch Bros. and the Chinese would want to downplay any effects on the climate from industrial activities? Could profits and the potential growth of their industry be involved?
9 of 10 of the senior Chinese Communist leadership are russian trained engineers. Very practical people (and bloody dictators). Most of whom will be replaced at the next party congress when they reach mandatory retirement age (70), with fewer, but still a majority of engineers.
This means they can do sums, probabilities, exponents and know the difference between placing the measurement target on barn door before or after letting loose with the shotgun.
They are too polite to laugh in our face – so they laugh at us after we leave.
Kohl (October 8, 2011 at 6:09 pm) asked: “Paul, you don’t think that the 3 times bigger (than US) population might have something to do with it?”
Exactly. And pay attention to the more fundamental problem pointed out by Gail Combs (October 8, 2011 at 5:54 pm). Look at graduate student enrolments in university math, stats, & actuarial science MSc & PhD programs. The names on the lists will change over time, but you’ll observe a stable pattern indicating DRAMATICALLY SUPERIOR math education systems in Asia, particularly in China. I’m not open to debate on this subject. I know this situation inside out from first-hand experience and I’m asserting with unshakable confidence that our society NEEDS to address this issue without further delay. It will take decades or perhaps more than a century to correct the deeply-rooted problems with Western math education systems. With Absolute Sincerity.
Zac says:
October 8, 2011 at 10:57 am
Why do wind turbines only have 3 blades?
+++++++++
The reason is the economics, materials, skill required, blade density, tip speed and the dimensions of the blade. Think about it like this:
A single blade (with a counterweight) can have a certain twist and thus a certain tip speed (around the circumference of the swing) that is related to the wind speed. For a given tip speed, which is usually controlled by the materials available, there is a ‘best case’ for the total % of the swept area at a given rotational speed. This blade area ratio is called the blade density, for example 5%. If 5% of the swept area is occupied by blade, and there is only one, it can be quite large (wide). If you want two blades, they have to have 1/2 the area each so the tip speed can be maintained efficiently. Obviously it will be weaker because the thickness of the blade is a function of the width. So as the number of blades increases for any given tip speed, the width must be less and the matching thickness must similarly decrease. You will notice that all 5-bladed aircraft propellors are thin, narrow and ‘slower’. A DC3 with a turbofan retrofit has a large step-down gearbox and a 5-bladed prop.
If you want to limit the gearing-up issues with power-generating windmills, you want to have the highest rotational speed you can within the limits of the blade materials. If you reduce the blade density, you can spin it faster and still efficiently get power out of the wind. The speed of the tip is often described as a multiple of the wind speed so a windmill with a tip speed of ‘6’ means the tip is travelling around at 6 times the wind speed. In an 80 kph wind that means 480 kph which is a pretty serious piece of engineering to cope with a modest wind.
A windmill for pumping water needs high torque and low speed so the blade density is something like 80% and the tip speed is 1.0. Think of a farm windmill. High blade density, lots of wide blades, and slow. Ignore the fact they are thin sheet metal, that is for low cost. Yes it reduces the efficiency.
Darius, who famously invented the Darius Rotor (egg-beater) made them with a tip speed of about 6 (in the centre) but he also made 2-bladed ‘fan mills’ like the common ones with a tip speed of 10. That means it had to have a very low blade density. It had tremendously narrow, thin blades. They are hopelessly weak and flexible.
So in order to have a high shaft speed and strong, rigid blades, the number of them should be small. To be fast they have to be pretty narrow to get the tip speed up. The perfect, or at least the best overall solution these days is three blades. It is largely dictated by the materials involved. If they went for two blades and the same large diameter, they might not work well at low wind speeds. All of that is taken into consideration for the economics.
The tapering of the blade (which adds cost) and the change in the twist as it narrows is all part of the optimisation of the whole system, its fabrication difficulty and cost. Executed perfectly, they also make a lot less noise if these details are dealt with correctly.
Early power generating windmills (1980’s) had large, non-tapering, wide blades and they made a heck of a lot of noise because the tip was being driven by the middle at high speeds. They were the cause of many early complaints about noise. The blades were cheap, parallel and easy to make so they were ‘oversized’ to compensate for poor efficiency and damn the neighbours. Now with bigger subsidies they can afford to make them properly.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:20 am
So, one logical question would be: Would there be some similar reason why industrialists like the Koch Bros. and the Chinese would want to downplay any effects on the climate from industrial activities? Could profits and the potential growth of their industry be involved?
So, one logical question would be: Would there be some similar reason why CAGW industrialist-academic-political complex like the (US) democratic party, the Australian liberal parties, the UK liberal and labour parties, the Euro bureaucracy, the international socialists and bankers like Soros and Buffet and Goldman-Sachs and GE and BP and Duke Energy and Illinois’ Exelon and Florida’s FP&L and Siemens, the international corrupt dictators across the world (who will get the corrupt carbon trading scheme money), and the corrupt IPCC and NOAA and NASA-GISS, and NSIRDC, and the NAS and APS (who depend on their “share of the democrats 89 billion dollar green energy funding), and the Solyndra and LightSquared (who are intimate democrat donors to Obama and Pelosi) would want to maximize any effects on the climate from industrial activities? Could profits and the potential growth of their industry and their universities and their parties be involved?