Nature pans Gore's 24 Hours of 'Climate Reality'

Finally, if you don’t receive your paycheck in some way from dirty-energy producers, and you are conscious, maybe you’re like many of us who want to believe what our elected officials tell us, or what we see on the news. Of course, you know there is a spin on everything depending on the viewpoint(s) of the owners. Personally, I’m betting my cards on those who spin it in a way favoring clean air, water, and soil. It is better to err on the side of Life than on the side of Death.

That a pretty sad analogy, because it’s the use of fossil fuels and the higher standard of living obtained from such that has greatly increased our average lifespan and our literacy rate. You’re equating Death with the use of carbon-based fuels is particularly egregious, since CO2 is the substance of life. Nobody here is for wanton disregard of pollution of any kind, but to link Death with CO2 is unconscionable and downright false. It should be against a good conscience to do so. Besides, it shouldn’t be based on who does the better job of spinning (i.e. lying), it should be based on facts and data, which isn’t terribly supportive of the CAGW side and hasn’t been for some time now.

timg56: Of course nuclear power plants add heat to the atmosphere. The need to have cooling towers are the obvious proof of that claim. Also, nuclear testing is often not mentioned when discussing global warming, but from what I’ve seen and read, nuclear “bombs” burn several times hotter than our Sun. Also, I’m only trashing energy-producing methods that are harmful to life on our planet. Given a choice between energy production that does not adversely affect the quality of the air, water, and soil; and the types that are life threatening, why would/do we choose the latter?

Have you investigate what windmills do to birds? Wholesale slaughter. Enough said about “types that are life threatening”, for I would not choose windmills anyday. You definitely need to look at the pros and (definitely) the cons of wind power, for you are not an unbiased observer. Besides, practically none of the “Green” technologies can be considered “base load”, so when, for example, arctic highs hang over continents during the winter, there is absolutely no wind for days at a time when the energy from these contraptions is needed the most. And obviously the same goes for solar, unless you want to do irreparable damage mining deposits for the materials needed to make them and the energy-storing facilities they require. Even then, the Sun isn’t very bright or stays long in the wintertime when it’s needed the most.

jorgekafkazar: Yes, we have an agenda. Everyone does… Our agenda is to help effect a rapid shift to clean energy in order to prevent our civilization from continuing to destroy the quality of our planet’s air, water, and soil.

Laughable assertion–according to the EPA, our nation’s air, water and soil is in better shape than it was, say, back in 1970. The problem with your approach is that it isn’t an “engineered solution”. By that I mean you don’t care how much it costs and who pays for it. But on top of that, if it isn’t “engineered”, there’s no reliability that what you’re proposing is going to work. As an engineer myself, I look at most of these proposals and just laugh. It isn’t hard to see that many of these “solutions” are by Ivory-Tower people that have had no real world experience.

Very strange – I cannot link to the page on my Windows machines – I now suspect Kaspersky Internet Security which I set to block all ad links so that is probably the reason.
Switched to my Mac and had no difficulty.
Why didn’t/don’t you try using a lower wattage bulb and sealing the lamps over the jar instead of the lid ?
That way the infrared would be heating the gases directly – would be interesting to see any difference. It probably would be too hot even with a low watt bulb.
Anyway convection is the main driver of energy transport in an atmosphere and I really cannot understand why these guys devalue the latent heat of water. CO2 just doesn’t have the physical properties to be a climate driver. Water has the properties with its phase changes and even the specific heat is 4 times that of CO2 but insignificant compared to latent heat of evaporation.
You only have to look at the power of hurricanes to appreciate the energy and power of convective forces combined with water’s ability to transport energy. There is no radiative driven effect that even comes close IMHO.
The other thing I don’t get is energy must be lost in Earth’s atmosphere/ biosphere and oceans – wind, heating, plant growth, ocean currents etc etc – it can’t just keep bouncing around.
Or am I wrong and perpetual motion is possible ?

Nature pans Gore? What happened to the conspiracy? Does this mean pal-review is over at Nature, or are there nuances I need to think about?

CAGW failed the test in 2002 when the Aqua satellite failed to find hot spots in the Troposphere and there has been no warming since, slowly but surely we are cooling and the reason for this is the change in the sun cycle in 2007.
The solar physicists are predicting a substantially colder climate by the middle of the century and it could go as far a a Maunder Minimum.
The sun may be giving us less solar irradience but its affect on us is still very strong and the stresses and strains the earth’s crust is currently experiencing is an underlying factor in the increase in earth quakes.
The self righteous panic on CAGW from some of the contributors above is a testament to their belief in Al Gore and the kind of nonsense peddled in newspapers like the UK’s Gaurdian and The Independent….and of course the BBC.
They can’t quite get their minds around the fact that they have been led astray.
With food production at 94% of where it should be and an ever increasing population we face a humanitarian disaster as and when the real cooling starts.

From Gravity Dynamic, LLC (@GravityDynamic) on November 9, 2011 at 4:58 pm:

There is a documentary: GasHole. It provides a lot of accurate information.

GasHole was released in 2010 after winning an award in 2009, went to DVD, can now be viewed for free online. With an estimated budget of $495,000, I wonder who paid for the production, especially given that it seems unlikely to me they’ll make it up from sales. Since I’m on dial-up, I’m going by the write-up at HuffPo.
BTW, there’s a glaring flaw in the following that indicates HuffPo could use better editing.

For [writer, producer, co-director] Roberts, the questions started when he read a letter in a Northern Californian town newspaper. It was written by Ken Kunde, who claimed to have witnessed a water-injected carburetor that gave drivers 100 miles per gallon. On screen, Kunde relates the tale of a man who developed the concept and sold the Kunde becomes an onscreen presence relating a tale of the man who developed the concept and sold the patent to Shell Oil, making him a millionaire. However, the sale came with a condition. He could use the one that he had invented for his own use, but he could not produce any others.

Water injection has been tried for many decades to improve efficiency and performance. One benefit previously cited was cooler combustion chamber temperatures. But as basic thermodynamics goes, hotter engines are more efficient. Increased cylinder lubrication is mentioned, however the problem is valve rings and other engine seals are not perfect and do leak, that’s why there are crankcase ventilation systems, to release the build-up of escaped combustion gases. More water vapor in the combustion chamber yields more water in the oil, yielding premature engine death.

This information sent Roberts and Wagener on a three-year exploration of other technologies that were also suppressed under suspect circumstances. Prominent among them was Tom Ogle and his fuel-system invention, the “vapor engine,” where two gallons of gas yielded 200 miles per gallon. Ogle died mysteriously, and his “Oglemobile” disappeared. But the question remained, why would oil companies want to suppress these innovations?

That part matches what you say:

Vapor carb technology has been around for a long time. Obviously, any business selling fuel for vehicles has painted such technologies as fallacy; however, it does work. Liquid gasoline does not ignite in an internal combustion engine; the vapor (fumes) are what ignite. By introducing only vapor into the cylinders, there is less waste. Therefore, 100mpg is a realistic outcome.

I found mention of Ogle’s work here:

Tom Ogle, an El Paso, Texas auto mechanic did away with the carburetor and fuel pump and replaced them with a secret black box he called a filter. The black box was claimed to deliver huge distances on a teaspoon of fuel.
The abstract to his patent (4,177,779, filed in 1979) reads, “A fuel economy system for an internal combustion engine which, when installed in a motor vehicle, obviates the need for a conventional carburetor, fuel pump, and gasoline tank. The system operates by using the engine vacuum to draw fuel vapours from a vapour tank through a vapour conduit to a vapour equalizer which is positioned directly over the intake manifold of the engine.”
As with Charles Nelson Pogue, Tom Ogle has his fans. One of them is Frank L. Reister who posted the following on a blog called PickensPlan on October 4, 2008: “Overnight Tom became a millionaire, and the American people, and the world for that matter, became the big losers. Incidentally, Monica Ogle, Tom’s wife, and their two-year-old daughter became losers as Tom was mysteriously murdered less than six months later.”

Gasoline vapor is, of course, notoriously difficult to work with, an explosive mixture with oxygen. I wouldn’t be surprised if his “mysterious death” involved his contraption blowing up in his face. Going off of engine vacuum alone would result in an extremely lean fuel:air mix. This can improve efficiency, except it is prone to pre-detonation (knocking). Carburetors, in case you didn’t know, are designed to efficiently change liquid gasoline to vapor, there is no liquid gasoline entering the chambers. To avoid pre-detonation, carburetors are set for a richer mixture than absolutely necessary to achieve smooth running.
However, despite as you’ve claimed, the greatest efficiency has been achieved by not using carburetors and instead switching to fuel injection, with individual injectors for each cylinder. This allows a precise charge of gasoline, as determined by computerized controls, to be delivered as needed, greatly minimizing waste and improving efficiency over carburetors.
If GasHole is what you find to be a source of accurate information, I doubt you’ve even reviewed the basic info on internal combustion engines found in a Chiltons repair manual.
Besides, the “Big Oil” claims you and others have made fail a basic logic test. The automakers owe no favors to the oil companies. If they could profitably make an affordable 100-mpg car, even a 50-mpg car that had the amenities and convenience that consumers expect from a fill-and-go gasoline-fueled vehicle, they would do so because the customers would be lining up around the block. The top executives of the automakers have stock and options, they would love to see their company’s stock shoot up on strong sales and make them wealthier. Unless you can show that Big Oil is paying off those executives to compensate them, and paying off many many others who’ve been doing legitimate research for many decades on improving fuel efficiency, those claims against “Big Oil” are unsustainable.