Climate change: Electrical industry's 'dirty secret' boosts warming

I've ranted for years that Carbon Dioxide (Boo! Hiss!) makes up only 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere, but it's been the favorite whipping-boy for under-educated, dogmatic radical Democrats who will be willing to tax Americans to death in their quest to get rid of it!

Well -- now we learn the UGLY new truth about something that poses a far, far greater threat to life on this planet than CO2 ever could -- Sulphur hexafluoride, or SF6! Ooh! Read, if you dare, what this crap is doing to the planet! But isn't going "electrical" supposed to be the salvation of humanity?

Oh, and bear in mind -- this story is from one of the more liberal news sources in "the West" -- the BBC! Be sure and let the part about the sheer TONNAGE of the pollution this crap causes sink deep into your consciousness....

Hint: SF6 has the highest global warming potential of any known substance. It is 23,500 times more warming than carbon dioxide (CO2).

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49567197

Teaser:

 

If we all become vegans will it offset it?

 

So, me and Zorro are the only two who care about Sulphur Hexafluoride? But the hyperlib 'intellectuals' will go on bitching about carbon dioxide, with their eyes bugged-out and their hair on fire. Why doesn't THAT surprise me...?

Want to have fun? Ask a lib how long life could even exist on this planet if there were no carbon dioxide.

Want to have even more fun? Ask a lib (try an educated one this time) how much of the Earth's atmosphere actually is carbon dioxide. Note the look on his face when you tell him, factually, that carbon dioxide makes up a whole, whopping 0.04%.... Then, get ready for an outpouring of rebuttals beginning with, "Yeh, but...."

. "Barnum was right! There's 'one born every minute'!"

 

If you have an older pair of Nike Air you got the dangerous, dangerous, horrible, detestable chemical in your living space!

The semiconductors in your devices were likely etched with it! Then it floats up and destroys the earth and all of nature!

 

Yeh, but don't you see? We need to have enormous 'carbon taxes', and we need to close up all the oil, natural gas, and coal plants in the world tomorrow morning! We need to start living in thatched huts again, and go out in the morning to kill bush-meat to eat for dinner. The trouble with civilization is that we ever rose above the Stone Age! We need to "get back to the land", where all the OTHER animals are....

 

If man is going to be allowed to modify the environment, and that's what man does to obtain a comfy, convenient, and labor saving quality of life which makes obesity possible, then this stupid idea that the climate is not supposed to change, and that climate can be made to behave quiescently with taxes, has got to be thrown down in the septic tank with the rest of turdish ideas.

It's just another money scam.

 

I am concerned about the rapid rise in sulfur hexaflouride but the amount of radiative forcing of hexaflouride in the troposphere was only 0.0051 watts per square meter as of 2016. The radiative forcing of
carbon dioxide was 1.96 watts per square meter as of 2016 which is 384 times the radiative forcing of sulfur hexaflouride. Also, it is irrelevant that carbon dioxide only composes around 0.04% of the
atmosphere because nitrogen, oxygen, and argon don't absorb infrared radiation. So the relative concentration just compares carbon dioxide to inert gases that make up 99.96% of the atmosphere. Below is a portion of an article
from the NOAA.

Study published on reduced lifetime for a future strong greenhouse gas (From the NOAA) https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/news/sf6_lifetime.html

NOAA/ESRL scientists and their colleagues at the University of East Anglia, Utrecht University, and NCAR calculated an atmospheric lifetime of the trace gas, sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), based on measurements in the polar stratospheric vortex and modeled transport into the stratosphere. The atmospheric lifetime of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is reduced by nearly a factor of three based on measurements in the stratospheric polar vortex from 3200 to 850 years. The paper was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. Atmospheric SF6 is destroyed in the mesosphere by electron attachment. During descent in the springtime polar vortex, mesospheric air enters the stratosphere and the scientists were able to quantify its loss. The entire mass of the mesosphere (several times over) descends into each of the stratospheric polar vortices every year. This gas has one of the strongest global warming potential (GWP) of any atmospheric trace gas, about 23,000 times greater radiative forcing than one carbon dioxide molecule over a 100 year time horizon. Over a 500-year time horizon, atmospheric SF6 has a higher GWP of 34,900 times the CO2 molecule.

The current global mean atmospheric concentration measured by NOAA is above 9 parts-per-trillion (ppt), and is growing at rate of 4% per year. It will be a significant radiative forcing gas towards the end of this century. It is used in the distribution of electricity, because it is a dielectric gas and is the best electrical insulator used today. There is no known replacement. Using this gas in the power grid reduces also waste of fossil fuels and thereby helps to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere

 

If Americans are being taxed to death then why do we have a fiscal budget deficit for 2019 of around 1 trillion dollars? A carbon tax would reduce the budget deficit if spending were to remain constant
and why shouldn't people pay a penalty for contributing to the warming of the planet and the acidification of the oceans? The threat of more than 1 meter of sea level rise within the next 100 years is
a real possibility.

From Wikipedia - Sea Level Rise by 2100

In addition, one 2017 study's scenario, assuming high fossil fuel use for combustion and strong economic growth during this century, projects sea level rise of up to 132 cm (4.3 ft) on average — and an extreme scenario with as much as 189 cm (6.2 ft), by 2100. This could mean rapid sea level rise of up to 19 mm (0.75 in) per year by the end of the century. The study also concluded that the Paris climate agreement emissions scenario, if met, would result in a median 52 cm (20 in) of sea level rise by 2100.[81][82]

According to the Fourth (2017) National Climate Assessment (NCA) of the United States it is very likely sea level will rise between 30 and 130 cm (1.0–4.3 feet) in 2100 compared to the year 2000. A rise of 2.4 m (8 feet) is physically possible under a high emission scenario but the authors were unable to say how likely. This worst-case scenario can only come about with a large contribution from Antarctica; a region that is difficult to model.[2]

 

"We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."

Them boys sing it, but they never did live it.

 

Yeah, "Woodstock"... I remember this song well. How much fun we had being absolutely worthless, complete with smoking, drinking, and having LOTS of carnal-knowledge.

Those were entirely different days in an entirely different United States, and, the Vietnam War was still raging. You would have had to have been living in that time to understand it. Link:

 

I was in Korea for Woodstock. I completely understood what a shithole is.

 

Not being retards, liberals look at the amount of SF6. We notice it's responsible for 0.2% of warming, and thus conclude you'd have to be one special grade of retard to concentrate on it and ignore CO2.

We'd ask what prompted such a retarded question, being that nobody is calling for the elimination of CO2. It would take a special grade of retard to think that such a retarded question wasn't retarded.

And as small concentration of things can have big effects, we'd smile and back away from anyone asking such a retarded question, before we got drooled on.

The point of this thread seems to be that deniers aren't particularly bright. But that's a given. Those with 3-digit IQs will instantly recognize denier propaganda for what it is, so they won't get sucked into that cult.

 

Golly, Mamooth, you use the word, "retarded" a lot. And after reading your wholly non-responsive rant, I can understand your obvious infatuation with the word.

You have a triple-digit IQ, right? Do you at least acknowledge the FACT that CO2 makes up a whole, whopping 0.04% (ZERO POINT ZERO FOUR PERCENT) of the Earth's atmosphere? If you can't, you may request an opportunity to repeat a 9th-grade science class....

 

When Mount Tambora erupted in 1815 it lofted about 60 megatons of SO2 in the atmosphere. This caused the year without a summer in 1816. Global temperatures decreased by up to 1.0C with NH temperatures decreasing by as much as 3.0C. The SO2 that caused this cooling is equivalent to 0.01 ppm by mass or 0.000001% (zero point zero zero zero zero zero one percent).

 

Very good point, indeed! Now, please, a follow-up request: Please explain how the eruption of Mt. Tambora or any other volcano was "man-caused"....

You have illustrated perfectly the fact that "Nature", "Gaia", "Mother Earth", or whatever your faction calls it has changed the climate OFTEN throughout its ~2 billion year history! How much of that is man-caused? How much of any of the current assortment of climatological phenomena are going to be changed by completely wrecking the way the mankind produces and uses energy while inflicting the inevitable collateral damage of mutilating and crippling the economies of every country in the world for decades to come?

The SMART thing for the world to do now is move headlong, at 'flank-speed', to further researching and really developing HYDROGEN FUSION reactors! After that, we'd relegate oil to a role as a lubricant, and little more.... Instead, we have an upcoming generation of uneducated children telling us that we should concentrate on wind, solar, and geothermal EXCLUSIVELY. If we really do that, we will bring about the old curse of the oil field workers that we should, "freeze in the dark"....

Want to have fun? Go back and watch Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth". How many of Gore's dire predictions have come true?

.

 

It wasn't the surfer dioxide that caused the cooling though, was it. It was the particulate ash that created the cloud deck that blocked the sun. I know.. details. right? Unless, your "solution" is to flood the atmosphere with SO2? Cause this seems to be what you're advocating here today...

 

It wasn't.

Correct!

Prior to the industrial revolution...none of it.

Good question. In regards to climatic changes...even if CO2 ceased to be released into the atmosphere the fast feedback ECS (equilibrium climate response) would stabilize at around 1.5C warming. But the slow feedback ECS over thousands of years of could still cause polar ice caps to melt entirely causing sea level rise measured in tens of meters and further warming approaching hothouse condition. That's how much CO2 is already in the atmosphere. In regards to socio-economic changes...a complete and immediate cessation of fossil fuel extraction would cause a global depression unlike any ever seen. It would be catastrophic.

I'd rather not. He's not a scientists.

Now let's start laying things out rationally. The climate has changed significantly and countless times over the last 2 billion years. It has done so for a variety of reasons including but not limited to changes in aerosols, greenhouse gases, continental positioning, ocean currents, solar evolution, orbital cycles, and the list goes on and on. Prior to the industrial revolution humans did not provide much or any modulating influence on any of these physical process because we were either not around yet or had not achieved sufficient technological capacity to have global scale influence. But, beginning with the industrial revolution we began lofting CO2 into the atmosphere by the gigaton. And we know, from 150+ years of observations, experimentation, and theory development in a broad swatch of scientific disciplines that CO2 is definitely a greenhouse gas that causes the planet to warm. And because CO2 molecules released by humans have no magical property that turns off their radiation behavior that necessarily means that they behave exactly like naturally released CO2 molecules. In other words, the radiative forcing caused by anthroprogenically released CO2 is EXACTLY the same as the radiative forcing caused by naturally released CO2.

The point I'm trying to drive home here is this...just because reducing CO2 emissions is painful and economically harmful does NOT mean that CO2 won't cause the planet to warm. We are responsible for 100% of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere since 1800. And CO2 is responsible for a significant portion of the warming that has occurred especially after WWII. That necessarily means that we are a significant cause of the modern warming period. Yes, our CO2 release has also caused an unprecedented period of economic expansion as well, but that behavior resulted in a warming planet.

 

Yes it was...at least most of it. The reason is because large volcanic eruptions loft the SO2 into the stratosphere. Contrast this with small volcanic eruptions and anthroprogenic SO2 production which is confined to the troposphere where it precipitates out quickly. SO2 in the stratosphere blocks incoming shortwave radiation for long periods of time. Ash, especially when lofted into the stratosphere, does contribute to some of the cooling, but even the most aggressive estimates of the ash effect account for less than 30% of the aerosol optical depth. See Vernier 2016 for details. But let me play devils advocate for a moment. Let's assume the ash effect is 100% and the SO2 effect is 0%. The ash plume is still far smaller by mass than 0.04% of the atmosphere. The point was that an agent that amounted to a mere 0.000001% of the atmosphere was primarily responsible for the year without a summer. So the incredulity and argument that 0.04% can't cause at least an effect of equal magnitude is lost on me and the rest of the scientific community.

 

And yet, after all those two billion years, CO2 still makes up an almost microscopic 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere. And everybody on the hyperliberal Left is going absolutely berserk over this and making idiotic predictions that the world is going to come to an end before the end of this century because of it. NONSENSE.

BUT, what IS troubling is this recent finding about Sulphur hexafluoride! Does that really mean nothing to you?

We need -- desperately need -- intense emphasis now on development of hydrogen fusion reactors -- world-wide! These would be the only remedies to a gigantic, growing energy problem. Unlimited energy, with no pollution! Why, oh WHY can't the hyperliberal Left obsess on THAT?!

At the University of Texas when I was an undergrad there, we had a 'turbulent' tokamak reactor, and I worked in the department that provided computer resources for it. That was a million years ago -- in the 1970's! I can't believe that we've done NOTHING since then....

 

In your own source:
Louis Shaffer, electrical business manager at Eaton, said: "The newer gear has very low leak rates but the key question is do you have newer gear

...

In the UK, energy regulator Ofgem says it is working with utilities to try to limit leaks of the gas.

"We are using a range of tools to make sure that companies limit their use of SF6, a potent greenhouse gas, where this is in the interest of energy consumers," an Ofgem spokesperson told BBC News.

"This includes funding innovation trials and rewarding companies to research and find alternatives, setting emissions targets, rewarding companies that beat those targets, and penalising those that miss them."

...

"There are some [alternatives] that are being proposed now but to prove their operation over a long period of time is a risk that many companies don't want to take."

However, for medium voltage operations there are several tried-and-tested materials. Some in the industry say that the conservative nature of the electrical industry is the key reason that few want to change to a less harmful alternative.

"I will tell you, everyone in this industry knows you can do this; there is not a technical reason not to do it," said Louis Shaffer from Eaton.

"It's not really economic; it's more a question that change takes effort and if you don't have to, you won't do it."

 

Yes. Why did you think that question was hard to answer? Did your cult tell you it would stump somebody? Your cult misled you, as it always does.

So, if I handed you a glass of water containing 0.04% cyanide, would you drink it?

If you wouldn't, you've just admitted your "small quantities can't matter" theory is .... here it comes .... retarded.

Because, not being retarded, we don't fixate on things that don't exist. Only low-grade morons count on magical solutions that don't actually exist. Declaring that fairy magic will save us would make as much sense as your declarations that fusion will save us.

 

Yeh, I've heard that 'how much is too much' meme before, Mooth. Well, let's consider -- so your contention is that mankind has caused all of this alarming, eye-bugging, never-seen-before level of CO2 in the atmosphere... right? The whole, whopping 0.04%....

Well, actually the Earth HAS seen CO2 levels this high... during the Pliocene Epoch, which extended from about 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago. MANKIND DIDN'T EVEN EXIST ON EARTH THEN! But Earth did have many different kinds of NATURALLY-OCCURING climate changes, Mooth, that had nothing to do with the presence of human beings.

Next (and this next part of was surprising) -- so you take the position that we shouldn't bother to focus on hydrogen fusion to provide our energy in the future? Are you one of the enthusiasts for using nothing but solar, wind, geothermal, burning biomass, etc., etc.? Doesn't your faction have any GRASP at all of what the energy requirements of the planet's 7.8 billion people are today? How about in, say, 2100, when there are expected to be 11.2 billion?!

I would suggest that you reconsider your cavalier attitude toward hydrogen fusion, which can provide unlimited energy with no pollution at all. Imagine where we would be today if two hundred years ago people had adopted your frankly simple-minded, LUDDITE attitude toward the needs of mankind....

 

Hmmmmmmmm

Lovely science!

Good show!

It willl be ignored of course in favour of “dems bad right is right”

 

Why are you arguing with known physics?

This isn’t a couple of crackpot weathermen sitting on an iceberg somewhere

This is known physics

 

The issue of 'climate change' is very controversial and hotly-debated throughout the entire scientific community -- among physicists and many others.

Is the climate changing? Yes... since the planet has had a climate, it has been changing. Is it man-caused? Yes... to an extent. And that's where the argument rages today. For every scientist who rails that "global warming" is all man's fault, there's another scientist who can point out with equally-convincing data, that mankind is not the chief cause at all.

Mankind could stop using all of our current methods for creating energy tomorrow morning, and you know what would happen? Would you really like to live in the nightmare of a Neo-Stone Age? Hint: we could devote all of our efforts toward the development of hydrogen fusion and have cheap, unlimited energy with NO pollution as a by-product instead. Solar, and the enormous electrical systems it feeds, create as many problems as it solves. Do you know what SF6 is...? You seem not to, actually.... Link: https://energypost.eu/why-the-eu-should-ban-sf6/