What part of "we shouldn't mess with the system that keeps us alive when we don't know how it works" do you misinterpret to mean "we know how it works"?

I'm curious.

The part where you take what you admit is a very limited understanding in how the weather/climate operates and try to extrapolate that lack of understanding into a rationale for affecting all of society.

You can't deny that significantly reducing the amount of fossil fuel emissions without an alternative energy source already in hand is not going to affect all of society.

You can't deny that switching all of our transportation systems from individual automobiles to mass transit isn't going to affect all of society. The automobile is at the center of almost everything people do on a daily business.

The problem is you *again* ignore the fact that the vast majority of our current use has nothing to do with need. We will not need a replacement for a long long time (long enough to easily develop those replacements) if we simply curtail the energy usage that we don't really need.

Well, actually not. I just don't recognize your authority to determine what the rest of us "need".

You continue to ignore the fact that to make any significant impact in fossil fuel emissions at this time will require significant lifestyle changes across the globe.

Even so, the remaining supplies of oil, natural gas, and coal will last for hundreds of years into the future even at projected usage rates :

Coal is especially abundant and by itself can sustain the current energy consumption of the entire planet for 600 years.

Hmmm, a mere 600 years and that's just for coal. I can see why you feel the need to throw the entire planet into an hysterical tizzy:

Correct and nobody I know objects to research into fusion power. I certainly don't. The question is whether we keep running towards the cliff assuming the whole time that a bridge will spring up at the last second. If we manage to discover how to make practical fusion power, great, we can decide then how to use it. in the meantime we are facing serious energy problems that need to be addressed now. Not later.

You'll forgive me one little giggle here, I hope. You're acting like the world is gonna end tomorrow and we have at least 600 years left if we do nothing. Energy wise, at least.

Hey, the Nuclear Power capacity is still looking pretty good too. Lets see, we are currently consuming energy at about 0.5ZJ/year. We have about 2500ZJ of Uranium left, so that should last us a couple of THOUSAND years at least, wouldn't you say? Note that I have left plenty of room to build more Nukes along the way, AND this estimate doesn't even factor in the potential for FUSION.

Oh, and none of this takes into account any renewable energy efforts that we put into place either.

I can certainly see why we need to run off in a tizzy because we have "serious energy problems that need to be addressed now."

Goright, and I mean this in the nicest way possible: this is exactly what I mean by you being incompetent to speak on these matters. Ever seen a hydro dam? Where do you think the energy comes from? The water isn't detroyed or created so it isn't that. It comes from the kinetic energy of the water which itself comes from gravity. Geothermal power? Gravitic. Tidal power? Gravitic. You quite simply do not know what you are talking about here.

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1) I'm a hell of a lot more competent when it comes to physical sciences.

I appreciate you being gentle and all, but don't make me laugh. Your posts here have proven otherwise to anyone with even a high school level of physics. First of all, let's start to use the proper terms here.

Hydro dams utilize Potential Energy which has simply been stored gravitationally. As the FORCE of gravity operates on the water in question, the potential energy is converted to Kinetic Energy as it flows from the top of the mountains to the mouths of the seas. Along the way some of that potential energy is dissipated in the form of heat as it splashes against rocks, but also can be utilized to drive turbines to generate electricity.

Gravity in no way and under no circumstances is creating or providing energy here.

So where did the potential energy come from? From the sun which evaporated the water to form the clouds which dropped the water on the top of the mountains (and elsewhere, of course). The higher the water is from the center of gravity of the planet the greater the amount of potential energy it contains.

The same is true for any mass, not just water, obviously. Hence my comment about throwing rocks from the tops of the mountains. Those ALSO contain potential energy which was, presumably, provided by the tectonic forces that created the mountains.

If I carry a lead weight to the top of the Empire State Building, I increase its potential energy by virtue of the fact that I had to do work to get it there. That energy comes from the chemical processes in my legs if I walk it up, or from whatever source is used to generate the electricity to run the elevator if I ride up.

Gravity has nothing to do with it other than act as a passive storage mechanism.

This is all high school physics, BTW. I learned it back in 1978 or so. I doubt that it has changed since then. The world operates at this level pretty much the same all this time and will continue to do so for some time to come. Just for good measure, though, I can assure you that I have had plenty of additional physics courses in college as well. Not my primary major or anything, but more than enough to have this conversation.

Neither would energy derived from tidal sources be examples of "energy from gravity". The only role that gravity plays in the tides would be the effect that the gravitational pull the moon has on the water levels on either side of the planet directly in line with the position of the moon. That FORCE causes the water to "bow out" on the sides closest and furthest from the moon.

Any lateral motion of the tides comes from either 1) the rotational inertia of the planet as it spins freely under the moons gravitational influence, or 2) from the kinetic energy of the moon itself due to its forward motion which is keeping it in orbit. Gravity is neither creating nor providing any energy in this context.

As for this word "Gravitic" that you keep using. Never heard of it. Tried to find it in case it was some new-age physics term they dreamed up in the past 20 years. On-line dictionaries and encyclopedias have no idea what it is. I have never seen it before in any of the scientific literature I have read. But Google turns up a whole BUNCH of science fiction type references . Personally I prefer to stay with the classical terms for something as old school as gravity, potential energy, and kinetic energy.

Fusing hydrogen results in energy release because some mass is lost this lost mass becomes energy (really mass is just another form of energy but lets leave that aside). Two deteurium atoms are just slightly heavier than one helium atom. The process of splitting helium would result in a net mass increase for exactly the same reason.

[...]

Generally nuclear plants are steam engines. They just are a lot more complicated than using coal. However if you use the process to fuel an evaporation/condensation style water purification then you are having to tank in new sea water (and have a way to remove the excess salt which tends to be highly corrosive). Actually building a plant underwater would seem to be pretty hard as far as maintance and keeping it staffed and supplied. you could try to built them along coastal areas for access to sea water, but those are also the main population and agriculture areas of the planet.

1) Well, at least we agree on how the sun operates, eh?

2) Obviously mass is just an alternate form of energy, hence the whole concept that you can convert between them?!?!?

3) Yes, today's FISSION style nuclear plants are just used as steam generators. You can use that steam to do lots of things: generate electricity, launch airplanes from the decks of aircraft carriers, drive the propellors of nuclear vessels. Note these nuclear vessels seem to deal with that whole salt water problem pretty well. I suppose that they could be based on fresh water supplies or some such internally, but I doubt that they have to bring the fresh water to the ship. They've got a friggin' nuclear reactor on board, just boil up as much as you need (electrically if nothing else, but there should be plenty of excess heat to boil some water via other means ... perhaps as part of the condensation process).

I don't actually know what form a FUSION style reactor would take, and neither do you. I suppose my only point was that we have sufficient water available to absorb the entire energy supply produced by even a modest sized fusion reaction. Water is a great heat sink. So if you want to boost the efficiency of your Fusion reactor simply build it some place where the heat that you cannot otherwise capture is trapped in a surrounding water supply and then extract the latent heat from there.

A little bit of that electricity pulled from the steam turbines that you hypothesize should run a basic heat pump apparatus quite nicely to extract that heat. Those are efficient, you know. Energy star compliant and everything! :-)

2) I'm not myself declaring it "not alarmist."

Oh, well then. If you willy nilly start promoting changes to one of the most basic foundations of modern society when you are NOT being alarmist, I would hate to see what you would propose when you ARE! I'm sorry, but you can't suggest such broad reaching changes based on self-described minimally understood processes and then claim that you don't know whether the science is credible or not. The level of changes you are discussing clearly rise to the level of requiring credible (i.e. NOT alarmist) science. The very fact that you cite it in your plea for action implies that you consider it "NOT alarmist".

Or am I to understand that you actually WOULD promote such sweeping changes even if you DID consider the science behind it to be "alarmist"? I can't see any way for you to legitimately be able to remain neutral on that point.

See the part about the economies of scale dude...

Well, I sort of skipped over the economies of scale part because I don't see how the concept applies to the relative pollution output of electric vs. combustion cars.

Rather than jump all over the map making tons of assumptions about what you might or might not have thought, I prefer to listen to your argument one step at a time in some logical order. We have established the following so far:

1) You claim electric cars are less polluting than their combustion equivalents.

2) I asked you what energy source you intended to use to recharge the batteries.

3) You provided a somewhat ambiguous answer. In your area you have hydro-electric which is admittedly clean. You also mention natural gas, but it is unclear why other than perhaps to make a point that natural gas is somehow cleaner than gasoline or diesel in terms of pollutants and quantities thereof.

4) I seek to disambiguate your response with a clarifying question: Are you talking about using electric cars everywhere or just where there is hydro-electric?

5) You claim I am being uncivil.

My question is pertinent for the following reasons:

a) If you are only talking about using electric cars where they can be recharged using hydro-electric then I have nothing else to say. Hydro-electric will clearly be cleaner than combusted hydrocarbons.

b) It is unclear whether there is sufficient hydro-electric to supply the energy needs of an equivalent number of vehicle-miles or not on a wide scale. If you are simply talking about cars near the hydro power plants then I am willing to accept this on face value. If you are talking about a wider range then it bears looking into further on my part.

c) You seem to be under the impression that natural gas will produce less pollution than will the equivalent amount of energy from the gasoline or diesel. I inherently doubt this but it will take some time on my part to track down so I choose to try and avoid it if possible. If you are only considering replacing cars recharged with hydro there is no need for me to dig further, otherwise I will proceed.

Does that make my question seem more reasonable? I am taking you seriously but trying to avoid time and effort if I can.