…that we’d all like the answer to.
This is economic insanity. There is no amount of money that Americans can spend that will have any effect on the climate in any predictable way, because China and India are going to continue to use fossil fuels, and the Third World is going to industrialize.
Here’s the question they need to address: Is the current climate temperature optimum, and if not, why is that and what is the optimum temperature?
The average global air temperature is about 15 C.
If our house has air temperature of 15 C, you should should turn on the heat.
But 70% of Earth surface is ocean and it has average temperature of about 17 C, and average land temperature is about 10 C. And average give about 15 C.
Therefore living on the ocean could be warmer, also the ocean maintain the surface temperature during day to night, and there is lot’s ocean which 20 C or warmer.
I can’t stand the Celsius scale for everyday temperature measurement. In only a 20 degree swing you go from shirtsleeve comfort to frozen ice. And anything above 50 isn’t survivable so essentially you are throwing away half the scale. Give me Fahrenheit any day.
“The beauty of the metric system is that it was intelligently designed to completely ignore what humans need, how humans think, and how they behave when measuring. Unlike traditional units which evolved to meet the needs and capabilities of the users.”
I especially liked the time I encountered a metric system promoter who trotted out the contrived “furlongs per fortnight” strawman as an argument showing the absurdity of non-metric units, as if anyone except the horsey set use furlongs to measure anything, and then when the promoter couldn’t provide any example of anyone who uses a fortnight as a unit of measurement. An example of when talking points substitute for thought and argument.
There used to be a type of person drawn to things like calendar reform, or spelling reform, or promoting the metric system. Devoted to top down ultra-rationalizing causes and forcing their pet cause onto everyone else. The perfect solution to a non-problem. These people are now promoting climate global warming change.
15 C = 59 F
Room temperature is 20 to 30 C [68 F 86 F]
I do about 80 F in summer and about 72 F in winter. Some people like it warmer, I don’t like large difference except when quite cold outside, like less than 50 F.
10 C = 50 F
17 C = 62.6 F
I prefer Rankine.
So do I. Did you study engineering at Purdue? I did (BSME 1978, MSME 1983), and we are commonly referred to as the only people who use Rankine. Also, if you studied rocket propulsion under J.R. Osborn, you used “k” instead of “γ” for the ratio of specific heats.
I’m not going to get any grant money for researching such a dull question that has no sense of urgency!!!
“China and India are going to continue to use fossil fuels, and the Third World is going to industrialize.”
Perhaps our next war will be against polluting countries and continents. It will be a good test of electric tanks and airplanes and our ability to generate electricity in the field with windmill and solar farms. Using these super advanced technologies will demonstrate our superiority and also that China, India, and Africa don’t need fossil fuels.
Since AI will put everyone out of work, recruiting should be easy but we can always fall back on the robots.
AI/Robots can function quite well above 2C average atmospheric temperature rise and underwater as well. The perfect climate mitigation strategy.
Probably cheaper (and easier) to just go ahead and terraform Mars. Then, after we all move away, the Earth can go back to its natural state and have an ice age, or maybe an Arctic carbon de-sequestration event.
We would have to take nuclear reactors to Mars to power things. Solar will be useless.
Solar on Mars is less useless than solar on Earth.
The best solar on Earth is regions with less clouds and below say 40 degree latitude.
Mars could better above 40 degree latitude.
Terrain makes bigger difference on Mars, and makes bigger difference the nearer the poles you are.
One could 600 watts of sunlight at noon and well as when sun is low on horizon. And related to why terrian features on near the pole can better.
On the moon one can sites which get sunlight 85% of the time [and you you 1360 watts of sunlight]. Mars will not anywhere near as good as this. But another thing about lunar polar region is the short distance to different time zone. With Mars you have to go twice as far as the lunar polar region, but you do same thing.
But if at say equator, one get 12 hours of 600 watts or 7.2 kwh of sunlight per day per square meter.
On Earth you have peak solar hours which average about 6 hours of 12 hours average of daylight.
And fairly good place on Earth gets about 6 kwh hour of sunlight per day- Southwest US. The best places might get as much as 8 kwh per day. Germany and UK gets about 2-3 kwh per average day.
Anyway main problem with solar power is battery storage. And with Mars anywhere you get about 12 hours, and closer in polar regions with terrian advantages one get 14 hours per day on average. With grid, you extend so got 3 time zones adding 2 hours time to grid power- 16 hours, which make battery storage a lot easier.
And with big enough grid you encircle the planet, and get 24 hours of solar. Which much easier with Moon because 1.5 degree tilt and smaller than Mars.
But if want live on Olympus Mons [in tropics- 18.39 degree north] the mountain so large, it can also get to 2 time zone at highest elevation.
But in location where Hellas basin is between you and sun [a huge drop in elevation and wide basin] I think would be one of best places to have solar panels.
I think what the reasoning is is that we can shame our Asian trading partners into changing their ways. We do this as we continue to purchase high energy intensity goods produced by their hydrocarbon-fueled industries, brought over here in container ships that burn the most polluting fraction of petroleum refining.
There is another reason for spending money now on renewable energy. We can develop the industrial base and create green jobs to supply our purchases on renewables. In China and other Asian countries.