HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Bicycle-Generated Electricity
Date: 15 Sep 1992 06:09:03 GMT
Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
	<JYM.92Sep9164719@remarque.berkeley.edu>
	<STEINLY.92Sep9170239@topaz.ucsc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu's message of 10 Sep 92 00:02:39 GMT
Originator: jym@remarque.berkeley.edu

>> I've often thought that would be a fine arrangement for
>> powering a television set.  Or a home terminal & modem set
>> up for writing Usenet news . . .
> Any clue what the power consumption of a TV set is?

=o= Depends on the TV set (or laptop).

> Still, might have a socially redeeming value, radically
> altering the ratio of time exercising/time wathcing telly.

=o= That's the idea.  I was mostly being facetious, but such
a low-energy TV set (or laptop) can't be too farfetched.

=o= You know what I'd *really* like?  A bicycle-powered food
processor.  Imagine coming home from work, pulling up into
the back door, parking the bike in the kitchen, and pounding
the pedals to chop up dinner.
    <_Jym_>
Xref: sparky sci.environment:11304 sci.chem:3500
From: schindler@rz-berlin.mpg.de
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.chem
Subject: CO2 reduction (was:Re: Hydrides)
Date: 12 Sep 92 00:24:25 +0100
Organization: Rechenzentrum MPG Berlin

In article <1992Sep9.082509.4474@bb1t.monsanto.com>, bjgaed@bb1t.monsanto.com writes:
> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>
> [Delete a lot about hydrides as storage media for hydrogen]
>
> Nuclear energy does not emit carbon dioxide, but it has
> other problems of which I am sure everyone is aware.  Still,
> IMO, if we do have to limit CO2, it is the only short term
> choice available.

Sorry, but I think right now, this is not true. (Think of how
long it takes to built a nuclear power plant.) My impression is that
some groups with certain interests keep advertising this. I am not
suspecting you having this interest, since your next paragraph
clearly shows another viewpoint.

The most cost efficient and fastest way to cut down CO2 production is
improvement of housing isolation.
Also the use of more efficient techniques serve the same goal.
For example the amount of water in washing machines can be
dramatically cut, which then needs much less energy to heat it.
New gas furnaces which also use the heat of the fume gases (mostly the
heat of condensation of the water in the fumes)
Not to speak about fuel efficient cars. and so on. The potential to
save energy is still very large, so saving energy gets you still the
most reduction in CO2 production per invested dollar, mark or
whatever.

> In the long run, however, it is the "other" energy sources
> that show the most promise.  If we can generate hydrogen
> from sunlight and water at any sort of efficiency at all, we
> will have a good shot at achieving a truly non-polluting,
> very long-term (almost inexhaustible) energy source for
> vehicular transportation.  Wind power, tidal power, etc.,
> also are possibilities.

The problem seems to be that to few decision making people are willing
to really go for it. Progress is much slower in the field compared to
other fields.

> --
> --Electric Monk            (Bruce Gaede);
>                             e-mail: bjgaed@ccmail.monsanto.com
>
> "...and then time started seriously to pass."
> --Douglas Adams, _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: --Warming Threat to Economy
Date: 11 Sep 92 14:18:29 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

In article <1992Sep10.211840.14872@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

> taken to limit CO2 and equivalents.  The growth that some
> environmentalists (ala Club of Rome) complain about is not GNP
> (money) growth, it is the growth in _physical_ throughput,

A correction here: the Club of Rome said no such thing.  Indeed, the
Club of Rome is (was?) not an environmental group at all, but rather a
group of business types in Europe who commissioned a number of
studies, including the one that was described in "Limits To Growth".
That was a report *to* the CoR, not *by* the CoR.  Moreover, I don't
believe the CoR ever formally endorsed the conclusions of Meadows et.
al.

BTW, there is no obvious reason why physical throughput cannot be
greatly increased, as long as the fraction of that throughput that
ends up as pollution is decreased.  Efforts to reduce pollution by
process changes and other means have often been very effective, with
orders-of-magnitude changes in pollutant levels (examples: scrubbing
of gasified coal shown able to reduce SOx emissions [vs. no pollution
control at all] by a factor of 300, and replacement of tetraethyl lead
by other octane boosters effectively eliminating automotive lead
emissions).  There is no fundamental law saying that a certain amount
of pollution must be created per kilogram of industrial output.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: mikep@carina.unm.edu (Mike Prine CIRT)
Subject: Generator bikes and TVs
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 14:16:59 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Distribution: usa


	Well, think I'll add my two cents to this bike-generator thing.
1st yes it is possible but not easy. That of course is part of the idea in
that it make you consider if you realy want to watch a particular show.
	For demonstration purposes I fit together a system using a car 
alternator tied to an exercise bike and a small inverter to power a 19inch 
color sony. This system lacked elegance and had major ineffeciencies but it did
work, just barely. The sony is about 80watts, smaller units will consume less
and if you go to the AC/DC type used in RVs your can avoid the costs and 
energy losses in an inverter. For the fanatics in energy effeciency the
next step is to use Black and White instead of color thus reducing your
power needs to 25watts. These units exist and no they are not the sony
watchmans but do have small 9-10inch screens.
	Finally as another poster mentioned, for about the same price you
would pay for a bike generator setup you can get a solar pannel and have about
2 hours of TV a day without sweat. The generator bikes make excellant exibits
at energy fairs but unless your routinely use a stationary bike now I suspect
you would be dissatisfed with the results. That said I plan to build/buy such
a beast sometime in the next two years and will let you all know how it works
and what it cost me. And yes I realize this toy will probably cost more than
the electricity I get from it ever would have but hey there are far more
destructive hobbies that people waste far more money on than I'll ever spend
converting my house to use renewable energy sources. 

1/2 off the grid and counting.
-- 
Michael Lee Prine	 IRC (Information Resource Center) consultant
Internet: mikep@hydra.unm.edu, Bitnet: MIKEP@UNMB, Phone: 1-505-277-8148
--
Never use a hammer if a handgrenade is handy!
From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Date: 9 Sep 92 22:28:55 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

In article <dhalliwe.716066187@muskwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> userDHAL@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (David Halliwell) writes:
>rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil (Josh Rovero) writes:
>
>>The extra 4 watts per m**2 of radiative flux will be incorporated by
>>climate modelers in sub-grid scale processes which are parameterized,
>>not directly calculated.  Climate modelers generally use coarser time
>>and space resolutions than operational models because they run for
>>years (or decades) vice the normal 96-120 hour global numerical weather
>>prediction models.  The coarser resolution makes the sub-grid scale
>>parameterizations even more important than in NWP.
>
>    Michael and I have had some email about the radiative changes caused by
>increasing CO2, and one point that I think is significant (but Michael may
>differ on) is that doubling CO2 will lead to a 4 W/sq.m reduction in the
>radiative loss to space (a different point from Michael's stipulation that
>the radiative change at the top of the troposphere is 4 W/sq.m).

They look similar to me, and are both something of an oversimplification,
the point being to communicate with a professional without losing most of
the audience.

A more exact statement, if anyone is interested, goes like this: Well
established physics shows that a doubling of CO2 without any changes in
the temperature of earth surface, ocean, or atmosphere, will reduce
outgoing infrared radiation by some 4 W/m^2. Since incoming radiation is
unchanged, the excess goes into heating the atmosphere, until a new
equilibrium is reached, where the infared emissions of the earth, ocean, and
atmosphere are sufficiently larger for an extra 4 W /m^2 to escape.

Will that do?

mt
From: rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil (Josh Rovero)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Date: 6 Sep 92 22:40:10 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA

George Will is *more* intellectually honest than Albert Gore, Steve
Schneider, and the scores of global warming advocates.

Whether or not there has been statistically significant warming over the
last 100 years is debatable and a matter or controversy.  Attributing
any change over the same period to anthropogenic causes is even more
controversial.

George Will is being criticized because he doesn't agree with the 
advocates.  The argument is political, not scientific.  Most scientists
still believe that more measurements are required; if anthropogenic
global warming were a foregone conclusion they wouldn't need more
measurements.


-- 
Josh Rovero   (rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil) | or Internet 5346p@cc.nps.navy.mil 
Department of Oceanography, Code OC/Rv |      Bitnet 5346p@NAVPGS 
Naval Postgraduate School              |              
Monterey, CA  93943   (408) 646-2084   |
From: len@math.nwu.edu (Len Evens)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: "Paper Or Plastic?"
Date: 9 Sep 92 15:10:42 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept of Math, Northwestern Univ

In article <1992Sep9.040052.11896@meteor.wisc.edu>, tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
> In article <1992Sep8.180635.2157@merrimack.edu> gemmellj@merrimack.edu writes:
> >In article <53056@dime.cs.umass.edu>, kim@.cs.umass.edu writes:
> >> Which is better for the environment, paper grocery bags or plastic ones?
> 
> Politically correct answer: neither. Use a reuseable bag.
> 
> Logically correct answer: plastic. Uses less non-renewable resources,
> consumes less landfill space, produces less pollution, can be reused
> more times, can be used as a kitchen garbage bag if you have the 2 ft
> rectangular trash bins.
> 
> Practically correct answer: doesn't matter. Devote your attention to more
> serious concerns.
> 
> Wrong answer: paper. "Must be better since it is more primitive technology.
> Use it because you are concerned about the environment, so when you
> carelessly toss it out into the environment, it will cause less damage."
> eh?
> 
> mt

-- 
Correct answer where I live:  paper.  (a)  My city (Evanston, IL)
requires recycling of paper and recycles paper bags.  Hence, they
don't add to the garbage which has to be put in a landfill.  I can also use
plastic and take it to the supermarket for recycling, but I never
remember to do that.  When the city begins recyling plastic bags, that
advantage will disappear.  (b) Paper bags get packed in many fewer bags
and hence, for me at least, require fewer trips carrying in the
groceries.

By the way, if I could remember to do it, it would certainly be most
environmentally sound to reuse paper bags.  Doubled paper bags last
quite a long time, while most grocery plastic bags are good for one
trip, if that.


Leonard Evens      len@math.nwu.edu      708-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.geology,comp.infosystems.gis
From: masuda@gpnws.geoph.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp (MASUDA Kooiti)
Subject: Re: USGS stream gauging data
Organization: Dept. of Earth and Planetary Physics, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 06:33:20 GMT
X-Bytes: 1255

<1992Aug30.083241.13008@gpnws.geoph.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Distribution: world
Organization: Dept. of Earth and Planetary Physics, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
Keywords: 


In article <1992Sep3.032929.19744@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
bobh@fuji.hwr.arizona.edu (Bob Harrington) writes:

>... I've since located a good source of
>stream gauging data for the US. A CD-ROM of USGS/NOAA stream discharges
>for 1948-1988 has been assembled and is avialable from Dennis Lettenmaier
>at the University of Washington. If you think this is of use to you, have
>a look at Wallis, Lettenmaier, and Wood, A daily hydroclimatological data
>set for the Continental United States, Water Resources Research, 27(7),
>1657-1663, 1991. 

Thank you. In fact, I saw Dr. Lettenmaier explaining his CD-ROM
at a workshop of IUGG assembly in Vienna last year.
One of my collegues have got one from him and
now we are trying to use his data.
I am still curious about availability of data of other observing points
or other time periods.

--
Let's have a macroscope!               Kooiti MASUDA
                                       Dept. of Earth & Planetary Physics
                                       University of Tokyo
                             internet: masuda@geoph.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: SCHLOERER@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Jan Schloerer)
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Organization: University of Ulm, Germany
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 19:18:32 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

Topic:  Detection of enhanced greenhouse effect, according to IPCC

In   <15344@umd5.umd.edu>
     bwilliam@oyster.smcm.edu (Bill Williams)   writes

> The question, then, is when will we begin seeing it?  What is the
> concensus in the climatological community about when we're likely to
> see the "first signal" of global warming?

The 'climate' group of the IPCC (Working Group I) stated in 1990 [p xii]
and repeated in 1992 [p 5]  among their major conclusions:

*  Global mean surface air temperature has increased by 0.3 to 0.6 oC
   over the last 100 years.
*  The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of
   climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural
   climatic variability. Thus the observed increase could be largely
   due to this natural variability; alternatively this variability and
   other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced
   greenhouse warming.
*  The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from
   observations is not likely for a decade or more.

btw, there is now indeed evidence that "other human factors could have
offset a still larger ... warming".  Via stratospheric ozone depletion,
CFCs may offset a significant part of their warming effect.  In the
Northern Hemisphere, manmade sulphate aerosols may have a substantial
cooling effect.  These are dubious blessings, but that's a different
story  [IPCC 1992, p 5, 55-59, 62-64 & elsewhere].

> Put in the opposite way, what kinds of temperature measurements would
> we have to see over, say, the next five years for the modellers
> to say "oops?"

There is still uncertainty about the level of 'noise', so a figure for
what would constitute an unequivocal enhanced-greenhouse-temperature
'signal' is hard to come by.  In 1990 they used, for illustration, a
further warming of 0.5 oC, so the entire warming since around 1890 would
be about 1 oC.  However, this was assumed "somewhat arbitrarily" and was
tentative [1990, chapter 8].  In the 1992 volume, I couldn't yet detect
anything new on that question.

More sensitive "fingerprint" multivariate detection methods are still in
their infancy [1990, p 252-253; 1992, p 162]. Their (hoped-for) sensiti-
vity implies the drawback that detection of an unequivocal signal need
not, per se, increase our knowledge of the climate's ultimate response.

   [IPCC 1990]  Climate Change  -  The IPCC Scientific Assessment
      Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK 1990
   [IPCC 1992]  Climate Change 1992
      The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment
      Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK 1992

That's what I could find  -  unfortunately, there's no index ...

Jan Schloerer          schloerer@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de
Klinische Dokumentation           Uni Ulm
Postfach 3880     DW-7900 Ulm     Germany
From: bwilliam@oyster.smcm.edu (Bill Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:38:59 GMT
Organization: St. Mary's College of Maryland
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
X-XXMessage-ID: <A6D25DB0F20101D2@williams.smcm.edu>
X-XXDate: Tue, 8 Sep 92 18:40:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.173102.13756@meteor.wisc.edu> Michael Tobis,
tobis@meteor.wisc.edu writes:
>>I'll believe the American Meteorological Society Bulletin (within the
last
>>year) that discussed the length of record that would be required to 
>>establish any change as being statistically significant.  It's on the
>>order of 50 to 100 years with TODAYS's observing network, not the 
>>historical record which is much sparser.  
>
>Interesting. I'll try to look it up tomorrow when the library opens.
>I am skeptical, though. In particular, surely statistical significance
>depends on the magnitude of the increases. (If  temperature went up to
that
>of Venus next year, we wouldn't need a long record to confirm its
significance.)
>Theory predicts that the temperature rise is accelerating. (This accords
>with observations btw.) If the acceleration continues, significance
should
>emerge soon. Evidence from meteorological observations, sea surface
temperature
>observations, and observations of glaciers are in accord that the world
has
>warmed in the last century. Did your Bulletin article account for this?

This part of the discussion reminds me of a factual (sort of) question
I've had for some time.  As Michael points out, there has been some
confusion between people who say (correctly I think) that there is no
convincing evidence that global warming HAS BEGUN, and those who say
(also correctly, IMHO) that given the increase in greenhouse gasses now
occuring global warming WILL OCCUR.  The question, then, is when will we
begin seeing it? What is the concensus in the climatological community
about when we're likely to see the "first signal" of global warming?  Put
in the opposite way, what kinds of temperature measurements would we have
to see over, say, the next five years for the modellers to say "oops?"

BTW, I'd love to have the reference on that "Gallup Poll."  I didn't know
Gallup polled small specific groups (like "climatologists").
___________________________________
William E. Williams, bwilliam@oyster.smcm.edu
Divison of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
St. Mary's College of Maryland
St. Mary's City, MD 20686
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Whether or not it is efficient to turn off a flourescent tube?
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:03:46 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <1992Sep4.133935.25717@gdr.bath.ac.uk>, masgn@gdr.bath.ac.uk (Godfrey Nolan) writes:
>Can someone tell me whether or not it is energy efficient to turn off a
>flourescent light.  I seem to remember a teacher telling the class that 
>it takes far more energy to start a flourescent bulb than to leave it 
>on.  If that is so, does anybody know what are the calculations for the 
>initial power surge and for normal energy usage.

If you don't count the energy cost of manufacturing a fluorescent light, it's
more energy efficient to turn it off any time you're not using it.  If you DO
count the cost of manufacturing the light, then it's only energy efficient to
turn it off if it's going to stay off for at least several minutes, since the
lifetime of the light is affected by how often it's started.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:11306 alt.activism:16209
From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Subject: Plastic Deterioration?
Organization: University of Central Florida
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 15:03:58 GMT

Over the weekend, I heard a story on National Public Radio
about efforts at the Smithsonian to prevent deterioration
of their collection of space suits.  It seems that museuem
curators are finding that things made of plastics/polymers
deteriorate on the time scale (decades-centuries) with
which museums are concerned.  The problem seems to be that
the initiators, catalystes added to the monomers to make
the polymerization sufficiently rapid, are never deactivated
so that eventually these strong chemicals act together with 
other environmental factors to cause degradation of the plastic.
They mentioned the case of a plastic sculpture that just 
disentegrated into powder.  It sounded a lot like the
problem with acidic papers.

My observation is that maybe plastics in the environment
(or even landfills?) will distentegrate after a few decades
rather than persisting forever.

--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
(407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu
From: 901371d@dragon.acadiau.ca (Danny Nathin DiDio)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: test
Date: 8 Sep 92 02:10:01 GMT
Organization: Acadia University

The is a test.
Newsgroups: sci.environment