Global warming affecting bottom line...!

[dsm]

It seems that corporations are going to have to pay attention to global warming so that investors can make good decisions about investing in them:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1106&u=/ft/20031124/bs_ft/1069493427242&printer=1

Maybe this is a good thing...

 

[andre]

How sad indeed.

Where are the sceptics to refute the AGW hype.

 

[dsm]

Where are the sceptics to refute the AGW hype?

Ummm, that's a contradiction in terms. Skeptics do not "refute" a hypothesis, they merely "doubt" the conclusions.

 

[andre]

Okay, let's doubt then. Maybe have a look here:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29502&pagenumber=3

 

[patnray]

If one assumes that global warming is occuring, regardless of the reason, what areas would be prudent investments? What areas should one avoid? Just as a mental exercise...

It might make sense to invest in companies that make medicines for treating tropical diseases, mosquito abatement, etc....

Companies that make air conditioners?

Probably not companies that make snowmobiles or other winter sport equipment...

Any other ideas?

 

[andre]

Water. The planet will dry out. So we need all kind of facilities to produce and distribute fresh water

But it's not happening. Relax

 

[tracer]

Won't the melting of the polar ice caps counteract the planet "drying out"?

(Or, as Henry Beard put it in his book Latin for All Occasions, "Won't nuclear winter cancel out the greenhouse effect?")

 

[dsm]

Water. The planet will dry out. So we need all kind of facilities to produce and distribute fresh water

Hmmm. Isn't the world a closed system with respect to water. The planet cannot dry out (unless something catastrophic rips the atmosphere away), the water can only move around to new locations.

Right?

 

[andre]

But then again, the precipretation cycle may be disrupted and more and more deserts may form all over the area. This happened to the Sahara, which used to have a moderate climate tens of thusands years ago.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by DSM

Hmmm. Isn't the world a closed system with respect to water. The planet cannot dry out (unless something catastrophic rips the atmosphere away), the water can only move around to new locations.

Right?

Right. Unfortunately, one of the other locations it can move to is into the atmosphere. Water vapor being a greenhouse gas itself, this scenario has unpleasant self-perpetuating implications.

 

[DanishDynamite]

GW or not, investors should begin to consider the fact that the oil is running out. Yes, we are have ever better extractions techniques and yes, new reserves are being found. However, I recently read a statement from a major oil-company spokesman which stated that we will have sufficient oil "at least until 2020". This was supposed to be a statement of reassurance, but I didn't feel reassured. That's just 17 years away. Will the world's economy be able to continue unabated when the oil finally runs out?

 

[andre]

You may be right, there may not be global warming due to fossil fuels because the fossile fuel is running out:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/

The world's oil reserves are up to 80 percent less than predicted, a team from Sweden's University of Uppsala says. Production levels will peak in about 10 years' time, they say.
(...)
Oil production levels will hit their maximum soon after 2010 with gas supplies peaking not long afterwards, the Swedish geologists say.

At that point prices for petrol and other fuels will reach disastrous levels. Earlier studies have predicted oil supplies will not start falling until 2050.

(...)
According to the Uppsala team, nightmare predictions of melting ice caps and searing temperatures will never come to pass because the reserves of oil and gas just are not big enough to create that much carbon dioxide (CO2).

So relax. Again, there will be no global warming

 

[Solitaire]

You may be right, there may not be global warming due
to fossil fuels because the fossile fuel is running out.

Hmm... I guess I'll have to break out my chemistry set soon.
It takes 64 kilowatt-hours to produce a gallon of gasoline.
Oddly the same gallon of gasoline yields on 40 kilowatt-hours
in heat. With solar power at five cents a kilowatt-hour, that's
only $3.20 a gallon. Not bad if your in Europe. Of course I'll
being taking carbon dioxide and hydrogen oxide out of the
air to do it, but who's going to know.

Too Little Oil - New Scientist

 

[andre]

Well there are more alternatives,

How about clathrate?

http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/clathrate.htm

Clathrates as possible fuel source

In the last few years, many governments (including those of the US, Canada, Russia, India and Japan) have become very interested in possibilities of methane hydrates as fossil fuels. .....

The realization that huge reservoirs of methane hydrates occur on the ocean floor and in permafrost regions (e.g., Kvenvolden 1988, 1993, 1998; Satoh, 1996) has led to exploration, mainly by oil-poor countries (e.g., Japan, India), and to recent efforts to try to find out how to use hydrates as energy source. These efforts are in their first stages: Japan just drilled a test hole in late 1999. The methane in gas hydrates might be recovered through injection of hot water or depressurization, but the process might turn out to be technically difficult and thus expensive. ...... Ocean Drilling Program drilling on Blake Ridge (offshore to the east of Charleston), however, suggested that our estimates of the total volume of gas hydrates might be too low rather than too high, and that large volumes of free methane gas might occur below the solid hydrates (Dickens et al., 1997). ...

but it might be tricky.

 

[dsm]

How about clathrate?

What might the removal of methane hydrates "imbalance"?

 

[andre]

I don't know, there seems to be a Murphies Law on maintaining misery.

Clathrate yields methane that -when burning- produces about half as much carbon dioxide as fossile oil and only a fraction of what charcoal produces. So that can't be the problem.

There seem to have been massive clathrate explosions in the past (Kenneth et al) that may or may not have had catastrophic impact on the world.

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/agubookstore?book=ASSP0542960

So, removing it at risky areas may make the world a better place to live in.

 

[Diamond]

If one assumes that global warming is occuring, regardless of the reason, what areas would be prudent investments? What areas should one avoid? Just as a mental exercise...

a) Sea defence construction
b) Beach front property.

No wait...maybe the other way around.

It might make sense to invest in companies that make medicines for treating tropical diseases, mosquito abatement, etc....

I think that the reason for the spread of tropical diseases is most likely the aeroplane.

Companies that make air conditioners?

Only if they're solar powered.

Probably not companies that make snowmobiles or other winter sport equipment...

No. Extra snow and more cold is also a prediction of climate models. There are very few weather phenomena that are not associated with global warming, which is why everyone should believe in it, since any extreme weather is a result.

Any other ideas?

Actually the company that was due to make a killing with the Kyoto Protocol (RIP) was Enron. It specialized in creating trading markets, and since KP created a market in carbon credits, who better to set it up? Which is why Enron and Greenpeace got very close with Enron making a donation to Greenpeace (out of the goodness of their hearts, obviously).

I am old enough to remember two previous environmental scares: Global Cooling (1970s) and Nuclear Winter (1980s - chief protagonist Carl Sagan).

All I can say is: "This too will pass"

 

[Diamond]

GW or not, investors should begin to consider the fact that the oil is running out. Yes, we are have ever better extractions techniques and yes, new reserves are being found. However, I recently read a statement from a major oil-company spokesman which stated that we will have sufficient oil "at least until 2020". This was supposed to be a statement of reassurance, but I didn't feel reassured. That's just 17 years away. Will the world's economy be able to continue unabated when the oil finally runs out?

Nope. Known reserves of oil in 2000 were a tad under 1 trillion barrels. At the current rate, we'd have around 40 years. This ratio has been increasing since 1920, when we had 10 years left of known oil reserves.

For gas, the number of years left is 60 (years left from 2000) having risen from a few years in 1925.

My suspicion is that, in my lifetime, most cars and major forms of transportation will be fossil-fuel, biomass fuel and hydrogen fuel-based fuel cells with much higher efficiencies. I think the internal combustion engine which has inherently a lower efficiency, will be looked on as quaint, noisy, dirty and old-fashioned in the same way we now view steam powered locomotion.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that nuclear-electric cars powered by very small nuclear reactors may also be popular.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Diamond:

Nope. Known reserves of oil in 2000 were a tad under 1 trillion barrels. At the current rate, we'd have around 40 years. This ratio has been increasing since 1920, when we had 10 years left of known oil reserves.

For gas, the number of years left is 60 (years left from 2000) having risen from a few years in 1925.

The size of the oil reserves is in some question, as the link provided by andre shows. In case you missed it:

World oil and gas "running out"

My suspicion is that, in my lifetime, most cars and major forms of transportation will be fossil-fuel, biomass fuel and hydrogen fuel-based fuel cells with much higher efficiencies.

Quite possible, depending on how long you expect to live. BTW, my understanding was that Hydrogen fuel cells aren't a primary source of power. I.e., the energy required to make a fuel cell is more than the fuel cell can provide. Like batteries, the energy must come from somewhere else.

I think the internal combustion engine which has inherently a lower efficiency, will be looked on as quaint, noisy, dirty and old-fashioned in the same way we now view steam powered locomotion.

I would hope so.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that nuclear-electric cars powered by very small nuclear reactors may also be popular.

This is certainly theoretically possible, as we already have nuclear reactors.

Overall, though, I'm still a little worried about the lack of urgency on developing other methods of power generation.

As a sidenote, in Denmark there is a "windmill strategy" which states that by the year 2030, 50% of Denmark's energy should come from windmills. Currently, 18% of our needs are met by windmills.

 

[Diamond]

Diamond:The size of the oil reserves is in some question, as the link provided by andre shows. In case you missed it:

World oil and gas "running out"

This is actually a very old argument. In 1865 Stanley Jevons, one of Europe's most esteemed scientists predicted in a book that the Industrial Revolution's ever increasing use of coal would cause the exhaustion of England's coal reserves and industry would grind to a halt.

In the same vein, the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" predicted the exhaustion of oil reseves by 2003. Needless to say, the death of Western Civilisation was exaggerated.

Overall, though, I'm still a little worried about the lack of urgency on developing other methods of power generation.

Like pretty much all technological progress, it requires economic coherence to achieve that progress. Thus...

As a sidenote, in Denmark there is a "windmill strategy" which states that by the year 2030, 50% of Denmark's energy should come from windmills. Currently, 18% of our needs are met by windmills.

...won't go much further since wind power is expensive, a blight on the landscape, unreliable and of not sufficient power to supply Denmark in the 21st Century. It has been persuasively argued that wind power is an artifact of large government subsidies and I believe the Danish government has made moves to cut the subsidies, especially since other forms of power are more reliable and the costs are much lower.

Its much more likely that Denmark will start on a domestic nuclear power program - after all nuclear power is climate friendly...