On 2007 04 30 7:40 PM, "STANLEY DOORE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Harry Wyeth et al: > Global warming? How'd this get into this discussion? <snip> > Stan Doore Dear Stan, Harry and All, Whatever your views are on global warming, I think that the metric system, or more particularly the International System of Units (SI), has a most important even crucial role to play in any debate about this issue. Consider this letter that I wrote to a local Melbourne paper, 'The Age' some time ago. A word about global warming Pat Naughtin (926 words) Like a lot of people, I am currently concerned with the issues of peak oil and global warming. While reading Robert Newman's article, 'Consuming the future' (The Age Feb 6), I became puzzled when he wrote, "modern agribusiness puts hundreds of calories of fossil-fuel energy into the fields for each calorie of food energy produced". I was puzzled on two grounds. Firstly, fossil-fuel energy is rarely measured with calories, and secondly, I wondered which kind of calorie Newman used for food energy. I know of many different ways to refer to the various old different temperature-dependent calories, Calories, kilocalories, and kiloCalories used in the diet and nutrition industries. I am also aware that widespread linguistic and calculation errors are so common that food industry leaders are seeking desperate solutions. As an example, Dr Rosemary Stanton was quoted in a recent edition of Australian Doctor* as suggesting that Australia should abandon the metric system to try to prevent some nutrition measuring problems. Leaving aside the question of throwing several thousand other babies out with the same bath water, Stanton seems unaware that the diet and nutrition industries are facing really language problems not measuring problems. Getting back to the peak oil and global warming issues, I soon realised that these are also part of a much wider linguistic problem. Put simply, we cannot sensibly discuss any issues relative to our use of energy because too many people are using too many different words to describe the amount of energy in their particular industry or in their particular nation. We cannot meaningfully discuss such issues as peak oil and global warming if the language we choose is muddled. When I searched for the ways people describe energy use, I quickly found 90 different words for the same amount of energy**, although I doubt that my searching did little more than scratch the surface. But what is even more concerning is that when converting from one to another, all these different energy measures also require thousands of conversion factors if energy issues are to be understood even at a most basic level. I won't bore you with a list of all the energy measures that I found, but to give you a taste of the diversity here are some energy measures that begin with the letters A, B, or C: atomic energy unit, barrel oil equivalent, bev, billion electron volts, British thermal units (many different kinds), Calorie (many different kinds), Celsius heat unit (int.), and cubic foot atmospheres (see below for list) Given the nature of this linguistic problem how can we, as a nation or as a world community, sensibly discuss energy issues when we don't know what other people are talking about? As an example, at the Australian Bureau of Statistics web page, 'Detailed Energy Statistics, Australia' I found that the choices of measuring units make it very difficult to compare energy from oil with energy from black or brown coal or with energy from petroleum. I quote from the ABS web page: Non-renewable fuels used to generate electricity include black coal (53,576 kt), brown coal (65,075 kt), and natural gas (291,372 TJ). Hydro-electricity was the main renewable source of electricity, and in 2001-02, 15,567 GWh of hydro-electricity were produced How can a citizen who is concerned about global warming begin to comprehend this jargon and, more importantly, how can national and world leaders sensibly discuss energy issues when the language of energy measurement is so unnecessarily complex? Fortunately, there is an immediate solution to this problem and that is contained within a single word, joule. The joule was first established as an international unit for heat and other forms of energy in 1889. It is now the only unit recognised for all forms of energy in the International System of Units (SI). The joule is most often used with one or other of its prefixed multiples as: kilojoules, megajoules, gigajoules, terajoules, petajoules, exajoules, zettajoules, and yottajoules. As an example of its use, consider the Australian energy use figures, quoted above, lightly edited and expressed in petajoules: Non-renewable fuels used to generate electricity include 1582 petajoules from black coal, 999 petajoules from brown coal, and 291 petajoules from natural gas. Hydro-electricity was the main renewable source of electricity, and 56 petajoules of hydro-electricity were produced in 2001-02 This measurement muddle is even worse in the USA where they have yet to widely adopt the International System of Units the modern metric system. In the USA, there are some people still using things like: toe's (for tons of oil equivalent measured in British thermal units) and MMBtu/Mcf (for million million British Thermal Units per million cubic feet) and using conversion factors like 1 short ton per cubic yard = 0.0330687831 long tons per cubic foot. I wish the USA well with their metrication transition, but if anyone tells you that the USA will take a leadership role in the peak oil or global warming debates anytime soon tell 'em they're dreaming! By expressing energy in joules, whenever energy information is provided, it is immediately comparable with all other forms of energy, and, more importantly, there are no longer any conversions. You don't have to memorise, look up, or calculate with conversion factors because there aren't any. We, and our legislators and elected politicians are all at a disadvantage when we cannot understand the issues behind peak oil and global warming because these are hidden behind the incomprehensible numbers and the obfuscation associated with the multifarious pre-metric words or measures from older metric systems that are currently used to describe energy. * Rebecca Jenkins, 'Call for return to calories to simplify weight loss', Australian Doctor 2005-Dec-8) ** Here are the 90 energy names that I have collected so far Old pre-metric, early metric, and mongrel energy units atomic energy unit, barrel oil equivalent, Billion electron volts, British thermal unit (0 °C), British thermal unit (16 °C), British thermal unit (20 °C), British thermal unit (32 °F), British thermal unit (4 °C), British thermal unit (60 °F), British thermal unit (68 °F), British thermal unit (international), British thermal unit (ISO), British thermal unit (IT), British thermal unit (mean), British thermal unit (thermal), British thermal unit (thermochemical), calorie, calorie, Calorie, calorie (16 °C), Calorie (16 °c), calorie (20 °C), Calorie (20 °c), calorie (4 °C), Calorie (4 °c), calorie (diet kilocalorie), Calorie (diet kilocalorie), calorie (int), Calorie (int), calorie (IT) (International Steam Table) , Calorie (it) (international steam table) , calorie (mean), Calorie (mean), calorie (thermochemical), Calorie (thermochemical), Celsius heat unit (int.), coulomb volt, cubic centimetre atmospheres, cubic foot atmospheres, cubic meter atmospheres, dutys, dyne centimetres, electron volt, erg, foot-grains, foot-pound force, foot-poundal, gigaelectronvolt, gram calorie, gram calories (mean), hartree, horsepower hours, horsepower hours (metric), inch pound force, Kayser, kilo, kilocalorie (16 °C), kilocalorie (16 °C), kilocalorie (20 °C), kilocalorie (4 °C), kilocalorie (4 °C), kilocalorie (diet kilocalorie), kilocalorie (int), kilocalorie (int.), kilocalorie (IT) (International Steam Table) , kilocalorie (mean), kilocalorie (thermochemical), kiloelectronvolt, kilogram calories (int.), kilogram force meter, kiloton TNT equivalent, kilowatt hour, kilowatt minute, kilowatt second, megaelectronvolt, megaton TNT equivalent, megawatt hours, newton meter, newton meters, Q unit, quadrillion, quad, Rydberg, therm (EC), therm (US), thermie (16 °C), ton TNT equivalent, tonne coal equivalent, tonne oil equivalent, watt hour, watt second. These 90 measures require about 8000 conversion factors to move from one amount to another. Whole careers have been built based on knowing some of these conversion factors and on how to manipulate them to the benefit of yourself and your company. By the way, I am aware that some of these are actually equivalent to each other For example, I think that a Rydberg is equivalent to a Kayser, but I doubt that this equivalence would be intuitive to most politicians. As I mentioned previously, in the International System of Units (SI) there is only one unit for energy the joule and as there is only one unit there is no need for conversion factors at all. Since a joule is a relatively small amount of energy, it is usual to describe larger amounts than a joule of energy by using the SI prefixes as in kilojoules, megajoules, gigajoules, terajoules, petajoules, exajoules, zettajoules, and yottajoules. An earlier version of this article is available as a pdf file from http://www.metricationmatters.com/articles.html You might also like to refer to my submission to the Australian Government Senate Inquiry into Australia's future oil supply and alternative transport fuels. You can directly down load my submission as a pdf from: http://www.aph.gov.au/SEnate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/submissions/sub0 5.pdf or to see where other submissions came from, go to: http://www.aph.gov.au/SEnate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/submissions/subl ist.htm Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216 Geelong, Australia Phone 61 3 5241 2008 Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. Subscribe at http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter Pat is recognised as a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. He is also editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' section of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual for writers, editors and printers'. He is a Member of the National Speakers Association of Australia and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. See: http://www.metricationmatters.com This email and its attachments are for the sole use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. This email and its attachments are subject to copyright and should not be partly or wholly reproduced without the consent of the copyright owner. Any unauthorised use of disclosure of this email or its attachments is prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender by return email.
