Global warmingThanks Pat for your comment.
Metric and the SI have been and are being using in climate and weather
operations and research. Metric has been that way for decades if not for
nearly a century. Metric is NOT new to these disciplines - it's fundamental.
We learned and used metric when I was in grad school more than 50 years ago
before the SI was born. (Also in undergrad). That's why it's essential that
the SI be taught and used in K-12 science courses and classes. The USMA SI
UNITS chart is great for science courses and classrooms.
Regards, Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: STANLEY DOORE ; Harry B Wyeth ; U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 10:21 PM
Subject: Global warming
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/sub05.pdf
or to see where other submissions came from, go to:
http://www.aph.gov.au/SEnate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/submissions/sublist.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
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