Good response Terry. I can see that this is going to be a grand learning opportunity for me and also I think some of my friends on vortex will modify the way they think of this particular issue. The articles you point out quite nicely show that the green house warming process is due to the albedo of the Earth becoming less. To me, this is the final process that takes place which demonstrates the problem.
When we burn a quantity of coal or similar fossil fuel completely the carbon dioxide (especially with coal) is released along with a fixed quantity of heat. We then might attempt to understand why this combination is a problem and it becomes evident that the heat dissipates into the environment in one form or another while the gas becomes randomly distributed into the atmosphere. There are no other products of consequence involved for us to become concerned about to the first order. Why does the carbon dioxide cause problems? It does this by allowing visible light to pass through relatively freely to strike the Earth. The sun warmed Earth attempts to radiate the heat into space as a semi blackbody. The gas that we emitted intercepts this stream of infrared energy and spreads it randomly. Some of the energy finds its way back to Earth and some remains within the atmosphere so they become warmer than without the gas. The net effect is that an observer outside of the Earth's atmosphere sees less energy radiated into space and hence the albedo measures less. So, when we speak of the albedo as being less, it is code for CO2 or other greenhouse gasses warming the Earth. Water vapor and clouds should be discussed some day, but lets leave it simple for now. I am making an attempt to quantify the process in a manner that is capable of being calculated so that we can compare apples to apples. In this case it would be joules to joules. It would be a major fallacy if we discover that our reckless use of LENR for every conceivable process gets us back into a dangerous heating environment. I am confident that we will be intelligent enough to avert this catastrophe. I would honestly like to see a well conceived comparison between fossil fuels and LENR that is free of emotional distortion. The recent responses that I have received so far are very encouraging. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Aug 5, 2012 12:34 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:LENR Heat Vs. Coal Heat On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Terry Blanton <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 3:14 PM, David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote: > >> It seems apparent that the final global consideration is that extra heat is >> released into the atmosphere, land, and water of the earth as a result of us >> burning fossil fuels. > > No one responded because your basic premise is incorrect. It is not > the heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels that is the problem. > It is the albedo of the earth and the reflectivity of the upper > atmosphere. See: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect > > The energy falling on earth from the sun is far greater than the heat > of mankind. I see Jed beat me to it. Anyway here's a little more: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/albedo.html "Albedo The term albedo (Latin for white) is commonly used to applied to the overall average reflection coefficient of an object. For example, the albedo of the Earth is 0.39 (Kaufmann) and this affects the equilibrium temperature of the Earth. The greenhouse effect, by trapping infrared radiation, can lower the albedo of the earth and cause global warming." <more> The hyperphysics page from Georgia State University if a fountain of knowledge. Amazing from what I always thought of as a urban business college. T
