Not having had the benefit of a good literary education, I would put it more simply, Steven. Willis is a phoney. I would sum up his life as that of an underachieving itinerant handyman. He has had a lot of jobs that most would not want, in places that most would not want to spend their time. He knows a guy he met in the Army nuthouse, who allegedly killed a deer with a knife. OK. The biggest test in his life of his integrity and honor, he failed miserably. Couldn’t hack Army basic training. Now he is a blowhard on a climate blog. If not for the internet, nobody would pay him any attention. And I wonder when he is going to show up here to slap me around.
Comment on Open thread weekend by Don Monfort
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Bad Andrew
But he gets a bonus if he can hit his “Skeptics Are Bad” quota for the month.
Andrew
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Comment on Open thread weekend by David Springer
michael hart | February 25, 2013 at 11:27 am |
“David, what is their averaged annual energetic yield, in terms of time and area (i.e. watts/square-metre over the course of a whole year)?”
76,000 btu/gal ethanol * 20,000 gal/acre/year = 1.5 billion btu/acre/year
13,000,000 btu/year/m2 solar power * 4000 m2/acre = 52 billion btu/acre/year
1.5 / 52 = 2.8% efficiency converting sunlight to chemical energy in fuel
This seems about the same as you can get with any other method from photovoltaics using the electricity to hydrolize water or growing sugar cane and fermenting then distilling the juice. The difference is bioreactors are dirt cheap per square meter compared to photovoltaics and hydrolysis and doesn’t use arable land and potable water like sugar cane.
I believe the cost/efficiency can be vastly improved as state of the art in genetic engineering advances. Surface has barely been scratched in that regard.
In a sunny uninhabited desert where land is cheap it may be attractive, but I doubt if any significant parts of Europe will be able to match New Mexico.
Also, I wouldn’t rule out EU green-shirts wanting to torpedo such technology and products for being GM. Yes, they are that foolish.
(The Honey-I-shrunk-the-kids nano-gunge is still macro-BS in my opinion.)
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Comment on Open thread weekend by David Springer
michael hart | February 25, 2013 at 11:27 am |
Sorry, forgot there was more to answer.
“In a sunny uninhabited desert where land is cheap it may be attractive, but I doubt if any significant parts of Europe will be able to match New Mexico.”
Doesn’t need to be desert just sunny and warm. Lots of land that is sunny & warm but for one reason or another isn’t farmed. Besides, when they run out of oil in Saudi Arabia they can produce just as much biofuel in the same otherwise useless terrain. Europe imports most of its fuel from middle eastern deserts already. Tanker ships won’t even have to change ports.
“Also, I wouldn’t rule out EU green-shirts wanting to torpedo such technology and products for being GM. Yes, they are that foolish.”
Then let them eat cake.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Joshua
bob -
Willard oh Willard, because he is the only one that causes me, a very part time reader, to deliberately avoid reading anything he has to say.Sometimes, my curiosity gets the best of me and then I curse my lack of discipline. Cause
Spectacular logic and reasoning.
If you had to guess, bob… what % of your comments at Climate Etc. would you say are in response to my comments?
Do you think it might be higher or lower than the % of your responses to other commenters, on average?
I have a guess about the answer, and that the answer will prove that you are “skeptic” and not a skeptic. I’m curious as to whether you share my assessment.
Whadya think, bob?
Ka-ching!
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Joshua
I do want to commend you, however.
The reasoning behind (paraphrasing):
“I deliberately avoid anything he says”
“Sometimes.”
is a thing of beauty and a sight to behold.
As an appreciator of the mind of “skeptics,” I thank you, bob, from the bottom of my heart.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by kch
Joshua-
As an example of delusional thinking that post was pretty mild – more like self-important speculation than anything else. Aside from others pointing out that he was wrong, it was mostly ignored at BH. I certainly don’t remember anyone taking it seriously. It’s definitely something to be pointed at and mocked at the time, but…months later? Why bother?
Also, I somehow doubt that your point in your original comment was ‘…that we’re all tribal.’ (Who can argue with that?) I’d suggest that your point in your original comment was to score some cheap yuks by parodizing something not said on this blog, at this time, about the current WordPress foul-up. The only motivated thinking I saw was yours.
And…it was disappointing. You’ve spent a great deal of time and effort on this blog and others holding peoples toes to the fire of self-examination of motive. You’re frequently one-sided about it (and sometimes just plain tiresome), but at I, at least, have learned to honestly examine my positions for the reasoning behind them. Truly useful.
But now, mockery from nowhere. For nothing. Has the debate grown so wearisome, so disappointing that reason has to be displaced with point-and-laugh? Pretty depressing, if so.
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Comment on Spinning the climate model – observation comparison by Brandon Shollenberger
cd, as I recall, the BEST method for removing seasonality isn’t discussed anywhere, not even in the appendix.
As for removing it, we want to because we’re interested in more than annual data. When we study monthly data, seasonal trends cause problems. Months aren’t directly comparable to each other if a seasonal trend exists. That causes all sorts of problems. One I’m curious about is how correlation/covariance structures will be affected.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2
How much to simplify is always a dilemma. Take radiant energy, it is incoherent, non-polarized, isotropic and homogeneous. In order to simplify, you assume an ideal “shell” to limit it to anistropic, up/down, with negligible stored energy and a finite thickness based on the spectrum of the particular portion of the spectrum of interest, with an infinite power source to maintain a constant energy state. You reduce a remarkable complex situation to a simple “shell” of its former self :).
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Comment on Open thread weekend by willard (@nevaudit)
Curiosity will kill the Bob.
Please cease and desist, for your own good it seems.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by willard (@nevaudit)
Now imagine analogizing the atmosphere of the Earth as a bridge, Cap,’n.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2
Willard, could you imagine analogizing the oceans of the Earth like an atmosphere? :)
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Bob
willard, cease I shall. Joshua has caused me develop a mild form of Tourette’s Syndrome. Should I consult an attorney?
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Comment on Open thread weekend by GaryM
A classic that.
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
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Comment on Spinning the climate model – observation comparison by manacker
WHT
Here is where your logic on the economic cost/benefit picture of shale oil/gas falls apart.
Oil and gas companies are putting their money on the line (instead of only their mouth, as you do) by investing heavily in this potential new source of energy.
I can only conclude that these guys know more about what is going on than you do, Webby.
Sorry ’bout that, but that’s the way it is.
Max
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Comment on Spinning the climate model – observation comparison by manacker
pokerguy
Is this guy having fun?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3256/3161773578_f697dc7b76_b.jpg
Max
PS Is it Joshua? Or lolwot? Probably not Webby (not grim enough).
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Peter Lang
I suspect she is fed up with the level of the discussion.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by manacker
tempterrain
the Sahara has expanded rather than contracted
You got it wrong, tt.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
As you can read the Sahara is shrinking not growing.
Max
PS Back during the warmer Roman Optimum, remember Carthage?
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Faustino
Tony, I’ve copied most of The Australian’s piece as it appeared.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by Faustino
;-)
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