A Note: Global Warming Threads

[Huynh Phu Dat]

Current cold snap in US is just one of many to come as jet stream losses angular momentum and dips down into even the deep south. I told why in August 2013 here:Now even Bloomberg understand more of the same is to come more often:As they say:
"Don't mess around with mother nature - she can be a mean bitch." Ask the 100,000 Philippianoes still homeless in the wake of worst hurricane to ever make land fall.
Or these people of Colorado where it never flooded before. When photo was taken 400 were still missing and 5 known to be drowned:

It a logical chain: Global Warming - more ocean evaporation - more rain - more flooding - more crops lost - more people dead by GW.
Again I say: man needs to switch to sugar cane based alcohol as his liquid fuel - cheaper per mile driven, more low skill jobs, and completely feasible* with increase of food and fiber production and no forest cleared for zero net CO2 release. Lets tell big oil to go to hell before they send us there.

* 30+ years of proven alcohol IC engine technology (cleaner burning, less repair cost and slightly more HP than when the same "flex fuel" car is burning gasoline! but range of a tank full is 30% less. - more filling station stops.) and only a small fraction of the world's abandoned pasture needs to become cane fields and at least every 6th year they would be used for soy bean production to replenish the available N2 of the soil naturally and most economically (as done in Brazil) - that is the cause of "increased food / fiber production" the switch to sugar cane alcohol would naturally make.

Soem one must stop Climate change , if not it will visit our houses in the future .

 

[paddoboy]

Soem one must stop Climate change , if not it will visit our houses in the future .

All we can do is to slow down humanity's contribution to Climate change.
Climate change will happen and has many times before.

 

[Anew]

Seems to much peeking eye with different means is actually creating a cooling.

****************

new land was noted to be discovered in I think japan the year of discovery one may not know for sure,
apparently such was recent.

perhaps this will be a new currency, land masses appearing in certain areas? such is truly pretty a gift from the eternal beautiful sea,
humbleing to humanity.

 

[origin]

Seems to much peeking eye with different means is actually creating a cooling.

I certainly can't argue with that; since haven't a clue what that is suppose to mean.

new land was noted to be discovered in I think japan the year of discovery one may not know for sure,
apparently such was recent.

Since you have stated that without a shred of evidence to back it up - I think we can safely say it is clearly a fact.

perhaps this will be a new currency, land masses appearing in certain areas? such is truly pretty a gift from the eternal beautiful sea,
humbleing to humanity.

Thank you Poseidon the merciful!

 

[iceaura]

All we can do is to slow down humanity's contribution to Climate change.
Climate change will happen and has many times before.

As the entire arena of risk and difficulty we face is due to the large and sudden contribution of humanity and the consequent extraordinary rate of change in the climate (comparable to large meteor impacts or sudden enormous volcanic events), slowing down humanity's contribution is the issue, the problem, the agenda. It's all we need to do, as well as all we can.

We will have thousands of years to deal with whatever non-human factors and changes are in play here.

 

[rivers82]

Global warming is a "hot" topic mainly because it has been lead to believe that it is largely, mainly due to humanity's disastrous effect on the environment, by different means of pollution. Though I will not get into what and how humans are polluting the planet, I will just say that even if we are trying and doing our best to trash the Earth, that we are not able to alter the Planet's temperature. ONLY THE SUN AND ITS CYCLES HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY/POWER TO ALTER ANY PLANET'S GLOBAL TEMPERATURE. CO2 higher levels in our atmosphere are a CONSEQUENCE of our solar activity which is currently manifesting intense and more frequent solar eruptions. Nothing strange- it is cyclical and natural. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE SHOULD UNDERMINE THE CONSEQUENCES of these natural occurrences upon our society.
Solar activity is dependent not only on its own "nature"/"mood", but it is influenced by many other cosmic factors that involve much much larger cosmic regions. Thus we can only resign ourselves to this fact and simply learn A) TO ACCEPT IT; B) TO HOW TO ADAPT TO IT IN A FLEXIBLE MODE.
This is because History has shown us how cosmic nature is ruthless and it can cause abrupt/sudden cataclysms to the cosmic objects involved, leading to significant changes such as massive extictions of species, ice ages, etc... if we want our human species to survive, we must be ready to face these eventualities.
(as per sudden climatic shifts, it is possible only when collisions are involved. Shifts do happen for the magnetic field of the Earth, however it would not alter the TEMPERATURE of the Earth, but other factors.. too long to explain and t's off topic)

Having said so, it comes at hand for certain organizations and governments to keep the causes of this issue "mysterious" and is exposed as an extremely terrifying problem (through media and movies too!), as it is a source of major research funding money. Money that however will be spent mostly for other motives/research that are more "interesting"/profitable or power generating. Simply put, Global Warming Alarm DUE TO HUMAN INTERVENTION is not true and thus is just a money generating scheme... just one of the many...

In conclusion, though we like to think that we can be so powerful as to change the Earth's temperature, I am afraid we are over estimating ourselves, as it is typical of the humans' innate narcissism. Just check the global temperatures trend of the 20th century to see for yourself how it does not depend on humans' fuel combustion or on any other human intervention. Please also note that in the 1920's- just only when my grandmother was born (and she's still here happily alive) the World population was only 1.3 billion, while the Earth's temperature was at it's highest in the 30's. It is not too difficult to see for ourselves (and stop listening to the expoitative organizations of fear) that we have nothing to do with Global warming. All that we are able to alter today is the chemical composition of our waters, the radioactivity and the magnetic fields of certain regions by TOTALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, EXPERIMENTAL projects that are covertly brought forth without popular consent. We should rather concentrate our funds in developing biodegradable materials, harmless chemicals/molecules, and in cleaning up the mess we have already done.

Oh! one last fact: for factors that may slightly alter the planet's surfac (such as deforestation or vulcanic eruptions, or whatever else), the Earth has its means of cooling through the cycles of its water, towards stabilizing its "homeostasis".

 

[Billy T]

Global warming is a "hot" topic mainly because it has been lead to believe that it is largely, mainly due to humanity's disastrous effect on the environment, by different means of pollution. Though I will not get into what and how humans are polluting the planet, I will just say that even if we are trying and doing our best to trash the Earth, that we are not able to alter the Planet's temperature. ONLY THE SUN AND ITS CYCLES HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY/POWER TO ALTER ANY PLANET'S GLOBAL TEMPERATURE. CO2 higher levels in our atmosphere are a CONSEQUENCE of our solar activity which is currently manifesting intense and more frequent solar eruptions....

Before posting such nonsense you should check the facts. Yes the solar out put does vary and has been very accurately mesured for about 55 years via satellites (before any earth atmosphere modulation of the intensity at ground level):

Note last solar peak was in ~1990 and we have not get returned to that peak. During this time is when the Earth's temperature rose most rapidly and of course man released CO2 more rapidly then too. See NASA's graph below. Below that graph see chart snowing the relative "radiation forcing" and note that solar forcing is on the exteme right - least important one.

Total Solar Intensity, TSI, varies just as regularly as the sunspot activity over this 11-year period, rising and falling 1.4 W/m2 through the course of the cycle (0.1 percent of the TSI).

The solar out put has slightly increased since 1750 - why there is any positive forcing since then. Also interesting to note is the strong negative forcing of sulphates (mainly released by burning coal, I think) and other aerosols, that man mainly releases - particles coming out of cars and diesel busses / trucks, mainly I think, but some industrial processes like cement making are big contributors too. If civilization should suddenly collapse the air temperature would warm more than 1degree in a day or two As the particles fall out and be about 2C higher 10 days later. I.e. man is dammed either way - if civilization continues with "business as usual" (profit more important that world we leave our grand children) or if civilization collapses!

 

[rivers82]

Yes we all know solar eruptions happen every 11-12 years, but I do not see why you accuse me of writing nonsense, when your diagram is just proving what I have tried to explain.
do you really believe instead that Global warming is in fact due to human activity????

 

[Billy T]

Yes we all know solar eruptions happen every 11-12 years, but I do not see why you accuse me of writing nonsense, when your diagram is just proving what I have tried to explain. do you really believe instead that Global warming is in fact due to human activity????

YES ! You are so wrong you even got the sign of solar effect positive when from 1990 til 2012, solar output was falling but temperature was rising! = pure nonsense!

The total variation in solar radiation, its change in radiative forcing is 1.4W/m^2 That is sometimes up by 0.7W/m^2 and sometimes down by 0.7W/m^2. Compare that to the man made, always up, 2.4W/m^2 due to release of GHGs (stack of major one on the extreme left of third graph in my prior post.) PLUS the increase in earth's albedo due to soot deposits, ~ 0.4 W/m^2 which is most effective when covering snow and ice that prior to soot deposit had albedo of less than 0.1 - See example of this in photo below. I.e. the solar excursion from average, 0.7W/m^2 is only 25% of the man made excursion from the pre-industrial norm, 2.4 = 0.4 = 2.8W/m^2 as 2.8/0.7 = 4. I.e. 0.7/(0.7 +2.8) = 20%. Note also the 11 year cycle of solar (+ & - variation) averages to zero. But even more destructive of your false ideas is the fact the solar output was falling for most of the last solar cycle while CO2 (and other GHGs) drove the temperature UP despite the declining solar out put.

Original caption of photo:
"The springtime darkening of the Greenland ice sheet since 2009 may be attributable to an increase in the amount of impurities—such as soot—in snow."

 

[Trippy]

Yes we all know solar eruptions happen every 11-12 years, but I do not see why you accuse me of writing nonsense, when your diagram is just proving what I have tried to explain.
do you really believe instead that Global warming is in fact due to human activity????

Quantum mechanics says you're wrong. Do you have a theory to replace quantum mechanics?

 

[Billy T]

Nice summary of all four AR(5) committee reports here: http://www.un.org/climatechange/science-and-solutions/

This is the first 6.5 points from the 3d working group's summary:

"Major Findings:

Global emissions of greenhouse gases have risen to unprecedented levels despite a growing number of policies to reduce climate change.

Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades.

It is still possible, using a wide array of technological measures and changes in behaviour, to limit the increase in global mean temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Major institutional and technological change will give a better than even chance that global warming will not exceed this threshold.

Scenarios show that in order to have a likely chance of limiting the increase in global mean temperature to two degrees Celsius, global greenhouse gas emissions would have to be lowered by 40 to 70 per cent compared with 2010 by mid-century, and to near -zero by the end of this century. Ambitious mitigation may even require removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

In business -as-usual scenarios, consumption grows by 1.6 to 3 percent per year. Ambitious mitigation would reduce this growth by around 0.06 percentage points a year. ... "

---------------------------
In my opinion it is very unlikely that profit driven major economies and their elected officials will even reverse the trend of each decade to release more GHG than the prior decade did AND more probably that a three legged horse will win the Kentucky Derby than that the rate of global CO2 release can be reduced to 0.06% / year. Even if it could be, it is very likely to only delay the date of the 6th great extinction as feed back of natural processes already set in motion is now more important than man's activities - See: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?97892-Climate-gate&p=3223609&viewfull=1#post3223609
Where a NASA study suggests that arctic tundra will release ~500% more GHG than man has as it warms (and it is warming even faster than the arctic air is). BTW, ONLY NASA is actually measuring the rate of GHG being released from the tundra, expect for some very local measurement by ground crews. IPCC's lack of concern - is mainly due, in my opinion, to their "cheery picked" literature base forced on them by Oil company executives serving on their committees PLUS the need for many governments (most with weak economies) to approve their reports before report can be released. - A political compromise process - not science!

 

[billvon]

Global warming is a "hot" topic mainly because it has been lead to believe that it is largely, mainly due to humanity's disastrous effect on the environment, by different means of pollution. Though I will not get into what and how humans are polluting the planet, I will just say that even if we are trying and doing our best to trash the Earth, that we are not able to alter the Planet's temperature. ONLY THE SUN AND ITS CYCLES HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY/POWER TO ALTER ANY PLANET'S GLOBAL TEMPERATURE.

So you don't "believe" in the greenhouse effect, and think that our planet would be exactly the same temperature without water vapor, oxygen and CO2 in our atmosphere?

 

[Aqueous Id]

So you don't "believe" in the greenhouse effect, and think that our planet would be exactly the same temperature without water vapor, oxygen and CO2 in our atmosphere?

As soon as you catch him up with the science of 1824, I'll try to advance him another 75 years or so.

Global warming is a "hot" topic mainly because it has been lead to believe that it is largely, mainly due to humanity's disastrous effect on the environment, by different means of pollution.

It's a hot topic because people are noticing that their local climate is changing. They are seeing footage of ice cliffs crashing into the water, and of polar bears in distress on ice floes which used to support their weight. They are seeing evidence of high energy weather events, sea surges, glacier retreats (such as mountains where they have lived or vacationed). They see documentaries of the rapid retreat of the Greenland ice sheet. If they live in or near rookeries, they are hearing of mass starvations as birds arrive too late for the budding and appearance of larva they need to survive. If they live near the Great Barrier Reef, they are seeing or hearing about the death of corals from waters too hot to support them. And they see maps and graphs illustrating the increased rate of ice melt, plus the maps and graphs mostly yellow and orange where surface temperatures are increasing.

Though I will not get into what and how humans are polluting the planet,

Here the pollution in question is specifically GHGs -- provided, of course, you are at least at the 1824 level of science competency.

I will just say that even if we are trying and doing our best to trash the Earth, that we are not able to alter the Planet's temperature.

That's a conclusion made in the absence of available evidence to the contrary, and in disregard to the scholarship of climatologists worldwide. Shameful thing, bashing scientists just because FAUX News and Rush Limbaugh tell you to.

Are you, Photizo, sculptor, milkweed (and I forget who else) by any chance sock puppets of the same person?

ONLY THE SUN AND ITS CYCLES HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY/POWER TO ALTER ANY PLANET'S GLOBAL TEMPERATURE.

That's like saying your body temperature remains constant in the noonday sun as you continue to add layers of clothing.

TOTALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, EXPERIMENTAL projects that are covertly brought forth without popular consent.

Hah! The experiments done by French, Scottish, Swedish and British scientists prior to 1934 are out of jurisdiction of the US Constitution and US public opinion. The work of measuring solar irradiance which you were worried about above was initiated in the US by the Bureau of Standards as a matter of defining the standard unit for that quantity. The study of ocean warming and uptake of excess CO[sub]2[/sub] was done in the 1950's under the auspices of the US Navy. The funding for the first realtime collection of atmospheric CO[sub]2[/sub] levels was around 1957 by the DOD. The rest of the climate data collection (surface temperature monitoring) was done beginning in the Roosevelt era by the US Foresty Service and later handed over to the US Weather Service, and its later clone, the National Hurricane Center. All of these activities were folded together in 1970 when Nixon created the NOAA. So it would seem you need to take up your concerns with the Europeans, the DOD, and the Republicans.

Also note, since NOAA is created under the Dept of Commerce, its activities are fully authorized under Congress' Constitutional power to regulate commerce.

 

[sculptor]

...
Are you, Photizo, sculptor, milkweed (and I forget who else) by any chance sock puppets of the same person?

Are you completely insane?

 

[Aqueous Id]

Are you completely insane?

The only other plausible answer is that you are virtual clones -- that your collective ignorance of science, your anti-science attacks, and your preference for attacking a rather esoteric branch of science -- climatology -- is entirely predicated on consuming the trash fabricated by the Republican media outlets you visit to wire yourselves up. Now that's insane.

 

[sculptor]

If you believe what you posted, it certainly is.

 

[Aqueous Id]

I am responding to available facts and evidence. No belief is required. It's knowledge, which is entirely evidence-based. I could be wrong, but only because a controverted fact was proven/disproven, which hasn't yet happened. All you guys seem to do is drive-bys with really crappy trash "cites" from your right wing propaganda sources. You ignore all of the empirical data, you don't read basic technical papers (like the discovery of the greenhouse effect and the discovery of anthropogenic global warming), and you ignore the input from people here who have training in related fields of physical and Earth sciences. Funny, every single person who majored in science in college -- with the exception of BillyT -- is in complete agreement on substantial facts, and BillyT corroborates all the basic science.

So if I'm insane then they are too, and all the real experts I cite are insane too. I suppose that works for you, since you guys like to think academia is fractured and invalidated. But that puts the insanity back on you. That's about as extreme as it gets for denial.

 

[Billy T]

I... Funny, every single person who majored in science in college -- with the exception of BillyT -- is in complete agreement on substantial facts, and BillyT corroborates all the basic science. ...

Not sure what You are stating is my "exception." I have a Ph.D. in physics and long standing concern about the stupidity of basing civilization on finite energy source. In fact, before many readers here were even born, I solved and patented a practical solution to the main problem of solar thermal energy, which is if the absorber gets hot enough for good Carnot limited conversion to higher (than thermal) quality energy IR re-radiation form that hot source makes the net capture of solar energy low.

Conversely if the the system uses a lower temperature absorber, the Carnot limit makes the net efficiency low. My US patent is 4033118 (mass flow solar absorber) It can be the heart of an efficient solar thermal system as it can get "red hot" - limited only by the softening temperature of fused quartz, yet loses essentially nothing by IR re-radiation. To proof that, I published two separate papers in Applied Optics, but in them did not disclose the idea of the patent. The references to these two papers are given in the patent.

I venture to say, no one posting here has been concerned about man's long term future, and active in the effort to keep it form being short for as long as I have. I graduated from special experimental 5-year program called "Enginneering Physice" Cornell offered back in the 1950s, but Cornell discontinued within a decade as it was too tough - more than half of the entering classes transferred out to much easier 4-year programs, like electric or chemical energy.

I was very poor - a full needs scholarship student who washed dishes for his meals, but stuck it out as I was also idealistic. - Wanted to work on man's long term energy problem. My experiment Ph. D. research was on Plasma , and my first job was 10 years working on the controlled fusion program (harness the H-Bomb for slow, unlimited release of energy). Back then most believed we could do that in about a decade. The US Navy paid my salary, via APL/JHU as they were planning to soon order a fusion powered aircraft carrier. When it became clear that would still be decades later at best, they cut off funding for our group - I went to the space department, but mainly helped JHU hospital doctors with their technical problems, especially related to implanted devices. There is great over lap between a device to be put in a human body or into to orbit:
Both must:
have very high reliability as can not be repaired,
have very little weight
need very little power
resist well an environment that is actively trying to destroy them
have advanced (state of the art) communication system
be remotely commanded to change how they function, when needed, and
especially for the implanted device, be as cheap as possible.

In addition to my paid job, I did unpaid week-end work in a primate lab, run by one of the JHU neuro surgeons, I became friend with. He had almost 50 Rhesus monkeys in that lab. I helped him in many ways - once when we needed some platinum for implanted electrodes, I invented a project to add to the long deep water measurement chain APL had Navy funding for that need platinum electrodes - most of that platinum was used on the long chain, but small part ended up in our monkeys. Once when the MD was on call but at the primate lab the Hospital called him to come back as a head injury patient was on his way to the hospital. Fortunately the hard part of the operation we were doing on the monkey was already done, but I had to finish it and close up.

Because of my work on money brains, I became very interested in how humans perceive the world - not by the accepted way (perception "emerges" after many stages of neural computational transforms) but I think by what I call the RTS (Real Time Simulation) - See: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?2868-About-determinism&p=882356&viewfull=1#post882356 but also see for clarification a few points at: See also: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...onsciousness&p=3042535&viewfull=1#post3042535 and my post after that one until: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...onsciousness&p=3054244&viewfull=1#post3054244

I am one of the few old men who never lost his youthful idealism - still trying to get others to understand how serious is the danger of Global warming and take some meaningful steps to change how societies run. In that, yes I am an "exception," but don't think that is what you were saying.

 

[sculptor]

Not sure what You are stating is my "exception." I have a Ph.D. in physics and long standing concern about the stupidity of basing civilization on finite energy source. In fact, before many readers here were even born, I solved and patented a practical solution to the main problem of solar thermal energy, which is if the aborber gets hot enough for good Carnot limited conversion to higher (than thermal) quality energy IR re-radiation form that hot source makes the net capture of solar enery low.
Conversely if the the system uses a lower temperature absorber, the Carnot limit makes the net efficient low. My US patent is 4033118 (mass flow solar absorber) It can be the heart of an efficient solar thermal system as it can get "red hot" - limited only by the softening temperatur of fused quartz, yet loses essentially nothing by IR re-radiation. To proof that, I published two separte papers in Applied Optics, but in them did not disclose the idea of the patent. The references to these two papers are given in the patent.

I venture to say, no one posting here has been concerned about man's long term future, and active in the effort to keep it form being short for as long as I have. I graduated from special experimental 5-year program called "Enginneering Physice" Cornell offered back in the 1950s, but Cornell discontinued within a decade as it was too tough - more than half of the entering classes transferred out to much easier 4-year programs, like electric or chemical energy.

I was very poor - a full needs scholarship student who washed dishes for his meals, but stuck it out as I was also idealistic. - Wanted to work on man's long term energy problem. My experiment Ph. D. research was on Plasma , and my first job was 10 years working on the controlled fusion program (harness the H-Bomb for slow, unlimted release of energy). Back then most believed we could do that in a bout a decade. The US Navy paid my salary, via APL/JHU as they were planning to soon order a fusion powered aircraft carrier. When it became clear that would still be decades larter at best, they cur off funding for our group - I went to the space department, but mainly helped JHU hospital doctors with their technical problems, especially related to implanted devices. There is great over lap between a device to be put in a human body or into to oribit:
Both must:
have very high reliability as can not be repaired,
have very little weight
need very little power
resist well an environment that is actively trying to destroy them
have advanced (state of the art) communication system
be remotely commanded to change how they function, when needed, and
especially for the implanted device, be as cheap as possible.

In addition to my paid job, I did unpaid week-end work in a primate lab, run by one of the JHU neuro surgeons, I became friend with. He had almost 50 Rhesus monkeys in that lab. I helped him in many ways - once when we needed some platinum for implanted electrodes, I invented a project to add to the long deep water measurement chain APL had Navy funding for that need platinum electrodes - most of that platinum was used on the long chain, but small part ended up in our monkeys. Once when the MD was on call but at the primate lab the Hospital called him to come back as a head injury patient was on his way to the hospital. Fortunately the hard part of the operaing we were doing on the monkey was alread done, but I had to finish it and close up. Becuase of my work on money brains, I became very interested in how humans perceive the world - not by the accepted way (perception "emerges" after many stages of neural computational transforms) but I think by what I call the RTS (Real Time simulation) - See: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?2868-About-determinism&p=882356&viewfull=1#post882356 but also see for clarification of a few points:
See also: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...onsciousness&p=3042535&viewfull=1#post3042535 and my post after that one until: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...onsciousness&p=3054244&viewfull=1#post3054244

I am one of the few old men who never lost his youthful idealism - still trying to get others to understand how serious is the danger of Global warming and take some meaningful steps to change how societies run. In that, yes I am an exception, but don't think that is what you were saying.

Did your Mass Flow Solar Absorber ever go into production?
When i was at the design school at SIU(71-73 too early for your patent), we experimented on many different alternative energy sources including solar, wind and methane, etc... . We also experimented with ground source heat pumps and found diminishing returns unless also used for air conditioning(cooling) which re-energized the ground, effectively utilizing the ground around the pipes as a heat (and coolth) storage device.

The energy history of civilized man seems to be that we use up one source of energy(eg-wood, coal, whale oil, mineral oil), then find another time and time again. eventually, all earthly energy sources will be consumed(even "renewables" which have limits) , and our descendants will need to find new sources. I think that we are already heading in the right direction with solar and wind, tidal, etc... .

I'm almost a generation younger than you, but have seen the devastation of pollution, and then retraction from those polluting practices many times. I expect our species to continue along the same paths.

 

[Billy T]

Did your Mass Flow Solar Absorber ever go into production?

No. Back then oil energy was much cheaper than any solar thermal source, but I did exchange several letters with Shell's technical staff (pre-Email days). They became increasingly interested in it, for endo-thermal chemical processing and after about the fourth letter exchange, they went to shells legal department to learn how Shell could license my invention - I only wanted my patent costs back as my complete fee. They got their wrist slapped, were told not to communicate more with me, but one did in brief privately sent note telling me what happened. - Shell was concerned that some process they might become interested in might be challenged by me, with big cost to Shell.

In my patent I do describe a reversible endo-thermic chemical process being driven by my invention as a cheap energy storage system - Solar's other main problem solved too. I forget the detail, but back then sulfur was piling up in great mountains near coal fired power plants - they would pay you to take it away! SO2 and SO3 both are easy to store as liquids. I forget but bet the more oxidize one is the lower energy one and it can be thermally decomposed into SO2 + O2 or returned to SO3 for energy release at night - all described in some detail in my patent and that is what got Shell's technical staff interested, but the "not invented here syndrome" was much too strong for the engineers to even officially let me know why the letter exchange stopped.

... We also experimented with ground source heat pumps and found diminishing returns unless also used for air conditioning(cooling) which re-energized the ground, effectively utilizing the ground around the pipes as a heat (and coolth) storage device.

I invented a very efficient related system, which the US Navy first and then the DOE paid my (and four others who helped me part time at APL/JHU) salary for more than two years to investigate. I called it CASES (Comunity Annual Storage Energy System). You can read about it (I just learned) by downloading the full article I published in Enviroment back in 1978, long after the project was dead, here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00139157.1978.9928691?journalCode=venv20#.VBScHfldVXY
Basically our water source heat pumps were large ice machines, with a large rotating drum (internally cooled to form thin sheet of ice on the surface, which was continuously scraped off by blade as the drum moved past it, just before dipping back into the water to make more ice. Because the ice was so thin, there was essentially no thermal gradient across it. I.e. the cooling plant had to make the internal coolant only a couple of degrees below 0C yet made ice by the tons per day. Had a COP of about 8 as I remember. Also it only warmed the water it dumped the ice machine's 80 calories per gram into only sightly - just warmer than ground temperature that was distributed throughout the community for local water source heat pumps to use. As I recall the heat loss even with cheap uninsulated PVC pipes was just about same as the pumping friction heating - so even the most remote connections got about same temperature warm water for their water source heat pumps. (That pumping energy was included in the COP analysis of course.)

The other main source for their heat came from passing the water, now colder, back thru the community's large buildings - Normally they are great heat sources, even in Canada's winter and keep from over heating by taking in much more cold air than needed for ventilation. (Raising its humidity is also an energy cost we avoided.) In CASES, they only took in cold air needed for ventilation via counter flow heat and humidity exchangers, so almost all their excess heat was distributed to the homes and small buildings of the community.

We did detailed hour by hour simulations using real details weather records (They cost about $1000 per year of data!) as had everything, - Humidity, cloud cover, wind strength and direction - infiltration is a major heat loss in many buidings - our simulations were very complete. The ice was of course stored in large, cheap insulated "quansit huts" and the 0C water at the bottom was collected and distributed thru out the community for effectively zero energy cost cooling. In a well balanced mix of buildings the net annual COP (heating and cooling to energy used) could nearly reach 10!
It too was never applied in the US - too much "central planning" required and mainly for new cities, but something quite like it is done in Sweden, I later learned.

While the Navy was paying us, they wanted us to simulate applying the concept to the large Norfolk Naval base - a very unbalanced set of big computer filled buildings with few small ones. I told them the results will not be good, but they insisted. - Gave me a special pass (already held higher than "secrete" clearance) but nearly got killed as I did not know it was not valid for the N. Atlantic command center building's computer floor. I wandered all thru that base collecting data to input into our simulation, but when I turned a corner on that floor, a seabe guard had his drawn pistol aimed at me only about 3 feet from me. I later learned that computer knows where every ship and sub of the Atlantic fleet is and where its orders are sending it. He would not have been in trouble if he had shot me but noted my Navy badge and just said "that is not valid here" and let me leave.

Among my other energy related projects was the installation of a wind machine at the Coast Guard's Norfolk station. We did it there as much cheaper than at the off shore light houses that were the target for final, after evaluation, of the system.