It does seem as though there is significant scope for energy savings.

Dany, would I be right in saying that the title ‘Acidic oceans’ is misleading, in that the oceans will always be alkaline and we should really talk about them becoming less alkaline rather than more acidic?

I can forgive Haymet for turning a log scale story into simple perentages, given his audience.

Tim that paper I found was of course only a submission.

I’ve found some stuff from the NFEE site.

Gotta go now.

â?? Take for example the pteropod, a free-swimming snail that lives near the surface of the ocean. It is a key food source for a number of fish and marine mammals. As ocean acidity rises, pteropods experience a double threat. Not only does the water corrode their shells, it may inhibit their ability to build shells in the first place, leaving them without an adequate protective layer.â??

By and large ocean scientists do not know the consequences of increased ocean acidity due to increased atmospheric CO2 and Haymet even says so:

â??We also call for a determination of the biological consequences of increasing ocean acidity and its effects on the ocean food web.â??

Instead of saying that the pH of the oceans has been estimated to have decreased from 8.25 to 8.14 (which looks unimpressive to the uninitiated because it is the negative of a log scale ) he uses the big figure of 30% and has promoted it from estimation to fact :

â??We have already experienced an increase in ocean acidity of nearly 30 percent compared to pre-industrial times and a doubling has been predicted by 2100.â??

What I am saying is that these guys are asking for research money because they do not know what is going on and the language they use reflects this uncertainty .They should be given the money and asked to report back without hype.

Re the 30% energy savings, I can only assume that Brown is referring to the COAG paper from a few years ago, Towards a National Framework on Energy Efficiency. That excellent study demonstrated that we could cut energy use across all sectors of the Australian economy by up to 30% immediately, using off the shelf technologies with a payback of 4 years.

Again, I am happy to forward a copy of that paper that I have on my hard drive. You may be able to find it by googling, too.

In that piece he said:

International cooperation on coal use and sequestration is probably the most important action needed to stabilize atmospheric composition and climate.

You are saying we need to bypass coal CO2 sequestration. I’m thinking you could be right.

Bob Brown keeps saying we can save 30% of current energy usage but I’ve never seen any detail on how this might be done. Have you?

Nor with chemistry, which must be obvious. I can only hope that people like Haymet and those involved in the paper melaleuca linked to know their stuff – not an unreasonable expectation, but sometimes you are let down.

Speaking of which, tim, it wouldn’t surprise if Hansen knows nothing much about power stations. But you’d think someone would tell him and he’d listen. He often proclaims his absolute passion about adhering to the science.