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The IEA has spoken and issued a future energy report

Helios
The IEA deals with some very big figures and its reports can be full of quite amazing facts , of how much energy is in its various forms , and it is saying it is very keen to stop the 1.5oC rise in global temperatures that is predicted to bring so much damage in terms of more powerful storms , or less predictable climate patters to grow food and crops. I haven't read this report and it seems a lot of financial chatter is occuring about it before the engineers respond.

Its perhaps not for me as a mature student in engineering to explain that the IEA still hasn,t made the crucial connection of pollution in general , rather than just CO2. CO2 is a problem , but then again so is NOx , so is water vapour etc and sooner or later someone will ask the IEA to consider what the most prescient threats from pollution are  in direct relation to energy systems .

energy thinking is and has been quite a competative  field for some time now because energy systems have not been thought about in any other sense that just replacing the high amounts of energy we have had from fossil fuels and its financial systems of wealth.. The IEA makes no acknowledgement that unless countiries develope systems of recycling we will continue to allow more pollutants into the ocean , so energy systems will be directed to these.

The bit on air conditioning is interesting , reduce it by 2oC , but fails to mention the effects of certain designs of house and garden to help this , nor does it suggest that bio materials might be a good move .

The energy thinking is a competaive field , but its no good saying carbon zero , when its replacement activity just damages the planet in another way by mining extraction or new damaging pollution scenarios .
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    Mmm well lots of responses in various departments of engineering thought as to what the perfect system is , I don,t mind the sort of ones occuring on the small scale where we find out how technologies work  and can be verified , but really astonishes me how some places of high end engineering thought ,just haven,t really addressed the pollution problem .Yes 2.5oC global temperature rise will cause physical effects that will impair flora and fauna and human structures as well as the big change of sea level rise ... dont forget 2.5oC gives at least 3m of sea level rise , so it is useful figure, but the real bad one is pollution from our wastes and activities . this months IET magazine had some useful figures although the aggregated air craft CO2 figure at 250kg per hour in the air , seems a little low to me and the more interesting figure would be fuel used per journey which is what people who want to calculate CO2 per person are thinking , but then is shaming people as effective as just not allowing high powered aircraft for commercial uses? 

    The figures get more interesting when you start to calculate the number of litres used daily , everyone looks at the CO2 and NOx , but no media has yet latched on to the idea combustion converts Oxygen to CO2 or NOx , in other words it uses the oxygen that the photosynthesis produces , and as far as I can tell none of the maths geniuses have done the sort of earth/natural life systems dynamics of if by having so much combustion , we start to deplete oxygen , nor the scenarios where we lose photosynthetic oxygen production due to droughts and pollution. If by some horror we manage to pollute the oceans to such an extent that we destroy the blue green algae (responsible for something like 40% of the earths oxygen production)  then the subsequent problem is that with less oxygen all our combustion technology becomes less efficient and more polluting !!!

    Only today I heard 3 .... experts in enviromental thinking hammering agriculture , as this months IET magazine feature pointed out most of agricultural emissions are in transport , so as soon as they have clean transport solutions , that problem is solved , low till can no doubt help in some crop rotations , but none the less most crop farming needs machines and processing/storage. If your vegan you might think that is the route , but of course herbivoires act as seed transports and auto manure services, and again this focus on meat production can be misleading , because there are low intensity methods of animal farming . I mean if you take clobbering agriculture to its extreme offering , people will realise/deduce that the CO2 production from termites is a global threat .

    Another article that was a bit wrong today, the global energy solution is through technology this is where you use technology to manage things , I dont mind the expression of the thinking so much , but the article had no appreciation of biology or biochemistry , all the problems we may see will be to do with biology and biochemistry ,including human life , so surely it translates that all solutions must reflect the functioning and systems of the biosphere , so yes there are technology solutions , but technology that just reflects its own controls , is very misleading when claiming to offer enviromental solution  , this is fundamentally a biology impairment problem , if this translates to engineers well.

    Are we near defining some perfect systems ?? the answer to that I think is yes and these have to be orientated towards pollution ,and energy efficiency or else we are spending money on the sort of technology that will not truley help life or mankind on earth , until the time comes when the sun will burn the earth away in about 2billion years , looking after the planet will at least give us the oppertunity to develope to a stage where interstellar space can be attempted , and interstellar space travel will be a technological solution , if we destroy the natural life systems of the planet before the sun destroys the earth , I dont know , I mean is it a sign of intelligent life lives here ??? .

    Best wishes to Danielle George new IET president , lets hope she can do bio chemistry , but the webb telescope ahhhh well mmmm

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