We have in this area a local thermionic energy generation(conversion) system which used a gas fired tire factory heat source to heat steam and convert that to electricity. As the factory went out of business I'll have to research the effects overall, as the process was initially rather expensive, but used a 'wasted' heat source and water cooling system which was headed into the sky without efforts to draw the available energy from the system of high heat.
The waste of our mega-la-mania social upward ascendancy into chrome-y bling-bling 'heaven', with each a shiny car or better yet two cars, a new house for each couple, at a hundred thousand dollars average for each, and the average wage at more than a hundred times the undeveloped countries average wage, is the topic under discussion as much as GW(global warming), and the pollution-ozone-sulfur dioxide air,grey water rivers, and even the major cities former practice of simply pouring unprocessed sewage into the ocean coastal margins.
We had all those effects in the major cities I lived in until the last quarter of the Twentieth Century. During this first quarter of the Twenty-first Century we are negotiating a limitation to the common former practices of being human 'cockroaches'.
As to whether we will achieve a transcendency to the expectations of our plans to clean up the mess we are making, I can give a few responses to the GW story that are nearly neutral, to elicit more detailing, but the overall solution to the growing human population injury we have underway, may not be dependent upon the GW policies adopted ultimately.
The interglacial period we are in, could swing either direction in a few thousand years. We show figures of warming trending in the long term records used to describe the 'ice ages' of near history, but the same records show a varied fluctuating temperature set of minor patterns in the short term history of interglacial swings in our current temperature realm, and show the same at the maximum and minimum extreme ranges. As the records cannot place a trend beyond a few dozen years of air-water stats, we could experience a trend either direction in another quarter century.
I believe the actual process of controlling the consumption/pollution aspects of population growth are far more serious and potentially dangerous in the demand to use a bulk of the oil coal and even natural gas within a few centuries of growth and upward standards ascendancy for a minor portion of the world population. Our intent to use and consume is nearly all a one-way process set of techniques at present.
The interest in deep geothermal heat conversion by thermionic or conduction transfer is one of many techniques that might be usable in slight numbers, or might be a damage to the fresh water groundwater reserves more than an asset.
Shallow heat sources, volcanic or 'pluton' localized sources, all might be a long term addition to energy sources to moderate either swing to hotter or more cold average temperatures worldwide.
We refused to allow the chloro-fluoro-carbons and other chemistry to be impeded for the entire period of the first century of oil use in industry, but even coal has shown in past centuries, and especially this last century to be a very destructive run-amok expanding cause of real damage to humans, and possibly to the overall heat balance on Earth.
As our effects are considered a minor bulk mass effect we think of wealth and convenience. We tend to deny terms longer than our comforts personally. The real challenge is to know accurately whether the figures show a true rising average temperature, and additionally to know whether the length of the change to an altered state of weather and ocean circulation will bring an unstoppable trend to bear against future generations of humans.
I see the same process as the out of control credit industry, in the applied industry using heat and one way chemistry operations to fund a 'hundred years war' against many future generations of our children.
There is a voluminous release of 'research' on the topic of oceanic altered currents, ozone depletion, and a few dozen other injuries we know are affecting us worldwide.
I cannot see the discussion of GW as a simple matter of temperature- we are using oil as a substitute for our prior use of wood and plant/animal techniques, and the wealth is real, but the term of success may be a couple centuries and no more for oil as the basis for the wealth.
For the conservation reasons, we should work on implementing the alternative sources, such as the well understood solar, wind, and 'hard work'.
Most of us in the conversation have cars made in the past few years, not for needy reasons, but for the chrome, effacement, and the mindful process of group/pack behavior(faddism).
Stability of long term industry health world-wide is more the reasoning behind much of the efforts, I believe.
Again, we are arguing about a standard of income/lifestyle tens of a hundred and more times as great as most of the underdeveloped worlds population. We have several obligations beyond our vision perspective. The solutions and damages are going to be obvious after the path occurs. The GW challenge is to find a real set of records in the near term, and present a economical alternative to changes.
The subject deserves the attention it gets, as seen in the many NASA projects on the topic.
A misstatement, in relative terms, can't anything but embarrassing for Al Gore, but my own typing has become worse the past few years, and it is related to the inability to speak out freely as I might like, so I am sure he can recover his composure when allowed to do so. Over-ranging gestures are not uncommon, and dyslexic mental interactions are transient for most of us.
Can we assume the differential temperature on Mars was similarly greater in the early epochs as the range observed here on Earth currently? Mars is a cooling planet over long geological time, but should have been much warmer at depth, and as the Earth is definitely heating up over geological time,we are challenged to give the short term a careful measure in the trending swings.
