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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (15507)	12/18/2009 10:23:52 PM
From: Jorj X Mckie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Wrong! Rail is not dependent of fossil fuels. The majority of rail transport in western Europe is powered by electricity. In France it works out to be pretty true that rail isn't dependent on fossil fuels since they get 80% of their power from nuclear power plants. But in the US where we get about 70% of our electricity from fossil fuels, electric vehicles are pretty much fossil fuel powered (Coal - 48.5%, Natgas - 21.6%, Petroleum - 1.6% ) tonto.eia.doe.gov Germany - looks like about 60% of their power is fossil or biomass generated. iea.org UK/Ireland - About 72% is evil CO2 generating energy sources berr.gov.uk

To: Eric who wrote (15507)	12/18/2009 10:43:45 PM
From: The Vet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

virtually all rail transport will become electrified True it is the way to go, but there is a significant capital cost involved and the actual electricity has to be produced by something, so unless nuclear becomes a lot more popular the schedules will be weather dependant, on wind like sailing ships of the past, or the trains will all slow to a crawl on cloudy days or grind to a stop at sunset when the solar power dies.... On another note did you check out those links on coral bleaching and the Great Barrier reef. Apart from the two I posted there was a research article that has shown glimpses into how corals recover from bleaching by throwing out one type of less heat tolerant zooxanthellae and replacing it with another and resuming normal growth. "As it turns out, there is another crucial window for coral affected by bleaching. Those that expel their zooxanthellae have a narrow opening to recolonise with new, temperature-resistant algae before succumbing. In the Keppels in 2006, Berkelmans and his team noticed that the dominant strain of zooxanthellae changed from light and heat-sensitive type C2, to more robust types D and C1." Adaptation and Darwinian theory in action! theaustralian.com.au