British weird weather - Global Warming?

[The_Doc_Man]

I have been watching the news about the terrible flooding in parts of England. Having been involved less than two years ago in flooding of a major sort myself, my heart goes out to those affected.

My advice: Hang in there, be patient, and realize that it will take you more than a few weeks to sort out the mess. Because of a sudden surge in demand, it will be harder to schedule visits by handymen, carpenters, or just about any other repair tradesman. They will be making money until they drop from exhaustion because of that demand. They will also be answering demands from literally ten or a hundred times their normal business traffic, so give them a chance to catch their breaths now and then.

It IS possible to survive a flood that trashes a house. I lost just about my entire first floor, but with hard work, money, and patience - 50% each... wait that's more than 100%... - you can make it through. Your own patience will be stretched to its limits. You will swear that you can't take it any more. (You might just swear. A LOT.) But here in New Orleans, life it slowly taking shape again even in the neighborhoods where the water was up to the eaves of the houses. It can happen on your side of th pond, too.

 

[GaryPanic]

Doc , your thoughts are welcome - and i am sure the guys who are affected would thank yuo for it, but at present there hip deep in mud..
Doesn't affect me, I am in Kent and half way up a hill.

The flooding has done a lot of damage, but the insurance guys are out there doing there thing (i am in insurnace, and i have appointed loss adjusters to clients .

IOt will take a while to get it sorted , but this is gonna be due to a lack of skiled workers - and not insurance, watch the insurance premiums go up next year (premiums of the many to pay the claims of the few- however there more than a few this time )

g

 

[Brianwarnock]

On the Friday that the floods started I spent some time with people who had been flooded out in Evesham, with a 4 star hotel booked less than 30 miles away we spent the night on the floor of the leisure centre having got into Evesham but unable to get out.
In the room we slept !?! in we were the only non locals and we had to admire the spirit of these people some escaped from mobile homes with only their pets, there were 3 dogs and 2 cats in the room.
The behaviour of the children and pets was superb, infact the only fly in the ointment was a moaning lorry driver.
The young volunteers looking after us providing food and drinks were fantastic, even though they had been there without sleep for over 14 hours when we were able to make a dash for home at 8 on the Saturday morning.

We lost a weekend , many have lost irreplaceable treasures.

Brian

 

[Len Boorman]

a good example is the low enregy light bulbs, let stop making normal lights bulbs and convert to these

g

Wrong

There has been a recent dictate by Brussells completely banning the use of mercury in the manufacture of aneroid barometers (stay with me). This has completely wiped out a small industry.

They have also passed a dictate that existing tungstem bulds will be banned in about 2009 (not sure about date) so that we will all be forced to use these low energo eco bulbs. but

The new bulbs contain mercury.... and a damn site more nmercury will then be dumped in land fill sites than the Barometer industry used in 20 years.

There is also the debate that says existing bulbs supply Heat and Light. Therefore the missing heat element will need to be replaced by running your boiler longer oh yes and the increased energy required to produce the low energy eco stuff outways the enery savings anyway.

So in conclusion

Brussells stuffs a small industry....created greater enery use....contaminates land fill sites in a single stroke.

Read the Beano it contains more sense

L

 

[Brianwarnock]

Thanks for putting meat on my post(#79) Len, I knew I had read some stuff on this but couldn't remember the details. Greens and Veggies are always getting things ar~~ about face.

Brian

 

[Len Boorman]

There are two ways to go "Green"

1) Stand in a compost heap for extended period
2) Use energy unconverted in an efficient manner.

1) Is quite straightforward...2) Could do with explaining

Energy can neither be created or destroyed...Fact 1

Each time you convert energy into a different form you loose some of it.. Fact 2

So start with

bucket of coal
Burn it to liberate heat
Some goes up chimney some boils water
Send steam to turbine
Some steam lost and some heat lost out of steam via pipes I know they are lagged but losses occur
Energy from steam spins turbine at 3000 rpm. Losses in energy in steam in spinning turbine, also friction losses
Exhaust steam fed to condenser to return to boiler as water. Condenser coolant dumped otherwise it would get too hot to condense steam

Turbine creates electricity... losses here again

Losses within national grid
Losses in transformers

and finally it gets to the damn light bulb when the remaining energy is converted into Heat and Light when is where we started when we burnt the bucket of damn coal.

Moral

Think it through and understand what you want to do and then go about it in a logical structured manner. Unlike Politicions and Management

No the logical answer to the above is not replace light bulbs with coal buckets... but think about victorian gas lamps. Maybe not so daft

L

 

[Rich]

Wrong


L

Same as the glorious government wanting everybody to switch to condensing boilers. The condensate released into the drains from these things is eventually going to kill off all the bacteria in the sewerage farms, but we'll worry about that later or breed super bacteria
How do these tw%*s get into power

 

[Brianwarnock]

Same as the glorious government wanting everybody to switch to condensing boilers. The condensate released into the drains from these things is eventually going to kill off all the bacteria in the sewerage farms, but we'll worry about that later or breed super bacteria
How do these tw%*s get into power

So its not just hot water? Guess I'm just plain ignorant on this.

What is it Rich, I want to dazzle my family?

Brian

 

[Rich]

The condensate produced by the boiler is mildly acidic, it can't be discharged through copper pipes, only plastic. Two choices, either dig a soakaway and fill it with limestone chippings, or pipe it into the drainage system. The condensate is produced because of the lower flue gas temp. Still they're more efficient so when we all make the change global warming will cease

 

[Brianwarnock]

Thanks Rich, I feel empowered.

Brian

 

[Len Boorman]

Technically speaking I think

methane CH4 burns to CO2 and H2O assuming complete combustion and therefore no CO

The H2O is above 100 deg C and therefore steam. The condensing boiler condenses this steam to water and a small amount of CO2 is dissolved in the water. This produces H2CO4 which is carbonic acid.

Now I think this is correct but Iam going back to Chenistry taught at school a loooooooooooong time ago

Be glad to hear if the long term memory is still functioning

L

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Len, you are absolutely correct. My "Doc" is a PhD in Chemistry. I know I can give you guys a pain sometimes since I'm not a DB purist, but in this case you've gotten it spot on and I can confirm it.

To further complicate matters, the purity of the methane governs just how completely the gas burns, but it ALSO governs the completeness of the conversion you mentioned. For ALL hydrocarbons burned in the presence of available oxygen, you have what is at its heart an oxidizing atmosphere. (SOME HEAT + OXYGEN) = OXIDIZING.

Starting from simple hydrocarbons, e.g. methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, ..., octane: Add oxygen with energy. First conversion is to add one oxygen and convert to alcohol. (Methane + O2 + Heat) passes through methanol. Ethane --> Ethanol.

Heat + O2 -> 2 O. (the latter, O-dot, is called a free radical.)

xxxCH3 + O. --> xxxCH2OH (The later is an alcohol and is formed because the radical attacs the carbon. The reason is that the carbon has the electrons and the radical is more stable when it has more electrons around it.)

Second step continues to add oxygen, and the point where you added that first Oxygen atom is a prime location for further addition because of electron density issues. So you get carbonic acid as the second step (for methane) and acetic acid for ethane and others for higher hydrocarbons. If you do this near pentane, you get caprolic acid, which bears an odor uncannily similar to goat sweat.

Subsequent steps add more oxygen, leading to breaking of carbon bonds (C-C) to form C=O bonds eventually leading to O=C=O (which is carbon dioxide.)

It takes a REALLY hot environment to complete the conversion in a way that drives off the water left behind by that process. If you don't, you have the compex group H2O.CO2 which is also written as H2CO3 which is carbonic acid. Only with a really hot flame can you drive off the water - again because of electron density issues and oxygen's electrophilicity. It likes to be around electrons. CO2 has a good "electron cloud" but that water associated with the reaction doesn't "want" to leave unless you give it reason to do so. Like enough energy to break the electrophilic attraction.

 

[Brianwarnock]

I hope you guys don't mind if I stick with Rich since I didn't even get A level Chemistry

Brian

 

[Rich]

It isn't as complex as our scientists here would have, it's really a result of recovering some more of the heat from flue gases that would normally have just been lost. The flue gas is now usually well below 100 unlike older boilers

 

[dan-cat]

I hope you guys don't mind if I stick with Rich since I didn't even get A level Chemistry

Brian

I don't know what A level Chemistry is but even that sounds way above my head

 

[Len Boorman]

I was just impressed with myself in that at my age the short term memory remembered where the long term memory was and the long term memory was still working.

Wonder what else is there ??????.

L

 

[Ron_dK]

The condensate produced by the boiler is mildly acidic, it can't be discharged through copper pipes, only plastic. Two choices, either dig a soakaway and fill it with limestone chippings, or pipe it into the drainage system. The condensate is produced because of the lower flue gas temp. Still they're more efficient so when we all make the change global warming will cease

Depending on the gas composition one uses, there might also be H2S and N2
in the condensate. The H2S is the component that gives the acid.
Here in NL, all check valves for condensate draining are bronze. Provided the
H2S vol % is <1 and the condensate temp is below 42ºC, the SO2 will not
lead to bronze corrosion.

Just my 2€ cts

 

[Rabbie]

There are two ways to go "Green"

1) Stand in a compost heap for extended period

But how green is it to have a compost heap when they can give off Methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Perhaps we should try to capture the methane to use as fuel in our boilers.

Perhaps we just have to learn to adapt to global warming

 

[Rich]

Depending on the gas composition one uses, there might also be H2S and N2
in the condensate. The H2S is the component that gives the acid.
Here in NL, all check valves for condensate draining are bronze. Provided the
H2S vol % is <1 and the condensate temp is below 42ºC, the SO2 will not
lead to bronze corrosion.

Just my 2€ cts

I'm afraid we left the bronze age behind some time ago

 

[Rich]

I don't know what A level Chemistry is

The same as O level but with a few more difficult questions