Freediving vs. The Earth

[gaiadiver]

Hello all ou t there

[RockFTO]

Hello there

[vali]

hi...why that sad face?

[gaiadiver]

Originally Posted by vali

hi...why that sad face?

Everything we dive with is not biodegradable, synthetic materials it must make terrible pollution to make these plastics. We burn deezel fuel and gas in dive boats, and our cars going diving, and jet fuel flying to diving. All just for pleasures for some of the world's rich people. We are terrible.

[cebaztian]

Strange discussion when the original question/statement has been edited out.

[vali]

in a cold winter.....if u don't burn wood, you will die!
the warm of your home is provided by burning coal i presume....when you burn coal, noxes are released in atmosphere....
why you judge freedivers and don't judge the one who warm you in the cold winters....
aaaa....honolulu
not all of us is so lucky...ei?
no offence!!!

[naiad]

I can see both sides of the argument - we need to use some resources, therefore cause some pollution, but we can try to reduce the damage. I think most freedivers are more environmentally aware than most people, because we like fish and other aquatic life.

[Kars]

Truth is that many, if not everything could be made in responsible way.
Like internal combustion engines have been running perfectly without gimmics on water (which itself safely converted to HHO). Many other inventors haven been bought, intimidaded, killed to keep the elite in power and on track.

The latest hyped hysteria, is the one Al Gore is promoting: Global warming.
Science shows clearly that Co2 is only a fraction of a percent of the 'greenhousgasses', though mr Gore want us to feel guilty and hand over our freedom to the state to safe us from the unavoideble doom and gloom.

Funny to hear that on Mars, Jupiter, Titan and Pluto according to NASA, a significant temperture rise is occuring. Has E.T. industries on these planets?

Things I more worry about is GM foods, because that's seemingly irreversible.
The use of Uranium on the modern battlefield, rendering places inhabitable for MILIONS of yeas, appart from the poisen clouds detected half arround the globe.
Another major is the global DEhumanisation apparent and promoted anyware.

Rubber is a natural substance, likewise is oil. I'm sure that industries can create some new material which break down quicker, but than it's not much fun ripping open a suit after a few poolsessions. The transport cost and energy is in my estimation much higher than the energy into the materials.
In other words when things are made more durable than so goes down cost of ownership, energy needed for production, resource use, etc. But he the 'Owners' of this Global plantation don't want you to have spare time, security, and start learning and thinking.

What brings people to posing a particular question? Could it be they've read something in the media, saw a partcular show, film, or was inspired by another person?
How much of one's culture is created by the people as opposed of by the elite?
How much of a person is a borrowed, how much is really that person?

Freediving can be a very educational activity, revealing the ghost in the machine, showing what life is about.
Thanks to Freediving and sungazing I learned, and now LOVE life.

Love Peace and Water,

Kars.

[marginatus]

And MR AL Gore always cicles to the places where we gives his conferences and doesn't use lots of confort related things (AC, expensive suits...) that use a lot of energy...
It's good to be worried about the "Gaia" but we must start by us (individualy) instead of pointin it to others...

[Boot]

Boooh go freediving

[shoutatthesky]

Hey Gaiadiver, what was the original question/argument? Are you trying to start a healthy debate or just campaigning against freediving?

[efattah]

Thanks to the Startech plasma converter (http://www.startech.net/), which will soon see service in 16 countries (including my own country), all garbage including toxic waste can be converted into clean electricity. So stop worrying.

Several start-up companies are going to buy startech plasma converters, and then dig out all the land-fills in the USA and convert the garbage to electricity (hydrogen, oxygen, and obsidian), which would bring a profit of more than $50 billion.

In Panama, startech converters will not only solve their garbage problem, but will also generate 80% of their country's electricity.

The way the future looks, the more garbage you produce, the better.

When it comes to global warming, the Earth is definitely warming. However whether or not it is directly because of humans is still a difficult question.

[wet]

Eric, looks good, but where does it talk about electrical production above and beyond required operating electricity? I didn't see it on the cover or FAQ pages. That is where I'm somewhat skeptical.

I also have a concern that soil nutrients & minerals will be lost from forest and field products to become part of the obsidian-like material, rather than returned directly to the soil, not sure if that's a big concern, perhaps more so in areas with poor soils or less rain. I don't know about the gases which are then burned for power.

DDeden

[trux]

Originally Posted by efattah

Thanks to the Startech plasma converter (http://www.startech.net/), which will soon see service in 16 countries (including my own country), all garbage including toxic waste can be converted into clean electricity. So stop worrying.

The plasma technology is definitively interesting and progressive, but the articles about Startech Plasma Converter are highly idealized and extremely hyped. They do not address at all diverse problems occurring during the plasma conversion. I have to find yet an objective independent document analyzing the ecologic balance of the device. I think it will be positive, but still there are many problems involved.

Layman reading the description on Startech's website or in numerous popular science magazines, without the ability to read between the lines, may easily become under the impression that the device converts all matter into some kind of uniform gas (PCG) and solid matter (obsidian glass). Less educated persons could be even easily under the impression that the device converts waste (it means all type of molecules and atoms) into hydrogen or natural gas, and some kind of unspecified homogene harmless matter (obsidian glass).

That's, of course, quite a nonsense denying all physical and chemical laws. Its the same believe as the one that drove medieval alchemists in their attempts to convert diverse matters into gold. The only way to change atomic properties of a matter is nuclear fusion or fission, but that's quite a different category, that we are still pretty far from even experimenting with (even less mastering it), and has absolutely nothing to do with plasma gasification.

So what actually happens in a plasma converter? Well, in no way atoms change their properties. Hydrogen remains hydrogen, oxygen remains oxygen, iron remains iron, lead remains lead, mercury remains mercury, arsenic remains arsenic, etc, etc. Only molecular chemical bindings are disrupted, hence molecules (both organic and inorganic) cease to exist and break into the composing atoms. But still these atoms remain in the plasma; they do not disappear or convert into atoms of other elements.

Now, the plasma needs to be cooled - that happens by injecting big amounts of water, cooling down the plasma from ~16,000°C (30.000°F) to 50°C (122°F). Basically, the two mentioned waste products result from this process - the PCG gas and the obsidian glass. But amount of the waste matter is washed away with the cooling water too. Startech website claims that the pollution of the water is minimal, and that the PCG gas and the obsidian glass are non-toxic. That's really hard to believe. Better told, I think it is an outright lie. If you "burn" daily thousands of tons of waste, it necessarily contains kilograms of different heavy metals and other further nonbreakable (atomic) toxic or dangerous elements. The same amount of the toxins will necessarily remain on the output too. There is no way they could disappear. They do evaporate in the plasma, but the solidify back after cooling it down.

Furthermore, since there is no process in the device separating the resulting elements, they are all mixed together in the gas, in the cooling water, and in the obsidian-like stone, and hence they will necessarily chemically react and create possibly toxic molecules. Water need to be filtered (Startech claims it does not if the waste contains few heavy metals, but everything including plastics and practically any other material contains heavy metals), and the PCG gas needs to be filtered through carbon filters - that creates also a lot of quite toxic waste.

Startech claims that the obsidian-like byproduct is nontoxic and non-leachable, but in another article about Startech (quite positive) in Popular Science, the admit there are opponents of the technology pointing out the extreme toxicity of the obsidian byproduct and its water solubility and hence the danger of ground water contamination. And other experts warn about the chemical building of toxins in cooling plasma.

So yes, the technology seems to be better than landfills or traditional incineration, but still you should not expect from it any miracles and claiming that it turns sh!t into gold, or that the more waste the better. Also the final energy balance (including the energy needed for the production, distribution, and consumption the products creating the waste) will be always negative - if you know some basic physical laws, it is certainly clear enough. In other words, a better technology for compacting waste (and the plasma converter is not really much more than that) is certainly welcome, but is should be no excuse for unnecessary consumption and creation of waste!

[Jee]

Hi Kars!

you wrote:
"The latest hyped hysteria, is the one Al Gore is promoting: Global warming.
Science shows clearly that Co2 is only a fraction of a percent of the 'greenhousgasses', though mr Gore want us to feel guilty and hand over our freedom to the state to safe us from the unavoideble doom and gloom. "

I dont't agree with you about this question. I was following this question as a high priority problem in the last 7 years. My thought was always, that increasing greenhouse effect could be a really big problem. You now, how I'm into renewable energies. This is the main reason why. Now the international science community thinks, that 1. CO2 level rise causes significant (the main) increase of greenhouse effect, 2. this CO2 level raise is due to the industry - mostly the power generation, partly other industries, and partly using our cars, ships, airplanes. What we do now is mostly: dig out the burried carbon based, fossil energy storage stuff, then burn it, and use the energy of them. While this process the CO2 gets to the atmosphere. The measured level is far higher, than it was (according to old-old gas templates) a olong-long ago (from after the dinosaurs).

The work of CO2 is smple - increases greenhouse effect, and so raise the temperature. (changes the climate system - causes unknown storms, floods, othre unusual events /mostly these are not good/)
There are other factors lik methan (the gas). The situation is, that methan-hydrate, which is stored at the bottom of the seas, oceans, can be also released by a little rasie of the temp., so this can further boost the process.
Also changes of the climate at the trophical area can cause the rainforrsts to shrink - so the carbon stored in them could also get into the atmosphere, causing even more temperature rising.

I don't care what Bush says, I never really cared about. These are my thoughts, based on the information I got from several resources. Take in account, that I not only reads and watch the daily shows on TV and the daily papers (which can be the more easily manipulated).

Also - the groups you mention denied the whole effect, and the level of these effects until the last year! What caused them to change their mind? Easy: it is the profit. Until then it was worth to deny it, but now it is worth to say it. This is because of two reasons, I think: 1. the damage, what is caused, and what will be caused because of this effect is too high, and andangers their profit (and their power). 2. they probably invested some money into the industry, which can lower the effect (renewables), so they can make some profit even working against the global warming. May be there is a 3th factor: they somehow understood, that this could cause the total descrtuction of the systems working now (this is partly in 1).

What I think more: they didn't still realised the importance, and the level of this problem, so there will be big problems, big changes. There is not that much what we could do. I.e. I don't burn coal to heat my house, rather use gas (russian...), but making the insulation of our house, so less heating will be enough - less CO2 released - and of course cheaper. I don't use the car that offen, rather travelling by the local train, and by bicycle (it is also a good aerob training, good for dynamics, and diving ). I try to buy things, which need less energy to produce, to transfer. I will set up a solar collector, which will give us the warm water, and later perhaps could help with the heating also. I switch off the ciomputer, when I leave the office. These are small things, but many small things are summarized...

Jee