Brian,

In your last paragraph you have hit upon what seems to discredit the
Kyoto Protocol, and the Circuitree article, the most - the focus on
CO2 as the main "villian."  As has been stated in earlier postings,
there is poor correlation between CO2 and global warming.  Yes PFCs,
methane, etc. are known to be much worse and yet are not addressed.

These political comments are not helpful.  It will always be true in
democracies that people tend not to conserve as effectively as they
do when the price is high.  And of course a politician does not want
to be responsible for raising prices.

Each side (not sure there are just two sides in this case) should make
more of an effort not to talk past each other.  If those most against
increased CO2 would also support safe nuclear power (no CO2 produced)
then perhaps coal burning (worst environmental/health offender) could
be phased out more quickly.

Just some thoughts

Karl Sauter


> Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 17:26:09 +0200
> From: Brian Ellis <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [LF] Article from Circuitree
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Joe
> 
> I agree with what Nick says. In fact, most industrialised nations have
> signed and intend to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. That is, all except one.
> Why? a) because the legislators in that country are scared stiff that if
> they go for it, they will not be re-elected into Congress and b) because
> the present incumbent of the White House is part of a family business
> that is making its millions from fossil fuels, so why should he cut off
> his nose to spite his face?
> 
> What the legislators have not got the intelligence or courage to face is
> that the electors are a darned site more intelligent than they think.
> Especially those that live somewhere near the coast between Maine and
> Florida.
> 
> However, the important thing for us is, as the article says, to do our
> utmost to conserve energy by a more reasonable choice of processes and
> equipment. One point I would like to make is that we should not look at
> the peak consumption of a machine. We should look at the total working
> consumption. An example: let's imagine a washer requiring water at, say,
> 60 °C. It may have 10 kW of heating power but have power applied to the
> heaters for 60% of the time. Or, it may have 15 kW of power but be on
> for 35% of the time. In the first case, the actual consumption in one
> hour is 6 kWh, but in the second case, with the higher power heaters, it
> will be only 5.25 kWh. This happens a lot, especially on equipment with
> daily switch-on/off, as a fast heating time loses less energy during the
> heat-up period.
> 
> Another factor which we ignore in our industry is that the emissions of
> chemicals into the atmosphere may also contribute to climate change. In
> fact, most chemicals are much worse per kg emitted than CO2. The worst
> of the lot are PFCs and SF6, both of which are thousands (yes, several
> thousand) times worse than CO2. Happily, our industry is not a great
> emitter of SF6 but we are one of the main consumers of PFCs, used for
> vapour phase/condensation soldering, leak detection, semiconductor
> cooling, high voltage insulation and in co-solvent cleaning. A couple of
> kg of the stuff emitted is equivalent to all the CO2 a medium car will
> produce in all its lifetime. HFCs and HFEs are better: they have a
> Global Warming Potential (GWP) only 250 - 1500 times worse than CO2 and
> most other solvents we use in fluxes, inks, for cleaning, in conformal
> coating and so on have GWPs in the range of 30 - 300. Even methane
> (natural gas) has a GWP quoted variously between 40 and 60, so that
> dissolved organics in waste water and which decompose anaerobically from
> our processes are contributing. So, yes we can make a positive
> contribution in our industry not only be reducing energy consumption but
> also by reducing the emissions of chemicals to a minimum.
> 
> Just some thoughts
> 
> Brian
> 
> 
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