OT: Greenhouse gases (was Re: 42nd Known Mersenne Prime Found ...)

From: Bruce Stephens (bruce+usenet_at_cenderis.demon.co.uk)
Date: 02/28/05 

Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:07:37 +0000

Décio Luiz Gazzoni Filho <decio@decpp.removethis.net> writes:

[...]

> I don't contribute to the greenhouse effect -- my country runs
> mostly on hydroelectric power.

The former doesn't necessarily follow from the latter,
<http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18524884.100>:

    This is because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other
    plants are released when the reservoir is initially flooded and
    the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter
    settling on the reservoir's bottom decomposes without oxygen,
    resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is released
    into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam's turbines.

    [...]

    In effect man-made reservoirs convert carbon dioxide in the
    atmosphere into methane. This is significant because methane's
    effect on global warming is 21 times stronger than carbon
    dioxide's.

> Now, if only you people over there quit being afraid of the
> `nucular' boogeyman...

I'm not sure how that rates nowadays. I know once upon a time
electricity was going to be too cheap to meter. I wouldn't be at all
surprised to find that the emissions used to build, maintain, and
decommission nuclear power stations made it less attractive than
promoters claim. (I note recently that in the UK new energy efficient
domestic gas boilers have been criticised: it turns out that they're
less reliable than older ones, and it turns out that the energy
savings are outweighed by the energy used by extra visits by
repairmen.)

Not that this has anything to do with cryptography. My guess is that
looking for Mersenne primes is a pretty harmless activity in the
overall scheme of things.

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