by Rud Istvan and Planning Engineer
There are many journal articles, media stories, NGO papers, and blogs claiming solar already has, or soon will, reach general grid parity. Grid parity is when the cost of solar equals the cost of conventional electricity alternatives. It should also mean equal without subsidies like feed in tariffs (FiT), net metering, and tax credits.
Posted in Energy
by Judith Curry
One of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations. – Richard Horton
Posted in Ethics, Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
It’s nice to see that our ‘discredited’ theory doesn’t seem to go away. – Richard Lindzen
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks
by Rud Istvan
In 2001, MIT’s Professor Richard Lindzen and colleagues published a controversial paper titled “Does the Earth have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?” [1] If there were a tropical adaptive infrared iris, then Earth’s sensitivity to GHGs would be much less than the IPCC had supposed.
Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks
by Judith Curry
The main intellectual fault in all these cases is failing to be responsive to genuine empirical concerns, because doing so would make one’s political point weaker or undermine a cherished ideological perspective. – Heather Douglas
Posted in Ethics, Sociology of science
by Chip Knappenberger and Pat Michaels
Understand climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world. It’s now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East – President Obama
Posted in Climate change impacts
by Judith Curry
With this method the dangers of parental affection for a favorite theory can be circumvented. – T.C. Chamberlin
Posted in Scientific method
by Judith Curry
Do we have the resources (from, say, economics or ethics) to answer these sorts of questions?
by Judith Curry
When did the EPA become our Nation’s energy regulator? When did the EPA acquire both the statutory mandate from Congress and the required subject-matter expertise to do FERC’s and the States’ jobs? When did the EPA gain the expertise to determine the optimal and most reliable mix of coal and natural gas power plants? When did the EPA acquire the expertise to determine how much power can (or should) be reliably generated using wind farms and solar arrays? – Forbes
Posted in Policy
by Judith Curry
Psychologist Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia says that the most common and problematic bias in science is “motivated reasoning”: We interpret observations to fit a particular idea.
Posted in Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
If the objective is to change public opinion, then changing elite opinion is a necessary prerequisite. In fact, I would say necessary and sufficient. I don’t think you need to win a war on talk radio to have your impact on right-of-center opinion. – Jerry Taylor
by Planning Engineer and Rud Istvan
Wind turbines have become a familiar sight in many countries as a favorite CAGW mitigation means. Since at least 2010, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has been assuring NGOs and the public that wind would be cost competitive by now, all things considered. Many pro-wind organizations claim wind is cost competitive today. But is it?
Posted in Energy
by phlogiston a.k.a Phil Salmon
If one wishes to gain a “heads-up” as to imminent developments in ENSO and possible beginnings of an el Nino or La Nina event, I would advise turning to the Peruvian anchovy as an important but often overlooked oracle to the oceanography of the anchovy’s home ocean, the Pacific.
Posted in Oceans
by Planning Engineer
Some of the denizens have requested an introduction to transmission planning and a discussion of how the transmission system is impacted by renewable resources.
Posted in Energy
by Fred Haynie
I conclude that, the IPCC’s model assumptions that long-term natural net rate of accumulation is constant and anthropogenic emission rates are the only contributor to total long-term accumulation of atmospheric CO2, is false.
Posted in Data and observations
by Judith Curry
Does biased funding skew research in a preferred direction, one that supports an agency mission, policy or paradigm?
Posted in Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
Some interesting follow-up questions from the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology regarding my recent Congressional testimony.
Posted in Policy
