By Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler)
Do we care more about keeping CO2 emissions lower in just the western world, or do we want to reduce emissions worldwide?
Currently most of the western world is seeking collectively to reduce global CO2 emissions and achieve “net zero”. The fatal flaw is that the success of approach hinge on two premises:
- The western world will be able to greatly reduce their CO2 outputs through the use of wind, solar and other renewable resources.
- The western world will be able to inspire, convince, cajole or command other nations to do the same.
How will the west stop other nations from acquiring “affordable” power to improve their standard of living? What carrots and sticks might be employed? The World Bank attempts to exercise control through what types of development might be funded or not. The US Energy secretary recently said, “”(W)e want to get to net zero [emissions] by 2050. We are really pushing other countries to do the same… countries are susceptible to peer pressure because no nation wants to be the “outlier.”
Long term, the efficacy of these tools and approaches seems weak compared to the great pressures associated with providing for the health , safety and economic development of third world nations. It is at best tragically naïve to expect that China and third world nations will peacefully agree to be kept back long term by the CO2 goals and machinations of the western world.
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Countries that will likely rely on coal and diverge from the western approach have very large populations. There are over 1.4 billion people in China as well as in India. Will China support energy development in Africa? China is currently supporting various African nations in their efforts at modernization. Each of these three areas on their own have as large population as the US and Europe combined. While emissions from the US and Western Europe are shrinking, emissions from Asia are skyrocketing. India and Africa may just be starting a steep ramp upwards.
From the above chart ,several things are evident. If trends continue, the emission increases from Asia and Africa will dwarf any impacts from reductions in North America, Oceania and Europe. This will be the case even if North America, Oceania and Europe somehow all manage to get to net zero.
Consider that the western world is on a course towards more expensive electricity. If you understand that it will also likely result in greater unreliability, you see the emerging concerns as intensely magnified. Higher cost (and more unreliable) energy in the west will lead to a greater exodus of manufacturing, production, industry and emissions to developing countries. This seems highly likely as today as efforts to implement green technology rely upon resources and technology produced within China and third world nations with energy sources which are not as clean as what is being replaced.
Does it make sense to continue on a plan which calls not only for massive technological leaps, higher costs and reduced reliability for the participants, but also virtually ensures that that the developing world will go in a different direction? Or does it make more sense to consider plans that might be more effective globally, considering the most likely scenarios to play out worldwide?
A Better Scenario?
The numbers provided below were developed informally for illustration purposes. But rest assured that with a complex sophisticated computer model relying on a host of inputs, we could tweak the parameters to arrive at essentially the same results presented below.
Scenario A represents the forked future that will likely emerge if present strategies are continued. In Scenario B, the US strategy is to develop and improve affordable “cleaner” technology for use domestically and worldwide. The impact of this focus will be to raise C02 emissions in the US, but lower net emissions in China, India and Africa. Further, with lower cost differentials, less energy consumption will be exported to foreign manufacturers with higher emissions. US efforts that make marginal improvements toward moderately cleaner technology can potentially show far more sweeping impacts, than 100% reduction targets that are ignored by the third world. Below are the sample illustrative numbers.
Under these hypothetical alternative scenarios, one can see the possibility that the US may be more effective with focused goals that are less stringent. Our greatest strength may be as a leader in developing technology that works for us and the third world as well, rather than excelling in a path that others cannot and/or will not follow. To the extent that other developed nations also participate in developing affordable effective approaches, the potential results described above may be even more substantial.
Conclusion
Is it reasonable to expect that a coordinated single global approach requiring high cost zero emission technologies can work without enforcement from a central world government? Probably not. Self-interest works on both sides of world-trade. Consider that today cheap dirty third world resources support the manufacture of much of our “clean” technology. These trends are likely to persist and perhaps worsen. Increased development in China, Africa and India likely will work to insulate them from western pressure. A world with independent and broadly divergent power supply approaches will not be optimal.
In the end, do we care more about keeping CO2 emissions lower in just the western world, or do we want to reduce emissions worldwide? The “green solutions” that are being developed within the US, Oceania and Europe are showing themselves to be increasingly costly, cumbersome, complicated and unworkable. Because of the cost, complexity and challenges they cannot transform Africa, or support great improvements in India and China. The best strategy might be to seek out technologies that can support a balance between economics, reliability and social responsibility on a global basis.
One aspect of the problem is that a map of world wind speeds (or average wind energy) shows that there just isn’t much wind in Africa or most of Asia. The places best positioned to take advantage of wind power happen to be the rich parts of Western countries, such as coastal Western Europe, New England, and California, along with a strip through the central US.
The West is spending a fortune on wind projects that are ideally situated, economically, (ie. off the coast of Holland or Denmark where wind is very strong and relatively constant, and where everybody can afford expensive electricity). Trying to do the same in Africa would mean the same installed costs but probably a tenth the average power output, so the wind power for Nigerians would cost ten times more than what Belgians are paying. That simply won’t work out for anyone, whether investors or customers.
Wind is a bit of a boutique solution that doesn’t work for the bulk of the developing world, who live in relatively windless areas.
And then there’s major solar panel installations, which will likely just get stolen because they’re expensive, can be used at home, and situated in the middle of nowhere.
A correction and a comment…
• Scenario B does not increase our emissions, just reduces them more slowly.
• The case you make for the US to become the leader in reliable and affordable electricity/energy can be made for just about any physical infrastructure. The developing world will be building huge numbers of roads, bridges, airports, water treatment plants, and laying more pipe and conduits than ever before. We have forfeited these opportunities in the Third World to China. Sadly, it seems that we will also punt on electricity/energy. It is our economy that will suffer, and – along with our political infrastructure – the rest of our infrastructures will slide back toward Third World status.
Thanks for the clarification. Both scenarios of course have decreased emissions from today for the US. I should have been clearer that I was speaking of the proposed scenario B as having increased emissions over those “expected” for scenario A for the US.
There are over seven billion people living in nations that do not seem to care about Nut Zero. So the CO2 level will continue to increase. And that will be very good news.
Npw let me learn you some science. Perhaps you have been too busy planning and engineering to notice this (for which I expect to get a Nobel Prize nomination, or at least a Nobel Prize Participation Survey).
There was a period in the past, from about 5000 to 9000 years ago, that was called a climate optimum. Optimum means a great climate for humans. Even the IPCC admits that the Holocene Climate Optimum was at least +1 degree warmer than today.
The obvious lesson is that we need a +1 degree warming in the future to get to another climate optimum.
And that future optimum will be even better than the last optimum, because the CO2 level will be higher, so that means C3 plants will grow larger than in the old optimum.
Historical climate reconstructions tell us an optimum is good news and all we need is another +1 degree of global warming to reach another climate optimum.
And that is exactly the opposite of what the smarmy IPCC claims.
They claim another +1 degree of global warming in the future would be a climate emergency, not another climate optimum.
That IPCC prediction is complete nonsense — they contradict themselves — and that is the only fact you need to know about the IPCCs modern climate junk science, which is all fluxed up, to use a more scientific term than forked.
Good points. However:
5000 to 9000 years ago saw four temperature peaks (though not all four were quite peaks), with in between cooling periods. The cooling periods correspond to the Eddy cycle roots. From the historical perspective those roots were terrible. The four roots that follow till the LIA were not as bad.
From the perspective of an electrical grid, that did not matter much. Electricity was unknown up to around 1890. Then again the peaks were time where change begins to take place. However this time the change may be very different.
If nature takes its way at the next peak, then the target for humanity is a very different one from any that are being discussed.
Quote “Historical climate reconstructions tell us an optimum is good news–“. It has been good getting to the ‘optimum’ but bad when we got there.
Your conclusions about Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO) temperature peaks atre mere speculation. One specific local HCO proxy may have four peaks, but when averages of local HCO proxies are used to create an artificial estimated global average, the local temperature peaks and troughs get smoothed to within a +/- 0.5 C. range. That range is almost certainly within the margin of error of these rough HCO approximations.
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/32197#:~:text=Holocene%20Climatic%20Optimum%20%7C%20Encyclopedia%20MDPI&text=The%20Holocene%20Climate%20Optimum%20(HCO,maximum%20around%208000%20years%20BP.
I’m very confident the global average climate was not steady from 5000 to 9000 years ago, but the claim of four peaks in some artificial “global average” is just speculation that can nogt be proven by averaging local proxies and claiming the result is a global average proxy..
There is also speculation in claiming the HCO was at least +1 degree C. warmer than today. I only mention that claim because the IPCC seems to believe it.
In my opinion, local sea level proxies for the HCO period suggest the average climate was likely to be warmer than today, but “suggests” is not the same as accurate real time measurements.
My only point was that the IPCC says the HCO was a little warmer today, but they do not claim getting back to the same warmer than today average temperature would be another climate optimum. They say just the opposite: The IPCC claims a +1 degree C. warmer than today average temperature would be a climate emergency. That is an example of the IPCC contradicting themselves.
The temperature peaks between 7000bce and 3000bce are in an early record of the temperature anomaly based on oxygen isotope from polar and equatorial ice. They were the first lead in explaining what was being found (in my own research) in the historical record. That was before the Eddy cycle came to the fore at this site some years ago.
To make it short, pls see link below, last graphic:
https://melitamegalithic.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/searching-evidence-update-2/
See the five black dots and how they fitted on the Eddy cycle roots. The geological/historical record is more telling in those early millennia. The data has since been corroborated by several other proxy sources. What is evident there is a near millennial cycle between warmer and cooler, and all part of the inter-glacial stage. A good glimpse of the matter can be seen here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/predictability-past-warm-periods-renee-hannon/
The 8k2 kyr event is the first of the black dots.
As regards the IPCC and CO2 matter, I’m not disagreeing; I just think we are missing the woods for the trees.
Why do you pointedly omit nuclear is a CO2 emission-free energy option if lowering CO2 emissions is the objective, if having plentiful and reliable energy is essential to the existence of modern economies (it is) and if have minimizing direct and indirect environmental impacts of power generation is also an important goal (it should be).
Trying the “one bite at a time” approach to the wind and solar challenge. There are many factors deserving of attention. Putting them all on the plate at one time can provide distraction.
Nuclear likely should be part of serious multifaceted discussions. See this in support of nuclear options. https://judithcurry.com/2023/02/09/net-zero-or-good-enough/
The U.K. has come to their senses somewhat. The chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt has declared nuclear to be ‘green’. Hunt stated the obvious facts that “…because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, we will need another critical source of cheap and reliable energy. And that is nuclear.” Meanwhile we have been twiddling our thumbs in the U.S. for the last 40+ years, throwing every possible roadblock in the way of nuclear to make it too economically risky for utilities to attempt to build nuclear plants. Nuclear is unequivocally the cleanest and safest form of large-scale power generation man has ever invented with zero CO2 emissions. The cause and effect relationship between CO2 and warming is still poorly understood. Which is cause and which is effect? It depends on how you look at historical reconstructions of proxy estimates of CO2 concentrations and temperature. The era of accurate measurements is too short to
As Stephen Browne states nuclear is emissions free which is not something that can be said about either solar or wind (even if one or both were fit to provide essential baseload which of course they are not).
If the emissions target is so essential to “saving the planet” then our politicians at global and local level are plainly stupid and unfit for office because they are speeding up the emissions race through wind and solar (not slowing it down) to no good purpose at all. The northen hemisphere states need to make nuclear and gas their essential generating kit with coal as a back-up until we have a better and more stable provision and a suitable grid to support demand.
In the meantime China/India can reduce their emissions since they will no longer be wasting material and energy (plus child labour) on solar or wind and can concentrate on something much more useful.instead – improving the efficency of ICEs still further perhaps and looking at better electric vehicles for public transport and freight without batteries (trams, trolley buses etc).
“From the above chart ,several things are evident. If trends continue, the emission increases from Asia and Africa will dwarf any impacts from reductions in North America, Oceania and Europe. This will be the case even if North America, Oceania and Europe somehow all manage to get to net zero.”
The chart supports a number of unpopular thoughts. Unnecessary use of the word “and” concedes the point.
Here’s a solution that probably will not happen.
It is possible to build a plug and play world-wide electric grid. The technology exits. It’s called High Voltage DC (HVDC). It’s been around for a while.
What that allows you to do is to locate renewals where it makes sense. Solar at the equator, wind offshore, etc. Then it’s just a matter of coming up with a transfer price scheme.
The cost of such a system will be high. It means all nations will have to cooperate — and therein lies the rub. In the US we can’t even get the states to cooperate. We have an ad hoc national grid which really isn’t a national grid. Sometimes central control and planning is a good thing.
JJB’s comment “Sometimes central control and planning is a good thing.”
JJB – Central planning can work when it is done by people that know what they are doing. However, climate activists adore people such mark jacobson who have virtually zero expertise. Which raises the rhetorical questions
1 – how can someone be an expert in something they have never done
2) how can someone possess the superior intellectual capacity to understand the complexities of climate science when they are so easily fooled by the likes of mark jacobson
Confused. HVDC is more economical than AC transmission for very high power levels from one point (James Bay) to another point (US NorthEast). It is not magical transmission, just more economical at very large scale. There is still a huge cost to transmit power, the high cost of power lines from the wind fields of west Texas to the population in the east that cannot be avoided by DC transmission. Unless all the power is in one place and all the people are in another it doesn’t solve the problem. Building expensive power lines to everybody everywhere is still expensive, DC or not.
No. Not plug and Play. The HVDC ties do not support the grid so much as they depend on strong systems to allow HVDC inter area transfers. The system(s) need to be strong and robust enough (usually with back up paths and back up remedial actions) to allow for contingencies on the DC line. (Unless the transfer levels are small). I spent a lot of time doing contingency arming studies to enable the operation of the IPP HVDC line which transfers power from Delta Utah to LA.
HVDC technologies are complex; they are not plug‐and‐play and can lead to unexpected control interactions. Understanding these potential system impacts will be needed to support their integration. For example, in the event of a component failure, AC technologies have an on and off state, whereas DC technologies have many in‐between states. Demonstration and testing of new technologies in combination with control strategies will also be very important.
Excerpt From: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/11/f27/Applications%20of%20HVDC%20Technologies%20-%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf
I’m not an EE or a power distribution expert. I will share the article I read about a world-wide grid.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/lets-build-a-global-power-grid
The first sentence after the title has some warning words:
With a little DC wizardry and a lot of cash, we could swap power across continents.
Just around the cornerism at a high level.
PE / Russell & Chris
Whats the behind the scenes/ professional / industry scuttle talk regarding the author of the global electric article “Clark Gellings “
Joe – I gather you mean me as the Chris.
No-one I know has heard of him, but that is not unexpected for us out in the wop wops.
However, as PE has noted, there is a lot more to having a DC intertie than just a couple of cables and switchyards. You need a massive AC grid to take power to and from the switchyard. Then you need all the extra generation built in the exporter. Plus you need reserves and backup generation in the importer.
I would observe that almost all importers of power through DC interties have very high power unit prices. So cheap energy would be a relative term. Easier to move the high energy users to the exporters or cheaper areas than pay for the extra transmission. Why Australia exports bauxite. Isn’t one of the drivers of industry out of California the power price?
A world wide grid is another id ee ot ic idea that will cost a small fortune and probably hurt the poor. At some point the rich will just say “tough luck,” I’m not giving away any more of my dwindling (in their eyes”) resources.
If there were a real need for it, it might be different. But it’s being suggested to solve a problem that’s little more than a fantasy, read from the digital chicken bones cast by the High Priests of the Voo Doo Climate Doomers.
Poor people are likewise forked.
Survey data showed that LEDs are more popular in higher-income households, which points to the fact that lower-income Americans will be more greatly impacted by the new regulations. The data showed that 54% of households that earn more than $100,000 per year use LEDs, while only 39% of households with an income under $20,000 use them.
According to the DOE, the new regulations will save consumers around $3 billion per year on utility bill and carbon emissions will be cut by over 220 million metric tons over the next three decades.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm last year claimed that the lighting industry has already been embracing the more energy efficient products, and that the new regulations will help accelerate the process.
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/biden-administrations-lightbulb-ban/
So our attempts to mitigate global warming will fail. 1.5C, 2C and in due course 3C are inevitable.
Yes, and agricultural yields will increase substantially so food will be cheaper and fewer people will starve. All good.
Most people seem to be confused between weather (what is happening now) and climate (the 30 year average of weather).
Most green plants respond positively to increased concentrations of CO2, commercial greenhouses use 2-3 times ambient for increased production, more food production and greening of the earth.
Carbon is a element, carbon dioxide is a compound and is a clear invisible gas that freezes at -78.6 degrees C.
The roughly 2.5 billion people in developing countries who will get electricity over the next 2 decades is what is driving emissions growth. Nothing the US does will stop worldwide emissions growth.
I was thinking of a team of electrical engineers who are power distribution experts.
Global cooperation is a pipe dream and unilateral obesence to the DC/Eurocommies’ Hot World doomsday religion is economic suicide.
I never said that HVDC was going to be cheap.
Our grid is old and decrepit. After over 100 years, it’s time for a redesign. I think the infrastructure law had money for electrical infrastructure but it parcels it out to the states. Patching the current grid is not what we need to compete in the 21st century.
I read that our grid has an efficiency of 33%. That means 2/3 of the energy we use to generate electricity goes to heating the atmosphere. Other countries achieve 2 – 2 1/2 Xs our efficiency. We should be able to do much better than we do now with a redesign.
No, the grid is greater than 90% efficient. I expect you read about the efficiency of power sources connected to the grid; coal, gas, nuclear. They are collectively about 33% efficient…some as high as 60% or so. That is the laws of thermodynamics at play. Wind and solar are not very efficient by that metric either. Wind about 30-40% and solar can only dream of 30-40%.
And for those who may get confused, thermodynamic efficiency is NOT the same thing as capacity factor.
Everything about the “green” energy movement is more expensive than existing elements. It’s a dumb, very expensive idea(s).
“I read that our grid has an efficiency of 33%.” Making statements like that JJB shows you are just an airhead spouting platitudes and teeshirt slogans. You do not understand what you write about, which calls into question all of your posts.
If one defines the grid as from the generator terminals to the distribution buses, it is about 93% efficient when run near rating. About 4% in the transformers and 3% line losses. A lot depends on the loadings. Changing the loading significantly changes the losses. As a percentage, light loading is the worst.
There is a major (1200MW) 400 mile DC linkage here that I can see the operational data for. Note in this situation, it can’t be replaced by AC lines as a significant proportion is underwater cables. The losses there vary with load, but at the 50-70% loading, it appears the DC component losses from AC grid in to AC grid out are around 7-8%. There are also losses in the AC switchyard left out of the numbers above from running syncons and harmonic filters.
So at best, the DC line is 4-5% worse.
Isn’t climate change a political issue? Meaning the “I” in IPCC denotes “Inter-governmental”. I think about 18 pages of most assessment reports were addressed as “Notes for policy makers” or words to that effect. Should we not have scrubbed the science part at the beginning?
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China emits over three times as much CO2 as the US and is continuing to build coal fired plants at breakneck speed. The Paris accord requires the US and Europe to spend enormous ammounts of capital to reduce CO2 emmissions while also transferring capital to developing economies to offset their efforts. Given that many of these countries are corrupt, you can imagine where that money will go. While there have been some exciting scientific developments related to understanding Earths Atmospheric and Oceanic circulatory systems, the whole “Climate Change” agenda is politically driven. The questions are-by whom? and to what agenda?
Planning Engineer: Since about 50% of current emissions is being taken up by sinks, all we really need to do is cut emissions by 50% to stabilize the level of CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE (and radiative forcing). I’m wondering if the unspoken plan is to get close to a 50% cut in emissions using 1) Net-Zero emissions in the US and EU, 2) some decline in emissions from China and business as usual in developing countries.
FWIW, I think the quickest way for any leader in the less developed world to commit political suicide would be to tell his people they can’t follow China’s high emissions path to relative prosperity because of climate change. If you hope your children and grandchildren can be much richer that your generation if you focus on economic growth, then it makes sense to let your richer descendant pay the cost of adapting to climate change.
“Planning Engineer: Since about 50% of current emissions is being taken up by sinks, all we really need to do is cut emissions by 50% to stabilize the level of CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE”
Okay, you get pardoned for posting while drunk
You just said cut world GDP in half
GDP and n manmade CO2 emissions have a strong positive correlation. To cut manmade CO2 emissions in half, global GDP would (approximately) have to be cut in half, No can do.
No, he’s not saying that.
GDP correlates with energy production. Right now, CO2 emissions are a good proxy for energy production. If energy production comes from other sources, you can cut back on CO2 emissions and not impact GDP.
I note that Mr. Broccoli responded with his usual green dreaming. About 80% of primary global energy is from hydrocarbon fuels, That percentage is almost identical to 10 years ago. It will be similar to 10 years from now. Over 7 billion of the world’s 8 billion people live in nations that could not care less about Nut Zero, Mr. Broccoli. And the list of nations that include those over 7 billion people, also include all the nations with the highest birth rates.
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Resveratrol! Latest home remedy, recommended for those suffering brain fog caused by the floccinaucinihilipilification of academia’s quack-docs and DC/Eurocommies preaching modernity-caused Hot World Atmospheric-CO2 Catastrophism!
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This is what passes for “making sense” nowadays.
Soon the sheikh handed the job of running the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., the world’s 12th-largest producer of oil and gas, to an Emirati renewables executive named Sultan Al Jaber. The move seemed to signal a shift in a country sitting atop about $9 trillion in untapped oil. The extraordinary wealth generated by Adnoc has filled a sparsely populated desert with gleaming cityscapes, lush golf courses and giant airports over just a few decades. It was to be entrusted to someone who’d spent much of his career making investments in renewable energy and trying without success to build a zero-carbon city in the desert. The mission: Figuring out how to sell energy indefinitely, even if that means doing so—at some point—without planet-warming emissions.
Now Al Jaber has been picked again to solve a similarly vexing puzzle. The Adnoc chief is organizing COP28, the crucial United Nations climate summit, which will bring heads of state, diplomats, activists and business leaders from each of the world’s nearly 200 nations to Dubai at the end of November. It will fall to him to guide hostile factions to consensus.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-03/uae-s-top-oil-executive-has-a-plan-to-fix-cop28
Off topic, but for anyone such as Frank who still has any faith in our elites, this long piece says out the greatest hoax of the century that is still going on incidently.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation
\b
For more than half a century, McCarthyism stood as a defining chapter in the worldview of American liberals: a warning about the dangerous allure of blacklists, witch hunts, and demagogues.
Until 2017, that is, when another list of alleged Russian agents roiled the American press and political class. A new outfit called Hamilton 68 claimed to have discovered hundreds of Russian-affiliated accounts that had infiltrated Twitter to sow chaos and help Donald Trump win the election. Russia stood accused of hacking social media platforms, the new centers of power, and using them to covertly direct events inside the United States.
None of it was true. After reviewing Hamilton 68’s secret list, Twitter’s safety officer, Yoel Roth, privately admitted that his company was allowing “real people” to be “unilaterally labeled Russian stooges without evidence or recourse.”
</b
The technology has been around for a while. There are already large projects in China and India and, to a much lesser extent, the US.
Obstacles are the cost which is going to be astronomical and the politics.
Several notes:
1) The West no longer is the majority of world GDP. G7 percentage of world GDP has fallen from 61% in 1991 to 31% in 2021 to ever lower, each ongoing year. The notion that the West can starve the ROW of capital needed to develop any form of energy infrastructure is deluded, to say the least.
2) The dichotomy of 3rd world/China energy development vs. Western “clean” energy is problematic. China burns the most coal but also installs the most wind and the most solar PV. China is obviously on an “all of the above” energy tactical scheme.
However, China is also on record saying they will build 160+ nuclear power plants in the next 25-30 years. There is very little reason to believe this won’t happen – so the net result may well be China having a lower emissions profile than Western countries in 2040.
We all know it is impossible for China, India or the Rest of the World to have the same economies and standards of living as the West enjoys today due to the sheer lack of energy and commodities; however, it is also very unclear if the outcome is the West maintaining its luxury with the ROW stalling out – or if the ROW improves significantly with the West’s standard of living falling, or even the ROW exceeding the West’s future standard of living by continuing to improve productivity and infrastructure while the West rots in a stew of equity and what not.
Carbon dioxide can have nothing but a minuscule COOLING effect according to the correct physics in the five papers at https://ssrn.com/author=2627605 which nobody has ever proved wrong, because it is based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Learn why carbon dioxide does not warm you:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4386467
If you look at the graph above, I say the weather indicates the sun is in a cooling stage. That means the earth is losing more heat to the black sky than it retains from the sun. The oceans are dropping.
Nature is flashing water from the oceans, freezing it in the upper atmosphere. Nature then sends it back to earth, it melts the ice, adding heat to the earth.
The Ice Blocks are breaking off, melting, keeping a relatively constant average surface temperature and the oceans drop a little. reflecting less heat to the black sky.
The CO2 shows more green foliage
“If you look at the graph above, I say the weather indicates the sun is in a cooling stage. That means the earth is losing more heat to the black sky than it retains from the sun. The oceans are dropping.”
No, it doesn’t. The earth is gaining heat due to CO2 and the greenhouse effect.
“Nature is flashing water from the oceans, freezing it in the upper atmosphere. Nature then sends it back to earth, it melts the ice, adding heat to the earth.”
This isn’t right either. It takes heat to evaporate water. The same amount of heat is returned when water condenses in the atmosphere. Net impact is zero. It neither adds nor subtracts heat from the earth.
“The Ice Blocks are breaking off, melting, keeping a relatively constant average surface temperature and the oceans drop a little. reflecting less heat to the black sky.
The CO2 shows more green foliage”
I’d comment, but I don’t know what this means.
1 you have to understand radiant heat transfer.
2 you have to understand understand the defination of the word flashing.
3. when ice melts it is called water
The wife calls me an idiot. I GUESS SHE IS CORRECT!!!!!
Dude, the climate greenhouse effect doesn’t *gain* heat.
If I look at a 0-degree farenheight molecule of CO2 in the upper atmosphere it is radiating heat to absolute zero, Outer Space. It is also receiving heat radiated from the earth, which is an average surface temperature of 68-degree farenheight.
How does GREEHOUSE affect say that is incorrect?
It doesn’t. What it does say is that CO2 radiates energy in all directions. About half the energy it radiates is radiated into space and the other half is directed toward the earth.
Robert David Clark wrote:
If I look at a 0-degree farenheight molecule of CO2 in the upper atmosphere it is radiating heat to absolute zero, Outer Spac2….
No Robert.
It radiates heat. For a large collection of such molecules, the radiation goes in all directions. Sometimes down, sometimes up, sometimes to the side.
(The nonvertical emissions cancel by symmetry.)
Net result is heat (IR) going down and up.
“How will the west stop other nations from acquiring “affordable” power to improve their standard of living?”
–
Good question! It says everything…
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Dude, I didn’t say the climate greenhouse effect gains heat. I said the earth does. I should have used the term energy.
Dude, you are so stupid, it burns.
The earth does *not* gain heat from climate greenhouse effect.
It loses heat more slowly.
Real numbers: today India emits ~ 5x less CO2 than China.
Scenario A & B for India: scare stuff (IPCC) to keep Indians in energy poverty by unleasing Western criticism on them for something that they haven’t done.
No criticism of India here. Their need to reduce poverty by economic development with affordable energy should be respected. Unless massive funds come from elsewhere net zero is not in their national interest.
Let’s get cracking on developing batteries that store energy from November until April, because that’s how long snow cover could last in the 50s, 60s and 70s. We do have geniuses in our midsts, however, so no problem.
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Solar-panels-covered-with-snow-1.png?ssl=1
There is this little known technology called the electric heater that might solve the problem.
In the 90s Cadillac marketed vehicles with transparent electric heated windshields. I’m pretty sure that technology would work for solar panels.
jjb – where are those solar panels going to get their electricity for those heated windshields when the snow covers the panels. Snow typically falls when the sun doesnt shine – something about those clouds where the snow is falling from.
snow also tends to fall during the winter which is when those solar panels only have 4-5 hours to generate electricity during a 24 hour day.
From wind turbines.
My quick calcs indicate that to melt the snow would take more energy than the cells could produce. That means the cells would be a net load on the grid, just like wind turbines that have to keep their rotors turning in calm weather to stop the bearings brinelling.
Chris Morris | April 7, 2023 at 2:18 pm |
My quick calcs indicate that to melt the snow would take more energy than the cells could produce.
Actually understanding engineering or the basic sciences is not the forte of JJB or DA
Joe – the non climate scientist wrote:
jjb – where are those solar panels going to get their electricity for those heated windshields when the snow covers the panels
Either the owner cleans them off or they clean themselves.
Not rocket science.
Joe – the non climate scientist wrote:
Actually understanding engineering or the basic sciences is not the forte of JJB or DA
I’m glad to see you are into my responses here, that I’m always on your mind.
Victory.
Thanks
I see you are back giving us your wisdom DA and like you say, yours definitely isn’t rocket science or probably any science at all.
The problem with dirty or obscured solar panels is a major issue to performance. Even a thin film of plastic or extra glass degrades them. At some desert sites, they have proposed using tonnes of precious water to do that. Many of the panels are elevated so no easy access. The actual comment which initiated it (and you seemed not to read), was using electric heaters to remove snow.
JJB, who comes from the same branch of science as you, has now suggested using wind turbines that also ice up and stop (remember the Texas storm) to generate the electricity to melt the snow on solar panels. It definitely looks like he hasn’t put any logic or even basic maths into his brainstorming thoughts. It is the simple practical aspects, which aren’t rocket science, that consign many harebrained ideas like his suggestions to the round bin.
I see you don’t understand the concept of sarcasm.
Oh! Horrors! Snow on solar panels! The whole concept of solar panels must be abandoned immediately! We’ll keep burning fossil fuels forever because there aren’t any problems with that! Really? It’s an idiotic argument and deserves ridicule.
Engineers will figure it out because that’s what they get paid for. Is it going to snow all over the country? We are going to have to make major changes to our electrical infrastructure to accommodate renewables. If one part of the country is having a problem, the rest of the country picks up the slack.
What? You aren’t capable of figuring that out? Why am I not surprised?
Chris – Below is a typical comment from Skeptical science which is a good example of your point – ie the lack of basic logic and math & basic understanding of engineering which pervades the advocates mind.
michael sweet at 05:25 AM on 10 April, 2023
“This article from CleanTechnica.com describes how the North East Power system (PJM) is making gas power plants repay funds that were given to them to provide “reliable power”. In December 2022 Winter storm Elliott took out up to 23% of “always on” gas generators. Meanwhile, wind generators provided over two times their promised electricity. ”
The key deception and misunderstanding is “wind Generators provided two times their promised electricity”
Omitted is the promised level of wind was 1/4 of the average level of electric generation from wind.
David Appell | April 8, 2023 at 8:54 pm |
Joe – the non climate scientist wrote:
jjb – where are those solar panels going to get their electricity for those heated windshields when the snow covers the panels
Either the owner cleans them off or they clean themselves.
Not rocket science.
Appel – “let the owner clean them ” So you are proposing using more energy to clean the snow than the solar panels produce .
Thats good efficient use of energy.
Appelman – “let them clean themselves ” – So you realize thats one one of the reasons solar panels produce less than 9% of capacity during the winter.
From solar panels, or wind turbines, or nuclear reactors located in other areas of country. That’s why we need a real national grid.
JJB’s response to the question as to where those solar panels will get their electricity to clean the snow off the solar panels. –
JJBraccili | April 7, 2023 at 11:10 am |
“From wind turbines.”
JJB – curious if you ever looked at the real time raw data as to the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines during the winter at various times of day?
Go to EIA.gov for electric generation by source. You might be surprised how seriously flawed your comment is.
Ditto for Appel’s comment – “Either the owner cleans them off or they clean themselves.”
JJB Engineers have a very good sense of sarcasm. They develop it from having to deal with stupid suggestions from people who don’t understand what they are talking about.
That’s called projection.
JJBraccili | April 9, 2023 at 4:42 pm |
I see you don’t understand the concept of sarcasm.
Oh! Horrors! Snow on solar panels! The whole concept of solar panels must be abandoned immediately! We’ll keep burning fossil fuels forever because there aren’t any problems with that! Really? It’s an idiotic argument and deserves ridicule.”
JJB – what needs ridicule is the embracement of a much less efficient source of energy and the delusional belief that the inherent limitations of such a less efficient source of energy can be solved via smart engineers.
Another idiotic comment!
The ICE converts about 20 – 25% of the available energy from combustion to work. The rest is used to heat the atmosphere. Its efficiency is not much better than solar panels. Solar energy is free. It takes less manpower to produce electricity from solar energy. That is why, with economies of scale, solar energy is going to be much cheaper than fossil fuels.
You make it sound like there was never any problems with producing fossil fuels. We began using oil to produce kerosene in the late 19th century. Gasoline was a nuisance. It was burned at the refinery.
In the early 20th century, with the rise of the automobile, the demand for gasoline surpassed kerosene. The problem was how to produce more gasoline. The solution was cracker technology that cracked long chain hydrocarbon into short chain hydrocarbons suitable for fossil fuels.
With the massive increase in fossil fuel utilization, atmospheric pollution became a significant problem in the 1960s and 70s. NOx emissions were responsible for smog. Sulfur emissions were responsible for acid rain. Hydrocarbon emissions contained carcinogens. To solve the sulfur problem, sulfur free fuels were produced. Catalytic converters were added to automobiles to solve the NOx and hydrocarbon emission problems, and to convert CO to CO2.
The catalyst in catalytic converters is poisoned with even trace amounts of lead. Tetraethyllead was added to gasoline for decades to prevent damaging engine pinging. That had to be removed. Engine pinging became a problem. To solve that problem, ARCO invented the MTBE additive. It is water soluble. It turns out that buried tanks under gasoline stations leak. The MTBE got into the ground water and contaminated drinking water. MTBE is a carcinogen. That was the end of the use of MTBE, but other compounds that weren’t a problem were found to replace it.
The point of this story is that oil has had its problems and one by one each was solved. Same will be true for solar panels or any other renewable source of energy.
Even if we didn’t have a CO2 problem, renewables are inevitable. Oil is a finite resource. Eventually, we will exhaust our supply. Renewables will replace oil no matter what. Fossil fuels aren’t the only use for oil. Oil is an important supplier of chemicals, lubricants, and asphalt. By getting rid of fossil fuels, the life of oil can be extended. That means oil will be preserved for the future production of vital products which are not fossil fuels.
“That’s called projection.” Are you certain it isn’t another sarcastic comment.
Not in your case.
JJ Hollwood: “I see you don’t understand the concept of sarcasm…Oh! Horrors!…We’ll keep burning fossil fuels forever because there aren’t any problems with that!”
Sarcasm? Even after you’ve peer reviewed it, you’ll never get a leading role reciting from a tear stained, dog-eared woke script, JJ.
Another word salad that contributes nothing.
BTW “woke” is the new conservative “states-rights” dog whistle.
Woke is what is wrong in many people’s views.
Examples transsexuals playing in women’s sports. Excessive fear of AGW
Another woke “cliche from Hollywood. Conservatives use bullhorns, not “dog whistles”, to profess the founding principle behind states rights. Separation of powers, ya know, not something you’re interested in. It’s expected that sycophants such as yourself will only recite from the woke manifesto, nothing new
Woke is a JOKE!!
Another clueless conservative who doesn’t understand the history of the term “states rights.”
Conservatism is a collection of bad ideas that are continually recycled and rebranded. Woke” is the latest iteration of this. It’s right out of the 60s playbook. Point to black and brown people, transgender and LGBTQ people and scream there what’s wrong with America. Then pass laws that discriminate against these people claiming you’re protecting America. For good measure, start banning books.
“Woke” is falling flat. It’s not getting any traction. It’s not distracting the public from issues like abortion, guns, and climate change. The GOP has nothing to offer the average American. They’ve stopped pretending that they have any policies for the average American.
This isn’t the 1960s and trying to stir up animus toward minorities doesn’t work anywhere near as well. That’s why conservatives are playing footsies with fascism. They are on the road to becoming a permanent minority party. They are attempting to find a way for the minority to dictate to the majority.
JJBraccili | April 10, 2023 at 8:41 pm |
Woke is a JOKE!!
Another clueless conservative who doesn’t understand the history of the term “states rights.”
JJB – this is science blog – Its not place to rant about your political delusions.
Please comment appropriately. .
I didn’t start it. Go complain to the poster who did. You aren’t posting this nonsense to me because the poster you should be correcting supports your positions, are you? Why of course not. What was I thinking?
I don’t take direction from you. If you don’t like what I post, don’t read it.
Sometimes the truth hurts
“ Man In Critical Condition After Hearing Slightly Differing Viewpoint”
https://babylonbee.com/news/man-in-critical-condition-after-hearing-slightly-differing-viewpoint
Re: wind solar or nuclear in other parts of the country
Again, your stupid shows.
Do 5 minutes of research on “transmission losses”.
Then do another 5 minutes of research on “costs to build transmission”.
This is yet another example of your utter lack of contact with anything approaching reality involving the costs of climate mitigation.
Hey genius,
Ever hear of HVDC or UHVDC. Go look it up.
You are aware that we now have an eastern grid and a western grid, and a kind of, sort of national grid. If we are going to do renewables — we are — we are going to have to overall our antiquated grids and build a national super grid. It’s long overdue.
JJBraccili | April 12, 2023 at 11:21 am |
Hey genius,
Ever hear of HVDC or UHVDC. Go look it up.
You are aware that we now have an eastern grid and a western grid, and a kind of, sort of national grid. If we are going to do renewables — we are — we are going to have to overall our antiquated grids and build a national super grid. It’s long overdue.”
“Mr . smarter than everyone else JJB ”
National grid for renewables – I would presume you are aware the typical wind doldrums that 3-10 days a month are generally continental scale – rarely localized over a small portion of continent.
Tell us where the electricity is going to come from when the entire continent lacks wind – oops from those solar panels at night
Debbie Downer,
Renewables are here to stay. Engineers will figure it out because that’s what they do. Maybe, the answer is nuclear or fuel cells or ?. I saw a paper where it was proposed that anhydrous ammonia could be used to store energy from renewables for the grid. It doesn’t have the downside of batteries but has a few of its own.
“ Engineers will figure it out because that’s what they do.”
Engineers are engineers, not miracle workers. The northern half of the US has darkness for nearly half the day for nearly half the year. Even some of the time when the sun is up it’s not producing significant energy. That doesn’t even count the cloudy days or snowing days.
The peak sun hours are correlated to the peak wind hours. And that doesn’t count when the wind is down for days on end.
It’s a pipe dream to think the sun and wind can overcome the inherent intermittency problems that have been enumerated countless times.
Wishin’ and hopin’ won’t get the job done.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/56/1/full-jamc-d-16-0175.1-f10.jpg
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Prannoy-Suraneni/publication/350873177/figure/fig1/AS:1012724280606722@1618463692588/Average-annual-snowfall-map-of-the-contiguous-US-from-US-National-Oceanic-and-Atmospheric.png
So what? You think we should do nothing and burn fossil fuels forever? I have news for you, oil is a finite resource. Eventually we are going to have to switch to a different source of energy. Renewables are the future whether you like it or not.
All the problems you see as insurmountable are anything but. Engineers will figure it out.
I see you are back to your stupid statements again JJ “ Engineers will figure it out because that’s what they do.” “Engineers will figure it out”
How are fusion reactors getting on?
“How are fusion reactors getting on?”
Pretty good!
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nuclear-fusion-reaction-us-announcement-12-13-22/index.html
You should do something about that foot-in-mouth disease you suffer from. That foot might wind up permanently stuck in your mouth. You might try not putting your ignorance on full display.
With the amount of publicity it got, everyone knew about the experiment. They flooded the press but left out a lot of details. It was energy gain only because they looked at the energy produced compared to the energy the laser put in. How much energy to charge up the laser and the process equipment? The overall process was still energy shortfall.
Following on, if you think that one experiment (which has taken about 40 years to get to here) will lead to a viable fusion reactor providing grid power within the next ten or even twenty years, you have no knowledge of the process or the technology needed. It could even be called total ignorance.
LMAO!!!
What happened is a big deal!! This is how technology advances. One step at a time. Does this guarantee ultimate success? No, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Eveyrbody knew about the experiment? Did you forget? Maybe, you’re in the early stages of dementia. That would explain a lot. You should get checked out.
BTW equating the problems with nuclear fusion to a power distribution problem is idiotic.
To quote from sciencenews article on it that is a lot less breathless than the press release you trumpeted. “But this latest fusion burst still didn’t produce enough energy to run the laser power supplies and other systems of the NIF experiment. It took about 300 million joules of energy from the electrical grid to get a hundredth of the energy back in fusion. “The net energy gain is with respect to the energy in the light that was shined on the target, not with respect to the energy that went into making that light,” says University of Rochester physicist Riccardo Betti, who was also not involved with the research. “Now it’s up to the scientists and engineers to see if we can turn these physics principles into useful energy.”
So the press release from NIF scientists left out salient info and it is still a giant lab experiment that has a long way to go before being “useful”. It looked an impressive amount of energy produced but it wasn’t. Not enough to boil a household kettle dry. There is a long way to go from having controllable heat to reliable grid electricity.
Joie – not a scientist wrote:
JJB – curious if you ever looked at the real time raw data as to the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines during the winter at various times of day?
06 e
Here is the wind energy produced nationwide from Oct 2021 to Sept 2022 (my spreadsheet is a little out of data, but doesn’t matter), in Quads BTU:
Oct-2021 0.284878
Nov-2021 0.316147
Dec-2021 0.352385
Jan-2022 0.336777
Feb-2022 0.335968
Mar-2022 0.380388
Apr-2022 0.406157
May-2022 0.368267
Jun-2022 0.296052
Jul-2022 0.258826
Aug-2022 0.215279
Sep-2022 0.238976
Yes, some variation. But the baseline looks pretty consistent. A good energy source. Not the only one, of course.
(1 Quad BTU = 1.06 exajoules)
I haven’t.
David Appell | April 15, 2023 at 8:33 pm |
Joie – not a scientist wrote:
JJB – curious if you ever looked at the real time raw data as to the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines during the winter at various times of day?
06 e
Here is the wind energy produced nationwide from Oct 2021 to Sept 2022 (my spreadsheet is a little out of data, but doesn’t matter), in Quads BTU:
Apple – again demonstrates how easily he is fooled by the deceptive “science” facts presented by renewable advocates such as marc jacobson.
Apple – if you understood the subject matter, you would know the hourly and minute by minute variations are a vastly more important metric in the viability of a electric generation by renewables than the monthly totals. – Note the important point of actually understanding the subject matter.
Roughly 90,000 installed wind turbines, about 140,000 MW installed capacity, produce roughly 10 % of consumed electricity at capacity factors between 25 and 30 %. About 430 Billion kWh.
About 90 nuclear reactors, about 95,000 MW installed capacity, produce about 20 % of consumed electricity at capacity factors above 92 %. About 770 Billion kWh.
Chris – slight quibble with the Wind turbines freezing up in feb 2021 texas freeze. Approx 5% of the wind turbines froze up in the texas freeze. The primary reason that the wind turbines didnt produce was the complete lack of wind – which affected wind turbines across the north american continent. Note that the wind renewable advocates frequently state that the wind turbine freezing problem can be solved with the anti freezing mechanisms used in the northern states. A deflection from the real problem which is the frequent lack of wind.
Its a common deflection of the facts (which the advocates buy into ) which is a reflection of the advocates inability to examine the full scope of the issues
Joey never a scientist wrote:
Apple – if you understood the subject matter, you would know the hourly and minute by minute variations are a vastly more important metric in the viability of a electric generation by renewables than the monthly totals.
Why?
Wind energy isn’t the only source of electricity at any given time.
Appell
Joe asked about various times of the day. You didn’t provide that. Those were monthly averages.
August had nearly a 50% drop from April. Nothing consistent about that. Big analysis fail by you.
Until there is greater energy storage to address the intermittency issue, this idea is a big clunker.
Earth’s surface is warmer than Moon’s on average +68 oC.
–
It happens so not because of Earth’s thin atmosphere very insignificant greenhouse effect.
–
Earth’s surface is warmer than Moon’s on average +68 oC, because of the Planet Surface Rotational Warming Phenomenon!
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Hey everybody look at JC’s interview with Kim Iverson. Click on today’s twitter. Great job!
For God’s sake, at least give a link!
Russ wrote:
Is it reasonable to expect that a coordinated single global approach requiring high cost zero emission technologies can work without enforcement from a central world government? Probably not.
Russ is right.
Which is why we need a global government for global problems.
It’s urgent.
Such a global government wouldn’t control everything. But it would defend the global commons.
This will happen, eventually. But lots of people who don’t care about the globe, or its impact on their local conditions, will complain first. Vociferously. Perhaps violently.
But it will happen. Because it has to. The consequences of 3 C warming are too great.
If man-generated CO2 is so “urgent,” why don’t we see laws against building by the ocean? Or why don’t we see people making the decision on their own not too? It’s not urgent. We have plenty of time to react to any untoward developments. That is, if they develop at all. I think the CAGW argument is bee ess.
My comments don’t appear.
Why not, Judith?
You really need to censor differing opinions, do you?
I put people into moderation when they thread bomb and drive by to insult other commenters. Several weeks ago I put you i moderation after such behavior.
You are not censored. Substantive comments will be released from moderation (I check the moderation queue abou 3 times per day, I am in US Pacific time zone).
I do not choose to have my blog become a garbage dump. People who seem to learn this lesson are released from moderation.
The issue appears to be the dazzling light of the focus of the solar concentrator, much brighter than the sun, attracts insects, just like an outdoor light at home. The insects are vaporised by the extreme heat of the air near the concentrator focus.
Birds are attracted by the concentration of insects near the concentrator focus, and follow the insects into the kill zone. Then larger birds follow the smaller birds.
People who work at solar concentrator facilities call the dying birds “streamers”, because they leave a smoke trail when they catch fire in mid flight.
If the industrial scale destruction of birds isn’t enough of a deterrent, there also appear to be substantial technical issues with the operation of solar concentrator plants. For example it is difficult on some days to maintain the temperature of the molten salt reservoir at the heart of the solar concentrator above its minimum operating temperature, so facilities generally have gas burners on standby, to top the heat up if the weather fails to oblige.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/08/aussie-abc-pushes-failed-solar-concentrators-for-night-time-renewable-energy/
Jim – somewhat similar effect with wind turbines. Insects are attracted to the wind turbine (via the noise? possibly). Creates target rich environment for the smaller birds which get whacked, which then attracts the larger birds etc
jim2,
For 98% of the planet these concentrated solar projects are just bad science experiments. Meanwhile we are polluting the whole planet with night time lighting at an exponential rate. This is disrupting the entire biosphere from plants to animals.
So if you really care about the birds, TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS!
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/light-pollution-how-to-help-wildlife
Carbon Dioxide is the gas of life. To characterize it as a pollutant is a laughable, but sad, mistake.
You can add this to the cost of unreliable energy pushed on us the by the Church of Climate Doomers.
A fleet of new natural gas-fired power plants in Texas may cost $18 billion, much more than an earlier estimate, as lawmakers attempt to improve the state’s electric grid after its deadly failure in 2021.
If implemented, the new plants — which would only be used in emergency situations — would be built in two phases over a decade given permitting and supply chain constraints, according to slides of a new study shared by the Lower Colorado River Authority. The potential cost risks derailing Republicans’ plans to overhaul a grid increasingly reliant on renewable energy with fossil fuel plants.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-07/texas-s-plan-to-avoid-deadly-blackouts-could-cost-18-billion
Well at least somebody is thinking ahead. The state is expected to double its population by 2050. Those new power plants will pay for themselves by powering the largest crypto mines in the world and hosting the metaverse. On the downside, these gas plants might turn out to be redundant if ultra-deep geothermal follows the same learning curve we saw with horizontal drilling. We can’t stop ourselves anyway because we are trapped in Jevons Paradox;
https://www.oecd-forum.org/posts/the-jevons-paradox-and-rebound-effect-are-we-implementing-the-right-energy-and-climate-change-policies
…
“The idea is quite simple: an energy efficiency improvement in the use of a resource (e.g. [electricity]) leads to a reduction in the cost of an energy service provided by this resource (e.g. digital tech). This “cheaper” energy service drives its own demand, further increasing the use of the resource in question; this is known as direct rebound effect. Even when there is no additional demand for this energy service, monetary savings can be used to consume other goods or services that need energy to be produced; this is known as indirect rebound effect. If there is a net reduction in the use of the resource after the efficiency improvement (although higher than expected), the rebound effect is lower than 100%. However, if there is a net increase, the rebound goes over 100% and we call it “backfire”, the “Jevons Paradox” or the “Khazzoom-Brookes postulate”.”
The 10 gw proposed gas plants cost 18 billion to build. 10 gw geothermal would be about 25 billion.
jim
Ultra-deep geothermal is another one of what PE calls just-around-the-cornerisms. It does not exist and we do not have the technology to make it exist. You are talking about supercritical fluids with a pH<1. Anyone who promotes it as the answer proves they don't know what they are talking about.
All it exists as at present is a series of high-level speculative papers from organisations desperate for research funding and wanting to piggyback on the climate change bandwagon. There is the possibility that there will be a lot of future major technological breakthroughs to exploit deep heat, but I suspect fusion reactors will be developed long beforehand.
Conventional geothermal plant cost about US$2-3M per MW (they don't build individual plant greater than about 150MW)
What is the greenhouse effect?
https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/19/what-is-the-greenhouse-effect/
“Scientists have determined that carbon dioxide’s warming effect helps stabilize Earth’s atmosphere. Remove carbon dioxide, and the terrestrial greenhouse effect would collapse. Without carbon dioxide, Earth’s surface would be some 33°C (59°F) cooler.”
–
“Remove carbon dioxide, and the terrestrial greenhouse effect would collapse.”
“If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions.”—Richard Feynman
A call for a World government to enforce the proposed governmental mitigation actions for climate change should come as no surprise. It would require some sovereign concessions to such a body that could well make overriding what few constitutional limitations there currently are that might get in the way of mitigation policies. Once those concessions are made it would be easier to go on to the next emergency of which the existence for can be found in unlimited numbers by those who desire more government involvement in people’s lives.
We already have a World government entity who feels entitled to push for mitigation actions – the IPCC. If you want to look further how such a forceful world order enforcement acts – here is the WEF and its partners and minions. Presenting you the Great Reset. Dr. Robert Malone just published a very relevant posting:
https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/the-world-economic-forum-please-share?
Be keenly aware what you wish for…
How not to scare people about “climate change.”
Virtual simulations of future extreme weather events may prove an effective vehicle for climate change risk communication. To test this, we created a 3D virtual simulation of a future tropical cyclone amplified by climate change. Using an experimental framework, we isolated the effect of our simulation on risk perceptions and individual mitigation behaviour for a representative sample (n = 1507) of the general public in Hong Kong. We find that exposure to our simulation is systematically associated with a relatively small decrease in risk perceptions and individual mitigation behaviour. We suggest that this is likely due to climate change scepticism, motivation crowding, geographical and temporal distance, high-risk thresholds, feelings of hopelessness, and concerns surrounding the immersiveness of the virtual simulation.
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000112
Now the EPA is proposing rules that will make ICEVs more expensive and try to force companies to sell more EVs to people who just don’t want them.
Biden also wants automakers to raise gas mileage and cut tailpipe pollution between now and model year 2026. That would mark a significant step toward meeting his pledge to cut America’s planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as he pushes a once-almost-unthinkable shift from gasoline-powered engines to battery-powered vehicles.
With electric vehicles accounting for just 7.2% of U.S. vehicle sales in the first quarter of this year, the industry has a long way to go to even approach the administration’s targets. However, the percentage of EV sales is growing. Last year it was 5.8% of new vehicles sales.
The EPA declined to offer details ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, but said in a statement that as directed by Biden’s order, it is “developing new standards that will … accelerate the transition to a zero-emissions transportation future, protecting people and the planet.”
The EPA tailpipe pollution limits don’t actually require a specific number of electric vehicles to be sold every year, but instead mandate limits on greenhouse gas emissions. That amounts to roughly the same thing, according to agency calculations of the number of EVs that likely would be needed to comply with the stricter pollution limits.
https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2023-04-10/ap-sources-epa-car-rule-to-push-huge-increase-in-ev-sales
Is Elon Musk’s scheme better?
https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-3
I think this is more realistic:
“The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks
Clueless policymakers, skeptical consumers, greedy automakers—and the tech isn’t ready either…”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-2659602311
A 2c worth from a semi-concerned.
I know little about the various policies of individual countries; this is how some of it looks.
Once Germany wanted the whole nation to afford mechanical mobility. It made an affordable ‘People’s Car’. It was a good design with features that were mechanically sound, like an air-cooled engine. It is still around. China seems to have adopted the idea.
The electric vehicles I see around are the ‘status symbol’ type, owned by those who want to declare publicly that they can afford an expensive one. With an EV purchase incentive and subsidized electricity, it is in effect being paid for also by people who don’t even own a car.
In production of some ‘saleable’ product the better profit is by selling a little, expensively, to the rich few, – rather than an affordable ‘people’s car’. Its always been more profitable selling cosmetics than bread. But its the lack of the latter that ultimately may destroy a country.
This car is from Citroen and costs around $9000.
https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami
China is making small cars for $8000. They are however ‘fun’ or commuting cars and certainly any cars that could be your one and only family vehicle will be around $40000 and upwards here in the UK.
They have been heavily subsidised. Once they have to pay road tax and fuel duty that ICE cars do, their attractions on running costs quickly disappear.
Around 40% of all homes in the UK do not have a driveway where they could be charged so they expect the public to put in the infrastructure at taxpayers expense. The electric will be charged at expensive commercial rates. I would be concerned about charging stations in the parking area underneath Blocks of flats
That Citroen does look a bit of an oddball, a student ‘fun-thing’. But there have been similar in the past. That was then, when the car was a thing of use and convenience, not an extension of one’s personality or ego. The Gogomobile was partly for fun but very economical. The Mini was very versatile, especially the Traveller or Countryman, and they lasted a long time; the Fiat range of small cars was similar, with excellent engines (48 mpg in 1973 at the height of the oil crisis). (gimmicks and visual displays do not mean better efficiency). As an EV this seems a lot better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV
This is informative: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/21/1068880/how-did-china-dominate-electric-cars-policy/
But that is the psychology of the matter; convenience versus ego, the extension of one’s personality (then: the more diminutive the driver, the bigger the car; now the more expensive, the greater the status symbol).
Intercity, charging infrastructure can pay for itself in the long run. Electricity generation at dedicated site at equal or better than 55% efficiency near constant, when city traffic, I estimate, at less than 25% on average, can leave a net source of revenue for the responsible authority. But only if controlled for the benefit of the general public.
Then there is the need for a holistic approach. Life has changed and adapted to the ICE engine (from the horse). A similar adaptation is required – where it works-. The ICE workhorse is not so easy to replace in more remote areas (especially agriculture).
“Once Germany wanted the whole nation to afford mechanical mobility. It made an affordable ‘People’s Car’. It was a good design with features that were mechanically sound, like an air-cooled engine.”
Ah, yes. This was of course 1930s Germany. The KdF-Wagen. And workers were encouraged to pay for these wonderful cars by paying amounts from their wages as instalments to the Government. Some lucky people were able to afford to pay all at once. But production was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. And not one single worker ever received a car under this scheme. Not one.
Who could imagine that a government scheme promising wonderful things (at a cost) would in the end result in the workers getting nothing.
Brooking had a panel discussing the Social Cost of Carbon, with some panelist who have been working with the Obama administration. For those who aren’t familiar, the Obama administration determined a social cost of carbon of around $50/tonC(?) and tried to use this value to justify phasing out coal fired power plants. The Trump administration recalculated with a much high discount rate and limiting the cost of damage from emissions to the US and ended up with a negligible cost of about $7/tonC. If I understand correctly, the Biden Administration has a new calculation of $190/ton that will justify banning both coal powered electricity generation and internal combustion engines for cars, However, as long as inflation is high, they are using a higher discount rate and a price of $50/tonC. The administration is mandating that the social cost of carbon be applied to every administrative rule-making.
https://www.brookings.edu/events/social-cost-of-carbon-what-it-is-why-it-matters-and-why-the-biden-administration-seeks-to-raise-it/
I think we should simply observe how the photosynthetic capacity of the planet earth copes with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. After all, absolutely massive amounts of carbon dioxide exist in soil, which plants absolutely adore, so a little increase in atmospheric varieties is a bit like being pleasantly but mildly high on a low potency version of cannabis.
I’m constantly amazed at the credulous ignorance of ‘we can control everything on earth’ green nutters who don’t ask the basic question: ‘if we just left nature to sort things out, wouldn’t the earth be in much better shape than us human idiots trying to trump nature?’
The problem is that we are dumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere that earth’s removal processes are overwhelmed. That’s why the ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere keeps rising.
It doesn’t need to be removed in the first place, Mr. Straw Man Argument.
JJ: There is CURRENTLY no sign that the Earth’s CO2 removal processes are being overwhelm. As best we can tell, roughly the same fraction (about half) of CO2 emissions each year have disappeared into sinks and the other half accumulated in the atmosphere ince the 1960s. This is called the “airborne fraction”. Experts expect the sinks on land (which take up about half) to eventually saturate, but that isn’t easily predictable. The planet is still greening and was even greener in the Pliocene, the period just before the Pleistocene (the era of Ice Ages). The IPCC sometimes uses the Pliocene as a model for a warmer planet. The reservoir for CO2 in the deep ocean will never be saturated and eventually will take up about 90% of the CO2 we have release, but that will take a millennium or so. However, the IPCC prefers to focus on the much longer period of time that it will take for that CO2 to be “permanently” locked up in the ground as CaCO3 or buried organic material.
It was very much wrongly concluded:
“Without greenhouse effect, Earth’s surface would be some 33°C (59°F) cooler.”
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No, without greenhouse effect, Earth’s surface would NOT be some 33°C (59°F) cooler.
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Because there is not a 33°C (59°F) greenhouse effect on Earth’s surface.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
The climate sensitivity to CO2 is crucial in all of this. Estimates in recent years have reduced substantially as reported here. However, I always detect a strong reluctance to abandon the need for decarbonisation which is the obsession of our governments at huge cost to the public.
We know about the logarithmic relationship that diminishes the greenhouse effect. We know about the claims of band saturation and the supportive evidence from the HITRAN database. We know about the absence of any observed relationship between global temperature and the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
It seems that apart from the interventions of El Nino, the main characteristic of Global temperature in recent decades is a temperature hiatus.
Currently, over at the No Tricks Zone site there is a review of papers claiming that the GHE of clouds far outweighs that of CO2 and changes in clouds show cooling rather than warming.
The other side of the argument seems to show that The UN, IPCC, UK Met office and governments have all been using RCP8.5 to justify alarmist rhetoric and generate model projections that underpin their alarmist claims.
That may change now. Alarmism based on alleged extreme weather rather than global temperature is even more effective in striking fear into governments and the public. Regular examples of normal, natural extreme weather events are perfectly adequate to achieve the desired results.
My point in all of this is that I see no resolution of this stalemate. We shall see the wealthy become more rich. Stupid governments will destroy our countries. Relentless measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are becoming a daily attack on our way of life.
I seek scientific truth, a rather quaint, outdated concept. I feel that the scientific studies that I listed above have not been adequately assessed. If, on balance they suggest that Net Zero policies are wrong and more harmful than doing nothing, then that would be an extremely powerful message. At present, those who reject the UN rhetoric, have nothing to say that challenges the current direction.
I get tired of reading this stuff.
The logarithmic/ saturation effect only applies to a fixed radiant energy source. The earth is not a fixed source of radiant energy. As temperature rises, the earth radiates more energy that CO2 can absorb. CO2 in the lower atmosphere absorbs all the energy in its band that the earth radiates, but the earth radiates more energy as its temperature rises, and so on, and so on.
In the upper atmosphere CO2 molecules radiate energy in relationship to atmospheric temperature. That radiation can be absorbed by other CO2 molecules and reradiated. As you add more CO2 molecules there is a greenhouse effect in the upper atmosphere that is not saturated.
The theory that the CO2 effect is “saturated” and nothing to worry about is climate denial junk science.
If you’re actually seeking scientific truth, stop believing what you read on these climate denial websites. They obfuscate the issues. Stop playing amateur scientist because you suck at it.
Both Lindzen and Happer believe in the CO2 logarithmic effect and that further CO2 increases will have a small impact on temperatures.
I just explained why the “saturation” effect doesn’t apply.
I don’t know about Happer, but I don’t trust anything that Lindzen has to say.
“CO2 in the lower atmosphere absorbs all the energy in its band that the earth radiates”
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It is so very much illogical, it is impossible even to assume it is happening!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
It’s really simple.
How do we know that the CO2 sources are overwhelming the sinks? The CO2 ppm keeps rising.
There are two reasons the ppm can rise. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing or the amount of the other gases is decreasing. It must be the former because there is no indication that it’s the latter.
The saturation is not concerned with the radiant source. It is a property of absorbance and is well known in spectroscopy.
That’s just dumb!!
Think about this. Shine a radiant energy source that puts out radiant energy that only CO2 can absorb through a glass box. Start adding CO2 to the box. CO2 absorbs the radiant energy photons that “hit” it and reradiatesthem in all directions. Some of the radiant energy will pass straight through the box. Keep increasing the CO2 in the box and eventually, effectively no radiant energy passes straight through the box. The CO2 effect is saturated. Now start adding more radiant energy to the box. More radiant energy means more photons are trying to pass through box. More will succeed. Keep increasing the radiant energy and the CO2 effect is no longer saturated. To return to saturation more CO2 must be added to the box.
The lower atmosphere is supersaturated with CO2. As temperature rises, the earth emits more radiation that CO2 can absorb. Since the atmosphere is supersaturated, all that radiant energy heats the planet which causes it to emit more radiation, and so on, and so on. I’m not going into how the earth sheds this energy. Let’s just say it’s complicated.
JJ, a number of questions.
1. Why was there a major shrinking of the Alaskan glaciers in the period 1880 – 1920 when CO2 levels were quite low.
2. Why was there a move from “Global Warming” which is quite quantifiable to “Climate Change” which is not. This appears to have happened when the IPCC realised that the correlation between CO2 and temperature rise was weakening.
3. Why do we call CO2 a pollutant when in fact it is one of the sources of life. Trees and plants love CO2 and we love the O2 these trees produce.
4. Why are scientists who question the IPCC considered “Climate Change Deniers” when in fact we all believe in Climate Change, its just they question the size of the impact of additional CO2.
5. Why have the predictions from the IPCC computer models been so inaccurate. Possibly because their input assumptions into the models are poor?
Below is some information outlining the greenhouse effect.
The greenhouse effect raises the Earth’s temperature by about 40C above what it would otherwise be.
Without the greenhouse effect the Earth would be locked into a permanent ice-age.
Water vapour and carbon dioxide are the main greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide produces essentially the whole of its effect through absorption at infrared wavelengths from about 13.5mm to 17.5mm. Because the blocking by carbon dioxide over this interval is large, the band having steeply falling wings, additions of carbon dioxide have only a second-order influence on the greenhouse effect.
The blocking effect of water vapour rises all the way from 17.5mm to almost 100mm.
The wavelength 13.5mm is important in two respects. In the energy distribution of radiation emitted at ground and sea-level it marks the halfway point, one-half of the energy being at wavelengths shorter than 13.5mm and one-half at wavelengths longer.
It also marks a division in the effectiveness of the blocking of greenhouse gases.
Below 13.5mm the blocking is comparatively weak, above 13.5mm it is strong, excepting for a partial window from 17.5mm to about 20mm.
Below13.5mm there is a broad weak absorption from water vapour with its minimum in the region of 10mm, together with narrow bands from Ozone and Methane.
Of these, some current fuss is being made about Methane. But blocking by Methane is somewhat short of 8mm, which is so far out on the short wavelength tail of the Earth’s reradiated spectrum to be of no great consequence.
1. I don’t know.
Let me repeat myself. Climate change is all cause and effect. It doesn’t matter what happened 10 minutes ago — never mind what happened 20, 50, 100 or more years ago.
CO2 is not always the dominant cause. Before 1960 planetary temperature tracked solar radiation. After 1960 planetary temperature stopped tracking solar radiation and started tracking CO2 ppm. Right now, CO2 is the dominant factor. That doesn’t mean solar radiation doesn’t play a role or other factors play a part. They are not the major contributor.
In order to answer your question, you’d have to evaluate all the possibilities. What happened may not be because of a global event. It could be localized.
2. Global Warming and Climate Change are the result of the same phenomenon. Climate Change is more inclusive and more descriptive. I also think that Global Warming was being incessantly trashed by the fossil fuel industry and it was felt a rebranding was necessary.
I don’t recall the IPCC ever saying that correlation between CO2 and temperature was weakening.
3. It’s true CO2 is essential to life. Like medications, it has a side effect where too much of it in the atmosphere is detrimental to life. The trick is to keep it in a range where you get the all the benefits and none of the downsides.
4. Weather changes — climate not so much. At this point, the evidence that human production of CO2 is having a detrimental impact on the planet’s climate is undeniable. Yet some, for one reason or another, deny it. What they have is junk science and conspiracy theories.
5. “Because the blocking by carbon dioxide over this interval is large, the band having steeply falling wings, additions of carbon dioxide have only a second-order influence on the greenhouse effect.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is a variation of the saturation argument. That only works if the earth is a fixed radiant energy source. It is not.
I’m not sure what the point you’re trying to make is when you go into your discussion of CO2 and H2O. Yes, there is an overlap in the absorption bands of CO2 and H2O. A CO2 or H2O molecule has no idea of what molecules are adjacent to it. If a photon comes along that it can absorb, it absorbs it and reradiates it.
I agree with your comment on CH4. Its concentration in the atmosphere is in the ppb range. It doesn’t last in the atmosphere very long. It’s absorption band sits at a point on earth’s radiant energy profile where there is not a lot of energy for it to absorb. Releasing large amounts of CH4 into the atmosphere won’t help, but it’s not a game changer. CO2 will end life on this planet way before CH4 becomes a problem.
John Higgins just commented on The Earth’s Green Future is Forked:
5. Why have the predictions from the IPCC computer models been so inaccurate.
Why did you write this? Based on what?
“We find that climate models published over the past five decades were skillful [14 of 17 projections] in predicting subsequent GMST changes, with most models examined showing warming consistent with observations, particularly when mismatches between model‐projected and observationally estimated forcings were taken into account.”
— “Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections,” Hausfather et al, Geo Res Lett 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085378
figure:
https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1202271427807678464?lang=en
For those of you who look to nuclear as a zero carbon alternative to wind and solar, take a gander at this:
Nuclear Now, A New Film by Oliver Stone Opening April 28th
Climate skeptics who promote nuclear as a zero carbon alternative which actually works should recognize that the nuclear industry is deeply engaged in promoting the ‘climate change is dangerous’ narrative.
The true value of nuclear is that it gives the nations which adopt it a measure of energy security and reliability in the face of uncertain energy supplies — but at a cost premium over what gas-fired generation can deliver.
JJB- The radiant source is the earth which we can assume to be a black body. You attach great importance to the emission of photons by CO2 molecules. In reality, the probability of collisions is very much higher resulting in the transfer of kinetic energy. Photon emissions are not spontaneous and are relatively slow to take place.
The relationship between warming and concentration is effectively logarithmic (which you dispute) which is why any doubling of CO2 has the same impact on warming.
At higher altitudes where the atmosphere is thinner, photon emission to space has the higher probability, though I agree that a proportion will head towards the earth.
The connection with water vapour, mentioned by others, is that water vapour is by far the dominant greenhouse gas, by virtue of its much greater abundance. It shares the main absorption band and contributes to saturation. The significance of this is that in our atmosphere, where water vapour is almost always present, the “potency” of the secondary greenhouse gases is greatly diminished. I was surprised to discover that the GHG “potency” was measured in a “standard” atmosphere which contained no water vapour. It therefore bears no relation to the reality of our atmosphere.
I should add that much of the work on saturation has been conducted using the HITRAN database using a range of greenhouse gases, individually and in mixtures and at various concentrations.
CO2 absorption and emission of photons occurs almost instantaneously. There is a slight delay probably due to a small activation energy required to push the photon out. Think of a continuous stream of photons striking a CO2 molecule. The CO2 absorbs every photon and reradiates photons. There is no long delay. Your comment about the transfer of energy by collisions does not apply to radiant energy transfer by absorption and reradiation.
The kinetic energy transfer to the atmosphere is small. Otherwise, you’d have an inverse atmospheric temperature profile where the atmosphere is hotter than the planet. Greenhouse gases prevent about 150 W/m2 of the earth’s radiant energy from radiating into space. Add that to the atmosphere and what do you think happens?
“The relationship between warming and concentration is effectively logarithmic (which you dispute) which is why any doubling of CO2 has the same impact on warming.”
You read this garbage on some climate denial website, and you treat it as fact. That statement is only true for a fixed source of radiant energy the earth is not.
Let’s test out that hypothesis of yours. Here’s a plot of CO2 ppm vs temperature change:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/uG_Ifn4-Ioi8ouyAKKnUWKNgIW0cjlNWmnDOg31Yzo-YPMy1Use7qQWaefprjydKD2s6L_NcKsZKZR0Gth4m0XxpUPtqHi_74N-8BjQAdSx4WZGgmxSjQJP1TCJ9XU5MVSnrM5kg
We’ll look at the change in temperature vs the change in CO2 ppm. We have to look at data after 1960 because that’s when the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 became dominant. From a CO2 ppm of 330 to a CO2 ppm of 355 the temperature of the planet rises 0.5 C. A CO2 ppm change of 25 ppm results in a temperature change of 0.5 C. From a CO2 ppm of 355 to a CO2 ppm of 380 the temperature of the planet rises 0.5 C. A CO2 ppm change of 25 ppm results in a temperature change of 0.5 C — same as the previous case. According to your hypothesis the change in CO2 ppm should be about 50 ppm. It’s not. It’s about the same. That means your hypothesis is wrong. That because the earth and its atmosphere are not a fixed source of radiant energy.
“The significance of this is that in our atmosphere, where water vapour is almost always present, the “potency” of the secondary greenhouse gases is greatly diminished.”
Nonsense! It’s true the bulk of the greenhouse gas emissions comes from H2O. The H2O effect is temperature limited. What we are dealing with is the marginal changes. Any impact H2O has on the current changing temperature of the planet is due to CO2 increasing the temperature of the atmosphere so that it can hold more water vapor.
“I should add that much of the work on saturation has been conducted using the HITRAN database using a range of greenhouse gases, individually and in mixtures and at various concentrations.”
I’ll bet that data is for a fixed radiant energy source. That’s the problem with MODTRAN.
I said that during the ICE Age Nature stores the lack of heat in the ice at the poles, and the access heat in the atmosphere as vapor.
Thank-you for understanding that!!!!!
Peter:
“The radiant source is the earth which we can assume to be a black body.”
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Please, Peter, why do you think we can assume earth to be a black body?
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Andrew C refers to a case related to the Volks Beetle. Unfortunately that is an attitude one comes across frequently, when promises from top are easy to propose as an incentive, but never really come to fruition.
That was the 1930’s. That situation has only got worse. Then the mechanical design was one of the better ones – and real-. Today you have to look very closely to what is being offered on paper. (and to hell with the QA docs and the faked tests).
CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs only a tiniest portion of the energy in its band that the earth radiates…
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
I don’t dispute that temperatures and CO2 concentration have risen over the last 150 years. Correlation does not necessarily indicate causation and it is important to quantify all the other influences at play. I accept that our knowledge does not extend that far.
I base my comments on spectroscopy. By the way, MODTRAN is a computer program. HITRAN is a database of spectral measurements.
Science is never 100% sure of anything. Scientific consensus on CO2 induced climate change is as strong as you’ll get on any scientific theory.
All of the alternative theories I’ve seen don’t hold up under scrutiny. Most of it is in the throw something against the wall and see if it sticks category. The only theory that has held up is the CO2 effect.
Anyone who says CO2 or greenhouse gases are benign and can’t warm the planet is a crackpot. Yet, there are people who post in this venue who say just that.
Since you base your comments on spectroscopy, you have to admit earth’s IR spectrograph is pretty compelling evidence.
JJBraccili:
“Scientific consensus on CO2 induced climate change is as strong as you’ll get on any scientific theory.
All of the alternative theories I’ve seen don’t hold up under scrutiny. Most of it is in the throw something against the wall and see if it sticks category. The only theory that has held up is the CO2 effect.
Anyone who says CO2 or greenhouse gases are benign and can’t warm the planet is a crackpot. Yet, there are people who post in this venue who say just that.”
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“Yet, there are people who post in this venue who say just that.”
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Yes, there are people… and those people are not crackpots!!!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
“Scientific consensus” is only an oxymoron.
Curious George wrote:
“Scientific consensus” is only an oxymoron.
Not at all – scientific consensus is the dominant position in science.
NASA used consensus science to go to the moon and back.
CERN uses consensus science every single day.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is consensus science.
So is Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, Maxwellian electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, quantum chromodynamics, and more. And general relativity!
Basically all is consensus except what expert researchers are currently investigating in their labs and in the field.
Our entire world runs on consensus science.
In 1900 there was a stronger consensus that Newtonian physics was the last word and all that remained was to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Additionally, the scientific papers that purport to show a 90+% consensus have been totally debunked.
Newtonian physics was still true, accurate and useful after 1900.
NASA used Newtonian physics to go to the Moon. And back.
More interesting and relevant is the pseudo-scientific doctrine that was based on Newton’s laws, viz., that if we just knew accurately the present we could predict the future. That was always a fiction. Newton’s laws are nonlinear and the N-body problem is chaotic on long enough time scales. More accurate is that there are a lot of things that we will never be able to decide for sure.
dpy6629 just commented on The Earth’s Green Future is Forked:
Newton’s laws are nonlinear
How so?
David,
You’re quite right that Newton’s laws are still useful. Nevertheless, they are now seen as part of a larger whole, which was not how they were perceived in 1900.
I don’know where that comes from. I never commented on that subject.
OK
What do you consider to be the 2-3 largest risks that would turn mild AGW into CAGW? 1 must be sea level rise, but there appears to be almost no acceleration during the 30 years of the satellite era.
I would put at the top of list the why the Pentagon considers climate change a national security threat — increased conflicts between nations. Draught, famine, lack of arable land in a world awash with nuclear weapons is a problem — don’t you think? Let’s not forget the climate refugee problem.
Then there is the matter of new diseases brought about by higher temperatures. How about old diseases released from melting ice? How about the increase in the insect population? The increase in species extinction?
We already have parts of the planet that are uninhabitable. That will only increase.
All that before we get to increases in the number and intensity of extreme weather events and sea level rise.
Yes, I know, we’ll adapt. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!!
JJBraccili | April 17, 2023 at 1:33 pm |
“I would put at the top of list the why the Pentagon considers climate change a national security threat — increased conflicts between nations. ”
JJB – prime example of how delusional mainstream climate science has become. Complete detachment from reality.
That has nothing to do with climate science. That’s the assessment of the Pentagon.
If you believe that the climate scientists are right on AGW, then increasing conflicts between nations will be inevitable.
Areas of drought and famine are hotbeds for conflict and terrorism. The most dangerous man in the world is the man who has nothing to lose.
JJBraccili | April 17, 2023 at 2:36 pm |
“That has nothing to do with climate science. That’s the assessment of the Pentagon.
If you believe that the climate scientists are right on AGW, then increasing conflicts between nations will be inevitable.”
JJB – you are doubling down on the delusions of climate science.
the pentagon believes the delusion war conflicts caused by GW because the delusion version of climate science.
Your embracement of those delusions shows how far you fallen for the delusional parts of “climate science”
The only one delusional around here is you.
It’s obvious you have no expertise in climate science. Yet you insist it’s all a hoax. Does that sound rational?
You and a small band of know-nothings against thousands of trained climate scientists from around the world. Who to believe?
Were you on the hydro chloroquine, ivermectin bandwagon? How did that work out. Looks like those guys have slithered away.
JJ
Your comrades are bailing out on you. Fewer Democrats support your views. By the end of this decade that number will be even lower. Don’t be a Lone Ranger. Source:EPIC
https://joannenova.com.au/wp-content/epic-survey-us-climate-change-2.jpg
Rob Starkey just commented:
What do you consider to be the 2-3 largest risks that would turn mild AGW into CAGW? 1 must be sea level rise, but there appears to be almost no acceleration during the 30 years of the satellite era.
A host of scholarly papers says there is an acceleration:
https://t.ly/fCc5E
On Google scholar, the search
+”sea level” +acceleration
returns 218,000 results. The opposite search
+”sea level” +”no acceleration”
returns only 1,280.
A ratio of 170.
Normal science normally involves a review of the prior art. We know that our climate is always changing, though we can’t always explain the causes. The Roman Warm period and Medieval warm period were both about two degrees warmer than today. We know this from temperature proxies, archaeological findings and even contemporary accounts. Between the warm periods were much colder periods, making the entire profile over time resemble a roller coaster.
We also know that the cold periods could cause death and suffering, while the warm periods resulted in high growth of populations and general socioeconomic development.
Today, we have recently emerged from the LIA. We don’t know for sure how cold that was but 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius seems likely. We have currently warmed by around 1.1 degrees. I, for one, am very pleased that I no longer have to suffer the bitterly cold winters of my youth.
So what is the normal temperature for a particular location? Obviously, there is no such thing. We are well within the range of temperatures that have occurred over the last 2000 years. Much of our alarmism is based on the fact that the HadCrut dataset started as we began emerging from the LIA. As we warmed up, almost every day brought a new temperature record.
It is rather amusing to think that the Pentagon considers climate change to be a national security threat. Or perhaps we should be worried about their quality of judgement.
LOL!!
These historical arguments are nonsense! Climate change is all cause and effect. The past is meaningless. See how much you can predict from the past if the sun all of a sudden put out 50% more radiant energy.
Peter wrote:
The Roman Warm period and Medieval warm period were both about two degrees warmer than today.
These periods were local, not global.
“There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age….”
— “Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia,” PAGES 2k Consortium, Nature Geosciences, April 21, 2013.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/abs/ngeo1797.html
Plus what JJBraccili said here.
Peter writes in response to the believe that climate will the cause of future wars. “it is rather amusing to think that the Pentagon considers climate change to be a national security threat. Or perhaps we should be worried about their quality of judgement.”
Concur with Peter’s comment – Victor Hansen has an excellent book on the History of WWI with an in depth of the causes of wars from the Roman times through WWII. The belief in global warming cause of wars is purely delusional with zero basis in reality.
Its also a sign of the mentality of the woke that normal cognitive critical thinking skills have lost touch with reality.
I don’t think the Pentagon is full of radical environmentalists
There have been papers written on the link between climate and conflict, but I don’t think there is enough data to draw valid conclusions.
Trust me when things get bad enough there will be conflict. That’s inevitable.
jjb – those papers are not based on reality. As previously stated the mentality of the woke destroys the ability to think with basic critical thinking skills . your repetitive delusional comments display those deficiencies.
Joe,
You have shown repeatedly that you live in an alternate reality.
joe – the non climate scientiest (sp?) wrote:
those papers are not based on reality.
Too glib. Why not?
As previously stated the mentality of the woke destroys the ability to think with basic critical thinking skills .
Also too glib.
Your comment contains no rational content whatsoever, just opinions.
The fact that “green” policies include anti-nuclear, that tells us the ’70’s environmentalists are in charge. Nuclear doesn’t emit CO2 and that belies their true nature.
Appell cites one out of date paper that is supposed to offset hundreds of papers that show MWP and LIA conditions across the globe. Appell is in a perpetual state of denial. No hope for him.
David Appell assures us that the Roman warming and Medieval warmings were purely local. This is, unfortunately, not the case. There is evidence of such cycles in New Zealand, South Africa, the Arabian Sea and South America.
In addition, there are the Holocene Optima/Maxima, when temperatures were clearly much warmer than at present. So far, I haven’t heard them being described as irrelevant or local.
Jay just commented on The Earth’s Green Future is Forked:
David Appell assures us that the Roman warming and Medieval warmings were purely local. This is, unfortunately, not the case. There is evidence of such cycles in New Zealand, South Africa, the Arabian Sea and South America.
Why would you claim there is evidence but not cite it?
Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler) wrote:
Do we care more about keeping CO2 emissions lower in just the western world, or do we want to reduce emissions worldwide?
Just the western world, for sure.
“Africa and South America are both fairly small emitters: accounting for 3-4% of global emissions each. Both have emissions almost equal in size to international aviation and shipping.”
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions