by Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler)
“Green” ideas and their proponents can create problems. Like the antagonist in Terminator 2, green arguments and proponents don’t go down easily. With serious challenges, they retreat, hibernate sometimes, morph, transform and come back. It’s hard to argue with many “green” energy ideas. They are often huge in scope but severely limited in details. Focusing on a couple key factors and ignoring or leaving so much to be worked out later. Painfully naïve or unaware of so many factors associated with the provision of energy, feedback and often even human behavior. They see the flaws in current efforts, but are blind to the drawbacks which will necessarily emerge from their proposals. The offer conjectures with a lot of dots to still be connected. They speak of things that may be possible, without any handle on the probabilities.
Usually, “green” ideas are packaged with threats of doom, promises of superior technology or both. The media are drawn to both those themes and many policy makers are attracted as well. Attention is a great thing for new ideas. The themes of urgency and the scope of change, gives these ideas more weight and seeming gravitas. Unfortunately, the needed incentives to dig down and look critically as these ideas are generally lacking. Woefully, those promulgating “green” ideas don’t have much incentive for engaging with their critics or broadening their understandings. They generate the feeling that we need to move forward with the big, new important thing – no time for distractions.
Death of the Grid
Consider the following example. Predictions for the death of the grid have held some prominence during the last decade. It started around 2012 with forecasts of ‘death spirals” for utilities. The theory was that as customers found self-generation options preferable, more and more would leave the grid, thus raising costs for those who remained. This grid defection or load defection would lead to rising costs which would lead to further load/grid defection. Searching “grid defection” and/or “load defection “brings up a host of warnings proclaiming a coming green energy transition which would be accompanied by the demise of the grid.
Financial analysts joined in and issued warnings as well:
- Morgan Stanley, Clean Tech, Utilities & Autos [March 2014] “Our analysis suggests utility customers may be positioned to eliminate their use of the power grid.”
- Barclays, Utilities Credit Strategy Analyst Report [May 2014] “We see near-term risks to credit from regulators and utilities falling behind the solar + storage adoption curve and long-term risks from a comprehensive re-imagining of the role utilities play in providing electric power.”
- Goldman Sachs, Analyst note on Tesla stock [March 2014] “…decreased reliability from an aging distribution infrastructure, a broadening desire to reduce the carbon footprint, and perhaps most importantly, the reduction of solar panel and battery costs could also work together to make grid independence a reality for many customers one day”
Creating Challenges for Transmission Project Approval
This “idea” or “forecast” of potential grid obsolescence caused challenges in the real world of electric utilities planning. At the time, I was seeking the approval of annual grid construction budgets running into the hundreds of million dollars per year. My Board asked: why are we putting so much into a grid that Morgan Stanley and others say might go away? I shared my perspectives with the board, arguing the need for continued grid expansion. Some of those perspectives can be read in these two articles I co-authored some years later, titled Reports of the Electric Grid’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated and The Grid End Game.
At the time, our Board (and many others) were in a tough position. Who are you going to believe? Academics, government experts, renewable specialists and recognized financial experts, or your own local guy? From my perspective, I had a strong understanding of electric supply, consumer needs, issues around availability and deliverability, and I worked hard to understand what the arguments of the other “experts”. The renewables people seemed to have so much faith in themselves that they didn’t need to be bothered by the details of providing electrical service or understanding why their predictions might be wrong. Financial experts were relying on renewable experts without paying attention to many of the broader issues involved in power delivery. While to me it seems clear, that considerable respect should go to those in the field versus the potential disruptors, that has been a hard argument to make historically. Despite their poor record of forecasting in the past, those who’ve made bad predictions continue to gain considerable attention and respect.
What did we do to help our board? At strategic planning meetings we took the other side. We assumed the need for the grid would wither away. We looked at what might happen to our billions in investment. We argued that our resources would still have value. For example, some of our transmission ties would be valuable for energy exchanges between distributed networks. Many of our transmission substations could house batteries and serve to support smaller networks. Other right of ways we owned might have value for communication pathways, pipelines, roadways or the like. That provided enough comfort for going forward with continued transmission investment in the interim.
Overwhelmingly it’s a good thing that many entities continued to build transmission, despite the dire warnings of grid obsolescence. Less optimal results likely ensued when project support was stymied by the cautions of “experts”. The “green” consensus now seems to be that enhanced robust grids are essential to increasing the penetration of renewables. The existing grid elements , including projects completed back then despite the warnings, are foundational to any serious efforts at expanding renewable resources.
Experts at Conferences
Back then, there were various conferences, symposiums and working groups centered around the demise of the grid. I went to several to make sure I was aware of their best arguments and well informed on recent and potential developments. At one sponsored by the Department of Energy, Ernest Moniz in 2013, the US Secretary of the Department of Energy welcomed us. Unfortunately, such gatherings usually failed to provide significant platforms for dissenting views and were a little heavy handed in touting grid fears. My experience with one large “working group” illustrates generally how these meeting would go. Here to the best of my memory is what happened at a working group held at Duke University, which had around 100 participants, government sponsorship and was run by high priced consultants. I asked questions suggesting the grid had a lot of value and that distributed “green” resources would struggle mightily in its absence. Those on the agenda were super confident, they had it all figured out. Those questioning the “wisdom” were seen as oddballs, but some people would come up and whisper to me during breaks that they were wondering the same things.
One task introduced for the large working group in attendance was figuring out what we might do to make the grid more relevant as demand for the grid decreased. I sensed a disconnect, if the group felt the grid did not have value, why work to preserve it? I passionately explained, “I work for a transmission only entity. I believe the grid had great value and will continue to provide great value. But if you are right, perhaps the grid should be allowed to fade away.” I explained that, “my goal is to meet the needs of our distribution customers and end-use consumers. If they have better options than retaining the grid – I would encourage them to use those options. ” I asked then, “Why if you think the grid is not needed, do you care about its continuance? What’s the purpose of this working group? Why isn’t our goal to help the transition?” The room got silent and eventually the facilitator noted that was an interesting perspective worthy of consideration.
What the group decided to do (likely pre-ordained by the facilitators) was model a bunch of different future generation scenarios showing where new generation would come from to see what they showed about timing and the need for the grid. There were a number of different scenarios proposed, some dominated by large distant wind, other more supported by dispersed solar and so on. All potential scenarios were heavily or exclusively renewables based. I asked shouldn’t we have one scenario where new natural gas plants played some role. (Much like what has actually played out in the last decade.) The leaders quickly came back and said, “NO, fracking might be banned! So, gas scenarios may be worthless.” I replied that I certainly understood that as a possibility, but that every other scenario suggested faced similar challenges and roadblocks. Wouldn’t a scenario showing some addition of natural gas plants be worthwhile for comparison purposes? When we broke into smaller working groups with differing tasks, I wasn’t assigned to the one refining and selecting the the scenarios. Not surprisingly additional natural gas resources were not included in in any of the scenarios. ( I suppose I don’t need to tell the readers that any additional nuclear wasn’t represented as a possibility in any of the scenarios either.)
Real work responsibilities prevented me from attending the follow up sessions. While I looked forward to reading the reports that came out of the group, no reports or formal outputs ever materialized. By the time they were finishing up, I suspect the handwriting was on the wall and it had becoming clear enough that the findings they originally anticipated would not be defensible. Unfortunately, it’s often the case that when these type groups don’t find the results they want, they don’t admit mistakes or publish a lesson learned from their endeavors. They just move on to something else.
Deja Vu: The Ideas Changed but the Same Experts Remained
I recognized many of the individuals and groups who were pushing the end of the grid, from various conferences, symposiums and working groups I had attended years earlier on the topic of Integrated Resource Planning (IRP). It was like seeing the same actors in a slightly different play. Reading new scripts but still ushering in “green” change and creating problems for those actually trying to support the grid.
One of the entities involved in both was the Rocky Mountain Institute. They, like many of the other “experts” pushing the demise of the grid, earlier were busy pushing Integrated Resource Planning. The Rocky Mountain Institute touted the great value of negawatts (a unit of electricity save by conservation). They characterized the traditional utility approach to planning as blindly looking at load growth and building resources as needed. They proposed that considerable benefits would accrue from treating load, generation, efficiency and distributed resources on equal footing in all stages of planning. The argued that utilities could see significant savings by paying customers to improve efficiency and thus lowering their need for costly infrastructure improvements. They thought negawatts should be a prime option for addressing system needs and avoiding infrastructure. Buying negawatts could save on infrastructure.
They encouraged the expectation that forecasts of expensive upgrades for transmission lines should preferably be addressed by targeted localized efficiency programs. It’s hard to estimate potential efficiency gains on a system wide basis, let alone in targeted load areas. Deploying programs with such precision is huge problem because of all the uncertainty in load growth, efficiency program impacts and other interrelated factors. Due to the complexity and unknowns, it was likely impossible for any utility to do defer individual projects by using the recommended IRP approaches.
Back in the mid-90s, regulators would ask if you looked at delaying a transmission uprate by implementing a program to incentivize replacements of older refrigerators with more efficient ones. They were not impressed when you told them, this did not seem like a workable solution. All these experts were telling everyone utilities should do this, but looking across the nation (and globally) no one had achieved any kind of success suggesting this was remotely possible. I was very pleased when I heard the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was undertaking a huge program to demonstrate the state of the art as to how such things could be done.
EPRI selected a community in Oregon and they were going to follow the best advice of “experts” to demonstrate the proposed concepts. I naively felt that either they would give us guidance as to how this might realistically be accomplished, or more likely force them to publicize the limitations of such approaches. I expected they would encounter numerous unwieldly real-world challenges. The program was launched with a big fanfare at with a considerably large budget. I followed the early efforts as the program implementation began. The early documentation was frequent and very impressive, explaining the great things being undertaken. As results should have been emerging, suddenly there was silence. I heard the program was having some trouble, but nothing was being published. I searched and searched over time. Finally, years later, I found a comprehensive listing of cancelled EPRI projects. For the targeted efficiency program there were only about two lines in that listing. It stated the project name and said only that the project was cancelled because the target city had become the wind surfing capital of the east coast and the resultant load growth in the area had made the project infeasible.
That’s the way the world works most of the time. Something big comes along that you didn’t anticipate, or many small things, or a combination of factors. Having overly complicated plans dependent on getting multiple variables right, is not a good recipe for success. I wish EPRI had provided some follow up. With all the investment and efforts put into place, before they realized their hoped-for plans were dashed, they could have provided some documentation of the challenges and successes (if any) they encountered before the project “blew up”. But unfortunately, it is not common for to write of the demise of their cherished ideas. The promoters just withdraw and let their dreams hibernate to maybe come back another day. The obvious lessons aren’t learned. The experts that pushed for these ideas found a new wagon to hitch to their horses, and for many of the IRP/negawatt experts it was the idea of grid defection.
It’s a Game
What was gained by forecasting the death of the grid? What was gained by making utilities prioritize using negawatts? Claiming disaster or a new superior approach grabs attention. Extreme criticisms of existing approaches can get attention as well. This attention can help entities promote other related objectives. Predicting the end of the grid is pretty bold and it attracted a lot of press. It helped focus attention on “green” projects and industries and no doubt helped their funding. If the claims are bold and the consequences large, it seems that the strength of supporting evidence is irrelevant.
Historically we’ve had an excellent power system, but there will always be emerging needs and challenges. Arguing for continued incremental improvements makes sense. Saying the grid is worthwhile and will be needed for a long while, though is not as exciting as forecasting the grids end. Looking at the world more realistically is suitable for boring articles in the trade publications. Talk of enhancements to existing technology while carefully nurturing new technology is not near as exciting as most “green” proposals. It perhaps should not be surprising that such plans do not garner as much attention or support. But that is unfortunate, because projects conceived with such understandings have proven, and will likely continue to be proven, to be the best options in the future.
When green ideas seem credible to unquestioning minds, they have shown that they can attract crowds, attention and money. With political support their proponents can avoid engagement with critics. When the real world intrudes and some ideas seem less credible, the appropriate lessons aren’t learned; rather the same flawed ideas merely hibernate. Those pushing the discarded ideas then find new ideas to push. Sometimes “green” advocates switch gears to advocate renewable energy ideas that are directly contradictory to what they were advancing before. That type thing goes on untouched without observation or notice.
Where are We Now?
Most “green” entities now see the grid as central to achieving CO2 goals. The Rocky Mountain Institute is currently much less bullish on grid defection then they were before and they now observe that, “the grid has been growing in importance for decades as a driver of economic growth, and recently as a key enabler for meeting economy-wide decarbonization targets through electrification with renewable energy.” However, they note that “historical approaches to ensuring grid security in the United States are proving to be poorly suited to the emerging, catastrophic threats facing the grid.” Now they warn that, “A grid outage can mean not being able to access critical health services, water supply, communications, and more, negatively affecting people’s well-being and our country’s economic growth.”
By now almost all “green” advocates have figured out that the grid is central to allowing the increased penetration of renewable resources. Rather than proclaiming the death of the grid, they see the grid now as needing their help. They don’t praise the grid for what it has done, but rather are critical of the supposed shortcomings of the grid. They speak of modern grids as being “third world grids”. They insist that new ideas are needed and they encourage the expansion of the grid with the development of enhanced capabilities. Suddenly they are the defenders of the grid and the experts who know what must be done with the grid to protect us from the looming crises.
The truth is that integrating increasing amounts of solar and wind is complicated, expensive and poses reliability risks. Renewable advocates want to blame the grid for the problems inherent in asynchronous intermittent wind and solar generation. Their ideas for the future grid are more about transferring and hiding costs rather than about providing technical solutions to the problems posed by integrating wind and solar.
The grid has seen substantial changes over the years. It has become stronger, more robust and continues to use new technology to enhance its functioning. The grid is “smart” now, it was “smart” in the past and it will continue to be “smart” in the future. Nevertheless, integrating large amounts of wind and solar will create significant problems for the power system. Changes to the grid can help integrate more wind and solar, but only with increasingly greater costs and increasing reliability concerns. It’s not an exciting message, but it’s one that should be heard. We shouldn’t let talk of emerging technological breakthroughs or apocalyptic threats distract us from serious considerations. The grid should grow and evolve as it always has by balancing economics, reliability and public responsibility. That will likely happen slowly and bit by bit, not by a top-down politically mandated grand redesign.
I
But Amory Lovins always sounds so confident!
The modern day proponents (and their acolytes) of green energy grids exhibit the same attributes as the used car salesmen of old. They have a glib patter and do not understand the technical matters. There are bright shiny ideas, summed up with tee shirt slogans, promoted, leading us to a green utopia. Their thinking is as shallow as their ideas. Inconvenient facts are dismissed with a wave of the hand and a comment like “the scientists/ engineers will fix that if the need arises”. That is why their ideas are so attractive to politicians. Kindridred spirits basking in each others’ radiated shallowness.
Until society has enough nous to disregard the self-promoters, they will continue to be plagued by them. But one thing is sure. If their ideas are accepted, leading to the inevitable crash and burn, they will be nowhere to be seen. It will be boring old-school engineers that have to pick up the pieces.
Take Mark Jacobson, please.
>” If their ideas are accepted …”
Already accepted, Chris. I recently had a “discussion” with a gentleman who claimed he was a geologist, though he had no clue as to why I pointed out that coal, gas and oil were *not* fossils and refused to grasp why photosynthesis was important, but significantly worked with a commercial bank deciding on what gets funded.
You’re right about accountability, of course. None to be had, just the old joke about war tanks with eleven reverse gears.
I like how you put “green” in quotation marks. It is a meaningless, throwaway term that should trigger the reader’s BS detector. When a term can mean anything, it really means nothing. Similar to “crisis.” When everything is a crisis, nothing really is. Critical readers should judge if the circumstances warrant being labelled a crisis or not. If you substitute crisis for challenge, it takes a lot of the emotion and hysteria away.
Very boring message, as it does not adapt the green mantra! Obviously I am being facetious. This very pragmatic and realistic assessment can also be applied to what happens to the auto sector regarding Battery Electric Vehicles as the only possible holy grail. They fail to point out the errors in expert assessments , like CARB’s overestimating the rate decrease in battery costs by nearly 20 years, or the fact they are only hitting their 2000 EV percentage requirements now in 2023. Yet based on the same unexamined wishful thinking, they and now EPA are putting new mandates for BEVs (although they take pains to say any zero emission vehicle can qualify, not just BEVs) for over 60% new vehicle sales to be BEVs by 2032 from maybe 6-7% today. Tesla is held up as a paragon that proves BEVs are totally realistic for the whole market, ignoring the fact that they only sell luxury and super luxury vehicles in the $50k to $150k price range to wealthy multi vehicle households. No mention is how Tesla did not turn a profit, and survived on investor money for more than a dozen years, and then only made a profit based on selling artificial government created ZEV credits to other manufacturers who found it cheaper to comply with them rather than actually building and selling their own BEVs. Besides Tesla, every other auto manufacturer of BEVs is actually losing tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle, or more, on every BEV they build. The advocates will say that is to be expected until they get to much larger volumes, making a sizable “valley of death” that each must cross to comply with this wishful thinking. And that ignores many other significant hurdles such as battery material supply shortages, charging infrastructure, etc. that are also wished away with hand waving. But there is lots of money out there for “experts” to support the politically expediant green message, and any one who challenges it will be ignored or labeled as a pawn of that evil fossil fuel industry. The green agenda is powered by the first law of Disney: Wishing makes it so.
I thought this article was supposed to be about the problems with green energy. It’s a rant about the grid and preserving the status quo.
I assume the article was directed toward the grid in the US. In the US we have an ad hoc system built up over the last 100 years. We have 50 grids — one for each state. Money that has been provided is for patching and expanding the existing system. We have an eastern grid, and a western grid which is a loose association of state grids. We kind of, sort of, have a national grid which TX has decided not to be a part of. Well, most of TX.
If renewables are to be part of the future, then we need a redesign of our grid. That means the states have to get out of the electricity business. It means designing a national grid that meets the country’s current and future needs.
Here’s the thing that those who want to do nothing and maintain the status quo don’t understand. Oil, and natural gas are a finite resource. One day, in the not-too-distant future, we will use them up. That means we have to switch to another energy source. Coal will last longer, but coal is better left in the ground as the energy source of last resort.
There is a better reason to end the use of fossil fuels sooner rather than later. Oil is a vital source of industrial chemicals, lubricants, and asphalt. Today’s refineries are designed to maximize the production of fossil fuels. Research is under way to create the refinery of the future. It will be much smaller, minimize the production of fossil fuels, and maximize the production of other products. The refinery of the future will be integrated with chemical plants. Our current refineries are too big and too expensive to convert. They will be scrapped and are destined to become EPA superfund sites. All of that means we will be able to considerably extend the life of our oil reserves. That’s a good thing.
JJB comment – “In the US we have an ad hoc system built up over the last 100 years. We have 50 grids — one for each state. ”
JJB – That would be news to everyone involved.
Really?
If you had a properly designed national grid, hundreds of people wouldn’t have died in TX a couple of years ago. Of course, renewables got the blame.
You can’t cure stupid!
I dont’ know what the term grid means to you or what your natinal grid would involve. Seekling to have the enitre US grid operate in synchronism would not be a good choice at this time due to physics. If you want reliabile electricity for all the US, this is not the way to go. Areas much like Texas can and do have much more dependable service than Texas has seen during their more recent extreme weather events. The problems in Texas are largely related to departing from the status quo, not failure to try new things.
PS: Check at Hawaii. Do you think it should have just one grid?
The problems in TX are mostly due to deregulation.
There are no “physics” problems with building a national grid.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/lets-build-a-global-power-grid
Looks like JJ is the epitome of out-of-touch-with-reality.
I love that at the bottom of the article it says.
Clark W. Gellings is a Fellow at the Electric Power Research Institute and an IEEE Life Fellow. This is his second article for IEEE Spectrum. His first, published in 1981, introduced the idea of demand-side management—a now common smart-grid practice that allows electricity customers to manage their own usage. “People thought it was heretical, but the idea eventually took hold,” Gellings says. “I hope that happens with this article, too.”
He demand side management (DSM) was a big part of IRP above and negawatts. He coauthored pieces on this with the head of RMI, Amory Lovins. New wagon here for him.
I would say technically HVDC lines provide interconnections between grids. They do not create a super grid. I hope engineers working on such wouldn’t view it that way. With HVDC interconnection the interconnected parts are not in synchronism. (Unless it’s an internal HVDC line such as the pacific intertie or LADWPs tie to Delta Utah.
The wizardry cited early in the piece refers to dealing with very real physics problems. Inertia, frequency control, synchronism…. The costs are incredible and incredible energy savings have to be posited.
And to be clear, I don’t know who he introduced Demand Side Management to in 1981. Many forms were practiced by utilities at the time. Just as this article is overhyping DC ties, which I worked on when I was young. He was overhyping Demand Side Management back then. The whole point of this piece. DSM and HVDC will and should be used when they make sense, o credit to those who overhype the technology.
Demand Side Management came to New Zealand in the 1950s. It was ripple control that could shut about 10% of the power (mainly hot water heating) off during the peaks.
From my understanding of the DC control mechanisms, you can’t run DC interties to “seamlessly” join grids unless you run round power mode. Then you can still share reserves and some frequency control functions, but the inertia and voltage control has to be taken care of on both sides of the tie. NZ runs a grid in this mode. Can cause a lot of operational management problems even though it is 60% hydro.
Your message and mine aren’t the same. I can’t tell for sure what you are criticizing in the piece. This approach would help me.
“Oil, and natural gas are a finite resource. One day, in the not-too-distant future, we will use them up.” World oil has around 50 years proven reserves at current rates, but oil has little to nothing to do with the grid. Natural gas in the US has over 90 years at current rates. Recoverable coal of course is much longer. In any case fuel shortages say nothing about grid functionality. Nuclear power might last 30,000 years. this plan would work well for your concerns. https://judithcurry.com/2023/02/09/net-zero-or-good-enough/
“We have 50 grids – one for each state” Here RMI will show you that grids are not a state by state thing. https://rmi.org/the-united-states-has-the-only-major-power-grid-without-a-plan/
“Here’s the thing that those who want to do nothing and maintain the status quo don’t understand.” Please see this above, “The grid should grow and evolve as it always has by balancing economics, reliability and public responsibility. That will likely happen slowly and bit by bit, not by a top-down politically mandated grand redesign.”
My comments on oil were separate from my grid comments. You have too many people who want to maintain the status quo. Like it or not, the status quo is going to change. It’s a matter of when we decide to do something about it.
Your article makes my point.
If we switch transportation from fossil fuels to electricity, it will put an enormous strain on the grid. Renewables should be placed where it makes the most sense. If you leave it to the states, you’ll have wind and solar in every state, regardless of whether it’s a good idea.
What needs to be done is get a team of the best electrical engineers in the country and have them design a system from scratch that would handle current needs and is easily expandible. You should be able to plug in sources from anywhere in the country and supply any area of the country if it has power problem. Take that design and see how you can best implement in within the constraints of the current system.
Imagine if 30 years from now he claimed that in 2015 his article introduced the heretical idea of HVDC lines. DSM was not heretical in 1981, just the ridiculous overuse of the concept (as should be the overuse of HVDC ties). He is no expert on HVDC just advancing pie in the sky schemes for using them.
I guess this is part 2 of this posting, giving one more example.
Wrong place. This should go above referring to the super grid article,
JJB gets caught making his typical incorrect statement JJB comment – “ We have 50 grids — one for each state. ”
JJB gets caught – he then changes the topic to hide his mistake – but the notes the following – “If you had a properly designed national grid, hundreds of people wouldn’t have died in TX a couple of years ago. Of course, renewables got the blame.”
Well JJB – If the Texas grid was designed using all renewables, then during that infamous Feb 2021 freeze there would have been more than few hundred thousand dying – because there was virtually no wind to generate electricity across the entire North American Continent.
See the EIA.gov for real time data – use real facts
Hey genius,
The problem in TX in 2021 was natural gas facilities freezing up, but the state government blamed renewables.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/#:~:text=The%20inability%20of%20power%20plants%20to%20perform%20in,demand%20or%20risk%20further%20damage%20to%20the%20grid.
The problem in ERCOT, SPP, and MISO in February 2021 was that they had shutdown too many reliable dispatchable power plants. This created an over reliance on nat gas.
For JJB, as Alex Epstein correctly noted, while wind was only part of the problem in TX, it was none of the solution. The TX energy crisis was addressed by ramping up gas generation – wind generation could not be ramped up because there were not enough blowhards like you around to create the needed wind velocity to spin the turbines. Another claim frequently made is that if ERCOT had better interconnects with neighboring states, the crisis never would have happened as if the cold front affecting TX was not present across virtually the entire midwest meaning that all grids were being stressed and there was precious little surplus capacity to share. TX, in particular, had only about 9% reserve capacity when 15% minimum is recommended.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/14/texas-national-power-grids/#:~:text=According%20to%20an%20analysis%20by%20the%20American%20Council,Texas%20homes%20during%20Winter%20Storm%20Uri%20last%20year.
People on this thread might also find the following review of interest – https://lnkd.in/ew5aGJ-5
That pairs well with this one. https://judithcurry.com/2023/04/03/the-earths-green-future-is-forked/
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I’m curious about the proposed California rate structure. Is it a fixed rate for the basic hook up, but still with an incremental price for usage, or is it just a flat fixed monthly rate for everyone regardless of usage?
If it’s just a flat monthly fee regardless of usage, then I think Californians could make some side money using a transformer, a magnet, and some glassware to make nitric acid via air through an electric arc using the Birkeland Eyde process (wiki).
The process can produce nitric acid worth $0.026 cents for a kWh of electricity, and currently the process isn’t used because electricity costs far more than $0.026 cents per kWh. At current prices a home nitric acid setup would lose $0.026 – $0.30 = -$0.274 per kWh. But if the incremental cost of consumer electricity is zero, then the -$0.30 disappears and the setup becomes profitable because the utility is eating the $0.30 cents per kWh.
Of course there are perhaps more profitable ways of wasting free electricity, such as massive indoor marijuana farms or growing saffron or vanilla indoors. Maybe home smelting or electric-arc steelmaking would be a money maker. Of course the California grid would collapse as more people built home production facilities, but that’s why it’s important to try to be an early adopter to scam the utilities early, while the window of opportunity is open.
Good ideas. I think it’s a boone to mining bitcoin as well. I wonder how many swimming pools will now be heated.
Excellent post Russ and thanks for sharing Judith
The assumption that methane (natural gas) is exhaustible is wrong. Methane in enormous quantity is still being formed by natural degradation of biomass. CH4 is not fossil fuel. Burning CH4 produces zero polluton. Human additions or removals of CO2 to atmosphere cannot change net global CO2 atmospheric concentration. Additions are absorbed by ocean surface. Removals are replaced by ocean surface. This is Henry’s Law and Graham’s Law and Fick’s 1st Law. CO2 today is where it would be if humans never existed. There is no correlation between the trend of deseasonalized estimated CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and the trend of deseasonalized measured net global CO2 atmospheric concentration.
If instead the world had spent a fraction of the money and human resource wasted on the fraud of human-CO2-caused-global warming but rather on R&D and production of methane clathrates, then most of these grid issues would dissappear because there would be a continuous source of almost zero pollution energy to supplement nuclear. There would also be less real pollution and environmental damage due to lithium production, rare earth mineral production, disposal of old solar panels and turbines, etc.
There is so much wrong in that post, that I don’t know where to begin. So, I won’t.
Then you wonder why so few take climate denial seriously. That’s why.
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Who said, ‘we have nothing to fear, but fear itself?” At his 1933 Presidential Inauguration, Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed this exact sentiment. But he lifted it from earlier speakers, i.e. the great French writer Michel de Montaigne in the sixteenth century and Francis Bacon who wrote in his 1623 book De Augmentis Scientiarum: ‘Nil terribile nisi ipse timor,’ or ‘Nothing is terrible except fear itself.’ And in the nineteenth century in the United States, Henry David Thoreau offered in his journal entry for September 7 1851: ‘Nothing is so much to be feared as fear,’ Thoreau was alluding to atheism. Some climate changers are not so concerned about the climate as they are about pushing the climate narrative and concept of climate fear because it’s the “right thing to do” ; and the concept of fear of the unknown or unproveable in any meaningful real-time context. Most of them cannot articulate the uncertainties in value and timing of something that is in fact occurring at a slow pace and sometimes not at all. The sky is not falling and it is not entirely clear whether we understand it let alone are able to make justifiable predictions and not just “black box” modeled input / output “fitted” models, and the issue also being models cannot be bested in any meaningful real time way over several hundred years … which is what is what is needed for such climate modeling. But it serves the purposed of helping make names and salaries in the scientific community, payrolled jobs in academia and government, etc. But it also spreads into many other fields because of the ancillary effect of others riding on the coattails such as politicians who love being handed such freebies to put on their resumes.
There is a lot more money to be made by climate denial scientists than by scientists who support consensus science. The majority of scientists are more concerned about their reputation than monetary considerations. You’re not going to get rich by endorsing consensus science.
The problem with a wait and see approach is that by the time the impact of AGW is beyond any doubt, it’s too late to do anything about it, For some, no amount of destruction will be enough to convince them AGW is an existential threat.
What amount of destruction? I live in central Kentucky. Based on the IPCC reports, if we do nothing then in a hundred years the climate here might be like the climate in southern Kentucky or northern Tennessee. I figure my grandkids could just read early 21st century gardening books written by authors in Nashville or Knoxville to learn how Tennesseans manage to survive those searing temperatures.
Or they could just park their double-wide a thousand feet higher up the hill so the daily summer highs are lower by 2 C.
Measured and predicted air temperatures at basin to regional scales in the southern Appalachian mountains Bolstad et al, 1998.
Of course they already experience such soaring temperatures for a brief period every day when they go down the hill to the check the mailbox, which might be why they don’t live in fear of apocalyptic climate doom.
LMAO!
You believe: “What’s the problem? All you have to do is stay inside more and turn up the air conditioning.” It’s not going to be like that. This is going to be a worldwide phenomenon. Your grandkids are going to find out what an interconnected world we live in.
You can take solace that the wealthy are not going to be able to buy themselves out of this one. A first in America.
This is untrue. Climate science has seen huge increases in funding based on the narrative of impending doom. People like Mann have research groups and have big salaries. They travel frequently at our expense.
There is little evidence that global warming will have negatives that outweigh the positives such as large increases in plant productivity. Weather will probably get less severe because the temp gradients that drive will decrease.
What incentive do Chinese or Russian or Indian climate scientists have to perpetuate this hoax? Most climate scientists are not living in the lap of luxury.
What drives extreme weather events are water temperatures. The higher the water temperature, the more warm moist air to feed the storm, the bigger and more intense the storm.
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/hurricanes/en/
Stop trying to play amateur climate scientist. You suck at it.
So 2 C hotter is somehow hotter than 2 C if it’s spread over a wider area?
That’s magical thinking, just like claiming that 2 C of warming will hurt everyone, everywhere, when the vast majority of humanity lives in regions that are much too cold, given that we evolved on the equatorial African savannahs as one of the most heat-adapted mammals on the planet (we’re vertical, virtually hairless, and covered in sweat glands). But somehow, 2 C warming is going to harm everyone, everywhere, even people huddled together for warmth in the arctic.
That’s not science, that’s a religion that prophesies doom for all of mankind because man has sinned, so everyone has to suffer equally, except for poor and minorities who will be hardest hit just because.
A few years ago I pulled up 10 years worth of detailed temperature data from the nearest ground station to me in the NCDC data set. I added two degrees C to see how often the new deadly temperatures would be outside the range of the normal highs we had prior to mankind’s destructive activities.
The answer was that, across an entire decade, the temperate would be outside the old norm on two days, for about seven hours. I figured I would just go inside and skip the apocalypse by watching a couple old episodes of Stargate SG-1, then go outside and search for survivors.
See, your problem is that 2 C is so small that most people can’t reliably even sense it. It’s the temperature increase lots of hill folks have when they go down their driveway. It’s less than urban heat island effect in major cities. If human induced warming is so catastrophic, how come so many climate alarmists move to dense urban areas to experience as much of it as possible?
And aside from all that, as an engineer, let me note that there is no way we’re successfully switching from fossil fuels on any significant scale in less than a 30-year timeframe, as nobody is doing a massive build-out of nuclear powerplants, much less doubling grid capacity, which requires almost doubling the amount of copper mined in all of human history. Heck, they haven’t even accelerated the rate of copper mining permit applications.
If they haven’t even started to push toward required infrastructure tasks that have ten year lead times before a project even starts, for projects that take ten to twenty years to complete, then the good news is that the lack of grid upgrades won’t be catastrophic because the new EV’s won’t exist because the massive increases in lithium and rare earth mining didn’t happen either.
When I look a green energy wish casts, what I see is adolescent thinking by people who have no idea of how to approach large projects, much less how to plan and implement them. They keep assuming miracles or ignoring complete show stoppers, as if there was a magic Energy Fairy that would appear at the right moment to save the day.
Successful large projects are completed by people who understand how to successfully complete large projects. When things are run by those who can’t think their way through all the complexities, foreseeing obstacles to anticipate their impact far enough ahead to cope with them, then the projects end in abject failure, followed by lots of finger pointing.
Almost all the big green transition projects will end in finger pointing, because none of them lay out a workable plan.
Another clueless amateur scientist.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/08/1-5-or-2-degrees-celsius-of-additional-global-warming-does-it-make-a-difference/
What makes you think 2 C is a ceiling? That only happens if we significantly cut global CO2 emissions. That looks like a pipe dream at the moment.
JJB, I’ve worked with the Navier-Stokes equations for 45 years and have perhaps 40 peer reviewed papers. You are just flat wrong on this piece of disinformation about water temperatures. It’s a novice mistake.
In the Navier-Stokes equations the temperature enters only as the gradient in the source terms aside from the equation of state. Thus lower gradients lead to milder velocity solutions. And indeed it appears that tornados are becoming less common in the US.
You have literally carpet bombed several posts here with largely uninformative comments. Please up your game.
The Navier-Stokes equations? Really? That has exactly nothing to do with climate change. I’m pretty sure climate scientists don’t spend nights worry about the impact of the Navier-Stokes equations on climate.
Here’s how it works. Higher ocean temperatures cause more water to evaporate. Higher atmospheric temperatures mean the atmosphere can hold more water. Combine those two and a warming planet means there is more water in the atmosphere. That means more storms, more thunderstorms, more extreme thunderstorms, and more tornados. It as simple as that and I didn’t need to use the Navier Stokes equation to come to that conclusion.
“And indeed it appears that tornados are becoming less common in the US.”
Let’s test your hypothesis:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/sotc/tornadoes/2018/ann/tornado-counts-0112-2018.png
To be sure I got another source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tornado_events_by_year
The following data I calculated from the above source. The data is the average tornadoes per year over 10 year periods:
1950 – 1960 521
1961 – 1970 685
1971 – 1980 879
1981 – 1990 846
1991 – 2000 1208
2000 – 2010 1293
2010 – 2020 1178
What a surprise! It appears you don’t know what you’re talking about.
“You have literally carpet bombed several posts here with largely uninformative comments. Please up your game.”
That’s called projection. Your problem is you never had any game to begin with. For you, there is nothing to up.
It is almost certainly true that climate scientists in India and China are much less alarmist the those in the developed West. It is almost as if alarmist is directly related to the size of the available money being spent.
I’ve been in the research game for 45 years. I know about this very well. With massive funding available for soft money, University professors can advance, hire large groups of grad students, and post docs, who in turn generate a mass of papers with the professor’s name on them. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle.
Many of the most successful professors make as much as a million dollars a year and often are able to spend a third of their time on the road.
Do you think that the Chinese wouldn’t relish in poking a finger in the eye of the west if they could prove consenus climate science was a hoax?
LMAO!!
JJB, Your NASA citation is a cartoon version for laymen and is provably wrong.
I had to dumb it down for those of limited intelligence.
So, water temperatures don’t drive hurricanes? Then what does? The Navier-Stokes equations?
Ever notice what happens when a hurricane is on dry land? Here’s a hint: they don’t get stronger. That’s not a coincidence.
LMAO!!
JJB
The amateur scientists aren’t as bad as the clueless amateur grid engineers who regularly display their ignorance by post articles they don’t understand
How is the 33% efficient grid coming on?.
I’m not an electrical engineer or a climate scientist and I never claimed to be. I do know a lot about thermodynamics which got its start by explaining energy and how it behaves.
In case you don’t know — very likely — climate change is all about energy.
“There is a lot more money to be made by climate denial scientists” That looks very close to being libelous, especially as there is no evidence to back it up. And blog posts aren’t evidence.
“What incentive do Chinese or Russian or Indian climate scientists have to perpetuate this hoax?”
Never stop your enemy when they are making a fool of themselves.
The Chinese, Russian and Indian governments can see the Western world spending vast resources seemingly to hamstring their own economies. Why would they want to stop them doing that?
If a business rival of mine suddenly decided that digging a hole was essential as the world was going to end if he didn’t dig the hole, I’d encourage him to dig the hole deeper.
In your case: Never get in the way of a fool making a fool of himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_India
I guess the Chinese and the Indian governments are disguising their plot by investing billions in renewables. How diabolical!!!
JJB opines that “The majority of scientists are more concerned about their reputation than monetary considerations.”
If I was the scientist who wrote much of the unscientific “trust me, I am a scientist” stuff supporting this ill-defined climate change scaremongering, I’d be worried about my future reputation as well.
The saving grace for this nonsensense writing is that it is beginning to end, not with a bang, but with a whimper, T.S. Eliot style. These cunning but unscientific people, hordes of them, are big enough to engineer a gentle landing for themselves.
Geoff S
Scientific consensus has changed since the 1980s. If anything, the evidence has only gotten stronger.
JJB: “There is a lot more money to be made by climate denial scientists than by scientists who support consensus science.”
Completely wrong.
I work in the renewable energy sector and there are mountains of money showered on those …ahem … “scientists” who bend the knee to the global warming religion. One need only recall last year’s “Inflation Reduction Act” that sends hundreds of billion$ to companies, government agencies, and individuals attempting to produce green hydrogen or other fuels. And that is only the most recent of decades of wasteful green spending.
One can hardly find an energy or chemical company website that doesn’t preen their green credentials.
IF there is any significant impact of human conduct on global temperatures it is both tiny and very, very slowly occurring. We have at least many decades, maybe centuries to adapt to a changing climate. And we had better adapt because all the CO2-reducing schemes will do nothing to change the future since none of these address the real problem – Earth is emerging from an ice age.
JJ
When I read this study that finds an inverse relationship between environmental knowledge and climate anxiety, I thought about you.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03518-z
The study also mentions higher anxiety among younger women. Which goes along with this survey by PEW which indicates a higher level of mental health issues among young liberal women, at rates of 10 times those of older conservative men.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrpZKYwXwAAFPYt?format=jpg&name=large
Some have found that deep meditation can help them down off the ledge. Just a thought.
“The study also mentions higher anxiety among younger women. Which goes along with this survey by PEW which indicates a higher level of mental health issues among young liberal women, at rates of 10 times those of older conservative men.”
Older conservative men are brain dead. They can’t have mental health issues. They spend their days mesmerized by FAUX News and chanting: Tucker, Tucker, Tucker …
That’s your future, or maybe it’s your present.
Well I have inside info on this one. University salaries are quite lucrative. To get tenure and a high salary and even to keep your job, you can’t challenge political hot potato issues in climate, epidemiology, gender, intelligence etc. And this is not to mention all the lucrative “prizes” given out to activist climate scientists.
The fact that Willie Soon obtained a total of $1M in research grants from energy companies is just trivial. This money didn’t line his personal pocket; at best it covered a few months of his university salary. Top tier climate scientists routinely bring in $1M+/yr in research grants from federal agencies. The energy sector funds a trivial amount of climate research.
When I resigned my university position I gave up a very large salary. The income from my small company has never approached my previous university salary. People who criticize me because my company has clients in the energy sector, seem to think that these clients line my personal pockets with donations. Hardly the case. My company provides weather forecast services for electric utilities so that they can plan for extreme weather and minimize outages. Etc. I invest most of the profits back into developing the company.
Willie Soon’s problem was not that he received money from the fossil fuel industry. His problem was that he failed to disclose it. That may not be illegal, but it’s unethical and brings into question his work.
His work is BS. He claims that solar activity is responsible for climate change. If that were true, we would see increasing solar irradiance. For the last forty years, solar irradiance has been flat to down while temperatures are rising. You can argue about what is causing that, but it’s not energy from the sun.
Good for you, if what you say about you and your company is true. That doesn’t make you right.
The Navier Stokes equations are the governing equations for the atmosphere. Weather and climate models solve these equations. They are THE way to reason about weather. They do drive weather.
Your assertion about moisture content is ignorant and wrong. Precipitation can only occur when warm air encounters colder air. The temperature difference drives how much water condenses out and falls as rain.
Weather is mostly driven by energy maldistribution. It is definitely not driven by fluid mechanics. The Navier-Stokes equations are not an energy source.
Saying ocean temperature doesn’t drive hurricanes is idiotic.
JJB provides link to the NOAA tornado data page
Note the lack of info / adjustment for observation deficiencies in the early years, note the omission for adjustment for years prior to the advent of doppler radar, note the start date of 1950.
Note the link to the page for “tornado count methodology” has the following statement – “We apologize, but the page or resource for which you were searching does not exist.”
see the attached link
dispels many of the points JJB has been making – – Note data in the article is from the same NOAA
https://www.centralillinoisproud.com/weather/are-tornadoes-and-tornado-outbreaks-becoming-more-common-2/
What did you do? Look at tornado data and found it wasn’t to your liking? Then in a panic you came up with those lame excuses? Okay, I’ll bite. Eliminate the data from the 50s, 60s, & 70s.. From 1981 to 1990 there were 846 tornados. From 2011 to 2020 there were 1178 tornados. That an increase of 332 tornados or 39%.
That article you referenced is a JOKE!! His first graph is for the state of IL. His subsequent graphs use NOAA data but for increasing storm severity. He doesn’t show the NOAA data for all tornados F0-F5.
What’s wrong with this approach? It’s obvious to anyone but you. The total number of tornados decreases with increasing severity. In other words, the sample size is shrinking and the conclusions he draws are unreliable.
Try again!
JJB, so what caused the massive increase in recorded tornadoes from 1950 to 1971? It certainly wasn’t global climate change.
From ResearchGate: Compilation and Discussion of Trends in Severe Storms in the United States: Popular Perception v. Climate Reality, Balling and Cerveney, 2003.
And the data since 2003 likewise doesn’t support an increase in severe weather.
The mechanism is that the temperatures in the tropics are pretty constant regardless of climate, due to the strong feedback effects from tropical rainfall patterns, so the warming mostly occurs in the temperate and artic regions. The result of that is less temperature change with latitude, which means the cold dry air and the warm moist air stay farther apart, which means less violent mixing. The weather just chills out because there the cold fronts and the warm fronts stop getting all up in each other’s business.
And you need to learn Navier-Stokes and the Galerkin shallow water model, and then learn about the situations where they won’t work well, and why. For example, Navier-Stokes has to be patched for evaporation or condensation, such as in the final stages of a steam turbine, and Galerkin isn’t actually a 3-D representation of anything. It’s an extrapolation from flatland.
Of course, when you get down to it, the ideal gas law is invalid in an accelerating reference frame because it only gives one pressure for a given volume, instead of a complicated pressure vs. height relation. But for sufficiently small volumes under low gravity, the error can be ignored.
But when your grid size becomes large, such simplifications start causing significant errors.
“JJB, so what caused the massive increase in recorded tornadoes from 1950 to 1971? It certainly wasn’t global climate change.”
Climate Change!
https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.a99790f631eb3e25514e19ae553d0a69?rik=GJMOTKu9uWWcpg&pid=ImgRaw&r=0
Temperature started tracking CO2 around 1960.
When it comes to extreme weather events. It depends how you count them. Hurricanes aren’t a good indicator because they don’t occur very often. Tornados are better. Here’s a graph of global extreme weather events by year put out by the insurance industry:
https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.ef95301152a86e3b4cea1d3ca97d7129?rik=hG8Vw6aC37Bg2A&pid=ImgRaw&r=0
That shows a rising number of events by year. There are critics of this analysis.
I don’t understand why people insist that fluid mechanics is important in climate change. Climate change is all about energy. You need to think in terms of thermodynamics.
The ideal gas law is valid everywhere in the atmosphere. You have to remember that it relates three variables — P,V,&T. If you want the pressure at a particular height, you’re going to have to know V&T at that height.
@George Turner
Even the simple concept of lapse rate isn’t so simple in the real world. Wind can mix a rising volume of air, then all the rules go out the window.
The amount of damage increases over time because the amount of things that can be damaged increases over time, as does their cost.
Increasing the temperature of a gas system decreases the wind velocity caused by a particular energy gradient. Wind is caused by changes in volume, as pressure is a function of momentum, mass, and height, in loose terms.
I once had a PhD friend insist that the pressure on Venus was due to temperature, deriding my insistence that the temperature was due to the pressure in a system whose external radiative interface was at the cloud tops. (In college he’d missed out on a Rhodes Scholarship because he’d gone with the wacky 1980’s pop version of thermodynamics that said the Earth’s entropy was decreasing and the planet couldn’t support dinosaurs anymore.) He said my claim was as ridiculous as saying that the heat in a pressure cooker was due to the pressure, not the stove. Well, planets don’t have lids on them, so surface pressure is roughly the mass of the atmosphere times the surface gravity divided by the planetary surface area (roughly because that simple description doesn’t treat gravity as an inverse square law, which is required if the atmosphere has a significant vertical extent).
In an atmosphere with vertical mixing, the temperature will have a gradient determined by some combination of the dry and moist adiabatic lapse rates. The temperature will almost always decrease with height in the troposphere. When Carl Sagan predicted the temperature of Venus, his estimate for the surface temperature with a nitrogen atmosphere was higher than his guess for a CO2 atmosphere because of the different adiabatic lapse rates of the two gases.
Venus has enormous specific energy in the lower atmosphere, but extremely slow surface winds. Mars’ atmosphere has very low temperature but often extremely high wind velocities. Equatorial Africa has very high moisture and air temperatures but very low winds speeds, such that it would be an incredibly bad place for wind turbines. The North Sea and Antarctica have very low temperatures but very high wind speeds. The outer gas planets have incredibly low atmospheric temperatures but the highest wind velocities in the solar system. There’s a pattern there.
When you dump a dollop of energy into a very cold gas, the percentage volume change is vastly larger than when you dump that same dollop of energy into a very hot gas. As the gas temperature goes to infinity, the percentage volume change goes to zero. It’s the volume change that raises the height of a portion of atmosphere, with some of the energy input being stored as potential energy (height) that can then be converted to energy of motion as huge upper air columns race downhill.
In terms of a thermodynamic heat engine, where Q is the energy difference between hot and cold, the efficiency (which is going to be a measure of how much energy could be extracted by mechanical means like a wind turbine) is the temperature difference divided by the temperature of the hot reservoir. If the overall system is very cold, the divisor is small and the efficiency is high, which means the system is good at turning energy differences into wind speeds. If the system is very hot, the divisor is large and the efficiency is low, which means the system is bad at turning temperature differences into wind speeds.
In an atmosphere where pressure is a function of mass, height, and gravity, treat it as an constant average and you see that volume is a function of temperature. For a 1 K temperature change at 80 Kelvin you get a 1.25% change in volume. At 8000 Kelvin 1 K of temperature change gets you a 0.0125% change in volume, a hundred times less. The hotter a system is, the less it physically responds to a given temperature difference in a way that can be extracted as work.
And yes, I do thermodynamics for gas turbines and liquid fueled rocket engines.
The ideal gas law ignores gravity. Even if you reduce the system to one helium atom bouncing back and forth, the atom will hit the bottom of the container harder than the top of the container due to conservation of energy. If you look at it as an accelerating reference frame, the bottom of the container is slamming into the atom while the top of the container is retreating from the atom. The pressure on the bottom cannot be equal to the pressure on the top, due to the weight of the atom, and so the pressure of the container cannot be expressed by a single number, which is all the gas equation produces. It’s a simplification of reality to make the math amenable, not a universal truth. If gets close in a calculus sense of adding up lots of tiny little boxes.
Wow! That was a mouth full.
“I once had a PhD friend insist that the pressure on Venus was due to temperature, deriding my insistence that the temperature was due to the pressure in a system whose external radiative interface was at the cloud tops.”
You’re both wrong.
Newtons Law of Gravity: F = G * M1 * M2 / R**2
F = Force
G = Gravitational Constant
M1 = Mass of Body 1
M2 = Mass of Body 2
R = Distance between the center of mass of each body
We are interested in the pressure at the surface of a planet. We are going to assume the planet has an atmosphere that has no effect on the planet’s temperature – no albedo or greenhouse effect.
Divide F by the surface area of the planet (A) and you get:
F/A = G * M1 * M2 / R**2
F/A is pressure (P). The mass of the planet is constant. Let M1 be the mass of atmosphere (M). R is the distance between the center of mass of the planet and the center of mass of the atmosphere and is constant. Multiply the constants together (K). The equation becomes:
P = K * M
Pressure at the surface of the planet is proportional to the mass of the atmosphere. Pressure is set by the mass of the atmosphere and nothing else.
The temperature of the planet is set by energy balance between the sun and the planet. The sun radiates energy to the planet and the planet radiates energy into space. The amount of energy that the planet radiates is a function of its temperature. The temperature of the planet is set when the energy the planet absorbs from the sun is equal to the energy the planet radiates into space.
The pressure is set and the temperature is set. The atmosphere must comply with an equation of state. The generalized equation of state is:
PV/RT = Z
Z is the compressibility factor and is 1 for an ideal gas. The equation of state is a relationship between P,V,&T. Pressure is set by the mass of the atmosphere, Temperature is set by energy balance. What varies to satisfy the equation of state is V — the molar volume.
The confusion over pressure setting the planet’s temperature arises from the fact that when you compress a gas, its temperature rises. That is true and happens to the atmosphere, but the temperature rise is temporary. Think of the planet with no sun. The atmosphere is compressed, and the temperature rises. The planet is radiating energy into space. The radiating energy will deplete the energy in the atmosphere and the temperature of the atmosphere will drop until the planet is in energy balance. Since there is no sun supplying a continuous stream of energy, the temperature of the planet will drop close to absolute zero.
“The temperature will almost always decrease with height in the troposphere.”
It will as long as the surface temperature is greater than the temperature of the troposphere.
“When Carl Sagan predicted the temperature of Venus, his estimate for the surface temperature with a nitrogen atmosphere was higher than his guess for a CO2 atmosphere because of the different adiabatic lapse rates of the two gases.”
The lapse rate has nothing to do with it. In my opinion it’s set by the wavelength of the outer absorption bands of CO2. It’s the blackbody temperature at the wavelength of the peak of Venus’s radiant profile which is between the two outer CO2 absorption bands. I have a compelling explanation for this hypothesis, but I don’t have enough evidence to call it scientific proof. I explained it in this thread. The post starts with an IR spectrograph of Venus.
“In terms of a thermodynamic heat engine, where Q is the energy difference between hot and cold, the efficiency (which is going to be a measure of how much energy could be extracted by mechanical means like a wind turbine) is the temperature difference divided by the temperature of the hot reservoir.”
That the theoretical maximum efficiency. The actual efficiency will be lower.
“The ideal gas law ignores gravity.”
No, it doesn’t. Gravity is an implicit — not explicit — variable. If a container contains an isothermal gas. The molar volume becomes a function of pressure. Pressure will vary with height because of gravity and the ideal gas law will calculate the correct molar volume.
… the pressure of the container cannot be expressed by a single number, which is all the gas equation produces.
It depends on what you are trying to calculate. You can come up with a suitable “average” pressure to make the calculation work. You may even be able to come up an analytical equation. If not, you stuck with a numerical solution.
The tornado data before Doppler radar is probably too low. Here’s an analysis showing that the worst tornados are getting less common.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-3fe
The problem with using F-3+ data is the sample size. The more you shrink the sample size the less reliable the conclusions.
The graph using cost is useless. Most tornadoes do not hit populated areas and the costs can be skewed.
I’m not a big fan of using this type of data. Criteria are subjective. I have used a worldwide graph of all types of extreme weather events by year put out by the insurance industry. It shows a significant increase in extreme events by year. The complaints that I got were that it was only for land data, and the insurance industry determined what constituted an extreme event by cost. The data was corrected for inflation and the variation in cost of living in different countries. I’m not sure how you assess if climate change is causing more extreme weather events or not. It seems like things are getting worse. Getting objective criteria that everyone can agree on, at this point, doesn’t seem possible.
@JJBraccili
That doesn’t work because the atmosphere isn’t a point mass. You have to divide it into tiny little masses and integrate, which is hard because the mass distribution is wildly non-linear, as is the temperature profile. And the temperature is unevenly spread over the Earth’s surface, and the planet is spinning.
I’ve done a less precise calculation couple times for the Earth for precision aviation calculations and the math is brutal even with simplifications, depending on how detailed you get about water vapor and varying lapse rates. It’s a problem where you go find a Fortran program written in the 1960’s.
But atmosphere mass divided by surface area gives surface pressure within a percent or so on a planet with a thin atmosphere.
For Venus, the temperature rise has gone on for 4.5 billion years and counting. We can assume it is currently at equilibrium with the sun’s radiative flux of 2600 W/m^2. Yet the surface temperature is vastly higher than that, while the temperature at an altitude that is half of Earth’s sea level pressure is close to that of Tampa Florida.
The radiative equilibrium of Venus is about 260 Kelvin, which is about 27 Kelvin lower than Earth. It’s albedo is two and half times greater than Earth’s, so it actually absorbs less sunlight per area than Earth. Yet the surface is blazing.
If you built a giant mezzanine at 55 km up, the pressure would be about the same as 15,000 feet on Earth and the air would be room temperature. You could walk around in shirt sleeves.
Side note: The Atlantic has quoted me as somewhat of an expert on the Venusian atmosphere regarding in-situ resource utilization of atmospheric components.
The radiative equilibrium of Venus is set in the cloud tops. What goes on beneath those cloud tops can be treated as a black box because the atmosphere lower down is radiatively opaque, in terms of significant energy fluxes. It might as well be liquid or rock.
But instead its a slowly churning mass of gas that’s going to get hotter and hotter the deeper you go, with the temperature rise maintained by adiabatic heating in a vertically mixed atmosphere. It’s essentially like a diesel cycle or a heat pump, maintaining a temperature gradient by the small application of work to maintain the compression/expansion cycle.
Relative to any particular height, the heat engine produces a relatively fixed temperature gradient. The absolute temperature that results at any particular height is going to be referenced to some point that serves as the heat exchanger with the outside universe. And that outside heat exchanger is at 266 Kelvin, somewhere in the cloud tops. The surface of Venus happens to be at a depth where it will be 200 Kelvin hotter than the upper atmospheric radiative heat exchanger.
If you raised or lowered the surface of Venus by replacing atmosphere with rocks, you’d get a difference surface temperature, depending on whether you went higher or lower.
The best method I’ve yet seen suggested for cooling the surface of Venus is my own, which is to use giant floating tubes filled with hydrogen gas, which can be extracted from the atmosphere, and whose very low adiabatic lapse rate would let hydrogen circulate between the broiling surface and the upper atmosphere with very little temperature change, thus moving heat to the upper atmosphere where it would radiate away.
That doesn’t happen with CO2 because by the time CO2 gets to the upper atmosphere, it has adiabatically cooled to 260 Kelvin and it doesn’t accomplish anything.
And as for the PV=nRT, again, the equation is perfectly valid if the volume isn’t accelerated. As soon as the volume is accelerated there will be a pressure difference due to the mass of the gas, and you can get the same effects you have in an atmosphere, where there are both pressure, temperature, and density gradients.
We ignore those by assuming the volume is small enough so that they don’t really matter, even in cases where the volume has to be microscopic for a particular calculation to be accurate, such as a jet engine’s turbine section.
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Net Zero not rational. https://rclutz.com/2023/04/17/net-zero-not-rational/
Whether its “rational” or not, the alternative is worse. Economic arguments don’t work for this problem.
The world already knows climate change is a serious problem. Whether or not something effective is don’t about it is another matter.
When people start dying in large numbers, you watch how irrational things can get
I am afraid that I I am not the world. Do you really fear that Canada and Siberia might become habitable?
Judge for yourself:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/siberian-wildfires-now-bigger-fires-world-combined/story?id=79422602
JJ
Cold kills more than heat now so things really need to change.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E44yV55XIAAfkrU?format=jpg&name=medium
JJB,
“…people start dying in large numbers”
Of what are they going to die?
What is the cause, what do measurement show for now, what is the cure?
Geoff S
I’ve posted this before and I’m not going to post it again. Get off your lazy a$$ and look it up. There are plenty of sources on the internet.
The solution is to stop using the atmosphere like a toilet.
CO2 is like Oxygen for plants. It is a beneficial gas. Trying to get rid of it is mass suicide.
‘The theory was that as customers found self-generation options preferable, more and more would leave the grid, thus raising costs for those who remained. This grid defection or load defection would lead to rising costs which would lead to further load/grid defection. ‘
This may have been a US theory, but it certainly wasn’t prevalent in Spain. There, rural dwellers who did indeed go ‘off grid’ through solar panels on roofs in a place with plenty of summer sunshine were, in fact, criminalised by the Madrid government for having done so.
Useful fantasy.
Tesla rejects batteries for net zero storage
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2023/04/17/tesla-rejects-batteries-for-net-zero-storage/
The beginning: “When a world leader in grid scale batteries says they are not the way to net zero electric power it is a big thing. Tesla has produced what is says is the optimal net zero plan and it uses almost no batteries for grid scale storage. The grandiose title of this quick study is “Sustainable Energy for All of Earth”. Woohoo! See https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf
The most detailed part is about bringing net zero to America and the primary point of interest is this. The total grid storage required (by them) is 120 terawatt hours. Of this just 6.5 is with batteries. That is a minuscule 5%. Batteries have almost no role to play. I agree. I love that we are now into the land of terawatts, which is trillions of watts. I foolishly thought gigawatts were big. Remember the 100 watt lightbulb that you held in your hand? Think trillions instead. But then Federal spending (and taxes) are now in the trillions so it is all of a piece, but I digress.
Absent their batteries, how does Tesla propose to store the enormous amounts of juice required for net zero? In a word — hydrogen. Unlike batteries, hydrogen has never been deployed at scale so there is no way to know what depending on this magic elixir might cost. That is a huge advantage when it comes to fantasy projections, right? Keep in mind that this study merely finds that net zero is “technically feasible”, as have many others. That just means it is physically possible, not that it is realistically possible. For comparison it is technically feasible that America is powered by gerbils running in cages.”
More in the article. Please share it. Net zero is technically feasible nonsense.
I guess, you are unaware, but most of the energy that comes from fossil fuels is from the hydrogen contained in fossil fuels. Fossil fuels server as a carrier for hydrogen. It is easier to move and store hydrogen as a liquid than a gas. The downside is the carbon in fossil fuels becomes CO2.
What if there were another liquid that could act as a transport for hydrogen without the carbon problem? In fact, there is — ammonia. Ammonia has problems as well. There is no guarantee that it will be the answer, but research looks promising.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435120301732#:~:text=Ammonia%20produced%20from%20renewables%20is%20widely%20seen%20as,turbines%2C%20and%20even%20as%20a%20potential%20jet%20fuel.
Once again David, your lack of knowledge on the topic of climate change is truly astounding.
Coal, oil and gas are not fossils – and no, you cannot just redefine “fossil” to suit your technobabble.
CO2 is not a pollutant, but rather the very core of life on earth. And no, you cannot just redefine “pollutant” to suit your technobabble.
I didn’t redefine anything. That’s standard usage for those terms. You’re the one who is out of step.
It’s laughable that JJB thinks “deniers” stand to make more money than the Climate Doomers. Governments around the world are spending literally TRILLIONS of dollars on “climate change” mitigation. There is a long line of grifters and rent-seekers wanted a slice of that huge tax-payer funded pie. The rest of us are getting gypped out of our money.
RE: CA fixed billing, I have to wonder what obligations will customers have when it comes to load reduction. Another point, I’m guess the government will be paying money to the utilities so they don’t go bankrupt – well, maybe.
When the United Nations [sic], world leaders [sic], and politicians generally make it so easy for the wrong people to get rich(er) quick(er) by doing all the wrong things we should all realise just how lucky we have been to have had the pinnacles of wisdom interspersing the long periods we spend without them throughout human history.
Revolution or war will come, the former if people are serious about getting their freedoms back and the latter if the west continues to lose itself in wokedom. Either way we will eventually wake up from this egregious nightmare and get our senses back.
“Either way we will eventually wake up from this egregious nightmare and get our senses back.”
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” Charles Mackay 1841
Nightmares you wake up from. Reality you wake up to. AGW is reality.
AGW is reality CAGW is not reality.
Not yet. Let AGW go unchecked, and it will morph into CAGW.
And when reality is the nightmare we wake up to we have people like you telling us you have the answers to the problem when your answers are the problem.
That is how bitter and twisted your ‘reality’ is and the reason why your ignorance displays your lack of concern for humanity or the planet we occupy with all the other products of nature some of which we may care about when it suits our selfish purposes. We are making the nightmare worse for many species with wind turbines. Solar makes absolutely no sense except for very local applications.
Had there been a real emergency about AGW seventy years ago (which if you are right about CO2 we absolutely did have) then we already had the nuclear antedote which being as green as you can get would have reduced so called dirty energy to a necessary and essential minimum. That seventy years would have produced much refinement of issues and better solutions. But fantasies of the kind you now spread about fossil fuel and carbon dioxide were at that time spread about nuclear. In neither case of nuclear or fossil fuel were they or are they true.
Wind and solar are making the problem worse not better and people like you should know better than stick your head above the parapet shouting ‘I know what I am doing’. You patently haven’t a clue what you are talking about.. Humanity’s stupidity has no bounds as you illustrate more frighteningly with every nonsense you write.
Here’s another example of a hysterical “climate change” article. Upon reading it, it conflates fire danger from machines with hot summer temperatures. The fire danger is from machines, not the weather. To further confuse things, it mentions a building collapse???!!! I’m thinking they are just trolling for other peoples money, their favorite flavor!
Bangladesh’s garment factories, a key source of foreign exchange for the South Asian nation, face the heightened risk of fires as summer temperatures soar, an industry lobby group warned.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the main industry body in the world’s No. 2 exporter after China, issued 11 instructions to its 4,500 members over the weekend. These include powering off all machinery at night, including lights, fans, electric irons and boilers. Factories were asked to keep the entry and exits free for movement and ensure all gates and passages are open during working hours.
“As garment factories use machinery and electric tools, there are risks of fire. Cautionary measures can avert disasters and save lives,” the association’s president Faruque Hassan said in a letter. The body also called for factory owners to establish security cameras on the premises to prevent any act of sabotage.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-18/bangladesh-garment-factories-face-fire-risk-as-temperatures-soar
@ jim2 | April 18, 2023 at 7:08 am in suspense.
The fixed rate billing looks to be a flat rate people pay per month to be hooked up to the grid based on income. On top of that there is a charge per kilowat hour used and they insist this rate will be lower than it was before. (I’ll believe that when I see it.)
This may not be as bad as it looks because low income people are more likely to live in high population density areas (apartment complexes) than high income people (single family homes) making hookup cheaper in the first place. Additionally, those in single-family homes have been able to install rooftop solar panels and sell power at retail prices back to the grid, a saving option not available to renters, so for years the renters have been subsidizing homeowners’ electric bill. In essence it looks like the “Robin Hood in reverse” regressive pricing benefits of eco-friendly power are finally being chipped away.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s – one of the major tax policy debates dealt with taxation of low income earners. Income earners in the 10k to 25k income range had effective income tax rates approaching 110%-150% due to the phase of various credits such as the earned income credit, along with the phase out of other welfare benefits (food stamps, renters assistance etc).
Democrat policies were designed to keep low income earnings dependent on government programs thus the disincentives to seek productive employment.
This discounted utility rates is another form of disincentivizing productive employment
Weren’t you the one who chided me this is not the place for political discussion?
Typical conservative. It’s good for me, but not for thee.
BTW welfare for the wealthy and corporate welfare far exceeds anything that’s given to the poor.
The wealthy, as percentage of their income, pay way less than the average American. They have tax accountants who specialize in shielding income from taxes. They have special provisions placed in the tax code like the treatment of carried interest to avoid taxes.
Corporations that employ a large number of minimum wage employees use government assistance to pad their profits. For years, Walmart refused to pay a living wage. They counseled their employees on government assistance available to them and how to apply for that assistance.
Conservatives rail against affirmative action because they say it’s unfair. What about affirmative action for the wealthy? At Harvard Jared Kushner’s father made a multimillion-dollar donation to buy his idiot son admission. Donald Trump used connections to transfer to the University of PA’s Wharton school. Then he used the legacy system and donations to get his idiot children into Penn. Dubya graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School and can’t string two coherent sentences together. That doesn’t say much for the Ivy League, does it?
The only thing the Republican Party is consistently interested in is protecting the interests of the wealthy. If you’re an average American, and you have drunk the Kool-Aid and believe the BS conservative media feed you, you should have “SUCKER” tattooed on your forehead.
Guys don’t get triggered by JJB. He is obviously trolling.
I’m not trolling anybody. I’m one of the few people on this site who understands the science behind climate change.
Here’s the thing about science. Trying to wrap science around an ideological point of view will fail. It leads to irreconcilable differences with reality.
I won’t provide any commentary, other than to note the trip from NYC to DC was made in April.
“A 9-hour drive in Toyota’s new electric SUV showed me how brutal EV road trips can be with the wrong car”
https://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-bz4x-electric-car-road-trip-charging-time-range-2023-4
One cannot compare apples to oranges, especially if what one needs is a pine-apple sorbet.
Its all boils down to the right ‘horses for courses’.
“EPRI selected a community in Oregon .. the project was cancelled because the target city had become the wind surfing capital of the east coast”. East is likely a typo. Maybe EPRI methods are not applicable to wind surfing communities? Or agricultural communities? Or industrial communities? Academic communities only, I guess.
Yes. My bad. Brain thought West Coast, fingers felt differently. It seemed a lame excuse.
Earth is still emerging from an ice age.
–
***
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
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In case readers want to know more about how human-produced CO2 cannot change global CO2 concentration, with lots of reference links regarding Henry’s Law and CO2, here are two starter reads from NIST scientists (U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology)
https://www.nist.gov/publications/avoid-common-pitfalls-when-using-henrys-law
Sander, R.: Compilation of Henry’s law constants (version 4.0) for water as solvent, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 4399–4981, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-4399-2015, 2015.
In case you want to see how the global CO2 trend is NOT correlated with the trend in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, here is a paper by emeritus professor of business statistics, Jamal Munshi, PhD. RESPONSIVENESS OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS: UPDATED
That’s pathetic!
Henry’s law is an equilibrium relationship between the CO2 concentration dissolved in water and the CO2 concentration in air. It says nothing about the rate that CO2 passes from the air to the water. That is a mass transfer problem. That’s determines how fast CO2 is being removed from the atmosphere. You have no idea what you are talking about.
The paper on correlation of CO2 ppm with fossil fuel emissions is good junk science. That’s because it sounds plausible, but it’s actually junk science. The explanation is fairly simple.
I skimmed his paper. He doesn’t spend time explaining exactly what he is doing, but I think he’s comparing the change of CO2 in the atmosphere with the gross quantity of CO2 emissions and he finds no correlation. That’s because there is no correlation, but that doesn’t mean the CO2 emissions are not responsible for increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/images/2023-04/total-ghg-over-time-2023.png
The graph is from the above source, and it shows GHG emissions by year. CO2 makes up 80% of those emissions. Notice on the graph that the gold line goes up and down. During that whole period of time the CO2 in the atmosphere is going up. During that period of time CO2 in the atmosphere is continuously increasing. Why is that? Look at the black curve on the graph. That’s the difference between CO2 emissions and the amount of CO2 being removed by natural processes. That is positive. That means that even though emissions at times decrease, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere keeps increasing. You’re not going to see a correlation.
What should have been done? He should have tried to correlate the change in atmospheric CO2 with the CHANGE in emission rate. That would have detected a correlation. We’re talking about small changes in large numbers. I don’t know how well that is going to work.
I suspect the author knew what he was doing. Something like this would never get past peer review and that’s why you haven’t heard about it.
Fick’s 1st law specifies the rate of net change of the two fluxes (into and out of ocean surface, i.e. 70% of earth’s surface.) Henry’s Law specifies that ratio of a given solute gas above a solvent liquid versus the non-reacted solute gas in that liquid. The only variables in Henry’s Law are temperature of the interface surface between the gas and the liquid, the solute gas, and the solvent liquid.
The net flux is specified in Fick’s 1st law. CO2 is always being emitted and always being absorbed from sea surface, at all temperatures.
The partition ratio of CO2 gas in air versus CO2 gas in sea surface is inversely proportional to the surface temperature, That Henry’s Law partition ratio is like a boiling point or specific heat. It is an intensive property of matter. Adding more CO2 or removing CO2 does not change the partition ratio. The source of the CO2 is irrelevant, not a variable in the phase-state equation.
The partition ratio is a constant for any specified gas solute and liquid solute combination at a given temperature. This is due to the fact that diffusion of any specified gas into the the surface of any specified liquid solvent is proportional to the inverse of the square root of the molecular weight of the solute gas. (Graham’s Law) Obviously, the molecular weight of the gas does not change when more gas is added or when gas is removed.
All of the above is demonstrated by experiment, including daily use in chromatography, refining, distillation and other multi-billion dollar per year industries. Henry’s Law coefficients are reference in text books, software and online…common practice.
In other words, adding CO2 to the atmosphere simply increases absorption of CO2 by ocean surface. Removing CO2 from the atmosphere increases emission of CO2 from ocean surface. The ratio of CO2 gas in ocean surface versus CO2 in air above that surface is a constant at a given surface temperature. Salinity, alkalinity, pH, partial pressure changes due to currents, winds, agitation, biological activity and inactivity are temporary perturbations to the Henry’s Law partition ratio. When the perturbation subsides, the CO2 concentration in air and in the sea surface returns to the Henry’s Law partition ratio for the given temperature.
All of the above applies to all gas solutes in continuous contact with all liquid solvents so long as the gas solute is minor concentration. (Obviously CO2 gas in air at 400 ppm or even 4000 ppm is a very minor concentration.) Henry’s Law does not apply to CO2 which has reacted (hydrolyzed) with the ions in water, nor to any of the subsequent carbonate chemistry of CO2 in seawater. It only applies to the unreacted gas in the liquid surface and the same gas above that surface.
Henry’s Law only applies to the dynamic phase-state reaction of a solute gas in continuous contact with a solute liquid, for example atmospheric CO2 in contact with sea surface. Humans cannot change the Henry’s Law partition ratio by either adding CO2 to air nor by removing CO2 from air.
Humans could destroy all life as we know it by geoengineering clouds etc to cool the earth, or other foolish experiments.
Henry’s law does not apply in this situation. CO2 and water undergo chemical reaction. You’d have to develop a special package to modify the Henry’s constants otherwise it wouldn’t account for temperature variations or the electrolyte reactions. I’ve seen people try to get by with a curve fit and ignore the reactions on similar systems with mixed degrees of success.
In the case of a liquid-vapor interface. You have the resistance of the liquid film. the resistance of the interface, and the resistance of the vapor film to account for. Using just the diffusivities of the liquid or vapor phase is incorrect. That means determining mass transfer coefficients for this system. Otherwise, you won’t get the rate right. For this particular you’ll probably be able to find some data. Usually, you can’t
The only thing that matters here is the ocean removing or adding CO2 to the atmosphere and how fast. From what I understand, right now, the ocean is removing CO2 — certainly not fast enough. CO2 is building in the atmosphere.
Even if you geoengineered clouds it wouldn’t stop climate change — only slow it down. Venus absorbs less solar energy than the earth and CO2 is able to hold that planet at 460 C. Turns out it does take much energy for CO2 to change planetary temperature.
CO2 WILL exist as CO2 for some finite amount of time when it enters the ocean. No process is instantaneous. Even if that weren’t true, Henry’s law applies, the ocean would be seen to have zero concentration of CO2, thus speeding up the absorption!
Now you’re an amateur thermodynamist? You’re about as good at that as you are at climate science.
Henry’s law does not apply if there is chemical reaction. To do this right, you need an electrolyte model.
Can you use Henry’s law to model this system? You can use anything to model anything over a limited range if you have the data. You could use an activity coefficient model for this system too.
Henry’s constant is similar to vapor pressure. Hc = PP/C. PP is the partial pressure of the component. C is the concentration. If you define concentration in terms of mole fraction and y = mole fraction in the vapor phase and x = mole fraction in the liquid phase, then:
yP / x = Hc
y / x = Hc / P
P is the vapor phase pressure
in VLE y/x is called the kvalue
In VLE it can be shown that y/x = VP/P for ideal gas vapor phase and ideal solution liquid phase. VP is the vapor pressure. In a pinch, if you don’t have Henry’s Law constant data, you can estimate it from vapor pressure data.
It does no good, no matter what fashionable name you give it, to gather all of the employees onto the rooftops of Western businesses every morning before work to collectively chant in the directions of China, India, Brazil and Russia that we should all strive for more renewable energy. Looking at the sainthood of the climate change clergy, determined as they are to protect us from us, the egocentricity and grandiosity on display is drowned out a bit by the cognitive empathy of their collective sociopathy.
Wagathon wrote:
Looking at the sainthood of the climate change clergy, determined as they are to protect us from us, the egocentricity and grandiosity on display is drowned out a bit by the cognitive empathy of their collective sociopathy.
For how much longer do you want to experience global warming of 0.2 C/decade?
Give us a number, in years.
That’s like asking, how much longer do you want to experience the next earthquake or volcanic eruption. Nature is as nature does- resistance is futile. Neither global warming nor global cooling is caused by humanity- it’s the sun, stupid!
Are you saying that greenhouse gases have no impact on the earth’s temperature?
“The relationship between temperature and CO2,” according to Dr. Timothy Ball, “is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint.”
What Dr. Ball didn’t consider is that the earth is a variable source of radiant energy. His analogy doesn’t apply.
The work of Gerlich and Tscheuschner clearly shows us that to believe otherwise as global warming alarmists do is to believe that the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a perpetual motion machine.
The CO2 warming effect is not like a perpetual machine and does not violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Gerlich and Tscheuschner should work on trying to explain the temperature on Venus. Put that much CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere and it will wind up in the same place.
Wagathon commented:
The work of Gerlich and Tscheuschner clearly shows us that to believe otherwise as global warming alarmists do is to believe that the Earth’s atmosphere acts like a perpetual motion machine.
Nobody who matters, viz. in the scientific community, has paid any serious attention to Gerlich and Tscheuschner. Their work simply isn’t up to par. That’s why they had to publish in a meaningless journal, not an important one. Yes, that matters.
G&T is the kind of thing deniers cling to, and it just makes them look even more ridiculous.
Wagathon commented:
“The relationship between temperature and CO2,” according to Dr. Timothy Ball, “is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint.”
Please make this quantitative, based on the laws of physics.
Radiative forcing versus CO2, ignoring other feedbacks, follows a log function. As levels rise, the incremental increase in forcing from a given rise becomes less and less.
If we tripled CO2 levels from current ones, the forcing wouldn’t even double. At high levels of CO2 which were typical in the past, the climate wasn’t very sensitive to changes in CO2 because the IR bands covered by CO2 were blocked. One you plug the IR holes, extra plugging doesn’t change the flux.
Thus the invention of the idea that the climate feedbacks are positive, due to water vapor, because purely radiative effects just were frightening enough to cause any policy or behavioral changes. But positive feedbacks would make the entire system wildly unstable, so that idea was quickly followed by the idea that feedback isn’t feedback if you spell it “amplification”.
Amplification is when you take a signal of one type, or in one part of a system, and make it show up as a larger signal of another type, or in some other part of a system. But if the larger signal is of the same type and hooked to the same part of the system as the original signal, in phase with the original signal, it is positive feedback and the system will swing to a low limit or a high limit.
Warming that causes more warming in the same spot as the original warming is positive feedback. If not countered by even stronger negative feedbacks, the warming keeps on increasing. If such systems oscillate, they do so by swinging between extremes, such as a snowball planet to a broiling desert planet and back again.
There is no evidence our climate behaves like that, other than the glacial cycles keep repeating due to the shift in albedo.
George Turner wrote:
Thus the invention of the idea that the climate feedbacks are positive
Feedbacks aren’t invented. They come from the laws of physics.
Which of the three most prominent feedbacks do you think are no negative, and why?
1) ice-albedo feedback
2) water vapor feedback
3) Clouds
What other (negative) feedbacks to you have?
Ice feedback is positive, the others should be net negative, otherwise the planet would’ve become unlivable in just a few years.
If water vapor causes warming which causes the production of more water vapor which causes more warming, then the result is that the temperature goes shooting up and the oceans boil.
Obviously that doesn’t happen, and what we see in the tropics is a very distinctive daily temperature curve where the heating in the morning causes cooling in the afternoon because it clouded up and rained. The system is a pretty tightly regulated negative feedback loop, keeping tropical temperatures within a fairly narrow band.
Yet climate alarmists content that water vapor is actually just an amplifier that will magnify the small amount of warming from radiative effects into large increases in temperature that will destroy all of human civilization. This belief is irrational and unscientific, as is the idea that warmer temperatures will destroy civilization when the very heart of civilization is built around the massive urban heat island effect, where alarmists flock to live in dense urban areas because they can’t survive without several degrees of man-made artificial warming. They just want to deny its benefits to rural people.
George Turner commented:
If water vapor causes warming which causes the production of more water vapor which causes more warming, then the result is that the temperature goes shooting up and the oceans boil.
Why?
That’s a very bold statement. You can’t just say it without A LOT of physics to back it up. It’s a complicated situation. Sorry.
“The upside of the new study is that even though a climate runaway may be possible in theory, it remains very difficult to cause in practice through human greenhouse gas emissions. “We’ve estimated how much carbon dioxide would be required to get this steamy atmosphere, and the answer is about 30,000 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is actually good news in terms of anthropogenic climate change,” Goldblatt says. Thirty thousand ppm is about 10 times more carbon dioxide than most experts estimate could be released from burning all available fossil fuels, he notes, although such high values could in theory be reached by releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the Earth’s vast deposits of limestone and other carbonate rocks.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-runaway-greenhouse/
You’re also not considering the Planck response.
George Turner wrote:
Yet climate alarmists content that water vapor is actually just an amplifier that will magnify the small amount of warming from radiative effects into large increases in temperature that will destroy all of human civilization.
who exactly said that?
George Turner wrote:
This belief is irrational and unscientific…
You haven’t provided an iota of scientific evidence for your claims — it’s only opinions
“…as is the idea that warmer temperatures will destroy civilization when the very heart of civilization is built around the massive urban heat island effect, where alarmists flock to live in dense urban areas because they can’t survive without several degrees of man-made artificial warming. They just want to deny its benefits to rural people.
What are the benefits of global warming/climate change to “rural people.”
It’s not science, it’s math.
If warming at point x, y and time t causes warming at point x, y, and time t + d, where d is small because water vapor acts pretty immediately, then the point x, y and t + d warms even more.
Suppose there is some initial warming that causes more water vapor, which results in w of additional warming (in degrees), which shows up after some very small time delay d.
T(x, y, t + (n + 1) * d) = T(x, y, n * d) + w
Then from a T(0), prior to any warming, we can calculate T(n*d) as T(0) + n*w.
By induction, this equation increases or decreases without bound, depending on the sign of w. That is positive feedback, and it would be an unstable system which we know can’t describe the climate or we’d have already pegged the needle.
So either the proposition is false or the equation is incomplete, not including stronger negative feedbacks that keep things in check.
The climate warms in the spring, but the climate doesn’t warm without bounds, or get hotter and hotter throughout the summer, until ponds boil by September. Yet under the simple water vapor claims, that should be what happens because the spring warming should cause an increase in water vapor which causes temperatures to increase, which would cause an increase in water vapor, and round and round it goes.
Reductio ad absurdum, the basic proposition is false.
G&T refused to accept the scientific fraud of believing in the ‘greenhouse effect’ which ignores the reality of convection in the real world.
Wagathon commented:
G&T refused to accept the scientific fraud of believing in the ‘greenhouse effect’ which ignores the reality of convection in the real world.
Wow. So you don’t accept the greenhouse effect? Seriously??
‘The natural greenhouse effect is a myth, not a physical reality… a manufactured mirage.
‘Horrific visions of a rising sea level, melting pole caps and spreading deserts in North America and Europe are fictitious consequences of a fictitious physical mechanism which cannot be seen even in computer climate models.
‘More and more, the main tactic of CO2-greenhouse gas defenders seems to be to hide behind a mountain of pseudo-explanations that are unrelated to an academic education or even to physics training.’
(Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics)
Wagathon wrote:
‘The natural greenhouse effect is a myth, not a physical reality… a manufactured mirage.
(Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics)
Now I know to filter your responses out of the emails I get of the comments here. You, literally, cannot be taken seriously.
What AGW believers are really saying is that they are willing to believe in an unprovable hypothesis. That is what superstition is all about. The goal of the scientific method is to free minds from hatred, prejudice and fear born of superstition and ignorance. To forsake science when it conflicts with the elaborate belief system of a group of people is what religion is all about: global warming has become the religion of the Left. That is why any scientist with a reputation to protect made a beeline for the UN exits years ago and certainly by 2009 with the discovery, dubbed CRUgate, of all the fraud and corruption in the climate community.
:For example, human additions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the middle of the 21st century are expected to directly shift the atmosphere’s natural greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%. Since the climate system is highly variable on its own, that smallness sets a very high bar for confidently projecting the consequences of human influences.’ ~Koonin
That’s not the question. The question is will that be enough to maintain or enhance the radiative forcing.
Given the unavoidable contributions to atmospheric CO2 by BRIC countries, adaptation is the only rational choice.
There is no adaptation to climate change. If it were even remotely possible, or any solution was possible other than ending the use of fossil fuels, the fossil fuel industry would be investing billions. Do you see that happening? They invest just enough money to pretend adaptation, or a solution is possible.
See, e.g.
https://www.lomborg.com/news/climate-change-calls-for-adaptation-not-panic
What we’re seeing is a refusal to admit simple truths, such as the inhumanity of depriving the Third and Developing worlds of energy. We’ve come face-to-face with the possibility that a belief in global warming theory is more than a symptom of a small, culturally and socially disordered subgroup of society. The anxiety, fear, hypochondria, hysteria, phobias and quixotic societal maladaptation to challenges in the world around us can no longer be treated by simply throwing more money at the specter of climate change.
My bad on describing Californias fixed cost proposal. I had seen a lot on twitter and got misled. It looks like they still will have energy charges and not zero incremental costs for anyone. You use you pay. They are pretty high numbers for no energy at all, but that may be fair for their system.
I can’t blame twitter. It was the news media who initally got it wrong. I checked the wayback machine and they were revising their reporting multiple times a day. Some sources said they fixed typos, others that they provided more detail, but in truth they changed the story from what was originally reported.
This looks accurate:
https://thequadreport.com/california-utilities-propose-customer-income-tax/
I think the next big thing you’ll see the net-zeroers going on and on about is how building out renewables really fast will save money by making their prices fall faster. This guy here is their guru:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qObOcrQJLZ8
He’s Doyne Farmer, a mathematics professor for Oxford and he’s connected with the Santa Fe Institute. He recently published a paper claiming he can predict the trajectories of energy technologies. You can read or download it here:
https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(22)00410-X.pdf
He bases his projections on Wright’s Law where costs go down in Moore’s Law fashion with cumulative production. He thinks if we really spend a lot of money on more solar and, of course, batteries and electrolyzers (he really likes hydrogen) to go with it, it will continue its exponential price drops.
He has a bit of fame for using microcomputers in his shoes to beat roulette when he was a graduate student. It’s chronicled in the excellent book, The Eudaemonic Pie by Thomas A Bass.
I wrote a blog post about him:
https://cliscep.com/2022/03/22/the-eudaemonic-cloistered-professor/
I’ll try to get that video to expand. It’s short and really displays his attitude:
https://youtu.be/qObOcrQJLZ8
A fantastic video. In 2010 he correctly predicted that in 2020 solar and wind would become cheaper than coal.
HE IS ALWAYS RIGHT. :-)
Curious George wrote:
A fantastic video. In 2010 he correctly predicted that in 2020 solar and wind would become cheaper than coal.
HE IS ALWAYS RIGHT. :-)
Wind and solar now ARE cheaper than coal. Even without considering negative externalities.
No David, wind and solar are only cheaper when the wind is blowing and the sun is out. Coal power is there all the time. You pay for reliability, not opportunity costs. If you want wind and solar to be as reliable as coal, that is prohibitively expensive. Remember you need to add the grid transmission costs to the storage ones.
If you are prepared to stop all your consumption of electricity when there are not favorable conditions for the unreliables, good for you. Otherwise, you are just a hypocrite.
If you thrown in the negative externalities of wind and solar; like costs to upgrade the grid to accommodate remote locations, variable output, synchronization problems and all the rest; coal is way cheaper than w&s. If you factor in the positive externality that coal gives us more of the gas of life, it’s a no-brainer. Coal is way cheaper and more reliable to boot.
Wind and solar are claimed to cheaper based on LCOE computation. However, LCOE has numerous computational / logic errors which are reasonably well known – at least well known by those willing to better informed.
A) LCOE is based on total production divided by only the direct costs and some limited indirect costs, thus omitted significant costs needed to produce when wind and solar arent producing. thus decreasing the numerator.
B) LCOE measures total production, including excess production ie produced electricity that is not used thus inflating the denominator.
C) the additional costs omitted from the computation include the costs of keeping the backup operating, omits large parts of the additional transmission costs, omits the costs of the peaking demands since wind and solar cant perform that tier of required electric generation. the above is just a partial list of the omissions.
Note that the advocates perpetuate Wind and Solar cheaper myth simply because they lack either the desire or the ability to understand the basics.
Chris Morris wrote:
No David, wind and solar are only cheaper when the wind is blowing and the sun is out.
Over a large enough region, wind+solar will always be available at a fairly constant rate.
Coal power is there all the time.
Not really. What happens when a coal power plant goes down due to a breakage or scheduled maintenance? Where is the reliable power then?
If you want wind and solar to be as reliable as coal, that is prohibitively expensive.
I’m not convinced of that just because you claim it’s true.
“Over a large enough region, wind+solar will always be available at a fairly constant rate. ” Really David? I see you believe in the same fantasy as JJB. And he at least admitted he didn’t understand grids (which he regularly proved by his comments). It is not true for Europe. It is not true for Eastern Australia. It is not true for the USA. Both PE and I have written about it. And do note, excess wind in California is no use to Consumers in NY.
Coal power is not just one station, nor even a group of stations. For the whole fleet, the statement is correct. That is why India and China have been building so many new coal stations.
What I do believe in is the published accounts of wind power companies. Paul Homewood regularly analyses them. They don’t sell power, they harvest subsidies. The puff pieces convince the credulous types like you and JJB, but they say totally different things to the Company Offices. Why is that? Could it be that lying in your accounts gets you in jail for some time.
Chris Morris wrote:
Really David? I see you believe in the same fantasy as JJB. And he at least admitted he didn’t understand grids (which he regularly proved by his comments). It is not true for Europe. It is not true for Eastern Australia. It is not true for the USA.
Then why is US national wind generation fairly constant, deviating only by about +/- 20% per year.
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/index.cfm#production
David Appell | April 22, 2023 at 8:24 pm |
Chris Morris wrote:
Really David? I see you believe in the same fantasy as JJB. And he at least admitted he didn’t understand grids (which he regularly proved by his comments). It is not true for Europe. It is not true for Eastern Australia. It is not true for the USA.
Then why is US national wind generation fairly constant, deviating only by about +/- 20% per year.
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/index.cfm#production
Apple – the monthly wind total is meaningless. Same with monthly averages. Its the fluctuations in wind that is the important metric – the highs and the lows.
Use some of your mathematical skills to understand the fallacy of monthly totals
I ese David that you are still displaying your engineering ignorance. You do not know the difference between power and energy. Grids needs generation to match load at all times. What was generated last week or six months ago is irrelevant.
Chris Morris wrote:
I ese David that you are still displaying your engineering ignorance. You do not know the difference between power and energy. Grids needs generation to match load at all times. What was generated last week or six months ago is irrelevant.
Sure, I don’t know the difference between power and energy {eye roll}.
Maybe we also need nuclear, I don’t know, to fill in the gap between now and then. (If we can ship and bury the waste right outside your town. Agree?) Older engineers here quake and bake about what CAN’T be done. But it for sure it WILL be done, and by young people who don’t listen to what they’ve been told are the limits and limitations. It will be done because it HAS to be done. The younger generation doesn’t want to live in a wrecked climate. (Who can blame them?) So engineers HAVE to make this happen. A great many serious people are working on this right now. If you can’t help, get out of the way.
Chris Morris wrote:
No David, wind and solar are only cheaper when the wind is blowing and the sun is out. Coal power is there all the time.
Let’s talk about the other effects of coal power.
It emits a lot of soot. That acidifies the rain, and it gets into people’s lungs. Coal mining also kills a lot of coal miners. And….:
“Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide,” Environmental Research, v195 April 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754
You can’t say the same for wind and solar.
David if you know the difference between power and energy, why did you write “Over a large enough region, wind+solar will always be available at a fairly constant rate”, then give annual energy data to justify your claim. Being kind, I would say there is cognitive dissonance at the very least.
And what US coal fired stations emit soot? How many tonne per annum? Acid rain didn’t come from soot. More ignorance on display?
With regards the fine particles premature deaths, both the WHO and IHME have a significantly lower death toll from all sources. They specifically state the major natural source is desert dust. and for man-made one of the big causes is the burning of cow dung for cooking in poor countries. The type of thing cheap fossil fuel electricity supply in rural areas stops.
https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths
With regards US power stations, their emissions are only a sixth of what they were 20 years ago.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1247499/electric-utilities-particulate-matter-2-5-emissions-us/
Tiseo (2023) has 75% of the deaths in China or India, neither of which show any inclination to shut down their fossil fuel use. In fact, they are increasing it.
DA provides this statement – David Appell | April 22, 2023 at 11:28 pm |
“Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide,” Environmental Research, v195 April 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754
David – Seriously are you unable to recognize junk science.
Our ambulance chasing local DA again pulls from among his dogeared stack of amicus briefs, repeating simplistic nonsense that fossil fuel aerosols causes premature death for 20% of the worlds population.
Oddly enough the same stat can be applied to tobacco smoke; about 1-in-4 smoke globally. In some countries more than 1-in-5 die from tobacco, China for example. I wonder how many of these breathed fossil fuel air?
jungletrunks commented:
Our ambulance chasing local DA again pulls from among his dogeared stack of amicus briefs, repeating simplistic nonsense that fossil fuel aerosols causes premature death for 20% of the worlds population.
Oddly enough the same stat can be applied to tobacco smoke; about 1-in-4 smoke globally.
How does one rate prove the other wrong?
Chris Morris just commented on Renewable Experts: Undeterred and Unmoved by Failed Ideas:
David if you know the difference between power and energy, why did you write “Over a large enough region, wind+solar will always be available at a fairly constant rate”, then give annual energy data to justify your claim. Being kind, I would say there is cognitive dissonance at the very least.
I don’t see a problem. Wind+solar energy production is fairly constant month-by-month and over a year. Power=Energy/time.
And what US coal fired stations emit soot? How many tonne per annum? Acid rain didn’t come from soot. More ignorance on display?
I never saw a need to be technical, not in this case. We all know the situation. Coal plants emit lots of trash, soot and SO2 are among them.
I think you have established to all concerned that you know nothing about electricity generation David, let alone things like precips and FGD, nor could you even be bothered to try to understand. Yet you persist in giving us the benefit of your ignorance, claiming you don’t need to get technical. Why is that? Are the words too big? Or just that it will quickly show you to be an empty vessel?
If nothing else, we can take you as being the embodiment of Einstein’s quote ” Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former”
David Appell | April 23, 2023 at 8:57 pm |
Chris Morris just commented on Renewable Experts: Undeterred and Unmoved by Failed Ideas:
David if you know the difference between power and energy, why did you write “Over a large enough region, wind+solar will always be available at a fairly constant rate”, then give annual energy data to justify your claim. Being kind, I would say there is cognitive dissonance at the very least.
Appell ‘s response to Chris ” I don’t see a problem. Wind+solar energy production is fairly constant month-by-month and over a year. Power=Energy/time.”
Appell – As Chris and others have repeatedly reminded you – Monthly averages for wind and solar are meaningless. Its the minute by minute , the hourly and daily fluctuations that are the critical metrics.
What value is a constant monthly average when the wind doesnt blow for 2-5 day periods (which happens across most of every continent 1-3 times a month )
See EIA.gov for detail – real time data – real time data that the advocates ignore.
Please explain
So what point are you and CM trying to make? That because of the intermittency problem of renewables, we can’t convert to them and should continue to use fossil fuels indefinitely?
That’s a DUMB argument. Let me repeat myself, because it has not sunk in. Fossil fuels are finite. We will run out. At the rate the world is increasing its consumption of energy, we will run out sooner rather than later. Oil and, to a lesser extent, coal are need for other vital products.
For people like you, it’s all about you. How do you think you would be affected if chemicals used to make plastics suddenly became scarce? Think that wouldn’t rock your world?
The sun is our largest source of energy. For all practical purposes, it is an unlimited source. It would be STUPID not to utilize it.
JJB – You ask What point are Chris & I trying to make?
first a person needs a basic grasp of science , math , engineering in order to solve the problem. Both you and Appell have a very delusional detached understanding of reality, as such the solutions you and appell embrace are both more costly and less efficient.
You also make the point that oil should be saved for the other vital products. I presume you are aware that only approximate 10% of a bbl of oil can be used for those “other vital products”. What do you propose should be done with the other 90% of a BBL that is now a waste product – since you dont want it burned for energy.
“I presume you are aware that only approximate 10% of a bbl of oil can be used for those “other vital products”. What do you propose should be done with the other 90% of a BBL that is now a waste product – since you dont want it burned for energy.”
About 85% of a refinery’s output are fossil fuels. Over the years processes have been developed to maximize the amount of fossil fuels produced from oil — hydrocracking, fluid catalytic cracking, and sour crude processing. Those would be eliminated. New processes — which are currently under development — will maximize the production of other products. Refineries will be much smaller and combined with chemical plants. Current refineries are too big and will be abandoned. The amount of oil processed will be much smaller extending its life.
There will be some light hydrocarbons produced which will be burned to provide energy for the facility. The quantity will be small and not a problem.
JJB – you have to deal with reality – Utopia and ignorance dont work in the real world.
JJB writes – “About 85% of a refinery’s output are fossil fuels. Over the years processes have been developed to maximize the amount of fossil fuels produced from oil — hydrocracking, fluid catalytic cracking, and sour crude processing. Those would be eliminated. New processes — which are currently under development — will maximize the production of other products.”
fyi – for a 100+ years refineries have been able to alter the product output by small percentages. newer processes may be able to alter the product output by 10%, maybe even 15%. Even at that, your proposal will still result in 70%+ of a bbl of oil being a waste product.
“fyi – for a 100+ years refineries have been able to alter the product output by small percentages. newer processes may be able to alter the product output by 10%, maybe even 15%. Even at that, your proposal will still result in 70%+ of a bbl of oil being a waste product.”
The list of subjects that you want to share your expertise on and which you know nothing about is growing exponentially.
Let’s see what an FCC unit does, shall we?
“FCC production typically accounts for about 40 percent of the total gasoline pool. Gasoline from units that use FCC products as feedstock for processes such as alkylation bring the total to more than 50 percent of the pool.”
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/chemicals/our-insights/from-crude-oil-to-chemicals-how-refineries-can-adapt-to-shifting-demand
That certainly sounds like the FCC alters the amount of gasoline output by more than a “small percentage.” Don’t you think?
I believe that an FCC unit’s diesel makes up about 25% of the diesel pool. Hydrocrackers produce substantial amounts of diesel, jet fuel, and kerosene. You can go look that up for yourself.
BTW if you read the article I linked, you’ll learn about some of the technology under development to convert refineries from making fossil fuels to making petrochemicals. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
Coal can also be used to make industrial chemicals through coal gasification.
Thank you for wanting to share your expertise, but I think I’ll take a pass.
JJB – you might want to read the article you linked – read it a second time so that you can more fully understand what it states and what it doesnt state.
The article is consistent with the substance of my statement.
The Climate Doomers want to use hydrogen in homes. I will NEVER have hydrogen in my home. You think insurers have to deal with “climate change” – wait until exploding houses make the scene.
Let’s see.
LHV of H2 is 802.34 kJ/mol
LHV of CH4 is 244 kJ/mol
It going to take a lot more hydrogen to provide the same amount of energy.
The big problem is to contain it you need special piping. Hydrogen makes steel brittle and, because it is a very small molecule, it would leak from existing natural gas pipelines.
You could cut CH4 with H2 and deliver a mixture to reduce the use of CH4 while you replace CH4 pipelines.
Other than that, H2 is no more dangerous than having CH4 heat your home.
Here’s three interesting quotes from his paper — all from the same paragraph:
In the first one he admits that costs do not go down for mining. This renewable transition would require a huge expansion of mining! In the second he’s (or they’re) showing an incredible bias against nuclear. In the third it looks like he’s (or they’re) claiming that because a bunch of unpredictable breakthroughs have happened, they are going to continue happening!
I think this is a foolhardy approach that ignores the real questions of whether it’s possible or even desirable for wind, solar and supposedly predictably improving storage technologies to replace hydrocarbons and nuclear.
I question those “relatively constant prices” when he fails to account for the 300+ trillion dollars in global debt (242% of GDP) we accumulated to subsidize our lifestyles.
A lot of that debt is to sustain governments’ life style. Quite opulent to boot.
jim2 wrote:
A lot of that debt is to sustain governments’ life style. Quite opulent to boot.
How much?
(I highly doubt it.)
jacksmith4tx wrote:
I question those “relatively constant prices” when he fails to account for the 300+ trillion dollars in global debt (242% of GDP) we accumulated to subsidize our lifestyles.
You realize that’s $300+ T into the pockets of people.
It will never be paid back. No one wants to give up that much money.
JJB and other Climate Doomers here can tout China’s building of “green” (unreliable) energy all they want. It doesn’t change the fact that China and India are building coal plants as fast as they can.
It doesn’t matter how many solar and wind plants they build, every coal plant will add CO2 to the atmosphere. The Climate Doomers are Krazy!
Meanwhile in the US, where CO2 emissions are decreasing since 2004, the Climate Doomers want us to throw ourselves on the Alter of the Church of Climate Doomers to be sacrificed for their misguided fantasies of global warming.
We need to start voting out Climate Doomer politicians while we still can.
China permitted more coal power plants last year than any time in the last seven years, according to a new report released this week. It’s the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. The report by energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air finds the country quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin
State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest electricity producer, plans to start building more coal plants this year as the country continues to lean on the fuel to meet its growing energy needs.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-14/india-power-giant-to-add-more-coal-plants-to-meet-soaring-demand
So what?
That doesn’t change the fact that dumping CO2 in the atmosphere is dangerous. Biden, a couple of weeks ago, opened up a part of Alaska for oil drilling.
CO2 emissions will have to be cut or face the consequences. That’s the choice like it or not.
I choose to “face the consequences” and keep my money.
I was talking about the human race. You’re not going to get a choice. it will be decided for you — one way or another.
Also “so what.” It doesn’t make sense for the US to stop using fossil fuels when the rest of the world is burning all they can get their hands on.
Sure, it does. Forget about CO2. Oil is a vital source of industrial chemicals. Stop burning it and preserve it.
JJ
I don’t see any consequences. No acceleration in SLR. Only error filled satellite data. On the ground it’s just business as usual.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/9410660_meantrend.png
I haven’t discussed SLR. I don’t follow it and I’m no expert.
JJ– the CO2 reduction activities you advocate have and will have virtually no impact on the inevitable worldwide CO2 growth curve. Humanity can and will adapt.
That’s the latest scam by the fossil fuel industry. “We’ll adapt.” There is no adaptation to what’s coming.
Atmospheric scrubbing, carbon capture, carbon sequestration, planting a trillion trees are pipe dreams. None is going to get the job done if we continue to rely on fossil fuels for most of our energy needs.
JJ
“… and I’m no expert.”
Precisely. And not just in SLR. Not much else either. The list of subjects in climate science that you could try to learn more about is endless. You have your theory. And then the skeptics have the reality
SLR is emblematic of the clash between theory and reality. The only way to get an obvious and significant acceleration in SLR is to rely on the dodgy non science of satellite altimetry system with its inherent list of uncertainties. The tidal gauges don’t show a looming catastrophe. In 1983 EPA said by 2100 SLR rise could be up to 12 feet. More than a third of the way there and we aren’t even close to being on a pace to reach 144 inches, with 4-5 inches since.
What a coincidence that the putative acceleration occurs at the same time as the employment of satellites. On the ground data says what ever higher rate there is can be handled locally, one community at a time. The actual threats of SLR have been there all along, with vertical land movement, in some places at rates multiple of GMSLR. Deal with those first.
For land vs sea level changes, all we need to do is make sure those in flood-prone areas are aware of the potential for worse flooding. The rich need to take care of themselves. Government flood insurance needs to be dropped, perhaps phased out over time. For poorer people, perhaps some government assistance to relocate might be in order. But after a proscribed point in time, if you move to a flood prone area, you take whatever the consequences might be. This scheme preserves freedom.
JJ
There is no guarantee in life for happy ever after. There never has been and never will. Life today for humans is better than it has ever been.
The climate has always been changing and always wiĺl. Humànity will continue to adapt. You comment frequently about AGW but admit to knowing little to nothing about the greatest risk (Sea level rise. I suggest yo read more and comment less.
“Life today for humans is better than it has ever been”
That depends on where you live.
“The climate has always been changing and always wiĺl.”
Profound! That line is so old and stale, that conservative politicians don’t use it anymore.
“Humànity will continue to adapt.”
Right out of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook. How will the human race adapt?
“You comment frequently about AGW but admit to knowing little to nothing about the greatest risk (Sea level rise. I suggest yo read more and comment less.”
Sea level rise is a risk. Greatest? I don’t know about that. Glaciers are melting, rising temperature causes water density to decrease, and the sea level rises. There isn’t much more to it than that. Following it day to day is like watching paint drying. There are more interesting topics in climate change.
“I suggest yo read more and comment less.”
If this a typical of your comments, you shouldn’t comment at all.
There is no “everyone lived happily ever after” world, at least not the real one we have. That is especially true if you define freedom as everyone gets equal stuff. That scenario just makes everyone equally poor and miserable, not to mention regulated by a jack-boot government that controls you and your very breath.
People often make noise about “helping” in general the third world. It will never happen.
Third world governments frequently have corrupt or disengaged governments. There are a few second and first world governments with the same problem, but I digress.
History has shown “we” can’t change those governments and that probably even applied to their people.
You might think sending our children and grand children “over there” and die, in order to change the governments by force would work. But that has been disproven many times in modern history. The caveat is it could work only if you execute the war in a brutal manner. That mode of war seems to be by and large passe.
The scheme that sort of worked was to use the CIA and other covert operations to put in power a dictator controlled by us. That might work somewhat again.
But I think no first world countries have the will for any of those options.
The truth is, most likely, the people in third world countries are on their own. They need to rise up and solve their problems, not anyone else. This is true for any actual problem, as opposed to the current crop of imaginary problems, caused by CO2, or by anything else for that matter.
JJ writes- ‘There is no adaptation to what’s coming.”
What specifically can’t be adapted to and why can’t it? Sea level rise is the only C in CAGW. A rise of 6 feet was worrisome but won’t occur.
That’s not quite true. Even a modest rise in sea level causes an amplified storm surge.
There are other things — which I already discussed — that put a capital C in CAGW.
JJBraccili wrote:
Even a modest rise in sea level causes an amplified storm surge.
Yes.
If the angle of the beach is A compared to flat sea level, then when sea level rises by H the water will come up the beach by L = H/sin(A).
This can be much greater than H.
For a 5-degree beach, L/H = 11
For a 3-degree beach, L/H = 19
If H=4.5 mm/yr, L= 9 cm/yr for a the 3-degree beach. About a yard per decade.
David, by your logic, if the tideline is against a near vertical sea wall, the water won’t come any further up.
Chris Morris wrote:
David, by your logic, if the tideline is against a near vertical sea wall, the water won’t come any further up.
Not true.
It will go up at a rate of dh/dt=rate of sea level rise. [sin(90deg)=1]
jim2 wrote:
I choose to “face the consequences” and keep my money.
Why do you think inaction means you get to keep your money? What will the consequences of your inaction cost you?
jim2 wrote:
Also “so what.” It doesn’t make sense for the US to stop using fossil fuels when the rest of the world is burning all they can get their hands on.
Do you want the planet to keep warming and the climate to keep changing (very fast),or not?
The US is responsible for about 5/40 = 13% of global CO2 emissions. So it’s responsible for about 0.03 degC/decade of global warming (0.2 degC/decade). 0.3 degC over a century.
Are you willing to cut that nose off to spite your face?
CKid wrote:
I don’t see any consequences. No acceleration in SLR. Only error filled satellite data. On the ground it’s just business as usual.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/9410660_meantrend.png
Citing a single station proves absolutely nothing about the acceleration of global sea level rise.
I’m sure you know that, but you did it anyway.
BTW, I happen to keep a spreadsheet on this station, and update it every few months. The acceleration is 0.022 mm/yr2, 2*sigma=0.007.
The Peason coefficient R^2 for the quadratic fit is 0.31. For the linear fit it’s 0.29.
So yes, Los Angeles sea-level rise has a positive acceleration.
CKid: BTW there are tons of papers on Google Scholar about acceleration of sea-level rise:
https://t.ly/t-uF
And by people who know better than to cite a single station.
You dodge the point David. It doesn’t matter what the US does. The rest of the world is going to keep burning fossil fuels to beat the band. Why should we in the US commit suicide when the reality is what we do doesn’t matter.
02
As I have said over the last decade numerous times, no significant acceleration. The 1.04mm/yr at LA for the last 100 years includes .91mm/yr subsidence per NOAA and per USGS that is from ground water abstraction and oil and gas drawdown. That doesn’t leave much for GMSLR. The only place significant acceleration exists is in the worthless satellite data (miraculously with acceleration starting exactly when the satellite data begins) which has numerous problems that have been documented here over the years.
There are hundreds of communities, including those in Florida that are facing subsidence, in some cases at rates multiple of GMSLR for the last 100 years.
And IPCC6 has lowered their estimate for the contribution from Antarctica toward GMSLR and some papers are showing a negative amount, instead of a net positive amount, toward GMSLR by 2100. The establishment is running out of doomsday scenarios, one peer reviewed paper at a time.
Apple – did you bother to even read those SLR studies linked from google scholar?
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4635
NO accelleration through 2014, then massive acceleration
https://meridian.allenpress.com/jcr/article-abstract/27/3/409/28456/Sea-Level-Acceleration-Based-on-U-S-Tide-Gauges
Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in US tide gauge records during the …acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years, and indeed why global sea level has
Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum (oil), natural gas, oil shales, bitumens, and tar sands and heavy oils. For modern life, these energy sources rival food and water in importance. Without fossil fuels, most automobiles are stranded, most of the lights go out, and our homes become hotter in summer and cooler in winter. But when it comes to fossil fuels’ origin stories, we might not know as much as we should. Do they really begin with fossils?
All fossil fuels contain carbon, and all were formed as a result of geologic processes acting on the remains of organic matter produced by photosynthesis—the process by which green plants and certain other organisms transform light energy into chemical energy. Most of the fossil fuel material we use today comes from algae, bacteria, and plants—some of which date back even before the Devonian Period, 419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago. Consequently, at least most of the time, you are not pouring refined dinosaur parts into the gas tank of your vehicle.
https://www.britannica.com/story/do-fossil-fuels-really-come-from-fossils
Nice copy-and-paste. Excellent, in fact. Especially like the italics.
So what’s your point?
How thunderstorms move heat to the upper atmosphere, and therefore increase outgoing radiation.
Air in the atmosphere acts as a fluid. The sun’s radiation strikes the Earth’s surface, thus warming it. As the surface’s temperature rises due to conduction, heat energy is released into the atmosphere, forming a bubble of air that is warmer than the surrounding air. This bubble of air rises into the atmosphere. As it rises, the bubble cools, with its heat moving into the surrounding atmosphere.
Any energy in the CO2 absorption band is going nowhere because the band is saturated in the troposphere. Probably not much in the H2O bands either. Lots of water in the atmosphere during a thunderstorm.
Saturation is asymptotic so never saturated.
That’s true, but there is so much CO2 in the lower atmosphere that for all practical purposes it’s saturated.
I think molecular collisions relax CO2 molecules before they, on average, can emit a photon. By that mechanism, the activated CO2 molecules heat the atmosphere.
A physicist explained to me that there is a short delay between the time a photon is absorbed and the time a photon is radiated. If you ask them why you won’t get an answer. I suspect there is an activation energy required to “push” a photon out.
A CO2 molecule can heat, cool, or do nothing to the atmosphere. If a CO2 molecule is heating the atmosphere, then the photon emission rate is less than the absorption rate to maintain an energy balance. If a CO2 molecule neither heats nor cools the atmosphere, the absorption rate is equal to the emission rate. If a CO2 molecule is cooling the atmosphere the emission rate is greater than the absorption rate. Whether a CO2 molecule heats or cools depends on the kinetic energy level of the surrounding molecules.
Only a small amount of the absorbed energy by a CO2 molecule goes to heating the atmosphere. Most of it goes to radiating photons. If that weren’t true, the troposphere would have an inverted temperature profile.
Word salad.
You must suffer from dyslexia or are brain dead. It’s perfectly clear.
Heavy rain depletes the lower atmosphere of CO2, while most will eventually return to the atmosphere, some is sequestered; plants seem to like it.
There is so much CO2 in the lower atmosphere and the solubility of CO2 in water is so small, I doubt rain has much of an impact.
jungletrunks wrote:
Heavy rain depletes the lower atmosphere of CO2, while most will eventually return to the atmosphere, some is sequestered; plants seem to like it.
Are there studies that show this?
I’d like to read them.
02
It took me 3 seconds to find this study about rain increasing oceanic CO2 sink rates.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161105
Really?
How much does that decrease CO2 in the troposphere? Below saturation? If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter.
As usual, another clueless post.
JJ
This morning I went to the casino for the first time in 4 years and played the slots. Every dozen or so spins the screen would light up and say BIG WINNER!. Of course, I thought of you and how I mentioned before that you would be a great spokesman for the skeptics cause.
Rather than wasting your talents on such a small audience here, how about we arrange a speaking tour at some of the largest venues in America so you could generate some converts to the skeptics side. I was thinking of Dodger Stadium in LA, Met Life Stadium in the Meadowlands, AT&T Stadium in Dallas and the Big House in Ann Arbor. If that can’t handle the demand, we could always explore the availability of Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel NY.
A few days ago I linked to a survey that showed a drop in belief of the AGW Schtick, even among Democrats. I thought once you completed this tour we might get those numbers down in the single digits.
CKid wrote:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161105
The number is fairly small, “up to 6%” globally:
“…globally, the rain enhanced gas transfer and rain induced direct export increase the estimated annual oceanic integrated net sink of CO2 by up to 6%.”
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161105
And of course that increases ocean acidification.
A UC blog post (1) referenced a new law in CA allocating a few more bucks for grid support-
“I7) Demand Side Grid Support. Appropriates $200 million to the CEC to provide payments for demand response actions, as specified, to reduce grid stresses during net peak periods.”
The quote is from the “bill analysis” of the law for the CA senate.
I don’t know if the funds can help fix the north/south pricing disparities in PG&E’s territory. It’s a bit of a mess currently in the day head price map (for hour 11-12)
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/prices.html
1) Who’s Afraid of Retail Electricity Rate Reform? – Energy Institute Blog (wordpress.com)
Mark Miller
How bad will it get?
“Three major utility companies in California are looking to restructure customer billing, and part of that means customers could be charged based on how much money they make. Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric filed a joint proposal this week for a flat-rate charge based on income.”
https://abc7.com/utility-bills-income-california/13126671/
It seems CARB thinks it might get painful for some folks-
“Even worse, the plan projects that since “more than 60% of households in the race/ethnicity categories of Hispanic, Black, and other minority communities are less affluent, these groups will “experience reduced income,” compared with mainly “White and Asian households” in higher income groups.”
https://www.city-journal.org/article/californias-climate-hypocrisy?&wallit_nosession=1
@ jim2 | April 20, 2023 at 11:10 am in suspense
Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler) wrote:
“Green” ideas and their proponents can create problems. Like the antagonist in Terminator 2, green arguments and proponents don’t go down easily.
What is “green” about wanting to keep the status quo?
Isn’t that what conservatives are all about, keeping the status quo?
Appell asks “What is ‘green’ about wanting to keep the status quo?” but doesn’t say who’s status quo he is asking about. China and India just love their freedom to choose whatever they want as most western powers did before the lunatics took over the asylum.
And still the greens almost completely ignore nuclear in spite of it being the only real green option … solar and wind couldn’t be less green even if the west went totally into reverse and back to fossil fuelled everything they’d still be useless and costly monstrosities unless specifically selected energy means because of location. Now if the west said we are going nuclear big time and binning large scale wind, solar and EV then perhaps we could have a really useful debate about making the planet a better place for all life forms..
Look up id ee ot in the dictionary and you will find pictures of Climate Doomers.
UK-Weather Lass wrote:
Appell asks “What is ‘green’ about wanting to keep the status quo?” but doesn’t say who’s status quo he is asking about. China and India just love their freedom to choose whatever they want as most western powers did before the lunatics took over the asylum.
1) The US has already emitted about twice as much CO2 as has China, and 8 times that of India.
2) The US currently emits about 2.3 times as much CO2 per capita than does China, and 9 times as much as India.
Data: 1850-2018, World Resource Institute’s CAIT database
http://cait.wri.org/
Americans have been, and still are, the energy hogs of the world.
Physics doesn’t do “per capita” David. It deals in absolutes.
Debating the replacement of a working system with a crappy broken system is not about preserving the status quo – it is about making real world decisions with real world impacts.
Why is it the precautionary principle applies to climate but does not apply to numbskull ideas of upending functional systems with unproven ones?
For that matter – the precautionary principle used to justify climate change mitigation policies is very much about preserving some pre-human status quo of climate.
Who is the conservative now?
Wolf1 commented:
Debating the replacement of a working system with a crappy broken system is not about preserving the status quo….
Of course, I never advocated such a thing.
It’s the job of engineers to get the replacement system up to par with the “working system.” (It’s not really working, when you consider its copious pollution, both air and carbon pollution.) Then, when it’s up to snuff, make the transition. Or do it piecemeal. It’s urgent and necessary and, if you don’t want to help make it happen, others will.
The engineers are speaking.
They are saying they technologies are not ready and that it will be impossible to maintain standards with these technologies, should they be forced into widespread use.
It is utterly moronic to think that “others will” when it is reality that is the problem.
But of course, the emperor’s new theorists believe they can just decree a new reality…
@ https://judithcurry.com/2023/04/17/renewable-experts-undeterred-and-unmoved-by-failed-ideas/#comment-988937
BBJ says: “Other than that, H2 is no more dangerous than having CH4 heat your home.”
I’m seriously beginning to doubt JJB knows anything about chemistry, much less being a chemical engineer. Anyone in the business knows his statement is BS and clearly he is clueless.
The explosion limits (% by volume) of the two gasses are:
Methane 4.4 16.4
Hydrogen 4 75
Take a good look at this article. It lists the problems as well as the explosions due to hydrogen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety
On top of that, converting a house to handle hydrogen is just one more expensive proposition among many from the Climate Doomers.
Who said getting rid of carbon based fuels was going to be cheap?
Cheap is good. And plenty of Climate Doomers have claimed “green energy” would be cheaper than fossil fuels. You are something of a propagandist, aren’t you?
I’m sure all the folks at NASA, ESA, and ULA will be delighted to hear that their huge billion dollars efforts to safely handle hydrogen were unnecessary.
Onwards to home nuclear fission reactors!
I can assure you that refiners aren’t spending billions of dollars to safely handle hydrogen. They were handling hydrogen before NASA existed. Maybe, NASA should have asked for some advice.
JJB can’t distinguish between refinery personnel trained in safety and how to deal with hydrogen with the untrained user. He is willing to minimize the extreme dangers of hydrogen to eliminate fossil fuels to “save the planet.” Even though the planet more likely than not doesn’t need his help. Typical wild-eyed, Chicken Little, Climate Doomer!
“JJB can’t distinguish between refinery personnel trained in safety and how to deal with hydrogen with the untrained user.”
LOL!! What kind of training do you think they get? It’s not like it’s a hazardous liquid — like gasoline — where a spill has to be cleaned up. If users can deal with gasoline and NG, they’ll be able to deal with H2.
It’s probably never going to happen. It will be expensive to replace all the NG underground piping. It’s easier to switch over to electric heating and eliminate the use of NG and fuel oil. Problem solved!
So does the extra electricity come from the Electricity Fairy?
Replacing natural gas stoves and water heaters would cost many homeowners $5,000 to $8,000 because those are high current 230 VAC appliances that their houses weren’t originally wired for.
We should be transitioning people the other way to take some load off the grid to allow more current to go to EVs, as natural gas in extremely efficient for heating, whereas an electric stove leaves at least half of the natural gas’s energy at the power plant in the form of waste heat.
NG puts out less CO2 than oil or coal, but it still puts out CO2.
Moving away from carbon based fuels was always going to be expensive. It’s going to happen anyway, fossil fuels are a finite resource. As fossil fuels get harder to find, prices will rise and the best economic decision will be to move to something else.
I said that hydrogen is more prone to leak than NG. That means special piping.
Whether it ignites at 4% or 16%, if you have a leak, do you think that is going to make much of a difference?
H2 is less energy dense than NG, and igniting it at 4% rather than 16% means the explosion of H2 will do a lot less damage than NG.
Other than the special piping requirement to prevent leaks, there is not much difference. One more thing, you’ll have to burn 3Xs as much H2 to get the same energy as NG.
The large range of explosion limits absolutely makes hydrogen more dangerous. That plus the difficulties containing it makes using it in house id ee ot ic.
You can jump up and down all you want. There is little difference. The problem with H2 is that it is prone to leak more.
You run around in a car with 20 gallons of gasoline in it. I’ll bet you never give it a thought. That’s way more dangerous than H2 will ever be.
In fact, if your car were powered with H2, you’d be a lot safer. When your H2 leaks it disperses in the air. When gasoline leaks, the fumes travel along the ground looking for an ignition source.
You need to lay off the psychedelics, JJB. Gasoline is ubiquitous and it’s handled millions of times every day. I know of a case where a hydrogen truck hose caught fire just because it landed on asphalt. Hydrogen is an EXTREMELY dangerous material. Even chemical plants using trained personnel have issues with it.
“Gasoline is ubiquitous and it’s handled millions of times every day.”
That doesn’t make it safe. It’s safe because it’s handled properly. The same with H2.
Mess around with a tanker truck full of gasoline and see what happens.
Special piping only reduces the speed of hydrogen leaks.
As a supposed physicist, surely you understand why hydrogen atoms are so difficult to contain and why real world, efficient containment is impossible.
The explosion issues are secondary to the inherent problems of leakage.
Hydrogen leakage means losses all along the chain from production to consumer.
The only real good point of hydrogen engines is that ICE engines are relatively easy to convert to use hydrogen – but this is irrelevant because of the leakage problem.
Leakage means the already inefficient methods to produce hydrogen – whether green or blue – are going to be made even worse by massive losses along the way.
The Brac-dude – who pretends to be a physicist – doesn’t seem to grasp the basic physics problems associated with using hydrogen.
Instead of spending trillions, which I believe we already have, a seawall is a much cheaper options IF sea level rise becomes a problem, which it may never be. A mere $400 billion. At one time that sounded like a lot, but given trillions are slated to be spent, this is the bargain of a life time!!!
Let’s say other adaptations are another trillion. We are still ahead of the game and a lot of that can be from the private sector.
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-06-21-climate-change-seawalls-cost
I have news for you. We are going to run out of carbon based fuels eventually and then you’ll have to spend the money to convert.
Why not bite the bullet now and preserve oil for other vital uses?
jim2 wrote:
Instead of spending trillions, which I believe we already have, a seawall is a much cheaper options IF sea level rise becomes a problem, which it may never be.
Seawalls won’t work around Florida, where the underlying land is very porous so the ocean will go beneath any wall.
I don’t understand how seawalls could work unless you plug every hole next to every coastline on a continent. What leaks through will distribute itself behind the wall.
There are only certain area vulnerable, so you don’t have to have sea walls everywhere. Of course you probably think sea level rise will be apocalyptic. Have the government drop flood insurance, maybe phase it out over 5 years. Let the rich and companies that built around the coast take care of themselves and help the poorer folk relocation. Adaptation makes so much more sense and costs less cents.
David knows the sea level has been rising at an unalarming rate for a very long time. He also knows that there has been no significant acceleration in the rate of rise since the satellite era began.
He chooses to sprout alarmist dogma.
Several times I posted the math about simply pumping ocean water onto Siberia, Greenland, northern Canada, and the Antarctic, where it will stay frozen through the next major glaciation period. It’s a simple accounting exercise to compute the annual cost versus the resulting rate of sea-level lowering, as the entire project is just pipes, centrifugal pumps, and powerplants. It is easily affordable, but alarmists would rather have the threat of sea-level rise and billions going into their own pockets to pontificate on the civilization-ending danger than let a bunch of guys in hard-hats simply solve the problem.
It’s like being married to someone who doesn’t want a leak fixed because they get too much personal mileage out of maintaining the leak as an issue.
This idea will never work.
Hera are some of the problems:
Climate change causes sea level to rise because of melting land ice and decreasing liquid density. The pumping rates will be huge.
You have to remove energy from water to get it to freeze. Unless you want to provide refrigeration, the seawater will have to draw energy from its environment. More likely it won’t freeze and drain back to the ocean.
Don’t count on any ice to supply the refrigeration. Ice is at 0 C. Seawater freezes at -2 C. It isn’t cold enough.
The places you want to dump the seawater are places where ice is melting currently. That’s only going to get worse. What’s going to stop the ice you create from melting?
It already works just fine. Every winter urban ice climbers throw hoses and diesel pumps into the water, connect the output to spray nozzles, and make ice towers over a hundred feet tall, just to have something to climb. Some of their structures don’t melt till August, and that’s because they’re not in regions with permanent ice.
I’ve done the math on it. It is a relatively cheap solution, far cheaper than other options, and cheaper than the more permanent solution of dredging or similar projects to move rock onto land.
But of course the project will be opposed by people who demand unworkable solutions to simple problems.
Let’s do a back of the envelop calculation.
The United States occupies 2% of the world’s surface area. Oceans occupy 70%. Let’s say you wanted to reduce sea level by 1 ft. that means you would have to cover the US with 35 ft of water to do that. Do you see the problem?
Your ice tower analogy isn’t a good one. There is no comparison to that and what you’re talking about.
When climate scientists tell you we must eliminate fossil fuels, they aren’t kidding. CO2 is, at the current concentrations and amount in the atmosphere, is impossible to deal with. The solutions proposed sound good but will be impossible to implement or will be ineffective. Barring a scientific miracle, the only way to deal with the problem is to end the use of fossil fuels,
Well that would be the dumb way to counter a foot of sea level rise. You’re spreading the solution over an extremely large area in a place where ice won’t stay frozen, and where hundreds of millions of people live. Instead I suggest putting the water someplace where it will stay frozen and where hundreds of millions of people don’t live. Perhaps that’s a difference in engineering philosophy.
Take Greenland, for example. The area of the ocean is 167 times larger than Greenland, so a foot of sea level rise could be reversed by adding an extra 182 feet of ice thickness to Greenland. Nobody would even notice it.
However, from an efficiency standpoint, low lying areas of Canada, Siberia, and Antarctica would be better as the required head pressure, and thus expended energy, is less. PE=mgh and centrifiugal pumps are about 85% efficient, and they can be direct drive to cut out the costs of generators and electric motors. Coat would likely be the cheapest way to power them, but you could cost out the project as if the pumps were all electric (which would also be more flexible in terms of placement).
–
The minimum energy for the Greenland-size glacier height, if starting at sea level, would be 3.8e20 Joules. But that’s to offset a foot of rise, which we won’t have to do except in the very long term, according to IPPC projections. Instead we need to offset 0.13″ per year, which is just natural rise that’s been going on during the current interglacial.
So even starting the new glacier 300 feet up, just to give the pumps some serious work, offsetting 0.13″ per year of sea level rise would require 13 GW of continuous power. That’s half of the coal-fired grid capacity China adds in one year, even with the drop in construction due to Covid, so the project needs to borrow six-month’s worth of Chinese coal-plant construction to zero out the current rate of sea level increase.
As I said, I long ago did the math on the project. It’s simple and far cheaper than the crazy ideas the environmentalists are using, such as locking the Third World into another century of abject poverty. But environmentalists don’t want a simple solution to a simple problem, they want power and societal control.
Three questions for David Appell:
(1) How much of the carbon dioxide emitted by the United States over the last one-hundred years still remains resident in the atmosphere?
(2) How much of the carbon dioxide emitted by China and India between now and the year 2050 — the year when the US is supposed to reach Net Zero — how much of that CO2 will still be resident in the atmosphere in the year 2100?
(3) Why hasn’t Joe Biden declared a climate emergency and why hasn’t the Biden Administration published a detailed plan of action for just how the United States can reach Net Zero by the year 2050?
Beta Blocker wrote:
Three questions for David Appell:
(1) How much of the carbon dioxide emitted by the United States over the last one-hundred years still remains resident in the atmosphere?
(2) How much of the carbon dioxide emitted by China and India between now and the year 2050 — the year when the US is supposed to reach Net Zero — how much of that CO2 will still be resident in the atmosphere in the year 2100?
These questions are easily answered (#2 with reasonable assumptions), they’re completely irrelevant, and I’m not going to spent my time doing research for you. Do the work yourself. You will learn more that way, too.
(3) Why hasn’t Joe Biden declared a climate emergency and why hasn’t the Biden Administration published a detailed plan of action for just how the United States can reach Net Zero by the year 2050?
“Biden signs order for government to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050: US will ‘lead by example in tackling the climate crisis,’ says White House, by eliminating greenhouse gases from its activities,” The Guardian, 12/8/21
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/08/biden-signs-order-government-net-zero-emissions-2050
First there’s the oxymorn: Biden leads. Funny that one.
Then there is the fact the even if Biden was capable of leading, China and India don’t care.
In theory, there is no difference in practice and theory.
In practice, there is.
–Yogi Berra
Neal Dante Castagnoli just commented on Renewable Experts: Undeterred and Unmoved by Failed Ideas:
In theory, there is no difference in practice and theory.
In practice, there is.
–Yogi Berra
How did the world ever transition from the telegraph to the telephone?
From telephones to the Internet?
From horses to cars to planes?
How did the first cell phones get started?
From smog-covered cities to cleaner skies?
Imagine the complaints about trying to establish universal television!
It seems every engineer here would have argued that none of these transitions were possible.
I just had an amazingly bad experience renting an EV (for the first time).
If this EV experience is in any way indicative of grids and alternative energy, watch out!
I rented this EV because of a last minute transport change that required me to get myself and my wife to a Napa wine tour from SF. This is a roughly 70 mile trip, one way.
The problem started with getting the vehicle. It had only 50% charge so it meant I could get there but not back. Since there was no charging facility at the winery (no surprise), I decided to charge at a nearby EVgo facility that was right in downtown St. Helena and walk nearby for lunch.
First problem: The Tesla Model Y did not have adapters to fit the EVGo facility even though the rental company had sworn they were included.
I then found a Tesla charging place in a hotel just north of downtown St. Helena; fortunately the other couple had a (gas) car so could meet us and drive us to where we could have lunch. This came to the 2nd and 3rd problems:
Tesla charging requires an app. The app took 30 minutes to download via the Napa cell systems, and it took another 15 minutes to figure out the 3 different credit card locations and 2 different address locations before getting the right combination to function. This then required the other guy to drive me back to the Tesla charging station because the charging has to follow a specific set of steps after payment is set up.
Then after returning to the restaurant and a 1.5 hour lunch – the charge was just enough to get back to SF. It went from 23% to 33%.
This was close enough to what it took getting to Napa, plus Friday rush hour traffic, that I was significantly nervous but I made it back fine with 10% charge left.
But of course, I have to return the vehicle charged. Even extending 2.5 hours, there was no way a regular charging would work so I looked for a Tesla supercharger – the 4th problem.
The only site with a Tesla supercharger in my half of the city (downtown) – it turns out is inside a valet only parking. So I had to pay for parking on top of the charging. 30 minutes brought the charge from 9% to 53% (some margin), and I was finally able to return the car.
The 5th problem: the cost. The Tesla supercharging cost according to Tesla’s own app was averaging $0.55 per kWh for the past 31 days. Since I drove from 140-160 miles and used 45-50 kWh, the electricity price was only slightly less than if I had just paid for 5 or 6 gallons of gas – with the parking fee, it was more.
So: 2 hours of charging time. 4 trips to various charging stations. Range anxiety throughout. 30 minutes of app download and 15 minutes of app setup. All this for a day trip to a single winery, 70 miles away.
Lesson: renting an EV is a gigantic scam. Don’t EVER do it.
It is also clear that an EV is only good for a white collar job and grocery shopping. Any kind of significant travel – whether salesmen/delivery/ride share with hundreds of miles a day much less travel more than 2 hours away – is going to require all sorts of planning.
EVs are clearly “intermittent transport” much like solar PV and wind are “intermittent grid electricity providers” – which is to say that they might work in simple situations but anything else is extremely risky, a hassle and problematic.
No s••t! I only mentioned it in every post I made on this subject. Did you just wake up and figure you’d throw your 2 cents in?
Hydrogen will be a part of a climate solution. Liquid H2 could be used in place of jet fuel. Fuel cells could be an important part of electricity generation and transportation.
H2 is already used safely in refineries and chemical plants. It’s premature to say it can’t be used by the public. It’s safer than gasoline when used as a transportation fuel.
Thanks for yet again reaffirming your utter lack of any credibility.
The single largest use of “hydrogen” as you put it, is as an intermediate in the creation of ammonia using the Haber Bosch process. The thing is – this hydrogen is a brief intermediate step in a high pressure, high energy process.
It doesn’t travel around, it doesn’t get stored, it is just a step in a chain.
And no, it is not safer than gasoline when used as a transportation fuel. The inherent leakage means hydrogen accumulations can occur literally along the entire chain of distribution and anywhere in the sphere of consumer usage.
But these little details don’t matter to those who know nothing.
I’m not a physicist or a climate scientist and never claimed to be.
All gases leak. Didn’t know that? The question is if it can be kept to an acceptable level.
Oh, so now you admit you know nothing?
Hydrogen leaks more than any other gas, period.
It isn’t a question of “acceptable” – because even a 1% leakage at each point in the distribution chain means the entire mess is uneconomic.
Try and do some research to understand the amount of time gasoline spends between refining and the end consumer, and the amount of time gasoline spends in a tank before use, and the amount of gasoline in tanks at any given time. Then multiply by leakage rates.
Maybe then you will understand why this is a stupid idea.
“Oh, so now you admit you know nothing?”
Someone needs to teach you how to read. What I said is that I’m not a physicist or climate scientist.
“It isn’t a question of “acceptable” – because even a 1% leakage at each point in the distribution chain means the entire mess is uneconomic.”
You need to get out more.
https://www.chemengonline.com/hydrogen-piping-systems/?pagenum=6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_pipeline_transport
Apparently, it’s not as much a problem as you let on. Research is continuing on transporting H2 by pipeline.
“Try and do some research to understand the amount of time gasoline spends between refining and the end consumer, and the amount of time gasoline spends in a tank before use, and the amount of gasoline in tanks at any given time. Then multiply by leakage rates.”
I was talking about safety issues between H2 and gasoline as a transportation fuel. H2 leakage is not a problem because any leak is dissipated quickly in the atmosphere. Leaks from a gasoline tank wind up on the ground. Fumes are heavier than air and travel along the ground looking for an ignition source.
Back during the W Bush era, when he pushed hydrogen as the fuel of the future (even though it was a storage medium, not a fuel), there was talk about how it would take a long time to build any hydrogen infrastructure.
My thought at the time was that the simplest part of the transportation system to transition was railroads, as they can serve as their own infrastructure, with LH2 powered engines hauling LH2 tankers from a hydrogen plant, through coupling yards, to finally get hooked behind other hydrogen-powered engines.
I thought the same thing about switching railroad engines from diesel to dimethyl ether (DME) derived from coal, which most diesel engines can run on with only slight modifications to lubricate their valves, since DME has no lubricating properties of its own. China already ran buses on DME with no problems that I’m aware of, so a tank of DME (it can use tanks designed to haul propane) should have no problem running a diesel locomotive, feeding the engine with a hose like a big propane appliance, while the current diesel fuel tanks on the engine could remain in place for situations where no DME was available.
In any event, converting ships and railroads would be the logical first step in the role out of any new fuel, as they don’t require the construction of a vast network of new pipelines, and the entire fleet doesn’t have to be converted at once.
But so far as I know there’s more attention on trying to add sails to ships than to transition them to a different fuel, and no push at all to do anything about railroads, other than to hope they don’t derail as often.
H2 is a fuel. You burn it you get energy. You do the same with fossil fuels. Most of the energy from fossil fuels comes from the bound hydrogen. The carbon in fossil fuels binds the hydrogen and, for some fuels, gives it a liquid form.
Some feel NH3 could be used as a fuel. N binds the hydrogen instead of C. It has its own problems like NH3 is toxic. Even the fumes are toxic.
There is a big difference between oil, coal, and H2. You can’t control the location of oil and coal. You have to transport it from where it is to where you need it, which could be halfway around the world.
You have your choice where you want to make H2. You can use nuclear power or renewables and with electrolysis you produce H2. You don’t need ships or tanker cars.
This idea is better than your last one. At least it’s feasible.
Thank you again for underscoring just how little wisdom and understanding you actually have.
Let’s look at these “aha” links you posted:
The first link is an examination of leakage rates vs. accumulation to a potentially dangerous level. It does not mention anything about percentage leak – it specifically states that buildings and ventilation should be designed to ensure that said dangerous accumulation should not occur.
So in other words: leakage is ALWAYS going to happen. The ACTUAL AMOUNT LEAKED is a primarily a function of the amount of hydrogen and the surface volume of the container, as well as the container and form of hydrogen storage used.
Large amounts of hydrogen, unless literally liquefied, are ALWAYS GOING TO LEAK.
But let’s look at one simple example:
The amount of hydrogen energy to equal 1 gallon of gasoline is 22.4 cubic meters of H2 at STP. Since this is a volume more than twice as large as actual car interior volumes, hydrogen storage in a car will have to be compressed. So a 10 gallon gasoline equivalent car will require 224 cubic meters of hydrogen; compressing 6,000x will bring storage volume back to around said 10 gallon gasoline tank. (10 gallons = 38 liters = 0.038 cubic meters; 224/0.038 = 5947)
Does this sound safe to you?
What is the leakage rate for hydrogen compressed at this rate?
As a side note: CNG vehicles use a 9:1 to 12:1 compression rate; hydrogen will require FIVE HUNDRED TIMES MORE COMPRESSION than CNG.
I am 100% certain you have not even done this 5 minutes of basic research.
But of course, this is just the hydrogen in the car itself. What about the hydrogen refilling station tank? The hydrogen tanker truck? The hydrogen storage tank at a distribution center? The hydrogen pipeline from cracking site to distribution center – which in a gasoline world is the oil well to refinery to tank farm process?
The next link is equally laughable. It shows a few hundred km of hydrogen pipelines in the entire world and its history.
The US alone as 2.9 million miles of pipelines. How much leakage would occur in 2.9 million miles of hydrogen pipelines?
How many years would be required to replace 2.9 million NG and gasoline and fuel oil and oil pipelines with hydrogen?
This matters because for a significant period of this time – the hydrogen pipelines will have to exist alongside the other pipelines.
How much would it cost to build 2.9 million miles of hydrogen pipelines? The water cracking facilities? The hydrogen ICE engine and fuel tank and piping refits? The building and ventilation upgrades?
This is what the real world is, you dolt.
Perhaps someday you may exit the “and a miracle occurs” mindset which you clearly have, but then again, I won’t be holding my breath.
“So a 10 gallon gasoline equivalent car will require 224 cubic meters of hydrogen; compressing 6,000x will bring storage volume back to around said 10 gallon gasoline tank. (10 gallons = 38 liters = 0.038 cubic meters; 224/0.038 = 5947)
Does this sound safe to you?”
It worked for the last 30 years for fuel cell buses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell_bus
https://info.ballard.com/hubfs/Premium%20Content/Hydrogen%20Fueling%20for%20Fuel%20Cell%20Bus%20Fleets/WP-Ballard-Hydrogen-Refueling-for-Fuel-Cell-Bus-Fleets.pdf#:~:text=2.%20A%20compression%2C%20storage%20and%20dispensing%20%28CSD%29%20module,and%20storage%20systems%20in%20a%20%E2%80%9Ccontainerized%E2%80%9D%20CSD%20module.
Your calculations failed to take into account the efficiency difference between fuel cells and an ICE. Most of the energy in gasoline winds up as waste heat.
“As a side note: CNG vehicles use a 9:1 to 12:1 compression rate; hydrogen will require FIVE HUNDRED TIMES MORE COMPRESSION than CNG.”
Why would I burn hydrogen in an ICE and waste most of the energy available? Fuel cells are an infinitely better alternative. ICEs should be a museum piece.
“I am 100% certain you have not even done this 5 minutes of basic research.”
That’s 5 minutes more than you’ve done.
“But of course, this is just the hydrogen in the car itself. What about the hydrogen refilling station tank? The hydrogen tanker truck? The hydrogen storage tank at a distribution center? The hydrogen pipeline from cracking site to distribution center – which in a gasoline world is the oil well to refinery to tank farm process?”
Well, they figured out how to do it in CA because there are 72 of them.
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/zero-emission-vehicle-and-infrastructure-statistics/hydrogen-refueling
Let me say this about pipelines. It will be expensive to replace pipelines. It was expensive to put in the pipelines for NG. I have news for you. A lot of those pipelines are old and need to be replaced. In NY, they rupture pretty frequently.
Most buildings already have fresh air ventilation systems. It wouldn’t be difficult to upgrade for enhanced ventilation. For residential, ever hear of air-to-air heat exchangers? I have one in my home, and they work great.
Let’s think out of the box. For enclosed spaces, whether they are commercial or residential, excess flow valves could be installed external to the building to shut off flow in case of pipe breaks. Hydrogen detectors could activate fail safe valves if the concentration of hydrogen was too high. Hydrogen could be cut with nitrogen to lower the concentration.
Hydrogen doesn’t even have to enter a structure. It could be used to power an external generator — ICE or fuel cell — to supplement solar panels on the roof.
TRY AGAIN!!!!
Despite what you think, the conversion to H2 goes on:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/toyota-gets-ok-from-california-to-sell-hydrogen-electric-semi-truck-powertrains/ar-AA1ahX8Z?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7b91108ae4144eaeb12465adf3a9f393&ei=8
Wow! A new technology with startup problems. Like that has never happened before.
When the ICE was new, how many gasoline stations do you think existed? If it were up to you, we’d still be riding around on horses.
EVs have been around for 100 years.
And recharging times are never going to get significantly better.
But then again, you’ve already proven that you don’t understand anything about physics or engineering – thanks for now showing that you have no idea about the realities of electricity or electricity storage, either.
So your bet is that technology can’t solve this problem?
Personally, I only used 18 gallons in the last year. But I did fill up both times I took my Volt to the gas station. A survey by AAA in 2020 found that only 60% of drivers filled their gas tanks full when refueling their cars. The other 40% of drivers either fill up partway or only when they absolutely have to.
Yep, I do bet that.
I bet it because it is basic physics coupled with basic understanding of risk.
Barring a literal magic technology – specifically superconductivity at room temperature and pressure with common materials – it will NEVER be possible to charge quickly.
You can increase charge times by increasing energy density of materials – but lithium batteries are already 2/3rds the energy density of gunpowder. Significant additional energy density increases mean driving around with literal explosives density packs. Higher energy density storage materials would also require even more massive electricity funnels. Tesla Superchargers pump 300 amps – decreasing charge times means increasing this current flow. If the present 1 hour plus charge time is to be decreased to say, 10 minutes, then the current flow is going to have to jump to 1800 amps.
The average current in grid-level electricity transmission lines is around 700 amps.
Do you see the issue?
Wolf1,
My point was that smart chargers paired with smart cars means you should not have to ‘fill it up’ every time you pull into a charging station. The car’s navigation systems + trip planning should decrease charging times by not having to fully charge the car at maximum amperage if the planned trip doesn’t need it.
I have noticed many of the anti-renewable people have a typical western superiority complex that ignores the fact that China has led the world in new patents for FIVE years running and has pulled ahead of the West in the most important technologies that will determine the destiny of civilization for the next century.
APRIL 24, 2023
https://scitechdaily.com/powering-the-future-chinas-superionic-hydride-ion-conductor-breakthrough/
“This transforms LaHx into a superionic conductor with record high conductivities at the ambient temperatures — minus 40 degrees Celsius to 80 degrees Celsius.”
Cultural reference point; Did you know that China executes billionaires who break the law!? Imagine that!
More…
APRIL 21, 2023
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/04/21/catl-launches-500-wh-kg-condensed-matter-battery/
CATL launches 500 Wh/kg condensed matter battery
Chinese battery industry heavyweight CATL has unveiled a novel condensed matter battery technology with an energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg. The company said it can achieve mass production within this year.
*That’s almost twice the current Li-ion batteries energy density.
“Science is a just thought process, technology will change reality and politics is how you rationalize the change.”
APRIL 24, 2023
https://scitechdaily.com/powering-the-future-chinas-superionic-hydride-ion-conductor-breakthrough/
By creating nanosized grains and defects in the LaHx lattice, the electronic conductivity of LaHx can be suppressed by more than five orders of magnitude. This transforms LaHx into a superionic conductor with record high conductivities at the ambient temperatures — minus 40 degrees Celsius to 80 degrees Celsius.
It’s easy to carry around a can of gasoline. Try putting an extra battery in an EV. There isn’t enough pop corn.
EV’s do not have removable batteries.
I take it you go running around with a container of gasoline in your trunk? How do you feel about the safety of H2?
Jerry cans work well for gasoline. Not so much for hydrogen.
JJBraccili | April 24, 2023 at 3:01 pm |
EV’s do not have removable batteries.
I take it you go running around with a container of gasoline in your trunk? How do you feel about the safety of H2?
JJB – a proponent of H2 and EV’s notices a few problems with the technologies he embraces. Good job
All technologies have problems.
Think of a fuel cell car with a battery and regenerative brakes. It would have the highest efficiency of any alternative. The fuel cells would recharge the battery when it got low. You could double the range of the vehicle. That would end the complaints about EVs.
That is never going to happen. Greenland already has a problem with melting glaciers.
Your idea will die along side putting mirrors in space and having a fleet of airplanes continuously spraying a reflective aerosol into the atmosphere.
The idea will die because it’s a cheap and easy solution that will remove the only serious threat from global warming, and alarmists do not want the threat removed because they make all their money off the threat.
Antarctica and Greenland, by some estimates, are losing about 400 billion tons of ice a year. My cheap proposal just puts 1.2 trillion tons of ice right back, spraying water just like falling rain, in the middle of winter. The current glacial melting is already factored in with the numbers. If effect, it’s just increasing the amount of precipitation in glacial regions to make the glaciers grow again. It is no different from natural processes except it uses pipes and pumps to move water instead of a cloud. Man has been doing that for centuries now.
But your rejection of the idea illustrates how the alarmist cult works. They won’t accept solutions because they want to maintain the threat so they can keep poor people in the Third World mired in poverty for another century, all while they fly to climate conferences on their corporate jets to virtue signal about how they’re making sacrifices to protect the Third World.
If an entrepreneur went ahead and started installing pumps in Greenland, alarmists would pay Greenpeace to go blow up the pumping stations. They’ve got an incredibly lucrative scam going and are not going to let some engineer go and ruin it for them.
I’m sorry. I don’t see this working.
Greenland is already melting ice. How do you intend to keep the ice you make stay frozen? As temperatures rise, that’s going to be impossible. I’m not sure you’re going to be able to get all that water to freeze in the first place.
The best your idea will do is to delay the inevitable. You’re treating a symptom while letting the disease run wild.
Well, you see, snow and ice work like this:
Winter: Snow and ice build up by X
Summer: Snow and ice melt by Y
If X > Y then the ice pack grows in thickness. If X < Y then the ice pack shrinks in thickness.
But if X < Y and you add Y – X of extra ice every winter, then X will always equal Y and the ice pack is unchanged.
However, in my case the Greenland ice pack is decreasing by 270 million tonnes per year, and I'd be adding back 1,200 million tonnes, as I'm also compensating for Antarctica and everywhere else, plus any thermal expansion of the oceans.
And of course Greenland is not melting equally everywhere. A lot of that 270 million tonnes is flow into the ocean from moving glaciers. You wouldn't want to put your fresh ice someplace where it's just going to plot back into the ocean and melt, you want to pump it into blind inland valleys in the North where ice is going to take a hundred thousand years to get out, if it can get out at all. For example, some mountain lakes store water permanently, losing only to overflow and evaporation. There are large parts of Antarctica where the ice just doesn't really move.
Obviously there's room on land to store enough ice to drop the sea levels by 400 feet, because that's what happened during the last glacial cycle. Plus, Chicago's crime rates were much lower when there was a mile of ice sitting on top of it.
But I'm not presenting you with a site survey, I'm illustrating the ease and low expense of the method, relative to spending tens of trillions so that most of the ever-increasing atmospheric CO2 molecules say "Made in China" or "Made in India".
So look at it from a project standpoint.
Since any remote polar region would work for storage, and virtually no one lives in remote polar regions, such a project wouldn't encounter much red tape. Since it's just make an existing arctic wasteland a slightly higher arctic wasteland, there wouldn't be any environmental effects to consider, especially since the alarmists dearest dream is that there was more ice in arctic wastelands, like in the old days of cold climates.
Conventional powerplants are almost cookie cutter at this point, and to halt sea-level rise we only need six months of new Chinese coal plant production, and gas plants are even cheaper and easier to install, considering time and initial outlay. So from the time when some major government decides to just go ahead and halt sea level rise, to the time sea level rise is halted, is perhaps about five years, maybe less.
If sea level rise was a real problem then we'd just go ahead and solve it in the simple, straightforward manner.
And the problem is indeed a simple one. You have a basin, much like a bathtub or water tub for cattle, that's in your bathroom. There's a 0.1 gallon per day ceiling drip you can't stop, and it's going to make the tub overflow and get the floor wet. So you drop an aquarium pump into the tub and run the little plastic output hose over to your sink or into a gallon jug. Problem solved. If the pump is faster than the drip you can use a float operated switch to set the tub's fill level to just about whatever you want.
The planet has a finite amount of water and we can, if we choose, change how its distributed. We already do this to an extent with dams. Dredging, which moves rock and sediment from a water basin and onto land, bakes the basins bigger. If you look at it as a simple civil engineering project instead of an existential threat from an angry god, the problem becomes much much simpler because you don't have spend time dwelling on the human soul.
That sounds so easy!
Where to do you plan to get all the energy required to freeze all that water? The energy fairy? You do know that when the water gives up the energy required to freeze it, it doesn’t disappear. It warms the environment around it which slows or prevents any additional freezing.
What happens when climate change makes it too warm for your “solution” to work? Even if this were feasible — it’s not — all your doing is delaying the inevitable.