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vrooomie at 06:47 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Some of the naysayers of wind energy remind me--sadly--of the first cartoon on this website. http://info.ussolarinstitute.com/blog/bid/59854/Top-10-Solar-Energy-Cartoons I live almost within sight of one of Colorado's largest wind farms, Cedar Creek, and I think they are a *wonderful* resource that is steadily coming into its own, as an viable energy source. It's not really a matter of *if* we utilize the technology, it's that we *must* utilize it, where feasible.Moderator Response: [Sph] Hot linked for dumb, techno-incompetent geologist. -
Neven at 06:42 AM on 21 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
I forgot to say: anyone who wants to compare current ice cover to that of previous years, can have a look at the concentration maps on the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website. It's a quick way to see how weird or unusual something really is, or just which regions are melting out faster or slower compared to previous years. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:29 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Larry... Exactly. That's about what I would expect to see. It takes a lot of money to build these things and the ROI is so long, and the cost of renewables is going down while the cost of extracting coal is going up... I just imagine the people who usually finance these things are saying, "I'm not seeing how this can work long term." And with those sums of money people are very, very risk adverse in their investing. That would be really good news if we are now seeing the last coal plant built. That plant will be with us for the next 30-40 years but at least it's the right direction. -
LarryM at 05:57 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Rob @ #8: The Union of Concerned Scientists has a good analysis explaining why new coal plants are no longer a prudent investment. It's called A Risky Proposition (click on "Executive Summary"). With the new EPA regulations, it's very possible that the last new coal plant has already been built in the U.S. (but many will still be retrofitted with pollution controls and be with us for decades). -
jimvj at 05:37 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
The other real eye-popper is how bad solar thermal is. If so, why are so many companies opting to put huge solar thermal farms in the US southwest? Is it all tax incentive based? Solar thermal, I think, is more efficient at converting solar radiation into electricity than solar PV (at least outside of a lab environment). Obviously the embedded energy costs of the steam turbine plant, the mirrors, the land prep, etc must be really high. Is there a breakout of these costs available online? -
KR at 05:36 AM on 21 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
As an interesting side note, while Hansen 1988 has rather too high a sensitivity, and somewhat overestimates the actual warming trend based on actual emissions, Hansen et al 1981 underestimated those trends by ~30%, and still beat "no-change" or "linear trend" predictions. By no means were either the 1981 or 1988 models perfect - which, if you actually read the papers, Hansen states repeatedly. Aerosols are an ongoing issue, as is the exact level of cloud feedback. But making comparisons to the 1988 Scenario A (as Solheim did) is a complete strawman fallacy, and as per the lessons from predictions series documents, actual science does a much better job of predicting outcomes than the 'skeptic' models or claims. -
Fred Staples at 05:03 AM on 21 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
(-Snip-)Moderator Response:[DB] For many months now you have been bombing threads with comments focused on timeframes too short to be of any significance. In short, you continually focus on the "noise", not the "signal". And this, despite repeated counseling to the contrary. This constitutes "sloganeering" and is in violation of the comments policy.
Continuance of this pattern of posting behavior will result in an immediate cessation of posting privileges.
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adamski5807 at 04:17 AM on 21 June 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #24
what do people think about this?? Billions and billions of trees to solve the problem?? http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1340210498.html -
MarkR at 02:54 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
#8 Rob: I don't think we can make it that cut-and-dried. Coal doesn't need to include backup, and it's cheaper to fit into the current grid system. Wind has to pay for these extra costs and I suspect that in many cases this means it's still more expensive than new coal, although my focus here is purely on the technical aspects rather than the economic ones. And of course, coal gets an enormous subsidy, paid by the rest of us, for being able to dump its pollution into our air for free. If this externality was closed by charging for pollution rights like econ 101 says it should be, then the market would work it out pretty quickly. -
MarkR at 02:51 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
#7 Composer99: there seem to be a number of reasons for the spread including different LCA methods, changes in turbine size and how well they are sited. However, wind does seem to have improved with time. For studies from the 1980s, only 1 in 8 reports an EROI > 10. For the 2000s this has risen to 41 in 48. -
Rob Honeycutt at 02:49 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
I just don't see how or why anyone is putting money into new coal plants these days. It seems to me that by the time they come on line they are not going to be cost competitive with other resources. MA @ #4... I think the fact that the situation with anti-wind lobby and the wind industry is indicative of the state of build out. Coal (which I assume is the main source of the anti-wind lobby) is established. A large portion of their infrastructure is in place and even fully paid for, so they are fully in the black and can put money toward lobbying efforts. The wind industry is the upstart kid on the block and all their money is getting invested in building and installing new units. That means they're not going to have anything close to similar resources to use for lobbying efforts and PR. I expect that will likely change in the not-too-distant future. -
dana1981 at 01:43 AM on 21 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
poodle, Hansen's scenarios are projections, not predictions. A projection is "if x happens, then y will happen as a result." Since emissions didn't follow either Scenario A or B exactly, we wouldn't expect the Scenario A or B temp projections to be perfect. So to say Scenario A and B ran too hot - that's exactly what we would expect to happen. We would also expect the temperature rise to be about 16% below Scenario B if Hansen's model were perfect, given actual emissions. It wasn't, because as tonydunc and myself and others have noted, the model sensitivity was 4.2°C for doubled CO2 which is probably too high. Accounting for the difference, it tells us that fast feedback equilibrium sensitivity is around 3°C. -
Composer99 at 01:41 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Based on the EROI plus uncertainties shown, even if future studies show a significantly lower EROI for wind it's looking good compared to coal. -
John Chapman at 01:11 AM on 21 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
The irony about the north passage opening up, is that it is attracting suggestions that there could be good prospects for oil. Maybe they can also mine coal on some of those frozen lands when the ice is gone?! -
tonydunc at 01:07 AM on 21 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
Poodle, the problem might be that you are not noting that everyone, Hansen included, accepts that Hansen's sensitivity of 4.2°C for doubling of CO2 was wrong at least for the short term. This is something that I have repeatedly pointed out to deniers but it is almost never acknowledged. SO yes his predictions are too warm for that reason. Also there are numerous factors such as Asian aerosols, persistence of La Niña, etc, that could be dampening the effects of CO2 on the short term as well. That could also "make" his "predictions" wrong" but not his science. -
MarkR at 00:57 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
#3 john mfrilett Johnny Vector is right. The Energy Return on Investment counts the energy in the fuel as 'free'. This is a way of getting an idea of the useful energy returned to the economy based on inputs. A random figure I didn't want to bulk out the text with: ORNL says you get ~6150 kWh of electricity per ton of coal. A 3.6 MW wind turbine weighs hundreds of tons and over 20 years produces ~30,000 tons of coal worth of electricity. Suddenly the EROI figures sound a bit more believable. -
Johnny Vector at 00:04 AM on 21 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
john @3: This calculation does not include the energy in the fuel. This is strictly looking at the energy coming out of the plant divided by the total energy it takes to build and operate the plant over its lifetime. That includes the energy to make the materials out of which the plant is built, to build it, to maintain it, to mine/pump and transport the fuel, and to shut the plant down safely when it's no longer useful. So, coal takes a lot of energy to mine and transport, which reduces the lifecycle efficiency. Nuclear plants, OTOH, get a lot of power out of a smaller amount of mining (I think), but their decommissioning takes a lot of energy. Wind turbines probably cost more per kW to build and install than coal plants, but they require almost no energy to operate and decommission. So they win in this measure. The reason this is important is that you could imagine wind turbines being so large and complex that the energy needed to build them would be more than the energy you would ultimately get from them. Ethanol from corn, for example, is on the hairy edge of being energy neutral in this way. Growing the corn and processing it takes roughly (i.e. within a factor of 2) the same amount of energy as you get by burning the ethanol. -
MA Rodger at 23:46 PM on 20 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
cynicus The anti-wind lobby do a good job of disinformation and sadly the wind industry seem singularly inept (here in UK) at presenting its case. In 'your recent online discussion', I'd say I smell a rat. Getting information "first-hand from the plant operators" sounds like rubbish unless it is a public source, one which "the other" appears to be keeping private. Note also to crazy logic of saying "gas is currently so expensive" so the coal plants are used as the 'spinning reserve' resulting in "very high balancing costs." A few years back, the UK power industry was trying to get subsidies for new gas power-plants by pleading that high wind capacity would result in all their new gas power-plants running intermittently as the 'spinning reserve'. .e.g. here. Their latest wheeze to get gas catagorised as 'low carbon' for the next 30 years appears to be more successful. e.g.here. And of course, within such a political ding-dong any amount of crazy logic is par for the course. However, such talk, whatever the source, doesn't mean it describes something that is actually happening. -
john mfrilett at 23:45 PM on 20 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Some one please explain to me how a coal plant can produce more energy that it consumes? The coal generating station would have to operate at greater than 100% efficiency to produce numbers on the graph. I thought coal plants needed about 3 units of energy (sorry I have no reference for this) for every unit they produced? To my mind wind is a far better deal than this article suggest. -
Riccardo at 23:38 PM on 20 June 2012Seagrasses Can Store as Much Carbon as Forests
In general, I'd expect that calcareous species will be/are affected most by a pH reduction, not sea-grass which might even benefit from added CO2. Though, I should have said I don't know, I'm sure a google search will do better. -
thepoodlebites at 22:19 PM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
18. Belay my last, make that Hansen's 1988 (not 1998) temperature predictions (both A and B) were too warm. Sorry about that, I try to be careful. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked. -
thepoodlebites at 22:13 PM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
Bill, you're accusing me of persnickety strawmen but I'm just trying to understand the woodfortrees.org plot. Thanks Dana1981. A 60-month average definitely changes how one interprets the observations. I've included the 13-month UAH plot and we can clearly see the 1998 and 2010 El Nino events. I agree that Solheim's 1998 peak seems exaggerated but this doesn’t change the argument that Hansen’s 1998 temperature predictions (both A and B) were too warm. I’m still skeptical about actual emissions being closer to B but will study more about that. I guess you can accuse me of being a nit-pick about the empirical evidence but it represents the best ground truth that we have so far. -
funglestrumpet at 22:03 PM on 20 June 2012Seagrasses Can Store as Much Carbon as Forests
What effect does ocean acidification have on seagrass? -
cynicus at 19:56 PM on 20 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Question about: "The inefficiency from turning power stations on and off takes a bite out of the savings that wind power brings, but since the most polluting power stations get turned off first the savings are still big." I recently had an online discussion where I claimed this, since gasturbines (e.g. STEG powerplants) are much more suitable and efficient in loadfollowing then coal-plants, the wind-intermittency would be balanced by the gasturbines. The other claimed that gas (in Western-Europe) is currently so expensive that coal-plants are used to do the balancing, causing massive CO2 releases from wind-balancing and very high balancing costs (i.e. 30 Euro/MWh which is 10x higher then most studies show in even high wind grid penetration levels). I have a hard time to believe this but he claims to have this information first-hand from the plant operators. Can anyone from the business comment on this? -
cynicus at 19:09 PM on 20 June 2012Adding wind power saves CO2
Another research paper (2009 thesis) by Bart Ummels from TU Delft in cooporation with grid operator TenneT that focusses on the situation in The Netherlands shows roughly the same results as Valentino et al. 2012: high levels of windpower can be integrated into the grid without large changes to the grid and provide significant CO2 emission reductions. As a sidenote: De Groot and LePair appear stereotypes for the retired physicist who venture into an area they know too little about but with an axe to grind. They are notorious in The Netherlands for their anti-wind news articles. They indeed show their true colors when they falsely argue that wind forecasts aren't used and that all backup is provided by the least efficient power stations possible (Open-Cyle Gas Turbines). Bart Ummels has also commented on the claims by LePair&co., unfortunately in Dutch, but his critique agrees with the critique provided here by MarkR. -
Neven at 18:07 PM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
Now that you know what to look for, shoyemore, check out today's ECMWF weather forecast, click N-Hem. and then 144h onwards on the 500 hPa, SLP row. You see those huge high-pressure systems over the Canadian Archipelago? If those come about, the ice in the Northwest Passage is going to break up so hard. -
shoyemore at 17:43 PM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
Neven & Sphaerica, Thanks guys. I am now fully armed for the melt season. -
scaddenp at 17:27 PM on 20 June 2012New Research Lowers Past Estimates of Sea-Level Rise
I cant find a really suitable solution thread, but I have continued here. -
scaddenp at 17:26 PM on 20 June 2012Three new studies illustrate significant risks and complications with geoengineering climate
Continuing a discussion that started here. Eric. There are multiple issues here: 1/ Progress might be inevitable, but you cannot expect progress that violates physical laws and you cannot assume that just because something can be done then it is economic to do so. Just looking at the hurricane or El Nino data and you see that minimum energy costs are huge. Why would you assume that it is economic to spend this energy rather reduce emissions? 2/ A chaotic system obeys physical laws. Not all states are possible. Air that is cold with respect to surrounding will settle creating the high just as warm air rises. You might move the cyclone belt around (with enormous energy inputs) within some bounds but its general position is determined by the radiative heating profile of the planet. 3/ The increasing southward trend is warming Antarctica's fringes, bringing rain to melt the ice and increasing the issues of sealevel rise, not decreasing it. Look at the GRACE map of mass loss/accumulation and ice loss trend. -
DSL at 14:53 PM on 20 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
Total agreement, TC. Having the same conversation on several threads around the nets. I'm probably considered "progressive" by people who feel the need to label me. Even so, when I read the Fumento piece, I felt some sort of weight lift from my shoulders. -
Tom Curtis at 14:16 PM on 20 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
pa32r @25, I come from a very different political perspective to either you or Daniel. However, I absolutely agree that the key issue here is whether or not you are guided by the science or not. I would gladly accept a conservative response to climate change, so long as it was an effective response; and am very happy for conservatives such as you, Daniel, Barry Bickmore and Richard Alley to have a voice. -
Tom Curtis at 13:56 PM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
Bill, haven't you heard of a "Straw Nit" fallacy before ... -
Daniel Bailey at 13:46 PM on 20 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
"Anyway, my point is that there are people of a conservative frame of mind who are not enemies of facts."
As a conservative American who contributes to this forum, I felt your comment resonated with me. I hold many of the "classical" conservative values you mention dear yet differ from those Republicans I get classified (by default) with for much the same reasons as you."One would think that the readership of SkS would regard that as a good thing."
I do. Keep posting. -
pa32r at 13:17 PM on 20 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
It's interesting to read the comments. I've blogged myself that I'm philosophically very aligned with "small l libertarianism" but that philosophy must yield to the realities of the limits of a finite planet in terms of resource depletion and self-poisoning (of which climate change is one, but not the sole, example). I'm also conservative in a classical sense of conserving natural resources, financial wherewithal, personal responsibility, the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights, etc. I've also blogged that I'm most embarrassed, when describing myself as conservative, to be associated with today's Republican party and the so-called conservative mouthpieces. I've got a post entitled "I used to be a Republican," which I did. Of course, I ended that post with "But don't mistake me for a Democrat." Therefore, I'm a bit taken aback by comments from such as ralbin who would, I believe, write such as me off when I contrarily think "my type" is, in a sense, key to our chances. Anyway, my point is that there are people of a conservative frame of mind who are not enemies of facts. One would think that the readership of SkS would regard that as a good thing. -
bill4344 at 12:37 PM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
It appears that rather than addressing the meat of the post, poodle is trying to pick nits, but his nits are made of straw.
I completely agree, but I'm afraid I will have to arrest you for Crimes Against Metaphor... ;-) -
Neven at 09:42 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
Thanks for that link, Sphaerica. That's a better explanation than I could ever come up with. -
Neven at 09:38 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
The T stands for Tief, I believe, which is German for Low. Looking at the SLP numbers also helps. Anything above 1013 millibar or hPa is high-pressure system, below is low-pressure. So when from one isobar (the white lines) to the other the pressure goes up (for instance from 1015 to 1020 to 1025, etc) there's a high-level pressure system there. I don't look at the letters and colours too much, mostly the numbers and the shape of the isobars (telling me the direction of the wind). Again, it's very crude, but it works reasonably well. Highs on the Canadian side of the Arctic, and lows on the Siberian side, also known as the Dipole Anomaly, make the Beaufort Gyre gyre, the Transpolar Drift Stream drift. The ensuing ice transport, combined with clear skies and eventually pulling in of warm Pacific waters through Bering Strait (as happened in 2007), makes for the fastest ice decrease in summer. -
Bob Lacatena at 09:33 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
shoyemore, This explanation of how to read such maps is helpful (armed with T = low and H = high). -
Bob Lacatena at 09:29 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
shoyemore, I don't speak German, but from this I would guess that T is for trog (low pressure) while H is for hoch or hochdruck (high pressure). GPDM is short for geopotential decameters, while bodendruck is "pressure". -
shoyemore at 08:05 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
Neven, Thanks, can you explain those Wetterzentrale maps, please? What does T mean? I presume H is high pressure, and the colour is the pressure gradient. Not knowing German makes it difficult. I see Ireland has a massive gloomy spot over it. That figures - national team dumped unceremoniously out of the European Cup (soccer) with nul points. -
dana1981 at 06:40 AM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
poodle, the troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere. KR - I believe poodle's point is that there exists a data set with a certain smoothing for which the data around 1998 is hotter than the subsequent data. However, that argument is a strawman, because nobody said anything to the contrary. The above post correctly noted that there is no data set for which 1998 is hotter than subsequent years when a 5-year running mean (which Solheim claimed to apply) is used, as you show in your link (also linked in the post). It appears that rather than addressing the meat of the post, poodle is trying to pick nits, but his nits are made of straw. -
vrooomie at 06:13 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
CBD@4: I *especially* love your subtle use of humor, in your post, by using the future tense; "will be." "...insanity will be pretty much all that is left for 'skeptics' at that point." Ar ar....{;=P -
KR at 05:44 AM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
thepoodlebites - Looking, as you suggest, at the WoodForTrees data (with a 60 month running mean, as per the actual discussion here), not even the RSS data shows 1998 as the peak anomaly, let alone UAH. So no, 1998 is not the peak year in either surface or lower tropospheric temperature data 5-year averages. Clearly, Solheim was not using a 5-year uniform mean filter; perhaps a Loess smooth, a tapered mean, or a shorter period? My best reconstruction of his graph is actually with an approximately 13-month running mean. At the very least he has poorly labeled/explained his data. Now - What point were you trying to make? -
Neven at 05:43 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
The NSIDC has an extra June update explaining the recent nosedive. -
Neven at 05:01 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
@ shoyemore I notice that JAXA seems to have revised downwards the big breaks they were posting for the past few days, and the Arctic Oscillation has turned positive. You can disregard that latest data point that JAXA reports. It's very low every day, and then gets revised significantly the next day. I don't use it for the ASI updates. Here's another tip with regards to that last bit about weather patterns: If you go to the ECMWF weather forecast on Wetterzentrale you can click on N-Hem. and then the daily forecasts (24h, 48h, 72h, etc) at 500 hPa. This allows you to see a couple of days in advance where the highs and lows are going to be. In 5 to 6 days that low that is dominating right now, is forecast to get pushed back again, with highs taking over the Canadian Archipelago and part of the Beaufort Sea. I'd like to be cautious, but if this comes about, there could be some more big drops keeping 2012 in the driver's seat. We'll see. A 6 day forecast can change from day to day. -
thepoodlebites at 04:52 AM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
10 dana1981 What's the difference between a lower troposphere temperature data set and a lower atmosphere data set? Why not say "which is not true of any surface temperature data set" and leave "or lower atmosphere data set" out of the sentence. What do you mean by "lower atmosphere data set"? -
CBDunkerson at 04:09 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
Bernard, actually when the ice disappears I'm quite confident that the skeptic response will be, 'So what? Everyone knew that was going to happen. It is perfectly normal. Happened back in the 1930s too. Natural cycle. Look, e-mails!' All of which is, of course, completely insane... but insanity will be pretty much all that is left for 'skeptics' at that point. BTW, the first 'SEARCH' ice extent predictions for the year have been released. These were submitted prior to the recent rapid decline, but all predictions (even Watts) are for far below normal September extent. PIOMAS is also showing the same sharp drop in volume anomaly (i.e. the volume decline is much greater than average) starting in May which has characterized the past few years. What we've been seeing with extent and area in June suggests that this volume trend is continuing. -
dana1981 at 03:58 AM on 20 June 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
poodle - first of all, 13 months is not 5 years. Secondly, UAH is a lower troposphere temperature data set, not a surface temperature data set, and the Hansen 1988 projections were of surface temps. Third, 1998 is only hotter in UAH because El Nino is amplified more in atmosphere than surface temps (hence you shouldn't be comparing the two). -
MP3CE at 03:57 AM on 20 June 2012Arctic sea ice takes a first nosedive
Worth to mention here, but Tamino has also posted on his blog about Arctic Sea Ice: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/sea-ice-update/Moderator Response: [Sph] Hot linked. -
L. Hamilton at 03:54 AM on 20 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
That's a well-known pitfall for survey research, called "response set bias." It's something to always keep in mind when designing a survey, or when looking at data from a survey designed by others. My "just right" example above, for instance, has been carried on two different surveys, neither of which said another word about ice or polar regions. Despite different samples (one statewide and one national) and otherwise mostly different questions on each survey, they produced similar results. These conclusions I'm talking about are pretty robust.
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