Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 Next
Comments 80151 to 80200:
-
Camburn at 22:21 PM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
skywatcher: I have posted the link on this site concerning Devils Lake and the upper mid-west of the USA. There is most deffinetely a wet and dry cycle. -
Rob Painting at 21:56 PM on 5 July 2011OA not OK part 2: Thermodynamic duo
The peanut-tossing analogy is a doozy! -
Dan Olner at 21:31 PM on 5 July 2011OA not OK part 2: Thermodynamic duo
This stuff is mind-blowingly confusing, thanks for making it sound so clear! I've always been completely flummoxed trying to understand how chemical energy and mechanical / kinetic energy can go back and forth and still keep within thermodynamic limits. -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:05 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman wrote: "It would seem the mathematical model of the double pendulum is scientific since the equations can offer testable explanations about the nature of the pendulum and offer predictibility about the overall behavior of pendulum. That is if you would use the equations and run a long term simulation, the simulation would trace out the same area as an actual pendulum if this were videotaped." This is not correct. The mathematical model would only be able to trace the behaviour of the real pendulum if you could measure the initial conditions with infinite precision. If you could do that, the sofwtare model would also trace out the trajectory of the pendulum exactlty. Your comment suggests that you fundamentally do not understand the nature of chaotic systems. They can be completely deterministic, but that doesn't mean they are predictable, because their behaviour is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. "A software model of the pendulum would be worthless as a science as it would not give any useful prediction of the pendulum's nature. It gives exactly the same predictions as the mathematical model; they are equivalent. The only difference is that the software model can solve the equations from the mathematical model (which do not have explicit mathematical solutions). "The science of meterology does not try to make predictions about the weather beyond a few days because they know such activity is nonscientific and useless. The prediction means nothing. Are you saying that we can't predict climate because we can't predict weather more than a few days in advance? "One could not predict anyone actual thunderstorm in the region months in advance, but a good climate model should be able to predict is a region will have more our less moisture over a given period of time. If it can't do this and make a valid prediction, the model would not be good for much and a new one should be developed. If you make the region large enough (i.e. a scale corresponding to the grid size of the GCM), then GCMs already do provide usefully accurate projections of that nature. Modellers would not claim to be able to predict rainfall at e.g. a catchment scale, as they average over grid-boxes that are far larger than a typical catchment and so can't capture such small-scale dynamics. For sub-regional or catchment level hydrology they generally use the method of statistical downscaling.Moderator Response:[DB] Presented without my usual fanfare:
-
Eric (skeptic) at 20:32 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
So far the best definition of "extreme" above is that it must result in safety warnings. A run-of-the-mill thunderstorm does not meet that criteria although a severe thunderstorm does. What has been lacking so far is a connection from warming and more moisture in general to specific localized severe events. Specifically the logic so far has been: 1. Global average temperature rises along with global average surface moisture 2. (this step is missing) 3. Locally severe weather results. -
scaddenp at 20:03 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
" but a good climate model should be able to predict is a region will have more our less moisture over a given period of time. " Well yes they do (example above) and validate so long a "region" is large. Its also harder to do regions than global, but that does not mean that global models are not useful and should be replaced. At the back of idea on science is that if we understood the world sufficiently well, then we must be able to predict the outcome of an experiment. However, both chaos theory and quantum theory throw that idea out. Prediction can be limited without any loss of understanding the processes. You can predict that a system will behave chaotically within a certain proscribed phase space and that is a valid, testable prediction. -
les at 19:42 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Despite 249 " perhaps we could reserve this thread for talking about the weather (stay on topic)" Because I think understanding what it means to "predict" is on topic: 248 "A software model of the pendulum would be worthless as a science as it would not give any useful prediction of the pendulum's nature." The problem, IMHO, Norman and many people have is that they do not actually look at the nature of the problem. The words used assume (lets say) that the system under study is what I'd loosely refer to as "Newtonian"; by which I mean a system for which, given the equations, one can predict to any degree of precision you wish, at any time in the future, the phase state of the system - in constant time. Newtons equations dynamics are like that. But not all good, scientific, physical system are. In a Quantum system, the phase state is calculable, in constant time but not to any required precision. You only get probability distributions. To scientifically (and QED is one of the best scientific theories we have!) predict a quantum system is to determine correctly probability distributions... that is their nature. Gas laws are are macroscopically like Newtonian mechanics - you get volume/pressure/temporarily - but expressed as statistical mechanics, more like QM... you get probability distributions... again, that is the nature of gasses. Chaotic systems can not be calculate in flat time - since you have to calculate each iteration - and precision is problematic as different precisions is, effectively, changes in initial conditions. Chaotic system, however, behave well in terms of attractors, self-similarity metrics etc. that, again, is their nature. In each case there's an appropriate, predictable, statistically well found state description which is scientifically meaningful. It is a common error to try to apply the term 'predictable' as understood in the Newtonian sense able to systems to which it does not apply. And why is this, IMHO again, appropriate to this thread? Because extreme events in this context are not tails of normal/Gaussian distributions where you can pick some sigma and say "there! beyond that value". They are more like Pareto/Zipf distributions and other statistics apply... same difference as between Newton and Chaos. -
skywatcher at 19:26 PM on 5 July 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
Michele, I'm seeing a very bizarre interpretation of the physics of the atmosphere, at odds will all previous observation of it. Your second paragraph in #54 is wrong in every sense. If extra CO2 emitted energy trapped by the rest of the atmosphere (a weird concept), one of its implications would be that glacial periods, with low CO2, would be very hot! Large ice sheets tend to suggest that they weren't... I seriously think you need to rethink your ideas about radiation physics, as there is an awful lot of experimental evidence and working modern technology that suggests your physics is wrong. -
Norman at 19:24 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 249 Not quite Tom, I am not making any claim about the predicability of any given climate model and extreme weather events. I do agree this is not the thread for climate models. There already is one on this topic. I was just answering Dikran's questions. My point was that if a model was not capable of making predictions it would not be scientific. If a model can make valid predictions it is a useful science tool. -
Norman at 19:11 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @ 246 There are very few tornadoes in the tropics. Lots of thunderstorms just not severe type. The tropics have some of the warmest moist air on the planet. You need more than warm moist air to form severe thunderstorms. You also need the wind shear. I also have a question about CAPE. A thunderstorm brings heat to the midlattitudes of the atmosphere. Wouldn't that tend to increase the stability of the air and suppress severe thunderstorm activity? -
skywatcher at 19:11 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman, you seem so close to the right answer, yet you desperately try not to see it sometimes. "the mathematical model of the double pendulum is scientific since the equations can offer testable explanations about the nature of the pendulum and offer predictibility about the overall behavior of pendulum." As I'm sure Dikran intended, replace 'double pendulum' and 'pendulum' in your statement with 'climate' and you're all the way there. In what way would the 'software' model of the pendulum be different from the 'mathematical' model, if it contains exactly the same physics? And like the climate model, you can then learn an awful lot about the overall behaviour of the pendulum by running the software model for an extended period of time / many times. For example, you could learn exactly where you can stand and not be hit by the aforementioned pendulum! In fact, you could learn what the boundaries are that the pendulum won't cross. You could learn the places the pendulum is most likely to be, and the points in space it crosses most or least often; or the average velocity and acceleration of differnt parts of the pendulum. In a climate model, although the individual trajectory of the climate is not exactly predictable, we can say very well that it will fall within certain bounds. Those bounds (for temperature) head upwards as a consequence of the trajectory of CO2 forcing, in just the same way as the bounds for temperature in Brisbane will head upwards as we head towards summer. Somewhere within those bounds will be the actual temperature, which is clearly more likely to be higher in 10 years than lower in 10 years. In 50 years the chances of it being higher at BAU rise to beng almost certain. Knowing the trajectory of the bounds of temperature, along with the most likely multi-year average temperature, the likely rates of change and the states of different parts of the system, is very important indeed, just like knowing where it is safe to stand next to your pendulum, or knowing details about the movement patterns of your pendulum. Best not to confuse meteorology with climate science too - the former (in this analogy) tries to predict the exact position of the pendulum at some point in the future, the latter predicts its average trajectory and the boundaries outside which it will not travel. -
chris at 19:09 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman at 18:33 PM on 5 July, 2011"One could not predict anyone actual thunderstorm in the region months in advance, but a good climate model should be able to predict is a region will have more our less moisture over a given period of time."
Fair enough. And by your criterion climate models have done exactly that, predicting pretty well that global warming will result in enhancement of precipitation extremes and in defining the location of those regions of the Earth that have lesser and greater rainfall, respectively, as the world has warmed. See for example: [*] X. Zhang et al. (2007) Detection of human influence on twentieth-century precipitation trends Nature 448, 461-465 abstract [**] RP Allen et al. (2008) Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes Science 321, 1481-1484 abstract -
JMurphy at 19:03 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
quokka wrote : "If you look at the Sovacool piece and in particular Table 1 - Disadvantages of Nuclear Power, it reads more like a hand waving anti-nuclear polemic than anything else." What about the rest of the article ? As for your EROEI piece, I have no problems with what is written, nor the conclusion : All of this goes to show that for the UK to get over the looming energy gap there is little better in energy terms than to go for the on-shore wind, a suite of offshore renewables, and much as I hate to say it, probably a wedge of nuclear too. Clean coal is a dead end. Let's just hope that we can move away from whatever limited percentage of nuclear has to be used, however, sooner rather than later. -
Tom Curtis at 18:55 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman @248, as I understand it, you are currently arguing that predictions based on climate science that extreme weather will not increase are not science because they are not predictable despite the fact that we are now almost 250 posts in on a thread showing very clear that predictions of increased extreme weather have been made, and that those predictions are being confirmed by measurable results. Given that context, the claim you are making is simply not plausible. What is more, the epistemology of science on which it is based is naive and demonstrably false. If you find a more appropriate thread, I can discuss that with you. In the meantime, perhaps we could reserve this thread for talking about the weather (stay on topic). -
skywatcher at 18:49 PM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
#46: "... we know that we are in a wet cycle ..." Any peer-reviewed evidence for that? I would equally say that the risk of large floods has increased due to a warmer atmosphere (as predicted), and so the risk will last as long as the atmosphere is warmer, ie much more than 60 years. Frankly in this whole thread you've posted opinions without any supporting evidence, leaning heavily on your own 'experience' to dismiss the benefits of a carbon tax for encouraging a switch to cleaner energy sources. So I'll dismiss your claims with my 'experience'... if a product is cheaper than a competitor's as a result of one being carbon-taxed and the other not, I'll buy that product and the competitor will eventually go out of business. Meanwhile the manufacturer using clean energy will grow at the expense of the dirty manufacturer. Cleaner energy use preference will increase significantly, regardless of overall energy efficiency, for which there is always a uniform motivation. This will also bring clean energy costs down, benefitting everyone, quite apart from the natural process of lowering costs that happens as a technology reaches maturity. Definitely seems a positive process to me, both economically and environmentally. -
alan_marshall at 18:37 PM on 5 July 2011OA not OK part 2: Thermodynamic duo
Thanks Doug, I liked the memorable illustration of the peanuts. -
Norman at 18:33 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Dikran Marsupial, You ask some really good questions that are thought provoking. It would seem the mathematical model of the double pendulum is scientific since the equations can offer testable explanations about the nature of the pendulum and offer predictibility about the overall behavior of pendulum. That is if you would use the equations and run a long term simulation, the simulation would trace out the same area as an actual pendulum if this were videotaped. A software model of the pendulum would be worthless as a science as it would not give any useful prediction of the pendulum's nature. The science of meterology does not try to make predictions about the weather beyond a few days because they know such activity is nonscientific and useless. The prediction means nothing. It is a very good question and I don't know if I answered it to your liking. However, in the world of climate models, climate is an aggregate of weather patterns for a region. One could not predict anyone actual thunderstorm in the region months in advance, but a good climate model should be able to predict is a region will have more our less moisture over a given period of time. If it can't do this and make a valid prediction, the model would not be good for much and a new one should be developed. -
Dikran Marsupial at 17:20 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman wrote: "If a climate model is to be considered scientific then it must pass the test of predictability. If the model is incapable of making valid tested predictions why would you consider it scientific?" As I pointed out earlier, you can write down the physics of a double pendulum on a side of A4 paper. You can use that description to make a computational model of a double pendulum (often set as a student project - it isn't difficult). Can that sofware model make useful predictions of the trajectory of a double pendulum? No. Does that mean a mathematical model of a double pendulum is non-scientific. I look forward to a direct answer to this question. -
quokka at 17:04 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
More on the consequences of the Fukushima accident: TEPCO recently reported that 124 of it's workers have received a radiation dose of over 100 mSv. Working Conditions Improve at Fukushima Assuming an increased risk of a fatal cancer of 5% per Sv, that's an expected increase in the number of fatal cancers among plant workers of just one. By comparison in the aftermath of Chernobyl, 300,000 'liquidators' received an average dose of nearly 150 mSv. The UNSCEAR Chairman has said that he doesn't expect to find health effects either in the general population or plant workers based on current evidence. It will take a couple of years for UNSCEAR to compile it's study. U.N. body to probe Fukushima radiation impact -
Tom Curtis at 16:53 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
quokka @23:"The four destroyed reactors at Fukushima Daiichi had a total capacity of 2719 MWe. We can add reactors 5 and 6 to the list that will never operate again giving a total capacity of 2719 + 1827 = 4546 GWe."
I presume that is 4,546 MWe. That still yields a replacement cost of 7 to 22 billion for all reactors. I agree, however, that even a Fukushima style accident every thirty years or so does not mean that nuclear is better than coal or gas. It does, I think, call into question the claimed superiority of nuclear power to renewable power claimed by "nuke boosters". -
quokka at 16:30 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
#22 michael sweet The four destroyed reactors at Fukushima Daiichi had a total capacity of 2719 MWe. We can add reactors 5 and 6 to the list that will never operate again giving a total capacity of 2719 + 1827 = 4546 GWe. The most modern of all these reactors came on line in 1979. Most of their value is depeciated away already. In themselves they are not a huge loss. In any case $10 billion per new reactor is way off. Current builds run between about $1.6 billion per GWe (China CPR1000) to about $5 billion per GWe (Finland EPR-France)to $3.8 per GWe (UAE - Sth Korea). You can find IEA assessment of new nuclear build costs over a range of countries here: New Nuclear Power Costs For Japan, they report $3billion/GWe overnight costs. My Fukushima accident costs were just an assumption. If you double or triple them, it does not diminish the validity of what I was saying. -
Michele at 16:13 PM on 5 July 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
@ Patrick I never argued that the radiation flows because I am strongly convinced that it doesn’t occur. What flows is the wasted energy which is collected into the one/two cul-de-sac and then converted to radiation and so disposed of. I think that if you continue to argue about the total radiative balance we could leak the true causes leading to actual temperature profiles (GH effect). Of course the radiation/evaporation also takes place on the way but it seems to be very tiny as its contribute to the lapse rate seems to be negligible: if it had a real weight the lapse rate of troposphere, e.g., would be always hyper-adiabatic, whereas we well know it is, at large scale, adiabatic or at least hypo-adiabatic. Aside that, it is undeniable that the atmosphere, by means of the temperature gradients, behaves as a scavenger which sweeps and collects the waste energy toward the tropopause and the mesopause where the heat has only one way to escape to space: it has to be converted thermally to radiation. as the results of my simulation show, also if roughly. The temperature profiles are determined by the conduction/convection and, above all, by the conversion heat->radiation localized within the collection regions where the heat remains confined. -
Stevo at 16:05 PM on 5 July 2011Monthly Climate Summary: May 2011
Thanks for that scaddenp, I had been able to find nothing about it. -
From Peru at 15:41 PM on 5 July 2011Trouble Brewing in the North
Maybe we could call you The Incorruptible Moderator If only the collapse of a ice shelf could have the public impact of this:
-
DLB at 15:25 PM on 5 July 2011Great Barrier Reef Part 1: Current Conditions and Human Impacts
John Bruno @13, what do you mean by "they interpreted evidence of no trend during that time period as indicating no trend during that time period" ? -
JoeRG at 15:12 PM on 5 July 2011It's the sun
The IPCC did run 14 'anthro+nat' models and only 5 'nat' models that possibly were independent from the other (the last is not to prove, because the description is not longer available). This cannot be the correct method because Stott had a dependence between the models. If the anthropogenic forcings sum in a negative net forcing (what is necessary for a global cooling caused by the overwhealming of GHGs by aerosols, what commonly is called 'global dimming', occured mid century), then it is obvious that the natural forcings must show higher temperatures as far as they had no change in intensity (as to the time until '63, natural forcings had always caused a warming). If you use independent models (at least 9 of the 'anthro+nat' were it definitely) there cannot be a correct result. Otherwise we would not speak about a 'primarily anthropogenic' driven cooling. That was what made it curious to me. Possible additional influences could be, as told before, for example number and intensities of flares. Each major flare destroyes an huge amount of high-stratospheric Ozone what reduces the absorption of high frequency radiation there. This, of course, has only a small short term influence, but the long term effect that results in the lagrer absorption by oceans is currently not researched, but this is currently the only explanation for the sharp rise of the OHC in 2003. In this year we've seen the most and most intense flares, culminated in the biggest flare ever measured (X28..X40, not quite sure, because the direct measurements are only possible until X17.2). -
Antarcticice at 15:10 PM on 5 July 2011Glickstein and WUWT's Confusion about Reasoned Skepticism
Ira Glickstein, seems to be like many of the experts on watts (including watts himself) not really an expert. Glickstein is an engineer (it even for once states what he is at the bottom of his comment) There are over 500 of the ill-informed backslapping him for his comments, it's all a bit sad really. Point B.6 shows the dishonesty of these comments Co2 lag is pretty easily explained by the planet taking that period of time to warm to level were Co2 starts to be added then further warming follows, a point Glickstein fails to even mention. P.S. WUWT seem to be crowing about a new paper they claim proves no warming between 1998 & 2008 the choice of the start and stop years is for pretty obvious reasons as it turns out the authors are statisticians not climate scientists, but WUWT are claiming this paper is going to appear in PNAS, I find it hard to imagine they would fall for such a cheap trick. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/04/a-peer-reviewed-admission-that-global-surface-temperatures-did-not-rise-dr-david-whitehouse-on-the-pnas-paper-kaufmann-et-al-2011/Response:[DB] Note that Whitehouse is a recidivist dissembler and has been eviscerated by Tamino on multiple occasions on multiple points.
-
michael sweet at 14:22 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
Quokka, It seems to me that at 16 you have underestimated the cleanup costs of Fukishima. Since the 4 (6?) power plants that have been destroyed at Fukishima had a replacement value of at least $10,000,000,000 each (a reactor proposed near me is currently estimated at $18B), that alone is $40B. How much is evacuating the surrounding area, for years, worth? The farming must be worth a lot in such a large area, not to mention the fishing and tourism. If you want to count the costs against the entire nuclear industry you should cost Chernobyl and 3 mile island also. The reactors would be worth at least $20B. What is your estimate of the value of the land around Chernobyl for decades? What are the cleanup costs so far at Chernobyl (financed by other governments)? It starts to look like real money. It is very difficult to find investors in the US who are willing to take the risk. Most of the proposed plants require government financing. As Dana points out, nuclear is better than coal. It is hard to compare nuclear costs when it is so difficult to find out what they are. -
Tom Curtis at 14:20 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman @233: Trapp et al, 2009:"We investigate the transient response of severe thunderstorm forcing to the time-varying greenhouse gas concentrations associated with the A1B emissions scenario. Using a five-member ensemble of global climate model experiments, we find a positive trend in such forcing within the United States, over the period 1950 – 2099. The rate of increase varies by geographic region, depending on (i) lowlevel water vapor availability and transport, and (ii) the frequency of synoptic-scale cyclones during the warm season. Our results indicate that deceleration of the greenhouse gas emissions trajectory would likely result in slower increases in severe thunderstorm forcing. Citation: Trapp, R. J., N. S. Diffenbaugh, and A. Gluhovsky (2009), Transient response of severe thunderstorm forcing to elevated greenhouse gas concentrations,"
From Trapp et al, 2007:
"Fig. 1. Difference (A2 − RF) in mean CAPE, vertical wind shear over the surface to 6 km layer (S06), mean surface specific humidity (qs ), and severe thunderstorm environment days (NDSEV) for March–April–May (MAM) (a–d) and June–July–August (JJA) (e–h), respectively. The RF integration period is 1962–1989, and the A2 integration period is 2072–2099.">/blockquote>
-
scaddenp at 14:15 PM on 5 July 2011Monthly Climate Summary: May 2011
I'm with Eric on this. I dont think monthly weather summaries say much about climate at all. We dont know how ENSO will be affected by warming - the jury is well and truly still out. -
Stevo at 13:56 PM on 5 July 2011Monthly Climate Summary: May 2011
Eric, Does overall warming effect the ENSO? and if so, how? -
quokka at 13:50 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
@20 dana1981 If you want to look at comparable Western European economies, then try this. It is still not obvious to me that Germany is THE pacesetter. The standout of course is France because of nuclear power. From the Google data, both France and Germany have reduced their emissions about 20% from 1991 to 2007. The UK by about 15%. By 1990, France had already essentially completed their build of nuclear. -
dana1981 at 13:28 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
quokka - most of the countries in your graph with larger emissions cuts than Germany are Eastern European, and probably had a lot more to do with economic struggles after the collapse of the USSR than actual efforts to reduce emissions. In recent years, emissions have started to rise for many of those countries. As I noted in the post, Germany is at around half the per capita emissions of USA, Canada, and Australia, and has reduced emissions >20% since 1990 due to concrete efforts to make that happen, not just economic struggles. I think it's fair to call them a pace setter. -
beastie at 13:25 PM on 5 July 2011The chief troupier: the follies of Mr Monckton
Thank you to all posters who replied to my comment, your answers were very informative, Did anyone check "The fair farming group"? A reply to their screed on the ether by someone knowledgeable could be handy. The members are farmers, but you would have to say that has been their hobby, one is a stockbroker, one a banker etc. . That is really beside the point, but they do have the ear of numerous pollies and ex pollies. Their wacko petition to parliament perhaps should be countered. -
scaddenp at 13:15 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
I would say that you are making the hypothesis that there is unforced cycles in the weather pattern and these alone are enough to explain weather. An alternative hypothesis which doesnt require unexplained cycles is to use existing physics and postulate that these are result of global warming. Now I would also agree that while weather patterns are consistent with global warming hypothesis, the predictions about extreme weather are not sufficiently robust (model cell size is too large) nor is the observation period long enough to make strong statements on variations compared to natural variability. However, as a guide to how insurance companies and governments with a lot at stake, I would act in precautionary way rather than depend on the hope of that this is a cycle which has no physical basis yet. -
Tom Curtis at 12:58 PM on 5 July 2011A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Mark Harrigan @134, the issue of "spin up time" is significantly overstated. In framing the issue, anti-renewable campaigners assume the auxiliary power stations must be independent gas or biofuel plants. One alternative is to design them as solar-thermal plaints with auxiliary gas heating. As the plant is already in continuous operation, the plant will neither need to spin up from scratch nor consume fuel in idle times. -
Norman at 12:57 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
scaddenp My series of posts are an attempt to determine the validity of this question by Jeff Master "Has human-caused climate change destabilized the climate, bringing these extreme, unprecedented weather events?" I am investigating if these are extreme, unprecendented weather events by looking at long time series of weather related phenomena in various regions of the globe. Would a destabalized climate look much different than past climates? When I look at long term climate patterns I see these cycles (longer than 30 years). Maybe my vision is poor. But I still have not seen variations that seem to be "outside the envelope". They may beome a reality, that is a different question with its own set of complications. The question here are 2010-2011 weather extremes an example of climate disruption caused by global warming. -
scaddenp at 12:57 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Like gravity, the physics of climate is well understood but like hyperion, all that understanding will not make some things predictable. "If the model is incapable of making valid tested predictions why would you consider it scientific" Well first and foremost, climate models make numerous testable predictions. Some predictions are more robust than others (the level to which the physics is captured by the computer model as well as influence of chaos) and some with greater certainty than others. The strawman is to demand a prediction from the model that it cannot deliver and ignore the predictions that it can make. Note how well Broecker's prediction for temperature in 2010 made in 1975 was. I will also grant that the actual accuracy was considerably better than the model was actually capable of delivering. I would reject current climate theory if the robust predictions of the models do not match predictions within the uncertainties of the model but I see no evidence for that. -
Tom Curtis at 12:51 PM on 5 July 2011A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Mark Harrigan @135, as stated previously, my major problem with the nuclear industry is that they simply do not honestly report the costs of the nuclear industry in summary statistics. They are not alone in this, with anti-nuclear lobbyists being, if anything, even more dishonest. The consequence is that for non-experts no clear indication of the risk can be found, and in terms of comparisons with renewable energy sources, the risks and costs of nuclear power are significantly understated. I will give you two examples of this. First, you assure us that "The technology is CO2 free in operation", but it is not. In operation, the generation of nuclear power requires the mining, and refining of uranium, the manufacture of fuel rods (or alternatives in newer designs), the transport of ore, refined uranium, and rods to the appropriate location, and then the transport and removal of the spent fuel and other waste. None of these are emission free operations. And for none of these are their equivalent CO2 emissions from renewables. I am willing to accept that the overall emissions from these processes are small relative to power production, that they are much smaller than the equivalent costs for coal (and to a lesser extent natural gas and oil), and that in principle they can be eliminated by moving to an emissions free economy. But they exist. Consequently they should be included in any estimate of operational CO2 emissions from nuclear power. So, do you know of any reliable source that budgets nuclear operational CO2 emissions including the entire fuel and waste cycle? I have even greater trouble with the mortality figures. Deaths for solar and wind power are essentially limited to those caused by accidents during instillation and (for wind power) maintenance. Further, large scale construction projects have a lower death rate per hour worked than small scale construction projects. But 11 times smaller than for PV? And that is assuming that no deaths from operational accidents, nuclear accidents, or in the mining, processing and waste management cycles. Using Quokka's estimate, the 0.04 deaths per Terrawatt represents 2800 deaths. Using BBD's preferred source, there where 28 deaths among emergency workers at Chernobyl, and 15 from Thyroid Cancer up to 2002; but an expected 4000 Chernobyl related cancer deaths are expected in the effected population. (See also http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf) That already exceeds the 0.04 figure. Perhaps the nuclear industry does not count cancer deaths from radiation exposure in their figures. No doubt they will also assure us that smoking does not cause lung cancer. Mining is a major cause of mortality in the uranium fuel cycle. In the US across all mines, on average there is one death per annum per 520 full time workers. Given that there are well over a hundred uranium mines world wide, that probably translates into deaths in the hundreds each year just from mining operations alone. Indeed, mining uranium has unusual hazards, both from the radioactivity of the ore itself, and from the release of radon gas. One study shows an excess of 24 deaths (actual deaths: 34, expected: 10.2) from lung cancer in a cohort of 757 Navajo uranium miners. Based on these figures, total deaths from the nuclear power industry, excluding accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima is likely to be much higher than the 0.04 per Terrawatt indicated. Again, if you have reliable information including whole of fuel cycle figures, I would be very interested. One small point that goes unnoticed in these mortality figures is that large nuclear industry accidents have a very large health cost relative to mortalities. For example, only 15 people died of thyroid cancer to 2002, but around four thousand people got thyroid cancer who otherwise would not have. You can probably see my concerns from these examples. I also have concerns about reported costs of generation. Do they include the costs from large scale accidents as well. Please note that these costs to health and in CO2 emissions pale in comparison to equivalent figures from coal. There is no basis from these considerations to get rid of nuclear power in favour of any fossil fuel, or to not introduce nuclear power as a substitute for fossil fuels. But the selective statistics used for comparison data make a proper comparison between nuclear and renewable options difficult, and significantly overstate the advantage of nuclear, if any. -
Norman at 12:38 PM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
scaddenp @ 240 and 241 Not sure I understand your line of reasoning. The definition of science is given above. Gravity has a linking mechanism, all matter attracts and it does so by the working equation F=G(M1*M2)/r^2. Certain systems of gravity cannot be predicted. They are outside the realm of science. Even accumulating more information on the system will not make it more predictable. Example of chaotic gravity. After 10 years with Hyperion you may not be able to build a model to predict its motion but gravity is still scientific. If you have the measurements of its mass, Saturn's mass, its distance from Saturn, you can come up with a precise measure of the gravitational force acting on this moon. If a climate model is to be considered scientific then it must pass the test of predictability. If the model is incapable of making valid tested predictions why would you consider it scientific? -
scaddenp at 12:23 PM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
The pluses and minuses of high dams here get a lot of debate. Plus - new fisheries (introduced species - salmon), recreational lakes, flood control, MAYBE irrigation potential, and of course power. Minus - earthquake hazard, loss of habitat and/or farming potential, unsolved problem with native fisheries (which is more complex problem than just dams in case of the very valuable whitebait), competition with downstream irrigators for water, loss of whitewater recreation/tourism. In my opinion, you prioritize sites, sacrifice some rivers with a lot of dams, leave others free. An unavoidably complex process of evaluating conflicting values. -
quokka at 12:07 PM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
#18 Agnostic, Do you have any recent data to back that up. According to these 2005 figures, Germany was performing somewhere in the middle of the pack with respect to both Kyoto commitments and in absolute per capita emissions reductions. -
Eric (skeptic) at 11:56 AM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
The costs depend on the dam. Some dams would create value by steadying the water level and creating a better fishery. Most of the land on the flood plain around me is used for grazing or sometimes pasture or most often it is just mowed for aesthetic or recreational reasons. Some is wooded and that would be lost (harvested). A run-of-the-river hydro in my case would capture a tiny fraction of a dam (perhaps 10X less head and hundreds or thousands of times less flow). Also a run-of-the-river installation below my house would have to be completely submersible to withstand 30 foot floods. Incidentally I can anchor a floating generator with no approval whatsoever since it is "removable". Anything else would be a regulatory nightmare. -
Camburn at 11:43 AM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
adelady: I was indicating dams on the river. They would serve a two fold purpose. Flood mitigation as well as a source to generate power. The externalized costs of a damn must be balanced against the cost of flooding. In the case of the upper Missouri Basin, we know that we are in a wet cycle and it previous cycles are an indication, flooding will be common for the next 60+ years. An example of the area flooded just this year...you could build a sizeable dam and the flood control provided could allow dam external to be flat for 50 years. There were millions of acres flooded this year alone. In the USA this would be easy to fund. Just take 100Billion out of defense, (which is severaly bloated) use 50 billion to reduce the deficit and use the other 50 billion to build dams. -
Camburn at 11:32 AM on 5 July 2011Trouble Brewing in the North
DB: Can we just start calling you Dr. Who? -
Riduna at 11:29 AM on 5 July 2011German Energy Priorities
Germany is unquestionably the pace setter when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions in terms of what it has already achieved and what it proposes. Its 2020 target can be achieved though probably not without supplementation such as import of electricity from France and Denmark or improvement in the storage and distribution of energy over the present decade. Both are possible. The latter is more important, particularly ability to store electricity and efficiently release it in response to periodic increased demand. -
scaddenp at 11:27 AM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
Good point adelady. I was not externalising costs and I agree that should be on same basis as carbon. This is a debate that goes on quite a bit here as we look for more hydro power. Except in a maybe 8 more sites, wind and geothermal are cheaper (ignore externalised costs) than hydro and in those 8 sites, there are significant external costs to building a dam. Just remember that not only is run-of-river more expensive per GJ, but there is considerably less total GJ available in practical terms. -
adelady at 11:07 AM on 5 July 2011Google It - Clean Energy is Good for the Economy
"... usually more expensive per GJ than high dam." Externalised costs? If we insist on accounting for externalised costs for carbon, we should do the same for renewables. Surely one of the great advantages of wind and solar (esp PV) is that it allows multiple uses of the power producing area. And dams not only disallow other uses, they destroy other valuable things. Like forests and farmland and communities. Or does the accounting include all of these things - I don't know. -
John Bruno at 11:02 AM on 5 July 2011Great Barrier Reef Part 1: Current Conditions and Human Impacts
Rob thanks for your comments about fisheries in NZ! It is funny, but your point about the crazy definition of "overfished" used by fisheries managers comes up all the time (at least in my world). It is maddening that a population reduced to a third or more of its very recent size will often NOT be considered overfishing by fisheries biologist and managers. We ran a post and a forum about this issue recently on SeaMonster here and honestly, the variety of definitions of what "overfishing" is underlies a lot of the dispute about the state of the world's fisheries, although the topic rarely comes up (in part because when you burrow in, it gets very complex). Yeah, I have a soft spot for plants! It causes be lots of trouble in a field where plants are considered vermin to be exterminated (ie, "slime" in high-priest of marine environmentalism JBC Jackson's vernacular) I feel like a coyote or wolf biologists in the 19th century. I still have hope minds can be changed... -
scaddenp at 10:50 AM on 5 July 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
And by same token we can predict earth or mars location and attitude 10 years out to high degree of precision. That make gravity an inconsistent theory?
Prev 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 Next
