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scaddenp at 12:03 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
A further comment. I see most "lukewarmers" as too honest as to deny physics, but unable to imagine a policy response that is compatiable with their values/identity, hence work hard to try and deny the need for action. A pity because coming up with an acceptable and effective response is something the right wing badly need. The political debate should be about best policy not science denial.
However, I also acknowledge that there are people who frankly see the threats posed by climate change as an excuse to beat a different political drum and like the hard right, they are more interested in pushing their ideology than science. Most scientists dont appreciate being lumped with them simply because they do exist.
A good question to ask, "if we knew for sure that ECS was 2.0, then would you still be arguing for same policy response as if we knew for sure that ECS was 4.5?" My answer would be no way. Yes, it is still highly desirable to get off FF if no other reason than they are limited and sooner or later will run out anyway, but the urgency of the time frame is different and the scope for damage much less.
Reality is that we dont know ECS with certainty and evidence would have it closer to 3 than 2. Reducing the uncertainty is extremely difficult so the precautionary principle applies.
Anyone else notice that while climate scientists come in all political colours, climate science deniers seem to be overwhelmingly right wing?
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nigelj at 11:39 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @11
"I note the replies. They seem to put the emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living."
I made no reference to adopting a much lower standard of living. In fact I've argued the opposite on this website, namely that expecting people to make large reductions in the use of technology and energy look completely unrealistic to me, so I do agree with you to a point.
The solutions to the climate problem that seem most plausible to me are zero carbon energy and negative emissions technologies, notwithstanding the political challenges. Lifestyle changes will help as a minor wedge measure. There are some things that can be done that would not hugely lower standards of living, like flying less and eating less meat, and both reduce expenditure so have a positive side.
I see population policies helping a bit as well, but you need to be realistic about what can be achieved, and they are also a wedge issue.
"Look at it from the other end: most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living. "
Agreed. I've argued for a global population of 2 billion people myself over at realclimate.org, but this is a long term plan. Business as usual population policies are a fertility rate of 2.2, taking us from 7.6 billion now to 11 billion by 2100, then stability. If we were to get fertility rates down to about 1.5 over the next couple of decades we would hit about 9 billion by 2100 and 2 billion by year 2300. I worked it out with a population calculator, you can google these.
But achieving a fertility rate of 1.5 globally over the next few decades is about as realistic as making "huge lifestyle changes". Ie not very realistic. A few countries in Europe have this number, but it took a lot of policies to get there and a lot of wealth and economic security, and they are already worried it is causing too many elderly people in proportion to young people.
Africa has scope to reduce population growth but I repeat they are not a big source of emissions and what is it you propose to do? We can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink. You can't force them. Their population growth will still fall over a longer time frame anyway, as they become weathier and have better primary healthcare and access to contraceptives as has happened elsewhere. This will help keep temperatures from climbing to ridiculous numbers, but has little bearing on immediate goals and problems.
Even if by some miracle we got global population down faster, it won't change much by 2050, because of the demographics, so clearly won't do much to stop temperatures getting over 2 degrees! At most it will help stop temperatures getting over 4 degrees.
It is important to encourage slower population growth, and for both the climate and other reasons, but I'm just saying the world mostly already is doing this, and you have to be realistic on time frames and what can be achieved. We can talk a whole lot about it, but it distracts from the key issues of zero carbon energy etc and short to medium term Paris Accord goals.
"However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable even without bringing the third world up to Western consumption. That statement has nothing to do with attitudes of superiority or whatever,'
Agree totally.
"Trying to contain emissions without addressing the fundamental issue - numbers - is the equivalent of running up the down escalator. A down escalator which is constantly speeding up, moreover."
The fundamental issue in terms of the climate is not population. It's the type of energy we use.
"My point is that the world is unlikely to accept the restrictions that are being debated at the moment "
The world is just as unlikely to accept radical population policies. We have to just work away at all the issues so zero carbon energy, population, and lifestyle.
"Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any."
True. I suggest there are obvious reasons. The IPCC and other authorities probably don't want yet more distractions from renewable energy goals, and they dont want to be accused of social engineering or blaming Africa for the climate problem etc.
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Wol at 10:23 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
I note the replies.
They seem to put the emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living.
Look at it from the other end: most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living. (Whether such a number would be workable with capitalism as we know it needing constant growth is another argument.)
However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable even without bringing the third world up to Western consumption. That statement has nothing to do with attitudes of superiority or whatever,
Trying to contain emissions without addressing the fundamental issue - numbers - is the equivalent of running up the down escalator. A down escalator which is constantly speeding up, moreover.
My point is that the world is unlikely to accept the restrictions that are being debated at the moment and even less likely to begin talking about overall numbers - the heart of the sustainability problem.
Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any. Plenty about holidaying in Scunthorpe instead of Magaluf, and eating crickets instead of steak yet the fact that twice the number equals twice the emissions (all else being equal) seems unable to be discussed.
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michael sweet at 07:43 AM on 16 December 2019New paper shows that renewables can supply 100% of all energy (not just electricity)
Nigelj,
I thought this was a better thread to discuss renewable energy. At RealClimate it takes several days for posts to be readable and you post both places.
I read your reference on "three weeks of storage". Original paper here (Shaner et al). I recognized at least two of the authors (Davis and Calderia) as constant nuclear proponents.
Although I am not a researcher, I notices several obvious problems with this paper.
1) The paper only looked at the electrical system. Renewable energy researchers showed at least 5 years ago that the bigger the system the less relative storage is needed. Thus electricity only requires the most storage, electricity + transportation requires much less and electricty + transportation+ heat + industry requires the least. All North America requires less storage than the USA only. The finding of Shaner that storage is required for this system is similar to what I recall from old articles.
We cannot compare this result to Jacobson et al 2018 or Connelly 2016 because both those articles look at ALL POWER.
2) Shaner et al use only solar pv and wind in their simulations. Why would anyone care about a system that leaves out existing hydro, geothermal and pumped hydro (originally built to balance nuclear power)?? Obviously, no one will tear down existing resources. The "three weeks of storage" is for a system that has no hydro, geothermal or pumped storage, not for any concievable system built in the USA. This seems like a fatal error to me. Certainly "three weeks" is not relevant. Hydro alone would significantly reduce this storage.
3) The model uses wind speeds at 50 meters for their analysis. It is well known that wind is stronger and more consistant the higher above the ground you get. Jacobson 2018 uses wind speeds at 100 meters. Current 1.5 MW turbines have hub heights at 65 meters. Blades reach to 100 meters. Design specifications for new 5 MW turbines is 88 meters to the hub. The blades reach 64 meters higher (to 152 meters). I am not sure what the best height to use is for future turbines but 50 meters is obviously much too low. This is a fatal error to me.
It seems to me that Shaner et al is designed to find the most expensive renewable energy system. This makes nuclear look better since it is so expensive. The paper suggests using nuclear to reduce system costs in the conclusion.
Most people are interested in finding the cheapest system cost. Shaner et al is not interesting to those who seek the lowest cost.
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scaddenp at 06:46 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Just a minor point - anyone saying "they cant get their papers published" - in any field, let alone climate science, - ask them to publish their reviewers comments. I will bet that most wont, largely because I think the "papers" are mythical and simply a rhetorical point, but others would be embarrassing. If they are prepared to do so, then sure, you can read the comments and see whether you think the reviewers have a point.
As to sensitivity, someone who thinks ECS is 1 degree is frankly a denier not a skeptic. This requires the existance of unobserved negative feedbacks and really only "exists" in the statistical evaluation of error not in the physics. Against this is the overwhelming evidence of net positive feedback.
You need speculative processes to drive the ice-age cycles with a sensitivity of 2.0 or less. On the other hand, an ECS of 2.5 or higher fits well with known physics, observations and models. That is where the evidence is pointing. Lukewarmers are generally trying frantically to magnify unquantified uncertainties to support a ideologically or identity based positions. Wishful thinking not evidence-based thinking. -
nigelj at 06:19 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
In answer to Wols comments on human population. Certainly population growth has been rapid and is obviously problematic for the planet in multiple ways, but its slowing quite dramatically in many places anyway, particularly Europe and the Americas. The fastest population growth is in Africa but they are not a major source of emissions and are unlikely to be for some considerable time.
There's probably not much more that can be done to slow population growth rates more dramatically. Europe would end up with too many dependant elderly people. Africa are slow to do anything.
Even if we could slow growth more quickly, it wouldn't be in enough time to have huge implications for the Paris Accord targets of 2 degrees. Zero population growth will however help the climate problem longer term so its important countries do whatever they can to slow growth. Refer to "projections of population growth" on wikipedia and think it through.
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MA Rodger at 03:14 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
PatrickSS @856,
You say that there is "an argument between the people who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C ... and those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C ..." Do you consider the folk saying that Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (from 2 x CO2) is about +1.0ºC to be more than just a few contrarians and that their supporting evidence is well-founded? And if you do consider them to be thus, providing a serious scientific position, perhaps you should name their leading members so their position within the 'consensus' can be properly adjudged along with showing how numerous they are and how well-founded their arguments.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:03 AM on 16 December 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Paul Krugman's Dec 12th NYT Op-Ed "The Party That Ruined the Planet", provides an expansion of awareness and understanding related to the push for Carbon Loopholes (and many other nasty aspects of developed reality).
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:29 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @7,
The population problem can be better understood as increased individual behaviour that is not governed by the pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to achieve necessary goals like all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Everybody's actions add up
- Everybody has the right to behave as harmfully as others get away with.
- That spiral of increasing harm is a dead-end
- Competition for popularity and profit with people freer to believe whatever they want to excuse behaving in ways that are understandably potentially, or actually understandably, harmful to Others, especially to the future of humanity, will not achieve a sustainable and improving future for humanity.
- To deserve perceptions of superiority relative to Others a person would need to be self-governing and self-limiting their actions to expand awareness and improve understanding and apply the learning to achieve and improve the goals necessary for the future of humanity which include all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Anyone of perceived higher status who is not self-governing and self-limiting of their actions to expand awareness and improve understanding and is not applying that learning to achieve and improve the goals necessary for the future of humanity needs to be taken down a few Status Notches until thy change their mind.
- Only the neediest have an excuse to behave more poorly, more harmfully to the future of humanity. And the the more fortunate, least 'needful', would prove being worthy of higher status by being more helpful to sustainably improving living conditions for the poorest, helping them develop toward the higher status of responsible considerate helpful self-governing.
Even a very small global population that fails to develop that type of Governing of behaviour can be understood to have no future. And that understanding can be extended to apply to any subset of a total global population. Even businesses that do not achieve that type of Governing of their behaviour will not have a future.
Any pursuits contrary to achieving and improving on the Sustainable Development Goals Do Not Have a Future. And it is harmful for anyone to try to defend developed perceptions of Status that would be reduced by the achievement of the SDGs.
The problem is the way that temporary perceptions of winning higher status can be gotten away with by people who wish to personally benefit by defying that understanding. Misleading marketing has been proven to lead many less fortunate people to support competitors for status who do not actually want to help the people of lower status they want to get support from.
The observable reality is that many of the supposedly more advanced nations actually cause people to become harmfully defiant of expanded awareness and improved understanding because they do not want to be governed or limited by the need to help achieve the goals necessary for the future of humanity to be sustainable and improvable.
Sustainable corrections have to be the governing priority. Any perceptions of superiority, or improvement of conditions for the poorest, that are developed unsustainably, without serious pursuit of the required sustainable corrections, are tragically popular and profitable dead-end misunderstandings.
The Real Population Problem is the temporary regional or tribal success of misleading marketing in defiant resistance to the corrections of attitudes and actions required by improving awareness and understanding in pursuit of a sustainable improving future for humanity.
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PatrickSS at 02:20 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Hi All. I think it's essential that we all think for ourselves on this topic. I wanted to do that, and I started recently by looking at the scientific consensus.
I now have lots of problems with the information on this page, which I think is misleading in several different ways. From what I can see, this is an argument between the people who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C (which they think will not be a major problem) and those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C (which, they think, would be a major problem). So it is very misleading to say, above, that "97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming", because both sides agree on that.
Secondly I have a lot of problems with the way that the consensus is reported both here and in eg Wikipedia. I decided to look at the data. I looked at what seemed to be the most recent paper on this, by Bart Verheggen and colleagues, called Scientists’ view about attribution of global warming.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501998e
In the light of my first point above, the only question that you really want to hear about is their Q12, "How concerned are you about climate change as a long-term global problem?". What is quite extraordinary is that Bart and colleagues don't mention this question, or the responses to it, in the whole of their article. How could that happen?
Fortunately they have published a summary of the responses:
https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses
Now we discover that only 33% of climate scientists are more than "somewhat concerned", and 8.5% are "not very concerned" or "not concerned at all".
That doesn't really look like a consensus.
The main argument in the abstract of Bart's paper is that the authors who publish a lot on climate science are more likely to agree that anthropogenic gasses are the dominant driver of recent climate change. John Cook's graph, above, makes a similar point. Given that scientists, such as Judith Curry, who take a "contrarian" view of climate change complain that they can't get their work published, this doesn't see like a very good argument.
With the best will in the world, none of this looks good for the consensus.
Would it be possible to change the information on this page to encourage people to look at the original data in Bart's report? And also to highlight areas of agreement - such as that most contrarians are "lukewarmers" who agree that human activities cause some warming? That way lay-people such as myself would be in a much better position to think about this for ourselves.
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michael sweet at 22:59 PM on 15 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Nigelj,
The claims by Engineer Poet and David Benson at RealClimate that renewable energy requires immense storage are simply false. If you wish to repeat those false claims here you need to provide a citation. Currently you are repeating nuclear propaganda.
If you read the cited by references at GOOGLE for recent renewable energy papers you will find lists of interesting and relevant papers. For example:
papers that cite Smart Energy Europe (268 cites since 2016) paper
papers that cite Energy Storage and Smart Energy Systems (115 citations)(the original paper can be accessed free as a PDF from the paper list for Smart Energy Europe linked above)
Jacobson et al 2018 citing papers cited by 52 since 8/19, lists all required materials for a completely renewable system without using any combustion energy sources. Jacobson uses no new pumped storage, it is too expensive. Why is pumped storage the only option for Engineer Poet?
This paper addresses many false claims that nuclear supporters make about renewable energy: Response to Burden of Proof. You are wasting your time talking to Benson and Engineer Poet. Think: why do these guys only post on unmoderated sites? They could post here at SkS but they know that they do not have references for their wild claims.
Nuclear supporters making wild, unsupported claims only cause people to doubt that renewable energy can provide All Power and support the fossil fuel industry. Nuclear is a failed technology and has no option besides bad talking successful Renewable Energy.
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michael sweet at 22:27 PM on 15 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
John ONeill,
According to this report, beryllium is used in the construction of the fuel bundles in CANDU power reactors. GOOGLING beryllium uses finds many references to the use of beryllium or its alloys in nuclear reactors eg Royal Society of Chemistry, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Geology.com.
Please provide citations to support your claim that beryllium is not used in nuclear reactors, your personal opinion does not seem very accurate.
It occurs to me that you may be copying material from a web site that supports nuclear. Can you provide a link to that source so I can see what they are claiming?
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:42 PM on 15 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @7,
Global total population is a concern. But the problem is the total impacts of the total population.
So by all means mention the population problem, but always admit the real population problem, the total impact.
And that means admitting that the portion of the population that is the problem is the highest per-capita consuming and impacting portion.
Without admitting the true nature of the problem, any perceived solution is likely unsustainable and probably unjustifiably harmful. Not admitting the reality of the problem is misleading marketing excusing of the harmful unsustainable Status Quo.
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scaddenp at 11:41 AM on 15 December 2019Measuring Earth's energy imbalance
Richieb - you could try this one. Trenberth and Fusillo 2014. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00294.1
And same authors 2016
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0339.1
The Argo system is helping constrain the energy imbalance.
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Wol at 11:35 AM on 15 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
nigelj:>>For gods sake, we have a population heading to ten billion people!<<
And there you have it in a nutshell!
The taboo against even mentioning overpopulation is so strong that even in the myriad of articles, TV programmes, radio talks, forums such as this, it's almost never mentioned.
Yet it's undeniable, surely, that humanity, with its technology over the past couple of hundred years, has enabled for the first time to (temporarily) transcend the Malthusian barrier and populate way past the planet's capacity. 10 Bn? Arguably the sustainable limit was passed half a century ago.
Releasing millions of years' worth of carbon into the atmosphere in one great orgasm of industrialisation isn't going to stop without massive state coercion and frankly that's not going to happen until past several tipping points.
Meanwhile the number of mouths increases at something over three per second.......... and no-one talks about it!
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michael sweet at 05:48 AM on 15 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
John ONeill,
According to Metalpedia, approximately 1.5 million tons of zirconium was mined in 2013. World reserves were estimated at 60 million tons (from the US Geological Survey. Your reference does not have a reserve number, it seems you made it up) so if current usage continued they would last about 40 years, less than the claimed lifetime of a nuclear reactor. Adding on the nuclear use you claim would substantially reduce the life of the reserve. Your estimate of lifetime of reserves appears to be approximately 200 times too long.
It appears to me that your reference only counts the usage of zirconium metal and not zirconium alloys and compounds. Obviously we need to count all uses of an element. Livescience's article on uses of zirconium does not even mention nuclear. This article from MIT lists 5 metals as rare including zirconium. Apparently zirconium is a byproduct of titanium mines and not directly mined. Prices are unstable due to shortages.
This example clearly demonstrates the futility of using GOOGLE to argue scientific points made in peer reviewed articles. The first hit that sems to fit your preconcieved notions is not necessarily accurate. Since Abbott is a peer reviewed source you need to provide peer reviewed data to argue with it.
It is a waste of time to exchange GOOGLE hits, neither of us is expert on amounts of rare metals. Provide appropriate references to your claims.
In any case, you are claiming nuclear can supply all world power. If we build out the 15 terrawatts of power needed, the known reserves of uranium would run out in only 5 years (according to Abbott 2011).
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Alan Russell at 23:09 PM on 14 December 2019Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Another thing that's important to note is the short life of methane in the atmosphere which tends to be misrepresented when GWP100 is used to represent its effects. If cattle herd sizes remain the same over the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere, they will maintain the same amount of additional methane in the atmosphere year on year (the amount of cattle in Europe and North America is lower than it was in the 1960's whilst India has fewer cattle than it did in the 1980s). In terms of their contribution to warming, this, in a very simplistic sense, is equivalent to a closed power station.
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takamura_senpai at 22:06 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
sorry for english
1. We need 1000 000 000 000 trees to ...... delay global warming on some years. What about realism?
2. We had several climat international agreements befor Paris, all positive result = ZERO. The same will be with Paris. For many reasons. (For example: how many % of authors here use a car? ...... And what we want from ........ ? ........)
3. Humans are absolutely egoistic. All this meetings, agreements useless. Even more. It looks like....some people spent many thousands tonnes of paper on appeals to save forests..... Did anybody calculate, how many CO2 was produced by ALL this climat fuss/rush? I think millions of tonnes.
4. Most and extraordinary efforts MUST be on solar, wind electricity and storage. We must spend hundreds of billions dollars every year on scientific developments. Now it looks like... this is the only real possibility/opportunity/chance to solve a problem.
5. Idea of "carbon markets" and "carbon credits" and ... is excellent. But reality..... enough USA China India Africa.
6. We have to speak NOT about sea level, but about forest fires, droughts, health, economic....locusts.... Forest fires produce smoke, enough to destroy health, even kill millions. -
richieb1234 at 19:10 PM on 14 December 2019Measuring Earth's energy imbalance
John Cook
Mesuring Earth's energy imbalance, 20 September 2009
This paper on Earth's energy balance is very interesting from a physicist's perspective. The paper and summary are from 2009, and the most recent comment is from 2015. Is there an up-to-date version of the Murphy et al paper?
Thanks in advance
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nigelj at 16:11 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
bozzza, sequestering carbon with trees is sure not as simple as it seems. There is however an interesting proposal to sequester carbon by growing trees in the Sahara desert and other deserts, using irrigation and desalinisation and nuclear power. It could obvious also be solar power. But given the increasing demands for timber, its hard for me to see enough discipline being found to make these the truly long growing forests needed to sequester carbon properly.
Cities don't need nuclear power as such. A 100% renewable power grid is possible, but the storage costs are horrendous right now and may not ever drop enough to be really good. But an 80% renewables grid plus some storage plus something like nuclear power or geothermal power is economically feasible and zero carbon. Some backgroundhere.
I don't know if Trumps believes his own words on climate change or not. Don't care, he will be gone next election or 4 years after that.
Free markets won't solve climate change. After 30 years free markets have achieved virtually nothing to fix the problem. The only significant progress has come from market interventions like wind power subsidies, government energy efficieny rules, cap and trade schemes ( notwithstanding their failings as mentioned) and carbon taxes, etc. History is not on Reagons side.
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John ONeill at 15:47 PM on 14 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
'Boiling water reactors with a full core of fuel rods will contain about 44 tonnes of zirconium.Pressurised water reactors will contain about 29.5 tonnes of zirconium...zirconium is the 20th most abundant element in the earth’s crust...There are good reserves of zircon sand in many countries including South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Australia, Ukraine, Peru, India, China and the United States.' World reserves are over a billion tons, and non-nuclear uses are about 15 percent.
https://www.reuters.com/article/zirconium-nuclear/factbox-nuclear-industry-and-zirconium-idUSLN78747920090423
With about forty tons per reactor every four years, and about 450 reactors making 4% of the world's energy, multiply by 25 to cover total world energy use, and the industry has about eight thousand years before it is forced to consider recycling, or using alternatives. ( Silicon carbide is considered a good option, but I'm not going to calculate when we'd run out of silicon and carbon.) As shown above, hafnium supply is included with zirconium - in fact, other users of hafnium rely on the nuclear industry for the difficult separation process, and would have much greater costs without it. Alternative materials for control rods include boron. 'Global proven boron mineral mining reserves exceed one billion metric tonnes, against a yearly production of about four million tonnes.' Rare earth elements such as europium are also used. They're not actually that rare, but they are difficult to separate from each other ( like zirconium and hafnium ), and they're often present in thorium ores. Thorium is classed as radioactive, which it is slightly, and therefore is difficult to get mining permits for. If it is eventually used as fuel - it's about five hundred times more abundant than uranium 235, with about the same energy content of 19,000 kwh per gram - more rare earths would be available as a by-product.
Zirconium is actually produced in reactors - it makes up about ten percent of fission products - but not in quantities worth processing. Other, much rarer, elements are also present, though. India is already looking at palladium, rhodium and ruthenium recovery. Some of these metals, which are very useful catalysts and alloying agents, are worth thousands of dollars a kilo. Reserves of rhodium in spent fuel will soon be greater than in ores, and some of those ores are in conflict zones in Zaire, where they are exploited by child labour to finance civil war. 'After 5 years cooling the specific activity of Rh obtained from nuclear fuels is less than a millicurie a gram, and after a few decades, irrelevant.' Technetium is an unstable element not found in nature, but its radioactivity is low - the half life is over 200,000 years, with emission of a low energy beta particle, an electron. Technetium is chemically almost identical to rhenium, which is essential for high-temperature alloys in turbine blades and the like, but Tc is about half as heavy.
Beryllium is not used in any current reactor, or in any presently being assessed for licensing in the USA or Canada, including proposed molten salt designs.
Abbot sees all sorts of problems in expanding an industry which already makes ten percent of the world's electricity - over fifty percent in some countries - but none of significance in moving from fossil fuels (85% of our energy) to his preferred option, concentrating solar ( about 0.01% ). The technology for CSP has been around for as long as nuclear, but the people who actually install power systems have ignored it.
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Mal Adapted at 14:29 PM on 14 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
nigelj @14:
Yeah maybe the intent in the name sceptical science was to fishook in a few climate sceptics. No big deal. Clever move.
That's part of the rationale for the name, and it has worked well for the purpose. OTOH, science is a centuries-long, worldwide collective enterprise by trained, disciplined, competitively skeptical individuals, who adopt Nullius in verba as a guiding principle. As nigelj well knows, soi disant "skeptics" of anthropogenic global warming are actually pseudo-skeptical, and are appropriately called AGW-deniers. For the most part, volunteer AGW-deniers are neither trained nor disciplined, and readily succumb to the Dunning-Kruger effect. They scorn the lopsided consensus of genuine experts, namely the international peer community of climate specialists; but gladly take the word of professional disinformers who obfuscate reality for hire, with or without scientific credentials. It's no surprise that a robust public deception industry has flourished, under savvy long-time reinvestment of a tiny fraction of annual fossil fuel profits. The persistent failure of the US to enact effective decarbonization policy is a positive ROI.
Many non-Americans find both our long history of truculent anti-intellectualism, and the vast power of fossil-carbon wealth over our politics, hard to fathom. Alas, they are realities confronting the world 8^(. FWIW, I apologize for my country, and I cling to hope we can somehow blunder our way to a carbon-neutral economy before it's too late for any economy at all!
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bozzza at 13:48 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
I love Trump aswell, btw- if you couldn't tell already, lol- but he is a liar about climate change. He knows perfectly well it's on like donkey kong as all the government agencies put it and if you're in the loop you know that is what they say.
His modus op. is that he doesn't have to be the guy.... FULL STOP MATE! He's pushing market forces and in the final event it IS what Reagan said!
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bozzza at 13:45 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
NijelJ, well said: planting trees is snoopy-loopy-land... he'll probably right a song about it and make money, lol,... it's that pathetic!
It's well acknowledged the big metropolises of the world need nuclear power to survive... none of this is news to anybody....
When the policy change thing looks to ripen things will get nasty and the boris johnson thing has pissed a lot of people off but I love boris... the trump 2020 election is coming and it's all a soft core burn really: the world will meet these challenges via the pathetic carping of necessary things we all knew twenty years ago. We have the know-how; all we need is the can-do attitude.
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michael sweet at 05:21 AM on 14 December 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
Ritchieb,
Strong hurricanes are not very common events. The USA is only about 3% of world surface area. You expect a lot of year to year variation in rare occurances measured over a small area. That includes periods of lower activity. The global trend is more very strong hurricanes (along with more weak hurricanes and less moderate hurricanes).
From your reference:
"The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has been extremely active both in terms of the strength of the tropical cyclones that have developed and the amount of storm activity that has occurred near the United States. This is even more notable as it comes at the end of an extended period of below normal U.S. hurricane activity, as no major (category 3 or higher) hurricanes made landfall from 2006 through 2016."
If the deniers are claiming that there are less strong hurricanes hitting the USA because of AGW (or whatever reason they propose) they have to also note the large damages in the past three years. I note that Hurricane Sandy was not a major hurricane when it hit New York and occured during the "Hurricane drought", along with other very damaging storms. I doubt that New Yorkers consider 2012 a "major hurricane free" year. In addition, hurricane forward speed has decreased worldwide causing much greater flooding (like Harvy, Barry and TS Imelda). That appears to be AGW linked.
Scientifically it is interesting to seek explainations for unusual events. Random chance is the best explaination for this issue.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:14 AM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Building on nigelj's thoughts, which are relevant and accurate considerations of what is happening regarding Section 6.
Powerful people who try to unjustifiably benefit in harmful unsustainable ways will focus their efforts on the development of a few specific aspects of the rules skewed in their favour, worded the way they want.
If they fail to get the rule wording to be what they want, they shift their efforts to weakening the enforcement of the rules (like Trump just caused the end of the WTO court).
The unjustified wealthy and powerful who want to benefit more from delaying or diminishing the global efforts to rapidly end harmful, and ultimately unsustainable, fossil fuel use are likely very focused on crippling COP efforts to achieve that undeniably required objective for the future of humanity to be sustainable and improvable.
Examples of the unhelpful rules desired by people like those who want to benefit more from Alberta Oil Sands are:
- Making the reduction of emissions intensity a 'carbon credit that counts towards a nation's GHG reduction actions'. In that scam the total emissions of a developed nation can go up as long as they are a smaller ratio of GDP or there is a reduction per unit of Oil Sands produced.
- Allow existing forested areas to count as carbon credits against emissions. That scam allows fossil fuel emissions to continue as long as there are no changes to the amount of forests.
- A new one from the Canadian fossil fuel profiteers is getting carbon credits for increasing the export of natural gas. The claim is that it is better for people to burn natural gas than coal or oil so Canada should get the differential between coal or oil and natural gas for every unit of natural gas exported from Canada. It takes a very "Free Market Economic Mind" to come up with a claim and scam like that one.
The simple basis for anything in Section 6 has to be 'Certainty' that actions based on Section 6 effectively rapidly reduce the existing global rate of increase of ghg's. Economists are very slippery regarding proving that the system they support will actually do what they claim it will do. Their biggest fault is failing to accurately account for powerful wealthy people being willing to benefit from a harmful unsustainable activity, and being able to regionally temporarily harmfully powerfully resist being monitored and corrected.
Science will never be certain. But the need to rapidly end fossil fuel use has been a certainty for decades. And economic rules can be set up to be 'very close to certain' regarding the result. An extreme example would be rigorous global monitoring and swift severe penalties imposed regardless of claims of national sovereignty or personal freedom to believe and do as one wishes.
The main reason economic rules are not set up that way is the powerful resistance to correction of the powerful incorrect Status Quo winners (and the unjustified popularity of claims about Freedom to defend unjustified harmful actions).
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Daniel Bailey at 01:11 AM on 14 December 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
"a statistically significant downward trend since 1950, with the percentage of total Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) expended over the continental U.S. at a series minimum during the recent drought period."
Current global ACE is 103% of normal.
Whats Up With That???
https://policlimate.com/tropical/
Denier blogs lie. Do not trust them.
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richieb1234 at 21:28 PM on 13 December 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
GPWayne
Thank you for the rebuttal regarding frequency of tropical storms. Could you please comment on this 2017 article [Truchelut, R.E. and Staehling, E.M. 2017. An energetic perspective on United States tropical cyclone landfall droughts. Geophysical Research Letters 44: 12,013-12,019.] which is cited by climate skeptic websites? It claims there was a drought of energetic hurricanes; i.e. hurricanes above a Cyclone Energy of 100 kt, from 2006 to 2015. It also claims "a statistically significant downward trend since 1950, with the percentage of total Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) expended over the continental U.S. at a series minimum during the recent drought period." On the face of it, ACE sounds like a good measure of hurricane activity.
Thanks in advance for your response
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Joris Geelen at 19:08 PM on 13 December 2019Glaciers are growing
New data on glaciers:
Global glacier mass changes and their contributions to sea-level rise from 1961 to 2016
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1071-0
"Present mass-loss rates indicate that glaciers could almost disappear in some mountain ranges in this century" -
Philippe Chantreau at 15:35 PM on 13 December 2019It's magnetic poles
Coal contains innumerable fossilized plant remains, such as this fern:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fossil-fern-in-coal-shale-27765040.html
There is no question that all forms of coal are essentially fossilized plant material.
Hydrocarbons are chemical mixes of carbon and hydrogen.
Oil comes from fossilized algae, diatoms and zooplancton. Fossil fuels are named that for good reason. Brp 7312 nitpicking has no value.
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Eclectic at 11:48 AM on 13 December 2019It's magnetic poles
Brp7312 @6 ,
you seem to have restricted yourself to the first definition of "fossil" that you found by googling.
And just below that, on the same page, is the word's French & Latin origin, where "fossil" translates as something dug up. Which sounds a pretty good term for a hydrocarbon fuel which is dug up out of the ground. This also fits with the OED definition number 1.
Of course, even more futile nitpicking will indicate that the alcohol in vodka made from potatoes . . . must be a form of fossil fuel !!
And please don't make a pseudo-semantic attack on the "greenhouse effect" of GreenHouse Gasses [GHG's] . . . or why electric current does/doesn't flow from Positive to Negative.
Brp7312 , if you really wish to complain about the travesties of inappropriate word usage, then please go to the WUWT website and complain about their science-deniers calling themselves "skeptics" and "realists". Watt a Larf ! ;-)
Science-deniers and real skeptics are "magnetic poles apart" (which is the only phrase I could use, to link these past two posts to being on-topic ).
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Brp7312 at 10:14 AM on 13 December 2019It's magnetic poles
Daniel, hydrocarbons do not come from fossils. The definition of a fossil is
"the remains or impression of a prehistoric plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in petrified form"
I am not disagreeing with the rest of your post, just the incorrect term fossil fuels. Hydrocarbons are neither an impression, petrified nor preserved. They are the degraded remains of organics.
Moderator Response:[DB] The term has been long accepted for use in communications to the public (here, here and here; many other references exist).
"Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals.
In common dialogue, the term fossil fuel also includes hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are not derived from animal or plant sources."
[PS] Fossils fuels are however the remains of prehistoric plants and animals. The "fossil" bit is useful in distinquishing hydrocarbons from organic versus inorganic sources (eg mantle methane).
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thejean at 09:42 AM on 13 December 2019CO2 lags temperature
Hi Folks! Great site, learning Kt of CO2 info!
On this particular topic, I do have some questions regarding CO2 solubility. CO2 solubility decreases with increasing temperature, we all know that. We also know it's in equlibrium with the ocean and atmosphere. However, I can't find any solid data indicating the actual soluble CO2 levels in the ocean.
However, CO2 solubility is quite high and is above 300 ppm even at elevated temperatures. So, shouldn't our oceans be constantly absorbing CO2 and never truly be releasing it? I mean, a small temp rise would only release CO2 if we were at saturation (and I don't believe we are otherwise the pH of the ocean would be much lower). Also, once CO2 enters the ocean, it converts to carbonic acid and then bicarbonate (alkalinity). So, My understanding is that in order to release CO2 below saturation you decrease pH to convert bicarbonate to CO2 per the carbonate equilibrium.
I guess what I am trying to figure out is why the ocean would release CO2 when it's aqueous concentration is well below it's solubility limits for the temperatures we are looking at? I have modelled it and it seems I can easily get seawater to accept CO2 concentrations up to 1000 mg/L at ocean temps
This brings me to my next question which is why the oceans would offgas when the concentrations never exceed 300 ppm historically (within the timeframe that is being considered in the graphic at the top of this topic) and the delta T never increased more than 4degC?
Does anyone have a link to any good papers describing this in more detail with actual CO2 solubility charts and references to ocean pH and such? I have scoured the web and haven't found anything that I would be willing to take to the bank. I really want to understand better how this small temp rise would have been capable of releasing this much CO2 into the atmosphere) when most of this CO2 is almost immediately converted to bicarbonate and would require a substantial pH shift to drive it out of solution. I'm not syaing for a minute that this is not the case but clearly I am missing something and just want to learn...
Moderator Response:[PS] on short time frames (less than 800-1000 years), ocean/atmosphere chemistry is complicated. The OA is not OK series, starting here, takes you through the gritty detail. You are correct that oceans are currently absorbing CO2 (getting more acidic) and will continue to do so for hundreds of years.
Should also say that "The warming causes the oceans to release CO2" in article is simplistic. There are multiple CO2 reservoirs involved in ice-age cycle, especially asian wetlands and maybe clathrates. Determining the precise sources/sinks of CO2 is still an unconstrained problem as far as I am aware.
As always, the IPCC reports are a good summary and index into the literature. See Chp 6 of AR5 WG1, esp 6.2 forward
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Doug Bostrom at 07:55 AM on 13 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49, 2019
Thanks Jeff. Sadly due to mental fragmentation I twice found what I thought were author-supplied copies of the paper. Drawing a blank— have contacted IMBIE to see if they can cough an accepted submission version or whatever.
Moderator Response:Check your email
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BaerbelW at 07:12 AM on 13 December 2019Cranky Uncle crowdfunding campaign launches!
Just a little heads-up that the iPhone/iPad app will become a reality as the first goal of $15.000 was reached within a week! Here is John Cook's cartoon for the occasion:
Want to make the Android version available as well? Click here!
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Jeff T at 23:44 PM on 12 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49, 2019
The link below the Greenland headline leads to a paper about the Antarctic, not about Greenland.
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Eclectic at 20:24 PM on 12 December 2019It's cooling
Rtc1956 @313,
thank you for the reference to website "temperature.global"
. . . where a very strange global temperature chart is shown !
Whatever data processing/ manipulating/ cherry-picking they've done, they have somehow produced a chart which is divorced from reality.
Have a look at 2016 figures ~ global temperature (presumably some sort of average) is shown as varying by over 3 degreesC in the course of that year !!! How on earth that could happen, requires a Harry Potter explanation.
They claim they are using "unadjusted" METARS (weather stations at airports) collated by NOAA/NCDC . . . which would be very heavily weighted to Northern Hemisphere landmasses of course. Which would not represent an honest global picture. Yet they also claim to use buoy data (presumably oceanic) which might add some sort of Southern Hemisphere weighting . . . but that sounds funny too, in view of the colossal 3 degree fluctuation in 2016. None of it seems to make sense.
Rtc1950, it is IMO just someone playing silly burgers with selected data.
There are two other commonsense filters that can be applied :-
(A) If world temperature has been cooling (and recent years being persistently cool, according to that website's temp chart) . . . then we would be seeing an increase in world ice, and a lowering of global sea level. Which ain't in evidence.
(B) There would be massive headlines & news reports around the world . . . cheering millions celebrating in the streets . . . and Miss Greta Thunberg would be promptly demoted from her (just announced) front cover of Times Magazine as "Person of the Year for 2019" ;-)
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Rtc1956 at 18:07 PM on 12 December 2019It's cooling
I would be grateful for any information on a site called www.temperature.global.org which supposedly shows consistent cooling. Is their methodology flawed? Any thing I can use to counter what they publish would be appreciated.
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nigelj at 17:53 PM on 12 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
“As you go forward, the role of forests, soils, blue carbon, technological solutions [to removing CO2 from the atmosphere], those all come into play. But in the early stages this is about squeezing as much carbon as possible out of the global energy system.”
It's happening in reverse. In addition to the criticisms of emissions trading schemes in the article, all emissions trading schemes have done in New Zealand and probably elsewhere is mostly encourage tree planting because this is just easier than reducing emissions.
This is even worse because its of mostly plantation forests which are of very limited use to the climate problem.The pressure to cut down trees are far too large to ever put much reliance on forestry sinks. It should be the lowest priority thing. For gods sake, we have a population heading to ten billion people!
There is more potential in using regenerative agriculture to enhance soil sinks because the land is just sitting there, and probably high tech negative emissions solutions. But they are all mopping up solutions, and not as high priority as reducing emissions.
While in theory it souldn't matter which comes first, planting trees or reducing emissions, it does matter in the good old real world, because by delaying reducing emissions the task has now been made very hard politically requiring a faster ramping up of emissions reductions by a higher price on carbon, and its the one that hits the public hardest and is most visible.
IMHO the whole emissions trading concept deserves a great deal of scepticism. It sounds like a free market economists dream to me. NZ bought a whole lot of international carbon credits that turned out to be worthless and caused a scandal. Anything as bureaucratically complicated as an ETS doesn't inspire confidence. It's worse than a tax code.
Fortunately article 6 is voluntary.
It's all about electricity grids really. It always has been. Get this right and transport and industry is half solved. If electricity generation is not solved everything else is a fantasy dream. Any carbon sinks or the like will always be chasing emissions.
We have to have zero carbon electricity grids as the number one priority, using renewables or nuclear power or both, probably both. Government's have to bite the bullet and fund this directly or force it to happen or perhaps use a carbon tax. It's too late for messing around with emissions trading schemes, especially at global scale. That's my two cents worth.
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Daniel Bailey at 07:55 AM on 12 December 2019There is no consensus
In the early 20th century human activities caused about one-third of the observed warming and most of the rest was due to low volcanic activity. Since about 1950 it's all humans and their activities.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0555.1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.522Further, the detection of the human fingerprint in the observed tropospheric warming caused by the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases like CO2 has reached 6-sigma levels of accuracy.
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michael sweet at 05:35 AM on 12 December 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
Hefaistos and Eclectic,
Realclimate often reviews articles on the AMOC. The author's list of Hefaistos link was very long and of competent people.
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John Hartz at 05:01 AM on 12 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
OPOF@66: Way to go!
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:00 AM on 12 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @57,
I tried to reduce my comment to the 250 word maximum recommended for Letters to the Editor of the NYTs. But the results end up being too incomplete, too open to misinterpretation, and too easy to unjustifiable counter-argue against.
In comment sections there is the ability to engage in a back and forth to clarify points made. There is no similar opportunity with Letters to the Editor.
So I sent a revision of my full comment to the Editorial Board as a concern regarding a couple of serious inaccuracies and omissions in the otherwise brilliant Opinion “The World Solved the Ozone Problem. It Can Solve Climate Change” produced by the Editorial Board of the NYT, for their consideration.
As I am not a paying subscriber to the NYTs, just one of the many free subscriptions based on giving them my email, so my comments may not get a lot of attention. But maybe.
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ERRATA at 01:52 AM on 12 December 2019There is no consensus
@Postkey
Are those peer-reviewed articles publicly available maybe?
And I also wonder if there is any conclusion (concensus) about how significant actually is AGW (what percentage of "global warming" is contributed to humans)?
Thanks!
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Eclectic at 18:10 PM on 11 December 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
Hefaistos, thank you for pointing out the Frajka-Williams et al. 2019 Review Article.
As a layman, I had last encountered the subject of AMOC speed, in the Bryden et al. 2005 (and later) paper . . . suggesting a 30% slowing over the period 1957~2004 (but they emphasized the uncertainties).
It is reassuring to see more extensive data, showing a high level of natural variability, with little or no trend over the past 24 years.
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Hefaistos at 15:23 PM on 11 December 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
The AMOC is slowing is disputed by new research. Seems that the AMOC slowdown has reversed, and that it has incredibly large variability.
Reported in paper "Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: Observed Transport and Variability"
Eleanor Frajka-Williams, et al. 2019. Open source, link below."From first transbasin measurements retrieved at 26◦N by the RAPID array, a number of startling results have emerged (summarized in Srokosz and Bryden, 2015): that the AMOC ranged from 4 to 35 Sv over a single year, had a seasonal cycle with amplitude over 5 Sv, and that the dip in 2009/10 of 30% exceeded the range of interannual variability found in climate models. The international efforts to measure the AMOC in the Atlantic at a range of latitudes have delivered new understanding of AMOC variability, its structure and meridional coherence. In situ mooring arrays form the primary measurements of the large-scale meridional circulation,[/b]."
AMOC has been above its historic mean for the last 5 years or so, see attached graph.
Figure caption: FIGURE 6 | A time series of AMOC transport (MOCρ ) at the OVIDE section (eastern subpolar gyre: Portugal to Cape Farewell) for 1993–2017, constructed from altimetry and hydrography. The gray line is from altimetry combined with a time-mean of Argo velocities; the green curve is low-pass filtered using a 2-year running mean. The black curve is from altimetry and Argo. Red circles are estimates from OVIDE hydrography with associated errors given by the red lines. The mean of the gray curve is given by the black dashed line (Updated from Mercier et al., 2015).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00260/full
Moderator Response:[DB] Please limit image widths to 450 to avoid breaking the formatting of the page. Hyperlinked URL.
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michael sweet at 08:18 AM on 11 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
John ONeill,
Thank you for the information on how hafnium is obtained.
Unfortunately, that was not what we were discussing. Abbott 2012 (also linked in the OP), states that there are many rare elements used in the construction of nuclear plants that do not exist in enough quantity to build a lot of nuclear plants. The lack of these materials means that nuclear can never produce more than a very small (<5%) fraction of world power. Hafnium is one of several materials mentioned by Abbott (others list additional materials).
Unfortunately, zirconium is also one of the materials that cannot be obtained in quantity. Obviously you cannot purify hafnium from zirconium if not enough zirconium exists. (Alternately it does not matter if you have enough hafnium if you do not have enough zirconium).
In about 2005, nuclear supporters claimed that renewable energy could not be used to power the world because there was not enough concrete and steel to build the wind turbines. Renewable advocates responded with a peer reviewed paper (Jacobson 2009) which showed all the materials needed to build a renewable system existed except for rare earth metals for the turbines. The turbines have now been designed so that they do not use rare earth metals.
Abbott challanged the nuclear industry with13 problems building out a large amount of nuclear that he felt cannot be solved, The nuclear world has responded with answers like yours. No data and hand-waving suggestions to produce required materials from mines that do not exist.
If you want to answer the question: "Does enough hafnium exist to build out (amount of nuclear you want to build)" you need first to find out how much hafnium is in each reactor. Then you need to find out world hafnium production and consumption. Then you can determine if there is enoug hafnium left over from other uses to build out the nuclear plants.
Then you can do the same for zirconium and beryllium. Since there is only enough uranium in known economic reserves to provide all power to the world for 5 years you should probably only build out a small amount of nuclear or you will run out of uranium.
Nuclear supporters' constant use of the amount of materials in the Earth's crust indicates to me that they do not want to seriously answer the question. There is a gigantic amount of nickle in the Earth's core, a virtually unlimited amunt of helium in the Sun and billions of tons of uranium in the ocean. The problem is that it is not possible to economically obtain any of these materials.
In the Earth's crust some materials have formed economic deposits and are economically available. Others have not concentrated and are not economic to mine in quantity. You must provide information on proven reserves of materials like hafnium, zirconium and uranium to support the claim that enough of these materials exists. So far the nuclear industry, and nuclear supporters on line, have made no attempt to answer Abbott's questions.
Good luck.
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nigelj at 05:36 AM on 11 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz, apology accepted and appreciated. Not many people apologise these days so thanks. Not need to discuss the specific issue further. Were good.
I would just add that 'generally' in my experience half the problems and friction people have on the internet seem to be a result of misinterpretations. I know I misinterpret people sometimes, and sometimes its my fault for not reading carefully enough, and sometimes its their fault for lack of clarity, and sometimes it's a bit of both.
It's probably because we are dealing with complicated issues, but theres never enough time to really write with crystal calrity, and its harder to clarify things than in a verbal face to face conversation. Although that's no excuse really. It's important to define exactly what we mean and sometimes seek clarification before ploughing ahead.
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John Hartz at 02:19 AM on 11 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj@63: My apology. I misinterpreted what your wrote in your comment #50.
We're good.
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John ONeill at 21:11 PM on 10 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Regarding previous discussion on the scarcity of hafnium limiting nuclear power - hafnium is invariably present in zirconium ore, at about 1-3%. The two metals are so similar chemically that for most purposes this does not matter. However, the behaviour at the nuclear level is very different - while zirconium has a low neutron cross-section of 0.185 barns, that of hafnium is 104. So for nuclear uses, the hafnium must be separated out, or a 2% hafnium component would cause the zirconium fuel cladding to absorb over ten times as many valuable neutrons. Once separated, the hafnium is available for control rods, where its neutron appetite is a virtue, and it has the same strength and corrosion resistance as zirconium. There are thousands of fuel rods to only scores of control rods, so the real question should be, would a much larger nuclear industry run out of zirconium ? Since the elemental abundance of zirconium in the Earth's crust is about two orders of magnitude greater than that of uranium, and the mass of uranium in a fuel loading is much greater than the mass of the cladding, that is not credible. Further, if uranium supplies ran low, the industry would have to move to reprocessing spent fuel for plutonium. Since that involves cutting up and melting the used full rods, the zirconium would also become available for re-use. In any case, fast reactors, which get much better fuel mileage on plutonium, are more likely to have stainless steel cladding. Fast neutrons are less prone to parasitic absorption, and there are more of them per fission.
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