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Comments 91751 to 91800:

91751. bibasir at 00:30 AM on 22 March 2011
       The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
       The same argument can be made to Libertarians on the need to ban smoking in public places. But you don't hear them acknowledging it. Cato is more anti government than true Libertarian.
91752. Bern at 00:01 AM on 22 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       John Chapman - using currently disused car factories for heliostat manufacture is, in fact, suggested in the ZCA report, if I recall correctly. As for the rest of it - a quick search reveals the 750MW Kogan Creek power station (750MW coal) took about 3.5 years from a "go" decision to full commercial operation. A "first of a kind" solar thermal unit would obviously take a bit longer, but probably not too much, as all the required technologies are off-the-shelf. The problem is where to get the funding? It'd probably have to be a government-backed project, at least for the first one (to "prove" the product to the market, given how risk-averse investors can be in Oz). I did some more quick sums. ZCA estimates ~$739m or so for a 217MW plant. The Kogan Crk coal plant cost $1,200m for 750MW, but burns 2.8million tons of coal per year (for which it's probably paying minimal royalties plus the cost of digging it out of the ground at the adjacent mine). Assuming it cost about $40/t (about a third of the market rate for good quality thermal coal), that's another $112m per year for coal. Doing the sums, it takes ~3.5 of ZCA's solar towers to equal Kogan Creek. So that's $1.2billion vs $2.59billion in up-front cost. If you assume operation & maintenance costs are a wash, and when you add in the cost of the coal (ignoring inflation), it takes 12 years for the total cost of the coal plant to equal the solar tower. But over a nominal 30-year life, the solar towers end up ~$2billion cheaper - almost enough to pay for the solar towers in the first place! Factor in a $20/t price on CO2, and the price difference increases to ~$6.2billion (assuming 2.5t CO2 / 1.0t coal) i.e. enough to pay you back for the initial 3.5 solar towers, and build another five to cope for future demand! Now, discounting of future coal prices makes a big difference (how much is $112m/year for 30 years worth today?), but the cost equation will probably still favour the ZCA proposal, based on their numbers, especially when a carbon tax is thrown into the mix. If you count the benefit of avoiding ~200 million tons of extra CO2 in the atmosphere, then things really start to look positive...
91753. les at 23:29 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       712 RickG I guess there are several issues. The one I have with this form of argumentation (not particularly this one, but ones like it) is that it's very often to appear to knock down an argument using broad bush-strokes, appeal to "common experience", focusing on missing details etc. What is harder, and rarely done, is to build up an argument - and specifically to build an argument up to the level to be usable for policy... that is the role, e.g. of the IPCC. Now, "do nothing" is a policy. It just isn't good enough to base this policy - which is potentially very very expensive and life threatening - on a level of analysis which is no more than waffle-words. Something much stronger must be built to attack the science as shown on a site like this... ... you just cannot cut steal with chewing-gum. The tools need to be sharper and harder than the thing you're attacking;you need maths, detail, consistency etc. And these things are, by and large, the unknown-unknowns of a lot of "denilists" - all the stuff along the road that ends in a diagram, a graph or a couple of numbers.
91754. CBDunkerson at 23:07 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       ranyl #55, there is no contradiction between the passages you cite and what I had stated. The 2 ppm drop per year which I calculated would not continue on the century scale examined by the Lowe paper. That is, if we stopped emitting CO2 today we would not drop 200 ppm and find ourselves at the coldest point of a glaciation (190 ppm atmospheric CO2) by 2111. Currently we are releasing about 30 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and carbon sinks are extracting a net of about 17 gigatons. Each additional 7.81 gigatons in the atmosphere corresponds to another 1 ppm. Thus, atmospheric concentration is currently growing at about (30 - 17) / 7.81 = 1.66 ppm per year. If our CO2 emissions dropped to zero the carbon sinks would continue sequestering about 17 gigatons per year (17/7.81 = 2.18 ppm decrease per year)... there is no logical reason that this would change radically right away. However, this amount would decline on a decadal scale as atmospheric and oceanic concentrations approached equilibrium. The prior equilibrium was at ~280 ppm so we would certainly hit zero decrease some time before that point... exactly when depending largely on the rate at which carbonic acid will mix throughout the world's oceans. Note that some of the values you cite from Lowe involve unfettered CO2 emissions through 2050 or 2100... resulting in vastly higher atmospheric levels and potential oceanic saturation. The -0.2 ppm figure based on 404 ppm in 2012 was again looking at the mean over a century... so by 2112 we'd have dropped to 384 ppm. I think (and other papers such as Meehl 2007, Plattner 2008, and Solomon 2009 cited in the Lowe paper seem to agree) that the equilibrium point would likely be much lower. In any case, Lowe agrees that there would be a quick drop after cessation of emissions and then a very long slow decline. Only how far the initial drop would be is in question. However, as I'd stated... hitting 450 ppm does not mean we are stuck there. It is only if we go significantly over that mark or continue significant emissions even after converting to alternative energy sources that we need to worry about the long term impacts of 450 ppm (or any other level) atmospheric CO2. Stopping emissions will yield positive results / we are not yet 'locked in' to devastating climate change.
91755. IanC at 22:47 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       HR, That will only work if magnetic variation is the primary driver of total solar irradiation, and from the language used in the paper this seems to be largely speculative. Now I am curious to see where you are going with this. Are you arguing that neither CO2 nor the sun drives our climate?
91756. Marcus at 22:36 PM on 21 March 2011
       The True Cost of Coal Power
       So I guess my point is this-if the cost of solar cells can fall by more than 1/7th in the space of less than 30 years, then I'd hardly call the extrapolations in that article "undue". Also, I don't see anything in those graphs to suggest they're exponential extrapolations either-though you've proven already your total inability to read a graph, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at such an error on your part.
91757. Marcus at 22:32 PM on 21 March 2011
       The True Cost of Coal Power
       Gilles, between 1982 & 2006, the average cost of PV's fell from US$25 per Watt to less than US$ per Watt-yet in that same time period, average conversion efficiency has risen from less than 8% to more than 20%. Whether you choose to accept those facts or not, Gilles, it *shows* clearly that the potential of PV Cells-in both cost & efficiency terms-has barely been tapped, in spite of the much smaller amount of public funds enjoyed by the PV sector when compared to your beloved fossil fuels.
91758. Marcus at 22:26 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       Ah yes, HR, "Watts Up With That"-the bastion of truth & decency in the Climate Change debate.....*not*. The fact is that directly measured sunspot numbers rose significantly over most of the first half of the 20th century, but sunspot numbers have been *falling* over the last 30 years-yet the fastest warming has been over the latter 30 year period. So how do your mates over at WUWT explain this obvious discrepancy?
91759. Marcus at 22:23 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       Gilles, are you just being deliberately blind or *what*? Take a look at the graph-you've got a slight warming trend in the first 40 years of the 20th century, then a leveling off between 1950 & roughly 1980, then a much faster rise in temperatures between 1980 & 2010. This is odd given the fact that TSI/Sunspots have been trending downwards from 1980-2010. So no, I'd suggest it *doesn't* imply that the growth is natural. If it is natural, then please tell us what the cause of it is.
91760. michael sweet at 21:15 PM on 21 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles: If you were citing known facts you would not be controversial. You are citing your unsupported and uninformed opinion as fact. This article describes how to replace all FF consumption world wide with renewables. Electricity, transportation, heating and all other uses of energy. Perhaps if you read it you would not have to say "I don't know" so much. Papers start out with ideas which develop into accepted explainations over time. The facts they contain are screened to weed out the problems. Your postings, unfortunately, are not screened and the "facts" are only your uninformed opinion.
91761. scaddenp at 19:48 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       L.J. Ryan. We have measures (ie real world) of 341W/m2 incoming at TOA and 396W/m2 being irradiated from surface. Wow, 1st law violation? Are you trying to say nature is breaking the 1st law? The measurement must wrong? Well no. Tom and others have very patiently been explaining to what is really happening. Ditto, this whole thread on 2nd law where you are jumping on the premise that atmosphere is heating the planet. Nope. Thermodynamics is not flawed. Understanding is.
91762. HumanityRules at 18:51 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       Dana, Over at WUWT they recently highlighted a paper that suggest TSI may be even smaller than you are assuming here. Maunder Minimum to present would be something like 0.33-0.66 W/M2. I think that would mean solar forcing for the period you're interested in here is ~1/3 what you are suggesting. Which seems problematic for your calculations.
91763. Marcus at 18:27 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       OK Bern. According to a deal signed by the builders of the Sorne Hill Wind Farm in Ireland, a 12MWh VRB's was going to cost just under $6.3 million-back in 2007. Of course that's with the older technology. In 2009, German Scientists claimed that they managed to boost the energy density of the VRB's from around 30Wh/L of electrolyte to 150Wh/L of electrolyte-which would substantially reduce the cost of new VRB's. The advances linked to by The Ville will almost certainly bring the price down further still. Of course the important thing is that it would effectively double the capacity factor of the 30MW Wind farm to which its attached.
91764. Gilles at 18:08 PM on 21 March 2011
       The True Cost of Coal Power
       Great : we had undue exponential extrapolations of economic growth and FF consumptions, now we have undue exponential extrapolations of the decrease of solar PV cost. Thank you, exponential function !
91765. damorbel at 17:55 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Re #717 Tom Curtis you wrote:- "The[y]also note that low emissivity means not only reduced surface radiation, but reduced absorption of back radiation, factors which again tend to cancel each other out." Yes indeed. And so did Gustav Kirchhoff writing in 1862. From that he concluded that the temperature of a body black or or otherwise, is not affected by its emissivity as long as it has no internal heat source (or heat sink) i.e. it is in thermal equilibrium. This is the basis of his argument that emissivity and absorptivity are the same for any given body. The only internal heat source* the Earth has is the radioactivity in is rocks and (possibly) some residual heat from the formation of the planet. Measurements have shown these internal heat sources contribute not more than 0.1W/m^2 to the outgoing radiation, a negligible amount. The meaning of this is clear, the size of the albedo has no affect on the temperature of the Earth, the position of climatologists, that the Earth's equilibrium temperature is lowered by 33K from 288K to 255K has no scientific basis. What the albedo does is reduce the rate of change of temperature, this follows because a high albedo reduces both the absorptivity and the emissivity by exactly the same amount. Common experience shows the reality of this; an every day vacuum flask has a highly reflective coating that produces this effect exactly. I apologise to muoncounter if I have mentioned this before but he should take note that, as yet, the argument about the vacuum flask has not been countered by anyone and the comparisin with a planet heated entirely by energy from the Sun is 100% valid. And, incase you are wondering, Kircchoff's proof of this is based entirely on the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. * The Earth has a heat sink, chemical change. Some of the Sun's energy is converted into chemical energy, but not very much.
91766. Gilles at 17:46 PM on 21 March 2011
       Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
       "That's not true. If for example there were an all-powerful deity which created the Earth 6,000 years ago and put all the pieces in place to make us think the planet is 4.5 billion years old, that wouldn't contradict modern science. " Dana, this wouldn't contradict known facts, but this would plainly contradict the very spirit of science. You could argue as well that the world was created just yesterday and that nothing existed before. Science has begun when mankind has ceased to believe that events could happen randomly or through the will of deities, but should obey definite laws. This is precisely why creationism isn't acceptable as a science. It is as a belief, of course. Weren't this feature, it would be perfectly admissible and debatable. But there is nothing like that in the discussion about CC. It's just a discussion around a very complex system that nobody really knows.
91767. Gilles at 17:38 PM on 21 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Michael , I said "except for a limited amount of electric power" - I already know countries with a much lower carbon content of their electricity than Australia (Iceland, Norway, France), the issue is that their "solutions" are not applicable to the whole planet. That the same for heat concentration solar plants - basically you need deserts close to cities, and this doesn't happen everywhere. Mostly Australia, California, some parts of Spain. It doesn't make a lot of people worldwide. For papers : papers deal with research, that is, disputable issues. A (even reviewed) paper has never been a proof of anything. I'm citing known facts that are never discussed in papers - because what has been proved to be true doesn't need any research anymore.
91768. Tom Curtis at 17:22 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       LJRyan @716:

       "Low temperature, (lower energy) atmosphere adding radiative heat to the warmer surface is a violation of the 2nd law."

       The energy increase comes from the sun, not the atmosphere. All the GHG in the atmosphere do is decrease the efficiency with which the energy is radiated away. There is a very simple model of this. Suppose you have an electrical stove with a pot of water on it. The pot has no lid. You heat the pot until it is gently simmering, and stably so. In this situation, the heating element will be glowing slightly red, showing a temperature of about 500 degrees C. The water will be just of the boil, indicating a temperature of about 100 degrees C. We now place a lid on the pot, leaving only a small gap. Even though the we do not adjust the heating element, the water will commence to boil vigorously and may even boil over. It you look at the inside of the lid, however, you will see water condensing on it, showing clearly that it is below 100 degrees C in temperature. So, addition of a cooler part, the lid, has caused a hotter part (the water) to gain heat. In thermodynamic terms, the analogy between this and the greenhouse effect is exact. So, anytime anyone on Earth boils some rice, they prove you wrong about thermodynamics.

       "To proclaim star sourced energy can be increase itself by it's own reflection and/or re-radiation is a violation of the 1st law."

       See 718

       ""Like conduction, thermal energy is in harmony with the second law of thermodynamics such that, in the absence of work, thermal energy is radiated spontaneously from higher temperature to lower temperature matter." M. Quinn Brewster Thermal Radiative Transfer and Properties"

       This quote is quiet accurate, but refers to the net energy transfer. It is plainly not true that a cooler body cannot radiate energy towards a warmer body. What it cannot do is radiate more energy that is absorbed than does the warmer body toward it. Ie, radiated energy from the warmer body - radiated energy from the cooler body is always positive. That it is not simply prohibiting any radiation from the cooler body is shown simply, and aptly by the actual measurement of back radiation. The atmosphere is, in nearly all cases, cooler than the surface. Despite this radiation from the atmosphere to the surface has been measured many times. Here is one example: From Science of Doom. See also this and this.
91769. Gilles at 17:21 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       

       It seems that most proxies start climbing at the beginning of the XXth century and even before, and have achieved most of their growth by the 70's. When I compare with Fig 5., doesn't it seem to imply that this growth is essentially natural and not anthropic ?

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] You have interpreted the meaning of Fig 5 backwards.  Look at it again.

       Natural forcings simply do not explain the rise in temperatures we physically have measured to occur. Period.

91770. John Chapman at 17:11 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       How long would it take to construct and install the required quantity of wind generators and solar energy power stations, PV panels. etc? Presumably it would be quicker than the 10 - 15 years for nuclear, but are there any calculations to hand? I guess if the government was serious it would crank up an industry (convert one of the car plants) to churn them out like Spitfires were during the war.
91771. Bern at 17:08 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       Hmm, those VRBs do look good. I imagine the storage capacity is determined by the storage tank volume? What's the cost look like? Affordable enough to store many MegaWatthours of electricity?
91772. Marcus at 16:37 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       Wow The Ville, that's some fantastic news. I mean, I knew VRB's were already pretty good under *most* conditions, but these recent improvements should really open the gateway to more widespread use of VRB's for wind power storage.
91773. dana1981 at 16:36 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       For the record, I specifically mentioned the contribution of oceanic cycles in the article, so I don't know what more Protestant could want. I guess if you don't attribute 100% of every climate change to natural cycles, he's not happy!
91774. Bern at 16:34 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       LJRyan @ 716 - you assert that "Low temperature, (lower energy) atmosphere adding radiative heat to the warmer surface is a violation of the 2nd law" That's actually not correct. The 2nd law only talks about NET heat transfer. You can have heat radiating from an object at 500º to an object at 1000º. Obviously, the warmer object will be radiating *more* heat back the other way, but it's still receiving heat from the cooler object. Anyway, don't take our word for it. Ask Dr Roy Spencer, one of the most prominent opponents of human-caused global warming. He discusses it here, and again in more detail here. Dr Spencer may hold views on the causes of global warming that are at odds with the vast majority of climate scientists, but he certainly understands radiative heat transfer (and that, to be honest, makes it really puzzling why he so strongly disagrees with the consensus view on this matter).
91775. lukeness at 15:38 PM on 21 March 2011
       The True Cost of Coal Power
       

       One of the favorite things to say is "the wind doesn't always blow" so we need to burn coal. Refer those who say that to this item: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/east-coast-winds-would-support-a.html etoc. It shows that if distributed over a reasonably wide area and tied together in a grid, the wind power never goes to zero. In fact, offshore wind farms in the Atlantic could supply all the electrical needs of the coastal states, or more.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Fixed & hotlinked URL.

91776. Tom Curtis at 15:29 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       LJRyan @715, the photon does not increase its energy. Rather, if you feed in one photon per time interval, at equilibrium there will be four photons in the box, each with the same energy, and hence the total radiant energy in the box will be four times that which is fed in in each time interval. You cannot, apparently, manage even simple reading comprehension, yet you purport to lecture the world's atmospheric physicists about the relation between thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect.
91777. Tom Curtis at 15:11 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Damorbel @703, the sentence you quote is clearly intended to describe the procedure in Kiehl and Trenberth 1997. Following that quote, Trenberth, Fasullo and Kiehl then go on to discuss the changes in method for T, F & K 2009. The most important of these is that they factor in the difference in temperatures due to latitude, which results in a significant increase in the calculated surface radiation. To achieve greater precision, they take the mean of surface radiation in a model which correlates well with surface radiation measurements around the globe. They then discuss differences in emissivity. They note that low emissivities are found in regions with high surface temperatures, ie deserts, the two factors tending to cancel each other out. The also note that low emissivity means not only reduced surface radiation, but reduced absorption of back radiation, factors which again tend to cancel each other out. T, F, & K note (from Wilber et al 1999) that differences in emissivity can result in up to a 6 w/m^2 reduction in surface radiation. That represents just 1.5% of the average surface radiation. A 1.5% reduction in back radiation absorbed would be 5 w/m^2, making a difference of just 1 w/m^2 over deserts. The total area of deserts on Earth (excluding the Artic and Antarctic) is about 20 million square kilometers, or about 4% of the Earth's surface. Therefore, correcting for the low emissivity of deserts would have altered the final figure by just 0.04 w/m^2, which given the margin of error in the calculations is to small an effect to by worried about. In addition, your claim that the atmosphere is treated as having an emissivity (and hence absorptivity) of 1 is plainly refuted by the fact that some energy escapes from the surface to space in the diagram. McEnroe's histrionics where not even amusing in his time; in the era of Hawkeye, they would have just make him look foolish. He would have been forced to win matches on skill rather than on gamesmanship. On this forum we have something better than Hawkeye. We can read the original papers, and we can think.
91778. L.J. Ryan at 14:54 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       scaddenp647 KR671 KR "If, however, you carefully add up the Trenberth numbers without rounding you get an imbalance of about 0.9 W/m^2 less leaving than arriving. That's the forcing. " scaddenp "Umm, this is about whether the GHE is consistent with thermodynamics. If it is, the adding CO2 will create forcing as KR has pointed out. (and is measured at TOA)." Low temperature, (lower energy) atmosphere adding radiative heat to the warmer surface is a violation of the 2nd law. To proclaim star sourced energy can be increase itself by it's own reflection and/or re-radiation is a violation of the 1st law. "Like conduction, thermal energy is in harmony with the second law of thermodynamics such that, in the absence of work, thermal energy is radiated spontaneously from higher temperature to lower temperature matter." M. Quinn Brewster Thermal Radiative Transfer and Properties
91779. L.J. Ryan at 14:51 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Tom Curtis 699 You said: "I get 3.4249 * 10^-19 Joules per photon myself, and hence four times that energy contained in the box." How does a photon of 3.4249 * 10^-19 Joules outside the box increase it's energy to 1.36996E-018 Joule inside the box? And now having a wavelength 145 nm inside the magic box, the photon (as a stipulation of the filter lid) can escape to the vacuum..where it instantaneously lengthens to 580 nm. This most improbable supposition is the basis of your models and GHG theory...shown here to clearly violate the 1st law.
91780. Bern at 14:29 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       @scaddenp: "I dont think we need major new technology to change that equation" That's exactly right! If you've read the ZCA report (as I have), you'll note that they state up-front that that was one of their 'design constraints' - that no major new technology is required. What this also means (and something that a lot of people overlook) is that the ZCA report specifically *excludes* any technology that will be viable in even 15-20 years. The objective of their plan is, after all, to be zero-carbon in just 10 years.
91781. robert way at 14:18 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       DB, You are courteous as always. Either way though, for me its not a big issue. I think that the 1940s are mostly irrelevant to the climate change we are dealing with now anyways. Explaining the 1940s warming using models just needs a little bit more fine tuning, i.e. ramp up one parameter versus another for example. I've often wondered how it is that modelers and some of my colleagues think that factors do not change how much they can contribute through time... i.e. maybe the reason the 1940s are not as well explained using models is because they rely on the response of the planet to be constant through time to a given factor (solar for example) when it very well may not be. Either way, I agree that your response to protestant was probably the best approach because it deals with more than just the one factor. Better than just one like the one I *cherry-picked* as my pet project haha...
91782. scaddenp at 14:03 PM on 21 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       

       Has Gilles ever cited a paper to support any of his claims on any thread?

       Response:

       [DB] In his most recent 40 posts, Gilles references the IPCC once, but no original research papers.  Before that here at SkS: not that I recollect.  He may have in his tenure over at RC; I did not catch all of his comments there (but saw most).

91783. scaddenp at 14:00 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       Agnostic - first I'm inclined to agree that SCT is coming tech not here. I would note though that PV is a lot more expensive than SCT so it's hardly the most expensive of renewables. The various marine options are even more expensive now. Will it change quickly? SCT costs are almost all in the construction. When every station is a custom build, then parts will be very expensive. On the other hand, I dont think we need major new technology to change that equation.
91784. michael sweet at 13:47 PM on 21 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles: You say "I don't know any of them" Fortunately there are people who are more technical and imaginative than you. this thread describes ways to electrify Australia, using only current technology. They writers of the Zero Carbon Australia promise additional reports to answer your questions. Scientific American has published two articles about alternate energy. One powering the entire USA (all power, not just electricity) using solar alone and one using mixed renewable energy. The second article seemed more practical to me. If you include the external costs, like health problems caused by coal burning, renewable is cheaper than FF. It is difficult for me to discuss solutions with someone who strongly insists we must continue FF use or civilization will collapse while ignoring that FF will shortly run out. I see little or no citation of written support for your positions, only your opinion. I think I will leave this argument to others who have more patience.
91785. Marcus at 13:40 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       From my reading on Wind Turbines, the life-time CO2 footprint is around 5g CO2/kw-h, & a Wind Turbine has an energy pay-back time of about 20 months, & will return more than 30 times the energy investment over its lifetime. Like I said above, though, this assumes current methods of steel & concrete manufacture are used-but there are relatively new methods that have a much lower carbon footprint. Also, that energy pay-back time & life-time CO2 footprint can be made even lower if energy storage-particularly Vanadium Redox Batteries, electrolysis or regular batteries-is also used, as this will double the capacity factor of a wind farm.
91786. robert way at 13:24 PM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       

       DB, To be fair in your response to Protestant you claimed that Tamino showed that the AMO does not affect the global land-sea temperatures but that's not an accurate statement. Tamino's analysis there isn't great and I had a long drawn out "discussion" with him in the comments section if you'll notice. We agreed to disagree. A better discussion of the AMO is probably here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-modern-warming/ and subsequently in the comments. All in all the AMO probably did contribute more to the mid century warmth than people give it credit but that was in addition to the other factors mentioned by Dana. Together they created the 1940s warming.

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Robert, I accede to your judgement on this matter of the AMO.  In that the referenced links above also considered other oceanic cycles (and other exogenous factors) that Tamino has studied, like the PDO, my comment was more dealing with overall picture.  I have read & re-read your exchanges with Tamino & respect very much both of your opinions.  I will also re-read the Rank Exploits post again.

       Out of laziness I only referenced a few of the many Tamino posts on cycles.  A search of the Open Mind site will reveal those; the rest can be found at the Archives (except for January and February 2010 posts).

91787. Marcus at 13:24 PM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       Ken Lambert, to the best of my knowledge, coal fired power stations in Queensland haven't exactly fared too well in the floods either. 85% of Queensland's Coal Mines were left operating at *well* below normal capacity-with most of them being completely shut down. Rail links between coal mines & coal stations were washed out by the flooding, & at least 2 of the coal power stations apparently had operating difficulties due to flood waters. All of which led to a huge amount of load shedding during the flood crisis-not to mention the towns which were completely cut off from their electricity supply by the flood waters. So you see, Ken, your desire to focus on the impacts of extreme weather events on renewable energy ignores the fact that these extreme weather effects have a similarly negative impact on so-called conventional sources of electricity. Also, can you provide *proof*, Ken, that wind resources in Queensland dropped during the flood crisis? My understanding was that the low pressure system that brought in that rain was also associated with above average winds-but maybe I heard incorrectly. Lastly, its worth noting that during another extreme weather event-namely the Victorian Bushfires of 2009-large areas lost their coal-fired electricity because of ash & smoke shorting out the high voltage lines. However, many of these homes would have *still* had electricity if they'd all had grid interactive solar panels.
91788. Tom Curtis at 12:58 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       RW1 @702, do you mean that you have been muddying the waters by insisting on using non-standard definitions of back radiation, and treating all radiation to space as having originated either directly or indirectly from the surface as a matter of definition for no purpose? The topic of discussion in this thread is the Greenhouse effect and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If you do not think there is a contradiction, and are not arguing against those who think their is, you have nothing to add to this thread because you are of topic.
91789. Tom Curtis at 12:49 PM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       damorbel @711, almost right. The temperature of a gas is its mean kinetic energy. That can be expressed in terms of the sum of its kinetic energies for each of its external degrees of freedom, but that does not include internal degrees of freedom, ie, rotational or vibrational energy. The heat capacity ratio of an ideal gas, on the other hand, does depend on the internal degrees of freedom as well, so that the heat capacity ratio is just (f+2)/f where f is the degrees of freedom. The heat capacity at constant pressure and the heat capacity at constant volumes are then just simple functions of the heat capacity ratio. The interesting thing about energy in the form of external kinetic energy an energy in the form of vibrations and rotations within the molecule is that they tend to equalize, so that the energy in each degree of freedom is, on average, the same. That means that when kinetic energy in the axis perpendicular to the surface is lost due to gravity, it is partially replaced by energy from the two axis parallel to the surface, plus from rotational and vibrational energy as a result of collisions. Likewise, a molecule gaining kinetic energy perpendicular to the surface will tend to redistribute it to the other degrees of freedom as the result of collisions. So, it is not gravity alone that determines the lapse rate, but gravity and the redistribution of energy form the various degrees of freedom of the gas molecules, ie, gravity and the heat capacity of the gas. Hence, the lapse rate equals the negative gravitational acceleration divided by the specific heat for constant pressure. All of which is very interesting, but as has been pointed out before, it does not determine surface temperature. It only determines the relationship between surface temperatures and the temperatures at given altitudes. In other words, these fact could all be true about the atmosphere and the Earth's global mean surface temperature be 255 degrees K. It is the greenhouse effect which explains why it is not.
       Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Lapse rate is another favorite drum to bang; see 30 November, 525 comments up thread.
91790. adelady at 12:08 PM on 21 March 2011
       Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
       Long after we've slammed on the brakes, the jaws of life will be applied by quarrying and simple milling, or more sophisticated processing, of olivine and serpentine rock. Just one example from Scholar There are plenty of others. We've exaggerated and accelerated the geological processes which gradually release carbon from its locations in soil and rock strata. If we're serious about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, we'll have to do something about speeding up the other side of the geological balancing act. Biochar, growing trees and no/low till agriculture merely redress a little of our disturbance of the daily, seasonal, biological carbon cycle of the planet's surface. To really get at the fossil material side of things, we'll have to dig up stuff to imitate the geological cycles we've interfered with by digging up (and incinerating) other stuff. Probably we'll still detour around the full-scale ice age we're due for, but we'll be back on track sooner rather than later.
91791. scaddenp at 11:55 AM on 21 March 2011
       Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
       Icarus, your timeframes seem to be at odds with the studies by Matthews and Weaver 2010 and with Hare and Meinshausen 2006, both discussed last year at RealClimate
91792. Icarus at 11:45 AM on 21 March 2011
       Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
       What we need to do, in order to have a chance of retaining something like the climate that modern human civilisation developed in, is to rapidly remove *all* the fossil carbon we've put into the climate system in the last 250 years. That means we need to capture some 340 billion tons of carbon and sequester it in a form in which it will be stable for thousands of years. Studies show that there has been no significant net change in carbon held in surface reservoirs (oceans, soil, atmosphere, biomass etc.) for about the last million years, and very little over the last 2 million years. This means that it will not be sufficient to just reduce or eliminate anthropogenic fossil fuel CO2 emissions, because the carbon we have released into the climate system will not be removed by geological processes on any timescale that we can imagine. Total carbon will remain at elevated levels for millions of years unless we actively remove what we are responsible for, or until slow geological processes change the balance such that there is a net reduction in carbon in surface reservoirs. Consequently, the effects of the additional carbon, including ocean acidification and an enhanced greenhouse effect, will also persist for millions of years, unless we actively reverse that by sequestering the carbon. This is why Hansen is right to say that there is now no chance of any impending ice age, as there would have been in 10,000 or 20,000 years' time in the absence of industrial civilisation.
91793. Riduna at 10:50 AM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       Let’s have a reality check here! In theory, solar concentration technology (SCT) could replace coal and other fossil fuels as the source of Australian electricity production but that has not happened, is not contemplated and is unlikely to occur. We should ask ourselves why. Electricity consumers are happy to buy their electricity needs from any source, with one important proviso - that it is the cheapest energy available. SCT simply does not produce this. In fact it is the most expensive of all renewable energy sources and can only be made competitive with coal (the cheapest energy source) if the price of coal doubles through imposition of a carbon tax. In short, SCT is not competitive with coal or any other renewable energy source and, in the absence of electricity storage capacity, wind is over-rated as a source of base load power. That is not to say that wind does not make a useful, if limited contribution to reducing dependence on coal. When solar technology becomes more efficient (it will) it will become the technology of choice to produce most of the world’s energy needs. But to think that countries now reliant on coal to generate electricity will turn to SCT is wishful thinking. Why would any country opt for a much more expensive SCT product? Try convincing the top 5 emitters (China, USA, India, Japan, Russia) responsible for >55% of global CO2 emissions, that they should replace coal with solar. Australia is uniquely placed in that it has the most extensive hottest granite at the shallowest depth found anywhere in the world. Contrary to the view expressed in the article, geothermal technology is now well developed and understood. The first commercial power house is expected to be up and running by 2015. Ref: Geodynamics Annual Report at: http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/Company/ShowPage.aspx?CPID=2277&EID=11787609 Estimates vary as to the capacity of geothermal to meet all of Australia’s expanding need for base load power but what is clear is that production per MWh is the cheapest of any renewable source other than wind. It can produce reliable base load power, is emission-free and billions are being invested in it in a bid to ensure that, in the short-medium term, it reduces dependence on coal. Any contest between solar and geothermal for the supply of Australia’s electricity needs will be won by the latter on price – at present. However, there is ample scope for R&D into more efficient use of solar energy to generate electricity and this is where resources are needed. One would hope that this would result in the development of much more efficient PVC’s, and much improved methods of storing heat and electricity. Only with such developments over the next 10-20 years will solar become a real competitor with wind, wave and geothermal – and the preferred alternative by nations currently dependent on fossil fuels.
91794. Riduna at 10:35 AM on 21 March 2011
       Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
       Figure 1 in the article shows global per capita emissions budget assuming constant annual emissions. Does this budget also assume constant population and nil growth in size of national economies?
91795. Gilles at 10:33 AM on 21 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       "The average Chinese citizen is not nearly as rich as an average American was even two or three generations ago" you can check on gapminder that this is plainly untrue - average chinese citizens are just as rich and burn as much FF than average american around 1890. They're just a little bit late. After this date, american were richer, but they also burnt more oil and other FF.
91796. Gilles at 10:27 AM on 21 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Marcus, you can find all relevant numbers on gapminder , as I already indicated you. You can conveniently select "GDP per capita" on y-axis and "CO2 emission per capita" on x-axis. And you can follow tracks throughout the century. So which country are you thinking of when you say that " You've also failed to show contrary evidence that it was the accumulated wealth of the 1st world which came *before* the rise in fossil fuel use-not because of it as you've constantly contended." ? you can also take any other index of wealth and correlate it with CO2 production. Now I don't understand what you're seeking with a "correlation between energy intensity and GDP" - this is of course quite different from a correlation between energy consumption and GDP. The fact that energy intensity correlates weakly with GDP proves exactly what I'm saying - that it has not varied a lot throughout the history, although of course it has changed. I would like to make you notice that all "correlations" between climate and anything else are also subjects to large fluctuations and are by no means "constant" in the sense you seem to demand for FF consumption. So I'm surprised that you're not so critical to evaluate the effects of CC. And if you recognize that "Anyway, at least you're correct about the amount of food waste we're currently seeing in the First World, " , do you recognize also that it doesn't prove that we could suppress entirely food without harm? - that's the same for FF. We can conserve and spare some of them - this doesn't mean we can suppress them. And furthermore, this would not lead to an overall decrease of the integrated amount (integrated over time I mean). Michael sweet#50 : I said that FF should be replaced by sources with the same applications and low cost to avoid a collapse of civilization, and that I don't know any of them- except for a limited amount of electric power, but it's not enough to do everything. Where is the contradiction with what ?
91797. les at 10:07 AM on 21 March 2011
       Sea level rise is exaggerated
       110 - no I don't miss the point. You presented some new and significantly different numbers without details (the fitted functions, confidence etc.). You can't expect that to go unchallenged, surely. A challenge to which you are failing to rise.
91798. RickG at 09:57 AM on 21 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       710 les Thanks les, it is a challenge to respond to such foolishness and still keep one's cool enough to remain withing the comments policy. After writing a response I usually walk away for a while before submitting it. I almost always find myself toning my initial reply's down. It doesn't always work but for the most part it does. Contrary to contrarians beliefs, I do get posts deleted from time to time. With contrarians it is quite often difficult to figure out if they really don't understand the science or if they are just up to mischievous. I hope I'm wrong but I fear the latter is too often true.
91799. scaddenp at 09:38 AM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       "And STILL not accounting for the oceanic interdecadal variability, which is a good explanation for the 1940 blip and for part of the 2000's blip as well" What's your reference for this? Are you referring to Swanson and Tsonis 2009?
91800. scaddenp at 09:36 AM on 21 March 2011
       Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
       "It is methane emissions we need to stop not CO2." Both are important but neither the concentration of CH4 in the atmosphere nor the isotopic concentration of that CH4 give any evidence that methane is much of an issue at the moment. See the RC article on methane risk. Frankly, the problem at moment is CO2.

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