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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 102651 to 102700:

  1. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    "*It is recognized that a fictitious planet as described herein is a physical impossiblity. The simplicity of this planet serves to explain a concept that would not be easily explained using a more complex and realistic model." That in a nutshell seems to be the problem.
  2. Renewable Baseload Energy
    michael sweet, If you would care to read the links I provide you will find that all the claims are supported.
  3. Renewable Baseload Energy
    CB Dunkerson @280, SEGS is a day time only plant. It cannot run 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It is near useless in winter. This thread is about baseload. SCEGS is not baseload. No solar plants anywhere in the world are baseload. It is unlikely solar can ever be viable as baseload. Why can't you and many others understand this? "Zero Carbon Australia - Stationary Energy Plan" (ZCA2020 for short) proposed a mix of solar thermal with molten salt storage, wind, existing hydro capacity and biomass could provide all Australia's electricity by 2020. The report is a total fantasy. See the critique (the link has been posted several times on this thread). ZCA2020 proposes 12 solar thermal power stations around the edge of the desert and near the wheat growing areas (they propose collecting wheat stalks to heat the salt when the sun isn't shining). We've had about a week or so of continuous rain over much of eastern Australia and forecasts are for another week. The weather map today shows all but one of the proposed solar sites is under cloud cover. So the solar thermal plants don't run. Even if they had 24 hours of storage they would only last a day or so. There is simply no way that solar thermal, even using wheat stalks to provide some back up heating when the sun isn't shining, can provide baseload power. Surely this must be obvious. Why can't any of you see it?
  4. Renewable Baseload Energy
    If there are no stronger arguments against renewable-based energy systems than has come up in this thread, the future of green energy is surely bright. And I think it is. It will cost a lot more to get the systems in place than just continuing "business-as-usual" (for as long as that is possible, clearly not infinitely), and it may also cost somewhat more to run them, but the basic question is: How large will the damage to the economy from this be, and how does it compare to the damage and costs caused by the alternatives? Energy supply is not a basic problem in evolved economies, and, generally, the price of electric energy can be increased several-fold without long-term damage to the economy. In many cases, it is in fact counter-productive to have too low energy prices, as it will encourage bad practices and substandard equipment. For example, the largest part of the energy need for heating and domestic hot water can be covered by solar panels world-wide, and when this is combined with PV in the design, for instance in weakly focusing systems where heating is provided by the cooling of the solar cells, we have systems that are both very useful, quite easy to operate, and able to relieve the central systems of a lot of both baseload and peak requirements. One important feature, both for power grids and district heating systems, is that they should be two-way. Ideally, there should be power, district heating connections and, when appropriate, a third water pipe that could be used for both fetching and dumping energy as standard connections for all buildings of some size/population, and all should be two-way. In this way, when a number of houses have installed solar panels/PV cogeneration, and dimensioned them for the colder periods, the heating system will run with almost no input for much of the year because of the surplus heat dumped into the system. BUT - this is bad business for district heat providers, so usually, they will have to be forced into it by regulations. To avoid more stupid assertions about the uselessness of PV, just consider some simple calculations: If a 25 kW (average, not max output) electric car is used for ca 1 hour/day, it needs 25 kWh/d. 40 sqm solar cell panels will be more than enough to provide this under sunny conditions, and if they are installed on a house with a two-way grid connection, it does not matter if the charging happens when the car is parked at work, far away from home. Also, the power from the solar cells could be used for running an air-water or water-water heat pump during the day, storing the heat in the house, using it when needed - most often when the sun is weak or away.
  5. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Joe Blog: "We have a bad habit of thinking of radiation as lil balls pinging around(i do it). Its light, its emitted in an expanding sphere from the emitting molecule. And it absorbs, the parts of radiation that the molecule intersects of the expanding sphere's of other molecules radiation." There is nothing wrong with visualising electromagnetic radiation in quantised 'photon' form. Also a photon is emitted in a specific direction, the reason you see a point source is because billions of photons are emitted per second in a 'radiating sphere'. You 'receive' just a small number of them. The 'signal' gets weaker the further away you are, because the emitted photons become more dispersed (fewer photons per square metre).
  6. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    "i will go for Veerabhadran Ramanathan " - yeah! However, these posts and others (I like Eli Rabbit's attempt) are all about trying to explain this without the mathematics. Ramanathan is where to go for the maths. My relativity lecturer used to insist that you havent understood something unless you can give a qualitative answer without doing the maths (but then do the maths to check!). Its always hard however to produce a good explanation without the maths for those who wont/cant do the maths first and I take my hat off to all those who are trying to do so. Clear explanation is a service to humanity.
  7. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Also BP @ 282... "As for profitability, Federal and state investment tax credits, solar property tax exclusion & accelerated depreciation surely helped a lot. It is public money of course, payed for by American taxpayers." Can you name one major industrial project that does NOT use exactly the same? Heck, malls and ballparks get the same. That's just how municipalities attract projects to their area!
  8. Renewable Baseload Energy
    re: BP @ 282... Therminol... Is this the same Therminol you are referring to? Low Odor and Excellent Toxicity Profile - Therminol D-12 is especially suited to applications where a low odor and low toxicity are desired. Therminol D-12 is an FDA recognized fluid and has excellent industrial hygiene properties. This product meets the requirements established by the FDA at 21 CFR 172.882, 172.884, 178.3530, and 178.3650.
  9. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    VeryTallGuy @ 69 "if enough IR makes it through from the surface (i.e. is unblocked by the troposphere), then CO2 in the stratosphere could change from a net emitter to a net absorber. " Hmmm yes. I was considering responding to that myself. If the stratosphere was blasted with continuous 15micron radiation, it would warm... until the input stopped, then it would cool... Its not going to make it more opaque. We have a bad habit of thinking of radiation as lil balls pinging around(i do it). Its light, its emitted in an expanding sphere from the emitting molecule. And it absorbs, the parts of radiation that the molecule intersects of the expanding sphere's of other molecules radiation. So when the molecules are spaced further apart, they absorb smaller proportions of the emitted radiation from their neighbors. So it increases the net loses. So increasing the IR input will increase the energy absorbed. It will however, not change the fact, that the molecules will receive less energy from their neighbors, than what they themselves emit. And the troposphere dosnt "block" IR... it increases its path length, if there were no GHG's in the troposphere, but the same quantity in the stratosphere, all it would change is the T of the troposphere to the effective radiating T of the energy received (-18C) But the quantity of radiation leaving the troposphere, would be the same as at equilibrium today. It would just be receiving it from the surface, instead of the variable altitudes caused by the lower atmospheres opacity to different wavelengths.
  10. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    VeryTallGuy, Just to clarify, I probably shouldn't have said that if enough IR makes it through from the surface, CO2 could become a net absorber. That may not be true. It's more nuanced than that. The stratosphere could be so rarefied that no matter how much IR you pound it with, most of it will just get through, and CO2 would anyway still emit what it absorbs before it has a chance to collide with anything else and pass it on. So it could/would still be a net emitter in the end, but just with a smaller differential, and with some IR redirected back to the surface. In fact, when I think about it, this would actually cause the upper troposphere to warm more (as some of the IR absorbed by the stratosphere would be re-emitted back down), although maybe only by a meager amount, without really changing the temperature of the stratosphere.
  11. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    A few more comments on "hot" and "cold" photons. - Heat is the internal energy of molecular matter due to vibrations of the atomic nuclei with respect to each other. Photons are much more basic wave-particles and so cannot hold heat. - As KR says, photons do have energy, this is equivalent to frequency (see here for example. The energy of photons emitted by any molecule are equal to the separation of their quantum states and therefore fixed under all conditions. - Temperature affects the amount of photons emitted, since in a colder substance fewer molecules are in excited quantum states. This is, of course, my first point restated slightly.
  12. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Spaceman Spiff 67 Yes, those threads were an "interesting" read... well for myself, i will go for Veerabhadran Ramanathan published work in this area over Gavin's postings at RC. At least until someone can explain where he has erred in his troposphere/stratosphere radiative interaction studies. Or how im misinterpreting them.
  13. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Sphaerica On Gavin, I hasten to add I was in absolutely no way trying to imply any superior understanding on my part - I wish ! Merely a reflection of his own sub-heading: "This post is obsolete and wrong in many respects."(!) From your post "if enough IR makes it through from the surface (i.e. is unblocked by the troposphere), then CO2 in the stratosphere could change from a net emitter to a net absorber. " If this is true, and Bob's post implies it is, then there would, I think, be a maximum in the stratospheric temperature vs CO2 relationship.
  14. Renewable Baseload Energy
    "They would not be built if not for the subsidies and government regulations that mandate their power be purchased." This must apply only in specific markets. Wind is going up big time here. Noone is forced to buy it - investors can only get money back if they can sell that power on the electricity market for a profit. No subsidy. Perhaps you are talking about Australia only?
  15. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Spaceman Spiff - 67 This was the reason for my blog. Whereever you go on the web, it is just as murky. However, Gavin is explaining it as clearly as possible considering that he is trying to explain it without talking about the absorption spectrum of CO2 or other greenhouse gas. Bob
  16. Spaceman Spiff at 06:14 AM on 3 December 2010
    Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Sphaerica @65: To be fair to VeryTallGuy -- Gavin wrote and re-wrote that post on RealClimate several times, and in my opinion it still leaves things rather murky (as some of the comments there indicate). No one knows everything about anything, and the deeper one probes nature the more subtle she is. So while I'm not taking anything away from Gavin's post, I'm also not inclined to assume that it is error free (or isn't lacking in clarity).
  17. actually thoughtful at 04:46 AM on 3 December 2010
    Renewable Baseload Energy
    BP - Please tell NREL that SEGS I & II (where the fire was) were dismantled. http://www.nrel.gov/csp/troughnet/power_plant_data.html They, stupidly, are still tracking its output. I am VERY disappointed in this post BP. Did you know that the plant that was taken down was not the one that had the accident and post it anyways? Or did you not know what you were posting - but the both said solar so it must be OK?
  18. The Climate Show #3: Cancun and cooling
    It's nice to see that somewhere in the world there is intelligence associated with talk radio. Here in the United States, talk radio is nothing but propaganda for the skeptics. Bob
  19. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    There's been a minor revision to my post. I changed the unites on the ordinate from "watts/square meter" to "watts/square meter wavenumber" or watts per square meter per wavenumber. Now the area under the curve represents watts/square meter which makes more sense. Bob
  20. actually thoughtful at 04:17 AM on 3 December 2010
    Renewable Baseload Energy
    Hey Peter Lang and all in the "it can't be done" or "if it is so great why aren't we there yet" camp. Obviously my own posts are not worthy, as I am a true believer, a "greenie" and a liberal to boot! How about APS - the Arizona monopoly utility for electricity? The guys who live, breathe and die based on baseload power? They are headed for 15% renewable by 2025. Oh and they are AHEAD of schedule. http://www.usea.org/Programs/EUPP/Jordan_Transmission/third_nepco_program_april_2010/documents/Jordanians_GSamuel_0410.pdf from the horses mouth... http://www.aps.com/main/green/choice/choice_118.html
  21. actually thoughtful at 04:08 AM on 3 December 2010
    Renewable Baseload Energy
    Peter Lang - you have failed to provide a definition for baseload power. I asked you directly - no such luck. So, in the absence of the known-only-to-you-but-has-something-to-do-with-nuclear definition that you fail to provide - I (and apparently everyone else on this thread) will continue to work with the same definition that Dana1981 provides: "baseload power - that is, the ability to provide energy at all times on all days." And by that definition - many, many example of renewable power have been provided, and your arguments seem to be limited to all nuclear, all the time. Meanwhile, reality is taking us in a different direction. Let me give you a real world, renewable example that illustrates the concept that you are not getting here. This is in renewable energy for home heating (the 40% of energy usage that is verboten to talk about - we must ONLY speak of electrics...). We have known of our ability to build PassiveHaus style zero energy homes for quiet some time. But in the retrofit of stick built, vast-majority-of-home-in-existence - the industry KNEW that solar thermal could only provide 40% (here I mean heating enough hot water on your rooftop to provide heat for for your home in cold winter climates (design temp of -2F, -19C)). Just as you KNOW that renewables can only provide 0% of baseload power (despite the evidence to the contrary provided in over 200 posts + the main article). Well, enter an idealistic "greenie" who doesn't know any better, but is determined to achieve 75% solar fraction. Because I thought it was feasible. Now my first house I followed industry guidelines, with a few modifications - and didn't do so well - about 50%. (I have since brought that house up to snuff). As I discarded more and more industry rules of thumbs, went back and approached it analytically - and LEARNED from my mistakes, I now EXCEED 75% routinely. This is not a claim that baseload electricity will fall as easily as home heating - but certainly a lesson that the industry (especially the electric industry - which for the most part is protecting its outdated centralized, polluting business model) doesn't KNOW everything. They are stuck in the 1950s and slowly awakening to the possibilities that 60 years of material science affords them. And quite frankly, your posts to date indicate you are not on the cutting edge of what is possible with the electricity grid.
  22. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    VeryTallGuy, I would be very, very hesitant to describe anything Gavin writes as even erroneous, let alone "error strewn." I would be more likely to assume that I don't completely understand his words, and so to hunker down and quietly research more. That said, we are all waiting for (hopefully) some input from him on the issues. However, my understanding is that, as to the need to consider tropospheric absorption, if enough IR makes it through from the surface (i.e. is unblocked by the troposphere), then CO2 in the stratosphere could change from a net emitter to a net absorber. It all comes down to probabilities: is a CO2 molecule more likely to gain energy (heat) through collision with other molecules, and lose it through emission of IR, or is it more likely to gain energy through absorption of IR, and lose it through collision with other molecules? These probabilities are affected by the concentration of CO2, the overall density of the stratosphere, and the levels of incoming radiation (UV from the top, IR from the bottom). Less IR = less chance of heat through absorption, while less dense = more chance of emission through radiation rather than loss through collision. The combination = cooling.
  23. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Peter lang, You have hijacked this thread with your unsupported claims just like you did with the what we should do about climate change thread.. I notice that you have still not answered my questions that I raised there. You claim 60 years experience of nuclear technology and thorium reactors. No experience exists with thorium. You cite Australian cost estimates to suggest it is uneconomic in Texas to generate wind power. It is obviously economic to generate wind in Texas, they are doing it without subsidies! You use nuclear industry publications as if they were peer reviewed papers. You are completely unconvincing! Moderator: I suggest Peter Lang be edited more closely to keep the thread on topic. He will continiue to make frequent, long, unsupported claims untill he drives away all the thoughtful posters. He has already done this on several other threads. He has added nothing new here to his posts on the other thread, but he has effectively ended discussion of baseload renewables. He continues to press the nuclear argument when that has been stated to be off topic.
  24. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Sphaerica that was where I had got to before this post - that forgetting any incoming radiation the stratosphere will act as a blackbody and emit thermal radiation. However, in the absorption lines for GHGs ie CO2, there will be enhanced emission. If this is the mechanism for cooling though, why the need to consider tropospheric absorption at all as in the above post? Surely it doesn't matter what happens in the troposphere, additional CO2 always cools the stratosphere? I have a feeling I'm being obtuse somewhere, but reading Gavin Schmidt's error strewn RC post on the topic cheered me up - at least I'm in good company.
  25. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Its almost as though damorbel views IR radiation coming up from the ground as exerting a pressure such that any back radiation downwelling from CO2 cannot overcome. A good analogy would be the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. Pressure from the oil upwelling from below made it initially difficult for engineers to force drilling mud back down the pipe to stem the spill. If up-pressure is 100 GPS, how could forcing anything back down the stack work unless it first overcame the up-pressure from below? Unfortunately for damorbel, photons can and do travel simultaneously through the same "stack"...
  26. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    No, damorbel, neither I nor anyone else has ever said that. Instead, the photons that hit the surface add energy to the surface sufficient to compensate for (replace) some of the energy lost from the surface by the photons leaving the surface. The net result is that the surface cools less than it would have without the incoming photons. Therefore the surface ends up being warmer when it has incoming photons than it would have been without incoming photons.
  27. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - A few small notes: - Photons don't have temperatures (cold, warm), they have energies. - The warm plate in Spencer's example receives a certain amount of power from the electric heater; the temperature in that example is not 'regulated' (no thermostat), but is rather the temperature where the amount of thermal radiation from the plate (determined by the object shape, emissivity, and it's temperature) match incoming power. - An object (even if rather cool) warmer than the absolute zero of space will radiate some thermal energy; when that hits the 'warm' object, the incoming power to the warm object changes. - Power in matches power out, or the temperature of an object (the accumulated energy) will change. - A cool nearby object (or atmosphere) is still much warmer than absolute zero, changes the incoming power to your 'warm' object, and the temperature of the object will change until, once again, output power matches input power. It's really that simple.
  28. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    VeryTallGuy,
    Initially, despite increased (from zero) tropospheric CO2 IR absorption, there will also be increased stratsopheric absorption (by definition, as it was zero)
    This isn't true, because CO2 in the stratosphere is a net emitter (i.e. has a cooling effect). It might not be if the troposphere let enough IR through to make it a net absorber, but it doesn't, so the combination of the tropospheric CO2 blocking the appropriate IR band with the stratospheric CO2 primarily emitting IR causes the stratosphere to cool. Hence, CO2 only cools the stratosphere (at least at the levels we are discussing -- I'm unsure what would happen if CO2 concentration approached very high levels, if CO2 would at some point become a net absorber rather than a net emitter). There is no point where CO2 causes the stratosphere to warm. At least, this is my understanding.
  29. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #260 Tom Dayton you wrote:- "That downward cascade of radiation continues all the way to the bottom of the atmosphere, where due to the closeness of the surface, a substantial amount of the downward radiation avoids reabsorption by other greenhouse gases and so makes it to the surface." So you maintain that the few cold photons coming down from any altitude can counteract the effect of the larger number of warmer photons radiated upwards to the extent that they raise the temperature of the surface 33C? Forgive me if I don't agree!
  30. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Camburn - 61 The Martian atmosphere has a thermosphere and an exosphere in addition to a troposphere and a stratosphere, as does the earth. My very unrealistic and fictitious model has only a troposphere and a stratosphere. Bob
  31. Renewable Baseload Energy
    BP, yes yes... moving the goalposts. First it is completely impossible. When pointed out that it already exists suddenly the story is that it is evil and dangerous. Which is nonsense too, but whatever. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
  32. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Re: Joe Blog (57) Cool. But I think it's a bit like in the field of medicine, where there exists a world of difference between clinical studies and clinical practice. For radiative physics, CO2 and the stratosphere, I like the way Spencer Weart said it in the RealClimate post Spaceman Spiff (51) linked to earlier:
    "As for the stratosphere above the level where the heat is radiated out, who cares? It’s a very thin gas that doesn’t contain much heat energy and is easily influenced by anything. The real heat energy that we need to worry about is in the lower atmosphere. (In fact, still more in the oceans, where most of the new heat energy is going over the decades. At present we’re not radiating out quite as much as we take in, so there’s heat energy building up in the system.)"
    But I do understand the need to know. :) The Yooper
  33. Berényi Péter at 01:14 AM on 3 December 2010
    Renewable Baseload Energy
    #282 CBDunkerson at 23:37 PM on 2 December, 2010 For example, please explain the existence of 'Solar Energy Generating Systems' (SEGS). The largest solar power facility in the world (currently, several larger are now being built). Online for more than 20 years now. Built and operated without 'massive' government subsidies. Has been producing reliable baseload power for about a quarter of a million homes in southern California at competitive prices and making a profit since day one. I see. You mean the one where 4300 m3 "mildly toxic" coolant (called Therminol) exploded on February 26, 1999 (it was dismantled last year). Very safe, very green, very environmentally friendly. As for profitability, Federal and state investment tax credits, solar property tax exclusion & accelerated depreciation surely helped a lot. It is public money of course, payed for by American taxpayers. There's nothing sweeter under the Sun than money collected by IRS and going directly to private pockets, especially if you are not required to pay for damages in case of industrial accidents.
  34. Renewable Baseload Energy
    BTW, if 'never having been done' is "proof" that something can't be done... well then we can only conclude that commercial Thorium/IFR reactors are not feasible. After all, unlike commercial renewable energy projects those really haven't ever been done.
  35. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Peter Lang #272: "If you add wind power and solar power and biomass and geothermal and wave power and any more you want to add you raise the cost but still do not get the power reliability that society demands. The proof of this is that it has never been done" Which is simply untrue. For example, please explain the existence of 'Solar Energy Generating Systems' (SEGS). The largest solar power facility in the world (currently, several larger are now being built). Online for more than 20 years now. Built and operated without 'massive' government subsidies. Has been producing reliable baseload power for about a quarter of a million homes in southern California at competitive prices and making a profit since day one. Granted, SEGS is 30 year old technology so it relies on natural gas backup... for just 10% of the total energy produced. Your claims are provably false.
  36. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    Joe Blog: "So what some of us are contending, is that above the troposphere, CO2 is a net emitter, due to the pressure." I think it is obviously a combination of things. Reduced Pressure: photons have a lower probability of colliding with other molecules. Also fewer collisions between molecules. Closer to space and a thinner atmosphere: Assuming a photon missed hitting another molecule, it also has a better chance of escaping away completely into a 'vacuum'. It's all down to probabilities.
  37. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Tom Dayton #257: "Energy transferred by radiation down, warms the atmosphere below." damorbel #263: "Only if it exceeds the photon energy coming up." Nonsense. There is just no logical way to arrive at that conclusion. You aren't just spouting ridiculous violations of basic physics, but also basic math. Let's say the "photon energy coming up" is 5 units per time X and the energy going down is only 1 unit per time X. The down photons are less than the up photons so you claim they cannot result in a warmer surface. Put the starting energy at the surface at 100 units. Ignoring incoming energy for simplicity, after 1 X has elapsed this would yield; 100 - 5 + 1 = 96 You claim this is no warmer than; 100 - 5 = 95 Which is just wrong. 96 > 95 Adding an extra step for incoming energy would obviously yield the same result. The surface is warmer with the down photons than without them. Early grade school level mathematics. Inescapably true. Yet you deny it. That's just pathetic.
  38. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Peter Lang - is this you (comment at 5.25pm 2nd Dec 2010) over at Brave New Climate?. The effect of cutting CO2 emissions to zero by 2050
  39. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #257 Tom Dayton you wrote:- "So "adjacent" molecules include the ones below. Energy transferred by radiation down, warms the atmosphere below." Only if it exceeds the photon energy coming up. This should be obvious from the formation of the stratosphere where the energy absorbed by O2 & O3 warms the atmosphere with characteristic results, there is a consequent temperature inversion (the temperature rises in the stratosphere from about -50C to about 0C, depending on where you look) and suppression of convection. This stratospheric warming phenomenon when compared with the tropospheric lapse rate should make it very clear that the role played by absorption/emission via GHGs in the tropospheric temperature profile is non existent.
  40. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming
    What this model is trying to emulate is the atmosphere of Mars without pressure compensation.
  41. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #254 adelady you wrote:- " Your argument about insulating heat being "in" the container already is irrelevant." Not in reality. Read what Dr. Spencer puts in his OP:- "Imagine a heated plate in a cooled vacuum chamber, as in the first illustration, below. These chambers are used to test instruments and satellites that will be flown in space. Let’s heat the plate continuously with electricity" Dr. Spencer's model of a vacuum chamber makes nothing clear. I am familiar with the working of the type of chamber he shows. He shows an electric heat source, said to be at 160°F. How so? Lets say it is regulated but is its temperature uniform? Parts are much closer to the 0°F walls. The walls must be regulated to be a uniform 0°F over the inside surface (this is frequently done with liquid N2 but of course at −321 °F) Even if the heater is a perfectly uniform 160°F the temperature of the additional bar will only be uniform if it is a perfect (thermal) conductor, otherwise there will be a thermal gradient in it, a thermal gradient that depends greatly on the geometry of the entire installation. So is the 160°F source regulated? In which case the temperature is completely unaffected by the presence of the 2nd bar. In the case where the heater is a real heater i.e. it also has a geometrical thermal gradient, its temperature is not a uniform 160°F. But the nub of the matter is, what will change with the introduction of the brown bar? There are a number of scenarios:- 1/ Suppose the brown bar is a very good but not perfect coductor of heat and it is so big it touches the container wall and the heater so that heat has a fairly easy passage. The temperature between the heater and the bar now depends entirely where you measure it because it depends on the thermal conductivity of the materials of the heater and the bar. 2/ Let us now consider the case where the heater is a point and the bar also, so now conductivity has no role. This is a false proposition because a point has no surface area so it cannot, at 160°F or any other temperature, emit any energy. Lets ignore that and say there is a temperature gradient from a point at 160°F in the centre of Dr Spencer's container to the edge at 0°F. The temperature of the brown point in such an arrangement would depend on the position of the point and, since the point also has no surface area, it isn't affected by any emmission or absorption, just by the local photon intensity (the energy of the photons coming from the heater is not changed by the distance from the heater but the intensity i.e. photons per cm^2 is) falls according to the inverse square law. You will have noticed that there are many ifs and buts associated with my explanation but at least it tries to make something out of Dr. Spencer's quite unrealistic proposition.
  42. Renewable Baseload Energy
    A very informative article which is a breath of fresh air compared to some of the extreme pro-nuclear propaganda being posted here. As most of us agree, nuclear will take its place among a future supply which will eventually (sooner rather than later, hopefully) be dominated by renewables, because we need to ensure that renewables are the future - to get us away from dirty and dangerous carbon and nuclear.
  43. Renewable Baseload Energy
    RSVP @275, Excellent post and so obvious too!
  44. Renewable Baseload Energy
    swieder, It is you that should read the lead article. The opening paragraph poses the questions to be answerd on this thread: "A common argument against investing in renewable energy technology is that it cannot provide baseload power - that is, the ability to provide energy at all times on all days. This raises two questions - (i) are there renewable energy sources that can provide baseload power, and (ii) do we even need renewable baseload energy?" The answer to the question posed in the first sentence is NO!. Renewables (non hydro) cannot provide baseload power. Geothermal can in volcanic areas and biomass can but only small quantities. Geothermal and biomass are insignificant in the scheme of what is required. "(i) are there renewable energy sources that can provide baseload power" The answer is NO! if we exclude hydro which firstly is not approved by Greenies and secondly there is little viable capacity left to be developed, especially in Australia which is the location I am talking about. "(ii) do we even need renewable baseload energy?" Clearly the answer is that we Do need baseload generation. Since it cannot be provided by non hydro renewables it needs to be provided by something else - either fossil fules or unprintable. This is clearly explainded in the article "the case for baseload" posted @ #271. You have your answers. I look forward to your acceptance of them (or further loss of credibility and further demonstration of lack of capacity for objective analysis)
  45. Renewable Baseload Energy
    archiesteel #183 @RSVP: "As to what other posters have said, and no lack of sincerity, it is precisely the great energy associated with fossil fuels that led to the population explosion in the first place." I'm sure you can provide scientific evidence that the two are directly correlated? I'm intrigued by this idea, because the countries that have had the biggest population increases are far from being the ones with the most gas-powered vehicles per capita. I'll be waiting for that..." Sorry to keep you waiting. It's a long story, and can be told many ways. It should be pretty obvious that unless a household, farm, or small village is able to survive on local subsistence, there are very real dependencies on transport. Transport to export, and inport goods. For instance, you just might need some rebarb, cement, bricks etc. for building as your population expands. Some places dont do too well living in tents. While not impossible, modern conveniences such as having a roof over your head provide free time for other ways of being productive, and have in so doing sustained expansion. (And by the way, that heavy metal normally comes from some far off fossile fuel driven foundry). Fossil fuels have facilitated growth regardless of whether the majority of a population owned its own motor vehicle or not. Ironically, after laying down rail, and opening and paving roads to make places more accessible, in many cases those same roads have served to ultimately de-populate many rural areas, as less hands have been needed on farms due to mechanized farming, (run by fossil fuels). As far as providing correlative evidence, simply consider the world population before the Industrial Revolution. Modern science tells us we've been homo sapiens for a few million years now. Plot fossil fuel consumption and population vs time, and see how it doesnt resemble the kinds of hockey stick graphs touted on this website making a case for correlation between CO2 and temperature. This one goes back two million years, not just two thousand. And by the way, the problem is not in the excesses of those water skiing off their yachts, but the ever so tenuous link for those whose meal unfortunately depend on the arrival of a container vessel somewhere, which in turn depends on the price of a barrel of oil. Most unfortunately, this includes about 99 percent of the human race.
  46. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #253 Riccardo you wrote:- " part of the spectrum. " Your argument is that something can be 'black' in part of the spectrum. No it can't. On that basis a bright yellow surface can be called 'black' because it has nothing in the blue part of the spectrum, green has nothing in the red or blue part of the spectrum. When doing thermal and energy calculations black must mean 100% of the spectrum or you will get a false answer. A black body absorbs 100% of the spectrum by definition. A black body (above 0K) emits (with different intensity) in 100% of the spectrum, by definition. 'Real' black bodies fall short of this 100% property for each of two possible reasons, they reflect like Earth or a mirror thus never quite 100%, or they transmit like glass or CO2 but never quite 100%. Glass is particularly interesting because it is obvious the reflection is where the refractive index changes. All materials, even gases, have a refractive index >1, consequently no material substance can behave according to the definition of a black body.
  47. Renewable Baseload Energy
    @Peter Lang "The proof of this [renewable baseload] is that it has never been done" I am not willing to accept this as an argument for this discussion, yet your insisting is entirely based on this. This attitude would have kept human mankind in stone-age or even in an earlier stage. And please apply it also to "your" solution of the 4th generation nuclear reactors and fusion. Much more important, though: this thread is not about "have renewable already demonstrated baseload capability?", would you please finally accept that? Maybe carefully read the intro article on top of this thread by dana1981.
  48. Renewable Baseload Energy
    actually thoughtful, Quokka posted the EIA's projected levelised costs of electricity generation for the USA. However, you also need to read the assumptions. You cannot (should not) compare the costs of solar and wind power with the cost of baseload power. They are not comparable. Solar and wind do not provide baseload power. The costs provided are for wind power that is supplied when the wind blows (whether wanted or not) and for solar power that is supplied when the sun shines (wanted or not. The wind and solar energy have low value - almost valueless to the electricity industry. They are intermittent and cannot be dispatched on demand (mostly). They are a nuisance. They would not be built if not for the subsidies and government regulations that mandate their power be purchased.
  49. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Swieder, I agree with you the discussion is fruitless and tedious. But the reason is that you are tied to a belief that renewables must be able to provide baseload power because you want them to, because ... well you just want them to. "Firstly, you constantly ignore all the hints given in this thread where mutliple times it was explained to you that none of the renewable as individual source or as individual generator is intended or ment to provide baseload power." Clearly you are not listening or not reading. I have addressed this - over and over again. I'll explain it simply for you. If you add wind power and solar power and biomass and geothermal and wave power and any more you want to add you raise the cost but still do not get the power reliability that society demands. The proof of this is that it has never been done despite the mantra you are repeating having been repeated over an over again for over 40 years. (except in unusual places like Iceland which sits on the Mid Atlantic Ridge and Norway with huge hydro potential). Work it out for yourself. If you assume $3,000/kW for each of these technologies (that is being generous because that is the cost of land-based wind power in Australia now and most of the others are far more expensive) then the cost of the five I mentioned is $15,000/kW. Add $1,000/kW for transmission for each and the total is $20,000/kW. But still you don't have a reliable power suppy, so you need to add the cost of fossil fuel back up (assume gas at $1,000/kW). So we are up to $21,000/kW to do what gas alone could do for $1,000/kW. However, in most places it is cheaper over all to do it with you know what rather than gas. Is any of this getting through to you?
  50. Renewable Baseload Energy
    actually thoughtful, here it is again: “The case for baseload” . Pity you didn't read it any of the times Quokka and I posted it previously at least three times so far). Perhaps you (and others who still don’t understand what baseload means) will read it and try to understand it this time. Is it any wonder my tone is not to yours and other liking. “The case for baseload”

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