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sailrick at 08:51 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Solar thermal power with heat storage makes it easier to integrate more intermittent sources, like PV solar and wind, into the grid. Another benefit of large sources of dispatchable power. While no definitively serious study, here's an interesting article on the above. It attempts to show that a grid with less baseload may not be a bad thing. "Why CSP Should Not Try To Be Coal" http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/04/why_csp_should_not_try_to_be_coal.html "Brighter than a Hundred Suns: Solar Power for the Southwest" from NREL "Even though some solar generating technologies could benefit from research and development, it was made clear that solar resources are abundant; are located where they are needed; that efficiencies from concentrating solar power (CSP) are good enough to justify deployment; and cost projections are very promising. All that solar power required, in the opinion of the experts, is an incubation period, where incentives are put in place that allow the transition of this emerging generating technology into the mainstream. It is our view that providing such an incubation period is not a leap of faith, but a proven recipe of success, as the emergence of wind generating technology in Europe has shown." "The success of an incubation period for solar power is all but guaranteed. This is because, unlike similar promises by the industry to introduce electric cars, CSP plants have already achieved a level of performance that makes them practical. They have proven their merit in over a decade of operation in the Mojave Desert, and cost-reduction projections for CSP technologies are based on the fact that they use ordinary technology in an extraordinary way." http://www.nrel.gov/csp/pdfs/33233.pdf this link is search results for "heat storage costs". Searched from NREL site. lots of articles the secret to low water use, high efficiency CSP http://climateprogress.org/2009/04/29/csp-concentrating-solar-power-heller-water-use/ In addition to Arizona's 285 GW solar thermal potential that I mentioned in a previous post, here are the numbers for some other states. New Mexico has another 220 GW, Nevada 165 GW, Utah 74 GW, California 98 GW, Colorado 38 GW, Oregon 12 GW, Kansas 6.7 GW, and West Texas has very large solar recources, for which I don't have the numbers. -
sailrick at 08:32 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
johnd You asked about the extra capacity needed to store energy with renewables. With solar thermal, the steadiness of the power is quite reliable, particularly with molten salt heat storage. The location in the desert means sunshine is quite predictable and reliable. Of course for a given generating capacity, more solar collectors are needed for heat storage, but this is an incremental cost, as the central plant doesn't change. The NREL figured that the upfront cost of adding heat storage is a wash over the long run. NREL gives solar thermal power tower plants with molten salt heat storage a 70% capacity factor and 50% for parabolic solar troughs with heat storage. NREL estimates that the cost of building solar thermal plants will fall dramatically as experience is gained and economies of scale come into play. Mass production of the components would drastically reduce costs. Although they expect early CSP plants to be expensive, those costs were predicted to fall to under 10cents/kWh fairly quicly, and 4-7 cents/kWh to be achieved when the industry gets up to scale. It should also be noted that power from solar thermal with heat storage should be able to command a higher price, since it is valuable dispatchable power. It can follow the load. Can solar thermal provide large amounts of power? You bet. Nuclear advocates in Arizona tried to have nuclear classified as a renewable, in order to get the same tax credits as solar. An odd choice when you consider the following. How many nuclear plants did they plan to build in Arizona? According to NREL, Arizona has 285 GW potential for solar thermal with heat storage. I figure thats about the equivalent of 150 nuclear power plants, adjusting for capacity factors. (rough estimate) In total there is about 1,000 GW potential in the western states, mostly southwestern, from solar thermal. This is only using carefully selected areas for development, avoiding many sensitive areas, human habitation, parks national forsests, rivers lakes, etc. -
sailrick at 08:25 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Solar thermal and heat storage "Profit Maximization Energy storage allows the plant operator to maximize profits. During periods of low hourly power prices, the operator can forgo generation and dump heat into storage; and at times of high prices, the plant can run at full capacity even without sun. Peak Shaving Solar generating capacity with heat storage can make other capacity in the market unnecessary. With heat storage the solar plant is able to “shave “ the peak load. Reducing Intermittence The ability of thermal solar plants to use heat energy storage to keep electric output constant: (1) reduces the cost associated with uncertainty surrounding power production; and (2) relieves concerns regarding electrical interconnection fees, regulation service charges, and transmission tariffs. Increasing Plant Utilization Solar plants equipped with heat storage have the ability to increase overall annual generation levels by 'spreading out' solar radiation to better match plant capacity." http://www.nrel.gov/csp/troughnet/pdfs/owens_storage_value.pdf -
muoncounter at 08:22 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
#160: "If the diagram were improved it would show just how this 33K comes about." That would be called reinventing the wheel. Look here, particularly the paragraph beginning "If an ideal thermally conductive blackbody was the same distance from the Sun as the Earth," -
sailrick at 08:20 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
An interesting approach to getting more energy out of the sun, is that being done by Zenith Solar of Israel and by Cogenra. In both cases, these are concentrating PV solar which produce both electricity and hot water. Solar cells in CPV systems need to be cooled to avoid heat damage and maintain efficiency. These two companies turn this liability into an asset. Zenith says they get an overall solar conversion efficiency of 75% Cogenra claims to capture 80% of the sun's energy. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/cogenra-hybrid-solar-system-80-percent-efficient-electricity-hot-water.php http://www.zenithsolar.com/index.html -
muoncounter at 08:12 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
#162: "So I can surely say that the emitting of radiation as a result of absorbing energy can be attributed to all gases." You can say whatever you like; whether what you say is correct or not might matter to some. Look at these lecture notes for some further basics, including a model of how gas molecules absorb energy. -
NQuestofApollo at 08:10 AM on 28 November 2010We're heading into an ice age
muoncounter: Thank you for your response and for the links. But, I'm having trouble making sense out of the Sicily paper as it relates to the EIA data. Here is the problem I am having: according to the EIA, between 1980 and 2006, globally, humans have cumulatively emitted over 600 Gton C from the "Consumption and Flaring of Fossil Fuels". (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls). Roll in the link that you sent and we are up to 663 Gton C by 2008. Assuming an average increase in anthropogenic CO2 emission per year of 2%, and that puts us at a cumulative 725 Gton C for the last 30 years. If we want to say that global warming started in 1895 (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983504,00.html) due to the flaring of fossil fuels - (assuming a constant of a 2% increase per year (which may or may not be reasonable)) then we had to be well beyond 1000 Gton C by the year 2000 (this excludes the first 145 years of the industrial revolution). So, how is it that the Sicily paper has us at cumulative of only 270 Gton C between 1750 and 2000? Am I not comparing apples and apples here? If I've made an error, I hope you can help me see where I went wrong. Thank you. -
Philippe Chantreau at 07:31 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
'But I wouldn't paint them all with the same brush.' Perhaps, but that brush is definitely appropriate for McIntyre himself. He should have encouraged his readers to do exactly what was described by caerbannog. He didn't. Why? It was so much better to accuse CRU of fraud, or Mann and Jones of being out there to destroy civilization (and I'm not making these up). CA became little more than an online lynch mob with better vocabulary than the one at WUWT. Actions clearly showed that there was never a true sincerity in McIntyre's skepticism; if there was, he would have done a lot more real work and published it. Just like Watts would have done some data analysis if he actually was intending to understand something. That's not what skeptics do. They accuse scientists systematically of fraud/incompetence but never provide any proof of it. Regular skeptics on this site do it quite often too. When shown that there was simply an element they overlooked, instead of duly apologizing, they say, "I'll look into it again and get back to you", which never happens. They complain about ad-homs all the time yet go on insulting personally those who disagree with them in ways that truly can not be let to appear on the site. Then they complain about censorship. When investigations are completed of blanket accusations (like the e-mails story) that conclude there is no fraud, they suggest the investigations themselves are fraud. When mathematical proof is shown that their allegations are false (as with Watts Canadian stations nonsense) they ignore it an wave their hands, or change the subject. Skeptics routinely claim that fraud is going to cost us trillions. I note that there still has not been one instance of scientific fraud confirmed after years of a scrutiny so intense that we can only wish it would be applied to other fields like, say, banking practices. After years of accusing the entire field of climate science to be riddled with fraud and error, skeptics' record of publications demonstrating so is non existent, but they really have nothing very interesting to publish. So they create their own journal out of nothingness (E&E) and claim high and loud that it is for them. Then, in true "skeptic" fashion, they make it their chief source of "scientific" information. What a joke. Seriously, how can a self professed skeptic consider trustworthy a source that has bias against a theory as its foundational premise? Would skeptics trust publications from a journal claiming to be a platform for pro-AGW papers? No, they would call it a political journal. They do that already with respectable publications, or accuse NSIDC of being a propaganda office (I'm still not making this up, it was read on skeptic sites). Why anyone who can reason would buy into the "skeptics" message would be incomprehensible, except for the fact that a careful examination almost always reveals an intense emotional bond to some ideology in which the idea of limiting carbon emissions does not fit. -
Bibliovermis at 07:22 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
Eric, It would be reasonable to assume that McIntyre was organizing the FoI requests in bad faith as he had a public history of acting in bad faith, e.g. 1934 vs. 1998. -
SoundOff at 07:18 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Thanks for the article and comments that follow. Very informative. Some more information that overlaps with the topic of this article … An interactive article on Powering a Green Planet: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=powering-a-green-planet The study summarized in the above link: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WindWaterSun1009.pdf -
Riccardo at 06:47 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
h-j-m "Seemingly no one contradicted my postulations concerning the behaviour of gases. So I can surely say that the emitting of radiation as a result of absorbing energy can be attributed to all gases" I can see one more possibility, people gave up trying to explain if you don't even bother to check this two century old physics. -
Eric (skeptic) at 06:46 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
caerbannog, my statement that you quoted in #49 is neutral narrative of what the CA regulars did and does not imply good faith or bad faith. As for CRU's response, it is summed up well by Kooiti Masuda in #35. Also as Kooiti points out, the CA regulars were a diverse crowd, so some may have been acting in bad faith in their FOI requests. But I wouldn't paint them all with the same brush. As for what Steve should have done instead, he should not have wasted his time. It is CRU itself that finally clarified their lack of raw data, lack of agreements, lack of records of who the data was given to (e.g. Rutherford), etc in http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/ After reading that memo it would be pointless to send an FOI for anything, but that could not be said before that memo was published. -
Riccardo at 06:43 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Heraclitus the first test installation in Italy is due to start flying in a matter of a few weeks. If succesfull, four more are already approved. The hardest part of the whole project has been burocratic, it went through several stop and go. An anecdote. In Italy the Kitegen needs a permanent flying permit from both Civil Aviation and Air Forces. For the first test flights they also needed a special permits for each flight. -
h-j-m at 06:40 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Concerning my post #148: Seemingly no one contradicted my postulations concerning the behaviour of gases. So I can surely say that the emitting of radiation as a result of absorbing energy can be attributed to all gases. This of cause leaves the green house gases off the hook when subjects like back-radiation are concerned, as it should be clear that the whole atmosphere plays a part in that game. That of cause, as Bibliovermis has correctly pointed out when he referred to Tyndall, points to the green house gasses speciality being able to trap (meaning store) heat and this way delay its further transmission. But considering this the most significant data with respect to global warming should be the specific thermal capacity of green house gases and I wonder why I can not recall it being mentioned. Someone willing to offer further information on this? -
dana1981 at 06:25 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
I'm on the same boat as Rob when it comes to nuclear. I have nothing against it, except that right now new nuclear power is very expensive. People argue that there are ways to make it cheaper - the same is true of renewable power. Concentrated solar thermal is expected to drop below 10 cents per kWh in the next decade as it achieves economies of scale and technology advancements, for example. I think nuclear power has its place as part of the solution, but it's no silver bullet. There are lots of obstacles, from a lack of sufficient nuclear engineers to NIMBY concerns to construction and decommissioning costs. It's *a* solution, not *the* solution. MarkR and Utahn both make good points regarding somewhat external costs that aren't usually accounted for. But this article doesn't focus on costs, it focuses on available and developing technologies. I'll also repeat Rob's comment to Camburn - all the technologies discussed in the article are in place or in development. As metioned, the Iowa wind CAES project is on track for completion in the next 4-5 years. The wind turbine air compressor just got funding from the DOE, as shown in the final link. tt23 also made a comment about geothermal not being available anywhere, which again indicates that he didn't really read the article, which specifically discusses EGS which could work basically everywhere. But now I'm just repeating what's in the article, so again I suggest that certain people look it over again and try actually reading it this time. -
dana1981 at 06:15 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
t23 - like The Ville, I don't even know where to start. I guess the easiest claim to debunk is that nuclear power receives no subsidies. The EIA found in 2007 nuclear power received $1.27 billion in subsidies that year alone (compared to $740 million in 1999). President Obama has also proposed to triple nuclear power loan guarantees to over $54 billion in 2011 - loans which put taxpayers at risk if the energy companies default, which often happens on nuclear projects. Nuclear power is very heavily subsidized, though not on a per-kWh basis because it's such a well-established technology (there's so much nuclear already in place). As for claiming the article is full of "half truths", those blue words are links. I suggest reading them if you don't believe what's said in the article. Every claim is supported by various studies or real-world examples. This seems to be one of those cases where people have their pre-conceived notions and are incapable of reading about the subject with an open mind. Not much I can do about that, other than suggesting that people re-read the article with their biases and pre-conceived notions in check. There was also a comment that the USA is falling behind in nuclear technology. The same comment applies to solar PV (Germany), solar thermal (Spain), wind (China), etc. Odd that people don't seem to object to the USA falling behind on these renewable technologies. -
dhogaza at 06:11 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
Eric (skeptic): "Each request contained just 4 or so countries so that it could not be rejected because of one country being proprietary. There were also requests to obtain the proprietary agreements for those countries that were deemed proprietary." 5 countries, exactly, using a cut-and-paste form. At least one such request was made without the cut-and-paster from the horde having read instructions, because the section listing the five countries being requested was left ... BLANK! BTW, UK FOI law also allows for the agency not providing data that the requester can get elsewhere, which in the case of those countries that were not holding it as proprietary data is easy - you can get it from the global repository maintained by the US. You can even get scans of the original data sheets if you want *really raw* data. And, yes, the CA campaign was asking people to submit five countries per request, whether or not they were holding their data as being proprietary. Sorting through them would only make the work more onerous. McI and the CA crew could've figured out which countries make data freely available by scrutinizing the GHCN database. "To deem that campaign "vexatious" as dhogaza says is fair enough" Thank you, therefore CRU had a legal basis for denying the FOI requests. Cameron seems to be conflating Phil Jones saying "I was wrong" with an admission of *illegal activity*, which is a very different thing. Tch tch. -
Utahn at 06:09 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
@MarkR 17 I agree that lack of cost of grid enhancement, storage, etc... assessments may paint a somewhat rosier picture than renewables actually have, but don't forget the much higher external costs (esp health) to burning coal, also not accounted for in those costs- in a recent study here it was estimated that coal's external costs exceed the direct costs: http://geology.utah.gov/sep/renewable_energy/co-benefits.htm -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:07 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Camburn @35... Can you define "in the foreseeable" for me? Dana is presenting here technologies that are all in the works, not just pie-in-the-sky ideas. I'll tell you, I'm not anti-nuclear. I think we need to quickly pull out all the stops and get the world off fossil fuels. But I would counter that nuclear is not a simple solution therefore can not be the only solution. Rationally dealing with the issues of climate change will require solving the problems of energy usage and production on as many different levels as possible. I'm always of the opinion that it's a mistake to dismiss any solution. Ultimately the market will select the best solutions. To echo actually thoughtful, once carbon is priced into the economy that's when things will get better. -
OPatrick at 05:58 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
A couple of years ago I came across the idea ofKiteGen, which seemed to have a lot of potential - I've heard little about it since. Does anyone know if there is anything in it? It seems to me that harnessing the more reliable high altitude winds would eliminate much of the need for baseload power. Offshore kitegen is the future, just no-one has realised this yet. -
WHATDOWEKNOW at 05:42 AM on 28 November 2010It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
kdkd #26. I haven't looked at your analyses yet; I simply haven't had the time yet. I will look at it when I can asap, and I really thank you for providing this and also the bottom line that CO2 overtook solar variability some time in the mid-20th century is interesting. The nature reference is very appropriate. I've been thinking of applying economical/stock market data analysis to the global temp, PDO and ENSO data. Such as momentum, RSI, or stochastic indicators like MACD; as all those are used to determine which way stocks are moving to make trading decisions. For example, Momentum (M) measures the acceleration rate of a stock's price. This positive or negative value is then plotted around a zero line; where positive indicates (future) increasing prices and negative values (future) decreasing prices. In this case it can simply be applied to the rise and fall of global temp. M = V - Vx ; V is the latest price, and Vx is the closing price x number of days ago. When applied to global temp V is current monthly temp, Vx is say last month's temp. This could maybe give a could idea about the last This then should be read together with the relative strength indicator (RSI determines the true value of an oscillator: RSI = 100 - (100/(1 + RS)), where RS = Average of x days’ up closes Average of x days’ down closes; which in global temp terms means average of x month's of increasing temps and average of x month's increasing temps) Applying such indicators to the last decade, for example, should give valuable insight on which direction global temperatures are and will be moving in the near future. This in turn is given the current debate that global surface temps since 1998 or 2007 haven't risen while CO2 levels have a great tool. ps: there is nothing wrong with crude analyses. Those are excellent for pattern-recognition and then further in-depth analyses. muoncounter #26: many authors refer to them self in their own papers. The nr of self-references is not an indication on the validity of the data-analyses presented. One of the reasons often is that the author is one of very few within that particular area of research. Just judge the paper on content, quality, argument and validity; not on references. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 05:15 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
At least no one who thinks it through would conclude that McIntyre et al. are acting in good faith. 1. McIntyre set up the whole FOI affair. 2. He knows what requests were sent in to the CRU. 3. He knows the responses. 4. He knows the law. 5. I think he would know of any failure to comply with the law. 6. I don't think he is the type to hold back this information. 7. He has not announced "Cool it folks. There is no violation here." 8. By innuendo (or whatever his exact words) he lets people think his FOI requests were not answered properly and legally. QED -
actually thoughtful at 04:38 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Camburn - does the rest of the world include Germany? They are, I believe, the leaders in solar PV (and equal to the Northern US in terms of sun and clouds). Nuclear may have a transitional role. But it has so many questions and such high costs (and the amount of CO2 released for the concrete is staggering) it has to be a tier 2 solution. Also, a comment was made about no government subsidies. This is simply untrue. At a minimum the US government is supplying loan guarantees. More frightening - the US is providing liability limits to nuclear plants. As per usual - privatize profits and socialize risks. For the foreseeable future - just install the renewable technology we KNOW works - with no notable downsides, (and this is the part people keep ignoring) AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. When we get to the point of needing storage and/or baseload power - it will be a whole new world (in energy terms). Some of the pie-in-the-sky stuff will already be done, some will be ready, and some will remain "in the sky." How about we keep nuclear at 20% of US load for the next 20 years, then look around (all the while INSTALLING the known-good renewable technology). Once carbon is priced into the economy - the world will change (for the better). -
h-j-m at 04:33 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Phil, first you say as Bibliovermis did, that incoming solar radiation is not effected by green house gases. Now you state otherwise, but now you claim that the effect on outgoing radiation is greater though you don't say how much as well as to provide any evidence. OK, again that leaves all the work for me. Then I will try evaluate the effects. If I am not mistaken then usually differences between TOA and the earth surface are taken as a measurement of the green house effect. Seems quite reasonable, let me try. I suppose all can agree that I use the numbers provided by the Trenberth et al. diagram I have included in my post #50. It says incoming at TOA 341, reflected 102 and absorbed at surface 161. As the reflected part is not affected by the green house effect it has to be taken out (subtracted from the TOA value) which leaves us with an effective TOA value of 239. So the relation is 239 / 161 = 1.48 Now we have surface radiation 396 Radiation leaving the atmosphere is at 239. Here the relation is 396 / 239 = 1.65. So, yes you are right, the green house house effect is stronger on outgoing radiation though I hardly assume the magnitude of the difference satisfied your strong wording. As to your comment about this being rather off topic I have to disagree for the reason that the whole argument of the lead article rests on the green house effect. So any discussion on this is quite on topic. -
Camburn at 04:30 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Rob@33: My point exactly. At this time, and in the foreseeable, there is no way to "store" that electricity economically. While we burn more coal/methane for energy and increase the co2 load, we have proven tech that will/could cut that co2 load. It is outright scandelous that we are not using that tech. That tech is nuclear. The rest of the world is embracing it. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html. We are being pound foolish to continue the path we are on. -
damorbel at 04:28 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #158 archiesteel you wrote@ "the graph simplifies how the heat exchange mechanisms work. You can't look at such a graph and claim it is supposed to accurately represent the path of each photon." I take it you mean the diagram in #153? I am not arguing that there aren't better explanations for the GH effect but this diagram is what is used by the IPCC in its Assessment Reports and its Summaries for Policymakers. This is what is used by government agencies like the Met Office when they are advising on energy source policies. The diagram is a principle feature of the IPCC AGW science, it appears in volumes of the various IPCC Assessment Reports called "The Scientific Basis". In thess volumes it is stated that the GHE warms the surface (on average) from 255K to 288K i.e. 33K. If the diagram were improved it would show just how this 33K comes about. As it stands there are no temperatures at all reported on it, this should be possible using themal models of the atmosphere such as the US Standard Atmosphere (which does not recognise the GHE), then perhaps the arguments of the IPCC will become more clear. -
actually thoughtful at 04:20 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
It is taken as axiomatic that PV panels last 30 years. Why? They might suffer some degradation of output, but not that much. What is a more realistic lifetime of a PV array? -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:18 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Camburn @24... Your entire comment here about not being able to run a business on intermittent power is totally ignoring the thrust of the entire article that Dana wrote. You are arguing as if, when the wind dies so does all the electricity. Go back and read the article again. It's all about how to smooth out the intermittency in order to deliver base load. For every weather cycle that might deliver a day or two of no wind conditions there are many more other days that deliver high winds that would outpace the demand. The point is to capture and store that over capacity for later use. The other thing everyone seems to miss in this discussion is that current energy production suffers exactly the same kinds of issues of matching demand to production. We have base load units that end up on spin reserve at night. And then we have other plants that get turned on only during peak hours and lay idle the rest of the day. People get all twisted up in their shorts over the intermittency of renewables when the intermittency of demand is as big a problem to energy efficiency as anything. Most of the solutions that Dana is presenting here work just as effectively for all forms of electricity production to smooth the production/demand cycle. Peter Sinclair has a really good Youtube video on house electric vehicles play into the mix. -
Paul D at 04:13 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
tt23: "As I said above, people knew about the potential of renewable resources since they were people around. Most civilization perished as these renewable resources proved again and again as insufficient to sustain them." That is totally incorrect. They were not abandoned because they couldn't sustain the population. They were abandoned because fossil fuels came along, that helped the population grow beyond what previous technologies could support. Civilization wouldn't have perished just because it continued using wind and water to power it's needs. The population would have been restricted, that isn't the same thing. And BTW repeating something that has been rebutted in a previous comment doesn't make it correct again. (re The Ville comment 20). -
Nick Palmer at 04:12 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
tt23@27 we will switch to breeders, which is tested and proved technology since the early 1050s. Then we would have to deal with the consequences of a very widespread plutonium economy. Just imagine what might happen if Iran, North Korea, Chechnya etc had easy access to tonnes of the stuff. -
actually thoughtful at 03:50 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
The mention of APS is interesting, but not surprising. After fighting renewables for decades, the company appears to be pursuing distributed energy with a vengeance. Both with solar thermal, and robust support for rooftop PV. We have so far to go with direct-to-grid renewables (ie no storage) that the lack of storage should in no way be seen as a counter to renewables. Indeed, by the time we get to this issue, we may find renewables are doing just fine. While this is a good overview - all these items in the future and utility level solutions leave me cold. Every poster here should put solar (heating first) on their roof, wind in their yard, solar PV, ground source heat pump (all of course, where practicable - but that is almost everywhere for at least one). The point is: we already know how to solve it - NOW. Yes, we can improve the solution going forward, but there is a temptation to say "well - efficiencies are going up, price coming down, let's see what the utility does...." But that ignores the key tool we have - swaying public opinion by actions. Humans response VERY STRONGLY to what the other guy does. You are the other guy - lead the way. -
Paul D at 03:48 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
tt23: "PV...results in large quantities of electronics waste which none has any idea how to treat on the scale when PV would make a visible dent in electricity production." Urm, if you are worried about electronics waste, why promote an energy source that supports an electronics market. You are shooting your own foot again. -
tt23 at 03:44 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Sorry I typed too fast, and one cannot edit the posts! The last few paragraphs get screwed beyond comprehension, so here is a better version: > As I said above, the potential of renewable energy has only just been tapped, which has the mainstream energy suppliers scared out of their minds! As I said above, people knew about the potential of renewable resources since there were people around. Most civilizations perished as these renewable resources proved again and again as insufficient to sustain them, primarily by exhaustion of wood. Modern civilization developed after it tapped controllable and scalable energy sources with orders of magnitude higher energy density than these renewable ones. To get out of our current dire predicament we need to step up several more orders of magnitude in energy density with a clean and sustainable energy source alternative, which has the crucial qualities of scalability and controllability. Fortunately we already have one - nuclear fission. -
tt23 at 03:37 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
@Marcus at 18:05 PM on 27 November, 2010 > tt23-ah, the old "nuclear energy will save the day" speech-though you took a while to get around to it. Face facts, nuclear power is a pipe dream. Do you realize that nuclear power is the youngest source of energy? While the civilization spent thousands years developing wind energy, the fundamental physics beyond fission was only realized 60 years ago! Do you realize that nuclear in the US produces more electricity than the entire grid produces > 60 years of R&D & government subsidies, Nuclear power reactors receive NO subsidies. They actually have to pay large fees, such as the $4 000 000 / year / reactor regulatory fee. They are also the only single one energy source which has to pay for its own decommissioning, and for the treatment of spent fuel (in two separate accounts). No other energy source does that, and if any other source was held to such standards, it would perish over night. > & its still one of the most expensive forms of electricity around. Actually it is the one cheapest electricity source, you were badly misinformed: http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedImages/org/info/US_ElectProduction_Costs.jpg > Even PV's are threatening to provide cheaper electricity over the next 5-10 years. However, unlike nuclear power, PV's don't generate large quantities of long-lived nuclear waste, Instead of easily & safely stored small amounts of solid waste, it generates persistent pollution such as silicon tetrachloride, and results in large quantities of electronics waste which none has any idea how to treat on the scale when PV would make a visible dent in electricity production. > don't use up precious water The PV panels or mirrors need cleaning. The largest nuclear power in the US is actually in the desert, happily using only waste water from a nearest city. > & don't generate large quantities of surplus electricity during off-peak periods. Which we need for charging up electric cars. PV on the other hand is only useful for hot sunny days AC, and even then is mismatched with electricity demand curve by some 4 hours, mandating another source to back it up, not speaking about how to power civilization in the night, or in places where cloudless sunny days are exception not a norm. > Also, what happens when those 80 years worth of uranium reserves run dry? We will switch to breeders, which is tested and proved technology since the early 1050s. There is enough uranium to power civilization for several billion (10^9) years, and then there is thorium. See the calculation here: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html > The reality is that, with proper storage technologies, most of the currently available renewable energy technologies are already capable of producing close to base-load power. The reality is we do not have the "proper storage technology". Not even close. Again, the largest storage we actually have (i.e. not a pipe dream), is pumped hydro, and it was not even mentioned in the list of author's fantasies . > Developments over the next decade will probably bring them up to base-load capacity-assuming they get the public funding they deserve, but have for so long been denied. We see the disastrous results in Europe already. Despite all the R&D funding and subsidies. > Of course, then you have tidal streams-which are already capable of producing reliable power. Then you have bio-gas from landfill, sewerage plants, forest plantations & farms. They're already in the process of generating electricity using osmotic potential-so it probably won't be long before Osmosis plants will be generating base-load electricity. Sorry these are recycled hypes from 30 years ago. 25 kWe of biogas per landfill are not going to cut it. ? As I said above, the potential of renewable energy has only just been tapped, which has the mainstream energy suppliers scared out of their minds! As I said above, people knew about the potential of renewable resources since they were people around. Most civilization perished as these renewable resources proved again and again as insufficient to sustain them. Modern civilization developed after it tapped controllable and scalable energy sources with orders of magnitude higher energy density. To get out of our current dire predicament we need to step up several more orders of magnitude in energy density with a clean and sustainable energy source. Fortunately we already have one - nuclear fission. -
Camburn at 03:11 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Thank you tt23@25. Thorium is a very viable alternative which the US has bountiful supplies of. While the rest of the world races ahead with nuclear tech, the US lags behind further and further. -
caerbannog at 02:54 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
Here's how *honest* skeptics would have dealt with the CRU. *Honest* skeptics would have read up on the CRU's temperature-computation methods (which are openly published). After being told by the CRU that data from certain met offices could not be supplied due to nondisclosure agreements, *honest* skeptics would have contacted the respective met offices directly and obtained the temperature from from the met offices themselves. As for the freely-available public-domain temperature data, *honest* skeptics would have downloaded that data themselves. *Honest* skeptics would then have performed their own independent temperature analysis using the treasure-trove of free/open-source software development and data-analysis tools available to anyone with Internet access. *Honest* skeptics would have published their results, either in an "open-access" on-line journal or on their own web-site. That's what *honest* skeptics would do (and have done). -
tt23 at 02:49 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
@Marcus at 17:57 PM on 27 November, 2010 Thorium was not developed for several reasons: it was not chosen in the early days due to the problem of making thorium derived fissile into a warhead due to U232 contamination which decay chains produce strong gamma radiation which will kill your workers, screw your weapon's electronics and chemical explosives, and tell everyone where it is, in short. Later after a brief investigation and two operational test reactors it fell out of favor compared to uranium/plutonium route due to several turns of history, mainly the large investment into the U/Pu route, which was found good enough; and personal politics within the AEC. It is similar to why we use PWRs now: they were developed by the Navy and found to be good enough. Anyway, the political/societal priorities had changed dramatically since the 1970s, so it makes a good sense to give thorium a second look. I would recommend brief primer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk Also your statement is not entirely accurate, India has developed their own way of using thorium commercially. They already have small test reactor successfully up and running in Kalpakkam, and several large scale (500MWe) reactors are already under construction. The first one should turn on next year. It is really a shame that US decided to get left behind in this crucial technology, and wishful thinking about renewables certainly did the job of cementing in our coal and gas based infrastructure. -
caerbannog at 02:41 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
Instead what happened was a CA-coordinated campaign to make requests for different countries not under proprietary agreements. Each request contained just 4 or so countries so that it could not be rejected because of one country being proprietary. There were also requests to obtain the proprietary agreements for those countries that were deemed proprietary. The above statement is flat-out dishonest. Nobody with any integrity would even think about implying that CA was acting in good faith. If the CA crew wanted to see the nondisclosure agreements, then why didn't they bother to contact the national met offices directly instead of pestering a small organization with fewer than 5 FTE's? The CA folks certainly were fully aware that the CRU had minimal administrative support staff and that the administrative burden would fall on already-overworked scientists. So if the CA folks really wanted to see the nondisclosure agreements in question, why couldn't they either track down the respective met offices' web-sites or pick up the phone and call them? And the reason, of course, is that the CA folks more interested in harassing the CRU scientists than they were in doing any science. Anyone who claims otherwise is just plain dishonest. -
h-j-m at 02:33 AM on 28 November 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Bibliovermis wrote: "That spectral chart is a visual example of what I said - incoming solar energy is primarily in the form of visible & UV light." So far so true if you define primarily to be more than 50%. But I would not dare to call 45% negligible. Further you stated that incoming solar radiation is not effected by green house gases but the chart clearly shows the opposite. -
Camburn at 02:29 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
michael sweet: The wind corridor is vast, but when it slows down it does slow down over a wide area. http://minnkota.com/ Look at Astabula and Langdon as these are two large wind farms. They are approx 140 miles apart as the crow flies. I have talked with Minnkota as to wind variability. I had no idea that when the wind dies at one station, it dies over SD, Iowa, Minn, ND etc. I do not know if the wind dies in Texas at the same time as it does in the upper midwest. When examining baseload, one has to look at all users. Commercial/residential etc. You can not run a business with intermitent power. And in ND, Minn, SD etc, you can't decide not to heat your home for several hours without consequences. Solar is not an option at the northern latitudes. Not only do we have less sun, we have more clouds. Fact of life. On any grid that goes great distances, there is loss of power. One of the main stumbling blocks to ND selling wind energy to Chicago has been that loss. People are demanding efficiency, which should be done. I wish it was simple in scope. That wind/solar etc could supply the energy needs of the US on a cost basis similiar to what we currently have. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 02:27 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
Some sane person, I for get who, summed this up months ago by saying almost exactly this: "I read the emails and what I learned is that there was someone named McIntyre who no one wanted to do any favors." -
Daniel Bailey at 02:04 AM on 28 November 2010Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
Re: gallopingcamel (68) The portion of your statement"I hope we can agree that 1976-2005 was a period of warming
that I agree with I have underlined. At no point in the study do the authors characterize the difference in CRM and HRM at terms similar to what you describe. Because human's ability to adapt is remarkable, it would be difficult to compare and contrast properly actual CRM and HRM even within one country (let alone expanding the scope to other areas). The focus of the study was narrow: to examine changes in CRM, changes in HRM, delineate any of the attribution of the change to adaption (if any) and to the warming of winters and summers due to AGW (if any). They did find that, even with milder winters, human adaption to cold was significant. But they also found that human adaptation to heat was less so (perhaps for the reasons you delineate). The authors also posit thatso they are saying that the increase in mortality due to rising temperatures is orders of magnitude smaller the decrease in cold related mortality (at least in England).""With regard to heat-related mortality, future changes in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves also pose a concern and raise the question whether adaptation will manage to keep pace with such changes. In the UK there has been little adaptation to warmer temperatures."
Future warming (if any, even unattributed warming) will be a bad thing for HRM in the UK. It is often difficult, even for experts in statistical analysis, to make proper comparisons (i.e., apples-to-apples comparisons). Hence my point about apples and oranges, breadfruit, and Na'vi. The further one gets from what the actual study was powered to detect, the further one gets from making apples-to-apples comparisons. It would have been nice if the study had been powered to directly compare HRM to CRM, changes therein, and potential impacts of climate change (human-caused) upon HRM and CRM. Since it wasn't, one has to appropriately use what one has. The expected increase in temperatures still in the pipeline will adversely affect much more than the UK or Canada. But I think we actually have less differences between us now with regards to the Christidis et al. study than when we began this exchange. Thank you for the pleasant dialogue and quality of discussion. It has been a breath of fresh air, unlike many others I have participated in on SkS or elsewhere. The Yooper -
Pete Dunkelberg at 01:33 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
Camburn, at first you seem to be saying something was done "improperly" in your opinion, making it "wrong" in your opinion. But you want to make your opinion into a fact, insisting later that "It is a legal issue, nothing else." "CRU did not follow the law. It is that plain and simple...and yes it is." Camburn, after a careful investigation of the matter, no charges were filed. Well known reasons for this are: 1. You can't give out information you don't have 2. It is illegal to give out information that you have under a non-disclosure agreement. 3. The law gives protection from vexatious requests. Camburn, if you just don't like the CRU that is your privilege. But if as you have said it is a legal issue only, there is no wrong. -
michael sweet at 01:28 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Dana, Excellent post. I'm wondering in a country like the USA, which is large and has large wind resources, how much does having big wind farms in North Dakota and Texas (and in between) counter the issue of low winds. How often is it windless over the entire center of the US? I understand that Australia is smaller and might have more windless days over the entire country, how often does that happen? What about Europe? -
Eric (skeptic) at 01:19 AM on 28 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
As many have mentioned, there is lots of waste in our (U.S.) cheap energy market. To help define and eliminate waste the power prices can be set in ways that provide the greatest incentive to match the availability of renewable power. It is easy to envision a few dollars of computer and network hardware in each appliance and around the grid to save a lot on both generation and transmission costs. Such a system could easily handle variations in wind or partly cloudy solar days, for example. (BU Engineering magazine has the Fall issue devoted to smart solutions where I found a reference to this article) http://www.bu.edu/pcms/caramanis/TaborsParkerCaramanisIEEEPaperSmart%20Grid%20HICSS%2005-01-03.pdf -
kdkd at 00:01 AM on 28 November 2010Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
KL #98 Oh for goodness sake. I pointed out a method by which you could evaluate the importance of anthropogenic warming with using all the questionable high uncertainty measurements to one side, or as secondary data. But as your ideologically motivated argument relies on magnifying this uncertainty out of all proportion to its importance, you refuse to look at anything except a very small part of the temperature record. Very poor methods there, you've really got to try a lot harder. Very poor indeed. -
Eric (skeptic) at 23:29 PM on 27 November 2010Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
#33 Marcus, neither you nor dhogaza provided any details of specific requests made and that "McI and the CA crew knew that CRU could not release the small amount of data deemed to be proprietary by a few countries which owned it. McI and the CA crew peppered CRU with FOIs demanding this data anyway" Instead what happened was a CA-coordinated campaign to make requests for different countries not under proprietary agreements. Each request contained just 4 or so countries so that it could not be rejected because of one country being proprietary. There were also requests to obtain the proprietary agreements for those countries that were deemed proprietary. To deem that campaign "vexatious" as dhogaza says is fair enough. But it is not fair to characterize it as asking for a "small amount" of data over and over. -
Ken Lambert at 23:04 PM on 27 November 2010Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
archiesteel #96 "Oh, and AGW theory isn't based on lost data, but on sound, verified science. The fact that the original, non-normalized data (still available from national weather services) is or isn't in CRU's possession is completely irrelevant. It's a red herring, just like pretty much your entire contribution to this site." The topic of this thread is Climategate - hiding the decline. Hiding the delcine relates to the treatment by CRU's Jones of tree ring temperature proxies which were spliced with thermometer data after 1960 - when the proxy no longer matched the warming trend. All the raw global thermometer data was collected and many (if not all) 'corrected' by CRU to produce the surface temp series HADCRUT etc. As even kdkd says ""Even if we take the idea that the "Nature trick" was dodgy...", indeed we surely can ask for an independent verification of the CRU 'corrections' to the raw surface temperature data - by simply asking CRU for a copy of the raw data. Unfortunately CRU 'lost' this raw input data Of course it has has the output with a description of how it was processed in the literature somewhere going back in time. In plain language - do dodgy once and don't be surprised if others want to look at your other 'tricks' to verify there is no other 'dodginess'. Archiesteel - I can't remember which thread I last conversed with you but your ungenerous remark does not fit with my recollection of the weakness of your contribution. -
Paul D at 22:31 PM on 27 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
tt23: "Renewable energy advocates have been posting wishful thinking along these lines for well over two decades...however thinking we can build a backbone of industrial society using these sources is delusional wishful thinking, which I object to." Status Quo advocates have been posting fantasies about maintaining the current way of life for decades. Such delusional thinking misses the point, which is we need sustainable systems that complement our environment. Building a backbone for a sustainable society is the goal, not a crash and burn 'industrial society'. -
Paul D at 22:23 PM on 27 November 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
tt23: "The fundamental reason for this is the same as why these energy sources were abandoned by our ancestors some 200 years ago: low energy density and finicky energy flows related to these sources." There are so many assumptions and things wrong with that statement, it's hard to know where to start! 1. Today isn't the same as 200, 300 or 1000 years ago. I don't think Tudor Britain had access to microprocessors or the ability to store significant amounts of energy and use it where ever they wanted it. They also didn't know about global warming. 2. Although coal has a high energy density, if you work out the figures and include losses, more energy is used to operate a coal power station than it produces. It's only when you ignore the fact that a large chunk of a lump of coals energy is lost, that it becomes rational to use it. Energy density works in 'theory' but is usually lost in practical engineering. 3. In the past they couldn't distribute the information to manage the 'finicky' energy sources. It would have been impractical to send a man on a horse from the windmill to homes 100 miles away to tell them to use less wind energy for their wooden washing machine, because the wind died by a few metres per second. Today that information can be transmitted through the grid or down existing communications networks in seconds. Basically, you seem to have little imagination and not only misunderstand the past, but also the future!
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