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What Brett Kavanaugh on Supreme Court Could Mean for Climate Regulations by Marianne Lavelle, InsideClimate News, July 11, 2018

dinahlynns at 08:55 AM on 11 September 2018

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36

Just like electric cars are not as clean as people are led to believe.

When we acknowledge that 1. Climate change is fluid and 2. We are not going to stop it.

We need to make it so our environment will sustain us thru regional climate change.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Sloganeering snipped.

[PS] Please ensure that you are not simply repeating long debunked myths. See our Arguments, Taxonomy "its too hard". Also, note it is rate of change that is important and anything that slows it help. Uninformed opinions without presenting evidence to back them up will simply be deleted.

dinahlynns at 08:53 AM on 11 September 2018

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36

Sorry but renewable energy is not clean.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Please provide evidence for your contentions. Opinions in this venue carry little weight.

Doug_C at 07:53 AM on 11 September 2018

Kavanaugh’s views on EPA’s climate authority are dangerous and wrong

There's no question at all that the Trump administration has specifically targeted the EPA to dismantle its ability to regulate polluters.

The now disgraced Scott Pruitt sued the EPA multiple times before being appointed by Trump to head it. And as head of the EPA worked to dismanlte the agency from the inside.

All of the ways Scott Pruitt changed energy policy

"Pruitt backed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, and rolled back or targeted a number of other important energy and environmental regulations. He also pushed for a smaller EPA budget — a victory for conservatives who argued throughout Barack Obama’s presidency that the agency was bloated and needed to be significantly downsized.

During his tenure at the EPA, critics argued Pruitt’s deregulatory actions were an assault on meaningful Obama-era reforms. Supporters claimed Pruitt’s approach helped spur economic growth, especially in the domestic oil and gas industries."

It should come as no surprise that Trump's nominee to the SCUS is soft on meaningful powers for the EPA to regulate private sector polluters who have been protected at the highest level for decades.

It's clear now to anyone who accepts the evidence just how dangerous and destructive fossil fuel driven climate change is now and how it will become increasingly so in the coming years. It's clear that there needs to be significant regulatory powers given to government agencies to control and then phase out all fossil fuel use no matter the impacts to a few corporations no matter their size and economic and political clout.

Law must flow from genuine social license based on the best information, not fabricated evidence from special interests that are now almost totally cut off from the reality we all now face.

A reality that becomes increasingly catastrophic as time passes.

The SCUS decided over a decade ago that carbon dioxide in the excessive amounts human society now emits on a constant basis is in fact a major pollutant. THe EPA should have enacted standards long ago to control emissions from tail pipe and smoke stacks aimed at eventually ending the use of all fossil fuels.

Any legal decisions need to flow from that or they will in fact be not be real justice.

But then again, the current White House adimistration and the GOP dominated US Congress seem to have very little to do with real justice and responsible policy.

The draconian measures to confirm Kavanaugh are evidence of this with massive amounts of information being withheld from those outside the immediate confirmation process and a rush to confirm Kavanaugh before the November election.

This has nothing to do with appointing a responsible legal expert to a lifelong position which will have a huge impact on how laws are interpreted in the US. If Kavanaugh is confirm as a SCUS Justice then this will be one more instance of control being taken out the hands of the public in the interests of a sector that is already heading us all down one of the most destructive courses possible.

ubrew12 at 06:47 AM on 11 September 2018

Kavanaugh’s views on EPA’s climate authority are dangerous and wrong

Kavanaugh: "under our system of separation of powers... Congress is supposed to make the decision. You might say... this Congress is ... not going to do anything, but that’s not how we get to make decisions" What a weaselley cop-out. Congress made a decision, called the 'Clean Air Act'. And even if it doesn't apply, the current President would just declare 'National Security' if he wasn't already bought by the fossil-fueled Putin mafia. This is a national security emergency. No less than the Defense Department has said so. But I guess its not quite as 'urgent' as keeping people from flying to the U.S. from the Middle East, and separating children from their mothers at the Southern border.

michael sweet at 05:04 AM on 11 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

MA Rodgers,

Your illustration is carbon while GeoTim is stating CO2. Your 57 trillion tons must be corrected by 44/12 is approximately 210 trillion tons CO2: still much less than 3000 trillion tons.

The entire point is that it is easy to make an error. Your illustration is made by a professional and peer reviewed so the chance of error is much less.

It is easy to point out errors. It is difficult to do calculations exactly correctly. I always try to get a reference to eliminate errors.

MA Rodger at 18:59 PM on 10 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

michael sweet @65,

The error @64 surely has to be a simple decimal point issue. The graphic below (from here - it's a bit out-of-date as today's atmosphere with 408ppm CO2 contains 870 billion tons carbon) shows 57 trillion tons of carbon to be found on planet Earth, enough to make just 212 trillion tons of CO2. That's a long way short of the 3,000 to 7,000 trillion tons mentioned @64.

DOE Carbon Cyycle

michael sweet at 10:35 AM on 10 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

GeoTim,

According to Wikipedia, approximately 3200 gigatons or 3.2 trillion tons of CO2 are in the atmosphere. That is a factor of 1000 less than your 3 quadrillion tons. If I use your unsupported number of 150 billion tons per year, it would take about 20 years for all the carbon to cycle through plants. It appears you have misplaced a decimal again. Note that I have linked my sources of information so you can check them if you want to.

We have not discussed the much larger carbon reservoir in the ocean. The atmospheric and oceanic CO2 exchange and affect the calculation. Perhaps your number is all the carbon dioxide. In that case it would take longer for all the carbon to cycle through plants. It would all cycle through if you wait long enough. 150 billion tons/yr for plants seems low to me but I could not find a reference.

Essentially all carbon in food comes from the atmosphere.

I conclude (as is stated in the OP) that all the carbon we breath out is recycled into plants. I suggest you stop trying to do your own calculations and accept that scientists actually know what they are doing.

GeoTim at 08:38 AM on 10 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

There are about 3 to 7 quadrillion tons of CO2 (depending on source) in the atmosphere. Photosynthesis removes only about 150 billion tons of CO2 per year and can only remove about half of the CO2 resulting from burning fossil fuels. I don't think I can honestly state that all of the CO2 we breath out is recycled back into food.

Moderator Response:

[JH] Unless you can cite sources for your opinions, they are of little value on this venue. We are all about science-based discussions and not personal opinions that have no scientific underpinnings.

Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

Doug_C at 10:06 AM on 9 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Chris Snow @22

That would make a dramatic difference in some areas there.

"Our model results show that large-scale solar and wind farms in the Sahara would more than double the precipitation, especially in the Sahel, where the magnitude of rainfall increase is between 20mm and 500mm per year," said Dr Yan Li, the lead author of the paper from the University of Illinois, US.

"As a result, vegetation cover fraction increases by about 20%."

Build as much of the fabrication onsite then export the electricty all across North Africa, Middle East and Europe.

Wouldn't take long at all to make all the oil in the region totally redundant.

RedBaron at 08:29 AM on 9 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

Geo Tim,

You said, "My calculations indicate that we intake about 3.6 kg of CO2 per day and exhale about 360 kg of CO2 per day or a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere of 355 kg per day. Therefore, in a year, an average human on earth increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 130,000 kg or about 65 metric tons"

Here is the flaw in your calculations. CO2 doesn't magically derive from thin air. It comes from the food we eat. Now that carbon did come from the air.

So no matter how much CO2 we breathe out, it always comes directly or indirectly from food that fixed it out of the air to begin with. The net over a lifetime will always be almost exactly zero.

You can never have it move towards being a net emissions source ever, it breaks all kinds of laws of physics and conservation of mass etc... In rare cases it could end up being a very small net sink, due to the possibilty of your dead body being preserved and fossilized. (or in some cases your solid waste being used to sequester carbon in the soil) But it can NEVER EVER be a net emissions source because we all must eat food to grow. Never is it possible we manufacture new mass. If you ever do a calculation that makes it appear as if you created mass, then you simply made an error somewhere in your calculation, or missed an input.

Chris Snow at 06:47 AM on 9 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

An interesting article on the BBC News website.

<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45435593">Large-scale wind and solar power could green the Sahara</a>

Paragraph 7: "According to authors' calculations, a massive installation in the desert would generate more than four times the amount of energy that the world currently uses every year."

One Planet Only Forever at 06:37 AM on 9 September 2018

California's response to record wildfires: shift to 100% clean energy

Doug_C,

I meant to also include this article link to the oil tanker moratorium on the BC coast

GeoTim at 06:35 AM on 9 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

I do understand that the plants inhale and exhale CO2. I read that studies indicate the CO2 being inhaled by plants will reach a saturation point resulting in only CO2 exhalation. I assume that the plants that are being cut down to make way to grow the food for us humans (including to feed the animals we eat) are not as efficient at being net absorbers of CO2. I notice NASA has a satellite measuring CO2 of the earth which states that the highest concentrations of CO2 are over metropolises not forests. It would be interesting to compare metropolises in the developed areas (lots of burning of fossil fuels) to metropolises in underdeveloped areas (less fossil fuel use). I think the more populated countries were at the top of NASA'a list for CO2 concentrations.

One Planet Only Forever at 06:34 AM on 9 September 2018

California's response to record wildfires: shift to 100% clean energy

Doug_C,
My personal objective/ethic is to improve my awareness and understanding of what is going on and try to help develop a sustainable better future for humanity.

To me that means increasing awareness and understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular the Climate Action goal and support for the incrementally increased action that is written into the Paris Agreement to achieve the required limits of current day human impacts on future generations. Climate Action is like a keystone of the SDGs. The sooner and more significantly the Climate Action goals are achieved the easier it will be to achieve many of the SDGs.

I admit to being biased towards supporting leadership that I see acting 'more helpfully' towards the achievement of the 'complete set of SDGs and other Universal governing principles like the UN Declaration of Human Rights' (Big fan of the platform of the Green Party and the passion of their leader, May, who entered politics because of the damaging potential of Harper winning power in Canada).

I try to evaluate leaders by the likely result of all of their actions, not just a favourite action, and certainly not based any claims they make about a favourite issue. But because of Canada's multi-party system still choosing representatives through the fatally flawed First-Past-the-Post system (only 34% support wins when there are three candidates, 26% wins when there are four, 21% when there are five), I also have to evaluate their chance of winning in my riding (I mainly use the results of previous elections in my riding). That usually leads me to Vote 'against' the United greedy and intolerant groups claiming to be Right parties that have emerged Federally and Provincially in Canada (and have emerged in many other places around the world). I cannot simply vote for my most preferred alternative to those candidate(s). Without electoral reform I have to try to figure out how to vote for the most popular better option than the anti-Climate Action candidates in my riding (and encourage others to do the same). Note: Many political groups claiming to be on the Right, especially the ones calling themselves Conservative, can be seen to have developed into united collectives of greedier and less tolerant people supporting each other's unacceptable personal top interests, with one of the top interests being anti-climate action.

Your belief that 'Canadian Conservative Climate Action was more effective than Liberals Climate Action' indicates that I may be able to help you improve your awareness and understanding of the current actions and history of climate actions by the Liberals and Conservatives in Canada. I encourage you to do a more detailed historical review on your own, but I offer the following as a start (I have linked some statements to related articles that are not necessarily exclusively about the statement they link from):

the Conservatives have a history of more aggressively trying to expand oil sands investment and exporting than the Liberals (no matter who the leader was). And they creatively tried to make it 'sound good' by promoting ideas like the claim that 'emissions per unit of production' were the legitimate measure of action. By that standard, Canada could increase its total GHG as long as the rate of GHG per unit of oil sands produced was being reduced. And exporting bitumen, rather than upgrading before exporting, also reduces how much GHG Canada would have to officially count as Canada's impact (the Conservatives and their fans appear to lead the pack when it comes to figuring out creative ways to account for, or excuse, things).
a significant reason for the failure of the Chretien led Liberal Climate Action Plan was the refusal of the Conservative leadership of Alberta to participate. Alberta leaders even threatened unjustified legal actions in their fight against having limits imposed on what they could get away with. You could try to blame the Liberals for not simply imposing Federal requirements and penalties on Alberta, but you would have to ignore the realities of perceptions of popularity in politics.
when the Martin led Liberals lost minority power to the Conservatives, the Liberals launched an aggressive Climate Action Plan with Dion as the new Leader. Dion was very adamant (and knowledgeable), about needing to act to reduce GHG emissions. The Dion Liberals lost to the Conservatives who denied there was any need for Canada to do anything, excusing the resistance to behaving better because of claims like: Canada contributes so little to the global total or Canada would be at an economic disadvantage to the less responsible and less sustainable actions in the USA if it moved to more sustainable economic activity (the USA under the leadership of the Conservative cousins down there).
while the Conservatives were in power in Canada they modified the NEB approval process (creating the conditions that led to the Federal Court of Appeal decision against the approval of the Trans mountain Pipeline). And they weakened many environmental standards, like rules about what constituted a waterway that needed an assessment of potential impact. And they hid those regulatory changes in Omnibus Budget Bills to avoid having to debate and justify their actual merits.
the Conservatives also liked to declare that Canada's existing forests should be accounted as a credit against emissions. With that one act they could magically reduce Canada's reported GHG emissions (especially when compared to the amount calculated before forests were allowed to be counted - they really looked like effective Climate Action Leaders when they compared those forest adjusted updated GHG numbers to the previous numbers that had excluded forests), but they did not do it when the result was not going to be in their favour (A Chicago Tribune article and a Guardian article).
during the time of Conservative leadership, responsible provincial and municipal leadership actions, without support of the Federal Conservatives, made the significant difference to Canada's GHGs that the Conservatives claim was because of Federal Conservative action. They were the Federal leaders at the time so they claimed credit for what happened. They claimed credit for the decline of GHGs due to the decline of economic activity in Canada after the 2008 financial disaster that their Conservative cousins in the USA caused.

As for the actions of the Trudeau Liberals, they appear to have honoured the pipeline related promises made during the campaign (see this Global article - there are similar evaluations available). They:

did approve the Line 3 Replacement (that old line did need to be replaced or be shut-down, and it was all being done on existing, already affected, lands).
terminated the Northern Gateway Pipeline
did not support the Energy East Pipeline
established an oil tanker moratorium on the BC coast (which means no rail transport of bitumen to Prince George for export).
did approve the expansion of Trans Mountain. And the ads supporting Trans Mountain now state that the purchase was not done to 'increase the rate of oil sands production', it was done to ensure the oil sands product is exported in the safest way (once the pipeline starts operating, the less safe rail transport of bitumen that is currently occurring can be stopped. That valid promotional pitch for pipelines could come back to bite the pipeline promoters who would want rail plus more pipelines).

However, conspiracy theorists may claim that the Liberals were hoping for the court ruling to confirm that there had been inadequate consultation and inadequate action regarding Indigenous input. And the Federal Court of Appeal may not permit their decision to be appealed to the Supreme Court. And then Trudeau can keep his election promise to more legitimately address the concerns of the Indigenous populations that are impacted, particularly the coastal impacts of increased tanker traffic. He can approve a delayed completion of the pipeline with a significant increased associated cost to address safety concerns. That could include:

time and cost to properly study the tanker spill clean-up challenges and develop ways to significantly improve the very poor clean-up results of even the most rapid response of current technology (there really is no good research into how to clean up bitumen spills in waterways like the ones the tankers will travel along).
added costs before the pipeline can operate, including building the infrastructure and employing the needed emergency response teams to address those tanker spill concerns.
all of those added costs, including the added cost of maintaining a ready to act emergency response team, would have to be paid for by the companies using the pipeline to sell their products (it would be covered by the costs collected for product moved through the pipeline). And rail transport could be declared to be an unacceptable alternative because it is less safe than the pipeline. That would reduce investor interest in new oil sands operations. And it may shut down some of the older operations sooner since they could face added costs of reducing their GHG emissions to support the excuse that Alberta Oil Sands extraction, though among the highest impact oil sources, is done better than it could be gotten away with (it could easily be the highest impact oil source, but the sales pitch is that it is better than the worst that it could be). No direct actions would be required by the Federal Government to cause the wind-down, just the economics of being required to do things better and safer. Note that rather than Alberta oil sands being the highest impacting global source of oil, some people are celebrating the climate action leadership that makes it the 4th worst (after Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon) based on a recent study by a team led by Mohammad S. Masnadi, recently published in Science, that has been covered by many news media including Global News in Canada.

As you may surmise from my previous comment, and my opening to this comment, I am more disappointed by the actual reneging of the Liberals on their clearly stated promise that the 2015 election would be the last Federal election done with the undeniably fatally flawed First-Past-the-Post system, as system that makes it more likely that candidates who would do the least for climate action get elected because they are all in one party, with the more 'climate action concerned' candidates being in all of the other parties. Any change of the electoral system would likely reduce the chances of the Conservatives to win majority power in Canada.

In addition to electoral system reform in Canada, what is needed is 'truth in advertising' requirements on political marketing. Everyone should be appalled that Pepsi can be penalized severely for just hinting about a potential negative regarding a Coke product, but political marketing has few restrictions.

Political marketing is attacking climate science with little risk of potential legal penalty. Powerful wealthy people cannot be legally penalized for funding or participating in a misleading political marketing campaign. A business may face legal actions if they do misleading marketing for their benefit. Some oil companies are facing legal challenges for their misleading climate science marketing efforts. But there are no legal penalties for the elected representatives who participate in those misleading efforts, or for wealthy people who like that kind of leadership action.

There is a lot of what is going on to be angry about. But every more aware and considerate human should be focus on the misleading way political games are allowed to be played, with misleading marketers being free of potential serious penalty to discourage them from hoping to get away with unjustified winning. And caring and considerate people need to try to change the way that so many people seem to like the idea of being easily misled to support actions that are understandably harmful to the development of a sustainable future for humanity.

Climate Action is potentially the most important Sustainable Development Goal. More aggressive achievement of Climate Action makes it easier to achieve so many other goals. And people getting away with misleading appeals to selfish primitive human nature, in economics and politics, is the biggest impediment to improving support for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the Climate Action goal.

You are correct that a lot of people say they consider climate action important. What you may be missing is understanding what issues each of those people consider to be higher priorities than Climate Action. The real problem is people developing a preference for allowing their selfish primitive human nature driven interests to overpower their ability to thoughtfully and considerately become more aware and understanding in pursuit of how to be most helpful to the development of a sustainable better future for humanity.

I encourage you to continue to become more aware and share improved understanding to help develop a sustainable better future for humanity.

MA Rodger at 04:16 AM on 9 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

Geo Tim @60.

Don't thank me. You are still away with the fairies.

May I correct you once again. "Humans and animals" are not "the biggest contributor to CO2 increase" being part of the carbon cycle, as the OP explains. But in terms of ranking sources of exhaled CO2, as the biomass of domestic animals is 70% greater than human biomass (see graphic here which is Fig 1 from Bar-On et al (2018) 'The biomass distribution on Earth'), we can expect the breathed CO2 from livestock (mainly cattle) to exceed that from us humans. But the biggest biomass shown on that graphic is that of plants (7,500-times greater than human biomass) and plants also breathe CO2 (as well as absorb it for photosynthesis). And even though plants are quite sedentary and don't run around like animals, collectively they do exhale a lot of CO2, over ten-times the CO2 that mankind's fossil-fuel-use is responsible for, according to the research of Huntingdon et al (2017) and clearly described here by one of its authors.

GeoTim at 03:11 AM on 9 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

Thanks MA Rodger. I woke up thinking I had bungled that calculation again. 308 kg is about 0.308 metric tons which results in approximately 2.4 billion metric tons per year or about 6 percent of the contribution produced by burning fossil fuels. I just wanted to present the calculation to show that we are CO2 producing systems. One day when we stop using fossil fuels (ha ha) someone will say that humans and animals are the biggest contributors to CO2 increase. I wonder what dinosaur CO2 production was.

Eclectic at 22:37 PM on 8 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

MA Rodger @58 , as you well know, the "huge human bodily contribution of CO2 to our planetary atmosphere" is one of the many falsehood memes which is deeply imbedded in certain sections of the community, and is one which is a very uphill matter to correct. Not impossible to correct, but quite difficult.

Apropos nothing: I was looking through the Curry blog "ClimateEtc" just the other day, and found a comment that will amuse you. It was by "Russell Seitz" (regarding The Hockey Stick and its later replications/confirmations) :- "We are all indebted to [Mr X.] for so vividly illustrating the hazards of ignoring the climate science literature for decades on end."

~ Mr X. was one of the more intelligent of the crackpots to be found often in the blog's comments columns . . . but really, almost any denialist's name could have been inserted in its place.

MA Rodger at 19:37 PM on 8 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

Eclectic @57,

I think we waste our breath on this GeoTim. That the implications of the conservation of mass (which apparently holds the positon of a law of physics) set out by Michael Sweet @55 was ignored and only prompted a revision of what are obviously error-filled calculations; in my book this demonstrates trollish tendancies as well as innumeracy. (For the record, the calculation presented @56 for annual human CO2 exhalation looks about right, except is there really 2,000kg in a tonne?)

Eclectic at 16:39 PM on 8 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

GeoTim @56 , best if you forget your calculation altogether. It is irrelevant whether human out-breath is 1.2 billion or 12 billion tons of CO2 annually.

If you had read & understood the OP, then you would know that the nett contribution into the atmosphere from human out-breath — is very close to zero.

Okay, there would be a relatively microscopic contribution of fossil fuel CO2 — from the bubbles in the Coca-Cola and other soda-pop that you drink. But in realistic terms, that's mighty small. I would be interested to see what figure you can calculate that to be !

GeoTim at 15:29 PM on 8 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

I agree and thanks for keeping me honest. Assuming 1 ppm CO2 by volume in air is equal to 1.94 miiligrams per cubic meter, my corrected calculations indicate that we intake about 8.7 g of CO2 per day and exhale about 854 g of CO2 per day or a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere of 845 g per day. Therefore, in a year, an average human on earth increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 308 kg or about 0.15 metric tons. With about 7.5 billion people on earth today, this equates to approximately 1.2 billion metric tons per year. In 2014, it is estimated that the world produced about 36 billion metric tons of CO2 by burning fossil fuels. Therefore, breathing increases CO2 in atmosphere by about 3 percent that produced by burning fossil fuels.

Philippe Chantreau at 11:38 AM on 8 September 2018

Book Review: A Global Warming Primer, by Jeffrey Bennett

In case mods haven't noticed, claudiaevans' post at 16 is total spam.

Mick Stupp at 10:19 AM on 8 September 2018

CERN CLOUD experiment proved cosmic rays are causing global warming

Dr Kirkby’s discovery of the significance of biogenic vapours on aerosols is remarkable, but light on the chemistry and I’m struggling to find more detail; anyone have any good references? (i.e. what are biogenic vapours and what influences their global production rate?)

Also, seems to me likely there are some interdependencies here, e.g. photosynthesis converts more CO2 in stronger sunlight, but if this same sunlight also increases biogenic vapour production then this could increase cloud cover and regulate both processes. I’d like to have a stab at some transfer functions to look for instabilities there; but no idea how to estimate the biogenic vapour component.

Finally a belated thanks to MA Roger, post 20 above, for the reference. I must say, as suspect as that graph clearly is, more recent, reliable data does seem to reproduce it, at least in part. That, as I understood it, formed a significant part of the first of CLOUD’s goals.

michael sweet at 08:58 AM on 8 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

Geotim,

Since CO2 is 12/44 carbon if I exhaled 355 kilograms of CO2 that would be about 100 kg of carbon or more than my entire body mass. About 60% of my mass is water. Perhaps you need to review your calculations.

GeoTim at 08:44 AM on 8 September 2018

Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

“Does breathing increase CO2 in atmosphere?” is the question. The direct answer is humans inhale on average about 11,000 liters of air per day. The current concentration of CO2 in atmospheric air is about 410 parts per million (ppm). We exhale on average about 11,000 liters of air per day with a concentration of CO2 at about 40,000 ppm or one hundred times the concentration we inhale. My calculations indicate that we intake about 3.6 kg of CO2 per day and exhale about 360 kg of CO2 per day or a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere of 355 kg per day. Therefore, in a year, an average human on earth increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 130,000 kg or about 65 metric tons. With about 7.5 billion people on earth today, this equates to approximately 488,000 million metric tons per year. In 2014, it is estimated that the world produced about 36 billion metric tons of CO2 by burning fossil fuels. Therefore, breathing increases CO2 in atmosphere by about 1 percent that produced by burning fossil fuels.

Doug_C at 07:51 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

nigelj @20

There is good reason to question the value of some biofuels when you look at the cost of raising the crops used for feedstock and how some that can come from food production.

The difference with thermal depolymerization is it takes things we currently treat as waste and often struggle to dispose of safely as feedostock for a catalytic process that converts the waste to useful and marketable products.

One of the first things produced from the process is methane which can then be used to heat the water that is used in the process, I think about 80% of the energy needed is provided from the process itself.

Here's a list of potential feedstocks;

Feedstocks and outputs with thermal depolymerization

Everything from plastic, paper and offal to human sewage.

The potential to replace a lot of current waste handling infrastructure with something that produces near carbon neutral light crude oil, naptha and solids like black carbon seems like a smart use of technology while reducing many waste issues.

Why have any landfills for instance when we can use all organic waste as feedstocks and recycle all the non-organic material like metals, glass and ceramics.

nigelj at 07:05 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Doug_C @6

Ok good points, and I'm now persuaded in favour of thermyl depolymerisation. I have this bias against biofuels that keeps influencing me, and I must get rid of it.

-------------

Jef @8

"Modern civilization requires growth in order to avoid collapse."

Fallacy of argument from assertion. I suggest look up steady state (zero growth) economies on wikipedia. Japan had near zero growth for decades and didn't collapse.

The main challenge is financing. Bank lending is made assuming certain growth rates and this would have to change to some other model. I just suggest its a bit too pessmistic to assume there isn't some other potential model that could deal with zero growth.

--------------

Sunspot @15,

"And that means that, despite the millions of solar panels and windmills that have been installed in the past couple of decades, none of it has replaced a single barrel of oil. Not one barrel"

Ok but it obviously stopped even higher use of oil, which is a good thing.

At the risk of being pedantic, its unlikely anyone would rely just on solar power unless you live in northern africa for example. It will be combined with wind power and battery storage. Coal fired power stations in America have been replaced with combined wind / solar / battery packages.

But I'm trying to discern your real point. You appear to be saying the real problem is our huge appetite for the consumption of technology and energy intensive products.

In theory renewable energy could be substituted for oil without considering this element. Whats getting in the way is politics which has slowed down rapid mass deployment of renewable energy. Because of slow progress we do need to consider our use of energy. The first port of call is more efficient appliances. The next target is to own smaller and fewer appliances, so in other words be less materialstic.

Theres also an argument to conserve the use of scarce mineral resources given the prodigous rate the world is using them. The challenge is how do we get people to conserve energy and be less materialistic like this? Because humans are status seekers by nature, and having the latest technolgy has become a symbol of this for many people. Humans are also poor long term thinkers shown clearly by psychological studies.

We could of course use education programmes at every possible level to encourage less use of energy, and less materialism by expressing self worth in other ways, and we should also encourage an understanding that the world has finite resources and we need to start using them more prudently. The government could encourage lower use of energy and materials with better efficiency standards or some form of tax deduction. Given the escalating climate problem it could become urgently required.

However I'm left thinking what is really required is a complete change of socio economic and cultural mindset towards embracing environmental values and less materialism and this will take time, and is up against the profit motive of capitalism and people who want maximum instant gratification. This means maximum effort still needs to go into the deployment of solar and wind power and things like carbon taxes which help incentivise change.

Doug_C at 07:00 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

michael sweet @17

The energy potential of solar power is vast and it's just one alternative source of energy to replace fossil fuels. And as you say the technology is always adavancing as is the way to store and use the energy converted from sunlight.

Australia could easily replace all its fossil fuel energy production with solar. But it wouldn't need to, Australia also has huge areas of underlying hot crustal rock relatively close to the surface that can be utlized form geothermal power generation.

Geothermal power in Australia

The fact we aren't well into a global planned phase out of all fossil fuels has nothing to do with rational policy.

Doug_C at 06:26 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Sunspot @14

Solar power resources are effectively unlimited, built in a large enough scale they can power anything we want.

And solar power production is far more efficient and far less polluting than fossil fuels. PV cells are just one variety, there are also solar furnace power generation and passive solar. Most homes in Japan have solar hot water heaters installed on the roof with small backup heaters for cloudy days.

But we don't need to base our entire energy model on solar, there are many alternatives to fossil fuels.

- Geothermal power resources are vast, places like Australia have access to tens of thousands of years of geothermal power at current rates at relatively shallow depths.

Geothermal Energy Resources

There are many geothermal power plants already in operation around the globe and the untapped potential is virtually unlimited in current power demage terms.

Geothermal power plants global map

There's hydro-electric, tidal, biomass, and some forms of nuclear power that are far more abundant and sustainable than any fossil fuels.

There's no real limits in alternatives to fossil fuels despite what some still try and claim based on studies done with a thumb on the scales.

Like the one of solar power EROI that you refered to that underestimated the returns on building solar power production by an order of magnitude.

michael sweet at 06:08 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

DougC:

Interesting reference you cited. I noted that they conclude that in June, 2016, solar in Switzerland had an EROEI of 9-10. With technical improvements since then it will currently be higher. In locations with more sun (who goes to Switzerland for the sun?) the EROEI would be much higher. Locations like Arizona and Australia would have very high EROEI.

william5331 at 06:05 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Just one more instance where the logic is irrefutable but this abuse of the people of this planet is propped up by vested interest money in politics. It is clear what we should be campainging about so that we stop spinning our wheels with all the things we have to get done to save us from our sorry selves.

Sunspot at 05:30 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

And just one more thing - I keep hearing the assumption that we are well along the road to replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind. But here's the thing: the latest forecast is that the world is going to be demanding 100 million bpd of oil by the end of the year. A record. And that means that, despite the millions of solar panels and windmills that have been installed in the past couple of decades, none of it has replaced a single barrel of oil. Not one barrel! We need more oil. More natural gas. more coal. more solar panels. more windmills. More SUVs and big-screen TVs. This is not working. Not even close...

Sunspot at 05:15 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Well good. I'll worry about Hurricane Florence instead! But I still want to see a complete manufacturing cycle running totally from solar power. You have to start with the mining operations. Then processing of course. Building the solar panel factory. Every little bit of energy used to build a solar panel being provided by solar panels. No fossil fuels. Like I said - I think solar panels are just great. But I'm far from believing that we can run our civilization at anything approaching the current level from solar and wind. I hope I'm wrong. But don't bother to convince me with studies. Show me.

Doug_C at 03:13 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Sunspot @7

"I read somewhere recently that solar has a negative EROEI."

Probably one more instance of really bad science being done to either deny the science of climate change or the applicability of alternatives to fossil fuels.

Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response

Abstract:

"A recent paper by Ferroni and Hopkirk (2016) asserts that the ERoEI (also referred to as EROI) of photovoltaic (PV) systems is so low that they actually act as net energy sinks, rather than delivering energy to society. Such claim, if accurate, would call into question many energy investment decisions. In the same paper, a comparison is also drawn between PV and nuclear electricity. We have carefully analysed this paper, and found
methodological inconsistencies and calculation errors that, in combination, render its conclusions not scientifically sound. Ferroni and Hopkirk adopt ‘extended’ boundaries for their analysis of PV without
acknowledging that such choice of boundaries makes their results incompatible with those for all other technologies that have been analysed using more conventional boundaries, including nuclear energy with which the authors engage in multiple inconsistent comparisons. In addition, they use out-dated information, make invalid assumptions on PV specifications and other key parameters, and conduct calculation errors, including double counting. We herein provide revised EROI calculations for PV electricity in Switzerland, adopting both
conventional and ‘extended’ system boundaries, to contrast with their results, which points to an order-ofmagnitude underestimate of the EROI of PV in Switzerland by Ferroni and Hopkirk."

michael sweet at 02:47 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

From the OP: "The Trump administration could avoid the premature American deaths from coal pollution – which amount to about 52,000 per year in total"

And " Coal employment has dropped so low there are fewer than 53,000 coal miners in total in the U.S".

For every coal miners job one person is killed every year in the USA. Is it really worth it to kill someone else every year to preserve a coal miners job??

trstyles at 02:36 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

How many of the things we buy are really necessary? Or to put a finer point on it, how many people are employed in manufacturing and marketing items and services of far less importance than supplying clean energy and eliminating the host of problems associated with burnings fossil fuels.

It seems to me that a rather minor adjustment to the world economy could accommodate educating and re-educating workers. A somewhat larger, but by no means overwhelming, adjustment could make up for the inefficiencies in switching to solar, wind and other nonpoluting sources of energy.

Present technologies, while in need of improvement, are nevertheless already sufficient to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nor is there some overwhelming economic obstacle to deploying them. Eliminating planned obsolescence in a few key industries might just about cover it, possibly with some spare change left over.

It boils down to politics: matters of political will, organization and strategy. Now that is one hell of a problem, but let's try not to be overwhelmed. Keep in mind that the geopolitical Juggernaut is not a solid mass covered in seemless armor. Political systems are just that, complex systems true, but no more so than those of the natural world. Tackle them with the same level headed analytical techniques we apply to nature. Pressure points abound and perhaps there will be a favorable tipping point in there somewhere

Look at what the planet's aristocrats and oligarchs have managed in the last twenty years just through tugging the strings! They have plundered more resources than those necessary to stave off irreversible climate disaster for another decade, or two, perhaps even long enough to turn things around. The global economy is in need of an overhaul, but that process will stretch out for many decades. In the meantime, much can be accomplished merely by manipulating the existing system.

(I am profoundly pessimistic most of the time. A bit of arm waving and cheerleading helps to keep my spirits up. If you read all the way to this point, thank you for indulging me!)

Doug_C at 02:26 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Sunspot @7

You read somewhere something negative about solar power?

That's like sayng you read something that attacks the scientific basis of human driven climate change. The same groups are behind both disinformation campaigns.

Why and How Fossil Fuel and Utility Interests Are Attacking Clean Energy

This isn't about aesthetic appeal, this is about a functional replacement to an energy source that is already hugely expenisve in terms of human lives, financial cost and ecological damage. Half the Great Barrier Reef system dead and gone already and growing climate disaster worldwide.

"Unless you need a lot of electricity."

The amount of energy constantly being transmitted from the Sun to Earth is incredible, the amount of availble energy from fossil fuels is a tiny fraction of the energy potential of solar power.

Yes it's intermittent, which means as you replace coal, oil and gas fired power plants with solar power you also must construct grid scale power storage. Which we already have with pumped hydro, redox-flow, lithium and zinc-hybrid batteries. One more opportunity for technological and economic growth away from hugely expensive fossil fuels.

"Whether or not that's true ( and I have always suspected it), by the time you add up all the energy inputs to manufacturing these devices, transporting them, and installing them, there couldn't be much "energy profit" left, if any."

Basing our collective future on someone's suspicions is a very poor policy choice. Once solar production is built and installed, it converts sunlight into electricity for decades with no other inputs, the returns are impressive over the lifespan of the equipment. Your suspicions are baseless.

"And one thing I have never seen discussed - how are we going to replace all of these panels when they die. Because they do die. I guess they are up to about 25 years for a projected lifetime, but 25 years, 50 years...whatever. They all have to be thrown away and replaced. Right now we use the energy from fossil fuels to make solar panels. But when oil runs out - and it must - can we remake all of those solar panels with only energy from solar panels?"

Solar panels are already recycled, setting up a comprehensive system to recycle aging PV panels is going to be just one more part of a carbon free energy model that provides jobs and more economic opportunities.

The Opportunities of Solar Panel Recycling: What Happens to PV Panels When Their Life Cycle Ends

The more solar and other sustanable energy we build into the system, the less dependence there is on fossil fuels for anything. That includes building solar panels or any other technology that provides energy in a fossil free energy model, this should be obvious.

If we use up all the oil - and other fossil fuels - making solar panels will be the least of our worries the climatic impacts will be so catastrophic.

As I've already said, the more solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc... that we build into our grid and overall energy model, the less we depend of fossil fuels until they are completely removed from the energy model.

And then we will be using alternative sources of energy to base all economic actiivty and production on, there will be no need at all for any fossil fuels when that is done.

michael sweet at 02:25 AM on 8 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Sunspot,

The short answer to your questions is you are reading too many denier falsehoods. Please provide references to your sources of information. It is difficult to respond to "I read somewhere recently" and "one thing I have never seen discussed". Were these issues you thought up on your own?

This reference indicates that current solar panels return the energy needed to manufacture and install them in 3 years but with expected improvements in the future 1 year will be the payback time. Many peer reviewed references like here and here document that wind and solar can generate all the needed energy for the entire economy more cheaply than using fossil fuels. In addition, several hundred thousand deaths per year will be prevented from lower pollution. What do you imagine people will do in 100 years when all the fossil fuels are gone?

There have been great discussions about what to do with old panels. To start off, after 25 years most panels are producing 80-90% of what they did when new. The biggest difference wiith new panels is that the new ones have better technology so they produce more electricity. I have 2 25 year old panels on a boat and they produce the rated electricity when it is sunny. There is not even 10% decline. I am not going to replace them. Most old panels will go to developing countries to install new energy cheaply. This is already being done with wind generators.

Of course they can be recycled also. Deniers claim this will be a big issue but since all the materials are reusable I see no reason why they cannot be recycled. Please provide a reference that suggests this will be a problem.

jef12506 at 23:26 PM on 7 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Modern civilization requires growth in order to avoid collapse. Humanity has never transitioned away from any energy source. Even when new sources are brought on line old sources are still used too until they are completely uneconomic. Growth requires ever increasing amounts of net positive energy.

The only way to make any kind of transition off of FFs would be to end growth and in fact begin shrinking modern civilization.

Sunspot at 23:02 PM on 7 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Solar panels are lovely. They really are. Great way to turn sunlight into electricity. Unless you need a lot of electricity. Which we do. I read somewhere recently that solar has a negative EROEI. Whether or not that's true ( and I have always suspected it), by the time you add up all the energy inputs to manufacturing these devices, transporting them, and installing them, there couldn't be much "energy profit" left, if any.

And one thing I have never seen discussed - how are we going to replace all of these panels when they die. Because they do die. I guess they are up to about 25 years for a projected lifetime, but 25 years, 50 years...whatever. They all have to be thrown away and replaced. Right now we use the energy from fossil fuels to make solar panels. But when oil runs out - and it must - can we remake all of those solar panels with only energy from solar panels?

Doug_C at 07:31 AM on 7 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

nigelJ @5

Thermal depolymerization creates a light oil similar to Texas sweet at the end, along the way it also produces methane, naptha, and some solids like black carbon which are marketable. All from any organic waste, the feedstock is adapted based on the input material. I think it's a great way to avoid treating anything as waste.

The oil doesn't have to be refined into petrol(gas here), it can be used in petrochemical production of lots of different products. It's just one more way to reduce then phase out completely fossil fuel production in a meaningful timescale.

I also think having a wide variety of energy sources is a good thing as it enocurages genuine competition in a market that has been an effective cartel in some aspects for a long time

With a total phaseout of fossil fuel production there are also things like synthetic diesel and gas from air, water and electricity. Battery powered electric vehicles may not be suitable for some niche markets and it's always nice to leave options open.

The main point is we will have a viable economy with plenty of well paying jobs without any fossil fuels with the technology that is now available. And many of the skills in the current coal, oil and gas sector are transferable to the new energy market.

nigelj at 07:13 AM on 7 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Doug_C good points about solar power and geothermal energy.

I'm a little bit sceptical about the the process of oil manufacture from offal and other organic waste. There seems little point encouraging this if it just creates petrol, especially cheap petrol. We have enough conventional oil for things like plastics probably for millenia.

nigelj at 06:57 AM on 7 September 2018

An alternative to propping up coal power plants: Retrain workers for solar

Retraining workers for solar power manufacture makes complete sense. I sympathise with coal workers being resistant to change, we all get like this, but its a hard physical job and people mainly do it for the money, and they are being offered a really good way out on even better pay. Huge numbers of people are facing retraining as AI becomes widespread, so they aren't alone.

Switch the government subsidies currently going to fossil fuels to retraining people for renewable energy jobs, and problem solved. This would be revenue neutral.

However it probably won't happen until the luddites exit the White House.

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