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NorrisM at 07:19 AM on 1 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Following up on my thoughts on another blog on this site (re Trump country to be hit hard by climate change), I truly think that the scientific community should not lose this opportunity to have an effect on Trump's policies going forward.
The reality is that the Trump administration (or at least a Republican administration) will be in power both in the White House and in Congress for at least the next 3+ years.
Although Trump has called "climate change" a hoax perpetrated on us by China we have come to learn to live with his hyperbole. He is a salesman, that is what salesmen do. Please understand I am not an apologist for Donald Trump (I just hope we can make it through the next 3 years without any major disaster).
But he will be moved by the public mood. From what I can understand, the American public are very ambivalent about Climate Change and how much trust can be put into climate scientists (notwithstanding the IPCC, Neil DeGrassie Tyson and Stephen Hawking). In many, but not all, respects these differences do seem to be drawn on political lines. I went to the Pew Research website to get my information.
Here is the url for the Pew October 4, 2016 "The Politics of Climate" article on Americans' view on Climate Change: http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/
Given this diversity, it would seem to me that this "red team blue team" approach proposed by Scott Priutt could, depending on the results of the information exchange (the "debate"), move many moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats (see Pew Research) into the camp of the majority scientific view which would clearly turn the political heat up on Trump. I personally would like to see a follow up examination on how best to deal with the impacts of climate change.
I do not think anyone seriously argues as to whether the climate is changing (when has it not?) or whether man has had a signficant hand in it. What this first debate should be focussed on is: (1) how much of a temperature rise should we expect until 2100 (and after) taking into account existing model predictions of future temperature increases and whether this temperature rise will exacerbate extreme weather events; and (2) what would those specific impacts be (ie estimated sea level rise by 2100, etc) on the world assuming no action were taken to limit carbon emissions to mitigate the changing climate. The second debate would have to focus on the best ways to deal with those impacts (ie mitigation and adaptation). It would be too confusing to put this all in one debate.
Given the political reality in the US today, I would hope that the scientific community would jump at this opportunity. I think failure to do so would cause serious harm to its cause. I can just hear Trump if that were to happen!
As I have said in other venues, anyone asking how this could work should search "Climate Change Policy Statement" on the aps.org website, the official website of the American Physical Society, the second largest association of physicists in the world. This panel discussion chaired by Steve Koonin, an eminent physicist (and former Energy undersecretary in the Obama administration), along with other APS physicists, had some of the best climatologists on "both sides" giving their views on certain questions posed in something called the Workshop Framing Document. This Framing Document largely keyed on the IPCC 2013 Group 1 Assessment. The three climatologists for the "majority opinion side" were all important contributors to the IPCC assessment. On the other side were "lukewarmers" like Judith Curry, John Christy and Richard Lindzen.
Based upon the final policy statement ultimately issued by the APS, the "majority side" won, so why should there be any reluctance to engage in this kind of exchange?
If someone like Steve Koonin were to be appointed as the chair of this red team blue team investigation I think you would have a reasonably independent person at its head. I fully understand that after this APS panel hearing Koonin made public statements even calling for such a red team blue team approach. But I do not think anyone could question his integrity.
As I have noted elsewhere, I just wonder whether Trump really has the intestinal fortitude to take a chance on this. My guess is that he will not.
JWRebel @ 2. Actually, my understanding is that in a red team blue team exchange there is no final "decision". I actually find this to be a weakness of the red team blue team approach but I fully understand why. But I would prefer to have a "majority opinion" and "minority opinion" published giving their reasons for their decision in words that are understandable to the public. But this would then become political because who gets to appoint the full hearing panel? I trust Steve Koonin to be a moderator but after that it would be like appointing justices to the US Supreme Court!
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nigelj at 06:53 AM on 1 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Tom @13
Just another comment to add to above. Putting it another way, the writers of the research and the article would certainly have been aware past trends are positive.
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nigelj at 06:46 AM on 1 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Tom @13,
I didn't interpret "trends to worsen" as meaning existing trends are already negative. I just took it to mean "things will worsen" in general. Perhaps their wording was not the clearest, and I can see its open to interpretation.
However you are picking on one issue. They have considered the most likely increases in crop productivity from breeding and genetics etc and think things would have to be exceptionally good to offset the negative impacts of climate change. I think this is the more important conclusion because we cannot assume technology will be at the top end of whats possible. That would be imprudent.
By analogy its like hoping some fantastic geoengineering would solve the climate issue. Im more of a realist on technological predictions.
Regarding renewable energy, I understand your point. I have never thought we should rush ahead with renewable energy assuming prices would drop massively. I have assumed prices will drop only moderatly at most and thats the safest assumption. I take the same view of crop productivity increases, be cautious and assume moderate improvements at most. This is perhaps why the article also concluded not enough improvements would be made to offset climate impacts. Obviously they have done detailed assessments beyond what one can say here.
I think renewable energy is quite compelling on current prices alone. If it drops more thats a bonus.
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Daniel Mocsny at 06:37 AM on 1 September 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
NorrisM @7:
I must admit I cannot believe people could be so naive as to think that volcanoes could be the cause of our massive increases in CO2 concentrations.
Change the word "naive" to "motivated" and it makes more sense. Literally everyone around me is heavily committed to the climate-raping lifestyle, indulging routinely in high-emitting activities such as: driving, flying, heating, cooling, lighting, eating meat, owning meat-eating pets, and procreating. If climate science is real and we decide to behave as if it is real, we'll need nearly everyone to drastically curtail those activities and more - with the highest-emitting individuals making the biggest adjustments. The lifestyle adjustments will have to continue until such time as technological progress might provide the goodies without the emissions. In the cases of air travel and meat production, that is unlikely to be within the lifetimes of most people reading this.
Among the world's highest greenhouse gas emitters (including nearly all native English speakers), you'll find little if any interest in behaving as if climate science is real. Try documenting the carbon footprint of dogs and cats for example, and watch pet users fly into hysterics, or at least fire up the excuse factory. Browse through your list of Facebook friends, and see how many post photos boasting of their climate-raping holiday trips and their selfies from the driver's seats of their climate-destroying automobiles. At least the overt science deniers are behaviorally consistent: they behave the way you would expect people to behave if climate science is a hoax.
Accordingly, this might mean that if you could persuade a science denier to stop denying science, he or she might be more inclined to respond with real action to slash the greenhouse gas emissions under his or her direct control. He or she might be less prone to the all-too-common liberal circle-squaring whereby climate change can be real and human-caused, yet no individual human is under any obligation to sacrifice any contributing vice.
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nigelj at 06:23 AM on 1 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
The criticisms in the article and postings are excellent and pretty definitive.
But heres another issue. Firstly climate change is made complicated because we cannot put the entire planet into a laboratory and do a couple of simple experiments. The whole field relies on an enormous range of historical evidence, theory and modelling expressed in over 12,000 peer reviewed papers. You have to have a grip on all that research to really make a conclusion. Even climate sensitivity and attribution studies involves hundreds of papers.
The IPCC process is large and extended and has large teams of people going through all this. Hundreds and hundreds of scientists and support people are involved.
There is no way a couple of red blue teams with three people on each side can be conversant enough with the range science to ever draw satisfactory conclusions. Even ten people on each side doesn't come anywehere near whats needed. The red blue team idea is just so inadequate and weak.
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Daniel Mocsny at 05:58 AM on 1 September 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Pete @6:
Look up CBD, it's a cannabinoid, legal in UK, which among other things is an anti-cancer agent. But most doctors haven't a clue, and the pharmaceutical industry wants it kept that way.
I share your cynicism about Big Pharma's economic incentive, as eradicating a disease outright is far less profitable than continuing to sell treatments or palliatives for it indefinitely. But this has not stopped medical science from eradicating (locally or globally) a number of diseases, such as smallpox and polio. It's been a while since the Black Death wiped out 25% of Europe as well. That's because Big Pharma isn't the only player - lots of other people have incentives to cure any disease that can be cured, starting with the victims, their families, and their advocates. There is also career incentive for a scientific researcher who stands to reap awards, grants, the respect of his or her peers and of the public, and scientific immortality for curing a notable disease. That's on top of the internal motivation of the researcher who is driven to solve problems irrespective of external incentives.
Consider the vast trade in illegal drugs, which heavy police state action can only dent but not stop. The resources of governments cannot keep the chronic out of the hands of middle-schoolers - and yet Big Pharma can successfully suppress a cure for cancer?
Then there is medical tourism, in which desperate terminal patients travel to less-regulated countries where they can try any and all long-shot cures. Imagine what would happen if even a fraction of these written-off patients were to return in robust health.
These factors make it very unlikely that any real cure for cancer could go unnoticed for long. Thus I am skeptical about the endless parade of claimed miracle cures. I'm reminded of the mythical water-fuelled automobile that Big Oil is supposedly conspiring to keep off the market.
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Tom13 at 05:43 AM on 1 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Nigelj the first hint regarding the quality of the article is the statement in the 6th paragraph of the article where it states "anticipates that these trends are expected to worsen". which implies that the current trend is negative and the negative trend will worsen. On the contrary, the current trend is positive. See the attached link.
www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/highlights/2015/06/Southeast_Asia/Index.htm
Secondly, as you stated "All I said was don't assume very optimistic rates of progress with crop improvements, and that the quoted study has evaluated projected progress and said only extremely "optmistic" estimates would be enough to offset the effects of climate change."
You certainly couldnt argue that renewable energy will never be cost effective because you have to ignore the likely technological improvements and inovations. Of course not, renewables will have technological improvements and inovations, similar to the long term trend in agriculture. So let the argument be intellectually consistent.
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JWRebel at 04:07 AM on 1 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Red team/blue team is always an exercise in which two sides try to pitch to somebody else who ultimately makes a decision. But there is obviously no jury or referee, because that would be some party that is qualified and is abreast of the science, like the people in peer review committees. So they would be pitching to a party that has no qualifications and doesn't care much about the truth, like political campaigning for the general public. With political campaigning it helps to have the media on your side (paid or otherwise) so that a lot of built in skew ensues for certain arguments, perceptions, and people. After all, it is about winning, not about truth. The people suggesting this exercise have so little experience with objective reality (or integrity), that they think science works just like the world of politics they know — it doesn't matter who was right, even afterwards, it only matters who gets to set the rules and who controls any official reports.
Who would like to be on the red team pitching plans to Stalin?
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gorgulak at 02:58 AM on 1 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
As everyone points out about this topic the red team/blue team exercise doesn't make sense in this case because that is already how science works. I don't know how the exercises usually work but I assume you select people for the teams who haveb't completely made up their mind on the topic. These people would just be rehashing research that has already been gone over a million times before. If you have worked your whole life in the field why would your opinion be changed by this exercise?
And how will the teams be chosen? Are they going to pick simply pro-agw scientists v "skeptics"?Is that really appropriate? Or should it be those scientists with the most 'catastrophic' predictions of agw against the "skeptics"?
It's one of those things that sounds like a common sense good idea to someone who doesn't follow all this, but really doesn't make much sense.
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NorrisM at 02:20 AM on 1 September 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
OPOF @ 66.
Interesting. I am also from Alberta and originally was in the oil and gas business as a petroleum landman but only for a couple of years before returning to law school. Although I have always lived in Vancouver since becoming a lawyer, I have to admit that I also have a continuing connection to the oil and gas business. But I am 71 years old and I can say that the future of the oil and gas industry in Alberta has a nil effect on my views. Perhaps my children may have some interest from our investments but not me.
I very much appreciate the comments above and perhaps as Eclectic has suggested I have strayed from the topics (thanks editor for this stream which is not specifically on causes) but what I am trying to pass on are the views of someone who is a small "c" conservative when it comes to economic issues but is strongly supportive of social legislation which supports those who are not as economically successful (or by pure luck of the draw were not born with as much intellect as others). I think the disparity of income distribution and wealth in America is a real issue. For that matter, given gerrymandering in the US, there are serious questions as to whether you can really say there is a true democracy in the US when most positions in the Congress are decided in the primaries.
In my last posts, I have just been trying to focus on some of the "unspoken" currents that drive conservatives to question both climate change and the future economic effects. Given that the Republicans do not seem to be going away in the United States, I think it behooves the scientific community to respond to this "red team blue team" approach as a chance to get the message to the US public. Yes, I know that the IPCC already has this approach but here is the front stage and I hope that this opportunity is not lost by the "majority view" deciding not to participate because it is "below them" to discuss an issue which has already been decided. The reality is that this is an opportunity to put their case to the American public (we in Canada are kind of irrelevant if we want to be honest about it).
I have a lot of reading to do from the posts on costs so I plan to sign off for some time other than perhaps reiterating the above point on the new "red team blue team" blog.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:49 AM on 1 September 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM,
As an Engineer with an MBA I am absolutely certain that EROEI has very limited relevance to real world considerations.
EROEI may matter when comparing alternative ways of using a specific source of energy to produce the means to produce more energy. However, it is not relevant to the comparison of different energy sources. And it would not even be the primary consideration for evaluating the aternative ways of producing energy from a source of energy.
EROEI is a recently developed term. And its use to comparison different sources of energy appears to have been created to try to justify what cannot otherwise be justified. It is similar to the use of measures of Total Wealth or Average Income to declare if a society and its economy are 'improving'. The distribution of the wealth and income and the quality of life experienced by the least fortunate member of the society are more pertinent measures. Trying to get people focused on Totals and Averages obscures things and limits the general understanding of waht is actually going on.
Ultimately, the sustainability of an economic activity has to be the first consideration. And climate science is adding valuable information and understanding for use in those evaluations of sustainability. Any society or economic system that wants to have a better future with lasting improvement and growth has to focus on ensuring that only truly sustainable activity is allowed to compete for popularity and profitability.
Major corrections are required,and the socio-economic games that developed them cannot be expected to correct themselves.
History is full of examples of the damaging consequences for "Others (not the ones who Temporarily get away with Winning the most through the damaging unsustainable pursuits)".
Climate science, and many other pursuits of increased awareness and better understanding, have been exposing the fatal flaws of the games people play. And many of the Big Winners "Do Not Like It" and don't want the awareness and better understanding to become more popular.
Back to Lomborg. There is money to be made helping the selfish among the Rich people maintain support for unjustified beliefs and perceptions that they can benefit from. There is not much money to be made, and potential serious negative personal consequences (not just vicious unjustified attacks on a person's character), by people developing and promoting awareness and better understanding that is contrary to the interests of selfish very wealthy people. Lomborg is almost certain to be playing in pursuit of personal gain.
Disclosuer of personal interests: As a very fortunate resident of Alberta I would personally 'suffer a loss' if Alberta (and the rest of the world) changes in the ways I have mentioned regarding sustainable economic activity based on climate change considerations. I would have less opportunity to make a very high income and I would likely have to pay more taxes to fund a decent social safety net for the less fortunate. But I understand that high incomes related to fossil fuel burning activity is a temporary thing, unsustainable, not able to continue to be enjoyed by future generations in Alberta (with little true future value being cretaed today). I focused on the Responsible Professional Engineering role of ensuring that only 'acceptable options' were included in the comparison of alternative ways of achieving the stated objectives of the projects I was involved in. And as nigelj has mentioned, I had the responsibility to ensure that an unacceptable option was not 'deemed to be made acceptable' by being cheaper or quicker (no matter how much cheaper or quicker the alternative was).
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Eclectic at 20:50 PM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM @62 & prior :
you may not have noticed it, but your posts have become increasingly absurd.
When you "make your case" by adducing extreme outliers such as Ehrlich's predictions or (minority) 1970's "Global Cooling" predictions, then you are arguing in a moronic and ridiculous manner. What next : will you be saying that the case of Galileo shows that all modern science is wrong? You seem to be too intelligent to be stooping to such illogical nonsense — so please, pull yourself together and "snap out of it".
This website is not WattsUpWithThat, where the comments columns typically contain frothing hysteria and the full gamut of logical fallacies (combined with insane Conspiracy Ideation). Please go to WUWT if you wish to indulge in gutter-level rhetoric & illogicality.
So, I beg you, please rein yourself in and put aside the disingenuous "concern" & nonsense. The CO2/AGW situation is clear and straightforward. "Renewable" electrical power generation [plus or minus the nuclear version] is urgently required to replace all fossil-fuel power generation. Questions of EROI "efficiency" need to be viewed against the bigger picture — and to make a humorous but true analogy: at a fast cruising speed, a helicopter operates most efficiently cruising at an above-ground altitude of approximately 10 feet. An efficient choice, but a far from wise one !
Scaddenp @59 :
"Personally I have problems with the aesthetics of major flooding, desertification, and lost beaches."
Thank you for those wise words! It shows up the absurdity of those Lomborg-like arguments which "cherry-pick" one leaf out of a whole forest.
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scaddenp at 20:12 PM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
Windmills kill birds. But not as much as cats or even cell phone towers. And of course if you were really concerned about birds as opposed to visual appeal of windmills, then what about the risk to birds from climate change.
Of course technology saves lives. Your point? That we cant have technology without FF? That so long as we are saving lives, then it doesnt matter spending trillions on seawalls, levees and cleaning up, rather than decarbonizing?
I understand that the scientists want to "scare us" with "tipping points" Going to back that claim? Where in IPCC is there tipping points?
And tsunamis?? Your point is that it doesnt matter if you are killing say a million a year so long as your dont kill people in large numbers at once?
And as for prediction of cooling the 70s myth. 1975 was year of Broecker landmark global warming paper with its remarkable accurate prediction of the temperature in 2010.
frankly, a lot of ill informed opinion here,
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shoyemore at 18:26 PM on 31 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
HI, Andy,
I have always been impressed by your very pertinent posts over the years. I am saddened by your news, and touched by your candid writing. You are right to appreciate what you have and did - my young niece survived Hodgkins Lymphoma, but died in her sleep during what should have been her graduation year.
I recently came across this Tim MInchin Commencement Address, which is relevant and humourous. You might find you have been living it.
A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this… but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.
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nigelj at 18:24 PM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM @ 62
Your worries about birds killed by wind power are noble indeed. Do you have the same concerns about birds hunted to death, killed by aircraft strike etc? You didnt mention that.
You express this point of view that climate change is not so bad because not many people die in hurricanes in America due to technology compared to Asia. What about the effects of climate change on those less technically advanced countries? You clearly dont care too much.
You pretty much dismiss risks of nuclear power as there have only been a couple of serious accidents. Yet you haven't considered how a world with thousands of reactors would be a much greater risk, especially given the nature of many of those countries.
You also make note of the fact people hurt from climate change are spread over centuries not swept away within months by some catastrophic event. I can't undertsand how that makes it any better for the people hurt. Again your logic is hard to fathom.
You note other scares that you claim turned out to be fizzers, or nothing much. But the reason many didn't become disasters is because multiple preventive steps were taken! Eg the bird flu, the ebola scare, y2k, the ozone hole, etc.
I agree Paul Erlich got some things wrong. One person, no widespread consensus, so your point is what exactly? This is why consensus counts for something.
Yes scientists said there was cooling in the 1970s, actually because there was cooling in the 1950s - 1970s. However the weight of opinion was it could be temporary.
You say we won't drown from climate change, a total straw man argument. You lawyers, I mean you have no shame! Sea level rise has huge implications and costs.
Theres a large peer reviewed literature on the economic costs and general impacts of climate change. Just google the issue.
You dont believe tipping points exist. Its not a question of 'belief' its about science and it does point at tipping points, and so does the paleo climate historical evidence.
You say climate science and the economics resulting from the impacts of climate change are complicated and not limited to one field of science. So what? We all know that.
You rubbish economics, but it is actually a science, and what you say doesn't change that. Its limitations are in predictions, not in quantifiying costs of climate impacts, in fact that's more of an accounting type of exercise.
All interesting. Thanks.
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NorrisM at 16:43 PM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
scaddenp @ 59
"Windmills dont kill many people whereas climate change does."
I wonder whether anyone has asked birds what they think of providing mass windmills around the world to supply energy to humans?
When you talk of mass deaths, just look at the difference in the loss of life in the US with the Tropical Storm Harvey compared to flooding in Asia. Technology has massively reduced deaths. Even in Asia, 1200 deaths is not a massive number. How many people in the US die each day thanks to guns and cars? But today, with the Internet everything is magnified.
And when we talk of nuclear power, how many people lost their lives or were seriously subsequently impacted by cancer issues from Chernobyl? How many people died from 3 Mile Island? In the first case, I suspect not more than 5,000 people, if that. In the case of 3 Mile Island (better technology than Russia) I think the number is 0. Same rhetorical questions apply to Fukushima.
As well, the changes that could be wrought by an increasing world temperature will take years to have an impact. We are not talking about tsunamis washing out 100,000s of thousands of people in one fell swoop.
This catastrophic (apocalyptic) approach turns many people off if only because even in our recent history we have had other predictions of disaster (read Paul Ehrlich) which have not come to pass. Was he not the one who in the 1970s was willing to take "even money that England will not exist in the year 2000"? Was it not Nature journal itself in 1975 that was saying that "A recent flurry of papers has provided further evidence for the belief that the Earth is cooling. There now seems little doubt that changes over the past few years are more than a minor statistical fluctuation." So much for "peer-reviewed" papers.
I am not saying that climate change is not being caused by man and that it could not have significant consequences but you have to understand that the general skepticism you see from large parts of the public (especially conservatives) comes from the old adage, "Once bitten, twice shy". What happened to the bird flu virus? What happened to the computer scare as to what would happen to all our computers on January 1, 2000? All of these things were matters to be considered but they were not existential.
We are not all going to drown even if the oceans were to rise by 20 feet by 2100 rather than the 1 foot predicted by the IPCC.
I understand that the scientists want to "scare us" with "tipping points" that I do not believe exist because they want to move us to action. But when they do this they move out of the realm of science and become politicians themselves. I understand why they do it but the public generally worries about how unbiased they really are in this area. Climate science and the economics resulting from the impacts of climate change are complicated and not limited to one field of science. Koonin in the APS panel was even asking the panelists what areas of science were relevant. I do not think economics (which I have to admit was my major in my undergraduate degree) should even be called a science. About the only thing that I really took with me into the business world was the concept of the time value of money (another major (but value-driven) issue when we get into calculating the future costs of climate change).
Sorry for the digression but I will definitely read the IPCC special report on costs as well as the other references provided by nigelj.
No need to reply. I have some reading to do!
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NorrisM at 15:59 PM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
michael sweet @ 57
I do not have the ability to match your research. One basic question, has James Hansen come around to your view that nuclear power is not a viable option?
I will not ask for a simple "yes' or "no" like a litigation lawyer likes to do although I was tempted.
PS I find this exchange interesting and educational but if you require all of your posters to provide "peer-reviewed" articles for their replies then you really are wanting to stay in an echo chamber of people who are knowledgeable in the field. Where is the website for the general public who simply do not have the time or ability to do detailed research?
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mwsmith12 at 15:57 PM on 31 August 2017New research, August 21-27, 2017
It's difficult to find stuff using the search box, when the papers are linked inside a post titled "New research, August 21-27, 2017." If I search for "Medieval," for example, I might get a long list of matches, but they are all titles like "New research, August 21-27, 2017," which means I have to load each one and search there. It would work better, I think, if all the papers were themselves top-level documents in the database.
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nigelj at 13:40 PM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
Norris M @58
You raise the issues of wind intermittency and solar intermittency. I think the comments and links at 57 and 59 cover this extensively and some of it was new to me. The field is changing fast.
Just a few comments on it.There are a range of options including gas fired backup (I mention this as my country has over 80% renewables and some gas fired). You dont actually need much backup power for intermittency issues, but its clearly still not ideal and there are other options anyway.
Another option is pumped hydro or battery backup.
Another approach is simpy a mix of renewable options that compliment each other in terms of timing factors. Some storrage and / or backup is still required but not as much.
Yet another option for a system with considerable wind power is to build a surplus of wind generation. If the winds not blowing somewhere the system has a surplus to take up the slack, and move it around. Its been determined that you mostly don't need a large surplus.
In fact it varies from country to country obviously, so its hard to generalise. I dont actually like nuclear for reasons others have mentioned, but if a country has poor solar and wind potential it might be pragmatic.
You were worried about land area covered in wind and solar. The following maps are based on powering the entire world with renewables with areas needed for generation highlighted, and they are very small.
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Andy Skuce at 10:51 AM on 31 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
I just want to say thank you for the many kind and thoughtful comments above.
I'm touched.
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scaddenp at 09:28 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
IPCC WG3 deals with this. However, you are probably wanting to look at the 2014 special report. Note there are several " grid battery" options, some in use now, including molten salt, compressed air, and pumped hydro. This thread on renewables for base load also has useful references. I have no problem with nuclear power and wish that promising technologies like thorium and IFR would get some investment. However nuclear has major issues with cost and attracting any investment as latest fiasco in US shows.
Personally I have problems with the aesthetics of major flooding, desertification and lost beaches. Take your pick I guess. Windmills dont kill many people whereas climate change does.
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NorrisM at 08:37 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
nigelj @ 55
Thanks.
I do believe in evidence and I will take a look at your sources. Then I assume the reason that James Hansen is behind nuclear power (at least for China and India) is because it is a better base power source than wind or solar. I assume you agree with Hansen that a change to wind and solar will require coal or natural gas-fired electricity generating plants alongside to provide electricity when wind and solar cannot until significant strides are made in battery storage. There are many places in the world that do not have access to natural gas.
I still have my aesthetic problems with massive wind turbines and taking up valuable land for solar (not everyone has deserts) but if you think the cost of energy from solar and wind are the same as fossil fuels then what we are talking about are the infrastructure costs of changing from fossil fuels to wind and solar.
Do you have any figures on what you would see as a ballpark continuing use of fossil fuels for alternative base power (gas plants and diesel generators) and for other uses such as jet fuel and petrochemicals?
In other words, if we assume we are presently at 85% fossil fuels in world energy consumption, assuming the battery storage issue is not solved, where are we as to fossil fuels, solar and wind not in an "ideal" world but at least in one where you think we are doing our best? My question assumes that hydroelectric power and nuclear power remain at their existing percentages.
If you can point me to an estimate of this infrastructure cost that would be helpful. I assume that the IPCC deals with this in its 2013 assessment. If you can give me a url lead that would be appreciated.
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ubrew12 at 08:24 AM on 31 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Keep up the good work, it's much appreciated. Two of your posts ('The history of emissions and the Great Acceleration' and 'Modelling the permafrost carbon feedback') contain information I've reposted time and time again. You have a way of reducing the noise and getting right to the heart of things that I've much appreciated and have reposted on various platforms to pay it forward.
But also, of course, kick back a bit. Thanks to your previous efforts, you don't need, so much, to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". Relaxing a bit, is a comfort reserved to those who've done so well with the light they were given.
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michael sweet at 08:03 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM,
The solutions Proect has documented in detail that Renewable energy is the cheapest way to provide all energy in the future. Here is a summary (on SkS) of their proposal that I wrote. Claims that renewable energy will be more expensive than fossil fuels are false, they are cheaper.
Your argument comparing solar panel waste which can all be recycled, with radioactive nuclear waste that has to be sequestered for millions of years is absurd. I will let other readers decide for themselves what they think.
Your land area arguments are a red herring. As NigelJ states, most of the land is farms with occasional wind turbines. How much land is permanently sequestered by nuclear accidents in Russia and Japan?? Nuclear proponents always seem to forget the nuclear disasters. Solar farms can be built in deserts or on other low value land (or existing buildings, parking lots and other structures).
Turbines are sent by ships, just like other cargo. Currently, old turbines in developed countries are being replaced by upgraded models. The old turbines are still useful so they are rebuilt and sold as a cheap source of energy to the developing world. When they reach the end of their lives they will be recycled. Some people falsely argue that the turbines have worn out.
Nuclear engineers have been promising cheap reactors since before I was born ("too cheap to meter"). I am 58 now and nuclear is bankrupt. Your article describes the water cooled reactors that bankrupted Westinghouse. Engineers describe them as "unbuildable".
While reading background material on EROEI for solar and wind I found this article. It responds to an article similar to the one you referenced that MARodgers links above and describes some of the many errors in the analysis.
Just for starters, the data for solar panels comes from an article written in 2006 (updated in 2007) while the wind power data comes from a masters thesis published in 2004 and a paper from 1998. These papers are also used in the article I linked above. I don't know about where you live, but in the USA there have been significant developments in wind and solar since 1998 and 2006. These data are updated yearly. I do not know why the authors decided to use ancient data, but for me that disqualifies your reference. It seems to me that the authors are trying to justify a conclusion, not reach a true answer. Other readers can make their own judgements. The article I link calculates an EROEI of above 10 for roof top solar in Switzerland. Somewhere with better sun (say New Mexico) would have an EROEI of at least 20 for utility farms.
As for your excuse for not providing references, if you are too lazy to Google data and read the background you should not post to a forum that requires posters to support their arguments. It is very time consuming for me to look up data to reply to your idle claims. If you put in the time to research your claims maybe you would realize that they are specious.
As I said before, nuclear supporters generally just post reams of false data and do not read the links that are posted in return. They need to get over it. Nuclear is bankrupt. They cannot build a reactor on time and on a budget.
Current nuclear plants operation and maintenance alone are more than the total costs of a wind or solar facility including the mortgage for the renewable facility. Current users in South Carolina pay 25% of their utility bills for nuclear plants that have been abandoned. They will pay even more in the future as they are stiffed for the capitol costs of the abandoned plants. Meanwhile wind and solar cause the price of energy to plummet where they are built.
Lomborg argues that solar is not economic because the price of electricity plummets after solar facilities are built. The solar facilities are making money and the electricity is cheaper.
"People like to claim that green energy is already competitive. This is far from true. For instance, when solar energy is produced, it is all produced at the same time — when the sun shines. The energy thus floods the market and becomes less valuable. Models show that when solar makes up 15% of the market, the value of its electricity is halved. In California, when solar reaches 30% of the market, its value drops by more than two-thirds."
Lomborg is just a shill for the fossil fuel industries.
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william5331 at 06:31 AM on 31 August 2017Study: Katharine Hayhoe is successfully convincing doubtful evangelicals about climate change
It seems to me that the clincher argument to present to the christians is genesis. Dad passed the family business on to us his children. Do we think he then wanted us to grind it into the mud and destroy it. Surly he would be more pleased if we preserved and nurtured his great works. He gave us fish to eat but clearly didn't intend us to be so greedy that we drove them into extinction. He gave us fossil fuel to use but surly didn't want us to use it at such a rate that we destroy the earth. He gave us intelligence to understand what is best for us in the long term and the best for perserving this miracle we live in. I simply do not understand the fundamentalists. They should be the leaders in the environmental movements. Instead it is the athiest who want to preserve the earth in it's beauty.
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nigelj at 06:12 AM on 31 August 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Tom @19
"The study overweighted factors which are least likely to occur to reach a conclusion as to what is most likely to occur."
Nonsense. You provide no evidence. And until you publish your own study on the issue your credibility is severely limited. Have a nice day.
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nigelj at 06:06 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
Norris M @54
Shellenbergs views on waste from wind and nuclear power are just so badly informed. This is perhaps not surprising as they man is an anthropologist not an engineer.
It doesn't matter how much land wind farms use as the space between towers is used for farming and livestock etc.
The towers are made from metals like aluminium and steel just like many other human constructions that are eventually demolished. These things are recycled and reused.
The more toxic elements have to be handled with care, I agree with you on that, but they do not present the same challenges as nuclear waste.
I'm not as adamantly opposed to nuclear power as some people, but the generators are not choosing it. Are you suggesting it be forced on them?
The regulatory approvals make it all a time consuming and frustrating thing, but we are stuck with this because we certainly do not want short cuts in nuclear safety either! That would be pure idiocy.
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william5331 at 05:59 AM on 31 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
One very effective measure would be to bring back our soils and bring them up to or beyond the Carbon content they contained before plow agriculture began. Sound idealistic. Not a bit of it.
The "instruction manual" on how to do it is in the book by David R. Montgomery, Growing a Revolution. An significant effect would be noticable within 3 years and a huge effect in 6. Of course this is 3 and 6 years after you first convince farmers to have a go.
The critical step on the pathway is to have individual farmers scattered around far and wide that are doing this so that "conventional" chemical farmers can see the results for themselves. Even this is likely not enough.
You have to back down vested interests such as the providers of fertilizers, pesticices, herbicides and fuel and you have to reform the insurance industry in such a way that this sort of farming is encouraged rather then discouraged.
Many farmers, using these methods, give up on agricultural insurance all together. They stop having crop failures.
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nigelj at 05:52 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM @54
"Does this not come down to Lomborg's principal thesis that per energy unit there will be a massive cost switching from fossil fuels to wind and solar that may not be the most efficient way of dealing with the impacts?
Of course it revolves aroung Lombergs views, and his thesis has not been accepted by his peers. Its his "opinion" and its wrong.
I have already shown you in another post above that the costs of switching from fossil fuels to renewables are not massive. The use of the word massive is hyperbole and emotive.
Numerous studies going back to the stern report have found the best way to address climate change is renewable energy. Lombergs alternative views are not accepted and this has been stated in various links given to you already.
And do you think you can give me a straight answer to this: Why do you give credibility to a man whos book The Sceptical Environmentalist given it was found to be scientifically dishonest? You can find an account of this and source documentation under Lombergs wikipedia profile.
"It hardly seems arguing that if you have energy densities like those suggested by the German scientists' study referenced in Smil's book Power Density that the cost of producing an energy unit from wind or solar has to be much greater."
Stop talking theory and speculation. With respect just stop. Wind power is already one of the cheapest forms of electricity right now in America. This is the real world evidence. Just look up cost of electricity by source on wikipedia. Or read the articles below:
www.renewable-energysources.com/
cleantechnica.com/2017/01/22/renewables-now-cheapest-renewable-energy-costs-low-too-high/
I can list 100 similar evaluations. Do a google search yourself. If you are not prepared to look at real world evidence, then you make your views redundant. You are a lawyer arent you? Dont you people look at evidence any more? When did that all change?
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Tom13 at 05:47 AM on 31 August 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
But I never drew any conclusion that its not likely to happen.
All I said was don't assume very optimistic rates of progress with crop improvements, and that the quoted study has evaluated projected progress and said only extremely "optmistic" estimates would be enough to offset the effects of climate change.
Nigel - I prefer to keep the limited to the merits - The study overweighted factors which are least likely to occur to reach a conclusion as to what is most likely to occur.
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donciriacks at 05:41 AM on 31 August 2017There is no consensus
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to pleIt ase follow our comments policy. Thank You!
It is one thing to establish Global Warming, it is quite another to reach fairly accurate conclusions or predictions concerning the effects. Most projections I've seen mention a rise in sea level of maybe several inches over a 20 year period. With that one scenario, don't you think that human ingenuity and engineering skills can meet the challenge?
Moderator Response:[PS] This post is offtopic. Any responses to it, put in appropriate thread and post only a link to it. To find an appropriate thread, use the search tool or look under arguments (eg taxomony, "its not bad").
Also please cite your sources of information. Note for instance that Stern report for instance costed adaptation. The argument is that it is cheaper to get off fossil fuels than adapt. (I assume you are happy to pay for seawalls in areas affected by typhoons and monsoon river levels to pump, in countries that have contributed next to nothing to the problem.) Please respond on "its cheaper to adapt" thread.
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nigelj at 05:27 AM on 31 August 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Tom @13
But I never drew any conclusion that its not likely to happen. I'm sick of you shoving words in my mouth. This is why we dislike you people, you twist absolutely everything.
All I said was don't assume very optimistic rates of progress with crop improvements, and that the quoted study has evaluated projected progress and said only extremely "optmistic" estimates would be enough to offset the effects of climate change.
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Peter Kalmus at 04:48 AM on 31 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Andy, thank you for this beautiful piece. It ties so many things together.
I've long thought that our culture's unhealthy relationship to death contributes far more to the tangled mass of our predicament than most people think.
Best wishes to you (and to us all) in your (and our) remaining time on this wonderful planet. We all won the cosmic lottery just to be here, and we all soon go back to that place we came from, the source of all things.
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NorrisM at 04:35 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
nigelj
Does this not come down to Lomborg's principal thesis that per energy unit there will be a massive cost switching from fossil fuels to wind and solar that may not be the most efficient way of dealing with the impacts? It hardly seems arguing that if you have energy densities like those suggested by the German scientists' study referenced in Smil's book Power Density that the cost of producing an energy unit from wind or solar has to be much greater.
michael sweet,
I clearly acknowledge that the disposal of nuclear waste is something that has to be addressed. The US did have a plan which got derailed because of politics. But look at what Shellenberg has to say about the total waste contributed in volume between nuclear power and wind and solar power:
"Renewables also require far more land and materials than nuclear power. California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant produces 14 times as much electricity annually as the state’s massive Topaz Solar Farm and yet requires just 15 percent as much land. Since those vast fields of panels and mirrors eventually turn into waste products, solar power creates 300 times as much toxic waste per unit of energy produced as does nuclear power. For example, imagine that each year for the next 25 years (the average life span of a solar panel), solar and nuclear power both produced the same amount of electricity that nuclear power produced in 2016. If you then stacked their respective waste products on two football fields, the nuclear waste would reach some 170 feet, a little less than the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, whereas the solar waste would reach over 52,000 feet, nearly twice the height of Mount Everest."
I obviously cannot back up these statements with research but if each person on this website had to do that each time then this website would solely consist of experts. I do not think that is the purpose of it. It is to communicate to the public.
How do you ship wind turbines economically to developing countries?
But is this not just avoiding the question of what is the ultimate cost of disposing of these wind turbines and solar panels in 25 years when they have come to the end of their useful life? Do you just leave them in developing countries where they are not seen? Back to Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
As for your comment on nuclear power, another part of this article refers to a new type of nuclear power plant which is much less costly:
"But a comprehensive study of nuclear power plant construction costs published in Energy Policy last year found that water-cooled nuclear reactors (which are far less expensive than non-water-cooled designs) are already cheap enough to quickly replace fossil fuel power plants."
Trump has specifically referenced a reconsideration of nuclear power so I do not think the bankruptcy of Westinghouse means the end of a nuclear power discussion in the US.
In about 2011, after first recommending a world carbon fee here is the second recommendation of James Hansen:
" Second, the United States and China should agree to cooperate in rapid deployment to scale in China of advanced, safe nuclear power for peaceful purposes, specifically to provide clean electricity replacing aging and planned coal-fired power plants, as well as averting the need for extensive planned coal gasification in China, the most carbon-intensive source of electricity. China has an urgent need to reduce air pollution and recognizes that renewable energies cannot rapidly provide needed base-load electricity at large scale. The sheer size of China's electricity needs demands massive mobilization to construct modern, safe nuclear power plants, educate more nuclear scientists and engineers, and train operators of the power plants."
Is this not a recognition that the problem of coal plants in China is insurmountable without turning to nuclear power? I know you will say it is all different since 2011. I appreciate that China signed the Paris Agreement but I highly doubt that the cost analysis has so massively changed since 2011.
Where is the IPCC on the costs of conversion to wind and solar? Do they even consider nuclear power? One of the main criticisms of James Hansen for a solution solely based on renewables is that you have to have natural gas generating plants as a back up when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow.
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MA Rodger at 04:12 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM @51,
Your reference to "German scientists" is here - Weißbach et al (2013) 'Energy intensities, EROIs, and energy payback times of electricity generating power plants.'
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:55 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM2%1,
Thankyou for providing more proof that 'unsustainable pursuits of benefit that create no lasting benefit for future generations, or produce levels of future benefit that are less than the challenges and costs that are potentially created, clearly should not be allowed to compete for popularity and profitability (evaluated from the perspective of future generations where the potential costs they face are not discounted relative to any legacy benefit they can be quite certain to obtain)'.
Using EROEI's that ignore or discount the future costs create poor excuses to not behave better. Unless you can show me proven ways to fully neutralize nuclear waste, the waste is an infinite cost in a 'pursuit of a sustainable future for humanity' EROEI. And future costs need to be compared to future benefits to ensure a net-benefit, none of the game of claiming the future costs are less than current benefits so it is All Right (and certainly no discounting of those future costs for such a comparison). So for actions like coal burning there would need to be proof of the value of benefit into the future, and proof that the almost certain future benefit value (no big maybes allowed to be counted) more than offsets the potential costs created in the future by actions like burning coal today (not just some selected "known" costs like building sea walls only for the rich people's cities, and only building them high enough to only address a portion of future sea level rise - a serious, and easy to see as a poor excuse, flaw in Lomborg's "Cool It" evaluations - an even poorer excuse if those future costs are discounted).
That was my point in earlier posts. Things need to change so that only understood to be sustainable pursuits are allowed to compete for popularity and profitability. Allowing less acceptable activity to compete gives those activities competitive advantages over the alternatives that are sustainable. Regulation and Carbon Fees help, but attitudes are what have to be changed.
Striving to maintain incorrectly developed perceptions of prosperity is admirable, but only if they are maintained by a rapid correction of developed unsustainable activity.
The supposedly most advanced (prosperous/wealthy) people, societies, and economies really need to start proving they deserve to be perceived as the most advanced.
I look for Proof with Good Reason. I see lots of Poor Excuses - not just related to the changes of human activity required because of climate science.
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NorrisM at 03:12 AM on 31 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
michael sweet
Although I do not have the book the citation for the study by the German scientists should be in the Smil book Power Density.
"In Power Density, Smil points to a study of EROEI published in 2013 by a team of German scientists who calculated that solar power and biomass have EROEIs of just 3.9 and 3.5, respectively, compared with 30 for coal and 75 for nuclear power. The researchers also concluded that for high-energy societies, such as Germany and the United States, energy sources with EROEIs of less than seven are not economically viable."
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NorrisM at 02:49 AM on 31 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Andy,
I just happened on your post while checking on another stream. It touched me greatly. We share some similarities in that many years ago I was a petroleum landman with Mobil Oil before returning to university to get my law degree. Like you, I moved to the West Coast. We live in West Vancouver.
Facing death is not something that we like to confront but everyone knows that it is only a matter of time. But we cannot help but feel robbed when something like this happens. One of my best friends, Gary Aitken (former VP Land of Canadian Hunter), who you may have known in Calgary, succumbed to lung cancer many years before his time. I still have trouble dealing with that loss. It seems so unfair. But fairness and the natural world do not have much in common.
Although I have not really come down on a lot of issues relating to climate change, we need more people like you who selflessly dedicate significant parts of their life to trying to make this world a better place. That applies to many others who contribute to this website. I have also watched your video and found it very convincing. I must admit I cannot believe people could be so naive as to think that volcanoes could be the cause of our massive increases in CO2 concentrations. Clearly there are some out there.
I wish you the best in whatever time you have. If you ever wish to have lunch here in Vancouver, I would be very pleased to meet you.
Regards
Norris Morgan
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rocketeer at 02:37 AM on 31 August 2017New research, August 21-27, 2017
Valuable service, thanks!
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Tom13 at 23:58 PM on 30 August 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Nigel -
Tom @13 no I did not say progess with crop improvements will stop. It will likely continue, but I said you cannot expect the same rate of improvements or some miracle. .
If something is likely to continue, why would you base you conclusion as if it is not likely to happen - kinda invalidates the study.
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Pete12981 at 23:12 PM on 30 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Look up CBD, it's a cannabinoid, legal in UK, which among other things is an anti-cancer agent. But most doctors haven't a clue, and the pharmaceutical industry wants it kept that way. Available in dropper bottles and capsules of varying doses. Lots of information online. Cure yourslef!
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michael sweet at 21:44 PM on 30 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
Norrism
The US Energy Information Agency defines effiency thus:
"The heat rate is the amount of energy used by an electrical generator or power plant to generate one kilowatthour (kWh) of electricity. ... If the heat rate is 7,500 Btu, the efficiency is 45%. EIA only publishes heat rates for fossil fuel-fired generators and nuclear power plants."
If you do not know the meaning of a technical term it is best not to correct people who do. Nuclear and coal power plants are about 50% efficient, the rest of the energy used is released as waste heat. Gas is a little more efficient. Wind and solar do not produce waste heat so their efficiency is much higher, 90% or more.
Renewables do have lower power density than fossil fuels and nuclear. The Solutions Project (linked above) has addressed these issues satisfactorily.
Your claims that "What do you do with the massive wind turbines when they stop working or all the solar cells when they need to be replaced?" have already beenn addressed. The turbines and panels can be recycled (currently they are reused in developing countries since they have not reached the end of their useful lives). What do you do with the nuclear waste, including the reactor core?
You remain a nuclear supporter! I am amazed that any are left after Westinghouse declared bankruptcy. It is generally a waste of time to discuss nuclear power and clogs up the board with incorrect information. I will only say that the bankruptcy of Westinghouse will stop any investment in nuclear for the foreseeable future. I note that Brave New Climate (the most pro nuclear web site I know of) has not posted a new article supporting nuclear for over a year.
The EROEI on nuclear you cite is not widely accepted. Most currently used fossil fuels also do not have such high EROEI's. Wind and solar have higher EROEI's than you claim. Since you have not linked a citation I dismiss your claim as unsupported.
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Eclectic at 18:18 PM on 30 August 2017Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
Postkey @363, do you have an actual link to the relevant section of joseduarte? I come up with "site under construction" — so I am unsure if it is the same article/blog that I read a couple of years ago.
If it is the same article [critique of consensus study], then I am able to assure you that it is a waste of your time to read & analyse. As I recall, Duarte started off well, but his commentary degenerated into a rant. It became more ridiculous as it progressed. Duarte seems an angry guy. Very angry, and with an anger which sabotaged his presentation and made it nonsensical.
Postkey — best if you avoid Duarte, and simply re-state any points (of his) which you think should be addressed by the participants in this thread. I suspect that most or all of them have been covered already on SkS here. Please read through the OP & comments, and come up with anything that you are certain has been missed.
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Postkey at 17:35 PM on 30 August 2017Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature
Hello,
Has this criticism of the methodology been discussed?
http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/ignore-climate-consensus-studies-based-on-random-people-rating-journal-article-abstracts
Thanks.
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nigelj at 17:19 PM on 30 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
NorrisM @50
Schellenburger says "Moreover, all three previous energy transitions resulted in what’s known as “dematerialization”: the new fuels produced the same amount of energy using far fewer natural resources."
Complete nonsense. Oil and coal are the result of the compaction of vast quantities of plant and small organisms so many natural resources. They may be dense but they are not small users of resources.
And energy density is not the only measure of usefulness. Energy dense turns out to have difficult implications, like global warming and safety risks with nuclear energy.
" By contrast, a transition from fossil fuels to solar or wind power, biomass, or hydroelectricity would require rematerialization—the use of more natural resources—since sunlight, wind, organic matter, and water are all far less energy dense than oil and gas."
So what? This does not make sunlight etc in any way less effective at generating electricity. The fact that the market is choosing them proves they are effective and thats all that counts! Not some writers empty rhetoric.
Sunlight comes free and is abundant. Anyone who sees using it as a problem is being idiotic.
"Basic physics predicts that that rematerialization would significantly increase the environmental effects of generating energy. "
Absolute nonsense. Show me a specific law or equation that predicts this. In fact density is nothing to do with the issues, less or more energy dense can all have environmental impacts, its entirely dependent on how the source is used, and pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere turns out to be a problem. Solar power has less environmental problems and the ones it does have are easy enough to resolve.
"Although these would not be uniformly negative, many would harm the environment."
Sunlight comes free and using it does not harm a thing.
" Defunct solar panels, for example, are often shipped to poor countries without adequate environmental safeguards"
That is a procedural problem that doesn't need to happen, and is a great deal less damaging than climate change. Old solar panel materials can be disposed of safely or recycled. The problem is political where certain political parties are anti recycling and anti environmental law.
Schellenburger is not a scientist or physicist, and clearly doesnt understand what he's saying and claiming. He is a cultural anthropologist according to his wikipedia entry. I'm not dismissing all his views on everything, but the above mentioned are completely senseless.
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NorrisM at 15:47 PM on 30 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
It seems my url suffers from the same problems which I have experienced with other urls on this website. You get part but then have to subscribe to the newspaper to get the rest of the article.
I will add two more sections and leave it at that:
Shellenberger:
"Moreover, all three previous energy transitions resulted in what’s known as “dematerialization”: the new fuels produced the same amount of energy using far fewer natural resources. By contrast, a transition from fossil fuels to solar or wind power, biomass, or hydroelectricity would require rematerialization—the use of more natural resources—since sunlight, wind, organic matter, and water are all far less energy dense than oil and gas.
"Basic physics predicts that that rematerialization would significantly increase the environmental effects of generating energy. Although these would not be uniformly negative, many would harm the environment. Defunct solar panels, for example, are often shipped to poor countries without adequate environmental safeguards, where the toxic heavy metals they contain can leach into water supplies."
And the following:
"In both Energy and Civilization and Power Density, Smil introduces the concept of “energy return on energy investment” (EROEI), the ratio of energy produced to the energy needed to generate it. But Smil again fails to explain the concept’s implications for renewable energy. In Power Density, Smil points to a study of EROEI published in 2013 by a team of German scientists who calculated that solar power and biomass have EROEIs of just 3.9 and 3.5, respectively, compared with 30 for coal and 75 for nuclear power. The researchers also concluded that for high-energy societies, such as Germany and the United States, energy sources with EROEIs of less than seven are not economically viable. Nuclear power is thus the only plausible clean option for developed economies."
This is what I meant by "energy density". If someone wants to quibble with Shellenberger I would be happy to listen as long as the comments are focussed on the statements and not on the author himself. I have no idea who Shellenberger is.
nigelj, perhaps you can comment on this statement as to my claim that wind and solar power have a low energy density and therefore are not as efficient as fossil fuels (30 to 3.9) or nuclear energy (75 to 3.9).
Admittedly these figures are for solar power and not wind power but I highly doubt that wind power is much more efficient that solar power.
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Eclectic at 14:33 PM on 30 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Chriskoz, the youtube link you gave [ youtube.com/watch?v=cy9rx19dujU ] is the correct address, but is somehow not linking.
Punching it in, independently, delivered me the excellent Skuce video.
Andy Skuce : thank you for your absolutely first class video lecture on volcanic CO2 in relation to man-made CO2. Informative and brief, summarising the situation. The style smooth and low-key. Impossible to be improved on !!! Memorably good !
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nigelj at 13:58 PM on 30 August 2017New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest
Norris M @44
You claimed that wind power is not more efficient than fossil fuels and nuclear. This is not correct. Wind power is slightly cheaper than both nuclear and fossil fuels, and cost is the measure of efficiency in capitalist society.
Thats not to say there are not challenges with wind as you noted, but various studies such as Jacobson suggest solutions to intermittency issues.
However I have nothing totally against Nuclear power. Don't love it either given things like Chernobyl.
At least its clean, and while ultimately not sustainable in the long run I would compromise on that aspect in the name of the problem of climate change, and some countries have limited wind and solar options.
But nuclear is not currently a preferred option in electricity markets anyway and they are going for wind, solar and gas. I don't see a reason to force nuclear onto people.
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nigelj at 13:45 PM on 30 August 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Tom @13 no I did not say progess with crop improvements will stop. It will likely continue, but I said you cannot expect the same rate of improvements or some miracle. Sigh.
The article clearly assesses what is most plausible and thinks theres a problem. Just quoting the past record doesn't actually change that.
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chriskoz at 11:18 AM on 30 August 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
When I took Denial 101 few years back, I thought Andy Skuce lectures therein, to be of unparalleled quality, standing up among other lectures and it's not a cliche assessment. Exemplary one that gave me a wealth of information, even though I was already familiar with rock waethering, Urey reaction, carbon cycle, etc. Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy9rx19dujU
a lecture that changes the mind. I suggest others add more of Andy's achievements in climate science in this thread. Let's celebrate Andy's contribution big time: long live Andy and his teachings, well beyond any earthly life!
Moderator Response:[PS] Changed the link.
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