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Comments 28701 to 28750:
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SuperPosition at 06:48 AM on 26 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
"I suspect it comes down to the following:
>Amount of variable/non variable RE
>Grid interlinks to other networks
>Access to pumped storage"
Tom Curtic 162:: That sounds about right except that there is good reason to think that Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) can substitute for pumped hydro storage, with approximately the same round trip efficiencies and no geographical limitation. It does have the disadvantage that it will degrade over time so that long term storage is not viable, but that is likely to be an infrequent problem (particularly with some pumped hydro available).
Would that it were. I agree it is an exciting technology but as you say, limited in capacity so you would still need back up generation - the main advantage is that you would know when your reserve was running low and start up your (CCS) gas plant instead of leaving it in spinning reserve. (Although an economist may say that if your CCS plants is efficient then why bother?) But yes, all things are technologically within our grasp - by 2050 we may have fusion.. Shell and BP may process and sell deuterium and H3 and my local plant sell waste helium for airships and party baloons - all so long as fusion is affordable -
The point is that 'can possibly', and 'will probably 'are fine statements for all of these technologies, but the point is that it is now that we should be acting.
Trials and papers and funding begging letter aside I am not aware of one national grid operator that is deploying grid level storage and if that is the case then we will soon reach the capacity of our grids to accept variable RE.
So whilst grid level storage is the logical answer for variable RE, the fact remains that RE is already extremely expensive - yes prices are dropping but then we do not know what the cost of storage and large scale grid restructuring will cost because no one is discussing it.
The elephant in the room is 'How much'extra would storage add to the cost of RE'? It could very easily double or tripple the cost once you factor in grid changes and even then there are many countries that could not afford to deploy it.
That's not being stingy or greedy, but the unnasailable logic is that a solution that is not affordable to most of the planet is not a solution.
I suspect people have forgotten that the issue is to address AGW/ACC by curtailing our impact as much as we can.
Variable RE like solar and wind is a fine adittion to the grid mix but is only A potential answer to the whole problem - So as prosaic a solution as it seems, logically speaking we shouldn't be emotionally attached to it.
The fact is that alternative technologies exist now that do the job faster, not require grid restructuring or storage and do the job just as well.
Further, you are ignoring the options make available through overbuild of renewable capacity with intermittent operations made possible by very cheap electricity supply when the generating network supplies in excess of demand.
Not at all, the issue of overbuild is central to the problem of storage. Storage is circa 75% efficient.
If we had 100% renewables replacing current capacity then there would be only cance surplus to charge the storage and the system would fail - we would need a surplus of variable RE to supply demand whilst simultaneously charging the storage,,, and even then you would need a lot of backup generators for those times when you've got low wind and 2 feet of snow on your solar plant for the last month.
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Tristan at 05:33 AM on 26 June 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #25
If compassion and science were the ingredients of Bergoglio's "climate change encyclical", what ingredients went into the part of the encyclical about abortion and birth control, which he explicitly linked to our environmental struggles? Neither compassion nor science.
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John Hartz at 03:05 AM on 26 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Suggested supplemental reading:
Why the solar-plus-battery revolution may be closer than you think by Chris Mooney, Energy & Climate, Washington Post, June 23, 2015
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Tom Curtis at 01:11 AM on 26 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
APT @78, Kohler et al reference Marcott et al 2014 as being a high resolution ice core CO2 concentration record. Marcott et al in turn say:
"The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core (WDC) (79.467u S, 112.085u W, 1,766 m above sea level) was drilled to a depth of 3,405 m in 2011 and spans the past,68 kyr.At present, the site has amean annual snow accumulation of 22 cm ice equivalent per year and a surface temperature of 230 uC. Annual layer counting to 2,800 m depth (,30 kyr ago) provides a very accurate timescale for comparison with data from other archives11. The difference in age (Dage) between the ice and the gas trapped within it, which is critical for developing a gas-age chronology, is 205 6 10 yr at present and was 525 6 100 yr at the last glacial maximum (LGM) (Extended Data Fig. 1).Given the high accumulation at the site, minimal smoothing due to gas transport and gradual occlusion, and precise chronological constraints, WDC is the best Antarctic
analogue to central Greenlandic deep ice cores, with a substantially better-dated gas chronology during the glacial period, and is able to resolve atmospheric CO2 at sub-centennial resolution."(My emphasis)
What that means in practise is seen by considering Figure 3, where temporal resolution is indicated to be +/- 20 to 40 years at various time intervals:
Even at +/- 40 years, that is too good a time resolution to not have captured Steinthorsdottir's peak in CO2 at the Younger Dryas if it in fact existed. More importantly, the the +/- 1 ppm resolution of CO2 concentration at all ages shows the fluctuations in CO2 content to not be measurement error. They are fluctuations in the CO2 concentration in the ice. That is significant because the sharp variations in CO2 concentration shown are inconsistent with the record being more heavilly smoothed than shown. Smoothing through diffusion will reduces peaks, fill troughs, and turn "cliffs" into slopes. If the peaks, troughs and cliffs persist in the ice, the CO2 has not significantly diffused after the firn has closed.
In fact, it is definitely below par for Steinthorsdottir to simply wave her hand at possible high diffusion rates as an "explanation" of discrepancy between ice core and stomatal records. If diffusion is a problem, she ought to be able to (and ought to have) created a smoothed model of the stomatal record that reproduces the ice core record. Marcott et al did exactly that when comparing the higher reolution West Antarctic Divide data (WDC) with the lower resolution East Antarctic Divide data (EDC) in extended data figure 5:
"a, The red line is the Green’s function (smoothing function) produced by a firn model using an assumed EDC accumulation rate of 0.015 m yr−1 and a temperature of 209 K. b, CO2 data from WDC (dots) and EDC (dots) plotted against artificially smoothed CO2 data from WDC using the EDC firn smoothing function (red line in both plots). WDC data have been systematically lowered by 4 p.p.m. for direct comparison with EDC."
Given this, it appears to me that the stomata data Steinthorsdottir uses is an inaccurate proxy of CO2 concentrationin the Younger Dryas.
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Xulonn at 01:06 AM on 26 June 2015Eight things we learned from the pope's climate change encyclical
Fascinating! I came here to read comments about the Pope's Encyclical on AGW/CC and instead found a dicsussion absolutely dominated by a focus on what Pope Francis did not address - overpopulation. Of course, it is indeed a valid subject about a crucial factor that is frequently ignored, and one that I see as the elephant in the room.
It is likely that a complex mixture of issues will lead to the demise of modern civilization. Many civilizations have perished in the past, and some were grand and high tech for their day. I believe that the analysis and models in Joseph Tainter's 1988 book, "The Collapse of Complex Societies," have merit. It seems logical that a complex combination of factors will lead to the collapse of our modern civilization. This will likely triggered by an increase in the severity and length of drought, floods, as well as and unrelenting sea level rise at ever increasing rates. There will also be ever more costly severe weather events and food production impacts that will impact societies and their economies.
If I have my numbers correct 500 million people live on river deltas including 250 million on the Pearl River Delta in China, will have to migrate and relocate. All of the worlds seaports and naval stations will have to be moved - repeatedly. This will break the world's economy if it survives that long. Sea level rise may be a serious long-term problem, even if the world follows the Pope's advice and takes action to mitigate AGW/CC.
Humans - overall as a species - just cannot seem to recognize and acknowledge future problems, much less effectively deal with them. Andvested interests like the FF incustries, feed that weakness. Like other animals, we often only react to serious danger if it is iminent - and obvious. Look at the number of people - even in the U.S. - who are killed in floods. This occurs mostly with people in their cars trying to drive on flooded streets and roads. If they cannot see such obvious dangers, how do we expect them to see the much less apparent dangers of AGW/CC, and support mitigation measures that will inconvenience them?
I applaud the Pope's efforts, even though he does not address the over-population issue, and hope that it will help tilt the balance in the direction of at least recognizing the seriousness of AGW/CC. Even though I amnow a retired U.S. expat living in a small tourist and farming town in the mountains of Western Panama, I am watching the ridiculously long American election campaign with great interest.
Will the younger generation step up and vote? Or will they allow the older genertions - who have failed them so miserably in the past - determe their future.
Will the Pope's Encyclical, and the possible El Niño-related severe weather and weather pattern changes have an effect? Or will most people yawn and go back to their old patterns and ignore the problems that civilization faces?
Only time will tell.
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Rob Honeycutt at 00:11 AM on 26 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25B
knaugle... That may be a short lived position they're taking with the current developing El Nino since the satellite data tend to respond strongly to El Nino events.
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CBDunkerson at 23:44 PM on 25 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25B
knaugle, if surface thermometer readings are "massaged" then satellite 'temperature' data is the result of reconstructive surgery. It is based on non-temperature readings far above the planet's surface which require extensive computations to turn into temperature estimates. Thus, not really 'hard to refute' at all.
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CBDunkerson at 23:35 PM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
SuperPosition wrote: "I think that by definition they would have to have a large percentage of constant o/p (baseload) RE in the 50% such as hydro and geothermal, and you probably find very few countries with that mix available to them."
Very few? Not really. I listed half a dozen in my previous note. In all there are more than 50 countries which generate >50% of their electricity from renewables. Given that there are only about 200 countries in the world, majority renewable power is not at all rare. Indeed, the way things are going, it will almost certainly be the case for a majority of the world's countries within a couple decades.
"If RE were all baseload as stated in the OP..."
This will continue being an obvious misrepresentation of the OP no matter how many times you repeat it.
As to nuclear, as the technology has become less and less competitive many of its supporters have shifted to using less and less valid arguments. Yes, the safety issues with nuclear are overblown. Yes, it greatly reduces GHG emissions. However, nuclear is expensive and getting moreso. At this point I doubt there is anywhere on the planet where nuclear does not cost more than some form of renewable power. Thus, given that renewables cost less, deploy faster, have no fuel constraints, also vastly reduce GHG emissions, and are even safer... what exactly is the case for nuclear? You're going with the 'baseload problem'... but as has been shown, that is a myth. There are ways to supply baseload with RE and ways to implement RE where you don't need any baseload. Nuclear made sense 30 years ago. Had the nuclear industry been smart and stopped using old/unsafe plant designs they could have avoided Chernobyl and Fukushima and we might have majority nuclear power by now. Instead, they managed to keep public opposition high until the technology became economically obsolete. People observing this reality are not 'anti-nuclear' so much as 'pro-fact'. For example, I'd say that Germany and Japan would have been better served keeping most of their nuclear (after a thorough safety check)... with that and the huge RE buildout they've engaged in they'd be close to the >50% non-fossil electricity mark by now. Instead, they have basically replaced nuclear with RE and left their GHG emissions nearly unchanged. I'd say that view makes me 'pro-nuclear'... I support it to the extent it makes sense.
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APT at 23:20 PM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
@MA Rodger
Do you mean the first 2 papers or the last 2 papers in post 76?
I mentioned in post 75 that the the first 2 were referenced by Steinthorsdottir, although I appreciate that without the full reference I didn't make it clear that it was from the "Response to: Comment..." paper and not from the original article.I can't see references to the second 2 papers in either of the Steinthorsdottir papers.
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MA Rodger at 22:28 PM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
APT @75/76.
The two papers you link to are actually referenced by Steinthorsdottir et al., (2014) - 'Response to: Comment on “Synchronous records of pCO2 and D14C suggest rapid, ocean-derived pCO2 fluctuations at the onset of Younger Dryas”'
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knaugle at 22:16 PM on 25 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25B
With respect to "Weak Climate Plans"
I do think that as long as RSS and UAH show little to no warming, and Drs. Roy Spencer and John Christy are spreading the message that there really is no warming, because "Satellite data is more reliable than massaged surface data based on spread out urban heat island affected information" that the "Weak Climate Plans" will rule the day. I'm amazed how many people are hanging their hat on only what satellite data says, and particularly as it is presented in ways that minimize warming. It's a hard message to refute.
Moderator Response:[JH] Tilt! Your assertions are totally bogus. Insert "Spencer ad Christy" into the SkS search box, press enter, and start reading.
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APT at 21:27 PM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
Thanks again for your help. These are the relevant links to the papers referenced above.
http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/32477/1/P393-421.pdf
http://mail.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/CO2_diffusion_in_polar_ice_2008.pdf
It seems to me that these papers conclude that diffusion probably doesn't have a very significant effect on ice core CO2 measurements, at least over longer timescales, but I'd appreciate it if someone with deeper knowledge and understanding of the topic could confirm that.
I also found a couple more relevant papers which I hope will be useful if anyone comes across arguments about ice core reliability or stomata records disgreeing with ice core data:
The first is a discussion of uncertainties in ice core measurements and how to deal with them:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/ice-cores.pdf
The second is a reconstruction using stomata data which in fact agrees with the ice core data and suggests that climate sensitivity to CO2 concentration is greater than previously thought:
http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/Franks_et_al_2014_GRL_new_stomatal-CO2_proxy.pdf -
Larry E at 15:23 PM on 25 June 2015New study links global warming to Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events
Also of interest: Alaska wildfire seasons getting bigger and longer, report says (Alaksa Dispatch News, http://www.adn.com/article/20150624/alaska-wildfire-seasons-getting-bigger-and-longer-report-says), with link to a new report by Climate Central. A heat connection is made.
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KR at 11:44 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
SuperPosition - This particular subject, baseload power from RE, has been discussed on this and other threads (much more visited threads on this very subject here and here) repeatedly. I would suggest reading some of the exchanges before flatly stating that RE cannot supply reliable baseload.
Keep in mind that in a large-scale interconnected grid single installations are not the limitiing factor due to variability. Rather, the entire grid and multiple sites are the factor, with even a moderate geographic spread of RE sites providing far more consistent power. Archer and Jacobson 2007 demonstrated that as few as 20 wind installations spread across the US MidWest could reliably provide a dependable baseload roughly 33% of average power, simply because the geographic spread was larger than the average weather system. More extensive geographic distribution combined with independent power mixes (wind plus solar, for example) raise that percentage considerably.
Secondly, as noted previously, excess generation appears to be rather more economic than storage, meaning arguments about availability of hydro storage or battery costs are currently rather pointless. If regional baseload percentages are, for example, 60% of average power (quite achievable), overbuilding by a bit more than 50% gives you near 100% baseload, with multi-day weather predictions allowing planned backups of only a few percent.
I'll conclude with a NREL link indicating that 80% renewable baseload for the US could be readily achieved by 2050. Clearly, people who have looked at the issue in depth conclude that significant renewable baseload power is, indeed, achievable, varioius arguments from incredulity notwithstanding.
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APT at 11:41 AM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
@Rob Honeycutt - Thanks. That's a good answer, my favourite so far.
@scaddenp - As someone who's defended the science on public forums, I understand the frustration of dealing with pseudo-scientists and conspiracy theorists. In fact, that was the reason for my request. However, as friendly advice, I suggest you tone it down a bit, since such defensiveness is more likely to provoke suspicion than promote understanding.
I was able to deal with the other references I was given, since some weren't even peer-reviewed science and I was able to find strong rebuttals of those that were. The only one that seemed to cast any real doubt on the reliability of ice core data was the Steinthorsdottir (2013) paper. Incidentally, there was a response to Kohler's comment on the paper, which you can read here: LINKHaving briefly read through it all, I'd still conclude that the ice-core data is more reliable, but the issue of disagreement between ice-core data and these results doesn't seem to be fully resolved.
Steinthosdottir references two papers regarding intra-ice diffusion, Ikeda et al (2000) and Ahm et al (2008). It seems to me that these might reflect problems of identifying short term variability rather than concentration in general, but I'm no expert on such things. Is this a real issue with ice core data? Is it accounted for?
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link.
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chriskoz at 11:33 AM on 25 June 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #25
smh.com.au made a new column "Climate For Change", prominently visible on their home page, above other columns, right under latest news.
Many of the articles therein reference myth debunking from SkS.
It's good that some mainstream press is doing correct, unbiased reporting of climate science. I only wish that others follow that example.
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michael sweet at 10:25 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Link for grid reliability of German grid
Link for Der Speigel reliability
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michael sweet at 10:21 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Superposition,
When you are hostile to RE and make repeated false, unsupported claims you should expect others to be hostile to your pet solution. You are incorrect when you claim that RE requires spinning reserve. I am not aware of any RE that requires spinning reserve for the entire amount of energy generated. I have asked you for a citation but you have not given one. Presumably you could not find a citation since you have not cited one. Nuclear requires constant, full spinning reserve because the plants shut down completely, instantly whenever they have an emergency. That type of emergency does not occur for RE, although the transmisson line might go out.
According to this article, Der Speigel is a right wing rag that only reports bad things about wind and solar. In addition, in 2011, just before your Der Speigel article from 2012, the German Grid reliability set a record for most reliable. Maybe the RE helped in the record reliability. Or perhaps it is because they shut down nuclear. Perhaps if you start to cite peer reviewed references on RE, which you have not yet done, you will start to make less factual errors.
I am agnostic about nuclear. I have become hostile to nuclear posters like you who come here and make repeated false claims about wind and solar. At the current time nuclear is uneconomic, demonstrated by the complete lack of investors willing to build a plant. -
michael sweet at 10:21 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
This article (Elliston et al) from March 2013 gives an analysis of the system required to provide 100% renewable energy for the Australian grid. From the abstract:
"Least cost options are presented for supplying the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) with 100% renewable electricity using wind, photovoltaics, concentrating solar thermal (CST) with storage, hydroelectricity and biofuelled gas turbines. ...These scenarios maintain the NEM reliability standard, limit hydroelectricity generation to available rainfall, and limit bioenergy consumption. The lowest cost scenarios are dominated by wind power, with smaller contributions from photovoltaics and dispatchable generation: CST, hydro and gas turbines. The annual cost of a simplified transmission network to balance supply and demand across NEM regions is a small proportion of the annual cost of the generating system. Annual costs are compared with a scenario where fossil fuelled power stations in the NEM today are replaced with modern fossil substitutes at projected 2030 costs, and a carbon price is paid on all emissions. At moderate carbon prices, which appear required to address climate change, 100% renewable electricity would be cheaper on an annual basis than the replacement scenario." (my emphasis)
They estimate that with a carbon tax of as low as $A50 ($US38) per ton of carbon dioxide renewable energy will be the cheapest option. Australia has very cheap coal (!!) which requires a higher carbon fee to make RE the cheapest option.
When I checked the papers that had referenced Budischak 2013 there were many that give similar results (Elliston references many). They warn that costs of solar and wind are going down so fast that assessments quickly become overestimates. Claims that the costs of RE are not known are simply false. Claims that RE cannot supply cheap, reliable, baseload power to a grid are also simply false.
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scaddenp at 08:53 AM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
APT - sorry if tone appeared hostile. We get a lot of pseudo-skeptics here with faux arguments, so knee-jerk reactions are hard to avoid. You said "used to suggest that current levels are not unusual in human history," from which I thought you were implying the "skeptic" corrollary "so no need to worry" despite YD being in our pre-civilization past. Genuine inquiry is actually very welcome so apologies.
What have read that casts doubt on ice-core measurements for CO2? A reference would be helpful.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:23 AM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
APT... "...how do we know ice core data for CO2 levels [are] more reliable?"
Perhaps because ice core data are actually measuring CO2 concentrations. It's a direct measurement of CO2 (or as direct as you can get before Keeling). Whereas, somata are clearly only a proxy for CO2.
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APT at 07:58 AM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
@Daniel Bailey
Thank you for the link to the Zeigler et al. paper. That's interesting and useful.
Since you had misunderstood my previous request, I had assumed that the link to the NOAA paleoclimate data related to temperatures rather than CO2 levels, but I see know that there are data relating to other factors affecting climate. It would be useful to know which ones relate specifically to CO2 levels but I'll search through and find them.
The rest of your post is, unfortunately, unhelpful, since I wasn't putting forward an argument of any kind but simply seeking information to counter an argument put forward by someone else. As a response to a polite request for information it is, like saddenp's, rather hostile in tone.
Even if I had been trying to cast doubt on climate science, which I wasn't, this type of response is uncalled for and hardly conducive to promoting understanding. -
APT at 07:42 AM on 25 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
@Scaddenp
My apologies for not giving a full reference or link to the relevant paper. I will do so in future posts. The one you've linked to is indeed the one I was referring to, and I thank you for including the published comment on it, I had read the reply to that comment but not the comment itself, which looks like it contains the kind of information I was looking for.At no point did I say I was sure of the superiority of stomatal records. Far from it in fact. I simply requested information about them in order to be able to explain why ice core data was considered more reliable. I am also well aware that far from being an argument against AGW, that paper supports the consensus. I'm sorry to say that I find your response to my simple and polite request for information to be rather hostile in tone and not very encouraging for those seeking information.
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scaddenp at 07:31 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Like any community, you will find people have different stances on nuclear and many without strong opinions one way or the other. Brave New Climate is generally the forum where nuclear is discussed.
The article was targeting proponents of fossil fuel who argue against the move to RE on grounds that you need FF to provide reliable power. Getting stuck on definitions of baseload etc is kind of missing the point which I thought was clear in the article if not necessarily in the title. I certainly do not see the article as anti-nuke.
I am frankly all for further development on new nuclear technologies - I have been convinced by MacKay's book that this is best option in some countries. However, nuclear, at the moment, does look to have high levelized costs and a lot of trouble getting investors, especially if governments refuse to indemify operators against accidents.
However, I live in a country generating 80% of electricity from renewables without subsidies and on track to lift that 90% by 2025 (thanks to small population and abundant hydro and geothermal). I am glad that I personally dont have to consider nuclear choices.
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Tom Curtis at 07:28 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Superposition @160:
"I suspect it comes down to the following:
>Amount of variable/non variable RE
>Grid interlinks to other networks
>Access to pumped storage"
That sounds about right except that there is good reason to think that Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) can substitute for pumped hydro storage, with approximately the same round trip efficiencies and no geographical limitation. It does have the disadvantage that it will degrade over time so that long term storage is not viable, but that is likely to be an infrequent problem (particularly with some pumped hydro available).
Further, you are ignoring the options make available through overbuild of renewable capacity with intermittent operations made possible by very cheap electricity supply when the generating network supplies in excess of demand. In more arid areas of the world, I suspect that will make large scale desalinization economic. In more temperate regions, electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen gas may become economic, and provide for long term energy storage.
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SuperPosition at 07:08 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
MA Rodger 159.
Thanks for the ingenious quote~vs~paraphrase (where I only said baseload) but for me the subject is closed, you win, whatever.
JH forgive me for asking in thread but I cannot sdee how else to ask:: can we perhaps discuss something offline?
I'm new here and it the tenor of SKS so far seems quite anti N which is not what I was expecting from a site that lauds data and debunks science myth - if so, fine. Just let me know off the record (email me) and I'll go - I honestly have no interest in being railed at and I'm sure RH et al would be pleased to see me go.
Moderator Response:[RH] No one (including me) has any problem with you commenting here. But, as noted originally, SkS is definitely not the place for endless back and forth discussions that go nowhere.
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SuperPosition at 06:32 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
It would be interesting to look at the various places around the world that have achieved high renewable energy deployment (say >50% of electrical generation) to see how each of them has overcome the supposed 'baseload problem'.
I think that by definition they would have to have a large percentage of constant o/p (baseload) RE in the 50% such as hydro and geothermal, and you probably find very few countries with that mix available to them.
Variable o/p RE in Germany has grown massively but grid operators are having to balance its networks by 'dumping' the resultant large spikes on their neighbours grid supplies - problems like these grow with the amount of variable generating output.
I suspect it comes down to the following:
>Amount of variable/non variable RE
>Grid interlinks to other networks
>Access to pumped storage
The difficulties are exemplified by a grid like the UK wihich has limited interlinks, limited hydro, limited PS (pumped storage) lots of potential wind and tidal power.
Figures vary but it seems to be circa 30% maximum for mix of variable RE without some sort of balancing mechanism plus grid reconfigurations and with current technology that has to be a lot of gas burning spinning reserve... so the actual savings will probably be less than it first looks.
If RE were all baseload as stated in the OP then this would not be an issue.
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Tom Curtis at 05:57 AM on 25 June 2015The Carbon Brief Interview: Christiana Figueres
Micawber @1, I quote from the abstract:
"Time-poor scientists, stripped of their intellectual property rights, under rewarded, poorly educated, and ruthlessly exploited by growth-obsessed commercial interests, missed catastrophic global warming and multiple extreme consequences. Climate scientists abandoned classical physics and Newton-Hooke field verification in favor of unverified beliefs, models, and apps. Climate studies confuse heat with temperature, do not include basal icemelt, density temperature-salinity function, Clausius-Clapeyron evaporation exponential skin temperature function, asymmetric brineheat sequestration, solar and tidal pumping, infra-red GHG heat trap, vertical tropical cells, freshwater warm pools; or wind-driven surface currents at 3 percent of windspeed. Climate model mistaken assumptions lead to the absurd conclusion that evaporation in the Labrador Sea at midnight in midwinter is greater than at the midday Equator."
That sort of rant is not found in scientific articles. Nor are the claims true. Given that the journal of publication mimics the name of a high impact physics journal to which it has no association, only publishes for a fee (and hence is reasonably described as a vanity press), has editorial board members with dubious or no academic affiliation (I particularly like 4 and 5), and its publisher (Council of Innovative Research) is listed on Beall's list of predatory journals, and given that the author published no papers from 1991-2011 (since when the majority of his publications have been in predatory press), I would take this article with a very large grain of salt.
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MA Rodger at 04:54 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
SuperPosition @158.
In this tiff over who said what, to be fair, the mention @137 was only mentioning nuclear power as exemplars within explanation. It did not introduce it as an issue for discussion. That occurred @139 with an implicit comment that said:-
"Why bother with all that infrastructure when you can build a simple base load supply, doesn't require interlinks and hugely costly (yet to be proven or deployable) storage at half the cost and at a smaller carbon footprint?"
I would say it is entirely reasonable to consider that this quote is advocating nuclear power as an alternative to renewables, unless the author of the quote can explain how it is that this "simple base load supply" could be construed as something else.
Moderator Response:[JH] Please refrain from turning this discussion into an adversial courtroom exchange.
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Micawber at 03:42 AM on 25 June 2015The Carbon Brief Interview: Christiana Figueres
The 2C limit has already been exceeded in the north Pacific according to a recent peer-reviewed paper. Climatologists have missed ocean warming and concentrated instead on the trivial atmospheric 7%.The paper shows 3C the North Pacific reached in 2013-15: No winter surfing at Tofino, Vancouver this past winter.
The warm water melts ice from beneath (basal icemelt).
The result is net cooling from large ocean warming. Hence the talk of a hiatus.
The authors report double exponential greenhouse gas accumulation and ice melt.
I had never heard of this doubling fractional growth in halving increments.
It is alarming if true.
I hope they are wrong but centuries of daily data suggest otherwise.The paper is online:
Matthews, J. Brian, 2015, Isle of Man, Galapagos and sunspot data show net cooling hid double exponential ocean warming danger: +3°C in 2014, +4°C likely by 2016, Journal of Advances in Physics, 9(2), 2355-2371, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2201.6169, http://cirworld.org/journals/index.php/jap/article/view/4596/pdf_178
The prediction of 4C by 2016 will be easily testable.
There is not way to stop it if true.It would be worth erring on the side of caution and taking this seriously.
It suggests the Paris Conference will need to take much more urgent decisions.PS The author was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and Royal Geographical Society in 1963 and is a 50 year American Geophysical Union Gold Award Scientist.
It seems to be well founded.Moderator Response:[JH] Link activated.
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SuperPosition at 00:33 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Apologies JH - I will of course oblige, but I think it should be noted that I am the responder to the question/accusation.
Moderator Response:[JH] Which is why I let this comment stand.
BTW, all commenters should abide by the SkS Comments Policy prohibition of excessive repeitition.
In addition, please avoid the temptation to post the "final word" because it rarely is.
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SuperPosition at 00:03 AM on 25 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Do not blame me for your failed attempt to support nuclear. Everyone else can read what we have both posted.
Well I'm certainly not anti solution - You raised the subject of nuclear in 137 - I had not referred to it - I honestly and politely responded to your comment. I certainly don't think it witchcraft or an instrument of Satan.
If you feel so strongly against nuclear then I'm surprised you started a conversation about how clean, safe and inexpensive it is compared to most RE.
I am pro a solution to AGW/ACC that is cheapest, safest and the lowest emissions available baseload capable grid ready technology applied as per the DDPP [SDSN & IDDRI 2014] plan. I am genuinely am sorry you disagree - I wish more people could get past their prejudices on this.
You have not produced any peer reviewed data to back your wild claim that RE cannot generate baseload power.
That is because that is not my position - Some RE such as hydro is totally constant baseload capable - Others such as wind, solar and tidal is variable and needs dynamic load matching/balancing to work on a grid.
The most common definition of baseload is "the permanent minimum load that a power supply system is required to deliver." - Obviously a source that is variable does not conform to that definition.
It is a noun - a matter of definition of technical parlance and thus requires no 'study' peer reviewed or not. Strange idea.
Variable RE is currently accepted into grid architecture through load balancing the dispach to accomodate the variability of output - that is done because on its own it is NOT a baseload capable supply. The system accomodates it dynamically.
If you read Budischak you will find that they calculated the cost of power while spilling (wasting) the obvious excess power that they generate with their system.
I have read it and yes, if you read back you willsee that is what I said earlier. Thanks for paraphrasing me. I'm glad we agree on something.
A constructive use for the excess power will be found. That will make the power even cheaper than Budischak estimate.
I hope so and I appreciate your optimism, but we are talking about huge amounts of power and the grid has to remain finely balanced, hence the benefit of a constant energy baseload supply - In Denmark and Germany it is causing many grid stability problems and the the excesses are dumped onto neighbouring country grids which risks collapsing them - something that countries like the UK could not easily do.
Currently, wind and solar are not used for baseload because they only recently became economic
No, the reason is that the world is round, the Sun sets and it has weather.
I hate quoting wiki, but firstly; this isn't contraversial to anyone and secondly; it actually contains an abundance of links for you to explore.
Moderator Response:[JH] As noted on your prior comment, you are skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Future repetitive comments will likely be summarily deleted.
In other words, this discussion has run its course.
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CBDunkerson at 23:19 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
It would be interesting to look at the various places around the world that have achieved high renewable energy deployment (say >50% of electrical generation) to see how each of them has overcome the supposed 'baseload problem'.
I know Iceland uses geothermal for baseload. Several other countries (e.g. Norway, Columbia, Austria, Brazil, New Zealand, Canada, etc) have large amounts of hydropower for baseload. Denmark is mostly wind power, but I think still using fossil fuels for baseload... though the fact that they've been able to rapidly scale back fossil fuels to a minority of total generation, which they plan to eliminate entirely in the next few decades, shows how small an issue 'baseload' really is.
Conversely, many poor countries like Lesotho now have low cost variable wind and solar power as nearly their only forms of electrical generation. Giving them near 100% renewable electricity without worrying about baseload at all. Apparently not having electricity some of the time is still vastly better than never having electricity. Go figure.
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MA Rodger at 22:35 PM on 24 June 2015The latest global temperature data are breaking records
Tom Curtis @64.
The +0.6ºC conversion given in AR4 - pre-industrial temperature to HadCRUT4 anomaly 1990-2000 - does appear in various places in that report. In searching it out I was usually more pleased to at last have found something explicit and wasn't too bothered which Working Group was responsible. WG1AR5 Ch2SM.4.3.3 give the conversion of HadCRUT4 1850-1900 anomaly to the 1986-2005 reference period as of 0.61ºC which suggests the latter can be substituted as a worthy alternative to the WG2AR4 figure, which effectively is what WG1AR5 does, as does WG2AR5.
In terms of finding a more authoritative statement within WG1 on the issue of pre-industrial global temperature, the whole thing does manage to fall between the stools. AR5 WG1 SPM surely should provide the references but the two relevant places fail to deliver. SPM B makes no mention of the issue. SPM E makes the promising note that:-
"Based on the longest global surface temperature dataset available, the observed change between the average of the period 1850–1900 and of the AR5 reference period is 0.61 [0.55 to 0.67] °C. However, warming has occurred beyond the average of the AR5 reference period. Hence this is not an estimate of historical warming to present (see Chapter 2)."
But there the trail runs dry. WG2AR5 is the document that tells us how bad AGW will be at various levels of impact defined by WG1. WG2SPM presents us with the asertion "°C relative to 1850–1900, as an approximation of preindustrial levels" with reference then to WG1AR5 Chapter2.4.
If, as wili insists, we should be providing a number for 'temperature rise above pre-industrial to date' and singing it from the rooftops, there remains the question of what the pre-industrial (or 1850-1900 as a usable approximation) should be compared with. The last 12 months of HadCRUT4 yields 0.93ºC. But this surely could be accused of being cherry-picked. Ditto the last complete calendar year.The comparison used in WG1AR5 SMP B is the last 10 complete calendar years of the record which AR5 using 2003-12 puts at 0.78ºC. Today it would be a little higher at 0.81ºC.
And then HadCRUT4 has its critics. So for comparison, using Cowtan & Way 2.0 yields 1.00ºC for the last 12 months & 0.89ºC for the last 12 calendar years.
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michael sweet at 21:22 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Superposition,
Do not blame me for your failed attempt to support nuclear. Everyone else can read what we have both posted.
You have not produced any peer reviewed data to back your wild claim that RE cannot generate baseload power. On the other hand, I have referred to peer reviewed data that show RE can generate baseload power at a reasonable cost without spinning reserve or storage. You have never mentioned that paper and its conclusions. Budischak et al 2013, linked previously in this thread here and here, have demonstrated using data that it is more economical to overbuild RE to obtain baseload coverage. Storage is not as economic. Your long discussions about the cost of storage are moot because it is not economic. Serious people looking at RE propose overbuilding generation and not storage.
From Budischak 2014:
" By looking at the results in Table 3, it is apparent that a 99.9%
renewable electricity system with either GIV or hydrogen storage
and using estimated 2030 costs will be cheaper than today’s
current electricity price, if externalities are included.
Furthermore, a 90% renewable electricity system with 2030 cost
estimates can meet load at costs below today’s without
externalities."The 90% figure is without storage. They use about 7-72 hours of storage for 99.9% of power. If they linked to nearby grids (Canada adjacent to the north has a lot of hydro that is cheap for storage and the US Midwest has excess wind) or used load shifting they might avoid any storage at all.
If you read Budischak you will find that they calculated the cost of power while spilling (wasting) the obvious excess power that they generate with their system. I personally find it impossible to believe that engineers will not find a use for cheap power that is only available part of the time. A constructive use for the excess power will be found. That will make the power even cheaper than Budischak estimate. Backup power supplies for the rare occasions it is needed are already built to provide peak power, since baseload units cannot load follow and provide peak power. Costs for RE have declined substantially since Budischak 2013 was written.
Currently, wind and solar are not used for baseload because they only recently became economic and not enough wind and solar have been installed for them to be used for that purpose. That does not mean that in the future more RE cannot be installed and then it will be used for baseload. Meanwhile, every KW generated using RE is a kilowatt that was not generated using fossil fuels.
Your claim that it is impossible for RE to provide baseload is false. Your argument is based on a false premise. The OP is correct and you are wrong.
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longjohn119 at 19:45 PM on 24 June 2015New study links global warming to Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events
I beleive there is also a third, Fluid Dynamics ... And they kind of crossover into each others realms
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SuperPosition at 18:46 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
The issue I raised was, the claim that "Renewables can't provide baseload power" as a "myth"
It is true that otherwise variable RE generators can produce net baseload power when paired with spinning reserve or long term storage (n+ hours)
Is it pedantic to say that such conditions render the terminology useless and thus the claim in OP as overstated and SkS is exceeding its brief in claiming otherwise?
The fact remains that the RE and grid industry as a whole do not refer to variable RE as a baseload supply.
Moderator Response:[JH] You are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. Future repetitive comments may be summarily deleted.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.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.
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SuperPosition at 18:45 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
Tom Curtis 152
Then you haven't even tried: Electric Mountain
Actually I've been there - it is very impressive indeed.
But I'm sorry but that is not national grid storage as it cannot be expanded to that function - it is 'operating reserve' pumped storage that even from full would only run for a maximum of 6 hours which takes longer to fill than it runs.
Whilst the principle is completely valid, the reality is that it is not expandable to the UK grid - very few countries have the geology where that would be possible.
I'll try to find it but I remeber a figure that the UK geology only had circa 2GW of additional potential hydro/storage and most of that was impractical to access.
Incidentally For it to be true V-RE grid storage as per the OP, you would need sufficient excess RE to guarantee supply whilst simultaneously charging/pumping your system whilst accounting for a storage loss of 75%.
Although Electric Mountain discharges for upto 6 hours it can take days to fill from empty depending on grid status/surplus and apparently often runs in the lower third of capacity so it would not be useful for much beyond covering peak loads and energy arbitrage - which is what it does.
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Tom Curtis at 18:36 PM on 24 June 2015Eight things we learned from the pope's climate change encyclical
chriskoz @79, thankyou for correcting my corrections. Unfortunately I do have a history of messing up the arithmetic, especially on my insomnia specials (ie, posts made when I try to make productive use of my insomnia such as the one above).
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Tom Curtis at 18:00 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
SuperPosition @151:
"I cannot find a single grid providor who has plans to deploy grid storage which seems to indicate that, beyond specialist applications for special regions, there is no grid deployment"
Then you haven't even tried:
"Water is stored at a high altitude in Marchlyn Mawr reservoir and is discharged into Llyn Peris through the turbines during times of peak electricity demand. It is pumped back from Llyn Peris to Marchlyn Mawr during off-peak times. Although it uses more electricity to pump the water up than it generates on the way down, pumping is generally done at periods of low demand, when the energy is cheaper to consume.
The power station comprises six 300MW GEC generator/motors coupled to Francis-type reversible turbines. The generators are vertical shaft, salient pole, air cooled units each having 12 electromagnetic poles weighing 10 tonnes each, producing a terminal voltage of 18 kV, synchronous speed is 500 rpm. From standstill, a single 450-tonne generator can synchronise and achieve full load in approximately 75 seconds. With all six units synchronised and spinning-in-air (Water is dispelled by compressed air and the unit draws a small amount of power to spin the shaft at full speed), 0 MW to 1800 MW load can be achieved in approximately 16 seconds.[18] Once running, the station can provide power for up to 6 hours before running out of water."
>170 more additional storage systems currently operational (some, but not all are experimental)
The list is not exhaustive, not including the commerical pumped hydro facility at Wivenhoe dam near Brisbane (for example), and presumably missing others as well.
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SuperPosition at 16:26 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
...moving back to what I was saying...
Whilst it is gratifying that people seem to acknowledge to some degree or other that the OP wording is incorrect, it is a shame that no one seems to want to change it given the given stated inention of SkS to attack incorrect or poorly applied science.
To what standard should the reporting of fact be held on a site that prides itself in attacking misinformation?
Many green groups have an 'RE or nothing' tenor to their agenda and I would expect that SkS and its followers would have an open mind to alternative low carbon energy (and industry) given that the intention is to effect a reduction of AGW/ACC.
Most Green groups cite RE storage as the solution to variable RE, but I cannot find a single grid providor who has plans to deploy grid storage which seems to indicate that, beyond specialist applications for special regions, there is no grid deployment - surely a pre-requisite to large scale RE rollout as championed by those bodies.
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SuperPosition at 16:05 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
PhilippeChantreau 149.
How disappointing! This was all just a convoluted ploy to advocate for nuclear power.
I hope that was not directed at me Phillippe - I was not the one that raised it, it was Micheal Sweet at 137.
I do not think a list of RE compared to other energy supplies is off topic in that context. It is only data and should not have caused alarm - I cartainly do not think I deserved the attack and negative comment.
In any event, given that the discussion is basload power capabilities (or not) of variable RE, then the comparison with the lowest form of carbon baseload supply (nuclear) are inevitable.
I cannot help but note the long discussion of fusion [112 to 124] passed entirely without thunder from above.
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PhilippeChantreau at 15:19 PM on 24 June 2015Renewables can't provide baseload power
How disappointing! This was all just a convoluted ploy to advocate for nuclear power. That is off-topic on this thread, but I' discuss it on another more appropriate one if pointed to it.
Being from France, I am well aware of the advantages of nuclear, for a country that has few or no other options. However, the disadvantages are becoming more and more noticeable these days, even in France. These are topics of r another thread. The wording of the OP may not be ideal but it does not contain anything disingenious and overall presents things well.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:46 PM on 24 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25B
gregbcharles@2,
The NOAA data is available here.
The presentation is a little quirky. The default is set up to compare the month from any year to the same month from previous years. However, in the Timescale options the last choice "Year-to-Date" will only plot the year to date in the bar-chart but the table below the chart will show all the monthly data from the Start Year value.
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chriskoz at 14:20 PM on 24 June 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25B
While world is getting ready for Paris COP, Australia is going backwards with their renewable energy:
Renewable energy target slashed
The government believes the reduced target will address an oversupply of energy in the market and save consumers from possible price hikes had the larger target not been reached.
That's the most silly explanation I've seen for so far. When something is in oversupply, the prices should actually drop, at least on a free market that I know. What kind of marketting force prompts OZ gov to conclude such explanation that does not make any sense?
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chriskoz at 13:18 PM on 24 June 2015Eight things we learned from the pope's climate change encyclical
Tom@78,
Thanks for your explanation which makes perfect qualitative sense to me.
Your numbers do not make good sense though (careful back-envelope arithmetics may not be one your strongest skill) because you seem to sway with your energy numbers and are not sure which numbers are correct.
I checked your numbers from last paragraph, based on the energy consumption data from wikipedia (Table of Regional energy use kWh/capita - column Year 2008, which is fine for our estimates here):
Given 8760 hours/year:
Per capita:
USA - 87,216kWh, or 87,216/8760 = almost 10kW
World - 21,283kWh or 21,283/8760 = 2.43kW
So, current world per capita power is ~1/5 of US power
Total:
USA - 10kW * 300mln = 3TW
World - 2.43kW * 7bilion = 17TW
If you want to give world per capita power the same as US you get:
17TW * 5 = 85TW
Then if you want to increase population from 7 to 10bln you get:
85TW*10/7 = 120TW
which is exactly 1/5 of your number 600TW
So, your original estimate "600 TW as sufficient for 10 billion at 5 times current US per capita energy usage" was spot on and you made a mistake by "correcting" it.
Now, for the radiative forcing of those numbers, if current world total energy of 17TW yields 0.028 W/m2 (from Flanner (2009) I quoted above), then, your number of 10bln of 5 times US affluence 600TW yields 0.028*600/17 = 1W/m2 which is close to your original number (your "corrected" number 0.06 W/m^2 is way too low).
I agree that such scenario (although unrealistic) results in signifficant forcing. The more realistic (frankly quite likely if we do not stop FF burning) scenario - 10bln reaching current US affluence would be 0.2W/m2 which is within the range of solar variations.
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scaddenp at 13:00 PM on 24 June 2015It's too hard
I dont think Guy McPherson has much scientific support for his claims. The consensus position in WG2 of the IPCC reports certainly doesnt support that.
I also find it odd that someone should think that because we are in a deep hole, it makes sense to dig even deeper. Any scientific assessment of what the effects of climate change has error bars, and maybe things will pan out at the top end of that error bar if we are very unlucky. However, continued emissions is guaranteeing that things will be worse than if we stopped now.
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anticorncob6 at 12:26 PM on 24 June 2015It's too hard
What about a subset of the "It's too hard" people who are saying that it is too late? According to them, even if all emissions ended today, we have already pumped so much heat into the atmosphere that catastrophic climate change will still happen. Therefore we shouldn't even bother with trying to fix global warming, and all we should do now is simply live the best we can until the end. I know Guy McPherson thnks this way.
Is there accuracy to this claim?
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Daniel Bailey at 09:52 AM on 24 June 2015CO2 measurements are suspect
"I understand that stomatal index data has certain problems, but then so does ice core data"
Feel free to delineate what you feel those limitations might be and cite your sources. The ice core data are among the best we have for the past 800,000 or so years for atmospheric gases. You're going to have to do better than just an argument from incredulity.
"some Holocene studies seem pretty robust"
"seem" is hardly an objective assessment.
"Surely any issues with the stomatal data could be taken into account"
Surely. But still an argument from incredulity. This venue deals in evidence. Since you seem bent on making an assertion about ice core CO2 data, the burden of proof is on you, the claimant, to mount an evidence-based claim and to support it with links to the primary literature.
"Stomata studies showing high levels of CO2 in the relatively recent past are being used to suggest that current levels are not unusual in human history"
Citation, please.
"what about studies suggesting higher CO2 at the end of the Younger Dryas"
Nebulous assertion; citation please.
"I can't find reconstructions of CO2 levels over the last several thousand years that use anything other than ice core data, although reconstructions over millions of years use stomata and ocean sediment for the earliest periods"
Off the top of my head, Ziegler et al 2013 does just that. Further, it covers the period of the past 360,000 years.
"how do we know ice core data for CO2 levels is more reliable"
How do you know that ice core data is less reliable than stomata data?
"aren't stomata indices useful proxies"
Yep. When used with proper contexts. Which is how they are used.
"Are there other proxies which could be used to back up ice core CO2 results"
There are. I gave you a link to them in my previous comment. Here it is, again.
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nigelj at 09:50 AM on 24 June 2015New study links global warming to Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events
I live in New Zealand, and we have just had one of our worst flooding events in recorded history. I suppose as a small island nation, and given higher atmospheric moisture, we are particularly at higher risk of more intense floods or possibly more floods. Any experts have any thoughts on our levels of risk, and the most likely scenario?
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