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Bob Loblaw at 02:50 AM on 16 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
The C-14 article is just lipstick on an old pig - the same errors that permeate earlier papers are applied to C-14 concentrations instead of just CO2.
The key factor is that differentiation over the short term cannot tell you much about long-term processes. There is a fundamental error, covered in the "correlation" link above, but not really expanded on or explicitly stated. Basically, when you differentiate (look at the short-term rates of variation) you eliminate the constant terms. Many moons ago I expressed this in a private forum as follows:
I am reminded of a math joke told to me years ago by a mathematician
friend. (Yes, I know. "math joke" is an oxymoron. Don't ask me to tell you the one about Noah and the snakes.)Two mathematicians are in a bar, arguing about the general math knowledge of the masses. They end up deciding to settle the issue by seeing if the waitress can answer a math question. While mathematician A is in the bathroom, mathematician B corners the waitress and tells her that when his friend asks her a question, she should answer "one half X squared". A little later, when the waitress returns to the table, mathematician A asks her "what is the integral of X?". She answers as instructed, and mathematician A sheepishly pays off the bet and admits that mathematician B was right. As the waitress walks away, she is heard to mutter "pair of idiots. It's one-half X squared, plus a constant".
Salby and Harde forget that integration is not complete without adding a constant - a moot point if you are just doing the integration symbolically, but absolutely critical if you want to put actual numbers on it. CO2 does track the integral of temperature - as long as you don't forget to add back in the constant that dominates the correlation. Without the constant, there is no correlation, which tells us that the short-term variations in temperature are not affecting the long term buildup of CO2. Because Salby sees a correlation between the noise in T and the noise in CO2, he mistakenly assumes that integration will entirely reverse the differentiation without reference to the constant.
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EddieEvans at 21:24 PM on 15 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Five years ago I still believed that humanity would avoid extinction whenever possible. I'm now confident that I was wrong. I see the next generation's ruling elites taking part in climate deception, and then the next if there is a next.
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EnderWiggin at 20:07 PM on 15 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
Thanks alot to Bob for his answers! I already knew the four articles on skepticalscience you linked to, but apparently the C-14-articles were not adressed therein.
Sorry for posting several times, I just thought to increase my chance to get an answer. Next time, I'm going to post only once.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:55 AM on 15 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon,
The fundamentals of the argument you continue to make are still:
- The emissions from the ‘tailpipe’ of the most efficient hybrid is to be compared with all of the emissions of charging 'any and all' EVs or plug-in hybrids with fossil fuel generated electricity that does not have emissions reduced by CCS.
- Therefore, until there is no fossil fuel generation of electricity 'anywhere' there should be no EV or plug-in hybrid use. Not maintaining this part of the argument opens the argument up to the question of how much EV use makes sense.
Try again after reviewing all of the comments, particularly my comment @36, particularly the point that any unnecessary fossil fuel use, including electricity use in regions with fossil fuel as part of the generation mix, needs to be curtailed.
That understanding leads to appreciating the benefit of, and need for, government action to encourage the purchase of EVs paired with government action to reduce unnecessary energy use, especially actions that rapidly end fossil fuel use which would include discouraging the purchase and use of fossil fuelled vehicles, including hybrids and plug-in hybrids.
Note: I have always driven my efficient hybrid as little as possible. So, some people do not need government encouragement and discouragement to be less harmful and more helpful. But since everybody's climate impact actions add up government actions to encourage less harmful behaviours and discourage more harmful behaviour are required contrary to, and corrective of, developed popular misunderstandings and related harmful profitable activities.
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BaerbelW at 04:37 AM on 15 January 2023Publishing a long overdue explainer about a scientific consensus
To add another option to share this explainer, I created an audio version and put it up on Youtube: https://youtu.be/CQIowIu0yoc
This might come in handy whenever trying to explain a scientific consensus in YouTube comments where links to other videos work, but - at least for me - comments with links to other websites make them disappear immediately.
P.S.: Thanks to EddieEvans for giving me the idea to do this recording!
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:20 AM on 15 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @44... "So the net result of adding the EV load is an equivalent 'increase' in coal generation compared to the scenario when no EV load existed."
Coal generation is clearly declining.
Renewable energy is now scaling exponentially.
The net result is reduced carbon emissions. Electrifying surface transportation with EV's is a (the most, even) significant part of that equation.
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Doug Cannon at 02:47 AM on 15 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
One Planet Only Forever #43
I would take issue with your second paragraph re “....any(all) electricity for EV's must come from fossil...”
In my original #15 I was very specific in the first two paragraphs. I made it clear that my position was in regard to “total CO2 emissions in the U. S.” and it was based on”a best case scenario” for renewable electricity by the eia. I later gave a link to that eia report.https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/AEO2022_ReleasePresentation.pdf
In that scenario, in the middle of page 15, the graphs confirm the fuel mix I described in my 2nd and 3rd paragraph.
You're correct. There is a conceptual issue. The concept being: as we're trying to clean up the grid, and the two variables in the fuel mix are (1) increasing renewable generation and (2)equally decreasing coal generation, then: as an EV load is added, that increased EV load has to be met by not decreasing the coal generation. So the net result of adding the EV load is an equivalent “increase” in coal generation compared to the scenario when no EV load existed.
It's a very simple concept. One can disbelieve the eia forecast; that's fine. But, assuming their forecast is correct, the resulting concept is clear. -
MA Rodger at 00:56 AM on 14 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
sailingfree @68,
Note that the data for global temperatre you plot is NOAA data but not GISS (LOTI) data. Both use the same raw data but process them differently. Thus in NOAA 2015 is warmer than 2017 by +0.02ºC while in GISS 2015 is cooler than 2017 by -0.02ºC.
And both have published the 2022 figure which slots into the record above 2021, although not by much in NOAA.
As you rightly say, the present La Niña is depressing the global average SAT, a La Niña which is expected to end through the coming year, and expected to end a lot more suddenly than previous strong La Niñas (like 1988, 1999 & 2008 which were more sudden transitioning into La Niña and more gradual transitioning out).
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sailingfree at 14:00 PM on 13 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
Here is the update to Scafetta's Widget.
Moderator Response:[PS] I have updated comment to the actual image, and removed failed attempts You again linked to a page, rather than the image in that page. You want link that has .png, .jpg etc in it.
Additional information on adding image or html to a comment can be found on the comments policy page (at the bottom). The link to the comment policy is just under the comment editor.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:44 AM on 13 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
A follow-up to my comment @ 69, which was a response to EnderWiggin @ 68.
On Tuesday, I did a search for the title and author (Salby) that EnderWiggin provided. I was able to find parts 1 and 2 on a site hosted at scc.klimarealistene.com - but by Wednesday, that domain name had disappeared and could no longer be reached.
klimarealistene.com does still exist, but has no signs of the papers. A bit of searching on their web page found a link to scienceofclimatechange.org. Eventually, the two papers were found on this page (Volume 1.2 December 2021).
A bit of background. Klimarealistene is a well-known Norwegian climate "science" contrarian group. The "journal" Science of Climate Change is their creation. I suspect the change in web location has to do with reorganization of the journal's online pages. The old "scc" portion of the klimarealistene link was undoubtedly short for Science of Climate Change.
On the main SCC page, they say:
4 November, 2022
The journal Science of Climate Change was funded by Klimarealistene in Norway in September 2020, and the first issue appeared in August 2021. Several additional articles have been published in 2021 and 2022, but due to a heavy work load on the Editor they have not been collected into Volumes before now. A few articles have also been delayed in being published. The Scientific Council of the Norwegian Climate Realists is at the moment working on a plan for the management of the journal from 2023. In the mean time I have stepped in as Editor to handle the backlog…
The list of authors on their Volumes and Issues page reads like a who's-who of climate science contrarianism in Norway. Standard names such as Salby, Humlum, Harde, and Solheim dominate.So, the "obscure" journal, as EnderWiggin refers to it, looks like it is basically just a mouth-piece for Klimarealistene, so they can "publish" stuff and make it look like a journal. Credibility factor approaching zero.The two CO2 papers in question are co-authored between Salby and Hermann Harde. Interestingly, Salby is listed with an affiliation of "Ex Macquarie University" -a university he was fired from in 2013, after only 5 years. Not an inaccurate claim - he's clearly no longer there - but rather reeks of resume padding. (Of course, Salby is now "Ex Earth", having passed away in 2022.)Part 1 basically looks at C14 fluxes and argues that it can be used to estimate carbon uptake rates. Part 2 follows to look at recent (nothing older than 1956) variations in CO2 and temperature, to claim that anthropogenic contributions to the rise in CO2 are negligible.I didn't try to evaluate their math in detail, but basically it looks like yet another case of taking the short-term variation in CO2 concentrations and temperature, and making erroneous statistic correlations that mislead them about long-term trends. Same dog, same old tricks.In my comment above, the most applicable debunking is probably the one in this SkS post: -
sailingfree at 06:33 AM on 13 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
photos.app.goo.gl/9y372EWor6C9ExJi9
Moderator Response:[PS] if you use a image service that just serves the image, then you can use insert image, make sure width is constrained to 500, and the image will display in the comment. google photos is bad for this as links are to the photo viewer, not the image.
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sailingfree at 06:29 AM on 13 January 2023Scafetta's Widget Problems
It has been a decade since Scafetta’s 2011 projections were made, so it is time to update the temperature data to compare it to his projections.
In the figure below I have updated his graph by adding the global surface temperature yearly
average anomalies from NOAA/GISS. I’d say the IPCC models are pretty good, especially since the last few years have been La Nina years.
Scafetta projection, the black wavy line, misses the temperature change over the decade by a third of a degree. Recent temperatures of 2015 to 2022 are already comparable to his projection for 2100.(The NOAA/GISS data is referenced to the 1900-1999 average so I adjusted it to the 1960-1999 reference that Scafetta used. The NOAA/GISS data average for 1960-1999 is 0.135, so I
subtracted that from the data before plotting it as the black dots.)Moderator Response:[PS] If you want to put an image into a comment, you need to first put the image into some suitable image server (eg imgur) and then insert a link. SkS doesnt have ability to host images despite the illusion of it doing so.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:31 AM on 11 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
EnderWiggin:
First, you've posted the same question in three locations. That is bad form. In the main menu under the masthead, the "Comments" link will show any new comments on any thread, so posting your question once will allow it to be found easily.
As for Salby, without a link to the papers I can't tell what that particular version of Salby's wanderings are wrong, but his name has been a frequent occurence here. You can use the search function at this site to find more, but in roughly chronoogical order here are several posts that discuss errors in Salby's work. I don't think he's come up with anything new in many years, so even old posts will probably cover any "recent" errors.
https://skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natural.htm
https://skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-Confused-About-The-Carbon-Cycle.html
https://skepticalscience.com/salby_correlation_conundrum.html
https://skepticalscience.com/salbyratio.html
Moderator Response:[BL] Edited 2023/01/12/ to delete a link that pointed to an unpublished web page.
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EnderWiggin at 04:19 AM on 11 January 2023Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels
Greetings, I'm new here. I was directed to Murry Salbys 'C-14 proof', apparently 'Control of atmospheric CO2 Part 1&2' in the obscure 'Journal' 'Science of Climate Change'.
Does anybody has any informations about where exactly he goes wrong in his proof?
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EnderWiggin at 04:17 AM on 11 January 2023CO2 has a short residence time
Greetings, I'm new here. I was directed to Murry Salbys 'C-14 proof', apparently 'Control of atmospheric CO2 Part 1&2' in the obscure 'Journal' 'Science of Climate Change'.
Does anybody has any informations about where exactly he goes wrong in his proof?
Moderator Response:[BL] This question was also asked on another thread. I have posted an answer here.
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EnderWiggin at 04:16 AM on 11 January 2023Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural
Greetings, I'm new here. I was directed to Murry Salbys 'C-14 proof', apparently 'Control of atmospheric CO2 Part 1&2' in the obscure 'Journal' 'Science of Climate Change'.
Does anybody has any informations about where exactly he goes wrong in his proof?
Moderator Response:[BL] This question was also asked on another thread. I have posted an answer here.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:29 AM on 11 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
There are some other interesting tidbits in that contract between Smithsonian and Southern Company Services. A lot is just boilerplate put in by the lawyers, but it also lists deliverables:
- progress reports
- detailed summary and analysis of results and findings
- ...and freedom for SCS to use the data and results "for its internal purposes"
There is also a Publicity clause:
Smithsonian shall not publish and utilize the name or otherwise identify SCS or its affiliate companies in any publications or other advertisements without the express written consent of SCS. As further consideration to SCS, Smithsonian shall provide SCS an advance written copy of proposed publications regarding the deliverables for comment and input, if any, from SCS.
In one context, that simply gives SCS the right to review the results of the work to make sure that it meets their needs as "deliverables".
In another context, it looks like SCS wants to keep the source of the funding secret, and wants to make sure that any results it does not like will not see the light of day.
Most academic granting agencies will want their name spread far and wide as supporting research, and academic freedom allows researchers to publish and publicize their results regardless of outcome.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:10 AM on 11 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
I would say there's a certain perverse incentive built into the system enabling a certain level of bad research to get funded. Soon is a perfect example.
As I sit here, the question occurs to me: Is there some inherent value to this kind of activity?
I've always believed it's important to understand what doesn't work as much as what does work. Researchers are almost going to aggressively defend their work, good or bad.
I don't know. Is the noise their work generates more destructive than the bad science they produce? If so, maybe that's a problem with how information propogates in the public sphere, and how private interests utilize it, rather than an inherent problem with people like Soon producing bad science.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:49 AM on 11 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
This is a very old thread, Long. Topal notes in comment #1 that all funds go to the Smithsonian, not individual scientists, but there are some catches to that.
Some of the links in the post are dead, but the "Climate Sceptic’s Fossil Fuel Funding Exposed" page is alive, and at the bottom of that article there is a link to original documents.
One of those documents is a 2008 contract between The Smithsonian and Southern Company Services Inc. The contract includes the proposal from Soon, and part of the proposal includes the items the money is to be spent on. That covers the following:
- 494 hours of Soon's labour, valued at $25,209. (That would put Soon's salary for a 2000-hr work year at roughly $100,000).
- Program administration
- Secretary
- Leave and Fringe benefits (i.e., overhead costs related to labour)
- "Direct Operating Overhead @ 30%".
- This would be Smithsonian's cut, to cover things like office space, etc.
- Travel
- "Printing and reproduction"
The way I would interpret this is that at least part of Soon's salary at Smithsonian is (was?) not coming from general Smithsonian funds, but from grants and contracts that Soon pulls in. This is not uncommon, AFAIK.
So, Soon's salary is (was?) probably fixed by his employment arrangements with the Smithsonian, but the Smithsonian gets off the hook for finding money to pay Soon - or at least, partly off the hook. Soon does not get rich by having a lot of contracts, but his continued employment at the Smithsonian would be made much easier by virtue of having industry cover his salary.
...and having grants or contracts to cover travel makes it a lot easier to participate in the contrarian talking road show. (The details in that contract cover travel to a "Scientific meeting, San Francisco". Possibly the AGU, at a guess?)
I certainly would not argue against you in speculating that gas and oil money will be a lot easier for Soon to get than regular government research grants.
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Long Knoll at 11:46 AM on 10 January 20232015 SkS News Bulletin #2: Willie Soon & The Fossil Fuel Industry
There's something I don't get about Willie Soon. Even though he's received huge amounts in grants from oil companies, presumably he hasn't got rich off them, because scientists don't get rich even off large grants as pointed out elsewhere. So why is he taking the grants from oil, as oppose to the government grants he once received? What's the advantage? It only seems to undermine his credibility. Is it because he is incapable of getting public money due to the poor quality of his research?
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Charlie_Brown at 07:33 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
pbarcelog @67
As a retired engineer (chemical) myself, I can address the fundamental problem with Seim & Olsen’s experiment from an engineer’s perspective for the benefit of your friend. The key mistake is neglecting the cold temperature of the tropopause (217K) that is the source of radiant energy loss to space in the range of about 13.5-16.5 microns. This has to be combined with the overall global energy balance.
The experiment is designed to measure radiant energy in conditions similar to the lower atmosphere, near the surface. Much of it sounds technical, so that it might sound convincing to someone with a technical background who does not fully understand how the greenhouse effect really works. The explanation provided in the Introduction is correct, but falls short of being complete because of the key mistake that I mentioned above. Section 3.4 addresses a variety of thermal issues that demonstrates knowledge about energy balances and confounding effects of convection and conduction. But it misses how the atmosphere is thermally balanced within the context of cold temperature at high altitudes, which is a common misunderstanding, and the fundamental fact of radiation that emitted energy from a CO2 molecule depends only on the presence and their temperature.
There is too much to explain in a short note without knowing the specific nature of your friend’s stumbling block in their understanding of global warming and the experiment. The basic, intermediate, and advanced rebuttals in the myth 74 “CO2 effect Is saturated” provide concise explanations for the fundamental misunderstanding underlying the experiment. The last few comments in that thread provide references for detailed explanations (especially Zhong & Haigh, 2013) for the overall global energy balance, fundamentals of radiant energy transfer, and basics of atmospheric physics. I suggest that your friend takes some time to study them. MODTRAN, as MA Rodger just referenced above, is an excellent and fascinating educational tool that should spark the interest of a curious, technically-minded, engineer (see Brown, et al, "Introduction to an Atmospheric Radiation Model" Chemical Engineering Progress, May 2022.)
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MA Rodger at 04:44 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
pbarcelog @67,
That appears to leave only Feldman et al (2015).
This was always an odd paper. Note on google scholar it is showing with 206 citations but if you look, most of these are not real citations of the paper's findings.
The question is: much extra downward surface IR you would expect from increasing CO2 from 370ppm to 385ppm (which is what Feldman et al attempt to measure)? MODTRAN gives a rise of 0.188Wm^-2 when modelling a mid-latitude winter and 0.314Wm^-2 when modelling mid-latitude summer. That these values are even the same order of magnitude of the climate forcing from such an increase in CO2 (which would be 5.35 x In(385/370) = 0.21Wm^-2) is entirely coincidental.
Your "retired engineer" appears to be dismissing this +0.21Wm^-2 CO2 forcing over the decade 2000-2010 because he says there is some cloud effect that is an "order of mangitude more relevant." So is there an increase in cloud forcing of +2Wm^-2 through that decade? Or is it perhaps a decrease of that size he talks of? Whichever, he does need to demonstrate this massive cloud effect that appeared through that decade to show he is not talking codswallop.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:40 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
...and the Seim and Olsen paper was also discussed in several comments on this recent thread:
SkS_Analogy_01_Speed_Kills_Part3_How_fast_can_we_slow_down.html
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Bob Loblaw at 02:34 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
Additional note:
Scientific Research Publishing (scirp.org) also has a Wikipedia page about it.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:28 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
To follow-up eclectic's comment @ 68:
The Seim and Olsen paper "The Influence of IR Absorption and Backscatter Radiation from CO2 on Air Temperature during Heating in a Simulated Earth/Atmosphere Experiment" appears to be this one:
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=99608
scirp.org is Scientific Research Publishing, which is on Beall's list of potentially predatory publishers. Not exactly a reputable journal.
The two authors are listed as "former..." affiliations with medical backgrounds.
Google scholar lists two citations, both (self?) published by Hermann Harde (a well-known climate science "contrarian" that never writes anything worth reading).
As eclectic says, trying to refute atmospheric physics with a lab experiment is a fool's errand.
I have not bothered reading the "paper" in detail. All meta-signs point to it being rubbish. In the bits I read, they confuse re-radiation by CO2 as "backscatter", and in the abstract they refer to "temperature ... increased ... about 0.5%". Anyone that uses % to measure temperature change is not worth reading, and they clearly have no understanding of the physics and terminology of radiation transfer.
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MA Rodger at 01:43 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
pbarcelog @67,
The Rutger snow cover data is not the easiest data to rattle out the impacts of climate change. While the arguments of your "retired engineer" may be something else, the point I would make is that snow cover is not necessarily a good measure of rising tempertures alone as it also requires snowfall which can also be a big variable. And we do have perfectly good instrument for actually measuring temperature, these being called thermometers.
The basics is that it is only the months March to June which show big trends in snow cover. See Rutgers monthly graph webpage and toggle through the months. There are also trends in July and August but through these months snow cover is almost max'ed out. Through the autumn & winter months, the trend is for more snow so more snow cover.
I did a while back write out a few paragraphs on the trend in snow cover and its illusiveness. It's posted about halfway down this webpage.
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Eclectic at 00:02 AM on 10 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
Pbarcelog @67 ;
Probably best to look to whatever underlying point your engineer friend is trying to make. Just as hurricane statistics vary considerably over decades, so too does snow cover vary ~ but neither of these measurements do "disprove" the major global warming observed.
It seems he is trying to cherry-pick one or other of whatever observations he can find, which . . . what? . . . show there is no warming and therefore no human-caused effect on climate? If that is his game (to convince himself at some emotional level of "no AGW") . . . then he is simply failing to look at the big picture. He is deceiving himself. And he is also failing to look at the paleo evidence of major climate changes produced by alteration in greenhouse gasses.
Does he have Conspiracy-type doubts that the past 170 years of thermometer measurements are all false, and all the climate scientists are wrong? If the planet is not warming, then why is the sea level continuing to rise?
He may feel that 0.2 Watts or 1.0 Watts is a tiny number . . . but the evidence keeps showing that the world is warming ~ whatever his (rather ill-informed) opinion might be about clouds.
The warming effect of increased CO2 level is only denied by the nuttiest of non-scientists ~ and they have zero evidence to back up their ideas of "no greenhouse effect". The effect of CO2 has been known for roughly a century. Basic physics explains it, and decades of observations confirm it.
(Please note that laboratory experiments cannot re-create the necessary full-depth atmosphere that produces "greenhouse" . . . so I have not bothered to review the "Backscatter Radiation" experiment you touched on ~ but if you feel there is something of great note & importance demonstrated in the experiment, then please discuss it in more detail, and preferably with a direct link to the paper.)
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pbarcelog at 20:24 PM on 9 January 2023IPCC overestimate temperature rise
Hello everyone, I am trying to confront scepticals but there is people giving me a hard time. One retired engineer is arguing with Rutger's data set of snow coverage for the northern hemisphere, also the article:
The Influence of IR Absorption and Backscatter Radiation from CO2 on Air Temperature during Heating in a Simulated Earth/Atmosphere Experiment Thorstein O. Seim1, Borgar T. Olsenand "Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010" from Nature, because he states that 0.2w/m2 is almost negligible and clouds are order of mangitude more relevant.
Anyone familiar with that data and articles? What is the explantion to a stable snow cover for the last decades? The explanation to Seim's experiment and the relevance of the 0.2w/m2?
Thanks a lot, if you share your arguments with me I will guarantee they are well used in LinkedIn
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:05 PM on 9 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
michael sweet,
I hope this helps you understand Doug Cannon's 'perspective'. (I am open to correction of the following by Doug, as long as it is also consistent with what has been presented).
Doug's argument appears to depend on the belief that any (all) electricity for EVs must come from fossil fuel generation (and that would be without carbon capture and storage).
From that perspective, if any EV (or plug-in hybrid) has to be charged with electricity from a system with a mix of generation that includes fossil fuels, then the EV (no other electricity uses), must be tagged with the fossil fuel level of emissions. The reduced intensities of any mixed generation do not apply to EVs - even if all of the EV demand exceeds the amount of fossil fuel generation.
Therefore, from that perspective, if there is a case where an EV is being charged from a grid that only has fossil fuel generation for a minor amount of rapid-start natural gas generation to meet transient peak demand, then all EVs everywhere must been considered to be charged by fossil fuel generation.
In addition to the points already made above, that perspective excludes consideration of the following (such considerations would be seen to be digressions):
- adequate amounts of electricity generation could be achieved without continued or expanded use of fossil fuel generation.
- carbon capture added to existing fossil fuel generation systems would reduce the harm done while the system is run to its natural end of life.
- other electricity uses that are less essential, like non-essential EV use, are responsible for continued fossil fuel generation.
- the shift to EVs in regions that currently do not have any fossil fuel generation will not require 'new fossil fuel generation facilities'. Any required additional generation will be able to be met by new renewable generation.
- already existing EVs being charged in regions with existing fossil fuel generation are not responsible for the continuation of existing fossil fuel generation. The reason/blame for continued fossil fuel generation in already well developed nations, especially over-developed ones, is a lack of responsible leadership action to end the fossil fuel use because the fundamentally flawed considerations of popularity and profitability are allowed to harmfully compromise the actions of leaders (political and business leaders).
Initially I also mistook the problem to be 'how the analysis was being done'. But it is clear that the conceptualization of the issue is the problem. No matter how rigorously a flawed concept is evaluated the result will be flawed.
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michael sweet at 08:18 AM on 9 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon,
You have completely left out the CO2 from the manufacture of the vehicles. Your estimates of carbon emissions by electric vehicles is incorrect. Your calculations are in error. I do not have time to review your incorrect calculations and find more of your errors. It is a waste of time if you leave out major contributions to the problem. The reference at Carbon Brief, and the references that Rob Honeycutt linked at 39 all conclude that driving an EV reduces carbon pollution by a lot.
Your original post at 15 stated:
"It would be good to have an unbiased source determine whether “driving using electricity is cleaner than gasoline even with the current mix in the United States”.
Multiple different posters have shown that multiple unbiased sources conclude that "using electricity is cleaner than gasoline even with the current mix in the United States". It appears that you are completely closed minded to any data that disagrees with your incorrect calculations.
There are a great many proposed renewable energy projects awaiting approval. If they are approved in a reasonable time frame the amount of renewable energy will increase much faster than you project. Since fossil fuels have increased in cost, smart investors will install renewables to make more money. The EIA has always been grossly wrong with their estimations of future renewable installations.
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Doug Cannon at 05:33 AM on 9 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Michael Sweet #40
Your reference in Carbon Brief Is an excellent example of what I'm talking about.
The data regarding the hybrid compare closely to mine: 55mpg vs mine of 52mpg
(Go to unitjuggler websitewww.unitjuggler.com/convert-fuelconsumption-from-gperkmgasoline-to-mpg.html?v
and you can convert their 99grams/km equivalent at the tail pipe to 55mpg. I did it the long way using 20.3 lb CO2/gallon and 12,500 miles/year to get 2.2 metric tons CO2 per year. From the Carbon Brief reference it works out to just under 2.0 metric tons CO2 per year from a hybrid's exhaust).
The Carbon Brief data for EV's assigns an average mix of fuels in each geographic area to generate the charging electricity. That gets to the basic proposition I began with:
In the U.S with a constant demand over the next few decades, natural gas pegged at its optimum capacity factor and solar and wind operating at their maximum, as we add more solar and wind we can continue to reduce coal year after year.
But, if we add a demand from EV charging, some of the coal that would otherwise be reduced will have to continue in order to meet that demand. The EV charging demand is directly responsible for that coal useage and that leads to the 4.08 metric tons of CO2 resulting from an EV annually.
If you don't agree with the premise or the logic then you would have no reason to examine references And we'll just drop it
But if you agree you can do your own calculations;
1. eia Electric Power Monthly, Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors) 2012-October 2022www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_1_01
2. eia U.S. Energy Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption:Electric Power Sector, December 14, 2022www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec11_9.pdf
From those two can compute metric tons of CO2/kwhr for coal at .001012
3. eia Annual Energy Outlook 2022. page 15
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/AEO2022_ReleasePresentation.pdf
Best case for renewables per eia.Any other references I have merely relate to the digressions that have come up in this thread; not to the basic issue per above..
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MA Rodger at 02:02 AM on 9 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #1
gerontocrat @2,
I have a couple of graphs of the Antarctic SIE anomaly I keep updated (graphs 3a & 3b here, unfortunately not available for 'hot' linking) based on the JAXA daily data. Antarctic SIE year-on-year was pretty static until 2013-16 when it had an icier period, this followed by 2017-20 when it had a meltier period. Then mid-2021, the meltier times returned with the end-2022 and start-2023 suggesting interesting times ahead.
One annual measure I keep tabs on is the number of days when all-time lows for time-of-year. Ranked by number of record days, it looks like this:-
2017 … 107
2022 ….. 78
2016 ….. 65
2019 ….. 59
1986 ….. 20
2018 ….. 11
2002 ….. 11
2023 ....... 7 (to 7th Jan)
2001 ……. 7 -
gerontocrat at 00:22 AM on 9 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #1
The Antarctic sea ice area has behaved in a very different way in the last 10 years or so. You can see that from the 2022 annual average sea ice area graph which you can see at
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1759.msg355482.html#msg355482
Moderator Response:[BL] Link activated.
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EddieEvans at 22:58 PM on 8 January 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #1
Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in Antarctic Sea Ice
Decades ago I became overconfident that at least the Antarctic remained safe from melting. Somewhere I had read that the Antarctic would take a couple more centuries before the effects of the new climate change would begin to melt the Antarctic, but I misplaced my confidence.
https://youtu.be/m-cyN_sREVc
Moderator Response:[BL] The snipped link is the same as the link behind "Scientists Report..." It is not necessary to add it twice.
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michael sweet at 09:13 AM on 8 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon,
This 2020 fact check from Carbon Brief shows that fully electric vehicles release less CO2 over their lifetime than the most efficient ICE cars and plug in hybrids. They find that even if 100% of the electricity is from coal burning plants that electric cars release less CO2. Since Our World in Data says about 21% of USA energy was generated by renewable sources in 2021, electric cars are even better for the environment than the 100% coal case. Your efficiencies in post 29 for ICE engines are much too high. How could a variable engine stopping and starting and pulling a variety of loads possibly be more efficient than a fixed engine running at the optimal speed and optimal temperature 100% of the time? Your estimates of ICE efficiency are about double or more what I have seen. I think you are comparing peak efficiency of ICE engines to average efficiencies of electric vehicles. ICE engines do not run at their peak efficiencies most of the time.
In general, making your own calculations is a waste of time. You have not considered the CO2 released by the manufacturing process, which is greater for electric cars than ICE vehicles. Your estimates of highway CO2 emissions are much too high for electric and way too low for ICE vehicles. The Carbon Brief article cites numerous peer reviewed articles that you can read to find your mistakes. I am closed minded to posts that have obvious, gross calculation errors. Please cite reliable sources for your claims.
In the end we have to have a completely electric transportation system. That means all cars fully electric and all electricity renewable energy. Any ICE or plug in cars sold now will have to be removed to reach that final goal. Everyone should copy Finland and sell only electric cars sooner rather than later.
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michael sweet at 08:12 AM on 8 January 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Max Green,
This argument against renewables is very old. It was originally raised around 2005. Mark Jacobson and his team at Stanford did a detailed Peer-Reviewed analysis that showed that all the materials for a compeltely renewable energy system were available except for rare earth metals needed for the wind turbines. Since then, wind turbines have been developed that do not use rare earth elements in their turbines. In addition, the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels have become much more efficient that Jacobson estimated so that even less metal will be used. I note that large amounts of metal are now being used to drill for fossil fuels.
Reading your popuilar magazine article I see that the Simon Michaux reference is just to a seminar he presented, not even a conference poster. Seminars are sim[ply his opinion of things he has no experience in, unreviewed by anyone. He states that a lot of materials are needed. For one thing he calculates that:
"Globally, 15,635,478 Hornsdale-type stations will need to be built across the planet and connected to the power grid system just to meet a 4-week buffer system"
Jacobson et al 2022 in an extermely detailed, peer reviewed analysis, finds that only 4-8 hours of buffer system are required. Other energy researchers find similar results as Jacobson. Why should I pay attention to an unreviewed talk to graduate students by someone who has no experience with the topic and that calculates 150 times more storage than the peer reviewed literature?
If you look at all the materials needed for a total renewable energy system in the future there are issues with some materials. If you do the same calculation for a fossil system there are some materials that will run out. If you demand 100 times the required materials for the renewable system than are actually needed than it makes the renewable system look bad.
Simon Michaux is simply full of BS.
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Eclectic at 19:01 PM on 7 January 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
CORRECTION @24 :
I need a better brain and better envelope.
The (Wiki-based) figures I gave as 10% of cultivated land biomass annual production, would need 100% mass conversion "in the factory" ~ and would approximately match world gasoline consumption. To additionally match diesel & jetfuel usage, would need an additional 15% on top of that 10% of cultivated biomass. (The cultivated biomass here uses the whole plant hydrocarbon resource, excluding the edible section of the crop. Also excluded is forestry biomass harvest.)
So roughly 25% of cropped land, excluding trees. Formidable: and high-tech required too. Solar, wind, and nuclear fission/fusion . . . can't come soon enough.
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Rob Honeycutt at 12:52 PM on 7 January 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Max... In addition to what Eclectic says, I think Dr. Michaux's overarching point is that we need to not forget the big savings we achieve from basic improved efficiencies.
Efficiency is kind of the ugly step-sister of solutions. But she's also the one who is most effective at addressing the core problems.
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Eclectic at 12:21 PM on 7 January 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Max Green @23 ,
thanks, yes, an interesting article by Dr Michaux, alleging that petroleum oil cannot be replaced as a major energy resource for our modern world. His figures (presumably correct) are quite dire, and demonstrate that we have no real alternative than simply continuing as we are, until our industrial civilization falls off a cliff.
This is not really a new calculation ~ there have been earlier analyses of various bottlenecks or constraints pointing to the impossibility of achieving a sustainable advanced technological society.
And it is true that we currently are relying on fossil fuels to supply around 79 - 84% of overall energy used. A formidable challenge (which we are very unlikely to overcome by 2050 or even 2060, the declared target dates).
However, he seems to be relying heavily on the idea that electricity must be stored in (largely) the Tesla-type batteries or similar. And on the idea that the recycling of valuable elements will not be ramped-up and improved. He also seems to disregard the possibility of organically derived hydrocarbon fuels (ethanol, n-butanol, and longer-chain hydrocarbons) being used in fuel cells, jet engines & conventional piston engines.
(My naive back-of-envelope scratchings would suggest that if 10% of cultivated land biomass, ~1 billion dry tonnes annually . . . were converted with 10% of biomass efficiency into liquid hydrocarbon . . . then this would approximate annual petroleum usage. Which should be adequate, unless we wish a large increase in energy which cannot be supplied by nuclear fission/fusion or more solar PV panels. )
Dr Michaux is a pessimist, but I am an optimist in these matters.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:07 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @34... "That drops the thermal efficiency of a Tesla to about 40 MPG when comparing it's energy use ICE or hybrid."
No, that does not reduce the "thermal efficiency" of a Tesla to 40 MPG.
First off, you're completely making up numbers here and applying random terminology.
"The most efficient fossil/steam plant in the U.S. Is designed for 40% thermal efficiency but only achieves 38% in operation. The rule of thumb is a further loss of 10% in transmission (i.e. 3.8%)."
These are more made up numbers, again. GTCC plants reach 60% efficiency. Regardless, this is irrelevant to MPG and MPGe since that is a measure of the vehicle, not the source of energy.
Moreover, you seem to be having this strange fantasy that somehow an EV is just a vehicle where the gas tank is at the FF power plant, and that's not an accurate way to analyze it.
You really don't have to make up stuff or need to do your own back-of-the-envelope estimates (which are invariably going to be wrong) because there are serious people who do these kinds of life cycle analyses. Here. Here. Here. And there are many more.
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Max Green at 10:30 AM on 7 January 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Hi guys,
I love your work here. I've been reading some really positive plans for renewables - and then came across this. Does anyone have a peer-reviewed response to Prof Simon Michaux? He is an Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland - with a PhD in mining engineering. Dr. Michaux's long-term work is on societal transformation toward a circular economy. Does the world have enough metal to replace oil? According to him - not even close.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/23/is-there-enough-metal-to-replace-oil/
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:15 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @35... "One report last year listed 26 coal plants either closing early(21) or switching to gas(5)."
Cite that report, please.
"In their best case for renewables eia projects this growth in renewables can allow us to meet a flat demand with no added natural gas plants through 2050 and beyond."
Projections for renewables growth have been notoriously bad. Don't forget that renewables are now scaling exponentially.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:06 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @34... "MPGe is a good way of comparing different EV's. And the manufacturers like it because it makes them look good. But it's not an apples to apples comparison to ICE or hybrids."
This is just a silly statement, at best, as well as being offered without rational support.
MPG and MPGe specificly make EV's and ICEV's comparable. Your assertion that "It assumes the kwhrs just appear out of nowhere..." makes clear that you're saying these things out of desire rather than based in any fact. Based on you logic you could also say that the energy from gasoline just magically, out of nowhere, appears at the pump.
MPG and MPGe are measures of the efficiency of the vehicles, themselves, and you very much can clearly quantify the energy contained in electricity vs liquid fuels.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:38 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon,
You may be unaware that your argument leads to the conclusion that energy use in the US, and other over-developed nations, needs to be reduced, not be allowed to increase.
The argument you present, especially the answers provided to the questions I asked in my comment @21, are not consistent with an understanding of what is required to limit harm done to future generations. It is especially inconsistent with the knowledge learned from the item I linked to in my question 3.
Rapidly ending fossil fuel use to limit the overshoot of climate impacts is ‘needed not desired’. A parallel requirement is the ‘need’ for rapid removal of the excess emissions, even if that is unprofitable. Your proposed future with an increased number of fossil fuel burning personal vehicles will almost certainly result in a peak climate impact that far exceeds the 1.5 C value, especially if the coal and gas burning electricity generation is not regulated to be rapidly replaced by less harmful energy generation. It is easier for regulation to shut down fossil fuel electricity generation than to end the use of existing fossil fuelled vehicles. So the path you propose, new vehicles being gasoline burning rather than battery electric, is more likely to result in more climate change harm than is ‘necessary’ (also note that the CO2 impacts of producing gasoline have to be counted). And there would be the added future harm of the ‘need’ for more unprofitable removal of unnecessary excessive impacts.
The reduction of ‘unnecessary’ energy use, especially by the highest per capita energy users, is a very effective action to limit the climate change harm. I fully support that action, even if the belief about the need for it is due to a misunderstanding about the possible future of electricity generation and consumption.
I am skeptical of your claim that EVs would be the consumers of any remaining extended coal fired electricity generation. I can argue that other electricity uses, not EVs, are the cause/consumers of unnecessary fossil fuel generation like:
- cryptocurrency
- 5G or streaming of data like HD video streaming on phones
- use of AC when daytime highs/overnight lows do not make AC use ‘essential for health’.
- unnecessary EV use.
Believing that the future of increased energy demand in the USA will require continued significant fossil fuel use leads to the logical understanding of the need to rapidly curtail unnecessary energy consumption, and limit the fossil fuel use in that reduced energy consumption to ‘essential needs that cannot possibly be met without fossil fuel use’ (continuing developed desired, but understandably harmful, ways of living is ‘not essential’).
The governing objective to limit harm done cannot be bypassed by beliefs that harmful unnecessary developed desires are justified by the benefits believed to be obtained. Therefore, the conclusion to ‘reduce energy use’ also applies to people who want to believe that all energy generation and use can be done without fossil fuels. All artificial energy systems will be harmful in different ways and to different degrees. Limiting harm done, not excusing harm done, is the logical governing objective. And that logically leads to the conclusion that ‘energy consumption, and other material consumption, should be limited to limit the harm done'.
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Doug Cannon at 05:55 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Regarding the idea that coal plant closures will be based on scheduled end of life retirements, that is not true. One report last year listed 26 coal plants either closing early(21) or switching to gas(5). The impetus is due to regulation and its associated cost, not necessarily CO2 regulation. The other reason for reduction in coal is the fracking revolution. To date the economics of gas over coal has been the major reason we can reduce coal.
But the other important reason is the addition of renewables which will continue to grow. In their best case for renewables eia projects this growth in renewables can allow us to meet a flat demand with no added natural gas plants through 2050 and beyond. Additionally, we can reduce use of coal by half and reduce annual CO2 emissions by 500 million metric tons. This has little to do with economics. It is driven by the desire to reduce CO2 emissions. It's actually costing more. The amortized cost per Mwhr for renewables is more than the reduction of the variable cost of existing coal plants. But it's worth it considering the climate change risk.
I'll repeat this one more time: Any added load during this period extends the use of coal. I suspect that if it weren't for the EV issue most people would accept this logic. If some bit coin miner wanted to add 20 terawatthours to mine coins I think most would be opposed because it would require extending coal that could otherwise be reduced. But for some reason there's an EV love affair that allows some to believe that the whole mix of electrial generation can somehow make things look better.
Sayonora. -
Doug Cannon at 04:54 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Rob
MPGe is a good way of comparing different EV's. And the manufacturers like it because it makes them look good. But it's not an apples to apples comparison to ICE or hybrids. It assumes the kwhrs just appear out of nowhere without considering the source of the energy. If the source is from a traditional fossil/steam powered central station the thermal efficiency of that source is probably closer to 33% at best. The most efficient fossil/steam plant in the U.S. Is designed for 40% thermal efficiency but only achieves 38% in operation. The rule of thumb is a further loss of 10% in transmission (i.e. 3.8%).
That drops the thermal efficiency of a Tesla to about 40 MPG when comparing it's energy use ICE or hybrid. But of course fossil/steam plants don't use gasoline so we would have to look at the btu equivalent for coal. Then we would need to convert all that to CO2 emitted.
All of that gets a bit a hairy, but I avoided that by determining the CO2 emissions per kwhr produced for each fuel, gas or coal. The result for coal is .001012 metric tons per kwhr. The other data is pretty straight forward and results in annual emissions of 4.08 metric tons of CO2 for EV's. But that should increase to 4.5 metric tons to account for transmission losses. That compares to 2.2 metric tons for non plug-in hybrids based on the CO2 emissions in a gallon of gasoline. Even cutting MPG by a third for hybrids from my 52MPG would still make them cleaner than EV's -
Charlie_Brown at 03:46 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug Cannon @15 has a point. EV’s will increase electricity demand, which should be met by increasing renewable energy else the advantage of EV’s is reduced. However, given the opportunity to increase renewable energy, the first priority should be to shut down fossil energy. The problem is that economics and contractual obligations do not allow simple substitution of large, capital-intensive power plants. Changing the dynamics of the power supply infrastructure to accelerate would require strong incentives.
Some studies, including the EEA Report cited by Philippe Chantreau @16, use the current regional energy mix for their evaluation. EEA Report Section 4.5: “Due to the high carbon intensity of coal, WTW GHG emissions of typical BEVs charged exclusively with coal-generated electricity are at least as high as for an equivalent ICEV.” The ICCT White Paper (Bieker, 2021) reported in the ARS Technica article cited by Philippe does include projections for energy mixes that decarbonize over time.
Innovative approaches can help. EEA Report Box 4.2: “Flexible charging of BEVs can help to balance supply and demand in all cases, either by shifting demand to off-peak periods where supply is less flexible or by absorbing excess generation where supply is variable.” California has a situation where solar meets most of the demand in June when days are long and relatively cool, so added solar generation could be used during the day for charging EVs. Maybe build employee parking lots covered by panels. However, in August, days get shorter and hotter and demand for air conditioning increases. Then it may be better to reduce peak demand by charging EVs at night, though solar is not available without storage. -
Rob Honeycutt at 02:48 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
To put a fine point on this... Think of it this way: In 2034 no one is going to build any coal plants where in 2035 somebody walks in and says, "Okay boys, time to shut 'er down!" The industry has the time, skills, and ability to do proper forecasting of costs and energy demand to know how to best utilize their investments.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:28 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @25... You state, "We plan to add 50 Twhrs of renewables during the year. What do we do? We cut back coal by the equivalent the of 50Twhrs of CO2. That's basically the model we've been following for years except that the addition of natural gas has allowed us to cut back coal even more."
Again here, you make erroneous assumptions. This is not "basically the model." As I stated in a previous thread, coal is phased out at end of life. The operating costs of a coal plant at the end of its useful life, after paying off all capital expenditures, is very low. Those plants continue to be used as long as the cost of fuel allows them to sell electricity competitively against other sources.
What's happening is, almost no *new* coal plants are being built. The phase out of coal is a function of scheduled facility retirements. The replacement of coal and NG is a function of investors building out renewables *instead of* coal and NG.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:16 AM on 7 January 2023Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate
Doug @29... I'm curious, why do you think the MPGe for a Tesla is 124, whereas a comparable ICEV sedan is gets about 30-35 MPG? And why do you think even a small PriusC gets only around 50 MPG.
I'm asking because everything I've read on this subject has been very clearly stating that EV's have lower carbon emissions regardless of the source of the electricity. Nothing I've read has ever stated that the better strategy to carbon emissions reductions would involve transitioning from ICE to hybrid and then later to EV's, rather than just trading straight to an EV on your next vehicle purchase.
Given the high efficiency of EV's and the fact that the grid is rapidly shifting to renewables, the simple logical thing to do is get an EV.
