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cosmicomics at 04:48 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Re. wind energy in Denmark:
In the first six months of this year Denmark got 41.2% of its electricity from wind. In January the figure was 61.7%. This in itself disproves the often heard argument that grids can only accommodate small amounts of electricity from intermittent sources.
http://ing.dk/artikel/rekord-vindmoeller-leverede-412-pct-af-danskernes-elforbrug-i-foerste-halvaar-170541
The Danish Energy Agency recently found that onshore wind was the cheapest way for Denmark to generate additional electricity.
http://www.ens.dk/info/nyheder/nyhedsarkiv/ny-analyse-vind-billigst
A good number of Danish turbines have been replaced as a result of a government program to reduce the number of small (old) turbines and replace them with larger ones, thus increasing efficiency and power production, and diminishing the number of turbines spread over the Danish landscape.
Rather than indicating that turbines wear out after 20 years, the program underlines the flexibility and scalability of wind energy. It also indicates that improvements in wind technology are so significant, that they justify this kind of program, which has been renewed by governments of both the left and right.
http://www.dkvind.dk/fakta/P11.pdf
The turbines that have been installed since 2008 are 50% more productive than those that were installed before. In 1998 and 2013 the number of turbines was essentially the same, but in 2013 the turbines produced approximately four times as much electricity. By the end of August this year, more than 3 times as much. The goal is to increase wind energy's contribution to 50% by 2020 and to become fossil fuel free by 2050.
http://ing.dk/artikel/laengere-vinger-og-hoejere-vindmoeller-oeger-energiudbyttet-med-50-pct-170944
http://www.ens.dk/info/tal-kort/statistik-noegletal/oversigt-energisektoren/stamdataregister-vindmoller Oversigtstabel_Vindkraft.xls - ult. august 2014 (uploaded 23/9-2014) -
MA Rodger at 03:10 AM on 2 October 2014It hasn't warmed since 1998
Richard Hampton @288.
There certainly is a conicidence. 2007 was the year the global temperatures started showing signs of a pause and it was also the first starting melt year for Arctic Sea Ice. And the energy fluxes are not dissimilar in size (although as ice loss continues to accelerate that equivalence will fail). Yet reasons for the 'pause' proposed by the climatologists, which are quite far reaching, to date don't include a diversion of heat from atmospheric warming to ice melting. I'd guess the main problem with the theory is how such a diversion would work in practice. And the 'pause' has symptoms that date back before 2007. So the changes in rate of surface warming and ice loss remain solely a coincidence.
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wili at 03:00 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ashton wrote: "If "enormous cuts are needed now to our carbon emissions" why not champion the use of hybrid cars or significant increases in taxes on petrol and diesel or banning driving more than, say, 200 Km per week or moving to rail to transport goods and cutting truck numbers by 50%? "
Since it quotes me, I assume this is addressed to me. And the answer is that I have and I do advocate things like this and many more. Why would you assume otherwise. And many businesses do in fact already manage their electricity use in cooperation with utilities, and many more could do so with the right incentives...
ZK has it right. We need to add the costs that TMI, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima have incurred and more to nearly every single nuclear facility in the world if we want anything close to an honest accounting of the probably costs of these things.
Given the vagaries of history and the propensities of individual and collective humans toward folly of various sorts, we must expect that every plant in the world, unless thoroughly decommissioned (and how much will _that_ cost??!!) will eventually go Fuku or worse.
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MA Rodger at 02:54 AM on 2 October 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
Tom Curtis @21.
Yes. I did remember. Bear in mind I am using Gregory et al. Figure 1 numbers to provide ΔQ at both ends of the period, my thinking being, if Gregory et al. is good enough for 1881, its good enough also for 2000.
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ZincKidd at 01:29 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Why is it the supposed "costs" of nuclear power consistently ignore the long term environmental costs? And given its safety record and associated risks, every few decades you should factor in the cost of a Chernobyl or Fukushima. In addition, we're talking about a technology that is often designed to operate at sea level, and I shouldn't have to remind anyone on this site what is happening with that...
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How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ashton - A significant carbon tax would immediately act to reduct carbon emissions and change the economic landscape against fossil fuel power, in a much more organic and market responsive manner than mandates or driving bans.
Some notes here for the general topic:
- The article in the OP regards a power shortfall of about a week. At that time the wind sourced power was at a low point, not surprising as variability of renewable power only decreases with larger geographic spreads, and the UK is quite frankly small enough for a single weather pattern to have a large influence on renewable power levels.
- A week is far to short a time period to build new power plants (doh!), and the UK marker clearly went for what they had available - coal.
- There will be supplemental needs for any power system, nuclear or renewable or mixed - recent work looking at US regional grids estimated FF backup for peak times and low renewable availability were on the order of a only few percent of total grid energy. And in this case coal was apparently the less expensive option.
But this was a short-term balance issue of about a week! None of this really addresses longer term issues with renewables vs. nuclear, however, nor the general issues with the grid that are involved. As the UK moves away from fossil fuels, given it's small size, it will either have to tie into a greater European energy grid with more widely distributed renewables to maintain baseload needs, and/or build a lot of nukes. That's a geographic and economic limitation, though, not a technical one - if tied into a greater European and possibly North African grid there's plenty of potential power available.
The regulatory environment is indeed one of the limiting factors on nuclear power, that could and should certainly be streamlined. But I really have to point out that there are some environmental isses to be considered, not the least of which is waste handling, and that many of the regulations have solid reasons behind them. Much as we prevent dumping industrial waste into the water supply, no major industrial endeavor including nuclear power should be regulation-free.
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Lastly: Should we, IMO, have more nuclear power plants? Yes. We should also have more renewables, better energy efficiency, carbon taxes, and all the other wedges that can be applied to reduce CO2 emissions. No single approach will do everything.
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Jonas at 23:16 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
CCS from gas plants in combination with power to gas might be an inefficient but feasible way to store electric energy: advantage: it may use existing storage capacities and is versatile (use gas for electricity or heating, ...): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_gas
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A little off topic, but fit's into replacement debate:
this discussion here - like so many - sounds like: how can we replace all we have today by renewables. My answer: we cannot. We rich have to downsize considerably, whether we want or not, whether we call it loss or new quality of life. Our children will have to downsize anyway, so it boils down to the one question: do we currently rich people sacrifice a significant part of "our" material wealth? Of course, we will need renewables, then, as well; see Fukushima: the danger lies not only in the burning core, but in the waste, which permanently needs to be cooled and stored savely for many hundreds of generations; also, uranium is a finite resource too).
I personally prefer to have less and limit climate change and at the same time limit nuclear waste: I live in Germany, have no car, do not fly, heat very little, have no refrigerator and air conditioning, only have cold showers, eat very little animal products, eat mostly unrefined regional and organic food and have a vegetable garden, but still my CO2/ecological footprint is still much too high: single room apartement (globally seen, this is a palace ...), washing machine, electrical light, personal computer, smartphone, small music device, CDs, books, stuff, stuff, stuff, coffee/tea, cashew nuts, ... There's much more to be changed in my life.
I fear that we humans will indeed try to limit climate change, but only as it more and more hurts even the richer/powerful parts of the world (too late) and then hastily look for more or less complete replacements of our unsustainable way of life and destroy the world as we know it by a mixture of uncontrollable climate change and wide spread ecological destruction though nuclear waste radiation, deforestation and soil degradation for "bio" fuels, wars for water, oil, uranium, litium for batteries, ... resources (all generators need water for cooling ...), ... And all that, because we deny the inevitable and try to avoid the necessary changes.
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Ashton at 19:59 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
If "enormous cuts are needed now to our carbon emissions" why not champion the use of hybrid cars or significant increases in taxes on petrol and diesel or banning driving more than, say, 200 Km per week or moving to rail to transport goods and cutting truck numbers by 50%? Surely that is intelligently managing consumption rather than relying on alternative and erratic, sources of power supply. If you run a business one of the necessities at least in the developed world, is a constant and reliable supply of energy. It has been pointed out that NZ energy comes from renewables and that is true. But the NZ government many years before the current focus on climate change/global warming developed its power sources based on its natural resources as do many other countries. NZ is fortunate in that respect to be able to use hydro and geothermal sources of power supply. As for depending on fossil fuel, Australia has enough coal for the next 600 years and as has been dramatically shown in the US, tapping into less accessible sources of oil is clearly an avenue that will extend fossil fuel recovery and use.
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wili at 19:26 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
I agree with michael that "nuclear discussions are a waste of time and clutter up the comments board" so I hope we don't have a lot more of the same here. This 'study' does seem fatally flawed from the beginning. Obviously, a temporary shut down of a few facilities is going to be different than a planned conversion of an entire energy sector.
And of course, in the absense of a high carbon tax or some even more rigorous regulatory structure, and in the presence of an eternal-growth economic model, no source, nuke or otherwise, is likely to dislodge fossil-fuels from their place of dominance.
As the article mentions toward the end, intelligently managing consumption can play a major role in incorporating more renewables, as more and better storage systems are developed.
The main thing is that nukes just can't be ramped up quickly enough (not to mention cheaply enough or safely enough) to offset the enormous cuts needed _now_ to our carbon emissions.
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BojanD at 18:36 PM on 1 October 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #39
To moderator:
Since you're taking Russ seriously, may I suggest that all cartoons showing a man in an ostrich-like position are not to be tolerated since you can't possibly breathe with your head in the sand. -
scaddenp at 18:18 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
"No matter how many peer reviewed papers cite the advantages and blessings of wind power, the UK governemnt clearly showed what it thought of peer review when it burnt fossil fuels to replace energy from nuclear powered sources rather than rely on wind power."
Democratic government care what voters think, not what scientists think and if voters prefer denial, then so will governments. Governments struggle to tackle problems that require long term thinking, especially if costs can be counted to the next generation. Even without climate change, countries cannot depend on fossil fuel indefinitely so a transition to something else is required. The science is telling you do it quicker.
"I can think of no government that would jeopardise its citizen's access to cheap and most importantly reliable, power by turning to renewables as its major supply source." Think again and try mine - New Zealand. Admittedly, low population compared to UK and abundant renewables help. I think UK needs nuclear.
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jpjmarti at 16:42 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Since Michael mentioned the Lazard "report" , I think it is worth pointing out that their best case wind power costs we computed by assuming a capacity factor of 52%. Their worst case numbers assumed a capacity factor of 30%. Given that the US average is around 30% and EU average somewhere between 20% and 25% (in Germany less than 20%), this seems quite generous. In computing abatement costs with wind power they assumed 52% capacity factor. (In the past Lazard seems to have subtracted subsidies from the costs and then cited this figure as the cost of wind power. It seems that this year they have refrained from this practice.) Finally they choose to plot their estimated costs for wind power starting from 2009...which conventiently leaves out the pronounced cost increases between 2004-2009.
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ed leaver at 15:37 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Michael,
Your specific question to Keith was "Where is the utility scale nuclear plant that can load follow?" We have provided such. We provided working everyday examples in France, Canada, and the U.S. Contrary to your assertion, they do not "theoretically follow load a little." They follow in practice, daily, and by fairly substantial amounts. For those interested, nuclear load following technology and limitations is well described in the links I provided.
Your "data" does not support your argument, as unsubsidized wind at $37 - $81/kWh does not provide dispatchable baseload power, as provided by nuclear and coal. Your Lazard reference is written purely for investors seeking to make short-term profit on the margin of peak energy demand and production, low renewable penetration and established variable load gas. It says nothing about what is best long-term economic and environmental policy for the country, or for the world. Short-term marginal utility is not the same as long-term value.
For today's economics, at 0.10 EUR/kWh French consumer electric prices are the lowest in Western Europe, her industrial prices are bested only by Finland (33% nuclear, 24% hydro, 15% biofuel). See Eurostat: Energy Price Statistics. Whether state-owned EDF is anti-competitive is an issue one may take up with the EU authorities. I suspect many EU countires have similar arrangements, but certainly not all. In any event EU has well-established legal mechanism to handle complaints.
Closer to home, Ontario boasts the highest industrial electricity rates in North America. Not because it today generates 70% nuclear, 23% hydro, and only 2% wind (Canadian Energy Issues), but rather because those 2% wind were deployed without apparent consideration for costs vs benefit: Ontario’s Power Trip: Irrational energy planning has tripled power rates. Its not that wind cannot be of economic benefit, particularly at these low penetration levels. But it is a capital-intensive, inherently unreliable resource, that requires a modicum of advance planning.
Careful advance planning. Here in my backyard we've recently seen plans to build a new 2.1 GW $4 billion windfarm in Chugwater Wyoming, a 1.2 GW, 60 GWh $1.5 billion CAES system in Delta, Utah, and a $2.6 billion transmission line to connect them. The finished product will ship from Delta to California via existing lines. See Renewable Energy Plan Hinges on Huge Utah Caverns. Expected wind capacity factor at Chugwater is not reported, so I'll assume 43%. 2.1 GW * 35% = 900 GW average production. Assuming an 85% one-way CAES efficiency, the CAES system can store 900 GW for 2.4 completely calm days, reasonable given fossil backup. Excluding that backup, that's $8.1 billion for 900 GW of fairly reliable power, or $9 billion / fairly reliable GW.
Back in your backyard, Southern and SCG&E were planning on $5 billion/GW for new AP1000 at Vogtle and VC Summer. But these are first-of-a-kind and there has been manufacturing delays for some critical components, so these costs will rise, apparently to perhaps $7 billion per plant (Delays and more costs for Plant Vogtle). But even $7 billion nuclear is substantaily less than $9 billion wind, and includes cost of backup in its capacity factor (assumed 90%). We shall see: final tabs are TBD.
Load following is a related issue. My $9 billion wind vs. $7 billion nuclear estimate assumed baseload generation, but at 1.2 GW CAES capacity and 900 GW average wind capacity, the wind planners are obviously counting to supply at least some variable load as well. Further, the cited article isn't clear the CAES was only 60 GWh. It may be four times that but for now I'm going with 60 GWh as that is substantial and in fact sufficient to supply California's entire 6 GW 48 GWh variable demand (this time of year) for the 12 hours required if her 26 GW average were supplied entirely by baseload generation (independent of the CAES) and that single proposed Delta CAES plant (suitably uprated) were used for balance.
Those are back-of-the-envelope tradeoffs. Capital cost-wise nuclear wins. As Keith has documented, on an unsubsidised LCOE basis nuclear does well as well, but in order to pull ahead needs be computed well beyond the nominal 30 year return LCOE estimates typically assume. Neither of which are relevant because... California. And Federal subsidies. California has a state moratorium on new nuclear construction, a state mandate for 33% renewable generation and a stored energy mandate as well, though the latter is deliberately vague. In other words, Callifornia will build and buy renewable energy and storage because that's what Californians want to build and buy.
Today's Federal wind PTC is effectively $33/MWh. Should it be extended past the Utah-Wyoming start date and apply for twenty years, that will be $5.2 billion and capital-wise the project looks competetive (to the developers) even with coal. Which is why we have PTC, though there are more economic ways to subsidize wind that are not so disruptive of existing nuclear.
Whether a particular nuclear plant can operate economically as a load follower depends entirely on the market circumstance of that plant, the availability of other dispatchable reserve, and the freedom of the grid operator to minimize long-term costs. Although nuclear currently (right now) supplies 70% of Ontario's power, its capacity is about 37% total while hydro is 25% and oil/gas 16%, so while load-following, with 41% capacity for variable load Ontario is still in good shape to run her nukes at a relatively high capacity factor of 83%. France has less hydro but greater market flexibility as part of the Euro grid; her nuclear capacity factor is about 77%. Electric prices are considerably lower here in the states (12.5 cent/kWh average) and nuclear plants must run something over 85% capacity factor just to break even, though it depends on the size of the plant. Small single unit merchant sites such as Kewaunee (560 MW) and Vermont Yankee (650 MW) could not make it in competition with low-priced gas. They closed down. Carbon emissions went up.
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Ashton at 14:38 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
A fascinatig discussion between Keith Pickering and Michael Sweet with the latter exiting the field part way through the conversation which is rather disappointing . Michael Sweet in his posts places much emphasis on peer review but the real politik peer review is that which is important. No matter how many peer reviewed papers cite the advantages and blessings of wind power, the UK governemnt clearly showed what it thought of peer review when it burnt fossil fuels to replace energy from nuclear powered sources rather than rely on wind power. The comparisons made by Jani-Petri Martikainen clearly show that wind power despite its undoubted attractions is, at the moment, not a reliable alternative to either fossil or nuclear fuels for energy production. I thought the comment below particularly telling
"Equally clear is that when nuclear output was declining, wind power output was declining even more steeply. So rather than coming to the rescue, wind power was unfortunately galloping away when the action started. The reduction in the amount of wind and nuclear power was mirrored by a clear increase in gas and coal power. Contrary to earlier claims, low carbon sources were replaced by fossil fuels."
I can think of no government that would jeopardise its citizen's access to cheap and most importantly reliable, power by turning to renewables as its major supply source. This is of course clearly shown by the increase in global CO2 emissions in 2013 and the reluctance of governments to sign and/or comply with UN strictures on these emissions.
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WRyan at 13:05 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@Keithpickering
People buy power not energy. By doing your analysis in terms of energy you have discounted the cost of financing. A higher MW/$ ratio means that the generator can repay its debts faster. This can greatly reduce the cost of a generator, esepecially those with high upfront costs.
When comparing the relative cost of various power sources, the best indicator of value is the return on investment, and that is different for every project.
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keithpickering at 12:31 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet.
" Please provide economic numbers that show nuclear can produce power as cheap as renewables."
Happy to do so.
Recently, Warren Buffett invested in five Iowa wind farms, a project of 1050 MW costing $1.9 billion, or $1.81/Watt, a nice low number. Capacity factor for wind varies widely by location, but Iowa is fairly windy so let's assume 35%, which is pretty good. Most wind turbines are designed and engineered for a 20 year lifetime (and that's the number NREL uses routinely in their calculations), but the average lifetime of a wind turbine in Denmark is 22 years, and some modern turbines are designed and engineered for a 25 year lifetime. So let's go with 25 years, best-case for wind. The total amount of energy produced in the lifetime of those windfarms will therefore be: 1050 (MW) * 8766 (hours per year) * 25 (years) * .35 (CF) = 80 million MWh. Total lifetime capital expenditure is therefore $1.9 billion / 80 million = $23.59 per MWh.
There are currently four AP-1000 nuclear reactors under construction in the US, two at Vogtle in Georgia, coming in at $15 billion for the pair, and two at V.C. Summer in South Carolina, coming in at $10 billion for the pair. All four reactors (1117MW each) will therefore cost $25 billion, or $5.60/Watt. ZOMG! Nuclear is so expensive!
But nuclear plants (and the AP-1000 in particular) are designed and engineered for a 60 year lifetime, and nuclear capacity factors in the US are above 90%. So the total amount of energy produced in the lifetimes of those reactors will be: 1117 (MW) * 4 (reactors) * 8766 (hours per year) * 60 (years) * .90 (CF) = 2.11 billion MWh. Total lifetime capital expenditure is therefore $11.82/MWh, less than half the cost of wind.
In France, where nuclear plants load-follow, capacity factors for nuclear are lower for that reason: about 77% according to the WNA. Let's assume that US plants when load following couldn't do that well, and could only manage 75%. In that case, following the same computations above, total lifetime capital expenditure of load following nuclear would be $14.18/MWh, still well below wind.
Of course, capital expenditure is not the only cost of providing electricity; there are also operating costs (both fixed and variable) and systems costs. Operating costs for nuclear are higher than wind: nuclear provides higher-paying jobs than wind, and nuclear's fuel cost, while small, are above wind's zero. According to the EIA, wind's operation & maintenance costs are a very small $13/MWh, while for nuclear they are $23.60/MWh.
Systems cost capture the cost of integrating a generator into the existing grid, and include backup, load balancing, grid connection, and grid reinforcement. These costs are higher for renewables because of their intermittancy and because renewables are typically generated far from load centers in cities. OECD puts systems costs for onshore wind at $19.84/MWh and for nuclear at $1.66/MWh.
So adding it all up, for wind, $23.59 capital, $13 O&M, $19.84 Systems, for a total of $56.43. For nuclear, even in load following mode, $14.18 capital, $23.60 O&M, $1.66 Systems, for a total of $39.44.
I should say here that I'm not at all anti-wind. Wind has a place in the grid, and its low cost of entry makes it attractive for smaller utilities. Anything that displaces fossil is fine with me. Nuclear has high cost-of-entry issues, even though it's cheap in the long run. But capitalism doesn't do "long run" very well, and when that happens it's up to government to understand those long-term implications and step in to correctly value what markets cannot. Energy and climate are issues like that.
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michael sweet at 11:27 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Keith,
According to your first link, wind costs 61.4$/MWh while nuclear is 71.4$/MWh. Nuclear is over 10% more expensive.
It is interesting that the Lazard report for investors shows decrease in wind costs but your sources show flat costs, hopefully someone more informed than I will tell us the difference. Certainly much more wind is being installed now than was installed in the past. Presumably that is because costs went down.
I am not going to post again, it is my experience that nuclear discussions are a waste of time and clutter up the comments board.
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michael sweet at 10:59 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ed,
Please provide data on a nuclear power plant that is economic when it load follows. It is the responsibillity of nuclear supporters to provide their data, not mine to look for it. If France, a government agency that has no public budget, is your best example I think you have made my case.
Load following and economic are two completely different matters. Some nuclear can theoretically follow load a little, but all are uneconomic when they are not working all out all the time. They are currently uneconomic when they are running all out all the time. It will lower their cost benefit if they run only part of the time.
Reading more in the Lazard report I linked before (an investment white paper that is presumably unbiased), I see that the most expensive wind in the USA is cheaper than the cheapest nuclear. Unsubsidized wind: $37-81/kwh, unsubsidized nuclear 92-132 $/kwh (page 2) (load following nuclear would be much more expensive).
Cheap wind is about 1/3 the cost of cheap nuclear. Wind is dropping in price at 10% plus per year. Nuclear's price keeps going up. Please provide economic numbers that show nuclear can produce power as cheap as renewables. I have provided data to support my argument, it is your responsibility to provide data to support your argument.
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keithpickering at 10:46 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet.
If you've heard the "too cheap to meter" claim your entire life, then you've been misled your entire life. That quote, from Lewis Strauss, refers to fusion power, not fission.
Regarding the cost of nuclear energy, see EIA's LCOE here:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm
... which shows nuclear comparable to wind, even under the (false) assumption that both generator types have identical lifetimes.
Or see a composite of LCOE studies collected by the Open IE project's Transparent Cost Database here:
http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/transparent%20cost%20database
... which again shows nuclear comparable to wind, and is based on literally dozens of peer-reviewed sources. So if nuclear is too expensive, so is wind, by the same token.
For actual historical costs of wind, as installed, here's the National Renewable Energy Lab:
... and here's Lawrence Berkeley Lab:
... and also see IPCC 2011, figure 7.20, confirming these sources for both Denmark and the US:
http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Ch07.pdf
... and also see also IPCC 2011 figure SPM.6, which confirms that the learning curve for wind has hit bottom and bounced:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srren/SRREN_FD_SPM_final.pdf
All of these peer-reviewed sources agree that wind has hit bottom some years ago.
The lack of interest in new nuclear build in the US is due to regulatory uncertainty and high entry cost. Nuclear plants cost billions to build, which effectively closes off entry to all but a handful of the largest utilities. The enormous amounts of energy produced will eventually make up for that and more, but I agree that a move toward small modular reactors is needed. It's incorrect, however, that there are no private investors for nuclear: all five nuclear reactors currently under construction in the US obtained private financing, and there are a number of VCs (including Bill Gates, for one) who are funding leading-edge startups in the nuclear industry.
You ask, "Where is the utility scale nuclear plant that can load follow?" and the answer is, every nuclear plant that has ever been built can load follow. In France, which has a mostly-nuclear grid, nuclear plants load follow routinely. In the US they don't, but that's an economic decision, not a technilogical requirement. It's simply cheaper to operate the grid when nuclear plants are in baseload mode (and it's also better for the climate too, because it avoids the maximum amount of GHG emissions that way).
Moderator Response:[RH] Adjusted image size down to 550 px wide.
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ed leaver at 10:25 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Michael, Google is your friend. Try "load following nuclear". See Responding to System Demand. Things are indeed a bit complicated with Pressurized Water Reactors, but in practice quite doable. See Nuclear Power in France and scroll to "Load-following with PWR nuclear plants". Boiling Water Reactors are inherently easy load followers as moderator density may be moderated by pumped recirculation rate. They are usually designed specifically for load following although of course are still most economic as base load providers. Canadian CANDU reactors also do rather well.
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Paul W at 10:12 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
While this argument is interesting it seems to be a bit circular.
Currently we are playing "lower fossil fuels". Current renewables can do that.
There is a greater game however which gets seen when you consider that at 400 ppm CO2 3 million years ago we did not have ice sheets.
Given that Greenland now has reported a doubling time of ice loss of less than 5 years and that an end to the world economy happens at 1 metre of sea level rise, Hansen 2012 has reported 1 metre sea level rise at sooner than 2050.
At that point the cost of adaption will exceed what we can spend on mitigation and we have lost control and are headed towards an end to civilisation.
It seems to me that the anti nukes see nuclear power as a greater threat than fossil fuels.
What can be said about the cost of nukes in the western world is that a very large part is due to extreme regulations due to the anti nuke emotions.
I think we need to be playing end fossil fuels which will needs nukes both 3rd and 4th gen as well as an enormous push for renewables.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:39 AM on 1 October 2014People's Climate March NYC photos
Russ... You're leaving out all the other information in the article. That was just the conclusion of one estimate. Why do you leave out (or invalidate) all the other estimates in the article?
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Russ R. at 09:07 AM on 1 October 2014People's Climate March NYC photos
How many people really showed up to the People's Climate March?
"about 125,000"
But what's the harm in a bit of exaggeration for the cause?
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michael sweet at 08:42 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Keithpickering,
I have heard promises of nuclear energy too cheap to meter my entire life, and that is starting to be a long time. Please cite some peer reviewed data to support your claims. I currently have only your unsupported word. Meanwhile, we see daily that investors are putting up money for wind farms all around the world. Solar is currently cheaper for me to install on my house than grid. Utility scale solar plants are being built.
According to Lazard (click link half way down the page), from 2009 to 2014 the cost of wind energy went down 58%. Please cite data to support your wild claim that wind costs have been constant since 2004. Widespread investor interest demonstrates your claim is false.
Where are the investors who want to build your nuclear plants? Only governments are building nuclear and their track record is bad. In Florida, where I live, Nuclear plants can be billed ten years before they generate any power. We are currently paying $1.5 billion dollars for a plant where they never broke ground (it has been decided it is uneconomic to build). Where is the utility scale nuclear plant that can load follow? What did it cost to build and run? Oh wait, it has never been built and exists only in your imagination. Come back when you have built a pilot plant. That will take at least ten years, which is too long to help. Wind and solar are being built now.
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Tom Curtis at 08:36 AM on 1 October 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
MA Rodger @20, did you downscale the ocean heat content by 0.6 to match L&C's method?
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Ken in Oz at 08:06 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Increasing penetration of intermittent renewables requires increasing intermittency of generation from fossil fuels; whatever inability to respond - and with improved weather forecasting it's not all blind, moment by moment responding - needs to be recognised as inadequacies of existing fossil fuel plant at least as much as an inadequacy of intermittent generation. With a transition to low emissions as a clear goal the shift of fossil fuel plant from being the principle supply into the role of backup to low emissions alternatives needs to be recognised and facilitated, not used as an excuse to fail to continue with that transition. The burden of costs of replacing or updating infrastructure that is outdated and inadequate to the task of being backup to low emissions should land primarily upon the operators of obsolete fossil fuel plant and, if necessary, become a defacto carbon price. In this case the low emissions supply intermittency that fossil fuels are responding to is not that of wind generation but that of nuclear generation.
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keithpickering at 07:12 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet.
I cite Budischak only to point out that even the most wind-friendly source possible admits that an all-renewable grid would be very expensive. They support my overall point. And please point out where Budischak et al. say that nuclear is too expensive? Because I'm not seeing it. What I see is Budischak et al. rejecting nuclear out-of-hand for technical reasons that do not stand up to scrutiny.
There is probably a hidden reason Budischak et al. reject nuclear, and it's not because nuclear is too expensive — it's because the nuclear gid is too cheap. Certainly anyone truly concerned for the climate would admit that a non-fossil backup for wind is superior to a fossil-fuel backup for wind. So then, why not back up wind with fast ramping open-cycle nuclear rather than fast ramping open-cycle gas? And thinking about this solution, it becomes obvious: if you have the nuclear plant, why do you even need the wind turbine? Why not just run the nuclear plant for peaking, and avoid the cost of the wind turbine entirely? Thus the nuclear-allowed grid will therefore always be cheaper than the nuclear-banned grid, because it avoids the excess cost of renewables. And if you're on the only-renewables-can-save-us bandwagon, that's a politically unacceptable outcome, regardless of the technical and financial merits.
The price of wind power hit bottom in 2004, well before Budischak was published, and has been going essentially sideways since then. As turbines get bigger, costs scale with the mass, which scales with the cube of the rotor diameter. But wind energy scales with the square of the rotor diameter. Therefore economies of scale are running up against the laws of physics and they are fighting to a draw.
And solar continues to be one of the most expensive energy sources out there, and will continue to be. Even as the price of modules continues to decline, the balance-of-system costs alone will not allow solar to compete with wind, much less fossil fuel.
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ed leaver at 06:57 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Well said, Michael. However, one might also respect the time-honored tradition in scientific, medical, economic, and legal discourse of citing an author's own data to refute his stated conclusions.
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michael sweet at 05:51 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Kiethpickering:
If you think Budischak et al are wrong you should not cite them. If you do not like their conclusions cite a peer reviewed source to support your objections. The key point is that your peer reviewed source thinks nuclear is too expensive. I note the OP does not cite any peer reviewed sources of information, it is an opinion piece.
Wind and solar have dropped dramatically in price since Budischak et al was published. Up to date figures would show wind and solar are even more cost effective now than they were then.
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Richard Hampton at 04:59 AM on 1 October 2014It hasn't warmed since 1998
M. A. Rodger @287
You are absolutely correct that the moderating effect of energy absorption by the oceans is much greater than the effect of melting glacial ice. However the ocean effect has been continuous and is reflected in the historical atmospheric temperature record. My point is that the newly active heat sink effect of arctic/antarctic net land ice melting coincides with the inflection in the atmospheric temperature record curve in both timing and energy balance. Direct cause and effect must be examined in the context of energy transfer mechamisms to develop a full understanding of the process. Nevertheless, whenever a continuing process (atmospheric warming) shows an inflection there has to be a coincidental cause. Here with arctic/antarctic ice melting we have a good fit in the data and therefore a strong candidate for a cause of the "pause".
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keithpickering at 04:13 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet
Yes, that's what Budischak et al. said. But they're wrong. The ability of any thermal power plant to ramp quickly depends on the design of the turbine and has nothing to do with the heat source. Current nuclear plants ramp up and down just as quickly as combined-cycle gas turbines. And, just as with natural gas, it is entirely possible to build a nuclear plant to ramp faster, if you're willing to accept a lower-efficiency turbine. Nuclear submarines and ships do that routinely right now.
Budischak et al. reached that conclusion only because they refused to consider nuclear from the get-go, for highly dubious reasons. That decision seems to have had a lot more to do with reaching a "desirable" outcome than it did with an honest appraisal of technology.
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ubrew12 at 03:58 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
The UK has abundant access to wave power. Perhaps one reason this resource goes untapped today is the nuclear power industry there, which sabotaged their access to research funds in 1982.
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michael sweet at 03:10 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Keithpickering,
Citing Budischak et al. 2013 to support nuclear is a contradiction of the paper. They say:
We do not simulate nuclear for backup because it cannot be ramped up and down quickly and its high capital costs make it economically inefficient for occasional use.
In fact, Budischak states that renewables are the cheapest way to generate electricity. The question that needs to be answered is what to do with the excess energy generated when the wind blows hard. Budischak just wastes this electricity. It seems to me that someone will be able to use this energy profitably.
This article seems to me to be an attack on renewables without significant data to support it. The original articles supporting renewables were not published on SkS. This article does not include peer reviewed data, it is an opinion piece.
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John Hartz at 02:59 AM on 1 October 2014The Wall Street Journal downplays global warming risks once again
Readers of this comment thread will also want to check out:
The Climate Deniers’ Newest Argument, an Op-ed by Jeffrey Kluger posted by Time magazine yesterday, Sep 29, 2014.
Like Dana, Kruger critiques Koonin’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal:
The lede of Kluger’s op-ed:
"It’s a lot easier to attack environmental scientists when you make up something they didn’t say—and then criticize them for saying it"
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WRyan at 02:46 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
I'm pretty sure that gas is a fossil fuel. So if wind power is displacing gas-fired power then wind power is "taking the place of fossil fuels."
Figure 1 shows that the average value of wind-generated power was 2 GW higher from the Sunday night to the Wednesday night when compared with the pre-shutdown value. This is approximately equal to the reduction in nuclear power during this period. This is undoubtedly what the authors of the articles criticised in this piece were referring to when they wrote that an increase in wind power had replaced the lost nuclear generation. Thursday was the only day when the wind power value was lower than its pre-shutdown value.
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keithpickering at 02:32 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
The problem with wind (and solar, for that matter) has always been how to back it up when the wind dies. Currently that's almost entirely gas, making wind a crypto-fossil energy source. While it's true that wind-plus-gas is better than gas alone, it's also true that getting to zero fossil fuels on a wind-based system would be hugely expensive.
The reason for that is that for geographically remote wind to back up local wind, distant regions must overbuild wind to meet their own demands AND potential demand from out-of-region. And each region must do this, to allow for the possibility that exports will be needed on windy days. But if those exports are not needed on windy days, those overbuilt wind turbines must then stand idle as the wind blows: a situation known as curtailment. Since curtailment reduces wind's capacity factor, it drives up the price of wind generated electricity. One recent study (Budischak et al. 2013) estimated that an all-renewable grid would nearly triple the price of electricity because of this issue.
We have reached the point where the only way to prevent a looming climate catastrophe is to deploy, deploy, deploy non-fossil energy sources as rapidly as possible. Given limited resources, the way to deploy the most non-fossil the fastest is to deploy the lowest-cost options. Those technologies are (1) shallow geothermal, where available; (2) hydro, where available; and (3) nuclear. Wind is almost as cheap as nuclear, but only as long as grid penetration remains low; once wind reaches the curtailment point (about 25% of total generation) its costs begin to escalate rapidly.
Jurisdictions that have already adopted this strategy have already decarbonized their grids: Sweden, Norway, France, Ontario.
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MA Rodger at 23:41 PM on 30 September 2014It hasn't warmed since 1998
Richard Hampton @286.
I usually trot out the following levels of current annual ice loss - Arctic Ocean 300Gt, Greenland 450Gt, Antarctica 150Gt, Other 300Gt. Thise are far bigger numbers than last decade with today a total latent energy gain of 0.4 Zj pa. However that figure is a lot smaller than the extra annual increase in OHC which would be something like an extra 3Zj pa in just the measured bit of the oceans 0-2000m.
So it is correct that more energy is being used melting ice but a whole lot more of the extra energy is ending up in the oceans. Further, if the atmosphere had been warmed significantly, most of that energy entering the oceans would be required to keep the atmosphere at the higher temperature and thus be radiating back into space.
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MA Rodger at 23:24 PM on 30 September 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
Tom Curtis @18.
Thanks for pointing out my use of the wrong Gregory graph. It is as you say figure 1 that was used. I had assumed it was in figure 2 somewhere as I couldn't see how L&C14 obtained such low numbers from figure 1. But I had failed to account for the 60% adjustment used by L&C14.
For the record repeating the exercise @17 with the figure 1 numbers yields ECS=2.13ºC.
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kmalpede at 22:38 PM on 30 September 2014People's Climate March NYC photos
It was a great Day in NYC. and now what is next?www.theaterthreecollaborative.org/extreme-whether a play about the battle of Climate Scientists to speak truth to power. Oct. 2-Oct 26, Theater for the New City, NY, NY, with a Festival of Conscience including climate scientists: Jim Hansen, Jennifer Francis, Radley Horton,
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mancan18 at 09:08 AM on 30 September 2014The Wall Street Journal downplays global warming risks once again
I don't know how relevant this is and, although rhetorical, it is certainly not very scientific.
However, I have read, with great interest, all the threads in relation to this article, particularly Tom Curtis who is always informative. With some of the threads here questioning the veracity of the 97% of scientists who agree that AGW is real, there is a line from the movie "Ronin" which might be relevant to those who wish to cast doubt. It is "When there is doubt there is no doubt". It seems to me that uncertainty is doubt. So does that mean that the 3% of scientists who are uncertain have doubt which means they have no doubt. But what does this mean about their doubt? Does this mean they have no doubt that increasing greenhouse gases from anthropogenic sources WILL warm the planet OR mean that they have no doubt that increasing greenhouse gases from anthropogenic sources WON'T warm the planet. Now the first proposition is believed by 97% of climate scientists and there is plenty of evidence to support their position. However, if those arguing uncertainty have no doubt about proposition two, i.e. increasing greenhouse gases from anthropogenic sources WON'T warm the planet, then they haven't proven their case, which most certainly, doesn't provide a sufficient reason to delay taking positive action to alleviate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
Moderator Response:[RH] Please watch it with the all caps.
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Richard Hampton at 05:13 AM on 30 September 2014It hasn't warmed since 1998
COMMENT TO SKEPTICALSCIENCE re PAUSE IN GLOBAL WARMING
(snip)
I wonder if the so-called pause in global warming as expressed by surface atmospheric temperature can be quite easily explained as follows? The measured net atmospheric temperature was increasing at an annual rate of about 0.025º C prior to the late 90's. It then leveled off rather abruptly and increased at a much slower pace. Climate change deniers have been celebrating this as evidence that global warming has stopped and there's nothing to worry about. But what really happened? If increased atmospheric CO2 is trapping more energy, where is it going? What has changed? Andrew Shephard et al. in(Science, 2012, 338: 1183-1189 ), document a new phenomenon which began in the late 90's: significant net melting of arctic and antarctic land based ice. Greenland in particular and West Antarctica are losing about 400 gigatonnes per year (including allowances for increases of ice from increased snowfall in East Antarctica) as net ice melt. Prior to the late 90's there was no significant loss of land based ice mass. Their paper discusses the effect in terms of sea level rise (also measurable). But let's do the energy balance math. It appears that this recently arrived phenomenon of net ice melting coincides well with the abrupt change in the rate of atmospheric temperature increase. So, the energy required to melt 400 Gt of ice (its latent heat of fusion) is quite close to the amount of energy required to warm the earth's atmosphere by 0.025 º C. Wouldn’t such a newly arrived heat sink be taking up the so called missing energy? As has been widely reported, this “missing” energy is going into the oceans in the form of liquid water. So global warming has not paused at all! The earth is continuing to gain energy because of the increased energy absorption caused by the increased level of atmospheric CO2. Ice melting is accelerating and the atmosphere is still showing signs of warming. Thus we could rightly assume that global warming and its effects on climate are continuing and even accelerating as more and more energy is embedded in our global environment as we burn our way into a high risk future. Short term greed, instant gratification, discounting the future, delusional economics, and denial of reality are the hallmarks of humanity's dis-function and abuse of our only home.
Moderator Response:[RH] Snipped all caps (per policy) and resized font to standard size.
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Tom Curtis at 01:36 AM on 30 September 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
An ammendment to my post @18. At ATTP, Paul S has pointed out an error I made in my use of the Ocean Uptake Efficiency. Correcting for it, and allowing for non-ocean heat storage results in a slightly lower ECS than just making the error corrections already noted. That would count as concurrence between the L&W estimate and an alternative reasonable approach.
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2014 SkS Weekly Digest #39
This isn't the first time that a climate-related satirical cartoon has been criticized for not portraying every incidental part of the drawing in a photo-realistic manner. Such complaints are, properly speaking, whinging. IMO they are attempts to dismiss, denigrate, or distract from what said cartoon is actually saying.
Perhaps the cartoons are effectively making their points... hmm.
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Tom Curtis at 00:39 AM on 30 September 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #39
Russ R, perhaps you failed to notice the heavy satire. Everybody knows that cartoons aren't science, and distort not only faces, profiles, submarine designs, and architecture but even science for humorous impact. Somebody who thinks that noticing that fact informs others of something new, or is worthy of comment really needs to get a grip.
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Tom Curtis at 00:36 AM on 30 September 2014CO2 effect is saturated
rational being @286, the increased warmth of the atmosphere from the increased greenhouse effect does in fact raise the tropopause, but it does so by increased convection due to the surface warming. The change in radiative forcing would occur whether or not that happened. I have explained the actual method of warming in greater detail and clarity than I can in a comment here. I recommend you read it and comment further on that thread if you want to explore the issue in detail.
I agree that averageing across the Earth's surface creates a multitude of problems. They are not as large as often imagined, however, because at the effective altitude of radiation to space, temperatures are far more similar over a range of latitudes than they are at the surface (in part because of the higher tropopause in the tropics). However, the alternative to using globally averaged values is (more or less) to develop a full scale AOGCM, which is a bit much for blog comments. As it is, observations and AOGCM's show that globally averaged values give good back of the envelope estimates, though not accurate enough for detailed prediction (obviously).
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Russ R. at 00:35 AM on 30 September 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #39
Tom Curtis,\
Sticking to climate change related matters, you failed to notice the implied timeline... "a generation ago" implies < 50 years.
Even the most dire predictions of sea level rise for the next 50 years are in the order of centimeters.
Moderator Response:[JH] Your concerns have been duely noted.
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CO2 effect is saturated
rational being - That's correct, increased GHGs (not just CO2) raise the tropopause, the slope of the lapse rate remains constant, and the entire atmosphere and surface are warmer as a result of increased effective radiating altitude. There's a fair bit of literature on that (see Google Scholar here), for example Santer et al 2003 states:
Observations indicate that the height of the tropopause—the boundary between the stratosphere and troposphere—has increased by several hundred meters since 1979. Comparable increases are evident in climate model experiments. The latter show that human-induced changes in ozone and well-mixed greenhouse gases account for 80% of the simulated rise in tropopause height over 1979 –1999. (emphasis added)
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Tom Curtis at 00:26 AM on 30 September 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
MA Rodger @17, my take was that they used the CCSM4 spun up from 850 AD as shown in figure 1 (red line) for pre-1950 ocean heat fluxes. Certainly, based on a pixel count, it gives the same values over 1859-1882. VarNVarN in figure 2c (solid blue line) is similar, but smoother and drops much lower around the turn of last century, which would allow much higher climate sensitivity. I am not sure that woud be the case with the figure 1 values.
For an alternate approach, I used the Ocean Uptake Efficiency from Gregory and Forster, along with HadCRUT4 to determine Q in the 19th century. The result is a mean ECS of 1.98 K per doubling of CO2, inline with Otto et al 2012. I discuss it in detail at ATTP. I do not claim, of course, that that is the best approach, although I think it is significantly better than L&C's method as applied (ie, using a single run on a single ensemble member and an incorrect downscaling). But the factor of 23 difference in the resulting estimated Q means L&C need to seriously justify their choice at a minimum, something they have not done.
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Tom Curtis at 00:08 AM on 30 September 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #39
Russ R @2, you're right. What a travesty. Even worse:
- profiles of human heads look nothing like those shown;
- heads are not a third of body length as shown;
- the capitol building is shorter than the Washington Monument;
- fish don't blow bubbles;
- cavitation bubbles are not so persistent; and
- water currents do not show up as lines underwater.
Clearly we need a new community standards board to eliminate all inaccuracies from cartoons. The exageration of facts or features for humorous delivery is not to be tolerated.
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rational being at 00:05 AM on 30 September 2014CO2 effect is saturated
Thank you Tom Curtis and KR for taking the time to reply.
Are we saying that increasing upper atmosphere CO2 raises the altitude of the tropopause? And is the warming argument, then, that the temperature of the tropopause is fixed by the needs of radiative balance, so that a higher tropopause implies a warmer surface?
The altitude of the tropopause varies over the globe from around 9km at the poles to almost double in the tropics. I suppose it is where convective heat transport gives way to radiation as the dominant mode. The details are complex enough that I am not sure simple averaging arguments work well.
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