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Comments 4251 to 4300:
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Iain R at 17:13 PM on 8 May 2022Why and How to Electrify Everything
John S,
with regard to heat pumps there is much misunderstanding and confusion betwen Coefficient of Performance and efficiency, although linked they are not the same. Efficiency starts at the power station where the fuel is burned, loses in generation, transmission and distrbution are about 60%.
Air source heat pumps are not particularly efficient and they certainly are less effective than gas heating when it gets really cold. They do work, as long as the house is designed for them but retrofitting a house designed for gas or oil heating is expensive and not economical in my view.
If it were governments would not be mandating that gas boilers, after a certain date, will not be allowed for sale. (U.K. anyway) If they are better and cheaper that is what the general public will choose. No need for any laws.
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Iain R at 17:04 PM on 8 May 2022Why and How to Electrify Everything
It is a fantasy that we can produce 'clean' electricity by renewables it simply will not work.
The reason is basic and due to the nature of renewable generation, technically known as asynchronous, i.e. it is uncontrollable and grids need to be controlled to fine limits with regard to input and demand, i.e. they must be in balance at all times.
Fossil fuelled generation is generally considered as back up for grids with large penetration of renewable generation, however it is much more than that, they provide the balancing of input and demand as they can modulate output mostly automatically. They are the backbone of any grid and remove that backbone the grid will not function.
THE only possible solution is nuclear, unpopular as it is in many countries, but it is Hobson's choice for a reliable and non CO2 emitting electrical system. It is not without problems as nuclear is unflexible generally so work will be required in that area, possibly with small modular recators.
Renewables are a dead end!
California claim 100% renewble generation at times but that is only possible by connection to neighbouring grids. It does not mean renewables are a solution.
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michael sweet at 11:40 AM on 7 May 2022Why and How to Electrify Everything
John S.:
When I Goggled "how cold can heat pumps work" I found this quote
"In fact, heat pumps are now the best heating option just about everywhere on the planet. Below 0° Fahrenheit, heat pumps can still heat your home with more than twice the efficiency of gas heating or standard electric heating (such as electric furnaces and baseboard heaters). They’ve been tested and approved as far north as the Arctic Circle, and are popular options in very cold countries like Finland and Norway." my emphasis. source
Please provide a reference to support your wild claim that heat pumps are not efficient in cold weather. My source says they are still efficient but not as efficient as during normal weather. Where I live heat pumps have an "emergency heat" switch for even colder weather. I use it about 2 days every other year. (My heat pump is in Florida and is designed to cool better than heat). As heat pumps continue to be developed we can expect efficiencies to improve across the board.
Most plans I have seen try to use as much district heating as possible because large installations can utilize energy more efficiently. Heat pumps are recommended for people who are not able to obtain district heating.
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John S at 10:21 AM on 7 May 2022Why and How to Electrify Everything
Don't electify where equivalent or better service can be provided in a way that uses less valuable electricity system capacity; e.g. building heating and cooling can can be accomplished directly via district energy systems from natural resources like the sun or deep water or waste heat or surplus power with just a little help from heat pumps and seasonal thermal enegy storage. BTW air source heat pumps are not efficient at the very low temperature which is exactly where a lot of the heating is needed in the northern US and Canada and the heating peak demand could be about three times the current electricity system winter available capacity (my estimate for Ontario).
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:08 AM on 7 May 2022What you need to know about carbon dioxide removal
As a resident of Alberta, Canada, I can confirm that a major part of the problem is the regional popularity of leadership that makes up harmful misleading claims to excuse harmful pursuits of benefit.
The Alberta leadersip has repeatedly claimed that reducing the emissions from fossil fuel burning related to the oil sands production and export by carbon capture and use, like injection of CO2 to produce more oil, is what the IPCC reference to carbon capture is all about.
The article makes it clear that the IPCC CDR is not what the Alberta leadership claim it is. Reducing fossil fuel emissions is helpful. But ending those emissions is reqired along with CDR. And the means a future without fossil fuel being exported for burning, not a net zero production of fossil fuels for export. But few Alberta voters will learn about that. Or if they do encounter the correction they are likely to ignore or dislike the correction of understanding.
A root of the problem appears to be the potential popularity of resistance to learning to be less harmful, especially if learning to be less harmful would appear to result a loss of status or benefits.
It continues to amuse me that even the promoters of the need to develop a zero harmful carbon impact future avoid pointing out the obvious need for reduced energy demand to be a significant measure of progress and advancement.
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Aeyles at 01:21 AM on 6 May 2022What you need to know about carbon dioxide removal
During a long and somewhat tedious (March) trip across the U.S. Midwest between West Virginia and Denver, via AMTRAC, our spot check survey group visually inventoried the farmland. Most fields were devoid of winter plant cover cropping which clearly indicates that Micorrhizal fungi, etc, is not presently at work on the land. Without getting into details, it is clear that Midwestern soils play a role in holding plants erect, but provide little else without the customary chemical fertilizers essential to plant feedcrop production. Since 85% of global crop tonnage is fed to animals, one must wonder at the consequences we are probably facing in the not too distant future.
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Aeyles at 22:52 PM on 5 May 2022What you need to know about carbon dioxide removal
Biochar has to be "made" in an oxygen-less heating environment. The energy to make Biochar significantly undermines its utility as a soils-carbon sequesterer. Australian soil scientists, such as Christine Jones, points out that sequestering carbon in the soil is highly dependent upon the environmental conditions of humidity, soil temperature, application at the right time of solar angle and variety and density of soil microorganisms in the target plot. further, the sequestered carbon may "escape" its capture site due to atmospheric conditions at, or after, the Biochar is installed in the targeted soil plot.
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Aeyles at 22:31 PM on 5 May 2022What you need to know about carbon dioxide removal
There are a number of obstacles unaccounted for in these "remedies". Two, right off hand, come to mind: Farmers and Ranchers are not required to participate in "improvements", new techniques are "voluntary". Phytoplankton are being wiped out from ocean acidification which proceeds regardless of the effort to employ them in CO2 reversal schemes.
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Aeyles at 22:27 PM on 2 May 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17
I'm curious as to whether the article by Donald Brown was a rough first draft rather than a finished product. It contains a large number of typos and improper compositions that would have concerned an eighth grade English teacher. ?? Is there another place to look for what may have been his actual published version?
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BaerbelW at 00:39 AM on 2 May 2022FLOATER: A Tool-Kit for evaluating Claims
Melanie Trecek-King, the author of the "Thinking is Power" articles, talks about "Floater" in this Skeptical Enquirer Webinar, recorded on April 29, 2022: https://youtu.be/FxbNGbv1eWE
Enjoy!
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michael sweet at 12:19 PM on 30 April 2022Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
The headline from Bloomburg today was:
"France’s Nuclear Shutdown Hits 50% of Reactors, Squeezing Supply
Some 28 reactors in France are now offline for maintenance
That’s keeping power prices high amid Europe’s energy crunch" my emphasis.So much for "always on power". In the greatest emergency Europe has had in decades half the reactors in France are out of comission.
The new reactor at Flamanville is 16 years into a 5 year build (11 years overdue) with the current target date sometime in 2023. Who would want to go further with that record?
John: I suggest you come back when there is better news for nuclear power.
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John ONeill at 00:05 AM on 30 April 2022Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
'France has temporally closed 4 nuclear power stations because of cracks and corrosion found near welds. That is about 13% of France's nuclear power. There is also a natural gas (methane) shortage this winter in the EU. Electricity prices are expected to rise. If there is a cold spell there will be difficulty dealing with it. Hopefully it will be windy so wind can help out.' (Michael Sweet, 280)
Despite the unscheduled downtime, France is still getting about 60% of its power from nuclear, at about a third the carbon footprint of the UK, and a quarter that of Germany. At the moment, Germany's 64 GW of wind is running at 4% capacity, and its 39 GW of coal is running at 54 % capacity. The 4 GW of German nuclear closed on December 31st had no mechanical faults, and nor do the last 4 GW they plan to close at the end of this year. That's been running all day at 95% or more. The 1.8 GW closed in France in 2020 also had no problems, apart from being nuclear. The French Energy Ministry is now the 'Ministry of the Ecological Transition', and the minister, Barbara Pompili, is a former Green party member with a history of opposition to the industry. (Power data from 'electricitymap.org', which anyone interested in energy should have on speed dial.)
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Bob Loblaw at 22:29 PM on 28 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Yes, that is a good page on Wien's Law. When I saw MA Rodger's comment, my first thought was "didn't I include that link in my previous comment?" - but I must have fogotten to add it. I was looking at it, at the time.
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Wol at 20:14 PM on 28 April 2022Climate change will transform how we live, but these tech and policy experts see reason for optimism
One of the most persistent bits of misinformation I see from those who incline towards accepting the reality of climate change is the notion that we should slow down the use of fossil fuels, period.
The "period" meaning that we can use the same amount, just over a longer period and then all's well with the world.
The fact that CO2 in particular is so long lasting and cumulative doesn't register. Climate is an incredibly complex subject yet the basic facts are so simple: with "friends" like that who needs denialists?
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MA Rodger at 19:55 PM on 28 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Wikkipedia have a Wein's Law page (aka Wein's Displacement Law) which may assist in the explanation.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:53 AM on 28 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Just to make the text from comment 25 a little easier to understand, here is an updated version of the Planck curve graph from comment 20 - adding 193K as a third line.
In this figure, you can see how the peak emission shifts to shorter wavelengths at higher temperatures - 15 μm at 193K, 11.4 μm at 255K, and 10.1 μm at 288K. That's what Wiens Law tells us.
Notice that the 15 μm emissions are higher for 255K than for 193 K, and higher again for 188K - but the 15 μm wavelength is not at the peak for the latter two.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:20 AM on 28 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Well, no. It's more complex than that.
If you look at the diagram in comment 23, there are two sets of actual measurements - one looking up from the surface, and one looking down at an altitude of 20km. Let's think about what each one is looking at in more detail - but we'll pick the 15 μm wavelength as a single example.
- From the surface, we are looking at radiation emitted by the sky - at all heights. Some of the 15 μm radiation might have been emitted from just a few cm above the surface - nearly all of that would have been transmitted through the air (and CO2) because the distance is so short. Some of it might have been emitted tens of metres above, and some of it might have been emitted hundreds of metres above. From higher altitude, the 15 μm radiation has a much smaller chance of reaching the surface, because it has a much higher chance of being absorbed in the longer atmospheric path. This is due to the Beer-Lambert Law that is the subject of the blog post - the longer the path, the less likely the radiation will be transmitted (figure 5).
- From 20 km looking down, it is more or less the opposite. IR radiation emitted at the surface is unlikely to get to 20 km without being absorbed. Radiation emitted at 19 km altitude is more likely to reach 20 km, and radiation from just a few metres lower is highly likely to reach 20 km.
I wrote the following over at another blog the other day, in response to someone else discussing the greenhouse effect.
For the upward flux for any wavelength at a selected height (chose 100m, 5km, 20 km - anything you like) you need to remember the following:
1) every single photon of that wavelength is the same - there is no way of knowing if that photon was emitted from the surface, 5m, 100m, or any specific height below the viewing point.
2) It might have travelled 2cm, 2m, or 15km.
3) You have no idea what the temperature was in the atmosphere at the height that photon originated.
4) The probability that an individual photon will be absorbed at the current height has nothing to do with its origins. It has to do with its chances of interacting with a molecule that will absorb it.
The entire vertical profile needs to be integrated as a set of coupled equations. Radiative transfer calculations such as MODTRAN break the atmosphere into layers. For each layer, there will be:
1) A flux arriving from below, of unknown origin. Some of that flux will be absorbed, and some transmitted to the next layer above.
2) A flux arriving from above, of unknown origin. Some of that flux will be absorbed, and some transmitted to the next layer below.
3) An emission of radiation, half of which will be added to the upward-directed flux (1), and half to the downward-directed flux (2).
4) The flux going out the top will be the sum of what arrived from below and was not absorbed, plus the amount emitted upward by the layer.
5) The flux going out the bottom will be the sum of what arrived from above and was not absorbed, plus the amount emitted downward by the layer.
6) Obviously, the amount moving upward out of this layer will be the same as the amount moving upward into the layer above. This is how all layers are coupled together into one system.
With all these coupled layers absorbing, transmitting, and emitting, determining the flux of radiation requires a model of some sort. In the quoted text above, I referred to MODTRAN, which is one such model that you can read about - and try - online.
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
At the second link, the online model will let you choose a height, looking up or down, the temperature structure, etc. Lots to play with.
In short, a stream of 15 μm photons will be coming from a variety of distances away, at a variety of temperatures (and may have been emitted by something other than CO2). All we know about it is that they are 15 μm photons that all look the same to us.
Looking only at the emission at 15 μm, comment 20 shows the Planck curves for 288K and 255K. The (blackbody) values for each curve at 15 μm are 18.2 and 11.7 W/m2/μm.
If I do the calculation for 193K, the curve will be lower (and the peak further to the right), and the 15 μm emission drops to 3.4 W/m2/μm. The peak wavelength doesn't enter the calculation. The emissivity for CO2 will not be 1, but it will be more or less the same at the different temperatures, so you would expect a 193K cloud of CO2 to be emitting only 30% of the 15 μm photons you'd get from a CO2 cloud at 255K.
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Likeitwarm at 04:17 AM on 28 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Bob Loblaw @23
Thanks for clearing up my confusion. I thought 15 μm was only emitted from an object that was at the peak temperature, in this case 193K.
So, that means CO2 would receive the maximum amount of 15 μm at 193K?
From your example, 11.4 is a reduction from 15 by 24%. Would that mean there is a 24% reduction of 15 μm emission going from 193K up to 255K?
( I just don't like winter)
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Bob Loblaw at 11:58 AM on 27 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Hello, Likeitwarm.
Yes, you are misinterpreting Wiens' law. It does not link a single photon to a specific temperature - it tells you the wavelength of the peak emission of all radiation from a blackbody as a function of temperature. You can read more about it here.
If you look at figure 2 of the blog post (or the non-log version for two IR temperatures in comment #20), you can see that Planck's Law tells us that any blackbody emitter, regardless of temperature, emits at all wavelengths. From those graphs, we can derive two interesting features:
- The area under each curve tells us the total amount of energy at all wavelengths. Stefan-Boltzman did the caculus for us, and we end up with a result that says the total area is σT4.
- The peak of the curve happens when the slope of the Planck Curve is zero, and Wien did the calculus for us on that one to get λpeak = (2898/T)
If an object was at 193K, then the peak emission would be at 15 μm, but the body would still be emitting radiation at other wavelengths. At 255K, the peak emission would be at 11.4 μm, but the object would still be emitting at 15 μm, too - just not as much as at 11.4 μm.
All this is thinking in terms of blackbodies - perfect emitters. For gases, they do not tend to emit as blackbodies. You revise Planck's Law with a wavelength-specific emissivity. For a blackbody, the emissivity is always 1 for all wavelengths, leading to the curves in figure 2. In gases, the emissivity is rarely 1, and the emission curves are not nice smooth ones like figure 2. With many gases in the atmosphere emitting at many different wavelengths, you end up with curves that look like this. You can see that the measured spectral sort of follow the blackbody curves, with drops where atmospheric emissivity is less than 1.
(That figure is from this blog post.)
So, you have done the calculation correctly in Wien's Law, but misinterpreted it because it only applies to blackbody radiation, and it only tells us what the peak is. Once you factor in emissivity for a specific gas, we no longer have a blackbody, and the peak from a specific gas (e.g. CO2) is more a function of what wavelength has the highest emissivity. Even as the temperature of that gas changes, the wavelength with peak emissivity does not change, so knowing the peak emissiion can tell us what gas we are dealing with, but not its temperature. (At least, not without a lot of other information.)
Moderator Response:[BL] 2022-08-06 image link fixed
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Likeitwarm at 09:35 AM on 27 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Excuse me! Bob Loblaw. Brain out of gear!
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Likeitwarm at 06:40 AM on 27 April 2022From the eMail Bag: the Beer-Lambert Law and CO2 Concentrations
Boblaw @20, So it matters not what temperature the emitter was at, except that it governs the number of photons emitted. I was thinking of Wien's law that says the wavelength of the radiation is linked to the temperature of the emitter, so I was assuming that 15 μm radiation indicated 193K as the temperature of the emitter, meaning that radiation could only come from very cold places like the poles of the earth. Did I read Wien wrong?
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Doug Bostrom at 04:34 AM on 24 April 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #16 2022
Thank you for pointing that out, One Planet. Corrected.
Joel, yes indeed. It's a good metric to have in hand, not least because latent heat liberation from water vapor is a major component of extreme weather of various kinds. The authors make a good point.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:04 AM on 24 April 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #16 2022
The second link under Other Notables (How do Right-Wing...) is not working for me.
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Joel_Huberman at 23:43 PM on 22 April 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #16 2022
Thanks, Doug, for pointing to the importance of using latent heat measurements in science communications. I was previously unaware of this fascinating, important issue.
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BaerbelW at 21:56 PM on 18 April 2022New resource: myth deconstructions as animated GIFs
A Myth Deconstruction as an animated GIF is now also available for "The difference between weather and climate".
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:25 AM on 15 April 2022The latest IPCC report has a lot to say about carbon fee and dividend
Aeyles,
I suspect that the $200/tonne value was considered to be a level of pricing that would effectively produce a rapid rate of reduction of fossil fuel use (something arguably required by 2013 due to the pathetic lack of action by the most harmful portion of the global population by that date).
But sensible leaders understand the need for carbon pricing to start at a lower level with everyone being motivated to change by understanding that the price will be increasing annually (starting at $40 to $80/tonne and increasing significantly annually, potntially to levels higher than $200 as required to achieve the required ending of harmful emissions).
Tragically 30 years ago most sensible leadership candidates failed to win the power to do that then. So here we are now, with many people still easily tempted to vote agsinst more sensible leadership.
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Aeyles at 05:25 AM on 15 April 2022The latest IPCC report has a lot to say about carbon fee and dividend
At a climate conference in Alexandria, VA in the spring of 2013, the consensus of the group, which included Joseph Romm, was that a ton of CO2 would have to carry a carbon fee of $200, or about 57 cents per gallon at the pump, in order to be meaningful. Anyone know what has changed, since then, to drop the fee to the amount stated above?
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:20 PM on 14 April 2022New IPCC report: Only political will stands in way of meeting the Paris targets
I share Eclectic's interest in seeing rayates55 provide more detailed thoughts.
I am well aware of the harmful history of success of political and consumerism misleading marketing tempting people to believe harmful misunderstandings rather than critically investigate things and learn to be less harmful and more helpful to others.
SkS includes many helpful tools regarding misleading marketing targeting climate science. Those understandings relate to other harmful misleading marketing that tempts people to like to benefit from harmful activity and related harmful misunderstanding that excuses the harm done, or discredits and distracts from evidence of the harm done, by those who benefit from harm being done.
Distracting misleading efforts can include attempts to focus attention on the growing population rather than the highest harming portion of the population that has set harmful examples that many lower status people can be expected to aspire to develop towards.
Clearly, the policy development that is required must focus on identifying harmful pursuits of benefit and make those pursuits less desirable (more expensive or harder to do) regardless of the potential popularity and profitability of more harmful actions being permitted.
The lack of political will is understandable and is understandably unacceptable.
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MA Rodger at 05:52 AM on 14 April 2022Medieval Warm Period was warmer
astrophile @270,
The link in the OP is to the paper Mann et al (2008) which in turn does provide links to Fig s6 but not very helpfully. Another on-line version of the paper here does give a link to the Supporting Information. Fig s6 resides within that Supporting Information where you will see the OP's Fig 4 is reproducing the paper's Fig s6f.
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astrophile at 04:32 AM on 14 April 2022Medieval Warm Period was warmer
I followed the link for the Mann 2008 article given for Figure 4 but I don't see any figure in that article that references global temperatures. Is it the wrong link or is the figure created in some other way?
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swampfoxh at 13:28 PM on 13 April 2022New IPCC report: Only political will stands in way of meeting the Paris targets
Some contributors have noted that the planet birthed another 80 million humans in 2021, now estimated to be a little more than another 80 million in 2022. 80 million is a large number when we account for the carbon footprint and resource consumption of these added persons. At the current annual rate of population growth, we will be seeing another billion humans by mid 2032 or 2034. I realize that this topic is toxic, but it seems that this problem will overshadow all other efforts to climb down from the loomimg disaster.
Another large problem, industrial animal agriculture, is not mentioned in the above bar graphs, yet the elimination of animal agriculture is effectively painless because we can grow enough plant food to feed the global population. Industrial animal agriculture, as a leading cause of the climate problem we face, offers an immediate target to drastically reduce emissions and to substantially reduce several other negative impacts that are hoped to be addressed in the above graphs. Why can we not see more about this problem in the literature?
Moderator Response:[BL] Off-topic deleted. For some odd reason, you seem to think that complaining about the lack of emphasis on industrial agriculture is on-topic for nearly any blog post. It is getting very tiresome.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:11 AM on 13 April 2022Models are unreliable
MichaelSF:
The direct answer to your question would have to be "I don't know", because most of the "predictions" that you claim have been made by "climate models" bear very little resemblance to the predicitons from climate models in the scientific literature.
If you want us to believe that such "predictions" actually exist, you are going to have to provide scientific references where the "climate models" are described and the "predictions" made.
Once you actually provide some sort of detail, it may be possible to answer your question. Until then, you're just engaging in rhetoric (meaning #2)
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Eclectic at 10:41 AM on 13 April 2022Models are unreliable
MichaeISF @1305 , you sound a bit confused.
Climate models (for estimating future climate changes) base their predictions on the observed (and projected) rise in CO2 levels.
The CO2 level has continued to rise (observed fact). The world is warming (observed fact). Consequently, sea level is rising (observed fact) ~ so some increased flooding of coasts is occurring, and will get worse as a matter of course. (Unless you think the higher sea level is due to more polar bears staying in the water.)
Have you any evidence that "cancels" the facts?
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MichaelSF at 08:36 AM on 13 April 2022Models are unreliable
Regarding models, the explanation is good, especially about whether or not a model is good or not.
My observation: Are these the same models that for the last 40 years (Since I was in high school.) that predicted global warming before it predicted global cooling before blaming any and all weather on climate change driven by man's activity?
Are these the same models that for the last 40 years have predicted global coastal flooding, sinking island, the extinction of polar bear, penguins and increasing deserts and that man has only 8-12 years to survive?
I make these observations to prove that is seems there are NOT any good models, based on a proven, accurate track record, that can be called "good".Moderator Response:[PS] You appear to be engaging in strawman arguments - ie making claims about what science has said that are not true. You can find details of how well past predictions have done in "Lessons from Past Predictions" series. Broecker's 1975 model holding up pretty well. See here for the "Scientists predicted cooling" myth. If you dispute this, then please provide 1/ a link the scientific prediction you think was mistaken, and 2/ link to evidence that it is wrong.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:23 AM on 13 April 2022Wildfires are not caused by global warming
A-Train1906 @ 4:
You state "As for my claim they didn't give fuel density it's due, I simply read the inputs on their model."
If you want us to listen to you, I suggest that you provide details on the following:
- who "they" are.
- the details on the model(s) you are referring to.
- what inputs are included in the model(s).
- what inputs you feel are missing from the model(s).
I am familiar with the Canadian Wildland Fire Index, and have seen its application to changing climates, if you want to pick one to start.
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Eclectic at 00:23 AM on 13 April 2022New IPCC report: Only political will stands in way of meeting the Paris targets
Quite right , Rayates55 . Although SkepticalScience is a website primarily and almost exclusively oriented to the scientific aspects of climate change, nevertheless you will find occasional articles on the psychological aspects of science denialism. Politics, in the sense of partisan politics is hardly touched upon. And if you hail from the USA, you know how toxic & insane the partisan politics can be ~ about science, epidemics, vaccines, and you-name-it-whatever . . . including public toilets !
So in the practical area of influencing the various legislatures, SkepticalScience is not a participant.
Rayates55 , your scope at this website is therefore very minimal for discussing the political science aspects. But this very thread may be your opportunity to make a brief contribution to such a topic.
Please start the ball rolling, with your own summary of the important points which you feel would be of practical use !
( My own thoughts are that the political world will gradually ramp up its corrective actions, as the technological capabilities slowly improve ~ and as, decade by decade, the worsening situation stimulates voters to demand more action. So, not very fast. And if anything good is to come from the recent/current coronavirus pandemic - plus the atrocities of the Ukraine War [happening in Europe, not Africa] - then it may be that national governments will pay more attention to "resiliency" of local energy supplies & food production & manufacturing. )
Rayates55 , the floor is yours. I am all ears, for your insightful ideas.
Moderator Response:[BL] Everyone reading this and thinking about commenting should be reminded of the section of the Comments Policy that says:
No politics. Rants about politics, religion, faith, ideology or one world governments will be deleted. Occasional blogposts on Skeptical Science touch on issues intimately related to politics. For those posts this rule may be relaxed, but only if explicitly stated at the end of the blogpost.
As this blog post explicitly has "political will" in the title, it clearly falls into the category of posts that "touch on issues related to politics", but please try to keep it on topic.
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rayates55 at 22:01 PM on 12 April 2022New IPCC report: Only political will stands in way of meeting the Paris targets
Once again we see an article that follows this format: 1) Time has almost run out, 2) radically decreasing CO2 emissions is essential, yet they continue to rise, 3) countries' current policies will not reach necessary emissions goals at this rate, 4) here is a list of technological solutions if only there was the political will. All true.
But when will Skeptical Science begin to apply its discerning analysis to the proven blockage to progress: the lack of political will? Political Science is a thing, albeit a much squishier one.
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michael sweet at 11:18 AM on 10 April 2022Wildfires are not caused by global warming
A-train 1906
So no data to support your claims. Yuo claim that you have extensive experience working in the forrest service. Perhaps yo could use that experience tofind some acutal data to share with us. Your claim defies common sense. You need to provide data to support your wild calim that increasing temepratures do not incfluence the amount of fires.
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Philippe Chantreau at 11:04 AM on 10 April 2022Wildfires are not caused by global warming
I haven't seen the Potholer video. Nonetheless, I don't believe that A-train1906' remark applies to the immense fires in Siberia, affecting areas that have historically received little to no human intervention.
Reaching temperatures close to 50deg Celsius at 50 degrees lattitude, as happened last year in BC should not be discounted as insignificant.
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Eclectic at 08:53 AM on 10 April 2022Wildfires are not caused by global warming
A-train1906 at post #4 :
Welcome back to this thread after your 18-month hiatus. (An enjoyable vacation, or a period of deep cogitation? )
It is indeed difficult to reach unambiguous conclusions about forest wildfires, because of the many confounding factors ~ and as you indicate, the forest understory (carbon buildup) is a major factor in fire intensity. ~Among other factors, like moisture levels and high temperatures.
To reach a scientifically valid conclusion, would require careful analysis of areas of untouched old-growth forests versus logged forests and plantations ~ of various degrees of management (including of the understory). So many variables, and so much room for gut-feelings to be wrong!
But either way, high temperatures and low moisture levels must be huge contributors to the problem, and are very evidently influenced by global warming. Clearly there is room for better forest management, and perhaps of novel types. Less clear, is whether that should include managed burns in virgin forests where (in previous centuries & millennia) the climate was cooler and/or wetter and where native peoples did not do burns.
All very difficult to assess (and react to). But we should not fall into the trap of implying that modern rapid global warming should be ignored.
A-train1906, there is a Youtube video by Potholer54 title from January 2020, titled: "The cause of Australia's bushfires _ what the SCIENCE says". Recommended. It is rather long, at 36 minutes . . . but Potholer54 does include some humorous parts, so it is all good entertainment as well ! It covers the catastrophic Australian fires only, but there are some general applications too.
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A-Train1906 at 02:48 AM on 10 April 2022Wildfires are not caused by global warming
Michael,
I'd love to see the data source you are referencing. As my observational opinion, having worked for the Forest Service for years, would be antithetical. Canada, Australia, and the US have had a century of aggressive fire suppression that has resulted in areas of carbon build up that is multiples of the norm for these historic fire regimes. Not only are the fires significantly larger now, because of the higher fuel density, the intensity now causes many of the nutrients to sublimate, lengthening the restoration phase. As for scientists "measuring everything", I would push back, especially since these models have so many moving parts, with significant unknowns. Once a scientist no longer questions their models, data, inputs, etc. it's very easy to let bias creep in. As for my claim they didn't give fuel density it's due, I simply read the inputs on their model.
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Eric (skeptic) at 21:43 PM on 9 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
Three issues should be on topic: energy, climate and money. The PM of Norway was unfortunately constrained in the interview: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0btv5rh by the interviewer. But he claims cutting off the money would have no effect (implying sanctions are binary when they have not been binary in reality).
Also I read up after my comment above on seasonal alternatives to natual gas. Something like this https://www.emmetenergy.com would take years of planning. But ramping up such a capability quickly may have a deterrent effect which was what we hoped the threat of sanctions would do. And it uses the same pipes as Russian natural gas.
European leadership should look for ways to apply their wealth quickly on Russian-funding harm reduction. I would note they have done that recently to achieve greater CO2 harm reduction by phasing out Russian coal starting April 4th.
In short, all harm reduction must be considered, holistically.
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EnergyRethink at 09:53 AM on 8 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
Just to correct nigelj, the value of the Ruble is basically back where it was before the war. This is due to Russia pegging the Ruble to the price of gold and demanding payment for oil and gas in Rubles. It is unfortune though for Germany that they are moving away from Nuclear as they have essentially snookered themselves.
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nigelj at 06:39 AM on 8 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
Eric the sceptic:
"Russia had a debt to GDP ratio of just 19% last year up from 18% the year before"
This is not much of an advantage when 1) The world wont loan you any more money, 2) the ruble is crashing in value 3) Inflation in Russia is now rampant 4) The western world has frozen many oligarchs accounts 5) Markets are closing to Russias exports 6) Russias have been denied access to various international financial systems 7) Russia is having trouble importiung enough goods.
I guess Russia might print its own money. That creates a further raft of problems.
"One question that needs an answer, therefore, is how to deal with the increased demand for fossil in winter, in Europe and elsewhere."
Scary scenario for places like Germany. They are very reliant on Russian gas. Apparently America is supplying lpg gas but ships can only transport so much.
I have read that Germany has commited to a big acceleration of its renewables programme. Building nuclear would probably be too slow.
Moderator Response:[PS] Just a little prompt to would-be responders, that while energy and climate implications of Ukraine war are on topic, this is not a forum for general discussions of the war and it's politics.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:38 AM on 8 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
This is a timely presentation of Options for Helpful Leadership action by global leadership.
It would have been beneficial for helpful global leadership (those claiming to defend democracy) to have pushed harder for Option 2 starting 30 years ago. That would have reduced the harmful pursuits of control, and the related acceptance of harmful regional leadership, in the Middle East and parts of Africa (and Russia). And it may have avoided the harmful power play by Putin today.
There is an important supplementary action that everyone can be helpful with right now (it is never too late to learn to change to be less harmful and more helpful).
Everyone who is consuming more than their basic needs can help by reducing their consumption, especially their direct use of fossil fuels. That would reduce the need for Option 1 and maximize the rate of achievement of Option 2.
There can be very rapid benefits realized if everyone transitions quickly (immediately) to cooler indoor spaces in winter and warmer indoor spaces in summer. People can also have shorter showers and fewer baths starting immediately. And people can also help fight the harmful likes of Putin by stopping unnecessary power consuming trips (Walk and bike more. Use public transit more. Enjoy 'getting away to somewhere close' rather than going far away for a change).
There is growing evidence that consumers who attempt to be Greener while maintaining or increasing their consumption are far more harmful and less helpful than consumers who simply reduce their consumption without pursuing 'greener options' (of course reducing consumption is improved by pursuing genuinely less harmful options for the remaining reduced consumption).
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Eric (skeptic) at 22:48 PM on 7 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
I'm glad someone finally brought this topic up. Every time I listen to a story in the media about "sanctions" I think about the BBC hard talk interview with the Prime Minister of Norway last month. They asked him why Europe was sending a billion dollars a day to Russia. The PM tried to make the case outlined above, but he was constrained by the hard talk interview "gotcha question" format.
The amount is less than a billion a day now, and I don't have a figure. Some omissions from the article above: Putin attacked in winter at the time of peak demand. Russia had a debt to GDP ratio of just 19% last year up from 18% the year before, an extremely strong financial position compared to most countries.
One question that needs an answer, therefore, is how to deal with the increased demand for fossil in winter, in Europe and elsewhere. It's hard to say no to fossil when you need it for heat.
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EnergyRethink at 09:50 AM on 7 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
What about Option 3: follow France and dispatch more Nuclear ?
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nigelj at 07:28 AM on 7 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Meurig: Geothermal power is already very flexible, and appears quite suited to working with solar and wind power: "At the same time, geothermal power plants offer more flexibility than some other types of baseload power sources, as it is relatively easy to ramp their power production up and down depending on need."
www.rff.org/publications/explainers/geothermal-energy-101/
"It (geothermal power) can run as baseload power around the clock, including at night, or “load follow” to complement renewables’ fluctuations."
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meurig at 03:45 AM on 7 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
This potential source of lithium is great news, and I would be interested as to where else in the world the same might apply.
However, one point about geothermal. In order to properly complement low-cost low-impact variable sources like wind and solar, we don't need traditional (inflexible) "baseload" - that would merely compete with wind and solar for high merit-order grid slots and actually reduce the ability of the grid to be responsive. Instead, we need sources which can be ramped up and down easily and rapidly, to "fill the gaps" when solar and wind aren't able to fully meet demand. I can conceive of ways (high temperature heat storage, for example) that geothermal can be made somewhat flexible, but I'm wondering how much work has been done on this.
This is an important consideration as we shift to renewables-based grids in places where a substantial proportion of hydro isn't an option. As the IPCC AR6 WG3 TS states (box TS.9, p.55),:
"An increasing reliance on electricity from variable renewable sources,
notably wind and solar power, disrupts old concepts and makes many
existing guidelines obsolete for power system planning, e.g. that
specific generation types are needed for baseload, intermediate load and
peak load to follow and meet demand. In future power systems with high
shares of variable electricity from renewable sources, system planning
and markets will focus more on demand flexibility, grid infrastructure
and interconnections, storage on various timelines (on the minute,
hourly, overnight and seasonal scale), and increased coupling between
the energy sector and the building, transport and industrial sectors." -
Nick Palmer at 07:51 AM on 6 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Philippe. Sorry I missed your mentioning this. It would have been nice to have seen someone else who sees the enormous potential for this. Possibly the greatest aspect is that it would even up the share of global energy supply that most nations would have because the newer techniques can access the energy almost everywhere on earth - no small set of nations would have a stranglehold on the supply of large amounts of energy
