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arch stanton at 03:01 AM on 30 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
Nice job LOL.
But how could you leave out my personal favorite climastrologist - Dr Theodor Landscheidt? I mean after all, His work with Gleissberg cycles and the sun's barycentric oscillations explains it all.
See fig 8 in this fine paper (published in E&E).
Keep up the good work,
arch
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rasmus at 02:45 AM on 30 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
Hanekamp is an interesting case, especially if you can trust things you find with google:
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jaap-Hanekamp/11461458
http://www.climatewiki.org/wiki/Heidelberg_Appeal
Apparently, Heidelberg Appeal no longer exists, but there is a new one called the "Green Audit Institution" (difficult to translate "Groene Rekenkamer"):
http://www.groenerekenkamer.com/node/877
I wonder if this is the Dutch equivalent to the organisation "klimarealistene" which we discuss in our paper? Anyhow, his comment speaks for itself...
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CBDunkerson at 21:14 PM on 29 June 2013It's cooling
scliu94 wrote: "What do you guys make of this?"
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Rob Painting at 20:55 PM on 29 June 2013It's cooling
scliu94 - only in the mind of a climate science contrarian can the ocean heat data be unreliable so as to be unable to tell us the oceans are warming, yet reliable enough to confirm that the warming is natural!!
An insurmountable hurdle for contrarians is that the largest natural component for warming the oceans - the sun- has seen a decline in radiation output over the last 3 decades, which should have seen a cooling of the oceans. Instead the oceans the oceans have warmed substantially - as they should when increased concentrations of greenhouse gases trap more heat in the oceans.
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Dave123 at 17:08 PM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
Auditing the "auditors". How audacious! The response from Hanekamp that invents a criteria of symmetry is delicious in an ironic sense then, that it's somehow unfair to systematically demonstrate common classes of logical, statistical and factual errors in the work of those seeking to do the same with regard to mainstream climate science. O- the humanity!
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Tristan at 16:59 PM on 29 June 2013It's cooling
Scliu, you're more likely to get a response if you ask a specific question.
Also, given the source, (Bob Tisdale) it's pretty obvious what people will make of it. "Tisdale at it again, after being repeatedly shown to be wrong".
Here's a link. http://wottsupwiththatblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/a-challenge-from-bob/
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scliu94 at 12:59 PM on 29 June 2013It's cooling
What do you guys make of this? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/11/is-ocean-heat-content-data-all-its-stacked-up-to-be/
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Andy Skuce at 12:33 PM on 29 June 2013BC’s revenue-neutral carbon tax experiment, four years on: It’s working
William: people on low incomes get cheques worth $115 annually per adult and for the first child. Effectively, it is a form of negative tax. But that's only one part of the rebate.
Of course, ecoonomists could argue how the refunds of the tax should best be distributed: between rich and poor, and between individuals and businesses. It is not just a matter of economic efficiency, but also one of social justice and getting public buy-in. The fact that the tax is relatively popular suggests to me that the mix of rebates in BC may be about right.
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Tom Curtis at 12:27 PM on 29 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
scaddenp @229, it is not that the water vapour feedback is not well understood. Rather, because feedbacks are responses to warming of cooling, other feedbacks which also warm (or cool) will also result in an additional WV feedback response. Therefore you cannot quantify the WV feedback without quantifying all feedbacks. The IPCC recognize this. They quantify the WV feedback to the Planck response alone, but note that "... because of the inherently nonlinear nature of the response to feedbacks, the final impact on sensitivity is not simply the sum of these responses. The effect of multiple positive feedbacks is that they mutually amplify each other’s impact on climate sensitivity." Consequently, while the WV+Lapse Rate feedback increases the temperature response by 50% of the Planck response ignoring other feedbacks, their total contribution to climate sensitivity will be greater than 0.5 C.
Ignoring cloud feedbacks, the IPCC indicates the other feedbacks will result in an increase of temperature of 1.9 C for a doubling of CO2. If the cloud feedback would increase the temperature response by 50% by itself, then the final climate sensitivity will be > 2.85 C, with a combined WV, Lapse rate and Surface Albedo feedback greater than 0.9 C. If, however, it is -10%, the resulting climate sensitivity will be less than 1.71 C, and the contribution of the non-cloud feedbacks will be less than 0.9 C.
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Andy Skuce at 12:19 PM on 29 June 2013BC’s revenue-neutral carbon tax experiment, four years on: It’s working
Geoff Hughes: The percentage changes reported for each year are year-on-year changes. For example, the 2008 value of -1.0% in the first table represents a drop in consumption of petroleum products subject to the carbon tax in BC between 2007 and 2008. The 2009 number represents the change between 2008 and 2009.
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scaddenp at 10:23 AM on 29 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
Tom, I do realise that H2O isnt that straightforward a feedback - especially if you take into account clouds, (I've worked through the excellent series at SoD ) but my understanding from th IPCC reports is that uncertainties with GHE of water vapour are in the "well understood" category with good agreement between theory and experimental/observational data. (unlike say clouds, ice sheet loss, clathrates etc) Ignoring clouds, I understand the effect to be effectively double planck response. For that reason, I think claims of "only" 1K for double CO2 are particularly spurious. You can argue about the feedbacks from clouds and melting ice, and especially ocean saturation and methane release, but you cant argue too much about the water vapour.
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Ken in Oz at 10:03 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
Close scrutiny of the 3%?
I vacillate between thinking it's best not to draw too much attention to them, on the basis that any publicity will lift their profiles, and thinking an expose of their bad science can only damage the denialist cause. On the basis that more and better information is best, I've decided to pump for the latter.
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Chris G at 09:25 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
DSL, I only read a couple of the responses, but yeah, it seems that in addition to the need to avoid confirmation bias, there is a complementary need to avoid dis-conformation(?) bias, the bias against understanding an argument correctly the conclusion is contrary to existing beliefs.
I read them and I think, "You are arguing with something that was not said."
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Tom Curtis at 09:23 AM on 29 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
scaddenp @227, it is incorrect to think of the water vapour feedback as a singular factor. To illustrate this, consider the procedure for estimating the planck response plus water vapour feedback using Modtran. I will do so just using the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere with no clouds for illustrative purposes. To do it properly, you should do it for a representative sample of environmental and cloud conditions, and take a weighted average, something it is not strictly possible to do with the University of Chicago Modtran model due to the limited number of environmental conditions specified. Bearing that caveatte in mind, however, we proceed as follows:
- We determine the upward IR flux at 280 ppmv with all other values unadjusted (260.02 W/m^2).
- We increase the CO2 concentration to 560 ppmv, thereby reducing the upward upward IR flux.
- We increase the temperature offset until the upward IR flux again matches the initial value (Offset of 0.86 C required.) That represents the Planck response.
- We increase the water vapor scale to equal ((288 plus offset)/288)^4 to allow for the increased water vapour pressure at the higher temperature (1.012 scale factor).
- We again increase the temperature offset to restore the upward IR flux to the original value (Offset of 0.96 C required). This represents the increased water vapour pressure due to the initial water vapour response.
- You repeat step five until the value stabilizes. You have now calculated the Planck response plus the water vapour feedback to the Planck response.
Now, at this stage we may want to calculate the snow albedo feedback to the Planck response plus WV feedback to the Planck response. That will again increase the offset temperature required, which will inturn result in another round of WV responses, and a further reduction in snow cover and so on.
It is because feedbacks iterate like this that it is not correct to talk about the WV feedback as a singular factor. Supose, for example, that the total cloud feedback were slightly negative rather than (as is more likely) positive. Then the total WV feedback will be less. On the other hand, if the snow albedo feedback is stronger than expected (as is known from observation), that will result in a stronger WV feedback.
Because feedbacks interact in this way, I think it is conceptually better to determine the Planck response, and then determine the feedback factors as a group to the extent that is possible.
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Geoff Hughes at 08:43 AM on 29 June 2013BC’s revenue-neutral carbon tax experiment, four years on: It’s working
I would like to share this good news on my blog, but I do not find the base year(s) for the changes in the tables. Without a base, I do not know what I am reporting. Could you clarify, please?
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william5331 at 05:53 AM on 29 June 2013BC’s revenue-neutral carbon tax experiment, four years on: It’s working
I wonder if this very laudable system wouldn't be even more effective if the dividend was given to every registered tax payer rather than to everyone that is currently paying taxes. In other words, simply deposited into every adult's bank account or credit card rather than given as a tax deduction. So many people are out of work through no fault of their own and they would spend every cent of the sum instantly to the benefit of the whole economy. It would be a welfare subsidy paid for by fossil fuel or the much discussed negative tax which may become necessary as the luddite effect bites deeper and deeper (everything manufactured by machines with the profits going to the owners of the machines and no more service jobs {politicians, prostitutes etc} available.
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DSL at 02:10 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
The interactive comments are highly entertaining. There should be a separate post just on those comments.
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Esop at 02:00 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
This sounds like a very, very interesting paper. Looking forward to seeing the comments from the various authors that are being "audited" as well. Great work!
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citizenschallenge at 01:51 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
Interesting - perhaps one lesson is to accept the notion that:
"We need each other to keep our selves honest."
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Chris G at 01:29 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
I suppose it depends on the mentality of the person. Some get confused by conflicting information. Personally, I tend to withhold judgement until I have heard a differing opinion; it doesn't matter if it is climate change or an argument between two children.
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Chris G at 01:25 AM on 29 June 2013Agnotology, Climastrology, and Replicability Examined in a New Study
Somewhat on the topic of how we know what we think we know, this was something interesting I came across recently.
Changing Minds About Climate Change Policy Can Be Done -- Sometimes
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chriskoz at 23:43 PM on 28 June 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #26A
To the whole SkS team, you have to check This panel discussion about science denial. Four experts talk about the anti-science of climate change, tobacco link to cancer, gun control and healthcare.
The most interesting is the moment at 44:00, when a question comes what to do to fight the science denial, Mike Mann quickly replies saying that SkS is na excellent site and their presentation of scientific arguments debunking denial taking points is the best and should be "the model for all of those other issues". That comment should make us, espetially the authors, proud.
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chriskoz at 21:13 PM on 28 June 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #26A
This latest study Anthropogenic aerosol forcing of Atlantic tropical storms apparently established the link between aerosols and Cyclones on Atlantic. Apears to be the first of its kind. I don't have full access to check and form my opinion. Earlier studies, e.g. Mann 2006 explored the correlation of Atlantic Cyclones and AMO but did not talk about aerosols. Would be interesting to analyse it. On the surface it does not look good, because it vindicates the "Faustian bargain" which is like giving more heroine to a drug addict.
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JasonB at 20:49 PM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
Donthaveone @ 42,
1, What is the makeup of renewables, for example how much of this increase is from existing Hydro etc
I don't have time to look this up for you right now, but from memory the majority of the recent increase is from wind and solar. Perhaps you could try searching yourself? It didn't take me long to find that report.
It might be educational to see if you can find the reports I mentioned above, showing that wholesale electricity prices actually dropped due to wind and solar penetration. In fact, wholesale prices have actually gone negative multiple times now, because they would rather pay you to take their power than have to shut down the wind turbines when they're producing too much.
2, They are talking about name plate capacity and not how much energy was produced. Do you know what the actual production figures are?
The figures I quoted were energy production figures, not nameplate capacity. It clearly says "Electricity generation by fuel type Terawatt-hours". TWh is a unit of energy, not of power (which nameplate capacity is). Renewables were responsible for more energy generation than gas and liquids, and over half as much as the total for brown coal.
BTW, everyone familiar with the topic already knows the difference between nameplate capacity and actual production. What actually matters is the levellised cost of production, not how "efficient" it is. (For example, a cheap solar PV that only achieves 12% efficiency but costs half as much per peak Watt as a high-end system that achieves 18.5% efficiency is a better deal provided you have enough roof space to meet your generation requirements, which shouldn't be a problem with the cheaper system if you're living in a house, for example.) Wind is already cheaper than new coal power plants even at an average efficiency of 30%.
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scaddenp at 14:55 PM on 28 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
Also, just looking at the change in temperature from increased CO2 isnt that meaningful. You cannot change temperature without also invoking the water vapour feedback. Calculating the other feedbacks is complex (hence the range in estimates for climate sensitivity) but Planck feedback plus water vapour feedback should be the baseline for considering the effects on increased CO2.
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scaddenp at 14:48 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Australia and US are different. Australia must have one the best resources of solar power (eg CSP) around. If Germany can make such a difference with their poor solar resources, Australia should be able to massively more.
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KR at 14:38 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Addendum to this post: The Budischack paper did not incorporate demand management, which is an ongoing development in many markets (I have begun to receive indications from my power company regarding networked thermostats for distributed demand management already), nor sharing arrangements with neighboring power grids - I expect that incorporating those will reduce fossil fuel contributions even more, perhaps to the the level of zero.
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Tom Curtis at 14:37 PM on 28 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
stealth @224, given that it is the Top Of Atmosphere radiative forcing that we are discussing, the proper comparison is not with the back radiation (which is of secondary importance) but with the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR). Granted that 1.3 W/m^2 is just 0.5% of the OLR, but then, just 0.5% of the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) is 7 C. Percentages without perspective are not very informative here.
To calculate the temperature impact of a given radiative forcing prior to any feedbacks, you must recognize that a positive radiative forcing represents a reduction in the OLR. In order to restore the TOA energy balance, and assuming no feedbacks, the OLR must be restored to its original value. That requires an increase in the effective temperature of radiation to space. Assume that 240 W/m^2 OLR is required for the energy balance, then the effective temperature or radiation to space must be (240/(5.67x10^-8))^0.125, or 255 K. A radiative forcing of 1.3 W/m^2 then, reduces the effective temperature to 254.7. Consequently a 0.3 K increase, ignoring feedbacks, is required to restore radiative balance.
For the full 3.7 W/m^2 from a doubling of CO2, the reduction in effective temperature is 1 K, and hence a 1 K increase is required to restore radiative balance, ignoring feedbacks. Finally, because atmospheric temperatures within the troposphere are locked together by convection so as to follow the lapse rate, any change in temperature at the top or middle of the troposphere the results for the need to restore radiative feedback will result in a change in surface temperature of the same size. After that occurs, the increase in back radiation will be larger than the radiative forcing, but the energy balance at equilibrium will still be neutral because heat transfer from the surface by convection and latent heat will increase to make up the difference.
Finally, the most recent surface and TOA energy balance diagram is from Stevens et al 2012:
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KR at 14:33 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Donthaveone - An Argument from Incredulity is not a refutation. Read the linked paper, read the Archer and Jacobson 2007 article as well. When you actually run the numbers for observed weather, for distributed generation sites (even if you only use inland wind, which will have a lower capacity factor than mixed generation), doing the work shows that renewables can provide baseload, and can do so less expensively than fossil fuels if you actually account for external costs (pollution, toxins, warming, etc.).
One of the largest errors made in this discussion is referring to the numbers for (as you do) single stations - distributed sites have much higher capacity. Storage is expensive, mind you - I find the Budishcack et al 2013 very interesting in that they find excess capacity is more economical than storage.
Fossil fuel backup? Budishcack et al 2013 find that it's roughly 0.017% total capacity for the 99.90% renewable scenario. Your objection, a mix of incredulity and Common Sense fallacies, just does not hold.
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KR at 14:17 PM on 28 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
Stealth - It doesn't matter what the baseline is. Really. Because the baseline represents the current situation, the Holocene, the environment we have dealt with for the last 8-10 kY.
What matters is the change. The forcing deltas, the temperature deltas, the shifts in growth zone, in sea level, in heat wave frequencies, etc. Only 0.4%? Irrelevant! How much will the change affect us, what do we have to do to adapt - that is the real question.
See CO2 is just a trace gas - the baseline is comprised of multiple elements, of many components, and it simply doesn't matter what the magnitude of various components are. What matters is the change in components, in forcings, and how those changes affect us. Focusing on the scale of a change versus a baseline, without looking at how that change affects us in real terms, is a false minimization of the issue.
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StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler at 13:52 PM on 28 June 2013Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
KR @33: I was questioning the ability to measure 1/10,000th of a degree. I made a math error and was off by 3 orders of magnitude -- the actual temperature change is 0.1 degrees, and I can easily see that as measureable. While I make no claims to be a statistician, I do understand the Central Limit Theorem, and I understand the difference between precision and accuracy.
I am posting and asking questions from topic to topic because questions have to stay on topic or the moderator will delete them. I have a method to my madness and I am mostly gathering data. I have to find the right thread to ask my questions to get specific data. And my questions are being answered and I have learned a little bit all ready. Many thanks to all, especially Tom Curtis!
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smerby at 13:45 PM on 28 June 2013A Looming Climate Shift: Will Ocean Heat Come Back to Haunt us?
I think this research is positive step in proving that the Pacific Ocean is a bigger regulator in not only short term but longer term trends in global surface temperatures. "This climate model-based IPO cycle length is shorter than the IPO cycle length observed during the 20th century, however the reasons for this disparity are not yet clear". Does anyone have an idea on why the models are cutting short the cycle length of the IPO?
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michael sweet at 13:29 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Here is the correct link for the above comment.
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michael sweet at 13:26 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
This article from Clean Technica describes the current generation of power in Germany. Three counties generate over 250% of their electricity using renewables. Many ore generate over 100%. As people learn about the benefits of renewables more and more individuals and businesses are installing wind and solar. They will have hard data to compare to the model data described above in a short time.
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StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler at 13:25 PM on 28 June 2013CO2 effect is saturated
TC @221 and KR @222: I think my back-of-the-envelop hacks with MODTRAN are close enough to your 5.35 * ln(c1/c0) equation. They both produce relatively close numbers; but I’ll use the accepted 1.36 W/m^2 for CO2 from 310 ppmv to 400 ppmv. But this 1.36 W/m^2 is only 0.4% of the total back radiation from the sky based on the IPCC AR 4 energy balance (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-1-1.html). That is not very much relative to the whole earth system.
JasonB @223: LOL. I’ve been so wrong on so many things I think I would have a hard time being DK; I doubt I can have an unwarranted belief in my climate expertise, because I don’t have any (just a BS in physics).
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michael sweet at 13:21 PM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
Donthaveone,
I cited a peer reviewed study modeling the cost of using renewable energy for 1/5 of the US grid, approximately 72 GW of power. It showed that renewables cost less than fossil fuels to produce at least 95% of overall power generation. They did not include hydropower because it makes it too easy to use renewables. You respond with rough approximations unsupported by calculations about a single power plant, concluding with a handwave that it will never work. Produce a peer reviewed study, or at least a coherent complete argument, to support your wild claim that renewables cannot produce power as cheaply as fossil fuels. I have supported my position, you have waved your hands and said you do not believe peer reviewed work. That is denial. Did you even read the article I cited?
This article from Clean Technica describes three German counties who generate 250% of their electricity using renewables. The list of counties who generate over 100% is long. They are working toward producing 100% of all energy used. The author states "solar and wind are now cheaper than the electricity rate for households, commercial customers, and in many cases even industrial customers – causing 30% of all German businesses to plan investments in renewable capacities." The primary barriors are political, not technical. As people see the benefits of renewables they are giving up fossil fuels.
Provide an argument to counter my real world example. No more hand waving because you have no data to support your position.
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Rob Honeycutt at 12:57 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Donthaveone... I'm curious if you've read the article you're commenting on. Your last comment (@425) is contradicted by the very basis of this article. Mark and Dana are saying that renewable baseload is shown to be a viable option, thus no need for gas turbine back up.
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Donthaveone at 12:30 PM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
KR,
I find it hard to believe that anyone could believe wind power is the answer. Wind is hopelessly in efficient as they have a low capacity factor.
Lets take a look at Hazelwood, it produces 11,770GWh with a capacity factor of 84%, this equates to approx 10,240GWh per annun. See page 12 below.
Now lets look at replacing this 10240GWh with wind, see this link below for wind farm performance, note the website is a little slow to load so patience is required :-)
http://windfarmperformance.info/?date=2013-06-13
It is actually a very good site because it allows you to look at individual farms etc, however i want you to look at the first graph (Wind Farm Capacity Factor (%)) Notice that none of the wind farms operate anywhere near 100%.
The next graph Wind Farm Output (MW) shows you just how poorly these farms perform with regard to their rated capacity.
A bit further down you will see the actual capacity factor of the farms the highest is 41.9% (2011) scroll down to the bottom and you will see two graphs on the right hand side the red line is demand and the blue line down the bottom is the wind farm output.
Now lets do some basic calculations.
Hazelwood produces 10240GWh/year or 1100 odd MW per day.
Total wind farm capacity in Australia 2680 MW with a capacity factor of about 33% which means the farms will produce on average 900MW per day which is kind of close to Hazelwood but remember we are talking about wind farms spread all over the country and this is just to replace Hazelwood we would need to build thousands upon thousands of them to replace all of current energy supplies.
Then that would still not be enough as wind farms at times produce zero power so we then need a gas turbine back up!!!! Pretty crap energy source if it is not reliable why dont we just build gas turbines only and be done with it?
Moderator Response:[RH] Fixed link that was breaking page formatting.
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Donthaveone at 11:20 AM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
Michael sweet @35,
You call me a denier, what in fact am i denying? [-snip-]
So many responses to my questions, thanks to all but i cannot respond to all individually of course.
For the purpose of clarity (once again) the reason for the question re H2O was simply to find out if there was a legal way to stop nuclear production, maybe a better question would have been is it a popular option in the US? CBDunkerson has answered that question for me so thanks to you CB.
Jason @33,
Thanks for the link to the gov PDF it shows gas has risen by 5.6% and renewables by 28.5%, unfortunately it fails to give two details.
1, What is the makeup of renewables, for example how much of this increase is from existing Hydro etc
2, They are talking about name plate capacity and not how much energy was produced. Do you know what the actual production figures are?
Moderator Response:[RH] Moderation complaints (even sarcastic ones) are also against the rules.
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DSL at 10:42 AM on 28 June 2013A Looming Climate Shift: Will Ocean Heat Come Back to Haunt us?
Again, the pattern of targets is the message. These people have absolutely no interest in scientific progress or learning. They recognize that OHC is a simple and powerful (in the general public eye) counter to any of their simplistic "global warming stopped in XXXX" claims, and so they hammer at it, trying to find a way to break public confidence in it. Marcott = simple, powerful - kill it. Mann = simple, powerful - kill it. Arctic sea ice loss = simple, powerful - kill it. Transient climate response = confusing, hard to interpret - ignore it.
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scaddenp at 10:12 AM on 28 June 2013A Looming Climate Shift: Will Ocean Heat Come Back to Haunt us?
tcflood - if they dont understand the role of central limits theorem in detecting small changes from average of large no. of instruments, then I doubt they will be interested in learning. However, for paper on what can be determined and to what accuracy from Argo, try Von Schuckmann and La Treon 2011.
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tcflood at 09:48 AM on 28 June 2013A Looming Climate Shift: Will Ocean Heat Come Back to Haunt us?
Rob Painting: I have noticed that the skeptics are making a big deal (as usual) out of any uncertainty of an average 0.09 C temperature change measurement by the Argo instruments and the issue of how to integrate the relatively new and short term data with more sparse older data. How robust are the assertions of greater depth heat increases that are being made by Levitus12 and BTK13, etc.?
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scaddenp at 07:20 AM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
Carbon taxes (if they are to be effective) ARE different from other taxes in that they are avoidable. If nobody minded paying them, then they would have no effect. However, the expected behaviour is that people will choose to avoid them by moving to non-carbon generation. You create a market opportunity- "I can provide you with cheaper electricity because I use renewable/nuclear to create it". What you are really saying is that you dont want to pay more your energy - fair enough - but you energy costs are heavily subsidized. Sometimes by direct subsidies on coal in some countries and always because coal producers avoid paying the environmental cost. How do you feel about other people (eg delta dwellers in poorer countries; future generations) paying for your cheap energy?
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Andy Skuce at 07:18 AM on 28 June 2013BC’s revenue-neutral carbon tax experiment, four years on: It’s working
mike roddy@3: I agree that the forestry practices in BC leave much to be desired and it's depressing to see the amount of clear cutting when you overfly parts of the province or leave the main roads in places like Vancouver Island. You are correct to note that most residents of BC don't often see forestry operations up-close.
Of course, one of the biggest effects of climate change anywhere on the planet is the devastation wrought to the Lodgepole Pine forests of central BC, affecting an area the size of a medium-sized European country. See the first figure in this post.
Afforestation and deforestation make up about 5% of the GHG emissions in BC according to government numbers and they fit within the green pie slice labelled "Waste and Agriculture 11%" in the pie chart in the main article above. These emissions, like other non-combustion emissions, are not subject to the carbon tax.
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michael sweet at 06:30 AM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
CBDunkerson,
You are correct that in the US gas is cheapest. The article describes generators in Europe where gas is much more expensive than in the US. Apparently imported coal (probably imported from the US) is cheaper there.
The international power market is complex. It is no surprise that what happens in one country is not exactly the same as what happens in another country. But if they are not building fossil fueled power plants in Europe due to competition from renewables the handwriting is on the wall. Renewables will take over when they are the cheapest form of energy. Wind is already there in many locations, including much of the USA. Once renewables are built they are very cheap to run-- no fuel costs. If fossil fuels did not receive such high subsidies renewables would already be cheaper.
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citizenschallenge at 06:19 AM on 28 June 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Tom Curtis, you comments are too good not to share.
Hope you don't mind. Thanks for doing the heavy lifing.
I might even repost the entire article later.
~ ~ ~
Thursday, June 27, 2013
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KR at 04:30 AM on 28 June 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
I would like to link here to a very interesting post by michael sweet, and in particular the Budischack et al 2013 article he links.
In that paper Budishcack et al ran cost minimization estimates for 30, 90, and 99.90% baseload for a regional electrical grid using renewables. They found that at high baseload the cost economical mix includes a 3x overcapacity of generation; roughly the same percentage as Archer and Jacobson 2007 estimated, with a very small contribution of more expensive storage. Costs were estimated with a moderate externality factor for fossil fuels. Estimates were run with/without selling excess capacity for replacing gas for heating during winters, but with no other use of dumped excess generation capacity.
The simulations were run with several years of actual weather data, to see if the renewable systems simulated could manage baseload at the desired level. They found that aiming for 90%+ renewables by 2030 leads to economic savings, not costs, with each step of expansion moving towards lower costs.
I believe their results support the thesis of the opening post - that renewables can provide baseload capacity, and what's more, in a cost effective fashion.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:48 AM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
Donthavene... "Now this is a tax it is no different to any other tax so my question is how can applying a tax create a better environment for manufacturers?"
The fallacy you're presenting here is that you are arguing the tax is isolation of every other economic aspect. That is not how markets work. A tax does not make money just disappear. Tax revenues remain in the economy and create other benefits for a nation and its people, and the companies doing business within its borders.
What I'm saying, as JasonB echoes, is the effect for manufacturing is minimal at best compared to a wide range of other economic influences on the manufacturing sector.
Add to this the fact that the taxes being proposed are returned to taxpayers, the net effect for consumers is nearly zero (and potentially positive).
All this does is places a cost on activities that produce carbon. That will act to drive innovation to create solutions that produce less carbon. Those innovation, over time, are more likely to reduce costs for consumers, and become a net positive economic benefit.
If you are a manufacturer who can not, or will not, innovate then this spells trouble for you. If you are a manufacturer who wants to innovate, then you will view these kind of taxes as a golden opportunity.
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sidd at 03:29 AM on 28 June 2013Media Overlooking 90% of Global Warming
Re: OHC increase estimate of 6e21J/yr
This comes from Church(2011,doi:10.1029/2011GL048794) for the period 1972-2008.
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CBDunkerson at 02:33 AM on 28 June 2013President Obama acts on climate change by enforcing the law
michael sweet, actually right now natural gas is the cheapest source of electricity for the US as a whole. However, this is a recent development from the fracking boom and a major reason for the decline in coal power in the US. There isn't much fracking in the rest of the world yet, and natural gas is more expensive to transport than coal, so this is solely a US phenomenon at this point.
That being said, the basic formula of renewables undercutting fossil fuel prices remains the same. Wind and solar are now cheaper than coal in some parts of the US and that is quickly becoming the case nationwide. Thus, we will likely see the US switching to natural gas, wind, and solar as its major power sources over the course of the next decade or two. Then, as large enough smart grids and/or energy storage infrastructure are developed natural gas will phase out and leave just renewables. All assuming disruptive new technology comes along.
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