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jyushchyshyn at 07:18 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
The above article, "Tar sands is worse than you can imagine," includes a link to a video about luxury cars. What's wrong with this picture?
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jyushchyshyn at 07:11 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Yes, some, probably most of the oil, natural gas and coal, must be left in the ground, The way to do so is not to stop pipelines, but to use alternate energy, rather than gasoline and diesel for transportation. If we can get everybody to drive an electric car in the next few years, then whether or not Keystone is built will be moot.
And concerns to the effect that Keystone XL could be used for overseas exports can be addressed by not allowing it to be used to do so as a condition of allowing it to be built.
Unless we are hoping to get a shortage of oil, rejecting Keystone will not reduce consumption. And if we do get that shortage, expect a massive backlash. Global warming deniers already want to throw climatolgists in jail. And what is wrong with leaving Venezuelan oil in the ground?
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John Hartz at 03:00 AM on 25 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
@Synapsid #6:
I highly recommend that you read Taking the Reins, a recently released report by the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute. It concludes that the public interest best served by slowing down the bitumen production of the Alberta Tar Sands.
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CBDunkerson at 01:51 AM on 25 April 2013Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham
Congrats Dana.
I have the 'Global Warming' category on my Google News main page and your new blog was the top article displayed there this morning. That, along with the active comments thread, suggest that you are already getting quite a bit of traffic.
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VoxRat at 01:49 AM on 25 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Malaria researcher Paul Reiter has a different take on this issue: The Malaria Myths of Climate Change.
"Simplistic reasoning on the future prevalence of malaria is ill-founded; malaria is not limited by climate in most temperate regions, nor in the tropics, and in nearly all cases, "new" malaria at high altitudes is well below the maximum altitudinal limits for transmission. Future changes in climate may alter the prevalence and incidence of the disease, but obsessive emphasis on "global warming" as a dominant parameter is indefensible; the principal determinants are linked to ecological and societal change, politics and economics."
His tone in that article strikes me as more polemical than objective, but it would be useful to see a point-by-point response - if there is one.
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Bob Lacatena at 00:58 AM on 25 April 2013Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
Icarus,
Given a climate sensitivity of a mere 2˚C per doubling, the current global temperature increase should currently be 2 * log2(395/285) or 0.94˚C. If climate sensitivity is instead 3, then warming should be 1.4˚C. As such, if we have seen 0.8˚C (using the beginning of the twentieth century as a baseline — if the baseline is 1979, then warming to date due to CO2 forcing is less) then we should expect more.
This implies that there is anywhere from 0.14˚C to 0.8˚C of warming "in the pipeline," (depending on climate sensitivity and start point) yet to be realized even if net forcing freezes at the current level forever. As such, the fact that the oceans are absorbing this warming (for now) is unsurprising. [And, of course, the reason that the net forcing is steady is because of a temporary confluence of negative natural forcings. One should expect (a) net forcing to increase when the negative natural forcings terminate and (b) the ocean to slow its heat uptake and instead allow the atmosphere to come into equilibrium with the ocean.]
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Icarus at 22:51 PM on 24 April 2013Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
Ocean heat content studies find that global warming has accelerated in recent years – for example, Levitus 2012 finds a rise in OHC of around 10^23 Joules over the last decade, twice that of the previous decade.
At the same time, the growth rate of CO₂ forcing has declined slightly – i.e. we are putting more CO₂ into the atmosphere, but the airborne fraction has declined, so the CO₂ forcing hasn’t been rising quite as steeply since about 1990. This means that the net climate forcing, according to GISS, hasn’t risen since about 2000 -
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
We know that the existing planetary energy imbalance will cause continuing warming for many decades due to ocean thermal inertia, but we wouldn’t expect warming to be *accelerating* if the climate forcing hasn’t increased for 13 years. That’s a puzzle, it seems to me.
One explanation could be that the acceleration in OHC accumulation isn’t real. Another could be that it’s real, and that additional natural positive feedbacks have been kicking in to accelerate the warming despite the known forcings being level for 13 years. A third explanation might be that we have overestimated the negative forcing from atmospheric aerosols – since this is largely assumed or estimated rather than measured, perhaps it’s not been offsetting the greenhouse gas forcing as much as expected in recent years, meaning that GISS are underestimating the net climate forcing.
Does anyone have a view on what the most likely explanation is? Thanks!
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Rob Painting at 18:46 PM on 24 April 2013Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
Sorry Ian, still on my to do list. It does appear, however, that since about 2007/2008 we've seen a period of brightening (more sunlight reaching the Earth's surface) due to reduced sulfate pollution from China. See Figure 1 in Klimont (2013).
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JasonB at 18:32 PM on 24 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Contrary to anti-nuke propagandists, nuclear power *can* follow demand very well. Nuclear submarines and nuclear navy ships PROVE THIS every day.
Ignoring the fact that naval nuclear reactors are much more expensive per kWh, is it "propaganda" to point out that the levelised cost of electricity of new nuclear power is extremely sensitive to the load factor? If you're going to quote nuclear power generation costs with respect to renewables, don't forget to adjust it by average load factor; running at an average of 60% load factor increases the LCOE by about 40% vs running at 90% average load factor.
Scandinavia can perhaps provide a few dozen extra GW of storage to accept the German excess, but that's it. There is no way Scandinavia can 'Power all of Europe'. Sheer lunacy.
You seem to be confusing generation power with storage capacity, which is surprising for someone trying to lecture others. "a few dozen extra GW of storage" makes no sense.
Certainly, entire EU-27 has about 600 GW of average power demand and there is no chance that scandinavia could provide 600 GW 'for a week' (according to JasonB).
EU-27 electricity generation for 2010 was 3.18 million GWh, which equates to an average electricity generation of 363 GW. (Link)
The Nordel power system has a storage capacity of about 120 TWh (and I have seen reports that there is the potential to expand it to as much as 205 TWh) and the UCTE grid has another 57 TWh, for a total of 177 TWh. (Link)
That's enough storage (note the units) to power the EU-27 for 177,000 GWh/363 GW = 487 hours = 20 days = nearly three weeks with no other electricity generation at all — no wind, no solar, nothing. Nordel alone actually has enough for nearly two weeks.
Now, in order for it to be able to do that, obviously three things need to happen:
1. Big interconnects between Scandinavia and Europe so the power can be efficiently transferred back and forth. (Hence NORD.LINK, NorNed, NorGer, HVDC Norway–UK, Scotland–Norway interconnector, etc.)
2. The existing hydro-electric dams upgraded to pumped storage so they can pump water back up into the reservoir when electricity is cheap, thereby storing it (rather than simply relying on nature to replenish the dams).
3. Install more and larger generators so the peak power output can be increased (current max. for Nordel is 46 GW because that's all they need at the moment).
Given that Europe is unlikely to ever be in a situation where all electricity must be coming from Scandinavia there's no point actually installing 300+ GW of generating capacity; far more important is the storage capacity, which would allow it to plug a shortfall in generation for a very long period of time until the renewables are once again producing more than demand requires. (What was it you said again? Oh, yes: "Which means that pretty much every day, they are going to have dozens of *GW* of power with no place to go but out of the country." Bingo.)
Furthermore, in the GreenPeace energy scenario for europe, some 2600(!) GW of solar and wind power would need to be built. This means scandinavia would have to have about 2000(!) GW of pumped hydro storage capacity. That's about one *hundred* times their current installed amount. They cannot provide this! In fact, they can only provide about 50 to 100 GW (Norway and Sweden together) beyond what they have now. That's a large and valuable resource, but clearly *nowhere near* enough for 'all of europe'.
Again with the unit confusion. What's "2000(!) GW of pumped hydro storage capacity" supposed to mean? 2000 GWh is only 1% of their current capacity, while 2000 GW of generating capacity is 5.5 times more than the average generation for the whole of Europe right now. It would help if you took time to familiarise yourself with the concepts, I think.
In any case, note that there's no logical reason why Scandinavia's pumped hydro generation capacity has to match the nameplate capacity of solar + wind; what it needs to match in reality is the worst-case shortfall between ex-Scandinavian production and EU demand.
Funnily enough, your own link states that Norway's total reservoir capacity is 85 TWh alone, which by itself would be enough to provide nearly ten days' power for all of Europe. They don't have sufficient generating capacity hooked up to those reservoirs to do so, of course, because right now they are pure hydro power rather than pumped storage — in other words, they rely entirely on nature to recharge those reservoirs, and those reservoirs have to last all year long. As soon as you switch to pumped storage — that is, install generators that can double as pumps and pump the water back up to the reservoir — then more powerful generators are justified.
What intrigues me now is this: Does JasonB even know what Scandinavian current potential is, since he is clearly the expert?
You would do well to lose the snark, especially since your own link supports what I said.
Perhaps JasonB will provide us with the scientifically robust information that he has which contradicts the link above and shows that "Fully developed it [scandinavia] could single-handedly power all of Europe for weeks, allowing Europe to easily take advantage of large amounts of intermittent renewables."
See both my link and your own link above. Note that I never said that the installed generating capacity was enough, because it would have been stupid for Scandinavia to have installed generators capable of draining their reserviors in a matter of weeks then leave them without power for the rest of the year, as they are normal hydro power plants at the moment, dependent on nature for replenishment. The important thing is their storage potential, which, fully developed, would be enough to single-handedly power Europe for weeks, although it would never actually be required to.
The point is that Europe has a lot of headroom when it comes to attaching intermittent renewables to the grid. As the range in prices increases (even down to negative prices at times — Link), the economic incentive to upgrade hydro power stations in Scandinavia to pumped storage with larger generating capacity and increase their links to the rest of the grid increases (since they buy electricity when it is cheap and sell it back when it is expensive) hand-in-hand. Install away and the free market will provide an incentive for the upgrades as-needed.
The big question at the moment is not whether Scandinavia can become Europe's battery, but whether they can upgrade their interconnects and generators quickly enough to lock themselves in as established providers before other technologies like Compressed Air Energy Storage (Link), which is similarly attractive economically, can gain a foothold.
It would be nice if JasonB provided some scientific support, like I have been doing in my previous posts which he seems to have been selectively reading.
Hmm... I littered my comments with hyperlinks to supporting documents. I count at least nine references in my earlier posts but perhaps they weren't clear enough for you, so I've separated out the links above for you so they're more obvious. I note, also, that the vast majority of your claims have been unsupported by references, despite your apparent belief to the contrary.
I say selectively, because JasonB is still claiming my figures for uranium and thorium reserves are wrong.
No, your figures for the amount of reserves were roughly correct; you were just out by a factor of 150 on the rate that nuclear reactors consumed those reserves. "Enough to power 10,000 nuclear power plants for 500 years" vs "enough to power the current fleet of 435 nuclear reactors for 80 years" is a pretty big discrepancy, especially when we're talking about scaling up nuclear power by a factor of 15 or so. Since you apparently missed the links I used to support my claims, here they are again:
1. World uranium reserves: 5,327,200 tonnes (Link)
2. Current uranium consumption: 66,512 tonnes/year (Link)
3. Time left: 5,327,200/66,512 = 80.1 years (Maths)
In case you don't trust the maths, the first link above also includes this:
"Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium (5.3 Mt) in the cost category around present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for about 80 years."
The links themselves are to the World Nuclear Association, which in turn reference the Red Book, in case you're worried they've been hijacked by greenies.
If only he would go back and simply read science, rather than simply allow his imagination of what is 'fact' run wild? Here is my source again:
http://www.mcgill.ca/files/gec3/NuclearFissionFuelisInexhaustibleIEEE.pdf
Then why don't you read it? Your source is talking about breeders. If you're going to advocate nuclear power and, at the same time, claim that fuel supply is a non-issue, then be honest and point out that the type of nuclear power you are talking about is the type of reactor that e.g. Japan started building in 1986, which has cost ¥1.08 trillion (for 280 MWe!) and as of late last year had generated electricity for just one hour? (Link) The power plant that is claimed to be Japan's "most dangerous reactor"? (Link) The type of reactor that the US first had operational in 1951 but which it doesn't use at all anymore? The type that spawned the book "We Almost Lost Detroit"? (Link)
The bottom line is that people, including the Japanese and the Americans, have tried and failed to build commercial breeders in the past, and there's no guarantee that breeders will be commercial-ready in the near future. We may as well be talking about fusion, or extracting methane from unicorn farts. There are real obstacles to overcome, and large amounts of time, money, and effort will need to be expended to make them a viable part of the solution. It isn't even clear whether they'll eventually be cost-effective or not, especially given the cost overruns of the first two EPR installations (which are conventional reactors, that are supposed to herald a new era of cheap and safe nuclear power!); in contrast, there are plenty of storage technologies that are available now that can help intermittent renewables achieve much higher levels of penetration. Upgrading Scandinavia's hydro plants is positively pedestrian in comparison.
You also seem to have a massive blind spot when it comes to the need for nuclear to be coupled with storage, which I've raised many times now. The original purpose of Dinorwig, for example, "was to deal with the difficulty that National Grid would have had if the large numbers of nuclear power stations then planned had been built. These are technically and economically inflexible, ideally needing to run at full output all of the time and, effectively, storage capacity was needed for some of the night-time power when the demand for power dropped off. " (Link)
Simply claiming that this isn't a problem because nuclear power plants can do load following since nuclear submarines exist doesn't address the issue.
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Ian Love at 15:56 PM on 24 April 2013Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
@Rob Painting
Useful article thanks. Has the Part 2 follow-up appeared? I cannot find it....
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barry1487 at 13:23 PM on 24 April 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome, Nic Lewis Edition
It is good form to flag when you have changed the text of an article post-publication, as they do at realclimate. I see Tom Curtis' notes have been taken up re the changed text around the Aldrin study section. Hat tip to you, Tom.
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Tom Curtis at 09:23 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
First, in my post @7 I incorrectly stated that Germany emitted 786.7 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2008 when the correct figure was 786.7 million tonnes. This makes no difference to the results of the calculation, which used the percentages rather than the absolute value.
Having a look at one alternative interpretation of Lomborg's claim, I notice that the annual reduction in emission in 2008 from solar power in Germany is approximately 23.6 million tonnes of CO2. According to the IPCC A2 scenario, in 2100 global emissions of CO2 will be 29 billion tonnes of carbon, or 106.43 billion tonnes of CO2. Thus, 2008 emissions savings from PV in Germany will be 0.022% of 2100 annual emissions, or a 1.94 hours worth of global emissions. German PV electricity production has increased linearly since from effectively zero in 1990; and the effective life span of a PV panel is about 20 years. Assuming that PV panels are not replaced at the end of their usable life, this means the total reduction in 2100 emissions from the German PV program represents approximately 0.5% of 2100 emissions in the A2 scenario, or 42.68 hours of 2100 emissions. That figure is close enough that an equivalent calculation is probably the basis of Lomborg's claim. The difference between 43 and 37 hours probably lies in complexities I have not accounted for.
It is interesting to tease out Lomborg's assumptions.
First, he assumes that emissions will follow a BAU trajectory regardless of the efforts of Germany and other nations to avoid that prospect. That is, he is assuming emission reduction strategies will not work to argue that they are ineffective. Clearly the more effective emissions reduction is, the longer the period of "global warming delayed" by Germany's PV program. If in fact we achieve zero net emissions by 2050 (the target we should be aiming for), global warming will have been delayed infinitely by the German PV program. That just shows what a silly metric it is. Indeed, it shows what a silly argument Lomborg is mounting, for it has all the intellectual credibility (because it has exactly the same logical form) of assuming we will achieve zero emissions and arguing that Germany's PV program will delay global warming infinitely.
Second, he assumes that PV cells reaching the end of their usable life will not be replaced, or at least that equivalent PV capacity would have been installed at that time regardless of the existence of the subsidy. This in turn assumes that the cost of PV will not fall below the rising cost of alternative energy production. With the possibility of effective carbon pricing (admitedly not yet achieved in Europe), diminishing easilly accessible fossil fuel supplies and falling PV costs, those assumptions are not safe. I consider the assumption made in my original calculation that PV cells will be replaced at the end of their usable life to be far safer.
Finally, Lomborg is comparing the emissions reductions of installed capacity todate with global emissions in 2100. To make a fair comparison, he needs to compare the 130 billion to Gross World Product (the global equivalent to GDP) in 2100.
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Tom Dayton at 09:11 AM on 24 April 2013CO2 is plant food
There is a refreshingly excellent article on Mongabay.com, quoting scientists who specialize in tropical forests, countering a recent study's disinterpretation as meaning that CO2 rise will result in more tropical rainforests.
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Synapsid at 07:58 AM on 24 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
John Hartz:
Yep, there's plenty of opposition to expanding the TransMountain pipeline and shipping even more oil out of Vancouver; the oil tankers barely make it under the bridge now. There's also opposition to reversing Line 9 to take western Canadian oil to eastern Canada. Maybe neither project will fly. The point is that the oil industry isn't just sitting and gnawing its knuckles over what the White House will do about Keystone XL. There are other options being worked on. Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe is doing well shipping crude south and so is Canadian National, and both have orders in for as many tank cars as can be produced. Cutting demand (I'm not holding my breath) would eventually stop the flow of Canadian crude south, but forcing continued trans-shipment on one pipeline route will not keep the oil in the ground and that is the topic I addressed.
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william5331 at 06:17 AM on 24 April 2013Major PAGES 2k Network Paper Confirms the Hockey Stick
Taranova@7
Each glacial ends with a massive rapid increase in CO2. There are various theories about where this Carbon dioxide comes from but the rise is clear in air bubbles in ice cores. Carbon dioxide then starts to be sequestered by a variety of sinks and we slowly slide into another glacial.
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/carbon-sinks.html
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Bob Loblaw at 05:06 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
jdixon:
Sure. Just put it back when you're finished with it...
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CBDunkerson at 04:34 AM on 24 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
Nuclear would be a reasonable way to provide baseload 'backup' for intermittent renewables. I just don't see it ever happening because nuclear is too mistrusted. Three mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima each had a massive impact on the global nuclear industry. If they could go twenty years without a major disaster the story would change, but that probably isn't going to happen when they continue to insist on running decrepit old 'first generation' nuclear plants decades after they were originally supposed to be shut down.
Fukushima probably killed nuclear's last chance. It ended nuclear in Japan, Germany, and other countries that were finally starting to look into it again to reduce emissions. Instead those countries are now going heavily into solar PV... which has helped drive down prices. Globally solar is now much cheaper than nuclear and by 2020 it will be cheaper than fossil fuels as well. At which point... why would anyone give nuclear another chance? Even if they manage to avoid another disaster it will be at least fifteen years before anyone would try to make another major push for nuclear... and by then there won't be any reason to.
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villabolo at 04:20 AM on 24 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Never mind, here it is,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378011000859
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0959378011000859-gr2.sml
The article is paywalled but the maps are freely available.
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brunosan at 04:16 AM on 24 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
Great article! Thanks for all the references. I remember talking at a conference with some folks modelling malaria. According to this quick talk climate change is indeed a compounding factor, but second to the interplay of urbanization vs hygiene. I could not find such disucssion on the references. Do we know the "importance" of each factor? I´m pretty sure they ballparked 10% for climate on their models.
- On one side urbanization, populazion growth and populations shifts in general, which increasing vectors of malaria.
- Education, hygiene and public health, which can be very effective in reducing those risks.
That seems to make sense but is hard to find research on that. This is the closest I´ve found:
http://www.malariajournal.com/content/10/1/188
Kudos for the blog, and the article!!
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jdixon1980 at 03:57 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
Tom @ 10, I noticed that too about the article that Lomborg cited, which was why I went to Google for answers about the "37 hours" claim, and kept dead-ending at different sources reporting Lomborg's unelucidated, unsubstantiated statement itself.
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jdixon1980 at 03:54 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
An apt analogy Bob @ 11; I may borrow it
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villabolo at 03:38 AM on 24 April 2013Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
It's ironic that I was drinking a glass of tonic water (quinine) when I ran into this article. :-)
Is there a map showing the potential expansion of malaria throughout the world?
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Bob Loblaw at 03:06 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
jdixon et al:
A friend lent me a copy of Lomborg's book a few years ago. One of the things that struck me was that he seemed to keep comparing the full cost of reducing global warming with the spot price of fixing one symptom by other means. He never added up all the individual spot prices to get a total cost of dealing with global warming.
It struck me as being somewhat akin to trying to decide whether or not to replace the roof shingles. A roofing job would cost $X, but patching the ceiling costs a lot less - so just patch the ceiling. A roofing job would cost $X, but replacing bulbs in the shorted electrical system costs a lot less - so just replace light bulbs. A roofing job would cost $X, but replacing the carpet costs a lot less - so just replace the carpet. A roofing job would cost $X, but painting the walls costs a lot less - so just paint the walls. Eventually, all the different repairs end up adding up to a lot more than replacing the roof, so the sensible home owner would replace the roof. But if you're working for the trade association that represents drywall, electrical, paint, and carpet trades - and excludes the roofing indistry - then it's to your advantage to try to mislead the home owner so they don't get the roof fixed.
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dana1981 at 03:02 AM on 24 April 2013Major PAGES 2k Network Paper Confirms the Hockey Stick
Terranova @7 - see the Long-Term Global Cooling Trend Until the Past Century section. It's a combination of factors - the Earth's orbital cycles, land cover changes, and solar and volcanic activity changes.
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Tom Curtis at 02:51 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
jdixon @9, my calculation is based on just one reasonable interpretation of what it means to "delay warming by x hours". There are other possible interpretations. Unfortunately Lomborg does not specify which he means. Indeed, in his article, he links his claim to an article by Alexander Neubacher in De Spiegel which, while highly critical of Germany's solar subsidies, does not calculate or even mention any delay in warming. In other words he does not support it, or elucidate it at all.
As it happens, the Neubacher article claims that solar panels provide about 3% of Germany's power (I implicitly assume about 2.4% in my calculations), and claims that solar energy provide 21% of Germany's "subsidized energy", which assuming all renewables are subsidized is nearly double the 11% I quoted from the Australian government report. Using my interpretation of "delaying warming", therefore, Lomborg's source for his claim would support about twice the delay I calculated.
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michael sweet at 02:14 AM on 24 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
JvD,
At 408 you say
"Which means that pretty much every day, they are going to have dozens of *GW* of power with no place to go but out of the country. "
Yet every night France has to export substantial amounts of their nuclear power since their generation capacity is greater than their baseline usage. Why is it good for France to export nuclear but bad for Germany to export renewables? Provide citations to support your wild claim that wind and solar facilities only last 15 years. I previously noted several nuclear plants that have been withdrawn from service because of maintenance issues. Your 100 year claim is simply false.
You currently claim that nuclear has had no problems in the OECD countries (you ignore Japans' problems in that claim) and at the same time claim that nuclear can power the globe. Which is it? You have completely ignored my point that nuclear is unsuitable in unstable countries because the reactors melt down if the grid is disconnected. How will Africa, the Middle East and other volatile locations generate their electricity? You ignore the issues related to waste disposal, which has not even been addressed in most countries. Your citations are all nuclear power supporters, not unbiased scientists. You agree that the consensus of scientists, as reflected in the IPCC reports, supports renewables, and say they are all wrong.
Your argument is bankrupt. You have provided a very convincing argument that nuclear supporters are unreasonable. You are currently convincing people that nuclear is dangerous. You have made a very strong impression on me, and I used to support nuclear.
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jdixon1980 at 02:11 AM on 24 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
Thanks John, Tom, and CB. Tom and CB @ 7 and 8, the "hours of emissions" concept is a lot more intelligible than what I was thinking; I took his statement about "delaying global warming" too literally and thought he was purporting to have plugged the emissions reduction into a climate model to get the resulting change in warming.
Moreover, his claim being simpler than I thought also apparently makes it very easy to expose the assumptions on which it depends through basic arithmetic. It's unsettling that Lomborg is apparently comfortable publicizing such a statement without qualification, especially when he is assuming 10 times the emissions growth rate projected by the IPCC.
I also think a lot of people reading USA Today (dare I speculate a vast majority!?) would make the same mistake I made and think he was literally talking about "delaying" warming. Am I right to suspect that removing X "hours" (which is really a mass quantity converted to hours by dividing out a rate) of global emissions this century doesn't necessarily mean that you will theoretically "delay" warming by only X hours? For example, supposing we stopped all emissions today, that would corresponding to subtracting 87 years of emissions by 2100. If that were the same thing as "delaying warming" by 87 years, wouldn't it then follow that the average temperature in 2100 should be exactly the same as today? I don't see how one could expect that relationship to hold. In my (extremely basic) understanding you are starting with a positive thermal disequilibrium, which will only decrease as the Earth's temperature increases (so that Earth emits more radiation) and/or the GHG's in the atmosphere decrease (so that more of the radiation emitted actually escapes to space), and the Earth will continue to warm until the combined effects of increasing Earth temperature and decreasing absorptivity of the atmosphere (assuming CO2 actually did start to be taken up faster than emitted by natural processes with human emissions removed) lead to the amount of radiation emitted out to space equaling the amount of solar radiation entering the atmosphere. Then as atmospheric CO2 continues to decline, the thermal disequilibrium will become negative, and eventually Earth's average temperature might again reach what it is today, but it would obviously be silly to assume that the time at which that would happen corresponds exactly to the time period we arbitrarily choose to consider (in this case 87 years from now).
Maybe on the scale of removing only tens of hours of emissions, as opposed to tens of years, the relationship between removed emissions and "delay" of warming might be one to one. But I don't think my extreme example of stopping emissions today is wildly inapplicable - isn't the scientific consensus that we NEED to remove tens of years of emissions to have any chance of seeing climate stability?
So am I right to suspect that referring to removed "hours" of emissions as hours of "delayed warming" is a misnomer?
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John Hartz at 01:57 AM on 24 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Monday, April 22, 2013 was the final date for receipt of comments on the US State Department's most recent draft Supplemental EIS on the construction of the northern leg of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
To access the comments submitted by the US Environmental Protection Agency, click here.
To access the comments submitted by a consortium of sixteen environmental and public interest organizations based in the US and Canada, click here.
The analysis submitted by the sixteen member consortium is in the form of a 216 page report. Appended to this report is a 64 page "Market Report" prepared by The Goldman Group, LTD.
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John Hartz at 00:35 AM on 24 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
Synapsid:
Stopping the Keystone XL piplein will not, of and by itself, prevnet the further mining of the Alberta Tar Sands. On the other hand, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline will ensure the mining of the Alberta Tar Sands for at least the next 50 years.
The construction of a second TransMountain pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby near Vancouver is not a "done deal" by any stretch of the imagination. For example,
The leader of British Columbia’s opposition New Democratic Party said increased oil-tanker traffic from Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP)’s proposed pipeline expansion is bad for the province, the Vancouver Sun reported.
Adrian Dix is opposed to Vancouver becoming a “major oil export port,” as a result of Kinder Morgan’s plan to expand its Trans Mountain oil pipeline from Alberta, the newspaper quoted Dix as saying today. Dix is campaigning to unseat the governing Liberals.
Kinder Morgan, based in Houston, is proposing a C$5.4 billion ($5.3 billion) expansion of its Trans Mountain line to 890,000 barrels a day from 300,000 currently. British Columbia’s election is May 14.
Source: British Columbia’s Dix Negative on Trans Mountain, Sun Reports by Rebecca Penty, Bloomberg, Apr 22, 2013
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Tom Curtis at 00:13 AM on 24 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
JvD @408, I have been following your debate only casually, but even I picked up the fact that your initial statements were very strong. For example, you are quoted as saying:
""As someone who is familiar with the field, you must know there are many peer reviewed studies that disagree with your assessment that renewables cannot be used to power the entire globe." [comment by michael sweet]
Yes I have read probably all of them. None of them disagree with my assessment, since none of them show how renewables can power the globe. All they do is show that there is enough sun, wind, etc. It saddens me that [SkS] it not able to recognise the difference between that and showing actually *how* renewables can power the globe, which is what is demanded in a scientific discussion. IPCC does not do this. Greenpeace does not do this. WWF does not do this. They make a mockery of serious efforts to move to low-carbon economy. This kind of denial is similar to climate change denial and just as damaging to the effort to save the planet for human welfare. I repeat my call for an overhaul of the treatment of this important subject on SS. Dr. Ted Trainer has clearly shown the problem and [SkS] should take it from there. I can't do more than that."
(My emphasis)
Even not paying attention, I picked up that there is a considerable backdown from "renewables cannot be used to power the entire globe" to "Yes renewables can be used [to power the globe]. But the difficulty is great." Perhaps rather than accusing others of misrepresenting your argument, you could simply acknowledge that your initial statement of your position was overstated, and that your position is actually that:
Renewables can. of necessary, power the globe; but that,
It is not necessary that they do so exclusively because we have recourse to nuclear power; and that
It will be much easier to power the globe with a renewables/nuclear mix than exclusively with renewables.
(Or perhaps you have already acknowledged the initial overstatement and I just missed it, in which case could you point me to that acknowledgement.)
In any event, if you agree that the position I laid out above is your actual position, the issue is, to me, a non-issue. What government policy needs to dictate is a strong, revenue neutral carbon price with a clear timetable for emissions reduction built into the pricing mechanism. The later can be reduced by mandatory reductions in emissions credits in line with the time table (in an ETS), or mandatory increases in the carbon price in any year where emissions excede the timetable allowance (for a carbon tax). With such a policy, the market can decide for itself what is the best mix of nuclear and renewables, and I don't have to pretend to an expertise I lack or an ability to prophecy technological advances 50 years into the future (both of which would be required to resolve your debate).
Of course, this assumes that nuclear is a permitted technology. I see no problem with making nuclear a permitted technology on condition that clear policies are in place to avoid risks from nuclear power. These policies should include:
1) Fail safe design, so that in the complete breakdown of power supply and or mechanical systems the reactor shuts down safely; and
2) No net environmental impact for ore to waste. The idea here being that uranium ore is a naturally occuring low level environmental hazard. That fact allows a straightforward definition of safe disposal of nuclear waste. That is, if radiation count at the surface of a waste disposal site is no greater than at the original ore body, and the waste is stored in a way that is proof to leeching and as expensive to reprocess as the original ore, then waste disposal has no net environmental impact and can be considered safe.
Do you agree that these are reasonable constraints on the nuclear industry?
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JvD at 00:05 AM on 24 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
"As time goes on the need for natural gas backups would then be eliminated by having a large enough smart grid to dispatch intermittent power from areas with excess to areas with a shortfall and/or various methods of power storage. Some areas will continue to rely on relatively steady power sources like hydro, geothermal, and nuclear which are already in place, but most generation will be from solar and wind."
CBDBunkerson don't you see that this is mere handwaving? And the Citigroup study is promoting natural gas usage! I thought we were trying to stop AGW? So what is the scenario if no natural gas is to be used? Biomass? Storage? What is the environmental impact of those options? What is econnomic cost? Better than nuclear? No way.
Putting it differently, lets say we don't worry about those costs of storage/backup, because we assume those costs are going to be made through the next few decades, thereby gradually arriving. Alas, it doesn't work that way. Solar and wind installations only have a lifetime of about 15 to 30 years. So to suggest that we can build our solar and wind now, and then worry about our backup and storage 'later' is catastrophic. What will happen is that we will find out that we will not only have to think about storage and backup 'later', but also our completely new set of wind and solar systems. So every few decades, we need to depend on governments and voters to pony-up the cash for these expensive facilities, or risk falling back to fossil fuels. A never-ending game of Russian roulette. Just one future goverment could destroy all our sacrifices today, by deciding to not renew the massive wind farms, solar farms and city-block sized battery plants. With nuclear plants, there would not be this problem. Nuclear power plants become stupendous cash-cows after they have been in service for a few decades, because their original debts are paid off. For example, Germany installed heavy taxes on all their nuclear power plants, in order to subsidise wind and solar. The cost of power from a nuclear power plant that has paid back it's investment is little more than 0,3 ct/kWh (no typo).
A nuclear power plant of the EPR or AP1000 type will last 60 years. In fact, they are designed ready for life-extensions to up to 100 years of service life. After 100 years, the nuclear power plant will have competed with four(!) complete sets of by then long junked windturbines and solar systems, which then have become (literally) mountain-sized collections of rusting, leaking, chemically hazardous trash! In addition, there will be up to 6 (!) complete sets of junked battery storage systems, which only last 15 years, and which consist of highly unpleasant corrosive salts or heavy metals.
Our children are just going to *love* that, I'm sure!
Not really. I think our children would understand that some nuclear waste deep underground in the middle of the empty desert is far better than untold millions of junked wind turbines (also at sea!) and untold millions of junked rooftop systems beyond service, simply rusting and sitting there on roofs, being ugly, leaking their heavy metals through their cracked coatings, with no regulation, no oversight, no control ....
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JvD at 23:31 PM on 23 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
"Shouldn't we be rooting for bigger shares for both nuclear and renewables?"
Yes we should. And I am. Despite constant attempts by some posters on this thread to portray me as being anti-renewables, I am not. However, solar and wind power have serious, inherent limitations which *require* addition of either storage or backup or both. Since storage is not enough (pumped hydro) or too expensive (everything else), and gas is merely another fossil fuel which needs to be *eliminated*, nuclear is the obvious choice. (Contrary to anti-nuke propagandists, nuclear power *can* follow demand very well. Nuclear submarines and nuclear navy ships PROVE THIS every day.)
Germany has today about 70 GW of solar and wind name-plate capacity installed. In a few years, if all goes to plan, they will have 130 GW. But their maximum power demand is about 80 GW. Which means that pretty much every day, they are going to have dozens of *GW* of power with no place to go but out of the country. Scandinavia can perhaps provide a few dozen extra GW of storage to accept the German excess, but that's it. There is no way Scandinavia can 'Power all of Europe'. Sheer lunacy.
Certainly, entire EU-27 has about 600 GW of average power demand and there is no chance that scandinavia could provide 600 GW 'for a week' (according to JasonB). Furthermore, in the GreenPeace energy scenario for europe, some 2600(!) GW of solar and wind power would need to be built. This means scandinavia would have to have about 2000(!) GW of pumped hydro storage capacity. That's about one *hundred* times their current installed amount. They cannot provide this! In fact, they can only provide about 50 to 100 GW (Norway and Sweden together) beyond what they have now. That's a large and valuable resource, but clearly *nowhere near* enough for 'all of europe'.
http://www.twenties-project.eu/system/files/D16.2_2_FINAL_SINTEF.pdf
What intrigues me now is this: Does JasonB even know what Scandinavian current potential is, since he is clearly the expert? Perhaps JasonB will provide us with the scientifically robust information that he has which contradicts the link above and shows that "Fully developed it [scandinavia] could single-handedly power all of Europe for weeks, allowing Europe to easily take advantage of large amounts of intermittent renewables."
It would be nice if JasonB provided some scientific support, like I have been doing in my previous posts which he seems to have been selectively reading. I say selectively, because JasonB is still claiming my figures for uranium and thorium reserves are wrong. If only he would go back and simply read science, rather than simply allow his imagination of what is 'fact' run wild? Here is my source again:
http://www.mcgill.ca/files/gec3/NuclearFissionFuelisInexhaustibleIEEE.pdf
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JvD at 22:59 PM on 23 April 2013A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy
CBDunkerson:
"The SkS position, as described in the post above, is that renewable energy sources can be used to produce substantial baseload power. Your position is that they cannot and that nuclear must be used to reduce CO2 emissions. The quotation you supplied states that renewables can be used, albeit with difficulty, to achieve low carbon goals without nuclear. Which agrees with the SkS position... and directly contradicts yours."
Yes renewables can be used. But the difficulty is great. Too great, as is stated clearly be every authority on the subject. Therefore, relying on them *alone* to solve the climate crisis constitutes taking a great *risk* with our common future. This risk can be all but eliminated when nuclear is allowed to play a role.
Putting it another way: Yes, a burning building can be extinguished by using only champagne. There is no denying it can. But for purposes of risk management and prudent resource allocation, at least some water should be used. Similarly, we can run the global economy using renewables only, but for purposes of risk management and prudent resource allocation, at least some nuclear should be used.
I note that you have turned to misrepresenting my arguments and calling me crazy and irrational. I doubt that those who read this will be terribly impressed with the strength of your argumentation. I am not, at any rate. What I recognise here is a failure on your part to maintain sight of what is at issue here. Hopefully, your kind of so-called 'environmentalist' will wisen-up very soon. Otherwise, all hope of solving the climate change crisis is lost.
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CBDunkerson at 22:40 PM on 23 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
jdixon1980, basically when Lomborg says that global warming will be delayed by 37 hours, what he means is that 37 hours worth of emissions will be removed. However, as Tom Curtis shows, to get that figure he is assuming that neither Germany nor any other country makes any further efforts towards emissions reductions and future emissions grow to astronomical levels... and he then uses those hypothetical future emission levels, rather than actual current levels, to determine the offset from German solar PV.
The same deceptive 'logic' could be applied to show similarly low impact from his suggested course of using natural gas... divide the current emissions reduction from just one country by huge hypothetical future emissions from the entire world and you get a small number.
Note that, of course, he doesn't do an apples to apples comparison. Instead he says, "if fracking happened worldwide". So he describes the benefits of current solar PV in Germany alone vs the benefits of future fracking on a global level.
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Bob Lacatena at 22:19 PM on 23 April 2013Major PAGES 2k Network Paper Confirms the Hockey Stick
Excellent point, Terranova.
The long term cooling trend is exactly as expected, due to the termination of the last interglacial. Based on both historical records and our own knowledge of physics and climate, the earth should, by all measures, be slowly but inexorably sinking into another glacial period, as can be seen in the temperature record below.
Yet here we are with a temperature rise which is unprecedented in the past half a million years, possibly pushing us to or even past the Holocene climatic optimum.
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DSL at 13:12 PM on 23 April 2013Major PAGES 2k Network Paper Confirms the Hockey Stick
Is that a general question, Terranova, or are you referring to the attribution PAGES provides? I can't recall any study covering the Holocene that attributes the cooling trend of the last 6-8k years to anything other than Milankovitch forcing.
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Doug Hutcheson at 12:48 PM on 23 April 2013It's not bad
- What date is the 'present' you refer to in your assertion "1 degree Celsius warming from the present value was the peak of the positive effect on GDP"?
- What is good about knowing this will roll over us in 60 years, if the argument is used to delay taking action?
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Terranova at 12:24 PM on 23 April 2013Major PAGES 2k Network Paper Confirms the Hockey Stick
Dana,
What caused the long-term cooling trend?
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wili at 12:16 PM on 23 April 2013Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome, Nic Lewis Edition
Andy, thanks for this thoughtful piece. When you wrote this statement, though:
" Taken to an extreme, that viewpoint can lead to a fatalistic approach, in which efforts to mitigate climate change by cutting emissions are seen as futile"
it concerned me that you might be falling into a syndrome I usually associate with the denialist camp--deciding what the science should be based on what we think people's reaction to the science might be. I believe it was Inhofe that was quoted as saying that he believed in GW till he started looking into some of the policy and tax implications of dealing with it. Then he decided not to believe in it any more.
I don't think we want to do the same thing on the other side. If even some legitimate science points to feedbacks leading to some version of 'run way' global warming, we should consider that this is a posiblity, and not reject it merely because we think it might have an effect on some people's psychology that might be detrimental to the 'cause.'
I am thinking especially of the MacDougal study that came out last fall on permafrost thaw, that you and a number of other sites covered. An honest presentation of the science, it seems to me, should include that crucial study, even if you then decide it is flawed in some way, or just one study needing further confirmation...
We have to front the facts that the best science presents us with, not pick and choose whatever articles fit into our emotional landscape (or into the imagined emotional landscape of others).
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Mark Bahner at 11:57 AM on 23 April 2013Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
A logical question that should have been asked before publication is: "What do the authors expect the world GDP will be 200, 400, 600, or 1000 years in the future?"
Of course, such a question would likely demolish the premise of the paper, so it's not surprising it wasn't asked.
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Mark Bahner at 11:38 AM on 23 April 2013It's not bad
Mark @344 - first off, almost all of the estimates in the Tol paper you reference are from the most conservative economists doing climate research (Nordhaus, Tol, Mendelsohn, etc.),
Richard Tol is a conservative? That might be news to him! But OK...what do the "non-conservative" ("liberal?") economists say?
Despite these underestimates, the paper still concludes that the net impact on GDP at 2.5°C will be negative, and we're already committed to about 1.5°C warming and still rising fast. So I'm not really sure what your point is.
My point is that global surface temperature is rising by about 0.15 degrees Celsius per decade. So 2.5 degrees Celsius isn't likely to happen even in this century.
In fact, per that paper, 1 degree Celsius warming from the present value was the peak of the positive effect on GDP. At 0.15 degrees Celsius per decade, that's more than 60 years in the future.
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Synapsid at 10:35 AM on 23 April 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
I'd like to address the idea that stopping Keystone XL will result in the oil sands being left in the ground.
The permit that the White House will accept or reject applies to the portion of the pipeline that actually crosses the US / Canada border, not to the rest of it. Last year Canada exported more crude oil, mostly from the oil sands but some from the Bakken (which is mostly in North Dakota and Montana, not Canada) than in any previous year, and did so without the Keystone XL. The oil was taken by truck from the fields to rail-loading terminals, and that whole part of the rairoad industry is being expanded rapidly. This effort will grow anyway, but especially if Keystone XL is turned down.
The TransMountain pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby near Vancouver is to see a second pipeline open by 2017, in the existing right of way; no approvals needed. The resulting combined capacity will be 850 000 barrels a day, which is larger than the planned capacity for Keystone XL. This pipeline supplies crude to refineries in Washington State.
Enbridge is planning expansion of its existing network for delivering oil that will make its way to the Gulf Coast, aiming for a daily volume that, again, is larger than that planned for Keystone XL.
The above two projects aren't getting the attention Keystone XL is, but they represent more than twice the capacity that pipeline would have, and they serve to carry Canadian oil to the US.
The southern portion of the Keystone XL-associated, get the crude to the Gulf Coast, program is already under construction, and will help drain the backup at Cushing, Oklahoma, which has pushed down crude prices in the Midwest. There is no Federal approval required, as the pipeline will operate within the US. Currently, Midwest refiners are taking advantage of this low-cost crude to produce gasoline and diesel and sell those products, at world not Midwest prices, to Latin America and the Caribbean, just as Gulf Coast refiners would be able to do with crude delivered by Keystone XL.
So: Keystone XL would lower the price of transporting Canadian crude to Gulf Coast refineries but that oil is making its way there now and will continue to do so, in increasing quantity, Keystone XL or not. Denying the permit will not keep the oil sands from being used--will certainly not result in the oil remaining in the ground.
The way to keep oil in the ground is to reduce the demand for the products refined from it, not to convince ourselves that pushing up the transport price of crude will get people out of their cars.
All this is taking attention away from the huge amounts of coal which is not only still being used in the US (though use is declining) but which the US is exporting to Europe in large quantity. Export terminals planned for locations on the coasts of Oregon and Washington will allow a great deal more coal to be sent to eastern Asia, if those ports are built. Coal is a worse producer of greenhouse gases and other nasties than crude from the oil sands is.
In view of all the above, focusing on Keystone XL seems to me to be a case of skewed priorities. Coal is a worthier target but it isn't getting the attention it deserves.
By the way: tar is a refinery product, not a type of oil. Canada's oil sands produce bitumen, which is heavy oil.
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Tom Curtis at 09:28 AM on 23 April 2013Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
Gingerbaker @36, if all anthropogenic emissions ceased, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would approximately halve over the course of 200 years as CO2 is absorbed into the ocean. This reduction in CO2 concentration (shown in red above) approximately balances the increase in global temperatures due to the "commitment", ie, the increase as the Earth achieves equilbrium. Therefore the two approximately cancell out, resulting in no change in temperature.
Over the following 10 thousand years, the CO2 will be removed from the ocean, drawing down CO2 levels to preindustrial levels. The draw down is sufficiently slow that in one to two thousand years, when slow feedbacks have had time to reach equilibrium, the temperature will still remain at current elevated levels, ie, the draw down in CO2 will be approximately balanced by the increase in temperature resulting from such slow feedbacks as reduced albedo due to the melt back of icesheets.
"Aproximately" in both cases is leaves a fairly wide margin and there may be a slight increase or decrease in the long term, and disparities of rate may result in significant temperature fluctuations.
These scenarios are only relevant if we in fact cease net anthropogenic emissions. As some emissions (eg, methane from rice paddies) are simpy unavoidable, that means an ongoing deliberate sequestration process. Further, it is economically unfeasible to cease emissions in less than 20 years, and probably in less than 40 years. Finally, such scenarios are only relevant if there are no large increases in natural emissions as a feedback to increased global temperatures, something some people argue has already started happening.
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Tom Curtis at 09:13 AM on 23 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
J Dixon @4, according to wikipedia, in 2008 Germany emitted 786.7 billion metric tonnes of CO2, or 2.63% of global emissions. Also according to wikipedia, by 2008 Germany has reduced its emissions by 22.4% relative to 1990 levels. So, without its renewable energy commitment, Germany's emissions would have been more than 28%, or 0.73% of global emissions, higher. That means in each year, Germany's emissions reductions represent at least 64 hours of global emissions for that year. Over the rest of the century, assuming German emissions remain constant relative to world emissions, that represents 5,500 hours of delay in global emissions. That is, global warming will have been delayed by German emissions reductions, if they make no further reductions, by 7.5 months.
According to an Australian Government report, photovoltaic cells represent 11% of Germany's total renewable energy production. As Lomberg refers explicitly to PV production, that means the emissions reduction involved represents a delay of 605 hours. To reduce that to 37 hours, Lomborg would need to assume an average global emissions over the course of the 21st century to be over 16 times current levels, or with a linear growth model model, emissions at the end of the century to be 32 times current levels.
So, all Lomborg needs to do is assume:
1) Emissions growth will not be curtailed, growth in global emissions at ten times the rate projected by the IPCC; and
2) Emissions growth will in fact be about ten times greater than projected by the IPCC for a BAU scenario.
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grindupBaker at 08:07 AM on 23 April 2013Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
@Gingerbaker #36. Yes. Dr. Trenberth states the estimate of 0.9+/-0.4 wm**-2 at present time. In my layperson opinion oceans S.B. stated even more profoundly, if only to clarify for the unbiased but unknowledgeable members of public. "Global Warming" IS the increasing trend of heat in the ocean. Surface temperatures are a proxy measurement, subject to periodic vagaries. I think it's misleading to consider that "Global Warming" ends when the TOA radiation becomes balanced. I think it ends when the oceans regain whatever is their natural temperature gradient from surface to sea bed, and then when TOA radiation becomes balanced. This because oceans have ~40 times heat capacity of all freshwater and ~550 times heat capacity of all air + land (as deep as relevant). If, as example, +2.8 degrees C was needed to balance TOA radiation then I would think by simple logic that "Global Warming" ends when the oceans are +2.8 degrees C warmer, in the absence of that warming changing the forcing of course.
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John Hartz at 06:55 AM on 23 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
@jdixon1940 #4:
The following letter-to-the-editor (LTE) was published by the New York Times yesterday (Apr 21, 2013). It rebutes an Op-ed previsously published by the Times that advocated for the replacement of coal by shale gas in China. The LTE is equally applicable to the Lonberg Op-ed in my opinion.
To the Editor:
In “China Must Exploit Its Shale Gas” (Op-Ed, April 13), Elizabeth Muller argues that shale gas can replace coal in China. However, China’s coal power capacity is already twice that of America’s, and will be triple by the time China begins to fully exploit its shale gas reserves in 10 years. By then it will be too late and expensive to replace these coal plants, most built in the last decade, as they will still be young, efficient and cheap. Gas in Asia is still expected to be two to eight times more expensive than coal.
Gas is also a carbon-intensive fuel, even if less so than coal, and substituting it for coal will not get us the reductions necessary to stabilize the climate. Seriously attacking greenhouse gases in China, and globally, will require deploying carbon capture and storage for existing and new coal (and gas) plants. Otherwise, it’s game over for climate change.
ARMOND COHEN
Executive Director
Clean Air Task Force
Boston, April 15, 2013 -
william5331 at 06:45 AM on 23 April 2013Arctic methane outgassing on the E Siberian Shelf part 1 - the background
Two points. 1) Methane is only 25 times as potent a green house gas if it is being given out evenly over the years. With an accelerated rate of release, it's potency approaches 140 times that of Carbon dioxide. The rate looks to be accelerating now.
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/the-real-strength-of-methane.html
2) There is a reasonable chance that a sudden release of methane from under continental glaciers would not show up in bubbles in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores as methane. The top 70 or so meters of accumulating ice sheets remains in difusion contact with the atmosphere and methane, with it's 7 year half life is reletively quickly oxidized. An ice core could show a sudden methane pulse from under retreating ice sheets as Carbon dioxide.
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/continental-glacier-meltdown.html
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John Hartz at 06:10 AM on 23 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
@jdixon1940 #4:
You have an excellent sense of smell. It is very disheartening to see that the USA Today choce to post an Op-ed by Bjorn Lomberg on Earth Day. That it and other MSM outlets in North America have done so illustrates the power and reach of the fossil fuel industry and its allies. (Think advertising revenues.)
I'll let my more-learned SkS colleagues respond to your specific concerns about Lomberg's tome. Perhaps we can persuade Dana to crank out a formal critique article.
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Andy Skuce at 06:09 AM on 23 April 2013Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
Gingerbaker: Every report I remember reading has implied that the 0.8C global temperature increase we have seen is by no means all that we can expect 400 ppm CO2 to deliver.
Indeed, that's what the blue line in Figure 1C shows; albeit for 380ppm, a level that we have already passed and may not see again for centuries or even millennia.
As I understand it, it is not that the heat in the deep ocean will come back, it is more like the deep sequestration of surface warming, as we have observed it over recent decades may not continue. In other words, the air conditioning currently provided to us by the oceans may falter.
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jdixon1980 at 05:26 AM on 23 April 2013Renewable energy is too expensive
Questions for the knowledgeable:
Bjorn Lomborg has a column today in USA Today where he is promoting more fracking as the best approach to global warming. In the column he claims that "German taxpayers have poured $130 billion into subsidizing solar panels, but ultimately by the end of the century, this will postpone global warming by a trivial 37 hours." http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/22/earth-days-good-news-column/2101327/ I have been reading extensively (at least for a layman) on the subject of global warming for about a year now, and this is the first I have heard of anyone speaking in terms of "postponing" global warming by a certain amount of time as a measure of the impact of an emissions reduction, and so I was immediately suspicious of the claim. I tried googling "postponing global warming 37 hours" and only came up with hits to Bjorn Lomborg's statement itself (today's USA Today column was not the first time he had made the statement), with no analysis or explanation.
Does anybody have a clue as to what Lomborg might even mean quantitatively? Is he simply suggesting that the amount of emissions reductions in Germany due to solar panels, all other human activity remaining unchanged (my vague understanding is that the possibility of non-linear feedbacks would generally require assuming that all other countries' emissions remain fixed before one could hope to meaningfully predict the impact of one country's reduction in terms of a time lag at the end of the century), would theoretically only reduce the slope of the current long-term temperature trend so as to reach on January 1, 2100 the global average surface temperature that would have been reached 37 hours earlier if not for the reduction in German emissions? Or perhaps that, integrating theoretical thermal disequilibrium curves in two most-likely scenarios projected out to the end of the century, one with the current German emissions reductions due to implementation of solar, and one without, and fixing all other human activity in both scenarios, it would take until January 1, 2100 for the Earth's total heat content to increase by the amount that it would have increased 37 hours earlier without the German emissions reductions?
Assuming he means one of those things, is there any merit to his claim?
Since I am not a climate scientist, but rather a patent attorney with a mechanical engineering background that is growing staler by the year, I hesitate to call BS on Lomborg's claim, but it smells very fishy to me, so I would be interested to hear what people here have to say.
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