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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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  1. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    174

    Thanks, John, I'll check it out.

  2. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    John Hartz

    You have put your finger on the biggest issue I have with the modeling. How do we assess the uncertainty?  I have Figure SPM.4 on page 11 of the Fourth Assessment of calculations of temperatures using natural and anthropogenic forcings. It is very impressive. In fact, it is the single biggest reason that I am not on the skeptics side. It's just that in such complex systems it's hard to know how reliable they are without more extensive testing, which of course we don't have the luxury of here until it's too late.It is also extremely easy for group think to overwhelm an (intellectually) isolated group of people.

    I might say in passing that the second reason that I'm not with the skeptics is that I believe the Precautionary Principle is philosophically defensible and of great practical importance.  (Not just an emotional reaction as I have seen claimed in contrarian publications.)  

  3. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    @tcflood:

    Recommend that you peruse the SkS article, New tool clears the air on cloud simulations . Please not that it was posted in Nov, 2011.

  4. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer

    Lanfear @22, AWS?

  5. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    Moderator and scaddenp:

    Sorry, I was using FAR to mean the Fourth assessment Report published in 2007. The chart on page 4 lists the level of confidence of understanding of various forcings.

    Also, with regard to how science is done, I am a retired emeritus chemist who did research for 40 years (48 if you include my education). This is not an appeal to authority, just an attempt to point out that I know something about how it's done. I am not a denialist and I lean more toward accepting IPCC predictions than against. It's just that in my many years as a scientist I have seen many publications in refereed journals that were absolutely wrong. Lots of perople who made more far-reaching claims what were poorly or falsely based. I have refereed many papers where the authors were extremely authoritative but wrong. So please permit me to be a little cautious about accepting everything that either side says.  

     

  6. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    @tcflood #16:

    Thanks for you reponse to my initital question.

    OK. I will concede that the scientific understanding of how clouds and aerosols impact the Earth's climate system is incomplete. I am, however, more interested in the second part of your sentence, i.e., "...and therefore represents a large source of unreliability in the models."  How do you this to be true? How much is a large source of unreliability in the models."  Does this amount of unreliability appear equally in  all climate models?

  7. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    tcflood - IPCC FAR was published in 1990. You have been pointed to more up to date data. Also please dont mistake "there is uncertainty" with "we dont know anything". Uncertainty constrains the confidence with which we can predict things. While there is no "authority", science starts with peer reviewed research. This inevitably has more value than unreviewed comments stuck on a blog somewhere. For that reason, this site refers back constantly to the peer-reviewed literature.

    While there is no final certainty in any part of science, policy must be guided by the best state of knowledge that we do have. If new data changes the model, then it changes, but it would be madness for policy makers to ignore the consensus of climate science.

  8. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    Moderator,

    Is there an address where I can speak freely with you without anything appearing on this site even transiently? You have my email address so you can answer there.

    Moderator Response: [DB] Check your email.
  9. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    I defense of the main assertion in 162 regarding appeal to authority, I mentioned our lack if detailled understanding of the drivers of glacial/interglacial dynamics. I made the same comment in a personal exchange with a paleoclimatologist (so I won't give his name) at a major university and his response was "With regard to timing of glacial cycles, my view is that these cycles are nonlinearly phase locked to the Milankovitch forcing but that either the cryosphere, carbon cycle, or both give the longer timescale [than the resultant frequency of the Milankovich cycles]." That doens't sound like settled science to me.

  10. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    (More moderation complaints snipped-).

    Moderator Response: [DB] If you had bothered to read the Comments Policy you were directed to read, you would have noted that moderation complaints are frowned upon in this establishment. FYI.
  11. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    To John Hartz: Thanks for your response.

    It is stated in the paragraph "There are legitimate unresolved questions" in the article at the top. Also, the IPCC's FAR classifies the state of knowledge of areosols and clouds as "low".  Every textbook that I have consulted states the same thing. In a talk in LA a couple of weeks ago a climatologist at UCLA made the same comment. I just assumed that that would not be a controversial statement on this website.

     

    Moderator Response: [DB] The FAR is dated. Please review the relevant chapters in the AR4 (here and here).
  12. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    (-Moderation complaints snipped-)

    Moderator Response: [DB] You were given the guidance you both requested and needed. Choosing to ignore it is not a wise course of action. FYI.
  13. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    Can you respond to the point and then we can debate your assertions?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] For the issues surrounding the resolved temperature/CO2 lag, take that portion of the discussion to this post here. For a discussion on cloud feedbacks, see here. For aerosols, see this thread here and also this thread here.

    It is advised to also temper the tone of one's own remarks before casting stones at others. Please review this site's Comments Policy.

  14. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    tcflood@162

    "Everyone knows ... If we don’t fully understand the (apparently minor)..."

    Curious that you start off with an accusation of argument fallacy, yet you yourself deem it fit to use both argumentum ad populum as well as Inflation Of Conflict (or is it just a personal argumentum ad ignorantiam) to shore up your claims.

  15. The two epochs of Marcott and the Wheelchair

    I think this short (5s) video describes the curves of the graph better:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFaK2RQcx_M


    Or simply: brick wall

  16. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer

    Tom Curtis@21

    Yes, I agree with you that to properly compare (or splice in this case) apples with apples, using GRIP to project the temperature into current time.

    So, is the problem (with my attempt at extending the GISP2) to modern time, that GISP2 is showing a different temperature than what the AWS a the summit is producing, perhaps the actual surface (or should that be the firn) temperature vs. 2m above?

    And to get my facts correct, the proper splicing shows that the current temperature is higher than any point in the MCA, but we have some spikes going above current temperature BCE?

    PS. Is there a reason why this article does not show up in the argument list?

  17. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    @tcflood #162:

    You have stated, Everyone knows that our understanding of aerosols and cloud dynamics is incomplete and therefore represents a large source of unreliability in the models.

    Is this global assertion your personal opinion, or can you cite the sources from which it came?

  18. The Big Picture (2010 version)

    I’m new here, and have not had the resolve to read all 161 previous postings, so I apologize if I am going over old territory. I have a problem with the assertion that to be skeptical of the arguments adduced for anthropogenic global warming you must be asserting that the principles of physics are wrong. This is simply an appeal to authority and so is inappropriate.

    For example, it is possible that a given AOGCM might be incomplete or of too course resolution to give the best answer. Everyone knows that our understanding of aerosols and cloud dynamics is incomplete and therefore represents a large source of unreliability in the models.

    Another example is the serious lack of detailed understanding of the origins of glaciation and warming over the last 500K years, including the CO2 concentration lag. If we don’t fully understand the (apparently minor) roll of CO2 over that time period can we be sure we fully understand its roll now? There is much we still don’t understand. Does this mean that we don’t understand the fundamentals of physics?

  19. The two epochs of Marcott and the Wheelchair

    "Wheelchair" is a bad nickname; 'scythe' is much, MUCH better a descriptor.

  20. The two epochs of Marcott and the Wheelchair

    I prefer "bee smack."

  21. The two epochs of Marcott and the Wheelchair

    Wheelchair?!? Are you serious?  One of the most lame names imaginable für this clear depiction of manmade desaster in the making....

    I prefer the "scythe", at least for the part Marcott/emission-scenario

  22. Potomac Oracle at 05:28 AM on 27 March 2013
    Arctic freezing season ends with a loud crack
    By the way, have you considered doing a piece on methane hydrate dissociation in the Arctic? That is, about the methane/fresh water/hydrate--linkage and the occurrence of unusual weather events including Arctic ice melt, permafrost melt, ocean dead zones,mass animal kills, and drilling for fossil fuels?I've look at the effect of fresh water and chemicals pumped under the earth's crust and into the permafrost and ask, is this the only source of fresh water under the earths crust to combine with methane forming its hydrate in the hydrate stability zone? These hydrates cannot form in salt water. If they could there would be a methane hydrate stability zone circling the globe at depth and atmosphere and in the Arctic there would be a similar near surface zone of these hydrates.The essential point is that absent pouring approx. 3 million gal. of fresh chemically treated water into each bore hole, there would be significantly fewer hydrate zones. However as you know, hydrate zones are ubiquitous wherever the oil & gas man dipped his drill. They knew about these hydrates during WWII when their pipelines clogged and they freed them with salt water and then, later on, methanol. They also knew that vast amounts of methane would be released and began flaring it. However, what they didn't count on was that methane seepage resulting from hydrate dissociation would become pandemic. Nor, did they figure that methane hydrate dissociation would cause subsidence in the oceans floor creating fissures, cracks and the proliferation of Pingoes; from which even more methane is released. Eventually, some of this methane enters the atmosphere, and that's where the linkage needs to be researched, indeed, verified.What we need to measure now, is the global occurrence of methane and the oxidants of methane; formaldehyde, water vapor and CO2.. We need to understand how it migrates, how long it remains in snow, streams, and the atmosphere before oxidizing to carbon dioxide. We can only speculate about the amount of methane released during the Horizon disaster. We do know that formaldehyde destroys soft tissue, like that of bees, bats, frogs, bovine soft tissue, human lungs and nasal membranes. I wonder if the formaldehyde, which causes this acidosis is responsible for some of the mass animal kills of late? I wonder if the methane uptake has released so much water vapor that it has absorbed heat from the atmosphere creating the current spate of weather anomalies?
  23. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    BJ Chip - Note that observations do lend support to the modelling shown in Meehl (2011). For instance: Decadal Spinup of the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre - Roemmich (2007).

    And the observed warming of the oceans shows heat penetrating down to the depths, in ocean basins, at the latitudes occupied by gyres (large slowly rotating masses of water). As in the figure below from Levitus (2012).

    It will be very interesting to read the follow up paper to Balmaseda (2013).

      

  24. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    Craig King - Further to Bob Loblaw's comments; that global surface air temperatures are warming faster than upper ocean temperatures is well-observed and completely uncontroversial.

    You will have to reconsider what you think you know about this topic. Consider, for instance, that the heat capacity of the ocean is about a thousand times that of the atmosphere. What happens when this ocean heat is exchanged with the overlying air?

  25. Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    @Geoff Chambers and Tom Curtis:

    Please stay on topic and stop going off on tangents.

  26. The two epochs of Marcott and the Wheelchair

    OK, Wheelchair it is.

  27. The two epochs of Marcott and the Wheelchair

    Our Changing Climate, not Our Climate Change ...

  28. Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    Geoff: ...anonymous on-line surveys like the one on which LOG12 is based are inherently useless...

    Just so we don't go too far off the path of facts, it's worth noting that Geoff's remark is a guess and as well is wrong, while in reality the authors of LOG12 used methods shown to work in work performed by other researchers. Indeed, the entire paper was an extension of previous research, employing accepted research tools and with findings paralleling earlier results in terms of connections between ideology and acceptance of particular hazards and risks. The replication of other previous findings by other workers embedded in LOG12 speaks volumes about the validity of the research methods employed in producing LOG12.

    If Geoff had by some remarkable circumstance  been correct in his guess, we'd then be witnessing the birth of a revolution in social science research, the upheaval of a train of thought extending decades back in time, performed by a vast number of individuals. 

    Moderator Response: [JH] Please resist the urge to feed the troll.
  29. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    Craig King: "evaporation ... cannot raise the temperature of the air above that of the ocean."

    Evaporating water at the surface requires energy - lots of it. As the water vapour rises, it will eventually condense and form clouds, and then rain out. Globally, it's pretty hard to have a situation where evaporation and precipitation don't balance out on any reasonable time scale.

    What do you think happens to the energy that is released when water vapour condenses back into liquid water? Is there a potential that it affects air temperature?

  30. Rob Honeycutt at 02:38 AM on 27 March 2013
    Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    Spot on, Sphaerica.

    I can attest to the fact that SkS consists on a very wide ideological spectrum of people.  In fact, I find that to be true of the broader community of people trying to actively communicate the issues with AGW.  I personally find it refreshing that there is such a broad ideological support behind the science of climate change.  I don't believe you could say the same about those who reject man-made climate change.

  31. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    Pierre-Normand:

    I was only thinking in terms of the heat transfer and temperature changes, and have not thought through the implications for sea level rise. My limited understanding is that the pressure changes with depth affect the rate of expansion for a given temperature change, and the actual temperature has an effect, too - e.g., maximum density of fresh water is at 4C, so either cooling or warming at that point will cause expansion. (If water continued to contract as it approached freezing, lake ice dynamics would be very different!)  Salinity plays a role on density and movement, too.

    ...but I think that most of the short-term variations (a few years) are related to the water cycle and movement of water between land and oceans.

  32. Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    geoffchambers says:

    The fact that I disagree fervently with everything that Skeptical Science stands for is not a reflection on my state of mind, but on the complexity of a political programme designed to subvert science in the interest of an ideology.

    But he's not a conspiracy theorist?

    Moderator Response: [JH] Pease resist the urge to feed the troll.
  33. geoffchambers at 01:57 AM on 27 March 2013
    Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    Tom Curtis comment 90

    You misundertand my position, and therefore misrepresent it. I’d ignore it because it’s not very interesting for others, except that you seem to be asking the moderators to snip me; so I’d better defend myself.

    No. I don’t deliberately contradict myself. I have consistently expressed the idea that anonymous on-line surveys like the one on which LOG12 is based are inherently useless for any enquiry more complicated than “do you like/dislike this article?” If you want to find out what someone thinks, believes or feels, the best way is to chat to them. A street interview is a second best, a telephone interview a poor third, and so on.

    My reactions to the conspiracy questions are much like many of the readers of the blogs where the survey was publicised. “Don’t know about that”, “Perhaps yes, perhaps not” and so on. I might very well, give different responses on different occasions, just as I might give different answers as to who I’d vote for or my favourite colour. I’ve sometimes expressed that jokingly in comments about Prince Philip killing Lady Di, etc. I tried to make the point seriously once at Climate Audit, that Steve McIntyre was not justified in removing two “scammed” responses. You can’t arbitrarily decide that liars or cunning bastards should be removed from a survey - it takes all sorts. It would be like doing a survey about petty crime and eliminating a respondent because he nicked your tape recorder.

    You will note that in my comment 38 replying to Albatross, I don’t deny the reality of the theory of anthropogenic climate change or anthropogenic global warming. I’m therefore a warmist, and not a denier, according to the criteria of the questionnaire in LOG12. The fact that I disagree fervently with everything that Skeptical Science stands for is not a reflection on my state of mind, but on the complexity of a political programme designed to subvert science in the interest of an ideology. You’re not going to get to the bottom of that by asking if people agree or disagree with anything.

    Moderator Response: [JH] You are skating on the thin ice of sloganeering. Please cease and desist or your future posts may, indeed, be deleted.
  34. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    JvD - I have a number of issues with your arguments:

    You have attempted to dismiss baseline support numbers with ad hominem arguments, are now attempting to demonize Greenpeace (not a perfect organization, but then neither are some of the nuclear interest groups you have sourced from),  and make claims from a single study that a 1/3 penetration of renewables will be outrageously expensive - others show 50% wind/solar with 80% renewable quite achievable, and right now in the US Iowa has 24.5% of its electricity coming from wind, and South Dakota 23.9%; without bankrupting either. 

    You have also flatly stated that "Intermittent renewables cannot provide baseload power, per definition", dismissing (on rather poorly supported economic grounds, not technical) the entire opening post and many studies discussed in this thread. Meaning your statement is, so far as you have shown, incorrect. Renewables can provide baseload - whether that's the economic path, and the assumptions used, can still be a point of discussion. 

    You have not made your case, and your methods of argument weigh against your conclusions. 

     

    Instead, you appear (again, IMO) to be convinced that nuclear power is the panacea, dismissing or attacking any other approach, and ignoring or hand-waving issues such as waste disposal, which have not been adequately or socially addressed in the 50 years we've had nukes. You've even proposed ideas like the 1960's truck reactor, which I suspect was abandoned for very good reasons (such as mechanical flaws in the design, or the 150 meter radioactive exclusion zone during operations due to having zero shielding) - and seem blind to the issues with your proposals.

     

    Personally, I feel that nuclear power and its expansion has a place in our future. So do significant amounts of renewable power, improvements in efficiency, synthetic fuels, improvements in energy dispatch, and so on - each can contribute. But in terms of the simple, technical question of whether or not baseload power can be provided by renewables - yes, yes it can, that 'skeptic' myth is (ahem) baseless.

    In the meantime, crusading for a single black/white all/nothing solution, attacking other approaches with a blind eye to your own, is not going to be a useful part of the discussion - it's a False Dichotomy fallacy. We have to consider and perhaps implement all options, while being realistic about which issues are myths, and which are real and significant. 

    ---

    [ Side note: There have been a couple of posts in this thread where I have been ambiguously linked to or directly quoted for something I have not said! Please pay attention the sources of your quotes. ]

  35. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    Salamano @32 - the purple is at least 0-2000m, though I think I recall reading it's even deeper than that, like to 5000 meters.  I could be wrong, but that's what I recall.

  36. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    gws@392 needs to be amended. My bad, I managed to overlook JvD's comment @389. Neverthless, as CDBunkerson pointed out, your "Intermittent renewables cannot provide baseload power, per definition"-statement appears as a gross generalization.

  37. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    JvD @390,

    This is not helpful. Again, you simply repeated your assertion.

    So far, the only unchallenged argument you made with respect to the 100%-impossible-claim is an economic one (you cited an EU report), and I asked @356 if that is set in stone. You did not address that. I may be naive, but usually economic forecasts assume BAU and use statistics of past data to extrapolate, so whatever bleak economic forecast re renewables there is, it is not likely very reliable, meaning it can change quickly given changing circumstances.

    I quote that EUR 24996 report from 10/2011, preface:

    The policy implication of this analysis is that there are increasing costs associated to the deployment of intermittent generation technologies in the EU-27. If the cost of integrating intermittent generation was to be limited to about 25 billion EUR per year, no more than about 40% of intermittent generation can be integrated in the European power market. The final choice of an acceptable cost increase will be a political choice.

    Clearly, the calculated limit of of 40% is created by the artifical 25 billion EUR per year cap with the implication that political choices need to be made. May I say ... duh. Somehow I think that report is hardly the last definitive word out there ...

    Furthermore, I got the impression that you argue from the narrow view that renewables basically mean wind and solar and that 100% use of these cannot work (although even your arguments for that were contested here strongly). That may be correct on small scales and ignoring other renewables such as hydroelectric, wave and tidal power generation (hello The Netherlands!), and biomass, presuming the latter is done responsibly.

  38. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    There are dozens of countries currently generating more than 35% of their electricity from sources other than fossil fuels, biomass, and nuclear. Eleven of these countries generate more than 99% of their electricity without using fossil fuels, biomass, or nuclear.

    Granted, most of that power is hydro (and geothermal in Iceland) rather than wind and solar, but it is obviously not true that we have no choice other than 'nuclear vs combustion'. Wind and solar account for greater than 35% electricity generation in several sub-national regions (e.g. German states) and will soon be reaching that point on a national level (e.g. Italy and Spain).

  39. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    bjchip, try Skyllingstad et al. (2000), Schewe & Leverman (2010), the wiki on Langmuir cells, the wiki on Ekman pumping, and Stewart & Thompson (2012).  Wind can drive vertical circulation in a variety of ways, from micro to macro scales.

  40. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    "So what's causing this transfer of heat to the deeper ocean layers? The authors suggest that it is a result of changes in winds related to the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and more frequent La Niña events."

    OK... I'm sort of puzzled here.  The PDO is what it is and the Meehl paper seems to explain the heat transfer.... though warm water going down seems "odd"  ... but how does the wind carry heat into the deep ocean?  Wind can carry less heat away from the surface?   Is this a loosely worded summary that misleads?  Looking at what the links to the briefs on Meehl say I am missing something   ?  

  41. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    Craig King wrote:

    "Likewise surely the atmosphere cannot be warmed by the ocean to a temperature higher than the ocean."

    I think this reveals a misunderstanding, though I'd be hapy to be educated by the climate scientists. The ocean can be cooler than the atmosphere and still modify the atmosphere's temperature in an upward direction compared to an even colder ocean. It doesn't have to provide the heat (which comes from the sun); it just has to modify the heat flows.

    Can cold milk make a hot coffeee hotter? Simplistic thinking would say no, because how could heat flow from the milk to the coffee?

    But what if I usually whiten my coffee with icecream, and one day I replace the icecream with cool milk? The use of cool milk will lead to a warmer coffee than the original situation - not because heat has flowed from cool milk to hot coffee, but because less heat has flowed into the whitener than when icecream was used.

  42. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    @gws, I already replied to KR 372. My reply is that I do not dispute that intermittent renewables could provide 35% of supply. I dispute that it can supply a majority of the required 100%. The difference will be made up with fossils or (worse) biomass, if we don't use nuclear. That is why I am pro-nuclear. Not because I am against solar or wind (which I am not!) but because I am against GHG emissions and against blackouts. If we don't use nuclear, the only way forward is continued use of fossils, or blackouts.

  43. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    gws: "Everyone should focus on a smaller issue first, say "why is the economic forecast (in the EU paper link you gave) so bleak?" and "is that an accepted fact we cannot hope to change?", or "how can we (best) make renewables provide baseload power?", I suggest. Then take it from there."

    Intermittent renewables cannot provide baseload power, per definition. Only fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro and biomass can do that. Biomass and hydro are not large enough, which leaves fossil and nuclear. The only way to make intermittent sources supply baseload is by using electricity storage. Hydro is too small for this, while engineered storage is too expensive. If money is not issue, there would be no problem, but money is an issue, and while it is, intermittent renewables will never provide baseload.

  44. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    Andy Skuse: "I have one question for Joris. What do you think of this report: California’s Energy Future - The View to 2050?"

    I think it is a very good report. I recommend everyone read it, because it does justice to pointing out the *serious* problems associated with banking on intermittent renewables to provide the majority of sustainable energy, let alone firm capacity, which is the topic of this thread.

    The report unfortunately appears to dismiss the option of producing fully synthetic liquid fuels on the grounds that it would require (too) much energy. I don't agree and neither does the US navy. Recently, the US navy has shown that shipborne nuclear power could supply synthetic liquid jet fuels at reasonable cost, allowing nuke powered navy fleets to go without refueling for decades, and still fly regular air superiority sorties.

    So since California has a high technological skill base and reputation for innovation, my recommendation for Californians is to push for building nuclear powered synfuel facilities which makes liquid fuel from carbonates in seawater. Initially, they could be built to make synfuel from coal, but ultimately they should switch to using seawater. The cost per gallon ofequivalent liquid fuel will then be only slightly higher than current prices at the pump, and would be completely GHG free. Such facilities could be built at the 10GW scale, or 50GW or even higher. Studies have already shown that inherently safe liquid metal cooled fast reactors or breeders could arguably be built at that scale, and possibly even up to 100 GW capacity per reactor. (source: AFAIK as yet unpublished research by a PhD friend of mine specialised in LMR technology.)

    Additionally, another PhD friend has shown that such applications could benefit from molten salt heat storage, which doubles as a credible indirect eletricity storage. In other words: building such nuclear powered synfuel facilities allows coupling with intermittent renewables by damping fluctuations in energy supply by storing and retrieving process heat from molten salt heat stores in tandem with increasing and dereasing wind speed or solar insolation. However, while technically feasible, the economics would not favour this as a long term strategy. Still it could help in absorbing large penetrations of intermittent energy sources until such time as there is a global superconductor grid that would actually make a fully solar/wind power system slightly possible, as opposed to impossible.

    To be clear, Is support wind and solar energy and further build out of those technologies. What I do *not* support is the nonsensical idea that intermittent energy sources can replace stable supply from fossil or nuclear power plants. I view that as a very dangerous and unfortunately very prevalent myth, and I take time out every once in a while to point this out since the future is also mine, not just of greenpeace. Note that I bring up Greenpeace, because the IPCC has used the Greenpeace vision as the lead scenario in there press-release statement about the SSREN study. This is a major mistake. Part of my intention is that the Greenpeace scenarios are exposed as nonsense and removed from the IPCC documentation until such time as they are made rational, which will happen as soon as Greenpeace ends it's counterproductive crusade against nuclear energy and also acknowledges the grave difficulties with switching to 100% intermittent renewables. They will do both sooner or later, since logic and truth requires it.

  45. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    Okay, so it took a while after me and now KR suggested to get back on topic. There is not much to add re nuclear here, Joris, and while I see some folks here correcting there own comments, I see few of your points being convincing.

    Joris now finally returned to his 100%-impossible-claim, but now beats Greenpeace as a strawman. This post is not about them ... obviously a small country like yours should and need not attempt an island solution. Care instead of responding to my post @356 and KR's @372 ?

  46. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    @Glenn: "The concepts behind Fast Breeder Reactors are certainly a major advance over earlier designs - much greater intrinsic safety, massively lower dangerous wastes produced, able consume a lot of existing wastes, and can even run on Thorium. However, they are still at the proof of concept/pilot stage. They are years away from serious scale commercial deployment."

    They are years away from serious deployment because there is not yet a need for fast breeders. But the technical knowhow to build them is there already, after decades of research and demonstration in multiple countries. The argument that fast breeders are not commercial (if you are making it) is a non argument. The only reason they are not (strongly) commercially pursued today is because we already have licenced thermal reactor technology that will be applied first. But there is no technical reason why we could not equally build fast reactors. In fact: almost all nuclear countries such as the US, Japan, Russia, etc, have proven and demonstrated the technology through decades. It's here. It's real. If we want them, they can and will be built. And you are right: they have all sorts of advantages over traditional thermal reactors.

  47. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    @JasonB. We do not need fast breeders for at least a few centuries if we don't scale up nuclear power. Only if the world would embark on a rational nuclear build-out, then most new reactors would be fast reactors, fast breeders or breeders. China's long-term energy plan calls for a majority of such reactors, which they will start building toward the second half of the century (or earlier, according to recent announcements, but that aside). India's long term plan is to use thorium breeders, which deliver similar benefits as fast breeders.

    Fast breeder technology is a proven technology. the US EBR-II operated as a (inherently safe!) fast breeder IFR for years, though only at a small (research) scale. The French Phenix reactor was very succesfull, although the Superphenix suffered from teething problems. Still, much was learned from that and the current state-of-the-art of fast reactor technology is highly advanced. 

    There is no serious person who knows the technology who claims that fast reactors are not feasible. The reason for not building them today is mainly that the once-through uranium fuel cycle is still economical, and because of technological lock-in of traditional thermal reactors, which makes it hard to make a case for spending billions on new licencing regimes and designs while the traditional thermal technology is completely developed and licenced. If getting a new thermal reactor through the red tape is extremely costly. Imagine how expensive a 4th gen design will be! They can be made, and they will be made, but arguably not while uranium is still dirt cheap. This says nothing about the feasibility of fast breeders, but is just a matter of basic economics and the current status of uranium supplies which still gives the cost advantage to a once-through fuel cycle.

    Finally, note that the actual nuclear component of a typical new nuclear power plant is only 5% of the project cost. 95% is for redundant safety, financing and red-tape. So even if a fast-reactor is more expensive than a thermal reactor, it will change nothing to the overal cost of the reactor. Arguably, since fast reactors can be built inherently safe, there are cost *savings* available, if licencing regulations can evolve to incorporate the inherent safety. However, politically, evolving licencing regulations is very difficult. It takes more than a decade to change something in the licencing system in the USA. Licencing regulation has prevented nuclear innovation, which is the main cause of a percieved lack of innovation.

  48. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    KR: "While the advantages/disadvantages of nuclear power are an interesting topic, they are a red herring in regards to the actual topic of this thread - the capabilities of renewable power to supply baseload/ongoing energy demands.

    In that regard, and in reply to a number of assertions made recently:

    [...]NREL has also shown that 35% penetration by wind/solar in the Western US can be accomplished, and "not require extensive infrastructure if changes are made to operational practices", contrary to assertions re: penetration made on this thread."

    KR, I don't dispute that 35% penetration is possible (although it will be very expensive, as shown by the OECD report I linked to). Rather I dispute that 100% is possible.

    I linked to an excruciatingly obtuse Greenpeace study that says that in my country, the Netherland, 70 GW (!) of solar and wind farms should be installed by 2050, even while maximum power demand is 13 GW. This is a dream. No scratch that: it is a fantasy. No, scratch that too, it is a LIE! It will never happen and cannot happen. In my country, we will NOT build 70 GW of batteries to store the power of 70 GW of intermittent renewables. Greenpeace places itself outside of normal rational discussion, and is thereby the enemy of all parties who sincerely want to solve the GHG emissions problem. Fortunately, I know some people within Greenpeace who are as sick and tired of such nonsense as I am. I dare to predict that Greenpeace will abandon its deadly obsession with destroying the nuclear option within ten years. Greenpeace has already recently abandoned its deadly embrace of biofuels (I like to think partly due to the almost 10 years I have spent reminding them of the deadly facts about biofuels), and similarly, Greenpeace will abandon its nuclear sabotage ideology sooner or later.

  49. New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

    Couple Questions...

    1. The purple line "overall depth" ... Is this 0-2000m, or is this 0-700m? (I'm looking for a chart that shows 700m-2000m warming over the past 30 years. (presumably this is the whole matter being discussed anyway). From what I think I'm seeing, the purple line minus the blue line gives us the bottom 1300m?

    2. More frequent La Ninas and the negative phase of the PDO are the reason for the increased transfer of Global Warming contribution into the deeper oceans in the last 15 years... This means previously the oceans were not the receptor of as much GW heat content? What allows us to track with relative certainty the variable contribution percentage of GW into the deep ocean?

  50. A Detailed Look at Renewable Baseload Energy

    @Michael Sweet. I don't care whether some people claim nuke EROI is less than one. And I don't care whether the American Scientists sees fit to cite such wild claims. Note that they also published the WNA figures of 40-60. The WNA figures are credible. Vattenfall published figures for their Swedish Forsmark plant which demonstrates EROI > 50. This is not a controversial figure, and I trust you will find the Forsmark figures using google and not muddle this discussion again. If nuke EROI was 1, there would never have been any nuke plants built, so it is completely silly to pursue this wild claim and frankly it makes you look like a troll, I'm sorry to say. Stop doing it. Start learning.

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