The Official Global Warming/Climate Change Thread

[47ply 1,100]

the problem with articles like that is that there are no facts to back it up and make an assumption that the government used only those study's

[Compdude787 916]

Did you know that there is actually a peer reviewed paper published in a science journal that says it's okay to manipulate climate-related data as long as it furthers the cause? You know a scientific claim is baloney when the data has to be manipulated to give the claim more validity.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yet another denier.  Some people just won't remove their heads from places where the sun don't shine.  "Manipulated the data"?  Well, I don't think anyone has manipulated the facts.

 

The Greenland ice pack is melting.

The Arctic freeze up is diminished.

Orcas are moving into the Arctic Ocean because the water is now warmer.

Polar bears are lingering longer ashore because of the delayed formation of the ice pack.

The earth's orbit has become more circular due to gravitic effects in the solar system, so insolation has slightly increased.

 

This whole thing is part of a geologic cycle for the earth that has a period of about 25,000 years.  We are just finishing up the last ice age.

[47ply 1,100]

I saw a argument for climate change    it went like this

 

you believe                                                                                                                             you don't believe

 

should action be taken                                                                                                             don't take action and its real we die!!!!!!!!!!!!! if your right and its not true and

                                                                                                                                                  do some thing and spend tax money same results as if you believe!!

                                                                                                                                                   so what are you arguing about 

if wrong you clean the air reduce cancer causing chemical's

and spend tax money

if right save the world start new industry's clean the environment life goes on 

[Duke87 1,070]

Did you know that there is actually a peer reviewed paper published in a science journal that says it's okay to manipulate climate-related data as long as it furthers the cause?

 

Huh? That is not what the paper says. The abstract of the paper says:

 

 

It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

WUWT is completely misinterpreting this because they are using the common English definition of "provide a rationale" rather than the scientific one.

 

This paper is not trying to comment on the morality of any data manipulations. What it is doing is investigating what influence manipulated data may have on IEA participation. "Provide a rationale" just means "explain why it happens" not "morally justify it happening". Very important difference.

[hym 358]

I saw a argument for climate change    it went like this

 

you believe                                                                                                                             you don't believe

 

should action be taken                                                                                                             don't take action and its real we die!!!!!!!!!!!!! if your right and its not true and

                                                                                                                                                  do some thing and spend tax money same results as if you believe!!

                                                                                                                                                   so what are you arguing about 

if wrong you clean the air reduce cancer causing chemical's

and spend tax money

if right save the world start new industry's clean the environment life goes on 

 

The problem with this argument is that it ignores the realities of implementing such a solution.  If you believe that we are near the point of no return, and nothing short of drastic, immediate changes will save us from catastrophic global warming, then you had best start figuring out how you're going to survive in that environment.  Energy sources develop very slowly, on the order of decades to centuries.  (Even with massive government assistance, the process still takes decades.)  It is questionable whether we will have 50% electrification of America's vehicle fleet in this century.  In some fields of work, we have severe manpower shortages, and our technical expertise is dying faster than we can replace it.

 

People forget the size of the challenge they are facing.  The world's largest distribution network exists to move hydrocarbons around the globe.  It has taken over 150 years to build it, and it will take decades more to dismantle it.  The world's largest machine is the US electric grid, and it is highly intolerant of widespread deployment of most renewable energy sources.  Texas, which is leading the nation for deployment of wind power, has (at least temporarily) capped out at 10% of electricity generation coming from wind.  ERCOT, the organization that manages the Texas grid, has operational data proving beyond any doubt that the high concentration of wind power in west Texas is causing the grid instability problems.  Consequently, ERCOT has placed a moratorium on all new wind projects pending the completion of $5 billion in new transmission line capacity.  (That's enough transmission line to cross the lower 48 somewhere around 2-4 times.)  ERCOT has gone looking for companies interested in investing in new transmission lines, and between the US and Europe, there isn't $5 billion worth of free capital that anyone is willing to spend.  Even if you got the federal government to pony up the cash for all the new transmission line, you are still looking at 5-10 years to complete the engineering, procurement, and construction phase, then at least 2 years for ERCOT to gather operational data and calculate how much new headroom it has, and then another 2-3 years to actually get a new wind farm operational.  In other words, Texas, and by extension, the whole United States, wouldn't see serious expansion of its wind power production till 2025-2030, and that is assuming the federal government coughed up the funds tomorrow.  (By contrast, ERCOT has been looking for funds for a few years now and has only found enough funds for 300 of the 10,000-15,000 miles of transmission line it estimates it needs.)

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Whoa!  Nelly.

 

This is not a matter of belief (religion) but a matter of fact (science).  Let's not get ourselves into a debate over something that is factual.  A large number of silly people are acting like the Vatican at the time of Galileo.  My life experiences over seven plus decades support the reports that the earth is warmer by empirical observation.  Ladies and gentlemen, it is noticeably warmer.

 

Quantification is a matter of confirming reports of events world wide.  How much and how fast this phenomenon is taking place are the facts we need to decide whether to act soon or later.  Overall, what is the local effect?  What are the world wide effects?  When?

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Whoa!  Nelly.

 

This is not a matter of belief (religion) but a matter of fact (science).  Let's not get ourselves into a debate over something that is factual.  A large number of silly people are acting like the Vatican at the time of Galileo.  My life experiences over seven plus decades support the reports that the earth is warmer by empirical observation.  Ladies and gentlemen, it is noticeably warmer.

 

Quantification is a matter of confirming reports of events world wide.  How much and how fast this phenomenon is taking place are the facts we need to decide whether to act soon or later.  Overall, what is the local effect?  What are the world wide effects?  When?

 

Nearly all people don't question the fact that the climate is changing. The real debate is how much of is natural and how much is manmade. On both sides of the argument the picture is far from clear. A warmer climate is going to be better for plants and agriculture because of more heat energy and CO2, it also means larger parts of Canada and Northern Russia will be ripe for agriculture.

 

Let's not forget the influence of solar activity in altering jet streams. The scientific models have failed miserably in accounting for the jet streams shifting substantially and radically altering the weather. Water vapour, methane and particulates alter temperatures by orders of magnitude more than CO2 ever will. It's why the temperatures shift up and down like a yo-yo in that 2 degree range or more. Let's not forget the magnetic poles which are just starting to flip around, this weakens the planet's electromagnetic shield and allows more radiation, such as UV, to come through. The Earth is warming up regardless of human civilization.

 

If you want the planet to cool down then pray for a massive volcanic eruption, or a series of prolonged volcanic eruptions, or for more particulate pollution. The only thing we can do is adapt to these changes.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Quite correct.  In the long run it is adapt or be replaced by an alternate species.  Nature is very positive in this kind of action.

[hym 358]

My life experiences over seven plus decades support the reports that the earth is warmer by empirical observation.  Ladies and gentlemen, it is noticeably warmer.

 

And yet, Al Gore holds a conference on global warming on one of the coldest days New York City has ever seen.  How many of us were talking about how the winter of 2013-2014 seemed to be dragging on and on and summer would never get here?  ERCOT had the incredibly rare experience of a Level 2 grid emergency event in the winter, not because of excess demand for electricity, but because it was so cold that multiple power plants in north Texas couldn't prevent their equipment from freezing.  Summer 2014 was one of Houston's coolest ever.  This winter was the second time in as many years with temperatures in the 20s, in a region that typically sees 35°F as a lower temperature floor.

 

This is an issue that even leading climate scientists admit is a problem.  People are being told that the world is getting hotter and hotter, but all they are seeing is record breaking cold.

[CapTon 592]

I believe in slight climate change, but I don't believe it should be every government's top priority (especially in the U.S., since that's where I reside) or anywhere on a "top priority" list.

 

Forty years ago, scientists believed that by this time, we were going to be within a new Ice Age. Are we? No. Do I have proof that anyone believed this? No, but I do happen to have a father that was raised during that time period.

 

The Earth goes through cycles every ten or twenty years. For ten years, it'll be relatively cold in some areas and relatively warm in others. Then it switches.

 

Some of you will say, "But what about the unbelievable drought(s) in California?" Yes, they happen to be going through something of that nature, but in other parts of the world (such as the Philippines), more rain has fallen than you could ever imagine.

 

Sure, the world's temperatures have been rising over the past couple hundred years, but I believe we're a bit too far away (time wise) for anything catastrophic to occur.

[Duke87 1,070]

 

And yet, Al Gore holds a conference on global warming on one of the coldest days New York City has ever seen.  How many of us were talking about how the winter of 2013-2014 seemed to be dragging on and on and summer would never get here?  ERCOT had the incredibly rare experience of a Level 2 grid emergency event in the winter, not because of excess demand for electricity, but because it was so cold that multiple power plants in north Texas couldn't prevent their equipment from freezing.  Summer 2014 was one of Houston's coolest ever.  This winter was the second time in as many years with temperatures in the 20s, in a region that typically sees 35°F as a lower temperature floor.

 

This is an issue that even leading climate scientists admit is a problem.  People are being told that the world is getting hotter and hotter, but all they are seeing is record breaking cold.

 

This is part of why the term "global warming" has been dropped in favor of "climate change". When we talk about the planet warming we are talking about an average temperature increase of a few degrees. That's it. So it would be unreasonable to expect that noticeably warmer temperatures everywhere are the result. More the point is that there is extra energy in the oceans and in the atmosphere, and this results in a shifting of weather patters that is not easily predictable. North America saw an unusually cold winter last year because the polar vortex that usually contains cold air in the arctic weakened and allowed a lot of it to escape. This caused colder than normal temperatures in the middle latitudes but at the same time made it less cold in the arctic. Compare the actual observed temperature from last winter in the Arcitc (red) to the average since 1958 (green), source here:

 

See that? That's where our mild winter went. We froze while the north pole got warmer than normal. Except very few people live in the arctic so no one really noticed that. This is what climate change looks like, folks. Not necessarily warmer weather, but different weather. Results will vary by location.

[LexusInfernus 908]

The problem with this argument is that it ignores the realities of implementing such a solution.  If you believe that we are near the point of no return, and nothing short of drastic, immediate changes will save us from catastrophic global warming, then you had best start figuring out how you're going to survive in that environment.  Energy sources develop very slowly, on the order of decades to centuries.  (Even with massive government assistance, the process still takes decades.)  It is questionable whether we will have 50% electrification of America's vehicle fleet in this century.  In some fields of work, we have severe manpower shortages, and our technical expertise is dying faster than we can replace it.

 

People forget the size of the challenge they are facing.  The world's largest distribution network exists to move hydrocarbons around the globe.  It has taken over 150 years to build it, and it will take decades more to dismantle it.  The world's largest machine is the US electric grid, and it is highly intolerant of widespread deployment of most renewable energy sources.  Texas, which is leading the nation for deployment of wind power, has (at least temporarily) capped out at 10% of electricity generation coming from wind.  ERCOT, the organization that manages the Texas grid, has operational data proving beyond any doubt that the high concentration of wind power in west Texas is causing the grid instability problems.  Consequently, ERCOT has placed a moratorium on all new wind projects pending the completion of $5 billion in new transmission line capacity.  (That's enough transmission line to cross the lower 48 somewhere around 2-4 times.)  ERCOT has gone looking for companies interested in investing in new transmission lines, and between the US and Europe, there isn't $5 billion worth of free capital that anyone is willing to spend.  Even if you got the federal government to pony up the cash for all the new transmission line, you are still looking at 5-10 years to complete the engineering, procurement, and construction phase, then at least 2 years for ERCOT to gather operational data and calculate how much new headroom it has, and then another 2-3 years to actually get a new wind farm operational.  In other words, Texas, and by extension, the whole United States, wouldn't see serious expansion of its wind power production till 2025-2030, and that is assuming the federal government coughed up the funds tomorrow.  (By contrast, ERCOT has been looking for funds for a few years now and has only found enough funds for 300 of the 10,000-15,000 miles of transmission line it estimates it needs.)

 

First of all, we developed the technology to put a man on the moon almost from scratch within 10 years. That was a challenge. Changing the way we use and create energy? Thats easy. All the technology needed for such a thing has already been developed. Its just a matter of implementing it and building it. Its a matter of scale. Thats a challenge sure, but its also very doable provided that we put some basic effort into it. 

 

Second of all, what kind of argument is that? The challenge is to big (no its not, but for arguments sake lets say that it is) so we shouldn't bother? We can't change the way we operate on the short term, so why bother? Those aren't arguments, those are excuses not to do things until we all choke on our own pollution, or starve because all our agricultural lands are giant deserts. 

 

Nearly all people don't question the fact that the climate is changing. The real debate is how much of is natural and how much is manmade. On both sides of the argument the picture is far from clear. A warmer climate is going to be better for plants and agriculture because of more heat energy and CO2, it also means larger parts of Canada and Northern Russia will be ripe for agriculture.

 

You forget that while large parts of Russia and Canada would indeed become fertile, the entire Midwest of the US would turn into a big desert. As would huge parts of Europe and other portions where agricultural is being done as of this moment. And we would lose a number of coastal areas to the rising sea levels. Furthermore, violent weather patterns would cause more crop and harvest failures. And those areas that would become arable are at this moment still untouched nature. We would have to demolish huge swats of forest for some arable land. In short, we would lose much much more than we would gain. 

 

 

Let's not forget the influence of solar activity in altering jet streams. The scientific models have failed miserably in accounting for the jet streams shifting substantially and radically altering the weather. Water vapour, methane and particulates alter temperatures by orders of magnitude more than CO2 ever will. It's why the temperatures shift up and down like a yo-yo in that 2 degree range or more. Let's not forget the magnetic poles which are just starting to flip around, this weakens the planet's electromagnetic shield and allows more radiation, such as UV, to come through. The Earth is warming up regardless of human civilization.

 

You assume that scientists are idiots and haven't accounted for such basic factors. Look, if you can come up with this (as do millions of other people) you can assume that climate scientists have looked at it as well. And it hasn't ever changed their conclusion. Global warming is real, and its predominantly caused by human factors. 

 

 

 

This is an issue that even leading climate scientists admit is a problem.  People are being told that the world is getting hotter and hotter, but all they are seeing is record breaking cold.

 

A false argument. You are looking at the weather and the weather is not the same as the climate. In other words, you can have a cold winter while the climate is warming up. 

 

The only problem this causes is that it suggests to people that climate change isn't real because how can the climate be getting warmer if they are freezing their butts off. Unless of course that is what you meant to say all along, in which case I apologize for the redundancy

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Whether some human factors have seriously influenced climate change is not very important in the long run, thinking geologically.  As the permafrost warms up and releases all that stored methane, and the same happens with the oceans, the increase in average ambient temperature due to greenhouse effect will increase considerably more than from carbon dioxide.  Whether this happened before is really unknown since there was no one to observe events between the last ice age and the previous one.  All we really know is that there have been several freeze/thaw cycles on a period of about 25 millennia.  This is longer than the existence of genus homo.

 

Can we do something about this?  Probably, but we have always delayed until faced with utter catastrophe, and all the Cassandras will be ignored as usual.

[hym 358]

First of all, we developed the technology to put a man on the moon almost from scratch within 10 years. That was a challenge. Changing the way we use and create energy? Thats easy. All the technology needed for such a thing has already been developed. Its just a matter of implementing it and building it. Its a matter of scale. Thats a challenge sure, but its also very doable provided that we put some basic effort into it.

We do not have all of the technology that we need. As utilities move towards more intermittent power sources, utilities need more data to manage their operations. We are nowhere near the amount of information utilities will require in the coming years, and the utilities are already drowning in all of the data they are receiving. There is serious discussion that processing all of this coming information will require entirely new computer processing networks that no one currently has any idea how to design.

There is also the issue of "order of merit" dispatch control. Power grids are balanced by deploying power generation by cost of production. This works incredibly well when producing electricity has non-zero costs. It is thrown into chaos when you have significant generation capacity that has zero costs for generation and thus ignores the pricing control systems. There is work on a solution for this, but it is still stuck in the early phases of R&D in the US and Japan. (And it will greatly exacerbate the data management issue.)

Denmark decided it wanted to be a world leader on switching to renewable energy. What it got for its efforts was a grid that it can't control for 8 hours out of the day and must rely on German authorities providing balancing power to keep Denmark's electric grid stable enough to operate. In an effort to solve all of this, Denmark is attempting to cut its grid into a collection of smaller islands that can operate independently of each other. In theory, we have had the technology to do this for decades, except islanding is an excellent way to kill your employees, so no one ever used the technology, so no one really understands how to properly implement such a system.

To solve the islanding issue, you need utility scale energy storage. We are still working on finding a practical battery that is economically viable. We are likely still years away from such an option.

So, no, we don't have all the technology. We aren't even close.

Second of all, what kind of argument is that? The challenge is to big (no its not, but for arguments sake lets say that it is) so we shouldn't bother? We can't change the way we operate on the short term, so why bother? Those aren't arguments, those are excuses not to do things until we all choke on our own pollution, or starve because all our agricultural lands are giant deserts.

The challenge is huge, probably one of the biggest any nation has attempted to tackle. Success will require a serious commitment that the country is in this for the long-haul. It will also require a lot of clear-headed thinking. The idea that this is something that can be done quickly is a pipe dream.

A false argument. You are looking at the weather and the weather is not the same as the climate. In other words, you can have a cold winter while the climate is warming up.

The only problem this causes is that it suggests to people that climate change isn't real because how can the climate be getting warmer if they are freezing their butts off. Unless of course that is what you meant to say all along, in which case I apologize for the redundancy

The point was to illustrate that personal anecdotes are not reliable places to draw conclusions. (There was an excellent article on this from a prominent climate scientist on this disconnect, but I couldn't find the link again to share.)

[47ply 1,100]

don't argue with people who don't believe they never will its in there dna or something I think I just hope there are more believers than non.

[CapTon 592]

Nations shouldn't be concerned about this nothing catastrophic will occur as a result of "climate change".

 

People that believe that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that causes climate change have been proved wrong. The oceans aren't rising. The ice isn't melting; in fact, it's increasing in number. There have been less heat waves in recent times than before. The number of storms has decreased as well as their strength and intensity.

 

Climate change is a false belief masqueraded as science.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

[ :kitty: ]Bravado in the face of the facts doesn't change the facts.
 
Perhaps one has an explanation for the current deglaciation of the Greenland ice pack?  Are the Danes doing something nefarious?
 
What about those hungry polar bears waiting for the very late Arctic freeze-up?
 
And just why are there Orcas in the Arctic Ocean when it was always too cold for them before?
 
C'mon, let's have the new conspiracy theory.
[/  :kitty:  ]

[CapTon 592]

[ :kitty: ]Bravado in the face of the facts doesn't change the facts.

 

Perhaps one has an explanation for the current deglaciation of the Greenland ice pack?  Are the Danes doing something nefarious?

 

What about those hungry polar bears waiting for the very late Arctic freeze-up?

 

And just why are there Orcas in the Arctic Ocean when it was always too cold for them before?

 

C'mon, let's have the new conspiracy theory.

[/  :kitty:  ]

Ice is melting in some places and it's increasing in other places. So what? Should we just focus on the melting glaciers and ice and completely ignore the fact that ice is becoming more prominent in other areas?

 

The polar bears population is growing. Take a look at this table: http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html It's declining in some places and increasing in other areas. Again, should we just focus on the decline and completely ignore everything else?

 

And so orcas are beginning to move to the Arctic Ocean when it was too cold for them before? So what?

[Duke87 1,070]

First of all, we developed the technology to put a man on the moon almost from scratch within 10 years. That was a challenge. Changing the way we use and create energy? Thats easy. All the technology needed for such a thing has already been developed. Its just a matter of implementing it and building it. Its a matter of scale. Thats a challenge sure, but its also very doable provided that we put some basic effort into it. 

 

Dismissing the problem as "it's a matter of scale" is dismissing a very real issue. Rockets that could get to space already existed before JFK said we were going to go to the moon. We had to make them bigger, but not that much bigger. The Saturn V rockets that took astronauts to the moon were about 2.5 times as powerful as the Saturn I which already existed in 1962. The technology necessary to store electrical energy on a scale sufficient to base a grid on intermittent renewable sources would have to be orders of magnitude more powerful than anything that currently exists.

 

This makes all the difference in the world because the rocket that went to the moon used exactly the same technology that already existed, it was simply bigger. You can't store the necessary electricity by taking existing batteries and just making them bigger. You'd need more space for all the batteries than we could possibly ever find room for, and more materials to construct them than we could ever reasonably mine out of the ground in a decent timeframe. Grid storage is not physically impossible and someday we may well be doing it. But doing it will require technology no one has yet been able to build, storing energy at densities far greater than any battery has ever achieved.

 

Honestly? I think we will see nuclear fusion being used as a source of electricity before we see grid storage that allows wind and solar to be used en masse.

 

And that will be a far more effective way to curb fossil fuel use because nuclear fusion, if it can be made viable, would be able to be used as baseload power on the grid as it already exists, without a revolutionary reinventing of it.

 

But while we're working on that, we use the energy sources we have, do our best to be efficient and conserve them, and learn to cope with any environmental consequences that may arise.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Dismissing the problem as "it's a matter of scale" is dismissing a very real issue. Rockets that could get to space already existed before JFK said we were going to go to the moon. We had to make them bigger, but not that much bigger. The Saturn V rockets that took astronauts to the moon were about 2.5 times as powerful as the Saturn I which already existed in 1962. The technology necessary to store electrical energy on a scale sufficient to base a grid on intermittent renewable sources would have to be orders of magnitude more powerful than anything that currently exists.

 

This makes all the difference in the world because the rocket that went to the moon used exactly the same technology that already existed, it was simply bigger. You can't store the necessary electricity by taking existing batteries and just making them bigger. You'd need more space for all the batteries than we could possibly ever find room for, and more materials to construct them than we could ever reasonably mine out of the ground in a decent timeframe. Grid storage is not physically impossible and someday we may well be doing it. But doing it will require technology no one has yet been able to build, storing energy at densities far greater than any battery has ever achieved.

 

Well you (and Hym) seem to focus solely on the creation of electricity. But that is just one part of the equation, and it is the less interesting one. The real gains lie with energy saving. Basically make sure that people don't use that much energy by making things energy efficient. And again, we got the technology for that as well. All we got to do is implement it. 

[Huston 5,799]

Nations shouldn't be concerned about this nothing catastrophic will occur as a result of "climate change".

 

People that believe that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that causes climate change have been proved wrong. The oceans aren't rising. The ice isn't melting; in fact, it's increasing in number. There have been less heat waves in recent times than before. The number of storms has decreased as well as their strength and intensity.

 

Climate change is a false belief masqueraded as science.

 

That's hardly the case.

 

The oceans are evidently rising. There are numerous countries in the Pacific especially feeling this, where naturally flooding countries like Tuvalu have seen a growing distance in water encroaching on their islands. These islands are under the real threat of ocean rises. There are articles, data and points being made out there about rising ocean levels, that there's no real need to point them out since they're within a search's reach. The number of storms are also increasing in fact. Intensity and sizes of these storms are only getting worse as well. Hurricane Sandy, Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan and Juan/Megi were all testaments to these increasing storm intensities. And they're forecasted to only become more common, may be become the norm by the end of this century. Heatwaves decreasing are also not the case. If that happens to be the trend on a local level, it can't be the basis for a generalization of the global climate. Besides, heat isn't the entire measure of global warming. Other factors surface as well, such as the pattern of erratic weather, shift of oceanic currents which can have adverse effects on weather systems (increasing rainfall/snowfall in many regions, while even potentially strengthening storms in regions that may have never experienced such extremes if the waters were to warm or cool in certain areas around the planet) and temporal extremes. This can be the experience of a colder or more extreme winter, or a hotter and much more extreme summer.

 

All these things are happening, and it's evident here in New Zealand. Weather is becoming more erratic and more extreme. If anything, it's summers are getting drier in numerous regions every year, and winters are becoming a lot worse over time, with more frequent snow falls in the South Island. That could only mean that weather patterns have become disrupted by the very issue that is global warming. Heck, in the last few years, we've been recording the highest temperature records the country has ever seen in it's history, experiencing freak weather occurrences (hail in the middle of summer at one point in Auckland) and the South Island is becoming increasingly more arid.

 

This isn't an isolated issue; and it's definitely happening, without a doubt. You don't need to be a climatologist to recognize these changes.

[hym 358]

Well you (and Hym) seem to focus solely on the creation of electricity. But that is just one part of the equation, and it is the less interesting one. The real gains lie with energy saving. Basically make sure that people don't use that much energy by making things energy efficient. And again, we got the technology for that as well. All we got to do is implement it.

I am confused how this line of logic works. The problem isn't the amount of energy we consume, but rather, the cleanliness of the source. If we had 100% clean energy, no one would be worried about how much we consume. It wouldn't matter.

[Duke87 1,070]

Well you (and Hym) seem to focus solely on the creation of electricity. But that is just one part of the equation, and it is the less interesting one. The real gains lie with energy saving. Basically make sure that people don't use that much energy by making things energy efficient. And again, we got the technology for that as well. All we got to do is implement it. 

 

I work with energy efficiency for a living. It's a great thing and of course I highly advocate it. But at the end of the day while there are substantial savings to be had out there, remember that with energy storage we are talking about orders of magnitude. There are not orders of magnitude of energy savings out there. There is no magic technology that will reduce electricity consumption by so much as to make fossil fuel generation irrelevant.

 

Not only that, but the issue with renewables isn't just how much we can store them, it's what percentage of generation they make up. Even if you could reduce electricity consumption down to the point where it is no greater than the currently operating capacity of renewable generation, you still would not be able to power everything with renewables because of the storage problem. As things stand the use of wind and solar power on the grid is only possible because there are fossil fuel plants that can ramp up when the wind dies down or when clouds cover the sun.

 

I am confused how this line of logic works. The problem isn't the amount of energy we consume, but rather, the cleanliness of the source. If we had 100% clean energy, no one would be worried about how much we consume. It wouldn't matter.

 

The point is that (in theory), it is easier to achieve 100% clean generation if the amount we need to generate is lower.

 

And it still would matter because even if emissions were not a concern, electricity still would not be free and people still would save money by using less of it. And there still would be limits to how much capacity the grid has, such that at some point using more electricity is not possible without infrastructure expansion.

[LexusInfernus 908]

I am confused how this line of logic works. The problem isn't the amount of energy we consume, but rather, the cleanliness of the source. If we had 100% clean energy, no one would be worried about how much we consume. It wouldn't matter.

 

True, but the problem is that it is more difficult to achieve 100% sustainable energy if we consume so much of it. If we consume less energy, we need to create less energy, hence it would be much easier for sustainable energy sources to meet our energy demands. 

 

I work with energy efficiency for a living. It's a great thing and of course I highly advocate it. But at the end of the day while there are substantial savings to be had out there, remember that with energy storage we are talking about orders of magnitude. There are not orders of magnitude of energy savings out there. There is no magic technology that will reduce electricity consumption by so much as to make fossil fuel generation irrelevant.

 

Not only that, but the issue with renewables isn't just how much we can store them, it's what percentage of generation they make up. Even if you could reduce electricity consumption down to the point where it is no greater than the currently operating capacity of renewable generation, you still would not be able to power everything with renewables because of the storage problem. As things stand the use of wind and solar power on the grid is only possible because there are fossil fuel plants that can ramp up when the wind dies down or when clouds cover the sun.

 

Actually I do think energy efficiency is something where we can save an incredible amount of energy on. Especially in the US and Europe. Look, its technically possible to build a house in such a way that it either becomes energy neutral. or that it requires like 80-90% less energy than 'normal' houses. Now imagine that every house in the US or Europe is build like that. Well, you work in energy savings, you can probably guess how much energy we would save by that.

 

Does that tackle every source? No, it doesn't, but it would be a good start. Car exhausts are a problem, but given the rise of electric cars or hybrids, it might be a problem that solves itself. Industry and agriculture are the biggest problems. Certain industries do require a lot of power at a constant rate, and powering those sorts of industries with sustainable energy is a problem. Agriculture is a problem because of the highly inefficient use of land, unsustainable practices of intensive farming, and the way we waste so much of its products on meat production. 

[MandelSoft 2,775]

About the sea level rise: it's a misconception that with melting ice caps, the sea level will rise globally. It's more complicated than that, and it all has to do with gravity.

You see, gravity is not the same at all locations on earth, since the earth's mass is not equally distributed. This is caused by several factors:

• The thickness of the earth's crust is not the same everywhere. Continental crusts are often quite a bit thicker than oceanic crusts. However, the basalt oceanic crust has a higher density than the granite continental crust. Added to that, the earth surface is not flat with tall mountains and deep oceans. This also makes a difference 
• Due to the earths rotation, the earth is not perfectly round, but a bit more oval-shaped; it's wider at the equator. This results in the fact that a round trip around the equator is 70 kilometers longer (40 070 km) than a trip from pole to pole and back again (40 000 km).
• And then there are the ice caps themselves; they have quite a gravitational pull onto the water on this planet. The sea level is therefore higher near the poles.

If the Arctic ice cap would melt, this would result in a drop (!) of the sea level in Greenland, Iceland and northern Scotland. This is because with the melting ice, the gravitation pull also reduces, and this reduction can have a compensating or even an reverse effect in the northern regions of the planet. In the country where I live, the Netherlands, this would result in little to no rise at all (in the order of centimeters (or a few inches, for the Americans among us). Not too bad, since a quite large part of our country is below sea level. However, the effects are much more severe at places far away from the North Pole. Without any compensating effect from the reduced gravitational pull, they will take the full blow. This can result in a rise in the order of meters.

Of course, there are other effects we do need to worry about when this happens (animal species threatened with extinction, sea currents halting that can make the climate in Europe a lot colder), but the point is that with climate change, the term "global" is not really global at all.

Best,

Maarten

[Duke87 1,070]

Actually I do think energy efficiency is something where we can save an incredible amount of energy on. Especially in the US and Europe. Look, its technically possible to build a house in such a way that it either becomes energy neutral. or that it requires like 80-90% less energy than 'normal' houses. Now imagine that every house in the US or Europe is build like that. Well, you work in energy savings, you can probably guess how much energy we would save by that.

 

Does that tackle every source? No, it doesn't, but it would be a good start. Car exhausts are a problem, but given the rise of electric cars or hybrids, it might be a problem that solves itself. Industry and agriculture are the biggest problems. Certain industries do require a lot of power at a constant rate, and powering those sorts of industries with sustainable energy is a problem. Agriculture is a problem because of the highly inefficient use of land, unsustainable practices of intensive farming, and the way we waste so much of its products on meat production. 

 

80-90% savings still is not "orders of magnitude". It's an order of magnitude, but not several. Meanwhile a house would have to be a real energy hog for 80-90% savings to be possible. If the existing lights are incandescent, LEDs can achieve that kind of savings on lighting. But achieving 80-90% savings on heating and cooling is not possible without making a decision to shiver and sweat and only use those systems when it gets really hot or really cold (passive geothermal can do a lot but it's only effective up to a point and will need supplementing in most climates). And achieving 80-90% savings on appliances is not possible, again, without deciding that you will only eat non-perishable food and never cook it, deciding to only rarely use a TV or computer, deciding to wash your dishes and clothes by hand in cold water, etc.

 

Now certainly it is possible under some circumstances to make a house energy neutral, if it is efficient and you have a good place to put solar panels. Especially since on the scale of a single home it is possible to go off-grid and use batteries to compensate for the sun not always shining. But not all single family homes have a good place to put solar panels - got trees on your property? Better cut them down or your solar panels are just going to sit in the shade (and from a carbon standpoint that of course would be counterproductive). And again, we're just talking single family homes here. This does not address apartment buildings, offices, stores, factories, schools... every other type of building, basically.

 

As for electric cars, that isn't just a problem "that solves itself" because even if you achieve significant market penetration of electric cars (which isn't likely to happen anytime in the near future without massive subsidy because as sexy as electric cars are, they are expensive), there is still the question of where all that electricity for those cars is going to come from. If the grid is involved there will need to be significant infrastructure upgrades to handle the increased load.

And even with all that, cars are only one type of vehicle. Trucks, ships, and airplanes aren't going to be electric anytime soon because of the battery scale problem.

 

 

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of room for increased efficiency out there. But not nearly enough to make every building energy neutral. And even among the potential efficiency increases, many of them are too expensive to be worth implementing. For example, it is certainly possible to insulate buildings a lot tighter than is typically done, but as you keep adding insulation you get increasingly diminishing returns. Before long you get to a point where the payback period is measured in decades rather than years. At that point, I do not advocate it since it does not make economic sense. As much as the matters of carbon footprints and conserving resources get harped on, at the end of the day energy efficiency is ultimately about saving money.

 

 

One thing I do absolutely agree on, though, is that current agricultural practices are quite inefficient, and this doesn't get talked about nearly enough. In particular, the obsession the US has developed with growing corn is ridiculous. Corn is a highly inefficient crop because most of the plant isn't used and just gets composted. There are better things to use as a source of ethanol and livestock feed. And yes, meat is naturally more resource-intensive to produce than grains, though it is a tough sell to convince everyone they should eat less of it and restricting production without addressing demand would just make prices skyrocket.

[hym 358]

True, but the problem is that it is more difficult to achieve 100% sustainable energy if we consume so much of it. If we consume less energy, we need to create less energy, hence it would be much easier for sustainable energy sources to meet our energy demands. 

 

Fair enough.

 

However, I think this is overstating the value that energy efficiency has in integrating sustainable energy sources into the grid.  If we go back to the issues that were raised earlier in post 1005, the value of energy efficiency becomes less substantial.  Issue 1, namely the amount of data processing utilities have to perform, is a function of network topology.  Reducing energy consumption won't do anything to help this.  Issue 2, the problem with order of merit dispatch, actually becomes worse the more energy efficient we become.  Likewise, issue 3, concerning grid stability, also becomes a greater issue the more efficient we become.  (They are both functions of generating portfolio.  Greater efficiency lowers the need for baseload demand, and thus fossil fuel power generation, further pressuring the balance of stable vs. intermittent energy sources.)  Issue 4, battery storage, is a mixed bag.  Less demand means fewer batteries are needed, but it also means the stability of the intermittent energy sources becomes more important, and thus the need for more and better batteries becomes a bigger problem again.

 

Issue 4 might be solved sometime in the near future.  A design for grid-scale battery storage is expected to go into testing this year, and if the operational data is good, we may have a semi-viable solution before the decade is out.  Issues 1-3, however, are likely going to hold the US out of wide scale renewable deployment for decades.  These are not issues that can be solved by relying on Moore's law or similar thinking.  They are going to require rethinking some fundamental tenets of how these systems operate, including potentially throwing out decades of technological advancement and starting over again from almost nothing.

 

Actually I do think energy efficiency is something where we can save an incredible amount of energy on. Especially in the US and Europe. Look, its technically possible to build a house in such a way that it either becomes energy neutral. or that it requires like 80-90% less energy than 'normal' houses. Now imagine that every house in the US or Europe is build like that. Well, you work in energy savings, you can probably guess how much energy we would save by that.

 

In almost every case, "technically possible" loses to "practically doable," and it is not practical to build houses like that.  Power consumption in US homes roughly breaks down as follows: lighting accounts for 10% of consumption, heating/cooling accounts for roughly 40% of consumption, and consumer appliances account for the remaining 50 percent.  With the federal ban on sales of incandescent light bulbs, there is increasingly little room to cut lighting costs, and even if you cut them entirely, you wouldn't achieve much in terms of energy savings.  Heating/cooling costs are widely variable, and estimates swing between 10%-40% available savings.  Thanks to the federal government's efforts to promote energy efficiency in household appliances, that remaining 50% is generally considered a wash for energy savings.  (There will be continual improvements, but they will move at a much slower pace than before and suffer diminishing returns.)

 

While trying to reduce the amount of energy that people use in their homes is a good thing, the idea that such reductions are going to make a meaningful impact on the goal of getting our power from clean energy sources is like describing an elephant while not being able to see it.  Focusing on energy efficiency improvements is quibbling over 500kWh here and 500kWh there.  Meanwhile, in 2013, the US consumed somewhere between 4,000,000,000,000kWh-4,700,000,000,000kWh.  As Duke87 said, it is an orders of magnitude difference.

 

Car exhausts are a problem, but given the rise of electric cars or hybrids, it might be a problem that solves itself.

 

The rise of electric cars and hybrids is hardly a given.  Current projections out to the mid-century time frame suggest an adoption rate for hybrids of around 40 percent.  Electric vehicles projections are hovering around a 5% adoption rate.  Both of these can be easily upset by a dip in oil prices like we have seen recently.

 

Furthermore, as Duke87 said, the electricity for that has to come from somewhere.  It will most likely come from the grid because it is the most cost-efficient means to supply that electricity.  To supply some napkin pad math: the average American drives approximately 15,000 miles per year.  The Tesla Model S has a maximum efficiency of about 3.5 miles/kWh.  This gives the homeowner an additional burden of about 4,300kWh per year.  Couple this with the average family owning two cars, and you're looking at an additional electric burden of about 8,600kWh per year.  Depending on where you live in the United States, your annual household electricity consumption ranges from about 6,400kWh to 15,000kWh.  In other words, depending on how you live and drive, you could see your electric bill double.  Good luck squeezing that much energy efficiency gains out of the average household.

 

(On a side note I just considered, houses have an upper limit on the amount of power they are capable of drawing.  We have already reached the point where service panels are being equipped with extra circuit capacity and higher main breaker ratings.  How many older homes would be capable of supporting multiple electric vehicles charging at night?  How much would it cost to upgrade them to that capacity?  The parts for such an upgrade are cheap, but it is a time-consuming process, and the man hours do not come cheap.)

[Duke87 1,070]

Greater efficiency lowers the need for baseload demand, and thus fossil fuel power generation, further pressuring the balance of stable vs. intermittent energy sources.

 

To elaborate on this point, the trouble is that several efficiency measures reduce consumption during off-peak hours a lot more than they do during on-peak hours. LED street lights, for example, do save energy, but only at night and therefore they don't have any benefit for reducing the system peak. A lot of air conditioning savings also revolve around ramping things down during off-peak hours, without helping the peak much or at all. This does create problems for utilities because it widens the gap between baseload demand and peak demand, which in turn means you actually need more peak generation because you're starting with a lower baseload.

 

Efficiency programs in New York have traditionally focused a lot on energy (kWh) without paying too much mind to peak demand (kW). What the state has now found is that over the course of the last decade overall grid utilization is lagging because a lot of savings are only being realized off-peak. In response to this the state has now started offering incentives for people to do things that don't save much or any energy, but reduce their peak electric demand, such as using ice storage, or changing their chillers from electric-driven to natural gas-driven.

 

 A design for grid-scale battery storage is expected to go into testing this year, and if the operational data is good, we may have a semi-viable solution before the decade is out.

 

Okay, this is news to me. Got a link?

 

 The rise of electric cars and hybrids is hardly a given.  Current projections out to the mid-century time frame suggest an adoption rate for hybrids of around 40 percent.  Electric vehicles projections are hovering around a 5% adoption rate.  Both of these can be easily upset by a dip in oil prices like we have seen recently.

 

The current dip in oil prices is undoubtedly temporary and won't have a long term impact on the economics of alternative propulsion.

 

But at any rate, while it's hardly a given that significant adoption will happen, it's hardly a given that significant adoption will not happen. If greater energy storage densities become commercially viable, and if the costs of electric vehicles come down, we will see more of them. I would take any prediction for "by mid-century" with a lot of grains of salt because 2050 is still 35 years away. 35 years ago, in 1980, home computers existed but they were in their infancy. I'm sure most people then would have thought it absurd that by the year 2015 they would be orders of magnitude more powerful, a lot cheaper, and could be made small enough to fit in your pocket and also make phone calls. And yet here we are. On the other hand in the 1950s some predictions were made that everyone would have self-driving cars by the year 2000, and well, we don't. Attempts to predict the future in the long term are rarely accurate.

[MilitantRadical 2,844]

Kinda jumping in here without following the conversation, but still on the topic of climate change.

 

What do you think about Obama using geo-engineering to create polar vortexes?

 

From the article:

 

"Tapping the Vortex

The report concludes that the most effective way to put the kibosh on U.S. drought is to increase wintertime snowpack, which would provide a key water source in the spring when crops emerge. The best way to do that: manipulate the jet stream to a more southern trajectory during wintertime to create a polar vortex that would spawn intense snowstorms. The report recognizes that this would mean harsh winter conditions for many parts of the country.

"Americans will suffer this winter," the report predicts, "but consumers will be thankful next year when the price of a Coke drops thanks to lowered high fructose corn syrup prices spurred by a bumper corn crop."

When Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly asked of the risks of a political backlash, President Obama responded, "Marty, if we can take down Osama on a wing and a prayer, manipulating the climate is child's play."

U.S. Takes the Geoengineering Jump

After the report was completed in August 2013, the administration began implementing the plan, a plan, I'll admit -- though I'm in no way a fan of geoengineering -- I'm in awe of because of its simultaneous simplicity and genius not to mention sheer chutzpah. (If nothing else, the program should silence all Obama's critics who yammer on about his purported indecisiveness.)

Key to the program were apparently specially designed flexible cords made out of nanofibers (basically high-tech bungee cords) and a personnel team from the Navy, Air Force, and U.S. Weather Service. Unwitting participants included: the airline industry and anyone who took a transcontinental flight this winter. NSA expert James Winkywinc explained that the program exemplified the spirit of military/civilian partnership even if the partnership was a secret to the public participants. Through a process that remains top secret, the Navy and Air Force tied one end of the bungee-like cords to commercial jets and the other to the jet stream and then used the jets' trajectory to pull that baby southward to form the polar vortex.

It may seem incredible, but it worked. Last winter the United States saw repeated intense polar vortex episodes (see also here) with one of the coldest winter in 20 years and snowfall breaking records in many areas of the Northeast and Midwest."