DailyDirt: Will Renewable Energy Be Enough To Curb Global Warming?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientists are 95% certain that human activities have been responsible for most of the climate change observed on the planet since the 1950s. Apparently, we've already burned 54% of the 1 trillion tons of carbon that would need to be emitted into the atmosphere to increase the average global temperature by 2°C (3.6°F) -- a threshold set by climate negotiators in Copenhagen in 2009 to avoid catastrophic climate change. Unfortunately, even as we try to reduce carbon emissions now, some predict that we'll still surpass the 2°C limit by the end of the century. Will renewable energy be able to curb global warming while also satisfying our energy-hungry ways? Here are some energy-related links.- Scientists are saying that nuclear power will be necessary to make a significant impact in reducing global warming. While those who oppose nuclear power argue that wind and solar energy can be scaled up to address our energy needs, top climate scientists believe that we need to work on developing safer nuclear power as well. [url]
- If you need another reason to ditch coal in favor of nuclear power, here's one: the coal ash emitted by a power plant is actually more radioactive than nuclear waste. The uranium and thorium naturally present in coal is concentrated in coal ash, such that it puts out 100 times more radiation into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. [url]
- Kyocera is launching a 70-megawatt solar power plant in Japan that will be able to power 22,000 homes. The plant's 290,000 solar panels are set offshore on Kagoshima Bay, occupying an area of about 314 acres.[url]
- A 2-megawatt wind turbine has been set up about 12 miles off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, as part of an effort to turn the quake-ravaged area into a clean energy hub. Two more 7-megawatt wind turbines will be added to the floating offshore installation, with the eventual plan to increase the wind energy capacity to 1,000 megawatts. [url]
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Filed Under: climate change, coal, coal ash, energy, ipcc, nuclear, renewable energy, solar, wind
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IPCC not credible
Stop with the BS...
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Re: IPCC not credible
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Re: Re: IPCC not credible
Only a loser chooses personal attacks instead of debate...
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Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
His second is not relevant (A single year's delta is not climate).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
Again, no facts, just attacks...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
What you're talking about is that there has been no change in surface temperatures over the last 16 years. This is true, but irrelevant, as the surface temperature is not where most of the warming is happening. 90% of it is higher in the atmosphere. Also, it's the upper-atmosphere warming that is particularly problematic.
Here's a real, meaningful fact: warming as actually measured on instruments appears to be increasing at about twice that researchers predicted.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
The general "Cassandra" model requires sea-level rises of significant amounts to occur (1 metre and above). Even the figures that have been released by the IPCC (the last time I looked at their reports) have been on the order of 1/3 mm per year. Considering that tidal changes can be on the order of many metres (depending on location) over the day, sub-mm changes/year are not significant. There is more environmental effect from wind changes due to high rise building and wind turbines than from any significant effects in average sea-level rises due to ice melt.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
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Re: IPCC not credible
Putting all the alarmist rubbish behind us, we need to be doing considerably more work to understand the entire cycle of climate change. At this point in time, we do not understand the processes involved. We theorise, and much of the research is politically motivated.
I have spent time reading various research articles in relation to this matter and it is plainly obvious that from the evidence presented and the conclusions reached that on the whole, the climate scientists are as puzzled by what is happening as anyone else.
The biggest problem we face is that if there are things that can be done (from not building in the wrong places to changing building standards appropriately to modifying how we manage other aspects of our environment) appropriately then we need to understand what we are looking at. Crying wolf (as the Anthropogenic Climate Change "Cassandra's" do on a regular basis - Global Cooling or Global Warning) does not in fact engender confidence by the general population in taking the appropriate measures to protect life and limb. The debate and studies need to be taken out of the political arena and brought back to actually studying what the reality is.
Personally, I think we are more likely to have more problems with volcanic and earthquake events and the after effects of these than we are to have with ice-melt and ocean-level rises. A storm surge or Tsunami cause much more damage than any minor (in mm range) sea-level rise. If anything was to happen to Sol, we would then see more extreme damage occur. Putting up high-rise building along coastal areas cause more damage to the coast much more quickly than any minor sea-level rise.
So let's get real and look at the overall environment before heading down politically motivated paths.
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Re: IPCC not credible
Only people with money to lose from moving away from fossil fuels are fighting that it is not occurring..
The debate on the subject is OVER !!
It is also not an experiment you want to make if you have no where else to go to in case you are wrong !!!
and its not just global warming, it is the extreme weather events that result from the small changes in the earths weather due to this warming, Katrina and so on.
If there is no warming and no sea level rises why does London have to build massive barriers to hold back the massive tides that now occur, that was once in a 1000 year even that now happens several times A YEAR !!!
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Re: Re: IPCC not credible
Lest you forget, those claiming that global warming is real are the same people who back in the 70's claimed that we were entering a new ice age. They're making vapid claims in order to push through environment-control measures and, of course, line their own pockets. They're full of crap.
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Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
And, in any case, they never claimed we were entering a new ice age. The did claim that according to the periodicity of ice ages in the record, we are due to be getting one -- but "due" can still mean thousands of years away.
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Re: Re: IPCC not credible
That's not true, there are also idiots. It's just a US thing though, right? Everyone else realizes what's going on?
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Re: Re: IPCC not credible
Really? Do you have any evidence that Robert Lindzen of MIT and Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph and Robert Spencer of the University of Alabama, or even Anthony Watts of the blog Watts Up With That and the folks who run ICECAP, all have "money to lose from moving away from fossil fuels"? Or is this just an ad hominem attack: anyone who disagrees with the IPCC can be dismissed as an oil industry shill without evidence that they are, and without considering the validity of any critique they offer?
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Re: Re: IPCC not credible
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Re: IPCC not credible
Agreed it is a political issue, one group wanting to force their ideological viewpoint onto everyone else irrespective of how much actual evidence supports their position.
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Re: IPCC not credible
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Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
Your second is irrelevant (a single year's delta is not climate).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
In their study of media coverage of the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, Media Matters for America found that nearly half of print media stories discussed that the warming of global surface temperatures has slowed over the past 15 years. While this factoid is true, the question is, what does it mean?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/18/global-warming -pause-meaning
"Deniers frequently call attention to the fact that, since 1998, climate change has leveled off considerably after a steep upward trend throughout the eighties."
“The IPCC must address difficult issues like this, absolutely,” said former IPCC chairman, Bob Watson, in an interview with RTCC last month.
- See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2013/09/23/global-cooling-how-will-the-ipcc-explain-15-year-temperature-hiatus/# sthash.gSSJolfd.dpuf
_____________
Clearly, your approach to Facts is to dismiss the Facts that don't fit your narrative.
2nd Fact:
"Since publication of the original version of this article, the US source of the figures – the NASA-funded National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) - was discovered to have made a huge error and then quietly corrected the figure without mentioning it.
On September 4, (2013) NSIDC, based at the University of Colorado, stated on its website that in August 2013 the Arctic ice cover recovered by a record 2.38 million sq km – 919,000 sq miles – from its 2012 low."
"And now it's global COOLING! Return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 29% in a year
533,000 more square miles of ocean covered with (arctic)ice than in 2012 (933K total in the world)
BBC reported in 2007 global warming would leave Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013
Publication of UN climate change report suggesting global warming caused by humans pushed back to later this month"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/And-global-COOLING-Return-Arctic-ice-cap-grows -29-year.html
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
Reiterating the irrelevant local, single year delta does not make it relevant to GLOBAL CLIMATE.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: IPCC not credible
"slowed over the past 15 years."
What are you talking about???
No Facts to support anything your spouting Mr. Delusional...
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Re: IPCC not credible
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Re:
Solar is the best of the bunch, but not going to be enough on its own. We've got to pursue them all, INCLUDING nuclear.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/the-alternative-energy-matrix/
And it DEFINITELY won't last forever. A couple hundred years, at the rate we're going.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
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Re: Re:
By "it" you mean fossil fuel, or nuclear? Because fission is a stopgap - we'll run out of uranium eventually too. We have to completely switch to renewables in the next few hundred years at most.
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Re: Re: Re:
Anyway, by "it", I meant "all of it". The increase of human population. The growth of human economies. No form of energy generation will be enough to last us forever.
At the current rate of growth, even if we cover the entire surface of the earth with 100% efficient (ha!) solar panels, we won't make it 400 years.
Really, it's a fascinating link.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
I clicked it, but it's more than I have time to read right at the moment. I'll check it out later.
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Re:
but all the data is available, you are welcome to get your calculator out and do the math yourself...
also solar and wind have their own serious environmental impacts, probably worse than nuclear power for sure, probably on par with coal power generation.
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Re: Re:
If you are correct (which is only true in the short term), then we will be shutting down industry, because the fossil fuels are going to run out.
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Re:
You can TRUSt most of the scientists..The main problem that has happened..
Shoddy building materials
NO maintenance..
NO UPDATES..
NOT testing all parts at least 1 time per year..
WE WANT to use the most radioactive materials that dont break down, in 10,000 years.
DISPOSAL..
ANd most of the Plants out there are 50+ years old.. And even your house has UPDATES/FIXS in the past 50.. And metal pipes and Valves FAIL..esp if they ARENT USED..
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what is worse is that a nuclear power plant operating normally PUT NO radioactive waste into the environment, not 100 times less that coal.
Because nuclear power stations store the waste on site or at special sites, releasing no radiation into the surrounding environment. So coal power plants would release infinitely more radiation into the local environment.
In fact, I have been to a nuclear reactor, and inside the containment building there is LESS radiation INSIDE the containment building that what occurs naturally by background radiation.
You get more nuclear radiation from the sun outside than you do INSIDE the reactor building !!!, and none is released into the atmosphere, its all stored in containers.
Thousands more people are killed because of coal power generation that has even been killed by nuclear power generation (A YEAR !!)..
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Re: Re:
Zero people died from radiation released from Fukishima. The effected population is being monitored extremely closely.
The gulf oil spill killed 12. That's an important difference. And Katrina killed 1,800. That's not even the same ballpark.
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Any potential radioactive materials from the 3-Mile Island accident never even left the containment building. It performed exactly as designed.
I was a reactor Operator in the US Navy and I can tell you that working in close proximity to a reactor for 6 months at a time is safer than one weekend at the beach. You do more damage to your body smoking 1 pack of cigarettes than working, eating, and sleeping, on a nuclear powered submarine for 6 months.
If anyone needs the REAL truth about nuclear power, feel free to ask someone who actually works in the field.
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Re: Toxic Lies
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IPCC credible?
You entire comment demonstrates that that you are or do not have the ability or wherewithal to debate the merits of your viewpoint. I pity your offspring because it is such attitudes that end up leading to pogroms the world over.
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Actually, no.
Umm, I don't know where you got that, but that's not what the linked story says. It says that coal ash releases more radiation into the surrounding environment than nuclear waste does. That's because nuclear waste generally isn't disposed of by releasing it into the surrounding environment like ash is, not because it's less radioactive.
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Re: Actually, no.
(Not that that makes it right. Titles aren't written by the same people that write the article, and are often wildly inaccurate.)
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Problem
they like it Isolated and have to use TONS of wire to send power..its easier to CONTROL who gets power..
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Keep churning out the CO2
The historical record is on the side of CO2 being a net positive. In last 100 million years, CO2 levels were once higher than 2000 ppm. In earlier periods, with much higher CO2, the earth was warmer,wetter, ecologically more diverse, less desertified and had much less ice. Declining CO2, over the last 100 million years, corresponds closely with a colder, drier, desertifying and frozen planet. Given a choice between the former climate and the latter, I choose the former.
I quibble with the entire notion of “renewable energy”. I believe the phrase is fallacious and sidetracks the whole debate. There is no renewable. There are different methods of power generation that utilize varying combinations of finite resources and finite land. Wind and solar are capital and labor intensive, toxic in their manufacture, and utter hogs of finite land. Other renewables like Hydro power are extremely limited in their application and destructive of the physical environment. Hydro power ruins freshwater fisheries and has been catastrophic for marine estuaries by impeding the normal ebb and flow of water.
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Re: Keep churning out the CO2
What's your solution? Burn up the coal, oil, and natural gas until it's gone, and then....
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Re: Re: Keep churning out the CO2
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Natural Climate Change vs Anthropogenic Climate Change
There is much discussion today about extreme weather events as if they are the result of anthropogenic causes. But on closer investigation, one can find many extreme events over the last hundred or so years (and much longer if one is willing to look into the recorded information, including newspapers, books, photographs, letters, etc). In recent years we have had cyclones and anti-cyclones such as Haiyan in the Philippines and Katrina in the USA. These events have had profound and extreme effects on large population groups. However, look at cyclones like Tracey and Althea, and we see extreme events occurring in early 70's, or go back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we see such as
March 1887 sea-level 5.5metres above highest spring level
March 1890 Burdekin 431mm rainfall in 24 hrs
Feb 1893 907 mm rainfall in 24 hrs
Jan 1918 932 hPa
March 1918 926 hPa
March 1923 sea-level 7 metres above mean level
Feb 1936 949-953 hPa
Dec 1976 (Ted) 950 hPa
with Australian measurements for cyclone activity being as follows
Cat 1 - >985 hPa
Cat 2 - 985-970 hPa
Cat 3 - 970-955 hPa
Cat 4 - 955-930 hPa
Cat 5 -
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Natural Climate Change vs Anthropogenic Climate Change part 2
Cat 5 -
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Natural Climate Change vs Anthropogenic Climate Change part 2
I have done the base calculations for the ice-melt 1 metre sea-level rise over a century and the quantity of energy required is roughly equivalent to exploding 45 25 Megaton nuclear bombs each and every day and channelling all the released energy directly into the ice for melting only.
Based on the amount of energy needed to retained in the atmosphere for the duration, back of the envelope calculations indicate that the average global temperature would need to rise by between 700 - 900 degrees Celsius above current levels. A more finely tuned model should be able to get a more accurate temperature rise.
So we would need to put huge levels of water vapour, carbon dioxide and other gasses into the atmosphere to get these levels. If we did get the required rises, then I would expect that all ice would melt worldwide. But, life on this planet would have long been extinct before this.
I have put my calculations to some of the anthropogenic climate change scientists and one of the leading ones, here in Australia, said he would look at the figures and get back to me over them. However, that was over 5 years ago now and I am not expecting any response from him.
Extreme droughts and wet weather has been a distinctive feature of the Australian environment for a long time, centuries and millennia. Unless the anthropogenic climate change pundits can come up with more concrete evidence to support their view, I'll stick with natural events as being the majority cause of the current climate changes.
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Re: Natural Climate Change vs Anthropogenic Climate Change part 2
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climate change not happening ??
Look at it this way if you like, keep using coal and oil and in 50 years there will be none left, then what are you going to do ?
Sure CO2 increased, and you are saying trees will simply soak it up, except we cut down all the trees as well, building wont soak it up, its also making the oceans acidic and dissolving the shells of animals and coral's.
and what if your wrong, what are you going to do about it when the earth is fucked ?? go somewhere else ?
do you find it strange that most people who are stating there is no climate change from the emission of CO2 have a financial incentive to have that stance, or have been fooled by someone who has that incentive.
and its not simply the amount of energy the earth retains, its also the heat and energy radiated by the earth itself did you factor that in ?
did you factor in the reflective index of ice ? in your calculations ?? If not then your calculations are totally incorrect and meaningless.
the faster you lose ice, the faster you lose ice, it is accumulative, ice reflects light far more that ocean or land, so when the ice melts the surrounding land gets warmer, and more ice melts, and the surrounding land gets warmer, and more ice melts, and so on.
CO2 also IS a greenhouse gas, more to the point it depletes the Ozone layer that filters a great deal of the heat, so it is a 'second process' greenhouse gas.
See if you have carbon that molecule attaches to an oxygen molecule (ionised oxygen in the upper atmosphere, ozone) and converts the ozone (layer) into more CO2 and CO (carbon monoxide).
yes big weather events happened in the past (why the say things like 1 in 100 years event ect) but these '1 in 100 year events' are now occurring 1 in 10 years or 1 in 1 years or 4 in 1 year, that's the difference.
So buy a new calculator, and do you homework, and please stop listing to big oil for your scientific knowledge.
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Re: climate change not happening ??
Let's take each of your points one by one shall we.
On what basis is this correct? What are your facts to support this? I have heard this same comment many times over the last 40 years and I see additional resources being "discovered" in each decade to extend the amount of time we have left. The actual resource reserves are not yet quantified. We will at some point exceed the limits of known resources and we need to have the appropriate plans in place to handle this.
One of my "hobbies" is looking at fuel efficient engines. how to increase the performance with a greatly reduced fuel usage. There are many different techniques available. However, these will not take off because they are "disruptive" to the current industrial base, and as a consequence, the current industrial base will do what is needed to destroy/delay such technologies. This does not include hybrid or electric vehicles.
Another of my "hobbies" is related to design of alternative "wind turbine" designs. One of which has good potential where I live. Part of my "research" involves different configurations and determining the output power vs wind speed for each of the configurations. The base configuation is an unmodified unit to give me a baseline power output/RPM vs wind speed input. The "research" is based on a number of different ideas from various fields, including an effect that arose from a friend when he was building his steel furnace. He was trying to gauge airflow and his first attempt failed magnificently, which is basis for my testing. This effect is seen is many different places if you look carefully enough.
My goal is to get to about 15kW production with a min of 5kW to supply all my needs, other than vehicle. If I get to that level, I'll being looking at an electric vehicle for local travel as I then should be fully self-sufficient energy wise.
Just this morning, I came across an article in one of the science mags (I can't remember which one, I was more preoccupied with the upcoming blood extraction process) about the effect of increasing temperatures on coral and about their resilience to the changes. Over 40 years, we have had various scientific groups go on about the destruction of The Great Barrier Reef along the Queensland coat and no matter what the disaster being predicted, the reef has managed to recover and be healthier each time.
In terms of CO2 ppm concentrations and what is "good" or "bad" levels, I have seen various information that strongly indicates that the current levels are right at the bottom of what is life sustaining. Below 200 ppm and major disaster ecologically, above 8000 ppm, animal life is in perilous danger. we are currently below 300 ppm. Plant life has better growth characteristics up around the 1000 ppm or so mark. So what are we doing to actually check what is the ecologically sound level we should be maintaining?
My calculations for ice melt are purely based on the actual energy requirements to make a phase change between solid and liquid forms for H2O. To get the phase change, it requires a specific amount of energy. There is no two ways about this. The amount of energy is the problem. It has to be channelled into the ice for the phase change. The other factors will determine how this can occur, but any energy that impinges on the ice will also affect the surrounding land and atmosphere. The atmosphere heats much faster than does either solid or liquid H2O. You can do the tests and observations yourself here, it doesn't take a climate science degree to check this.
Since there is a simple energy equation here that cannot be ignored, my calculations are completely valid as a starting point. Any suggestion that a 2 or 3 degree Celsius is going to supply enough energy to cause ice melt is ignoring the actual phase change physics involved. Just to put this into perspective, the energy required to cause a phase change at 0 degrees Celsius of solid H2O to liquid H2O of 1 kg of Solid H2O will cause that 1 kg of liquid H2O to go from 0 degrees Celsius to about 84 degrees Celsius. This is an aspect of the physical characteristics of H2O at one atmosphere.
That is true, however H2O vapour is MUCH more significant as a greenhouse gas, by many times over.
When I was a young lad, extensive floods and cyclones were a common feature each year. We were use to major flooding and getting prepared for cyclone season was a normal yearly event. After I left the area, things changed and the area experienced a multiple decade drought. I came back many years later to visit my father and commented on the fact that there were now houses in an area that was flooded every year as a youth. My father's response was to say that the local planning people were completely ignorant about the historical flooding of the area. Just a couple of years later, that entire area was flooded and the houses destroyed and the prevailing comments were about the unprecedented extreme weather has caused the flooding. Ignorance of history leads to such stupidities.
I don't need to buy a new calculator and I have done my homework (I am engineering trained and have been doing systems development for decades). There are simple physical facts that one cannot ignore, but I have yet to see any concrete proof that the models in use are taking into consideration that actual energy requirements for phase change.
So far none of your arguments stand as credible (you appear to simply parrot your ideologically stand point without giving refuting calculations). When you can demonstrate that the laws of physics related to solid-liquid phase change for H2O have been revoked (or a process that greatly reduces the required energy for phase change) come back and present this information here for a valid discussion.
I have worked for big oil and they are out there to grab as big a profit as they can. I don't listen to big oil because (at least here in Australia) they fudge the facts to get prices that they want. Australia actually has considerable reserves of oil, natural gas and coal that would last us for a long time at very cheap prices. However, oil company revenue, government royalties and taxes means that we as citizens pay a premium for these resources. This has some beneficial effects into making alternatives for energy production now more viable.
A final note, has anyone actually looked at the cost (energy wise) for the production of compact fluoros. The actual cost to the consumer is actually higher than using the old incandescent. The design of compact fluoros ensure that you have to replace at a rate that does not offset the amount you save in using them. The major problem with them is internal overheating. If you want them to last, you have to modify the case to allow airflow cooling to occur. Bad design.
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IPCC
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that means if you use energy from the grid, you pay x amount. if you use energy from solar panels, you pay x amount - y amount (energy not taken from the grid) + z amount (to compensate the energy companies for not using the energy they produce and reducing their profits!)
end result being the customer is still paying the energy companies the same amount, saving fuck all at all while still being screwed big time, just like before!
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Re:
Has this actually happened, or are you speculating?
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The deniers are out in force today
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Re: The deniers are out in force today
1. They are hard-core Popperians and regard 15 years of level temperature data, toward the end of the period falling outside even the 95% confidence intervals of the IPCC's models as a sufficient falsification.
2. They actually understand that while weather is not climate, climate is weather, averaged over time and place, and that an averaging process does not somehow render a non-linear chaotic dynamical system predictable -- a recent survey suggested that 63% of professional weather forecasters doubt large-scale anthropogenic climate change. I suspect this is the main basis for their skepticism.
3. They regard groups that advocate increased government control of the economy, particularly in ways which hobble economic growth, with the same sort of suspicion with which many posting here regard the oil and gas industries.
4. They have more regard for the school of climatology based on astrophysics (prevalent in Russia, but with some representatives in the U.S. and Western Europe) than they do for the school of climatology based on general circulation models of the earth's atmosphere, and are much more concerned with the lack of solar activity of the sort correlated with ice-age events than with a rise in atmospheric CO2.
5. They still think of the Medieval, Roman, Minoan and Holocene Warm Periods in terms of their older name "Climate Optima" and think a bit of global warming would be a good thing -- just think about the possibilities for the British wine industry -- certainly better than a new ice age.
6. They are sufficiently familiar with paleoclimatology to regard the entire temperature rise from the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1850's to the leveling off of global mean temperature in the early 2000's as insignificant, and the whole thing as a proverbial tempest in a tea pot.
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Actually
And so on...
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Re: Actually
That helps, but conservation/efficiency will not be anywhere near enough to completely get us off of fossil fuels. We need a lot more renewable energy, too.
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http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2008/04/29/global-warming/
Climate change is a fact, but the idea that it's caused entirely or even largely by us is little more than opinion.
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Thanks for the link
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I don't deny that climate has gotten stranger over the years, but watching darryl trying to squeeze a thought out of his lips is like watching a violently erupting fountain. Except that instead of water, it's a mad cascade of foam and spit.
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simple steps - renewable energy for housewarming
Better and more scientific is to calclulate by yourself.
For example: If you want to heat your house with a renewable energy source like firewood calculate how much firewood is needed to substitute the amount of gas or oil you use within a year. Then choose the right technic to solve the problem how the energy inside firewood can be comfortable be deliverd into all rooms of your house.
Simple steps find simple answers to complicated questions.
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