Comments GreyFlcn has made

Something else to keep in mind.
The atmosphere above the South Pole is significantly different than the rest of the world.

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/how_we_saved_the_ozone_layer/

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=838

Perhaps they should focus on the Regulatory approach for the "worst offenders".
In particular, toss up some more roadblocks on building more conventional coal power plants.
Much simpler to eliminate things that don't exist yet.

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0429-hance_cleancoal.html

Not to mention, it'd have the nice sideeffect of causing the "Pro Clean Coal" lobby to slam on full reverse with the rhetoric, if we play their bluff. All the while playing well rhetorically for Obama and co.

Orng,
So wouldn't that basically amount to a carbon tariff on imported goods?

So lets say US Debt goes up instead.
With the primary consequence being inflation.

Is that regressive, or progressive?

http://libertyminnesota.com/2009/03/inflation-the-ultimate-progressive-tax/

So basically his argument is that we need to give permits out for free, or else they will actually cost money.

So basically the pollution is free now.
What McCain wants is to keep the pollution free.
Since polluting our environment is a Constitutionally protected right.....

The catch being that all of those other things are extremely tangible.
The other trick about those is that they don't have anything analogous to "offsets".

So you have something that you can't see, can't monitor, which you have to assume "on faith" that the "market" will solve all problems.

Complexity isn't really the issue.  Transparency is.

_

The other issue I guess is that those other programs are relatively simple from a financing standpoint.
You give money to the Fed.
The Fed spends the money.

.

Well one has to first realize that the way that FUD works is based on the premise of confirmation bias, and apathy.

One also has to realize that the way that FUD becomes truely effective is when any counter-argument is blocked off.   To be blunt, we aren't reaching the FOX News viewers.  No matter how compelling our arguments are.

One effective way around this though is to use Satire to make a public mockery of the FUD culprits.
The interwebs loves it's grand satire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mceBUmBK6Hc
http://greyfalcon.net/ideology.png

"One big bill"
So basically the same strategy used in the last energy bill?

Gobs of pork, with a RES&PTC, minus the RES&PTC

The problem there though being the "Well you already got your carbon law.  Now you say you want more?"

_

Also if we're focused on preventing some of the worst behavior, a "carbon-disincentive" might proclude instead using the regulatory approach.  For instance beefing up the Clean Air Act of 2005 would have far more potential to deal with coal fired power plants than a carbon disincentive.

Or perhaps a national "low carbon fuel standard" would be far more effective in dealing with Tar Sands.

More to the point, for it to be lying, we would have to assume that George Will isn't an idiot.
I think we can fairly assume, that a guy this successful isn't a moron.

And frankly, "Lying" versus "Intentionally being highly misleading", is merely a distinction without a difference.

Well, not to mention.

Companies are not people.
However they are endowed many of the rights of a person.

That said, any entity which is not fully responsible for their liabilities, shouldn't be entirely "free" from regulation.

Many of the world's leading economists would agree that the right thing to do is increase sales taxes and cut income taxes.

Don't you mean increase sales taxes, and cut "payroll" taxes.
Cutting income taxes would be absurd.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/NRST-percentile.png

Well put it this way

He kinda bumbled it when it came to his CO2 and Temperature chart.

If anything, that's a significant weakness (rhetorically) in explaining climate change.

When what he should have been covering there is Milankovitch cycles.

Instead that just provides raw fodder for people to say he's wrong.

_

Furthermore, I say reputation, because frankly there's no way you can get the right wing to stop blindly hating him.  Much in the same way that you can't get them to stop blindly hating Hillary Clinton.

So the more important thing to point out is that

1. Al Gore is not a climate scientist.  He's simply a messanger. (Or if you will, a pundit)
   
2. Scientists are the ones that actually make the analysis.

I believe this is important because the way Skeptics try to argue things, is that they can merely pit Punditry versus Punditry.

Rather than Science versus Science.

-David Ahlport

Meh

I don't really care about Gore.

I'm far more concerned with the actual science behind his message, than his personal reputation.

-David Ahlport

_

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-reality-chec ...

-David Ahlport

Not to mention

The prospect of this gargantuan reprocessing/breeder reactor infrastructure being economically viable is pretty slim.

Especially compared to the trouble conventional nuclear is having, where it can't even get private financing.

-David Ahlport

re: JosephThePoet

The delusional demand that we instantly stop all coal usage

And then start working on new clean energy, and EVENTUALLY phase out the old ones.

Besides which, it's not like we don't have other viable sources of energy to go after.
http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/solarbaseload
http://greyfalcon.net/egs

-David Ahlport

So

So, what's worse to leave to future generations.

Intangible, and reversible Economic damage from deficit spending.

Or Tangible, and Irreversible damage to our Atmosphere from not acting quick enough to create low carbon infrastructure.

-David Ahlport

Lol yes, let's start screwing over Lake Chad

What a great idea!

Let's degrade Lake Chad even further!

http://climateprogress.org/2008/06/20/lake-chad-now-more- ...On Chad fights charcoal in battle against creeping desert posted 9 months ago 10 Responses

"Sounds great".....

Now where's this magical source of biomass going to come from?

As is, our energy sector is already larger than ALL biomass from the ENTIRE United States.

http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits2.png

-David Ahlport

Methods aren't Goals.

We need to put a price on emissions, period.

You're confusing methods for goals.
And that's the wrong way to go about thinking.

What we need is to:

1. Get off coal and eventually natural gas electricity
   
2. Get off oil for transportation
   
3. Stop destroying biological carbon sinks

Especially when it starts to get extremely complicated, and is enforced by politicians who are unwilling to inflict pain.

I'm starting to think the more effective way is to
Step 1. Build alternatives via deficit spending
Step 2. Scale them up
Step 3. Simply have the Fed start buying up old cars, and old power plants via buybacks, or perhaps even eminent domain.

_

Markets are specifically built to solve short term problems. But a "market" approach just doesn't cut it if you're trying to solve a long range problem.

That's why we have government. To do what the market can't do by itself.

(Kind of like how our brain has both long term and short term memory.  We couldn't function right without both of them.)

-David Ahlport

As such

We tend to see hydrogen as a technology which is pitched as "environmental" however it's not achieving our goal of reducing greenhouse emissions.

As such, we see it as an poorly spent opportunity cost, that could be put to far better use NOT being spent on hydrogen.

Saying we should "Do everything" is nice, however time and money are two things we are painfully short on.  And asking us to waste both of them, we find that offensive.

-David Ahlport

First things first

Bio,
 I know, I just looked at that chart yesterday.  I agree with you on passenger cars.  Im consciously asking something different.  And I'm showing balance by saying to the hydrogen advocates, "hey maybe if you look over there at those things with wings, maybe that would be more productive and logical market for you".

Well,

1. If they were going to go down that route, it'd probably be CNG, not Hydrogen.  Better compression ratios, and the fuel needs a lot less processing.

2. Transcontinental travel is pretty high hanging fruit.  Think it'd be better to focus on gasoline/diesel, coal fired power plants, deforestation, and agriculture policy before we even begin to think about air travel.

I'm a little surprised that no one has yet mentioned the Honda Civic GX, the passenger car that runs on compressed natural gas (CNG).

Well I've always kinda wondered how a CNG Hybrid would compare to the Clarity.

Considering they were pretty neck and neck before the Clarity added their regenerative braking.

That said, I wouldn't really paint CNG as the best route forward either.

Since almost all US reserves are in Shale.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/study-unconvent.h ...

And there's some pretty concerning climate issues with that.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/scientists-link.h ...

-David Ahlport

Lol

Hydrogen is ready now.

A few multi-million dollar test models doesn't really imply "ready".

-David Ahlport

Should be interesting

To see coal advocates turning around and saying "OMG COAL CCS DOESN'T EXIST!"

-David Ahlport

Feedbacks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

-David Ahlport

$1 billion

$1 billion over 4 years.
Not bad.

That's more than Solar gets in 70 years....

-David Ahlport

re: George Will

Lets see how George Will is wrong:

"1970's cooling"
http://greyfalcon.net/cooling
http://greyfalcon.net/cooling2

"Downward Trend"
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps2.png

"Sea Ice"
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/09/you_cant_make_thi ...
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/twits-and-ass-a ...

-David Ahlport

American Political Feasibility.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Feed-In tariffs have led to 10 times more carbon reductions than cap and trade.

And while effective, it does have the effect of raising electricity rates. (Which also may be a significant part of why it is effective.  Since it has both push and pull.)

However when it comes to political feasibility, in America.

I'd say that if you consider that nearly every major uptaking of American history has been financed by debt.

it would be more politically feasible to have a similar deployment strategy as Feed-In Tariffs.
However to finance it via debt.

Especially when you consider:

1. Infrastructure gets a return on investment
   
2. We're helping out future generations, so it's not terribly bizarre to have future generations help pay for it.

-David Ahlport

re: Hapa, on Machiavelli

Actually his point is quite similar to David Robert's argument.

Entrenched Powers, Interia, Uncertainty of Alternatives.

Meanwhile not much more than a "aspirational goal" from the American people to get off the stuff.

It's most certainly an uphill battle.

-David Ahlport

Well

Pretty much the counter argument to this,

Is this one,
http://greyfalcon.net/gingrich2

And Lomborg's argument that if you assume the least possible damage from global warming, and assume zero positive fringe benefits from dealing with global warming, that it makes more sense just to nothing.
(Yes, these are the assumptions that go into Lomborg's model)

-David Ahlport

Nuclear Waste?

Why, oh why, are you wasting money on crappy technology like this?

-David Ahlport

Sane?

The only "sane" biofuels policy would start with creating a "sane" feedstock source.

And pretty much the only thing that comes close to fitting the bill is algae.

-David Ahlport

Getting a bit tedious

The satellite temperature data accumulated over the past year has now refuted global warming.

It is not only that the temperature of the global atmosphere has been declining for the past 10 years.

The data now shows that the atmosphere does not display the temperature pattern it would if global warming was heating the earth,a pattern which even the UN's models show would be necessary if global warming were true. Game over. QED

-David Ahlport

Hey Bill

How much is this going to cost us?
http://greyfalcon.net/dubainukes.zip

-David Ahlport

re: Joffan

a moderate but limited tax credit is potentially available for the first few years of the first few new-design nuclear power plants.

And as you say, current nuclear plants get nothing in this line

first few years of the first few new-design nuclear power plants.

And no-one seems to be paying

If only we had a better alternative than "No you can't, but we can" hypocrisy.

-David Ahlport

Talking Points

Well then Joffan, (And Karen too)

Why is it your talking point to argue that power plants that have recovered all of their capital costs, aren't presently receiving assistant for capital recovery.

And then therefore equivocating that it's cheaper to build new versions of these power plants.

Even when new versions of these power plants would receive far more capital recovery assistance.

_

You seem to be forgetting that there hasn't been a new Nuclear power plant built in over 30 years.

Where as wind, has has a dramatic increase in installations over 2007.

-David Ahlport

I'll bet you

They still didn't cover the El Nino Southern Oscillation cycle, or Milankovitch cycles.
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/milankovitch

-David Ahlport

re: Joffan

Nuclear power - and this is nuclear fission power - does not consume anything like the amount of budget you imply;

And taking your curiously-phrased statement about "federal electricity related R&D subsidies", which in itself is a clear indicator of cherry-picking, it is also false, since nothing like that amount of R&D is spent on nuclear power - noting your use of the present tense.

That's because Nuclear power has gotten over half of all federal electricity related R&D subsidies over the last half century, and individually every year for the last decade.
http://greyfalcon.net/energyresearch2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/energyresearch.png

what was that corn ethanol remark about?

-David Ahlport

re: stopgreenpath

What bugs the snot out of me though is how he acts like local solar panels, wind turbines, do not require a grid.

Which I guess is true if you want to include a large bank of expensive and low cycle life batteries on EVERY house.

But short of that, it's basically saying that a slightly augmented version of the status quo electricity sector is just fine.

When that's suicidal, if one takes global warming the least bit seriously.

-David Ahlport

You would think, but in practice.

The Government CAN NOT USE the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay the damages to the companies for failing to keep to their schedule. It has been specifically indicted against such an action:

-David Ahlport

re: Karen Street

Wind still requires a 1.8 cent/kWh subsidy

If you're talking about tax support that allow for increased capital recovery rates.

All US Nuclear power gets an equivalent of an Investment Tax Credit.

All of their profits that are earmarked for decommissioning are entirely tax free.
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear ...

Meanwhile the funds are still freely available for high risk capital investment.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/10/10/fina ...

One might even say it's even better than what Solar gets, since it's a higher percentage of the total cost of ownership, and it's available for up to 60 years.

Where Solar only get 30% of their profits tax free, for 10 years. (Only 10% for 10 years for Geothermal)
http://www.dsireusa.org/library/includes/incentive2.cfm?I ...

___

Meanwhile if we want to talk about "New" Nuclear that gets:

1. A 1.8 cent per kwh subsidy
   
2. An investment tax credit
   
3. A multi billion dollar cost overrun fund
   
4. Nearly 40 billion dollars worth of loan guaruntrees
   
5. More R&D money than the entire rest of the electricity industry combined.

-David Ahlport

re: Sindark

Or basically, the argument libertarians seem to like is that they can "disagree with reality" because they don't like the political implications.
http://greyfalcon.net/reality.png
http://greyfalcon.net/gingrich2

Logically, it's a completely bankrupt argument.
But emotionally, it has some sway.
Especially when you consider Cognitive Dissonance.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_ ...

___

That said, most the arguments I've found with Skeptics is to prey on the fact that most people don't understand the climatic impact of the El Nino Southern Oscillation cycle, and the Milankovitch cycle.
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/milankovitch

-David Ahlport

re: bill fraser

but doesn't encourage moving closer to your job, carpooling, or bicycling.

Besides which, the thing that does that most isn't behavior, or price signals.  It's urban planning.  i.e. Command and Control "Central Planning".
So doubly a moot point.

-David Ahlport

So why not just get straight to the point?

What is most urgent is green infrastructure, and regulations. Carbon pricing is reinforcement.If we can do everything at once, great. But if in the real world of politics some things have to take priority over othes, then Infrastructure and regulation should be the priority.

Wouldn't it be more prudent to focus on promoting federal support for Green Infrastructure Banking?

And Regulations that make things harder for new development of Coal, Shale, Tar Sands, and Deforrestation.

Hell, federal support for Utility Decoupling could go a long way.

-David Ahlport

So what if

Instead, they merely did a massive roll-out of "Green Infrastructure Loan Guarantees"

Since what we're really after is Green Infrastructure Investment.

-David Ahlport

Uhg,

And most astounding of all - the icecap has already started showing rather plain signs of recovery.  Yet you, Al Gore and others continue to point to a cooling & regrowing icecap, saying; "Watch it melt!".

What are you talking about?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/09/you_cant_make_thi ...

Yeah 2008 was cold, but that's hardly a "trend".
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina

-David Ahlport

As mentioned

No Offsets
No Giveaways
No Ceilings

Then you might actually have yourself a worthwhile system.

The real question then is, "What do you do with the auction money".

Dividends?
Carbon Reduction Grants?
Both?

-David Ahlport

Actually

I think the real naming issue is "Those who think we should take action to deal with manmade global warming"

Climate Activist for some reason doesn't quite strike me right.

How about "Climate Realists"

-David Ahlport

Hate to say it

But I think the video would be better without Al Gore.

-David Ahlport

So how about

"Carbon Tax&Rebate"

-David Ahlport

K.I.S.S.

If you want to achieve 80% reductions, which is the whole point anyway.

Except that we both know that carbon pricing will never be high enough to be prohibitive to expanding carbon intensive practices.

So ultimately what we're after is how we spur investment in Greener:
-Electricity
-Transportation
-Agriculture
-Forestry
-Cool/Warm Buildings

You are comparing carbon tax proposals by academics with no need to gather votes, to watered down cap/trade bills specifically weakened to attract moderate votes.

Primarily because of the mere existance of offsets. Which by their very nature, aren't designed to decrease emissions, they are designed not to increase them. To extend the status quo.

A policy where you can build that coal plant, as long as you pay someone somewhere else to maintain a few acres of trees, isn't really something that drives a move AWAY from the status quo.

And I do not think it's politically possible to separate offsets from cap&trade.

Not to mention the whole premise of a price ceiling and allocations essentially remove any benefit you'd get from auctioning.

_

So again,
What I'm saying is that a weak carbon tax, is better than a watered down cap&trade policy, f or the purpose of encouraging investment in changing the status quo.

And a weak carbon "tax shift", would be even better.

Not to mention, we already have nearly all the political institutions needed to regulate, oversee, and collect taxes.

We do not have a complex oversight mechanism for auctioning, offsets, and permitting.

_

And of course lastly, given our current economic debackle with a gigantic implosion of speculative markets, a policy which does not have speculative market as it's core function, is most likely the better one.

-David Ahlport

True

Extent in the dead of winter has been rather constant.

Extent in August though, hasn't been at all.

-David Ahlport

Go to back to Geometry class

The total sea ice trend (Arctic plus Antarctic) appears to remain fairly constant, with major seasonal swings, as always.

Manacker apparently doesn't understand the difference between Area and Volume.
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/twits-and-ass-a ...

-David Ahlport

re: Max Epstein

You can't guarantee that a CO2 tax will have a certain CO2 price, or higher.

Say you institute a CO2 tax of $X, rising $Y or Y% every year. You want 80% reduction by 2050 and anticipate, say, a 5% reduction within the first five years. After five years, when actual emissions reductions end up being only around 1% or perhaps as high as 10%, the tax will be changed after the fact.

If significantly greater emissions reductions than anticipated happen, or if they happen too fast, the excessive carbon constraint will be seen as a significant competitive disadvantage in the globalized economy and so a political liability likely to be reversed.

Remember in 2004 people were talking about a new era of Republican dominance. That lasted for all of two years. I'd take the cap/trade's economic forecasting uncertainty over the carbon tax's political one, hands down.

-David Ahlport

re: Cost Certainty

if the tax must be adjusted every five years ago to stay on track for 80% reductions, which it certainly would, where's the "cost certainty?"

This in turn allows companies to make investments on that baseline.

Cap&Trade on the other hand, with a price ceiling, offsets, and allocations would be "It will be the same or lower than it is now." Not good for investment.

_

I think we can all agree that they aren't going to set prices high enough to be prohibitive.

And if you aren't going to have prohibitive prices, then you might as well have a reliable one.
_

The best answer is a strong cap/trade without offsets and free allocation.

If we're going for "ideal of what's possible".

I'd almost prefer a carbon tax, with carbon reduction grants. A feebate.

Atleast then you'd get "double" of a relatively small price put toward green investment.

-David Ahlport

To be fair

Chu also said:
"Coal is my worst nightmare"
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/12/11/stev ...

-David Ahlport

re: BioD

Well the other problem with "Prizes"
Is that you generally wouldn't reach the benchmark needed to win the prize, for years.

And by that time, the size of the prize would be a pittance compared to the size of your normal annual profit.

_

Besides which, Prizes make the assumption that we need drastically new technology to achieve our goals.

When what we really need is plain investment.

-David Ahlport

Or basically

Anybody who calls themselves a "Skeptic", but doesn't care about Objectivity, isn't a skeptic.On U.N. says ignore the cold, warming is still a problem posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 17 Responses

This again...

Anthropomorphic global warming is a hoax.  So says the rocket scientist who developed the carbon accounting model for Australia.

Except that:

1. David Evans is not a rocket scientist
   
2. He's not even a scientist (He's an electrical engineer / computer programmer)
   

3. All he really did was create a piece of accounting software with a user interface

4. He's bluntly wrong
   

5. Not only is he WRONG, but the irony is that this is actually one of the strongest pieces of evidence that shows that greenhouse induced global warming is occurring.

___

*The Troposphere (Atmosphere above the surface)
*The Stratosphere (Above the Troposphere)
*The rest is too thin to matter

Sunlight turns into infrared radiation as it bounces off, and leaves the earth.

Infrared radiation causes heat.

The troposphere has been getting warmer, while the stratosphere has been getting colder.
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing2.png

As if "something in the troposphere" is increasingly blocking infrared radiation from reaching the stratosphere.

The greenhouse layer is in the troposphere.

If it were the sun increasing it's output, the stratosphere would be receiving more infrared radiation, not less.
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing.png
http://greyfalcon.net/solar.png

-David Ahlport

As I said

The catch is that the greenhouse layer, and the surface are different.

The amount of water vapor in the greenhouse layer is regulated by the temperature there.

Less heat, means more condensation, then it turns to water and falls straight out.

More heat, means less condensation, which means an increasing holding capacity for water vapor in the greenhouse layer.

_

That said, there's already an EXCESS amount of water vapor below the greenhouse layer.  So adding more excess wouldn't really make much difference.

What's more, the water vapor cycles such that it only spends a few days in the greenhouse layer so wouldn't really much matter anyways.

"Long Lived Green House Gases" on the other hand spend decades to centuries in the atmosphere.  Which gives them plenty of time to accumulate.On U.N. says ignore the cold, warming is still a problem posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 17 Responses

More like this:

"Infrared radiation doesn't cause heat!"

The AGW theory states that the increase in CO2 will cause more evaporation and thus put more water vapor into the air.

http://www.agu.org/journals/scripts/highlight.php?pid=200 ...
http://greyfalcon.net/watervapor.pngOn U.N. says ignore the cold, warming is still a problem posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 17 Responses

Well

1. As was brought up in the tax versus auction debate, what might be more important is if you put a carbon price on coal, BEFORE it has the chance of being sold overseas.

-David Ahlport

Why do Nuclear advocates

Always use the word "Only"?

As if that's their real argument that "No other possible options exist!!!"

Kind of a pathetic argument to make.
(And yet that's the one that they keep using)

-David Ahlport

In short

We need to supply China with a viable alternative to electricity creation.

We're already half way there in proving to them that electric cars/transit is the transportation of the future. Not oil.

We need to prove to them that Coal also can be replaced.

And the only way that that's going to happen is if we lead the way.

-David Ahlport

An interesting knock-on effect

An interesting knock-on effect of levying taxes upstream.

Lets say you have a coal mine, and by issuing this tax, they aren't able to raise their prices, and they just cease production.

Well, by taking that production off the market, you would increase the scarcity of coal.

Increased scarcity = Increased cost

____

That said, one problem which would need to be addressed.

What about Coal exports?
http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalEnvironment08/idUSTR ...

An upstream "mine mouth" tax would be pretty easy.

A downstream tax, most likely wouldn't catch it.
And would allow for US coal mines to continue operation (albeit as an export industry).

-David Ahlport

Well I can agree there

Upgrading a parallel hybrid to be a plugin hybrid is just an amazingly complex beast.

A common car is already the most mechanically complex consumer item we by.
A hybrid makes that a lot more complex
And adding a rack of batteries, even more so.

On the flip side, an electric car, or even a series plugin hybrid on the other hand would be even less complex than a conventional car.

Different architecture.

-David Ahlport

Or basically

Batteries, like Microprocessors and Cars, benefit greatly from economies of scale.
http://greyfalcon.net/batterycost.png

-David Ahlport

re: stopgreenpath

Would you please quit with that bullshit.

Net Metered Solar Panels need a Grid just as much as anything else does.

Whining and moaning and saying how they magically DON'T is just dishonest, and annoying.

_

Either give us a REAL solution, or shut up.

-David Ahlport

I dunno

I kinda like Gates.

GATES: "We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the coming years."
"What is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security"
http://greyfalcon.net/gates
(Video doesn't really pick up until about 11:00 minutes in)
http://greyfalcon.net/gates2
http://greyfalcon.net/diplomacy
http://greyfalcon.net/diplomacy2
http://greyfalcon.net/peacecorp

Not to mention, Accountability is a pretty nice change of pace.
http://www.slate.com/id/2193114/

-David Ahlport

Yeah

I thought it was kinda "strange" that CarbonTax.org's "Winning Arguments" section prominently features a report by AEI.
http://www.carbontax.org/winning-arguments/

Of course they are talking about offsetting income taxes, not payroll taxes. (Pigs haven't started to fly yet)

But interesting to say the least.

-David Ahlport

Well first off

Joseph D'Aleo isn't a climatologist.

He's a meteorologist.  And while many climatologists are also meteorologists.
This one certainly isn't.

He's just a glorified TV weatherman.

-David Ahlport

Well

A safety valve is kind of a "well if it gets expensive or politically inconvenient, then we can just back out of doing it"

So yeah, a safety valve kinda does undercut pretty much all carbon pricing models.

-David Ahlport

"You can't be serious!"

You're talking as if we should fund climate change as if it were a matter of economic and national security.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/20 ...
http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2008/12/18/10192/710?sho ...
http://www.grist.org/pdf/AbruptClimateChange2003.pdf

World War II, well that was important.
It had a guy with a mustache, doing bad things!
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0702-26.htm
But clearly this isn't anywhere near as important.
Because clearly nobody's going to die from a little heat, right?
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/effects-of-global ...
This is merely just supposed to be a bureaucratic gesture to satisfy those hippies and employ a bunch of corrupt scientists, right?
And worse comes to worst, we got 50-100 years to deal with it, right?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0914-01.htm
No big deal, huh?

-David Ahlport

Although

Maybe I am off base.
Inflation would probably be regressive...

http://ezinearticles.com/?Inflation-and-Social-Security-- ...

-David Ahlport

Perhaps

But even then how much could we get away with diverting from fossil fuel subsidies?

Tops, we're looking at 3 billion a year diverted away from Coal.
http://greyfalcon.net/subs.png

Which of course, you wouldn't even get that much, because the "clean coal" people would freak out, and spend a few million on ad campaigns against that.

-David Ahlport

Or more specifically

The federal government took out loans, through Treasury Bills.

_

Last I checked, there's such a huge demand for Treasury Bills right now, that they are trading at a NEGATIVE interest rate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/09/treasury-bills-t ...

-David Ahlport

Ahh

That makes more sense.
A solar powered car port.
(Likely net metered, rather than battery storage)

-David Ahlport

Well one question.

Carbon tax?  Try passing a "new tax" in a recession/depression.  Hoover did it, why not try it again?  

In the middle of the great depression, how did we pay for World War II?
http://greyfalcon.net/debt2.png

Also, since we're only talking about 2% of one year's GDP to finance everything.
If something like that were to pull us out of our current depression a few years sooner than what would otherwise happen.

How much is that kickstart to our GDP growth worth?

-David Ahlport

Translation Error

Likely a translation error involving the fact that "ALL new Prius's will now have a solar panel"

Catch being it's just a tiny panel, designed to improve the battery life, by topping off the batteries with a trickle charge.

It doesn't actually improve driving range. (Much less drive the whole car entirely)

-David Ahlport

Wanna know what's even worse?

The author of this article is a Stanford California University Professor who heads their "Program on Energy and Sustainable Development".
http://pesd.stanford.edu/people/davidgvictor/

Perhaps someone should email that guy....

-David Ahlport

Climate Primer

What I'm surprised is that there isn't much of a "Climate Science Primer" out there.
(i.e. A barebones need-to-know understanding of some of the key aspects of climate science)

For instance,
* For 10,000+ year periods, the primary changes in earth's temperature is caused by changes in the earth's orbit relative to the sun.  But that's far too slow to explain the past few decades, much less the past few centuries.
http://greyfalcon.net/milankovitch

* How the Sun doesn't explain the bulk of what's going on in the past half century because the region above the greenhouse layer is getting colder, while the region with the greenhouse layer is getting warmer. (If it were just the sun increasing it's output, both would be getting warmer.)
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing2.png

* Not to mention, we've had 3 sets of satellites up for the past 40 years, and the solar irradiance has dropped off, but the temperature keeps going way up
http://greyfalcon.net/solar.png

* How water vapor, while it is the dominant cause of our greenhouse effect, the amount of water vapor in the troposphere is dependant on the temperature of the troposphere. (Not the other way around)
Which means that Carbon based Tropospheric Warming leads to increasing holding capacity for Tropospheric Water Vapor. (i.e. a Megaphone effect)
http://greyfalcon.net/watervapor.png
(Which by the way, is that A. Dessler guy who I think it is?
http://www.agu.org/journals/scripts/highlight.php?pid=200 ...)

* And how 1998 and 2008 can't be meaningfully explained without the inclusion of the El Nino Southern Oscillation
(Followed by the stupidity of basing any trendlines primarily on those years.)
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/enso

* 1934 versus 1998 thing was local to the mainland US.  Not global.
http://greyfalcon.net/ustemps.png
http://greyfalcon.net/globaltemps.png

* the numbers on the carbon cycle
http://greyfalcon.net/carbon2

* Aerosols; Cloud Condensation Nuclei, why cosmic ray theory is bunk, and the importance of peer reviewed physical science journals.
(In short, the aersols formed by cosmic rays are way to small, and the rays don't have any meaningful correlation)
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/05/things-heat-up-climate ...
((And any attemps at a correlation focus on timeframes of months, when if there was a real correlation it should come into effect in minutes))
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/10/svensmark-stumbles-int ...
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/cloudy-day-nexus-6-hav ...
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/07/throwing-in-towel-one- ...
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/02/from-another-life.html ...

* A direct attack on the twin arguments of:
"If ONE variable doesn't explain ALL climate behavior, then it cannot explain ANY climate behavior."
"There are UNLIMITED variables, therefore it's so complex, we can't even begin to understand anything, so we might as well just do nothing."
(i.e. Put Solar+Aerosols+ENSO+GreenHouseGases and even though that doesn't explain things down to the tiniest detail, it does a pretty good job of it)
http://greyfalcon.net/lean2005.png

*And of course, put forward the argument that
"Why the earth is warming" cannot be debunked by
"I don't agree with the Science, because I don't like the Political Implications"
http://greyfalcon.net/gingrich
Or debunked by "Well you can't tell what will happen when/where exactly as a result of the warming, ie Hurricanes, Sea Level Rise, etc"
Because the core thing (for Now atleast) is "Why the earth is warming".
Not "What will happen as a result of warming".

* The thing that really has scientists hair on fire:
The prospect of non-linear warming caused by Feedback loops (i.e. thawing ice/permafrost/hydrates).

* And of course, lastly I propose labeling ourselves, as:
"Climate Realists"
(Since as mentions, there's a lot of benefit to framing things in the possitive, rather than the negative sence.
Otherwise those ensuring the choice of abortion for women would call themselves the "Anti-Life" movement)
(And sure it's slightly pretencious to say that you're a "Realist". However no more so than to say that "climate skeptics" are the only scientists who are skeptical.  All scientists who trust in empirical evidence are skeptical.)

Roundup:

• Milankovitch Cycles
  
• Sun's limited Role: Solar Irradiance versus Temperature doesn't match
  
• Sun's limited Role: Tropospheric Warming, Stratospheric Cooling
  
• Water Vapor MegaPhone effect, and why Water vapor alone can't "cause" warming.
  
• 1998 and 2008 are tied to the ENSO effect
  
• 1934 wasn't "hottest" globally
  
• Basic Carbon Cycle Numbers
  
• Aerosols, Cosmic Ray Theory, and Why psuedo-science doesn't cut it
  
• Climate isn't determined by 1 variable alone, nor by unlimited primary variables
  
• "Disagreeing with Reality" because you don't like the Political Implications, is delussional
  
• Not knowing exactly the outcomes of this warming as we move forward, doesn't mean we can't know the root causes of the warming we've already experienced
  
• Non-Linear warming can be damned scary : Tipping Points
  
• "Climate Realists"

(p.s. Hate to use a hobby as an analogy, but I tend to do this whenever I get into a video gaming community, and want to train up some newbies)
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=7 ...
http://greyfalcon.net/ns
http://greyfalcon.net/tf2

-David Ahlport

Charts are good

http://greyfalcon.net/concentrate.png

-David Ahlport

Well

Perhaps one selling point of a carbon tax angled towards building infrastructure.

Is that you'd be certain of a persistent price shift.

And that persistence builds longer term confidence in the sector.

-David Ahlport

Well

It doesn't hurt that the Vice President takes Amtrak every day.

-David Ahlport

HAH!

modularized mass-produced small reactors

Aka. Easily accessible Nuclear bombs.
Great idea!

-David Ahlport

Proven?

Perhaps.
But not commercially proven.

Saying that you can build something with deficit spending, and then run it as a federal monopoly isn't proving much.

-David Ahlport

Couple unanswered questions

I have a couple questions with the specifics of a carbon tax.
________

My main question with a carbon tax, is
"Who would be in control of the pricing"

Would it be something where the Congress would vote on it every few years?

Would it be an independent entity, like the Federal Reserve?

Or would it be something like an annual increase, that's also indexed for inflation?

________

One could even question where the tax would be charged.

Would it be charged as a fossil fuel charge at the point of bulk wholesale for oil/coal/gas.

Or Would it be charged one the end products themselves, like a tax on a bag of chips.

________

How would you deal with products shipped in from overseas?

________

Lastly, why would a dividend be more ideal than investment in infrastructure, or preventing tropical deforestation?

________

Lastly, what is the PRIMARY purpose of this carbon pricing mechanism.

Is it to discourage bad behavior
Or is it to encourage good behavior

_________

Is the whole purpose of a dividend to make it so that you could raise prices high enough to discourage bad behavior?

-David Ahlport

Vagueness

A very insightful comment as fourth generation plants can reduce storage time from 130,000 years to 270 years (page 5).

From what I can tell, "4th generation" seems to be as vague a term as "clean coal".

What I think you're specifically talking about is Breeder Reactors / Fast Neutron Reactors.

-David Ahlport

*sigh*

Fourth generation nuclear power (4th GNP) and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at present are the best candidates to provide large baseload nearly carbon-free power (in case renewable energies cannot do the entire job). Predictable criticism of 4th GNP (and CCS) is: "it cannot be ready before 2030." However, the time needed could be much abbreviated with a Presidential initiative and Congressional support.

Kind of a weird statement.

"Best candidates"
"Although they aren't anywhere near being ready."
"But they could be ready sooner if we give them a lot more subsidies than we already do"

Wouldn't that make them "not" the best candidates?

But I guess I can understand couched statements like that as chasing towards the political middle to for the mere purpose of consensus building.

Just kinda of a weird statement coming from a guy who says "We need to act as soon as possible!!!".
When the soonest current 3rd gen Nuclear powerplants are projected is 2020.
And 4th gen and CSS are hardly even in their pilot stages.

-David Ahlport

One thing to consider

Tropical forests don't only have to deal with the tree's carbon.

But they also have a large amount of carbon beneath the soil

AND the trees themselves emit water vapor during the day, and not at night.  This allows for the region of the earth that gets the most sunlight, to reflect sunlight back out into space.

You get a lot more bang for your buck in tropical regions.

-David Ahlport

As always

The issue with ethanol isn't the conversion process.

It's the scarcity of raw feedstock.
And scarcity of ingredients to make that feedstock.

Just not enough land, water, and fertilizer to do the job.

-David Ahlport

Well

Well, perhaps the biggest question mark I have for a carbon tax.

"How would the pricing mechanism be done?
How would the cost of carbon increase?"

Would congress have to pass each increase?
Or would it be an automated annual escalator, indexed to inflation.
Or would there be some independent governing body like the Federal Reserve?

If you could answer that question, I think a lot of people might be more open to a Carbon Tax, instead of a Carbon Auction.

-David Ahlport

Charts are good

http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png

-David Ahlport

Details

No nuclear power plants currently receive anything like the PTC all renewables  get, and only the first 8GW of new nuclear capacity will.

1. Nor should any power plant, of any type, that's fully amortized it's capital costs.

2. Nuclear annually gets more money in R&D than all other electric R&D subsidies combined...

3. First the 8GW limit used to be 6GW.  What's more, the PTC can be transferred to other future plants.  So it's not actually "the first 8GW".

-David Ahlport

Perhaps

We should open up those on-land shale formations, with tons of methane in them...

That sounds like a great idea!
We can call it "The T Boone Pickens Plan"

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/scientists-link.h ...
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/study-unconvent.h ...
http://drive55.org/content/view/82/38/

-David Ahlport

re: Jon Rynn

If you are looking for storage,
I'd keep an eye on "Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage".

Basically CAES, except instead of burning natural gas, to create heat, to released the compressed air.

You instead use the heat stored during compression.

_

If that pans out, you might have a killer storage tech on your hands.On Old Man Winter declares war on renewable energy posted 11 months ago 33 Responses

Well

Put it this way

1. New Nuclear power plants will be getting far more Federal Support than New Solar/Wind/Geo projects.

2. Older Nuclear power plants have gotten plenty of help with bankruptcies, financing, and power purchase agreements.

3. The argument that we should be accounting for per-kwh subsidies towards fully amortized power plants of any sort, is entirely dumbfounding to me.

4. The R&D budget for solar/wind/geo relative to Nuclear speaks for itself.

5. If the Nuclear industry isn't going to fully pay for the real costs of dealing with Waste and Decommissioning, then the US Taxpayer is going to be the one that would end up paying for it.

_

All in all, the usual strawman of comparing annual subsidies to total capacity just bugs the hell out of me.

Because it's simply dishonest.

-David Ahlport

Not to mention

The per-KWh subsidies for New Nuclear power plants are already much larger than the subsidies for Wind and Solar.

Getting both a PTC, a cost overrun fund, and 100% capital financing.
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclear

-David Ahlport

Heh

Except that Browns Ferry isn't really "New".

The thing nearly had a meltdown in the 1970's, and it was only recently brought back on line.

-David Ahlport

Subs

That's in spite of the fact that we subsidize the hell out of coal and nuke.

Yeap.

http://greyfalcon.net/subs.png
http://greyfalcon.net/coalptc.png
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclear

-David Ahlport

Man

I really should index this stuff on a webpage rather than just trying to remember it all.
http://greyfalcon.net/etoh2.png

-David Ahlport

Here's a chart

Which ironically comes from Argonne Labs.
http://greyfalcon.net/eoth2.png

-David Ahlport

Blame Rachel Maddow :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/28202086#28202086 ...

-David Ahlport

Well I will say this

If Nuclear were to gain serious deployment, it's not going to come from LWRs and PWRs.

-David Ahlport

Heh

Biofuel lobby wasn't too happy about this Jacobson study either:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/ ...

-David Ahlport

For instance

This study over here says good sticks are better than good carrots:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/08/taxes-versus-subs ...

Also, if the issue is for tipping "The marginal difference between building new power plants".

You only need to shift the marginal different.
Not subsidize the entire cost.

_

Granted, making carbon prices high enough to shut down existing, fully-amortized power plants would be much higher.

But at first, are those really the plants we want to be going after?

-David Ahlport

Oh crap

"He's working on the Black Mesa Project, oh noes!!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGlhgVz5r6E

-

Sorry

-David Ahlport

Well DrX

Unless you plan on attaching a large battery array to your solar panels.
Then you are going to need to rely heavily on the grid for a majority of the year.

_

That said, something like ESolar's 33MW modular solar thermal power plants.  That I can understand.
It is centralized, but less so.

_

But it just annoys me when you get stopgreenpath blathering on here as if NetMetered solar panels have no reliance on the grid.

That's just moronic.

-David Ahlport

Well

One might ask, what is the primary purpose of creating a climate credit system?

Is it primarily to disincentivize bad things, or primarily to incentivize good things?

-David Ahlport

Heh

The usual arguement is that,
"We have so much coal, therefore we must use coal"

When our untapped solarthermal and deep geothermal resources, make coal and all other forms of energy combined look pathetically tiny.

http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/solarbaseload
http://greyfalcon.net/egs

-David Ahlport

Solve the big problems first

Actually solving deforestation is closely linked to providing electricity and clean fresh water.

we need to provide electricity and transport not just to US, China and India, but to the whole world.

To be frank, the rest of the world could stick with oil and coal, and we'd still be ~80% of the way there toward zero carbon perfection.

-David Ahlport

Ever notice

How Republicans always say that dealing global warming would be an "Economic Armageddon"?

And then turn around and say that following empirical science is "hysterical"?

-David Ahlport

Looks good

Only problem I'd say is that #3 could use an example.

-David Ahlport

Actually

to ask for your support in the development a flat tax structure to lower the cost on businesses, create jobs and grow the economy."

Assuming they included PayRoll Tax, Income Tax, and (indexed for inflation) Capital Gains Tax, all into one pot, and then did a flat tax on that.

I'd be perfectly fine with a Flat Tax.

http://greyfalcon.net/payrolltaxes.png
http://greyfalcon.net/concentrate.png
http://greyfalcon.net/taxevasion3

_

What I'm not fine with is the so-called "Fair Tax", which people like Gingrich and Paul advocate.  Which is primarily just shifting the tax burden away from the top 1%
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/NRST-percen ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

_

As Teddy Roosevelt (Republican) mentioned:

"The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government. Not only should he recognize this obligation in the way he leads his daily life and in the way he earns and spends his money, but it should also be recognized by the way in which he pays for the protection the States gives him."
http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/hes-no-teddy ...

Other good quotes here
http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/10/teddy-roo ...

-David Ahlport

Oh

And the fun thing with China and India, is that both governments have strong central governments.

If we can set a good example, then China and India can move rather quickly to copy us.

-David Ahlport

That said

We might not even need a carbon pricing mechanism, if we can just knock out the big problems.

Focus on eliminating the need for coal and gasoline, in USA, China, and India.

And reduce deforestation in Brazil, and Indonesia.

If we could just do that, then we'd have 90% of our problem solved.

_

Just makes me think, if that's our benchmark, then there's probably a simpler way to solve "our little problem".

-David Ahlport

Cap and Permit

What they really should do is have two separate systems:

1. "Cap And Permit"  (CAP)
   
2. which creates a fund for
   

-David Ahlport

This is why I don't like offsets

This is kind of why I prefer the concept of having a cap-and-trade without offsets.

Just, Full Auction, Tradable, Bankable, Permits.
Purchased at the point of wholesale.

_

Since ultimately the purpose isn't to provide revenue.  It's to reduce the competativeness of high carbon industries, relative to their low carbon counterparts.

-David Ahlport

So

So any coverage of California's prop 10 or prop 7?

Me, I voted against em.

Basically

Prop 10: Give Natural gas vehicles a lot of subsidies.
(Funded by T Boone Picken's natural gas company, and another nat gas company)

Prop 7: Disallow California's clean energy requirement from being met by anything but +30MW installations, and allow the 3 major utilities to raise rates 10% permanently.
(Funded by the 3 major utilities in the state)

-David Ahlport

So what.

Sounds good, mature reactor technology can support 10 billion people for hundreds of years.

And your point?
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png

-David Ahlport

re: stopgreenpath

Just like to mention,
It gets rather annoying when you make the fake argument that solar panels can provide baseload, and would therefore remove the need for transmission.

Just thought you'd like to know why noone takes you seriously.

_

Try getting yourself some real solutions.

-David Ahlport

_

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/16/mccains-nuclear- ...

-David Ahlport

And of course

The usual argument is "Wow look at the trend line between 1998 and 2008!"
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps2.png

Kind of ignoring that those two years had a rather strong positive and negative el nino cycle.
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina

-David Ahlport

Easy answer

I don't understand the hesitance to use natural gas as a bridge fuel.

Simple answer.  

1. Because there's never anything so permanent as "temporary".  We aren't going to make a gigantic new set of infrastructure, and then rapidly remove it in one year. Infrastructure on average lasts for 30 years.  So building new infrastructure and expecting it to go away in 5 years is stupid.
   
2. Even at it's best, it's slightly worse than diesel emissions.  And significantly worse than a hybrid.
   

3. As mentioned, above.  We don't have enough conventional natural gas to do that.  Which of course would lead to increased demand for "alternative natural gas" from shale formations.
   
4. Natural gas from Shale formations would be the carbon emissions equivalent of driving on Liquid Coal.
   
5. Lastly, in order for a "bridge", to be a bridge, it has to kick off the SAME types of products and expertise.  If we are going to assume that we need a BRIDGE, and that the end goal is Electric drive.  Then our BRIDGE should be Hybrids.  Then Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles.  Then Fully Electric Vehicles.

-David Ahlport

Another study

This was also a pretty good study.

But it requires a sub
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/long/2008/31 ...

-David Ahlport

Clearly

"This calls for more BioFuels!" [/sarcasm]On Amazon deforestation soars, Brazil blames its own land-reform agency posted 1 year, 1 month ago 4 Responses

Heh Bob

Only 2x more?
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen.png
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen4.png
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen3.png

As Earl was mentioning "Aggressive" optimistic scenarios would be 2x. However that assumes quite a lot in favor of the hydrogen vehicle, and related infrastructure. Including of course, regenerative braking with a rapid-charge battery.
It also makes the assumption that you aren't just giving it wimpy acceleration and lightweight materials to put less strain on the electricity demand.

-David Ahlport

Uhm no...

Romm,
I'm gonna have to disagree with you there.

You are confusing stated goals, with actual goals.

_

The "real" Pickens Plan is one word: Shale

i.e. Convince Americans to remove any and all environmental restrictions from extracting carbon/water intensive Methane/Oil from Shale formations.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/study-unconvent.h ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa3kPY1Vdjk

And from a climate perspective this is equally scary as say.... Permafrost, and Methane Hydrates.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/scientists-link.h ...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/uoc--lmr05 ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/e ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20080903/new-report-caculate ...

-David Ahlport

Clash of the Titans!

Well how about we do this all over again with Solar Thermal with Heat Storage:

g) Add The decomissioning costs divided over the plant life time
Thats just silly.  It's not contaminated with radiation. You would instead recycle it at a profit.
And if it's out in the middle of the desert, you'd probably just leave it as is asside from scavenging the valuable materials.

a) Land lease costs for the construction of wind turbines ?
It's a hot desert.  How cheap could you ask for?
Whats more, it doesn't need a 24/7 military grade security guards, and coast guards.

*h) Add the operational costs for manpower + cleaning + maintenance
Heh, add the cost of the same, plus fuel for nuclear.

c) The amount of transmission cable that needs to be laid.
No real difference here.
If anything, modular solar thermal would allow it to be less centralized, and closer to it's load.

f) The amortization costs for this construction
As mentioned. Quick citing, build, and modular installation makes for far quicker Return Rates.
1-5 Return Rates are far more important than 40-60 year amortization rates.

b) The amount of steel and concrete needed, and their corresponding costs.
Thats included in the cost of the plant.  Whats more, it doesn't require a strict level of machining, and building.
Far less technical labor for construction.

e) Similar construction costs for the storage.
Not really, thats built into the cost of the plant, and onsite

d) Multiply your estimates by the inverse of the capacity factor (If your capacity factor is 1/3, you need 3 times as many wind turbines)
Bit more complex than that.  
Ausra figures triple redundancy would give you a 90-93% capacity factor.
And at today's costs, that would be $9000/kW.
Catch being if you account financing, citing, and build speeds.
Which basically boils down to an 5-10 year headstart.
Even at today's costs, Solar Thermal could certainly give Nuclear power a run for it's money.
Although I will now admit it might be slightly in Nuclear's favor.

Ausra however figures they can cut that price in half in a few years. ($4500/kW)
Or at very least, far ahead of when a new Nuclear power plant would even start generating a single watt/hour of power.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/files/MillsMorganUSGri ...
http://www.energycentral.com/centers/energybiz/ebi_detail ...

_____

As for standardization.

The real benefit isn't that.  It's "economies of scale". And economies of scale are far more beneficial to processes with higher numbers of repetitions.

-David Ahlport

Oh come now.

breeder reactors also tend to be economically cheaper than renewable power

1. Conventional Nuclear is more expensive than Industrial Scale Renewables
   
2. You admit, Breeder reactors would be more expensive than conventional nuclear reactors.

(Especially when we don't even have ANY commercial breeder reactors)

And in the context that "Plant Lifetime" is effectively meaningless.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5785236/Nuclear-p ...

-David Ahlport

And of course

I will admit the "baseload/dispatchable" argument is a meaningful one.

However Solarthermal with Heat Storage, and Geothermal however don't really suffer under that.

-David Ahlport

Or ya know what

http://www.slate.com/id/2200302/pagenum/all

-David Ahlport

"Credible", eh?

Well, you say "credible".

Can you find me even one significant scientific institution in the entire world which says that manmade actions aren't a primary cause of the warming we've seen in the past few decades?

Because I'm pretty sure you can't.
http://greyfalcon.net/whatwouldittake

______

That said,
Lets say we entirely ignore global warming.
Poof Gone.
_

Could there possibly be another major reason that we don't want to keep putting billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere?
http://greyfalcon.net/carbon2

Like say, avoiding a major collapse of sea life in the ocean?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521105251 ...
http://royalsociety.org/document.asp?id=3249

-David Ahlport

Technology.

Oh, And as for "technology".
What makes you think climate change advocates are against technological innovation, and deployment?
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/egs
http://greyfalcon.net/ausra

Meanwhile of course, you have the issue of "level market playing fields".
http://greyfalcon.net/coalptc.png
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclear

-David Ahlport

re: Vakibs

If EROEI were everything, then Coal plants would be built more often than Natural Gas power plants.

Whats far more important than the size of the return on investment, is the Speed of Return on Investment.

i.e. "Return Rate"

Nuclear sucks when it comes to Return Rates.
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5785236/Nuclear-p ...

_

The large reason of course why SPEED is far more important than SIZE is because of the cost of financing.

i.e. The Cost of Money.

_

The quicker you can pay back your loan, the better.

_

This if of course why Nuclear power CAN'T GET LOANS.

-David Ahlport

Indeed

That said, most progressives have a deep commitment to science and are much, much more likely to question conventional opinion when science goes against. The most resistant to scientific evidence will always be "traditional" communities who base their ethical worldview on an explicitly untestable creed.

Yeap.
http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/the_real_differ.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jA0OVtvqjk

-David Ahlport

Oh

And for fun on the "OMG CARBON LEVELS ARE WRONG" issue.

There's plenty of individual measuring stations and ice core records that all agree with each other.

But if you want someone to tell you about it, how about you listen to this guy say:
"Of course, the reason why we have had a rise in CO2 over the past century, obviously, that has been caused by industry."
http://greyfalcon.net/carbon

-David Ahlport

Bailout terms: No oversight, No regulation

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty- secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

Didn't we get into this problem in the first place because of a lack of oversight, and a lack of regulation.

-David Ahlport

Say

Care for some George Lakoff anyone?
http://greyfalcon.net/think.pdf

-David Ahlport

Well

Pretty much, what he's describing is the Earth Liberation Front style guys.

Or merely those who are parroting their ideals.

But frankly, I think we can all admit that they are pretty far "out there".
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/1 ...

-David Ahlport

Although

I guess you could say that he's not being immoral if he doesn't know his false statements are untrue.

But then again, that implies he doesn't understand what he's talking about.

So you can slice that either way you like, but neither are good.

-David Ahlport

re: Mad

McCain and people like that are much more centrist.

Excuse me,
But in what way is McCain currently a "centrist"?

Please be specific.

http://greyfalcon.net/mccain3
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/9/19/16223/5194#com ...
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9111.html
http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/
http://howinsaneisjohnmccain.blogspot.com/2008/03/mccain- ...
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/12/mccain-issues-a-chall ...

-David Ahlport

Thank's Coby

Just like to say, I'm glad you're back knocking these myth's out of the park :P

Here's my scribbles on the subject if that helps ya nail some more.
http://greyfalcon.net/climate.zip

-David Ahlport

_

http://greyfalcon.net/whatwouldittake

-David Ahlport

re: Taser, Depends which Renewable

1 Year for Geothermal
1 Year for Hydro
2 Years for Wind
8 Years for Solar

http://www.senate.gov/~finance/sitepages/leg/LEG%202008/0 ...

-David Ahlport

If anything

Atleast there's no Nuclear pork in this bill.

_

It has all the other undesirables though. Like the "Refined" Coal Production Tax Credit, Coal Sequestration Credit, Liquid Coal Credit, and a removal of all taxes on exported Coal.

_

Also looks like I have a better definition of "Refined Coal".

`(7) REFINED COAL-

`(A) IN GENERAL- The term `refined coal' means a fuel which--

`(i) is a liquid, gaseous, or solid synthetic fuel produced from coal (including lignite) or high carbon fly ash, including such fuel used as a feedstock,

`(ii) is sold by the taxpayer with the reasonable expectation that it will be used for purpose of producing steam,

`(iii) is certified by the taxpayer as resulting (when used in the production of steam) in a qualified emission reduction, and

`(iv) is produced in such a manner as to result in an increase of at least 50 percent in the market value of the refined coal (excluding any increase caused by materials combined or added during the production process), as compared to the value of the feedstock coal.

`(B) QUALIFIED EMISSION REDUCTION- The term `qualified emission reduction' means a reduction of at least 20 percent of the emissions of nitrogen oxide and either sulfur dioxide or mercury released when burning the refined coal (excluding any dilution caused by materials combined or added during the production process), as compared to the emissions released when burning the feedstock coal or comparable coal predominantly available in the marketplace as of January 1, 2003.'.
http://www.treepower.org/section45.html

-David Ahlport

"They will die in a level market"!!

When you cancel all the government incentives and put these babies out in the open, they will die before the dirty coal.

-David Ahlport

Science Fiction

we can do it right now, with breeder reactors. We don't have to wait for nuclear fusion, or any other science fiction.

-David Ahlport

Simple

Paleocon, well then

So when we want to talk about "Natural" variables.  

1. For very large 15,000+ year time scales, what we're dealing with primarily is changes in the earth's orbit.  This however is far too slow to be relevant on the 100 to 1 year time scale.
http://greyfalcon.net/milankovitch

2. Natural factors alone do not explain the warming trend we've seen in the past 4 decades.
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing4.png
http://greyfalcon.net/lean2005.png

3. The El Nino Cycle however does explain 1998 and 2008.
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps.png
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina

4. And for kicks, it'd be nice to point out that US Mainland temperatures, and Global temperatures are different things. (1934 was not the hottest year "globally")
http://greyfalcon.net/ustemps.png
http://greyfalcon.net/globaltemps.png

________

As for propositions, how about we attempt to get back down to 380ppm CO2 in the atmosphere.  (i.e. The highest we've ever been in the past million years) Both by reducing emissions, and by enhancing carbon sinks.
http://greyfalcon.net/carbon2

For the US, this would probably be best served by putting a point-of-wholesale surcharge on Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas by CO2 content.  

And then using that money for grants to purchase low carbon end-use technologies, and grants for large scale carbon sequestration projects.
(Or frankly, I don't really care what gets done with the money.  It could also be used to buy a lifetime supply of hookers and scotch for Republican Senators)
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/08/taxes-versus-subs ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

With of course an overall goal towards low cost/carbon electricity, and electric transportation.

Promising technologies for those are:
* EGS Geothermal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6r_3AgI49Y
* Concentrating Solar Thermal with Molten Liquid Salt Heat Storage
http://greyfalcon.net/solarthermal
http://greyfalcon.net/solarthermal2
http://greyfalcon.net/ausra
* PHEVs
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins7
* Nano Lithium Batteries
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge3.png
* Nano Ultracapacitors
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/03/10/nanotech-strikes- ...

_

(Nuclear power of course, isn't low cost electricity. If anything, it's about the most subsidized form of electricity on the planet, and virtually every other nation that does it operates their programs as Federal Monopolies.)
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclear

-David Ahlport

Actually

The issue with train crashes is that you personally have no control over the vehicle.

Therefore, whether or not the vehicle crashes is completely out of your hands.

This uncertainty creates doubt.
Doubt creates fear.

_

It's kinda similar to terrorism.

It's not really a mortal threat at all.
HOWEVER because you have no control over it, and it could theoretically happen at any moment. That seemingly everpresent anxiety scares people.

-David Ahlport

On carbon pricing

What if they just regulated CH2, NO2, CFC's, HCFC's, and certain agricultural/forestry policies etc
_

And then slapped a CO2 point-of-wholesale surcharge on Coal, Oil, and Natural gas.

And then be done with it.

No reason to make it a logistical nightmare, fraught with corruption, and needed oversight.

-David Ahlport

Hypocrisy

By capitulating to the Republicans, as he has on other matters, he surrenders moral authority on struggles concerning the health, safety, and well-being of individuals and the environment.

You don't really have much of a say in this considering you helped elect one of the most devastating politicians for the environment in American history.

You'd rather feel good about your ego, than accomplish anything.

But by all means, Good luck with that "Nader Party" getting a 2/3rd's vote in the Senate.

-David Ahlport

Well consider this

How many big technologies that we use in our every day lives were created because of military or "space race" concerns?

-David Ahlport

Fair point

-David Ahlport

*sigh*

and the loan-guarantees-are-subsidies lie.

....

I expected better of you Cowan.

-David Ahlport

Anyways

On the original topic.

McCain's policy reversal list is a mile long ;D
http://thecarpetbaggerreport.com/flipflops
http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops

-David Ahlport

Arg

Wrong link

This is the correct one.
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing2.png

-David Ahlport

Oh yeah

And over 99% of the earth's atmosphere is represented by the troposphere, and the stratosphere.

It's basically a vacuum after the stratosphere.

-David Ahlport

So

One argument I've heard

Remove the gas tax, but create mileage based car insurance, and tax that.

-David Ahlport

woo

More charts!

-David Ahlport

Hey Vakibs

Your whole speel about India is kinda moot if this passes.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=india+nu ...

-David Ahlport

Loans

When capital costs are the primary cost driver, facility lifetime becomes an issue.

Only in so much as it would harm Renewables ability to get private capital financing.
However, Renewables have no problem getting private capital financing.

Nuclear on the other hand, couldn't get private investment banks to even look at them.  Much less take the plunge for huge risky slow capital loans.

-David Ahlport

To be expected from a source like that

=New plants cost $4/W to construct, more than modern coal plants.=

Thats the overnight cost.

And that does not fully include the cost of decomissioning or waste.

If we want to talk "all in costs" were talking $6/W to $8/W.  And rising.

Whats more, 1.7cents per kwh?
Thats merely the operations and maintainence cost.

The production cost, including cost recovery etc is closer to 10-17 cents per kwh.

-David Ahlport

Apples and Oranges again

The Lasik eye procedures are not covered by insurance, and they have become very affordable because of market competition.

As I said before, just because competition can be beneficial doesn't mean that it's always beneficial.

Similarly, you can't draw a comparison between Medical Practitioners, and Medical Insurance Agencies.

Completely different rule structures and profit motives.  And MOST importantly, LOW MARKET ENTRY BARRIERS.

Insurance, by nature, has very high market entry barriers due to it's inherent economies of scale, and banking infrastructure.  Deregulating it wouldn't remove those barriers to market entry.

As such, you'd end up with just a couple similar big companies which are effectively a cartel. (although frankly, thats not far off from what we got now)

____

If anything, if you look at the Housing market.
Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac functioned pretty damned well for quite some time. (About 40 years)

Then of course, a "deregulation" loophole was created that brought everything crashing down. (Thank Phil Gramm for that) (It basically allowed for high risk loans to be created by Wall Street, and repackaged as low risk loans, which then filtered down into the housing market)

If you know ANYONE who owns a house, they are probably benefiting from a "nationalized" housing loan.

Since they accounted for nearly 80% of ALL US mortgages.
http://greyfalcon.net/oilchart4.png

_

Why can't we do that for healthcare?

-David Ahlport

Oh

And while we're covering narratives.

Notice how the Republicans are trying to say "We're a difference type of Republican.  We want to change and be different than that OLD type of Republican!"

Can anyone say "Compasionate Conservative"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020430. ...

Or "Kindler, Gentler Conservative"
http://www.google.com/search?q=kinder+gentler+george+h+bu ...

___

Old tactics, die hard.

-David Ahlport

Lets compare apples to apples. Ecuador an Orange.

If you want socialized medicine, make sure you know exactly what it is.  I lived in Ecuador for six months and saw very substandard care that was available to everyone.  The best care was in Quito, and that was in in hospitals that rich people and visiting gringos actually paid money for.

Care to explain why every major developed nation in the world, does nationalized healthcare.  AND they get better care, cheaper care, and far less hassle?
http://dreamingup.blogspot.com/2008/07/only-in-america-wo ...
http://www.mnblue.com/node/1877
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/medical_errors ...

Heh, actually one of McCain's "I split with the GOP" arguments is favoring "Importing Cheap Drugs from Canada".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007 ...
_

US health coverage sucks compared to every other major developed country that does National health coverage.

The bridge to nowhere bit was not a lie, and it's not a lie because you say it is. It's not a lie because you repeat that it is a lie. She changed her mind. Call her a flip-flopper, but not a liar.

Except that, She kept the money!
She kept the porkbarrel, and spent it.
_

Thats not "changing your mind".
Thats outright Dishonesty.

i.e. Implying that she did the exact opposite of what she actually did.

_

Either way you want to look at it, that statement was immoral.

-David Ahlport

By the way

This Palin ticket is folding out just as George Lakoff predicted.

_

McCain's cochair admits he wants this campaign to be about "Personality", not Issues.

And yes, we are diverting the campaign to talk only about Abortion, Oil Drilling, and Guns.  And of course, using the familiar narative of "The Unfair Liberal Media".

Meanwhile ignoring the important things, like Education, Tax Policy, Foreign Policy, Health Insurance, Peer Reviewed Science, Social Security, Immigration, Global Warming, Federal Debt, and Upholding the Constitution

_

As Lakoff keeps saying, Republicans are at their most dishonest where they are the weakest.
Aka. Rove Politics 101, "Don't attack your opponent's weaknesses.  Attack his strengths."

Recently for instance, McCain is even trying to imply that Obama promoted teaching full-on sex education to kindergarteners.  When what he was really doing is promoting a program teaching them how to avoid pedophiles and kidnappers.

Thats because McCain and Palin have almost no education policy, or education background.

Palin? An undergraduate degree in Journalism.
McCain? Graduated 5th from last in his class at military college.
Obama, was wildly popular university professor for years, and graduated from Harvard with a masters degree in constitutional law.

Palin/McCain of course, want to continue the "No Child Left Behind" program as-is.  One which is devesting US student comprehention.

Obama wants to change that broken system.

-David Ahlport

Except for the part where Thats Not True.

It would take the choice of which doctors and hospitals everyday, small town folk can go to, reduce competition, and reduce the quality of healthcare. If healthcare were deregulated, competition would drive prices down and quality would be maintained, and all of the working class people democrats claim to care about would have access to great healthcare.

Well lets first consider that:

1. It's in the corporate health insurance providers best interest to deny coverage.  Therefore they try to make it as difficult, confusing and slow as possible.

2. They only want you visiting health care providers within their own network.

3. Medicare is the fastest and most ubiquitous form of healthcare coverage.

4. And you are able to use it at virtually ANY private healthcare provider you choose.  No contracts.  Any mixture you choose.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call what she said an outright lie.

Or how about "Knowingly implied that she did the exact opposite of what she actually did"
_

Regardless of how you want to phrase it, it is an outright immoral action, and she should be called out for it.

-David Ahlport

The other thing to mention though

The Oil drilling ban ends in January.

Republicans can get their renewed offshore oil drilling merely by default.

_

So it seems like the goal of the Republicans isn't anything substantive.  Instead it's merely to take a swipe at them for the election.

-David Ahlport

Can I Has News Coverage?

Perhaps we could shine some light on this:

Previously, Mr. Mustache pointed out that McCain hasn't voted for Renewable Energy at all this year.  8 times in a row.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/opinion/13friedman.html ...

Perhaps the stronger point to make however is that there's more you can do than vote.

• You can sponsor a bill
  
• You can co-sponsor a bill
  
• You can make a senate floor speach about it

(Timestart 5:45) http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/podcast?id=5 ...

Obama, of course, has many times.

==

When you consider McCains statement:

"I'm not one who believes that we need to subsidize things. The wind industry is doing fine, the solar industry is doing fine. In the '70s, we gave too many subsidies and too much help, and we had substandard products sold to the American people, which then made them disenchanted with solar for a long time."
http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/10/01/mccain/

Pretty hard to swallow that "McCain supports Renewable energy".

One might say McCain's real energy strategy is "Do Everything, besides Renewable Energy".

____________

Infact it seems like the only reason McCain has any support for dealing Climate change at all, is merely to dole out PorkBarrel for the Nuclear industry.
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/environmental-groups-le ...
http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2005/05/16/3/

-David Ahlport

What crisis?

the fact that I remember the global cooling crisis of the 1970's

What crisis?

http://greyfalcon.net/cooling2
http://greyfalcon.net/cooling

-David Ahlport

If you're so sure, Name one.

then Tasermons decides that a large government  organization cannot possibly be corrupted expresses that I am of low IQ.

Except that it's not just 1 government organization in question.

Because you can't find even 1 significant scientific institution in the entire world that says that manmade actions aren't a primary cause of the warming we've experienced in the past few decades.
http://greyfalcon.net/whatwouldittake

Taser is implying that you are saying ALL significant scientific institutions are conducting a gigantic conspiracy.

Is that really the type of statement you are making?

-David Ahlport

Pork Barrel Spending?

http://envirowonk.com/content/view/349/2/

-David Ahlport

How about a Deal?

Let's not say that I agree that "climate change" causes "damage." I do not accept the premise. It is BS.

How about this.

Name me one significant scientific institution in the entire world which agrees with you.  And I'll agree that you are right.
http://greyfalcon.net/whatwouldittake

If you can't, then you can agree that I'm right.

Deal?

-David Ahlport

As the national academy put previously

As the national academy put previously

None of the reconstructions indicates that temperatures were warmer during medieval times than during the past few decades.
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx? ...

Oh, and of course, Baliunas 2006 doesn't count as a "real" study.
http://greyfalcon.net/baliunas

-David Ahlport

Oh

Say, not really energy related.

But is anyone covering the issue that Bristol bay represents 1/3rd of America's seafood.

And Palin just Oked dumping toxic mining rubble into it.

-David Ahlport

Marxist? HAH!

Too bad

she has no chance to beat Ellison, who is a lunatic Marxist. But, I guess, that is the 5th district.

For the sake of argument, lets say you agree that climate change would cause economic "Damage".

Lets also say that you agree that the earth's atmosphere is not private property.

_

Are you telling me that it's "Anti-Capitalist" to be asked to pay money, to use/degrade a finite resource, which one does not personally own?

-David Ahlport

We need better Climate Realism.

I've yet to find a good page which pieces together the whole fraud of the OISM petition.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200706060009
http://timlambert.org/2004/05/oregonpetition/

It's been running for so long, and usually you only get tidbits here and there.

_

Not to mention, the "Al Gore's Professor" thing is from Solomon's book of "Manmade climate deniers who don't actually deny manmade climate change"
http://www.desmogblog.com/the-deniers-the-world-renowned- ...

_

And of course, the usual "cooling stage" thing comes from a number of possible sources.

One could be cherry picking 1998 and 2008.
Ignoring the strong positive and negative ENSO's those two years.
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps.png
http://greyfalcon.net/lean2005.png
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/enso

Another could be this guy's model, which incidentally is NOT a global model. It only covers one continent.  And a rather weak continental model at that.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/glo ...
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/the ...

Or it could be way off in right field, and be something like David Archibald.  Which isn't even peer reviewed in a physical science journal.
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/aug/ ...

-David Ahlport

Not just earmarks

She's also great at blowing public money to buy votes. Meanwhile deficit spending for infrastructure and state needs.

She says she "cares for children", but her whole economic policy is about passing the buck to future generations.

Auctioning off the Future to buy votes today.

http://greyfalon.net/palin.wma
http://greyfalon.net/palin2
http://greyfalon.net/palin3
http://greyfalon.net/palin4

-David Ahlport

Or to sum it all up

We should be given an "abatement", for not using oil, at a time when oil is so expensive it's economically impossible to use oil.

_

i.e. WTF

-David Ahlport

Another flaw of McKinsey. It's Methodology.

And while we're at it.

The "cellulosic biofuels" in the McKinsey report assumes that the cost of biofuels infrastructure is $0.

_

It bases this on the assumption that oil will "eventually" be way too expensive by 2030.  And therefore biofuels will automatically be the standard of transportation fuels.

And since the further assumption is that the world transportation must be liquid based in 2030, it assumes that creating biofuels will be inevitable.

Therefore, $0 cost for infrastructure for creation, transportation, and use.

_

This of course is highly misleading when you use it to compare infrastructure costs for competing technologies. Especially within a meaningful timeframe of 2-10 years.

One might even say it's intentionally MEANT to be misleading to advocate for biofuels.

-David Ahlport

Comic

http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/Doonesbury.gif

-David Ahlport

Hey Romm

Check this out from the AP.

Party Platform, McCain Differ on Immigration, Climate
McCain has said addressing climate change would be a top priority if he's elected. He backs mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions and a cap-and-trade system to help bring that about.

http://news.yahoo.com/story//bloomberg/20080827/pl_bloomb ...

_

Smell like BS, huh?

-David Ahlport

On that topic.

While we're on the topic.

How about the most recent Lakoff piece, and how Dems are still getting it wrong on messaging with Palin in the game.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-palin-cho ...

As he keeps mentioning.  What we routinely miss is to declare our principles and values (i.e. Conceptual Views that don't Change).  And why those  principles are important.

And then relate those to the "specific realities" at play.

_

By forfeiting debate, and admitting defeat to conservative values/principles, we do ourselves a great dis-service.

-David Ahlport

Jonas. Facts please.

U.S. subsidies for renewables (including solar and wind) are obscene

Oh come now Jonas, thats not true by any stretch of imagination.

If you want to compare it to Ethanol alone got over 3 billion dollars of subsidy in 2007.
(Although GSI thinks that figure is closer to 7 billion)
http://greyfalcon.net/biotaxes.png

Solar and Geothermal got hardly anything.  14 million each.
http://greyfalcon.net/subs.png

Meanwhile if we want to compare that to Coal and Nuclear, now THAT is obscene.
http://greyfalcon.net/coalptc.png
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclear

-David Ahlport

Oh

And toss in the "I don't believe in Evolution" bit too.

-David Ahlport

Missing the point

Certainly it produces less CO2 than coal when used to make electricity.

Actually, thats the problem.
When it comes from Shale, it might actually be worse than Coal.

And the majoriety of the natural gas that Picken's etc is banking on would come from Shale.

Not to mention CH4 leaks from shale formations are 23x more potent as a GHG than CO2.  And the study there mentioned that Shale formations are the reason for rapid release of methane and CO2, similar to arctic tundra.

_

In short, this whole windmills thing could merely be greenwashing of a highly carbon intensive approach to transportation.

-David Ahlport

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQGsP8mnHsg

-David Ahlport

More than meets the eye.

The whole wind+transmission thing is merely a way to:

1. Make a land grab for water rights to the Ogalalla Reservoir. (i.e. Corner the Texas water market)
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1951/

2. Promote Natural gas transportation, which he is heavily invested in. (Notice how his "Plan" was launched in July 2008.  Notice the direction his stock was heading prior to July.)
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=CLNE#chart1:symbol=cln ...
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-0 ...
http://investors.cleanenergyfuels.com/directors.cfm

3. Which incidentally, natural gas from LNG and from Shale isn't terribly "climate friendly".  And thats where a majority of it would come from.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/shell-in-situ-o.h ...
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/scientists-link.h ...
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/shale-gas-energy-boon-o ...
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/energy/article/0,27 ...
http://www.wilderness.org/Library/Documents/upload/Oil_Sh ...
http://www.mybelmontheights.org/node/642

4.. It doesn't even really make much sense to say that Wind power would replace Natural Gas power, since on average, we generally use COAL for baseload.  And Natural Gas for Peaking.  And Peaking won't be going away.  Especially with a highly variable source of power like Wind.

5.. There's California legislation with Picken's fingerprints all over it.  It's basically a seemingly technology agnostic bill (like prop 87), which in reality is actually all about gigantic subsidies for natural gas vehicles and infrastructure, and not much else.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/podcast?id=5 ...
http://www.anthonyrubenstein.com/ARSite/LATimesOpEd.html

6. Lastly, as Joseph previously mentioned, this would be direct competition with PHEVs, that the Natural gas would be put to far better use replacing Coal.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/08/memo-to-t-boone-pic ...

____

Now, no doubt, this gets a lot of media support for Wind.  But lets not get beyond ourselves and start acting like there aren't any huge ulterior motives at play that totally defeat the purpose of dealing with climate change.

-David Ahlport

Well

Once again, another thing I say often.

"Markets are primarily a tool for finding the path of least resistance"

And just as with Fire.  Fire can be our best Tool, or our worst enemy.

It all depends whether we control it, or it controls us.

-David Ahlport

Nuclear "Economics"? Try Communism.

Having said all that, your idea that new nuclear costs a lot in current dollars is plainly wrong. Granted that nuclear plants take a lot of money to build. But this can be brought down by standardizing design and by mass production of reactors in a factory. Generation 4 nuclear reactors which burn existing nuclear waste (such as the Integral Fast Reactor) can be constructed for as cheaply as 1 billion US $ (in place of 9 billion $ as told by critics).

Countries which employ nuclear electricity have the cheapest electricity in the planet. France has the cheapest rates in the whole of Europe. Why did nuclear work for France, but not for US. One word : standardization of reactor design.

Heh, and we know thats bullshit.

The reason they have the cheapest electricity is Four words.

Federal Monopoly, and Federal Debt.

Anything can be "Cheap" when you assume that the Federal Debt is a magical source of free money that never needs to be repaid.

The cost of the eletricity could be 0.0001cents per kwh for all the French government cares about the repayment period on the Federal Debt.

-

And even with the most lavish support on the planet, French Nuclear is still not cheap, or quick.

As evidenced by AREVA's (French Nuclear Monopoly) so far failed attempt to build a new plant in Finland.
(All of course with Federal Financing from the French Government, and Guaranteed above-market purchase programs from the Finish Government)
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/quickeconfact208.pdf
_

As for "Economies of Scale".  A process with a high number of reproductions/iterations is far superior for large economies of scale.

And thats the exact opposite of what Nuclear offers.

Where as Renewables have a high number of reproductions/iterations.  And can therefore get the maximum benefit of repeated production.

-David Ahlport

As I often say

The money collected from the carbon pricing should could be put toward a lifetime supply of hookers and scotch for Congress, and they'd still be doing their job right.

Since it's not about subsidizing renewable energy.

It's about removing the unpaid-externality from high carbon energy, and including that into the cost.

That way low carbon energy automatically gets more competitive.

And according to this study, costing for externalities is far more effective than subsidies.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/08/taxes-versus-subs ...

-David Ahlport

Advertising

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e71/kingriffleteh1st/ev ...

-David Ahlport

I'm guessing

I'm guessing 6:00pm PST, 9:00pm EST

After people have gotten off work on the West Coast, but before the people on the East Coast go to bed.

-David Ahlport

Biden

Can't get much better than Biden.

With a VP you need someone who:

1. Can deal with an October Surprise foreign policy issue
   
2. Is an attack dog on McCain's policies
   
3. Can debtate like crazy
   
4. Has experience (More than McCain)
   
5. Was against the Iraq War

So Biden's biggest weakness, isn't really much of a weakness at all.

-David Ahlport

HE WILL RAISE YOUR CARBON TAXES!!!

"Barack Obama will raise taxes on Electricity, McCain won't."

Ever notice that tag line in McCain's campaign ads?

If you assume what they are talking about is putting a Price on Carbon emissions, then clearly McCain is trying to have it both ways.

-David Ahlport

re: David Blume

David Blume is full of fertilizer.

Then you must not be looking for one.
Since they are all over the place.

Little short on time, but I'd like to put forward the second to last comment on this thread:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/reinsider/st ...

For a long winded discussion of just how wrong Blume is, how about this:
http://greyfalcon.net/mythsofbiofuels

-David Ahlport

Easy

How are you connecting coal and cellulosic ethanol?

Oh, thats actually rather easy.
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png

Also, for bonus points, you might want to check these out.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/R-squared/~3/367327701/cos ...
http://greyfalcon.net/algae4

-David Ahlport

re: StopGreenPath

Can you remind me,

What's the Levelized Cost of photovoltaic solar panels?

$0.15-0.20/kWh versus $0.06-0.10/kWh for Baseload Solar Thermal?

As for Feed-In-Tariffs, they work, but in effect here's how they work.

They raise the rate cost on all ratepayers, to pay for subsidizing the cost of installation for solar panel installers.

It works, but it also rapidly jacks up the price for ratepayers.

_

Also as for "It won't require transmission"
Then what do we do during heatwaves, and nighttime.

Still needs the same level of transmission, and you also have to include the cost of having a fully redundant second set of infrastructure.

_

I'm just not quite sure you understand the economics involved really don't favor rooftop solar.

And of course, unless you plan on forcing China, India, Russia, and Latin America to adopt the same Rube Goldberg approach, then solving things for the US won't really make much difference.

_____

Bottom Line,

You need to stop focusing on magical ponies, and start focusing on how centralized power can be done with the minimum impact.

Otherwise you will get nothing, and lose everything.On Ginormous solar plants to be built in California posted 1 year, 3 months ago 15 Responses

again

It is only now that Hansen's original 1988 simulations have shown to be wrong.

-David Ahlport

Oh

And you might enjoy this.
http://www.desmogblog.com/climateaudit-endorses-1988-clim ...

-David Ahlport

Well then

How about a simple one.

If Increased Solar Intensity were a primary cause of the increased warming we've seen for the past few decades, then the area above the Greenhouse layer should be getting more incoming and outgoing heat.
The area above the greenhouse layer should be getting warmer.

However,
If Increased Greenhouse Gases were a primary cause of the increased warming we've seen for the past few decades, then the area above the Greenhouse layer should be getting the same incoming but less outgoing heat.
The area above the greenhouse layer should be getting colder.

Care to guess what's been happening to the area above the Greenhouse layer? (i.e. The Stratosphere)
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing2.png

-David Ahlport

Revolutionary Efficiency

The Smart FourTwo, and the Aptera for instance.
Or even the Tata Nano.

-David Ahlport

The logic

I'm not entirely sure I get the Iraq bit. Is the Obama campaign now trying to cast Iraq as some sort of pampered welfare recipient? I know it now has an oil surplus, but it's not exactly like they're sitting pretty over there.

Yeah, but the argument is "Why are we spending $10 billion a month on Iraq, when they got a $79 billion dollar oil surplus".

-David Ahlport

Hey Bob

Who is Lucia Liljegren?
http://twitter.com/lucialiljegren

What's more, have you ever thought to look for evidence which would counter your argument?
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/models-do ...

-David Ahlport

Simple

Because of the Senate Republicans.

They have filibustered more votes this year, than any congress in history.On House Speaker says she's open to compromise on offshore drilling posted 1 year, 3 months ago 4 Responses

How about this

Looks like Pickens plan wouldn't be direct competition with PHEVs.

It'd be direct competition with rail freight.  (A large majority of that freight being coal)

"What I want to do is get the natural gas into the transportation fuel, and then we take the Trucks is where it needs to go, not the personal cars; And so the infrastructure to do that.  About 30% of our transportation fuel goes to move goods everyday, in the United States.  And those are the Trucks that are moving the goods.  So Those are the ones that I want to get on natural gas."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mHl5FRYitQ

-David Ahlport

Speaking of Framing

I would differentiate between Conservation and Efficiency.

Since I associate Conservation with Behavioral Demand Destruction.

Where as I associate Efficiency with Technological Demand Destruction.

_

And frankly, I'm not a big fan of Behavioral Demand Destruction.

People are lazy, disengaged, and uninformed.

It's far easier to change equipment than it is to change behavior.  Especially when it's so culturally ingrained.

-David Ahlport

That conitation doesn't work.

How about simply a market-based economy? I don't think that is too controversial. Then we can argue about the limitations and parameters but the essential character of markets allocating resources is maintained.

Nah I think you'd need to add a clarifier.

Otherwise the default assumption would be "Free" Markets.  Since as Lakoff mentions, Republicans have been very effective at getting their concept-models out into society.  And not-so-much for the Dems.

What we need to emphasize is that markets NEED regulation.  Since markets are "Path of Least Resistance" machines.

Just because a Path is Efficient doesn't mean it's Ideal.

For instance, the most Efficient way for a Tank to drive to a location is to plow straight through a row of houses.

Although it's not that sexy, I think the argument is that we need "Regulated Markets".

_

I think we still need some concept-modeling and word smithing to come up with something that correctly expresses that sentiment.

-David Ahlport

re: BigTom

Ditto,
But so far it looks like it could be real.

Especially when you take into account the University of Arizona has similar findings, and Lockheed Martin has already purchased exclusive rights for it's military use.

The real Question Marks at play is primarily it's durability, it's economics, and it's ability to scale.

Just because you have a killer technology doesn't mean it becomes a killer economic product.  That's the difference between "invention" and "innovation".

-David Ahlport

The word "Only"?

EVs are going to gobble up more power than CST and PV systems will be able to produce during the day.

Clearly then if California wants to electrify transportation, it is going  to adopt the nuclear option.

Oh come now Charles, you know that's not true.

http://greyfalcon.net/energy2.png
http://www.azsolarcenter.com/arizona/images/solmap.gif
http://greyfalcon.net/ausra

Whats more, if they were to default Demand-Response into the charging of these cars that stay parked 90% of the time;  Then even highly variable sources of power like wind would do the job just fine.

Whats more, you are also forgetting another obvious baseload renewable.  Geothermal.  Which is readily available in California and nearby states.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/images/geomap2.gif ...
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=1723 ...

____

re: Michael Hoexter

As far as energy storage goes keep an eye out for Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage.
http://www.ewi.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/user/Veroeff/EWEC_P ...
http://www.rwe.com/generator.aspx/konzern/fue/strom/energ ...

-David Ahlport

Remind me

re: StopGreenPath,

Remind me,
Where does the electricity come from at night?

-David Ahlport

"Small lifetimes"?

I have not mentioned lithium-polymer batteries in my account because they are kind of expensive for some reason, and their lifetimes are very small.

Last I checked, they were about 50% more expensive, but has 2-3x the lifetime than conventional lithium.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/07/autobloggreen-qan ...

Also if we REALLY got serious about this, we could steal the NiMH patent from Chevron.

NiMH is the same batteries that were used in the Toyota RAV-4's and the Toyota Prius.

-David Ahlport

re: theBike45

The disconnect on the Nuclear pricing is that you are equivocating Fixed Costs and Variable Costs.
(Aka Total Costs, and Overnight Costs)

http://www.nirs.org/images/fplturkeypointcostchart.jpg

Considering the massive time difference between permitting+construction of these two technologies, that makes a HUGE difference.

-David Ahlport

re: BlogItGreen

What about natural gas as a lower-carbon transition fuel? It's obviously not renewable, but it is by far the most cost-effective of current alternative fuels.. see the charts at Blog It Green.

However it might make some sense for Class 8 Big Rig Trucks.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/pge-adds-five-c.h ...

As for your charts.  It's kinda screwy.  To start off with, it says imported natural gas, has less emissions than domestic natural gas. That sounds wrong.

-David Ahlport

I remember this tactic from somewhere.....

Google   "radiation hormesis"   for an interesting debate, or try this.
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/179/5/1137

"Radiation may actually be good for you; So no need to worry!"

Oh come on.

-David Ahlport

Solar Thermal cost estimate is too conservative.

The modeling for the CPUC puts California solar thermal at 12.7 to 13.6 cents/kWh (including six hours of storage capacity) -- and at similar or lower costs in the rest of the West.

Yeah, but thats curved mirrors, 12-20 foot tall mirrors, using an expensive thermal heat transfer fluid.  ;D
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007_energypolicy/documents/2007 ...

A bunch of the upcoming solar thermal companies are cutting costs by going with flat mirrors, human sized mirrors for easier construction/logistics, and heating the water directly.

And of course there's multiple types of solar thermal than just troughs. There's Compact Fresnel Reflectors, Towers, and Multi-Towers.  (Even Dishes, and Micro-Dishes, and Micro-Troughs if you don't care about storage)

All I'm saying is that that CPUC price estimate is probably off by atleast a factor of 2.

Especially when they start getting into the Gigawatts range, and the economies of scale start kicking in.  Since the mirrors and support structure account for nearly half of the plant construction cost.

-David Ahlport

The CCS Myth

BUT! if you include CCS technology, which EVERY SINGLE SUBSTANTIAL SYNTHETIC FUELS PLANT IN THE US TODAY IS DOING,

Which is more of a fig-leaf pretense than a serious answer.

_

Can you say over $6500/kW AND cutting down the efficiency of the plant by 20% AND using a liquid CO2 pipeline infrastructure orders of magnitude larger than our existing oil pipeline infrastructure.

And while we're at it since it cuts the plant efficiency by 20%, even if you assume that you can capture 80% of the emissions, that only ends up capturing 64% of the emissions once your done with it. Which isn't even any better than natural gas emissions.

http://greyfalcon.net/costlycoal2
http://greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/false-h ...
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/7/65718/52163
http://grist.org/news/2008/01/29/energy_dept/index.html#c ...
http://greyfalcon.net/ccs

-David Ahlport

Republicans don't

Republicans don't acknowledge the concept of Efficiency.

It's either use a service, or don't use a service.
Nothing in between.

-David Ahlport

Actually

That chart only references electricity.

As for refined coal.

I think thats a catchall for Pulverized Coal, and Fluidized Bed coal, and IGCC.

-David Ahlport

Lou

The point to be made that the Goldwater concept of a Republican is NOT what current Republicans are today.

http://greyfalcon.net/doonsbury.png

-David Ahlport

Fun times

And last I checked, if we expanded into a "Nuclear only world" we'd need 9 of these things by the end of the century.On Estimated cost of Nevada nuke-waste dump soars posted 1 year, 3 months ago 5 Responses

Yeah

"plus the new superconducting ribbon cable"
Say what?

This stuff:
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/05/next_ge ...

-David Ahlport

To put it simply

The Renewable Energy Tax Credit (RETC) runs out in January.

Thats over 60,000 jobs, and over 6,000MW of renewable energy development down the tubes if that happens. (Not to mention a brain-drain of the key professionals in this area overseas)

Republicans have blocked the 2009 renewal of the RETC 8 times so far this year.

Republicans have previously blocked it in 2000, 2002, and 2004. (It also lapsed 3 months into 2008) During those years, the market completely crashed.  

There are ONLY 3 weeks left in September of this congress session before they close for the rest of the year.

Democrats got 51 votes in the Senate.
Democrats NEED 67+ votes to pass the renewal of the RETC.

_

So the only way that Democrats are going to get the RETC passed is if they give Republicans something they want.

And while that may not be "ideal", thats what we have to deal with.

-David Ahlport

Patrick Moore

On Patrick Moore,

I wouldn't really call a 20 year professional greenwashing lobbyist an "environmentalist".
http://www.endgame.org/moore.pdf
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/moore.html

Not to mention the fact that he's officially on the payroll of the official lobbying group of the Nuclear power industry, might lead one take his rhetoric with a small mountain of salt.
http://www.cleansafeenergy.org/AbouttheCoalition/CoChairs ...
http://www.greenspiritstrategies.com/F6.cfm

Along with another fellow greenwashing lobbyist Christine Todd Whitman.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0203-02.htm
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Whitman_Strate ...

That'd be like calling the current head of the EPA an environmentalist.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/25/115623/310

-David Ahlport

Hey bio

You had a graph comparing switchgrass and sugarcane energy yields.

Any idea where that got to?

-David Ahlport

re: Bailo

Thats just because of the El Nino in 1998, and the La Nina in 2008
http://greyfalcon.net/rsstemps.png
http://greyfalcon.net/elnino
http://greyfalcon.net/lanina
http://greyfalcon.net/globaltemps.png (for scale)

If you ignore those two unusual years the upward trend is blindingly obvious.

-David Ahlport

Say

"Mixed Crop Silviculture" is that a correct phrase?

Or is that the wrong terminology?

-David Ahlport