The peak scientific research body in Australia, the CSIRO, has said for years that 100% of Australia's electricity needs can be met from CSP (concentrating solar power - use of mirrors to focus sunlight and drive turbine systems) stations in dry sunny regions (we have more than enough of them).  50km by 50km of mirrors would provide enough electricity to power all our nation's needs and could be constructed by 2020.

The technology allows for storage of energy in chemical form overnight - eg Ammonia is fractionated to hydrogen and nitrogen and then recombined, the process releases energy for driving the turbines when the sun isn't shining.

Yet our Australian government is in bed with coal and uranium as it (not without justification from past and current economies) sees mining as the source of Australia's relatively easy wealth.  The PM, John Howard, says he doesn't believe in climate change alarmism and wants to "preserve Australia's natural economic advantages" (namely coal and uranium).  

But what is our biggest natural advantage if not sunshine?  Some of our best scientists certainly thinks so.

Europe is exploring a high voltage DC line from solar concentrators located in Northern Africa.  California could export the same to Washington State.

But these media guys are not looking for solutions.  For some reason they think global warming is political.   Some old people do suffer from dementia.  Let them go home and pull the bed covers over their heads.  The young can fix the global weirding problem.  Don't let these dim old farts get in the way.  Doing nothing is the stupidest thing I've heard yet.

I certainly admire the hopeful promise in this post, and not as a skeptic as much as a realist.  As a professional planner, any plan beyond 5 years or maybe 10 years is ... how do I say this politely ... subject to errors that exceed its mean average predictions?  

What is going to happen?  Well the 2008-2012 milestones for the Kyoto Protocol come into effect, even though not ratified, and only a few dinky countries are going to be able to make a 7% reduction from the 1990 baseline.  The few countries that do meet the targets must do so by cooking the books.

This is important because 2012 is within our 5-year planning horizon.  And it bums me out.  I suppose I should feel better that some scientists are more hopeful in the long run, like 2050.

Yippee.

Onward through the fog

Exactly right Laurence!

Great Lakes floating wind/wave power platforms could power the northern midwest.  From far enough offshore so NIMBYs would not see them.

What I want to know is if HVDC (high voltage direct current, industry standard is 500,000 volts)power cables could bring all the power to where it is needed, underwater and buried underground.  With the wind/wave power systems supplying the HVDC directly.

I think that HVDC transmission lines can be buried, eliminating the overhead powerline NIMBYism.  The problem with burying AC transmission lines is capacitance losses to ground.  DC will not have that drawback.

Plus there is a possibility that by enhancing the capacitance effect, HVDC transmission lines can act as storage as well as transport power with very low losses.

Any actual utility engineers have any comments on these wild speculations?  Thanks.  Feel free to be brutally honest, I can take it.  Hehehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Deserves a full fledged assault Dave.

If you start it up, I think we will all join in.

Or I will later here and on my blog.  Gotta go for now.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Consider the unfairness of these opening sentences:
<<
A new piece of conventional wisdom is rapidly congealing among mainstream pundits: global warming is happening, but there's nothing we can do about it. Might as well just batten down the hatches and hope for the best.

You'll hear the same basic message from Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, Newsweek columnist George Will, and a number of other mandarins of center-right establishment opinion.
>>

Fareed Zakaria does not deserve to be thrust into the Gloomosaurish company of Robert Samuelson and George Will.  That latter pair of mandarin ducks may quack away, along with FZ, from the pages of Newsweek; but they are a good bit further to the right than he.

FZ seems to have assessed the IPCC statement very reasonably.  He does not accept anything like a simple choice, to the effect of, "Either we mitigate or we adapt, but we cannot do both."  But in this essay, he emphasizes that certain dangerous consequences of global warming seem inevitable, because the out-of-balance GHGs are up there now in great quantities, and are not likely to go away any time soon.  Therefore it is prudent to get ready for trouble.  But I do not understand him to mean that attempts at mitigation ought not to be pursued.

I found the essay well-written and reasonable, as well as gratifying, since FZ has pretty much ignored global warming till now.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Laurence Aurbach wrote: WEST is convinced there is potential for 1,000 turbines to be installed on abandoned oil rigs in the Gulf, which would generate about 3,000 megawatts of energy.

A megawatt is not a unit of energy.
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Laurence Aurbach wrote: By comparison, the eleven TXU coal plants combined are projected to generate 9,000 megawatts of electricity.

A megawatt is a unit of power. If the coal plants operate at capacity factors of 70%, their energy production would be equivalent to that of 6,300 megawatts of power capacity operating all of the time.

If the 1,000 wind-mining plants operate at a combined capacity factor of 10%, their energy production would be equivalent to that of 300 megawatts of power capacity operating all of the time. Therefore, more than 20,000 wind-mining plants of 3-megawatt capacity would be needed to replace the 11 coal-fired plants.
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Generally, the power capacity of coal-fired plants is more reliable than that of the wind-mining plants. More-reliable power is more-valuable power.

The rich can spend money adapting to change.  The poor, well who cares about poor farmers in Asia river deltas?   I don't care about rich polluters.  I care about mass extinctions and the end of civilization, the  end of culture, the possible end of history.

Scientists estimate that simply to keep greenhouse gases at their current levels, we would need to slash carbon-dioxide emissions by 60 percent.  Given current and foreseeable technology, that would require cutting back on industrial activity across the globe on a scale that would make the Great Depression look very small.

Nice comfortable safe routines will continue while the same rotting meat is available to the flies.  Remove the meat and the files will take risks to find something new.  Remove carbon from our economy and significant new industrial activity will occur creating new energy, not the cutting back on industrial activity prescribed by Zakaria.

Solar energy (and all its variants) is a global opportunity resource.  Invest in solar energy and use solar profits to help the global poor find new solar jobs and adapt to changing climates.   We are running out of precious time on mitigation.  We have more time to adapt than we have to mitigate.

Adaptation before mitigation is like "live and let die".

(The Pew Foundation was created from the family profits of Sun Oil.)

and doing a huge disservice to the debate. Yes, there are some people who want us to throw our hands in the air and say CC is a done deal, but NOT most of those you cite nor most responsible commentators. What they say is that SOME CC is inevitable and that we had better have a strategy to deal with it along with a long-term reduction strategy.

If the environmentalist position is simply a binary- zero CC or catastrophic CC- I think that gravely simplifies the issue and may do real harm. We need serious policies for mitigation, disaster relief, resettling of large populations, etc. that are likely to be needed EVEN IF we have a successful long-term framework.

I hope you and others can take a moment to realize this.

J.S.

J.S. htt://voicesofreason.info

I too read the FZ piece and it sounded reasonable to me. Is there any argument about the inevitable climate change he mentions? Should we really be considering our positions with regard to coastal cities, etc? (I'm asking seriously, as a non-scientist.)

Folks, it does not help to accuse people of working for big oil just because they don't see this magical, overnight switch to totally clean energy.  It takes time, resources, planning, and implementation over many, many years.  

I completely support reduction in all air contaminants including CO2.  That said, most of my clients I work for are actually increasing their GHG inventories, since they are in fact burning more fuel.  It is very difficult to look the client in the eye, after they invested a few million smackers, and say "your GHG levels went up 2-3 percent last year" even though VOC, CO, NOx, PM, and SOx held steady or went down.

This is NOT being skeptical; it is telling the facts based on IPCC and EPA methods to measure the stuff.  If I had lied, I would be fried right out of the business.

Can we work on new technologies?  Sure, I am all for it.  I am not an R&D scientist or engineer, and to date little looks like a magic bullet, but I have the same hopes as anyone does.  Saying that we should turn off all the non-nuclear powerplants in the US so somebody might put up some solar and wind power units is ludicrous in the extreme though, wouldn't you agree?  /sammie

Onward through the fog

The evidence is out.  The Sun, indirectly, causes global warming.   It's effect on low level cloud cover determines the amount of global heating that occurs.   Additional evidence comes from Antarctica, which is actually cooling -- something not predicted by any IPCC model -- but which is predicted by the Svensmark model of solar driven heating.

So what is "global warming"?  Global Warming is a tax of the most sinister type.   It's a tax on the fact that the Sun is responsible for Heat.   What's next?   Will the bureaucrats and politicos start to tax us for the wind blowing things or the flowers blooming?

As far as "doing something"...there is nothing we can do or should do to stop it.   The environmental issues that have been there are no more nor less affected by natural climate change.  

Should we make cars that pollute less?  Sure -- but we need to concentrate on the really heinous gases like sulphur and radicals and stop worrying about vapor and CO2 that aren't as harmful.  

Should we use less energy, or use it more efficiently?   No one would argue with that...but that will come from the lab, not from a lot of people screaming.   I am heartened, for example, by recent improvements in fuel cell membranes, and by sonofusion.  What is that did you say?   See, it takes a lot of reading to understand science and where its going.  Screaming won't get you there.

But how about this:  How about planning for a better future?   Why does effort always have to be directed towards "fighting something bad"...how about getting ready and wanting to take advantage of all the great benefits of Global Heating?   How about thinking about a resource richer world with more free land, healthier crops, longer lives, more water, less pollution (because the solution is dilution), more energy, less use of fossil fuels (because it's hotter), more opportunities to capture and use the increased energy hitting the earth.

How about if "doing something" is less like standing there with a shield trying to fight it, and more like standing there with a bucket, trying to capture some of it?

The issue from the beginning has been a search for The Truth.   The Truth is what the real scientists are telling us.   The Truth is painful, as pet theories, suppositions, and human proposals will always be hit with a wall of Reality.

Reality is the Sun making the Earth hotter.

The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.

If the 1,000 wind-mining plants operate at a combined capacity factor of 10%, their energy production would be equivalent to that of 300 megawatts of power capacity operating all of the time.

Where did you come up with a 10% capacity factor for wind turbines? In Europe, offshore wind capacity factors are in the 25%-30% range.

>> inevitable climate change >>>>

Yes it is inevitable now...
Don't worry, the seas will not rise much, soon they will fall.  

Your country will become dry as a bone and...

You thought sun tans were in, but soon ice blocks will be the rage.

and when industry has ground to a halt, the whole world will turn a whiter shade of pale..... but hey no one will be there to see such beauty.

and you though greenhouse gases were the bogeyman, think again

Oil is the horseman of the Apocalypse

I'm not sure that such parasitic losses at wind turbine farms are such a big deal, since almost all electrical power generation requires power to make more power.  

I mean jeez, add up the power and energy used to get coal, natural gas, or oil to a conventional powerplant, start it up, and get it going.  For example, to start up a coal powerplant you might need a large generator bank of diesels, a natural gas boiler, and some rather massive blowing pumps, not to mention electrical power for the conveyor belts and all that upstream material stuff.  

Issues regarding grid control are three steps beyond the conventional wisedom, I would suspect, since when wind energy is needed it is routed just fine and when it is not, the rotors are idled and braked.  Why do people have to BS about things they don't know about?  

We're waiting on the technology on submerged tidal turbines as well, especially with regard to durability.  This too could be a major source of alternative power.  Since over 50% of Americans live within 50 or 100 miles of the coast and the tides are dependible a clockwork, this could be a great way to diversify the US power grid - and maybe complement the wind farms.

Just because a technology has massive failures in the beginning does not make it inherently bad.  I can recall the days when jet turbine aircraft were falling out of the sky like rocks (c. 1960's) but today it is safer than driving a car down the highway, statistically.  

One of the biggest threats to implementing wind turbines is a new move by the US Department of Defense, which claims that radar and perhaps the electromagnetic interference can compromise their security systems.  Interestingly, 15 proposed wind farms were blocked in the Mid-West for this very reason.  Go figure, but driving by any large electric transmission system with a satelite radio (such as XM) can and will make it sound horrible because of the interference.

But let's not shut down the discussion of wind power just because it has its own difficulties.  

Onward through the fog

The problems with Zakaria's piece (and the reasons I tend to side with those who think he's being disingenuous) start with his disagreement with a fundamental IPCC conclusion (attributiuon to anthropogenic GHGs):

"And human activity appears to be one important cause."

He doesn't do anything direct with this observation, but it sets a certain tone of uncertainty.

That tone leads straight to ignoring the many immediate mitigation steps that can be taken and focuses on big-ticket items that will require major subsidies (to many of the same entities that caused the problem) and/or not have much immediate impact:

"I state these facts plainly not to induce fatalism or complacency. It's scandalous that we're not weaning ourselves off dirty fuels. Perfecting just two new (and almost workable) technologies--clean coal and hybrid cars--would be a giant leap forward. We could be experimenting with hundreds more technologies and techniques."

Everyone here has been exposed to all of these ideas so I won't go into detail, but I see the immediate mitigation steps as divided into two general categories:  One, things that are being done now that make the problem worse with every new federal budget (e.g., federal transportation policies that facilitate continued sprawl development, direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies) and the low-hanging fruit (e.g., CAFE, conversion to CFCs, a federal efficiency standard for new construction and to retrofit exisitng buildings).  These could all be law within a year and make a huge difference immediately, and Zakaria mentions none of them.  Indeed, that last sentence implies that nothing is ready for immediate implementation.

Then he emphasizes the contradiction:

"(Cairncross) points out that adaptation programs could move forward fast. Unlike plans to slow down global warming, which require massive and simultaneous international efforts, adaptation strategies can be pursued by individual countries, states, cities and localities."

I kind of wonder if that last point was really made by Cairncross rather than Zakaria, but it ignores some realities that are very much within Zakaria's foreign policy expertise:

Can a serious international regime to stabilize the climate be instituted without the U.S. being seen to implemment a serious mitigation program?  In a word, no.

What country will redirect its vast public/private national scientific research establishment toward developing new energy technologies so that, e.g., China and India have options that don't include massive dirty coal?  Er, sorry, for a moment I forgot that only one country actually has such a research establishment.  Hint:  It's not Bangladesh.

Speaking of Bangladesh, possibly the most cynical unstated conclusion in Zakaria's piece is to imagine that there will be significant help for Bangladesh and the other poor countries that will bear the brunt of climate change.  For them,  mitigation action now to keep the problem from getting worse is essential.  

In sum, I completely agree with Dave's concluding point, and think it applies just as much to Zakaria as the other two.  Zakaria's rhetoric was different, but the practical political upshot is the same.  

Zakaria's column is if anything more dangerous, precisely because it sounds so reasonable. But there are assumptions and omissions aplenty.

My main objection is this:Scientists estimate that simply to keep greenhouse gases at their current levels, we would need to slash carbon-dioxide emissions by 60 percent.  Given current and foreseeable technology, that would require cutting back on industrial activity across the globe on a scale that would make the Great Depression look very small.That's just the core assumption he shares with Samuelson and Will, and it needs to be forcefully and repeatedly countered.

Also: I don't object to adaptation. It will happen regardless. But as Steve said, even if we can survive reasonably well with adaptation, does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare? In today's political reality, focusing on adaptation is in keeping with the essential conservative message: we've got ours, screw everybody else.

www.grist.org

the present value of development aid from rich to poor countries is 2.6 trillion dollars. That doesn't include private charity, which is hundreds of billions more. It is wrong to claim that the rich countries simply want to allow the poor countries to suffer without any help. I'm not saying that the aid has been used effectively or that some didn't come without strings attached, but even a cursory analysis makes it clear that the wealthy countries are willing to assist the poorer nations.

Also, the developing countries are not hapless victims and they can work alongside other countries to build a better international framework for climate change mitigation.

J.S.

J.S. htt://voicesofreason.info

David Roberts wrote: I don't object to adaptation. It will happen regardless.

Adaptation cannot happen without enough power capacity -- the latter something that some activists are lobbying to prevent the world from having.
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David Roberts wrote: does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare?

What would be the relevance of that? Please be explicit.

Have you considered that there might be a higher purpose to existence and growth than mere basking in comfort and pleasure? Wouldn't it be just as corrupt to act in coalition to mitigate -- rather than adapt to -- a climate challenge, as it would for a group of corporations to mitigate an economic challenge (via collective price-fixing, and other illegal trust practices, among companies that should be competing with each other)? Would baseball be quite the same if every team helped each other to all qualify for the World Series? (From each baseball team, according to its ability. To each baseball team, according to its need.)

Would you consider it adapting to the challenge of doing pull-ups if you gave yourself "sufficient aid" in the form of a bungee-cord-mounted pull-up bar that you could pull under your chin while keeping both your feet flat on the ground?

J.S., it's more a question of the whether past experience would lead us to believe that the scale of the aid will be anything like what is needed.  I would point out to you that we have recent evidence to the contrary inside the U.S.  If we're unwilling to do spend meaningfully in the present to keep the problem from getting much worse in the future (and much more expensive to ameliorate), how can we have confidence that enough resources will be made available to adapt to the consequences then, especially since the advanced countries will be simultaneously paying for their own adaptation needs?  

Regarding the ability of developing countries to drive international action on mitigation in the face of lack of leadership on the part of the U.S., China and India, I would have to say:  Are you kidding?  And do you think there is any chance that China and India can be persuaded to act without the U.S. leading?  If so, you're one of the more optimistic people I've run into lately.

Fareed Zakaria is by no means a hero of mine.  But I have read his column in Newsweek for a few years, and every now and again he pops up as a talking head on a news show that I am watching, and I find that I usually agree with him.  Not always, but usually.  He is obviously very learned, and is, I believe, genuinely sympathetic to the interests of all the peoples of the world.  But he has a tragic flaw: he is obviously struggling to be a major, supremely influential adviser in foreign policy in DC, and therefore has adopted something of an America-First persona, knowing that few people in DC will listen to him if he remains true to his internationalist heart.

EliRabett tries cutely to discredit FZ.  But the link to the Huffington Post piece by Steve Clemons does nothing at all to support the Prophetic Lagomorph's sarcastic shot, that FZ had a hand in getting "the public" behind the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.  What Clemons writes about is a meeting in late November 2001, not long after 9/11, a time of unusual cooperation, organized by Donald Wolfowitz, the subject of which was what to do about Afghanistan and the Middle East -- nothing about Iraq specifically.  And FZ, a friend of Clemons, describes it as a "brain-storming" session, and is surprised that the proceedings were written up and presented as a unilinear policy recommendation.

Steve Bloom, who obviously has made a great personal commitment to the matter of coping with the climate crisis, for which he deserves great praise, writes this confusing passage:
<<
I see the immediate mitigation steps as divided into two general categories:  One, things that are being done now that make the problem worse with every new federal budget (e.g., federal transportation policies that facilitate continued sprawl development, direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies) and the low-hanging fruit (e.g., CAFE, conversion to CFCs, a federal efficiency standard for new construction and to retrofit exisitng buildings).  These could all be law within a year and make a huge difference immediately, and Zakaria mentions none of them.
>>
This is mighty puzzling.  Did something syntactically significant get lost somewhere?  Anyway, I can make no sense of this.

As I suggested above, I agree that FZ has been presenting himself as a "Beltway Centrist," and that is regrettable.  And I join Steve in denouncing the limited political-mindedness of DC.  Nevertheless, I see no evidence that FZ shares the warm affection for big American capitalist interests of Grumposaur Samuelson and Mr. Bow-Tie Will.  FZ really wants to help, only he has not yet got himself free of his ambitions, and of DC seductions.

David Roberts, a master of rhetorical one-upmanship, whose blade of unapology is edged and polished nearly as keenly as that of W. himself, chooses to blockquote what I acknowledge is a very weak point in FZ's essay.

To give FZ the benefit of the doubt, we should say that the essay is necessarily brief, that he does not know too much yet about these issues, and that "given current and foreseeable technology" in fact suggests a conservatively tempered optimism.  Steve Bloom is extremely generous in assuming that all of us readers of Gristmill know all about the mitigation options.  I think it would also be generous to think that FZ must be as up-to-date, out-of-the-box, over-the-edge, as some of our more brilliant Gristmill correspondents.  This is not his field, you know; and I think he deserves a bit of pity, as he pedals hard to catch up.

DR last closed with this:
<<
I don't object to adaptation. It will happen regardless.
>>
That insousiance strikes me as remarkably "dangerous," to borrow from DR's vocabulary.  Of course, adaptation only makes sense if it is coordinated globally.  Within the US, Ana Unruh Cohen makes excellent recommendations.

DR again:
<<
But as Steve said, even if we can survive reasonably well with adaptation, ...
>>
Not to be too disgracefully alarmist, but I think a lot of us are expecting for some real tough times ahead.  "Surviving reasonably well" sounds rather like Dick Cheney's expectation of how the Iraqis would love us Americans, one and all, following the capture of Baghdad and the overthrow of Saddam.

DR again:
<<
... does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare?
>>
OK, excellent point, but logically a later point in the discussion.  FZ and Steve Bloom have done well to refer to Bangladesh, among the poorest of the most vulnerable countries, with the largest population near sea level.  But then there are the other Southeast Asian countries, with deltas of rivers rising in the Himalayas, from Myanmar around to China.  And then there are the Pacific island countries.  And then there is Southern Nigeria.

The Dutch are in the same predicament, but seeing that they are among the richest people in the world, we should expect their solution to be spectacular.

Anyway, this is an excellent point, and must be kept high on the agenda.

Cf. the piece by Nicholas Kristof in today's NYTimes, praising Jimmy Carter for expanding the sense of what "human rights" includes.  Kristof is talking about horribly painful tropical diseases, caused by parasites, which are not that difficult to prevent and cure, once the poverty of their victims is overlooked.  Carter has done a great deal to help eliminate these diseases.  

So why should not "delivery of the world's poorest from effects of the climate crisis" be included among "human rights"?

DR again, finally, for now:
<<
In today's political reality, focusing on adaptation is in keeping with the essential conservative message: we've got ours, screw everybody else.
>>
OK, now this is a meta-sentence.  That is, the meaning of "adaptation" is secondarily narrowed, with prejudice in favor of some and at the disadvantage of others.

I entirely agree with DR, of course, in deploring the "conservative message."  But I am not so cynical as to suspect that that is what FZ is secretly preaching.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Dave Roberts writes

In today's political reality, focusing on adaptation is in keeping with the essential conservative message: we've got ours, screw everybody else.

So lets see if I have this straight:

Those of us calling for rich countries to invest more money in adaptation are in fact contributing to the political agenda of those who say "screw everybody else"?  Right, that makes sense.  It seems to me that Dave Roberts and his conservative straightmen are the ones who agree that we should not be investing in adaptation.

So are you implying that those people in developing countries who are calling for more attention to adaptation (you know, because their children are dying and stuff like that) are in fact supporting US conservatives?  How narrow minded of them! Don't they even think about our domestic political squabbles before speaking out?

Dave Roberts writes:

does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare?

Pretty ironic in a post about defeatism. They surely won't get any aid with defeatists simply giving up on the billions of people around the world who are suffering today.  But it is a lost cause anyway, eh, Dave?  Lets talk about Republicans instead! ;-)

Note: Tongue firmly in cheek in the above, but there is a message too.

Reproductive rights for women pielke?  That would stop the exponential growth of human populations.

You could feed, clothe, house, and medicate everyone in poverty, but without those rights, the rise in population will make it physically impossible to continue.  It's the power of compound growth.

Besides the libertarian corporate freemarketeer political faction is more interested in killing as many people in poverty with wars over oil and other resources than really helping them.

The sudden interest in the well being of those in the under developed world is really all about that infamous talking point.  Your comment being simply a repitition of it.  It's we environmentalists that are killing the poverty stricken by opposing unlimited growth, pollution, use of toxins like DDT, chemical agribizz, nuclear power, unregulated corporate power, genetically engineered crops, and all of your other pet causes?  Right?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

amazingdrx:

I'm all for empowering women, it should be center in any adaptation agenda.  But you lost me with this:

It's we environmentalists that are killing the poverty stricken by opposing unlimited growth, pollution, use of toxins like DDT, chemical agribizz, nuclear power, unregulated corporate power, genetically engineered crops, and all of your other pet causes?  Right?

Where in the world do you come up with that nonsense?  It seems common practice on this site to argue by completely misrepresenting other people's views . . .

Roger Pielke, Jr.
University of Colorado

Where in the world do you come up with that nonsense?

Its one of the most popular talking points from the anti-environmental side.  You never heard of it?  Or used it?

Well that would be very different then.

All the corporate kissup libertarians are using it.  They blame liberal environmentalists for killing the poor by opposing growth.  Evidently our attempt to ban DDT alone is tantamount to genocide, according to the foxnews, talk radio crowd.

Are you shunning those good folk in terms of political philosophy?  Good for you.

"Why don't you get with the program and come on in for the win with us?"  (To paraphrase "Full Metal Jacket")

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

So are you implying that those people in developing countries who are calling for more attention to adaptation (you know, because their children are dying and stuff like that)

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

It is interesting to read how the environmental movement may or may not be involved in global poverty and sickness, but wasn't all this thread about "skeptics" of the global warming paradigm?  

Any scientist has to be skeptical about any thesis, so I guess that one hit home a little close.  We don't accept urban myths, bloggy knowledge, or political panhandling.  So far, the overwhelming evidence is that global warming is indeed factual, and if there are skeptical scientists, it concerns hurricane intensity, the Atlantic Oscillation, and impacts from aerosol (just three items from the top of my head).  This is a healthy discussion and by no means do any one or a combination negate the central tenets of the global warming phenomena.

As I mentioned earlier, there seemed to be some prevailing wisedom (my aluminum hat is all a-twitter now) that our civilization can radically change from fossil fuels to renewable, nuclear, or solar power as if overnight.  Such profound changes take years if not decades, and it is doubtful that a single cathartic moment such as "peak oil" would trigger such a revolution.  My suspicion is that the smarter planners would diversify, diversify, and then diversify again, the European model.

Special handouts such as the recent Energy Bill to prop up the cost of ethanol fuel production is a case where many scientists remain doubtful.  Indeed, most the the ethanol production will go into use as an oxygenate for regular old gasoline, called E10 (10% by volume).  That is mainly because cheaper MTBE was proven to cause underground pollution from years of leaks.  True, some vehicles may be produced to run on E85, but the majority is simply a gasoline additive similar to octane boosters, de-hazers, detergents, and anti-knock compounds.  

It's the gasoline, stupid!

Well that's not diversification in my mind.  In fact, E10 blends raise VOC-related ozone formation potential and is not clear as to any benefite for reduction of CO2, as it is quite marginal at best.  One of the problems we have is that people tend to think that a new fuel can solve all out ptoblems, when in fact it is how the fuel is used to convert BTU content into power.  That is why CNG engines can actually make more aerosol than diesel engines, or why E10 can cause more air pollution than using an ether-based oxygenate.  

Finally, many of the improvements to cleaning up the exhausts from industrial and transportation fuels has actually lowered fuel economy and increased fuel consumption on a per-gallon basis.  That's right, the new diesel engine standards come along with a fuel penalty of 1-5%.  Folks, this is the WRONG DIRECTION, since CO2 emissions are a function of carbon mass balance.  Peace,
/Sammie

Onward through the fog

That's why we need more efficient AND cleaner technology Sam.  To both drastically reduce fuel use and stop GHGs.

Internal combustion in cars is 14% efficient.  Fuel cell/microturbines are 75% efficient.  Plugin serial hybrids using these fuel cells could reduce fuel use to 10% of present levels.

Wind, solar, and water power use no fuel.  Biogas digestion of waste and manure to generate electricity  using  fuel cells eliminates nitrogen runoff that causes huge releases of methane from wetland carbon sinks.  And provides organic fertilizer that can turn cropland into carbon sequestering organic farms.

The biogas fuel cells provide backup power for wind. solar, and water power.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Efficiency and CO2 / methane / nitrous reduction, I like that.  I hope you didn't mind me calling you 'Amazin'.

Next question:  would the country change its air pollution abatement policies to put GHG on top of ozone and particulate regulations?  That is a tough nut to crack.  What think ye?

/sammie

Onward through the fog

Amazngdrx DC transmission can be done underground, it is virtually impossible with 500kV AC as reactors are required every 25 miles or so.  DC faces the problems associated with in-rush current on start up and then harmonics associated with the grid.  These things can be engineered out with switched reactors.  I think for now we would have to use oil filled cable, but there has not been much DC underground yet.

As an alternative I believe the better approach is to convert existing AC lines to DC.  The worst transmission areas in the USA is in the New York to Washington DC area and Southern California.  Studies are underway to determine how to best address these transmission needs, however, no one seems to be looking at DC with a serious eye.

I think DC should be considered.

Wind generation has auxilary loads as do other forms of generation.  Wind generation has some special voltage and reactive power requirements that make interconnection more complex than steam turbine generator or combustion turbine generators.  However, these requirements are by no means excessive.

In any case, federal regulations require that wind generators use FERC accounting standards and EIA requires that energy reporting be according to uniform standards.  Failure to report such energy production is now subject to regulatory fines and even criminal charges under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Wind generation output is that electrical output after all auxilary loads and waving shaping losses are taken into account.  I am very familar with the energy metering associated with power plants including wind farms.

Interesting ff.  Now I want to find out if the cable capacitance could be boosted  enough to store signifigant durations of electric power demand.  And if a transformer connected directly to the alternator output of a wind machine could regulate the voltage to match the 500KVDC line before rectification.

Imagine a conductor in the form of a thin sheet instead of a cable.  The sheet rolled up like a capacitor is, with a sheet connected to ground, and a nanotech insulating layer between them that could withstand 500,000 volts.  A supercapacitor 1000s of miles long, that doubles as a conductor.

Yep sammie,amazin' is ok.  Better than some nicks.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I should have listed a carbon tax as one of the major (probably the major if structured properly) short-term mitigation steps.

It's too bad they're surrendering to the fight against global warming that must be fought, while continuing to support the unwinnable war in Iraq. I think their priorities are all screwed up.

Although I don't consider myself a defeatist, the is a large group of moderate, progressive, libertarian, populist, and liberal people who think that there is simply not enough time, money, or political will to really get any significant CO2 reductions in the US.  

In short, a dollar short and a day late.

Sure, the discussion of new technology is way-cool, but anything short of a 200 billion dollar program, less than we've spent on the Battle of Iraq, sure would have been a good start.  [Imagine if we had a tillion dollars with all the current and requested funding, direct and indirect, for the so-called "war on terrorism."]

So if you see if in those terms, we've already blown our proverbial "national credit card" way over limit aleady, and simply don't have an extra fraction of a trillion bucks to spend on fighting global warming and greenhouse gases.

So the next logical thing is to impose a carbon tax on consumers.  Great, there goes the great middle class, an endangered species, and if you think that Big Industry is going to pay these nice VAT-like carbon taxes out of their profit because they are nice corporate citizens, well, that just isn't going to happen.  

So in one sense, we're whupped, beat, and stomped; we lost.  Show me the money, is what I say.  The only thing I know if that if Halliburton and KBR end up the the contract to collect a carbon-based value added tax there would probably be rioting in the streets.  Maybe that is the cathartic moment we really need.  /sammie

Onward through the fog

Wow this guy makes excuses and lies sound great!

If only we had someone who makes the truth sound this good, this energy revolution would get off the ground.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I think the thing that amazes me the most as the global warming debate moves from denial that it's happening to resignation that we're screwed so we might as well order another round of drinks, is the amount of intellectual energy being put into slapping band-aids on symptoms. Don't examine root causes. And once again the environmental side is in complete agreement with the forces of darkness responsible for causing the crisis in the first place. The only thing that's changed is that the environmental side is no longer trying to hide it.

A culture of materialism that has let itself become convinced that constant growth is necessary for prosperity and well-being sees the challenge as "how do we protect the economy?" Forget about the living earth. Life simply won't be worth living if the Industrial Growth Society collapses. We just gotta be able to drive our Hummers to the mall from our 10,000 sq. ft. McMansions in the suburbs to get our Twinkie fix. Twice a day.

Is it any wonder that heroin pushers are so successful? They have the best role models in the known universe to look up to and learn from.

Let's conveniently ignore the inconvenient truth that the Industrial Growth Society is causing a decrease in every quality of life indicator imaginable. Just ignore increasing global poverty, and definitely don't think about your increasing body burden. Don't question central banker's right to usury, or that a growth economy requires you getting further in debt. Ignore the fact that about 50% of Americans require at least one prescription drug per day in order to either make it through their day or to be able to tolerate their day. Add in alcohol and other recreational drugs that are self-prescribed, and it should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that this is a very sick, and very sad, culture.

This is what we're trying to preserve? This is why we need to find a replacement energy source for toxic, polluting, and rapidly dwindling fossil fuels? Do you really believe that continued industrial activity would be just fine as long as it was green?

How about a cultural shift from having more to being more? If one third of the global population can create all the stuff the entire population consumes, why aren't we all working two thirds less, so we all have the time to focus on what really matters? Powering down could very well be the best thing to ever happened to the human species.

Why are we all playing along with ensuring the continued dominance of a global elite that controls through ranking hierarchies based on fear?

The answer--the antidote really--is relocalization. Of course, this would rest control from our global masters. Perhaps this is the real reason stem cell research was outlawed. They were afraid the masses would get ahold of it and grow a spine.