The standard (non-)answers will never satisfy questions that have been ignored previously. Questions that need to be answered.

The first step in solving a perceived problem is to make sure that there is a real problem. Any effort expended in trying to solve a non-exiting problem is not just a complete waste of resources, it also prevents those resources from being deployed to solve real problems.

This is about conservation.

And it’s about a sense of proportion. Something that only the real world can provide. It’s not encumbered by our limited imaginations.

Can’t be bothered. I’ve had enough adventures in that recently, and I think most people here are more interested in the economics and feasiblity of solutions than watching two geeks go at each other on technical detail.

All I wanted to do here was point Ken to some information that he may not have been aware of.

But if you want to bring yourself up to speed you could do worse than start here. That site is really good resource, it deals with all of the major “skeptic” arguments (and quite a few of the minor ones) in a very fair and objective manner. I recommend it.

See also examples of actual power requirements where summer-time peak loads don’t diminish well after the official peak period, exceeding baseload beyond 11 p.m. on a hot evening.

That’s the real world. Just like E.On has experienced. The data from real-world experience indicates that wind and solar power are not viable as a substantial part of the electricity supply. Intermittency/availability makes alternative energy sources such as wind and solar are only suitable for niche applications.

There is a world-wide shortage of silicon for solar cells. It takes a lot of energy to refine silicon. Thin-film cells, made from other materials and capable of similar efficiency are on the bleeding edge, still expensive and not available in volume. Covering an entire rooftop would be necessary to meet the electricity of a typical domestic household. And it would cost quite a bit to operate because of the electrical storage requirements in typical locations.

As for the Danes giving their electricity away to Norway at substantial, real cost (rotating machinery), while having to purchase coal, oil, gas and nuclear-generated power on the other side of the country…. that sounds like a good economic plan. Now explain to the taxpayers of Denmark why they should be subsidising Norway’s electricity company profits.

Now explain exactly what is wrong with “greenhouse gas” emissions. Most of the emissions from conventional power generation are water vapour and CO2. Both support biological processes. Plants love CO2; especially at times of drought.

Nuclear power at best accelerates the evaporation of water. This can have heating or cooling effects on the regional climate; depending on ambient conditions.

Climate change denialism? Where? I fully accept that climate is changing, and that it has done so in the past. Quite naturally. I remain completely unconvinced that anthroprogenic CO2 has a measurable, significant impact.

Demolishing my postings: Go for it. But stick to the facts. Assumptions, conjecture and “consensus” are no substitute for facts.

Nature doesn’t take votes.

Mind you, I’m still reasonably convinced that photovoltaic electricity isn’t the best, cheapest way of generating electricity without emitting greenhouse gases, so this is all a distraction.

Wind, of course, is part (but only part) of the future story. You say that those crazy danes have to export their wind to Norway to fill up dams, as if this is a bad thing.

No one has ever said we will be 100% wind power in the future, everyone accepts that there is a natural limit to the proportion of electricity generated by wind. The story there is pretty short and uninteresting. What is interesting is what other alternative generation we should be looking at. Geothermal where possible, lots of other potentials.

Still, at least you’ve moved on from climate change denialism. I’m no sort of a climatologist, but I do know that the climatologists my taxes support are part of a very robust and well-tested system of scientific discovery. If any of your claims were falsifiable they would have been. Apart from some truly trivial third or fourth order issues (such as PPPs versus exchange rates) there have been basically no credible scientific questions about the theory of anthropogenic climate change in almost a decade (since they got the satellite measurements right). Someone around here could demolish your very extensive post #23 at leisure, if they could be bothered.

Please read again the excerpts and if it’s not entirely clear, the entire reports from which the quotes have been excerpted. Read what the report says. Not what you want it to mean. Wind power only fills 11 to 16% of its rated capacity averaged over 6 to 12 months.

Grids with more than a low percentage of alternative energy inputs become unstable. Hence the need to “duplicate” a grid; in addition to providing shadow power from conventional means.

Wind power is not economically viable, especially where conventional power is readily available.

Solar power is even less predictable than wind power. PV solar can go from 100% output to 10% in a couple of seconds. Without warning.

Moreover, I’d like to see where solar power has shown good availability during peak times; i.e. morning and evening. Not only is solar less efficient because of atmospheric attenuation being maximum near sunset and sunrise; shadows from structures, vegetation and clouds provide sporadic, local outages.

Solar is so diffuse as to be practically useless without some sort of storage. Energy storage costs money as well as diminishing overall efficiency. Storage is never without maintennance.

“Large, inter-connected grids of fossil fuel energy generation are notionally supposed to increase the availability of power, but the technical problems with managing many generating devices of pollution and an uncontrollable resource usage are not resolvable, even when hundreds of billions of dollars are thrown at the problem.”

Bernd clearly belongs in the “Man will not be able to fly for at least another 50 years” or “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” camp.

Wind energy may or may not end up supplying a large fraction of our energy needs in the future, but I certainly wouldn’t bet against it at this point.

Interestingly some of our greatest minds of the past, including Edison, Einstein (who won a 1921 Nobel prize for work on photovoltaics) and Sagan, seemed to be pretty sure solar power was the future.

And by the way, solar has pretty good availability, particularly during peak times.

Remote area power is likely the only practical application of wind and solar power as a supplementary source of base energy requirements. Diesel (or gas) generators (or pumped storage) are still needed in applications where there’s even a small human population.

Shadow power generating capacity must be provided however, unless whatever needs to be done can be deferred until the alternative energy generating capacity starts generating. For wind power, even in optimal sites in most regions, that’s far less than 50% of the time. Conventional generating capacity must be provided aw well as alternative to ensure availability of energy to consumers. The cost of energy rises accordingly because the shadow station is normally operating; at least at part-load.

It is generally not commercially viable to add alternative energy generation capacity unless the fuel for conventional plant is very expensive. When wind power can only be “counted on” to deliver 11% of its rated capacity over long periods, wind power becomes a loss-leader. Capital and maintenance costs are significant.

Germany is lucky because they can buy shadow power from nuclear power stations in France. Norway is lucky when they can accept (at near enough to no cost) the capacity that has to be shed from Denmark’s wind generators when it doesn’t match their regional load, because they use it to pump water back into their hydro-electric schemes.

Large, inter-connected grids of alternative energy generation are notionally supposed to increase the availability of power, but the technical problems with managing many generating devices of undefined input and an uncontrollable load are not resolvable, even when hundreds of millions of Euros are thrown at the problem. Control systems become intractible.

Civilization has become technically advanced because of the ready availability of affordable energy. Wind and solar have poor availability. That’s an unreliable source of power to run our civilization. The power probably won’t be there when needed.

E.On’s reports on the harsh reality of the true cost of wind generation grates against wishful thinking. Anybody who considers investing their own real money in such things should study E.On’s reports and reports from other companies that’ve invested heavily in such things. For Australia; Renewable Energy Certificates need to based on the actual energy generated. As demonstrated; less than 20% of rated output is delivered to the grid.

The fair price for power bought from wind generation should be about 20% of that from conventional means, simply because of the real need for shadow power generation. At present, conventional power is heavily subsidising alternative energy when they buy such energy at inflated prices.

Wind electricity will also certainly become cheaper than coal in many parts of the world within the next few decades, even with as little as a $20/tonne carbon price. That’s not to say that a grid based on 100% wind power is anywhere near being feasible, because there are serious technical issues that arise once wind supplies more than a certain fraction of the total electricity (usually somewhere around 20%), but at least in Australia we’re a long way off reaching that point, and by the time we have, there’s a good chance many of those technical issues will have been ironed out. I really can’t see any justification for Australia building any more coal-fired plants until we hit reliability issues with having too much wind.

What I particularly like about wind (and renewables in general) is the fact that lots of medium-sized firms can reasonably afford to build fairly small capacity power plants, which should generate an opportunity for lots of competition, and minimal need for government interference.

Further, once a proper price is put on the pollution from coal-fired plants (to better reflect its genuine long-term costs), theres every reason to believe wind will be cost competitive without any form of special treatment.

“Proper”?

From a thread at Andrew Norton’s blog it doesn’t seem as though the public think it’s very much although they believe climate change is an important issue. If this survey is an accurate pointer to voter feelings about the subject there isn’t a government that would impose a cost high enough to allow wind to artificially compete with coal.

But how much extra are people prepared to pay for electricity? Even with their previous answers creating pressure for personal responsibility, and no real cost involved, 28% of respondents said that they were not prepared to pay anything more for clean energy. Another 32% said they were only prepared to pay another $10 a month (or about 10% more if the last ABS expenditure survey is a guide). Only 7% were in the more realistic range of $40 or $50 a month (if we can assume some technological advance and economising in response to higher prices).

http://andrewnorton.info/2008/04/the-real-greenhouse-denialists-part-2/

I can’t see why wind turbines wouldn’t be cost competitive in areas without easy coal access. And they’re becoming increasingly so as turbines get bigger and sturdier and the costs to manufacture them reduce. Further, once a proper price is put on the pollution from coal-fired plants (to better reflect its genuine long-term costs), there’s every reason to believe wind will be cost competitive without any form of special treatment.

On your own figure of 0.7C/century a 10C increase would take only take 1400 years not 10s of thousands.

Read again. It was 0.7 degress in TWO centuries.
Your projection can only hold if nature behaves linearly. It doesn’t.

Most of the heating since the LIA has occurred in two “jumps” lasting just a few decades. So the observed short-term rate of increase is much greater than 0.7 degrees C/century. It cooled between two of the intervals. And it’s not gotten any warmer over the past decade. Through all the fluctuations, CO2 appears to have increased monotonically. At a fairly constant rate on a century scale; despite the highly variable anthroprogenic output of CO2 over the same period.

The increase in CO2 to present levels cannot all be attributed to anthroprogenic influences. Primarily because we don’t know how much of the observed change is a natural fluctuation.

CO2 is a minor trace gas and a minor greenhouse gas. Water vapour is much more significant. It is far more variable in time and location than CO2. It provides well over 90% of the “greenhouse effect”.

CO2 might actually be relevant were it not for free convection in the atmosphere. Most of the slight delay in heat transfer resulting from the presence of trace amounts is negated by the resulting increase in free convection of air being warmed. The closer the warm air to space, the greater the radiative loss.

Keep in mind that these are all estimates of temperature. The closing of many ground stations over the past 30 years appears to have skewed the surface temperature records. Remote-sensing by satellites would appear to be the only “reliable” method (once we sort out the technology) for getting an average temperature. Even then, it doesn’t tell us an awful lot about the total enthalphy in the climate system; because most of that is within the oceans.

The Arctic ice cap has previously diminished significantly. Even in the past century where towards the end of the 1940′s, the Northwest Passage was considered navigable by suitable shipping. The North-East passage has been navigable for decades. Various decadal oscillations of Pacific and Atlantic currents appear to contribute far more to polar melting than air temperature.

Calling my statements “dishonest” is ad hominem.

There is no evidence to support the “hypothesis” that this spring breakup is related to anthroprogenic CO2. The spring melt is a natural event. We don’t know how much of it is a natural variation. Just because one can measure a variation doesn’t mean that anthroprogenic influences are significant. Pointing to it being the spring melt is not irrelevant.

You also need to check the maximum extent of the ice caps at the respective poles during their winter. The Arctic ice cap was back to “normal” just a few months ago. Antarctic ice is the most massive since satellite observations began; which admittedly is not a long time.

Civilizations have previously dealt with climate change; with varying degrees of success. It’s not been necessary to be able to predict climate change in order to deal with it intelligently. Technology has allowed us, as a species, to cope well with most changes other than ice ages. Mild ice ages such as the LIA led to famines and epidemics. We have the technologies available to deal with climate change like that, though the wealth to distribute it widely enough is being squandered by tilting at windmills.

Keep in mind that the baseline “normal” temperature of 0.7 degrees cooler would put us into a Little Ice Age. I don’t regard those conditions as being desirable.

How is

Its the cooling thats more rapid; as the nett radiative area of Earth out to space is larger than that which receives nett radiation. Thermal inertia, largely that of the oceans, governs the weather and climate. The oceans transport the bulk of thermal energy around the globe; a little more slowly than air, but at much higher concentration.

incoherent?

The Earth is not in “equilibrium” with surrounding space. The Earth doesn’t have a stable temperature.

It is irrellevant that the earth has a night side and a day side.

A large area of the Earth in daylight has nett radiation to space. What keeps it warmer is the thermal mass; the stored heat in the climate system. At any point in time, only the truncated hemispherical surface intersecting with an internal cone of about 50 degrees angle has nett radiation; depending on local albedo and emissivity. That projected area moves over the surface during the day, driving “weather” as the energy gained therein tries to escape to colder parts.

The Earth stores and indeed generates a small amount of heat from its own nuclear decay. Weather is a result of the lack of equilibrium. The climate system which we observe is subjected to constant, variable perturbation which aren’t limited to direct solar effects but also side effects such as the ostensible variable charged particle cloud nucleation effects.

Greenhouse gases have very little to do with the quasi-stable temperatures that can be observed. Thermal stability has to to with the energy stored and how it is able to move. Hence the enthalphy and other thermal properties along with transport of heat largely by convection and conduction make the largest contribution to Earth being “nice”.

The initial assumptions about the extent of the greenhouse effect dealt with the Earth as being a uniform, non-rotating, stationary, massless black body surrounded by a solid envelope of atmosphere. Allow the Earth to rotate about an inclined axis, orbiting the sun on a sort of elliptical path; give it (thermal) solid mass and the necessary greenhouse effect becomes much smaller. Then change it not being a iuniformly black body. Very much harder to figure out how much greenhous effect is left to try to match it to the “observed” average temperature.

Then add some water and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere with free convection under gravitational and rotational influences. The greenhouse effect becomes impossible to calculate.

It is pure folly to try to fix a system which one doesn’t understand.

Here’s half a million dollars if you can prove that humans are causing climate change.

Re nuclear power:

1. Nuclear power has always required government support, so politics is relevant.

Your previous article would have led somebody to believe that pebble-bed technology had insurmountable technical difficulties:

The germans had an experimental one in the mid 80s but it broke (there are very fine engineering tolerances involved) and they couldnt get it to work reliably. They abandoned the attempt.

The did get it to work reliably. Your statement was false and you did not make it clear that there was a political drive to shut down all nuclear power in Germany, in part as a knee-jerk to Chernobyl.

High-temperature, gas-cooled pebble-bed reactors are inherently safe in operation. They are not as cheap to operate as other types. Which explains why other types have dominated the market so far. If there’s another type of reactor that’s inherently safe, then tell me.

Re alternative energy:
E.On, one of Europe’s major energy providers, has in the past supported co-generation and producing its own power, primarily from wind turbines. You should at least read their annual reports of 2004.

In 2003, Germany again led the world in wind energy use thanks to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG). At the end of 2003, wind power plants with a total installed capacity of around 14,350 Megawatts (MW) fed German electricity grids. Of this, the greatest proportion at around 6,250 MW was connected in the E.ON control area.

For technical reasons, the intensive use of wind power in Germany is associated with significant operational challenges:

Only limited wind power is available. In order to cover electricity demands, traditional power station capacities must be maintained as so-called “shadow power stations” at a total level of more than 80 % of the installed wind energy capacity, so that the electricity consumption is also covered during economically difficult periods.

Only limited forecasting is possible for wind power infeed. If the wind power forecast differs from the actual infeed, the transmission system operator must cover the difference by utilising reserve capacity. This requires reserve capacities amounting to 50 60 % of the installed wind power capacity.

Holstein and Lower Saxony are precisely the places where the grids have now reached their capacity limits through wind power. At present, just under 300 km of new high-voltage and extra-high voltage lines are being planned there in order to create the transmission capacities required for transporting the wind power.

And

Simultaneous wind power infeed was maximum 4,980 MW, equivalent to just under 80% of the installed capacity.

The average fed-in capacity was less than one sixth of the wind power capacity installed in the yearly average.

Over half the year, the wind power fed-in was less than 11% of the wind power capacity installed in the yearly average.

The 2005 Report adds

According to grid studies by the Deutsche Energie-Agentur (dena), wind power capacity in Germany is expected to increase to 48,000MW by 2020, around a threefold increase since 2004.

The possibility of integrating this generation capacity into the supply system remains to be seen. There is a need for considerable changes to the extra-HV grid alone, of around 2,700km. These measures will affect the whole of Germany, not only coastal areas.

Heavy government subsidies to encourage alternative energy have been reducing and are set to disappear in the near future in Germany. The ribs are showing on the piggy-bank.

There’s so much wrong with your comment – nearly every word in fact, that I won’t quote from it, I’ll just respond to your major points.

On your own figure of 0.7C/century a 10C increase would take only take 1400 years not 10′s of thousands. That rate of increase has never been seen before so I think we can be confident that it is not entirely natural. The fact that the actual rate without mid-century aerosols is actually about 1.7C is simply cause for elevated concern. The other fact that we will be in enormous trouble long before we get a 10C rise, is of even more concern.

Your entire paragraph starting “It’s the cooling … ” is incoherent and while I think I understand the argument you’re trying to make, you are wrong.

It is irrellevant that the earth has a night side and a day side. Perhaps if we were living on a body without an atmosphere – such as the moon – you would have an argument. The earth is – in normal circumstances – in thermal equilibrium with it’s environment (the sun and space) and maintains a stable temperature due to the greenhouse effect.

What we now have is a large – not tiny by any means – increase in CO2. From about 270ppm 100 years ago to almost 400ppm now. At least 30% in other words. That is not tiny.

So we are not in normal circumstances. We are living on a planet that is reaching a new thermal equilibrium, only being slowed by thermal inertia such as that provided by the oceans. The earth is warming, and it is not due to natural causes.

At the same time we are increasing the CO2 concentration. We are making the problem worse.

Regarding nuclear power.

Yes there were political considerations in Germany, but three facts are pertinent

1. Nuclear power has always required government support, so politics is relevant.

2. Few pebble bed reactors have ever been built. Two in Germany which were both closed after technical failures. One small experimental one in China. The baseload reactors China is currently building are traditional water cooled ones, not pebble bed.

3. While the market has not provided support to nuclear without large government subsidy, it has provided commercial installations of solar and wind, which are now appearing in baseload scale.

Personally, I think the market is right on this one, but if you think differently I have no problem in you taking a stake in commercial nuclear and I wish you all the best.

Oh and can I ping you on this, which if I’m interpreting it right is one of the more dishonest statements I’ve seen in this debate:

“The present break up of the arctic ice cap is the seasonal spring melt.”

This statement only makes sense if ‘present’ means ‘this summer’ and not this era. This interpretation is lent force by your use of the phrase “spring melt”. You are technically correct, but the turn of the seasons is not climate change, and your statement is irrelevant and misleading.

The extent of the arctic ice cap has been decreasing for around 20 years, and last year fell off a cliff.

Climate change is real. Time to get on the bus and start discussing solutions.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

There’s a bubble like price action in anything solar based on the US stock market.

First Solar has a market cap of $24 billion

Ozone deletion by sulphates.

Climate change is a natural thing. A 10-degree change in temperature is unlikely to occur “quickly”. It would take 10′s of thousands of years; as demonstrated by the length of warming out of past ice ages. It is safe to assume that we are in an inter-glacial period.

In the nearly 2 centuries since the Little Ice Age, the temperatures appear to have crept up (quite irregularly) by 0.7 degrees C. We do not know how much of that warming is anthroprogenic, much less how much of it has been caused by a tiny increment in CO2.

It’s the cooling that’s more rapid; as the nett radiative area of Earth out to space is larger than that which receives nett radiation. Thermal inertia, largely that of the oceans, governs the weather and climate. The oceans transport the bulk of thermal energy around the globe; a little more slowly than air, but at much higher concentration.

The present “break up” of the arctic ice cap is the seasonal “spring melt”.

Regarding nuclear power:

The J

Quote from the article:

“On Tuesday, Emerging Energy Research [EER] released a study on CSP (this is a link to the press release’s PDF – the actual study must be purchased). EER argued that CSP is now the fastest growing utility-scale alternative energy source after wind, and expects US$20 billion to be poured into the sector over the next 5 years.”

$20 billion in 5 years sounds pretty significant to me.

BTW – great exposition Paul. I haven’t seen many other people mention calthrates and the Amazon, and you’ve done a bang-up job. Thanks.

I’d just add one comment about the Amazon. There is an additional fear that as rainfall drops, the forest will turn into a sort of savannah and be much more prone to fire. The resulting fires release large amounts of carbon captured in the trees.

This effect – lower rainfall, more fire – is apparently already being observed in the Amazon.

Fast breeder reactors have never worked (other than as sources of weapons grade material), neither have pebble bed economically.

Pebble bed used to be called “gas cooled” and is not new. The germans had an experimental one in the mid 80′s but it broke (there are very fine engineering tolerances involved) and they couldn’t get it to work reliably. They abandoned the attempt.

At the moment there are about 6 start ups hawking pilot projects around the world, but no-one’s taken them up on their offers yet.

Far from being promising, these “new generation technologies” are not new, do not work, have not been commercialized and can’t get a market.

“However, again [baseload solar] are still in development and unlikely to be available for large-scale commercial deployment for at least a decade.”

Sorry, you’re wrong. They’re being tendered for right now. Try these two links

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/02/2048420.htm

http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=11474

The second project is for delivery in 2012

gas is too expensive and too precious to burn up.

Shutting down Hazelwood and switching to combined-cycle gas would cut Australia’s CO2 emissions by 3%. Within 3 years or so. Multiply that by the rest of Victoria and South Australia’s brown coal baseload capacity and you’re talking pretty serious cuts.

Switching domestic electric hot water heaters to gas, heat pumps, or solar will probably knock off a similar amount. That’s mandates to happen in the next few years.

While I don’t like how it’s been done, the phase-out of incandescent bulbs will probably knock off another 1-2%.

A switch from conventional concrete to this stuff? Maybe another 1%.

Getting rid of resistive electric heating and getting serious about insulation retrofits? Another 2-3%.

A percent here, a percent there, and it starts to add up pretty soon :)

Furry little interventionist countries like France and Sweden produce the bulk of their power through nuke. And I suspect the drop in Euro emissions accounting has been achieved through fudging the books and cheating with the possible exception of the UK and Ireland.

Rob Merkel:

youre buying into the mistaken assumption that there arent cheap, largely invisible engineering solutions to reduce carbon emissions.

What are they? Outside of nuke, there doesn’t seem to be anything available that produces baseload without dis-economies of scale. Furthermore nuke is also very much dependent on the regulatory costs associated with upkeep as well as disposal

Although, I do wonder if there really is good reason to suppose that so little sulphur that high in the upper atmosphere would actually cause a significant colour change, or that it would be particularly yellow.

It was an observation of all too human behavious at work. I am not immune from it myself, but it was interesting to note.

But it would be criminally negligent not to investigate these alternatives to see if they hold water.

but I though safe storage was one of the things that made nuclear expensive

That’s certainly a big part of the expense. So too is the cost of building stations; they are incredibly engineered installations, though enough has been learnt to begin converging on standardised designs, which brings the cost down somewhat.

The main reason storage of wastes is costly is because the wastes are still full of energy; the reason for that is the decision not to use breeder reactors to recover more of the energy. If you use breeder reactors you get far, far more energy from the original fuel and the waste’s span of dangerous lifetime is reduced from thousands of years to hundreds, even decades.