Yeah I haven't dug too deeply into the article itself, can't really find the motivation given the history of both the Financial Post and Ross McKitrick himself. McKitrick has a long history of terrible arguments, like claiming it's impossible to have an average temperature, and bad math, like one incident I remember had McKitrick's analysis having gaps in the data, in itself not necessarily bad, but in the gaps he put in a temperature of zero degrees, of course producing a cooling trend when all those zeroes were lumped in with real data.
McKitrick is also a signatory of the Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, which says this:
Quote:
We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.
Starting with the belief and working backwards is the opposite of science.
So I'd have to be really motivated or really bored to look hard at anything McKitrick says. That's probably not the best scientific view, but if he ever comes up with something that merits a look I'm sure it'll come to light.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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This is a very interesting paper, thanks for sharing.
The paper itself presents the area generating thermal heat, which is not the same as electrical output. In the section above it states that the conversion efficiency of solar thermal plants as 18 - 23%. Second, it says that it's availability is not 100%, even in the best areas (perhaps a 95% availability as it is 80% or so for the winter). These factors weren't applied at all in deriving the area required to supply the world's electricity needs. To me, it makes for quite a misleading figure, but I guess all they're trying to communicate is POTENTIAL for the technology.
The paper also seems to support a projection that up to 80% of baseload power needs will be able to be supplied by renewables, with modern biodiesel taking up a significant portion of that, and nuclear down to zero by 2040.
I am certainly interested by these points of view but there are several practical limitations as to why this sort of mix will never happen.
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I didn't read it (just found it via search), does it talk about transmission at all? Sure being able to generate a ton of power from a relatively small area (globally speaking) is good, but unless you can get it where it's needed...
High temperature super conductors and (or maybe or) order-of-magnitude battery energy density improvements.. then we could talk about paving a desert with solar.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
I didn't read it (just found it via search), does it talk about transmission at all? Sure being able to generate a ton of power from a relatively small area (globally speaking) is good, but unless you can get it where it's needed...
High temperature super conductors and (or maybe or) order-of-magnitude battery energy density improvements.. then we could talk about paving a desert with solar.
I'd say that's the primary topic of the paper - High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission. Its an area I don't know much about, so the paper has sucked me in! Lots of very interesting points, my impression of the paper is that it is assuming that the solar capacity is available in Northern Africa, so they're looking at HVDC transmission across the Mediterranean at three different points.
Flag it for reading when you have time! I'm only about 1/4 into it and have already learned a lot.
Its too bad I don't read German because a lot of the references are published in that language and lots of the figures are annotated in German as well. It's not too hard to discern what is being presented though.
Great, I'll check that video out, hopefully its solid on its science and I can forward it to our humanist group president who oddly is pretty un-skeptical about the news she hears about Fukushima.
Great, I'll check that video out, hopefully its solid on its science and I can forward it to our humanist group president who oddly is pretty un-skeptical about the news she hears about Fukushima.
Dr. Hargraves is a trustworthy source and cites the same. Let me know if you find anything questionable and I can present the issue to him for a rebuttal!
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I asked Ethan Segal from itstartswithabang, the astro physicist since he's a fan of nuclear energy, and this was his reply, mind you he has to watch it but for what its worth:
Quote:
Ethan Siegel I hadn't, and it looks like I'm going to have a hard time verifying some of the claims here against the full body of medical knowledge. For some populations of people, LNT looks like it's quite valid, for others it quite clearly isn't. The "NIMBY" nuclear fear in the USA (and many other places worldwide) is ridiculous, but in places where the normal background dose is low, an increase in radiation does cause a marked increase in health problems. Additionally, large, short-burst doses of radiation are potentially catastrophic, which is where most of the fear comes from.
There is a nuanced case to be made for nuclear power (and I'm a fan, as you may know), but this doesn't appear to be it.
I asked Ethan Segal from itstartswithabang, the astro physicist since he's a fan of nuclear energy, and this was his reply, mind you he has to watch it but for what its worth:
Very interesting, thank you. I would like to know if any of the claims stand out in particular after he does watch it (if he does).
I believe the argument is that there is a threshold exposure level in which radiation exposure does not cause increased incidence in cancers; that low dose exposure is not cumulative in its effect as LNT claims.
Further to his point, this in and of itself is not an argument for nuclear power, rather a means to recalibrate the irrational fear the public has when it comes to radiation exposure. It's about adjusting the mindset when evaluating nuclear as an option, because there is an unfair bias that exists due to the position of "no exposure is best", that has been conditioned into public groupthink, when according to the arguments presented in the video, this is not a position which can be supported with good science.
Start with a better understanding of radiation risk, and one is better able to evaluate energy sources which produce radiation exposures, even potentially short, high bursts as he describes. Coal fired plants emit a great deal of fly ash which represent a significant radiation source, yet people don't think of coal plants as a radiation source and as such coal is not largely opposed for this reason. Nuclear fission plants with risk profiles that introduce the potential for very high, short term exposures should not be built, you'll get no argument from me on that point. However there are systems with exceptional safety profiles. Heck ... Ask the insurance industry if existing pressurized water reactors are statistically safe or not. How many successful claims have been filed against nuclear operators for causing cancer? The answer is virtually none. Yet we accept the very high DEATH rates associated with other fuel sources, but this is somehow acceptable because maybe an individual doesn't suffer as much in a mine collapse or a rail car explosion as they do when they get thyroid cancer that lasts for years? I don't understand the difference and I really wish that I did.
I would like to review the medical evidence that he is referring to which supports LNT, if that is at all possible.
Crazy islamists will probably nuke earth way before we have to worry about climate change
Humans are racing towards one of the possible explanations for the fermi paradox, a giant civilization ending challenge/filter/wall that all intelligent life must overcome. Whether it's nuclear proliferation, plagues or ecological disaster the human race has about as much chance at passing the test as do mentally ######ed kids of passing the SAT.
So be a good citizen and try to do the right things, but know that it won't change much.
Canada's Terrestrial Energy had their Integral Molten Salt Reactor get listed on the World Nuclear Association's page on Small Modular Reactors this month!
Powell recently finished another such investigation, this time looking at peer-reviewed articles published between November 2012 and December 2013. Out of 2,258 articles (with 9,136 authors), how many do you think explicitly rejected human-driven global warming? Go on, guess!
One. Yes, one. Here’s what that looks like as a pie chart:
Here at ClimateProgress, we spend a lot of time debunking politicians who deny climate change based on scientifically murky grounds. On Thursday, it looked as though we’d have to do it again, after Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) blocked a Senate resolution that would have simply stated that climate change is real. Inhofe said he objected to the resolution because the earth had experienced “no warming for the last 15 years;” and because 9,000 scientists had signed a petition expressing doubt that greenhouse gases cause global warming.
Fortunately, however, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) did the debunking for us, just seconds after Inhofe finished his tirade against the Obama administration for having his federal agencies “collude” together to promote a “global warming agenda.”
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
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Been saying this for a while. It really only hurts a select group of companies and people (see oil/coal etc.), unfortunately those people have a lot of power and sway in the world.
It really is the tyranny of the few controlling the world, and climate of all the rest of us. That's why I get so mad sometimes. Greed pure and simple.
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Sink Holes in Russia are a Dragon's breath, a term for large volumes of methane gas escaping into the atmosphere. If these are happening more and more, this would mean climate models are way off and the runaway climate might be a lot closer than we think.
I hate to say this, but I'm nearing a point where I truly believe we will not stop or even slow this enough before billions die and we have mass extinction events. I wish I could be more optimistic, but we as a planet are so slow to react to slow changing events and this one is unforgiving to us not taking action.
EMPTYING AN ANCIENT CARBON DUMP
Siberia’s Yamal region contains some of Russia’s largest gas reserves. It’s little coincidence that the first vent hole appeared about 40km from the nation’s largest gas field — Bovanenkovo.
Since then another crater has been identified nearby. This one is smaller: Some 15m in diameter. Locals first found it in September last year, but it has only now come to the attention of authorities. A third — this time only 4m wide — was found several hundred kilometres away on the Taymyr Peninsula.
Russian scientists examining the first blowhole found it to be 60-80m wide and some 70m deep. It runs into the permafrost of ice and mud. There is an icy lake at its bottom.
It was a process which took millions of years to create the world as we know it.
But the methane left trapped under the Arctic permafrost is a ticking time bomb — set to send the world into a mass extinction and set the climate clock back by millennia.
“We have been too long on a trajectory pointed at an unmanageable climate calamity; runaway climate heating,” Dr Box writes.
Oh and I posted this on Facebook with my thoughts on all this.
Quote:
I just don't understand why we humans are so paralyzed about climate change, the analog of the slowly boiling water and the frog (which is untrue) keeps popping into my head. Because this is so slow acting we keep thinking it will be solved down the road, but what people seem to miss is the urgency in which our time to do anything is fading.
We have icecaps melting, warming the oceans, we have permafrost warming and releasing tons of CO2 and now evidence with methane starting to join the warming trend, which is outright SCARY. The Russian sink holes are a Dragon's breath, methane expulsions which are being caused by warming. Methane is the sign a lot of climatologists have been fearing, not just worried, outright terrified. If we are starting to see more and more methane being released we could be looking at a runaway climate and mass extinctions. The frozen CO2 in the oceans, the frozen methane in siberia, arctic seas, if this stuff starts to go, we will see a hot planet that may wipe out most of the life on earth.
I always want to be an optimist about the future, but seeing how so many are even unwilling to admit this is happening gives me great pause, and makes me wonder if there is anything we can do other than destroy this only home we have.
Carl Sagan said it best in pale blue dot:
"The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
—Carl Sagan
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
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