With the axing of the CNN Science News team, most science stories at CNN are now being given to general assignment reporters who don’t necessarily have the background to know when they are being taken for a ride. On the Lou Dobbs show (an evening news program on cable for those of you not in the US), the last few weeks have brought a series of embarrassing non-stories on ‘global cooling’ based it seems on a few cold snaps this winter, the fact that we are at a solar minimum and a regurgitation of 1970s vintage interpretations of Milankovitch theory (via Pravda of all places!). Combine that with a few hysterical (in both senses) non-scientists as talking heads and you end up with a repeat of the nonsensical ‘Cooling world’ media stories that were misleading in the 1970s and are just as misleading now.
Exhibit A. Last night’s (13 Jan 2009) transcript (annotations in italics).
Note that this is a rush transcript and the typos aren’t attributable to the participants.
DOBBS: Welcome back. Global warming is a complex, controversial issue and on this broadcast we have been critical of both sides in this debate. We’ve challenged the orthodoxy surrounding global warming theories and questioned more evidence on the side of the Ice Age and prospect in the minds of some. In point of fact, research, some of it, shows that we could be heading toward cooler temperatures, and it’s a story you will only see here on LOU DOBBS TONIGHT. Ines Ferre has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Will the day after tomorrow bring a deep freeze like that shown in the movie? Research more than 50 years ago by astrophysicist Milanchovich (ph) shows that ice ages run in predictable cycles and the earth could go into one. How soon? In science terms it could be thousands of years. But what happens in the next decade is still up in the air. Part of the science community believes that global warming is a man-maid threat. But Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute predicts the next 20 to 30 years will actually bring cooling temperatures.
Dennis Avery is part of the ‘science community’? Who knew? And, while amusing, the threat of ‘man-maids’ causing global warming is just a typo. Nice thought though. Oh, and if you want to know what the actual role of Milankovitch in forcing climate is, look at the IPCC FAQ Q6.1. Its role in current climate change? Zero.
DENNIS AVERY, HUDSON INSTITUTE: The earth’s temperatures have dropped an average of .6 Celsius in the last two years. The Pacific Ocean is telling us, as it has told us 10 times in the past 400 years, you’re going to get cooler.
For those unfamiliar with Dennis Avery, he is a rather recent convert to the
bandwagonidea of global cooling, having very recently been an advocate of “unstoppable” global warming. As for his great cherry pick (0.6º C in two years – we’re doomed!), this appears to simply be made up. Even putting aside the nonsense of concluding anything from a two year trend, if you take monthly values and start at the peak value at the height of the last El Niño event of January 2007 and do no actual trend analysis, I can find no data set that gives a drop of 0.6ºC. Even UAH MSU-LT gives only 0.4ºC. The issue being not that it hasn’t been cooler this year than last, but why make up numbers? This is purely rhetorical of course, they make up numbers because they don’t care about whether what they say is true or not.FERRE: Avery points to a lack of sunspots as a predictor for lower temperatures, saying the affects of greenhouse gas warming have a small impact on climate change. Believers in global warming, like NASA researcher, Dr. Gavin Schmidt disagree.
I was interviewed on tape in the afternoon, without seeing any of the other interviews. Oh, and what does a ‘believer in global warming’ even mean?
DR. GAVIN SCHMIDT, NASA: The long term trend is clearly toward warming, and those trends are completely dwarf any changes due to the solar cycle.
FERRE: In a speech last week, President-elect Obama called for the creation of a green energy economy. Still, others warn that no matter what you think about climate change, new policies would essentially have no effect.
FRED SINGER, SCIENCE & ENV. POLICY PROJECT: There’s very little we can do about it. Any effort to restrict the use of carbon dioxide will hurt us economically and have zero effect on the Chicago mate.
Surely another typo, but maybe the Chicago mate is something to do with the man-maids? See here for more background on Singer.
FERRE: As Singer says, a lot of pain, for no gain.
Huh? Try looking at the actual numbers from a recent McKinsey report. How is saving money through efficiency a ‘pain’?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FERRE: And three independent research groups concluded that the average global temperature in 2008 was the ninth or tenth warmest since 1850, but also since the coldest since the turn of the 21st century.
DOBBS: It’s fascinating and nothing — nothing — stirs up the left, the right, and extremes in this debate, the orthodoxy that exists on both sides of the debate than to even say global warming. It’s amazing.
This is an appeal to the ‘middle muddle’ and an attempt to seem like a reasonable arbitrator between two opposing sides. But as many people have previously noted, there is no possible compromise between sense and nonsense. 2+2 will always equal 4, no matter how much the Hudson Institute says otherwise.
FERRE: When I spoke to experts and scientists today from one side and the other, you could feel the kind of anger about —
That was probably me. Though it’s not anger, it’s simple frustration that reporters are being taken in and treating seriously the nonsense that comes out of these think-tanks.
DOBBS: Cannot we just all get along? Ines, thank you very much.
Joining me now three leading experts in Manchester, New Hampshire, we’re joined by Joseph D’Aleo of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project. Good to have with you us.
JOSEPH D’ALEO, CO-FOUNDER WEATHER CHANNEL: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: He’s also the cofounder of The Weather Channel. In Washington, D.C., as you see there, Jay Lehr, he’s the science director of the Heartland Institute. And in Boston, Alex Gross, he’s the cofounder of co2stats.com. Good to have you with us.
Well that’s balanced!
Let’s put a few numbers out here, the empirical discussion and see what we can make of it. First is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has very good records on temperatures, average temperatures in the United States, dating back to 1880. And here’s what these numbers look like. You’ve all seen those. But help us all — the audience and most of all me to get through this, they show the warmest years on record, 1998, 2006, and 1934. 2008 was cooler, in fact the coolest since 1997. It’s intriguing to see that graph there. The graph we’re looking at showing some question that the warming trend may be just a snapshot in time. The global temperatures by NOAA are seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001. The ten warmest years have all occurred since 1995.
So let me start, if I may, Joseph, your reaction to those numbers. Do you quibble with what they represent?
D’ALEO: Yes, I do. In fact, if you look at the satellite data, which is the most reliable data, the best coverage of the globe, 2008 was the 14th coldest in 30 years. That doesn’t jive with the tenth warmest in 159 years in the Hadley data set or 113 or 114 years in the NOAA data set. Those global data sets are contaminated by the fact that two-thirds of the globe’s stations dropped out in 1990. Most of them rural and they performed no urban adjustment. And, Lou, you know, and the people in your studio know that if they live in the suburbs of New York City, it’s a lot colder in rural areas than in the city. Now we have more urban effect in those numbers reflecting — that show up in that enhanced or exaggerated warming in the global data set.
D’Aleo is misdirecting through his teeth here. He knows that the satellite analyses have more variability over ENSO cycles than the surface records, he also knows that urban heat island effects are corrected for in the surface records, and he also knows that this doesn’t effect ocean temperatures, and that the station dropping out doesn’t affect the trends at all (you can do the same analysis with only stations that remained and it makes no difference). Pure disinformation.
DOBBS: Your thoughts on these numbers. Because they are intriguing. They are a brief snapshot admittedly, in comparison to total extended time. I guess we could go back 4.6 billion years. Let’s keep it in the range of something like 500,000 years. What’s your reaction to those numbers and your interpretation?
JAY LEHR, HEARTLAND INSTITUTE: Well, Lou —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m sorry.
DOBBS: Go ahead, Jay.
LEHR: Lou, I’m in the camp with Joe and Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and I think more importantly, it is to look at the sun’s output, and in recent years, we’ve seen very, very low sunspot activity, and we are definitely, in my mind, not only in a cooling period, we’re going to be staying in it for a couple decades, and I see it as a major advantage, although I think we will be able to adapt to it. I’m hopeful that this change in the sun’s output will put some common sense into the legislature, not to pass any dramatic cap in trade or carbon tax legislation that will set us in a far deeper economic hole. I believe Mr. Obama and his economic team are well placed to dig us out of this recession in the next 18 months to 2 years, but I think if we pass any dramatic legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, the recession will last quite a few more years and we’ll come out of it with a lower standard of living on very tenuous scientific grounds.
DOBBS: Alex, the carbon footprint, generation of greenhouse gases, specifically co2, the concern focusing primarily on the carbon footprint, and of course generated by fossil fuels primarily, what is your thinking as you look at that survey of 130 — almost 130 years and the impact on the environment?
ALEX WISSNER-GROSS, CO2STATS.COM: Well, Lou, I think regardless of whatever the long-term trend in the climate data is, there a long- term technological trend which is that as time goes on our technology tends toward smaller and smaller physical footprint. That means in part that in the long term we like technology to have a smaller environmental footprint, burning fewer greenhouse gases and becoming as small and environmentally neutral and noninvasive as possible. So I think regardless of the climate trend, I think we’ll see less and less environmentally impactful technologies.
Wissner-Gross is on because of the media attention given to misleading reports about the carbon emissions related to Google searches. Shame he doesn’t get to talk about any of that.
DOBBS: To be straight forward about this, that’s where I come down. I don’t know it matters to me whether there is global warming or we’re moving toward an ice age it seems really that we should be reasonable stewards of the planet and the debate over whether it’s global warming or whether it’s moving toward perhaps another ice age or business as usual is almost moot here in my mind. I know that will infuriate the advocates of global warming as well as the folks that believe we are headed toward another ice age. What’s your thought?
Curious train of logic there…
D’ALEO: I agree with you, Lou. We need conservation. An all of the above solution for energy, regardless of whether we’re right and it cools over the next few decades or continues to warm, a far less dangerous scenario. And that means nuclear. It means coal, oil, natural gas. Geothermal, all of the above.
DOBBS: Jay, you made the comment about the impact of solar sunspot activity. Sunspot activity the 11-year cycle that we’re all familiar with. There are much larger cycles, 12,000 to 13,000 years as well. We also heard a report disregard, if you will, for the strength and significance of solar activity on the earth’s environment. How do you respond to that?
Is he talking about me? Please see some of my publications on the subject from 2006, 2004 and 2001. My point above was that relative to current greenhouse gas increases, solar is small – not that it is unimportant or uninteresting. This of course is part of the false dilemma ‘single cause’ argument that the pseudo-skeptics like to use – that change must be caused by either solar or greenhouse gases and that any evidence for one is evidence against the other. This is logically incoherent.
FEHR: It just seems silly to not recognize that the earth’s climate is driven by the sun.
Ah yes.
Your Chad Myers pointed out it’s really arrogant to think that man controls the climate.
This is a misquoted reference to a previous segment a few weeks ago where Myers was discussing the impact of climate on individual weather patterns. But man’s activities do affect the climate and are increasingly controlling its trends.
90 percent of the climate is water vapor which we have no impact over and if we were to try to reduce greenhouse gases with China and India controlling way more than we do and they have boldly said they are not going to cripple their economy by following suit, our impact would have no — no change in temperature at all in Europe they started carbon — capping trade in 2005. They’ve had no reduction in groan house gases, but a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in the standard of living. We don’t want to go that route.
What? Accounting for the garbled nature of this response, he was probably trying to say that 90% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour. This is both wrong and, even were it true, irrelevant.
DOBBS: Alex, you get the last word here. Are you as dismissive of the carbon footprint as measured by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
GROSS: No, not really. But I think in the long term, efficiency is where the gains come from. I think efficiency should come first, carbon footprint second.
DOBBS: Thank you very much. Alex, Jay, and Joe. Folks, appreciate you being with us.
FEHR: Thank you.
In summary, this is not the old ‘balance as bias‘ or ‘false balance‘ story. On the contrary, there was no balance at all! Almost the entire broadcast was given over to policy advocates whose use of erroneous-but-scientific-sounding sound bites is just a cover for their unchangable opinions that nothing should ever be done about anything. This may make for good TV (I wouldn’t know), but it certainly isn’t journalism.
There are pressures on journalists that conspire against fully researching a story – deadlines, the tyranny of the news peg etc. – but that means they have to be all the more careful in these kinds of cases. Given that Lou Dobbs has been better on this story in the past, seeing him and his team being spun like this is a real disappointment. They could really do much better.
Update: Marc Roberts sends in this appropriate cartoon:
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David B. Benson: “AGW is about as well established as anything in all of science.”
You are not helping your credibility with statements like that.
Even if AGW is 90% established, you are comparing with Newton’s Laws?
Jae, 343, can someone who thinks that bird deaths are a great reason to remove wind turbins please tell me how they would approach the knowledge that skyscrapers in Austin cause far more deaths.
Would you level the city to save the little burdies?
James wrote in #262: “And how much land would need to be ravaged to build enough of these [concentrating solar thermal power with thermal storage] plants to supply an appreciable fraction of electric consumption? Far more than is strip-mined for coal.”
Wrong. From Earth Policy Institute:
James wrote in #262: “No, nuclear is desirable, since it can produce baseload power more effectively, and with less environmental impact, than those other sources.”
Wrong again. I refer you to a recent study by Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, who conducted “the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability.” Jacobson examined the benefits and impacts of solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage technology, and concluded:
With regard to the question of baseload power and the intermittency of wind and solar, Jacobson found:
Another Stanford study, co-authored by Jacobson and Cristina Archer, found:
The USA has vast commercially-exploitable solar and wind energy resources that are sufficient to produce several times as much electricity as the entire country uses. Indeed, a study by the Institute For Local Self-Reliance found that “at least half of the fifty states could meet all their internal energy needs from renewable energy generated inside their borders, and the vast majority could meet a significant percentage … At least twenty-one could satisfy 100 percent of their electricity needs from in-state renewable energy. At least seventeen could satisfy 50 percent of their gasoline demand with domestic biofuels. If electricity becomes a major transportation fuel, twenty-seven states could meet their entire demand for automobile fuel with renewable biofuel. This report’s estimates may be considered very conservative, since it does not consider non-rooftop solar or offshore wind.”
So even without including two major sources of energy — concentrating solar thermal power plants and offshore wind, either of which could alone generate most of the electricity used in the USA — the ILSR study find that most US states can be energy self-sufficient from renewables alone.
The simple facts are that there is no need to build more nuclear power plants, because we can more than meet our needs by harvesting abundant, ubiquitous, limitless, FREE wind and solar energy; and that expanding nuclear electricity generation is not a particularly effective way to address global warming, and to the extent that it imposes “opportunity costs” by diverting resources and investment from better solutions, it actually detracts from that effort. Thus there is no need to deal with the very real hazards and harms of nuclear power.
James, 348, you’re forgetting the inefficiencies of baseload where the load doesn’t match requirements and there is too much electricity production.
Do you cool your steam turbine down, losing all that stored energy?
EL wrote: “We don’t have an infrastructure or technology in place to make any kind of switch over from fossil fuels.”
At one time, we didn’t have a fossil fuel infrastructure either. But we built one. At one time we didn’t have an Internet either. But we built it.
When people like myself advocate building a renewable energy infrastructure — e.g. wind turbine farms, concentrating solar thermal power plants, distributed photovoltaics, centralized and distributed energy storage, all interconnected by a smart grid — do you think that we don’t know that this infrastructure doesn’t already exist? What exactly is your point?
If you are suggesting that we lack the technology or the ability to create such an infrastructure quickly enough to reduce CO2 emissions as much and as rapidly as we need to do, you are just wrong. Present-day wind and solar technology can do the job, and the investment required is manageable and will to a large extent pay for itself over time by permanently eliminating the cost of fuel. And some of that investment is needed anyway — we need serious investments and upgrades to the nation’s electrical grid just to handle existing supply and demand efficiently and robustly, let alone to incorporate new generating capacity whether it is wind, solar, nuclear or whatever.
EL wrote: “If the large USA based motor companies such as GM and Ford were to make electric cars, we couldn’t support the needed electricity.”
Multiple studies have found that statement to be wrong. For example, a 2006 study by the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that “if all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles … ‘off-peak’ electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics.”
Do you ever do any research into these questions before commenting? Or do you prefer to shoot from the hip with ill-informed, baseless opinions and hope that no one will notice?
“Do you ever do any research into these questions before commenting?”
What, and ruin their carefully cultivated shoot-from-the-lip reputation? Surely you jest!
Steve Reynolds (351) — Even highly conservative IPCC put it higher than that. Notice I said “about” and also note that Newton’s Laws have been superseded for some time now.
Philip M. (308), I don’t think it is a conspiracy theory: it’s all right out there in plain view. If you check through RC, e.g., you’ll find plenty of AGWers stating that silencing skeptics is a very good thing; and virtually none going the other way (though I have no knowledge of what might be said on other blogs.) For my part I was referring to the blogosphere, not the media – which does not want to silence anyone. I find your description of the Aussie political environment surprising. Why is it that way?
[Response: Again, show me one post or inline comment by any of the principles here that support such a notion. Arguing is fine, but don’t make stuff up. – gavin]
Alan (311), 125KW per person for residential use sounds way out of whack. I assume you mean KWhr, which is still out of whack. Or are you dividing the total electric energy generation for anya use by the population figure?
Steve, 451. Newtons’ laws? You mean those ones that have been proven to be wrong for the last 100 plus years?
f=ma
can be derived from Shroedinger’s equation. Newton had to just assume it was.
And CO2 as a greenhouse gas has been known for 150 years, give or take.
How long does something have to be found to have been true to become “OK” in your eyes?
Sheesh.
Well, you’re forgetting, perhaps, that early installations like Altamont Pass were killing raptors, which are much less numerous than most species killed by buildings in cities. You’re also perhaps misunderstanding that conservationists worried about raptor kills have not been anti-wind power, though wind power interests have traditionally tried to stick that label to them, as well as trivialize their concerns as you have in your post.
Conservationists have successfully applied pressure, in part through the courts, to force impacts on birds to be part of the siting process, and for monitoring to be part of site operations plans.
Nothing wrong with that. The end result is that we’ve all learned that derrick-style pylons are a no-no, that larger turbines kill fewer birds, that typically minor changes to siting plans can lead to fewer birds being killed, etc.
Any particular reason to oppose such things that you can think of?
An article in today’s Australian may be of interest
http://tinyurl.com/9kdtu3
Barton Paul Levenson #318 posts
“No, it is not. If you actually do the matrix math that explains the Milankovic cycles, you find that we passed the peak of the interglacial 6,000 years ago and should now be COOLING.”
Perhaps we are (see above article)
Jim Galasyn # 330. The major problem with the Murray-Darling is not climate change but rapacious farmers in Queensland and New South Wales being granted and taking unsustainable amounts of water for irrigation of crops such as cotton
Chuckle. EL may just be a high school kid desperate for homework help, you know, using the old reliable method that’s so much easier than research:
“The way to get good information on Usenet is to post what you know, and await correction.”
Time will tell.
SecularAnimist Says (19 January 2009 at 3:51 PM):
“Wrong. From Earth Policy Institute:
A study by Ausra, a solar energy company based in California, indicates that over 90 percent of fossil fuel–generated electricity in the United States and the majority of U.S. oil usage for transportation could be eliminated using solar thermal power plants — and for less than it would cost to continue importing oil. The land requirement for the CSP plants would be roughly 15,000 square miles (38,850 square kilometers, the equivalent of 15 percent of the land area of Nevada).”
Yes. Thank you for finding that figure: it’s in line with others I’ve seen, and my own back-of-the-envelope calculations. So you’re talking here about the complete & permanent environmental destruction of 15,000 square miles (60% of the land area of West Virginia, for comparison) of land as preferrable to the (largely imagined) dangers of nuclear power.
We discuss accounting for the external costs of fossil fuel plants, so where are the external costs of this?
“While this may sound like a large tract, CSP plants use less land per equivalent electrical output than large hydroelectric dams when flooded land is included, or than coal plants when factoring in land used for coal mining.”
The flooded land behind a hydroelectric dam becomes a lake – a different ecosystem, but still an ecosystem. Land that’s been strip-mined can be reclaimed when the mining’s done, and in time come to support forest or grassland. The land that you build your concentrating solar thermal plants on will be dead, and will stay dead for as long as those plants block the sunlight.
“The simple facts are that there is no need to build more nuclear power plants, because we can more than meet our needs by harvesting abundant, ubiquitous, limitless, FREE wind and solar energy…”
Well, that’s just plain wrong, and IMHO a classic example of the hyperbole I’ve come to expect from the “renewables can do everything” camp. Is solar energy limitless? No, it’s strictly limited: about 1 KW/m^2 in orbit, minus atmospheric losses, day/night cycles, base collector efficiency (which gets reduced by e.g. dust collecting on solar panels – see “Mars Rover”), and so on. Is it free? Again, no: I doubt you’ll find PV panels for much less than $3/watt: http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm If that’s free, I can with equal logic argue that nuclear power’s free, because all you have to do is dig up the uranium :-)
Mark Says (19 January 2009 at 3:52 PM)
“James, 348, you’re forgetting the inefficiencies of baseload where the load doesn’t match requirements and there is too much electricity production.
Do you cool your steam turbine down, losing all that stored energy?”
Mark, steam turbines don’t work the way you seem to think. There’s no appreciable storage of energy in steam, whether it’s in a reactor or coal-fired plant. There’s a time lag in changing power output (I’ll refer you to the appropriate kind of engineer for details), but there’s not a great change in efficiency. You can, within limits, throttle the power level to meet demand.
Of course that’s the simple first-order explanation. In real life, every power plant has efficiency & response curves, and there are other factors such as the amount of power that any particular line can handle. Part of what system control operators do is to balance the outputs of all the different generators in the system, so as to produce the cheapest power while staying within system operating constraints. Those constraints, BTW, are by no means as simple as you might imagine. There’s a lot of engineering, and some fairly complex computer software (some of which I used to support) that goes into making the light come on when you flip a switch.
If you’re interested, here’s a Wikipedia article with a brief introduction to power flow studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_flow_study Computing stability is about an order of magnitude more complicated.
355 – SecularAnimist
“If you are suggesting that we lack the technology or the ability to create such an infrastructure quickly enough to reduce CO2 emissions as much and as rapidly as we need to do, you are just wrong. “
That is exactly what I’m suggesting. I’ll be more then happy to be proved wrong, but I don’t think I will.
“Multiple studies have found that statement to be wrong “ (power grid)
Multiple people who make the power grids work say their nearing their limit.
“The report was based on information from 50 utilities, power generators and other electric system participants. It quotes Kenneth W. Farmer, executive director of the Beauregard Electric Cooperative, of DeRidder, La., saying, “It appears that greenhouse gas issues and electric utility reliability are on a collision course.” “
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/10grid.html
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=3544
Those reports you link do some seasonal cherry picking. It’s also a contradiction with reports that the nations power grid is nearing its limit. I think it’s well to remember that our nations power grid was mostly built in the 60’s and 70’s and is in need of a major upgrade.
> skyscrapers … bird deaths
Turns out polarization of reflected light from smooth surfaces is part of the problem. And it’s one reason birds and insects are confused not just by glass but by smooth pavement.
This may suggest one good way to get birds away from airports — if they look like open water from a distance to birds, no wonder we have problems!
A surface treatment that changes this is likely doable, maybe even could be painted or abraded on at large scale. And it’s certainly a good thing to consider before rolling out large areas of solar panels!
355 – Here is some more links:
The Department of Energy projects that US electricity sales will rise between 18 percent (with low growth) to 39 percent (with high growth) from 2006 to 2030, even with current efficiency efforts. Much of the growth will come from the commercial sector. Residential use will also grow, as the population shifts to warmer regions needing air-conditioning.
The DOE anticipates the need for 263 gigawatts of new generating capacity by 2030 to meet rising demand and offset the loss of existing generation through retirement; 263 gigawatts equal about a quarter of what America generates now.
Today’s transmission grid can’t meet tomorrow’s needs. Obviously, we must build more capacity.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01152009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_power_grid_america_needs_150220.htm
The U.S. electrical grid—the system that carries electricity from producers to consumers—is in dire straits. Electricity generation and consumption have steadily risen, placing an increased burden on a transmission system that was not designed to carry such a large load. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13153/americas_vulnerable_energy_grid.html
Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27grid.html?pagewanted=all
Also note that I can defend my ideas without being condescending.
Ian Lee, you’ll be more likely to retain whatever science cred you have left if you quit citing sources such as Pravda and the (anti-science) Australian as “proof” that the work of hard-working climate sciences and thousands of published papers are wrong.
Bob Carter is a known dishonest climate science denialist, who among other things has lied about his credentials in an effort to puff his credibility.
You show no sign whatsoever of having explored climate science. It’s apparent that your “education” has come from science denialists.
Is this how you recommend people learn about biochemistry? Read Rev. Moon’s Washington Times rather than the scientific literature, perhaps?
Ian says, “The major problem with the Murray-Darling is not climate change but rapacious farmers in Queensland and New South Wales being granted and taking unsustainable amounts of water for irrigation of crops such as cotton.”
The Australian government begs to differ:
Even a casual inspection of Murray-Darling temperatures shows an obvious warming trend. Here’s a fun data portal: Australian Rainfall and Surface Temperature Data.
More spin, found here:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/8145
Boston Globe, January 14, 2009
Ahead of the hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, Steven Groves from the Heritage Foundation … wrote that the U.S. government should not agree to being bound by international treaties, such as on global warming…. While the Heritage Foundation does not disclose its corporate funders, ExxonMobil voluntary disclosed in its most recent report that it donated $40,000 to the think tank in 2007.
Gavin (358), I dunno; if I searched long and hard I might find one or two statements from the principals. But I know and agree that it is not likely. But there is a whole pile of AGWers posting on RC that are not principals — that’s whom I was referring.
Anne Van Der Bom:
“Modern wind turbines require two inspection visits per year. This is simply a visit by a mechanic in a van. Suppose he’s living 50 km from the turbine and can inspect 1 turbine per day. That means 200 car-km per turbine per year. An average van emits around 200 g/km, so that comes in at a whopping 40 kg CO2 for ~10 million kWh. Or 4 mg per kWh. Add in a few repairs per year, with big parts having to be hauled in by truck, and the figure rises perhaps to 50 mg/kWh. Significantly flawed? I wouldn’t think so.”
I would first like to start off by thanking you for the quick arithmetic you provided. Although, by posting that information, I assume you did not sense my sarcasm. What you computed was plausible however, what I wanted was a hypothetical estimate of the carbon emissions emitted in order to maintain the functionality of all existing turbines within the U.S. subsequent to the completion of all conceivable wind projects that are needed to attain 20-30% energy capacity–something that requires esoteric knowledge and tedious computations. Because of our inability to pry into our major politician’s brains, much of this would be purely hypothetical, not because we do not know the quantity of turbines needed for such a feat, but rather instead the majority of their locations and orientations remain largely unknown at this juncture. Aside from this, I did have one rebuttal with your methodology: you omitted one crucial bit of information–each wind turbine is positioned 1000 ft or ~305m apart from one another. Hence, every 5 turbines ~ 1 mile. Most large scale wind farms contain about 350 turbines. Therefore, the combined distance alone, from the first to the last turbine would be 70 miles or ~113km. This does not even consider the distance to get to the wind farm itself.
This of course is just ONE wind farm. Within the next decade, pending the disposition of MR. President Obama, we may very well see 10 or more such farms being erected, while many more are constructed along the coastlines. There will be much more CO2 emitted due to transportation alone than your arithmetic suggests.
“Perhaps we are (see above article)”
Jebus, someone please tell me not all molecular biologists are this dense and gullible.
Hank Roberts Says (19 January 2009 at 9:09 PM):
“…it?s one reason birds and insects are confused not just by glass… it?s certainly a good thing to consider before rolling out large areas of solar panels!”
Ah, yes. Another factor to degrade the efficiency of solar power. Especially if you site them in Nevada. You might be surprised to learn that there are a lot of migratory birds passing through in the spring & fall. See for instance http://www.fws.gov/stillwater/stillwater.html
Ian Lee, have you searched for news stories about the area of science you specialize in? How accurate have they been? Has there been any economic or political reason for anyone to do PR work in your area of expertise?
Ian,
I am not using a pseudonym. My email and the name I use here is a shortened version of my first and last name. I will give a hint, my first name was recently the most popular name given to males in the US. Mack is my last name. You can find my contributions on Alzforum.org as well. Regarding the Biology questions, we have already moved past this. Those topics are not difficult, what I am questioning is your lack of searching for credible data, multiple data sets, and how you are ignoring the majority of peer reviewed papers in climate science. I am not famous nor am I claiming papers either. I am saying that if this author is you,and it very well could be, how is it you are so thorough in your methods of acquiring knowledge there and are lacking in looking at real data in climate science? There is a learning curve, yes but you are neglecting real data and you are certainly cherry picking, something we would our students not to do. Then again other than throwing around some terminology on molecular biology and claimed a paper, you have not convinced me that you have the background you say you do exactly, but this is irrelevant to the current thread or our discussion Ian. I could just pose a problem or two from biochemistry since that would remove all doubt, problems you cannot find online, but this is not conducive to the learning you are seeking on climate science.
Simply: read the IPCC report, and all the publications you can find online from the moderators here at RC, look at the charts and data from NASA GISS, NOAA, Princeton AOS, and while you are at it, read the RC wiki, start here and so forth. My doubts of your background specifically are focused on the chemistry; the chemistry, real chemistry eloquently explains a lot about AGW processes in addition to the pure physics. Did you take Physical Chemistry or just biochemistry? At any rate, read and learn before posing questions that are already better answered in other RC threads and publications of the highest caliber.
For further information and my full name if you cannot guess it still Ian, visit my blog, climateoverdrive.org, though RC is the best blog on climate science because these moderators are climate scientists.Still I offer my own threads and many links which answer all your questions and there you can see my own background unabridged if you would like where it is more appropriate, not wasting space in this blog where climate science should the primary focus:)I look forward to your reply in my blog:)
Actually, they look like large grassy areas full of food. They look the same to coyotes (PDX – my home airport – has surrounded the perimeter with supposedly coyote-proof fence but the coyotes dug deeper more than once). PDX problems grow in winter, as a lot of birds migrate into the PNW. Particularly problematic are the large number of juvenile raptors, particularly red-tails, that move in to hunt. Think about it … predators are controlled, all those little vole-ly and other luscious mammal things become numerous. The red-tails are trapped and relocated, though quite frequently they find their way back after a few day. Last I heard (about five years ago) there were four resident pairs allowed to stay year-rounds – they’re territorial, chase off the wintering kids, and stay away from the runways.
Bird species attracted to open water aren’t the problem. Well, in florida, where there’s water everywhere, you’ll see egrets in large numbers hanging out at miami international … but they’re not being fooled by the pavement :)
The canada geese that struct the US Airways flight wasn’t an airport strike, they were flying in “V” formation at 3200 feet miles from the airport …
@Maya
This is a good summary of the message i was trying to send in the summer of 1995..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=channel
How should economists deal with Climate Change & Risk and especially with the worst case scenario’s? Risk aversion is part of basic main stream economic investment theory..
The study was based on the IPCC reports, Fankhausers “Valuing Climate change”; Tol’s Fund studies and William Nordhaus “Expert opinion on climate change”…
btw..
The title was..
“Risky climate; a model for measuring climate change risk”
I can’t debate the man’s research with you, dhog, just pointing to it.
Curious how sure you are that the runways look like grassy areas full of food to birds, pointer welcome if there’s a source. Can coyotes see polarized light? Makes sense that animals that do orient to it are puzzled by the perpendicular surfaces on buildings downtown, whatever it resembles. I suppose photography with polarizing filters is one way to compare surfaces, natural and artificial. Lots of reflection from grasses too, plus color cues. But we digress
James, anything that _reduces_ how much is reflected from solar panels is likely to _increase_ the efficiency, not hurt it, I think. Yes, I know the flyway maps.
Anne van der Bom Says:
19 January 2009 at 8:07 AM
“Do you have a reference for this number?”
From http://books.google.com/books?id=3HSCQvZ7U2kC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=coal+strip+mine+%22total+area%22&source=web&ots=-Ys0U0L7pL&sig=7gfjDcNrQTrqUhsjEmAzDkGK6Xg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
“The total area involved worldwide in open pit mining is difficult to determine. In the US only, the disturbed area in 1965 was 12,500,00 hectares (U.S. Dept of the Interior, 1971);” Dov Nir, Man, a Geomorphological Agent, ISBN 9789027714015
it’s also the source for 41% being coal (followed by “sand & gravel” at 26%)
James 365.
If the very heavy container of steam (the engine with the turbines in it) is at room temp, it will cool the steam by its interception of that energy to heat itself rather than by expansion. Thereby reducing the energy that is usefully extracted.
If this continues, the container is then warm and less energy is taken before it can to mechanical work.
These are big, heavy things.
What is the total heat capacity of such a behemoth?
(note also, this is more detailed than your question about losses from windfarm energy sequestration that prompted me to ask this one that you then responded to).
dhogaza, 361. Who brought up raptors? From the POV of the majority of the burdies, killing off the vegetarians and leaving the raptors is worse. Less of them and more birds eating them.
And because they are already in delicate balance in numbers, raptors won’t survive in the same numbers anyway.
Selective killing in an evolved ecosystem is worse when you select the lower levels of the food chain than the higher.
Ergo your point wasn’t of any use.
Ta.
Sig posts:
What part of “trends have to be long-term” did you not understand?
Re #359, the figures were given by a reference by BP in thier reference in 2004 at 120 KWH per day per person. The website is http://www.withouthotair.com and he is a physics guy at Cambridge University who has released at book (in 2008 Europe and 2009 USA on the subject matter of energy in the UK). It is also available online for free and is a compulsive read.
Regards
Rod B (358): things are the way they are because Australia and particularly Queensland has a residual tendency towards a police state culture. I know recognize this for what it is, is having lived through something similar but more extreme in South Africa. The snarky comments sometimes seen here are nothing compared with threats to careers that I have heard cited as reasons not to get into Green politics — or even advising Green politicians — here. It’s the new McCarthyism.
If you want comments going the “other way” try looking up what Bob Carter says. He cannot comment on the science without heavily larding his commentary with ad hominem attack. His supporters are “rationalists”; the other side is “alarmist”. And that’s when he’s trying to be polite. Also try looking up Andrew Bolt. He seems to attract just about everyone who has something obnoxious to say about science.
Then mosey back over here, and marvel at the calmly polite attitude you find here by comparison.
James! You seem to think that we are talking about total replacement of carbon-energy with renewable sources; we’re not. We are talking about supplying some energy for critical uses to cover our very exposed rear ends when the fossil-fuel / carbon emission wheel falls right off. At that point we will be grateful for every electron volt we can get – however irregular. And if that generation system is not powered ‘renewably’ it wont be powered at all. Nuclear is not renewable – not the build, the extraction or the disposal or disestablishment. Even I it can be made right it just won’t fly in time.
And windmill BIRD KILLS for goodness sake!! More likely we will have eaten them (or they us) before that becomes an issue.
Maybe you could take a pause and think about what our world is going to be like under the triple blows of peak oil (with no viable global replacement) climate change (with no return below 385ppm for centuries) and sea levels moving inexorably to +80 metres over the next millennia.
We need the energy we have burned over the last two centuries to build our future homes and food production areas above the eventual high water mark and to adapt agriculture and civilisation to the impending ravages of climate change. But ooops! We’ve spent that energy on the Great Experiment called the Industrial Revolution, and we have no viable fix to make good the shortfall.
Renewable is our only hope!
In post # 173, I asked for opinions that I hoped would be more expert than mine on matters pertaining to nuclear energy and CCS coal. I appreciated that my post was somewhat OT but was, nevertheless, stimulated by other, similar OT posts. I was disappointed to receive no responses, particularly from Secular Animist whom I was primarily addressing. Since he’s popped up again, it occurred to me that he might have been away and missed my post. Should such be the case, perhaps he would be kind enough to refer back to #173 and comment? The gist of my concern was that the all renewable response to decarbonisation that Secular Animist advocates for the USA, while theoretically achievable, is almost certainly not possible for Europe without renewable energy imports.
Jae (329):
The reference I provided also addresses the question of intermittency of power production. It can be dealt with by combining many power producing (and consuming) units in smart grids (no easy task, but it’s not impossible, see eg “Supplying baseload power and and reducing transmission requirements by interconnecting wind farms” (http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/). Jacobson suggests hydropower as an excellent load balancer. The issue of birds being affected by windturbines was already addressed by Anne vd Bom (326).
FOR EVERYONE WHO IS DISCUSSING ENERGY ON HIS FORUM.
I suggest that you read this book available to buy or for free from here: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf
It tells the story of renewables against usage and paints the picture of the future if we all want to continue living the energy lives we do. Looks like we need all available sources of non fossil fuels if this is the case including nuclear. We could always ditch the energy lifestyle or change it in some way, efficiency gains and the like as well as using stuff less. The issue is though that whilst fossil fuels make making things cost effective its unlikely to stop.
EL, I’m somewhat confused by your logic. Your linked stories say that renewables–well, *some* renewables, specifically large wind and solar farms–are problematic because the grid is outdated and nearing the point of systematic failure. But then you tell us that the DOE projects increased future demand *regardless* of the sources–something like 30%, in fact.
So it seems to me that either way, the grid needs expensive fixing.
And it seems from your stories that a major portion of the problem is political & legal–that the grid really is not set up to be nationally effective. I’d opine that political will can coalesce rapidly in the face of clear need.
EL: see also:
What’s wrong with the electric grid? – The Industrial Physicist
Aug 14, 2003 … A guide to the mixture of physics, engineering, economics, and politics that attempts to keep the power flowing. Separating electric power …
http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-9/iss-5/p8.html
You need to fly more :)
It’s the grassy areas full of food that surround runways that look like grassy areas full of food. Most birds on airports never wander across the runway. Those that do are just foraging and wander into the path of planes, which move a lot more quickly than anything they’re used to and which are actually very quiet if they’re approaching you.
Ever notice how birds seem to do quite well with the streets in the city?
Now there are interesting and bizarre instances of flocks of tired migrating birds landing on streets where it’s been thought the mirage effect probably fooled them into thinking it was water. Those involving loons are particularly bizarre because they can’t take off from land …
Mark says:
Feel free to trivialize the concerns of conservationists. With federal law on our side, we just ignore your types.
19 January 2009 at 11:21 PM JB
I do not understand what point you are making. I think I showed that CO2 emissions for maintenance of a wind turbine is negligable. Whether that is 1 turbine or 10.000, the impact is the same (in relative terms): mg’s of CO2 per kWh.
You might want to check your rebuttal. The 113 km is for servicing 350 turbines, not 1, so adds about 300 m per turbine.
Even if the mechanic has to drive 50 + 113 km per turbine, then the CO2 emissions are still expressed in mg per kWh.
I really don’t see your problem. Give it up, there is none. Maintenance of wind turbines causes negligable CO2 emissions.
392 – There is no contradiction in logic. The DOE isn’t implying that the power grid has the capacity to meet that demand, to the contrary. That projection shows how much energy people will want from the system, not what the system can support. Which is the entire problem, we are already at the limits and demand is expected to increase by 30%. The power grid doesn’t have the ability to meet that demand.
Understand you cannot go over the limit on a power grid. The whole thing will shut down with a cascading effect if you do.
Political and legalities are a part of the problem. But the largest problem is its obsolete. Some of the older parts of the grid are a half century old. It was never designed to do all the things that we are expecting it to be able to do.
The whole power grid infrastructure is going to need to be redesigned and upgraded. That’s going to be an expensive and time consuming task.
Alan (386, et al), well, I didn’t do a scientific calculation; it just seems that if the figure is for residential use and the average residence has 3 persons, that’s 15,000 watts burning in the residence 24 hours per day. In the Texas hill country (PECo-op) the average is 2,200 watts burning 24 hours per day: 15KW seems screwy and way out of line — formal study or not. If the production counted is all electricity that would mean — to match my residential average — roughly 85% of all electricity is for commercial/business/manufacturing. Still sounds way high, but maybe possible?
19 January 2009 at 4:46 PM Rod B:
Alan quotes the total amount of primary energy, not electricity.
20 January 2009 at 5:30 AM Alan Neale:
Be careful with professor MacKay. His book was covered on ‘The Register’ some time ago, so I am already familiar with his line of reasoning.
What he does is making all forms of energy equal, trying to sell the message that we need 1700 kWh of electricity to replace each barrel of oil. Complete bunkum of course, but nonetheless, his message seems to be very popular in certain circles (like the site I mentioned above).
Let me highlight just one of his tricks. If I remember correctly, one of his claims was we need to cover the whole of Wales in wind turbines to power half our cars. How did he arrive at that figure?
1. Assume a moderately affluent Brit.
2. Assume a number of km’s per day
3. Assume an average fuel consumption
4. Multiply everything and convert to Joules
5. Multiply by 60 million Brits (baby’s driving cars??????).
6. Divide by 3.6 million, and that’s the number of kWh’s Britain needs to power its cars.
The first error is that the number of vehicle miles resulting from his assumption is ~3x higher than in reality. And by making gasoline and electricity equal, he suggests an electric car consumes than ~4 times the energy it actually does. The result: he overestimates the electricity required to power all cars in Britain by a factor of 13!
The book does contain some useful information, but stay critical, and certainly don’t take his word for it.
Harmen, I LOVE that video. I’ve actually seen it before, and it made complete sense to me. Thanks for reminding me about it. :)
Changing subjects to pseudonyms … Maya is my real name. It’s unusual enough that being confused with another poster is unlikely, but I don’t particularly want to use my last name because of a crazy-stalker-ex-husband. I’ve made a habit of never giving any more personal information online than necessary, while still being honest.