Alert readers will have noticed the fewer-than-normal postings over the last couple of weeks. This is related mostly to pressures associated with real work (remember that we do have day jobs). In my case, it is because of the preparations for the next IPCC assessment and the need for our group to have a functioning and reasonably realistic climate model with which to start the new round of simulations. These all need to be up and running very quickly if we are going to make the early 2010 deadlines.
But, to be frank, there has been another reason. When we started this blog, there was a lot of ground to cover – how climate models worked, the difference between short term noise and long term signal, how the carbon cycle worked, connections between climate change and air quality, aerosol effects, the relevance of paleo-climate, the nature of rapid climate change etc. These things were/are fun to talk about and it was/is easy for us to share our enthusiasm for the science and, more importantly, the scientific process.
However, recently there has been more of a sense that the issues being discussed (in the media or online) have a bit of a groundhog day quality to them. The same nonsense, the same logical fallacies, the same confusions – all seem to be endlessly repeated. The same strawmen are being constructed and demolished as if they were part of a make-work scheme for the building industry attached to the stimulus proposal. Indeed, the enthusiastic recycling of talking points long thought to have been dead and buried has been given a huge boost by the publication of a new book by Ian Plimer who seems to have been collecting them for years. Given the number of simply made–up ‘facts’ in that tome, one soon realises that the concept of an objective reality against which one should measure claims and judge arguments is not something that is universally shared. This is troubling – and although there is certainly a role for some to point out the incoherence of such arguments (which in that case Tim Lambert and Ian Enting are doing very well), it isn’t something that requires much in the way of physical understanding or scientific background. (As an aside this is a good video description of the now-classic Dunning and Kruger papers on how the people who are most wrong are the least able to perceive it).
The Onion had a great piece last week that encapsulates the trajectory of these discussions very well. This will of course be familiar to anyone who has followed a comment thread too far into the weeds, and is one of the main reasons why people with actual, constructive things to add to a discourse get discouraged from wading into wikipedia, blogs or the media. One has to hope that there is the possibility of progress before one engages.
However there is still cause to engage – not out of the hope that the people who make idiotic statements can be educated – but because bystanders deserve to know where better information can be found. Still, it can sometimes be hard to find the enthusiasm. A case in point is a 100+ comment thread criticising my recent book in which it was clear that not a single critic had read a word of it (you can find the thread easily enough if you need to – it’s too stupid to link to). Not only had no-one read it, none of the commenters even seemed to think they needed to – most found it easier to imagine what was contained within and criticise that instead. It is vaguely amusing in a somewhat uncomfortable way.
Communicating with people who won’t open the book, read the blog post or watch the program because they already ‘know’ what must be in it, is tough and probably not worth one’s time. But communication in general is worthwhile and finding ways to get even a few people to turn the page and allow themselves to be engaged by what is actually a fantastic human and scientific story, is something worth a lot of our time.
Along those lines, Randy Olson (a scientist-turned-filmmaker-and-author) has a new book coming out called “Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style” which could potentially be a useful addition to that discussion. There is a nice post over at Chris Mooney’s blog here, though read Bob Grumbine’s comments as well. (For those of you unfamiliar the Bob’s name, he was one of the stalwarts of the Usenet sci.environment discussions back in the ‘old’ days, along with Michael Tobis, Eli Rabett and our own William Connolley. He too has his own blog now).
All of this is really just an introduction to these questions: What is it that you feel needs more explaining? What interesting bits of the science would you like to know more about? Is there really anything new under the contrarian sun that needs addressing? Let us know in the comments and we’ll take a look. Thanks.
James writes:
It’s still a psychotic comment to make.
Peter Martin, the main reason why Motl’s relation is wrong is that it saturates, whereas the physics shows that you continue to get broadening of the absorption bands as concentration increases. The reason the equation changes going from low concentration to high is that the physics changes–you literally are dealing with a different regime of the absorption vs. frequency curve. It would probably be possible to construct a single equation, but it would be quite complicated and not very intuitive.
Motl’s equation fundamentally misunderstands the physics–or–it is deliberately misleading. You pick.
#645 James
PS And you can’t have evidence of the future, because it hasn’t happened yet.
PPS Yes, reading comprehension is good, you should look into that.
Ike (615), it’s not obvious (to me) how burning fossil fuels create oceanic hypoxic zones. Can you briefly explain? I understand fertilizer and sewage per your reference, but not fossil fuels.
Rod, he’s referring to the amount of fuel needed for industrial agriculture (a lot), including fertilizer production, transport and application.
RichardC says:
Earlier RichardC said:
I think I may be forgiven my “confusion”, and despite my “confusion”, RichardC’s claim that there are “zillions and zillions of pristine acres out there” is false.
Fortunately the opposite is true, fortunately in the sense that if we protect the highest-quality (from a native ecosystem point of view), there’s still zillions and zillions of previously heavily grazed, heavily used by ORVs (in the Mojave) or use for military training (if you don’t mind the unexploded ordinance, oh well), mined, etc.
James says:
I’m saying first priority should be to preserve that what’s left that requires minimal restoration. Would I oppose building solar plants on a fraction of heavily impacted lands, then spending the required money in habitat restoration for the rest of the heavily impacted lands where practical?
No, of course not. There’s already a lot of active habitat restoration going on, at least in Oregon’s share of sage steppe, by agencies and conservation groups, both. Increasing the effort would obviously be fine with me.
RichardC:
Whether the historical range based on observations that have been reported and survived, or the habitat-based estimate I posted earlier, is more accurate is an issue that’s impossible to resolve without a time machine.
However, the fact remains that historically heavily-grazed sage steppe such as is predominant in your valley (those portions which aren’t flood-irrigated) is characterized by having lower biodiversity and higher impacts from invasive pest species than those pockets which have been entirely or largely ungrazed. Using your and your neighbors’ land as an example “proving” that biodiversity in deserts is low is not useful.
648 Peter said, “It may seem a pedantic quibble but I’d like to see some recognition that at zero CO2 levels the earth’s temperature would not plunge to -infinity!”
You’re using the wrong units. CO2 has to do with heat retention, not heat loss. At zero CO2 the excess heat retained by CO2 IS zero. That doesn’t make the planet’s temperature zero K. (eyeroll at negative infinity)
Mark, in answering why temp-CO2 relationship is logarithmic you said “…[roughly] think of lagging on a hot water pipe.” That’s why I thought (wondered about) such.
I’m not going too fast for you, am I?
David B. Benson Says (21 June 2009 at 6:31 PM):
“James (644) — Given you last question, you could not have read the article with much attention.”
I think I did (but of course I’m biased :-)), but just to be courteous, I did as you asked and read it again. I also looked at the source: “The Nation is a weekly United States periodical devoted to politics and culture, self-described as “the flagship of the left.” (From the Wikipedia article, but it seems a nice summation.) As I said, long on emotion, short on fact. It seems (though I didn’t actually count lines) to devote more space to conflicts between various communities than anything, mentions the environment only in passing…
“So try again and then go find out some information about the effects on ground water of the various forms of mining, the effects on miner’s (and others) health of various forms of mining, etc.”
So I do this, but I still have the same question: how does uranium mining differ from mining anything else? Mining-related diseases are hardly unique to it: black lung, silicosis, itai-itai disease, and many more that can be found with a little searching. Nor should it be exactly news that mining operations in the past weren’t much interested in either protecting workers’ health or cleaning up after themselves. But, as those links I gave should have shown, uranium mining was no different from the rest.
So wouldn’t it be fair to give the same scrutiny to the mines that produce all the materials that go into PV cells (some interesting heavy metals there), mirror arrays, or wind turbines?
“Try Butte, MT, and Silver Valley, ID…”
Of course there are many other mines. I picked the ones I did because I’ve actually spent significant time around them. But take Butte, which was mostly a copper mine. Those wind turbines will almost certainly use large amounts of copper in their windings. They, and the solar plants, will be connected to the grid by copper transmission lines. Why shouldn’t copper mining be of the same concern as uranium mining?
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) Says (22 June 2009 at 8:52 AM)
“PS And you can’t have evidence of the future, because it hasn’t happened yet.”
Oh? So all those climate models forecasting the future effects of increasing CO2 are worthless, and Gavin & company might as well take their computer modeling expertise to Wall Street?
dhogaza Says (22 June 2009 at 10:30 AM):
“…there’s still zillions and zillions of previously heavily grazed, heavily used by ORVs (in the Mojave) or use for military training (if you don’t mind the unexploded ordinance, oh well), mined, etc.”
I wish that were so, but there just aren’t “zillions and zillions” of acres out there. In fact, there are only a bit under 2 billion acres of any sort in the continental US. (Or a bit over 6 acres/person, which hardly seems like enough.) Subtract the ones that have been paved, plowed, or had cities & suburbs built on them, and there’s not that much left.
“Would I oppose building solar plants on a fraction of heavily impacted lands…”
But why sacrifice that fraction, when there are options that don’t require it?
James wrote: “Those wind turbines will almost certainly use large amounts of copper in their windings. They, and the solar plants, will be connected to the grid by copper transmission lines. Why shouldn’t copper mining be of the same concern as uranium mining?”
How much copper do wind turbines, solar power plants and transmission lines burn up as fuel over their operational lifetimes?
More on nuclear power vs. renewables:
Dhogaza, do you have a pointer to anywhere people are discussing these issues? Cheatgrass is no joke, it’s a horror. But this is the wrong place. I’d welcome a pointer. The journals are working away at it, e.g. http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2111/07-133.1
“… Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is the most widespread invasive weed in sagebrush ecosystems of North America. Restoration of perennial vegetation is difficult …. effects were temporary …. Short-term reductions in N or cheatgrass seed supply did not have long-term effects … Longer-term reductions in soil N, higher seeding densities, or more competitive plant materials are necessary to revegetate areas dominated by cheatgrass.”
(And no, cheatgrass doesn’t sequester carbon well; it loves fire. I’ve prescribe-burned patches of it, doesn’t work — it sounds like popcorn, throwing little green seeds in all directions, half of them ending up behind the fire line ready to reestablish.)
This is simply not true in the four American deserts, nor in the rest of the west inland of the cascades/sierra ranges and west of the Rockies.
Jim Bouldin, Thanks. It does sound like a nonsensical stretch, though. How about the lettuce cause, since farmers need their salad to keep working? :-P
The application of solar power to energy problems? Yes, it works. How to go about it?
1) Solar photovoltaics, the direct conversion of sunlight to electric current using the basic semiconductor workhorse, one-way electron flow across a p-n junction. In fact, the discovery of effective silicon-based PV chips happened at the same place and time (Bell Labs, 1950s) that silicon based computer chips were invented. It’s a classic example of the difference between disruptive and emerging technology – one gets developed, the other doesn’t (in free market ideology, there are no disruptive technologies, and no cartel-based economic systems).
2) Solar thermal, the use of sunlight to heat a working fluid which can then be used as a source of heat itself, or to drive a turbine engine for electricity generation. Most concentrating solar plants operate on this principle.
3) Solar photochemistry, the least developed but most intriguing and futuristic possibility – and a bridge to natural plant photosynthesis. Here, the goal is to convert sunlight to stored chemical energy, essentially directly. Plants actually convert solar electricity to electronic potential first, before storing it as chemical energy. If this is fully developed, you can envisage solar-powered plants that take in water and atmospheric CO2, and put out stable hydrocarbon fuels – think of it as a carbon equivalent of the Haber process for nitrogen fixation. (CO2 -> CH4 vs. N2 -> NH3) This is probably a far preferable approach to agricultural biofuel production, especially with current drought-flood projections.
All these technologies are highly disruptive to existing financial deals in the electrical utility business. Utilities are generally closely linked to railroads and coal mines via holding companies; that for example is a core business of Berkshire Hathaway, which partially owns utilities like Constellation, railroads like Burlington and UNP, etc. These large investments in rail were tied to the fact that high oil prices were driving greater use of coal over the past few years. Coal is the most lucrative business for railroads to be in – every new coal plant is a new decade-long coal hauling contract. By contrast, a new solar plant? No coal hauling contract. That’s why several directors of “Americans for Clean Coal Electricity” are also railroad executives.
Now, let’s ask what a fossil-fuel-free energy system would really look like. The U.S currently generates 20% of electricity via nuclear power, with no CO2 emissions, so let’s leave that intact. This is best for nuclear reactors, which do not respond well to being ramped up and down (bad for the fuel rods, among other things). There is a single optimal set of operating conditions that maximizes fuel usage, and thus nuclear is best for 24-7 baseline energy production. France actually has too much nuclear capacity, leading to problems as they have to bring plants on and offline (plus, if their rivers get too hot, the plants have to be shut down).
The question is then, is it possible to replace coal and petroleum and natural gas with solar and wind and tidal electricity and solar-powered biofuels? The answer there is yes. If you have a mix of residential, industrial and large-scale solar power plants, plus energy storage, you can replace coal – and this is especially true across the lower half of the U.S., where sunlight is more intense.
Solar panels do not pollute the local or global environment because there are no chemical bonds and mass transfers involved – just electrons, no atomic or molecular transformations. That’s what clean electricity really looks like – no fuels involved at all, other than the material in the Sun’s core.
So cheer up, James – there’s no reason for despair.
“This is simply not true in the four American deserts, nor in the rest of the west inland of the cascades/sierra ranges and west of the Rockies.”
But does the already damaged area consist of 1% of the US landmass?
If it does, you’re sorted.
Huge reading comprehension on James’ part:
““PS And you can’t have evidence of the future, because it hasn’t happened yet.”
Oh? So all those climate models forecasting the future effects of increasing CO2 are worthless,”
Nope, never said that there wasn’t the ability to make a forecast.
Just that there’s no evidence in it.
Until it’s happened, it’s just a forecast. When it’s happened, there’s evidence.
See how the two words use different letters?
forecast
evidence
?
That’s because they’re *different words*.
So please stop trying to make them the same one, m’kay?
Coming soon (not sure when) and I’m sure worth reading:
… “The Solar Power Threat to Wild Deserts.”
from Dave Foreman, in his somewhat irregular email newsletter.
To receive “Around the Campfire” contact Susan Morgan at:
smorgan1964@earthlink.net
See also: http://www.rewilding.org/
“The U.S currently generates 20% of electricity via nuclear power, with no CO2 emissions,”
Apart from the petrol in the trucks/cars/trains/ships that transport it.
Oh, and the mine equipment.
Oh, and the travel distance for the workers in the mine.
Oh, and the purification plants.
Oops. Forgot the decontamination (the plant and the trains/planes/automobiles that get the waste from station to plant).
Oh, and the building materials, decomissioning, maintenance, …
But *apart from all that*, what CO2 does a nuclear power plant do for us.. (uh, sorry, got Pythoned there…)
#661 James
Gee, you got me there. ;)
Everyone can go home now… oh, wait… you forgot context again. No surprise.
You see, you were talking about solar v. nuclear again, and I was talking about weapons grade plutonium…
… You see, the climate is a physical force, not a psychological one…
and there is this little thing called physics, and inertia, and atmospheric life time of CO2, and feedback…
Oh, never mind.
Keep working on that reading comprehension thing though, maybe someday you will graduate.
Oh yea, and what Mark said too (#669) :)
625 James asks, “Yes, that “prosperity reduces population growth” meme is popular among the apologists for consumerism, but where is the actual evidence?”
http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll?BU=http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/exec/icswppro.dll&QF0=DocNo&QI0=321152&TN=Popline&AC=QBE_QUERY&MR=30%25DL=1&&RL=1&&RF=LongRecordDisplay&DF=LongRecordDisplay
” Countries with the highest fertility rates per woman tended to have a much lower gross national income per capita than countries with the lowest fertility rates.”
Your link is off a tad. Population growth is a lagging indicator. Fertility rate is more accurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate
The rich countries (with rich being defined as money to the people, as in median income) tend to have low birth rates and the poor ones generally have high ones. Bringing up outliers such as Kuwait, where essentially all the money goes to the government, is silly. 85% of the jobs in Kuwait are held by foreign workers! Of course, poverty isn’t the only issue. Religion, tradition, and other factors come into play as well. (Look at the oil princes with dozens of children – the Kuwait/Saudi issue)
Here’s a good graph which shows clearly that poor countries have high reproductive rates
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/177/8/846.pdf
What about within a country? Here’s the numbers for India:
http://medind.nic.in/jah/t00/i1/jaht00i1p70g.pdf
Mean fertility/ Income(Rs) 3.30/7000
Mark,
“Peter, but the doubling is less significant an increase at low concentrations.”
Yes, intuition would suggest exactly that. But that’s not the way the logarithmic function describes it. If a doubling of CO2 levels from pre-industrial levels is going to produce a 3 degree increase, then halving it will produce a 3 degree decrease, according to the logarithmic relationship.
The problem is that you can halve it again and again Is that another 3 degree decrease for every time you do it? Obviously not.
Richard C,
Yes, at zero CO2 concentrations the heat retention (of CO2) is zero. Correct. But take the logarithm of this and what do you get?
When you’ve finished rolling your eyes, you might want to keep them still long enough to check that the logarithm of zero is in fact -infinity.
There’s a big difference between zero and – infinity!
PeterMartin (674) — Not sure what your point is but the logarithmic reltionship is only an approximation applicable over a ce3rtain range of concentrations. There is an informative section on this in IPCC AR4 WG1.
Yes. Why do you think I keep repeating that there should be plenty of already heavily impacted land on which to site solar power plants, rather than site them on more ecologically valuable lands?
The problem, of course, is that the US has a history of ignoring such things, building willy-nilly, with industry cheerleaders either insisting there will be no harm, or there’s so much (ahem) pristine land available that we can ignore the problem or that (ahem) they’ll actually increase biodiversity thus be good for the land (just as paving freeways across the desert causes wetter habitat at the sides due to runoff, so there are more flowers, so obviously freeways are a net ecological gain for deserts!) etc etc.
So I’m not at all convinced that there’s going to be much attention paid to siting issues.
In fact, politically it’s probably going to be less of a problem to site such plants where there’s been little disturbance, versus, for instance, some place that’s been used as a desert off-road racetrack for 40 years by “desert enthusiasts” from Los Angeles. Try to do that and tens of thousands of off-roaders will revolt.
Ray Ladbury 652:
I think you are being a tad pedantic on this, the point being that the consensus seems to be that at earthly levels of CO2, the relationship is roughly logarithmic. There are a number of equations around that give an approximation, and I think as you imply, it is very complicated, and none of them can be fully correct.
If we consider band broadening in the region of say 300 – 600 ppm, would you care to hazard a guess, as to what the increase in absorption might be from band broadening alone? (AOTBE) How about ~1%, does that sound good to you?
Peter Martin 648:
Now that is an interesting statement. Any chance of you being a bit more specific? Some examples perhaps? Is the relationship NOT roughly logarithmic within that range 300- 600 ppm mentioned above?
dhogaza: “So I’m not at all convinced that there’s going to be much attention paid to siting issues.”
Well, it’s certainly incumbent on those — such as myself — who think that large, utility-scale concentrating solar thermal power plants with thermal storage have an important role to play in a clean energy future, and who want such power plants to be built, to ensure that proper attention is paid to siting issues.
The same applies to siting issues (e.g. bird migration paths) for utility-scale wind turbines.
But there are plenty of places where such facilities can be sited that are already “disturbed” and that do not have an inordinate impact on animals or ecosystems.
And the amount of land involved is tiny, James’s dystopian hallucinations about a continent paved with silicon notwithstanding.
Remember, serious estimates — from the peer-reviewed Ausra study, to the Scientific American “Solar Grand Plan” article — put the amount of land needed to produce over 90 percent of the USA’s electricty from solar in a range from one percent to a high of three percent of the USA’s desert lands. This is a tiny fraction of the land used for many other accepted human purposes, from agriculture to roads to airports to coal mining.
But of course we don’t have to use all that desert land — because the commercially exploitable wind energy resources of only four midwestern states are also sufficient to generate more electricity than the whole country uses. And by the way, those windmills can be built on land that is already cultivated fields, without displacing that food cultivation and without impacting any pristine land.
And because, according to Solyndra, a manufacturer of cylindrical photovoltaic arrays, installing PV on all of the nation’s commercial rooftops (factories, office buildings, shopping malls, stores and warehouses) could produce over 180 gigawatts of electricity. That’s a whole bunch of nukes that we don’t need to build — and fuel with uranium — right there.
And because municipal-utility-scale PV and CSP can be built on already disturbed “brownfields” adjacent to cities all over the country, producing a large part of the nation’s electricity locally, where it is needed, and where it can be efficiently and intelligently distributed by micro-grids.
And because the off-shore wind energy resources of the Northeast alone are sufficient to provide more electricity than the entire country uses.
And because we now know how to build solar-powered, super-insulated, ultra-efficient “net zero energy” homes that are net producers rather than net consumers of energy.
Again, this idea that moving to a renewables-powered, ultra-efficient society necessarily entails vast environmental destruction, or despoiling endangered ecosystems is ludicrous. Renewables are the least harmful energy technology and are the best solution not only for reducing GHG emissions but to reducing the overall environmental impact of human society and conserving & protecting intact ecosystems.
656 dhogaza, yep, you misinterpreted. I said I own minimally developed land. It has never had any other than solar electricity. I said the typical desert encroachment is minimal, and that describes my land. The “real” pristine land is where the roads aren’t. Much of the Sahara would be an example. In the San Luis, the Great Sand Dunes National Park is an example. There are a couple of National Wildlife Refuges in the valley as well. Frankly, you could argue that even those aren’t pristine, but that’s splitting hairs and definitions. As I made clear (and you ignored) I defined my land as typical of what would be good for a CSP project.
676 Dhogza, there are zillions of acres of protected land, and significant forces working to protect other land of ecological significance. Your fear that planners will pass up the zillions of acres of cheap generic land and go after sensitive land is silly. Anybody trying to put a power plant in the Alamosa Wildlife Refuge would be laughed out of court.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2201 15% of US land is protected, and a further 18% is protected except for extractive use (logging/mining)
677 SA, good post. It’s nice to see some sanity in the house.
And people like me, who’ve retired from the board of the co-lead plaintiff of the spotted owl suit that led to an injunction on old-growth logging in the late ’80s.
I’m no longer serving on that board (or any other), being a semi-retired old-fart.
You are essentially restating my position (thank you) but I took that position because people here like Mark and RichardC have been spouting the “renewable energy has no downside” crap.
Yes, as I’ve said many times.
Yes, as I’ve said many times.
Well, yes, as I’ve tried to say, but maybe not so directly.
If you think you and I have different views, quote something specific I’ve said, please, that would support that conclusion.
(it may be true, but it wouldn’t be as stupid as any of the above possible differences)
Again (being a bit annoyed here) as I’ve been arguing that there’s more than enough presently hammered lands to support renewable energy, rather than trash more ecologically valuable land, why do you not think I know what you are telling me?
If you want to argue, tell me that the LA (and other urban) “recreationists” who believe it is their god-given right to trash all desert lands will respond positively if (say) a solar farm is scheduled to be sited on their favorite “desert racetrack” rather than some BLM WSA because, well, the BLM WSA is less hammered than the ORV area.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that political reality favors preservation of habitat rather than preservation of ORV track?
dhogaza Says (22 June 2009 at 1:13 PM):
“Subtract the ones that have been paved, plowed, or had cities & suburbs built on them, and there’s not that much left.
This is simply not true in the four American deserts, nor in the rest of the west inland of the cascades/sierra ranges and west of the Rockies.”
I honestly don’t see how you can possibly come to that conclusion. Unless I pushed the wrong buttons on the calculator, the entire land area of the continental US, divided equally, would give just a bit over 6 acres (for our metric friends, about 150 by 200 meters) per person, per person, which is barely room to live. Of course some deprived people have to live crammed into cities, which leaves a bit more for the rest of us, but still, I live between the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies, and it’s getting pretty crowded. There just isn’t land to spare.
I tried a more detailed follow-up, flagged as “spam”, and the back-button was disabled, so I couldn’t even look at it, much less try to discover what embedded set of letters in an innocuous word triggered this.
This is f***ed. It happens to me too frequently, and makes me wonder how many denialsphere claims of censureship are due to the spam filter stupidity.
Anyway, the thrust of my comment was that even though people like SecularAnimist are trustworthy (as am I), as solar and windfarm becomes more and more mainstream, it will be the large energy corporations investing and building, and won’t have SA’s values at heart (nor mine).
Gotta be aware of that …
David Benson,
You say ” Not sure what your point is but the logarithmic reltionship is only an approximation applicable over a certain range of concentrations.”
Yes that’s correct. It is only an approximation. But, in the hands of the Lindzen , Spencer and Co it becomes a tool in their campaign of disinformation. It can be used to produce graphs which show too high a degree of temperature change at low concentrations of CO2 and too little change at higher concentrations.
Fo example: Spencer claims that 80-90% of the natural GHE, of 33 degC, is produced by water vapour and clouds. So presumably this leaves 10-20% for GHGs. And yes I know that this is probably an underestimate and that it is very difficult to assign definite percentages to individual GH components.
Nevertheless, if the relationship were linear, then 10-20% of the natural GHE would translate to between 3.3 deg C and 6.6 deg C of warming.
Spencer and Lindzen can only argue that a doubling of CO2 will produce a small increase in temperature (maybe 1 degC) by assuming an almost purely logarithmic relationship between the two.
OK. I’m not saying that it is linear, but I’m saying that it is not logarithmic either. It can’t be. It is a mixture. And it would be worth knowing just what that mixture was.
The natural GHE of 33 degs is easy to justify scientifically. If we got away from a logarithmic approximation, and used something which was more accurate, it would also be easier to justify a figure of 3-4 degs for a doubling of CO2 levels.
Mark Says (22 June 2009 at 2:04 PM):
“forecast…evidence?
That’s because they’re *different words*.”
OK, I’ll cater to your request for pedantry. Please provide me with some sort of FORECAST, showing your starting data and the math/logic by which you derived the forecast :-) Same question, using about five times as many words, to which (in the unlikely event you stop trying to evade it) I expect an answer that’s some more or less obfuscated version of “It’s gotta be that way because that’s the way I want it to be”.
RichardC Says (22 June 2009 at 6:44 PM):
“Population growth is a lagging indicator. Fertility rate is more accurate.”
Not at all. Fertility is only one factor in population growth. What matters is how many survive to reproductive age. For most of history fertility was high, yet population growth was low due to infant mortality.
Seriously, don’t you think it’s rather a stretch to claim that there could be a better measure of population growth than the actual population growth?
RichardC, as to the likelihood that planners will go after sensitive lands, it’s a certaintly; they do that for the convenience of being able to clear the rights of way: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29837101/
RichardC Says (22 June 2009 at 10:54 PM):
“676 Dhogza, there are zillions of acres of protected land…”
Wrong. First, “zillion” is hardly a precise number, but let’s assume that it’s larger than a billion, OK? But the total area of the continental US is only about 2 billion acres, so there can’t be zillions of acres.
Now it gets worse when you look at “protected” areas. Federally designated wilderness outside of Alaska is a mere 49 million acres. National Parks add about 49 million to that (but of course some of that is historical areas and the like). Add in a bit more for state parks and so on, and I thinkyou’d still have a hard time getting to 200 million acres.
Beyond that, consider that most of that protected land is protected because it’s particularly scenic. You and others keep going on as though all that matters are those few special places, the ones that have scenery or endangered species. How about a little consideration of the just ordinary sitting-there-being-part-of -the-ecosystem land, the sort that doesn’t often get protected?
660: James – “So wouldn’t it be fair to give the same scrutiny to the mines that produce all the materials that go into PV cells (some interesting heavy metals there), mirror arrays, or wind turbines?”
Yes, it certainly would be fair.
For solar panels, the median energy density (MJ/kg) of several commercially available modules (using a lifetime energy output of 60 years equivalent at rated efficiency, 200 W/m2 average panel insolation) is about 454 times that of coal’s electrical content (33 % efficient conversion from 23.175 MJ/kg) – or using a safety factor of 4/3, 340.4 times coal electricity.
I just did a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, and figured that the effective energy density of the ore used to create solar panels might be about 3.6 to 5.4 times coal electricity for 10 to 15 % efficient panels, or perhaps as low as 2.4 to 3.6 times coal electricity in the case of a panel with a photovoltaic material layer of 10 micron thickness, density 5 times water, and mass fraction in ore of 0.01 %. Much of the difference between ore energy density and panel energy density comes from the assumed 0.5 % grade of copper ore and an assumed 400 micron-thick layer of Cu – this might be replaceable in part by Fe or Al (average crustal abundances of 5 % and 8 %, respectively). I had to make a lot of assumptions in this, though, so …
But if that is in the ballpark, it suggests that less mining disturbance would be required to produce solar power than coal electricity. (use energy density of U and grade of U ore to figure out nuclear fuel ore energy density). But this doesn’t even factor in that solar panel materials will (or should) generally be recycled at end of service life. So the actual energy density could be much greater.
The case has been made that putting Cd in CdTe solar cells actually reduces Cd in the environment – because it comes from byproducts of other mining. Te and Se come mainly if not entirely from Cu processing byproduct – there is really no Te ore, unfortunately – it is one of the rarest of the rare in the Earth’s crust – however, the amount that could be obtained from copper reserves would allow CdTe solar technology to supply about 0.037 TW of power (average, not capacity) if panels are 10% efficient and under 200 W/m2 insolation – or perhaps 0.052 TW of power if efficiency increases to 14 % as is suggested in the “Solar Grand Plan” (assuming the same layer thickness of 3 microns, approximately 0.02 kg of CdTe per square m) (theoretically it could get as high as over 25 % for the band-gap of the material, and each successive recycling might produce more energy from the same limited Te). 0.05 TW is a bit over 10 % of U.S. electrical consumption. Te might also be obtained from byproducts of mining and refining other materials (maybe Pb, …).
James, forecast and evidence are two different things.
Do you accept that?
Then withdraw the comment you made.
Be a man.
PeterMartin #683
You can. Go to
http://geodoc.uchicago.edu/Projects/modtran.orig.html
and do the computations. It’s logarithmic from about 1 ppmv upward, linear below. It’s the center of the band saturating that does it. Going from 1 ppmv to 390 ppmv constitutes about nine doublings, i.e., 27C for the natural (total) greenhouse effect, assuming 3C doubling sensitivity. Not far off the known 33C value.
James writes:
Because that does less damage than the alternatives. Duh.
Mark
First off, I am employed by neither the nuclear industry, the coal or oil industry nor by an anti-nuclear environmental activist group and I am not receiving any government grants for AGW climate research. So I’m clean.
But your post #671 got me thinking.
How much CO2 is really generated per kWh generated by nuclear power versus a natural gas fired or coal fired plant, and how does this compare with wind or solar power?
In the USA, 65 nuclear power plants generate around 20% of the nation’s electricity.
The average for Europe is 33% (France: 78%/59 working reactors; Britain: 20%/23 reactors; Germany: 32%/17 reactors; Switzerland: 38%/5 reactors).
From the “Nuclear Age Peace Foundation”, an anti-nuclear activist group, I have seen the following figures for CO2 generated for nuclear power generation:
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-energy/basics/introduction.htm
“In a case study in Germany, the Oko-Institute determined that 34 grams of CO2 are emitted per generated kilowatt (kWh).”
“In comparison to renewable energy, energy generated from nuclear power releases 4-5 times more CO2 per unit of energy produced.”
Note: The Öko-Institut e.V. is a German-based anti-nuclear environmental consulting group with 120 employees, which was founded in 1977 to oppose the construction of the nuclear Kernkraftwerk Wyhl
http://www.oeko.de/das_institut/dok/558.php
Let’s assume that the 34 grams of CO2 per kWh generated (as estimated by this anti-nuclear environmentalist group) are correct for a nuclear plant.
As estimated by groups favorable to the use of solar energy, photovoltaic (PV) solar power units take about 3 years of operation to generate the amount of energy that was required for their production, excluding the energy used in crystallizing microelectronics scrap (the raw material for solar panels). When this energy is included, it takes 4 years of operation for a solar panel to generate the amount of energy that was required for its production.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf
Fossil fuel power plants (in the USA) generate the following amounts of CO2 per kWh generated:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html
1 kg CO2 per kWh (Coal)
0.67 kg CO2 per kWh (Natural Gas)
0.61 kg CO2 per kWh (Average, all sources)
So per m^2 the solar panel will generate around 1,700 kWh/year (23% on-line factor)
And it required 6,800 kWh to produce the panel, which caused the emission of 6,800 kg CO2 (coal-fired plant), or 0.61 * 6,800 = 4,150 kg on average.
So, on average, 4 * 0.61 = 2.5 kg CO2 are produced per kWh/year generated, and with an optimistically estimated life of 30 years the solar panel “generates” 2.5/30 = 0.083 kg or 83 grams CO2 per kWh generated.
This is more than twice the amount calculated by the anti-nuclear group for nuclear power
The same calculation can be made for wind turbines.
A giant 6 MW wind turbine operates at about 18% of its installed capacity over the year. A blogger named Alexander has figured out that, at 100% capacity utilization, the giant turbine requires 102 days to produce the energy it took to produce the steel and concrete required for its construction and installation (see post by Alexander February 17, 2009 at 5:59 am).
http://www.metaefficient.com/news/new-record-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-7-megawatts.html
At 18% capacity utilization the giant turbine generates:
24 * 365 * 6,000 * 0.18 = 9,460,000 kWh/year.
And it required 102 / (365 * 0.18) = 1.6 years or 1.6 * 9,460,000 = 14,700,000 kWh, which generated 0.61 kg CO2 per kWh = 8,930,000 kg CO2.
In addition the cement used in making the concrete added another 150,000 kg CO2, for a total of 9,080,000 kg CO2.
Over a 20-year turbine life this is 1,000 * 9,080,000 / (20 * 9,460,000) = 48 grams CO2 per kWh generated.
This is about 50% higher than the figure calculated for the nuclear plant.
Note that most wind turbines are much smaller than the 6 MW giant turbine, so the CO2 per kWh generated will be higher.
So the statement is incorrect that nuclear power “generates” 4 to 5 times more CO2 per unit of energy produced than “renewables”. It actually “generates” around one-third to one-half less CO2 than the “renewables”.
Max
“First off, I am employed by neither the nuclear industry, the coal or oil industry nor by an anti-nuclear environmental activist group and I am not receiving any government grants for AGW climate research. So I’m clean.”
You say.
But then if AGW is all a pack of lies by thousands of scientists worldwide, how much easier is it to lie about your credentials on a blog where you haven’t had to prove who you were or even give a name you have to use in other places?
Peter Martin, I really don’t understand why you and others obsess on the logarithmic approximation. It gives reasonable results AND it captures the physics (unlike Motl’s silly-assed approximation). The fact is that the greenhouse effect doesn’t saturate. Ferchrissake, it’s not even saturated for H2O.
If you expand ln(x) about x=1, you get a nearly linear dependence. At a 50% increase, theres less than a 10% difference between the logarithmic and linear dependence. At 2x, it’s 31% different.
Frankly, all the controversy over the logarithmic dependence is silly. What matters is this:
1)the contribution of CO2 doesn’t saturate with concentration.
2)the 500th ppmv has less effect than the 499th ppmv.
Beyond this, you can argue about the form ’til we’re under water and you will have negligible effect.
My advice: Keep your eye on the physics.
“Wrong. First, “zillion” is hardly a precise number, but let’s assume that it’s larger than a billion, OK? But the total area of the continental US is only about 2 billion acres, so there can’t be zillions of acres.”
It’s “rhetoric”, James. daghoza has a bee in his bonnet about the poor little burdies. What he feels about bees confined to bonnets is anyone’s guess…
He’s also leaping WAAAAYYYY off the track to avoid being tramlped by the elephant that has “we only need 0.1% of that land” written on the side.
Not a bad trick with your eyes closed and yelling “nananana! can’t hear!”.
Ray Ladbury & Peter Martin, (et al)
May I draw your attention to my first post 677, addressed to both of you, which may have been lost in the background whilst it sat in mediation.
Trivializing legitimate conservation concerns by personally insulting me may make you feel superior, but in my mind, it only confirms what I already know: you’re an ignorant ass.
Shove it. We need exactly 0% of the land I’m speaking of, the most ecologically sensitive lands in the Mojave. You can take the 0.1% of that land from elsewhere in the Mojave.
The fact that RichardC wants to argue that most of our desert lands are “pristine”, and that industrial-scale development of solar power will “enhance biodiversity” in desert environments, doesn’t make him right, and science wrong.
Science is right sometimes, don’t you agree? If you’re an ecology and biology denialist, why not become consistent and deny climate science, as well?
My first blockquote was meant to be this mindless insult:
Now that you mention it, Mark, native bee species in the American West are also declining fast, and ecologists in the Sonoran have been mapping the decline of those plants that depend on them for pollination, as many are co-evolved to the point where the european bee can’t do the trick.
Yes, I care about conservation. Yes, I know you don’t. Yes, that makes you a lesser person in my mind.
ReCaptcha has something to say, too, about Mark and other “sarcomas which” plague the discussion.
#684 James (smoke/mirrors)
To expound upon Mark #690
Why don’t you have enough integrity/honor to just admit you are wrong on the point (forecast/evidence).
Are you so insecure that you can not admit when you are wrong?
Instead you throw up a smoke screen/mirror to ‘try to sound intelligent’ and avoid admitting you are wrong by deflecting.
Instead of acting like a typical politician, try acting like a responsible member of a community.
Are you here to share/learn or to evade/confuse?
Do you really think people here are not smart enough to see how evasive you are?