Critical Thinker, Thank you kindly, but I am quite familiar with the science and have no need of a refresher from an anonymous concern troll who is more interested in distorting what I said than in making any particularly valid point. Systematic analysis of anecdotal accounts is evidence. It is difficult to quantify, which is why it is more suited to Bayesian analysis. I was not even attempting to do that, instead merely pointing out that the accounts are inconsistent with the loud voices of the tin-foil hat brigade claiming that the evidence of warming is somehow manufactured by and evil climate cabal.
If you were actually to read what I wrote, you will note that I was not claiming this was hard evidence. Indeed, I was relaying my impressions in response to a particular query about science in developing countries. I’m afraid your post leaves me with little substantive to which I can respond, but then what could one expect from a concern troll.
David Millersays
Frank says:
We’re told that in order to Save The Planet we’ll have to all spend more for energy and sacrifice. Replacing two or three coal fired plants for one nuclear one would seem to be a step in the right direction.
I disagree about requiring sacrifice. I agree we need to use less energy, but would argue that a better insulated home requires less energy and is more comfortable. The only “sacrifice” required is the cost of insulating it – something paid back many times in the following years.
I would agree about replacing coal plants with nukes, but only if it can be demonstrated to be cost effective versus the alternatives. At this point in time it’s not. By far the best investment we have is in efficiency, followed by renewables. *New* nuclear is last on the list.
The conspiracy theories about corporations trying to poison the planet for the sake of poisoning the planet are specious, IMHO.
Wow. Just wow.
That’s a pretty tall strawman you’ve assembled there. I’m afraid it’s going to fall over in the lightest breeze all by itself.
(hint: no one has ever said companies conspired to poison the planet)
If someone were to develop a very cost effective, energy effective way of producing electricity that was cheaper than coal, energy companies would jump on it. If solar and wind cut the mustard, utilities would dive in whole hog in every region of the USA.
Exactly what do you think they’re doing? Why do you think more wind capacity was added last year than coal?
Please bear in mind there’s a big difference between adding new capacity and replacing old capacity. No one is ripping out coal plants that are still in their useful lifespan. But new coal plants, like new nuke plants, cost lots more to build than the old ones did.
David Millersays
Ed says in #691:
638 David Miller: Then why are the French paying 1/3 LESS for electricity while the French government takes a PROFIT from their nuclear power plants? Your accounting is off. The problem with nuclear cost in the US is that entirely too much safety is required.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s because the cost per KWH that they’re now paying is averaged out across older plants that cost less to build.
Ed, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times people tell you this, you’re just not getting it. New nukes cost too much to build. It’s not just US safety standards: estimates for the Ontario plant came in off the charts. The plant being built by Areva (French, state owned company that built the plants you cite in France) in Norway is years behind schedule and billions over budget. A nuke anticipated in Florida – for which residents are already paying years before the first shovel of dirt is moved – is estimated to come in at 15 cents per KWH.
Citing an article online somewhere that says nukes *should* be able to be built for some reasonable rate is just wishful thinking. Real plants built for real customers in the real world are all coming in north of 15 cents/KWH.
Nuclear power is the safest kind, bar none, for everybody.
I haven’t been arguing that at all. My sole point is that right here and now new nuclear plants can’t be built at a competitive price. You can quote all the existing plants built 20 years ago, you can quote something you found on the internet somewhere – but you can’t change what real companies charge real customers. Until that goes down nuclear is simply the highest cost option.
As has been pointed out on other posts, there’s a ramp-up issue too. If we put X billion dollars into wind or solar thermal we get some of the power in a year or two as the units are put into production. With nuclear power we get nothing back for the decade or so it takes to build the plant.
JBob says, “#662 Doug, if the world is going to spend trillions of $’s on a still to be proved theory, and then cannot spend the few million to adequately staff the project, would that indicate something is wrong, big time?”
Still to be proved, eh? Well, JBob, given the mountains of evidence that support the consensus model of Earth’s climate AND its most famous prediction (anthropogenic climate change), I am just curious: What would, to you, constitute proof? Because if you want absolute proof in the mathematical or theological sense, you aren’t going to get it. On the other hand, if we are talking about a reasonable scientific standard of proof, the 90% confidence level ought to suffice, and we’re well past that.
And as to the underfunding of science, well hop to it man, and ask your senators and congressmen to raise your taxes (hey, maybe even a carbon tax!!!) ever so slightly to pay for better funding not just of climate science, but of all the sciences. That said, I would hope you would agree that even funded on a shoestring, science–and that includes climate science–has been amazingly successful.
Just another aside: ISO certification is not a particularly good model when it comes to a scientific research organization. The system is not always sufficiently flexible to accommodate a field where progress in methodology is continual and rapid. Our ISO surveys have provided us with some of our biggest laughs. And anyone who threatens to bring in Six-Sigma is liable to fine a methylene-chloride soaked rag wrapped around his brake-line.
Billsays
Get off your computers you sad people, go find your friends and families and stop your miserable chatter ! Its Christmas !! Get a life and go enjoy the rest of the day . Happy Xmas to all/
SecularAnimistsays
Didactylos wrote: “Given everything you have already said on the subject, I don’t think you will get far trying to change tack at this late stage.”
With all due respect, I don’t know what you are talking about. I have consistently and repeatedly said that I oppose building new nuclear power because it is neither an effective nor a necessary means of reducing GHG emissions from electricity generation, and because it would squander resources that would be more effectively put into efficiency and renewables, and thus hinder rather than help the effort to reduce emissions. I have consistently and repeatedly said that concerns about the safety of nuclear power are secondary, in that there is no need to even address them, since their is no need or necessity for building any new nuclear power plants.
I have in no way “changed tack” and your assertion that I have suggests that you are not even reading my comments, but rather imagining me to be saying what the one-dimensional cartoon comic-book stereotype of an “anti-nuclear activist” who lives in your head always says.
Didactylos wrote: “Why don’t you stop hacking away at nuclear and leave it to its own devices? If it’s uneconomical as you claim, then it will die on its own. Since you’re wrong, it will get plenty of private investment and do just fine.”
With all due respect, that comment suggests that you don’t really know anything about what is going on with nuclear power in the real world.
In the real world, if nuclear power is “left to its own devices”, then it is a certainty that no new nuclear power plants will be built in the USA.
How do I know this? Because that’s exactly what the nuclear power industry, including manufacturers, contractors, utilities and industry lobbying groups have all been saying loudly and clearly for years: they will not put a shovel in the ground to build even ONE new nuclear power plant unless they are given tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, guarantees, insurance, and large utility rate increases that kick in years before new nukes are even approved, let alone construction started.
It is the nuclear industry, not me, that has been saying loudly and clearly that there will be NO new nuclear power plants in the USA unless the taxpayers and rate payers absorb all the costs and all the risks — including the risk of economic losses if the power plants are not profitable when they are eventually built.
If you want nuclear power to be “left to its own devices” to succeed or fail on the basis of obtaining “plenty of private investment” — with the investors absorbing the costs and taking on the risks, without the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies that the nuclear industry has been clamoring for (and is to some extent now receiving as a result of recent energy legislation) — then you are, for all practical purposes, arguing for the same policies that I advocate, because that situation will certainly result in no new nuclear power plants being built in the USA ever again.
And again, all of this is moot. Nuclear power simply cannot and will not be expanded enough, rapidly enough, to make any significant difference with regard to reducing emissions. And given the rapid rate that today’s powerful wind and solar technologies are being deployed, and the rate at which those technologies are advancing, it is likely that any new nuclear power plants that are started in the USA in the near future, will be uncompetitive, unprofitable and uneconomical to operate by the time they are finished. And the tax payers and rate payers will be left holding the bag.
To my way of thinking, if something like this can be mass produced and be within 10-15% cost effecient of todays’ energy supply, this whole debate about AGW will just die a natural death.
john McCormicksays
Gavin, Mike, etal.
By my count this famous bolg is 6,038 hits from 10,000,000.
The service you provide is priceless and represents your dedication to real science.
And, you have collectively invested about 10 million hours in keeping this page open and focused.
By my count this famous bolg is 6,038 hits from 10,000,000.
The service you provide is priceless and represents your dedication to real science.
I might prefer New Years Day if for nothing else than the toasting of what is past, present and yet to come, but it is looking like it will be a very Merry Christmas….
Congratulations!
Rod Bsays
Hank (693), I wasn’t necessarily referring to my personal experience.
dhogazasays
The report (2008) conclusions states:
“The Met Office has developed a software process that is highly adapted to it’s need, which relies heavily on the deep domain knowledge of the scientists building the software, and is tightly integrated with their scientific research practices”.
So let’s see … Steven Easterbrook and his team does an in-depth look at the software methodology and products of the Hadley Centre modeling team and reaches the interesting conclusion that there’s significant overlap with how successful open source projects are structured.
And J Bob, our self-proclaimed software expert, proclaims:
Hmmmm, there seems to be some disconnect to good software practices and the lofty stated wording in your reference. Or could it be the poor coding is tied to the “needs” of the Met office.
What poor coding? Hadley Centre’s modeling software is proprietary, was not part of the stolen payload from CRU, and you’ve never read the source.
I admit to having tricked you slightly, wondering if you’d pull something like this out of your rear orifice, proclaiming that code you’ve never looked at is poorly done.
Ray Ladbury says …
Just another aside: ISO certification is not a particularly good model when it comes to a scientific research organization. The system is not always sufficiently flexible to accommodate a field where progress in methodology is continual and rapid. Our ISO surveys have provided us with some of our biggest laughs.
ISO certification is largely ignored, and for good reason. J Bob’s belief that you can’t have quality software without it demonstrates a disconnect with reality. Or he’s just playing concern troll. I previously mentioned a few examples of open source software which of are high quality which ignore such things. Does he think Google burdens itself with ISO certification, Six Sigma and the like? Feh.
Rod Bsays
Ray Ladbury (697, my use of the term “opponent” was only in line with my metaphor of pep rallies and (implied) football games. I didn’t mean it as a literal description of posters; sorry for the confusion.
But you continue with the “…science that has been established for 50 years and which has no compelling evidence against it,…” meme which connects clearly with my (actually your’alls) definition of a skeptic: “…a person who agrees with everything said about AGW but has some areas that he/she doesn’t quite fully understand…” Ergo no such thing as a skeptic.
btw, I hope you don’t think “…character assassination and repeatedly discredited memes…” is a monopoly of skeptics (though I suspect you do).
btw #2 (706), I concur highly in your assessment of ISO standards. They were basically meant to prove consistency of a program, not whether a program did anything useful. Hence why it fits badly in research orgs.
Sufferin' Succotashsays
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) — 25 December 2009 @ 2:38 AM
Many Thanks!
Have a nice holiday!
Bill DeMottsays
Over the last two days I read Jim Hansen’s book “Storms of my grandchildren” and I recommend it. The book provides good information on climate change science and a personal view of Hansen’s experiences, especially during the GW Bush era of attempts to censor or silence government scientists and rewrite press releases to down play dangers of climate chang. Hansen makes a good case for his view that less warming than IPCC predicts may lead to melting of the Greenland glaciers and irreversible and rapid increases in sea level.
I agree with his argument for a carbon tax as the best and most efficient way of reducing carbon emissions. He states that the much higher (2X) per capita energy use in the USA, Canada and Australia in companion to Europe and Japan is almost entirely due to the higher taxes on energy in the more efficient countries. The tax would be rebated so that it would be neutral for people who use moderate amounts of energy or who invest in conservation and efficiency. The taxes would need to be worldwide–countries that do not collect the carbon tax would see it levied against their exports. Hansen makes a strong case for the notion that current and future investment in coal plants will preclude reaching the necessary emission goals.
> if something like this can be mass produced (news from a year ago)
The thing is, plants turn sunlight into carbohydrate, not into tanks of hydrogen and oxygen.
Imagine every building around you with a solar roof, and a big tank of oxygen and another big tank of hydrogen in its basement.
Feel more secure?
François Marchandsays
Obviously, Copenhagen was a disaster. Now might come the time to wonder why Kyoto was not, whatever the Americans and their Saoudi friends have said, i.e. doing nothing is always better than trying something. By the way, all the Kyoto states -taken as a group- have met their objectives (Australaia is a bit on the side, Mr. Howard having prevented his country to ratifiy the Treaty until a couple of years ago).
So, the next step should be for a “Kyoto bis”, but this time with some input from Washington, and -possibly- China.
I of course agree with tamino and you about the repetition. Part of it is management and (moderators) time. Then of course you run into the political problem of “My post did not show up on RC so how can they call themselves real scientists since they ignore my lame assertion based on what I read on the intertubes by a guy that says stuff I agree with”.
RC already has two lists. The index and the myths in the RC wiki. So I would not suggest a third list. We need to beef up the wiki. Then RC moderators can look at repeated memes and send to one or two links [edit link, link]
Only the ones who actually want to learn will click and there are a lot of people that read this blog. The trolls will eventually crawl back under whatever bridge or rock they came form but in the mean time, when they post here, it allows for others to follow the links.
Those of my two cents. Anyone that would like to discuss topics, drop me a line on skype I can be found in ‘platoscave’…. I’m usually in the back of the cave roasting marshmallows :)
Walter Mannysays
To Ray’s, “You view the purpose of the website as a place of conflict and competition, rather than a place where folks can come to learn the science.”
With respect, RC is not a good place to go to learn the science. It is a great place to go, however, to learn what folks who firmly believe in AGW theory think of those who do not so believe. There is not much interest here, for example – moderators aside – in addressing what scientists or statisticians who oppose the so-called consensus view have to say. There is a strong interest in calling them names (“deniers”), mocking their habitat (the “denialosphere”) and questioning their motivations, to be sure, but none of that can be taken seriously by people who think for themselves. Name-calling always raises more questions about those who do it than those whom the name-callers hope to squash.
The groupthink arguments are advanced here from a strict starting point: AGW theory is rock-solid, only an idiot would believe otherwise, and so those who argue to the contrary are ‘ipso facto’ not to be trusted. Ironically, the leaked EAU e-mails that raise suspicions about scientific motivation just about anywhere else in the scientific community are treated here as “nothing to see” and the primary lesson to be learned from them is that you can jettison the whole EAU project and all its contributors, and still the evidence from everywhere else is more than enough to keep the consensus view perfectly intact. That’s as may be, but the urge to parse trickery and decline-hiding rather than denounce it speaks volumes about loyalty and not so much about genuine scientific skepticism.
At RC, “learning the science” and “coming to believe what I believe” are synonymous, as anyone who has had the temerity to come here from off the reservation can tell us. It is a great site for learning one side of an argument, which has value, but any advertisements to the contrary are off base in my opinion.
Happy holidays everyone, and to all a better year with troll handling, climate science education, and the hope for meaningful policy on GHG emissions :)
siddsays
Mr. Manny writes:
“RC is not a good place to go to learn the science.”
Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with this. There are fewer and fewer articles, not to speak of the comments, discussing the actual research.
The best place to learn the science, of course, is grad school. Failing which, Mr. Weart’s history is a very good place to start. And Mr. Pierrehumbert has an excellent textbook available on the web as well. I thank both these gentlemen.
Tony O'Briensays
Merry Christmas to all at RC.
Thank you for your very informative site. So many times I have thought an issue insufficiently discussed in the science arena only to find RC has already discussed it. My knowledge of climate change is full of holes, while RC might not have completely filled the holes in; at least it has made me aware of many of them.
I do not know how you maintain your patience with those who refuse to learn, those who reuse the same old discredited arguments time after time.
Greg Goodknightsays
“My post did not show up on RC so how can they call themselves real scientists since they ignore my lame assertion based on what I read on the intertubes by a guy that says stuff I agree with”
Lovely characterization. Mindless assertions that reinforce the RC status quo are legion on this site, so I can’t really accept it’s the lameness of skeptical posters that drives the censors here.
If theories and research contrary to the RC wisdom were as weak as RC partisans believe, there should have been no need for the UAE CRU cohort to subvert the review process to kill inconvenient research or to effect removal of editors who weren’t compliant enough.
I went from ‘lukewarmer’ to full blown scoffer about three years ago. Faced with some ‘denier’ propaganda I started reading journals for myself and found the research from Friis-Christensen, Svensmark, Shaviv & Veizer and others to be both reasoned and reasonable (perhaps because of my own degree in Physics), unlike the attacks made here and elsewhere on them.
I can’t say my MS EE (would be called a MS CE nowadays) exactly endeared me to the coding standards evident in the CRU FOIA file, either.
It’s a new year. While there are certainly dittoheads that will just disagree with you due to politics, the overall intelligence (or lack of it) among the rabid left and rabid right is about the same.
Despite being starved for resources, in two decades the cosmic crowd have gone from noting there’s a correlation between solar cycle length to finding up to a 7% drop in cloud cover worldwide in response to Forbush events, about equal to a 2 watt per square meter solar forcing, more than equal to the best guesses for CO2 warming. Effects are verified, there is a physical mechanism in place. Does this prove that the 20th century warming was entirely natural? No, but it does prove important physics was left out of the GCM and their results should not yet be considered good enough to base drastic public policy changes upon. My own finger to the wind puts it 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW, including all pollution, CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant), black carbon, deforestation and urbanization.
Followers of RC dogma are no more moral or intelligent than those who have not swallowed the AGW kool-aid. A new year is approaching; why not drop the old attitude and actually have something of an open debate? Stop denigrating the opposition; everyone who agrees with you are not your friends, and everyone who disagrees with you are not your enemies.
Bill DeMottsays
John P. Reisman
Although the tax and dividend proposal is by far the best plan, the conservatives who holler and scream at the smallest tax can probably stop such an approach. I’m not sure what Obama’s administration should do. It’s easy to understand why a substantial tax, even one with a 100% refund is unlikely to be politically palatable. I’m nost sure how the Europeans were able to develop a system with high taxes on gasoline and much better support for public transportation. Over my scientific career I’ve worked at institutions in Germany and The Netherlands for about 30 months. I never missed having a car and got around really well by foot, bicycle, bus and train.
dhogazasays
Greg Goodknight gives us the *bestest ever* definition of what passes for “research” among the denialist community:
That seems excessive; the natural variation is far larger than that.
The contribution from AGW is much smaller — but all in one direction.
That’s why it’s taken so long for the warming signal to be detected.
If AGW were causing as much as 1/3 of the warming, the climate sensitivity would have to be rather enormous.
Or have I misunderstood your logic? I don’t have a degree in Physics.
EG: 658 BPL: Here’s the deal: Price-Andersen Act for no protesting nuclear.
The Price-Andersen Act and the high installation and long lead times are caused by anti-nuclear protesters. So, if you can guarantee no lawsuits, no protests etc. then we can repeal Price-Andersen.
BPL: So, basically, we can only have a nuclear industry in a country without a First Amendment? Hmmm… nukes or the freedom of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances… let me think here…
Molnarsays
Greg Goodknight: What if you are wrong and most of the warming is not natural?
EG: Nuclear power is the safest kind, bar none, for everybody.
BPL: I notice your little table didn’t include solar, wind, geothermal, or biomass, and that you’re still using “31” for fatalities from Chernobyl although you’ve been told before, on this very web site, with links, that it’s at least 56 now and possibly in the thousands.
The thing about relying on icecap, wattsup, and sepp is they don’t give you the citation so you don’t check subsequent references and find more contemporary science. Try it.
WM: There is not much interest here, for example – moderators aside – in addressing what scientists or statisticians who oppose the so-called consensus view have to say
BPL: As if dozens of threads here don’t do just that. Go back and read ’em, okay, Manny?
GG: My own finger to the wind puts it 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW, including all pollution, CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant), black carbon, deforestation and urbanization.
BPL: Deforestation is a problem because it releases CO2 when forests are burned down and removes a sink for it. Which you’d know if you had studied the science instead of studying denialist propaganda about the science.
As for your “2/3 natural” attribution–ever hear of analysis of variance, O you who claim to be a physicist? Here, free clue:
Speaking of unforced variations
>> 1/3
> 3/4
Point being you have to distinguish natural variability — of which there’s plenty — from trend over the longer term, and then consider the causes.
This might be worth a glance from someone who understands this stuff:
703 David Miller: What makes you think it takes 15 years to build a nuclear power plant? It doesn’t. 5 years for construction, 10 years to deal with protests and lawsuits. France can build a new nuclear power plant in 5 years and so can we. Hyperion can plant one in days, but the Hyperion nuclear power plants are smaller, 25 megawatts vs 1000 megawatts. Anti-nuclear activists have created their own problem. Every time you do it their way they demand more. It is a never-ending protest.
If we are to survive as a species, we MUST shut down ALL coal fired power plants worldwide regardless of whether they are old or new, and we have to do it in the next 7 years. That would cut our CO2 by 40%. Wind and solar power have not yet shut down a single coal fired power plant, and they will not do so in time. You are using coal fired power plants as your “battery”. You are saving very little CO2 because the coal fired power plant is kept running at the “spinning reserve” rate. “Spinning reserve” is very little different from full power. THAT is the problem.
We just don’t have time to wait for new technology like the room temperature superconductors and the energy storage devices we don’t have that wind and solar require. We MUST shut down ALL coal fired power plants NOW. You are welcome to shut down coal fired power plants any way you can, but if you can’t provide the electricity, you will have a revolt on your hands.
Philsays
I admire the restraint of many of the scientists involved in the CRU hack,
and before that the ‘Yamal’ debacle. Some of the commentary is clearly
defamatory and actionable, yet they decline to reach for the lawyers.
Just recently the absurd WUWT hosted a piece from a ‘converted warmist’
Bradley Fikes, in which the word ‘outright fraud‘ was hyperlinked
to a mail exchange (1059762275.txt) between Professors Mann and Osborn.
Now, being a mere mortal, I’m getting a bit tired, nay, angry about these
lazy and unsupportable accusations of malpractice and so I challenged Mr
Fikes in the comments …
An accusation of ‘outright fraud’ against a scientist is extremely
serious […] The words “Dirty Laundry” in quotes. Is that the sum total
of the evidence that a fraud has been committed? Please tell me you’ve got
more than that. Who was defrauded? Where? When?
Mr Fikes responded: Deliberately withholding evidence that goes against
your theory in published research is scientific fraud. It is
misrepresenting evidence. When you involve someone else in the fraud, that
is a conspiracy. When this is done in a clinical trial in the
pharmaceutical industry,people can go to jail.
Now a private correspondence is not quite the same thing as a clinical
trial, yet my response was Fair enough. So let us be absolutely
careful, clear and specific. You are levelling an accusation of outright
fraud against Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University for the
withholding of evidence. Is that correct?
Please be specific, which published theory in which papers was
contradicted by these data? What exactly do the data show? Please confirm
that you wish to make a serious and highly public accusation of scientific
fraud against Professor Mann, in the knowledge that it will almost
certainly be defamatory if you cannot provide adequate supporting
evidence.
Note that Professor Mann did not actually withhold anything, he
provided some data to a colleague and asked that he be consulted before
those data were shared more widely. In my opinion, given the absurd
distortions that some are prepared to indulge in this seems to me more
indicative of sensible precautions than fraud.
More detail, please. I am sure that you won’t object to me forwarding your
allegations on to Professor Mann while we are waiting, and cross-posting
this to RealClimate?
Which I have now done. Fikes is an unlikely straw that broke the camel’s
back, we’ve all read ‘Bleak House’ and the only people likely to gain
from a defamation case are the lawyers. But surely there comes a point at
which we conclude ‘enough is enough’?
SecularAnimistsays
Edward Greisch wrote: “What makes you think it takes 15 years to build a nuclear power plant? It doesn’t. 5 years for construction, 10 years to deal with protests and lawsuits. France can build a new nuclear power plant in 5 years and so can we.”
“France” is demonstrating right this minute that they cannot build a new nuclear power plant in five years. The French AREVA reactor under construction in Olkiluoto, Finland is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. According to the New York Times:
The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too. But things have not gone as planned.
After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online … In Flamanville, France, a clone of the Finnish reactor now under construction is also behind schedule and over budget … France has not completed a new reactor since 1999.
So: the flagship of the “nuclear renaissance” is experiencing numerous, serious safety problems; construction delays of at least three years; and cost overruns now expected to double the original proposed cost of the reactor. And AREVA is taking major financial hit as a result of the project.
And lawsuits? You betcha — not by “protestors”, but by the Finnish utility against AREVA, for billions of dollars in damages from the construction delays.
With all due respect your comments are consistently full of fact-free proclamations and assertions. When others post substantive, documented information about the very real problems, delays and staggeringly high cost of new nuclear power plants, you respond with hand-waving about “protestors” being responsible for all of those problems, and claims about costs and construction times for new nuclear that reflect outdated nuclear industry propaganda and have no relation to actual nuclear power plants now being built or proposed in the real world.
If you want to claim that the new AREVA nuclear power plants are being delayed by “protestors” rather than by their own inherent problems, then let’s see the evidence. Show us when, where and exactly how “protestors” have been responsible for AREVA’s problems.
Doug Bostromsays
“Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with this. There are fewer and fewer articles, not to speak of the comments, discussing the actual research.”
You’re probably thinking more of comment threads, but the repetitious nature of what you read is not surprising considering many in the the contrarian community are stuck trying to grasp research that was completed in the 19th century while many others are strung out between 1934 and the early 90’s. Sure, there are lots of new results to discuss but those are increasingly narrow in their focus, typical of the evolution of a particular field of research, but those cannot be discussed if the conversation is always swerved back to the “2+2=4” level.
As to Walter’s accusations of name-calling, some descriptive word is required to differentiate adversaries. “Skeptic” is too narrow and arguably incorrect in most cases, “denier” is politically incorrect, so “contrarian” seems to be the best general fit. Some would say even that word is too generous.
Doug Bostromsays
J. Bob says: 25 December 2009 at 11:21 AM
“Doug, if the world is going to spend trillions of $’s on a still to be proved theory, and then cannot spend the few million to adequately staff the project, would that indicate something is wrong, big time?”
I’ll say. What I find striking in the contrarian community is the utter silence when it comes to encouraging the expenditure of more resources on climate research even as accusations of “fraud” and “hoax” are so generously awarded to the research community.
Anyway, the code in question is largely irrelevant now. Useful though it still is, the weight of results produced by the particular group of researchers analyzing temperature data has largely been superseded by other findings that further confirm the predictive power of the original C02 hypothesis. CRU? Get over it, it’s a historical curiosity at this point.
Ray Ladburysays
Greg Goodknight says, “My own finger to the wind puts it 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW, including all pollution, CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant), black carbon, deforestation and urbanization.”
Given where you pulled those numbers from, I would say the wind you put your finger to is broken. Try as I might, I can’t seem to find any actual physic in your post. Just curious, Greg, how do cosmic rays cool the stratosphere right where a greenhouse mechanism would–between 40 and 50 km. Or how is it that you somehow amplify a signal based on a tiny modulation over a mean of 6 particles per square cm per second into a global temperature trend–particularly when there’s no evidence that GCR fluxes are changing significantly and no shortage of cloud condensation nuclei in the atmosphere? And how does any of this invalidate the known physics of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Greg, science consists of a whole lot more than pulling numbers out of alternative orifices. Evidently, your BS in physics didn’t teach you this.
SecularAnimistsays
Edward Greisch wrote: “… we MUST shut down ALL coal fired power plants worldwide regardless of whether they are old or new, and we have to do it in the next 7 years.”
According to the same New York Times article I linked in my previous comment:
For nuclear power to have a high impact on reducing greenhouse gases, an average of 12 reactors would have to be built worldwide each year until 2030, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Right now, there are not even enough reactors under construction to replace those that are reaching the end of their lives. And of the 45 reactors being built around the world, 22 have encountered construction delays …
In light of the realities described above, I would certainly like to see your plan for building enough nuclear power plants to replace all the coal-fired power plants in the world within seven years — and please address the very real safety problems, resource constraints, delays and high costs that are afflicting actual new nuclear power plants (not science fiction “fourth generation” power plants that don’t exist) under construction all over the world.
Edward Greischsays
709 Denihilist: Interesting idea, H2 from sunlight via catalyst. Question: What is the efficiency? The efficiency of plants is considerably below 1%, which is the problem with biofuel. It would also be nice to have the O2 partial pressure go up a little.
Problem: Hydrogen gas is one of the 2 leakiest gasses around. The other being helium. When a hydrogen atom looses an electron to the wall of its container, it is just a proton, .001 times the size of the smallest complete atom. ANY solid substance is a sponge rather than a wall as far as hydrogen is concerned. Leakage limits the efficiency of hydrogen energy schemes.
H2 and He are also so light that the Earth’s gravity is insufficient to hold them. They escape into space, never to return. If it leaks out, it is gone.
Ray Ladburysays
Walter Manny, If those who oppose the consensus view ever tried to publish their views in peer-reviewed research, there might be interest here. The fact is that their publication record is woeful. Since many of those people are not stupid, how can we explain such poor success other than to say that those rejecting the consensus theory of Earth’s climate are unable to add to our understanding of that subject.
Walter, the prediction that anthropogenic CO2 would warm the globe is over a century old. The basic forcings and feedbacks that drive Earth’s climate have been known for decades. The models that result from these insights provide understanding of the vast majority of the planet’s climatic behavior. The resulting consensus model of Eart’s climate has been demonstrated to have tremendous explanatory and predictive power. To reject all of that evidence and success merely because you don’t like the implications of the theory and to offer no alternative framework that even approaches the success of the consensus model is simply denial.
You claim that RC isn’t a good place to learn the science of Earth’s climate. OK, Walter, show me where to find another model that is explains even 10% of what the consensus model explains. Show me a prediction by such a model that has come true with at least reasonable statistical significance (e.g. better than 10% significance). You cannot, and you know you cannot. In other words, you claim, despite all the successes of the consensus model that there’s no science there, and you can’t show us an alterntive model where there is science. Aren’t you just denying the existence of climate science? And you wonder why you get called a denialist?
Ray Ladburysays
Rod B., you definition “…a person who agrees with everything said about AGW but has some areas that he/she doesn’t quite fully understand…” fits the word STUDENT (at least assuming they are still trying to learn) better than it does skeptic. The fact that you or I may not fully understand all the intricacies of climate science doesn’t mean nobody does.
A true skeptic must have a sufficient grasp of the subject matter to be able to offer an alternative interpretation of the evidence–all of the evidence. If one is merely unconvinced because of lack of understanding, the proper course of action is to continue trying to understand, no?
Edward Greischsays
730 BPL I said nothing about a First Amendment. Is France a free country? Yes. But France doesn’t have the nuclear protesters the US does. Figure THAT out. Is it better education in France or something else? It isn’t a lack of freedom.
732: James Lovelock is corrected. It is 56. 14 deaths per TW Y. It is NOT thousands. There are many places that have higher natural background radiation than Chernobyl has. You may be living in one of those places. Chernobyl IS occupied by humans who live there full time. They operate the remaining 3 reactors.
Edward Greischsays
696 Didactylos: DU rounds kill enemy tanks and they stay killed. That saves the lives of American soldiers. No other material works like that. A DU killed tank can’t be repaired and sent back into battle. My guess is that, since uranium is pyrophoric, it causes a fire and secondary explosions of ammo stored in the tank. No other material penetrates armor as well, either. Just putting a hole in a tank doesn’t prevent it from killing you.
If they don’t want their desert sand messed up, they should surrender before we get there. So sorry, but the lives of American soldiers are just too precious to use anything less than DU.
ZTsays
Jim Dukelow:-
Many thanks for your answer on the heat of fusion of water. That is definitely interesting.
A related question, when heating increases the amount of H2O in the atmosphere, does H2O accelerate warming, or do the clouds formed by H2O reflect incoming sunlight? It isn’t obvious to me which effect would win. Although, seen from space, apparently the earth does appear to be quite ‘cloud covered’ on occasion.
I tried googling this and saw the following article which discusses painting roofs white to eliminate global warming:
This mentioned that this technique may be vital to save the planet, as:
“We may have to figure out a way to artificially cool the planet while the atmosphere is still super-saturated with greenhouse gases,” said Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. This could be it, he said, “because the planet, it’s a closed system, it’s an absolutely closed system, except for one thing: sunlight.”
Critical Thinker, Thank you kindly, but I am quite familiar with the science and have no need of a refresher from an anonymous concern troll who is more interested in distorting what I said than in making any particularly valid point. Systematic analysis of anecdotal accounts is evidence. It is difficult to quantify, which is why it is more suited to Bayesian analysis. I was not even attempting to do that, instead merely pointing out that the accounts are inconsistent with the loud voices of the tin-foil hat brigade claiming that the evidence of warming is somehow manufactured by and evil climate cabal.
If you were actually to read what I wrote, you will note that I was not claiming this was hard evidence. Indeed, I was relaying my impressions in response to a particular query about science in developing countries. I’m afraid your post leaves me with little substantive to which I can respond, but then what could one expect from a concern troll.
Frank says:
We’re told that in order to Save The Planet we’ll have to all spend more for energy and sacrifice. Replacing two or three coal fired plants for one nuclear one would seem to be a step in the right direction.
I disagree about requiring sacrifice. I agree we need to use less energy, but would argue that a better insulated home requires less energy and is more comfortable. The only “sacrifice” required is the cost of insulating it – something paid back many times in the following years.
I would agree about replacing coal plants with nukes, but only if it can be demonstrated to be cost effective versus the alternatives. At this point in time it’s not. By far the best investment we have is in efficiency, followed by renewables. *New* nuclear is last on the list.
The conspiracy theories about corporations trying to poison the planet for the sake of poisoning the planet are specious, IMHO.
Wow. Just wow.
That’s a pretty tall strawman you’ve assembled there. I’m afraid it’s going to fall over in the lightest breeze all by itself.
(hint: no one has ever said companies conspired to poison the planet)
If someone were to develop a very cost effective, energy effective way of producing electricity that was cheaper than coal, energy companies would jump on it. If solar and wind cut the mustard, utilities would dive in whole hog in every region of the USA.
Exactly what do you think they’re doing? Why do you think more wind capacity was added last year than coal?
Please bear in mind there’s a big difference between adding new capacity and replacing old capacity. No one is ripping out coal plants that are still in their useful lifespan. But new coal plants, like new nuke plants, cost lots more to build than the old ones did.
Ed says in #691:
638 David Miller: Then why are the French paying 1/3 LESS for electricity while the French government takes a PROFIT from their nuclear power plants? Your accounting is off. The problem with nuclear cost in the US is that entirely too much safety is required.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s because the cost per KWH that they’re now paying is averaged out across older plants that cost less to build.
Ed, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times people tell you this, you’re just not getting it. New nukes cost too much to build. It’s not just US safety standards: estimates for the Ontario plant came in off the charts. The plant being built by Areva (French, state owned company that built the plants you cite in France) in Norway is years behind schedule and billions over budget. A nuke anticipated in Florida – for which residents are already paying years before the first shovel of dirt is moved – is estimated to come in at 15 cents per KWH.
Citing an article online somewhere that says nukes *should* be able to be built for some reasonable rate is just wishful thinking. Real plants built for real customers in the real world are all coming in north of 15 cents/KWH.
Nuclear power is the safest kind, bar none, for everybody.
I haven’t been arguing that at all. My sole point is that right here and now new nuclear plants can’t be built at a competitive price. You can quote all the existing plants built 20 years ago, you can quote something you found on the internet somewhere – but you can’t change what real companies charge real customers. Until that goes down nuclear is simply the highest cost option.
As has been pointed out on other posts, there’s a ramp-up issue too. If we put X billion dollars into wind or solar thermal we get some of the power in a year or two as the units are put into production. With nuclear power we get nothing back for the decade or so it takes to build the plant.
RC guys,
The link to my climate sensitivity page uses the old http://www.aol.com/bpl1960 address, which hasn’t existed since October 2008. My present web address is http://BartonPaulLevenson.com, and the climate sensitivity page is http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.com
Happy Holidays! You all are the best!
Tenney
JBob says, “#662 Doug, if the world is going to spend trillions of $’s on a still to be proved theory, and then cannot spend the few million to adequately staff the project, would that indicate something is wrong, big time?”
Still to be proved, eh? Well, JBob, given the mountains of evidence that support the consensus model of Earth’s climate AND its most famous prediction (anthropogenic climate change), I am just curious: What would, to you, constitute proof? Because if you want absolute proof in the mathematical or theological sense, you aren’t going to get it. On the other hand, if we are talking about a reasonable scientific standard of proof, the 90% confidence level ought to suffice, and we’re well past that.
And as to the underfunding of science, well hop to it man, and ask your senators and congressmen to raise your taxes (hey, maybe even a carbon tax!!!) ever so slightly to pay for better funding not just of climate science, but of all the sciences. That said, I would hope you would agree that even funded on a shoestring, science–and that includes climate science–has been amazingly successful.
Just another aside: ISO certification is not a particularly good model when it comes to a scientific research organization. The system is not always sufficiently flexible to accommodate a field where progress in methodology is continual and rapid. Our ISO surveys have provided us with some of our biggest laughs. And anyone who threatens to bring in Six-Sigma is liable to fine a methylene-chloride soaked rag wrapped around his brake-line.
Get off your computers you sad people, go find your friends and families and stop your miserable chatter ! Its Christmas !! Get a life and go enjoy the rest of the day . Happy Xmas to all/
Didactylos wrote: “Given everything you have already said on the subject, I don’t think you will get far trying to change tack at this late stage.”
With all due respect, I don’t know what you are talking about. I have consistently and repeatedly said that I oppose building new nuclear power because it is neither an effective nor a necessary means of reducing GHG emissions from electricity generation, and because it would squander resources that would be more effectively put into efficiency and renewables, and thus hinder rather than help the effort to reduce emissions. I have consistently and repeatedly said that concerns about the safety of nuclear power are secondary, in that there is no need to even address them, since their is no need or necessity for building any new nuclear power plants.
I have in no way “changed tack” and your assertion that I have suggests that you are not even reading my comments, but rather imagining me to be saying what the one-dimensional cartoon comic-book stereotype of an “anti-nuclear activist” who lives in your head always says.
Didactylos wrote: “Why don’t you stop hacking away at nuclear and leave it to its own devices? If it’s uneconomical as you claim, then it will die on its own. Since you’re wrong, it will get plenty of private investment and do just fine.”
With all due respect, that comment suggests that you don’t really know anything about what is going on with nuclear power in the real world.
In the real world, if nuclear power is “left to its own devices”, then it is a certainty that no new nuclear power plants will be built in the USA.
How do I know this? Because that’s exactly what the nuclear power industry, including manufacturers, contractors, utilities and industry lobbying groups have all been saying loudly and clearly for years: they will not put a shovel in the ground to build even ONE new nuclear power plant unless they are given tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, guarantees, insurance, and large utility rate increases that kick in years before new nukes are even approved, let alone construction started.
It is the nuclear industry, not me, that has been saying loudly and clearly that there will be NO new nuclear power plants in the USA unless the taxpayers and rate payers absorb all the costs and all the risks — including the risk of economic losses if the power plants are not profitable when they are eventually built.
If you want nuclear power to be “left to its own devices” to succeed or fail on the basis of obtaining “plenty of private investment” — with the investors absorbing the costs and taking on the risks, without the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies that the nuclear industry has been clamoring for (and is to some extent now receiving as a result of recent energy legislation) — then you are, for all practical purposes, arguing for the same policies that I advocate, because that situation will certainly result in no new nuclear power plants being built in the USA ever again.
And again, all of this is moot. Nuclear power simply cannot and will not be expanded enough, rapidly enough, to make any significant difference with regard to reducing emissions. And given the rapid rate that today’s powerful wind and solar technologies are being deployed, and the rate at which those technologies are advancing, it is likely that any new nuclear power plants that are started in the USA in the near future, will be uncompetitive, unprofitable and uneconomical to operate by the time they are finished. And the tax payers and rate payers will be left holding the bag.
David Miller,
Have you seen this?
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/021
To my way of thinking, if something like this can be mass produced and be within 10-15% cost effecient of todays’ energy supply, this whole debate about AGW will just die a natural death.
Gavin, Mike, etal.
By my count this famous bolg is 6,038 hits from 10,000,000.
The service you provide is priceless and represents your dedication to real science.
And, you have collectively invested about 10 million hours in keeping this page open and focused.
Thank you.
John McCormick
John McCormick wrote in 709:
I might prefer New Years Day if for nothing else than the toasting of what is past, present and yet to come, but it is looking like it will be a very Merry Christmas….
Congratulations!
Hank (693), I wasn’t necessarily referring to my personal experience.
So let’s see … Steven Easterbrook and his team does an in-depth look at the software methodology and products of the Hadley Centre modeling team and reaches the interesting conclusion that there’s significant overlap with how successful open source projects are structured.
And J Bob, our self-proclaimed software expert, proclaims:
What poor coding? Hadley Centre’s modeling software is proprietary, was not part of the stolen payload from CRU, and you’ve never read the source.
I admit to having tricked you slightly, wondering if you’d pull something like this out of your rear orifice, proclaiming that code you’ve never looked at is poorly done.
Ray Ladbury says …
ISO certification is largely ignored, and for good reason. J Bob’s belief that you can’t have quality software without it demonstrates a disconnect with reality. Or he’s just playing concern troll. I previously mentioned a few examples of open source software which of are high quality which ignore such things. Does he think Google burdens itself with ISO certification, Six Sigma and the like? Feh.
Ray Ladbury (697, my use of the term “opponent” was only in line with my metaphor of pep rallies and (implied) football games. I didn’t mean it as a literal description of posters; sorry for the confusion.
But you continue with the “…science that has been established for 50 years and which has no compelling evidence against it,…” meme which connects clearly with my (actually your’alls) definition of a skeptic: “…a person who agrees with everything said about AGW but has some areas that he/she doesn’t quite fully understand…” Ergo no such thing as a skeptic.
btw, I hope you don’t think “…character assassination and repeatedly discredited memes…” is a monopoly of skeptics (though I suspect you do).
btw #2 (706), I concur highly in your assessment of ISO standards. They were basically meant to prove consistency of a program, not whether a program did anything useful. Hence why it fits badly in research orgs.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) — 25 December 2009 @ 2:38 AM
Many Thanks!
Have a nice holiday!
Over the last two days I read Jim Hansen’s book “Storms of my grandchildren” and I recommend it. The book provides good information on climate change science and a personal view of Hansen’s experiences, especially during the GW Bush era of attempts to censor or silence government scientists and rewrite press releases to down play dangers of climate chang. Hansen makes a good case for his view that less warming than IPCC predicts may lead to melting of the Greenland glaciers and irreversible and rapid increases in sea level.
I agree with his argument for a carbon tax as the best and most efficient way of reducing carbon emissions. He states that the much higher (2X) per capita energy use in the USA, Canada and Australia in companion to Europe and Japan is almost entirely due to the higher taxes on energy in the more efficient countries. The tax would be rebated so that it would be neutral for people who use moderate amounts of energy or who invest in conservation and efficiency. The taxes would need to be worldwide–countries that do not collect the carbon tax would see it levied against their exports. Hansen makes a strong case for the notion that current and future investment in coal plants will preclude reaching the necessary emission goals.
> if something like this can be mass produced (news from a year ago)
The thing is, plants turn sunlight into carbohydrate, not into tanks of hydrogen and oxygen.
Imagine every building around you with a solar roof, and a big tank of oxygen and another big tank of hydrogen in its basement.
Feel more secure?
Obviously, Copenhagen was a disaster. Now might come the time to wonder why Kyoto was not, whatever the Americans and their Saoudi friends have said, i.e. doing nothing is always better than trying something. By the way, all the Kyoto states -taken as a group- have met their objectives (Australaia is a bit on the side, Mr. Howard having prevented his country to ratifiy the Treaty until a couple of years ago).
So, the next step should be for a “Kyoto bis”, but this time with some input from Washington, and -possibly- China.
#682 sidd #690 Martin Vermeer
I of course agree with tamino and you about the repetition. Part of it is management and (moderators) time. Then of course you run into the political problem of “My post did not show up on RC so how can they call themselves real scientists since they ignore my lame assertion based on what I read on the intertubes by a guy that says stuff I agree with”.
RC already has two lists. The index and the myths in the RC wiki. So I would not suggest a third list. We need to beef up the wiki. Then RC moderators can look at repeated memes and send to one or two links [edit link, link]
Only the ones who actually want to learn will click and there are a lot of people that read this blog. The trolls will eventually crawl back under whatever bridge or rock they came form but in the mean time, when they post here, it allows for others to follow the links.
Those of my two cents. Anyone that would like to discuss topics, drop me a line on skype I can be found in ‘platoscave’…. I’m usually in the back of the cave roasting marshmallows :)
To Ray’s, “You view the purpose of the website as a place of conflict and competition, rather than a place where folks can come to learn the science.”
With respect, RC is not a good place to go to learn the science. It is a great place to go, however, to learn what folks who firmly believe in AGW theory think of those who do not so believe. There is not much interest here, for example – moderators aside – in addressing what scientists or statisticians who oppose the so-called consensus view have to say. There is a strong interest in calling them names (“deniers”), mocking their habitat (the “denialosphere”) and questioning their motivations, to be sure, but none of that can be taken seriously by people who think for themselves. Name-calling always raises more questions about those who do it than those whom the name-callers hope to squash.
The groupthink arguments are advanced here from a strict starting point: AGW theory is rock-solid, only an idiot would believe otherwise, and so those who argue to the contrary are ‘ipso facto’ not to be trusted. Ironically, the leaked EAU e-mails that raise suspicions about scientific motivation just about anywhere else in the scientific community are treated here as “nothing to see” and the primary lesson to be learned from them is that you can jettison the whole EAU project and all its contributors, and still the evidence from everywhere else is more than enough to keep the consensus view perfectly intact. That’s as may be, but the urge to parse trickery and decline-hiding rather than denounce it speaks volumes about loyalty and not so much about genuine scientific skepticism.
At RC, “learning the science” and “coming to believe what I believe” are synonymous, as anyone who has had the temerity to come here from off the reservation can tell us. It is a great site for learning one side of an argument, which has value, but any advertisements to the contrary are off base in my opinion.
#716 Bill DeMott
Here, here.
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/economics
http://www.uscentrist.org/platform/positions/environment/tax-and-dividend
Happy holidays everyone, and to all a better year with troll handling, climate science education, and the hope for meaningful policy on GHG emissions :)
Mr. Manny writes:
“RC is not a good place to go to learn the science.”
Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with this. There are fewer and fewer articles, not to speak of the comments, discussing the actual research.
The best place to learn the science, of course, is grad school. Failing which, Mr. Weart’s history is a very good place to start. And Mr. Pierrehumbert has an excellent textbook available on the web as well. I thank both these gentlemen.
Merry Christmas to all at RC.
Thank you for your very informative site. So many times I have thought an issue insufficiently discussed in the science arena only to find RC has already discussed it. My knowledge of climate change is full of holes, while RC might not have completely filled the holes in; at least it has made me aware of many of them.
I do not know how you maintain your patience with those who refuse to learn, those who reuse the same old discredited arguments time after time.
“My post did not show up on RC so how can they call themselves real scientists since they ignore my lame assertion based on what I read on the intertubes by a guy that says stuff I agree with”
Lovely characterization. Mindless assertions that reinforce the RC status quo are legion on this site, so I can’t really accept it’s the lameness of skeptical posters that drives the censors here.
If theories and research contrary to the RC wisdom were as weak as RC partisans believe, there should have been no need for the UAE CRU cohort to subvert the review process to kill inconvenient research or to effect removal of editors who weren’t compliant enough.
I went from ‘lukewarmer’ to full blown scoffer about three years ago. Faced with some ‘denier’ propaganda I started reading journals for myself and found the research from Friis-Christensen, Svensmark, Shaviv & Veizer and others to be both reasoned and reasonable (perhaps because of my own degree in Physics), unlike the attacks made here and elsewhere on them.
I can’t say my MS EE (would be called a MS CE nowadays) exactly endeared me to the coding standards evident in the CRU FOIA file, either.
It’s a new year. While there are certainly dittoheads that will just disagree with you due to politics, the overall intelligence (or lack of it) among the rabid left and rabid right is about the same.
Despite being starved for resources, in two decades the cosmic crowd have gone from noting there’s a correlation between solar cycle length to finding up to a 7% drop in cloud cover worldwide in response to Forbush events, about equal to a 2 watt per square meter solar forcing, more than equal to the best guesses for CO2 warming. Effects are verified, there is a physical mechanism in place. Does this prove that the 20th century warming was entirely natural? No, but it does prove important physics was left out of the GCM and their results should not yet be considered good enough to base drastic public policy changes upon. My own finger to the wind puts it 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW, including all pollution, CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant), black carbon, deforestation and urbanization.
Followers of RC dogma are no more moral or intelligent than those who have not swallowed the AGW kool-aid. A new year is approaching; why not drop the old attitude and actually have something of an open debate? Stop denigrating the opposition; everyone who agrees with you are not your friends, and everyone who disagrees with you are not your enemies.
John P. Reisman
Although the tax and dividend proposal is by far the best plan, the conservatives who holler and scream at the smallest tax can probably stop such an approach. I’m not sure what Obama’s administration should do. It’s easy to understand why a substantial tax, even one with a 100% refund is unlikely to be politically palatable. I’m nost sure how the Europeans were able to develop a system with high taxes on gasoline and much better support for public transportation. Over my scientific career I’ve worked at institutions in Germany and The Netherlands for about 30 months. I never missed having a car and got around really well by foot, bicycle, bus and train.
Greg Goodknight gives us the *bestest ever* definition of what passes for “research” among the denialist community:
“CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant)” – love it, Mr Goodknight, what a remarkable thought.
> 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW
That seems excessive; the natural variation is far larger than that.
The contribution from AGW is much smaller — but all in one direction.
That’s why it’s taken so long for the warming signal to be detected.
If AGW were causing as much as 1/3 of the warming, the climate sensitivity would have to be rather enormous.
Or have I misunderstood your logic? I don’t have a degree in Physics.
EG: 658 BPL: Here’s the deal: Price-Andersen Act for no protesting nuclear.
The Price-Andersen Act and the high installation and long lead times are caused by anti-nuclear protesters. So, if you can guarantee no lawsuits, no protests etc. then we can repeal Price-Andersen.
BPL: So, basically, we can only have a nuclear industry in a country without a First Amendment? Hmmm… nukes or the freedom of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances… let me think here…
Greg Goodknight: What if you are wrong and most of the warming is not natural?
EG: Nuclear power is the safest kind, bar none, for everybody.
BPL: I notice your little table didn’t include solar, wind, geothermal, or biomass, and that you’re still using “31” for fatalities from Chernobyl although you’ve been told before, on this very web site, with links, that it’s at least 56 now and possibly in the thousands.
Oh, and on those Forbush events — Google is your friend, it found this:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/still-not-convincing/
and the pointer to:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.2777
The thing about relying on icecap, wattsup, and sepp is they don’t give you the citation so you don’t check subsequent references and find more contemporary science. Try it.
And, belatedly, for which I apologize, thank you very much for providing a link to my site at all.
All: You can find more, including some annual time series data for temperature, TSI, and CO2, at:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Climatology.html
WM: There is not much interest here, for example – moderators aside – in addressing what scientists or statisticians who oppose the so-called consensus view have to say
BPL: As if dozens of threads here don’t do just that. Go back and read ’em, okay, Manny?
GG: My own finger to the wind puts it 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW, including all pollution, CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant), black carbon, deforestation and urbanization.
BPL: Deforestation is a problem because it releases CO2 when forests are burned down and removes a sink for it. Which you’d know if you had studied the science instead of studying denialist propaganda about the science.
As for your “2/3 natural” attribution–ever hear of analysis of variance, O you who claim to be a physicist? Here, free clue:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Correlation.html
Looks like 3/4 due to CO2 from 1880 to 2007 to me.
Speaking of unforced variations
>> 1/3
> 3/4
Point being you have to distinguish natural variability — of which there’s plenty — from trend over the longer term, and then consider the causes.
This might be worth a glance from someone who understands this stuff:
http://cel.isiknowledge.com/full_record.do?product=CEL&colname=CEL&search_mode=CitingArticles&qid=4&SID=3Fm412@p@BkcHECJgMP&page=1&doc=9
Adaptation of the optimal fingerprint method for climate change detection using a well-conditioned covariance matrix estimate
Author(s): Ribes et al.
Found among the ISI list of papers citing this one:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;292/5515/270
703 David Miller: What makes you think it takes 15 years to build a nuclear power plant? It doesn’t. 5 years for construction, 10 years to deal with protests and lawsuits. France can build a new nuclear power plant in 5 years and so can we. Hyperion can plant one in days, but the Hyperion nuclear power plants are smaller, 25 megawatts vs 1000 megawatts. Anti-nuclear activists have created their own problem. Every time you do it their way they demand more. It is a never-ending protest.
If we are to survive as a species, we MUST shut down ALL coal fired power plants worldwide regardless of whether they are old or new, and we have to do it in the next 7 years. That would cut our CO2 by 40%. Wind and solar power have not yet shut down a single coal fired power plant, and they will not do so in time. You are using coal fired power plants as your “battery”. You are saving very little CO2 because the coal fired power plant is kept running at the “spinning reserve” rate. “Spinning reserve” is very little different from full power. THAT is the problem.
We just don’t have time to wait for new technology like the room temperature superconductors and the energy storage devices we don’t have that wind and solar require. We MUST shut down ALL coal fired power plants NOW. You are welcome to shut down coal fired power plants any way you can, but if you can’t provide the electricity, you will have a revolt on your hands.
I admire the restraint of many of the scientists involved in the CRU hack,
and before that the ‘Yamal’ debacle. Some of the commentary is clearly
defamatory and actionable, yet they decline to reach for the lawyers.
Just recently the absurd WUWT hosted a piece from a ‘converted warmist’
Bradley Fikes, in which the word ‘outright fraud‘ was hyperlinked
to a mail exchange (1059762275.txt) between Professors Mann and Osborn.
Now, being a mere mortal, I’m getting a bit tired, nay, angry about these
lazy and unsupportable accusations of malpractice and so I challenged Mr
Fikes in the comments …
An accusation of ‘outright fraud’ against a scientist is extremely
serious […] The words “Dirty Laundry” in quotes. Is that the sum total
of the evidence that a fraud has been committed? Please tell me you’ve got
more than that. Who was defrauded? Where? When?
Mr Fikes responded: Deliberately withholding evidence that goes against
your theory in published research is scientific fraud. It is
misrepresenting evidence. When you involve someone else in the fraud, that
is a conspiracy. When this is done in a clinical trial in the
pharmaceutical industry,people can go to jail.
Now a private correspondence is not quite the same thing as a clinical
trial, yet my response was Fair enough. So let us be absolutely
careful, clear and specific. You are levelling an accusation of outright
fraud against Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University for the
withholding of evidence. Is that correct?
Please be specific, which published theory in which papers was
contradicted by these data? What exactly do the data show? Please confirm
that you wish to make a serious and highly public accusation of scientific
fraud against Professor Mann, in the knowledge that it will almost
certainly be defamatory if you cannot provide adequate supporting
evidence.
Note that Professor Mann did not actually withhold anything, he
provided some data to a colleague and asked that he be consulted before
those data were shared more widely. In my opinion, given the absurd
distortions that some are prepared to indulge in this seems to me more
indicative of sensible precautions than fraud.
More detail, please. I am sure that you won’t object to me forwarding your
allegations on to Professor Mann while we are waiting, and cross-posting
this to RealClimate?
Which I have now done. Fikes is an unlikely straw that broke the camel’s
back, we’ve all read ‘Bleak House’ and the only people likely to gain
from a defamation case are the lawyers. But surely there comes a point at
which we conclude ‘enough is enough’?
Edward Greisch wrote: “What makes you think it takes 15 years to build a nuclear power plant? It doesn’t. 5 years for construction, 10 years to deal with protests and lawsuits. France can build a new nuclear power plant in 5 years and so can we.”
“France” is demonstrating right this minute that they cannot build a new nuclear power plant in five years. The French AREVA reactor under construction in Olkiluoto, Finland is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. According to the New York Times:
So: the flagship of the “nuclear renaissance” is experiencing numerous, serious safety problems; construction delays of at least three years; and cost overruns now expected to double the original proposed cost of the reactor. And AREVA is taking major financial hit as a result of the project.
And lawsuits? You betcha — not by “protestors”, but by the Finnish utility against AREVA, for billions of dollars in damages from the construction delays.
With all due respect your comments are consistently full of fact-free proclamations and assertions. When others post substantive, documented information about the very real problems, delays and staggeringly high cost of new nuclear power plants, you respond with hand-waving about “protestors” being responsible for all of those problems, and claims about costs and construction times for new nuclear that reflect outdated nuclear industry propaganda and have no relation to actual nuclear power plants now being built or proposed in the real world.
If you want to claim that the new AREVA nuclear power plants are being delayed by “protestors” rather than by their own inherent problems, then let’s see the evidence. Show us when, where and exactly how “protestors” have been responsible for AREVA’s problems.
“Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with this. There are fewer and fewer articles, not to speak of the comments, discussing the actual research.”
You’re probably thinking more of comment threads, but the repetitious nature of what you read is not surprising considering many in the the contrarian community are stuck trying to grasp research that was completed in the 19th century while many others are strung out between 1934 and the early 90’s. Sure, there are lots of new results to discuss but those are increasingly narrow in their focus, typical of the evolution of a particular field of research, but those cannot be discussed if the conversation is always swerved back to the “2+2=4” level.
As to Walter’s accusations of name-calling, some descriptive word is required to differentiate adversaries. “Skeptic” is too narrow and arguably incorrect in most cases, “denier” is politically incorrect, so “contrarian” seems to be the best general fit. Some would say even that word is too generous.
J. Bob says: 25 December 2009 at 11:21 AM
“Doug, if the world is going to spend trillions of $’s on a still to be proved theory, and then cannot spend the few million to adequately staff the project, would that indicate something is wrong, big time?”
I’ll say. What I find striking in the contrarian community is the utter silence when it comes to encouraging the expenditure of more resources on climate research even as accusations of “fraud” and “hoax” are so generously awarded to the research community.
Anyway, the code in question is largely irrelevant now. Useful though it still is, the weight of results produced by the particular group of researchers analyzing temperature data has largely been superseded by other findings that further confirm the predictive power of the original C02 hypothesis. CRU? Get over it, it’s a historical curiosity at this point.
Greg Goodknight says, “My own finger to the wind puts it 2/3 natural, 1/3 AGW, including all pollution, CO2 (which isn’t a pollutant), black carbon, deforestation and urbanization.”
Given where you pulled those numbers from, I would say the wind you put your finger to is broken. Try as I might, I can’t seem to find any actual physic in your post. Just curious, Greg, how do cosmic rays cool the stratosphere right where a greenhouse mechanism would–between 40 and 50 km. Or how is it that you somehow amplify a signal based on a tiny modulation over a mean of 6 particles per square cm per second into a global temperature trend–particularly when there’s no evidence that GCR fluxes are changing significantly and no shortage of cloud condensation nuclei in the atmosphere? And how does any of this invalidate the known physics of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Greg, science consists of a whole lot more than pulling numbers out of alternative orifices. Evidently, your BS in physics didn’t teach you this.
Edward Greisch wrote: “… we MUST shut down ALL coal fired power plants worldwide regardless of whether they are old or new, and we have to do it in the next 7 years.”
According to the same New York Times article I linked in my previous comment:
In light of the realities described above, I would certainly like to see your plan for building enough nuclear power plants to replace all the coal-fired power plants in the world within seven years — and please address the very real safety problems, resource constraints, delays and high costs that are afflicting actual new nuclear power plants (not science fiction “fourth generation” power plants that don’t exist) under construction all over the world.
709 Denihilist: Interesting idea, H2 from sunlight via catalyst. Question: What is the efficiency? The efficiency of plants is considerably below 1%, which is the problem with biofuel. It would also be nice to have the O2 partial pressure go up a little.
Problem: Hydrogen gas is one of the 2 leakiest gasses around. The other being helium. When a hydrogen atom looses an electron to the wall of its container, it is just a proton, .001 times the size of the smallest complete atom. ANY solid substance is a sponge rather than a wall as far as hydrogen is concerned. Leakage limits the efficiency of hydrogen energy schemes.
H2 and He are also so light that the Earth’s gravity is insufficient to hold them. They escape into space, never to return. If it leaks out, it is gone.
Walter Manny, If those who oppose the consensus view ever tried to publish their views in peer-reviewed research, there might be interest here. The fact is that their publication record is woeful. Since many of those people are not stupid, how can we explain such poor success other than to say that those rejecting the consensus theory of Earth’s climate are unable to add to our understanding of that subject.
Walter, the prediction that anthropogenic CO2 would warm the globe is over a century old. The basic forcings and feedbacks that drive Earth’s climate have been known for decades. The models that result from these insights provide understanding of the vast majority of the planet’s climatic behavior. The resulting consensus model of Eart’s climate has been demonstrated to have tremendous explanatory and predictive power. To reject all of that evidence and success merely because you don’t like the implications of the theory and to offer no alternative framework that even approaches the success of the consensus model is simply denial.
You claim that RC isn’t a good place to learn the science of Earth’s climate. OK, Walter, show me where to find another model that is explains even 10% of what the consensus model explains. Show me a prediction by such a model that has come true with at least reasonable statistical significance (e.g. better than 10% significance). You cannot, and you know you cannot. In other words, you claim, despite all the successes of the consensus model that there’s no science there, and you can’t show us an alterntive model where there is science. Aren’t you just denying the existence of climate science? And you wonder why you get called a denialist?
Rod B., you definition “…a person who agrees with everything said about AGW but has some areas that he/she doesn’t quite fully understand…” fits the word STUDENT (at least assuming they are still trying to learn) better than it does skeptic. The fact that you or I may not fully understand all the intricacies of climate science doesn’t mean nobody does.
A true skeptic must have a sufficient grasp of the subject matter to be able to offer an alternative interpretation of the evidence–all of the evidence. If one is merely unconvinced because of lack of understanding, the proper course of action is to continue trying to understand, no?
730 BPL I said nothing about a First Amendment. Is France a free country? Yes. But France doesn’t have the nuclear protesters the US does. Figure THAT out. Is it better education in France or something else? It isn’t a lack of freedom.
732: James Lovelock is corrected. It is 56. 14 deaths per TW Y. It is NOT thousands. There are many places that have higher natural background radiation than Chernobyl has. You may be living in one of those places. Chernobyl IS occupied by humans who live there full time. They operate the remaining 3 reactors.
696 Didactylos: DU rounds kill enemy tanks and they stay killed. That saves the lives of American soldiers. No other material works like that. A DU killed tank can’t be repaired and sent back into battle. My guess is that, since uranium is pyrophoric, it causes a fire and secondary explosions of ammo stored in the tank. No other material penetrates armor as well, either. Just putting a hole in a tank doesn’t prevent it from killing you.
If they don’t want their desert sand messed up, they should surrender before we get there. So sorry, but the lives of American soldiers are just too precious to use anything less than DU.
Jim Dukelow:-
Many thanks for your answer on the heat of fusion of water. That is definitely interesting.
A related question, when heating increases the amount of H2O in the atmosphere, does H2O accelerate warming, or do the clouds formed by H2O reflect incoming sunlight? It isn’t obvious to me which effect would win. Although, seen from space, apparently the earth does appear to be quite ‘cloud covered’ on occasion.
I tried googling this and saw the following article which discusses painting roofs white to eliminate global warming:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/13/AR2009061300866.html
This mentioned that this technique may be vital to save the planet, as:
“We may have to figure out a way to artificially cool the planet while the atmosphere is still super-saturated with greenhouse gases,” said Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. This could be it, he said, “because the planet, it’s a closed system, it’s an absolutely closed system, except for one thing: sunlight.”