After weeks and months of press coverage seemingly Through the Looking Glass, Paul Krugman has sent us a breath of fresh air this morning in the New York Times Magazine, entitled “Building a Green Economy“. Krugman now joins fellow NYT columnist Tom Friedman as required reading in my Global Warming for English Majors class at the University of Chicago.
There is a lot here to comment on and discuss. The extinctions at the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum, for example, were mostly limited to foraminfera, single-celled shelly protozoa living at the sea floor, not really a “mass extinction” like the end Cretaceous when the dinosaurs got feathered. The Gulf Stream is not the only thing keeping Northern Europe warmer than Alaska. Krugman’s four reasons why it’s dubious to compare costs of climate mitigation to adaption didn’t include the unfairness, that the people paying the costs of climate change would not be the same ones as reap the benefit of CO2 emission. He also seems to have missed the recent revelation that what really matters to climate is the total ultimate slug of emitted CO2, implying that unfettered emission today dooms us to more drastic cuts in the future or a higher ultimate atmospheric CO2 concentration, which will persist not just for “possibly centuries”, but almost certainly for millennia.
But despite a few off-notes, reading this very nicely written, beautifully laid out and argued piece felt like getting a deep sympathetic body massage after a bruising boxing match. Thank you, Mr. Krugman.
Gilles need to pay attention to leading edge technologies that address his “intermittence reasons”, some folks do more than opine about problems, they find solutions
Gilles also needs to pay attention to updates:
“Offshore wind turbines with a combined capacity of 577 MW were installed in Europe in 2009 and Denmark accounted for 230 MW of the expansion, the Danish Wind Industry Association said today.
Denmark-based wind-turbine maker Siemens Wind Power A/S and Vestas Wind Systems A/S accounted for a total 89.5% of the newly installed capacity in Europe.
At the end of 2009, Denmark had installed a total 305 offshore wind turbines, capturing the first place in Europe, followed by the UK with 287 turbines.”
http://www.windpower.org/en/news/news.html#549
I found support for Gilles’ contention that the growth of Danish wind power had slowed in the years previous–however, none of the stories I found attributed the slowing to grid management issues resulting from intermittence. Rather, the issues were basically political–some in the technical sense, as there was apparently a large-scale reorganization of jurisdictions responsible for regulating new projects.
Interesting, since one does hear these types of criticisms of the Danish experience:
http://www.cphpost.dk/business/119-business/48553-oil-industry-behind-critical-wind-energy-report.html
As a Canadian living in the US, it reminds me of the anti-health care activism/hysteria which so misrepresented Canadian healthcare.
As far as I can tell, the Danish grid system, which is closely interconnected with Scandinavian systems, works pretty well, using imported power when the wind component is low. Some have alleged that they are forced to “sell low and buy high,” but the information I found doesn’t really support that.
There are monthly market reports available from the Danish energy marketer Energinet.Dk here:
http://www.energinet.dk/en/menu/Market/Electricity+market/Market+reports/Market+reports.htm
It’s amusing to note that since the beginning of the year, Denmark has been in a mostly net-export situation, particularly with Sweden–many of whose nuclear reactors have been down, apparently–and Norway, which, like Sweden, has seen low levels in hydopower reservoirs because the cold temperatures this winter haven’t allowed much snowmelt yet.
So the “unreliable” wind power has been helping out “reliable” nuclear & hydro. Short-term situation, so it isn’t necessarily all that representative. But it’s still funny.
‘foraminfera, single-celled shelly protozoa living at the sea floor’; sorry to be nitpicky – but that’s foraminifera, not foraminfera. And lots of foraminifera live floating in or just below the surface waters of the oceans (planktonic foraminifera), and not on the sea floor (benthic foraminifera).
At the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal the bottom dwellers suffered serious extinction (not sure why – some combination on warming, ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation), whereas the surface floaters (planktonics) show migration of low latitude forms to higher latitudes, as well as rapid evolutionary turnover 9evolution of short-lived species).
“Can you make up your mind.
First it’s “they’re using more energy” then it’s “they’re using less energy”.”
They are using LESS ENERGY for a given good or service and MORE ENERGY in total. Can’t you really understand that ?
and all efforts to conserve energy improve only the first term, but are silent on the second. Can’t you also understand that ?
“Gilles need to pay attention to leading edge technologies that address his “intermittence reasons”, some folks do more than opine about problems, they find solutions”
Tell me where and when this “solution” has been applied at a country scale, please. No one advocates serioulsy the use of batteries to regulate a windmill network. The only possible way is to use hydroelectric storage but it encounters basically the same limitation as the hydropower.
“As far as I can tell, the Danish grid system, which is closely interconnected with Scandinavian systems, works pretty well, using imported power when the wind component is low.”
So in this case the limit applies to the percentage of wind electricity on the global interconnected grid. IF the swedish people had as many windmills as danish ones, they wouldn’t buy them the extra electricity because they would have the same problem. I didn’t say wind energy is useless. I said it’s limited around 20 % of the global electricity consumption.
VS, nice to see you here.
Admittedly I’m still very confused as to what VS is trying to get across. If it is merely that proper statistical tools should be used in climate science, he’ll find overwhelming agreement I’m sure (at least on the principle).
Here’re some sources of my confusion:
“(…) global temperature contains a stochastic rather than deterministic trend, and is statistically speaking, a random walk.”
He later clarified:
“I agree with you that temperatures are not ‘in essence’ a random walk, just like many (if not all) economic variables observed as random walks are in fact not random walks.”
And later still:
“I’m not ‘disproving’ AGWH here.
I’m not claiming that temperatures are a random walk.
I’m not ‘denying’ the laws of physics.”
Though then he comes up with a stochastic trend specification in which the chances of the temp going up or down are approximately equal (despite a positive climate forcing). Because the boundaries of this stochastic trend estimate are so wide (as to essentially be an ‘anything goes’ model, even though it’s been ‘formally’ specified), it can not (yet) be rejected.
On the meaning of a unit root, he said
“a deterministic trend is inconsistent with a unit root”
And then:
“it can contain a drift parameter, which indeed predicts a ‘deterministic’ rise in a certain period”
It must be due to my admitted statistical naivety, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. Most people though seem to interpret it as meaning that the temps vary randomly within certain bounds, and that there is no statistical evidence within the instrumental temp record that the temp is forced up (or down). VS has not countered these numerous claims, leading me to think that he agrees.
Based on physical considerations (e.g. conservation of energy) I disagree. For much the same reason as I would disagree with someone who would argue that my body weight just changes stochastically without being governed by my personal energy balance (food intake and energy expenditure).
<Tell me where and when this “solution” has been applied at a country scale, please.
Nowhere–yet. It's "emerging," remember?
<No one advocates seriously the use of batteries to regulate a windmill network.
Demonstrably untrue. I'd say $53 million is pretty serious, wouldn't you?
http://earth2tech.com/2009/05/21/flow-batteries-enervault-quietly-building-energy-storage-for-the-grid/
Also, flywheel storage for frequency regulation is now in commercial production and operation:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=123367&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1416358&highlight=
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=123367&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1401908&highlight
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=123367&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1381929&highlight=
(Note that the California unit is intended to further California's plan to achieve 33% renewable energy by 2020.)
<The only possible way is to use hydroelectric storage but it encounters basically the same limitation as the hydropower.
Not really. There are lots of possibilities which may yet become quite practical–one, for example, would be to use the power to dissociate water for hydrogen. (Problems include storage of the hydrogen and conversion efficiency, but these may turn out to be soluble.)
<[Wind energy is] limited around 20 % of the global electricity consumption.
That's a current rule of thumb, not a law of physics. It's not clear that it will remain true over larger scales–for example, would wind in Northern Sweden be subject to the same weather systems as Denmark–or with increasing capability to regulate the grid.
For clarity, I'm not saying that wind is going to be a "silver bullet" for the energy challenge. But neither do I think that the excessive negativism exhibited by many denialist bloggers is warranted.
If we were to achieve that 20% figure on a global basis, I'd think that quite a wonderful and helpful achievement. It would represent a big reduction in global carbon intensity, and would make the remainder of the problem seem quite a bit more manageable. And I'm crazy enough to think that it actually might happen.
“So in this case the limit applies to the percentage of wind electricity on the global interconnected grid.”
Yes, there’s a limit: a little over 100%
You missed that Denmark is a net exporter because nuclear wasn’t able to be reliable enough.
Gilles, stop reading what you want to read.
The industrial revolution wasn’t trying to reduce total energy use, whereas we are now, as we know that this waste is detrimental and that refusing to be less wasteful means we have to have bigger cuts in fossil fuel use sooner than otherwise.
Therefore the “they” you refer to were not trying to reduce energy use.
“Tell me where and when this “solution” has been applied at a country scale, please.”
Tell me how this proves it cannot be done, please.
Oh, no you don’t do proofs, do you. You just say “if you look at the real world” as if you’re the only person who can see it.
cf Admiral Nelson and “I see no ships”.
I also notice that you still haven’t said what industrial need there is for fossil fuels that renewables cannot mange to replace.
“It must be due to my admitted statistical naivety, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. Most people though seem to interpret it as meaning that the temps vary randomly within certain bounds, and that there is no statistical evidence within the instrumental temp record that the temp is forced up (or down). VS has not countered these numerous claims, leading me to think that he agrees.”
Bart,
This is a nonsensical statement. You could start by defining ‘vary randomly’. Are you referring to the DGP or the underlying mechanism?
I have clarified this in the thread.
You authored three blog entries on the topic already, without consulting any econometrics/statistics textbook or the peer-reviewed literature.
Have you noticed that David Stern’s blog is called ‘Stochastic trend’? That’s precisely what we’ve been discussing.
Best, VS
CFU :”The industrial revolution wasn’t trying to reduce total energy use, whereas we are now,”
Sorry, but no. We aren’t. We try only to improve the efficiency of energy use, but we have no way to control it’s total use. We have no way of preventing chinese and indian people to use more and more fossil fuels – and no right to do it anyway. And industrial civilization has ALWAYS tried to improve energy efficiency , starting with Watt engine compared to Newcomen one.
““Tell me where and when this “solution” has been applied at a country scale, please.”
Tell me how this proves it cannot be done, please.”
I said : nobody advocates to regulate a windmill grid with batteries. Is it right, or wrong ?
For industrial needs, I thought I had answered. May be my post disappeared somewhere. Apart from hydropower, we don’t know how to regulate a grid without fossil fuels. Add to this : transportation, metallurgy, heating, carbochemistry (plastics, glues, paintings , insulators, ), cement, glass, paper, … all these cheap commodities are made with fossil fuels, and are necessary for all they so-called “substitutes”.
““So in this case the limit applies to the percentage of wind electricity on the global interconnected grid.”
Yes, there’s a limit: a little over 100%
You missed that Denmark is a net exporter because nuclear wasn’t able to be reliable enough.”
You obviously don’t understand the problem of intermittence. If everybody around Denmark had the same ratio of wind power, to whom would it sell its excess power ?
VS:
You’ve been smacked down by Tamino about your unit root fetish. Twice. I, and many others, trust his statistical bona fides (and published studies on climate) more than your blog analysis.
Bart has been more accommodating, but the story remains the same – you’ve not presented anything convincing in your numerous confused responses to educated lurkers. Your answer above to Bart also doesn’t advance your case and smacks of jejune behavior to the valid criticisms hitherto.
How about this – write your analysis up and send it to Nature, Science or PNAS. I’m sure even McIntyre would be interested in your ideas and may help you with writing. Such an idea that temperature is a “random walk” will surely sail through the peer review process and should not be restricted to some regional econometrics journal with an impact factor of 0.001.
So what’s stopping you?
Quoting David Stern, who VS knows does not agree with him…
Over this time frame (VS’s favorite one, i.e. the 1880-present instrumental record). As opposed to, say, other time frames, such as recent decades where physics suggests that increased CO2 concentrations combined with flat TSI, aerosol reductions due to clean air legislation in Europe and the US, etc have led to CO2 forcing dominating increased net forcing. Certainly as in “not every time frame”. Certainly not as in “supports the claim that increased CO2 has a very minimal effect on climate”, which VS believes.
Stern also points out on his blog that not taking into account ocean heat, as VS and his heroes Michael Beenstock and Yaniv Reingewertz fail to do, is unreasonable.
Another Stern quote:
Knowing this, VS, are you truly a victim of the ommitted variables bias, or is it a self-inflicted wound?
Stern’s work in which he develops a three-layer model (two ocean, one atmosphere) yields a sensitivity of about 3.5K per doubling of CO2, a bit higher than (say) NASA GISS’s current model output which, if I understand correctly, yields a sensitivity per doubling of CO2 of a bit less than 3C.
VS should be a bit wary of quoting Stern in support of his somewhat veiled denialist conclusions.
VS,
I don’t know how many times I’ve asked you to clarify yourself in plain English (instead of stats lingo), and how many times I’ve suggested ways to apply the statistics in ways that make more physical sense. To neither you have responded constructively.
The former makes it harder for me to understand what you’re getting at. The latter makes it harder for me to believe that you’re interested in constructive knowledge building/cooperation.
With ‘random’ I’d mean that the tendency for the quantity of interest to decrease or increase is approximately equal, and the direction of subsequent values is essentially unpredictable. I’m sure that’s not a formal definition, nor is it aimed to be.
What do you mean by it (in plain English, please)?
I’m sorry if this is a bit OT, but I don’t see any other current thread where it would fit:
The GW deniosphere has some new ammunition in the form of a short book, Global Warming for Dim Wits: A Scientist’s Perspective of Climate Change, by Dr. James R. Barrante, emeritus professor of physical chemistry at Southern Connecticut State University (http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5564; the first 25 pages of the book can be downloaded using a link at this site). The book has received high praise from Connecticut’s reigning libertarian commentator, C. Dowd Musca ( http://tiny.cc/j46u3 ), who concluded a recent essay about Barrante by predicting “When the warmists meet their waterloo, few will remember the name James R. Barrante. Those who do will look back fondly on the work of a man who refused to bow to the power-crazed pols and grant-seeking “scientists” who once peddled the laughable notion that man has the power to control the planet’s temperature.” I find it curious that Mr. Musca is very impressed with Dr. Barrante’s PhD in physical chemistry from Harvard, but doesn’t acknowledge that Barrante’s expertise is in x-ray crystallography and superconducting ceramics; Barrante has apparently devoted the past 10 years to researching greenhouse gases, but has not published on the subject in a peer-reviewed scientific literature (according to my Google Scholar search under his name).
Gilles wrote: “I said : nobody advocates to regulate a windmill grid with batteries. Is it right, or wrong ?”
Short answer: wrong.
Long answer: Practical pilot projects are being funded now to regulate the output of wind farms using flow batteries. So far, according to the citation I provided above, $53 million has been raised by just one of the companies working in the area. I think that covers “to advocate.”
Also, (and on a different but related technological front) frequency regulation is already being done using flywheel storage, and the company involved in that venture (Beacon) has their sites on expanding beyond that application (I think to provide short-term peaking.) I find that rather exciting, as I only learned about this technology on this very forum a couple of years ago–and it wasn’t all that far out of the vaporware stage then, IIRC. Now we have limited commercial operation.
Clearly, what Gilles presents as an inherent unchangeable limit is probably just the current state of the art. That’s an extremely prevalent–dare I say–“tactic” in contrarian discourse regarding renewables, and particularly wind. “There are problems, therefore it can’t ever contribute more than (fill in the percentage.)” But it’s not logical to dismiss a partial solution just because it is partial. We won’t find any silver bullets lying about.
“Sites”–I meant “sights,” of course.
KMK : “Practical pilot projects are being funded now to regulate the output of wind farms using flow batteries. So far, according to the citation I provided above, $53 million has been raised by just one of the companies working in the area. I think that covers “to advocate.””
at which time scale ? (or equivalently how long is the autonomy of these batteries , or equivalently what is the cut-off frequency of this low-pass filter ?)
“Clearly, what Gilles presents as an inherent unchangeable limit is probably just the current state of the art”
Tell me, which consequence of the GW on the human society is not based on simple extrapolation of the “current state of the art ?”
Another question : “contrarian ” discourse ? given that I have no interest at all in any carbon-based industry, and that I repeatedly warned that the greatest danger of our modern society will be the exhaustion of its main source of energy , why should I be against renewables ? you just don’t listen to what I’m saying – you place me in your own mental categories without taking into account what i’m really saying.
“Tell me, which consequence of the GW on the human society is not based on simple extrapolation of the “current state of the art ?””
Tell us, where you pulled the idea that he was talking about GW and not about energy production?
‘cos that idea’s still got a lot of brown sticking to it.
Gilles: given that I have no interest at all in any carbon-based industry…
BPL: Except that you originally told us you worked for an oil company.
“BPL: Except that you originally told us you worked for an oil company.”
Stop looking at the truth, BPL.
That’s not the reality he wants you to see…
BPL: Except that you originally told us you worked for an oil company.
Sorry, there should have been some misunderstanding, I never did such a thing. Maybe I said once that I was “interested” , but just personally , in the problem of energy – I mean as a basic citizen.
Kevin McKinney (322), I don’t think this is what Gilles meant by flow regulation. It’s one thing to regulate frequency within a few tenths of a hertz with flywheels for short periods or regulate “short term” — like in the millisecond to a second range — energy delivery levels as these new technologies are doing; another thing to handle massive deviations of MWHr’s. Though I could be wrong in my interpretation.
Gilles (322) — Read Mark Lynas’s “Six Degrees” for some of the consequences of global warming.
Rod B : of course you’re right.
David B. : I don’t think there is any scientific assessment that proves that we really have the amount of fossil fuels necessary to reach 6 °C. And go to the poorest countries like Haiti or Chad to see some of the consequences of being deprived of fossil fuels. These are real, not “projections”.
“David B. : I don’t think there is any scientific assessment that proves that we really have the amount of fossil fuels necessary to reach 6 °C.”
Apart from the scientific assessment that shows that there is enough CO2 to do that with a sensitivity of 2C per doubling…
‘course Gullible here can’t see the reality.
“Sorry, there should have been some misunderstanding, I never did such a thing.”
Why is it when I hear gullible say this (as he has several times before and been shown wrong), I’m reminded of Bart Simpson saying (with the proof in his hand) “I didn’t do it”.
> go to the poorest countries
Heck, look at the poorest countries to see how much they’d be deprived by no longer being the dumping place for our old lead-acid batteries and electronics, where people are now poisoning themselves and their land with heavy metals by heating the damned stuff over open flames to melt off the salvageable material.
What does this prove? Not that they need fossil fuels to keep doing it.
Look, standard grow-forever economics suggests we may be too stupid to stop ruining the planet. So does the Fermi Paradox.
Could we think of an alternative?
“Apart from the scientific assessment that shows that there is enough CO2 to do that with a sensitivity of 2C per doubling…
”
There is no scientific assessment that these fossil fuels can be extracted economically at the required rate. What is the prediction of these “assessments” for oil ? it is currently being disproved – so following the scientific criteria, these assessments are wrong.
HR :”What does this prove? Not that they need fossil fuels to keep doing it.
Look, standard grow-forever economics suggests we may be too stupid to stop ruining the planet. So does the Fermi Paradox.
Could we think of an alternative?”
Hank, the most likely explanation for Fermi paradox is not that all ET have destroyed their planets, but more simply that they never succeed in producing enough energy to leave it. And there is no alternative to the exhaustion of fossil. So it is the certitude that on the very long term, we have no choice but living without fossil fuels. So what is your scientific assessment of which standard of living we can insure without them, compared to the current scale which goes from approximately 1 for the poorest to 100 for the richest countries ?
“Why is it when I hear gullible say this (as he has several times before and been shown wrong), I’m reminded of Bart Simpson saying (with the proof in his hand) “I didn’t do it”.”
You’re really obtuse : why should have said something like that here and then denied it ? I wouldn’t be ashamed of having worked for an oil company. I just haven’t. I didn’t even speculate on oil although I participated to forums discussing PO well before the explosion of barrel price (and I can prove that, and if you can read French you’ll see that I never posted anywhere that I worked for any carbon company – many posters on the forum did.Incidentally you’ll see that the current crisis was forecast on these forums well before it happened.)
I am not this kind of guy, I have nothing to hide, enough with strawman arguments please.
“: why should have said something like that here and then denied it ?”
Several times before you have.
Why?
Nobody knows.
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=3439#comment-172238
“But I didn’t say it wasn’t worth trying !”
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=3439#comment-171458
“We can (technically ) obviously move away from the fossil fuels-actually we will for sure. I said this will be impossible to keep our standard of living without them.”
And again on that thread:
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=3439#comment-171458
“CFU : “Then why did you say that we couldn’t move from fossil fuels because it would be inconvenient?”
I don’t see where I said that. ”
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=3439#comment-171069
“well, if limiting FF use has strictly no inconvenience, the answer is obvious.”
And the most recent one: “why should have said something like that here and then denied it ?”
#327–You are correct, Rod. That’s why I tried to be clear in differentiating between the proposed application of the flow batteries for reducing the impact of intermittency on power output, and the use of the flywheels for frequency regulation.
The larger point here is that there is visibly a rapid evolution of technology to enable renewables to shoulder a greater proportion of electricity generation despite the real (but not insurmountable) challenges resulting from the intermittency problem. Gilles tends to write as if the current state of the art represents a fixed limit; this is evidently not the case. There will be limits, no doubt, but we haven’t yet reached them–even in Denmark.
Increased use of renewables for power generation is one of the “stabilization wedges” proposed for mitigation of GHG emissions. It’s one that is actually “wedging” up–reduced energy intensity (AKA energy efficiency) is actually another, although the degree of success in the latter has largely been invisible in the media. The fact that we need to make much better progress across the board shouldn’t detract from the progress actually being made. And we definitely shouldn’t allow undue negativism to paralyze us.
CFU : “But I didn’t say it wasn’t worth trying !”
“We can (technically ) obviously move away from the fossil fuels-actually we will for sure. I said this will be impossible to keep our standard of living without them.”
sorry but there is no contradiction. It is worth trying extracting the best from renewables (actually I don’t see why we wouldn’t); it does not insure that we can succeed in keeping “our” (“our” meaning : the upper 10 % of the mankind in its greatest energy consumption period of its whole history, actually) standard of living.
“CFU : “Then why did you say that we couldn’t move from fossil fuels because it would be inconvenient?”
I don’t see where I said that. ”
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=3439#comment-171069
“well, if limiting FF use has strictly no inconvenience, the answer is obvious.””
There is an “IF” “Then”. If there is no inconvenience in giving up FF, why don’t we do it now, and why do developing country increase their FF consumption? do YOU have an answer?
“There is an “IF” “Then”.”
And nothing except doom and gloom to the idea of doing so.
Ergo scare people off with your alarmist dogma.
Kevin McKinney (336), yes I fully agree that moving to non-FF electric generation is a good thing and that continued diligence in the science and engineering can mitigate the intermittency problem. But it will none-the-less still prove to be a major hurdle that might require people to remember the reliability and availability of electricity as quaint history. Storage and backfilling maybe millions of KWHrs that might be required 3000 miles away (just for today, maybe) isn’t that easy. Solar intermittency is evident. If theoretically all of our electricity is generated by wind and solar I can guarantee that massive long-term blackouts will not be uncommon (though not necessarily common either.)
Kevin McKinney (336), yes I fully agree that moving to non-FF electric generation is a good thing and that continued diligence in the science and engineering can mitigate the intermittency problem. But it will none-the-less still prove to be a major hurdle that might require people to remember the reliability and availability of electricity as quaint history. Storage and backfilling maybe millions of KWHrs that might be required to backfill usage 3000 miles away (today) isn’t that easy. Solar intermittency is evident. If theoretically all of our electricity is generated by wind and solar I can guarantee that massive long-term blackouts will not be uncommon (though not necessarily common either.)
“Alarmist dogma?” I guess if I yelled at you to get off the street as a truck was bearing down on you, you’d disregard my warning as “alarmist dogma.”
““Alarmist dogma?” I guess if I yelled at you to get off the street as a truck was bearing down on you, you’d disregard my warning as “alarmist dogma.””
Nope, but then again Gullible doesn’t yell about getting off the street as a truck bears down.
Gullible is yelling “DON’T GO OUTSIDE!!!! THERE ARE TRUCKS THAT WILL KILL YOU !!!!”.
Alarmism.
Go have a look.
Does he show there’s a “truck” (inevitable crash if you don’t use fossil fuels)?
No, he just scares you that we’ll be screwed because he insists that fossil fuels cannot be replaced.
CFU, my “alarmism” consists, for instance, in warning that the Greek crisis could be the beginning of massive failures that could hit ultimately the whole industrialized world. If the increasing price of energy threatens the whole economic growth , that’s exactly what is expected : unbearable debts that cannot be paid back and make state economies collapse. This is expected much sooner, and with much more consequences on the all day life, than a change in temperature in 2050. If you dismiss that as unfounded alarmism, you probably don’t fear anything like that, until the first consequences of climate change , that are expected for western countries in … some decades probably? so maybe we won’t have to wait for a long time before knowing who is right !
343#–
Well, if “the increasing price of energy threatens the whole economic growth,” then those who’ve resisted alternate energy sources are doubly wrong-headed.
> the most likely explanation for Fermi paradox is not that all ET
> have destroyed their planets, but more simply that they never
> succeed in producing enough energy to leave it.
Bzzzt! You mean never invented radio. Unlikely, eh?
Nobody’s expecting them _here_, just _noticeable_.
Big universe. Big galaxy, even.
Nobody home but us?
Or nobody smart enough to sustain a civilization for very long?
” then those who’ve resisted alternate energy sources are doubly wrong-headed.”
To my knowledge, no country ever resisted the most used renewable energy, hydropower, and I see no reason why they should have (even if it led to move millions of people and caused some harm to the environment) .
Do you think that some people have a special gene making them dislike air kinetic energy and prefer water energy ?
HK : you don’t seem to know the Fermi paradox, it doesn’t deal with radio emission but with colonizing other stellar systems.
“Do you think that some people have a special gene making them dislike air kinetic energy and prefer water energy ?”
Do you?
“CFU, my “alarmism” consists, for instance, in warning that the Greek crisis could be the beginning of massive failures that could hit ultimately the whole industrialized world”
Which is far more alarmist than saying “we could see irreversible climate change by 2100 if we don’t change now”.
“Do you think that some people have a special gene making them dislike air kinetic energy and prefer water energy ?”
Do you?”
No I don’t, so I think there are good rational reasons explaining why wind energy never produces more than 20 % of the power, estimated on a whole interconnected grid if there are import-exports.
”
Which is far more alarmist than saying “we could see irreversible climate change by 2100 if we don’t change now”.
You may find it more alarmist. I’m just saying that it will be much more rapidly refutable, so we should know soon if I am unduly alarmist.
If you’re right, economy should continue to grow anyway in the next decades, either with carbon-based fuels like in IPCC scenarios, or with renewables (which should not impact the growth following you) if we start applying what you’re advocating. In no scenario a strong recession is expected – the current one being only due to some bad behavior of indelicate bankers.
If I’m right, the problem is much more profound, and crisis should accumulate in the next years, essentially because of peak oil. So we should be able rather rapidly to test who is right.
Gilles @ 348:
Please, you’re being intentionally dishonest because we’ve had this discussion before.
Wind energy doesn’t amount to more than 20% because the turbines haven’t been built. I checked the ERCOT grid just now and wind was 6,225MW of 38,760MW total demand. Now, you might say “Ah-ha! Only 16%”, but I keep seeing turbine blades going by on I-35, so I know they keep on building them. And I’ve seen demand as low as 22,000MW and 6,225MW would have been 28%, which is pronounced “You’re wrong.”
But keep it up with the “not more than 20%” because one of these days they’ll have built enough more turbines that the answer is more than 20% on a regular basis and I’ll go “Neener-neener”.
They’re putting up enough wind power here in Texas that I don’t recall the last time I heard anyone talking about building a coal fired plant. I’m sure they do it, but why? Those things take a long time to pay for themselves and coal is going buh-bye.
#346–
Gilles, there is currently a clear resistance to renewables, especially wind power. You encounter it frequently in the blogosphere, sometimes outside it. I suspect that some at least is pure “astroturf”–ie., impelled by interested parties hiding behind a facade of public spirit.
The hallmarks of such resistance are exaggerated rhetoric (or even actual misinformation) about the cost, (im)practicality and alleged side effects of renewables–eg., bird kills or noise pollution. As with much deniaist discourse, the same arguments resurface time and again, regardless of how often they may have been shown false. And of course, the current state of the art is presumed to be an unchanging verity.
You may even have had a chance to observe some such commenting yourself, perhaps?