which includes mention of one of my longtime personal favorite projects done by an old friend. A few of you are old enough to maybe remember this when it came out; one of the great covers, too: http://badgersett.com/info/publications/WER1992.pdf
I’d just add that we know how this works. On the “Popular Technology” page I linked to above, the title is “1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarmism” (weasel, jargon, dog-whistle words bolded by me).
It really doesn’t matter what has been published, the agenda is the thing. Sooner or later stuff gets pulled out of the arse, and if caught in the act, out come the obscurantists, along with your basic obfuscations with the smoke, the mirrors, the ink squirting squids, spitting camels, and poop flinging monkeys. The problem lies at the disconnect between science and ideology, not in some reasonable disagreement.
Here we present observationally based evidence of clear-sky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska—are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations.
The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m−2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m−2 per decade and ±0.07 W m−2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1–0.2 W m−2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation.
These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.
Breeze has a very large number of conceptual errors. Where he complains about technology being unready, he makes two big mistakes. First, he asserts that RCP2.6 requires 10 billion tonnes carbon sequestration annually. In fact, later in the century, about 2 billion tonnes of carbon DIOXIDE are needed so about half a tonne of carbon. http://edoc.gfz-potsdam.de/pik/get/5095/0/0ce498a63b150282a29b729de9615698/5095.pdf The mistake Breeze has is almost a factor of 20. He has also made a mistake about technology itself. Sequestration in RCP2.6 occurs in the context of a clean energy economy. If Sachs’ Deep Decarbonization Pathways is a guide to that, then hydrocarbon fuels synthesized using renewably generated electricity will be part of the technology mix. That means that carbon capture would be essentially free. Here is an example (leading numbers are multiples, following numbers are subscripts, cellulose has a zero adjacent to a letter O):
“Hydrogen may be formed from water using electricity. It can then be reacted with carbon containing compounds to form hydrocarbons. The exothermic Sabatier reaction is an example where 4H2 +CO2 -> CH4 + 2H2O yielding methane. Presently this kind of thing is being developed to supply jet fuel at sea using energy from nuclear reactors aboard aircraft carriers. But it is also included as a civilian option in Sachs’ Deep Decarbonization Pathways.
So, if, for example, we are making 6 methane molecules from a cellulose section (C6H10O5, biomass), we split 24 water molecules using wind energy to get 24H2 and 12O2 and then use 6 resultant O2 to produce 6CO2 + 5H2O plus heat. We use the 24H2 and those 6CO2 in the Sabatier reaction to get 6CH4 and 12H2O plus heat. That leaves 6O2 remaining. Sending off 4CH4 for use elsewhere, we mix 6O2 with about 12CO2 retained from exhaust to get the working mass similar to an oxygen/nitrogen mix from the atmosphere so that gas turbine blades see their design conditions and burn that with two remaining CH4 to get 2CO2+8H2O plus heat plus the dummy 12CO2 for reuse. The 2CO2 may be sequestered with essentially no capture cost since the oxygen came as a freebee when we split the water to get hydrogen.
If approximately 30% of energy use is tied up in synthetic methane (owing to its useful storage properties and compatibility with existing natural gas technology, then the sequestration required for RCP2.6 occurs for free. Note that using pure oxygen to burn the biomass increased the Carnot efficiency at that stage while avoiding NOX pollution so you’d be doing this anyway.
In the context of RCP2.6, sequestration is neither too huge nor too expensive. Thus, Breeze’s main claim is preposterous.
Killiansays
#395 Chris Dudley said, …Soon…
Agreed.
#398 Jasper Jaynes said, Good clarification; thank you.
Glad it was of use. I hesitated in terms of appropriateness to the blog, but thought it awkward not to respond.
#400 Hank Roberts said, “Believers” in human-caused global warming were just as likely as “disbelievers” to misunderstand the extent to which we are already committed to future temperature rises…
Unfortunately, a badly flawed poll, imo. It doesn’t really matter if the general public knows all the scientific specifics, it matters that they know the ones most likely to impact policy.
#1 Flooding: Important to policy.
#2 CO2/Green House Effect: Important to policy.
#3 Long-term residence/temps: Important to policy.
#4 Water vapor: Not important to policy.
#5 Sulfur Emissions: Not important to policy.
#6 Aerosols: Somewhat important to policy.
I would suggest the following:
#1 Sea Level Rise is now projected to be @ 10 ft.,possibly in 200 years or less. T/F?
#2 According to scientists, anthropogenic (human-caused) green house gases are causing Climate Change. T/F
#4 According to scientists, the risk of large-scale, systemic disruption above a 2C/3.8F rise over pre-industrial temps is (serious/ridiculous). T/F
#5 Ecosystems on land and in the oceans are equally at risk of negative changes due to Climate Change. T/F
#6 If human-created aerosols were stopped immediately, there would be a relatively sudden (rise/fall) in global temps. T/F
Tests are not much valid when they don’t test what is taught or reasonably expected to be known, or test the non-germane in place of more applicable knowledge.
Killiansays
#401 Hank Roberts said, and another good summary and overview here, that respects the history and the innovation
An excellent article by Eric.
Interesting comment about respecting the history. After all, who doesn’t? Not sure if you are implying something (you have a tendency to “pointed” posts), or wanting to point out some history to non-permies…
Permaculture is, after all, a marriage of Old Knowledge and modern understanding. I’ve posted here more than once Lawton’s 300 and 200o year-old food forest videos, e.g. Fukuoka, Hart, Smith, and many more were doing what we might today recognize as fitting under the Pc umbrella, and doing work that provided bases for creation of the process and identification of principles of Pc.
Chris Dudley, thanks for your thoughtful comments. A couple points for now. The 10 billion tonnes figure was not made up by Breeze but is taken a quote from Dr. Hugh Hunt of U. of Cambridge (at about 3:30 in the embedded video). He does seem to be just using it as a guestimate, though, shrugging his shoulders as he says it.
Still, even at a number an order of magnitude lower, the essential objection still holds, it seems to me: These are not widely used technologies and we cannot be confident that we can ramp them up to the levels required to sequester the large quantities of CO2 required.
I’m glad you have faith in the technologies you mention. I hope it helps you feel good about the future.
Not all of us are as convinced.
I’ll let others analyze the chemical and energy claims in your quote in detail. I’ll just say that I have not found ‘dotearth’ to be a consistently reliable place to go to for accurate information on climate (or much anything else). Perhaps you have had a different experience there.
Why the appellation: weasel, jargon, dog-whistle words?
It makes a lot of difference whether the doubling of CO2 concentration will take 50 or 150 years, and whether the net effect will be an increase in temp of 1C or 4C, and whether a 2C temp rise and 4% rainfall rise can both be sustained by the increase in DWLWIR. For reference, Held and Soden (more details in March if anyone needs them) estimated from many models that rainfall will increase with warming at a rate of 2% per 1C warming.
The damn thing keeps taking me to a preprint, so I can’t get the proper citation details. All I know is the authors, 2015, and Nature. If anyone can get me the volume and page numbers, I’d be very grateful.
Matthew R Marlersays
406,
Killian says:
28 Feb 2015 at 11:58 AM
I would add: With or without GHG-induced warming, alternations of drought and flooding will continue to recur in the places where they always have. (T/F)
wilisays
OK, CD, I actually looked at your link and it seems to link to a letter you wrote in to dotearth. I would say that quoting yourself isn’t necessarily citing the best authority, but your quote here isn’t even in that letter!
In this case, I do agree with Revkin’s assessment that carbon sequestration “remains an absolute pipe dream if considered at anywhere near the scale that would be required to impress the global atmosphere”
Your chemical reaction will require a lot of energy, and we are heading into an energy starved world. And it seems to involve cellulose. Where is that coming from? Why not just bury it? Or turn it into biochar? And your product is CO2, not particularly easy to sequester reliably and cheaply by the gigaton for millions of years. It seems less like a solution and more like a set of problems.
Claudia Tebaldi of UCAR managed to cover the one area where things aren’t really subject to such complications: sea level rise. By 2050, Tebaldi said, the oceans will clearly be higher, providing every storm with an elevated launching pad to cause flooding. In the Battery of New York City, for example, this will mean a 100-year flooding event will come along every 15 years. And she performed a similar analysis for the entire US coast, where flooding can range from one meter up to four or five in areas on the common hurricane pathways.
In some places, she said, a 100-year flood will remain rare, but in others it will become an annual event. (The results of her analysis are posted on Climate Central). Most striking were the results from Florida, where most of the southern portion of the state will end up under water every other year.
The session was also notable for what was a rather public dispute between the organizer Michael Mann (of hockey stick fame) and [Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s Michael] Wehner, who disagree over the influence of climate change on California’s recent drought. Wehner said “I don’t like to make attribution statements based on statistics alone” (though he added “though I do love statistics” with a chuckle), while Mann argues that the high temperatures driven by climate change has helped deplete the state of groundwater. Still, Mann highlighted the disagreement as a case of a real scientific controversy, as opposed to the the manufactured sorts that the public often gets exposed to.
But Wehner wasn’t adverse to making concrete statements. He noted that, if we reach a 4°C rise, the rare hot days will be up to 9°C warmer—”that’s nearly 20°F.” “For me, 2°C warming is very unsafe—dangerous climate change is here now,” he told the audience. “Adaptation should be underway, and it’s a disservice to the public not to admit to that.”
MRM 411: With or without GHG-induced warming, alternations of drought and flooding will continue to recur in the places where they always have. (T/F)
BPL: My research indicates the fraction of Earth’s land surface in severe drought (PDSI <= -3) has doubled since 1970 and will increase rapidly as the world warms. Ask the Brazilians. Or Californians.
“Perhaps you have had a different experience there.”
The post I linked was written by me.
Radge Haverssays
MRM @ 409 re: the appellation
Briefly, Alarmism is a denigrating term of political opinion related to policy, here imprecisely tied to “ACC/AGW” to give it an air of scientific legitimacy. This is not to say that there isn’t, for instance, room for debate about what we can tolerate and how best to deal with the problem. Note also, that the way I worded my comment potentially cuts both ways across the political spectrum. But on balance, I think we know where the most pernicious impediments to progress currently lie and how FUD gets repackaged to keep up with changing opinions. And no I’m not objecting to your comments here, though I confess I haven’t followed them closely.
Before anyone objects to “denialism”; it is indeed pejorative as it should be. But it is well defined as a set of rhetorical tactics that are as old as the hills, and have long been identified as logically fallacious or invalid forms of argument: http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about/
MartinJBsays
BPL, the article does not appear to have been published (yet?) in the actual print journal. On the other hand, the version available online looks to be complete.
#410–Hi, Barton. Click ‘citation’ just above the abstract. For me (using Safari) that downloads a file with complete citation info. The kicker, though, is that it’s .ris format, which requires appropriate software to open:
Looks like it wouldn’t be too much of a pain to download what you need.
Matthew R Marlersays
413 Barton Paul Levensen: . Or Californians.
California is one of the places that has experienced alternations of drought and flooding. The present drought is the worst in about 2,000 years, but the years from 1850 – 2010 were unusually rainy compared to the most of the previous centuries. If drought is to increase in prevalence, and if rainfall is to increase 2% – 7% per 1C (O’Gorman, Allan, Byrne, Previdi Surveys in Geophysics), then it would seem that the alternation between flood and drought that I mentioned will become more extreme. Would you agree?
Rafael Molina Navas, Madridsays
#388 Chris Dudley
You quote:
“And 72 percent said they were “personally morally obligated” to do what they can in their daily lives to reduce emissions”
I read that a few days ago …
I´m afraid most of that 72% are doing much less than 50% of what they “could” (?) do … to reduce emissions!
I sent that Reuter article link to friends and relatives, quoting what relative to the Pope. One of them, very catholic, whose daily life habits I know produce much more emissions than Spanish average, replied (not sure about the usual English expression): ” It´s clear this pope is worth his weight in gold” … But that family carries on practically “business as usual” !!
Inner in most of our minds, we consider we can do very very little, and expect that others have to solve the problem … A mind set change is necessary.
Here is a more complete list of problems with the article by Breeze that Wili linked in #394.
It is argued that at 2.5 C warming, forests may become sources rather than sinks and that because RCP4.5 includes a top range (2081-2010) of 2.6 C, RCP4.5 is not a survivable scenario. However, the projected warming for RCP4.5 is 1.8 C so it is more likely than not to limit warming below 2 C in that interval. Thus, RCP4.5 is baselessly excluded. RCP4.5 requires no sequestration at all in this century. So, the premise of the article is overturned at this point.
The article is very likely mistaken here:
“Stopping emissions does not reduce atmospheric carbon. The emissions to date are colossal and the warming effect is delayed by around 40 years. Therefore, even if we halt emissions, we know there is much more warming to come. That will also set off other positive feedbacks along the way that will amplify the warming further, stretching over centuries.”
Stopping emissions does reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and it is difficult to find a scenario where forcing does not fall quickly enough to end warming immediately. Feedbacks that are not runaway need to be fed so the feedback argument is not compelling.
The article then projects the sequestration effort in RCP2.6 out to 2300 assuming that is needed to stay below 2 C. However, it is clear from Figure SPM.10 here http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf that no further sequestration in needed after 2100 to stay below 2 C. I fact, it would appear that even included sequestration is not required. Cutting emissions to zero after 2070 does the job. So, the claim that “we have no carbon budget whatsoever” is incorrect.
There is a final claim that sequestration is science fiction. However the are a number of CCS plants already operating. As I pointed out, already, a clean energy economy that included some use of hydrogen (already policy in Japan) leads to elimination of the expense of carbon dioxide capture. The modest levels of sequestration used in RCP2.6 likely fit in existing depleted oil and gas fields. So, the claim of impracticality seems quite exaggerated.
There are real problems with the 2 C limit, but claiming that it is much more difficult to achieve than it actually is does not help the discussion in the least. Projecting RCP2.6 out to 2300 does reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 370 ppm and thus has some relation to the safe target of 350 ppm publish by Hansen et al. That paper points out some reasons why just staying below 2 C of warming is not enough. But that indicates that the problem is policy, not RCP4.5 as a candidate 2 C path.
Global warming moves the rain. Ignoring local details of topography and so in, the general effect is that continental interiors dry out and coastlines get soaked. I haven’t studied the specific fate of California, so I can’t comment intelligently on it.
Chuck Hughessays
Sen. James Inhofe gets his @$$ handed to him by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) Pretty funny stuff….
Yes, the NYT went to threaded comments a while back and now the permalink goes to the top of the thread. You have to look at the responses below to get to the part I quoted. If the thought about the use of the co-produced oxygen to assist in sequestration is novel, as I suppose it may be, there may be no other author to cite at this point.
I also agree with Andy that using CCS for a way to extend fossil fuel use while reducing emissions is not going to fly at least in the US. China may rely on it to some degree since they are building new coal capacity. The US has pledged to assist China in doing this.
The energy input in the reactions I described is in producing hydrogen. All the subsequent steps release energy. Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_electrolyte_membrane_electrolysis can operate at an efficiency of up to 90% so the energy storage efficiency is similar to battery technology. When produced methane is used for space heating the efficiency can also be high. However, using the methane in a 60% efficient combined cycle gas turbine and doing the space heating with a heat pump can do that job even better.
The advantage of producing methane is that it slots into existing uses of natural gas. We already have all the pipes and turbines that we might need. But, storage using hydrogen with recovery using a fuel cell still produces the oxygen stream that can be used to make carbon capture easy.
You’ve expressed a couple of misconceptions in your last paragraph. The world is going to have an overabundance of energy because solar energy is so abundant and easy to capture at this point. http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/26/solar-energy-payback-time-charts/ You also ask about spending millions of years sequestering carbon dioxide. If you think about that, it suffers from the problem that we have not used fossil fuels for millions of years. If you were to undertake such a project, you’d run out of carbon dioxide and induce Snowball Earth. For the amount of sequestration in RCP2.6 (which only covers up to 2100) depleted oil and gas fields should easily handle the volume. Cellulose burning accounts for about 10% of world total primary energy supply http://www.iea.org/topics/renewables/subtopics/bioenergy/ so the supply is adequate to handle the sequestration anticipated in RCP2.6.
Biochar may well be a part of the sequestration in RCP2.6 though burying biomass without pyrolysis may just lead to anaerobic decomposition similar to landfills.
Where I live, I notice people considering energy efficiency when they buy appliances or improve insulation or change their windows. Recycling is getting better participation. But, almost automatically, people who buy new cars are getting better gas mileage and the country as a whole is reducing emissions. I think most of what we will accomplish will be owing to regulation on emissions, a collective effort, but I do see individual efforts occurring as well.
wilisays
CD @#423 says: “… RCP4.5 includes a top range (2081-2010) of 2.6 C, RCP4.5 is not a survivable scenario. However, the projected warming for RCP4.5 is 1.8 C …”
You seem to be (intentionally?) confused, here. The “projected warming for RCP4.5” of 1.8 C is _beyond_ current levels. Since current levels are about .8C, we are back at 2.6 C.
With this level of confusion going on at this very basic level in your very first body paragraph, I’m not sure it’s worth my time to ferret out what other types of confusion may reign through the rest of your post(s).
Matthew R Marlersays
424, BartonPaulLevenson, thanks for the reply.
Jasper Jaynessays
Chuck#425,
“Pretty funny stuff”
I didn’t find it amusing. At this late date, we’re still having debates between the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman and Whitehouse on whether climate change is real????? Whether Whitehouse scored ‘points’ or not is irrelevant. Every hour of present inaction translates into people dying prematurely in the future, and perhaps the not too distant future.
Killiansays
#424 Barton Paul Levenson said I haven’t studied the specific fate of California, so I can’t comment intelligently on it.
I suspect the meandering jet stream effect which is playing a role in the profoundly persistent highs (Ridiculously Resilient (High Pressure) Ridge) that keep developing off the West Coast, and California in particular, are the majority of the issue WRT Cali drought going forward. Otherwise, the Pineapple Express, for one, would likely play a significant role in mediating the severity of drought, but more storms are going up through the Northwest before descending on the Midwest to do what damage/good they will there.
The article below quite nicely covers the ridge, snowpack, rain, and intensity of precipitation vs. number of events.
Figure 3.1: Subsidence due to groundwater overdraft, California, 1925-1992 (Bertoldi and Leake, 1993) This photo, taken in California, shows the position of the land surface in 1925, 1955, and 1977. In 1977 the region’s farmers stopped using groundwater, and instead switched to surface water. However, during a drought between 1987 and 1992 farmers again began using groundwater and again the land surface began to drop
Examining the notes to Table SPM.2 in the linked document, I have made a mistake. Warming is relative to 1986-2005 which period is 0.61 C warmer than 1880-1900. So, RCP4.5 would be 2.4 C warmer during 2081-2100 relative to that period. So, based on Figure SPM.10, RCP4.5 has to be strongly modified after 2050 to keep within the 2 C limit for the mean warming though a sharp enough reduction could avoid sequestration.
Google Translate comes up with the usual horrendous but more-or-less decipherable translation:
ZSW provides 250-kilowatt research facility for green electricity storage
finished. Baden-Württemberg’s Environment Minister Saucer:
“Investment successful step towards the establishment of the new technology.”
Another hurdle on the way to the marketability of the power-to-gas technology has been overcome: On October 30, 2012, the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) initiated a research facility with an electrical output of 250 kilowatts , The funded by the Federal Ministry of Environment plant converts green electricity into hydrogen and methane. With a possible methane production of up to 300 cubic meters per day, it is the largest facility of its kind in the world and ten times more powerful than the three years earlier at ZSW pilot plant. The scientists from Stuttgart move directly approach the industrial application of new energy storage technology.
A more general discussion of power-to-gas approaches is here, and includes quite a number of projects.
Chris’s wrinkle is using the process to power sequestration.
Groundwater Vs. Surface Water Storage Capacity
No one knows the exact amount of water that can be stored within California’s 515 groundwater basins. California’s Department of Water Resources estimates the total storage capacity at somewhere between 850 million and 1.3 billion acre-feet. In comparison, surface storage from all the major reservoirs in California is less than 50 million acre-feet.
Killiansays
#426 Chris Dudley said, Biochar may well be a part of the sequestration in RCP2.6 though burying biomass without pyrolysis may just lead to anaerobic decomposition similar to landfills.
Which is why there is some talk of changing perspectives of farmers from food growers to soil builders. Get the biology right, sequestration will be increased.
Also, I see a problem with looking at farming soils that are already at a stasis point, much like a mature forest which is mostly a carbon cycler than an ongoing sequestration process, and assuming soils aren’t all that good at sequestration. But the entire point of all these organic sequestration models is to reclaim nearly dead soils, so the sequestration potential of soils that have typically 1 or 2% organic material is huge since they need to be on the order of 10 – 15% carbon.
Then there is depth. The Great Plains had **meters** of high carbon soil before Western farming intervened. Now it’s estimated no more than a single meter, at best.
We are not talking about getting 5% to 15% of carbon in the top 6 or 8 inches, we are talking about rebuilding meters of high-carbon soil, and not just in the U.S. of course.
While not strictly about carbon, pay attention to what this paper says about Ecosystem Engineers. These same engineers are extant in all healthy soils.
Ecosystem Engineers and Self-Organizing Processes in “Fossil” Raised-
Field Landscapes.
Subjected to centuries of up to 4m of highly erosive tropical rainfall each year, elevated structures presenting slopes, particularly small structures such as the abandoned raised fields in Corossony (Fig. 1), Grand Macoua (Fig. 4A), and many other sites, should have disappeared. Self-organizing mechanisms driven by ecosystem engineers can explain the persistence of raised fields many centuries after abandonment (Fig. 4). Ecosystem engineers are organisms(including ants,termites,earthworms,and plants, among others) that create, maintain, or modify physical or chemical features of habitats (32). Feedbacks generated by eco-system engineers can drive self-organizing processes (33)”
wilisays
“Then there is depth.” IIRC, Bertram found rich black topsoils one to three feet deep throughout Georgia in the very early days, noting that there was a layer of red clay beneath that top soil.
Years of very bad farming practices eroded most of that, yielding the famous red clay hills of Georgia that we see today.
On “ecosystem engineers”–yet another reason not to inundate fields with pesticides. It may take a while to bring back to life the vast tracts of industrial agriculture lands whose soils have essentially been killed.
Jasper Jaynessays
Congressman Rob Bishop, Chairman of the Public Lands and Environmental Regulation Subcommittee, House Natural Resources Committee, was interviewed on Washington Journal this morning. His goal: open up the Federal lands and off-shore resources (as many as possible) to energy exploration, so that we can be the prime energy exporter to the world. That’s where the Republicans want to take us and, given the recent Congressional votes on Keystone, some Democrats as well.
When (not if) all the above comes to pass, we will have an emplaced infrastructure for vastly expanding our production and use of fossil fuels. So, while some of the readers remain mesmerized by the antics of Inhofe and the clever remarks of Whitehouse, the real world is taking actions that will commit the planet to increasing use of fossil fuels for the indefinite future.
I’m trying to cover some of basics to date, in an attempt to address some common questions. Perhaps some here may wish to point questioners toward them.
And I certainly welcome any feedback that this knowledgeable crowd may wish to provide. Thanks, again, to those who dropped by the first two articles to check them out. If you missed them, they are:
Yes, Bartram–not “Bertram”–found great soil, and yes, there’s been some spectacularly bad practice leading to serious erosion issues. The best example I know (and ‘spectacular’ is the word) is this:
Yet there is a long tradition of learning better, and one testament to that is a vibrant agricultural sector. As you can see here, it’s the 15th most productive of the 50 states in dollar terms, grossing over $9 billion in 2012.
And forestry is a big deal, too:
Georgia forests, located in the heart of the nation’s “wood basket,” cover some 24.8 million acres. In the past 10 years, total forest land has been gradually increasing. Forests now cover 67 percent of the land area statewide, making Georgia the largest timber-producing state in the southeastern U.S.
In 2004, 131 out 159 counties were greater than 50 percent forested.
Georgia is home to nearly 1,400 forest products manufacturers. The state is consistently ranked near the top in pulp and paper production and in the top ten lumber-producing states.
Artificial and natural reforestation and afforestation averages more than 406,000 acres per year. At the same time, the annual final harvest averages less than 322,000 acres. In spite of increasing demands on Georgia’s forest, the state’s timber inventories are higher than they were 10 years ago.
Wind-driven transport from the North Pacific in winter provides nutrients to a highly productive region in the transition zone between the subarctic and subtropics. This region supports many species of fish, marine mammals, and seabirds. In winter 2013/2014, anomalous winds from the south weakened nutrient transport in the eastern North Pacific, resulting in substantial decreases in phytoplankton biomass. By January 2014, waters were warmer than usual by 3.5°C at the center of an affected area covering ~1.5 × 106 km2. South of this area, winter chlorophyll levels dropped to the lowest levels seen since the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor satellite began taking measurements in 1997. It is anticipated that impacts will be felt in some fisheries and among migrating predators this coming year.
————-
The problem is that the weigh of those actions and what it would be necesary may be in the typical rate 20/80: as an average, we should do 80% of what we can, not just 20% …
There is also a NYTimes article on this moral issue:
“Other research has shown that people are generally reluctant to undertake costly political actions, even for a cause they think will be beneficial. After all, there are so many worthy causes competing for our time, effort and resources, and we can’t contribute to every one” (I think it happens the same with “costly” personal life actions). http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/is-the-environment-a-moral-cause.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
wilisays
Thanks for the correction on spelling, KM.
If we are allowed a bit more on renewables issues, I think this passage from a recent important essay be R. Heinberg put some of the positions seen around here in perspective:
“…some solar and wind advocates apparently believe it makes good strategic sense to claim that a renewable future will deliver comfort, convenience, jobs, and growth—an extension of the oil-fueled 20th century, but now energized by wind and solar electrons. Regardless of whether it’s true, it is a message that appeals to a broad swath of the public. Yet most serious renewable energy scientists and analysts acknowledge that the energy transition will require changes throughout society…
Here in the US, though, it is common to find passionate but poorly informed climate activists who loudly proclaim that the transition can be easily and fully accomplished at no net cost. Again, this may be an effective message for rallying troops, but it ends up denying oxygen to energy conservation efforts, which are just as important.
I have good friends in the renewable energy industry who say that emphasizing the intermittency challenges of solar and wind amounts to giving more ammunition to the fossil fuel lobby. Barry Goldwater famously proclaimed that “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”; in a similar spirit, some solar and wind boosters might say that a little exaggeration of renewable energy’s potential, uttered in defense of the Earth, is no sin. After all, fossil fuel interests are not bound by the need for strict veracity: they continually make absurd claims that the world has centuries’ worth of coal and gas, and decades of oil. It’s not a fair or equal fight: the size and resources of the fossil fuel industry vastly outweigh those of the renewables camp. And there could hardly be more at stake: this is war for the survival of our current civilization-supporting climate regime. Nevertheless, we will ultimately have to deal with the reality of what solar and wind can actually provide, and we will do so far more successfully if we plan and prepare ahead of time.
There are a lot of smart, dedicated people working hard to solve the problems with renewables—that is, to make it cheaper and easier for these energy sources to mimic the 24/7 reliability of fossil fuels through improvements in energy storage and related technologies. None of what I have said in this essay is meant to discourage them from that important work. The more progress they make, the better for all of us. But they’ll have more chance of success in the long run if society starts investing significant effort into adapting its energy usage to lower consumption levels, more variable sources, and more localized, distributed inputs.”
Breeze’s article is right on target. The title should be expanded to ‘science fiction masquerading as truth’. Many of the key points in his article have been made by Spratt numerous times, albeit from a slightly different perspective.
#446–wili, nice link. That is indeed a piece worth reading. It rings true (or pretty true) for me.
A couple of insights, for those who might not want to take the time to follow the link:
The practical result of declining overall societal EROEI will be the need to devote proportionally more capital and labor to energy production processes. This is likely to translate, for example, to the requirement for more farm labor, and to fewer opportunities in professions not centered on directly productive activities: we’ll need more people making or growing things, and fewer people marketing, advertising, financing, regulating, and litigating them…
A second essential energy concept has to do with the difference between embodied and operational energy… The energy glut of the 20th century enabled us to embody energy in a mind-numbing array of buildings, infrastructure, machines, gadgets, and packaging. Middle-class families got used to buying and discarding enormous quantities of manufactured goods… We might find we need to purchase fewer items of clothing and furniture, and fewer electronic devices, and inhabit smaller spaces. We might also use old goods longer, and re-use and re-purpose whatever can be repaired. We might need to get used to buying more basic foods again, rather than highly processed and excessively packaged food products.
and another good summary and overview here, that respects the history and the innovation:
http://permaculturenews.org/2012/03/01/stabilizing-the-climate-with-permanent-agriculture/
which includes mention of one of my longtime personal favorite projects done by an old friend. A few of you are old enough to maybe remember this when it came out; one of the great covers, too:
http://badgersett.com/info/publications/WER1992.pdf
Here is an update on a dirty dozen: “In 1998 major fossil fuel companies put $2m behind a plan that would effectively fuel the fires of climate science scepticism among the American public. We reveal where the 12 people behind that plan are now” http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/27/what-happened-to-lobbyists-who-tried-reshape-us-view-climate-change
James McDonald,
I’d just add that we know how this works. On the “Popular Technology” page I linked to above, the title is “1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarmism” (weasel, jargon, dog-whistle words bolded by me).
It really doesn’t matter what has been published, the agenda is the thing. Sooner or later stuff gets pulled out of the arse, and if caught in the act, out come the obscurantists, along with your basic obfuscations with the smoke, the mirrors, the ink squirting squids, spitting camels, and poop flinging monkeys. The problem lies at the disconnect between science and ideology, not in some reasonable disagreement.
#391–Interesting cite, Matthew.
Money quote from the abstract:
(Reformatted for readability.)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14240.html
Wili (#934),
Breeze has a very large number of conceptual errors. Where he complains about technology being unready, he makes two big mistakes. First, he asserts that RCP2.6 requires 10 billion tonnes carbon sequestration annually. In fact, later in the century, about 2 billion tonnes of carbon DIOXIDE are needed so about half a tonne of carbon. http://edoc.gfz-potsdam.de/pik/get/5095/0/0ce498a63b150282a29b729de9615698/5095.pdf The mistake Breeze has is almost a factor of 20. He has also made a mistake about technology itself. Sequestration in RCP2.6 occurs in the context of a clean energy economy. If Sachs’ Deep Decarbonization Pathways is a guide to that, then hydrocarbon fuels synthesized using renewably generated electricity will be part of the technology mix. That means that carbon capture would be essentially free. Here is an example (leading numbers are multiples, following numbers are subscripts, cellulose has a zero adjacent to a letter O):
“Hydrogen may be formed from water using electricity. It can then be reacted with carbon containing compounds to form hydrocarbons. The exothermic Sabatier reaction is an example where 4H2 +CO2 -> CH4 + 2H2O yielding methane. Presently this kind of thing is being developed to supply jet fuel at sea using energy from nuclear reactors aboard aircraft carriers. But it is also included as a civilian option in Sachs’ Deep Decarbonization Pathways.
So, if, for example, we are making 6 methane molecules from a cellulose section (C6H10O5, biomass), we split 24 water molecules using wind energy to get 24H2 and 12O2 and then use 6 resultant O2 to produce 6CO2 + 5H2O plus heat. We use the 24H2 and those 6CO2 in the Sabatier reaction to get 6CH4 and 12H2O plus heat. That leaves 6O2 remaining. Sending off 4CH4 for use elsewhere, we mix 6O2 with about 12CO2 retained from exhaust to get the working mass similar to an oxygen/nitrogen mix from the atmosphere so that gas turbine blades see their design conditions and burn that with two remaining CH4 to get 2CO2+8H2O plus heat plus the dummy 12CO2 for reuse. The 2CO2 may be sequestered with essentially no capture cost since the oxygen came as a freebee when we split the water to get hydrogen.
There are three places to harvest heat. The conventional gas turbine, the Sabatier reaction, and the cellulose burning. All may be time shifted for convenience of use. And there are four carbon neutral methane molecules left.” http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/a-look-behind-the-headlines-on-chinas-coal-trends/#permid=14191246:14218477
If approximately 30% of energy use is tied up in synthetic methane (owing to its useful storage properties and compatibility with existing natural gas technology, then the sequestration required for RCP2.6 occurs for free. Note that using pure oxygen to burn the biomass increased the Carnot efficiency at that stage while avoiding NOX pollution so you’d be doing this anyway.
In the context of RCP2.6, sequestration is neither too huge nor too expensive. Thus, Breeze’s main claim is preposterous.
#395 Chris Dudley said, …Soon…
Agreed.
#398 Jasper Jaynes said, Good clarification; thank you.
Glad it was of use. I hesitated in terms of appropriateness to the blog, but thought it awkward not to respond.
#400 Hank Roberts said, “Believers” in human-caused global warming were just as likely as “disbelievers” to misunderstand the extent to which we are already committed to future temperature rises…
Unfortunately, a badly flawed poll, imo. It doesn’t really matter if the general public knows all the scientific specifics, it matters that they know the ones most likely to impact policy.
#1 Flooding: Important to policy.
#2 CO2/Green House Effect: Important to policy.
#3 Long-term residence/temps: Important to policy.
#4 Water vapor: Not important to policy.
#5 Sulfur Emissions: Not important to policy.
#6 Aerosols: Somewhat important to policy.
I would suggest the following:
#1 Sea Level Rise is now projected to be @ 10 ft.,possibly in 200 years or less. T/F?
#2 According to scientists, anthropogenic (human-caused) green house gases are causing Climate Change. T/F
#4 According to scientists, the risk of large-scale, systemic disruption above a 2C/3.8F rise over pre-industrial temps is (serious/ridiculous). T/F
#5 Ecosystems on land and in the oceans are equally at risk of negative changes due to Climate Change. T/F
#6 If human-created aerosols were stopped immediately, there would be a relatively sudden (rise/fall) in global temps. T/F
Tests are not much valid when they don’t test what is taught or reasonably expected to be known, or test the non-germane in place of more applicable knowledge.
#401 Hank Roberts said, and another good summary and overview here, that respects the history and the innovation
An excellent article by Eric.
Interesting comment about respecting the history. After all, who doesn’t? Not sure if you are implying something (you have a tendency to “pointed” posts), or wanting to point out some history to non-permies…
Permaculture is, after all, a marriage of Old Knowledge and modern understanding. I’ve posted here more than once Lawton’s 300 and 200o year-old food forest videos, e.g. Fukuoka, Hart, Smith, and many more were doing what we might today recognize as fitting under the Pc umbrella, and doing work that provided bases for creation of the process and identification of principles of Pc.
Chuck (#396),
Is that proof or poof?
Chris Dudley, thanks for your thoughtful comments. A couple points for now. The 10 billion tonnes figure was not made up by Breeze but is taken a quote from Dr. Hugh Hunt of U. of Cambridge (at about 3:30 in the embedded video). He does seem to be just using it as a guestimate, though, shrugging his shoulders as he says it.
Still, even at a number an order of magnitude lower, the essential objection still holds, it seems to me: These are not widely used technologies and we cannot be confident that we can ramp them up to the levels required to sequester the large quantities of CO2 required.
I’m glad you have faith in the technologies you mention. I hope it helps you feel good about the future.
Not all of us are as convinced.
I’ll let others analyze the chemical and energy claims in your quote in detail. I’ll just say that I have not found ‘dotearth’ to be a consistently reliable place to go to for accurate information on climate (or much anything else). Perhaps you have had a different experience there.
403 Radge Havers: ACC/AGW Alarmism (weasel, jargon, dog-whistle words – See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/02/unforced-variations-feb-2015/comment-page-9/#comments
Why the appellation: weasel, jargon, dog-whistle words?
It makes a lot of difference whether the doubling of CO2 concentration will take 50 or 150 years, and whether the net effect will be an increase in temp of 1C or 4C, and whether a 2C temp rise and 4% rainfall rise can both be sustained by the increase in DWLWIR. For reference, Held and Soden (more details in March if anyone needs them) estimated from many models that rainfall will increase with warming at a rate of 2% per 1C warming.
KM 404,
The damn thing keeps taking me to a preprint, so I can’t get the proper citation details. All I know is the authors, 2015, and Nature. If anyone can get me the volume and page numbers, I’d be very grateful.
406,
Killian says:
28 Feb 2015 at 11:58 AM
I would add: With or without GHG-induced warming, alternations of drought and flooding will continue to recur in the places where they always have. (T/F)
OK, CD, I actually looked at your link and it seems to link to a letter you wrote in to dotearth. I would say that quoting yourself isn’t necessarily citing the best authority, but your quote here isn’t even in that letter!
In this case, I do agree with Revkin’s assessment that carbon sequestration “remains an absolute pipe dream if considered at anywhere near the scale that would be required to impress the global atmosphere”
Your chemical reaction will require a lot of energy, and we are heading into an energy starved world. And it seems to involve cellulose. Where is that coming from? Why not just bury it? Or turn it into biochar? And your product is CO2, not particularly easy to sequester reliably and cheaply by the gigaton for millions of years. It seems less like a solution and more like a set of problems.
Ars Technica reports on “the session on climate change and unusual weather events that happened at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Excerpt follows:
MRM 411: With or without GHG-induced warming, alternations of drought and flooding will continue to recur in the places where they always have. (T/F)
BPL: My research indicates the fraction of Earth’s land surface in severe drought (PDSI <= -3) has doubled since 1970 and will increase rapidly as the world warms. Ask the Brazilians. Or Californians.
Barton @410- Try this.
Wili (#408),
“Perhaps you have had a different experience there.”
The post I linked was written by me.
MRM @ 409 re: the appellation
Briefly, Alarmism is a denigrating term of political opinion related to policy, here imprecisely tied to “ACC/AGW” to give it an air of scientific legitimacy. This is not to say that there isn’t, for instance, room for debate about what we can tolerate and how best to deal with the problem. Note also, that the way I worded my comment potentially cuts both ways across the political spectrum. But on balance, I think we know where the most pernicious impediments to progress currently lie and how FUD gets repackaged to keep up with changing opinions. And no I’m not objecting to your comments here, though I confess I haven’t followed them closely.
Before anyone objects to “denialism”; it is indeed pejorative as it should be. But it is well defined as a set of rhetorical tactics that are as old as the hills, and have long been identified as logically fallacious or invalid forms of argument:
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about/
BPL, the article does not appear to have been published (yet?) in the actual print journal. On the other hand, the version available online looks to be complete.
#410–Hi, Barton. Click ‘citation’ just above the abstract. For me (using Safari) that downloads a file with complete citation info. The kicker, though, is that it’s .ris format, which requires appropriate software to open:
http://fileinfo.com/extension/ris
Looks like it wouldn’t be too much of a pain to download what you need.
413 Barton Paul Levensen: . Or Californians.
California is one of the places that has experienced alternations of drought and flooding. The present drought is the worst in about 2,000 years, but the years from 1850 – 2010 were unusually rainy compared to the most of the previous centuries. If drought is to increase in prevalence, and if rainfall is to increase 2% – 7% per 1C (O’Gorman, Allan, Byrne, Previdi Surveys in Geophysics), then it would seem that the alternation between flood and drought that I mentioned will become more extreme. Would you agree?
#388 Chris Dudley
You quote:
“And 72 percent said they were “personally morally obligated” to do what they can in their daily lives to reduce emissions”
I read that a few days ago …
I´m afraid most of that 72% are doing much less than 50% of what they “could” (?) do … to reduce emissions!
I sent that Reuter article link to friends and relatives, quoting what relative to the Pope. One of them, very catholic, whose daily life habits I know produce much more emissions than Spanish average, replied (not sure about the usual English expression): ” It´s clear this pope is worth his weight in gold” … But that family carries on practically “business as usual” !!
Inner in most of our minds, we consider we can do very very little, and expect that others have to solve the problem … A mind set change is necessary.
Here is a more complete list of problems with the article by Breeze that Wili linked in #394.
It is argued that at 2.5 C warming, forests may become sources rather than sinks and that because RCP4.5 includes a top range (2081-2010) of 2.6 C, RCP4.5 is not a survivable scenario. However, the projected warming for RCP4.5 is 1.8 C so it is more likely than not to limit warming below 2 C in that interval. Thus, RCP4.5 is baselessly excluded. RCP4.5 requires no sequestration at all in this century. So, the premise of the article is overturned at this point.
The article is very likely mistaken here:
“Stopping emissions does not reduce atmospheric carbon. The emissions to date are colossal and the warming effect is delayed by around 40 years. Therefore, even if we halt emissions, we know there is much more warming to come. That will also set off other positive feedbacks along the way that will amplify the warming further, stretching over centuries.”
Stopping emissions does reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and it is difficult to find a scenario where forcing does not fall quickly enough to end warming immediately. Feedbacks that are not runaway need to be fed so the feedback argument is not compelling.
The article then projects the sequestration effort in RCP2.6 out to 2300 assuming that is needed to stay below 2 C. However, it is clear from Figure SPM.10 here http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf that no further sequestration in needed after 2100 to stay below 2 C. I fact, it would appear that even included sequestration is not required. Cutting emissions to zero after 2070 does the job. So, the claim that “we have no carbon budget whatsoever” is incorrect.
I already pointed out that the estimated sequestration rate for RCP2.6 in the article is too high by nearly a factor of 20. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/02/unforced-variations-feb-2015/comment-page-9/#comment-626276
There is a final claim that sequestration is science fiction. However the are a number of CCS plants already operating. As I pointed out, already, a clean energy economy that included some use of hydrogen (already policy in Japan) leads to elimination of the expense of carbon dioxide capture. The modest levels of sequestration used in RCP2.6 likely fit in existing depleted oil and gas fields. So, the claim of impracticality seems quite exaggerated.
There are real problems with the 2 C limit, but claiming that it is much more difficult to achieve than it actually is does not help the discussion in the least. Projecting RCP2.6 out to 2300 does reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 370 ppm and thus has some relation to the safe target of 350 ppm publish by Hansen et al. That paper points out some reasons why just staying below 2 C of warming is not enough. But that indicates that the problem is policy, not RCP4.5 as a candidate 2 C path.
MRM 420,
Global warming moves the rain. Ignoring local details of topography and so in, the general effect is that continental interiors dry out and coastlines get soaked. I haven’t studied the specific fate of California, so I can’t comment intelligently on it.
Sen. James Inhofe gets his @$$ handed to him by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) Pretty funny stuff….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTdpdFUTyqs
Wili (#413),
Yes, the NYT went to threaded comments a while back and now the permalink goes to the top of the thread. You have to look at the responses below to get to the part I quoted. If the thought about the use of the co-produced oxygen to assist in sequestration is novel, as I suppose it may be, there may be no other author to cite at this point.
I also agree with Andy that using CCS for a way to extend fossil fuel use while reducing emissions is not going to fly at least in the US. China may rely on it to some degree since they are building new coal capacity. The US has pledged to assist China in doing this.
The energy input in the reactions I described is in producing hydrogen. All the subsequent steps release energy. Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_electrolyte_membrane_electrolysis can operate at an efficiency of up to 90% so the energy storage efficiency is similar to battery technology. When produced methane is used for space heating the efficiency can also be high. However, using the methane in a 60% efficient combined cycle gas turbine and doing the space heating with a heat pump can do that job even better.
The advantage of producing methane is that it slots into existing uses of natural gas. We already have all the pipes and turbines that we might need. But, storage using hydrogen with recovery using a fuel cell still produces the oxygen stream that can be used to make carbon capture easy.
You’ve expressed a couple of misconceptions in your last paragraph. The world is going to have an overabundance of energy because solar energy is so abundant and easy to capture at this point. http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/26/solar-energy-payback-time-charts/ You also ask about spending millions of years sequestering carbon dioxide. If you think about that, it suffers from the problem that we have not used fossil fuels for millions of years. If you were to undertake such a project, you’d run out of carbon dioxide and induce Snowball Earth. For the amount of sequestration in RCP2.6 (which only covers up to 2100) depleted oil and gas fields should easily handle the volume. Cellulose burning accounts for about 10% of world total primary energy supply http://www.iea.org/topics/renewables/subtopics/bioenergy/ so the supply is adequate to handle the sequestration anticipated in RCP2.6.
Biochar may well be a part of the sequestration in RCP2.6 though burying biomass without pyrolysis may just lead to anaerobic decomposition similar to landfills.
Rafael (#422),
Where I live, I notice people considering energy efficiency when they buy appliances or improve insulation or change their windows. Recycling is getting better participation. But, almost automatically, people who buy new cars are getting better gas mileage and the country as a whole is reducing emissions. I think most of what we will accomplish will be owing to regulation on emissions, a collective effort, but I do see individual efforts occurring as well.
CD @#423 says: “… RCP4.5 includes a top range (2081-2010) of 2.6 C, RCP4.5 is not a survivable scenario. However, the projected warming for RCP4.5 is 1.8 C …”
You seem to be (intentionally?) confused, here. The “projected warming for RCP4.5” of 1.8 C is _beyond_ current levels. Since current levels are about .8C, we are back at 2.6 C.
With this level of confusion going on at this very basic level in your very first body paragraph, I’m not sure it’s worth my time to ferret out what other types of confusion may reign through the rest of your post(s).
424, BartonPaulLevenson, thanks for the reply.
Chuck#425,
“Pretty funny stuff”
I didn’t find it amusing. At this late date, we’re still having debates between the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman and Whitehouse on whether climate change is real????? Whether Whitehouse scored ‘points’ or not is irrelevant. Every hour of present inaction translates into people dying prematurely in the future, and perhaps the not too distant future.
#424 Barton Paul Levenson said I haven’t studied the specific fate of California, so I can’t comment intelligently on it.
I suspect the meandering jet stream effect which is playing a role in the profoundly persistent highs (Ridiculously Resilient (High Pressure) Ridge) that keep developing off the West Coast, and California in particular, are the majority of the issue WRT Cali drought going forward. Otherwise, the Pineapple Express, for one, would likely play a significant role in mediating the severity of drought, but more storms are going up through the Northwest before descending on the Midwest to do what damage/good they will there.
The article below quite nicely covers the ridge, snowpack, rain, and intensity of precipitation vs. number of events.
Ridiculously Resilient Ridge
“You can see a lot by just looking.” — Yogi Berra
http://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/groundwater/img/overdraft/levels/ca-groundwater-levels-key-1200px.png
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/images/subsidencePole.jpg
Wili (#428),
Examining the notes to Table SPM.2 in the linked document, I have made a mistake. Warming is relative to 1986-2005 which period is 0.61 C warmer than 1880-1900. So, RCP4.5 would be 2.4 C warmer during 2081-2100 relative to that period. So, based on Figure SPM.10, RCP4.5 has to be strongly modified after 2050 to keep within the 2 C limit for the mean warming though a sharp enough reduction could avoid sequestration.
#425–Yes, #senatorwithasnowball is a great hashtag, don’t you think?
Teen (#228),
In my answer at #232, it was my error rather than the article that RCP4.5 is a 2 C path. The 2.4 C in the figure is correct.
This NY Times article suggests a way for climate scientists to more effectively communicate with Republicans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/is-the-environment-a-moral-cause.html?ref=opinion
Chris D., that’s not a simple description to follow. I diagrammed it out on paper, and think I got the gist.
wili, the Sabatier reaction is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
I was intrigued to read that “A 250 kW demonstration plant was ready in 2012 in Germany.[4]”
Footnote 4 duly followed leads here:
http://www.zsw-bw.de/infoportal/presseinformationen/presse-detail/weltweit-groesste-power-to-gas-anlage-zur-methan-erzeugung-geht-in-betrieb.html
Google Translate comes up with the usual horrendous but more-or-less decipherable translation:
A more general discussion of power-to-gas approaches is here, and includes quite a number of projects.
Chris’s wrinkle is using the process to power sequestration.
Missing link:
http://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/groundwater/
#426 Chris Dudley said, Biochar may well be a part of the sequestration in RCP2.6 though burying biomass without pyrolysis may just lead to anaerobic decomposition similar to landfills.
Which is why there is some talk of changing perspectives of farmers from food growers to soil builders. Get the biology right, sequestration will be increased.
Also, I see a problem with looking at farming soils that are already at a stasis point, much like a mature forest which is mostly a carbon cycler than an ongoing sequestration process, and assuming soils aren’t all that good at sequestration. But the entire point of all these organic sequestration models is to reclaim nearly dead soils, so the sequestration potential of soils that have typically 1 or 2% organic material is huge since they need to be on the order of 10 – 15% carbon.
Then there is depth. The Great Plains had **meters** of high carbon soil before Western farming intervened. Now it’s estimated no more than a single meter, at best.
We are not talking about getting 5% to 15% of carbon in the top 6 or 8 inches, we are talking about rebuilding meters of high-carbon soil, and not just in the U.S. of course.
While not strictly about carbon, pay attention to what this paper says about Ecosystem Engineers. These same engineers are extant in all healthy soils.
Ecosystem Engineers and Self-Organizing Processes in
“Fossil” Raised-Field Landscapes.
“Then there is depth.” IIRC, Bertram found rich black topsoils one to three feet deep throughout Georgia in the very early days, noting that there was a layer of red clay beneath that top soil.
Years of very bad farming practices eroded most of that, yielding the famous red clay hills of Georgia that we see today.
On “ecosystem engineers”–yet another reason not to inundate fields with pesticides. It may take a while to bring back to life the vast tracts of industrial agriculture lands whose soils have essentially been killed.
Congressman Rob Bishop, Chairman of the Public Lands and Environmental Regulation Subcommittee, House Natural Resources Committee, was interviewed on Washington Journal this morning. His goal: open up the Federal lands and off-shore resources (as many as possible) to energy exploration, so that we can be the prime energy exporter to the world. That’s where the Republicans want to take us and, given the recent Congressional votes on Keystone, some Democrats as well.
Additionally, CP had this interesting article on pipeline approval and construction about a year ago (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/20/3254081/pipelines-you-havent-heard-of/). While our attention is focused on Keystone XL, a vast network of pipelines is quietly being approved.
When (not if) all the above comes to pass, we will have an emplaced infrastructure for vastly expanding our production and use of fossil fuels. So, while some of the readers remain mesmerized by the antics of Inhofe and the clever remarks of Whitehouse, the real world is taking actions that will commit the planet to increasing use of fossil fuels for the indefinite future.
Plugging away, plugging away–just published the 3rd of 4 summary articles, giving the ‘applied epistemology’ of mainstream climate science:
http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/How-Do-We-Know-That-Global-Warming-Is-Affecting-Our-World
I’m trying to cover some of basics to date, in an attempt to address some common questions. Perhaps some here may wish to point questioners toward them.
And I certainly welcome any feedback that this knowledgeable crowd may wish to provide. Thanks, again, to those who dropped by the first two articles to check them out. If you missed them, they are:
http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/How-Do-We-Know-That-CO2-Is-Warming-The-Planet
http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/How-Do-We-Know-That-Humans-Are-Responsible-For-Rising-CO2
Still to come:
“How Do We Know That Climate Change Impacts Will Be, On Balance, Bad?”
#440–wili, I live in Georgia, so must comment!
Yes, Bartram–not “Bertram”–found great soil, and yes, there’s been some spectacularly bad practice leading to serious erosion issues. The best example I know (and ‘spectacular’ is the word) is this:
http://www.gastateparks.org/ProvidenceCanyon
Yet there is a long tradition of learning better, and one testament to that is a vibrant agricultural sector. As you can see here, it’s the 15th most productive of the 50 states in dollar terms, grossing over $9 billion in 2012.
And forestry is a big deal, too:
http://extension.uga.edu/agriculture/forestry/
Actually, it’s bigger economically than ag is, producing $16.4 billion in 2012:
http://www.gfc.state.ga.us/utilization/economic-impacts/2012%20Economic%20Impact%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
Forestry is bigger area-wise, too, with something like 8x more forest than agricultural land.
All of which is to say that you generally have to dig to find that red clay; there’s apt to be something growing on top of it these days!
News from the base of the food chain,
where sunlight becomes food (or doesn’t):
GRL
Anomalous winter winds decrease 2014 transition zone productivity in the NE Pacific
Frank A. Whitney*
DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062634
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL062634/abstract
Abstract
Wind-driven transport from the North Pacific in winter provides nutrients to a highly productive region in the transition zone between the subarctic and subtropics. This region supports many species of fish, marine mammals, and seabirds. In winter 2013/2014, anomalous winds from the south weakened nutrient transport in the eastern North Pacific, resulting in substantial decreases in phytoplankton biomass. By January 2014, waters were warmer than usual by 3.5°C at the center of an affected area covering ~1.5 × 106 km2. South of this area, winter chlorophyll levels dropped to the lowest levels seen since the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor satellite began taking measurements in 1997. It is anticipated that impacts will be felt in some fisheries and among migrating predators this coming year.
————-
Possibly related:
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/starving-sea-lion-pups-california-warmer-ocean-could-be-blame-n309041
#427 Chris Dudley
The problem is that the weigh of those actions and what it would be necesary may be in the typical rate 20/80: as an average, we should do 80% of what we can, not just 20% …
There is also a NYTimes article on this moral issue:
“Other research has shown that people are generally reluctant to undertake costly political actions, even for a cause they think will be beneficial. After all, there are so many worthy causes competing for our time, effort and resources, and we can’t contribute to every one” (I think it happens the same with “costly” personal life actions).
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/is-the-environment-a-moral-cause.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
Thanks for the correction on spelling, KM.
If we are allowed a bit more on renewables issues, I think this passage from a recent important essay be R. Heinberg put some of the positions seen around here in perspective:
“…some solar and wind advocates apparently believe it makes good strategic sense to claim that a renewable future will deliver comfort, convenience, jobs, and growth—an extension of the oil-fueled 20th century, but now energized by wind and solar electrons. Regardless of whether it’s true, it is a message that appeals to a broad swath of the public. Yet most serious renewable energy scientists and analysts acknowledge that the energy transition will require changes throughout society…
Here in the US, though, it is common to find passionate but poorly informed climate activists who loudly proclaim that the transition can be easily and fully accomplished at no net cost. Again, this may be an effective message for rallying troops, but it ends up denying oxygen to energy conservation efforts, which are just as important.
I have good friends in the renewable energy industry who say that emphasizing the intermittency challenges of solar and wind amounts to giving more ammunition to the fossil fuel lobby. Barry Goldwater famously proclaimed that “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”; in a similar spirit, some solar and wind boosters might say that a little exaggeration of renewable energy’s potential, uttered in defense of the Earth, is no sin. After all, fossil fuel interests are not bound by the need for strict veracity: they continually make absurd claims that the world has centuries’ worth of coal and gas, and decades of oil. It’s not a fair or equal fight: the size and resources of the fossil fuel industry vastly outweigh those of the renewables camp. And there could hardly be more at stake: this is war for the survival of our current civilization-supporting climate regime. Nevertheless, we will ultimately have to deal with the reality of what solar and wind can actually provide, and we will do so far more successfully if we plan and prepare ahead of time.
There are a lot of smart, dedicated people working hard to solve the problems with renewables—that is, to make it cheaper and easier for these energy sources to mimic the 24/7 reliability of fossil fuels through improvements in energy storage and related technologies. None of what I have said in this essay is meant to discourage them from that important work. The more progress they make, the better for all of us. But they’ll have more chance of success in the long run if society starts investing significant effort into adapting its energy usage to lower consumption levels, more variable sources, and more localized, distributed inputs.”
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-01-21/our-renewable-future
Doctoral Thesis: Permaculture
Thesis
Wili#394,
Breeze’s article is right on target. The title should be expanded to ‘science fiction masquerading as truth’. Many of the key points in his article have been made by Spratt numerous times, albeit from a slightly different perspective.
http://www.climatecodered.org/2014/05/the-real-budgetary-emergency-burnable.html
http://www.climatecodered.org/p/myth-and-reality.html
http://www.climatecodered.org/2014/08/dangerous-climate-change-myths-and.html
#446–wili, nice link. That is indeed a piece worth reading. It rings true (or pretty true) for me.
A couple of insights, for those who might not want to take the time to follow the link:
Wili#446,
Came across an interesting perspective similar to Heinberg’s, but far more direct.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15588-power-shift-away-from-green-illusions