The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[NeilBlanchard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRe1ymYR45k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QubYjSTMGs0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aQqTFGxrmg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKKYt6fWob8

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

"To power the world". I have shown you over and over again based on real world data, this is complete nonsense to keep putting these in front of people. It breeds complacency and ill will because then they think that we would have it made if we would only choose to put up some solar and wind and also the just puts the blame on "evil. rich. white, oil barons" for keeping us from a simple choice.
.
It is not so simple.

*I'm going to argue that,these depictions of primary power requirements are either intentionally, intellectually dishonest,or born out of ignorance, stupidity,or worse.
*And the reason I argue this has to do with the second law of thermodynamics,which is conveniently,and overtly ignored in the depicted data.
*Total US net energy requirements for 2014 were only on the order of 900-GW.
*Due to the thermal inefficiencies of coal,natural gas,and petroleum combustion,it took on the order of 3.176-TW worth of energy to produce the 900-GW.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*If we freeze a snapshot of 2014 population and consumption,and consider our challenge regarding decarbonization,then we'd need only to consider building out 900-GW worth of capacity to handle the total power requirement for the nation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Just the energy wasted on residential cooling and heating in 2014,would have financed 32.7-GW worth of installed wind power capacity,per year,had the National Building Code represented 'best-case' (off-the-shelf) practices.,essentially handing a $49-billion subsidy to electric power providers each year,in 2014 dollars.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*It's absolutely amazing to me,that in a self-proclaimed,'capitalist' nation,that a large proportion of the adult population advocates,and defends torching the GDP.

[freebeard]

*Just the energy wasted on residential cooling and heating in 2014,would have financed 32.7-GW worth of installed wind power capacity,per year,had the National Building Code represented 'best-case' (off-the-shelf) practices.

Saving energy since 1980. If this had become the norm, where would we be today?

[RustyLugNut]

I do not doubt the earth is warming, I just doubt the simple correlation of CO2 and temperature is the only driving variable. If we cripple our economies to mitigate CO2 output and find the earth heats up anyways because we ignored the other variables, then where are we?

There are other corollaries such as industrial output and population growth and urban sprawl that follow current environmental heating. No one is proposing reduction of any of that to curb global warming.

And even though I am a firm supporter of nuclear power, I support as much renewable energy ( solar, wind ) as possible with the understanding that storage and distribution must be taken into account to make it feasible to power a modern society.

Here is a solution on a utility scale proposal that makes an attempt to more effectively harness the growing use of solar and wind production.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/201...0603-utah.html

[oil pan 4]

We will be in another ice age in 1000 to 2000 years.
Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts.

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

I do not doubt the earth is warming, I just doubt the simple correlation of CO2 and temperature is the only driving variable. If we cripple our economies to mitigate CO2 output and find the earth heats up anyways because we ignored the other variables, then where are we?

They either don't care or refuse to entertain that as a possibility.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

I do not doubt the earth is warming, I just doubt the simple correlation of CO2 and temperature is the only driving variable. If we cripple our economies to mitigate CO2 output and find the earth heats up anyways because we ignored the other variables, then where are we?

There are other corollaries such as industrial output and population growth and urban sprawl that follow current environmental heating. No one is proposing reduction of any of that to curb global warming.

And even though I am a firm supporter of nuclear power, I support as much renewable energy ( solar, wind ) as possible with the understanding that storage and distribution must be taken into account to make it feasible to power a modern society.

Here is a solution on a utility scale proposal that makes an attempt to more effectively harness the growing use of solar and wind production.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/201...0603-utah.html

Their statistical analysis isolated a trend line which falls outside that of natural variability,written in the proxy records.
The last time Earth saw over 400ppmv of carbon dioxide,the oceans were 75-100 feet higher than today.
*Water vapor is good for 50% of the warming
*Clouds are good for 20%.
*Anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the other 30%.
Without removing the extra GHGs,Earth will continue to warm,evaporation will increase,which will drive water vapor higher,in a self-amplifying feedback loop.It's happened before,it will happen again.
*The greatest threat is relative humidity (latent heat) and 'Real Feel' temperature.Mammals cannot survive beyond 35-degrees C heat index.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want an example of what awaits us,just look at Mercury and Venus.
Venus is basically twice as far from the Sun as Mercury,but twice as hot.The only reason is it's carbon dioxide atmosphere.As we continue to add carbon dioxide,Methane, and Nitrous oxide to the atmosphere,we become more and more like Venus (844-F,day and night)
Earth would be -100 F without the little bit of GHG that we have.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by aerohead

Their statistical analysis isolated a trend line which falls outside that of natural variability,written in the proxy records.
The last time Earth saw over 400ppmv of carbon dioxide,the oceans were 75-100 feet higher than today.
*Water vapor is good for 50% of the warming
*Clouds are good for 20%.
*Anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the other 30%.
Without removing the extra GHGs,Earth will continue to warm,evaporation will increase,which will drive water vapor higher,in a self-amplifying feedback loop.It's happened before,it will happen again.
*The greatest threat is relative humidity (latent heat) and 'Real Feel' temperature.Mammals cannot survive beyond 35-degrees C heat index.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want an example of what awaits us,just look at Mercury and Venus.
Venus is basically twice as far from the Sun as Mercury,but twice as hot.The only reason is it's carbon dioxide atmosphere.As we continue to add carbon dioxide,Methane, and Nitrous oxide to the atmosphere,we become more and more like Venus (844-F,day and night)
Earth would be -100 F without the little bit of GHG that we have.

But what if they have missed something and the heating continues even after the Western World has crippled their economies to reduce the drivers of greenhouse gasses? The seesaw is finely balanced and if something as simple as albedo or a combination of other un-forseen variables still tip us into a heating path, then where are we?

War and pestilence is easily the result of lesser stressors.

A headlong rush into a silver bullet solution (solar, wind ) can leave us wide open to a blind side wallop if we realize we forgot to read the signs more closely.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

We will be in another ice age in 1000 to 2000 years.
Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts.


They either don't care or refuse to entertain that as a possibility.

The shortest Milankovitch cycle is on a 23,000-year cycle.Interglacials average around 18,000-years,so we'd be early in 1,000-2000 years.We would have already seen some cooling if it weren't for the greenhouse gases.We may be able to overcome the astronomical forcing which drove past glaciations.The Solar irradiance plays only a minor role compared to greenhouse effect.The Sun's been dimming since 1960,while the planets been warming to record levels.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
As to the economy,we're just recently finding out what it actually is.And the 'new' data says basically that,short of 100% carbon-capture and sequestration,plus removing all the carbon we've put in the atmosphere,we've got to get away from fossil-fuel combustion just as fast as we can,and damn the economy!
If your economic facts were 'real' it would be one thing,but they're not.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

But what if they have missed something and the heating continues even after the Western World has crippled their economies to reduce the drivers of greenhouse gasses? The seesaw is finely balanced and if something as simple as albedo or a combination of other un-forseen variables still tip us into a heating path, then where are we?

War and pestilence is easily the result of lesser stressors.

A headlong rush into a silver bullet solution (solar, wind ) can leave us wide open to a blind side wallop if we realize we forgot to read the signs more closely.

The greenhouse effect has been known for over a hundred years.There's been a lot of brain-storming since back then.There's probably little that has not come under discussion and consideration.By 1998,the general circulation models began to match observations,plus be able to recreate past anomalies,which is the only reason scientists have any confidence at all in them.
Capitalists have a track record of crippling the economy all by themselves,without climate change or anything else.We've had plenty of 'crisis',crashes,burst bubbles,meltdowns.It's what they do.Some presidential appointees have made sure they happened,even when warned by their listening posts.That absolutely was the case in 2008.
There's no reason for the economy to get hurt.We'll just be buying refrigerators instead of ice boxes.LEDs instead of whale oil lamps.
There will be a redistribution of wealth into emerging technologies,while eclipsed technology like livery stables and buggy whip makers disappear.
If we ceased GHG emissions,and removed CO2 down to pre-industrial levels,there wouldn't be any known mechanism to drive global warming the way it's going now.
We're already seeing civil war as a consequence of food supply collapse,as with Russia (drought) in 2010,and Arab Spring.The Pentagon is very concerned about this sort of thing.
I wish there was a silver bullet.All we have at our disposal is,a 30-year transition off fossil-fuel combustion,onto a market basket of renewable energy sources,continued improvements in efficiency, and storage.It's where the future billionaires and jobs will come from.
There won't be any rush about it,just slow,steady,incremental change.Just the way capitalists like it.
The signs all say something like 'Green New Deal'.
And a careful reading of the Preamble to, the United States Constitution says likewise.

[freebeard]

But what if they have missed something and the heating continues even after the Western World has crippled their economies to reduce the drivers of greenhouse gasses? The seesaw is finely balanced and if something as simple as albedo or a combination of other un-forseen variables still tip us into a heating path, then where are we?

But what if they have missed something and the heating prevents winter storms and takes the edge off the next Ice Age?

Comments from the fine article:

As E-P points out the stability of 50/60HZ comes from the mechanical inertia of all the motors and generators spinning in the grid. Originally this was
'free' in the sense that as only spinning generators could make power (on a large scale) you got the inertia whether you wanted it or not.
As you add non synchronous generation the inertia declines. So you have to add inertia somewhere. Real or synthetic.
....
The first of these CAES plants were built to store cheap off peak power from nukes.
If you had a mountain you would use pumped hydro.
The salt caverns are also a geographic feature that can be exploited. No more no less.
At the moment all the seasonal storage of gas in the US (and quite a lot in Europe) is stored in such caverns,

'In an article by Sonal Patel in POWER, the author focused on clarifying what that 1,000 MW of renewable power actually represents. The project could store up 1,000 MW of renewable energy year-round. It could be provided to "variability-challenged" Western power markets.

Patel also said that, responding to a request for clarification about the 1,000-MW figure attributed to the facility, which will comprise both storage and power generation, "MHPS said on May 31 ACES is still in the project scoping phase, and that the next step, which entails securing off-taker agreements for power, would determine the mix between renewable hydrogen, CAES, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), and flow batteries."

So, renewable hydrogen is not the only technology on tap. Three others are involved to serve the needs of 150,000 households for a year. The ACES initiative will deploy a total of four types of clean energy storage at utility scale. Joining renewable hydrogen are compressed air energy storage; large-scale flow batteries; and solid oxide fuel cells.'