The Climate Post Offers a Rundown of the Week in Climate and Energy News
The truly astonishing amount of material that came out after a recent visit by China's President Hu Jintao is a measure of how pivotal energy and climate change are between the U.S. and China. This includes a piece on the importance of energy cooperation between the two nations by U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu himself.
Scientific American's Dave Biello describes the relationship between the U.S. and China as the kind of detente that exists between "frenemies," but one of the most comprehensive assessments of the current state of affairs was articulated by Daniel Firger of the Columbia Center for Climate Change Law. He says the year to come in China and U.S. energy news will revolve around three things:
-The U.S. complaint to the World Trade Organization about China's green energy subsidies, which seems hypocritical in light of our failure to make similar complaints about EU subsidies (not to mention our own domestic subsidies), and could be a sticking point in U.S.-China relations;
-China's burgeoning scientific engine, which could drive renewables to become economically competitive with fossil fuels in the U.S.;
-And lastly, the economies of scale achieved by China's enormous domestic market, which could make renewables a reality for the billions of people whose only choice is between dirty energy and no energy at all
GOOD magazine made a similar argument in 2009, when it argued that Chinese innovation would revolutionize solar for the entire world.
China, UK: As Serious as a Heart Attack about Energy Efficiency
There are plenty of countries that talk a big game about energy efficiency, but how many are prepared to curb domestic growth and even ration energy in order to accomplish it?
In advance of China's President Hu Jintao's arrival in the U.S., last week China pledged to go as far as rejecting construction projects that pollute too much. This is the same country that just shut down a coal-fired power plant in the middle of winter in order to save energy. The plant was the sole source of heating for a town of 20,000 who are now facing sub-zero temperatures.
Meanwhile, in the U.K., a group of MPs is proposing an energy rationing regime aimed at preparing the country for energy shortages brought about by peak oil.
Justice Department Puts Its Dukes Up for the EPA
It's not just Lisa Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who is feeling feisty these days. The U.S. Justice Department is also girding for a fight with, for example, the state of Texas.
Climate Scientists: Eight Brand New Reasons This Is Going to Hurt
1) Warming arctic ice could mean more mercury in the environment.
2) Climate change, now as big a threat as nuclear war; warrants moving the minute hand on the "Doomsday Clock," reports BBC News.
3) Year 2100 atmospheric CO2 levels could reach concentrations of 900 to 1,000 parts per million - three times the present value, and a level not seen in at least 30 million years.
4) So much for fish and chips: Scandinavian sea may become too warm for cod.
5) Melting ice is a more powerful feedback than scientists previously estimated, and will contribute to further warming as the Earth's northern reaches become less reflective. "The conclusion is that the cryosphere (areas of ice and snow) is both responding more sensitively to, and also driving, stronger climate change than thought," Mark Flanner, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study, told Reuters.
6) Regional planners are dealing with rising seas now, not in some distant future. Rising seas threaten more than 30,000 homes in North Carolina, and Ventura County, California, is ripping out beach infrastructure and moving it inland. David Roberts of Grist says it's time we started talking about "ruggedizing" our civilization against climate change.
7) Geoengineering deployed in the future in order to rescue Earth's icecaps from disintegration could cool the tropics to temperatures below current levels, report scientists in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The reason is straightforward: the earth's cryosphere will have disintegrated so thoroughly by that point that extra cooling measures will be required. After all, 93.4 percent of the warming of the Earth goes into the oceans, Skeptical Science reminds us.
8) Reinsurance giant Munich Re says 2010 included 950 natural disasters, the second highest number since 1980. Ninety percent were weather-related, providing "further indications of advancing climate change."
The good news is that climate models are more accurate than ever.
... But Maybe We Can Produce 100 Percent of Our Energy From Renewables by 2050
Studies appearing in Energy Policy argue wind, water and solar could replace existing fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure by mid-century. If California's current buying habits are any indication, much of that solar will be made in China. The Bureau of Land Management estimates 2.9 million MW of solar energy could be produced on federal lands alone.
Allison Arieff of GOOD proposes a market for efficiency - or negawatts - to help close the gap.
The Climate Post is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Best solution would be a source that by it self can power Billions of people. I think only closed cycle nuclear and solar can do that at this time. Solar is still too expensive.
That's why we have to somehow demand automated solar PV factories!
The Chinese did it, why can't we?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5nJjlbU5lM
The insults should be a tip off. If their data were any good, they probably wouldn't have to use any insults, now would they? Or, maybe their arguments are technically accurate, but they just have a mean streak and want to win the fight AND rub your face in the sand! That reveals a hint of torturous RW authoritarianism right there which is another tip off.
And another tip off. The links are to pieces over two years old. Had the hot spot argument really been solid, it would long since have heralded the death of AGW. Remember, a solid scientific paper that blows AGW out of the water would guarantee fame and fortune from the oil and coal industries.
And still another tip off... a link to an entire IPCC chapter, without a citation. Looks impressive, but just wastes your time.
And another tip off.. a citation to JoNova aka Joanne Codling, a biologist funded by the duplicitous Heartland institute.
And still another tip off.. reference to a David Evans paper full of misinformation and frothy political diatribe.
If AGW is a hoax, then how come denialists are still incapable of scientifically proving that to be the case?
Have a wonderful day.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
One important aspect of this temperature profile is commonly called the "Tropical Tropospheric Hotspot".
According to the IPCC, if the currently warming is caused by greenhouse gas release, there must be evidence of it through the "Tropical Tropospheric Hotspot".
The difficulty for the true believers is that the "Tropical Tropospheric Hotspot" cannot be found.
Radiosonde data does not show it. Satellite data does not reveal it, even when tortured by the Hockey Team.
An attempt to "prove" that it is really there, but hidden using some hocus, pocus about wind shear has been recently debunked and falsified.
Since the signature that the IPCC claims their theory says must be there, there are only a few alternatives-
1. IPCC climate theory is fundamentally wrong.
2. To the extent that IPCC climate theory is correct in predicting a hotspot due to extra carbon dioxide, we know that carbon emissions did not cause the recent global warming.
3. The surface warming is not as large as IPCC claims.
More information-
http://joannenova.com.au/2008/10/the-missing-hotspot/
http://www.sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
False. Detecting the tropospheric hot spot is not a test of the greenhouse effect but instead of the moist adiabatic lapse rate, and AFAIK the IPCC has never asserted otherwise.
If you disagree cite your source from IPCC documents, including the exact wording.
f the moist adiabatic lapse rate is wrong according to the IPCC models, then the IPCC models are wrong.
No hot spot means the IPCC models are not skillful at predicting the current state of the atmosphere.
If they can not predict the current state of the atmosphere, why would any sane person accept that they can predict the future.
The IPCC models must be wrong, based upon the empirical data.
The only question of interest is how many degrees of "wrongness" do they contain?
IPCC models are Cargo Cult Science. QED.
Like I said: if you think so then cite your source from IPCC documents, including the exact wording, where the IPPC claims what you claim does, which again is that:
"According to the IPCC, if the currently warming is caused by greenhouse gas release, there must be evidence of it through the "Tropical TropospherÂic Hotspot"."
Good luck with finding that reference, because it doesn't exist.
BTW, there is evidence of the "Tropical TropospherÂic Hotspot" in any event.
This is a pre-commercial prototype. Production is scheduled to begin in 60 to 90 days. They already have received and order for a 1 Megawatt system which will be composed of these modules.
So far, the work appears real. If it proves valid, it opens the door to other hard to believe systems that reflect new science. See Cold Fusion and other articles at: www.aesopinstitute.org
There are cost-competitive green energy systems being born. Green Light, on the same website, outlines why they might be accelerated and some of the technologies moving in the birth canal.
They open the door to superseding fossil fuels more rapidly than might be imagined.
They also can generate millions of jobs and a strong boost to the economy.
One example is cars and trucks that can become power plants when parked. They may sell enough electricity to local utilities to pay for themselves as investments. The vehicles are also likely to power homes and businesses.
These include hybrids that use tiny amounts of water as fuel as well as electric cars that need no external recharge.
Impossible you say? Well, isn't that what has been said for two decades about Cold Fusion?
Experiments always trump theory. Especially when the theory has become dogma.
Energy may be about to become an entirely new ballgame. And just in the nick of time!
China Inc. understands the basics of the industrial revolution that are leaders have a difficult time understanding and that is the world has always had cheap labor but to be an industrial power and have lots of jobs requieres cheap energy!
I'll make this simple - THERE WILL BE NO JOBS WITHOUT CHEAP ENERGY!
A ton of coal produces ~ 2500kwh of electricity, long term contracts for coal come in at ~ $35.00/ton that breaks down to ~ $0.015/kwh the only source of energy cheaper is hydro! Green energy is at least 10-15 times this cost!
China Inc. has taken all the new green energy projects by using cheap dirty coal energy because all these industries are energy intensive! Not labor intensive because they are largely automated - energy intensive!
Because of the limit supply of Coal - China must be planning 100's of nuclear power plants to replace their coal generating plants!
Unless we want to go back to an argicultuture society we need a cheap sourse of energy at about $0.03-0.05/kwh and frankly I don't every see with any potential energy schemes out there getting there with green energy!
Maybe nulclear like China Inc.?
Thoughts?
The first possible candidate system is the Cold Fusion reactor demonstrated in Italy last weekend.
It has a capital cost of $2,600 per kilowatt and is expected to produce electricity at a cost of 1c/kwh.
Several other revolutionary systems are expected to have capital costs that are even lower. One system is projecting $25 per kilowatt. Even at 20 times that probably unrealistic figure it will undercut all existing sources of electric power.
They claim it will power electric cars the size and weight of a Prius more than 5,600 miles on a gallon of water.
Hard to believe? Certainly! But, so was Cold Fusion. Yet, a system that increasingly appears valid is moving toward production within the next three months.
We are at the edge of a remarkable revolution in energy. If we are wise, we will accelerate it as rapidly as possible.
24/7 development, validation and production are on the horizon and in the absence of public monies, entirely within the realm of private support.
Adventure capital has never been abundant, but is always out there for exciting possibilities.
See Green Light at: www.aesopinstitute.org for an overview of why widespread concern, involving little publicized threats that can cause long-term blackouts in many cities, might increase optimism on a realistic basis. China has 200 large cities at hazard.
The times they are achanging!
Which actual fact of mine do you have a problem with?
a) a ton of coal makes ~ 2500kwh
b) a ton of coal cost ~ $35.00
???
The 950 natural disasters for 2010 does not quite sum up just how bad the situation was. Of these natural disasters, many were almost unprecedented in scale, and the damage they did to people and economies.