The moral imperative of American energy
Danny Lemieux on May 23 2011 at 5:40 am | Filed under: America, Environmentalism, National Security, Uncategorized
Cheap fuel is an important key to peace, human welfare and prosperity. We have the key.
The world can’t do without fuel and the scramble for world fuel resources lies at the root of most of our current geopolitical problems. The high price of fuel affects the environment (e.g., 3rd world deforestation) and the price and availability of food for those that can least afford it.
The scramble for fuel lies behind Arabia’s, Iran’s, Russia’s and China’s geopolitical manipulations – in Arabia and Russia’s cases, to keep the availability low and the price high, in China’s case to exploit reliable fuel sources in many of the most political and economically vulnerable parts of the world, notably in Africa. We in the U.S., meanwhile, are forced to maintain hugely expensive military commitments to keep world fuel supply lines open in the interest of protecting a world economy upon which we depend. Demand for high-priced oil keeps Europe in dhimmitude to an increasing subversive Islamicist influence while, in the Middle East, oil revenues fuel subversive jihadi movements worldwide, further tying down our military resources and our economic infrastructures.
Fuel’s impact on food production and prices is one of the factors stoking popular revolts from Mexico to Egypt. Fuel protects human lives by keeping people warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It’s no accident that some of the most strident, anti-oil environmentalism derives from a narrow cafe latte strip of our Pacific coast that enjoys temperate climate year-round and no worries about food prices and availability. Climate “I-got-mine”ers, I guess we could call them.
Cheap oil, coal and gas, in short, would resolve many of our world’s problems. However, there are ideological obstacles that must be overcome, the biggest one being America’s environmental movement, which increasingly takes on the trappings of a fundamentalist religion. Ask most Americans today and I propose that the large majority believes profoundly that a) we are running out of fossil fuels; b) there are practical alternatives to fossil fuel energy and c) fossil fuels contribute to global warming, ergo, fossil fuels are bad. Besides, people say, oil derricks despoil the view…even in areas where nobody ventures.
Let’s just focus on (a) for now: it’s a false premise!
A November, 2010 report by the Congressional Research Service highlights just how rich in fossil fuels the United States is – richer, in fact, than any other country in the world…even without considering the huge potentials of shale oil and methane resources. You can find an excellent summary of the report, with a link to the original CRS report, here:
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/6933/US-Has-Earths-Largest-Energy-Resources
The U.S. has more than enough safe and reliable energy resources to meet our needs and those of other nations until practical alternatives inevitably come on-line. We’ve had a petroleum based culture for a little over 100 years. We have enough for another 100 years. Making those resources (and other under-developed global resources) available to the U.S. and the global marketplace will drop the price of energy worldwide. That’s just simple economics: increasing supplies reduces prices. It would also boost domestic jobs development, improve our trade deficits, and reduce the costs of domestic manufacturing. Added fossil fuel supplies will help defund our enemies and relieve pressures on our allies.
The obstacles to its development are ideological and enviro-religious, not economic or environmental. As long as these resources remained unavailable, the U.S. and much of the rest of the world will continue to pay huge costs…not just in terms of imported energy and high prices, but also in terms of lost jobs and a dangerously unstable world.
The world desperately needs cheap energy. That’s a hard fact. For the world’s richest resource of fossil fuel energy to withhold its resources from the world in the interest of the self-satisfied, comfortable bourgeoisie of the environmental left is not just irresponsible, it’s immoral. You can’t be against “Big Oil” and “Big Coal” and in favor of “World Peace”.
Oh, and one more thing: while this author benefits greatly from fossil fuels, he does not work or benefit directly from the fossil fuels industry, although his retirement savings and pension fund assets in all likelihood depend upon the success of an incentivized and profitable energy sector to fund his retirement, social security, medical care and all other government and private industry benefits. In that, he’s probably just like you.
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I can’t tell you how many idiots talked to me about “peak oil”. I can’t because I erased their features from memory.
[...] Bookworm Room examines “The moral imperative of American energy.” Drill here, drill now, frack here, frack now, etc. Starting [...]
Here’s an interesting compilation:
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/04/28/consumers-will-opt-for-lowest-cost-report/#more-47939
In order for renewables to be worth anything, you need around 3 pieces of key technology.
1. Room temperature superconductors to store energy and pass it around in an endless loop before it can be utilized.
2. Direct transference of light and quark crystal energy into electricity, without having to go into a heat/mechanical cycle waste period.
3. A long operating time, which means 100% maintenance and no down time. Manpower costs and material costs will be extremely high, especially when disaster strikes and there is no power to be had anywhere.
I’m not a materials engineer so I cannot name you a specific technological research line for 3, but currently there is no such thing as 100% up time for anything. Eventually they will have to go down, which means redundant facilities must take up the slack.
So if wind turbines require high maintenance and can only operate at around 50% for 1 year, then you need twice as many for 100%. Whereas a nuclear generator or coal plant that operates at 75% or 90%, only needs a duplicate when you need more power.
I’ve just begun this book but this excerpt from The Most Powerful Idea in the World gives a good overview of humans and hydrocarbons up to our use of coal. Interestingly, I didn’t know that in 1230 England had used so many of their trees, they were importing their timber from Scandinavia. Puts a whole different spin on why all the stories such as, Robin Hood, are so obsessed with the king’s forest, obviously the elite were seeking to conserve the energy source, for the own usage and deny the people. Sound familiar? I’m fair certain the “elite” in DC won’t be denied their hydrocarbons even if their plants are massive polluters. About this time, coal was discovered as an alternative energy source but was reviled and often prohibited.
This Article at First Things provides a good reasoned discussion of the idiocy of the “greenhouse” gas thermodynamic warming theorists: “Life is about making decisions, and decisions are about trade-offs. We can choose to promote investment in technology that addresses real problems and scientific research that will let us cope with real problems more efficiently. Or we can be caught up in a crusade that seeks to suppress energy use, economic growth, and the benefits that come from the creation of national wealth. ”
Ymarsakar, it isn’t the high maintenance that kills wind turbines, although it is a serious detriment. It is the fact that the wind isn’t reliable in the range speeds in which the turbine can operate. For much of the year, they are becalmed in light winds or feathered in winds exceeding their operating range. So it isn’t a matter of having a percentage redundancy for maintenance downtime, it is a matter of having 100% redundancy in some power generation that doesn’t use the same feedstock.
Danny Lemieux: The world can’t do without fuel and the scramble for world fuel resources lies at the root of most of our current geopolitical problems.
That’s quite true, especially considering the rapid pace at which the world’s population is entering the middle class.
Danny Lemieux: The high price of fuel affects the environment (e.g., 3rd world deforestation) and the price and availability of food for those that can least afford it.
True again. For instance, people cut down trees to make charcoal for cooking, leading to deforestation, often in environmentally sensitive areas.
Danny Lemieux: The scramble for fuel lies behind Arabia’s, Iran’s, Russia’s and China’s geopolitical manipulations – in Arabia and Russia’s cases, to keep the availability low and the price high, in China’s case to exploit reliable fuel sources in many of the most political and economically vulnerable parts of the world, notably in Africa.
True enough. Fuel, and other resources, of course.
Danny Lemieux: We in the U.S., meanwhile, are forced to maintain hugely expensive military commitments to keep world fuel supply lines open in the interest of protecting a world economy upon which we depend.
True. Imagine, if when Jimmy Carter put on his sweater, the U.S. had really embarked on a mission to reduce its dependence on imported energy. The U.S. could now be exporting these technologies to the rest of the world, rather than continuing to import oil. What “Morning in America” really meant was a continued U.S. commitment to use military force to protect supply lines, while undercutting democratic reform by supporting authoritarian governments.
Danny Lemieux: Demand for high-priced oil keeps Europe in dhimmitude …
Rhetorical overstatement. However, reliance on energy imports does make the vulnerable to supply disruptions, but everyone has an interest in continued trade.
Danny Lemieux: Fuel’s impact on food production and prices is one of the factors stoking popular revolts from Mexico to Egypt.
True again.
Danny Lemieux: It’s no accident that some of the most strident, anti-oil environmentalism derives from a narrow cafe latte strip of our Pacific coast that enjoys temperate climate year-round and no worries about food prices and availability.
Can you quantify that? Is seems environmentalism goes hand-in-hand with prosperity. Europeans, including in the North, are quite environmentally aware.
Danny Lemieux: Cheap oil, coal and gas, in short, would resolve many of our world’s problems.
In the short term.
Danny Lemieux: A November, 2010 report by the Congressional Research Service highlights just how rich in fossil fuels the United States is – richer, in fact, than any other country in the world…
Most of which, according to the report, is coal. Nor can you burn coal in most cars. However, the U.S. does have substantial reserves of natural gas.
Danny Lemieux: We have enough for another 100 years.
Well, not really. Free trade means that world consumption will continue to increase as the world gets richer. That is, unless new technologies are developed.
Danny Lemieux: The obstacles to its development are ideological and enviro-religious, not economic or environmental.
“Enviro-religious” is another rhetorical statement. Developing coal will directly impact the environment. In addition, anthropogenic climate change is a very real phenomena, and will cause serious problems in the future. To continue to acts as if this doesn’t matter would be self-destructive.
Danny, congrats, you got several “trues” and “true agains” from Zach, the room’s arbiter of which facts are convenient and which are not.
Notice the reintroduction of AGW, even though that religion is losing adherents by the bucketloads now that its gods have been caught lying. (Oh, sorry: The six foxes sent to examine damages at the East Anglia henhouse have assured us that all is in order!)
The biggest howler here is the statement of utter and wide-eyed faith from a man who professes no beliefs in a higher power than quantifiable data and a fast connection to Wiki: If we’d taken Jimmuh seriously, we could be exporting all those exotic technologies that could save the world from oil. He just knows that would have happened! Solar collectors that cover thousands of square miles of formerly pristine wilderness, noisy windmills that kill millions of birdies annually and produce energy only if and when the wind blows, ethanol that increases the cost of food. Really neat stuff!
Charles Martel: Notice the reintroduction of AGW,
That was introduced in the original post.
Danny Lemieux: Climate “I-got-mine”ers, I guess we could call them.
Charles Martel: … even though that religion is losing adherents by the bucketloads now that its gods have been caught lying.
In the scientific community, the consensus has only become stronger.
Charles Martel: (Oh, sorry: The six foxes sent to examine damages at the East Anglia henhouse have assured us that all is in order!)
A number of independent investigations found no evidence of wrongdoing. In any case, scientists from all over teh world have independently checked the conclusions; climate change is real.
http://www.nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
Charles Martel: If we’d taken Jimmuh seriously, we could be exporting all those exotic technologies that could save the world from oil.
The U.S. would certainly be farther ahead, and leading the world forward, including in terms of conservation.
Keep reciting your mantras to youself, Zachs. I’m sure they are very reassuring.
Z says, “Imagine, if when Jimmy Carter put on his sweater, the U.S. had really embarked on a mission to reduce its dependence on imported energy. The U.S. could now be exporting these technologies to the rest of the world, rather than continuing to import oil.”
Z, the entire world and the U.S. research establishment has been working furiously on alternatives to fossil fuels since the 1960s without success. It’s a fallacy to assume that you can come up with major technical innovations just by throwing money at them. Technology and science develop at their own pace. Look at how long they have been working with fusion energy.
Danny Lemieux: Demand for high-priced oil keeps Europe in dhimmitude …
Z responds with…”Rhetorical overstatement. However, reliance on energy imports does make the vulnerable to supply disruptions, but everyone has an interest in continued trade.”
Rhetorical overstatement? Not according to Bat Y’eor, Oriana Fallaci, Bruce Bawer, Geert Wilders and many, many others with boots on the ground.
I would hardly call Bruce Bawer and Oriana Fallaci conservatives, btw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriana_Fallaci
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurabia:_The_Euro-Arab_Axis
http://europenews.dk/en/node/32928
“Cheap oil, coal and gas, in short, would resolve many of our world’s problems. However, there are ideological obstacles that must be overcome, the biggest one being America’s environmental movement, which increasingly takes on the trappings of a fundamentalist religion. Ask most Americans today and I propose that the large majority believes profoundly that a) we are running out of fossil fuels; b) there are practical alternatives to fossil fuel energy and c) fossil fuels contribute to global warming, ergo, fossil fuels are bad. Besides, people say, oil derricks despoil the view…even in areas where nobody ventures…”
Most intelligent people on the left and right do not believe that we are running out of fossil fuels, but that we are running out of cheap fossil fuels.
As for alternatives to fossil fuels, there is much to support them, although there are limits to what is possible in the near-term. Bill Gates, who spoke at the TED Conference last year on this topic, thinks that radical new nuclear technology is actually the best solution further out, and he has put major funding into a company that addresses the issue with promising prototypes. In the longer term, solar will eventually work, although it will not be more than about 10% of fuel supplies since storage is not cost-effective or large enough, but battery technology continues to improve, such that we’ll have electric cars hitting the mainstream by 2015-2020, and with that scale will come an acceleration of innovation. All of the non-nuclear energy used is ultimately solar, and the sun hits the earth each day with enough excess energy to power all of civilization for months, so that is the ultimate solution, just perhaps not in our lifetimes.
As for global warming, most people and the vast majority of qualified experts recognize the increasing costs of burning them in light of overwhelming evidence for global warming, which has already caused a 0.5 celsius degree increase in mean global temperature with much more already pre-loaded into the system. The issue is worrisome enough that the Pentagon started scenario planning for its adverse impacts early in the Bush Administration. Therefore, there will be a lot of money made on coal gassification and CO2 sequestration, if the technology will work. Other environmental hazards, like mercury emissions from coal plants are being fought currently by utility companies, but given the rising concentrations in our oceans’ fish, this cannot be ignored for much longer; although the additional costs are not so great that countries cannot afford to address all particulate matter in the very near term.
Two other notes: First, the US does have the largest supplies of fossil fuels, but until we move much of the transportation fleet to electric engines or make conversions for at least passenger cars to LNG, the majority of it cannot be used for a big chunk of our energy needs. Second, there are legitimate concerns about the impact of fracking on ground water supplies, so a good chunk of the gas locked in shale rock near major cities might become problematic to obtain. I’ve spoken with a guy with great experience getting mining and utility construction approved in the state of PA, and he tells me that given the contamination of water outside of Philadelphia, it is becoming harder to obtain permits there. This is not out of some religious zealotry, but because people don’t like petrochemicals coming out of their kitchen faucets…
Interesting website that gives real time output of solar and wind systems installed by the city of Reno, NV.
http://greenenergy.reno.gov/energy/
Z: A number of independent investigations found no evidence of wrongdoing. In any case, scientists from all over teh world have independently checked the conclusions; climate change is real.
I agree. Climate change is real. It’s been going on since the time of creation.
JKB writes/quotes: “Life is about making decisions, and decisions are about trade-offs. We can choose to promote investment in technology that addresses real problems and scientific research that will let us cope with real problems more efficiently. Or we can be caught up in a crusade that seeks to suppress energy use, economic growth, and the benefits that come from the creation of national wealth. ”
We know that some costs are not internalized in the price of fossil fuels. This is classically known as an externality. So why is it a “crusade” to seek to add those costs to properly price the use of that commodity, even if the consequence is to reduce its consumption. It would seem to me that this is very different than an argument to limit usage of fossil fuels for irrational reasons, like a religious crusade. Also, why do we tolerate market-distorting (if they are going to viewed as such) subsidies for fossil fuel research and discovery, but not for similar research into renewables? This latter position, which many conservatives and apparently Congressional Republicans hold, is rather hypocritical, don’t you think??
Danny, stop with the one-liners. Climate change and manmade climate change are different things. Most serious people are concerned about the latter.
And, speaking of one-liners…abc responds: “Most serious people are concerned about the latter.”
Its not a one liner; its a fact. Considering that the climate is a dynamic system, change is the status quo. What effect man has on the system is not separate from the whole system… it is a part of the whole system. It is one factor in the equation.
What is it about the Lefties that makes them think the future is going to look and work like a Jetsons cartoon and that the future is going to be just like they imagine it to be…if only we throw more money at it?
I believe the operating term for this is “teleological thinking”. A more everyday term would be “wishful thinking” or “the mind of a child”.
Comments like “In the longer term, solar will eventually work, although it will not be more than about 10% of fuel supplies since storage is not cost-effective or large enough, but battery technology continues to improve, such that we’ll have electric cars hitting the mainstream by 2015-2020, and with that scale will come an acceleration of innovation” are simply futurist gobbledygook.
Sure, the investment community loves to play these kinds of mind games, reminiscent of marijuana-fueled college b.s. sessions, but all you have to do it go back and look at the prediction of futurists in the 1950s and 1960s to realize that nobody can predict the future.
Meanwhile, the rest of us lumpen proletariate beaver on to deal with the more practical realities of life and technology.
thinks that radical new nuclear technology is actually the best solution further out,- abc
Notice how liberal solutions never solve today’s energy needs– they’re always focused on some solution in the future.
Electric cars aren’t a solution– all you’re doing is transfering the source of the CO2, unless we convert electrical production to nuclear– LNG doesn’t help there either. LNG could reduce our oil dependance, but it doesn’t have the energy density of gasoline.
Nuclear technology is a mature industry, proven to be reliable and safe. I believe we have 30 (or so) plants in the pipeline– we need 100.
It takes the US twice as long as Japan to get a plant online (at least before Fukushima). Even the French can get a plant online quicker.
The point is that nuclear offers an immediate solution to CO2. One of the points of BW’s post is that the objections to new energy production by the radical anti-progressives on the left is religiously fervant and dangerous to the well being of this country and the world. Nuclear isn’t particularly cheap, but it’s certainly cheaper than the ill-defined “renewable” sources.
We’re merely exporting our pollution to China, and if you accept the premise of AGW, it’s mind boggling how their obstructionism is damaging to their own cause.
To clarify where I’m coming from, for me the AGW crowd has failed to convince me that we have a major affect on the system and even if we do, that we have any ability to significantly change the system. Nor have they convinced me that climate change is a bad thing, especially in light of the fact that climate change is a normal.
It has all become so politicized I have no idea who to believe anymore. But being a person who deals in logic and numbers, I find it hard to believe that the science is conclusive considering there is still so much we dont know about the Earths dynamic systems and what affects they have. Anytime someone says “the science is conclusive” or the “debate is over”, warning flags come up and the eyebrow of skepticism rises.
There seems to be a lot going on re natural gas as a transportation fuel. Compressed natural gas is becoming commonly used for local buses and some trucks, and it appears that LNG may be feasible for over-the-road trucking, although the capital costs are nontrivial. I think LNG for rail power also has potential.
Cheap natural gas as a feedstock for chemicals/plastics production is also having an economic impact; Dow Chemical, for instance, has recently cranked up its production of ethane and of ethane-downstream products to take advantage of nat gas versus oil prices. Nat gas is also a feedstock for fertilizer in the form of ammonia.
Given the many and flexible uses of nat gas, it seems sort of a shame that we are on track to burn so much of it in electrical generating plants that could be powered by coal or nuclear.
Danny writes: “It’s a fallacy to assume that you can come up with major technical innovations just by throwing money at them. Technology and science develop at their own pace. Look at how long they have been working with fusion energy.”
Actually, the Manhattan Project is a clear example of what happens when you throw a ton of resources at a project, as was the race to the moon. It is true that some developments turn out to be much harder than imagined (e.g., Reagan’s Star Wars or Strategic Defense Initiative), but to argue that technology develops at its own pace, independently of funding is just nonsense. More resources means faster progress in many cases.
But that isn’t even the real issue. The key question is why we should be creating subsidies for fossil fuels but not for renewables, especially since the majors don’t need the subsidies anyway.
Actually, the Manhattan Project is a clear example of what happens when you throw a ton of resources at a project, as was the race to the moon.
None of that would have mattered if the scientists involved had political pie in the sky utopian dreams instead of concrete experiences and theoretical formulas.
Now we are expected to believe the AGW Green greedy crooks have a thousand Einsteins and Feynmens in their camp, eh.
You guys don’t have enough brain power in aggregate to make up one Einstein or a Richard Feynmen to begin with. They need money for research and engineering. Money doesn’t make brains smart though.
Danny, my one-liner is factually accurate, while yours is not. 97% of scientists agree that humans are causing warming (http://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm). I think facts matter, don’t you??
Brian writes:
“Notice how liberal solutions never solve today’s energy needs– they’re always focused on some solution in the future.”
I gave solutions that are near, medium and long-term. Why do you misrepresent what I write. You do know that other people can read what I wrote and then your false characterization of it, correct??
“Electric cars aren’t a solution– all you’re doing is transfering the source of the CO2, unless we convert electrical production to nuclear– LNG doesn’t help there either. LNG could reduce our oil dependance, but it doesn’t have the energy density of gasoline.”
As I clearly wrote, electric cars require other technologies, like CO2 sequestration, to address all the problems involved. LNG will work for cars, but not trucks, as Boone Pickens has pointed out, and as I noted in my earlier comments. There are other potential solutions, as well, like novel techniques for the production of methanol, which has a higher energy content than LNG. This is medium term, however.
“Nuclear technology is a mature industry, proven to be reliable and safe. I believe we have 30 (or so) plants in the pipeline– we need 100….It takes the US twice as long as Japan to get a plant online (at least before Fukushima). Even the French can get a plant online quicker.”
Progress Energy just said this week that they are delaying plans for another nuclear plant in FL, but the reason has nothing to do with what the conservatives here are arguing. With $3.00 natural gas, it is better to build gas than nuclear with all the costs loaded in. The narrative here doesn’t really fit the facts as they are reported by those who make the capex decision on nuclear power.
“The point is that nuclear offers an immediate solution to CO2. One of the points of BW’s post is that the objections to new energy production by the radical anti-progressives on the left is religiously fervant and dangerous to the well being of this country and the world. Nuclear isn’t particularly cheap, but it’s certainly cheaper than the ill-defined “renewable” sources.”
This last comment cracks me up. Does “certainly cheaper” apply to baseload or peaker capacity? To capex or to opex? If you were writing as an energy analyst, you would not have much credibility speaking in such overgeneralized terms…
“We’re merely exporting our pollution to China, and if you accept the premise of AGW, it’s mind boggling how their obstructionism is damaging to their own cause.”
This comment makes no sense. The US greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, so we are not exporting it anywhere, unless you count where the emissions go and who they hurt. As for China, they have little incentive to limit their emissions when they see us not doing much to address our own. The relevant obstructionism comes from those in industry that lie and hide the truth about global warming so that Congress could never pass a treaty even if the executive branch got serious about it.
that the future is going to be just like they imagine it to be…if only we throw more money at it?
Probably because their friends and family are benefiting from the pig trough where the money is being placed.
They’re getting rich and wealthy. Why does anything else matter in the face of that?
Ymarsakar, it isn’t the high maintenance that kills wind turbines, although it is a serious detriment. It is the fact that the wind isn’t reliable in the range speeds in which the turbine can operate. For much of the year, they are becalmed in light winds or feathered in winds exceeding their operating range. So it isn’t a matter of having a percentage redundancy for maintenance downtime, it is a matter of having 100% redundancy in some power generation that doesn’t use the same feedstock.
That wouldn’t be much of a factor with superconductors storing the electricity in aggregate and on demand for transformer line transmissions. Currently electricity has to be modulated so its frequency and amplitude match the specifications of electricity lines, and they can’t keep it stored until they transform it either. They have to keep doing it, which essentially means computer programs are required to synch wind turbine output to a generator that turns electricity, and both have to be able to produce a steady stream regardless of whether the location has becalmed or not.
With storage of electricity with no loss whatsoever, wind turbines can be put anywhere where the land isn’t being used and just basically stores up free power over time. Enough to run some buildings at least.
spiff writes: “the AGW crowd has failed to convince me that we have a major affect on the system and even if we do, that we have any ability to significantly change the system. Nor have they convinced me that climate change is a bad thing, especially in light of the fact that climate change is a normal.”
The effect is measurable and quantified (e.g., 0.5 degree celsius increase in temp), and the models have systematically understated the increases that are being measured.
We have the ability to change the system by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, since the physics behind emissions and warming are not seriously disputed and certainly well understood.
Believe it or not, scientists can actually disentangle the normal sources of climate change and control for them. When they do this, you can see what part is being caused by manmade emissions. I have met with the head researcher in this area at the Lawrence Livermore Labs, and I’ve learned how they do this to address this concern you raise.
Anybody here conversant with the space elevator concept first advanced by Tsiolkovsky? We’re a ways away from the carbon fiber technology we’d need to build one, but the concept of a nuclear (or solar) powered device that could slowly and cheaply lift thousands of tons into space could soon be doable. If so, we could construct gigantic solar collectors whose power could be sent to earth and distributed globally without despoiling millions of acres of desert as now envisioned by solar advocates.
What about artificial geothermal? For now we depend on easily accessible natural geothermal outlets, such as geysers in Iceland and California. Would it be possible to drill down far enough to safely tap heat from magma to power steam turbines?
Nukes are definitely a major way to go—clean, safe, non-polluting. I have serious doubts, though, that the Luddites in the Democratic Party or the green movement will say yes to nukes without some awesome caterwauling and obstructionism.
David Foster writes: “Given the many and flexible uses of nat gas, it seems sort of a shame that we are on track to burn so much of it in electrical generating plants that could be powered by coal or nuclear.”
The advantages of gas for electricity generation, over coal and nuclear are well known. The capex costs are much lower and while the opex costs are higher (although depressed given the cheap price of natural gas), the ability to quickly turn it on and off makes it a complementary technology for peaking. Natural gas plants also emit about one-third the greenhouse gases as coal, and far less particulate and mercury, which remain an issue for coal.
ABC nods knowledgeably, blurting that “97% of scientists agree that humans are causing warming”
Now, according to the Oregon Petition, more-than 31,000 scientists DON’T agree that humans are causing warming. Which means (pull out calculator) that, according to ABC, there are more-than 1 million scientists in this world that have been polled on the subject. Must have been quite a survey….who knew?
“The effect is measurable and quantified (e.g., 0.5 degree celsius increase in temp), and the models have systematically understated the increases that are being measured.”
Oh please oh please, ABC, tell us how they measured this to such exactitude using every available means of measurement? Include some standard deviations for each measurement and also the data that indicates otherwise.
Danny, the Left sees all, knows all, and seeks to own all. One World Order to rule them all.
“As for China, they have little incentive to limit their emissions when they see us not doing much to address our own. The relevant obstructionism comes from those in industry that lie and hide the truth about global warming so that Congress could never pass a treaty even if the executive branch got serious about it.”
Those damned Americans! First they create the conditions that result in an attack on the World Trade Center, and now they’re forcing the Chinese to pollute!
And don’t get me started on that herd of slackjaws in the Senate who were so spineless that 97 percent of them would not vote for the Kyoto Treaty. And even though the Party of Progress still controls the Senate, it still won’t get serious about saving the planet!
If only we could get the media and the academy to break the silence about AGW and sound the tocsin! If only the media moguls and the university deans would stop their conspiracy of silence so that the truth about AGW could somehow slip out!
Danny, the Oregon Petition includes a lot of scientists who are not experts in climate. Just because an entymologist or botanist or even a linguist doesn’t believe in AGW doesn’t mean his is a qualified position. The citations I left are peer-reviewed studies of the scientific literature, while your petition is nothing of the sort. You brought a knife to a gun fight…
As for information on the modeling process for climate change, there are a ton of interesting links for further reading here:
http://skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
Does “certainly cheaper” apply to baseload or peaker capacity? To capex or to opex? - abc
“One study I tend to refer to on nuclear plant cost is the 2009 update to the MIT The Future of Nuclear Power study. The “levelized” cost estimates for various baseload technologies in that study were obtained from a separate study done by Du and Parsons, and these show new coal at 6.2 cents kWh, new gas at 6.5 cents kWh, and new nukes at 8.4 cents kWh. Apply a carbon tax of $25/tCO2 and you get new coal at 8.3 cents kWh and new gas at 7.4 cents kWh. Du and Parsons stated that their figure for new nukes included a “risk premium” on capital that applies to new nuclear construction loans in the US which adds considerably to the cost. I.e., if this “risk premium” were removed, new nuclear power would cost 6.6 cents kWh.
The risk premium applies because no other industry faces the prospect of political and hence regulatory instability caused by anti nuclear protestors or a sudden change in public opinion caused by a nuclear accident anywhere in the world, which was seen most famously when after Chernobyl the Shoreham plant in NY state was completed at a cost of $6 billion, then thrown away without generating a single commercial kilowatt because politicians lost their nerve after seeing 200,000 protestors show up all demanding the plant not be allowed to operate.
The advantage I see in using the MIT study, and the Du and Parsons study it defers to on cost, other than the fact that it is top quality, is that the MIT study has been legitimized in debate by Amory Lovins and Al Gore among others. These anti nukes love to cherry pick statements from the MIT study such as the one Gore picked for his anti nuclear chapter in Our Choice – “…nuclear power faces stagnation and decline”, or as Lovins does when he states that MIT found that new nuclear power is not competitive. Gore even certifies the authors of the MIT report by calling them “the experts” on nuclear in Our Choice.
So, in plain English, what the MIT report says is that if a modest carbon price is applied to the emissions of fossil fuel generating plants, new nuclear power plants are the baseload electricity generators of choice just on the basis of cost. And if the political climate changed in favor of nuclear power as could be expected as it dawns on more people that the wastes of fossil fuels are the horror that many were duped into believing the wastes from nuclear power were, the “risk premium” on capital would be eliminated which would make nuclear even more competitive.”
http://nuclearfissionary.com/2010/04/02/comparing-energy-costs-of-nuclear-coal-gas-wind-and-solar/
Charles rants:
“Those damned Americans! First they create the conditions that result in an attack on the World Trade Center, and now they’re forcing the Chinese to pollute!
And don’t get me started on that herd of slackjaws in the Senate who were so spineless that 97 percent of them would not vote for the Kyoto Treaty. And even though the Party of Progress still controls the Senate, it still won’t get serious about saving the planet!
If only we could get the media and the academy to break the silence about AGW and sound the tocsin! If only the media moguls and the university deans would stop their conspiracy of silence so that the truth about AGW could somehow slip out!”
Is there anything useful here? Because I’m not seeing it… I didn’t say the Americans are forcing the Chinese to pollute, but giving them cover to build a coal plant every month without plans to sequester carbon. India is doing the same. And I do not disagree that liberals are much better than conservatives on AGW, but they are a little better. It was the more liberal judges, afterall, on the Supreme Court that said that the FDA had the power to regulate greenhouse gases, while the conservatives argued (unsuccessfully) otherwise. The truth of AGW has slipped out, but people can easiliy avoid the consequences by maintaining denial. We just saw thousands of people convince themselves that they are still right although their claims that the end of the world was to come last weekend. The ability to rationalize is unbelievably strong amongst the unscientific.
BrianE, a few things here:
1. even if you use nukes, you still need combined cycle gas for peaking capacity, so they are complementary. If you are talking about baseload comparisons, then you ought to specify that.
2. you don’t mention gas prices when you cite the ’09 study, which is odd considering the fact that low gas prices are causing utilities to change their nuclear investment plans, independent of the pernicious environmentalist movement thatyou cite as the key driver. I just met with Progress Energy last week, and they didn’t mention the factor you highlight at all in the analysis.
3. there are a lot of liberals who are in favor of developing more nuclear power plants to address AGW, just not on fault lines, where two in CA and a few others now sit. I hope we can call that prudence rather than zealotry, considering what went down in Japan.
As usual, Prof. Martel must step in to edit abc’s mess:
—AGW has been proven by consensus. Anybody who contends against AGW is unscientific, including scientists who dispute it.
—Anybody who is unscientific is like the fools who believe last week’s end of the world nonsense.
—If you dispute my credentials on this topic, I remind you that I am on a first-name basis with one of the world’s most informed AGW proponents at Livermore Lab. (I name drop, therefore I am qualified.) I cannot give you his name lest you unscientific cretins start leaving flaming bags of dog poop on his porch.
Danny Lemieux: Z, the entire world and the U.S. research establishment has been working furiously on alternatives to fossil fuels since the 1960s without success.
The U.S. has been inconsistent and haphazard in their efforts. Indeed, as soon as Reagan came into office, his administration halved spending on conservation and alternative energy research.
Danny Lemieux: It’s a fallacy to assume that you can come up with major technical innovations just by throwing money at them.
That’s correct. Industry can’t make the long-term investments required. It requires national investment based on good science.
Danny Lemieux: Not according to Bat Y’eor, Oriana Fallaci, Bruce Bawer, Geert Wilders and many, many others with boots on the ground.
A political commentator, a journalist a literary critic and a politician? Okay, let’s look at the links. The first is a biography, including the quote “sons of Allah breed like rats.” The second is a mention of a book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, with an unsupported restatement of the claim. The third concerns the right to publicly criticize Islam, which is tangential. We could just as easily cite an historian of international relations that says the use of the term “Eurabia” is alarmist.
The Muslim population is only about 3% of the population of the European Union, 5% across Europe. Nor do Muslims represent a monolithic bloc. Why do you accept what appears to be anti-Muslim scaremongering as valid scholarship?
abc…I’m very aware of the advantage of natural gas that you mention; also, nat gas can be used with highly-efficient combined-cycle turbines, whereas coal cannot.
However, if the low cost of nat gas drives a lot of demand in this direction, which it is indeed doing, and if nat gas prices wind up going way up a few years from now because of the supply/demand balance, a lot of people that built gas-fired power plants are going to wish they had done something different. Furthermore, nat gas vehicles would become a *lot* less economically attractive.
The key point is that there are more viable alternatives for electricity generation than there are for transportation.
Danny, don’t embarrass Zach by pointing out that Ronald Reagan left office 22 frickin’ years ago. Surely there has been some research since?
“A political commentator, a journalist a literary critic and a politician?”
Danny, add those professions to the list of non-Zach-approved commentators or experts on the Religion of Peace.
David Foster, you sound like Boone Pickens. But still, you’ve ignored the higher greenhouse gas emissions associated with coal.
abc, I didn’t think nuclear was intended to load-follow.
We have the ability to change the system by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, since the physics behind emissions and warming are not seriously disputed and certainly well understood.
I love it when ABC responds with sweeping statements on subject of which he/she know aught. OK, ABC, explain to us, if you will:
1) what percentage of total greenhouse gases is CO2.
2) what percentage of CO2 is man-made.
3) and what percentage of that man-made CO2 can reasonably be expected to be controlled by mankind.
tick, tock, tick, tock….
Charles continues his bad habit of putting words in my mouth:
I said, “most serious people are concerned about AGW” I also produced scientific literature studies to back up the comment. This is very different than what you said I said, namely that anyone who disagrees with AGW is unscientific. Most are, but not all. As the studies have shown, about 3% of the scientfic research is inconclusive or skeptical.
I said that it is not surprising that unscientific people can disregard facts that have long ago slipped out, given that we have seen people rationalize even more ridiculous things like their obviously wrong prediction that the world would end this past weekend. That hardly means that all unscientific people are rationalizing that much, but many likely could do so.
I have met with the head of research in this area at Livermore. What of it? I am not relying exclusively on him to make the point. What I’ve stated is fact-based. If you disagree, then rebut the facts. Otherwise, stop misquoting what I have been saying. It won’t help you win the argument.
And I should add, we need to develop every last drop of hydro power available– the only truly practical renewable resource out there, and I’m not talking about those piddling low head projects that California seems to be in love with. (Not that I would have a problem with low-head projects either).
Danny Lemieux: Climate change is real. It’s been going on since the time of creation.
The statement from the National Academies of Science says quite a bit more than that.
http://www.nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
Danny Lemieux: Electric cars aren’t a solution– all you’re doing is transfering the source of the CO2,
They can be part of the solution, because the energy chain is much more efficient for electric than gasoline. For instance, internal combustion engines are only 15% efficient, while electric cars are about 65% efficient, including losses during battery charging.
Danny Lemieux: Nuclear technology is a mature industry, proven to be reliable and safe.
Safety is an open question in light of the problems in Japan. Having to evacuate hundreds of square miles of prime real estate is an external cost not built into the ordinary price of operation. However, the technical problem do seem surmountable. The problem has always been hubris within the nuclear industry.
Danny Lemieux: We’re merely exporting our pollution to China, and if you accept the premise of AGW, it’s mind boggling how their obstructionism is damaging to their own cause.
The Chinese are certainly aware of the problem. They just think they should be able to dump as much per capita as the Americans have.
spiff580: It has all become so politicized I have no idea who to believe anymore.
Anthropogenic climate change is a scientific question, not a political one. There is still a great deal of uncertainty as to the exact trajectory of climate change, but that it is occurring is no longer in serious dispute in the scientific community.
ABC rolls out a well-worn meme: “Danny, the Oregon Petition includes a lot of scientists who are not experts in climate. Just because an entymologist or botanist or even a linguist doesn’t believe in AGW doesn’t mean his is a qualified position. The citations I left are peer-reviewed studies of the scientific literature, while your petition is nothing of the sort. You brought a knife to a gun fight…”
And here is where you show us that you really don’t understand science. Let’s take your examples – “entomologists” (please do spell checks, ABC) study insects, which are a very major source of CO2 emissions. A botanist, that studies plants, would be able to explain the role of plants in CO2 cycles…including the fact that when the world gets warmer, plant and animal life expands and exudes more CO2 into the atmosphere). Linguists are not scientists.
Your examples are bad. If you insist on this line of reasoning, of course, we could ask how a railroad engineer ended up leading the U.N.’s IPCC project and how on earth somebody like Al Gore could have any credibility whatsoever on this subject.
But more to the point, scientists…all scientists…are supposed to understand the scientific process, scientific methodology, have a basic understanding of how complex life and climate processes are, understand statistical error and variation and know that one does not confuse hypothesis and theories with fact and, most importantly, that science does not progress by “consensus”.
Here’s a town that has the proper perspective– the high school mascot is a nuclear mushroom cloud.
http://www.richlandbombers.org/
Danny, only the third question is relevant. If you don’t know the answers to 1 and 2, then you don’t know enough to comment on the issue at all. On the third question, the answer is that we need to shift to electric cars and nuclear electricity production, which would reduce our emissions dramatically. About half of our CO2 emissions could be eliminated by phasing out fossil fuels or equipping them with carbon sequestration in order to supply clean energy to the transportation and electricity generation sectors.
As for questions 1 and 2, you might look at the following:
http://skepticalscience.com/co2-warming-35-percent.htm
http://skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate.htm
http://skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
Z riffs through history: “The U.S. has been inconsistent and haphazard in their efforts. Indeed, as soon as Reagan came into office, his administration halved spending on conservation and alternative energy research.”
And what have private industry and other world research centers done since? I note that you forgot to mention that DOE research on alternate energy development shot up during both Bush Administrations but dropped dramatically during the Clinton Administration.
But, you knew that, of course.
“Anthropogenic climate change is a scientific question, not a political one. There is still a great deal of uncertainty as to the exact trajectory of climate change, but that it is occurring is no longer in serious dispute in the scientific community.”
Note the semantic sleight of hand: AGW is now AGCC. The warming has been disproved by 13 staright years of cooling, so the PC nomenclature has been moved from “warming” to “change.”
Danny must be losing the argument, since he is quibbling about spelling again. Scientific American analyzed the signatories and found some interesting things:
“Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community…” (see: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/05/oregonpetition.php)
Danny, I understand that science doesn’t operate by popular vote, but when the sources you cite are fraudulent or grossly overstated, and their attacks on the consensus are not landing any lasting problems with the research, you do have to ask yourself if there really is anything that science could produce on the issue that would cause you to change your mind. And, if not, then how can your view be considered rational?
Charles, please show support for the claim that we’ve had 13 straight years of cooling. That is not the consensus view, nor what is born out by the temperature record.
BrianE, nuclear generation cannot be used for peaking. That portion of capacity must remain fossil based and hopefully rely upon carbon sequestration.
abc, I never rant. I poke fun at the Margaret Dumonts of the world, who in their bleak cluelessness cannot ever see how grim and pedantic they appear to people who have a sense of humor.
(My friend, the Chancellor of the University of Phoenix, agrees with my take on this. So does my sister-in-law, who cleans house for Al Gore. Malia Ann is on restriction for a few days, so I haven’t heard from her lately, but I’m sure she’d concur with me.)
Well I disagree that they have provided the evidence to change it from a theory to a law. I’m skeptical it even qualifies as a hypothesis at this time. But I am skeptical about everything though. The issue is too politicized and too many people have a vested interest on both sides to discuss this as rational human beings.
But my point to you is that there are not two separate climates. If man does affect the climate it is only one part of the system; not a separate part.
I’m no expert but I do try to stay on top of these sorts of debates since they do affect my real world job on some level. All I can give you is what I have observed. I have worked with and around NOAA climatologists and meteorologists. And among the ones I worked with there was not a consensus.
Like the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), NOAA’s official stance is that it is real and a problem, but my perception of that reality from behind the scenes is it had to do more with political expediency and PR rather than science. For example: DWR had to develop a plan to address climate change because enough voters believed in it that politicians and elected leaders want and expect the agency to address it. The funny thing is DWR always had a plan to deal with climate change in the form of flood emergency, drought and water supply plans.
A 0.5 Celsius change in temperature is not unusual when one considers how long the earth has been around. We have only been directly tracking temperatures for about 100-years. Accurately is a tough to judge since the conditions around many of the stations utilized have changed (i.e. temperature effect of urbanization around the station). Yes I realize that is only one part of the whole thing…but it is one inherent flaw or problem with the data that is not so easy to deal with.
I don’t think the physics behind the system is understood as well as you think either… it is too complicated and there is too much we still don’t know to make that sort of assertion. When you have a bunch of unknowns you have to make assumptions… the more educated assumptions you make the harder and harder it is to say your model/equation is accurate.
Oh I believe they believe they can disentangle something so complicated as earth’s climate… just like the engineers who designed the Titanic believed it was unsinkable. My point here this sort of arrogance is not uncommon. What I worry about is the scientists have developed a conclusion and are massaging the science to support their conclusion rather than using science to develop a conclusion.
I rather enjoyed Michael Crichton’s speech about this subject:
http://www.s8int.com/crichton.html
Read it …it is interesting.
Danny Lemieux: And here is where you show us that you really don’t understand science. Let’s take your examples – “entomologists” (please do spell checks, ABC) study insects, which are a very major source of CO2 emissions. A botanist, that studies plants, would be able to explain the role of plants in CO2 cycles…including the fact that when the world gets warmer, plant and animal life expands and exudes more CO2 into the atmosphere). Linguists are not scientists.
Entomologists and botanists may notice historically anomalous changes in biological distributions, but they probably wouldn’t be able to determine the causes. Nevertheless, it represents a data-point, and any theory of climate change would have to be consistent with this data-point.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
Danny Lemieux: Your examples are bad. If you insist on this line of reasoning, of course, we could ask how a railroad engineer ended up leading the U.N.’s IPCC project and how on earth somebody like Al Gore could have any credibility whatsoever on this subject.
Rajendra K. Pachauri has a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Economics. He has done scientific work in the economics and environmental effects of energy development, as well as extensive administrative experience. Al Gore is not a scientist, and relies upon scientists to inform his policy advocacy.
Danny Lemieux: But more to the point, scientists…all scientists…are supposed to understand the scientific process, scientific methodology, have a basic understanding of how complex life and climate processes are, understand statistical error and variation and know that one does not confuse hypothesis and theories with fact and, most importantly, that science does not progress by “consensus”.
And by that process scientists have reached a strong conclusion that humans are affecting the climate. No one has provided any significant evidence to undermine this conclusion.
It is a scientific and political discussion. They are interconnected and intertwined.
spiff: “Oh I believe they believe they can disentangle something so complicated as earth’s climate… just like the engineers who designed the Titanic believed it was unsinkable. My point here this sort of arrogance is not uncommon….”
Why is it arrogance when scientists and engineers build the Titanic or build climate change models, but then they are heroes when they develop airplanes, cancer medicines and cell phones? All of this is part of the same process. In fact, the models and modelers at Livermore also work on nuclear weapons, but I guess the math that goes into bombmaking is different even if it’s actually the same…
And to repeat, they can disentangle the natural factors from the man-made ones. That you don’t want to believe it has more to do with your point of view than the facts at issue. Can’t help you with that, I’m afraid.
Charles Martel: Note the semantic sleight of hand: AGW is now AGCC. The warming has been disproved by 13 staright years of cooling, so the PC nomenclature has been moved from “warming” to “change.”
That’s odd.
NOAA: “Capping off the warmest decade on record, the average global temperature in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year since reliable records began in 1880.”
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/image/2011/2010-ties-2005-as-the-warmest-year-on-record
1. even if you use nukes, you still need combined cycle gas for peaking capacity, so they are complementary. If you are talking about baseload comparisons, then you ought to specify that.- abc
I was just responding to this. It appeared you were confused. I didn’t think I needed to specify those were baseload. And it wouldn’t necessarily need to be Natural Gas for peak loads.
And now for something completely different:
News Flash– HUMANS MUST STOP BREATHING TO CONTROL GLOBAL WARMING
“ Now that scientists have reached a consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming, the next question is: How can we stop it? Can we just cut back on carbon, or do we need to go cold turkey? According to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, halfway measures won’t do the job. To stabilize our planet’s climate, we need to find ways to kick the carbon habit altogether.”
http://carnegiescience.edu/news/stabilizing_climate_requires_near_zero_carbon_emissions
spiff580: NOAA’s official stance is that it is real …
Not just NOAA, but every major scientific organization in the world.
http://www.nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
BrianE: News Flash– HUMANS MUST STOP BREATHING TO CONTROL GLOBAL WARMING
Respiration is (generally) carbon-neutral.
Charles Martel: Note the semantic sleight of hand: AGW is now AGCC. The warming has been disproved by 13 staright years of cooling, so the PC nomenclature has been moved from “warming” to “change.”
That’s odd.
NOAA: “Capping off the warmest decade on record, the average global temperature in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year since reliable records began in 1880.”
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/image/2011/2010-ties-2005-as-the-warmest-year-on-record
Zach, answer the first point. When you came to roost here, you went on and on about AGW. Now it’s climate change. Why the switch in nomenclature? Isn’t AGW a strong enough, reliable enough term?
“Why is it arrogance when scientists and engineers build the Titanic or build climate change models, but then they are heroes when they develop airplanes, cancer medicines and cell phones? All of this is part of the same process.”
Could it possibly be because your latter three examples actually work?
Actually Zachriel, if you accept the premise based on their modeling, humans will basically need to cease to exist. Unless you believe the world can magically quit using carbon based fuels. We can’t even go back to living in caves and burning wood since burning wood is not carbon neutral.
From the article I previously linked to:
This is the first peer-reviewed study to investigate what level of carbon dioxide emission would be needed to prevent further warming of our planet.
“Most scientific and policy discussions about avoiding climate change have centered on what emissions would be needed to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” says Caldeira. “But stabilizing greenhouse gases does not equate to a stable climate. We studied what emissions would be needed to stabilize climate in the foreseeable future.”
The scientists investigated how much climate changes as a result of each individual emission of carbon dioxide, and found that each increment of emission leads to another increment of warming. So, if we want to avoid additional warming, we need to avoid additional emissions.
With emissions set to zero in the simulations, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere slowly fell as carbon “sinks” such as the oceans and land vegetation absorbed the gas. Surprisingly, however, the model predicted that global temperatures would remain high for at least 500 years after carbon dioxide emissions ceased.
Charles Martel: When you came to roost here, you went on and on about AGW. Now it’s climate change. Why the switch in nomenclature? Isn’t AGW a strong enough, reliable enough term?
Though related, they refer to different things. Global warming refers to the increase in the Earth’s average temperature. Climate change refers to changes in the overall patterns of weather.
BrianE: Actually Zachriel, if you accept the premise based on their modeling, humans will basically need to cease to exist.
There is such a large lag factor, that even eliminating emissions will mean global warming to some extent. That doesn’t mean the problem is hopeless or can’t be mitigated.
Well, if you’d read the link I provided to the First Things post by an eminent physicist from Princeton, we could look a real numbers. Such as the pre-industrial CO2 level was 270 ppm. It is now 390 ppm. Now, the plant kingdom for which we depend on for food, requires 150 ppm just to grow at all and love higher levels. Greenhouse operators pump in over 1000 ppm to stimulate growth in their plants. There is evidence that California orange groves are 30% more productive than 150 years ago due to the increased CO2. Of course, there are upper limits on CO2 for animal life but the Navy uses 8000 ppm for submariners on 90 exposures while NASA uses 5000 ppm for 1000 day exposures. At our current rate of fossil fuel usage it would take 300 years to reach 1000 ppm, just below where plants would like it and that doesn’t account for the feedback of more plant usage due to stimulated growth.
All this, then there was a jump to conclusion that correlation of a 0.8 degree C rise in temperature happened during the last 150 yrs. Of course, the “scientists” seem to disregard solar activity changes, along with several other temperature drivers instead associating it all to a tiny trace gas in the atmosphere.
” At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.”
JKB: Well, if you’d read the link I provided to the First Things post by an eminent physicist from Princeton, we could look a real numbers.
Sorry, but Happer is just propagating the usual myths. If he really had a point, he would submit his ‘work’ to a climatology journal for peer review. He did send a petition to the Physical Society, and only a tiny percentage signed on, and it was rejected. He can’t even convince others within his own peer community, much less those with expertise in climate science.
Here are some quotes from Happer:
“This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,”
That sort of rhetorical excess has no place in a scientific discussion. The vast majority of climatologists are hard-working scientists. Even if they are wrong, they aren’t Hitler.
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”
That completely and utterly shows how confused Happer is. Breathing is (generally) carbon-neutral. The carbon you exhale as CO2 came from plants that fixed the carbon from the atmosphere.
Natural gas is going to run out. Or at least the production output won’t be able to keep up with demand.