Fusion Report 13 June 008

Yes, you’re right, I meant nuclear fusion … I was in a hurry.

50 years is what I meant by long term. Beyond the small scale, and near term adoption of alternative fuels, the long term future fuel for humans will have to be nuclear fusion.

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stas peterson (17:43:16) :

I guess that explains why whenever I drive by a set of windmills I see only about 10% of them spinning.

MikeEE

Did I miss someone addressing TD (20:48:09)’s possibility of a modern day “coal powered” “steam” train. Isn’t the technology available or close to available to extract fuel from coal to be used by diesels?

My post had a few phrases deleted in the spell check. Here it is corrected. Sorry

To MikeEE

You have the right instincts but, the average time a windmill operated based on the UK experience with some 2000 windmills, turns out to be 24.1% as productive up time. If the wind is too low, 33 mph, it must be shut down. Even worse the life expectancy of a windmill is not anywhere near the 40-60 years of a fossil or nuclear plant. The capital budget must plan for it to be replaced in ONLY 9 years. The average windmill wears out sitting high up on a pole and difficult to service and maintain. Once again the UK experience is that windmills are near worn out, and must be rebuilt in 9 years, per the UK experience. Frequently it is cheaper to simply replace it with a new unit.

Since it is variable in output when running, as well as being intermittent opperating at all, you must have an equal amount of hot spinning reserve ready to pick up instantaneous demand and to stabilize the grids from going into oscillation, every moment, when wind represent more than 20% of the of potential generation. Oscillations will lead to safety trips and blackouts.

On top of that for when the wind is not available at all, 75.9% of the time, standby cold reserves like pumped hydro equal to some multiple of wind capacity must be available. Finding hydro sites is tough to do, and seldom can be found to represent as much as 20% of the grid. Most such installations are only a few percent of load. So the actual cost of a wind installation is also the pumped hydro, and the spinning reserve for grid stabilization. This is 5 to 6 times the capital cost of the windmill itself.

You have the right instincts but, the average time a windmill operated based on the UK experience with some 2000 windmills, turns out to be 24.1 up time. If the wind is too low 33 mph, it must be shut down. Even worse the life expectancy of a windmill is not anywhere near the 40-60 years of a fossil or nuclear plant. The capital budget must be replaced in ONLY 9 years. The average windmill wears out sitting high up on a pole and difficult to service and maintain. Once again the UK experience is that windmills near worn out and must be rebuilt in 9 years. Frequently it is cheaper to simply replace it with a new unit.

Since it is variable as well as being intermittent you must have an equal amount of hot spinning reserve ready to pick up demand and to stabilize the grids from going into oscillation, every moment, when wind represent more than 20% of the of potential generation. Oscillations will lead to safety trips and blackouts.

On top of that for when the wind is not available standby cold reserves like pumped hydro equal to some multiple of wind capacity must be available. Finding hydro sites is tough to do, and seldom cna be found to represent as much as 20% of the grid, Most such installations are only a few percent of load. So the actual cost of a wind installation is also the pumped hydro, and the spinning reserve for grid stabilization. This is 5 to 6 times the capital cost of the windmill itself.

You can find the article here, and make sure to read the cited articles for a more thorough analysis: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7074/full/439256a.html

REPLY: ummm, Zeke that link to nature is pretty much useless, since it is behind their “pay us again to read the research that you’ve already paid for via your taxes” scam. I stopped linking anything to Nature long ago because of their refusal to allow taxpayer funded research to be openly read with paying them first.

I view it as a form of extortion.

“Finally, regarding the scare tactics of the ocean currents being “shut down” for any reason, the effect of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics was pointed out because it requires ocean currents, in order to transfer heat energy from warmer to cooler locations.”

However, the Thermohaline Circulation is driven by changes in water density caused by variations in both heat and salt content of water (hence the name: Thermo(heat)-haline(salt). The evaporation of ocean water in the North Atlantic increases the salinity of the water as well as cooling it, both actions increasing the density of water at the surface, and the formation of sea ice further increases the salinity. A massive freshwater influx, like when lake Agassiz burst through an ice-dam into the northern Atlantic during the Younger Dryas, would dramatically change the density of water in the North Atlantic, reducing the volume of water descending the surface and slowing the THC. There is an extensive body of research on this subject in Science, Nature, PNAS, and other prestigious journals. I’d be a tad careful before throwing around ad-homs about pseudo-science.

What -is- pseudo-science, however, is the arguement that current warming could trigger an ice age in Europe. This, as you may recall, was the topic of the post I initially linked that you seem to have taken issue with.

As I explained, I am not arguing, nor will I argue with someone who has an agenda. I have simply pointed out that your blog consists of advocacy of a predetermined position. To label meteorologists “naysayers” simply because the majority of them are skeptical of the catastrophic AGW hypothesis, is proof enough for some of us that you have made your mind up, and empirical facts will not change it.

For a recap of the current situation, see the excellent post above by Dee Norris (07:15:50), which effectively deconstructs the ‘catastrophic global warming’ scare tactics that we see every day in the media.

Nor will I argue with your crony, as you suggest. My comments were intended to point out the media agenda, and to present another side of the catastrophic global warming/AGW claim, for the consideration of more neutral readers.

Finally, regarding the scare tactics of the ocean currents being “shut down” for any reason, the effect of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics was pointed out because it requires ocean currents, in order to transfer heat energy from warmer to cooler locations.

If not for ocean currents transferring heat from warmer to cooler areas, the ocean could be frozen solid at temperate latitudes, and boiling at the equator. Any claim that ocean currents could “shut down,” as you state, are based only on pseudo-science, for the purpose of scaring the public.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

~~ H. L. Mencken

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-thorium-the-answer-to-our-energy-crisis-428279.html

Check it out if you haven’t done so before

If you had taken the time to read the post I linked, it discussed why it is highly unlikely that current warming could result in a THC shutdown. It is possible that faster Greenland melting could slow down the circulation, though and cooling caused by this would be more than offset by the continued warming trend. To truly shut down the THC would require an order of magnitude larger freshwater influx than anything predicted.

I also quite confident that the law of thermodynamics is firmly on my side of the debate. We have good evidence that the THC has indeed shut down in the past, most dramatically as a result of the abrupt release of the massive inland freshwater lake Agassiz into the northern Atlantic during the Younger Dryas. Wally Broeker over at Columbia did much of the pioneering work on this subject, and I’d direct you to his new book or a recent Science article (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5625/1519) for more information.

I’m sorry if you take offense at the opinions of one of our contributors regarding the propensity toward climate skepticism from broadcast meteorologists. I’d suggest emailing him if you wish to argue about his article.

Finally, I do not know nor have ever met anyone associated with the Grantham foundation, so I probably would not be the person to ask about getting James Hansen and Al Gore involved in a debate.

This is an sarcastic quote , cause I’m sure you know better.

1) the gravity on Mars is 38% of that on earth. So this would tend to hold less atmosphere anyway.

2) see 1) above.

When I was a young (and somewhat naive) Atmospheric Sciences undergrad, I trusted (sometimes incorrectly) all I was told from professors and text books.

Modern global warming theory is a house of cards resting on the mistaken premise that the activities of humanity are responsible for recent increase of global temperature (if there is indeed such an increase as described) and that models of the global climate are able to predict that if humanity continue these activities, we will significantly alter the Earth’s global climate to humanity’s detriment.

The global warmers then toss in all the ‘dire’ effects of any sort of warming (man-made or natural) to scare the populace into agreeing with them and their solutions. The average Jane & Joe is psychologically eco-terrorized with all the propaganda bombarded at them.

Most scientific progress it the slow accumulation of minor facts and theories until enough substance gathers and someone, in flash of inspiration, figures out a new grand theory. Usually several people have that flash as once and history remembers the one who published first (or published loudest).

Shifting through the propaganda spewed into the common mindset by media attention is usually about questioning each brick in the wall of global warming one at a time, identifying bad or outdated research, blatant falsehoods told in order to support the propaganda and promoting/analyzing new research that disproved the hysteria of global warming.

Case in point: The Warmers want Jane & Joe to believe the premise that global warming can trigger an ice age. The Waiho Loop moraine was used to support the claim that a shut-down in a ocean current caused a ‘world-wide’ mini-ice age and was due to global warming. There is now research that indicates this premise is false.

Eventually, knock out enough bricks and the entire structure comes down.

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It’s much more likely that coal to gas conversion plants will be built.

OT, I guess, but I remember reading somewhere that the reason the earth does not have a thick atmosphere like Venus is because of the Moon. Its gravitational attraction offsets that of the Earth enough to allow gas to escape into outer space.

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This must explain why Mars has such a thick atmosphere.

You really need to work on developing your ability to think critically about the things you read. Otherwise you will fall for any type of nice sounding nonsense.