The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming is now available at Amazon.com
Why has the world been unable to address global warming? Science policy expert Roger Pielke, Jr., says it’s not the fault of those who reject the Kyoto Protocol, but those who support it, and the magical thinking that the agreement represents.
In The Climate Fix, Pielke offers a way to repair climate policy, shifting the debate away from meaningless targets and toward a revolution in how the world’s economy is powered, while de-fanging the venomous politics surrounding the crisis. The debate on global warming has lost none of its power to polarize and provoke in a haze of partisan vitriol. The Climate Fix will bring something new to the discussions: a commonsense perspective and practical actions better than any offered so far.
Editorial Reviews via Amazon
From Publishers Weekly
Pielke (The Honest Broker) presents a smart and hard-nosed analysis of the politics and science of climate change and proposes a commonsense approach to climate policy. According to Pielke, the iron law of climate policy dictates that whenever environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other, economics always wins. Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success, he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an oblique approach supporting causes, such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than consequences, such as controversial schemes like cap-and-trade, is more likely to succeed.
Although some may protest on principle the suggestion that we accept the inevitability of energy growth, Pielke’s focus on adaptation to climate change refreshingly sidesteps the unending debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and opens up the possibility for effective action that places human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.
The book is available at Amazon.com and I think it is destined to be a best seller in the “Global Warming” category.
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Z says:
September 14, 2010 at 3:23 pm
E.M.Smith says:
September 14, 2010 at 3:50 am
Also incredibly wrong. Once you have a small colony in space, out of the gravity well, dropping materials in is almost free.
Only if your time is free. Your time is not free unless your food is free. If your food is free, why are you messing around with rocks?
Especially energetically. There is already in existence a project evaluation of taking a ‘nickel iron’ asteroid and shaping it into a triangle airfoils shape with solar heating, then deorbiting it.
First *find* your ‘nickel iron’ asteroid. There’s a lot of space that consists of…space. Then there’s a lot of space that consists of asteroids made from fairly worthless silica.
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That would be what most of us call prospecting. Yup, there are “useless” silica asteroids out there just like there are iron-nickel ones. You’ve already got a ton of earth crossing asteroids cataloged so send out a nice solar electric probe to find the one(s) you want to nab. Nudge it where you want to go with a gravity tractor and robotically process it in (lunar) orbit. I’m assuming we’d prefer to park the rocks either there or at one of the lagrange points rather than risk any multi-megaton accidents. Oh, and your time is close to free if food is your only cost because you don’t need people up there. Robots will do just fine and once the rock is close enough teleoperation becomes pretty straight forward.
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The biggest problem is the time it would take. F=d(mv)/dt You need a lot of “spare mass” to throw around in order to get the “useful” mass to the place you want in within a reasonable time-scale.
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Now expand that equation for the real answer:
F=d(mv)/dt=mdv/dt+vdm/dt
Yes, you can get your thrust by pushing a lot of mass at low energy (exhaust velocity) or you can push a little mass with high energy, i.e. specific impulse matters a lot. And since you’ve got some time you can afford low thrust electric options that are mass efficient. You want to de-orbit so gravity drag is your friend. Generally the most practical have exit velocities close to the desired delta-v’s so something like a CDEA or hall thruster is probably what you would want. On the other hand you’ve got all of this orbital energy you’re just dying to get rid of so why not drop a tether and use the earth’s magnetic field as a giant dynamo to power your thruster and go for some really high Ve’s?
No laws of physics are violated and until they are no other arguments about limits hold much water with me. GM’s favored negentropy isn’t violated either (much as I personally dislike the term and concept). At this point GM will invoke a hand waving economic argument just as he dismissed the viability of breeder reactors which have already been demonstrated although for various reasons, many political some economic, have not entered the mainstream. The fact remains that there is still plenty of energy here on earth, even more in the rest of the solar system, and more than enough mass with the right number of protons in it to meet our needs for an incredibly long time. The real practical limits to growth are the artificial constraints Ehrlich and GM would impose upon us.
And the lack of quality TV. Don’t forget the TV.
Chiefio,
Thanks for your link to the no-oil-shortage post – a very well researched article.
The abiotic theory is interesting, but one of the strongest arguments against is that at the depths where it is supposed to form, the temperatures are so high that the oil breaks down again. Not sure if it’s true, but that’s what some folks are saying.
Beware of anyone who writes a book, they’re speaking from their heart.
GM & Z & Lazy Teenager — whatta trio!
As for the asteroid thing, I’ve also seen suggestions that it be left in Earth orbit at some convenient altitude and mined there. Most of them are almost “pre-sorted” into elements, it seems, so the task is rather straightforward. And the precious metal by-products of a 1-mi. diameter rocky/metallic asteroid would likely match total terrestrial mining output to date. Current $$ value, about $1M/capita, for the planet. Of course, the prices would crash, but that’s another way of saying the resources would be plentiful.
According to the lowest band of the UN population projections, which has the virtue of always having been right so far, population will peak at ~8 bn by 2030. No problem.
As for the energy needed to maintain them (us) all in the manner to which they/we’d like to be accustomed: I hope, in less than a year (perhaps as little as ¼-½ a year) to be saying, “Tolja so!” The long-underfunded, but finally moving (since 2 yrs or so ago) project tracked at FocusFusion.org is on track to (perhaps) attain “scientific break-even” during 2010. That’s the biggie. Then comes a 2-5 year engineering/design period, followed by open licensing world-wide to manufacturers of prefab units, suitable for shipping/trucking anywhere, one per standard container.
The product will be a little 5MW generator, no radioactivity, no waste, 5¢/W capacity, output 0.1 – 0.25¢/kwh, which are about 1/20 of current best North American figures. Which will quickly render all renewable plant into economic roadkill, followed shortly by most conventional plant.
Tiny footprint (~50 sq. m.), and fueled by boron, of which there is enough on-planet to last till about when the sun goes ‘red giant’ in a billion years or two at 10X current electrical demand. Only a few hundred million years if you count 10X all current energy demands. 😉
The CO2 and energy shortage issues just go away.
And yes, it will be excellent for spaceflight, too.
E.M.Smith says:
September 14, 2010 at 8:58 pm
I cover peak oil somewhat in the “no shortage of energy” posting. The short form is that the Hubbert Curve is just a bell curve fit over the oil production data. Works well for a single field with a single technology. Not so well globally with long times for technology to change.
The advances in technology have ensured that the peak lasts longer, but instead of a symmetric drop on the other side, it’s a bit of a cliff.
The Cantell oil field in Mexico is a bit of a poster child for that.
They also miss that what is a resource changes with price and changes with technology. So all the Trillions of bbl of oil in tar sands and shales were not “oil” until the price when over about $35 /bbl for good sands and $100 / bbl for shales.
For the seventh time (or so) it’s not about reserves, it’s about *production*. Hubbert’s peak is not a reserve peak, it’s a *production* peak. US oil field peaked in production in the early 70’s – all over the price changes and technology changes have not changed that. The peak in production since the early 70’s has remained – the early 70’s.
@Z : OK, you ‘got me’. I was sloppy. I ought to have spent even MORE time listing that particular asteroid types you have to get together to melt in space to make the particular alloy you want and that chromium is ‘part of the mix’ too.
There are only two details for stainless steel >10% chromium (or else it’s not stainless) and iron (or else it won’t be steel) – everything else is fluff. Nickel doesn’t matter – it’s fluff like the rest. Having said that, I’ve never been able to find how little iron could be in something and still be called steel.
But ‘nickel-iron’ is what folks are used to hearing, so I just truncated at that. But, just to satisfy you and for painful completion:
IIIF Group
This small group has a broad variety of structural classes from find to broadest (Of – Ogg.) They differ from other meteorites in having low nickel content and a unique trace element distribution. They have high amounts of chromium, and low amounts of germanium, cobalt, and phosphorus. Troilite and Schreibersite are generally absent. This is considered to be evidence that this group originated in the core of a small, differentiated asteroid.
High amounts of a trace element does not mean it exceeds 10% of the overall composition. It means it will be several hundred parts per miliion. It needs to exceed 10% if you want to call stainless steel.
You will also note that these alloys (that the common man would call stainless steel given their uses) are mostly made of Nickel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconel
Would these be technologically inclined common men? I’m obviously not technologically inclined. For me stainless steel has chromium in it (>10%). Nickel just makes it hyper-allogenic.
Oh, and the de-orbit plan has an atmospheric skip phase, then a high heat phase like the shuttle. It ‘lands’ in water so there is no crater.
Actually, that makes it worse. Dust clouds aren’t too bad on a global scale, a bit of rain and they’re gone. Walls of water? You’re going to have to put out “No Swimming” signs on many thousands of miles of beach. Or “Run like crazy!” signs. Your choice.
And since I’ve been drug back to this: Look up transfer orbits. Some orbits are ‘free’ energetically. Others have net energy gain.
“Free” is only net energy. Unfortunately entropy means there will be a cost to those. It’s the unfortunate thing of You can’t win. You can’t break even (unless at 0K which is impossible) and you can’t get out of the game
Free energy is nice, unless that free energy consists of a 30m wall of water travelling several thousand miles. That’s not so nice.
Z says: So why do they study money?
Because it’s so SHINY!!! Unlike paper currencies… Oooohhh, the Shiny Thing!!!
😉
Gold and other precious metals up nicely today as the world wakes up to their paper currencies not really being “money” as money has “store of value” in the definition and currency only has “medium of exchange”…
OK, let me be more specific, why do economists study what *they* consider money, when it is neither scarce, nor has alternative uses (beyond poor non-absorbent toilet paper).
And if I’ve closed all my HTML tags correctly, I’ll be amazed…
Tsk Tsk says:
September 14, 2010 at 9:53 pm
That would be what most of us call prospecting. Yup, there are “useless” silica asteroids out there just like there are iron-nickel ones. You’ve already got a ton of earth crossing asteroids cataloged
Just to clarify this, they don’t cross the Earth (or we’d be running around like headless chickens clucking about the End Of The World) they cross (within a certain distance at least) Earth’s orbit.
Earth’s orbit is a mighty big place. I wouldn’t like to walk it.
so send out a nice solar electric probe to find the one(s) you want to nab. Nudge it where you want to go with a gravity tractor and robotically process it in (lunar) orbit.
Right. So we have a large multi-million ton rock that flies by the Earth’s orbit (at some random point) at many thousands of miles per hour, and we’re just going to move it to lunar orbit? With a solar electric probe? That’s a one that uses solar cells right? Solar cells which produce power measured in watts? To push several million tons of rock?
Let’s assume kindly that this process will take a decade. During that time, the lunar orbit will have flown around the solar system about 10 times, and the rock we’re moving will have flown around a bit too. Given that a 3 body system is non-deterministic, how are you going to even have the faintest idea where your lump of rock is going to end up given you’re sending it around 5 or 6 bodies a number of times?
I’m assuming we’d prefer to park the rocks either there or at one of the lagrange points rather than risk any multi-megaton accidents.
Risk them? They would be virtually inevitable if only we could move them. They’re inevitable even when we can’t…
Now expand that equation for the real answer:
F=d(mv)/dt=mdv/dt+vdm/dt
Yes, you can get your thrust by pushing a lot of mass at low energy (exhaust velocity) or you can push a little mass with high energy, i.e. specific impulse matters a lot. And since you’ve got some time you can afford low thrust electric options that are mass efficient.
That was one of the original specifications – a reasonable time. If we had all the time in the world, we could just paint a giant bullseye in the desert somewhere with “Come to Momma” written beneath it.
And wait.
You want to de-orbit so gravity drag is your friend.
They are orbiting the sun, not the earth. De-orbiting them would merely make them crispy on both sides before they disappeared without trace. You want them to stop their change in altitude (sun relative) and change their speed (earth relative). That’s going to require force (and hence thrust) like it’s going out of fashion.
With solar cells. And a bottle of gas measured in kilograms.
Generally the most practical have exit velocities close to the desired delta-v’s so something like a CDEA or hall thruster is probably what you would want. On the other hand you’ve got all of this orbital energy you’re just dying to get rid of so why not drop a tether and use the earth’s magnetic field as a giant dynamo to power your thruster and go for some really high Ve’s?
Because it probably won’t even come close to the Earth? Earth crossers cross Earth’s orbit. The Earth is more than likely nowhere even close when that happens. Even if it is, it won’t be when it happens again.
Though it is feasible (though highly unlikely) that it will be at the right place at the right time. This is known as “Come to Momma!” time.
Oh dear, I’ve mispeeled Cantrell…
Just to clarify this, they don’t cross the Earth (or we’d be running around like headless chickens clucking about the End Of The World) they cross (within a certain distance at least) Earth’s orbit.
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Pedantic and it is common usage to simply say earth crossing asteroids or earth crossers.
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Earth’s orbit is a mighty big place. I wouldn’t like to walk it.
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Your point? Do you mean that I can never intersect the orbit at the same time as the earth itself? Oh, this is going to be a fun exchange…
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so send out a nice solar electric probe to find the one(s) you want to nab. Nudge it where you want to go with a gravity tractor and robotically process it in (lunar) orbit.
Right. So we have a large multi-million ton rock that flies by the Earth’s orbit (at some random point)
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Orbits are random? Oooo, I can be pedantic too. Google MPEC.
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at many thousands of miles per hour, and we’re just going to move it to lunar orbit? With a solar electric probe? That’s a one that uses solar cells right? Solar cells which produce power measured in watts? To push several million tons of rock?
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Umm, re-read what I wrote. You find the rocks you want with the cheap probe, then you use a gravity tractor to nudge it to where you want. I never specified the power source, but since you asked nicely it would be fission. Size to taste.
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Let’s assume kindly that this process will take a decade.
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Let’s, but why? If I can grab a rock that has more platinum/iridium/gold etc. than has been mined in the history of humanity and I need those resources why would I limit myself to 10 years? 20, 30, possibly more would be viable depending on the cost of the mission.
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During that time, the lunar orbit will have flown around the solar system about 10 times, and the rock we’re moving will have flown around a bit too. Given that a 3 body system is non-deterministic, how are you going to even have the faintest idea where your lump of rock is going to end up given you’re sending it around 5 or 6 bodies a number of times?
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You’re joking right? Moon, sun and earth. There’s a 3 body problem which must be non-deterministic and therefore no stable orbits exist. Good thing it’s a cloudy night tonight and I can’t see the moon. You must be right!
You do understand just how many probes we’ve sent to the outer planets with multiple close passes to multiple bodes don’t you? Orbital mechanics is a very well understood discipline. Again, google MPEC. Here, I’ll save you the time:
http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/crt.htm#news
How on earth do they get those ephemerides?
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You want to de-orbit so gravity drag is your friend.
They are orbiting the sun, not the earth. De-orbiting them would merely make them crispy on both sides before they disappeared without trace. You want them to stop their change in altitude (sun relative) and change their speed (earth relative). That’s going to require force (and hence thrust) like it’s going out of fashion.
With solar cells. And a bottle of gas measured in kilograms.
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Now you’re just being intentionally dense. Everything is orbiting the sun by your straw dog argument. You do understand that the rock does not have to actually impact the earth to be useful, don’t you? Let me simplify. Step 1: capture to earth orbit or lunar orbit or a lagrange point to taste. Step 2 bring refined material down to earth. I was describing the second step with the de-orbit comment and again don’t assume that I have to use solar electric. I’m sticking with electric propulsion (Note that you can use electric without the solar. Gosh!) because you’re so concerned about mass fraction. If you’re willing to tolerate lower specific impulses then there are even more options. If the process begins in lunar orbit or a lagrange point then I probably need to change step 2 to include a transfer vehicle to earth orbit and move the previous step 2 to step 3.
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Because it probably won’t even come close to the Earth? Earth crossers cross Earth’s orbit. The Earth is more than likely nowhere even close when that happens. Even if it is, it won’t be when it happens again.
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Which is why you deliberately nudge the orbit of the rock to where it will be captured. Then you start refining it.
Oh dear, did you just write “earth crossers?” I think you did…
Tsk, tsk;
Thanks for the fisking job. Don’t have the patience once I see that kind of superficial condescending mash-moosh of half-accuracies. I no longer have faith in the reception and comprehension capacity of anyone who’s put so much ego into a post.
Well, what a surprise. My simple reminder that the greenhouse gas is water vapour 93% has been either unnoticed or ignored-thankfully not denied-we don’t need denialists. Perhaps the CO2 story has been so thoroughly implanted in our mid-brain that it prevents cortical function and has made common sense an uncommon commodity. Asteroid trapping is more fun-you just need a big glove. Old North Queensland Doctor
Geoffery;
You were preaching to the choir, here.
For an interesting water-centric analysis of energy transport through “heat-pipe-like” mechanisms to and beyond the cloud-tops, and the H2O blackbody dumping of radiant energy to space, have a look at Robert Clemenzi’s work here:
http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/index.html
An excellent paper of his his this:
http://qs.mc-computing.com//Global_Warming/EPA_Comments/TheGreenhouseEffect.doc
Tsk Tsk:
… NASA has already done a Sample Return.
It may have been Small, but it got back because, without Friction, weather, etc. Space is Ultimately Predictable.
Everything you said “felt” right because of your Experience. On air-filled Earth.
So it takes 10 years. I hear we use Tax Money for Schools.
How many years is that ? Platinum would be:
~$ 200 B/year in U.S. advantages because it replaces enough oil World-Wide to break OPEC. A Platinum Program would be about @ur momisugly$25 B/year.
PS: I forgot Platinum in my suggestions cheap Platinum should go in every engine reduces the losses ~ 40%.
And cheap Platinum would near eliminate Soot (except Forest-burning).
100 mpg is Assured (50 for an SUV).
… in fact platinum “wash” spark plugs, with just Micrograms of Pl, already add 3+ % to mpg.
It could be done Today – – but Tomorrow, your new car will be “totalled” as Thieves rip apart the engine to get the UNTRACABLE Platinum out of the cylinders. The Price Must come down.