Guest post by Thomas Fuller
Like mountain fruits enjoyed out of season and shipped long distance, there are climate pleasures I need to avoid, such as piling on with criticism of 10:10, Michael Mann, Joe Romm and my beloved late, great state of California.
It’s too easy and doesn’t get the job done. Summer is the silly season and we’re having a lovely fall in San Francisco.
It’s been a lovely fall in many parts of the world, and a less than lovely spring in many parts down South. But overall, be prepared for claims of the hottest month leading to the hottest year on record.
Let’s assume for the moment that it turns out that way (I think a sharp drop starting this month means we’ll miss that dubious distinction narrowly). What really should we think if this year is the warmest on record? And if, as I strongly suspect, next year is dramatically cooler due to the confluence of La Nina and a shift in the PDO, what should we make of that?
I don’t know.
I assume this world will continue to warm slightly. I assume that we will not agree to cut our energy usage drastically. I assume we will not make a whole-scale conversion to wind, solar and biofuels.
I assume, then, that the voracious appetite for energy in the developing world will mostly be satisfied with coal, and that in 40 years we will be consuming more than three times as much energy as we do today–mostly generated by coal.
I personally consider that a grave problem for the world, no matter what it portends for global temperatures.
But if you consider what we have not done, perhaps we have no right to complain. And I’m not talking about Kyoto, Cap and Trade, blah-blah-blah.
What we have not done is enable nuclear power to be used as much as it should, due to fears of nuclear waste. What we have not done is push combined heat and power, due to their lack of lobbying strength. What we have not done is finance Waste to Energy plants, due to the pressing need for cash for, I don’t know, financing Facebook and American Idol. What we have not done is push for uprating our hydroelectric facilities, clear the way for pumped storage for a not-so-rainy day, or invest in other utility-level storage technologies.
The Green Consortium that has been yelling at us about climate change and energy has ignored all of the technologies that could make a difference. And skeptics have been too busy noting all of their errors, personal quirks and logical absurdities to notice that yes, people, we have an energy problem coming down the road.
As I’ve written here before, I believe forecasts of energy consumption by the DOE and the UN are far too low. If I’m right, and the world’s energy needs triple before 2050, the amount of coal we will burn to satisfy those needs will make skies the world over as grey as the skies over most of China’s cities today. Whatever it does to temperatures (and I do believe it will do something, warming regional temperatures and causing further misery in the developing world), the normal pollution and black carbon will amount to a problem for the world.
I’ll repeat the simple math: We used 500 quads last year. A quad is equivalent to 36 million tons of coal being burned. A straight line continuation of consumption trends puts us at 2,000 quads around the year 2030, and maybe 3,000 quads by 2075. That’s a lot of coal.
There are days when I am optimistic about our ability to prevent such a firestorm. This is not one of those days. I read the news today and saw the foolishness of the green movement, the correctness of the skeptical criticism, and sat down to write this feeling like we’re all missing the point.
Richard Lindzen and Anthony Watts, John Christy and Steve McIntyre, all bright, sincere and honest people, are correctly noting the defects of the warmist arguments. And the warmists can’t seem to string two sentences together without making a huge mistake. They haven’t done anything right in a year.
But we’re still going to be burning a heckuva lot of coal in 2030. It’s really not a good thing to look forward to. I intend to be here in 2030, a lot greyer and more irascible, I’m sure. But I don’t want the skies to be as grey as my hair.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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PhysicsWorld.com has several articles on nuclear power, one of which is this overview on the next generation of reactors:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/43870
KLA says:
October 8, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Eli Rabett says:
October 8, 2010 at 1:06 pm
FWIW, the issue with reprocessing is potential diversion to weapons which is why the US does not favor it….
Eli, that is just another one of the many urban myths that surround nuclear power.
Not one nation that posesses nuclear weapons has ever used reprocessed nuclear waste from power reactors as source material for bombs.
_______________________________________________
I beg your pardon Sir but the whole UK Magnox reactor programme was not only for producing civil electric power but to provide easily refined plutonium essentially for military use in atomic bombs. The reactors proved hugely successful as a civil power programme, but in an age of fission/fusion weapons the amount of plutonium produced turned out be a costly embarrassment.
Kindest Regards
While I do understand the exasperation displayed in this post, this situation is not of our making. It has its roots in Kyoto, where instead of working out technology transfers with developing countries so that they wouldn’t pollute the way we did, the emphasis was put on CO2 and its control.
Energy use is inexorably linked to prosperity, and this will continue until population growth stabilises, and that won’t happen until there is more prosperity in the developing and underdeveloped countries.
When there used to be brownouts in the West, there was a statistically significant rise in the number of births nine months later. What’s your average Ugandan to do when night falls, and he can’t even play tiddlywinks because he has no light? Couple that with limited access to contraception, and you get lots of kids who need to be fed, clothed, housed and educated, all requiring even more energy.
In many western countries, we’re not even growing enough children to keep population at the same level, so if we can elevate the poorer countries, we’ll get to a situation where population stabilises and we’ll be recycling things like housing and other consumables, and not needing as much energy growth. So in a sense, it’s in our own selfish interest to help these people raise their standard of living.
Just twelve years ago, oil was at $10 a barrel. At that price, it wasn’t worth trying to be efficient with it. Nor was it worth looking for more as that would only depress the price further. Two years ago, oil hit $145 a barrel. People started downsizing their cars and turning their lights off. There were huge oil finds in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil, among others, because now it was worth our while to look for it. Renewables also became viable, and we started looking at and discovering other alternatives like tar sands, oil and gas shale, methane clathrates, etc, etc, etc.
There is no shortage of energy, it is really a matter of what price we are willing to pay for it.
The real dichotomy is, is that here in the West we can afford the higher price, but the poorer countries are not going to be able to raise their standard of living such that they can stabilise their populations. If we can solve that problem, then it’s very likely that we will not need to expand our energy use to the levels you’ve projected.
What a perfect post, I wonder what nature has in store to cull us humans, what is going on is unsustainable and nature has a way of dealing with that, I worry about this, one thing, the China industry is fuelled by brown coal I think (except the vast amounts Obama sells to them from USA) I suggest we stop buying from China and India, that would help big time.
Anthony,
Thank you for your open venue, I cannot criticize your self stated values here in your own home.
At the same time, on the height of achievment, the course becomes more dependent on a long view . . . . . at the height of achievement philosophies, civilizations, businesses decline . . . . . thus the meaning of “the height of acheivement”. Can we re-invent ourselfs at the self defining moment of our success? Ahhhhh . . . . not so obvious.
Sincere good luck to you. Your achievement has been unquestionable.
John
Tom says: “What we have not done is finance Waste to Energy plants, due to the pressing need for cash for, I don’t know, financing Facebook and American Idol. ”
And a good bowl of salted porridge is enough to exist. But we like to eat pizza. That’s Pareto Optimality for you – we like to have some enjoyment in our lives rather than simply exisiting. It’s the poorest who will be forced closer to mere existence if you insist on imposing your cherished principles upon them.
You are free to spend to your heart’s desire on your dreams. No need to kick out at the masses with complaints around vague notions of collective failure.
Tom says: “What we have not done is … clear the way for pumped storage for a not-so-rainy day, or invest in other utility-level storage technologies.”
Large scale energy storage doesn’t simple store energy. It returns about 75% of the energy put in. Consider what that can do to total energy consumption. There is an economic case for storage – it’s not a free ride that we somehow seem to have missed.
Tom says: “And skeptics have been too busy noting all of their errors, personal quirks and logical absurdities to notice that yes, people, we have an energy problem coming down the road.”
Absurdities like it takes a hell of a lot of energy to bury CO2. Every three power stations with carbon capure and storage would consume enough “parasitic” power to account for a fourth whole power station.
You don’t think these things are worth talking about?
You are proving my point.
The Magnox reactors were designed as Pu production reactors. That their waste heat was also used for electricity production is more of a “side business”. They were also a unique UK design. That they were more succesful as electricity producers than as weapons grade Pu producers is a function of their use.
But the majority of nuclear power reactors in the world are light water reactors designed for electricity production.
When I was talking about reactor waste from power reactors I mean exactly that:
Waste from reactors designed to produce electricity, not from reactors designed to produce plutonium.
This means they are run with high fuel “burnup”, which means the uranium fuel rods are irradiated in the reactor for years. And that means that those Pu isotopes that make the Pu unusable for bombs builds up to a level where it can’t be used for weapons.
Refueling such a reactor shuts it down for electricity production for a week or two. But to produce weapons grade Pu you need to limit the irradiation of uranium to a month or so. Not a way to produce electricity if you have to shut the reactor down 50% of the time it could produce electricity.
KLA says:
October 8, 2010 at 4:37 pm
I don’t disagree with you Sir that in general nuclear reactors for civil power are not capable of producing overmuch plutonium: it is simply not a problem. Nor if funding can be found will the next generation, and indeed there are fascinating possibilities ahead, if they can be realised after thirty years of neglect. And the loss of a whole generation of potential nuclear physicists, engineers and technicians.
The point I made was that contrary to your assertion the UK, which by then had nuclear weapons, did devise and use the Magnox programme to produce plutonium for further weapons: as well as providing electricity for civil uses.
Kindest Regards
When diesel can produced from cyanobacteria for less than fossil deposits using waste water at sewerage plants these petty anxieties will be over – we’ll all enjoy energy security, coal and oil will just be raw material for plastics, and uranium can sit in the ground. Utopia is just a gene tweak away.
Kum Dollison Many thanks.
Sorry if someone has commented on this already.
I scream BS on this!
Sceptics have all along been saying research nuclear, greens have consistently denied that research!
That’s as far as I got before I just HAD to scream.
Sorry, back to reading the story.
DaveE.
Roger Sowell says:
October 8, 2010 at 11:28 am
Hear, hear, I agree. The problems will be solved and we’re not going to run out of oil or coal any time soon.
Do we have to be looking for alternatives? Yes! As Roger says, wind & Solar don’t cut it, (at least not for electrical energy). Solar looks good for (pre) heating though, even in northern climes.
DaveE.
The reason for the resistance to change can be found in the Declaration of Independence:
“that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”.
While that applied to governments, it is equally applicable to current methods of energy production.
Until the day comes that it finally dawns on the average person that things need to be fixed nothing will really be accomplished. Over-hyping, exaggerations and manipulations are counter productive. People resist government intervention because most people believe governments to do what they do for political gain of those in power and nothing else. The people will get it when they get it and not a minute sooner. When they do, a way will be found to make it better. It’s been that way throughout history, it’s the nature of mankind. Or perhaps the time of men is over.
So nuclear energy does not solve the warming problem. In fact it makes it worse.
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Time to shut down BBQ’s, campfires, gas ranges, gas water heaters, gas furnaces, cigarettes, all lighting etc. Then we can live in caves and slaughter whales for oil lamps.
I personally think shale gas will be the energy source of the next generations simply because it is cheaper than coal.
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Well that takes care of the USA, most/all third world countries don’t have shale gas, and so in 30 years the developed countries will use shale gas and produce less pollution and the third world countries will pump use coal (only they’ll use 1960’s technology).
I’m quite happy with developing countries burning coal to make energy, and oil and nuclear too. I wish them Godspeed in bringing their poor countries into the modern world. More energy generation means more wealth, a better standard of living, education, and eventually a high enough standard of living to be able to afford to clean up their local environments as we have.
Only by gaining wealth will that ever happen and they need energy to do it. More power to them!
David A Evans said:
… Solar looks good for (pre) heating though, even in northern climes.
It sounds good, it reads well on the promotional literature, and it’s heartily supported by the Green lobby, but frankly it’s a bit disappointing.
I had the opportunity last year to see an installation in action at a coal-fired power station in the Hunter Valley (NSW, Australia). It’s an advanced one of its type (CLFR – Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector), occupies a couple of football pitches, and is rated at about 4MW. But in practice it only provides about 2MW (in the form of pre-heated water to service the 4 x 500 MW coal-fired generators), and only then when the sun is shining brightly. When it’s overcast, it’s switched off.
While it is a world-class, noble effort in its own terms, in terms of energy captured per dollar invested it’s hard not to think of it as a dud.
If this technology struggles to produce an economic return in the sunny Hunter Valley at 32 degrees S latitude, it’s hard to see how it can be anything but an expensive subsidy attractor/tax waster in cooler climes.
It’s always good to see people honestly trying to advance the cause of renewables to secure our longer term energy future, especially when they put their money where their mouth is. And it is only by trying out good ideas, one at a time, that any technology can reach its useful and viable threshold point.
What concerns me at the moment is that agenda-driven AGW hysteria is forcing the early wastage of massive taxpayer funds on technologies that are not ready for prime time, and which lack the energy density to ever play more than point-solution roles in the longer term.
If we can dispel the hysteria about the supposed need for desperate short-term action, our engineering community can do the necessary (and properly funded) work in a measured way to arrive at well thought-out and costed solutions for the future.
Roger Sowell wrote:
“Rest easy, Mr. Fuller. We, the engineers, got this one.”
Whilst I totally agree in principle, I worry like hell in practice. We now live in an anti-development world, where the engineers are actively prevented from solving the worlds problems. Usually by nutcase greenies mouthing platitudes and having no technical education. (And I might add, I’m a contradiction: an engineer who has worked for years in pale-green industries to reduce power consumption, I detest waste of any kind, and I loathe greenies. Go figure!)
If the current green / eco trends continue there merry ways, there won’t be any engineers to solve the problems. They will all have been sent off the the re-education camps. Or blown up by a small red button.
Oh one more thing. I have a nasty feeling that wind power will be the next major real genuine global catastrophe.
You can’t suck oodles of energy out of the plantary system without an effect, and wind is part of the here and now (as opposed to stored, as are fossil fuels). Extracting large amounts of energy from wind WILL have an effect, though god knows what it will be.
In my most fevered imaginings it will slow planetary rotation. That’s probably fanciful. But I suspect there will be at least localised weather system changes where there are substantial installations of wind generation. In rough (engineering “order of magnitude is good enough”) terms – once you alter something by about 10% the effects can be seen. Once installed wind capacity gets to about 10% of the potential energy at a site, there has to be an effect at that site. (Based on the principle that there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, also known as the law of conservation of energy.)
“The Green Consortium that has been yelling at us about climate change and energy has ignored all of the technologies that could make a difference.”
We have to understand that they do not want solutions that do not include de-industrializing and stunted, if not stagnant, development. They want suffering in such a big way – they want us to suffer in worship of the planet – it’s a guilt thing for them, the pain makes them feel righteous.
Re solar only producing power 4 hours per day – I suppose that is true depending on the location and season. But, in California, the link below shows much longer times per day. There is apparently some storage that allows solar power generation after sunset.
Note also that the wind, on that particular day (10-7-2010) was fairly steady in generating power.
http://www.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/DailyRenewablesWatch.pdf
@ur momisugly Harry the Hacker: I gently disagree with you on this one. Extracting energy from the wind has, and will have, no measurable effect on anything. This is because there is an unbelievable amount of energy in the wind, and our puny wind-turbines extract a miniscule amount of power from it. Air masses flow thousands of feet into the atmosphere, and our wind-turbines reach barely a few hundred feet.
Also, re the engineers. Engineers have the knowledge, and it rests on immutable constants – that is why bridges (properly built) don’t fall down. Politicians, on the other hand, have policies that come and go. We are going through a temporary phase of a form of insanity with their policies. Those will change as their bad effects become more and more apparent. Even California, the land of fruits and nuts, will eventually realize that the over-zealous environmental regulations are less important than jobs for the citizens. Engineers go where there is work, and if that means to other states or other countries, we go there. I did. Others did, too.
To the topic of energy, and providing long-term energy, policies that require 33 percent renewables (as in California) soon will be shown to be untenable. Policies that require CO2 capture and storage for coal-fired plants will produce very expensive electricity, and un-competitive products made with that electricity. The same is true for any new nuclear power plants in the USA – the power will cost too much. Stupid policies like those will be self-correcting. The evidence is there before us today: After a disastrous round of building 100 nuclear power plants in the USA, utilities came to their senses and stopped doing that. The resulting power prices were just too high, and their customers quit buying utility power and built their own power plants based on natural gas – which was (and still is) abundant and cheap. Some of those new power plants were co-generation, or what is sometimes referred to as combined heat and power. No laws required that, but simple economics made it inevitable.
Engineers will be there to pick up the pieces and fix the problems resulting from idiotic policies. We always have been. And we always will be.
Bob Highland says:
October 8, 2010 at 7:56 pm
I don’t doubt for a moment what you you say Sir but observe that for sheer lunacy in terms of energy and efficiency this must take the biscuit.
Preheating intake water for any steam boiler station offers only marginal gains and is normally done by the economiser which extracts such heat as it can from the hot flue exhaust gas. Admittedly this has been strangled somewhat in recent years by emission control.
But if I understand you correctly the figures speak for themselves: a notional 4MW for a 2000 MW station, whats that? less than 0.2% if you could get it.
I simply cannot imagine who devised what our US friends would call this boondoggle or who pocketed the money by bemusing the politicians into paying for it: or by whatever means it was subsidised.
It isn’t even modern high technology, that kind of solar water heater was developed over thirty years ago: we can do a lot better than that today: which does not mean it is either economical or commercially viable.
Frankly your report, which I am sure is correct, leaves me flabbergasted.
Kindest Regards
A Jones, I found this report, which made its way into Engineers Australia magazine last year.
http://www.ausramediaroom.com/common/pdf/mediaReports/july09-solar-augmentation-at-coal-fired-powerplant-engineers-australia.pdf
It seems all parties are so thrilled about the 2MW of solar generation achieved that they are “in discussion with the Government regarding a potential $9.25million of funding to double the size of the system”. (A$1=$US1 at the moment.)
Kevin Rudd (now ex-PM) used the opportunity of a speech at the power station to announce a $1.36 billion Solar Flagship program.
$9.25m for 2MW, sunny daytime only? One could be forgiven for thinking this was a joke. It is, but the joke’s on us. Isn’t it always?
Announce the existence of a money pit, and watch ’em all run to dip their snouts in.
The best Fall in San Francisco was in 1906. After that a lot of strange ideas originated from there.
Strange ideas come from Oz too. I’m guessing a bit here, but here is a partial list of organisations involved in a smart meter electricity program for East Australia.
Federal parliament
COAG
Energy regulator
State Government
State Dept Primart Industries
Electricity producer
Electricity coordinator, e.g. Janama
Load switching operator
Energy retailer, e.g. AGL, Origin
Meter installer
Meter telemetry reader
Meter repairer/replacer
Software company to interpret telemetry and decryption
Distribution company to distribute accounts to whomever sends them to the public.
Debt collector.
This is proceeding despite the warnings in this paper from Cambridge Uni:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/meters-offswitch.pdf
Why is the world rushing to the nanny state concept?
I don’t like telling others what they should read or discuss, but, for personal reasons, I’ve given up reading Thomas Fuller’s posts.
However, I couldn’t help but note his urging (again) to stop piling on with criticism of 10:10, Michael Mann, Joe Romm etc. (Thomas Fuller actually does like telling others what they should read or discuss.)
Well, I come to WUWT, probably more than any other site, for a reason. If I want to be tricked, fudged and manipulated on climate issues, there’s the whole MSM, from the Guardian, Spiegel and NYT, right through to Australia’s ABC and Fairfax press.
To all WUWT contributors and commenters: I’d like to read many more criticisms of the people mentioned above, piled as high as you can go, and please single out those who are paid to be scientists for your special attention. It would be greatly appreciated by this layman and regular reader of Anthony’s invaluable blog.