I thought this presentation would both enlighten and horrify your readers Anthony. http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Breakthrough_Climate%20Solutions%20for%20a%20stronger%20America.pdf
Pretty sick that this is the sort of push that is coming from supposedly uniting Mind, Body, Spirit, and Environment within a single holistic ed push as the new norm. No one will know much that is accurate but they will believe and feel a great deal and not know the difference.
jim2
August 3, 2013 8:07 am
“When the payroll report was released last month, the world finally noticed what we had been saying for nearly three years: that the US was slowly being converted to a part-time worker society. This slow conversion accelerated drastically in the last few months, and especially in June, when part time jobs exploded higher by 360K while full time jobs dropped by 240K. In July we are sad to report that America’s conversation to a part-time worker society is not “tapering”: according to the Household Survey, of the 266K jobs created (note this number differs from the establishment survey), only 35% of jobs, or 92K, were full time. The rest were… not.” http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-02/obamacare-full-frontal-953000-jobs-created-2013-77-or-731000-are-part-time
jim2
August 3, 2013 8:10 am
“On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the economy gained just 162k jobs in July, well below expectations of 185-200k. More worrying, though, isn’t just the quantity of jobs created, but the quality of the jobs. About a quarter of the jobs created, 38.5k, were in restaurants and bars. Another 46.5k jobs were in retail. This continuing trend to part-time employment is likely due to the coming implementation of ObamaCare.” http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/02/quantity-of-jobs-up-quality-down
Looks like Obamacare is playing a big part in transforming jobs into part time positions. Part time workers not covered by Obamacare, apparently. “Gee,” say the Obamacare architects. “We never thought that would happen.” That being probably one of the very minor negatives they didn’t think about.
Bill H
August 3, 2013 8:16 am
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, … http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html
arthur4563
August 3, 2013 8:17 am
Obamacare strikes again. Ain’t many part timers out there buying houses and new cars
arthur4563
August 3, 2013 8:21 am
One gripe: why did the idiots who invented non-partisan agencies like the EPA, IRS,and all the others, place them under the care and control of a very political Execuive Branch? The Federal Reserve is one of the few, if not the only, such organization. I don’t believe a thing the Labor Dept or Treasury Dept says.
arthur4563
August 3, 2013 8:42 am
Two technological development stories that I have been following for some time now
are nuclear power and electric cars, both of which I’m in favor of, but not because of
carbon emissions. In a nutshell, electric cars will take over the moment a good, long lasting cheap,
fast recharging battery comes along. Henry Ford believed the same thing and even enlisted his best friend Thomas Edison, who tried but failed, ending up with the comment that “I now know just about every way there is to not build a better battery.”
As for nuclear power, one would think the environmentalists would demand more. But in one of the most bizarre twists of logic, these bizarrely illogical folks have decided that clean energy doesn’t matter, and that the plants will irradiate the population in some unspecifiable accident..
Worse yet, these bizarroes, who once upon a time rhapsodized about the beauty of unspoiled nature, now don’t mind filling the horizon and mountain tops with 400 foot tall steel wind turbines and covering a good portion of the ground with solar panels.
Gunga Din
August 3, 2013 8:49 am
arthur4563 says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:21 am
One gripe: why did the idiots who invented non-partisan agencies like the EPA, IRS,and all the others, place them under the care and control of a very political Execuive Branch? The Federal Reserve is one of the few, if not the only, such organization. I don’t believe a thing the Labor Dept or Treasury Dept says.
==================================================================
In the US, Congress makes the laws and the Executive Branch carries them out. The problem is that the laws that formed the EPA and others gave them the authority to make regulations. Regulations have the effect of law but no one voted on them.
PS The “Federal” Reserve is NOT a part of the Federal government. They represent the banks to which the US owes its debt. Ask yourself, what kind of collateral does a nation put up to obtain a loan?
arthur4563 says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am
“In a nutshell, electric cars will take over the moment a good, long lasting cheap,
fast recharging battery comes along. ”
Yeah, as soon as we found the holy grail of battery development it should be a piece of cake, agreed.
David Ball
August 3, 2013 9:03 am
arthur4563 says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am
The safe disposal of spent batteries and also the spent Nuclear fuel are the biggest hurdles.
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere? http://hackedgadgets.com/2009/11/08/university-of-saskatchewans-space-design-team-space-elevator/
“So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.” – Michael Crichton
Jim Cripwell
August 3, 2013 9:06 am
When I see the word “Obamacare”, I thank my lucky stars I live in Canada.
DirkH
August 3, 2013 9:16 am
Robin says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:07 am
“I thought this presentation would both enlighten and horrify your readers Anthony. http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Breakthrough_Climate%20Solutions%20for%20a%20stronger%20America.pdf
Pretty sick that this is the sort of push that is coming from supposedly uniting Mind, Body, Spirit, and Environment within a single holistic ed push as the new norm. No one will know much that is accurate but they will believe and feel a great deal and not know the difference.”
It would be interesting to know whether these idiots are funded by Big Oil themselves (Big Oil has always supported CO2AGW research and siphoned off CCS and solar subsidies where available – CO2AGW is the weapon of Big Oil against Big Coal, obviolusly). http://www.breakthroughstrategiesandsolutions.com/Services.html
“Betsy Taylor provides a variety of services and frequently teams up with other consultants and experts to get the job done.”
A one woman beltway lobbyist show.
It looks like she’s a vampire.
Village Idiot
August 3, 2013 9:19 am
Quote of the week:
It turns out that the amount of money the world has come up with to fund the headquarters of the body producing the last word on what Barack Obama recently called “the global threat of our time” [the IPCC} is $9.3m this year, about the same as Cumbria spent fixing potholes last year. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/4084c8ee-fa36-11e2-98e0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2aurr4Bmc
arthur4563
August 3, 2013 9:21 am
Gunga Din
Well, the Federal Reserve is under some control by the Executive branch, since its chairman is
nominated by same …
While I don’t claim to be a Constitutional scholar, the Constitution, which defines the roles of the three branches, can be altered in any way shape or form, even to the extent of being
amended out of existence. An amendment might be required, perhaps, but I would guess that
one can probably place agencies outside of exclusive Executive or exclusive Legislative Branch control, one way or the other.
Paul Schnurr
August 3, 2013 9:35 am
“Climate Depot North Pole Sees Unprecedented July Cold – Arctic Sees Shortest Summer On Record — ‘Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year there was less than half that’”
Next will follow a story about the unprecedented rise in temperature of the Arctic Ocean depths.
john
August 3, 2013 9:37 am
House slam door on carbon tax.
The House approved an amendment to legislation Friday that would prevent the White House from imposing a carbon tax without congressional approval.
The lower chamber agreed to Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) amendment by a 237-176 vote, with 12 Democrats crossing the aisle to support it.
The amendment was added to an underlying bill that would require Congress to OK regulations that carry a $100 million economic impact or greater. That bill is dead in its tracks in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and THE WHITE HOUSE HAS THREATENED TO VETO IT. (Emphasis mine),
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/315221-house-votes-to-slam-door-on-carbon-tax#ixzz2avKxehDO
Remember the WUWT “Hansen’s Death Trains – now with extra scary ‘coal fallout’” blog http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/17/hansens-death-trains-now-with-extra-scary-coal-fallout/ from July 2012, which featured some enviro-activists’ video of a spectacularly dusty coal train?
You may now ignore the problem with other coal trains showing no such dust, but they are still extremely evil. According to last night’s PBS NewsHour “Pacific Northwest Weighs Environmental Risks of Cashing in on Coal Export Market” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec13/coal_08-02.html
” …. It’s important to realize that the particles from the coal trains are microscopic, ultra-fine particles that you can’t see. But they’re the ones that do the real damage because they make it to the deepest parts of the airways. So you may not be seeing it, but you’re breathing it, and it’s affecting you. …”
Richard M
August 3, 2013 9:55 am
In case anyone is interested the new UAH numbers are out for July. A drop to +.17.
Richard M
August 3, 2013 9:57 am
Assuming RSS is close to the UAH numbers, as it usually is, this would extend the flat temperature trend to 16 years and 8 months.
David Ball
August 3, 2013 10:10 am
Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.
It is obvious that the truth gets bent/distorted/twisted/misunderstood, often, in supporting ideas, claims and comments, none more obvious or often than AGW. On WUWT I have come across some wonderful phrases, like ‘intellectual dishonesty’, ‘false flag’. We know what they mean. Sometimes its deliberate, sometimes ignorant, sometimes self serving. What if someone, perhaps somemany, perhaps here on WUWT, could identify or has identified the various ways of misrepresenting a fact or many facts and coin(ed) a phrase about them. I’m sure there’s a top ten to identify and find phrases for, with good, real examples to support. I suppose it might even be possible to make up new words for each example.
This would enable short analysis, conclusion and execution of what someone was up to with a comment.
Anyone?
Chad Wozniak
August 3, 2013 10:28 am
@John –
Incredible, not not incredible, that der Fuehrer thinks he can impose taxes without approval from Congress. George III all over again., but even more so. George III’s offenses pale by comparison with this dictator’s actions. @Bill H –
Ruckelshaus, Whitman, Lee, Kelly are traitors. Not Republicans – they’re Kleptocrat Party moles.
jim2
August 3, 2013 10:30 am
I’m so happy the government is taking care of us (sarc off)
“The 2010 Affordable Care Act will put some 2.3 million workers at the greatest risk of reduced hours, the February study found. That group represents roughly 1.8 percent of the workforce and consists of people who do not have insurance through their employer, work between 30 and 36 hours per week and earn incomes 400 percent below the federal poverty line for firms with 100 or more employees.
The study, conducted by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and recently highlighted by the Los Angeles Times, attempts to place a number on what has until now been an anecdotally-based trend of employers threatening such cuts as a result of the law. ” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/part-time-workers-obamacare_n_3210321.html
DirkH
August 3, 2013 10:32 am
neillusion says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
“I suppose it might even be possible to make up new words for each example.
This would enable short analysis, conclusion and execution of what someone was up to with a comment.
Anyone?”
We leave the making up of new words to the Left.
faboutlaws
August 3, 2013 10:36 am
The Federal Reserve Board is a federal government entity whose chairman is appointed by the president. The individual regional Federal Reserve banks are federally chartered corporations owned by the member banks in each district. The presidents of the regional banks sit on the FOMC which determines monetary policy. The individual banks perform some quasi federal functions such as the distribution of money and the servicing of savings bonds. I’ll check with the wife about this and apologize/correct if I am wrong. She should know as a SVP&GC of one of the regionals.
The Reform Party of the US has a better platform than Constitution Party to me. Henry Ross Perot’s old independent party. Jesse Ventura was a joke though.
That’s where I’m looking, as a former Republican. I try but just cannot endorse being a Libertarian, let everybody run wild.
Reform Party
*Maintaining a balanced budget, ensured by passing a Balanced Budget Amendment and changing budgeting practices, and paying down the federal debt
*Campaign finance reform, including strict limits on campaign contributions and the outlawing of the Political action committee
*Enforcement of existing immigration laws and opposition to illegal immigration
*Opposition to free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement and Central America Free Trade Agreement, and a call for withdrawal from the World Trade Organization
*Term limits on U.S. Representatives and Senators
*Direct election of the United States President by popular vote
*Federal elections held on weekends
*A noticeable absence from the Reform Party platform has been social issues, including abortion and gay rights. Reform Party representatives had long stated beliefs that their party could bring together people from both sides of these issues, which they consider divisive, to address what they considered to be more vital concerns as expressed in their platform. The idea was to form a large coalition of moderates; that intention was overridden in 2001 by the Buchanan takeover which rewrote the RPUSA Constitution to specifically include platform planks opposed to any form of abortion. The Buchananists, in turn, were overridden by the 2002 Convention which specifically reverted the Constitution to its 1996 version and the party’s original stated goals.
The Obamanoids have announced how they will handle the attempt to evade the so-called Affordable Healthcare Act by employers hiring part-timers. They will simply count the number of hours worked by such part-time people, divide by 40 hours/full-time worker, and the result will be….the equivalent of X number of full-time workers. These will be added to the employer’s full-time employees, and if the magic 50 employee threshold is reached —-voila!!! The employer is liable to conform to Obamacare.
Thus does Leviathan move forward to crush all opposition.
The great experiment, the Constitutional Republic called the United States of America, is perilously close to death.
john
August 3, 2013 11:04 am
Chad Wozniak says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:28 am
Chad, I’ve been working on a project combining bank fraud and renewable fraud. Documentary coming soon.
A rework of my Real Science comment:
The Chicken Little Brigade: Lying to Create a ‘Better World’
In 1989 a lead IPCC author, Steven Schneider of Stanford University, said: “We have to offer up scary scenarios… each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective [dishonest] and being honest [ineffective]?”
Following Schneider’s lead:
“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.” -Sir John Houghton, ex ipcc chair
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” -Daniel Botkin, UCSB
And the leftist Senator Tim Wirth said in 1993: “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing.”
That was it, for the scientists and politicians, it didn’t matter at all whether the theory was true because it’s the right thing to do anyway. And the scientists had already been given the green light to lie, because it’s “the right thing” that they are supporting in their lies.
Now you see so many warmists saying like: “Well, what if we are wrong? Will we have done such a terrible thing by building a better world anyway?”
A better world?
Like the — 83% — CO2 cuts mandated by 2050 that were in the Cap & Trade bill that passed the US House in 2009? 83%, with large cuts coming immediately. This would have taken a wrecking ball to the economy, and created virtually apocalyptic havoc. “A better world,” I’m afraid not.
3x2
August 3, 2013 11:17 am
August 3, 2013 at 8:42arthur4563
[…] As for nuclear power, one would think the environmentalists would demand more.[…]
Which should give the game away to anyone paying attention.
Had, back in the 80’s/90’s, these folk really believed in CO2 induced doom then Nuclear was then the only option. We could, assuming we all believed the sky was about to fall, have moved, where safe (away from the Ring of Fire), to Nuclear. This would have bought us many decades in which to deal with the problem.
The fact that even now, with their imaginary acceleration of ‘Global Warming’, secret heat and no indication in the CO2 record that the trajectory has changed in 30 years, they still won’t support Nuclear derived energy.
This is why I have no time for alarmists – there is and always has been a time gaining solution but, despite their doom laden predictions for a CO2 enhanced world, they just can’t quite bring themselves to accept a practical alternative to Unicorn Utopia.
I always see them as folk drowning in the sea but try as they might they just can’t accept the offer of a life belt because it might be made of PVC and they read a piece once that claimed PVC was bad. There is just no hope with these people.
… And Arthur … The Federal Reserve (founded 1913 but could be dated back to 1791) is a private company as is The Bank of England (founded 1694).
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind. See: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html?m=0
Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
“Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
a) seawater contains Uranium. We must do something!
b) about Ralph Nader’s invention of the toxicity of Plutonium http://atomicinsights.com/1995/05/how-deadly-plutonium.html
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind. See: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html?m=0 says (among many other things):
Point two, is nuclear power reliable? One must put the question in context, reliable in relation to what? If the comparison is to intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind, or solar, nuclear power is a bit more reliable.
Here in New Hampshire, the Seabrook plant keeps right on humming. The wind farms are new and I don’t know if anything has failed yet, but they don’t reliably produce power. In face, they reliably don’t produce power.
I recently came across the following from wind farms in western NY that I visited (I have some in-laws who live near them). Blades are cracking after less than three years service. I’d love to know how much the repairs cost! http://dddusmma.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/wind-farm-rotor-failures/ says in part:
There is a wind farm in western New York State consisting of 67 turbines that have been in operation for around three years.
Recently there have been several units shut down while 10 blades were repaired. If each came from a different turbine it would mean the wind farm was producing 10% less electricity than planned while the turbines were out of service. It could also support the contention that the life of wind farms will be less than planned.
Sigh – in moderation.
I bought a can (pair of aerosol cans) of Neverwet from Home Depot. Great toy potential (e.g. a tortilla chip that salsa doesn’t stick to), but I haven’t decided what it would be really good for. The 2nd spray does leave things milky white and feeling rough.
Tipping buckets in weather stations? (Minor market for that!)
The guard on my weed whacker? (Won’t last the first tank of gas, though.)
Paint mixing and pouring tools are quite promising as long as flakes of Neverwet don’t mess up the paint.
It is interesting holding a piece of pine under the faucet and seeing it slough off all the water.
john
August 3, 2013 12:29 pm
Here are a 4 photo/video’s of the northern lights. This is the best photography (by Ole C. Salomonsen) in motion I have ever seen. I am certain you all will agree and am thankful he is willing to share his work. http://vimeo.com/arcticlightphoto
Ox AO
August 3, 2013 12:30 pm
DirkH
It isn’t just Big oil (except for Exxon) that is supporting CAGW. Back in the 90’s Enron (yes the same corrupted company) invested over a billion US dollars for the study of CAGW.
Exxon is the only company that I know that is studying real science. Sad isn’t it?
OT
On NOW:
JoNova on Radio 2GB (873) this morning coming up Now (@5am) after the News.
On (not so) Free Carbon Markets http://www.2gb.com/listen-live
3x2
August 3, 2013 12:32 pm
Arthur – see RS above for Unicorn Utopia in action.
Gunga Din
August 3, 2013 12:49 pm
Ric Werme says:
August 3, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Sigh – in moderation.
I bought a can (pair of aerosol cans) of Neverwet from Home Depot. …
======================================================================
I never heard of it before. Was it invented by a politician?
PS “°” Thanks for the tip and your guide. http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html
My web-page counter just hit 200,000 !
It came from : Edmonds, Washington, United States
Entry Page : http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Thank you to all who visited my web-pages, especially to Anthony for the tolerance and the WUWT generating .more than 90% of hits.
Power of a widely read blog is impressive !
.
Doug Huffman
August 3, 2013 1:14 pm
Dirk H., thanks for reading and citing Rod Adams’ Atomic Insights. I met him as a ship’s engineer officer doing a suite of tests done to scope the ship’s impending refueling and overhaul. He became a good work acquaintance.
About the hazard of nuclear power plants; the USN NNPP has >5 x 10^3 reactor-years of safe operation. Not the cheapest by any means, but a fine safety record. How long will it persist now that Rickover’s dicta are ALL forgotten.
I was recently sent a video of Never Wet. As much as I have enjoyed ScotchGuard and Rain-X, I am looking for clever applications of Never Wet. But for its matte finish, I’d waterproof my Inspired Cycle Engineering Sprint 26 trike, it has the most wonderful almost candy-apple red color.
noaaprogrammer
August 3, 2013 1:22 pm
Pamela Gray says:
“Rolf, Pacific is the key word there. NE Oregon was HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!”
But the summers now are not nearly as hot as they used to be in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the past summers in SE Washington had 3 to 4 weeks of consecutive triple digit highs.
Bill H says August 3, 2013 at 8:16 am
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
…
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,
Pay more? Why? To do what? Reduce consumption? What does that do to jobs, the GDP and our overall standard of living (LIKE old ppl conserving RESOURCES in the winter by scrimping on spending for HEATING)? Any clue RINOs (the names above in bold)?
.
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
“There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts …”
Sadly that is true, as RUCKELSHAUS, THOMAS, REILLY and WHITMAN demonstrate quite clearly.
David Ball says August 3, 2013 at 9:03 am
…
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere?
LOL… and heartily I light add … let me guess, liberal arts major (and not a hard science degree esp. not in the field of engineering)?
(I think that statement is attributable to David; pls pardon me if it’s not.)
.
Gunga Din
August 3, 2013 1:45 pm
Third parties in the US.
I wouldn’t ditch the Electorial College. Without it, what candidate needs, say Nebraska, if they they have NYC? But I would add that if the “winner” had less than 50% of the popular vote then a runoff election between just the top two would be held 1 or 2 months later. Extend the 50% rule to all Federal elections and a “Third party” wouldn’t be ignored and we wouldn’t have a repeat of what happened in 1930’s Germany where a monster won with only 33% of the vote.
Speaking of odd cases (or odd ducks), has anybody here kept up with what is happening to (or with) Adam Kokesh? (This would stem from an event back on the 4th of July “in the District”.)
Just curious …
.
London247
August 3, 2013 1:54 pm
As it is an open thread just a couple of ideas
1- Solar panels. I have a solar panel that absorbs Co2 and provides a storable source of energy. Is is called a tree. I can offer thousands of varieties including oak, beeech, and ash. They also provide a bio-diverse environment. This has the advantage of low production costs and does not require the covering of land with maunfactured panels with the required maintenace of panels and weeds. Can I copyright this idea?
2- If solar radiation increases then the water on Earth will evaporate. The air will be hotter and the water vapour will rise higher. This will then freeze including the heat of sublimanation. Initally at the polar regiond this will fall as snow. If melted then it will absorb the heat from the atmosphere. If there is no negative feedback the end result will be that the Earth becomes a snowball. The ice reflects further solar radiation and protects life in the oceans during the interregum. Thus in a contradictory way increased soalr radiation results in a snowball earth. I am open to informed opinion as to the flaws in this idea. But I am just trying to make peolple think about conventional wisdom. if there aren’t any major flaws we will share the grant money 🙂
neillusion says August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
…
What if someone, perhaps somemany, perhaps here on WUWT, could identify or has identified the various ways of misrepresenting a fact or many facts and coin(ed) a phrase about them. I’m sure there’s a top ten to identify and find phrases for, with good, real examples to support.
Well, for starters, anything containing the infamous ‘weasel words’: “could”, “might”, “may” are flags denoting phrasing or phraseology of dubious (dishonest?) and dissembling meaning or content.
.
Doug Huffman
August 3, 2013 2:01 pm
As I recall, Kokesh is being held in a D.C. jail without bond. Details at his website http://adamvstheman.com/
M Courtney
August 3, 2013 2:04 pm
arthur4563 says @ August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am… electric cars.
The question is about battery life. The performance of electric cars is already as good as diesel or petrol. But not for long. Battery life has always been the Achilles Heel of electric cars.
So why?
Look at the periodic table of the elements. Simplistically,to store the potential energy you really want a solid (or easily compressed liquid) that has a high difference in electronegativity between it’s internal elements, the anode and cathode. Lithium is the first solid in the periodic table. It’s known to be at the extreme and has been known for decades. But they haven’t got it to work.
The lifetime isn’t there with Lithium. To go further away from Lithium requires rarer and rarer (expensive) elements or maybe compounds… maybe.
To make an electric car you need something other than chemical energy. Cold fusion, perhaps, or just reduce energy demands via anti-gravity or…
Or stick with the judgement of Edison and use a combustion engine (until a fuel cell is cheap and more efficient than the internal combustion engine).
RE: your post NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor, realclimate.com says: “The issue is that technological changes over time to give radiosondes faster responses translate into a non-climatic artifact in their raw data over time. Basically, older sondes remember the lower (wetter) atmosphere for longer than newer sondes do, and that can give a seeming decrease. It is not however real. Note that only one older reanalysis product used the contaminated raw data (NCEP), and that all of the modern reanalyses don’t use it, and show much more consistent upwards trends.”
Doug Huffman says August 3, 2013 at 2:01 pm
As I recall, Kokesh is being …
Yes; per my prev post, I was just curious if any others were taking note of ‘events’ surrounding him. Just curious again, have you reviewed his past videos? Just curious how many others have spent any amount of time on this topic/subject.
BTW, ‘his’ FB account seems to have the most up-to-date and accurate info, incl a link to an interview with his attorney from last Monday I think … again, just curious …
.
M Courtney
August 3, 2013 2:21 pm
neillusion says August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
…
What if someone, perhaps somemany, perhaps here on WUWT, could identify or has identified the various ways of misrepresenting a fact or many facts and coin(ed) a phrase about them. I’m sure there’s a top ten to identify and find phrases for, with good, real examples to support.
Good idea but I’m not in agreement with the methodology. There are families of mis-directions. A few different levels of distortion.
~Some words are euphemisms that have the same subject but without the emotional meaning (e.g. “collateral damage” and “innocent victims”).
That is an extreme case but the process is general. Use a euphemism – set the language – to keep the tone of the conversation on the level you want. There is no loss of literal meaning but a great loss of emotional meaning. This is allowed in scientific discourse but forbidden in poetry – where does it lie in politics?
~But some deceptions are on the level of meta-knowledge.
“False flag”: presenting an argument under a false position so one’s defence is not important and you can influence people by deliberately losing or shifting the debate. That is about the identity of the speaker; it is not about the text.
~Or consider “Lies by omission”. They are often just not reporting the scope of debate. Sometimes the scoping text is lost when reported onwards for a general audience and then it grows by the internet and no-one has deliberately lied. Where does the blame for that distortion lie? Where is the intention or plan? I like your idea. It would be a good thing to create. Godwin’s Law is to simplistic a shorthand; we need the theory behind it.
But it is not a short document to create and far beyond my time and ability.
M Courtney
August 3, 2013 2:23 pm
Correction: “too simplistic”. Sorry.
donaitkin
August 3, 2013 2:24 pm
One of my readers posted this thoughtful list of ‘traps’ that are there for the unwary in ‘climate change’ discussions. I thought it was worth a wider readership. So here it is, slightly edited.
‘About a year ago, puzzled by what looks like intellectual intransigence, I mulled over the various traps into which many appear to fall. The order below is not significant, and the explanation simplified.
1. The pollution trap, confusing particulates and harmful gases with carbon dioxide.
2. The political trap, where a position on AGW echoes the prevailing views of the left or right.
3. The social trap, where a person’s main social circles can inhibit discovery and analysis, and apply conformist pressure.
4. The guilt trap, to which some two generations in the western world have now been conditioned. “It is all our fault (the pronoun covers a raft of sins), and we must fix it.”
5. The presumption trap, that humans can control a dire global warming of such projected magnitude – the calculators you discuss above, Don, put the lie to that presumption. (In fact, I’ve been wondering whether the effects of our actions starting in the late 1980s in replacing our use of CFCs, may have been swamped by natural changes to ozone levels, and that we may have been congratulating ourselves undeservedly. The ozone story may well have boosted our presumption, anyway.)
6. The energy poverty trap, a myopia about how critical to the survival of so many is the availability of relatively cheap energy. Hansen’s “rivers of death” coal trucks are actually rivers of life to a billion or so, but I can’t see them from my favourite coffee shop. Out of sight, out of mind.
7. The trap of slicing science, illustrated by convictions that carbon dioxide has such an amplifying effect on water vapour, by unproven climate sensitivity values, by ignoring or distorting past history . . . .
8. The modelling trap – need I say more? See Fig 1.4 of the leaked AR5.
9. The consensus trap, the chimera of peer review, the clarion call that the science is settled.
10. The professional trap, where only “climate scientists” are competent to judge. That reminds me of a major plank of the Reformation, itself so critical to the Renaissance. This trap also uses the weapon of “ad hominem”.
11. The funding trap; to gain research $$s, too often scientists have to bow to the AGW icon, whether they like it or not.’
neillusion says August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
…
What if someone, perhaps somemany, perhaps here on WUWT, could identify or has identified the various ways of misrepresenting a fact or many facts and coin(ed) a phrase about them. I’m sure there’s a top ten to identify and find phrases for, with good, real examples to support.
Well, for starters, anything containing the infamous ‘weasel words’: “could”, “might”, “may” are flags denoting phrasing or phraseology of dubious (dishonest?) and dissembling meaning or content.
====================================================================
Yes, but sometimes such words in honest science are used for the sake of accuracy.
What is the atomic weight of H2O? What if that H2O is deuterium?
Intent is what matters.
Gunga Din says August 3, 2013 at 2:34 pm
..
====================================================================
Yes, but …
I missed one; add “but” to the list …
.
/mild sarc
Doug Huffman
August 3, 2013 2:36 pm
Kokesh; yes, I watched his case develop. I spent much more time, at that time, with the Zimmerman trial, watching about half of it live. Kokesh was bearding the lion in its den and that never turns out well. That D.C. is a stateless mouse makes it much more demanding of respect for its authority.
Frank Kotler
August 3, 2013 2:36 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19
Nuclear is not safe.
—————————————–
True. No form of energy is safe. We need to do a risk:benefit analysis. Who reaps the benefits? Folks living now, or within 40 years… or 60 years… or however long we license the things for (until they fail?). Who is exposed to the risk? Folks living thousands of years in the future. The risk may(?) not be large, but we are exposing people who reap no benefit to “some” risk. I don’t see how to do an “ethical” risk:benefit analysis on that basis, so I’m “anti nuke”.
I’m afraid that nuclear (fission) power may be our “punishment” for not thinking up anything better. This is particularly likely if the carbonophobes get their way. How bad would that be? What would actually happen if we moved people back into the areas evacuated after the oopsies at Chernobyl and Fukushima? I imagine they’d see an elevated death rate, I doubt if anyone really knows by how much. But they’d be back in their homes. Might they be better off? Who decides?
Compared to no energy at all, nuclear (fission) is probably a win. I don’t thnk we’re faced with that choice, so I’d leave nuclear for an absolute last resort! If we get fusion working (any temperature will be fine), or perhaps Thorium, that may be a solution… if they live up to their promises. Remember, we were promised great things from fission, too!
I observe that you only need to swap two letters to turn “nuclear” into “unclear”!
geran
August 3, 2013 2:37 pm
Jim Cripwell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:06 am
When I see the word “Obamacare”, I thank my lucky stars I live in Canada.
>>>>>
Make room for us “illegal aliens”….
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind.
>>>>>
Roger, my poor desperate friend, we need responsible government. Responsible government would have a plan to implement 50 new nuclear plants in the US, in the next 30 years.
I just came across a terrible consequence of Global Warming
“The film opens with a baby dinoshark swimming away from a broken chunk of Arctic glacier that calved due to global warming.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinoshark
documented by climate scientist Roger Corman.
2011
Trailer contains a lot of shark and a lot of jumping. (find it yourself. Won’t give link, a little too much Gore, pardon the pun)
clipe
August 3, 2013 3:17 pm
Speaking of JoNova someone asked about Harry Readme which reminded me of this snippet. CRU NEEDS A DATA MANAGER.
Not only do both databases have unnecessary duplicates, introduced for external mapping purposes by the look of it, but the ‘main’ stations (2 and 4) have different station name & country. In fact one of the country names is illegal! Dealing with things like this cannot be automated as they’re the results of non-automatic decisions.
What a bloody mess.
Now looking at the dates.. something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993! Looking at the data – the COBAR station 1962-2004 seems to be an exact copy of the COBAR AIRPORT AWS station 1962-2004. And wouldn’t you know it, the data for this station has missing data between 12/92 and 12/99 inclusive. So I reckon it’s the old FORREST AERO station (WMO 9464600, .au ID 11004), with the new Australian bulletin updates tacked on (hence starting in 2000) So.. do I split off the 2000-present data to a new station with the new number, or accept that whoever joined them (Dave?) looked into it and decided it would be OK? The BOM website says they’re 800m apart.
Hope that’s right..
All 115 refs now matched in the TMin database. Confidence in the fidelity of the Australian station in the database drastically reduced. Likelihood of invalid merging of Australian stations high. Let’s go..
getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.
I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.
I honestly have no idea what to do here. and there are countless others of equal bafflingness.
I suspected a couple of stations were being counted twice, so using ‘comm’ I looked for identical headers. Unfortunately there weren’t any!! So I have invented two stations, hmm.
I have to admit, I still don’t understand secondary parameter generation. I’ve read the papers, and the miniscule amount of ‘Read Me’ documentation, and it just doesn’t make sense.
As I was examining the vap database, I noticed there was a ‘wet’ database. Could I not use that to assist with rd0 generation? well.. it’s not documented, but then, none of the process is so I might as well bluff my way into it!
Units seem to vary: <DO YOU SEE? THERE’S THAT OH-SO FAMILIAR BLOCK OF MISSING CODES IN THE LATE 80S, THEN THE DATA PICKS UP AGAIN. BUT LOOK AT THE CORRELATIONS ON THE RIGHT, ALL GOOD AFTER THE BREAK, DECIDEDLY DODGY BEFORE IT. THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT STATIONS, AREN’T THEY? AAAARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Quite honestly I don’t have time – but it just shows the state our data holdings have drifted into. Who added those two series together? When? Why? Untraceable, except anecdotally.
But I am beginning to wish I could just blindly merge based on WMO code.. the trouble is that then I’m continuing the approach that created these broken databases.
Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING – so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have 🙂
geran, you write “Make room for us “illegal aliens””.
Sorry. Our health care system only applies to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants. All others pay full costs in hospitals; I believe $2000 per day, plus medical costs.
rogerknights
August 3, 2013 3:38 pm
Bill H says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:16 am
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
OK
The costs of inaction are undeniable.
Non sequitur.
(Since the CO2 spectrum is nearly saturated and there is no net positive feedback, we have nothing to worry about.)
rogerknights
August 3, 2013 3:43 pm
PS: Even if we “act,” it won’t make any difference if the ROW (Developing Countries) don’t–and they won’t. The only effect will be to increase emissions by off-shoring manufacturing to them.
Kajajuk
August 3, 2013 3:47 pm
A little levity…
Kajajuk
August 3, 2013 4:04 pm
Levity; not so much…
DirkH
August 3, 2013 4:15 pm
Kajajuk says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:04 pm
“Levity; not so much…”
And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?
This is a blanket response to the nuclear advocates.
First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
Second, why do medium-sized islands with populations of approximately one million people have no nuclear power plants? Why do those islanders pay 25 cents or more for power? If nuclear is the answer and can actually produce power at 3 cents per kWh or less as some proponents claim, why aren’t there any nuclear plants on the islands?
See. http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuclear-plants-on-islands-nutty-idea.html
Even an older, paid-for nuclear plant cannot compete. At least one such US plant is being shut down as being no longer economic to operate. I’ll try to provide a link to that bit of news.
Third, why cannot nuclear plants be built on time and on budget? After constructing the 400 or so plants world-wide, one would expect the learning curve would be climbed already. The US’ South Texas Nuclear Plant, near Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast, recently cancelled an expansion project that would have added two more reactors. The Japanese reactor vendor could not provide a final cost nor an expected finish date. Projected costs kept climbing and climbing.
I could go on, but there really is little point. Nuclear power is dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful.
DirkH
August 3, 2013 4:26 pm
DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
“And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?”
That’s more than half a trillion.
Since the financial crisis in 2008, foundation assets have risen by 20% – adjusted for inflation. http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/statistics/pdf/02_found_growth/2011/06_11.pdf
Looks like an unhealthy concentration of power.
jorgekafkazar
August 3, 2013 4:28 pm
David Ball says: “Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.”
Depends on who we send, David.
DirkH
August 3, 2013 4:32 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:26 pm
“First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
[..]
I could go on, but there really is little point. Nuclear power is dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful.”
I will just blanket-mock you by saying
First, if windmills are so desirable, why do windmills provide only about zero(*) percent of the US’ electricity? Why don’t windmills provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t windmills compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that windmill construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
[..]
I could go on, but there really is little point. Windmills are dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful when they actually see an eagle.
(*) It’s probably slightly more than zero but zero is probably a good approximation.
You see, that was easy to turn around. Think of something better. How about number of deaths per TWh produced. Oh, that won’t fly. Hmmm.
jorgekafkazar
August 3, 2013 4:37 pm
Roger Sowell says: “First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas? The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.”
The cost of nuclear power plant construction is based on licensing and permitting regulations promoted by anti-nuke activists and designed to raise costs and drag out the construction schedule to non-competitive levels.
Here is a list of islands with populations of approximately 1 million, yet none have a nuclear power plant.
Island ……………….population, millions
Okinawa…………………1.25
Mauritius…………………1.245
Bohol…………………….1.23
Hong Kong……………….1.18
Mindoro…………………..1.16
Xiamen Island…………….1.08
Sao Luis Island……………1.08
Trinidad……………………1.03 (this island has abundant natural gas, so of course is not a candidate)
South Island (NZ)………1.008
Oahu……………………….0.876
Tenerife……………………0.865
Cyprus……………………..0.855
Grand Canary………………0.815
Majorca……………………0.814
Reunion (France)………….0.793
Gary Pearse
August 3, 2013 4:38 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
“Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 12:15 pm
“b) about Ralph Nader’s invention of the toxicity of Plutonium http://atomicinsights.com/1995/05/how-deadly-plutonium.html”
Roger it is no shame to be wrong. But having a blog to discourage use of nuclear based on egregiously wrong information, is gross irresponsibility. Shame on your for taking activist pap on trust and not doing the simple research to corroborate such a serious assertion. Now we are going to see if you are an honest person whose motive is to protect the world’s citizenry or an alarmist propagandist with no scruples by what you do to redress this wrong by updating your blog. This is a toughy for a lifelong anti-nuclear guy. It’s painful to have to admit you have wronged your faithful followers, but they will respect you for it.
Meanwhile here is a tabulation of deaths from nuclear electrical plants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
Canada -0, France (big nuclear)- 0, Germany-0, Japan- 4, Ukraine ~50, UK -0, US -3
Note there is a new edit adding 78 for UK, but a) the plant at Windscale was a nuclear bomb plant built in the early 1950s and b) Wikipedia it self states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
“A 2010 study of workers directly involved in the cleanup found no significant long term health effects from their involvement.”
So 87.7 percent of all deaths from nuclear electrical plants since their beginnings in 1950 occurred at Chernobyl, an old Soviet plant built with no safety features.
Since I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt in your sincerity I want you to do your own research on the deaths from coal, oil and gas, and, yes, wind turbines (11 in China) and solar (4 installers in California alone). The latter two will be the hardest to find since the MSM would resist publishing anything bad on these two planet savers except, ironically, the Chinese press.
DR
August 3, 2013 4:43 pm
@DirkH
The Cass Green Gym’s facility offers weight machines, boxing bags, a treadmill, and stationary bikes featuring Green Revolution technology that generates electricity. Cass Community Social Services (CCSS), located on Detroit’s Cass Avenue, projects that full classes with ten people, is enough power to light three homes for an entire year. It will redirect it back to the building’s electrical grid, reducing operating costs.
Ten people could power 3 homes? Imagine the possibilities for putting people back to work in Detroit!
Roger Sowell says August 3, 2013 at 4:26 pm
…
Third, why cannot nuclear plants be built on time and on budget? After constructing the 400 or so plants world-wide, one would expect the learning curve would be climbed already.
One word: France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
Excerpt:
France’s nuclear power industry has been called “a success story” that has put the nation “ahead of the world” in terms of providing cheap, CO2-free energy. In terms of industrialized nations, mainland France has the lowest carbon dioxide production per unit of GDP in the world.
As of 2012, France’s electricity price to household customers is the 7th cheapest amongst the 27 member European Union, and also the 7th cheapest to industrial consumers, with a rate of €0.14/kWh to households and €0.07/kWh to industrial consumers.
Roger Sowell says August 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm
Here is a list of islands with populations of approximately 1 million, yet none have a nuclear power plant.
…
You missed one:
Manhattan.
But, what is your point?
.
DR
August 3, 2013 4:53 pm
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of ‘Big Oil’ etc. funding greenie groups?
@ DirkH, nice try, very clever of you to pick on fringe technologies wind and solar. Yet, even that fails. Wind provides far more than zero in California, in fact wind produced 4.5 percent in 2012. Solar provided just under 1 percent in 2012.
How about trying your cute little trick with natural gas, and with coal-fired power? Why can’t nuclear compete with the big boys?
I would almost pay money to see this.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 5:03 pm
Roger Sowell;
Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions. But I thought this wasn’t about competitiveness? I thought this was about safe affordable power that didn’t produce ghg’s? That was the original point, and you’ve completely side stepped it. Is it affordable? Yes. Is it safe? Yes. Does it produce ghg’s? No. So why is the green movement so dead against it? Offer up some actual science if you want to have a discussion about the relative merits of one versus the other.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 5:04 pm
Roger Sowell;
Why can’t nuclear compete with the big boys?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Which has what to do with it being safe or not? Being dangerous to future generations or not? Those were your assertions and when asked to back them up you changed the subject.
Angech
August 3, 2013 5:05 pm
When I was young(er) I used to enjoy records. Hottest day in 1960 most rain in Darwin in a day/week month, coolest night for June. Also temps heights rain droughts floods etc. Then along came AGW and now natural events and extremes are tainted by “the Cause” . Why can’t we have record highs and lows to enjoy without the navel searching?
Grump of day.
Roger Sowell says August 3, 2013 at 4:54 pm
…
How about trying your cute little trick with natural gas, and with coal-fired power? Why can’t nuclear compete with the big boys?
Are you completely blind, man?
Or just disingenuous to some nth degree?
DIDJA SEE the cost/kHW for France above?????????????????????????
.
Angech
August 3, 2013 5:06 pm
Global sea ice positive again fourth or fifth time this year. A new record!
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
a) seawater contains Uranium. We must do something!
And people are radioactive because of the Potassium and Carbon radioisotopes in our bodies.
RE: john says:
August 3, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Thanks for that link, John. And thanks to Ole Salomonson for sharing.
Even though the video is sped up a bit, the northern lights really do move around quite a bit. The first time I saw them I looked up and thought I was looking at a white, moonlit cloud, and then, just as it was dawning on me that there was no moon, the blame thing moved, first one way, and then the other. Even without the colors Ole captures, it blew me away.
Bill H
August 3, 2013 5:27 pm
Bill H says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:16 am
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, … http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html
========================================
While I am not the Bill H that posted this i can say with certainty that this is NOT the Republican position as everyone of those who signed the letter are RINO’s (Republicans in name only) and are on the power grab control band wagon of the left..
I find it laughable that they purport they are “for” it and it is “undeniable” and just like the left the facts do not help them… Just like Mann however the data is meaning less.. Leave it to the NY slimes to print propaganda..
Gary Pearse
August 3, 2013 5:29 pm
Gary Pearse says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
Roger, I’m waiting. Without Chernobyl, a 50s Soviet plant with no safety features, there have only been 7 nuclear plant deaths in 60 years – 4 in Japan and 3 in USA, notably France has zero as has the rest. I have a challenge for you in the above as well which I see you have chosen to sidestep. If you don’t take it up, I’ll know all I have to know about you and millions of your clones and I will never respond to your stuff here again. There have been more than a few lambs visit who have left their fleece behind here after grossly underestimating WUWT skeptics. Some manned and womaned up but not many. There are lots of Kool Aid blogs where you can be a guru but this is not one of them. You have had one hell of a top notch education over this day that students pay a lot for elsewhere, but I fear it has been a waste of time with you. Goodbye.
Gunga Din says: August 3, 2013 at 1:28 pm “Neverwet:…Hmmm. I wonder if it would hold up on a snow shovel?”
Outstanding! Better, my front end loader bucket that’s near useless for snow freezing in it.
Here’s my favorite [snow shovel] [Suncast SPF2450 24-Inch Snow Shovel/Pusher with Fiberglass Handle And Wear Strip]
August, as good a month as any to talk about snow shovels.
I was having trouble finding a replacement for my aluminum and steel show pusher and wound up trying one much like yours – http://www.amazon.com/Garant-APP26KDRU-Alpine-26-Inch-Stained/dp/B000FBKUVS/ref=sr_1_4
[Except mine has a fiberglass handle, not ash.] Turns out it’s better – the old one didn’t have sides on the scoop.
Why do they even sell show shovels with plastic or aluminum scrapers in New Hampshire?
Back on Neverwet – careful, a little friction can be a big help to control a shovelful of snow and keep it from spilling out. OTOH, wet snow sticking to a shovel is a big pain.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 5:38 pm
Gary Pearse;
Roger, I’m waiting. Without Chernobyl, a 50s Soviet plant with no safety features,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually, Chernobyl had safety features, and they worked. That is until some moron physicists wanted to run an experiment that exceeded the safety limits of the reactor. The safety system kept shutting down the reactor in the middle of the experiment. So…. they shut the safety systems off. The thing about making systems foolproof if that you cannot over estimate the cleverness of fools.
Kajajuk
August 3, 2013 5:56 pm
DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
———————–
Same suggestion i have posted at least twice before…
A dynamic harmony between capitalism (actual not “crony”) and socialism (actual not social corruption).
u.k.(us)
August 3, 2013 5:59 pm
Even when I really don’t want to say anything, it is nice to know I could.
Kajajuk
August 3, 2013 6:04 pm
Gary Pearse says:
August 3, 2013 at 5:06 pm\
——-
Nice.
So it is all just “natural variability” until the observations are in line with your “coldist” dreams and then it is profound as well as immediate?
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 6:10 pm
A Republican Case for Climate Action
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts:
Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I was just looking at DMI. Highest levels of sea ice since 2006.
Which is just as meaningless as the low levels a few years ago. But facts are facts and sea ice has been increasing at both poles for several years now. They can claim to be Republicans, and they can have their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
Kajajuk
August 3, 2013 6:16 pm
Doug Huffman
August 3, 2013 6:19 pm
My, I had to think of the three US deaths – SL-1 – Stationary Lowpower One. Reassembling the rod control system after maintenance, a worker had to manually lift the central rod’s control rack to engage it with the drive pinion. Evidentially it stuck momentarily causing a jerk reactivity addition accident and steam explosion that ejected at least that rod.
A coworker was assigned to that crew and shift but called in with the Idaho January sniffles. I just got a note from him telling of his move into a seniors’ home.
Just came across this, which puts the whole radiation risk in perspective.
Radioactivity of the human body
A typical human body contains approximately 40 grams of potassium. About 1/1000 of this is potassium-40, a radioactive isotope. This means that you contain 0.04 grams = 40 milligrams of a radioactive cancer-producing isotope in your body. This is not an artificial radioactivity, but it is left over from the formation of potassium in the supernova that gave birth to our solar system. The half life of potassium-40 is 1.26 billion years. The solar system was created about 5 billion years ago. That is not enough time for all of the radioactive potassium to decay, and that is why there is so much in our bodies.
Atoms of radiopotassium in your body explode approximately 12,000 times every second. Your body is radioactive. Only 11% of the radioactive decays yield a gamma ray, so there are 1,300 self-inflicted gammas per second from your own body. (This is not easy to see in a geiger counter, because gammas are hard to detect.) This results in an exposure of approximately 0.00018 Sieverts over a 50 year period. If the linear hypothesis is correct, this is responsible on average for 7 millionths of a cancers per individual. Since 0.2 of us die from cancer, this self-inflicted radiation is responsible for 1/28000 of our cancers.
The results are more astonishing if you consider a large population. There are about 250 million people in the United States. Multipy 250 million by 7 millionths of a cancer per person, and you find that 250 x 7 = 1750 people will die of cancer over the next 50 years, induced by their own radioactivity. That averages to 35 per year.
Of course, we can’t get away from our own radioactivity. But think about double beds. If we spend a lot of time very close to someone else, we are exposed to their radioactivity as well as our own. Suppose we spend 1/3 of a day in close proximity (e.g. double beds). Then we expect to increase the potassium-induced cancers by about 1/3, or about 600 people. So if everyone in the US slept in double beds, the number of additional cancers expected in the next 50 years is 600.
That may sound silly. But remember, those are 600 people who otherwise would not die of cancer. And that’s just in the US. If we consider world-wide statistics, the numbers will be 20 times larger: 12000.
Do you think we should do something about this? We could install shields between people that protect them from gamma rays. Or outlaw double beds? At what point is it silly to worry? What level of “additional cancer” would you consider to be negligible? Would you accept a different level of risk for yourself than you would allow for the entire US? A risk of 0.000007 sounds negligible for me, but 600 preventable cancers in the US sounds substantial.
@ David Hoffer re nuclear power:
You wrote;
“Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,
“But I thought this wasn’t about competitiveness? I thought this was about safe affordable power that didn’t produce ghg’s? That was the original point, and you’ve completely side stepped it.”
No, affordability is one of the points.
” Is it affordable? Yes.”
No, it is clearly not, or it would produce far more power and be built instead of coal and gas plants.
“Is it safe? Yes.”
Seriously? Why then are nuclear plant workers required to wear lifetime radiodosimeter badges?
“Does it produce ghg’s? No.”
Seriously? How many CO2 tons are emitted in mining and enriching the fuel, and building the plant with the hundreds of tons of steel and concrete?
“So why is the green movement so dead against it?”
Perhaps the widespread nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, and Fukushima, and nearly from Three Mile Island have some little thing to do with it? Especially after decades of nuclear advocates (such as yourself) shouting about how safe nuclear power is! The common thought is that nuclear industry insiders lie and lie again. Each time a major event happens, we find that more lies are told.
“Offer up some actual science if you want to have a discussion about the relative merits of one versus the other.”
I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power. France is subsidized so it does not count.
markx
August 3, 2013 6:41 pm
DirkH says: August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
In response to Kajajuk says:August 3, 2013 at 4:04 pm “Levity; not so much…” (Video Wealth Inequality in America) (Helluva video, marvelous presentation – worth watching for the clarity of presentation alone. “…..And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?….”
It is a fine example of a people programmed with belief. In “the land of the free” anyone can make it! …. thanks to the wonders of free capitalism, “…everyone has an equal opportunity…” ….
Except, they don’t.
Some people are just smarter, harder working and/or luckier than others. And once the ball is rolling, they hold all the advantages: Political connection and influence, financial connection and influence (cheaper endless finance), legal connection and influence, the ability and wherewithall to market endlessly, the means to copy, outlast absorb competitors etc etc etc.
Yes, it is a great system, if you think we should all end up working for one or two versions of “The Corporation”.
Now that seems fair, that they should prosper so: But, to the extent 1% end up with 50% of the loot? And noting the capitalist system we now have functions only because of a myraid of laws on currency, banking, property etc (Yeah, it is not really “free capitalism”.)
And noting a few more tweaks to laws (a little more focus on anti-trust issues) could prevent gigantic corporation becoming gigantic.
The very interesting thing about “The Land of the Free” is that the working class masses are happy enough with the “equal opportunity” offered (meager as it is) that they will happily enlist in almost any conflict the corporations choose, and fight to the death to defend it.
The rate of greenhouse gas emitted from South Australia’s filthiest power stations is about 1,100 g CO2 per kWh for full fuel cycle. The greenhouse gas from nuclear operated in Australia (best estimate) for full lifecycle is 60g CO2e/kWh (University of Sydney, 2006). Only a 97.8% improvement there, but if coal was done for lifecycle nuclear would romp it in well past 99%.
Radiation pollution to the surrounding environment is about 100 times greater from a coal fired power plant than a nuclear plant Scientific American 13 December 2007.
Other pollution from coal includes:
Sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), which contributes to acid rain
Nitric oxides (NO and NO2), contributing to harmful ozone smog and acid rain
Carbon monoxide (CO), which is highly toxic
Particulate air pollution which is responsible for the slow and painful deaths of around 700,000 people per year according to WHO (1997), reported in UNEP 2002.
Heavy metals (lead cadmium, mercury) that enter and that persist in the food chain
Arsenic
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs, yet another highly toxic chemical)
On the nuclear side of the waste ledger, we basically have high level nuclear waste (HLW) that distinguishes the power source. ……[….]….
High level waste is produced in very small amounts. It is cooled, and then stored, safely, from whence it does no harm[1]. Its behaviour is not complex or mysterious, it is entirely predictable. It does not leach or leak, or otherwise negatively interact with the environment or people. Much like a noise source that can damage your hearing, but that you can’t turn off, we manage radioactive material it by putting dense material and some distance between it and us; enough that it can’t hurt anyone. Basically, it’s that simple. I suppose it’s a value judgement in the end, but I comfortably ascribe that at least 99 times less harm than the mountain of crap that is emitted from a coal fired power station onto all of us every year. I don’t like HLW, I don’t want it, but I can certainly live with it being contained and safely managed.
@ Gary Pearse re nuclear power.
“Roger, I’m waiting.”
Good. The first thing for you to recognize is that my schedule is not under your control.
“Without Chernobyl, a 50s Soviet plant with no safety features, there have only been 7 nuclear plant deaths in 60 years – 4 in Japan and 3 in USA, notably France has zero as has the rest.”
Somehow, those dead people from Chernobyl are very likely not impressed with your argument. Neither am I. Radiation exposure is cumulative and workers in the industry are just now reaching old age where deaths can be attributed to their exposure. Plus where are the studies on their children’s birth defects? Time will expose the lies of nuclear power being safe.
“i have a challenge for you in the above as well which I see you have chosen to sidestep.”
Really? What challenge is that? Do you care to take my challenge on nuclear plants on islands?
“If you don’t take it up, I’ll know all I have to know about you”
Oooohhh! A threat! You can just imagine how scared I am.
“and millions of your clones and I will never respond to your stuff here again.”
Is that a promise?
“There have been more than a few lambs visit who have left their fleece behind here after grossly underestimating WUWT skeptics.”
Such bold talk over such nonsense! Being a skeptic myself on CAGW, I’ll never take a backseat to you.
“Some manned and womaned up but not many. There are lots of Kool Aid blogs where you can be a guru but this is not one of them.”
Irrelevant. You cannot argue that nuclear power is safe nor affordable so you resort to insults. A clear sign you have lost the argument.
“You have had one hell of a top notch education over this day”
Really? What is your meaning here?
“that students pay a lot for elsewhere, but I fear it has been a waste of time with you.”
I see the usual false arguments trotted out about France, and little else. That is an education? Hah.
“Goodbye”
On that we agree. Feel free to try again when you have a real argument.
What they fail to understand is that it is an incredibly simple way to boil water once the engineers have done their magic.
My advantage in this discussion is that I once spent some intense years learning to operate small, flexible nuclear reactors and training others to operate them. I can bear testimony to the fact that they can be extremely simple and robust power sources that need very little support from external infrastructure.
If people look at a gas plant and see a low cost capital investment, they are only looking at a small portion of the overall cost because someone else had to invest the capital into the fuel delivery system that moves the vapor from the deposit to the plant. Methane does not carry much energy per unit volume, so it is not easy to move from place to place.
In contrast, the submarines on which I used to deploy could be loaded with 14 years worth of fuel (1970s vintage technology). These days, we load subs with a lifetime fuel supply – Virginia class boats deliver with a core rated for 33 years worth of operations and no provisions for refueling.
I also spent a few years designing a really simple nuclear heat engine that can compete on a capital cost basis with combustion gas turbines because it uses exactly the same kinds of turbines and compressors as those systems do. The projected fuel cost is about 1/3 that of even the “cheap” gas currently available in North America. There are no emissions, and there is no need for pipelines or fracking.
Kajajuk
August 3, 2013 7:05 pm
markx says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:41 pm
———————-
The evidence of the divide is all about; if one cares to look.
markx
August 3, 2013 7:10 pm
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
in reply to David Hoffer who wrote; “Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
RS says: “Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,”
Did you note that German energy costs shot through the roof when they shut down their nuclear power plants? http://www.thegwpf.org/germany-energy-poverty-600000-households-disconnected-annually/
Charles Tossy
August 3, 2013 7:10 pm
The perfect power source.
1. Tie a goat to a stake.
2. Tie a zombie to a treadmill connected to a generator.
3. Add more zombies.
markx
August 3, 2013 7:21 pm
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm “Here is a list of islands with populations of approximately 1 million, yet none have a nuclear power plant.”
Not sure on your point here, but, on the issue of small scale nuclear power and small populations it is important to note:
The U.S. Navy has accumulated over 5,400 “reactor years” of accident-free experience, and operates more than 80 nuclear-powered ships.
Statement of Admiral F. L. “Skip” Bowman, U.S. Navy Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program before the House Committee on Science 29 October 2003.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 7:21 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm “Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,
Oh they do not. In fact, they export a considerable amount of electrical power to other countries at prices conventional power plants cannot compete with. Or are you suggesting that France is so stupid that they subsidize electricity in other countries? ” Is it affordable? Yes.”
No, it is clearly not, or it would produce far more power and be built instead of coal and gas plants.
Japan and Germany also ran very affordable nuclear power plants but shut them down because of political pressure, not financial pressure. In fact, Japan in particular is under massive financial pressure to resume nuclear power because they cannot generate power economically by means ofimported fossil fuels. China has plans for nuclear power plants by the dozen and so does India. By extension, one might ask why wind farms and solar farms are being built despite being proven unreliable and atrosciously expensive. The fact is that they are being built with massive subsidies, relgulatory requirements to build them, and political pressure. Their existance no more proves they are financially viable than the existance of coal and oil powered plants proves nuclear isn’t. “Is it safe? Yes.”
Seriously? Why then are nuclear plant workers required to wear lifetime radiodosimeter badges?
Seriously? How about to double check that the safety systems are working? “Does it produce ghg’s? No.”
Seriously? How many CO2 tons are emitted in mining and enriching the fuel, and building the plant with the hundreds of tons of steel and concrete?
Seriously? Compare the lifetime CO2 emissions, construction, refining, plant retirement of fossil fuel plants to nuclear plants. Fossil fuel plants over their lifetime produce orders of magnitude more ghg’s than do nuclear plants. By comparison, the emissions of a nuclear power plant, all those tons of steel and concrete included, are barely a rounding error. “So why is the green movement so dead against it?”
Perhaps the widespread nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, and Fukushima, and nearly from Three Mile Island have some little thing to do with it? Especially after decades of nuclear advocates (such as yourself) shouting about how safe nuclear power is! The common thought is that nuclear industry insiders lie and lie again. Each time a major event happens, we find that more lies are told.
Well expose some of the lies then. You’re just claiming that lies are being told without substantiating them. As for the fallout, sorry but facts trump this fanatasy world you live in. Fossil fuels contain radiactive elements, in particular coal which before scrubbers was simply pumped into the air, the average coal plan used to contribute far more to background radiation than did nuclear plants. But we figured out the problem and dealt with it. This is the part you don’t seem to understand. Yes there have been problems in the nuclear industry. But when you compare to the health hazards of conventional fuel, their record is stellar. It is like your chance of dying in a car accident versus an airplane crash. You are orders of magnitude more likely to die in a car crash. Yet car crashes rarely make anything but the local news while airplane crashes are instant international headlines with opportunistic politicians screaming for investigations to make sure that the specific cause doesn’t happen again. By your standards, we would outlaw cars and force people to only fly any distance they couldn’t walk or ride a bike. Does that make sense to you? “Offer up some actual science if you want to have a discussion about the relative merits of one versus the other.”
I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power. France is subsidized so it does not count.
And I’m still waiting for you to present some actual science. The financial case has been made already.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 7:33 pm
Roger Sowell;
Somehow, those dead people from Chernobyl are very likely not impressed with your argument. Neither am I. Radiation exposure is cumulative and workers in the industry are just now reaching old age where deaths can be attributed to their exposure.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
About 30,000 people per year are killed in car accidents in the United States alone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
Should we ban cars?
As for your concern about cumulative exposure, have you forgotten those radiodosimeter badges you complained the workers have to wear? Do you suppose part of wearing them is to measure their cumulative exposure end ensure it doesn’t get high enough to risk their health? Are you aware that millions of people live in areas of the world in which background radiation is higher than what is allowed in nuclear power plants?
You still haven’t provided any facts. Just arm waving and hysterical claims of impending doom. You may be a CAGW skeptic, but you are using the tactics of the warmists to argue your position, not facts and logic.
…..[….]…. According to the Washington Post the green group Nature Conservancy – which encourages ordinary citizens to personally pledge to fight climate change – “has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years.”
Gee, didn’t Greenpeace build an entire ExxonSecrets website to expose the allegedly diabolical fact that, over a 9-year-period (1998-2006) ExxonMobil donated a grand total of $2.2 million to a conservative think tank?
$10 million versus $2 million. Who do we suppose has the cozier relationship with big oil?
But that’s just the beginning. The Washington Post also points out that Conservation International, another green group which insists climate change represents a “profound threat,” has “accepted $2 million in donations from BP over the years and partnered with the company on a number of projects.”
Funny, Greenpeace doesn’t talk about that. Nor does it mention:
• that BP is funding research into “ways of tackling the world’s climate problem” at Princeton University to the tune of $2 million per year for 15 years
• that BP is funding an energy research institute involving two other US universities to the tune of $500 million – the aim of which is “to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment”
• that ExxonMobil itself has donated $100 million to Stanford university so that researchers there can find “ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming”
…..[…..and more….]….
Tom in Texas
August 3, 2013 7:52 pm
“The US’ South Texas Nuclear Plant, near Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast, recently cancelled an expansion project that would have added two more reactors.”
San Antonio was going to take a % of that expansion. Instead, our demoncratic mayor and city council has decided to go with sunbeams (contracted at twice the price per kwhr).
Can’t wait to see the effects of the first hail storm. I have photos of hail’s effect on a newly installed large array of solar panels in the early 70’s. Bet it’s the same effect (unless it’s now rotten hail).
Note: 75 miles south of San Antonio, in the Eagle Ford, there is almost an unlimited amount natural gas. Not much activity in the NG zone due to its low price. In the oil zone, NG is the red-headed step child, that is produced as a by-product. Not cost effective to put in pipe, so much is just flaired off.
San Antonio should be the NG capitol of Texas. We should be driving Honda Civic GS vehicles and using NG to generate electricity. Except instead of public NG filling sites, we have electric charging sites (thank you DOE) that no one is using because few have electric cars.
Instead of becoming a NG society, San Antonio is getting sunbeams. Where’s my camera.
Can ANYONE show me a power company that reduced their rates after building a nuclear power plant? No, you cannot.
For those who cannot grasp the point about islands and nuclear power plants, if nukes were so safe and affordable, why don’t those islands build them and cut their costs of power? They don’t because it won’t.
Re naval use of nuclear power, yes it works and I’m happy to see it. No, the civilian power industry is not run by the military and has far more accidents. Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea. Shall we count the dead sailors as nuclear casualties?
For those of you who argued above that plutonium is safe, I suggest you do a little research on the name Karen Silkwood.
Regarding France, yes they do export power at night because they must. They cannot reduce the nuclear plants’ output sufficiently. The French have artificially low power prices after the government nationalized the industry.
Gee, this has been fun fellas.
markx
August 3, 2013 8:06 pm
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 7:54 pm “….Gee, this has been fun fellas….”
Are you having a lousy weekend, Roger? Otherwise, there is probably no real need to be contemptuous and sarcastic.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 8:12 pm
Roger Sowell;
Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Provide evidence of a single such incident.
markx
August 3, 2013 8:14 pm
Here is a time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998… (leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade)
It is important to note that had these been 2035 nuclear plants all exploding in populated areas this would have undoubtedly resulted in a lot of casualties. BUT, contrary to popular belief, a nuclear plant explosion or two (or 2035) would not destroy the planet, or civilization.
u.k.(us)
August 3, 2013 8:21 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:59 pm
————–
@ Roger Sowell,
you argue like a child.
It grates, the reading.
Just saying.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 8:22 pm
Roger Sowell;
For those of you who argued above that plutonium is safe, I suggest you do a little research
>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
The third leading cause of death in the world is drowning. Should we ban swimming? Or water?
davidmhoffer says:
“Provide evidence of a single such incident.” Ouch!
markx
August 3, 2013 8:24 pm
davidmhoffer says: August 3, 2013 at 8:12 pm Roger Sowell; “Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea.”
Provide evidence of a single such incident.
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
The Russians have lost several – and some due to cooling accidents.
But, the point is, it can be done very safely, with large numbers of people living in close proximity.
These small scale nuclear plants are ideally suited to dropping directly into existing power grids. It would be the cheapest, quickest and most practical solution should the occasion actually arise that someone accumulates some meaningful evidence that the planet is heading towards a state of catastrophic anthropologically caused global warming.
I think Roger’s ‘solution’ is that the bulk of the world’s population should simply go without affordable energy while he and his ilk futz around with wind and sun idealist fantasies.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 8:25 pm
Roger Sowell;
For those who cannot grasp the point about islands and nuclear power plants, if nukes were so safe and affordable, why don’t those islands build them and cut their costs of power? They don’t because it won’t.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You just keep coming back to that over and over again. What any given island uses for power says nothing about the cost effectiveness of other options. The use of wind and solar power doesn’t mean they are economical, yet they are in use. You can’t argue the facts, so you keep coming back to this mindless mantra.
Its been fun? No it has not. Watching someone who claims to have critical thinking skills descend to misdirection and arm waving is disappointing.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 8:27 pm
markx;
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ah well, you prevented Roger from stepping into the trap I set for him. 😉
Tom in Texas
August 3, 2013 8:27 pm
‘@ Roger Sowell,
you argue like a child.”
He argues like a lawyer, which he is.
Tom in Texas
August 3, 2013 8:30 pm
“…descend to misdirection and arm waving is disappointing.”
Like a lawyer with a guilty client?
More evidence of why nuclear power plants cannot compete. http://www.powermag.com/gas/gas_power_direct/Is-Cheap-Gas-Killing-Nuclear-Power_5743.html
“The fourth shuttered reactor, the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin, was shut down in May with 20 years left on its operating license after owner Dominion was unable to find a buyer. The announcement blamed market conditions stemming from low natural gas prices, which made the merchant plant a money loser.”
john says: August 3, 2013 at 11:04 am
… Chad, I’ve been working on a project combining bank fraud and renewable fraud. …
You and most of our politicians.
David Ball
August 3, 2013 9:04 pm
[i]”_Jim says:
August 3, 2013 at 1:34 pm
David Ball says August 3, 2013 at 9:03 am
…
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere?
LOL… and heartily I light add … let me guess, liberal arts major (and not a hard science degree esp. not in the field of engineering)?
(I think that statement is attributable to David; pls pardon me if it’s not.)”[i]
_Jim has just revealed the short sited fear of the unknown that has prevented man from advancing much further than we have. I post a scientific solution to the energy problem we all have to deal with and he responds as a child would. He accused Gail Combs of being childish in another thread, yet her posts are ALWAYS reasoned and she provides links. _Jim’s posts never contain any solutions to anything, just negative poo-pooing of others ideas.
I understand the science behind what I have posted and know EXACTLY where we are in terms of technology regarding a project like a “space elevator”.
It is quite obvious who the childish unscientific responses are from. Keep your opinion and show me where I am wrong, or provide a better answer to our energy problems. I’ll wait.
It’s time mankind started making the advances we are capable of.
markx
August 3, 2013 9:10 pm
davidmhoffer says: August 3, 2013 at 8:27 pm
markx;
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ah well, you prevented Roger from stepping into the trap I set for him. 😉
Ah, sorry David!
But in truth the Russian side of the story is pretty dismal, and their decommissioning is a nightmare – but, of course, it does not have to be that way.
acementhead says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:41 pm
> Does anybody have any news about Rossi’s “ecat”? How about the “hotcat”?
People are hard at work, Rossi’s partner seems to have Rossi talking less, which is probably for the best. Rossi is quite happy with how things have been progressing. The focus has been on the hotcat for a while.
ICCF-18 (18th International Conference on Cold Fusion) had many things going on that I didn’t follow. Most were for systems producing a lot less heat than the E-Cat. http://iccf18.research.missouri.edu/program.php
There’s a group called the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project that has many things they’re involved with. They’re mostly low output devices, but they’re involved with bigger things too. I can’t keep up with them, see https://www.facebook.com/MartinFleischmannMemorialProject?
One thing they mention is “We have been told by a trusted source, whom we can not disclose, that there will be an independent report of DGT Hyperion technology published at some point.” DGT is a greek company, Defkalion, that had been working with Rossi years ago but they had a falling out of sorts and have been working on stuff independently from Rossi. They had a demonstration of their system at ICCF-18.
markx
August 3, 2013 9:22 pm
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 8:37 pm More evidence of why nuclear power plants cannot compete. http://www.powermag.com/gas/gas_power_direct/Is-Cheap-Gas-Killing-Nuclear-Power_5743.html
Yeah, thanks, we know that, Roger … and it applies for now, while gas is abundant (oversupplied, even), but you perhaps underestimate the determination of our ‘green fanatics’ to save the planet strictly according to their beliefs.
Gas is a handy fill in, and from what we know know could get us through the next 200 years unsullied, but, never underestimate the destructive power of green idealistic fanaticist stupidity.
It has worked ‘nicely’ on nuclear power, and possibly will also do so on gas.
Yes, there have been several nuclear powered navy vessels sent to the bottom. Some US, some from other nations.
So much for that perfect military record.
Set a trap for me? Good luck with that!
No, my ideal world would not have wind and solar providing power, except where the cost for alternatives is too great. I would shut down all nukes immediately and ban any new nuclear plants. Navy can keep building theirs.
Since CO2 is not an issue of concern, I would build coal and natural gas power plants with appropriate scrubbers for proven toxic emissions such as sulfur, NOx, and flyash. I would also build many more hydroelectric plants in mountainous regions, including pumped storage hydro. Finally. I would devote tax funds for developing power from ocean currents. The ocean currents are far better than any other power source: huge, inexhaustible, pollution-free, and zero energy cost.
But, that’s just me. I want the poor people of this world to have abundant and cheap power. The last thing I would ever install to achieve that goal is nuclear power.
I saw first-hand what happened to power prices in Houston and along the US Gulf Coast when nuclear plants were built in the 70s and 80s. Prices zoomed, and poor people were badly hurt. Industry responded by self-generating, removing revenue from the utility companies. The utilities then obtained more rate increases, thereby hurting the poor even more. We called that the nuclear death spiral.
I was quite lucky with a good engineering job, but many of my relatives and millions of others suffered greatly.
So yes, I’m against nuclear power. Especially at this time, when costs to build are much higher, natural gas is far cheaper, and combined cycle gas turbine plants are mature technology.
I’m still waiting for anyone to refute the facts I’ve laid out. There is zero case for nuclear power in this world.
But, if you don’t mind screwing the poor, and handing off your poisons from spent fuel to future generations, and killing no telling how many more people when the next plant explodes and melts down, then you can be an advocate of nuclear power.
@John –
Yes, the entire “renewable” meme is a fraud. So-called “renewables” are dirtier than fossil fuels; they are an environmental as well as an economic disaster. It’s all about enriching der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies, on the one hand, and reducing everyone else to penury and dependency through excessive energy costs. “Saving the planet” is only the guilt trip these thieves are using to get uninformed people to go along with their scams.
Apart from hydroelectric generation, which global warming alarmists routinely dismiss as bad, all other renewable energy resources present major hazards in terms of pollution and environmental damage. To be safe to produce, geothermal energy requires even more elaborate and costly controls than are required for coal-fired power generation. The steam which powers geothermal generators is laced with poisons like arsenic, selenium, mercury, thallium, lead and hexavalent chromium which must be removed before the steam condensate can be released into the environment. The cleansing of the steam effluent is sufficiently costly to make geothermal energy highly uneconomic, and is not entirely effective.
Wind power installations, with their footprints thousands of times larger than fossil-fuel generation for the same output of electricity, disrupt habitats, despoil landscapes, emit substantial pollution from the noxious chemicals used to operate them, and kill millions of birds and bats every year, including California condors, bald and golden eagles, whooping cranes and other endangered species. While rooftop solar is generally not so destructive, large solar power installations do disrupt habitats, emit pollutants and kill animals.
In addition, because of the very low capacity factors for these intermittent sources of power, tobe useful at all they must be supplemented by fossil fuel generation. While capacity factors for wind and solar power are routinely advertised at 30 percent of rated capacity (i.e., actual power production is 30 percent of theoretical total output when running at 100 percent capacity), actual experience has been that power production for neither solar or wind has never regularly exceeded 20 percent of capacity, and the average for wind is closer to 8 percent of capacity. The remaining 80 to 92 percent (or more) of capacity must be supplied by fossil fuel generation (this is called “firming”).
And because this fossil fuel generation must be able to respond at a moment’s notice when the wind stops blowing or clouds cover the sun, only simple-cycle generators are able to perform this function, and simple-cycle fossil generation uses twice as much fuel (and emits twice as much carbon dioxide, and is generally dirtier) as the more efficient and cleaner combined-cycle generating plants than cannot ramp up and down fast enough to maintain the energy balance in the grid. Therefore, attempting to rely on wind and solar power often results in as much as a doubling of emissions and pollutants, compared to relying primarily on combined-cycle generation without wind or solar.
When all land, manufacturing, construction and operating costs are considered, solar power costs from 80 cents to $1.10 per kilowatt-hour to produce. Wind power costs are comparable. This is 4 to 15 times more costly than the average cost of fossil-fuel generation (about 7 cents nationwide; California’s electricity prices are artificially high because of renewable energy mandates and emissions caps). This cost differential is even greater when the added cost of fuel for simple-cycle generation for “firming” is factored in. And of course this added ost is borne by the taxpayers as well as by ratepayers.
Also, as intermittent sources, solar and wind power can hardly be said to be reliable when they can shut off at any moment, including times of peak electrical system load. While wind power is touted as having a 30 percent capacity factor – i.e., total output 30 percent of what would be generated if they ran 100 prercent of the time, in reality output rarely exceeds 20 percent of theoretical capacity, and many wind installations operate at about 8 percent – some even as low as 2 percent, enormously increasing the cost per kilowatt-hour generated. And ironically, since the wind tends to blow less during periods of peak electricity demand, typically between noon and 6 p.m., one often sees the turbines idle when demand is pushing the grid to the breaking point.
Wind and solar are not “free” or inexhaustible, the more so since their equipment wears out quickly and is expensive to maintain and replace, with lots of down time. It should come as no surprise that when one passes by a large wind turbine installation, one is likely to see all but a few of the turbines idle, even if the wind is blowing. There is also the enormous cost of building new transmission lines to connect wind and solar facilities to the grid – most of these installations are far from any existing transmission lines, yet the advocates of wind and solar never factor this added cost into their calculations. And this is not to mention the cost of the huge swaths of land needed to build solar and wind power installations – land is NOT free or inexhaustible. In California electric rates are already double the national average because of “renewable” energy mandates.
And again, don’t forget wind’s four dirty little secrets:
(1) millions of dead birds and bats, including endangered California condors and whooping cranes;
(2) habitat disruption (1,500 times as much land required to produce the same juice as a 500-megawatt fossil fuel power plant, if it is operating at capacity – and you have to divide that 1,500 multiple by the effective capacity factor (i.e., if the factor is 20 percent, it takes 7,500 times as much space to produce the juice, not to mention the despoiled landscapes);
(3) the inefficient and dirtier types of fossil fuel generation that must be used to “firm” the power when the wind stops blowing, since more efficient types of generation cannot respond quickly enough to maintain the energy balance on the grid (resulting in a net increase, not decrease, in emissions);
(4) some very nasty chemical pollution leaking from the machines as they run, including PCBs.
Wind power costs 80 cents to $1.10 a kilowatt-hour for a good reason: land cost, equipment cost, depreciation and maintenance. It is anything but free, and it will never compete with fossil fuel power unless the taxpayers subsidize most of the cost of it. The portion of it that can’t be recovered by doubling or tripling electric rates is being picked up by the taxpayer, and together, these cost recoveries represents an interesting redistribution of wealth: der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies get richer off the backs of lower- and middle-income people – so wealth is taken from poorer and given ti richer. And since the whole idea that fossil fuel burning is warming the globe is now so thoroughly proven to be utterly false, it is insane and mean-spirited to force these high costs on consumers, especially poor people who desperately need cheap energy.
England’s Lloyd’s insurance organization recently published a report aiming to quantify what is known about the economic impact of tornadoes, drawing on multiple inputs, including damage reports from insurers, scientific data and government information. Its conclusion, in short, was that insured losses stemming from dangerous tornadoes are growing. However, this is believed to be more a function of where people live in the modern day, rather than a sign that tornadoes and punishing thunderstorms are becoming more frequent or stronger.
gbaikie
August 3, 2013 9:45 pm
” Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind. See: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html?m=0
Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
In your link you mention San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station- Construction began August 1964. And Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Plant’s completion in 1973.
Neither face similar threat as nuclear reactors related to the Japanese tsunami.
Both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are at near their expected design lives which when built which were generally 30 to 40 years. And San Onofre is being decommissioned. Upgrading and redesigning for longer operational lifetimes is being done- and there effort to design nuclear reactor for 80 year operational lifetime. I would say it would be important to originally design for long life time for nuclear power plants. Rather than reply on upgraing to extent to operational lifetimes. But it better now to design for long lifetimes, than it would been to do this 40+ years ago, because over the year considerable operational experience has lead to greater actual ability to realistically have these longer life times, and we could expect improvement in the future in this respect.
Advocate of wind farm claim their wind generators have life time of 20 to 25 years.
But:
.” By the time the turbines are 10 years old, the amount of wind energy they are able to provide falls by a third, according to the report. Researchers said, based on the findings, it could be “uneconomic” to operate wind farms for more than 12 to 15 years. The industry has previously said wind farms should be able to operate effectively for 20 to 25 years.” http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2013/january/study-shows-onshore-wind-turbines-may-have-shorter-life-than-expected.html
And in the rather recent history of modern wind farms we have large fields of no longer functioning wind farms. So we have had nuclear reactors provide cheap and reliable for decades
reducing a significant amount of coal use in US. Far more reduction of CO2 and mercury emission than any and all “green policies” have managed to do, and nuclear energy has had few deaths resulting from it, as compared to other ways of generating electrical power and
there hasn’t been “poisoning the planet with plutonium wastes” which caused humans or animals to die or become sick. Nor is there any reason to suppose in the future this will occur.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/160131-thorium-nuclear-reactor-trial-begins-could-provide-cleaner-safer-almost-waste-free-energy
Says in part:
At a test site in Norway, Thor Energy has successfully created a thorium nuclear reactor….
Natural thorium, which is fairly cheap and abundant (more so than uranium), doesn’t contain enough fissile material (thorium-231) to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. By mixing thorium oxide with 10% plutonium oxide, however, criticality is achieved. This fuel, which is called thorium-MOX (mixed-oxide), can then be formed into rods and used in conventional nuclear reactors. Not only does this mean that we can do away with uranium, which is expensive to enrich, dangerous, and leads to nuclear proliferation, but it also means that we finally have an easy way of recycling plutonium. Furthermore, the thorium-MOX fuel cycle produces no new plutonium; it actually reduces the world’s stock of plutonium. Oh, thorium-MOX makes for safer nuclear reactors, too, due to a higher melting point and thermal conductivity.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 10:12 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
Yes, there have been several nuclear powered navy vessels sent to the bottom. Some US, some from other nations.
So much for that perfect military record.
Set a trap for me? Good luck with that!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well even warned, you walked face first right into it. You deliberately cited sunk ships as proof that nuclear power isn’t safe, but the fact of the matter is that you can’t point to ship sinking because of nuclear power problems. In other words, the nuclear reactor was fine, the ships sank for unrelated reasons. If you want to argue that nuclear power is unsafe then cite examples of nuclear power being unsafe instead of shouting about completely unrelated events!
Your inability to cite actual problems with these systems which have logged so many years incident free makes a mockery of your arguments. You don’t have an argument or even evidence to cite, so you raise completely unrelated issues. Problem is that you are so committed to your world view that you can’t even understand that the trap just snapped shut on you.
As for your continued argument about economics, citing rises in electricity costs in the 70’s is just plain silly. Inflation was rampant in the 70’s and 80’s, the price of everything went up dramatically, governments raised interest rates to over 20% to try and get inflation under control. Your example has no more to do with the current economic realities than does the price of tea in China.
Yes, natural gas is driving the price of power generation down. In many cases that’s going to mean that nuclear can’t compete. But that was not the original assertion. The original assertion was that nuclear is safe, affordable, and ghg free. Those things are all true and you haven’t presented a shred of evidence to the contrary.
I do hope the nuclear advocates will read my comment at 9:24 on August 3, especially the part about the nuclear death spiral. A search for “death spiral” should bring the cursor to it.
Increased power prices due to nuckear plants is analogous to the “carbon tax” of which so many CAGW skeptics disapprove. A carbon tax raises costs to all consumers, and will do zero good because CO2 is harmless.
Building more nuclear plants will greatly increase power prices to all consumers and do zero good. In fact, nuclear plants do much harm as I argued above.
u.k.(us)
August 3, 2013 10:17 pm
I’m sick of hearing about thorium this and that.
If it can’t be scaled up to industrial size, then who cares.
Not those that buy ball-bearings and pressure cookers.
Energy is cheap right now, exploit it.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 10:18 pm
Ric Werme;
Natural thorium, which is fairly cheap and abundant
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My understanding is that some coal deposits are so high in thorium that recovery from the fly ash is commercially viable. Cheap power that generates cheap fuel. Win-win!
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 10:21 pm
Roger Sowell;
Building more nuclear plants will greatly increase power prices to all consumers and do zero good. In fact, nuclear plants do much harm as I argued above.
>>>>>>>>>>>
No, you claimed above, you presented no evidence of same and attempted to misdirect the discussion. As to your understanding of what drives power prices, if other means are more economical, the free market will turn to them. The point of the discussion, which you seem incapable of following, is that nuclear is a safe, affordable and ghg free option.
@David Hoffer, you make me laugh!
Seriously? You think that inflation caused the gulf coast power prices to zoom in the 70s? Your utter lack of knowledge is clearly evident.
It is also clear that your mind is closed.
But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal.
As for your so-called “trap”, seriously? Try again, sir, try again! You make me laugh.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 10:50 pm
Roger Sowell;
But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I see. You’ve provided precisely no evidence to support your position, but you are a lawyer and going to use those good old lawyer skills to get your way. How’s the saying go?
When you have the facts, pound the facts.
When you don’t have the facts, pound the law.
If you have neither facts nor law, pound the table.
It is unfortunate that you are using your legal skills to pound the law, and it is clear from your poor representation of same that you have no facts to cite. Either that or your legal skills are wanting. My mind isn’t closed, I’m just waiting for you to present some actual evidence. All you seem to have is that you are a lawyer and you will use the law to force your belief system down everyone else’s throat, facts be damned.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
u.k.(us)
August 3, 2013 10:53 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
—————–
“The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal.”
—————
Be very,very,very careful this ain’t the 70’s anymore.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 11:04 pm
Roger Sowell;
The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gee. So its lawyers filing law suits that are preventing nuclear power plants from being built, not economics as you claimed earlier.
Yup, you’re a lawyer all right.
I am curious if any of the nuclear advocates who insist that nuclear power plants are safe are aware of the following report. This details many of the ongoing safety issues at US nuclear power plants. It should give you much pause, and much about which to be very concerned.
The report for 2012 describes 15 near misses, a bit more than one per month. http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/NRC-nuclear-safety-2012-report.pdf
There are similar reports for earlier years.
davidmhoffer
August 3, 2013 11:30 pm
Roger Sowell;
The report for 2012 describes 15 near misses, a bit more than one per month.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You claim to be a CAGW skeptic and yet cite as a source a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists?
I didn’t think there was a way to drop your credibility any lower, but you found a way.
King of Cool
August 3, 2013 11:33 pm
Interesting that Michael Smith of michaelsmithnews.com has drawn attention to an Interpol report warning about carbon trading crime which describes CO2 as an intangible substance and is therefore more prone to fraud.
In comparison Tony Abbott, the Opposition Leader of the Australian Coalition was lampooned recently by much of the MSM for describing Carbon trading as a “so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one”.
Aussie Election called for September 7. We will know on Sept 08 who will be the one who is untouchable and whether CO2 trading has a future in OZ.
Current betting Labor 3.6, Coalition 1.27.
But Labor are renowned to do whatever it takes to retain power and have recently recruited Tom McMahon, the former executive director of the powerful Democratic National Committee during President Obama’s last campaign, Joon Kim of the consulting firm New Partners, and the British social media expert Matthew McGregor to form the digital brigade for Rudd in electioneering on the Social Media front.
However, Tony Abbott’s might say “Prime Minister Rudd, you’re no Barack Obama.”
Richard111
August 3, 2013 11:38 pm
Got this link via TonyfromOz on the JoNova blog. Should be of interest to some of the commenters on power stations above. http://globalenergyobservatory.org/
u.k.(us)
August 3, 2013 11:38 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:22 pm
“I am curious if any of the nuclear advocates who insist that nuclear power plants are safe are aware ….”
—————
Definition of AWARE
1
archaic : watchful, wary
2
: having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge
—————————–
Just might be.
David Hoffer, how many facts must I repeat? Did you not read? Or do you simply refuse to comprehend?
Let’s review…
A new Nuclear power plant, proposed to double the South Texas plant, was scrapped for being too costly. Fact.
Nuclear power plant, licensed and operating with years remaining on its license, was shut down because it is not economic. Fact.
Fukushima reactors melted down and poisoned the countryside as well as yet unknown radiation to people. Radiation continues to pour into the ocean. Fact.
Nuclear industry lied and continues to lie about reactor safety. Fact.
Power prices zoomed due to the nuclear death spiral in the 70s and 80s along the US gulf coast, due to new nuclear power plants. Fact.
No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.
Nuclear powered naval vessels rest on the bottom of the oceans, spewing forth their radiation. Fact.
I could go on, but your mind is closed.
I have not argued any law here tonight, merely presented facts. I could indeed argue some law, such as the legal requirements for safety equipment and procedures in those “safe” nuclear power plants. But I won’t do that. It would be too easy.
You are free to try to prove me wrong on the facts. Prove any of those seven wrong, and I’ll present plenty more.
Give it your best shot.
markx
August 3, 2013 11:44 pm
Roger Sowell says:August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm “…It is also clear that your mind is closed….”
“….The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up*. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal**. …”
Thanks Roger. Here you have neatly encapsulated two major problems:
1. * Why nuclear power stations cost so much.
2. ** One of the primary problems with modern civilization.
I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here.
davidmhoffer
August 4, 2013 12:00 am
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:42 pm
David Hoffer, how many facts must I repeat? Did you not read?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have to provide some facts in order to repeat them. Making alarmist assertions with no facts behind them, and then repeating the assertions has nothing to do with repeating the facts. You’re argument is based on one single cited report, and that is from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that has nothing to do with science, much to do with political advocacy, and even has a dog as a member.
You are just a fear monger with a law degree and a poor grasp of both science and economics.
Khwarizmi
August 4, 2013 12:10 am
Roger Sowell is correct to compare nuclear plants to a “carbon tax.”
see Hooked on Subsidies – Why conservatives should join the left’s campaign against nuclear power: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hooked-subsidies
–“The only reason investors are interested: government handouts.”–
Also, nuclear power was supposed to make electricity production “too cheap to meter” – like the free electricity supplied throughout Qatar.
GHG is the primary focus of today’s nuclear proponent. The cost of subsidies, the cost of cleaning up after a disaster (including the cost of an exclusion zone), and the cost of decommissioning go unmentioned. http://www.google.com/search?q=fukushima%2C+cleanup%2C+cost
@ markx
You wrote:
“I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here”
No, actually I amend my conclusions when new and valid data are presented. I have done that for more than 40 years as a working professional. Here, I have presented facts to support my position, and invited others to refute those facts. None have done so. (likely, because they cannot)
Refute the facts, then I will consider a change in my position.
A man who changes his mind on the unfounded assertions of a stranger is indeed a fool.
davidmhoffer
August 4, 2013 12:30 am
Roger Sowell;
A man who changes his mind on the unfounded assertions of a stranger is indeed a fool.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I guess there aren’t many fools on this thread then.
markx
August 4, 2013 12:32 am
Khwarizmi says: August 4, 2013 at 12:10 am
Roger Sowell is correct to compare nuclear plants to a “carbon tax.”
see Hooked on Subsidies – Why conservatives should join the left’s campaign against nuclear power: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hooked-subsidies
–”The only reason investors are interested: government handouts.”–
Also, nuclear power was supposed to make electricity production “too cheap to meter” – like the free electricity supplied throughout Qatar.
GHG is the primary focus of today’s nuclear proponent. The cost of subsidies, the cost of cleaning up after a disaster (including the cost of an exclusion zone), and the cost of decommissioning go unmentioned. http://www.google.com/search?q=fukushima%2C+cleanup%2C+cost
Thanks Khwarizmi …. interesting information, simply presented. … I take it you are perhaps not a lawyer? 😉
Perry
August 4, 2013 12:56 am
The Spanish government plans to tax people for private electricity generation using PV panels. http://www.davidjackson.info/2013/homeowners-to-be-taxed-for-producing-their-own-electricity.htm
Our lunatic UK government is going to pay up to £15,000 per megawatt (£50 per megawatt is the cost using conventional coal fired or gas fired power stations), using diesel generators, so they can continue to build windmills a a cost of £110 billion. http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84224
It would seem that our politicians of all three hues are in on this stupidity , so voting them out of office isn’t going to work. The East German Democratic Republic existed for a while on these principals. At election time. voters had a choice of candidates, but they were all card carrying members of the Communist Party, so no choice there!
Fuel bills are rocketing all around; all part of the EU plan to subjugate its citizens who should be grateful to the elites for small mercies. Anyone have any ideas?
Perry
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
August 4, 2013 1:19 am
From Khwarizmi on August 4, 2013 at 12:10 am:
The cost of subsidies, the cost of cleaning up after a disaster (including the cost of an exclusion zone), and the cost of decommissioning go unmentioned.
(…) Although there are many factors that affect reactor decommissioning costs, generally they range from $300 million to $400 million. Approximately 70 percent of licensees are authorized to accumulate decommissioning funds over the operating life of their plants. These owners – generally traditional, rate-regulated electric utilities or indirectly regulated generation companies – are not required today to have all of the funds needed for decommissioning. The remaining licensees must provide financial assurance through other methods such as prepaid decommissioning funds and/or a surety method or guarantee. (…)
Before a nuclear power plant begins operations, the licensee must establish or obtain a financial mechanism – such as a trust fund or a guarantee from its parent company – to ensure that there will be sufficient money to pay for the ultimate decommissioning of the facility.
So one way or another, the decommissioning will be paid for by the licensee, normally by funds gathered during operation. In other words, it’s a planned-for normal business expense.
I’ll note that Roger sowell hasn’t touched my point that radioactive people kill more people than nuclear power stations.
DirkH
August 4, 2013 2:14 am
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
“But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal. ”
Wonderfully candid admission, Roger.
But MAYBE you should switch sides someday and use your tricks to fight windmills, as the market in fighting nuclear will dry up.
But you know that.
DirkH
August 4, 2013 2:19 am
davidmhoffer says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:30 pm
“Roger Sowell;
The report for 2012 describes 15 near misses, a bit more than one per month.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You claim to be a CAGW skeptic and yet cite as a source a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists?
I didn’t think there was a way to drop your credibility any lower, but you found a way.”
He is a lawyer, his current customer seem to be the anti nuclear foundations and mvoements, and he will use any trick to accomplish what his customer wants.
Maybe presenting UCS material works in the average court.
Paul Schauble
August 4, 2013 2:47 am
> A Republican Case for Climate Action
> By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD > > WHITMAN
There’s a wonderful group. Ruckelshaus has more blood on his hands than Hitler or Mao (but not Stalin). He’s not someone I would take the time of day from.
++PLS
DirkH
August 4, 2013 3:00 am
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
“No, my ideal world would not have wind and solar providing power, except where the cost for alternatives is too great. I would shut down all nukes immediately and ban any new nuclear plants. Navy can keep building theirs.”
Oh I see he has the windmills in his sight already.
DirkH
August 4, 2013 3:01 am
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
“Navy can keep building theirs.”
And while nukes are EEEEVIL, he doesn’t have the slightest desire to fight the military about it. Smart career-protecting move there.
Robin Hewitt
August 4, 2013 3:03 am
“der Fuehrer thinks he can impose taxes without approval from Congress. George III all over again.”
As in “George was bonkers?”, or perhaps you are believing your own propaganda. George’s government spent a lot of money removing the French who were trying to box the American colonists in. They tried to get some of the money back by taxing the colony. Whethe colonists objected they withdrew every single tax apart from one luxury tax on tea. Unfortunately some Americans had become wealthy on the “French removal money” and started a power grab by rabble rousing. Meanwhile the French attacked England’s much more lucrative holdings in India. Foreign wars are hideously expensive and it was decided that India was the bigger prize. We handed India back in my lifetime.
Roger Sowell seems to [represent] the stereotype of everything that is bad about lawyers. Unprincipled, do anything for money, lie shamelessly.
I’ve said it before here. He’s an anti nuke kook. Best ignored.
Sorry that should be represent not resent. Damn iPad.
Patrick
August 4, 2013 4:01 am
“DirkH says:
August 4, 2013 at 2:19 am”
That could explain a few things. My advice to Roger is don’t go anywhere near Cornwall in the south west of Britain as you’d be exposed to more radiation there than anywhere near Fukushima.
Doug Huffman
August 4, 2013 4:27 am
Speaking of Fukushima, I note: M5.8 – 57km ESE of Ishinomaki, Japan
Grey Lensman
August 4, 2013 4:47 am
Roger speaks some sense but needs to stop lawyering.
Quote
Since CO2 is not an issue of concern, I would build coal and natural gas power plants with appropriate scrubbers for proven toxic emissions such as sulfur, NOx, and flyash. I would also build many more hydroelectric plants in mountainous regions, including pumped storage hydro. Finally. I would devote tax funds for developing power from ocean currents. The ocean currents are far better than any other power source: huge, inexhaustible, pollution-free, and zero energy cost.
Unquote
Pity the designers do not understand the reverse engineering required. Current bird shredders are just bigger better designed ww2 fighter props, built for thrust not power. Nor are they efficient energy collectors.
For marine versions it gets even worse. Why an earth do they not even look at ships propellers. They might notice that they look nothing like bird shredders. Thus in the East River experiment, lordy me, they keep breaking. Why also do they insist upon separating turbine from generator. With modern materials and magnets both can be combined, with intelligent blade design into a compact neutral buoyancy device. Using oilfield experience they can be anchored in suitable ocean currents, remote controlled and left to generate gigawatts. But perhaps that is too logical.
An Aussie poster here did an incredible analysis of a real modern coal plant that cuts co2 emissions by 30% plus and generates more cleaner power. its a reply to a post so dont know how to find it.
davidmhoffer says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:18 pm
Ric Werme;
Natural thorium, which is fairly cheap and abundant
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My understanding is that some coal deposits are so high in thorium that recovery from the fly ash is commercially viable. Cheap power that generates cheap fuel. Win-win! http://web.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html is an article everyon interested in coal and nuclear power should read. While it does have a bit of pro-nuke and anti-coal propaganda, the data it looks at is very interesting. It says in part:
The fact that coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of radioactive materials released to the environment has several implications. It suggests that coal combustion is more hazardous to health than nuclear power and that it adds to the background radiation burden even more than does nuclear power. It also suggests that if radiation emissions from coal plants were regulated, their capital and operating costs would increase, making coal-fired power less economically competitive.
Finally, radioactive elements released in coal ash and exhaust produced by coal combustion contain fissionable fuels and much larger quantities of fertile materials that can be bred into fuels by absorption of neutrons, including those generated in the air by bombardment of oxygen, nitrogen, and other nuclei with cosmic rays; such fissionable and fertile materials can be recovered from coal ash using known technologies. These nuclear materials have growing value to private concerns and governments that may want to market them for fueling nuclear power plants. However, they are also available to those interested in accumulating material for nuclear weapons. A solution to this potential problem may be to encourage electric utilities to process coal ash and use new trapping technologies on coal combustion exhaust to isolate and collect valuable metals, such as iron and aluminum, and available nuclear fuels.
Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium. … The concentration of fissionable uranium-235 (the current fuel for nuclear power plants) has been established to be 0.71% of uranium content.
… the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.
An average value for the thermal energy of coal is approximately 6150 kilowatt-hours(kWh)/ton. Thus, the expected cumulative thermal energy release from U.S. coal combustion over this period totals about 6.87 x 10E14 kilowatt-hours. The thermal energy released in nuclear fission produces about 2 x 10E9 kWh/ton. Consequently, the thermal energy from fission of uranium-235 released in coal combustion amounts to 2.1 x 10E12 kWh. If uranium-238 is bred to plutonium-239, using these data and assuming a “use factor” of 10%, the thermal energy from fission of this isotope alone constitutes about 2.9 x 10E14 kWh, or about half the anticipated energy of all the utility coal burned in this country through the year 2040. If the thorium-232 is bred to uranium-233 and fissioned with a similar “use factor”, the thermal energy capacity of this isotope is approximately 7.2 x 10E14 kWh, or 105% of the thermal energy released from U.S. coal combustion for a century. Assuming 10% usage, the total of the thermal energy capacities from each of these three fissionable isotopes is about 10.1 x 10E14 kWh, 1.5 times more than the total from coal. World combustion of coal has the same ratio, similarly indicating that coal combustion wastes more energy than it produces.
Third, large quantities of uranium and thorium and other radioactive species in coal ash are not being treated as radioactive waste. These products emit low-level radiation, but because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if such amounts were released from nuclear facilities. Nuclear waste products from coal combustion are allowed to be dispersed throughout the biosphere in an unregulated manner. Collected nuclear wastes that accumulate on electric utility sites are not protected from weathering, thus exposing people to increasing quantities of radioactive isotopes through air and water movement and the food chain.
But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal.
I was wondering when someone would bring up this as one of the reason nuke plants are so expensive to build. I’m very surprised it was you. I won’t dig it up, but the protests from folks like the clamshell alliance (members mostly general public), Conservation Law Foundation (I think they were involved, evil legal group), et al stopped one of the two plants from being built forced much greater scrutiny from the NRC and others.
Why don’t you and your friends should apply as much attention to coal plants as you do to nukes.
With luck it will all become moot when E-Cats (and others) take over, if they aren’t the scam of the century.
No person who is “aware” of the realities of nuclear power is “against” it.
Having worked at a nuclear facility for several years, I was trained as a part of my employment. As most people who have ever been required to be trained in what is basically a trade are aware, one of the first things you learn is everything that can possibly go wrong. For example, a few years back while installing wiring in a Best Buy store our company was required to be trained on scissor lift operations, even though we’d been renting and using them regularly for years. The first day of training was showing us all of the safety features of a scissor lift, and how to bypass them. Not one of us ever even considered messing with safety features or attempting to bypass them, but now we know how.
Unlike the coal industry which grew organically over a long period of time acquiring experience the hard way, the entire nuclear industry was arrived at scientifically. Nobody ever dumps a pound of fissionable material on some sort of measuring device to determine its energy content, that is known to several decimal places ahead of time. There are very accurate measures of safe and unsafe radioactivity tolerances for people, animals, plants, and equipment.
The anti-nuke people lie to us, every time they open their mouths. Radioactivity is like any other poison: it’s the dose that matters. Grand Central Station in NYC has higher radioactivity levels due to the natural stone in its construction than is legally allowed in a nuclear facility. Sitting in downtown Banff, my radioactivity meter showed higher than in the work area where I worked. Bananas have measurable levels of radioactivity.
The basic message from anti-nuclear activists is that the only safe level of radioactivity is zero. But this is absurd. Nature showers us with radioactivity every day, from radon gas in basements to natural granite (high end homes with granite countertops are measurably radioactive), to atmospheric radiation and cosmic rays. We’re pelted with the stuff. Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.
Most people who study the issue are aware them many coal seams are radioactive, and coal plants using this coal emit more radioactivity than would be allowed by a nuclear plant.
Pop quiz: Number of people killed by nuclear power in North America?
Fukushima was old technology, scheduled for decommissioning soon. It was, like any tragedy, a combination of errors and circumstances. There will never be a repeat of that combination, mostly because the nuclear industry learns from accidents and does what they can to ensure there is never a repeat.
I worked with a man who was a nuclear trainer for the IAEA. His job was to train people in safely working around nuclear materials and reactors. He was one of the people who put boots on the ground in Fukushima, and we talked about his experiences there at length. Personally, I don’t care what you’ve heard or read, unless you were either there or personally know someone who was, your opinion about what happened there is second-hand.
Yes, radioactivity was released. No, there will be no long-term result. Yes, the amount is measurable. No, it’s not a harmful amount. Yes, it’s a tragedy that any radioactivity was released. No, it’s not a harmful amount. No, nobody died. No, nobody WILL die from the radioactivity, although we all know that every cancer death for the next 50 years in the area will be blamed on it.
Sowell is dishonest with his naive and ignorant “7 questions”.
A new Nuclear power plant, proposed to double the South Texas plant, was scrapped for being too costly. Fact.
Nuclear power plant, licensed and operating with years remaining on its license, was shut down because it is not economic. Fact.
These claims being made by someone who is part of the reason nuclear power is so expensive is childish. Just like 0bama, if your goal is to make coal plants uneconomical, you’ll go ahead no matter the reality.
Fukushima reactors melted down and poisoned the countryside as well as yet unknown radiation to people. Radiation continues to pour into the ocean. Fact.
The amount is known. It is quantified. Mitigation is in place. Just because radiation is released does not mean it’s the bloody apocalypse.
Nuclear industry lied and continues to lie about reactor safety. Fact.
Turning this one around: the anti-nuclear INDUSTRY of which you are a part lied and continues to lie about the dangers of nuclear power. Whoppers, too. Not just sweeping some numbers under the carpet, but exaggeration and fear-mongering of the highest order.
Power prices zoomed due to the nuclear death spiral in the 70s and 80s along the US gulf coast, due to new nuclear power plants. Fact.
Thanks to luddites like yourself, no doubt.
No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.
There was a reactor in Antarctica from 1962-1972. However I haven’t read enough of your stuff to know what you’re getting at here.
Nuclear powered naval vessels rest on the bottom of the oceans, spewing forth their radiation. Fact.
The ocean is filled with uranium and other radioactive substances, at high enough concentrations that it will be economical to extract it in the near future. “Spewing” is one of those emotional weasel words so loved by alarmists and lawyers of all exaggerating levels. The oceans are the majority of this planet. They are more than able to handle the comparatively tiny amounts of radioactivity these reactors are emitting.
I’ve never yet met a lawyer who wasn’t 100% certain he was right. Until the next paying client came along, at which point they could make a 180 degree turn and still be 100% certain they were right.
Actively blocking nuclear power development should be considered a crime against humanity.
Doug Huffman
August 4, 2013 5:59 am
The law is an ass that lawyers ride to work, don’t try to be one, no one is smart enough.
Now wait, one argument by Roger Sowell:
“No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.”
So let’s do some numbers. Assume every inhabitant uses 2 MWh a year, that’s a bit north of German consumption; less than American consumption. Let’s further assume that electricity, as in Germany, is consumed equally by public sector, industry, and private households, so we can take the 1 million inhabitants times 2 MWh times 3 and get a realistic annual consumption, which is
6 TWh.
Now, how much electricity does a typical 1 GW nuclear plant produce in a year.
8.760 TWh.
That’s not a bad fit.
Now, why would the island with 1 million inhabitants not want to depend on ONE SINGLE POWER PLANT.
Do I have to continue from here?
Roger, your arguments might impress a dumb judge, but really, this is getting ridiculous quick.
juan slayton
August 4, 2013 6:13 am
CodeTech: . Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.
Hmmm. Can you back that up?
Lars P.
August 4, 2013 6:32 am
CodeTech says:
August 4, 2013 at 5:39 am The anti-nuke people lie to us, every time they open their mouths. Radioactivity is like any other poison: it’s the dose that matters. Grand Central Station in NYC has higher radioactivity levels due to the natural stone in its construction than is legally allowed in a nuclear facility. Sitting in downtown Banff, my radioactivity meter showed higher than in the work area where I worked. Bananas have measurable levels of radioactivity.
Code, it took the people some time to realise that a completely sterile environment is not healthier, that children & humans need to get in contact with some bacteria and this is healthy. Healthier then living under a sterile tent.
Similarly the case for radiation, a zero level radiation is not healthier, as our cells self repairing mechanisms go to sleep. I understand a certain small dosis of radiation is natural, normal and even improves our cells health.
But people are indeed being taught that zero level is desirable and there is a linear relationship between radiation and cancer, what has not been observed.
With something one cannot see or hear or feel in any way with our senses it is easy to make people crazy.
Radiation hormesis is no new news, it has been observed since the beginning, but was not really studied: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
however the study of no-radiation effect has barely started. I guess there would need another 10-15 years to get some reasonable results.
CodeTech
August 4, 2013 6:34 am
juan slayton says:
Hmmm. Can you back that up?
First read this: http://www.rerowland.com/BodyActivity.htm
Second, consider that the body only generates an active defense against threats that have occurred. Without some level of damage for cells to learn how to repair, ANY level of exposure would be catastrophic.
CodeTech
August 4, 2013 6:38 am
Thanks Lars, your explanation was more detailed 🙂
My skepticism of nuclear issues was fueled years ago after I realized the hippies running my high school didn’t have a freaking clue about anything that didn’t involve peace, love, harmony, and nature.
My skepticism of AGW is relatively recent, but I recognize the same disinformation by, mostly, the same people.
Doug Huffman
August 4, 2013 6:53 am
juan slayton says: August 4, 2013 at 6:13 am “CodeTech: . Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.” “Hmmm. Can you back that up?”
Yes, that is essential to the Radiation Hormesis argument against the Linear No Threshold Hypothesis.
Doug Huffman
August 4, 2013 6:59 am
Without looking at CodeTech’s Wikipedia extensive list of known reactors, did it include Gaia’s hint to the goodness of nuclear reactors, the Gabon Oklo Fossil Reactors? If Mother Nature does it, then it must be OK.
Lars P.
August 4, 2013 7:18 am
Can somebody point to any studies regarding salinity of the oceans?
I was wondering if the cooling of the last 5-10-20 million years could be related also to decreased salinity and the increased albedo due to water freezing at a higher temperature?
When looking at the geological scale temperature reconstructions one can see a continuous trend for cooling in the last 10 million of years, which ended in the periodic ice ages.
Whereas I understand that one of the reasons of how current climate formed is due to the forming of the circumpolar current around Antarctica, the closing of the istm of Panama, I was wondring what role did changed salinity play to it.
Accidentally I found this intriguing article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis
“The Mediterranean basin also sequestered below its seabed a significant percentage of the salt from Earth’s oceans; this decreased the average salinity of the world ocean and raised its freezing point.”
Why it decreased the salinity of the world ocean is explained also there:
“The amount of Messinian salts is larger than 4·1018 kg (Ryan, 2008, Sedimentology), exceeding by a factor of 50 the amount of salt normally contained in the Mediterranean waters. This suggests either a succession of desiccations or a long period of hypersalinity during which incoming water from the Atlantic Ocean was evaporated with the level of the Mediterranean brine being similar to that of the Atlantic”
Now searching for how the freezing of salt water is influenced by salinity I found this calculator: http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2ofreezecalc.html
It gives for 100 kPa and 35 PSU a value of -1.998°C so about -2 °C freezing poin
For a slighly higher salinity of 45 PSU the value is -2.583°C and at 55 PSU -3.192°C
So these variations do indeed modify a litle the freezing point. Whereas these are not huge variations it may have had some influence on the global climate, when one thinks that the average temperature of the oceans should be around 4°C
My question would be how constant was the salinity of the seas? Are there proxy values of it, have there been any speculations about the influence of the salinity of the oceans and the global climate?
Also in view of the onset to glaciations about 3 million years ago, was wondering if with increasing albedo due to faster freezing of the salt water another threshold was reached which enabled the start of the glaciations.
RACookPE1978
Editor
August 4, 2013 8:26 am
DirkH says:
August 4, 2013 at 6:12 am
(replying to Roger Sowell)
Now wait, one argument by Roger Sowell:
“No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.”
So let’s do some numbers. Assume every inhabitant uses 2 MWh a year, that’s a bit north of German consumption; less than American consumption. Let’s further assume that electricity, as in Germany, is consumed equally by public sector, industry, and private households, so we can take the 1 million inhabitants times 2 MWh times 3 and get a realistic annual consumption, which is
6 TWh.
Now, how much electricity does a typical 1 GW nuclear plant produce in a year.
8.760 TWh.
That’s not a bad fit.
Now, why would the island with 1 million inhabitants not want to depend on ONE SINGLE POWER PLANT.
Do I have to continue from here?
Roger, your arguments might impress a dumb judge, but really, this is getting ridiculous quick.
But wait, it even worse than that. 8<)
Our electric power grid – on islands and on the mainlands – has grown up gradually and irregularly from 1910 to 1930. Many gaps and non-electrified areas everywhere. Only cities at first, and everywhere including islands, the country getting power last. Then, in most areas in the civilized world very rapidly and uniformly only after WWII.
Nuclear plants started in the very highly industrial regions only in the 1960's and 70's until the enviro's killed their growth in early 1970 by INCREASING their costs and delaying approval.
(Quite a bit of these schedule and cost growth issues were due to errors in design methods and non-standardization that the industry did to itself.)
BUT – The primary and most important nuclear cost growth was in the deliberate DELAYS caused by and for and with the cooperation of the anti-nuclear industry. Every day delay in the delivery of a nuclear power plant – that final moment when it can start delivering low-cost power costs 7 to 8 percent MORE in annual interest and insurance costs THAT ARE IRRECOVERABLE. (But are profitable to the banking and insurance and regulatory and environmental and legal industries!)
Projects are cancelled not because they are unsafe or uneconomical. They are cancelled because they CANNOT BECOME PROFITABLE IN A SHORT ENOUGH TIME FRAME. And the nuclear delays are (now) entirely caused by the enviro and legal industry.
/rant about lawyers deliberately killing people and their economic foundations for life, liberty in the lawyers' pursuit of the lawyers' happiness
Back to island electric systems.
Since they grew up gradually, and since NO power system can ever got "suddenly" and immediately and magically up to its present size, there is no way between 1970 (when big/medium/small nukes could first be "exported" or built on islands) and today. The island electric power systems HAD to begin with small plants (fossil and oil) of course, then gradually getting bigger plants as bigger plants (1) could be built and (2) were needed to support a larger grid. The DEMAND for electric power was also gradually growing: should some island START by immediately building that 6 TerraWatt power plant when the entire demand (back in 1970) was only 1/5 of today's demand?????
The US power plants are built the same way: Look at today's power plant in Crist 1-2-3-4-5-6 in Pennsacola FL: Started building the plant in the late 40's with a single 45 MegaWatt turbine. Added a second 45 MegaWatt trubine. Added a pair of 100 Meg turbines (Crist 3 & 4). Added Crist 5. Added Crist 6 – by then, turbines were 400+ Megawatts. Did they "remove" the older smaller turbines? No. Did they stop running the older smaller turbines? Only after they built the much larger 600 + Megawatt Crist 7 plant. All of these "new" turbines were added to the end of the original building, and all use the original electric transfer yard and the "new" power transmission towers also gradually added over the years.
An island's power system is going to have grown the same way as Pennsacola's power plant grew. Slowly. By adding small turbines just before they are needed. And small nukes were not then available – except for Antarctica's "advertisement" power plant.
By the way, when did Roger expect that isolated island of his to build the TerraWatt-capable transmission system? Before they needed that level of electric power transmission and control and transformers and switchyards and high-volt towers and low-volt poles wires, or only when they finally needed it?
Today, I can buy and build and start using a two-gas-turbine-plus-one-heat-recovery-turbine plant delivering 600 Megawatts of power in two years from bulldozer to delivery of first power. Two years from now, Roger will still be preventing me from delivering the first set of PAPERS requesting permission to begin public hearings taht will allow the public discussion of the first permitting procedures for that first nuke plant………
SAMURAI
August 4, 2013 8:33 am
On the Liquid Fuoride Thorium Reactor (LFTRs) front….
Over the last year, I’ve e-mailed many US Congressmen and Senators providing them with a general overview of LFTR technology, its advantages over conventional nukes and why it will be the energy of the future.
I received many blah- blah “thank you” auto replies from most Congressmen, however, Seantor Rand Paul and his staff expressed genuine interest and I’ve been in continual correspondence with them on LFTRs.
i recenlty recieved a personal letter from Senator Paul thanking me for my thoughts on LFTRs along with a pledge that his staff will work on drafting legislation necessary to allow LFTR development in the US, which I thought was pretty cool.
If there are any WUWT readers that also want to see LFTR development in the US, please send Senator Paul an e-mail as he seems to be the only Congressmen that’s really supporting LFTRs (probably because he’s one of the few politicians in Washington with enough intelligence to understand the basic science…)
BTW, it was excellent news that Bill Gates’ nuclear power company announced a few weeks ago that they’ll also be evaluating LFTRs, in addition to their Traveling Wave Reactors (TWRs), which are their current priority. I think TWRs is a dead-end technology because it still requires high pressure water to operate, which is intrinsically dangerous, expensive, inefficient and will have HUGE decommission costs compared to LFTRs.
In my opinion, if Bill Gates is able to develop/patent a cheap and safe LFTR design, his Nuclear power company has the chance to be even bigger than Microsoft; providing he can develop/patent LFTRs before the Chinese do, which doesn’t seem likely….
More insults and no substantive arguments. My seven facts remain unrefuted.
“Code Tech” calls me childish. Well, now THERE’s a winning argument. Hiding behind a pseudonym? Priceless.
Why do lawyers bring lawsuits against nuclear power plants? Mostly it is to force the builder to comply with the law. If it takes longer, then build it right the first time.
I keep hoping that someday, a valid argument supported by verifiable facts is made to justify building nuclear power plants.
The fact is, I have never represented any entity in a nuclear power matter. There are plenty of lawyers that do. I cheer them on.
And I really pity Hoffer, who sadly cannot distinguish between a fact and an opinion.
Justthinkin
August 4, 2013 8:53 am
Roger Sowell says..”Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? ”
Well. I have no idea about yours,but mine(being privately schooled) are asking why are we destroying the enviroment by building wind mills that do not work,require a constant back-up system to stop fluctuations/brown out/black outs,using evil (NOT) CO2 generating fuels,(you see,my kids know CO2 is a plant food,not a poison)destroying vast pristine grass/prarier/desert areas with mirrors that are all ready operating at maybe 5% due to dust,dirt,and weeds.Not to mention the mining and destruction of land to get the rare minerals needed for a useless mirror.
And many,many more of them are starting to ask the same things.
Armagh Observatory
August 4, 2013 8:56 am
Probably a little late in the day to raise this point now, but the taxes imposed in the American colonies by the UK Government, were actually 80% less than those imposed on tax payers back in the United Kingdom…
In other words, the colonists didn’t have the bitching rights they claimed to have. Hope it was worth it!
Ha ha, we’ve got the Queen, the Beatles, Kate Middleton (and her sister Pippa) and you don’t!
😉
“By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN”
Not one of these people have a science degree – not that you can’t learn some science outside of having a degree, but there’s nothing like screwing up an experiment or getting unexpected results in an experiment (sometimes because you screwed up) that really teaches science.
Annie
August 4, 2013 9:17 am
If Roger Sowell thinks this discussion is ‘fun’ then perhaps he should be treated as a troll and just ignored from now on.
James Schrumpf
August 4, 2013 9:28 am
Armagh Observatory says:
August 4, 2013 at 8:56 am
Ha ha, we’ve got the Queen, the Beatles, Kate Middleton (and her sister Pippa) and you don’t!
😉
Yeah, well, you’ve got English summers, and we don’t! So there!!!
davidmhoffer
August 4, 2013 9:37 am
Roger Sowell;
Roger Sowell says:
August 4, 2013 at 8:50 am
More insults and no substantive arguments. My seven facts remain unrefuted.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ROFLMAO
DirkH
August 4, 2013 9:44 am
Roger Sowell says:
August 4, 2013 at 8:50 am
“I keep hoping that someday, a valid argument supported by verifiable facts is made to justify building nuclear power plants.”
You could look at the electricity rationing post Fukushima in Japan if you really cared to. But you would probably argue that it’s the Japanese own fault to live on an Island without abundant fossil fuels. Or whatever you would come up with.
Japan is an Island BTW. You were wondering why no Island with 1 million inhabitants ever built a nuke. I showed your argument to be a cheap trick. Now here’s an Island with 100 million inhabitants, and they have nukes. do they have a right to do that, Roger?
Gunga Din
August 4, 2013 9:47 am
Ric Werme says:
August 3, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Back on Neverwet – careful, a little friction can be a big help to control a shovelful of snow and keep it from spilling out. OTOH, wet snow sticking to a shovel is a big pain.
===========================================================================
I paid extra for an ergonomic shovel. It’s still a chore to shovel but at least my back feels less like it’s shaped like an ergonomic handle when I’m done. I leave it outside by the backdoor so it’s less likely to melt snow, and thus make it stick. If it’s wet snow I spray the blade with silicon. It usually doesn’t last through the whole job but it helps initially.
PS I lived in NH for 3 years back in the early ’80’s. Nashua had it’s earliest snowfall on record the 6 months I was there. I think it was 3 or 6 inches on October 3rd…if I remember correctly.
beng
August 4, 2013 9:48 am
****
markx says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:44 pm Roger Sowell says:August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
“….The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up*. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal**. …
Thanks Roger. Here you have neatly encapsulated two major problems:
1. * Why nuclear power stations cost so much.
2. ** One of the primary problems with modern civilization.
I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here.
****
I wasn’t going to get into the mix, but that disclosure by Sowell pushed me past the tipping point. Disgusting.
PS I lived in NH for 3 years back in the early ’80′s. Nashua had it’s earliest snowfall on record the 6 months I was there. I think it was 3 or 6 inches on October 3rd…if I remember correctly.
======================================================================
Well, I didn’t remember correctly. It was 1″ October 10, 1979. They call it the “earliest measurable snowfall”.
Gail Combs
August 4, 2013 10:17 am
Kajajuk says: @ August 3, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Same suggestion i have posted at least twice before…
A dynamic harmony between capitalism….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is what you get when you let people be free and don’t regulate and tax them to death. Americans were (are?) the most generous people on earth and give away more wealth as individuals than our government does. (can’t find the original link) but this one will do.
America the generous
….American generosity is not dependent on the government or public policy. It should be pointed out that conservatives, criticized by liberals as health care and welfare slashers and greedy capitalists, give far more to charity than liberals. Arthur Brooks wrote in his now-famous book, “Who Really Cares,” that households headed by conservatives give 30% more to charity than households headed by liberals. Conservatives also give more blood and donate more of their time to volunteer work…
Socialist want to give away OTHER PEOPLE’s money and then claim the kudos for themselves.
Gunga Din
August 4, 2013 10:21 am
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2013 at 10:08 am
=================================================================
Uh…Gail, all I see is machine code.
Gunga Din
August 4, 2013 10:27 am
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2013 at 10:17 am
Socialist want to give away OTHER PEOPLE’s money and then claim the kudos for themselves.
=====================================================================
Reminds me of a quote I once heard:
“A liberal (US definition) is someone who feels a great debt to their fellowman and is determined to pay that debt using your money.”
(I first heard it from G. Gordon Liddy but I don’t know if it originated with him.)
Lars P. says:
August 4, 2013 at 7:18 am
Re glacial phase oceanic salinity, a study from the North Pacific the findings of which would also apply to the North Atlantic:
Effect of Pleistocene glaciation upon oceanographic characteristics of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea
CONSTANCE SANCETTA*
(Received 23 October 1982; in revised form 28 January 1983; accepted 28 April 1983)
Abstract–
During intervals of Pleistocene glaciation, insolation of the high-latitude northern
hemisphere was lower than today, particularly during summer. Growth of continental ice sheets
resulted in a lowering of sea level by more than 100 m in the Bering Sea. As a result, the Bering
Strait was closed and most of the Bering continental shelf exposed. A proposed model predicts that (1) sea-ice formation would occur along the (modern) outer continental shelf, (2) advection would transport the sea ice over the deep basin, and (3) brine would flow into the basin at some intermediate depth to enhance the halocline. The result would be a low-salinity surface layer with a cold, thick halocline and reduced vertical mixing. Diatom microfossils and lithologic changes in sediment cores from the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea support the model and suggest that the proposed oceanographic conditions extended into the North Pacific, where the cold low-salinity
laycr was enhanced by meltwater from continentally derived icebergs.
Gunga Din
August 4, 2013 10:42 am
Levity.
I think this was my personal best.
1. Gunga Din says:
May 9, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Stopping by Yamal One Snowy Evening
by Michael Mann
What tree this is, I think I know.
It grew in Yamal some time ago.
Yamal 06 I’m placing here
In hopes a hockey stick will grow.
But McIntyre did think it queer
No tree, the stick did disappear!
Desparate measures I did take
To make that stick reappear.
There were some corings from a lake.
And other data I could bake.
I’ll tweek my model more until
Another hockey stick I’ll make!
I changed a line into a hill!
I can’t say how I was thrilled!
Then Climategate. I’m feeling ill.
Then Climategate. I’m feeling ill.
RACookPE1978
Editor
August 4, 2013 11:13 am
(trimmed)
u.k.(us)
August 4, 2013 12:15 pm
I’ve tried, but it never came out like this:
“It’ll be a happy day when American embassies are again built in busy downtown intersections out of normal materials – and not, as they are now, bunkers located in distant lots surrounded by high fences. Such a change will only be possible when the safety of Americans depends not on walls, metal detectors and Marine guards, but on the deterrence established by years of terrible retribution against anyone who so much as harms a single American citizen.” http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/08/on-closed-embassies-the-worldwide-travel-alert
Kajajuk
August 4, 2013 12:21 pm
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2013 at 10:17 am
————————-
Bailing out the failed banks is the glory of capitalism? Is that what you mean by “Socialist want to give away OTHER PEOPLE’s money and then claim the kudos for themselves.”?
Contravening the wishes of the majority of citizens is democracy?
I propose that when banks fail in a “free-market” system, whether the fault is with the banks or naught, the bank should be nationalized. A consequence other banks would take to heart!
Later the bank could be privatized again…
Quantitative easing, another interesting “capitalist” innovation, is the creation of money to be put in a pile to earn interest for nothing. Would not an “easing” be better spent on infrastructure and innovation (research & development)?
The government could be a mitigating medium between the mob’s base instincts and the common good.
In my dynamic paradigm the “socialism” is to mitigate the effects of capitalism for the common good and capitalism is to mitigate the effects of socialism for the common good. No feudalism or cash driven master and slave mentality but a society where risk is taken for its own sake because to fail is just a loss of stuff and not generational misery. People’s basic needs are never at risk only their individual prosperity, which is not permanent anyways.
And so “socialists” endeavor to invest part of a “common wealth” (other peoples money i guess) to ensure the health of the commons AND the “capitalist” endeavor to invest part of a “common wealth” in ventures for individuals as well as ensuring a fair “playing field”.
Gunga Din
August 4, 2013 12:38 pm
Gunga Din says:
August 4, 2013 at 10:12 am
PS I lived in NH for 3 years back in the early ’80′s. Nashua had it’s earliest snowfall on record the 6 months I was there. I think it was 3 or 6 inches on October 3rd…if I remember correctly.
======================================================================
Well, I didn’t remember correctly. It was 1″ October 10, 1979. They call it the “earliest measurable snowfall”.
=============================================================
I guess that event was to early to be labeled “extreme”.
Kajajuk
August 4, 2013 12:44 pm
Charles Tossy says:
August 3, 2013 at 7:10 pm
———————
Are you accepting resumes for your zombies? Do you pay minimum wage”
Auto
August 4, 2013 1:10 pm
jorgekafkazar says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:28 pm
David Ball says: “Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.”
Depends on who we send, David.
=========
A number of images flashed through my mind . . . .
Thanks indeed jorgekafkazar for a minute of levity for an old sea dog!
Auto.
@ RACookPE, I’m encouraged that you have a grasp of a power grid evolution, but even you have missed the obvious point.
Yes, isolated islands grew their power grids in small increments. They generally have expensive power today anywhere from $.25-$.35 per kWh. This presents a golden opportunity for nuclear power advocates, since the high price paid by the islanders can be greatly reduced to 3 or 4 cents if they would only replace the multiple generators with a modern nuke of appropriate size.
The islanders could even overcome the poor load-following ability of a nuke by running it at baseload and using pumped storage hydroelectric for load-following.
The islanders could overcome the problem of periodic nuclear plant outages for refueling by keeping their current generators ready to run.
A nuclear power company should be jumping at such an opportunity, if the fabled economics of a nuclear power plant were as advertised.
Yet very clearly, none have done so.
One suspects that the true economics of a nuclear power plant would be exposed for all to see if one were to be built on an island of roughly 1 million people, and 1,000 MW daily peak load.
Nuclear reactor sales companies are not about to let that happen.
davidmhoffer
August 4, 2013 1:30 pm
Roger Sowell;
Yet very clearly, none have done so.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well sure they have. But they were met by a battery of activist fear mongering attorneys scaring the bujeezus out of the local population and throwing every legal manouver they could at preventing the power plant from being built.
Then, when the power plant company gives up, the activist attorneys claim the reason was that it wasn’t economical in the first place, and congratulate themselves and forcing the poor islanders into energy poverty for their own good.
DirkH
August 4, 2013 2:16 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 4, 2013 at 1:25 pm
“The islanders could overcome the problem of periodic nuclear plant outages for refueling by keeping their current generators ready to run.”
You have not reacted on my calculation showing how you cherrypicked your 1 million population exactly so as to make the entire grid dependend on exactly one plant. Now you use the necessity for backup capacity to “show” the missing economics.
A very simple lawyer trick that might convince a very stupid judge. Now let’s talk again about a real island with 100 million inhabitants which used to produce 80% of their electricity with nukes, called Japan… I notice that you have nothing to say about real examples, only about your very cherrypicked imaginary scenarios.
Germany had 23 nukes, which were cyclically refueled every 2 years, so that at any given moment one of them rould be refueled and revisited.
Why don’t you talk about working examples, Roger?
DirkH
August 4, 2013 2:21 pm
Roger, you have deliberately constructed an uneconomic example and then you ask around, why doesn’t whis work? See, it’s uneconomic!
You could just as well ask why an average worker does not buy a Ferrari to drive to work and use that as your argument why gasoline cars are uneconomic.
It’s beyond ridiculous. You can pull such stunts on Grist. They won’t check numbers.
Incidentally, CANDU reactors are continuously fueled with no shutdown required.
In fact, the CANDU reactors (yes, I’m Canadian) are a good example of a system that was designed from the start to generate power, not to create fissionable material for weaponization. They also have quite a few fueling options, including as-mined uranium requiring little fuel enrichment.
Of course they’re not perfect, and still have some of that 50s mindset behind them, but they’re used in many locations and have proven to be safe, with many automatic safety features that require no intervention. For example, moderating rods are held above the reactor by electromagnets and automatically drop into place in the event of power loss, immediately shutting down the reactor. Also in the event of an overheat the fuel chambers deform, causing the reactor to lose criticality.
G. Karst
August 4, 2013 2:36 pm
Roger Sowell: You have expressed opinion on a complicated subject without sufficient understanding of nuclear issues. It is not your fault and hardly unusual among lay persons to misunderstand nuclear fundamentals. There is so much misinformation coming from every media outlet, that it rivals climate “science”. Especially so when it comes to low level radiation effects, attributed cancer numbers through statistics alone, hormesis, etc.
I suggest you abandon your position and begin a review of the actual science.
Having said that, I must warn many here of being overly enthusiastic over the “nuclear” option. I am all for prudent expansion of nuclear build. However, rate of growth required for just the electrification, of the automobile, will require many thousands of “nukes” worldwide. We would quickly outstrip, our ability to staff them with experienced and fully trained operational staff. Instead of a person, of 15 yrs of experience, sitting at the controls – we will have people “simulator” trained, with little experience WORLDWIDE. There will be more accidents due to the large number of reactors, and the lack of experienced staff. Growth cannot exceed our ability to accrue expert personnel.
And that’s all I have to say about that. GK
I thought this presentation would both enlighten and horrify your readers Anthony.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Breakthrough_Climate%20Solutions%20for%20a%20stronger%20America.pdf
Pretty sick that this is the sort of push that is coming from supposedly uniting Mind, Body, Spirit, and Environment within a single holistic ed push as the new norm. No one will know much that is accurate but they will believe and feel a great deal and not know the difference.
“When the payroll report was released last month, the world finally noticed what we had been saying for nearly three years: that the US was slowly being converted to a part-time worker society. This slow conversion accelerated drastically in the last few months, and especially in June, when part time jobs exploded higher by 360K while full time jobs dropped by 240K. In July we are sad to report that America’s conversation to a part-time worker society is not “tapering”: according to the Household Survey, of the 266K jobs created (note this number differs from the establishment survey), only 35% of jobs, or 92K, were full time. The rest were… not.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-02/obamacare-full-frontal-953000-jobs-created-2013-77-or-731000-are-part-time
“On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the economy gained just 162k jobs in July, well below expectations of 185-200k. More worrying, though, isn’t just the quantity of jobs created, but the quality of the jobs. About a quarter of the jobs created, 38.5k, were in restaurants and bars. Another 46.5k jobs were in retail. This continuing trend to part-time employment is likely due to the coming implementation of ObamaCare.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/02/quantity-of-jobs-up-quality-down
Looks like Obamacare is playing a big part in transforming jobs into part time positions. Part time workers not covered by Obamacare, apparently. “Gee,” say the Obamacare architects. “We never thought that would happen.” That being probably one of the very minor negatives they didn’t think about.
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, …
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html
Obamacare strikes again. Ain’t many part timers out there buying houses and new cars
One gripe: why did the idiots who invented non-partisan agencies like the EPA, IRS,and all the others, place them under the care and control of a very political Execuive Branch? The Federal Reserve is one of the few, if not the only, such organization. I don’t believe a thing the Labor Dept or Treasury Dept says.
Two technological development stories that I have been following for some time now
are nuclear power and electric cars, both of which I’m in favor of, but not because of
carbon emissions. In a nutshell, electric cars will take over the moment a good, long lasting cheap,
fast recharging battery comes along. Henry Ford believed the same thing and even enlisted his best friend Thomas Edison, who tried but failed, ending up with the comment that “I now know just about every way there is to not build a better battery.”
As for nuclear power, one would think the environmentalists would demand more. But in one of the most bizarre twists of logic, these bizarrely illogical folks have decided that clean energy doesn’t matter, and that the plants will irradiate the population in some unspecifiable accident..
Worse yet, these bizarroes, who once upon a time rhapsodized about the beauty of unspoiled nature, now don’t mind filling the horizon and mountain tops with 400 foot tall steel wind turbines and covering a good portion of the ground with solar panels.
==================================================================
In the US, Congress makes the laws and the Executive Branch carries them out. The problem is that the laws that formed the EPA and others gave them the authority to make regulations. Regulations have the effect of law but no one voted on them.
PS The “Federal” Reserve is NOT a part of the Federal government. They represent the banks to which the US owes its debt. Ask yourself, what kind of collateral does a nation put up to obtain a loan?
This new analysis looks at long term CET trends. Using 50-year averages, temperatures were rising faster in the early 20thC than the recent decades.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/long-term-central-england-temperature-trends/#more-3971
Climate Depot North Pole Sees Unprecedented July Cold – Arctic Sees Shortest Summer On Record — ‘Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year there was less than half that’
http://iceagenow.info/2013/08/unprecedented-july-cold-arctic-sees-shortest-summer-record/
arthur4563 says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am
“In a nutshell, electric cars will take over the moment a good, long lasting cheap,
fast recharging battery comes along. ”
Yeah, as soon as we found the holy grail of battery development it should be a piece of cake, agreed.
arthur4563 says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am
The safe disposal of spent batteries and also the spent Nuclear fuel are the biggest hurdles.
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere?
http://hackedgadgets.com/2009/11/08/university-of-saskatchewans-space-design-team-space-elevator/
“So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.” – Michael Crichton
When I see the word “Obamacare”, I thank my lucky stars I live in Canada.
Robin says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:07 am
“I thought this presentation would both enlighten and horrify your readers Anthony.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Breakthrough_Climate%20Solutions%20for%20a%20stronger%20America.pdf
Pretty sick that this is the sort of push that is coming from supposedly uniting Mind, Body, Spirit, and Environment within a single holistic ed push as the new norm. No one will know much that is accurate but they will believe and feel a great deal and not know the difference.”
It would be interesting to know whether these idiots are funded by Big Oil themselves (Big Oil has always supported CO2AGW research and siphoned off CCS and solar subsidies where available – CO2AGW is the weapon of Big Oil against Big Coal, obviolusly).
http://www.breakthroughstrategiesandsolutions.com/Services.html
“Betsy Taylor provides a variety of services and frequently teams up with other consultants and experts to get the job done.”
A one woman beltway lobbyist show.
It looks like she’s a vampire.
Quote of the week:
It turns out that the amount of money the world has come up with to fund the headquarters of the body producing the last word on what Barack Obama recently called “the global threat of our time” [the IPCC} is $9.3m this year, about the same as Cumbria spent fixing potholes last year.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/4084c8ee-fa36-11e2-98e0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2aurr4Bmc
Gunga Din
Well, the Federal Reserve is under some control by the Executive branch, since its chairman is
nominated by same …
While I don’t claim to be a Constitutional scholar, the Constitution, which defines the roles of the three branches, can be altered in any way shape or form, even to the extent of being
amended out of existence. An amendment might be required, perhaps, but I would guess that
one can probably place agencies outside of exclusive Executive or exclusive Legislative Branch control, one way or the other.
“Climate Depot North Pole Sees Unprecedented July Cold – Arctic Sees Shortest Summer On Record — ‘Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year there was less than half that’”
Next will follow a story about the unprecedented rise in temperature of the Arctic Ocean depths.
House slam door on carbon tax.
The House approved an amendment to legislation Friday that would prevent the White House from imposing a carbon tax without congressional approval.
The lower chamber agreed to Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) amendment by a 237-176 vote, with 12 Democrats crossing the aisle to support it.
The amendment was added to an underlying bill that would require Congress to OK regulations that carry a $100 million economic impact or greater. That bill is dead in its tracks in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and THE WHITE HOUSE HAS THREATENED TO VETO IT. (Emphasis mine),
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/315221-house-votes-to-slam-door-on-carbon-tax#ixzz2avKxehDO
Remember the WUWT “Hansen’s Death Trains – now with extra scary ‘coal fallout’” blog http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/17/hansens-death-trains-now-with-extra-scary-coal-fallout/ from July 2012, which featured some enviro-activists’ video of a spectacularly dusty coal train?
You may now ignore the problem with other coal trains showing no such dust, but they are still extremely evil. According to last night’s PBS NewsHour “Pacific Northwest Weighs Environmental Risks of Cashing in on Coal Export Market” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec13/coal_08-02.html
” …. It’s important to realize that the particles from the coal trains are microscopic, ultra-fine particles that you can’t see. But they’re the ones that do the real damage because they make it to the deepest parts of the airways. So you may not be seeing it, but you’re breathing it, and it’s affecting you. …”
In case anyone is interested the new UAH numbers are out for July. A drop to +.17.
Assuming RSS is close to the UAH numbers, as it usually is, this would extend the flat temperature trend to 16 years and 8 months.
Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.
It is obvious that the truth gets bent/distorted/twisted/misunderstood, often, in supporting ideas, claims and comments, none more obvious or often than AGW. On WUWT I have come across some wonderful phrases, like ‘intellectual dishonesty’, ‘false flag’. We know what they mean. Sometimes its deliberate, sometimes ignorant, sometimes self serving. What if someone, perhaps somemany, perhaps here on WUWT, could identify or has identified the various ways of misrepresenting a fact or many facts and coin(ed) a phrase about them. I’m sure there’s a top ten to identify and find phrases for, with good, real examples to support. I suppose it might even be possible to make up new words for each example.
This would enable short analysis, conclusion and execution of what someone was up to with a comment.
Anyone?
@John –
Incredible, not not incredible, that der Fuehrer thinks he can impose taxes without approval from Congress. George III all over again., but even more so. George III’s offenses pale by comparison with this dictator’s actions.
@Bill H –
Ruckelshaus, Whitman, Lee, Kelly are traitors. Not Republicans – they’re Kleptocrat Party moles.
I’m so happy the government is taking care of us (sarc off)
“The 2010 Affordable Care Act will put some 2.3 million workers at the greatest risk of reduced hours, the February study found. That group represents roughly 1.8 percent of the workforce and consists of people who do not have insurance through their employer, work between 30 and 36 hours per week and earn incomes 400 percent below the federal poverty line for firms with 100 or more employees.
The study, conducted by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and recently highlighted by the Los Angeles Times, attempts to place a number on what has until now been an anecdotally-based trend of employers threatening such cuts as a result of the law. ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/part-time-workers-obamacare_n_3210321.html
neillusion says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
“I suppose it might even be possible to make up new words for each example.
This would enable short analysis, conclusion and execution of what someone was up to with a comment.
Anyone?”
We leave the making up of new words to the Left.
The Federal Reserve Board is a federal government entity whose chairman is appointed by the president. The individual regional Federal Reserve banks are federally chartered corporations owned by the member banks in each district. The presidents of the regional banks sit on the FOMC which determines monetary policy. The individual banks perform some quasi federal functions such as the distribution of money and the servicing of savings bonds. I’ll check with the wife about this and apologize/correct if I am wrong. She should know as a SVP&GC of one of the regionals.
The Pacific Northwest has had the best July in MANY years. Mild temperatures, dry, moderate humidity. Pretty much perfect. http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-best-july-weather-in-generations.html . It’s a good thing it doesn’t happen too often, or the place would be more crowded than it already is.
Rolf, Pacific is the key word there. NE Oregon was HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!
The Reform Party of the US has a better platform than Constitution Party to me. Henry Ross Perot’s old independent party. Jesse Ventura was a joke though.
That’s where I’m looking, as a former Republican. I try but just cannot endorse being a Libertarian, let everybody run wild.
Reform Party
*Maintaining a balanced budget, ensured by passing a Balanced Budget Amendment and changing budgeting practices, and paying down the federal debt
*Campaign finance reform, including strict limits on campaign contributions and the outlawing of the Political action committee
*Enforcement of existing immigration laws and opposition to illegal immigration
*Opposition to free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement and Central America Free Trade Agreement, and a call for withdrawal from the World Trade Organization
*Term limits on U.S. Representatives and Senators
*Direct election of the United States President by popular vote
*Federal elections held on weekends
*A noticeable absence from the Reform Party platform has been social issues, including abortion and gay rights. Reform Party representatives had long stated beliefs that their party could bring together people from both sides of these issues, which they consider divisive, to address what they considered to be more vital concerns as expressed in their platform. The idea was to form a large coalition of moderates; that intention was overridden in 2001 by the Buchanan takeover which rewrote the RPUSA Constitution to specifically include platform planks opposed to any form of abortion. The Buchananists, in turn, were overridden by the 2002 Convention which specifically reverted the Constitution to its 1996 version and the party’s original stated goals.
The Obamanoids have announced how they will handle the attempt to evade the so-called Affordable Healthcare Act by employers hiring part-timers. They will simply count the number of hours worked by such part-time people, divide by 40 hours/full-time worker, and the result will be….the equivalent of X number of full-time workers. These will be added to the employer’s full-time employees, and if the magic 50 employee threshold is reached —-voila!!! The employer is liable to conform to Obamacare.
Thus does Leviathan move forward to crush all opposition.
The great experiment, the Constitutional Republic called the United States of America, is perilously close to death.
Chad Wozniak says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:28 am
Chad, I’ve been working on a project combining bank fraud and renewable fraud. Documentary coming soon.
A rework of my Real Science comment:
The Chicken Little Brigade: Lying to Create a ‘Better World’
In 1989 a lead IPCC author, Steven Schneider of Stanford University, said: “We have to offer up scary scenarios… each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective [dishonest] and being honest [ineffective]?”
Following Schneider’s lead:
“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.” -Sir John Houghton, ex ipcc chair
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” -Daniel Botkin, UCSB
And the leftist Senator Tim Wirth said in 1993: “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing.”
That was it, for the scientists and politicians, it didn’t matter at all whether the theory was true because it’s the right thing to do anyway. And the scientists had already been given the green light to lie, because it’s “the right thing” that they are supporting in their lies.
Now you see so many warmists saying like: “Well, what if we are wrong? Will we have done such a terrible thing by building a better world anyway?”
A better world?
Like the — 83% — CO2 cuts mandated by 2050 that were in the Cap & Trade bill that passed the US House in 2009? 83%, with large cuts coming immediately. This would have taken a wrecking ball to the economy, and created virtually apocalyptic havoc. “A better world,” I’m afraid not.
August 3, 2013 at 8:42 arthur4563
[…] As for nuclear power, one would think the environmentalists would demand more.[…]
Which should give the game away to anyone paying attention.
Had, back in the 80’s/90’s, these folk really believed in CO2 induced doom then Nuclear was then the only option. We could, assuming we all believed the sky was about to fall, have moved, where safe (away from the Ring of Fire), to Nuclear. This would have bought us many decades in which to deal with the problem.
The fact that even now, with their imaginary acceleration of ‘Global Warming’, secret heat and no indication in the CO2 record that the trajectory has changed in 30 years, they still won’t support Nuclear derived energy.
This is why I have no time for alarmists – there is and always has been a time gaining solution but, despite their doom laden predictions for a CO2 enhanced world, they just can’t quite bring themselves to accept a practical alternative to Unicorn Utopia.
I always see them as folk drowning in the sea but try as they might they just can’t accept the offer of a life belt because it might be made of PVC and they read a piece once that claimed PVC was bad. There is just no hope with these people.
… And Arthur … The Federal Reserve (founded 1913 but could be dated back to 1791) is a private company as is The Bank of England (founded 1694).
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind. See:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html?m=0
Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?
http://nationalreview.com/article/355074/remembering-ploesti-robert-zubrin/page/0/2
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
“Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
a) seawater contains Uranium. We must do something!
b) about Ralph Nader’s invention of the toxicity of Plutonium
http://atomicinsights.com/1995/05/how-deadly-plutonium.html
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Here in New Hampshire, the Seabrook plant keeps right on humming. The wind farms are new and I don’t know if anything has failed yet, but they don’t reliably produce power. In face, they reliably don’t produce power.
I recently came across the following from wind farms in western NY that I visited (I have some in-laws who live near them). Blades are cracking after less than three years service. I’d love to know how much the repairs cost!
http://dddusmma.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/wind-farm-rotor-failures/ says in part:
And while I’m dumping on wind, http://news.heartland.org/editorial/2013/07/31/president-obamas-climate-plan-would-kill-hundreds-millions-birds-and-bats
http://www.bu.edu/cecb/wind/video/
http://www.epaw.org/multimedia.php?lang=en&article=b6
Sigh – in moderation.
I bought a can (pair of aerosol cans) of Neverwet from Home Depot. Great toy potential (e.g. a tortilla chip that salsa doesn’t stick to), but I haven’t decided what it would be really good for. The 2nd spray does leave things milky white and feeling rough.
Tipping buckets in weather stations? (Minor market for that!)
The guard on my weed whacker? (Won’t last the first tank of gas, though.)
Paint mixing and pouring tools are quite promising as long as flakes of Neverwet don’t mess up the paint.
It is interesting holding a piece of pine under the faucet and seeing it slough off all the water.
Here are a 4 photo/video’s of the northern lights. This is the best photography (by Ole C. Salomonsen) in motion I have ever seen. I am certain you all will agree and am thankful he is willing to share his work.
http://vimeo.com/arcticlightphoto
DirkH
It isn’t just Big oil (except for Exxon) that is supporting CAGW. Back in the 90’s Enron (yes the same corrupted company) invested over a billion US dollars for the study of CAGW.
Exxon is the only company that I know that is studying real science. Sad isn’t it?
ENSO meter fans – I like to post recent data for the past month or so whenever there’s a new update.
Data from last Monday:
Opening http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?ctlfile=oiv2.ctl&ptype=ts&var=ssta&level=1&op1=none&op2=none&day=29&month=jun&year=2013&fday=29&fmonth=jul&fyear=2013&lat0=-5&lat1=5&lon0=-170&lon1=-120&plotsize=800×600&title=&dir=
Found target /png/tmp/CTEST13750956029771.txt
Opening http://nomad3.ncep.noaa.gov//png/tmp/CTEST13750956029771.txt
Data file
data from 00Z29JUN2013 to 00Z29JUL2013
“———-”
0.0517259
-0.0648869
-0.252974
-0.289761
-0.138604
anomaly -01
I’ll try to remember to post this coming Monday’s data too.
OT
On NOW:
JoNova on Radio 2GB (873) this morning coming up Now (@5am) after the News.
On (not so) Free Carbon Markets
http://www.2gb.com/listen-live
Arthur – see RS above for Unicorn Utopia in action.
======================================================================
I never heard of it before. Was it invented by a politician?
PS “°” Thanks for the tip and your guide. http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html
Gunga Din says:
August 3, 2013 at 12:49 pm
Neverwet:
Yes, Slick Willie. 🙂
There have been a couple videos hyping it that have gone viral. They’re kind of fun. Links to reviews and videos:
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/878224_NeverWet-aims-to-repel-negative-review.html
http://gizmodo.com/neverwet-review-the-magical-water-repelling-spray-is-812797429
You’re welcome! Glad you saw my comment.
My web-page counter just hit 200,000 !
It came from : Edmonds, Washington, United States
Entry Page : http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Thank you to all who visited my web-pages, especially to Anthony for the tolerance and the WUWT generating .more than 90% of hits.
Power of a widely read blog is impressive !
.
Dirk H., thanks for reading and citing Rod Adams’ Atomic Insights. I met him as a ship’s engineer officer doing a suite of tests done to scope the ship’s impending refueling and overhaul. He became a good work acquaintance.
About the hazard of nuclear power plants; the USN NNPP has >5 x 10^3 reactor-years of safe operation. Not the cheapest by any means, but a fine safety record. How long will it persist now that Rickover’s dicta are ALL forgotten.
I was recently sent a video of Never Wet. As much as I have enjoyed ScotchGuard and Rain-X, I am looking for clever applications of Never Wet. But for its matte finish, I’d waterproof my Inspired Cycle Engineering Sprint 26 trike, it has the most wonderful almost candy-apple red color.
Pamela Gray says:
“Rolf, Pacific is the key word there. NE Oregon was HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!”
But the summers now are not nearly as hot as they used to be in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the past summers in SE Washington had 3 to 4 weeks of consecutive triple digit highs.
Pay more? Why? To do what? Reduce consumption? What does that do to jobs, the GDP and our overall standard of living (LIKE old ppl conserving RESOURCES in the winter by scrimping on spending for HEATING)? Any clue RINOs (the names above in bold)?
.
circa 1915?
.
(The above excerpt is not actually from Roger’s original post.)
=============================================================
Hmmm. I wonder if it would hold up on a snow shovel?
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
“There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts …”
Sadly that is true, as RUCKELSHAUS, THOMAS, REILLY and WHITMAN demonstrate quite clearly.
Gunga Din says: August 3, 2013 at 1:28 pm “Neverwet:…Hmmm. I wonder if it would hold up on a snow shovel?”
Outstanding! Better, my front end loader bucket that’s near useless for snow freezing in it.
Here’s my favorite
http://www.amazon.com/Suncast-SPF2450-24-Inch-Shovel-Fiberglass/dp/B000A239YC
LOL… and heartily I light add … let me guess, liberal arts major (and not a hard science degree esp. not in the field of engineering)?
(I think that statement is attributable to David; pls pardon me if it’s not.)
.
Third parties in the US.
I wouldn’t ditch the Electorial College. Without it, what candidate needs, say Nebraska, if they they have NYC? But I would add that if the “winner” had less than 50% of the popular vote then a runoff election between just the top two would be held 1 or 2 months later. Extend the 50% rule to all Federal elections and a “Third party” wouldn’t be ignored and we wouldn’t have a repeat of what happened in 1930’s Germany where a monster won with only 33% of the vote.
Speaking of odd cases (or odd ducks), has anybody here kept up with what is happening to (or with) Adam Kokesh? (This would stem from an event back on the 4th of July “in the District”.)
Just curious …
.
As it is an open thread just a couple of ideas
1- Solar panels. I have a solar panel that absorbs Co2 and provides a storable source of energy. Is is called a tree. I can offer thousands of varieties including oak, beeech, and ash. They also provide a bio-diverse environment. This has the advantage of low production costs and does not require the covering of land with maunfactured panels with the required maintenace of panels and weeds. Can I copyright this idea?
2- If solar radiation increases then the water on Earth will evaporate. The air will be hotter and the water vapour will rise higher. This will then freeze including the heat of sublimanation. Initally at the polar regiond this will fall as snow. If melted then it will absorb the heat from the atmosphere. If there is no negative feedback the end result will be that the Earth becomes a snowball. The ice reflects further solar radiation and protects life in the oceans during the interregum. Thus in a contradictory way increased soalr radiation results in a snowball earth. I am open to informed opinion as to the flaws in this idea. But I am just trying to make peolple think about conventional wisdom. if there aren’t any major flaws we will share the grant money 🙂
Well, for starters, anything containing the infamous ‘weasel words’: “could”, “might”, “may” are flags denoting phrasing or phraseology of dubious (dishonest?) and dissembling meaning or content.
.
As I recall, Kokesh is being held in a D.C. jail without bond. Details at his website
http://adamvstheman.com/
arthur4563 says @ August 3, 2013 at 8:42 am… electric cars.
The question is about battery life. The performance of electric cars is already as good as diesel or petrol. But not for long. Battery life has always been the Achilles Heel of electric cars.
So why?
Look at the periodic table of the elements. Simplistically,to store the potential energy you really want a solid (or easily compressed liquid) that has a high difference in electronegativity between it’s internal elements, the anode and cathode. Lithium is the first solid in the periodic table. It’s known to be at the extreme and has been known for decades. But they haven’t got it to work.
The lifetime isn’t there with Lithium. To go further away from Lithium requires rarer and rarer (expensive) elements or maybe compounds… maybe.
To make an electric car you need something other than chemical energy. Cold fusion, perhaps, or just reduce energy demands via anti-gravity or…
Or stick with the judgement of Edison and use a combustion engine (until a fuel cell is cheap and more efficient than the internal combustion engine).
RE: your post NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor, realclimate.com says: “The issue is that technological changes over time to give radiosondes faster responses translate into a non-climatic artifact in their raw data over time. Basically, older sondes remember the lower (wetter) atmosphere for longer than newer sondes do, and that can give a seeming decrease. It is not however real. Note that only one older reanalysis product used the contaminated raw data (NCEP), and that all of the modern reanalyses don’t use it, and show much more consistent upwards trends.”
Yes; per my prev post, I was just curious if any others were taking note of ‘events’ surrounding him. Just curious again, have you reviewed his past videos? Just curious how many others have spent any amount of time on this topic/subject.
BTW, ‘his’ FB account seems to have the most up-to-date and accurate info, incl a link to an interview with his attorney from last Monday I think … again, just curious …
.
neillusion says August 3, 2013 at 10:24 am
…
Good idea but I’m not in agreement with the methodology. There are families of mis-directions.
A few different levels of distortion.
~Some words are euphemisms that have the same subject but without the emotional meaning (e.g. “collateral damage” and “innocent victims”).
That is an extreme case but the process is general. Use a euphemism – set the language – to keep the tone of the conversation on the level you want. There is no loss of literal meaning but a great loss of emotional meaning. This is allowed in scientific discourse but forbidden in poetry – where does it lie in politics?
~But some deceptions are on the level of meta-knowledge.
“False flag”: presenting an argument under a false position so one’s defence is not important and you can influence people by deliberately losing or shifting the debate. That is about the identity of the speaker; it is not about the text.
~Or consider “Lies by omission”. They are often just not reporting the scope of debate. Sometimes the scoping text is lost when reported onwards for a general audience and then it grows by the internet and no-one has deliberately lied. Where does the blame for that distortion lie? Where is the intention or plan?
I like your idea. It would be a good thing to create. Godwin’s Law is to simplistic a shorthand; we need the theory behind it.
But it is not a short document to create and far beyond my time and ability.
Correction: “too simplistic”. Sorry.
One of my readers posted this thoughtful list of ‘traps’ that are there for the unwary in ‘climate change’ discussions. I thought it was worth a wider readership. So here it is, slightly edited.
‘About a year ago, puzzled by what looks like intellectual intransigence, I mulled over the various traps into which many appear to fall. The order below is not significant, and the explanation simplified.
1. The pollution trap, confusing particulates and harmful gases with carbon dioxide.
2. The political trap, where a position on AGW echoes the prevailing views of the left or right.
3. The social trap, where a person’s main social circles can inhibit discovery and analysis, and apply conformist pressure.
4. The guilt trap, to which some two generations in the western world have now been conditioned. “It is all our fault (the pronoun covers a raft of sins), and we must fix it.”
5. The presumption trap, that humans can control a dire global warming of such projected magnitude – the calculators you discuss above, Don, put the lie to that presumption. (In fact, I’ve been wondering whether the effects of our actions starting in the late 1980s in replacing our use of CFCs, may have been swamped by natural changes to ozone levels, and that we may have been congratulating ourselves undeservedly. The ozone story may well have boosted our presumption, anyway.)
6. The energy poverty trap, a myopia about how critical to the survival of so many is the availability of relatively cheap energy. Hansen’s “rivers of death” coal trucks are actually rivers of life to a billion or so, but I can’t see them from my favourite coffee shop. Out of sight, out of mind.
7. The trap of slicing science, illustrated by convictions that carbon dioxide has such an amplifying effect on water vapour, by unproven climate sensitivity values, by ignoring or distorting past history . . . .
8. The modelling trap – need I say more? See Fig 1.4 of the leaked AR5.
9. The consensus trap, the chimera of peer review, the clarion call that the science is settled.
10. The professional trap, where only “climate scientists” are competent to judge. That reminds me of a major plank of the Reformation, itself so critical to the Renaissance. This trap also uses the weapon of “ad hominem”.
11. The funding trap; to gain research $$s, too often scientists have to bow to the AGW icon, whether they like it or not.’
Even the latest Piomas isn’t singing the alarmist tine!
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2_CY.png
====================================================================
Yes, but sometimes such words in honest science are used for the sake of accuracy.
What is the atomic weight of H2O? What if that H2O is deuterium?
Intent is what matters.
I missed one; add “but” to the list …
.
/mild sarc
Kokesh; yes, I watched his case develop. I spent much more time, at that time, with the Zimmerman trial, watching about half of it live. Kokesh was bearding the lion in its den and that never turns out well. That D.C. is a stateless mouse makes it much more demanding of respect for its authority.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19
Nuclear is not safe.
—————————————–
True. No form of energy is safe. We need to do a risk:benefit analysis. Who reaps the benefits? Folks living now, or within 40 years… or 60 years… or however long we license the things for (until they fail?). Who is exposed to the risk? Folks living thousands of years in the future. The risk may(?) not be large, but we are exposing people who reap no benefit to “some” risk. I don’t see how to do an “ethical” risk:benefit analysis on that basis, so I’m “anti nuke”.
I’m afraid that nuclear (fission) power may be our “punishment” for not thinking up anything better. This is particularly likely if the carbonophobes get their way. How bad would that be? What would actually happen if we moved people back into the areas evacuated after the oopsies at Chernobyl and Fukushima? I imagine they’d see an elevated death rate, I doubt if anyone really knows by how much. But they’d be back in their homes. Might they be better off? Who decides?
Compared to no energy at all, nuclear (fission) is probably a win. I don’t thnk we’re faced with that choice, so I’d leave nuclear for an absolute last resort! If we get fusion working (any temperature will be fine), or perhaps Thorium, that may be a solution… if they live up to their promises. Remember, we were promised great things from fission, too!
I observe that you only need to swap two letters to turn “nuclear” into “unclear”!
Jim Cripwell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:06 am
When I see the word “Obamacare”, I thank my lucky stars I live in Canada.
>>>>>
Make room for us “illegal aliens”….
Meanwhile,back at the ranch.
http://live.wsj.com/video/border-collies-born-to-herd/2EC6DD8E-F01A-4AC7-B14A-24BED2B047C9.html#!2EC6DD8E-F01A-4AC7-B14A-24BED2B047C9
Who needs nuclear when you have homeless
http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/pedal-power-in-detroit-green-gym-for-the-homeless.html
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind.
>>>>>
Roger, my poor desperate friend, we need responsible government. Responsible government would have a plan to implement 50 new nuclear plants in the US, in the next 30 years.
For those who missed it live here is the recording of ghe fascinating JoNova broadcast.
“Its’s not really a market in carbon. We’re not trading lead pencils”
Courtesy of Radio 2GB Australia.
http://webstore.2gb.com/audio/overnight-with-michael-mclaren/201308/04-ets–more-black-market-than-gree.mp3
I just came across a terrible consequence of Global Warming
“The film opens with a baby dinoshark swimming away from a broken chunk of Arctic glacier that calved due to global warming.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinoshark
documented by climate scientist Roger Corman.
2011
Trailer contains a lot of shark and a lot of jumping. (find it yourself. Won’t give link, a little too much Gore, pardon the pun)
Speaking of JoNova someone asked about Harry Readme which reminded me of this snippet.
CRU NEEDS A DATA MANAGER.
Not only do both databases have unnecessary duplicates, introduced for external mapping purposes by the look of it, but the ‘main’ stations (2 and 4) have different station name & country. In fact one of the country names is illegal! Dealing with things like this cannot be automated as they’re the results of non-automatic decisions.
What a bloody mess.
Now looking at the dates.. something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993! Looking at the data – the COBAR station 1962-2004 seems to be an exact copy of the COBAR AIRPORT AWS station 1962-2004. And wouldn’t you know it, the data for this station has missing data between 12/92 and 12/99 inclusive. So I reckon it’s the old FORREST AERO station (WMO 9464600, .au ID 11004), with the new Australian bulletin updates tacked on (hence starting in 2000) So.. do I split off the 2000-present data to a new station with the new number, or accept that whoever joined them (Dave?) looked into it and decided it would be OK? The BOM website says they’re 800m apart.
Hope that’s right..
All 115 refs now matched in the TMin database. Confidence in the fidelity of the Australian station in the database drastically reduced. Likelihood of invalid merging of Australian stations high. Let’s go..
getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.
I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.
I honestly have no idea what to do here. and there are countless others of equal bafflingness.
I suspected a couple of stations were being counted twice, so using ‘comm’ I looked for identical headers. Unfortunately there weren’t any!! So I have invented two stations, hmm.
I have to admit, I still don’t understand secondary parameter generation. I’ve read the papers, and the miniscule amount of ‘Read Me’ documentation, and it just doesn’t make sense.
As I was examining the vap database, I noticed there was a ‘wet’ database. Could I not use that to assist with rd0 generation? well.. it’s not documented, but then, none of the process is so I might as well bluff my way into it!
Units seem to vary: <DO YOU SEE? THERE’S THAT OH-SO FAMILIAR BLOCK OF MISSING CODES IN THE LATE 80S, THEN THE DATA PICKS UP AGAIN. BUT LOOK AT THE CORRELATIONS ON THE RIGHT, ALL GOOD AFTER THE BREAK, DECIDEDLY DODGY BEFORE IT. THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT STATIONS, AREN’T THEY? AAAARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Quite honestly I don’t have time – but it just shows the state our data holdings have drifted into. Who added those two series together? When? Why? Untraceable, except anecdotally.
But I am beginning to wish I could just blindly merge based on WMO code.. the trouble is that then I’m continuing the approach that created these broken databases.
Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING – so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have 🙂
Link, sorry.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/climategates-harry_read_me-txt-we-all-really-should/?singlepage=true
geran, you write “Make room for us “illegal aliens””.
Sorry. Our health care system only applies to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants. All others pay full costs in hospitals; I believe $2000 per day, plus medical costs.
PS: Even if we “act,” it won’t make any difference if the ROW (Developing Countries) don’t–and they won’t. The only effect will be to increase emissions by off-shoring manufacturing to them.
A little levity…
Levity; not so much…
Kajajuk says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:04 pm
“Levity; not so much…”
And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?
This is a blanket response to the nuclear advocates.
First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
Second, why do medium-sized islands with populations of approximately one million people have no nuclear power plants? Why do those islanders pay 25 cents or more for power? If nuclear is the answer and can actually produce power at 3 cents per kWh or less as some proponents claim, why aren’t there any nuclear plants on the islands?
See. http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuclear-plants-on-islands-nutty-idea.html
Even an older, paid-for nuclear plant cannot compete. At least one such US plant is being shut down as being no longer economic to operate. I’ll try to provide a link to that bit of news.
Third, why cannot nuclear plants be built on time and on budget? After constructing the 400 or so plants world-wide, one would expect the learning curve would be climbed already. The US’ South Texas Nuclear Plant, near Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast, recently cancelled an expansion project that would have added two more reactors. The Japanese reactor vendor could not provide a final cost nor an expected finish date. Projected costs kept climbing and climbing.
I could go on, but there really is little point. Nuclear power is dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful.
DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
“And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?”
That’s more than half a trillion.
Since the financial crisis in 2008, foundation assets have risen by 20% – adjusted for inflation.
http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/statistics/pdf/02_found_growth/2011/06_11.pdf
Looks like an unhealthy concentration of power.
David Ball says: “Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.”
Depends on who we send, David.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:26 pm
“First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
[..]
I could go on, but there really is little point. Nuclear power is dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful.”
I will just blanket-mock you by saying
First, if windmills are so desirable, why do windmills provide only about zero(*) percent of the US’ electricity? Why don’t windmills provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t windmills compete economically with coal and natural gas?
The answer is that windmill construction costs are much too high to ever compete.
[..]
I could go on, but there really is little point. Windmills are dead and will remain dead. And our grandchildren will be grateful when they actually see an eagle.
(*) It’s probably slightly more than zero but zero is probably a good approximation.
You see, that was easy to turn around. Think of something better. How about number of deaths per TWh produced. Oh, that won’t fly. Hmmm.
Roger Sowell says: “First, if nuclear power plants are so desirable, why does nuclear power provide only about 20 percent of the US’ electricity? Why doesn’t nuclear provide 80 or even 95 percent? Why can’t nuclear compete economically with coal and natural gas? The answer is that nuclear plant construction costs are much too high to ever compete.”
The cost of nuclear power plant construction is based on licensing and permitting regulations promoted by anti-nuke activists and designed to raise costs and drag out the construction schedule to non-competitive levels.
Here is a list of islands with populations of approximately 1 million, yet none have a nuclear power plant.
Island ……………….population, millions
Okinawa…………………1.25
Mauritius…………………1.245
Bohol…………………….1.23
Hong Kong……………….1.18
Mindoro…………………..1.16
Xiamen Island…………….1.08
Sao Luis Island……………1.08
Trinidad……………………1.03 (this island has abundant natural gas, so of course is not a candidate)
South Island (NZ)………1.008
Oahu……………………….0.876
Tenerife……………………0.865
Cyprus……………………..0.855
Grand Canary………………0.815
Majorca……………………0.814
Reunion (France)………….0.793
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
“Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 12:15 pm
“b) about Ralph Nader’s invention of the toxicity of Plutonium
http://atomicinsights.com/1995/05/how-deadly-plutonium.html”
Roger it is no shame to be wrong. But having a blog to discourage use of nuclear based on egregiously wrong information, is gross irresponsibility. Shame on your for taking activist pap on trust and not doing the simple research to corroborate such a serious assertion. Now we are going to see if you are an honest person whose motive is to protect the world’s citizenry or an alarmist propagandist with no scruples by what you do to redress this wrong by updating your blog. This is a toughy for a lifelong anti-nuclear guy. It’s painful to have to admit you have wronged your faithful followers, but they will respect you for it.
Meanwhile here is a tabulation of deaths from nuclear electrical plants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
Canada -0, France (big nuclear)- 0, Germany-0, Japan- 4, Ukraine ~50, UK -0, US -3
Note there is a new edit adding 78 for UK, but a) the plant at Windscale was a nuclear bomb plant built in the early 1950s and b) Wikipedia it self states:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
“A 2010 study of workers directly involved in the cleanup found no significant long term health effects from their involvement.”
So 87.7 percent of all deaths from nuclear electrical plants since their beginnings in 1950 occurred at Chernobyl, an old Soviet plant built with no safety features.
Since I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt in your sincerity I want you to do your own research on the deaths from coal, oil and gas, and, yes, wind turbines (11 in China) and solar (4 installers in California alone). The latter two will be the hardest to find since the MSM would resist publishing anything bad on these two planet savers except, ironically, the Chinese press.
@DirkH
Ten people could power 3 homes? Imagine the possibilities for putting people
backto work in Detroit!One word: France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
Excerpt:
France’s nuclear power industry has been called “a success story” that has put the nation “ahead of the world” in terms of providing cheap, CO2-free energy. In terms of industrialized nations, mainland France has the lowest carbon dioxide production per unit of GDP in the world.
As of 2012, France’s electricity price to household customers is the 7th cheapest amongst the 27 member European Union, and also the 7th cheapest to industrial consumers, with a rate of €0.14/kWh to households and €0.07/kWh to industrial consumers.
You missed one:
Manhattan.
But, what is your point?
.
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of ‘Big Oil’ etc. funding greenie groups?
@ DirkH, nice try, very clever of you to pick on fringe technologies wind and solar. Yet, even that fails. Wind provides far more than zero in California, in fact wind produced 4.5 percent in 2012. Solar provided just under 1 percent in 2012.
How about trying your cute little trick with natural gas, and with coal-fired power? Why can’t nuclear compete with the big boys?
I would almost pay money to see this.
Roger Sowell;
Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions. But I thought this wasn’t about competitiveness? I thought this was about safe affordable power that didn’t produce ghg’s? That was the original point, and you’ve completely side stepped it. Is it affordable? Yes. Is it safe? Yes. Does it produce ghg’s? No. So why is the green movement so dead against it? Offer up some actual science if you want to have a discussion about the relative merits of one versus the other.
Roger Sowell;
Why can’t nuclear compete with the big boys?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Which has what to do with it being safe or not? Being dangerous to future generations or not? Those were your assertions and when asked to back them up you changed the subject.
When I was young(er) I used to enjoy records. Hottest day in 1960 most rain in Darwin in a day/week month, coolest night for June. Also temps heights rain droughts floods etc. Then along came AGW and now natural events and extremes are tainted by “the Cause” . Why can’t we have record highs and lows to enjoy without the navel searching?
Grump of day.
Are you completely blind, man?
Or just disingenuous to some nth degree?
DIDJA SEE the cost/kHW for France above?????????????????????????
.
Global sea ice positive again fourth or fifth time this year. A new record!
Is Al Gore lecturing in Nunavut? The Arctic has had the coldest stretch of 3 months in the history of the DMI since 1958 and the refreezing of north of 80 is about to begin in earnest:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
And look at the shallowing slopes of the summer ice decline
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png
The Japanese think so, too:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
I do have to believe that Norways Ice Area is a mistake!
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
Now that’s scary!!
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
a) seawater contains Uranium. We must do something!
And people are radioactive because of the Potassium and Carbon radioisotopes in our bodies.
RE: john says:
August 3, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Thanks for that link, John. And thanks to Ole Salomonson for sharing.
Even though the video is sped up a bit, the northern lights really do move around quite a bit. The first time I saw them I looked up and thought I was looking at a white, moonlit cloud, and then, just as it was dawning on me that there was no moon, the blame thing moved, first one way, and then the other. Even without the colors Ole captures, it blew me away.
Bill H says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:16 am
A Republican Case for Climate Action
By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN
Published: August 1, 2013
EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”
A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, …
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html
========================================
While I am not the Bill H that posted this i can say with certainty that this is NOT the Republican position as everyone of those who signed the letter are RINO’s (Republicans in name only) and are on the power grab control band wagon of the left..
I find it laughable that they purport they are “for” it and it is “undeniable” and just like the left the facts do not help them… Just like Mann however the data is meaning less.. Leave it to the NY slimes to print propaganda..
Gary Pearse says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
Roger, I’m waiting. Without Chernobyl, a 50s Soviet plant with no safety features, there have only been 7 nuclear plant deaths in 60 years – 4 in Japan and 3 in USA, notably France has zero as has the rest. I have a challenge for you in the above as well which I see you have chosen to sidestep. If you don’t take it up, I’ll know all I have to know about you and millions of your clones and I will never respond to your stuff here again. There have been more than a few lambs visit who have left their fleece behind here after grossly underestimating WUWT skeptics. Some manned and womaned up but not many. There are lots of Kool Aid blogs where you can be a guru but this is not one of them. You have had one hell of a top notch education over this day that students pay a lot for elsewhere, but I fear it has been a waste of time with you. Goodbye.
Doug Huffman says:
August 3, 2013 at 1:33 pm
August, as good a month as any to talk about snow shovels.
I was having trouble finding a replacement for my aluminum and steel show pusher and wound up trying one much like yours –
http://www.amazon.com/Garant-APP26KDRU-Alpine-26-Inch-Stained/dp/B000FBKUVS/ref=sr_1_4
[Except mine has a fiberglass handle, not ash.] Turns out it’s better – the old one didn’t have sides on the scoop.
Why do they even sell show shovels with plastic or aluminum scrapers in New Hampshire?
Back on Neverwet – careful, a little friction can be a big help to control a shovelful of snow and keep it from spilling out. OTOH, wet snow sticking to a shovel is a big pain.
Gary Pearse;
Roger, I’m waiting. Without Chernobyl, a 50s Soviet plant with no safety features,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually, Chernobyl had safety features, and they worked. That is until some moron physicists wanted to run an experiment that exceeded the safety limits of the reactor. The safety system kept shutting down the reactor in the middle of the experiment. So…. they shut the safety systems off. The thing about making systems foolproof if that you cannot over estimate the cleverness of fools.
DirkH says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
———————–
Same suggestion i have posted at least twice before…
A dynamic harmony between capitalism (actual not “crony”) and socialism (actual not social corruption).
Even when I really don’t want to say anything, it is nice to know I could.
Gary Pearse says:
August 3, 2013 at 5:06 pm\
——-
Nice.
So it is all just “natural variability” until the observations are in line with your “coldist” dreams and then it is profound as well as immediate?
A Republican Case for Climate Action
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts:
Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I was just looking at DMI. Highest levels of sea ice since 2006.
Which is just as meaningless as the low levels a few years ago. But facts are facts and sea ice has been increasing at both poles for several years now. They can claim to be Republicans, and they can have their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
My, I had to think of the three US deaths – SL-1 – Stationary Lowpower One. Reassembling the rod control system after maintenance, a worker had to manually lift the central rod’s control rack to engage it with the drive pinion. Evidentially it stuck momentarily causing a jerk reactivity addition accident and steam explosion that ejected at least that rod.
A coworker was assigned to that crew and shift but called in with the Idaho January sniffles. I just got a note from him telling of his move into a seniors’ home.
Just came across this, which puts the whole radiation risk in perspective.
Radioactivity of the human body
A typical human body contains approximately 40 grams of potassium. About 1/1000 of this is potassium-40, a radioactive isotope. This means that you contain 0.04 grams = 40 milligrams of a radioactive cancer-producing isotope in your body. This is not an artificial radioactivity, but it is left over from the formation of potassium in the supernova that gave birth to our solar system. The half life of potassium-40 is 1.26 billion years. The solar system was created about 5 billion years ago. That is not enough time for all of the radioactive potassium to decay, and that is why there is so much in our bodies.
Atoms of radiopotassium in your body explode approximately 12,000 times every second. Your body is radioactive. Only 11% of the radioactive decays yield a gamma ray, so there are 1,300 self-inflicted gammas per second from your own body. (This is not easy to see in a geiger counter, because gammas are hard to detect.) This results in an exposure of approximately 0.00018 Sieverts over a 50 year period. If the linear hypothesis is correct, this is responsible on average for 7 millionths of a cancers per individual. Since 0.2 of us die from cancer, this self-inflicted radiation is responsible for 1/28000 of our cancers.
The results are more astonishing if you consider a large population. There are about 250 million people in the United States. Multipy 250 million by 7 millionths of a cancer per person, and you find that 250 x 7 = 1750 people will die of cancer over the next 50 years, induced by their own radioactivity. That averages to 35 per year.
Of course, we can’t get away from our own radioactivity. But think about double beds. If we spend a lot of time very close to someone else, we are exposed to their radioactivity as well as our own. Suppose we spend 1/3 of a day in close proximity (e.g. double beds). Then we expect to increase the potassium-induced cancers by about 1/3, or about 600 people. So if everyone in the US slept in double beds, the number of additional cancers expected in the next 50 years is 600.
That may sound silly. But remember, those are 600 people who otherwise would not die of cancer. And that’s just in the US. If we consider world-wide statistics, the numbers will be 20 times larger: 12000.
Do you think we should do something about this? We could install shields between people that protect them from gamma rays. Or outlaw double beds? At what point is it silly to worry? What level of “additional cancer” would you consider to be negligible? Would you accept a different level of risk for yourself than you would allow for the entire US? A risk of 0.000007 sounds negligible for me, but 600 preventable cancers in the US sounds substantial.
@ David Hoffer re nuclear power:
You wrote;
“Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,
“But I thought this wasn’t about competitiveness? I thought this was about safe affordable power that didn’t produce ghg’s? That was the original point, and you’ve completely side stepped it.”
No, affordability is one of the points.
” Is it affordable? Yes.”
No, it is clearly not, or it would produce far more power and be built instead of coal and gas plants.
“Is it safe? Yes.”
Seriously? Why then are nuclear plant workers required to wear lifetime radiodosimeter badges?
“Does it produce ghg’s? No.”
Seriously? How many CO2 tons are emitted in mining and enriching the fuel, and building the plant with the hundreds of tons of steel and concrete?
“So why is the green movement so dead against it?”
Perhaps the widespread nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, and Fukushima, and nearly from Three Mile Island have some little thing to do with it? Especially after decades of nuclear advocates (such as yourself) shouting about how safe nuclear power is! The common thought is that nuclear industry insiders lie and lie again. Each time a major event happens, we find that more lies are told.
“Offer up some actual science if you want to have a discussion about the relative merits of one versus the other.”
I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power. France is subsidized so it does not count.
DirkH says: August 3, 2013 at 4:15 pm
In response to Kajajuk says:August 3, 2013 at 4:04 pm “Levity; not so much…” (Video Wealth Inequality in America) (Helluva video, marvelous presentation – worth watching for the clarity of presentation alone.
“…..And? Whatcha suggest? Taxing liberal foundations?….”
It is a fine example of a people programmed with belief. In “the land of the free” anyone can make it! …. thanks to the wonders of free capitalism, “…everyone has an equal opportunity…” ….
Except, they don’t.
Some people are just smarter, harder working and/or luckier than others. And once the ball is rolling, they hold all the advantages: Political connection and influence, financial connection and influence (cheaper endless finance), legal connection and influence, the ability and wherewithall to market endlessly, the means to copy, outlast absorb competitors etc etc etc.
Yes, it is a great system, if you think we should all end up working for one or two versions of “The Corporation”.
Now that seems fair, that they should prosper so: But, to the extent 1% end up with 50% of the loot? And noting the capitalist system we now have functions only because of a myraid of laws on currency, banking, property etc (Yeah, it is not really “free capitalism”.)
And noting a few more tweaks to laws (a little more focus on anti-trust issues) could prevent gigantic corporation becoming gigantic.
The very interesting thing about “The Land of the Free” is that the working class masses are happy enough with the “equal opportunity” offered (meager as it is) that they will happily enlist in almost any conflict the corporations choose, and fight to the death to defend it.
Does anybody have any news about Rossi’s “ecat”? How about the “hotcat”? And most interesting of all, the latest iteration, the “notcat”©acementhead, the one that no longer needs the secret sauce?
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
“……I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power. France is subsidized so it does not count.
http://www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au/2011/05/30/the-case-against-waiting-for-generation-iv-nuclear-and-the-case-for-urgently-bringing-it-to-commercialisation/
On pollution:
Uranium mining – very small footprint vs coal: http://www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au/2012/01/25/the-folly-of-making-perfection-the-enemy-of-excellence-a-visit-to-beverley-uranium-mine/
Health and safety: http://www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au/category/accidents-incidents-and-health-concerns/
@ Gary Pearse re nuclear power.
“Roger, I’m waiting.”
Good. The first thing for you to recognize is that my schedule is not under your control.
“Without Chernobyl, a 50s Soviet plant with no safety features, there have only been 7 nuclear plant deaths in 60 years – 4 in Japan and 3 in USA, notably France has zero as has the rest.”
Somehow, those dead people from Chernobyl are very likely not impressed with your argument. Neither am I. Radiation exposure is cumulative and workers in the industry are just now reaching old age where deaths can be attributed to their exposure. Plus where are the studies on their children’s birth defects? Time will expose the lies of nuclear power being safe.
“i have a challenge for you in the above as well which I see you have chosen to sidestep.”
Really? What challenge is that? Do you care to take my challenge on nuclear plants on islands?
“If you don’t take it up, I’ll know all I have to know about you”
Oooohhh! A threat! You can just imagine how scared I am.
“and millions of your clones and I will never respond to your stuff here again.”
Is that a promise?
“There have been more than a few lambs visit who have left their fleece behind here after grossly underestimating WUWT skeptics.”
Such bold talk over such nonsense! Being a skeptic myself on CAGW, I’ll never take a backseat to you.
“Some manned and womaned up but not many. There are lots of Kool Aid blogs where you can be a guru but this is not one of them.”
Irrelevant. You cannot argue that nuclear power is safe nor affordable so you resort to insults. A clear sign you have lost the argument.
“You have had one hell of a top notch education over this day”
Really? What is your meaning here?
“that students pay a lot for elsewhere, but I fear it has been a waste of time with you.”
I see the usual false arguments trotted out about France, and little else. That is an education? Hah.
“Goodbye”
On that we agree. Feel free to try again when you have a real argument.
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
“……I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power….”
….from someone who sounds like he knows a bit about it :
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/03/17/economist-nuclear-view-impractical/#comment-154175
markx says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:41 pm
———————-
The evidence of the divide is all about; if one cares to look.
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
in reply to David Hoffer who wrote; “Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
RS says: “Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,”
Did you note that German energy costs shot through the roof when they shut down their nuclear power plants?
http://www.thegwpf.org/germany-energy-poverty-600000-households-disconnected-annually/
The perfect power source.
1. Tie a goat to a stake.
2. Tie a zombie to a treadmill connected to a generator.
3. Add more zombies.
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm
“Here is a list of islands with populations of approximately 1 million, yet none have a nuclear power plant.”
Not sure on your point here, but, on the issue of small scale nuclear power and small populations it is important to note:
Statement of Admiral F. L. “Skip” Bowman, U.S. Navy Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program before the House Committee on Science 29 October 2003.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:40 pm
“Nuclear can and does compete in France and other jurisdictions.”
Yes, but only because the French completely subsidized their power industry,
Oh they do not. In fact, they export a considerable amount of electrical power to other countries at prices conventional power plants cannot compete with. Or are you suggesting that France is so stupid that they subsidize electricity in other countries?
” Is it affordable? Yes.”
No, it is clearly not, or it would produce far more power and be built instead of coal and gas plants.
Japan and Germany also ran very affordable nuclear power plants but shut them down because of political pressure, not financial pressure. In fact, Japan in particular is under massive financial pressure to resume nuclear power because they cannot generate power economically by means ofimported fossil fuels. China has plans for nuclear power plants by the dozen and so does India. By extension, one might ask why wind farms and solar farms are being built despite being proven unreliable and atrosciously expensive. The fact is that they are being built with massive subsidies, relgulatory requirements to build them, and political pressure. Their existance no more proves they are financially viable than the existance of coal and oil powered plants proves nuclear isn’t.
“Is it safe? Yes.”
Seriously? Why then are nuclear plant workers required to wear lifetime radiodosimeter badges?
Seriously? How about to double check that the safety systems are working?
“Does it produce ghg’s? No.”
Seriously? How many CO2 tons are emitted in mining and enriching the fuel, and building the plant with the hundreds of tons of steel and concrete?
Seriously? Compare the lifetime CO2 emissions, construction, refining, plant retirement of fossil fuel plants to nuclear plants. Fossil fuel plants over their lifetime produce orders of magnitude more ghg’s than do nuclear plants. By comparison, the emissions of a nuclear power plant, all those tons of steel and concrete included, are barely a rounding error.
“So why is the green movement so dead against it?”
Perhaps the widespread nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, and Fukushima, and nearly from Three Mile Island have some little thing to do with it? Especially after decades of nuclear advocates (such as yourself) shouting about how safe nuclear power is! The common thought is that nuclear industry insiders lie and lie again. Each time a major event happens, we find that more lies are told.
Well expose some of the lies then. You’re just claiming that lies are being told without substantiating them. As for the fallout, sorry but facts trump this fanatasy world you live in. Fossil fuels contain radiactive elements, in particular coal which before scrubbers was simply pumped into the air, the average coal plan used to contribute far more to background radiation than did nuclear plants. But we figured out the problem and dealt with it. This is the part you don’t seem to understand. Yes there have been problems in the nuclear industry. But when you compare to the health hazards of conventional fuel, their record is stellar. It is like your chance of dying in a car accident versus an airplane crash. You are orders of magnitude more likely to die in a car crash. Yet car crashes rarely make anything but the local news while airplane crashes are instant international headlines with opportunistic politicians screaming for investigations to make sure that the specific cause doesn’t happen again. By your standards, we would outlaw cars and force people to only fly any distance they couldn’t walk or ride a bike. Does that make sense to you?
“Offer up some actual science if you want to have a discussion about the relative merits of one versus the other.”
I’m still waiting for ANYONE to make a valid case for nuclear power. France is subsidized so it does not count.
And I’m still waiting for you to present some actual science. The financial case has been made already.
Roger Sowell;
Somehow, those dead people from Chernobyl are very likely not impressed with your argument. Neither am I. Radiation exposure is cumulative and workers in the industry are just now reaching old age where deaths can be attributed to their exposure.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
About 30,000 people per year are killed in car accidents in the United States alone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
Should we ban cars?
As for your concern about cumulative exposure, have you forgotten those radiodosimeter badges you complained the workers have to wear? Do you suppose part of wearing them is to measure their cumulative exposure end ensure it doesn’t get high enough to risk their health? Are you aware that millions of people live in areas of the world in which background radiation is higher than what is allowed in nuclear power plants?
You still haven’t provided any facts. Just arm waving and hysterical claims of impending doom. You may be a CAGW skeptic, but you are using the tactics of the warmists to argue your position, not facts and logic.
DR says: August 3, 2013 at 4:53 pm
“Does anyone have a comprehensive list of ‘Big Oil’ etc. funding greenie groups?”
Check out Donna Laframboise:
BP, Greenpeace & the Big Oil Jackpot
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.de/2010/06/bp-greenpeace-big-oil-jackpot.html
“The US’ South Texas Nuclear Plant, near Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast, recently cancelled an expansion project that would have added two more reactors.”
San Antonio was going to take a % of that expansion. Instead, our demoncratic mayor and city council has decided to go with sunbeams (contracted at twice the price per kwhr).
Can’t wait to see the effects of the first hail storm. I have photos of hail’s effect on a newly installed large array of solar panels in the early 70’s. Bet it’s the same effect (unless it’s now rotten hail).
Note: 75 miles south of San Antonio, in the Eagle Ford, there is almost an unlimited amount natural gas. Not much activity in the NG zone due to its low price. In the oil zone, NG is the red-headed step child, that is produced as a by-product. Not cost effective to put in pipe, so much is just flaired off.
San Antonio should be the NG capitol of Texas. We should be driving Honda Civic GS vehicles and using NG to generate electricity. Except instead of public NG filling sites, we have electric charging sites (thank you DOE) that no one is using because few have electric cars.
Instead of becoming a NG society, San Antonio is getting sunbeams. Where’s my camera.
Can ANYONE show me a power company that reduced their rates after building a nuclear power plant? No, you cannot.
For those who cannot grasp the point about islands and nuclear power plants, if nukes were so safe and affordable, why don’t those islands build them and cut their costs of power? They don’t because it won’t.
Re naval use of nuclear power, yes it works and I’m happy to see it. No, the civilian power industry is not run by the military and has far more accidents. Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea. Shall we count the dead sailors as nuclear casualties?
For those of you who argued above that plutonium is safe, I suggest you do a little research on the name Karen Silkwood.
Regarding France, yes they do export power at night because they must. They cannot reduce the nuclear plants’ output sufficiently. The French have artificially low power prices after the government nationalized the industry.
Gee, this has been fun fellas.
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 7:54 pm
“….Gee, this has been fun fellas….”
Are you having a lousy weekend, Roger? Otherwise, there is probably no real need to be contemptuous and sarcastic.
Roger Sowell;
Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Provide evidence of a single such incident.
Here is a time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998… (leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade)
It is important to note that had these been 2035 nuclear plants all exploding in populated areas this would have undoubtedly resulted in a lot of casualties.
BUT, contrary to popular belief, a nuclear plant explosion or two (or 2035) would not destroy the planet, or civilization.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:59 pm
————–
@ Roger Sowell,
you argue like a child.
It grates, the reading.
Just saying.
Roger Sowell;
For those of you who argued above that plutonium is safe, I suggest you do a little research
>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
The third leading cause of death in the world is drowning. Should we ban swimming? Or water?
davidmhoffer says:
“Provide evidence of a single such incident.”
Ouch!
davidmhoffer says: August 3, 2013 at 8:12 pm
Roger Sowell; “Even the nuclear navy has lost ships at sea.”
Provide evidence of a single such incident.
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
The Russians have lost several – and some due to cooling accidents.
But, the point is, it can be done very safely, with large numbers of people living in close proximity.
These small scale nuclear plants are ideally suited to dropping directly into existing power grids. It would be the cheapest, quickest and most practical solution should the occasion actually arise that someone accumulates some meaningful evidence that the planet is heading towards a state of catastrophic anthropologically caused global warming.
I think Roger’s ‘solution’ is that the bulk of the world’s population should simply go without affordable energy while he and his ilk futz around with wind and sun idealist fantasies.
Roger Sowell;
For those who cannot grasp the point about islands and nuclear power plants, if nukes were so safe and affordable, why don’t those islands build them and cut their costs of power? They don’t because it won’t.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You just keep coming back to that over and over again. What any given island uses for power says nothing about the cost effectiveness of other options. The use of wind and solar power doesn’t mean they are economical, yet they are in use. You can’t argue the facts, so you keep coming back to this mindless mantra.
Its been fun? No it has not. Watching someone who claims to have critical thinking skills descend to misdirection and arm waving is disappointing.
markx;
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ah well, you prevented Roger from stepping into the trap I set for him. 😉
‘@ Roger Sowell,
you argue like a child.”
He argues like a lawyer, which he is.
“…descend to misdirection and arm waving is disappointing.”
Like a lawyer with a guilty client?
More evidence of why nuclear power plants cannot compete.
http://www.powermag.com/gas/gas_power_direct/Is-Cheap-Gas-Killing-Nuclear-Power_5743.html
“The fourth shuttered reactor, the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin, was shut down in May with 20 years left on its operating license after owner Dominion was unable to find a buyer. The announcement blamed market conditions stemming from low natural gas prices, which made the merchant plant a money loser.”
No need to discuss Nuclear and Solar as Rossi’s ecats and hotcats and especially the notcats© acementhead, will soon be powering the world.
john says: August 3, 2013 at 11:04 am
… Chad, I’ve been working on a project combining bank fraud and renewable fraud. …
You and most of our politicians.
[i]”_Jim says:
August 3, 2013 at 1:34 pm
David Ball says August 3, 2013 at 9:03 am
…
There is plenty of energy in our solar system. How do we get it safely and without destroying our atmosphere?
LOL… and heartily I light add … let me guess, liberal arts major (and not a hard science degree esp. not in the field of engineering)?
(I think that statement is attributable to David; pls pardon me if it’s not.)”[i]
_Jim has just revealed the short sited fear of the unknown that has prevented man from advancing much further than we have. I post a scientific solution to the energy problem we all have to deal with and he responds as a child would. He accused Gail Combs of being childish in another thread, yet her posts are ALWAYS reasoned and she provides links. _Jim’s posts never contain any solutions to anything, just negative poo-pooing of others ideas.
I understand the science behind what I have posted and know EXACTLY where we are in terms of technology regarding a project like a “space elevator”.
It is quite obvious who the childish unscientific responses are from. Keep your opinion and show me where I am wrong, or provide a better answer to our energy problems. I’ll wait.
It’s time mankind started making the advances we are capable of.
davidmhoffer says: August 3, 2013 at 8:27 pm
markx;
US lost The Thresher and The Scorpion (subs – not due to nuclear accident)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ah well, you prevented Roger from stepping into the trap I set for him. 😉
Ah, sorry David!
But in truth the Russian side of the story is pretty dismal, and their decommissioning is a nightmare – but, of course, it does not have to be that way.
acementhead says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:41 pm
> Does anybody have any news about Rossi’s “ecat”? How about the “hotcat”?
People are hard at work, Rossi’s partner seems to have Rossi talking less, which is probably for the best. Rossi is quite happy with how things have been progressing. The focus has been on the hotcat for a while.
ICCF-18 (18th International Conference on Cold Fusion) had many things going on that I didn’t follow. Most were for systems producing a lot less heat than the E-Cat.
http://iccf18.research.missouri.edu/program.php
There’s a group called the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project that has many things they’re involved with. They’re mostly low output devices, but they’re involved with bigger things too. I can’t keep up with them, see https://www.facebook.com/MartinFleischmannMemorialProject?
One thing they mention is “We have been told by a trusted source, whom we can not disclose, that there will be an independent report of DGT Hyperion technology published at some point.” DGT is a greek company, Defkalion, that had been working with Rossi years ago but they had a falling out of sorts and have been working on stuff independently from Rossi. They had a demonstration of their system at ICCF-18.
Roger Sowell says: August 3, 2013 at 8:37 pm
More evidence of why nuclear power plants cannot compete.
http://www.powermag.com/gas/gas_power_direct/Is-Cheap-Gas-Killing-Nuclear-Power_5743.html
Yeah, thanks, we know that, Roger … and it applies for now, while gas is abundant (oversupplied, even), but you perhaps underestimate the determination of our ‘green fanatics’ to save the planet strictly according to their beliefs.
Gas is a handy fill in, and from what we know know could get us through the next 200 years unsullied, but, never underestimate the destructive power of green idealistic fanaticist stupidity.
It has worked ‘nicely’ on nuclear power, and possibly will also do so on gas.
Yes, there have been several nuclear powered navy vessels sent to the bottom. Some US, some from other nations.
So much for that perfect military record.
Set a trap for me? Good luck with that!
No, my ideal world would not have wind and solar providing power, except where the cost for alternatives is too great. I would shut down all nukes immediately and ban any new nuclear plants. Navy can keep building theirs.
Since CO2 is not an issue of concern, I would build coal and natural gas power plants with appropriate scrubbers for proven toxic emissions such as sulfur, NOx, and flyash. I would also build many more hydroelectric plants in mountainous regions, including pumped storage hydro. Finally. I would devote tax funds for developing power from ocean currents. The ocean currents are far better than any other power source: huge, inexhaustible, pollution-free, and zero energy cost.
But, that’s just me. I want the poor people of this world to have abundant and cheap power. The last thing I would ever install to achieve that goal is nuclear power.
I saw first-hand what happened to power prices in Houston and along the US Gulf Coast when nuclear plants were built in the 70s and 80s. Prices zoomed, and poor people were badly hurt. Industry responded by self-generating, removing revenue from the utility companies. The utilities then obtained more rate increases, thereby hurting the poor even more. We called that the nuclear death spiral.
I was quite lucky with a good engineering job, but many of my relatives and millions of others suffered greatly.
So yes, I’m against nuclear power. Especially at this time, when costs to build are much higher, natural gas is far cheaper, and combined cycle gas turbine plants are mature technology.
I’m still waiting for anyone to refute the facts I’ve laid out. There is zero case for nuclear power in this world.
But, if you don’t mind screwing the poor, and handing off your poisons from spent fuel to future generations, and killing no telling how many more people when the next plant explodes and melts down, then you can be an advocate of nuclear power.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 8:37 pm
More evidence of why nuclear power plants cannot compete.
http://www.powermag.com/gas/gas_power_direct/Is-Cheap-Gas-Killing-Nuclear-Power_5743.html
——————–
Just where are you going with this ?
Death to nuke’s is good, fracking killed the nuke’s.
Windmills will kill fracking, and save us all ?
Seriously ?
@John –
Yes, the entire “renewable” meme is a fraud. So-called “renewables” are dirtier than fossil fuels; they are an environmental as well as an economic disaster. It’s all about enriching der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies, on the one hand, and reducing everyone else to penury and dependency through excessive energy costs. “Saving the planet” is only the guilt trip these thieves are using to get uninformed people to go along with their scams.
Apart from hydroelectric generation, which global warming alarmists routinely dismiss as bad, all other renewable energy resources present major hazards in terms of pollution and environmental damage. To be safe to produce, geothermal energy requires even more elaborate and costly controls than are required for coal-fired power generation. The steam which powers geothermal generators is laced with poisons like arsenic, selenium, mercury, thallium, lead and hexavalent chromium which must be removed before the steam condensate can be released into the environment. The cleansing of the steam effluent is sufficiently costly to make geothermal energy highly uneconomic, and is not entirely effective.
Wind power installations, with their footprints thousands of times larger than fossil-fuel generation for the same output of electricity, disrupt habitats, despoil landscapes, emit substantial pollution from the noxious chemicals used to operate them, and kill millions of birds and bats every year, including California condors, bald and golden eagles, whooping cranes and other endangered species. While rooftop solar is generally not so destructive, large solar power installations do disrupt habitats, emit pollutants and kill animals.
In addition, because of the very low capacity factors for these intermittent sources of power, tobe useful at all they must be supplemented by fossil fuel generation. While capacity factors for wind and solar power are routinely advertised at 30 percent of rated capacity (i.e., actual power production is 30 percent of theoretical total output when running at 100 percent capacity), actual experience has been that power production for neither solar or wind has never regularly exceeded 20 percent of capacity, and the average for wind is closer to 8 percent of capacity. The remaining 80 to 92 percent (or more) of capacity must be supplied by fossil fuel generation (this is called “firming”).
And because this fossil fuel generation must be able to respond at a moment’s notice when the wind stops blowing or clouds cover the sun, only simple-cycle generators are able to perform this function, and simple-cycle fossil generation uses twice as much fuel (and emits twice as much carbon dioxide, and is generally dirtier) as the more efficient and cleaner combined-cycle generating plants than cannot ramp up and down fast enough to maintain the energy balance in the grid. Therefore, attempting to rely on wind and solar power often results in as much as a doubling of emissions and pollutants, compared to relying primarily on combined-cycle generation without wind or solar.
When all land, manufacturing, construction and operating costs are considered, solar power costs from 80 cents to $1.10 per kilowatt-hour to produce. Wind power costs are comparable. This is 4 to 15 times more costly than the average cost of fossil-fuel generation (about 7 cents nationwide; California’s electricity prices are artificially high because of renewable energy mandates and emissions caps). This cost differential is even greater when the added cost of fuel for simple-cycle generation for “firming” is factored in. And of course this added ost is borne by the taxpayers as well as by ratepayers.
Also, as intermittent sources, solar and wind power can hardly be said to be reliable when they can shut off at any moment, including times of peak electrical system load. While wind power is touted as having a 30 percent capacity factor – i.e., total output 30 percent of what would be generated if they ran 100 prercent of the time, in reality output rarely exceeds 20 percent of theoretical capacity, and many wind installations operate at about 8 percent – some even as low as 2 percent, enormously increasing the cost per kilowatt-hour generated. And ironically, since the wind tends to blow less during periods of peak electricity demand, typically between noon and 6 p.m., one often sees the turbines idle when demand is pushing the grid to the breaking point.
Wind and solar are not “free” or inexhaustible, the more so since their equipment wears out quickly and is expensive to maintain and replace, with lots of down time. It should come as no surprise that when one passes by a large wind turbine installation, one is likely to see all but a few of the turbines idle, even if the wind is blowing. There is also the enormous cost of building new transmission lines to connect wind and solar facilities to the grid – most of these installations are far from any existing transmission lines, yet the advocates of wind and solar never factor this added cost into their calculations. And this is not to mention the cost of the huge swaths of land needed to build solar and wind power installations – land is NOT free or inexhaustible. In California electric rates are already double the national average because of “renewable” energy mandates.
And again, don’t forget wind’s four dirty little secrets:
(1) millions of dead birds and bats, including endangered California condors and whooping cranes;
(2) habitat disruption (1,500 times as much land required to produce the same juice as a 500-megawatt fossil fuel power plant, if it is operating at capacity – and you have to divide that 1,500 multiple by the effective capacity factor (i.e., if the factor is 20 percent, it takes 7,500 times as much space to produce the juice, not to mention the despoiled landscapes);
(3) the inefficient and dirtier types of fossil fuel generation that must be used to “firm” the power when the wind stops blowing, since more efficient types of generation cannot respond quickly enough to maintain the energy balance on the grid (resulting in a net increase, not decrease, in emissions);
(4) some very nasty chemical pollution leaking from the machines as they run, including PCBs.
Wind power costs 80 cents to $1.10 a kilowatt-hour for a good reason: land cost, equipment cost, depreciation and maintenance. It is anything but free, and it will never compete with fossil fuel power unless the taxpayers subsidize most of the cost of it. The portion of it that can’t be recovered by doubling or tripling electric rates is being picked up by the taxpayer, and together, these cost recoveries represents an interesting redistribution of wealth: der Fuehrer’s crony capitalist buddies get richer off the backs of lower- and middle-income people – so wealth is taken from poorer and given ti richer. And since the whole idea that fossil fuel burning is warming the globe is now so thoroughly proven to be utterly false, it is insane and mean-spirited to force these high costs on consumers, especially poor people who desperately need cheap energy.
New topic: regarding former VP Al Gore’s theory of “dirty weather” (anthropogenic global warming causing more tornadoes & hurricanes), we have this study: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/economics-tornadoes-232625991.html
” Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:19 am
@ arthur4563 re nuclear power.
Nuclear is not safe. It is not reliable. It is not affordable. It is not a boon to mankind. See:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html?m=0
Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? What did we ever do to you, that you hate us so much that you poisoned the planet with plutonium wastes?”
In your link you mention San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station- Construction began August 1964. And Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Plant’s completion in 1973.
Neither face similar threat as nuclear reactors related to the Japanese tsunami.
Both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are at near their expected design lives which when built which were generally 30 to 40 years. And San Onofre is being decommissioned. Upgrading and redesigning for longer operational lifetimes is being done- and there effort to design nuclear reactor for 80 year operational lifetime. I would say it would be important to originally design for long life time for nuclear power plants. Rather than reply on upgraing to extent to operational lifetimes. But it better now to design for long lifetimes, than it would been to do this 40+ years ago, because over the year considerable operational experience has lead to greater actual ability to realistically have these longer life times, and we could expect improvement in the future in this respect.
Advocate of wind farm claim their wind generators have life time of 20 to 25 years.
But:
.” By the time the turbines are 10 years old, the amount of wind energy they are able to provide falls by a third, according to the report. Researchers said, based on the findings, it could be “uneconomic” to operate wind farms for more than 12 to 15 years. The industry has previously said wind farms should be able to operate effectively for 20 to 25 years.”
http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2013/january/study-shows-onshore-wind-turbines-may-have-shorter-life-than-expected.html
And in the rather recent history of modern wind farms we have large fields of no longer functioning wind farms. So we have had nuclear reactors provide cheap and reliable for decades
reducing a significant amount of coal use in US. Far more reduction of CO2 and mercury emission than any and all “green policies” have managed to do, and nuclear energy has had few deaths resulting from it, as compared to other ways of generating electrical power and
there hasn’t been “poisoning the planet with plutonium wastes” which caused humans or animals to die or become sick. Nor is there any reason to suppose in the future this will occur.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/160131-thorium-nuclear-reactor-trial-begins-could-provide-cleaner-safer-almost-waste-free-energy
Says in part:
At a test site in Norway, Thor Energy has successfully created a thorium nuclear reactor….
Natural thorium, which is fairly cheap and abundant (more so than uranium), doesn’t contain enough fissile material (thorium-231) to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. By mixing thorium oxide with 10% plutonium oxide, however, criticality is achieved. This fuel, which is called thorium-MOX (mixed-oxide), can then be formed into rods and used in conventional nuclear reactors. Not only does this mean that we can do away with uranium, which is expensive to enrich, dangerous, and leads to nuclear proliferation, but it also means that we finally have an easy way of recycling plutonium. Furthermore, the thorium-MOX fuel cycle produces no new plutonium; it actually reduces the world’s stock of plutonium. Oh, thorium-MOX makes for safer nuclear reactors, too, due to a higher melting point and thermal conductivity.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
Yes, there have been several nuclear powered navy vessels sent to the bottom. Some US, some from other nations.
So much for that perfect military record.
Set a trap for me? Good luck with that!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well even warned, you walked face first right into it. You deliberately cited sunk ships as proof that nuclear power isn’t safe, but the fact of the matter is that you can’t point to ship sinking because of nuclear power problems. In other words, the nuclear reactor was fine, the ships sank for unrelated reasons. If you want to argue that nuclear power is unsafe then cite examples of nuclear power being unsafe instead of shouting about completely unrelated events!
Your inability to cite actual problems with these systems which have logged so many years incident free makes a mockery of your arguments. You don’t have an argument or even evidence to cite, so you raise completely unrelated issues. Problem is that you are so committed to your world view that you can’t even understand that the trap just snapped shut on you.
As for your continued argument about economics, citing rises in electricity costs in the 70’s is just plain silly. Inflation was rampant in the 70’s and 80’s, the price of everything went up dramatically, governments raised interest rates to over 20% to try and get inflation under control. Your example has no more to do with the current economic realities than does the price of tea in China.
Yes, natural gas is driving the price of power generation down. In many cases that’s going to mean that nuclear can’t compete. But that was not the original assertion. The original assertion was that nuclear is safe, affordable, and ghg free. Those things are all true and you haven’t presented a shred of evidence to the contrary.
I do hope the nuclear advocates will read my comment at 9:24 on August 3, especially the part about the nuclear death spiral. A search for “death spiral” should bring the cursor to it.
Increased power prices due to nuckear plants is analogous to the “carbon tax” of which so many CAGW skeptics disapprove. A carbon tax raises costs to all consumers, and will do zero good because CO2 is harmless.
Building more nuclear plants will greatly increase power prices to all consumers and do zero good. In fact, nuclear plants do much harm as I argued above.
I’m sick of hearing about thorium this and that.
If it can’t be scaled up to industrial size, then who cares.
Not those that buy ball-bearings and pressure cookers.
Energy is cheap right now, exploit it.
Ric Werme;
Natural thorium, which is fairly cheap and abundant
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My understanding is that some coal deposits are so high in thorium that recovery from the fly ash is commercially viable. Cheap power that generates cheap fuel. Win-win!
Roger Sowell;
Building more nuclear plants will greatly increase power prices to all consumers and do zero good. In fact, nuclear plants do much harm as I argued above.
>>>>>>>>>>>
No, you claimed above, you presented no evidence of same and attempted to misdirect the discussion. As to your understanding of what drives power prices, if other means are more economical, the free market will turn to them. The point of the discussion, which you seem incapable of following, is that nuclear is a safe, affordable and ghg free option.
@David Hoffer, you make me laugh!
Seriously? You think that inflation caused the gulf coast power prices to zoom in the 70s? Your utter lack of knowledge is clearly evident.
It is also clear that your mind is closed.
But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal.
As for your so-called “trap”, seriously? Try again, sir, try again! You make me laugh.
Roger Sowell;
But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I see. You’ve provided precisely no evidence to support your position, but you are a lawyer and going to use those good old lawyer skills to get your way. How’s the saying go?
When you have the facts, pound the facts.
When you don’t have the facts, pound the law.
If you have neither facts nor law, pound the table.
It is unfortunate that you are using your legal skills to pound the law, and it is clear from your poor representation of same that you have no facts to cite. Either that or your legal skills are wanting. My mind isn’t closed, I’m just waiting for you to present some actual evidence. All you seem to have is that you are a lawyer and you will use the law to force your belief system down everyone else’s throat, facts be damned.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
—————–
“The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal.”
—————
Be very,very,very careful this ain’t the 70’s anymore.
Roger Sowell;
The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gee. So its lawyers filing law suits that are preventing nuclear power plants from being built, not economics as you claimed earlier.
Yup, you’re a lawyer all right.
I am curious if any of the nuclear advocates who insist that nuclear power plants are safe are aware of the following report. This details many of the ongoing safety issues at US nuclear power plants. It should give you much pause, and much about which to be very concerned.
The report for 2012 describes 15 near misses, a bit more than one per month.
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/NRC-nuclear-safety-2012-report.pdf
There are similar reports for earlier years.
Roger Sowell;
The report for 2012 describes 15 near misses, a bit more than one per month.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You claim to be a CAGW skeptic and yet cite as a source a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists?
I didn’t think there was a way to drop your credibility any lower, but you found a way.
Interesting that Michael Smith of michaelsmithnews.com has drawn attention to an Interpol report warning about carbon trading crime which describes CO2 as an intangible substance and is therefore more prone to fraud.
In comparison Tony Abbott, the Opposition Leader of the Australian Coalition was lampooned recently by much of the MSM for describing Carbon trading as a “so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one”.
Aussie Election called for September 7. We will know on Sept 08 who will be the one who is untouchable and whether CO2 trading has a future in OZ.
Current betting Labor 3.6, Coalition 1.27.
But Labor are renowned to do whatever it takes to retain power and have recently recruited Tom McMahon, the former executive director of the powerful Democratic National Committee during President Obama’s last campaign, Joon Kim of the consulting firm New Partners, and the British social media expert Matthew McGregor to form the digital brigade for Rudd in electioneering on the Social Media front.
However, Tony Abbott’s might say “Prime Minister Rudd, you’re no Barack Obama.”
Got this link via TonyfromOz on the JoNova blog. Should be of interest to some of the commenters on power stations above.
http://globalenergyobservatory.org/
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:22 pm
“I am curious if any of the nuclear advocates who insist that nuclear power plants are safe are aware ….”
—————
Definition of AWARE
1
archaic : watchful, wary
2
: having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge
—————————–
Just might be.
David Hoffer, how many facts must I repeat? Did you not read? Or do you simply refuse to comprehend?
Let’s review…
A new Nuclear power plant, proposed to double the South Texas plant, was scrapped for being too costly. Fact.
Nuclear power plant, licensed and operating with years remaining on its license, was shut down because it is not economic. Fact.
Fukushima reactors melted down and poisoned the countryside as well as yet unknown radiation to people. Radiation continues to pour into the ocean. Fact.
Nuclear industry lied and continues to lie about reactor safety. Fact.
Power prices zoomed due to the nuclear death spiral in the 70s and 80s along the US gulf coast, due to new nuclear power plants. Fact.
No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.
Nuclear powered naval vessels rest on the bottom of the oceans, spewing forth their radiation. Fact.
I could go on, but your mind is closed.
I have not argued any law here tonight, merely presented facts. I could indeed argue some law, such as the legal requirements for safety equipment and procedures in those “safe” nuclear power plants. But I won’t do that. It would be too easy.
You are free to try to prove me wrong on the facts. Prove any of those seven wrong, and I’ll present plenty more.
Give it your best shot.
Roger Sowell says:August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
“…It is also clear that your mind is closed….”
“….The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up*. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal**. …”
Thanks Roger. Here you have neatly encapsulated two major problems:
1. * Why nuclear power stations cost so much.
2. ** One of the primary problems with modern civilization.
I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:42 pm
David Hoffer, how many facts must I repeat? Did you not read?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have to provide some facts in order to repeat them. Making alarmist assertions with no facts behind them, and then repeating the assertions has nothing to do with repeating the facts. You’re argument is based on one single cited report, and that is from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that has nothing to do with science, much to do with political advocacy, and even has a dog as a member.
You are just a fear monger with a law degree and a poor grasp of both science and economics.
Roger Sowell is correct to compare nuclear plants to a “carbon tax.”
see Hooked on Subsidies – Why conservatives should join the left’s campaign against nuclear power:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hooked-subsidies
–“The only reason investors are interested: government handouts.”–
Also, nuclear power was supposed to make electricity production “too cheap to meter” – like the free electricity supplied throughout Qatar.
GHG is the primary focus of today’s nuclear proponent. The cost of subsidies, the cost of cleaning up after a disaster (including the cost of an exclusion zone), and the cost of decommissioning go unmentioned.
http://www.google.com/search?q=fukushima%2C+cleanup%2C+cost
@ markx
You wrote:
“I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here”
No, actually I amend my conclusions when new and valid data are presented. I have done that for more than 40 years as a working professional. Here, I have presented facts to support my position, and invited others to refute those facts. None have done so. (likely, because they cannot)
Refute the facts, then I will consider a change in my position.
A man who changes his mind on the unfounded assertions of a stranger is indeed a fool.
Roger Sowell;
A man who changes his mind on the unfounded assertions of a stranger is indeed a fool.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I guess there aren’t many fools on this thread then.
Khwarizmi says: August 4, 2013 at 12:10 am
Thanks Khwarizmi …. interesting information, simply presented. … I take it you are perhaps not a lawyer? 😉
The Spanish government plans to tax people for private electricity generation using PV panels.
http://www.davidjackson.info/2013/homeowners-to-be-taxed-for-producing-their-own-electricity.htm
Our lunatic UK government is going to pay up to £15,000 per megawatt (£50 per megawatt is the cost using conventional coal fired or gas fired power stations), using diesel generators, so they can continue to build windmills a a cost of £110 billion.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84224
It would seem that our politicians of all three hues are in on this stupidity , so voting them out of office isn’t going to work. The East German Democratic Republic existed for a while on these principals. At election time. voters had a choice of candidates, but they were all card carrying members of the Communist Party, so no choice there!
Fuel bills are rocketing all around; all part of the EU plan to subjugate its citizens who should be grateful to the elites for small mercies. Anyone have any ideas?
Perry
From Khwarizmi on August 4, 2013 at 12:10 am:
For the US at least, the decommissioning info is easy to find from the NRC.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html
Decommissioning Funds section:
So one way or another, the decommissioning will be paid for by the licensee, normally by funds gathered during operation. In other words, it’s a planned-for normal business expense.
I’ll note that Roger sowell hasn’t touched my point that radioactive people kill more people than nuclear power stations.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
“But please don’t worry yourself. The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal. ”
Wonderfully candid admission, Roger.
But MAYBE you should switch sides someday and use your tricks to fight windmills, as the market in fighting nuclear will dry up.
But you know that.
davidmhoffer says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:30 pm
“Roger Sowell;
The report for 2012 describes 15 near misses, a bit more than one per month.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You claim to be a CAGW skeptic and yet cite as a source a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists?
I didn’t think there was a way to drop your credibility any lower, but you found a way.”
He is a lawyer, his current customer seem to be the anti nuclear foundations and mvoements, and he will use any trick to accomplish what his customer wants.
Maybe presenting UCS material works in the average court.
> A Republican Case for Climate Action
> By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD > > WHITMAN
There’s a wonderful group. Ruckelshaus has more blood on his hands than Hitler or Mao (but not Stalin). He’s not someone I would take the time of day from.
++PLS
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
“No, my ideal world would not have wind and solar providing power, except where the cost for alternatives is too great. I would shut down all nukes immediately and ban any new nuclear plants. Navy can keep building theirs.”
Oh I see he has the windmills in his sight already.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:24 pm
“Navy can keep building theirs.”
And while nukes are EEEEVIL, he doesn’t have the slightest desire to fight the military about it. Smart career-protecting move there.
“der Fuehrer thinks he can impose taxes without approval from Congress. George III all over again.”
As in “George was bonkers?”, or perhaps you are believing your own propaganda. George’s government spent a lot of money removing the French who were trying to box the American colonists in. They tried to get some of the money back by taxing the colony. Whethe colonists objected they withdrew every single tax apart from one luxury tax on tea. Unfortunately some Americans had become wealthy on the “French removal money” and started a power grab by rabble rousing. Meanwhile the French attacked England’s much more lucrative holdings in India. Foreign wars are hideously expensive and it was decided that India was the bigger prize. We handed India back in my lifetime.
Roger Sowell seems to [represent] the stereotype of everything that is bad about lawyers. Unprincipled, do anything for money, lie shamelessly.
I’ve said it before here. He’s an anti nuke kook. Best ignored.
Sorry that should be represent not resent. Damn iPad.
“DirkH says:
August 4, 2013 at 2:19 am”
That could explain a few things. My advice to Roger is don’t go anywhere near Cornwall in the south west of Britain as you’d be exposed to more radiation there than anywhere near Fukushima.
Speaking of Fukushima, I note: M5.8 – 57km ESE of Ishinomaki, Japan
Roger speaks some sense but needs to stop lawyering.
Quote
Since CO2 is not an issue of concern, I would build coal and natural gas power plants with appropriate scrubbers for proven toxic emissions such as sulfur, NOx, and flyash. I would also build many more hydroelectric plants in mountainous regions, including pumped storage hydro. Finally. I would devote tax funds for developing power from ocean currents. The ocean currents are far better than any other power source: huge, inexhaustible, pollution-free, and zero energy cost.
Unquote
Pity the designers do not understand the reverse engineering required. Current bird shredders are just bigger better designed ww2 fighter props, built for thrust not power. Nor are they efficient energy collectors.
For marine versions it gets even worse. Why an earth do they not even look at ships propellers. They might notice that they look nothing like bird shredders. Thus in the East River experiment, lordy me, they keep breaking. Why also do they insist upon separating turbine from generator. With modern materials and magnets both can be combined, with intelligent blade design into a compact neutral buoyancy device. Using oilfield experience they can be anchored in suitable ocean currents, remote controlled and left to generate gigawatts. But perhaps that is too logical.
An Aussie poster here did an incredible analysis of a real modern coal plant that cuts co2 emissions by 30% plus and generates more cleaner power. its a reply to a post so dont know how to find it.
King Coal is dead….Long live the king! The Carbon Market Connie….
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
davidmhoffer says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:18 pm
Ric Werme;
Natural thorium, which is fairly cheap and abundant
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My understanding is that some coal deposits are so high in thorium that recovery from the fly ash is commercially viable. Cheap power that generates cheap fuel. Win-win!
http://web.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html is an article everyon interested in coal and nuclear power should read. While it does have a bit of pro-nuke and anti-coal propaganda, the data it looks at is very interesting. It says in part:
The fact that coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of radioactive materials released to the environment has several implications. It suggests that coal combustion is more hazardous to health than nuclear power and that it adds to the background radiation burden even more than does nuclear power. It also suggests that if radiation emissions from coal plants were regulated, their capital and operating costs would increase, making coal-fired power less economically competitive.
Finally, radioactive elements released in coal ash and exhaust produced by coal combustion contain fissionable fuels and much larger quantities of fertile materials that can be bred into fuels by absorption of neutrons, including those generated in the air by bombardment of oxygen, nitrogen, and other nuclei with cosmic rays; such fissionable and fertile materials can be recovered from coal ash using known technologies. These nuclear materials have growing value to private concerns and governments that may want to market them for fueling nuclear power plants. However, they are also available to those interested in accumulating material for nuclear weapons. A solution to this potential problem may be to encourage electric utilities to process coal ash and use new trapping technologies on coal combustion exhaust to isolate and collect valuable metals, such as iron and aluminum, and available nuclear fuels.
Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium. … The concentration of fissionable uranium-235 (the current fuel for nuclear power plants) has been established to be 0.71% of uranium content.
… the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.
An average value for the thermal energy of coal is approximately 6150 kilowatt-hours(kWh)/ton. Thus, the expected cumulative thermal energy release from U.S. coal combustion over this period totals about 6.87 x 10E14 kilowatt-hours. The thermal energy released in nuclear fission produces about 2 x 10E9 kWh/ton. Consequently, the thermal energy from fission of uranium-235 released in coal combustion amounts to 2.1 x 10E12 kWh. If uranium-238 is bred to plutonium-239, using these data and assuming a “use factor” of 10%, the thermal energy from fission of this isotope alone constitutes about 2.9 x 10E14 kWh, or about half the anticipated energy of all the utility coal burned in this country through the year 2040. If the thorium-232 is bred to uranium-233 and fissioned with a similar “use factor”, the thermal energy capacity of this isotope is approximately 7.2 x 10E14 kWh, or 105% of the thermal energy released from U.S. coal combustion for a century. Assuming 10% usage, the total of the thermal energy capacities from each of these three fissionable isotopes is about 10.1 x 10E14 kWh, 1.5 times more than the total from coal. World combustion of coal has the same ratio, similarly indicating that coal combustion wastes more energy than it produces.
Third, large quantities of uranium and thorium and other radioactive species in coal ash are not being treated as radioactive waste. These products emit low-level radiation, but because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if such amounts were released from nuclear facilities. Nuclear waste products from coal combustion are allowed to be dispersed throughout the biosphere in an unregulated manner. Collected nuclear wastes that accumulate on electric utility sites are not protected from weathering, thus exposing people to increasing quantities of radioactive isotopes through air and water movement and the food chain.
Roger Sowell says:
August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
I was wondering when someone would bring up this as one of the reason nuke plants are so expensive to build. I’m very surprised it was you. I won’t dig it up, but the protests from folks like the clamshell alliance (members mostly general public), Conservation Law Foundation (I think they were involved, evil legal group), et al stopped one of the two plants from being built forced much greater scrutiny from the NRC and others.
Why don’t you and your friends should apply as much attention to coal plants as you do to nukes.
With luck it will all become moot when E-Cats (and others) take over, if they aren’t the scam of the century.
Coal is radioactive and the radioactivity is concentrated when it it burned. Here’s a cite from the greenie-progs’ favorite Un-Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
The first NORM radiation caution sign I saw was at a dinofuel refinery.
Time to add a little levity to the nuke debate:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/17/in-light-of-radiation-fears-i-offer-this-repost/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/16/going-bananas-over-radiation/
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Lets not mention Minamata and mercury poisoning.
Chad Wozniak says:
August 3, 2013 at 9:40 pm
Chad, I know wind very well. It was my profession at one time. Here’s a little something I wrote:
http://dailybail.com/home/why-wind-power-wont-work.html
http://dailybail.com/home/the-mafia-is-moving-into-green-energy.html
http://dailybail.com/home/obama-fires-up-his-green-energy-sales-pitch.html
http://dailybail.com/home/green-corruption-the-five-circles-of-carbon-tax-hell.html
Lots more to be found there. At the bottom of each article you can click to see the last weeks edition.
john
No person who is “aware” of the realities of nuclear power is “against” it.
Having worked at a nuclear facility for several years, I was trained as a part of my employment. As most people who have ever been required to be trained in what is basically a trade are aware, one of the first things you learn is everything that can possibly go wrong. For example, a few years back while installing wiring in a Best Buy store our company was required to be trained on scissor lift operations, even though we’d been renting and using them regularly for years. The first day of training was showing us all of the safety features of a scissor lift, and how to bypass them. Not one of us ever even considered messing with safety features or attempting to bypass them, but now we know how.
Unlike the coal industry which grew organically over a long period of time acquiring experience the hard way, the entire nuclear industry was arrived at scientifically. Nobody ever dumps a pound of fissionable material on some sort of measuring device to determine its energy content, that is known to several decimal places ahead of time. There are very accurate measures of safe and unsafe radioactivity tolerances for people, animals, plants, and equipment.
The anti-nuke people lie to us, every time they open their mouths. Radioactivity is like any other poison: it’s the dose that matters. Grand Central Station in NYC has higher radioactivity levels due to the natural stone in its construction than is legally allowed in a nuclear facility. Sitting in downtown Banff, my radioactivity meter showed higher than in the work area where I worked. Bananas have measurable levels of radioactivity.
The basic message from anti-nuclear activists is that the only safe level of radioactivity is zero. But this is absurd. Nature showers us with radioactivity every day, from radon gas in basements to natural granite (high end homes with granite countertops are measurably radioactive), to atmospheric radiation and cosmic rays. We’re pelted with the stuff. Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.
Most people who study the issue are aware them many coal seams are radioactive, and coal plants using this coal emit more radioactivity than would be allowed by a nuclear plant.
Pop quiz: Number of people killed by nuclear power in North America?
Fukushima was old technology, scheduled for decommissioning soon. It was, like any tragedy, a combination of errors and circumstances. There will never be a repeat of that combination, mostly because the nuclear industry learns from accidents and does what they can to ensure there is never a repeat.
I worked with a man who was a nuclear trainer for the IAEA. His job was to train people in safely working around nuclear materials and reactors. He was one of the people who put boots on the ground in Fukushima, and we talked about his experiences there at length. Personally, I don’t care what you’ve heard or read, unless you were either there or personally know someone who was, your opinion about what happened there is second-hand.
Yes, radioactivity was released. No, there will be no long-term result. Yes, the amount is measurable. No, it’s not a harmful amount. Yes, it’s a tragedy that any radioactivity was released. No, it’s not a harmful amount. No, nobody died. No, nobody WILL die from the radioactivity, although we all know that every cancer death for the next 50 years in the area will be blamed on it.
Sowell is dishonest with his naive and ignorant “7 questions”.
These claims being made by someone who is part of the reason nuclear power is so expensive is childish. Just like 0bama, if your goal is to make coal plants uneconomical, you’ll go ahead no matter the reality.
The amount is known. It is quantified. Mitigation is in place. Just because radiation is released does not mean it’s the bloody apocalypse.
Turning this one around: the anti-nuclear INDUSTRY of which you are a part lied and continues to lie about the dangers of nuclear power. Whoppers, too. Not just sweeping some numbers under the carpet, but exaggeration and fear-mongering of the highest order.
Thanks to luddites like yourself, no doubt.
There was a reactor in Antarctica from 1962-1972. However I haven’t read enough of your stuff to know what you’re getting at here.
Nuclear powered naval vessels rest on the bottom of the oceans, spewing forth their radiation. Fact.
The ocean is filled with uranium and other radioactive substances, at high enough concentrations that it will be economical to extract it in the near future. “Spewing” is one of those emotional weasel words so loved by alarmists and lawyers of all exaggerating levels. The oceans are the majority of this planet. They are more than able to handle the comparatively tiny amounts of radioactivity these reactors are emitting.
I’ve never yet met a lawyer who wasn’t 100% certain he was right. Until the next paying client came along, at which point they could make a 180 degree turn and still be 100% certain they were right.
Actively blocking nuclear power development should be considered a crime against humanity.
The law is an ass that lawyers ride to work, don’t try to be one, no one is smart enough.
I meant to include this link, a list of all known nuclear reactors on the planet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors
Now wait, one argument by Roger Sowell:
“No island with 1 million population (nominal) has a nuclear power plant, instead they use diesel or similar and pay 25 to 30 cents for their power. Fact.”
So let’s do some numbers. Assume every inhabitant uses 2 MWh a year, that’s a bit north of German consumption; less than American consumption. Let’s further assume that electricity, as in Germany, is consumed equally by public sector, industry, and private households, so we can take the 1 million inhabitants times 2 MWh times 3 and get a realistic annual consumption, which is
6 TWh.
Now, how much electricity does a typical 1 GW nuclear plant produce in a year.
8.760 TWh.
That’s not a bad fit.
Now, why would the island with 1 million inhabitants not want to depend on ONE SINGLE POWER PLANT.
Do I have to continue from here?
Roger, your arguments might impress a dumb judge, but really, this is getting ridiculous quick.
CodeTech: . Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.
Hmmm. Can you back that up?
CodeTech says:
August 4, 2013 at 5:39 am
The anti-nuke people lie to us, every time they open their mouths. Radioactivity is like any other poison: it’s the dose that matters. Grand Central Station in NYC has higher radioactivity levels due to the natural stone in its construction than is legally allowed in a nuclear facility. Sitting in downtown Banff, my radioactivity meter showed higher than in the work area where I worked. Bananas have measurable levels of radioactivity.
Code, it took the people some time to realise that a completely sterile environment is not healthier, that children & humans need to get in contact with some bacteria and this is healthy. Healthier then living under a sterile tent.
Similarly the case for radiation, a zero level radiation is not healthier, as our cells self repairing mechanisms go to sleep. I understand a certain small dosis of radiation is natural, normal and even improves our cells health.
But people are indeed being taught that zero level is desirable and there is a linear relationship between radiation and cancer, what has not been observed.
With something one cannot see or hear or feel in any way with our senses it is easy to make people crazy.
Radiation hormesis is no new news, it has been observed since the beginning, but was not really studied:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
however the study of no-radiation effect has barely started. I guess there would need another 10-15 years to get some reasonable results.
juan slayton says:
First read this: http://www.rerowland.com/BodyActivity.htm
Second, consider that the body only generates an active defense against threats that have occurred. Without some level of damage for cells to learn how to repair, ANY level of exposure would be catastrophic.
Thanks Lars, your explanation was more detailed 🙂
My skepticism of nuclear issues was fueled years ago after I realized the hippies running my high school didn’t have a freaking clue about anything that didn’t involve peace, love, harmony, and nature.
My skepticism of AGW is relatively recent, but I recognize the same disinformation by, mostly, the same people.
juan slayton says: August 4, 2013 at 6:13 am “CodeTech: . Our bodies have a level of, not only tolerance to radioactivity but indeed a minimum requirement.” “Hmmm. Can you back that up?”
Yes, that is essential to the Radiation Hormesis argument against the Linear No Threshold Hypothesis.
Without looking at CodeTech’s Wikipedia extensive list of known reactors, did it include Gaia’s hint to the goodness of nuclear reactors, the Gabon Oklo Fossil Reactors? If Mother Nature does it, then it must be OK.
Can somebody point to any studies regarding salinity of the oceans?
I was wondering if the cooling of the last 5-10-20 million years could be related also to decreased salinity and the increased albedo due to water freezing at a higher temperature?
When looking at the geological scale temperature reconstructions one can see a continuous trend for cooling in the last 10 million of years, which ended in the periodic ice ages.
Whereas I understand that one of the reasons of how current climate formed is due to the forming of the circumpolar current around Antarctica, the closing of the istm of Panama, I was wondring what role did changed salinity play to it.
Accidentally I found this intriguing article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis
“The Mediterranean basin also sequestered below its seabed a significant percentage of the salt from Earth’s oceans; this decreased the average salinity of the world ocean and raised its freezing point.”
Why it decreased the salinity of the world ocean is explained also there:
“The amount of Messinian salts is larger than 4·1018 kg (Ryan, 2008, Sedimentology), exceeding by a factor of 50 the amount of salt normally contained in the Mediterranean waters. This suggests either a succession of desiccations or a long period of hypersalinity during which incoming water from the Atlantic Ocean was evaporated with the level of the Mediterranean brine being similar to that of the Atlantic”
Now searching for how the freezing of salt water is influenced by salinity I found this calculator:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2ofreezecalc.html
It gives for 100 kPa and 35 PSU a value of -1.998°C so about -2 °C freezing poin
For a slighly higher salinity of 45 PSU the value is -2.583°C and at 55 PSU -3.192°C
So these variations do indeed modify a litle the freezing point. Whereas these are not huge variations it may have had some influence on the global climate, when one thinks that the average temperature of the oceans should be around 4°C
My question would be how constant was the salinity of the seas? Are there proxy values of it, have there been any speculations about the influence of the salinity of the oceans and the global climate?
Also in view of the onset to glaciations about 3 million years ago, was wondering if with increasing albedo due to faster freezing of the salt water another threshold was reached which enabled the start of the glaciations.
DirkH says:
August 4, 2013 at 6:12 am
(replying to Roger Sowell)
But wait, it even worse than that. 8<)
Our electric power grid – on islands and on the mainlands – has grown up gradually and irregularly from 1910 to 1930. Many gaps and non-electrified areas everywhere. Only cities at first, and everywhere including islands, the country getting power last. Then, in most areas in the civilized world very rapidly and uniformly only after WWII.
Nuclear plants started in the very highly industrial regions only in the 1960's and 70's until the enviro's killed their growth in early 1970 by INCREASING their costs and delaying approval.
(Quite a bit of these schedule and cost growth issues were due to errors in design methods and non-standardization that the industry did to itself.)
BUT – The primary and most important nuclear cost growth was in the deliberate DELAYS caused by and for and with the cooperation of the anti-nuclear industry. Every day delay in the delivery of a nuclear power plant – that final moment when it can start delivering low-cost power costs 7 to 8 percent MORE in annual interest and insurance costs THAT ARE IRRECOVERABLE. (But are profitable to the banking and insurance and regulatory and environmental and legal industries!)
Projects are cancelled not because they are unsafe or uneconomical. They are cancelled because they CANNOT BECOME PROFITABLE IN A SHORT ENOUGH TIME FRAME. And the nuclear delays are (now) entirely caused by the enviro and legal industry.
/rant about lawyers deliberately killing people and their economic foundations for life, liberty in the lawyers' pursuit of the lawyers' happiness
Back to island electric systems.
Since they grew up gradually, and since NO power system can ever got "suddenly" and immediately and magically up to its present size, there is no way between 1970 (when big/medium/small nukes could first be "exported" or built on islands) and today. The island electric power systems HAD to begin with small plants (fossil and oil) of course, then gradually getting bigger plants as bigger plants (1) could be built and (2) were needed to support a larger grid. The DEMAND for electric power was also gradually growing: should some island START by immediately building that 6 TerraWatt power plant when the entire demand (back in 1970) was only 1/5 of today's demand?????
The US power plants are built the same way: Look at today's power plant in Crist 1-2-3-4-5-6 in Pennsacola FL: Started building the plant in the late 40's with a single 45 MegaWatt turbine. Added a second 45 MegaWatt trubine. Added a pair of 100 Meg turbines (Crist 3 & 4). Added Crist 5. Added Crist 6 – by then, turbines were 400+ Megawatts. Did they "remove" the older smaller turbines? No. Did they stop running the older smaller turbines? Only after they built the much larger 600 + Megawatt Crist 7 plant. All of these "new" turbines were added to the end of the original building, and all use the original electric transfer yard and the "new" power transmission towers also gradually added over the years.
An island's power system is going to have grown the same way as Pennsacola's power plant grew. Slowly. By adding small turbines just before they are needed. And small nukes were not then available – except for Antarctica's "advertisement" power plant.
By the way, when did Roger expect that isolated island of his to build the TerraWatt-capable transmission system? Before they needed that level of electric power transmission and control and transformers and switchyards and high-volt towers and low-volt poles wires, or only when they finally needed it?
Today, I can buy and build and start using a two-gas-turbine-plus-one-heat-recovery-turbine plant delivering 600 Megawatts of power in two years from bulldozer to delivery of first power. Two years from now, Roger will still be preventing me from delivering the first set of PAPERS requesting permission to begin public hearings taht will allow the public discussion of the first permitting procedures for that first nuke plant………
On the Liquid Fuoride Thorium Reactor (LFTRs) front….
Over the last year, I’ve e-mailed many US Congressmen and Senators providing them with a general overview of LFTR technology, its advantages over conventional nukes and why it will be the energy of the future.
I received many blah- blah “thank you” auto replies from most Congressmen, however, Seantor Rand Paul and his staff expressed genuine interest and I’ve been in continual correspondence with them on LFTRs.
i recenlty recieved a personal letter from Senator Paul thanking me for my thoughts on LFTRs along with a pledge that his staff will work on drafting legislation necessary to allow LFTR development in the US, which I thought was pretty cool.
If there are any WUWT readers that also want to see LFTR development in the US, please send Senator Paul an e-mail as he seems to be the only Congressmen that’s really supporting LFTRs (probably because he’s one of the few politicians in Washington with enough intelligence to understand the basic science…)
BTW, it was excellent news that Bill Gates’ nuclear power company announced a few weeks ago that they’ll also be evaluating LFTRs, in addition to their Traveling Wave Reactors (TWRs), which are their current priority. I think TWRs is a dead-end technology because it still requires high pressure water to operate, which is intrinsically dangerous, expensive, inefficient and will have HUGE decommission costs compared to LFTRs.
In my opinion, if Bill Gates is able to develop/patent a cheap and safe LFTR design, his Nuclear power company has the chance to be even bigger than Microsoft; providing he can develop/patent LFTRs before the Chinese do, which doesn’t seem likely….
CBC is once again offering its taxpayer funded columns to Monbiot…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/08/02/f-sunday-edition-george-monbiot-environment.html
Time to defund CBC!
More insults and no substantive arguments. My seven facts remain unrefuted.
“Code Tech” calls me childish. Well, now THERE’s a winning argument. Hiding behind a pseudonym? Priceless.
Why do lawyers bring lawsuits against nuclear power plants? Mostly it is to force the builder to comply with the law. If it takes longer, then build it right the first time.
I keep hoping that someday, a valid argument supported by verifiable facts is made to justify building nuclear power plants.
The fact is, I have never represented any entity in a nuclear power matter. There are plenty of lawyers that do. I cheer them on.
And I really pity Hoffer, who sadly cannot distinguish between a fact and an opinion.
Roger Sowell says..”Our children and grandchildren will rightfully ask: You had solar, wind, ocean currents, and hot ocean surface water in the tropics, so why did your generation build all those toxic and deadly nuclear power plants? ”
Well. I have no idea about yours,but mine(being privately schooled) are asking why are we destroying the enviroment by building wind mills that do not work,require a constant back-up system to stop fluctuations/brown out/black outs,using evil (NOT) CO2 generating fuels,(you see,my kids know CO2 is a plant food,not a poison)destroying vast pristine grass/prarier/desert areas with mirrors that are all ready operating at maybe 5% due to dust,dirt,and weeds.Not to mention the mining and destruction of land to get the rare minerals needed for a useless mirror.
And many,many more of them are starting to ask the same things.
Probably a little late in the day to raise this point now, but the taxes imposed in the American colonies by the UK Government, were actually 80% less than those imposed on tax payers back in the United Kingdom…
In other words, the colonists didn’t have the bitching rights they claimed to have. Hope it was worth it!
Ha ha, we’ve got the Queen, the Beatles, Kate Middleton (and her sister Pippa) and you don’t!
😉
Long cold Jan-Feb 2014:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Winter-2013-2014-is-coming-4786004.S.259614043
“By WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN”
Not one of these people have a science degree – not that you can’t learn some science outside of having a degree, but there’s nothing like screwing up an experiment or getting unexpected results in an experiment (sometimes because you screwed up) that really teaches science.
If Roger Sowell thinks this discussion is ‘fun’ then perhaps he should be treated as a troll and just ignored from now on.
Yeah, well, you’ve got English summers, and we don’t! So there!!!
Roger Sowell;
Roger Sowell says:
August 4, 2013 at 8:50 am
More insults and no substantive arguments. My seven facts remain unrefuted.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ROFLMAO
Roger Sowell says:
August 4, 2013 at 8:50 am
“I keep hoping that someday, a valid argument supported by verifiable facts is made to justify building nuclear power plants.”
You could look at the electricity rationing post Fukushima in Japan if you really cared to. But you would probably argue that it’s the Japanese own fault to live on an Island without abundant fossil fuels. Or whatever you would come up with.
Japan is an Island BTW. You were wondering why no Island with 1 million inhabitants ever built a nuke. I showed your argument to be a cheap trick. Now here’s an Island with 100 million inhabitants, and they have nukes. do they have a right to do that, Roger?
===========================================================================
I paid extra for an ergonomic shovel. It’s still a chore to shovel but at least my back feels less like it’s shaped like an ergonomic handle when I’m done. I leave it outside by the backdoor so it’s less likely to melt snow, and thus make it stick. If it’s wet snow I spray the blade with silicon. It usually doesn’t last through the whole job but it helps initially.
PS I lived in NH for 3 years back in the early ’80’s. Nashua had it’s earliest snowfall on record the 6 months I was there. I think it was 3 or 6 inches on October 3rd…if I remember correctly.
****
markx says:
August 3, 2013 at 11:44 pm
Roger Sowell says:August 3, 2013 at 10:43 pm
“….The attorneys including myself will see to it that US new nuclear power plants either don’t get built, or are delayed so long that their owners give up*. We have far more attorneys now than in the 70s, and far more legal tools at our disposal**. …
Thanks Roger. Here you have neatly encapsulated two major problems:
1. * Why nuclear power stations cost so much.
2. ** One of the primary problems with modern civilization.
I’d also suggest you are as close-minded as anyone who has posted here.
****
I wasn’t going to get into the mix, but that disclosure by Sowell pushed me past the tipping point. Disgusting.
DR says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of ‘Big Oil’ etc. funding greenie groups?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jo Nova might. You can start here: Does Climate Money matter? Is a monopoly good for a market?
======================================================================
Well, I didn’t remember correctly. It was 1″ October 10, 1979. They call it the “earliest measurable snowfall”.
Kajajuk says: @ August 3, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Same suggestion i have posted at least twice before…
A dynamic harmony between capitalism….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is what you get when you let people be free and don’t regulate and tax them to death. Americans were (are?) the most generous people on earth and give away more wealth as individuals than our government does. (can’t find the original link) but this one will do.
Socialist want to give away OTHER PEOPLE’s money and then claim the kudos for themselves.
=================================================================
Uh…Gail, all I see is machine code.
=====================================================================
Reminds me of a quote I once heard:
“A liberal (US definition) is someone who feels a great debt to their fellowman and is determined to pay that debt using your money.”
(I first heard it from G. Gordon Liddy but I don’t know if it originated with him.)
Lars P. says:
August 4, 2013 at 7:18 am
Re glacial phase oceanic salinity, a study from the North Pacific the findings of which would also apply to the North Atlantic:
Effect of Pleistocene glaciation upon oceanographic characteristics of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea
CONSTANCE SANCETTA*
(Received 23 October 1982; in revised form 28 January 1983; accepted 28 April 1983)
Abstract–
During intervals of Pleistocene glaciation, insolation of the high-latitude northern
hemisphere was lower than today, particularly during summer. Growth of continental ice sheets
resulted in a lowering of sea level by more than 100 m in the Bering Sea. As a result, the Bering
Strait was closed and most of the Bering continental shelf exposed. A proposed model predicts that (1) sea-ice formation would occur along the (modern) outer continental shelf, (2) advection would transport the sea ice over the deep basin, and (3) brine would flow into the basin at some intermediate depth to enhance the halocline. The result would be a low-salinity surface layer with a cold, thick halocline and reduced vertical mixing. Diatom microfossils and lithologic changes in sediment cores from the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea support the model and suggest that the proposed oceanographic conditions extended into the North Pacific, where the cold low-salinity
laycr was enhanced by meltwater from continentally derived icebergs.
Levity.
I think this was my personal best.
1. Gunga Din says:
May 9, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Stopping by Yamal One Snowy Evening
by Michael Mann
What tree this is, I think I know.
It grew in Yamal some time ago.
Yamal 06 I’m placing here
In hopes a hockey stick will grow.
But McIntyre did think it queer
No tree, the stick did disappear!
Desparate measures I did take
To make that stick reappear.
There were some corings from a lake.
And other data I could bake.
I’ll tweek my model more until
Another hockey stick I’ll make!
I changed a line into a hill!
I can’t say how I was thrilled!
Then Climategate. I’m feeling ill.
Then Climategate. I’m feeling ill.
(trimmed)
I’ve tried, but it never came out like this:
“It’ll be a happy day when American embassies are again built in busy downtown intersections out of normal materials – and not, as they are now, bunkers located in distant lots surrounded by high fences. Such a change will only be possible when the safety of Americans depends not on walls, metal detectors and Marine guards, but on the deterrence established by years of terrible retribution against anyone who so much as harms a single American citizen.”
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/08/on-closed-embassies-the-worldwide-travel-alert
Gail Combs says:
August 4, 2013 at 10:17 am
————————-
Bailing out the failed banks is the glory of capitalism? Is that what you mean by “Socialist want to give away OTHER PEOPLE’s money and then claim the kudos for themselves.”?
Contravening the wishes of the majority of citizens is democracy?
I propose that when banks fail in a “free-market” system, whether the fault is with the banks or naught, the bank should be nationalized. A consequence other banks would take to heart!
Later the bank could be privatized again…
Quantitative easing, another interesting “capitalist” innovation, is the creation of money to be put in a pile to earn interest for nothing. Would not an “easing” be better spent on infrastructure and innovation (research & development)?
The government could be a mitigating medium between the mob’s base instincts and the common good.
In my dynamic paradigm the “socialism” is to mitigate the effects of capitalism for the common good and capitalism is to mitigate the effects of socialism for the common good. No feudalism or cash driven master and slave mentality but a society where risk is taken for its own sake because to fail is just a loss of stuff and not generational misery. People’s basic needs are never at risk only their individual prosperity, which is not permanent anyways.
And so “socialists” endeavor to invest part of a “common wealth” (other peoples money i guess) to ensure the health of the commons AND the “capitalist” endeavor to invest part of a “common wealth” in ventures for individuals as well as ensuring a fair “playing field”.
Charles Tossy says:
August 3, 2013 at 7:10 pm
———————
Are you accepting resumes for your zombies? Do you pay minimum wage”
jorgekafkazar says:
August 3, 2013 at 4:28 pm
David Ball says: “Spending the money to go to mars is very short-sighted.”
Depends on who we send, David.
=========
A number of images flashed through my mind . . . .
Thanks indeed jorgekafkazar for a minute of levity for an old sea dog!
Auto.
@ RACookPE, I’m encouraged that you have a grasp of a power grid evolution, but even you have missed the obvious point.
Yes, isolated islands grew their power grids in small increments. They generally have expensive power today anywhere from $.25-$.35 per kWh. This presents a golden opportunity for nuclear power advocates, since the high price paid by the islanders can be greatly reduced to 3 or 4 cents if they would only replace the multiple generators with a modern nuke of appropriate size.
The islanders could even overcome the poor load-following ability of a nuke by running it at baseload and using pumped storage hydroelectric for load-following.
The islanders could overcome the problem of periodic nuclear plant outages for refueling by keeping their current generators ready to run.
A nuclear power company should be jumping at such an opportunity, if the fabled economics of a nuclear power plant were as advertised.
Yet very clearly, none have done so.
One suspects that the true economics of a nuclear power plant would be exposed for all to see if one were to be built on an island of roughly 1 million people, and 1,000 MW daily peak load.
Nuclear reactor sales companies are not about to let that happen.
Roger Sowell;
Yet very clearly, none have done so.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well sure they have. But they were met by a battery of activist fear mongering attorneys scaring the bujeezus out of the local population and throwing every legal manouver they could at preventing the power plant from being built.
Then, when the power plant company gives up, the activist attorneys claim the reason was that it wasn’t economical in the first place, and congratulate themselves and forcing the poor islanders into energy poverty for their own good.
Roger Sowell says:
August 4, 2013 at 1:25 pm
“The islanders could overcome the problem of periodic nuclear plant outages for refueling by keeping their current generators ready to run.”
You have not reacted on my calculation showing how you cherrypicked your 1 million population exactly so as to make the entire grid dependend on exactly one plant. Now you use the necessity for backup capacity to “show” the missing economics.
A very simple lawyer trick that might convince a very stupid judge. Now let’s talk again about a real island with 100 million inhabitants which used to produce 80% of their electricity with nukes, called Japan… I notice that you have nothing to say about real examples, only about your very cherrypicked imaginary scenarios.
Germany had 23 nukes, which were cyclically refueled every 2 years, so that at any given moment one of them rould be refueled and revisited.
Why don’t you talk about working examples, Roger?
Roger, you have deliberately constructed an uneconomic example and then you ask around, why doesn’t whis work? See, it’s uneconomic!
You could just as well ask why an average worker does not buy a Ferrari to drive to work and use that as your argument why gasoline cars are uneconomic.
It’s beyond ridiculous. You can pull such stunts on Grist. They won’t check numbers.
milodonharlani says:
August 4, 2013 at 10:40 am
Thanks milodonharlani! Found the article here:
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~acr/BeringResources/Articles%20of%20interest/Bering%20Sea%20general/Sancetta%201983.pdf
It is not exactly what I searched but there are good points in it. Looks like many things that we consider “constant” are not constant at all on geological scales…
Incidentally, CANDU reactors are continuously fueled with no shutdown required.
In fact, the CANDU reactors (yes, I’m Canadian) are a good example of a system that was designed from the start to generate power, not to create fissionable material for weaponization. They also have quite a few fueling options, including as-mined uranium requiring little fuel enrichment.
Of course they’re not perfect, and still have some of that 50s mindset behind them, but they’re used in many locations and have proven to be safe, with many automatic safety features that require no intervention. For example, moderating rods are held above the reactor by electromagnets and automatically drop into place in the event of power loss, immediately shutting down the reactor. Also in the event of an overheat the fuel chambers deform, causing the reactor to lose criticality.
Roger Sowell: You have expressed opinion on a complicated subject without sufficient understanding of nuclear issues. It is not your fault and hardly unusual among lay persons to misunderstand nuclear fundamentals. There is so much misinformation coming from every media outlet, that it rivals climate “science”. Especially so when it comes to low level radiation effects, attributed cancer numbers through statistics alone, hormesis, etc.
I suggest you abandon your position and begin a review of the actual science.
Having said that, I must warn many here of being overly enthusiastic over the “nuclear” option. I am all for prudent expansion of nuclear build. However, rate of growth required for just the electrification, of the automobile, will require many thousands of “nukes” worldwide. We would quickly outstrip, our ability to staff them with experienced and fully trained operational staff. Instead of a person, of 15 yrs of experience, sitting at the controls – we will have people “simulator” trained, with little experience WORLDWIDE. There will be more accidents due to the large number of reactors, and the lack of experienced staff. Growth cannot exceed our ability to accrue expert personnel.
And that’s all I have to say about that. GK
Is this a joke?