Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Naomi Oreskes has accused climate scientists like James Hansen, who support the expansion of nuclear power, of practicing a “strange new form of denial”.
According to The Guardian;
After the signing of a historic climate pact in Paris, we might now hope that the merchants of doubt – who for two decades have denied the science and dismissed the threat – are officially irrelevant.
But not so fast. There is also a new, strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late, one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.
Oddly, some of these voices include climate scientists, who insist that we must now turn to wholesale expansion of nuclear power. Just this past week, as negotiators were closing in on the Paris agreement, four climate scientists held an off-site session insisting that the only way we can solve the coupled climate/energy problem is with a massive and immediate expansion of nuclear power. More than that, they are blaming environmentalists, suggesting that the opposition to nuclear power stands between all of us and a two-degree world.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-form-climate-denialism-dont-celebrate-yet-cop-21
This article was written in response to a demand by James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley to consider the nuclear option.
Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change
To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not prejudice. Alongside renewables, Nuclear will make the difference between the world missing crucial climate targets or achieving them
All four of us have dedicated our scientific careers to understand the processes and impacts of climate change, variously studying ocean systems, tropical cyclones, ice sheets and ecosystems as well as impacts on human societies. We have used both climate models and geological records of past climates to better understand lessons from warmer periods in the Earth’s history and investigate future scenarios.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
I can’t help feeling Oreskes has well and truly jumped the shark with the ridiculous claim that scientists like Hansen, Wigley et al are “deniers”, because they don’t believe in renewables. As WUWT reported a while ago, even Google couldn’t find a way to make renewables viable – so it seems unlikely anybody else will succeed where Google failed.
As for Oreskes objections to nuclear power, her argument that nuclear power is too risky is just plain silly. Even if the nuclear route to decarbonisation resulted in several meltdowns every year, how could this possibly be worse than the complete destruction of the biosphere through global warming, which according to the likes of Oreskes and Hansen is the price of continued reliance on fossil fuels?
This is more than a hint on the religious nature of climate alarmism. The first major schism has occurred and the heretics have been identified and called out. What will come next?
Inquisition? Schism? 30 years war? I’m laying on a supply of popcorn… 🙂
Post COP nuptials, a great time for muckrakers and tallow harvesters. Confusion and dissention in the air. One lentil short of mulligatawny over at the orange tirade offers pot stirring ideation, punch and Judy (bets are off). Disturbances in the farce all around. Green energy sabres at the ready, left-left entertainment follows.
Oreskes came to Australia and was protected by the greenABC from being asked awkward questions, such as why has the temperature not risen outside natural variation as predicted by the models?
The otorious anti nuclear protestor Jane??? was here at the same time spreading gossip about Fukushima. When challenged with real data, she answered by catching the first plane out of the country.
These people are prime hypocrites.
These people will , however, be given prime jobs in Hillary’s first cabinet .
I can see Oreskes as head of the US State Dept.
Would she be any different from, or less effective than, Kerry?
The quasi-marxist-leninist-trotskyist-antinuclear-green-occupy-‘whatever it is I’m against it’ crowd always end up fighting amongst themselves à la the People’s Front of Judea vs the Judean People’s Front.
Orestes and her ilk do not believe that having reliable, cheap energy is a good thing. They want us to have to tailor our activities to wind and solar and get used to having intermittent and unreliable energy; i.e., no real industry to speak of, as such activities require reliable, cheap energy.
Children are being taught this rubbish in schools
James Delingpole has it well covered.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/17/cop21-failure-terror-begins-crazed-greenies-eat/
Unlike Naomi Oreskes, James Hansen is not a complete imbecile. He understands that unless you wish to kill a good percentage of the world’s population, that renewables will never replace the reliable source of energy that nuclear provides.
Perhaps Ms. Oreskes wishes to substantially deplete the world’s population so that the energy demand is shrunk to the energy supply that she will allow those who are selected to live to have.
isthatright – yes, we must give the devil his dues. Hansen is spot on : only a crash-program building nuclear power stations stands a chance of halting atmospheric CO2 increase. At least he shows that he is realistic, given his belief in the theory of CAGW. It is Oreskes who has her head in the clouds.
“James Hansen is not a complete imbecile. ”
Which bits are missing ???
“He’s right your Honor. This man has no dick.” — Dr. Peter Venkman. Ghostbusters.
Well, he does bring up his grand kids at every opportunity … as if he had something to prove.
James “Boiling Oceans” Hansen?
Are we talking about the same guy?
The number of times this guy has been completely wrong in his over confident predictions could fill an encyclopedia, and yet he has never admitted he may have it all wrong.
To me, this sort of behavior is no hallmark of superior intellect.
Menicholas: it demonstrates that Hanson fully believes Catastrophic AGW, but his answer is at least a realistic one.
Yes, it may be the only thing he has ever said in public that turned out to be correct.
Even a stopped watch…
As a millennial with a brain, I’m one of the few who thinks that Nuclear Plants should be our future and not just that fusion future (which will eventually come…I think) but that fission is both safe, reliable, and can provide the baseload, nearly CO2-free power that Environmentalists say they want, but that’s not actually what they want as I think nearly everyone here knows.
If government regulation got out of the way, especially with Gen-4 reactors, we would not have any meltdowns and the cost and time required to build the reactors would be minimal. As well, pushing development and regular distribution of molten salt reactors would mean that we no longer have to worry about nuclear waste storage as the waste would just be transported and stored briefly before it was consumed by this reactor further eliminating the anti-nuclear worries of long-term storage and possible leakage of the radioactive material.
#1 They’ve always told us there’s a consensus, that’s why skeptics are banned from all aspects of climate/policy..
#2 Alarmists never call each other out, no matter how wacky the claims; which shows they care more about PR than the truth. Now we have one occasion where they do, it’s surprisingly the super loony alarmists calling out other alarmists for something they are actually being logical about.
Ah the revolution is now eating their own
once you end the war on coal, & continue with oil and gas & hydro, there’s no need for heavy investment in and reliance on either option the CAGW factions are now fighting over.
Naomi should take some time off. She looks tired.
Hansen and co. quote ” We have used both climate models and geological records of past climates to better understand lessons from warmer periods in the Earth’s history to investigate future scenarios ” How about that then? Admission that the Earth had been warmer.
When the Berlin wall came down there was two sets of people , those that weep tears of joy at its falls and the freedom the people of eastern Europe gained , and those that weep tears of sadness because it fell and the people of eastern Europe gained freedom , guess which one Naomi was.
Naomi Oreskes is a green, socialistic fascist, a fanatic that has a cause based on insanity, were rule one is never criticize or question the ‘science’, the logical basis, basic engineering issues, basic economic issues associated with the insanity. The time for ‘discussion’ or debate is over. Wait there never was any discussion or debate.
The entire scientific basis of CAGW is incorrect. The majority of the CO2 atmospheric rise is due to natural sources and the majority of the warming in the last 150 years is due to solar cycle changes. If that assertion is correct global warming and the rise in atmospheric CO2 is reversible.
Cult of CAGW Rules (Similar to the Rules of Fight Club)
Cult of CAGW Rule 1: Those who question any of the cult’s science are evil, deniers. Sub rule 1A. The time for ‘debate’ concerning ‘climate change’ is over so it is impossible to stop the madness. Sub rule 1B, talking about the end of deficit spending is to be avoided at all costs. Liberalism, socialism is based on never ending spending to ‘solve’ problems. If time of deficit spending is over, then spending more money on project A will require spending less money on project/entitlement B.
Cult of CAGW Rule 2: Fabrication of science is necessary to convince the public that unlimited deficit spending/allocation of limited GDP is necessary to fight ‘climate change’. Due to rule 1 and rule 2, all calculations associated with the greens scams, the general circulation predicted warming in the models, the Bern atmospheric model that provides the cult’s assertion for the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 sources and sinks, and the economic costs of warming and benefits for green scams has been fabricated to push the cult of CAGW’s paradigm.
Cult of CAGW Rule 3: All promises to make ridiculous expenditures (there is no money to spend and there are comical, pathetic future unfunded liabilities) on green scams which will result in no appreciable change in climate or in atmospheric CO2 levels are praised (reality should be ignored) as they are a move in the right direction.
There are layers and layers of lies associated with the Cult of CAGW.
Green Scam Layer. Developed Countries are Running Deficits and hence have run out of Money to spending on everything layer.
Oreskes does not understand that the green scams are scams, a colossal waste of limited public funds. The green scams do not work. People do not understand that developed countries have run out of money to spending on everything.
Spending is limited by GDP. Higher energy costs will result in lower GDP and will result in a lower standard of life for all people. Spending more money on green scams that do not work will require spending less money on health care, roads, defense, schools, teacher’s salaries, public pensions, aid to foreign countries, aid for refuges, and so on.
Oreskes does not understand the developed countries have increased their debt to GDP ratio by 50% since 2007. That was a significant mistake. There will be consequences when the next economic crisis appears. The public will not support green scam mandates that will triple of the cost of electricity and result in the loss of more jobs to Asia during an economic crisis.
Economist June 13, 2015
It is pathetic that the cult of CAGW and the many green leaches are pushing green scams that do not work for basic engineering and economic reasons.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-renewable-energy-fantasy-1436104555
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/08/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-167/
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/04/germanys-energiewende-leading-to-suicide-by-cannibalism-huge-oversupply-risks-destabilization/#sthash.8tE9YRDj.PSllYaQF.dpbs
I just found this comment from earlier in the year on Judith Curry’s blog:
“I’d like to see a list of candidates for Pope of the Church of CAGW.
James Hansen,
Michael Mann
Al Gore
Obama
John Holdren
Naomi Oreskes”.
I guess that Oreskes must have read that comment and decided to work her way down the list, discrediting all but herself.
The night of the long knives.
But once she is Pope of the Church of CAGW there is a need for fresh saints, so she can’t be too harsh on them either.
The general thrust of the skeptic case is that the increased CO2 atmospheric fraction has little to do with atmospheric temperatures.
To needlessly replace fossil fuels then makes no sense.
The history of nuclear power stations gives very little support to the proposition that they are safe.
A major incident like Chernobyl or Fukushima destroys land values within 20 mile radius of the plant never mind the health risks.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530053-800-shocking-state-of-worlds-riskiest-nuclear-waste-site/
France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.
The decommissioning of retired nuclear power stations is proving to be horrendously expensive.
France is worried? That’s new to me.
Despite decades of extreme antinuclear propaganda in the media, the French people are resisting well.
The idea of decrease “dependency” on nuclear is a political talking point.
But France is scheduling the decommissioning of those plants soon, in response to greenie pressure.
No. Nuclear capacity is now capped by law (yes this is obviously illegal, free trade and everything) at 63 GW.
The capacity cap will be raised when the EPR comes online. (It’s like the deficit ceiling in the US!)
There is the just upgraded Fessenheim plant with a not-really-core catcher (the real core catcher would be larger I guess) in both reactors, so they won’t be closed now.
There was bargain with the green party: close Fessenheim plant and get our votes. The greens not in the government anymore.
There is a vague plan to decrease nuclear energy in relative terms from 75% to 50% … in 2025. François Hollande failed pretty much everything except gay mariage and a 75% tax for >one million euros salaries.
François Hollande can’t decide anything significant now, the traditional left party (Parti Socialiste) is traditionally pronuclear, the communists are, the “extreme right” (Front National) is too, only the greens and the neo-communists (Front de Gauche) are against.
Bryan: the cost and danger of nuclear power is not a function of the technology, but of the perceptions and the legislation.
If you start with the proposition that nuclear power is so dangerous that one extra micro Sievert of radiation (in a world that contains billions) is so dangerous that every reactor mist have 17 concrete and steel walls built round it and safety system in quintuplicate, all assessed twenty times a day by an army of trained bureaucrats, well yes, then nuclear power will be impossibly expensive.
It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
The evidence of course is slowly building that radiation is far far less dangerous than the regulatory environment has assumed. There is no shame in that, because the regulatory environment was introduced at a time when the knowledge and the data simply wasn’t there, and so worst case assumptions were made.
What is shameful is the reluctance of the anti-nuclear brigade to relinquish their shibboleths, and accept that the true lessons of Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three mile Island, is that actually radiation is far far less dangerous than has been assumed by the regulatory structures, and that all the predictions made in terms of megadeath resulting from radiation release have been utterly and completely wrong, to the point where the whole basis of the model of human harm from low level radiation has to be called into question.
But the left loves its shibboleths. Anti-nuclear sentiment as well as anti-capitalist sentiment, and that includes Green issues as well, is the bedrock of the cold war AgitProp that was used to destabilise the West. And now lives on in modified form in the environmental movement.
What we see here is the schism between the real environmentalists – the likes of Patrick Moore, and even the idiotic Monbiot, and Mark Lynas, who actually believe in AGW,. and are honest in their appraisal of the solutions, and those to whom AGW, nuclear power and the like are simply tools in a worldwide, generation spanning, hearts-and-minds black propaganda war, whose aim is the destruction of national cultures, economies and identities and the imposition of a world government, which they either fondly believe will solve the worlds problems – or firmly believe they will be a part of, and therefore safe from being a neo-feudal serf. Which is the condition they feel befits the rest of us.
It is this massive and monumental egotism of the Green/Left/anti-nuclear brigade that gives the lie to their pretensions. They are legends in their own minds, warriors whose methods cannot be questioned, because their cause is right, or so the puppet masters assure them.
I cannot stress this enough. I have spent a long time analysing the Green/Left/CND mind, and they all share a common characteristic. They think they are more intelligent and deserving of note than they actually are. They bitterly resent being ignored, laughed at or dismissed as idiots.. Their whole emotional stance is of bitter resentment against those whom they perceive have passed them by and been successful, where they have not. The more their ideology crumbles around them, the more bitter and full of hatred they feel, because it reinforces their status as victims, and even though it is their own ideology they are victims of, they will always manage to project that hatred onto others, seeing class enemies, environmental enemies and the like where none actually exist.
You and I might profess to being a bit sceptical about green issues. They dont profess to being concerned, they are Environmentalists. They define themselves by their political beliefs, and therein lies the danger: If those beliefs fail, they are in the end empty shells of people with no substance left at all.
And herein lies the crux of the whole matter. Naomi simply cannot even entertain the possibility that she is wrong. TO do so would be to court complete disintegration of her persona. Naturally she defends her position with all the scorn venom and irrationality of which the human female is capable, (and which is now being copied by today’s metro-sexual males).
Just please dont be drawn into the same position vis à vis nuclear power, of being tied to the old shibboleths, when new information shows them to be misplaced.
Nuclear/fossil/renewable should be a simple question of cost benefit and risk analysis based on best data available. Not an issue of bigotry and ideology that the Green Left want to make it.
Pr Pierre Pellerin (MD, “agrégé” of biophysics, researcher at INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale = national institute of health and medical research) and CEA (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique), professor of biophysics and nuclear medicine, French expert for radioprotection, creator and director of “Service central de protection contre les rayonnements ionisants”):
extract from:
Entretien réalisé par Alexandre Sidorenko,
Kiev-Tchernobyl-Kiev,
Kiev-Soir, 19 juin 1989,
publié par Sovietskaya Bieloroussia, dimanche 1er juillet 1989
Source: http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/zones_controle_special.html (yes, an antinuclear site)
Google Translate output edited by me:
In my opinion, the concept of absence of threshold belongs to the category of imaginary problems which are useful for people with professional selfishness. About the linearity (the dose / effect relationship, that is to say the absence of a threshold, translator’s note) during the 30 years of the common market [= Europe integrated market], we spent about 1 billion francs and so far there has been no result. When we ask to stop the funding of such research, people try to make us change our minds because for many years there has been laboratories, that entire departments were created, that many scientists are involved in this research and that interrupting all this work would be unreasonable.
By the way, the no threshold concept has emerged not as a problem requiring a solution but only as a hypothesis to be used by humanity to develop protection standards. The International Commission on Radiological Protection created in the first place precisely to review these pessimistic assumptions, and understood that this was a pseudo-scientific way to address the issue, but it did not hesitate to edict these from the desire to improve protection against radiation. And a huge number of people including scientists, have begun to consider the worst case as an indisputable fact.
Extract from:
Interview Alexandre Sidorenko,
Kiev-Tchernobyl-Kiev,
Kiev-Evening, June the 19th , 1989,
published by Sovietskaya Bieloroussia, Sunday, July the 1st, 1989
Source: http://www.dissident-media.org/stop_nogent/109_110_haut_respon.html
Leo,
This is one of the most coherent pieces regarding AGW I have ever seen.
Thanks
“France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.”
Do you know that France currently has 58 power reactors online in 19 different plants, and is building a 1600 MW “EPR” (formerly European Pressurized Reactor, now Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor)?
Do you know that the total capacity is 63 GW?
Do you know that the lifetime of these reactors will be extended for 20 years?
Do you have any idea what France electrical needs are?
Why would you think France should make plans to build “future stations”?
Today the last deep coal mine in the UK closes.
Thatcher kicked off the anti-coal bandwagon because of class hatred against British miners.
She later said that the use of the ‘greenhouse effect ‘ argument was just tactics and anyone that was worried by CO2 was just deluded.
Here on a climate skeptic site some advocates seem to accept that there is a CO2 problem .
Their solution is a massive switch to Nuclear Power Plants despite the safety and cost involved.
The cheapest, most reliable energy source is fossil fuels (coal gas and oil ).
Why fix a non existent problem with a dangerous and costly solution?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents
It wasn’t class hatred, it was a reaction to the militant left wing antics of the labor unions.
“France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.”
The word “station” is interesting. Why “station” instead of “reactor”? Do you even know the difference?
Also, number of civilian power reactors in the world: 438.
Number in France: 58
It means 13% of the civilian nuclear power reactors of the world are in France! (for about 1 % of the world population)
Another comparison:
Nuclear power capacity
USA 99 GW
France 62 GW
And of course France plans no future “stations” because adding reactors to existing stations is cheaper.
simple-touriste
I said
“France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.”
You said
“The word “station” is interesting. Why “station” instead of “reactor”? Do you even know the difference?”
If you google
Nuclear Power Station
Or Nuclear Power Plant
You will get thousands of hits.
Is English not your first language?
Or are you just a language fascist?
“Is English not your first language?”
No, it isn’t.
What is your point?
Did you mean “station”?
Why would France build nuclear stations?
There are layers and layers of madness associated with the Cult of CAGW.
The following is an interesting review of Naomi Klein’s new book ‘This Changes Everything’ which is an anti-industrial development book. Klein believes in a fairy tale world, where green energy is not a scam. Climate ‘change’ is the wedge to create her socialistic vision. Silly reality, more than 10 observation and analysis results that support the assertion that roughly 90% of the warming in the last 50 years was due to solar magnetic cycle changes rather than atmospheric CO2 and that the planet has now started to cool are not even considered, irrelevant to her fantasy.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-it-girl-of-climate-change-doesnt-get-it/article20736274/#dashboard/follows/
The cult of CAGW is part of cult of Liberalism which is based on spending more and money which the government does not have to solve problems. The end of the road is economic collapse.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21577348-gloomy-convincing-account-developed-worlds-problems-horror-story
Scientific Layer. Hide the fact that there are cycles of warming both hemispheres in the paleo record. The past warming correlates with solar cycle changes.
Scientific Fraud layer. Manipulate data. Fire editors that dare to publish papers that show CAGW is a scam.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Just out of interest here are some figures for the various technologies that fall under the title “renewable”:
“92% of renewable energy was hydroelectric followed by wind at 6% and geothermal at 1.8%. Solar photovoltaic was 0.06%, and solar thermal was 0.004%. Data are from OECD 2011-12 Factbook (2009 data)”
So, were a person to rule out nuclear and promote renewable technology, then obviously a rational actor would channel funding towards the most proven and most successful technology currently available.
We get <16% of global electricity from Hydro Power – and yet Oreskes and her friends always seem to want us to hurl money at the most expensive item on the menu.
I suspect that if wind power became commercially competitive and reliable, then they would first lose interest and then heartily resist it.
Just as the eco-left has done with hydropower.
Apologies, hydro is MORE than 16% of total global electricity production. And PV has grown by approximately a factor of 6 since 2009.
Hydro and PV solar is an excellent combination. We’re lucky enough to have that in our Australian State of Tasmania which is almost entirely powered by Hydro electricity. The more PV solar we get, the less pressure there is on draining our dams and we can export more profitable peak loading power across to the Australian mainland via our undersea cable.
Hydro power is one of the best energy sources as it can be varied instantly to match the required load. Its a great peak energy provider…
Absolutely. And many countries have over 50% hydro. Brazil for example has this facility to expand solar and wind due to its massive hydro capacity.
Chinese panels are now so cheap that the EU has slapped a 70% tax on them to try to keep the price high??!!!
Which to me, as a potential customer (off the grid) seems like the dumbest thing that I have ever heard.
70% tax on Chinese PV panels?
Now there is a scandal all in itself, even if not for the obvious incongruence of this to what is being foisted off on us at COP21.
Of course, the real reason Oreskes is dead against nuclear power is…
” It requires technical expertise”
Something she and her fellow travellers will never acquire. if she can’t have it…. neither can you.
if she can’t have it…. neither can you.
Its called social justice, or egalitarianism, or ‘fairness’.
Its a complete rejection of any hierarchy whatsoever, except strangely it allows seems to end up in a hierarchy even more rigid than the one it purports to replace..
The buzzword is ‘equality’
And as we all know, some pigs are more equal than others.
No, she’s against it because it works. True warmists only believe in and promote methods that don’t economically work–that way they can achieve their goal of keeping the masses from having cheap abundant energy. After all, we’d only get into mischief.
About 15 years ago, when natural gas was considered a premium, almost boutique fuel, and very high-priced, all the enviros were saying it was the perfect alternative to nasty old cheap coal power. But since horizontal drilling w/fracking and the resulting overproduction of gas has dropped its price to the very affordable range, now enviros can’t stand natural gas. It’s too cheap and available. We’ll just get into mischief.
I think we have the birth a new piece of terminology, ‘Oreskesian Deniability’. Celebrations at seedy local dive bars would be the appropriate venue to celebrate at.
: )
John
One problem with renewables that is constantly overlooked by the faithful is that they consume lots of resources. They need construction materials and land – lots of it.
If you compare Ivanpah’s 392 MW (during the day only – and it needs a gas supply to achieve that) with Susquehanna’s 2,700 MW on a 24/7 basis you can see that renewables will swallow up huge swathes of land.
That may work in large countries but places like the UK and Japan would struggle with such solutions.
Hmm…2700 MW vs 392 MW. One might draw the conclusion that the energy output from renewables is woefully insufficient in meeting our energy requirements. Data that I have never seen is a comparison of energy transfer capacity of various types of renewables (probably because I haven’t looked for it). I have read reports from AGW cultists that there is enough wind power area available in North Dakota and South Dakota alone to supply the entire country with its electricity requirements. Intuitively that’s hard to believe and there is no mention of how many turbines would be required and the cost that would be required to acquire the land, build the turbines, much less the cost of getting that energy throughout the country.
Of course, the above illustration indicates how ineffective soar power would be in replacing other more efficient sources of power and there is no indication of the relative costs of each. So, as a curious observer, is there enough theoretical energy out there in renewables to make a significant impact on our total energy requirements. That begs the question though of the entire AGW cult with their supposition that reducing our energy consumption will return the world to the Utopia that it was 1000 years ago (ignore history please).
Inquiring minds want to know..and so do I
From Ontario, Canada’s public energy system from two days ago:
http://reports.ieso.ca/public/GenOutputCapability/PUB_GenOutputCapability_20151216_v25.xml
I chose 1PM to be fair to solar (which is more than warmunists are to us):
Effeciency (i.e., output divided by capability)
NUCLEAR 98.9%
GAS 14.6%
HYDRO 70.3%
WIND 35.9%
SOLAR 30.4%
BIOFUEL 40.4%
% of total energy supplied:
NUCLEAR 57.0%
GAS 6.5%
HYDRO 29.0%
WIND 6.3%
SOLAR 0.2%
BIOFUEL 0.9%
Absent a computer chip-like advance in technology, I’m scared to find out how much land we’ll have to cover to get that solar number from 0.2% to even 2.0%…
Last week, our Auditor-General found out that our “green” energy plan is already $9 billion overbudget…
The problem with such calculations are many fold.
First, they take wind speed and multiply the number of square miles that see those speeds in the existing undisturbed environment. The problem is that as soon as you start putting in windmills, the windspeed downwind starts to drop. Even in small fields, this is a measurable problem. As a result, even if they were to fill up North and South Dakota with windmills, it would only produce a fraction of the power advertised.
Secondly, no windmill made generates it’s rated power more than a small fraction of the time. When winds are too high or too low, the windmills are shut down. As a result much of that so called wind power is unrecoverable, even under the best of circumstances. PS, in low wind conditions the cannibalization affect mentioned in the first point means that even fewer of the windmills will actually be turning.
Thirdly, very few people live in North and South Dakota. States nearby are also not densely populated. As a result most of the energy generated will have to be transported hundreds to thousands of miles to get to the people who need, with much, perhaps even most of the power lost along the way.
As a result most of the new windmills will have to be built in places where the conditions are less favorable.
Reminds me of the idiots who go on and on about how covering New Mexico and Arizona with solar panels would be able to power the entire US.
The US East Coast megapolis will never be able to be powered by renewables alone. Too much cloudy weather, too many short days and windless summers, and no where near enough topography or floodable land to increase hydto substantially.
These people that think wind and solar can replace fossil fuels and nuclear in such population dense locations are just uninformed or delusional.
It may be theoretically possible to convert a large portion of a western desert state to a solar farm, but without a superconducting transcontinental grid, it can not be delivered to where it is needed.
And then there is the whole thing with night time…
Hydro seems to be in a category of its own, in a sort of energy limbo. Enviro loons tend not to like it, and often it isn’t counted as a renewable. Large-scale hydro can make sense economically, unlike solar and wind, which Greenies love (go figure). Anyway, we currently have a huge project in the works called Northern Pass, which will bring down over 1,000 MW of hydro from Quebec, feeding it into the New England power grid. Many of the concerns about it, mostly aesthetic ones (since the towers are in some cases twice the height of regular ones) have been, at least in part, addressed, by re-routing, and even burying parts of it. I see this as a win for common sense. At the same time, now there is an attempt to bring NG into southern New Hampshire, which would be great. Naturally, the Greenies are foaming at the mouth on this. Bernie Sanders, of course, has jumped on the anti-pipeline bandwagon.
Building dams for hydro has numerous benefits, besides the power itself. impounding large amounts of water is a boon to farming, plus it decreases risk of flooding and makes a region more able to withstand drought as well.
The main objection seems to be the inability for migratory fish to return readily to their spawning areas.
And some land is lost of course.
We cannot have everything…I say build dams and keep working on better fish ladders and other methods to allow fish to get upstream.
I had not been aware of so much untapped hydro power potential in Eastern Canada. Burying transmission lines has some problems, but overall it seems to be a good idea…ice storms and hurricanes can knock out power to large numbers of people for extended periods. Never lived in ice storm country, but my time without power after a couple of hurricanes was intensely miserable. I am willing to pay for a back up generator that will almost surely rarely be used…possibly never…to avoid the chance of weeks without power again.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Dr Hanson to the ever growing world of denieralistism or whatever we are called these days. You are most welcome sir. I look forward to reading your posts.
Oreskes hasn’t come up with the idea that renewables are cost-effective all on her own. She’s following a large number of greenie writers (e.g., Amory Lovins, who published a book with this claim a couple of years ago, etc.), and the Big Green NGOs, in believing that they are, or will be soon. And they are just as vociferous about it as she is. IOW, those who disagree with them are d*niers, etc. Our side is mostly unaware of this faction.