By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: Burning coal contributes to pollution (many kinds) and is a major driver of anthropogenic climate change. Last month we looked at the good news from the US about the shift away from coal, and last week about the good news from China. Here’s more good news from Britain. It is part of a global story, putting the world on a path away from the nightmarish scenarios of climate change based on slow tech growth, reliance on coal for power, and rapid population growth.
Good news, for many reasons
Britain is using more solar (yellow) power and burning less coal (black).
From CarbonBrief, 13 April 2016.
“UK coal power hits 0% output for 2nd time this week: 11:40 on 11/5 to 04:00 on 12/5. Likely only 2nd time since 1882.”
— Tweet from Simon Evans, Editor of Carbon Brief.
The good news from Britain…
- “UK coal use to fall to lowest level since industrial revolution“, 15 January 2016.
- “UK solar generation tops coal for the first time” by CarbonBrief, 13 April 2016.
- “UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has announced that the country plans to phase coal out of its energy mix by 2025.”
Burn less coal,
lower the odds of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change
Climate forecasts (called “projections” by the IPCC) rely on two key factors. First, the scenario — a forecast of future emissions, must occur. Second, the model must accurately predict temperatures for that scenario. Previous posts have focused on the latter factor, showing climate scientists’ reluctance to test their models using the decades of data after their publication.
Recent events highlight that the first factor is also important. The nightmarish predictions of climate change that dominate the news almost all rely on the most severe of the four scenarios used by the Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC’s most recent: RCP8.5. It describes a future in which much has gone wrong (details here), most importantly…
- a slowdown in tech progress (coal is the fuel of the late 21st century, as it was in the late 19thC), and
- unusually rapid population growth (inexplicably, that fertility in sub-Saharan Africa does not decline or crash as it has everywhere else).
Looking at such scenarios, however unlikely, is vital for planning. Sometimes we do have bad luck. But presenting such outcomes without mentioning their unlikely assumptions — or worse, misrepresenting it as a “business as usual” scenario — misleads readers and puts the credibility of science itself at risk.
CEA image.
Not just in Britain
“Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 4 consecutive days last week” by John Fitzgerald Weaver at Electrek, May 15. Market forces are shift electricity generation in Texas away from coal to natural gas and renewables, according to a new report by the Brattle Group: see the summary and the full report.
The entire world is shifting away from coal, year by year and nation by nation. Coal use has peaked in every continent (see the details here).
Conclusions
All three core assumptions of the RCP8.5 scenario look less likely every day; we have no reason to suppose that trend will change. We are shifting away from coal to natural gas (cleaner and lower carbon) and renewables. The daily news disproves the assumption of slowing tech progress, as the new industrial revolution slowly begins. See this post for details about the assumption of population growth in the top quintile of the UN’s latest forecast (and why that’s unlikely); coming advances in contraception will make this even less likely.
I believe that future generations will look at our fears and laugh, as we laughed at early 20th century fears of cities buried in horse dung. We have many serious challenges, some appear imminent (e.g., our dying oceans). Let’s prioritize those more and obsess less on more speculative threats.
For More Information
For more information see The keys to understanding climate change, My posts about climate change, and especially these about the rumored coal-driven climate apocalypse…
- Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
- Manufacturing climate nightmares: misusing science to create horrific predictions.
- Good news! Coal bankruptcies point to a better future for our climate.
- Good news from China about climate change!
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WUWT should start a black out/brown out pool. This would work like a death pool, except we’d be taking bets on when and where the first widespread black outs in the power grid occur due to improper infrastructure.
My bet is on somewhere in Britain, winter 2018-19, though the NE USA will be close behind.
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/103EA/production/_84283566_spare_electricity_capacity-01.png
Put your money on UK 2016-17 as capacity is closing very fast now. Some is planned but the damage being done by renewables is making coal plants lose money so they are being closed even if it means paying a fine of £25m to the government. And because those running our energy policy are mentally retarded, having said that gas use will be phased out soon, nobody is willing to build any new gas generation. So the loonies propose to use taxpayers’ money to subsidise gas generation to make it competetive against the taxpayer subsidised renewables. No, you honestly couldn’t make this up. Another bonus of increased wind and solar during the summer is grid instability. If there are sudden drops in wind or sun, when the backup comes on it could crash the grid so it could be blackouts this summer.
In response skeptics give the public conspiracy theories about scientists, complex explanations, and fondness for coal over cheaper and cleaner fuels
Fabius,
1. Do NOT paint “us” all with the same brush.
2. In general, we respond to bad science with good science. That’s our response. That some minority supposes a conspiracy as a REASON for bad science, does not change the bad/good science paradigm.
3. Complex science requires complex explanations. Would you rather we resort to innacurate sound bytes?
4. No one has a fondness for coal over “cheaper and cleaner fuels”. That would be stupidity. You once again smear us with the same brush. Further, your argument that at a given level of “clean”, LNG beats coal is disingenuous. If your impoverished country has coal reserves, but not natural gas, it isn’t even a contest.
That’s the bull cr*p in just two of your sentences.
Oh my mistake. That’s only ONE sentence.
See Larry? When I’m obviously wrong, I own up to my mistakes.
What do you do?
Evidently, he doesn’t answer.
Right. I’m so sure “renewables” are going to power the future. Unless by “renewable” one means hydroelectric and fusion, it ain’t happening.
How much coal and gas does it take to manufacture each of those wind turbines and solar panels? To ensure continuity every wind turbine must be “self-replicating” – and also provide power for the country.
Think about that – every turbine must supply enough power to replace itself or they will eventually reduce in number until none are left
And they must also supply power to run not only all of those electric motors and lights but also heat all of the buildings – and in the future – all of the transport system (requires two-and-a-half times the power produced now).
Fabius,
From a previous thread, I repeat my question to you for the fourth time.
I reproduce the 3rd request here for your convenience:
_________________
davidmhoffer April 24, 2016 at 10:18 am
Larry: 3rd Request!
davidmhoffer April 23, 2016 at 10:48 am
Larry Kummer;
I repeat my comment from upthread as you have failed to respond to it. In your reply to Steven Mosher you said:
can you provide a published source to support it?
To which I replied:
The appeal to authority card in all its glory.
Can you cite a single example of a climate science “experiment” which can be replicated?
Per Einstein, all you need is one.
I repeat my request.
Larry: You’ve made an assertion which you haven’t seen fit to support with a single example. You can support your assertion, you can admit that you are wrong, or you can quietly ignore this simple request which would make you guilty of the exact crisis in science you accuse others of.
The Portuguese operated from plants burning wood for the most part, not on solar or wind power, on those days. How many other of those articles is misleading?
There are way too many skeptics going on about lowering CO2 emissions these days. When did they start allowing Warmists win the language war with regard to CO2 output. Also, if all Western societies go so far as to drastically reduce CO2 output, then we will destroy our economies while making practically no discernible difference in CO2 reduction. When did we white guys get so stupid?
The rest of the world is going to determine the future of world economics and environmental practices. They outnumber us 4 to 1 and they are creating economic wealth at a very fast pace. Some of those countries are already ignoring our attempts at leadership in environmentalism and the number will grow.
The first line gives it away: ” … major driver” !
I suppose Mr. Kummer is on the great global warming gravy train.
The entire article is misguided, misleading, poetic at best but it is also a fine example of low-grade bullshit.
“All three core assumptions of the RCP8.5 scenario look less likely every day; we have no reason to suppose that trend will change …”.
======================================
It’s has always been a difficult task trying to unravel the tortuous thread of logic in the writer’s essays, if there is one and if one can be bothered, and this essay is no exception but he seems to be suggesting that a global trend away from coal (an unsupported assertion) is one reason for the failure of the IPCC’s climate models particularly it’s ‘worst case — business as usual’ scenario.
It’s a meme that has come up on other blogs in short: thanks to the efforts of alarmists it looks like we are finally getting to grips with Climate Change™.
But the IPCC’s Anthropogenic Climate Change™ is allegedly due to the rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 and there has been no apparent change in that trend:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png
Good news, for many reasons
Britain is using more solar (yellow) power and burning less coal (black).
You do realise, I hope, that solar produces at much less than 4% of its capacity during winter months in the UK?
And indeed at naff all during peak demand during evenings and early mornings then.
All of this solar capacity has to be backed up by proper dispatchable baseload.
Having all this solar capacity lying around to produce power in summer when it is not needed anyway is just a waste of money
As Germany has already found, power from solar capacity in summer doesn’t just ‘lie around’, it is a serious risk to grid balance.
As a future generation experiences cooling toward glaciation and carries out the difficult and expensive job of reopening the coal mines, a few lessons will finally be learned, all alternatives having been exhausted:
– Science is deductive not inductive especially regarding complex systems
– Sweeping chaos and nonlinear emergent pattern formation under a carpet of ignorance does not stop them from dominating most natural processes. It only stops you having the remotest chanceof understanding these processes.
– A lie remains a lie no matter how many people sing it together in unison.
As to the imminent “dying oceans”– While the oceans have received lots of human abuse it is impossible for me to believe that the scale even slightly approaches what has happened in the geological past and even some recent events. A lot of fisheries crises have been proven wrong, Worm’s work in the link, for example, not that fishermen don’t try. If you guys put your math skills to this it would help. Everyone studying the ocean should get out from behind computer screens and take a long, long, slow cruise. Scale, as some papers have noted, is important and often poorly understood. The recent oil spill is an example. The oceans were first compared to deserts, which they still are nutrient wise, now we hear about a pig-sty, which small portions are, some with our help.
Not that we should not be good stewards, and there are problems, but maybe I need to put out some more references. It is not just that “Ocean Acidification” is wrong, today’s coral “bleaching” post a counter to the claim that over 90% of the Great Barrier Reef is gone. And carbon dioxide even stimulates growth of seagrasses.
Here is a start.
ZoBell, C. E., C. W. Grant, and H. F. Haas. 1943. Marine microorganisms which oxidize petroleum hydrocarbons. Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. 27:1175-1193.
I once read that you could determine the rank/experience of the officer you were up against, by how much of the troops were held in reserve.
We need new officers.
As per usual Mr. Kummer conflates the monosemic term “projection” with the monosemic term “prediction” thus implying that an equivocation is a syllogism.
Terry, 9:06 pm, I have the feeling Mr Kummer is PO’d that that day didn’t happen on April 22nd ( Earth Day) You wouldn’t hear the end of it!
Let me get this straight… in the UK, they’ve replaced 25% of power generation from coal with 5% from solar? Something really big is missing from this chart, like 95% of generating capacity.
Remember the saying: “activist” is to “scientist”, as “witch” is to “doctor”.
Long discussion but … where this information comes from?
I just looked at UK grid info and found such note – “As no solar PV to date is metered centrally, we cannot show real time figures on solar PV power yet.”
So – what is discussion about?
Britain’s switch from coal is certainly working. This spring has been unusually cold so far. Let’s hope China doesn’t follow Britain’s example otherwise we might have another Little Ice Age!
Coal is here for a very long time.- yep that steam sure looks dirty-
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=coal+powered+plant&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik6KK37OXMAhVhOMAKHTb1BCwQ_AUICCgC&biw=1017&bih=674#imgrc=wC43Q-LNewBvoM%3A
“Japan warned of flaw in coal-fired power plants project – FT.com
http://www.ft.com › World › Asia-Pacific › Japan
11 May 2016 – Japan’s plans for a massive expansion of coal-fired electricity … the largest supporter of coal-fired generation expansion around the world”
“Australia approves Abbot Point coal port expansion – BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35157946”
“Asian coal boom: climate threat or mirage? – ECIU
eciu.net/press-releases/2016/asian-coal-boom-climate-threat-or-mirage
22 Mar 2016 – Claims that Asia is on the verge of a huge expansion in coal burning for … Tiger economies with the world’s four biggest coal power project pipelines, … far short of 1,000 plants, and is likely to lie in the region of around 500”
I’m surprised to read such nonsense in WUWT.
So-called renewables are hopelessly expensive and unreliable.
A couple of days ago the total UK wind output fell to less than 300 MW, in March it fell to less than 100 MW.
Even in the best locations solar can work on average only half the time, and less taking into account falling output as the sun gets lower.
So what happens on windless nights?
.
One of the great human advances in the 19th century was to make us far less vulnerable to the whims of the weather, and this was achieved primarily with coal. Now we seem to be going backwards.
Chris
Couldn’t agree more.
Said another way: Our well-being depends on a cheap, abundant and predictable energy.
Renewables fail on, at least, 2 of the 3 conditions.
U.S. Policy will absolutely be determined in the coming Presidential Election. The two
candidates could not be more contrasting. Trump =Coal. Clinton=Pain.
Carbon Action Tracker, a website dedicated to making the statistical case for shutting down all existing coal-fired plants, recently published interesting information on countries’ plans with respect to coal-burning power capacity. According to its report, despite reductions in coal use in industrialized countries, the coal power capacity in just eight countries where capacity is growing (i.e. China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, and Turkey) in 2030 will be higher than the total global coal-burning capacity in 2014.
The projected capacity in the world outside of the eight listed countries in 2030 is 473 GW. If somehow all of that capacity were instead shut down as a result of government action, the global coal power capacity would still be 379 GW (20%) higher than it is today.
Unintentionally, the data reported makes another case. Driven by the compelling advantages of coal as a power generation source, eight developing countries alone are on a near-unstoppable path to much higher levels of thermal coal combustion and related greenhouse gas emissions. All the efforts of western governments to eliminate coal power plants, with the immense costs they are imposing on coal producing regions and on power consumers, will make no difference whatsoever to the attainment of the COP 21 emission reduction goal.
And in the meantime, western governments eliminating reliable, flexible, affordable coal from their energy supplies are putting their own economies at risk.
It’s win-win for someone.
“So keep up the cheering for coal and make the climate alarmists.happy!”
Yeah, no chance of that happening. Humanity-hating Alarmists are a sullen lot.
Maybe they didn’t receive enough of Mommy’s love, and are in continual search of it.
They may not be burning as much coal but insanely they are importing wood pellets from the USA and burning them instead.
Big bad coal is destroying our world! And the evil cows too! They emit methane. A greenhouse gas 87x more potent than CO2. 1.4 billion cows worldwide emit 369 megatons annually. They beat coal and oil combined in global warming potential. Cow fart and shit beat all our coal plants, cars, airplanes and ships. Instead of high-tech carbon capture and storage, we can just put air bags in cow’s asses.