From the “climate goalposts are always 10 years out” department and the “maybe you didn’t read the news, but the Paris Climate Agreement is dead” department.
Next 10 years critical for achieving climate change goals
Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two ways–by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil.
The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries.
In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities.
“The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5°C target by 2100,” says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, a study coauthor.
According to the study, fossil fuel consumption would likely need to be reduced to less than 25% of the global energy supply by 2100, compared to 95% today. At the same time, land use change, such as deforestation, must be decreased. This would lead to a 42% decrease in cumulative emissions by the end of the century compared to a business as usual scenario.
“This study gives a broad accounting of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, where it comes from and where it goes. We take into account not just emissions from fossil fuels, but also agriculture, land use, food production, bioenergy, and carbon uptake by natural ecosystems,” explains World Bank consultant Brian Walsh, who led the study while working as an IIASA researcher.
The compares four different scenarios for future energy development, with a range of mixtures of renewable and fossil energy. In a “high-renewable” scenario where wind, solar, and bioenergy increase by around 5% a year, net emissions could peak by 2022, the study shows. Yet without substantial negative emissions technologies, that pathway would still lead to a global average temperature rise of 2.5°C, missing the Paris Agreement target.
Walsh notes that the high-renewable energy scenario is ambitious, but not impossible–global production of renewable energy grew 2.6% between 2013 and 2014, according to the IEA. In contrast, the study finds that continued reliance on fossil fuels (with growth rates of renewables between 2% and 3% per year), would cause carbon emissions to peak only at the end of the century, causing an estimated 3.5°C global temperature rise by 2100.
The authors note that not only the mix of energy matters, but also the overall amount of energy consumed. The study also included ranges for high energy consumption and low energy consumption.
The study adds to a large body of IIASA research on climate mitigation policy and the chances of achieving targets.
“Earlier work on mitigation strategies by IIASA has shown the importance of demand-side measures, including efficiency, conservation, and behavioral change. Success in these areas may explain the difference between reaching 1.5C instead of 2C,” says IIASA Energy Program Director Keywan Riahi, who also contributed to the new work.
A new model
The study is one of the first published results from the newly developed FeliX model, a system dynamics model of social, economic, and environmental earth systems and their interdependencies. The model is freely available for download and use at http://www.felixmodel.com/.
“Compared to other climate and integrated assessment models, the FeliX model is less detailed, but it provides a unique systemic view of the whole carbon cycle, which is vital to our understanding of future climate change and energy,” says IIASA Ecosystem Services and Management Program Director.
###
This study received support from the European Research Council Synergy grant ERC-2013-SyG-610028
Reference
Walsh B, Ciais P, Janssens IA, Penuelas J, Riahi K, Rydzak F, vanVuuren D, Obersteiner M (2017). Pathways for balancing Co2 emissions and sinks. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/NCOMMS14856
A less detailed model!? Is that possible?
Ya, we had similar approaches in war modelling.
You can do a battle in one equation
or
You can model everything down to the littlest detail.
You use the simple models for sensitivity studies.. basically study the structural uncertainty.
its just one piece of information that a good general will consider.. gut check
FeliX the model
The wonderful wonderful model
Whenever carbon needs a fix,
he reaches into his bag of tricks.
FeliX the model
The wonderful wonderful model
You’ll choke so much, you’re sides will ache
Your brain will become a puddle
Thanks to FeliX the wonderful model
yeah right……when they plug in sensitivity numbers that have no basis in reality
Except for trivial systems, any model that attempts to calculate the future from scientific first principles is doomed to failure. The mathematics simply does not exist.
Yet there is a reliable way to predict the future climate, ignored by climate science. We know the earth has gone through warming and cooling in the past roughly in phase with orbital mechanics. Astrology teaches us that when orbital mechanics repeats, observed climate should repeat. That is how early humans learned to predict the seasons long before they understood what caused them. That is how we learned to calculate the ocean tides with a high degree of accuracy, far into the future.
Yet to this day, the ocean tide cannot be reliably calculated from first principles. We cannot add up the forcings and predict future tides the way climate science tries to. That is a nonsense. The way we predict the tides is to look at past tides and orbital mechanics. When orbital mechanics repeat, the tides repeat.
Having said this, solving the earth’s tides was not a trivial problem. It took the best minds of the day many decades to find the solution. Even though we could plainly see there was a pattern between the ocean tides and the position of the sun and moon in the sky, it took an enormous scientific effort to work out the actual relationship.
And this is where climate science should be directing its efforts. Providing high quality forecasts of next seasons and next years climate. Something that people can actually use. The nonsense of trying to calculate climate 50 years in the future from first principles is simply a nonsense. Even if one could account for all the known and unknown unknowns, the mathematics does not exists to provide any degree of accuracy.
Farmer’s Almanac has been doing just that for over 100 years. Finding patterns and then making predictions when those patterns repeat.
They are also doing a much better job of getting it right than the client scientists do.
Of course they don’t rely on government funding either. So staying in business includes getting it right at least most of the time.
Well Military battle planning models work pretty well; in fact right up to the point when you first make contact with the enemy.
They are robust as all get out; and quite amenable to fine tuning.
g
According to thermodynamics, the entropy never decreases.
Ergo you can never get back to where you started, so nothing ever happens again; the starting conditions will always be different and so the outcome must be different too.
G
25 years of bad predictions: http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/04/25-years-of-predicting-the-global-warming-tipping-point/
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
“There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of “emergency” is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.”
– President Dwight Eisenhower
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower
I believe Napoleon had an interesting approach. He wouldn’t open his mail for a month. His thinking was, for anything that was critically important it was too late by the time he got the mail to do anything about it, while for the rest it usually resolved itself without his input and wasn’t important enough for his attention anyway. Modern communications allow for micro-management by people who aren’t there and don’t have their rear ends on the line. Politicians love this top down management approach as they are experts at finding a camera when things work out ok and pointing fingers when they don’t. Rommel’s approach was to be right at the front where he was the first to know what was happening. I’m not sure what kind of computer models he employed but they were EXCELLENT!
little last second sarc for Steve
Steven: did you gut check your global temperature yet? With only three interruptions It stayed the same for a good 400 million years. I hear nothing but loud silence from the so-called “global warming experts.”
But can you model used car sales, Mosh?
“And this is where climate science should be directing its efforts. Providing high quality forecasts of next seasons and next years climate.”
Ferd, please, you describe WEATHER, not climate. “Next years climate” has no meaning. Double-ought zero.
‘Ya, we had similar approaches in war modelling’
You’re entire statement pretty much falls into the category of ‘everyone has a plan until they get hit’.
That’s when reality intrudes.
Gut check.
Is Man’s CO2 the only piece of information really being modeled?
Why would that be?
Perhaps “Man’s CO2 and CAGW” are (were) just a tactical thrust toward achieving a strategic goal?
But that sounds like politics. No way politics could influence science!
Re: The UN Climate Summit, Sept.23, 2014, New York City
Cities Compact of States and Regions
Provisional Copy
Includes: A timeline, government participation, UNFCCC and partners in preparation for COP21 in Paris.
http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/09/CITIES-Compact-of-States-and-Regions.pdf
UNFCCC, New York Climate Summit 2014
Cities & Subnationals
“The Compact of States and Regions was signed at the UN Climate Summit in New York in 2014 by influential state an regional government coalitions, The Climate Group States & Regions Alliance, nrg4SD, and R 20, in partnership with CDP.
http://news.unfccc.int/lpaa/cities-subnationals/compact-of-states-and-regions-subnational-initiatives-driving-climate-ambition
UN has identified four groups involved in the climate change agenda.
COP21 Paris is not “dead” yet.
Sustainable Development Solutions Network
A Global Initiative For The United Nations
This UN article includes:
Under 2 MOU with a link
ICLEI
Follow the link to the article at:
http://unsdsn.org/?s=Vatican+City+Mayors+Conference
Those darned humans have a nasty habit of doing the opposite of what we tell them to do based on our comprehensive models of everything. Don’t they know what is good for them? We keep telling them what’s good for them and the climate.
I read the front page and in my initial scan, I thought
it said implemented in Vermin. That made
me stop and look a bit closer. Ok, my bad;
it said ” implemented in Vensim” not “Vermin.”
‘poolgies.
‘Those darned humans have a nasty habit of doing the opposite of what we tell them to do based on our comprehensive models of everything. Don’t they know what is good for them?’
That in a nutshell is the reason collectivist ideologies always fail. Humans aren’t ants.
The parallel universe is cooking off…… in ten years.
Any model that gives you a discrete answer about the future is wrong. Period. The future is not written. The universe is not a clock-works. Take a very simple model of the future, a pair of dice. The IPCC would have us believe the future state of the dice will be 7, because that is the ensemble mean.
However, this is a nonsense because the future is not the average of all possibilities. The future for a pair of dice is most likely 7, but it could be 2, it could be 12. As a result, the future does not exists as a discrete answer, it exists as a probability.
Instead, what we hear from science is the following “All things remaining the same, a doubling of CO2 will…”. The problem is that “all things” never remain the same.
Well under the Trump administration, you will have at least four years (maybe less 80 days or so) to retrain yourself so you are capable of actually doing something useful that you can get paid for.
There is even a respectable chance, you will have more like nearly eight years, so you could even get a PhD in something useful.
Look up the “Help Wanted” ads in a weekend newspaper, and do a search for the commonest work descriptor word.
Then do your PhD thesis on that subject.
G
Well ferd, in your sample (not simple) universe, I would not say that your outcome has a probability.
It certainly has a possibility, because your model has defined the entire range of possibility.
But there can be no probability that is believable, because the future is only going to happen once, So your trial scenario cannot be repeated, to get statistics.
So it is a ” crap shoot ” !
Literally in the case of your parallel universe.
G
I don’t think they got as far as including a trump administration in their model-of-everything.
Does their model of everything include flightless water fowl?
http://www.holoscience.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/TOE-Bloom_County.jpg
I often make the point that we know that all other things will not remain the same/constant. Given that we know that all other matters do not remain constant, it is not particularly helpful to state what would happen if all other matters did remain constant.
When we burn fossil fuels we know that we are removing oxygen and creating CO, CO2, water vapour and misc other ‘pollutants’
The IPCC ignores water vapour since it has a low residency time, however, we are constantly creating it 24/7 365 days a year. A lot of energy is constantly being moved around the atmosphere by this, and it will also impact upon albedo (albeit the latter is small). Recently, I came across the following comment (author not known), the figures of which I have not checked, but the thrust of the point is interesting:
We know that CO2 is plant food and that it is greening the planet. This again impacts upon levels of water vapour, and upon albedo, and land change. As land use changes, such as the greening of the Sahel, It also has an impact upon moisture trapped in the top layer of soil.
The listing of details of future events always ends up being embarrassing. I wonder how many predictions of doom have been made since antiquity, yet we are still here…and we are okay as long as we do not take the doomsayers seriously.
Well they told us what to NOT do, didn’t they ??
g
Pyeatte, A year or so ago on a thread here I formulated an axiom on this that basically says that doom arising from our activities is not one of the possibilities for the future. Maybe the sun running down or taking a direct hit from a large bolide might doom us but even that isn’t certain to.
I’m coming to the idea that doom scenarios are a symptom of proponents’ neuroses, essentially a mental health issue. Indeed, getting rid of the dreaded “Pause” became necessary as a growing number of climate scientists of doom persuasion actually fell ill with what became known as the Climate Blues. They deluded themselves into believing that it was because they could see the end of the world drawing nigh in their studies and no one would listen. This, ironically is, in classical psychology the very definition of деиiал. Their mind couldn’t face having been engaged in worthless enterprise for most of their careers (they were of a certain age).
The fastest growing crime in America, is ….. Taxation ……
Not far behind, is Climate modeling.
G
Great comment! Governments are trying to put the mob out of business.
Taxation is theft.
The police are the enforcers.
Gambling and booze are revenue streams.
Now they’re getting into drugs.
In a few places they are edging into prostitution.
The politicians long ago mastered, “I didn’t do it”.
One of my favorite bumper stickers:
Don’t steal, the government hates the competition.
I am not opposed to all taxation. I fully support the Congress taxing me and every other American for what they are authorized to do in the US Constitution; that is in Article I Section 8, Clause 1.
Namely to pay the debts, and to provide for the common defense and general welfare OF THE UNITED STATES.
It does not say anything about welfare for tom, dick and harry; just “The United States” which if you remember is one of the parties to the Constitution’s contractual agreement; the other two of course being “WE THE PEOPE ” and also the Several Sovereign States, (remember there’s 57 of those).
So we have to make sure that Washington DC stays in good shape, that being the designated place for the United States to conduct the nation’s business that is assigned to them.
But of course the crooks in the Congress, have jimmied the system.
The Constitution tells the Government what they are allowed to do as well as the things they are required to do, so it tells them what they can tax us for; but unfortunately it doesn’t tell them what they can spend money on; like climate change for example.
So they simply use the credit card to pay for anything that suits their fancy, which puts it on the national debt, and then they can tax us to pay the debt.
And when I said ….. every other American ….. of course I wasn’t including minor children who aren’t old enough to vote (assuming they are citizens ).
But everybody else can afford to pay taxes. Just think how much cheaper everything you buy could be, if the enterprise that provides that didn’t have to pay the taxes you should be paying yourself.. But putting your hand in somebody else’s pocket, instead of yours, is plain theft..
G
Whoop de doo !
California has for all intents and purposes, already reached its climate change goals.
Moonbeam Brown has declared that California will be 50% electric and 50% renewables by 2020; or some permutation of that.
Well we are already there.
The Federal Government announced in a local popular news paper, that on March 11 2017, California was 50% Electrically Renewable.
We DID it …. for a full three hours; count em and see. 1-2-3 voila !
So there.
g
UNSDSN
# Urban SDG
SDG Agenda
‘Sustainable Cities: Empowering People, Enabling Prosperity, and Protecting the Planet’, Vatican, July 21-22, 2015.
Sustainable Cities Symposium, July 22, 2015
Agenda for Cities and Sustainable Development.
At:
http://urbansdg.org/sustainable-cities-symposium
COP20 Lima Conference 2014
Quebec Press Release: Dec.15, 2014
Re:
Compact of States and Regions
UNFCCC
White House Council on Environmental Quality
California
B.C.
Climate Summit of the Americas, July 2015
At:
http://mddelcc.gouv.qc.ca/communiques_en/2014/C20141215-leadership_lima.htm
White House Archives
White House Author: Mike Boots
Mike Boots, Former Council on Environmental Quality.
Re: California at:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/mike-boots
Ontario Newsroom, Dec.13, 2014
‘Ministers Statement on Ontario’s Climate Change Leadership in Peru’
Re: COP20 Lima
Signing the Compact of States and Regions.
Hosting the Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto, July 2015
At:
https://news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2014/12/ministers-statement-on-ontarios-climate-change-leadership-in-peru.html
California & Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
Climate Change & California participation, c.2014
Re:
Matt Rodriquez
Gov. Brown
More at:
https://um.baden-wuerttemberg.de/en/international-cooperation/international-cooperation/usa
Baden-Wuerttemberg is also associated with The Climate Group.
Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
COP21, Paris, Dec.9, 2015
‘COP21: ‘Subnational Climate Agreement’
Re: Gov.Brown (California) participation in the Subnational Climate Agreement, COP21, Paris, 2015
At:
https://um.baden-wuerttemberg.de/en/international-cooperation/international-cooperation/cop-21-subnational-climate-agreement
COP22, 2016
Ontario News Release, Nov.16, 2016
Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
‘Leaders Discuss Environmental and Economic Benefits of North American Linked Carbon Market’
Re: Matt Rodriquez, Secretary for Environmental Protection for California, Tri-Lateral Meeting Marrakech.
https://news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2016/11/ontario-quebec-and-california-hold-joint-climate-meeting-in-marrakech.html
An, COP22:
Ontario News Release, Nov.18, 2016
Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
‘Ontario Leads on Climate Change at COP22’
‘Focus on Cap-and-Trade Program, Implementation of Paris Agreement’
At:
https://news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2016/11/ontario-leads-on-climate-change-at-cop22.html
More PlayStation GIGO
More like KIBO: Knowledge In, Bullshit Out.
Oooooh…I like that….can I use it too???
More like FICO – Faith In, Confirmation Out.
I prefer to think of it as a conjuring trick. First a rabbit is placed in a hat (i.e. assumptions are built into a mathematical model), then the magician pulls the rabbit out of the hat and says: “Behold, a Rabbit”, (i.e. the model spits out the assumptions).
That is all any of these exercises are or mean. The models, and the press releases about them are a waste of electrons. If the authors really cared a whit about the environment, they would stop what they are doing and get jobs collecting trash.
Or FIBO…..after all , it’s a big fib …
If anyone is really serious about limiting fossil fuel use there is a very simple solution ,,,Nuclear power or do they want to condemn the world to poverty
They want to condemn the world to poverty, Although an equally acceptable outcome would be the instant death of 90% of the humans now alive.
Why? Because warmism is a religious belief. They believe that Gaia is angry because humans have stuck knives in her side (agriculture, mining, drilling), and that she must be placated by human sacrifice. The more the better.
There is an irreducible core of racism in the belief structure of warmism. The people who would suffer the most are in Africa, and South and East Asia. The warmists want to impoverish and kill them.
Walter,
“There is an irreducible core of racism in the belief structure of warmism. The people who would suffer the most are in Africa, and South and East Asia. The warmists want to impoverish and kill them.”
What people do you think they don’t want to impoverish/enslave and/or kill?
I think the whole Gaia thing is just cover for taking control . . like bank robbers posing as nuns, till they get the chopper inside … and can kill the guard, no matter what race he happens to be.
In your imperfect world, then, only people of color die? The impoverished “white people” don’t suffer the same fate? There are many wealthy “people of color,” my friend, and they will be alive long after the poor Germans, Americans, Brits, etc., have been put into the crematoria to rid the world of their frozen bodies. Sorry, this isn’t a racial issue, it is a caste issue.
Well Margaret Sanger set up a government sanctioned institution to carry out that racist agenda.
Even today, the Government believes that taxpayers should pay for that selective extermination agenda.
G
IPCC official, Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010: “But one must say clearly that we redistribute, de facto, the world’s wealth by climate policy. … one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute, de facto, the world’s wealth…” “This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy, anymore.” http://www.nzzDOTch/aktuell/startseite/klimapolitik-verteilt-das-weltvermoegen-neu-1.8373227
22Jan2015”At a news conference [22Jan2015] in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but to destroy capitalism. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said . Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors DOTcom/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3RXh5Tujn
You don’t have to KNOW anything about science to figure this out. Just FOLLOW THE MONEY!
I love the accuracy of the 3.5K, as well as the 42%. Research says “random” precise numbers are as good as real numbers in budgeting. And this is about budgeting.
‘They’ have basically two modes. The precise mode, where eye lashes are 42% more voluminous. And the scare more, where warming can be up to 12K before 2100. “I didn’t work too hard to get a good upper limit because 12K sounds scary.” When the real warming struggles to reach a full Kelvin with some substantial aid from retromeasuring past temperatures, we are left to wonder how long you can draw hockey sticks and be credible.
“…substantial aid from retromeasuring past temperatures…”
clever.
61.83% of all statistics are made up
Actually 100% of all statistics is made up.
Statistics is the poster child for fictional enterprise.
It is always exact, and also useless because there is nothing besides statisticians, that is even aware of anything statistical. The universe pays no heed to statistics, and cannot ever tell when something average occurs for example.
G
George, may I object.
There is a proverb on keeping the short zipper zipped in a rowing boat, as statistics show many dead and wet men (well, assumption done from their external parts) did have it unzipped.
Right, the statistics does not make you fall, but it suggests there is a lesson to learn.
Well Hugs, I don’t know that particular proverb; but then I wonder just how much YOU know about rowing boats.
The last time I was in a rowing boat; and in fact on every previous occasion, I was wearing knitted woolen shorts over my skivvies, and a cotton tank top, and nothing else except a facial grimace.
As for disembarking before arriving back at the launch ramp; nyet on that, as my feet were strapped down to the pedals, so they didn’t slip-slide around anywhere.
So there were no zippers in sight, and in fact none on the entire row boat, to catch on anything.
I will admit to having capsized a single scull, but that was right on the launch ramp anyway, and my tank top barely got wet even with me sitting on the concrete ramp in the water.
G
This study received support from the European Research Council Synergy grant
And this comment was sponsored by the international institute for gobshite debunking and codswallop elimination.
Its chaotic.
Its non linear.
Its not fully understood.
Add or multiply ANY or ALL of those, and guess what you get.
The future.
If we can’t ‘know’ the inputs or variables, to the nth degree, then any result is simply a guess.
Please forward the grant to my address, thank you IPCC.
So I’ve downloaded the model (.mdl file) and installed something called Vensim Model Reader, but it won’t open – says “unable to load file”.
Am I doing something wrong? Or do you need the paid version of Vensim (the editor, not the reader) to open it?
Why are these “future estimators” have such tunnel vision ? You’d think they aren’t even aware of the coming transition to revolutionary (and dirt cheap) molten salt nuclear reactors and, closer at hand, electric cars, paced almost entirely by the decline of lithium battery prices, which are getting very close to the point where an upper mid level electric car can compete economically – the coming soon Tesla Model 3 , priced at around $40K (not counting $7500 govt subsidy) , with roughly 215 miles of driving range, and options for an increased driving range, and acceleration to 60 in under 6 seconds (that’s fast), plus the ability to be supercharged to 80% in less than 30 minutes. I must say, these morons who claim the power to foresee the future, apparently aren’t watching the technological revolution underway that dooms their tunnel visioned estimates to utter irrelevance and a product of sheer ignorance. Assuming renewables as major future energy sources is nonsense, almost as nonsensical as the “renewable capacitiy increases” , which misleadingly quote nameplate capacities for windmills and solar panels (overstating their actual capacites by 3 and 5 times). Utter ignorance seems to be the renewable addicts stock in trade.
The Chinese -the most advanced -don’t expect to have a molten salt reactor prototype before 2033.
Meanwhile do you not think that the falling cost of lithium ion batteries has an application in domestic power, linked to soalar PV?
They are already building the first new housing development in Australia entirely off grid (battery plus solar)
Grid scale battery projects are taking off… they are a replacement for peaker plant and frequency balancing fossil fuel power… California and Hawaii installed large new grid scale battery complexes in the last couple of months
Using Australia as an example is not a very good idea nowadays !! …… D’oh !
Griff, Oak Ridge had one in the 50s that worked but the program was shut down by Atomic Energy… because the pentagon wanted nuclear energy to provide plutonium for weaponry. The Chinese don’t really invent much. They tend to go with (largely) American old patents. Ive
Griff, Oak Ridge had one in the 50s that worked but the program was shut down by Atomic Energy… because the pentagon wanted nuclear energy to provide plutonium for weaponry. The Chinese don’t really invent much. They tend to go with (largely) American old patents from what I’ve seen in metallurgy/hydromet/chemical industry plants there. Innovation may be part of their future, but expediency trumps research in their present iteration.
Mods had a glitch with my phone. Please remove the first of my attempts above, thanks.
[done -mod]
Griff, all of theses things you speak of, new developments off the grid, etc. are merely interesting experiments to see if such things actually are viable or at least where they need improvement. All have promising components, but NONE are proven technological systems. To tout that they exist as beneficial examples is at best premature. And given the current track record of “miracle cures” coming from the hucksters, anyone without a bit of skepticism is rather naïve.
Somebody (credible) told me recently that the Lithium battery packs for the Tesla automobiles; presumably Models S and X are all the same. (not meaning S = X)
That is, there is NO difference between the lowest Amp hour battery and the highest Amp hour battery; they are all the same for each model.
It is simply a software (maybe firmware) code, as to what driving range you can utilize, depending on how much you paid.
When the IBM PC-XT first came out, it had two 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives, and a 20 Meg hard drive option.
It also came with 256K of RAM. Later more expensive versions offered as much as 640 K of RAM.
I could only afford the cheap 256 K model, and I bought my own 20 Meg hard drive and installed it.
But my mother board was already fully populated with the full 640 K of RAM chips. It is just that the memory address decoder chip had two pins that were not grounded. those two decoder inputs enabled the full 640 K of RAM.
BUT !! If you got out your soldering iron and soldered in the two wires needed to enable those address pin, you immediately voided the warranty on the computer. IBM would enable them for you, for a price.
Well the decoder chip simply plugged into an ordinary 16 pin dual in-line socket, so you could unplug it if you didn’t want any RAM.
Now you could buy a low profile DIL socket, that could plug into another DIL socket.
So I bought one of those, and soldered the necessary enabling wires onto that socket using 30 gauge wire wrap wire.
Pop out the decoder chip; drop in the piggy back socket; replace the decoder chip.
Voila ! a full 640 K of RAM, with no warranty voiding Mother board wiring mods.
So I guess the hackers will be trying to discombobulate the Tesla battery firmware.
And as far as I am concerned, more power to them.
If I had bought a Tesla Model S at the base price with the triple A battery, instead of the D-size battery, and then discovered that I was forced to consume a good part of that triple A battery capacity toting around a heavy D-cell battery, that I couldn’t use; I would be hopping mad, and demanding a refund !
G
“They are already building the first new housing development in Australia entirely off grid ”
South Australia is hardly a new housing development. !
I’m so shocked, shocked I tell you. Look. My not so big house takes about 15-20 MWh / year. It is because global warming is so small I need to use firewood and electricity to warm the house. In November, we usually get 10 hours of sunshine. It is like one hour per day, if it was a good day. The more we get sunshine, the colder air we have.
It could be with snow on the panels, unless someone takes the ladder and climbs up 8 am. before leaving to work, in dark, onto a slippery roof to clean the panels. Which could be useless because it will snow the whole day.
Can you elaborate how much lithium we need to dig in order to take this building off the grid? How sustainable it is to start building houses on a battery instead of putting them in a grid with a commercial electricity production? Can you realise there is a reason why I don’t bake my bread, fix my car, mix my toothpaste, produce my own window glass, make my own dry-ink pens, dig my own steel, or, produce my own electricity?
The answer, the short and painless answer is, it is more efficient in terms of money, time, AND environmentality to let professionals do stuff commercially than to do some eco-loonie-do-it-yourself stuff in an amishy (pardon Amish!) style.
Just to make sure you understand. I have nothing against moving to warmer place, say 10-20K warmer, but I’m sure you would complain if I became a global warming refugee to Australia.
Oh, the electricity I use comes mostly from hydro and nuclear, coal representing a smaller part. If what you suggest would be viable, the local power company would buy batteries, store intermittent solar energy and sell it later to get a better price from it (oh I forgot they get the money guaranteed, they don’t need to produce it on demand). Plus, the battery would be waste of money, since adding non-intermittent capacity is cheaper than storing electricity. The solar capacity in the meantime, is not cheaper, it is just worthless.
Renewable power is a system where supply of energy and demand of energy have been replaced with supply of grid capacity and demand of grid by solar power.
No, this is so stupid. It all boils down to one fundamental theorem about economics:
Ecoloonies think prosperity can be produced by taxing productive economy to its earned death and subsidizing unproductive one until it provides work for all ecoloonies.
I don’t remember which company it was, when they shipped their computer boards they had two options.
1 Meg of RAM or 2 Meg of RAM. If you bought the 1Meg, and later upgraded to 2Meg, a technician would come out and remove the jumper that deactivated the second rank of RAM.
Griff…you are just adding another loss (inefficiency) into the energy equation when you take a non firm power source like wind or solar and back that up with a battery. With both wind/solar being at extreme low capacity generation compared to nameplate capacity, the batteries just decrease the overall efficiency of the source renewable generation. I don’t think batteries are a game changer for renewables ever due to ultra low energy density for the power produced. Maybe for electric cars one day, which will be good since we can shift pollution out of the city to a power plant that runs at maximum efficiency out of town 100 miles. My long term bet would be on Fusion before renewables could ever hope to replace fossil fuel base load supply. Maybe molten salt will get a kick at the cat, but with the advance of technology and information, fusion will probably be the long term transition. Either way, we do need to develop very robust HVDC capacity power lines since whatever we use to generate electricity, we will need to deliver it a further distance with less losses. I wish Tesla was correct about long distance wireless transmission of electricity, but I think he may have had that one wrong.
Here is an interesting analysis of Tesla’s batteries (https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/how-the-cost-of-powerwall-storage-doubled-in-11-months) and what they are willing to warrant regarding their operation.
Beware of the advertising hype.
I live in South Australia, have a 5KW solar system with no shade, facing North, good angle and get an average 4.2hrs/day of maximum generation over the past 6 years.
Good luck with powering a modern society using solar and batteries.
So, Griff, when are you moving to South australia?
Griff, have you any idea how energy intensive it is to make your batteries, how energy intensive it is to dispose of them, and how energy intensive it is to replace them with others? Do you know if there is a lithium ion battery factory that is being run off lithium ion batteries being charged by wind power and PV? I am reasonably sure you will say no to all those parts to the questions.
Yes. We don’t count he government subsidy because it is free.
Take back of envelope, write down number of cars driving on road. Take standard assumption on average number of miles driven by a car in a year; multiply by number of cars driving on road. Divide total mileage driven by cars by claimed 215 miles range of electric vehicle. What you have is the number of expected recharge cycles. Multiply that by number of KwH of power required to recharge electric cars. See how close renewables come to providing that much extra power supply. It is probable that there is a requirement to close to double the domestic electric power supply just to support an all electric car future. Yet as we can see from regions that have gone completely renewable such as South Australia, the opposite is the case the amount of power drops and becomes less reliable. The electric car is a DoDo as soon as the grid is powered by only renewables. If the grid remains powered by fossil fuels then the electric cars are just remotely polluting vehicles.
Not if the grid’s powered by nuclear.
Merely doubling the amount of power needed is probably on the low side, I’ve seen estimates as high as a factor of 10.
On the other hand, people might drive a lot less if they only had electrics available. Wasting most of your time waiting for the car to recharge is going to make you very careful about when you go out.
It seems to me there will probably be a class action law suit to make the government stop subsidizing electric cars via road tax on gas when electrics use the roads, too.
The actual contribution of hydrocarbons to the energy supply is normally quoted as being in the range of 80-85% so I think that 95% figure is too high, Anthony…….but, yes, of course, short of a major technology breakthrough, there’s no way that this will be reduced below the ~70% level anytime in the foreseeable future. Total fantasist energy drivel…….
And yet South Australia claim 40% solar and wind. What it means in practice is that you can get your hydrocarbon consumption arbitrarily low, provided you are willing to totally destroy your economy to do it.
Is the SA claim of 40% solar/wind on power out put or number of power generation facilities. If the value is based upon the current electrical output is that 40% of the current (underperforming output) or is 40% of the previous output?
There are many ways to cook statistics, and unless you read the recipe you will end up eating a lot of garbage.
Rocketscientist – the SA Government use the thimble and pea trick when referring to the wonders of our renewable power nirvana.
They usually state generated power figures – no mention of when this is generated, it’s randomness, etc.
They have recently announced another large wind farm (with batteries) plus a large-scale solar generator so our (I live in SA) level of renewables is going even higher.
As we say in Oz, ‘The fool that calls them an idiot is no drongo’.
The chance of achieving the dreamed of reductions in fossil fuel consumption is approximately zero. China will continue to use coal at current rates for the foreseeable future. link
China is still developing and will be for quite a few years. China will not do anything stupid that will threaten social stability. China will assure that the necessary energy is available. link
Chinese coal use peaked in 2013
http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/01/china%E2%80%99s-decline-coal-consumption-drives-global-slowdown-emissions
The number of new coal plants approved in china last year fell by 85%
http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/21/14988436/global-coal-boom-decline
…you think their economy and steel glut had anything to do with it?
Which means that the number of coal plants is still going up, just more slowly.
Chinese reports on coal usage are a fiction. greatly underreported.
Of course not, according to Griff there is never more than one cause for anything that happens, and that cause is always CO2.
Griff is trying to get the same lie, just from another direction.
For weeks he’s been touting the fact that the total number of planned coal plants in China has dropped from 2100 to 2000.
Griff, do you believe that in a time when the total number of planned plants is dropping, that China might at the same time not be approving lots of new plants?
From IEA: In 2016, renewables supplied more than half the global electricity demand growth, with hydro accounting for half of that share. The overall increase in the world’s nuclear net capacity last year was the highest since 1993, with new reactors coming online in China, the United States, South Korea, India, Russia and Pakistan. Coal demand fell worldwide but the drop was particularly sharp in the United States, where demand was down 11% in 2016. For the first time, electricity generation from natural gas was higher than from coal last year in the United States.
The use of hydro and nuclear are going down. Coal loss in the US was regulatory driven. If the economy or demand of goods and services increase, the likely result will be increased CO2. A mis statement by IEA is that energy and economy have been decoupled. Hard to maintain when the two biggest factors are the economy and regulatory driven CO2 reductions.The actuality will be known after the world economy revives, and regulatory effects have dissipated.
Forrest, that point was passed 6 months ago.
This new Felix model is making me laugh so hard that my sides ache.
Thats where a PlayTex 24hr girdle comes in handy.
LoL 😉 ++
…..Now there’s a high energy device.
yeah a real “bag of tricks” isnt it?
could be i misplaced a P in that above line?
so if they cut power by normal means to 25% of present?
how do they plan to mine make metal n batteries and all the rest that those intensely power reliant makers need to provide the renewables?
But, but, but. China has canceled 100 of 2100 planned coal power plants. Isn’t that evidence that China has given up on coal?
At least that’s what Griff keeps telling us.
Bruce,
I get it, but beware of that dastardly “Professor” and “Rock Bottom”
The above article is simply proof positive that the European Research Council Synergy …… got what they paid for with their grant money (ERC-2013-SyG-610028).
I wonder how much they paid for it.
Good modelers know models are not reality. You’ll note they didnt say it represented reality. They said it gave
a systematic view ( not a simulacrum) and that assisted understanding ( not knowledge)
One good way to understand models like this is to compare them with models of war or combat.
They just give you a view. Assume what we know is true, then what?
like this
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1520-6750(199506)42:4%3C691::AID-NAV3220420411%3E3.0.CO;2-X/abstract
Sometimes you just play a game
https://www.strategypage.com/wargames-handbook/chapter/9-7-iraq.aspx
When you are faced with future scenarios with little data and lot of uncertainties..
Modelling is a great tool.
Note these models are used in life and death situations. They are not validated. Nobody goes
to war to test a model. They are just the best tool available.
they provide insight and understanding in a SYSTEMATIC approach.
..That is NOT how they are being used by all you ALARMISTS !!
Well Steven,
I would like to agree with you once in a while; but this is not one of those times.
There are actually some bloody good models out there; they emulate reality perhaps to parts in 10^8 or closer. One ppm discrepancies, are a dime a dozen.
But for some reason, the “Climate” community seem to think that the discharge of a shot gun; even a double barreled one, is actually a model of something !
NO, even when they have oodles of relatively good historical data to use to refine the models they still continue to diverge from anything we know, from experience.
And war modeling is a very weak example.
WW-II whether in the Atlantic or the Pacific, demonstrated vividly, in both theatres, that the Dread Noughts were the very last thing to dread.
Hood, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Musashi, Yamato; all hapless clunkers !
They made the Aircraft Carrier dominant.
So today the US has Carrier Battle groups to deliver the message.
And the Russians have an unstoppable missile to render the whole thing sterile; for peanuts.
It would be nice if it wasn’t so; but we are always trying to refight the last war, so we can get it right.
Seems like a pick-em-up Truck is as good a weapon as a Carrier Battle Group.
G
Thanks for confirming that climate models are all just MAKE-BELIEVE.
Now back to your used car lot, Mosh. !
Trouble is, reality is scarier than models when you start talking war games. Even reality has confirmation bias. Now, NOTE – in your example above, real time feed back was constantly being fed into the models and the model adjusted. ( A good read, thank you.) There is the problem with the current climate models. They don’t reflect reality. Or if they do, it is well masked. And note that the “models” used in the Gulf War came from the war games in Europe, where thankfully, they were never put to a reality test.
The NATO War Games models from the late 50’s and 60’s suggested that generals would resort to nuclear weapons to avoid being over run by opposition forces. In reality, the world has come close to nuclear weapons being used a few times as has been noted here before (Russian submarine protocol) and others.
This isn’t a good reference but it is pretty close to what I remember from articles in the 60’s:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/revealed-natos-cold-war-nuclear-battle-plan-would-have-13785
As for a history of war games, ground wars, and actual policy, our unreliable friend, has some decent notes. I don’t know about accuracy, but it fits with what I recall and have read elsewhere:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/revealed-natos-cold-war-nuclear-battle-plan-would-have-13785
Kissinger was in favour of tactical use of nuclear weapons.
In the end, cooler heads have prevailed and that has prevented catastrophe. Other models need a little more cool rationality and reality.
A model of a pipeline, water network, bridge design … ad infinitum … that didn’t work would be discarded (after the lawsuits were done). So what about some realistic modelling in other areas?
The weather models aren’t too bad. They said we would get a pile of snow today and we did.
But if they said it was due to the climate change or “extreme weather”, I would have some questions because in my 70 years, it pretty much always snows this time of year. In my part of the world (western Canada), we expect snow right up to Queen Victoria’s birthday weekend.
A model that can’t be verified is just an idea or opinion. Nothing more.
And all models are all dependent on the core beliefs that are built into them by the modeler. If the concept of CO2 doubling having “X” effect wasn’t built into the model as a core belief, then they might actually show value. If models don’t show actual short term prediction, when it is created to show useful long term capabilities, then it is obvious the core beliefs are in error, and time to change them. Climate modelers will not do that with CO2 because if they did, well, they’d have to find a different boogie man, and that would let carbon fuels off the hook they want it on, and leave the world better able to deal with a markedly cooler climate that may well be on the horizon. There was a huge effort made to rid the world of “the pause,” but the truth really is this, if CO2 increases for 18 years in a row and there is no change in temperature because it was overpowered by “natural variability,” then the models are based on the wrong core beliefs.
> (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities.
Cool. So now climate models can predict volcanos.
It’s the “any day now” apocalypse syndrome.
It may look OK today, even good – but doom is coming any day now.
BTW the Antarctic ice extent is about the same as it was more than 100 years ago according to the detailed log books 📚 of Scott and Shackleton:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/11/24/scott-shackleton-logbooks-prove-antarctic-sea-ice-not-shrinking/amp/
But any day now, it’s all going to melt 🤡
The point to look at:”“Earlier work on mitigation strategies by IIASA has shown the importance of demand-side measures, including efficiency, conservation, and behavioral change. Success in these areas may explain the difference between reaching 1.5C instead of 2C,” says IIASA Energy Program Director Keywan Riahi, who also contributed to the new work.”
Enforced behaviors. Given the Paris agreement committments of China and India to certain per capita energy use, combined with the IIASA acknowledgement of 3.5C with continued increase in FF energy demand, indicates the cost will be prohibitive, or it would be best if ECS is much lower than they modeled.
Another nail in the PA as the vehicle to get us decarbonized.
Every time I see these figures of 1.5 vs 2.0°C desired global temperature targets all I can do is stare slack-jawed at the screen. There are actually people out there walking about and probably driving autos too who genuinely believe that humans have it in their gift to control the temperature of the planet to within tenths of a degree through atmospheric composition control. I could not be more amazed – and horrified – if they said they were going to adjust the planet’s orbital geometry for a more accommodating climate. But speaking of celestial mechanics these people are literally gibbering-at-the-moon insane.
Agreed. Man has no power to control temperature. We have the power – nominally – to control emissions. Controlling temperature is an absurd leap.
Just put the SJWs in charge and their sustainable schemes will save the world.
I wonder if climate knows that it’s in a game with goalposts and everything or if it’s just doing what it does. Like a polar bear scrounging in the Churchill garbage dump climate probably wouldn’t understand why it’s behavior is freaking some people out. Taking a round of Wunderlich tests recently has me thinking in word/math problem format.
Senator Sheldon Outhouse represents a democrat/ RINO run bankrupt state for 30 years. Companies leave the high tax low service state at an accelerating rate for 15 years. Poverty, dependence, and criminality increase exponentially for 20 years. How long does it take Senator Outhouse to latch onto an imaginary global problem to get remedial federal funding to prop up his failed state.
a) pretty darn quick
b) quicker than a TV preacher grabs an old ladies Social Security check
c) Not very quickly at all since he is an ethical government servant
d) You picked c indicating that your cognitive abilities are below average
As usual, they advocate for dramatic fossil fuel reductions. Many millions of people in western societies seem to agree with this goal.
Something New:
Anyone who, on a personal level, wants to reduce their fossil fuel usage, and their CO2 emissions now need only move to South Australia. No further pro-active steps will need to be taken by the individual. South Australia has instituted a program which will dramatically reduce electricity consumption, and by extension, fossil fuel usage of all it’s residents. Even better, Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania are working in concert with S.A. towards the same ends. Soon there will be even more choices of destinations for the environmentally concerned.
And again, what is the “average” Pre-industrial temperature? Is it from the Roman warm Period? The Little ice Age? Or from the last 3 billion years?
Enquiring minds want to know!
“a system dynamics model of social, economic, and environmental earth systems and their interdependencies”
Hummmm, I bet they found some odd coupling with that model……..
Systems analysis is another field of study that has produced useful knowledge in the past but has now been hijacked by incompetents.
Why always 10 years?
Because if they make it five years people will know that we can’t respond effectively in time. If they make it fifteen years people will think they have lots of time to think about it. Ten years is just right to call for emergency action and pretend that the problem can be be solved in time.
But it can be solved only if we do what the alarmists demand and do it very soon.
From planning to completion for a nuclear power plant exceeds 10 years. Since they’re talking about doing away with about 75% of our energy generation without anything to replace it, it sounds like a recipe for societal suicide.
Is FeliX the real name of Schrodinger’s Cat ??
G
If it’s dead I think it’s Feel-X
I’ll buy that ! Brilliant observation.
G
Let’s see the tax and investment component of the model, or is that too detailed a question?
CO2 makes the planet GREEN! No batteries needed…..
We metaphorically know less than a gnat’s ass about what happened to create the atmosphere on Venus. I’m not alarmed by the ‘greening’ of Earth. More Life is good! No batteries are needed, contrary to what the climate Griffters are selling!
If one believes that the so called greenhouse gases provide a radiant greenhouse effect then one must realize that the majoriety of that effect is caused by H2O. The H2O molecule is a much stronger absorber of IR then is CO2 and there is so much more H2O in our atmosphere and the majoriety of the Earth’s surface involves some form of H2O. Even if we could eliminate all the CO2 in our atmosphere it would do very little to affect the total amount of so called greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. If one really wants to reduce greenhouse gases in our atmosphere one has to start with the primary greenhouse gas, H2O. The primary source of H2O emmissions are the oceans of the world over which Mankind has no control. H2O even sublimes directly into the atmosphere from ice and snow. If the so called greenhouse gases are so bad for the Earth’s climate then we need to get rid of them entirely including life on this planet which depends on both CO2 and H2O.
A researcher has found that the original calculations of the Planck climate sensivity of CO2 is too great by a factor of more than 20 because the calculations neglected the fact that doubling the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause a small decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. So instead of 1.2 degrees C, a more correct number would be .06 degrees C. The assumption that H2O provides a positive feedback is wrong because H2O is really a net coolant as evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is very significantly less than the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. So H2O, rather than amplifying the effect of CO2 by a factor of 3, attenuates the effect of CO2 by a factor of 3 so to be more realistic the article should be rewritten assuming a climate sensivity of CO2 of .02 degrees C which is a rather trivial amount.
But the reality is that there is no evidence that a radiant green house effect caused by the so called greenhouse gases, exists anywhere in the solar system. The 33 degrees of warmth at the Earth’s surface can all be explained by a convective greenhouse effect which is a function of the heat capacity of the atmosphere, the pressure gradient as provided for by gravity, and the thickness of the troposphere. It has nothing to do with the LWIR absorption properties of some trace gases. Additional warming caused by a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed. The radiant greenhouse effect is fiction hence the AGW conjecture which depends on a radiant greenhouse effect is also fiction.
willhaas
I entirely agree with you .I became interested in this subject when I met a New Zealander John Maunder who was a meteorologist who had taught meteorology at universities around the world and attended the first global warming conference in Villach in Austria back in the 1980’s He told me exactly what you have written and I have found no evidence to disprove this ..The economy of the world will crash if the reductions in fossil fuel use are enforced without providing other base load electric power sources and nuclear power is the only source that will provide that. I am not advocating nuclear but the warmists want nothing to do with it there fore they are condemning the world to an energy famine and vast numbers of the worlds population to poverty .
gwan
gwan.
Absolutely.
“I am not advocating nuclear but the warmists want nothing to do with it there fore they are condemning the world to an energy famine and vast numbers of the worlds population to poverty .”
Well, if I may ‘poverty or death’.
Fixed it for you.
Auto
and that for some is the idea, its not bad thing but an intended thing , party becasue of ‘humans crimes against’ the planet and party related to some idiotic idea of a return to some past ‘rural ideal ‘ that never existed. The Greens want an energy crisis for they see that has an opportunity to force unto people that which would otherwise be unacceptable.
We have now experienced decades of decades.
“Where have all the decades gone?
Long time passing…………
Where have ………………..”
“Compared to other climate and integrated assessment models, the FeliX model is less detailed, but it provides a unique systemic view of the whole carbon cycle, which is vital to our understanding of future climate change and energy,” says IIASA Ecosystem Services and Management Program Director.
_____________________________________________
A whole Ecosystem Models Industry based upon flawed Climate Models.
Shucks!
“The historic Paris Agreement”
Yes, it’s history.
Before that it was Hoaxahagen. The last chance before the window of opportunity closes. I still wonder if somebody turned off the heat during the snowstorm. ( like when they turned off the now ‘ evil ‘ airconditioning during a senate hearing on global warming, or maybe nobody warmed up to the idea of being cold ).
How long has it been since Hoaxahagen? 8 years or 9 ? And another 10.
Didn’t Ponce Charles, of the UK Royal family, say we had 100 days to save the planet a few years ago?
Well at least the UK is heading towards 1894 (Ref: Griff) emissions…sorry I mean 1984…
Q: What’s the difference between the “climate tipping point” and commercial energy from “nuclear fusion”?
A: Nuclear fusion is always 30 years away…
a broad accounting of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, where it comes from and where it goes.
because they don’t known and have to guess it along with all the other ‘guesses’ , has ‘settled science ‘ ever been built on so much quick sand ?