Wow, just wow. Some scientists and their egos. Sheesh.
Michael Shellenberger writes:
Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson has filed a lawsuit, demanding $10 million in damages, against the peer-reviewed scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and a group of eminent scientists (Clack et al.) for their study showing that Jacobson made improper assumptions in order to claim that he had demonstrated U.S. energy could be provided exclusively by renewable energy, primarily wind, water, and solar.
A copy of Jacobson’s complaint and submitted exhibits can be found here and here.
Jacobson’s lawsuit is an appalling attack on free speech and scientific inquiry and we urge the courts to reject it as grossly unethical and without legal merit.
…
What Jacobson has done is unprecedented. Scientific disagreements must be decided not in court but rather through the scientific process. We urge Stanford University, Stanford Alumni, and everyone who loves science and free speech to denounce this lawsuit.
The lawsuit rests on the claim that Clack et al. defamed Jacobson by calling his assumption that hydroelectricity could be significantly expanded a “modeling error.”
…
One of the most environmentally devastating ways of producing electricity is with hydroelectric dams. While poor nations have a right to make cheap power from hydroelectricity, their environmental impact is enormous.
Full story here
Expanding hydro? Sure….the enviros will embrace that one in the pursuit of 100% renewable energy. yeah, that’s the ticket. Let’s start with the Auburn dam in California as a test case.
This is probably the most idiotic lawsuit I’ve ever seen in science, Mann’s egotistical uproars against Tim Ball and Mark Steyn included.
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Hydro is potentially dangerous compared to other power generation schemes. One of the worst disasters in history was the collapse of the Banqiao dam, which killed somewhere between 90,000 to 230,000 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
Assuming alarmists are right, in a future of climate driven typhoons, floods, droughts and maybe even Earthquakes, expanding hydro seems a risky proposition.
Eric, if the failure of one hydroelectric dam stops the expansion of hydroelectric power , we should stop the expansion of nuclear power due to Chernobyl and Fukishima.
That is precisely what the greenies are saying and why they claim to be against nuclear power.
No single civilian nuclear accident has resulted in the death of 90,000+ plus people. I’m not against hydro, it has its place, especially for developing countries which can’t afford anything expensive, but a “massive expansion” of hydro is not without its risks.
Well, Eric, how do you account for a number of countries obtaining a significant portion of their electricity from inexpensive and safe hydroelectric projects? Why shouldn’t others benefit?
“… in a future of climate driven typhoons, floods, droughts and maybe even Earthquakes …” You seem to be using the same discredited Precautionary Principle as CAGW alarmists. Or are you being facetious? Climate driven earthquakes. Seriously?
“Hydro is potentially dangerous compared to other power generation schemes.” Very disappointing to read a statement like that from someone who writes here at WUWT supposedly advocating truth in AGW science. I always knew Eric Worrall was a total PR conn, especially when he made a comment in one of his own articles about recycling last year, which was that any recycling was just virtue signalling. Sue me Eric!
And then this statement further, “Assuming alarmists are right, in a future of climate driven typhoons, floods, droughts and maybe even Earthquakes, expanding hydro seems a risky proposition.” Talk about using alarmist hyperbole when it suits you. What a sellout.
It would be good to recycle Eric Worrall out of WUWT, with stupid statements like these.
So Eric should be banned for telling another truth you would rather not see.
How disappointing.
What truth MarkW…”Assuming alarmists are right”? I see you have jumped ship too.
You just have to wonder whether or not all of the slanted reporting regarding how well Dr Mann’s law suit is going has anything to do with the decision to file this suit? All of these characters are living in a fantasy land anyway so it may have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Over 60% of electricity consumed in Washington State is hydroelectric, and we have the lowest electricity rates in the nation. But our state has large rivers coursing through decent drops in elevation, which isn’t the case for all states.
Although a renewable resource, many environmentalists in Washington State do not look kindly on hydroelectric power because of interference with salmon runs.
I can understand saying hydro isn’t suitable everywhere. I don’t understand saying hydro should be avoided even where it is suitable.
Again I ask: How is hydro environmentally devastating? There are ways to aid salmon runs. Is the interference with salmon runs more devastating than wind farm chopping and solar farm cooking of flying creatures?
SR
+10
What about the current issue of wind farms having contracts that force dams to spill water in order to allow transmission capacity?
If you read Jacobson’s rebuttal, his paper only assumes the 1000+ GW from hydro are
intermittent (the figure is clear regarding the intermittency)
from peak water events coupled with installation of extra turbines
Is it so hard to posit that in 33 years someone can figure out how to upgrade the most applicable Hydro Plants to support his assumption?
Is it also so hard to posit that an additional 1300GW could be sourced from a more robust PV, solar thermal and off shore wind — over the next 33 years?
“Let’s start with the Auburn dam in California”
I like the North Fork of the American River. It’s a fun, moderately technical raft trip. I’d hate to see it disappear.
They should build nuke plants in the same area which will provide far more electricity than any dam can produce, will not be affected by the frequent droughts and it’s the greenest possible way to produce electricity.
Oh wait, this is California where reason and politics are mutually exclusive.
I thought the Auburn dam was all about water storage, with electricity a secondary consideration?
SR
Someone has to pay for it and the margin on making electricity from water is better than selling the water and you can still sell the water that comes out of the turbines. The environmental impact statements alone will cost billions …
Let’s start with the Golden Gate Dam in California. Make it 100 feet tall. San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento all gone. As a benefit, burnt areas of Wine Country also gone. Go Hydro!
Only problem is that the Pacific ocean needs to rise as well in order to bury SF and there’s just not enough fake ice to fake melt. If it spanned between the edge of the Santa Cruz mountains and the Marin highlands it might work and get Sacramento under water as well.
The issue is not the ocean rising for the West Coast. It’s the land subsiding into the ocean by 10 meters during a magnitude 9+ Megathrust quake.
Wouldn’t the greenest possible way to make electricity be the one that emits the most CO2 per unit of electricity? Green plants love CO2!
SR
burn the hardwood forests!! They are renewable after all.
Yes our ancestors did this until coal and oil came along. Much of the Great Lakes and New England were deforested to make firewood. That ended with coal. Thankfully. The forests of the Upper Mid-West and New England have recovered.
That’s the solution for the Germans excess electricity during wind storms, use it to fire up cement kilns. Make those windmills greener.
Maybe he is filing suit in superior court because he plans to overturn previous rulings that scientific disputes cannot be resolved by the courts. That would actually make sense. Of course, what are the judges like in DC Superior court? Does he get to depose the president and congress because of the venue?
Here’s a link I found to the full text of the lawsuit, … in mind-numbing detail, … for those who want to waste their time like moi, reading it. (^_^)
The link in the article above merely took me to a court records website, NOT to the specific case of interest in the article.
Oh yeah, … the link, stupid:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-UIZYwE6YMvdTdySFZMbkxkbDA/view
Well, really stupid now, … I trusted the first link, which was the data site, and the “here” and “here” links in the article DID, in fact, take me to this exact full-text document.
Confusing, when links are listed like that.
Just read the original Jacobson article and Clack et. al. response the funny thing is they didn’t even really hardly hit home on some simple back of the envelop calculations.
Jacobson has 7 wikipedia references in his original paper. (arghh… who would publish the efficiency of pumped storage based on a wiki article?!)
Jacobson predicts from in 37 years we will
build to a total: 335,000 land based windmills or almost 30x our present capacity.
build to a total: 155,000 offshore windmills ( almost an infinite increase in capacity)
build to a total: 75 million residential PV’s a more than 100x increase.
build to a total: 35,000 wave generating parks (do they even work?)
build to a total: 8,000 tidal generating parks (do they even work?)
build to a total: 9,000 underground thermal parks (wow, a lot of nice enviro studies there)
build to a total: 3,000 concentrated solar (think Ivanpah and all its natural gas consumption!)
Not one of these can be done in 37 years even with exaggerated building rates.
Thermal energy will be a goer down the track. Needs water of course.
Only in limited places
No it doesn’t
It simply needs a heat exchange medium — the two most commonly used are oils that can ‘survive’ 300C and molten salt.
For small or home based UTES or solar thermal — oil is the common choice — there are corrosion issues that preclude molten salt except for industrial scale applications.
Your numbers are WRONG
What is the MW nameplate capacities you are using for your windmill calcs?
There are 52,000 commercial land based windmills today — 335,000 is 6 times capacity NOT 30 TIMES — in 33 years easy
DOE predicts 3.8 million PV homes by 2020 — there are 1.3 million today — 75 million by 2050 is easily attainable. And average efficiency keeps increasing.
Offshore wind is just starting in the US — 30 years ago the only onshore wind was 2 farms in Cali with kilowatt class turbines.
The new Offshore turbines are 9 and 10 MW giants.
Offshore world wind installation doubles every 3 years (its at 15GW) so in 33 years
thermal parks and enviro studies — can you say fracking?
All you naysayers seem to forget that technological change is exponential — not linear.
Not always. Except maybe in the PRoLL land.
I would challenge you to over your claim that technological change is exponential. Much of the technology is going to be resource limited, so whilst you can achieve impressive rates of growth in the early stages, shortages of raw materials, manpower and suitable sites are going to limit what can in reality be achieved.
@Peter
Go look at the data for installed capacity for solar and wind for the last 10-15 years
It’s not hard to find
It’s not linear — it is exponential.
Exponentials, over time, aren’t, Karl.
Assuming the technologies break your way, Karl.
@ur momisugly Dave Fair
Moore’s law has been exponential over 50 years
Wind and solar installed capacity have been exponentially growing for almost 2 decades.
The reason is that population and manufacturing capability is growing exponentially.
Here is a quick google search that shows hybrid and electric cars are both growing exponentially
https://www.google.com/search?q=hybrid+vehicle+sales+exponential&oq=hybrid+vehicle+sales+exponential&aqs=chrome..69i57.8639j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
So has solar pv installs in the US
Demonstrating again how badly we need tort reform in this country. We should adopt “loser pays” policies for lawsuits to stop this stupidity and unburden our overtaxed judicial system of frivolous lawsuits.
Demonstrating again how badly we need tort reform in this country. We should adopt “loser pays” policies for lawsuits to stop this stupidity and unburden our overtaxed judicial system of frivolous lawsuits.
I disagree with Anthony now it gets interesting the law is a double edged weapon. Can you imagine what is going to happen if that case actually wins. Every climate scientist will be in court continually for rejecting any paper that disagrees with CAGW under a claim they have defamed the author.
The action will basically favour any position that isn’t the “Accepted view” because you wouldn’t need to sue if yours was the accepted view.
Oh sometimes the law of unintended consequences is great.
This paper was not about AGW.
Jacobson’s paper was peer reviewed and published.
The issue is that PNAS published Clack — and has basically ignored Jacobson’s responses to Clack’s criticism.
Also (according to Jacobson) Clack apparently presents some criticism based on assuming a context other than how Jacobson wrote it or clarified in his responses to Clack’s paper.
“The issue is that PNAS published Clack — and has basically ignored Jacobson’s responses to Clack’s criticism.”
PNAS also played favorites several years back in refusing to publish a Linden paper that he, as a member of the NAS, had a right to have printed unconditionally.
Some commenters here have not bothered to even glance at the Complaint. It was not filed in California and is not going to go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case was filed in the Superior a Court of the District of Columbia (Washington DC for those of you from Rio Linda). This only makes sense if you think of D.C. as a microstate. It is not really a federal court in the traditional sense. My guess is the brought the action in DC because NAS is based there and the lively happened there, and they expect to get dummies on the jury.
Maybe they can get Combs-Green to come back, then this case could be joined with Mr. M. Mann’s.
When will some morons sue God almighty for creating this flawed world?
Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers sued God in 2008 for a permanent injunction against His harmful activities. The suit was dismissed because God could not be properly notified.
Then you think that such m0r0n get elected and imbued with power to make law… and you wonder what you could possibly tell to defend democracy next time.
Nice to learn that some US courts have kept some sense of humour.
California Penal Code Section 158: “Common barratry is the practice of exciting groundless judicial proceedings, and is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months and by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000).”
California Penal Code Section 159: “No person can be convicted of common barratry except upon proof that he has excited suits or proceedings at law in at least three instances, and with a corrupt or malicious intent to vex and annoy.”
It’s been abolished as an offence in England since 1967 but used to be punishable by transportation for seven years.
Dante consigned them to Malebolge the eighth circle of hell. Inferno Canto XXIII (the Eighth Circle, Fifth Pouch: the Barrators; Sixth Pouch: the Hypocrites).
Re: “…punishable by transportation for seven years.”
I suppose that’s a legal term of some sort, but it reminded me of this:
If this suit is successful we are taking the next step in transforming our Judicial system from one that interprets law into a set of Imams, dispensing ‘justice’ (as they see it and regardless of what the actual law says) and deciding the way the world should be interpreted, i.e, deciding what is factual and what is not as well as what we are to believe about those ‘facts’.
Not really,
If criticism is fallacious, and paints a false picture regarding the professionalism — it is a tort.
If you said I sourced a bad product — and it was found to be false, because you misinterpreted what you thought you read about my work — that is an actionable tort.
And if Phil Jones, Trenbreth, Mann et, all conspired to manufacture a “bad product”, AKA the “Cause”, you would be all in favor suing them, Right?
Be honest. Can you? Are you capable of that?
“If criticism is fallacious, and paints a false picture regarding the professionalism — it is a tort.”
The political corruption of Climate Science is well known and well documented.
Opinion is not actionable, Karl.
@ur momisugly Reg and Dave Fair
1. I think AGW is rubbish — I use modeling and simulation extensively in my field — the models are rubbish and the dependencies for much of the climate phenomenology are still largely unknown, or known very poorly.
2. The lawsuit is an issue regarding failure to follow the established process.
If opinion is stated as fact (which Clack is doing) — then it is actionable.
I think Mann et al who conspired to basically falsify the record to match their agenda should be fined and jailed.
For a long time academics have falsely assumed that they were immune from the law – that for example, if they wrongly advise governments that the world is warming – that governments as a result spend $billions on “remedies” and then when we find out what academics were saying was a total load of bullshit – that the academics & their Universities couldn’t be sued.
But it needed a precedent … it needed someone to show that academics are not above the law. That it was possible to sue them in court … that there is nothing different between fraud in academia and fraud outside … in short that there is isonomia – equality before the law for both academia and lay people.
But I never thought it would be a climate alarmist who’d lay the ground work for all the alarmists and their Universities to get sued for every penny when the scam falls apart and their lies and deceit are shown for what it is.
“But it needed a precedent … it needed someone to show that academics are not above the law.”
It’s already happened in Italy, where the scientists who pooh-poohed the likelihood of an earthquake were successfully prosecuted after it occurred.
Good luck getting published in a peer reviewed journal ever again.
“You want me to review the work of a guy who sues people who don’t give him good reviews?
Pass.”
This is a frivolous and vexatious lawsuit, and will ultimately be ruled as such. Obviously, someone with deep pockets is back stopping this nonsense. It may also send a further shudder down the spine of anyone writing a bad review of anything bad about the Alarmist position, which is clearly the message that is being sent. But the hate on for hydro here by the editorial board is even more shocking, pardon the pun. Sounds like a case of NIMBYism here regarding hydro, which is just as bad as the advocates of solar and wind saying that somehow these low density renewables can power the world. At least large hydro is a dispatchable base load energy product.
There isn’t many good sites left for new large scale hydro in the lower 48 USA, and there is certainly not the water available to just install more turbines at existing facilities so Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson should really get his facts straight before he claims there is another order of magnitude for large hydro to develop further capacity. Hydro now makes up a fairly small overall portion of the electricity production, but it is 100x worth what any wind or solar site produces, and is a lot less cost to produce electricity, which asset will survive 10x as long as any wind mill or solar panel. Hoover Dam is now 75+ years old and Grand Coulee is almost as old, and will be around for hundreds of years to come. The concrete hasn’t even yet reached maximum strength and certainly isn’t going anywhere soon.
It was large scale hydro and irrigation in the Pacific North West that helped win WW2, with ample electricity supply to implement the Manhattan Project, and supply Boeing with enough energy to build enough aircraft to defeat the enemy. It was large scale hydro and irrigation on the Colorado River that allowed a multi trillion dollar economy in multiple states over the last 75 years, transforming America into the super power it is, forever. It was large scale hydro generation at Niagara Falls, starting in 1882, and thousands of other examples of clean energy hydro is what helped propel America to the super power it has become. Dissing hydro now as environmentally harmful and not stating any of the benefits, is disingenuous at best, and just flat out propaganda at worst, no better than the CAGW drivel we hear about every day. This was an all round Ugly article.
Earthling2
+100
Precisely, we would be speaking German without hydro. The most efficient of all the other so-called renewables.
In our liberal “green” state of Oregon, Hydro is NOT considered a renewable energy source in their mandate to achieve 25% renewable energy!!! I kid you not.
Or, as a Vietnamese B-girl once said to me, nebber happen, GI.
OT but it looks like Naomi Oreskes’ brother is in deep sheet.
“NPR’s Head Of News Resigns Following Harassment Allegations”
https://www.earnthenecklace.com/michael-oreskes-wiki-wife-sexual-harassment-everything-you-need-to-know/
No wonder these women allege harassment against him . He’s as ugly and his sister. They remind me of the “Orcses” as Gollum/Smeagol calls them in Lord of he Rings.
Seems to me that the issue is the refusal of the authors to correct their criticisms since the criticisms were based on their own incorrect assumptions.
Also its the failure of the NAS to forward the Emails to the authors of the critiquing paper outlining Jacobsons explanations as to what he did andd why the Clark group was incorrect in their rebuttal of his original paper.
Its a proceedural issue on the part f the NAS as defendent and a fact ignoring issue on the part of the Clack group.
Its not about the quality of the science per se but about the process and the ignoring of information in a publication that criticised the information in the original paper. As to the validity of said info that is not an issue in this lawsuit.
Even if the info is later shown to be faulse, the ignoring of the info by Clack et al aided and abetted by the NAS in so doing in the rebuttal is what is at issue
Thanks for providing some light!
Imitation is the best form of flatery. Hitler would be so proud that liberals are following his brand of free speech.
Uber leftest universities and liberal accademics Jacobson, Mann, etc. want accademic freedom and free speech only when it is they doing the editing and criticizing. Accademic Freedom and Free Speech for them, Censorship and legal action for everyone else.
Peer review is the best proof of scientific credibiity untill it is not!
Are they scientists or drama queens?
Drama “Persons”.
(Mustn’t upset the PC crowd!)
Odd. Hydro is OK when they count the total power produced by “renewable” sources but is not OK when it comes building new dams.
(Maybe someone close to Al Gore can get him to start in a new company? “Gore’s Damned Power Inc.”?
Then I’m sure it would be OK.)
Progressives always use the courts to get their agenda through. It’s their way of circumventing the other branches of government, as well as the will of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts with partisan hacks… which has basically already been done.
Don’t worry, his case will balloon in scope as support for it erodes until it clogs up and can no longer drive itself.