Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I see that Joe Biden is about to propose a new CO2 goal. This goal would be to get down to half of the 2005 CO2 emissions by 2030. So I thought I’d see what that would entail.
In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 1,900 MT of CO2 per year. (Note that this doesn’t mean reduce them by 1,900 MT every year. We need to reduce them by a total of 1900 MT/year.)
Now, the amount of CO2 emitted per petawatt hour (PWh, or 10^15 watthours) of US fossil energy consumption has been dropping slowly since about 2009. Currently, we emit about 213 MT of CO2 per PWh of fossil fuel used for energy. The average over the next nine years, if the trend continues, will be about 208 MT of CO2 per PWh.
This means we need to replace about 1,900 MT CO2 / 208 MT CO2 per PWh ≈ 9 PWh of fossil energy by 2030.
The only emissions-free source currently available to replace that with is nuclear power. We can add wind/solar to the mix if we want, but as Texas and Germany have recently shown, we still have to have a full backup for those times when the wind dies and the sun sets. Nuclear isn’t ideal for that, but the modern modular units promise greater flexibility in that regard.
Now we need to calculate the nuclear generation capacity we need. To do that, we divide the 9 PWh/year of power we need to supply by the number of hours per year, 8,760. This gives us about 1,030 GW (gigawatts, 10^9 watts) of new nuclear generation capacity needed.
But there’s a hitch. That’s average generation capacity … but we need enough generation capacity for the peak times, not just the average times. I can’t do better than to quote a commenter from a previous post:
I think you missed something, Willis
That 22 TW is average power. But generating plants, transmission facilities, transformers, circuit interrupters, and all that stuff, must be sized for the PEAK demand.
Most distribution systems in the US have a peak to average (PtA) ratio of around 1.6 to 1.7. Except for the New England ISO which is running around 1.8. Some systems in Australia have an annual PtA ratio of around 2.3. I expect Arizona would run that high taken in isolation, which, of course, it never is.
Take 1.8 as an estimated overall PtA ratio, you need to meet a peak demand of 22 * 1.7 terawatts or 37.4 TW.
But no power system can survive with generation equal to demand. So add 15% for reserves for when parts of the system are down because of maintenance, failures, or the like. The result is, you need peak generation of 43 TW. So roughly double all of your numbers as to what needs to be built.
As a result, rather than 1,030 GW of new nuclear generating capacity, we need twice that, or 2,060 GW of new capacity.
Next, from today until January 1st, 2030, when Biden’s plan calls for our emissions to be down to 3,000 MT of CO2 per year, there are about 454 weeks.
And that means we need to find sites, do the feasibility studies, get the licenses and the permits, excavate, manufacture, install, test, and commission two 2.25 gigawatt nuclear power plants EVERY WEEK UNTIL 2030, STARTING THIS WEEK.
To give you an idea of how absolutely ridiculous the idea is of adding two nuclear power plants per week to the grid, the typical time from feasibility study to connection to the grid for nuclear plants is on the order of ten or eleven years. Here’s an overview of the timeline.
Figure 1. Typical nuclear plant timeline, from initial study to final startup. SOURCE.
Finally, switching from direct use of fossil fuels to using electricity will be hugely expensive. Nuclear plants typically cost on the order of seven billion dollars per gigawatt … and since we need 2,060 gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity, that’s about $14 trillion dollars with a T …
How big is a trillion dollars? If your family had started a business when Jesus was born, and it made a million dollars a day from then until now … you still wouldn’t have made a trillion dollars. A million bucks a day for 2,000 years … less than a trillion.
But wait, as they say on TV, there’s more to this wonderful deal. Switching from direct burning of fossil fuels to using electricity would mean we’d have to upgrade our entire electrical transmission network, including substations, switches, transmission lines, transformers, and wiring both to and within each house. Then every house like mine would need new electrical stoves, water heaters, and space heaters … can I say how much I dislike cooking on an electrical stove? And who will pay for my new stove?
Conclusion? This is just another liberal ecoloonical brilliant idea. This plan is just like your kid putting on a cape, insisting he can soar through the air like Superman, and jumping off the roof …
… it’s never gonna fly, and someone’s gonna get hurt bad …
Let me close by pointing out an underlying reality regarding all of this. Despite my asking over and over in a host of forums, to date, nobody has been able to tell me just what this supposed “CLIMATE EMERGENCY” actually is and where I might find evidence that it exists.
Deaths from climate-related phenomena are at an all-time low. If you think deaths from climate catastrophes are an emergency, please point in the graph below to the start of the “emergency”.
Storminess has not gone up, and there’s been no increase in hurricane strength or frequency … no “emergency” there.
Even the IPCC says there’s only one chance in five (“low confidence”) that global droughts are increasing. Nor have the “wet areas been getting wetter and the dry areas getting drier”. No flood or drought emergency.
Global weather disaster losses as a percentage of assets at risk (global GDP) are decreasing, not increasing.
Tide gauges show no increase in the rate of sea-level rise, and the claimed acceleration in satellite-measured sea level is merely an artifact of changing satellites.
Yields of all major food crops continue to rise, and humans are better fed, clothed, and housed against the vagaries of weather than at any time in the past.
Land temperatures have already risen more than the dreaded 2°C, with no cataclysmic consequences … so no historical “climate emergency” despite temperature increases.
There has been no global increase in the number of wildfires … here’s the NASA satellite data.
Finally, an “emergency” is defined as “a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.” Alarmists have been warning us over and over about this for 50 years, none of their doomcasts have come true, and no significant action has been taken … so by definition, it can’t be an emergency.
So before we spend trillions of dollars on an unachievable plan to totally redo the entire US energy supply, how about we wait until someone can actually let us in on the big secret—just where is this mysterious “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!”, and when did it start?
A final note: temperature changes with altitude, at a rate of about 1°C per 100 metres (5.5°F per 1000 feet). Even if we could magically cut our emissions to zero tomorrow, and IF (big if) the “CO2 roolz temperature” theory is correct, cutting US emissions to zero would cool the earth in 2050 by about as much cooler as you’d get if you climbed up three flights of stairs … see my post “Going To Zero” for the details.
So what is being proposed by our “President” is a meaningless gesture which is impossible to accomplish, and even if it could be accomplished would do nothing to solve an imaginary “emergency” …
… how the mighty have fallen. We used to fight and win real wars against actual enemies. Now we can’t even win fake wars against imaginary enemies.
Here on our lovely hillside in the forest, I spent the day putting new handles on a shovel, a pitchfork, and a hoe. I was successful in two out of the three. Frustrated, I took my chainsaw and continued the endless task of reducing the fuel load in the forest around our house. There, I was quite successful in cutting and hauling brush and tree trunks, and I also returned with the requisite number fingers and toes … life is good.
My very best wishes to all,
w.
USUAL REQUEST: When you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing. I can defend my own words. I can’t defend your interpretation of my words.
DATA SOURCES: US energy consumption is from the US Energy Information Agency, under “Energy Overview : Primary Energy Consumption By Source.
CO2 emissions are also from the US Energy Information Agency, under “Summary : U.S. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption.
‘but as Texas and Germany have recently shown’
what? what have they shown? fossil fuel failed in Texas and Germany has had no fail.
https://techstartups.com/2021/02/11/germanys-green-energy-failure-germany-turns-back-coal-natural-gas-millions-solar-panels-blanketed-snow-ice/#:~:text=Germany%20faces%20a%20sober%20reality,30%2C000%20wind%20turbines%20to%20idleness.&text=You%20may%20call%20it%20%E2%80%9Ccoal,desperate%20for%20coal%2Dfired%20power.
The usual clueless, innumerate, knee-jerk (emphasis on “JERK“) nonsense from the troll known as “griff.”
I live in Texas, and it was the malign effect of subsidized wind displacing conventional power that caused the rolling blackouts. Green gaslighting that the only problem with wind was a failure to winterize is just that, gaslighting. We had several days of freezing rain, and based on reading Google posts from the wind turbine manufacturers, de-icing would not cope with that situation. Oh, there were other failures, like the Obama EPA requiring electric drive on gas pipelines rather than gas turbines.
Iowa, which lies to the north of Texas, and gets over 40% of their power from wind, and they experienced no issues with it like Texas did during this cold snap.
You did notice I mentioned “freezing rain”?
Iowa gets freezing rain too
So does Antarctica
Your point is ????
The point Fred is that Iowa, upstate New York, Sweden, and other places that use wind turbines didn’t take the cheapo route that Texas did.
You mean they looked after the RELIABLE BACK-UP SUPPLIERS.. Ok !
Roger,
Do you drive a tank to keep your family safe on the roads, or did you take the cheapo route of buying a regular car?
Everything is a cost benefit analysis, except solar and wind generation. BUT, in Texas, the builders of Wind bird killers didn’t spend huge amounts for a one in at most 1000 occurrence from the ice storm.
The also didn’t put up huge screens to protect birds and bats and insects from their bird choppers. Did they do that in Iowa? If not, why not.
Roger, your ability to identify the least important issue in a post and pretend that it is actually important is astounding …
w.
What is astounding is your dismissal of the details.
Just exactly what important “details” are you accusing me of dismissing? This discussion is about the inability to meet 10% Joe’s fantasy goals, but instead you want to divert people to focus on how much wind-powered electricity Iowa has.
Pass
w.
The fact you have no clue what happened in Texas.
Roger,
I have about 40 years of energy systems analysis experience.
I assure you, Willis is right on the mark regarding using nuclear as the only rational approach, plus he shows the sheer impossibility of that approach within 9.5 years.
Even China, Russia and Korea working together to make that happen in the US, by special invitation, would be impossible.
Elections have consequences.
The extremist idiot ideas of the Obama years, successfully held at bay by Trump, are again in vogue.
You are correct that elections have consequences.
.
.
However your precious nuclear solution failed in the Texas freeze: https://merrileebeazley.org/nuclear-reactor-went-offline-because-texas-failed-to-winterize-power-plant/
..
Much the same way that the engineers placed the backup diesel generators at Fukishima too low relative to sea level.
Well, when everyone is told it’s getting hotter and hotter, why would they prepare their nuke facilities for extreme cold?
Rog relies of IRRELEVANCIES. !!
rog-git grasping at barbed wire straws.. so funny
….desperation much !!
WHEN does Iowa get 40% of their power from wind? In the dead of winter during freezing rain and snow? Or during the summer when the wind blows?
On average, in the summertime, Iowa wind power drops to about 1/3 of consumption, and at times in the 1/5 range, the difference being made up largely by coal and gas. This is from annual data, I don’t have fine structure data but would not be surprised if wind drops into single digits or even nil at times but it seems that would likely be in the summertime.
“On average, in the summertime, Iowa wind power drops to about 1/3 of consumption, and at times in the 1/5 range, the difference being made up largely by coal and gas.”
Right. Here you go, DHR:
https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/historyclimate/climatemodelled/iowa_united-states-of-america_4328676
Tim has a point about freezing rain on the blades. But Iowa turbines have their innards winterized, and those in Texas should be refitted as well. If wind was expected to maintain deliverability in the February disaster, then the planners lived out of state – DOH! Wind whining is actually working against real world solutions.
Bigger pic, Texas needs to figure out the lowest cost way to gird for the next low temp freezing rain event, and then to raise rates to pay for it. This will mostly involve refitting gas delivery systems from tubing tail to electric plant delivery. Gas storage will probably need to be modernized, freeze hardened, and expanded. And of course central Texas needs to snap out of it and interlink.
These changes need to be mandated, fast tracked, and paid for by those new rates, right away. Folks could shop for a lower base rate as before, but the weather disaster $ adder would go on every electric bill. Might require a bond issue, but times up….
You hit the nail on its head, “and those in Texas should be refitted as well. ”
.
.
Texas took the cheapo route, and will be paying for it long term with the increased insurance rates resulting from the payout for all the frozen water pipe damage.
Yes, Texas SHOULD concentrate on RELIABILITY,
rather than using so much UNRELIABILITY.
You hit each other on the head. The cheap route is the result of alarmism scam
After they put up the screens around the bird choppers to protect the birds, right Roger?
Step one, use natural gas to power their natural gas pumps, not electricity are required by Obama’s EPA, meaning, retrofit to what is was before. Problem of natural gas delivery solved.
“Step one, use natural gas to power their natural gas pumps, not electricity”
What is a “natural gas pump”? If you are referring to beam mounted pumping units, and low speed prime movers, then, no. They are Trumpian YUGE polluters. If you are referring to either compressor stations or beam mounted pumping units with modern high speed prime movers, then Obama didn’t care.
I doubt that you are referring to beam mounted gas compressors because you don’t know what they are.
“Problem of natural gas delivery solved.+”
Hardly. Here is a partial list of possible pinch points in the delivery of natural gas to electric power plants, from beginning to end:
Additionally, an important part of the solution is the use of remote data gathering, and enough manpower to respond to events. Texas gassers, rationally for the most part in this laissez faire admin environment, skimp on this.
But after all of that, it’s STILL the least cost part of the path that Texas must follow to harden up it’s electricity delivery system for subfreezing ice storms.
Tim,
IOWA produces about 40% of its total annual production from wind.
However, IOWA is connected to the nearby ILLINOIS grid, which is much larger than the IOWA grid, and which has a large capacity of quick-reacting CCGT plants to counteract any variations of IOWA wind production.
Without these ILLINOIS CCGT plants, IOWA wind and solar could not even exist on the grid. No grid operator would allow them to feed the grid.
This counteracting is less efficient (more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh), and the plant has more wear and tear, and there is less production from each CCGT plant, i.e., the CCGT plants are less-fully utilized. Owners may be compensated for their losses, or not.
In a similar manner, Denmark produces about 45% of its total annual production from wind.
Denmark has large capacity connections to the NORWEGIAN grid, which gets 98% from hydro.
Norway merely varies the water flow through the turbines to counteract the variations of Danish wind electricity.
“This counteracting is less efficient (more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh), and the plant has more wear and tear, and there is less production from each CCGT plant, i.e., the CCGT plants are less-fully utilized”
How so? By definition, CCGT plants only turn on in conditions of sagging power factors. I can see them operating MORE, but not less efficiently.
Please be advised, I’m open to being schooled here. I’m not commenting on your truthiness….
You are thinking of peaking plants that turn on and off rapidly, but they are not very efficient as they don’t have the combined cycle CC part where the heat off the gas turbine is used to make steam to fire up steam turbine, that is a much slower.
If its predominately CCGT in Illinois that has to respond to wind variability, then throttling them back is very inefficient and causes operation issues.
As stated.
“f its predominately CCGT in Illinois that has to respond to wind variability, then throttling them back is very inefficient and causes operation issues.”
Since they have stoichiometric electronic fuel controls that don’t “throttle”, I’m skeptical. Do you have any documentation of your claim?
I schooled myself on CCGT plants and you both seem right on point on their part load efficiencies. But do you have documentation of how often they are run at that part load? Seems like the ramp up/down times for such large changes in loads would be (1) predictable, and (2) mostly accommodated by a combination of peaker plant and combined plant turn on/offs.
Bigger pic, Iowa rates are slightly higher than their bordering states, but given the CAPEX they’ve spent to windify, that won’t last. Even with any interstate “inefficiencies”. They are also skipping out on the hydrocarbon plant asset retirement costs that will end up communized on the residents of those bordering states – mine included. OTOH, the wind sites will have equipment swapped over time (with recycle of recyclable components and burial of the silica in the blades), but will not ever require mega buck oilfield restorations.
Pat,
Peaking plants do not turn off/on, rapidly. They can be diesel generators or open cycle gas turbines.
They are started a few hours effort the peak demand and operate a few hours after the peak demand, a total of about 3 to 4 hours per day. They “shave the peak”.
“Peaking plants do not turn off/on, rapidly.”
10 minutes to 100%.
https://www.power-eng.com/coal/improving-the-flexibility-and-efficiency-of-gas-turbine-based-distributed-power-plants/#gref
Even CCGT plants take ~100 minutes, unless they are cold. OTOH, state wide supply and demand trends can be forecast in plenty of time to respond to those delays.
This is why I was so interested in you documenting your claim about Iowa.
AGAIN:
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
Christopher Hitchens
The open cycle units CAN be quick started.
I said they are OPERATED about 2 hours before the peak and two hours after the peak, about 3 to 4 hours per day, to “shave the peak”.
“The open cycle units CAN be quick started.”
No, you said that “Peaking plants do not turn off/on, rapidly.”
In fact, they do. I can’t disagree with your claim about the TIMING of these turn on/off’s, but that is how they are managed.
My interest continues to remain with documentation of actual costs/operational problems with Iowa wind electrical generation. While I’m sure there are some, so far, none have been documented here to back up this claim.
“This counteracting is less efficient (more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh), and the plant has more wear and tear, and there is less production from each CCGT plant, i.e., the CCGT plants are less-fully utilized. Owners may be compensated for their losses, or not.”
This can certainly occur. But in Iowas and surrounding states, what with the ramp up times for both peaker and CCGT plants being much faster than the changes in demand (that can be mostly accurately forecast), with the number of them that can be on/off’d with no part loading, and with modern software and other tools, I would think that this is mostly a managed non problem.
I could be wrong, but since you are the one inferring that this IS a problem, would you please so document? I’m aksin’ because, above ground and even in most of the blogosphere, you make a claim, you should have the backup to document it.
In Ireland, a few years ago, when Ireland still was an “island grid”, wind was about 17%, on an annual basis.
CCGT plants counteracting that level of wind operated at 42.3% efficiency.
However, during periods of very little wind, for several days, these same plants operated at 50% efficiency
With even more wind, CCGT plant efficiency would be less than 42.3%
Those numbers are based on actual operating data.
“Those numbers are based on actual operating data.”
Since you referred to it, then you must have access to it. I’d love to see it….
Brussels provided funds to Ireland to build strong connections with the UK and French grids, which are much larger than the Irish grid.
As a result, the variations of Irish wind are sent to these grids, so the Irish CCGT plants do not need to deal with them as much as before.
The Irish inefficiencies were spread out over a much larger grid area, where they “disappear” among the noise of the system.
What was a big problem for Ireland, became a “managed non-problem” for the larger area.
I had to do some digging in my files.
FUEL AND CO2 REDUCTIONS DUE TO WIND ENERGY LESS THAN CLAIMED
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
Ireland’s Power System: Eirgrid, the operator of the grid, publishes ¼-hour data regarding CO2 emissions, wind electricity production, fuel consumption and total electricity generation. Drs. Udo and Wheatley made several analyses, based on operating data of the Irish grid in 2012 and earlier, that show the effectiveness of CO2 emission reduction is decreasing with increasing annual wind electricity percentages on the grid.
Wheatley Study of the Irish Power System
http://docs.wind-watch.org/Wheatley-Ireland-CO2.pdf
According to Wheatley, the CO2 reduction efficacy of wind energy = (CO2 intensity, metric ton/MWh, with wind)/(CO2 intensity with no wind) = (0.279, @ 17% wind)/(0.530, @ no wind) = 0.526, based on ¼-hour, operating data of each generator connected to the Irish grid, as collected by SEMO.
Wind proponents claim: If 17% wind, the CO2 reduction is 17%, i.e., efficacy is 100%, or at most slightly less than 100%.
However, real-time gas turbine plant operating data, and grid operating data, showed:
If 17% wind, the CO2 reduction is 0.526 x 17% = 8.94%, i.e., a little better than 50%
Ireland had an island grid with a minor connection with the UK grid until October 2012. All the wind energy disturbances have to be dealt with in Ireland. As a result, Ireland provides an ideal case for demonstrating the lack of CO2 reduction due to wind energy.
Providing the Irish grid with additional connections to the much larger UK and French grids (which have much lower percent wind on their grids) merely makes Irish wind energy variations disappear in the noise of the data.
– What applied to the Irish grid would apply to the New England grid as well; it also has minor connections to nearby grids.
– Europe is stuck with mostly gas turbine balancing, as it does not have nearly enough hydro plant capacity with storage.
http://www.theenergycollective.com/willem-post/2389832/german-renewable-energy-generation
Natural Gas and CO2 Reductions Less Than Claimed, per Wheatley’s Study
No Wind; Turbine efficiency = 50%; Production = 100 kWh
Required gas = 100 x 3413/0.5 = 682,600 Btu
Emitted CO2 = 682600 x 117/1000000 = 79.864 lb.
If 17% wind, wind proponents claim:
Required gas = (100 – 17) x 3413/0.50 = 566,558 Btu
Emitted CO2 = 566558 x 117/1000000 = 66.287 lb
CO2 reduction = 79.864 – 66.287 = 13.577 lb
If 17% wind, real-time grid operating data shows:
CO2 reduction = 13.577 x 0.526 (see Wheatley URL) = 7.142 lb
Remaining CO2 = 79.864 – 7.142 = 72.722 lb CO2.
Required gas = 72.722/(117/1000000) = 621560 Btu
Turbine efficiency = (100 – 17) x 3413/621560 = 0.4558, if producing 83 kWh with 621,560Btu of gas,
Turbine efficiency reduction = 100 x (1 – 0.4558/0.50) = 8.85%.
NOTE: The above calculations are for generating 100 kWh, for demonstration purposes.
Ireland’s turbines produce much more than 100 kWh in a year, but whatever they produce would be at a reduced efficiency. See next section.
This means the wind turbines have to operate less efficiently to deal with the variable wind energy.
That leads to a lesser gas and CO2 reductions than claimed by wind proponents.
“Wind proponents claim: If 17% wind, the CO2 reduction is 17%, i.e., efficacy is 100%, or at most slightly less than 100%.”
There is always low wind power that must be generated. So what wind proponent makes that claim? Not rhetorical. Which ONE?
IA has installed cold WX packages, as in Canada. However, their turbines shut down when it gets too cold.
But, also, IA is in a different climatic regime from TX.
Winterizing TX’ turbines will add even more expense onto its rate payers.
Don’t worry, the Texans will be paying for their stupidity with increased insurance costs as the Insurance companies will have to recoup their losses from all the damage from bursting water pipes.
They have already paid for their STUPIDITY of putting in so much UNRELIABLE energy supply and not looking after the 100% RELIABLE BACK-UP needed.
The 30,000 MW of wind capacity failed to only ~500 during the key period. All other went from ~55,000 to ~50,000 mw. The peak was at night so solar was 0. You do the math. (Source ERCOT zip files)
As was stated the weather went from high humidity moderate temperatures to freezing rain and teens. Your weather doesn’t do that because you’re not near the Gulf. Plus cold is typical up there and so your fossil plants have fewer temperature problems. Wind turbines in Norway ice up if the weather is similar. And on occasion they ice up in Iowa it’s the combination and change that caused it.
Perhaps the bigger issue is the feds blocking bringing coal plants up to back up wind.
And your 40% conflates kWh produced over time and instantaneous kW.
Having run plants in Texas another issue is winterization. All plants are winterized but the failure of a few inches of tracing or insulation that was fine at 25F but fails at 20F is very difficult to find in the literal miles of 3/4″ impulse lines. That’s all it takes to shutdown a plant. If you know how to find these spots when the temperature only goes that low once every 5-10 years patent it you’ll be rich.
Otherwise quit comparing apples and zebras.
“ conflates kWh produced over time and instantaneous kW.”…yes, that is correct, and THAT is the reason Willis’s analysis is flawed.
Roger Taguchi April 21, 2021 6:17 pm
Roger, I ask people in every post I write to QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING!!! I do that to keep unpleasant people like you from waving your hands and making unfalsifiable accusations. But sadly, unpleasant people like you tend to ignore my reasonable request …
So how about you QUOTE WHAT I SAID THAT YOU THINK IS WRONG, and tell us all just why you think it is wrong.
AFAIK, I made clear the distinction and properly handled watts and watt-hours, and did not conflate them. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
So bring it on, and we can discuss it.
w.
Gee, Willis, it has been hours and no response. I am so surprised.
People have lots of calls on their hours. Give it time …
w.
There were rolling blackouts in western and north-central Iowa at the time. Perhaps you don’t live there or didn’t watch the news?
Iowa’s wind turbines have de-icing systems.
No wind in Texas anyway..
They should have looked after the RELIABILITY of their supply system, ie their GAS FIRED supply
Installing so much UNRELIABILITY was going to come back to bite them sooner or later.
Texas in toto seems to have a larger ego than is justified!
Roger,
When Iowa’s wind drops to zero, what fills the void? Or do you just turn off 40% of the power in the state?
They have WINTERIZED backup unlike the cheapo Texans. They are interconnected across state lines and are subject to Federal regulations requiring said winterization. In other words the Iowans are not stupid like Texans.
Texas certainly WASTED enormous amounts of money creating UNRELIABILITY in their supply system by installing so much erratic and unreliability wind and solar.
Far better to concentrate of supplies you know can be reliable, GAS, COAL, NUCLEAR.
Very STUPID of them in that regard… we can all agree on that.
Rog-tag avoids the actual question.
Let’s ask it another way.
What does Iowa RELY ON to supply electricity at all times.
You didn’t answer the question. What fills the void?
I totally agree that the Texas government was stupid beyond belief. They built all them windmills. Double so for Iowa. You should be ashamed of promoting bird and bat killing windmills.Seriously.
You can’t bring yourself to say it.
They used GAS backup.
Or was it COAL?
Roger,
What happens when the winds stop blowing for a few hours or a day over a large area, which frequently happens, even in the windiest areas?
All the traditional sources would have to make up the shortfall
The more wind turbines, the bigger the shortfall, but in all cases, the traditional plants must make up the shortfall, no matter how big.
How much of your energy was supplied by renewables during the cold snap! Who cares if your system didn’t break down. If you only had baseload energy it wouldn’t have broken down either. And with the money you saved on not putting in renewables you could maybe build or improve a few schools or hospitals. The problems isn’t the renewables or the the freezing cold but the implementation of policies based on a totally unproven ( and I would argue debunked) climate emergency hypothesis. Just cause your lights haven’t gone out doesn’t make your policy any good and I can assure you that whatever actions you take you cannot fix a problem that doesn’t exist. But you will save lots of money and no issues of reliability.
I have reliable renewable heat……provided to me with a chainsaw and stove.
Chain saw run of petrol?
You are making a fool of yourself , yet again
And the REAL POLLUTION you will be causing by burning wood..
…. you don’t care about that, do you.
Me too, chainsaw, tractor and truck to cut and haul wood.
I pay big oil to make my lifestyle possible.
Do you know how much pollution those 2 stroke engines put out? Bad Roger.
So long as Rog “feeeeeels” good, and thinks he is doing his bit.. that’s all that matters.
Since Roger is requiring everybody else to “do better” is some fashion it is imperative that he provide a GOOD example. Chain saws and wood chunks are not particularly “environmental improvements”.
But it does get him back to what the cave man used for heat. So he is a true leftist, back to the stone age for society.
I wonder if he has any idea how many trees it would take to heat all of Dallas or Austin?
And THAT will work for Dallas…
The spokesman for the relevant energy company (Geoff Greenwood of MidAmerican Energy) said that that even the turbines in Iowa, designed to withstand down to -20, would not have worked in the conditions in Texas as Iowa only had to deal with snow and cold, not icing.
Tony Vaughn, senior operations manager for Alliant Energy, said that they would shut down the turbines if an ice storm was predicted. They also shut down when the temperatures drop below -22.
They still had rolling blackouts.
The fact that wind turbines shut down in that Texas disaster weather should not have been a surprise. The failure was not wind power, as it will NEVER work well in single digit freezing slush. Not in Iowa, not in Texas.
If you want wind to compete economically, without the tiny helps they now get, line forms behind me. But make sure that concurrently, the hydrocarbon extractor’s corporate welfares get pulled at the same time. Even with no carbon tax, if they just had to payout their fair share of the environmental, safety, health, and asset retirement costs they’ve shirked for over a century, they would be flaming out fast – as the shalers are already doing.
The February Texas failure was from not hardening the energy sources that COULD have easily averted this disaster, no matter how much wind power they use 99.9% of the time. Those are the gas to electric infrastructure, and the gas storage systems. All fatally exacerbated by the lack of interconnection, and (incredibly) the lack of prioritization of power to the gas to electric infrastructure.
.
it is NEVER a surprise when wind turbines shut down
Its what they do,
Its an INHERENT part of their DESIGN and OPERATION. !!
I doubt Roger T has ever seen actual icing conditions for himself. I lived in Minnesota for 30 years and only ever saw one icing occurance ever. I doubt he understands what it entails.
I have lived the last 30 years in CT. We get icing a lot here. Ice stops everything. (except coal and nuclear and gas(when not powered by wind)).
Do not attribute to malice what stupidity explains. Well, I see both here.
Thank you for pointing out the meaningless virtue-signaling requirements of electric pumps on gas pipelines, rather than using the actual gas. This also caused a big problem in 2003 when some power plants went offline, thus severing power to gas pipeline pumps, and then it became a cascading failure. Much of San Antonio was without electricity for 12+ hours.
I am convinced that griff will never accept even the possibility that wind and solar are inadequate even if the entire world were to switch 100% and the entire grid failed. There would always be some other reason.
Its comforting isn’t it? Knowing that some people have such strength of belief?
Griff would have been on his knees praying knowing deliverance was coming even as the romans were coming over the walls at Masada
Tom, do you have a reference for the “Obama EPA requiring electric drive on gas pipelines rather than gas turbines” thing?
Not offhand. It was in one of the many analyses of the St Valentines Day storm blackout.
With denuclearizing their power grid, Germany has failed their citizens with much unneeded increases in electricity rates.
Same thing almost happened in Oregon. The state offered electricity consumers the option of checking Green Energy on their invoice, wherein they would be charged more because it costs more to produce. This Green Energy was mostly from wind turbines along the Columbia River Gorge. Guess what? Nobody checked the “I want to pay more so I can show my neighbors my virtue signaling” box. Now they blend it and everyone pays.
Ron, have you got a link for that story? It sounds a very good illustration of the way green is actually only skin deep.
Industriy shut down as shown you some days ago, you learn n e v e r a n y t h i n g !
A progressive failure cascade caused by shortcomings of intermittent/renewables, regulatory misalignment, and a cover-up with sociopolitical myths.
Griff, I’m pleased that you once again confirm there is no expectation that renewables will produce power when needed, hence they cannot be held responsible.
In other words, they are a luxury.
Texas messed up by design, they don’t have a capacity market and so there is no incentive to have capacity.
The generators reacted as planned and Texas spent $80 billion on renewables over the last 15 years.
At this point they are asking why they didn’t instead spend that money hardening the real generation. That will be what happens now.
Because it does not matter if they had spent 10x that/ $800 billion, instead of $80, and spent a bunch of that on winterizing the turbines, there was no wind at all for many days.
That is the reality
Griff is a LIAR !!
Fossil Fuels in Texas CARRIED THE LOAD, increasing output by 450%, until curtailed by lack of pumping power due to grid INSTABILITY.
The whole European grid nearly collapsed earlier this year due to instability.
GAS and NUCLEAR carry the UK and have been for the last several days
Thank you for your contribution to the reverse Flynn effect.
Fossil fuel did fail in Texas due to inadequate preparation. With adequate preparation, wind turbines could have been able to turn in Texas too.
Except….
There was no wind to speak of, and no solar. The inescapable fact remains that had Texas prepared properly, fossil fuels could have carried the load, as they do all over North America each winter. But wind and solar could not have carried the load regardless of preparation.
Grifter, you remind me of Pythons Black Knight defending the bridge of unreliables to the death. In the face of undeniable facts you just can’t let it go can you?
Here are some dates, and the power generated in Germany by your beloved unreliables just in March, but it happens all year long.
02/03/2021 17:45 (start of the evening peak)
Total: 2.78 GW
09/03/2021 18:00 (same order as above)
Total: 1.83 GW
18/03/2021 06:00 (start of the day, no solar power for the last 12hrs of course)
Total: 1.53 GW
31/03/2021 19:45 (just a flesh wound…)
Total: 1.42 GW
So just taking this last case as an example what does Germany do next? well….
But that’s still not enough energy… so Germany goes a borrowing…
This is the reality of Energiewende, and they have the balls to call themselves the worlds first major renewable energy economy.
(click on image)
Oh Griff, you’re still at it. I was really hoping that you’d go away now that your masters have stolen the election. <sigh> No such luck.
Nuclear power plants add CO2 to the atmosphere, from their need for concrete. Water vapor from cooling towers might also help warm their surroundings.
But more plant food in the air is a good thing.
Fukishima is going to add a lot of radioactive water to the Pacific Ocean shortly.
A “lot”? They are adding about 0.0000000000001% to the volume of the Pacific … and this is supposed to terrify us?
Care to tell us how many people were killed by the Fukushima accident? Oh, I remember now … none.
As I said, Roger, your ability to pretend that your meaningless objections are somehow important issues is legendary.
w.
What is also astounding is your ignorance of how the food chain works. I guess you have a Geiger counter to test any fish you pull out of the ocean.
Roger Taguchi April 21, 2021 12:48 pm
Roger, I worked for years as a commercial fisherman. I suspect I know more about the oceanic food chain than you do.
The current situation is as follows (emphasis mine):
Doesn’t move up the food chain … go figure, Roger is wrong again.
So once more, you’re hyperventilating about a meaningless issue in a failed attempt to divert people from the subject of the post, the inability to meet 10% Joe’s fantasy CO2 levels.
w/
A single fish shut down an industry for a year!
Willis, since the core meltdowns, TEPCO has avoided releasing radioactive water, so your objections are moot.
Willis again shows his ignorance: https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2021-04-20-fish-in-fukushima-waters-in-japan-found-to-be-banned-from-listing-again-when-radioactive-substances-exceeded-the-standard.SkYCi2jI_.html
And in addition, when the nuke reactor at the northeastern end of Illinois (IBSP-North Unit) was functioning, there was a cooling pond there that the lake trout, steelheads, lake perch, and salmon would visit regularly. I know people who fished there from Spring to very, very late in the year, as long as there was open water.
Friend of mine who caught a 16-inch lake trout there showed me the photo, said the fish was delicious, and wished that the plant had not been shut down.
So, you see, there is a real benefit to nukes beyond just producing electricity, if you like freshwater fish.
manatees love the warm outfalls in winter
The Illinois IBSP-North Unit didn’t melt down like the reactors in Fukishima.
Geiger counter. Bwhahahahahahaha. Don’t forget to send your dosimeter in monthly for a survey check. After all, it is the dose that determines the poison. You DO wear one constantly, don’t you? If not, why not?
Show us the math on which your idiotic, passive aggressive girlie comment is made Roger.
Oh sorry, I forgot that passive aggressive calculator-dodgers don’t do math.
Indistinguishable from zero Rog, the same as your Iowa wind turbines have on the Keeling curve and the same as the effect they would have on temperature if that too wasn’t indistinguishable from zero.
You have to be a special kind of stupid to not know that zero times zero equals zero.
https://www.fastcompany.com/2680835/the-radioactive-fish-of-fukushima#:~:text=The%20fish%20off%20Fukushima%20remain%20radioactive%20more%20than,radioactive%20particles%20seen%20to%20date%E2%80%9325%2C000%20Becquerels%20per%20kilogram.
I had this discussion elsewhere
I’m willing to eat seafood from the fukushima outflow
In return I expect you to eat something caught in a Chinese rare earth refinery
Although I doubt you’ll find anything alive there
You don’t know whether you’re having a shit or a haircut do you Rog? This conversation was predicated by someone saying:
“Fukishima is going to add a lot of radioactive water to the Pacific Ocean shortly.”
….. and that person was, in fact, YOU.
Sorry for even suggesting that you do the unthinkable and go anywhere near a calculator. Hope you didn’t break out in hives.
Due to your concern with radioactivity in food, I suggest you never eat bananas since the are measurably more radioactive than household environments, using a simple geiger counter, due to high potassium levels.
Roger, I’d avoid bananas and Brazil Nuts if you are so scared of radiation. Definitely avoid granite work surfaces.
And people – all that radioactive potassium K(40).
Ya but they really crapped up the place
poor rog-git.. the desperation is hilarious.
The fuji water is no different than worrying that fish pissing in the oceans will increase sea level.
Every year rivers carry vast quantities of radioactive materials into the oceans. Small amounts of radioactivity appear to actually be helpful, probably because life has evolved in a low level radioactive environment.
The problem is that without any science a determination was made that there was no safe level of radiation.
Back where it belongs. The only safe way to manage radioactive material is to dilute it. If you dilute it to the level of background radioactive material (higher than most greenies imagine), it’s perfectly safe.
Nothing is “perfectly safe”. Everything has some relative risk and it’s people like our Roger who inflate RR beyond its real importance. Such people live in the scary world of the precautionary principle fallacy, where they need to be protected from everything … “just in case”. That’s where all these bogus covid restrictions come from.
Rory, radiation exposure in the levels that would result from dumping the Fukushima reactor would be insignificant.
In the US the EPA continually monitors gamma radiation at ground level in all states.
The gamma counts range from 2000 per min. to 10,000 or so. That corresponds to something like 1000-4000 nSvr/hr. Totally inconsequential.
In fact low levels of radiation are required by the body. We evolved with it so that is no surprise. Levels of 5-10 times as much are used in popular spas in Central Europe where the radiation is believed(and is) healthful.
No one is going to be “dumping the Fukushima reactor”. It will be a very gradual, controlled release so that radiation WILL be insignificant as it is diluted to low levels. Reactionaries pretend there is no “safe” level of radioactivity.
My point was to put risk in perspective, not suggest that what risk there is has any real danger attached. I’m criticizing the current over use of the precautionary principle, intended to scare people for political purposes.
Roger I wish you would quit monkeying around with your nonsense…..
Speaking of Monkeys, who do like bananas…from the Wiki
“Banana equivalent dose – Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org › wiki › Banana_equivalent_dose
A value of 9.82×10 −8 sieverts or about 0.1 microsieverts (10 μrem) was suggested for a 150-gram (5.3 oz) banana. Usage. The banana equivalent dose is an informal measurement, so any equivalences are necessarily approximate, but it has been found useful by some as a way to inform the public about relative radiation risks.”
and the Wiki also notes
Official nuclear science panels[edit]
so Basically, if you do the math….we are talking about the difference of 7 bananas worth of radiation exposure.
I guess that for both you and Griff, these facts couldn’t put things in perspective for you.
And thats just bananas…………..Don’t get me started on granite counter tops, unventilated basements, chest xrays, long distance flights.
You two boyz is just clueless
Those 7 bananas could be worse than we thought
/sarc
“… how the mighty have fallen. We used to fight and win real wars against actual enemies. Now we can’t even win fake wars against imaginary enemies.”
Ha ha, that’s funny. Tragic but funny.
Since it’s getting cooler, they can claim victory and give each other medals and stuff.
Willis,
Great article, as ever. Yes, we have the same escalating lunacy re power in the U.K. where is takes 20 years plus to go from the drawing board to an operational nuclear power plant.
Is it, however, even worse than this? Did you account for the wholesale change from petrol and diesel vehicles to BEVs, with all attendant grid enhancement issues? In the U.K. we are told we can’t buy a new non-electric vehicle after 2030. For all sorts of reasons aside from the electricity (think availability of lithium and the cost of the batteries, as examples), the mass changeover to BEVs on the scale that the government advisors decree simply cannot happen. Add to that, however, the serious lack of power availability for charging (we have barely enough for houses as it is) and you really wonder what these people have been taking to enter their fantasy lands.
I considered that EV question, Ian, and I even started adding it to the post … but then I realized that EVs and conventional cars use about the same amount of energy. So switching to EV will increase the ELECTRICAL load, but decrease the fossil fuel load.
And since the plan is to switch from fossil to electric, it won’t make any difference in the total energy requirements.
w.
Minus all the conversion losses to put the electricity into the cars’ batteries and thus to the electric motor and then to the wheels. I haven’t done the math, but I would suspect all the conversion losses from electric plant to motive force is larger than the refining, transport, and combustion losses in the ICE vehicle.
ICE is only about 30% or less, efficient whereas electric motors are 90% or more, efficient. Maybe you should do the math.
It’s called the Carnot cycle, most of the losses for the EVs come long before the electric motors even receive one electron.
True … but the power plants used to charge the EVs are only about 50% efficient, the battery chargers are only ~ 85% efficient, there’s 5% transmission loss … plus the EVs have to haul a half-ton of batteries around.
w.
Hang on, Tim. I ran the numbers on EV CO2 a bit ago. …
…
Here you go. 3.3 miles/kwh, 83% charging efficiency, power plants emit ~ 1.7 lb CO2/kwh (50% coal, 50% gas, 5% line loss)≈ 61 lbs CO2/100 miles
Wife’s Subaru, 30 mpg, 3.3 gals/100 miles. CO2/gallon ≈ 19 lbs/gal ≈ 63 lbs CO2/100 miles
w.
First-order thinking. It’s a plague.
I’ve reviewed testimonials from Tesla drivers on Youtube and did the math. The top preforming Tesla is about the same on cost as a Prius, however, I think that was discounted electricity.
Amazing. Someone other than Newton actually verbalizes that accelerating a mass requires a force and it doesn’t matter which mass or force is in question.
F=MA all day every day. That’s the only energy conservation you get. If you want to reduce fossil energy usage, start walking, but be sure to bring a sandwich.
Have you seen this…
Quote:”blah blah…will set the UK on course to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035..blah blah”
Boris is obviously getting desperate for money.
But of course he is.
Having printed over £1,000,000 and borrowed about twice that, per each and every Covid de4th – he needs to ‘Think Of The Children‘
(Mistress Nuts Nuts will be helping him there, I’m sure)
Too damn right, Think Of The Children, it’s them that are gonna be landed with the bill and they’re started paying already…..
Yup, plenty ‘children thinking’ going on there
I am sure that Grauniad Readers (plus BBC, but same thing really) will have the answer, they do lots of thinking.
and handwringing
and feeling guilty
and buck-passing
and being ‘pure’
and thinking magically
Do have a quick scan through the comments on that BBC link. There are muppets out there who still think ‘we’ are making too many babies and that ‘less babies’ will fix the problem
2nd thoughts, maybe the childless muppets do have a point, who would bring a child into this….. (what is the word?)
Inheritance tax is the only voluntary tax. If you have enough to pay inheritance tax, you have enough to pay someone to make sure you don’t have to pay it.
The simplest way is to reside in a country that doesn’t have it, like Australia, but there are many others.
I am sure that Grauniad Readers
You forgot pearl-clutching
I expect that 2029 will be a banner year in the UK for petrol-powered cars.
I wonder how many new cars will somehow be classified as used cars?
…. and how many will have a new spare engine for future use as part of the package?
I’m going to do that if I buy a Jeep Wrangler as my toy car, which is likely.
Just buy 2 and put one away for the future, or wait 5 years or so and buy a low mileage used one for parts.
The funny thing is, the roads in the UK will begin to look like a newer version of Cuba, with all the cars predating the “revolution” kept running somehow, except for the special chosen few.
Your chart Global weather disaster losses as a percentage of GDP shows a small decrease. But this may be because GDP has been dramatically increasing.
GDP has been dramatically increasing.
=======
Climate chamge in action.
Yes, the point is there is so much more valuable stuff in the way of storms.
Lomborg has some great examples in his last book, showing Florida coast 100 years ago and now
The point is if there were more and worse storms, the losses as percent of gdp would skyrocket.
This is also why the scientologists focus on absolute $$ as it gives false picture
There is also exponentially more people, poor people exposed and yet death numbers continue to drop
Does that seem reasonable?
If there are 100 million more people living by the Bay of Bengal and storms are getting worse, wouldn’t we need to ship the bodies off planet to hide them?
Great write-up, Willis.
I always enjoy your practical explanations of reality.
BTW, best power tool of all is a chainsaw, for those of us forest dwellers.
I love my Sachs-Dolmar 109, made in West Germany in 1980s. That damn thing is a testament how things should be made.
Needing 2.2GW of nuclear power per week until 2030, but not even having the first of these power plants through the approval process by then … that is quit a stunning failure, and utterly self-fulfilling. Nice analysis, Willis; just out of curiosity, when you ask about the crisis, do these people simply not respond at all or do they attempt some response? What do they do? I’d like to know because I never have an chance to speak to people about this topic any longer.
Kevin, thanks for the kind words. So far, nobody has had the albondigas to even attempt to point out the invisible “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!” … likely because, well … it’s invisible.
w.
That would be Cajones El Jefe
Pointing out that the demented emperor has no clothes is ineffective, he doesn’t dress himself, anyway.
It may be invisible, but it’s real alright. There’s one hiding under Roger’s bed and another hiding in griff’s bedroom closet.
Check out NuScale.
If there was the intent to fill the need with nuclear, factory assembly line built small modular reactors COULD meet the need.
Steps:
Secure iron mine source. 1 year.
Build ore processing facilities of sufficient capacity. 1 year.
Build foundries to process the iron into reactor vessels and piping/valves, etc. 1 Year
Build machining facilities to prepare all equipment for assembly. 1 year
Prepare sites for installation of reactor vessels to include infrastructure, cooling towers, etc. 2 years.
The above 4 could be done concurrently.
Finally, get locations approved and permits issued: 10 to 15 years.
Only congressional action requiring limited time for federal government to hold up the process can shorten the process.
The sad part is that every “retired” coal plant already had the infrastructure including rail lines for reactor vessel delivery, steam generators and cooling towers. Just build the containment structure, reengineer the pumping and piping to use existing facilities and drop in the heat source replacement for the coal boilers. Many have been completely torn down however.
With SMR, you just provide the number of units needed to reach the original coal plant’s heat output.
And as I have posted before, use highly enriched U, and you will only need to refuel once every 30+ years. If you are all worried about “proliferation”, then design the containment structure to allow the remove the reactor vessel, then ship it to a central location for refueling and refurbishment when needed.
Willis, you want to keep the generation while decreasing the amount of CO2 produced. That’s not the plan. We have to save the planet, whether it wants to be saved or not. Forget a reliable electricity. Stop eating meat.
Full speed ahead!
Here’s how this can all be done, except it’s mostly by unintended consequences.
1) Higher tax rates, costs of living, and crowding out of private lending will lead to lower average growth in the U.S. and by extension lower growth of emissions
2) Imports, especially from China, will increase by 50 percent and any tariffs will be paid by the hapless buyers.
3) Aging of the population to 2030 and beyond will lower consumption rates and U.S. /OECD growth rates. The fixed income society will stay home more except when there are some paid protest opportunities handed out.
4) The CARB/EPA grand policy experiment with the U.S. auto industry will not go well and we will end up closing 50 percent of current capacity and replacing it with payoffs to unions and former auto producing states. Imports will make up the difference for new sales except retirees will cling to their older vehicles.
5) We will all trade grid reliability for lower-emission grid instability and regular blackouts. That’s a harder-to-quantify downgrade of quality for a former global power–Europe and Japan can defend themselves I hope. Blame the grid operators and engineers instead of the policy crusade. (Next time read those Party planks before you vote.)
….or there is a change in political leadership and harmful policy is scrapped along with new stimulus payments for a majority of voters. Joe probably won’t be with us to see that great whimper and policy unwind. (I don’t think LBJ was around when Great Society monoliths were pulled down.)
If you think adding 2 nuclear plants per week sounds ridiculous.
“And that means we need to find sites, do the feasibility studies, get the licenses and the permits, excavate, manufacture, install, test, and commission two 2.25 gigawatt nuclear power plants EVERY WEEK UNTIL 2030, STARTING THIS WEEK.”
Try swapping in windmills instead of nuclear power plants. We’re talking about hundreds of windmills to manufacture, site, excavate, erect and connect to the grid every week! The greens/Democrats will never go for nuclear power plants – all of their wealthy, liberal friends are in the windmill and solar industry and they want to get paid. Not to mention the Chinese where all of those windmills will be manufactured (using fossil fuels) and then shipped (also using fossil fuels) to the US.
My understanding is that you need around 1500 medium-sized wind turbines to match the output of the average nuclear reactor (and that’s when the wind is deigning to blow). So it’s more like 3000 wind turbines every week, not “hundreds”.
But that’s even better! Think of all those high-paying new Green jerbs! How prosperous we’ll all be!
No, the calculations above are for “reliable” generation, not intermittents.
Wind has an availability of 1/3, to be charitable.
So to do this with wind is not 2000GW its 6000GW.
And if magic batteries appear (that being another multi-trillion $$ money hole) when you have a flat period that discharges the batteries, you have to be able to recharge the batteries while also powering the grid, so maybe 10,000GW of wind?
A GW of 3MW turbines is 333 turbines.
times 10,000
Imagine
But when all the birds are gone, they will say climate change did for them.
And, after the first rush to install the fertilizer machines, it will be discovered that the best spots have already been built out, and the remaining ones (that people won’t strongly object to) will not have as good siting characteristics and the average output per acre will decline as a result of slower winds and more down time.
There are to be NO new nuclear plants…the only plan is for rationing of resources by centralized planning and readying the masses for a lower standard of living.
Go green, not Green, save the birds, the plants, emit CO2. Unsequester the carbon, think of the babies, unplanned parenthood.
I’ve said this before I know, but when I was a young man in my early 20’s (guess what, I’m telling a little fib ;-)} a few years ago, when someone told me I was very green, they were
actually telling me I was gullible & naïve!!!! Nothing has changed!!!!! AtB (SoG – stands for Sad old Git!)
Once again, another thorough paddling of the climate alarmists by our Rationalist In Chief, Willis. The fact that their proposed solutions are obvious fantasies tells you how serious they are. They are clowns, pouncing on a clown “problem” they invented, proposing clown “solutions” so they can be seen as the supreme
saviorsclowns of civilization.Incidentally, presumptive president Biden can propose all he wants but he has no authority to regulate CO2 emissions. Congress has not given him that authority. They have not passed any act (law, regulation) that regulates CO2. The President has no authority to unilaterally impose his will on the people. His job is to execute the laws that Congress has passed. We are still ostensibly a country governed by our constitution, regardless of the presumption of the illiberals run wild in the government that they can do what they want just because they were elected.
Well, the EPA is already limiting CO2 emissions from large stationary sources (mostly power plants). The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that directs the EPA to do this. So there is “de facto” regulation of power plant CO2 emissions, even though Congress never passed a law regulating CO2 emissions. IMO, the SC ruling was a travesty, but it stands.
the SC ruling was a travesty, but it stands.
======
The name “John Roberts” appears on both the logs of the Lolita Express and the door of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And Epstein killed himself.
It’s fantasy turtles all the way down.
Good analysis, as usual. Still, the big lie is that net zero is anything but a fantasy.
The big lie is that it matters in any way
Of course it matters! The lie will continue to be used to change the political system and nationalize the energy industry while lining the pockets of a select few.
“The only emissions-free source currently available to replace that with is nuclear power.”
I read through Time Magazine’s “Climate is Everything” cover story this week, and interestingly enough, but not at all surprising, at over 4,000 words, there was no mention of nuclear power.
That aside, doesn’t France have close to 70% nuclear power?
I used to subscribe to Time, before 2000, but essentially i came to realize its a picture book with some words.
Right around then i switched to the Economist, much better in most ways, but still all in for the climate crisis.
The copy that comes to our house is not addressed to me. Neither is “National Geographic” However, “Scientific American” hasn’t stunk our place up in over a decade.
IAEA says France’s nuke share of electric power generation was 70.6% in 2019, highest in the world.
Do they need some CO2 in Saudi Arabia ?
“Switching from direct burning of fossil fuels to using electricity would mean we’d have to upgrade our entire electrical transmission network, including substations, switches, transmission lines, transformers, and wiring both to and within each house.”
Transmission Upgrades Could Hold The Key To New England Clean Energy Goals
https://www.nhpr.org/post/transmission-upgrades-could-hold-key-new-england-clean-energy-goals#stream/0
In New England, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest will be sacrificed to the Green God but to make them work- more thousands of acres of transmission lines will be installed. Meanwhile, the enviros show no concern for this waste of the landscape. I suppose it must be sacrificed to “save the planet”.
No, no – see my comment to Willis above!
Pointing out the impossibility, physical and/or economic, of these plans has been done repeatedly. What I have yet to see is any idea how and when this impossibility might manifest itself. We should be planning for it.
24 hours and no reply. The silence speaks volumes.
The Biden Climate Summit is fun. Politicians speeding up to hit the wall sooner.
“just where is this mysterious “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!!”, and when did it start?”
The climate emergency is the oldest story in the “book”, always used for some nefarious purpose to manipulate the masses, or punish the masses. Noah’s flood, borrowed from the earlier Gilgamesh flood myth, is probably the oldest collective memory of the ancient peoples having oral stories of the great flood, which was really the melting of the continental ice sheets and subsequent rise in sea level of nearly 400 feet all over the good Earth just 15,000 years ago, which submerged a whole lot of land near sea level where early Man had previously lived during the glacial advances from time immemorial.
It seems humans have a deep seated urge to always blame everything on the natural events they cannot control, weather being the main punching bag. But also earthquakes, volcanoes and any other natural phenomena that couldn’t be explained, but must be the work of the god(s) or the devil. The current climate emergency is just an extension of our ancient fear of the unknown, but now led by charlatans to gain power, fame or money, or all of the above, for their purpose of control over everyone and everything. Now instead of the gods, it is CO2, and if we just sacrifice whatever causes CO2, the weather and climate will return to mythical Eden like conditions, before the original sin of fire. Some things never change, and this isn’t all that much different than ancient times. This affliction will be with us for a long time to come, since it is hard wired into our genes. It is sacrifice ‘they’ require, which is everything from affordable effective fossil fuels, to intellectual integrity.
I think you are missing the point, Willis: the aim is NOT to ramp up alternatives to supply needed energy; rather, it is to reduce what each person is allowed to use.
e.g. (For all but the super-rich and politicians: ) Personal flights are out; likewise air-con, non-essential car journeys etc!
Yes, as has been shown here on WUWT, in the last year governments (australia, europe) have been laying the ground work, putting in place regulations to deal with coming power shortages, getting into load demand (automatically disconnection).
Basically bowing to the reality that they are not going to be able to supply the grid at all times.
The exact opposite of how grid design was contemplated in the past.
So they are admitting intermittence
While they don’t realize it, the rich will probably not be immune to the problems they will create. Much of their wealth is tied directly to investments that will decline in value as problems become severe. They too will experience power outages. While they can afford backup systems, human nature being what it is, those without power will notice that the lights are still on in the mansion up the road, and I would expect that jealousy will lead to Monkey Wrenching to get even. Just because some people are rich doesn’t necessarily mean that they are smart or even wise.
Personally, I have long suspected that behind the push for gun control laws that don’t really address criminal use, is the fear among the rich that a well-armed populace is no match for their personal security guards, and provides the potential for an armed revolution. And, I’m not talking about an ‘insurrection’ that uses American flags on poles.
Willis says: “but as Texas and Germany have recently shown, we still have to have a full backup”
..
Fact is not only did Texas have full backup, a lot of that backup didn’t work because they ran their grid on the cheap, and didn’t bother to insure reliability of the backup to endure the cold. Yup, Texas doesn’t interconnect to neighboring grids because that would subject them to Federal regulations that would (expensively) require them to winterize.
They didn’t winterize because they were convinced by someone there was no need to, all they were concerned about was heat.
Why do you think that is so?
Texas is the only one without a capacity market and as a result there is no incentive to maintain capacity. Cheap power, right up until it failed.
At this point, they are looking at the $80billion spent on renewables as a luxury that should have been spent on the real generation network to ensure it was solid.
I expect that is what they will do now.
Watch the lawsuits coming
Texas has a much lower, if any, reserve generation capacity than any other grid in the U.S. The politicians were concerned about deregulating the electricity market and lowering rates, and wind/solar seemed like a good, virtue-signaling fill-in (with some subsidies to lower the overall cost to the public) to help facilitate that situation.
This strategy initially had its flaws revealed in 2011 after the last major winter storm in Texas before this year’s. Even at a time when wind was supplying only 6% of all power generation on average. Now that figure, by February 2021, was averaging on an annual basis 25% of all power generation.
But nothing was done about this vulnerability and dangerously low reserve capacity. This is because power generators (by law and regulation) only get paid for the power they actually produce. There has been absolutely NO economic incentive to increase reserve capacity with fossil fuel plants.There has only been incentive to CLOSE coal plants, at least 12 of them in the past 10 years in Texas. Why? Because the wind/solar lobby has done a good job (I use the word “good” here with some cynicism) of selling wind/solar as an outright replacement (just like President Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have done) for fossil fuels by 2030, 2050, or whatever arbitrary date some ambitious bureaucrat wants to pick.
This is no way to manage an electrical grid, and I have proposed REDUCING any “dependence” on wind/solar generation, and eliminating any subsidies wind/solar get from the Texas legal and regulatory system. Blaming fossil fuels alone for what happened in February is disingenuous and ignores the economic policy fantasies engaged in by both Texas politicians and environmental activists.
A more highly interconnected grid might have helped a little but it wouldn’t have saved Texas as all the surrounding states were already operating near capacity for backup power. The simple truth is that Texas spent too much on unreliable renewables and too little on reliable, dispatchable backup power with on-site fuel storage (coal and nuclear). No amount of obfuscation will disguise this simple fact.
Yes, people died and with the US legal system that means a lot of fit will be hitting the shan.
Virtue signaling has real costs, that is the lesson from texas.
So unless they are totally insane, there is going to be a moratorium on spending another dollar on new renewables until such time as the real power generation, the stuff you can count on, can be counted on.
Once that is done, and assuming you still have any money left, by all means buy some more wind turbines.
Anybody know when some sort of official report will come out on this debacle?
TX is connected to a neighboring grid, but it too was frozen up from too much unreliables.
Neigbours had no spare power anyway..
Stupid Obama pumping rules caused lack of pumping, caused by being told to use UNSTABLE grid power.
The whole mess in Texas was TOTALLY CAUSED by the anti-CO2 agenda.
Don’t you get tired of telling DESPERATE LIES, rog-git. !
Texas’ power grid was just fine before the bureaucrats stepped in and told industry how to do its job.
Oh but I know how to fix it, more centralized bureaucratic dictates! /s
Somehow, Texans turned their power grid over to out of state activists.
If you think putting out a Li-ion batter fire in a Tesla is difficult, try fixing this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kEZwBMinizY/TYUERhWYSeI/AAAAAAAAA98/3kO-K22rmSM/s1600/fukushima_explosion.jpg
More people were killed in the Li-ion battery fire incident than in the Fukushima incident … do you have any other trivialities you want us to focus on, Roger?
w.
So what is YOUR solution to make up this huge deficit in electricity demand?
Chopping down trees, apparently.
Desperation rog… clutching at barbed wire straws..
Keep going , Its hilarious.
I’m sure the next nuclear powerplant they build will be exactly like that designed in the 1960s because there has been no progress in nuclear physics.
Yes, they can design better plants and have.
They cannot design the wind to blow as needed
Roger
In blaming nuclear energy per se for a force 10 earthquake which shifted a tectonic plate by 3 meters, and for a 30 m high tsunami, you have made yourself the poster child of cognitive failure and logical fallacy.
Let’s follow Roger-logic for a moment:
1. An old nuclear plant gets serious damage from a force 10 earthquake nearby and a direct hit from a 30m high tsunami
2. But a lithium ion battery factory hit by the exact same earthquake-tsunami would be completely unaffected! (Yeah right!)
3. Therefore electric batteries are a better form of grid provision of power than nuclear generators.
Lovely Roger. Well done! Never forget that you’re special!
I first came across the term ‘climate emergency’ in this Guardian article,
Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment | Environment | The Guardian
but it has since spread around the globe. An actual climate emergency refuses to follow the Guardian’s lead.
Any predictions for the next phrase to ratchet up the level of alarm once “climate emergency” stops getting the pulses racing?
I’m thinking it would have to be something old-testament biblical like – “climate APOCALYPSE”
Willis,
One of the best articles ever. I love all the graph with REAL data based on observations! Do you have links to the sources? One of my favorites not included, is the drop in violent tornado numbers because of the decrease in the meridianal temperature gradient…..from greater warming in the coldest places, especially during the coldest times of year.
One thing that you completely missed is carbon/CO2 sequestering/capture as a huge factor in reducing CO2 emissions. It’s coming! I know that it’s expensive and dumb to do this with an entirely beneficial gas that’s greening up the planet but our actions are not being driven by using authentic science to make smart decisions. They are being driven by propaganda to make political decisions.
I call CCS, enhanced oil recovery.
Because that is what we do with the co2.
I agree pumping it underground just to pump it underground is ridiculous and wasteful, but as long as we are using it to liberate more oil, its not a total loss
All the oil recovery CO2 comes from scrubbing CO2 out of natural gas before putting it into pipelines, using the amine process. in that environement, its works fine. In a stack-gas environment it doesn’t.
In Canada, the Boundary Dam coal generation unit 4 was converted, with the captured CO2 likewise to be used for enhanced oil recovery nearby. After 4 years of fiddling, the parasitic load was 35% not the projected 25%, the uptime was never more than 65%, and they never met their minimum contracted CO2 delivery. Failure.
Yes
Cenovus in Weyburn
But we are trying it again here in central Alberta
Like all of this stuff, subsidies grease the wheel
I think it’s wrong, but it’s my tax dollars at work and if it’s going to happen I’ll get mine back.
But I gain no friends stating it is not economic in a real world
Have you ever thought what you do with Gigatons of Carbon?
You will need to dig some very big holes as it is way to much for the oil industry to use.
Make carbon nanofiber, air plane wings, roads to outer space, lots of options if it turns out “the atmosphere” actually is a bad place to put it
Mike, regarding “links to the sources”, most are given either on the graph or in the text. Which one(s) were you referring to?
w.
Thanks Willis,
I apologize, my bad eyes and not paying attention, the links are all there.
Here’s a link for the violent tornadoes:
And the greening planet:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Here’s another real good one:
They are creating media tool kits to combat the agenda/show the science:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UhV1_cSUtyJQeh6fIrIc4YqvYy1uRs8DEZBkW7ZXxew/edit
Biden, Kerry, and AOC can have all the ‘climate emergency’ aspirations they want. They will quickly run up against the real world. Texas already has.
California, the UK, and to a lesser extent Germany have also volunteered as GND crash test dummies.
Fun to watch from afar.
Unfortunately, as the People’s Republik of Boulder, Colorado is currently in charge here, I cannot qualify as “afar”.
Yup, neither can I qualify. I’m in the midst of the stupidity.
Mr E
I would suggest an entirely separate post just on the “where’s waldo” /climate crisis meme and flesh it out as much as possible.
that would be an entirely useful thing, not tagged to any other discussion post.
Add graphs on other non-crisis items like ocean acidification, green area increasing, etc.
Well YOU might think there is no climate emergency, but *I* sure do. Last night I had to once again bring in my plants to protect them from another yet another late freeze! This is the first time since I have moved to Texas (some 20+ years) that I have had to protect my plants so many times from freezes in April.
Beware the Global Cooling! Or at least the Texas Cooling.
I’m just glad I don’t have any potted plants! Lol!
Additionally, we need to be sure that the supply of fuel rises proportionately to the increase of two large reactors weekly. Even if there is currently a sufficient supply of surplus nuclear warheads, they will probably have to be blended with natural uranium for the optimum concentration of U-235 for reactor use, and fabricated into a form suitable for use in a reactor. Not the biggest problem, but still one that should be taken into consideration before, and not after, the plants are built.
If there isn’t a sufficient supply of surplus warheads, then permitting processes and infrastructure development plans need to be put in place to have uranium mining expand commensurate with the expected demand. Eventually, mining would have to expand anyway to replace the warhead fuel.
Any miscalculations regarding the fuel supply lines will cause spikes in the price of fuel, possibly negatively impacting the economics, and result in delaying commissioning, or re-starting after shutdowns to re-fuel.
And then there is still the politically difficult problem of dealing later on with the waste products produced.
Personally, I’m not al all confident that the current administration understands the technology well enough to anticipate these issues and make adequate plans to deal with them.
US nuclear weapons are all Pu-239 based designs. There is actually an on-going program to mix Plutonium from retired nuclear weapons with uranium depleted of U-235 to make a Mixed Oxide fuel for commercial reactors.
https://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/faq.html
The US Navy nuclear reactor program reportedly uses a more high enriched uranium for improved power density in its small reactors powering carriers and subs.
Joel,
I was vaguely aware of the recycling program, but I am unfamiliar with the details. However, my point fundamentally is that if the Biden administration were to decide to go that direction, they need to do their homework and determine if there is sufficient warhead material to meet anticipated needs, and determine if the current program can be ramped up to meet increasing demands.
Joel,
In reading the material at the link you provided, I see that “MOX fuel is not currently being produced in the U.S.” [as of Aug. 2020] It appears that we currently have little or no experience with it, and reactors would need a special license to use it. Then, “If approved by NRC, the reactor licensee would test the MOX fuel by first operating with a few ‘lead test assemblies’ in the reactor for at least two operating cycles.” And then, “After approval by the NRC, the reactor licensee would insert a maximum of 40 percent of the reactor core with MOX fuel.”
Without some regulatory changes, and perhaps more experiments, it doesn’t look like re-cycled warheads could be used to meet the initial demand for a ‘fleet’ of new reactors.
That means, the emphasis would have to be on opening new uranium mines. It is my understanding that opening any sort of new mine requires a permitting time of about a decade, even when on a fast track. I would expect a lot of opposition to opening even one major uranium mine, let alone several.
MSRs use old spent fuel rods as their fuel, a win win situation.
Dementia Joe and his WH staff can’t do basic math, that much is abundantly clear. And not just with energy, but with basic money budgets or spending and revenues.
Creepy Joe continues to push multi-Trillion dollar spending packages for infrastructure (that isn’t infrastructure but a start on the Green Raw Deal) and on “family” initiatives and no feasible way to pay for them. Even raising taxes can’t cover the big gaping budget holes that spending the Biden WH proposed spending would create.
It’s all big paybacks to those special interests who helped the Democrats take over Washington DC last fall to send us down the Road to Serfdom and Socialism.
Dementia Joe isn’t even in charge of the WH, much less the Socialist agenda the Democrats are railroading the US down. The US Government now is controlled by a Democrat-DC Politburo. This US-DC federal politburo is a full-on Communist style central committee, a system of senior political controllers at the very top, not unlike the USSR Central Committee of old (or the Chinese CP of present) at the Federal-level.
Dementia Joe is just the figure head who certainly won’t make it to the end of his current 4 year term. Dementia Joe Biden is probably most like the old Yuri Andropov that the USSR commies stuck in as figure head leader who only served 15 months and then he died as USSR General Secretary in Feb 1984.
When rotten systems exist like these, the Politburo likes to stay in the shadows in case soemthing goes wrong so they send out talking head to read some tprepared, committee-approved speech. Then hustle him away before he can take questions and blow the whole gig with senile, inane ramblings and muttering.
The DC Politburo Central Committee is probably chaired by nominally by Kamala, who takes her cues from Obama. Susan Rice attends and is probably there to fill-in for Kamala when she out of town and doing foreign visits since Dementia Joe can’t be allowed to get past the WH basement, and most especially not allowed on an overseas visit to foreign leaders where his dementia can’t be concealed in front of foreign leaders wanting to talk to him. When foreign leaders come to DC now, as they always have, they will have to use Kamala to do all the real talking behind the scenes. To wit: last week’s visit by Japan’s leader Prime Minister Suga.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-japan
Note the pictures of Suga are with Kamala Harris, while Dementia Joe simply goes out and reads a speech from the teleprompter and then took no questions from reporters. Biden and Suga did briefly appear together in the Rose Garden, but the bulk of the talks were between Harris and Suga (see picture).
Other members of the Central Committee likely include John Kerry, representing the billionaire class interests on the Green Scam, Nancy Pelosi and Chucky Schumer representing all the various Democratic factions and interest groups.
So Dementia Joe’s unrealistic calls for CO2 emissions curbs are just the beginning of the energy crackdown the Central Committee plans on imposing on the States. It is certainly not acheivable as Willis shows, but then climate and emissions were always just the Trojan Horse hiding the Socialism poison pill. Right now, the Supreme Court dominated by 5 Conservative associate justices is their biggest obstacle to total control over the States and individual rights. But they obviously have a plan for that too.
Just in the process of reading an excellent series of volumes on the life of Joseph Stalin by David Kotkin. The “politburo” you speak of in D.C. is eerily similar to the one Kotkin describes, with one crucial difference: even though Stalin was on holiday for months at a time in each of the crucial years 1929 – 1941, Stalin looked at and approved everything and knew everything he wanted his minions in the Politburo to do. And it was done, often by telephone (interestingly enough) without formal meeting. Nothing ever seemed to get past Stalin.
Contrast with Dementia Joe. Everything seems to get past Joe; he needs a lot of handlers to do what he cannot seem to do or remember. Which is why Xi Jin-Ping has got his number.
Putin has got Dementia Joe’s number as well. The Donbass region of eastern Ukraine is not a good place to be in the coming weeks.
Destroying the economy and crashing energy demand would do the trick too. I think that’s the favored route of the eco-fascists.
Hey Willis, Our Treasury Secretary has the answer to your desire for proof of the climate emergency.
Remarks to the Institute of International Finance today:
“I first started working on climate change in the 1990s, advising President Clinton as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the runup to the 1997 Kyoto Conference of Parties. We understood that the potential cost of climate change was significant.
Of course, we know what the trajectory has been ever since. Over the past 30 years, the incidence of natural disasters has dramatically increased and the actual and future potential cost to the economy has skyrocketed. We are now in a situation where climate change is an existential risk to our future economy and way of life. If left unaddressed, climate change will leave us grappling with fundamental questions like: What are the consequences for our coastal cities and communities? What will happen to our farmers and cost of food after droughts and flooding decimate farmland? How will families, cities, and businesses secure long-term financing for mortgages and investments? ”
Hmmmm. Doesn’t exactly give you confidence on what going on at the Treasury!
Hi Willis,
I don’t think Biden (or anyone else) actually believes it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by a huge amount via substitution of non-emitting energy sources. (Actually, I don’t think Biden is aware enough to rationally believe or disbelieve much of anything, but I digress.)
The real objective looks to me like setting up a CO2 emissions ‘failure’ to justify making fossil fuels so expensive many people will not be able to afford them. If people can’t afford fossil fuels, CO2 emissions will go down….. along with declines in personal wealth and quality of life. As always, the green goal is to “fundamentally change the way people lead their lives”, but with that fundamental change forced only on those who are neither rich nor politically powerful. John Kerry is not going to stop traveling in his private jet.
Off subject, sorry:”Moscow Hopes Climate Change Plan Will Boost Russia’s Position in Talks with U.S.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/moscow-hopes-climate-change-plan-will-boost-russia-s-position-in-talks-with-u-s/ar-BB1fU5Ic?ocid=Peregrine
“The Green Moscow initiative has already equipped Europe’s largest urban transport system with the largest electric bus fleet of any city in the world. The deployment of some 700 electric buses—with plans to expand to 2,500 by 2023—is part of a concerted effort to slash motor vehicle emissions in Moscow by 90%.”
But- where is the electricity coming from? Surely not from wind and solar. Why don’t the “journalists” ask this question? You have to be extremely stupid to not ask the question.
And a similar story in Philadelphia: “Cities Confront Climate Challenge: How to Move from Gas to Electricity?”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/cities-confront-climate-challenge-how-to-move-from-gas-to-electricity
“Philadelphia’s own pipe network has expanded over the past 185 years to encompass 6,000 miles of gas mains and service lines. But today, Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) — the largest municipal gas utility in the country — is the incumbent business staring down existential threats, facing challenges from new technologies, upstart rivals, and a quickening 21st-century energy transition that aims to convert many buildings from gas to electricity.
In recognition of these forces and the city’s own climate action plan, Philadelphia has commissioned a “diversification study” to find a new low-carbon business model for the nation’s oldest gas utility, which delivers natural gas to 510,000 customers.
Earlier this year, Philadelphia announced a target of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “There’s just no way that can happen without PGW changing,” said Tom Shuster, clean energy program director of the Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania chapter, which advocates for wider building electrification. Gas sold by the utility is the single biggest source of the city’s climate-warming pollution, accounting for 22 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.”
Oh, yuh, convert them all to electricity- sure, no problemo. 510,000 customers will all convert to wind and solar and “clean gas”- sure…..
By the way, I feel guilty dropping stories into other stories. Perhaps there should be an open thread set up for this purpose. I see they do this on the “realclimate” web site.
The transmission and distribution lines can’t support the electrification, even if the supply was to magically appear somehow. If it can’t happen, it won’t. Reality will intrude when the actual engineering effort begins.
No worries, just legislate a different reality and all’s good!
Was it Indiana that passed a law years ago that Pi would be 3.2?
Regardless of my memory, your point is spot on. The fools think they can legislate anything and it will be so.
The only way Biden could accomplish this goal would be to have a USA economic collapse that rivals the Great Depression. He best be careful what he wishes for.
That’s the goal.
Wait… or worse. The Green Nude Eel will have everyone longing for the relatively good old days of the Great Depression.
The Green Nude Eel is a feature, not a bug.
Here he is
Excellent Willis, that is literally IT in a freaking nutshell!
This made me chuckle too:
“cutting US emissions to zero would cool the earth in 2050 by about as much cooler as you’d get if you climbed up three flights of stairs”
Dear Willis,
I’m late to this discussion, but I second Climate believer’s comment. This essay is one of the best summaries of the faults in the Alarmist narrative ever at WUWT. It merits a permanent placement, perhaps at Everything Climate.
It’s the same with all these wild promises for net carbon zero, or whatever. The person doing the promising will be dead, or retired or voted out by the deadline, and if they are still capable of commenting they can lay the blame on absolutely everyone else. In the meantime they are idolized as a climate saint. Who wouldn’t make wild, impossible-to-keep promises?
People who possess basic ethics do not make promises that cannot be kept.
I know I’m wandering way off topic here, but I’ve never cooked on anything other than an electric stove, camping trips excepted. Are there real benefits to, say, a gas stove vs. an electric stove? My cooking and baking efforts could use a boost. 🙂
For stovetop cooking, I like that I can turn down the heat immediately when (as occurs too often) things start to burn … with baking, though, little difference.
w.
Hi Willis,
In your second paragraph you need to change:
In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by an additional 1,900 MT of CO2 per year.
To
In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 1,900 MT of CO2.
Ian Edmonds
Done.
w.
Burning natural gas releases water vapor, some places more than others (I think Texas doesn’t dehydrate their gas as much as we do in canada and that probably contributed to the freeze up) so moisture helps create better crust on bread, love my gas oven.
Yes, instant on and instant off are best feature, only drawback is natural gas not as hot as propane or electric burner so my stove top expresso can takes longer and sputters to finish, like Joe Biden in bed I imagine.
Also, I have 50+ house plants, all do better since installing gas stove
Plant food generation, side benefit
C’mon, man! You just ruined my stove top espresso maker for me; possibly forever!
Nothing is perfect. In order to be truthful i present all facts as i sees them.
They will have to pry my gas range from my cold dead hands.
Thankfully, all my properties are located in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the two least stupid parts of canada, it will be a long time before natural gas gets banned here.
I’ve been thinking of a kitchen remodel for years and years. If I ever get around to it, I might replace my electric stove with a gas model. I already have natural gas service for my furnace and water heater. However, I note from a recent blog post by Judith Curry, reposted here at WUWT, wherein she says (my bold):
She doesn’t provide details of the indoor air quality issues. Gas stoves and cooktops have been in use for many years. I wonder what she means.
PaulH, I’ve had gas range/oven for years, no noticeable effects
except my plants are healthier
Electric oven, gas cooktop seems to be a good combination.
Same here. Gas range, electric convection oven for even baking.
Best combination evah!
The gas cooktop is best for reasons already mentioned. Our electric oven can be set with a choice of using one or both of the top elements and one or both of the bottom elements and any of those combinations with or without the convection fan. Remarkable heating control!
Meats? Screw the oven or stovetop. Go outside and cook over wood or charcoal. 😁
Apart from the speed of response as Willis says, the cost difference is quite significant.
To roast some potatoes in my electric oven, I calculated that it costs as much as about one month of stove top gas cooking. Even though I use the most expensive gas possible, LPG bottles, I spend about US$3 per month, and cook every day.
Caveat: don’t use aluminium pans, though. They burn.
ROFLMAO! Thanks for this Willis, informative and a good laugh. But you are forgetting one important variable in the equation, Huangdi Biden is putting people like Griff and Taguchi in charge at all levels of his cabinet. A complete economic meltdown that makes the Great Depression look like boom times would probably achieve his goals.
Opps. Hadn’t read down this far, Robert, so I commented much the same in a reply upthread.
Yes. The goal is to make us long for the good ol’ days of the Great Depression. All these “stupid” government actions are not mistakes.
America, and particularly the American middle class is the last thing standing in the way of a One World Government.
America must be destroyed so the GEBs (Globalist Evil Bastards) can get on with things.
Perhaps Biden will commit to every person in the US being a billionaire by 2035 so we can afford pay the interest on the National Debt while keeping the lights on
How is that any different than a commitment to cut CO2?
Everybody being a billionaire is the true meaning of the word “equity”.
The US will not replace fossil fuel with nuclear. In peacetime there is not the political will and in a war with China or Russia there will not be enough time.
Instead there will be renewables backed by fossil fuel on standby, effectively doubling the price of electricity (or more). Carbon import taxes will be imposed on goods imported from other countries that fail to cut CO2.
You can’t have a climate emergency without 30 years of weather emergencies. After 30 years of ignoring any weather changing legislation, it’s premature for the same politicians to declare a climate emergency. Unless you also admit it was your fault because you were in charge of producing legislation then. Yes, I’m talking to you Joe Biden and John Kerry.
I love your idea of “weather changing legislation” … could we pass a law that it has to rain a bit more in Northern California? It’s kinda dry lately, and foolish me, I didn’t realize that we could pass a law to have more rain.
w.
Excellent analysis and presentation Willis, thank you. Fellow posters, I’ve told you before, no matter what you say, do, and data/evidence provided, Griff and Mr. Taguchi are here to waste your time and effort.
Great comments Willis but talking sense and making practical comments are not going to make it into any public arenas and certainly won’t reach the politicians. Your analysis of nuclear is very illuminating but you do realise it’s a best case scenario. In Australia nuclear is banned. Our only way of reducing emissions that is allowed are wind,solar,hydro and any new technologies you can think of. You are so right! The only way out of this mess is to totally debunk the climate emergency messaging all these policies are based on. Unfortunately no government around the world has been prepared to take the alarmists on ( except Trump) fearing the political fall out. Reversing the constant indoctrination of a generation is going to be difficult if not impossible. Ironically I actually hope that a sharp increase in random blackouts and price hikes in countries that have gone heavily into renewables will be a catalyst for the change in attitudes of voters.
The media , corporations, the public service and academia have all conspired to create this illusion of an emergency and some drastic things have to happen to affect change. When Boris is now left of the greens, Biden’s in the Oval Office and even the Brazil leadership is having second thoughts I feel quite despairing about the future. But you never know. The only thing I know for certain about the future is it’s uncertainty. I think Climate sceptics are overdue for some good news.
Here’s a chart of electricity generation in Australia (excludes WA and NT) over the last 7 days. https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=7d&interval=30m
You can see the variability of wind and solar. On average, solar provided 11% and wind 9%, coal 64%, gas 6% and hydro 10%.
But if you look at peak demand at 6.30pm on Wed Apr 21, solar zero, wind 7%, coal 60%, hydro 16%, and gas 17%.
Now try and create a scenario where by 2030 50% of generation comes from wind and solar, yet there is sufficient coal and gas generation to keep the lights on when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Then persuade me that generation costs will be lower.
The impracticality of replacing fossil fuel cars with electric cars should be blindingly obvious.
Over its lifetime, existing batteries can store and release about the same amount of energy as it takes to make a new battery. As such, ideas such as using electric cars as grid storage are naive.
In addition, the energy used by a car dwarfs the energy used by a house, requiring a massive increase in electrical generation . It takes very little to heat and light an insulated house. Put the house on wheels and try and push it up a hill.
Regenerative braking is another fantasy. If it works economically then why not install turbines in the roadway ahead of every stop sign or any downhill roadway? As the cars brake the turbines will capture the energy and power the city, charging other electric cars.
Small Modular Reactors promise a solution but unfortunately they are and obvious target for criminal and terrorist elements, that would be hard to defend. State sponsored bad actors are hard to defend against in open societies. The alternative is a loss of personal freedoms.
Well, I believe that wind turbines and solar panels only produce about as much energy in their lifetime as it costs to manufacture them. Obviously renewables and batteries are a perfect match!
I wonder if we looked at it from a slightly different angle weather we actually could come up with a ‘Climate policy Emergency’ with number that would actually jolt the people into reality.
Assuming (for the sake of argument) there is a hypothetical “eco” energy grid capable of meeting the Co2 targets, how much smaller than the current load would it be. and by extension how many people could it reasonably support?
The final number I’d like to see would represent how many people they have to ‘sacrifice’ to make their Co2 Eco power generation system feasible!
I can’t even imagine how to ballpark it, if the US has to reduce load y 1/3 would that equate to a 1/3 population reduction? sounds far too simple so probably way off…
Yes, you are way off, some of the reasonable ones only demand 80% vanish, but some want 100.
Does anyone doubt what they would do with Thanos’ infinity stone glove?
I remember articles from that time arguing that Thanos was the real hero, because he was right.
The ones i read said he was a climate denier wimp because he only went 50%.
No commitment.
Sociopaths want it all.
But, but, but,…if the nuclearization of our electrical generation infrastructure was made a National Defense Initiative we could put the plants on Federal Military Reservations and pre-empt the Greenies environmental lawfare. Kinda like TVA, the Feds can do whatever they want….. Then sell the power into the commercial grid at market prices. It’s been done before.
Has anyone ever asked a climate Nazi what would shut them up? What would convince them there is no climate emergency? (Separate from problems caused by deforestation, real pollution, etc.) (In fact, CO2-phobia has made things worse, especially for the poor orangutans in Indonesia, losing most of their home land to biodiesel palm oil plantations – Orange Lives Matter!
Yes, I have asked.
Received an answer? Not so much…
Many times, right here. Never got an answer.
Take care with the gardening.
Sydney News: Artarmon man dies after falling from ladder and landing on hedge trimmer
Janna Swanson Iowa Standard from https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2021/04/18/swanson-counting-the-cost-of-the-green-new-deal/
As the US considers an infrastructure bill, we need to ask ourselves how much is the New Green Deal really going to cost. Let us start with looking at the cost of industrial wind. We are told turbines are cheap. I am seriously reconsidering the information that the media has “reported” in recent years. In Iowa we have cashed in $20 Billion federal dollars to build about 5000 wind turbines. Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy CEOs have admitted publicly that 100% of the cost of building wind turbines, about $4,000,000 per turbine, is paid for by the federal government and it is the only reason they build wind turbines.
The US has 68,792 turbines or 700 installations when averaged to 100 turbines per installation. If everyone else is receiving what Iowa admits it receives that means US citizens have paid $275,168,000,000 to build wind turbines. This does not include industrial solar, batteries or the thousands of excess power lines ($1-3 million/mile) required to move the power to more densely populated areas. It is not surprising that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is now pushing for a new Production Tax Credit to build power lines. There is also a push to give the federal government eminent domain to build these power lines like the Rock Island “Clean” Line, the Grain Belt Express or the Plains and Eastern “Clean” Line. These would be thousands of miles and billions of dollars on top of taking the property of hundreds of thousands of Americans. While sometimes necessary eminent domain should be used sparingly, not in wide swaths. Wind energy is being branded as necessary when it is actually only designer energy for people who already have access to electricity.
Wind energy’s only purpose is to harvest OPM (tax subsidies, tax credits, low interest loans from the Govt) and then funnel that money to the investors. The investors include Green Hedge Funds and State Union Employee Retirement Funds looking for outsize returns on investment to shore up underfunded-to-obligations portfolio positions.
The Green Energy scam of wind energy and solar PV is a massive wealth transfer. that is all.
“This goal would be to get down to half of the 2005 CO2 emissions by 2030. So I thought I’d see what that would entail.”
That was Part A, what would have to be done to meet the goal. And keep existing energy usage. It can’t be done.
Part B, what would happen if they went ahead anyway and the energy supply was cut down to match that goal?
Very nice work Willis.
OTOH, I’m sure the ecoloons will achieve their goal… by torturing the reported data into submission.
They will fail, but NEVER admit their failure.
Willis, the problem you have with your promotion of nuclear as a solution is economic. You could build 200 nuclear power plants for the amount of money Japan is going to spend to clean up the mess at Fukishima. Heavens knows how much has been spent to clean up Chernobyl.
Roger
The problem you have is that there really is no other solution
At least not among the options we have today.
Assuming CO2 is a problem, and assuming that you aren’t in favor of rolling back modern society, what is your solution?
CO2 is NOT a problem! No “solution” required. Plenty of oil — 500 years worth from what’s been discovered so far. Maybe you really really want nuclear energy for some reason, but using absurd CO2 Alarmism falsehoods to promote your “vision” is deceitful.
I guess you haven’t read many of my comments Mike.
I do not think co2 is a problem.
Notice i said “assuming”.
Trying to have a nice discussion with roger and get him to commit to what is his solution
Again, what is YOUR solution to make up the deficit?
Roger Taguchi April 21, 2021 6:49 pm
Roger, I’m not “promoting” nuclear. I chose nuclear because today there is no other zero-emission option for baseline power. If you have one, now would be the time to reveal it …
In addition, building that quantity of solar or wind is just as problematic. You’d have to build 6000 two-megawatt (MW, 106 watts) wind turbines each and every week until 2030, or you could build 200 square miles (500 square kilometres) of solar panels each and every week until 2030.
Both of them are equally impossible, a fact that it seems you are either too stubborn or too innumerate to admit. And you’d still need baseline power for when the sun is down and the wind isn’t blowing.
Well, let’s see. As I pointed out above, a 2 GW nuclear plant costs about $7 billion. 200 times that is $1.4 trillion with a T. And Fukushima?
So you are wrong, but since it’s only by an order of magnitude, for you that’s not bad.
w.
Roger
Your problem with nuclear is religious-superstitious-animist. You don’t understand anything about radiobiology. If you did you would realise that quantum mechanics destroys the LNT. So your challenge for the rest of your life is to see how much damage your ignorance can achieve. It will be way more damage than anything ever achieved by nuclear technology.
“I see that Joe Biden is about to propose a new CO2 goal. This goal would be to get down to half of the 2005 CO2 emissions by 2030. So I thought I’d see what that would entail.”
Rather US emission, one can focus reducing Global emission.
US has lower emission CO2, as do other countries, because the import stuff from China, and energy used to make stuff, is China CO2 emissions. Plus have CO2 emission of transporting the stuff {and running cargo ships empty back to China}.
“The world’s largest exporter by value, China exported US$2.591 trillion worth of goods around the globe in 2020. ,,,,Applying a continental lens, almost half (47.6%) of China exports by value were delivered to fellow Asian countries while 20.8% were sold to North American importers. China shipped another 20.7% worth of goods to Europe.”
So, US not importing a lot compared to all countries. And it’s all countries contributing to China having the highest amount of CO2 emission in world. Or roughly if US stopping importing from China it’s only about 20% of whatever increase it’s causing towards China’s Co2 emission due from China exporting.
But whatever that amount is, one say roughly around 100% is energy produced by burning Coal. Or China is {and has been] madly building coal power plants, mostly to increase it’s exports. And if China lowered power use, it would come out power from using coal.
US in terms CO2 emission uses higher mix of natural gas and halved it’s coal use. And with every nuclear plant put online, it gets better
So instead lower US energy production, if US increases energy production [and large part is due to nuclear energy and exports to world more than China, it’s reducing global CO2 emission.
Or rather have country which produces most CO2 burning vast amount coal exporting a lot of stuff, the country which make least CO2 per MWH should be export the most- which will lower global CO2 emissions.
What climate deniers don’t understand is the low cost effectiveness of the climate activists plan. They will model the renewable energy after the Nazi approach to synthetic oil.
1) Instead of adding capacity they will use rolling blackouts during solar and wind outages.
2) They will use refineries with the ability to make on demand fuel for a minimum of four times the cost of refining fossil fuels. But this should be reserved for the 1%. We can create rationing lines for 99% of the population.
3) Create a lot of jobs maintaining and building renewable energy.
3) Create even more jobs by using horses as the Nazi’s had to do because of their lack of fuel.
4) Maybe we can provide heated underwear so that people don’t have to heat their houses.
5) We can demonize half the population so that we can excuse denying them even rationed power.
My Grandparents lived through rationing of WW2. I still have all their ration coupon books (tokens to buy everything from sugar, fluor, to bread) and even a price control volume from 1943 on price controls on everything.
That is what the Green Climate Scammers want to impose on us forever. Rationing, where the rich elites can buy extra allotments with cash. They plan on a boot on the face of the middle class… forever.
Hell, I lived through rationing of WW2! Although, I was too young to remember much. However, the family ‘legend’ was that when I was about 2, they moved from Chicago to Nebraska so my dad could hunt pheasants and rabbits after work every day. I dined on pheasant very often, but was too young to appreciate it. I do remember sometimes biting into some bird shot while eating. Today, that sort of life-style change would be more difficult.
Sell your Drax shares by the looks as they may have stranded generation assets-
A new market in ‘carbon offsets’ is blossoming, drawing huge companies who pay timber owners not to cut down trees (msn.com)
You want dough you just tell Uncle Joe and Co you’re going to cut down all the trees on your land.
If only our politicians would listen to Willis , but of course they wouldn’t understand .
Or the ‘ climate scientists ‘ who would only answer with balderdash .
The UK ALREADY reduced its CO2 output by 51% on 1990 levels, largely by shutting down coal power stations and replacing much of their output with renewables, not entirely by gas.
The USA could absolutely do the same and the citizens, as in the UK, would never notice it happened.
I have a question Willis, I agree with all your report. Assuming not every one in the Biden administration is nuts, your calculations based on Biden’s proposal must be also known to said administration, what is thier end game? If as you demonstrated it just can’t work over the given time period ,and as we already know convenienal power supply is being reduced ,( not just the usa) then to put it nicely we shall see a deficit in power available ?.
B., I suspect that few if any of them have actually done the math, or read the work I’ve done.
For that matter, how many other analyses of this type have you read? I seem to be pretty much a lone voice crying in the wilderness at this point.
Plus, it’s like the song says:
Still a man hears what hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
My best to you,
w.
Willis:
Excellent analysis! The greens are like the “Fool” Tarot Card in their simplistic notions, about to step off a cliff being oblivious to the danger their path choice puts them in.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/440860251030202920/
Also I’m glad to see someone injecting a dose of reality into the idiotic notions so many have about power generating and distribution requirements. That is to say you cannot use the AVERAGE power consumed as a guide to sizing the power plants and distribution system.
You have to use the PEAK plus a safety margin.
Houses in N America have a 100 Amp service @240V, which is 24 kW. But the greens and so many supposedly learned folks use the average household power consumption to gauge what generating capacity is needed to “replace” fossil fueled plants.
That is utter nonsense. Your electric water heater consumes 4.5 kW when both elements are on. Your central air conditioner consumes about 3.5 kW when it’s on. Your electric clothes dryer consumes 4 kW, your oven has 2 – 1.5 kw elements. Your stovetop has a 1.5 kW large burner, and 3 – 0.75 kW burners. An electric furnace has 12-15 kW heating elements.
And on and on. But the idiot greens use 2-4 kW average consumption to produce their silly numbers with. No, your house needs the 24kW feed and the power generating and distribution system needs to be able to meet the peak. You need to be able to run more than one of these appliances at a time!
I doubt the 1.8 factor you quoted is realistic. I suspect it’s been moved downwards over time – hence when you have a high peak demand such as occurred in Texas recently, they got caught with their pants down.
Nonetheless your pointing out we’d need to bring 2, 2.25 GW nuke power plants online every week to meet the absurd goals is enlightening. But the Woke Supremacists don’t do math, and don’t care about reality. They have their own wishful thinking as “their truth” which leads them to the “abyss of infinite lunacy” as Gad Saad so eloquently describes it.
Government should have no control of the electrical generation fleet —- whatever government controls it destroys — education, marriage, gender, medicine, morality, Constituion, law, law enforcement…ad infinitum.
When in the world are all the scientists who KNOW these facts going to have the courage to step up to the plate and declare that this crusade has nothing to do about a climate emergency and everything to do about the globalists attempt to have power over the people with their ‘One World Government’ plan ‘The Great Reset’? I pray that they will band together in one powerful lobby to fight back against these Totalitarian thugs.
You forgot about doing without. Many of us are going to do without. Involuntarily.
“Accurate results can often be obtained from crude calculations by bracketing a problem with conservative and non-conservative approaches, then making a considered interpolation between the two results. (Confidence rating – 9)” Quoting from an engineering “rules of thumb” paper by M.L. Hand. IDK where I got it, but the PDF file I have is dated 2002. Articles like this on the ROM of what it would take to decarbonize, in only a few pages, show the lunacy of policy makers, by applying the above approach.
Hiya Willis!
You know my heart is with you in your ongoing efforts to bring sanity to the climate conversation–long may you continue.
However, as I’m sure you already know, our efforts to reduce emissions do not rely solely on the reform and rehabilitation (dehabilitation? Is that a word?) of our power generation capabilities. Vehicle emissions, more efficient buildings, etc., all have a part to play.
Not only that, although you highlight the bureaucratic barriers to nuclear (sigh…), it is not the only alternative to coal fired power, as renewables continue to grow towards a real world optimum of 30% of generation and natural gas positions itself to handle that part that we grab from coal.
Electric vehicles can potentially lower transportation emissions, as might an overhaul of our rail infrastructure–especially if planned intelligently to be mutually supportive. Solar can recharge EV batteries while nuke can power our trains… that sort of thing.
Many challenges ahead and no guarantees of success for President Biden’s ambitious goals. But the picture is hardly as bleak as you paint it.
Willis,
when I read an article full of trillions, and billions, and hundreds of millions, I divide by the number of citizens or households, to get a feeling of whether the number is even feasible. Lots of times it isn’t, or points to some basic arithmetic error on the part of the writer. Excellent work on this one, you must have been saving up ammunition for a while.
Thanks Willis for the concise demolition of the CO2 fantasy.
Still no-one has answered where those two nuclear power plants per week are going to come from.
Lets remind ourselves of the real causes of the Texas fiasco from the recent post by “planning engineer”
Assigning Blame for the Blackouts in Texas – Watts Up With That?
Which reveals the spectacular celebratory ignorance of our pet trolls on every single issue.
From what was said on the news, Biden “committed” the USA to reducing CO2 emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2030, but what exactly does that mean? Other countries have made “commitments” to reducing CO2 emissions in past “agreements”, and have failed to meet them.
Are there any real consequences to failing to meet an emissions commitment? China has seen the largest increase in CO2 emissions over the last 20 years, both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis, and has never been punished for it. Are countries that do meet their commitments going to invade or drop bombs on countries that don’t?
Probably not (who would dare start a war against China?), so that what Biden said is empty rhetoric, and whatever is done will have a negligible effect on the climate or weather.
This was overall an excellent article by Willis Eschenbach (as usual). However, most of the reduction in emissions since 2005 (1,100 MT/yr out of 6,000, or -18%) has been due to replacement of coal-fired power plants by natural-gas fired power plants, which emit less than half of the CO2 per MW of energy as coal-fired plants. It may be cheaper to further reduce CO2 emissions by replacing more coal-fired plants by natural-gas-fired plants (particularly combined cycle, which are more efficient) than by building hundreds of nuclear power plants (of which very few have been built since 2005).
The reduction of emissions already achieved between 2005 and 2020 was made possible by fracking, mainly in the Utica and Marcellus shale deposits in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which has made natural gas abundant and cheap, and competitive with coal. So Biden’s wanting to ban fracking would be a huge step in the wrong direction, if he wants to reduce CO2 emissions.
But who ever thought that Biden knew anything about science?
Just shut down all powerplants and get rid of ICE cars, that will make them happy, right?
There wont be any need to worry about replacing fossil fuel generation at current or projected levels because theyll have knocked off enough of the population so as to make their WEF plans easily achievable with proportionally less energy generation than is necessary today
No-ones factored that in.
Question for Willis
If CO2 emissions went to zero, atmospheric content should go back to pre-industrial levels, and after a period (10 to 20 years) also to the surface temperatures from then. There is no need to do this and a step backwards, half way to the little ice ages.
By the same logic rather than trying to cut them in half, if we simply keep the target emissions at the present level, after a period of time global temperatures should stabilize a little above the present values. This goal makes more sense than trying to reduce the emission levels to zero. And we keep the agricultural benefits of present CO2 levels.
It’s incredibly easy to find out if enviro’s who say CO2 induced warming is a threat, are honest or if they are lying.
One single simple question: do you support nuclear power? Nuclear power is the only way to reduce CO2 emissions without a Khmer Rouge style return to a Stone Age lifestyle and decimated population.
If they support nuclear then it means they are honest about their CO2 beliefs.
But if they oppose nuclear, it means either that they are just incapable of coherent scientific thought, or that they don’t give a damn about CO2 or climate or disasters. They just want to use the climate agenda as a way to destroy the capitalistic economy and their political enemies, not caring how much else they also destroy.
Poor Willis Eschenbach, just as math disabled as ever. He writes, “In 2005, the US emitted almost exactly 6,000 megatonnes (MT, a million metric tonnes) of CO2. Unlike in most countries, US CO2 emissions have been dropping since 2005, and we’re currently at about 4,900 MT per year. To meet the fantasy goal, we’d need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 1,900 MT of CO2 per year.” Taking the risk of using his maybe valid maybe not valid starting numbers one calculates that to get from 4,900 MT in 2021 to 3000 MT in 2030 the annual reduction must be 5.31% per year, so in the first, present year, that reduction would be 260 MT, and the reduction in MTs would be less every year until 2030. God knows where he got the 1,900 MT a year reduction he states would be needed. Needless to say, I stopped reading his razzle-dazzle nonsense at this point.
Just a WAG but 4900 Mt / y -3000 Mt / y = 1900 Mt / y. Willis did not say 1900 Mt/y every year for 9 years.
Sorry for the lack of clarity, Dave. What I meant was that we are currently emitting 4,900 MT/year, and we need to get down to 3,000 MT/year. So we need to reduce our emissions by 4,900 MT/yr minus 3,000 MT/yr = 1,900 MT/yr. Consistent units. My high school chemistry teacher insisted that we include the units in our calculations, and cancel them or carry them through as the situation demands. In this case, MT/yr minus MT/yr yields MT/yr.
I did NOT mean we have to reduce our emissions by 1,900 MT every year, although I can see how it might be read that way if you’re not paying attention to the units.
However, since it seems that everyone but you read it the way I intended it, you might want to dial back on the nasty aggro and the specious claims of “razzle-dazzle nonsense”, and consider that your obvious bias against me is involved in your misunderstanding of what I wrote.
And even though you’re the only one so far who couldn’t follow the story, I’ve added a note to the head post to avoid any other people from falling into your misunderstanding …
w.
The climate crisis only actually exists inside climate models. The obvious answer to this crisis is to stop writing and running climate models.
Nice analysis, Willis. I would just note that a number of very big players are now working on blue and green hydrogen schemes. I won’t enumerate the advantages and disadvantages, but there is a lot of hope out there that large scale, standalone H2 production plants powered by renewables could substitute for some of your nuclear plants. Alternatively, if a nuclear plant is designed for peak-shaving with a swing factor of 1.8, say, then the spare power available can be used to produce and compress hydrogen (or produce ammonia for ease of transhipment and recovery. The compressed hydrogen can be used as a (high energy density) transport fuel or as feedstock to an electricity generating plant. When examined in any detail, these schemes all have major feasibility and cost challenges, especially within the timeframe suggested. However, they should perhaps be noted for completeness, even if only to be dismissed.
Thanks, kribaez. I discussed the manifold problems with hydrogen in a post called Drilling For Hydrogen. In it I cover the issues you list above. Let me know what you think.
w.
Innovative research is always to be welcomed but for power and transport, hydrogen is a road to nowhere. An expensive and dangerous one.
Concentrating power is always dangerous. The reason we use the current fossil fuel technologies for concentrating power is not by chance. It is because these are the safest and most economical technologies for the job. Today’s green energy silliness is not going to end well.
I have just taken a quick look at the NASA website Evidence | Facts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov).
Either all the stuff I follow on WUWT is wrong or NASA is wrong. Just the 1st graph (CO2 levels from ice core data) on the NASA site seems like a hokey stick Al Gore could have produced. NASA is shouting that there is a Climate Emergency.
Can somebody please clear up my confusion? Who should a layman believe?
Start here: Evaluating-The-Integrity-Of-Official-Climate-Records-4.pdf (realclimatescience.com)
Also, NASA data goes back 800,000 years in the first chart they show. It’s better to look at geologic history. Geological_Timescale.jpg (960×720) (biocab.org)
Gretanomics.