From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
Horse Manure, Climate Change, and Nuclear Energy
The “Great Manure Crisis” of the late 19th century offers some serious lessons for those worried about the “existential threat” of global warming from CO2 emissions.
A predicted crisis that never occurred because of new technology.
Just before the dawn of the 20th century, there was desperate talk about the huge accumulation of horse manure on the streets of major world cities. Not only was rising levels of horse poop inhibiting travel, but it threatened to become a major health hazard. For example, New York City had 150,000 horses, each producing 15-30 pounds of manure daily. And yes, tens of thousands of gallons of urine.
Extrapolating the problem, not unlike current climate activists projecting the effects of global warming during the coming century, the Times of London in 1894 predicted: “in fifty years, every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure.” People were encouraged to travel less, avoid unnecessary trips, work at home, and collect the refuse their animals produced.
Sounds familiar?
You can also imagine the stories in the Seattle Times (then known as the Seattle Daily Times) if some wealthy Seattle foundation had given them funds for a “Health Lab”:
This terrible poop crisis never happened. Why?
Because of a new transportation technology, powered by the internal combustion engine.
A good lesson for us today: it is problematic to extrapolate problems into the future assuming technologies will remain static.
Today we have a new crisis dominating the media, global warming resulting from increasing greenhouse gases.
Yes, CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing due to human emissions, and the earth is slowly warming as a result.
But it is silly to simply extrapolate rising greenhouse gas concentrations into the future because energy production technology will profoundly change during the next decades….and I am not talking about solar or wind power.
Nuclear power, starting with fission, but rapidly displaced by fusion power, will provide essentially limitless clean energy.
The False Hope of Wind and Solar
There is a lot of talk about wind and solar being the solution to the global warming problem, but the truth is that they will only make a minor contribution for many reasons, with their intermittency (only available during the day and during windy periods), environmental impacts, and low energy density being significant problems.
Furthermore, the demand for energy, and particularly electricity, is going up much faster than renewables can be installed. Why? Because billions of people are moving out of poverty and the huge energy demands of data centers. To name only a few.
Consider the U.S. energy consumption statistics (below). Energy use has increased rapidly during the past decades with fossil fuels still dominating (but more gas and less coal). Wind and solar are very small in comparison.
The U.S. is actually one of the most renewable-friendly nations. Considering the whole world (below), fossil fuels are even more dominant.
Solar and wind are not mankind’s long-term energy solutions.
Nuclear is. Fission in the short term and fusion in the long term.
Fission power is heavily used in some nations (such as in France, where 70% of the electricity is from fission) and today about 9% of world energy is from fission. No major safety issues and fission power is clean, with no air quality issues. New designs of small modular fission reactors will make them much cheaper, more reliable, and make melt-downs impossible.
Major energy users, such as Amazon, are already committing to using such new technology fission reactors.
And there is fusion. Fusion power is essentially limitless and does not produce nuclear waste.
The uninformed make jokes about fusion always being 20 years away. They are wrong. There are no theoretical reasons in the way of practical fusion reactors. Dozens of private sector firms are working on prototypes, including Seattle’s Helion.
Break-even fusion has already been achieved.
Microsoft has agreed to purchase fusion-generated power from Helion starting in 2028
Folks…this going to happen. Even if delayed a decade or two, fusion power will completely change the world’s energy story in the same way the internal combustion engine ended the manure “crisis” over a century ago.
And one more thing. With virtually unlimited energy from fusion, we can take CO2 out of the atmosphere, something called CO2 sequestration. Several companies, such as Carbon Engineering of BC, are already working on prototypes.
So next time you hear end-of-the-world catastrophic predictions about global warming, think about horse waste.😀
If we manage to achieve fusion, the last boutique energy use to be served, I hope, is sequestering CO2 from a level of 400-500ppm.
Should be used to push CO2 from limestone etc to increase atmospheric CO2 levels.
Huh?
Combustion of limestone releases CO2.
The planet needs more atmospheric CO2.
(Probably just worded it badly.)
The (lime CaO) can be used for manufacture of Portland cement and
NaHCO3 .
That too. 🙂
Question is, what will people do about atmospheric CO2 in the future , once this anti-CO2 nonsense has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
They will realise that CO2 really needs to be upward or 600, 700ppm.
Go back to coal ?
Use nuclear to release CO2 from other sources, like carbonate rocks etc.?
The abundant energy could/should be used to convert CO2 (or biomass, coal, etc.) to hydrocarbon fuels of custom-specified properties as gases or liquids for convenient storage and distribution.
We don’t need to sequester CO2 because there is very little in the air. At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a
mere 0.837 g of CO2 and has a mass of 1.29 kg at STP. This small amount of CO2 can heat up such a large amount of air by a very small amount if at all.
CO2 is required for plant growth. NASA reports the has been ca. 30% increase in green leaf area.
BTW: You exhale ca. 1 pound of CO2 everyday.
your numbers are off. 1 cubic meter of air/ 22.414 L/mole, holds ~44.6 moles of air. 44.6 moles x 29 gm air/ mole = 1294 grams. At 415 ppm CO2, that comes to 1294 gm x 0.000415 CO2 = .54 grams of CO2 in 1 cubic meter of air. You point is clear, and correct, however.
I calculate the mass of CO2 in dry air as follows:
At the MLO the concentration of CO2 in dry air is 424 ppmv. This is 424 mls of CO2 per cubic meter of air. One cubic meter has 1,000,000 cubic centimeters or 1,000,000 mls.
Mass of CO2 = 424 mls / 22.4mls /mmole x 44 mg CO2/mmole = 833 mg
At STP, one cubic meter of air has a mass of 1.292 kg. The amount of CO2 by weight in dry air is:
% CO2 by weight = 0.833 g / 1,292 g x 100 = 0.064 %
These values are for air at STP. For air at 20 deg C, a cubic meter has a mass of ca. 1.20 kg. In this air the amount of CO2 is calculated as
833 mg /1.29 kg x1.2 kg = 775 mg
However, air usually has water vapor. At 70 deg. F and 70% RH, the concentration water vapor is 17,780 ppmv or 1.78%. One cubic meter
of this air has 14.3 g of H2O. The concentration of CO2 in this air would
lower by 1.78%.
The challenge is: How do we the chemist inform the people and
politicians that CO2 is not a dangerous greenhouse as claimed by
the IPCC, a pack of liars. Where were the chemists and physicists 37
years ago to challenge Jim Hansen claim that the release of CO2 from
the use of fossil fuels would cause dangerous global warming?
Hopefully, President Trump will reverse the EPA claim that CO2 is a dangerous polluting greenhouse.
ATTN: The Chemist
RE: CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Of Air
Please go to the late John Daly’s website: “Still Waiting For Greenhouse”
available: http://www.John-Daly.com. From the home page, scroll down to end and click on “Station Temperature Data”. On the World Map, click on a country or region to gain access to the temperature data from the weather stations.
Shown below is a chart of the plots of the temperatures in Death Valley
at the Furnace Creek weather station from 1922 to 2001. In 1922 the concentration of CO2 was 303 ppmv (0.595 of CO2/cu. m.) and it increased to 371 ppmv (0.729 g of CO2/cu. m.), but there was no corresponding increase in the temperature of the air at this remote arid desert. Therefore, it is concluded that CO2 does warming of air and hence global warming as claimed by the IPCC.
Be sure to check out the charts for Australia and especially Boda Island.
No warming in Oz up to ca. 2002. Unfortunately, John Daly died in 2004 at an age of 64. If he had not died, he might prevented the disastrous climate policies enacted by government such as net zero CO2 emissions by2050.
Harold:
You keep posting that graph.
Fact is that the average mean temp for Death Valley/Furnace Creek has been increasing ….
Also, as I have told you before, the RF of CO2 was inconsequential vs the -ve forcings of aerosols and NV in the majority on the 20th cent.
~0.5 W/m^2 vs ~ 3 W/m^2 now. 6x greater.
You should use Google or Bing to obtained the essay:
“Climate Change Reexamined” by Joel M. Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages and can be downloaded for free.
Shown in Fig.7 is the IR absorption spectrum of Philadelphia inner city air from 400 to 4,000 wavenumbers. Integration of the spectrum by use of a planimeter determined that H2O had absorbed 92% of the IR light and CO2 only 8%. Since the air sample was daytime city air, it is likely that the concentration of CO2 was much greater than than that of remote site such as the countryside. Since the wavenumber scale is linear in energy and spans an order magnitude in energy, H2O is much more IR energy than CO2. In 1999, the concentration at the MLO was 375 ppmv.
The spectrum shows that H2O Is the major greenhouse gas and would convince most people that H2O Is the major greenhouse by far. We should point out that 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by H2O, the 800 pound Greenhouse Gas Guerilla.
BTW: What type of chemist are you?
Why would we want to do that, CO2 is greening the planet.
I want more CO2 in the atmosphere. As the atmosphere reaches saturation of CO2, the amount of warming attributed to it decreases. Greening the planet is a noble idea.
Hopefully, by the time we might “manage to achieve fusion” the fashionable idea that rising CO2 ever had a bad influence on the trend of any climate metric will have faded into history like bell-bottoms and leisure suits.
The effects of CO2 are overstated, as doubling CO2 levels would increase temperatures no more than 1.2 C (Lewis and Curry).
There is no measured evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes any warming at all.
It only exist in radiative-only calculations and conjecture driven models.
I wish people would stop buying into the AGW-cult meme of warming by atmospheric CO2.
Did you notice my wording? No more than. .
Yes, just stop bowing to the AGW meme.
Please. !
Oh bnice2000 you are a worry, are you saying:
A the greenhouse effect does not exist or
B the greenhouse effect does exist but CO2 is not a greenhouse gas or
C that CO2 is a greenhouse gas but its effect is unmeasurable because there is no way to directly measure it?
Hint: A & B are incorrect.
D…. CO2 is a radiatively active gas, (get the science terminology correct, please*), that has zero warming effect in the atmosphere.
It is used in greenhouses to enhance plant growth.
… * please stop using incorrect made-up AGW terminology
Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232
What is the evidence for this “missing link”?
Thanks all the same but I’ll stick with eminent physicists Linden Happer & Koonin.
Yon mean Lindzen I suppose.
Thanks, the link originally came out as ‘Linden Happier & Koonin’, I caught Happier but missed Linden.
Did you listen to the whole video?
There’s a lot in it, may need two or three sessions.
They explain very clearly why CO2 doesn’t cause any warming.
Lindzen and Happen only works in the radiative field, a small part of the atmospheric energy transfer.
Listen to the whole video and try to learn..
Two more on Tom Nelson’s channel, Dr Markus Ott explains ‘greenhouse’ theory, why it is garbage and presents a more plausible explanation of the planet’s temperature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj6ORbRBZ2s
Atmospheric GHE approx ZERO…. That sounds about right 🙂
Certainly totally immeasurable and insignificant, even if it does exist..
And CO2 cannot be part of it… Only H2O
You bring up a good point re. the Shula & Ott (S&O) video, namely how to obtain acceptance among such ‘mainstream’ skeptics as Lindzen, van Wijngaarden and Happer, Spencer, etc.
Specifically, if S&O are correct, then just about every physicist extent, whether ‘alarmist’ or ‘lukewarmer’ has completely screwed the pooch re. interpreting the top of atmosphere (TOA) spectrum of Earth’s outgoing long wave radiation (OLR).
While it’s a big ask, I think it’s imperative that skeptics take a deep and honest look at S&O, including the work of Heinz Hug. As an aside, Roy Spencer wrote a book “The Great Global Warming Blunder” some years ago re. the possibility that the alarmists had misinterpreted the causality relationship between clouds and surface temperature.
They do no research, and are outliers. No good science from them.
The effect of doubling CO2 concentration has been estimated and established in the body of Science for decades– a mean value of 3C. Lewis and Curry underestimated feedbacks in the climate system
3 C, plus or minus 1.5 C, is from the 1978 Charney Report. Orthodoxy has not refined it since, and is basically evidence free.
Lewis and Curry calculated what effect would be consistent with the actual temperature rise in the GISS database (which is inflated).
Feedbacks are unknown, and likely to be net negative.
Calculating from agenda-homogenised urban fakery…. That is just stupid. !
All wrong. You’re not getting your information from any competent sources.
You are a ZERO-INFORMATION fool with ZERO credibility.
And you? Where are your references to competent sources? Criticism without correction is just another useless assertion.
Where is your evidence for the statement that. “Feedbacks are unknown, and likely to be net negative.”?
There is no CO2 signal.. so no feedbacks.
You have yet to show any empirical evidence that CO2 causes any warming whatsoever.
A TOTAL FAIL. !
Competent like Micky Mann?
Neither are you.
As you have shown many times, there is ZERO empirical evidence that CO2 causes any warming at all.
You are sprouting scientifically unsupportable mantra, as usual.
These values come from radiative-only conjecture models and are NOT REAL in the atmosphere.
Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232
Well whoever said that didn’t see the comparison between measured spectra by satellites and Happer and Wijngaarden’s physical model. It’s a perfect correlation. That’s science: comparing theory with real data.
You haven’t listened to the whole video either.. have you. !
That is exactly what Shula does.
Looking at the reasoning of those who claim CO2 causes warming, is it not a case of them confusing correlation with causation? We have more CO2 and higher temperatures at the same time. The great English scientist, Michael Faraday, who formulated a scientific method was firm on the need for experiments and the empirical evidence that these provided. He would have been horrified by the trust scientists today put in computer models.
When it comes to temperatures there are many areas today where it is warmer than a century ago – all the large cities because of the Urban Heat Island effect. However, I wonder if it is not disingeneous to give a number for the temperature of the world and make future projections from these? If we obtained the annual temperature of the different climate zones and sub zones and compared them individually over years would we not find that there are different increases or decreases in the various zones? What point is there then in an average for the whole globe? Talking about climate change and global warming is misleading if we do not factor in all the complexities and uncertainties.
One more time, I remind you that CO2 does not cause any warming of air.
Shown below is chart of the plots of temperatures at the Furnace Creek weather station in Death Valley from 1922 to 2001. In 1922 the concentration of CO2 was 303 ppmv (0.595 g CO2/cu. m.) and by 2001 it had increased 371 ppmv
(0.729 g/ cu. m.), but there was corresponding increase the temperature the dry air at this remote arid desert. The reason the was there was no increase in temperature is quite simple: There is too little CO2 in the air.
Harold,
There is an obvious upward trend in the winter data, which is exactly where one would expect to see the most warming from CO2. Further, Death Valley is a very special weather case, it is not representative of the globe. The hotter it is (and its hot!) the more energy it takes to increase temperature (Stefan-Boltzmann Law). So while interesting in its own right, one dry spot in one deep valley having muted temperature change while CO2 increases is exactly what one would expect.
What does the SB law say about net radiative transfer between two points in a gas?
Radiative transfer in non-condensed matter? Trick question?
No answer ???
You are first person to point out the slight increase in the winter temperature plot. It be of interest to do a least square plot to determine the slope which would be a measure of climate sensitivity to increasing concentration of CO2. Note the increase is very small. However, Death Valley in winter is a very popular tourist destination. Perhaps they increase the humidity near the weather station.
Check out this temperature plot for Adelaide which shows cooling trend from 1859.
The url for John Daly’s website is: http://www.John-Daly.com. From the home page scroll down to the end and click on:
“Station Temperature Data”. On the World Map, click on a region to obtain the plots of temperature data for the weather stations there.
Go to Australia. The plots of temperature from the weather stations show no warming up to ca. 2002.
At the MLO, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is 424 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mere 0.833 g of CO2 and a mass of
1.29 kg at STP. This small amount of CO2 up can such a large mass of air by a very small amount if at all.
It is very small, but as I said, that’s where one would expect it to be most pronounced… and it is.
As to the mass of CO2 in the air, I think you are making a similar mistake to the one I made when first digging into this topic. I calculated the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere versus the total mass, started figuring out how much additional energy CO2 could hold, and concluded that it was impossible for the heat capacity of the CO2 to materially change the temp of the total mass. My error was in not understanding that the heat capacity of CO2 has nothing to do with it. CO2 absorbs photons, then either re-emits them or gives up the energy via collision with other molecules. The CO2 molecules neve get tired, they never wear out. So ppm matters, molar mass doesn’t.
I’m very familiar with John Daly’s web site. It has a lot of excellent information on it, but some incorrect conclusions also.
You still haven’t watched the Shula video have you.
Then, maybe, perhaps , you might have a chance of a more complete view of reality
Consider the following:
In air with a temperature of 70 deg. C and 70% RH, the concentration of H2O is 14,780 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has 11.9 g of H2O, and a mass of 1.20 kg. Using data from above, the mass of CO2 in this warm air is given by:
mass of CO2 = is 0.833 g/1.29 kg x 1.20 kg = 0.775 g
The amount of the greenhouse effect (GHE) due to H2O is given by:
GHE = moles H20/moles H2O+moles CO2=0.66+0.018/=0.973 or 97.3%
This calculation assumes that a molecule of H2O and a molecule of CO2 absorb about the same amount of IR energy. Actually, H20 absorbs more IR energy than CO2. H2O is the major greenhouse by far and CO2 is a minor trace greenhouse gas. We really don’t have worry about the CO2 produced by use of fossil fuels.
BTW: I just saw on the TV that a massive winter storm is sweeping across the the US. What has greenhouse gas CO2 got to do winter?
Answer: Nothing! It goes to sunny southern California.
Some of what you say may be true but I have oscillated around what is actually happening. While CO2 does collide with N2 and O2 thereby warming them. The vice versa occurs also. N2 and O2 collide with CO2 returning the energy to CO2.
I often wonder why some experiments haven’t been done to verify what happens here. Can CO2 absorb IR when already excited by collisions from N2 and O2? That would increase the temperature of CO2 further and cause more energy to be transferred to N2 and O2, but then CO2 would receive even more in return collisions! There comes a point of equilibrium but where is that?
Then you have H2O which would also receive energy from collisions but at least part of that energy disappears as latent heat that is not sensible.
And around the merry-go-round we go.
Then add in the fact that insolation follows a sine curve. What really occurs on the decreasing portion from π/2 to π as energy input decreases?
What’s your question, Gorman? A CO2 molecule absorbs a photon radiated at IR frequency, exciting a vibrational mode of the molecule. Then the molecule, which has greater kinetic energy as a result of its excited state, collides with a molecule of N2 (most likely) and warms the atmosphere. OR (less likely) re emits a photon which is captured again. Either way, the surrounding air in the troposphere is warmed.
Hi Jim,
Emission is what brings everything into balance. If the CO2 molecule is in an excited state it is more likely to emit than to accept energy via collision.
That would be news to the thousands of scientists who have researched the climate for the last 125+ years. Your post is a crock.
Please read my response to Harold. That’s what a reasonable discussion sounds like. Calling it a crock makes you no different than Bnasty.
Yours wasn’t a crock.. it was a glass jar.
You STILL haven’t produced any empirical scientific evidence supporting warming by atmospheric CO2. !!
I can wait until you can find some relevant science.. (ie…not glass jars)
Meanwhile watch this a few times.
Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232
A reasonable discussion doesn’t start with total irrelevancies, like glass jars.
Big difference between what climate scientists know and what they pretend to believe to stay employed. Federal funding and IPCC pal review that blocks truth telling about climate has destroyed the integrity of the climate science community.
Prior to the Deep Sea Drilling Project (1968 -1983), I bet the Warren Beetons of that time were probably saying words to the effect that “plate tectonics would be news to the thousands of geologists who have researched geology for the last 125+ years.”
The worst aspect of your comment is that unlike today, when there are huge financial and political incentives for ‘consensus’ scientists to support climate alarmism, there was very little incentive back then for geologists to uniformly ignore other substantial evidence of continental drift, aside from basic peer pressure.
Beetroot’s main problem is that everything he thinks he knows, is based on scientifically unsupportable non-science.
Nailed it!
No, because in contrast to Climate Deniers like you, plate tectonics research was conducted by real scientists.
Ironic, isn’t it? Like Climate Alarmism, the DSDP was mostly, if not entirely, government funded. The big difference is that government-funded Climate Alarmism is mostly conducted by charlatans, while the DSDP research was conducted, as you say, by real scientists.
The finding that modern day climate change is entirely caused by humans is concluded by 99% of peer reviewed research and affirmed by every scientific institution in the world. You have no scientific basis to support your Denial.
The alarmists have had a 30+ year monopoly on billions of dollars of government spending and have come up with nothing that doesn’t look like a plate of spaghetti thrown at a wall. A complete failure.
Tell us what we “deny” that you can provide solid empirical evidence for.
You are just a mindless stooge/mini-troll, without even the slightest evidence to back up anything you yap.
Climategate!
Conspiracy theory.
Climategate is a conspiracy theory? Elaborate please.
A number of independent investigations from different countries, universities and government bodies have investigated the stolen emails and found no evidence of wrong doing. https://skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm
OK, so no felonies- but you think the things they said are professional? And, I’m well aware of that site. Been there done that. In fact, one day I said something like, “your site is skeptical of people who are skeptical of climate science- is it OK to be skeptical of people who are skeptical of people who skeptical of climate science?”. They then warned me that any more comments like that and I’d be locked out of the site.
Proven.. by their own words…
Unlike your flaccid CO2 warming conjecture.
Discussions of DELIBERATELY tampering with data.
Is scientific maleficence!
Which of course, beetroot condones.
The “investigations”, were all by AGW stall warts.
Having problems posting a graphic.
Maybe it’s too large? Possibly these sites have an upper limit. I think I had that problem once with a .jpg file so I shrunk it and it uploaded. Vague memory.
Warren,
Models have been over estimating warming for decades. Even the IPCC admits this. We can’t find the missing heat lamented Trenberth. Despite most of the models being much to warm, the IPCC keeps them all and averages them in a desperate attempt to keep the upper end of estimates alive. This is scientific malpractice.
There is no doubt that CO2 increases earth’s temperature. But the only reasonable conclusion to draw from models that run to hot is that they are predicated on feedbacks that are too high. If we simply removed the most obviously wrong models from the average, estimates of sensitivity based on actual observations would be closer to 2.0. In that context, Lewis and Curry are arriving at results that are quite reasonable. The IPCC has a bad habit of using studies that are demonstrably over estimating the effects of CO2, they should be more honest about that.
None of which matters in the end. What matters is are catastrophes imminent? They are not. Global data shows agricultural production higher than it has ever been, and no discernable trend (per the IPCC!) in hurricanes, droughts, floods or wildfires. Does it matter if the right number is 1.4 or 3.0 if CO2 has gone from 280 to 430 with no ill effects? It does not.
That chart is a manipulated version of the real one. You should know better, David.
There are a dozen more if you want to get into that fight. The IPCC has admitted that their models run hot, CMIP5 was supposed to fix the problem, then CMIP6 was supposed to fix the problem, and now we’re waiting for decent results from CMIP7 to see if that fixes the problem.
But the fact is the models have run hot for decades. Don’t fall into the same trap as Bnasty where every piece of evidence that is shown to you gets dismissed out of hand by declaring it not evidence. You’re better than that, or at least I thought you were.
You STILL haven’t produced any empirical scientific evidence supporting warming by atmospheric CO2. !!
I can wait until you can find some relevant science.. (ie…not glass jars)
Meanwhile watch this a few times.
Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232
You’ve used only a sea surface temperature comparison, and avoided the complete picture. The models have not ‘run hot for decades’. The CMIP6 model ensemble included a group of models that did show high climate sensitivity, but they were distinct from the rest of the ensemble, and different from CMIP5:
“Around a fifth of the new CMIP6 models lie outside the very likely (90th percentile) equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) range in both Sherwood et al 2020 and the range adopted by the IPCC AR6, with 18% of CMIP6 models having an ECS above 5C per doubling CO2 and 27% of CMIP6 models having an ECS higher than the most sensitive model in the prior generation (CMIP5).”
You cannot dismiss, or imagine you can overturn, decades of climate research in one chart, nor do the results of CMIP6 undermine the harsh implications of AR6.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-climate-scientists-should-handle-hot-models/
Sorry Warren, but I’ve been following this for decades.
I’m not dismissing decades of research, I’m telling you what they were. You are looking at how they are presented NOW and I am sharing how they were originally presented and how that has evolved. If you trust the IPCC spin implicitly you are doing yourself a big disfavour. They were scientists in AR1,2,3. AR 4 the politics started to creep in. By AR6 its more perception management than science.
I did say there were plenty of charts, and there are. Even Nick Stokes rebuttal to Spencer’s paper quietly admits (if you look closely enough) that observations run in the bottom 1/3 of model results.
I notice you didn’t address my point that it doesn’t actually natter. There is no discernable trend in the key disasters the IPCC has been sounding the alarm on, and the IPCC admits this in AR6.
I think you said the models have been running hot for some time, including in the CMIP5 assessment. But that’s not what CMIP5 showed. And I think Hausfathers assessment, which I linked, showed the rationale for the AR6 assessment of climate sensitivity. Are you disputing Hausfather, and if so please explain.
I haven’t read Hausfather’s assessment, nor do I need to. I read the assessments as they were coming out and being compared to data at the time. What I am trying to explain to you is that there has been a lot of effort to change the perception coming from all sorts of sources. They are a rewrite of history.
I had a long drag ’em out argument in an investment forum with a person who claimed to be a climate modeler. It went on for a month. At the end he admitted he could not refute my sources or my facts but asserted that I was wrong anyway. Which is how these things generally end.
I’ve no intention of repeating all that research, I don’t have that kind of time on my hands right now.
I don’t find anything you said sufficiently compelling to overturn the years of work of the IPCC, or its conclusions.
God herself could come down from the heavens and explain it to you. I expect you would still go with the IPCC. There have been DOZENS of papers written about WHY the models run too hot. Now the IPCC rewrites history to claim they never did. LOL.
You made assertions. I find the work of the many scientists, whose work is subject to multiple levels of review, more compelling than a lone wolf on WUWT of all places. Why don’t you submit your work for peer review? Or join one of the relevant IPCC working groups and make an impact where it might matter, instead of a wuwt forum consisting mostly of Deniers?
First of all, I’ve written dozens of articles for multiple web sites. In the early days of the debate PhD physicists would show up in comments and more often than not, take my side. Now they do not show up at all. They fear for their jobs (one I know personally lost his) and the quality of the debate has declined sadly.
Second, I have a real job that is 60 to 70 hours a week. Writing a paper for a peer reviewed journal is a major undertaking (and I’ve helped others with theirs).
Third, I was invited to publish in a journal by the journal’s editors years ago. I declined not just because it is a horrid amount of work, but because I have a job and my job was threatened, so I stopped writing.
WUWT is a shadow of its former self. I hadn’t dropped in for years, now that I’m back I am shocked to see what has become of it. Unless things change for the better, I won’t be around in the long term. For now, I’m trying to make it a better place.
FWIW, my own estimation is that well over half the scientists in the field believe that the alarm is overblown. But they know where their funding comes from and what happens to their careers if they speak up.
My estimation is that the dynamics of large groups of scientists overseeing the work of other groups of scientists tends to yield conservative results, not ‘excessively alarmist results’ . Regardless, I respect that you believe your work shows the opposite, but in the end , I cannot endorse one non peer reviewed opinion over the hundreds of scientists who work in universities and agencies all over the world and whose work is summarized in the Assessments. I trust them more than those who cannot , for whatever reason, dedicate themselves professionally to the work required to create the science we rely upon as a basis of policy.
When Al Gore and Bill Nye did their famous on air experiment and got caught faking the results, I called it out. It was obvious from their apparatus that they had the whole thing backwards. They had the infrared source coming from outside the atmosphere toward earth, instead of from earth going out.
Not long after it was televised, Anthony Watts did an expose proving they have faked the results. He then did the experiment again, honestly, and provided the results they should have.
How did I know the results should have been opposite those recorded (anyone in Bnasty’s vicinity might want to step aside because his head may be about to explode) I could do the math and the physics in my head. Anthony’s repeat of the experiment showed that CO2 (again, look out for Bnasty explosions) absorbs infrared exactly as a century of spectroscopic experiments predicted.
Why am I telling you this? BECAUASE NOT A SINGLE ALARMIST SCIENTISTS, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF WHICH KNEW THE RESULTS HAD TO HAVE BEEN FAKED, SPOKE UP. They ALL went along with the lie.
So when you quote THEM, at ME, I’m sorry, I’m not interested. I can do the physics for myself and the evidence that the alarm is overblown keeps mounting as the earth refuses to warm in accordance with the models, the apocalypse (again, as per the IPCC) has no signs of appearing, and our world just keeps on getting better every day.
You say, “the apocalypse (again, as per the IPCC) has no signs of appearing, and our world just keeps on getting better every day.”
Since the IPCC never said anything about an apocalypse, are you now engaging in hyperbole, Mr Hoffer?
Excellent dodge Mr. Beeton. Rather than responding to the explanation, you seize on ONE WORD and complain about that. You’ve avoided the points I raised altogether.
I will go you one more. In the ClimateGate Emails, Kevin Trenberth said that “we can’t find the missing heat and its a travesty”. There’s two important points to be made from this:
So, we have a clear admission from Trenberth that the models are wrong, plus an aborted attempt to explain why they were wrong. This is but one example of IPCC scientists admitting their models are wrong, there are many more. What happens if they admit their models are wrong, revise the sensitivity estimates downward, dial back their predictions of doom? Well their funding goes away, that’s what happens. Can’t have that.
Here is the article by Anthony Watts exposing the Bill Nye/Al Gore experiment as fabricated:
Video analysis and scene replication suggests that Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project fabricated their Climate 101 video “Simple Experiment” – Watts Up With That?
Here is the follow up article with the experiment done properly:
Al Gore and Bill Nye FAIL at doing a simple CO2 experiment – Watts Up With That?
The whole climate science cabal KNEW that this had to be a fake, Media Matters called replicating the experiment a waste of time, attempting to persuade people not to bother watching it. Nye and Gore should have been excoriated by the climate science community. Instead they tried to bury it.
Horsefather is at the very top of the AGW con-artists.
How many bottles of his snake-oil do you have !
Only time UAH gets anywhere near the CHIMP 6 models is during El Nino events.
El Nino events are not caused by human anything. !
Explain- that’s a serious accusation.
The chart was obtained from the late John Daly’s website:
http://www.John-Daly.com.
I only look at charts from peer reviewed sources. Sorry.
AGW-cult sites, and climate pal-review, you mean.
Explains why you are so incredibly ignorant and mal-informed.
Actual real data is irrelevant to you. !
Just like the scientists that denied plate tectonics.
Just like the scientists that denied heliocentrism.
Just like the scientists that denied a spherical earth.
Jist like the scientists that denied alchemy was a fake.
Just like the scientists that denied Einsteins theories.
Just like the scientists that denied Planck’s theories of heat radiation.
Just like the scientists that denied the GBR was in good shape.
Shall I go on?
Your very viewpoint illustrates that you have a biased attitude and have a mental condition that disallows accepting new information. That’s not good for someone commenting on science.
Just one of the hundreds of valid science sources on the topic, and I’ll be glad to review, I just don’t waste my time looking at mysticism, Gorman.
You mean the models greatly exaggerated feedbacks that haven’t been observed in real life.
There is no CO2 signal.
Feedbacks do not exist when there is no signal.
I’m not a scientist but I’d think that climate feedbacks are very difficult to prove or even to demonstrate.
Feedbacks are well established in the body of scientific research.
RUBBISH,
They are purely conjecture… just like CO2 warming.
Of course they are. I wouldn’t have received my EE degree without learning about feedbacks and how they are established and how to ascertain their effects.
However, when it comes to climate science, there is no verifiable empirical data that demonstrates a specific feedback and its effect on the system.
Show us a paper or textbook that even begins to draw a system diagram that shows how feedbacks work so they can start analyzing how they work. All I ever see is a mish mash of logic. If this, then that, if that, then something else. In other words, CO2 absorbs energy, reradiates it backward causing more water vapor which causes higher temperature. Is that all you’ve got? If not, show us something else from the peer reviewed papers you obviously read.
Can you answer something that puzzles me?
If warming were natural rather than due to CO2 would the same feedbacks come into play?
If they do how much of the Roman Period Optimum was due to feedbacks?
If they don’t why not?
The climate’s behavior follows the same laws of physics, always and everywhere. So yes, the same feedbacks operate at all times, regardless of the cause of the warming.
Trouble is that you are totally clueless about the laws of physics.
Perhaps you should try to watch this video,..
although the actual science in it is about 10 magnitudes above what you are capable of understanding. I doubt you would get past the 1st slide.
Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232 – YouTube
More horse hockey from an unlearned trumpet.
Estimated 😉
E=MC^2 indeed
Seattle got out of it by shipping it all to D.C. The addition there was too small to notice.
66.
That deserves more votes than I can give it.
This historical oversupply, of course, enabled the explosive growth of the modern national press.
Horse manure, in Washington D.C. is the only true renewable resource.
No shit
Speaking of horse shit, I respect Mr. Mass’ opinion as a meteorologist but this, not so much. One of the worst ideas is reducing the CO2 level in the atmosphere since it has no affect on climate and is generally beneficial.
The author misses the irony in his analogy:
Were travel to grow as fast as expected, the threat of horse manure becoming unmanageable was real — and solved by the rapid development of a new, cleaner, technology — automobiles.
Today, the threat of CO2 emissions disrupting the world’s climate is also real — and solvable with technology — except those technologies already exist — nuclear, solar and wind power, and EVs. And that transition has also begun.
Solar and wind are intermittent, and barring science fiction level storage devices, unsuitable for being a part of a grid.
And you must be as indifferent as the Audubon Society as to the effect of wind turbines on birds and bats. And whales.
All phony conspiracy stories, with no factual foundation. 80% of new generating capacity in the last several years have been solar or wind. You’re way out of date.
And the Biden administration got voted out, and their Precious was “renewable energy”. “Phony conspiracy stories”? You probably believe in homeopathy and socialism.
“80% of new generating capacity in the last several years have been solar or wind.” And that “new capacity” can’t reliably replace the “old capacity”. And the only reason it’s been 80% is because permitting fossil fuel plants stopped.
No, permitting of fossil fuel plants did not stop. In fact, permitting of solar and wind is more difficult because their transmission lines are longer and more difficult to permit.
“permitting of fossil fuel plants did not stop”
Another blatant LIE. !
It may be new, but it can’t replace any existing power plants, as it requires 100% backup when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine – which is most of the time – and all from fossil fuels.
All renewables due is create a costly, unreliable and unnecessary secondary power supply, and the expensive and wasteful idling of fossil fuel plants that must be fully staffed and maintained to switch back on in an instant when the solar and wind go down.
Way wrong https://www.iea.org/energy-system/renewables
80% of WASTED capacity, that can only produce when there is wind and sun available.. so maybe 20%, and even that is erratic, intermittent and parasitic on the grid.. !
Then you need real electricity when there is no wind or sun.
You could NEVER rely on just wind and solar, because it is impossible.
80%? That’s utter nonsense.
China’s new coal fired power plants alone would make that number wrong. It matters not. Nuclear fission works and works well. It is safe, impervious to weather, takes very little space and is as dependable a source of electricity as there is. Wind and Solar do nothing but burden the grid with their intermittency, raising the cost of electricity across the board.
If you’re going to advocate for nuclear, I’m right behind you. But the green fantasy of windmills and solar panels is just that, a fantasy. You’d do your own argument a lot of good by discarding the parts of it that make no sense.
“ is just that, a fantasy”
I would say, rather, A FAD ! 🙂
Go away. You don’t get to piss all over me and then throw in a smiley face because you agree with something I said. You are a coward hurling invective from the safety of your anonymous screen name and completely incapable of carrying on a constructive discussion.
Do you need a new nappy ? Paint another target on your forehead. !
What did I just say about cowards hurling invective from the safety of anonymity?
And you here you are.
poor petal. ! you make me laugh. 🙂
Like watching a 5 year old throw a tanty.
Did you ever find anything apart from glass jars as empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?
Still hunting ?? Watch and learn..
Maybe you will realise why you can’t. 😉
Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232
I suggest you look at this https://www.iea.org/energy-system/renewables
In light of MicheI’s post below, you might want to rethink your comments on renewables:
“I asked perplexity this, and this is what it said:
Question: : In 2023 and 2024 how much generating capacity was installed globally, and how much of that was wind or solar?
Answer
The rapid growth in renewable capacity, particularly solar, is significantly outpacing previous forecasts. For instance, the 593 GW of solar projected for 2024 is nearly 200 GW higher than the International Energy Agency’s main case outlook released in January 2024 2
So I then went on to ask:
Question: You say 462-544 GW. Can you say which countries that was in?
Answer:
The 462-544 GW of wind and solar capacity additions in 2023 were distributed across several countries, with China being the dominant player. Here’s a breakdown of the major contributors:China
This totals about 292 GW, representing roughly 63-65% of global wind and solar additions1
.Other Significant Contributors
Much of China’s solar is not actually producing any electricity but building it satisfies the yearly plan and it is then waiting for all the ghost cities to somehow become occupied.
Evidence, please
Nameplate capacity Warren, nameplate capacity.
Look at the EFFECTIVE capacity actually DELIVERED by those same installations and you will find it runs under 40% in a good year, and under 25% in a bad year.
I no longer work in the industry, but spent years working with large power generation companies. Wind and Solar make no fiscal sense and the numbers published for public consumption invariably are for show. Practical generation by wind and solar is a fraction of the publicized numbers. Capacity is awesome. Unless it comes at a time when you don’t need it or doesn’t come at a time that you do.
no one disputes peak vs integrated capacity for solar and wind. Nor does anyone dispute that utilities around the world are adopting solar and wind in preference to fossil fuel fired generation.
Then why give the peak answer when you know damn well it is is inapplicable?
Why do the utilities brag about the peak instead of practical to the public? Why are they misleading the public?
Political pressure. That’s why.
Use the practical numbers instead of the theoretical numbers and your original assertion falls flat on its face.
The data shows solar and wind are preferred by utilities.
Oh does it?
The misrepresented data shows that a lot is being built, the actual data shows its a waste of money.
Big Tech was making a Big Deal about their commit to wind and solar. It was all fancy accounting when you dug into it, perception management only. Then AI became a thing.
Now Big Tech is falling all over themselves to build out AI centres running on gas or nuclear. They’re still pretending, but just barely. Sometimes there’s a nod to renewables. I dug into one three months ago and yup, there was a renewables component. Less than 1% of the total and that was at nameplate. But you had to dig deep into the numbers to find that. Why the subterfuge? Why the attempt to maintain the appearance of using renewables when the reality is it is a rounding error.
They’re buying nuclear and gas Warren. The only wind and power that is “preferred” is subsidized and mandated, else it would not exist at all.
“Preferred” is bullshit and I expect you know it.
The “actual data shows it’s (solar and wind) a waste of money?” I’ve worked with several large utilities in ‘data center ‘alley’ in northern VA, and I can assure you they are trying to build out as much capacity as they can as fast as they can in order to meet a huge growth in demand. Nuclear can’t come on stream fast enough, so solar is playing an important role for these utilities. Yes, capacity factors for individual solar locations are in the 25% range, but with load/location diversity and new battery storage, those factors are mitigated somewhat.
Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that grid decarbonization is in direct conflict with data center growth. Something will have to give.
You just admitted that capacity factors are in the 25% range and you STILL think this is a good idea?
I used to belong to some investment forums where wind and solar are sometimes pushed as good investments. I challenged any of the authors to provide a single example that would have been built without subsidies or mandates or other artificial means to xfer money to the solar and wind operators. Not only could these clowns not come up with any examples, they all wound up admitting that absent these, there would be NO solar or wind farms built. Then one idiot tried to make the case that they were STILL good investments because while uneconomical, they had so much “momentum” in the market that they could “never fail”.
Instant cancellation of subscription. The point being that even those who pump these things as “economical” cannot show them to be economical.
When you design a new power grid you are interested in two major numbers that are critical to your design.
Value of wind and solar for base load – zero.
Value of wind and solar for load following – zero.
There is simply no case to be made for using an intermittent source for base load, and now way to use it at all for load following. Even if the windmills and solar panels were free and required no maintenance, the burden on the balance of the grid would increase the price of electricity.
Which is why we see wind and solar ONLY where there are subsidies or feed in mandates or other artificial constructs. Preferred is a mirage.
You are dancing around the real issue.
The real issue is what consumers of that electricity would prefer. Wind and solar has increased energy costs to the consumer in many cases by 100%.
If you want to prove that W&S are cheaper and better, then dwell on the data that provides information about what consumers are paying. You won’t convince any consumer that W&S are good for their pocketbooks.
As for my evidence, why are so many AI and data center providers beginning to install their own nuclear power plants?
“no one disputes peak vs integrated capacity for solar and wind”
Which makes them absolutely USELESS for grid supply.
That is apart from being the most environmentally destructive forms of energy imaginable.
The TOXIC compounds used in their making, are absolutely horrendous.
Not to mention the damage they do during implementation and use.
And the land-fill and pollution when after their short life.
India’s electrical generation on graph below..
India Coal Production 2023-24: India records highest ever coal production in 2023-24, focus on raising coking coal output, ET EnergyWorld
India’s coal production hits all-time high of 1,039.59 MT in 2024 | Fortune India
Wind is a tiny little afterthought.
Brazil gets its electricity from hydro
Meanwhile, COAL production in 2024 hit yet another record.
Forecasts were saying about 8.8 billion tonnes, but I suspect it may reach close to 9 billion tonnes.
Coal will be the #1 energy supply around the world for a long time to come.
And emissions will continue to climb, to the massive benefit of the planet’s plant life..
And there is NOTHING your feeble yapping can do about it.
Don’t you mean:
“80% of new “renewable energy” generating capacity in the last several years have been solar or wind.”
… further to Mr Hoffers comment above:
In 2023, China accounted for a staggering 95% of the world’s new coal power construction activity.
In the first half of 2024 construction began on over 41 GW of coal projects.
Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
It is you who is out of date, can’t you see what’s going on here?
Nope. Your statement only addresses coal, not the overall energy picture. Renewables comprise the bulk of new generation being added, around the world https://www.iea.org/energy-system/renewables
In case you missed Michel’s post, below:
“I asked perplexity this, and this is what it said:
Question: : In 2023 and 2024 how much generating capacity was installed globally, and how much of that was wind or solar?
Answer
The rapid growth in renewable capacity, particularly solar, is significantly outpacing previous forecasts. For instance, the 593 GW of solar projected for 2024 is nearly 200 GW higher than the International Energy Agency’s main case outlook released in January 2024 2
So I then went on to ask:
Question: You say 462-544 GW. Can you say which countries that was in?
Answer:
The 462-544 GW of wind and solar capacity additions in 2023 were distributed across several countries, with China being the dominant player. Here’s a breakdown of the major contributors:China
This totals about 292 GW, representing roughly 63-65% of global wind and solar additions1
.Other Significant Contributors
Yeah right, capacity.
Capacity when you bring online a coal plant or a nuclear reactor means something, wind and solar, not so much.
You can have all the capacity you want, (like the Germans), but when the wind won’t blow, and the sun don’t shine, your capacity don’t mean squat.
Frances’ nuclear power keeps the lights on in Germany.
India Coal Production 2023-24: India records highest ever coal production in 2023-24, focus on raising coking coal output, ET EnergyWorld
India’s coal production hits all-time high of 1,039.59 MT in 2024 | Fortune India
Wind is a tiny little afterthought.
Brazil gets its electricity from hydro.
Wind and solar will die natural deaths under a Trump administration in the USA.
REALIABILITY Of supply is needed 24/7
Wind and solar can NEVER provide these.
I asked perplexity this, and this is what it said:
Question: : In 2023 and 2024 how much generating capacity was installed globally, and how much of that was wind or solar?
Answer
The rapid growth in renewable capacity, particularly solar, is significantly outpacing previous forecasts. For instance, the 593 GW of solar projected for 2024 is nearly 200 GW higher than the International Energy Agency’s main case outlook released in January 2024 2
So I then went on to ask:
Question: You say 462-544 GW. Can you say which countries that was in?
Answer:
The 462-544 GW of wind and solar capacity additions in 2023 were distributed across several countries, with China being the dominant player. Here’s a breakdown of the major contributors:China
This totals about 292 GW, representing roughly 63-65% of global wind and solar additions1
.Other Significant Contributors
.
Thank you
I assume Perplexity has got it right, in which case the numbers are surprisingly large. But its not as clear a picture as you might like. Four fifths of the increase appears to be solar, and as David Hoffer points out, solar does only a fraction of faceplate.
In fact in North Western European latitudes it does about 10%, and that’s on average.
In addition, China is said to be doing about two thirds of the additions. But this, after you take into account the capacity issue, is a very small proportion both of China’s total power generating capacity and of its increases.
Bottom line: I don’t think there is any kind of energy transition going on globally, or in China for that matter, and I don’t think the numbers show there is. I don’t see anyone outside some activist circles in the UK, US, Canada and Australia (maybe Germany too) really believing in any kind of climate emergency – certainly neither the Chinese nor the Indians do. I also see no signs that even in those countries that do believe there is an energy transition.
In fact, I think the evidence is that the UK in particular is headed over an energy cliff and a crash of sufficiently disastrous proportions that it may unseat the current Labour government and install Reform. No-one has any solution to intermittency, and to move to intermittent generation while electrifying transport and home heating is not going to work.
The activists always pick as their preferred parameter of success that wind or renewables generated a certain proportion of demand for a day or a week or two. But that actually shows the problem, because its also true that for days and weeks renewables fail to deliver more than a few percent of demand. And there are no plans and no proposals even to get through these cold calm winter evenings without gas.
Far more gas will be needed than currently planned. In fact, enough to completely supply. The alternative, towards which the UK is running with closed eyes, is nationwide blackouts. Several a year.
That’s not an energy transition. The big lie, or the big denial, however you want to look at it, is that the world can and will electrify everything while moving to wind and solar, while life carries on as now. And that any particular country, the UK for instance, can and will do that.
Look at the evidence, as an example, from UK power generation. It is just not going to happen. Francis Menton’s analyses of New York ambitions on the same lines make the same point.
So yes, I am surprised by the amount of solar and wind being installed. But not persuaded that its either sensible, effective or will have any effect on the global climate.
Assume ratios of peak capacity to integrated capacity of 0.9 for gas, and 0.25 for solar. And using your data that 86% of the peak capacity installed was solar, and 14% other. If 100 gigawatts of peak new generating capacity were installed, and 14 of those peak gigawatts were supplied by FF, the integrated energy supplied would be .9×14, or 12.6 units. For solar, the units of integrated energy would be 86x.25, or 21.5 units. So out of a total integrated system capacity of 21.5+12.6 or 34.1 units, solar would supply 21.5 units, or 21.5/34.1=0.63 or 63% of the integrated energy of the system.
Therefore, even though nameplate capacities of renewables are less than fossil fuel plants, the data you’ve shown still indicates a preponderance of new annual energy supply will come from renewable sources.
It is probably true that you can get to very large percentages of supply from wind+solar. A majority. But the problem is that this is not an energy transition. Its a supplement to a conventional system which has to be adequate to supply peak demand by itself.
All you have to do to see this is look at UK supply statistics on gridwatch. The problem is that if you increase the wind and solar installations there will be diminishing returns. You are still going to have the wind calms and the long dark nights, you are still going to need enough conventional generating capacity to get through them. And as W+S increases you are going to have the problem of constraints or surpluses, because production doesn’t correlate with demand.
I am surprised the Chinese are installing as much wind and solar as Perplexity reports, but even so the numbers are not supporting what you want to believe. There is no energy transition to W+S, and there will not be as long as the intermittency problem isn’t solved. Which there is no sign of at present.
The intermittency problem is actually arguably worse for solar than it is for wind. Wind drops to below 10% of faceplate for up to 10 days or so, particularly though not exclusively in winter. You can see the peaks and valleys on gridwatch, and the site also shows the minimums, which are well below 5%. There are also whole seasons of low wind every couple of decades. That’s bad. But solar in the UK just about vanishes from November through February, and in the UK latitudes it gets dark from about 16.00 to 8.00.
It really doesn’t matter how much you have installed and how much you produce in June and July, you cannot get around this without massive energy storage of a kind that doesn’t exist. The Royal Society condisered batteries, rejected the idea, and then proposed excavating 900 caverns, sealing them, and then filling them with hydrogen. Where you would get the hydrogen, who knows. How you would really manage to store it for the decades required, who knows.
Its not going to happen. The costs and practicalities just don’t add up. In the UK, as in New York State, the authorities are either going to build a lot of gas generation very quickly, or preside over continual blackouts. If the population live in the country I guess they can invest in diesel or gasoline powered generators. Or perhaps natural gas powered if you have supply. But the cities, apartment blocks? Its going to be bad. And when Miliband has made sure that everyone is totally dependent on electricity for heat and transport, think what a national blackout will do then.
The effect of intermittency on the economics is also often misunderstood. The effect is to lower the capacity utilization. If you get 30% on average from wind that sounds low but manageable. When you reckon with the fact that 10 percentage points or more of that come when its no use because demand is at a different time, the economics get a lot worse, and they get worse still the more of it you build.
Take the UK again. You build (arbitrary number) 200GW to deal with a peak load of 50GW. Should be fine, your average will be 60GW. Yes, but there will be long periods of 150GW production, so large percentages of your generation is totally useless. And then come the long nights of 10GW… Blackout or gas, one or the other.
This is a nameplate capacity answer.
Coal, gas, nuclear achieve 90%+ of nameplate. Renewables are lucky to hit 40% in a VERY good year and are more likely to be under 25%.
When you compare EFFECTIVE generation instead of nameplate you get a completely different answer. Perplexity’s answer is a typical AI answer. Technically accurate but absent critical information that dramatically alters the final conclusion.
See my recent reply to Michel. Michels data still shows, even with an assumption of a 0.25 capacity factor for solar, 63% of new integrated capacity came from solar. If the avg capacity factor for solar installations were greater than 0.25, the proportion of solar generated energy would be greater than 63%. Still a preponderance of new capacity from renewables.
Absent subsidies, feed in mandates, political pressure, there would be NO more wind and solar. It is not and never has been the generation source of choice by grid operators.
You might want to look into how solar panels and windmills are made. Solar panels required purified silicon which is made in a coal fire blast furnace. Windmills require high carbon steel which is made in a coal fired blast furnace. The EROEI is barely positive for most of them, the rest are negative. If CO2 is the problem you insist it is, they are making things worse not better.
And you’re way out of touch with reality:
Deniers are not credible.
Please give us more woke science.
You have credibility rating of NEGATIVE 100%.
Tell us what we “deny” that you can produce hard scientific evidence for.
Still waiting.
Seems you are a fact denier, and a science denier.
Just a brain-washed ignorant toady.
I haven’t watched the video, but defining anyone who disagrees with you as a denier is an admission on your part that you don’t have a factual argument to respond with.
So, do you want to be the alarmist version of Bnasty? Or do you want to have a civil discussion?
You are increasingly sounding like the alarmist version of Bnasty. Shall I leave the two of you to throw brilliantly worded insults at each other? Or do you want to discuss the science?
Every time I make a point about the science, your rebuttal is to the effect that “scientists say”. So question. If you are SO convinced that they are right, what are you doing here? In the whole time you’ve been here, have you changed ONE person’s mind? I bet not. Bnasty seems to account for half the comments and we both know neither of us will change his mind. Just be aware, when your comment is “well if you’re so smart why don’t you publish in a journal” you’ve basically admitted you have no argument and are going to play the Bnasty card instead.
BTW, I haven’t seen a comment from you about the IPCC AR6 reports showing no discernable trends in the things that matter. Hurricanes, droughts, floods wildfires. You want to insist that IPCC is the be all and end all? Well that’s their printed, published, conclusion. Buried deep in the detail, not mentioned on the airwaves, but there it is.
Like you, I don’t have the time (or the inclination) to dedicate my life to the work of a full time researcher. But I don’t have the confidence you seem to have, to create a more reliable work product than the many scientists who have produced the IPCC Assessments, or those who review their work.
I do argue that it’s considerably more likely that the IPCC Assessments are closer to the Truth than your posts claim to be. And far far closer to the truth than 99% of those who post on WUWT.
I believe it’s obvious that the burning of fossil fuels, and Mankind’s other activities that produce emissions of methane N2O and HFCs, have introduced a sharp discontinuity in the slow natural climate changes of the last 5,000 years. So whether you think CS is 3C or 2.5C, mankind will increasingly experience very serious negative effects. You might argue with the precise timeline, but I don’t think it’s possible to argue these effects aren’t occurring or wont occur even if the timetable is somewhat different than the IPCC’s timetable. And even if the timetable is more extended (which I don’t believe) , those trends will never stop worsening as long as we continue to emit long lived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
The good news is that mankind has the technology to fix the problem. The only question is do we have the collective political will to do so.
What serious side effects?
Your precious IPCC says they cannot find any.
For the record, I don’t have the time NOW. When this whole mess started I did. I spent the time, I read the papers, I uncovered one misleading statement after another, and more than one outright whopper.
99% of WUWT today is not WUWT from a decade ago. It used to be that one learned more from the discourse in the comments than one did from the articles.
STORY TIP – Mods, there are SO many awesome articles from WUWT’s past. Willis Eschenbach’s Steel Greenhouse, or his explanation of how island atolls are formed and maintained. There was a 3 part series on GHE works by a PhD (chemist?) whose name I cannot remember. Anthony’s take down of Bill Nye’s fraudulent experiment. The explanation of Michael Mann’s Nature Trick. The most powerful tree in the world. SO many articles that would make both Warren and Bnasty’s head explode. I saw a plea for writers a while back. Start rerunning some of THOSE articles. In fact, run the comments section from them along with the articles. My 2 cents.
Anyone who thinks Willis Eschenbach writes intelligently about science, or that none of the harmful effects of climate change observed by the IPcC are yet occurring, is not an objective observer.
Oh wow. The IPCC point blank says they can find no discernable trend. World of Data shows agricultural production through the roof. Hot weather related deaths are up, but cold related deaths are down 10X. The deserts are greening at the edges, in opposition to all the IPCC predictions. Longest life spans ever, lowest infant mortality ever. Every single aspect of the human condition is BETTER than it ever has been in history (unless you live in North Korea or Gaza but those have nothing to do with climate). But you want to cling to harmful effects that even your favoured source of information says they cannot detect. Of they mumble about this place on this spot of earth has this change that might be possibly from climate change, and then they mumble about another spot. But their own GLOBAL stats show no changes.
You should be HAPPY about this. Instead, like Trenberth, you think it is a travesty.
As for your pot shot at Willis Eschenbach, I disagree with him on several things and have pissed him off more than once over the years. That said, if you ignore his writing, you’re a fool. There’s much to be learned from his writing. Increasingly though it is obvious that you’ve decided that your worldview is supported by certain IPCC reporting (even though it isn’t) and that any evidence to the contrary may be dismissed out of hand.
Remember the doctor who figured out that washing hands before surgery would help prevent infections? Three doctors who disagreed got together, had him committed to an insane asylum, where he was beaten to death. They were wrong. There was a doctor who figured out what caused ulcers. The doctors who disagreed with him were so certain he was wrong that they prevented him from being published. He wound up giving himself and ulcer and then curing it to prove he was right. Remember when doctors were certain that you could cure disease by letting blood out of people? They prevented contrary opinions from being published for centuries. The Greeks were certain that you could see by rays emitted from your eyes. When it was pointed out that you cannot see in a dark room, they changed the theory to be that the rays from your eyes needed light to interact with to work.
History is replete with scientists who were suppressed or even killed for speaking out against “the science”. Remember all the pressure to accept all the Covid measures? Turns out most of them didn’t work, but we had to shut our mouth and knuckle under anyway.
If you’re bothering to show up here at all, you must at least accept that you may be wrong. In fact, the IPCC doesn’t even say what you claim it says. You post quotes in isolation but when you back up and look at the big picture, almost nothing has changed. Its gotten a little bit warmer, the human condition is better than ever. Be happy.
Oh wow. I’ve never met anyone before who can read AR6 — eg the Summary for Policymakers A2.0 through 2.7 — and then claim nothing is happening. Of course many metrics of the human condition are better because the world keeps making progress. But are you really claiming that the climate impacts identified and projected by the IPCC don’t and won’t have the impacts described in AR6? What analysis have you done to debunk the IPCC’s work? ( Other than to express your disproval).
The final coup de grace for your credibility is defending Willis Eschenbach’s writings. His commentaries on climate science are utterly uninformed and loaded with conceptual and scientific errors — yet he earns your adoration as if he is an authority.
Climate Denial comes in many forms. Yours carries the veneer of scientific authority — but when you dismiss the IPCC and elevate Willis Eschenbach the veil is lifted.
As I have explained to you in other comments, the Summary for Policy Makers bears little to no resemblance to the full report. I first noticed this in AR4. In AR5 it got so bad that one of the chapter leads resigned in protest. AR6 is worse stil.
If you want to know what AR6 ACTUALLY says, you need to read AR6.
Re Willis Eschenbach – did you miss the part where I said I disagree with him on some things? That I have in fact pissed him off? Is that your definition of “adoration”? Once again you are bending the facts to fit your world view.
I am curious how you would explain the rapid rise in temperatures over the last few years. I have a hard time understanding how anyone would attribute it to increased CO2. I believe the spike in ocean surface temperature are the explanation for the recent spike. CO2 has little to do with sea surface temperature
That’s like asking, “I am curious as to how the sun generates so much heat and light”. It’s explained by many scientific resources. Have you tried reading any of the many science resources on the climate available online? Or a book on basic atmospheric physics?
According to the International Energy Agency
The share of renewables in final energy consumption is expected to be “nearly 20% in 2030” however ” almost 80% of global energy demand will still be met by fossil fuels”
IEA ‘Renewables 2024 Analysis and Forecast to 2030’ (Oct 2024)
Not the issue. I was addressing the recent accelerating trend in renewable adoption.
And ignoring the continued growth of global COAL consumption.
“ the threat of CO2 emissions disrupting the world’s climate is also real”
TOTAL BS.
The only proven effect of enhanced atmospheric CO2 is enhanced plant growth.
1… There is no empirical scientific evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.
2… There is no evidence of CO2 warming in the UAH atmospheric data.
Thankfully, atmospheric CO2 continues to rise, due to natural warming, and emissions from China, India, and other developing countries.
It will continue to do so for decades to come..
And there is absolutely nothing your pathetic anti-science whining can do about it.
Wind and solar are the two MOST POLLUTING forms of energy over their short unsustainable existence.
They are horrendously poolluting and environmentally damaging in every phase…
… mining, manufacture, installation, in use, and as toxic land-fill at end of life.
This is what beetroot wants…
Clean energy’s dirty secret: the pond in China filled with toxic leftovers
This comes from the HUGE increase in the need for rare earths like neodymium for massive magnets in wind turbines.
Extraction of rare minerals for solar panels using toxic chemicals.
Solar is one of the filthiest manufacturing processes there is., Highly corrosive acids of various types for leaching unwanted minerals out of the silicon etc etc
Moving back to wind power is retrograde, it was dropped like a hot stone as soon as steam power arrived for good reason and it’s not much improved today. Betz law confirms it’s already at its limits and no amount of subsidy will make it more efficient.
In light of Michel’s post, below, you might want to rethink your post:
“I asked perplexity this, and this is what it said:
Question: : In 2023 and 2024 how much generating capacity was installed globally, and how much of that was wind or solar?
Answer
The rapid growth in renewable capacity, particularly solar, is significantly outpacing previous forecasts. For instance, the 593 GW of solar projected for 2024 is nearly 200 GW higher than the International Energy Agency’s main case outlook released in January 2024 2
So I then went on to ask:
Question: You say 462-544 GW. Can you say which countries that was in?
Answer:
The 462-544 GW of wind and solar capacity additions in 2023 were distributed across several countries, with China being the dominant player. Here’s a breakdown of the major contributors:China
This totals about 292 GW, representing roughly 63-65% of global wind and solar additions1
.Other Significant Contributors
roflmao.. Continued copy-paste shows how little you have in the way of your own thoughts.
Remind us of how big a tax break was required to get folks to buy the Model T…..
Solar and wind are cheaper than coal or natural gas, and have been for over a decade.
That is a lie…. Everywhere wind and solar infect the grid to any scale, prices skyrocket. !
But I’m sure you will now campaign for removal of all subsidies and mandates… right ?
So cheap.. not needed. 😉
Would you provide data you use on the costs so we can analyze it. Thks.
Google “Lazard: The cost of energy and storage”
The analogous solution to the proposed Net Zero (“renewables”) solution, would be simply to shoot all the horses and breed no more. Isn’t that the current proposed solution – get rid of fossil fuels and extract no more?
For any practical technology to replace existing, it must fulfil one fundamental requirement, that is make us wealthier, not poorer. Only idiots would seek to impoverish themselves.
Solar, wind, and nuclear are zero emission technologies, and the first two are less expensive than coal or natural gas power.
Wind and solar are probably the MOST POLLUTING forms of energy at every stage of their short life.
The massive amounts of TOXIC compounds required to make them is causing massive pollution problems in China ( but you don’t care)
They devastate the environment and avian wildlife where ever they are installed, (but you don’t care)
.. and leave a monumental mess in landfills at the end of their short life. (but you don’t care)
If I remember right, Cliff got blasted by UW for questioning CO2 as a problem. I believe he flipped to keep his job.
Sounds like he stopped ignoring science.
What science.. you don’t know any. !
From what I have seen in Seattle newsprint, it is still pretty much clogged with horse sh!t.
Horse manure, a problem of the past, and fusion power, a green dream of the future, are two subjects that cause me to stop reading an article. The third subject is green hydrogen.
Far too many predictions of fusion power == that’s science fiction in this century.
Fusion power predictions = crackpot
Predictions are not science.
Climate and energy already have too many predictions.
Richard, I am surprised that you don’t read anything about Fusion. If they could get it to work, it would be amazing. Progress has been made, but I don’t think we will see it in my lifetime. However, I find the work being done extremely interesting, even if it ultimately fails.
“we can take CO2 out of the atmosphere,”
Sorry, but this is one of most STUPID things anyone has ever typed !!
CO2 is at dangerously low levels already !
Huh? Atmospheric CO2 concentration today is 422 ppmv, 50% higher than in 1750, and the highest in several million years!
200-250ppm plant life is at subsistence level. Any lower.. that’s the end.
Optimum is upward of 1000ppm for plant growth.
We wouldn’t be here if levels had dropped much lower in the last few million years
Why continue to display your ignorance.
Is it a wilful choice, or do you just not know any better.
Electric streetcars provided the first widespread form of urban transit that did not rely on human or animal power. TBH, cable cars predated electric streetcars, but the cost limited operations to the largest cities. IC engines in urban transport started being a factor after 1910 or so.
The book “Time of the Trolley” by William D. Middleton has a nice explainer of the problems with relying on horse power for urban transit, with manure being just one of them.
Battery powered trucks for local delivery were common up to the mid 20’s.
I’m pessimistic about fusion becoming a source of energy in my lifetime as dealing with the 14MeV neutrons from the D-T reactions is a very difficult problem.
10 to 15 pounds of horse pucky will keep 5 to 7 dogs occupied. Don’t know what would take care of the resulting dog crap, except possibly more dogs, but those would have to be old dogs. Hmmmm
Fusion is a pipe-dream. The issue is that the only viable reaction is deuterium – tritium as
everything else requires a much higher temperature to be sustainable. And since tritium has
a half life of about 12 years there just isn’t enough of it for a commercial power plant. There are proposed designs for lithium blankets which would absorb neutrons and decay into tritium but
the cross section for that is much to low given the neutron flux from D-T fusion.
As much as I respect Cliff Mass on weather and climate, I find this post seriously off base for two reasons.
Not even close unless something very new has been slipped by me. The ration of energy out to energy in of the immediate reaction was favorable but charging the lasers to provide that energy in required several hundred times as much energy. I. e. the output was only a tiny, tiny part of the energy required to initiate the reaction.
CO2 sequestration has to be the most awful, special interest serving way yet thought up by the in-crowd. They will be the only ones to benefit via all their subsidies. This is even more wasteful than green hydrogen.
I’m not an engineer but I strongly suspect that SMALL modular reactors will be an inefficient use of resources, raising costs considerably. A standard design for 1GW or larger reactors, using off the shelf components, and free of the LNT fantasy and all the regulations and special interests that accompany it, is probably the only really cost effective way forward.
We can power the modern world with the technology we have today. The first thing we have to do is remove wind and solar from the grid and forget about EVs. We need to take the funds we are pissing away on wind and solar and build new modern fossil fuel and nuclear generators. We can use the generators we have now until the new ones come on line. As the new generators come on line we can update the old generators or retire them whichever makes sense. There may very well be a big place for fusion but until it is commercially viable let’s take full advantage of the power systems we know work.
“Nuclear power, starting with fission, but rapidly displaced by fusion power, will provide essentially limitless clean energy… There are no theoretical reasons in the way of practical fusion reactors.”
Such “rapid displacement” has been sought for about 50 years so far with no evidence of any displacement at all. Recent announcements summarized in your article that fusion experiments have achieved net positive production of energy for a second or so are clearly false since the vast amount of energy required to power the machinery in the first place were not included in the calculations. And rarely is there mention of the “unobtanium” materials needed for such a device to withstand for some years neutron fluxes of 10^16 near-light-speed neutrons/cm^2/second, temperatures of 100,000,000 degrees and the radiant energy from such a furiously hot device. And it gets worse when considering how to maintain such a machine that has become intensely radioactive by neutron activation of just about everything. There are such things in nature of course. They are called stars and ours is a very convenient and necessary 90,000,000 miles away.
We’re still overwhelmed by horse poop, but now from politicians and activists.
There is one main difference however: The horse manure problem was a real problem, while the so-called issue with CO2 which is a trace gas essential for life isn’t a problem at all. But this made up issue was turned into a pseudo-religion for leftist political reasons, to redistribute wealth. And in this case, even new technology won’t stop this nonsense. I hope common sense finally will.
Fusion power …
The best performance achieved (at the NIF in 2022 … see Wikipedia)
Let’s change the units:
2 additional remarks:
Conclusion: I’m sorry, but the electricity supply from fusion power cannot be expected before several 20 years periods !
Fission, on the other hand, is looking like making a strong resurgence.
The Chinese now have a commercially working pebble bed reactor, and it is of a modular design.
<p>China’s demonstration HTR-PM enters commercial operation</p> – World Nuclear News
I suspect we will now see a very strong growth in China of this sort of reactor..
… and places like the USA will need to keep up.
1950 Fusion power in 20 years
1970 Fusion power in 20 years
1990 Fusion power in 20 years
2010 Fusion power in 20 years
2030 Fusion power in 20 years
2050 Fusion power in 20 years
2070 Hell freezes over
Michigan has a Mackinac Island in the Great Lakes where there are no automobiles or any motorized vehicles allowed. Only horses. There is also a large team of horse poop picker uppers. My friends and I appreciated our jobs more after watching the horse poop patrol in action. They started using horse diapers in 2014 for at least some of the horses but did not completely solve the problem During my 47 years living in Michigan we just had to go there once — I thought it was an expensive tourist trap.
Seinfeld Kramer feeds horse Beef-a-reeno
“Fusion power is essentially limitless and does not produce nuclear waste”. I am completely for nuclear power. As far as I am concerned, they can build a nuclear reactor in my back yard. Truth be told though, also fusion power produces some nuclear waste. This is because the reactor is bombarded with neutrons from within. The extent to which this causes nuclear waste depends on the design of the core cladding. See for example https://www.iaea.org/topics/energy/fusion/faqs
“Yes, CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing due to human emissions, and the earth is slowly warming as a result.”
Supporting data please. Specifically how much “greenhouse gas” from Human emissions and how much natural? And evidence that CO2 plays any part in global warming from any source.
” Even if delayed a decade or two, fusion power will completely change the world’s energy story…”
Fusion power has been delayed “a decade or two” every decade since the 1970s – it’s like Peak Oil, always a decade or two away, but never arrives.
In any case, fusion power is only “cheap” if the massive capital input and required return to capital for engineering it to scale, and building and maintaining it are ignored. This is similar to what has happened with wind and solar, only the zero cost of extracting energy from the wind and sunshine are considered, not the capital investment and return required to make it a viable business.
Those extolling nuclear fission fall into the same trap – overlook huge construction and end of life decommissioning cost, the cost of waste handling and reprocessing.
France is the frequently quoted success story, but nobody knows or considers the 59 reactors were built out of taxes when EDF was State-owned and written off when it was privatised. The French Government has now committed to nuclear electricity, but since those reactors are near end of life and need to be replaced, EDF which was privatised has now been taken back into State ownership because it cannot raise the capital required – so the taxpayer will be plundered.
In the UK talk of new reactors has been ongoing for more than a decade, but no conclusion because Government would not commit to subsidising build costs and guaranteeing a fixed non-market rate price per MWh for the lifetime of reactors.
Nuclear electricity is cheap if the cost to taxpayer/consumer to subsidise it is ignored.
The primary reason why new technology succeeds old, is economic. To succeed it must cost less otherwise instead of making us wealthier, it would make us poorer. This is precisely the situation with wind/solar, BEVs and the rest of the Net Zero lunacy, it costs much more and impoverishes us.
“Nuclear power, starting with fission, but rapidly displaced by fusion power, will provide essentially limitless clean energy.”
Fusion power ? its been 10 years away for the last 50 years … as bad as wind and solar are we at least generate some power with them …
stick to fission … thousands of years of cheap power …