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Carbon Emissions Reached Record High In 2010
iONiUM writes "Last year, greenhouse gas emissions rose to a record amount of 30.6 gigatons, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency. From an article at the Guardian: 'Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. "These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a 'business as usual' path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path... would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100," he said.'"
jamie points out a recent report that the cost of solar cells has dropped about 21 percent this year, leading to predictions that solar power may become cheaper than nuclear and fossil power within five years.
But there is only a 10% chance of that.
You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
There are lots of excellent alternatives to fossil fuels coming down the pike: solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, fuel cells. I like the idea of solar cells on every rooftop, with hydrogen fuel cells in the basement to capture the surplus daytime power and recharge the electric cars overnight. I also like the idea of a windmill at every major intersection, to power a square mile or so of residences and businesses.
They're building a big solar thermal power plant in the Mojave desert, to accompany several others already up and running. Arizona's building a big one as well.
Solar photovoltaic technology is advancing, both in efficiency and in cheaper manufacturing costs. I think ultimately solar will provide 20-25% of people's electric needs.
And transportation is going to be electric, as batteries improve. Hybrid car sales are huge, and every manufacturer is getting into the act. They're somewhat expensive today, but economies of scale and improvements in the tech will only bring down costs and increase profits. Probably in 20 years every car on the road will be either a hybrid or fully electric.
What'll be interesting will be to see just how much impact this eventual shift away from combustible carbon fuels has on the climate. The scientific community largely agrees that humans have caused global warming, but what happens if we stop being the cause and it still gets warmer? All that carbon we've already produced is to blame? Or is it a few major volcanoes in the past century? Or climate shifts that have little to do with human activities? Should be an interesting 88 years coming up; wish I could be around to see it happen. But my daughter will, I hope.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
But rising by 3.9C is almost as bad. It's not 50% chance temps rise 4C or 50% chance it doesn't rise at all.
Sort of like the Fusion is 20 years away and has been for the last 50 years.
Or the car of the future. All someone really has to do is pick up Popular Science from 1973 to 1980 or so and you will see pages and pages about solar, wind turbines, alternative fuel cars, fuel cells, electric cars, gas electric cars, Stirling engine cars and so on.
It is funny but progress always seems to be much slower or much faster than predicted. The early home computer crowd really missed out on the potential of the Internet. Of course there is a great story written by Winston Churchill in the late 40s where he seem to predict the Internet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Its really simple. People are stupid in analyzing risk. They tend to underplay risk that is common or that they control and exagerrate risk that is out of their control or is unusual. If eating say garlic hamburgers gave you a 10% risk of death by heart attack, they wont bat an eye. But if there was a 1% chance of death from vampires, then they would gladly eat garlic hamburgers. Death by vampiric attack is more attention getting than heart attack. Is nuclear power risky? yes but the consequences are arguably less severe than global warming + peak oil. However people still irrationally fear nuclear power more since the dangers of nuclear power are more attention getting and unusual This is thinking irraitonally.
Somebody had to.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Sea level rise wiping out coastal cities, droughts, flooding due to excessive rainfall, to name the most important problems with warmer temperatures.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Oh my frikken god. Are you out of your mind?
People have died of cancer from the earliest of times -- they just called it something else, and quite often "a curse."
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas that is even generated by the human body. We exhale it all day long! "Taking in CO2" also happens all day long unless you can somehow magically clear it from the atmosphere prior to inhaling. (At which point, you will get amazingly high from having too much O2)
GO TO SCHOOL or something. Your snake oil is simply disgusting here.
Increasing water intake is good for most of us unless you are already taking in a proper amount each day. But did you know that taking in too much can cause problems too? Some people have even died from it. So doling out advice like "drink plenty of water" is potentially dangerous as there is no specification as to what "plenty" means and is potentially subject to misinterpretation.
It's lovely that you sprinkle in some "good advice" with your quackery. But that's how religion and other lies get spread and become believable.
At the dawn of the industrial revolution, people did get sick and die of all sorts of terrible things INCLUDING cancer and now treatable conditions. They did die of "old age" when it was considered natural for people to lose their teeth in their 30's and to die before 50. Deaths of the sort that were experienced in those days were considered "natural causes" back then. So when your assertions are wrong from the start, your conclusions are unquestionably broken at the end.
You are probably the most dangerous sort of pseudo-intellectual. You actually don't know what you don't know.
I believe the global warmist argument goes like this:
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
People fear Nuclear power because the dangers are terrible. People don't fear coal power because of all the successful lobbying by the coal industry. That anyone can look you in the face and say the words "clean coal" is beyond astounding. The fact that coal is terrible, however, does not make nuclear great. The simple truth is that humans have demonstrated themselves to be generally incapable of safely operating nuclear plants under capitalism, which is how the entire world is run. (Ask China's leaders how their bank accounts are doing...)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It doesn't have to be half the price.
The power factor is already rolled into the price per kWh
Besides Solar isn't base load. Solar is peak power anywhere it is economical at all (in summer when it is most abundant).
The real question is when does Solar (without subsidies) become peak price competitive. It apparently already is in Hawaii (we should end subsidies there immediately)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
To entertain your strawman for a moment, so for you, global communism is worse that the destruction of the globe? You'd rather see the state of Florida under water before, god forbid, we share even a little bit of the wealth of the industrialized world? Better dead than red I guess?
Personally, I'd rather live in a world that's 4 degrees warmer than one that was 4 degrees colder. The amount of arable land is increased and plants grow faster and larger. Take the world back down by 4 degrees and them newly planted vineyards in England will die, most of Canada's breadbasket agricultural land returns to permafrost and you wouldn't want to think how bad Siberia would get. Of course, the return of the land bridge between Asia and north America would make it easier to get cargo from one place to the other. You wouldn't have to try building the bridge I've seen notes about in shows about mega projects.
Actually most of the people who question the need to do something about global warming have logic that works like this:
1.) Person A says that we must give the government greater powers in order to prevent disaster from global warming.
2.) Person A lives an extravagant lifestyle that results in more CO2 emissions in a week than the average person generates in a year.
3.) Conclusion, person A does not really believe in global warming, they just want to increase government power (and perhaps make some money off of it).
If the people who are preaching about the need to reduce CO2 emissions are not doing anything to reduce their carbon emissions, why should I?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You forgot the part where they take temperature records wihch show no trend and create a warming trend by 'adjusting' it, then average that new trend out across large areas of the planet so that a few results from New Zealand which showed no warming become a warming trend over a significant part of the Pacific.
Basilcally the data is garbage, the models are garbage and the 'science' has been totally politicised.
No matter what we do, all available fossil fuels will be burnt. The world is so hungry of them.
They haven't slowed extraction but try to get more and more. All the oil pumped, all the coal mined, all the tar sands processed, all the gas collected will be burned. (well, a small part goes to chemical transformation, plastics...)
If you don't want to add some more CO2 in the atmosphere, you shouldn't have extracted more fossil fuels first...
(and forget this CO2 offset indulgences scam)
I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility? Funny how that only lasts up until the point where they are asked to take personal responsibility.
Let's see, the early IPCC reports warned us of 50 million climate refugees from flooded coastlines but 2010. I set up a couple of cots in my basement to help out but no one's come knocking at my door yet. In fact, as far as I've seen, no one's really displaced yet. There's a country in the south Pacific that leased a big chunk of Australia for just such and emergency but I haven't heard that they've moved there yet.
There's been a big problem with weather (i know, in know, weather and climate aren't supposed to be mentioned in the same article but you did already.) but that seem to the connected to a short period cooling and warming of the Pacific ocean called La Nina and El Nino.
Not sure what your definition of a "major boom" is, but PV production has been doubling every two years for the last decade.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Are you sure? Have you ever been to Abidjan for example?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Step one would be to make some concrete, testable predictions.
Pascal's wager isn't science.
Which part of "the cost of solar cells has dropped 21 percent this year" didn't you understand?
The part where I can use that to predict the price in 5 years.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
That can't possibly be true. Back in the 70s the media was telling me that oil would be gone by the year 2000.
You're right, oil will never end! Never!
And the logical response?
Stop using nuclear energy.
lol, Western Civilization is over. Wake me up after the next set of Dark Ages.
1. Supply cannot be adjusted to demand. My understanding is that wind is especially bad for this, as it is windiest in the evenings, after major industrial energy consumers have closed down for the day. We currently have very few options for storing generated power for later use. Batteries and capacitors are nowhere near ready for this task. There are a few hydroelectric stations that pump water up in to large resevoirs during the night for use during the daytime surge in demand. The areas where wind and solar are most effective, there is often little in the way of hills and water, making resevoir-based energy storage impractical. Also, resevoir storage requires the costly construction of a resevoir, pumps, and an entire hydroelectic generating station.
You might think that wind and solar could be used to provide baseline power, while "traditional" coal and nuclear adjust to peaks. Unfortunately, this is only partially true. Many PLWR and BLWR nuclear designs (almost all American designed plants are one of these two types) are not able to idle. This means that if the load on the plant falls beyond a certain level, the plant must perform a full shutdown or risk heat damage. This might not sound too badm but these same plants take at least a full week to restart, and require lots of electricity to do so.
Hydro is able to adjust it's output very rapidly, however there are only so many locations where hydroelectric dams can be installed. People often cite massive untapped locations far away from existing populations. Excellent! Now all we need to do is build costly and inefficient long-distance transmission lines to carry that power to where it will be useful.
Coal is also able to adjust output quickly, but, well... it's coal.
2. The second problem is that of dealing with a phenomenon called "reactive power". This is when voltage and current on an A/C line are thrown out of phase. Ideally, as voltage reaches it's peak, so does current. If you're voltage and current get thrown more than a few degrees off, you're home outlet may still be delivering 100 volts and 15 amps, but not really either at the same time. First you get 110 volts, but low amps, followed quickly my undervoltage and full 15 amps. This means that the usefull power on the line is diminnished.
Reactive power occurs as a result of inductive loads such as electric motors and transformers. As the coils in the motors rotate past the magnets, or the electric field rises and falls in a transformer, these devices become generators. This "reactive" generation is always slightly out of phase with the input power, and so the power that they feed back on to the grid causes voltage and current on the grid to skew slightly. Multiply this effect by the number of inductive loads on the grid (refridgerators, industrial equipment, televisions) and you can start to have a real problem.
Electrical generation sources that employ large turbines are able to adjust the magnets inside their generators to help counteract reactive power by producing power that is out of phase, but in the opposite direction.
Traditional wind turbines are unable to do this, though I believe some newer designes can, at least to some degree. Solid state inverters such as are used to interface solar cells to the grid are not able to to this at all, and so there is a very real limit to their usefulness on the current power grid.
Anyhow, I'm all for wind and solar. I just don't think they are able to provide a complete solution. Nuclear seems to be the way to go, but it must be done right. The Canadian Advanced Candu Reactors look like a viable option. They are designed such that they cannot melt down, produce relatively safe waste, and are capable of idling quite safely. I don't know why everyone insists on using dangerous PHWR designs.
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
lol, you think "Climatology" is a science on par with physics, chemistry, or biology.
It's more of a science like the Church of Scientology's audits are "science". If you disagree then they yell and scream and call you nasty names, etc.
The housing industry is not even a blip on the radar. Fertile land is used for agriculture. Did you know that the majority of trees in the world are cultivated?
The economist recently did a report on how we are going to be able to feed the world's growing population (or not). Here is a link to the main article: http://www.economist.com/node/18200618. And here is another one: http://www.economist.com/node/18200678. But there were many other articles on specific subjects.
The take-away lessons I got from reading all that, was that we have a very limited supply of non-used, fertile land, mostly concentrated in places like brazil where recent technological advances have made previously useless land viable. Water is the other bottleneck. And the expansion of meat-eating habits is also a problem, because it requires more land and more water per person than a vegetarian diet. So yes, your hamburger puts more pressure on the forests than the lumber industry.
Prediction: Solar power may become cheaper than nuclear and fossil power within five years.
Prediction: Enviromentalists wil find any number of objections to Solar Cells within 4 years and file numerous lawsuits against planned solar cell power generation facilities.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
s/great recession/last iceage
99% of all home owners will NOT get out there every 2 weeks to wash off the solar panels
Maybe that's necessary in the desert, or near an active volcano, or somesuch. The company that runs our solar array doesn't bother washing the solar panels, because they found that the labor costs of washing them outweigh the benefits of the additional power. Instead they just size the array slightly larger to account for dust buildup, and let the occasional rainshower do the work.
Solar also requires the homeowner to understand electricity... maintain that battery pack or understand the back feed inverter and know to go downstairs to re-set it after a power failure because it will drop off when power is lost to protect line workers and unexpected backfeed.
Most installs will be grid-tied and not require batteries. As for resetting the inverter after a power failure, I think most inverters will do that automatically -- and if there are those that don't, that's a minor hassle, but hardly a show stopper.
It will not happen. solar for the typical dumb homeowner will never happen
In fact, it's happening now. There are companies that will install the array for you, maintain the array for you, and monitor the array's performance for you, all at no cost to you -- instead, they split the profit from your electric-bill savings with you. There is literally nothing that the 'dumb homeowner' needs to do except sign a contract and then pay less for power every month.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It is hard to predict when the oil is gone. As you neither know how much more oil is found nor how much the need is increasing.
However there a simple ways to get an idea. When the oil industrie started, in the time where 1 barrel oil was used up they found 1000 more barrels.
Right now we spend between 7 to 8 barrels in the time we find *one* new barrel. That includes oil sands and other dirty oil reserves.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There actually hasn't been a larger number or tornados in the U.S. this year, compared to recent years. Just more of them have been hitting towns and cities this year. Better aim?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Well sure, carbon credits are far from perfect, but it provides a financial incentive for a company to relocate to a less-heavily-regulated country (so they can compete and stay in business).
FTFY
Unless the West is willing to go to war with China, India, and the other countries that are rapidly increasing their carbon emissions and who have absolutely no intention of slowing, anything the West does to cut back will have a negligible effect and serve only to reduce the standard of living for everyone and cause more deaths among the poor.
Just because it makes you feel good deep down in your little green cockles doesn't mean it's a good thing.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Demand has increased at 20 to 40% a year as the cost has gone down. (Demand curve, efficiencies of volume production, etc... basic economics).
You don't need a crystal ball. Fortunately, there is no "silicon cartel" to restrict the supply of raw materials so people who are expert at manufacturing (such as GE) can predict their costs accurately.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I have two sets of solar panels - one 10 year old set that's wired up conventionally to a single inverter, and another 8-month-old set that uses per-panel microinverters.
According to the very nice graphical display of power generation the microinverters provide via a built in web monitoring thingie, I average about four hours each day operating between 90% and peak generation.
Installation of the original set of panels was a major PITA because UL delisted the inverter after it was installed. Getting a massive piece of equipment down off the wall is easy, getting the replacement back up, not so much. But once that one startup issue was dealt with, the system has been 100% reliable and has required no repairs. As for the microinverters, it's early days yet, but they've been completely reliable so far.
As for washing the panels, yes, doing that more often increases output, but in my experience, not by that much. Around here the windows need to be washed twice a year so the panels get done as part of that. No big deal.
And as for all this "resetting after a power failure" - it appears your experience with grid-tie systems is seriously out of date. My 10 year old inverter handles power failures automatically. Aside from monitoring, I haven't had to touch the thing once the replacement inverter was installed. Ditto for the microinverters.
Finally, you appear to be conflating grid-tie and off-grid setups. I agree that a fully off-grid setup isn't easy. I have battery backup as part of my original system, but since the batteries are only used when there's a grid failure they haven't needed to be replaced. (And most grid-tie systems don't need them at all.) An off-grid setup that charges and discharges the batteries every day is going to require a lot more maintenance. And when solar is the only energy source the system has to be overbuilt in the fashion you describe (just not as much as you claim). And you probably care more about keeping the panels clean when they are your only power source.
But the vast majority of solar systems are grid-tied, not off-grid. So most of your issues simply don't apply.
Now, perhaps you'll say my experience is unusual. Yes, it's only anecdotal, but I know three people with similar solar setups in the area, and their systems have all worked flawlessly since they were installed.
The amount of arable land is increased and plants grow faster and larger
Really? I suggest you look up desertification - increase in global temperatures seems to be decreasing the amount of arable land, not decreasing it. Also, you seem to be under the impression that the result will be a uniform change of 4 degrees. This is not what the models predict - some areas will cool, others will increase by significantly more than 4 degrees. The average temperature will increase by 4 degrees (according to these models).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You should say that your statements are based entirely on utility scale PV installations. People installing them on their homes only need to beat their retail price per KW (average US value is $0.10 per KWh, with some states at $0.05 and others at $0.30). With panel prices at $2 a Watt and falling and a guaranteed 25 year life (that's the warranty on every PV panel sold) they already make sense to individual power purchasers.
So lets not be dishonest and use utility power pricing for homeowner economic value because they aren't equivalent. PV panels will be viable at the Utility scale level when they can get the thin film CdTe panels at $0.50 a Watt (which is theoretically possible). The fact that GE just bought the largest thin film CdTe panel producer and plans to build the largest solar panel production plant in the world should help.
Over 100 years ago, Arrhenius predicted it would take 3000 years to double the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At this rate, it will take less than 200. Time and again, we've seen the actual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and associated warming exceed predictions. It cuts both ways -- it might not as be bad as we predict, but it may be worse. Let's expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
And I'm sure you have tons of research and data to back up your claims?
Even ignoring all the data and research currently available, there is some rather large and tangible evidence that temperatures are warming, namely Greenland and pretty much all areas north of the article circle. Perhaps you may need a refresher in physics, but it takes A LOT of energy to melt the amount of ice that's disappeared over the past few decades just in those two areas alone.
The people who have politicized the science are the same people who politicized the science when anything affecting big industry negatively shows up. They've been at it a long time. Asbestos, tobacco, acid rain, ozone depletion, scrubbers on power plants, and any other major scientific controversy you'd care to think of has been well opposed by these groups with a lot of funding by the industries affected. In fact, many of the manufactured FUD organizations that were around in the 50's and 60's are still around today, doing the exact same thing. If you ever ever seen the movie, "Thank You For Smoking" you get a glimpse of what they do, and they do it very very well.
Of course, if you think their is a global climate conspiracy, then there is no way to convince you otherwise. So enjoy your beliefs. I'm sticking with the science.
~X~
Or perhaps the "creeping" is because people tire of the NWS and local new channels crying wolf every time there is a thunderstorm. I for one, never replaced my weather radio because I was tired of being woken at 3AM because NWS heard some rain falling somewhere within 20 miles of me. How many times do they need to broadcast those damn "thunderstorm warnings" at 3AM? Jesus, wake me if there is a tornado, I can deal with a little rain just fine.
Gee, it's a good thing we started driving cars and avoided the manure problem, even though "skeptics" back then imagined all sorts of insurmountable problems with cars. Now can we switch to alternative energy sources and likewise avoid global warming, even though today's skeptics claim it's a socialist plot to control everyone by destroying the economy?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Let's see, the early IPCC reports warned us of 50 million climate refugees from flooded coastlines but 2010. I set up a couple of cots in my basement to help out but no one's come knocking at my door yet
First of all, assuming those 50 million to be spread evenly, this gives you a 0.7% chance of getting one refugee. But keep that cot in your basement, there's a 50% chance that one refugee will come to you in the next 140 years.
If you had actually read that paper you mention, instead of spreading oil industry propaganda, you would know that the author estimated that there were 25 million people who had to leave their homes because of climate problems in the mid-1990s and the trends indicated that this amount should double by 2010.
I don't know if the number of refugees actually doubled in that period. but the actions of the state government of Arizona seem to indicate that the problem is increasing. In 1995 no one would lose their business licence in Arizona for hiring a refugee. You do trust the Arizona governor, don't you? After all, you have always voted for her party, right?