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China's Coal Power Plants Mask Climate Change
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports on new research revealing that the huge increase in coal-fired power stations in China, up from just over 10 gigawatts (GW) in 2002 to over 80GW in 2006, has masked the impact of global warming in the last decade because of the cooling effect of their sulphur emissions. But scientists warn that rapid warming is likely to resume when the short-lived sulphur pollution – which also causes acid rain – is cleaned up and the full heating effect of long-lived carbon dioxide is felt. 'Reductions in carbon emissions will be more important as China installs scrubbers [on its coal-fired power stations], which reduce sulphur emissions,' says Dr. Robert Kaufman. 'This, and solar insolation increasing as part of the normal solar cycle, [will mean] temperature is likely to increase faster.' The effect also explains the lack of global temperature rise seen between 1940 and 1970 as the effect of the sulphur emissions from increased coal burning outpaced that of carbon emissions, until acid rain controls were introduced, after which temperature rose quickly. 'Warming due to the CO2 released by Chinese industrialization has been partially masked by cooling due to reflection of solar radiation by sulphur emissions,' says Prof Joanna Haigh. 'On longer timescales, with cleaner emissions, the warming effect will be more marked.'"
'Reductions in carbon emissions will be more important as China installs scrubbers [on its coal-fired power stations], which reduce sulphur emissions,'
So basically never?
Scrubbers have been required in America since the 1977 revisions to the Clean Air Act. And they're still not used in China. My understanding of the situation (although, full disclaimer I do not speak Chinese nor have I ever been to China) is that the companies simply don't follow regulation. The latest news is that they just move to non-urban areas to avoid such regulation:
Carlson Chan is in charge of air quality policy at Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department. He says companies found ways around the stricter limits.
"When we tightened the sulfur content of industrial diesel from 0.5 percent to 0.005 percent in 1998, the resistance then was not very big, mainly because many manufacturers have moved their factories across the border," he said.
Just across Hong Kong's border is Guangdong province, the center of China’s export industry. As the factories there multiplied, the air pollution returned to Hong Kong.
I found it impossibly hard to believe that it's cheaper to move your entire operation than install scrubbers -- failing that, surely a bribe is cheaper. So I dug around and as recent as 2006 the cost seems to be very high (anyone know today's rates?):
The average cost for scrubbers today (2006) is roughly $300 per kilowatt. For a 1,000-megawatt power plant, a relatively common size for coal-fired facilities, the cost for scrubbers for all boilers would be approximately $300 million.
I guess that would be a death knell for a Chinese company (and, let's face it, much of Asia is guilty of over polluting). If China introduces "regulation" that would stunt their free market, the free market simply circumvents it one way or another. It's the story time and time again in China and I think that a large part of their government is complacent with it because their economy is comparatively gangbusters.
... it's going to cost everyone eventually. But oooh, that free market fueled cheap shit at Wal-Mart is just so tantalizing! How can you not buy it? Everybody wins (except the environment)!
And when a country trades with China, they're just exporting their pollution. I mean, we're all on the same planet
My work here is dung.
It's there, you just don't see it.
The last decade was simultaneously the hottest on record, and we did not see a warming trend. Clearly we need more money for our research.
Note the buried finding ITFA that the the sun's changes might be, possibly having some influence on global temperatures. Sheesh.
Doesn't this give us a steer towards a short-term fix? Not my area, but if the doomsayers are right, and evidence suggests they may well be, then we could offset warming with some floating mirrors or something. Or get kids around the world to fly tinfoil kites. Or just pump some more dust up there. I realise this is not the solution but it is a genuine question.
So the coal plants are reducing the warming trend? Sounds like the solution is MOAR COALZ BURNIN!!!!!!
At least the Chinese have the stones to build and make something, burn baby burn.
These 'scientists' with Phds, and you with...? Probably not much.
Except the ability to jerk off at the keyboard while thinking about how much smarter you are with all of your common sense that the 'elite' scientists lack hey?
This is going to be taken by both supporters and detractors of Climate Change: Warming Trend as evidence for their cause. Let me go get the popcorn.
Nothing productive will come of this so I might as well sit back and enjoy the fireworks. Nevermind we are trying to figure out a complex model as it changes under conditions that about as far from scientifically controlled as possible. My only hope is we don't accidentally cause an Ice Age trying to fix this.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
1: Inject Sulfur (as some sort of aerosol compound) high into atmosphere
2: Increase albedo of earth
3: Decrease warming effects of greenhouse gases
4: PROFIT !
???
I'm so fed up with this Global Warming garbage, especially the human-caused portion of it. These "scientists" are like ants in an oven, blaming the oven's rising temperature on themselves, rather than the heating element.
What? They bring up a perfectly valid point that was overlooked before, and that makes you laugh? Sheesh!
This will be caused by the impact of Global Warming. When there are large migrations due to climate changes, and much international strife, the fact that we ignored the warning signs will look incredibly stupid.
People will be looking for someone to blame. All the footage of Republicans denying a problem exists will be found, and they will become the symbol of our stupid policies. Even though many share the blame, they will be so identified with bad judgment that the party will have to change it's name due to the bad connotation.
Personally, I think this language change will be greatly deserved.
Why is Snark Required?
Didn't China sign on to the Kyoto Protocol? Of course China is categorized as a "developing nation" which means that they aren't subject to as stringent a reduction in emissions as an "industrialized" nation such as the US would be.
These 'scientists' really make me laugh...
Because they are all the time revising their models and theories in order to make them more acurate? What a stupid thing for a scientist to do!
Anyway, I have some snake oil to sell you for your headaches... you know, your grand-grandfather used it, so it is sure it works!
Why can't
This is why many American companies outsource manufacturing to china. lax regulations, and those regulations are ignored. It's far cheaper to make your phone in a location where waste can be dumped into the stream behind the building or just thrown into the trash stream and bury those heavy metals in the landfill.
But as long as we ignore that and enjoy low priced products it will all be ok.
Environmental regulations hurt jobs and business! And because of them, business has to outsource overseas because they won't be able to compete! And then there are the taxes .... American business has to go overseas for the cheap labor and the lower taxes in order to compete with the rest of the World.
Translation:
We want to lower our costs to the bare minimum so the CEO and other executives can get filthy rich off of the backs of the workers and shareholders all the while poisoning the people and land of foreign nations because their leaders want to enrich themselves - (fascist) capitalism working with despots.
In the meantime, the super rich propaganda machine has brain washed us peons into thinking that if we work hard and get educated, we too can one day join their ranks - it's a given! As long as we can keep those pesky environmental regulations and taxes low for the very wealthy ($10 million+ assets) out of the way.
In the meantime, the entire World spirals down economically and ecologically and the super rich hang out on their yachts and private jets.
Want to know who to go after? Get the Gulfstream, Bombardier, Cessna (Citation Jets), and the other "corporate jet" makers client lists and then get the individuals behind those corporations.
So you are still trying to make the facts fit your theory?
WTF!?!
Take a look at the facts, and develop a theory from the facts.
Earth's climate swings hotter-colder-hotter-colder. Humans put out less CO2 than one volcano.
Who would've ever thought that Walmart's slogan could be taken so literally!
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
Say what
The only thing you have to do is to inject the sulphur dioxide or similar stuff into the stratosphere which has hardly any weather and as such it will stay there for a long enough time to make the whole operation feasible , and rather cheap.
We had a talk of it at the university - one of the professors in there is working on the delivery system - you have to pump quite a quantity of material quite high... besides the tubes have to hold themselves up (by baloon / air anchor)
So China is saving the world by polluting? TAKE THAT Captain Pla.... Al Gore
Good thing then that sulphur scrubbers had already been installed on Nabro, Grímsvötn, Puyehue, etc. etc. Wouldn't want them to interfere (see last sentence of the paragraph) with global warming.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Please. We know the heat capacity of carbon dioxide etc. to very high accuracy. We know the energy radiated into the earth by the sun. Anybody with a basic grasp of physics can calculate that a higher concentration of greenhouse gases leads to higher temperatures.
Perhaps the supposed rise in temperature in recent decades isn't due to CO2 emission; perhaps our nasty coal plants in the west prior to that were holding off an increase by putting aerosols in the air, and cleaning them up unmasked that effect.
If coal plants really have this sort of major effect, and they aren't accounted for in the much-vaunted climate models, the models are pretty much junk. If they are accounted for, why is this news?
Ah, the ancient myth of the 'but they said there was cooling in the 1970s'. Please die.
I'm not sure how Mann and Co. can keep a straight face whilst publishing rubbish like this. They've basically tweaked an existing computer model - one that did not in any way conform to actual reality - and added further fudge factors to make things balance out and *shock* it does! That is to say, rather than admitting the CO2 hypothesis is wrong and that changes in solar activity and the oceans are more convincing explanations, they prefer to fiddle around with what is an over-parametrised model.
The entire paper is predicated on the assumption that the climate model (and climate models in general) code for sufficient amounts of internal variability. Given that models rarely, if ever, show this, one can safely say that they do not and that they are therefore invalid.
The effect also explains the lack of global temperature rise seen between 1940 and 1970
When the evidence doesn't fit the model, just come up with an excuse to dismiss the evidence. That's the grant-whoring scientific method at its finest.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
..America's industrial pollution, being the product of democracy, leads to a surfeit of hot air, which will cause the climate to change.
Chinese pollution, made by communists, cancels out the democratic American pollution and so overall nothing happens either way.
'zat it?
So.. it has come to this
It may affect warming, but it doesn't fix ocean acidification
Let's overlook the fact that we have a big fat admission that temperatures haven't been going up for about a decade and how no one wanted to readily admit that to the public...
Global warming theory, as presently constructed, can't be falsified. "The theory's valid! It's the sulfur, the ocean cycles, the -fill in reasons for lack of warming-."
How can we even disprove this current assertion? They have no idea.
At the very least, this gives credence to the Freakanomics folks. Instead of wrecking the world's economy, how about we just shoot sulfur in the upper part of our atmosphere if you are worried about global warming?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Sorry, it is more like
1: Use scientific data to show we are all going to die from global warming unless we make changes.
2: Suggest government regulation of CO2. Something everyone produces by breathing.
3: Start company selling Carbon Credits.
4: PROFIT!
There is no profit in fixing the problem and the government does not get more power by fixing it. Therefor it will not be fixed.
These 'scientists' really make me laugh...
Because they are all the time revising their models and theories in order to make them more acurate? What a stupid thing for a scientist to do!
The stupid thing they do, is not gather climate data and theorize on it, but use their gathered data to come up with ridiculous insane social engineering / economic failures / central govt neo-catholic original sin control via guilt.
Let me provide the Standard /. Car Analogy:
My 14 year old car engine has a leaky valve cover gasket that drips out about a tablespoon of oil per month.
Denier #1: No one can prove the oil on the floor comes from my car. Could be someone elses car, or a enviroterrorist dumping oil trying to make me look bad.
Fearmonger #1: At present rate, the world will fill with dripped oil and we will all drown. Vote for me!
Denier #2: Oil stain on garage floor could be stains from greasy mcdonalds food.
Scientist #1: Clearly, the evidence of leaking oil proves the only solution is for the "workers of the world unite, you only have your chains to lose!" If hugo chavez's government owned the factory that built my car, surely it would never have dripped oil.
Denier #3: You have less than 14 years of garage floor data. How certain are you its not a natural crude oil seep underneath the garage?
Scientist #2: Perhaps the best way to prevent the world from filling with dripped oil, drowning us all, would be to genocide 90% of the population. After all, people = cars = dripped oil, unless you're an illiterate heathen from flyover country who would argue with math and equations. Because everyone who whines about overpopulation is a coward, I as a scientist, scientifically suggest that the 90% to be disappeared be from "not my family" and "not my culture/ethnic group" and "not my country".
Scummy financial industry economist type #1 (is there any other kind?): Hmm, maybe I can make some dough off a futures market of the rate increase of the oil drip rate from VLMs car. I could get insider information, or I could front run the retail investors trades, or maybe implement some high freq trading voodoo.
Denier #4: Used motor oil is mostly hydrocarbons. Sometimes, some people, occasionally, like hydrocarbons on their floors, either for temporary comic relief, or the closely related, yet entirely different situation of hydrocarbon based floor waxes and wood floor finishes and floor paints. Therefore all spilled oil is desired by all people all the time.
Scummy financial industry economist type #2 (but I repeat myself...): maybe I could convince VLM to pay me twice for the oil, once when he pours it in, and once when it drips out. We'll call it a "tax" because americans always roll over and play dead whenever someone increases their taxes; they think it inevitable that their middle class be destroyed and that taxes MUST always increase, so calling it a carbon tax is excellent marketing.
Scientist #3: I'm really proud of how we talked about this all day and wrote papers about cars that drip oil, which from a middle management perspective is equally effective as actually doing something. Excuse me, while I commute back to my ivory tower in my Prius.
Denier #5: My holy book does not discuss "cars" or "motor oil", and my holy book is all I need to get into heaven, therefore I'm sticking my fingers in my ears. These scientists should have been studying my holy book in sunday school, not learning all this calculus stuff, especially since calculus, and learning in general, is tool of the devil. Would you like to hear a hymn, or perhaps a completely out of context quote from my holy book?
Scientist #4: I'll say anything for money. Anyone who denies will never get any money again. What a happy coincidence for me that that I am a trustworthy supporter of popular groupthink! Now that I've said that, where's my grant money to study these oil drippy "car" things?
The problem is my parodies above are all completely accurate, all the players are morons not worth listening to.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Remove those scubbers from American plants!!
Grand claims are needed (if you're referring to the claim "anthropogenic air pollution very probably results in significant warming of Earth's climate", which is pretty much the biggest claim scientists made). There's a reason to think that way, and that reason has been questioned by tens of thousands of capable minds over the course of decades. Intelligent humans would listen to the warning, and act even when the above is not completely certain. Nothing can ever be completely certain, but scientific results will always be the closest thing.
By the way, we *are* able to predict the weather to a known level of accuracy, which is also rather high for short-term forecasts. Climate simulation is the same thing but much simpler (because we don't care about where and when it will be what temperature, only the average), but of course more difficult because of other reasons. That said, there are many uncertainties, some so uncertain that no value is given, but their range *is* known. The possible ranges can be read in the IPCC documents from 2007. This-and-that effect cannot be bigger than some limit, and these values are quite trustworthy, because if some effect was HUGE, then it would necessarily also be evident. The sun's impact is actually pretty well known - the changes in power output have been much too small to account for detected changes.
The temperature measurement network isn't grand, but it's also not giving out random numbers. We know that. The numbers don't look random. The signal-to-noise ratio is big enough that we can use those numbers, and other effects are accounted for (right, some thermometers are next to asphalt, but guess what - asphalt warms up the ground, there's now more asphalt than 50 years ago, thus asphalt indeed contributes to global warming (I suppose these effects go under the label of "land use" in IPCC documents if you want to look it up)).
Scientists are sceptics and continue to be that. But this means more than just questioning findings. Turns out the scientists have long ago researched the problem of how good their results are, and the 2007 report was groundbreaking indeed because then, for the first time ever, scientists concluded their results are "very probably correct". And mind you, their result was that the humans cause warming in the range of 0.6 - 2.4 watts per square meter. Of course there's always a tradeoff between dependability and accuracy of some result, now the numbers add up such that scientists can very confidently say something that's very approximate, but still useful.
By the way, the biggest uncertainty in climate forecasts is the amount of pollution humans spew out in the future. How would they know that? They wouldn't. We might be able to cut pollution by 50% in 20 years, or we might quadruple it in the same time frame. No way to know.
That's what I hate about scientists: such consistent grant whores. How we ever learned anything at all from them is just beyond me.
Revelation 16:8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.
Reading all the ways scientists anticipate we are screwing up the planet sounds like a refresher on Revelation.
- Jasen.
This.
Seriously - we hear so many radical and emotional viewpoints, that rational discussion can't get a word in edge-wise.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
One of the major costs of installing scrubbers is building a whopping great big ash dam and moving a lot of water around. You need that to an extent with only small units so the cost per MW is going to be very high compared with a larger plant. It's nothing like a linear cost and playing with numbers as if it is will dump you deep into the land of ridiculous bullshit at either extreme.
Also there's a lot less sulphur in Chinese coal than some of the unfortunate stuff the USA is stuck with, but they are burning a lot so that's why it's looking worse than the USA before pollution controls.
Anyway things are getting so bad in China that pollution controls will be enforced more strongly fairly soon and being China some plant managers will probably get executed for blatant contempt of pollution regulations.
..regardless of which method the hairless apes select to justify controlling each other, every 75Kyears, where I'm sitting right now will be covered with two miles of ice alternating with a nice limestone producing inland sea.
WOAH! Which religion did that just come from?
Right, it has been covered by ice periodically in recent times. But only in recent millennia when there hasn't been much CO2 in the atmosphere. There have been very long periods without significant glaciation on Earth. CO2 levels are already much higher than ever before during recent glaciation events, and we might very well be in for another 250 million years without ice.
That's the key, see. Our emissions have already pushed the climate system of Earth beyond the boundaries of what it has been during the last few millions of years. The current ice age started 2.6 million years ago (with alternating glacials and interglacials), and it might be over in 1000 years. Before the current ice age there was 250 million years without glacial periods.
Is there something else we can shoot into the atmosphere to reflect more energy back into space?
The current trend seems to be "No matter what humans do, it's bad for the environment."
2: Increase albedo of earth
You forgot to mention that this can be achieved by deforestation.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Death to the counter-revolutionary running-dog lackeys of the imperialist Rationality-Industrial complex!
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Jesus, +4 insightful? This is scientific ignorance at its peak, and nearly pure ad hominem.
The point of science is that it stands up to arguments like this _easily_. And the fact that its modded up here on slashdot, of all places, makes me sad.
.
I love how the global climate change believers are so quick to blame the U.S. on the grounds that the U.S. uses roughly 25% of the world's energy. Correlation does not equal causation. But if it did, why isn't the causation China's industrialization which exactly tracks the hockey-stick graph? It's not like they're going whole-hog on "green" energy.
Since nobody is actually measuring all the stuff that is going up the stack in China any attempt to account for it is going to be a fairly rough estimate.
As if we hadn't heard this before. Last time, AGW was masked by car emissions and so on. Please people, do have a look how a similar panic started with Ansel Keys and the fat scare. Today we have epidemics in obesity and type-2 diabetes. Yet, it was the so called science, that brought us there. We have yet to see any adverse effects of the climate change. Extreme weather such as tornadoes are diminishing, which is actually what textbooks used to say they would the temperature difference between the poles and equator is reduced (which current climate change has resulted in).
AGW dogma is the result of hubris of western culture. Nothing else.
There is a horrible mixture of fact and fiction in the debate. Example, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that is obviously true, hence it will push our climate through a tipping point, that is obviously not true. It has been 10-20 times higher before yet we are here. There is also a mixture of science and propaganda. Example, man causes change in atmospheric temperatures: true, this is bad: perhaps but it is not science. Science should deal with objectively measurable entities free from human opinion or values. Plenty of research points to that we will be able to feed more people on this planet and fewer will die if temperature increases. It is totally possible that a CO2 increase is a good thing for all living thing on this planet. Sure, there is a limit to how many humans this planet can support. However, 30 years India was not going to be able to ever get rid of starvation. Yet, today, India supports twice the amount of people it did 30 years ago and fewer of them starve.
Right now, I doubt that CO2 content in the atmosphere has any significant implications on anything. 20 years of climate research has convinced my of that. The only thing that climate research seems to be able to produce is that more climate research is necessary OR ELSE.
Lol...
University degree in physics, if you must know... Then again, I jerk off once in a while... don't you? ;-)
This totally makes since because of the sulfur dioxide emitted from volcanic eruptions. The cooling that occurred with the Tambora volcanic eruption in the early 1800's cause a year with no summer in the northern latitudes. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
Walt
Jesus, +4 insightful? This is scientific ignorance at its peak, and nearly pure ad hominem.
The point of science is that it stands up to arguments like this _easily_. And the fact that its modded up here on slashdot, of all places, makes me sad.
Scientific insight not ignorance.
None of the players are even trying to do science, so don't feel bad that they're not overly scientific.
All the players are scamming for money, glory, and most of all, control. The scientists are just a tiny subset of the "all players" therefore they're scammers.
If you want science, you won't find it in the global warming debate, or at least it'll be buried under megatons of garbage from both sides.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The costs of installing scrubbers in the United States is typically more than $300/kW. Largely depends on the specific scrubber technology, the type of coal the unit is burning, etc. But a large portion of that is labor costs. Wonder how much it costs in China?
The great thing about working in the electricity industry is that your job is unlikely to be off-shored any time soon. Most electricity has to be generated locally and real bulk storage technology is still a generation or two away. Sure, demand is down, gas prices are down, and the industry is consolidating, but at least you can't replace me with a Chinese worker at 1/10th the price..... (I hope).
Yeah, it's a complex model.
Multiple models, actually.
And the result always seems to be "man-made global warming!!!"
You'd think there would be outliers - in both directions - with multiple disparate models of a complex system that's not fully understood, wouldn't you? Where are the results from these models that show the earth melting or freezing in just a few years? Why do they ALWAYS seem to predict relatively slow warming due to human activity?
There's only one way to get those kind of results across-the-board: cook the books.
The point of science is that it stands up to arguments like this _easily_.
The problem is that insofar as the public policy pronouncements of scientists prominent in the AGW debate go his characterizations are not entirely off the mark. There is a great deal of good science being done by climatologists, but none of it is nearly good enough to justify the policy pronouncements that get made on the basis of it, many of which are lightly warmed-over statist policies from the last century.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Sigh... ok... let's go there one more time, since I obviously overestimated some of you. I expected at least some historical background:
First: There has been no global warming in the last decade (if there ever was). There is ample proof of that, and I am not even going to link to it.
Second: Climate 'alarmists', which are sometimes also scientists, have been very puzzled by this, trying everything in their power to dispute this fact and when this no longer worked, 'explaining' it away.
Third: Now they finally come up with something which looks suspiciously like a mistake made before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
Coupled with climategate this whole situation looks laughable to me. Also it makes me look at these scientists with some degree of disdain, hence 'scientists'.
I have an university degree myself and I am well versed in statistics and model building. More so than most, I must add. I read a lot of what these people produce and never have I seen a well-validated (using historical data) model for these claimed manmade warming effects. I _do_ see a lot of data fitting and data massaging going on and it smells bad, I will tell you. A respected scientist once said something along these lines: "If you torture your data long enough, it will finally confess". That seems to be what is going on here. You can mod me down all you want, but that won't help a thing. It only makes you look more foolish...
...that all we need to do to fix global Warming is just build a bunch of new caol plants every few years? :)
There are plenty of serious scientists studing AGW and getting to serious conclusions. The problem is, they didn't take part on that "conversation" you report, because they are studing AWG, not doing PR.
On a related problem, how do we hear the people that don't want to talk to us?
Rethinking email
If 2+2 is 4, why would you expect to see a result of 5? Did it ever occur to you that 'man made global warming' is the correct answer and you just don't like it?
This is all silly because some US Senators have assured me global warning does not exist. I saw it on TV, it must be true! They wouldn't lie, would they?
"By the way, we *are* able to predict the weather to a known level of accuracy"
A very bad level of accuracy. The weather man is not much better than an almanac for long term forcasts. My favorite part of this is that without a workable model of all the inputs and outputs -- you are guessing. Wait, there is no way to know all the inputs and output before they happen?
Then do not tell me the environment is going to heat up -- and then get proven wrong -- and then make up reasons why it didn't happen. It's 2011, not 1996.
I am glad the phrase "global warming" is being replaced by "climate change".
Climate Change rent-seekers continue to milk their dead cow. --- Everything that anyone needs to know about the article.
Does anyone have access to the National Academy of Science paper referenced in TFA? Are the sulfur emissions countering global warming through a global dimming mechanism?
The average cost for scrubbers today (2006) is roughly $300 per kilowatt. For a 1,000-megawatt power plant, a relatively common size for coal-fired facilities, the cost for scrubbers for all boilers would be approximately $300 million.
I won't dispute this- the numbers are probably in the ballpark. But we also have to consider the opportunity cost. Typically you build the scrubber while the unit is running, then connect it when it is shut down. For a 1GW plant to be offline for 42 or 49 days (a reasonable time to do the work), you are losing massive amounts of money in opportunity since you are not being profitable. Most places quote the standard "million dollars a day" figure, although that may be higher or lower. Then if the plant belongs to a utility (as opposed to a independent plant) they have to buy the power from someone else so they can supply their customers. That costs them too.
Scrubbers create a big loss on the system too. They are a big restriction on the boiler, and require various power sucking apparatus. The plant efficiency drops (around 4-8%). The plant either has to eat this- forever, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in the future, or find a way to get this back through turbine upgrades, boiler upgrades, or some other way.
Its pretty easy for a scrubber project to cost a billion dollars.
Scrubbers have been required in America since the 1977 revisions to the Clean Air Act.
This is a big blanket statement. The Clean Air Act has been revised many times over the years. Many coal plants are only now having to consider installing scrubbers of the type which we are talking about here. For many plants, it is a decision which means spending a billion dollars or closing the plant. I do think that we should have scrubbers on the plants, but we are at the point where we have clean coal and Washington keeps wanting to pile on more regulation. When is enough?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
China has shown that they will cheat at everything. They are required to have scrubbers per treaties with Japan. The thing is, that ALL OF THEIR 10 year old or less plants have scrubbers on them. They are simply not turned on. WHy? Because they costs MONEY. The fact is, that China cheats on just about everything. So, how does this impact Kyoto? It shows that other nations that are way behind will realize that all they have to do is cheat to get ahead. If kyoto were to happen, many nations will follow CHina's path. As it is, many are cheating by manipulating their money. Now, if other nations think that they can grab large amounts of manufacturing from America, just by adding loads of 'cheap' energy, they will do so. The fact is, that Kyoto was one of the worst ideas going, and remains so.
If we want to solve this issue, then America should tax ALL GOODS including imports based on where final and primary sub-component come from and their CO2 Emissions. The CO2 emissions should be monitored by sat and should watch how much Co2 flows in and out. Then apply it at a rate of PER SQ KM, rather than per capita (fairer and takes into account everything).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
all of this pollution remained in China. The problem is that CHina's pollution is going everywhere. Right now, they have accounted for more than 1/2 of ALL mercruy that man has EVER emitted. Likewise, in THIS DECADE, China will account for 1/2 of all CO2 that man has emitted. And that assumes that CHina is actually cleaning up their CO2 like they PROMISED (keep in mind that China's treaties, let alone word, is worthless).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We are rapidly approaching a "world is flat" stupidity level on global warming skeptics. Skepticism is not always justified or acceptable -- "prove it to me" is not something we need to do for every lazy moron who can't or will not learn enough to understand the answers; their ignorance becomes a virtue to their anti-science position-- if they don't understand then you are trying to fool them and if they will not make a real effort (or are too stupid) then you will never get them out of that position. The whole thing is merely a defensive tactic to protect their ego/emotions like a childish game of saying "Why?" until the other person gets annoyed. (BTW, even science can't hold up for long against an incessant "WHY" tactic; which is infinite in scope.)
I say "anti-science" because this level of skepticism is merely a game masking a belief that the majority of experts who take a great deal of time and education mean nothing compared with a few individual's ignorant beliefs and often admitted lack of experience (often they only have just a few choice talking points.)
Sure, there are cases when the majority of experts are wrong; but it is rare and in science it is extremely rare and for the individual to not be a trained expert and come out on top of the majority of experts -- probably never happened in the last century. Then you hear the real fools claim that its a conspiracy and scientists with proper training are suspect because they were brainwashed-- when anybody who has been educated in science is not likely to make such a claim (unless the "experts" are defined and endorsed by a cult or something.)
I have talked with people who have emotional issues with college educated and "elite" experts who were unable to succeed in their own education; they likely have been burned in their past by people who were smarter than them so they take general positions on such matters which is understandable; however, when it rises to such stupid levels there is more going on than their insecurities surfacing-- they are being fooled and manipulated (again by smarter people) and they don't see it possibly because its leveraging their related deeper problems along those lines; could be they can't "get it" because its that is too complex for them, but more likely it is even more unpleasant and painful to be tricked in such a way (because it requires admitting even more than just losing their position.)
We shame people who can't read. they'd lie rather than admit they can't read. math isn't the same, but it should be. Scientific consensus should be similar-- they use science in their lives that has less confidence behind it but because their belief (and even identity/ego) is involved they ignore the hypocrisy and get unreasonable. Now expert disagreement is fine--- or the whole group being wrong that is also fine because they do the best they can with what they've got (and its a whole lot more than what the non experts / non scientists have.)
Well, that is my working theory of the situation. I study some foxtard "friends" as a hobby ("friends" because I can't trust such gullible zealots especially when they know I'm on "the other side".)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The specifics are new but global dimming is not new. NOVA did a whole show on it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I recall reading a couple years ago that the coal mines in China that are on fire spew as much CO2 as all the vehicles in the US. The US has a few that have been burning for years too. If coal is going to be burned, at least have it do something useful. Letting mines burn out of control is just a waste of fuel. Why isn't there more technology being developed to help extinguish these fires?
More things to rage about for the ecoterrorists.
Hasn't this ecofad gone far enough?
I have basically come to grips with the fact that these people are going to continually publish bad science to get their carbon taxes in place, and they eventually will get them because most people are just plain stupid.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone out there has a brain. Global warming in this context is sort of a "gee whiz" sorta thing, like "gee whiz" you know all that climate data we rigged to show it was warming?
Turns out the Chinese are culprits and they are going to kill us all! See! We _told_ you so. Now give us your tax money.
Sorta goes back to a gee whiz moment people have when they are watching CNN or Fox and all of a sudden the leeeeetle light goes on in their head which prompts them to notice that all of the worlds terrorists just happen to live in countries with lots of natural resources like oil, or lithium and just happen to not have a central privatized banking system.
Awe, and whata cute weee leeetle light it is.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
"When we tiny humans, on what once was a very large planet [Earth for those of you who came from elsewhere")], can affect the nature of the climate so quickly on a global scale, we are all too soon about to become extinct_cave dwellers_this includes you as well..sorry."
Of course the question I have is can't China simply make cheaper scrubbers? They might be substandard by other measures, but probably better than nothing, and they make everything else cheaper, why not that?
These guys' rationalizations for their abject failure are getting pretty fucking ridiculous.
Wait for it! That warming is coming!
And I'm here in fucking Rio freezing my ass to death. Screw you Al Gore, I hope you choke on all that money you made selling carbon-credits or whatever the fuck they are called. Nice hand.
And which moron are you? The one that suggest that truth cannot be learnt because everyone is lying because of their obscure interests?
You missed that one...
Why can't
www.climatedepot.com
I'm so tired of this 'global warming' crap being constantly being promoted by the idiots in the media. It's all there on Climate Depot for all to see - there is no such thing as 'global warming'.
The existing decade and more of climate models already had sulphur emission parameters in them, but now that even the cherry picked models are failing to account for the reality that warming is not happening at the predicted rate some are grasping at straws The billions of dollars and euros wasted on climate modelling, along with the billions in fraud and manipulated markets to come with cap and trade, are in dire need of new justification.
If 2+2 is 4, why would you expect to see a result of 5? Did it ever occur to you that 'man made global warming' is the correct answer and you just don't like it?
You demonstrate the very problem with your shitty straw man: you already know the answer.
The proper term for that is "religion".
That's not the question I was answering or what the poster above was asking.
The coal matter in china reminds me...As the Lord said- we will end in fire.
I can't believe anyone is taking this story seriously. Recall the panic a few years back when Chinese coal-fired plants were going to put enough carbon dioxide out SOON! that the seas would rise and we'd tip into heat death? Oh, that didn't happen even thought the coal was burned?
Well, as a committed disciple of AGW, the 'new' explanation is to make coal-fired power plants the equivalent to a sulfur-rich volcanic eruption! Just you wait, destruction is still coming!
I'd take some of this commentary more seriously except, 1) this story is from the Guardian; 2) somebody linked to James Hansen's NASA; 3) one commenter actually admitted the global climate system is complex, but still claims we can make long-term predictions; 4) others immediately turned this into the democrat/republican talking point of their choice; and 5) ad nauseum, ad hominem.