climate change times are a changin'

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

I can't roll my eyes enough. Go ahead, keep your head in the sand. All over the belief in a political philosophy.



I look at it this way: Let's ignore the fact that American industry benefits from focusing on cleaner energy to reduce emissions (developing and the leading the way with new technology has been very helpful for us historically) and just focus on the short term burden. What's the cost of doing nothing? Sure, there's no short-term overhead, but without course correction the impacts of greenhouse gasses (which are totally not within the bounds of the usual/natural cycles, BTW), we will absolutely pay in the long run. Whether it's the cost of increasingly extreme weather or eventually having to completely re-adapt our society to a world that is changing too quickly (just the cost of having to deal with several feet of rising ocean levels is enormous), it'll be huge and it'll plague societies around the world. Just look at what the Dept. of Defense had to say about it.

I work for a company where my job is all about engineering consulting for design automation. I sell services that help people take processes that currently take, say, a week, and can eventually bring them down to less than a business day, if not under an hour. Naturally, it doesn't always come cheap. Everyone I talk to looks at the cost of our software and my consulting recommendations, and they initially get sticker shock. But what they rarely realize (until I tell them) is that the cost of the status quo over the long term is greater than the short-term overhead of putting in place something more efficient (yes, it's just Return on Investment 101, but sometimes people need a reminder). From a business perspective, I live and die by pointing out the absurdity in this line of logic: http://bandlblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/wheel-barrel1.jpg

Letting a short term difficulty get in the way of a massive overhaul built around long term success is blindness.

here is my question, where is there any proof that the short term costs will result in something that is more efficient and we will come out ahead in the long run? By your example, I don't think anyone thinks wind is really the answer for this, multiplying the number of generators that requires maintenance doesn't seems to be an efficient way to improve cots. No one seems willing to increase nuclear power in this country so how do we replace 40% of current power supply with something "better" for it to actually be better for the average person in the long run? Us changing our ways isn't going to do anything to global CO2 if China and India don't get on board.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Letting a short term difficulty get in the way of a massive overhaul built around long term success is blindness.

This has more assumptions in it than one could list if you took a day to do so. Long term success is highly speculative at best at this point.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

here is my question, where is there any proof that the short term costs will result in something that is more efficient and we will come out ahead in the long run? By your example, I don't think anyone thinks wind is really the answer for this, multiplying the number of generators that requires maintenance doesn't seems to be an efficient way to improve cots. No one seems willing to increase nuclear power in this country so how do we replace 40% of current power supply with something "better" for it to actually be better for the average person in the long run? Us changing our ways isn't going to do anything to global CO2 if China and India don't get on board.

1. I honestly do believe that Solar has a very powerful future.
2. Fair point that it's all for naught if we can't get India and China on board. One of those scenarios where it'd actually be easier if we simply didn't have that much oil left.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

1. I honestly do believe that Solar has a very powerful future.
2. Fair point that it's all for naught if we can't get India and China on board. One of those scenarios where it'd actually be easier if we simply didn't have that much oil left.

Oil, coal, and plastic trash will destroy the planet long before Solar saves it.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

I wish I could find a source to verify that this quote really was from the time cited.

The Washington Post - Published November 2, 1922:

"The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department from Consulate, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable. "

So if the original article was indeed published on that date, we are now over 90 years into this human-caused global warming, yet there is still ice at the Nort Pole? and most coastal cities in the US are still inhabited, and are not under water?

"yeah, so they have the right prediction, it's merely taking 'a little longer' than expected." uh uh. Thanks, Mr. Malthus!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

I can't roll my eyes enough. Go ahead, keep your head in the sand. All over the belief in a political philosophy.

How many computer models have you built? From my experience, even a minor difference in input variables can have drastic differences in illustrated output. You are really willing to risk a huge bet on such an unreliable source? The output from existing models has not matched actual observations. That's not "political philosophy" that's empiricism! You have an unreliable model that hasn't worked, yet you blindly believe in it anyway? Who's got the "belief in political philosophy" here and who is saying, "where is the actual data?"

What surprises me the most about reports I've read, is that there is no probability distribution of outputs, and that is what makes me more suspicious than anything else. Typically you would expect to read something like "there is an xx% change that aa will occur, a yy% chance that bb will occur, and a zz% change that cc will occur." I've seen that in a few studies, but far too few overall.


To me, the biggest risk of all is that zealous fanatics of AGW overstate their case, then get discredited, and so we then ignore the real and true risks that do exist. There are ways to transition gradually from the higher-risk energy sources to less disruptive ones. This "all or nothing" approach is so confrontational, that people who normally would be allies to a moderate response are shouted down for not being appropriately extreme.

"The perfect is the enemy of the good", they say.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Let's ignore the fact that American industry benefits from focusing on cleaner energy to reduce emissions (developing and the leading the way with new technology has been very helpful for us historically)

IGNORE it? why? that's the best argument that you have if you want to engage moderates!

 

[walrus]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

1. I honestly do believe that Solar has a very powerful future.

WHy do you think this? Do you think efficiency gains can be made? State of the art monocrystalline collectors are 16 to 18% efficient in test conditions, put them out in the real world and I'll guarantee those %s go down( increasing temps in the cell drive voltage down ). The only way at this point Solar works is if Electrical prices go up, looks like Obama is going to see to that so maybe your right? Storage gains are nil, the best we got is lead acid batteries that require a ton of maintenance. So why the confidence in solar?

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

I have not yet seen or heard any signals from poor people...

If they raised themselves up by their bootstraps this wouldn't be a problem.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

WHy do you think this? Do you think efficiency gains can be made? State of the art monocrystalline collectors are 16 to 18% efficient in test conditions, put them out in the real world and I'll guarantee those %s go down( increasing temps in the cell drive voltage down ). The only way at this point Solar works is if Electrical prices go up, looks like Obama is going to see to that so maybe your right? Storage gains are nil, the best we got is lead acid batteries that require a ton of maintenance. So why the confidence in solar?

Oooh, ooh! Pick me! Pick me!

(Preview: Solar is stupid.)

 

[walrus]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Oooh, ooh! Pick me! Pick me!

(Preview: Solar is stupid.)

people that understand math are no fun

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

To me, the biggest risk of all is that zealous fanatics of AGW overstate their case, then get discredited, and so we then ignore the real and true risks that do exist.

In the early 1970s, a substantial number of respected academics were projecting that the world would run out of oil by 2025 (i.e., in 50 years, from then). They extrapolated based on then-current usage, and looked at all the then-known reserves available, and of course, given their initial assumptions, those calculations seemed eminently reasonable to them at the time.

In the fable about the boy who cried "wolf," the wolf did eventually come....

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

why the confidence in solar?

it's called extrapolation from a limited data set.

Solar does have a viable role in a decentralized, locally-sourced manner (like grids on the roofs of houses and buildings, to supply said houses and buildings with electricity; or for heating water to be used in the same building). It is not going to be commercially viable on a large scale, and certainly we cannot have working solar farms to power a wide-scale electrical grid. The engineers and mathematicians can demonstrate that.

Ironically, coal, oil, and natural gas are all forms of "solar" energy in that it was photosynthesis that helped grow the plants that then turned into those fuel sources.

 

[LynahFan]

it's called extrapolation from a limited data set.

Solar does have a viable role in a decentralized, locally-sourced manner (like grids on the roofs of houses and buildings, to supply said houses and buildings with electricity; or for heating water to be used in the same building). It is not going to be commercially viable on a large scale, and certainly we cannot have working solar farms to power a wide-scale electrical grid. The engineers and mathematicians can demonstrate that.

Ironically, coal, oil, and natural gas are all forms of "solar" energy in that it was photosynthesis that helped grow the plants that then turned into those fuel sources.

What you are suggesting is the energy equivalent of saying that we could replace centralized agri-business if individual households would just start growing veggies in window boxes. There's not enough space on most residences to grow enough food for the people who live there, so they'd still have to buy additional food from the store, so you still have to have a food industry, PLUS you've plowed (no pun intended) millions of dollars into inadequately sized window boxes. You end up spending way more overall on food than you did before.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

What you are suggesting is the energy equivalent of saying that we could replace centralized agri-business if individual households would just start growing veggies in window boxes. There's not enough space on most residences to grow enough food for the people who live there, so they'd still have to buy additional food from the store, so you still have to have a food industry, PLUS you've plowed (no pun intended) millions of dollars into inadequately sized window boxes. You end up spending way more overall on food than you did before.

At least as far as your food analogy goes, i partly agree and partly disagree. it is not an "all or none" approach, it is a supplemental approach. We have a garden from which we harvest multiple quarts of strawberries and raspberries when in season. Don't need to get any at the store during those months. We also grow lots of beans and tomatoes, don't need to buy any in those months.

at the same time, it is pointless for us to try to grow corn. The yield compared to the space involved compared to agribusiness results just isn't worth giving up the space compared to what else we might grow there instead.

Similarly with rooftop solar: the idea is not so much to be completely independent of the grid in all times and situations so much as it is to reduce the amount of power needed to be drawn from the grid. in fact, in our state, the electric meters are set to run backwards if our energy output from the rooftop solar array exceeds the energy being used in the household at the time. So during the day rooftop arrays from homes might feed power into the grid while at night homes might draw power from the grid.

Regarding solar heating of water, I was really surprised to find how much power hotels and resorts could save by heating their swimming pools with solar heat. They can use a series of 4' x 20' panels to warm their pools quite effectively.

You and I seem to be in complete agreement that solar on a wide scale cannot completely replace electricity generated from fossil fuels, especially given the environmental damage caused by large-scale solar arrays.

Another potential ancillary advantage of localized decentralized power sources that fit each region (hydroelectric in the northwest? geothermal at Yellowstone? tidal in the northeast? nuclear where there aren't any NIMBYs? wind in Washington DC given all the blowhards there!) is that it might reduce the grid's overall vulnerability, both to destabilization from power surges that occur "naturally" and also from deliberate sabotage.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

At least as far as your food analogy goes, i partly agree and partly disagree. it is not an "all or none" approach, it is a supplemental approach. We have a garden from which we harvest multiple quarts of strawberries and raspberries when in season. Don't need to get any at the store during those months. We also grow lots of beans and tomatoes, don't need to buy any in those months.

Right, but is it cost effective, at the macroeconomic level? You're making extra trips to the garden store to bring home one bag of fertilizer or one bottle of weed killer - if you add up what you really spend on your supplemental berries (including your labor cost - no fair cheating), they're probably at least 10x more expensive than mass-produced berries from the store. What does that solve?

Similarly with rooftop solar: the idea is not so much to be completely independent of the grid in all times and situations so much as it is to reduce the amount of power needed to be drawn from the grid. in fact, in our state, the electric meters are set to run backwards if our energy output from the rooftop solar array exceeds the energy being used in the household at the time. So during the day rooftop arrays from homes might feed power into the grid while at night homes might draw power from the grid.

Again, you have to look at the macroeconomic scale - yes, your little meter spins around fewer times, but at what cost?

Regarding solar heating of water, I was really surprised to find how much power hotels and resorts could save by heating their swimming pools with solar heat. They can use a series of 4' x 20' panels to warm their pools quite effectively.

Solar heating is a different story - so cheap and almost no conversion losses, so this does make economic sense.

Another potential ancillary advantage of localized decentralized power sources that fit each region (hydroelectric in the northwest? geothermal at Yellowstone? tidal in the northeast? nuclear where there aren't any NIMBYs? wind in Washington DC given all the blowhards there!) is that it might reduce the grid's overall vulnerability, both to destabilization from power surges that occur "naturally" and also from deliberate sabotage.

These benefits are not unique to renewable electricity sources though. We could choose to decentralize a fossil-fuel based grid for the same reasons - this is a separate discussion.

 

[geezer]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Right, but is it cost effective, at the macroeconomic level? You're making extra trips to the garden store to bring home one bag of fertilizer or one bottle of weed killer - if you add up what you really spend on your supplemental berries (including your labor cost - no fair cheating), they're probably at least 10x more expensive than mass-produced berries from the store. What does that solve?

You're right about that. I do some gardening for the reasons that I enjoy growing stuff, they taste much better, and they're presumably healthier without pesticides. I did a project for a Project Management class about the installation of one of my first little gardens, so it included a few boards to make trellises and some tools that I still have, but it ended up costing me over $300 even with donated labor - for about $50-$100 of groceries. Then there are things like cherry trees and grape vines I've put several years into without any real results at all because of conditions and/or lack of knowledge about what I'm doing, and I'm way in the hole economically. It's like the guy who brags about eating "free venison" whose hunting gear and week off of work cost him thousands of dollars every year. You're not doing it to save money.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

Right, but is it cost effective, at the macroeconomic level? You're making extra trips to the garden store to bring home one bag of fertilizer or one bottle of weed killer - if you add up what you really spend on your supplemental berries (including your labor cost - no fair cheating), they're probably at least 10x more expensive than mass-produced berries from the store. What does that solve?

I definitely agree with your generic perspective.

In this particular instance, the only costs are labor costs, as we use fallen leaves and grass clippings in the composter for fertilizer and do not use chemical weed killer (nor any pesticides) at all. The berry beds are self-maintaining, they actually spread beyond their borders, no labor involved except weeding and harvesting. and you cannot buy some of these varieties in the store, period. some of them just do not ship and store well over the time between harvest, packaging, shipping, and stocking the shelves. It's particularly noticeable with the cucumbers and tomatoes and mini-strawberries. we grow some varieties that are just not commercially viable.

I'd frame your question differently. Suppose raspberries are $2.50 per pint, say, and we get 32 pints, that is $80. If we spend 8 hours labor total, that works out to $10 / hour, tax free, or about $16.50 / hour taxable (if you include both employee and employer FICA taxes). Not a winning deal for me. You are right on that score, as far as it goes.

The other factor is the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. I don't derive any particular gratification when I come home from the grocery store, like I do when I am sitting in the shade with a bowl of raspberries I just picked.


Regarding the "macroeconomic scale" of rooftop solar: if you are looking at a continuum, then it is preferable to me by far than large-scale solar grids. Is it optimal? perhaps not.


So let's turn the tables: if continued expansion of centralized, coal-powered electricity generation is going to be phased out (unless some new technique is invented that promotes a "clean" burn, whatever that means ), what is your prescription if solar is off the table? It's one thing to criticize another's attempts to test out new ideas, and it's another thing to offer formulations of your own.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

The other factor is the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. I don't derive any particular gratification when I come home from the grocery store, like I do when I am sitting in the shade with a bowl of raspberries I just picked.

I definitely don't deny that - I enjoy chopping firewood to heat my house (haven't been able to do that in years), regardless of whether it makes sense economically for me to do so. If someone just gets *personal* satisfaction from knowing that the TV they're watching is powered by solar cells and they want to spend their limited resources (time, money) to make that happen - more power to them, absolutely. Just don't try to blur the lines between personal satisfaction and macroeconomic viability.

So let's turn the tables: if continued expansion of centralized, coal-powered electricity generation is going to be phased out (unless some new technique is invented that promotes a "clean" burn, whatever that means ), what is your prescription if solar is off the table? It's one thing to criticize another's attempts to test out new ideas, and it's another thing to offer formulations of your own.

I'm definitely dodging that question. If you ask me what I think will kill coal power, then the only correct answer is "something that is cheaper than coal." There are two ways that can occur - coal gets more expensive than the alternatives or the alternatives become cheaper than coal. Until provided with evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that we have the societal will to choose a more expensive power source when a cheaper one can simply be plucked from the ground. Oh, sure, we'll play at the edges to make sure that we're doing it as safely and cleanly as practicable, but so long as there is a lump of coal to be mined, we'll be mining it - until there is something cheaper. That won't happen until the supply of coal is so limited that it becomes more expensive than building more nuclear plants or a major breakthrough is made in fusion.

TL;DR: Our great-grandchildren are pretty much screwed.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: climate change times are a changin'

If you ask me what I think will kill coal power, then the only correct answer is "something that is cheaper than coal." There are two ways that can occur - coal gets more expensive than the alternatives or the alternatives become cheaper than coal. Until provided with evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that we have the societal will to choose a more expensive power source when a cheaper one can simply be plucked from the ground.

"Societal will" doesn't seem to matter very much with today's EPA. They have arrogated to themselves the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, despite some pretty clear statutory language to the contrary, and it doesn't look like anyone is going to have much success in stopping that, or at least not before January 2017 at the earliest.

Except for the way that the dollars would have been spent, I like the theory behind "cap and trade" as a clever way to internalize the externality of air pollution. It appears to have worked wonders for reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, for example. I also am heartened by the way the world responded to the ozone hole threat by banning CFCs (if that is the right term, I forget the detail but I do seem to recall that there was clear and convincing empirical data both on the source of the problem and also that the problem had been "solved" by the ozone layer's recovery once the appropriate chemical pollutant's use had been banned worldwide).

Regarding carbon dioxide, I just haven't seen the data, and the fact that greenhouses deliberately put more carbon dioxide into the air to promote plant growth makes a reasonable person wonder whether there might be a natural mechanism that would help offset increased carbon dioxide output. Using market forces, as you describe, to move us gradually away over time from higher polluting sources to lower polluting sources seems to me a reasonable middle path between complete denial and over-the-top zealotry. The fact that "experts" have been caught deliberately fudging their data is not encouraging to a reasoned discussion.

"Experts" predicted that human activity would lead to widespread famine and death as early as 1798. Dire warnings about human-caused global warming have been with us since at least 1922, apparently; according to "experts" from the 1970s, the world is now supposed to be almost completely out of oil....while "climate change" is undeniable, the incremental effects related to human activity are much harder to parse out, let alone to allow us (at this point, at least) to develop prescriptive solutions.