Self-Propelled?

Two solar power plants are being built in Spain without any government subsidies:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-11/german-developers-plan-solar-parks-in-spain-without-subsidies.html

http://www.solariaenergia.com/EN-noticia-ampliada-95/solaria-develops-a-60-mw-plant-in-the-province-of-toledo-in-spain.html

A number of other locations are not far behind in achieving grid-parity: California, Italy, Japan. This means solar is transitioning from a politically-driven industry to an economically-driven industry, the latter being a much more reliable basis of growth. If N. Africa ever stabilizes they could export gigantic amounts of solar generated power to Europe in the near future, just as our southwest will be supplying the midwest and eastern states within 10-20 years.

The Conservative Climate

This climate change denial is just a case of anti-science populism, driven by the fact that conservatives believe reductions in emissions will rob them of their last freedoms. Aggressively opposing efforts to conserve the environment is not conservatism, it is selfish stupidity. Keep in mind this problem could largely be solved by going nuclear--especially by using either fast breeder reactors or liquid flouride thorium reactors, for both of which we have effectively unlimited fuel supplies. A massive system of nuclear reactors could also produce liquid fuels for transport and allow America to be energy independent and environmentally responsible. The military certainly believes in climate change and has policies in place to guard against the international security contingencies it will create.

As a general principle of thought and action, conservatives ought to think of ways to improve the world, rather than inflexibly hold to all that is just because it is. If conservatives continue their present braking strategy, the socialists will once again take the initiative on an inescapable issue and transform it into another step toward dystopia. Instead of choosing a conservative response to the threat, they will be run over again by the socialists. The current conservative "leadership" deserves to be run over.

Confirmation of Global Warming

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html

The assessment done by this team looks thorough and convincing. They limited themselves to determining the degree and the certainty of warming over land. Given the complexities of the historical data, a careful methodology is necessary and was here applied. The results confirm the warming trend found by prior analyses. They did not look into the causes.

As I've said since at least 2005, we ought to get cracking on this. At a minimum, there is a significant probability that warming has primarily anthropogenic causes. The results of warming are potentially catastrophic. Therefore, as insurance against the possibility of catastrophe, we ought to make an effort to reduce likely causes of warming.

To do this requires, optimally, several steps for America:

First, persuade the public of the reality of climate risks and their probable causes.

Second, impose a tax regime on greenhouse gas emissions that provides for slowly increasing taxes over 20+ years--roughly to the point that the price of coal-based energy doubles and gasoline price rises $2-3/gal over market levels.

Third, greatly increase spending on basic scientific research that may be relevant to producing less polluting energy--$50+ billion a year. Probably the foci ought to be on nuclear power, solar power, electrification of transport, batteries for transport and the electric grid, building efficiency, offshore wind power, underground emissions sequestration, and perhaps methods of pulling CO2 from the atmosphere.

Fourth, take further measures to encourage the private development and deployment of clean energy systems, to include ensuring strategic clean energy industries remain onshore (without which presence innovation will diminish and public support decline).

Fifth, optimize and impose new regulations for houses and buildings to improve their energy efficiency--and incentivize retrofits of existing structures.

Sixth, pay nations to sustain their forests.

Seventh, come to an agreement with other climate change mitigating nations to phase in tariffs on imports from nations that do not attempt to control their emissions (exemptions possible for desperate nations).

Of these efforts, I consider the first, third and fourth the most important. They are the steps that can be leveraged to generate global impact--a sine qua non for success in climate change mitigation. Also, America has a comparative advantage over other nations in these areas--we are best in the world at basic science and, especially, innovation. The cheap solar, cheap-safe nuclear, cheap batteries that we invent and commercialize would benefit the rest of the world--whether we sell to them or they steal from us.

So far, through the eras of Clinton, Bush II, Obama--we have done about one tenth of what I recommend on steps 3 and 4. We have attempted no more. The major part of the political class, including the named Commanders, have evinced nought but cowardice before this challenge. This is a national security issue, as the Pentagon recognized formally years ago. Everyone agrees on the existence of at least one governmental obligation: the provision of security against internal and external threats. This is both types of threat, yet the government sits stupidly, watches it grow monstrous and risks letting it become unstoppable.

F*ckifications Fated Forth

http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/29/royal-society-special-issue-4-degrees-world/ http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/15/year-in-climate-science-climategate/ In the end, this problem is too large for most people to see. They simply do not have the intellectual equipment necessary to understand an issue of such vast magnitude and complexity. This includes most of the media. Result: the science is effectively ignored. We behave as King Lear did in giving his kingdom over to evil women and evil men, renouncing control of his fate, exiling the light of Cordelia, the wisdom of Kent--and enduring through the rest of his days visions of horror as Regan, Goneril, and their train of destroyers ruined what he had built, put out his light and his light, prey for horrid monsters who found that even they were unable to halt the inertia of this wave of destruction and ended crushed under its high-towering crest. We behave like senile old fools whose feeble dodderings hold such consequence of terror as to drive them from fragile dementia into a doom-eager madness desperate to escape their final futile resorts, their last reality.

The Final Solution to Climate Change

The American public has no understanding of science. Our politicians cover the whole spectrum of human character from cowardice to cynicism. From this one may conclude that the human species will fail even to approach an optimal response to the threats posed by climate change. Fortunately, I have long believed that the Bio Wars will solve this problem. The witless wonders who have no capacity to conceptualize the climate science issue will mostly be wiped out, along with most of the rest of us. And, as a bonus, we'll never know for sure how great a threat global warming might have been--an unresolved mystery that no doubt provides great relief to those for whom scientific knowledge represents an affront God.

Wind and Weather

At a sufficiently large scale, wind turbines may well impact the atmosphere in significant ways. I think the study here is preliminary to more accurate and detailed modeling in future.  Notice, though, that the study suggests the overall climate impact of extremely large scale wind farms approaches nil. This is because, according to this report, wind farms increase temperature in their immediate vicinity when situated on land, but decrease temperature when situated at sea. The long term trend is likely to involve ever more sea-based wind farms. Also, the study indicates that even such large scale wind harvesting does not slow atmospheric wind speeds so much as to make wind farms uneconomic. In other words, I consider the article's headline entirely misleading as to the actual findings of the study.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/mit-researchers-say-using-wind-turbines.html

A Restatement

This is an argument I have made repeatedly. It is one of the most important concepts, maybe the most important, to understand in regard to climate change. It is also made by Judge Posner, a conservative jurist on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and one of the nation's most influential legal thinkers and public intellectuals (he helped found the law and economics approach to judicial decision-making). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21view.html?8dpc

A Tale of Contrasts

http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15453166 A nice compare and contrast of two bills to address greenhouse gas emissions: the one Democrats are trying to pass vs. the one they should try to pass. The former is 1200 pages, the latter 40 pages--the difference is accounted for by vast doses of pork and the impossible thicket of new regulations stuffed into the former.

The Climate Summit

This "deal" is a disappointment and a major failure if there happen to be future generations of humans. I attribute this mainly to the current economic problems: no one wants to pay more than a nominal price to solve this right now.

 

As to the Chinese, they have good reasons to play hardball on this. They are relatively poor still, and have done relatively little to contribute to the underlying problem, even though they are now the largest annual contributors to it. On the other hand, in 2010 they will snatch from us our lead in wind power generation, currently the most viable alternative energy. Also, they are making a huge effort to become the world leader in solar energy. Thus, for reasons of pride and economic competitiveness, they are engaging on the climate change issue on their own terms just as we are. They despise international coercion about as much as we do since they consider themselves the other superpower.

Limits of Climate Science

The problems presented by climate modelling are very serious and are known to be very serious. It is mathematically impossible (and always will be) to create precise climate models because there are too many unknown and estimated variables involved in the equations (it is called a chaotic or nonlinear system). Only probabalistic estimates are possible. Note that this is why anyone who professes certainty about the future of the climate is a liar or hopelessly ignorant about the issue, regardless of which side he is on--these mathematical issues are not points of contention, they are an obvious fait accompli. Some question how accurate these probabilities are and this is a legitimate (perhaps the most legitimate) line of skepticism. Most climatologists believe the probabilities incline toward the theory that certain gases warm the atmosphere and they primarily focus on trying to calculate how much warming is likely to result, not whether warming will result. The balance of evidence I have seen leads me to agree with these scientists.

Capitalistic Climate Change Mitigation

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228779/new-socialism/charles-krauthammer

There is no necessary connection between reducing GHG emissions and increasing socialism. In principle, a low carbon economy can be just as capitalistic as a high carbon economy. The difficulty presented arises from the fact that the republicans have ceded leadership on environmental issues to the democrats, who are inclined to adopt socialist solutions to every issue they encounter. The cap-and-trade program created by Bush the First to limit sulfur emissions from coal plants was an efficient, free market solution to an environmental problem. A cap and trade system for carbon and methane emissions could be designed in a similar way--but it will not be unless republicans get involved and exert some influence. At this point, climate change mitigation appears to be ultimately unavoidable in this country. Instead of abstaining from the process and playing at populist denialism, republicans would be well-advised to make efforts to de-socialize the legislation so far as possible.

More on the Climate Change Email Issue

Some of the emails posted as evidence of horrendous immorality are merely casual banter between close colleagues. Others betray the possibility of unethical activities and intentions. Much of what seems offensive to readers results from the fact that people do not understand the way science works. It is a competitive enterprise. It always has been. In the heat of competition some competitors exercise poor judgement to gain an advantage over their adversaries. The presumed ethical lapses here displayed represent an excessive zeal whose momentum apparently carried several individuals outside the boundaries of the game.

 

What concerns me more is the scientists and (more often) politicians who stand before the public and tell outright lies. The habitual liers seem more frequently to fall in the "denialist" camp, though both sides are prey to this temptation. Both sides are tempted to dogmatize on an issue which is too complicated by far to be susceptible to the simplifications and stupidities inherent in any dogmatic stance. Both dogmas being necessarily false, their prophets speak falsehoods. To assume either the certainty that global warming is occurring or the certainty that it is not--is to be an absolute fool and an ass. But, this is what dogmatic tendencies lead to.

 

But how does dogma arise? I believe it proceeds along two parallel paths. First, scientists must construct interpretive analyses based on the data they collect. Otherwise the data would be random and meaningless. This the beginning of scientific dogmas or theories, and the scientists in the field then attempt to use new data to continuously improve the theory. If some scientists do not think the first established theory is the best fit for the raw data, they may formulate another theory in opposition to it. From this point, the scientific process becomes explicity competitive between the adherents of the two theories. Competition can lead to such excesses as the emails seem to reveal. But, on the whole, competition is as salutary to the progress of science as it is to economic progress: it is a motivator that uses selfish priorities of vanity and ambition to promote social benefits.

 

The second parallel path of dogma follows upon the advent of competition between scientific theories and essentially amounts to a vulgarization of those theories for popular consumption and to political ends. The adulteration and distortion of the science in the course of this secondary process often becomes so extreme, as in this case, as to lead to results completely at variance with the underlying science. Result: the public is either misled or confused, and the competition between the two dogmas becomes indistinguishable from a propaganda campaign.

Only intelligent people, who invest some time in learning about this issue and who are willing to take the threat seriously, are even capable of arriving at a minimal understanding of the its nature and implications. Popularization of such an issue is impossible in any meaningful sense. Most people are not fit for it because they are too stupid, too lazy, and too malignant.  

Climate Change Politicking

Contrary to hardcore denialist claims China announced emissions targets the day after Obama announced that he would target reductions for the U.S. India followed shortly thereafter. As I have said for years, America must lead on this issue if it is to happen. The rest of the world is either weak or evil. This is not a socialist conspiracy: it can be accomplished through market mechanisms--that is the only way anyone in the world has proposed to handle it. An increase in regulations, however, is likely to be inescapable.

 

I have read hundreds of articles on the climate change issue, and it has long been obvious to me that the overwhelming balance of intelligence is on the side of those who support emissions controls. This may be considered significant of something. It usually is.

Climate Scientists' Email Scandal

There may well be some ethical lapses on display in these communications, but most (of the random few I read) appear to be demonstrations of the way science works, especially in the case of a rapidly developing field with high stakes politically. Scientists become political and combative when there are major points of contention in their field. This is normal. Kuhn’s “The Stucture of Scientific Revolutions” lays this out in several examples. Why does this process nevertheless result in scientific progress? Probably because there are different scientific camps, each with their own biases, in competition with each other. As more knowledge accumulates, the camps shift in relative power, and, most importantly, as someone said, the older generation eventually dies off and the newer generation can fashion ideological commitments more in tune with current data. The question here, and the risk, is whether the unusual interest in climate change from the non-scientific world will corrupt this process by exerting excessive political and financial pressures.

Solar's Future

It seems that Washington state (otherwise known as the cloudiest state) has decided to subsidize some large solar installations within its borders. Unfortunately, because solar power initiatives are still the province of state government subsidies, the efficiencies that could be gleaned from the operation of competitive advantages among the states are being wasted. If there were federal subsidies instead, Washington state would not be building solar power installations at current prices: it would focus on its strengths, hydro and wind. The solar power build-out would commence in the most cost-effective locations first (the Southwest), and then gradually radiate out across the country as solar prices fell. If prices stopped falling before the nation was thus blanketed, the electical grid could be expanded utilizing DC current to provide low loss, long distance transmission from cheap producers of renewable energy of all kinds to areas that cannot produce such energy cheaply.

 

Another interesting fact is that PV solar has consistently fallen in price by about 5% per year since it was invented in the 50s. At this rate, in SoCal, with low cost financing (like an unsubsidized home equity loan) and without subsidies, PV solar should become market competitive around 2020.

 

An article on solar's future from an economic perspective (second article on the page): http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

The key is the third graph.

This I Like

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/07/becker-20090714.html The conclusion of this paper (which I read and found persuasive) suggests that within 3 years electric cars will be fully cost competitive with conventional cars without subsidies. The condition necessary to achieve this cost competitiveness is that electrification of the fleet must occur through a battery switching model such as the one being implemented as we speak in Israel, Denmark, Australia and Hawaii by the company Project Better Place (which has already raised $400 million in venture financing) and its partner Nissan-Renault (which has a $600 million program to develop the cars). The idea is to have stations spread around the country that can quickly (3 minutes) switch out used batteries for new for those drivers who have signed up for this service in the form of a monthly payment plan. Drivers would therefore only have to pay up front for the electric car (which costs the same as a conventional car), but essentially lease the batteries through the company operating the switching stations (instead of paying for gas). This company, of course, has access to much cheaper financing than consumers, effectively making the battery cheaper. It makes electric vehicles vendable by solving the problem of their high upfront costs and the problem of limited range. There will also be public and private plug-in stations as a supplement to the switching option. The bottom line is that electric cars will be cheaper because their fuel (electricity) and maintenance costs are cheaper and this price advantage outweighs the disadvantage of building the switching stations and manufacturing the batteries. I think the key is the roll out, which will have to saturate one region at a time--otherwise there will be too few charging and switching stations in a given area to motivate consumers to buy electric. This is the plan: Israel first in 2010, then Denmark, then Australia by 2012. A 5-10% increase in electricity demand would result if the entire car fleet converted to electric.And this demand would be temporally flexible, a form of demand highly compatible with the intermittent production of electricity by renewable sources. Once this is demonstrated, other countries and other car manufacturers are likely to jump on the concept--especially given the relatively low investment cost the manufacturers would face to sign up. Israel might be the best place to start given how determined they are to escape the oil trap. Deutsche Bank's analysts concluded that this approach may represent a "paradigm shift." Considering the paper's conclusion that 64%+ of all vehicles sold in 2030 will be electric, that's an apt description. So shall we see. This is the kind of audacity the private sector flashes out at its best: it's too bad that many of the sources of greenhouse gases do not appear so amenable to a purely private sector approach. Government is slow, inefficient, and incompetent--but the tragedy of the commons scenario presented by climate change necessitates its involvement in many aspects of mitigation.

Trade-Offs

The Waxman-Markey bill is an inefficient and deceptive response to a real problem. But, the republicans did nothing when they had their chance, and foresight trails consequence. Instead of the less intrusive, more market-based and more transparent type of emissions mitigation plan that the republicans could have mustered and passed we get the democratic plan: Bureaucratize It!

Plan B

For those who deny the global warming hypothesis, and even for those who are highly skeptical of it, there remains this other issue lurking under the radar: ocean acidification. It is caused by carbon dioxide emissions, which are also considered the primary cause of global warming. But, ocean acidification itself is a problem of sufficient scope, certainty, and severity to merit serious efforts to reduce these emissions. As with global warming there is no known strategy to reverse the damage once done. So, for purposes of persuading nations to reduce their CO2 emissions, ocean acidification is Plan B. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/science/earth/31ocean.html

Warmed Up Buffoonery

Chapter XXVII: Wherein the Faithful Don Quixote de la Craken Once More Mounted His Magnificent Steed and Sallied Forth to Battle the Wild Phantoms of Other Men's Imaginations

 

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

 

This is not a very coherent piece of work. It's rather hackish, actually. One finds not only deliberately misleading quotes, bad grammar, no sign of proofing--but also, poor organization, no clear thesis, no paraphrasable conclusion. Thus, from the outset, given these formal deficits, it does not appear that the authors expect a serious reception. They certainly do not deserve one.

 

Unfortunately, due to the irreducible complexity of this issue, both those who essentially agree with the IPCC reports and those who propose alternative interpretations of the scientific data have descended into oversimplified rhetoric when discussing climate change in the popular press. Oversimplification is also, to various degrees, falsification. An issue of this complexity is not susceptible to soundbites, nor to live debates, nor to superficial newspaper articles and editorials. All of these conduits transform the underlying information into mere rhetorical displays and political peacocking--yet, what pitiful percentage of the population could even attempt to understand the gross and scope of the climate system (including its feedback mechanisms), the scientific process, the national and international political machinations, the economic calculations, the technological realities and potentialities, the environmental risks, the response of pathogens, the social and psychological adaptations to the realities of all these things and to the images of all these things that actually settles in the mind of the common man?

 

But, now I must set off on my next adventure, before Sancho's island kingdom is deluged by the swollen oceans. Therefore, I commend you to the capable Senor Romm, who provides a more thorough and particularized response at this blog:  http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/11/inhofe-morano-recycles-long-debunked-denier-talking-points-will-the-media-be-fooled-again/#more-4413

The author has the scientific and experiential qualifications necessary for analysis.

The Question of Climatic Certainty

I've long said that the climate system is only partially understood--and, due to the complexity of it, the number of unknown variables and unknown interactions among them--it will never be fully understood. Mathematical theory makes it sufficiently clear that some problems are insoluble. This is one of them. But, finding the precise answer and estimating an approximation to it are different challenges. The former will never be possible, since it is prevented by mathematical laws (which tend not change)--however, an approximation appears to be possible even now. On climate change, thousands of scientists have invested several decades of effort to generate these approximations. In response, we ought to undertake such actions as are justified by their assessed accuracy and by the risk level they foretell.