A Guest Post by Islandboy
The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on December 26th, with data for October 2018. The table above shows the percentage contribution of the main fuel sources to two decimal places for the last two months and the year to date.
In October, as usual for this time of the year, the absolute amount of electricity generated continued to decline with the mid summer demand for air conditioning falling away further. Coal and Natural Gas between them, fueled 64.98% of US electricity generation in October, with the contributions from most other major sources edging up slightly. The contribution from Natural Gas was down at 38.11%, from 40.01% in September, with the amount generated falling from 142,745 GWh to 124,027 GWh. Generation fueled by coal declined from 96,743 Gwh to 87,452 GWh resulting in the percentage contribution falling from 27.12% to 26.87%. The amount of electricity generated by Nuclear plants decreased from 64,725 GWh to 59,397 GWh with the resulting contribution actually rising very slightly from 18.14% to 18.25% in October. The amount generated by conventional hydroelectric increased from 18,663 GWh in September to 18,779 GWh in October with resulting contribution increasing to 5.77% as opposed to 5.23% in September. The amount generated by wind increased from 16,022 GWh to 19,507 GWh with the resulting contribution rising from 4.49% to 5.99% in September. The estimated total solar output fell from 9,153 GWh to 7,625 GWh with the resulting contribution falling from 2.57% to 2.34%. The contribution of zero carbon or carbon neutral sources rose from 32.01% in September to 34.10% in October.
The graph below shows the absolute production from the various sources as well as the total amount generated (right axis).
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the contribution from solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the solar output as a means of assessing it’s potential to make a meaningful contribution to the midsummer peak. In October 2018 the output from solar at 7,625 GWh, was 3 times what it was four years ago in October 2014.
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the combined contribution from wind and solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for combined wind and solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the combined output of solar ans wind as a means of assessing the potential of the combination to make a meaningful contribution to the year round total. The chart reveals somewhat sinister implications for generators fueled by fossil fuels going forward. The combined contribution of wind and solar has varied between 7% and almost 12% in 2018. If the combination were to be multiplied by a factor of ten the contribution would be between 70% and almost 120%.
These two source do not have to grow by a factor of ten between them before they start have adverse effects on the viability of generators using fossil fuels. Both sources are amongst the lowest cost sources of electricity in many US markets and costs are projected to continue to decline. This means that the markets are increasingly likely to buy electricity from wind or solar when available. The falling costs of battery storage are increasing the likelihood that markets will be able to store low cost electricity from renewable sources for use at times when they would normally have had to resort to higher priced sources.
Solar production has been doubling roughly every two years so, at that rate solar would generate more that 30% of US electricity in less than eight years. Growth in Wind output has slowed considerably in recent years so, it may take another eight years for wind to double it’s contribution from roughly 7% to 14%. The net result will be that, the combination of wind and solar could well be contributing upwards of 45% of US electricity by 2026, up from 8.25% in 2017. Even if these projections prove optimistic, it is likely that the contribution from wind and solar will grow at the detriment of other sources. In other words, wind and solar are setting up to take significant market share away from other sources.
The chart below shows the percentage contributions of the various sources to monthly capacity additions for 2018. In October Natural Gas contributed 88.19 percent of new capacity, with 4.91 percent of new capacity coming from Wind and Solar contributing 6.04 percent, Natural Gas, Solar and Wind made up 99.14 percent of new capacity in October. The only capacity added that was not fueled by Natural Gas, Wind or Solar was a 20 MW battery installation at the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power and a 900 kW steam turbine using waste heat at Devon Energy’s Beaver Creek Gas Plant in Wyoming. In October 2018 the total added capacity reported was 2442.1 MW, compared to the 795.9 MW added in October 2017.
The chart below shows the monthly capacity retirements so far for 2018. The scale on the Y axis has been adjusted to start at 25% since there is no month in which coal capacity was retired where the proportion of coal capacity retired was less than that figure and between January and June, the minor contributors were so small that, they are barely visible even with the scale starting at twenty percent. In October the only retirements noted were three internal combustion engines fueled by Distillate Fuel Oil at the Church Street Plant in the City of Manassas – (VA) amounting to 2.6 MW, a 10 MW Natural Gas Fired Combustion Turbine in Tallahassee, FL, two Natural Gas Fired Steam Turbines at the Gordon Evans Energy Center in Kansas amounting to 530 MW, a 61 MW Conventional Steam Coal plant at the Tecumseh Energy Center also in Kansas and two Conventional Steam Coal units at the Pulliam Plant, Green Bay, WI amounting to 209.9 MW.
Following the posting of the previous edition of this report a request was made for a graph that better represented the scale of the capacity additions and retirements. Below is a chart for monthly net additions/retirements and another for the year to date.
Below is a table of the top ten states in order of coal consumption for electricity production for October 2018 and the year before for comparison
Thanks Islandboy for all the effort in producing the electric power monthly for this site.
Have a great new year.
It appears that the worst polluting power source (coal) is being replaced by the fastest global warming power source (natural gas). Solar is moving right along and wind power continues to grow but not fast enough yet.
BTW, what happened to Pennsylvania in the top ten coal consumption for power list?
Here is the 2017 Report Card on Pennsylvania’s Electricity Generation Infrastructure
While its total capacity places it fifth among the states, PA often ranks 2nd or 3rd in total electric generation during the winter months. The residential sector is the largest consumer of electricity, and one fifth of PA households use electricity as their primary heating source.
Recent rankings place PA as the second-largest producer of natural gas and third-largest producer of coal. Still, the state’s actual electricity generation (as opposed to capacity) normally comes more from nuclear than any other generation source.
https://www.alphathree.com/news/report-card-pennsylvanias-electricity-generation-infrastructure
BTW the ASCE gave the US energy infrastructure a D+ in 2017.
https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/energy/
Pennsylvania’s down at number fifteen this month! They were at number ten in August.
Now that is a real gas, natural that is.
Why even a D+? Some GE Mark1’s still boiling in PA.
“Should GE’s Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Be Recalled Worldwide Like a Faulty Unsafe Automobile? (Pt. 5)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWObNZ4YwsU&t=1228s
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ge-reactors-japan-unitedstates/2011/03/14/id/389407/
Tks for your posts Islandboy! And a Happy New Year to all!
On a side note: Given that we live in a world where many of us are currently faced with multiple dilemmas wrapped in a paradox wrapped in an irony…
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/what-makes-rational-peasants-revolutionary-dilemma-paradox-and-irony-in-peasant-collective-action/5A02F1CBF01B9A95691B4CFF24CC7E40
Here is my wish for our collective discussions in the coming new year!
May we encounter honest and logical trolls ! Not that I’m holding my breath 😉
https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_finkel_can_you_solve_the_troll_s_paradox_riddle
Note, to all peasants: Please use LED torches when storming the castle. Biomechanical or biological methods are preferable to conflagration. Let’s try to keep our footprint to actual footprints this time around.
Oh dear! Not supposed to happen, right? Happy New Year anyway kids.
U.S. COAL MINING REACHES 16-MONTH HIGH
Cold weather and a hot natural gas market helped drive U.S. coal production to the highest in 16 months. Output rose to an estimated 15.9 million short tons in the week ending Dec. 22, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday. That’s the highest since Aug. 25, 2017. The amount of coal shipped by rail, which closely tracks production, reached the highest since Sept. 1, 2017.
Coal’s comeback comes at the expense of gas, which has been surging in price. After averaging about $3 per million British thermal units in 2017, prices climbed to more than $4.80 in November and have mostly hovered between $3.50 and $4.50 this month.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-coal-mining-reaches-16-month-high/ar-BBRvq8b
Doug,
Quarterly coal output through Quarter 2 of 2018 has been trending down at an annual rate of 14,030 thousand short tons per year, if the 2012Q1 to 2018Q2 trend continues output would reach zero in about 13 years (though trends rarely remain constant.) Output in 2018Q2 was 180,785 thousand short tons.
https://www.eia.gov/coal/data.php#production
Yes, coal exports decreased from 2012 to 2016 as U.S. coal production declined, mostly because cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources decreased the demand for coal as a fuel for electricity generation. But, since late 2016, coal exports have increased.
Doug,
That chart is production of coal in the US, the trend is down, though perhaps rising natural gas prices might reverse that trend. Also falling prices for wind and solar may make exported coal difficult to sell over the long term.
E DougL, DC,
Coal production in the US can go right on growing because the market that matters is in India and SE Asia. Major infrastructure for export in Virginia with backup on the Gulf Coast.
Here in the Puget Lowland coal trains carry coal from the Powder River Basin to BC from where it’s sent to E Asia.
Time for a little Madeira, Cossart and Gordon’s Bual.
Synapsid —
I always think of New Year’s Eve as occurring at winter solstice (when wife and I would ALWAYS consume bottle, or two, of Extra Dry Champagne), so here’s a (belated) Happy New Year to you. I WILL be indulging in some single malt shortly — just to be safe.
Cheers
DougL,
Safety is of paramount importance so I applaud your intention. There’s a reason that single malts were a principal part of the Cosmic Plan, after all.
Happy New Year to you as well, a white one I bet.
Synapsid,
If solar costs continue to fall at 21% per year (as they did in the US from 2010 to 2017), coal will not be competitive for very long.
Also the weekly estimates from the EIA are not very accurate in general, the quarterly data is much better (and gets revised to correct problems which is not true of the weekly estimates).
US coal output from 2012Q1 to 2018Q2 is falling not rising.
Many nations will realize in time that investing in coal power plants is not cheapest as the capital investment will get stranded as coal fired electricity production becomes much more expensive than alternatives such as utility scale solar power in the future.
DC,
I expect that US production will depend on the global market. DougL’s post on Japan shows the sort of thing that contributes to a growing total demand. China is cutting back use but still building coal-fired plants in other countries, India is making noises about reducing dependence on coal but not much gets done very fast in India and besides some coal-using industries there like cement import their own, Australia’s exports give an idea of demand, one that isn’t cheerful–if the price goes high enough I expect the Powder-River and the Illinois basins will respond.
I believe it’s the IEA that points a quivering finger at India and SE Asia as the centers of future demand growth for coal. And the IEA is, um, not always wrong…I think…
Synapsid,
If Utility Scale Solar power falls to 3 cents per kWh by 2030, the US Sunshot goal, then it will be game over for coal fired power plants. For the US the current cost has fallen to 6 cents per kWh LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) in 2017 and the cost has fallen at an annual rate of 21% per year from 2010 to 2017. If that rate of decline should continue, the US utility scale solar LCOE will reach the 2030 goal by 2020.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
Utility scale PV is $43 to $53 per MWh, coal power is $60 to $143 per MWh according to a 2017 Lazard LCOE report.
https://www.lazard.com/media/450337/lazard-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-110.pdf
It is likely the PV utility scale power costs will continue to fall, coal will become less competitive as this occurs.
DC,
Yes, that’s the US. Demand for coal in the US I’d expect to continue to fall; what will drive any real pickup in US coal production is global demand.
Eventually solar will have a larger and growing presence in the world at large but right now coal is available and easy to use and it’s being imported particularly in S, SE, and E Asia. That is what I expect US coal production to continue to respond to.
Synapsid,
I understand, but there are at least two opposing forces for US coal output, decreasing demand in the US and currently increasing demand for coal in Asia.
My main point is that falling solar costs will lead to decreasing demand for coal Worldwide, even a fully depreciated coal power plant will cost more to operate in maintenance and fuel cost than new utility scale solar as costs continue to fall. Probably only 3 to 5 years away from reaching that point, when it arrives demand for coal for electric power will drop like a rock.
Lazard’s 2018 just came out:
https://www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-120-vfinal.pdf
Utility scale PV is now in the range of $36 – $44 thin film, $40-$46 crystalline [silicon].
Coal still $60-$143 for new, operating cost of fully depreciated coal plant is $36/MWh.
DC,
I understand your main point but I’m nowhere near as sanguine as you are about a sensible switch from coal to PV throughout S and SE Asia on anything like a short time scale.
You need only look at deals being struck in the region on accepting Chinese help in connection with joining the Belt and Road, deals that have cost some of those countries dearly, leaving them under piles of debt that force them to turn over infrastructure to China as partial payment. Kenya is about to lose the port of Mombasa, as an example. Malaysia and the Maldives (?) have pulled back but the less open the government of a country the more willing to sign up (and rake off.)
You need only look at deals being struck in the region on accepting Chinese help in connection with joining the Belt and Road, deals that have cost some of those countries dearly, leaving them under piles of debt that force them to turn over infrastructure to China as partial payment.
Which leads me to wonder, what do the Chinese want in Jamaica? The port of Kingston? The Chinese have been involved in civil works at a scale not seen in this island since the seventies. Four major road widening projects happening in the capital city concurrently with one major overpass under construction to improve traffic flow in the area around the port. This does not include the replacement of two important bridges that were damaged by floods in the north eastern section of the island, completion of a toll road (divided highway) connecting the north coast of the island to the capital city and possibly other projects, already completed, that I have overlooked. Most, if not all these projects have been financed by The Export–Import Bank of China.
In addition to all the civil works, any building being constructed that is over four stories tall in the capital city, is probably using a Chinese construction company. There is currently a boom in such projects with several recently completed and no shortage of projects to replace the recently competed ones. The Chinese have developed a reputation for completing their construction projects very quickly, far more quickly than Jamaicans have been accustomed to! They work nights and holidays if they have to. I passed them working last night (New Years Day!) on the widening of the main highway heading west out of the capital.
Just wondering, what is their end game? What do they ultimately want and what is their strategic plan? I guess I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth so to speak!
islandboy,
A major factor in whether accepting Chinese help has proved a disaster or not is whether voters have a say in what the government does. Malaysia and the Maldives (?) have had a look at agreements made by previous governments and said “No.”
The debt loads have come about in part because Chinese loans have been in dollars not yuan (the banks borrow the dollars on the world market) and that means the receiving country has to repay in dollars. Does your country have easy access to dollars?
Chinese loans have been without emphasis on (relatively) strict attention to environmental standards and human rights.
Without public visibility of such deals and voter power the above characteristics mean that the more corrupt governments are more inclined–or happy–to sign the deals and appropriate tidy amounts to their own pockets, leaving the country facing payments it can’t make and so surrendering major resources, natural or infrastructural, to China. Whether the projects the loans are to support are successful or not, the deals are written so that China must be repaid.
China isn’t alone in this sort of activity: Russia is taking more and more control of oil resources in Venezuela.
So how does it look for your country?
Synapsid,
I’m not sure what to make of it. There is a long history of corruption in Jamaica with respect to public sector construction and civil works projects. Some projects might have been spared by strict procurement guidelines of the agencies providing the financing for the projects, such as the World Bank and The Inter-American Development Bank but when such oversight has not been in place, contracts are generally given to entities with very close ties to the party in power. Conventional wisdom is that these entities donate generously to election campaigns one way or another. One hallmark of this corruption has been construction delays and cost overruns.
Some time ago, the government of the day, under extreme pressure to do something about travel times heading west from the capital, decided to explore the development of toll roads in partnership with private foreign highway builders. That scheme has worked well and the toll road network has been gradually been extended improving travel times along those routes significantly, without any evidence of corruption that I am aware of.
The last major road construction project, using a local construction firm that I can remember, was officially opened on October 12, 2011. having broken ground on Feb. 19, 2010. This particular project was partly financed by the Caribbean Development Bank which might explain the relative absence of corruption. The fact that space had been reserved for the widening of the roadway when the area was developed back in the sixties may also have helped the project’s relatively short completion time.
Since the start of the toll road projects, the government has increasingly looked overseas for construction expertise and financing on major projects. One example is the raising of the elevation of the road heading to the international airport servicing the capital city and the eastern and southern sections of the island. This project is one of many financed by the China EXIM Bank, all of which use Chinese engineering and construction firms (one in particular) and in many cases construction equipment made in China.
One of the hallmarks of the Ex-im bank financed projects has been fairly strict adherence to timelines and little or no cost overruns. That having been said, the current road projects are having to contend with property that is in the way of the developments, moving boundary walls and demolishing structures in a few cases, as well as absence of infrastructure like storm drains along most of the roadways being improved. Also hampering the current work is the fact that, existing underground infrastructure like water and communications has to be accommodated. In the case of water, the decision seems to have been made, wisely, to replace aging water mains while the construction is underway, rather than proceeding to dig up recently improved roads after the fact.
All in all, it would appear that the island is getting much better value for money with the Chinese financed and implemented projects than has been the case with projects financed and supervised by the Jamaican government. The politicians seem quite happy to use Chinese money and expertise and claim that the credit improvements is due to them and therefore they should be re-elected.
This is in stark contrast to the situation at the local state owned oil refinery that has been embroiled in a continuous stream of scandals surrounding evidence of impropriety in the management of the refinery, resulting in the resignation of the government minister with responsibility for energy.
Speaking of energy, I would love to see the China EXIM Bank finance some major PV projects, using Chinese made PV modules and inverters and using Chinese contractors if it comes to that. Alas the only involvement of the Chines in the energy sector I am aware of, has been the donation of a 15 kW (75 kWhr/day) system to the Clarendon Youth Information Centre .
Dennis,
I am not at all confident that PV costs will decline any further.
Sure they might, but the case could be made for the opposite scenario as well.
The short version is that- the price drop over the past decade is due to mass production, competition on ‘gigafactory’ scale, factory robotics, globalization with cheaper sourcing of materials, innovation in silicon handling borrowed from the semiconductor industry, improvement in mass installation techniques.
Sure there may be some continued improvement along these lines, but much of the big gains on these fronts have already been achieved.
On the other hand, costs could rise- Raw materials. Labor. Energy. Tariffs and other trade disruptions. And as we know, energy is required at many levels in PV creation, from mining, to shipping, to manufacturer, to installation.
Hopefully prices will fall more, but I think it is far from certain.
Fortunately they are already at a great utility scale price level.
Battery price/power action is now a great wildcard.
Hickory,
I think that the rate of decrease in PV costs might slow down, it depends if they have reached an optimum in economies of scale, perhaps there will be no further innovation in this industry, or the rate of innovation will be reduced, every industry reaches that point eventually.
The NREL is usually pretty conservative in their goals ( their 2020 goal for PV cost was reached 3 years early in 2020), the 2030 goal is half the cost reached in 2017, my guess is they reach this is 2025 rather than 2030, that would require costs to decrease at an average rate of only 8.3%/year over the next 8 years (2018-2025) rather than the 21.6% rate of decrease seen from 2010 to 2017.
Seems doable and may well be conservative.
Lets hope.
The cost curve seems to be shallowing out but, I believe, more savings can come from BOS and installation.
NAOM
NAOM,
Using the Lazard 2018 report, you are correct that the rate of decrease has slowed over the 2009 to 2018 period. The natural log of LCOE vs year is a fairly straight line over the 2011 to 2018 period with about an average rate of decrease in LCOE of 18.56% per year for utility scale PV. There is no doubt that this rate of decrease may slow down as physical limits are reached, I am not an expert and do not know what the limit is or when we will reach it. My guess is the experts at the NREL chose a goal that they believe can be achieved. Their goal is $30/MWh in 2030, Lazard’s analysis suggests we have already reached $43/MWh.
If we assume the Lazard estimate is correct for 2018 and that the annual rate of decrease falls to 9% per year over the next 4 years (half of the recent rate of decrease in cost), then the $30/MWh LCOE is reached in 2022. If this estimate proves correct, it will be game over for coal and natural gas in the electricity sector for any new Power generating facilities and even fully depreciated coal and natural gas power stations will gradually be replaced as they will no longer be profitable to operate as electricity rates fall below their cost of operation due to cheap solar power. New natural gas combined cycle has a minimum LCOE of $41/MWh and fully depreciated coal plants have LCOE of $36/MWh, no data for fully depreciated NG power plant in Lazard report.
Data in Chart below from Lazard 2018 report (click on chart for larger view if it’s too small to read)
Thanks for putting some numbers to my observation.
NAOM
No Problem. In the NREL numbers (from 2010 to 2017), the flattening of the exponential was not apparent, but in the Lazard 2018 report is was very obvious and I would not have noticed without you comment, so thanks for your observation, we all learn from one another here, or I should say I have learned a lot from all of the participants here, thank you all.
The wafers keep getting thinner and thinner, meaning less silicon is consumed per panel. In addition, new cutting technology means less ans less waste is involved. The price for silicon ingots has fallen about 98% in the last ten years, but low demand due to improved manufacturing efficiency are keeping the price pressure strong.
Perhaps surprisingly, thinner wafers are actually more efficient than thick wafers.
Because so little silicon is now needed, the industry is switching from polysilicon to more expensive monosilicon right now, which means a significantly more efficient panels. That means all the other parts deliver more bang for the buck.
Meanwhile wafer sizes are also growing which reduced total panel costs (per watt). This is possible thanks to better quality, and better quality means lower prices
There’s also kerfless wafer manufacturing being pioneered by the likes of 1366 Technologies and Nexwafe, where the wafers are cast or grown in a mold, allowing for extremely thin wafers with no sawing waste.
Alimbiquated and islandboy,
Cool stuff, thanks!
Thanks Island boy.
It behooves us to become solar scientists, if not worshippers, to prepare for the days beyond fossil carbon.
I have been reviewing the actual daily production data from a solar array, at 38 degree N. This array is in a sunny zone on the western coast of N. America, at a site with similar degree of annual irradiance as places like Denver, Dallas, and Tampa Bay, generally an excellent solar locale.
The variation in output is an important aspect to understand and acknowledge for the sake of planning. This particular climate has its cloudiest time coinciding to the short winter day season, which is an unfortunate aspect of the Mediterranean climate.
This array peak daily output of the year was 52.4 KWhr on a crystal day close to the summer solstice. The minimum daily output was 1.37 KWhr/d on a dark stormy day near the winter solstice.
That’s a 38-fold difference!
This data helps us to realize the need for alternative sources, battery storage, grid connectivity with regional sharing, and perhaps the idea of ‘economic hibernation’ for occasional times.
On a monthly basis the variation was much less, a 3-fold increase from the darkest to the sunniest month.
One a different Solar note, who knows what an Analemma is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma
Rated power of the system would be helpful in understanding these figures. TIA.
NAOM
There is lots of data that can be shared, but I gave what seemed relevant for the purpose illustrating the point of output variability between bright summer day (max) and dark winter (min) on one system with all other variables unchanged.
[Those numbers are given are simply the accumulated production for the day, from that particular system.]
If you want to come over we can look at more data, over cider.
Fair enough for what you are trying to show but it would have been interesting to compare the production against the rating. Would be great to look over the data over cider but, unfortunately, not practical for me. If you ever come down to this part of the world then We can do this over some Tequila. I will raise some rum and beers as I wait for the Ultima Thule closest approach and the New Year. In about 5 mins New Horizons becomes a Schroedinger’s space probe.
NAOM
Production vs rating- I don’t have a full yrs data yet, but its on track to slightly exceed expectations I believe.
The way companies/installers make the projections of output for a specific location includes a reference site for calculations that may or may not exactly match your specific site microclimate in regard to cloudiness. Also, one should expect some yr to yr variation in cloudiness, more so in some climate zones than others. Things vary quite a lot here from yr to yr. This December was considerably sunnier than most, for example.
Ra!
While we have had a cloudy and chilly one. Happy New Year.
NAOM
Take a quick look at the chart in the Original Post which shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the combined contribution from wind and solar.
You can see that across the country wind and solar are quite reliable on the monthly basis. That indicate the value of
1) multiple sources of power, especially the combination of wind and solar, which are negatively correlated; and
2) long distance transmission to link areas together and smooth out variation between areas.
In the long run I think we’ll also rely on Time Of Use customer charges and Demand Side Management; batteries for daily variation; and utility hydrogen storage for seasonal/winter variation (especially cheap underground storage). There isn’t really a cheap, clean equivalent to H2 storage for individual homeowners – the closest thing is a diesel generator…
NickG,
Homeowners with a basement could construct a large well insulated 1000 gallon water storage unit and store water heated during times of excess energy using a heat pump, during times of less sunlight the stored hot eater could be used for home heating, in addition car and/or batteries could also be used to store excess electricity.
Generally though, you are correct most homes will need to be connected to the grid for winter backup, in rural areas, biofuels might be used as a heating backup.
Hmmm. Have you seen an example of that hot water tank approach? I can see the idea, but it seems…complex, with an extra heat exchange from heat pump to tank, and then another from tank to home duct work. I’d think that more insulation would be a better bet. For instance, my furnace doesn’t need to turn on when the temps are above freezing, primarily due to improved windows.
I agree about home charging. When EVs are standard, they’ll be an invaluable way to manage renewable supply variance: charging can vary depending on supply, and V2G would add more value on top of that. I’m not sure home batteries are cost effective compared to utility storage, but I suspect a lot of people will like the idea of controlling their own fate.
NickG,
I agree more insulation is a good idea, that is an expensive proposition in an existing home (except perhaps attic and basement).
The concept here is to avoid backup generation if one wants to avoid transmission and distribution fees from the utility.
So you put as much PV as you can fit on Home garage, shed and back yard (or front yard if your neighbors won’t complain), install a ground source heat pump for maximum efficiency, build a big water tank for the basement, or dig a hole in the back yard while putting in ground source heat pump and create an underground water tank (not ideal if a leak needs repair though). This is complex, but might be less expensive than battery storage and could reduce need for grid backup in winter, spring and fall.
Passive solar design would also help, but again existing construction is hard to refit to a passive solar design. One simple option is to replace south facing windows with those that let more light through (for homes in colder climates). The typical window filters quite a bit of light to reduce AC costs, probably not needed in colder areas and awnings can be added, if it is a problem in summer.
It behooves us to become solar scientists, if not worshippers, to prepare for the days beyond fossil carbon.
Ra! Ra! Ra!
.
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/77/54/03/16695489/7/1024×1024.jpg
Not just about sea level rise, this very perceptive straightforward talk about the near future and what we will and are facing is about as good as it gets.
Let Antonio ring in the New Year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7TDBqF0y38
A few quotes from the talk:
“For us every 5 years will be worse than the last, that is all we will ever know for the rest of our lives.”
“If the center is catastrophe, everywhere else on the dartboard would be severe and imperiled.”
“No matter what scenario we are on it will appear as if everything is getting worse.”
What are you trying to do, end the year on the most depressing (realistic) note possible? I’m old enough to have witnessed the demise of flying insects and associated song bird populations and my kids will certainly see comparable disasters in other areas. Its debatable what these will be but I expect expanded ocean acidification will be on the list. God forbid what my Grandchildren will be forced to see.
Well, whatever any of us decides to do, we must all of us, immediately stop advocating for things like renewable energy and EVs which obviously cause more harm than everything we have done so far by basing our industrial civilization on fossil fuels and nuclear energy. On a personal note, I’m also willing to part with my stake in that famous bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn at a significant price reduction, should anyone be interested… /sarc 😉
As for insect extinction rates, a warmer climate probably isn’t going to help the situation all that much.
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/680
Limited tolerance by insects to high temperatures across tropical elevational gradients and the implications of global warming for extinction
People have been committing massive chemical and bio-weapon attacks on the insect world for a long time now. Warming is just the icing on the poison.
Doug, a strong honest adult discourse is excellent information. Helps prevent further slippage down the rabbit hole of delusion that the human race entered.
Here’s a strong honest adult discourse between Paul Beckwith and Stuart Scott…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPEkMKvsNEg
Paul Beckwith – Climate Change Emergency
Speaking of Paul Beckwith
Arctic Darkening from Spring Snow Cover Loss Exceeds Sea-Ice Loss Effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNRIsCqv5yY
Solar costs according to NREL
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68925.pdf
Over the 2010 to 2017 period US utility scale (100 MW system with one axis tilt) costs (in 2017$) fell at an average annual rate of 21.6% from $5.44/WDC in 2010 to $1.11/WDC in 2017. If that trend continued through 2030, the cost would be $0.07/WDC by 2030 in 2017$. In 2025 the cost would be $0.21/ WDC and by 2020 the cost would be $0.61/WDC, again both in 2017$.
At those prices, natural gas, and coal will no longer be able to compete in electricity markets, except possibly as backup sources. Widely dispersed highly interconnected (HVDC grid) solar power will be the main energy source of the future, with perhaps some wind also serving as a backup.
The Sunshot goal of 6 cents/KWhr LCOE by 2020 for utility scale PV was achieved in 2017, the new goal is 3 cents/kWhr LCOE (both in 2017$) by 2030 (this 2030 goal is about $0.5/WDC). The 2030 goal is likely to be achieved by 2025.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/energy-department-announces-more-90-achievement-2020-sunshot-goal-sets-sights-2030
DC,
I noticed a post from Fraz, who doesn’t post often, on one of the previous threads; it was addressed to you, I believe–a question.
Thanks,
Yes I saw that, I need to rework my analysis to include NGL, though it looks like about 0.25 barrels of NGL per barrel of C+C produced in the Permian rather than the 0.3 he suggested. I need to estimate a natural gas output profile for the average well to do the analysis properly and I can only guess at actual NGPL (natural gas plant liquid) output as I don’t have specific Paermian basin data for that. I will need to make some assumptions/guesses about NGL output.
It’s hard to imagine the price per watt dropping below 40 cents. That would be about 2 cents per kWh.
Dropping below 10 cents? That would be about half a cent per kWh!
Shades of “Too cheap to meter”!
Nick G,
Based on the Lazard 2018 report the average cost for Utility scale solar in 2018 will be $43/MWh or 4.3 cents per kWh. Over the 2011 to 2018 period costs fell be about 18.5% per year. If we assume the rate of decrease in costs falls to 9%/year over the next 4 years, we reach about 3 cents per kWh by 2022, a fully depreciated coal power plant has LCOE of 3.6 cents per kWh (ignoring externalities).
This suggests (if the estimate is correct) that coal power will be shut down for economic reasons. In fact if utility scale costs fall by 8.5% per year for the next two years, then by 2020 average utility scale solar PV will be equal to existing coal power (fully depreciated), after that coal power is toast. It already does not make sense to build any new coal power plants as they are much more expensive than solar.
Dennis- that scenario assumes that the PV is actually built in a timely and massive fashion, to replace the coal. It will take 10-20 yrs to get that done, I’d wager.
The grid network to carry solar from sunny areas (where Lazard has derived their data) to darker and colder areas where coal is prevalent, must built up. Hopefully a new administration will get on with an energy policy that is forward looking.
Hickory,
If you are thinking of the US, the grid is already highly interconnected, the coal in “cold dark areas”, will quickly become obsolete as wind and solar costs continue to fall. As long as we don’t subsidize coal (already subsidized by ignoring climate impact) more than we already do, it will be abandoned by most power companies as they will not be able to compete with cheaper alternatives. In a few years, natural gas will suffer the same fate. It will take some time, but basically there is money to be made by PV and wind driving coal and natural gas out of business, a free market can be pretty brutal on more expensive producers. If it is allowed to function, coal and natural gas in the electric power sector will be history by 2040, perhaps sooner.
…a free market can be pretty brutal on more expensive producers. If it is allowed to function, coal and natural gas in the electric power sector will be history by 2040, perhaps sooner.
Unfortunately it is looking more and more like the planet will be toast by
2030… 2020?Go watch the FINAL WARNING video posted by Gone Fishing!
Cheers!
Fred,
I don’t watch videos.
So in one year there is supposed to be some dramatic change from the past 30 to 50 years?
Do they suggest probabilities?
I don’t get hung up over 3 sigma events.
Dennis, it is often very difficult for projects that are being investigated in very windy or sunny parts of the country to get electrical grid connection arranged. Many locales are far from lines, or lines are already at capacity levels at times. Substations sometimes maxed out. From what I’ve seen, in much of the country we are far from being in good shape to get that inexpensive electricity to the target.
An example- there is a big trunk coming out of the big coal facilities up near Casper Wyo (powder river basin), and has been maxed out at times. It passes through some great wind territory, but much of that resource is not built out due to interconnection difficulties.
Many of these remote area need a lot of work on feeder lines. That is probably a huge understatement.
Hickory,
Is there a reason that the lines cannot be built?
It is simply a part of the project planning. I am not suggesting it will be easy to do, simply that in a free market (properly regulated for externalities and public goods), it can be done and if it is cheaper, it is likely to be done.
Note that when the coal power plants become more expensive than wind and solar, the transmission lines currently used for coal power will be used for wind and solar instead.
Apparently building out some aluminum wires, towers, insulators and transformers is well beyond our capabilities. 🙂
Much better to poison and devastate our world by burning buried carbon sources.
“it can be done and if it is cheaper, it is likely to be done.”
Should be put on a massive stone monument to our civilization, epitomizing the basic moral and ethical bankruptcy it currently holds dear.
Not at all Dennis,
Just think we ought to be getting to it, rather than playing around.
There is a lot of work to do.
Seems like much of world isn’t taking the magnitude of the risk (of sitting on our hands) seriously.
Hickory and Gonefishing,
Agree with you both.
We need to get to work. Carbon tax would help, even without it economic incentives may get us there.
Dennis
Both your comment and Hickory’s above get to the heart of one aspect of wind power’s future vulnerabilities (and there are several), namely transmission.
ERCOT’s history may be instructive in this regard as Texas ratepayers paid for the $7 billion build out for the main transmission wires bringing west Texas juice to the populated areas.
Absent a prepaid path for their electricity, NO smaller scale developer could afford anything other than the MUCH cheaper costs to build transmission lines to connect with these big trunk lines.
Ol’ Uncle Warren cleverly bypassed much of these issues when – in true J.D. Rockefeller/vertical integrstion fashion – his company bought wind developers, transmission companies and – crucially – local distribution/utility outfits.
These last, under government regulation and dictats, are being compelled to purchase renewable energy.
These hard and fast contracts ensures financing for both the wind developers and transmission builders.
If the tax credit programs are not extended by their expiration this coming December 31, wind power projects may come to a screeching halt.
If anyone is interested in the transmission issues for renewable energy- here is a good article on the state of affairs-
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/01/07/california-power-grid-data-is-live-solar-developers-take-note/
Coffeeguyzz,
Windpower and solar will be cheaper in the long run.
Investments in fossil fuel power plants will be stranded as they will not be able to compete. Utility scale solar is already at the level of the cheapest natural gas power plants.
Next year it will be cheaper.
These are prices without subsidies.
Buffett knows a good deal when he sees it, that is why he is the most successful investor of the last 50 years.
“In a few years, natural gas will suffer the same fate. It will take some time, but basically there is money to be made by PV and wind…”
Dennis, for the WORLD gas use to decline it will take some time indeed. Since 1990 global natural gas consumption has grown at an average of more than 6% per annum.
From Hugo’s post:
https://bioenergyinternational.com/markets-finance/global-gas-production-and-consumption-continues-to-increase-iea-report
Hi Han,
Natural Gas World output will peak in 2035 and then decline, so it will happen later. As the peak approaches and natural gas becomes more expensive and as the cost of wind and solar continues to fall, no new natural gas power plant will be built, then natural gas power plants will start to be shut down. For home heating and water heating it will become cheaper to use heat pumps as the cost of electricity falls and makes natural gas heat and hot water no longer competitive, the order is likely to be oil, coal, and then natural gas and the ramp up in wind and solar may be faster than many analysts have forecast.
Chart below has an optimistic “fast energy transition” scenario, it is not likely that all fossil fuel use can go to zero due to air and sea transport and other critical uses of fossil fuels that cannot be substituted with electrical energy. I have not tried to estimate those levels or how quickly they might be reduced. Air transport (commercial) used about 6 Mb/d of jet fuel in 2018. In 2010 marine transport used about 4.4 Mb/d, based on a 2012 report
https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/wec_transport_scenarios_2050.pdf
If those levels are unchanged that would be 519 Mtoe/year about 4.6% of 2015 fossil fuel consumption (11,334 Mtoe/year).
If chart is too small to read, clicking on it should give a bigger view.
So oil is gone by 2040, just 21 years from now. What about petroleum based products, like plastics or lubricating oils? And what about fossil based fertilizers? And what about air travel? Despite all that baloney about battery operate airplanes, it just ain’t gonna happen. And sailing ships will transport all cargo? They may support some sea transportation, but only a tiny fraction of what is shipped today.
And what will happen to Saudi Arabia and other countries that depend almost entirely from income from oil exports?
Dennis, the transition from fossil fuels to solar, hydro and wind power is just one hell of a lot more complicated than you make it out to be.
My prediction: We will get off coal, oil and natural gas when they are all gone. (Or, when civilization collapses which may come sooner.) I know, I know, that is one horrible prediction, but in my 80 years on this earth, I have learned a lot about human nature. Pie in the sky dreamers appear to know nothing about human nature. Everyone’s highest priority is the welfare of their own ass. Their second highest priority is the welfare of their family, and so on. The welfare of everyone else on the planet comes in dead last.
I know, their welfare depends on the welfare of the planet, but that is the long range outlook. Human nature looks out for today first, tomorrow second and so on. The distant future comes in dead last also.
I know, there are exceptions like you, I and most others on this list. But we are such a tiny minority of the earth’s population that our opinion is as valuable as bucket of warm spit.
Hi Ron,
I believe I said the following:
…it is not likely that all fossil fuel use can go to zero due to air and sea transport and other critical uses of fossil fuels that cannot be substituted with electrical energy.
As to human nature, economic theory is based on human behavior and the model is based on economic theory.
It is pretty simple, the price of alternatives to fossil fuel become cheaper, fossil fuels can no longer compete and they are rapidly replaced by wind, solar, hydro, EVs, electrified rail, light rail, autonomous vehicles and HVDC transmission.
Fertilizer could be replaced by processing human waste into fertilizer, the supply is quite large, animal waste could also be used (that supply is also pretty large). If natural gas remains the cheapest way to produce fertilizer, perhaps the CO2 produced could be captured in the process.
A price on carbon would help make this a reality, technically 85-90% of CO2 can be captured in the steam reforming process. In 2010 roughly 210 million tonnes of CO2 came from ammonia production for fertilizer only about 1% of total carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels in 2010.
I also said:
Chart below has an optimistic “fast energy transition” scenario,…
That transition might occur if costs for solar and batteries fall at the rates predicted by Tony Seba.
I agree some oil will continue to be used for air transport and sea transport, as I said these amounts are currently about 10 Mb/d, some may be substitutes with synthetic fuels or biofuels, or possibly wind or nuclear for ships or some hybrid type of system. Air travel may become much less common.
All of this can be driven by economics with proper government policy with respect to carbon pollution. In fact for those nations like the US that choose to not have proper climate policy, other nations could impose a carbon tax on US exported goods as they are imported, if the US chooses to impose a retaliatory tariff, then US consumers would pay the tax twice on imports, once as the goods get the tariffs from the US, plus the original tax in the producing nation that has a proper carbon tax policy.
The main driver will be simple economics driving us away from expensive fossil fuel.
So Peabody Coal and Exxon Mobil will go the way of the United States Leather Company, which supposedly was the 3rd largest American company in 1910, they made saddles and buggy whips, they were one of the original companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1986 to 1905, in those days there were only 12 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
So it was among the largest companies in the US in 1905, large railroads were part of the Dow Transportation average which came before the Dow Jones Industrial Average, there were 12 companies in that index as well, so it might have been among the top 25 companies.
In 1909 the United States Leather Company became a subsidiary of the Central Leather Company, That company was part of the Dow 12 from 1912 to 1924. After that the company reorganized and renamed to the United States Leather Company in 1927 and the company liquidated in 1952, the only company through 2007 of the original Dow 12 to go out of business.
Han, and what will the natural gas producers and power plants do when a large portion of the population refuses to use their product, fights it politically and physically as well as puts up large media campaigns against it? Will they work to force these people to swallow their products as they are now?
I am not talking about twenty years from now, I am talking about five or six. Once the population awakes to the horrifying bill of goods they have been sold it all goes away in a short time. Political protections will fade and working outside the law will not be allowed anymore.
what will the natural gas producers and power plants do when a large portion of the population refuses to use their product, fights it politically and physically as well as puts up large media campaigns against it?
Really now? You actually believe people will picket in order to get their own gas and power cut off? So that they might live in a cold dark house?
Mr. Patterson
What you describe has actually been occurring throughout New England for the past couple of years.
Sincere, impassioned positions have led that region to the brink of chaos over the coming years during wintertime cold periods.
Right this moment, the Belgian LNG ship, Exemplar, is waiting outside of Boston harbor to discharge a shipment of Yamal-sourced natgas.
This fuel is desperately needed to keep the large Mystic plants functioning.
The fact that New Englanders continue to successfully thwart natgas build out absent any existing, viable alternatives does – indeed – describe what you just stated as being non credible … yet it is happenning right now.
Coffeeguyzz, not doubting your reporting but I need to read up on these picketers in order to reply to your post. Could you post a URL that describes these picketers, or protesters, who are keeping this LNG ship from unloading? I googled it in several different ways and came up with nothing.
Also, are these guys really trying to shut down the Mystic Power Plant? Or, are they just afraid of an LNG explosion in the harbor?
It’s already happening in cities, states and towns across America and the world. It will accelerate.
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2018/08/29/picketers-have-plans-stage-protest-outside-mount-kisco-church/1133802002/
“On Monday, 415 pension funds and insurance companies, with over $32 trillion in assets, called on governments to phase out coal-fired power plants and put a meaningful price on carbon to help tackle climate change.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2018-12-10/big-investors-call-for-carbon-price-end-to-coal-power
https://www.powermag.com/new-york-denies-air-permit-new-gas-fired-power-plant/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/new-york-commits-1-4-billion-to-renewable-energy-projects/
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/05/ny-clean-energy-agenda-make-significant-investments-renewable-energy/
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/NYC-To-Discuss-Plan-To-Replace-Gas-Fired-Plants-With-Renewables.html
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27022018/renewable-energy-cities-clean-power-technology-cdp-report-global-warming-solutions
As the governments go, so shall the rest follow.
https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments
Do you really think the Marcellus will be producing much gas in the 2030’s? Now that is when people will go into the dark and be cold if they have not transistioned to other methods. It’s happening faster than you think and people are catching on.
I have been on the downtrend for years.
Despite all the hoopla, total natural gas consumption has only risen 22 percent since 1972. Coal is on the downtrend.
As you can see from the graph wind and solar are proceeding much faster than that. They will accelerate as both citizen and world pressure increases.
Mr. Patterson
I apologize for not being clear in my post.
There is no protesting regarding this shipment of LNG.
In fact, very few seem to even be aware of it.
The fact that the large Mystic plants are supplied by this fuel – and are slated to be shut down in 2024 – is, likewise, not commonly known nor prompting objections.
What IS and HAS been taking place throughout New England these past several years has been successful, ferocious opposition to the building of natgas pipelines, compressor stations, CCGT plants, and even several LNG structures that some politicians are now calling to be built.
In essence, the New England region is going all in on renewable-sourced energy with a seemingly large shortfall in its capacity to provide adequate electricity.
Going cold/dark, to use your description.
Time will tell how this plays out, but the precariousness is far greater than many realize.
Fish, Coffeeguyzz, and everyone else. I do not doubt that millions of people, including me, would like to see fossil fuel replaced. I have no doubt that they are protesting new coal fired or even gas fired plants. I would dearly love it if it were possible to phase out fossil fuel tomorrow.
However that is not possible. And if coal, or oil, or gas were to dry up tomorrow, there would be panic throughout the world. Commerce would stop, food supplies would dry up, people would die by the billions.
But you say you do not want that and do not expect any such thing to happen. You, and I for that matter, hope it will happen slowly as renewables replace fossil fuel. And they will whenever it becomes physically and financially possible. It will happen when batteries become so powerful and cheap that they can power the earth at night, or when the wind is not blowing. And when tractors and combines can run on batteries. And when the Haber-Bosch process has been replaced by something equally as effective.
I am sorry, it makes me cry, but that is just not going to happen. I dearly wish it were, I do, I do, I do. But I am a realist, not a dreamer. Dreams are beautiful and anything can happen in dreams. But reality is a cruel thing and a killer of dreams.
And before anyone mentions it, I know the Haber-Bosch process can use hydrogen from any source. But steam reforming to produce bulk hydrogen from natural gas is, by many fold, cheaper than producing hydrogen by electrolysis.
Ron,
Yes steam reforming is a cheaper source of hydrogen and the plants can be refit to capture 85 to 90% of the CO2 produced, a proper carbon tax could accomplish that by making it more expensive to vent the CO2 than to capture it.
Also, nobody suggests it will happen tomorrow, it will take 10 to 20 years to ramp up wind, solar, and hydro to a level that most fossil fuel can be replaced, fertilizer production is a small part of total CO2 emissions. Fossil fuels gradually peak (or plateau), they become expensive, alternatives fall in cost and the economic incentives result in the shut down of coal power, then natural gas power, and installation of heat pumps (as the economics become more advantageous with higher natural gas and oil prices) and as EVs fall in cost and become cheaper than ICEVs oil use will decrease.
I agree that it will not happen tomorrow, Gone fishing said 5 years (I think he probably means the start of the decline in fossil fuel use, but often misinterpret), the process will be largely complete in about 25 years with proper government policy (which becomes more likely after peak oil in 2025).
the process will be largely complete in about 25 years with proper government policy (which becomes more likely after peak oil in 2025).
Proper government policy? All of them? There are 195 governments? I seriously doubt that they are all going to agree on one policy. And the fossil fuel producing nations will not agree on anything that so dramatically affects their survival.
Dennis, wake up and smell the coffee. You’re dreaming.
RonP, Coffeeguyzz,
I read a few days ago that the ship waiting outside Boston Harbor, loaded with Yamal LNG, is waiting for higher prices. I don’t remember where I read that, though.
There was no mention of protests being any part of the reason.
Ron,
All nations do not have to have the same policies. Proper policy is instituting taxes that take account of externalities and public goods. Standard economic principles widely understood.
Nations will take action to speed the transition when fossil fuels peak and become expensive. This is typical human social behavior.
Again standard stuff.
Not to say any of this will be smooth or easy, but just as Keynes wrote a book that was highly influential from 1936 to 1980.
Some other book or books might influence World leaders to find a better path.
“Some other book or books might influence World leaders to find a better path.”
Dennis,
Some other book has been written already long time ago and nobody seemed to have listened
-Hawken is a maverick entrepreneur and occasional author (The Magic of Findhorn, Seven Tomorrows) who has a one-note explanation of the American economic crunch and some sane, imaginative, entertaining things to say, regardless. Who’d dismiss out-of-hand a man who advises the chairman of Exxon, in one of six “”unsolicited”” letters, to look to the service of his service stations (and get out of “”mining, motor, and office equipment companies””)? Hawken’s idea–which finds parallels in the more refined analyses of Abernathy and Reich, and cruder echoes in Toffler (all elsewhere in this issue)–is that we began shifting, in OPEC-1973, from a “”mass economy”” to an “”informative economy.”” “”A decade during which we have faced lower incomes and enormous leaps in the prices of energy, food, public services, and real estate, and increasing economic insecurity,”” has schooled us to be more selective–to look for higher-quality, more durable good. (“”The informative society requires more intelligence from everyone.””) That thesis, however narrow, does contain enough psychological truth to yield guidelines of various sorts. And Hawken is neither a woodstove zealot nor a computer addict. One of his big points is “”disintermediation””: the reduction of intermediary goods and services–whether in the form of money-market funds (by-passing banks) or midwives, cash-only gas stations or direct-dial purchases. (“”Disintermediation is one of the principal means by which individuals can sustain a standard of living in a contracting economy.””) He’s also high on people, and hard-headed about business. In another of the six “”unsolicited”” letters, he tells a Flint machinist: “”Remember that your competition in Japan, France, and Germany is being paid less than you are. In other words, your wages are too high. . . . Try to institute a program of wage cuts in return for worker equity.”” Farms will have to be smaller too–“”because it will be easier for a small farmer to make money than a giant farmer.”” A personable, not impractical text–for the small-business-minded especially.-
Pub Date: May 27th, 1983
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston
“Nations will take action to speed the transition when fossil fuels peak and become expensive”
Apart from what Ron wrote (“There are 195 governments…” > risk of conflicts and chaos (already present in and between many countries)) I think that within ten years the same will happen as 12 years ago: oilprices rising rapidly followed by a world economic recession resulting in oil consumption falling by 10-15%. Again Peakoil will be unnoticed or denied then. The transition to wind/solar/hydrogen/batteries is not close to where it has to be in ten years from now. The question is if at that time renewable energy is still cheaper than FF energy, knowing what a recession will do with prices. Probably a few more years will be ‘lost’. Unless climate change will keep renewables on the exponential rise path.
Han,
Difficult to know in advance which books or ideas will be most influential in the future.
Oil prices will go up, but they may not spike.
Also I do not think rising oil prices was the major reason for the GFC, the primary reason was poor regulation of financial markets. The World economy did just fine during 2011 to 2014 when oil prices averaged about $110/b at the likely GDP levels in 2025 the World will likely be able to handle oil prices between $160 (4% of GDP as in 2011) and $250/b (7% of GDP as in 1981). So it is possible there might be a minor recession, but oil prices are not likely to drop much as supply will not be growing.
As to conflicts, there has always been potential for conflict, I don’t expect that to change. Fear of nuclear conflict and Mutual Assured Destruction, so far has kept conflicts limited since WW2, there is always the potential that something could go wrong, certainly an erratic US President is a worry. Hopefully that will change in 2020.
” The World economy did just fine during 2011 to 2014 when oil prices averaged about $110/b. ”
Dennis,
At least on a superficial view. However the poor and low middle class suffer with rising transport costs and food prices. France is just one example now of what might happen in the future in much more countries if, above all, food becomes more expensive but wages stay the same. The question is how and if the energy transition will continue properly in such an environment.
“certainly an erratic US President is a worry. ”
Maybe a problematic, chaotic environment is a ‘guarantee’ for that kind of presidents to be elected. A sort of country/world that cannot be guided (in the right direction) anymore by governments.
It’s worth saying that the pollution costs of coal are much higher than those of climate change.
A Harvard researcher found that coal’s pollution cost was about 18 cents per kWh, and only 4 cents of that came from GHGs.
And, coal, oil & gas are imported fuels for most countries and consumers., with significant security and import costs.
Even if we ignore the very serious risks of climate change, we can still make a highly compelling case for transitioning away from FF ASAP.
“coal in “cold dark areas”, will quickly become obsolete as wind and solar costs continue to fall”
Maybe the coal tribe understands this too well and is supporting moves to prevent grid build out and upgrade.
NAOM
NAOM,
Perhaps, but the coal companies generally do not own the grid, except perhaps in those places where the electricity sector is vertically integrated, in the US for most states, supply (steam power plants, wind, solar, hydro) are separate companies from the transmission and distribution companies. So if there is money to be made by moving electricity from a remote wind or solar site to the grid, it will happen if the free market is allowed to operate.
“it will happen if the free market is allowed to operate.”
The trouble is that people are putting sticks in the spokes of the free market. We see interference in all aspects of solar and EVs, why not in transmission. Lobbying, fake data, fake news, astroturfing all can have an impact. Want to upgrade a transmission line? Find big crowd objecting and NIMBYing.
NAOM
NAOM
Growing opposition to all types of renewable energy projects are underway throughout many parts of the country.
From what I’ve seen regarding oil/gas infrastructure battles, the renewable energy advocates have no idea what they are in for as they are now in the ‘building’ phase as opposed to the easier ‘tearing down’ the proposals of their foes.
Fake data and fake news can be enormously effective when foisted upon a public strongly predisposed to believe or disbelieve positions based more on subjective rather than objective information.
We are then circling back to a ‘who do you believe’ situation which seems to have become the bane of this so-called Information Age.
“Want to upgrade a transmission line? Find big crowd objecting and NIMBYing.”
Didn’t work around here, just had a big upgrade to feed the metropolitan areas, crossed the Appalachians through the National Recreation Area. Much more efficient.
The NIMBY’s and scenic protectionists stood around in towns trying to get people to sign petitions, not many were obtained.
NAOM,
That is called freedom of expression, I think that is a good idea, generally. There are powerful fossil fuel interests, there are also powerful tech companies, and transmission and distribution companies that stand opposed.
Let them fight it out in the free market of ideas.
From what I’ve seen regarding oil/gas infrastructure battles, the renewable energy advocates have no idea what they are in for as they are now in the ‘building’ phase as opposed to the easier ‘tearing down’ the proposals of their foes.
ROFL! I think you are the one that has no idea of the forces of technological and social disruption coupled with exponential growth and rapidly growing mainstream acceptance of these technologies that are combining in a perfect storm against the continued use of fossil fuels!
You might want to read this New York Times article about Kodak and the invention of digital photography:
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/kodaks-first-digital-moment/?mcubz=1
Imagine a world where photography is a slow process that is impossible to master without years of study or apprenticeship. A world without iPhones or Instagram, where one company reigned supreme. Such a world existed in 1973, when Steven Sasson, a young engineer, went to work for Eastman Kodak.
Two years later he invented digital photography and made the first digital camera.
The bottom line is this:
“Every digital camera that was sold took away from a film camera and we knew how much money we made on film,” Mr. Sasson said. “That was the argument. Of course, the problem is pretty soon you won’t be able to sell film — and that was my position.”
Today, the first digital camera Mr. Sasson made in 1975 is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. President Obama awarded Mr. Sasson the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a 2009 White House ceremony.
Three years later, Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
Face it Coffeeguyzz, fossil fuels are already as good as dead! ICE cars, oil derricks, pipelines, refinery equipment, all that good stuff will find places in future museums.
Cheers!
Fred
That was a long first sentence.
And you are correct that I don’t know anything ’bout dat stuff.
What I DO know, however, is that the crucially needed Northern Pass transmission line was unanimously shot last year by New Hampshire regulators.
The hastily picked second choice – Clean Energy Connect – is encountering growing headwinds in Maine.
The tragic sinking on New Years day of a commercial fishing boat out of Point Judith with the loss of two lives may have had no connection to the Block Island wind farm, although the sinking took place in the vicinity, but the growing opposition from fishermen may sway the Rhode Island regulatory decision 10 days out that could be make or break for Vineyard Wind.
The massive transmission lines proposed through Missouri and Arkansas may be on life support.
However one views these matters, there are myriad, powerful forces working to kneecap opposing industries, countries, fuel sources, processes, on and on.
I agree completely!
It will be fascinating to see the fight between FF interests and…everyone else. The current US political polarization is a direct result of this conflict, as FF interests try to cripple the forces of change.
It reminds me of historic transitions, like the industrial Northern US fighting a civil war with the agricultural South. I seem to remember a similar analysis for an underlying economic transition under the shift from old Catholicism to Protestantism.
Any reason why the landfill gas went out the door? What has happened to that gas since, released to the air?
NAOM
Does anyone have figures for the efficiency of coal fired steam turbine plants vs gas converted coal fired steam turbine plants vs gas turbine plants?
NAOM
Each of them varies dramatically depending on design: old coal vs supercritical; single cycle gas turbine vs combined cycle, etc.
Deployment of 350+ Metric Ton 60 Hz Transformer Joy. Where’s Homer Simson when you need him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUCi_J5Ycpo&t=84s
I am installing a 9.9 kW PV system on my roof this month for $25000 (before the 30% tax credit). This will cover all my electricity needs including charging the Chevy Volt. I live in suburbs of Chicago. Renewable energy has now become cost effective even in places that are not known for being sunny. Death to fossil fuels!
Suyog,
What kind of annual output do you expect where you live (using weather averages for cloudiness etc)?
Keep us posted on your output. Thanks.
Hi Dennis,
Around 11,400 kWh per year. That is equal to my annual consumption.
Suyog,
Doing a very simple calculation (not accounting for time value of money, inflation, interest, etc. ) We have
25000*0.7/(11,400*30)=$0.05/kWhr assuming you are eligible for the 30% tax credit and that your system lasts for only 30 years.
Very nice.
Yes, you now have to be wealthy to burn fossil fuels. The non-rich people like me would prefer renewable energy which is cheaper.
Way to go Soyog. Remember to add the value of the system into any cost calculations. Around here PV systems add no property taxes so they immediately add value to a home and the town/county gets no protection money.
In other words, don’t include the overall cost of the system in your cost calculations, just the depreciation.
If the system will add, say, $10k to the value of the house at the end of it’s 30 year “lifetime”, then the system is only costing you $7.5k (again, excluding time value of money, interest, etc.).
Strictly speaking, you should probably assume a longer lifetime (how long will the house last?), and include the time value of money and interest.
A simple way to do that is to use an Excel formula like =pmt(interest rate, periods, principal payment) to get the annual cost, and then divide the cost into the number of kWhs to get the cost per kWh.
If we assume 5% interest, a system cost of $17,500, a 40 year life and 11,400 kWhs per year, we get a cost per kWh of 8.9 cents.
Sadly, the time value of money is important, and makes a big difference to the calculations…much more than extending the assumed life of the system. This means that the cost of the system is very sensitive to the interest rate calculation. If you’re using savings, and the interest you might get on alternative investments is very low, then you can lower the interest rate in the PV cost calculations, and the result will look much better.
Interesting way to look at things.
Did you take into account the increasing value of grid electric power over the next 40 years (if it still exists).
“Retail residential electricity rates increased from 7.47 cents per kilowatt hour in 2001 to 12.18 cents per kilowatt hour in 2014—a 63 percent increase. The median income in Colorado, however, went up just 24 percent, from $49,397 to $61,303 and it had actually declined between 2008 and 2012.Feb 25, 2016”
That should negate much of the supposed 5% value of money. Also inflation will probably negate the rest of the difference while the solar roof value might go up with inflation and increased cost of electricity versus falling.
Also account for the increased price of grid power one incurs when using more of it, such as for EV’s. The solar roof would negate that increase.
So one gets $70,000 worth of power before inflation/increased grid power costs and more like $200,000 to $300,000 after inflation and increased grid costs.over 40 years for an initial investment of $17,000. The system might still be capable of 60 to 70 percent production at that time.
However, since 40 years from now the grid as we know it will not exist, nor will future values of money or power be predictable, one can only look at the short timeline for valid results.
Current production value is about $900 to $2850 per year with a mean around $1425 (depending upon local costs) while 5% of $17500 is $875. Therefor the financial investment costs more than the PV investment.
So which is more risky, the investment in PV or in a 5% financial plan? One must also consider that not investing in PV allows external control of costs, reliability and taxes on the electricity.
BTW, the power generated by PV is not taxable. Can one say the same for profit made from an investment?
“BTW, the power generated by PV is not taxable.”
They will find a way … and use it to subsidise coal.
NAOM
I agree, good points. Let’s see how they pencil out:
The cost of power produced by rooftop PV needs to be compared to the cost of utility power, including allowances for utility price inflation. 63% growth in 13 years is 3.8% per year, and that gives a price of about 26 cents per kWh in 20 years (the midpoint of our 40 year investment period). Of course, as utilities shift to cheaper wind and solar that rate of appreciation might slow down: a longterm inflation rate of 2% would give 18 cents.
If the capital you’re investing in PV is your own (rather than borrowed), then your “opportunity cost” is the interest rate for comparable tax-free investments, which are likely to pay roughly 25% less (e.g., municipal bonds). That suggests that maybe 4% is more reasonable in that situation. That gives a cost per kWh of about 7.8 cents.
So, 7.8 cents for rooftop PV compared to 18 – 26 cents for utility BAU.
Pretty good!!
Using similar calculation, I get 5.3 cents/kwhr.
To be more accurate, one would have to include a production degradation factor. The ones I have are rated something like 85-90% at 30yrs.
PG &E (utility here in Calif) charges about 25 cents/kwhr. That is a blended tier rate.
It is nice to have a small power plant.
I highly recommend it.
Yike! About 30+ times mine, could get away with 1kw on top. Solar hot water is a must for me, must do it this year, have seen the system I need but I have some preparation to do first..
NAOM
You use 30 kWh per month?
Ooops, about 10x mine, around 3-4 kW per day. Don’t ask me to do advanced arithmetic on New Year’s day! 🙂
NAOM
Congratulations on the new system Suyog.
Ra!
Ra! 🙂 Decided to spend money on worshipping Ra instead of buying a new ICE car. Wife drives the newer Chevy Volt which will now be blessed by Ra. I drive the 15 year old ICE car.
Suyog and Hickory,
Thanks. I applaud you both, maybe I will try to talk the wife into some PV.
If you don’t mind sharing Suyog, what portion of your 11,400 kWhr is for charging the Volt (approximately). Seems like I will use 3000 to 4000 kWhr per year for my Tesla Model 3. My total usage will be about 7000 to 8000 kWhr per year, I heat with natural gas, if I used air source heat pumps I would probably need another 8000 kWhr per year for heat, wow not very good at 16,000 kWhr per year, a ground source heat pump system would possibly cut the heating need to 4000 kWhr and I’d be at around 12,000 kWhr.
Interesting stuff.
The Volt – which has a 18kWh battery – consumes around 6000 kWh per year. My wife has a long commute (60 miles roundtrip) and she drains the battery everyday. The 9.9 kW system will power the entire house and also enable electric driving for about 15,000 miles per year. In other words, for $25000 before tax credits, we will become self sufficient in electricity for the rest of our lives.
“maybe I will try to talk the wife into some PV.”
That’s shocking, I say! 😉
Keeps the Taser fully powered.
Think she might prefer it on the roof. 🙂
That is the whole idea Dennis.
Roof, behind the shed, in the kitchen.
Wherever she prefers.
To anyone interested,
My Model 3 averaged 243 Wh/mi for the first 2243 miles driven from Oct 5 to Nov 11, 2018, since that time up to Jan 1, 2019 (colder weather probably an average of 0 C) the average has been 273 Wh/mi about a 12% increase in energy consumed per mile driven. Much of this extra energy usage is energy used to heat the car and the battery and I tend to dress warmly and try to minimize the use of heat as much as possible (just enough to keep windows clear). No doubt there is also a small effect of greater air density with colder and drier air in the winter causing greater drag.
I will try to update at the beginning of each month, so far the overall average from Oct 5, 2018 to Jan 1, 2019 has been 259 Wh/mile over 4754 miles.
Much of this extra energy usage is energy used to heat the car and the battery and I tend to dress warmly and try to minimize the use of heat as much as possible (just enough to keep windows clear).
Hey Dennis, do you heat the entire car or just your seats?
I didn’t do a whole lot of driving in the cold with my brother’s new Nissan Leaf in Germany but we found that preheating the car while charging then using minimal energy for keeping the windows clear and only heating the seats while actually driving kept us reasonably comfortable while still keeping overall energy usage within what we considered acceptable. I’m sure by now my brother has actual Wh/mi data for his winter driving but I don’t don’t know what the numbers are.
Cheers!
Fred,
It depends on how long the car ride is and whether the sun is out to warm the car, seat heaters help, but on a long car ride the thighs and feet get cold, especially at night. Keep in mind that it is not unusual for the outside temperature to be -12 C when taking these 2 hour drives at night, usually my wife and sometimes others are in the car and depends on the volume of the complaints. In most cases we have plenty of battery capacity for the trips so to maintain harmony the entire car gets heated to about 15 C especially on longer car rides, for short trips we use as little heat as is practical.
Here is what happens to a model 3 when one drives it at highway speeds and places a cargo carrier on top.
2,392 Miles Trip With Tesla Model 3. Range Anxiety & Crowded Supercharges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r6WFSRVtrY
Gonefishing,
Didn’t watch the video, but the car’s trip planner doesn’t know the car carrier is on the roof, so that’s going to result in big questions about how far one can go on the battery. I imagine the point of the video is that a car carrier is not a good idea for long trips in a Model 3.
Not a good plan for long trips, pack light and fit it all in the trunk. At 65 MPH I get about 290 Wh/mi efficiency on average at about -5 C, at 17 C it was about 260 Wh/mi, this is with two adults in the car and a fairly small load of cargo (we pack light and these were just weekend trips).
Higher or lower speeds would of course change the result. For example on secondary roads at 50 mph and 17 C outside temps I typically get about 230 Wh/mile. I have not tried higher speeds.
Well, if you look at the video carefully, the guy is doing 80 so Tesla, plus racks plus cargo carrier adds up to a lot of drag.
That is one nice thing about the ICE, they peak out in efficiency at highway speeds and things like a couple of kayaks on the roof don’t seem to bother their performance.
The aerodynamics of electrics is critical to their performance. Not much one can do about that except make better batteries.
Gonefishing,
Just like an ICEV the energy efficiency is lower for a battery powered car at high speeds with higher drag. When I put a kayak or paddle board on my Camry Hybrid, the fuel economy is much worse than without it.
As long as one plans carefully this could probably be done with a Tesla, but not for those that are non-physicists (or in your case a non-chemist).
When you drive 80 is your fuel economy the same as at 65? I usually don’t drive at 80, but when I occasionally drive at 75, fuel economy is not nearly as good.
I have driven Priuses since 2004 and always pay attention to fuel economy, especially in the Prius I was always trying to maximize my fuel economy.
Found this
https://phys.org/news/2016-04-roof-racks-fuel-economy.html
Suggests up to a 25% penalty for roof racks, so EV owners should assume the can only go 75% of the distance the car estimates when they throw a roof rack on the car. So instead of 300 miles in my case (at 50 mph) I would only be able to go 225 before the next super charger, at 65 mp my normal range would be 270 miles and with the car carrier perhaps 200 miles.
So one would need to plan carefully and perhaps not drive at 80.
Dennis, that is so wrong I cannot believe it. As the article said mpg change ranged from zero to 25%.
When I first got my 4 cylinder manual trans SUV, I measured the mpg over an 360 mile trip , mostly 65 mph highway. It had three people in it, luggage inside and luggage strapped to the racks on top. I got 35 mpg.
This is on a boxy SUV type body.
Got similar results with two kayaks on top.
Much earlier my full sized 8 cylinder van I used for recreational purposes got 19.5 mpg on long range highway runs with kayaks on top and loaded down with camping and other equipment. Measured it several times on 750 mile plus trips.
Face it, EV’s are particularly sensitive to any change in speed or aerodynamics. They are fine tuned in air tunnel tests and subject to all disturbance of the flow (force?).
When batteries and regen get better they will be capable of facing the practical demands of real world driving needs without bottoming out in range performance.
Until then, drive slower to increase range.
It’s not just EV’s, small aerodynamic ICE’s suffer too when one changes the dynamics.
Of course the roof box and racks are removable. Duhh.
I always got the impression that my gas mileage improved whenever I was transporting my kayak… 😉
Of course it does depend on how many kayaks I’m taking to the beach!
Your mileage may vary 😉
.
Gone fishing,
I have never driven a big boxy SUV so I cannot really compare.
The point is does increasing the drag coefficient on a vehicle increase energy usage at high speed?
Yes it does.
Does it matter whether the source of the energy is stored in a battery or the covalent bonds of hydrocarbon molecules?
Not really, the fluid mechanics remains the same.
See
https://www.menshealth.com/technology-gear/a19482318/roof-racks-hurt-gas-mileage/
The control test—the TourX without roof rails installed—revealed that adding roof rails alone decreased the car’s fuel economy by about seven percent, or a negative -2 mpg change. Beyond that, the two items tested with the least impact on gas mileage were the paddle board and Thule luggage carrier, both of which caused about a -19 percent decrease in fuel economy, or -5.5 mpg.
If driving a Semi-rig, the effect may be less noticeable. 🙂
No Dennis, the point is the intersection of drag to efficiency. ICE’s actually increase efficiency with increasing speed up to a point, usually designed around highway speeds and are at their peak not a steep slope. Therefor they are not in a drag sensitive region until once again well above normal highway speeds.
EV’s are on a steepening slope with increasing speed and are more sensitive to increases in drag. Peak efficiency occurs at about 17 mph and is about half that at 65 mph. Air drag is the largest factor after about 45 mph and is on a steep and increasing slope.
The typical ICE loses half it’s peak efficiency at between 90 and 100 mph. aT which point the EV would be running at 1/4 it’s peak efficiency.
The other factor is the smooth shape of EV’s means any interruption of flow is significant. For boxier types the flow is not near laminar and is already disrupted, so the effect of roof additions is not as dramatic.
Hi Fish,
The ICE is just a big air compressor. To push the ICE vehicle down a flat road at 60 MPH, about 60% of the fuel being consumed is to turn the ICE. The other 40% is to push the vehicle. To increase the speed from 60 MPH, the ICE inefficiency(60%) is mostly a linear function. Where as the increase in wind resistance is an exponential function. Thus the EV consumes a larger percentage of more energy in comparison to the ICE as speeds increase after the ICE reaches it opium efficiency speed between 50 to 60 MPH .
The ICE becomes even more inefficiency at lower speeds when the transmission is in lower speed gears and wind resistance is minor.
Gonefishing,
I think I have forgotten how poorly the ICEVs perform, I have mostly been driving hybrids since 2004 so typically the worst fuel economy is at higher speeds.
Most of my driving in the Model 3 is probably around 50 mph, and often the ICEV has optimum efficiency at 50-60 mph.
Again you may well be correct that driving a vehicle with poor aerodynamics will reduce this the effect as efficiency will be poor at every speed.
Gone fishing,
Using website below
https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp
and my 2013 Camry Hybrid XLE, the chart below shows the penalty for higher speeds above 50 MPH (best efficiency).
Interestingly the Camry fuel use goes up by about 23% when speed goes up from 50 to 65 mph, for the Tesla it goes from about 210 to 260 Wh/mi or roughly 24% for the same speed change from 50 mph to 65 mph. Not a significant difference over those speed ranges.
Click on chart if too small to read.
If you think about the reasons why the fuel consumption increases then it should be similar for similar vehicles barring major differences in aerodynamics. Given the optimising of saloons for low resistance they should behave similarly unless someone has a magic design or made a booboo.
NAOM
Warm winter greetings for the first day of 2019, over 50F here 41N. New Horizons flew by Ultima Thule just after midnight.
Osiris Rex arrived at asteroid Bennu on Dec 3 and is in orbit. Eventually it will return a sample of the asteroid.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/osiris-rex-approach
Perhaps some might enjoy a musical homage from Queen’s Lead guitarist, Ph.D. astrophysicist, Brian May.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Jm5POCAj8
Brian May – New Horizons (Ultima Thule Mix) [Official Music Video]
Scientists are so excited about possibly determining our origins and the possibility of life elsewhere that they completely ignore our probable future of most of the myriad of life here on earth being destroyed ending in a dead or near dead world. It’s obvious that most of space is absent of life, never lived and at best is a cemetery in a few places. A very expensive Nero complex.
The least funded are the most important and the most ignored. Of course studying life and processes here, one must do it quickly for it might be gone as one writes the reports.
Forget our origins, we need to answer a very important question first.
Are we actually intelligent or are we just demented and dangerous?
Forget our origins, we need to answer a very important question first.
Are we actually intelligent or are we just demented and dangerous?
Humans and yeast share thousands of orthologous genes.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Humans-and-yeast-share-thousands-of-orthologous-genes-The-Venn-diagram-illustrates_fig1_282575208
Happy new year for all, now….and in the future
https://youtu.be/w5jwxrTqoEA
New Horizons has called home, it is no longer a Shroedinger’s space probe. Dang, can’t wait for those images, the new pixilated one is interesting, probably a contact binary.
NAOM
Quite an accomplishment!
They can send a probe to within a few thousand miles of an object after a journey of billions of miles while, here on Earth, drivers struggle to stay on straight, clear roads in good weather conditions! They can also tell that the probe has 11kg of fuel on board while cars have an accuracy of about +- 1/4 tank! They will announce the fuel gauge that can tell you exactly how much fuel is in your tank the day after the last IfCE car rolls off the lines.
NAOM
“This thing cost billions and the gas gauge doesn’t work right”
Don’t let this happen to your spacecraft.
The global top 5 warmest yrs in the past 140 have been in the past 5 years.
Five years straight.
Some would call it a trend.
Trending warmer. Or hotter, in the southern hemisphere if you prefer.
Some would say it may have something to do with 7.7 billion people who are fascinated with fire.
And with keeping warm, or cool, or cooked food, or locomotion, or manufactured items.
And clearing forests.
Asphalt is hot too.
Some would say ‘I don’t want to know about stuff like that’.
The electoral college (and gerrymandering) was created with them in mind.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Top-Ten-Weather-and-Climate-Events-2018?cm_ven=cat6-widget
Speaking of asphalt, how many temperature stations are now located near/over it when they weren’t before? A lot of the warming is right there as long as you are willing to look for it.
Adam,
That effect is not large. See
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/papers/UHI-GIGS-1-104.pdf
We observe the opposite of an urban heating effect over the period 1950 to 2010, with a slope of -0.10 ± 0.24°C/100yr (2σ error) in the Berkeley Earth global land temperature average. The confidence interval is consistent with a zero urban heating effect, and at most a small urban heating effect (less than 0.14°C/100yr, with 95% confidence) on the scale of the observed warming (1.9 ± 0.1°C/100 yr since 1950 in the land average from Figure 5A).
Yawn, still using the old troll subject sheets? That has been accounted for in the figures and, where necessary, stations have been moved or the record restarted. It has been dealt with, move on.
NAOM
Seriously?!
.
Adam.
Two things on this.
1- Heat island effect of an urban area is real and significant, and by all means should be measured in the standard manner, as it is around the world.
2- Once in a while a standard meteorological measuring station does need to be relocated do to the effect you mentioned. This happened to a station by the airport in Seattle a few years ago. It predated the area where airport expansion happened. They moved it a couple hundred feet away from the cement/asphalt once the issue was observed. This has zip effect on the the overall temp measurements of that region, only was effecting occasional high readings of that one station.
So, no you are wrong- “A lot of the warming is right there as long as you are willing to look for it”. Just not true, in any kind of scientific or engineering sense.
I thought more about Adams statement, and realized he is on the right track with his thinking- “Speaking of asphalt, how many temperature stations are now located near/over it when they weren’t before? A lot of the warming is right there as long as you are willing to look for it.”
Yep, he is dead on- many thousands of weather stations are near asphalt and cement. That and and other heat island contributors like city building/ vehicle engines and motors, are certainly skewing the temp readings towards the hot end of the scale.
Likewise, there are thousands of stations near places where forests have been cut down, and places where grasslands have been plowed to farm. Think of all that dark soil absorbing the sun and warming the air. Definitely skews the readings towards hot.
And think of all the arctic places where it used to be white with ice, now melted and absorbing sun energy. Definitely skews the readings towards hot.
And, most importantly of them all, think of of all the stations of the world (all of them) now surrounded with air containing 409 ppm CO2 (vs 280 ppm before the industrial age), and methane. Clearly these greenhouse condition enhancing gases are skewing the global readings heavily towards hot!
As Adam said- “A lot of the warming is right there as long as you are willing to look for it”
Adam- who would have known you’d be such a convincing spokesman for human-caused global warming?
Where’s Cold Blob Bob when you need him?! 😉
So what happens to air over hot asphalt? It heats, rises, cools and eventually stops rising, cooling the asphalt and itself while moving the heat thousands of feet upward. Cooler air is forced downward toward the surface all around the rising air.
Most weather stations are at 2 meters not at 1000 or 2000 meters.
If the albedo of the earth is changing, the many thousands of weather stations will record the change. Of course those dumb climate scientists have already taken the heat island effects into account quite a while ago.
Good thing the oceans and ice are absorbing most of the extra heat or we would already be cooked.
In reality we only experience a small amount of heating of the earth system.
Since 1955, over 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases has been stored in the oceans (Figure from IPCC 5th Assessment Report). The remainder of this energy goes into melting sea ice, ice caps, and glaciers, and warming the continents’s land mass. Only the smallest fraction of this thermal energy goes into warming the atmosphere. Humans thus, living at the interface of the land, ocean and atmosphere, only feel a sliver of the true warming cost of fossil fuel emissions.
https://www.oceanscientists.org/index.php/topics/ocean-warming
But don’t worry, the failing ice, snow, permafrost and all that heat stored in the ocean will allow all the creatures and plants to enjoy warmth for millennia to come.
No worries, Thermus Aquaticus thrives at temperatures near 160°F.
… and some will just spew copious amounts of inane blather.
“All in all it looks like 2015 will be the year of Peak Warmth for quite some time.” ~ Javier, June 21 2016.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/21/global-temperatures-are-heading-downward-and-fast/#comment-1805345
“I still think that the conditions look right for the 2016 peak average temperature not being surpassed at least before 2026, perhaps quite a lot longer.” ~ Javier, August 11 2017.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/08/07/nature-unbound-iv-the-2400-bray-cycle-part-c/#comment-855945
Well, if they’re going to resume killing off whales why not attack the whole planet. In any case, it’s great news for the Australians:
BUCKING GLOBAL TRENDS, JAPAN AGAIN EMBRACES COAL POWER
Most of the world is turning its back on burning coal to produce electricity, but not Japan. The nation has fired up at least eight new coal power plants in the past two years and has plans for an additional 36 over the next decade—the biggest planned coal power expansion in any developed nation (not including China and India). And last month, the government took a key step toward locking in a national energy plan that would have coal provide 26% of Japan’s electricity in 2030 and abandons a previous goal of slashing coal’s share to 10%.
Under current rules, Japan’s 10 regional utilities can still give their own generating plants priority access to transmission lines, which they also control. This creates uncertainty for those trying to sell renewable power into the grid. Such issues, together with subsidy cuts and other policy changes, last year led to a 32% decline in investment in solar power, says Hisayo Takada, Japan energy project leader for Greenpeace Japan in Tokyo. As a result, Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono said at a symposium last month in Tokyo, “The situation in our solar energy sector today can only be described as lamentable.”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/bucking-global-trends-japan-again-embraces-coal-power
AUSTRALIAN RESOURCES AND ENERGY EXPORTS HIT RECORD HIGH
“No amount of wishful thinking from anti-resources campaigners can erase the numbers that show strong demand for both metallurgical and thermal coal, our LNG and other commodities that form the building blocks of our modern societies, including bauxite, copper and zinc.”
https://www.worldcoal.com/exploration-and-development/02102018/australian-resources-and-energy-exports-hit-record-high/
Fermi Paradox is not a paradox.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHkj8n50Jmc
Yup! Contempt for and hatred of all life forms, is precisely why some people decided to get an education in biosciences, as opposed to a degree in economics, law, an MBA, etc, etc… 😉
.
And the biosciences don’t use technology either or produce a myriad of pesticides, herbicides and genetic weapons.
Yeah, that is true! Though that would be mostly in the narrow fields of the applied sciences such as bioengineers, biochemists, physiologists and geneticists… unfortunately most of those folk don’t waste too much time learning about the systems side of the biosciences such as ecosystems and nonlinear dynamics. If they did, the big corporations wouldn’t hire them. And the big corporations are run by the economists, lawyers and MBAs Funny world!
Some things are not reported in the news or are quickly forgotten.
Oil & gas industry spills happen “all the time”
CBS News collected reported incidents for 2010 at wells and pipelines from three federal agencies and 23 of 33 oil and gas producing states. Not counting the BP disaster, we found at least 6,500 spills, leaks, fires or explosions nationwide – that’s 18 a day. Overall, at least 34 million gallons of crude oil and other potentially toxic chemicals were spilled. That’s triple the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.
While exactly how much was cleaned up isn’t known – the impact certainly is – poisoned drinking water. Dead wildlife, destroyed land, illness, injury, and people being forced from their homes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oil-gas-industry-spills-happen-all-the-time/
5000 miles of pipeline per inspector.
https://qz.com/930285/the-us-has-one-inspector-for-every-5000-miles-of-pipeline-or-twice-the-length-of-the-country-each/
Leaking methane, petroleum and other products, over 2.7 million miles of pipeline cross the US alone.
Then once the products reach their destination, they are burned and enter the atmosphere, water and land all over the world, consuming oxygen in the process. Of course coal spills are not as bad, but the mine drainage and waste products upon burning are deadly. Methane leakage in just the US is on the order of 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918
How much longer will this continue? Maybe we should not burn it all up, some useful things can be made from these materials and keeping it in the ground is best for all living things on the planet.
Sure PV, wind and electric vehicles are helping but they are still small. Getting that more efficient car helps now, so does sealing up those leaks in the buildings and houses and adding more insulation. Switch to LED’s, keep those tires inflated properly and combine your car trips. Eat organic to promote the reduction of pesticides.
There is still a lot of life left on the planet. As a look out my windows a Bald Eagle soared by just above the treetops, over one hundred mergansers are working the lake with a couple of seagulls hoping for fish. The swans and some geese are here too. Who knows what myriad of life I am not seeing, hidden in the soil, trees, under rocks and under the lake surface.
For the new year, let’s not poison the planet as much and keep in mind we are just one species among many. In the end those dollars made will be useless if we continue the wreckage.
GoneFishing,
Coots and mergansers here on the ship canal. We get lots of waterfowl overwintering every year. I look forward to that.
Yesterday, I spotted an unfamiliar (to me) waterfowl paddling about in a brackish lake off the intracoastal. I’m hoping to see it again so I can snap a pict and try and identify it!
Mergansers are amusing, always muttering to each other in a continuous stream of talk while hunting. No coots around here, except a few of the wingless variety.
They stay as long as the lake has open water, which some years lately is most of the year.
Anyone seen any albatrosses lately?
Straight from the mechanic’s mouth.
The Worst Trends in Modern Cars and Trucks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n58ZqIqY2Js
ALMOST ALL COUNTRIES HAVE FALLEN SHORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE COMMITMENTS
Most countries have not yet met their commitments under the Paris climate agreements, and Climate Action Tracker rates a small group of countries as “critically insufficient or highly insufficient.” These include Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US. Deng notes that in the US, state and local level governments are working to find ways to reduce emissions, but at the federal level, under the Trump administration, there is not only a lack of action but a reversal of direction.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-01-01/almost-all-countries-have-fallen-short-climate-change-commitments
The Financial Times printed a story claiming that 2018 was probably peak internal combustion engine cars sales.
https://www.ft.com/content/62506c24-0aae-11e9-9fe8-acdb36967cfc
If you can’t read it, google “Combustion engine car sales to hit peak demand in 2018, say analysts”
They tweeted it too, so it must be true.
https://twitter.com/FT/status/1079439246333751296
Hmmm, peak oil?
Not in the short term if the number of new ICE vehicles is bigger than the number retired each year. But eventually, yes, because the number of cars retired is proportional to the number of cars on the road. So the population can’t grow forever without a higher sales rate.
Subtract out the two million EV cars added per year (and increasing)and the 24 million two wheeled EVs purchased per year. There is also a market of three wheeled vehicles. Two wheeled EV are predicted to hit 40 million units globally by 2024. Asia is a big market for two wheeled vehicles and they are moving to EV rather than ICE driven.
Happy New Year to all!
Thanks to all those that appreciate the effort I put into this. It started out as a couple of graphs to satisfy my own curiosity, then I started posting the graphs here each month, then I thought it made sense to just do an “official” report every month and Dennis agreed! Thanks to input from several members here, I think the content of the report has improved a lot since the first ones.
No, thank you for putting in the effort for an informative post.
And a Happy New Year back, I hope we will see more movement towards sanity this year.
NAOM
Thanks Islandboy, your posts are great!
If anyone has a topic they want to post on shoot me an email at peakoilbarrel@gmail.com with a short synopsis to get approval for the idea. If I don’t respond to the email (I don’t check it very often) ask me to check my email in the comments.
People have lots of interesting ideas in the comments, sometimes it’s easier to lay out the ideas in a post rather than just a short comment.
Here is some more stupidity…
https://electrek.co/2019/01/01/tesla-pickup-truck-drivers-supercharger-protest/
Want to bet they are Trump supporters?!
Why would people wanting to make America great again hate the only American car company that isn’t failing?
They just want to be arseholes, nothing more.
NAOM
Aggrieved Tesla Owners Can Just Tow Trucks Blocking The Supercharger Stations
Tesla Trip on Youtube is one of those folks who’s pretty annoyed at the fact that people are anti-Tesla enough that big ol’ bro-trucks went viral for taking up all the parking stations at a Sheetz in Hickory, North Carolina.
So he figured, let’s see how easy it is to tow one of these bad boys out of the way.
https://jalopnik.com/aggrieved-tesla-owners-can-just-tow-trucks-blocking-the-1831430208
“the only American car company that isn’t failing?”
Maybe you should take another look at Tesla’s financials?
So therefore I guess despite the fact that it would be illegal, people should be blocking gas pumps whenever those idiots try to fuel to their trucks?!
Oh and BTW re American car company financials:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/business/autos-earnings-trade.html
All of Detroit’s Big 3 automakers issued downward revisions on Wednesday in their financial forecasts for the year, with each highlighting rising commodities costs that stem in part from the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. The adjustments, made as the companies announced their second-quarter earnings, sent their shares down sharply.
Ford Motor recorded the worst showing of the three, as net income fell by nearly half to $1.1 billion from the same period ago. Aside from higher materials costs, Ford is struggling in Europe, South America and especially China, where it has spent heavily in recent years to expand but made just $3 million in the quarter and has watched its sales fall.
People who break the law should be held accountable and that includes stupid rednecks and the current president! MAGA, Muller Ain’t Going Away!
Yeh, tripled production in a year, pretty good. Very close to their target production. Not bad for the new boys in the industries, as for the old boys – they seem to be struggling.
NAOM
George Conway Burns Trump With A Savage Explanation For Low Gas Prices
George Conway, attorney and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, rang in the New Year with another attack on his wife’s boss.
This time, he called out President Donald Trump over a tweet taking credit for low gas prices.
Trump on Tuesday claimed a recent drop in fuel is “like another tax cut.”
Conway ― a frequent Trump critic on Twitter ― fired back:
Low gas prices are like another Tax Cut!
I have a hunch the oil and gas businesses beg to differ…
Starting from my days reading at theoildrum.com, way back when, I started coming up with an idea that the fortunes of national leaders all over the world had far more to do with the ebb and flow of the oil markets and oil prices than any policies or political philosophies that such leaders hold.
As examples, I believe that Reagan and Thatcher were the beneficiaries of the response of non-OPEC producers to the OPEC inspired oil shocks of the mid to late seventies, with exploitation of North Sea oil being of particular benefit to Thatcher. I have formed the opinion that political leaders taking credit for economies that are performing well, such as Trump or the current administration in my island home is pure hubris.
Economies respond to the price of energy. Politicians by and large, have little influence on the price of energy globally. They are just along for the ride!
Yeah, Thatcher blew the North Sea oil money on tax cuts for the rich, and the UK government has never really recovered.
Cheap energy is the mantra, but that is because most people are net consumers, and can’t imagine being producers. It’s the slave mentality. You’ll never be free, but maybe your masters that the utility company will at least give you a good price. Or you can dream of going “off grid”, because you can imagine being without a master. But you can’t imagine interacting with peers, buying and selling energy and maybe coming out on top. You are too accustomed to your passive role for that.
So the idea that most households could be net energy exporters has huge political implications.
US on cusp of unprecedented solar boom
U.S. developers have applied to build 139 GWac of large-scale solar projects in the territory of six grid operators – around five times what is currently online across the country – and that figure doesn’t even cover the entire United States. By any metric, we are looking at an unprecedented boom in solar development over the next five years.
Some of it is the pending drop-down of the Investment Tax Credit from the end of 2019 through the end of 2023. Some of it is a series of decisions by states, cities and corporations to decarbonize their electricity supply, and to use solar as a main means of doing this. And some of it is the continual decline in PV system prices, which makes large-scale solar the cheapest form of new generation in much of the United States.
But whatever the cause, there is an unprecedented, massive volume of solar projects that is underway in the United States. Research conducted by pv magazine USA has uncovered more than 139 GWac of solar projects which have applied for interconnection with six grid operators (CAISO, NYISO, ISO-NE, MISO, PJM, ERCOT) by the end of December 2018, spanning the Northeast, Midwest, California and Texas……[snip]
Even more to come
It is important to remember that these grids don’t cover the entire United States, and as such this 139 GWac does not include projects in the majority of the South, Mountain West, Pacific Northwest and Plains States. And we aren’t seeing these massive projects only in databases, either. As documented in pv magazine USA’s year-end coverage, we have found large solar projects either planned or under construction in 17 states that have not had substantial solar markets to date.
Happy New Year! 🙂
Tony Seba anyone?
That’s all well and good! However it is the small individual installations, and smart microgrids that I think will be an even bigger deal. As Amory Lovins says in that video Gone Fishing posted the other day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwCFfKjn558
Disruptive Energy Futures: Dr Amory Lovins (March 2016)
Cheers!
PV in front of the Meter is a simple transfer of wealth from the wage earners to the investor class. Who wants to pay thousands for the output from a $250 PV Panel?
Yeah! Those poor Africans should continue to pay billions for lighting their homes with kerosene, while choking on the fumes! What the fuck is wrong with people?! Like continuing to exploit the rural poor by keeping them addicted to fossil fuel isn’t an even greater transfer of wealth from the wage earners to the investor class?!
https://theconversation.com/how-solar-kits-and-battery-lamps-are-replacing-kerosene-across-africa-100345
For decades, people in rural Africa have been using sooty kerosene lamps to dimly light their homes. But in recent years households, even in poor areas, have started to replace their kerosene lamps with non-rechargeable dry-cell battery driven lamps and solar kits. This is happening largely without any governmental or donor involvement. These devices are equipped with light-emitting diodes (LED) that have become significantly cheaper over the years. This has, in turn, made them a highly efficient technology affordable, even for poor people living in rural areas.
The sooner we kill all fossil fuel use the better for everyone except the fossil fuel barons!
PV is radically increasing the number of energy producers. A huge solar array is a few hundred KW, which is considered small by the standards of the electricity industry. Germany now has nearly two million autonomous solar producers feeding into the grid, and the number continues to grow. Even apartment dwellers can easily invest in cooperative renewable setups. Energy efficiency means that most households will be net energy producers if they want to be.
The net result of this is going to be to suck all the profits out of the industry. It will also usher in a new attitude towards energy. I already mentioned elsewhere in the discussion that most people are net energy consumers, and can’t imagine being producers. It’s the slave mentality, and your comment is an excellent example.
You are saying we have to bow down to our utility masters to ensure equity (or something). It’s just an excuse you need to explain your inability to cope with the freedom and justice of a peer to peer energy system.
Think of the elderly librarian in the Shankshaw Redemption who committed suicide when released from prison. Something similar happened to a lot of people when the Soviet bloc collapsed. There was a huge upsurge of premature deaths from suicides, alcohol related deaths etc, especially among older men. There was no question that the new political situation was an improvement, but sometimes the human mind just can’t adjust.
“Even apartment dwellers can easily invest in cooperative renewable setups.”
We sure need that kind of mechanism for participation here in the states. That, and US Solar Bonds of course.
Used Electric Car Prices Start To Slowly Rise
Larry Dixon of J.D. Power says price increases “quite extraordinary.”
For years, electric vehicles have had relatively low resale value for a variety of reasons. Used electric vehicles are typically priced with the $7500 federal tax credit baked in. The plug-in market is also rapidly improving. First gen electrics such as the Chevy Spark EV and 2015 Nissan LEAF simply cannot compare to the Chevy Bolt EV and the Gen 2 LEAF. Not to mention the sales success of the year: the Tesla Model 3.
But depreciation on these older models appears to be turning around. According to Black Book’s three-year retention gauge, the value of used EVs this year is about 38%. That is a large improvement from from only 21% one year ago.
I see this as a sign that EVs are slowly gaining acceptance in the minds of more consumers. Up to now, EVs have been viewed by many as a quirk or a fad that would not gain a significant foothold in the market. They were also seen as vehicles with severely limited utility, due to issues of range and limited options for public charging. Tesla has done a lot to improve the image of EVs with their philosophy of bringing out “aspirational products”, cars that people will want to get for more than reasons of practicality. They have also done a lot to eliminate one of the major barriers in the minds of most people when it comes to EVs, range anxiety, by focusing on longer range offerings than their competitors and establishing their own nationwide (continent wide in the case of Europe) network of high speed chargers.
On the other hand, manufacturers other than Tesla are now offering models with range in excess of 200 miles (320km) at prices similar to the prices that older models were going for just a couple of years ago. I do not think there are going to be many, if any, new models introduced with a range of less than 200 miles from now on. Added to that, public charging is being built out at a fairy rapid pace with more DC fast chargers entering the mix, giving the public more confidence that they will be able to find public chargers when they need one, should they buy an EV.
Finally, seeing increasing numbers of EVs out and about is eliminating the mindset that EVs can’t be very useful. Many people may be starting to realize that 80 to 100 miles more than enough to satisfy the daily driving needs of most people and if there is more than one vehicle in a household, there is no good reason why at east one of should not be an EV. It is also possible that awareness of the extremely low maintenance and running costs might be spreading.
I believe that the days of dirt cheap used EVs, with massive depreciation in the first few years of ownership, might be coming to an end and if liquid fuel prices ever go up significantly, that will almost certainly be the case.
Yes I feel lucky, bought a 2013 Leaf in 2015 when gas prices were low for $10K. I checked recently (now that I’ve paid it off) and 2013 Leafs are selling for … $10K! So after almost four years of driving my car hasn’t depreciated at all ?
(1973) Computer predicts the end of civilisation
Critical point 2020-End of civilization 2040. Big assumptions obviously, interesting nonetheless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCxPOqwCr1I
LOL! Jay Forrester and The Club of Rome?! You must be very young indeed if you weren’t familiar with them already.
Here’s an update!
http://www.clubofrome.eu/publications/article/limits-to-growth-the-30-year
Maybe also check out Donella Meadows’ Leverage Points, Places to Intervene in a System
http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
BTW, a pet peeve of mine is the false assertion that the Club of Rome made predictions. They did nothing of the sort. They built models of scenarios. Different!
Thanks for the links, yes i was born in 1986.
Iron Mike,
Nice you have some young folks here, most of the “youngsters” here are probably over 50.
over 70
Thanks Dennis. Always a privilege to learn from the elders.
Iron Mike,
Teach your parents well…. (from an old Crosby, Stills and Nash song popular about 15 years before you arrived.) We all learn from each other, lots of innovation comes from the minds of people under 40, probably most of it.
True, and that is still a great song!
While lots of innovation may come from the minds of people under 40, it should also be tempered by the wisdom gained by those who have been around the block a few times and have graduated from the school of hard knocks… 😉
Fred,
Agree, the old folks can point out to the young people that clearly man cannot fly (as we do not have wings) and that landing a person on the moon is just crazy talk. 🙂
Old can learn from young and young can learn from old.
Hopefully the young won’t listen to those old folks who claim that things have always been as they are and nothing can possibly change, when casual observation of changes over the course of the old person’s life show that things constantly change.
Past mistakes (emitting 440 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels) cannot be undone as 25% of the carbon emissions remains in the atmosphere for about 30,000 years. This knowledge, accepted by nearly all climate scientists, might be used by innovative young people to find ways to reduce those emissions.
Not all old folks claim that nothing can or will be done, Wimbi was a notable exception.
Several posts around June an July 2016 have comments by Wimbi as he seemed to realize the end of his life was near at about this time.
See comments under following posts
http://peakoilbarrel.com/texas-oil-and-natural-gas-june-2016/
Also
http://peakoilbarrel.com/petroleum-supply-monthly-texas-cc-estimate-permian-and-eagle-ford/
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-2/
Wimbi’s daughter Faith was kind enough to let us know of Wimbi’s death:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-4/#comment-576921
Fred,
I agree about the difference between modeling scenarios, and predicting the future. Anyone who says that the LTG models can be validated by current developments doesn’t understand the original project.
Sadly enough, people like the author of that update you linked, and even people like Donella Meadows, aren’t very clear on this point. Look at the intro to the update: In 1972 “The Limits to Growth” shocked the world. The authors looked into the future
See the problem? This author thinks that the LTG model was forecasting the future, when it really, really wasn’t.
WORLD’S BIGGEST ULTRA-HIGH VOLTAGE LINE POWERS UP ACROSS CHINA
“The new line, which can transmit 12 gigawatts of power, runs through Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi and Henan provinces before ending in the Anhui province city of Xuancheng. It can supply 66 billion kilowatt hours of electricity to eastern China annually, meeting power demand of 50 million households and reducing coal use by 30.24 million tons.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-02/world-s-biggest-ultra-high-voltage-line-powers-up-across-china
Thanks Doug,
Also from your link above:
China has increasingly relied on UHV technology to send electricity from remote regions with excess supply to areas of higher demand. Xinjiang, where the new line starts, is home to large-scale wind and solar projects, but also the nation’s worst curtailment rates, or capacity that’s idle because of grid congestion, according to the National Energy Administration. The NEA has also banned the construction of new coal-fired plants in Xinjiang, as well as 20 other provinces, because of an expected overcapacity.
I only include this because I wondered what energy source was replacing the coal, turns out it is wind and solar which is a step in the right direction in my opinion.
Hopefully China will reign in its construction companies that are focusing on building a lot of coal fired power plants all over the world and focus instead on wind, solar, batteries, and HVDC grid construction both at home and abroad.
Perhaps that would even spur the US to follow China’s lead before we are left in the dust.
Very good news !!
Happy New Year
How the world got better in 2018, in 15 charts
By Elijah Wolfson
https://qz.com/1506764/ways-the-world-improved-in-2018-in-charts/
A lot went wrong in 2018, so much that it was easy to lose sight of global improvements in the midst of incessant bad news. But while it may be hard to believe, 2018 was in many ways the best year yet to be a human living on Earth.
For example, in 2016, for the first time, the share of global energy that came from renewables passed 10%. According to the International Energy Agency, the world got nearly 25% of its electricity from renewables in 2017, and that number should jump to 30% within the next few years.
New data also show that, between 2016 and 2017, some 6.7 million additional sq km (2.6 million sq miles) of the world’s oceans were put under environmental protection. The majority of that is in national waters, meaning more countries are actively assisting in the global ocean conservation project. (About 260,000 sq km of land were also added.)
It’s a bit hard to contextualize how many endangered or threatened species we’ve been able to save, since their ranks grow as as humans explore more of the world and find new species we must assess. But the fact that we’ve been able to take an increasing number off these lists is encouraging. In 2018, the lesser long-nosed bat was delisted thanks largely to the efforts of tequila producers, whose agave plants the bats feed on.
“For example, in 2016, for the first time, the share of global energy that came from renewables passed 10%.”
Not bad at all, however, the CO2 emissions are still rising, last year higher amounts than in 2017.
Many countries in very bad shape, human population rising daily with 200k, translated that is a new city of one million inhabitants every five days.
I want to keep the faith, but very difficult that is
Renewable energy (PV, wind not hydro or bio) is not rising fast enough. What is needed in the developed and developing world is a complete cultural change toward a zero carbon lifestyle. Otherwise the climate dice will come up snake eyes. It may already be too late for the biosphere but worth a shot at least.
Global sea ice extent is just about back to setting daily low records (about equal to 2016). 2016 to 2018 and now 2019 are noticeably off trend compared to previous years. One of the deniers’ last, desperate excuses was the rise in Antarctic sea ice to 2015, despite the phenomena being explained fairly well by climate change induced weather effects; that seems to have gone completely now as higher CO2 levels and increased warmth reaches south. 2018/2019 Arctic ice extent has been in the lowest 3 or 4 years (with 2016 and 2017) in recent months. Temperatures have been second highest after 2016 but there’s an SSW now (sudden stratospheric warming) that tends to produce lower ground/sea level temperatures but also a persistent, high anticyclone over the pole, which can crack the ice up and spread it around (I think it’s overall bad for long term extent but as with all things now in the Arctic the ongoing climate and ice changes are so fast that phenomena don’t really get repeated and keeping up with modelling and prediction is difficult – that said the US Navy prediction shows an increase of export the thickish ice north of Greenland out of the Fram and into the Greenland sea killing zone).
And,
GLOBAL CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS ROSE ALMOST 3% IN 2018
China increased its emissions to 10.3 billion tonnes, while the U.S. jumped to 5.4 billion tonnes. The European Union spewed 3.5 billion tonnes and India soared to 2.6 billion tonnes. Overall, the world is spewing about 1,175 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air every second.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/carbon-pollution-increase-1.4934096
EL NIÑO AND EXTREME WEATHER
2019 may be one of the warmest years on record as a building El Niño event piles on top of human-caused global warming. Typically, the routine climate pattern occurs when sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean rise to above-normal levels for several months, causing warmer than normal global temperatures on average. In fact, the strong El Niño of late 2015 to early 2016 helped boost global temperatures to their all-time warmest on record in 2016.
I noticed the Keeling curve numbers seem to have been validated/corrected so they aren’t quite as high above the trend for September and October as the original numbers (still consistently above though).
Recent Global CH4
September 2018: 1860.2 ppb
September 2017: 1852.7 ppb
2017 rose at 7.4 ppb and it looks like 2018 will continue that trend.
It looks like there has been, roughly, a 15% drop in global sea ice since 1978, with recent acceleration of the strong trend. That is a big shift!
Recently the trough after big el ninos has been as high as the prior el nino peaks, or there abouts-
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/
Truly interested scientists are going to have to start working on mitigation techniques, like continuing the research on CO2 capture for aiding enhanced oil recoveries, reducing solar forcing, and simulated ice albedo. This will anger some of the more hardcore climate activists, but by this point essentially it’s going to be innovation or extinction.
Hi Cameron. Your point is valid. Exploring the options has been underway by some scientists for quite some time now.
Lots of problems with the whole idea to work out- such as who has authority, who would validate the proposed techniques prior to action being taken, how much to rely on these kinds of mitigation efforts vs slowing CO2 emission (coal burning cessation as the first step), who gets to be a winner vs a loser- every scheme has its share of both categories.
Big cans of worms, so to speak.
Why wait, plant trees.
NAOM
And then you have this:
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-boost-plant-production-by-40-percent-through-a-photosynthesis-shortcut
Depending on how you look at it, it could be great news or another ‘Green Revolution’ nightmare type scenario that continues to allow increases in human population overshoot.
So how does this increase the mineral content of poor overused soil? Carbohydrates are fine but if the mineral content is low, the population will be unhealthy.
Jeez, GF!
You always seem to get hung up on this kind of stuff… Little details! You think soil mineral content is going to be all that important if our global leaders can provide bread and circus to another couple of billion malnourished inhabitants for a little while longer?! /sarc
Think of all the herbivorous insects feeding on these photosynthetically enhanced plants at the bottom of the food chain!
Insects? What insects???
Whoa. A quick purview of the original article shows this be real base science, not some ill-informed lay press article. I’m startled by it. Pass it off to your Agronomist cousins Fred.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/eaat9077
Good points about overshoot, and other limiting factors to plant growth- soil nutrients.
Insects are licking their ?mandibles right now.
Won’t do much good for seed crops staples (wheat, rice, maize etc) if it increases foliage and not seed. On the other hand there should be plenty of salad greens.
NAOM
NAOM. Thats not how it works.
If indeed you achieved increased photosynthetic output within each chloroplast, that energy would be available for whatever use the plant allocated it to.
Plant allocation of its photosynthetic resources depends partly on its genetic program, and partly on the conditions in which it finds itself growing- for example a particular plant may spend more on growing roots if it is short on water, as compared to the same plant grown on moist soil.
An example of a green revolution breeding advance was to alter a particular rice such that it would partition more resources to the stems rather than seed. This may seem paradoxical, but the goal [and result] was to have plants that were less prone to falling over as the seed matured. That way a higher percent of the crop could be harvested. That effort worked very well in the areas it was targeted to.
The biochemistry alterations being made by the group that are detailed in the article are the real deal, and if they are able to extend this to the real world (looks like they have), this is not to be underestimated. It actually freaks me out how profound a change it is. There has be no successful / applied alteration of photosynthesis by humans to this point, in the world, as far as I know. They have taken genetic material from E. coli and incorporated into the genetic makeup of the chloroplast, altering its biochemical machinery. If this doesn’t astound you, I haven’t explained it well enough.
The Univ of Illinois (where the work was done) is a bonafide Ag research center. The work was done there- Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit, United States Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, Urbana, IL
OFM- thoughts on this?
Thanks for that. I am still concerned that the energy will direct to plant growth rather than seed production. If the quantity of seed is regulated by other genes and processes than this may not help in seed crops, OTOH any plant that is harvested for it’s general plant matter would be boosted. Want to see their results with rice when they come.
NAOM
People can alter how plants spend their money, to a considerable extent. Look at the Cabbage family veggies [cruciferous vegetables (sometimes known as cole crops) are considered cultivars of B. oleracea, including broccoli, collard greens, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi and sprouting broccoli]. These have been breed over the centuries to accentuate different parts, such as the stem in kohlrabi, flower buds in broccoli and Brussels, leaves in cabbages.
Corn [maize] has huge seeds compared to the wild relatives, thanks to breeding over several thousand years.
And now the tools (such as CRISPR) are incredibly powerful to alter plants (and all other organisms).
This technique the article describes might be applied to trees or algae as well, at some point. We are on the edge of uncharted territory.
Unintended consequences of monkeying around with the genetics of the biosphere are a certainty. CRISPR was already used to alter a human being (without any approval from government or medical organizations) in China this year, by an individual scientist who announced the project only after birth of the twins.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies/
You are certainly right about uncharted territory. It is also certain that CRISPR will be used without controls especially when man gets desperate. The agricultural researchers in the UK have already stated that climate change is happening too fast for breeders to keep up creating new varieties. Genetic modification will seem the only way out. Maybe this will descend into some sort of wild west of plant biology. What can go wrong?
NAOM
‘this will descend into some sort of wild west of plant biology.’
Not to mention alteration of the microbiome, on land and in the sea.
Maybe this will descend into some sort of wild west of plant biology. What can go wrong?
Wait till gene drives start getting used by unscrupulous individuals… They have the potential to deliberately wipe out an entire species.
https://asunow.asu.edu/20160608-discoveries-james-collins-gene-drives-q-and-a
Not to mention if this gene jumps into a weed such as Kudzu.
NAOM
The alteration of photosynthetic chemistry accomplished by this research group occurs within chloroplasts, an organelle which, like mitochondria, is a direct ancestor from a free-living prokaryotic cell which was engulfed by a larger single cell organism far before 500 million yrs ago. The current thinking, based on DNA evidence is that all mitochondria, and chloroplasts have descended from just one single ancestor, each. Thats right, just one event each!
Chloroplasts, like mitochondria, have their own DNA (of the same type as their ancestor, but distinct from the DNA of the host cell nucleus). They do not reproduce by fertilization and mixing of genetic material, merely straight up cell division. So in effect, all mitochondria, and chloroplasts of the earth are each descended from a single common ancestor, and are clones.
The altered chemistry accomplished by this group is coded within the chloroplast DNA and will be transferred with the host cell in which they reside, in perpetuity.
Can it jump to another plant species? Not in any way I understand, in nature. But if introduced intentionally to the realm of cyanobacter and other photosynthetic microorganisms, I’d place no bet on things staying put.
Interesting, we shall see.
NAOM
Not to mention if this gene jumps into a weed such as Kudzu.
A gene drive is not really a gene.
It is the application of CRISPR-cas9 gene editing technology applied to germ cells. What it does is allow a specific engineered genetic trait to quickly spread throughout an entire targeted population by short circuiting normal Mendelian genetic inheritance pathways and frequencies. To understand the possible implications one needs to first understand how normal inheritance works.
Here’s a little animation that illustrates the difference between normal inheritance vs. a gene drive.
https://wyss.harvard.edu/media-post/crispr-cas9-gene-drives/
Yes.
And ‘short circuiting normal Mendelian genetic inheritance pathways and frequencies’ is not even an applicable mechanism with chloroplasts, since they are not coded for by genetic inheritance.
They ‘reproduce’ simply by binary fission, like all other prokaryotic cells, and are just carried along for the ride with their host cell.
Informative video, thanks.
In response to Hickory:
“Can it jump to another plant species? Not in any way I understand, in nature. But if introduced intentionally to the realm of cyanobacter and other photosynthetic microorganisms, I’d place no bet on things staying put.”
I highly recommend David Quammen’s book ‘The Tangled Tree –A Radical New History of Life”
As well as summarizing the relevant history of Evolutionary theory, he goes into the latest developments in the study of horizontal gene transfer (HGT). It is becoming increasingly evident that the genome is a lot more flexible than we have heretofore thought. Apparently nature is ahead of us with its own version of CRISPR technology.
I find this stuff fascinating.
Thanks for the recommendation Eric.
Me too.
MELTING ICE SHEETS RELEASE TONS OF METHANE INTO THE ATMOSPHERE
“A key finding is that much of the methane produced beneath the ice likely escapes the Greenland Ice Sheet in large, fast flowing rivers before it can be oxidized to CO2, a typical fate for methane gas which normally reduces its greenhouse warming potency…
Most studies on Arctic methane sources focus on permafrost, because these frozen soils tend to hold large reserves of organic carbon that could be converted to methane when they thaw due to climate warming. This latest study shows that ice sheet beds, which hold large reserves of carbon, liquid water, microorganisms and very little oxygen – the ideal conditions for creating methane gas – are also atmospheric methane sources.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-ice-sheets-tons-methane-atmosphere.html#jCp
Greta Thunberg
December 30, 2018
·
“After the COP24 I have been invited to speak in places like Panama, New York, San Francisco, Abu Dhabi, Vancouver, British Virgin Islands…But sadly our remaining carbon budget will not allow any such travels. My generation won’t be able to fly other than for emergencies in a foreseeable future, if we are to be the least bit serious about the 1.5 degree warming limit. Why? Because adult generations in countries like mine have used up our resources.
I will try to make it to as many places as possible without flying. And also participate via video link. Also tag your climate actions with me, so we can show the world what actions are going on for climate change. And of course, stop flying and go vegan alone is not the solution. We have to aim for a zero-carbon lifestyle as soon as possible. Political decisions are necessary. But as they do not exist yet we have to do what we can ourselves to make the political movement come alive.”
Kind of humbling to us superannuated types.
She needs to tell the leftists, its time to give up your SUVs, private jets, mansions, yachts and so forth. Stop it with all your greed.
You know Larry, I’m pretty sure a hell of a lot more people who self identify as leaning right have SUVs, private jets, mansions, yachts and so forth. So why don’t you, stop it with all your greed. But I’m guessing you are either a bot, a troll or a paid agitator, right?!
https://samharris.org/podcasts/145-information-war/
In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Renée DiResta about Russia’s “Internet Research Agency” and its efforts to amplify conspiracy thinking and partisan conflict in the United States.
Renée DiResta is the Director of Research at New Knowledge and Head of Policy at the nonprofit organization Data for Democracy where she investigates the spread of malign narratives across social networks. She regularly writes and speaks about the role that tech platforms and curatorial algorithms play in the proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories. She is the author of The Hardware Startup: Building your Product, Business, and Brand.
In fact one of Tesla’s main contributions was the realization that rich leftists are willing to pay serious money for less polluting technology, but nobody in the car business was willing to cater to them. Their success is why the luxury car market is going electric so quickly.
Both parties are heavily invested in the destruction of the planetary life system, because it is not actually political but cultural. The division between the two is about 45/55 in destructive actions. Really not that far apart when one considers what needs to be done and how fast it must be done to actually be meaningful.
Just be warned, this is not a political problem. The results will be real, devastating and permanent. No amount of voting, letter writing, political tantrums or demonstrations will change anything. Action, swift, decisive and total is the only thing now that might slow things down. A complete change of culture is mandatory and will occur voluntarily or involuntarily. This is very real and any control is slipping away fast.
Last time I check the Dims weren’t leftists. Given the degree of political illiteracy in USA I’m not surprised that it goes widely unnoticed. I suspect USA is the world’s only democracy without a left of centre party.
The most “progressive” Dims in the USA are center/ right.
It all sounds great except we in modern society need the full lot of things that make our lives comfortable. It includes our cars, convenient jet travel and climate control homes. There probably ought to be some form of energy to replace all ‘fossil fuels’, but there isn’t. If this poor girl weren’t being brainwashed by old burnt out hippies and pseudo-intellectual lowlifes wanting to advance their own personal agendas, she’d shut up and get to work on harnessing a more sustainable form of energy.
Congratulations on being the most pathetic and pitiable example of a human being ever to have posted here (and there have been a few strong contenders).
Marty, why don’t you go fornicate thy self and the steed thou rodeth in on!
Maybe it’s just me, but flooding of coastal cities doesn’t sound very comfortable.
I suspect the flooding of the Mekong Delta (and others) will impact food production long before folks on the seaside start fretting about their real estate and associated infrastructure. And we don’t need to wait for the full measure of seas level rise to impact the Delta, a strong storm surge would perhaps knock it out.
http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warming-locations/mekong-river-delta-vietnam.html
“They found that, during the flood season, sea level rise would affect at least 69 percent of the delta by 2030, and virtually all of it by 2070. The scientists concluded that roughly 60 percent of the delta, including the whole coastal region and the Ca Mau peninsula, could be categorized as highly vulnerable to sea level rise”
Arrogant fools!
This is what early stages of sea level rise looks like in my own town. The area in question is constantly being innundated by saltwater flooding at high tide. Even 20 years ago when I moved to Hollywood it wasn’t yet a problem. The combination of saltwater intrusion and cast iron water mains and sewer pipes was sure to come to this sooner or later. A bit of schadenfreude that it is happening to the wealthy in their exclusive barrier Island…
Since I live in the poorer South Western quarter west of US 1 in the hills of Hollywood at a lofty elevation of about 5 ft. above sea level it won’t affect me for at least another couple of years., maybe like two… 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOjUoIMVWuo
Aging infrastructure causes headaches for Hollywood residents
There have been three water main breaks in the past month in Hollywood’s North Beach area and some residents in Hollywood’s North Beach are growing tired of the interruptions in service.
I have news for those people it’s going to get a lot worse a lot sooner than they think!
Hopefully most of the affected people are global warming deniers but, that’s the problem with this stuff. It affects deniers and believers equally and all will have to bear the costs!
Marty- it does appear that the brainwashing of you by “pseudo-intellectual lowlifes” has been effective. Good luck with getting it all washed out. I’m not too hopeful for you, sorry to say. Maybe a couple years of sobriety would be a good start.
None of that needs to be sacrificed, it just needs to be done differently.
NAOM
If this millennium generation want’s everybody to go back to a caveman living, that’s ok, but not til all us old farts are gone, first.
Regards,
-Ralph
Cass Tech ’64
“Pack your shit folks, we’re going away!”
George Carlin
No it is not ok! If it weren’t for people who think like you, Ralph, maybe our children would still have a healthy planet on which to live! For starters, the fact that you even equate going back to caveman living with what someone like Greta Thunberg is saying, speaks volumes about your ignorance, your greed and your lack of empathy. Perhaps you have no children of your own or you just don’t understand that this world does not belong to you!
For what it is worth:
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our children.”
Navajo proverb
Fred, I have 4 children, 9 grandchildren, a greatgrandchild and a second on the way soon. They are all precious blessings, that much is true.
Regards,
-Ralph
Cass Tech ’64
Fine, then start thinking and acting like their welfare and future actually matter to the old farts!
Did you bring them into the world just to shit on them?
NAOM
India’s renewable rush puts coal on the back burner
Indian power companies spent much of the past decade rushing to build coal-fired power plants in anticipation of surging electricity demand as economic growth took off.
Now, many of those projects are mired in deep financial distress and private investment in coal power has ground to a near halt. The sector has been hit by a host of problems: many plants have struggled to secure fuel supplies, and to clinch deals to sell their power to cash-strapped state distribution companies.
But the biggest driver of long-term uncertainty for the industry is one that few anticipated 10 years ago: an explosive take-off in the renewable power sector, as India joins the global push to tackle climate change by shifting towards green energy.
Might be behind a paywall. Found it while browsing Auke Hoekstra’sTwitter feed. Counterpoint to some of the stuff Doug has been posting about growing coal use in India. Seems like that might not continue to be the case going forward!
More on India energy here-
https://indiapowerreview.com/generation-updates-to-november-2018/
Lots of good graphs and data
India Coal GWh
Oct 2016- 81
Oct 2018- 88
Renewables GWh
Oct 2016- 6
Oct 2018- 10
Hickory,
So annual growth rate for coal from 2016-2018 about 4.2%/year, and for renewables about 29%. If those rates continued for the next 10 years Renewables would be at 128 GWh in 2028 and coal would be at 132 GWh. Note that the coal growth rate is not likely to remain at 4.2% per year, it is more likely to fall to zero soon and then become negative as renewable power supplants it.
Sure, that’s one way to spin it Dennis.
Another is that in India
new coal energy production is still growing about
75% faster than new renewable electrical production,
over the past two years. [ 7 vs 4 GWh]
Hickory,
I am a fan of the exponential function. In China renewable power grew by 40% per year from 2006 to 2016. While primary energy use grew by about 4% per year over the same period. I will let you do the math if India has similar growth rates over the next 10 years.
If we make the simplistic assumption that all Indian energy is from coal and renewables, so 98 GWh in 2018 and that grows by 4%/year to 2028 and that the renewable power grows by 40%/year (as it did in China recently from 2006-2016) then Coal power output falls to zero by 2026 as it is replaced by the 147 GWh of renewable power produced that year.
Simple math. Always with you it cannot be done… 🙂
Dennis- ” Coal power output falls to zero by 2026″
Maybe the math shows that, but I think the actual scenario isn’t going to play out that way. It will take another decade to phase out the big industry. Minimum, IMHO.
The entrenched interests are a huge force against changes, and there is a massive nationwide investment in the capital equipment of the industry. And maybe there is not enough PV being manufactured in the next 7 yrs to supply the demand swell, to accomplish this big replacement around the world.
Hickory,
That example was China only. There is a big pollution problem from coal in China and plenty of incentive to reduce coal use.
I agree that zero coal use by 2026 in China is too optimistic an estimate as 40% growth rates in renewable energy will be difficult to sustain, even an average growth rate of 25% over the next decade would be difficult.
The thing about China is that when a decision is made to accomplish something, they seem to find a way.
There will be powerful economic and social forces pushing the world towards higher consumption of wind and solar power. Levels of fossil fuel use are likely to be less than 10% of 2017 levels by 2050 in my opinion as fossil fuel prices rise and the price of wind, solar, and EVs falls.
“The thing about China is that when a decision is made to accomplish something, they seem to find a way.”
Yes, its called economic planning without partisan temper tantrums.
Seriously, central planning with 5-10 yr plans for big projects is a successful pattern, if you have smart leaders/analysts.
We need that kind of thing for this worldwide energy transition.
Waiting for the free market to make adjustments will find us with a very painful decade (atleast).
See mypost close to the end of this thread.
Found in the Twitter feed that brought us the article on India’s renewable energy transformation:
The amount of electricity generated in the UK last year fell to its lowest level in a quarter century, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
At the same time, output from renewable sources rose to another record high, generating an estimated 33% of the UK total in 2018. In combination with nuclear, low-carbon sources contributed 53% of UK generation in 2018, with the share from fossil fuels at its lowest ever.
Lower per-capita electricity generation and cleaner supplies have contributed roughly equal shares to the reduction in power sector CO2 emissions since demand peaked in 2005. This has helped to cut UK greenhouse gas emissions overall, even as the economy grows and population rises.
The reduction in the UK’s per-capita electricity generation has saved 103 terawatt hours (TWh) since 2005, slightly more than the 95TWh increase in renewable output over the same period. If this electricity had instead been generated from gas, CO2 emissions for the entire UK economy would have been around 80 million tonnes (MtCO2, 20% )higher than the 368MtCO2 total seen in 2017. If it had come from coal emissions would have been some 180MtCO2 (50%) higher.
Would have been nice if they had included a consumption curve, they make little mention of imports.
As far as cutting demand I had a surprise recently. I tried out a 15W LED lamp and measured it’s output against a 22W CFL. The result made me make the test permanent and swapped out a second CFL. I now have 2x 12W LEDs to put up this afternoon (no 15W) in stock). Measuring the illumination with my cellphone the 15W LED was 2 – 2.5 times as bright as the 22W CFL. My policy has been to replace failing CFLs with LED and putting LED in all new lights but now I will be swapping out most of the CFLs except those very low power/use.
NAOM
20W Osram CFL 50 lux 12W LED 150 lux. I’m going to LEDS.
NAOM
How do you measure light levels with your phone? I’ve had trouble finding a good phone-based light meter…
As I only use it for a quick comparison and occasionally I am not too worried about what it is like or absolute accuracy. If it tells me one light is 50 and another 150 that’s close enough for me. This is the one I used:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doggoapps.luxlight&hl=en
NAOM
Thanks. I use iOS, unfortunately.
I tried to update my research, and predictably, makers of light meter hardware are still very harsh in their reviews of phone apps, and app makers are the reverse.
But, it looks like Pocket Light Meter is highly rated by professional photographers, so I think I’ll try it out.
Hope it works for you, there are horses for courses and that may suit you best, I just need a quick and dirty check now and again.
NAOM
Daily CO2
January 2, 2019: 409.82 ppm
January 2, 2018: 406.62 ppm
The year over year increase is interesting to follow. I’m not sure if an El Niño is confirmed or not.
There is no way any country will actively take steps to downsize, despite massive population overshoot.
It is just not in the human DNA, or in any economic playbook.
Here is an article with the classic outlook on the demographic situation-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-the-us-avoid-japans-demographic-disaster/2018/12/31/1f29ba66-0d3f-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fc80e564dbaa
But it turns out things could be worse — a lot worse. We could be Japan, whose unfolding demographic crisis provides some lessons for where America might be headed.
According to a new report from the Japanese government, Japanese women had 921,000 babies in 2018. That’s the fewest births since comparable records began in 1899 — when the country’s population was a third its current size.
Meanwhile, deaths in Japan hit their highest level in nearly a century. Put together, that means the country’s population is shrinking rapidly, experiencing its largest natural decline on record.
Would that the entire planet be so Lucky!
I’m quite sure we will soon begin to see ‘natural ‘ declines in human global population. Unfortunately, natural will probably include, natural disasters, ecological catastrophes, famine and pestilence! Enjoy the ride!
Cheers!
A society that does not care for it’s people but only money is one doomed to disintegration and collapse. Who do you trust? Who will cover your back and who will work with you when times get tough? Are your neighbors potential allies or enemies?
The Trouble with Civilization
Ancient cities reveal the vulnerabilities of modern societies
Health is one variable that is a good indicator of quality of life. Human bones reveal that many of the people living in cities during their heydays had impoverished diets, suffered from more disease and infant mortality, and lived shorter lives than their nomadic counterparts. “Though certainly the so-called collapse of a city-state could be surrounded by a great deal of suffering,” says Trella, “if overall health is the standard, then the people who lived during the centuries afterward might have had a better quality of life than city dwellers ever did. Complexity itself can impose harsh demands on people.”
Catastrophes like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina affect a great number of people emotionally and economically and are writ large in our memories,” Trella says. “But the real vulnerabilities, or those that most often precipitate disintegration, are things that are taken for granted, such as the incredible degree of interdependence necessitated and produced by the global economy.”
The archaeological record reminds us that the legacy of ancient state societies includes not only palaces and writing, but also institutionalized poverty and unsustainable farming practices.”
http://uvamagazine.org/articles/the_trouble_with_civilization/
Hi Fred, Hickory
The folks who believe ( or pretend to believe for reasons having to do with their stock portfolios ) in eternal growth with a growing population never say anything about a falling population’s need for less of anything and everything new.
Poor countries need gigabucks for new infrastructure ranging from roads to water and sewer systems to hospitals to houses etc, but richer countries such as those of Western Europe and Japan already have enough of just about every sort of durable infrastructure, assuming a steady or falling population.
It’s true that it costs quite a bit to upgrade existing older homes and larger structures so as to save energy but doing so costs a hell of a lot less than clearing forest or farm land and building new from the ground up.
And while there’s no doubt that there are millions of houses and other buildings that are so decrepit they should be demolished, it’s a myth, at least in places that have more or less modern and enforced building codes, that cheap modern houses won’t last.
I owned such a house, built in the early fifties that I lived in for a number of years, upgrading the windows, a new electrical service panel and additional circuits, installing additional insulation, and putting on a new roof and so forth. I’ve worked personally on many more such houses.
It’s now very close to seventy years old, and in EXCELLENT condition, according to an old friend who still lives only a few doors away. The current owner has installed a heat pump. So long as the city keeps the water and sewer system up, and the current owner continues to maintain this house, there’s every reason to believe it will last at least a hundred years yet to come.
Even so called ” house trailers ” built since the nineties ( when a federal building code was put into effect ) will last a hundred years or longer IF they are well maintained. I know of a dozen or more that are forty years or older that are just about as good as new, perhaps even better, given that the owners have upgraded them with new floors, doors, windows, and hvac systems.
The trick is simple,you just have to keep them DRY.
Many local owners of older mobile homes install vinyl siding over the original paper thin thin aluminum, and galvanized or baked enamel steel ribbed roofing over the original roof, with an ample overhang that keeps nearly all the rain away from the windows and doors. Sure this is somewhat expensive, but it’s dirt cheap compared to buying new.
But the owner of such a trailer, say a “fourteen by seventy six” can spend a couple of thousand a year for five years on his trailer and it will be functionally as good as new, often better.
People who have never been in a nineties and up trailer don’t have a clue as to how well they compare to most apartments in the same overall size class. They’re VERY well laid out, with near zero wasted space, and quite as comfortable, not to mention that even in a trailer park they almost always have at least a small front and back yard and a parking space, or even two spaces.
With a stable population, we wouldn’t need more than ten, maybe twenty percent new housing annually, per capita, compared to a population growing at a fast clip.
And such housing as IS needed to replace old units not worth upgrading can very well be factory built, or even mostly 3D printed on site.
A three or four man crew doing the same job over and over at the factory could likely install a solar roof on a mobile home in no more than three or four hours, and they need not be more than semi skilled workers, since they are doing the same job over and over.
Given that so many workers currently involved in building new roads and houses, etc, will be freed up to do other things, with a stable or declining population, I don’t think there’s any need to worry about manpower more than ample to look after the old folks who won’t be working.
We ought to be doing a better job of getting the word out about this sort of thing.
True enough. Many excellent modular home manufacturers are also now up and running around the country. Similar advantages, built well in a factory setting and shipped to the site. Compelling option.
Attention astronomy buffs (BTW — physics ISN’T dead)
EPIC CRASH OF NEUTRON STARS CREATES ‘HYPERMASSIVE MAGNETAR’
“Data gathered by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) project indicated that the object created by the merger was about 2.7 times more massive than the sun. That’s right on the neutron star-black hole borderline, so the identity of the newly formed body was unclear: It was either the least massive black hole ever discovered, or the most massive neutron star. Astronomers initially leaned toward the black-hole interpretation, but the recent study argues for a neutron star — specifically, a supermagnetic type known as a magnetar. That’s because the authors dug a new signal out of the data collected by LIGO and its sister project, Virgo — a 5-second descending “chirp” that began after the initial round of gravitational waves, but before an accompanying burst of high-energy gamma rays. The fate of the magnetar, however, is unknown. It may enjoy a long life as a fast-spinning neutron star called a pulsar, or it may eventually collapse to form a black hole.”
https://www.space.com/42433-neutron-star-crash-hypermassive-magnetar.html
Do we know what the velocity of gravitational waves is? Is it light speed or higher or lower?
Also, any thoughts on Ultima Thule and the data coming back?
NAOM
Interestingly, the speed of gravitational waves is the same as the speed of light, as predicted by general relativity, which was confirmed by observations of the GW170817 neutron star merger (August, 2017).
Re Ultima Thule, data will be arriving for almost two years so you’ll have to be patient. 😉
Thanks, so I guess that means there will be red shift too which will need adjustment for in modeling the received signals.
My patience was stretched waiting 36 hrs for the first image, now we have a hiatus for the sun then even more waiting – arrrgh!
NAOM
DougL,
I can see the smile on your face, and the glow, from here.
What a happy way to start the year.
FINAL WARNING
Scientists’ Warning to Humanity & Business as Un-usual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8PWkZ7FB5s
Pay close attention to the first sixteen minutes of this presentation
Thanks Fish.
Hey people, watch this video. Collapse is not something that is going to happen. Collapse is something that is happening. Collapse of civilization as we know it is something that is already well underway.
Perhaps watch this one as well. It is a primer on what happens when neo-classical growth based economics takes natural resources and transforms them into money!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv6SLNUcfDE
The Lorax (original)
Apparently all warnings, past and present continue to fall on deaf ears. How many fucking warnings does humanity need?!
“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill
Not a Churchill fan, but he seems to have gotten that one right.
Sadly, from my perspective this looks like old news. I’m not downplaying it or anything. It’s just that I’m pretty jaded after about 40 years of paying attention.
A dog eating its own vomit, is what it is.
German renewables surpass 40% of electricity generation in 2018
For the entire year, Fraunhofer ISE expects PV capacity additions of around 3.2 GW; although the final numbers for additions have not yet been made public by the German Federal Network Agency. The report marks as a highlight for this year that on July 2 at 1:15 pm PV reached peak production of 32 GW. At this moment, 39% of the electricity generated in Germany came from PV. On May 6, PV reached the highest daily average share with 22.6%. Additionally, the authors of the report stress that the monthly generation of PV systems in Germany between April and August had been higher each month than that of hard coal.
Aside from photovoltaics the generation from wind energy also increased over the last year. German wind turbines produced 5.4% more than last year and reached 111 TWh, with wind comprising 20.4% of net electricity generation. This makes wind energy the second-largest energy source after lignite coal in Germany. On December 8 at noon, winds production capacity peaked at 45.9 GW.
“In 2018, solar and wind produced 157 TWh jointly – that is more than lignite coal, hard coal, and nuclear power,” writes Fraunhofer ISE in its report.
Imagine what German carbon emissions would have been like without all that wind and solar!
5 children heading to Disney killed in fiery Florida crash
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Five children heading to Disney World in a church van from Louisiana died along with two truck drivers in fiery crash on Interstate 75 in north Florida, the Florida Highway Patrol said Friday.
The children were traveling in a large passenger van from Avoyelles Parish, Lt. Patrick Riordan said during a news conference on Friday morning in Alachua, which is south of Gainesville.
On Thursday, a big rig and a passenger vehicle collided in the northbound lanes of the highway and continued across the guardrail and into the path of another big truck and the church van, investigators said.
“Once those semis struck, they both caught fire,” Riordan said. He said a fifth vehicle came through and either struck people who had been ejected from the vehicle or debris. Some 50 gallons (1.6 kilometers) of diesel fuel spilled, flaming the fire that also damaged the road in some spots.
At least eight people were sent to the hospital with injuries.
Vinnie DeVita said he was driving south at the time and narrowly escaped the crash – he said it saw it happen in the rearview mirror, immediately behind him, according to a report by WKMG .
“If I had stepped on the brake when I heard the noise, undoubtedly, I would have been in that accident,” DeVita said. “And then within probably 15 to 20 seconds of it all, it exploded. I mean, just a ball of flames.”
So much for the safety of liquid fuels relative to batteries. One is left to wonder what would have happened if the vehicles involved were using batteries instead of liquid fuels? Very sad.
islandboy,
I’m replying down here because we’ve been narrowed out up above.
It sounds like China EXIM Bank might be paying attention to criticism that’s been hitting China’s policies on lending and offering help to other countries. Some of that criticism is coming from the Chinese so it’ll get attention.
I was interested to see that there has been an emphasis on sticking to deadlines and such, juxtaposed with your saying that Chinese companies have been doing the work using Chinese equipment, especially one particular company, because that is precisely the pattern–including no-bid contracting–that has meshed so well with corruption in a number of cases. I’d like to hope that China is beginning to realize that the approach so far has often had bad results; I’ve read that there are efforts in Beijing to understand why.
China has presented as a plus her usual position that it would be impinging on the sovereignity of the borrowing country to insist that attention should be paid to environmental factors during project planning and financial decision-making, and that corruption in the receiving country should be addressed in order to ensure the project’s success. She has long considered this position a selling point in China’s favor. Maybe that is beginning to change.
Good luck, Jamaica! There’s hope, it seems.
It’s a bit hard for me to say with any certainty that corruption has been reduced or eliminated. It may have just shifted offshore. By that I mean that, the particular company that seems to be getting all the civil works contracts, could conceivably have ties inside the EXIM Bank to secure the funding for projects and it is extremely difficult to determine if any kickbacks are going to local politicians by way of payments to offshore accounts, hidden from public view, to secure the continuing contracts. It could just be that the particular company has developed a good working relationship with both elected and non elected arms of government but, that in no way precludes corruption.
A culture of indifference to sources of wealth does not help. In Jamaica there are individuals at all levels of the public service from policemen right up to the upper levels of elected officials who have assets that could be considered out line with their compensation packages. It is most obvious with policemen, customs agents and the people responsible for issuing drivers licenses and motor vehicle road worthiness documents. This also applies to young men with no apparent source of income, suddenly appearing very wealthy, driving very expensive cars and/or living in expensive houses, often as a result of successful exploits in the area of narcotics smuggling or more recently, telephone based scamming (primarily targeting elderly US residents). If one raise the issue however, one is considered envious (“bad mind”[ed] in local vernacular). So, when one politician raised the issue of an obviously very expensive house his opponent was building, in clear view, in an opulent community overlooking the capital city, he faced a backlash for being “bad mind”. This even crosses over into the private sector where it is suspected that individuals working in large firms allegedly receive kickbacks for giving contracts to certain companies. It is very depressing to acknowledge that these situations exist and are probably fairly prevalent.
Despite all of this, it is something of a relief to see projects underway that, seem to have a good chance of completion within the timelines and budgets given. As I said before, the island appears to be getting value for money. My hope is that the quality of the Chinese civil engineering and construction is significantly higher than a high portion disposable consumer goods that originate in China! I am inclined to think so since, in the case of the road widening projects they are building a limestone road bed that is at least a foot or so thick when I can see that in some places the asphalt was just laid directly over the underlying dirt with no bed of aggregate visible, probably a legacy of unpaved tracks gradually becoming paved roads over decades.
To tie this back in to the discussions around here, these are the issues that the citizenry here are focused on, better roads, improved traffic flow, good public transport services. good telecom services, adequate, reliable potable water supplies, lower cost electricity, adequate garbage collection, readily available health care and education, high levels of crime/violence, jobs, affordable food, among a long list of everyday concerns. Not on many peoples radar apparently, are issues of CO2 emissions, climate change, sea level rise, peak oil, environmental degradation, species loss, sustainable agriculture (permaculture), circular economies or any of the more “exotic” (depressing?) stuff we discuss everyday around here.
Maybe Jamaica is just a microcosm of the US and in fact the world, where things are going great for the wealthy and those in political office while the middle class is finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their standard of living and things are getting increasingly desperate for the very poor, living on the fringes of civilization.
Stay with your program Islandboy. People will start to wake up in just a few years, so be prepared to give them the information.
I have noticed that people often learn from mistakes, especially when the mistakes become obvious.
“We’re now at the half-way mark of Donald Trump’s term in the White House, and the relentless hum of his casual imbecilities, obscenities, banalities and outright fabrications has become so routine to the world’s daily dread that it is now just background noise in the ever-louder bedlam of America’s dystopian, freak-show political culture.”
https://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-terrifying-depths-of-donald-trumps-ignorance-in-a-single-quote/
I liked the old systems where one could tune in between stations and listen to the static. Just as informative and much less irritating.
Can EV’s hack real life demands, simple ones like bringing home a piece of furniture on the roof?
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1075853_polite-reminder-roof-racks-will-kill-your-electric-car-range
If it’s cold out, rainy and the total distance is half your range, beware.
If it’s cold out, rainy and the total distance is half your range, beware.
Um, maybe consider having your furniture delivered instead of picking it up yourself?!
I think most furniture stores already have such services available, eh?!
ROFL, yep. Now I know why every EV review and commercial seems to talk a lot about how fast they accelerate. Good for zero to sixty!
phone call:
“Hey honey, I will be late. Put that XMAS tree on the new EV and forgot to calculate in the headwind coming back. Kids are dragging it home while I wait for the tow truck, it’s only 4 miles. ”
wife responds: “I told you to get it delivered, they still have that old hybrid truck.”
For the truly conservative minded, electric off road roller blades.
I bet there are a ton of orthopaedic surgeons that are salivating just by looking at those things… long term job security!
Fred, just think of the efficiency compared to using a big EV to get around. No roads needed either.
I looked up “sense of humor” on Amazon but they are back ordered right now.
Hey GF, no worries I have plenty of cans in stock! That was my sense of humor, perhaps just a tad darker shade than most folks’… but I actually know an orthopaedic surgeon who would laugh at that 😉
BTW there are some really nice lightweight aerodynamic cargo trailers available that you can tow behind your EV that might make more sense than roof racks if you have a lot of stuff to haul around, ya know, just sayin!
This is much better. Just pull in, drop off the trailer and pick up a fully charged one. I am sure they will have trailer switching stations located in at all the state forests, national parks and white water rivers for our convenience. Of course all the tourist attractions and beaches.
Probably strap some luggage to it also.
https://evobsession.com/electric-car-battery-trailer-unveiled-nomadic-power/
“Sorry sir, you are out of range for ambulance service. Have a nice day.”
Any reason portable tents like these can’t be made of thin film solar PV and made into portable charging car ports that you carry in the frunk of your EV?! Hey Islandboy, get on it, please!
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Never mind, should have checked first…
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i think the military have been using those for at least a few years now. I seem to remember reading about them in the distant past!
Would work best as a hire service rather than ‘buy one and swap’, Hertz, Alamo, anyone? OTOH batteries are likely to be able to handle 500 miles in a few years but in any case will people want to go 500 miles without a potty break?
NAOM
In was thinking more off roading with EVs like in the Australian outback
Hi Fred,
Probably a dicey proposition until charging stations are installed, as I recall ICEVs also need fuel, though you can carry extra fuel and I suppose that’s where the trailer idea comes in.
Tokyo (AFP) – A Japanese sushi entrepreneur paid a record $3.1 million for a giant tuna Saturday as Tokyo’s new fish market, which replaced the world-famous Tsukiji late last year, held its first pre-dawn New Year’s auction.
Bidding stopped at a whopping 333.6 million yen for the enormous 278-kilogramme (612-pound) fish — an endangered species — that was caught off Japan’s northern coast.
Self-styled “Tuna King” Kiyoshi Kimura paid the top price, which doubled the previous record of 155 million yen also paid by him in 2013.
“It’s the best tuna. I was able to buy a delicious, super fresh tuna,” the sushi restaurant chain owner proudly told reporters.
Thank Ra that the population of Japan is in decline! In the meantime, what can be done about the Kiyoshi Kimura’s of the world?!
China and Japan are at war, the objective of which is consuming the last member of each and every endangered fish and animal on planet Earth — and people wonder why I’m a cynic.
EATING HABITS IN SOUTH CHINA DRIVING ENDANGERED ANIMALS TO EXTINCTION
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5506-Eating-habits-in-south-China-driving-endangered-animals-to-extinction-
True, but I’m also worried about places like the continent of Africa.
Africa is projected to see the largest relative increase in the size of its population over the coming 15 years: the median projection of 1.68 billion people in 2030 is 42 per cent larger than the 2015 population of 1.19 billion.
Population 2030 – UN.org
So yeah, I hear you, it’s tough not to be cynical! But I’ll let you be the one to tell the Greta Thunbergs of the world that they should just give up.
Cheers!
“But I’ll let you be the one to tell the Greta Thunbergs of the world that they should just give up.”
On the contrary Fred, the Greta Thunbergs of the world may be the only hope Earth has. Isn’t it pathetic our world has come to this? Still eating whales, shooting gentle giraffes for “sport”, etc., etc., etc.
Among other things I monitor (via my Niece) are Norwegian E&P plans. She confirmed they’re now marching back into the Barents Sea, to look for more oil/gas, a place that should never have see a drill in the first place.
Greta and her friends have inherited the biggest job ever faced by mankind – by far. Can they put Humpty back together?
Greta and her friends have inherited the biggest job ever faced by mankind – by far. Can they put Humpty back together?
True enough! The job of putting Humpty together again is a pretty damn difficult job in and of itself. But the job is made orders of magnitude more difficult by the few old farts who feel they are entitled to having all their wants met, at the expense of actual needs of the many. Sooner or later something is going to give.
If this millennium generation want’s everybody to go back to a caveman living, that’s ok, but not til all us old farts are gone, first.
I would not be too surprised if some of the old farts get voted off the island!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ
Bob Dylan The Times They Are A Changin’ 1964
Cheers!
ANTARCTIC SEA ICE IS IN RECORD-LOW TERRITORY AGAIN
“Antarctica rang in the new year with record-low levels of sea ice, according to an update released Thursday by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSDIC). On January 1, sea ice covered a paltry 2.11 million square miles of water in the Southern Ocean rimming the continent, which is 726,000 square miles below the long-term average for that date. This bizarre start to 2019 followed the most rapid December surge of sea ice loss on record, causing the Antarctic to eclipse record lows set just two years back, in the austral summer of 2016—2017…
Meanwhile, global sea ice cover continues to decline, with rapid losses in the Arctic far eclipsing what’s happening around the southern continent.”
https://earther.gizmodo.com/antarctic-sea-ice-is-in-record-low-territory-again-and-1831498131
Did primitive people use more energy than modern ones per family?
In colder regions, a fire might be kept going constantly for warmth, cooking, protection and social activities. Easily a cord of wood per month per family. That is 35 million BTU which works out to be similar to 350 gallons of gasoline or fuel oil. It is also over 10,000 kWh of electricity per month. So even if they only used one quarter of that much wood per month, early societies might have used just as much energy as we did. Once one adds in metal working and lime production, the energy use escalates quickly.
Now moving up to colonial times, we are looking at 40 cords of wood per year per home. That is an amazing 3.8 million BTU per day or 35 gallons of liquid fuel per day or 1100 kWh per day. Of course they also used a lot of agricultural renewable energy in the form of animal power and human power.
Water power was also being used.
So if you use 50 kWh per day to light, run the appliances, cook and heat or cool your home plus an additional 100 kWh to drive around, you are at least 7 times more efficient than a colonial household. Really efficient households can do far better than that. A net zero house with two EV’s is over 50 times as efficient.
It’s not energy that is the problem, it is what we use to produce that energy at this point in time.
It’s not energy that is the problem, it is what we use to produce that energy at this point in time.
That and the fact that we have 7.6 billion humans and an economic operating system that is still
neo-classical growth based!
Thanks for reminding me. Can anyone point me to a very simple rocket stove instructional that I can print off in 1 sheet? The simpler the stove the better with instructions that just about anyone can follow (lots of pictures) and needs to be in Spanish.
I want to print some off to hand out when I see people cooking over big fires using lots of wood.
NAOM
Ask and you shall receive, Um sorry, here’s one that’s two pages PDF file the other one I found was 20 pages… 😉
http://www.ideassonline.org/public/pdf/RocketStovesESP.pdf
Thanks, I can get it printed two sided but it would be better if it were a brick/stone/mud construction, metal bashing may be beyond those who would benefit and they are not so likely to be able to transform an idea from 1 material to another. I will keep looking to see if I can improve on that.
This idea was started by passing a lady, up the road, cooking a big pot mounted on stones over a big fire. This needs to be really simple to work.
NAOM
It ought to be possible to come up with a fairly close estimate of the amount of wood used per capita in colonial times, if reliable figures are available for the production of iron, etc.
I know that New England was basically stripped of trees all around the larger cities and towns during the colonial era and later, until coal displaced wood as fuel. The limiting factor was the distance wood could be transported using horses and wagons on the very poor roads of the day. If you were a farmer near a town, you had to be pretty well off in order to save back enough wood to keep your own house warm. Poor farmers up that way had to get by with damned little wood, because they were compelled by necessity to sell whatever they could get to market.
In central Virginia, there was a good sized area that was pretty well stripped of trees just prior to the Civil War, with the wood being used for charcoal for smelting iron. The Battle of the Wilderness was fought there. It was called that because the former forest was just then growing back, and the undergrowth was so thick you could only see a few feet and you could barely force your way thru it.
Saw a car yesterday that looked like a Smart Car someone had left out in the rain and shrunk. What caught my eye was a solar panel on top. Tried to catch up to take a photo but dreamwalking pedestrian and traffic stopped me. I will be keeping my eyes open for another try.
NAOM
Antarctic sea ice is ‘astonishingly’ low this melt season
https://grist.org/article/antarctic-sea-ice-is-astonishingly-low-this-melt-season/
Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-lights-on-redefining-energy-security.html
The home page has quite a few interesting titles
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com
The following excerpt from the article is a series of fundamentally false statements:
The reliability of a power grid with a high share of solar and wind power would be significantly below today’s standards for continuity of service. [10-14] In such a renewable power grid, a 24/7 power supply can only be maintained at very high costs, because it requires an extensive infrastructure for energy storage, power transmission, and excess generation capacity. This additional infrastructure risks making a renewable power grid unsustainable, because above a certain threshold, the fossil fuel energy used for building, installing and maintaining this infrastructure becomes higher than the fossil fuel energy saved by the solar panels and the wind turbines.
It gets really tiring to read this kind of bullshit over and over again!
You know what you should do about that? Get used to it lol
For those interested here’s the references from that quote taken above.
10] Röpke, Luise. “The development of renewable energies and supply security: a trade-off analysis.” Energy policy 61 (2013): 1011-1021. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/73854/1/IfoWorkingPaper-151.pdf
[11] “Evolutions in energy conservation policies in the time of renewables”, Nicola Lablanca, Isabella Maschio, Paolo Bertoldi, ECEEE 2015 Summer Study — First Fuel Now. https://www.eceee.org/library/conference_proceedings/eceee_Summer_Studies/2015/9-dynamics-of-consumption/evolutions-in-energy-conservation-policies-in-the-time-of-renewables/
[12] “How not to run a modern society on solar and wind power alone”, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, September 2017.
[13] Nedic, Dusko, et al. Security assessment of future UK electricity scenarios. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 2005. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.461.4834&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[14] Zhou, P., R. Y. Jin, and L. W. Fan. “Reliability and economic evaluation of power system with renewables: A review.” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 58 (2016): 537-547. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211501727X
Survivalist,
There are often a variety of opinions expressed in the scientific literature. Often these are diametrically opposed. The bottom line is that coal and natural gas have a higher LCOE than PV and wind. I imagine the 2005 and 2013 studies did not anticipate how quickly the cost of wind and solar would fall. In a freely competitive market for electric power, coal and natural gas will be driven from the market by wind and solar, possibly serving only a backup role (natural gas is better suited to such a role than coal). Overbuilding capacity with cheaper wind and solar (just as excess coal and natural gas capacity already exist in the current system) in a widely distributed network interconnected with HVAC and HVDC transmission (most of the HVAC exists and the HVDC that will replace the HVAC in the future will be more efficient with lower line loses) will eventually reduce the need for fossil fuel backup to zero as batteries, vehicle to grid and synthetic fuels (produced with excess power from the overbuilt wind and solar power network) will eliminate the need for natural gas and coal entirely, probably by 2040 to 2050.
The major river deltas have dense populations and highly fertile land. Abandonment of these because of salt-water intrusion, especially in Asia, is already a major factor behind growing numbers of in ecological refugees and is bound to increase as a problem. It is not just due to climate change induced sea level rise. The Indus doesn’t reach the sea now because all the water is extracted for irrigation and industrial and domestic use, which has allowed sea water to intrude 40 kms upriver and destroyed a million acres of productive farmland. In most deltas now extensive damming upstream prevents replenishment of sediment at the outlet and in some groundwater and oil/gas extraction increases subsidence. Exposure of porous rock strata means salt-water intrusion can suddenly move miles inland. The Mekong and Bengal Deltas already have displacements counted in around a million each. Increasing flow variability as floods and drought events increase and from glacial melt effects will make things worse. A large tropical storm, such as that recently seen in Thailand, hitting one of these densely populated areas will be devastating. Modern weather models may now be good enough to provide adequate warnings and minimise loss of life (or maybe not – the 2018 hurricane in GoM showed how fast these storms can form and grow given the warmer sea surface temperatures that climate change has wrought) but the evacuations will be huge, and possibly permanent.
Jay Inslee Is Betting He Can Win the Presidency on Climate Change
Edward-Isaac Dovere
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/washington-governor-jay-inslee-running-president/579217/
If there is a new Democratic president come 2021, he or she will get pulled in all sorts of policy directions. Inslee says he has one priority: global warming. It’s not theoretical, or a cause just for tree huggers anymore. Putting off dealing with it for a year or two or kicking it to some new bipartisan commission won’t work, he says. He plans to focus on the threat that climate change poses to the environment and national security—the mega-storms and fires causing millions in damages, the weather changes that will cause mass migrations, the droughts that will devastate farmers in America and around the world.
Even more so, he wants to talk about the risk to American opportunity. “We have two existential threats right now: one is to our natural systems, and one is to our economic systems,” he said.
As he did in Washington State, Inslee would propose a mix of government investments and incentives to spur other investment, restrictions on power plants and emissions, and programs to promote R&D and job growth. An endless number of jobs can be created in the climate arena, Inslee says. It’s the way to make a real dent in income inequality and have the Democratic Party bring tangible solutions to communities in rural America that have been left behind. With his inaction, President Donald Trump—Inslee calls him “the commander in chief of delusion”—is engaged in a “disgusting selling-out of the country,” a “crime” against the aspirational optimism of America.
Inslee has been in politics for 30 years. He started off in the Washington State legislature and served for more than a decade in Congress. He was elected governor in 2012 and has, without much national notice, pursued arguably the most progressive and greenest agenda in the country, with fields of solar panels, fleets of electric buses, and massive job growth to show for it. And years before anyone was tweeting about the “Green New Deal,” Inslee wrote a climate-change book while he was in Congress: Apollo’s Fire, a 2007 blueprint for how much economic and entrepreneurial opportunity there is in saving the planet.
South Dakota county preps for Keystone XL pipeline protests
https://www.ksfy.com/content/news/South-Dakota-county-preps-for-Keystone-XL-pipeline-protests-503946881.html
Officials in a South Dakota county are preparing for the possibility of protests over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline by securing more jail cells.
The Black Hills Pioneer reports that the Butte County Commission approved an agreement last month to use Falk County’s jail systems if necessary.
The move comes as TransCanada plans to start construction on the oil pipeline this year. Many environmental groups and Native American tribes have sought to block the project because of some environmental concerns.
Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere says he’s concerned that the jail would fill up quickly should civil disturbances occur.
IT’S TOO LATE TO BRACE FOR IMPACT
“Here’s how I would put it: forget Brace for Impact, it’s way too late for that. What we need to do now, collectively, is bend over, take a firm grip on our knees, and …. well, you know the rest.”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2018/12/10/its-too-late-to-brace-for-impact/
George, from your link:
“The secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, told the climate change conference in Poland now in session, “We are in trouble. We are in deep trouble with climate change.” He went on to say, as hundreds of scientists and bureaucrats before him have said, that we are not doing enough. But he’s dead wrong about that. We are not doing anything. We are making it worse, faster. In part by jetting hundreds and thousands of people hither and yon around the world to conduct endless air-conditioned meetings on what we might think about doing, if we were ever going to do anything.”
And,
The world’s emissions of greenhouse gases — the kinds of pollution that trap solar radiation like greenhouse windows and heat the climate — not only increased in 2018, but increased faster, setting a new all time record — despite the wildly hyped growth of “renewable” energy sources — according to two new studies published last week. Scientists said the emissions’ growth and the resulting acceleration of climate change, resembles a “speeding freight train.”
The world’s people bought more cars, and drove them farther, in 2018 than in any year in history, driving oil consumption up for the fifth consecutive year despite the advent of hybrid and electric vehicles.
In November the Trump White House published findings by 13 Federal agencies and hundreds of scientists concluding that climate change is well under way and will cost the economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century. Never mind the millions of deaths, the migrations, the homelessness, the dislocations — we have to put a dollar value on it to pay any attention to it. Asked what he thought of the report, President Trump said “I don’t believe it.”
In October the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued an alarming report warning that greenhouse gas emissions are rising so fast that they will cause widespread food shortages, wildfires, coastal flooding and population displacement, not by the end of the century, but by 2040. One of the latest studies — the “speeding freight train” one — says all those effects may be seen by 2030. That would be just over 11 years from now.
There are many common business practices evident in modern science. As in business, where managers will carelessly hire “expert” consultants for any little matter they deem important, in science are folks who will hire “experts” to justify a predetermined conclusion, and “experts” who will take them up on the offer.
Alex,
I don’t think you understand science or how it works.
I’ve been in the business world for a long time, I know how it goes.
And your answer proves Doug’s point.
And what does having been in business have to do with understanding science?! As someone who had to navigate both those worlds I can assure you that they have very little in common. As Doug said you don’t understand science or how it works!
Whats a big difference between science, and say, faith based businesses.
With science, you’ve got to prove your claims, or else you will be discredited.
You’ve got to publish your methods, and they will be tested before being accepted. The results must be reproducible.
Faith based franchises rely more on coercion (and false advertising?).
Businesses rely on competitive advantage ( and false advertising?).
Politicians rely on false advertising, and false news.
Alex Spicker rely s on false conclusions, it seems.
After the brief surge of interest when David Attenborough spoke out the UK media has given up on climate change concern for the time being except for the occasional technofix feel good stories (and in the Times these will always have a pro-growth/capitalist slant)– I think part of the issue is that very few will read anything else so advertising revenue dries up. One problem with these, whether intended by the authors or not, is they allow the readers to pretend there’s any easy solution that doesn’t really involve any anxiety for, or action by, them; and if that solution isn’t forthcoming then obviously it was someone else’s fault because, according to all the articles, its easy. I have noted, however, that the comments are becoming rather more realistic and the truly moronic deniers have mostly faded away, at least at the Time, BBC and a couple of others I sometimes look at (though at least one seems to have moved over here).
There are those that run away and there are those that fight. This is the only home we have and this Tom Lewis character is telling people to just give up.
Here is a quote from his book Prepare for Impact
“It’s too late to save everybody. But you can save anybody — your family, your community — by understanding the threat and learning the principles of sustainable living, and sanctuary, as explained by a veteran, nationally recognized environmental writer.”
Sounds like a lifeboat type that has now lost hope.
No need for the hopeless and the cowardly to spread their doom and gloom. To what purpose? To assist the destruction?
They know nothing more than what the media spews at them and slant everything to their depressed views.
Fish, let me use by best French in responding to your post: Bullshit!
Trying to save yourself and your loved ones is not giving up. It is understanding the state of the world and using your only option left. The world is already collapsing. Trying to save everybody is an excrcise in futility. Put your energy where it can really do some good. That is “Try to be among the survivors”. And do everything possible to assist your loved ones to be among the survivors also.
Really now? Do you seriously believe you can save all the 7.6 billion people on earth? Or the 9+ billion people at peak population a couple of decades from now. 7.6 billion people are what is destroying the earth. The world is already well into collapse due to massive overpopulation. It is happening so slow that only a few people can really see what is happening. But it is like the frog in the pot about to boil. But the pot is already too hot to survive. But you may be able to jump out of the pot and save your own ass. But you cannot take all humanity with you.
Your level of reading comprehension is limited and distorted. Maybe instead of constantly attacking you could ask questions because you simply don’t comprehend to begin with.
Yes, his original book on the subject of 10 years ago was a lifeboat type.
Since then he appears to have changed and is now telling people to just bend over and kiss their ass goodbye. Meaning there is no hope. Or was that not clear to you? I hope it is now.
No need for the hopeless and the cowardly to spread their doom and gloom. To what purpose? To assist the destruction?
Cowardly? It is too late to save humanity. And anyone who tells you that is definitly not a coward. The cowardly are those who refuse to face the facts.
Okay, he thinks it is too late to save yourself. And for the vast majority of people that is the case. But telling you that is not the act of a coward. Perhaps that will shock some people into action. But perhaps not. Some people will just call him vile names.
But as to the article, cowardly? Well, just tell me where you disagree, except for the last line of course? But the bullet points, which one do you disagree with? I agree with them all. So what possible conclusion could I draw from that?
In November the Trump White House published findings by 13 Federal agencies and hundreds of scientists concluding that climate change is well under way and will cost the economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century. Never mind the millions of deaths, the migrations, the homelessness, the dislocations — we have to put a dollar value on it to pay any attention to it. Asked what he thought of the report, President Trump said “I don’t believe it.”
This is not about protecting one’s self or one’s family or more importantly one’s world. This is about the despicable act of publicly promoting giving up (there is nowhere to run or hide) in the face of an existential crisis. To deplete the resistance against the destruction of nature as we know it is just another way of helping those that are purposely trying to wreck the earth and all those creatures living upon it.
Self is no longer important. We are in the middle of the biggest warzone ever created and have been for a long time. Once a person wakes up to that fact, they can choose to promote the current paradigm or resist and change it.
Anyone who thinks that their family will survive when the ecology has crashed is delusional at best. Whether we can save the life system is unknown, but hiding and cowering in the face of danger has known results.
We are coming to a critical time in the near future where people will really listen. What message do you think should be publicly promoted?
Anyone who thinks that their family will survive when the ecology has crashed is delusional at best.
Then I have some very sad news for you Fish, the ecology, and all the economies of the world are going to crash. We are seven to eight times the long-term carrying capacity of the world. And at seven point five billion people we are well past the short-term carrying capacity of the world. And by short term I mean not much somewhere around one hundred years.
Civilization as we know it is going to crash. End of story.
But there will be survivors. A small percentage of the population for sure, but there will be survivors. Homo sapiens are the most versatile and adaptative animal on earth. There will be survivors.
Not concerned about keeping the current civilization going, it’s the cause. Just need to slow the speed of the climate crash to keep more life of all kinds intact. Humans have no history of surviving ecological crash and are easily killed by humidity and temperature changes. They are Ice Age creatures, end of story.
Fine, you keep those plumes of burning dead residues going and just do as you see fit then KYAG. Others will at least stand against the dystopian system.
For all those doomsters with signs a waving about the end of civilization or the world (yet still deluded about surviving).
For the rest of us, take it as seriously as those signs with THE END OF THE WORLD printed on them or on the internet. The doomsters are a strange lot, extrapolating to the extreme.
GLOBAL EXTINCTION WITHIN 18 – 34 MONTHS
Humanity is facing the final, western corporate capitalist, fossil fuel initiated, catastrophic Arctic methane hydrate destabilization and Permian style methane blowout – firestorm that will culminate in 1 to 8 years (2020 to 2027).
We will all be boiled alive like lobsters in a massively humid atmosphere and converted into stardust.
Recent data from the Arctic confirm an exponential rise in the temperature anomaly of the Arctic stratospheric methane which is now 65 degrees C above the normal, while it was only 20 degrees C above the normal, 6 to 8 years ago.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
See you all in a few million years when life surges again. 🙂
Gone fishing,
Some people think only negative change is possible, you seem to have a more nuanced view, which I mostly agree with.
There is a fairly large middle ground between the end of the world is upon us and the sun will come out tomorrow, something along the lines that the future will be very challenging let’s get to work on making positive changes to make the best of what the future brings and to minimize human impact on the ecological system starting now and as rapidly as is feasible.
Free modern birth control, better education, and equal rights for women would be a good start. Add in rapid transition to non-fossil fuel energy, more sustainable agricultural and fishing practices, and more recycling, conservation, higher energy efficiency, and high quality goods built to last 100 years rather than 100 days and we are least part of the way to a better future (the list is woefully incomplete).
Capitalism goes, or homo sapiens go.
That would be a start, but it is so far from most peoples reality, that it is not even thinkable.
Yes, I try to run the middle of the road unless there is dramatic evidence otherwise. Global society does need to take things very seriously and up the efforts fast in order to prevent or at least inhibit food chain collapse, which is in progress currently.
Dennis,
For the record: The sun coming up tomorrow and the end of the world as we know it, being upon us, are not necessarily mutually exclusive occurrences…
I’m pretty sure the sun came up right on schedule the day after the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs hit the earth! 😉
And I’m sure it will shine just as brightly on the remnants and ruins of our current industrial civilization, long after we are all gone, if we don’t get our collective acts together like real soon!
And people can say what they want about China, but I think that their leadership at least understands that fossil fuels are a dead end.
Cheers!
Hightrekker,
Perhaps we have a different understanding of capitalism. Are you thinking in Marxist terms? A viable society based on Marxist principles has never been very successful, generally political freedom has suffered and the economies have been very inefficient.
Note that I am not suggesting things should not change, but the form of that “better society” is not very clear.
It seems to me that a gradual transformation of capitalism from the form in more enlightened European nations to one where equal rights for women are enshrined, free healthcare is provided for all (including modern birth control), better education for all including required ecological education (say at current 1st year University level) for all students by the end of primary school (or secondary school at minimum). Included in such a social structure would be regulations to minimize externalities and maximize public goods (using cost benefit analysis and standard microeconomic principles), but at the same time government regulations should be minimized where there is no clear benefit (or costs relative to benefits are too high).
This is because a properly regulated free market allocation of scarce resources tends to lead to optimal allocation where output is maximized with minimum inputs. In other words it is the most efficient system.
A world where most nations transition to such a system is likely to see total fertility ratio fall and population will fall as is currently the case in Japan.
As World population peaks in 2070 and then begins to decline over the ensuing 100 to 200 years, many more nations will be faced with the problems Japan is currently experiencing with an aging population and low birth rates.
It would be a good problem for the World to have, but will be a challenge. Certainly it will help reduce environmental destruction as human population shrinks to 500 million to 1 billion.
Fred,
“The sun will come out tomorrow, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar there’ll be sun…”
Song from movie Annie…
intended to reflect a positive outlook.
Yes the sun will continue to be 93 miles from Earth, hopefully there will be someone capable of recording the sunrise.
I would prefer we take action to increase the likelihood that there will be more than a few million humans to witness the event in say 2525.
… brace for Impact. When I was around aviation we called it ‘turtle and wait for the pain’.
Island boy
In order for the worst predictions of global warming to be prevented every country needs to reduce burning of oil, coal, gas and wood.
The isolated bits of good news you focus on are very heart warming but they don’t do much to reassure people who look at data with cool logic.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/saudi-outlook-remains-uncertain-after-softbank-pulls-out
When a country as rich as Saudi Arabia fails to curtail it’s consumption of oil and gas the battle is lost.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-16/why-saudi-arabia-isn-t-meeting-its-ambitious-solar-energy-targets
IN 2012 Saudi Arabia announced vast solar and nuclear power ideas. These ideas have so far come to practically nothing.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/saudi-arabia/oil-consumption
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/saudi-arabia/natural-gas-consumption
Global natural gas consumption hits record highs as does oil consumption.
https://bioenergyinternational.com/markets-finance/global-gas-production-and-consumption-continues-to-increase-iea-report
Your posts highlight what can be done. Unfortunately what can be done is done very seldom.
“In order for the worst predictions of global warming to be prevented every country needs to reduce burning of oil, coal, gas and wood.”
What are the implications of that for the various industries involved in the exploitation of those resources? When James Hansen testified before a US congressional hearing on the 23rd of June 1988, initial reactions were somewhat different from what they are now. History tells us that there were actually members of the US republican party that did not doubt the science and supported action on global warming. The article below outlines some of the history quite well:
30 years ago global warming became front-page news – and both Republicans and Democrats took it seriously
Hansen’s testimony made clear the threats posed by climate change and attributed the phenomenon to human exploitation of carbon energy sources. Its impact was dramatic, capturing headlines in The New York Times and other major newspapers. As politicians, corporations and environmental organizations acknowledged and began to address this issue, climate change entered into the political arena in a largely nonpartisan fashion.
Yet despite decades of public education on climate change and international negotiations to address it, progress continues to stall. Why?
One reason for the political inaction is the gaping divide in public opinion that resulted from a deliberate – and still controversial – misinformation campaign to redirect the public discussion on climate change in the years following Hansen’s testimony……[snip]
Polarizing public opinion
The current political stalemate is no accident. Rather, it is the result of a well-financed and sustained campaign by vested interests to develop and promulgate misinformation about climate science.
My scholarship documents the coordinated efforts of conservative foundations and fossil fuel corporations to promote uncertainty about the existence and causes of climate change and thus reduce public concern over the issue. Amplified by conservative media, this campaign has significantly altered the nature of the public debate.
These findings are supported by recent investigative news reports showing that since the 1970s, top executives in the fossil fuel industry have been well aware of the evidence that their products amplify climate warming emissions. Indeed, industry scientists had conducted their own extensive research on the topic and participated in contemporaneous scientific discussions.
So, the ownership and management of the fossil fuel industries realized the implications of anthropogenic global warming even before Hansen’s high profile testimony but, once it appeared support for action at the political level was gaining ground they just used PR to stymie any action and we end up where we are.
The first wave of the EV movement was in the 90s with the GM EV 1 (EV one) and several others including the Toyota RAV4 EV, a result of California’s Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandates. The FF coalition in concert with the motor car manufacturers successfully killed that program setting the EV revolution back at least a decade. Even in Germany, the poster child of renewable energy, the transition has not been without opposition as FF interests and the owners of electric utilities (large central electricity generating plants) have done everything they can to sow things down. I am forming the opinion that for this issue to be dealt with, the oxygen (money) supply to the incumbent energy system has to be cut off.
When posting information, I aim to show how this can be/is being done. As you rightly point out, we are a far way from cutting our dependence on FF but, not as far as we were when I first became aware of Peak Oil circa 2007 (by way of seeing the term more than once on the web site autobloggreen.com). On a personal level the screenshot below shows an overview of the PV system I have installed on the roof of my apartment (from the inverter manufacturers on-line portal). Some bad investment decisions, in response to fears of Peak Oil are part of the reason I have not yet bought my own EV but, I need to liquidate some assets in order to do that. I am not really concerned about the economics of the EV, despite the fact that it should cut my fueling expenses by at least 60%, even more if charging while the PV system is producing and even more if I increase the system size to 5 kW (using modules I already have). My aim is to raise awareness of the existence of alternatives to oil fueled transport in my neck of the woods and hopefully influence more of my fellow citizens to make the transition.
Without hope for something better, what is the point of being alive?
The current political stalemate is no accident. Rather, it is the result of a well-financed and sustained campaign by vested interests to develop and promulgate misinformation about climate science.
Which is why it is past time to make them pay through the nose! We all need to join class action lawsuits against these people! And if it were up to me personally, I’d like to see a few of them tried for crimes against humanity!
Without hope for something better, what is the point of being alive?
There is no point. When you look at life objectively, it’s just a game of mutation + natural selection, been going on for 550 million years (for complex life). Species come and go. Extinction is the rule, survival the exception.
We ain’t any different.
Just my worthless opinion.
Islandboy
The problem is, we respond to the present and immediate future. Enjoying that expensive cigar now with no concern of cancer in 40 years time. Holidays and meals out instead of saving into a pension for when you are 80.
Most people will not sacrifice the present to protect 40 years time.
Hugo,
Some people seem to save for retirement, maybe not enough, but many do. They also save for their children’s education in some places (US where government assistance is minimal). Now that the dangers of cigarette smoking are well known there are far fewer smokers.
Many people plan for the future, not all, but many.
Many people plan for the future, not all, but many
Well, a lot more of them had better start planning a lot more seriously! This post is a copied and pasted comment from realclimate.org containing links to Selected talks from the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Club of Rome (October 2018)
49
Chris says:
7 Jan 2019 at 2:00 PM
Selected talks from the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Club of Rome (October 2018).
Robert Constanza, Wellbeing Economy needs to be Primary Goal http://climatestate.com/2019/01/07/robert-constanza-wellbeing-economy-needs-to-be-primary-goal/
Johan Rockström: Potential irreversible Planet thresholds for a disastrous Future http://climatestate.com/2019/01/07/johan-rockstrom-potential-irreversible-planet-thresholds-for-a-disastrous-future/
Actual Expert tells audience, We won’t have an Ice Age again! http://climatestate.com/2019/01/07/actual-expert-tells-audience-we-wont-have-an-ice-age-again/
Ugo Bardi: Societal Collapse, the Seneca Effect http://climatestate.com/2019/01/06/ugo-bardi-societal-collapse-the-seneca-effect/
Your posts highlight what can be done. Unfortunately what can be done is done very seldom.
Sometimes what appears to be impossible just happens anyway!
https://medium.com/newco/this-is-how-big-oil-will-die-38b843bd4fe0
Sayonara, Big Oil! Adios Muchachos, ICE cars! So on and so forth!
Leveraged to the hilt: The world has a $264 trillion problem
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/leveraged-to-the-hilt-the-world-has-a-264-trillion-problem-20181231-p50oyw.html
I can’t see how that leverage issue is not going to hurt some people, OK a lot of people, extremely hard.
Yes definitely, especially those in debt. But in Australia and New Zealand, the governments have passed bail-in laws, were in times of financial crises, the banks can use depositors money to avoid bankruptcy.
In the U.S there is the Glass-Steagall Act to prevent depositors money getting touched. Hence they had to bail-out institutions in 2008, rather than bail-in.
The glass-steagal act, enacted after the great depression, was repealed by the republican congress in 1999.
This paved the way for the financial crises of 2008, by reauthorizing massive gambling and leverage in the financial system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_repeal_of_the_Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act
Wow didn’t know it was repealed!
Did the GFC 2008 affect bank depositors in the U.S ?
Iron Mike,
Try
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007–2008
Basically most depositors were not affected, the deposits are insured up to $250,000 per depositor, those banks that closed due to a bank run would have been covered by FDIC, so an inconvenience for those affected, but the problem was not widespread.
See
https://www.bis.org/statistics/totcredit.htm
From BIS, the bankers bank.
Global non-financial debt all sectors at market value to GDP ratio from 2002 to 2018,
In 2002 the annual average was 203%, in the most recent 4 quarters it was 241%, some of this is simply increased government debt (went from 60% to 80% over the same period) and some is more borrowing due to low interest rates.
In any case as long as interest rates rise slowly it should lead to more efficient allocation of capital, which is a good thing.
Dennis- why “non-financial” debt only. Why exclude that sector from consideration?
This is the measure used by the Bank for International Settlement.
I believe the financial industry as a whole is thought of as one of the lenders and they are measuring all of the money borrowed.
OK, but didn’t ‘financial sector ‘ debt have a big role in the 2008 crisis.
Isn’t it part of overall risk that should be considered to the stability of the system?
Hickory,
Reserve ratios were too low and bad bets were made with derivatives. The problem has been addressed in the OECD for the banking system, for the so-called shadow banking system (hedge funds, insurance companies and other non-bank financial entities) probably less so.
Poor regulation of banking industry (especially mortgage lenders) and large Federal agencies like FreddieMac being asleep at the wheel eventually lead to a housing market crash and many “low probability events” caused a domino effect in derivatives markets which led to banks being unwilling to lend to each other and financial markets ceased functioning properly.
This is why people should be skeptical of claims that there is “too much government regulation”. It was the removal of many government regulations in the financial industry from 1981 to 2000 regulations put in place in response to the problems experienced from 1929 to 1933 and which kept financial markets relatively stable for 67 years, that caused the problem.
Now many financial industry lobbyists are trying to roll back Dodd/Frank, with support from the clown in chief.
Agree.
I am not at all confident that the global financial sector has been significantly de-risked.
And that the debt this sector is allowed to play with (and its subsequent risk) can be sequestered from the rest of us.
On a related topic, any idea how much debt the world has to take on to fund replacement of coal electricity, and escalate electrical supply to electrify transport, over the next 10-20 yrs?
Its a lot of debt, no?
Hickory,
The capital that would have been used for oil, natural gas, and coal (and the entire infrastructure supporting those industries will) be shifted to the wind, solar, and EV industries.
There is a lot of capital continually spent in the fossil fuel industry (mostly fueled by debt) so debt just shifts from one industry to another.
At about 1.2 billion vehicles in World and assuming 10,000 miles driven per year on average and 250 Wh/mi average efficiency we would need 3000 TWh of electricity production per year to power all vehicles (not including big trucks 18 wheelers etc), currently trucks use about half the fuel in the US for road transport, so perhaps 6000 TWh for all road vehicles.
In 2017 electricity output was about 25,500 TWh, so about a 23% increase in electricity output would be needed. Most of this charging would occur at night when there is excess capacity in the current system, though as Solar Power takes off much of it would occur during the day.
Debt is not the boogie man that many think.
As long as money is borrowed by those with a high likelihood of being able to service the debt (as was typically the case until financial markets were heavily deregulated after 1981), then debt is not a problem.
Generally before about 1990 the concern was too much public debt crowding out private debt, this can still be a problem and is a choice nations must make. If they want lower public debt they need to either collect more taxes or reduce public spending, it really is something an average 10 year old could understand.
I don’t follow the derivatives markets and so forth, hopefully BIS and central bankers follow this stuff carefully.
currently trucks use about half the fuel in the US for road transport
I think that number is about 30%. About 70% of US fuel consumption is for road transport: 50% for light vehicles, and about 20% for trucks, so 20% divided by 70% = 30% of road transport.
I think your overall estimate of an increase in power of 23% for EVs is about right.
Thanks Nick,
I was going by memory and also estimating for the World. For other nations a higher percentage of road transport fuel might be from trucks than in the US. The data is hard to find at the World level.
I found this
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/july/iea-study-unveils-key-role-for-trucks-in-global-oil-demand-growth.html
which says in 2017 trucks account for 17 Mb/d of World oil demand (I assume this means heavy trucks.)
I also found
https://www.statista.com/statistics/307198/forecast-of-oil-consumption-in-road-transportation/
Which suggests total road transport demand will be about 38 Mb/d in 2017 (using linear interpolation). That implies 17 for trucks and 21 Mb/d for light duty vehicles (LDV). So a little less than I estimated about 2430 TWh for heavy trucks (assuming there is an energy equivalence, the diesel used in most trucks has more energy per barrel than gasoline used in most LDVs, so maybe 5430 TWh, but probably a bit more to account for the diesel, probably about 5750 TWh for road transport in 2017 and this might grow as less developed nations increase their vehicle fleets..
Well, you can’t assume the status quo for trucking fuel consumption.
First, rail is at least 3x as efficient as trucking, and easier to electrify. So, if we were to levy an adequate carbon tax much of trucking would move to rail. Other much more efficient modalities would also benefit from “energy arbitrage”: water (including by sea, by river, by canals (especially in Europe), etc), e-bikes, electric drones, etc.
2nd, you’ll notice that your first article is all about increasing trucking efficiency: they argue that trucking fuel consumption can be cut by 50%. Just as hybrids and passenger EVs are much more efficient than ICEs, so electric trucks will be much more aerodynamic, and use PV and regenerative braking, etc., etc. Finally, there are other kinds of efficiency: better routing, platooning, signal improvement, etc.
So, if 40% of trucking fuel consumption is eliminated by rail & other modes, and half of the remaining is eliminated by higher efficiency, we only have 30% of the energy consumption left.
“So, if we were to levy an adequate carbon tax much of trucking would move to rail.”
People do not realize how much freight is moved by air. Every passenger liner carries freight also and there are also specific freight aircraft. A carbon tax would raise the cost of air freight.
Not necessarily a bad thing, push them to higher efficiency sooner.
I agree.
Now, it wouldn’t raise the overall cost of air freight much: Fedex’s fuel costs are only about 5% of their overall cost structure. But, companies like Fedex are acutely sensitive to any kind of rising cost: they hate the idea of losing competitiveness. So, they would respond to this incentive.
Fedex, UPS and the rest have been experimenting extensively with CNG, fuel cells, hybrids, EVs, air compression, route improvements (e.g. never turning left if it can be at all avoided) and so on and on. They apply the same philosophy to their aviation operations.
A stiff carbon tax would accelerate these things sharply.
Hi Nick,
I agree with those assessments.
You forget that the electrified rail will use electricity, also autonomous EV trucks might be just as cheap as rail (not as energy efficient, but lower economic cost).
Note that we are talking total energy used, which may become more efficient, but potentially total energy used will increase as people become wealthier and population grows.
The combination may make my original estimate about right. Hard to know as it depends on future developments which are unknown
Yep, good thoughts. A few more:
Water transportation is 10x as efficient as trucking, and it would also be a strong alternative for a lot of shipping.
It’s true that autonomy can sharply reduce trucking costs.
On the other hand, electrification and automation take time – it’s much faster to change modes, like moving one’s freight from trucks to rail. And, rail is much easier to electrify than trucking. I think that rail has a lot of potential here.
Finally, reductions in energy consumption are a social choice: we can choose to incentivize it as much as necessary in order to get the reductions that are needed from the point of view of overall system cost. Those incentives can include public relations and customer demand for “clean” companies.
If rail is 3x as efficient, and trucking becomes 2x as efficient; and 40% of trucking moves to rail and 10% moves to water, then you’d be left with:
40% / 3 = 13% +
50% / 2 = 25% +
10%/10 = 1%
13% + 25% + 1% = 39%.
Now, rail can also become much more efficient. At the moment, fuel is almost rounding error for overall rail costs, but if rail companies were incentivized to care about this issue they could become much more aerodynamic, add PV to roofs, etc. They could probably reduce energy consumption by another 50%.
Similarly, if trucking goes to autonomous driving (which seems awfully likely, more so than passenger vehicles) then fuel costs would become a much larger percentage of operating costs. And autonomy would enable new fuel savings: trucks could platoon much more easily, and they could drive much more slowly but go through the night and not take any lunch or rest breaks.
There is enormous potential for efficiency in both areas: if those were captured, we’d get:
40% / 6 = 7% +
50% / 4 = 13% +
10%/10 = 1%
7% + 13% + 1% = 21%
Nick G,
Lots of potential for efficiency, not sure government should be picking winners and losers. Just tax carbon aggressively, tax pollution in general using standard microeconomic principles and cost benefit analysis, and support public goods, again using standard microeconomic principles
Then let the free market work in an appropriately regulated (as described above) capitalist framework. This is likely to lead to the most efficient allocation of scarce resources to meet human needs.
tax carbon aggressively, tax pollution in general using standard microeconomic principles and cost benefit analysis, and support public good
Absolutely. That’s what I had in mind.
A small quibble: sometimes regulation is a good idea, especially with individual consumers. When a corporation is developing fleet specifications, they can dedicate a fleet manager to optimizing things like fuel economy. But…when an individual is buying a vehicle (or an air conditioner, or a refrigerator, etc., etc.) they have a huge number of needs that have to be met, and they generally can’t make efficiency their number one priority.
On the other hand, efficiency for homes, vehicles, appliances, lighting etc., generally has a very, very high ROI. IOW, it can be done very cheaply if it’s done at the design stage.
Here’s one small example: the efficiency of the AC to DC “wall warts” we use to charge small devices. Each individual device doesn’t use that much power, but they really add up. It’s very cheap to make them efficient, but historically manufacturers haven’t cared because it was invisible to consumers. That’s a place where efficiency regulation is essential.
So…efficiency regulations are very, very useful and “efficient”. Proper pricing is very likely the most important thing – many efficiency regulations are mostly needed because of the lack of proper pricing of external costs. But…regulation still has it’s place, especially for consumer goods.
And, efficiency regulations don’t have to pick winners and losers. A couple of examples: CAFE regulations don’t specify ICE vs hybrids vs EVs; and lighting efficiency regs don’t choose between incandescent, halogen, CFL and LED. In both cases, you just have to reduce the energy used per unit of output: miles, or lumens, as the case may be.
NickG,
I agree, but a cost benefit analysis should still be done to see what makes sense.
I agree things like green labeling make sense.
Nobody forces companies to make more efficient appliances, but the energy star program highlights this for customers and they generally (or at least I) choose the more efficient models.
In that case the government is not picking winners, it is simply informing consumers.
Something similar could be done with homes where all homes would be rated on the LEED scale. Then builders who build an energy efficient home would be rewarded with the best LEED rating.
I am in favor of such programs, generally people will be willing to pay for a more energy efficient home and government information could make clear what the potential economic benefits would be.
Simply a matter of informing people of what is possible and then people choose.
Sometimes government regulation can be overdone. Note that an aggressive carbon tax might make CAFE unnecessary.
On lights, most people realize the savings of CFLs and now LEDs, incandescent light bulbs could still be sold for those that want to heat their homes with light bulbs. 🙂
Most people are smarter than that and as fewer and fewer people buy incandescent bulbs they become very expensive, like buggy whips. 🙂
I agree that green labeling is a very good idea.
But…CAFE regs have indeed been mandatory. Air conditioner efficiency regulations have also been mandatory in the US, though weakened by Republican presidents. Lighting efficiency regs have also been mandatory.
All of these programs and more have been enormous but quiet successes. Without the US CAFE program the world would have consumed 10M bopd more than it did, and hit PO (or PO-lite) much, much earlier. AC has gotten much cheaper. Lighting has gotten much more efficient.
And…none of these successes would have happened with voluntary programs based on informing consumers. Consumers simply have too much on their plate (including financial anxiety and lack of financial savvy which makes them shortsighted about efficiency ROI), and they can’t enforce this stuff. It has to happen at the governmental level.
I also agree that cost benefit analyses are absolutely essential. But…that’s a bit of red herring, as the consumer advocates, environmentalists and government staff that have developed these programs aren’t irresponsible or anti-business – they knew that these regs were a good idea for everyone, based on good data. People who call for cost benefit analyses are mostly just trying to gum up the process and throw mud at the good people toiling away at development, administration and enforcement of these programs.
Germany’s failed climate goals
If Germany can’t succeed after all its efforts, it would be a signal the world must adopt more costly strategies to rein in emissions—like capturing carbon pollution directly from the smokestacks of factories and utilities.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-germany-emissions/
like capturing carbon pollution directly from the smokestacks of factories and utilities.
Sure! Though it might make even more sense to double down on their current implementation of renewables, further their reduction of coal use and perhaps start shuttering of some of those factories, industries and utilities.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-climate-targets
The German government has been well aware of the “climate gap”. In June 2018, it conceded that the country is on course to widely miss its 2020 target. The economic boom, the pressure of immigration, and high emissions in transport mean that the energy transition pioneer is headed for a greenhouse gas emission cut of only 32 percent compared to 1990, according to the government’s Climate Protection Report.
Given that their stated goal was a 40% reduction in emissions compared to 1990 levels, they have indeed missed those goals. However to be fair, it must be kept in mind that they are still well ahead of other European economies that pledged to hit targets of only 20% reductions which none of them have met either.
So whatever the critics and naysayers have to say, the truth is Germany has been doing a lot of things right! They just need to do a lot more as does every other country in the world! The Germans set the bar for themselves, my guess is, that they will now raise that bar even higher!
I personally don’t believe fifty million bucks spent on CCS, unless the CO2 is used as an industrial feed stock of some sort, will ever be worth as much as ten million bucks spent on energy efficiency, conservation, and or renewable generation capacity.
I don’t believe there is any real evidence to the contrary, although I am not well enough versed in engineering and statistics,etc, to prove my case.
Actually, it’s not hard to prove that you’re right. The costs and efficiencies of the various approaches are readily available, and the calculations are reasonably straightforward.
Carbon capture is silly, until carbon emissions are essentially eliminated. Then, and only then, would carbon capture begin to be the cheapest solution. And, it’s not going to be industrial carbon capture – it will be things like planting trees*, capturing carbon in soil, and inducing carbon reactions in mineral tailings and natural rocks.
Industrial carbon capture is a desperate and futile attempt by FF industries to maintain their BAU.
*One small example: A tree can sequester 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year and will have removed about one ton of carbon dioxide in it’s first 40 years.
“An approximate value for a 50-year-old oak forest would be 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide sequestered per acre,” said Timothy J. Fahey, professor of ecology in the department of natural resources at Cornell University. “The forest would be emitting about 22,000 pounds of oxygen.”
I am on record as saying that I think China will be ground zero for EV adoption. It’s certainly beginning to look that way, based on the article below:
New Study Shows Which Countries Lead & Trail In Electric Car Adoption
Island
China sold 20 million vehicles in 9 months
https://uk.reuters.com/article/china-autos-sales/china-vehicle-sales-fall-for-third-straight-month-as-slowdown-bites-idUKL4N1WS24G
In a post in response to one of your comments over at the petroleum thread parallel to this one, I posted the following:
China Electric Vehicle Sales More Than Double in First Half of 2018
EV-volumes expects NEV sales to reach 1.1 million units in China this year. Of that total, 74% are forecast to be battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) like the Tesla Model S or the Nissan Leaf and the rest are expected to be plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) like the Chevy Volt. The total 2018 market for new cars in China is forecast at 26.3 million units.
Since June of 2017, the total number of plug-in models available in China has risen from 56 to 101. Of those, 70 are BEVs and 31 are PHEVs, and all are manufactured by 39 automakers. EV-volumes reported that 11 new carmakers joined the NEV fray over the past 12 months and that a shakeout is likely.
The Chinese government’s stated goal is to have 5 million NEVs on the country’s roads by the end of 2020. EV-volumes expects the number to reach about 2.35 million by the end of this year. At current growth rates, 5 million seems like a slam dunk.
So, while car sales are declining, EV sales are growing gangbusters! Growth rates matter in addition to absolute numbers.
Ok, let’s compare China with the Nederlands.
Number of electric cars in China 10 times that of Holland. Population almost 100 times higher.
Number of charging points in China seven times higher.
For ‘EV adoption’ better to compare percentages. If in Holland the number of total cars is 10% of that in China, both countries are doing about a comparable good job regarding EV sales.
For ‘reducing oil use’ absolute numbers count.
See my response to Hugo above.
China crude oil imports up 15.7% year on year.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Dangers-Of-Chinas-Growing-Oil-Demand.html
In the next 3 years China will add as many ICE vehicles to it’s roads as are in the United Kingdom. I am not sure how you can view China is a good light in any aspect. They consume a third of the worlds seafood.
https://thefishsite.com/articles/chinese-seafood-production-and-consumption-predictions-released
They burn half the world coal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/26/satellite-images-show-runaway-expansion-of-coal-power-in-china
China is the cause of the killing of Rhinos and tigers for the Chinese medical “cures”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/experts-fear-impact-of-china-lifting-trade-ban-on-tiger-and-rhino-parts
China is buying up mines all over the world
http://www.mining.com/web/china-locking-critical-resources-uss-backyard/
China is buying up farm land all over the world.
https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/27910-china-started-to-buy-aggressively-agriculture-land-abroad
They are stealing countries ability to feed their own people.
Anyone who is critical of the brutal Chinese government is ruthlessly dealt with.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/china-and-tibet
Anyone who sings China’s praises is short a sandwich.
Couldn’t agree with you more Hugo.
One of the least transparent, big brother government regimes.
Hi Iron Mike and Hugo,
Could you guys find me the perfect nation that cannot be criticized for any reason?
The subject was cars as far as I could tell, Hugo’s response was a gish gallop. Certainly not on topic, except the oil comments.
To those, I would respond that China’s per capita oil consumption is far below (about one fourth) the average level of OECD nations. They are making rapid progress on ramping up EV usage.
In the EU the new vehicle share of plug in vehicles is about 2%, in China it is about 6%.
Couldn’t find total fleet data.
Yes Greenland. Other than their ice melting. Which is not their fault lol
Iron Mike,
I’ve heard the weather is nice there. 🙂
Could you guys find me the perfect nation that cannot be criticized for any reason?
Might not be perfect but it is a start!
https://goodcountry.org/
Watch the movie
https://youtu.be/yetKwc-zfyw
I guess I should just ignore any statistics out of China that show growth in renewable energy capacity or EV production/sales since, that could be construed as singing China’s praises?
The US consumes more than a fifth of the worldwide oil supply despite having less than one twentieth of the world’s population. Why not focus on that?
Why would the Chinese be less entitled to “stuff” if they are willing to work for it? Are they lesser human beings?
While the carbon emissions problem is being exacerbated by China, it was not started by them. The western world established their industrial societies largely through the use of coal.
The UK once claimed ownership of Australia, Canada, India, parts of Africa and parts of the Caribbean, just short of a quarter of the world’s land area and a quarter of the population, despite the fact there were people living in Australia, Canada and the Caribbean when they were “discovered”. To this day public land in Jamaica is sometimes referred to as “Crown Lands” (owned by the British monarch). At least the Chinese are buying land as opposed to claiming it.
Several Western governments once actively supported slavery, primarily of Africans. Repression of protests against slavery was brutal. I believe that the end of slavery was not through any enlightenment in western societies driven by protests from anti slavery quarters or the slaves themselves. Mechanisation, enabled by fossil fuels meant the manual labour input of slaves was no longer important for the slave owners, so slavery could be abolished without any adverse effects on production.
In 1948 apartheid was introduced in South Africa and it took the almost 40 years for the US. the EU and Japan, to impose economic sanctions on the racist regime in 1986.
Singapore ain’t exactly a bastion of free expression and human rights but, since Singapore is no longer counted as a developing nation, you don’t hear much about Singapore.
I see lots of double standards when it comes to some western opinions on China!
“Singapore ain’t exactly a bastion of free expression and human rights but, since Singapore is no longer counted as a developing nation, you don’t hear much about Singapore.”
Denmark and Singapore are about the same size.
Denmark has 13 Nobel laureates.
Singapore ? none
It is not that surprising, if you know the country—
(Berkeley has a special parking lot for theirs)
Damn! Even lil’ ol’ Jamaica has a Nobe laureate. An atmospheric physicist, no less, who as a member of a IPCC panel shared the prize with A Gore in 2007, for his work on climate change research!
Islandboy
You are not expected to ignore facts and data but the way you cherry pick what you want to see and hear is disturbing.
China’s coal consumption is horrendous and the comparative small amounts of wind and solar in that country needs to be put into perspective.
China consumes 2.7 Tonnes of coal per person, in comparison to UK which consumes 0.3 tonnes per person.
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2018-full-report.pdf
It has 20 times the population of the United Kingdom but burns 210 times as much coal. If it cut it’s consumption by half it would still be burning 3 times as much coal as all of Europe.
And if you needed any more bad news consumption increased in 2017 and 2018.
When looking at energy consumption by source it is necessary to take in the whole picture.
When it comes to environmental standards China is Victorian.
https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Asia/Are-Chinas-Ambitions-To-Combat-Pollution-Hurting-Its-Economy.html
There are good examples
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/oslo-takes-bold-steps-reduce-air-pollution-improve-livability
Game set match lol
Not so fast Iron Mike,
Hugo accuses Islandboy of cherry picking and then what does he do?
He cherry picks.
Check BP Statistical review.
What is important is CO2 emissions.
China has slightly higher CO2 emissions than UK at 6.69 tonnes per person vs 6.03 in the UK in 2017 using BP data.
Part of the reason for this difference is that UK imports a lot of goods while China exports a lot of goods. The energy is used to produce the goods that the UK and other nations like the US and other European nations consume.
Let’s consider Germany (another nation that exports a fair amount of goods), they emit 9.23 tonnes of fossil fuel per person, far more than China. For the US it is 15.62 tonnes of CO2 per person. For the EU CO2 emissions are 8.7 tonnes per person. China got a late start on renewables so is behind many European nations, but from 2006 to 2016 Chinese renewable power grew at 42% per year vs 19%/year for the UK, so although the current share of primary energy provided by renewable energy in China is only 11.7% vs 11.7% in the UK and 15% in Europe, European renewable energy growth was only 13.8% from 2006 to 2016, so if the recent trends continue China will catch up to Europe by 2018 or 2019 at the latest as far as primary energy provided by renewables.
Dennis,
I think the point Hugo was making is that it is easy to cherry pick what you want to see. And you can link anything you want whether “positive” or “negative”.
Overall as you notice, i am on the grim side of things. Or in other words i am a negative nancy lol.
I understand were islandboy is coming from. But Hugos opinions and realism make more sense to me.
“Better by far to embrace the hard truth, than a reassuring fable.” – Carl Sagan
Dennis, do you really think a heavily economically skewed population like China is directly comparable to a developed nation such as the UK or US? Probably would be better to partition the population to the developed areas of China as a comparison. Otherwise the comparison is heavily skewed.
BTW, the US export and Chinese export values are similar, being the two largest manufacturers in the world.
Iron Mike,
There is plenty to be negative about, I guess I am a glass half full kind of guy. Those who see things from the glass almost empty perspective, will always claim that it cannot be done. After all it is clear that man cannot fly, that hand held computers and wireless “communicators” are the stuff of science fiction.
“Always with you it cannot be done… Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
I am of the opinion that we should do what we can to move to a more sustainable World, focusing on what has not been done accomplishes little. You are in good company here with the old men who mostly share your pessimism.
That attitude is not one that tend to lead to positive change, if one believes they are defeated, the battle has been lost.
Gone fishing,
Lots of nations have an unequal distribution of income, if that’s what you are referring to.
The comparison was meant to be simple rather than a dissertation.
I was simply taking Hugo’s formula and showing that if one is concerned with carbon emissions per capita rather than coal consumption per capita, China as a nation state does better than the EU and Germany.
I don’t know enough about China to be able to divide it up in to wealthy and poor areas and determine emissions from each area, don’t know where to find such data.
Generally the data is only easily available at the nation state level.
You are correct though, but I have no idea how to quantify it.
I was referring to a very unequal distribution of energy use per capita. China is both producing more per energy unit and rapidly growing in energy use per capita. Efficiency and rising technology on one hand versus growing wealth on the other, most likely.
Here are some Chinese energy stats.
https://china.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/misc/ced-9-2017-final.pdf
A population can have low carbon emissions per capita because it is poor and/or agriculture based or it can have low carbon emissions because it uses a lot of hydro power like Norway. Of course Norway sells it’s carbon to others so others get the accounting. There is very little correlation between country population and emissions. It is more of a measure of industrial activity and transport.
Not to be argumentative but as far as global warming goes, the number of people has little effect and is generally not a variable. The total carbon plume, in it’s various forms, is a key variable and one we might have control over. So to say that China has lower emissions per persons is not meaningful to the physical reality. It is the total carbon output that changes the atmosphere and the oceans. Much of that carbon is produced by machines not humans. The carbon source nations are not accounted for the carbon they produce.
Total global CO2 emission per person is 5 ton per person per year.
However that does not take into account the 3 Gt breathed out by humans each year. 🙂
So the objective is to lower that number to say 0.5 ton per person per year or more accurately a global total of about 3 Gt per year or less.
It is the global figure that counts, the only one to which the earth system reacts.
Since we now have the technology to eliminate most industrial and transport emissions that part of the problem is most easily solved.
Gone fishing,
I agree, it is the global total that matters.
When people complain that China is emitting so much CO2, I would counter that there are a lot of people in China and from an equity perspective they should have just as much right to pollute as someone from Australia or the US.
It would be best if their was no carbon pollution or if it were minimized to a level that the biosphere could sequester without destroying the ecological balance of the Ocean.
Note Australian per capita CO2 emissions in 2017 were even worse than the US at 16.8 tonnes of CO2/person. World average is 4.54 tonnes per person based on BP data which includes only fossil fuel CO2 emissions.
I also prefer to simply consider World carbon or CO2 emissions.
“I would counter that there are a lot of people in China and from an equity perspective they should have just as much right to pollute as someone from Australia or the US.”
There is no right to pollute, just the ability to pollute. Just as there is no right to wage war and kill millions of people or billions of animals, just the ability to do so.
Pollution has no moral or ethical property. It is a decision that ecological destruction and good health is less important than heating up one’s coffee, driving to work, playing a video game, watching TV, spraying fields with toxins or building a spaceship.
So in a way you are right, they have equal rights to do that, since zero = zero. In fact since pollution produces great harm, they lose their other rights and become jailed.
If I were to kill someone, burn down their house, or poison a water supply I would be jailed or killed. Yet producing and burning fossil fuels does all that on a mass scale and more with no one being jailed or even fined. Much like war, it is allowed, but unlike war we are not allowed to fight back.
Go figure.
People agree that pollution and mass harm is good on a daily basis. Governments give exceptions to heavy polluters.
Strange and insane behavior.
Gonefishing,
Generally speaking humans pollute, for a moment imagine that humans determined that x tonnes of a pollutant and be released into the environment and not cause undue harm, as you pointed out earlier humans have been burning stuff for as long as we have been “human”.
So you have 7 billion people on the planet and each should have a right to release x/7 billion tonnes of pollutant into the environment should they choose to do so, or that seems like one possible equitable arrangement. Each person could choose to hoard their share so as to protect the environment, others might choose to use their share and offer to buy the shares of others to pollute. One possible solution and over time the level of x might be reduced as technology improves or pollution is deemed worse than before.
As neither of us rules the World, any policy we deem reasonable is unlikely to be put into effect.
Zero pollution sounds like a nice goal, in practice it will be difficult to achieve.
Certainly we should reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible and I suppose one could say the hell with equity, but for some it is a consideration to get everyone to cooperate.
Probably better to just do it, it can be sold as an economic advantage, those who do not lead will be left behind. I think that is probably how the Chinese see it and maybe the Europeans as well. In the US, I just don’t know. I guess I am hanging out with the wrong crowd, I just don’t understand how anyone could think climate change is not a problem, but we have a denier in the White House.
Dennis,
We have the capability of not only going to zero pollution but of actually removing much of the pollution and healing much of the damage.
But the will and the courage seems lacking.
Gone fishing,
I agree. In the mean time we need to find some path that people can agree on. Humans will make arguments such as your nation has already emitted x tonnes of CO2 and our nation has emitted y<x so we should be able to emit more than you and our nation emits 7 tonnes of CO2 per capita and your nation emits 16 tonnes of CO2 per person. Than the other nation will claim that CO2 per unit of GDP is the important measure (because they have higher GDP per capita). It seems the response to this would be if you are so rich, then you can afford to tackle the problem with your great efficiency and wealth, which seems a fair argument.
Some compromise position is needed so everyone works together.
Technically the problem is solvable, socially we seem to have too many with their heads in the sand.
We have the capability of not only going to zero pollution but of actually removing much of the pollution and healing much of the damage.
But the will and the courage seems lacking.(GF)
Technically the problem is solvable, socially we seem to have too many with their heads in the sand.(DC)
Dennis and GF, In the quoted sentences above, you both appear to be saying the same thing. The lack of will or inclination to tackle climate change however, is not an accident. From an article I quoted in a comment further up in this thread:
The current political stalemate is no accident. Rather, it is the result of a well-financed and sustained campaign by vested interests to develop and promulgate misinformation about climate science.
As the evidence for mankind’s contribution to global warming mounts and the resulting costs rise, it is possible that more and more folks that were mislead by the denier’s misinformation campaign will start to understand the truth. I believe that the backers of global warming denial may face a serious backlash as more of the formerly mislead people realize that it was all a ploy to keep money flowing into the bank accounts of the owners of FF and related industries. All in order to maintain or increase the wealth of the beneficiaries of one of the biggest wealth generating industries in the history of the world.
I am hoping that the relatively small group that, profited most from the wealth of the fossil fuel industries, will be called on to pay some of the cost arising from the results of global warming and possibly be called on to fund accelerated development of alternatives. I am NOT holding by breath!
For the trolls, don’t attack the messenger (me). I am sure I am not alone, as evidenced by the children suing the US government over climate change. Wait till the world finds out who the real culprits are! Looking at you Charles Koch!
What I am doing is converting the problem into bite sized chunks that are easily adopted. Last year, it was replacing all the porch lights (which were not removed) with solar powered and motion triggered LEDs. I get less troublesome lights (remembering to switch on the light) and better notification of foot traffic.
This year the computer UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) units are being modified to use large deep cycle batteries (which I already had) good for all night rather than the little wimpy things that came with the UPS. The reading lamps and electronics chargers are being moved to the UPS also. After that is accomplished this winter, a circuit in the house (and the outbuildings) will be taken over to feed converted solar power to the UPS replacing the utility power. Nevada is so spread out that outages are more common than in metro areas. This protects against power outages and cuts the power bill (leaving more in my pocket) but in chunks that can be paid out of pocket rather than financed.
@Jay
Deep cycle batteries, especially wet, and the gel types found in UPSs have very different charge and discharge characteristics. Unless you can adjust your voltage settings within the UPS you are at risk of damaging batteries, UPS and house. For what you want to do, I suggest a ghetto UPS. That is your wet, deep cycle batteries are outside the house (to avoid hydrogen build up) and are equipped with a pure sine inverter rated to about 2x your peak load. The batteries being charged by either a MPPT solar charger or off a good mains charger that can control current and end points voltages. I suggest you look here
https://batteryuniversity.com/search/search&keywords=lead+acid/
Oh, nearly forgot, remember to use a float hydrometer regularly and top up with distilled water as needed.
For LED lighting, you can run LED strips straight off the battery.
NAOM
I cherry pick what I choose to post. What I see and hear is something completely different.
There are more than enough posts highlighting what is going wrong with the world, enough to depress even the most optimistic people. I choose to focus on the little slices of things that are contrary to the gloom and doom. Hopefully people will realize at some point, that there is a lot that could have been done to prevent the worst outcomes. Notice I said “could have been done”. I fear bad outcomes are already “baked into the cake”, as it were.
While you continue to focus on growing fossil fuel consumption in China (and the world), I choose to focus on the things that I believe are the best shot at slowing that growth and hopefully reversing it, while there is still a chance, however remote, of making a difference. What’s your prognosis? Should we just forget about it all and party on till the shit hits the fan?
Islandboy
I think we should take all the main facts into account. That is the only way you will know what needs to be done.
When you continually highlight how many wind turbines and solar panels China is installing. You give the distinct impression that what they are doing is enough.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/blog/10761-China-is-building-coal-power-again/en
If you provided all the relevant information, which would not take very long. People would see that China is doing no where near enough the reduce the horrific pollution it causes.
China is also increasing natural gas consumption at a frantic rate also.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/09/27/chinas-natural-gas-production-has-quietly-surged/#497dfbb84d7e
It is also building vast number of toxic nuclear power plants.
https://www.power-technology.com/features/future-of-nuclear-china/
All in all, the Chinese dictatorship have created a toxic polluting empire with a thin green veneer. The veneer that some people are willing to look beneath.
It is pretty obvious to me me that you have never watched a Tony Seba video and do not fully “get” exponential growth. If you have been around here long enough, you should be familiar with this:
Arithmetic, Population and Energy – a talk by Al Bartlett
A straight link to the video follows:
Arithmetic, Population and Energy – a talk by Al Bartlett
The essential point of thr Bartlett presentation is from 59 min. 29 sec. in:
“We’ve got to understand the first law of sustainability and it follows directly from what I’ve just been talking about the first law of sustainability is this population growth and/or growth and the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.”
Neo-classical economists must hate this presentation to their very core. It is basically saying that continuing exponential growth of the population and the attendant resource consumption is crazy and must stop/will stop one way or another. This is a message those that worship at the altar of growth do not want to hear.
So given the situation that we are in, what are we to do? The pro growth 0.1% are firmly in control of the established mainstream media message and are feeding the message of “growth is good” to the general population. I see the only hope for any change being to “starve the beast”. How can that be done?
Well, let’s look at what the incumbent energy producers seem most agitated about. High on the list is distributed renewable energy and EVs. Why are they so worried about these things? They cannot figure out how to monopolize wind and solar. Their business model is to extract fossil energy resources, process them in large centralized facilities and deliver energy to consumers as either electricity or liquid fuels. The idea of consumers being able to harness all the energy they need using their own equipment terrifies them because, it makes them irrelevant. It also kills their business.
Which brings me back to Tony Seba, who’s 2014 book is titled “Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030”. Seba also has a presentation based on the book that first appeared on Youtube back in 2014. Since then several versions of the presentation have been appearing with the latest being to a Mexican audience last month (Dec 2018). Seba’s message is essentially that, the same exponential growth that, Al Bartlett so effectively explains in his presentation, is happening with respect to solar PV and EVs and is poised to go ballistic within the next decade. This message is very unpopular in some quarters, especially those quarters that are about to have their asses handed to them, the incumbent energy and transportation industries.
That having been said, disruption does not happen overnight. It sneaks up on you and before you realize it, game over. At >1% electricity production from solar PV and >1% market share for EVs, we are well into the “sneaks up on you” phase of the disruption and barring some black swan event, like a collapse of the global supply system, it will be “game over” as Seba posits by 2030.
I am pointing to indicators that highlight the progress of the nascent disruption and the fact that you choose to downplay them and distract from them by pointing out the strength of the incumbents makes me very suspicious of your agenda. There are interests that are very worried about the threat of renewables and EVs and do not want to see them continuing to gather momentum. Are you posting on behalf of those interests with the aim of encouraging a state of apathy? (Woe is me! It’s hopeless! There’s nothing we can do!)
It only takes seven doublings to go from 1% to over 100%. How long do you think it is going to take to double electricity production from PV five more times, bearing in mind it has doubled in several markets every two years? Given growth rates of plug-in vehicle sales over the past nine years, how long do you think it is going to take for the market share to double six more times?
Your incessant pointing at the current state of affairs, ignores the fact that the contribution from solar PV has grown one hundredfold in the past ten years. If it were to grow one hundredfold in the next ten years it will displace every other form of electricity generation with the possible exception of wind, hydro and geothermal. That is essentially the point that Seba is making and it appears to me to be not unreasonable.
There are still a lot of other issues that human civilization faces and I believe, as Al Bartlett points out, population growth is the main source of our problems.
Hugo appears to be trying to control and direct your communications. Talking about one segment of something such as solar PV and/or wind power is legitimate and your choice. In civilized company that is called staying on topic.
No need to shotgun the whole plethora of topics, most of us here are quite bright enough to be able to fit the pieces together into a world context if we so desire.
There are others on this site who do similar things, no good news is allowed to go unpunished. All bad news is allowable.
There are two ways to look at renewable energy, both valid. One is the reduction in fossil fuel they cause on a daily or annual basis. The other is the total leveraged growth in concert with the technology they supply power too, be it LED or EV technology. The synergistic energy leveraging is very large.
Primary energy will need to much less as we convert to electricity driven by PV, wind, and possibly geothermal and ocean currents/tides.
Less talked about is the elimination of energy generation for common activities such as heating and cooling. But that is another topic for another day.
Hugo,
No Islandboy has never implied China is perfect, though if you think saying someone is doing one good thing, implies that everything they do is good, you would be incorrect. Don’t read what isn’t there.
Not many here think the Chinese political system is ideal, but from an environmental standpoint they are making some progress.
China’s fossil fuel CO2 emissions per capita (7 tonnes/person) in 2017 (using BP data) are over two times lower than both the US (16 tonnes/person) and Australia (17 tonnes per person). From a climate change perspective, US and Australia and many other OECD nations have much work to do. France has plenty of nuclear power, as does US, UK, India. Using BP data in 2017 the World share of nuclear energy in primary energy consumption is 4.4%, for China it is 1.8%, for the EU it is 11% of primary energy from nuclear power, and for the OECD it is 7.9%.
China is slightly less than the non-OECD, which has a 1.9% nuclear share of primary energy.
Hugo,
As Islandboy said, he is offering positive facts to counter the endless focus of most people here that highlight mostly the negative things that are happening.
For the World’s fossil fuel CO2 emissions (BP data) the growth rate from 1965-1979 was 3.6%/year. From 1980-2010 they grew at 1.78% per year, and from 2011-2017 they grew at 0.64% per year. By 2025-2030 it is likely that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will start to decline. Over the two decades following the peak in emissions fossil fuel prices will rise while renewable energy prices fall and fossil fuel energy use will diminish to less than 10% of 2017 levels by 2050 (and perhaps the level will be far lower, maybe 4 to 5% of 2017 levels).
Just curious Hugo, how do you feel about the Opium Wars?!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/world/asia/opium-war-book-china-britain.html
HONG KONG — In 1840, Britain went to war with China over questions of trade, diplomacy, national dignity and, most importantly, drug trafficking. While British officials tried to play down the illicit origins of the conflict, opponents gave it a name that made the link quite clear: the Opium War.
“China is buying up farm land all over the world. ”
It is interesting that you find fault with this.
Have you ever posted about how unjust it is that companies from countries like the UK or USA have owned massive plantations throughout the world for the past centuries. On an incredible scale.
If you don’t know this history, you are missing a huge chunk of the worlds history from your storyline.
Now that China is beating us at our own game, people get upset.
Atleast they haven’t come in with guns and religious coercion, like the western world did. And atleast they are paying money for the use of the land.
With the western european countries, and often USA, most of the land was co-opted without any payment to the local populations.
More likely massacres for those putting up resistance.
Thousands of times.
Thats what Gatling guns were first used for.
How did, a big territory in Africa come to be called Rhodesia, or in America come to be called America, or the best farmland in Guatemala come to grow bananas for export. There are hundreds of such examples throughout the world, many still in full force of operation.
Time to get off the high horse, and walk along the dirt path with the rest of humanity.
OT:
Special San Francisco trash is headed to the White House
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/jackie-Speier-jared-huffman-trump-trash-beaches-13512308.php
National parks face years of damage from government shutdown
By Sarah Gibbens
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/why-national-parks-trashed-during-government-shutdown/
National parks are America’s public lands, but right now they’re America’s trashcans.
That’s because the U.S. federal government, embattled over funding for a border wall, has shut down, leaving national parks open and largely unattended. Since the shutdown began, brimming trashcans, overflowing toilets, and trespassing has been reported at many parks locations.
Before he left office, Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued a policy document in January 2018 that outlines how national parks should operate during a “lapse in appropriations,” such as a funding hold seen during shutdowns. Part of the reason for this was to help financially support the businesses that border national parks and derive a significant chunk of their revenue from park visits.
“I would suggest it’s more political,” says Jon Jarvis, the former National Park Service director under the Obama administration. “The administration did not want to suffer the public outcry that came during the last shutdown.”
After a 16-day government shutdown in 2013, the government faced massive public backlash as disappointed park visitors flooded social media with images showing closed gates at parks across the U.S.
Leaving trash out in the open could also upset the delicate balance parks must maintain between visitors and wildlife.
“For the past couple of decades the park service has worked hard to ween the black bear population from human food,” says Jarvis. Once animals like bears or coyotes begin to associate humans with food, Jarvis says the risk that an animal could attack or have to be euthanized increases.
The guy is talking about declaring a national emergency (martial law?) to get his way. Obvious abuse of power.
Does it sound anything like this?!
One of the least transparent, big brother government regimes
Heck, even Ronnie Raygun told Gorbachev to: “tear down that wall!”
Meanwhile the Fullycharged New Year’s preview talks about new EVs that will be hitting the road in 2019, Peak ICE sales, Volvo’s autonomous EV quarry trucks and electric ferries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqYxYnKo9oE
Interesting, I came across Volvos autonomous transport system a few days ago.
Here they show a system for moving trailers around busy ports and industrial sites.
Volvo Trucks – Introducing Vera, the future of autonomous transport
Vera is an autonomous vehicle that forms part of a larger system. It has the potential to optimise transport in highly-repetitive, short distance flows with large volumes of goods, such as ports, factory areas and logistical mega centres, where it offers better delivery precision and flexibility.
The sophisticated technology enables round-the-clock operations, while the electric drivelines means a significant reduction in CO2 emissions and noise levels. A cloud-based service connects each vehicle to a transport control centre, which continuously monitors and optimises the logistics flow.
In the near future, Vera will be further developed by Volvo Trucks together with selected customers in prioritised applications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gc1zz5bl8I
I recommend this short, well-made and somewhat disturbing documentary made by Foreign correspondent ABC News Australia.
Exposing China’s Digital Dystopian Dictatorship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eViswN602_k
Yes, the Chinese Social Credit Score system is one of scariest things under development.
Most countries will be adopting these kind of systems I fear.
I rather die than to live under that totalitarian big brother regime, like that credit system. Or a cash-free society. No joke.
Are you in the USA?
NAOM
No I am in Australia.
Lucky, because USA seems to be going the way you don’t like. Aus sounds a bit freer and you have that big back yard to go for a stroll in 😉
NAOM
Where ever the U.S and China goes, rest assure, Australia will follow suit. There is been a push here to get rid of the $100 dollar bill, similar to what India did. Governments would love a cashless society so they can track every aspect of your life and for their beloved tax under the guise of “national security” or “anti-terrorism”. The tax money which they spend ohh so every wisely. Corporations would love that information too for their predatory marketing techniques.
Capitalism is a disease, its roots stem deep within the human genes.
I hope society doesn’t come to that, but it seems like it probably will.
What?! You don’t think your every move isn’t already being tracked?
If you have a smart phone, internet access,a social media account, read this blog, a credit card, bank account, driver’s license, passport etc… all of those already track you and either have embedded electronic data chips or they transmit your data to the cloud. Facial recognition cameras and software are already ubiquitous just about everywhere on the planet! Every single major international airport in the world already deploys these systems. China may just actually be more open about it than other governments. It is profoundly naive to think that China is in any way shape or form the exception in this arena. You could strip naked, get on a raft and paddle out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and you could be identified from a satellite orbiting the earth.
Fred,
You love to argue with me don’t you. Do you get cut off from government services based on how you shop or who you associate with? Watch what is posted before you knee jerk rant because I or someone you disagree with posted it.
In saying that most of your rant I agree with. It is extremely easy in this electronic world of ours to track people, especially now since people volunteer their information on platforms like social media. But let me tell you this. You can limit and in some instances take back your privacy if you are tech savvy and you know how the offending technologies work.
Since i am younger than you i can almost guarantee i am more tech savvy than you (just saying), and cyber privacy and security is a specialty of mine. Even though our governments are moving closer to a Chinese system, as Hickory pointed out.
In saying that, consider the image i posted. Do you have the right to visit most sites around the world including the deep web and even the dark net, from were you reside while maintaining privacy (assuming you have the knowledge).
Let me answer it for you. Yes you can. Hence comparing the U.S to China is ridiculous. Come back when your internet is heavily censored by your government.
https://img.labnol.org/di/images/TheWorldMap_B8B4/internetblackhole.jpg
Since i am younger than you i can almost guarantee i am more tech savvy than you (just saying), and cyber privacy and security is a specialty of mine.
You know what happens when you assume! My own son is a computer science major as is my brother and my niece is married to the head of corporate cyber security at a major smartphone manufacturer. So if I need advice I’ll probably be quite well served by asking any of them. And I’m not completely a babe in the woods myself, as I do have the knowledge to browse both the dark net and the deep web while staying incognito should I feel so inclined. Interesting places BTW! Though neither are really my cup of tea!
Now having said that, I wasn’t comparing the US to China or China to any other government or country either. I am quite aware of what the Chinese are doing and while I’m not a fan, I’m also aware of what is happening in countries that are probably not even on your radar. I get around son!
Ever hear of a Commodore VIC 20 with a 16 KB memory expansion card and a cassette tape storage? That was my first computer, you pretty much had to write your own software back then if you wanted it do anything. I think I was browsing the early web when you were barely out of diapers and Ironically at one time I actually used to install software on network servers in customer’s offices in China from the comfort of an office in South Florida, imagine that!
On a slightly different note: The Chinese are doing some seriously cool science, especially in materials science that might benefit quantum computing and high-temperature superconductivity. Apparently physics ain’t quite dead yet in China!
https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-spin-liquid-state-pathway-emerges/?
MAGNETISM AND SPIN RESEARCH UPDATE
Quantum spin liquid state pathway emerges
04 Jan 2019 Anna Demming
With potential roles in quantum computation, high-temperature superconductivity and a range of exotic anyonic states, it’s no wonder that quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are attracting so much research interest. However, a detailed understanding of the kagome lattice materials that might harbour QSL states has proved harder to come by. Reporting in Chinese Physics Letters, researchers in China and Japan have now identified QSL characteristics in a new candidate kagome lattice material. In addition, their investigations suggest possible pathways for the transition between QSL and magnetically ordered states, as well as insights into some of the anyonic excitations and other exotic properties predicted by theory.
Actual paper behind paywall in China 😉
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0256-307X/36/1/017502/meta
From Claringbullite to a New Spin Liquid Candidate Cu3Zn(OH)6FCl*
Zili Feng (冯子力)1,2, Wei Yi (衣玮)3, Kejia Zhu (朱恪嘉)1, Yuan Wei (魏源)1,2, Shanshan Miao (苗杉杉)1, Jie Ma (马杰)4,5, Jianlin Luo (雒建林)1,2,6, Shiliang Li (李世亮)1,2,6, Zi Yang Meng (孟子杨)1,7,8 and Youguo Shi (石友国)1,2
© 2019 Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd
Chinese Physics Letters, Volume 36, Number 1
17 Total downloads
Abstract
The search for quantum spin liquid (QSL) materials has attracted significant attention in the field of condensed matter physics in recent years, however so far only a handful of them are considered as candidates hosting QSL ground state. Owning to their geometrically frustrated structures, Kagome materials are ideal systems to realize QSL. We synthesize the kagome structured material claringbullite (Cu 4 (OH) 6 FCl) and then replace inter-layer Cu with Zn to form Cu 3 Zn(OH) 6 FCl. Comprehensive measurements reveal that doping Zn 2+ ions transforms magnetically ordered Cu 4 (OH) 6 FCl into a non-magnetic QSL candidate Cu 3 Zn(OH) 6 FCl. Therefore, the successful syntheses of Cu 4 (OH) 6 FCl and Cu 3 Zn(OH) 6 FCl provide not only a new platform for the study of QSL but also a novel pathway of investigating the transition between QSL and magnetically ordered systems.
I acknowledge all that Fred, and monitors of things like facial recognition and social media interaction are only escalating in magnitude as we speak, around the world.
What makes China a particularly ‘interesting’ case with this is how both the central government, as well the corporate sector, and civic organizations are on board with using this kind of info in very public and forceful ways, in the near future.
India is rolling out a centralized financial data system that will have incredible capabilities, for good and bad, depending on how its used.
That is the key- how it is used.
Do you trust you leader?
The church might think to kindly about you speaking up about child molestation.
Do you want your clients to know your voting history?
Do you want your employer knowing where you go on your time off?
Do you want your social ranking [evangelical] posted like a hologram over your head when you go into town?
That is advanced civilization.
“A civilization or civilisation (see English spelling differences) is any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification imposed by a cultural elite, symbolic systems of communication (for example, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment.”
Most people don’t really like civilization but do like some of the benefits, especially those provided by advanced industrial civilization. People learn to put up with a lot just to get by and seem to accept a hierarchy that at least pretends to protect them, especially those in the middle of the hierarchy.
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, most people chose the devil.
Any idiot with a smart phone is easily tracked.
Even smart people, with a smart phone.
Can be tracked and hacked.
-Says Sam I am
Not if you use an Android rooted custom ROM + encrypted + privacy guard -> turn off app permissions and ungoogle your smartphone.
But your statement applies to the huge majority. They can easily be tracked.
Mike—
Unless you can remove the battery, you are still being tracked.
That’s what tin cans are for. 😉
Darn, you let out the (not so) secret. I was keeping my mouth shut for once.
It’s the old make the problem bigger solution.
By tin cans do you mean Faraday cage ? lol
No, Faraday tinnie.
NAOM
China wasted enough renewable energy to power Beijing for an entire year, says Greenpeace
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2088865/china-wasted-enough-renewable-energy-power-beijing
Dennis
No CO2 is not the main factor.
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/coal-air-pollution
Burning coal kills due to all the toxins released such as mercury and soot.
Co2 can be negated by planting trees, but no amount of planting trees can remove the toxic soup that burning coal produces.
Trees also prevent global warming by converting heat from the sun into wood, leaves, fruit and nut which feed people and wildlife.
While the toxic byproducts produced by burning coal are certainly deadly, to suggest that CO2 is not the main factor, is a tad disingenuous! From the article you linked:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from combusting fossil fuels are the main driver of global warming. CO2 is also the main byproduct of coal combustion: nearly 4 grams of CO2 are produced for every gram of carbon burnt (depending on its type, coal can contain as much as 60 to 80 percent carbon).
For the record, Climate Change kills too! So the sooner all coal burning is outlawed everywhere on the planet the better for everyone, except the coal barons!
Oh, and a minor quibble, trees do not convert heat into anything…
Cheers!
Fred
Bit of education for you.
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zs4mk2p/revision/1
I used the term heat, to give the simple picture of the sun’s heat energy being the cause of the polar melt. I thought it would save having to go through the explanation that plants absorb certain wavelengths of light which if they struck bare ground convert into heat.
Cheers
Hugo,
Fred’s point was that the energy from the sun that arrives at the top of the atmosphere is electromagnetic energy, it is light that powers photosynthesis rather than heat, I imagine both Fred and you already know this, but there may be someone somewhere who does not. Not many of the people who comment here would be unaware of this.
Photosynthesis is about 2 percent efficient, the majority of absorbed light is converted to heat which is partly offset by evaporation of water. However, that heat is released at higher altitude as the water condenses. About 20 percent of the earth’s surface is covered in vegetation, which helps create and stabilize our weather.
Hi Gonefishing,
Nice explanation. I was focused more on the photosynthesis because that’s how the plants remove some CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in wood, leaves, etc, absolutely correct that only a small part of the sun’s energy is used in this way, the light that is absorbed by the plant and not used for photosynthesis (most of the energy) is converted to heat.
Fred may also have been focused on the photosynthesis and that the heat is not what allows photosynthesis to occur, it is light, carbon dioxide and water provided to a plant at the appropriate temperature range.
Coal mining and burning is also a huge source radioactivity-
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
Hugo,
I agree burning coal is a bad idea, it seems historically the UK burned quite a bit, if it were still profitable to mine and burn in the UK, it likely would be. If one is concerned with climate change CO2 is an important factor, trees help, but that is unlikely to solve the problem, a better solution is to reduce CO2 emissions. Certainly China needs to make more progress, but their renewable energy output is growing quite rapidly, about 40%/year from 2006-2016 and UK also grew at the 19% growth rate over that period, then China catches up to the UK in 10 years in terms of renewables share of primary energy output (both would be at about 60%), in principle coal consumption could be reduced to zero over that period and replaced by renewable power.
Well, Greta must be having nightmares, maybe we all should!
“As China is expanding its influence, Beijing’s foremost strategic competitor in Asia, Japan, is being forced to step up efforts to combat its shrinking influence in the region. The booming energy sector of Southeast Asia, especially coal, is proving to be the new front line in the geopolitical rivalry between Asia’s two industrial giants.”
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139667/new-coal-war-frontier-emerges-china-and-japan-compete-energy
Dennis
We are closing down all our coal fired power stations.
http://www.climateaction.org/news/all-of-the-uks-remaining-coal-plants-will-shut-down-by-2025
and we can do that because we are actually putting wind turbines and solar panels close to where the electricity is used.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb
It just makes me laugh when someone keeps going on about how well the dictatorship of China is doing.
In 2017 China increased gas consumption by 34 billion cubic meters, the equivalent of the consumption of 20 million homes added in 1 year.
What does China do with 500 million tonnes of coal ash each year?
http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/climate-energy/2010/coalash-en-pr/
Hugo,
UK is doing a fine job. Renewable energy consumption is growing at about 20% per year, in China the growth rate in renewable energy consumption was 40% per year from 2006 to 2016, if the rate continues they can make good progress.
One would expect an advanced economy like the UK to lead the way, there are many nations such as the US, Australia, and Germany that have higher carbon dioxide emissions than China on a per capita basis.
I agree they need to reduce coal use and they are trying to address the problem.
As they get more transmission lines installed they will be able to consume more of the renewable power they are producing.
China is between a rock and a hard place. They are trying to improve the situation for the people, modernising, while at the same time trying to switch to renewables. Their consumption is increasing at a rate that needs fuel and renewables. That will change. You also need to take into account that some of the new power station build is to replace older, dirtier ones then mix in that regions are building contrary to Bejing plus they are over capacityising with unneeded production, oh, the grid isn’t yet up to moving power from where it can be generated to where it is needed.
It is too easy to oversimplify China’s situation.
NAOM
Ambitious New York City Bill Aims To Replace Gas-Fired Power Plants With Renewables
ASTORIA, N.Y. ― A top New York City councilman is preparing to introduce a bill mandating that the city come up with a plan by the end of the year to phase out nearly two dozen gas-fired power plants and replace them with renewable sources of electricity.
The legislation would require the city to carry out a study on “the feasibility of replacing existing in-city gas-fired plants with renewables that use battery storage,” according to a draft HuffPost obtained. By Dec. 30, 2019, the city would have to lay out a plan to swap those gas-fired generating stations for new wind or solar units paired with batteries.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-city-power-plants_us_5c33bee2e4b05d4e96bb1d5f
BAU or Business in Overdrive?
US 2018 CO2 EMISSIONS SAW BIGGEST SPIKE IN YEARS
“A new report has found that US carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4% in 2018 after three years of decline. The spike is the largest in eight years, according to Rhodium Group, an independent economic research firm. The data shows the US is unlikely to meet its pledge to reduce emissions by 2025 under the Paris climate agreement…
Economic activity is the key reason for the overall rise in CO2 emissions. Industries are moving more goods by trucks powered by diesel, while consumers are travelling more by air. In the US this led to a 3% increase in diesel and jet fuel use last year, a similar rate of growth to that seen in the EU in the same period.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46801108
Seems to fit in with the Keeling curve showing CO2 growth is averaging about 3 ppm this year (and before the El Nino effects kick in). I still haven’t figured out how exactly they adjust the trend line and or the measured values – but since September it seems to have started with measurements about 1 ppm above the trend but then it’s adjusted so they are only slightly above (I’m beginning to think the trend gets increased).
There may be some hope for in front of a meter PV afterall.
https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/bill-would-help-break-floridas-solar-panel-stranglehold-10148697
So far, the purple line seems to be increasing at a steady 1% of generation every year, without much (any?) acceleration. To get to 45% by 2026 from 10% in 2018 it would have to increase by 35%, or roughly 4.5% / year.
So, what does a reasonable path look like?
2018: 10%
2019: 12%
2020: 15%
2021: 19%
2022: 23%
2023: 28%
2024: 33%
2025: 39%
2026: 45%
I hope you’re right, and when you look at some of the costs / economics and trends at a micro level it seems plausible, but at the macro level, it would be quite the monumental change and I wonder what sort of dis-economies of scale you might run into, but who knows, I guess we will find out. Still, it would be good to see that purple line accelerate and the green + red line aggregate start to actually rise…
I’m reading “The Great Derangement” by Amritav Ghosh. It’s about climate change and resource limits but he’s an Indian novelist so has a more Asian/cultural/ex-colony perspective compared to that of western science, which is dominant in most such books. In fact his perspective is so different that I haven’t a clue what he is on about at times. One of his arguments is that we now find it hard to accept sudden climate change and extreme weather events because of a preponderance of “gradualism” thinking that came to dominate through the nineteenth and twentieth century, e.g. nature, evolution etc. always move slowly, hence the initial opposition to theories of continental drift and sudden die off events (I think he argues it was related to the English Enlightenment but that’s one area where I got a bit lost).
He has a few facts that I didn’t know or kind of knew but didn’t fully appreciate. e.g.: most of the big cities at risk of sea level rise were founded or extensively expanded by colonial countries (i.e. mostly UK) and were built in areas that hadn’t been used by the native populations precisely because of known risks from the environment (e.g. Hong Kong, Kolkotta, Mumbai, Boston); one in four of the world’s rivers no longer reach the sea, most are in Asia; 47 % of the world’s population live in an area fed by rivers that rise in the Himalayans and hence contain a lot of glacial melt water, which might be disappearing over the next few decades (all the ice formed there since 2007 has now melted).
I’m reading “The Great Derangement” by Amritav Ghosh. It’s about climate change and resource limits but he’s an Indian novelist so has a more Asian/cultural/ex-colony perspective compared to that of western science, which is dominant in most such books
It is always enlightening (pun intended) to get a different cultural perspective!
Meanwhile the plot continues to thicken! Because very few people seem to understand complex non linear dynamics and how large scale macro disruptions in previously stable systems can be caused by multiple cascading changes at the micro level.
Plastic Ocean Pollution a Driver of Climate Change?
Lanternfish mistaking it for food can’t sequester as much CO2
Sarah Mosko October 27, 2017
Though burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming, fossil fuels could also be driving climate change via a completely different mechanism involving ocean plastic debris and tiny, bioluminescent fish living hundreds of meters beneath the ocean’s surface.
https://emagazine.com/ocean-pollution/
At the heart of the global climate crisis is mankind’s dysfunctional relationship to fossil fuels. As in any bad relationship, ignoring the problem only kicks the can down the road while the problem continues to fester.
In this case the road leads to greater climate instability which, in the very least, portends more violent storms and droughts, spread of human diseases, social, economic and political upheavals and mass species extinction.
The needed relational shift is to transition from an economy based on fossil fuels as a primary source of energy and material feedstock for manufactured goods to one thriving on renewable energy sources and manufactured goods which are biodegradable or easily recycled. Abandoning single-use plastics is also an imperative.
It may seem like a small step but this is a step in the right direction!
Need a plastic straw? Soon, you won’t get them in these cities.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-ne-deerfield-hallandale-pass-straw-bans-20180919-story.html
Did you see the man who brutally attacked the McDonald’s employee because he couldn’t get a plastic straw due to a ban on them? I worry we’ll see more events like that as freedoms are taken away.
Sounds like the attacker needs a sippy cup and to grow up
What is your point? Whatever it is, attacking a restaurant employee for adhering to the policies of his/her employer is odious by any criteria. Attacking a woman doing her job over a stupid fucking straw beggars belief.
Some men get completely full of rage if you try to control them by telling them they can’t have something or can’t do something. I’ve seen it many times among my neighbors.
Sounds like Texans have the (biggest) rage problems of all the states. It’s time for you to think about moving. Pretty scary considering most of your neighbors are packing.
“Some men get completely full of rage if you try to control them by telling them they can’t have something…”
Yeah, its especially common with two year olds, don’t know any men like that. Doesn’t sound like you live in the best neighborhood. Do they actually allow mentally unstable people to carry guns where you live?
Trump
Talking of two year olds …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-is-entering-his-terrible-twos/2019/01/07/d6b4c7e0-12bf-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html?utm_term=.6f1f9460a627
Looks like grandmother Pelosi has her hands full
You can take a look at the gun laws. We don’t have Constitutional Carry (yet) so for now you do still need a license to carry concealed or open for handguns. Long guns you can carry open with fewer restrictions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state#Texas
Long guns, hand guns and machine guns all can kill good people by out raged men. What is your point ? Where is Trump’s gun(wall) out rage ?
Sandy Hook
Obviously, Texan is saying that because you have weak gun laws, the killing of restaurant employees because they are unable to supply straws is a likely natural outcome.
Obviously, the answer to is to supply restaurant workers with semiautomatics.
You never know when more than one straw dependent Dallas Cowboy fan might show up at once.
btw- is it manly to use a straw when sipping on your milkshake? Maybe only when are in your pickup.
Just pack a blow gun with poison darts, no concealed carry license required because it doubles as a drinking straw… 🙂
.
There were memes going around social media last summer when the protests over the straw bans started up.
Since when is it a FREEDOM to demand and get violent over a fucking plastic straw when it is contrary to corporate policy and the law?! Hopefully plastic straws will be banned everywhere soon! BTW, if you absolutely feel you must have a straw you can buy your own stainless steel straw. And for the record you do not have the freedom to pollute the commons anymore, tough nooggies!
Plastic straws suck! Go Hay or Bamboo.
Most of my family are using stainless steel!
This it the thing Fred about a lot of people in western countries. They have taken so much shit for granted that they think they have the “right” to anything and everything. They live completely in a bubble of delusions.
A similar thing happened here in Australia, were the big supermarket chains banned the use of plastic bags. People were going nuts.
Perhaps it isn’t right to think like this, but sometimes you think fuck these people really do deserve to go extinct.
Poorly raised and further propagandized by mass advertising, they think they have rights. This guy will them a good taking to about rights.
George Carlin – You have no rights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-R8T1SuG4
Dave.
They have jails for those get violent.
Long sentences will help.
Destruction of the common good [the environment] is not a constitutional right. That includes forcing private companies to sell throwaway plastic.
Thanks Fred, now I need to start a whole new page to continue the list of positive climate feedbacks. Ran out of room on the first page!
Fred, here is a blog from 2014 discussing this very topic and other possible ocean related changes.
Could plastic debris, coarse, fine and molecules (polymers), affect oceans functions as climate regulator, CO2 sink, albedo, evaporation…? (by Diego Fdez-Sevilla, PhD)
The other possible connection affected would come from the synergistic interaction between aquatic biota and the chemistry of the water. Thanks to this balance oceans have the capacity to act as CO2 sinks but, what would happen if plastic degradation reduces the aquatic biota involved in fixing CO2? And here it is what I have found about it (so far):
https://diegofdezsevilla.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/could-plastic-debris-coarse-fine-and-molecules-polymers-affect-oceans-functions-as-climate-regulator-co2-sink-albedo-evaporation/
Thanks Fred, now I need to start a whole new page to continue the list of positive climate feedbacks. Ran out of room on the first page!
Sorry GF, but I’m afraid you are going to need many many more pages before all of them are accounted for, if ever! Every feedback seems to initiate dozens more… For the sake of graphing you can simplify and round off to an even ten for every known feedback, just so you can get an idea of the magnitude of the problem we are facing… 😉
Cheers!
I think Dante was short a few levels.
On Wednesday morning, Trump complained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sends billions of dollars to California to fight fires that are the result of poor forest management.
“Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest [sic] fires that, with proper Forrest [sic] Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!” Trump tweeted.
I think someone should force this moron in chief to watch this video, posted by Gone Fishing!
Scientists’ Warning to Humanity & Business as Un-usual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8PWkZ7FB5s
Did he sent a trainload of rakes?
Nah, just a box of chocolates!
Yesterday at the winter CES in Las Vegas, Nissan unveiled their Leaf e+ with a 62 kWh battery pack, expected driving range of up to 385 km (240 miles) and a price in Japan of ¥4,162,320 (around $38,370):
Nissan Announces LEAF e+ Prices For Europe And Japan
Nissan better have their battery supplies sorted out. I expect this car to sell in fairly high volumes.
Attention astronomy buffs: (The CHIME observatory, located in BC’s Okanagan Valley, is in my backyard, so to speak.)
MYSTERIOUS RADIO SIGNALS FROM DEEP SPACE DETECTED
“Astronomers have revealed details of mysterious signals emanating from a distant galaxy, picked up by a telescope in Canada. Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are short, bright flashes of radio waves, which appear to be coming from almost halfway across the Universe. So far, scientists have detected about 60 single fast radio bursts and two that repeat. They believe there could be as many as a thousand FRBs in the sky every day. There are several theories about what could be causing them. They include a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field that is spinning very rapidly, two neutron stars merging together, etc.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46811618
Perhaps a new type of GRBs + tired light theory? lol
DougL,
Do you live in the Okanagan? We call it the Okanogan, having thrown off the baleful influence of the English on our spelling a couple of centuries ago.
That is some of the most staggering beautiful landscape in the world if you ask me. I envy you. It’s been long since I’ve been up there though I’ve worked along the Okanogan on our side of the border.
Back about 1979 when I was TAing a geology field course I took a van full of students up through Osoyoos for to show what a glaciated landscape could contain, and when preparing to start back I realized that one of my students was Nigerian and of course he hadn’t brought his passport to field camp; why would he? Elevated pulse rate and saturated blue chambray shirt on my part while visions of international incident danced in my head. First decision: We will NOT return through Osoyoos. Second decision: We will try to come back through Nighthawk. Third decision: Humphrey, sit in the last seat back in the van, you come from Georgia and you have bad laryngitis and we’ll talk for you.
Nighthawk was a one-man border station at the time and the jolly Border officer stuck his head through the passenger-side window: “Everybody here born in the US?” “Yes.” And we were through. I still occasionally wake screaming from the memory.
Synapsid,
LOL Yes, I spent my youth in the Okanagan in a town called Oliver which happened to have a very good school. A lot of my time was spent swimming in the river and hiking rattle snake infested hills, exploring old mines and hunting gophers with my 22 rifle — and faithful dog. Retired in the area later though everything has changed. DDT and modern farming practice killed off all the insects and song birds and vineyards are everywhere. Thirty-ish years ago, accompanied by my Daughter, I was smuggling a new barrel for a pistol into Canada through Nighthawk customs and being the only car to pass through in hours the lone agent wouldn’t stop talking so eventually I said: “We have to get going, do you want to search our car or anything?” He laughed and said: “Why would I search your car? People like you never break the law.” BTW I know the White Lake radio telescope (and all the scientists there) really well.
Once when young, I was driving up towards the border by Osoyoos. I was lost in thought, and didn’t realize I had come so close to the border, so quick.
I saw that border checkpoint, just as I took another draw on my joint.
Pulled over, just about 200 yrds short, and turned around.
Figured it be best to finish up my business out of sight, and let the car air out for a bit.
Then proceeded back up without further ado.
My mom’s sister used to live in Osoyoos with her husband and two adopted kids. In 84 after my final year at college I visited Canada on a summer volunteer work program called Operation Beaver, helping build houses for native Canadians (Cree IIRC). I asked the organisers if I could fly back to Toronto a week after the rest of the group so I could spend a week with my aunt. My aunt and uncle drove to Edmonton to pick me up and drove back to Osoyoos passing through Jasper and Banf on the way. My uncle took me close to a US border crossing but, I had applied for a US visa with hope of visiting a cousin in New York after I got back to Toronto and been denied so, that was the closest I got to the US before I eventually got my visa.
It was the end of summer (last week in August) so the weather was very pleasant. I remember seeing people skiing on the lake from my aunt’s house near the shore. I also remember seeing lots of ripe peaches on the trees and on fruit stands by the side of the road. It was a very enjoyable visit and good opportunity to get to know my aunt, uncle and their kids, all of whom I had never met before.
900 MW solar farm approved for Australia’s Riverina region
In the final days of 2018, Australia’s New South Wales government gave its tick of approval for the construction of the state’s largest solar farm to date, rounding off a year that saw a flurry of utility-scale solar construction activity and an unprecedented number of big solar additions in the state…..[snip]
“The new guideline reflects the NSW Government’s strong commitment to NSW’S booming solar energy market,” Harwin said.
It also followed a number of other big PV approvals granted in late December, including: a massive solar+storage project at Darlington Point – a 275 MW solar farm coupled with 100 MWh energy storage facility, the 140 MW Mulwala Solar Farm, the 170 MW Suntop Solar Farm and the 47 MW Gregadoo Solar Farm, rounding off another big solar year for NSW.
According to the government data, six solar farms were commissioned in 2018 alone, representing 305 MW and $475 million in investment, placing the total operating large-scale solar capacity in NSW at around 500 MW coming from nine projects.
Another seven solar farms were under construction representing 530 MW and around $720 million in investment, while there were almost 70 more solar farms with, or seeking, planning approval in NSW, with capacity to generate more than 10,000 MW.
Looks like it’s Game On in Australia! At this rate, it’s just a matter of time before their carbon emissions tumble.
Back in the real world
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/29/adani-to-begin-work-immediately-on-self-financed-mine-but-hurdles-remain
The mine will provide jobs and money for government
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-24/china-stone-coal-mine-qld-approval-reckless-conservationists-say/10551484
The $188 million of royalties annually will pay for hospitals, school and police.
How much will the solar farm contribute to the things we need?
How much will the solar farm contribute to the things we need?
I don’t think you put a lot of thought into that question, did you?!
In spite of mounting evidence to the contrary (eg. the article I linked to above) you (and Mr. Adani) stubbornly refuse to give Tony Seba’s prognosis any merit. Seba is saying that all of the investments being made in new coal mines and new coal plants (all plants fueled by any FF in fact) are going to end up as stranded assets. In the US and in private Australian electricity companies, there are no plans to build a single new coal plant, unless in the case of Australia, they are supported with massive government subsidies. Despite Trumps promises to his base, US coal plant closings are continuing apace as the competitive landscape continues to worsen.
What makes you think that the building of new coal plants in China is any different than the building of the ghost cities, where they have built entire new cities that have remained largely empty? See the comment further up by NAOM. Sure, their coal consumption is increasing at the moment but, if PV capacity continues to grow exponentially, coal consumption should start to decline and once that point is reached, the decline should turn out to be increasingly rapid (according to the gospel of Seba).
Before you start mentioning India, here’s another article from PV Magazine:
India will tender 500 GW renewable capacity by 2028
Electricity demand in India would reach 840 GW by 2030 if the country’s gross domestic product grows at a rate of 6.5 per cent, as predicted.
To achieve its goal of generating 40 per cent of electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030, India would have to install 500 GW of renewable energy generation capacity by 2028, according to Anand Kumar, Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, who was speaking at the India-Norway Business Summit 2019 which opened yesterday in New Delhi.
Of those 500 GW, 350 GW would be solar, 140 GW wind, and the remaining generation capacity would come from small hydro and biomass power.
India already has 75 GW of installed renewable energy capacity with another 46 GW under implementation. The 75 GW in place makes up around 22 per cent of the nation’s installed power generation capacity.
There is an interesting comment by one James Wimberley (brief bio at the “About” page) in the comments below the article that reads:
“Where do these fears about a policy shift if Congress retakes power come from? Modi’s policy rests on a clear-eyed view of the priorities of Indian farmers, still the core of the electorate. They really like cheap electricity for their irrigation pumps, and expect politicians to deliver it. Renewables are their best bet now. Congress politicians will make the same calculation. The BJP’s ties to businessmen like Adani and the Tata family have not yet resulted in any large bailout of their huge and loss-making investments in coal generating plants – because the farmers come first. The same surely goes for Congress.”
If you’re not into watching videos on Youtube, Seba’s book “Clean Disruption” is the basis for the video presentation and is available from the usual sources. You can go to this page at WorldCat (the world’s largest network of library content and services) and enter your location to see if it is available at any libraries near you. I would prefer if you watched one of Seba’s video presentations or read his book before you dismiss out of hand the developments I am posting about here.
At any rate, the future will unfold as it will and with any luck, we will all be here to see how it pans out. I just think that things are following Seba’s script far more closely than many of the other available “expert” analyses.
Hugo- “How much will the solar farm contribute to the things we need?”
Well, that depends if you need electricity.
I use some. All the electricity my family use at home, as well as about 10,000 miles of driving
comes from solar panels on my roof. Excellent price. Very useful.
[No we don’t hang our clothes outside to dry. We put them in the clothes dryer and push the button. The sun does the work by powering the motor and giving the heat. Nice.]
I was referring to the tax that coal provides to government to pay nurses, teachers, doctors etc. As you well know.
It is rather important.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/294614/revenue-of-the-gas-and-oil-industry-in-the-us/
Many people cannot tell the difference between a tax break and a subsidy
http://euanmearns.com/the-high-cost-of-renewable-subsidies/
Average wholesale price of electricity in Europe is £40, subsidies can be as high as £110 Mwh
If you cannot answer this honestly, you will never see the end of oil, gas and coal. Simple
In the UK the money paid to multinationals to provide very expensive electricity could pay for 20,000 doctors and 50,000 nurses.
https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2940
If tax money is spent in on area, it has to be found from somewhere else. My parents have had to wait days to see their GP. There are simply not enough doctors.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/why-does-it-take-so-long-see-gp#
Subsidizing any industry has a human cost. Not for politicians of course.
Euan Mearns refuses to say that climate change is an important issue.
You agree that pollution, including GHGs, have a large cost, right?
ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Issue: Ecological Economics Reviews
FULL COST ACCOUNTING FOR THE LIFE CYCLE OF COAL
Our comprehensive review finds that the best estimate for the total economically quantifiable costs, based on a conservative weighting of many of the study findings, amount to some $345.3 billion, adding close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated from coal. The low estimate is $175 billion, or over 9¢/kWh, while the true monetizable costs could be as much as the upper bounds of $523.3 billion, adding close to 26.89¢/kWh. These and the more difficult to quantify externalities are borne by the general public.
Still these figures do not represent the full societal and environmental burden of coal. In quantifying the damages, we have omitted the impacts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals on ecological systems and diverse plants and animals; some ill-health endpoints (morbidity) aside from mortality related to air pollutants released through coal combustion that are still not captured; the direct risks and hazards posed by sludge, slurry, and CCW impoundments; the full contributions of nitrogen deposition to eutrophication of fresh and coastal sea water; the prolonged impacts of acid rain and acid mine drainage; many of the long-term impacts on the physical and mental health of those living in coal-field regions and nearby MTR sites; some of the health impacts and climate forcing due to increased tropospheric ozone formation; and the full assessment of impacts due to an increasingly unstable climate. The true ecological and health costs of coal are thus far greater than the numbers suggest. Accounting for the many external costs over the life cycle for coal-derived electricity conservatively doubles to triples the price of coal per kWh of electricity generated.
http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/epstein_full%20cost%20of%20coal.pdf
The man behind the curtain is selling you fossil fuels, looks big and impressive but full of hot CO2. The real deal is renewables.
‘There is no alternative to a world of 100% renewables’
Professor Breyer, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a report which provides a shady outlook on the future of the planet unless urgent measures against climate change are taken. In your research, you have always claimed only a world energy system based on 100% renewable energy for electricity, heating and cooling, transport and desalination can stop climate change and its disastrous consequences. Do you believe now the 100% renewables option will receive more attention?
I hope so, as we already have no other appropriate options than this 100% renewables pathway. This is not science fiction but a real world scenario that must be taken into serious consideration, unless we don’t want to commit a collective suicide. But this is not only a matter of survival, it is also the cheapest way to shape our energy future,
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/10/17/there-is-no-alternative-to-a-world-of-100-renewables/
Nah, what we need is better ‘forrest’ management!
Like in Finland
Just an ordinary day in a Finnish forest-
.
The man behind the curtain is selling you fossil fuels, looks big and impressive but full of hot CO2. The real deal is renewables.
True but one does not have to go further than the petroleum side of this very blog to see the ignorance, vested interests, blind ideology and downright rabid anti climate science denialism.
Where jobs go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq6z1hShFcE
NAOM
How pizza could save the world
By Don Norman and Eli Spencer
https://www.fastcompany.com/90288282/how-pizza-could-save-the-world
On a recent Hawaiian vacation, Don stayed at a truly luxurious resort. It wasn’t his style. He couldn’t help but notice the contrast with the poorer sections of the island where locals lived and tourists rarely ventured. Is this the planet’s future? Two distinct cultures, one of isolated wealth and excess, the other of poverty? When we discussed this question, Don couldn’t help but mention he’d also found amazing pizza on the island.
The disparity between rich and poor, between tourist and local, was disappointing, but not surprising. But as we pondered how we might address these issues, we recognized pizza provided a possible direction.
Pizza? How is that relevant? Two ways. First, pizza can be thought of as an open-source platform. An Italian creation, it is now found all over the world, in all incarnations, tailored to local tastes and cultures, yet all recognizable as pizza. Second, it bridges the gap we were pondering, for pizza can be made by local artisans serving local customers, as well as by large, international corporations that serve mass markets. In other words, “Pizza as a Platform” provides a powerful metaphor to describe how we hope to address some of the world’s most intractable problems.
How can the way pizza has spread across the world, driven by local interests and needs, show us how everyday citizens can participate in innovation with global impact? The answer may lie in a new form of platform, societal platforms, civic- and community-driven toolkits that empower people and cultures. Societal platforms can support complex challenges such as energy, climate change, health care, and sustainably feeding communities. It enables multiple people to each make small enhancements. Lots of small, incremental enhancement made by many people, in time can lead to major changes, both incremental and radical, empowering many.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxqwXNfYmOQ
Italy vs Europe 😉
Wielding Rocks and Knives, Arizonans Attack Self-Driving Cars
By Simon Romero
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/us/waymo-self-driving-cars-arizona-attacks.html
Some people have pelted Waymo vans with rocks, according to police reports. Others have repeatedly tried to run the vehicles off the road. One woman screamed at one of the vans, telling it to get out of her suburban neighborhood. A man pulled up alongside a Waymo vehicle and threatened the employee riding inside with a piece of PVC pipe.
In one of the more harrowing episodes, a man waved a .22-caliber revolver at a Waymo vehicle and the emergency backup driver at the wheel. He told the police that he “despises” driverless cars, referring to the killing of a female pedestrian in March in nearby Tempe by a self-driving Uber car.
“There are other places they can test,” said Erik O’Polka, 37, who was issued a warning by the police in November after multiple reports that his Jeep Wrangler had tried to run Waymo vans off the road — in one case, driving head-on toward one of the self-driving vehicles until it was forced to come to an abrupt stop.
His wife, Elizabeth, 35, admitted in an interview that her husband “finds it entertaining to brake hard” in front of the self-driving vans, and that she herself “may have forced them to pull over” so she could yell at them to get out of their neighborhood.
At least 21 such attacks have been leveled at Waymo vans in Chandler, as first reported by The Arizona Republic. Some analysts say they expect more such behavior as the nation moves into a broader discussion about the potential for driverless cars to unleash colossal changes in American society. The debate touches on fears ranging from eliminating jobs for drivers to ceding control over mobility to autonomous vehicles.
And yet they will go to a local convenience store and use the automated ordering system or to the local big box store and use the automated checkout. They will only buy the cheapest products, which forces more automation and lower wages. Hypocrites.
More like frightened, small minded neo-luddites, blindly tilting at wimdmills!
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated…
Yes, soon the autonomous cars will line up at McRobots for their Super sized McBorgers, no humans involved.
“People are lashing out justifiably,” said Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist at City University of New York and author of the book “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.” He likened driverless cars to robotic incarnations of scabs — workers who refuse to join strikes or who take the place of those on strike.
“There’s a growing sense that the giant corporations honing driverless technologies do not have our best interests at heart,” Mr. Rushkoff said. “Just think about the humans inside these vehicles, who are essentially training the artificial intelligence that will replace them.”
Bullshit! Talk about spinning the truth to suit a false narrative. to To be very clear, anyone who has actually read Rushkoff’s ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus’, would know that he in no way shape or form condones any forms of violence! He specifically states that he has son’s and daughters of friends who work at places like Google and he wouldn’t want any harm to come to them. While he is quite critical of the operating system that all modern corporations currently function under and much like Yuval Noah Harrari, he raises the alarm that technologies such as self driving vehicles will certainly cause far reaching disruption and social upheaval, that is a far cry from categorically stating that ” People are lashing out justifiably!” What he is saying is that people have a right to be angry at corporations, NOT that it is OK to take matters into the streets and violently attack innocent people!
Many of the big hotels here have buses for their workers. Nobody goes around throwing rocks or shooting at them. It has nothing to do with Google etc, it is a bad attitude that has grown up in the USA that you can just go out and attack what you don’t like without consequences, see the point above about the straws. Why don’t they picket their own bosses to improve their own transport rather than complaining about others who have done.
NAOM
A reality Check
http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/limiting-global-warming-require-deep-emissions-cuts
In order to limit global warming to 1.5c, which would be bad enough, global emissions need to be cut in half by 2030.
Global gas consumption is on the rise and being the cleanest of fossil fuels, could be allowed to grow but only if massive cut in coal were achieved.
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/coal-lignite/coal-world-consumption-data.html
To have had any chance of reaching that target, coal consumption should be down to less than 4,000 million tonnes per year by now. By 2030 coal consumption would need to be no more then 2,000 million tonnes.
Oil consumption would have needed to have peaked in 2010, with a decline rate of 1% per year. This would have required every oil producing country to make cuts in production every year since then. Some kind of agreement would have had to have been reached with the oil exporters as to how much compensation they would get for leaving 100s of billions of wealth in the ground.
At the moment countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, are saying why should we loss out when the U.S. produces as much oil as it likes?
I am afraid it too late to get real meaningful compensation agreements that will make any real difference.
Down here, we have a new compressed natural gas CNG bus fleet being delivered. I would have liked it better if it was electric but that is probably beyond the resources of our town. However, there is a triple up side to this against the downside of it still being a CO2 emitter. First, the CO2 emission is lower than for diesel; second, the old buses are some 10, 20, 30 years old so the new ones should be more efficient driving emissions down further; third, no more big black clouds from the exhaust- YIPPIE from a cyclist. On balance an improvement. Maybe the next generation will be electric.
NAOM
The fading green of hydro has been edging into black. With the increasing surface area of hydro power across the globe, many people think that nations high in this source of power are fulfilling their low carbon requirements. Are they? Hydropower reservoirs produce about 25% of anthropogenic methane. Methane has an instantaneous global warming factor of at least 150 times that of CO2. This increasing fast pulse of atmospheric heating is exactly what is needed to melt ice, melt permafrost and cause multiple natural feedbacks to increase globally.
Sure it will fade away eventually but in the meantime it is initiating it’s own replacement as new melt ponds form over the tundra producing more methane, as permafrost melts and produces methane and CO2, as ponds and lakes in warmer climes produce more methane with rising temperatures. Increasing the melt of ice produces a decreasing albedo effect, feeding back into the whole system.
The wet green may be black, but most people ignore it. Creating our own methane bombs is a profitable business that fits into the reduced CO2 global effort.
Of course there is the added benefit of increased water evaporation, not only losing fresh water but adding a powerful GHG to the atmosphere.
In the meantime the potential amount of hydropower could be increased by 10 times. As we further industrialize nature and kill off all the creatures that inhabited these regions, what other unknown forces will be unleashed.
Systematic high-resolution assessment of global hydropower potential
study is the first to formally present a detailed evaluation of the hydropower potential of each location, based on slope and discharge of each river in the world. The gross theoretical hydropower potential is approximately 52 PWh/year divided over 11.8 million locations. This 52 PWh/year is equal to 33% of the annually required energy, while the present energy production by hydropower plants is just 3% of the annually required energy. The results of this study: all potentially interesting locations for hydroelectric power plants, are available online.
The point file with all potential hydropower locations contains 11.8 million locations with capacities between 8.76 MWh/year and 92 TWh/year. Approximately 4,800 locations show a potential capacity of more than 1 TWh/year, roughly 30% of which are located at existing hydropower plants. However, more exciting and promising are locations without an existing hydropower plant. For example, the Salween basin discharges 5,700 m3/s and has 29,600 locations with a gross potential of 981 TWh/year. Within the basin, 15 locations have a gross potential above 10 TWh/year with a total of 285 TWh/year. Myanmar, Thailand and China all have advanced plans to build over 20 dams in the Salween River Basin
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0171844
Yeah, there is such a thing as clean low impact hydro power and the kind that is a clusterfuck of ecological destruction. I have posted many links to both kinds in the past. I’d do so again but other than a small handful of people here who seem to grasp the concept of systems, it seems to be an exercise in futility and wasted effort.
Cheers!
So far, PV seems to be the least damaging of all electrical sources. Sand, a tiny amount of phosphorus and boron. The glass cover is sand.
Warning, expect a cold blob to occur soon. Been way above normal temps here for weeks, and now it will fall back to more normal temps for about 4 days before rising again (was reminded by a few snow flakes going by). No snow cover up here at all, ice free lakes. Sunlight increasing day by day.
The real cold blob is in the Arctic today, a rare minus 1.1C anomaly.
Yeah, the winter here seems to have gone buggerup too, no T-shirt and sweating.
NAOM
An interesting idea is to use the surface of reservoirs for floating PV. Caps some of the evaporation, and reduces algae growth (and perhaps could help with methane release?)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190108125422.htm
More bad news of the insect apocolypse:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/science/monarch-butterfly-california.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage
I’ll be cultivating milkweed in my garden for the first time this year. Hopefully which will allow me to at least enjoy the beauty of the Monarchs, once such a plentiful presence in my childhood, before they are gone.
I occasionally do art for my own pleasure and am working on a limited edition T-shirt with an illustration titled ‘Where Have All The Monarchs Gone?!’ I’m planning on doing an entire series about terrestrial and marine arthropods. I finally actually created a vector based illustration of that Praying Mantis with the “People Bug Me” thought bubble. I had ten samples printed up and should be receiving them tomorrow. They are for family and friends, not for sale:
Cheers!
.
China unveils an ambitious new push on grid parity solar
In a policy announcement hailed by some industry watchers in China as the biggest news since the “31/5” curtailment of PV subsidy payments, Beijing yesterday outlined its plan to turbocharge the development of subsidy-free projects in the world’s biggest solar market.
The policy announcement, revealed by the National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Agency yesterday – and further explained by the latter organization today – saw Chinese solar shares and wider stock markets rise.
Beijing said there will be no quotas for solar projects developed without central government subsidies for the next two years, however, there will still be limits on project development to some extent, for instance no new PV will be permitted in the autonomous region of Xinjiang or in the province of Gansu because of well-publicized curtailment problems there. Similarly, the central government will impose some control on new solar capacity across a further 12 provinces and parts of seven others.
Beijing yesterday outlined its plan to turbocharge the development of subsidy-free projects in the world’s biggest solar market.
Would that the headlines were:
Washington yesterday outlined its plan to turbocharge the development of subsidy-free projects in the world’s biggest solar market.
I can dream can’t I?! 😉
Might not need to dream. In deep red Texas:
ERCOT reserve margin declines further as municipality pulls Texas coal peaker
Dive Brief:
I daresay that decision might also have been influenced by this (bold mine):
Solar power capacity in Texas expected to double, making life tougher for power companies
Wind energy, at least, that tends to be strongest at night and during the cooler months, when Texas’ power demand tanks and prices are low anyway. But solar panels produce electricity when Texas needs it most and merchant power companies have made their money — the hottest parts of summer days. The additional electricity could moderate price spikes during these periods of peak demand, which would be good for consumers, but not so good for the profit margins of traditional power generators.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees 90 percent of the state’s grid, expects to solar power capacity to reach about 2,000 megawatts by the end of 2018, up from 1,100 megawatts last year and just 15 megawatts in 2010. Solar capacity is expected to reach 3,000 megawatts by 2020., . (One megawatt is enough to power 200 homes on a hot Texas day.)
Texas’ was the fourth fastest growing solar state in 2017, and is expected to rise to second over the next five years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a national trade group. California and North Carolina added the most solar capacity last year.
Texas is considered prime location for the solar industry because of its abundance of land and sunshine. More than half of the planned solar projects are in Pecos County, a West Texas hub for utility-scale solar power, or solar farms that have the capacity to generate at least 1 megawatt of electricity. Utility-scale projects are eligible for a state tax abatement — up to 80 percent for 10 years — but the real incentive for developers is the transmission that connects remote renewable energy projects to markets in the state’s populations centers. More transmission lines are expected to be added in 2019 and 2020, likely driving another burst of solar installations.
Clean Disruption underway?
Clean Disruption underway?
For sure! You literally have to be living under a rock not to see it all around you.
As I have said many many times, fleets of rent as you need E-bikes and scooters are where I think the greatest disruption is occurring. It bridges the gap between urban mass transport and that last mile connection to your final destination.
A good example is this little Californian URB-E at the 18:58 min mark of this FullyCharged Youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Vcol961DE
Clean disruption? Is that when the washing machine breaks? 🙂
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46797396
I wonder when solar farms are going to start to be built facing south west to supply late afternoon peak demand. With falling prices it should be practical to install these peakers.
NAOM
Fred, did you not hear Trumps’ announcement this morning that the Democratic party leadership had agreed to back his proposal for the Solar National Uncrossable Basic Barrier Energy Development, or SNUBBED for short.
SNUBBED is a 1,954 mile long, single panel wide, solar PV array that will unite a country, even as it divides a continent. Today Trump tweeted:
New Open threads are up.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-10-2019/
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-petroleum-january-10-2019/