Plan B Forum

"Climate Change" is one of those topics that is mainly characterized by the two sides lying and misrepresenting the positions of the other side. In addition, there is such a plethora of organizations accumulating data on climate change that we have one side citing statistics proving that the world is hotter than hell, and the other side cites statistics - just as authoritative - proving that there has been no actual global warming for 15-20 years.

But the Point is not whether the Earth is warming or not, or at what rate it is warming. The citing of statistics contra the warming narrative are not necessarily to prove that the globe is not warming; it is to prove that the climate projections of the global Left are just that: projections, and not "scientific fact."

But go ahead and assume that the globe is warming, and that much of the warming is due to human activity.

So what?

The amount of CO2 going into the global atmosphere will be increasing dramatically over the coming decades REGARDLESS OF ANYTHING THAT IS DONE IN THE U.S., EUROPE, or CANADA. And THAT is a scientific fact. The reason is because the people in China and India, and the rest of the developing world are insisting on (a) having reliable sources of electricity (b) having POV's, (c) air conditioning, (d) computers and related stuff. And the cheapest, most reliable source of base-load electric power is burning fossil fuels, and the cheapest, most reliable means of personal mobility is the gasoline-powered vehicle. Fact, not opinion.

China is making great strides in increasing its commercial nuclear capacity, but most of the power for its masses will come from burning coal - which it has in abundance or can get from Australia. Same for India. Even Germany will be building coal-fired power plants to replace the generating capacity of the nuke plants it foolishly decided to mothball. Give the Germans credit for building wind farms and solar, working on technology to capture and store CO2, and taking great strides to use its BTU's efficiently, but for base-load power generation, if you exclude nukes the only road to travel is burning fossil fuels.

Here is the real question: Are our resources best spent creating obstacles to the generation of CO2, or creating an orderly plan to deal with the effects of warming as they occur? I read in the paper the other day that some government organization projects the costs of warming to be $180B over the next several decades? This is peanuts compared to the waste and cost of harassing our domestic coal-fired generation plants and auto makers.

The effects of climate change will be gradual. Manhattan will NEVER be under water. Long before there is any major inconvenience in New York or Venice, we will have taken measures to minimize or eliminate the problems. it will be costly, but so what? We have funded 2 world wars and survived; surely this can be funded.

EVERYONE can agree that technology to promote renewable sources of energy is a good thing, but private industry is already incentivized to work on that issue. Technology to make more efficient use of fossil fuels is not the least bit controversial, and is moving forward rapidly.

The main irritation in this whole public debate is the implication from the Left that if only the Rich Capitalists would do SOMETHING, then "Climate Change" could be brought under control and the world could pat itself on the back for a job well done.

This is utter nonsense. What is that THING that the greedy capitalists could do that would reduce CO2 emissions to a point where it would make a damn bit of difference in the future climate? There is no such thing or program, because of the factors I've mentioned above. At BEST we can shoot ourselves in our collective foot for no rational reason. Close down coal-fire power plants until they are a total thing of the past, and we will have wasted trillions of dollars in valuable assets, increased our electricity bills geometrically (as it is in Germany now), and it will make NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER IN THE FUTURE CLIMATE. Those plants will necessarily be replaced by plants burning some other form of carbon, resulting in the production of oceans of CO2 and H2O (vapor).

But having said all that, I really wish someone could figure out a way to stop people from buying - unnecessarily - large SUV's and F/S pickup trucks.

See this post.

Interesting analog.

I guess my point is that, short of demanding that we ALL become organic, Amish, subsistence farmers, there is nothing that anyone in the developed world can do that will have the slightest impact on the future climate. So we need to start planning to deal with its effects assuming they are inevitable.

The alarms going off now from the Left are analogous to the instructions I got in grade school that if we were in fear of an imminent "atomic bomb" attack, we should sit at our desks and put our heads under the table. Lot of good that would have done.

Just like shutting down coal-fired electric plants to reduce our CO2 emissions.

dgs49 wrote:Interesting analog.

I guess my point is that, short of demanding that we ALL become organic, Amish, subsistence farmers, there is nothing that anyone in the developed world can do that will have the slightest impact on the future climate. So we need to start planning to deal with its effects assuming they are inevitable.

... "

Denmark already gets 1/2 of their electricity from renewable energy sources. Germany gets about 25%. Overall, 50GW of photovoltaic generation were installed last year (the equivalent of 25 large or 50 small nuclear reactors)


We would be a lot further along ourselves if your party had not decided to lie about the science but California is doing well and the rest of you will follow as you usually do.

yrs,
rubato

We're doing better than we thought:


http://www.vox.com/2015/7/2/8880311/sol ... restimated

How much solar photovoltaic (PV) power is generated in the United States? According to a new report, official government figures may be understating the total by as much as 50 percent. That's a pretty big deal!

Here's the problem: the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and other energy agencies can easily gather data on electricity from big, utility-scale solar power plants that sell into wholesale markets. But it's much, much more difficult to get data about electricity from solar panels on the customer side of the meter. That means that rooftop solar power on homes and businesses gets overlooked and undercounted.

By how much? According to the latest Solar Market Insight Report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research (with an assist from kWh Analytics), it adds up to an enormous gap. Basically, some 9.2 gigawatts of customer-side solar capacity has been left out of official statistics. That's 45 percent of total solar PV:

The results are astonishing: we estimate that actual solar production is 50 percent higher than the previous best estimates of solar production. In the 12 months ending in March, solar energy systems in the U.S. generated 30.4 million megawatt-hours of electricity. EIA’s utility-only estimate for the same period is 20.2 million megawatt-hours.

These new numbers reveal, among other things, that three states — California, Arizona, and Hawaii — now get more than 5 percent of their total electricity from solar.

This is of more than academic interest. These estimates play a big role in policy. For instance, how well is the federal investment tax credit (ITC) working? If you ignore behind-the-meter solar, the ITC appears much more expensive than it is.

9 Gigawatts, that's equivalent to 9 nuclear plants.


yrs,
rubato

Read the other day that here on LI some of the electric infrastucture has to be updated to accomodate the solar industry. While big solar arrays make the upgrade to hookup to the grid, consumer arrays do not. Too many installations in one neighborhood (or near an industrial array) strains the areas grid. It was not really designed to take too many electricity "sources".

millions and millions of rooftops are just sittin' 'round doin' nothin'.....

time to put them to use, making electricity.

wesw wrote:millions and millions of rooftops are just sittin' 'round doin' nothin'.....

time to put them to use, making electricity.

The infrastructure needs updating if too many generate electricity.

buy storage batteries and cut the cord.....

You want your electric utility to be rated AAA, but not your electric storage battery.

There is no substitute for base-load power generation. Regardless of where you live, the sun only shines during the day, and the wind doesn't always blow. Excluding hydro - which is basically already tapped out - "renewable," non-combustion power will never be more than a small fraction of what the global economy needs to survive. Nuclear could step up to the plate, but global paranoia will prevent its spread for at least the next couple generations.

Solar powered cars, trucks, ships, planes, agricultural and construction machinery? Not in our lifetime.

Maximizing the efficiency of carbon-powered plants, tools, and machinery will help, and converting combustion to electric will also cut CO2 - depending on how the charging electricity is generated.

But NOTHING currently on the table, even if implemented immediately and globally, will REDUCE THE LEVEL OF CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE SUFFICIENTLY TO HAVE A MEASURABLE IMPACT ON FUTURE CLIMATE for at least the next hundred years.

The same would have been true even if Ronald Reagan had had a revelation and declared a War on CO2(!) early in his first term.

This whole "debate" is nothing more than a pretext to advance the Prog narrative that "capitalism and industry are BAAAAAAAD," and the only solution is more Government control over private industry.

uh.....

the sun always shines and the wind always blows.

no matter what the republicans say......

Didn't Tesla or somebody just announce the development of a battery sufficient to allow residential producers of electricity to store extra capacity?

Oh yeah, here it is:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/13/80336 ... -utilities

It is very interesting.


In Denmark, where they have a lot of wind and solar they are focussing on learning ways to adjust demand to meet supply. Certainly we will be doing some of that as well because it just makes sense to time activities to occur when power is most abundant and cheapest but if storage becomes cheap enough we will have less incentive.


Another factor is that with Elon Musk's new home batteries they can store enough energy for up to two days (longer with an effort to conserve) which will help to make those communities better prepared for natural disasters. It can only be a good thing to be better prepared.


yrs,
rubato

“The first rule of holes: When you're in one, stop digging.”

“The second rule of holes: When you stop digging, you are still in the hole, and will remain there until you decide to take further action.”

dgs49 wrote:Here is the real question: Are our resources best spent creating obstacles to the generation of CO2, or creating an orderly plan to deal with the effects of warming as they occur?

Why do you eliminate the option of doing BOTH? In fact, we have to do both, at the same time time, as quickly as is practical. And yes, for the record, nuclear (fission) energy will have to be a big part of the solution--at least until/unless fusion reactors become practical. There are already several promising, safe nuclear reactor designs out there; the sooner we get going on them, the better.

“The first rule of holes: When you're in one, stop digging.”

Does that mean you'll finally abandon contemporary liberalism?

not until the country is destroyed jim. divide and conquer and all that jazz.....

In a hole? Moi?

I've got Social Security, Medicare, better overtime rules, my daughters have guaranteed insurance, my gay friends can get married, and the economy keeps getting better so I'm still working--all thanks to contemporary liberalism.

Personally, I'm on top of the world!







(And if Reagan hadn't declared open season on unions back in the 1980s I might've even had a union pension too; fuck you very much, conservatives...)

http://www.solar-international.net/arti ... 1-2015.php

Global PV installations exceed 12GW in Q1 2015 »

Wednesday 8th July 2015

EnergyTrend estimates that global PV installations will reach up to 52GW in 2015 and the installed PV capacity in China, the US and Japan will account for about 63 percent. Based on the statistics of EnergyTrend, the global PV installations at the first quarter of 2015 surpassed 12GW and the full-year goal can be achieved.

According to EnergyTrend’s gold member data research, the global five largest solar markets in 2015 are China, the US, Japan, the UK and India, while China, the US and Japan rank the top three. Chinese market will continue to grow and be in the lead of many other countries. Chinese total PV installations at the first quarter of this year alone peaked 5.04GW, greatly moving towards the project of 17.8GW in full-year 2015. Although Japan continued to reduce FiT for solar, its PV installations at the first quarter still reached 1,950MW, which showed that the demand is still quit strong. The US got close to Japan with the installed PV capacity during the same period achieving 1,306MW. What is worth mentioning is that among the added electric power in the US at the first quarter, the solar PV energy accounted for 51 percent, surpassing the conventional power for the first time.

Besides the US that will continue to boost the PV installations, some countries in the American region will show overall growth. The demands this year in several Central & South American national including Chile, Honduras, Uruguay, etc. will significantly increase as well.

yrs,
rubato

photo-voltaic