Conspiracy theories surrounding human influenced climate change, what's up with that?


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Coriat wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

We (many of us) had this discussion way up thread now. Except for Wrath and one other person; not a single person posting to this thread has done squat about reducing their carbon footprint.

If we, we who are highly educated/informed on this topic, have done damn little-to-nothing, just what do you expect the rest of the world will do?

Wait, did I miss a quiz?

No, QB is doing his usual making-stuff-up-as-he-goes-along. Somehow, he gets from "everyone in a self-selecting and obviously biased sample" to "everyone." Add "statistics" to the list of classes he's never managed to pass.

Liberty's Edge

This graph shows two possible emissions reduction scenarios.

Basically, assuming a fairly steady rate of emissions reduction, in order to have a good chance to limit warming to 1.5 C we would have to get to zero emissions ~2050 and in order to limit warming to 2.0 C we would have to do so by ~2065.

Now, given that several studies have shown that it is possible to get to zero emissions (and/or 100% renewable power) by 2050, we might conclude that this means 1.5 C is still within reach. However, we aren't anywhere close to enacting the changes outlined in those studies.

Conversely, given that current emission reduction targets under the Paris agreement would result in ~2.7 C warming, we might conclude that 2.0 C is out of reach. However, the Paris agreement targets are intended to be improved every five years and logically emissions reductions should accelerate over time as old technologies are replaced at an increasing rate.

Logically, reduction targets should improve as costs of renewable energy continue to fall, and thus the ~2.7 C warming result from current targets might be considered a reasonable upper limit. Likewise, ~1.5 C warming based on the fastest transition to zero emissions which can currently be planned out seems like a reasonable lower limit.

Thus, while either end could be over-turned by unforeseen factors, ~1.5 C to ~2.7 C is a currently plausible range. Call it 2.1 +/- 0.6 C warming over an 1880-1910 baseline by 2100.


Squeakmaan wrote:
Umm, speak for yourself, I have taken actions to reduce my carbon footprint.

Well so have I. But if everyone does what we have done it will be too little... by a long shot!

If you live in the "western" world a large part of your carbon footprint are highways and a metric #### ton of other infrastructure to make your life "easy" - video games, SUVs, fast food, what have you.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Coriat wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

We (many of us) had this discussion way up thread now. Except for Wrath and one other person; not a single person posting to this thread has done squat about reducing their carbon footprint.

If we, we who are highly educated/informed on this topic, have done damn little-to-nothing, just what do you expect the rest of the world will do?

Wait, did I miss a quiz?
No, QB is doing his usual making-stuff-up-as-he-goes-along. Somehow, he gets from "everyone in a self-selecting and obviously biased sample" to "everyone." Add "statistics" to the list of classes he's never managed to pass.

Foul! Not constructive!

Try again please.


Climate Action Tracker

CAT wrote:
The emissions pledge pathway that includes INDCs has an over 90% probability of exceeding 2°C, and only a ‘likely’ (>66%) chance of remaining below 3°C this century. The current policy pathways have a higher than 99.5% probability of exceeding 2°C.

While the report itself uses more hopeful language, I'm not arguing what we as a species can do. Just what we will do based off of the invariant pattern of human history.

Global Emissions in 2016

Carbon Brief wrote:
The topline from the Global Carbon Project is that the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, gas flaring and cement production has held steady for three years in a row, neither increasing nor decreasing significantly.

A notable change to be sure but nowhere do they argue it is a sufficient change.

Carbon Brief wrote:

Dr Glen Peters, senior researcher at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo (CICERO) and project manager of the Global Carbon Project, tells Carbon Brief:

“Emissions have leveled out, but it’s too early to say whether that’s a peak in global emissions. First of all, we’d need to see emissions going down…Then after that, we’d need several years, maybe even a decade, to be confident that it was actually a peak.”

This "steady state" situation will see us to a +3.0°C easily.

Carbon Brief wrote:
In contrast, emissions are rising across the developing world. India, which contributes 6.3% of global emissions, saw its emissions rise by 5.2% in 2015.

India, and Africa, and South America don't want to sit where they're at for another half century before they can have some single-digit whole number fraction our standard of living. So they won't.

Who's going to give them the green tech to get into the 21st century? Likely no one and if not they'll do just what we did, just what China did, to get there. Dump loads of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Carbon Brief wrote:

If the world pursues the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious limit of 1.5C, the timescales over which global emissions need to peak and start falling rapidly are much shorter. By the end of 2016, total global emissions since the start of the industrial era will total 565bn tonnes of carbon – or 92% of the carbon budget for 1.5C.

Expressed a different way, there are just over four years’ worth of current emissions left before it becomes unlikely that we’ll meet the 1.5C target without overshooting and relying on unproven “negative emissions” technologies to remove large amounts of CO2 out of the air later in the century.

Ahh yes, carbon sequestration will save the globe. Because you know we are going to spend as much effort to sequester CO2 as we did to make computer games and SUVs. That's just human nature, to rigorously do good at the same pace as we banally commit gross malfeasance.

My take-away:
Given that the global per capita emissions need to be something less than half the current value, and
Given that current changes for the better (on a global scale) are in the fractional to low single-digit percentages year-over-year,
I would say we are in for a +3.0°C end of century, or worse.

But to curb my naturally cynical nature, albeit enhanced by Dr Glen Peters sober assessment quoted above, I'll stick with my prior +2.5°C by 2100 estimate.

TRENDS IN GLOBAL CO2 EMISSIONS

Joint Research Center wrote:
The global energy intensity, which is the amount of energy used per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), improved by 1.8%. This is more than the 1.5% improvement seen in 2014, and triple the average annual rate (0.6%) seen in the previous decade. The high improvement rate is remarkable, since energy prices were low.

Page 44 and 46 (source of preceding quote) are the kind of positive thinking CB is fond of pointing out. Never mind that the rate of drop off is too slow to get us what the Paris Agreement hopes for. But it's the numbers on the page in between (45 but also "Annex 2" starting on page 64) that have me guessing we'll see a +2.5°C future.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
This "steady state" situation will see us to a +3.0°C easily.
CAT wrote:
The emissions pledge pathway that includes INDCs has an over 90% probability of exceeding 2°C, and only a ‘likely’ (>66%) chance of remaining below 3°C this century.

As usual, your 'source' directly contradicts your conclusion.

Again, current emission reduction pledges get us to ~2.7 C warming by 2100 (aka >66% chance of below 3 C). Those reductions rates will almost certainly improve as renewable energy costs continue to decline.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
This "steady state" situation will see us to a +3.0°C easily.
CAT wrote:
The emissions pledge pathway that includes INDCs has an over 90% probability of exceeding 2°C, and only a ‘likely’ (>66%) chance of remaining below 3°C this century.

As usual, your 'source' directly contradicts your conclusion.

Again, current emission reduction pledges get us to ~2.7 C warming by 2100 (aka >66% chance of below 3 C). Those reductions rates will almost certainly improve as renewable energy costs continue to decline.

Perfect, you made my point!

So here's the links again to the sources I was referring to: Climate Action Tracker
And: just hours later the link is no longer exactly the same... gotta love the Interwebs. Just try and cite a source, I dare you :D

Be that as it may, you'll notice that what the first source are calling "Current Policies" is essentially the same as what Dr Glen Peters says is insufficient. And Dr Glen Peters is the guy I was using for support in my "steady state" comment.

Aside from quoting me out of context...

In order to make your point, one first has to believe that all parties will keep their pledges. If you will remember the Kyoto Protocol (all history for me but not, it seems, for most of you) and you well know how well humans keep their pledges.

No, I've cited sources properly and did not misrepresent what they say. Therefore, a +2.5°C world in the year 2100 is about as mild a scientific conjecture as one can make.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
Perfect, you made my point!

The only point made by you concluding that the current scenario "will see us to a +3.0°C easily" based on a source that says it will yield ">66% chance of below 3 C" is that there is something wrong with your ability to reason... and/or read.

Quote:
In order to make your point, one first has to believe that all parties will keep their pledges.

Truish. It doesn't matter if country A misses their target by a little if country B makes up the difference... thus it isn't "all parties" individually, but the world collectively which must meet the targets.

Now, you say that India, Africa, and South America (I notice you've dropped China) will want to increase their standard of living... but everyone agrees with that. Where you go off the rails is your insistence that increasing standard of living requires increasing CO2 emissions. That just isn't true any more.

Why would developing countries choose to use fossil fuels when solar bids in those markets are now coming in at half the price of coal?

You keep saying 'greed' and 'human nature to take the easy way' and 'selfishness' and all these things which aren't in dispute... but then ignoring all questions about why those things don't lead inevitably to massive deployment of cheap solar power and the end of global warming.

Until you can address that issue your position remains a non-sequitur.


~shrugs~ If I was to be honest with myself, I would get very depressed about the situation. My guess is that due to humans being humans, we will hit the +3.0 degree mark by 2100. I hope that I am wrong and I will work to try to change that. But every time I walk around in the woods and see all the trash that people dump, I realize just how stupid we are as a race.


The solar roof is now on sale, and it may wow or disappoint you depending on what you were looking for.

The Motley Fool wrote:

But make no mistake, the cost of installing the actual solar roof before the cost of energy will be much higher than a "normal" roof as most people would define it. And it'll be more costly than even the most expensive tile or slate options currently on the market.

...Solar panels are now less than $3 per watt to install, and payback times are now as little as 7-10 years, compared to 20-30 years for the solar roof...

Right now, Tesla will essentially custom-design every solar roof, and it's unclear how that process will go. The quotes customers can get on Tesla's website today are preliminary, and it's not clear if Tesla will have to reconfigure many roofs to make the solar roof work. Remember that the homes with the solar roofs on them at Tesla's demo last fall had their roofs entirely rebuilt, which may be required in most cases given the unforgivable nature of glass tiles.

People I've talked to in the industry are also worried about cooling, something Telsa must have thought of but didn't spend any time discussing. Solar cells get hot when collecting solar energy, and the electricity running through cells and their connections to an inverter will need to be cooled in some way so fires don't break out in the roof.

For the next decade we can safely say Solar Roofs (as in solar roof tiles) is a big pot of Meh. Harder to bring to market than they thought. About like "solar roads", nice idea in a world where Plasteel or Duracrete are actual (inexpensive) things; not so nice in the world we live in (stupid laws of physics and human nature*).

As for CB's note that I've "dropped China" on the standard of living thing. It's not so much dropped as they are already about as 'on the way' as they are going to get. Over the next 10 years automation will cause China to shed jobs faster than the "West" did over the previous 30 years. I don't know how the state-run economy will handle that but I expect they'll be scrambling to maintain their current average standard of living. India, Africa and South America are largely so poor now that we can expect they'll keep aiming for SUVs all around, etc.

CB wrote:
Why would developing countries choose to use fossil fuels when solar bids in those markets are now coming in at half the price of coal?

Because the sun doesn't shine half the time. Counter to the simple numbers given in the Bloomberg piece, several hundred coal-fired plants will still be built across the globe in the coming decade; with thousands more ran through their expected lifetime. Natural gas-fired plants will be viable for much longer than coal. Oil will be around and used at about the current pace until we fracking run out of shale deposits.

* Mostly the latter I'll wager

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
For the next decade we can safely say Solar Roofs (as in solar roof tiles) is a big pot of Meh. Harder to bring to market than they thought.

Given that they literally have been brought to market I think we can "safely say" that you are wrong about that.

Sure, solar roof tiles cost more than regular roof tiles OR regular solar panels... but they do the job of both at less than the combined cost. Ergo, these tiles makes sense for anyone who wants a nice looking roof AND solar power. That people who aren't hung up on aesthetics can get regular solar panels cheaper is hardly an argument against solar development increasing.

Essentially, once the double-think is stripped out, the only 'valid' point remaining from your argument is that these solar tiles are not SO cheap that even people who don't want solar power would buy them anyway. That's hardly a reasonable standard for whether they are likely to be successful or not... and if we factor in the electricity cost savings from the solar panels then even that isn't true, as the roof will eventually pay for itself.

BTW, the same logic applies to solar roads... even though they will certainly cost more than normal roads, normal solar panels, and normal power transmission lines, they will be viable if they cost less than the sum of those things... because they do all three jobs.

Finally, it must be noted that this is the initial cost. The Tesla Powerwall 2 announced at the same events stores electricity at 13% less cost than the original Powerwall... which was released just last year. Electric vehicle costs have dropped more than 50% since the Tesla Roadster came out. Solar roof tile costs will also inevitably decline... if nothing else, as the integrated solar panel costs continue to do so.

Quote:
Because the sun doesn't shine half the time.

Now that solar has dropped below 'grid parity' for most people, it is only a matter of time (most estimates say ~2030) before solar plus home battery storage does so as well. Commercial solar and grid level battery storage will get there sooner. Further, in many places excess solar power can already be stored via pumped hydro and other methods.

By the time the fossil fuel makeup of the grid has dropped low enough for the intermittent nature of solar and wind to be a problem we will be able to use energy storage to eliminate that problem.

Quote:
Counter to the simple numbers given in the Bloomberg piece, several hundred coal-fired plants will still be built across the globe in the coming decade;

Go back five years and most estimates had tens of thousands of new coal plants being built in that time frame. Go forward five years and I'm confidante we'll be looking at single digits.

The number of new coal plants in development dropped 48% from 2015 to 2016.

At that rate, we'd hit zero new coal plants after thirteen months (i.e. February 2018 onwards). In reality it will take a bit longer, but coal is obviously on the way out.

Quote:
with thousands more ran through their expected lifetime.

Given that there are nearly two million coal plants in operation world wide, it is safe to say that mere "thousands" will reach the end of their expected lifetimes every year (let alone over the next ten). However, it is unlikely that most coal plants now being built will remain in operation thru end of life. Which is why, in 2016, hundreds of plants already under construction were cancelled. Think about that. They spent money to start building a plant and then wrote it off as a loss... because completing the plant would just have resulted in a BIGGER loss.

The economics have shifted so quickly that coal plants which seemed financially viable just a few years ago no longer are. China and India are getting out of coal. Less developed nations are skipping coal and nationwide grids entirely in favor of going directly to distributed solar power.

Quote:
Natural gas-fired plants will be viable for much longer than coal. Oil will be around and used at about the current pace until we fracking run out of shale deposits.

Natural gas is more expensive than coal for most of the world. The US is an exception on this, but even here solar and wind will soon undercut the cost of natural gas as well. The time limit on oil will be determined by battery costs, not available supplies... that became clear with the introduction of the Chevy Bolt earlier this year. There is now an electric vehicle with about the same range at about the same cost as a similar gasoline powered vehicle. Five years ago you could get 1/5th the range for 5x the cost. Five years from now... electric vehicles will cost less and go further.

We have reached the stage where fossil fuels are being propped up by entrenched interests. That is inherently unsustainable... eventually the competing technology (renewable power in this case) gains enough clout to equalize the playing field and the old guard collapses. That is currently happening with coal. Next step is that the new regime starts to use its growing clout to slant things in their favor. As solar and wind run coal out of the electricity market they will be able to lobby governments to support them... which will further hasten the fall of other fossil fuels.


China and Coal-fired Power Plants

tBI wrote:
China's total coal-fired power generation capacity was likely to reach 1,300 GW by the end of 2020, much higher than the 1,100 GW target in China's 2016-2020 five-year plan. Total coal-fired capacity stood at 940 GW at the end of 2016.

That's still way too much coal to meet anything like a +2.0°C future. Also, there's this and projects like this in Africa and elsewhere too (see the following link):

Why Build Coal Plants in China when you can Build Them in Pakistan

PEi wrote:

Officials at the Pakistani water and power ministry have said Chinese companies are expected to spend around $15bn over the next 15 years to build close to a dozen coal-fired power plants of varying sizes around the country...

Coal power will, according to these projections, account for 75 per cent of the newly generated power, which the government says will be installed with the latest in pollution-minimizing equipment.

Yay China! Nominally they get to meet the Paris Agreement numbers while still making a metric ####ton of cash building this polluting infrastructure around the globe.

German coal-fired power plant profitability hits 2017-high as coal dips, euro gains

Platt wrote:
Profit margins for coal-fired power plants to produce electricity for delivery in Germany next year have rebounded and reached their highest level this year, S&P Global Platts data showed.

So Germany won't be doing near enough to get us a +2.0°C world.

Sure they, along with the rest of Western Europe, are getting out of the coal business faster than predicted 10 years ago but that's still not nearly fast enough to make a +2.0°C world.

India represents a critical unknown in global projections of future CO2 emissions

AGU - Earth's Future April 2017 wrote:
India's Nationally Determined Contributions (to global CO2) is itself incompatible with the international goal of limiting warming to 2°C [Raupach et al., 2014; Peters et al., 2015; Rogelj et al., 2016]. Comparing the allowable cumulative CO2 emissions with the emission pledges of the EU, USA, China, and India, Peters et al. [2015] found the combined emission pledges left no room for other countries to emit CO2 for a 2°C temperature limit. In considering a “fair” carbon budget for the country that considers its need for economic growth and projected population growth, Peters estimates India's annual CO2 emissions can rise to a little over 3 Gt total by 2025, but would need to decline by 2030. For 1.5°C, reductions in India would have to begin immediately [Peters, 2016].

Do you get that?

Just India alone will push us to a +2°C world, if they don't stop right now. In order to get us to a +1.5°C world, India will have to start reductions right now.

India will do neither of those, because... people. We can consider ourselves lucky if by 2022 India is trending the right direction. That delayed-until-2022-action, from India alone, will give us a +2.5°C world.

Then you have South America and Africa and the rest of the non-"western" world scrambling to get their bundle of material possessions. And yes China, I'll specifically add China in there since it seems to be a bother for them to be left out, but really their pace of harm is already about as bad as a cynical hipster can dream so I try to cut them some slack when I can.


In other news:
Fracture propagation and stability of ice shelves governed by ice shelf heterogeneity

GRL wrote:
We found that the crack grows in bursts, and it slows down when it reaches patches of stronger ice. We use a computer model to predict what direction the crack will grow. After the crack releases a giant iceberg, most of the remaining ice will speed up. Whether the ice shelf survives or soon shatters depends on a single, narrow stripe of strong ice that is currently preventing many additional cracks from growing across the ice shelf. If this stripe of strong ice is growing weaker, Larsen C may soon be history.

And when the ice shelf goes the glaciers it holds back will scoot straight into the sea. From that alone you can add a few cm to the expected sea level rise by the year 2030.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
Platt wrote:
Profit margins for coal-fired power plants to produce electricity for delivery in Germany next year have rebounded and reached their highest level this year, S&P Global Platts data showed.

So Germany won't be doing near enough to get us a +2.0°C world.

Sure they, along with the rest of Western Europe, are getting out of the coal business faster than predicted 10 years ago but that's still not nearly fast enough to make a +2.0°C world.

First - All that article is saying is that the average profit margin for coal power reached the highest value for the current year.

Second - The article says that milestone was achieved because of low profit coal plants being shut down... which makes this good news on decarbonization.

Third - Given your understanding that coal power reduction is preceding much faster now than ten years ago, why do you not consider that this trend will continue? Current reduction rates are indeed "still not nearly fast enough"... but there is absolutely no reason to believe that they won't continue to improve.

AGU - Earth's Future April 2017 wrote:
India's Nationally Determined Contributions (to global CO2) is itself incompatible with the international goal of limiting warming to 2°C [Raupach et al., 2014; Peters et al., 2015; Rogelj et al., 2016]. Comparing the allowable cumulative CO2 emissions with the emission pledges of the EU, USA, China, and India, Peters et al. [2015] found the combined emission pledges left no room for other countries to emit CO2 for a 2°C temperature limit. In considering a “fair” carbon budget for the country that considers its need for economic growth and projected population growth, Peters estimates India's annual CO2 emissions can rise to a little over 3 Gt total by 2025, but would need to decline by 2030. For 1.5°C, reductions in India would have to begin immediately [Peters, 2016].
Quark Blast wrote:

Do you get that?

Just India alone will push us to a +2°C world, if they don't stop right now.

I get that, as usual, that is not at all what the passage in question says.

India represents about 5% of global emissions. Ergo, no, India does not have to "stop right now" to get us to 2°C. What happens with the other 95% of global emissions cold offset India's 2015 pledge path... or India itself could revise that pledge... as indeed seems likely given the freeze they placed on new coal development since then.

Note, the three others listed there combine for about 45% of global emissions. India is a bit player by comparison.

Quote:
In order to get us to a +1.5°C world, India will have to start reductions right now.

India and everyone else would need to reduce emissions at roughly triple the current pledged rate. Not going to happen barring some major breakthrough in the next few years.

Quote:
Then you have South America and Africa and the rest of the non-"western" world scrambling to get their bundle of material possessions.

Which, as previously noted, they are doing with solar power.

Liberty's Edge

Global renewable power subsidies now roughly half those of fossil fuels

Renewables are already under-cutting the costs of fossil fuels. That will inevitably result in further erosion of government support for fossil fuels... which will in turn drive up their costs... and so on, driving the rapidly accelerating spiral of the energy transition.

Meanwhile, vehicle makers are cutting R&D funds for gasoline engines to concentrate on electric vehicles. Electric vehicle sales grew 42% from 2015 to 2016, eight times faster than the auto market in general. Battery prices fell 50% from 2014 to 2016. New massive battery production factories, at least 14 will be completed world wide in the next few years, will increase the number of batteries produced annually more than ten-fold... further accelerating the decline in prices.


The problem is not that green tech is charging in but that this level of development needed to have happened in 1995 or thereabouts.

When we get annual CO2 emissions down to circa 1965 levels* things will be looking better AGW-wise. However, at present we are less than...8 Years Before We Break the Promise of Our +2.0°C Goal

Notice how the +1.5°C scenario is listed as "inevitable".

I've seen excerpts from Al Gore's upcoming An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, and he's all super hyped with positive vagarity regarding the state of our climate and renewable energy. I don't like being lied to but maybe he's secretly hoping to stave off a +5.0°C world and so is making noises like we can still hit that +2.0°C goal no problem.

* For those who fail to click the link, that would be an emissions level not much higher than 1-Giga-Ton annually. A level so low perhaps no one alive today will see that happen again.


GOP senators urge Trump to make ‘clean exit’ from Paris Agreement


hmmnnn... Interesting.


Sharoth wrote:
hmmnnn... Interesting.

My dad explained this ploy to me once when there was a significant disagreement among the neighborhood kids (long story which I'll skip):

"The only way to win is not to play". Hence the dropping out of the lawsuit by the big oil players.


But I came by here today to post on a couple of sources:

NASA Discovers a New Mode of Ice Loss in Greenland

JPL Scientist wrote:
"During the two summers when solitary waves occurred, the surface snowpack and ice of the huge basin in Greenland's interior behind Rink Glacier held more water than ever before. In 2012, more than 95 percent of the surface snow and ice was melting. Meltwater may create temporary lakes and rivers that quickly drain through the ice and flow to the ocean. "The water upstream probably had to carve new channels to drain," explained coauthor Erik Ivins of JPL. "It was likely to be slow-moving and inefficient." Once the water had formed pathways to the base of the glacier, the wave of intense loss began."

Think we'll see more and more of these types of summers? Seems highly likely to me.

The question though is what impact will it have on the melting of Greenland's glaciers and ice fields? With simple modeling of the global temperature increase it will take thousands of years to melt all the ice there.

But what does this "wave" process do for that time estimate? Turn it into centuries or decades?


What follows is yet another link supporting my position. Care to rebut it?

Welcome to the New Normal

Ars wrote:
"First up was a middle emissions scenario that results in about 2.4 degrees Celsius total warming by 2100. (For comparison, if every nation met the pledges they submitted for the Paris Agreement and carried that trend past the agreement’s end in 2030, we would see around 2.8 degrees Celsius warming.)"

The chaps at Climate Action Tracker also covered this particular topic.

Current Pledges to Reduce AGW

Climate Action Tracker wrote:
{Note the thermometer graphic on the left side}; it shows the global-mean temperature increase above the pre-industrial level as seen in the year 2100 (with an uncertainty range originating from carbon-cycle and climate modeling).

One might ask: What is the expected average mean global temp increase under current pledge* levels?

Glancing at the thermometer we see a range between +2.3°C and +3.5°C, with a likely outcome of a +2.8°C world.

What do you know? With my estimate of a +2.5°C increase, it appears that I wasn't cynical enough! Huh? Go figure.

Don't even ask what current policies would give us.

Hint:
It's much worse

* That would of course be the Paris Agreement

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
What follows is yet another link supporting my position. Care to rebut it?

What's to rebut? It appears to just be a re-hash of your previous posts... continuing the illogical assumption that the original pledge levels will not be improved every five years as was intended.

As has been explained many times now, I agree that "current pledge levels" would likely lead to over 2.5°C warming by 2100. I do not agree that nothing better than current pledge levels is likely to be achieved. Those pledges were based on renewable energy costs much higher than what they are at now... which are themselves much higher than where things will be in just a few more years.

Liberty's Edge

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The first quarter 2017 EIA numbers just came out.

Renewable energy grew to 19.35% of US utility scale (i.e. not including residential and other small scale solar) electricity consumption

In their 2012 report, the EIA had projected that the 'rapid growth' then being seen in renewables would lead to 15% by 2035... which extrapolates to not hitting 19.35% until 2057. So, we're 40 years ahead of what they projected just five years ago.

Even more significantly, renewables grew from 10% of total at the end of 2010 to over 20% (when including non-utility solar) of total US electric consumption at the start of 2017... six years for a 10% increase. Thus, even assuming assuming the average over the past six years (rather than the faster current rate or any further acceleration in the future) were to continue, we would hit ~100% renewable power by 2065.

In other news, Trump is reportedly telling associates that he will drop out of the Paris agreement (though publicly still denying that he has made a decision). While this could potentially represent a significant threat to stopping global warming if other large emitters follow suit, it seems much more likely that China, Germany, and others would take such an opportunity to make the US a 'climate pariah' while seeking 'world leadership' status (and renewable energy technology sales) for themselves.

Fortunately, as the EIA numbers show, the US will continue to transition to renewable energy whether we are in the Paris agreement or not.


...AND Trump has officially drawn from the Paris Accords


MMCJawa wrote:
...AND Trump has officially drawn from the Paris Accords

Yeah, it's unfortunate. But, it won't have any real impact. The targets were non-binding, and it will take almost 3.5 years to back out of the agreement unless he can get the Senate to also back out of the governing treaty we signed in the 90's.


It is the intent and the larger message of the action that really scares me.

Something like this:

POTUS: So we are gonna do this coal and oil thing as hard as we can cause America first, bring back the (black lung causing, earth killing, oil covered dead seals) power sources and hold my beer! To hell with the rest of you suckers and your "caring about our planet's health and environmental sustainability".

Rest of Earth: Uhh, we though this climate thing was really important, but if the leader of the free world doesn't give a s*%t, then it must be fine, must be one of those fake news stories... (to be fair plenty of nations will continue to work towards green/sustainable energy and other practices regardless of what Carrot Toupee and Co. does, which is good!)

Generation of Humans to be Born Around 2100 (maybe later or earlier, I dunno): Oh WTF ancestors...!

(As my nation, America, is one of the top environmental polluters, our refusal and backward action in energy/climate change impacts everyone else on the ol' blue and green marble...at this ever so tenuous moment, I am truly sorry for that, the president of my nation has betrayed his own people, the rest of humanity, and Gaia. However, this pagan druid is going to Green On! and still do my best to combat "some folks" bad choices every way I can! How does that quote go..."No cause is lost as long is there is but one fool willing to fight for it.")


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I'm with Beernorg, it's a REALLY bad sign to see a guy that leads one of the largest industrialized nations on this planet do something this bone-headed.

I don't think the rest of the developed/more industrialized countries will go against international accords. But I do think it shows a lack of foresight on EVERYONE'S part that let Trump do this.


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OTOH, Gary Cohn, head of Trump's National Economic Council says "Coal doesn't even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock" and "If you think about how solar and how much wind power we've created in the United States, we can be a manufacturing powerhouse and still be environmentally friendly".

He's still pushing natural gas, but it still reinforces the idea that coal is done and renewables will grow, just for economic reasons.

Liberty's Edge

Clown hair has no conception of the Hell he has just unleashed on himself.

We saw how unprepared they were for the fallout when they fired Comey and turned the FBI against them. The meltdown in the face of GLOBAL condemnation is going to be truly awful.


Up note from Thejeff's post, indeed, if the citizens of the U.S continue to move to green energy as fast or faster (I would like faster) then we are, even to our "esteemed" POTUS it should become clear that money is in that just BEGGING! to be made, and we know he likes money...

Or is that too hopeful?

(He reminds me of Frito from the movie "Idiocracy"...this is not comforting to me, still one of my favorite films however)


Beer,

It's too hopeful. I'm pretty sure Frito is smarter than this clown.

Jeff,

I'm just waiting for the Fusion age to get under way. Maybe by then, we'll have some success moving the needle forward to greener alternatives.


well to some extent, the silver lining is that many of the economic powerhouses are actually blue states, and those states are still very much pro climate change accord. They can keep to higher standards than the rest of the nation and hopefully ameliorate these problems.

The Exchange

GM_Beernorg wrote:
Rest of Earth: Uhh, we though this climate thing was really important, but if the leader of the free world doesn't give a s*%t, then it must be fine, must be one of those fake news stories... (to be fair plenty of nations will continue to work towards green/sustainable energy and other practices regardless of what Carrot Toupee and Co. does, which is good!)

Well, I guess it will just lead the rest to work better together (it's certainly no coincidence that german chancellor Merkel and chinese premier Li used their meeting just to pronounce this fact). And regarding environmental pollution, it's not as if we still hadn't our own work to do and there's certainly no need to wait for the U.S. to start with it.


Yeah Trump's overall approach to foreign diplomacy is going to have severe repercussions down the line. With this and everything else, he is for instance pretty much ensuring that any attempt to renegotiate aspects of NAFTA are dead in the water, not to mention any other foreign trade deals.


Can I at least sell tickets so folks can climb Garbage Mountain? (patent pending, Garbage Mountain is a trade mark of Wasteful Oblivious Monkeys LLC.)

For once, I am glad I am a New York State resident, even if Carrot Flop won't fight to preserve our world, at least my really high state taxes will do something good for once (maybe...I have reservations given past state debacles)

Liberty's Edge

People often cite the International Energy Agency's 'World Energy Outlook' report and similar projections when claiming that solar will not grow fast enough to allow for the kind of emissions reductions needed to avoid 2 C warming. A chart showing these IEA projections each year since 2002 vs actual annual solar deployments seems instructive as to why this is a bad bet;

IEA projections chart

Most projections of wind deployment have similarly assumed that future growth will be modest...

...and have continued to be similarly wrong.

Note that, even with their continued insistence that solar deployments will level off in whatever year they happen to be projecting forward from, the IEA now projects that renewables will represent 60% of global production by 2040. If we instead accept the obvious, that the deployment rate of wind and solar power will continue to accelerate, it becomes clear that ending global warming is now entirely plausible... possibly even inevitable.


BigDTBone wrote:

<On Trump's withdrawl from the Paris Agreement>

Yeah, it's unfortunate. But, it won't have any real impact. The targets were non-binding, and it will take almost 3.5 years to back out of the agreement unless he can get the Senate to also back out of the governing treaty we signed in the 90's.

The Paris Climate Agreement Won't Change the Climate

PragerU wrote:

If we generously assume that the promised carbon cuts for 2030 are not only met (which itself would be a U.N. first), but sustained, throughout the rest of the century, temperatures in 2100 would drop by 0.3 degrees; the equivalent of postponing warming by less than four years...

98% of the assumed reductions {from a fully implemented Paris Agreement} will come only after the year 2030.

Trump and any climate related effects his actions will have will be long gone by 2030.


Thomas Seitz wrote:
I'm just waiting for the Fusion age to get under way. Maybe by then, we'll have some success moving the needle forward to greener alternatives.

The only real way forward actually. Or something similar, like a way to catalyze the sequestration of atmospheric CO2 that is on the level of Star Trek techno-magically efficient.

CB's idea that renewables will scale back the CO2 effect on average global temp by 2100 is worthy of Al Gore. Alas it's still wrong by about one generation. Which is to say the hoped for changes will be about 25 years too late. Barring unhoped for climate factors (e.g. major sustained volcanic eruptions, mega asteroid impact), our planet will exceed +2.5°C by 2100.

To date most renewable energy production is for (or in lieu of) the electrical grid. Hasn't really touched transportation yet.

Then there is the not insignificant impact from construction. Concrete sucks a lot of power.

Then there is the continued viability of natural gas across the globe for at least another three decades.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
CB's idea that renewables will scale back the CO2 effect on average global temp by 2100 is worthy of Al Gore.

Really?

I hardly think awareness of the basic realities of renewable energy growth qualifies me for the Vice Presidency (or Presidency if we ignore the judicial coup that was Bush v Gore), but thank you.

Quote:
Alas it's still wrong by about one generation. Which is to say the hoped for changes will be about 25 years too late. Barring unhoped for climate factors (e.g. major sustained volcanic eruptions, mega asteroid impact), our planet will exceed +2.5°C by 2100.

That would only be true if renewable energy deployment continued at the current pace through 2100... which is an absurdly implausible assumption.

Quote:
To date most renewable energy production is for (or in lieu of) the electrical grid. Hasn't really touched transportation yet. Then there is the not insignificant impact from construction. Concrete sucks a lot of power.

Electrons are electrons... whether they are used to power homes, vehicles, or concrete production is irrelevant.

You'd have a more legitimate point with the CO2 emissions from concrete (and steel for that matter) production that have nothing to do with power requirements... that is, calcium carbonate from limestone is heated to produce calcium oxide with CO2 as chemical a byproduct (CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2). We can convert the heating to clean electrical sources, but that does nothing to reduce the CO2 emissions from the chemical process... which represents about half the total emissions from concrete production.

However, if we get down to just CO2 emissions from calcium oxide (aka quicklime) for concrete and steel plus a few other niche applications (e.g. air travel) then environmental sinks will easily be able to absorb our CO2 emissions each year and thus prevent the atmospheric concentration from increasing.

Basically, getting electrical production converted to clean renewable sources will be sufficient. The vast majority of other fuel consumption (e.g. transportation & heating) will then convert to electrical to take advantage of the cost savings.

Quote:
Then there is the continued viability of natural gas across the globe for at least another three decades.

We'll see. The only people still predicting "continued viability" for natural gas (e.g. IEA) are the same ones who had been doing so for coal just a few years ago. They were obviously wrong then, and (to me) just as obviously so now.

Basic economics tells us that as renewable power prices continue to drop, natural gas will quickly join coal (and oil) in obsolescence.


Given that China just surpassed the EU on per capita CO2 emissions last year, despite the unprecedented roll out of solar and wind, tells me that we have something less than 8 years to get global emissions down to 1995 levels.

India will be giving an ever increasing per capita CO2 load during that time and will be doing their best to exceed the current EU level.

Indonesia, Brazil and many other economies will be close behind.

Europe will be net neutral (but note that they "outsource" much of their CO2 production and other pollution).

The rest of the world, despite the billions of people there, won't add a whole lot by virtue of being poor. Though I expect the increase over current levels to be measurable if not globally significant. They could provide the tipping point so I won't rule out the significance of their atmospheric CO2 load.

Electrical power generation on the global scale simply doesn't have enough time to get where we need. Maybe, just maybe, if we can get large-scale battery storage cost to drop over the next 5 years like the price of solar has dropped over the past 8 years, we can squeak in at net +2.0°C by the year 2100.

btw: "worthy of Al Gore" = optimistic in spite of clear evidence to the contrary.
CB can take that as a compliment but it's really a rather simple observation devoid of either personal criticism or praise.


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Also, re China, looks like they set their import quotas on crude oil to an all time high for 2017. Not sure how I missed that fact before but that they are NOT reducing their import quotas rather says enough about the direction atmospheric CO2 will take for another decade or so. Go China! Make Antarctica Green Again! :D

This:
Scientists Saw a Nearly Unheard of Antarctic Meltdown

This:
Melt of Key Antarctic Glaciers ‘Unstoppable,’ Studies Find

CC_Org wrote:

Rignot’s study, accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, looked at observations of the glacier’s grounding lines since 1992 and found that they have “been retreating at record speeds, unmatched anywhere else in the Antarctic,” Rignot said during a press conference.

A previous study by Rignot and his colleagues also found that the flow speeds of the glaciers in the ASE have also increased over the past few decades, with a minor recent slowdown in the Pine Island Glacier’s flow, increasing the total amount of ice discharged into the ocean. The faster glaciers flow, the more they spread and thin. The faster flow and increasing retreat reinforce each other in a feedback cycle.

Radar measurements of the bedrock below the glaciers don’t find any hills or other impediments that could temporarily slow the retreat of the ice.

And this:

Meltdown: On the Front Lines of Climate Change
DiscMag" wrote:

By 1998, satellites revealed that Pine Island Glacier in the Amundsen Sea Embayment was retreating. In the past, experts thought the undersides of glaciers would melt only a few inches each year. This glacier was losing more than 150 feet annually. Pine Island and its neighbor glacier Thwaites both act like a stopper for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Scientists worry that their melting might unleash inland floes that would also flood into the sea...

The recent data have stoked fears that Thwaites might pose the biggest threat. Because of the changes already underway here, Thwaites’ melting rate doubled in just six years, and it now generates some 10 percent of global sea level rise. The glacier’s total collapse could push sea levels 2 feet higher...

“We don’t know how much the ice sheet beneath it is going to melt,” she says. But her team found grim results when they tried to model what might happen. “No matter what scenario we threw at it, Thwaites collapsed,” Medley says...

A January report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reviewed the latest observations from Antarctica and Greenland. It estimated that oceans could rise by 8 feet this century under the worst-case scenario. Their optimistic case: 1 foot.

Don't see many credentialed doubters on this topic.


Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables

MIT - Technology Review wrote:
Even as Germany adds lots of wind and solar power to the electric grid, the country’s carbon emissions are rising. Will the rest of the world learn from its lesson?

LOL! I keep getting feedback that I'm too much a Cynical Hipster and the news keeps telling me I'm actually behind in my cynicism. :D

Sure, overall Germany has reduced its CO2 emissions these past 30 years. The greater portion of which is from the switch to natural gas powered turbines in lieu of cold war era coal plants. Another significant chunk of reduction came with the global recession. This green energy push is fine in principle but todays level of effort should have been put into practice 20 years ago, at least. That and a far stronger emphasis on energy efficiency.

In addition, Germany, like the rest of the developed world, have outsourced much of their pollution to countries who produce things cheaply on the backs of underpaid labor and lax (or nonexistent) enforcement of environmental laws.

On top of that concern is the fact that Germany, one of the top 5 tech coutnries in the world, couldn't pull this green energy transition without major hiccups and a (more or less) 20 year delay. Just how well is the rest of the world going to manage the transition? Poorly I'd imagine.

Why Bad Things Happen to Clean-Energy Startups

MIT - Technology Review wrote:

But on March 8, after failing to raise additional funding, Aquion filed for bankruptcy protection, cut 80 percent of its staff, and halted manufacturing. It was the latest of several stumbles for venture-backed storage startups. EnerVault, which was developing what are known as flow batteries, put itself up for sale after failing to find additional investors in 2015. Later that year, liquid-metal battery startup Ambri laid off a quarter of its staff. Around that same time, LightSail Energy, which was struggling to develop technology to store energy as compressed air in carbon-fiber tanks, pivoted to selling its containers to natural-gas suppliers. Taken together, these struggles have deflated hopes for the emergence of affordable and practical grid storage anytime soon.

And that’s a problem. Without cheap ways of storing excess energy generated from intermittent sources like wind and sun, there are limitations on how much these renewable sources of power can contribute to the grid’s overall electricity generation—and, by extension, how much we can cut the greenhouse-gas emissions driving climate change. There are already days when California solar farms have to shut down because they’re generating more power than the grid can use at a particular time. And yet the system still needs to run enough fossil-fuel backup plants to meet total demand whenever the sun dips behind clouds.

No batteries, no green energy revolution. Why don't we subsidize the development of those?

Nuclear looks better all the time.*

* sorry Wrath


Nuclear will end up being the go to option.... the upsides FAR outweigh the downsides.

Human population growth will put huge strain on available land for food, housing... etc

Nothing comes close to it in terms of land used vs energy generated.

Liberty's Edge

doc roc wrote:

Nuclear will end up being the go to option.... the upsides FAR outweigh the downsides.

Human population growth will put huge strain on available land for food, housing... etc

Nothing comes close to it in terms of land used vs energy generated.

Could not be more false.

Solar deployed on existing infrastructure can generate vastly more power than all other current sources combined... with zero land use.


Not happening...... there is no chance of solar panels being slapped on every building around! Cost for starters.... and human vanity for seconds....we dont like eye sores!

If it was so simple it would have been done.

Nuclear energy appeals on many, many levels.....

The use of nuclear power stations is already well established around the world and shows no sign of slowing down.... there is not a hope in hells chance of this trend reversing.

Nuclear = reality

Global solar is like communism.... good on paper, crap in practice.


doc roc wrote:

Not happening...... there is no chance of solar panels being slapped on every building around! Cost for starters.... and human vanity for seconds....we dont like eye sores!

If it was so simple it would have been done.

Nuclear energy appeals on many, many levels.....

The use of nuclear power stations is already well established around the world and shows no sign of slowing down.... there is not a hope in hells chance of this trend reversing.

Nuclear = reality

Global solar is like communism.... good on paper, crap in practice.

Actually the rate of new nuclear power plants being built has completely dropped off, IIRC. Sure, some folks are okay with nuclear energy, but they are generally okay with it if said plant is not built near there home, or they don't store the waste near where the live either.

Also, Solar/wind/etc has the advantage that the byproducts can't be turned into weapons. That can't be said for nuclear, and honestly how many countries do you trust to really have those capabilities.

Complaining about Solar because of eyesores is just an odd argument, when as far as I can tell the same/similar arguments are used on nuclear. Solar seems far less an eyesore than a giant nuclear power plant belching steam.


MMCJawa wrote:
doc roc wrote:

Not happening...... there is no chance of solar panels being slapped on every building around! Cost for starters.... and human vanity for seconds....we dont like eye sores!

If it was so simple it would have been done.

Nuclear energy appeals on many, many levels.....

The use of nuclear power stations is already well established around the world and shows no sign of slowing down.... there is not a hope in hells chance of this trend reversing.

Nuclear = reality

Global solar is like communism.... good on paper, crap in practice.

Actually the rate of new nuclear power plants being built has completely dropped off, IIRC. Sure, some folks are okay with nuclear energy, but they are generally okay with it if said plant is not built near there home, or they don't store the waste near where the live either.

Also, Solar/wind/etc has the advantage that the byproducts can't be turned into weapons. That can't be said for nuclear, and honestly how many countries do you trust to really have those capabilities.

Complaining about Solar because of eyesores is just an odd argument, when as far as I can tell the same/similar arguments are used on nuclear. Solar seems far less an eyesore than a giant nuclear power plant belching steam.

Hell, most of the point of having nuclear plants is being able to turn them into weapons.

As for eyesores, the point with nuclear plants (or coal or gas or whatever plants) is that you can isolate them - hide them in poor people's areas and not ruin rich people's property values. Solar is harder to do that with, since it requires more land or putting it on existing property. Wind is even harder.


The problem with all the green energy and Paris Agreement stuff is that it all only balances out on paper.

If China has a real estate market correction, if India doesn't collapse like Brazil (or worse, like Venezuela), if North Korea can outlast their "dear leader", if...
Then we might make something practical of our global effort to control CO2 output.

Had we started this level of effort and agreement in 1995 we'd have room for a large failure or two. Now we have to cross our fingers and hope. I've read too much human history to hope though. If we make it to 2030 and stay on the current green energy/Paris Agreement path, then I'll think about hoping.

As it stands nuclear is the greenest of the green energy options that has a chance of taking us to our Paris Agreement goal. Not much of a chance but better than solar/wind can do by 2030.


Yes, nuclear is less polluting than coal; how does that invalidate the premise of innovating better efficiency of solar/wind?

Liberty's Edge

doc roc wrote:
Not happening...... there is no chance of solar panels being slapped on every building around! Cost for starters....

Solar costs dropped below nuclear in 2010

Quote:
and human vanity for seconds....we dont like eye sores!

Setting aside the famed aesthetics of nuclear power plants... solar shingles are visually indistinguishable from regular roofing

Quote:
The use of nuclear power stations is already well established around the world and shows no sign of slowing down.... there is not a hope in hells chance of this trend reversing.

Nuclear power generation is declining

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