Prediction of global temperature for 2017-2024

[Old Rocks]

Trillions in spending? Where? Buying the generation that has the least effect on the environment for a better price than the generation that has the most effect on the environment is spending trillions on wasteful spending?

Back up your figures, Todd. What trillions where?

From 2012;

Over 770,000 homes weatherized. A doubling of energy from wind and solar. Cleaning 688 square miles of land formerly used for Cold War-era nuclear testing.
These are just some of the 'green' benefits from money spent under 2009's $787 billion stimulus package. Whether it was worth it is an open question, and one sure to come up with greater frequency as the presidential campaign enters its final weeks.


Tallying just how much cash went to green projects isn't easy. The government website thattracks stimulus spending lists 27,226 individual awards under the "Energy/ Environment" section, totaling just shy of $34 billion.

But that doesn't include things like high speed rail and smart meters, which lie among the 43,000-plus "infrastructure" awards.

In a report earlier this year, the Brookings Institution put green stimulus spending at $51 billion. From 2009 to 2014, Brookings estimates the federal government will spend over $150 billion from both stimulus and non-stimulus funds on green initiatives.

Related: 9 divisive energy issues for the election

What we got for $50 billion in 'green' stimulus

I am not seeing trillions here.

$76 Trillion to Engineer a Green Economy?

1.9 trillion a year, over the whole world. That is replacing worn out energy infrastructure in the industrial nations and building a brand new infrastructure in what are now third world nations. I would say that we will spend that much whether it is renewables, or fossil fuel generation. It is just that now the fossil fuel generation is more expensive, and has far more externalities than do the renewables.

Essentially that headline is a lie. It makes it seem that is the cost above and beyond what we would spend in any case, which is simply not true.

And then there are the effects of continuing to pump GHGs into the atmosphere. That is going to cost many, many trillions of dollars as the climate change starts impacting the present infrastructure around the world.

The Economics of Climate Change

 

[Old Rocks]

I have had several conversations with Doug Cotton in the past over thermodynamic issues. He is very similar to SSDD in his beliefs and debating style.

Cotton also denies the Greenhouse Effect but has more sophisticated math to back up his position. There is a glaring flaw in both Cotton's and SSDD's reasoning.

They ignore past energy flows and only look at equilibrium conditions.

I have been calling it a 'heat sink' because I don't know the proper terminology. It's not the first time I have simply given a name to an obvious physical principle but it does cause difficulties in getting my point across.

Eg. An oven only works properly after it has been preheated. The initial energy is used to warm up all the components, very little is lost to the environment. At equilibrium (the cooking temp) as much energy being used to maintain the temp is being lost to the environment. After the power is turned off the oven continues to lose energy until it is once again at room temperature.

On Earth massive amounts of energy have been stored in many components. The atmosphere and it's circulation, the oceans and their currents, etc. This stored energy is the confounding factor in why people don't understand the Greenhouse Effect. This is why the surface radiates 400w while only receiving 165w of solar input.

The insulating properties of the atmosphere etc can change the equilibrium temperature at any point of the system from top of the atmosphere solar input, to TOA IR output, which is always very close to equal, especially over long periods of time.

Unlike an oven, the Earth is always 'on'. That does not mean we can ignore the stored energy in its systems. Without solar input the atmosphere would just be a frozen crust on the surface. Imagine how much energy is stored in the kenetic and potential energies just in the atmosphere. The sunlit side of the atmosphere 'puffs up' several kilometers every day, only to relax again during night.

Heat sink is probably a good way of stating it, although a heat sink is more for dissipation of heat rather than storage. "Thermal inertia" is what is often used. One great example of thermal inertia is in the seasons. The temperature cycle has a significant phase lag from the equinox or solstice.

Thanks. But I don't think thermal inertia quite covers it. It is the mechanism by which a higher level of effectiveness can be attained by a smaller input. I'm decades out of my last physics class but the general principles remain, and usually steer me in the right direction. I am also quick to relinquish a position if I find a better path or someone points it out.

Thermal inertia is a very big part of what we are playing with. That is why we are not seeing immediate effects of the present 400+ ppm of CO2, and why we will see those effects for decades to come, ever were we able to return to 1850 levels of GHG generation.

 

[Wuwei]

Thanks. But I don't think thermal inertia quite covers it. It is the mechanism by which a higher level of effectiveness can be attained by a smaller input. I'm decades out of my last physics class but the general principles remain, and usually steer me in the right direction. I am also quick to relinquish a position if I find a better path or someone points it out.

Cotton does not mention the Stefan-Boltzmann equation at all in a long article of his. I don't see how anyone could ignore that in a discussion about thermal radiation.

I think his fatal flaw is

"But heat cannot be transferred back to Earth by radiation as that would be like water flowing up a hill. So there is no warming effect in the oceans or land surfaces when some of this "back radiation" travels back down in the direction of Earth."​

Cotton seems to accept the concept, but also denies back radiation. Then he confuses radiation with heat not realizing that radiation itself has nothing to do with heat. It can be emitted from a source and absorbed by another source. But the two sources must obey the 2nd law, not the radiation, which is just the energy transfer mechanism.

I still don't know what you are trying to get at with "a higher level of effectiveness can be attained by a smaller input", unless it's climate amplificaton.

 

[IanC]

Thanks. But I don't think thermal inertia quite covers it. It is the mechanism by which a higher level of effectiveness can be attained by a smaller input. I'm decades out of my last physics class but the general principles remain, and usually steer me in the right direction. I am also quick to relinquish a position if I find a better path or someone points it out.

Cotton does not mention the Stefan-Boltzmann equation at all in a long article of his. I don't see how anyone could ignore that in a discussion about thermal radiation.

I think his fatal flaw is

"But heat cannot be transferred back to Earth by radiation as that would be like water flowing up a hill. So there is no warming effect in the oceans or land surfaces when some of this "back radiation" travels back down in the direction of Earth."​

Cotton seems to accept the concept, but also denies back radiation. Then he confuses radiation with heat not realizing that radiation itself has nothing to do with heat. It can be emitted from a source and absorbed by another source. But the two sources must obey the 2nd law, not the radiation, which is just the energy transfer mechanism.

I still don't know what you are trying to get at with "a higher level of effectiveness can be attained by a smaller input", unless it's climate amplificaton.

Don't have the time or inclination to explain it better right now, sorry.

Cotton also ignores the time element in radiation which leads to the strawman of perpetual motion machine. 1+1/2+1/4...=2 etc. Claes Johnson has a fairly sophisticated reinvention for radiation. Instead of back radiation reaching the surface, there is harmonic reflection. He gets the same answer as classic physics but it seems unduly complicated just to 'make a point'. He also disagrees with the concept of photons but doesn't offer up any alternatives. SSDD says he doesn't listen to either of them but the evidence is pretty clear that he is getting his talking points from them, perhaps second or third hand.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Trillions in spending? Where? Buying the generation that has the least effect on the environment for a better price than the generation that has the most effect on the environment is spending trillions on wasteful spending?

Back up your figures, Todd. What trillions where?

From 2012;

Over 770,000 homes weatherized. A doubling of energy from wind and solar. Cleaning 688 square miles of land formerly used for Cold War-era nuclear testing.
These are just some of the 'green' benefits from money spent under 2009's $787 billion stimulus package. Whether it was worth it is an open question, and one sure to come up with greater frequency as the presidential campaign enters its final weeks.


Tallying just how much cash went to green projects isn't easy. The government website thattracks stimulus spending lists 27,226 individual awards under the "Energy/ Environment" section, totaling just shy of $34 billion.

But that doesn't include things like high speed rail and smart meters, which lie among the 43,000-plus "infrastructure" awards.

In a report earlier this year, the Brookings Institution put green stimulus spending at $51 billion. From 2009 to 2014, Brookings estimates the federal government will spend over $150 billion from both stimulus and non-stimulus funds on green initiatives.

Related: 9 divisive energy issues for the election

What we got for $50 billion in 'green' stimulus

I am not seeing trillions here.

$76 Trillion to Engineer a Green Economy?

1.9 trillion a year, over the whole world. That is replacing worn out energy infrastructure in the industrial nations and building a brand new infrastructure in what are now third world nations. I would say that we will spend that much whether it is renewables, or fossil fuel generation. It is just that now the fossil fuel generation is more expensive, and has far more externalities than do the renewables.

Essentially that headline is a lie. It makes it seem that is the cost above and beyond what we would spend in any case, which is simply not true.

And then there are the effects of continuing to pump GHGs into the atmosphere. That is going to cost many, many trillions of dollars as the climate change starts impacting the present infrastructure around the world.

The Economics of Climate Change

1.9 trillion a year, over the whole world.

2.5% of world GDP, for unreliable energy. No thanks.

It is just that now the fossil fuel generation is more expensive,

Except, it isn't.

 

[Old Rocks]

Really? You build a natural gas plant, you have to put pipes in the ground to get the natural gas to the plant. A coal plant, you have to build a railroad to deliver the coal. Solar or wind, and you just put up the towers or panels. In all cases, you have to build the grid, so that is even from the gitgo.

The maintenance of a coal fired plant by far exceeds that of wind turbines and solar panels. Even a natural gas plant has significant maintenance compared to the renewables. Even the present operating solar plants exceed the peaker gas plants in economy;
Solar Electricity Cost vs. Regular Electricity Cost
PV Solar Parity Has Begun
Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE)

The following table shows the Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) for various sources of electricity. The LCOE is a "fair" method of comparing the cost of different complex energy technologies. It is the total life cycle cost of electricity for a given technology divided by the total life cycle electricity produced, expressed as cents per kilo-watt hour. (LCOE calculations are explained in more detail in the Utility Section below.) The table, derived from LCOE costs developed by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in June, 2015, "estimates" the raw LCOE over a 30 year period for different energy sources that are brought online in the year 2020. No subsidies are included in the calculations.


Energy Plant Type Lifetime Cost ¢ per Kwh
Offshore Wind 20.0
Peaker Natural Gas 18.0
Coal with CCS 14.4
PV Solar 12.5
Gas Combined Cycle with CCS 10.0
Biomass 10.0
Advanced Nuclear 9.5
Conventional Coal 9.5
Hydro-electric 8.4
Natural Gas Combined Cycle 7.5
Land Based Wind 7.4
Geothermal 4.8
Note: CCS stands for Carbon Control and Storage (Sequestration) in a remote underground location. The LCOE for Peaker Natural Gas (18.0¢) is per the California Energy Commission.

 

[Old Rocks]

Cheapest Solar Ever: Austin Energy Gets 1.2 Gigawatts of Solar Bids for Less Than 4 Cents

Correction: Khalil Shalabi said was that 1,295 megawatts were priced below the Recurrent solar deal from last year, which was under 5 cents per kilowatt-hour not under 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

A lot more cheap solar is coming for Austin, Texas.

The city's utility, Austin Energy, just released new data on developer bids for PV projects as part of a 600-megawatt procurement. The numbers show how far solar prices have come down over the last year -- and will continue to drop.

According to Khalil Shalabi, Austin Energy's vice president of resource planning, the utility received offers for 7,976 megawatts of projects after issuing a request for bids in April. Out of those bids, 1,295 megawatts of projects were priced below 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

"The technology is getting better and the prices are decreasing with time," said Shalabi during a presentation in front of the Austin city council last week.

Below a nickel a kw/hr is less than anything other than wind.

 

[elektra]

Really? You build a natural gas plant, you have to put pipes in the ground to get the natural gas to the plant. A coal plant, you have to build a railroad to deliver the coal. Solar or wind, and you just put up the towers or panels. In all cases, you have to build the grid, so that is even from the gitgo.
.

Yea, Wind Turbines are magic, they just go up, with zero infrastructure or destruction to the environment, like magic fairy dust. Old Crock, you are a filthy liar (if I can steal words from the crock). Wind turbines last 7 years, Coal Power Plants last 50 to 100 years. But Old Crock is not smart enough to realize you need major infrastructure built to the top of these pristine ridgelines to handle a semi truck and parts of a wind turbine that weigh 30 tons. Imagine the road that must be built, to include the truck, is it over 40 tons the road must support, that is a lot of gravel, road base, concrete? As we can see, Old Crock is over his head, once again, telling a lie, unwittingly, ignorantly, as a fool.

 

[elektra]

 

[Crick]

God are you stupid. And obsessed (or devoid of but a single idea (and that a bad one))

 

[Old Rocks]

Really? You build a natural gas plant, you have to put pipes in the ground to get the natural gas to the plant. A coal plant, you have to build a railroad to deliver the coal. Solar or wind, and you just put up the towers or panels. In all cases, you have to build the grid, so that is even from the gitgo.
.

Yea, Wind Turbines are magic, they just go up, with zero infrastructure or destruction to the environment, like magic fairy dust. Old Crock, you are a filthy liar (if I can steal words from the crock). Wind turbines last 7 years, Coal Power Plants last 50 to 100 years. But Old Crock is not smart enough to realize you need major infrastructure built to the top of these pristine ridgelines to handle a semi truck and parts of a wind turbine that weigh 30 tons. Imagine the road that must be built, to include the truck, is it over 40 tons the road must support, that is a lot of gravel, road base, concrete? As we can see, Old Crock is over his head, once again, telling a lie, unwittingly, ignorantly, as a fool.

View attachment 74856 View attachment 74857

What Is Mountaintop Removal Mining?



A study in 2009 showed that nearly 1.2 million acres to date had been surface mined for coal, and more than 500 mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining. In some counties, such as Wise County, Va., surface mining has impacted nearly 40 percent of the land area.



Mountaintop removal mining impact study results by state:
Kentucky 574,000 acres 293 mountains
Tennessee 78,000 acres 6 mountains
Virginia 156,000 acres 67 mountains
West Virginia 352,000 acres 135 mountains
TOTAL 1,160,000 acres 501 mountains

As opposed to this?

 

[Wuwei]

It is hard to compare two different energy producing technologies. However one method that seems best is the idea of "energy return on energy investment" (EROEI). In other words to get a unit of energy out with a certain technology, how many units of input energy is required. EROEI is a ratio where higher is better.

In the early 1900's oil had well over a 90% return. The energy required involved simply to build a structure to sink a pipe into the ground. Nowadays you need to separate oil from shale, or build a huge rig in the ocean, or a multitude of smaller rigs pressurizing and pumping it up, or the high energy use of fracking.

This chart shows the EROEI of all the popular technologies.

Notice the dirty coal industry is still very cheap, but this chart doesn't account for environmental damage which can be expensive in the case of coal. Notice that wind is better than today's oil or nuclear or photovoltaic. The worst widely used technology is corn ethanol. That value is around 1.6 EROEI. If the EROEI is 1.0 you get as much energy out as you put in. It's not worth it unless you want to subsidize farmers.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Icegate: Now NSIDC Caught Tampering With Climate Records

by JAMES DELINGPOLE28 Apr 20161,726

You’ve read about the climate fraud committed ‘on an unbelievable scale’ by the shysters at NASA.
You’ve read about how NOAA overestimated US warming by 50 percent.

Now it’s NSIDC’s turn to be caught red-handed fiddling the data and cooking the books.

NSIDC – National Snow and Ice Data Center – is the US government agency which provides the official statistics on such matters as sea ice coverage in the Arctic.

Naturally its research is of paramount importance to the climate alarmists’ narrative that man-made global warming is causing the polar ice caps to melt. At least it was until those ice caps refused to play ball…

Where the alarmists have for years been doomily predicting ice free summers in the Arctic – according to Al Gore in 2007, 2008 and 2009 it would be gone by 2013 – the truth is that multi-year ice has been staging a recovery since 2009.



So what do you do if reality doesn’t suit your narrative? Simple. If you’re NSIDC (and NASA and NOAA…) you just change reality.

Read more...if you dare....
Icegate: Now NSIDC Caught Tampering With Climate Records

this is a great story to illustrate what has been going on in climate science for quite some time now...

a new methodology is developed in the model for determining ice thickness, and as usual 'things are worse than we thought'. the new data are publicized and the old data disappears down the memory hole (in this case even the wayback machine has been disabled).

I am obviously not qualified to determine which method is superior, or even if one is superior to the other. but it seems odd that all the changes seem to be in the direction of exacerbating the description of climate change. and then making the old data difficult or impossible to access.

It's called science. To test if a model works, you have to have a hypothesis, use the data available, see if it works. If it doesn't then you try and tweak it and see if that works.

The biggest problem is when people get hold of PREDICTIONS and determine that this is somehow sacred and that if it's wrong then the people who made the predictions are somehow liars and idiots, when if fact it's the people who are reading the predictions as FACT that have the problem.

 

[IanC]

Icegate: Now NSIDC Caught Tampering With Climate Records

by JAMES DELINGPOLE28 Apr 20161,726

You’ve read about the climate fraud committed ‘on an unbelievable scale’ by the shysters at NASA.
You’ve read about how NOAA overestimated US warming by 50 percent.

Now it’s NSIDC’s turn to be caught red-handed fiddling the data and cooking the books.

NSIDC – National Snow and Ice Data Center – is the US government agency which provides the official statistics on such matters as sea ice coverage in the Arctic.

Naturally its research is of paramount importance to the climate alarmists’ narrative that man-made global warming is causing the polar ice caps to melt. At least it was until those ice caps refused to play ball…

Where the alarmists have for years been doomily predicting ice free summers in the Arctic – according to Al Gore in 2007, 2008 and 2009 it would be gone by 2013 – the truth is that multi-year ice has been staging a recovery since 2009.



So what do you do if reality doesn’t suit your narrative? Simple. If you’re NSIDC (and NASA and NOAA…) you just change reality.

Read more...if you dare....
Icegate: Now NSIDC Caught Tampering With Climate Records

this is a great story to illustrate what has been going on in climate science for quite some time now...

a new methodology is developed in the model for determining ice thickness, and as usual 'things are worse than we thought'. the new data are publicized and the old data disappears down the memory hole (in this case even the wayback machine has been disabled).

I am obviously not qualified to determine which method is superior, or even if one is superior to the other. but it seems odd that all the changes seem to be in the direction of exacerbating the description of climate change. and then making the old data difficult or impossible to access.

It's called science. To test if a model works, you have to have a hypothesis, use the data available, see if it works. If it doesn't then you try and tweak it and see if that works.

The biggest problem is when people get hold of PREDICTIONS and determine that this is somehow sacred and that if it's wrong then the people who made the predictions are somehow liars and idiots, when if fact it's the people who are reading the predictions as FACT that have the problem.

WELL DONE!! It's the first time that I can remember you posting up anything interesting.

What you said obviously has a lot of truth to it. Is it in context though?

Most people have neither the time, inclination or ability to understand climate science and decipher the predictions broadcast by the media. They simply add up all that they hear and make a rough average and consider that to be close to the truth. So the type and quantity of publicized predictions is important.

Next, what kind of predictions get publicized? Forecasts of Doom sells, uncertainty and continuation of the status quo do not. Prediction of 30 meters of sea level rise from a glacier melting is newsworthy and interesting. Prediction of sea level rise for the next hundred years being very similar to the last hundred years, is not. One scenario is impossible and the other is likely.

Next, who makes the predictions? Scientists for the most part. Why would they make or emphasise alarming forecasts? A few things to consider. CYA (cover your ass). There are no penalties for hyping bad but unlikely outcomes. But no one wants to get blamed if something does go seriously wrong and they said it wasn't likely. Status. Scientists who are recognized and quoted for predictions of Doom also get the high road to more funding and are called on by the media for their opinions. A positive feedback, to use the vernacular.

Should we blame the media for broadcasting unlikely scenarios, the scientists who allow the unlikely scenarios to be clipped out of their work without putting it in context, or the layman who believes what he is told because he is too ignorant to know better?

 

[elektra]

God are you stupid. And obsessed (or devoid of but a single idea (and that a bad one))

No, I have many ideas, the last one was fact, Wind Turbines destroy mountain tops, stupidity is your reply, denying that cutting miles of roads and building 1000 ton bases for Wind Turbines destroyed the mountain ridge-line which is habitat for wildlife.

 

[elektra]

What Is Mountaintop Removal Mining?
As opposed to this?

It is so sad, that to build Wind Turbines it requires Coal, Coke to produce the billions of tons of steel. Now that we are not using Coal for electricity, all the Coal/Coke is being used to manufacture steel for Wind Mills. We also use Coal for the Carbon, to build Carbon Fiber Wind Turbine Blades. $50 Trillion Dollars will be partially used to mine Coal to supply Wind Turbine manufacture forever.

 

[Wuwei]

It is so sad, that to build Wind Turbines it requires Coal, Coke to produce the billions of tons of steel. Now that we are not using Coal for electricity, all the Coal/Coke is being used to manufacture steel for Wind Mills. We also use Coal for the Carbon, to build Carbon Fiber Wind Turbine Blades. $50 Trillion Dollars will be partially used to mine Coal to supply Wind Turbine manufacture forever.

You are just guessing at the costs. Look at post 812 above. The cost in building wind turbines is more favorable than many other forms of energy. That cost, which is given in terms of energy units includes the energy cost of steel and other materials.

 

[elektra]

It is so sad, that to build Wind Turbines it requires Coal, Coke to produce the billions of tons of steel. Now that we are not using Coal for electricity, all the Coal/Coke is being used to manufacture steel for Wind Mills. We also use Coal for the Carbon, to build Carbon Fiber Wind Turbine Blades. $50 Trillion Dollars will be partially used to mine Coal to supply Wind Turbine manufacture forever.

You are just guessing at the costs. Look at post 812 above. The cost in building wind turbines is more favorable than many other forms of energy. That cost, which is given in terms of energy units includes the energy cost of steel and other materials.

People do not buy stuff with Energy Units? So your un-linked cartoon picture means nothing.

And your little cartoon contradicts what your Wind and Solar experts are spending. They put it in arcane terms not related to the real World to fool, idiots.

IEA calls for $36 trillion more in clean energy investments

IEA calls for $36 trillion more in clean energy investments

 

[Old Rocks]

And as the fossil fuel plants become worn out and uneconomical we will spend at least that, and be better off for it.

 

[elektra]

And as the fossil fuel plants become worn out and uneconomical we will spend at least that, and be better off for it.

Fossil Fuel will always be economical, compared to Wind and Solar, which are only manufactured by increasing the use of Fossil Fuels and Coal.