Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

The New American Energy Era pic.twitter.com/WqbVM1hvvq

— Rick Perry (@SecretaryPerry) April 14, 2019

gotta love the words of a very dumb man glowing on a page like they're being issued from the mouth of a god

In a Switch, Some Republicans Start Citing Climate Change as Driving Their Policies

Driven by polls showing that voters in both parties — particularly younger Americans — are increasingly concerned about a warming planet, and prodded by the new Democratic majority in the House shining a spotlight on the issue, a growing number of Republicans are now openly discussing climate change and proposing what they call conservative solutions.

“Denying the basic existence of climate change is no longer a credible position,” said Whit Ayers, a Republican political consultant, pointing out the growing climate concern among millennials as well as centrist voters — two groups the G.O.P. will need in the future.

what's this??? some republicans are considering the possibility of helping to mitigate climate change instead of literally being the biggest obstacle to doing something about it? better late than nev-

...In almost all of the cases in which conservative politicians are cautiously staking out territory on climate change, they still do not acknowledge the extent of man’s responsibility for causing it. Putting a price on emitting carbon into the atmosphere is verboten. And they insist solutions do not need to include eliminating or even curbing the use of oil, coal and other dirty energy sources primarily responsible for heating the planet.

“If we can find strategies that allow us to reduce emissions while continuing to use fossil fuels, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing,” Mr. Graves said in a recent interview.

Likewise, Representative Frank Lucas of Oklahoma won praise when he took over as the new top Republican on the House Science Committee this year, and said that climate change has intensified droughts and storms. But in an interview Mr. Lucas also said reducing the use of coal, oil and gas is not a solution.

...And Mr. Barrasso, even as he promotes nuclear and other policies that he frames as climate friendly, characterizes Democrats as taking “drastic” positions. “What began as a conversation about cleaner energy, has transformed into punishing global agreements, and now full government economic takeover,” he said in a statement.

...President Trump, who routinely mocks climate science, is preparing to announce a federal advisory panel to cast doubt on the overwhelming body of evidence that climate change is a threat. At a recent hearing at which former Secretary of State John Kerry testified on climate change, Representative Tom Massie, a Kentucky Republican, floated long-debunked theories that offer alternative explanations for warming other than human activity.

something tells me that this temporary surge in republican curiosity about doing something helpful on climate change will end in unanimous support for 'clean coal' research and (continued) nuclear subsidies

i keep forgetting if nuclear is supposed to be no good and very bad, or actually good

it’s both iirc

not everyone agrees, even (esp) among people who actually are trying to do something about climate change in good faith

pros:
zero-carbon* energy
we know it works, there's an industry built up around it, the energy flows into the grid as-is
capable of providing huge amount of electricity (currently 20% in US, 75% in france)

cons:
- it's expensive, and the costs of financing/subsidization are going up, not down.
- wind and solar are already cheaper than nuclear, especially when considering options for future/new sources of electricity.
- fukushima, three mile island, chernobyl, etc
- the plan for nuclear waste is to bury it in a mountain
- *nuclear isn't zero-carbon energy, exactly. construction/decommissioning of nuclear plants is carbon-intensive. this same issue applies to other clean energy sources (like wind turbines), of course. but it's particularly intense with nuclear plants.

my take is that there are better options for electricity than building additional nuclear plants that are expensive as hell, risky as hell, potentially contain a portal into hell itself, and for which we don't really have a plan for decommissioning/waste disposal. so it's not like i want france to tear down their infrastructure that provide 80% of their electricity or anything. a lot of upfront costs have already been paid, it's already a key part of the grid, etc. but when it comes to making decisions about future electricity generation, or renewing a new round of expensive subsidies to keep it going, and especially when nuclear is presented as some sort of common sense core climate change solution? nope imo

thx!

Has there ever been any real progress on generating electricity through tidal forces, or was the stuff I saw on that years ago actually Popular Science futurist gobbledygook?

Any progress on using tidal forces has been glacially slow-paced. Research funding for demonstration projects doesn't seem to be there.

maybe karl or sanpaku would know better but iirc one of the issues that most limits our ability to effectively use marginal sources of electricity generation (eg tidal forces) is the grid itself. like, there are all kinds of insanely powerful natural events happening all the time, but not only do you have to harness that power, you have to have a way to store/distribute it

thanks y'all, makes sense

iirc one of the issues that most limits our ability to effectively use marginal sources of electricity generation (eg tidal forces) is the grid itself. like, there are all kinds of insanely powerful natural events happening all the time, but not only do you have to harness that power, you have to have a way to store/distribute it

that's exactly right. wind and solar both rely harnessing insanely powerful natural events happening all the time, and they continue to become cheaper and more efficient on the generation side. but they're inherently intermittent. that's why people who are out to actively manipulate people (like trump) can say things like "what about when the sun goes down or it's not windy! you'll be sitting in the dark!" and that's logical enough to fool a lot of people.

increasing the quality and quantity of battery storage is the big issue now. here's a good, quick overview: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022019/100-percent-renewable-energy-battery-storage-need-worst-case-polar-vortex-wind-solar

Using energy production and power demand data, they showed how a 100 percent renewable energy grid, powered half by wind and half by solar, would have had significant stretches without enough wind or sun to fully power the system, meaning a large volume of energy storage would have been necessary to meet the high demand.

"You would need a lot more batteries in a lot more places," said Wade Schauer, a research director for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, who co-wrote the report.

How much is "a lot"?

Schauer's analysis shows storage would need to go from about 11 gigawatts today to 277.9 gigawatts in the grid regions that include New England, New York, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and parts of the South. That's roughly double Wood Mackenzie's current forecast for energy storage nationwide in 2040.

and, relevant to the conversation upthread about nuclear, existing nuclear infrastructure could essentially serve as a load leveler when wind or solar is relatively low. should have added that as a "pro", i guess.

in addition to the 50-50 wind-solar projection, Schauer and co-author Brett Blankenship considered what would happen with other mixes of wind and solar power, and if existing nuclear power plants were considered as part of the mix.

By considering the role of nuclear plants, the report touches on a contentious debate among environmental advocates, some of whom want to see all nuclear plants closed because of concerns about safety and waste, and some who say nuclear power is an essential part of moving toward a carbon-free grid.

The Wood Mackenzie analysis shows that continuing to use nuclear power plants would dramatically decrease the amount of wind, solar and storage needed to get to a grid that no longer burns fossil fuels. For example, 228.9 gigawatts of storage would be needed, compared to 277.9 without the nuclear plants.

"If your goal is decarbonization, then nuclear gets you a lot farther than if you retire the nuclear," Schauer said.

again, imo if 277.9 GW of storage is needed to supplement 100% solar/wind, then start building that shit IMMEDIATELY. an all-in effort on wind/solar/storage would also create a ton of jobs. if maintaining the existing nuclear infrastructure reduces that top-line storage number to 228.9 GW, then keep it for now and then gradually retire the plants around 2030-2050 as we pass 228.9 and approach the full 277.9 GW.

see? climate change is totally easy

how come you haven't told this to the president?????

i keep yelling at him on twitter and the asshole won't even reply, and i KNOW he's on twitter so he must be seeing them

another disadvantage of nuclear iirc is that it uses a ton of water for cooling pumps which can cause various negative environmental effects

but i do see the appeal, it's a ton of energy!

I like some of the smaller, more failsafe nuclear reactor designs (ones that fail by shutting down, rather than blowing up) that have surfaced in recent years, and I'm still not sure why we haven't moved forward with Thorium-based reactors. The giant reactors we have now (which were designed to also generate fissionable material for weapons) seem ridiculous to keep pushing forward.

how come you haven't told this to the president?????

'solar power? crazy! what happens when it's cloudy?'

trump's irl dumb thoughts on wind and solar, from march 21:

“Let's put up some windmills. When the wind doesn't blow, just turn off the television darling, please. There's no wind, please turn off the television quickly."

and

"Wonderful to have windmills. And solar’s wonderful too, but it’s not strong enough, and it’s very very expensive.

narrator voice everyone in the goddamn world voice: they're wind TURBINES, not windmills

def knows his audience in that the #1 thing to fear from a power cut is having to turn off the tv

https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium.html

Thanks! That was some solid info.

the only assumption i have on conservo/gop climate future plans is that they’ll all be some kind of enormous grifter/graft schemes that re”focus” climate efforts into geoengineering/atmospheric dimming/crazy bullshit that steal public money and time to enrich plutocrats who are building space stations for their families and friends (who also can go live in space, upon signing the offered indenture “agreements”).

Speaking of which, I hope I live long enough to witness Elon Musk et al starving/suffocating/getting perchlorate poisoning or radiation sickness on the surface of Mars. It'll be livestreamed (with a delay).

there are some pretty wild videos out there about molten salt reactors. extremely in-depth and all with a whiff of "justice4maddie.com" about them. i once spent an entire weekend zoning out to them. i want to believe.

It'll be livestreamed (with a delay).

i just answered an rfp to film and produce this as a show. i dont have a sense of dist or streaming rights yet.

also i had to give up my freedom and the rights to my transplantable organs and “bio-properties” (whatever the fuck those are)— but IM GONNA BE WORKING IN MARS BITCHES! with musk! YAY!

(CNN)Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday praised the Arctic region -- and its rapidly shrinking levels of sea ice -- for its economic opportunities, despite continued warnings about the catastrophic effects of climate change.

"The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance," Pompeo said in remarks in Rovaniemi, Finland. "It houses 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore."

"Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade," he continued. "This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days."

"Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals," Pompeo remarked.

...Pompeo's Arctic policy speech largely focused on the threats Russia and China posed to the region, comparing the area to other fraught waterways in the hemisphere.

"Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?" Pompeo said.

The speech came on the same day as a UN report warned that one million species were at risk of extinction due to human action, including climate change.
In his speech, Pompeo said that President Donald Trump was "committed to leveraging resources in environmentally responsible ways." He touted the US' reduced energy-related CO2 and black carbon emissions.

"The United States is achieving our reductions the American way: through scientific work, through technology, through building out safe and secure energy infrastructure, and through our economic growth, and doing it in a way that doesn't stifle development with burdensome regulations that only create more risk to the environment," Pompeo said.

"America is the world's leader in caring for the environment," he said.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/GOYA_-_El_aquelarre_%28Museo_L%C3%A1zaro_Galdiano%2C_Madrid%2C_1797-98%29.jpg

April 2019 #Arctic sea ice volume was 27% below the 1979-2018 average in this data set. Currently, the thicker sea ice is mostly in the eastern Arctic basin.

Data from https://t.co/dz150Qt4Dy pic.twitter.com/PeAWmRPFt2

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) May 7, 2019

fisheries galore

Not for long, bucko, if all your mineral extraction and climate catastrophe dreams come true.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D51Y54-W4AAvnAJ.jpg

yeah but at least we finally got some wind yesterday

ran across this earlier this morning, and it seems like a good example of the complications of nuclear energy:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/three-mile-island-to-close-after-bailout-bill-stalls-in-pennsylvania-legisl/554402

yep, THAT three mile island. Exelon purchased it back in the 90s, and over the last few years there's been a struggle over subsidies to keep it afloat. the last ditch effort to bring in money was for pennsylvania to designate nuclear energy "carbon-free" so that it could be added to the state's alternative energy portfolio standard and get a cool $500 million per year. but the bills to do that failed in committee, so now the plant is officially closing.

or rather, it's beginning the process of closing.

Exelon last month filed the federally required Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report in which it details its plans for TMI after its final shutdown. Dismantling the plant, including removing the spent fuel at Unit 1, could take six decades and cost more than $1 billion, media reported, citing Exelon estimates.

of course, those estimates, coming from Exelon, are to be taken with a grain of salt because they were trying to procure funding to stay open and it was in their interest to come up with high figures for shutdown costs.

there's also the PA Public Utility Commission's perspective on this:

Last month, Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commissioner (PUC) Andrew Place wrote a memo in which he voiced his opposition to SB 510.

"While human health and environmental quality; job creation and retention; and maintaining a robust tax base are all cornerstone public policy goals, this bill, in its current form, is far from the least cost mechanism to achieve these goals," Place wrote.

("this bill" was SB 510, which would have added nuclear to the alternative energy portfolio standard at the cost of $500M/year)

but still, all of this illustrates some stuff i mentioned upthread, both recently and i think a year or two ago - nuclear energy is just expensive compared to various wind/solar options (not to mention energy efficiency). three mile island was built in 1968 and it's STILL dependent on subsidies to get by. and the estimated costs of nuclear rarely account for the decommissioning phase - 60 years (!) and $1 billion in this case.

https://i.imgur.com/Zy3GeP0.png

this graph is fascinating and i think i'm about to learn a lot, thanks km!

Bear in mind that at present, every MW of wind/solar also requires a MW of Gas combined cycle (or even peaking). Storage remains a problem.

xp
the graph comes from Lazard, btw: https://www.lazard.com/media/438038/levelized-cost-of-energy-v100.pdf

thx again, i already gis'd the graph, found couple of articles- then began sourcing/assessing the information. always a good start on these things. and your advice and sanpaku's are always incredibly helpful.

In a press release published on Tuesday, two Department of Energy officials used the terms "freedom gas" and "molecules of US freedom" to replace your average, everyday term "natural gas."

The press release was fairly standard, announcing the expansion of a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal at the Freeport facility on Quintana Island, Texas. It would have gone unnoticed had an E&E News reporter not noted the unique metonymy "molecules of US freedom."

DOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg is quoted as saying, "With the US in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world.”

Also in the press release, US Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes refers to natural gas as "freedom gas" in his quote: “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy."

Slate notes that the term "freedom gas" seems to have originated from an event with DOE Secretary Rick Perry. Earlier this year, the secretary signed an order to double the amount of LNG exports to Europe, saying, “The United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent. And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it’s in the form of liquefied natural gas.”

A reporter at the order signing jokingly asked whether the LNG shipments should be called "freedom gas," and Perry said, "I think you may be correct in your observation."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/us-department-of-energy-is-now-referring-to-fossil-fuels-as-freedom-gas/

"I think you may be correct in your observation”

classic

Macht Frei

https://dygtyjqp7pi0m.cloudfront.net/i/16681/16373013_1.jpg

“The United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent. And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it’s in the form of liquefied natural gas.”

this is how skynet starts

i got freedom gas in the Capitol cafeteria

gas wants to be free

https://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/michael-bloomberg-launches-beyond-carbon-the-largest-ever-coordinated-campaign-against-climate-change-in-united-states/

New York, NY – In a commencement address today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michael R. Bloomberg will launch Beyond Carbon, the largest coordinated campaign to tackle climate change ever undertaken in the United States. With a $500 million investment — the largest ever philanthropic effort to fight the climate crisis — Beyond Carbon will work to ­put the U.S. on track towards a 100% clean energy economy by working with advocates around the country to build on the leadership and climate progress underway in our states, cities, and communities. Bloomberg and his foundation joined forces with the Sierra Club in 2011 to launch Beyond Coal with the goal of closing at least a third of the country’s coal plants. With 289 of 530 closed to date – more than half the country’s coal fleet – Beyond Carbon will aim to close the rest by 2030 and stop the rush to build new gas plants.

i love when our elite overlords do something good

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s got a solution to avoiding the harms of climate change: Just live somewhere else. Pompeo gave an interview to the Washington Times on Friday, during which he addressed the Trump administration’s approach to combating global warming.

The top diplomat claimed that the climate “always changes,” and so “societies reorganize, we move to different places, we develop technology and innovation.” In May, Pompeo praised rising sea levels caused by climate change as a boon for trade opportunities.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pompeo-climate-change-move-different-places

That terrifying 2019 study about breakup of marine subtropical clouds potentially resulting in a +8 °C positive feedback? Coauthor

Again,

That terrifying 2019 study about breakup of marine subtropical clouds potentially resulting in an additional +8 °C positive feedback? Coauthor Tapio Schneider presents this work at CalTech.

That guy is super smart, I took a class with him.

That is frightening. I had no idea we could get to 1200 ppm within a hundred years, and potentially up to 5000 ppm? Sanpaku if you're familiar with the modeling would you agree with his assessment that the type of cloud cover is the main driver of uncertainty?