Posts by Gary Moran

Climate scientists agree: Humans cause global warming

Except the survey and methodology were laughable, see discussion at Lucia's blog.

Boffins confirm sunspot-weather link

Re: Correlation and Causation?

Yes, low solar activity means less UV radiation, which leads to stratospheric cooling. This in turn creates northern blocking patterns in winter and an associated shrinking of the polar vortex: warping the jetstream and reducing cyclogenesis. Basically the negative Arctic Oscillation pattern we saw in winter 2010.

Renewables good for 80 per cent of US demand by 2050

Richard, like many greens you are unable to differentiate between speculation and reality. This paper is unable to "spike the myth" as you put it, because the question of whether it is possible to provide effective baseload from diverse, geographically distant, non-dispatchable energy sources can only be answered when someone builds such a solution in a country other than Norway. It is an engineering problem, not a theoretical problem.

So either you are ignorant, or disingenuous?

Ice age end was accelerated by CO₂

<One of the favourite rhetorical devices of the climate change denier is to invert cause-and-effect – in other words, the carbon rise around the end of the last Ice Age happened as a result of the warming, not the other way around.>

The reason for this is that the "usual" methodology for determining the relationship between temperature and CO2 (ice-core analysis) says exactly this: CO2 lags temperature rise in glacial terminations. This new study uses a novel methodology to demonstrate how Co2 might lead temperature despite the ice-core record; but it certainly doesn't prove it.

Most new 2009 EU powerplant was wind oops, gas

So what do you suggest an an alternative

An alternative to: economically unsustainable, non-dispatchable, intermittent, , unable to generate useful utility scale power, decrepit baseload performance, non-existent peaker plant utility, parasitic on existing thermal plant, need to be curtailed for generating surplus power in the middle of the night and get paid for the privilege, environmental tokens, avian execution devices?

NO, YOU should check the facts.

Yes intermittent non-dispatchable renewable sources (wind, PV) can generate electrical energy that is consumed by the grid; but gas turbine plants that shadow this capacity (typically open cycle) run less efficiently. So the amount of useful capacity supplied is open to question, if positive it is marginal. Capacity credit (the capacity you can statistically rely on) at significant penetration is just 10%. As such it is patently obvious that wind and PV are economically unsustainable, being inherently incapable of supplying utility scale power and hence parasitically dependent on conventional power plant.

Translation: a huge pyramid style energy scam at the expense of energy consumers, that provides token assurance that we are doing our bit.

Windfarm Britain means (very) expensive electricity

Usual Greenpeace Propaganda

So what are the counter arguments to Mr Page’s article:

< Perhaps if everyone had fewer children then there wouldn't be a ballooning global 7+ billion population.>

Misanthropy

<Isn't hydro-electric a possibility for storing the excess "cheap" wind-generated electricity until it is needed? >

Ignorance – pumped storage can’t cope

<If the price of capacity is too high, maybe people will be able to figure out that they don't really need to run the washing machine, the dish washer and the electrical oven at the same time as they are ironing and boiling water for tea >

Control-freakery

< That is surprising in itself because just this week a boffin announced he'd come up with a super efficient green battery that could be used to store large amounts of electricity. >

Science Fiction

< Nuclear stations will not be built fast enough to offset the decline in available energy >

Propaganda – wind energy is diffuse, so it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to build realistic (as opposed to nameplate) capacity. Plus we also need to build the infrastructure to offset its intermittency. In other words nuclear is a far more realistic prospect for replacing future losses in capacity.

< On the supply side, all these electric cars and other devices are going to need charging , … , people will be watching the 'supply forecast' after the news and weather to inform such decisions.>

The Land of La La

What's Auntie for, exactly?

Evidence

Yes climate change is happening, yes we are currently in a warming phase, yes human activity undoubtedly has an effect; however whether CO2 has a significant effect, or whether warming will be catastrophic is very uncertain (the atmospheric greenhouse effect is an unproven hypothesis). The main "evidence" for a catastrophic effect comes from global climate models, GCMs are a useful tool to help understand the mechanisms involved, but they are not themselves reasonable evidence.

An interesting article in New Scientist this week where it is pointed out that current temperature rises are too small to have widespread climate effects, and that blaming local flooding, heat-waves, hurricane Katrina and the like on AGW, as the media does, is actually diminishing the message; the BBC should take note.