Posts by fr33cycler

Century-old hydropower plant to run on fudge

Fair comment...

...and look forward to you picking up all those nuclear types who tell us nuclear power stations provides a quarter of our energy, or that the provide almost all of Frances's.

In a way it is even worse than you say because you're still limiting a household energy use to the house - most families also use trasnport of one kind or another.

The one point you do have to bear in mind however is that is is realtively easy to get a house to stage where it needs virtually no energy for heating through ver high insulation levels etc, whereas is is difficult to run electrical appliances and lights without electricity.

The New Green Aristocracy

@Luther Blisset and Steve Crook

Pete seems to think a bit of anglo-american misundertanding between baths and bath tubs means you don't get the analogy. He's a generous fella - I suspect you just don't want to get it.

However, whether or not you think the CO2 causes warming once it is in the atmosphere, I'd love to hear what the hell you think happens to after we put it there. I'm presuming you think it comes back out at some point - which means the bath(tub) analogy has to stand up, even if you dispute the rather of flux into and out of the atmosphere (or the taps and plug if you prefer.) I'm also intrigued as to how you will argue against the proven fact that a gas that traps heat somehow doesn't trap heat when it is in the atmosphere....

Pete is therefore right that the rate of flux in each direction, and the length of time the gas stays there is crucial. I've read good stuff on this from the Tyndall Centre in Manchester ... even if I can;t dig out quote on it now.

But whle Pete is on the right track, that's more than you can say for Steve Crook. Exactly what is the turnover of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. And what is it for Esso and Shell? Are you still sure the former is as big a business as the latter?

to pete

Pete

We can burn that oil - just not at the current rate. The climate is like a bath, with CO2 being the water. There are taps that pour carbon into the atmosphere, and a plug that allows it to come back out (when it is absorbed by plants, or algae in the ocean for example). At the minute we are running the taps about twice the speed that the plug is removing the carbon dioxide, so the concentration (or water level) is going up. If we halve it, the concentration will stay the same. If we slow the taps by more than 50% emissions will go down.

There are complexities - the actual rate of carbon being drawn down is affected by the temperature and concentration to an extent. And there are uncertainties - science doesn't give perfect answers. But the bath analogy shows we do not have to have a future with no emissions, no fossil fuels etc - we just need to use them rationally.

wot rot

A lot of this is just plain nonsense. There was no "bidding war" over carbon targets, there was just one party (the LibDems) who said they accepted the most recent IPCC findings, and two others who said they would listen to a review of evidence by Lord Turner before deciding (Conservatives and Labour).

Hilary Benn also did not announce the Climate Change Committee last October, it was proposed almost a year earlier that by David Miliband. It is also hard to see how Benn was "easily trumped" by either a bidding way which didn't take place, or an announcement by Ed Miliband which didn't take place til a year later.

As for whether this is policy making by "nobs" like Adair Turner...that rather skates over the fact the the people who will vote on whether or not this target is included in the Bill are MPs, who are...err...democratically elected. They can choose to listen to Adair Turner or not when they cast their vote.

It also ignores the fhe point that the whole idea of having a Climate Bill arose not with Adair Turner, or even with Ministers, but with pressure groups who have won the campaign by mobilising thousands of the people the author claims have had no say on climate policy to lobby on climate policy.

I'm resigned to the fact that some people (the author included) will continue to trot out the usual "we can't be completely sure so we might as well do nothing" sceptical position. I do wonder how many of them have the same attitude to, say, their own pension provision, or home insurance ("scientists can't be sure when I'll die/if my house will catch fire so there is no point setting anything aside"). But at least when writing about things that have happened you could try and get it right.

Heavyweight physics prof weighs into climate/energy scrap

@anonymous coward

True, some power stations are now less that 50% efficient (something many learned from those evil confusion dealers Greenpeace before you happenned to mention it), but they don't need to be in future and anyway it is somewhat irrelevant because he puts the car demand up against the output from the power stations (whether wind/solar, nuclear fuel or solar) and makes a statement that we will x million enough wind turbines to power those cars as if they were as inefficient petrol ones, not 5 times more efficient electric ones.

Perhaps his figures stand up to your scrutiny, because you want to believe him.

I'm so pleased you posted that Anne....

I'm now awaiting all the apologies from those who leapt in to say it was great because it confirmed what they wanted to hear....

Hold on...was that a pin dropping?

The car thing is also based on an increase in the number of miles driven in the UK, and a decrease in the average efficiency of the cars used to drive those miles. Yet petrol sales (and presumably miles, 'cos not that many people can have changed their cars in the last few weeks) have been cut about 20% by current high prices because people are using their cars more carefully. Imagine how much better that reduction would be if rther than being a freak effect of global economics, it was the result of longterm decisions by Government who had used the proceeds to invest in alternatives, and set up taxation schemes to drive greater innovation in more efficient cars...

It looks good but...

...there's always a certain conceit in these things that "at last someone should do the maths". Look at the Tyndall Centre's work on decarbonising the UK, or their "Living within a carbon budget" carried out for Friends of the Earth. It's a daft implication that they were based on nice pictures, not hard analysis. Its equally daft to call them woolly well sihing types - they are a team of scientists and statisticians that cover many disciplines.

You could similarly look at energy modelling carried out by various other bodies planning future policy prescriptions - from Greenpeace to the Sustainable Development Commission. All of them have also used models to determine possible future scenarios.

And BBC News had a "plan your own future energy scenario and see if you need nuclear" up on their website ages ago. I believe it ran on mathematical models, but perhaps it worked by asking a fluffy bunny rabbit the answer...

Finally - maybe I've missed it, but does the good professor simply think we have to use that much energy - or could we possibly reduce our demand a bit???

Finally to those pseudo scientists who love justifying standby/other electricty wasting devices on the basis it reduces the amount of energy your boiler uses to heat your home - try working out

(a) whether you actually save your boiler any work at all when you are heating your home with wasted electricty in the summer and the boiler is off, or even during the day/overnight when many turn their heating off

(b) how much carbon is released into the atmosphere for 1 kWh of heat from a gas boiler (which most of you have, though I accept not all) compared to 1 kWh of electricty

(c) how useful is the heat you put into your room at lightbulb level?

Its a stupid argument dressed up by those who may know a little science, want to prove their own indpendence of mind, but don't actually want to think too hard....