Huhne plans 32,000 more wind turbines

[scooterscot]

You need to read the book "global warming without the hot air", in which this stuff is discussed in depth along with various calculations showing what will work and what not.

I'm struggling to find reference to Dr Mackay's industrial experience. A life time of academia. That's all very well. Observation is all very good but no solutions are presented from me speed reading. Once again if A > B provides no solution, concept flawed. Although I'll need to read more, it is interesting.

One thing that struck me, why does out rate of consumption have to increase or at best remain static? (I don't think he addressed this but may be wrong) As we know replacement of incandescent lighting with LED sources across the land would mean a massive drop in demand.

If a hoover or a washing machine used superconducting coils in the motor, omg, the demand would take another walloping. We need to view solutions with balance:

1) How energy is converted for the consumer and:

2) How can the consumer use less?

I do not believe addressing the problem with a static view is the correct answer. The victorians built us a lovely railway system now it cannot cope. When systems are put under strain prices go up, that's the danger not this short term cost hike.

[DodgyAgent]

It is the case that Dr Morner was President of INQUA, it is the case that during that period he published high quality work on hydrology and oceanography. It is also the case that he is now in his seventies and retired. It is the case that INQUA would now rather he stop misrepresenting his recent 'research' as theirs, and regard him as being in a minority of one. It is the case that his small quantity of published work on sea level has been rebutted. It is the case that in his presentations, he rotates the axis of the graph to make a rising trend appear flat, it is the case that he now claims to be able to detect water and other things remotely using divining rods, it is the case that he has despoiled ancient monuments in pursuit of, erm "controversial" archeological theories.

Yet this guy keeps coming up. So we should discard the other 99% of oceanographers' views and the satellite data, and all the extant literature and believe this guy because ......?

Because the other 99% can see a gravy train coming

[BlasterBates]

It is the case that Dr Morner was President of INQUA, it is the case that during that period he published high quality work on hydrology and oceanography. It is also the case that he is now in his seventies and retired. It is the case that INQUA would now rather he stop misrepresenting his recent 'research' as theirs, and regard him as being in a minority of one. It is the case that his small quantity of published work on sea level has been rebutted. It is the case that in his presentations, he rotates the axis of the graph to make a rising trend appear flat, it is the case that he now claims to be able to detect water and other things remotely using divining rods, it is the case that he has despoiled ancient monuments in pursuit of, erm "controversial" archeological theories.

Yet this guy keeps coming up. So we should discard the other 99% of oceanographers' views and the satellite data, and all the extant literature and believe this guy because ......?

You haven't answered why the satellite data had to be adjusted?

The raw satellite data does not show a trend, they had to adjust (manipulate) it, before you can see any trend. They simply worked out what trend they wanted and adjusted the data to show it.

When someone of Mörner's stature says it, you don't just ignore it. After all he is a leading authority on sea level measurment.

It wasn't Mörner who rotated the graph.

[doodab]

I'm struggling to find reference to Dr Mackay's industrial experience. A life time of academia. That's all very well. Observation is all very good but no solutions are presented from me speed reading. Once again if A > B provides no solution, concept flawed. Although I'll need to read more, it is interesting.

One thing that struck me, why does out rate of consumption have to increase or at best remain static? (I don't think he addressed this but may be wrong) As we know replacement of incandescent lighting with LED sources across the land would mean a massive drop in demand.

If a hoover or a washing machine used superconducting coils in the motor, omg, the demand would take another walloping. We need to view solutions with balance:

1) How energy is converted for the consumer and:

2) How can the consumer use less?

I do not believe addressing the problem with a static view is the correct answer. The victorians built us a lovely railway system now it cannot cope. When systems are put under strain prices go up, that's the danger not this short term cost hike.

He hasn't assumed static consumption at all. His "5 energy plans for Britain" all assume a reduction in energy demand greater than ALL current domestic electricity consumption. That does result in increased demand for electricity however because most of the saving comes from the electrification of transport.

The thing is, domestic electricity consumption isn't that big a slice of the total compared to transport, heating & manufacturing stuff.

How much electricity do you think hoovering actually uses? Have a look at chapter 11, you can see it's less than 1% of the typical persons electricity consumption, and less than the energy required to make a single coke can. Most of the energy used by a washing machine is used heating the water. You aren't going to do anything about that with an improved motor, and electric motors are already pretty efficient so even if you double the efficiency of the motor (which is very optimistic as they are already 70-90% efficient) you've reduced domestic electricity demand by only 0.5% or 1% and total energy consumption per capita by even less. That isn't demand taking a walloping, it's your shoes getting wet as you piss in the wind.

LED lighting (ch 8) gives an improvement in efficiency over incandescent lights but not nearly as big an improvement over fluorescent ones, and even if widespread adoption equates to a 2 or 3 fold improvement in the efficiency of all lighting everywhere, it's still only a fraction of total electricity demand and total energy use. This change is factored into his "5 energy plans" BTW.

But this is the point of the book. Many of these "solutions" aren't actually solutions, because people don't actually understand the problem qualitatively.

I'm actually off to buy a proper power meter so I can measure everything I own now

[pjclarke]

The raw satellite data does not show a trend, they had to adjust (manipulate) it, before you can see any trend. They simply worked out what trend they wanted and adjusted the data to show it.

Yes, I am sure that's right. The entire oceanographic community is using falsified data and only one retired, elderly, eccentric, multiply-discredited, disowned ex-scientist knows the truth.

There comes a point at which you have to take a reality-check, people. The trend is in the data, adjusted, or not. See Nerem et al. (2007) Comment on “Estimating future sea level change from past records” by Nils-Axel Mörner, Global and Planetary Change 55 (2007) 358–360

Or just go and download it raw from the University of Colarado

[BlasterBates]

Yes, I am sure that's right. The entire oceanographic community is using falsified data and only one retired, elderly, eccentric, multiply-discredited, disowned ex-scientist knows the truth.

There comes a point at which you have to take a reality-check, people. The trend is in the data, adjusted, or not. See Nerem et al. (2007) Comment on “Estimating future sea level change from past records” by Nils-Axel Mörner, Global and Planetary Change 55 (2007) 358–360

Or just go and download it raw from the University of Colarado

That isn't raw data is it. Never mind.

More on the hockey stick team and manupulating data:


Tim Barnett on the hockey stick- “statistics were suspect”–the rest of the team knew of problems with Mann’s reconstruction | Watts Up With That?

some choice statements from their own e-mails:

we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were

Unless the “divergence problem” can be confidently ascribed to some cause that was not active a millennium ago, then the comparison between tree rings from a millennium ago and instrumental records from the last decades does not seem to be justified

records, or some other records such as Rosanne’s new ones, show “divergence”, then I believe it casts doubt on the use of joined tree-ring/instrumental records, and I don’t believe that I have yet heard why this interpretation is wrong.

Unsatisfying, perhaps, since people will want to know whether 1200 AD was warmer than today, but if the data doesn’t exist, the question can’t yet be answered. A good topic for needed future work.

I just refused to give an exclusive interview to SPIEGEL because I will not cause damage for climate science.

They didn't really believe in it themselves did they.

[d000hg]

Er Windmills were the most efficient way of producing power back in Zeity's day. technology has since made them defunct so why are we introducing them again. You cannot store electricity on the grid and windmills are clearly expensive and inefficient. Biomass is limited by the amount of fuel available and I am sure that if tidal power to be effective it will catch on.

The moment you say 'clearly' you weaken your argument. They may be inefficient now but that doesn't mean they must remain so... many technologies we use now used to be unworkably inefficient. The moment you say something is 'clearly' the case, you open yourself up for criticism because you are adding your personal bias to the data.

There are two forms of renewables that are fine, hydro and biomass. Wind power is just useless, it's too variable, and there is no way to store it, a few pie in the sky ideas but no effective way at the moment. Wind is doomed to failure, but the sad thing about wind is that areas of outstanding natural beauty are becoming industrialised for no reason.

Variability does not mean inherently useless. Say we have more nuclear power - that can much more easily be turned up/down. Saying wind is no use because it doesn't play well with century-old technology isn't really forward-thinking; who is to say even coal-powered stations can't be made more controllable if we tried... humans are pretty good at clever solutions when they put their minds to it.

Whether an energy source is 'renewable' should not be a criteria for judging if its useful. Climate squabblers - on both sides - seem to prefer to decide a technology is useless based only on if it is renewable.

And we should be thinking decades down the line, not looking a couple of years.

[pjclarke]

Cherry picked quotes? You've given up on science then? You need to get your narrative together. I thought it was that there was a cabal of scientists all agreeing? Here we have some scientists disagreeing with each other. So what? Without the missing context we have no idea if these disagreements were resolved and if so, how. That's the point, of course

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

-Cardinal Richlieu

The conspiracists have rather more than 6 lines, yet have come up empty. See here for a response, and judge the honesty of the inactivists. An editorial in Nature opined:

There is also the sense that many in the media felt cheated by the original Climategate. They were led by the nose, by those with a clear agenda, to a sizzling scandal that steadily defused as the true facts and context were made clear. Many will not make the same mistake — to write headlines first and ask questions later — again. Plus, it is hard for anyone except the most committed conspiracy theorist to see much of interest in the content of the released e-mails, even taken out of context.

None of the independent investigations that followed the 2009 release found any hints of scientific misconduct. Critics won't find any in the new batch either — the animated discussions that the highlighted e-mails do include, not shy of strong personal opinions and the occasionally harsh judgement concerning the quality of this or that piece of work, never really stray from sound normal science.

Climategate did no lasting damage to science. In fact, it can be argued that the incident fostered climatology and improved the way the field is perceived by the general public. The anonymous onslaught — illegal and grossly low, to be sure — has forced scientists to speak more openly about the gaps, difficulties and uncertainties that they are facing. On a more general note, it served to remind scientists, and hopefully legitimate critics as well, that respect, honesty and politeness are essential qualities in any intellectual endeavour.

If anything, Climategate 2 may damage the cause of the climate sceptics who eagerly promote it. Despite their obvious lack of anything approaching credible evidence, their hyperbole, accusations, claims and allegations remain the same. Beyond the echo chamber they inhabit, who is still listening? You cannot, as Abraham Lincoln said, fool all of the people all of the time. And it is getting harder to fool them some of the time too.

Cherry-picks 2 & 3 come from the same mail, written in 2006 by Richard Alley. You may remember that it was Alley who pointed out that using the Greenland GISP2 ice core data to say anything sensible about modern GW, as attempted by your other hero Mr Easterbrook, was scientifically nonsensical.

So his opinion is now credible? Like I said, you need to get your narrative a bit more coherent.

[TimberWolf]

He hasn't assumed static consumption at all. His "5 energy plans for Britain" all assume a reduction in energy demand greater than ALL current domestic electricity consumption. That does result in increased demand for electricity however because most of the saving comes from the electrification of transport.

The thing is, domestic electricity consumption isn't that big a slice of the total compared to transport, heating & manufacturing stuff.

How much electricity do you think hoovering actually uses? Have a look at chapter 11, you can see it's less than 1% of the typical persons electricity consumption, and less than the energy required to make a single coke can. Most of the energy used by a washing machine is used heating the water. You aren't going to do anything about that with an improved motor, and electric motors are already pretty efficient so even if you double the efficiency of the motor (which is very optimistic as they are already 70-90% efficient) you've reduced domestic electricity demand by only 0.5% or 1% and total energy consumption per capita by even less. That isn't demand taking a walloping, it's your shoes getting wet as you piss in the wind.

LED lighting (ch 8) gives an improvement in efficiency over incandescent lights but not nearly as big an improvement over fluorescent ones, and even if widespread adoption equates to a 2 or 3 fold improvement in the efficiency of all lighting everywhere, it's still only a fraction of total electricity demand and total energy use. This change is factored into his "5 energy plans" BTW.

But this is the point of the book. Many of these "solutions" aren't actually solutions, because people don't actually understand the problem qualitatively.

I'm actually off to buy a proper power meter so I can measure everything I own now

Nicely put. I went to one of MacKay's lectures, which was a bit like the book really.

He also banged on about this thing at the end, where you can create you own energy pathway. Can't be arsed myself though:

2050 pathways analysis - Department of Energy and Climate Change

I saw a power meter in Aldi or Lidl (forget which one) the other day going for £9, but decided knowing how much I use wouldn't alter my usage much. Not a worthy £9 investment in the short term anyway. The library sometimes loan them out too.

[BlasterBates]

The raw satellite data are routinely corrected for the effects of air pressure ('inverse barometer'). But both raw and adjusted show near enough the same rising trend.

Here is the unadjusted data straight out the satellite

ftp://ftp.aviso.oceanobs.com/

This graph shows the sea level from 2004-2011.



Thie graph is plotted from the data which you can download and plot yourself before you start to suggest Steven Goddard made it up. It agrees with Professor Axel-Nils Mörner's assertions. You know the guy responsible for measuring sea level for 13 years.

As Prof Mörner says the sea level rise is bollox