The scientific debate over the reality of anthropogenic global warming has been over for some time, but as long as the opponents of science continued to dominate the political process, it was necessary to combat their claims.
But with the Howard government now supporting emissions trading, at least in principle, and with the overwhelming majority of the public convinced of the need for action, that necessity has now passed, at least in Australia. The main task now is to encourage the government to adopt the most efficient and effective strategies for mitigation and adaptation, in co-operation with other countries. That obviously includes signing Kyoto (with the latest change in position and with Bush a lame duck there’s no reason not to), but it could also include getting the (so-far merely decorative) AP6 process to do some work.
Of course, at least some of the denialists will keep on denying. But they’re in a hole and I’m happy to let them keep on digging. At this point, they’ll do less harm banging on about the hockey stick than they would if they accepted the reality of global warming and used what’s left of their credibility in an attempt to derail any positive response.
So from now on, I’m not going to bother refuting the absurdities of Bolt, the Lavoiser Group and other denialists. Rather than make all those who’ve enjoyed the stoush here go cold turkey, I may put up more open threads from time to time, but my future posts will be about the economics and politics of our response.
John Quiggin 
proust by using environazis does that mean you also subscribe to the view that humans aren’t having any adverse impact on the global environment -Lomborg, Bolt, Pen & Teller etc- at all and it is all a beat up by environazis green pinko closet commie greenies scientists with their hippie friends?
Terje thats’s what the gas is for, a transition until it can be scaled up.
Last time I looked I think we were still surrounded by ocean 😉
Simonjm,
I was agreeing with you. Savour the moment.
Regards,
Terje.
“the debate is still on”
The debate about about whether the earth revolves around the sun, or, the other way around, aint over yet either.
“Hey I think I’ve just got it – you’re Andrew Bolt, aren’t you?”
Nope. Sorry to waste your monthly insight, wilful.
“it is all a beat up by environazis green pinko closet commie greenies scientists with their hippie friends?”
Couldn’t have put it better myself, Simonjm.
Wilful said;
“I presume you know enough about the scientific method to understand that we are well within confidence limits about the general theories and predictions�
Science is a social enterprise, and scientific work tends to be accepted by the community when it has been confirmed. Crucially, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by others within the science community.
Where is the >95% evidence of this occurring? They might all >95% agree (ACC/AGW) is occurring but they only surmise when asked to specifically agree or quantify the causes and effects.
I will happily admit to not being an expert on these things, but my understanding is that there are a number of models of the climate out there, all ‘open source’ for other experts to have a look at and check the assumptions and functions used, and they all basically agree that if you model the addition of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases to the model of the atmosphere, then the climate changes. They also look at all of the relevant observational data and find that this generally (with no significant deal breaking counter evidence) conforms with their model predictions. So the test of reproducibility is met, within the parameters that it can only ever be a bunch of models (unless you’ve got a spare earth hanging around?).
So they all agree that ACC is occurring and that this is occurring within a band of probabilities. I leave it up to them to continue to refine their models and their predictive capacities, they have worked out quite conclusively (with much greater confidence than your 10 to 20 percent) that this is a problem that requires addressing.
I think they all 100% agree and can quantify the causes. Carbon dioxide concentrations are easy enough to measure. They >95% agree in broad terms about the effects.
Proust, your comment #34 is very similar to tidal power which has the benefit of producing electricity when the tides are flowing in and out. The only drawback is that our big tidal zones, like our water, are in the north while all our people are in the south.
terje the moon must be blue? :)cheers
proust I have little hair so i don’t think i can be called a hippie plus I’m not a scientist. I must just be a wanna be;)
But seriously what is the point of saying anything proust? You ignore the science, the scientists and the evidence.
I once compared some atheist libertarians to creationists and the more this drags on the more I think I was on the money from the start.
what frustrates me is that so much emphasis is put on climate change, to the detriment of other pollution problems.
We need pricing signals for all kinds of pollution, especially those types that are having immediate impacts on our day to day lives. Hopefully, the focus on market based solutions to climate change will lead to the realisation that a overarching pricing mechanism can be built to deal with all environmental issues, essential a change from income or corporate tax to a polution tax philosophy. Climate change protocols should be a stepping stone to that goal, not an end game in itself.
Proust says “In fact, there’s no need to situate the hydro storage scheme and the solar plant anywhere near each other: you just the solar plant and the storage scheme to be on the grid.”
In a perfect world this might be the case, but we have to deal with the cost of transmission of electricity. It is often cheap to drive the fuel source between places then to actually transmit electricity. Even at very high voltages loss of electricty transmitted over long distances is a very significant cost.
alphacoward – when the fuel source is Sunlight it is kinda hard to drive it around. But point taken. Even if you can split the fuel source and the storage by a couple of hundred miles you’ll still get the benefit of flexibility. My main concern is that the reverse hydro-store has to be on the coast but that may not be the best location for solar panels because the weather tends to be more variable there than further inland.
“But seriously what is the point of saying anything proust? You ignore the science, the scientists and the evidence.”
I admit that I completely ignore the scientists, in the sense that it is only what they say (ie the science) that matters, not who says it. But I bet I pay more attention to the science than any regular commentator around here. As for the evidence – I play it plenty of attention but it is hardly conclusive yet.
“I once compared some atheist libertarians to creationists and the more this drags on the more I think I was on the money from the start.”
Well, I am an atheist libertarian. But I hate to break it to you Simonjm, Al Gore running around doing chicken little impersonations is neither science nor evidence.
Actually it is often cheaper to transmit the energy as electricity rather than truck the fuel. Which is why all major coal fired power stations are built very close to coal mines and the energy is shipped out as electrons on a wire. The grid has often been extended at great cost because of the economics of moving energy.
From memory the transmission and distribution loses from power station to home are typically about 10%. Which seems like a lot until you consider that the losses in converting coal energy to electricity are over 60%. Which may seem awful until you consider that converting sunlight to electricity typically involves loses of over 80%. Which may seem dreadful until your consider that it’s the comparative overall cost, not the efficiency, that really matters.
Terje,
The other option, of course, would be to have the carbon sequestration seperate from the power generation. I cannot think why they need to be together – all there needs to be is a pricing mechanism to transfer the cost.
One possibility would be to have a sequestration plant driven by the large amounts of tidal power in the far north-east of WA. We could then burn the coal or gas is the south-west.
Terje heard much about developments in super conducting power cables?
proust from what I heard those climate scientists that watched Gore’s film said he was pretty well on the money.
OT regarding bias I’m a strong atheist who tends to think there wan’t a historical Jesus. Now that is a minority position based on heuristics and recently a guy taking that position copped exactly the same sort of flack you are getting.
Just because you are in a minority that automatically mean you are wrong.
But if I were to compare your stance on AGW you would be ignoring not only a historical Jesus but saying that there aren’t any other historical figures or cultures either.
Like the creationists you can look at all the evidence you want but if your mind is set it makes no difference.
Again if anyone is under a severe cognitive bias how is one to know? I bet its probably nearly impossible to see this bias once under it.
Andrew,
The topic seems to have drifted. I was refering to the difficulties in storing “energy” in a form that would allow alternate energy plants (such as photovoltaic plants and wind farms) to overcome their inadequacies in terms of baseload or peaking capability. I was not refering to the storage of CO2.
Regards,
Terje.
I think a dedicated discussion thread on alternate electricity power source technology (and the technical issues) is warranted. What do you say John?
Simonsj,
I have heard very little about superconducting power cables since the breakthroughs in superconductors back a decade or more. From memory most such materials stop being superconductors when they are immerced in the magnetic flux associated with high power transmission. Not to mention the extremely low temperatures required and the energy absorbed in refrigeration.
Regards,
Terje.
There is this:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00003872-159C-1498-959C83414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2
“SuperGrid connections to these new power plants would provide both a source of hydrogen and a way to distribute it widely, through pipes that surround and cool the superconducting wires. A hydrogen-filled SuperGrid would serve not only as a conduit but also as a vast repository of energy, establishing the buffer needed to enable much more extensive use of wind, solar and other renewable power sources. And it would build the core infrastructure that is a prerequisite if rich economies are to move away from greenhouse-gas-emitting power plants and vehicles.”
Don’t think it is truly practical and I am not a huge fan of the Hydrogen Economy however it is interesting.
Great – so here’s the plan: cover the Nullabor in solar panels, and build some big ponds and pumps along the cliffs at the top of the Great Australian Bight. (if you’ve never been you really should visit: it’s quite surreal standing at the top of the Bight with thousands of miles of empty desert behind you and thousands of miles of Southern ocean in front of you with nothing until you hit Antarctica. But I digress.)
1Kl (1,000 litres) of water is 1 cubic meter and 1,000kg. If it is sitting atop a 100m cliff it has potential energy of 1,000kg * 10.0m/s/s * 100m = 1,000,000 joules which is approximately 1 / 3.6 = 0.28KWh (kilowatt hours).
Just to get a feel for the total volume of water involved, let’s say you wanted to generate Australia’s entire 250TWh of annual electricity production with water pumped to the top of the Bight. Just to make the numbers easy, asume it’s 365 TWh (it will be one day anyway) so 1TWh = 1 billion KWh per day (or about 50GW constant consumption). Then assume perfect efficiency (the last two assumptions probably cancel each other).
So 1 billion / 0.28 = 3.6 billion cubic meters of water stored at the top would last us one day.
3.6B cubic meters of water would fit in a tank about 20km square and 9 meters deep. That’s a big hole, but not out of the question.
It is interesting to compare the maximum energy from sunlight falling on the same area. Sunlight at peak is about 1KW per square meter. So a 20km square tank (= 400 million square meters) would collect 400GW at peak, which is just under 10 times Australia’s generating capacity.
So assuming you covered the tank in 20% efficient solar cells (which would have the side benefit of reducing evaporation), you’d have just about enough energy to power the country by day, and to pump up all the water to fill the tank for the night time drain. (but not quite since you don’t get 1000W per square meter all day, all year around. But if you made the tank 5m deep and 30Km square you’d be set).
If the calculations are in the right ballpark, that’s pretty interesting. If we could make floating solar panels as cheaply as we do glad wrap, this could be a goer.
Proust,
That last “if” in your last sentence is a very big “if”. And it is not the only if.
Have you considered flooding Lake Ayre?
Regards,
Terje.
Terje,
The glad-wrap PV cells are not essential. After all, you can still just use the storage component and generate the solar electricity by whatever means you like. I just thought it was interesting that the area needed for water storage for nighttime load satisfaction is the same order of magnitude as that needed for PV to power the whole country.
Lake Eyre is a long way from the coast. I was thinking maybe some big depressions along the Nullabor somewhere. But they have to be clifftop so you can get a decent drop.
The area is only equivalent because of the depth of the tank, and the height of the cliff that you nominated. With those two variables open to modification it is easy to ensure that the area of the PV surface and the tank are the same.
Right. I was surprised because I picked “reasonable guesstimates” for cliff height and tank depth and it popped out that the surface area was almost spot-on the size needed for PV. Just numerology I know, but it makes it easier to think about various tradeoffs without having to get your calculator out.
For those that like to watch for weather extremes:-
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20767507-1702,00.html
“That obviously includes signing Kyoto (with the latest change in position and with Bush a lame duck there’s no reason not to)”
But Howard has stated over and over that signing up to Kyoto would hurt the Australian economy … so signing it would mean either that he was wrong or that he’s prepared to send us all broke. There’s an insuperable reason not to sign right there.
That’s why we have *drumroll* KYOTO 2, which for some reason we are unveiling to a startled world in Nairobi.
I think Howard let the truth out last week. Once all the other developed countries have negotiated an agreement to follow on from Kyoto, he’ll ‘lead the country into it’.
Pathetic.
“But I bet I pay more attention to the science than any regular commentator around here.”
Perhaps as a relatively recent entrant to the discussion, but with a lack of historical perspective. If you’d followed the earlier ozone/CFC debate you’d know that most of those on whom you rely have a track record of making false claims for political reasons, and that most of the arguments you use are recycled from the losing side in that debate.
And if you’d followed the GW debate for longer you would have seen the grudging retreat from claims about urban heat islands, satellite data, the absence of a definite surface trend and so on, to the current silly focus on the hockey stick.
Back at #30 proust said:
Where do you think the icebergs came from? Looks like a big chunk fell off the Antarctic ice sheet to me.
Re #66, Andrew I can’t see why power generation and sequestration have to be together either. But remember that a CO2 molecule is 3.67 times the mass of a carbon atom. And it’s a gas. To condense the gas to a liquid I believe you need 20% of the power you get from burning the carbon. So the mass and volume problems of transporting the stuff would seem considerable.
Apparently the icebergs currently floating near New Zealand broke off six years ago. It is amazing that they got this far without melting. Apparently it hasn’t happened since the 1930s. That seems consistent with a colder ocean not a warmer one. In the mean time the recent data from the Argo project raised a few eyebrows with the data suggesting that the oceans have cooled rather dramatically in the last two years. And the currently enlarged ozone hole over Antarctica is symptomatic of cooler weather in the region. Then Sydney has to go and have it’s coldest November day in 100 years. What can it all mean?
Yeah Brian, it was a joke. Haha.
Terje, it means we need to move even faster to curb CO2 emissions. Clearly they are destroying the climate more rapidly than even the scientists predicted, and in entirely the opposite direction! Lack of certainty is no excuse for inaction. We must act to save the planet now!
” If you’d followed the earlier ozone/CFC debate you’d know that most of those on whom you rely have a track record of making false claims for political reasons, and that most of the arguments you use are recycled from the losing side in that debate.”
What a load of rot. Who do I rely on? What are “most of the arguments I use”?
The only person I rely on for sensitivity arguments is myself and lately Annan. McIntyre I rely on for proxy reconstruction analysis. Lindzen for overall commentary on what is incontrovertible in the evidence.
Strange as it may strike you JQ, I actually read the original papers, and rely on my own analysis. You should try it sometime. It’s an awful lot more edifying than your soap-opera approach to science.
Have I missed anyone pointing out a connection between Howard’s sudden acknowledgement of the global warming threat and his recently discovered love of nuclear fission-derived energy? I can’t help but to see the connection to the obvious rift that the nuclear debate is going to drive into the Labor party. With hard-core union bosses dying to open new mines and industries on one side, pitted against the environmentally conscience socialists on the other, I fear that the dirty bugger is gonna play this ridiculously flawed debate up for all its worth. Forget Iraq, the inconvenient truth is that the opposition will self destruct on this one.
Well that certainly narrows the field of disagreement, assuming that you agree with the main body of the published literature other than those raised by McIntyre and Annan. From your general tone, I had a rather different impression.
I’ve read what McIntyre and McKitrick published since they came out, and their arguments have changed radically over time, while their conclusion (that Mann et al wrong) remained unchanged and in accordance with McKitrick’s prior published views, based on such nonsense claims as the nonexistence of a global average temperature. The original piece barely mentioned things like the principal components and the bristlecone pines, and claimed to derive its results by correcting errors in the datasets. As their initial claims fell to pieces, they retreated to the latter issues. The mode is exactly what I would expect from McKitrick and his co-authors.
In any case, as you know, the whole issue was reviewed by the NAS who concluded that Mann et al and subsequent writers were right in saying the current climate is the warmest in the last 400 years, but that, while the balance of probabilities favoured the same claim for the last 1000 years, there’s not enough evidence to be sure. And since the warming hypothesis is well-established from other sources you say you don’t challenge, the limited evidence on medieval climate is not a problem.
Annan’s criticisms are much newer, and I haven’t yet read his stuff, but my impression is that his position is the exact opposite of Lindzen. Lindzen claims a very wide variance for sensitivity and a low mean, such that we can’t be sure there will be any significant warming as a result of a doubling of CO2. Annan, as I understand it, claims that the variance of IPCC sensitivity estimates is too high, and supports a fairly high mean sensitivity estimate.
“And since the warming hypothesis is well-established from other sources you say you don’t challenge, the limited evidence on medieval climate is not a problem.”
Please, just because I don’t challenge specific papers does not mean I endorse them. I hardly have time to read it all. In fact, given the egregious errors committed in the past by the reconstruction crowd, my prior on anything they produce is that it is probably alarmist and probably distorts the record, but I leave it up to McIntyre to pull it apart.
A far as I am aware, McIntyre’s published claims only refer to proxy reconstructions. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
The limited evidence on medieval climate is a big problem for the hockeystick alarmists. The most important error of the hockeystick crowd was not the blade but the shaft. They wiped out both the medieval warm period and the little ice age. Subsequent corrections to their work have reinstated both phenomena. Warming up after an unusually cold period is hardly surprising, and combined with the fact that things were considerably warmer in the MWP makes the significance of the current warming a lot less clear.
I haven’t read anything from Lindzen that suggests he believes the true climate sensitivity variance is high. Certainly nothing to suggest he thinks the variance is such that there is any significant probability to be attached to the upper end of the ranges used by Stern, and on which Stern’s analysis so critically depends.
Proust,
If you have the time take a look at what it would cost to cover a 20 km x 20km square with conventional PV.
Enviromission has talked about covering an area 4km x 4km with glass at a vastly lower cost (and quite a bit lower efficiency) than using PV. They claim that they will make power that will be price competitive with coal. They claim they can do it 24hrs per day. And they claim their design can store heat for later controlled release leading to power generation with some despatch capability.
I think it will be viable to cut back CO2 emissions affordably in the near future. I fear that like the IMF and other grand global schemes Kyoto will outgrow its original purpose and turn into a menace.
Regards,
Terje.
Can you stop referring to McIntyre please – it’s McIntyre and McKitrick. The point is relevant given your statement that “In fact, given the egregious errors committed in the past by the reconstruction crowd, my prior on anything they produce is that it is probably alarmist and probably distorts the record”. The authors on whom you rely have committed more egregious errors between them than the whole of the reconstruction crowd combined.
“The limited evidence on medieval climate is a big problem .”
On the contrary, the AGW hypothesis was independently well-supported before MBH published their work. If we had no evidence at all on medieval climate, this would make only a marginal difference. As it is, I point out yet again, the NAS did not reinstate the old claims, they just said there wasn’t enough evidence to reach a final conclsion.
I have no idea what “the true climate sensitivity variance” means – the variance here is a measure of our uncertainty, not some underlying variability in the physical sensitivity of climate. Lindzen has repeatedly said that our current knowledge isn’t enough to exclude zero sensitivity, and indicated a preferred sensitivity of less than 1 degree. Annan (whose paper I’ve now read thanks to your link) wants to tighten estimates around a mean value of 3 with a 95 per cent range of 1.7 to 4.9. In other words, Annan asserts with at least 95 per cent confidence that Lindzen is wrong. The only thing the two have in common is that they criticise the consensus.
And of course, Annan and Hargreaves contradict M&M even more directly. They use, among other things, the historical record of the last 1000 years to conclude that we can confidently predict substantial warming of around 3 degrees as a result of a CO2 doubling. M&M and the rest of the MWP crew are claiming that there is so much natural variation in the data that we can’t draw any conclusion of this kind.
“Can you stop referring to McIntyre please – it’s McIntyre and McKitrick
…
The authors on whom you rely have committed more egregious errors between them than the whole of the reconstruction crowd combined.”
By that argument every author should be judged by the worst work of any co-author they have ever published with. I say McIntyre because he is very active in the area, I have read a lot of his analysis, it is sound, and he appears to be a smart, honest broker. I know much less about McKitrick.
But of course, if you’re a card-carrying member of the soap-opera theory of scientific analysis, it is much more important who somebody may have published with in the past than what they say today.
“the AGW hypothesis” can mean a lot of things. To me it means: “human CO2 emissions are warming the planet”. I agree with that.
To you it seems to mean a lot more. Given your endorsement of Stern and your declaration that the debate is over, it apparently means that humans are warming the planet and there is a significant probability that the climate sensitivity (to a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels) is at least 10C.
“In other words, Annan asserts with at least 95 per cent confidence that Lindzen is wrong.”
If Lindzen believes in some high but unspecified variance (as per your penultimate remark), how can you even make this statement? My point was that they both believe the variance is much lower than the alarmists would have us believe.
But in any case, now that you have read the paper, I would suggest reading Annan’s short remarks on the Stern report.
By the “the true climate sensitivity variance� I meant our true uncertainty, given all the currently available evidence.
More importantly than the two-side range, is Annan’s one-sided 95% upper bound of 4.5C, which is lowered to 4.1C if one treats as independent the Maunder minimum (sunspot) activity and climate model results. Annan’s pdfs also have none of the fat tails much loved by Stern and his acolytes:
“The strong insight of the Stern report is that under uncertainty, rational people sum over the risk distribution, not just take the central value or – worse – say that as it’s uncertain, let’s do nothing. So he draws attention to the long upwards tails of all the models. This makes a big difference to the impact assessment.”
[From your own link to James Wimberley]
Former Treasury head and National Party Senator John Stone has rallied to the greenhouse denialist cause in this morning’s Australian. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20770285-7583,00.html
Stone has form on the board in relation to contrarian science. In 1987 he was a leading proponent of the campaign to make Joh Bjelke-Petersen Prime Minister of Australia, in full knowledge of Petersen’s record, whilst Premier of Queensland, of favouring the teaching of creationism in schools and promoting hilarious dud schemes such as Milan Brych’s quack “cure” for cancer and Stephen Horvath’s hydrogen fusion-powered car. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/extras/oq/book3worst.html
Terje worth a look
Major breakthrough for electricity with 2G wire
http://www.gizmag.com.au/go/5909/
BTW Rafe yes your Libertarian thinktanks have a huge amount of credibility when reporting on eco matters but then again environmentalsists and scientists are econazis after all.
Bad, Bad Environmentalists
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/bad_bad_environ.php
Simonjm,
Thanks for the link. On the face of it this is impressive stuff. I did not realise that things had moved along so much. Although it still seems to look like quite a leap would be required before we start using this technology for large scale long distance power transmission, although perhaps not as big a leap as I first thought. What is particularily impressive is that this technology is already in commercial use in a number of areas, including in transformers.
Technological innovation such as this makes me very optimistic about the future.
Regards,
Terje.
re comment 84 from plaasmatron – looks like the coal unions are unwedging themselves, see this:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1789569.htm
Terje,
My confidence in humanity makes me optimistic. Technological innovation is merely further evidence that this optimism is justified.
.
Simonjm – there are faults and errors on all sides of the discussion. The important thing is to keep an open mind about it. For example, I used to be an AGW non-believer – I now believe it is happening and that I was wrong previously. I now want to go through the proposed remedies to see which, if any, make sense.
Thanks for the link Grace.
Despite what Matt Peacock says, the Mining and Energy Division of the CFMEU, and its precursor organisations such as the Miners’ Federation and the United Mine Workers, have not been the “Arch-enemy of environmentalists”. The union has a long history of social unionism including engagement with environmental issues and campaigns, and has been engaged in constructive dialogue with environmentalists ever since greenhouse became a first order issue in the late 1980s. Contrary to a misapprehension current in some circles, it has also continuously supported the Kyoto Protocol since it was agreed to in 1997. It can certainly be relied upon not to engage in the treachery displayed by the Forestry Division of the CFMEU prior to and during the 2004 Federal election.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/01/31/labors-new-right-fifth-column-redux/
This is not to say I agree with the union on all points. Amongst other things I would prefer to see it take a more critical stance towards some of the scaremongering engaged in by industry lobbies (notably the aluminium industry) about the economic and employment consequences of a strong greenhouse response. However these are issues that are probably best dealt with in dialogue between the union, environmentalists and governments. The other thing to remember is that the issues which need to be addressed in terms of retraining and re-employment of coal industry workers are considerably more difficult to work through than for other sectors (including forestry), so the coal union has a better excuse than most for erring on the side of defensiveness.
On the environmental movement side, Don Henry and the ACF are right to welcome the union’s developing stance and to be keen to engage in dialogue with it. Greenpeace are, regrettably showing their usual high-handed fundamentalist form in their behaviour towards unions and workers.
I’m an AGW non-believer. However that is quite different to being an AGW dis-believer. I think that AGW is a good theory with some problems that are not yet sorted.
And as Keynes said we are all dead in the long term anyway, so lets just pump prime the economy and see what happens.
😉
The Mining & Energy Division of the CFMEU has also released a discussion paper on policy responses to global warming.
http://www.cfmeu.com.au/storage//documents/CFMEU_climate_141106.pdf