Solving climate crisis will require a total transformation of global energy

It is widely accepted by virtually every climate scientist in the world that human increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases increase the Earth's surface
temperature. There is both theoretical and experimental evidence to support this claim. Everyone reading your comments should know that your position
contradicts well established climate science.

Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997 | Nature

Abstract
The evolution of the Earth's climate has been extensively studied1,2, and a strong link between increases in surface temperatures and greenhouse gases has been established3,4. ... Changes in the Earth's greenhouse effect can be detected from variations in the spectrum of outgoing longwave radiation8,9,10, which is a measure of how the Earth cools to space and carries the imprint of the gases that are responsible for the greenhouse effect11,12,13. Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming (skepticalscience.com)

According to radiative physics and decades of laboratory measurements, increased CO2 in the atmosphere is expected to absorb more infrared radiation as it escapes back out to space. In 1970, NASA launched the IRIS satellite measuring infrared spectra. In 1996, the Japanese Space Agency launched the IMG satellite which recorded similar observations. Both sets of data were compared to discern any changes in outgoing radiation over the 26 year period (Harries 2001). What they found was a drop in outgoing radiation at the wavelength bands that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy. The change in outgoing radiation was consistent with theoretical expectations. Thus the paper found "direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect". This result has been confirmed by subsequent papers using data from later satellites (Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).




Figure 2: Change in spectrum from 1970 to 1996 due to trace gases. 'Brightness temperature' indicates equivalent blackbody temperature (Harries 2001).


Monitoring the changes in the outgoing long-wave radiation to space is very consequential to what happens at the Earth's surface. Note the introduction's comments about how a perturbation at the TOA (top of the atmosphere) caused
by an increase in GHG's is a driver of climate change and this paper describes
how the Earth's surface responds to that perturbation.

Decadal Changes of Earth's Outgoing Longwave Radiation (oma.be)

Abstract: The Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) at the top of the atmosphere quantifies how the earth gains energy from the sun and loses energy to space. Its monitoring is of fundamental importance for understanding ongoing climate change. In this paper, decadal changes of the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) as measured by the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System from 2000 to 2018, the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment from 1985 to 1998, and the High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder from 1985 to 2018 are analysed. The OLR has been rising since 1985, and correlates well with the rising global temperature. An observational estimate of the derivative of the OLR with respect to temperature of 2.93 +/− 0.3 W/m2K is obtained. The regional patterns of the observed OLR change from 1985–2000 to 2001–2017 show a warming pattern in the Northern Hemisphere in particular in the Arctic, as well as tropical cloudiness changes related to a strengthening of La Nina.

Introduction (part of):

Earth’s climate is determined by the Earth Radiation Budget (ERB). For a climate in equilibrium, the gain of energy from Absorbed Solar Radiation (ASR) is in balance with the loss of energy through Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR). Any perturbation of this radiative energy balance at the Top of Earth’s Atmosphere (TOA) is known as a radiative forcing, and is a driver of climate change [1]. Compared to the pre-industrial period, the increase of Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) primarily CO2 reduces the OLR; this represents a positive (heating) radiative forcing [2].

 

Please stop hiding behind a distinction without a difference.

Cambridge Union - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Cambridge_Union

The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1815, it is the oldest continuously running debating society in the world.[1][2] Additionally, the Cambridge Union has served as a model for the foundation of similar societies at several other prominent universities, including the Oxford Union and the Yale Political Union. The Union is a private society with membership open to all students of Cambridge University and Anglia Ruskin University. The Cambridge Union is a registered charity and is completely separate from the Cambridge University Students' Union.

The Cambridge Union has a long and extensive tradition of hosting prominent figures from all areas of public life in its chamber, both state- and international-based, including the Dalai Lama, President Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and comedian Stephen Fry.[3] Previous presidents of the Cambridge Union have included Arianna Huffington, and the economist John Maynard Keynes. . . .

 

The Germans are literally paying for their poor choices.
German Household Electricity Prices Reach New Record High In 2021…Share Of Green Electricity Falls!
By P Gosselin on 11. January 2022

Share this...
The German Association for Energy and Water Management (BDEW) recently presented the latest 2021 Energy Supply Annual Report as a PowerPoint presentation.

New record high price for electricity

In the presentation, slide no. 55 depicts the average household electricity costs in euro-cents per kilowatt-hour, for a home consuming 3500 kwh annually.



Electricity price [euro-cents] per kwh for average German household. Source: BDEW.

2021 saw a record price for households: 32.16 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour. It was the sixth year in a row with an increase. Electricity in 2021 costs double what it cost 20 years ago. Much of the price increase over the past two decades are the result of the EEG renewable energies feed-in act.

Share of green electricity falls from 46% to 42%! . . . .

 

The Cambridge Union Society hosts a wide variety of debates. Some of them host very credible sources and some don't. Attaching "Cambridge" to the debating
society name doesn't give all of the hosts credibility.

 

What happens when we add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and how does that affect the graph below?
The width of the carbon dioxide chunk taken out the graph increases slightly and the "brightness temperature" of
carbon dioxide decreases slightly. Since there is less energy being emitted by carbon dioxide to space the earth/atmosphere
system is temporarily out of thermal equilibrium. One way to restore thermal equilibrium is for the Earth's surface temperature
to increase. That will increase the radiance for the other portions of the earth/atmosphere emission curve. That is especially
true for the portion of the graph with wavenumbers between 800/cm and 1000/cm. The area under the curve remains a constant after equilibrium
is achieved as long as the solar radiation absorbed by the Earth's surface and atmosphere remains constant.

The Far-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Troposphere (FIRST) Instrument: New Technology for Measuring Earth’s Energy Balance and Climate Change” - Earthzine.

"Earth’s climate is determined by a balance between the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun and the amount of energy it rejects to space in the form of infrared (IR)radiation. There is mounting evidence that human activities, particularly the production of gases such as carbon dioxide, are changing the climate through modifications to the flow of energy within Earth’s atmosphere."
a

 

Hydrogen fusion is a possibility sometime in the future but it might not pan out. One of the problems is that the supply of tritium is very limited
and would have to be produced by fusion power plants in sufficient quantity to maintain the operation of the power plants.

The Tritium Fusion Fuel Discrepancy: The Scientific Facts (newenergytimes.net)

Why do you keep on bringing up the irrelevant claim about how carbon dioxide only makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere?

The latest IPPC report projects that the GMST will rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial by the year 2040. I believe
that this is a credible number and will be sufficient, along with more extreme weather events, to convince the entire world that
there is a major need to reduce global carbon emissions. If the U.S. gets on this path soon, we will be ahead of the rest of the world
and we might be able to capitalize on the technology. We will not be blamed by other countries for being derelict in our response to
the science. In the long run this should help our economy. Who is going to take in all of the climate refugees and provide foreign
aid to all of those countries adversely affected by the coming climate crisis?

 

Damn! I hate to admit it but it turns out that tritium is not as easy to extract from sea water as we were told it was back when I took college courses that covered various kinds of energy production. Well, that blows the hope for easy, cheap energy for the rest of my lifetime.

Sad, yes, but that doesn't mean we have to crucify U.S. taxpayers with horrific 'carbon taxes' while nearly every other country scoffs at the idea of actually paying anything but LIP SERVICE....

 

Shaviv certainly needs no borrowed credibility. Chairman of the Racah Center for Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and IBM Einstein Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. Several dozen published papers on climate science, in addition to other physics topics.

 

Here's more about renewable pipe dreams.
Two More Contributions On The Impossibility Of Electrifying Everything Using Only Wind, Solar And Batteries
January 17, 2022/ Francis Menton

• 
  My post on Friday highlighted the work of Ken Gregory, who has attempted to quantify the costs of fully electrifying the U.S. energy system using as sources only wind, solar, and batteries. My post got circulated among my excellent colleagues in the CO2 Coalition, two of whom then provided me with links to their own work on closely-related subjects.
  
  
• The two pieces are: (1) “How Many km2 of Solar Panels in Spain and how much battery backup would it take to power Germany,” by Lars Schernikau and William Smith, posted January 30, 2021 (revised April 23, 2021) at SSRN; and (2) “On the Ability of Wind and Solar Electric Generation to Power Modern Civilization,” by Wallace Manheimer, published October 7, 2021 in the Journal of Energy Research and Reviews.
  
  
• Both pieces consider various cost and engineering issues involved in trying to develop a fully solar/battery or wind/solar/battery system to power a modern economy; and both quickly conclude for many reasons that such a project is completely infeasible and will surely fail.
  

READ MORE

 

$433 Trillion to electrify the US grid with renewable energy and replace all fossil fuel use. Yikes!
Calculating The Full Costs Of Electrifying Everything Using Only Wind, Solar And Batteries
January 14, 2022/ Francis Menton

• 
  For several years now, advocates of “decarbonizing” our energy system, along with promoters of wind and solar energy, have claimed that the cost of electricity from the wind and sun was dropping rapidly and either already was, or soon would be, less than the cost of generating the same electricity from fossil fuels.
  
  
• These claims are generally based on a metric called the “Levelized Cost of Energy,” which is designed to seem sophisticated to the uninitiated, but in the real world is completely misleading because it omits the largest costs of a system where most generation comes from intermittent sources. The large omitted costs are those for storage (batteries) and transmission. But as we now careen recklessly down the road to zero emissions, how much will these omitted costs really amount to?
  
  
• A guy named Ken Gregory has recently (December 20, 2021, updated January 10, 2022) come out with a Report at a Canadian website called Friends of Science with the title “The Cost of Net Zero Electrification of the U.S.A.” A somewhat abbreviated version of Gregory’s Report has also appeared at Watts Up With That here.
  
  
• Gregory provides a tentative number for the additional storage costs that could be necessary for full electrification of the United States system, with all current fossil fuel generation replaced by wind and solar. That number is $433 trillion.
  

READ MORE

 

I can just hear radical Democrats now... "Aw, hell, that's ONLY half-a-quadrillion bucks.... The Federal Reserve can prolly print that off in less than a week!"

 

No, the answer is that the premise is just plain STUPID.

Yet YOU support it as if it is real!!

Nobody has made the proposal you pretend is real.

If you want to discuss energy, you have to actually address the real world, not your fantasy land.

 

The data are taken from real world proposals and real world power generation and storage metrics.

 

Ah, but, Jack, you are presupposing that the liberal-Left has any regard for the "real world".... Very few, if any of them, does! And I've never (NEVER) known even one of them who majored in mathematics....

 

Certainly way more valid than Christopher Monckton

 

Oh! Stop!
Scientific analysis relies in the main part not on not “mathematics” but “statistics”, which I admit are a branch of mathematics but a defined one. These fringe denialist papers often have graphs that are misrepresenting data, have utilised inappropriate statistical methods or just plan cherry picked the data

 

It’s a blog

He has even managed to misrepresent what “levelised cost” actually means

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_energy

This is the internet equivalent of the “shell game”

1) make a claim about something that SOUNDS real (the haven’t calculated..)
2) Use the ubiquitous “they” deliberately not citing sources (I can google LCOE) and come up with at least a dozen different ways it was calculated
3) leave out relevant issues I.e. LCOE may or may not include the very generous subsidies the coal industry gets
4) In assigning all of this to the ubiquitous and conspiracy theory based “they” it has prevented, in part, adequate rebuttal for if a distinct body had been used I.e. Federal government
5) Every link in the article I have clicked so far is to another entry on his blog site - again distancing the reader from original sources and assigning it to “they”
6) it’s “Friends of Science” aka FOS and Full of ….. they certainly are. They are an astroturf group funded by the fossil fuel industry
https://www.desmog.com/friends-of-science/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Friends_of_Science
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluat...nts-long-list-of-climate-myths-steve-goreham/
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/friendsofscience-organization-do-not-****ing-love-science/

 

Solving climate crisis will require a total transformation of global energy

This will not be "Solved" as it is already too late for mitigation. We have tipped the balance and must instead try to manage the result. We will not do very well with that either.

 

Once again attacking people rather than discussing data. And btw, your definition of LCOE doesn't affect the article.

 

There is no crisis.

 

The research coming from this site (IER) seems reasonable. The cost is not so high if we try for an 80% carbon-free target with natural gas providing the other 20%.
Biomass or biofuels could be used instead of natural gas assuming advances in this technology. The cost of the pandemic to the U.S. economy could
exceed the cost to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 90%.

Cost of Transitioning to 100-Percent Renewable Energy - IER (instituteforenergyresearch.org)

"There are several studies that indicate it would cost the United States trillions of dollars to transition to an electric system that is 100-percent renewable. Costs range from $4.5 trillion by 2030 or even 2040 to $5.7 trillion in 2030—about a quarter of the U.S. debt."

" Costs can be greatly reduced by allowing nuclear as part of the non-carbon emitting mix and allowing natural gas to generate 20 percent of the electricity. Allowing existing nuclear plants to operate would save about $500 billion. Also, moving the goal to 2045 or 2050 would help to reduce costs by allowing advanced technologies to be developed and commercialized."

“In areas of the country that have a decent mix of wind and solar potential, those places can probably get to 50% renewables without struggling. Above 50%, the challenge of ensuring reliable grid operations starts to take off.” No large and complex power system in the world operates with an average annual wind and solar generation level greater than 30 percent. "

To achieve 100% renewables by 2030 would cost:
"The costs of new wind and solar units needed for a 100-percent renewables standard would be about $1.5 trillion. Adding the required battery storage would raise the cost to about $4 trillion and adding new transmission lines would increase the cost to $4.5 trillion. "

"An 80 percent carbon-free target with natural gas generation providing the other 20 percent would reduce new battery storage costs by 60 percent. Natural gas provides an important back-up fuel for solar and wind power, which are intermittent technologies and are not available when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Natural gas can be ramped up or down quickly, is abundant and low cost."

 

Bottom line though Mike is that the cost will not be born by the government but by the energy sector especially since wind generation is cheaper with a better profit margin - which is why we are seeing so many big turbines. The Big Battery in South Australia has also been paying for itself - big time!! It makes sense to put big batteries into the electrical grid because at the moment we have no back up within our grids. Imagine if Texas had had even limited battery back-up plus Solar - it would have enable people to get at least some power for part of the day and even a small amount into the night - better than nothing

 

Well, this is unexpected. I didn't know your Koch/Trump connection was so strong.

 

Except in the credibility of climate science.

 

It does seem strange that a non-profit group funded by big oil donors would write a report that seems to promote renewable energy. I could not
find any other studies that estimated the cost of converting the U.S. electric utilities to renewables by the year 2050. One of their estimates was
for the year 2030. I am quoting from the article: " There are several studies that indicate it would cost the United States trillions of dollars to transition to an electric system that is 100-percent renewable. Costs range from $4.5 trillion by 2030 or even 2040 to $5.7 trillion in 2030—about a quarter of the U.S. debt." This doesn't
sound like the type of estimates we would get from an organization that is funded by big oil and against renewable energy.

I knew that they were against the "green new deal".