Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!

[licker]

Jim-

Do you think the tipping point has not been reached yet? What do you think the tipping point is?

I've never disagreed that taking preventative and mitigative actions are a bad thing, but I'm curious to hear about what you think can be done (not should be done, CAN be done) on a global level, and how one determines the tipping point.

Clearly many proposed actions are nonstarters for the developing world.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by licker

Jim-

Do you think the tipping point has not been reached yet? What do you think the tipping point is?

I've never disagreed that taking preventative and mitigative actions are a bad thing, but I'm curious to hear about what you think can be done (not should be done, CAN be done) on a global level, and how one determines the tipping point.

Clearly many proposed actions are nonstarters for the developing world.

I do believe that we've been teetering close to it for some time now. As advanced as our science is, however, we can only estimate oil reserves in various regions, we can never gauge them. Sometimes they run low faster than we expected, sometimes they last longer than we expected, sometimes we drill and get nothing, and sometimes oil spurts up in someone's yard.

Honestly, I think that at a certain point, we can no longer look at the "world supply" as a whole entity with any sort of global responsibility. The problem that we are having now, and will increasingly experience, is that we are pushing closer and closer to our theoretical production limits, and demand is increasing much more quickly than development of new refineries.

I learned a long time ago, that often you cannot even rely on your best friends for help, at times. But what we are doing now, in regards to oil manufacture, is relying on our enemies for help. Besides that, a developing Russia is consuming more and more of their oil output, while China's industry continues to expand at breakneck speeds, and the US has a hard time cutting down on usage even when prices double to consumers.

This is the problem, as I see it. As the Admiral pointed out, the problem is not whether or not we are at the "tipping point" -now-, but whether or not we can have an adequate solution to the problem, by the time we reach it. It's rather impossible to say how much longer we can hold out, but it does seem that we are increasingly approaching the limit, and full saturation of demand vs supply. If we have 10 more years of oil market stability (generous? conservative? who knows?!), and it will likely take 10 years of concerted effort to move our society beyond total reliance on oil, then that means that we needed to start today, to avoid serious turmoil 10 years from now.

Now, all things being fair, I would project that critical point to come somewhere in the next 8-15 years most likely. If you would like, later I might take some time and dig up oil consumption figures, drilling estimates, etc, and refine that - but without collecting notes, or recording citations, that is the window I've seen implied indirectly by much of the data that I've come across over the last several years. And bear in mind, that 8-15 year estimate would -only- be if the world remains relatively stable in general. If Venezuela suddenly shuts its borders and stops exporting oil, for example, it could cause massive economic instability.


Also, I feel it is worth pointing out - any conversion will necessarily take some time, and not be a complete conversion immediately. There is nothing saying that we cannot implement massive scale solar+wind+etc that mostly services the south, and remain oil dependent for power in the north for a few more years. If we did manage to cut our oil consumption by 40-50% in the next decade (NOT going to happen under current plans), it would give us a lot more breathing room to hammer the rest out in an effective manner.

Also bear in mind that current PV cell costs are relative to smaller scale manufacturing efficiencies, and use of new materials. If we were to base our energy supply on solar, it would only make sense to put a lot of resources and effort into developing largely automated, on site, materials reclamation PV cell fabrication facilities. That is to say, that the amount of energy required to dismantle and recreate a solar panel is entirely insignificant to the total output over the lifespan of the panel. So there is no reason not use a fraction of that energy, to minimize the needed upkeep and replacement costs inherent in the system. With a bit of creative redesigning, it's likely that any particular material in existing top-output solar designs that is not easily recyclable, could be replaced to make the system more efficient in the long term. Even if efficiency of the panels went down 10%, or even say 20%, it would still be worth it if 100% of the material involved could be recycled, and that recycling process become largely automated.

[licker]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/1...n-the-rebound/

And an interesting article about glaciers in Alaska...

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/200...ks-in-history/

And a discussion of 'hockey sticks'. Interesting to read the comments.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by licker

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/1...n-the-rebound/

And an interesting article about glaciers in Alaska...

We can hope that's a temporary anomaly. If the new solar cycle has started, which we have reason to suspect it may have, it should start warming up again soon. I sure hope so, anyway.

-Max

[Dragar]

I am yet to understand the fuss about electric cars, except for reasons of minimising localised air pollution.

Instead of burning petrol or LPG in a relatively simple engine to produce a lot of power and distance with quick and easy refueling, you are:
• burning coal (typically) in a power station remote from the vehicle
• generating electricity at probably 30-35% efficiency, except in the rare case of a combined cycle plant
• transmitting it through an expensive network where you will suffer further losses
• slowly charging a car battery which is expensive, likely hard to dispose of and with a relatively short life

If we were generating the electricity cleanly, if we had effective and economic carbon capture and storage at the power station, I would understand. As it is, with the exception of the benefits of regenerative braking, I have no idea why people want to use our highest grade of energy (electricity) for propulsion when a readily transportable and stored lower grade fuel of high energy density is available. Fundamentally we are just shifting where we burn our fossil fuels.

Any real gain needs to look at improved generation and reduced consumption. Consumption is technically the easiest to reduce (so many ways to use less energy), but that requires people to change how they behave, which is difficult and slow. I mean, why worry about new car technologies when we could make a huge differences just in our selection of conventional cars? From SUVs to small Japanese/korean vehicles there is a huge step change both in energy consumption and capital outlay. I forget the figures but methane production from cows is a huge greenhouse contributor – a cultural switch to meat from different animals (or the much tougher step to reduced meat consumption) would be highly effective if it could be done. The level of heating and cooling for inside climate control is likewise insane – in hot climate buildings are kept freezing cold and in cold climates they are ovens.. what level of benefit if every air temperature controller in the world was asked to do 2 degrees C less work? Would anyone really suffer for it? Miraculous scientific steps aren’t needed to drop our carbon footprint, but it’s so much easier to blame an oil company or a government for our problems than to change our behaviour.

On the energy generation side, coal power plants are the worst offender, and as they have a long life and are very unlikely to be mothballed within decades of being built we really need to focus on not building new coal plants. Unless carbon capture and sequestration proves itself to be effective, reliable and economic we really need to be pushing natural gas and nuclear as the best short to medium term alternates, with solar/wind/tidal etc in niche uses where applicable. They are not close to being able to be base-load energy providers.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Dragar

I am yet to understand the fuss about electric cars, except for reasons of minimising localised air pollution.

Instead of burning petrol or LPG in a relatively simple engine to produce a lot of power and distance with quick and easy refueling, you are:
• burning coal (typically) in a power station remote from the vehicle
• generating electricity at probably 30-35% efficiency, except in the rare case of a combined cycle plant
• transmitting it through an expensive network where you will suffer further losses
• slowly charging a car battery which is expensive, likely hard to dispose of and with a relatively short life

If we were generating the electricity cleanly, if we had effective and economic carbon capture and storage at the power station, I would understand. As it is, with the exception of the benefits of regenerative braking, I have no idea why people want to use our highest grade of energy (electricity) for propulsion when a readily transportable and stored lower grade fuel of high energy density is available. Fundamentally we are just shifting where we burn our fossil fuels.

I could be wrong, but I thought the attraction of electric cars was that the 30-35% efficiency you get in a power plant was still roughly twice the efficiency you get in an ICE; presumably transmission losses and losses in storage reduce that gain but I thought you still came out ahead. And at least then you're not strictly tied to oil, per se--if the U.S. built a hundred new nuclear plants you'd be in a nice position.

-Max

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

I could be wrong, but I thought the attraction of electric cars was that the 30-35% efficiency you get in a power plant was still roughly twice the efficiency you get in an ICE; presumably transmission losses and losses in storage reduce that gain but I thought you still came out ahead. And at least then you're not strictly tied to oil, per se--if the U.S. built a hundred new nuclear plants you'd be in a nice position.

-Max

Except that one hundred years from now on the Skynet would be full of discussion about how the change from Oil to Nuclear was done from purely capitalistic, short-sighted point of view, and about the scarcity of radiactive fuel necessary for the plants, and further debates about whether there'll be a Nuclear Winter or not, and what to do if it does happen.

My stance: the climate chane is scary and I hope some smart guy comes up with a solution; while I'm not too optimistic about that I refuse to think what will happen if no one does nothing because that is too depressing; and I hope the local climate doesn't change too much, because I'd rather have real snow than slush, thank you very much.

[licker]

Thank you for your reply edi, unfortunately I don't have time to discuss or clarify some of your misconceptions about the work (leaving for France in 4 hours...) but I will question one thing:

If the difference is similar, even modest CO2 increases would show increased temperatures.

Clearly though, this is not the case, historically or currently.

Further you need to source your claim about CO2 having a greater greenhouse effect than water (unless this isn't your claim). It is generally accepted that water vapor has a greenhouse effect of 2-5x that of CO2. I'm talking about the entire picture, which takes into account both efficiency and total concentration.

So yes, CO2 for its concentration has a large effect, but its concentration is tiny compared to water, though likely more volatile, however, still not at anything near historic levels.

[Edi]

As I said, for the same amount of water vapor vs CO2, CO2 is more efficient as a greenhouse gas. In the big picture water vapor is greater in overall effect. If you remove all other factors and increase CO2 amount, total heat goes up (assuming normal radiative transfer to space on the night side). This does not address all of the other possible, probable and confirmed mechanisms involved. It doesn't need to, because if those other mechanisms are responsible, they must be identified sufficiently that they can be countered.

Your article says there is no effect on temperature from CO2, therefore CO2 is irrelevant to global warming. I just pointed out a whole host of reasons why that reasoning is flawed at best. We know the properties of CO2, but we don't necessarily know all of the other mechanisms involved as well as we would like and they may very well have an effect beside CO2 that causes alterations. So CO2 is more fuel for the fire, just not the only fuel. But when you're fighting a blaze, as it were, you don't add more fuel to it.

The biggest problem overall is overpopulation, because it causes all sorts of other things that exacerbate other effects.

[licker]

In a vacuum adding more CO2 traps more heat. However, we all realize that there are a whole host of interdepandancies and feedback mechanisms that we do not fully understand (and some we likely are not even aware of yet).

I'm not disagreeing that we should seek to curb CO2 emissions (though for necessarily AGW reasons), I am pointing out that the science on this matter is not in fact concluded (this presuposes that science is ever truly concluded, but that's more of a philosophical debate).

But to look at this from another point (not one I agree with necessarily), if, even with emission curbs, because no one is seriously talking about zero emission, how do we actually reverse the growth of CO2 in the system?

This is why I asked jim about tipping points, and why it's important to consider the difference between mitigation and adaptation as policies, rather than elimination as the policy.