Planning Engineer
Don’t know if the solar problem is related to EMP. If so I have some experience EMP, but only as it relates to automobiles, for which protection methods are readily available.
Is EMP protection also readily available for the grid?
Keep warm,
Richard
You are absolutely right!… France has been doing what the pin-ups of renewable intermittent energy (wind and PV) DK and DE claim they will be doing in 2050… i.e. generating 80-100% electricity CO2-free… and yet France is the most despised country of them all, the real enemy to fight, due to its reliance on nukes.
Just to add one datum: the 75% electricity generation via nukes saves the equivalent CO2 emissions of all of the cars circulating in the Eurozone (EU-27)… 600 million souls… if it’s not effective this I don’t know what it is…
R.
Heh, your N/S gradient of risk is yet further evidence that a warmer globe is an improvement over a cooler globe.
============
Snakes and other creepy crawly things would agree warmer is better.
I guess max considers humans creepy. That computes.
Hi Joshua,
“What’s the big rush?” The reason I posed this is it’s coming across to me that we’re moving forward with implementation of huge solar/wind farms w/o all the information in hand to the positive, and with a number of negatives that are known. I’m trying to get a feel for the ingrained fossil fuel based system vs. interjecting renewables based on presumed benefits that may be inaccurate.
Sometimes we must make decisions with “uncertainties” included in the decision making process, but sometimes we don’t have to make those decisions “today” and yet we are. So if we’re moving the decision making process forward w/o all that information in hand I’m wondering “why the hurry”.
My impression is you are suggesting moving forward with those uncertainties “today” is the appropriate response, so I’m just trying to get a feel as to the reasoning behind that thought process. Having the fossil fuel industry provide due diligence to justify continuation of their method of energy supply seems to have already been done as they are the current method of choice (market forces). Interjecting alternative methods should (from my view) then be charged with the burden of proof that what they (renewables) are replacing is of less value economically or socially otherwise we’re just incorporating further “uncertainty”. Any suggested modification of that thinking is appreciated. We already know that solar and wind are less than adequate for generation when the suns not shining or wind’s not blowing so this leads me to consider “external” reasons (CO2 reduction?) as a “benefit” and I’m not comfortable (yet) that that is needed and therefore may not truly be a benefit.
Thanks, PE. I really enjoy and appreciate your input.
France To Cap Nuclear Reliance, Move To Renewables
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It looks like the future is dim for nuclear power in France.
@Joshua | December 12, 2014 at 11:45 pm |
…
As an educator, I am in an “industry” where there are a lot of valid questions as to the cost/benefit ratio. Many of those questions are closely linked to a large variety of external costs and external benefits.
I would not be satisfied with saying that I believe that my “industry” has done a good job of justifying the status quo, without also presenting arguments as to what I feel is a justified accounting for the external costs and benefits.
…
(end quote from Joshua.)
Hi Joshua,
I believe the public education system has not done a good job. I know educators get this message from all sides, but my take is probably a little different.
My beef is that educators, probably driven by image-conscious politicians, start out with assumptions that deny reality. Specifically, they ignore the fact that human intelligence is described by the normal curve. That generally, and more specifically talent are not shared equally among humans.
Given that reality, a more realistic approach would be to let students master material at their own pace, where a test for each level would determine success, and move the next grade every year. The role of the teacher would be to help each student maximize his potential.
At the end of high school, each student would get a diploma and a certification indicating the highest level achieved in the core subjects as well as any elective subject areas chosen by the student.
This approach would put an end to the ridiculous idea that all students should reach this ever lessening level of “proficiency” in the core subjects.
Some humans are creepy. I don’t mean you, jim2. I forgot to mention mold also thinks warmer is better,
David, thank you. Happy holidays.
PE, what you said in your last comment should be obvious to most people, even educators.
I’ve added a comment near the end of the thread that shows that, using the best available information, comparing two options to reduce GHG emissions from electricity generation by 2050 (in Australia), ‘with nuclear’ and ‘without nuclear’, the ‘with nuclear’ option is the least cost option and reduces the emissions the most. In fact it reduces emissions 3.2 time more and for half the cost of electricity.
Anyone doing decision analysis would understand, with such a large difference, the gap is not likely to be reduced unless there is a huge and blatant error in the estimates of LCOE, transmission and risk of RE’s failure to deliver.
Little joshie reminds of some of the teachers we had in Detroit. They never lasted very long.
Gosh. I didn’t realise Real Climate was still in existence.
Bless them.
Do they get much audience any more for standing on a very big soapbox and shouting
‘There is only One True Way! We are the Climate Scientists. Bow down, ye peasants. Shut up, listen up and obey’?
It’s all so ‘noughties’ isn’t it?
The lefties say that Tribe is a sellout:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/08/3600343/tribe-peabody-constitutional-carbon-rule/
The analysis in the article by the Columbia law Prof. has it about right:
“If you clear away all the hyperbolic constitutional arguments, there is, at the heart, a statutory question about this part of the Clean Air Act — and whether it applies when the sources in question have been regulated under another provision in the Clean Air Act,” Heinzerling continued. “That is a meaningful statutory question. There’s disagreements among the parties what the statute does. Agencies get a lot of deference when things are unclear in statutes.”
I predict that the SCOTUS will defer to the EPA, as it has done recently on the CO2 regulation issue. We need a Republican President in 2016, who will sign new legislation from Congress reigning in the EPA clowns.
Are there any real attempts to run ERCOT it on your solar generated fuels? What is the expected date to replace the 50% of the fossil fuel electricity generation?
Kim Cobb Wrote:
“Nobody with any knowledge on the subject denies that carbon dioxide (CO2) derived from the burning of fossil fuels is measurably warming the planet.”
A half statement and linguistically and scientifically correct as Mosher says for most of us who believe in GHG.
But the full statement should read “Nobody with any knowledge on the subject denies that carbon dioxide (CO2) derived from the burning of fossil fuels is measurably warming the planet however other factors have counter balanced that warming.”
“Nobody denies that the risks of climate change will accelerate as greenhouse gas emissions accelerate.”
Again Mosher is right, true, but a half truth as well.
“Nobody denies that the risks of climate change will accelerate as greenhouse gas emissions accelerate, just as the benefits of climate change will accelerate as greenhouse gas emissions accelerate”
Fixed
Well Mosher joins Meatloaf here, two out of 3 ain’t bad.
This is definitely false.
“And nobody denies that, given the long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, the climatic response of our current emissions will play out over the lifetimes of our children and our grandchildren.”
Sorry Mosher the science here is not settled. The length of time of CO2 in the atmosphere is definitely up for grabs.
Since there has been no response to my earlier comment
“No claim should be considered true until it can be substantiated.
I will agree with every one of her claims you can substantiate.”
I consider silence to be acquiescence to the statement that her claims cannot be substantiated and are consequently not true.
This could have been a great article if only it had been written in English.
