Demolishing a building isn’t an example of the precautionary principle, because it’s possible and relatively easy to search the building and be sure, or as sure as is humanly possible.
Once you’ve gone down a checklist and checked all the boxes, doing it a second time isn’t being safer, it’s obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Mark F
Believe gbaikie is talking about the % of time that a solar panel generates power on average in a typical European location.
Optimistically, this is around 25% for norther Europe and stated (by panel manufacturers) to be almost 30% for Spain, California, etc.
This means that (gas-fired?) standby plants are required to supply the load when there is no sun. These are quite flexible and can produce power when it is needed. But it adds an even greater financial disadvantage to solar and cancels out a part of the reduction in CO2 emissions resulting from the solar plant.
This is just as bad for wind farms (which points to the folly of the UK plan, as Tony B’s article points out).
The only technically (and economically) viable alternate to fossil fuel fired plants today is nuclear fusion, which appears (post-Fukushima) not to be politically viable right now.
Have the “greens” painted themselves into a corner?
Max
Fred Moolten
No, Fred.
You have not shown specific estimates of warming averted by specific mitigating actions.
Please do so now (both for my benefit and for that of TonyB).
Max
That’s not true, 1) because most coastal nuke plants have cooling towers, and 2) climate-driven sea level rise isn’t of the 30-meter magnitude that did Fukushima in, and even if it were, there’s time to adapt.
But go on…
This is bloody incredible:
Heat waves are another serious concern, for two reasons. One, the colder the cooling water entering a reactor, the more efficient the production of electricity. And two, once the cooling water has passed through the system it is often discharged back where it came from in a much warmer state.
The heat’s just going to keep building up, right? 
Is there any rubbish the Newscientist won’t publish?
Fred Moolten
To the general request by TonyB and myself for specific actionable mitigation proposals with an estimate of how much global warming these will avert you replied that you had already posted this information here, adding:
If you search back through these threads, I expect you’ll find it. The fact that you disregarded it once disinclines me to take the trouble to search myself or do a recalculation, particularly since the evidence is already well known.
This is a cop-out, Fred. You have NOT posted this in the past and appear to be weaseling out of doing so now.
It is time to put up or shut up, Fred (if you’ll pardon the expression).
Max
Not to mention the 100 year window in which to do the construction.
These are our best and brightest at Stanford…
“This is a cop-out, Fred. You have NOT posted this in the past and appear to be weaseling out of doing so now.”
That’s rather personal, Max. I have two questions.
1. Are you a betting man?
2. How much can you afford to lose?
The reality is that we wouldn’t be having this “scientific” discussion if policy wasn’t the driver. This is, in fact, about policy. Every last bit of it. Always was.
The knowledge of IR absorption spectra is not used only in climate science, and the climates science is not the first major application and motivation for the related computer codes. They were developed for remote sensing and reconnaissance applications on both military an civil sides All these uses verify the accuracy of much of the data.
The data and the models are also verified by the measurements of downwelling IR radiation at surface and satellite observations of IR radiation to space.
I cannot provide any specific references, but the understanding of the mechanisms and the correctness of the data has certainly been validated in many different ways both by laboratory measurements and by observing real atmosphere.
I would suggest that my comments on church attendance aren’t so much anti-religious as anti-idiot.
By all means go into a church and pray for world peace, or whatever you like, should you feel the need, but the argument that governmental policy worldwide, on the AGW issue, should take into account such issues as church attendance or membership of trade unions is somewhat risible. Wouldn’t you agree?
On this I agree with you entirely.
They are witty bon mots. No more, no less. They could have been made by you or me or Joe Sixpack or the man on the bus with the squint and it wouldn’t change the substance of them one iota.
But I fear we are among academic nitpickers who would squeal like a stuck pig about plagiarism if the quotes had not been correctly acknowledged.
Never mind the rest of the decade, what about the rest of the century?
A growth rate of 3% equates to a doubling every 23.3 years. So, in 23.3+23.3+23.3 = 70 years, or before the end of the century, this means a factor of 8 increase in energy. Achieving that without a corresponding increase in CO2 emissions is the challenge.
Before anyone uses the name Malthus they might just like to check out my arithmetic on their calculator.
Kit Marlowe was positively scathing in his condemnation of it. ‘Not fit to be published’ were his words.’Not up to the standard of my own well-acclaimed published work. Shakespeare must not be allowed to publish again without me and my pals approving’
Francis Bacon claimed that it was all his work anyway.
Horatio demanded a cut of the action for all future Shakepsearean royalties
The professor of philosophy at Southwark Academy demanded that since WS had no formal qualifications in the subject he cease and desist to make any statements about it. . He would instead convene an InterTavernal Panel on Horatio;s Philosophy which would examine the nature of Horatio’s Philosophy and publish a report after five years. He reserved the right ot appoint anyo of his chums that he saw fit and answered to no earthly man for hos conduct.
The Professor of Astronomy at St Paul’s Establishment for the Education of the Minor Toffery objected, claiming that since heaven and earth lay in his realm, he should be leading the effort. The Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral was deeply offended. Heaven and earth are religious matters he asserted, so he should be in pole position.
A fight broke out in the Tavern. Kit Marlowe was killed, Nobody was caught. But eye-witness reports claim that the ,malefactors were a bunch of local thugs and bully boys provisionally named as Gavynne Smith, Robert Wardde, The Man Michael, Benjamin Sans Terre, This gang is known as Tenten and are believed to have links to Ye Piss of Green.
So it was just another day in academic circles.
Yep. Your sum is right.
Given the basic limits of physics,any suggestions on how you propose we achieve this?
‘However, correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t engineering types supposed to be more conservative than most?’
Like the engineers who build bridges ten times stronger than they need be ‘just in case’? Who worry about the 1 in a million chance that something may go drastically wrong and take precautions against it? Who go out and test the theories to make sure that they really reflect the real world? And who put their professional judgement on the line every time they create something? If it stays together and works..fine. if it doesn’t, then the engineer;s name is mud…and he may also be in court om serious charges.
Seems to me that the engineers are the guys to trust, not the noisy but slapdash climatologists.
Since you are talking to a fair bunch of sceptics on this blog, how do you know what we think on these matters? AFAIK they have never been raised here.
Yes I did mean the rest of the century – and your math is about right.
How to do it? Hmmm.
There are lots of mad theories out there – abiotic oil is not one I am familiar with. But the sort of practical and pragmatic actions I am talking about don’t include taxing the SUV in any serious way There is a bit of a list above? With a few loose numbers taken from various places?
It would include lifting energy R&D far beyond its current level as Bjorn Lomberg has been advocating for it seems like a millennia.
Probably not; the wisdom of it, possibly.
IMO, each scheme should come with an undo button.
