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Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by Robert

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Reducing greenhouse gas emission is a classic example of a problem solved best by the market, not via central planning. The questions posed above — Is CCS realistic? Is natural gas an appropriate bridge? Should we expand nuclear and/or increase efficiency? — can be multiplied ad infinitum.

We need a carbon tax which reflects the negative externalities of CO2 emissions in the bottom line of the producers and by extension, their customers. Once that is in place, the market will find the most cost-effective and “robust” strategies to maximize their profits by reducing emissions.

In the case of coal specifically, costs should also reflect the negative externalities of respiratory diseases and water pollution attributable to mining and burning coal. Coal is, in fact, an extremely expensive way to generate power, which our government heavily subsidizes by allowing the coal industry to degrade the commons at no cost to themselves.


Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by Dallas

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by Robert

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Maybe, if you want Joshua to cite specifics, you ought to set an example and cite some specific evidence for your various implausible assertions: “There is no question that a large portion of liberals, environmentalists and current Democrats oppose nuclear power,” “The majority of American skeptics support the nuclear power that we built in the past” . . . flailing away at vaguely defined “liberals” or supposed “skeptics” (Do you mean the comically unskeptical deniers? Be clear) just makes you look like a hypocrite.

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by ianl8888

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Thanks Rutt

No trouble accessing the paper with your link. My ETA for reading and commenting is a day or two

As background, my current view is that the anthropogenic signal in climate change is not significant, too much swamped by natural variability. But I live in a democracy (of sorts, anyway) and a perhaps bare majority of people are frightened, so I had hoped for nuclear power as the way. The current catastrophic situation in Japan is an absolute tragedy on many levels – one of which is that nuclear power is dead here as an option. This is very saddening for me, since the “options” of wind and solar can only supply about 35% of current demand – my country is at political risk of becoming 3rd world. Using gas is an option on the replacement basis you have noted for Colorado, but a very expensive one for Aus … about 60% of the country’s manufacturing capacity, including alumina smelters, is supplied through brown coal deposits, and these power plants are not upgradeable to gas

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by David Wojick

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Hilarious! A tax is not central planning. Who sets the rate, the market?

CO2 has no known externalities. Coal’s are minor, while the benefits of affordable electricity are great.

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by harrywr2

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There was a bit of a flurry for a couple of years but its almost dead now.
Figure #3 and Figure #4 are particularly informative.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf

Most of what is ‘proposed’ at this stage is technology demonstrators hoping for government subsidies.

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by Bart R

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Natural gas is complicated stuff.

It comes in varieties and grades, from full-on acid gas (some of the nastiest stuff ever belched out of the innards of the land) to pure sweet gas to the outcome of organic decay on farms and in forests, from icy ocean-bottom calthrates to artificial byproducts of fractionation, from easily tapped wells to fugitive emissions from coal mining.

You don’t want any of these things uncombusted in the air, expecting at many times the negative effects of these volatiles as from CO2 itself.

Life cycle studies are useful and all, but there’s a reason states are responsible for some things.

Each state faces different mixes of different issues, and on coal and natural gas, nuclear (and corn byproducts) and a federal EPA assessment may not apply equally to Colorado in all ways.

My own naive questions involve trade-offs.

If a state had something that emitted a lot of GHGs traditionally, even something like decomposing plant or animal wastes, and managed to find a low cost way to slow that decomposition — like the Dyson suggestion in huxley’s post (http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/23/inconvenient-truths-about-energy-policy/#comment-57358) above, then why not do that, instead of more costly CCS?

If the net outcome is the same and the cost lower, won’t the economy benefit?

And while CCS may leak, so long as the leak is managed so as to be non-catastrophic, it’s a success if it reduces CO2 emission to just 0.5% (http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/23/inconvenient-truths-about-energy-policy/#comment-57319), so why not use slightly leaky-CCS, if the cost is much lower?

It’s been a couple of years since any of my own family lived in Colorado, a very beautiful state by any measure, but I don’t recall it having so much farmland as some states, so I doubt the Dyson proposal is really a huge winner there.

As a place to locate charred biomass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar) and integrate it into terra preta for biosequestration, though, Colorado’s pretty well-positioned. Has this practice been figured into the CCS model?

I can see careful and prudent local management of natural gas being a good way to go for places blessed with the sweet and easily tapped variety, close to markets for it. Is this the situation for Colorado?

For most uses, in situ H2 extraction is not likely to be a very good solution, but I don’t know Colorado’s circumstances well enough to comment. Isnt’ much of Colorado is very concentrated into urban centers or resorts that might find trendy hydrogen or natural gas vehicles appealing?

Overall, because it’s a kick of mine, I generally appeal to those who can influence such decisions, take away the subsidies from all industries so much as possible, make the playing field level, and let the democracy of the markets sort things out.

They want roads for their internal combustion vehicles, let the auto industry and the oil industry and their customers pay for those roads directly.

Put a price on GHG emission at the state level with local state emission taxes and give that revenue _not_ to the general revenues of the state, but to each owner of the air of the state — the citizens of Colorado — per capita.

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by Bart R

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David Wojick

Yes.

Let the market set the price.

Set the price to the level of diminishing revenues, just like any shareholder would demand of the revenues of any venture.

CO2 has many known, verifiable externalities that can be easily internalized.

If the benefits of affordable electricity are great, then let the democracy of the market demonstrate that.

Or are you against Capitalism?


Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by harrywr2

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Is CCS realistic?

Draw a 1,000 mile circle around Gillette, Wyoming and cut out anything west of the Rocky’s(Smog issues kill coal west of the Rocky’s)
CCS could be economic inside that geographical area.

Outside that geographic area the cost of transporting coal plus the cost of carbon capture plus the cost of ash disposal doesn’t make coal use a particularly compelling case.

Comment on Inconvenient truths about energy policy by Dallas

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That is an excellent point Harry. All the CCS options require cheap energy to even be an option.

Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by JCH

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If overall SLR by 2100 is ~1 meter, the the Netherlands, and a fair percentage of the rest of the world’s coastlines, will have a big problem on their hands.

Greenland’s sea level will drop a great deal because of rebound. Not all land masses have that sort of insurance against SLR. How many glaciers are there in the Netherlands? I looked at Bart Verhaggen’s website and it appears they have massive glaciers; therefore, I change my mind. Like Greenland, the Netherlands is going to bounce up in the air and it will have no sea level problems; instead, a bunch of useless dike problems.

During the 20th Century SLR was ~6.6 inches (170mm, or 1.7mm per year.) I called that fairly stable, and it is. They have had to persistently improve their seawall system because of the problems that came with 6.6 inches. The tallest Dutch seawall number I found is 13 meters. There is obviously way more to holding out the ocean than that measly 6.6 inches might indicate. The current rate is ~3.2mm per year. This indicates that dynamic losses in ice sheets are beginning to happen. That could stop. It could remain about the same. It could get worse.

Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by Bart R

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Bart R resolutely ignores that you cannot internalise the cost of CO2 emissions, if you don’t know what it is in the first place. Which we don’t.

What some central planner tells you is the price of vodka or matryoshka dolls or ladas is not the market price.

I can’t tell you before the market has expressed its opinion of the price what it will be.

I’m saying what you and I both know — that it’s the market that must fix that price at the point of diminishing returns to shareholders, as with any good.

That is the point at which the price of the CO2E buying decision is internalised.

And goes on about subsidies that don’t accrue to the industries that are actually at the heart of the alleged problem – oil/gas/coal.

What do I care where some of the subsidies accrue and where some of them don’t?

They’re subsidies, they’re unnecessary subsidies, they distort the market and produce a drag on the economy.

I don’t think oil/gas/coal are The Devil unto whom all wages of sin vest. What a simpleton I’d have to be.

If you don’t believe there are subsidies that do accrue to these businesses, however, then you are simply willfully blind.

And ignores that even if CAGW is true, and we figure out its cost so we can accurately internalise it, switching from cheap energy will still make everything more expensive. A lot more, given present technology.

Yes, yes. And I believe cell phone calls really have to be more expensive than landline phone calls. Except that only happens in North America, because of regulations enforcing a lax and ineffective market for mobile service.

And I believe the cost of computers has gone up with all these newfangled ‘microchips’ over vacuum tubes.

And I believe it’s more expensive to insulate and seal the drafts in a house in Ypsilanti against winter cold than to turn up the thermostat.

I believe you Punksta.

You’re that credible.

Comment on Congressional Hearing on Climate Change: Part II by curryja

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well why then is muller praising watts and mcintyre and suggesting a climate ARPA to fund this kind of work? The blogosphere is awash with all sorts of #$%^

Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by Rob Starkey

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JCH– Bart V explained his comment, and I now understand his comment. At a larger level, have you read this study?

http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00157.1

It shows that sea levels have not risen as a result of AGW. (at least for the USA which is a pretty good sample size) Shouldn’t that seem to provide pretty good data to minimize people’s concerns about sea level rising being a huge problem?

Comment on Water vapor mischief: Part II by Chief Hydrologist

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Indeed – hurricanes rarely get closer to the equator than 10 degrees north or south. The Coriolis force initiates spin and there is not enough near the equator to maintain the momentum – as I read somewhere long ago.


Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by Punksta

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And yet again, Bart R resolutely ignores that you cannot internalise the cost of CO2 emissions, if you don’t know what it is in the first place. Which we don’t.
Bart R:

And goes on about subsidies that don’t accrue to the industries that are actually at the heart of the alleged problem – oil/gas/coal.
Bart R:

And ignores that even if CAGW is true, and we figure out its cost so we can accurately internalise it, switching from cheap energy will still make everything more expensive. A lot more, given present technology.
Bart R:

Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by andrew adams

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Latimer,

The claim about the Rio Negro comes from the National Institute of Space Research (INPE) in Brasil – see

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2005/2005-10-24-05.asp

Feel free to take it up with them if you don’t believe them.

Peter,

Deforestation probably played a part, the main driver appears to have been increased ocean temperatures.

hunter,

Where did I say the drought is the worst ever?

Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by Punksta

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Despite my messed-up html removing bits if it, the posting above still conveys Bart’s waffling, non-responsive replies to the points put to him. The points thus still stand.

Comment on Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks by Punksta

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I’ll try again. The relevant missing bits are:-

Bart:   

Comment on Congressional Hearing on Climate Change: Part II by Graeme

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so you guys are fighting about the temperature of the land….is the ocean irrelevant? plus all those bits of the landmass that are not properly measured – eg all the deserts?

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