“It is interesting that Labor, during the election campaign, had lots of talk about plans for the future, but the reality, as delivered by the budget, shows a lack of vision and a lack of strategic planning or coherent direction. Before the election, the then Leader of the Opposition kept telling us that he had a plan for this and he had a plan for that. In reality, his only plan was to become Prime Minister.
Let us have a look at some of the issues that have a lot of unintended consequences—for instance, the removal of the condensate exemption, which will result in a net gain of revenue of $2.43 billion but will significantly damage the international competitiveness of the resources industry. The government have also decided to reintroduce the CPI increase on the diesel excise levy. Obviously, this will result in increased costs of transport, and this is inflationary. Increased costs to mining also reduce productivity, and hence the tax take. And increased costs to agriculture are inflationary and threaten farmers’ livelihoods.
There is the so-called alcopops tax—increasing the tax on alcopops, theoretically to reduce binge drinking. But
binge drinking has actually reduced over the last five or so years with the target audience of young women, and
projections by Treasury show a four per cent reduction in ready-to-drinks compared with before the increased tax.
HBF’s Western Australian data show that ready-to-drinks comprise only three per cent of what 18- to 21-year-olds
are drinking, compared with 51 per cent for spirits. Those over 30 consume ready-to-drinks at greater percentages
than those in the 18 to 21 group. This shows that Labor are completely illiterate regarding statistics—and perhaps
that is why they have cut the ABS budget. Of importance is reducing the overall alcohol consumption in binge
drinking situations, not just ready-to-drinks, where substitution of other forms of alcohol is already happening. In
summary, looking at a massive tax increase on ready-to-drinks is supposed to decrease use of a product that only
three per cent of the target group use, and that reduction is only by four per cent. This is two-thirds of stuff-all, I would suggest.
Then there is the area of science, a discipline that is critical to Australia’s advancement. Scientific research is vital in the development of solutions to many problems, as well as pure research. So what do the Labor government
do? They cut CSIRO’s budget so significantly that CSIRO will shed 100 jobs and four divisions. What a travesty; what hypocrisy! And that is before we even get to cuts to ANSTO—probably purely based on political antinuclear ideology. The government has also slashed the Commercial Ready program, which, in the past, funded
clinical trials for cancer treatments and the high-risk biotech sector. So much for R&D! On 1 November 2000 and
in February 2007, the current Prime Minister extolled the virtue of research and development, especially in universities, and feigned outrage at the policies of the coalition. This man has now slashed CSIRO funding. Fine
words; black deeds.
Then, worst of all, in the areas of energy and the environment, the government is shown to be clueless hypocrites.
We had Peter Garrett decrying the coalition government’s environment policy when in opposition. On an almost weekly basis he complained about our policy for solar power generation, stating that we had been world leaders in solar technology, particularly photovoltaics, but were no longer so. Now Labor is in government, and it is instructive to compare rhetoric with action. Far from delivering a policy to enhance the photovoltaic industry,
the Rudd Labor government has introduced a policy that is likely to kill the entire industry in Australia. The Rudd government has introduced a budget measure that will dissuade essentially the only people who will be able to afford solar panels on the roof—those earning over $100,000—from doing so by cutting the solar rebate. That is grubby Labor politics of envy winning out over good policy, I would suggest.
Look at Labor rhetoric on carbon dioxide emissions and contrast that with their actions. State Labor governments
in New South Wales and Western Australia have decided to build new coal-fired power stations. What happened to gas, never mind renewables or—God forbid, in the eyes of some Labor and particularly Greens members— nuclear power? This seems to be a pattern: a lot of whingeing about problems when in opposition but nary a solution when in government. Labor’s spin puts youths with hotted-up cars doing burnouts to shame. We have
news, however, of a new baseload gas-fired power station in New South Wales which effectively puts the carbon cost at two cents per kilowatt hour for coal-fired power stations. This will make electricity prices far more expensive and makes nuclear power extremely cost-competitive. Think what this carbon price will do to petrol prices.
The Labor Party, the party that promised in an election campaign to put maximum downward pressure on petrol prices, will be slugging hard-pressed motorists with far higher petrol prices. We put downward pressure on petrol
prices. Indeed, the proportion of tax take from fuel has gone down from 6.6 per cent to 4.8 per cent in the last six
years. That is real downward pressure. Perhaps the media and others have misunderstood the Labor catchphrase.
Perhaps when Labor were saying ‘working families’ they were actually saying ‘walking families’ to prepare Australia for this very crisis. This will no doubt be explained away as a measure to solve another crisis that Labor will no doubt bring forward when they are next under pressure: the obesity epidemic. Not being able to afford petrol will clearly assist in that regard—irony intended.
An opposition that promised a long-term plan for the future has mutated into a government scrambling desperately for ideas, throwing up short-sighted, ill thought out policy that exacerbates the very problems that Labor promised to solve. Where is the long-term coherent policy and strategy? Nowhere to be seen in this budget. There are just a whole lot of punitive measures, slush funds and inevitable spin. It just won’t wash.
Let us have a look at the future and what we can do. In going around my electorate of Tangney, I have heard people express concern that they see no light at the end of the tunnel regarding petrol. Not only do they worry
about increasing fuel prices; they worry that there will not be any fuel at all for their vehicles. What is the government doing? These are issues of sovereign risk and sovereign energy security, which are clearly critical for our long-term future. What the government is doing is nothing more than attempting to wallpaper over gaping cracks
in its policies.
I have already spoken at length of the necessity to consider nuclear energy, so I will not dwell on it. I would just urge the government to fully and critically examine and analyse all potential electricity generation methods. We need a comprehensive national energy strategy. This is something that is clearly not on the cards with this government.
But what about petrol and other oil based products? It may shock you to learn that there is an essentially Third World nation that obtains fully one-third of its fuel synthetically and has done so for 50 years. The country is the
nation of my birth, South Africa, and the process is Sasol. Rugby Union fans would probably have wondered what
‘Sasol’ across the Springboks jumper meant. You are about to find out.
Sasol is an oil-from-coal process that uses the Fischer-Tropsch process, developed prior to World War II. Germany
produced synthetic fuel during the war using this process. It was further developed in South Africa, and Sasol fuels began to be sold 50 years ago. This process was largely ignored in the rest of the world due to the expense
of the process, but from South Africa’s perspective in the apartheid days it was essential from an energy security point of view. A benefit of the fuel is that it is extremely clean. Just as synthetic engine oil has virtually no impurities, the same holds for synthetic petrol. The really good news is that the fuel that was ignored due to costs
is now remarkably cheap. The Sasol process produces oil for between $27 and $55 a barrel. Somehow I do not
think we will have oil prices quite that low again. The United States is showing significant interest in the process,
as are many other nations. Where are we?
The green disciples of anthropogenic global warming will oppose this process, as it is relatively carbon dioxide intensive. But let us take the time to examine some of the pseudoscience on which this whole anthropogenic global warming belief is based. Let us also examine how these disciples act and how they are reported. First, I find some of the commentary coming from some of the anthropogenic global warming zealots extremely perplexing.
We hear that the rate of increase of global temperature is faster than the science predicted. But what is actually
happening?
I have three graphs: one from the third IPCC assessment report and two from the fourth assessment report. All of the projections show an increase from the year 2000, even if the graph for carbon dioxide is held constant at year 2000 levels. I repeat: all the projections show an increase over the last decade. But what do actual measurements
show? I have many charts showing the global temperature as measured by four groups, including the Hadley centre, whose data is officially used by the IPCC. This data shows that the temperature has flatlined over the
last 10 years. Observation does not fit theory and yet the theory is deemed correct.
A classic example of rejecting facts which do not fit the theory is the temperature graph over the last 1,000 years and the use of tree ring and tree density data as a proxy for temperature. There is a well-known problem when comparing tree ring and density data with temperature data over the last 140 years. Between 1860 and 1960,
the data agreed reasonably well. After 1960, there is a divergence. The tree ring and density data indicate that temperatures have decreased, where measurements have actually indicated an increase. If you look at the IPCC
graphs, the tree proxy data ends abruptly at—you guessed it—1960.
Keith Briffa, a lead author of the IPCC, in the chapter relating to tree proxy data had this to say of the divergence
problem: In the absence of a substantiated explanation for the decline, we make the assumption that it is likely to be a response to some kind of recent anthropogenic forcing. On the basis of this assumption, the pre-twentieth century part of the reconstructions can be considered to be free from similar events and thus accurately represent past temperature variability.
In other words, we do not know how the hell to explain the post-1960 data, so we will just blame humans and accept that all the earlier data is correct because that fits neatly with our paradigm. This is what a friend of mine refers to as ‘situating the appreciation rather than appreciating the situation’. You make the facts fit the theory then you should make the theory fit the facts.
If global temperature is not heating as predicted, maybe this elusive heat is going into the oceans. Not so. Three thousand oceanic robots that dive up to 1,000 metres have been measuring ocean temperatures since 2003 and
show, if anything, a slight decrease and certainly not an increase. So where has the heat gone? IPCC coordinating lead author Kevin Trenberth has stated: … none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models.
According to Kevin Trenberth, the lost heat is probably going back out to space. He says the earth has a number of
natural thermostats, including clouds, which can trap heat, turn up the temperature or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet. So why is none of this reflected in the modelling? It is situating the appreciation again.
This whole issue of anthropogenic global warming has all the classic hallmarks of religion. There are the high priests—the Gores, the Flannerys etcetera of the world, who talk the talk but are utterly hypocritical when it comes to walking their talk. There is the concept of original sin, being industry and carbon dioxide, and the whole issue of penance or paying the price for your actions. This is the way we have to pay for the use of industry which is emitting carbon dioxide. The high priests, however, can get away with their profligate lifestyle by buying indulgences, also known as carbon credits, and so continue to sin. Hence, we have Flannery jetting here, there and everywhere and Gore, similarly, with just one of his residences—one of three, I might add—consuming 20 times as much energy as the average American household. That is how concerned he is about global warming in reality.
The media indulge the high priests, castigating the many heretics who dare to differ. Yet they let the high priests off, not scrutinising their statements as the media should. Take Flannery’s suggestion, for example, of putting sulphur into the atmosphere, using terribly polluting aircraft to disperse it. What a delicious irony! For those who know a bit of chemistry, what happens when you mix sulphur, water and oxygen? You get sulphuric acid, also known as acid rain. I guess that is the price that we need to pay for our sin. But why has the media not lampooned
Flannery, who is supposed to be a global warming expert scientist of the highest order, for such a ridiculous proposal?
It is political correctness of the highest and most unconscionable order.
So what we have is a more and more desperate anthropogenic global warming theory supporters club who, when the data indicates that the planet has not been heating for the last 10 years and the oceans have not heated for at east the last five, tell us that global warming is happening even more quickly than the theory predicts. After all, the models must be right, just like the bookies must always be right with predictions on match or racing results.
The problem is that this religion based around the false god of a controllable and naturally benign climate is going to hurt every man, woman and child in Australia as a result of significantly higher fuel and energy prices and onsequent increases in the cost of living, particularly food, so groceries and fuel and so on are going to go up
significantly—estimates say approximately 10c to 30c per litre for petrol alone. This government is clearly quite
happy with that, and that is a tragedy for many Australians.
Dr. Dennis Jensen
Federal Member for Tangney
Western Australia
————————
This speech was made by Dr Jensen in the Australian Federal Parliament on June 3, 2008, on the Appropriation Bill.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Congratulations Dennis, for the courage to say what pollies need to say instead of bowing to mindless PC.
Not quite a Boris Johnson, however the realist’s need a champion to get behind to represent their view were it,s required. The realist’s need to support Dr. Dennis and get a qualified dissenting position constantly heard in the places that count.
(a) Parliament
(b) The meeja
Not quite a Boris Johnson, however the realist’s need a champion to get behind to represent their view were it,s required. The realist’s need to support Dr. Dennis and get a qualified dissenting position constantly heard in the places that count.
(a) Parliament
(b) The meeja
Yes, good piece from Dennis, and he is to be congratulated for his courage. The major political parties have been capitulating to this dogma, probably in response to polling data showing indoctrination taking effect. I am very concerned that we need to find political strategies to overcome this totalitarianism, and would welcome exchanges with like minded, scientific rationalist souls.
Some sense in parliament.
One thing he did not mention was shale oil.
We have very large, & proven economically viable shale oil deposits. I was surprised when our government allowed big oil to force the company that was developing it out of business.
The plant is probably still there. Time to get it up, & running, & tell big oil to use the stuff, like it or not.
Good to hear a sane voice still strong in our political wilderness. If only the congo line of, well, you know, led by Flannery, Garrett, the ABC and Rudd can be revealed for the sanctimonious fools they are. The petrol market will do what it always does…
Holman W. Jenkins Jr. writing in the June 4, Wall Street Journal:
“At $70 a barrel, we worried only that the folly of India and China in artificially holding down prices to consumers would spread. The news is happy here too. Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia are cutting back subsidies or thinking about it. India and China may not let prices float anytime soon, but they’re letting gas lines and spot shortages ration supply anyway.
If today’s towering price of oil reflects some speculator’s bet on a long-term scarcity of liquid motor fuels, this will prove the misguided bet of a lifetime. Hydrocarbons are abundant and can be extracted from living plant matter as well as from their fossil remains. Many oil fields under current technology are considered depleted when they’re still 50% full. But technology advances, doesn’t it?
But the biggest fools today may be those greenies who are clapping their hands over $135 oil as if this somehow represents the beginning of the end of fossil fuels. High prices are not the equivalent of carbon taxes – they will have the opposite effect in the long run, spurring investment and technological progress to bring vast new resources of fossil energy into production. For instance, turning coal, oil sands and oil shale into motor fuels, which is cost-effective at half of today’s oil price, means massive additional releases of CO2. It’s the worst nightmare of the climate worrywarts.”
http://online.wsj.com
One simple question Dr Jensen
Why would you bother with nuclear if there is no problem with CO2 emissions?
Nuclear is only an option, for conservative people, if you consider that CO2 emission are a problem. If you don’t consider emissions to be a problem then nuclear is a hideously expensive boondogle that is only economic with massive government subsidies.
So which is it? Is CO2 a problem and nuclear is the answer or is CO2 not a problem therefore nuclear becomes a solution for a problem that does not exist?
Also just as a matter of slight interest can you please send me the graph showing global average temperatures from 1870 to today, that also includes a 10 or longer year mean line, that shows cooling or a flat trend for the last 10 years. Now don’t be naughty and cherry pick 1998 to the present, show the whole dataset like a proper scientist would.
“But what about petrol and other oil based products? It may shock you to learn that there is an essentially Third World nation that obtains fully one-third of its fuel synthetically and has done so for 50 years. The country is the
nation of my birth, South Africa, and the process is Sasol”
And when they run out of coal?????? What then?
Ender,
To deny that the Earth is NOT warming at the rate of the IPCC scheduled forecast for the past decade is simply, well, head-in-the-sand “Denialism”, as you might say. No rhetorical links required, but here’s a relevant graph, anyway.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/uah_may_08.png
Notice the natural temperature variation in the earth’s climate is as great or greater than about .8c, which is about the hypothetical anthropogenic warming effect since the start of the industrial revolution.
So how do the high priests of climatology sort out the natural from human induced variation? Through arcane algorithmic incantations that they are loathe to submit to public scrutiny. A sure indication of piety rather than reason.
As Dr. Jensen points outs AGW true believers have more in common with creationists than empiricists…”make the facts fit the theory,” as in Ender’s denialism of recent global cooling.
We can argue whether climate is cooling (from 1998) or is just taking a breather, but let’s not deny the facts, mate. And the facts are diverging from the predictions derived from AGW theory.
“Nuclear is only an option, for conservative people, if you consider that CO2 emission are a problem. If you don’t consider emissions to be a problem then nuclear is a hideously expensive boondogle that is only economic with massive government subsidies.”
Ender, if you think nuclear enjoys massive government subsidies, then how do you explain this extract from WSJ?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html
“Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That’s double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you’d expect given all the money Congress is throwing at “renewables.” Even more subsidies are set to pass this year.
An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and “clean coal” $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.”
“Nuclear is only an option, for conservative people, if you consider that CO2 emission are a problem. If you don’t consider emissions to be a problem then nuclear is a hideously expensive boondogle that is only economic with massive government subsidies.”
Ender, if you think nuclear enjoys massive government subsidies, then how do you explain this extract from WSJ?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html
“Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That’s double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you’d expect given all the money Congress is throwing at “renewables.” Even more subsidies are set to pass this year.
An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and “clean coal” $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.”
Typical Enderian logic. He asks “Why would you bother with nuclear if there is no problem with CO2 emissions?”
Because a whole bunch of economically illiterate bunnies have got it into their tiny brain that there IS a problem with CO2. And in response to a gradual long term decline in oil and an increase in global energy demand, they are stupid enough to completely blow the family inheritance on even more costly alternative supplies based on that carbon fetish.
wes – “No rhetorical links required, but here’s a relevant graph, anyway.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/uah_may_08.png ”
Graphs without a trendline. What’s the matter? Are you all scared that if you put in the 10 year trendline for graph, including the years before 1979, you would see the clear warming signal.
“So how do the high priests of climatology sort out the natural from human induced variation? Through arcane algorithmic incantations that they are loathe to submit to public scrutiny. A sure indication of piety rather than reason.”
No they attempt to quantify them and run experiments on computers to see what happens to reasonable models of the Earths atmosphere when various forcings are removed, enhanced or changed.
“As Dr. Jensen points outs AGW true believers have more in common with creationists than empiricists…”make the facts fit the theory,” as in Ender’s denialism of recent global cooling.”
The ‘facts’ only fit the theory if you cherry pick the ones you want. If you only graph the period 1998 to 2008 for instance or if you only use the MSU data then these selected facts do not fit the theory. However if you are honest enough, which deniers rarely are, and include ALL the available data including all the long term surface temperature datasets, the new upper wind data and the radiosonde data plus other data then you can clearly see that observations do indeed fit the hypothesis of AGW.
However, if you want to you can comfort yourself with your selected data to protect your faith. And they call us religious???????
Terrified, I call ya, show your graph, Ender.
with the ten year trendline?
Allen Ford – “Ender, if you think nuclear enjoys massive government subsidies, then how do you explain this extract from WSJ?”
Does that include the 52 billion to spend on Yucca Mountain that only about 25 billion has been collected?
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/loux05.htm
“Despite the clear intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1983 that the generators of spent fuel and high-level waste should pay fully for the cost of managing and disposing of the waste, the American taxpayer will be on the hook for a whopping $25.8 billion or more if this federal program goes forward.”
Or the Price Anderson Act:
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/priceandersonactfactsheet1001.htm
and investors are flocking to the new nuclear:
http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Newsletter/NLRMIspring08.pdf
“Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy. There’s a catch, though: the private capital market isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street. This non-technical summary article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors. It explains why soaring taxpayer subsidies aren’t attracting investors. Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors—which, however, already outproduce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster.”
“…there is an essentially Third World nation that obtains fully one-third of its fuel synthetically and has done so for 50 years. The country is the nation of my birth, South Africa, and the process is Sasol”
Ender asks:
“And when they run out of coal?????? What then?”
Coming from Ender that question was simply a petard, as Ender faithfully believes the great AGW apocalypse will occur long before hydrocarbon depletion can occur. But let me hoist you up there, mate…
There is more coal on this planet (Earth, I mean, not planet Ender) than humanity can consume in the next half century, by which time, assuming Rudd hasn’t shut down the CSIRO and nationalized industry, our technology will be well beyond the hydrocarbon age.
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG-Coalreport_10_07_2007.pdf
Still waiting for that graph with the ten year trendline that shows the IPCC forecasts and the predictions of the GCMs based on AGW theory are being verified by actual empirical reality rather than by “experiments on computers.”
“There is more coal on this planet (Earth, I mean, not planet Ender) than humanity can consume in the next half century”
On current consumption rates, more than 2000 years (I spend some considerable amount of my time actually measuring this stuff).
Coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids is extremely vibrant in the Surat Basin, Q’ld, now – developing very rapidly. CTL (coal-to-liquids) is economically viable at US$80/barrel for oil. We are now over US$100/barrel.
The Watermelons hate these facts.
“There is more coal on this planet (Earth, I mean, not planet Ender) than humanity can consume in the next half century”
On current consumption rates, more than 2000 years (I spend some considerable amount of my time actually measuring this stuff).
Coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids is extremely vibrant in the Surat Basin, Q’ld, now – developing very rapidly. CTL (coal-to-liquids) is economically viable at US$80/barrel for oil. We are now over US$100/barrel.
The Watermelons hate these facts. Geologically speaking, the Watermelons are truly willfully ignorant.
wes – “There is more coal on this planet (Earth, I mean, not planet Ender) than humanity can consume in the next half century, by which time, assuming Rudd hasn’t shut down the CSIRO and nationalized industry, our technology will be well beyond the hydrocarbon age.”
Gee fifty years – that is really long term thinking – then what? The miracle workers in 2058 will magically make energy from what? How much more advanced to you think you are from say 1958?
Good link BTW – it shows Peak Coal about 2025 and that is without the expanded coal to liquids that Dr Jensen seems to think is a good idea. Trying to replace oil with coal will only make it go faster.
“Still waiting for that graph with the ten year trendline that shows the IPCC forecasts and the predictions of the GCMs based on AGW theory are being verified by actual empirical reality rather than by “experiments on computers.””
Who demands that the IPCC forecasts be exactly accurate. They are scenerios after all put in to give an idea of possible futures under different conditions.
Here is a good discussion on models and a graph of models V reality
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/
wes – Also you could read this excellent article on coal at The Oil Drum that concludes:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4061
” The sheer amounts of coal that will be needed in order to offset any significant proportion of oil (and perhaps also natural gas) consumption, and to meet the projected increased demand for electricity, are mind-boggling. Coal is a lower-quality fossil fuel in the best case, and America is being forced to use ever lower-quality coal. Just to offset the declining heating value of US coal while meeting EIA forecasts for electricity demand growth by 2030, the nation will then have to mine roughly 80 percent more coal then than it is doing currently. If carbon sequestration and other new technologies for consuming coal are implemented, they will increase the amount of coal required in order to produce the same amount of energy for society’s use, since the energy penalty for capture and sequestration is estimated at up to 40 percent. A broad-scale effort to produce synthetic liquid fuels from coal (CTL) will also dramatically increase coal demand. If the current trend to expand coal exports continues, this would stimulate demand even further. Altogether, there is a realistic potential for more than a doubling, perhaps even a tripling, of US coal demand and production by 2030—which would hasten exhaustion of the resource from many current mining regions and draw the inevitable production peak closer in time.
Assuming this higher demand scenario (from CTL, increased exports, and growing electricity consumption), by 2030 the nation’s dependence on coal will be much greater than is currently the case, and coal’s proportional contribution to the total US energy supply will have grown substantially. But at the same time, prices for coal are likely to have increased precipitously because of transport bottlenecks and higher transport costs (due to soaring diesel prices), falling production trends in many current producing regions, and the lack of suitable new coalfields. The interactions of high and rising coal prices with efforts to maximize output are hard to predict.
As limits to domestic coal production appear, exports could diminish and there could instead be efforts to import more coal, probably from South America. But in that case the US economy would suffer increasingly from economic dependencies and geopolitical vulnerabilities that already hobble the nation as a result of its oil imports.
It may be tempting to think of coal as a transitional energy source for the next few decades, while a longer-term energy strategy emerges. But in that case, an important question arises: Will there be sufficient investment capital and technical resources in three or four decades to fund the transition to the next energy source, whatever it may be? By that time (assuming EIA projections are reasonably accurate), demand for energy will be higher. The price of oil, gas, and coal will be higher—perhaps much higher—and so the nation will be spending proportionally much more of its GDP on energy than it does now. Meanwhile, the energy cost of building new infrastructure of any kind will be higher. Therefore it is likely that insufficient investment capital will be available for the large number of new energy projects required. The transition if deferred will thus be more expensive and difficult than it would be now. Indeed, the longer a transition to an ultimate (and sustainable) energy regime is put off, the harder that transition becomes.
Coal currently looks like a solution to many of America’s fast-growing energy problems. However, this is a solution that, if applied on a broad scale, seems certain only to exacerbate the nation’s energy dilemma in the long run, as well as contributing to an impending global climate catastrophe. ”
Ianl – “On current consumption rates, more than 2000 years (I spend some considerable amount of my time actually measuring this stuff).”
Well the latest report that wes posted disagrees with you:
“According to this analysis it is very likely that global coal production will peak around 2020
at a production rate being about 30% higher than at present. However, it must be noted that
the quality of coal will continuously decline.”
As does the World Coal Institute:
“According to the widely accepted view, at current production levels proven coal reserves will last 155 years (this according to the World Coal Institute). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects annual global coal consumption to grow 2.5 percent per year through 2030, by which time world consumption will be nearly double that of today.”
Are you talking about Australia?
It’s a joke when leftists begin to lecture on economics. Ender, your whole bloody socialist gestalt depends on utter blindness to economic forces such as investment capital, functioning markets, and supply vs. demand. You don’t believe a word of it, much less understand it. So it is sheer hypocrisy to whip out Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of free markets to prove Nuclear isn’t viable.
If Nuclear Energy was in your sanctimonious hymnal, you’d be singing on the top of your lungs for a taxpayer funded plant in every shire, damn the economics of it!
Ambrose Pierce once defined the hypocrite as “one who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.”
Sound familiar? Ender?
Why quibble over coal reserves being turned into oil when the US, according to the US Geological Survey, has 8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia (2 trillion barrels) in the Green River Colorado reserves, alone. Then there is the Bakken Formation that runs through the Dakotas and Montana, with over 3 billion bls, not to mention the Alberta Oil Sands that have a bit less that Saudi Arabia.
Peak oil is not coming around any time soon, unless the loonie greenies exercise their political clout to thwart extraction.
Far too much Ender here for my liking. If anyone is a denier it is he. AGW theory and IPCC predictions imply that temperatures should be moving upward at anywhere from 0.2 to 0.6 degrees C. per decade. Instead we have no evidence of any warming now over the last 25 years (that’s right Ender, you DO have to account for the volcanic impacts of El Chichon and Pinatubo!). Even if you don’t, the latest UAH MSU data show May temperatures at -0.18 degrees C BELOW the 1979-2000 mean.
But go ahead Ender, do rave on!
wes – “It’s a joke when leftists begin to lecture on economics. Ender, your whole bloody socialist gestalt depends on utter blindness to economic forces such as investment capital, functioning markets, and supply vs. demand.”
So economics is going to create energy out of nothing???? It is a similar joke when rightists lecture on infinite resources and an environment with a limitless capacity to absorb pollutants.
“If Nuclear Energy was in your sanctimonious hymnal, you’d be singing on the top of your lungs for a taxpayer funded plant in every shire, damn the economics of it!”
I would, really? Who says I want taxpayer funded solar plants or wind farms anywhere. All we ask for is initial subsidies, that have been given to all new energy sources, to overcome initial startup costs. Once there is a more established renewable grid the subsidies can cease. Don’t worry you can keep your money if that is all important to you.
And of course when rightists run out of real arguments they boast and bluster.
Bracing for the abuse now……
Allen Ford – “Why quibble over coal reserves being turned into oil when the US, according to the US Geological Survey, has 8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia (2 trillion barrels) in the Green River Colorado reserves, alone. Then there is the Bakken Formation that runs through the Dakotas and Montana, with over 3 billion bls, not to mention the Alberta Oil Sands that have a bit less that Saudi Arabia.”
So Allen where do you get the water and natural gas to turn all these reserves into oil? The Colorado river already is fully committed so who is going to miss out? Where do you get the gas? Thats right you are going to use nuclear reactors so they have to have millions of tons of cooling water PLUS the millions of tons of water needed to process the shale.
Good plan so far
“Peak oil is not coming around any time soon, unless the loonie greenies exercise their political clout to thwart extraction.”
The mere fact that these reserves are being considered it one of the surest signs of Peak Oil that I can think of. If there was plenty of conventional oil then we would just use that. However I am sure the loonie brownies will exercise their politial clout to invade a few more oil bearing countries to ensure supply.
Mark – “Instead we have no evidence of any warming now over the last 25 years”
Assuming you look at only one dataset – I did mention this before.
“(that’s right Ender, you DO have to account for the volcanic impacts of El Chichon and Pinatubo!). Even if you don’t, the latest UAH MSU data show May temperatures at -0.18 degrees C BELOW the 1979-2000 mean.”
Are we cherry picking again now. What do all the other datasets say? Oh look they all show a warming trend however I guess you are turning a blind eye to that.
If Ender was an economists armpit he would understand that his stupid $25 billion shortfall in waste disposal funding has been blown right out of the water by the current drop in US interest rates.
But he has tried this crap on before. The French set aside 10% of their nuclear power revenue for waste disposal and decommissioning and the total amount alrady in the kitty is 71 Billion Euros.
Sweden sets aside 0.13 cents/Kwh for waste disposal and has a commensurately humungous amount in kitty.
So tell us, Ender, how many billion Kwh in US nuclear generated electricity do we spread your chicken $hit $25 billion over?
In fact, due to the drop in interest rates, the so-called short fall has probably just flown out the window to find Ender’s credibility.
“Who says I want taxpayer funded solar plants or wind farms anywhere?”
You do.
Ender, aren’t you being a bit intellectually dishonest with us?
You claim that you are two ticks right of the most extreme communist position on the “political compass.” That means you believe in a centrally controlled economic order? No? Nationalization of the banking system?
So why pretend you are something you aren’t—someone who respects the logic of the free market?
You believe that we should have a zero growth or perhaps even negative growth economy, don’t you?
I have no problem debating a socialist who believes capitalism will soon (or should) collapse a la Jared Diamond’s hypothesis. Fine. Bring it on. But don’t pretend you are just another rational, uninterested bloke without a seriously left wing agenda. That’s a troll technique called Mobyism.
http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2007/08/my-political-co.html
“So economics is going to create energy out of nothing????”
Well, Moby, it’s even craaaazier than that. Us whacky “rightists” imagine that we are going to create energy out of mere imagination!
Fact is,the rate of technological evolution is accelerating geometrically. Whether we have coal for 50 years or a 1,000 years is not the point. The point is we have more than enough to do the hard yards to the next paradigm shift in base-load energy generation.
The rate of innovation and implementation of emerging technologies in the next half century is likely to be on an order of a magnitude greater (or more) than the last half century.
You don’t seriously imagine we will be as dependent on hydrocarbons in 2060 as we are today?
If you do, you’ve underestimated the human capacity for innovation. But that’s what leftists chronically do, short change humanity.To you innovation is a Rudd celebrity “thinkfest” or punitive tax policy or a new bureaucracy or Fuelwatch!
Could anyone have imagined the Internet in 1958? No, but they did eagerly anticipate nuclear flying automobiles. One must wonder what novel technologies will dominate the economy of 2058? Our ability to forecast the path of future technologies has changed little since1958. Except in that we now know NOT to expect today’s paradigm to be the dominate one half century hence.
If you hate the chaos of complex systems of free markets, naturally you’ll hate the idea that unknowable invention is the only course to our future salvation.
Ian Mott – This recent enough?
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/bg2113.cfm
“March 6, 2008
Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2008: Modernizing Spent Fuel Management in the U.S.
by Jack Spencer
Backgrounder #2113
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982[1] attempted to establish a comprehensive disposal strategy for high-level nuclear waste. Regrettably, that strategy has failed miserably. The government has spent billions of dollars without opening a repository, has yet to receive any waste, and is amassing billions of dollars of taxpayer liability.”
Or this:
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=8675&type=0
“In the absence of a federal underground repository to accept nuclear waste for storage, taxpayers are now starting to pay—in the form of legal settlements with utilities—for a decentralized waste storage system at sites around the country. (Those payments are being made from the Department of the Treasury’s Judgment Fund.) The Department of Energy (DOE) currently estimates that payments to utilities pursuant to such settlements will total at least $7 billion, and possibly much more if the program’s schedule continues to slip. Regardless of whether or when the government opens the planned repository, those payments are likely to continue for several decades.”
7 billion in legal settlements!!! Seems to be working well
However that is not the point. Unless you are advocating socialist state run nuclear power plants then they just will not be built because they are expensive boondogles as I said. Need I remind you that both the Swedish and French nuclear progams are government programs – I thought that was wrong – seems like you are joining us loony lefties.
wes – “You claim that you are two ticks right of the most extreme communist position on the “political compass.” That means you believe in a centrally controlled economic order? No? Nationalization of the banking system?”
No not even close. If I was like that I would be in the upper right hand quadrant. As I have said many many times I like the blend of socialism and free markets that we have in Australia and would not change it for anything.
Your attempt to marginalise me is pathetic. Is this all you have left? This really comes under the topic of playing the man and not the ball.
How about we return to the issues where I assume you have nothing left to be attempting this weak tactic.
“This really comes under the topic of playing the man and not the ball.”
My apologies, Ender, as you were hiding behind the ball I mistook you for the corner pocket.
Moral of the story: Don’t pretend you aren’t who you are and you won’t get called on it.
I don’t wish to marginally you, quite the contrary, I wish to highlight your contributions in the full light of day.
Two ticks right of absolute communism is a” blend of socialism and free markets?”
This must be the same trend line you use to average global temperature with, eh?
wes – “If you hate the chaos of complex systems of free markets, naturally you’ll hate the idea that unknowable invention is the only course to our future salvation.”
So your entire plan is to continue as normal and bet the farm on something that has not been invented yet?
Seeings as I don’t hate the chaos of complex systems and I would like to change to a renewable system that is more distributed and smarter than the 19th century solutions that you seem to crave your statements are somewhat contradictory.
Far from betting on yet to be invented technologies and oil yet to be found I advocate using advanced technologies that exist in the free market today, coupled with smart controls integrating electric transportation that have all the technology either already developed or very near term. The problem is for your type is that they are not centralised and massive and give local communities access and control over their energy supply rather than being in the hands of huge corporate monopolies that righties feel most comfortable with.
And just quietly the idea that your only plan, the only one you can imagine in that 19th century brain of yours, is wait for vapourware to save us is frankly frightening.
wes – “Two ticks right of absolute communism is a” blend of socialism and free markets?”
This must be the same trend line you use to average global temperature with, eh?”
So obviously you have problems with anything that is not either back or white and wish to cast me in the same simple light so that I can be processed by your limited faculties.
Despite what you might think there are actually shades of grey even if you are unable to accept this. If it helps you can think of me as anything you like however I am not even close to being communist or anything like it. Perhaps you should do the test and post your results here – it only takes a minute.
But enough about the denialist Moby and his digressions into peak coal or pantomimes of a free marketeer…
Dr. Jensen’s point is that a zero-growth Kyoto based approach to solving a climate non-issue is going to seriously hurt and even kill millions of people globally.
And any government that implements these policies is not just wrong, it’s incompetent and unfit to govern.
Hear, hear!
Does anyone deny that Dr. Jensen has struck at the real heart of the issue?
Play the ball, Moby, not the man.
wes – “Dr. Jensen’s point is that a zero-growth Kyoto based approach to solving a climate non-issue is going to seriously hurt and even kill millions of people globally.”
But of course in the case that catastophic climate change does happen, which I quickly point out is not certain, the government that sticks it’s head in the sand and denys climate change and millions die anyway because we are not prepared – that is responsible?
“I advocate using advanced technologies that exist in the free market today, coupled with smart controls integrating electric transportation that have all the technology either already developed or very near term..”
So….you think that human creativity given the economic freedom to innovate can actually imagine its way out of whatever energy hurdles the future may hold?
Hmmmm, I don’t know, sounds awful iffy to me.
Better fill out that political compass test again, Ender, you’ve just migrated to an entirely different quadrant, mate.
Your cognitive position shifts from post to post. You’re a work in progress. You began by assuming that the state of today’s technology would persist going forward, thus peak coal was imminent, nuclear not economically viable. Now you think there’s a technological innovative solution. Whoo Hoo!
Will the real Ender please stand up?
The real issue is the competence of the Rudd government.
They can’t even be trusted to implement sound policies based on their belief in climate change. Thus, Garrett in a single policy stroke decimated the whole solar panel industry of the entire nation! And fuelwatch is Rudd’s “innovative” approach to lowering petrol prices. With government like this, who needs an opposition? They’ll do themselves in shortly.
The climate change paradigm is a tautology wrapped in an oxymoron. The climate is always changing, so why say it twice?
Trying to “Stop Climate Change”* is worse than a peusdo-scientific futility. It will kills millions of people in the under-developed world by denying them the sorts of little pleasures in life that Ender takes for granted, such as the right to the electricity to post hypocritical flatulence in the comment section of a blog.
Wasting trillions of dollars on what might well be a figment of our collectivistic imagination isn’t going to be seen as merely incompetent some years down the road. Especially, if the due diligence to confirm the science is not transparently completed first, before action is taken.
If AGW is found to be based on fraudulent interpretations of the science in order to prop up a long discredited economic paradigm, that of a centrally controlled economy, or as a tool to bash your political opponents, then it might well go down in history as a great crime against humanity.
Thus the term climate change denialism is more apt a description of those who deny that climate change is utterly natural because any serious global attempt to stop climate change will result in an economic holocaust for the poorest peoples on Earth, not the richest.
And in the end it won’t make one iota of different to the climate, which will change with or without us.
*A Greenpeace slogan
I attach a link showing the latest temperature anomalies – you might have to trawl down a bit to find the article. In June, according to AMSU, the global temperature has fallen about another 0.2 degree.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
Personally, I found many of the comments above somewhat unedifying.
Humanity may be facing one of its greatest challenges/disasters ever, while the [cooling] problem is mostly ignored.
wes george – “So….you think that human creativity given the economic freedom to innovate can actually imagine its way out of whatever energy hurdles the future may hold?”
Yes however that future is not the fossil fuel/nuclear unlimited party that you imagine it to be.
“Your cognitive position shifts from post to post. You’re a work in progress. You began by assuming that the state of today’s technology would persist going forward, thus peak coal was imminent, nuclear not economically viable. Now you think there’s a technological innovative solution. Whoo Hoo!”
Not really as if you really want to research my posts I have always advocated that we can by shifting to low carbon alternatives and wasting less can hold the warming to under the 2 deg that most people agree is the upper limit.
However this future will require some change and this is where you seem to have the problems. Electric cars will replace petrol cars and interact with the smart grid to allow more and more renewables to be added. These solar thermal, geothermal, wind, biomass, wave, tidal energy sources need us to reduce our energy consumption to be able to work.
Again we need to fit in with nature’s flows rather that burning the furniture. Some of the changes will require some government intervention and programs to encourage low carbon energy sources.
I am pretty sure I have not shifted too much however I do change as new information comes to light unlike yourself.
So the test and post the results:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
“Who demands that the IPCC forecasts be exactly accurate?” sez Endy.
We do. The people who will pay trillions to implement the policy resulting from the forecasts and the millions who will needlessly pay with their lives if the forecasts are false or worse, politically motivated.
It’s typical of rich leftists (we’re all rich in Oz, btw) to play fast and loose with facts that effect other people’s lives. Funny that, they pretend to be so empathetic to the human condition.
Hello!
“I have always advocated that we can by shifting to low carbon alternatives and wasting less can hold the warming to under the 2 deg that most people agree is the upper limit.”
You mean most people here would agree that 2c is the upper limit, right? All we have to do is go low carb diets and recycle???
Because that’s near the bottom of the range of the IPCC forecasts and Tim Flannery, Garrett and “the science is settled” consensus mob would shout you down for such heresy.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/05.02.jpg
You’re still not being honest with us, Ender.
Recent climate has shown the natural variation of global temperature is about 1c anyway. As much as all the global warming of the last 110 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/uah_may_08.png
Perhaps, if 2c in 2100 is the worst it can get if we stopped technological evolution dead at 2008 levels, then what you are on about is really a kind of very special socio-economic agenda that has nothing to do with the facts at hand. Because 2c a century certainly isn’t anything that the naturally accelerating level of technological innovation in a free market of ideas, goods and services can’t solve given the trends already in place today.
“It will kills millions of people in the under-developed world” crap – you mean the next Iraq will – more your style?
“Wasting trillions of dollars on what might well be a figment of our collectivistic imagination” nuh- you mean make trillions – just not with your shale oil portfolio
“great crime against humanity. ” ROTFL
“will result in an economic holocaust for the poorest peoples on Earth, not the richest.” … hehehehehehe yea yea
So Wes – how long have you been a right wing tosser then. When did it start.
Is “collectivistic” even a word – your old English teacher would be mortified.
Me thinks Luke should take the test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
you can cut and paste the results.
collectivism |kəˈlektəˌvizəm|
noun
the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it.
• the theory and practice of the ownership of land and the means of production by the people or the state.
DERIVATIVES
collectivist adjective & noun
collectivistic |-ˌlektəˈvistik| adjective
Wes,
My commiserations over your new interlocutors. Apparently I have no idea……… 🙂
Now to leave and slave in the galley – my turn tonight before I study the coreview program.
Just did the test:
Economic Left/Right: 8.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.97
Thanks, Louis
I noticed that Ender who protests that I play the man when he pretends he’s ball has a major negative post about you on his blog.
http://stevegloor.typepad.com/
Hmmm. That seems a bit of a double standard, eh?
Apparently, you are one of the foolish 400 scientists that signed a petition against Global warming. That was back in January. Ender’s blog is less than timely. A life unexamined isn’t worth blogging.
By Now you have been joined by another 30,500 scientists! Including that right wing nutter, Freeman Dyson.
Good on ya, Louis!
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/the-32000-who-say-no-convincing-evidence/#comments
I wonder if Luke is a scientist?
Here ya go Wesy
Economic Left/Right: -2.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.46
Feedback and counselling requested.
Close to centre it seemed.
Wes – I’m not surprised 30,500 scientists might sign such a petition. But most wouldn’t have a clue too. If you’re not studying this issue in detail your science opinion is worth little.
So who cares.
And I thought you guys were anti-consensus anyway? Galileo and all that.
It’s is a pity though that you guys automatically drop the kick the science as you are pre-disposed against the politics and the policy options.
I am surprised you’re not more curious about the science actually.
Am I a scientist. Hmmmm not sure.
wes – “We do. The people who will pay trillions to implement the policy resulting from the forecasts and the millions who will needlessly pay with their lives if the forecasts are false or worse, politically motivated.”
So you are demanding that all forecasts be accurate including economic ones? These are models that even more money is spent on and are rarely correct.
“You mean most people here would agree that 2c is the upper limit, right? All we have to do is go low carb diets and recycle???”
No 2 deg is what most people agree will cause the minumum of climate change not the limit of what the warming will be however it may well turn out to be this.
“Recent climate has shown the natural variation of global temperature is about 1c anyway. As much as all the global warming of the last 110 years.”
Yes the month to month variation can be this – whats your point?
“I noticed that Ender who protests that I play the man when he pretends he’s ball has a major negative post about you on his blog.”
Trying to enlist allies now wes? I did not think that I was getting to you this much. Louis and I have a long history – not much of it good. The issue here was whether or not the ‘scientists’ on the list actually knew they were on it – Louis did not know. Anyway I have tried to be a be a bit nicer to Louis lately as such conduct only reflects on me.
Wes,
Thanks for your kind thoughts.
I thought about signing the Oregon Petition but having signed the Manhattan Declaration as well a being listed on the list of 400, any futher advertising seemed unecessary.
As for Luke, when he was in his earliter incarnation as Phil Done here, Warwick Hughes and I wondered whether he might be a CSIRO or BOM employee – he seemed to have very quick access to the published literature and seemed privy to stuff we would not normally expect a lay person to have. That he/she continued to hide behind constantly metamorphosing noms des plume suggests WH and I might be on target; can’t prove it of course.
As for Ender, we do go back to the Bizarre Science blog that Aaron Oakley wrote – I joined it later in its life, and when familial duties started to impose on Aaron’s time (arrival of children) he had to give it up. Both of us agreed to stop it at as I was also n fulltime work and could not spare the time either. (Right now I find myself in the same predicament having my workload doubled due to others taking annual leave, and under an ever increasing deluge of contractors associated with the pre-feasibility of the copper-zince deposit I am working on here at Halls Creek).
Since that time I started up my crazy world which for some peculiar reason associated with blogspot lost the whole blog, prompting me to stop blogging due to work commitments, and started instead to write the occasional article for Henry Thornton. (For those who care, I am Ghengis Khan on Henry’s web site).
I had a couple of goes at starting the crazy world or variations of it but could not find a suitable word processor to quickly write something and post it on the blog. Hence there are incomplete blogging efforts lying around in cyberspace.
That was until Microsoft produced its spaces facililty and Windows Live Writer, and that was enough for me to start the crazy world up again, http://geoplasma.spaces.live.com/?lc=1033.
Ender has written some ill-considered posts about me on his personal blog as you have found, but as Jan Pompe has demolished one of those, though the facts pertaining to the list of 400 is accurate, and I did deny it but apologised here, Ender’s posts remain ignorant rants.
I now read (previous post) that Ender has discovered the personal cost, and consequences, of willy nilly libelling people and has therefore toned down his comments. I hope so and Luke also becomes polite for a period only then to revert to his/her previous position of uncouthness.
As I have a rather large footprint on the internet search engines putting up with his, Luke’s, SJT’s and others thoughtless comments is a small price to pay for free advertising.
I am being a little prolix here because tonight is the last time for the next 6 weeks that I have some spare time. I am already rueing the task I set myself to peer review Steve Short’s highly interesting paper in terms of the JORC standards, but my word is my bond and I will do it. (I look at it as an exciting, fun thing to do, in the sense of mental stimulation, because it’s not often projects like this fall into one’s lap; but after today’s events, why now!!!!! but that’s my problem).
Eeeewwwwww – Louis is putting on airs and graces to impress Wes and Steve. Ooooo – I say Louis old chap, pass another canape will you old sport.
Yes Louis you have been such a genteel soul over the years, so misunderstood by your blog colleagues. JORC standards – yes indeed – good idea – tally ho, pip pip. Keep going old bean – we’re all waiting for your analysis. LOL.
Creepo,
Hook, line and sinker.
If you think I wrote the above to impress Ender, your are sillier than most of us here assumed you to be.
But I am impressed with my skills at predicting your reactions – far better skill than climate models.
The only thing you seem skillful at is Bunging, in the Wizard of Id sense.
Actually Al Gore would probably describe you as one of his useful idiots.
Impress Ender – huh – howzat ? Had a few too many EBs from the Tavern have we?
EB’s at the tavern? What Gulliver’s? Oh you mean Short and Not Gloor.
Keep it up Creepo, slip after slip you make, we’ll finally identify you.
“According to the widely accepted view, at current production levels proven coal reserves will last 155 years (this according to the World Coal Institute).”
You omitted the key qualification, which is – At current prices and with current technology.
Also this is proven reserves. When you have a hundred years of proven reserves, no one looks very hard for more.
Western Australia has huge coalfields that have never produced a ton of coal, because there is no demand. How much coal is there? No one knows. All we know is they cover tens of thousands of square kilometers.
Philip_B
Western Australia gas huge coalfields?
Better state which ones before Captain Creepo and the Endering cavalary arrive to mash up your post with misfacts.
ahem, has huge coal fields, but not as large as NSW or QLD I suspect.
(disclaimer: I used to work for the NSWGW coal section).
Tip toes in, casting doubtful glances at the carnage; the human condition; huzzah!
El Creepo; are you alarmist creep? No matter. I read your link to Smith’s paper; it is not a rebuttal of Gerlich; Smith is at cross-purpose; Smith assumes a global balance of temp above what the radiative equlibrium should produce; the magic 33C; Motls has a shot at this;
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/average-temperature-vs-average.html
The point here is that the nature of both regionalised and chronological differences in energy balances are more important and likely to be responsible for the 33c than a greenhouse mechanism; a sort of climate gestalt if you like; the massive radiative enrgy loss which occurs diurnally in a clear-sky desert is supported at night by the massive insulating and energy release of oceans and forests; not to mention urban centres; or at least those not celebrating earth-day.
The thing that galls me is that Smith’s effort props up a maze of figures about the forcing and climate sensitivity necessary to produce this greenhouse effect; Annan in 2006, 2.5-3.5; Tung in 2007 2.3-4.1; Hergerl in 2006 1.5-6.2; Forest in 2002 1.4-7.7! One of Ender’s mates. Barton Paul Levensen has compiled a few more models of climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling; have a look at his website; I did put it up, but got a warning about it.
But doesn’t the extraordinary disparity in these sensitivity figures undermine the whole notion?
Enders link to the congressional budget office reveals that $20 Billion of the $25 billion that has already supposedly been spent is still sitting in the account. It collected $0.8B in interest last year, the same amount as annual contributions.
So the fund is accumulating about $1.4B every year so even if there is no additional growth in the funds income it will only take another 18 years to accumulate the additional $26B that Ender tried to scare the kids with.
The US GDP is more than $3000 Billion each year and Ender is trying to whip us into a lather over an accumulated cost of only $26B over two decades which is clearly, already, being fully funded.
Exposed again Ender.
heh heh heh, as usual mottie and cohenite get us back on track.
I’m not sure what Dennis Jenkins concluded in his speech, apart from the obvious, but rising fuel prices seem not related to the laws of supply and demand but from government interference, this time on the specious assumption of CO2 pollution.
Yes cohenite – very perceptive (Sheeesh!) . Luke is AC morphing into EC. You see the boys were beating up on me so bad I started to have a bit of an identity crisis. I had AC going coz you might as well call a spade a spade. Then Mottsa started up the Creepo and so I morphed it with El Nino. An voila – El Creepo – might change again due to high stress that Wes, Louis and Mottsa are applying. These guys are really getting to me. But I don’t know whaddya reckon? Do you like EC as a moniker? And how did you get to be a meteor fragment? So many questions.
But as she said in Annie Hall – well lah de dah.
Isn’t that all fascinating. Not.
Getting back to it. I said when I offered Smith reference “But who would know”. I’m not quick enough on the maths and physics to know in a short time and figured you guys would sort it.
As for sensitivity figures – well they are a property of the GCM formulation – depend not just on CO2 forcing, but water vapour feedbacks, cryosphere response, biosphere feedbacks and how circulations change. Louis will barf but the sensitivity is an “emergent property”. So it’s a rough yardstick for comparing race horses.
Is the disparity an issue – well yes and no – that’s as good as the science is. But as much as the sensitivity is a rule of thumb/rough yardstick so is the global temperature response – the regional detail is much more complex.
People like Hansen also gather belief in the “sensitivity” be examining paleo events. But not wanting to start up a Hansen/Gore/Hockey Stick frothing.
So back to Smith – there’s so much physics flying around here on blog with so many testosterone laden side quips that the whole discussion on here has become less than informative. So I have asked a few time – but nobody wants to take it up (which makes me feel that nobody really knows) how the physics of the classic greenhouse AGW effect is supposed to work and then what’s wrong with it – in some detail.
I’m sure Jen will take a guest post.
Well, I too am fascinated by the greenhouse since I am a fan of ‘Lost’. Some more observations; there is no heat loss from conductive or convective process in a greenhouse, nor does the moon have much influence; Smith is altogether too dismissive of lunar gravitational effects, as any long-range forecaster would tell you; he ignores molten core heating and oceanic mantle recycling as heating sources and heating regulators. The thing that annoys me about the greenhouse is that it has been used to promote mass misunderstanding and obfuscation; the greenhouse concept is associated with runaway heating, which incidentally, Smith disavows. Greenhouse is a bad concept; it should be changed to tomatohouse; who would be afraid of tomatoes? Oh wait, “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”. OK, how about celeryhouse?
Ian Mott – “So the fund is accumulating about $1.4B every year so even if there is no additional growth in the funds income it will only take another 18 years to accumulate the additional $26B that Ender tried to scare the kids with.”
And of course while the fund grows the construction costs remain stationary?? I thought I was the economist’s armpit. It is not really the point though as nuclear is supposed to be cost competitive with other forms of energy. However it is only cost competitive if you apply corporate welfare which apparently is OK if it is for nuclear but for renewables it is the socialist scourge souring the free market. It is not so much the amount but the level of hypocricy.
25 billion dollars would buy a lot of solar thermal plants that do not even need the waste storage of Yucca Mountain.
cohenite – “Motls has a shot at this;
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/average-temperature-vs-average.html
The point here is that the nature of both regionalised and chronological differences ….”
At least he is using degK which is a step up from the paper that he references.
However the climate bunny has already done the number on this if you can follow the maths:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/eli-writes-letter-cont.html
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/once-more-dear-prof.html
Interesting you mention the moon. Skunk stuff but there may be a bit in it. (hope noone else on the blog is reading this – don’t want to think I’ve sold out or anything).
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/99018498/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Dr. Jensen said in his article above:
“Then there is the area of science, a discipline that is critical to Australia’s advancement. Scientific research is vital in the development of solutions to many problems, as well as pure research. So what do the Labor government
do?
They cut CSIRO’s budget so significantly that CSIRO will shed 100 jobs and four divisions. What a travesty; what hypocrisy! And that is before we even get to cuts to ANSTO—probably purely based on political antinuclear ideology.
The government has also slashed the Commercial Ready program, which, in the past, funded clinical trials for cancer treatments and the high-risk biotech sector. So much for R&D!
On 1 November 2000 and in February 2007, the current Prime Minister extolled the virtue of research and development, especially in universities, and feigned outrage at the policies of the coalition. This man has now slashed CSIRO funding. Fine
words; black deeds….”
Like Ender I believer our future depends on staying ahead of the competitive curve through research and development, not being a resource colony of China. Rudd is a political mandarin.
As Roger Underwood note the Rudd labor government isn’t opposed to creating more bureaucrats…
“…the Federal government has created a new agency called “The Department of Climate Change”. The department is not yet 10 months old, but is already well-established with a CEO, two assistant CEOs, four Divisions, thirteen Branches (including one devoted entirely to public affairs), and a large number of full-time public servants.”
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003095.html#comments
As usual once you create a bureaucracy its role slowly morphs from solving problems to perpetuating them.
“Nevertheless I am cynical about the creation of a new department whose budget, staffing, political influence and public status is dependent on climate change actually occurring. A Department of Climate Change needs climate change – no climate change will be (for them) a disaster. In other words, the bad-news scenario now has a bureaucratic home, its very own institution, a whole government organisation dedicated to promoting the prophesy of doom to its own advantage.”
So Rudd destroys the solar panel industry overnight, decimates the CSIRO, tells the unis to continue their years in the wilderness and then creates a whole new bureaucracy to fight phantoms of climatological imagination.
That’s one step backwards, and then four more. A few more years of Rudd, Garrett, Wong, Flannery, et al and we won’t have to wonder if the Dark Ages were warmer than today, ’cause we’ll be there!
Gosh, now Ender has discovered long term cost escalation. Funny how all his links, especially to 10 year old crap from the Nevada governors office, (made before the fund really started to accumulate) don’t make any mention of compound interest on revenues and no mention of increasing prices of electrical power.
So lets just walk him through it again.
2006 reserves were $19B
add 2007 contributions $0.8B
and 2007 interest income $0.8B
less 2007 outlays of $0.2B
leaves 2007 reserves of $20.4B
Net increase in fund $1.4B or 7.37%
At that rate of annual increase the fund will double in value every ten years. It will be $40B in 2017 and $80B on 2027. But the cost of storage is not increasing by that amount because once the Yucca mountain facility is completed the capital cost is covered. From then on it will only be the maintenance costs and the costs of transporting material and plant shut down costs that will escalate.
This is economics 101 stuff Ender. Suggest you go and inform your ignorant mates who seem to have a very serious knowledge deficit.
Ian Mott – “At that rate of annual increase the fund will double in value every ten years.”
Except of course that the fund is depleting to fund the cost of the waste dump. As the cost of materials, fuel and labour are all increasing at the same rate or higher than the increase in the fund then the fund will deplete faster that it can be topped up making a mockery of the figures you quote. The estimated cost of the faclity in old dollars is 57 billion as this has not been completed nor will it to 2017 this will be an ongoing and increasing cost. Also in this time it is already full and also incurring penalties for being late. As soon as it is completed there will be the requirement for 2 more and then 4 and 8 and so on.
“This is economics 101 stuff Ender. Suggest you go and inform your ignorant mates who seem to have a very serious knowledge deficit.”
Not sure who needs the economic 101 lesson.
And finally neither wind, solar, tidal, wave power or geothermal need this incredible expense nor do they need insurance subsidies.
How about you talk economics with Jerome at the Oil Drum:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4107#more
I think he would be more qualified to talk economics with a genius such as yourself.
BTW how many private enterpise bank financed nuclear power plants are going ahead – none?
Ian Mott : You’re not giving the US economy enough credit (no pun intended), according to my usually reliable source, in 2007 the US was a $13.8 trillion beast. Yes’ dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum you’re numbers look even better!
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Daughty/jun032008.html
wjp – “in 2007 the US was a $13.8 trillion beast. Yes’ dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum you’re numbers look even better!”
Well they should have no problems spending a couple of billion on wind and solar then. Perhaps also they could spend a bit more replacing the creaking grid.
http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-9/iss-5/p8.html
Ender,
‘And finally neither wind, solar, tidal, wave power or geothermal need this incredible expense nor do they need insurance subsidies.’
If this is the case one wonders why they haven’t got up before. I remember all this technology was excitedly being discussed in the UK maybe 30+ years ago. It wouldn’t be long, they told us, before all of this would be a reality.
Closer to home Ender there’s this:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/household-energy-use-soars/2008/06/05/1212259007054.html
Maybe 2020 wind turbines might help!
And there’s this possibility:
http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/get-some-sleep-ship-accident-photo-of-the-week/
Dr. Jensen clearly sees that AGW has “all the classic hallmarks of religion.”
However, AGW theology is more dangerous than religion. Why is AGW so popular with labor? The further left one is politically the more attractive AGW theology. This isn’t because leftists are often persuaded by empirical evidence. If that were so, there’d be fewer of them.
Ever since the Berlin Wall fell and free market reforms began to sweep across Eastern Europe, and then the world, it has become increasingly evident that capitalism, individual rights, the free movement of ideas, goods and services create wealth for all. The world of free markets, led by Milton Friedman, Keynes and Adam Smith thoroughly vanquished Marx and Lenin, not through force, but simply by creating more wealth for everyone so much more efficiently.
By the mid-1990’s the struggle between command economies and free market economics was well and truly decided by the evidence. The political Left wandered the wilderness with no credible economic platform.
Then the Left discovered “greenhouse” theory. To the political Left GHG warming wasn’t about climate at all, but a critique of free market capitalism. Consumerism was destroying the Earth’s atmosphere and Capitalism would soon collapse of its own weight in a glorious apocalypse. How convenient. Marx was right after all, if only for the wrong reason.
Today, the Greens and Labor see AGW as a critique on free market economic policy. They own the AGW sophism because of the specious justification it provides for vastly increasing government power and regulation of the economy. It’s all they have.
To Rudd, Wong, Garrett and Gillard, the scientific facts around climate change are utterly irrelevant to its use as a political devise. The hard Left with their historic baggage of failed economy policy are back with a vengeance.
Labor’s addiction to dividing us into warring classes, then overtaxing, overregulating and redistributing wealth to their favourites is now based on the two premises of AGW theology. First, free market, consumer-based capitalist will destroy the planet. Second, that only increased controlled over individual freedom by a vast punitive technocracy in Canberra can save us from this destruction. After all, if capitalism is going to destroy the planet, how bad can collectivism be?
Given this unholy political alliance between “climate change” and the political left, the actual scientific debate has become supremely unimportant. “The science is settled,” they claim. Anyone who presents contrarian evidence will have their career whether in the ABC, the CSIRO or in politics summarily stuffed. Dissent cannot be tolerated.
The government empowered by AGW theology is now conducting a massive fear, uncertainty and doubt campaign on the citizens of Australia. They have the ideal propaganda machine in the state owned media, which is already stacked top to bottom with obedient party apparatchiks. The Australian people know only what the government wants them to know about AGW, unless they go online. Without the Internet, we would be living a truly Orwellian nightmare.
Once the populace is sufficient frightened, LaborGreens can take us to War. On ourselves, on each other and on the very sky above us.
It’s up to leaders, like Dr. Jensen to expose this hidden agenda to Australia, because not even labor supporters really understand what’s going on. Fortunately, the weather waits for no one, left or right. Empirical evidence will be Dr. Jensen’s most powerful ally.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/TRENDAPRIL.jpg
No, again, Ender, that was the cost of the program, not of the facility. And remember, this is the accumulated total of funds already being set aside from sales of nuclear energy.
When the windbag and solar electricity generating industries can set aside this sort of cash, after profits and after all expenses, then you might have 5% of an issue. But they can’t and won’t.
Your silly claim that you could get a lot of solar panels for $25 Billion still misses the point. This $25B is part of the existing cost structure of a much larger nuclear industry. Without that nuclear industry there would be no $25 billion to start with.
“Also in this time it is already full and also incurring penalties for being late.” Come again? How can it be full and late at the same time?
Lets face it, Ender. If Bugs Bunny made a statement against nuclear power you would be the first to quote him as an expert. Your desperation is palpable.
EC; your link doesn’t work; now altogether; woooo wooooo; we’re baying at the moon; damn, where did that hair come from?
Ender; I dare not criticise Prof. Rabett; he has been very good to me; taking my hand and guiding me back to the path when I strayed. But some observations; Motls is not talking about av temp, he is talking about av radiative balance; the difference between av temp and av radiative balance is 9w/m2; the change associated with GHG’s since 1750 is 1.6w/m2; motive is established, as they say in legal circles.
Average temp is oppressive and denies regional digression from the orthodoxy; AT is also the foundation of the greenhouse concept, which features uniformity; but if CO2 is the nominated forcer of uniform increases in temp hadn’t CO2 itself be uniform; it is not as Steve Short has noticed; more importantly for AGW, since CO2 is the ‘trapper’ of IR, isn’t it important to put the horse before the cart; that is, the radiative balance at a site is the measure of what the CO2 is up to, since as Smith says, or rather restates the old chestnut, that “thermal re-emission is randomly directed, half the radiation from the atmospheric layer will go up, and half down.” Nothing random about that, but if Stefan-Boltzman is not reacting to the CO2 forcing, via its temp proxy, then what is it doing? Ah, the tautology!
Eli’s criticism is rubbish; regionalism is paramount, as Koutsoyiannis shows. And that regionalism simply has not been doing what AGW requires of it; which is why it has to be licked back into shape via AT.
Ian Mott – “No, again, Ender, that was the cost of the program, not of the facility.”
Right so the cost of the program that includes the facility is in Mottspeak different.
“When the windbag and solar electricity generating industries can set aside this sort of cash, after profits and after all expenses”
So because they are small at the moment and have not have the subsidies for all the years nuclear has without which it would not exist you are critisising them – thats rich.
“This $25B is part of the existing cost structure of a much larger nuclear industry. Without that nuclear industry there would be no $25 billion to start with.”
Yes and also without the nuclear industry there would be no need for the fund or the 25 billion other than to build new power plants none of which the 25 billion is doing. BTW there is still a shortfall of 25 billion or so that will have to be made up with something.
“Come again? How can it be full and late at the same time?”
Because if you had done some proper research instead of insulting people you would have realised there is over 17 000 tons of waste ALREADY backed up in temporary storage now. In 2017 when the facility opens it will be full 2 or 3 times over. So where does the money for the next facility come from? More corporate welfare?
cohenite – “the difference between av temp and av radiative balance is 9w/m2; the change associated with GHG’s since 1750 is 1.6w/m2; motive is established, as they say in legal circles.”
However if you find the average temperature first and them find the radiative energy of the average temperature next the problem disappears – doesn’t it?
What evidence does Motl supply to suggest that climate scientists do it the wrong way. Surely one of them must have been awake in their maths lectures and taken this into account.
Ender:”However if you find the average temperature first and them find the radiative energy of the average temperature next the problem disappears – doesn’t it?”
Except that you can’t do that as the radiative energy depends on T to the 4th power. The averages aren’t the same. It is easy to do some simple numerical examples to convince yourself of this.
Eyrie; you beat me to it; but if Ender wants to read Larry R’s comment to Motls’ paper he will have a good example (dealing with cars!) of how the difference can be pronounced.
Sorry to interrupt the chit-chat, mates…
From The Wall Street Journal (now owned by a sorta Aussie outfit) on the failure of a multi-trillion dollar CC bill failure in the US congress:
“Environmentalists are stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse. Senator Harry Reid has all but conceded he lacks the vote for passage in the Senate and that it’s time to move on….they wanted to flex their political muscle and build momentum for 2009. That strategy backfired. The green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face.
Those groups spent millions advertising and lobbying to push the cap-and-trade bill through the Senate. But it would appear the political consensus on global warming was as exaggerated as the alleged scientific consensus. “With gasoline selling at $4 a gallon, the Democrats picked the worst possible time to bring up cap and trade,” says Dan Clifton, a political analyst for Strategas Research Partners. “This issue is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan.”
It’s a good analogy. Originally, Hillary health care had towering levels of support, but once people looked at the cost and complexity they cringed. Jobs were on the mind yesterday of Senator Arlen Specter, who has endorsed a tamer version of cap-and-trade. “Workers in Pennsylvania worry that this will send jobs to China,” he tells me. They’re smart to worry. Look no further than the failure of the Kyoto countries to live up to their promised emissions cuts. Bjorn Lomborg, the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, tells me: “The Europeans are so far behind schedule, it is almost inconceivable that they will meet their targets.”
Even John McCain, a cap-and-trade original co-sponsor, now says that this scheme won’t fly until China and India sign on – which could be never.”
Can hardly wait for Rudd ask us all to share the pain in order to reduce global GHG emission by 0.001% while China, India and the Yanks render us a fly spec on the glass. Rudd’s government isn’t merely incompetent, it’s heroically incompetent with a brio for self-regard.
http://online.wsj.com
now back to yer gobbillygook…
wes; you’re right; AGW won’t be beaten by its suspect science, but by its cost.
Bollocks Ender. Yucca Mountain is to have a capacity of 70,000 tonnes and the cumulative total of the past 4 decades is only 17,000 tonnes.
So best you explain what the annual addition of waste material is now and then explain how Yucca Mountain will be full two times over in only ten years.
Ian
“past 4 decades is only 17,000 tonnes”
Is that raw, unprocessed, or is it going to be reduced in quantity somehow?
Ian Mott – “Bollocks Ender. Yucca Mountain is to have a capacity of 70,000 tonnes and the cumulative total of the past 4 decades is only 17,000 tonnes.”
Sorry you are correct I got the storage figure wrong it is 70 000 tons.
However this really does not help you because:
http://ag.state.nv.us/yucca/yucca.htm
“LIMITED SPACE: Yucca isn’t big enough to store all of the nation’s nuclear waste. More than 46,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste are already stored at more than 77 reactor sites across the country. That number increases by more than 2,000 tons each year. Yucca’s statutory design capacity is only 77,000 metric tons. By the time Yucca would be filled to capacity in 2036, there will still be at least the same amount of spent fuel still stored at the reaction sites, even if no new plants are built.
TRANSPORTATION: Transporting waste to Yucca Mountain puts the American public at risk. More than 123 million people live near the proposed truck and train routes which would be used to deliver waste to Yucca Mountain. Those routes travel through 703 counties in 44 states. An accident or attack along those routes could hurt or kill thousands of innocent people.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Contrary to DOE arguments, building the Yucca Mountain repository will not make America safer. Instead, it will give terrorists more attractive and vulnerable targets. The DOE expects more than 100,000 shipments of spent fuel to be transported to Yucca Mountain – thus creating 100,000 mobile targets. Furthermore, the DOE plans to store high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel above ground at the Yucca site for at least 100 years. This creates the largest new spent fuel storage target in the world.”
I do apologise – it is half full already, before opening, and by 2017 when it does open it will only be able to accept waste for another 20 years assuming that no more reactors are built. If your nuclear renaissance happens then this will just fill it up faster.
ender; the solution is thorium.
Eyrie and Cohenite – “Except that you can’t do that as the radiative energy depends on T to the 4th power. The averages aren’t the same. It is easy to do some simple numerical examples to convince yourself of this.”
Yes I agree with that however there is no evidence that any climate scientist make this elementary error. You can do this because averaging the temperatures first gives an average that can be used as long as the varience is not too high.
In GCMs that divide the earth into small grids, the average temperature of the grid can be calculated first then the amount of IR energy that is emitted from the grid can be calculated for the purposes of the modelling. This would take into account the varying regions temperature and avoiding the 4th power averaging problem.
You would need to provide examples of where this error was committed in calculations involving AGW.
Koutsoyiannis.
Ender, you have quoted two numbers as current volume in storage. First 17,000 then 46,000, which is it? Or is it the largest of any two numbers.
Ender, your links and quotes would have a scrap more credibility if their own numbers actually added up. Your nevada govt link doesn’t.
They claim 77 reactor sites have 46,000 tonnes of waste or an average of 597 tonnes at each one. They claim 2000 tonnes added each year or an average of 26 tonnes/year from each one over an average of 23 years. But an average of 23 years back from 2007 only takes us back to 1984. We know that most plants were built well before this date and few of them after it. So the claimed annual accumulation rate is suspect.
Furthermore the 29 years out from 2007 to 2036 will supposedly add another 58,000 tonnes to the existing claimed 46,000 tonnes for a total of 104,000 tonnes. Subtract the 77,000 planned capacity of Yucca Mountain and there will only be 27,000 tonnes left in storage at the reactor sites. This is only a third of the Yucca Mt capacity not “there will still be at least the same amount of spent fuel still stored at the reaction sites” as your link claims.
But you then compound the confusion by claiming “it is half full already, before opening, and by 2017 when it does open it will only be able to accept waste for another 20 years”. Come again? It is not open yet but it is already half full? How can it be half full if it is not even open yet?
So what happened to the original 17,000 tonne figure?
And even if your linked suspect figures were accurate, so what? If Yucca Mountain is full by 2036 the $20.4 billion in 2007 funds set aside for storage will have doubled to $40B in 2017, doubled again to $80B by 2027, and doubled again to $160B by 2036. At which point they may well have found a valuable use for this waste. But if not the funds will already be available for construction of another site of similar capacity.
And one must ask, which green gonzo got it into his tiny brain that Yucca Mountain was to be the sole solution in perpetuity for all of the USA’s waste disposal needs?
Thats one hell of a straw man.
Geez Ender, You first admit cohenite and I are right then want to go and do the faulty procedure anyway!
The grids aren’t that small in the GCM’s. Don’t forget with the CO2 you are only talking one part in around 200 difference to incoming radiation. It doesn’t take a very big error in averaging to screw this up totally.
It’s a never endering conundrum, isn’t? Why bother – I’ve given up.
Ian Mott – “Ender, you have quoted two numbers as current volume in storage. First 17,000 then 46,000, which is it? Or is it the largest of any two numbers.”
No I got the storage number wrong – it is 77 000 tons so we were both wrong however you were closer than me.
The amount of waste in temporary storage waiting for long term storage is apparently 46 000 tons according to the source “Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto” who perhaps is in a position to know.
“Ender, your links and quotes would have a scrap more credibility if their own numbers actually added up. Your nevada govt link doesn’t.”
I suggest that you take this up with the Nevada government.
Again some of the amounts are estimates only as possibly will not add up.
“Subtract the 77,000 planned capacity of Yucca Mountain and there will only be 27,000 tonnes left in storage at the reactor sites.”
Yes there will be 27 000 tons to be stored in a second site somewhere that has not even been built left. In 2017 there will be 46 000 tons (assuming this is correct) plus 2000 * 9 = 18 000 tons that will have to be shifted to be stored. That is 64 000 tons of waste when the repository opens in 2017 so it is nearly full already plus they are already paying penalties for opening late.
“And even if your linked suspect figures were accurate, so what? If Yucca Mountain is full by 2036 the $20.4 billion in 2007 funds set aside for storage will have doubled to $40B in 2017, doubled again to $80B by 2027, and doubled again to $160B by 2036. At which point they may well have found a valuable use for this waste. But if not the funds will already be available for construction of another site of similar capacity.”
Thats fantastic Ian because the estimated cost in 1998 was 53.9 billion so even if the fund doubles by 2017 it will still be 13.9 billion short of the 1998 price for the facility. In 2017 dollars the costs will be much much more than this and of course at this point the fund will be close to zero as it will be spent on the facility and transport costs.
If the fund is spent on the facility how can it double again?????
Actually it is you that has created the strawman – one of your specialties. My bringing up Yucca Mountain was in the context of nuclear power electricity costs rarely contain the full life-cycle costs of nuclear. Focusing on one aspect of my argument is your usual way of deflecting the argument.
My objections to nuclear are that it is an hideously expensive boondoggle that is only economic in socialist countries or in capitalist nations with massive hidden subsidies.
If you want a level playing field for nuclear and renewables then you would support repealing the Price Anderson act plus at least doubling the waste disposal contribution from nuclear operators to make the Yucca Mountain facility truly self funding.
BTW these are the green gonzos that decided on Yucca Mountain:
“In 1982, the United States Congress established a national policy to solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal. This policy is a federal law called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Congress based this policy on what most scientists worldwide agreed is the best way to dispose of nuclear waste.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act[1] made the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) responsible for finding a site, building, and operating an underground disposal facility called a geologic repository. The recommendation to use a geologic repository dates back to 1957 when the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the best means of protecting the environment and public health and safety would be to dispose of the waste in rock deep underground.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain
Eyrie – “Geez Ender, You first admit cohenite and I are right then want to go and do the faulty procedure anyway!”
Not really as you have not provided any evidence that climate scientists are not aware of this and use the faulty procedure.
“The grids aren’t that small in the GCM’s. Don’t forget with the CO2 you are only talking one part in around 200 difference to incoming radiation. It doesn’t take a very big error in averaging to screw this up totally.”
It depends on the GCM and what you are looking for in your experiment and how long you are prepared to wait.
Errors in averaging are measured with the variance. I am pretty sure that most high level GCMs would test the variance and reject cells that are too high. As there can be hundreds of thousands of cells, depending on the resolution, this is a tiny part of the whole and would not affect it.
CO2 is only 380ppm in proportion of gases however as it is one of the main optically active gases it contributes to the radiative budget far more that 1 in 200. This also is dependant on altitude and the water vapour (the main greenhouse gas in the troposphere) present in the sample.
Lets face it Ender, you’re just doing the “dead cat bounce”. I got the 77,000 tonne capacity of Yucca Mountain right first time but you gave two numbers for current volume awaiting long term storage, 17,000 and 46,000. Both appear suspect, both came from dubious sources.
And all your sources go out of their way to give only half the story. And once you are found wanting on particular and highly relevant data, you retreat back to generalities.
Ian Mott – “And all your sources go out of their way to give only half the story. And once you are found wanting on particular and highly relevant data, you retreat back to generalities.”
As you have failed to refute any of the information relating to subsidies for nuclear power you retreat back to abuse.
Generalities beat abuse anyday.
It’s sort of funny:
Headline AFW 10/6/2008:
Oil shock threatens reform agenda
*Treasurer acknowledges risks to economy
*Pressure on OPEC to increase supply
Mr Swan said “Blah blah blah”
& Journo Stephen Wyatt puts it thus “Politicians are running scared, expecting a backlash from motorists and industry. Oil has become a political hot potato”
I’m off to fill up!
Oh its still a subsidy is it, Ender?
You accept that 2000 tonnes of waste is produced each year and your own link confirmed that the fund increases by $1.4 Billion each year, half from levies on electricity sales and half from compounding interest. That comes to a fully funded $700,000 for each additional tonne of waste and you have the front to claim it is still being subsidised?
Onyabike bozo.
Ian Mott – “You accept that 2000 tonnes of waste is produced each year and your own link confirmed that the fund increases by $1.4 Billion each year, half from levies on electricity sales and half from compounding interest.”
No because unlike money in the bank the fund is being depleted by increased costs. You would have to look at money incoming and outgoing to decide however it still has to make up a shortfall of possibly more than 20 billion dollars that it will not make up if the money is being spent at a higher rate that it is coming in.
PLUS the fact that the 50 billion or so for one facility is not enough and another facility will have to be built – where does the money come from for this.
PLUS the fact that nuclear industry would be uninsurable without the Price Anderson Act.
The subsidies over the years for nuclear have dwarfed the amount spent on renewables.
Sorry – one liners do not make up for lack of content – get on your own bike.