Kicking the Climate Change Cat Further Down the Road... 43

[ewh]

What is the reputation of the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, a organization of 50 "top" scientists) in the engineering community? I really don't know how reliable they are, but a study (Climate Change Reconsidered II) produced by them and published by the Heartland Institute (an organization which espouses other ideas I disagree with) claims to be "double peer reviewed" and presents a seemingly well-founded arguement that AGW is a political red herring.
I am not a climate scientist, but thought that this was a good example of one side of the differing dogmas surrounding the issue. Just how is a layman supposed to make sense of these opposing arguments?

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

or the summary

http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

[beej67]

Buddy of mine over in Thailand is siphoning off CO2 from gas fired power plants and using it to supercharge algae grow tanks. His original idea was algaefuel, but now he's going straight to food grade stuff for livestock and human consumption, because the margins are better. It's neat technology. Outfit called "Energaia."

I don't object to re purposing CO2, or to green technology, or really even to carbon taxation if your goal is something other than to arrest or reverse global warming. If your goal is to arrest or reverse global warming, the first thing to do should be to get your science right about what's causing it.

Then when you do finally get enough of the science right to be able to craft meaningful policy, you must ask yourself if global warming really is such a bad thing, compared to all the other things we're doing to destroy the planet, and whether those heinous measures necessary to arrest or reverse global warming couldn't be better spent elsewhere.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[rb1957]

that certainly is a creative way to reduce the CO2 emissions from the power station. it's not like they're scrubbing the exhaust, which'd suck up a lot of the energy produced at the power station; "just" siphoning off the CO2, and using that to grow algae for food or fuel. better than using corn for fuel !

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

The problem would be to scale it up to be able to handle larger amounts of CO2. How big of a pond, or green house would you need? The other problem may become water. However some algae may be able to live in salt water. And if I recall some algae needs something to anchor to, which means a lot of structure.

But right now they are making bio-jet fuel from algae. But with this you would end up with as much CO2 being released as with what was started with. The benifit is two uses, power and jet fuel.
The other benifit is more water vapor released into the air (more rain).

CO2 can also be from other sources not just from power stations, such as ethonol plants, old land fills, and waste water treatment plants.

 

[imcjoek]

Finally, a reasonable solution.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/88/

 

[zdas04]

I've done scoping studies on a half dozen of these "siphon off exhaust gases" projects and you have to have a stand-alone use for the gas to make any economic sense. One that I evaluated was going to convert a power plant to oxy-fuel (from air-fuel, required an air plant and found a market for the nitrogen), transfer exhaust heat into an evaporation pond (which reduced the energy required to compress it and accelerated evaporation in the pond) and then jacked up the pressure for a CO2 flood in a gas field. Everything looked like it was fitting together until we added the cost of compression and found that we could buy naturally occurring CO2 already at pressure a lot cheaper than we could compress stack gas.

The algae thing is a really cool idea as long as the pressure boost required doesn't wipe out the benefit. I read in Patrick Moore's book about it being common to jack up the CO2 in greenhouses (real ones made out of steel and glass) to over 1500 ppm to significantly increase productivity and decrease requirements for pesticides and fertilizers. The project in Thailand probably has some of the same benefits.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[rb1957]

maybe a positive spin on "the demon CO2" is that now a waste gas (CO2) has value, either as something that can be put to good use, or as something that can avoid costs.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

Truthfuly local people seem to think vapor from the cooling towers is polution.

Really up to 1500 ppm? I don't think I can do that in home size one.

If I add some CO maybe I don't need any pesticides.

 

[rconnor]

I wonder how they separated taxation costs from increased market price in that BC study

During the period the tax has been in effect, BC reduced emissions per capita by 10%, the rest of Canada reduced emissions by 1.1%. Furthermore, emissions were growing by 0.65%/year in the decade leading up to the tax and then fell by 2.3%/year once the tax was introduced.

You can't separate out what amount of reductions came from the tax but you can compare against various controls. As stated, when compared against all controls and counter-arguments, the statistics continue to support the position that the tax has been effective at reducing emissions and directly refutes the counter-arguments.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Yet another example of fraudulent representation in a field where fuzzy science and emotions seem to call the shots.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ms-notorious-fraudster-was-behind-costly-epa/

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[JohnRBaker]

For what it's worth:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/19/coal-emissions-regulation_n_4993075.html

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[zdas04]

"Center for American Progress" as reported in the Huffington Post? No agenda's there. Headline news that someone got a projection wrong. All in all. Not worth much.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[cranky108]

OK if everybody is gulty of Puffery, then what is the right numbers? People in the news are typically sales people, like the kind that sell used cars. And we all know obout the used car puffery.

The real answer usually lies in the middle.

 

[rconnor]

Ok if everybody is gulty of Puffery, then what is the right numbers

There are two competing groups of sources. These two groups of sources represent the divide in the global warming debate. The groups are such:

Group 1
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Chemical Society
- American Geophysical Union
- American Medical Association
- American Meteorological Society
- American Physical Society
- The Geological Society of America
- US National Academy of Sciences
- Royal Society
- List of 197 Other National Science Academies
- NASA
- NOAA
- Nature
- Science
- etc

Group 2
- A weatherman’s blog
- Koch-founded, right-wing think tank
- etc

So, cranky108, I turn the question back to you. Which group do you believe contains the more credible sources?

 

[GregLocock]

But I wonder what Feynman would say? Cargo Cult Science for the most part, by my reading.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[cranky108]

Well to start with, I don't trust the AMA, so I guess I would go with the second group.
Besides it looks like group think, and it may just be the lemings all over.

Besides "Nobodys right, if everybodys wrong".

Don't get me wrong here, there is things we should consiter even if both sides are wrong. Like can we do things better than what we are doing now.
But the politics just make me want to not believe the puffery on the side of more taxes. I beg for a solution that works, and dosen't futher enslave us to goverment.

And you should well know that poor people can't afford to be green, and that's where the tax road leads. Not to a green world, but a world of more poor people.

 

[swall]

rconnor--I have to ask--do you work in the Climatology field or is this just a hobby for you?

 

[ornerynorsk]

Two words . . . herd mentality.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[rb1957]

for me it's more like ..

group 1 ... believe model results

group 2 ... question model results

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[ewh]

You forgot:
group 3 ... trust model
group 4 ... distrust model

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

[rconnor]

Some of you are misinterpreting my intention behind presenting the two groups of sources. I did not present the groups as some form of proof through consensus. I don’t need to use that as an argument when I have the science on my side.

I presented the groups to illustrate the obvious ideological bias, lack of expertise and questionable history in one group versus the neutrality, diversity, reputable history and expertise of the other group. People on the fence always say, “I hear one thing from one source and another from a second source; I don’t know which to believe”. That is the topic of this thread. To me, I don’t know how you could look at those two groups and remain undecided on which is more credible and more trustworthy.

That doesn’t mean you need to agree with everything said by group 1 or reject everything from group 2. What that does mean is that it is necessary to be much more skeptical about the accuracy of information presented by group 2, which is obviously ideological driven and has proven to habitually misunderstand the science. So when CATO says the “pause” disproves the theory, you do a bit of digging and realize it’s nonsense. Or when WUWT posts an article saying that NOAA is lying, you do a bit of digging and realize it’s because the author doesn’t understand how baselines on temperature anomalies work (just one of oh-so-many examples).

But for most “skeptics” this is reversed. When NASA or NOAA says that when you account for ENSO events, temperature trends match model predictions, “skeptics” categorically reject it. When GWPF says either “it’s changed before” or “climate sensitivity is over estimated”, which besides being silly and widely debunked, are also incompatible arguments, “skeptics” accept it without a moment’s hesitation.

Rationally, this is absurd. However, “skeptics” aren’t looking for what’s rational, they are looking for what fits their belief system – “I want small government and low taxes and agreeing with climate sciences means I have to go against that” (although even that last leap is not true). That is the reason why all climate change “skeptic” groups are right-wing. It’s not a coincidence. It’s an attempt to force or filter the science to fit their preconceived opinion on the matter.

Sure, there are unscientific assertions from left-wing sources like Greenpeace and Huffington Post. But I stick to referencing peer-reviewed papers from reputable journals, respected scientific institutions or blogs written by published scientists actively working in the field of climate science. That’s because this is not a left-wing versus right-wing debate. Is NASA left-wing? Is the Royal Society left-wing? Is the National Academy of Sciences left-wing? No, they are neutral scientific institutions. This is a debate between the science versus a misunderstanding of the science stemming from cognitive dissonance. Places like NOAA do the former, places like CATO do the latter.

If you want to remain agnostic on the issue, fine. But that doesn’t excuse you from ignoring (or flat-out rejecting) the very best science and evidence we have, coming from the most respected scientific institutions in the world while, at the same time, accepting dubious claims from obviously biased and ideologically driven sources. If you call yourself a “skeptic”, then be one.

swall, I don’t work in the field of climatology. I feel it’s an important issue and so I put in the effort to understand it as well as I can.