Resisting Climate Hysteria

.... and whadayamean exaggerate? That's just where I stopped counting. The actual number is substantially higher.

explod said:

You do not realy know that.

The future cannot be predicted but we act on a ballance of probabilities.

I have observed permafrost nearly halved in Greenland and New Zealand and I have read the reports of similar in many other places.

This is not long term seasonal, the planet from a fireball 5 billions years ago is supposed to be cooling.

Houston "we have a problem"

Click to expand...

It has all happened before in Greenland.......It is called climate change



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

Norse settlement
Kingittorsuaq Runestone from Kingittorsuaq Island (Middle ages).

From 986, Greenland's west coast was settled by Icelanders and Norwegians, through a contingent of 14 boats led by Erik the Red. These settlers formed three settlements—known as the Eastern Settlement, the Western Settlement and Ivittuut the "Middle Settlement"—on fjords near the southwestern-most tip of the island.[9][29] They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants who occupied the northern and western parts, and later with the Thule culture arriving from the north. Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in the 13th century, and the Kingdom of Norway entered into a personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union.[30]

The settlements, such as Brattahlíð, thrived for centuries but disappeared sometime in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age.[31] Apart from some runic inscriptions, no contemporary records or historiography survives from the Norse settlements. Icelandic saga accounts of life in Greenland were composed in the 13th century and later, and do not constitute primary sources for the history of early Greenland.[17] Modern understanding therefore depends on the physical data. Interpretation of ice core and clam shell data suggests that between 800 and 1300, the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a relatively mild climate several degrees Celsius higher than usual in the North Atlantic,[32] with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel.[33] What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years.[34] Similarly the Icelandic Book of Settlements records famines during the winters in which "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs".[32]
The last written records of the Norse Greenlanders are of a marriage in 1408 in the church of Hvalsey—today the best-preserved Nordic ruins in Greenland.

These Icelandic settlements vanished during the 14th and early 15th centuries.[35] The demise of the Western Settlement coincides with a decrease in summer and winter temperatures. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning in the late 13th century to early 14th century—as much as 6–8 °C lower than modern summer temperatures.[36] The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. The Eastern Settlement was likely abandoned in the early to mid-15th century, during this cold period. The condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, probably due to soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation in the course of farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting; pandemic plague; the decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age; and armed conflicts with the Inuit.[31]
The Thule Culture (1300 – present)

noco said:

Thanks Smurf for all that data.

Do you have a link I can follow through on?

Click to expand...

It's an original write up by Smurf in response to issues raised on this thread. So no link as such but some pointers:

Heat rates of US power generation is here: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html

Those figures are for the input heat rate, but there's 3412.142 BTU's (British Thermal Units) in a kWh (kilowatt hour) so it's just a matter of doing the maths to convert those figures to an efficiency rating.

Complicating that is consumption within the plant itself. That's around 5 - 6% for a coal-fired plant typically (less for others, especially those which don't involve steam turbines).

To that I've added energy required to extract the fuel based on typical figures from various sources.

Then I've added transmission and distribution losses of 10% based on the end user being residential and in a suburban or large town area. Much of that loss occurs in distribution (poles and wires in the streets) since transmission (big lines usually on steel towers) are quite efficient.

For solar I assumed that the inverter has an efficiency in the low 90's % in practice. Many will claim higher but they can't always achieve it in practice. No distribution losses due to distributed generation.

For wind I took 45% as the efficiency of the turbine, the total efficiency being less due to losses in transmission and distribution. Here's a link about the efficiency of wind turbines - www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/.../WindEnergyfactsheet.pdf

For hydro I took it as 90% efficiency for a modern plant, 80% for an antique. Those figures are pretty well accepted in the industry and a Google search will find plenty of links.

Complicating the figures is that plant efficiency is not constant. For example, gas turbines lose efficiency under certain weather conditions. Gas turbines also lose efficiency in a big way when operated at reduced loading. Steam turbines lose efficiency at low loads too. And for hydro, turbine efficiency typically peaks at 50 - 80% of the unit's capacity depending on the turbine design, which is itself a function of the available head (pressure) and in some cases that (head) is also a variable in operation.

As an example of varying efficiency, here's some data for an actual hydro power station in Tas.

Efficiency at peak output = 86%

Peak efficiency = 90% efficiency at 77% of peak output capacity.

Efficiency at 28% of capacity = 75%

Efficiency at 14% of capacity = 62%

Efficiency at 7% of capacity = 50%

Further complicating all this is that these figures are efficiency of the power station. Transmission efficiency is also not constant and varies.

Something I'll add is that operating at peak efficiency is not always the rational thing to do from a business perspective. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. What is now a financial market (electricity) does not always reward the achievement of efficiency, indeed on occasion the reverse is most certainly true.

Smurf1976 said:

It's an original write up by Smurf in response to issues raised on this thread. So no link as such but some pointers:

Heat rates of US power generation is here: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html

Those figures are for the input heat rate, but there's 3412.142 BTU's (British Thermal Units) in a kWh (kilowatt hour) so it's just a matter of doing the maths to convert those figures to an efficiency rating.

Complicating that is consumption within the plant itself. That's around 5 - 6% for a coal-fired plant typically (less for others, especially those which don't involve steam turbines).

To that I've added energy required to extract the fuel based on typical figures from various sources.

Then I've added transmission and distribution losses of 10% based on the end user being residential and in a suburban or large town area. Much of that loss occurs in distribution (poles and wires in the streets) since transmission (big lines usually on steel towers) are quite efficient.

For solar I assumed that the inverter has an efficiency in the low 90's % in practice. Many will claim higher but they can't always achieve it in practice. No distribution losses due to distributed generation.

For wind I took 45% as the efficiency of the turbine, the total efficiency being less due to losses in transmission and distribution. Here's a link about the efficiency of wind turbines - www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/.../WindEnergyfactsheet.pdf

For hydro I took it as 90% efficiency for a modern plant, 80% for an antique. Those figures are pretty well accepted in the industry and a Google search will find plenty of links.

Complicating the figures is that plant efficiency is not constant. For example, gas turbines lose efficiency under certain weather conditions. Gas turbines also lose efficiency in a big way when operated at reduced loading. Steam turbines lose efficiency at low loads too. And for hydro, turbine efficiency typically peaks at 50 - 80% of the unit's capacity depending on the turbine design, which is itself a function of the available head (pressure) and in some cases that (head) is also a variable in operation.

As an example of varying efficiency, here's some data for an actual hydro power station in Tas.

Efficiency at peak output = 86%

Peak efficiency = 90% efficiency at 77% of peak output capacity.

Efficiency at 28% of capacity = 75%

Efficiency at 14% of capacity = 62%

Efficiency at 7% of capacity = 50%

Further complicating all this is that these figures are efficiency of the power station. Transmission efficiency is also not constant and varies.

Something I'll add is that operating at peak efficiency is not always the rational thing to do from a business perspective. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. What is now a financial market (electricity) does not always reward the achievement of efficiency, indeed on occasion the reverse is most certainly true.

Click to expand...

Thanks Smurf you have gone to a lot of trouble to make it appear convincing but I also detect a lot hypothetical hyperbole mixed up with baffling science.

When you mention efficiency the figures in the back of mind for various element are :-

Solar and wind ....10% to 15 %

Coal fired .............35%

Ceramic fuel cells.......60%

Unfortunately ceramic fuel cells which were an Australian innovation, were too costly to produce and to the best of my knowledge have ceased production Germany.

I don't understand how you relate your efficiency factors.

I wonder if it's possible to come up with a formula relating to the effectiveness of an energy source ? Maybe it's already been done, I'm not an engineer.

eg.

effectiveness = 1/emmissions x efficiency / capital costs / running costs x reliability x sustainability x baseload capacity etc.


And whichever energy source has the highest rating is the one that gets used in a particular location.

SirRumpole said:

I wonder if it's possible to come up with a formula relating to the effectiveness of an energy source ? Maybe it's already been done, I'm not an engineer.

eg.

effectiveness = 1/emmissions x efficiency / capital costs / running costs x reliability x sustainability x baseload capacity etc.


And whichever energy source has the highest rating is the one that gets used in a particular location.

Click to expand...

I think that is what Smurf was doing.

I don't think it is a simple process. There will be many factors that come into play only a few of which will be direct energy efficiency. Convenience, historical situation, access to particular resources for example.

Just one example. Victorias brown coal in the Latrobe Valley is very poor quality. But once it was mined , the power plants built and the coal drying facilities constructed no one wanted to close it down. Without any accounting for externalities it is a cheap source of electricity.

Odd how the total deniers from a few years back are now broadcasting climate change as cyclical.....as if to say everything's ok because it was stinking hot and arid back then too ... no thought to what that will do to the future generations that survive religious nuts.

I would suspect we have evolved past the point of going back and surviving.

Tisme said:

Odd how the total deniers from a few years back are now broadcasting climate change as cyclical.....as if to say everything's ok because it was stinking hot and arid back then too ... no thought to what that will do to the future generations that survive religious nuts.

I would suspect we have evolved past the point of going back and surviving.

Click to expand...

That's bullshyte Tisyou.

No serious sceptical analyst has ever been as accused. There was simply the ad hominem name calling vis a vis the ignominious and puerile "denier" slur.

Cmon dude you're smarter than that.

wayneL said:

That's bullshyte Tisyou.

No serious sceptical analyst has ever been as accused. There was simply the ad hominem name calling vis a vis the ignominious and puerile "denier" slur.

Cmon dude you're smarter than that.

Click to expand...

C'mon Wayne, you know better why I posted that ....and I didn't even leave a burley slick

noco said:

Thanks Smurf you have gone to a lot of trouble to make it appear convincing but I also detect a lot hypothetical hyperbole mixed up with baffling science

....

I don't understand how you relate your efficiency factors.

Click to expand...

The basis of the efficiency figures I've stated is how much of the energy content of the primary energy source (fuel in the ground, water in a dam, sunlight etc) is converted into useful electricity delivered to your home.

First you start with the fuel, and that itself has 100% efficiency whilst it's sitting in the ground.

Then you need energy to extract the fuel. It's not a huge amount but it's not zero (with a few notable exceptions mostly related to oil).

Then you have to process (if necessary) and transport that fuel to the power station. Losses can be virtually zero (power station next to a coal mine) through to quite high (LNG shipped internationally).

Then you have losses in turning that fuel into steam.

Then you have losses turning steam into mechanical power (that's by far the biggest loss in the whole chain).

Then you lose a bit more turning that mechanical power into electricity.

Then you need to use some of that electricity, around 5 - 6% in a typical coal-fired plant, to power systems within the power station itself. This is the difference between "gross" generation and "sent out" generation (the latter being what actually goes into the grid).

At this point around two thirds of the energy in the coal has been lost. You had 10 MJ (megajoules) of energy in the coal, but only 3.x MJ ends up as electricity coming out of the power station. All the rest was either lost in the various conversion steps (fuel > steam > mechanical power > electrical power) or was used as electricity to power the mine or systems (eg pumps, conveyors, fans etc) within the power station.

If we use Loy Yang (Vic) as an example, it's public knowledge that the plant is roughly 30% efficient from fuel in the ground to electricity "sent out". The big losses are (1) turning heat into mechanical power and (2) heat lost up the chimney as water vapour due to the 62% moisture content in the coal used. The other losses are less but still collectively quite significant. Efficiency of a black coal plant is a bit higher, since the lower moisture content of the coal greatly reduces losses from that source (but all the other losses are still there).

So, we had 10 kilowatt hours of heat energy in a given quantity (approximately 1kg in this case) of the coal at Loy Yang mine. Only 3 kilowatt hours of that heat actually come out the power station and go into the grid, the other 7 are lost in all the steps to extract, crush and burn the coal, converting heat > mechanical > electrical power and then using some of that electricity to run the plant itself.

Another 4% of what's left (the 30%) is then lost in the bulk transmission system (that's big power lines on steel towers) and around another 6% in the distributions system (wires on poles that run down your street, or their underground equivalent). Those figures are representative and will vary depending on location - higher if you're in the middle of nowhere, very low if you happen to live right next door to a power station (eliminating transmission losses) or terminal sub-station (largely eliminating distribution losses).

End result of all that is that of the energy we started out with as coal in the mine, only 27% of that actually gets to your home as electricity. All the rest is either consumed or lost along the way, most of that occurring at the power station itself.

Same concept with all energy sources. Eg water in a dam is 100% efficient as a source of potential energy. Run it through John Butters power station (Tas) and we can convert 90% of that into electricity, the rest being lost mostly at the turbine and to a lesser within the alternator (generator in layman's terms) or used to run systems within the plant (but that's not much in a hydro station). Then add to that the losses in transmission and distribution and it's about 81% efficient from water in the dam to electricity in your home.

With some sources it's a bit less certain. Eg the data for both Loy Yang and John Butters has been publicly disclosed in various forms by the respective plant owners (Loy Yang Power and Hydro Tasmania) but not all plant owners choose to make such data public (though there are various third party estimates around for the major power stations).

But if you take, say, the Port Lincoln or Angaston (both in SA and both oil-fired) then whilst it's not overly difficult to work out losses in the conversion of oil into electricity, the unknown is where that oil came from in the first place and what was involved with producing it. All the plant owner knows is that they buy fuel from a major supplier (eg Shell, BP etc to pick random names in the oil business) and it turns up. Where Shell or BP got it from they generally wouldn't know, and quite likely if you asked the supplier then they won't be too certain either. Came out of our terminal in SA, and that was filled by a ship that turned up. But we use different ships, and they source fuel from different refineries, who themselves source crude oil from all sorts of different places. End result of that is that the best that can be done is to estimate the energy used to extract the oil, ship and refine it. It's not like at Loy Yang where hard data is known or hydro where it just falls from the sky mostly of its own accord.

All that said, even with an oil-fired plant the big losses are still within the power station, not on oil tankers etc, such that a bit of uncertainty as to the upstream fuel supply chain doesn't greatly change the end result. Most of the oil in the ground gets to the power station, and most of that comes out as heat (waste) with only somewhere around a quarter to a third coming out as electricity which goes into the grid.

Something to note here is that efficiency in a technical sense has very little linkage to economics and only a moderate link to practicality. Yallourn (Vic, coal) at 30% efficiency is cheaper financially (ignoring the CO2 issue) than Tribute (hydro, Tas) at 90% efficiency. An old open cycle gas turbine burning diesel is still a reliable source of power when needed, despite being less efficient and far more expensive than a wind farm at 45% efficiency that only works a third of the time.

Efficiency is also not always optimised in operation and that comes down to market conditions. Eg 3 (of 8) units at Torrens Island (gas, SA) are online at the moment but only operating at 25 - 40% of capacity each. It's up to the owners of the plant (AGL in this case) to decide what price to offer supply to the market at, and they've chosen to not offer much at the current price. They could get better technical efficiency out of the plant by operating it differently, but in practice they'll do whatever makes the most money. Come back on a hot day with little wind and they'll have all 8 units running flat out and be charging several times the current price.

Makes sense to me but I have been saying this for a while now.

Government lies again about the cost of Direct Action.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-28/fact-check-direct-action-vs-carbon-tax/6847234

SirRumpole said:

Government lies again about the cost of Direct Action.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-28/fact-check-direct-action-vs-carbon-tax/6847234

Click to expand...

Only lies to the Bruno Bertoluccis and honest truths to the Edward Melba "Ted" Bullpitts.

I'm guessing we could have used the $13 billion + 2014 $+ 2015 $= ~$30bn revenues to pay down debt and balance the budget?

Tisme said:

Only lies to the Bruno Bertoluccis and honest truths to the Edward Melba "Ted" Bullpitts.

I'm guessing we could have used the $13 billion + 2014 $+ 2015 $= ~$30bn revenues to pay down debt and balance the budget?

Click to expand...

Indeed. Just regulate carbon emissions.

Of course there will be a cost in any solution, but regulation spreads it around.

SirRumpole said:

Indeed. Just regulate carbon emissions.

Of course there will be a cost in any solution, but regulation spreads it around.

Click to expand...

The thing is that we are now the profit generation, so the trick is to pay people to make net oxygen output from carbon dioxide. Big business would probably have a machine in operation within the week with that carrot.

Tisme said:

The thing is that we are now the profit generation, so the trick is to pay people to make net oxygen output from carbon dioxide. Big business would probably have a machine in operation within the week with that carrot.

Click to expand...

Those machines are called "trees" I believe.

Oh dear ...

Antarctica is growing not shrinking, according to the latest study from NASA. Furthermore, instead of contributing to rising sea levels, the still-very-much-frozen southern continent is actually reducing them by 0.23 mm per year

Click to expand...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ce-growing-shrinking-glaciers-climate-change/

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum/

Melting ice on the edges of the Antarctic continent could be leading to more fresh, just-above-freezing water, which makes refreezing into sea ice easier, Parkinson said. Or changes in water circulation patterns, bringing colder waters up to the surface around the landmass, could help grow more ice.

Snowfall could be a factor as well, Meier said. Snow landing on thin ice can actually push the thin ice below the water, which then allows cold ocean water to seep up through the ice and flood the snow – leading to a slushy mixture that freezes in the cold atmosphere and adds to the thickness of the ice. This new, thicker ice would be more resilient to melting.

Click to expand...

Yipee....the climate change skeptics are now in the majority.

Regarding the paper you quoted TS.

Did you reach the end of the article ?

If the Antarctic’s ice sheets are growing, what would that mean for global sea levels in the long-term?

“I don't think Zwally's estimates really matter so much in the grand scheme because adding a little snow to Antarctica in no way offsets the complete disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet in the near future,” says Pettit, who is also a National Geographic explorer who works on the continent. “It’s completely different timescale behavior.”

If all the ice in West Antarctica melts and slides into the sea, it is likely to contribute several meters to sea level rise. That process is already underway, says Scambos, and may happen over the next few centuries, regardless of what is going on in the eastern highlands.

There are too many different lines of evidence and active inquiry “to let one paper hold sway,” says Scambos. The consensus view seems to be that Antarctica is experiencing melting in important ways and will likely contribute more to sea level rise in the coming centuries.

So global warming still exists?

Yes. The new paper never says the planet isn’t warming. The best science available on the long-term trends still makes a strong case for that, with significant implications for the planet. Exactly how global warming will play out on every corner of the globe is largely unknown.

Click to expand...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ce-growing-shrinking-glaciers-climate-change/

basilio said:

Regarding the paper you quoted TS.

Did you reach the end of the article ?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ce-growing-shrinking-glaciers-climate-change/

Click to expand...

ERMMMMMMMMMMMMM yeah I did actually ??

“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus, where people say, ‘We’ve nailed it, this is why it’s happening,’” Parkinson said. “Our models are improving, but they’re far from perfect. One by one, scientists are figuring out that particular variables are more important than we thought years ago, and one by one those variables are getting incorporated into the models.”

Click to expand...

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum