Here are some quotes from the DOE wind energy program ( http://www.eren.doe.gov/wind/web.html and http://www.eren.doe.gov/wind/faqs.html ):
These two answers seem to be not-completely consistent … Not sure what to make of that, although they may have been written at different times.
jshore wrote:
I wonder … how much of that 59% went to nuclear fission power, and how much went to more speculative research on nuclear fusion power?
My thoughts are also how much of that research was for the Navy Nuclear propulsion programs? I don’t know if so much of it went towards fusion - my impression of the budget numbers I see is that fusion is woefully underfunded.
I’m also not sure if research counts as a subsidy as directly as most people are familiar with the use of the word. One could argue that the government’s research for a long time was the only game in town - I don’t think many utilities had even started looking at nuclear seriously (that is, outside of any “atoms for peace” type advertising) until things had gotten well underway with the basic research done by the government.
There are also many cases where subsidies are a really good idea - subsidy is not a dirty word. I have no figures of course, but it seems reasonable to imagine that a huge amount of of that nuclear research either went towards safety, or went towards increasing awareness and operations controls, which leads towards safety.
The fossil subsidies (of which I am a beneficiary of) are responsible for a large portion of the ability of plants to install and successfully operate scrubbers, SCR systems, low-NOx burners, and (in some cases) dramatic efficiency improvements. Which benefit everyone, as well as the company.
I don’t think you disagree with that necessarily, I just felt like it needed stating.
Right - essentially, nothing really is “greenhouse gas free”, but nuclear is sure a lot better than fossil.
OK, now the other post - why does 3.9 cents per kWh and 5 cents per kWh sound low to anyone? From the article that you linked, it also said this:
I would say the bulk of coal plants are in the $0.015 (1.5 cents) per kWh range, making them about half to 1/3 as expensive as wind. That may not sound like a big difference when it is presented in terms of mere “cents”, but I assure anyone that reads this that that is a huge difference in production price. I also personally work for a couple of clients that have actual production costs of between 0.7 cents and 1.3 cents per kWh, so I think the DoE numbers may be somewhat generalized and pessimistic towards fossil. And, unlike wind, the coal plants have the advantage of providing baseload, 70% and up capacity factors, year-round.
Hey, I’m not down on wind power, even though it looks it. I’ve written at least two articles online on wind power (and wave power too), and how promising it is.
Care to share the articles? Pretty please?
Carlitos wrote:
Cyanobacteria (the so-called “blue-green algae”) did indeed cause the Oxygen Holocaust. However, this happened very slowly, over the course of millions of years.
Eco-alarmists, on the other hand, are screaming that a human-caused environmental disaster is going to befall the entire Earth in less than a hundred years. This is hardly the same scenario.
Fine…But an alternate approach would be to require these systems and force the fossil fuel industry to internalize these costs. I think one has to justify why we should subsidize them to do so.
Hmmm…Well, my landlord pays for electricity these days but when I was living down in Ithaca about 10-15 years ago, I recall we paying 8 cents per kilowatt hour. Now, that’s retail of course, and I know that there are transmission and other costs, but can you fill me in on where the rest of the money is going?
jshore wrote:
I live in Northern California. Until last year, the charge on my PG&E electric bill was 10 cents per kWH for every kWH per month below the “baseline” quantity, and 13 cents per kWH above baseline.
However, each bill also contained a little note that said “Includes electric energy cost of $XX.XX”. This was the cost that PG&E payed to the electric power generating companies to buy the power that they then turned around and sold to me.
Did your electric bills have an “Includes electric energy cost of X” addendum, or something like it? 'Cause that is probably the more useful number.
tracer,
I don’t recall that it did…but even if it did, it would be hopeless to track it down now. (I don’t even remember if I was the roommate paying the bill!)
What was that actual number on your bill?
I found one PG&E bill in last year’s receipts bag, which covered the period 26-April-2001 to 26-May-2001.
The baseline quantity listed on this bill was 326.8 kWH.
The charge on this bill for baseline electricity consumed was 11.6 cents per kWH.
The charge on this bill for over-baseline electricity consumed was 13.3 cents per kWH.
The “electric energy charge” listed on this bill – which was the amount PG&E paid to buy the electricity they sold to me – was 4.162 cents per kWH. This rate was based on the weighted average costs for purchase through the Power Exchange (which was my default electric energy supplier).
I was responding to JohnBckWLD’s assertion that “the only cost effective way of producing ‘clean’ energy is nuclear.” Hydro provides clean (in terms of emissions) and cheap energy. Ergo, his statement is false. I was not addressing the future outlook of this particular source.
As far as adding new hydro goes, new, smaller, designs have been proposed that minimize the negative impacts of hydro. I for one would like to see this explored – though in terms of output I realize it could never achieve more than a fraction of our needs.
By cost, of course. But using a definition that takes externalities into account. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/september5/windpower-95.html
Even without accounting for externalities, wind has seen significant cost reductions the past few decades – if one assumes a continuation of this trend, wind will indeed be cheaper than coal someday soon. Add the environmental benefits and I think it’s more than competitive – it would be a rout except for the geographical limitations of wind.
By the way, I agree that “subsidy” is not necessarily a bad word. The question is what is being subsidized. I would love to see more subsidies for fusion, solar, fuel cells, wave power, etc… If as a nation the US can afford to spend more on defense than the next twelve nations combined (which we do without batting a collective eyelash), I think we can afford a greater investment in renewable sources of energy.
Nor do I think “cost effectiveness” as defined by standard economic models should be the sole criteria for determining energy policy. I’d be willing to pay somewhat higher prices for cleaner energy – I think many more would feel the same way if global warming were better understood.
The Price-Anderson Act As mentioned I’m not necessarily opposed to subsidies – but the idea should be to give a short-term boost to a promising technology. Price-Andersen has been in effect for 45 years – why does the industry still require this subsidy?
(BTW I’m on the fence about fission nuclear power. The new pebble-bed designs sound a lot safer than the older designs. IIRC France and Japan already derive a major chunk of electricity from nuclear. I could be convinced that more nuclear is a necessary evil, as an intermediate step before other clean systems are perfected.)
I doubt if wind will be a major factor in electric generation for some time to come. Nevertheless, I am puzzled about your statement about the “geographical limitations of wind.” What are those limitations?
It is true that winds sufficient for this use only occur in certain places, but that is also true of hydro. That is the beauty of electricity; it is so transportable.
David, this part is going from somewhat hazy memory, but I believe there are large regions of the country (such as the Southeast) which lack the conditions necessary to exploit wind on a significant scale. And the current power infrastructure won’t support transmitting large amounts of juice from, say, California to Georgia – i.e transmission tends to be state- and regional-level, but not national (maybe more R&D $ should go into high-temperture superconductors as well?). I’d be happy to be wrong about that though – it would mean large wind farms could be developed in windy, rural, midwestern locations, and shipped across the country.
I should have noted the other big caveat about wind power – its variability. I don’t see wind completely replacing uninteruptable sources. But it could achieve a large percentage (which is what Denmark is planning – their goal is 40% by 2030).
The end of the first para should read…
I have read many threads and posts about Global Warming in the SDMB. Almost every post has been absolutely horrible, with regards to trying to get to the truth of the matter. Jshore isn’t the only person who has failed miserably, but he is here and the others aren’t.
First: If you want to know the truth then the first thing you have to do is ignore Jshore. Just plain out ignore him/her because he/she is definitally not a true scientist. He/She, and anyone like he/she, that says this is a scientifically settled matter are lying, are not scientists, or are so politically brainwashed they think it is the truth, which in the end is the worst of all.
The cause of the cyclical nature of Earth’s temperature has absolutely, positively, without a shred of doubt not been determined using the scientific method. There are hundreds, not two, of theories out there published in scientific journals, contrary to what Jshore would have you believe, that have different facts, theories, political groups driving the research, and authors.
I will not even attempt to list the entire range thoeries out there because you should be researching your own sources. This will leave me open to criticism, mainly by the Liberal Greens here, but it is irrelevant to my point.
My point is that the scientific method is not being applied by the people that state this or that is a fact regarding climate change, they can’t even agree on the temperature right now much less on which model, of which none has EVER matched historical data, to use on future predictions. It is being distorted by those with other motives than to produce good science. This is an extremely bad thing to do to all humanity.
Don’t get me wrong. All sides in this argument are guilty of distorting the tiny amount of actual fact we do have regarding the largest, most complicated, chaotic system on planet Earth. However, the worst group, by far, are the extreme environmentalist groups. Most of whom are driven by ludite philosophy. These groups may be the worst but they aren’t the only ones. We can only hope that ALL of them will shove their heads up the asses just a little further so we can’t hear their idiotic lies anymore. Aaah, if only all the fishes were wishes.
I do not know the answer to this question. But neither does Jshore or any other human being right now. And if by chance some has described the physical method of the climate, then it was with luck and not by using the scientific method. Period.
GreyMatters, I think you’re getting a bit carried away here. Just for the record, I’ve known jshore for nearly 20 years IRL, and yes, he is a “real scientist” with an Ivy League physics PhD and several publications in highly-respected, peer-reviewed scientific journals. So if he is somehow spouting nothing but disingenuous gibberish on the topic of global warming, it is a complete anomaly in light of his record on all other scientific issues that he’s encountered,* and his employers, colleagues, and editors would say the same.
Now then, to address the issue. I think you completely misread jshore’s posts if you believe that he is asserting that climatology is a thoroughly, or even mostly, understood science and that all reputable researchers are in complete agreement as to what models to use and how they work. On the contrary, he has repeatedly provided caveats about the conclusions that different researchers have drawn, and the issues raised by apparent contradictions in their results. (I sincerely doubt that anyone else on this thread can claim even a tenth as much reading and comprehension of the actual original peer-reviewed research on global warming issues as he can.)
It seems to me, from these threads and from lots of personal discussions, that the basic point jshore is trying to make is that yes, there is what is usually termed a “scientific consensus” on the subject of anthropogenic global warming: namely, that it exists and that it will most likely cause, and probably already is causing, some discernible effects on global climate.
That’s not to say that the consensus has reached the same level of stability as the scientific consensus on, say, the heliocentric model of the solar system; I would guess that it’s somewhere on the part of the certainty spectrum extending from, say, the consensus on plate tectonics through the consensus on black holes up to the consensus on superstrings.
However, I think jshore’s point is that the amount, variety, and consistency of the peer-reviewed research on the subject warrants the use of the term “scientific consensus” (and, I would add, there would probably be no controversy about using such a term if there weren’t such big financial interests at stake). That doesn’t mean that it’s at all a unanimous or undisputed consensus, and anybody is at liberty to disagree with it. But claiming that the acknowledged uncertainty that is still present on this topic is sufficient justification to dismiss jshore as a liar or ideologue or non-scientist is most definitely not the Straight Dope.
(By the way, GreyMatters, you are most definitely right in thinking that not providing cites for your claims about competing climatological theories “will leave you open to criticism” here in Great Debates, and not just from Liberal Greens, either.)
First - What is the point in providing cites to any side of an argument like this that is so politically motivated? Jshore has already denounced any point of view that goes against anthropomorphic warming. With a wave of their wand they declare it is junscience or politically motivated lies even when it meets all of their critieria for being a respectable paper. It is a waste of time. And my only cite for my argument is the process of the scientific method and if you need a cite for that then get off your butt and read.
Second - No one is above criticism.
Third - To postulate that the theory of anthropomorphic global warming has a concensus is to lie right to everyones face here. There are many scientists that support this, but there are also scientists that support other theories. This is a great example of what I am talking about. Where is the scientifically polled report of climatologists that says a majority of them agree with the IPCC report?
GreyMatters: What is the point in providing cites to any side of an argument like this that is so politically motivated?
Well, jshore, Ace_Face, and Ned, among others, have provided quite a few cites. The point seems to be that citing one’s sources allows the participants to gain more information and evaluate the evidence behind the various claims. I think that’s well worth doing even in politically-charged arguments—perhaps especially in politically-charged arguments—and it is certainly the general operating principle of Great Debates.
Jshore has already denounced any point of view that goes against anthropomorphic warming.
I think you must have meant to say “anthropogenic warming” (unless you were really referring to anthropomorphism, e.g., “Global warming is the enemy lying in wait to destroy us all” or “Global warming is pretending to be the villain but in the last act it will strip off its disguise and reveal itself as the hero”, which I agree is a silly and trite rhetorical practice, and I hope jshore does not in fact support it :D).
In any case, once again, I really think you are overstating matters if you imagine that jshore rejects all objections to the anthropogenic-warming hypothesis out of hand. I reread the posts on this thread, and it is clear to me that he is merely clarifying the existence of a scientific consensus that anthropogenic warming exists—and as he said himself, “consensus doesn’t mean unanimity.”
With a wave of their wand they declare it is junscience or politically motivated lies even when it meets all of their critieria for being a respectable paper.
I’m a little puzzled as to who “they” are supposed to be all of a sudden—as I said, I’ve known jshore for going on twenty years, and he’s never been plural—but in any case, I don’t think anybody here is attempting to dismiss any publication that “meets all of their criteria for being a respectable paper.” You are welcome to give us a cite for any such publication that you feel has been so treated, though.
*It is a waste of time. And my only cite for my argument is the process of the scientific method and if you need a cite for that then get off your butt and read. *
Mmm-hmmmm. You know, I don’t think that a vague appeal to a methodological principle really counts as a “cite”; for one thing, everybody always thinks that the methodological principles support their argument and not the other fella’s.
*Second - No one is above criticism. *
You never said a truer word, certainly not in this thread.
Third - To postulate that the theory of anthropomorphic global warming has a concensus is to lie right to everyones face here.
Um, then what are your criteria for a “scientific consensus”?
There are many scientists that support this, but there are also scientists that support other theories.
Isn’t that exactly what I (and jshore and others) have been saying, namely, consensus does not imply unanimity? If “consensus” has to be defined to mean “no scientist anywhere in the world holds an opposing view about this”, then there are damn few scientific consenses about anything.
Where is the scientifically polled report of climatologists that says a majority of them agree with the IPCC report?
Ah, so “consensus” means “majority opinion”, but if we haven’t polled all the scientists on an issue then we can’t speak of a “scientific consensus” on it? You know, I don’t think that’s going to be a very useful working definition of “consensus”. Usually, a “consensus” opinion is taken to be one that most of the peer-reviewed published research supports, and in fact, that correlates pretty well with levels of support among individual scientists. By that standard, given the vast quantity of supporting research cited in the IPCC report and in the various NAS reports, the scientific consensus is indeed solidly (although, I repeat, not unanimously or uncritically) on the side of anthropogenic climate change.
I must say, though, that it is kind of encouraging to see the changes over time in the rhetoric of “climate skeptics”. I remember five years ago many people were angrily asserting that it was clear from the scientific evidence that humans were having no effect on global climate; and two or three years before that, there were many who proclaimed equally confidently that the atmosphere wasn’t getting warmer at all. Now they seem reduced to insisting that the whole issue is just too complicated and we don’t know the answers.
So here’s a Kimstu Patent Prediction ™: by mid-2005, the “climate skeptics” will have given up on arguing that there is no consensus or that there’s no clear evidence in favor of anthropogenic warming. Instead, they will be arguing (just as loudly) that the anthropogenic warming will be less dire and/or more beneficial than the current models suggest. They will fail to mention anything about having been wrong earlier. There you go folks, a confident forecast for the future; and if it turns out in 2005 that I was wrong, I promise to admit it.
I meant anthropogenic. It is much funnier the other way though, and posibly even more true, but whatever…
I think I am hurting myself by being too hasty in my responses.
So I will try and be shorter and to the point.
The process by which a “concensus” has been reached by some in the world regarding warming is not scientific.
The mechanisms of the climate have not been completely discovered. The small parts of the climate we do know about are not even fully understood. As the IPPC summary states, this is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, which means that it is a chaotic state with inputs, like CO2, that have an unknown affect. And we don’t even have a solid understanding of chaos in general to aply to these climate models.
The models used to “test” the thoeries do not match historical data. Which would seem to be the only test we have to determine if the models are something we can rely on. But the IPCC seems to think that these same models are good enough to predict weather 50-100 years into the future. And then the IPCC makes recomendations for global political, economic and social change based on these figures; which just happen to fall right in line with their pre-Global Warming political views of Green Environmentalism. That was pretty convienent.
There is ample evidence that the supposed driver for the warming, CO2, actually follows the warming and not the other way around.
The models that do exist ignore many of the climate variables we do know have a large impact on its state, like water. And when they do incorporate these into their models the models just plain blow up.
The data used to support any of the theories is all over the place. Urban temperatures, sea temperatures, Antarctic temps, atmospheric temps are all in some disagreement with one theory or another. Which means that, at the very least, we have little to no idea how any of these sub-systems work. But, then they turn right around and say, “Yep, it is definitally man made.”
But, I won’t let any of that stop someone from crying the sky is falling.
I see little reason to respond to most of GreyMatters’s comments that have been addressed very effectively by kimstu. But, just as a general point-of-view, GreyMatters , if you disagree with me about the current state of the debate on global warming then it is up to you to explain to us either (1) how my interpretation differs from that of the National Academy of Sciences report that George Bush commissioned and I already linked to, or (2) what is wrong with the NAS report (which, by the way, included on the committee Richard Lindzen who is probably the most respected and widely published of those who can be classified as “skeptics of climate change”).
This is simply not true. I did not characterize Patrick Michael’s letter to the editor of Nature (which I discussed above) as junk science, although I did characterize the way it was used by the Oregon petition in a very selective and deceiving manner as junk science. I also wouldn’t characterize Richard Lindzen’s publications in peer-reviewed literature as junk science; they are however just one scientist’s view in a much larger sea of peer-reviewed work on climate change.
There are points of legitimate debate and uncertainty. However, there is also fairly widespread (albeit not completely unanimous) agreement in the published literature on many aspects of climate change. I am not trying to argue that we know what is going on with more certainty than the IPCC report and the NAS report claim that we do. I am simply claiming that these reports accurately represent the state of the scientific knowledge on the subject.
Actually, kimstu, I would point out that if you mean by “climate skeptics” those with any sort of legitimate credentials in the field then I would argue that in fact this prediction applies already to the year 2002. What you have predicted is almost an exact summary of the view of Patrick Michaels as I saw him present it over a year ago. Likewise, Lindzen argues that due to various negative feedbacks the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.4 deg C, rather than the IPCC / NAS estimates of 1.5 deg to 4.5 deg C. And, I remind you, these guys are two of the biggest skeptics in the field. (I am not up on what exactly Fred Singer and Robert Balling, two more skeptics currently claim…And, this basically exhausts the list of scientific skeptics that I can think of, at least in North America.)
The only reason we are actually debating whether anthropogenic global warming will occur at all vs. details of its consequences are because some of the contrarians in this thread are not up on what even the most contrarian climate scientists are saying (and, as I noted, the only one of the scientists who I have mentioned who is really widely published in the peer-reviewed literature [and who doesn’t have connections to industries who have a strong financial stake in the matter] is Lindzen).
Just to give some people like GreyMatters some idea of how far they are behind in the debate over climate change, here is a link to the text of a speech by the CEO of British Petroleum, for heaven’s sake, made almost 5 years ago now (May 1997): http://dieoff.org/page106.htm
Note added in preview: I just saw GreyMatters’ latest posting which repeats the sort of unsupported and exagerated and half-true claims that one finds on the issue. Yes, there are uncertainties, yes the models aren’t perfect, … But this still doesn’t explain why we should believe you over the IPCC and NAS reports, and as regards your point (2), I will relink to this graph which I believe shows that climate models that include both anthropogenic forcing and natural variations can do quite a reasonable job matching past temperature data: http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/tar/syr/figspm-2.htm
jshore: *I would point out that if you mean by “climate skeptics” those with any sort of legitimate credentials in the field then I would argue that in fact this prediction applies already to the year 2002. *
Oh. Well, hey, the most reliable predictions are the ones that are already true, right? Score another for the infallible Kimstu Patent Predictor!