War on Coal: Obama Doesn’t Do Pinprick Strikes
War on Coal: Obama Doesn’t Do Pinpricks
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/358414/war-coal-obama-doesnt-do-pinpricks-henry-payne
In the War on Coal, the Obama administration doesn’t do pinprick strikes.The Obama EPA is plotting an attack on the U.S. energy industry that would decimate future coal-plant construction in the name of fighting global warming. Doing an end-run around Congress, the EPA edict would essentially put in place the cap-and-trade green scheme that even a Democratic Congress rejected in Obama’s first term. The Wall Street Journal reports that the EPA rule is set to be formally proposed by the end of next week. The new rules would reportedly set an emissions limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per Read More …
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WSJ: Fracking has done more for the poor in the Obama years that all of its ministrations combined
WSJ: Fracking has done more for the poor in the Obama years that all of its ministrations combined
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/wsj-fracking-has-done-more-for-poor-in.html
More on Fracking and the Poor
The U.S. oil and gas boom added $1,200 to disposable income in 2012.
Last week we reported on a study showing that the U.S. oil and natural gas revolution may be the country’s best antipoverty program, and the evidence keeps coming. A new report from IHS Global Insight estimates that fracking added the equivalent of a cool $1,200 to real household disposable income on average in 2012.
Lower costs for raw materials were passed on to consumers via lower home heating and electricity bills and lower prices for other goods and services. Wages also increased from a surge in industrial activity. On present trend, IHS predicts that unconventional oil and gas will contribute more than $2,000 a year by 2015 and $3,500 by 2025.
Overall the industry lifted economic growth by $283 billion last year—$533 billion in 2025—and was responsible, ahem, for $74 billion in federal and state tax payments. The politicians should be doing cartwheels that the figure will rise to $138 billion in 2025.
IHS’s particular focus is on what the study calls a growing manufacturing renaissance aided by the boom in affordable energy. It’s a classic American story of innovation, human ingenuity, risk-taking and capital investment, not subsidies or the 47 federal job-training programs. The irony Washington will never appreciate is that fracking has done more for the less fortunate in the Obama years that all of its ministrations combined.
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New paper finds models have a high rate of ‘false alarms’ in predicting drought – – Published in Geophysical Research Letters
New paper finds models have a high rate of ‘false alarms’ in predicting drought
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-paper-finds-models-have-high-rate.html
A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters finds that “On average, less than 30% of the global drought onsets can be detected by climate models,” and that the models have a high rate of “false alarms.” The paper adds to the numerous peer-reviewed studies highly critical of climate models, pointing to a multitude of failings including improper simulations of temperature and precipitation, volcanic eruptions, and natural coupled ocean-atmosphere processes like El Niño and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to name a few.
Multi-model seasonal forecasting of global drought onsetXing Yuan*, Eric F. Wood
The capability of seasonal forecasting of global drought onset at local scales (1-degree) has been investigated using multiple climate models with 110 realizations. Climate models increase the global mean probability of drought onset detection from the climatology forecast by 31%-81%, but only increase equitable threat score by 21%-50% due to a high false alarm ratio. The multi-model ensemble increases the drought detectability over some tropical areas where individual models have better performance, but cannot help more over most extra-tropical regions. On average, less than 30% of the global drought onsets can be detected by climate models. The missed drought events are associated with low potential predictability and weak antecedent ENSO signal. Given the high false alarms, the reliability is very important for a skillful probabilistic drought onset forecast. This raises the question of whether seasonal forecasting of global drought onset is essentially a stochastic forecasting problem.
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New paper finds global potential solar energy is 4-10 times less than previously thought
New paper finds global potential solar energy is 4-10 times less than previously thought
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-paper-finds-global-potential-solar.html
A new paper published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews finds the potential electric power that could be generated from solar sources is 4 to 10 times less than previously estimated in the scientific literature [including estimates of the IPCC].
According to the authors, “our results show that present and foreseeable future density power of solar infrastructures are much less (4–10 times) than most published studies. This relatively low density implies much bigger land necessities per watt delivered, putting more pressure on Earth than previously thought. On the other hand, mineral reserves of some scarce materials [rare earth minerals required for solar cells] being used will also put pressure on this industry, because there is also a trade-off between solar park efficiencies and mineral limits. Although it is very difficult to give a global limit to the expansion of solar power, an overview of the land and materials needed for large scale implementation show that many of the estimations found in the literature are hardly compatible with the rest of human activities.”
Global solar electric potential: A review of their technical and sustainable limits
Carlos de Castroa, , ,
Margarita Mediavillab,
Luis Javier Miguelb,
Fernando Frechosoc
a Applied Physics, Campus Miguel Delibes, University of Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain
b Systems Engineering and Automatic Control, Paseo del Cauce s/n, University of Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain
c Electric Engineering, Francisco Mendizabal s/n, University of Valladolid, Spain
Abstract
Despite the fact that renewable energies offer a great theoretical potential of energy and that most of them have only a small share of global primary and final consumption (less than 2% of final World energy consumption was provided by wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and biofuels together) [1], their limits should be carefully analyzed. While other methodologies are based on theoretical efficiencies of renewable energies, generous estimations of effective global surface that could be occupied by the renewable infrastructure and/or ignore the mineral reserve limits, our assessment is based on a top-down methodology (de Castro et al. 2 and 3) that takes into account real present and foreseeable future efficiencies and surface occupation of technologies, land competence and other limits such as mineral reserves.
We have focused here on the net density power (electric averaged watts per square meter, We/m2) and compared our top-down assessment, based on real examples, with …
New study finds electric vehicles are the worst polluters in US, China, India
New study finds electric vehicles are the worst polluters in US, China, India
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-study-finds-electric-vehicles-are.html
“A joint American-Chinese research report (Shuguang, Ji et. al: Electric Vehicles in China: Emissions and Health Impacts) proves that vehicles powered by electricity from coal-fired power stations result in more soot emissions per passenger kilometre than cars powered by petrol and diesel. Compared with petrol and diesel powered vehicles, electric vehicles therefore turn out to be the worst polluters in large countries like China, India and the US. Other critics highlight vehicle manufacture, where batteries also have a climate-related cost. Anders Hammer Strømman and his colleagues at NTNU have, for example, discovered that the building of an electric car causes about twice as much greenhouse gases to be emitted as during the construction of a petrol- or diesel-powered vehicle.””Motorists often need a year’s experience of driving [electric] cars to feel safe with them in all seasons of the year.”Electric Transport With Wind in Its SailsSep. 13, 2013 — Researchers are aiming to remove the electric car market’s biggest problem — the fear of not reaching the next charging station.
Both in Norway and in Europe there is considerable interest in facilitating electric mobility and removing polluting goods and passenger transport from towns. There are critics out there, and European vehicle sales give no cause for rejoicing, since only 0.2 per cent of private cars sold are electrically powered. However, Norway saw a doubling of sales last year, with a total of 4,009 cars, and the number of electric cars on Norwegian roads is now around 11,000.Simpler charging is also on its way, and the cost-effectiveness of electric goods vehicles and electric buses is being tested on Norwegian roads.Electric cars call for experienced drivers”One of the main challenges in getting more people to choose electric cars is the fear that their batteries will run flat and they won’t find anywhere to charge them,” says Liv Øvstedal at SINTEF. “Although a new generation of electric cars is now on its way, offering rapid charging and a greater range, we realise that the problem of charging and charging stations concerns people who are thinking of buying a new car. “The cold, damp Norwegian climate represents an added burden for electric car owners. Motorists often need a year’s experience of driving the cars to feel safe with them in all seasons of the year.”Communication platform in the carTransport researchers at …
National Academy of Sciences: Climate modeling not meeting needs of users — usefulness decades away
National Academy of Sciences: Climate modeling not meeting needs of users — usefulness decades away
From the new National Academy of Sciences report on climate modeling: Computer models that simulate the climate are an integral part of providing climate information, in particular for future changes in the climate. Overall, climate modeling has made enormous progress in the past several decades, but meeting the information needs of users will require further […]
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Shock admission ahead of IPCC report: National Academy of Sciences says climate models not ready for decision-making
Shock admission ahead of IPCC report: National Academy of Sciences says climate models not ready for decision-making
From the new National Academy of Sciences report on climate modeling: As the scope of climate models has expanded, so has the need to validate and improve them. Enormous progress has been made in the past several decades in improving the utility and robustness of climate models, but more is needed to meet the desires […]
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Manmade greenhouse warming to date offset by ‘uncertain amount’ of manmade cooling, says National Academy of Sciences
Manmade greenhouse warming to date offset by ‘uncertain amount’ of manmade cooling, says National Academy of Sciences
From the new National Academy of Sciences report on climate modeling: Current climate models are calibrated during their development process to match observations within reasonable uncertainty ranges. However, the warming to date due to greenhouse gas increases has been partially compensated by an uncertain amount of cooling caused by human-induced enhancement of light scattering by […]…
Bloomberg News editorializing to US coal industry: Knuckle under to Obama climate rules or ‘die’
Bloomberg News to US coal industry: Knuckle under to Obama climate rules or ‘die’
Bloomberg News editorializes: The coal industry is warning that proposed federal regulations on new coal-fired power plants will effectively ban their construction. To which there are at least three rational responses: First, what new plants? Second, probably not forever. Third, that might not be a bad thing… And what if, despite all that, the coal […]
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Can’t get enuf: Climate models erroneously overestimated Global warming figures — 97% failure (talk about consensus)
Can’t get enuf: Climate models erroneously overestimated Global warming figures — 97% failure (talk about consensus)
Pentagon News reports: A new study which was conducted by the Nature Climate Change, compared 117 climate predictions of 1990’s to the actual warming. The study found that out of the 117 predictions, only 3 predictions were accurate which the remaining 114 predictions were overestimated. The predictions were on an average two times more global […]
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