Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[donsutherland1]

In the wake of the historic heatwaves that rolled through Europe smashing all-time records (including setting 55% of the all-time record highs for France's 1,050 weather stations), it seems that the climate change deniers are in somewhat of a frenzy to redirect public attention from what happened and the underlying scientific basis. That scientific basis concerning the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic driver is now all but unequivocal overall, despite the existence of some residual uncertainties.

Two recent examples from Social Media:

Joe Bastardi: "Classic horribly biased reporting, BBC puts this out, but refuses to acknowledge that the planet is greener than ever in the satellite era. guess pictures of the greening earth won't lead to deception I dare the BBC to put that latter picture up, the reality of what is going on"

Tom Nelson: "'Forward projections of solar cyclicity imply the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming, despite continuing CO2 emissions' #NIPCC"

Reality is different. The denial that is underway has nothing to do with science. It is a rejection of science and the scientific method. A recent paper published in Nature Human Behavior distinguishes between scientific skepticism and the "science denialism" being advanced to mislead the public about climate change.

Science denialism must not be confused with scepticism. Scepticism towards scientific propositions is a crucial element of science itself. In fact, it functions as a driving force of scientific debates and increases the quality of new propositions via mechanisms such as peer review and the replication of experimental research. The common ground of this functional scepticism is the scientific ethos that scientists use data to update their prior beliefs regardless of the outcome. However, in contrast to functional scepticism, science deniers accept evidence only if it confirms their prior beliefs--that usually contradict the scientific consensus. This dysfunctional scepticism is driven by how the denier would like things to be rather than what he has evidence for, making science denialism a motivated rejection of science.

https://t.co/jysNBwsVA2

Bastardi's point ignores a key point about the "greening" that is underway: Arctic warming is leading to plant growth in a region that previously was too cold to support it. In other words, this plant growth provides confirmation of the climate change that Bastardi rejects.

For more than 35 years, satellites circling the Arctic have detected a “greening” trend in Earth’s northernmost landscapes. Scientists have attributed this verdant flush to more vigorous plant growth and a longer growing season, propelled by higher temperatures that come with climate change. But recently, satellites have been picking up a decline in tundra greenness in some parts of the Arctic. Those areas appear to be “browning.”

Like the salmonberry harvesters on the Kenai Peninsula, ecologists working on the ground have witnessed browning up close at field sites across the circumpolar Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland to northern Norway and Sweden. Yet the bushes bereft of berries and the tinder-dry heaths (low-growing shrubland) haven’t always been picked up by the satellites. The low-resolution sensors may have averaged out the mix of dead and living vegetation and failed to detect the browning.

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-ecosystems-greener-arctic.html

Nelson has cited solar activity to advance calls for global cooling to get underway. Yet, global temperatures continue to rise with little credible evidence of a decline and profound evidence of a decoupling from solar activity.

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/1880-1920base.png

The global temperature trend has diverged from solar irradiance. NASA observed:

One of the “smoking guns” that tells us the Sun is not causing global warming comes from looking at the amount of the Sun’s energy that hits the top of the atmosphere. Since 1978, scientists have been tracking this using sensors on satellites and what they tell us is that there has been no upward trend in the amount of the Sun’s energy reaching Earth.

A second smoking gun is that if the Sun were responsible for global warming, we would expect to see warming throughout all layers of the atmosphere, from the surface all the way up to the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). But what we actually see is warming at the surface and cooling in the stratosphere. This is consistent with the warming being caused by a build-up of heat-trapping gases near the surface of the Earth, and not by the Sun getting “hotter.”

https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/14/is-the-sun-causing-global-warming/

It is imperative that the public be able to sort fact from fiction. The body of literature on climate change is large and growing.

When it comes to the noisy movement to deny climate change, a good starting point is to ask why those who deny it have refused to put their ideas to peer review. It is easy to fire empty cannons from the sidelines. Peer review requires that one's ideas hold up to rigorous scrutiny that is a defining attribute of science. But, as noted above, science denialism is a rejection of science. Thus, the peer review channel is avoided.

[BillT]

to claim the SUN does NOT cause global warming is utterly insane........

[SN_Lover]

8 minutes ago, BillT said:

to claim the SUN does NOT cause global warming is utterly insane........

Wow. What a comment. XD

[BillT]

One of the “smoking guns” that tells us the Sun is not causing global warming ..........that clearly says the SUN does NOT cause warming on earth........ they said 55% of records were broken which means 45% were NOT broken and it was warmer in the past......the climate is the PAST weather stats averaged, it is NOT a force, has no power and does NOT cause any weather event.

[donsutherland1]

57 minutes ago, BillT said:

to claim the SUN does NOT cause global warming is utterly insane........

I didn't say anything like that. Instead, I stated that recent changes in solar activity do not explain the ongoing observed warming. That is the point made by NASA, which I quoted.

There has been a decoupling of the temperature trend (rising) from solar activity (relatively stable since the 1960s with some fluctuations).

[BillT]

dons i made no mention of you.......they made that rather silly claim and now you posted this "(relatively stable since the 1960s with some fluctuations)."   that clearly says there have been fluctuations since the 60's = NOT a constant rate of incoming from the sun.......to rule out the SUN and blame human released co2 for the warming remains INSANE.......

[bdgwx]

1 hour ago, BillT said:

One of the “smoking guns” that tells us the Sun is not causing global warming ..........that clearly says the SUN does NOT cause warming on earth........ they said 55% of records were broken which means 45% were NOT broken and it was warmer in the past......the climate is the PAST weather stats averaged, it is NOT a force, has no power and does NOT cause any weather event.

No one is saying that the Sun can't ever be a significant agent for a warming event. What is being is said is that the Sun is not a significant agent for THIS particular warming event. And there's not just one line of evidence used to base that claim from. There's actually multiple lines of evidence; many of them quite convincing. Haven't I gone over all this with you before?

 

[BillT]

this particular warming event? it was warmer in 1998  than now, there is NO ongoing warming at this time.........

[Fantom X]

My personal opinion is that there are forces at work from both sides of the coin. AGW doing it's thing on warming (3.7 w/m² for doubling of CO2) but the "sun" and "GSM" doing it's thing on trying to cool the planet (decrease TSI (very minor), cosmic rays and the relationship to cloud cover and rain and increased volcanic activity). Question is though, by how much? If there was no AGW warming at all, what would the average global temperature be at this point in time? 

On the flip side, whatever the issue is, we still have to shy away from fossil fuels. For the simple reasons of pollution and dependency. Even if AWG did not exist, fossil fuels will run out and that in itself would be catastrophic if we do not start our process of going to renewable energy sources now. 

[donsutherland1]

14 minutes ago, BillT said:

this particular warming event? it was warmer in 1998  than now, there is NO ongoing warming at this time.........

Through June, 2019 is running well ahead of 1998 in terms of its global anomaly (just under 0.98°C above the baseline vs. 1998's 0.69°C above the baseline on GISS). Overall, through the first six months of the year, 2019 ranked 3rd warmest. 1998 ranked 10th warmest.

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/

[bdgwx]

20 minutes ago, BillT said:

this particular warming event? it was warmer in 1998  than now, there is NO ongoing warming at this time.........

According to a 5yr moving average from a consensus of many surface based datasets the warming trend is about +0.15C/decade from 1958 to 2018. Note that solar activity peaked in the late 1950's. And from 1998 to 2018 that trend is likely over +0.20C/decade. Oceanic Heat Content (OHC) is increasing at a rate of 10e21 joules/yr with OHC breaking records pretty much on a yearly basis now. The energy imbalance on the planet is at least +0.6 W/m^2 as of 2019. 

[BillT]

the ranking of warmest is based on hundredths of a degree a precision we do not have the ability yet to find.

[SN_Lover]

2 hours ago, BillT said:

the ranking of warmest is based on hundredths of a degree a precision we do not have the ability yet to find.

You're making yourself look silly at this point with this anecdotal garbage.

[BillT]

note i make no personal remarks about any poster.......how was my factual post silly please?.......the measurement used in is hundredths of a degree and our precision in gathering the data is nowhere  near that exact.......the above graph shows warming when coming out of a colder period, how is that unusual please?

[donsutherland1]

13 hours ago, BillT said:

the ranking of warmest is based on hundredths of a degree a precision we do not have the ability yet to find.

It should be noted that even if temperatures are measured in whole degrees, averaging over the entire global network over yearly periods can result in values that involve hundredths, thousandths, etc. In any case, the January-June 2019 vs. January-June 1998 average was nearly 0.3 degrees C.

[donsutherland1]

During the natural climate cycles of the past 2,000 years, the timing of peak cold and warm periods (top 51 years) during each cycle differed globally. This time, the ongoing current warm period is starkly different. Instead, the timing of the peak warming (so far, as the warming is continuing) is astonishingly uniform. This suggests an outcome (impact of growing greenhouse gas forcing) that has largely overwhelmed "regionally specific mechanisms."

A newly published paper explains:

In contrast to the spatial heterogeneity of the preindustrial era, the highest probability for peak warming over the entire Common Era (Fig. 3c) is found in the late twentieth century almost everywhere (98% of global surface area), except for Antarctica, where contemporary warming has not yet been observed over the entire continent. Thus, even though the recent warming rates are not entirely homogeneous over the globe, with isolated areas showing little warming or even cooling, the climate system is now in a state of global temperature coherence that is unprecedented over the Common Era...

Against this regional framing, perhaps our most striking result is the exceptional spatiotemporal coherence during the warming of the twentieth century. This result provides further evidence of the unprecedented nature of anthropogenic global warming in the context of the past 2,000 years.

The above chart is from the referenced paper.

The complete paper can be found at:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2.epdf

[donsutherland1]

This is what denial looks like.

The BBC reported:

The top 10 warmest years on record in the UK have all occurred since 2002, a new analysis from the Met Office says.

Its State of the UK Climate report shows that 2014 remains the warmest year in a temperature sequence now dating back to 1884.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49167797

The underlying report, which is packed with data, can be found at: https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/joc.6213

Tom Nelson tweeted the following response, "Sounds like complete BS to me: 'UK's 10 warmest years all occurred since 2002' - BBC News"

https://twitter.com/tan123/status/1156527168572272640

When it comes to science, "sounds like" isn't a sufficient basis for arriving at a conclusion. It is nothing more than an evasion aimed at circumventing the rigor of the scientific method and its emphasis on evidence.In other words, he reached a conclusion without evidence, without data, without anything of substance to inform it. Put another way, his conclusion is little more than a conspiracy theory based on the implied premise that science and scientists are misleading the world.

With respect to such conspiracy theories, the Oxford Research Encyclopedias explains:

Conspiracy theories that accuse government of perverting science often view the conspirators as having socialist or totalitarian aims. Some Americans, Canadians, and others have objected to the government inclusion of fluoride into drinking water (Carstairs & Elder, 2008; Newbrun & Horowitz, 1999; Oliver & Wood, 2014b). They argued first that there was a conspiracy of silence to hide the negative side effects from an unsuspecting public (Connett, Beck, & Micklem, 2010), but also that fluoridation was the first step in a growing expansion of government control over an individual’s life, part of a trend in America toward socialism or totalitarianism … once the precedent was set for using public drinking water to medicate the population, the government would argue for the addition of birth control medication, or sedatives or an "anti-hostility" drug. (Reilly, 2006, p. 329)...

Climate change denialist conspiracy theories often follow the same logic as other conspiracy theories accusing government. These conspiracy theories make a series of interrelated and often interchangeable claims: (1) that ideological organizations, including government, have used grant money to pervert the science; (2) that the peer-review process has become tainted by an oligarchy of scientists seeking to suppress dissent; (3) that climate science is less about science and more about socialist ideology; and (4) that larger international groups have faked climate science as a scheme to achieve global wealth redistribution or one-world government (Douglas & Sutton, 2015; Goertzel, 2010, 2013; Hurley & Walker, 2004).

https://oxfordre.com/climatescience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228620-e-328

In the end, when it comes to such flippant responses of denial, the public should reject them absent credible and sufficient evidence to support them. They should not be accepted at face value, especially in the absence of evidence. The absence of evidence reveals them for what they are, one variant in a range of conspiracy theories aimed at discrediting science and scientists.

[Typhoon Tip]

Deniers deny because they can.

That simple.

If a person is standing on a train track and there is a one-eyed headlight monster roaring and rumbling metallic horn blowin' warnings at them ...they'll be less apt to deny how standing on said tracks would be detriment to their well-being... 

The problem with Human response to this crisis ...particularly as it relates to the slowness and/or stopping the denying "idiocracy" ... we simply cannot hear, see, touch, smell, or feel AGW or GW or whatever comfortable or uncomfortable euphemism there is that labels what's going on with the planet.  

When that happens, the denying will stop. 

But for the interim... it's not in a guy's living room...  It's not stopping them from driving to work.   Taking their kids to Soccer.  Going on that family vacation... sitting around and opening presents on Christmas morning ( if that's your bag...).   

All there is are dire warnings that attack the ability to engage in all that... 

A human being... which billions of create this thing we call Humanity ... never react to warnings.  They only agree to them in principle.  What resonates is pain - it has to register as an inconvenience to the corporeal senses...  That's perhaps an evolutionary catch-22 ( as a digression...) but, we have evolved now the ability and ingenuity to improve survival chances ...beyond ecological balance.... Which Terra-forms this world whether we are intending to or not... and...more likely toward a realm that is no longer going to sustain those same advancements.  That's the C-2-2    We are capable of these advances... but the capacity to predict and anticipate consequence for action has not kept pace with the powers of ingenuity. 

In the mean time, it's a nice summer day out there ...and that's the validation for the warnings - good luck.   

[donsutherland1]

The following is an example of the kind of scientific illiteracy and efforts at disinformation that climate scientists must combat in order to ensure that the public has accurate information concerning climate change.

Excerpts from an article by Anthony Watts:

The media are abuzz over the first icy “casualty” of climate change: a small glacier in Iceland named Okjökull, also known as “OK.”

The claim, made in a press release from Rice University, is that OK became the first glacier in Iceland to lose its glacial status because of global warming...

As the U.S. Geological Survey noted, OK is actually an icecap on top of a volcano — located on a volcanically active Iceland.  Yes, OK is slowly disappearing, but it is completely disingenuous to say climate change is without any doubt the main reason for OK’s demise.

Even if we assume there’s no heat from the volcano, what else could be causing OK’s ice loss?  To answer that question, you need to understand how glaciers work.  According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):

"A glacier forms when snow accumulates over time, turns to ice, and begins to flow outwards and downwards under the pressure of its own weight[.] … Glacier retreat, melt, and ablation result from increasing temperature, evaporation, and wind scouring. Ablation is a natural and seasonal part of glacier life. As long as snow accumulation equals or is greater than melt and ablation, a glacier will remain in balance or even grow. Once winter snowfall decreases, or summer melt increases, the glacier will begin to retreat."

If snow is not added, glaciers don’t grow, and they naturally lose ice due to sublimation, ablation, and melt.  I don’t think these people pushing OK’s death fully understand glaciers.  The process of ice loss in a high-latitude glacier is mainly due to three things, with temperature coming in last.

http://blog.heartland.org/2019/08/the-reports-of-icelands-glacial-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/

Now the facts:

First, there is no credible evidence to implicate the volcano. Indeed, Mr. Watts claims the volcano may or may not be responsible. The volcano is, in fact, dormant and perhaps extinct. The OK volcano isn't even listed in the modern eruption record, as no known eruptions have occurred for millennia or longer.

https://volcano.si.edu/database/search_volcano_results.cfm

Second, the NSIDC language Watts quotes notes the role of temperature (underlined), "Glacier retreat, melt, and ablation result from increasing temperature, evaporation, and wind scouring..." Notice the NSIDC language never ranks the role of temperature, even as temperature is the first factor cited. Mr. Watts subjectively injects personal opinion into his piece.

Temperature has played a large role. The Arctic has experienced unprecedented warmth during the instrument record and rapid warming over the past 50 years. The data can be found at:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt (64N-90N)

Third, the dramatic retreat of the OK glacier is not an isolated event. Worldwide, glaciers have largely been retreating. That broad retreat has been documented in numerous scientific papers. One such paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2863

Further, most of those glaciers don't sit atop volcanoes.

In sum, Mr. Watts ranked the role of temperature based on a read of the NSIDC's language on glaciers that is inconsistent with the intellectual integrity of that language. He engaged in speculation about a volcano's possible role without looking into the facts about that volcano. In the end, Mr. Watts, who has no background in climate science, much less the study of glaciers, reached an unsupported conclusion that has no foundation in the scientific literature. It is pure opinion spiced with baseless speculation. Its purpose is not to inform, but to mislead.

 

[BillT]

the above post is a vicious attack on an honest person.........Iceland IS a highly active volcano  area, to claim there is nothing to support the claim some heat could be coming from under OK is just a LIE.

[Typhoon Tip]

On 7/29/2019 at 3:34 PM, Fantom X said:

My personal opinion is that there are forces at work from both sides of the coin. AGW doing it's thing on warming (3.7 w/m² for doubling of CO2) but the "sun" and "GSM" doing it's thing on trying to cool the planet (decrease TSI (very minor), cosmic rays and the relationship to cloud cover and rain and increased volcanic activity). Question is though, by how much? If there was no AGW warming at all, what would the average global temperature be at this point in time? 

On the flip side, whatever the issue is, we still have to shy away from fossil fuels. For the simple reasons of pollution and dependency. Even if AWG did not exist, fossil fuels will run out and that in itself would be catastrophic if we do not start our process of going to renewable energy sources now. 

Firstly ... I like the opening thought here ...  There are indeed vying forces ...some more dominant than others, in every multiplex system of Nature - to which the governing atmosphere/climate forces certainly fall into this give and take.   

Secondly ... you know it's funny - this business about "fossil" fuels...  It took this planet some 100's of millions of years to sequester carbon out of the global biota ...and inter it all into these VOC chemistries ...  then, Humanity comes along.  With its ingenuity ( which has clearly out-paced any pragmatic checks and balances in the evolutionary sense of it...) we've managed ( ..if left to our own devices ) to liberate all of it back to environment in unbounded form in just 1,000 years.

100s of millions

1,000

The idea that there is anyone at all who would have the audacity to even try and ask anyone to negate ramification - ...that's incredible.  I suppose it is possible ( tho proven not the case on Earth...) to find a system somewhere in Nature where you can completely forcibly infuse change without actually witnessing change ... 

 

 

[donsutherland1]

34 minutes ago, BillT said:

the above post is a vicious attack on an honest person.........Iceland IS a highly active volcano  area, to claim there is nothing to support the claim some heat could be coming from under OK is just a LIE.

It's not an "attack" on person. It's an attack on deeply flawed article that has little to do with science. Noting that Watts does not have a background in climate science and is not an expert in the area of glaciers are both facts. Indeed, if one wants further details, there's question as to whether he, in fact, completed his college studies.

http://sourcewatch.org/images/4/4d/Anthony_Watts.pdf

That wasn't the point. Thus, the issue about his not possessing expertise in climate science and glaciers was noted. Nothing was mentioned about the above controversy. The major focus was on the flawed article he had written.

Iceland is a volcanically active region, but not every volcano is active. The OK Volcano last erupted during the Pleistocene Epoch and may well be extinct. If it is extinct, there's no heat. Watts also posted the NSIDC quote. Nowhere does the quote issue any ranking concerning temperature, much less the claim of "temperature coming in last" as factors related to the retreat of glaciers.

Were the Watts framework accepted, OK's retreat would be a relatively rare case due to unique circumstances (location atop a volcano, setting aside that the volcano is dormant and possibly extinct). Instead, as the paper to which I provided a hyperlink (which is one from among numerous studies related to global glacier trends), OK's retreat is part of a broader global trend where glaciers across the world are generally in retreat, even as many of those glaciers are not located atop volcanoes.

Why is this the case? If not volcanoes, what factor do they have in common?

The global data make the common factor unmistakably clear: temperatures are rising. Multiple high-quality datasets (HadCrut, GISS, NCDC, Berkeley, Copernicus) all show this trend. Further, 98% of the globe has experienced the warmest 50 years on record (Common Era).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2.epdf

Instead, Watts discounted the importance of temperature (something NSIDC had not done). At the same time, he omitted any mention of the Arctic temperature record. That's a material omission. Further, Iceland is expected to continue its ongoing robust warming trend, which has contributed to OK's retreat.

https://en.vedur.is/media/vedurstofan-utgafa-2017/VI_2017_009.pdf

[donsutherland1]

New research has revealed that solar power has reached grid parity in China’s cities. Such an outcome in which new technologies become cost effective with scale and experience has been the norm with major technologies that move from the introductory to the growth phase. 

The abstract is below:

We reveal that all of these cities can achieve—without subsidies—solar PV electricity prices lower than grid-supplied prices, and around 22% of the cities’ solar generation electricity prices can compete with desulfurized coal benchmark electricity prices.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0441-z

[Typhoon Tip]

There are solutions to the entire power-grid aspect of this that are completely obscured(ing) from masses.  Partially by design ... partially by habit. 

There are "exotic" technologies in the private sector that no on even knows about ...buried, quietly... be it Trumpian morality and ethics, ...or just the hand-me-down dogmas of generational traditionalism within people's ways of life - basically ...culturally suppressed.  But because of the suppression ... oblivion, and what probably should be more obvious has to now be 'out of the box thinking.'  It's not that it is out of the box, ...it's just that we've been conditioned by a combination of convenience and apathy not to consider.    

It is possible to sequester electrical charge straight out of the ambient atmosphere. 

Yup... free energy.  But therein is the problem ... that poke in the craw of the sociopath, "free" ... "hmmm... shit.  That means I don't get to con Humanity into dependency on Oil and other pernicious means of energy extraction ... wantonly ignoring morality along the way in reaching the goals of my quarterly reports ...!  God damn it..."    It kind of reminds me of the "Mosquito Coast"  

Think about it - even you are not a physicist ...you should be able to intuit the plausibility.  There can be a way to draw power directly from any gaseous volume that contains energy (thermal resonance) greater than absolute zero - ... we're living on a planet where there is just such a volume, and guess what... it's got so much thermal energy in the free static air that any quantization would be so large a number, it would escape all effective meaning...  And, these devices have been invented... It's called the thermoelectric effect ...basically, it's theoretically known spanning multiple generations... where it is possible to convert temperature differences, directly to electric voltage ... ( and vice versa...which could be harnessed in home heating and cooling without too much imagination ... etct) And it's all done through the physics of thermocoupling ... ...etc..etc.. 

But nope - Humans can't seem to evolve away from that pesky evolutionary advantage that no one would ever concede was necessary along the way:        GREED...     Hoarding and me-firstitude favors the individual. See...the way that works ( crude model): when the collective cooperation spirit of the community is about to cause the extinction of the village    that hoarder survives his/her genes into the next generation - greed lives... It is why greed is actually a core instinct along with all others, in the genetic make-up of humans. It's sneaky, stealthy ...furtive presence in all dealings has piggybacked along with cooperation instinct along the evolutionary tract.

Any moral ( morals can be bad or good by the way...) we can learn to avoid them?  ...suppress is more like it... But, greed is no longer necessary in times of surplus and opulence ...and at present state of evolution, human ingenuity has long outfoxed the basic ecological model of survival by provisions therein.  We produce our own provisions...is surplus.   Perhaps if the asteroid does strike one day, or the Carrington Event shuts this thing done and there's an immediate jolt back to primal living ...greed will have it's stealthy place again... But until that happens... it's an instinct that hasn't turned off...but is causing all this...  And is hugely exposed. Because it's morality is now competing with the morality and ethics of that which would provided a greener vision for the world. 

That's really all it is... that simple.   Humans can't do anything truly altruistic.  Nope.  They have to invent a illusory system of value, Economics... ( which sorry for the soulless among us who are so bought in they're oblivious to reality... money has no intrinsic value outside the parlance and tragic comedy of Human affairs - we all merely agree on it's value... ) and then hold individual's ability to survive for ransom by making profit off that dependency 

[etudiant]

20 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

New research has revealed that solar power has reached grid parity in China’s cities. Such an outcome in which new technologies become cost effective with scale and experience has been the norm with major technologies that move from the introductory to the growth phase. 

The abstract is below:

We reveal that all of these cities can achieve—without subsidies—solar PV electricity prices lower than grid-supplied prices, and around 22% of the cities’ solar generation electricity prices can compete with desulfurized coal benchmark electricity prices.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0441-z

The challenge however is not only cost per kWhr, it is for reliable power.

The lower cost of the solar is no help on a cold winter night, unless there is reliable backup, whether fossil fueled, nuclear or battery or some other technology. Those costs must be considered in any realistic evaluation. The attraction of the fossil and nuclear generators is that they work reliably 24/7. Getting the infrastructure and the people to accept something more erratic will not be easy or cheap.

The recent UK blackout is an illustration of the problem.  Note that in theory, a globally connected very high power grid might be the answer, but politics do not seem to favor this supranational option.

[donsutherland1]

1 hour ago, etudiant said:

The challenge however is not only cost per kWhr, it is for reliable power.

The lower cost of the solar is no help on a cold winter night, unless there is reliable backup, whether fossil fueled, nuclear or battery or some other technology. Those costs must be considered in any realistic evaluation. The attraction of the fossil and nuclear generators is that they work reliably 24/7. Getting the infrastructure and the people to accept something more erratic will not be easy or cheap.

The recent UK blackout is an illustration of the problem.  Note that in theory, a globally connected very high power grid might be the answer, but politics do not seem to favor this supranational option.

Multiple steps are required. Bringing about cost parity and later cost superiority (lower costs) is one part of the larger problem. Expansion of the application, including but not limited to issues related to storage is another. Redundancy will still be needed for the foreseeable future, even if solar power ultimately becomes the primary source of electricity.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

1 hour ago, donsutherland1 said:

Multiple steps are required. Bringing about cost parity and later cost superiority (lower costs) is one part of the larger problem. Expansion of the application, including but not limited to issues related to storage is another. Redundancy will still be needed for the foreseeable future, even if solar power ultimately becomes the primary source of electricity.

The real challenge is for cheaper and more effective solar cells. I saw something on solar cells that were super thin like film and this flexible. They could hypothetically be wrapped around pretty much any object. That’s the holy grail of solar technology. 

[donsutherland1]

2 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

The real challenge is for cheaper and more effective solar cells. I saw something on solar cells that were super thin like film and this flexible. They could hypothetically be wrapped around pretty much any object. That’s the holy grail of solar technology. 

I agree. I suspect that such technology isn’t too far in the future (probably a decade or less away).

[etudiant]

19 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Multiple steps are required. Bringing about cost parity and later cost superiority (lower costs) is one part of the larger problem. Expansion of the application, including but not limited to issues related to storage is another. Redundancy will still be needed for the foreseeable future, even if solar power ultimately becomes the primary source of electricity.

That redundancy costs a lot of money. Overall, one pays for 2 complete power systems. That makes everyone so much poorer.

I'd much rather see the money spent on low emission nuclear, because it is 24/7 available, so it folds seamlessly into the grid. The associated pollution issues are less imho than the massive problems generated by rare earth extraction for wind power generators or area coverage with solar collectors.

[csnavywx]

Nuclear would be significantly cheaper than trying to build out massive storage systems. While daily storage seems like a solvable problem in the medium term, seasonal storage does not. Baseload nuclear takes care of that pretty neatly and much sooner. Part of the reason solar and wind are so cheap is that they displace generation only at the margin and are at relatively low penetration. Once you get past a certain penetration (I believe 10-15% for solar atm), it becomes significantly more expensive because of the aforementioned intermittency problem.  Wind is even worse, because (at least here in the US), climo wind peaks are in November and March, not exactly the time of year where you need power the most.

As part of a legit climate plan, I'd be up for subsidizing and standardizing nuclear in a hurry. Build a bunch of standardized current-gen reactors and work on getting a standardized design for 20-30 years from now. It's probably the fastest way to bring emissions down. And we need speed -- the hour is late. We seem to be screaming along at 2.5-3ppm/yr, which is putting us dangerously close to a RCP 6.0-8.5 scenario through mid-century.