Man Based Global Warming....

Acdii,

That may be your point and you are sticking to it,,, but what if you are wrong,, and 96% of peer reviewed journal articles are right?

"See, there is more than one theory behind the answer to why the planet is warming, but none of them except for the rise in CO2 can be played out as a human cause to the general public."

I can theorize anything I wish,, but in order to gain much traction I need to have some reproducible results to sustain that theory. Just because I say pigs can fly doesn't make it so.

I applaud your desire to make a bigger impact by doing things like Pv solar, geothermal etc. The reality is that there are thousands of things that you can do to reduce your energy use that will in the end reduce the cost of many alternatives.

I am very active in the solar business,, and the first thing we tell people who wish to install some solar, do conservation first,, followed by more conservation and finally still more conservation. Roughly every dollar spent on conservation will save about $10 in Pv cost. Do all these things come with a cost? Yes, but the pay offs can be very quick. With the combination of utility rebates/state and federal tax credits etc the price of installed solar Pv has never been cheaper net/net and depending on your utility costs and metering scheme can be as short as ~8 years. And that doesn't factor in the inevitable cost increases that we know will come during that 8 years.

For example we heat ~75% of our hot water on a year round basis with a simple homemade system that cost ~$600,,paying off in a couple of years, this in the grey Pacific NW. We also live much of the year off grid where we produce 100% of our power with Pv.

One other thing to note to those that are considering Pv solar. There is almost never any reason to need nor want batteries in a Pv system UNLESS grid power is not available. Battery based off grid or hybrid grid tie systems double the installed cost and reduce the efficiency dramatically. Remember, once your batteries are fully charged your excess solar just goes to waste in most cases. With grid tie all you Pv in excess of your consumption goes to the grid to be used by someone else. In many cases with real time of day metering,, you can sell power to the grid at peak time/peak prices, and then buy back at night at cheaper price. The net/net is that you can have a zero utility bill EVEN if you consume more power than you generate!

I'm not suggesting that Pv solar is for everyone nor is it a cure all for all that is wrong with the planet,, but to accept that "solar is too expensive" or " it will never be viable" is just plain misinformed.

You ask how people are going to be able to pay their utility bills. The short answer is if we do nothing, the price of energy is going to go up. If we attack the causes of global warming EVEN IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT EXISTS with rational public policy that encourages conservation, alternative energy etc, and we use the tax system to both fund such efforts (great stimulus by the way!) and to discourage wasteful consumption and to encourage REAL R&D then perhaps your children and grand children will live in a viable environment AND they will be able to pay their energy bills.

I will repeat on more famous reality. Modern fridges use ~1/4 as much power as those produced 15-20 years ago, AND on a per cubic foot basis they have gotten cheaper. When California mandated the"nutty" environmental law to require that fridges in California meet this standard it was widely assaulted with claims that "we won't be able to buy fridges" and "manufacturers will go out of business" Ges what happened,,, neither. Our fridges use less energy, cost less to by, and manufacturers are still around!

Icarus

 

Why are you so hung up (no pun intended) on the Female Urination Device?

 

Agreed (believe it or not). There is a place for public policy. And sometimes, the nutty CA policies work out for the better. In some cases not though.

I believe CARB back in the '90s mandated a zero emission vehicle requirement for automakers (effectively an electric vehicle mandate). It had to be repealed from what I recall because nobody - even to this day - can produce a cost-effective electric vehicle. In this case, the policy really did not drive the technology. True, the automakers fought it. But it seems apparent now - that even with strong demand for such vehicles from consumers - even mighty Toyota can't deliver such a vehicle. Maybe soon.

The trick seems to be in identifying ahead of time when such a policy can bring about realistic benefits and when it cannot.

 

Polar bear expert barred from the Copenhagen shindig because he is skeptical of warmist fear-mongering. This is how 'consensus scientists' maintain the consensus.

Polar bear expert barred by global warmists - Telegraph

Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.
This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN's major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world's leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with those of the rest of the group.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

 

from The Washington Post
The ‘Cap And Tax’ Dead End
By Sarah Palin
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America’s unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won’t bring jobs. Our nation’s debt is unsustainable, and the federal government’s reach into the private sector is unprecedented.
Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.
In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will “necessarily skyrocket.” So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, “poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity.”
We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.
In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama’s plan will result in the latter.
For so many reasons, we can’t afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?
Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama’s energy cap-and-tax plan.

The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.

 

First, "Global Warming" is now back to "Global Cooling" or as they put it now, "Climate Change". The past few years has seen a drop in temps globally. The theory is that the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more temps will rise, but that has not been the case, and that is what my argument is, and has been.

Second, the method they are using to curb CO2 emissions is very poor. A 1400+ page document, that was voted on, THAT NO ONE READ! Not EVEN the guy who wrote part of it read the whole thing!!

A reasonable approach to curb emissions, making it easier for people to purchase hybrids, incentives for manufacturers to build better power supplies, increased funding for algae conversion systems for power plants, making the process to build nuclear power plants, wind farms, etc. I am all for it. This bill they are trying to send through may have some incentives for nuclear and wind/solar, but the majority of it is nothing more than a huge tax bill. In a time of economic downfall, raising taxes on those who are lucky enough to still have a job is not the way to go.

Even if this bill only taxes companies that produce emissions, they will trickle the cost down to all consumers, and it will not cost them a dime! The end user is the one who always pays the price for any kind of tax. Look at what they wanted to do when Mobil made a huge profit, they wanted to tax Mobil, and if they did, guess what would have happened, they would raise the price of their goods to make up the difference.

Bottom line, there is the right way, and the wrong way to do it, and right now, all I see is the wrong way.

 

I know you guys live by newspapers and blogs, but could we keep the discussion to peer-reviewed publications? Or at least stories with verifiable sources? Otherwise we waste each others time discussing unverifiable agenda-driven opinion.

 

If true, this only shows that we don't have a free-market economy. In a free-market economy where the consumer has lots of choices, taxes can't be passed through because supply-and-demand rules. When oligopolies set prices, taxes are passed through. That's why our oligopolies complain less about high taxes than small businesses.

But the point of a carbon tax is to make sure that we are each paying for the real cost of our addiction. We're already paying when the uninsured child downwind from the oil refinery gets asthma and we pay their doctors and the hospitals. This way it's just more obvious that the real cost of a gallon of gas includes health costs too.

 

Robbyr2

BINGO!

Of course consumers ultimately pay all the corporate taxes! I don't think we have every argued otherwise.

I go back to my previous argument that I was chastised for,, IMHO too man conservatives are selfish. They don't want to pay for anything!

Take health care again for one second. The reality is we are already paying about twice the developed world average for health car, both on a per capita and a gdp basis. Does it really make a difference if you call it a "tax" or not? What is important is to provide health care to all, AND to control costs in a way such that it doesn't bankrupt us. (Currently it only bankrupts the middle class!)

A Robbyr2 points out,, we haven't been paying the complete and total costs of our energy choices. We have deferred these not just to others on the Planet,, but probably more importantly, to our children and grandchildren.

Why is it that "conservatives" are all worried about the federal deficit and the national debt,, but don't give a rat's nice person about the environmental costs of their choices?

Another example. For decades mining interests in the west has free range to dig and pull up precious mineral from the earth,, paying tiny little royalties if any. When the mines played out,, the money looted,, these "pillars of our economy" have gone bankrupt, ceded their rights back to the government, and walked away from huge environmental clean up costs! Just another example of "letting the free market rule"!

I have heard it too many times before "We can't hobble miners (or loggers or farmers or manufactures or whomever!) with these costs, as they are the ones that produce the jobs,, and the wealth" Bull! Let us pay the "full price" for stuff and let's have a true free market decide what as value and what doesn't.

I can tell you,, my solar panels might be worth a whole lot more if I could compete with coal fired electricity that was charging it's true cost(s). The reality is ,, stuff cost money, and one way or another we have to pay! Get over it! If you don't like the price of energy, don't buy as much. Better yet, don't buy any, but don't blame the rising price on those of us who have a concern for the future!

Icarus

 

I have a question regarding the solar panels. What is the energy cost to make the solar cells start to production use? I know the silicon needs to be grown, but I don't know what is involved to do so.

 

Acdii,

It is a good, and age old question. "How long do you have to run a solar panel to make up for it's manufacturing cost?" The answer is subject to much accounting debate,, but if you do a search,, I think the consensus is around 3 years.

That said,, it is largely irrelevant question. It is not a question that is either ever asked of a conventional power producer (coal/gas/nuclear/hydro etc) but in the case of coal or gas the answer is never.

In my opinion, what matters is; What technology is net/net best for environment over it's life cycle. Pv solar is mature technology,, where manufacturing pitfalls/costs are know, where recycling cost are know, and most importantly life cycle cost are know. Pv is VERY reliable with most Pv panels being warranted for ~20 years and real life expectancy (barring damage due to impact) of twice that. While a small scale wind system may have a smaller environmental foot print due to manufacturing/recycling costs,, if it's life cycle is shorter (which it is!) the net/net kwh environmental cost is much greater.

My first Pv panels are 15 years old,, and while not as efficient as newer ones are going as strong as the day I put them up. The net cost per DC watt has gone down by ~75%. Net AC watt cost has gone down by about 1/2. That in constant dollars,, not adjusted dollars.

Icarus

 

Sooner than you and most people think. I believe the timeline of 2030 in this study is very conservative. I'd say replace the number with 2020.

UC Berkeley Study Finds Separate Battery Ownership Accelerates Mass-Market Adoption of Electric Cars

 

Icarus says that conservatives don't want to pay for anything, implying that they are cheap or greedy or uncaring. This flies in the face of reality.

The exact opposite is true, of course. since liberals want to TAKE money from one group (the productive) and GIVE it to another (the 'deserving'). They just don't want it to be THEIR money. They think the "government's" money grows on trees or is printed by fiat.

In his book, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compassionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008232/ref=sr_oe_2_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201349815&sr=1-2"]Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservativism[/ame] (Basic Books, 2006), Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."

 

Ufourya,

How come we can all have a nice spirited, rational discussion amongst ourselves until you come back?

You threatened to leave a few hundred posts ago,,, why don't you carry out that threat?

Icarus

PS You have never answered by question regarding the "liberal global warming hoax" Once again,, if "liberals" are so incompetent to run anything effectively, how could we possibly have perpetuated this "global warming "hoax""?


PPS. I had to chuckle at the congressperson (whose name escapes me now) who said (sic) We can't have publicly funded health care option,, it would drive the price down so low that private insurance would go out of business" Sounds good to me!

 

It was repealed due to pure power politics, with most of the pressure coming from the national government.

Yes, the auto companies claimed that zero-emission automobiles were not "cost-effective" ....the exact same story as emission controls, air bags, crash standards, safety standards, etc. Note that those things are STILL not cost effective (based on the original GM/Ford/Chrysler logic). If Toyota had not pioneered the Prius, we would be discussing how hybrids are not cost effective.

What is overlooked is that the auto companies were making extremely rapid advances in the technology. The EV1 rapidly moved from Lead Acid to NiMh batteries. Toyota achieved making very long lasting propulsion batteries. It seems that the legislation was driving the techology great guns.

Do at least a little homework. You have the smarts to distill a better conclusion than what you state above.

 

Satellite shows thinning of old Arctic sea ice - SGVTribune.com

 

Having spend quite a bit of time under the arctic ice, let me make it clear that there is not much ice there. It is a very thin veneer on a very big and dynamic ocean. It's thickness varies greatly both in location and season since it is subject to both the temperature variations above and below. Generating conclusions based on just a set of snapshots from 2004 is not a good idea.

 

As one who has spent a fair bit of time ON arctic and subarctic ice,, I can tell you it is changing.

One often overlooked aspect of changing ice patterns is the effect of less ice/snow on the albedo. (Albedo is the relative reflectivity of a surface) from the latin "white". The deniers like to point out that it is only a degree or two of change. That translates to a huge net effect on albedo. For example snow coming a few weeks later in the fall in the north,, the melt coming a few days earlier can (and I predict will) have a spiraling effect on temperature rise. Snow cover leaving the permafrost a couple of weeks earlier on average will have a significant effect on permafrost melt.

I have noticed (anecdotally) in my record keeping of our freeze up and break up. Our freeze up in the last 10 years is (on average) about a week later than it was,, our break up almost 10 days earlier. Historically our break up was ~May 10th. Our earliest recorded break up was 2005 April 19th, followed by 2006 April 19th. For the record 2007 was May 12th. Our latest was 1985 May 19th.

Of course none of this means anything taken alone,, but anecdotally this and other phenomenon mean something. We see deer migrating north invading moose territory, bringing brain wasting disease with them,, driving the moose and the woodland caribou out.

The point is,, snow and ice cover has a huge effect on climate change. The reality is that a few degrees here and there DO make huge difference. For example, at +1c in October brings rain,, where at +.05 it would bring snow,, the snow cooling the bush, and the lake water. 6" of snow in April can delay breakup by two weeks or more.

So not to confuse weather with climate,, much of what I speak of is weather,,, but the in the aggregate it adds up to climate.

Icarus

 

I think what matters is the trend over time:



http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php

 

What would be interesting to see is the May numbers. Clearly the percentage on March is pretty consistent, but the Sept number is declining. This is what I would I would expect, from my sub arctic experience. We see full Ice in March, but it comes later and leaves earlier.

Icarus