Drought, Extreme Weather, and Global Climate Change
Here’s another article by frequent commenter Glenn Doty on the drought in the United States. Its publication roughly coincides with physicist Dr. Richard Muller’s op-ed in the New York Times, in which he summarizes the work performed over the past few years by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. Until this point, Muller had been perhaps the most credible skeptic regarding studies connecting human activity to climate change; now, however, he concludes that “humans are almost entirely the cause” of global warming. “Call me a converted skeptic,” he says.
Though the temperature of the Eastern Hemisphere (thank goodness) is not mirroring that of the U.S. this summer, most of us perceive the drought as an extreme weather event that is very likely the effect of climate change.
So what do we need? A worldwide energy policy, in which, among other things, we help China and the rest of the developing world to find sources of energy other than coal. It’s true China put on a gigawatt of solar last year (in nameplate capacity, actual capacity about one-fourth of that). But they put on 40 gigawatts of coal, and will continue to add approximately one brand new gigawatt coal plant each week until someone can figure out another affordable path.
Not to sound pessimistic, but we’re a heck of a long way from taking an active role here in the U.S., insofar as we face what I call the “ferocious five:”
1) A two-year election cycle that discourages leaders from committing to provide funding for R&D in this space.
2) A super-powerful lobby group controlled by the fossil fuel industry that has huge influence on our elections.
3) An electorate that is so concerned about its weekly paycheck that it pays little attention to national security, environmental damage, and other long-term, big-picture issues.
4) An electorate that is also receiving carefully structured propaganda from the energy industry to the effect that “global warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind.”
5) A private sector that’s still reeling from the financial collapse of 2008, managed by people compensated on quarterly profit, not the success of long-term investment.
I’m hoping we wake up, shake off our slumber, and get to work. I’m sitting right next to my office phone as I write this last paragraph. Maybe it will ring and president Obama will want me to come to Washington and serve as some sort of top advisor. On the other hand, maybe it won’t.
“So what do we need? A worldwide energy policy, in which, among other things, we help China and the rest of the developing world to find sources of energy other than coal.”
Right now, it looks as though China will be helping us and the rest of the developing world to find sources of energy other than coal.
China is one of the countries doing development work on the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) which I see as the most promising energy technology to make it practical to migrate away from fossil fuels. Unless we get on the ball, we may end up buying LFTR technology from China. The LFTR was invented here in the U.S. and a prototype was successfully tested before the technology was abandoned, partly because it could not contribute towards manufacturing nuclear weapons.
For more information on LFTR technology, I again recommend reading the book “Super Fuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future” by Richard Martin. It is the best source of information I have found on LFTR technology and is available from the usual sources.
Even people that take a strong stand against nuclear power should read the book since we should all be familiar with all energy technologies which look as though they have even a slight chance of solving our energy problems.
Recently I found an article about solar energy in remote areas of Asia and Africa. Unfortunately, I failed to save the link to it.
It looks as though solar energy is very practical and economical in areas of the world where it is used to replace kerosene lighting. The payback time is about two years. In addition to providing lighting, it can be used to recharge cell phones and notebook computers.
People living in those areas are often extremely poor and even a couple two watt LED lights are a great help to them. In addition to being more economical than kerosene, solar-powered LED lights eliminate the serious health problems caused by breathing the fumes from kerosene lamps, especially because the poor quality kerosene they have is especially noxious. It also greatly reduces the incidence of fires and burns caused by kerosene. Those hazards sometimes result from knocking over a kerosene lamp or using kerosene which has been adulterated with gasoline.
The improved lighting greatly helps children to do their school work and expedites helping household members run family businesses. Unfortunately, solar power cannot completely replace burning wood or kerosene for cooking. For that, more reliable and powerful energy sources are needed.
As a major source of power for prosperous developed countries, I do not see solar power as practical. But there are certain situations in which it is practical, so for that reason, work should continue on improving PV technology and the battery technology necessary to make it work.
In regards to the use of wood for cooking, I would think that the most promising option is to combine the use of compressed biomass pellets made from horticultural residues such as straw, banana leaves, peanut shells, sawdust, paper and the like with highly efficient improved cook stoves. Some materials such as palm leaves do not easily compress, however they can be converted into charcoal and mixed with other materials in compressed biomass pellets. In this way, cutting wood for cooking can be greatly reduced or eliminated.
In some areas, solar cooking can also play a part in displacing a proportion of the biomass used for cooking.
Probably it would be a mistake to assume that the solution would be the same in all places. More efficient stoves are already in use in some areas; I saw them in Fiji. They considerably reduce the amount of wood required by concentrating the heat on the cooking utensil. Because they are so simple, they cost very little.
Interestingly, some people with gas available say that food tastes better when cooked with wood. Often people with perfectly good indoor kitchens do much of their cooking outside.
Regarding solar cooking, in many areas of the world the largest meal is eaten in the evening. By then the sun may be too low to be useful for cooking, but that would not rule out the possibility of doing some of the cooking while solar heat is available.
If electricity ever becomes cheap and abundant, then more people would cook with electricity.
Good post Craig,
Thanks again for another shout-out.
While I was writing that article, it struck me pretty deeply… because I had to clarify that what we are currently experiencing was not standard climate change… it was a congruence of various whether factors combined with solar maximum AND global warming…
I then clarified that most models don’t project this level of warming until ~2100.
But then it hit me… this type of summer is projected to be the AVERAGE in about 100 years!!! The last time we had a summer like this was in the 50’s, or perhaps the 30’s. Our grandchildren will see this every year…
It’s sobering.
Glenn,
I think that you are probably correct, but there can be no absolute proof in the sense that we can prove that 1 + 1 = 2. Trying to find absolute proof is confounded by the multiplicity of variables. And, even if there were absolute proof, some people would still deny it.
If we are fortunate, we may be able to limit global warming to something with which we can deal without undo disruptions. However, we cannot do that unless me migrate to energy sources which are practical and for which the numbers add up.
Sobering, to say the least.
Glad you liked my post. And I’m always happy to provide links to ideas that I want to support.
I am concerned that one response suggests that solar “is not practical in prosperous developed countries”. Obviously the writer has not heard of Germany- where PV on occasions reaches nearly 50% of generation.
A recent McKinsey report estimates the global PV industry as $100bn at present, with 65GW installed in 2011, and a global potential of 1 TW by 2020. This is big business, which only needs a secure Feed In Tariff to happen.
In my small area of UK, we installed 100MW of PV in the first 18months of FIT
Note also the major grid work underway now in Europe to get ready for very large scale PV and CSP in the deserts of North Africa to provide power at the GW scale for Europe, alongside offshore wind and wave in the North- see DESERTEC
“Obviously the writer has not heard of Germany- where PV on occasions reaches nearly 50% of generation.”
I HAVE heard of the situation in Germany and am very familiar with it. I have also read Germany’s plan which explains how they intend to phase out nuclear power.
Here is the problem: “…where PV on occasions reaches nearly 50% of generation.”
That statement is vague and subject to interpretation. It could mean that sometimes PV reaches nearly 50% of the power that it would generate under full sunlight (which is somewhat unusual in Germany because it tends to be cloudy), or it could mean that sometimes PV generates nearly 50% of the power than Germany is using. But with either interpretation, there is a problem.
PV is intermittent. It produces no power at night, power is reduced in cloudy weather, and even when the weather is clear, it is for only a few of the daylight hours it generates as much as it is capable of generating. But power is needed 24 hours per day 365 days per year, not just when PV is producing power. Although the need for huge amounts of power storage capacity to make renewables practical is generally recognized, it is commonly assumed, with insufficient evidence, that practical storage technology will be developed in the very near future. Thus, we are being asked to spend untold billions of dollars on an energy system that has not been demonstrated to be practical. And, we are asked to do so at a time when failure to phase out fossil fuels is far more dangerous than the only power system that could actually replace fossil fuels, i.e., nuclear power.
A few weeks ago, on the Internet, I read a paper produced by Germany which outlined how they intended to phase out nuclear power. It depended heavily on France and Norway. It would import power from France which gets almost 80% of its power from nuclear sources. When renewables produced more power than Germany required, it would export the excess to Norway which would, in effect, use hydro power systems to store the power for later use. It would also import hydro power from Norway. Thus, Germany WAS NOT actually planning to phase out nuclear power, but rather, depend partly on imported nuclear power, in addition to importing power from Norway. So Germany clearly recognized that if it depended only on its own renewable resources, it could not generate adequate power.
Because I have not read the McKinsey report, I don’t know whether it addresses the need for huge and practical storage capacity to make renewables practical. However, most such reports do not address the need for storage. Even if renewable energy systems were able to generate, on average, 10 times the amount of power we are currently using, they still would not be practical without huge storage capacity. And, when the cost of renewables per KWH is stated, that cost always excludes the cost of the storage that would be required to make it practical, not that anyone knows how much the storage capacity would cost since the technology for such storage capacity doesn’t exist.
A very few prosperous countries, including Norway with its hydro power resources, perhaps can get 100% of their power from renewable sources. Iceland may be another example because of the enormous geothermal resources it has. However, to phase out fossil fuels for vehicles, these countries will have to increase greatly their generation capacity either to recharge electric vehicles or to manufacture artificial liquid fuels, even if travel by private cars is greatly reduced. That may make it impossible for them to depend totally on renewables.
Our present nuclear technology makes me very uneasy even though it has so far been statistically demonstrated to be our safest source of power. Compared with the likely horrible effects of global warming, the risks of nuclear power seem minor indeed. And, if we block the expansion of nuclear power, we will not be able to reduce the use of fossil fuels and we will suffer the likely horrible problem of dealing with global warming.
Considering the alternatives and the fact that a serious crisis with almost irreversible consequences may be looming, we should increase by an order of magnitude the efforts to develop a better nuclear technology. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) looks very promising; a prototype has been successfully tested, but more work is required before it can go into production. Considering the alternatives, we should mount a project comparable to the Manhattan Project to develop a better nuclear technology and implement it as soon as it has been verified to be safe and practical.
For more information on LFTR technology, read the last two paragraphs of my first post.
As time goes by, there is more and more evidence of global climate warming, but few people really thinking about real solutions. It is very sad that we, as humans, are quick to act on money and slow to act on all the other responsible things that should be tackled every day; such as garbage disposal, environmental poisoning, responsible water consumption, etc.
The big problems have appeared as all the small irresponsible poluting and carelessness of our daily life. It all has to do with education, growing up respecting our lifestyle, etc.
We need to start to work on the small things as well as the global problems, one person at a time. No politics, no business propositions, just responsiblity.
Not to nitpick, especially when your articles are so spot on, but isn’t the actual output of china’s (or any other) solar equipment be around 75 to 80% of the nameplate capacity rather than the stated 1/4 (25%)?
Solar systems, on average, generate considerably less than 50% of nameplate capacity. That’s because on average, the sun is shining less than 50% of the time and much of the time when it is shining, it is too low in the sky to permit solar systems to operate at 100% capacity. Considering that, it may well be that China’s solar systems actual output is only 25% of nameplate capacity. Obviously that would vary seasonally since there is less daylight in winter than in summer. Also, it would be affected by clouds.
I know you all may say prove it works first, but I have to say first to give the world some time to think about it. I am developing a Green-Engine that produces an alternative green and renewable energy and more. See my pitch video entry to Dutch Postcode Lottery Green Challenge.
If you like what I am doing for the world, click “like” to send me to the final round.