Climate Change

From: Electroverse

By: Cap Allon

Date: October 24, 2023

Top Climate Scientist Slams Climate Alarm: Carbon Dioxide Is A “Particularly Ridiculous” Choice As A Pollutant

TOP CLIMATE SCIENTIST SLAMS CLIMATE ALARM

Warming by carbon dioxide is logarithmic due to ‘saturation’ within the infrared spectrum, and any future doubling of the gas in the atmosphere will be associated with the same warming of around 1°C.

This is considered obvious by atmospheric scientist and Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, and hardly controversial — although in today’s politicized environment, where CO2 has been forged into a scary and taxable ‘stick’ to bop the global population over the head with, this thinking does fatally undermine the ‘settled’ science concept of the AGW Party and so is regarded as heresy punishable by censorship and demonetization.

Professor Lindzen notes that the present “absurd ‘scientific’ narrative” leaves us with a quasi-religious movement — atop of all this has been the ”constant Goebellian repetition by the media of climate alarm”.

In a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), Lindzen warns that unless we wake up to the absurdity of the motivating narrative, “this is only likely to be the beginning of the disasters that will follow from the current irrational demonization of CO2”, disasters which include the “hobbling” of Western energy systems.

CARBON DIOXIDE IS A “PARTICULARLY RIDICULOUS” CHOICE AS A POLLUTANT

Lindzen considers it “absurd” to assume that the controlling factor for temperature changes Earth’s complex three-dimensional climate system is the small contribution of CO2.

He notes the evidence from the Antarctica Vostok ice core that showed cooling preceded decreases in CO2 during the glaciation cycles of the last 700,000 years; and for the paleoclimatic record, which goes back 600 million years, it is shows “no suggestion of any correlation with carbon dioxide at all.”

Carbon dioxide is a “particularly ridiculous” choice as a pollutant, continues Lindzen, because its primary role is as a fertilizer and currently “almost all plants are starved of CO2”. (continue reading)

Top Climate Scientist Slams Climate Alarm: Carbon Dioxide Is A “Particularly Ridiculous” Choice As A Pollutant

Know;
1a(1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of
2a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of

Imagine:
1: to form a mental image of (something not present)
2: suppose, guess
3: to form a notion of without sufficient basis

Project
1a : to devise in the mind : design
  b : to plan, figure, or estimate for the future

Source: Merriam-Webster

We “know” what can be observed or measured, either from personal experience or from the experience of others, past and present. However, there are limits to our knowledge, imposed by our limited exposure or the reliability of the reporting of others with different or broader experience, or with agendas. What we “know” about the past becomes less detailed and less certain the further it is removed in time from the present, especially in periods prior to direct measurement, when what we “know” is based on proxies. In the interpretation of proxies, what we “know” frequently is more what we believe.

As what we “know” transitions from contemporary observation and measurement to recorded observation to interpretation of proxies we are forced to imagine details for which we have no proxies or for which the proxies are ambiguous. We are forced to imagine and develop scenarios which appear to be consistent with the proxy information available. The existence of multiple scenarios based on available proxies clearly marks the transition from “know” to “imagine”, since we cannot “know” two things which are inconsistent or in conflict with each other.

The future is uncertain and, like the past, becomes less certain the longer the timeframe being considered. Regarding the future, over any timeframe, we cannot “know” anything. We are reduced to projecting futures based on our knowledge of the present and the past. Uncertainties regarding details of conditions in the past and present are magnified as those uncertainties are projected into the future.  Uncertainties regarding the effects of factors which might influence projections of potential future conditions result in future scenarios which diverge into the projected future. It is not possible to know which, if any, of these future scenarios is accurate.

There is also significant risk in attempting to analyze what we measure or observe based on what we “know” about the past or about conditions which existed when the event occurred. This is the intent of “attribution science” which purports to model a recent event and then calculate how that event might have been affected by observed conditions at the time of the event. Attribution modeling tells us, on one hand, that a particular event could not have happened without the presence of an event or change we have observed; or, on the other hand, that an event was more likely, or more intense, or otherwise varied because of the occurrence of an event or change we have observed. These “attribution studies” are based, not on what we “know”, but rather on what we “believe” about what we “know”. Regrettably, they are frequently presented as certainty, though they lack sufficient basis for such certainty.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (Attribution uncertain)

From: CFACT

By: Rupert Darwall

Date: October 12, 2023

Book review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry

Just over three decades ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by President George H. W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro. It has one objective: to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so as to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” This objective incorporates three assumptions that collectively constitute a scientific and policy paradigm of climate change.

The first assumption is that climate change is caused exclusively by human emissions of greenhouse gases, principally from the combustion of fossil fuels. The second asserts that all the climate impacts from burning fossil fuels are unambiguously bad for people and the planet. The third is that the solution is the progressive—and preferably rapid—elimination of fossil fuels, requiring mankind to do without its main source of energy.

Five presidents and a generation later, this paradigm has been elevated into an overriding planetary imperative. Yet, on its own terms, the UNFCCC has failed. In the ten years before it was signed, global emissions of carbon dioxide rose from 18.88 giga-tonnes (GT) in 1982 to 22.58 GT in 1992, a decadal increase of 3.70 GT. By 2022, CO2 emissions had risen to 37.49 GT, implying an average decadal increase of 4.97 GT—a rise 34% higher than the increase in the decade prior to the UNFCCC. Despite the UNFCCC being further from its stated objective—global net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases—than when it was signed, paradoxically, the three assumptions that underpin it have hardened into unquestioned and unquestionable propositions driving the West’s futile attempt to decarbonize the global economy. Seen in these terms, the UNFCCC might well be the most consequential international agreement of all time.

Initially, these propositions did not command the universal assent of climate scientists. In its first assessment report, released in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) observed that the average global temperature had increased by between 0.3°C and 0.6°C over the previous hundred years. “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability,” the IPCC declared. (contine reading)

Book review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry

Nature has intervened in the climate change narrative in a major way with the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga (HT) volcano on the South Pacific seabed. The eruption has experienced minimal exposure in the media because it did not result in major loss of life or property damage. However, it might well prove to be one of the most consequential volcanic events in recent history.

NASA has estimated that the sub-sea eruption expelled sufficient water vapor into the stratosphere to increase stratospheric moisture concentration by approximately 13%, completely overwhelming the minor reduction in stratospheric moisture concentration measured over the past several decades.

Water vapor is the principal greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. A rapid increase of 13% in stratospheric moisture content should have an easily measurable impact on long wave infrared emissions and thus an easily calculable impact on global near-surface temperatures which can be compared to the observed impact. The heated water vapor also transported a significant amount of thermal energy to the atmosphere. The increased water vapor concentration should also ultimately lead to changes in global precipitation.

There has been little or no information provided on other impacts of the eruption. For example, the eruption involved a massive release of both thermal and mechanical energy, both of which contributed to the massive water vapor emission, vaporizing the sea water above the volcano and expelling it to the atmosphere as heated vapor.

However, not all of the water in the immediate vicinity of the volcano was heated sufficiently to vaporize, resulting in a large pool of heated water which should be easily identified and tracked by satellites and the Argo buoys. This pool of heated water might have measurable impacts on the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone and the current El Nino.

The volcanic eruption was a geological event, but it is very likely to influence both weather and climate over a period of several years as the result of the moisture and thermal energy additions to the global atmosphere.

Climate science has a rare opportunity to observe and analyze the effects of a significant step change in atmospheric conditions. Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) reported an increase of 0.35C in the global temperature anomaly in July. He suggested that it was unlikely that this increase was attributable to the developing El Nino, as it is too early in its development. He suggested that it might be the result of the volcanic eruption, at least in part.

Analyzing the effects of the volcanic eruption offers an excellent opportunity to test the projections of the climate models against observations and refine the models to more accurately model the global atmosphere and its response to changing conditions.

There have been suggestions that the recent, rapid increase in North Atlantic Ocean water temperatures might be the result of undersea volcanic eruptions in the Atlantic basin of lesser magnitude than the HT eruption. Analysis of satellite data and data from the Argo buoys might make it possible to confirm this hypothesis and to locate the volcanoes involved.

The HT eruption offers numerous exciting opportunities to advance the state of climate science.

Several narratives have evolved around the issue of climate change. The narratives originate in the science, but focus on different aspects of the science and different interpretations of its meaning.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 scientific narrative focuses on global temperature anomalies, climate sensitivity, climate forcings and feedbacks, and climate model projections of future warming. The AR6 narrative attributes most or all of the measured warming to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It projects that the globe would warm by 2.5 – 4.5°C if global annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not reduced toward zero in the future.

The IPCC scientific narrative is the basis for the IPCC political narrative, which evolves through the development of the Summary for Policymakers and the Synthesis Report. The AR6 political narrative declares climate change to be a “crisis”, an “existential threat” and an “emergency”. The need to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the future evolves into the professed need to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions to Net Zero by 2050 through the elimination of fossil fuel combustion for all energy end uses. This political narrative proclaims the worsening of extreme weather events, though the IPCC scientific narrative does not detect any significant trends in extreme weather frequency, intensity or duration.

The skeptical narrative includes scientific results ignored or excluded by the IPCC in the development of AR6. These include studies suggesting significantly lower climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and studies which establish that the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is essentially saturated. These studies suggest that further climate warming would be less than 1°C. The skeptical narrative also focuses on the positive results of increased atmospheric CO2 concentration, such as the greening of the globe, reduced plant sensitivity to drought, longer growing seasons and increased crop yields.

The renewables narrative extols the perceived benefits of a transition to a renewable energy economy, including reduced energy costs and reduced air pollution. Combined with the political narrative, it perceives a transition to an “all-electric everything” energy economy by 2050, based almost solely on wind and solar generation.

The energy equity narrative defends the right of developing nations to continue to rely upon and increase their use of fossil fuels in support of their economic development objectives. The support for continuing and expanding fossil fuel use flies in the face of the scientific and political narratives which call for reductions in fossil fuel use. It also flies in the face of the renewables narrative, since it acknowledges that renewable generation is not the best economic development option for these nations. Clearly, if renewables were the path to a lower cost, reliable energy economy with lower air pollution these financially constrained developing nations would not choose to develop a fossil fuel infrastructure which would then be replaced by renewable infrastructure at a later date at additional cost.

The energy equity narrative is more consistent with the skeptical narrative, which is far less concerned about increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

From: Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

By: Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Date: September 26, 2023

Summer warming 1895-2023 in U.S. cities exaggerated by 100% from the urban heat island effect

We are now getting close to finalizing our methodology for computing the urban heat island (UHI) effect as a function of population density, and will be submitting our first paper for publication in the next few weeks. I’ve settled on using the CONUS (Lower 48) U.S. region as a demonstration since that is where the most dense network of weather stations is. We are using NOAA’s V4 of the GHCN monthly dataset.

I’ve previously described the methodology, where I use many thousands of closely-spaced station pairs to compute how temperature between stations change with population density at 10×10 km resolution. This is done for 22 classes of 2-station average population density, and the resulting cumulative UHI curves are shown in Fig. 1. (continue reading)

Summer warming 1895-2023 in U.S. cities exaggerated by 100% from the urban heat island effect

Social Cost of Carbon: The social cost of carbon (SCC) is an estimate, in dollars, of the economic damages that would result from emitting one additional ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The SCC is a highly malleable and deeply flawed climate change policy tool. The selection of values for future emissions, climate sensitivity, expected damages, discount rates, etc. can produce an order of magnitude difference in the calculated SCC.

The SCC is not based on actual, documented damage caused by incremental carbon dioxide emissions, but is an estimate of potential future damage which might result from such emissions.

“Estimates of the SCC are calculated in four steps using specialized computer models.

• Step 1: Predict future emissions based on population, economic growth, and other factors.
• Step 2: Model future climate responses, such as temperature increase and sea level rise.
• Step 3: Assess the economic impact that these climatic changes will have on agriculture, health, energy use, and other aspects of the economy.
• Step 4: Convert future damages into their present-day value and add them up to determine total damages.

These four steps are completed to obtain a baseline value for the damages of emissions.”

The federal government is required to perform cost/benefit analysis as a component of regulatory analysis. However, based on the above definition and procedure, no analysis is performed regarding the benefits of incremental carbon dioxide emissions ,which are both real and current as opposed to potential and projected. NASA has documented significant global greening over the past 35 years and attributes 70% of this greening to CO2 fertilization resulting from increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Research has also attributed a significant percentage of the increase in field crop productivity to CO2 fertilization; and, has determined that plants also use available water more efficiently in a CO2 enriched atmosphere, making them more drought tolerant. These represent major benefits of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

A major challenge in assessing potential future damage resulting from increased CO2 emissions is the absence of current damage from the atmospheric CO2 increases which have already occurred. There is no documented damage resulting from the modest increase in global average near surface temperature which has already occurred, supposedly as the result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The documented increase in global mean sea level began prior to any significant potential impact from increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations and has continued at a consistent pace since.

According to the IPCC, there is little or no confidence that the modest warming generally attributed to increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations has had any impact on the frequency, intensity or duration of weather events including tropical cyclones, tornadoes, floods, droughts, heat and cold waves and wildfires.

The predicted massive, climate change driven migration has not occurred, nor has the submersion of Pacific islands or low-lying coastal regions. In fact, most Pacific islands have gained area in the face of rising sea levels.

Indur M. Goklany has stated that the increased atmospheric CO2 concentration has been a net benefit to society and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

From: Robert Bryce - SubStack

By: Robert Bryce

Date: July 1, 2023

The Energy Transition Isn't

Despite $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar, they aren't even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons

We are inundated with claims about the “energy transition.”

In February, E&E News, reporting on the State of the Union speech said,  “President Joe Biden laid out his vision for the energy transition Tuesday night.” In March, a reporter for Politico declared “The U.S. energy transition is well underway.”

Also in March, during a speech at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that "As this transition progresses, our energy mix will change." Or consider the March 9 press release from the White House, which said “The Administration is continuing to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, which is already galvanizing our clean energy transition and making clean and energy efficient technologies more affordable for American families.”

I could list many more examples like the ones above. But the hard truth is this: the energy transition isn’t. The numbers from the just-released Statistical Review of World Energy show, once again, that despite rapid growth in wind and solar, those two forms of energy are not even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons. That’s true both globally and in the U.S. (continue reading)

The Energy Transition Isn't

Developers of renewable energy generation installations frequently focus their marketing efforts on estimates of the number of homes the installations would serve. The developers’ estimates are not based on consistent assumptions and cannot be directly compared.

Orsted’s recently approved Ocean Wind 1 development, to be located off the New Jersey coast near Atlantic City and Ocean City, would consist of one hundred 11MW wind turbine generators, for a total capacity of 1,100 MW. This would suggest annual generation, at a 100% capacity factor, of 9,600 GWh. The International Energy Agency uses a capacity factor of 50% for offshore wind. We will use that figure here, since there is no offshore wind capacity factor data for the US East Coast. This suggests annual production of approximately 4,800 GWh for Ocean Wind 1.

Orsted projects that Ocean Wind 1 would serve 500,000 homes. The US Energy Information Administration reports average US residential electricity consumption as 10,600 kWh per year. Based on these numbers, Ocean wind would have to generate 5300 GWh per year, or a capacity factor of approximately 55%.

Dominion Energy’s proposed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) development, to be located off the Virginia coast near Norfolk, would consist of one hundred seventy-six 15 MW wind turbine generators, for a total capacity of 2,600 MW. This would suggest annual generation, at a 100% capacity factor, of approximately 22,800 GWh, or approximately 11,400 GWh at a 50% capacity factor.

Dominion projects that CVOW would serve 660,000 homes, which would require generation of approximately 6,996 GWh based on the EIA residential consumption figure. That would suggest a capacity factor of approximately 30%, far lower than the IEA figure, and even lower relative to the Orsted estimate for Ocean Wind 1.

The estimates above are based on a number of averages: average wind resource; average capacity factor; average maintenance and repair allowances; and, average residential electricity consumption. The available wind resource varies on time scales from minutes to hours to days to seasons, as does residential energy consumption and demand. The use of averages loses a lot of the detail of the match between customer load and generator output.

Since each of these industrial wind installations would be connected to a grid with a far larger customer base than the claimed number of residential customers served, above average output would be absorbed by other loads on the grids, displacing a portion of the output from some form(s) of conventional generation. Below average generator output would require support from some form(s) of conventional generation.

Arguably, fluctuations in generator output and customer load could also be compensated for by additions to and withdrawals from some type of energy storage capacity. However, there is no energy storage capacity included in either of the wind projects discussed above. The issue of storage can be deferred as long as there is sufficient excess conventional generating capacity available to compensate for the fluctuation of the output of the wind facilities and maintain a capacity reserve margin. However, as conventional generating capacity is retired due to age or regulation, and additional intermittent renewable generating capacity is added, addressing the issue of storage cannot be avoided.

From: Real Clear Wire

By: John Murawski

Date: September 13, 2023

Here's the Climate Dissent You're Not Hearing About Because It's Muffled by Society's Top Institutions

As the Biden administration and governments worldwide make massive commitments to rapidly decarbonize the global economy, the persistent effort to silence climate change skeptics is intensifying – and the critics keep pushing back.

This summer the International Monetary Fund summarily canceled a presentation by John Clauser, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who publicly disavows the existence of a climate “crisis.” The head of the nonprofit with which Clauser is affiliated, the CO2 Coalition, has said he and other members have been delisted from LinkedIn for their dissident views.  

Meanwhile, a top academic journal retracted published research doubting a climate emergency after negative coverage in legacy media. The move was decried by another prominent climate dissenter, Roger Pielke Jr., as “one of the most egregious failures of scientific publishing that I have seen” – criticism muffled because the academic says he has been blocked on Twitter (now X) by reporters on the climate beat.

The climate dissenters are pressing their case as President Biden, United Nations officials, and climate action advocates in media and academia argue that the “settled science” demands a wholesale societal transformation. That means halving U.S. carbon emissions by 2035 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050 to stave off the “existential threat” of human-induced climate change. (continue reading)

Here's the Climate Dissent You're Not Hearing About Because It's Muffled by Society's Top Institutions

Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one has behaved in a certain way.  Psychology Today

Altruism
1: unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others
2: behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species
 - Merriam-Webster

The issue of climate change is a major cause of cognitive dissonance among the populations of the developed nations. The UN and the governments of the developed nations have asserted that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have caused the earth to warm and sea levels to rise. They assert that the effects of these emissions represent an existential threat to the future of mankind and that the threat represents a crisis or constitutes an emergency. They have identified a global average temperature anomaly of 1.5°C as a level which should not be exceeded and have asserted that to avoid exceeding that temperature anomaly, global annual CO2 emissions must be reduced to Net Zero by 2050.

Polls indicate that the majority of the populations of the developed nations accept and support efforts to avoid the adverse effects of climate change projected by the UN and their national governments. These poll results are largely a function of human altruism. However, when the polls ask the members of these national populations how much they would be willing to spend to achieve the UN and national government net zero goals, acceptance of and support for these goals diminishes rapidly. The expenditures these populations are willing to make are trivial in comparison to the actual expenditures required to achieve the UN and national government goals.

This conflict between the intellectual willingness to support actions to limit climate change and the unwillingness to make the financial sacrifices required by that support results in cognitive dissonance. This dissonance has spawned passive and active resistance as the nature and magnitude of the sacrifices required has become obvious.

Increased energy prices, energy shortages, electric grid unreliability, mandates to replace fossil fueled devices such as boilers, water heaters, ranges, ovens, laundry dryers, etc. with electric devices, electric vehicle mandates and city travel restrictions and fees have increased citizen resistance to achieving emissions reduction goals. Proposals to reduce meat and dairy product consumption, to switch to vegetable protein-based meat analogs or to consume bugs as a source of protein have met with growing resistance and have increased dissonance.

National proposals to retire or expropriate productive agricultural land, to reduce meat animal and dairy herds, and to limit the use of synthetic fertilizers have led to farmer revolts because of the threat to their livelihoods, and to citizen resistance based on the anticipated increased food prices and reduced food availability.

People know they should be supportive of efforts to avoid the projected climate “crisis”, but:

Altruism dies when it costs.

By: Hoover Institution
Date: August 15, 2023

Dissonance: lack of agreement (the dissonance between the truth and what people want [you] to believe) – Merriam-Webster

Statements of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regarding climate change:

• Latest IPCC climate report is “Code Red for Humanity.”
• Fossil fuels “incompatible with human survival”
• “The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions.  It’s fossil fuels — period.”
• “We are hurtling towards disaster, eyes wide open –“
• “Now must be the time for ambition and action.”

These are assertions the Secretary-General, numerous governments of developed nations, climate activists and the global media want us to believe. Climate change is frequently referred to as a “crisis”, an “existential threat” or an “emergency”. This hyperbole is intended to spur action while ignoring the true situation.

Concerns regarding climate began with global warming, followed briefly in the 1970s by global cooling, then again in the 1980s and beyond with global warming and recently with global climate change. The shift to a focus on climate change was arguably the result of a pause in global warming over the period 1998-2012, which is currently being followed by another pause over the period from 2014 to the present. Climate change broadened the list of potential concerns beyond temperature to include sea level rise and potential worsening of weather phenomena including tropical cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods and wildfires.

The UN had established an arbitrary objective of keeping global temperature increase below 2°C, which was later arbitrarily reduced to 1.5°C. The current global temperature anomaly is approximately 1.0 (+/-0.2) °C. These anomaly objectives are based on the global near-surface temperature anomaly records. The concerns regarding further increases in near-surface temperature anomalies are based on the projections of unverified and unvalidated climate models, which have projected warming 2.5 - 3 times greater than observed changes. Continued temperature anomaly increases at the same rate as those over the past 140 years hardly constitute a crisis, especially since approximately 60% of the temperature increase has manifested as increased nighttime temperatures.

While the UN hierarchy, climate activists and the media have shifted their emphasis to concerns regarding more frequent, more intense and longer duration extreme weather events, the data regarding these events does not show any significant trends regarding any of these aspects for any of the extreme weather events. Several groups which provide attribution analyses for extreme weather events using unvalidated and unverified climate models have claimed that certain events could not have occurred were it not for climate change, or that events were “x” % stronger or more frequent as the result of climate change. These claims are currently impossible to verify.

Renewable energy generation equipment manufacturers and numerous national governments have claimed that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy would reduce energy costs. However, there is no documented case in which the introduction of renewable generation, even with government subsidies and preferences, has reduced energy costs. The nations and states with the highest renewable generation percentages are also the nations and states with the highest energy costs.

In several European nations, the citizens have begun to realize that what their governments say and want them to believe is becoming further and further separated from reality.

Climate change dissonance is growing. Confidence in government is shrinking.

From: National Review

By: JOEL KOTKIN & HÜGO KRÜGER

Date: August 18, 2023

Adaptation Is the Answer

Humans have adapted to a changing climate before, and we can do it again.

The world is careening toward a climate crisis, and by that we do not mean nasty weather or impending human extinction. The real challenge lies in adapting to a changing climate without undermining an already stressed global order, not to mention imperiling democracy.

The West’s current policy agenda, based almost entirely on the promotion of “renewable” energy, seems likely to produce only marginal gains while (according to McKinsey) costing $6 trillion annually for the next 30 years, equal to a quarter taxes collected and half of all annual profits worldwide. The question is not so much how we can “fight” climate change but how to do so in a way that does not create other, arguably more disruptive, changes in society and the economy.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle lies in geopolitical realities. In China, India, Vietnam, and much of Africa, the demand for affordable and reliable power has clear priority over achieving “net zero” in the near future. Ultimately what the West does may matter more to its own self-righteousness than the planet itself. (continue reading)

Adaptation Is the Answer

There has not been a successful demonstration of a renewable plus storage grid, even with generation support from fossil, nuclear, geothermal and biomass generators. Previous commentaries (here, here and here) have described a conceptual demonstration of a renewable plus storage grid without support from fossil generation, its documentation and reporting. However, this demonstration began with installed and operational renewable generation and conceptual storage. There is growing concern that such a renewable plus storage grid, even with physical storage, would be unreliable and extremely expensive.

Recently, New York State Senator George Borrello proposed legislation in New York State which would prohibit the use of fossil fuels in the manufacturing of renewable energy equipment. This legislation would extend the conceptual demonstration discussed above one step upstream, requiring demonstration that the components of a renewable plus storage grid could be manufactured using predominantly renewable energy, without fossil fueled backup.

However, there is the potential to extend the conceptual demonstration several more steps upstream. The Administration proclaimed that the transition to renewables would result in millions of new, high-paying union jobs, presumably in the US. They also assured that this transition would result in dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Analyzing the success of the transition in achieving these goals requires starting at the beginning of the supply chain and expanding upon Senator Borrello’s proposed legislation.

The supply chain begins with the use of electric mining equipment to mine the raw materials required to fabricate the wind, solar and storage components of the renewable plus storage grid in US mines and the use of electric transportation to move these raw materials to the manufacturing facilities at which the components of the system would be fabricated. The fabrication of the components would occur in US plants using electric processing equipment.

The steel and cement required for installation of the system components would also be produced in US plants. In the case of the calcining of limestone to produce cement, carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems would be required to capture the CO2 released from the limestone.

Preparation of the installation sites for the wind and solar generators and the storage systems would be performed by US manufactured electric earthmoving equipment. The system components would be transported to the installation sites by US manufactured electric trucks or electrified trains and erected using US manufactured electric cranes.

The supply chain described above would be drastically different from the current supply chains for wind turbines, solar collectors and storage batteries, all of which currently require mining and processing of minerals in Asia and Africa and frequently rely on foreign manufacture, particularly of solar collectors and wind turbines. The current supply chain effectively limits US jobs to system installation and maintenance, and excludes mining, processing and manufacturing jobs. The mining and processing jobs exist mostly in Asia and Africa, while the manufacturing jobs exist in Asia and Europe.

The mining and processing jobs in Asia and Africa and the manufacturing jobs in Asia reputedly rely on child, forced and prison labor, which substantially reduces their costs.