Weekly Local weather and Vitality Information Roundup #533 – Watts Up With That?

Francis Menton continues to show that components of the Division of Vitality (DOE) ignore the necessity for “inexpensive, dependable, taxpayer-neutral, plentiful vitality.” These DOE sections don’t acknowledge the necessity for utility scale, inexpensive steady 24-hour electrical energy storage if wind and photo voltaic are used for technology. Moreover, getting it 90% proper shouldn’t be adequate. The final 10% will cease fashionable civilization from functioning.

Judith Curry writes that local weather alarmists, propagandists, are inflicting actual hurt to society. This demonstrates the folly of the false angle by some “scientists” that they need to exaggerate to be efficient. As well as, the hurt being performed to the integrity of science shouldn’t be mentioned.

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For a Temporary Second: Physicist Steven E. Koonin and Professor of Chemical Engineering & Supplies Science Robert L. Powell, governors of Lawrence Livermore Nationwide Laboratory, wrote a very good abstract of why the experiment on fusion introduced this week is a breakthrough. Within the Wall Avenue Journal they write: [boldface added]

“The Vitality Division has introduced the primary achieve in vitality from fusion in a laboratory—the first-time fusion reactions produced extra vitality than it took to induce them. Final week 192 laser beams on the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s Nationwide Ignition Facility heated and compressed a capsule of hydrogen to beforehand unattainable temperatures and pressures, igniting fusion reactions that produced 50% extra vitality than the laser beams had delivered.

“Nuclear reactions can launch the vitality that binds collectively protons and neutrons in an atom’s nucleus. Nuclear energy vegetation use fission, not fusion. Fission releases vitality when a big uranium nucleus splits into two radioactive fragments, which carry the vitality as they fly aside.

“Fusion, against this, depends on the universe’s smallest atom, hydrogen. Vitality is launched when two hydrogen nuclei mix to supply a helium nucleus and a neutron. In contrast to fission, fusion produces no radioactive fragments. Fusion is way tougher to induce than fission, for the reason that hydrogen nuclei have to be heated to almost 100 million levels Celsius to beat {the electrical} repulsion that hinders their response. Stars run on fusion vitality, however on Earth it has beforehand been launched solely in thermonuclear explosions. This beautiful new end in laboratory fusion opens doorways for unprecedented research in fundamental and utilized science.

“The idea of laser fusion had been pursued with out success for the reason that Nineteen Sixties and it turned a central a part of a Nineties program to make sure continued confidence within the nuclear-weapons stockpile with out underground testing. Though scientists knew that high-powered laser beams might probe the properties of matter related to the early levels of detonating a nuclear weapon, the purpose of laser fusion would enable for research within the later levels. It will additionally problem and show the power to know and predict the dynamics of sizzling, dense matter extra usually.

“Building of the ignition facility on the Livermore lab started in 1997, and experiments trying ignition started quickly after building was accomplished in 2009. The design and building of the world’s strongest laser was an engineering triumph, however three years of failed makes an attempt to realize fusion ignition introduced this system near cancellation in 2012. However this system continued with a extra deliberate method that included exterior peer evaluate.

“The last decade of analysis from 2012 to 2022 illustrated the power of the Vitality Division’s nationwide laboratories to marshal an interdisciplinary staff of scientific and engineering expertise from the federal government, universities, and personal sector in long-term pursuit of an audacious purpose. Researchers in lasers, nuclear and plasma physics, precision-target fabrication, instrumentation, and high-fidelity laptop modeling helped design and undertake a sequence of experiments that regularly approached ignition circumstances. The payoff got here final week.

“As latest world occasions make obvious, the U.S. nuclear deterrent is efficient provided that there’s confidence that the weapons stay efficient. Laser ignition demonstrates to the world a deep understanding of weapons science and shall be necessary in sustaining confidence within the coming a long time.”

The authors point out efforts in France and China then proceed:

“The U.S. now leads each different nation by a decade due to its foresight, perseverance, and analysis enterprise. Continued funding in laser fusion will be sure that this management endures.

“Today one can’t point out fusion with out occupied with vitality. The ignition milestone demonstrates fusion achieve, a mandatory situation for sensible vitality manufacturing. However that’s solely step one. A number of a long time of engineering could be required to make fusion a sensible, emissions-free supply of electrical energy. And even then, it must be cost-competitive with options. Just like the preliminary choice to pursue the ignition purpose, this isn’t in any respect assured. Nevertheless it’s properly price contemplating.”

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Hurdles to Overcome: In his dialogue of the Livermore experiment, reporter Josh Zumbrun provides wanted context. He writes: [boldface added]

“A easy ratio generally often called Q offers a straightforward and intuitive option to perceive if scientists are making progress: It’s vitality launched divided by vitality used. A Q beneath one means the response consumed extra vitality than it produced. A Q above one means extra vitality was produced than consumed.

“On this newest experiment, scientists put in 2.05 megajoules of vitality and bought 3.15 megajoules out. Q was 3.15 divided by 2.05, or about 1.5.

“Tony Roulstone, a nuclear-energy engineer on the College of Cambridge, known as this milestone the ‘now we all know it really works’ one, equal to when the physicist Enrico Fermi first created a nuclear chain response in 1942, in the end resulting in the lots of of fission reactors around the globe that at the moment produce 10% of the world’s electrical energy. 

“If a response produces extra warmth than it consumes, couldn’t you simply run the experiment on repeat and create infinite vitality? The sensible challenges are huge, stated Mr. Roulstone. The laser must be fired many instances a second, with these excellent little diamond capsules precisely inserted and positioned dozens of instances a second, he stated. 

“The larger impediment is the second Q worth, the engineering break-even. The scientists behind the latest breakthrough have been cautious to make clear that the particular response produced extra vitality than it consumed, however your complete reactor didn’t.

“Mark Herrmann, the Livermore lab’s program director for weapon physics and design, informed reporters that to generate 3.15 megajoules of vitality, the lab consumed about 300 megajoules of vitality to fireplace its laser.

“You don’t should be a physicist to appreciate that that is removed from a viable supply of energy. The Q worth for your complete reactor is about 0.01—roughly 1% of break-even.

“‘The laser wasn’t designed to be environment friendly,’ stated Mr. Herrmann. ‘The laser was designed to offer us as a lot juice as potential to make these unimaginable circumstances occur within the laboratory.’

“This implies scientists want to enhance the expertise by an element of 100, stated Jonathan Menard, chief analysis officer at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

“The factor to observe in forthcoming fusion experiments is whether or not this engineering Q worth begins to march towards 1 or stays tiny.

“There’s cause for hope. Over time, lasers have grown extra environment friendly, utilizing much less electrical energy to generate the identical optical energy. (That is recognized by the delightfully low-tech time period ‘wall-plug effectivity.’)

“Additionally, the Livermore scientists stated that the diamond capsule of their experiment had imperfections and that building of the Nationwide Ignition Facility, the place the experiment passed off, started over 20 years in the past. ‘The expertise is ’80s and ’90s expertise,’ stated Tammy Ma, lead for the laboratory’s inertial fusion vitality institutional initiative.

“‘When you achieve an element of 10 on the fusion and 10 on the effectivity, that provides you an element of 100 roughly,’ stated Dr. Menard. ‘That might be within the ballpark of break-even. Each of these are theoretically potential.’ With authorities help that might take one to twenty years, he stated. ‘We must always strive for one and push actually onerous for that,’ he added.

“Then comes the ultimate problem: financial, or industrial, break-even. Upon getting fusion reactors that produce extra vitality than they devour, will they really be price constructing, or would different sources of vitality be cheaper?

“That can depend upon what occurs to the costs of different energy sources corresponding to fossil fuels. Even when fusion is dearer than some options, Dr. Menard stated he thinks it could probably have a helpful function. Even with higher battery techniques, for instance, photo voltaic and wind energy will probably stay most helpful when the solar is shining, and the wind is blowing. Fusion vegetation might be powered up at different instances to fill the hole.

“‘It’s going to take much more technological development to make it a sensible vitality supply,’ he stated. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless inspiring, he stated: ‘I hope folks will get excited to work on this superfun problem—making a star on Earth.’”

Briefly, it can require a rise in effectivity of 100 instances the present effectivity and nobody is aware of what the prices shall be or how lengthy it can take. See Article # 2 and Nuclear Vitality and Fears.

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Uncertainty v. Certainty: The good uncertainty expressed by Livermore Laboratories in with the ability to develop fusion as a supply of vitality is starkly completely different than the nice certainties expressed by different components of DOE in with the ability to change fossil fuels with wind and photo voltaic and the nice certainties the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC) locations within the predictions / forecasts within the fashions it makes use of and the science (or lack of it) behind its reviews. For instance, on the Working Group I (Science), Fifth Session, Madrid 27-29, November 1995, the IPCC started pushing a extremely speculative paper by local weather researcher at Lawrence Livermore Nationwide Laboratory Benjamin Santer claiming a “distinct human fingerprint.”

This turned the notorious “sizzling spot” in local weather fashions of a robust warming at about 60,000 toes over the tropics. It has not been present in over 40 years of complete atmospheric knowledge of temperature traits. But, the warming ensuing from the non-existent “sizzling spot” stays within the IPCC reviews.

A second instance of false certainty is the declare by NASA-GISS that Venus is an instance of “runaway greenhouse”, and the declare {that a} hotter planet emits extra warmth. The atmospheric strain on the floor of Venus is 93 earth’s atmospheres. That strain ends in huge warmth. As AMO physicist Howard Hayden explains in Primary Local weather Physics # 3,

“For a second instance, think about Venus. The floor is sizzling sufficient to soften lead, however due to its very excessive albedo of 75%, the planet absorbs 156 W/m2 from the solar and emits 156 W/m2 to area, versus our [Earth’s] 239 W/m2. On this case, the warmer planet radiates much less vitality to area. [Virtually zero heat to space comes directly from the surface.]

Although Venus absorbs solely 65% as a lot vitality from the solar because the earth, its ambiance on the floor is ninety-three instances the mass of Earth’s ambiance on the floor and is chargeable for the excessive floor temperature. The floor temperature is regular, not “working away.” See https://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/remembering-madrid-95-a-meeting-that-changed-the-world-2/ and http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Climatepercent20Physicspercent203.pdf

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Gradual Realization? The actual fact is that the Earth shouldn’t be warming with rising atmospheric carbon dioxide as local weather fashions predicted. Some local weather modelers seem like searching for a solution or an excuse. David Whitehouse discusses one new paper which asserts that the wrongdoer could also be a discount in atmospheric aerosols, minute particles suspended within the ambiance. One of many authors of the paper is Myles Allen, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Division of Physics, College of Oxford. Allen was Coordinating Lead Creator on the IPCC’s 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Evaluation Reviews. In keeping with his web site:

He’s credited by the BBC with first demonstrating, 15 years in the past, the necessity for ‘Internet Zero’ carbon dioxide emissions to cease international warming. His analysis focuses on how human and pure influences on local weather contribute to noticed local weather change and dangers of maximum climate and in quantifying their implications for long-range local weather forecasts.

“He proposed using Probabilistic Occasion Attribution to quantify the contribution of human and different exterior influences on local weather to particular particular person climate occasions and leads the www.climateprediction.web/ challenge, utilizing distributed computing to run the world’s largest ensemble local weather modelling experiments.”

TWTW doesn’t count on something important coming from this paper or the one reported by Kenneth Richard. See hyperlinks underneath Questioning the Orthodoxy.

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Civil Disagreement: AMO physicist Will Happer and vitality specialist Bruce Everett criticized a paper advocating carbon [dioxide] taxes by Rice College Professor of Economics Peter Hartley. Hartley rebutted the criticism. Happer and Everett summed their criticism with:

In conclusion, evaluation suggests the next externalities of atmospheric CO2

• no impression on human and animal well being,

• a considerable constructive impression on plant progress and crop yields,

• constructive impacts from the modest warming noticed thus far, and

• no empirical help for web damages, which stay a prediction, not an commentary.

It’s tough to extract from this evaluation any foundation for supporting a Pigouvian tax [a tax on something that causes harm to others not involved, such as respiratory harm caused by soot from coal-fired power plants without proper filters] on CO2. America at present emits roughly 5 billion metric tonnes of CO2 per yr, primarily from fossil-fuel use. A carbon tax at $50/mt (the US Authorities’s SCC) would impose an annual burden of $250 billion on the US economic system or roughly $2,000 per family. This burden could be along with the substantial will increase in gasoline, heating oil, pure fuel and electrical energy costs skilled during the last yr. Regardless of the very best hopes of local weather activists, renewable vitality is simply too expensive and performance-limited to switch the fossil gasoline economic system.

Pigouvian taxes are applicable when an recognized externality (a) is unfavorable and (b) might be quantified. Carbon dioxide meets neither check, and a carbon tax would create a considerable dead-weight loss to the economic system for no profit in any respect. [Boldface added]

Surprisingly Hartley absolutely agreed however concluded:

In abstract, financial evaluation implies a transparent hierarchy in insurance policies geared toward moderating the dangerous results of maximum climate occasions. First, remove dangerous command and management rules of the vitality trade, imposed within the identify of ‘local weather coverage,’ which inflict substantial prices with none confirmed advantages. Second, every jurisdiction ought to implement cost-effective defensive measures that defend towards, and scale back the prices of, dangerous climate occasions, irrespective of the trigger. Third, and provided that the then tremendously decreased anticipated prices nonetheless warrant it, and provided that efficient worldwide settlement might be obtained, Pigouvian taxes on CO2 emissions might be imposed. So, sure, merely proposing a tax on CO2 emissions with out these preconditions would certainly be ‘a foul thought.’ [Boldface added]

Apparently, Hartley is unaware of econometrician Ross McKitrick’s efficient paper demonstrating that the possibilities utilized in many research attributing excessive climate occasions to rising CO2 are meaningless. See hyperlinks underneath Difficult the Orthodoxy and Searching for a Widespread Floor.

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ExxonMobil Is aware of! On Grasp Useful resource, Robert Bradley has a abstract of an interview of ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods showing within the Wall Avenue Journal. It’s summed as “No Internet Zero Right here.” Woods acknowledges that Internet Zero by 2035 or another date is fantasy. Apart from Disneyland, companies can’t final lengthy on fantasy, except closely authorities backed. As Bradly writes:

‘Think about ExxonMobil. ‘Exxon Is aware of’ ought to change ExxonKnew, for ExxonMobil is aware of that client demand and earnings shall be with the mineral energies, not dilute, intermittent, government-dependent wind and photo voltaic. Evaluate this method with Shell, which finds itself in authorized hassle with its embrace of Internet Zero,”

“Sure, there was political correctness [in the interview] (“wind, photo voltaic and electrical automobiles … have an necessary function to play…”) and rent-seeking (“carbon seize and storage is acknowledged as an necessary expertise in addressing emissions, we’re specializing in it”). However quite a few citation factors make it clear that oil and fuel is the longer term–and a much bigger future than at the moment.” [Emphasis in original.] Among the many quotes are:

“’What we have been seeing even earlier than the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a coverage method dominated by ideology. Aspiration and hope collide with the realities of a worldwide vitality system that’s difficult, multidimensional, and critically necessary to financial progress and prosperity.’

“’… coverage makers are stepping again and taking a look at managing the specter of local weather change and lowering emissions in a approach that extra successfully addresses issues like nationwide safety. Affordability, reliability, availability of vitality are also all critically necessary. And hopefully they provide you with a greater method.’

“’Establishments and companies around the globe have to maneuver from the enterprise of propaganda to the enterprise of math, and truly do the work to know how we’re going to strike that stability.’” See hyperlink underneath Questioning Inexperienced Elsewhere.

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Fantasy Uncovered: Francis Menton exposes the ignorance of components of the Division of Vitality that ignore the vitality storage downside created by unreliable and variable electrical energy technology from wind and photo voltaic changing dependable vitality technology from fossil fuels and nuclear. Brief-term “financial savings” of utilizing unreliable energy shall be very expensive in the long term. In keeping with Menton, there are three apparent coverage limitations which might be being ignored within the US.

“(1) Increasingly more wind generators and photo voltaic panels are primarily ineffective as a result of they will by no means absolutely provide {an electrical} grid or present vitality safety with out full dispatchable backup.”

“(2) The so-called ‘the entire above’ vitality technique is equally disastrous.”

“(3) A carbon tax is a horrible thought.”

Menton additionally goes into the declare that “100% Clear Electrical energy” is about 90% solved is absurd. Until it’s 100% solved, dependable back-up have to be out there. For instance, laptop chip manufacturing, now being closely backed by the federal authorities, requires 100% dependable electrical energy underneath tight tolerances. A quick hiccup can destroy a month or two of manufacturing, relying on the complexity of the chip. See hyperlinks underneath Difficult the Orthodoxy.

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Concern and Danger: In her publish on “Misperception and amplification of local weather threat” Judith Curry states:

“The theme of this explicit publish is how our perceptions of threat differ from the precise threat itself. Understanding this distinction offers insights to understanding these fears, in addition to offering insights into how these variations are manipulated by propagandists.”

She goes right into a breakdown of the distinction between notion of threat and threat itself in addition to varieties of threat and understanding of threat. Earlier than closing she writes:

“Congratulations to all of the proselytizers of local weather doom, you’ve got lastly demonstrated an precise adversarial impression of local weather change that’s truly brought on by people – psychological misery. This psychological misery is instantly brought on by you: the mistaken, irrational, politically motivated people who have created efficient propaganda that’s creating unfavorable stress reactions significantly amongst kids who’ve but to develop a transparent sense of self and lack a context for with the ability to filter the BS.”

She then goes into the concept excessive climate occasions are brought on by CO2. This offers rise to the false assumption that excessive climate occasions are controllable. As said above, Ross McKitrick has proven that possibilities assigned to CO2 inflicting excessive climate occasions depends upon ignorance of the circumstances expressed within the Gauss-Markov Theorem. See hyperlinks underneath Difficult the Orthodoxy.

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Variety of the Week: Two Occasions Overbuild: Utilizing evaluation began by the late Roger Andrews, Francis Menton states:

El Hierro Island (within the Canary Islands) is the very best instance of an indication challenge of wind plus storage TWTW has been capable of finding. With a inhabitants of about 12,500, it’s not a metropolitan space, and the system requires diesel mills to function forty % or extra of the time. To imagine that metropolitan areas can obtain web zero with wind, photo voltaic, and storage is absurd.

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No TWTW subsequent week. TWTW will resume on New 12 months’s weekend with the Better of 2022

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Local weather Change Reconsidered II: Bodily Science

Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental Worldwide Panel on Local weather Change (NIPCC), 2013