Cost of electricity set to soar
The UK is the only country in the world that has legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions. By 2020, 30% of all our electricity will have to come from renewable sources. It is a well known fact that generating electricity using, for example, wind power, is much more expensive than from a coal fired power station. So to plug this gap, and make it attractive to investors to put money into building wind farms and other renewable projects, the government makes subsidies available.
The current subsidies available to build wind farms and other renewable come to £1 billion, or £13 on our annual electricity bills. Subsidies for smaller wind turbines and solar panels comes to £610 million - or £8 annually on electricity bills. So at the moment each year we already pay £21 to subsidise these projects in the form of a 'hidden' charge on our bills.
The proposed subsidies, or green taxes, by 2020, are much higher.
£1.8 billion for ground source heat pumps - £23 on our annual bills.
£1 billion towards carbon capture coal power stations (Like Richard Budge's Hatfield project in South Yorkshire) - £15 on consumer bills.
£2.6 billion to artificially increase the price of carbon - £40 on bills. This is a measure designed to make generating nuclear power more attractive, by raising the price of carbon allowances under the European emission trading scheme. This makes generating zero carbon nuclear power more attractive relative to high carbon gas or coal power plants.
So in total, proposed green taxes will equal £78 on our annual fuel bills. Added to the existing subsidy we are already paying, a total charge of around £100 will be applied to our fuel bills annually in order to meet our legally binding targets on renewable energy by 2020.
This takes no account of a new subsidy regime which the government have been considering to support burning more biomass at power stations such as Drax.
And let's not forget that the government are standing firm in their belief that any new nuclear power stations should not require any taxpayer subsidy - other than a subsidy to artificially increase the cost of carbon, as explained above. Some utility companies believe that this is simply not incentive enough to kick-start the building of new nuclear power stations.
Next week's spending review could mean there are changes to the level of some of these subsidies. But one thing is for certain. The cost of electricity looks set to surge in the next few years in order to de-carbonise our economy.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~34~RS~)
Hello, I’m Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for BBC Look North in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I've been interested in the weather and climate for as long as I can remember, and worked as a forecaster with the Met Office for more than ten years locally and at the international unit before joining the BBC in October 2007. Here I divide my time between forecasting and reporting on stories about climate change and its implications for people's everyday lives.
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Very good points Mr Hudson but of course it is taxation by another name and the subsidy will rise and rise.
If you are going to subsidise anything then you would subside nuclear if you believe the alarmist nonsense. But Mr Huhne says nuclear is old technology so presumably windmills never existed.
Wheres the worse place you can put a steel structure?
In salt water where it will corrode and require regular maintenance.
Every year twice a year I go to Spain on a hill there are 10 windmills the best is 8 working the worst is 6 working. Never 10?
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I have always found it incongruous that the unit price of electricity is lower, the more you use. This seems to me to be contrary to the aims of discouraging carbon emissions.
There was a reference to this in one of the election debates, by Nick Clegg, but so far, it doesn't seem to have featured in coalition policy.
Of course, if this was changed, and the price of electricity increased for higher users, that might actually reduce the consumption of electricity, and despite what they say, the suppliers or the Government don't really want that.
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Of course prices will soar, but then so will other countries prices as oil starts to run out.
There might be plenty of coal to dig up still, but without oil coal will also become so much more expensive, and the coal won't last forever either.
Nuclear power is an option, but it too carries a heavy "hidden" carbon cost to do with extraction, and the construction of the power station itself.
Such a pity no-one in power had the foresight to put our manufacturing based work force to work making wind turbines and etc. when we had the chance, rather than having to import them from Germany. All those car workers put out of weork a few years ago could have been easily re-trained and the factories re-tooled.
We had the money back then, before the bankers took it all in state handouts.
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In view of the fact that the UK is the only country so far to have legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions and that the government subsidises renewable energy from what we pay on our electricity bills it seems reasonable to me that the energy utility companies should show the EXACT amount deducted from every bill paid by the householder. A general estimate is simply not good enough.
Secondly the MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire tells me that inland wind turbines are an inefficient and a very expensive way of generating electricity (off-shore sites may be somewhat more efficient, because the wind blows more often at sea and the turbine blades are much bigger)and are justified by the companies engaged in this activity, such as Kelda, on the basis of the substantial subsidies they receive when building new wind farms.
Solar panels installed by power generation companies and paid for by the householder are dependent upon the strength of sunlight (variable according to cloud cover and the seasons)and people who have had them installed tell me that sufficient energy is produced for a warm bath or shower to be enjoyed, although the latest panels are claimed to be better and therefore more efficient?
Several of the multi-national oil companies have been funding practical work in carbon sequestration and the rate at which CO2 dissolves in brine, which may have important implications for the future storage of CO2.
I have to admit that a big question mark still exists in my mind about whether carbon and CO2 is wholly responsible for global warming and by implication climate change (without wishing to reopen the vociferous debate on the subject). The British public seem to be the pioneers of renewable energy development by virtue of the green taxes being paid to subsidise the development costs. Isn't it about time other nations started to pay their share of the development costs?
By de-carbonising the British economy will we see any future benefits in terms of reduced energy costs? I think not. I agree with Paul Hudson's submission: that the consumer should expect the future cost of electricity to soar.
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According to a German report, in 2008 0.6% of Germany's electricity was produced by solar power at a net cost of 8.4 billion euros (see p.4, link below). The feed-in tariff there was similar to that now operating in the UK, paying solar power producers around eight times the normal wholesale cost of electricity.
The report from the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung is available here (pdf file): http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/germany/Germany_Study_-_FINAL.pdf
The previous government intended 2% of UK electricity to be produced from solar power; David Cameron has suggested 15% as a target. The costs for the UK promise to be astronomical.
The figures Paul Hudson quotes for increases in bills seem to be the approximate per household cost, but in view of the German experience they seem very modest.
70% of UK electricity consumption is by commercial users. Increases of 20% or more in prices will surely drive many industrial operations overseas to countries like India and China.
The long-term effect of the renewables programme will be to reduce UK employment and transfer industry overseas.
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Why are we subsidising energy technologies that are known to degrade air quality and make poor use of resources? The Environment Agency have confirmed straw combustion in energy process creates greenhouse gas pollution 35% higher than equivalent fossil fuel, health impact is confirmed to be higher than fossil fuel e.g. Sulphur dioxide burden per unit of power 60 times higher than fossil fuel. Operational efficiency very poor with 8 out of 10 wagon loads wasted creating direct climate change.
The proposal to increase subsidy for importing and burning low grade biomass from the Americas causes concern, using woodchip brings risk of disease and pests, woodchip is 19% air and has substantial water content bringing further waste and pollution impact. Overseas suppliers detail 48% energy loss due to processing and transport before feedstock is burned in process with average 27% efficiency (UK Gov figure).
Can anyone explain logic in increasing ROCs requiring consumer and taxpayer to pay £billions for deliberate degradation of air quality in the UK ? We need renewable energy but surely it must be clean and make best use of resources including our money.
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I'm not sure what this post aims to achieve apart form stating the obvious... prices will rise that is a certainty we know. Is this a thinly veiled attack on the whole climate change saga?
The biggest flaw in this post is the fact that billions upon billions of pounds have been given to subsidise the coal,gas and oil industries...Yes that very same oil industry that posts hundred billion pound profits, yet we balk at a subsidy given to a relatively new sector
Of course, the healthcare bill for Air pollution from fossil fuel burning isn't factored in at all, thats a few hundred million on it's own.
If readers also decided to insulate properly, turn down the thermostat and waste less energy they would offset the raised bills
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* ExposeTheTruth *
As Global Warming has been PROVED to be a BIG fat lie & Total SCAM - http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org - there is absolutely NO need whatsoever that ANYBODY in the UK, or elsewhere, has to finance this Fraud Anymore.
This also applies to the "supposed" ( Climate Change influenced by humans ) plans/laws etc. See the above link for more details/info/FACTS etc.
CO2 is NOT a poison, or harmful, in FACT it's just the opposite ! Without it ALL plants/crops etc would die. Again see the above link for more details/info/FACTS etc.
* ExposeTheTruth *
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Ten years ago, I was involved with a study for a coal fired combined heat and power plant to be located in a UK energy park.
By supplying both heat and power we projected energy efficiencies of more than 70% and by avoiding grid access charges transmission losses etc., we estimated wholesale electricity supply prices in the range 2p to 3p per kilowatt hour (kwh).
For a similar project today,would need to buy renewable obligation certificates (Rocs)to cover all its output. These currently cost around 5p to 7p per kwh and would give us supply prices in the range 8p to 10p per kwh.
Since April 2010 if instead I chose to start a "renewable" project I could claim a subsidy of 1 to 4 Rocs (some 5p to 28p) depending on which type of renewable I chose to use for supply.
With these subsidies the supply of renewable energy is profitable even with costs three to four times those of traditional producers. As the % of renwables supplied rises both the price of a Roc and the burden of the subsidies on the remaining traditional producers will rise and there is no incentive or prospect within this regime of renewable costs or prices falling.
Fuel poverty we are told has risen 50% in the past decade. It looks like it is now set to skyrocket.
Neither the US (under the Republicans) nor China or any of our main competitors outside Europe will go along with any of this. How can the UK compete with any of these if its energy costs are 3 to 4 times higher than their's.
All in all current UK energy policies look to me like a total disaster. Can someone please tell me why I am wrong?
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So, another weather presenter, who has got it wrong 3 times out of 5 this week alone, presumes to discuss global warming and consumptioneffects. Next some bimbo will convince the aurlines to gtound aircraft because of dust.
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#6 - Brian Wilson:
"The Environment Agency have confirmed straw combustion in energy process creates greenhouse gas pollution 35% higher than equivalent fossil fuel,"
You are probably correct about the other disadvantages, but burning straw does not add to the overall level of CO2 in the atmosphere, since the CO2 being added is only that which has been extracted from the atmosphere during the growing process. Burning coal, on the other hand, is putting CO2 into the atmosphere which was extracted millions of years ago. That is why, as far as CO2 is concerned, burning biomass is considered "sustainable", while burning coal isn't. I agree however, that there are issues over transportation and other forms of pollution. Personally I believe that the introduction of alternative forms of energy is only perpetuating our addiction to energy consumption and in the long term is unsustainable. The only long term solution is to reduce the consumption of energy, which, with population and economic growth rising as they are, seems unlikely.
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QuaesoVeritas @2. You say:
"I have always found it incongruous that the unit price of electricity is lower, the more you use. This seems to me to be contrary to the aims of discouraging carbon emissions"
Not so with our local power utility who charge more for more power used. Check this out:
http://www.pge.com/myhome/myaccount/charges/
We also have SMART meters so they can continuously (60/60/24/7/365) monitor every users consumption to make sure the correct charges get applied.
Add to this that our cars are rapidly being fitted with “FAST TRACK” sensor’s (used initially to only deduct bridge tolls and now being used to track our journeys) I can see a similar program being introduced to curb our travelling.
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Sounds scary, but how much is 100 British pounds? What's the average electricity bill? Seems to be around 1000.
http://www.whatprice.co.uk/utilities/electricity-bills.html
So it's going up to 10 percent to ensure a clean energy transition and create many new jobs.
For those in the states, 100 British pounds is about $160 U.S. dollars, or $14 per month, or a little more than a postage stamp per day.
It's not something I'd get alarmist about.
U.K. (if they haven't already done so) could provide low income rebates to consumers who might find the increase a little more difficult than your average household.
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MarkB20 the average bill is much lower than that, according to the site below most people in a 3-4 bedroom house pay £30-£40 a month. So £100 a year is a sizeable percentage increase, especially for the less well off.
http://www.electricityprices.org.uk/average-electricity-bill/
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I think your figures may be for gas and electricity combined. I live in a 4 bedroom detached house and my electricity bills are £45 a month. So someone in a small 2 bedroom house who is less well off will be paying much less annually and as a result face a hefty percentage increase. It does seem unfair that the more you consume, the less as a proportion of your bill you will pay towards this levy when its heavier consumers that are more to blame for carbon pollution.
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11. Quaeso Veritas
Reference CO2 creation by straw combustion the findings illustrate use of straw not only increases CO2 per unit of power produced but taking all aspects of energy life cycle into consideration straw still produces 35% more GHG than fossil fuel.I note in the US research details biomass combustion generally fails scrutiny on claims of GHG savings.
The large biomass burning proposals cause concern on waste and pollution.e.g. MGT Teeside 300MW plant to import some 2,4 million tonnes of woodchip from the Americas. They claim advantage of importing dried biomass compared with local green feedstock containing 50% plus water requiring large amounts of energy input to drive out water content. The plant details 200,000 tonne external storage of woodchip which illustrates energy will be wasted at source of feedstock in drying and processing then on arrival in UK it will be open to vagaries of Teeside weather plus transmission risk of any pests and disease to indigenous plant life via birds etc. Bulk carriers fuelled by heavy oil are reported to create air pollution 70 times higher than land transport per tonne/km travelled.
My fundamental concern is the process of burning biomass is confirmed to degrade local air quality, it is cumulative impact and the proposals involve burning millions of tonnes in the Nth East and Eastern Region. Most of the feedstock will be transported thousands of km from the West around UK bypassing major users of power to then create further transmission losses delivering the power hundreds of km. Where is the joined up thinking and due diligence to protect the air we breathe especially for children who are particularly vulnerable to the hazardous pollution created by biomass combustion.I note PreEnergy are applying for special dispensation to increase hazardous air pollution from their massive biomass plant in Port Talbot.
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9# BtB. CHP was started when Battersea power station was built in the 1950's. Spare heat was used to heat flats across the Thames. Worked well, but you do need to be near to the CHP generator to reduce heat loss.
Whatever subsidies paid to the wind generator companies we still get little power and they get rich. The oil companies have never had any subsidy from government to produce oil based fuel products.
Decarbonise the economy in 30 years is a joke unless we reduce the population by 50% and all live in caves. This aim only goes to prove that politicians are dreamers with no technical or scientific knowledge.
Paul, will you answer this:-
Why, when the high resolution ice core data shows that temperature rises before atmospheric CO2 rises in parallel, between 600 and 1000 years later, are governments so fixed on CO2 when the above data set shows that CO2 does not drive climate? Whatever they impose to control climate will fail and cost more that we can afford.
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#16 - Brian Wilson
While I accept your other points and possibly that the overall carbon footprint of burning biomass, including transportaion, may be positive, I find it logically difficult to accept that burning straw per se can add to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. The following articles suggest otherwise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7530794.stm
http://www.nrg-consultants.com/chppowerplantscogeneration/wholestrawbalegasifiers/strawasafuel/index.html
The important point here, is not the actual level of CO2 emissions, but the fact that those emissions are from a "sustainable" source. Having said that, I feel that burning biomass is probably the worst of the "sustainable" options, for other reasons. This is clearly a complicated issue and as I said earlier, the only solution which is truly "sustainable", would be to reduce overall energy consumption, an unlikely scenario.
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#12 - Titus
It's good to see that at least 1 U.S. energy supplier has adopted this approach. Do you know if the same approach is adopted by other suppliers, or is PG&E on it's own?
Of course I was referring to U.K. suppliers, none of whom, as far as I am aware, still charge less, the more you use. When I approached a couple of the U.K. suppliers, they didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. They pretend to want us to use less engergy (which would clearly not be in their interests), while encouraging more usage through their pricing policies. Maybe PG&E will move into the U.K. energy supply field soon!
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#18- Quaeso Veritas
I agree with you priority should be energy saving but my prime concern is that we focus on CO2 which is benign on health impact and positive for plant life but conveniently ignore hazardous impact of dirty technologies that are demanding large subsidies. Biomass combustion is by far the dirtiest choice of sustainable/green! energy and sadly maximises waste of resources. The GHG issue with straw appears to surround use of nitrogenous fertiliser but a serious concern in straw combustion is chlorine content which is 20 times higher than alternative biomass feedstock and creates dioxin concerns. Not a problem with gas.
We appear to be rushing into burning cellulosic material in low efficiency highly polluting technologies when superior alternatives such as enzyme conversion to liquid biofuels are coming onstream.
Why subsidise obsolete,wasteful and dirty technology ?
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“The UK is the only country in the world that has legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions. By 2020, 30% of all our electricity will have to come from renewable sources.”
So finally Gordon Brown has got his way – we are world leaders – in self destruction. Not only do these policies accelerate the export of manufacturing (and other) jobs to the far east but for businesses that do need a high load supply of electricity (eg Data centres) there are parts of the country (basically within the M25) where the supply is just not available – at any price. Nice one Britain!
Any sign that China India (even the USA) are going to follow Britain’s audacious lead? Doesn’t look like it. So this is one citizen that feels like he has been well and truly mugged! Nice one Milliband.
And there is real concern that within the next 20 years the lights will start to go out because the generating capacity simply is not there. Nice one Huhne.
And what difference will these billions of pounds make to global temperatures? Not measurable, even if you do believe the gospel according to IPCC. But the people living in fuel poverty will notice. They will suffer an immediate adverse impact on the quality of their lives. Nice one Cameron/Clegg.
I would be happier if the 11 year old comedian from Halifax was running our energy policy. Or maybe he has been?
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#20 - Brian Wilson
I agree that the obsession with GHG has diverted attention from perhaps
more serious environmental issues.
Since global temperatures appear to be entering a downward phase, which may last 10-20 years, maybe that will change, especially if 50% of the years to 2015 are not warmer than 1998, as predicted by the Met. Office.
More likely is that all environmental issues may be tarred with the "climate change" brush, since many environmental pressure groups have concentrated on that aspect of the environment.
Personally I believe that as far as the UK government is concerned, this is more a question of the security of energy supply and they are simply using "climate change" as a way of selling the policy to the public.
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Quaeso,
I think reducing consumption is unnecessary and generally not a good option.
The best option by far is to increase energy efficiency in generation. Traditional generators got only about 30%, newer technology using combined cycle puts this up to over 50%, and using this combined with CHP gets you over 75%. - i.e. three times as much bang for the same buck
John Marshall is right about the heat transportation cost, but that cost nowadays isn't prohibitive. Technology has got better. In Iceland heat is piped up to 30 or 40 miles and there is pretty good scope if we get organised for district heating using CHP in all our urban areas.
Britain's prosperity and industry for the past 400 years has been built on cheap energy from our coal and more recently oil. If we walk away from this towards technologies our ancestors realised were deeply flawed hundreds of years ago (and all our major competitors do not) we will become poor.
It is pointless to argue as some have that we can afford an extra £100 on our bills. That £100 only pays for 10% of our supply from renewables. Full conversion to renewables even if it was feasible would raise electricity costs 5 fold.
Current government policies will make all of us poorer and will make the poor very cold.
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#23 - bandythebane wrote:
"I think reducing consumption is unnecessary and generally not a good option.
The best option by far is to increase energy efficiency in generation. Traditional generators got only about 30%, newer technology using combined cycle puts this up to over 50%, and using this combined with CHP gets you over 75%. - i.e. three times as much bang for the same buck"
But there is a limit to the ultimate efficiency which can be obtained, and each 1% is harder to achieve. Meanwhile, if consumption continues to grow exponentially, due to population x economic growth, and the ever increasing consumption of electrical goods eventually we hit a brick wall. We could be reducing consumption via new technology, but, for example, digital t.v. uses more power than analogue. Electric cars may consume less oil and possibly produce less CO2, but will require more electricity generation. Everyone in the world expects to own a car, a digital t.v. a computer .....
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I realise it's probably too late now since the powers that be have swallowed the whole Global Warming debate - John Craven on countryfile said he was not allowed to 'take sides' in the Farming methods debate - then went on to talk about climate change - clear evidence to me that the BBC has decided the science is 'fixed' and MUST NOT be debated further - Sorry for the degression
Back to the main point - the governments attitude to 'forcing' us to reduce our carbon alone in the world (catching A rain drop to stop the flood springs to mind!) and taxing us to subsidise turbine etc makes me feel so mad and helpless I think the whole climate change issue is far from cut and dry yet our government is charging head long in to solutions which will cost us all dear! Both finacially and who knows how else in the future when we find our initial science on climate change is inaccurate!
Another point also worth making is energy waste by government organisations: my wife is a nurse in the NHS, I taught in schools, I now teach in prisons; they all waste energy like you would not believe. Heating on when its not cold, radiators which won't turn off..... on and on.... (And yes I know the answers - it's not efficient to keep turning boilers on and off - come on get real!)
I would like to bet that the subsidies raised for turbines could be raised by really tackeling this vast energy wastage which we all pay for twice over; and not just saying they will look at efficiencies!!!
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It will be interesting to see in the coming week which technologies are to be subsidised in this difficult financial climate. Forcing the consumer/taxpayer to support biomass combustion automatically increases NHS costs due to air quality degradation as confimed in gov report on renewables. The current proposals to import 50 million tonnes of low grade biomass each year will add to volatility in energy provision as detailed in current cost fluctuation and rapidly increasing competition for land utilisation and feedstock.
On need to increase operational efficiency of energy provision biomass reverses this with current plants displaying 15-34% efficiency, way below equivalent fossil fuel performance.
On pollution created SO2 creation per unit of useful power out varies between 60-240 times higher than fossil fuel, the most hazardous air pollutant fine particles hundreds of times higher, NOX (300 times greater GHG impact) many times higher, all the ingredients for acid rain .
One intersting point is high toxic water content in emissions, a small waste wood biomass plant is detailed to create 40 million litres per year mainly burning timber impregnated with creosote and positioned in a prime vegetable growing area. Will the large powerplants create a micro climate locally? A biomass plant operator was asked "could I drink the water?" The answer"yes but it would kill you". Another operator confirmed under certain met. conditions the ground level pollution will mainly occur within 3km of powerplant irrespective of chimney height but can easily carry 200km. Emissions volume per MWh is shown to vary between 4-30,000 cubic metres, challenging the regulatory authority on this brings the response "we do not cap volume" challenge their support of poor efficiency and response is " efficiency is purely a commercial matter". This is from organisations detailing their mission statement includes their job is to protect the environment and improve air quality for future generations!
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Yesterday I wrote a reply to Paul but had reservations about statements he made as to electricity price increases. I thought he may be wrong.
I now have the correct(?) figures and they show Paul to be hopelessly incorrect. His data obviously came from the BBC archives.
Ofgem stated, on the BBC, that the £4 billion per year for 10 years required for connecting renewables to the grid would cost £6 per year to every household. There are 25million of these so actually the cost is £160 per household per year.
Plus- the government wishes to install 33 gigawatts of offshore generators costing £100 billion, another £400 per household per year. So already we have £560 per year per household.
Plus the £8 billion for solar power feed in tariff, £320 per household so totals are now £880 per household per year for ten years.
This total cost is more than present day costs of generating from all sources so you can see Paul that electricity will more than double in price.
Will you now revise your ridiculous figures?
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Paul
someone called Booker at the Telegraph? has a piece that seems to be on topic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8068402/Renewables-will-add-880-a-year-to-bills.html
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QuaesoVeritas @19. You say:
"Maybe PG&E will move into the U.K. energy supply field soon!"
Firstly my apology, I have just picked myself off the floor and still in uncontrollable LOL. PG&E filed bankruptcy back in 2001. The third largest in US history ($24 billion) and the highest utility ever. Their customers are paying off about $9 billion of their debts and we are about half way through.
You can have them and their debt with the utmost of mine and my fellow California’s pleasure. They are a disaster and would have been shut down years ago but for politics.
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#29 - Titus
Now I really am confused!
I presumed that you bought your electricity from them.
Their website still looks active.
Maybe their pricing structure isn't very smart after all.
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#28 - Spanglerboy wrote:
"someone called Booker at the Telegraph? has a piece that seems to be on topic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8068402/Renewables-will-add-880-a-year-to-bills.html"
Presumably based on the same press release as Paul's blog!
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You may be right about the population Quaeso, but I think the best way to reduce population growth is to get everyone into the same boat as us where they don't have so many children because they prefer to save their money to buy TV's, electric cars or whatever else they may fancy.
The world's highest population growth is in places like Congo, Uganda or Sudan where no one has access to any of these consumer goods.
You won't get them to stop procreating so fast if you continue to deny them cheap electricity and any access to a decent standard of living.
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#27 My comments were sent for further study, BBC comments not mine, as I seriously questioned Paul's figures, given the Government estimates of costs. I hope that they will publish soon.
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Paul,
Great empirical stuff blended with insight, and well-written, too. What I don't understand is why Look North's editorial policy encourages someone of your technical ability AND bright presence to be nightly treated as a bumpkin and baited by someone who looks as though they have been over-exposed to artificial sunlight - I think we know who I mean.
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@33 Though I haven't seen John Marshall's #27, I must agree with his #33.
I suspect we'll be disagreeing in somewhat opposite directions, but contrafactual is contrafactual, and seriously questioning such statements as,
"It is a well known fact that generating electricity using, for example, wind power, is much more expensive than from a coal fired power station,"
and then objecting to
"£1.8 billion for ground source heat pumps - £23 on our annual bills,"
(much less expensive than equivalent heating and cooling from a coal fired power station) is just plain self-contradiction.
Also, the whole pretext that costs of research, innovation and environmental impact as 'hidden costs' is a silly argument. Every industry that studies new technologies pays for that study and passes on the costs to its consumers. Every industry by law and treaty that pollutes is liable for those emissions and passes too that liability - moral and fiscal - to its consumers.
It's not that there's nothing to the claim that people, when they finally start paying the true cost of the energy they use including the cost of its environmental impact, pay more. It's just that this complaint of Paul's would ring hollow in almost any other context. Look how much the cost of housing has risen, now that we don't shout "Gardyloo!" and dump our bedpans and waste buckets into the street from our windows. All that hidden cost of plumbing.
I share John Marshall's outrage - though I suspect in a diametrically different way - at how spun and contrived this particular line of pseudo-reasoning has been presented.
But if one is to apply faulty logic, why not do it in a fair and balanced presentation of the same sort 'analysis' on carbon-burning industries.
For example, though John (sorry to pick on you, Mr. Marshall, particularly as you're right about something today) flatly states, "The oil companies have never had any subsidy from government to produce oil based fuel products," the intrinsic subsidies and hidden costs of military and 'foreign aid' ventures founded on acquiring oil in troubled regions, the cost to labour unions of draconian measures (remember when Margaret Thatcher shut down the coal strike) and labourers of unsafe conditions allowed for years for coal and oil both, the subsidies for foundries in terms of special tax arrangements, cost of making roads for carbon-burning vehicles, and yes, the cost to the environment that the carbon-burning industries have never yet paid beggars this tiny little effort to partially correct past wrongs.
With a rapidly shifting climate due to carbon-burning, how much will it cost Yorkshire and Lincolnshire alone when the day comes that a super-typhoon like the one bearing down on the Phillipines makes its way north?
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#35. - Boleslas_Broda wrote:
"With a rapidly shifting climate due to carbon-burning, how much will it cost Yorkshire and Lincolnshire alone when the day comes that a super-typhoon like the one bearing down on the Phillipines makes its way north?"
I am sure that you have just included that in order to stir up controversy BB. You know that there isn't the slightest chance of that.
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Boleslas @ 35. I have just returned from a week in Dorset. On the beach at Charmouth there was a tourist plaque giving some reasons to the meaning of Britains "Jurassic coast" It said that it was caused over 19 million years ago when the area was jungle. What part did mankind, CO2 emissions etc.. have in the dramatic climate changes that happened then.The answer is of course, none! What is happening now has happened time and time again over millions of years and to suggest that we can change the inevitable forces of nature is arrogant nonsense. Last time I asked you this you bumbled your way through a quite silly answer so I suggest you take a deep breath and try and answer in a more sensible way.
Take your time!
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@36 "I am sure that you have just included that in order to stir up controversy BB. You know that there isn't the slightest chance of that."
QV, do you mean that I know super-typhoons in the Atlantic are called category 5 hurricanes, or that I know England isn't due north of the Phillippines?
I do know I was in a train out of London on October 16, 1987 delayed some eleven hours by hurricane force winds dropping trees across the tracks. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/16/newsid_2533000/2533219.stm)
Sure, it wasn't a category 5 storm, nor did it quite make it at full force to Yorkshire I'm sure, but then hurricanes are a matter of probability, not certainty. Whatever the slightest chance of the event is, external forcing increases it cumulatively. More to the point, lesser extreme events, more common ones, will also become more likely, and will also be costly.
There were eight paragraphs before that one, did none of them stir any controversy either?
@37 Hudsonfan, Hudsonfan, Hudsonfan.
Let it go.
I've apparently written a small novel's worth on Paul's blog, and the only thing you want to talk about is the one time I bumbled and was silly?
I've tried to explain these things. Lazarus has tried to explain these things. John Marshall tried to explain these things -- though you may note if you look carefully, John asks and answers different questions than the one you did. It's subtle, but you'll see it if you check.
Here's my own return question for you:
How many times since the peak of the Oxygen Cataclysm is there any evidence indicating a sustained global temperature increase of two degrees or more in less than 150 years?
Take your time. Remember to breathe. Don't be afraid to look sillier, and remember anyone can bumble, it's not the end of the world if you do again.
Then again, you don't strike me as patient.
Though you assert that dramatic climate changes happen all the time, no event matches the current one in intensity of temperature rise. (Certainly there are intermittent episodes of equal or greater temperature loss, such as the Younger Dryas, but temperature rises like the current one, not so much as one single instance.)
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"No event matches the current one in intesity" If that isn't the biggest load of tosh ever posted on here I'll eat my hat! There has been far more dramatic changes of temperature and climate over millions of years and you know it. What they didn't have then was a load of incompetant "scientists" spinning lies and rubbish for nothing more than money. You didn't have governments exploiting the natural events for tax.
I'll bet in another few years they will all climb back under their rocks and let people get on with their lives. BTW, we have over 200 years supply of coal left, 30 to 50 years suppy of our own oil asnd they are still finding North Sea gas fields. Get them burnt!
Just reading your post again can you explain when a temperature change becomes a cataclysmic non-stop event and when is it "intermittent" Is it a period of years,centuries or even longer?
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The discussion on possible impact on Yorkshire and Lincolnshire from sea sadly ignores definite impact from air quality degradation due to large biomass combustion projects to south and west of region. Eastern Counties already suffer transboudary pollution from inland sources. We demonise the petrol/diesel car for exhaust pollution but a small 36MW biomass plant burning 240,000 tonnes/yr is specified to produce hazardous pollution equal to 485,000 additional cars each travelling 10,000km/yr. Large plants specified to burn 10 times more at 2-3 million tonnes/yr. Gov predict £billions of additional cost to NHS.
Can anyone explain logic of deliberately degrading air quality?.
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#38 - Boleslas_Broda wrote:
"I do know I was in a train out of London on October 16, 1987 delayed some eleven hours by hurricane force winds dropping trees across the tracks. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/16/newsid_2533000/2533219.stm)"
That was 23 years ago (before climate change had been thought of I think), and how many since?
There are many examples of such storms in the distant past, including the famous one involving Grace Darling, in September 1838, but of course, these days we are more aware of them today, due to advances in meteorology and communications.
Far from increasing in strengh, there was recently reference on the Daily Mail website, to findings by the French Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, that wind speeds had declined over the last 30 years, due to the number of trees and buildings (I only quote what the article said), but unfortunately that reference has now been removed and I can't find the original source. If true however, an example of a beneficial effect of man's influence on the climate? The impression that weather is getting worse is an illusion, resulting to our proximity to the events concerned. In the the 50's and 60's I remember it being blamed on "the bomb", now it is CO2.
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Another question for Boleslas. Whilst acknowledging that climate change and global warming has occured multiple times over the last 20 million years or so, would you be prepared to state catergorically that the latest one is the first where mankinds use of CO2s has caused it and all the others occured naturally?
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BB you are still my favourite grave digger and thanks for the advice on a previous post with regard to the dangers of 4x4's and snow and ice. All taken on board.
However, with regard to your assertion made above 'no event matches the current one in intensity of temperature rise', I would respectively draw to your attention the following:
'Observations collated at the Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit indicate that the rate of increase in global average surface temperature between 1975 and 1998 was similar to the rates of increase observed between 1860 and 1880 and between 1910 and 1940 (approximately 0.16 C° per decade).' per Lord Hunt of King's Heath to the British House of Lords. Subsequently confirmed by no other than Phil Jones.
So it would seem there was nothing unusual about the increase in global temperatures at the end of the 20th century. As far as I can see there has been no temperature rise of any intensity over the last few years.
Of course we all know that measuring surface temperatures for a body the size of the earth over what is for homo sapiens a longish period of time is somewhat fraught and tells us very little about climate. And moreover let us not forget that no person experiences an average global climate or an average global temperature.
It seems a bit ironic in this age of 'global warming' that the last couple of winters in the UK have been a bit chilly and we the hapless citizens have had to use fossil fuels to keep warm and this brings us back to the point in Paul Hudson's article. It is costing us more each year to keep warm. There are many in the UK that live in fuel poverty. For them a cold winter is a real and imminent threat. A possible threat from rising temperatures to offspring not yet born is in no way a comparable evil.
Plus of course there is no evidence other than the output of computer models to indicate that man made emissions have any measurable effect on weather or climate.
Got to go, left the helicopter ticking over and that IS expensive to run.
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Tch.
QV, Spanglerboy, I know you mean well and you're only trying to help poor Hudsonfan move forward with these concepts, but if you want to help, at least try to stay on the right path. Look to the example Brian Wilson sets @40. Hard to do anything but wholeheartedly support that very succinct summation.
Contrarily, @41 "(before climate change had been thought of I think)," is just the rooster thinking its crowing brings the sun into being, QV.
Climate Change, the current incident, appears to have started about 1860, since the time the biosphere stopped being able to absorb GHGs at the rate the second Industrial Revolution produced them.
That's 150 years. The same period @43 Spanglerboy refers to in multiple parts.
You see, parts of the current (150 year) climate incident do not count as _previous_ to the current climate change. We're not talking about whether the end of the 20th century is different from the previous century, but whether there is any previous event anything like the past 150 years for global temperature increase.
Now to address Hudsonfan's bumblings directly, @39 one advises do not eat your hat. You may need it. Seek some less indispensible garment.
There are no doubt larger loads of tosh on the Internet than have come near Paul's blog pages, no matter how hard we on whatever side of the debate try.
Again, please, Hudsonfan -- though I am heartened to read where you say "Just reading your post again can you explain when a temperature change becomes a cataclysmic non-stop event and when is it "intermittent" Is it a period of years,centuries or even longer?" and reply that I'm not asking about changes, but about increases; not about local changes, but about global ones; not weather events, but climate trends over a substantial period (let us say of at least 100 years to not be 'intermittent') -- if you think you know of some sustained period of global temperature increase greater than the current era (last 150 years) in rate (ie 1.4-1.6C/century), just identify it.
Otherwise don't make unfounded claims like, "There has been far more dramatic changes of temperature and climate over millions of years and you know it."
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One thing I can say for sure: ‘I'd sooner live in today’s climate than 150 years ago and more of the same would be welcome’.
And add to that the amount of extra heat that our current population (compared to 150 years ago) would have required to keep warm. Could it be natural forces at work to compensate for the difference?
We know so little and profess so much and throw wisdom out of the window.......
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GraveDigger
You seem to have a different definition of climate change/global warming from most others, which is fine by me. However, you will be aware that when climate folk talk about surface temperatures they use this strange thing called an anomaly which is based on some arbitrary cool period within the 150 year warming period that you allude to. Of course they have to choose an arbitrary cool period so that they can claim the anomaly shows a warming. All smoke and mirrors I am sure you will agree.
I have to confess to being a bit of a fan of that Bob Carter who is some sort of Australian climate guru type dude. In his excellent booklet entitled 'Climate: The Counter Consensus' (which I am sure you will have read between your grave digging activities) Bob puts the last 150 years in a geological context and comes to the conclusion that there aint nothing unusual about it.
So on this one I am going to run with Professor Bob.
As an aside, Bob does make a reference to our host Mr Hudson but unfortunately calls him Paul Holmes and I think Bob misunderstood Paul Hudson's involvement in the CRU emails. Tch as you would say.
And I am sure Hudsonfan is quite capable of looking after himself.
Got to feed the deer herd now.
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BB @ 44.Do you really belive that there has not been more dramatic changes of climate over the last few million years or so?? I doubt it. I also doubt that any credible scientist would dare make such an outrageous claim.To talk about temperature increases over the last 150 years is nonsense, It is not even a blink of the eye in terms of climate over the history of the universe. Your posts are becoming laughable they really are!
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Hudsonfan wrote:
" would you be prepared to state catergorically that the latest one is the first where mankinds use of CO2s has caused it and all the others occured naturally?"
Not sure what this has to do with rising energy prices but I would state categorically that all others occurred naturally, wouldn't you?
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@46 Professor Bob can't get the name 'Hudson' right, and 'misunderstands' the central role Paul had in the CRU emails.. and you still pick him over one of us? Tch indeed.
I'd be eager to learn if in this context Professor Carter spins he identified a particular era or phase where the temperature of the entire planet increased on average by over 2 degrees in only 150 years.
Cooling, even far more dramatically, is easy. Particulates from volcanoes or large meteors, oddball 64 million year celestial cycles about the galactic plane, breaking ice dams in freshwater megalakes, sudden extinctions of herd creatures, solar activity, all of these have been cited as causes of dramatic global drops in temperature.
Please by all means find anyone who has demonstrated a past period of intense global temperature rise like the one we have been experiencing since 1860. Identify the event, outline their evidence and their argument.
Just saying that you doubt there hasn't been one isn't proof there has. And it isn't answering the question offered.
Like Titus, I find the temperature of the world now more to my physical comfort than 150 years ago.
But then, I'm not the sort of person satisfied by warm fuzzy arguments designed to lull one into a neglectful state.
It may be a warmer world, but it's one with substantially more air quality issues globally, more changeable weather, more frequent hurricanes, and hurricanes which form in and travel to points far outside the traditional creche of tropical storms.
So, again I reply, substantiate your claim, or please withdraw it.
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Does anyone posting on here agree with the statement that the temperature rise over the last 150 years is the most dramatic in the history of the earth or do you, like me, think that statement is the biggest load of rubbish ever posted?
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BB #49
GraveDigger you set out in post #44 the proposition (I paraphrase) that the intensity of the temperature increase over the last 150 years is unprecedented. You do not back it up with any evidence but invite others to shoot down your proposition. You do not seek to substantiate your claim but expect others to substantiate their claims. If that’s how you want to play it….
A rebuttal of your proposition can be found in chapters 1 and 2 of Bob Carter’s book which I mentioned above - some 50 pages. Well worth a read, but I am not inclined to type out all 50 pages here as I think we might at that stage run into some copyright issues.
However, in the penultimate paragraph of chapter 2 Bob says: “Considering also the geological context provided in Chapter 1, we have shown in this chapter that 150 years of meteorological measurement provides an inadequate data series to provide much useful information about real climate change. We have also seen that short-term warming or cooling trends characterize nearly all weather and climate series, and that the latest such trend, since 1998, is one of cooling’
The point I made in my last post, with respect to your august profession, is that I am minded to run with the opinion of a geologist/palaeontologist rather than the unsubstantiated proposition of a grave digger.
Are you able to offer any evidence that we live in a world with more frequent hurricanes? There have not been any in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire in the last few weeks. Neither have there been any super-typhoons.
And here is one report that suggests that the number and intensity of hurricanes has decreased in the recent past
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/19/what-happened-to-all-the-hurricanes-al/
Got to go now. Having new lead on the roof.
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@50 & 51 so, no answer to the question, just more deflection, tosh, bumbling, silliness, self-contradiction and waffle?
If the 150 years since 1860 is too short a period, why is the dozen years since 1998 so significant?
And can't we put to bed the myth that the climate has been cooling since 1998?
It won't wash, it's simply false and its also a claim entirely irrelevant to the current question.
Watts' little black hole of profound misinformation doesn't counter the fact that we've had a strong run of higher than average numbers of hurricanes and named storms in recent years.
Failure of the person who originated @37 -- or any of Paul Hudson's dozen or more readers -- the claim of "What is happening now has happened time and time again over millions of years," to provide even a single example of global temperature rise sustains as long as and of such intensity as the most recent 150 years simply proves he made up the claim without any background or evidence.
He's been called on to support his claim.
He can't.
QED
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#52 - Boleslas_Broda wrote:
"If the 150 years since 1860 is too short a period, why is the dozen years since 1998 so significant?"
Because according to AGW theory, global temperature rise should have continued during that period (as a result of continued growth in CO2 concentrations), when it hasn't. Of course, proponents of climate change have now changed the rules to say that periods of zero growth in temperatures and negative growth, are also caused by "climate change".
"And can't we put to bed the myth that the climate has been cooling since 1998?
It won't wash, it's simply false and its also a claim entirely irrelevant to the current question."
Strictly speaking, the global temperature since 1998 has not been cooling, but it has barely increased. One reason the trend is increasing is that 1999 and 2000 were much cooler than 1998 and that influences the trend. The linear trend in HadCRUT3 monthly figures, over the last 10 years is +0.174c per century, taking into account the September global figue and it is now quite likely that by the end of the year, the decadal trend will be zero or below. 2010 and "about half" of the years to 2015 were supposed to be warmer than 1998, according to the M.O. but that now seems unlikely, and I expect that prediction to be retracted in the near future.
"Failure of the person who originated @37 -- or any of Paul Hudson's dozen or more readers -- the claim of "What is happening now has happened time and time again over millions of years," to provide even a single example of global temperature rise sustains as long as and of such intensity as the most recent 150 years simply proves he made up the claim without any background or evidence.
He's been called on to support his claim.
He can't.
QED"
One problem is that we only have about 150 years of reasonably accurate temperature data, which happens to coincide with the alleged period of "climate change". Is that just a coincindence?
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@53 One notes that nowhere in your response is a single example of the type called for.
I'm aware there are problems (150 years isn't a geological timescale, so we can't really invoke most of the field of geology to help us, despite the Carter doctrine cited above), quibbles (surely, it's 150 years of the 180 years of reasonably accurate data), and various false reports (like claims of cooling since 1998) of the attributes of the current temperature dataset.
I'm not over-fond of the focus on temperature amoung those discussing the larger climate change debate as there remain three dozen other viable datasets supporting AGW that tend to get ignored.
Still, for all that, where is the counterexample? Any period of at least a century (ie comparable to the scale of 150 years) of global temperature rise of so shocking and unprecedented a rate as 1.4C/century (or "far more dramatic")?
Anyone?
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BB
I don't think anyone is likely to rise to the bait.
We only have 150 years of land based temperature readings and as I have said many times it is not possible to take the temperature of a body the size of the earth 70% of which is covered in water over a period of 150 years of constant human turmoil with any degree of accuracy. I regard any surface temperature record as indicative only. There is evidence that all adjustments that are made to the raw data lead to a reduction of temperatures in the early part of the record and an increase in the recent past. Reasons for scepticism I am sure you will agree.
For any time prior to 1860ish we are reliant on proxy records which may or may not be reliable. So you are asking a daft question. Without reliable data no-one can prove anything. That includes you and means that your statement cannot be substantiated.
Moreover, even the shonky records that we have only show warming over the last century at a rate of 0.7C, which is half the rate you quote.
And in any event as you indicate in your post this obsession with surface temperatures is crass. As I keep saying no-one experiences an average climate. It is time to get real and live in the real world and to face up to issues on a local basis. It does not matter to the citizens of the UK how hot it is in Australia over the next 6 months if this winter in the UK turns out to be very cold. In those circumstances the people that run this country should be focusing their efforts on ensuring that those in energy poverty do not suffer from hypothermia.
That is the drama here.
Kind regards SB
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BB @ 54. You state:
"three dozen other viable datasets supporting AGW that tend to get ignored"
Please let me have the list. I will not hold you to exactly 36 and you could deliver in a series of posts. No pressure you understand.
Looking forward to some reading this weekend.........
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I am all for efficient use of energy and looking for alternate sustainable ways of energy production. But what is the real cost of Nuclear power, after construction and removal at the end of its life and the chance of disaster. There must be better ways of producing electricity. Why not split H20 and that will create a massive amount of energy, that is clean.
This global warming myth came from Margaret Thatcher giving money to science to proof, that coal was damaging the atmosphere. Nigel Thatcher let that one slip out on a TV program and the evidence to proof Global warming was spin, started to unravel for me.
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I once again invite Boleslas to state catergorically that the warming he alleges has taken place over the last 15o years, exceeds any period in the history of the world. If he claims this I would say equally catergorically that he is
a) On his own in the whole scientific world never mind this board and
b} Incredibly stupid
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Let's see if I understand:
a) when Hudsonfan poses questions, it's fair game, when I do it, it's baiting?
b) when Hudsonfan spouts tosh, no one is willing to be sceptical enough to ask him to explain his baseless claims, on a board founded on the idea of sceptical examination of climate science?
I submit Hudsonfan made a claim he cannot support, knows he cannot support that claim, and will not admit to fabricating statements without basis.
Isn't it hard enough to find facts and derive conclusions without people just spouting whatever they think sounds persuasive any time they like?
There is categorically no evidence presented by Hudsonfan for his claim (at least since the days of the Oxygen Cataclysm) of many global temperature rises more intense than 2C in 150 years for a period sustained long enough that it might appear in the geological record or in any other way be provable.
Sure, there've been larger rises and drops, longer rises and drops, more intense drops (though not rises), possibly as intense local rises, but if there's been another period like the current century and a half, it doesn't seem to be revealed among all the many claims of dramatic climate change evidence presented in the websites, books, academic papers, myths and folklore I've been sifting through since I took up the hobby of reading about climate, and while I'd be intrigued if Hudsonfan had found such evidence, I'm still waiting.
Deflecting the question of proof for his claim of these supposed many dramatic global temperature escalations doesn't substantiate Hudsonfan's point, it merely proves further that he doesn't think or research before he posts.
As for the 36 other indicators than global temperature, the NOAA uses 37 metrics for its State of the Climate (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/) and routinely draws conclusions on these datasets supporting AGW.
Enjoy your reading.
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BB this is ONE 'dataset' (maybe two if you count land and ocean separately).
It's the one that shows slight gradual warming over the last 100yrs or so with a flattening out since 1998. No surprises here. No problem with you using it to support AGW, but as folks here keep saying, it's very weak and is no proof by itself.
So I look forward to receiving 35 more 'datasets' that more clearly show a linkage. Disappointed and unimpressed so far. No pressure you understand.
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Digging around on the site and found 4 more:
Upper Air — tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures, with data placed into historical perspective
Global Snow & Ice — a global view of snow and ice, placing the data into a historical perspective
Global Hazards — weather-related hazards and disasters around the world
El Niño/Southern Oscillation Analysis — atmospheric and oceanic conditions related to ENSO
Looked at each one and found nothing out of the ordinary. Can you point to anything significant that suggests AGW in any of them?
Okay; 31 to go........
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@60 That's cute, Titus.
I see what you're trying to do there.
It's funny.
The number 37 and the description of what it means in the context of the State of the Climate report comes from its authors.
You'll really have to take up your issue with their definition with them, not with me.
I'm comfortable that my claim is based on published scholarship that itself has been reviewed, defended, and withstood criticism.
Let's see someone do the same for Hudsonfan's clearly fictional claim.
However..
Most of the State of the Climate report is temperature-based, and so it's possible to see how someone might get confused and think all temperatures are part of the same thing, much like a baker arguing that there's no need to put the cake thermometer into the actual cake, it's much more convenient to keep it in the baker's pocket so he can check on it at his leisure.
So allow me to present other measures I've heard of (with greater or lesser degree of confirmatory research), in the category of non-temperature indicators, but because they are so numerous, with no intention of defending each claim to avoid a spiral of endless baiting:
1. Antarctic ice: gravitimetric satellite measures indicate loss of mass;
2. Antarctic sea ice conformation: distribution of ice in the antarctic has graphically changed, indicating warming of the southern ocean;
3. Antarctic sea ice volume: approximation methods indicate (when adjusted for temperature) significant loss of volume;
4. Arctic multiyear ice: at an all-time low, about 15% (a fraction of its normal level);
5. Arctic sea ice thickness;
6. Arctic sea ice extent;
7. Arctic sea ice volume;
8. Arctic inputs: since approximately 2000, wind has suddenly and unprecedentedly become a key actor in arctic sea ice formation, per often misquoted Danish studies;
9. Arctic navigability: from six years to circumnavigate the north polar passages to one single season without icebreaker;
10. Distribution of pollen;
11. Distribution of insects;
12. Distribution of tree growth height;
13. Loss of glacial length;
14. Glacial volume;
15. Glacial mass in the Himalayas (detected by satellite) decreasing;
16. Glacial surface area;
17. Distribution of age of artifacts uncovered by glacial retreat;
18. Availability, accessibility and number of artifacts of glacial retreat;
19. Arctic habitat loss for ice-dependent species as represented by species census
20. Variability of weather
21. Number of Atlantic hurricanes
22. Ocean acidification
23. coral distribution
24. coral surface area
25. coral colour
26. coral composition
27. ocean clarity
28. sea level changes
29. distribution geographic origin of Atlantic named storms
30. distribution of path of Atlantic named storms
31. distribution of date of Atlantic named storms
32. start date of Arctic sea ice thaw
33. length of Arctic thaw season
34. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
35. other GHG concentration in the atmosphere
36. the sun reportedly appears to rise earlier and set later in the far arctic due to refraction in the atmosphere
Though really, the State of the Climate report is more scholarly than my thrown-together mashup.
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Interesting discussion on validity of climate change claims but can anyone please explain logic of forcing consumer and taxpayer to spend £billions on biomass energy systems that will deliberately degrade UK air quality and kill people. There is a direct corellation between air pollutants produced by biomass combustion and health impact. I realise the impact will mainly kill off the elderly which some may consider a cost benefit but children with developing respiratory systems are very vulnerable to air pollution. Exposure to sulphur dioxide pollution is now linked to asthma, straw combustion details SO2 burden/ unit of power 60 times higher than equivalent fossil fuel, waste wood combustion 240 times higher.
We have new reports stating cancer is a modern problem caused by pollution so surely common sense should dictate that we use only clean energy systems or am I missing something?
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Brian Wilson #63
That's what happens if we let the lunatics run the asylum. Things are changing. Very slowly reason is starting to prevail. It will taake some time because the vested interests in AGW are enormous, but you may have noticed that we have moved from 'the science is settled' approach into a world where we can actually admit to uncertainty.
It looks like 'Scientific American' has had the blinkers taken off. See
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6519
You will see there a reference to Judy Curry. Interestingly, her last 2 blogs have been on deduction and attribution (of human influence on climate change as purveyed by the IPCC). For a start go here
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/17/overconfidence-in-ipccs-detection-and-attribution-part-i/
The whole madness started with the IPCC and no doubt will end with them too. The reason that the citizens of the UK are paying such a high price for energy is that their hapless politicians have been taken in by the IPCC process. For those who are not aware, the IPCC process abandoned the pretence of scientific integrity when it produced the Second Assessment Report in 1995. The scientists’ final draft of the report contained five clear statements to the effect that humankind’s influence on global temperature was not yet discernible. However, according to Chris Monckton:
"...the IPCC bureaucracy did not find the scientists’ repeatedly-stated conclusion acceptable. Without reference back to all of the scientists who had collaborated in producing that final draft, the bureaucracy invited an accommodating scientist to excise these five conclusions, to make numerous other alterations, and to replace the deleted conclusions with the following:
“The body of … evidence now points to a discernible influence on global climate.”"
According to Professor Robert Carter, the accommodating scientists was Ben Santer. So, when the unnecessarily high electricity bill hits the doormat (unexplicably on 25 December) you can thank Santer. Ho ho ho!
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Well BB. Let’s see now. You start by stating:
“I'm not over-fond of the focus on temperature amoung those discussing the larger climate change debate as there remain three dozen other viable datasets (ref. State of the Climate) supporting AGW that tend to get ignored”
And now you say:
“Most of the State of the Climate report is temperature-based”
These are very contradictory and misleading. I’m glad we cleared that up.
However, you did go to the trouble of coming up with your own list so I’ll release you from further digging of you’re own grave.
Looking at the list you provide none of them to my knowledge get “ignored” as you suggest. Indeed there is much lively debate on all of them (with maybe the exception of #36 - AGW causing the sun to rise earlier and set latter. Have to take a look at that one).
A little while ago I was reminded of a quote by Mark Twain that my old science teacher was fond of:
“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
- Life on the Mississippi “
I think we would do well to ponder this ‘wisdom’ as there seems very little in this debate.
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Let me quote Judith Curry, who asks scientists (and, one supposes, 'climate auditors') to "effectively communicate uncertainty, risk, probability and complexity, and provide a context that includes alternative and competing scientific viewpoints." [On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II, Towards Rebuilding Trust]
Since Spanglerboy brings her up.
Among the complexities we have to recognize is Judith Curry's open admiration for Stephen McIntyre. Why should this matter to Brian Wilson, or to us?
Well, for one, Stephen McIntyre holds a diametrically opposite view to that expressed by Brian, and believes and has published the opinion that degrading air quality is not a health concern, and should not be limited.
See, there's a subtly complex wrinkle in Stephen McIntyre's alternative and competing 'scientific' viewpoints.
More troubling to me as a sceptic is Curry's approach. "Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust," says Curry.
Hogwash, says me, though you're welcome to drink her Koolaid.
Credible work (to me) stands on its own with clear knowable data, published rational methods of analysis, and conclusions open to question and verification. Your opinions may differ.
Perhaps I only find Curry "very contradictory and misleading," because I bring my own bias to reading her blogs.
Wait. No, I've just audited my view of Curry using her own stated principles, and she comes out even worse. Tch.
Clear knowable data ought -- to me, for purposes of ease of authentication and to avoid loss of fidelity -- be as close to the source as possible, rather than a copy or redirection. For example, why would anyone filter a link to Scientific American through the lens of another website, when one can find the original, authentic and unaltered (like http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-arctic-shifts-to-new-pattern)?
I put no trust in Curry's cult of the authority argument, in which Curry recommends we hand over our sceptical analyses to self-appointed auditors who do not themselves maintain clarity about their data, seemingly never publish detailed rational methods without leaving out key elements or making fundamental logic errors, and when finding their conclusions questioned and subjected to verification usually publish books whinging about their persecution by the establishment rather than subscribe to the tonic Curry recommends for real scientists of wasting their time and subjugating their profession to others.
Telling me who and how to trust is one of the surest ways to lose my interest.
As all her voluminous blogs appear (once the weasel words are removed) to come down to this and only this, not interested.
You want paralysis by analysis, step one is to get bogged down in meta-audits.
You want to not breathe in endless clouds of sulfates and particulates, then do like Brian Wilson, one suggests you audit (not meta-audit) the relationship between the people who want to burn even worse crap than coal and the people who you elected to make your laws, and then you make noise about it to the people who rely on your vote.
As a point of interest, if the building codes for insulation had been enforced since the 1970's, the UK would by now need one less coal-fired energy generating station. Maybe removing discretion from building inspectors on adherence to the code might help. [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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66- Boleslas_ Broda, your reference to lawmakers is interesting, I have raised pollution concerns with the regulatory authorities e.g. the fact that biomass combustion emissions created vary by a 7+ factor across plants I have analysed, between 4-30,000 cubic metres per MWh but are considred compliant with regs. Response was that they regulate concentration per cubic metre and do not place cap on volume.This allows hazardous pollution burden 250 times higher than equivalent gas.
I have raised emissions pollution concerns and failure to make use of resources with DECC and their response is " we are required to comply with renewables obligations".
The rush into waste wood burning ignores the serious downgrading in feedstock availability. Recently reduced from 10.5 million tonnes to 4.5 m tonnes for re-use, recycling, panel manufacture, animal bedding etc. It is understood that timber is deliberately diverted to burning in 15% efficiency powerplants wasting valuable resources and producing avoidable air pollution.
Can anyone recommend a route to encourage joined up thinking and due diligence in order to avoid deliberate reduction in air quality? The current burning projects will impact for a minimum 25yrs surely we owe the next generation the right to clean air and water.
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@67 One suggests the following, for what it's worth:
1. Understand your opposition. Measures seldom get into law without substantial backing from some group or groups, usually working quietly and publicly both for several years (or longer).
That sort of perseverence generally comes from a profit motive, a religious, moral or philosophical imperative, or shear fanatical mania.
I have no doubt some agricultural/agrichem/farm family/woodland management/municipal waste coalition, likely without awareness of each others' interests, have been lobbying and agitating for years to be allowed to burn something somehow, and a politician or policy analyst has funneled together all the threads of lobbying into what seems to them a brilliantly convenient solution.
The science took a few years to catch up with the fashionable idea (originated I think by ADM about corn waste) that biomass is somehow greener than other alternatives, and still the new reports are not widely circulated and accepted.
Politics has inertia, and no one wants to admit they've been backing the wrong horse.
2. Understand the process.
Which.. I don't know enough about to advise you. It's lobbying and education, communication and protest and marketing all wrapped up with academically credentialled public interest group reports catching enough eyes within the right minister's office. Ask around. Someone will eventually tell you something about who processes what information for the elected officials.
3. Find some middle ground.
I do not mean compromise, so much as acceptable alternative. There may be ways of burning or otherwise using biocrap that profit someone and still reduce the particulate load. Cement burns hot enough and has enough natural filtering effects and economies of scale for scrubbers that it might solve part of the problem, and the waste heat be used somehow too into the bargain for co-generation or whatnot.
Carbonizing and using biomass to enrich soil gains carbon credits as a very inexpensive form of carbon capture and storage.
Biomass can be converted to fuels that do not have such a high particulate profile - alcohol, methane, hydrogen, pellets.
4. a) Find allies. They don't have to be 100% in agreement with you on everything. Just enough to put a wedge into the issue.
b) Make no unnecessary enemies. Gatekeepers will shut you down if you've antagonized enough people.
5. Satisfice. You don't need a new Act, just an Amendment, after all. Or a regulation, or an in-house policy on enforcement of the regulation.
6. Persist. It doesn't always take much, but it takes a little repeatedly over time.
Of course, this is free advice, and from a gravedigger, so worth every penny.
So far as I can tell, the above activities work about twice as often as random chance, so about one in five attempts.
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68-Bolesla_ Broda, Many thanks for advice sadly methinks the biomass saga is now a runaway train with contracts in place for provision of deepwater facilities for import of millions of tonnes of low grade material from wherever available around the globe. The consequences appear irrelevent.
It is the myths and spin surrounding combustion systems that cause concern. You mention use of municipal waste, the pollution burden from combustion is detailed to be 300 times higher than fossil fuel per unit of useful power. The publicity blurb for typical EFW powerplant claims 370 tonnes of NOX produced equates to vehicle emissions from 7km stretch of road. Check EU directive on emissions limits that will be applicable at time these plants are onstream and it equates to 85,000 petrol/diesel cars each hour 24/7 365 days each year.
I note a report today detailing gas storage projects are to be abandoned due to abundance of gas available from various sources and price weakness. Gas powerplants are quick to construct at competitive cost,are the most efficient and cleanest current combustion technology.They have low carbon footprint that could be further minimised by attachment to large horticultural installations designed to absorb CO2 and utilise waste heat. This would also reduce air miles involved in food imports. Just a thought! Once again thanks for info.
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Boleslas @ 54. You seem to be edging away from mere rises in temperature and looking at other evidence of man made "climate change"
With that in mind are you able (in simple terms for us non-scientists) to state that the climate change we are experiencing now exceeds any other change that has occured over millions of years without any input from mankind or CO2 emissions? I'll tell you now that I doubt it but you may claim otherwise.
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Unfortunately Hudsonfan is incorrect in suggesting that Boleslas is the only person who thinks that the current rate of global temperature increase is unique - the whole point about the threat of AGW is just that an increase of 2 degrees by the end of this century would be exceptional in geological history.
It is a startingly exceptional rate of warming and if the increase since 1850 had begun in 1066 we would now be ten degrees warmer and the planet would be mainly uninhabitable, except for the odd colony in high latitudes.
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Lovelockfan @71.
So now we have two of you to provide the solid evidence for this assertion. I hope that you can rescue BB from his prevaricating.
And while you ponder this please also ponder the quote from Mark Twain in post @65. I think it is relevant to your post.
Looking forward, as I'm sure Hudsonfan is (as he's been asking for some time), to the evidence for what you claim.
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@72 I must agree with Titus, and rush to Titus' defense, too.
Hudsonfan has been asking for some time.
Since October 3rd, in point of fact, which to him must seem millions of years (one of Hudsonfan's favourite phrases).
It was then Hudsonfan first begged the question of, "previous dramatic changes of climate over the last million years," without substantiation, proof, evidence, link, cite, footnote or reference.
Only when challenged on this unsubstantiated claim did Hudsonfan construct the Straw Man of my claim being the unproven one, which trusting Titus seems to have fallen for hook, line and sinker.
I ask, Hudsonfan, have you no remorse, to so abuse poor Titus' gullibility with such cunning rhetorical tricks?
Why, at this rate soont Hudsonfan could by example lead some unscrupulous exploiter to asking poor naive Titus for money!
Titus, don't give it to him, even if it is in your nature to believe the most obvious fiction without hesitation!
Hudsonfan and his ilk are too wily for you in their word-twisting ways.
Keep your wallet in your pocket, credulous Titus, and don't let some exploiter have your PIN code.
Really, guys, can you drop the baiting, the transparent double-standard, and the obvious games?
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BB @73
Not that interested in your ongoing discourse BB. Just in the evidence that is being requested of you. It's either available or your just making it up. Or you’re just being a silly b and throwing a childish tantrum.
No baiting or games and I'm being totally transparent; I would really like to know the evidence for myself. I'm sure Hudsonfan can answer for himself.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
If BB wants proof, and he seems to need proof of everything, then why does he not read some scientific text instead of blogs he does not believe.
To litter this web page with hundreds of references would not prove a thing, apart from satisfying BB's curiosity.
If I wrote a scientific paper it would have a reference list at the end. This blog is no such animal.
To paraphrase the sceptic belief- CO2 has never driven climate, the MWP warmed faster than today's warming, and the MWP was warmer than today.
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B @ 73. Are you saying then that there has not been any dramatic climate/temperature changes over the last few million years? Sorry I keep referring to the millions of years but I'm sure you will agree it is more relevant to the argument than figures from the last 150! Unlike you I do not delve into realms of data, I look at the evidence around me,the Dorset coast, The Lakes etc.. to know it is true. So don't sidestep the question by trying to show how superior you are to me and answer, do you think the present instance of climate change is more dramatic than ever before?
BTW I think I got it right before when I laid out the generasl rules
It the weathers hot its global warming and if its not its climate change!
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#71 - Lovelockfan wrote:
"It is a startingly exceptional rate of warming and if the increase since 1850 had begun in 1066 we would now be ten degrees warmer and the planet would be mainly uninhabitable, except for the odd colony in high latitudes."
Indeed, and if the rate of rise between 1910 and 1944 (about 0.64c or 1.9c per century - according to HadCRUT3) had continued to the present day, temperatures would be about 0.9c higher than they are today. But it didn't and they aren't.
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