Climategate II? Scientific community accused of muzzling dissent on global warming

originally posted by: bobs_uruncle

originally posted by: Grimpachi
We have enough geothermal energy in this country to run it many times over. The cost associated with geothermal is on par or as many studies have shown less than that of coal.

There are zero co2 emissions with geothermal yet the coal industry has people thinking they can build clean coal plants. There are 2 clean coal plants up and running and they are expensive just as expensive as nuclear and it is not even certain if the co2 pumped into the ground will stay there.

We could still have cheap electric maybe even cheaper electric and we could do it without polluting with co2 but at some point people will need to demand the change because you bet your arse the coal companies are not going to willingly change.

Coal prices must have really dropped? Four years ago I did a series of RFQ's for 295 megawatts of distributed ethanol powered turbine generators (including feed processing/refining systems) at a price of about $265 million, turnkey for export. The nearest geothermal quote that I saw was just over $510 million, or just under double the cost. They did get coal quotes as well, even though coal was not spec'd as usable alternative, however the lowest coal quote came in at about $225 million which makes geothermal more than double cost.

Have things changed that much in the energy sector?

Cheers - Dave

You say 4 years ago? Because this comes from 2010 and shows at that time geothermal was close to par with coal with extended costs and it also projected costs into the future. Since then coal has also gone up in cost.And here is something for long range cost.

I have no idea how you missed that from 2010 but just to top it off there have been advances in geothermal as well.www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here is an article that claims it would take a 4 billion DOE investment to get geothermal cost down at the price of coal or lower which is 3 billion less than what the China based company wants to build a pipeline.energyconsulting.wordpress.com...

Well, the government also tells us that unemployment is at 6.3% and I'm quite sure they have the "numbers" to back it up. Yet I know several people with a string of letters following their names, quite educated in economics and they say their numbers differ from those put out by the US government. They claim that unemployment is more like 20-23% and another 15-20% are "under-employed", a statistic the government doesn't recognize. Just looking about in my community, I tend to believe those folks who have no connection to government. I'm quite sure that if you lined up a whole mess of government accountants and gave them the government's figures, they would all come up with the same conclusion. When the very basis of any study is corrupted by "adjustment for bias" it is just that---corrupted and should be thrown out. That's the scientific method I was taught but my classes were in the days before computers could "know all" and "adjust all" and find the desired answers.
If they can tell these big lies about unemployment, what would prevent them from telling even bigger lies to collect more of our money via new taxes "to save the planet"!!!

a reply to: diggindirt

When the very basis of any study is corrupted by "adjustment for bias" it is just that---corrupted and should be thrown out.

Any study of anything which uses a number of instruments to take measurements involves allowing for inaccuracies in the instrumentation. The bias being referred to is a tendency for an instrument to have a consistent error in a particular direction. When that bias can be identified adjustments can be made to the data to compensate and provide more accurate corrections (or a least a consistent margin for error). Without such corrections there can be no standardization when a number of different instruments are used to collect data. Your solution would be to just not use the data at all? I guess that's a "solution". Sort of.

For example: I guess MRIs are no good if there are bias adjustments made to the data so that doctors can compare apples to apples when examining the results from different machines?
www.readcube.com...

a reply to: Phage

Who sets the standard measurements, how and why?

If I tell you that your hight is 65 feet, based on my homemade yardstick... Am I right?



Seriously, perspectives, agendas, politics and science aside... It's going to become painfully difficult for anyone to deny climate change soon enough....

IMO

a reply to: ausername

The climate is dynamic.

It is always changing.

Higher taxes and Al Gore can't stop that, however.

a reply to: beezzer

The peak of both human ignorance and arrogance is in the belief that we can somehow change the climate of our planet.

Indeed the climate is dynamic and cyclical. Not all influences are inherently natural, but our influence in the end has been negligible, or minimal at most.

Our solar system is also dynamic, as is our galaxy and the universe. There are many cyclical dynamics we have yet to discover that can impact our climate.... But we are too busy looking up tailpipes at the moment.

a reply to: beezzer

The climate is dynamic.
It is always changing.

That doesn't mean that we don't have something to do with what is currently happening.
That doesn't mean we can't mitigate the rate of change.

a reply to: ausername

The peak of both human ignorance and arrogance is in the belief that we can somehow change the climate of our planet.

Increasing radiative forcing by increasing CO2 levels cannot change climate? What do you suppose happens to that solar energy which is no longer radiated into space?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: beezzer

The climate is dynamic.
It is always changing.

That doesn't mean that we don't have something to do with what is currently happening.
That doesn't mean we can't mitigate the rate of change.

If we really wanted to alter the climate on a permanent basis, what could humans do?

What would we have to do to permanently alter the climate on the planet?

a reply to: Phage

My response to that is in the second paragraph of the post you quoted from.

a reply to: beezzer

If we really wanted to alter the climate on a permanent basis, what could humans do?

Define permanent.
What could we do to alter the climate? We could burn all of the fossil fuels available and continue to release CO2 which was removed from the atmosphere hundreds of millions of years ago. Or we could reduce the amount of fossil fuel use and slow the rate of change.

We could burn it in a very dirty manner, increasing pollution. This could actually have a cooling effect but the side effects are not so good.

We could dump stuff into the upper atmosphere to scatter light into space before it has a chance to reach the lower atmosphere. This would have a cooling effect but the side effects are another matter and the effect would only last as long as we kept dumping stuff.

a reply to: beezzer

That is a defining one, isn't it Beez?

The United Nations and major science groups looking at that very question seem to have two primary areas of focus to achieve the result...and of course, always in the context of correction, not initiating new change for any other reason.

1. The atmosphere, for pumping out fine particulate to absorb or reflect the solar energy (and both are looked at in different places, to note those are two different approaches of course).

2. The Ocean, for changing the chemical balance and dynamic in Co2 absorption and release. The methods there are numerous, as are the areas (depth levels) that each would seek to target for some overall change.

Either method is really breathtaking in the scale required to actually DO anything, and the implications if some eggheads didn't guess right on things here. They seem to be the directions being looked at though.

a reply to: ausername
You mean this?

Our solar system is also dynamic, as is our galaxy and the universe. There are many cyclical dynamics we have yet to discover that can impact our climate

There probably are things we aren't aware of which can affect climate, however there are many which we are. And CO2 is a strong one. And we are putting a very large amount of it into the atmosphere. And it is one we can do something about.

a reply to: Phage

No phage, the middle paragraph.

Sure we can mitigate our negligible influence on the climate, but it will do nothing to avoid the climate change that is coming....

That is my opinion.

a reply to: ausername

Sure we can mitigate our negligible influence on the climate, but it will do nothing to avoid the climate change that is coming....

Sure, in the very long term the climate will change beyond the influence of humans.

In the short term, reducing the rate of change of human origin can reduce the human misery that would accompany a more rapid change. Reducing the rate of change would allow more time to create the means to adapt.

a reply to: Phage

It is rapid and accelerating change that we are not causing, nor can possibly mitigate that is the problem.

Any efforts to do that now would serve to adversely impact already weakening global economies and dramatically increase the stress and misery for humanity needlessly...

Why make people more miserable when it will not save them all in the end?

Anyway, just my unusually informed opinion.

a reply to: ausername

It is rapid and accelerating change that we are not causing, nor can possibly mitigate that is the problem.

What is causing it? Has solar irradiance increased significantly? Have ocean currents dramatically changed? What has changed in the past 100 years to account for the increase in global temperatures? What's different now from 100 years ago, besides CO2 levels? What's changed besides the level of radiative forcing and its associated feedback effects?

Any efforts to do that now would serve to adversely impact already weakening global economies and dramatically increase the stress and misery for humanity needlessly...

When has the development of new technology (as in alternative energy production) weakened any economy? When has increased efficiency in use of resources increased human misery?

Why make people more miserable when it will not save them all in the end?

What do you think it is that will make people more miserable? Not being able to burn all the fossil fuels they want? Why?

Sure the Sun will eat the Earth. Might as well kill myself.

Lets not forget that this thread titled: Climategate II? Scientific community accused of muzzling dissent on global warming the scientist in question claimed that his paper wasn't published because it was anti global warming when in fact that two scientist peer reviewed his paper and rejected it because of errors.

Lying, attempting to further there ideological agenda.

originally posted by: LDragonFire
a reply to: Metallicus

There is more to this story being trumpeted by murdoch's financed science and media empire.

"... was peer-reviewed by two independent reviewers, who reported that the paper contained errors and did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore failed to meet the journal's required acceptance criteria. As a consequence, the independent reviewers recommended that the paper should not be published in the journal which led to the final editorial decision to reject the paper."

There is more at this link: Murdoch-owned media....

a reply to: Phage

100 years?

How about 250,000 years?

Or 200,000,000 years?.... I suppose scope and depth are as irrelevant as the true cause in this context.

Sure, I'd love to see us make the switch to alternative energy and fuels immediately... The reality is that there really isn't a viable alternative, or combination that can meet the demands without an extremely painful and long transition period.

It is what it is.

a reply to: ausername

Incorrect:

The company had a great quarter with strong margin and geographical diversification -- but the more interesting news came from Arturo Herrero, Jinko's Chief Strategy Officer. During Monday's earnings call, Herrero noted, "Basically, if you look at our Q2 to Q4, our ASP is around $0.63. Our non-silicon cost is, I think, $0.39, and plus the silicon cost of $0.09, it is around the $0.48 mark."

Shyam Mehta, Senior Solar Analyst at GTM Research, notes, "I believe this is the first time in human history that a module company has recorded cost under 50 cents per watt -- although the cost may go back up a bit in 2014."

In fact, a forecast from one of Mehta's recent reports shows top Chinese manufacturers making solar modules for 36 cents per watt by 2017. "There was a reaction from some people that our projection for 36 cents per watt is crazy. To that, I offer the point that our forecast only implies an annualized reduction of 6.3 percent from 50 cents a watt today," he said. "It's not exactly a game-changer; it's 14 cents. But the industry has had a mental block because people didn't think we could produce modules for less than 50 cents per watt."

Module Costs Dip Below ....

This is cheaper than oil and natural gas, investing more into this industry would see it become even cheaper. There are alternatives to fossil fuels right now. This is from March 4, 2014 so it is current.