Roger: You analysis appears to assume that "peak oil" or "peak natural gas" won't constrain the current percentage of power these fuels can provide as world-wide demand for power grows dramatically in the future. One way to get to high coal usage scenarios is to make liquid fuels from coal using the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Any comments?
For example, see this story just published in the WSJ: "U.S. Drillers Say Peak Shale Has Arrived. Lower oil prices are expected to precipitate a decrease in crude output that won’t easily be reversed." Now getting oil and gas out of shale is often more expense than traditional methods. If the price doubles the amount recoverable will go up. "Peak oil" has been in the news for the last half century and never become reality, but that doesn't means that it won't become reality in the next half century. Fossil fuel is a limited resource.
Based on the post, you would disagree with any efforts to jump start the coal industry. Feel this is a major step backward as well as cutting incentives for renewables. Would like your comment on that.
Coal in the US has been declining for decades (natural gas is the main but not only culprit). Outside China and India the same. Why would policy focus on supporting an economically uncompetitive industry? I think coal had its day, that is great, but that day has passed.
Does this analysis assume that X% of CO2 free energy sources zero out CO2 releases from fossil sources? Other than hydro, CO2-free electricity requires backup some or all of which must be idling; ready to go in an instant. What is the CO2 release from idling coal, natural gas and oil backup power sources? For natural gas that can be quite high, as much as 40% of full power fuel consumption for some turbines, because of the very poor part/zero load efficiency of these machines. I believe that for coal or oil sources, CO2 release will be less when idling than for natural gas but will still be significant.
It could perhaps. The Navy's nuclear power plants are designed to quickly change power. I understand that civilian nuclear plants are not and are further restricted from precise load following by regulation. Precision is needed to react to wind and solar variation.
Roger, this is excellent, and very clear. Please give Dr. Pielke Sr. my thanks and best regards. I have followed his work with admiration and respect since the early 2000's.
I was happy to read and skim comments to find people more technically adroit contest the linear relationship between CO2 and temperature. It is that "control knob" that is at the center of a movement that threatens us ... saying that we must give up what is good, what gives us warmth, prosperity for a lesser standard of living for sake of an idea now called "wokeness". We've been both warmer and colder with more and less atmospheric CO2. If I learned one thing from Climategate and the annual celebration of David Viner day, it is that the scientists, far from even being good at their craft, are not even honest. My problem with Mr. Pielke, even as I keep coming back, is that he falls back in line with control knob too easily, that he left the parade but still marches alongside it.
Roger, right off the bat, the first graph tells us that the fundamental assumption of the climate modelers is there is a linear relationship between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and temperature rise. This will be news to infrared absorption spectroscopists, who describe infrared absorption kinetics of CO2 as a logarithmic function of concentration. The first graph also tells us that the modelers are expecting a peculiar, novel changing equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, the delta T per doubling of CO2) with rising CO2 content in the atmosphere. For example, at present the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is about 420 parts per million. In a 5.5 million Gigaton atmosphere, that is a CO2 content of 2310 Gigatons. According to that first graph, increasing CO2 content from the present 2310 GT by an additional 2310 GT, to 4600 GT, would increase the temperature from 2.2 to 3.4 degrees, an ECS of 1.2 degrees C per 2XCO2. Yet according to Figure 1, increasing the CO2 emissions from 4000 to 8000 GT would increase the temperature from 3 to5 degrees C, an ECS of 2 degrees per 2X CO2. These assumptions need to be challenged for four reasons; firstly, a linear relationship between emissions and temperature rise seems to ignore the known logarithmic function of infrared absorption by CO2. Secondly changing ECS with concentration needs justification on first principles of physics. Thirdly, the ECS estimates from the graph differ greatly from Richard Lindzen's 0.8-degree estimate of ECS as well as the IPCC "consensus" ECS of 3 degrees. And lastly, because about 45 to 50% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed by the oceans and do not add to the concentration in the atmosphere, basing temperature rise calculations on emissions instead of residual CO2 remaining in the atmosphere seems to be a source of error by about a factor of 2.
Someone check my calculations, please (I was meant to be a poet, not a mathematician).
Dear Mr. Robinson, I have on my desk a paper by Richard Lindzen, Will Happer and W.A. van Wijngaarden entitled "Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase". These eminent scientists (from MIT, Princeton and York U. in Canada, respectively) calculate that, and I quote "If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 degrees C (0.13 degrees F) would be averted. " In other words, the net zero pain inflicted on the populace would yield a gain which is not noticeable or even detectable on a conventional thermometer.
I absolutely would have liked to see a reaction from Roger concerning this comment, even if he would vehemently contest it. This comment simply demolishes the concept that there’s a perfect linear correlation between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the rise in atmosphere temperature. I can’t personally verify who is right here, but leaving this comment unanswered makes a huge dent in Roger’s credibility, I’m sorry to say.
I hope Roger will forgive me if I misinterpret, but as I understand it, he was explaining, not endorsing, the different scenarios and the "projections" of temperature rise which are resulting therefrom. Roger very clearly said the scenarios are based on murky assumptions which are hard to follow. I agree. After I posted the comment above, I read through the rest of the comments and found that Roger had already flagged the difference between CO2 emissions and added concentrations in the atmosphere. Roger is not generating the climate science; he is commenting on the policy implications which result.
Drs. Wijngaarden and Happer, both atmosphere physicists, have made such a calculation. See https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.03098. They concluded that doubling atmospheric CO2 concentration would increase global temperature no more that 0.5C.
Dear Mr. Rushworth, since Wijngaarden and Happer calculate ECS as 0.5 C/2XCO2, and Richard Lindzen figures it at around 0.8 C/2XCO2, it seems very difficult to justify ECS of 3, 4 or 5 C/2XCO2, as those most intent on spreading alarm about global warming insist upon.
In modelling the increased absorption of radiation as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, has the non-linearity of this relationship been taken into account? Apparently, a point is reached at which a further increase in CO2 leads to minimal extra absorption.
I stopped believing in the apocalypse when I understood that the IPCC actually presents a range of possible outcomes from least likely/most extreme to most likely/least extreme. At some point the media focused on the first option in order to grab eyeballs and the public began to believe we were doomed. Not so much the “experts” who attend the COP conferences in their private jets and live in their high carbon footprint waterfront mansions.
In answer to the issue of nuclear waste: Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors partially burning Thorium reportedly can reduce radioactive residues a long way compared to currently operating reactors and the type of residual radioactivity also has a much shorter half-life. In fact these reactors in theory can run largely on radioactive residues currently in storage and reduce their volume and risk-profile. China is close to running a full-scale plant on Thorium? MSNR after success? with a large pilot plant. There are companies both in the USA and in Europe promoting small scale plants using MSNR with Copenhagen Atomics promoting a very definite plan for their implementatation. This development has been a lot slower than I would have hoped. Hoping is no strategy.
The US Navy designed and built such a reactor core in the 1970's. It was installed and operated in the Shippingport Atomic Power Station for several years and generated in its Thorium232-containing blanket surrounding U233 fuel about 1.3% more U233 fuel than the core consumed.
Thanks, Denis. It seems such a promising way of producing energy. I had no idea it had already worked in the Shippingport Atomic Power Station 50 years ago. I wonder why it did not find wider application despite this positive result.
Stimulating, as always. But it appears that there is an ignored elephant in the room. The impact on temperature of rising CO2 is logarithmic, not linear. It would take a doubling of CO2, from today's 420 ppm to 840 ppm, to raise the earth's temperature 1.1C. There are not enough economically extractable fossile fuel resources to burn to make this happen.
Coal, at the moment, tracks emissions and temperature rise very well. However, eliminating it as a source of energy will not eliminate emissions. If we focus on coal alone, other hydrocarbons will increase to partially take its place. Still a good thing, of course.
As always a very interesting article that gives food for thought.
It raises also some questions.
- what is the projected energy demand in 2100?
- why is energy efficiency not considered as a mitigation option? It would also be a possibility to legislate for, for instance a minimum of miles to the gallon for a vehicle. (We ditched the lightbulb because of it's inefficiency.) Another possibility would be to subsidize research for more energy efficient appliances.
By SSP scenario, smallest to largest 2100 energy consumption in EJ
IMAGE - SSP1-Baseline = 700.7
GCAM4 - SSP4-Baseline = 903.6
AIM/CGE - SSP3-Baseline = 1215.2
MESSAGE-GLOBIOM - SSP2-Baseline = 1304.3
REMIND-MAGPIE - SSP5-Baseline = 1824.0
Energy efficiency is important, a reduction in the energy intensity of the economy (E/GDP) has been the driver of decarbonization for the past 60 years. Going forward however, whatever happens with efficiency gains, the carbon intensity of energy (CO2/E) will necessarily become more important, if deep decarbonization is the goal. This is based on the simple math of deep decarbonization.
Roger: You analysis appears to assume that "peak oil" or "peak natural gas" won't constrain the current percentage of power these fuels can provide as world-wide demand for power grows dramatically in the future. One way to get to high coal usage scenarios is to make liquid fuels from coal using the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Any comments?
For example, see this story just published in the WSJ: "U.S. Drillers Say Peak Shale Has Arrived. Lower oil prices are expected to precipitate a decrease in crude output that won’t easily be reversed." Now getting oil and gas out of shale is often more expense than traditional methods. If the price doubles the amount recoverable will go up. "Peak oil" has been in the news for the last half century and never become reality, but that doesn't means that it won't become reality in the next half century. Fossil fuel is a limited resource.
https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/trump-oil-gas-shale-production-decline-db5e0f7c?mod=trending_now_news_1
Ccs is nonsense because of its own massive power consumption requirements. Pointless. Even though i would make $$$$ on it
Based on the post, you would disagree with any efforts to jump start the coal industry. Feel this is a major step backward as well as cutting incentives for renewables. Would like your comment on that.
Coal in the US has been declining for decades (natural gas is the main but not only culprit). Outside China and India the same. Why would policy focus on supporting an economically uncompetitive industry? I think coal had its day, that is great, but that day has passed.
Does this analysis assume that X% of CO2 free energy sources zero out CO2 releases from fossil sources? Other than hydro, CO2-free electricity requires backup some or all of which must be idling; ready to go in an instant. What is the CO2 release from idling coal, natural gas and oil backup power sources? For natural gas that can be quite high, as much as 40% of full power fuel consumption for some turbines, because of the very poor part/zero load efficiency of these machines. I believe that for coal or oil sources, CO2 release will be less when idling than for natural gas but will still be significant.
Nuclear ticks those boxes.
It could perhaps. The Navy's nuclear power plants are designed to quickly change power. I understand that civilian nuclear plants are not and are further restricted from precise load following by regulation. Precision is needed to react to wind and solar variation.
I think you miss the point
Install nuclear
Uninstall wind and solar, return the land to wilderness or crops, anything useful.
For those wanting more on the radiative forcing of CO2 as a function of CO2, RP1 send me this:
https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/the-radiative-forcing-of-co2-as-a-function-of-its-atmospheric-concentration/
Roger, this is excellent, and very clear. Please give Dr. Pielke Sr. my thanks and best regards. I have followed his work with admiration and respect since the early 2000's.
Everything I have read says that CO2's heat trapping ability is already at or near it's maximum. Doesn't this negate the need to reduce CO2 emissions?
Maybe we should increase carbon dioxide emissions in order to delay or mitigate the inevitable glacial that looms in our climate future.
I was happy to read and skim comments to find people more technically adroit contest the linear relationship between CO2 and temperature. It is that "control knob" that is at the center of a movement that threatens us ... saying that we must give up what is good, what gives us warmth, prosperity for a lesser standard of living for sake of an idea now called "wokeness". We've been both warmer and colder with more and less atmospheric CO2. If I learned one thing from Climategate and the annual celebration of David Viner day, it is that the scientists, far from even being good at their craft, are not even honest. My problem with Mr. Pielke, even as I keep coming back, is that he falls back in line with control knob too easily, that he left the parade but still marches alongside it.
Roger, right off the bat, the first graph tells us that the fundamental assumption of the climate modelers is there is a linear relationship between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and temperature rise. This will be news to infrared absorption spectroscopists, who describe infrared absorption kinetics of CO2 as a logarithmic function of concentration. The first graph also tells us that the modelers are expecting a peculiar, novel changing equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, the delta T per doubling of CO2) with rising CO2 content in the atmosphere. For example, at present the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is about 420 parts per million. In a 5.5 million Gigaton atmosphere, that is a CO2 content of 2310 Gigatons. According to that first graph, increasing CO2 content from the present 2310 GT by an additional 2310 GT, to 4600 GT, would increase the temperature from 2.2 to 3.4 degrees, an ECS of 1.2 degrees C per 2XCO2. Yet according to Figure 1, increasing the CO2 emissions from 4000 to 8000 GT would increase the temperature from 3 to5 degrees C, an ECS of 2 degrees per 2X CO2. These assumptions need to be challenged for four reasons; firstly, a linear relationship between emissions and temperature rise seems to ignore the known logarithmic function of infrared absorption by CO2. Secondly changing ECS with concentration needs justification on first principles of physics. Thirdly, the ECS estimates from the graph differ greatly from Richard Lindzen's 0.8-degree estimate of ECS as well as the IPCC "consensus" ECS of 3 degrees. And lastly, because about 45 to 50% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed by the oceans and do not add to the concentration in the atmosphere, basing temperature rise calculations on emissions instead of residual CO2 remaining in the atmosphere seems to be a source of error by about a factor of 2.
Someone check my calculations, please (I was meant to be a poet, not a mathematician).
And yet, here in canada we re-elected a climate/insane govt that is probably going to break up the country with this nonsense.
Trying to enforce net zero grid means we in Alberta and Sask will say sayonara
Dear Mr. Robinson, I have on my desk a paper by Richard Lindzen, Will Happer and W.A. van Wijngaarden entitled "Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase". These eminent scientists (from MIT, Princeton and York U. in Canada, respectively) calculate that, and I quote "If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 degrees C (0.13 degrees F) would be averted. " In other words, the net zero pain inflicted on the populace would yield a gain which is not noticeable or even detectable on a conventional thermometer.
Could not agree more
I absolutely would have liked to see a reaction from Roger concerning this comment, even if he would vehemently contest it. This comment simply demolishes the concept that there’s a perfect linear correlation between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the rise in atmosphere temperature. I can’t personally verify who is right here, but leaving this comment unanswered makes a huge dent in Roger’s credibility, I’m sorry to say.
I hope Roger will forgive me if I misinterpret, but as I understand it, he was explaining, not endorsing, the different scenarios and the "projections" of temperature rise which are resulting therefrom. Roger very clearly said the scenarios are based on murky assumptions which are hard to follow. I agree. After I posted the comment above, I read through the rest of the comments and found that Roger had already flagged the difference between CO2 emissions and added concentrations in the atmosphere. Roger is not generating the climate science; he is commenting on the policy implications which result.
Thank you for the clarification; it’s most useful to understand things in the proper perspective.
Correct, thanks 👍
Drs. Wijngaarden and Happer, both atmosphere physicists, have made such a calculation. See https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.03098. They concluded that doubling atmospheric CO2 concentration would increase global temperature no more that 0.5C.
Dear Mr. Rushworth, since Wijngaarden and Happer calculate ECS as 0.5 C/2XCO2, and Richard Lindzen figures it at around 0.8 C/2XCO2, it seems very difficult to justify ECS of 3, 4 or 5 C/2XCO2, as those most intent on spreading alarm about global warming insist upon.
In modelling the increased absorption of radiation as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, has the non-linearity of this relationship been taken into account? Apparently, a point is reached at which a further increase in CO2 leads to minimal extra absorption.
I stopped believing in the apocalypse when I understood that the IPCC actually presents a range of possible outcomes from least likely/most extreme to most likely/least extreme. At some point the media focused on the first option in order to grab eyeballs and the public began to believe we were doomed. Not so much the “experts” who attend the COP conferences in their private jets and live in their high carbon footprint waterfront mansions.
In answer to the issue of nuclear waste: Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors partially burning Thorium reportedly can reduce radioactive residues a long way compared to currently operating reactors and the type of residual radioactivity also has a much shorter half-life. In fact these reactors in theory can run largely on radioactive residues currently in storage and reduce their volume and risk-profile. China is close to running a full-scale plant on Thorium? MSNR after success? with a large pilot plant. There are companies both in the USA and in Europe promoting small scale plants using MSNR with Copenhagen Atomics promoting a very definite plan for their implementatation. This development has been a lot slower than I would have hoped. Hoping is no strategy.
The US Navy designed and built such a reactor core in the 1970's. It was installed and operated in the Shippingport Atomic Power Station for several years and generated in its Thorium232-containing blanket surrounding U233 fuel about 1.3% more U233 fuel than the core consumed.
Thanks, Denis. It seems such a promising way of producing energy. I had no idea it had already worked in the Shippingport Atomic Power Station 50 years ago. I wonder why it did not find wider application despite this positive result.
US and Europe can enjoy cheap natural gas but many Asian nations can not and so phasing out of coal is much harder.
Stimulating, as always. But it appears that there is an ignored elephant in the room. The impact on temperature of rising CO2 is logarithmic, not linear. It would take a doubling of CO2, from today's 420 ppm to 840 ppm, to raise the earth's temperature 1.1C. There are not enough economically extractable fossile fuel resources to burn to make this happen.
Coal, at the moment, tracks emissions and temperature rise very well. However, eliminating it as a source of energy will not eliminate emissions. If we focus on coal alone, other hydrocarbons will increase to partially take its place. Still a good thing, of course.
Agreed.
Nat gas is ~50% as carbon intensive as coal.
As always a very interesting article that gives food for thought.
It raises also some questions.
- what is the projected energy demand in 2100?
- why is energy efficiency not considered as a mitigation option? It would also be a possibility to legislate for, for instance a minimum of miles to the gallon for a vehicle. (We ditched the lightbulb because of it's inefficiency.) Another possibility would be to subsidize research for more energy efficient appliances.
By SSP scenario, smallest to largest 2100 energy consumption in EJ
IMAGE - SSP1-Baseline = 700.7
GCAM4 - SSP4-Baseline = 903.6
AIM/CGE - SSP3-Baseline = 1215.2
MESSAGE-GLOBIOM - SSP2-Baseline = 1304.3
REMIND-MAGPIE - SSP5-Baseline = 1824.0
Energy efficiency is important, a reduction in the energy intensity of the economy (E/GDP) has been the driver of decarbonization for the past 60 years. Going forward however, whatever happens with efficiency gains, the carbon intensity of energy (CO2/E) will necessarily become more important, if deep decarbonization is the goal. This is based on the simple math of deep decarbonization.