Solar pv generation

[tobydog]

Biff - I understand that temperatures will continue to increase even if fossil fuel burning stopped today. That's why I made reference to stopping the increase over time.

I dont believe anyone disagrees with you that we need to take action and that we need to try and stop the rot as best we can I think though that Joce is right and that in reality the majority live for today and it's a hard sell.

I have to agree with skier-hughes. Do you honestly doubt the existence of cycles or was that just to force attention on the present?

 

[Keithj]

I don't know enough about the science, but I do know that there were greater and lesser ice ages, and that the earth is doing its own thing regardless of what we do.

I'm also a realist - there is no way the "west" is going to persuade the Chinese or the Indians to stop the rate of economic expansion, and that is going to lead to ever greater levels of carbon emission - until the oil runs out.

Using food to make oil (a zany idea) isn't going to help much - it will just lead to more starvation of the poorest. Biofuel means food shortages.

I've not seen anything to indicate whether there is or is not a feedback system in Mother Earth that will compensate for what happens in the atmosphere. We're further from the sun, so a Venus atmosphere is stretching it a bit.

 

[Penners]

there is no way the "west" is going to persuade the Chinese or the Indians to stop the rate of economic expansion, and that is going to lead to ever greater levels of carbon emission

I'm not sure what qualifies as 'Western' in this context, but let's remember that the USA has never signed up to the Kyoto Agreement, along with Japan, Russia, China - and now Canada.

 

[worms]

USA has never signed up to the Kyoto Agreement, along with Japan, Russia, China - and now Canada.

I think you'll find Japan did...it is the Kyoto Agreement after all!

 

[Lime]

USA has never signed up to the Kyoto Agreement, along with Japan, Russia, China - and now Canada.

I think you'll find Japan did...it is the Kyoto Agreement after all!

It was easy for them then, they had nuclear....then.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

USA has never signed up to the Kyoto Agreement, along with Japan, Russia, China - and now Canada.

I think you'll find Japan did...it is the Kyoto Agreement after all!

It was easy for them then, they had nuclear....then.

Oh god, now Lime has thrown nuclear into the mix ! :shock: :roll:

Biff is pretty much right on the basic science - and the scientific community is not simply in consensus on this; it is almost doctrine now, save a few eccentrics.

Biff is pretty much wrong on the politics and sociology. Most folk simply don't care if much of the developing word ends up underwater - at least they don't care enough to act if they see others (Chinese, Indians, etc) not acting; or they don't like the consequences of acting (having to live in a cave and eat vegans).

And since there seems little chance of us avoiding at least some significant change, then those nations who are best placed to survive it will be those who have continued to develop geo-political and technological influence, rather than sacrifice their economies and go and live in caves.

So to be flippant, lets spend the oil having a nice party and developing the technological solutions to overcome this thing.

 

[biffvernon]

But for people like me who don't understand the fine science, but have been told we had an ice age which killed off much of life at that time, I can understand a hot age killing off life in the same manner and knowing it is inevetible because of the cycle. I can also understand us making this happen quicker. The fact you wonder if they exist at all makes me doubt your other facts.

Of course, we only have your word for it that you understand it, no offence Biff, but the internet is full of peole pretending to know about things they don't, pretending to be people they aren't etc! :wink:

Oh the MIlankovitch cycles exist all right. There's a pretty good account on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles They have quite a lot to do with the sequence of glacial and interglacial periods over the Pleistocene and approximately nothing to do with the anthropogenic warming that we are now experiencing.

There's no harm not understanding science - so long as you leave the matter to those who do and accept their account, in the same way as you might trust a brain surgeon or airline pilot. You'd only use their services if they worked for a trusted organisation or could otherwise demonstrate their competence.

 

[biffvernon]

Biff - you say that runaway feed-backs could lead to the extinction of all life. What are runaway feed-backs?

Isn't there hope that some humans and some animal life will adapt to a hotter Earth? Does it just depend how hot it gets?

Feedback: A little warming melts some Arctic ice. The colour of the Arctic changes from bright reflective white ice to dark green water. The Sun's energy, instead of being reflected away into outer space by the bright ice is absorbed as heat by the ocean waters. The now warmer ocean melts more ice, further lowering the albedo or reflectiveness causing more heat to be retained ....that's feedback.
Add a tiny amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. Acting as a greenhouse gas it traps heat. More heat causes more water to evaporate from the seas. Water vapour is also a greenhouse gas so this traps more heat which allows more water to evaporate trapping more heat...that's feedback.
A small warming melts some permafrost in the Arctic lands. Methane that was frozen in the frozen soil of the peat bogs escapes. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas so causes more warming which causes more permafrost to melt releasing more methane which....that's feedback.

The trouble with these feedbacks is that they are very difficult to model - they're unpredictable. A small change in the initial circumstances can lead to very large changes into the future.

Hope? Yes, it depends how hot it gets. There have been warm periods in the geological past. At the end of the Permian temperatures were a few degrees higher. About 95% of all species became extinct. If those conditions happened again it would be pretty doubtful whether humans would be among the 5% of survivors. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 56 million years ago was less severe but several major animal groups became extinct. It is conceivable that if such condition returned a small population of humans might survive.

 

[biffvernon]

I don't know enough about the science, but I do know that there were greater and lesser ice ages, and that the earth is doing its own thing regardless of what we do.

I'm also a realist - there is no way the "west" is going to persuade the Chinese or the Indians to stop the rate of economic expansion, and that is going to lead to ever greater levels of carbon emission - until the oil runs out.

Using food to make oil (a zany idea) isn't going to help much - it will just lead to more starvation of the poorest. Biofuel means food shortages.

I've not seen anything to indicate whether there is or is not a feedback system in Mother Earth that will compensate for what happens in the atmosphere. We're further from the sun, so a Venus atmosphere is stretching it a bit.

You say "I don't know enough about the science" which is honest. Good. But it's perhaps best not to then make assertions based on not knowing enough. Our influence on climate is now much greater than the forcings that caused the ice ages. Things are happening on a much faster time-scale now. Of course the 'west' is not going to persuade the Chinese or Indians to change. They might just point out that the average westerner produces far more greenhouse gases than they do. Very roughly, an American produces twice as much as a European, five times as much as an Indian and ten times as much as an African.

"until the oil runs out." Ah, now there's a thing.

"feedback system in Mother Earth that will compensate for what happens in the atmosphere"- When the Earth is at a higher temperature it will radiate more heat to space and not warm any further.

"We're further from the sun, so a Venus atmosphere is stretching it a bit." That's a common mistake. Venus is hotter than us and nearer the Sun. Mars is colder than us and further from the Sun. But, counter-intuitively, the differences in distance do not actually make much difference. The big difference is in the atmospheres. Venus is dense with loads of carbon dioxide, Mars is very thin with hardly any greenhouse effect. Ours is just right (or was until recently). The calculations have been done - it's pretty basic physics. If we burn all the fossil carbon in the coal, oil, gas, tar sands and oil shales then we get an atmosphere like that on Venus and a matching temperature. It won't happen because civilization will collapse before we get to that point, but it looks like it won't be for lack of trying.

 

[biffvernon]

Biff is pretty much right on the basic science - and the scientific community is not simply in consensus on this; it is almost doctrine now, save a few eccentrics.

Biff is pretty much wrong on the politics and sociology. Most folk simply don't care if much of the developing word ends up underwater - at least they don't care enough to act if they see others (Chinese, Indians, etc) not acting; or they don't like the consequences of acting (having to live in a cave and eat vegans).

And since there seems little chance of us avoiding at least some significant change, then those nations who are best placed to survive it will be those who have continued to develop geo-political and technological influence, rather than sacrifice their economies and go and live in caves.

"Biff is pretty much wrong on the politics and sociology" Hey! I've never claimed what you are suggesting. I agree with you that many folk simply don't care, or at least have not bothered to think the matter through. Much of this is through ignorance, and therein lies a tiny glimmer of hope. There is a pretty fundamental drive within humans to want to become ancestors, want to care for grandchildren. If people can be shown that unless we all change course we had better persuade our children not to have children, then there is still a chance. Some of the younger people at COP17 certainly understood the situation. Take a look at this woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3e6G_7GY4

Not many people think living in caves solves much.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I disagree.

Does it really matter? If we're doomed, we're doomed. It seems unlikely we'll change as a species.

There are probably enough entropically self-replicating carbon life-forms out there, that the disappearance of ours isn't going to register much on the cosmic scale. Equally it won't kill us, nor probably our kids or their kids or theirs. I'll be carbon again long before then and find it hard to have any more affinity with those unknown future generations as I do 4 or 5 generations in my past.

If I'm wrong and there is a god behind the god particle, then hopefully he'll intervene instead of the scientists.

 

[biffvernon]

Er, which bit do you disagree with?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

This bit:

"There is a pretty fundamental drive within humans to want to become ancestors, want to care for grandchildren"

Well, part of it.

Agreed - there is a strong reproductive drive, but I think it tails off after a couple of generations; and isn't strong enough to overcome our own drives to be safe, comfortable and long-living in our own time. I don't think it extends to generations that we don't meet - and this may be evolutionary (we share only 1/8th genes with our gt-grandchildren and until now have never lived to meet them so evolutionary behavioural selection is less strong), or coincidental.

Thinking about it, historically a better strategy is to look after today and produce more kids that are 1/2 genetically yours, than make sacrifices for future generations who have a more remote genetic link.

Either way, it is part of the problem in persuading people to act altruistically and change now for unknown decendents. Even harder if they are unrelated and on the other side of the world at risk from rising sea levels.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks to Biff for explaining "runaway feedbacks", and the vision of the future in which not much survives.

When is peak oil going to run out? Are people going to be able to drive to work, fly around the world etc in 2111?

I very much agree with FW's post above. I'm moved by the young speaker at that conference, but I feel sad for her, tying herself in knots over this issue when it's very plain that nothing drastic is going to happen to help the green movement in developing countries.

And if it were to happen - drastic measures by governments to stop the burning of fossil fuels right now, globally - then surely there'd be revolution, war, an end to our peaceful lives? Everything would just collapse around us, industry, food availability, healthcare, schooling - how can you run these things without burning fossil fuels ? How could you expect developed countries to cope with their disappearance? How would people generate money by which to live? How would they eat?

I just don't understand why the green movement would have chaos, civic unrest , possibly war and starvation in their own times in preference to the burning up of earth in a few hundred years' time.

 

[biffvernon]

This bit:

"There is a pretty fundamental drive within humans to want to become ancestors, want to care for grandchildren"

Well, part of it.

Agreed - there is a strong reproductive drive, but I think it tails off after a couple of generations; and isn't strong enough to overcome our own drives to be safe, comfortable and long-living in our own time. I don't think it extends to generations that we don't meet

Yes, I'd agree with that for most people's everyday thinking, but there is a clear element of interest in more distant generations, evidenced in many traditional political and religious constructs. Ancester worship works in both directions. If we are to get through we need to promote the future generations 'worship'. I guess for me it started as a small boy reading Dan Dare in the Eagle. It inculcated the belief the the proper course of human development was to keep going so that we could escape planet Earth before the Sun went Red Giant! Everyone who has dreamt of space travel has a commitment to future unknown generations. There would be little point in creating great works of art and great buildings if we did not have far-sight. Would the Gothic Cathedrals have been built if folk thought there would be no future centuries of culture?

 

[biffvernon]

When is peak oil going to run out? Are people going to be able to drive to work, fly around the world etc in 2111?

Oil will never run out. It just get's more difficult to extract so more expensive. The ultimate point at which you have to stop is when EROI reaches 1. Energy Return On Investment is the amount of energy you have to put into extracting the oil compared to the useful energy obtained by burning it. There's not much point in carrying on when EROI dips below 1.

The easy oil, the stuff that comes out of a whole in the ground as a liquid that can be pumped, peaked in 2005 and is now declining. We are keeping oil production at about the 2005 level by adding deep water, Arctic, tar sand, oil shale, gas condensates and biofuel to the total. Even with crude prices over $100, which makes all these forms of production very profitable, total oil production is not growing. Without growth in oil production we don't get growth in the global economy. That's why there's a problem in the economy. Blame the bankers, the Greeks, the Euro or whatever this week's fashionable scapegoat is, the underlying problem is that we are past peak-oil and this is what it look like. When total oil production actually starts falling there will be a complete collapse of the global financial system.

 

[biffvernon]

And if it were to happen - drastic measures by governments to stop the burning of fossil fuels right now, globally - then surely there'd be revolution, war, an end to our peaceful lives? Everything would just collapse around us, industry, food availability, healthcare, schooling - how can you run these things without burning fossil fuels ? How could you expect developed countries to cope with their disappearance? How would people generate money by which to live? How would they eat?

I just don't understand why the green movement would have chaos, civic unrest , possibly war and starvation in their own times in preference to the burning up of earth in a few hundred years' time.

Yeah, this is the really tough one. The choice could comes down to "revolution, war, an end to our peaceful lives? Everything would just collapse around us, industry, food availability, healthcare, schooling", set against the extinction of the human species. I guess I choose the former, but with the proviso that we all work damn hard to mitigate the worst effects. It's not a vote-winner, which is why not many political parties are making 'Degrowth' the central policy.

But hey! Look what came to me in an e-mail first thing this morning:

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/12/12/Degrowth-Party/

Do Less with Less, and Love It
That's the message of Vancouver's Degrowth advocates, who scoff at city hall's 'greenest city' pledge.

It's this kind of thinking that may show a survivable path forward. Out of realistic despair come shards of light.

 

[Flyfisher]

The trouble with these feedbacks is that they are very difficult to model - they're unpredictable.

So how confident can we be that our models are accurate? And even if they are accurate right now, will they remain accurate over the next few centuries?

My earlier point about the 'model' predicting London becoming knee-deep in horse manure was only half in jest - based on the data to hand such an extrapolation was reasonable in the absence of an understanding that horse power would become completely superseded. This is a trivial example of why we have a dismal track record of predicting the future. Imagine someone at the start of the steam age trying to predict how we would be living in 2011. Heck, I spent my working life in an industry that didn't even exist when I was at school and we've all seen technologies come and go in our own lifetimes, so predicting things in 200 years hence seems a risky business - too risky, perhaps, to radically change our current lifestyles.

I understand your point about feedback mechanisms but can we be confident about their runaway behaviour, or more pertinately our modelling of them? Why didn't the last ice age cause runaway cooling, for example? Homeostasis is an endemic mechanism of all life on Earth and Lovelock extended the mechanism to planetary processes so if these things are so difficult to model how can we be sure we fully understand them? It's one thing to fully understand the predictions of a model but if the model is incomplete then so must be the predictions.

Such questions, I'm sure, must be very frustrating for anyone convinced of their future vision but they cannot simply be dismissed if the aim is to change population-wide behaviours. What's that old saying about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence?

 

[JoceAndChris]

You are such a romantic Biff. I see no shards of light in the article, just a clutching at straws. If we are to accept the science, then the whole of America, or even half the world being wiped out might prove a shard of light for the unborn generations. But a few people promoting degrowth and making do with less won't change a thing.

Thank you for explaining about the oil.

When the fuel is no longer extractable, and the global economy crashes, what will be the consequences?

 

[tobydog]

FF - I think you touched on a interesting point about how the steam age would predict what we would be doing in 2011. Thankfully they did try and they weren't very good at it because aren't we now literally reaping the benefits of all the oak that was planted for their future needs. That was only 100-200 years ago and technology moves on in leaps and bounds so where will we be in just 10 years?