189 Comments

1. Leo Linbeck III:

I have a very close friend and MBA classmate from Stanford who had a very successful run in information technology. He decided leave his employer and take some time off to figure out what to do next.

One evening, while sitting by his pool smoking cigars (don’t tell my kids), he said he was looking at greentech companies. He said it was the next big thing in the venture world, and he was seriously considering jumping in.

I asked him what the economics looked like. He said that they were pretty lousy now, but there was a general consensus in Silicon Valley that it was just a matter of time until the government stepped in with heavier regulation of CO2, and then the economics would look pretty tasty.

I then asked him what would happen if the government didn’t step in. He paused for quite a while. It was as if he hadn’t even considered the possibility in a serious way. Mind you, this is probably one of the smartest, most pragmatic, and most grounded guys I know. But the zeitgeist in the valley was completely dominated by one side of the discussion.

After a bit, he ended the pause by saying they’d have to regulate more, because something needed to be done. I then asked him if he really thought that politicians would take an action that would cost so much money to consumers – after all, for venture economics to swing from lousy to tasty, the money would have to come from somewhere, and it’s always the consumer at the end of the day, right?

We changed the subject at that point to World Cup soccer. I think we both felt more comfortable moving to a different topic. And at the end of the day, he ended up staying in information technology. I was glad for us both.

But in retrospect, maybe it was me who misunderestimated the VCs. I never believed that Kleiner would go all Carlyle on me.

So I think I’ll start a new business selling nausea offsets. That ought to qualify as a greentech business, right?

L3

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:06 pm 2. biggie:

I wonder what it will look like, the monitoring and regulating that is.

Would the Obama children show up at my door? Will they be college students? Perhaps pardoned convicts. Armed with the writ of the EPA, they’ll demand to see every device that uses gasoline?

The anticipation for them must be terrible, knowing how much of the economy is out there, unmonitored, unregulated. Just sitting there wasting, oppressing and destroying our World.

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:15 pm 3. fred:

Leo,

Does it ever occur to these people that the hypothesis of man made global warming is junk science? Far more scientifically plausible explanations are out there that can elucidate what was going on with climate warming that actually stopped ten years ago (1998). I realize that this is quite apart from the political currents that drive how these elites digest what powerful interests are putting in play.

But is it wise to ride that tiger? The economic consequences could be disastrous, imperiling the very source of government revenues that would fuel these “Green” energy start-up companies.

The climate is cooling. And the Far East and South Asia have carbon footprints that would swamp anything we could do.

Do these smart people ever think outside of the box?

I almost choke whenever I hear McCain utter that drivel about global warming, CO2 emissions nonsense. Do not people like him and Powell ever think deeply about this stuff? Al Gore’s documentary is sloppy science and does not pick up on the fact that there is quite a difference between causality and correlation.

It’s just startling to observe how these people, who are supposedly our betters, drink the cool-aid.

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:18 pm 4. biggie:

Rather than only focusing on the movement’s disputable positions, or trying to argue that these same positions are not very politically compelling, wouldn’t it be instructive to consider that many of these people might not have been hoodwinked by lesser scientists and may actually just like the idea of money and power? If that were the case, what defense would we have against it?

History’s many and myriad “inevitabilities” seem like fickle things. History may simply cross his/her arms and ask of the fought-over money and power, “Who wants it more?”

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:28 pm 5. JMH:

Does it ever occur to these people that the hypothesis of man made global warming is junk science?

No, it doesn’t, not for most. I don’t know what the split is, but one bunch is turning to it as an ersatz religion to take the place of Christianity (and it has all the trappings: sin, pennance, a fall from grace, a garden of eden we’ve banished ourselves from with our pursuit of knowledge, holy scriptures, prophets, blasphemy, the works). Another bunch sees it as a chance to grab dollars and power, and tap the first bunch as a cadre of useful idiots. How do you fight a cult that’s growing in power?

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:30 pm 6. Leo Linbeck III:

fred,

Does it ever occur to these people that the hypothesis of man made global warming is junk science?

Frankly, no. No one they know or talk to or spend time with or read even considers the possibility. They are told there is scientific consensus on AGW, only nutjobs deny it, and they accept this judgment and move on. But then again, for the most part, that’s the way most of us go through life wrt most subjects. Bounded rationality, you know.

I, for one, welcome our new green overlords. Right now, being green is cheap and easy. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for “green” products, and they don’t even need to be green:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1840562,00.html?imw=Y

When true costs start getting added to consumer prices – in the midst of a recession, no less – we’ll see more investigation into the science and, more importantly, its economic effect. And if they’re indeed wrong, we’ll likely see a complete repudiation of the scaremongers and hucksters. Heck, we might even see some more perp walks!

Personally, I have little doubt that humans have had an impact. We have dramatically increased CO2, and that has very likely led to warming. But I am not convinced that it is the source of most of the warming that occurred at the end of the 20th Century (or offset much the cooling this century). In fact, if I had to guess, the percentage impact of human activity on total warming has been in the low single digits. And if that’s true, cutting our CO2 by 50% won’t make a material impact, and therefore is a colossal waste of money.

But I maintain an open mind. If someone can produce real arguments that we’re the main source – and by real arguments, I’d be happy to start with a model that conforms with our known empirical data and laws of physics- I’d be willing to listen.

Until then, I’ll continue to try to live in a relatively frugal way, recycle (mainly ’cause it makes my wife happy), drive my hybrid car (’cause I’m cheap), and turn off the lights when they’re not being used.

But then I was doing all of this stuff before I learned I was destroying the planet…

L3

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:47 pm 7. biggie:

“How do you fight a cult that’s growing in power?”

Pope Benedict tried to remind us that love and reason would be part of the fight. Have we had an abundance of both of those, recently?

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:48 pm 8. Pascal:

Fred: Do not people like him and Powell ever think deeply about this stuff?

I think they do Fred. Yet I don’t expect any sound explanations from them. My guess is you wouldn’t approve; that’s probably their guess too. Under such circumstances, there are some things best left unspoken. Better for them to remain silent and for you to think their mad than for them to explain and wind up facing much more resistance.

Implied in your question is that the principals are either stupid or nuts or both. But do you really believe they are insane? That would imply lack of rational and ordered thinking. Yet, somehow they’ve risen to the top.

No Fred. There’s certainly something else at the heart of this that is unstated. It could be money as Wretchard has spotlighted now for two thread starters. But the seeking of taxpayer funds has hardly stopped other government sponsored programs.

No, no, this all too irrational. Some other game may well be afoot and nobody in the know dares name it.

Oct 19, 2008 - 10:56 pm 9. whiskey:

The sort of carbon caps envisioned would gut the US (and foreign owned but US manufactured) auto industry.

Overnight, about 5 million blue collar workers would lose high paying jobs, providing a comfortable middle class existence, to that of at best, Wal Mart stockers and clerks.

Harley Davidson motorcycles would be outlawed, and most cars would be too. The wrenching poverty and massive social changes are sure to provoke outright revolution. You are talking about Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Chrysler, Harley, Polaris, pretty much every internal combustion engine maker and user in the US.

If taken, even incrementally, the fighting will be brutal. Are middle and working class whites eager to abandon their homes and go live in crime-ridden cities? Certainly not. Investors and corporate execs heavily vested in these companies will fight like crazy, with lobbyists of their own, to kill that. Even Google stands to lose, as power becomes South African-style — intermittent and unreliable, internet usage becomes a rare luxury and their business model collapses. Not to mention the economies of coal states.

If this is Obama’s America, expect to see him removed. Particularly as the world grinds into a long depression. Green-mail is acceptable on the margins as a payoff to the hucksters when times are good, when people are scrapping for the last dollar, hucksters tend to get beaten. Hard.

Oct 19, 2008 - 11:08 pm 10. Zeno:

I think global warming is a scam like that tulip thing once in Holland… But, who knows.

Oct 19, 2008 - 11:10 pm 11. Leo Linbeck III:

It is easy to underestimate the impact of proximity on decision-makers.

Lobbyists know this. So do salesmen. Half the battle is getting in front of the decision-maker.

I think that money explains the promoters (e.g. Kleiner, et. al.). But I’m not convinced it explains McCain. I think he has come to believe that AGW is a threat because everyone he respects thinks AGW is a threat.

The fundamental question for a decision-maker in a large organization is: Who do I trust? Leaders in large organizations simply don’t have the time to get the data and analyze it themselves (even if they are capable, which they probably aren’t in the case of AGW, given the complexity and arcane nature of the science). So, they have to trust someone.

My guess is that if you go down the list of people McCain trusts, there is no one who will dispute AGW, either because they have an economic interest or because it’s not their issue (in which case they stay silent and keep their powder dry for what does matter to them). That, to me, is the most plausible explanation for his position.

But I’ll admit that doesn’t guarantee that it’s right…

L3

Oct 19, 2008 - 11:12 pm 12. Pascal:

I would feel more certain that you’re conjecture is correct L3 were McCain not so authoritarian on other issues as well. AGW has the potential to greatly crack down on individual liberty for the common good like nothing else in my lifetime while it relies much too much upon the precautionary principle to stifle debate and punish contrary thought.

Oct 19, 2008 - 11:28 pm 13. Pascal:

That is TWO posts in a row where I messed up a contraction with a possessive pronoun: their for they’re and now you’re for your. Self inflicted wounds hurt the most.

Oct 19, 2008 - 11:33 pm 14. Fletcher Christian:

whiskey; it ain’t all bad you know.

Carbon capping would mean the death of hugely inefficient, over-sized cars and motorcycles, true. Cry me a river. And if Ford, General Motors et al can’t adapt – well, they will go under and be replaced by people that can. That’s the way capitalism works, remember?

I am quite sure that US engineers are capable of designing and building more efficient engines and vehicles. The trouble is that their employers can’t be bothered to ask them to; it’s easier to carry on with the same business of a new model, with a few minor changes but no major ones, every year than to actually think.

One positive aspect of carbon-capping might well be that the astronomical amounts of money being spent on the “War on Terror” (better known as the War for Oil Company Profits) might well be reducible, given that not buying as much oil means less money for people that want to kill, convert or enslave us.

Clawing back some of the $700 billion given to the greedy wunch of bankers who ought to have been made to clean up their own mess might help, too.

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:08 am 15. OmegaPaladin:

Fletcher,

Reading your comment, I am touched by your naive faith in engineering technology. There is a trade-off to efficiency, and that is safety. These new vehicles will also cost more – especially plug-in hybrids, with their brutally expensive batteries. That’s not considering Jevon’s paradox biting back. Increase efficiency leads to increased usage. In order to cut usage, you must cut demand. Worse yet, more efficient engines create more NOx, and are not compatible with modern catalytic converters.

Also, if you think new green energy will do anything but serve as drop in the bucket, you had best press for new nuclear plants. Wind and solar are energy alternatives just like acupuncture is a medical alternative – occasionally useful, but nowhere near a full replacement.

If this is what it sounds like, the EPA wants to add CO2 to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The amount of documentation needed to make CO2 a criteria pollutant of the same level as NOx, SOx, CO, Ozone, and Particulates is staggering. there is no study showing direct human health effects of CO2 outside of immediate toxicity, which is not going to happen outside of the entire world catching fire. It certainly is not an air toxic. The EPA is going to really have to stretch to apply its standards to CO2.

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:33 am 16. Fletcher Christian:

OmegaPaladin – “There is a trade-off to efficiency, and that is safety. These new vehicles will also cost more – especially plug-in hybrids, with their brutally expensive batteries.”

Total nonsense. I am not talking about hybrid vehicles or any other sort of exotic technology; I am talking about smaller cars (which does not necessarily mean smaller passenger compartments) with smaller, higher-compression, more fuel-efficient engines – the difference between the standard Detroit tin and a Nissan or Volkswagen.

Oct 20, 2008 - 3:24 am 17. JD:

My beloved Harley gone? Not until they pry the handlebars of my ‘07 Softail from my cold dead hands.

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:06 am 18. Raoul Ortega:

One size fits all meets economic policy.

I find it fascinating that all the solutions to Global Climate Warming Change are the same solutions that the Socialists and Progressives have been advocating since the late 19th century. And they are the only ones who can successfully implement and manage their solutions, and need all their friends to be handsomely rewarded for their insight and sacrifice (of others not quite so connected).

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:15 am 19. Lifeofthemind:

@JD, They might. Cults are dangerous.

The implosion of American wealth and power that this transformation to socialist regulation leads to will cause a global depression. However the relative impact will fall hardest on the US. Therefore the Third World and the Arabs will suffer from a loss of power but will see their relative positions improve compared to that of the Americans. The liquidation of Israel and the subjegation of Eurabia will be able to proceed without interruption.

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:48 am 20. E. Nigma:

Mr. Ortega
That is an interesting coincidence, don’t you think?

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:50 am 21. fred:

Could the Cloward-Piven Crisis Hypothesis be applied to the way that the Greens are setting their talons into our politicians and our economy?

I think what we do in fact have here is a new kind of religion – a virus – which is attaching itself to the economic and political system. A marriage of ideology and money and politicians.

I’m with Leo Limbeck in his opinion in the matter: human activity had been contributing to the warming period that ended in 1998, but we really cannot quantify it and it is likely, in percentage terms, to be in the single digits. The scientific opinions I’ve read that are alternate explanations and which make sense to me: (1)Solar cycles of sunspot activity, (2)very slight alterations of the earth’s orbit around the sun, and (3)geothermal activity in the deep oceans whereby enormous amounts of heat energy have been released into the oceans via underwater volcanic activity.

If we slavishly do down the path the Greens and most of our politicians seem eager to do, it will amount to practically nothing in terms of reducing carbon emissions. Again, let me restate: What China and India do completely obviates what we attempt to accomplish. And we will pay a very high price for our religious observance.

The price for drastically reducing our use of fossil fuels is something that I think no one has attempted to model in quantitative terms. Has anyone done an econometric modeling of what this will mean?

The devil is in the details.

Oct 20, 2008 - 6:57 am 22. 49erDweet:

Has anyone checked lately to see if Karl Marx is laughing in his tomb? His faithful followers are “doing it to us”, and we are too busy drinking kool-aid to realize it. So this is how civilization ends……..

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:00 am 23. james wilson:

LEO 111–
We have not dramatically increased CO2.
A 20% increase in oxygen would be dramatic, 4% of the atmosphere. A 20% increase in CO2 is literally insignificant, one part per ten thousand. That is why it should not surprise that it has in fact been without consequence. What is sorrier still, the only consequences that could be gotten are positive.

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:19 am 24. mika2k1:

I’m also for a strong push towards green renewables and EVs. I also have considerable money invested towards that purpose. Did it occur to me to endorse Hussein Obama for POTUS? Never. Colin Powell was a Republican Secretary of State!!

Along with angels and guardian angels there are archangels ishim cherubim seraphim bnei-elohim, and there are snakes. Colon Pal will forever be marked a snake.

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:20 am 25. steveaz:

f you want to take America down a notch or two in the global economy, and to repatriate European venture capital, putting a pillow over America’s mouth and nose and sitting on it until we stop squirming would be the way to do it.

So, picture a machine whose goals are transnational and socialistic, and anti-American, and ask, which American political party is home to the machine? Then ask, what is its funding mechanism, how do its politicians win elections, and who funds their campaigns? And what would be the most convenient cover for the machine’s stealthy, deliberate creep across the political landscape?

1. Home: The Democratic Party is the crib of the machine.
2. Funding: The machine recycles millions in Petro dollars from petroleum exporting nations. (Some examples: Obama’s campaign is afloat in foreign money. And see Chuck Schumer’s solicitation of Dubai’s latest semiconductor factory for his state.)
3. Camouflage: Being “Green” is the default cover for the machine. Whether the climate is cooling or it is warming is no matter. Being publicly and emphatically “Green” absolves the machine for its reliance on the recirculation of Petro-dollars while the machine slowly asphyxiates America’s competitive economy.

The Globe’s climate-change is a tremendous camouflage for the machine because the science is soooo complex and shifty that not even specialists in the field can see the machine’s entire shape under this emerald, fractal facade.

Scared yet?

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:21 am 26. Kinuachdrach:

The best analog for the Anthropogenic Global Warming movement might be the American Indian “Ghost Dancing” cult.

In the late 19th C, the idea grabbed hold among Plains Indians that if they could just dance the Ghost Dance sincerely enough, the invaders would go back to Europe and their world would return to the way it used to be. Instead of focusing on dealing with the reality of millions of immigrants on their ancestral lands, the Indians wasted their time dancing. And we all know how well that worked for them.

When future Chinese historians write about dead Western civilizations, AGW is likely to be seen in the same light as Ghost Dancing. If Chief Obama wants to lead the dance, so be it.

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:56 am 27. fred:

Well, with the name of Jason Grumet, another Harvard lawyer and Ivy League grad, added to the list of people who are going to direct our lives and tell us what is good for us, what choice do we have but to obey our betters?

The way this is shaping up, it seems that the steps have all been planned out in advance and there really isn’t much you or I can do. These people have been carefully groomed for the roles they are playing and our role is to obey their decrees and policies.

How much of a say do we really have over our lives now?

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:57 am 28. ChrisVJ:

I guess our only hope is the law of unintended consequences, but then we don’t know if the unintended consequences of green will help or hinder our civilization.

What will be the (so far unthought of,) unintended consequence of Dem legislation and how long will it take to come about?

Oct 20, 2008 - 8:36 am 29. John Work:

With the current election headed in the direction of a religious experience, here’s one for all you conspiracy theorists out there.

Suppose there is some truth to the Left’s interest in and actual use of the Cloward-Priven Strategy. Given that the Obamamessiah is a smooth talking empty suit best used as a religious centerpiece to gain the “throne” of the Presidency, what is His long term usefulness to the Strategy? Once He gains the throne and begins to implement His plans it is likely that some resistance will build. This will not be in the best interests of the Strategy.

But all religions love a sacrifice. What better way to advance the Strategy and stir up massive amounts of Chaos than to sacrifice the One? Perhaps a genuine bitter, white, gun/religion clutching Redneck from fly-over country will do the Strategy the favor of assassinating the One, but if not, then such a person can be found to make a personal sacrifice for the furtherance of the cause (with a properly manufactured background of course).

Imagine now the Chaos that ensues as the One has been assassinated by one from the Right – global-warming deniers, religious fools, gun-nuts, Constitution-supporters, and general resisters of the True Religion all. Then there will be an upwelling of religious fervor from the True Believers and the resisters will be swept aside by the tsunami to implement the full plan of the Left. And the resulting Chaos will ensure the destruction of the hated United States – and probably the rest of the world as well.

Something to ponder as we rush to the polls to elect the Obamamessiah and bring about the Green Revolution (among other things).

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:06 am 30. Dave:

This CO2 bit is a scam.

I bought a Hemi two years ago. 5.7 liter engine. That is 340 cubic inches.

It is rated at 17 and 25 MPG. Usually exceeds those numbers. The old 340 of 30 years ago got 3 and 8. The new engine outperforms the old in addition to getting superior mileage.

The only reason the new car does not do even better is that the government mandates the catalytic converter and basically refuses to consider any alternatives.

I digress. The point is that there is a price to pay for these greatly improved vehicles. CO2 increases a bit. That is what happens when you burn fuel more efficiently and eliminate toxic emissions by so doing. You get smaller quantities of CO2 in their place.

BTW, those reduced/eliminated toxic emissions have more of a greenhouse effect than does CO2.

In other words, the better we do, the more we are condemned. There is a reason for that.

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:14 am 31. Uncle Jefe:

I hope everyone finds an alternative to beer and wine, and therefore all hard liquor as well…
There are basically 3 byproducts of fermentation.
Alcohol.
Heat.
CO2.

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:20 am 32. Uncle Jefe:

I’m clinging bitterly to my alcohol.
And guns.

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:23 am 33. Mark:

Biggie writes:

“I wonder what it will look like, the monitoring and regulating that is. Would the Obama children show up at my door?”

I used to think that Walter Peck, the EPA bureaucrat in ‘Ghostbusters’ was funny, but he represented something that we knew could come to haunt us (so to speak) some day.

It’s always interesting to be crossing new ice on a lake. Your weight will crack the ice every which way. Is it just settling, or you about to find yourself in the cold water?

The settling of the electoral ice is continuing apace. The shift seems to some extent to be the Democrat party of entitlement/regulation/grievance/and elite media on one side . . . and the GOP party of workers/opportunity/and investors on the other side.

The exile of the traditional working class base of the Democrats into the base of the Republicans seems almost complete. Joe the Plumber has seen to that. Since those working class democrats are ipso facto racist, greedily unpatriotic, and not sufficiently concerned with the sin of CO2, they must learn to confess and earn lenient treatment.

Or, as Raoul writes:
‘I find it fascinating that all the solutions to Global Climate Warming Change are the same solutions that the Socialists and Progressives have been advocating since the late 19th century. And they are the only ones who can successfully implement and manage their solutions, and need all their friends to be handsomely rewarded for their insight and sacrifice (of others not quite so connected).’

Why did I bother writing anything when Raoul said it so well?

Welcome back Walter Peck!

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:29 am 34. fred:

The thing about investing in “Green” startups is the fact that there have to be actual products that the market wants, will work, and can have a meaningful impact. But if apparatchiks like Grumet have their way, disposable income for most Americans might be driven to ground before these startups could even get off the ground.

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:31 am 35. dueler88:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ3FWDQvWho

Rush
Moving Pictures (1981)
Red Barchetta

My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about.
He says it used to be a farm,
Before the Motor Law.
And on Sundays I elude the Eyes,
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire,
Where my white-haired uncle waits.

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the Borderline.
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine.
Down in his barn,
My uncle preserved for me an old machine,
For fifty-odd years.
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream.

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car.
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better, vanished time.
I fire up the willing engine,
Responding with a roar.
Tires spitting gravel,
I commit my weekly crime…

Wind-
In my hair-
Shifting and drifting-
Mechanical music-
Adrenalin surge…

Well-weathered leather,
Hot metal and oil,
The scented country air.
Sunlight on chrome,
The blur of the landscape,
Every nerve aware.

Suddenly ahead of me,
Across the mountainside,
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide.
I spin around with shrieking tires,
To run the deadly race,
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase.

Drive like the wind,
Straining the limits of machine and man.
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I’ve got a desperate plan.
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside.
Race back to the farm, to dream with my uncle at the fireside.

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:34 am 36. Eggplant:

49erDweet said:

“Has anyone checked lately to see if Karl Marx is laughing in his tomb? His faithful followers are “doing it to us”, and we are too busy drinking kool-aid to realize it. So this is how civilization ends……..”

Karl Marx was pretty dead last time I saw him (he’s buried in the Highgate Cemetery in London).

On the subject of cemeteries, I’m reminded of Pompeii. There’s a road just outside of Pompeii’s city walls that passes through the town necropolis. The Roman tombs there are in fairly good shape because they were once covered with volcanic ash. Normally when walking past grave momuments, one feels a bit melancholy. However it’s difficult to feel that way with these Pompeiian tombs. The people planted there were the “lucky ones”. They lived out full life spans and were buried by loving relatives. When they died, their strong and vibrant city seemed to have an excellent future in front of it. Who would have guessed that their comfortable city would soon be nuked by Mount Vesuvius?

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:48 am 37. Jim Nicholas:

I am not yet persuaded, but I am persuadable, that global warming will occur and will be costly. For purposes of my present question, let us assume that it will occur.

I have seen wide-ranging estimates of those costs and also of the costs of trying to prevent it. I have not seen estimates of the cost of adapting to the consequences of global warming as compared to the cost of preventing it? Have I missed them, or do they not exist? Perhaps adapting is less exciting as a movement to join than is preventing? Or maybe there are not the same opportunities for investment.

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:50 am 38. mika2k1:

This CO2 bit is a scam.
==

So is talking about the CO2 scam, when the real issue is Peak Oil and America’s economic and geopolitical dependence on Jihadi Oil and the petro dollar exchange.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:00 am 39. fred:

Jim Nicholas,

Are you persuadable by a hypothesis that, at best, establishes correlation and not causality?

Have you seriously looked into alternate hypotheses?

Al Bore’s mendacious film has done inestimable harm and no doubt will continue to do so. I think his Harvard prof. Roger Revelle would vehemently disagree with his former pupil’s hypothesis and the use to which it has been put.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:00 am 40. Aristide:

Coming to a showroom near you, the new Fletcher Christian Harley!

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:06 am 41. Konyok:

So much AGW folderol, so little time …

A large part of the confusion is that lawyers are attempting to pronounce scientific *truth.* The law and science have two very different truth finding methodologies, most notably in their approach to the hypothethesis and to uncertainty.
The legalistic mind begins with the theory, assembles evidence to support it and makes its best argument, presumably with an adversary actively arguing against the theory. (Much of today’s debate resembles Soviet jurisdiprudence in the golden age of Vyshinsky – even the defense attorney rises to denounce the defendent.) These arguments are placed before an authority – a judge, a jury or public opinion at large to render an opinion, which then becomes a binding precedent. The lawyer has a flexible attitude, the truth is that which best serves his case. The notion of “scientific consensus” is a lawerly concept, antithetical to the scientific method.
The scientific mind develops a hypothesis, generally an explanation of some empirical observation, and devises an experiment to test it. The strength of an experiment and its results are determined by its repeatablity and the simplicity of causation. The fewer independent variables, the fewer degrees of freedom, the greater confidence that the hypothesis is decisively proven or disproven. Because the universe is non-linear in nature, it is nearly impossible to perform an experiment in the perfect isolation needed to eliminate all but the influential independent variables. Most often, when one theory is displaced by another it is because discounted variables are found to be more influential than previously thought. (Newton’s universe worked well, Einstein’s works a little better, someday a new model will be developed, and so on … )Such uncertainty is integral to science – the fat lady never sings.

AGW is neither proven nor disproven. At this stage, most arguments for either side remain largely anecdotal. AGW has intuitive appeal and is very intriguiging on several emotional, aesthetic, philosophical and ideological levels; conversely, it is threatening on several levels as well. But, the resolution of the available data (limited time series, profound instrument error, geographic distribution of recording stations, controversial use and integration of proxy data with observed data) is not adequate to skillfully distinguish statistically significant climate forcings from hitherto unknown background variance. We can’t conclusively the existence of the anthropogenic climate change signal, and we can’t prove its non-existence.

When you consider the uncertainties in promulgating and enforcing meaningful CO2 emission standards, the entire exercise enters the realm of the surreal. (Helpful hint: CO2 is a remarkably stable compound that is deucedly difficult to detect. There is no hand held device that you can point at an engine and determine its CO2 emissions. The only easy way to estimate carbon foot print is to use a material mass balance calculation – so much fuel consumed = so much CO2 emitted. You can imagine the abuse that such a bookkeeping approach would generate.)

The law and science and very different critters. I guess that you could say that when you want decisions made quickly, the lawyer’s approximation method is best. The scientist tends to hem and haw and avoid simple declarative sentences. But, sharia is a sophisticated and well-developed example of legal reasoning …

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:15 am 42. Konyok:

mika,

Peak oil is a bedtime story for social “scientists.”

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:19 am 43. NahnCee:

A new Green industry funded and monitored by the “Government” would provide a lot of new jobs for the currently unemployable who have no 21st Century skills. Especially if it entailed checking up on and monitoring other people.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:21 am 44. Joe Buzz:

Hey I used to tool around a 400 acre angus farm on the Harley SX-250! It was a bit much for a 12-14 year old kid….but I survived. I had and still have a small carbon footprint…fwiw.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:22 am 45. Jay:

The solar cycle that all stars share but with different periods determines most of the global temperature level.
Most of our college graduates can not do any serious work. Just talk with professors in our state universities about there average students.
Italy and Poland have strongly objected to the EU plan for CO2 emissions. The Polish electricity bills will double and most Poles can not manage that large increase in their basic living costs.
The American greens do not mind cheap solutions to their cult religion but most Americans will go nuts if their standard of living drops.
We have negative savings, a soaring national debt, too much private debt and an internationaly unstable world.
Chicago has a half billion dollar debt. Many counties in CA are in financial trouble. Printing money to pay the bills will result in hyper inflation and social chaos.
I know of several DC insiders who have moved to safe low population areas because they expect DC to blow up or be blown up.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:52 am 46. Unsk:

Fletcher Christian-
i am sure your motives are good, but you need to deal with today’s regulators a little more often to understand their motives and how they work.

The day of transparent, even handed, non-politicized regulations that seek the common good are long over. Today, given the chance, most leftists and regulators seek often hysterical, conflicting and punitive regulations over production processes they don’t can’t comprehend.

The left lives in a fantasy world where all manufacturing and production of goods and services could and should be done in a totally earth friendly green environment if only those nasty, money grubbing predator capitalists would give it a try.

To them, if a manufacturer produces some negative environmental effect no matter how small or inconsequential while producing a product, the manufacturer must be dirty. They must be criminal. So by logical progression in their warped minds, most if not all Capitalists are criminals and should be treated as such.

Your typical environmentalist would throw out all the good America’s massive manufacturing capacity produces to achieve the illusive goal of a totally earth friendly green environment.

The destructive power of what Jason Grumet has proposed is truly staggering. Almost every industry would be a violator in some way, with no quick work around available. Whole industries would shrivel and die, very quickly.

Wretchard is to be commended for another great post. I hope word of this spreads far and wide. These ideas of Grumet and by extension Obama are truly dangerous.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:53 am 47. Tarnsman:

Re: Obama’s planned CO2 declaration

And what happens if the Sun doesn’t want to play ball? In case anyone isn’t playing attention the Solar scientist are whispering under their breaths, “Dalton Minimum” given that all of the solar benchmarks are at historic lows for the modern era. If global temperatures begin to fall as some are predicting the result will be an increase in energy usage (heating) and a decrease in food production (CO2 levels will fall due to the oceans reabsorbing the gas and CO2 is plant food in case anyone forgot their biology classes plus plants like it warm). What then? The politicians will say “Sorry, we’re bad”? The AGW hoax/scare has caused some serious misallocation of economic and scientific resources which will cause misery down the road, IMHO. We shall see.

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:05 am 48. cedarford:

Fletcher Christian:

whiskey; it ain’t all bad you know.

Carbon capping would mean the death of hugely inefficient, over-sized cars and motorcycles, true. Cry me a river. And if Ford, General Motors et al can’t adapt – well, they will go under and be replaced by people that can. That’s the way capitalism works, remember?

Left unsaid is that it is not “inefficiency” in what humans consume that drives this carbon consumption, but the overpopulation of carbon users.
In 1900 there were only 100 million people in Africa. Now there are 870 million. Asia up from 1 billion to 3.5 billion. N America from 120 million to 338 million. Latin America and Caribbean from 108 million to 420 million – less their economic refugee “gifts” to N America.

You cut oil consumption in cars, you only partially mitigate against human population growth. You say that people in temperate regions must use as little fuel as people in tropical regions or you will carbon tax the shit out of them, you only assure angry, poor and cold people in the advanced nations.

You lower carbon consumption by conservation, without doing anything about population growth, all your gains are eaten up and then some by more people – as were all the gains from 1970-2008 in America just by illegal immigrants alone and their descendents. We use 30% more energy than in 1970 while we use 25% less per capita.

Go figure.

We are now on track for the US to grow to 363 million in 2030, 438 million by 2050, and whites at replacement level birthrates – to be a minority by 2040 due to other high breeder rate populations.

********************
OmegaPaladin – Wind and solar are energy alternatives just like acupuncture is a medical alternative – occasionally useful, but nowhere near a full replacement.

A great analogy. One most people can understand.
Notice how fast the Greenies shut up about the 3rd leg of their “Wishful Thinking Triad” – exciting, miracle ethanol!! once gas prices shot up, grocery goods went up 20%, and food riots began breaking out in the overpopulated 3rd World as agricultural surplus foodstuffs were withdrawn from export to be used as “green” oil substitute.

It doesn’t help the green cause that so many are so against nuclear power, and also target renewable energy from evil dams that block “free rivers” or awful forestry and trash to energy plants.

The joke is that even “blessed Solar” is now being hit by environmentalist lawsuits. Every new solar project in California is tied up in court over “wrecking sensitive desert ecology”.
**********************

Like Leo Linbeck III, I think AGW is a fact, but so far a minor contributor to global warming, which I don’t see as all bad..It is only the people that are Right Wing ideologues and people believing in the 6,000 year young Earth that are in major denial about both warming, and the huge increase in CO2 being likely contributors.

But with both India and China saying f-you! to present efforts to cap carbon…and 3rd Worlders bent on high breeding rates also wanting exemptions and the “free” food supplies for populations they can no longer sustain with the land they have – all we and Europe will do by cutting back is to have a miniscule effect on emissions while supposedly feeling real good about ourselves as we reduce our standards of living. All the developed world will do is negated by global population rising from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.7 billion today to 12.6 billion in 2100 – unless we all agree to impose population limits as China has(Something the American Religious Right would scream endlessly about).

Less people, more nukes, I say.

Besides energy shortages, we also face water, arable land, and strategic metals shortages. And shortages of jobs in lands were breeding has outstripped economy’s ability to provide good, or frankly, any job to 40-60% of the population.

(Even China knows that as it explodes economically, gutting other nations industries has only gained it 90 million new jobs. It still has 300 million “extras” dying for a job outside the industrial zones and no way can even China “grow” enough, as the American Right Wing says, to provide great jobs for all. It HAS to go with “one-child” until its population and economy can achieve balance..)

And we need Closed Borders into N America, Europe, Russia, Oceana. (As China – No Koreans or other un-Han welcome!, S Africa – Outside Bantus bugger off!, Mexico – Central Americans keep out!, Japan – Only Nipponese, please!, have already done.)

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:10 am 49. 10-20-08 | Drive Time Happy Hour:

[...] Richard Fernandez on the Colin Powell endorsement of “The One”: America isn’t color blind at all; no sirree. But the relevant color is green. [...]

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:16 am 50. whiskey:

Fletcher — I don’t think you understand. The cars of today are all that people can afford. You are asking:

Throw about 6 million people out of work or perhaps more, in a time of recession/depression.

Ruin heavily vested and powerful business execs, and political power of connected Unions, which would disappear.

Force middle/working class whites into big cities where they are living amidst high-crime, violent minorities that despise them.

That’s not a recipe for revolution, it’s a recipe for immediate impeachment, AND conviction. Yes it’s true Obama CAN use the EPA to mandate that.

But politics is a means of balancing competing interests. No business is simply going to roll over and die, much less Ford Motor and GM and Chrysler — with all their connected Congressmen and Senators. Nor will Japanese and German auto makers follow them into the abyss. Nor will the millions of men and women suddenly thrown out of work.

You don’t just kick out one of the industrial pillars of the nation, employing millions, and also in the process force people out of homes and jobs in a recession/depression. That’s pure political idiocy.

The Global Warming scam, in good times, has gone to people’s heads. The ability to extract that resources from Joe Average and big companies is over. Hard times make CO2 regulation a thing of the past.

Yes, Obama will likely win a big Dem majority. Just like Nixon did in 1972. See how well that stood him. Obama’s like Nixon — neither fundamentally know how to get along with the opposition and large institutions opposed to their policies. For Nixon, it was the Press. For Obama, it is Middle America and large corporations.

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:18 am 51. Jim Nicholas:

Fred, (post # 39)

It seems to me that a hypothesis in isolation is not persuasive. It is an explanation, held with varying degrees of conviction, of observations that the hypothesis is trying to explain. And so its persuasiveness depends on how valid those observations are, how well the hypothesis includes all of the observations, and how well it stands up to attempts to test that hypothesis.

Regarding correlations, it seems to me that they are observations to be understood. Correlations do not prove cause and effect, but they may point the way to studies that can prove or disprove cause and effect. Recognizing a correlation does not prove causality; it is also the case that recognizing a correlation does not rule out a causal relationship.

I have looked at the observations behind some (probably not all) of the alternate hypotheses for the recent (but not the last 10 years?) global warming. Those observations also contain correlations that are worth studying further. Also the observations used to support various hypotheses seem to contradict each other, and the quality and validity of the observations supporting the various hypotheses are in dispute. I know of no useful approach that further study.

It is for all of these reasons that I am reluctant to proceed full speed as if any hypothesis were proved, as we seem to be doing, and would like to know the costs of alternative plans, including adaptation.

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:19 am 52. Derek:

This CO2 stuff is the wet dream of everyone producing things in the US. By the stroke of a pen, vast swaths of commodity distribution and production business no longer can exist. Everything turns from commodity, low margin high production to high margin hopefully high production goods.

Money for everyone.

In the business I’m involved in the change and opportunity is endless. Product refrigeration. Stores typically have pack type refrigeration systems, where 15-20 systems (cases, the ones you get your product from) are tied into a central compressor/condenser setup. If you have a refrigerant leak, the potential is to blow the charge for half or more of the store. One store I work in had a 900 lb refrigerant leak. In California, one major retailer has an 80% leak rate per year.

Refrigerants are not CFC’s anymore, but they have the greenhouse gas potential of 2000 times CO2. In Europe, there is a large surcharge per lb.

So, the industry is trying to come up with an alternative. CO2 as refrigerant. Or at least initially, an energy transfer medium. Instead of the liquid vapor cycle, they are talking a transcritical CO2 cycle. My boss’s son is looking at a system for installation in Calgary. They literally have high pressure reliefs that will blow CO2 if the case or system is shut off. Energy numbers are not the point, it’s regulatory.

There is change coming at any rate, since energy costs are rising. That forces change, but the change has to actually deliver. Government fiat produces change that will probably have to be replaced a second time because it doesn’t work. Of course, this is good if you are selling things.

The losers are those who have to pay. Ie, purchase groceries, maintain home heating/cooling equipment.

Just to show the absurdity of it all, if you want to install a ground source heat pump in BC, Canada, you can get a $13,000 subsidy from the government. The system will probably cost you that much again. With home heating costs somewhere around $1500 per year, and the new system knocking somewhere around 50% off your costs, no one will see any payback over the life (15 years max, with maintenance/ year around 2/3 of the energy savings) of the equipment.

Snake oil we call that around here. Of course, money to be made for some, especially if you are well connected.

I keep telling people that the technological solutions aren’t invented yet, so how could government know what to back?

Derek

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:31 am 53. Derek:

Oh, another thing to watch with horror.

Heat pumps save energy from a utilities’ standpoint from the base load. When it gets cold, auxiliary heat kicks in. Your loads are increasing all around, with darker days, larger heat loads, and the heat pumps are all hitting auxiliary heat at the same time.

The incentives to move to heat pumps are driving demand. People are moving off natural gas to electric, putting more demand on the grid.

Of course, the base load here is hydro electric, but demand is needed from other sources. Guess where? Natural gas demand stations.

So instead of a 95% efficient gas furnace, you have a turbine or gas fired steam plant producing electricity at what efficiency?, transmitted over long distance with losses, then used to generate heat with resistance heat.

Great. Let’s make another 5 year plan that will solve everything.

Derek

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:39 am 54. Pascal:

C4: All the developed world will do is negated by global population rising from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.7 billion today to 12.6 billion in 2100 – unless we all agree to impose population limits.

You are probably well on the road to your wish no matter who is elected C4. However, symbolically, I think your best choice for Prez should be Obama. That’s because his forces have arranged to have vote for him the largest numbers of zombies in history.

You see, some sad people who have no children sometimes are inclined much the same way. That is they are now alive but their lines are dead and they resent it that others still have a physical stake in posterity. A different kind of zombie.

Do you have a physical stake in posterity C4?

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:00 pm 55. steveaz:

Jim Nicholas, #51
Very well said.

“Correlations do not prove cause and effect, but they may point the way to studies that…”

It’s in that wide-open intellectual frontier between, on the one hand, a human-designed study which only tests the hypothesis that certain correlations prove causality (and that, coincidently, must take its place amongst a plurality of other timely ‘opposing’ studies), and, on the other hand, what I call “the Machine’s” potential gain should the causality already be proven, that the media has set up shop – their own lights, cameras, “experts,” cued audience, and all.

If the plot of the act wasn’t so inherently dishonest and its political prescriptions so insidiously dangerous, I’d be saying, “Jolly good show!”

Seems obvious, but if we increased our citizens’ aptitude in the hard sciences, it’d impinge on the media’s promiscuous propagandizing on science matters. If the media relies on the old axiom, “A sucker is born every day” (and it appears to me that the GW-junk science does), then its corellary may be its undoing: “If we can train a scientist every other day, then at least we’ll be keeping up.”

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:17 pm 56. Konyok:

Pascal,

I’ve often wondered the same thing.

Is there a correlation between attachment to worst-case-scenarios and having children?

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:21 pm 57. jerry:

Fascism: A collectivist political system built around a central organizing principle or myth.

I think many of us have joked about environmentalism as a watermelon, green on the outside but red on the inside. Environmentalism, lets call it eco-ism, is just another totalitarian political doctrine built upon a central organizing myth. That it holds sway with a significant number of American people does not bode well for the sustainment of a free and democratic society. Barak Obama has picked up the mantle of eco-ism as sellable route to a new Fascist dictatorship. Regulating CO2 will allow the government to intrude into every aspect of life from transportation to the food supply. It even delivers your life into their hands since as biological organisms we are CO2 generators.

Not all Fascist doctrines turn to mass murder but a Fascism based upon eco-ism has the potential to exceed even the communist holocaust in murderous intent.

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:24 pm 58. Darren:

The bizarre thing about the CO2 issue is that while it is technically possible to lower our CO2 emissions, to do so requires the CO2-producing infrastructure we have right now and the free capital it generates.

I’m a big fan of Amory Lovins and the ‘negawatt’ idea, the energy we save is the cheapest energy we’ll ever get. Designing-in efficiency into future generations of equipment makes sense, that’s something the government can do. But the problem is transitioning to the low-emission future costs lots and lots of money, which is where wielding the hatchet of EPA control of CO2 comes in as a problem. The idea that we can tax ourselves into the carbonless future we want strikes me as driving the national fiscal bus across the bridge of efficiency we have to build as we go — at some point we might get the bus out in front of the building, with predictable results. Scientific progress does not occur on demand, but taxes must be paid with regularity. It is true that the speed of taxation can be modulated to match the rate of progress, but that is assuming a rational actor in charge of the tax-setting mechanism. Considering that AGW skeptics are called ‘deniers’ by the kind of people who would likely be in charge of the tax-setting mechanism, I have little hope that will occur.

People talk about a national ‘Apollo Project’ for energy independence, but realistically the price of Apollo failure was not substantially higher than the price of Apollo success. The same engineers were out of work the day the last Apollo missions were cancelled as would have been out of work had Apollo 11 failed. The ‘Apollo Project’ for energy independence, if paid for through carbon taxes and economically-crippling restrictions on other means of power generation, reaches much farther into the fabric of society, with much more dire results if for some reason we’re unsuccessful, or more likely, there are unintended consequences.

You want a competition for the best ideas for energy independence? Here’s your answer: BURN COAL. We have a huge amount of it, it’s cheaper than wind or solar will ever be, and it can make electricity to charge PHEVs. End of story. Make the check out to ‘Darren’, two Rs and an E. Thanks.

The idea that the US will make money exporting a new green energy source to China and India that is more expensive than their indigenous fossil fuels is as much an Obama pipe dream as the idea that the Europeans like him so much they’ll actually spend enough of their GDP to develop a deployable combat force.

We should do what we can do to become more efficient, because it saves us money. The rest of it is a voluntary program of self-righteousness, with indulgences sold by Father Gore.

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:51 pm 59. dkite:

Oh, another thing about the ground source heat pumps. I would estimate that between 1/3 and 1/2 of the installed systems don’t work.

Oh, they hum when turned on, but don’t work in the sense that they will heat the house down to design temperature, and work in the sense that they save anywhere close to the energy promised by the technology.

Remember this when anyone suggests wholesale implementation of complex systems as salvation.

Derek

Oct 20, 2008 - 12:57 pm 60. Pascal:

Not entirely Konyok. The Kennedy clan seems entirely tied to green (Robert Kennedy Jr is the radical who was entirely given the reigns of California’s environment by his wife’s cousin, “GOP” Guv Schwarzenegger) yet they themselves are renowned for large families.

I once wrote a short observation about how our nation’s founders viewed posterity and contrasted it with the view of our current elites.

It is by no means conclusive, but the difference in leadership attitude is remarkable. It suggests that citizens at the least be cautious about who is promoting lifestyles that produce no children or may lead to sterilization or shortened lifespans.

In short, correlation need not be present for prudence to advise caution.

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:16 pm 61. Pascal:

rather: that’s his cousin’s husband.

Will I ever fully vet my own effluent? I checked that post three times for format but overlooked fixing the relational aspects once I settled on who I would name and in what order. Oh how I miss the blogspot site.

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:23 pm 62. Konyok:

Pascal,

I was thinking more generally, and, maybe specifically …

Those who foresee the most drastic repercussions of the current election – vested in posterity or no? (Either side.)

Kennedys notwithstanding, among the radical Greens childlessness is considered a virtue. (The Camelot crowd have always considered themselves *special,* consider their adamant opposition to offshore wind farms … )

Among people that I know personally, those with kids are much less likely to believe in conspiracy theories or take absolutist stands.

I couldn’t say which is cause and which is effect. Does pessimism deter them from breeding, or does lack of children make them more susceptible to dystopian visions?

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:27 pm 63. Darren:

@dkite

The wife and I had to replace the 20 year-old heat pumps that came with our house in Texas.

Ground source was going to cost at least $20K for seven 250-300′ wells, plus $3.50 a foot in polyethylene tubing, plus the destruction of our lawn. Oh, and then we had to buy the heat-pump equivalents for another $10K-plus. The guy who came out and looked at our home and our bill laid it all out for us and the choice was simple.

We paid $10K for 14 SEER replacement conventional heat pumps, instead of $30K on ground-source. Ground-source would have paid back the difference in 30 years, based on our electrical rate — and assuming no hose problems requiring maintenence in that time.

If we build a house and have sufficient land, then we’ll put in ground-source for sure. As a retrofit, it just didn’t make sense for a home we didn’t expect to own that long.

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:29 pm 64. Fletcher Christian:

Whiskey (#50): No, I understand that perfectly well. However, the fact remains that European cars, most of which are not Mercedes and BMWs but Vauxhalls, Fords, Fiats, VWs and Skodas, are just as cheap as a typical American car but use half the fuel – largely for two reasons; they weigh half as much and have more fuel-efficient engines.

Note that the first two companies on the list are American – Vauxhall is a subsidiary of GM, in case you didn’t know. They even already have the designs! They have no excuses at all.

It’s probably true that the old Detroit dinosaurs are on the way out because they either won’t or can’t adapt to the changing needs and desires of their prospective customers, who are beginning to want smaller, more efficient, longer-lasting and less wasteful cars – but the carmakers don’t want to sell them and the unions don’t want to build them. The American car industry is in trouble – but how are Nissan and Toyota sales in the US?

Capitalism is the business version of Darwinism. Adapt or die. GM and Ford might die. Tough. Before too long, the USA will have Nissan and Toyota plants, making a good profit and providing jobs – just as happened in the UK. And when that happens, the only people to suffer will be GM and Ford execs and shareholders. Ah diddums. Another consequence of looking at the next quarter and the bonuses from it instead of the future.

From Reuters Oct 1st this year, reporting on an official Ford announcement: “In its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands, car sales fell 19.4 percent, crossover sales were down 30.2 percent, SUV sales plummeted 57 percent and truck and van sales fell 38.8 percent.”

Note the gigantic drop in SUV sales. About bloody time – excuse the mild swearing.

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:29 pm 65. E. Nigma:

Just a comment about heat pumps (and their cousins, air conditioners).
They work most efficiently when their is about a 20 degree (Rankine) difference between the enclosed space and the radiated space. Inside and outside.
If you can drill down and do a ground water exchange (~ 54F constant), then you can maintain efficiency no matter what the outside temp is. That’s what Derek implied in the cost of “groundwater” heat pumps. If you have to do an outside air exchange, when the temp gets down to freezing and below, you can run that heat pump until there are snowballs in hell, and you won’t get any BTU’s out of it; hence ‘auxilliary’ heat.
Interesting point about “natural gas” electrical generation. If you use natural gas to boil water to steam, then the thermodynamic efficiency is about 33 – 38%, based on the available energy in steam. It’s the same for a coal fired or nuclear fired power plant.

If you use natural gas to drive a gas turbine directly (used as peak power generators, as they can be easily spooled up and shut down), your efficiencies get better, but not much. As was said, using natural gas in the home heating furnace is a much more efficient use of the resource than burning it to make megawatts. But since it is such a clean fuel (relatively speaking), the Greenies are all for that.

Oct 20, 2008 - 1:32 pm 66. Pascal:

I’m sorry this is so long Konyok. I really don’t see a definitive answer; only an optimistic one. Please bear with me.

In my own generation, too many act like they are not vested even though they have children and grandchildren. With some, their interests got pretty hedonistic I think.

In general though I learned to be suspicious of those without children because latent envy shows itself more than half the time, and that leaves out those who never let the mask drop. However, there are quite a few I know who take my side and tell kids not to make the mistake they made.

I think it largely depends upon how much my generation feels regret over abandoning the moral code that was quashed by our Gramscian counterculture. So, the answer for this segment of the population is that it has mixed feelings if they lack kids.

In the current generation, so much effort has been thrown into indoctrinating them. They may indeed feel pessimistic about humanity’s role on the planet and that most certainly inspires if not inheres a guilt about their natural drives. In that way pessimism might deter them from breeding and I think that was the intent of my generation of teachers.

But you know, a funny thing happened on the way to the lemmings’ cliff.

There it may be the rebellious nature of youth which may yet save them. Some are already convinced that they been misled by the pessimists and that will save them from the mistakes of my generation. They will reflexively do all they can to frustrate the misanthropes who dress in green and rarely name Malthus as their moral authority. I even gave them some encouragement a few days ago: http://pascalfervor.blogspot.com/2008/10/rebel.html :^)

However, regarding the current Obamamessiah circus and whether they buy into him and his changeling thing. It depends a lot on whether or not the youth who would rebel against this deadly element of Postmodernism (anti-natalism) recognize how much Obama is tied to those who would advance its views faster than would McCain.

I’m just not sure. I simply feel that keeping Obama out would buy them some time to recognize how much their desires are traditionally conservative. In McCain’s administration there would still be dissent allowed — the Left would see to it,

Conservatives need time and latitude to regroup and then to fight to regain control of the GOP in this two party system. And it would take the younger generation to do that. (I sure hope that doesn’t sound too much like Winston Smith’s hope!)

I really like the way Karen compressed the conservative situation into a fighting slogan that the Right might adopt: “We didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left us.”

Oct 20, 2008 - 2:32 pm 67. cedarford:

Pascal – You see, some sad people who have no children sometimes are inclined much the same way (about overpopulation driving less resources and more carbon use). That is they are now alive but their lines are dead and they resent it that others still have a physical stake in posterity. A different kind of zombie.

Do you have a physical stake in posterity C4?

Let me guess, you are a Fundie who believes the more children (gifts from God) the world has, the better, and that Sweet Baby Jesus will always give us more land, water, and oil. That CO2 rising from 280 ppm in 1850 to 378 ppm now is a “Godless myth”.

And that anyone who worries about overpopulation must therefore have no kids “for posterity”. A bizarre belief. Because a family of 11 in Zimbabwe or Pakistan is doing God’s Work and damn the environment or the decline in quality of life now seen in overpopulated lands? And the real bad people are the Japanese, Chinese, Whites for failing to massively breed so Jesus has more souls to love and care for. (I have 2 kids).

Given that, why should I welcome a Somali family of 12 or a Mexican family of 8 into the USA as “our duty to poor people in overpopulated lands to take them in?”

Why shouldn’t I want America to have a sustainable population, sustainable growth and not surrender it to people that have different demographic ideas and different, incompatable cultures?

******************
My belief is that long before overpopulation causes extreme harm from AGW, we will have it precipitate major global crisis from Resource Wars involving fights over energy supply, potable water, and arable land.

And we are already on the threshold of a major species extermination event as tides of surplus people threaten to eliminate the remaining pockets of wildlife in the ME, Africa & India, the remaining Asian rain forests.

*******************

Oct 20, 2008 - 2:36 pm 68. Konyok:

One of the signal achievements of the Western World in the last quarter of the 20th century was a breathtaking increase in the efficiency of energy produced by the combustion of hydrocarbons. Both in terms of amount of work accomplished and in terms of pollution released into the atmosphere. Great efforts were rewarded in simplifying industrial emissions to *clean* CO2 and H2O. The regulatory goal was to remove sulfur compounds, heavy metals, CO, ozone, particulates and uncombusted volatile hydrocarbons from the smoke stack. This goal was largely successful. The common characteristic of these pollutants is that they are extremely reactive – they do bad things to children and other living things. Until very recently, CO2 and H20 have been regarded as benign – stable and relatively inert.
Now, SCOTUS has decided that CO2 is a pollutant. (Another example of the legal mind at work … ) This turns the entire environmental regulatory regime on its head. Because CO2 is relatively inert, there is NO easy way to capture it. There is no miracle catalyst waiting in the wings. (That is why photosynthesis is such a marvel … )

AGW is a compelling theory. It is indisputable that humans are releasing ancient carbon from sequestration orders of magnitude faster than modern carbon is being buried. Common sense dictates that increasing CO2 must result in more solar heat retention, hence warming. But, science dictates no such thing. We are in the position of medieval physicians who know that something must be wrong, so the solution must be to bleed the patient and remove bad humors.

The climate history of the Earth is inexplicable to us. We do not *know* what caused the ice ages or even the lesser Dryas. We do not know why the current interpluvial period has lasted so long or when it might end – if we consider Cenozoic temperatures as *normal,* then we are still in an unexplained cold period that began about 2.6 million years ago. We understand bits and pieces of the story, but there is no satisfactory explanation. We know that during the ice age CO2 levels have been much lower than today, but we don’t know anything about pre ice age levels. (Our only data comes from ice cores, which only take us 100,000 years into the past.) Because the Pleistocene and Holocene are unexplained, we can’t know what what the proper baselines are – we cannot distinguish between a phase shift, a correction back to *normal* conditions, or a man-made catastrophic event.

The rationale for AGW and all mitigation schemes is the precautionary principle. It is reasonable to believe that rising CO2 levels will effect climates, but, the state of our knowledge of long-term climate dynamics does not come anywhere close to our knowledge of the economy, another non-linear system subject to occasionally chaotic behaviour.

Oct 20, 2008 - 2:46 pm 69. slade:

My belief is that long before overpopulation causes extreme harm from AGW, we will have it precipitate major global crisis from Resource Wars involving fights over energy supply, potable water, and arable land. – Cedarford

Charles has posted numerous links to accelerating improvements in membrane technology that will put large scale desalination plants on-line in 10-20 years. It is relatively near-term technology with “transformative power” to turn deserts into agriculture reducing pressure on natural resources of food and water. I followed many of the links and it is far more advanced than battery technology. Whether that time frame will be soon enough remains to be seen.

Oct 20, 2008 - 2:46 pm 70. Pascal:

Thanks C4: I knew I could count on you. Boy are you off by miles about me. Unlike you, I have a web presence; you could have informed yourself.

And thanks Konyok for the questions.

I won’t be back for hours. I hope this discussion continues to bloom. :^)

Oct 20, 2008 - 2:59 pm 71. Darren:

Fletcher,

While GM’s Europe subsidiaries do crank out higher-efficiency cars, a number of them are diesels.

The words “Diesel” and “GM” are not greeted with any kind of enthusiasm in the United States. Been there, done that. Bad results. Even though it was a quarter-century ago, diesel passeneger cars with a GM nameplate still don’t induce a rush of purchasers. What’s more, diesel cars are tagged with the preconception of smelly, loud, underpowered and polluting.

There is also the ironic issue that diesels are practically banned in several states, with only a few models approved. The US has higher particulate emissions requirements than a number of European countries. The recent introduction of ULSD fuel makes it possible to get some cars into sales in large markets like CA and NY, but still there’s an uphill perception battle.

Also, diesel is taxed more heavily in the US because it is assumed it’s being used by commercial drivers. While diesel is 40% more efficient than gasoline, often taxes make it almost 40% more expensive. The best mobile power source if everything pans out would be an algal biodiesel-powered PHEV, or just an algal biodiesel-powered car — but the fact that there is a high-efficiency diesel somewhere in GM’s stable doesn’t mean it will be an automatic success here. It also doesn’t mean that our government in its infinite wisdom has not stacked the deck in a variety of ways (tax and regulatory) against just the kind of car our automakers can produce elsewhere for a profit.

Oct 20, 2008 - 3:00 pm 72. Konyok:

Pascal,

There’s something about having to explain things to a child that really clarifies the mind.

I’m still pretty much a counterculture person, but I always had an exquisite sense that as such I was a parasite drawing from the larger dominant culture. It was a personal choice. So, I tried to prepare my kids to make their own choices. They have chosen more conventional paths than I did, and have arrived at a conservative perspective on their own. (Innate? Perhaps.)

Now I watch them raise their children in the same spirit. I certainly worry about things going horribly wrong, but, I have a lot of confidence in our ability to muddle through just about anything.

Oct 20, 2008 - 3:13 pm 73. Uncle Jefe:

Yes, compelling.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/20/lorne-gunter-thirty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx

Oct 20, 2008 - 4:24 pm 74. fred:

Konyok,

If the science is disputable within the scientific community, “juries” of political decision making and bureaucrats who decide how a law is to be interpreted are not really a solid footing for taking an entire nation down a road that most certainly will do a lot of damage to its economy.

Why is it that people like Jason Grumet get to have so much power? He’s not a scientist. He’s a lawyer. His bachelors’ degree is not in a science. It isn’t right that people like this get to have their hands on the power to impose the President’s will without consultation or deliberation of the Congress and the people.

We are up to our eyeballs in lawyers in this country. They run investment firms, banks, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, think tanks, government bureaucracies, and on and on and on. Particularly lawyers from Ivy League schools. They have key positions in all of our government departments. And now it is lawyers who are taking a disputable scientific hypothesis and building policy upon it. In fact, they have just found a way to get around the elected bodies’ rejection of the Kyoto Protocols to ram it down our throats. This is highly undemocratic, and yet lawyers are the first ones to get on board the effort to stymie this country’s war efforts that protect us from Islamic jihad.

It is this professional class that is most invested in the complete transformation of our society into something never intended by the Founders.

No offense to Wretchard, who is, we assume, an Ivy League grad, but I think the Ivies are feeding the creature that is devouring the nation.

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:10 pm 75. cedarford:

Slade – Charles has posted numerous links to accelerating improvements in membrane technology that will put large scale desalination plants on-line in 10-20 years. It is relatively near-term technology with “transformative power” to turn deserts into agriculture reducing pressure on natural resources of food and water.

Since the dawn of agriculture, man has dreamed and worked towards getting adequate water from desalination of sea water, to no avail. We were able to make a big jump in the industrial age, but only by mining “fossil” water in non-replacable or not replaced at withdrawal rates acquifers (even given present population).

I doubt anything will be coming down the pike anytime soon that does not require significant energy input – which is another commodity those countries (aside from ME ones) do not have, or cannot afford.

This has long been a Holy Technology Grail, which countries like Russia, China, wealthy Arab States, Israel – and UN agencies have poured huge money into over the years. Not to mention past civilizations bedeviled by inadequate water, or soil salinization.

But if we were successful and could spread out a few extra billion people on newly arable lands – limits on growth would still come up if breeding rates in the 3rd World remained high. Resource wars and also culture wars seem to beckon. The notion of advanced nations have the obligation to be “safety valves” and take in the unwanted 100s of millions seeking to flee their despoiled lands and get into the West has just about reached a true rejection because of native cultures determining it is not in their interest to be swamped by incompatable invasive cultures and fast-breeding masses.

Resource wars would still happen unless we control numbers, because other “hard stops” beckon if not water and land. Energy sources, raw materials (nitrogen, phosphorous, potash) for fertilizer….or scarce materials needed for making a modern society (dwindling metal reserves of tin, uranium, chromium, vanadium, gold, copper, tungsten – plus non-metallics like boron, helium, fossil feedstocks for chemicals, plastics, etc.)

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:17 pm 76. DanM:

The logical conclusion of the environmental movement.. A paradise… Of control.

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:25 pm 77. fred:

I’ve been reading everything I can find about Jason Grumet that is available on the web. Articles and interviews. He seems not aware that the global climates have been cooling since 1998. In fact, it’s been TEN YEARS NOW along this gradual cooling, and the people of AGW seem unaware of it.

How is that possible?

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:32 pm 78. NahnCee:

Ummm, the same way it’s possible that the media are not aware of Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers?

Oct 20, 2008 - 5:47 pm 79. Konyok:

fred,

I am encouraged that the Republican candidates are NOT lawyers.

What I see as the problem with the legal concept of truth is that it is simply a snapshot to convince the decision maker at a discrete point in time. (One man, one vote, one time definitely comes from a lawyerly mindset.) Once a precedent is made, it becomes increasingly difficult over time to correct a decision at variance with objective truth. For example, even if SCOTUS were packed with strict constructionists, the inertia of stare decisis would make overturning Roe v Wade highly unlikely.

Legal truth is a perception. He who best controls the perceptual space wins the contest.

Regarding the climatic significance of the last 10 years, it doesn’t prove anything. Consider the dust bowl of the 1930’s. It certainly looked permanent at the time, but it was simply a periodic variation within *normal* parameters for the region. Such mega droughts have occurred before in the Holocene and will occur again.
The recent cooling only serves to underscore that climate is variable. Just as the warming from the 1970’s was ultimately inconclusive, even though there is a plausible mechanism – increased CO2. We just don’t understand what is the appropriate time scale to distinguish climate from weather.

It is a dilemma. If we want fast decisions, we need legal reasoning. If we have the luxury of taking the time to make the most reliable decisions, we need scientific reasoning. The “scientific consensus” on AGW is a a betrayal of scientific method.

Homework assignment: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.

Oct 20, 2008 - 6:19 pm 80. whitehall:

Leo’s characterization of energy venture capitalists is correct.

I’m in Silicon Valley but with a BS in nuclear engineering. When I went back and got my MBA about 10 years ago, I thought that energy VC would be a good fit and a useful career.

On inspection, it was clear that they were all banking on government policy changes – ie rent seeking. None of the projects they were funding would survive in the free market and few would make anything like useful energy. I did find one Texas VC outfit that did drilling technology but that was too far out of my field.

Energy VC is one big scam.

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:18 pm 81. Mad Fiddler:

Living and working in Silicon Valley during the 1990’s, I had occasion to travel on many occasions through Mountain View, Woodside, Palo Alto, Atherton, Los Gatos, and other communities of breathtaking wealth.

I especially recall the profound sense of irony at the sight of broad boulevards lined by towering Sycamores, Coral Bark Maples, graceful Norfolk Pines, Abizia Silk Mimosas, Ginkos, Redwoods, and Magnolias, graced by enormous homes of great beauty, with BMWs, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and Vipers, all of which were inspected semi-annually to ensure they met the stringent California emission standards.

Irony, because most of the time the only humans to be seen were the regiments of Latino / Hispanic gardeners – hired by the owners of those lavish homes to keep’em presentable – with their leaf-blowers belching out clouds of un-regulated exhaust smoke.

This is not to suggest those Latino / Hispanic business owners were not following all applicable statutes; It’s just no-one was thinking about the millions of gasoline-powered lawn appliances in use around the country, by the same toplofty Environmentally-minded middle-class home owners who are so ready to impose costly environmental rules on everyone around them.

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:34 pm 82. fred:

whitehall,

I suspect that your characterization of the field is spot on. I know someone in a very different field working in the missile defense program (God, I hope he realizes his job is in dire jeopardy! He’s married to one of my sisters.) He’s an electrical engineer and he does talk with people on the cutting edge of a lot of research. He tells me that the whole “renewables” cackling is a lot of hot wind. It really is all about rent-seeking.

“Rent seeking” pretty much describes how “zero sum” economic thinking of socialists like Obama understand the world. Lawyers typically fall into this way of thinking about business activity.

Oct 20, 2008 - 7:36 pm 83. Leo Linbeck III:

Pascal,

I would feel more certain that you’re conjecture is correct L3 were McCain not so authoritarian on other issues as well.

Your assessment on how McCain will act on CO2 may well be true. I was trying to explain why he will act. It’s likely we’re both right!

L3

Oct 20, 2008 - 8:10 pm 84. mika2k1:

Peak oil is a bedtime story for social “scientists.”
==

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Also, where one hundred years ago for every 1 barrel of oil spent extracting oil you could get 100 barrels of oil, today that ratio is almost 1:1. The Canadian tar sands project is basically a liquefaction project of natural gas to liquid oil. And it’s only “profitable” to do because of Canadian gov subsidies.

Oct 20, 2008 - 8:15 pm 85. Leo Linbeck III:

james wilson,

We have not dramatically increased CO2. A 20% increase in oxygen would be dramatic, 4% of the atmosphere. A 20% increase in CO2 is literally insignificant, one part per ten thousand. That is why it should not surprise that it has in fact been without consequence. What is sorrier still, the only consequences that could be gotten are positive.

I think we’re in violent agreement.

“Dramatic” was meant to refer to the concentration of CO2. It is likely it has doubled in the last decade or so. That is dramatic to me.

On the other hand. your fundamental point is probably correct: doubling of CO2 has an immaterial effect on mean surface temperature (MST). It could probably double many times more and still not make an impact, although we don’t know that for certain.

What is interesting is that while CO2 has doubled, MST has hardly budged; if anything, this fact should cast further doubt on the importance of CO2 to MST, a core claim of AGW proponents.

L3

Oct 20, 2008 - 8:20 pm 86. Konyok:

L3

Mean Surface Temperature is a useful metric like median income. Change through time suggests something about possible trends, but nothing about the dynamics of the system.

In my opinion, the very greatest weakness of AGW is the fetish made of this one derivative value. Planetary weather is a complex, truly non-linear system driven by difference and potential. To reduce it to an annual mean value of dubious value is to discard the most meaningful characteristics of climate. (The annual mean temperatures of El Paso, TX and Augusta GA are identical, 63.3 F. Are their climates identical? If they increase or decrease in tandem, are their climates converging or diverging?)

Why dubious?

First, the assumption of a normal distribution, the familiar bell curve, for temperatures is problematic. There really is no reason except convenience. (I’m reminded of an old joke: Why does the drunk look under the streetlamp for his keys? Because that’s where the light is.) My intuition tells me that nodes would capture more information, but that would be terribly unwieldy.
Second, the sample of temperatures used by GISS to calculate MST is FUBAR. Fatal problems include: non-random location of observation locations, instrument error of a variety of types, and, last but not least, the black magic of GISS’ transformation algorithms intended to solve the first two problems. The magnitude of “corrections” given to the sample set is as great as year to year variability.

So, changes in MST through time are about as good as we’ve got as a proxy for true knowledge of changes in Earth’s heat budget, but, I don’t think MST is good enough to make meaningful statements.

Frankly, we just don’t know the relative weights of CO2, solar influx, cosmic rays, net cloudiness, albedo and changing ocean currents and wind patterns in determining MST. We really can’t say anything meaningful about the last ten years, except hmmm ….

Oct 20, 2008 - 9:51 pm 87. peterike:

For those of you interested in climate, here is a great blog from a conservative (!) physicist in the Czech Republic. It’s over my head more often than not, but it’s a great place to learn. He also covers other areas of interest in astro-physics, etc.

http://motls.blogspot.com/

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:02 pm 88. Konyok:

mika,

The classic Hubbert’s curve touted by Peak Oil enthusiasts has proven not to be a useful predictor of resource recovery. We are indeed close to “Peak Oil,” but actual experience in mature oil provinces shows that the right tail of the production curve is much, much shallower than the left. Almost every oil field on Earth eventually produces 3 to 4 times more oil than original reserve estimates.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:09 pm 89. whitehall:

I have a lot of concern about Peak Oil. I find it plausible that the RATE of oil production will peak as the easy oil is extracted. Continued production usually requires increased energy inputs so that the net to society declines. There are not a lot of regions unexplored out there (maybe two) so another supergiant field is pretty unlikely.

Can’t say we’re there yet but we’re close. Time to drill, baby, drill in the US.

Oct 20, 2008 - 10:47 pm 90. Dave:

Konyok, et al: Hubbert was a brillant geologist who accurately predicted when US domestic oil production would hit its peak.

However, he (and especially some clones) mistook precedent for principle.

Drill a well, strike oil, complete the well
and it will produce 2x barrels per day. But as soon as the pressure behind the oil drops off, that well will fall to 1x barrels per day.

Drill a whole bunch of wells in a whole bunch of known fields and those areas will reach peak production in short order, then production will fall off.

What happened in the US was that the Depression reduced demand, reducing production drilling but channeling some of the surplus into exploratory drilling. During that time Howard Hughes and the Huighes Tool perfected the rotary bit to replace the cable tool. And the rotary drills deeper, faster.

Then came a funny incident in Hawaii on 7 Dec 41. Depressed demand for oil became maniac demand overnight. Cable tools were abandoned and rotaries employed on a grand scale. Plus that exploratory drilling had shown where new fields were to be had.

After the war, military demand declined and it took a couple of decades before domestic demand made up the slack. And by that tiime foreign oil was cheap and precluded our utilizing more expensive extration techniques.
(This last effect was magnified by the fact that while royalties to Americans were business expenses, royalties to foreign governments were and remain tax credits.)

So when the flowing wells stopped flowing and had to be pumped, drilling also slowed to a crawl. Hence, Hubberts Peak.

But as far as running out anytime soon, forget it. Santa Rita #1 came in in 1923. Produced for 67 years before being shut down in 1990. At least 40% of the oil in one small deposit is still down there. 60% being more probable. Nearby source rock remains untouched and its volume is being increased
(at an unknown rate) whilst we speak.

Not I do not approve of autarky. The US should not refrain from any and all imports.
But it should be able to do without, and even export, should the need arise.

Our main drawback now—-aside for obstructionism—-is whether or not an adequate price can be had and
S-U-S-T-A-I-N-E-D. Any noticeable increase in production is necessarily preceded by an increase in cost and debt. And then followed by a decline in selling price. Correct that latter problem and we will be a-okay.

Oct 20, 2008 - 11:42 pm 91. Gern Blanstein:

There is no way the EPA can regulate CO2 without legislation for a long-term period of time. Just this summer, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). CAIR regulated real pollutants – SO2, NOX, Hg. The rulking stated EPA “overstepped their authority”.

Lawsuits would bring any unilateral action by the EPA down in a matter of a few short years.

Oct 21, 2008 - 1:39 am 92. CPT. Charles:

As to the carbon scam…it’s ALL about control of EVERYTHING. As for helping hands, there’s no lack of them: scientists scrambling for grant money, social engineers disguised as politicians, megalomaniacs disguised as ‘concerned citizens of the world’, Marxists disguised as ‘defenders of Mother Gaia’, etc.

As to responses to all this asshatery, I submit two excellent summations:

http://tiny.cc/IA0oW [Spencer's 'Global Warming as a Natural Response']

http://tiny.cc/fvN20 [Monckton's open letter to McCain]

The first one is science-heavy but not impossible to follow [for anyone interested in these matters, I strongly recommend http://wattsupwiththat.com/ as a site to bookmark...].

The second one…well, let’s just call it a summation of past and current affairs vies-a-vie ‘climate science and politics’. Warning, it is a monster [20+ pages, in 4 parts...] but it is the best ‘rolled up newspaper’ to slap anyone mouthing climate tomfoolery with. I’d also recommend it as an ‘educational piece’ if you wish to bring someone ‘up to speed’; although I’d give it out in manageable bites [it's size and scope could be a bit daunting for many...].

Granted, it is an investment in time to go over them [especially the latter...], but it’s worth the effort.

Ignorance is a luxury we can ill afford these days.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:02 am 93. mika2k1:

Konyok,

You’re missing the point. There’s oil, but it’s expensive to produce. The US is hemorrhaging dollars importing oil and at the same time is enriching the Jihadi enemy. It makes absolutely no economic and political sense to continue on this path of yearly trillion dollar subsidies for the oil/car/military industry mafia.

Oct 21, 2008 - 6:27 am 94. slade:

RE: global warming. I convinced myself about two years ago that the only catastrophic event was the naked abuse of science in service of politics and political ends. Science is no longer the issue for me. The issue is (the more difficult) messaging – or “technology transfer” as an imprecise term but one that reflects the vertical and horizontal dissemination of technical information. It’s Information Management and it’s bi-directional. Ignorance is a luxury we can ill afford these days. – CPT. Charles

RE: Oil and Renewables. Peak Oil as a precedent not a principle (Dave) is a great concept. I never looked at it like that. To my mind the 800-lb gorilla is the oil lobby. It must be broken – by any means necessary. What falls out after that is anyone’s guess but it’s a gamble I would be more than willing to take. Incentivizing that transition – away from dependence on OPEC – without consolidating the “rent-seeking” environment that dominates in Washington is – or should be – the policy objective.

RE: Lawsuits would bring any unilateral action by the EPA down in a matter of a few short years. – Gern Blanstein. Presumably. Gridlock versus Frat Party? Buddy posted an article describing the psychology of group-think or peer pressure as a constraint on critical thinking. This site has focused on the alarming tendencies to suppress free speech. Both will continue to be evident, I think, as a future Obama presidency unwinds.

Kirk Kerkorian’s, 91, share of MGM fell from 14B to 2B during the past year. He reportedly said that he lived one year too long.

Oct 21, 2008 - 7:16 am 95. slade:

The other thing to watch is the repeated use of “comprehensive” in policy announcements. This is wishful thinking with a bullhorn. Hillary Clinton butted up right against it. Modern challenges cannot be solved “all at once” with a net that catches everybody. This means (1) prioritization and (2) resource allocation – over space and time. Both imply that some demographic groups will be in the shadows of the circle of bright shining spotlight. The liberal agenda is about to bump up against obstinate realities. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try but it should mitigate some of the hyperventilation.

Oct 21, 2008 - 7:30 am 96. Tarnsman:

Mika, the United States has plenty of hydrocarbons deposits. The world’s largest proven coal deposits (and Alaska’s potential deposits are estimated at 5.5 trillion short tons) are in the United States. There is trillions of CF of methane locked up as methane ice just off it’s shores. The oil locked in the shale deposits of the Rocky Mountain region is estimated is an astonishing 1.5 trillion barrels of oil – or more than five times the stated reserves of Saudi Arabia. Up in the much discussed ANWAR there is an estimated 15 to 40 billion barrels of oil. There is no doubt more oil deposits waiting to be discovered in the enormity that is Alaska. There is the 10 billion barrels of oil desposits in the Dakotas now recoverable because of new technology. There is plenty of “feeder stock” to make the United States more independent from foreign energy sources. What is missing is the political will to push for development of these resources. When CO2 is declared the enemy these resouces will be ignored. As I stated earlier, the AGW hoax/scare has caused this country to seriously misallocate its economic and scientific resources. In a sane world the United States government would be fully funding research and development into turning its huge hydrocarbon deposits into fuels. Germany was turning coal into fuel for its panzers during the Second World War. Why aren’t we doing the same with our 400 year supply of coal??

Oct 21, 2008 - 7:37 am 97. slade:

Why aren’t we doing the same with our 400 year supply of coal?? – Tarnsman

So many loose facts and factoids out there. I have read that coal, with carbon sequestration, is about equal in production cost to wind energy. That was used as an argument for wind – without factoring in reliability, peak loading, storage, or energy density.

The oil lobby is crippling this country. Pure and simple.

Oct 21, 2008 - 7:58 am 98. slade:

OPEC that is.

I have argued on countless occasions for development of USA coal deposits. We have 25% of world supply of coal but 2% of world oil.

Oct 21, 2008 - 8:00 am 99. mika2k1:

Why aren’t we doing the same with our 400 year supply of coal??
==

Because it’s stupid. Economically, it makes much better sense to use electric vehicles that use clean renewables such as solar and wind, not to speak of the environmental political benefits in doing so.

Oct 21, 2008 - 8:10 am 100. slade:

Coal of course being convertible into gas (and natural gas,) but the competition with biofuels remains heated with subsidies front and center. The point is that technical alternatives to foreign oil are too numerous to justify the status quo dependence on OPEC, which continues to fuel hostile regimes, a position I share with Mika and others. Renewables are not the sole answer, but there can be little disagreement that the resource war over oil is destabilizing to this country.

Oct 21, 2008 - 8:11 am 101. mika2k1:

..environmental & political benefits..

Oct 21, 2008 - 8:12 am 102. Darren:

mika2k1,

The environmental and political benefits you believe exist can only be realized by imposing the external costs on people through government fiat.

This is precisely the rent-seeking that energy VC depends on, the thing that Leo originally discussed in the very first comment.

Oct 21, 2008 - 8:43 am 103. buddy larsen:

Tarnsman asks “Why aren’t we doing the same with our 400 year supply of coal??” Call me a paranoid, but somehow our Green Movement, like Europe’s and especially Germany’s, likes to embody the KGB’s wildest, fondest fantasy.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:07 am 104. mika2k1:

The environmental and political benefits you believe exist can only be realized by imposing the external costs on people through government fiat.
==

Actually, you have it backwards. What I propose is eliminating the trillion dollar yearly subsidy that goes towards safeguarding the oil monopoly. What I propose is a 90% reduction to the US military budget. Why should it be for the US taxpayers to bear the cost of safeguarding that oil? I want the real unsubsidized cost of this oil to be presented to the consumer. And then we can all makes a decision as to what path makes the most sense to pursue.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:24 am 105. Dave:

Hello Buddy; Your application for membership in RSR has been accepted.

As you know, Rednecks for Social Responsibility is thePALEOneoconconspiracydotcom.

Without us, the car/oil/military mafia would soon be gone with the wind. Then what would poor old Mika have to gripe about?

Keeping trolls pacified is an AWESOME task
and a critical one. If they ever assumed normalcy, whatinhell would we do for entertainment?

So be careful as to whom you present the facts of engineering. Some knowledge might seep through what appears to be an inpenetrable skull and cause no end of trouble.

Oh, yes. Uncle Screwtape sends you his ravenous regards.

(see you this evening. Gotta go now.)

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:30 am 106. buddy larsen:

remember the old naval principle, mika –the last warship on the sea controls all the sea.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:32 am 107. buddy larsen:

haw –uncle screwtape –yes that’s us alright. a mighty navy insisting that interrupting freedom of the seas (freedom for all except pirates) is a naughty thing to do for the interests of world peace (”peace” meaning the best we can do, so far, in human history: wars that are kept small and non-existential).

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:39 am 108. John Work:

Cpt. Charles –
Thank you for posting that link to Viscount Monckton’s Open Letter to McCain. I haven’t seen such a well researched and thoughtful analysis and rebuttal to the myth of “Man-made Global Warming”. Sad that so many of our own citizens don’t seem to have as high an opinion of our country as does the Viscount.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:43 am 109. CPT. Charles:

A quick point…based on the articles I’ve read, coal to gas/diesel/JP5/JET-A/etc. can be done for about $45–65/barrel equivalent cost.

We could start building processing plants tomorrow…except for one particular political party getting in the way.

In that matter, the dems stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the eco-fascists, the Saudi’s, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.

‘Yes We Can’ doesn’t include a stable, independent energy supply…

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:43 am 110. mika2k1:

remember the old naval principle, mika –the last warship on the sea controls all the sea.
==

You’ve asked why I talk of American Imperialism, well there is part of your answer.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:44 am 111. Whitehall:

There is a program by the government that will eventually (2020?) convert coal (and water) into hydrocarbon transport fuels at no increased CO2 emissions over current usage.

A hydrogen production nuclear reactor, based on pebble bed reactor technology, will be built in the Idaho desert. Take that hydrogen and mix with the carbon in coal and you can get liquid hydrocarbons.

It is not moving nearly fast enough. We need to find our General Leslie Groves to kick some butt and get it moving.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:50 am 112. slade:

We could start building processing plants tomorrow…except for one particular political party getting in the way. – CPT. Charles

The investors don’t like it either because front-end capital and maintenance costs high. There is some truth to this but not enough. South Africa made it work and the US has at least one pilot plant with commercial plant in planning (Rentech which claims to come in at $2/gal including carbon capture) with (subsidized) biofuels (claiming costs as low as $1/gal using cellulosic) in hot pursuit.

The point right now is not the options but the momentum away from OPEC-dominated energy industry.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:07 am 113. Tarnsman:

slade, why is carbon sequestration necessary?? If you haven’t been paying attention global temperatures have in fact been falling slowly since 1998 while CO2 levels have increased. Thought increased CO2 was to cause temperatures to rise? The fallacy of the AGW will become painfully apparent as the cooling trend continues over the next few decades. As someone who works with critical systems requiring a steady and relible source of electrical power I want to be ‘downstream’ from a coal burning plant rather than a wind farm. My systems can’t be taken offline. Period. Wind power will NEVER be nothing more than an add-on to the power grid. We will need coal, gas, hydro and nuclear to generate the bulk of the needed power for our economy and society. As far as the resouce war goes, when the US government locks up domestic resources for political reasons then industry and the public will have to go elsewhere to obtain the needed energy sources. As stated before, the United States has plenty of hydrocarbon feeder stocks available to create alternatives to oil. What is missing is the commitment to develop those resources. Problem is dupes like you are worried about the CO2/Nuclear boogeymen, screaming and yelling if any attempt is made to use these practical and proven sources of energy. Instead we waste time and resources pursuing green solutions that will NEVER deliver the needed amounts of energy required by our economy.

mika2k1, so when the US military is effectively disbanded China, Russia, etc. etc. all going to do the same? I didn’t think so. End of story.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:12 am 114. Konyok:

Oil is liquid, easy to drill and easy to transport. That is why it is the favored fuel, not subsidies or political manipulation.

To replace oil would indeed require the above, plus governmental coercion and acceptance of a permanent drag on economic efficiency. A serious effort to reduce CO2 would require all of the above on steroids.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:17 am 115. mika2k1:

mika2k1, so when the US military is effectively disbanded China, Russia, etc. etc. all going to do the same? I didn’t think so. End of story.
==

Effectively disbanded?

If you can’t ran a military with a budget that is 3x the budget of China and Russia, then you have no business running a military, period.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:18 am 116. slade:

Tarnsman – I was making a political argument, not a technical argument. It’s a conflict resolution technique to break the logjam. Getting dogmatic over the issue is not necessarily the shortest distance between two points especially if technology can make the “Carbon Issue” moot. I can absolutely guarantee that taking the time to resolve this technical dispute now will only prolong the urgent need to “decouple” from OPEC oil.

And don’t even think about lecturing me about mean global temperaure. I have read enough on that subject to keep you in toilet paper for the next century.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:20 am 117. mika2k1:

Oil is liquid, easy to drill and easy to transport. That is why it is the favored fuel, not subsidies or political manipulation.
==

Nonsense. Lies. Balderdash.

250,000,000 car batteries will give you the largest virtual oil field in the world.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:24 am 118. buddy larsen:

“…China, Russia, etc. etc. all going to do the same? I didn’t think so. End of story”

My son is currently rereading “Starship Troopers” –and just lately related a little known factoid –Heinlein wrote the book as a sort of throwaway, in the midst of writing his opus “Stranger in a Strange Land”, in a fit of disgust over the utter stupidity of the nascent “Ban the Bomb” movement in the free west. He was disgusted for the same reason that Tarnsman’s question repeats, the very simple and inexplicably ignored “but what about the other guy?”

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:29 am 119. buddy larsen:

“If you can’t ran a military with a budget that is 3x the budget of China and Russia, then you have no business running a military, period”

–accounting practices, tovarishch.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:34 am 120. buddy larsen:

Something else, mika –since all the oil substitutes cost –and will cost, far into the foreseeable future –far, far more, per btu, than oil. The mideast’s ‘lift’ cost, to get the practically fuel-tank-ready light sweet into industry, is 20 or 30 times lower than our resource-intensive shale and oil-sand North American abundances will ever be.

So, if the global open-auction allocation market guaranteed by the US military were to fail, whomsoever’s industrial plant has first claim on the cheap stuff will soon enough have at their will an overwhelming military advantage over whomsoever does not.

You like salt-mining in Siberia? Not me, hoss.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:46 am 121. mika2k1:

Why aren’t we doing the same with our 400 year supply of coal??
==

Because it’s stupid.

We’ve “high graded” everything. We took the best and easiest first. What’s left now, costs, and will cost, more and more to get to market. This applies to oil, natural gas, coal, and all other none renewables.

In terms of a rational economic proposition, given the diminishing return on investment, continuing the way we have becomes less and less rational. And it becomes so logarithmically.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:50 am 122. buddy larsen:

Someone’s military in the future will keep 120 nations from being at shooting war with 119 others over oil.

USA, being a mixed-race conglomerate, has a history of being orders of magnitude more fair and magnanimous about this sort of thing than the Volga or the Han peoples.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:54 am 123. mika2k1:

Something else, mika –since all the oil substitutes cost –and will cost, far into the foreseeable future –far, far more, per btu, than oil.
==

It’s the total cost on investment that we need to look at. And the same kind of basic “law” (Moore’s law) that applies to miniaturization and computation power, applies to solar power efficiency.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:59 am 124. buddy larsen:

do you mean, we should be asking questions such as, how much of arizona will have to be covered with panels, and at what cost, in order to equal the work produced by say 20 mm barrels of oil?

Oct 21, 2008 - 11:04 am 125. mika2k1:

how much of arizona will have to be covered with panels
==

LOL! Glad you’ve asked. Because as it turns out, it’s exactly the same space now occupied by the oil industry.

Oct 21, 2008 - 11:07 am 126. Leo Linbeck III:

Konyok,

Agreed on all points. My use of MST in this context was due to the fact that AGW proponents have focused most of their attention on it. Any one-parameter model of a complex non-linear system is of very limited value. With the emphasis on very.

I am still somewhat comforted that a majority of Americans don’t believe in AGW. With the emphasis on somewhat.

Enjoy your posts. Cheers.

L3

Oct 21, 2008 - 11:24 am 127. mika2k1:

For National Security, Get Off Oil
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey says America’s oil dependence is a grave threat
.
.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=is-oil-a-threat

Oct 21, 2008 - 11:36 am 128. Eggplant:

Whitehall said:

“There is a program by the government that will eventually (2020?) convert coal (and water) into hydrocarbon transport fuels at no increased CO2 emissions over current usage. A hydrogen production nuclear reactor, based on pebble bed reactor technology, will be built in the Idaho desert. Take that hydrogen and mix with the carbon in coal and you can get liquid hydrocarbons.”

This project sounds way too intelligent for the US federal government. Could you please provide a link? I’d like to study it.

Oct 21, 2008 - 12:06 pm 129. buddy larsen:

it IS a threat –this made little news, but a few weeks ago, Chavez –between trips to Moscow –officially abrogated all venezuela’s contracts with western distributors –the shippers, i believe it was, who haul from Ven to USA. So, at some point in the near future, shipments will be on “piecework”. at least, as far as i understand it. It came out during the worst of the financial crash so i never researched it deeply. just assume the worst and go from there, y’know, where this sh*t is concerned.

Oct 21, 2008 - 12:07 pm 130. Konyok:

mika,

Are you angling for the energy portfolio in Habu’s grand revolutionary council?

Oct 21, 2008 - 12:19 pm 131. mika2k1:

No, Konyok. I’m angling for an end to Jihad Jihadis Jihadistan. The rest is a convenient means to that end.

Oct 21, 2008 - 12:29 pm 132. Darren:

“It’s the total cost on investment that we need to look at. And the same kind of basic “law” (Moore’s law) that applies to miniaturization and computation power, applies to solar power efficiency.”

Just because PV solar generation panels are made using semiconductor processes does not mean that their efficiency scales with Moore’s Law. The Cray supercomputer of 1977 did 80 million FLOPs, my PS3 that I use for entertainment does 218 billion FLOPs, at a fraction of the cost. Solar panels have not increased by 3000x in efficiency.

If you were anywhere near correct regarding the rate of improvement we’d be at nearly 100% conversion efficiency already yet even with multi-junction solar we’re barely above 40%. An increase of 1-2% in efficiency is tremendous for normal PV solar panels, if they were on Moore’s Law the gains would be much more significant.

Solar thermal, maybe. Getting twice the solar power for the money every 18 months — well now you’re just selling Blue Sky.

And the idea that the entire purpose of the US military is to safeguard oil exports is, well, a little far afield. We had a military back when we were the major oil exporter of the world in the 1940s, it was pretty fearsome back then as well. Furthermore, other countries are as or more dependant on foreign oil than we are (e.g., Japan), they do not maintain a military force for the sole reason of supporting one industry.

Oct 21, 2008 - 12:49 pm 133. Fletcher Christian:

Buddy and mika; the answer to that question is – NONE.

Deserts – any deserts, anywhere – are a very poor place to put solar panels. Deserts tend to be dusty, and the panels put out, as a yearly average, somewhat less than half the power they conceivably could. Why less than half? Because the sun is just about never at the zenith; in fact in the American Southwest it is absolutely never.

So put the collectors somewhere where the sun always shines, brighter than in the Arizona desert, and there is no dust. Where could that be? Hmmm…

Oct 21, 2008 - 12:50 pm 134. buddy larsen:

the two poles? woe, the tranny lines –!

Oct 21, 2008 - 1:02 pm 135. mika2k1:

Darren,

You misunderstand what I am trying to say.

The X cost of computing Y number of FLOPS has continually been reduced through miniaturization and other technical innovation. Same for solar. The X cost of producing Y number of Watts, has continually been reduced thru miniaturization and other technical innovation. That’s the analogy I was trying to make. And this is exactly opposite of what occurs with oil, natural gas, coal, and all other none renewables.

Oct 21, 2008 - 1:07 pm 136. Konyok:

L3,

Here’s an interesting paper from Roy Spencer suggesting el nino/la nina impact on cloud formation as an explanation for the recent quiescence:

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Global-warming-natural-PDO.htm

As luck would have it, he bypasses MST and uses Ceres satellite mean temperatures. (It is a problem, we just don’t have the mathematics to have both robustness and complexity … ) The time depth of Ceres is just approaching significance.

I find it fascinating that GISS so determinedly ignores the Ceres data, produced by another group in NASA. Perhaps it is no surprise that they cling to their antique data massaging algorithms …

Oct 21, 2008 - 1:47 pm 137. Darren:

The efficiency of solar still has a tremendous way to go. The only benefit you see to the solar industry from the semiconductor industry is that they share the same substrate, economies of scale for wafer production, etc. Solar technology isn’t substantially better at this point than it was 20 years ago, the “ink jet” solar cells are cheaper but they’re less than 10% efficient, meaning you’ll need a whole lot of them.

The reason oil, and gasoline specifically, beats the stuffing out of batteries for transportation is that it is 100x more space-efficient on an energy basis than the best battery we have. If we increase the ability of batteries to hold charge 10x (a huge jump, relatively speaking) then we’re still only 10x less-efficient than gasoline. Then there’s the issue of the manufacture of 250,000,000 batteries, which is not inconsequential. Lithium is not particularly rare in the Earth’s crust, but strip-mining for lithium is no less destructive than strip-mining for coal. There are hidden costs all over the place — solar cell production is not without its toxic byproducts.

How much you want something does not alter the underlying physics between you & your desired goal. Getting from the V2 to the Saturn V was an issue of scale and quality control, the physics wasn’t trememndously different. Getting rid of gasoline & replacing it with batteries — well, the oil companies happen to have physics on their side on that one.

Oct 21, 2008 - 2:07 pm 138. mika2k1:

Darren,

Again, you’re missing the point. The cost of using solar has been coming down, while the cost of using oil has been going up. My assertion is simple. Without the yearly trillion dollar subsidies, using oil is not cost effective. Heck, even with the yearly trillion dollar subsidies using oil is no longer cost effective.

Oct 21, 2008 - 2:21 pm 139. slade:

Scalability versus reliability, efficiency of energy extraction, power management, time frame, and a market system that is risk-averse.

Maybe the answer is creating an energy market for CDS’s that bet on failure as insurance. Call it the Leap of Faith Exchange or the Screw You Exchange.

Darren makes good points about the physics of battery storage. They are subject to the exact same resource constraints as fossil fuels – mining, finite, environmental costs, monopolies. Until the storage technology (and the power management technology) changes fundamentally – into nanoscale (?) – it’s a deal stopper.

Oct 21, 2008 - 2:40 pm 140. mika2k1:

france moves one step closer to mobility operator model

Today, France took an important step toward the inevitable electrification of the automobile with the announcement of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to invest in the development of a sustainable transportation infrastructure for the country. President Sarkozy declared, “Freedom and mobility can meet ecology,” and challenged industry to develop the necessary infrastructure for electric vehicles. Better Place will look to partner with government leaders, auto manufacturers, utility companies and others to meet this challenge and develop a pan-European electric vehicle network.

France is well-suited for the development of an electric vehicle network. According to the Council of Automotive Industry Professionals, there are 37 million automobiles on the road in France. Of those, more than 30 million are for private use, but only 603 are electric. By extending its feebate policy, deploying zero emissions public car fleets, and investing in R&D to improve battery technology, France can substantially reduce its carbon footprint without adding substantial costs.

In late June, President Sarkozy visited Israel to experience the Better Place solution first hand. During his visit, Sarkozy previewed a Better Place EV, accompanied by Israeli President Shimon Peres and Better Place Founder and CEO Shai Agassi. Messrs. Peres, Sarkozy and Agassi spoke about the incredible progress achieved in Israel, where wide-scale deployment of EVs will take place in 2011.

France joins other leading countries including Israel and Denmark as it moves toward embracing fuel alternatives and building an electric vehicle infrastructure. Recently, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both called for the mass production of EVs. As this week’s Paris Motor Show illustrated, the switch from the pump to the plug is inevitable. Better Place supports France’s progress and encourages other countries and automobile manufacturers to move toward zero emission vehicles to reduce oil dependence.

France’s race to become the first G8 country to adopt a sustainable mobility operator further validates that the Better Place model is a scalable solution that can work in any country. As more countries in the G8 and around the world move to electric transportation, Better Place will work with auto manufacturers and utility companies to promote open, global standards.
.
.
http://www.betterplace.com/renault-nissan/

Oct 21, 2008 - 2:42 pm 141. mika2k1:

Darren makes good points about the physics of battery storage.
==

Nonsense. Battery components can be recycled and reused. You can’t do that with oil. Once you use it, it’s gone.

Oct 21, 2008 - 2:47 pm 142. buddy larsen:

Ahh, how the small-minded DO cling….

Oct 21, 2008 - 2:55 pm 143. slade:

The cost of recycling exceeds the cost of mineral extraction.

[begin quote]

Current battery recycling methods requires a high amount of energy. It takes six to ten times the amount of energy to reclaim metals from recycled batteries than it would through other means.

Who pays for the recycling of batteries? Participating countries impose their own rules in making recycling feasible. In North America, some recycling plants bill on weight. The rates vary according to chemistry. Systems that yield high metal retrieval rates are priced lower than those, which produce less valuable metals.

Nickel-metal-hydride yields the best return. It produces enough nickel to pay for the process. The highest recycling fees apply to nickel-cadmium and lithium?ion because the demand for cadmium is low and lithium-ion contains little retrievable metal.

[end quote]

Recycling is an electro-mechanical process that requires energy. In the current form, the process is neither energy efficient nor cost effective. Until the storage technology changes – to nanotech – it is just as problematic as Fischer-Tropsch coal to liquid.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:12 pm 144. slade:

And if you add recycling cost – including the cost of environmental controls – into the total “life cycle” energy stream … plus the energy density, efficiency, capacity, and reliability vectors, I can’t see how the argument for renewables can be made solely on economics.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:17 pm 145. mika2k1:

The cost of recycling exceeds the cost of mineral extraction.
==

Good. All that means is that there’s plenty of cheap supply of raw materials.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:17 pm 146. slade:

The Trouble with Lithium

Analysis of Lithium’s geological resource base shows that there is insufficient Lithium available in the Earth’s
crust to sustain Electric Vehicle manufacture in the volumes required, based solely on LiIon batteries.
Depletion rates would exceed current oil depletion rates and switch dependency from one diminishing
resource to another. Concentration of supply would create new geopolitical tensions, not reduce them.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:32 pm 147. mika2k1:

Slade,

$2 trillion dollars per year every year in wasteful US gov spending to maintain the oil monopoly. Can you wrap your mind around the opportunity cost? It’s mind boggling.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:35 pm 148. slade:

Yes I can Mika, but it’s not the what so much as the how – and the “to what end”, the 5-yr goal being much different from the 10-yr and 20-yr goals. The immediate goal is reducing the OPEC reliance.

By any means at our disposal. Using plentiful coal to develop electricity coupled with biofuels development seems like a viable short-term plan to me.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:43 pm 149. mika2k1:

“The study has been quoted to show that there is sufficient Lithium in the Earth’s crust to power 12,000 million EVs with LiIon Manganese based batteries”
==

LOL! 12 billion cars and that’s it!? Boy are we in trouble!

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:45 pm 150. slade:

You little cherry-picker:

The study has been quoted to show that there is
sufficient Lithium in the Earth’s crust to power 12,000 million EVs with LiIon Manganese based batteries. In
fact, there is a very wide range of uncertainty in Andersson and Rade’s estimates: they estimate the figure
could be as low as 200 million. There are currently some 900 million cars and commercial vehicles on the
road worldwide.

Like arguing oil reserves.

Oct 21, 2008 - 3:53 pm 151. mika2k1:

Like arguing oil reserves.
==

Not at all.

More like listening to someone who hasn’t got a clue. That kind of variation (60x) is not a serious “study”, but rather meaningless conjecture.

Oct 21, 2008 - 4:05 pm 152. slade:

The way things are going I don’t think we want to compromise the world supply of lithium.

Oct 21, 2008 - 4:05 pm 153. mika2k1:

MADRID, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Renault and the Spanish government are studying the introduction of fully electric cars on its roads within three years, Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said in an interview with Reuters.

‘We are going to put together a working group before February to study a medium- to long-term plan to develop an electric car in Spain with Renault (other-otc: RNSDY.PK – news – people ) as a main player,’ Sebastian said.

The government hopes 1 million electric cars will be criss-crossing Spanish streets by 2011, he said.
.
.

Oct 21, 2008 - 4:20 pm 154. slade:

That kind of variation (60x) is not a serious “study”, but rather meaningless conjecture. – Mika

Maybe the variation is because:

According to the Handbook of Lithium and Natural Calcium, “Lithium is a comparatively rare element, although it is found in many rocks and some brines, but always in very low concentrations. There are a fairly large number of both lithium mineral and brine deposits but only comparatively a few of them are of actual or potential commercial value. Many are very small, others are too low in grade.” – wikipedia

Not to mention most of it is found in China, Russia, and Venezuela, as well as USA.

Oct 21, 2008 - 4:27 pm 155. buddy larsen:

The way things are going I don’t think we want to compromise the world supply of lithium

Hardee har har –slade gets comic line of the month award –

Oct 21, 2008 - 6:43 pm 156. Darren:

France is also 80% nuclear for power generation, so battery issues aside Better Place has an easier time there from a CO2 standpoint.

Your $2 trillion number for government spending to support the oil industry has been growing in the telling. You would have us believe that 55% of the annual federal budget is to prop up oil companies? I was born at night, but…

The ultimate solution is a nanocapacitor that does not store electricity in chemical form, recharges almost instantly and is memory-free. I imagine we’ll see that right about the time the first Tokamak achieves stable fusion, which should be “in about 30 years”.

Short of some major advance in biodiesel from algae, there is no easy and quick fix. I actually drive a hybrid (2006 Ford Escape) but I am not under the delusion I’m fighting terrorism in the process. I’d settle for non-OPEC oil but quite frankly I’m not willing to wear a hair shirt in order to do so and I believe our military has functions beyond petroleum stockpile maintenence.

The Better Place pitch is seductive but it, too is going to require a lot of infrastructure that is paid for with rents. Note that it’s the government of France dealing with Better Place. Call me when it’s Total and Renault.

Oct 21, 2008 - 6:53 pm 157. Dave:

About these electric cars: What you need is a 20 horsepower series wound DC motor. Reversing the rotor and stator is also useful. It is only the SWDC that does what a reciprocating engine will do, which is to increase torque and rpm at the same time.

20HPDC (equivalent to 200-300 HP Otto cycle)
consumes 15KW at run. That is somewhat more efficient than an AC motor which would take 17.5KW). However while the AC has a 3 to 1 power surge, the SWDC has 7 to 1.

That means when you start or accelerate you will use electricity at the rate of 105 KW per hour.

If you are battery powered all accessories must also be electric. Call that another 20 KW.

So your battery will have to be capable of discharging at the rate of 125KW per hour.
And it should be able to sustain that maximum rate for at least 3 to 5 hours. That will (hopefully) translate to 10 to 12 hours of actual driving time.

So you need a battery no larger than a good-sized suitcase which will hold 3/8 to 5/8ths
of a megawatt.

While it would be rechargeable, you are certainly not going to be able to “fill ‘er up” on household current. You will have to drive the car into a station, take the used one out and put it on a rechargeing rack and put a new one in.

Google “Heinlein, Shipstone” and you will get some idea of what is needed. Until you have that, I would advise a tankful of petrol.

PS It may be possible to minaturize generating capability to the point where a true hybrid is possible. That is one where the rciprocating engine runs at a constant speed, generating the full power surge amount at all times. That will give you great mileage but that tankful of petrol will still be needed.

Oct 21, 2008 - 7:51 pm 158. CPT. Charles:

Question: just how long is this nattering concerning batteries going to go on?

I realize mika means well [just like algore, maybe...], but this ‘battery world’ fantasy is going nowhere.

We’ve all heard this before…if we just ‘re-prioritize’ our selfish desires, …if we only ‘invested’ enough [re-the contents of my wallet], then…we can defy physics [not to mention common sense...] and make the world a better place for you and me.

You wanna chase the Easter Bunny, mika? Fine, do it on your own dime, not mine.

As for myself, I’ll settle for a work-through on hydrocarbons that’ll buy us about 3 to 5 decades. Long enough for science [and people waaay smarter than you or I...] to get past our current limitations.

I’ll settle for the simple, cost-effective solution, thank you very much. End. Of. Discussion.

Oct 21, 2008 - 8:31 pm 159. mika2k1:

Your $2 trillion number for government spending to support the oil industry has been growing in the telling.
==

Do the math:

$1.3 trillion defense budget
$0.7 trillion for the oil exports
———————–
$2.0 trillion

Sunshine is free.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:22 pm 160. mika2k1:

End. Of. Discussion.
==

Economic, environmental, political, moral, and intellectual bankruptcy. That about sums you up.

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:34 pm 161. Leo Linbeck III:

Konyok,

Good stuff. Have you ever checked out this website?

http://climatedebatedaily.com/

It’s a very useful website. Cheers.

L3

Oct 21, 2008 - 9:44 pm 162. CPT. Charles:

Considering the source…I’ll take that as a compliment.

Oct 21, 2008 - 10:46 pm 163. Fletcher Christian:

Hmmm… One of the reasons often given for reducing oil usage is to help solve the problem of Islamic terrorism. Another, more permanent and cheaper way might be to use up some of the world’s supply of lithium to do so.

In the form of its deuteride.

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:09 am 164. mika2k1:

I’ll take that as a compliment.
==

No, you’ll take that as an indictment, you bankrupt political hack.

Oct 22, 2008 - 5:59 am 165. Darren:

Whatever, mika.

Your $2 trillion number is not government expenditures, because the private market purchases the $700 billion in oil imports.

Yur conjecture that the DoD exists solely as a mercenary force to protect oil interests is not the statement of a serious person.

There are good reasons to seek alternatives without making stuff up, you only hurt your own arguments with hyperbole.

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:33 am 166. mika2k1:

Your $2 trillion number is not government expenditures,
==

Whatever, mika?
Why do you think you have $9 trillion in US gov debt?

Oct 22, 2008 - 7:54 am 167. MNotaro:

Of course Powell is voting for Obama–even my black conservative Republican friends are voting for the liberal illuminati Obama. But remember–it’s not about race….YEAH RIGHT!

Oct 22, 2008 - 10:19 am 168. Whitehall:

Eggplant,

Look here for the nuclear hydrogen production reactor program. They’re overthinking this to my mind and taking far to long. The necessary reactor starts construction in South Africa in 2009 if the Republic of South Africa government stays sane.

http://www.ne.doe.gov/NHI/neNHI.html

Oct 22, 2008 - 3:41 pm 169. slade:

South Africa also has three Fischer-Tropsch coal to liquid plants.

Oct 22, 2008 - 4:32 pm 170. mad dog:

So what happens if Obama loses? That huge outdoor event in Chicago, what happens to that event if the numbers coming in go south in a big way? What happens if McCain wins? If McCAIN trys to pass global warming/cabon tax crap what happens? PALIN WILL CUT HIM OFF AT THE KNEES. She’s done that sort of thing before after all. It’s PART OF HER CHARM AND WHY WE LIKE HER.

Oct 22, 2008 - 11:32 pm 171. slade:

Coal to biomass to liquid also produces Hydrogen which makes it a multi-use technology using an abundant domestic resource.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:46 am 172. buddy larsen:

Fischer-Tropsch process is iirc what powered much of the German military in the waning years of WW2.

Oct 23, 2008 - 11:18 am 173. slade:

Yeah Buddy that’s right. The history seems to have attached a certain subliminal stigma to modern applications, although the buzz is that the plants are front-end capital and maintenance intensive, in addition to Mika’s argument that is is the old resource-driven mechanical process.

Pick. Pick. Pick.

All true but it seems to me that there is something wrong, if not sinful, about letting 25% of world supply just sit in the ground. For some reason – that appears not entirely technical/economic – this process can’t even get out of the gate in this country, which is why I am excited about Rentech. Coal to liquid does it all – electricity, gasoline, diesel, and hydrogen.

The carbon issue is a drag (although Rentech claims to have it covered) but, with or without sequestration or recapture, this technology can be developed without subsidies, unlike the various ethanol/biofuels options which seem joined at the hip with a subsidy.

As the Rentech CEO will tell you, getting the front-end capital was and is a bear. As Montana’s Gov Schweitzer says “Everybody is lined up to build the second plant but nobody wants to build the first one.”

Which is why I take every opportunity to repeat that South Africa has three (!) commercial-scale plants. Work just fine.

Entrepeneurial risk-takers? We used to be.

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:08 pm 174. buddy larsen:

Slade, it’s the political risk –we can just no longer count on common sense and reason prevailing –even half-prevailing. we’re in a brand new world in that way. lemmings –over the cliff –

either that, or we have been gosh dang infiltrated and are being systematically finlandized. that crazy bastard Nyquist points out that Chernobyl blew at the perfect time for the prevailing winds to waft radiation over germany –and right on cue the german greens banned nuke power on the basis of that event –and made germany an energy vassal of the kremlin. laugh, but it has likely killed NATO.

KGB-planned or not, Chernobyl was a real bargain for that trade –and they didn’t even have to hire Jane Fonda to make “China Syndrome”. wot a deal!

Oct 23, 2008 - 1:47 pm 175. slade:

Speaking of Nuclear, the “expensive” coal-to-liquid plants are cheaper and faster to build – this is a 5-yr (accelerated) time line compared to 20-yr for nukes (which I sincerely doubt can be accelerated).

What I laugh at are the conspiracy theories. So Chernobyl blows and NATO falls down. I think our brains are hardwired for pattern recognition – probably has some correlation to sanity.

CNBC Squawk Box (3-6 AM) with Joe Kernen et al has interviewed a string of CEO’s running good companies – delivery, balance sheets, earnings, value, management. Their stocks are in the toilet. This is criminal.

And today I see that Ayn Rand acolyte, Alan Greenspan, try to doublespeak his way out of his role in clearing the path for the spread of unregulated derivatives to dilute risk.

While listening to the CNBC crew grow more self-righteous by the day without wondering why or how they missed a “Woodward and Bernstein” moment that was waiting to be exposed.

That seems like a lot of non-structural surmising, lacking substantive critique, but really, did we think we would live long enough to have to scold regulatory agencies for not doing their job, scold the FED for foolish judgment, scold Congress for their descent into patronage corruption (rumor has it Barney Frank’s position is fully secure, Pelosi, Dodd, Reid, we’ll see in two years.), scold the media for surfing the wave of hip-hop popularity, the mortgage industry just collapsed into a criminal enterprise where the people who did complain were fired (Larry King interviewed a mid-level manager from CountryWide – I expect he was just one of a small handful – “I hope we’re all wealthy and retired when this house of cards falters (dude)”. The “dude” part having been omitted from the TV presentations.

It’s not the technology, but it’s the business environment. The sands are not strong enough to support serious commerce. That’s for freaking sure.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:11 pm 176. buddy larsen:

The sands are not strong enough to support serious commerce –oh lordy, that’s a mouthful. A few summers ago i backpacked a week or two up into the Colorado Rockies –old 19th century abandoned mining equipment up there, iron so huge & massive that you can’t believe the people who muled that stuff up into those fastnesses were really the same species as us. They gambled everything, and did it because they didn’t have a few coins to rub together, and they wanted to rectify that situation. The average guy probably weighed 130 lbs and could swing a seven-pound broadaxe from sunup to sundown. well, i had a point when i started that story but i forgot what it was.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:38 pm 177. slade:

The carbon issue is a drag…

Valley speak is good. If I can expand, I was getting at the current situation where AGW is suspect, if not full-blown hoax, and yet the business community has factored it in. Rentech is proceeding AS IF it will be required, regardless of the validity of the science.

Another reason I really like these guys. The “No Surprises” code of business. Just tell us what you want and we’ll “work it.”

Maybe better to make the argument but I think it’s too late.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:29 pm 178. slade:

From slippery slopes to sandy shoals.

Oct 23, 2008 - 3:45 pm 179. buddy larsen:

…to commentator Cramer (Jim), who a couple years ago was really touting Rentech. lately he’s been off it –i think again it’s the anti-coal bloc in USA. You know, the folks whose dumbasses you and i would love to see freeze in the dark for awhile –as a “learning experience” of course.

Oct 23, 2008 - 4:09 pm 180. slade:

Cramer has embraced natural gas. I read somewhere (the Rentech site I think) that the bank approved their business plan to build commercial-scale plant after receiving firm DoD contract. Maybe this is the wrong paradigm but it seems prudent to maintain a diversified energy portfolio. Natural gas obviously has the potential to become another monopoly.

In the meantime, this just in:

Working Paper 666

Myths about the financial crisis:

1. Bank lending to nonfinancial corporations and individuals has declined sharply.
2. Interbank lending is essentially nonexistent.
3. Commercial paper issuance by nonfinancial corporations has declined sharply and rates have risen to unprecedented levels.
4. Banks play a large role in channeling funds from savers to borrowers.

Oct 23, 2008 - 4:22 pm 181. slade:

And I’m not so sure about Cramer anymore. He is focused on returns and earnings, but has also stated that Buy and Hold of Blue Chips is no longer a viable investment strategy, IOW, active trading is the new paradigm. That type of trading pattern will never sustain the long-term energy development projects. Look at the impact on well-managed companies. A start-up can’t sustain itself in that financial environment.

Oct 23, 2008 - 4:27 pm 182. slade:

Cramer may have soured on the Rentech management team, some of which were cleaned out several years ago when current CEO (D. Hunt) Ramsbottom took over.

But to return to my original point, the time frame and the availability of cheap abundant domestic resources make it an attractive energy option, in my view.

Oct 23, 2008 - 4:37 pm 183. slade:

See the CEO of Consol Energy on Kudlow tonight.

He makes the case.

Oct 23, 2008 - 4:52 pm 184. slade:

There’s a better way and I think it’s found in the past:

Cowboy Ethics

Oct 23, 2008 - 5:02 pm 185. slade:

Try again.

Cowboy Ethics

Oct 23, 2008 - 5:06 pm 186. slade:

OK. Video won’t link. Too bad – it was great.

I’m done for awhile.

Oct 23, 2008 - 5:18 pm 187. buddy larsen:

aw, hell –i just got here –i need to see that video. yes, caught part of Consul guy on Kudlow –i wuz dragging my carcass outside for that fricken two mile run (well, “lurch/crawl”).

right on all counts –incl mgmnt prob at Rentech –iirc, it was some sort of ethical, not criminal thing –overselling forward earnings ar somesuch sh*t easily cured with a single personnel change. –far different and lesser prob than any structural market weakness.

agree, the ‘’sell sell sell” advice is better for retail trader than enterprise stability –far far –

i can’t sleep w/o a constant electron bath –and cable tv ads will wake up the dead (Billy Mays esp –someday i’m gonna harm that guy) –so i default to ad-free TCM. Old black n whites, 30s40s50s vintage. Rarely see one thru as they signal the sandman, but –in addition to the gorgeous corn-fed women and great cars and nightclubs –the warp and woof of plot development, character development, theme, meaning, IOW the gestalt of the time inadvertantly transmitted states a morality different from ours here today, different almost not only in degree but in kind. An inside-out smelted-in disgust and impatience with proscribed shame-creating thought and behavior –not just in the mechanics of the film but in the tics and postures and expressions of the actors themselves –as actual people as well as as the characters being played.

The difference with nowadays is i think in the thing we later threw away, the old fashioned drag we ‘evolved’ our silly selves out of: “judgementalism”.

Where do we get it back? We ain’t gonna make it much further down the road without it, i don’t think.

Oct 23, 2008 - 8:58 pm 188. slade:

In a few more minutes Joe Kernen, Rick Santelli, and Steve Liesman will wrap up another week of downtrends and “ludicrous” valuations. I am still undecided between the Nouriel Roubini versus Jack Welsch gestault. The bigger picture is foggy – to me. Shadowy times. Like a bad Woody Allen movie.

Santelli takes on Cramer

[The cowboy ethics video link works if you play with it.]

Oct 24, 2008 - 3:06 am 189. buddy larsen:

The last newspaper headline before the lights go dark:

“Barney Frank’s Fannie Hoovers Up Entire World”

(jeez i oughtta copyright that (he says, blowing –er, exhaling upon, fingernails))

Oct 24, 2008 - 10:06 am

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