RSS Feed MenuIn February the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) produced an ad titled “12 Inches of Global Warming,” which used the snowstorms to ridicule a pair of Democrats for supporting climate change legislation— Rick Boucher (VA-9) and Tom Perriello (VA-5). The clear message of the ad was that the snowy winter in Virginia disproves global warming.
Now that we have, according to both NOAA and NASA, sweated through the warmest spring in recorded history—and are on pace for the warmest year—can we expect to see a similar ad from the Virginia GOP ridiculing those who currently oppose climate legislation?
Probably not, but it is important that top party officials, such as Chairman Pat Mullins, be asked: why not?
According to NOAA, February’s record-breaking snowstorms were actually the result of two well-understood weather patterns. When the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations are in their negative phase—meaning atmospheric pressure over the Arctic is higher than surrounding areas—and there is an El Niño pattern in the Pacific, the eastern seaboard of the United States gets more snow.
A cavalier and overly politicized approach to important issues is not in the nation’s or the Republican Party’s best interest. It does not lend itself to thoughtful solutions to our nation’s problems. It undermines serious debate, elevates politics over substance, and ultimately backfires.
The “12 inches of Global Warming” ad seems much less clever as we enter the sizzle of the summer months on track for the warmest year since official records started being kept in 1880. Perhaps someone in the RPV should have realized that summer heat can easily melt away the chill of winter by the time fall elections roll around.
Of course the party would not need to worry about the variability of the weather if it would approach our energy and climate issues with the seriousness they deserve.
JJWFromME // Jun 29, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Frogmorton thinks this is all a conspiracy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_concurring_organizations
That kind of conspiracy mongering is not conservative, and has nothing to do with Burke.
easton // Jun 29, 2010 at 6:06 pm
“Four of the 10 hottest years were in the 1930s”
Good lord, not this canard. This was in the United States, not worldwide. Such silliness.
Frogmorton: Forget Wind, Solar and Tidal power for as oil spills are fast moving natural disasters these are slow motion disasters but just as destructive.
What nonsense is this, I get all my power from Wind turbines. How are they destructive? Simply bizarre.
“I think that all but a few slack-jawed troglodytes agree that we need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuel and research new, undiscovered sources of energy.” Why don’t we use the energy readily available (Nuclear, hydrogen, wind, solar, tidal, etc.) before we try to tap Dark energy or Dark matter or whatever it is you mean by undiscovered sources of energy. I think maybe you are watching a little too much Star Trek. The Solid Oxide fuel cell has been known about for a while, it is simply utilizing it in an efficient and cost effective manner.
There is so much we can do today. Electric lighting consumes 20% of our electrical grid, moving to LED lighting would drastically cut this. Everyone getting rid of Central Air in their homes as well would be great, do people really need to cool rooms they are not in during the day? Put individual units in bedrooms for night, and use fans in the rest of the house. Humanity has survived for millions of years without it.
Frogmorton // Jun 29, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Easton: If you think for a minute that wind turbines and solar farms can replace even 10% of the energy supplied by fossil fuel you must have eaten some bad tofu pal. By the way I don’t get my power from wind turbines but I do live by several and thank god they keep those pesky birds culled back. Not sure if this is important but they seem to like crows best.
balconesfault // Jun 29, 2010 at 7:25 pm
frogmorton: Easton: If you think for a minute that wind turbines and solar farms can replace even 10% of the energy supplied by fossil fuel you must have eaten some bad tofu pal.
In fact, the DOE is programmatically working to have wind power provide 20% of our electrical grid needs by 2030.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41869.pdf
This was, by the way, a program begun under the Bush Administration.
Meanwhile, Spain has been having periods of time where wind is supplying >50% of the electrons to the grid:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/spanish-wind-power-supplies-50-percent-demand-sunday.php
It’s actually cool here in Texas, where wind development has been very aggressive (and ERCOT got way ahead of the curve by beginning the studies to bring greater amounts of wind generated electricity back to the load centers in the eastern part of the state a few years ago). You can actually go to ERCOT’s website and see in relatively real time how much power the state is using, and how much is wind generated.
http://mospublic.ercot.com/ercot/jsp/frequency_control.jsp
For the record, Texas is currently pulling 48,000 MW. That’s a mid-summer 6 pm when AC use across the state is at its highest. We’ve got 3,000 MW of wind power flowing to the grid – about 6%.
Of course, this is peak load time and daytimes are usually the lowest generating time. Mirroring Spain’s experience, ERCOT reported last February during some early morning hours the first time wind has produced 50% of the generation to the grid here in Texas.
By the way, pending the new transmission capacity that’s being installed, developers have enough projects lined up to double the wind generation here in the state by 2014.
easton // Jun 29, 2010 at 8:39 pm
balcone, thanks, you saved me from the trouble. Frogmorton is hoping to power his home by dilithium crystals ala Star Trek. I think his tofu must be laced with some nice LSD.
Myself, I am all for Nuclear, if France can generate 70% I see no reason we can’t. Couple it with energy efficiency credits, alternative renewals, fuel cells, a smart grid, and so on we could make a difference. Of course the Saudis will simply pump more oil to keep their energy costs below the replacements, which is why we can’t allow this to happen.
balconesfault // Jun 29, 2010 at 8:44 pm
djenkins your Politio story about Corker is from way back in March. A lot has happened since then.
But that doesn’t change the basics – Corker was never able to get any Republican support for a financial reform bill. Even when he was pushing for some kind of bipartisan support, he could never bring along any significant number of his R bretheren to the table.
March was too long ago? How about April:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/financial-reform-bill-bipartisanship-sen-corker/story?id=10380862
Even as Corker’s fellow Republicans attacked the bill as another bank bailout, Corker urged his colleagues to “tone down the rhetoric.”
The problem in the end was that Corker decided that he would not support a bill that was not a purely Republican bill. He praises many aspects of the bill, he talks about how those aspects are critical to our economy – and then announces that because of “flaws” in the bill (ie – provisions wanted by Democrats in order to balance out his favored provisions that they incorporated) he can’t vote for it.
As for Graham, I find him totally disingenuous on the current climate change debate. Just look at his interview with Ezra Klein:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/sen_lindsey_graham_i_care_equa.html
Graham: They said, “You would vote against your own bill?” And I said yes. I care equally about immigration and climate change. But if you stack them together this year you’ll compromise climate and energy. You’ll compromise my ability to get votes on climate change. When I told everyone I would do climate, in fact, I was assured we also wouldn’t be doing immigration….
Huh? Seriously? So Graham considers climate change to be a super-important issue that needs immediate attention … and then announces that he’d filibuster his own bill because Harry Reid changed the Senate schedule around?
I would call that one world class temper tantrum, if I believed Graham’s sincerity. As it is, I call it finding political cover when his entire caucus is putting pressure on him to not vote for climate change legislation.
By the way … Graham in the same interview did discuss the purported Fox News leak: “there was also a Fox News article where the White House said they couldn’t support Graham’s gas-tax gambit.” Note that Graham refers only to the Fox rumor … there is never any confirmation outside of Fox. In fact, Klein asks Graham to elaborate on this … and Graham’s response?
Yeah. They say, “Oh, we didn’t do it.” And it’s true: Rahm and David didn’t. But somebody involved in energy and climate there did. They’ve always worried about being in a bad spot on this. So someone pretty clever said, “Okay, we’re going to get on the record against this.”
That’s the evidence. The White House says they didn’t make the leak, Graham is only guessing at who might have … but he acts as it it’s critical to his deciding that an issue as important as Climate Change suddenly isn’t important enough to act on.
Would Rupert Murdoch’s staff make something up to help give a Republican Senator cover to back out of a politically difficult position? We speculate, you decide!
balconesfault // Jun 29, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Easton: Myself, I am all for Nuclear, if France can generate 70% I see no reason we can’t.
Well, for one, nuclear is a massive water hog.
http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/water/sr46waterdependency.pdf
Jump to page 8.
Solar Thermoelectric 230 gallons/MBTU
Fossil Fuel Thermoelectric 1100 gallons/MBTU
Nuclear 2400 gallons/MBTU
When people talk about France and Japan generating a lot more of their power via nuclear – it’s useful to note the relative percentage of those countries that are facing water shortages, versus the relative portions of the US facing water shortages.
And note that as climate change progresses, increased durations of droughts in parts of the country is an outcome predicted by most models.
JJWFromME // Jun 29, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I haven’t given up on nuclear:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/35m-for-terrapower-is-nuclear-power-green-power/
(But not holding my breath for it, either.)
CAPryde // Jun 29, 2010 at 10:51 pm
The problem with nuclear is that it remains cost prohibitive. Samuel Walker–official historian of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, so no nuclear-hater, he–makes a very compelling argument in his book on Three Mile Island that nuclear permits dropped off and non-starts (scrubbed projects) spiked well before the 3MI event because the cost of the facilities had gotten so high as to make it difficult to recoup costs if anything goes wrong (like a drop in electricity prices or a major safety incident that causes a shut-down). Moreover, the Federal government still hasn’t delivered a waste solution, which means that the true cost of a reactor has to include dealing with the waste materials in a semi-permanent fashion on-site, which isn’t cheap.
The technology has gotten a little better, reducing costs, but I’m still skeptical that it will be able to compete in the long-term for those purely economic reasons. The industry basically exists on the largesse of Washington offering implicit guarantees to step in if something goes truly sideways (thus making insurance affordable) and handing out money for waste-storage. Without heavy government support, nuclear just doesn’t do all that well in the marketplace. It’s actually very similar to other alternative energy sources in that respect.
balconesfault // Jun 29, 2010 at 11:27 pm
because the cost of the facilities had gotten so high as to make it difficult to recoup costs if anything goes wrong (like a drop in electricity prices or a major safety incident that causes a shut-down).
This is a real concern with utilities – the fear of stranded investment … MASSIVE stranded investment.
Go find investors for a project where over a 30-year life you’ll be able to produce power at a price of 8 cents/kwh (including paying off original investment costs). You’ll definitely get some interest.
Now do it in an industry where 2x cost overruns on original estimates are typical … and where you have 5-10 years before the first electrons start flowing through the wires. Uncertainty on costs, uncertainty on market value of the product, added to a significant delay in return. Good luck with that.
LFC // Jun 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
Springy: First, Easton has eaten most of your lunch pointing out the difference between U.S. temperatures and global temperatures. That’s a very Bush League mistake on your part. Since that destroys at least half of your post, let’s go on to the rest. You say:
It’s true the changes aren’t dramatic. But the optics are. When the science isn’t factual it is all about presentation, and promotion.
This shows an absolutely MONUMENTAL ignorance of how science works. Your statement above takes an honest error and makes it sound so insidious. (Tin foil hat much?) Unlike politics and punditry, science goes out of its way to ensure that new information or corrections get published, which NASA did dutifully. No fight. No finger pointing. Just acknowledgment and correction. As a right-winger, you probably don’t recognize this. Take a look at this link that tells what really happened. I know it blows up your lovely conspiracy theory about agenda driven scientists trying to hide the REAL truth, but you’re a big boy now (I assume) and it’s time you faced reality.
Now as to the Sunday Times, here is a takedown on the urban climate myth with a bit more takedown here. And you seemed to miss a pretty big point in the Times link you sent:
“It’s not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,” he said. “We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40% and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.”
You are a typical denier. You desperately cling to one piece that you think is a “smoking gun”, but studiously ignore everything else that doesn’t support your predetermined cause. And you can’t accept that the period of huge uncertainty in this area of science took place 10 or even 20 years ago. We’re now in a phase where the evidence keeps getting improved and new evidence is discovered.
Will more errors be discovered and models be improved? Of course. That’s science, and it’s how it’s supposed to work. If you want an area of study where everything that can ever be known about a subject is already known, try fundamentalist theology.
LFC // Jun 30, 2010 at 10:41 am
I just wanted to toss in a comment on wind and solar. (I apologize if somebody already made this point and I missed it.) A big part of making them more viable is power storage technology. Whether it’s batteries, hot salts, etc., we need to be able to take that mass of off-peak hour generation and harness it.
Also, while it’s great to be able to replace other forms of power when wind and solar are cranking, there’s one problem. If the majority of the power being replaced is coal-fired, the ability to adjust fuel consumption in a coal-fired boiler ain’t fast. (If you’re replacing a combustion gas turbine, it’s literally minutes.)
Finally, I think that home generation, conservation, and efficiency is just as important as new generation technologies. White roof technology is relatively cheap and could be huge, especially in sunny climates. Why not more home wind and solar generation? How about higher building standards to improve insulation and windows? We’ve got a number of non-generation avenues available to us that could do a lot to cut our energy dependence. Maybe we can move the saved electricity to powering automobiles?
balconesfault // Jun 30, 2010 at 11:03 am
I just wanted to toss in a comment on wind and solar. (I apologize if somebody already made this point and I missed it.) A big part of making them more viable is power storage technology. Whether it’s batteries, hot salts, etc., we need to be able to take that mass of off-peak hour generation and harness it.
Yep. The most promising immediate work is in compressed air storage in underground caverns. Others have toyed with the idea of some mechanical systems, but those are far away. Batteries are of course possible, but very expensive.
One of the bigger drivers in power storage is the potential for power arbitrage. The reality is that electrons at 4 in the AM are cheaper than at 4 in the PM. There are entrepreneurs out there looking at ways to create storage systems so they can store charge during periods of cheap power, and sell it back to the grid at higher prices.
You’re also quite right about coal power. That’s why you need a very savvy grid operator who has a ton of experience at predicting grid demand and variable generation sources based on everything from time of day to weather patterns. The look at what’s available from nuclear, then they set base demand levels that coal needs to be able to meet, and rely on combined cycle gas generation to fill in the extra as wind and/or solar generated power varies.
Maybe we can move the saved electricity to powering automobiles?
That’s one of the biggest potentials for wind energy – since wind blows strongest at night in most places, wind’s contribution to the grid is highest at night. If you combine that with the kind of smart-grid technology that will be available in less than a decade, you can imagine not only a large fleet of electric vehicles recharging at night when we have extra wind power on the grid … but even a fleet of electric chargers that are tuned to the grid, and increase or decrease their charge rate based on how much wind power is available to the grid in any 5-minute period, responding to fluctuations in generation by adjusting demand, and minimizing the need for more some of the demand-response gas generation we discussed earlier.
LFC // Jun 30, 2010 at 11:45 am
I saw that Toyota was starting to put solar panels in their Prius, I think specifically to help run the climate control system. Wouldn’t it be great to expand this so you could have a hybrid / electric car with a solar panel roof that charged itself while you were at work? It seems like it would be huge for a number of sunbelt states.
balconesfault // Jun 30, 2010 at 1:52 pm
LFC – solar on a car is largely a gimmick. Think of it this way – the average car up to speed and running is wasting around twice as much electricity (around 1 kw) as solar panels covering the entire vehicle would generate (assuming a 12′x8′available car surface area). That’s because the alternator output on most cars is so high. And to power the AC, for example? All the charge stored up from 6 hours in the sun wouldn’t be enough to bring the temperature down from the 110 degrees when you get in down to 85 degrees.
I used to keep a solar panel on the dashboard of my old Ford Windstar … but that’s because it had developed a trickle short, and left undriven for a few days the battery would run down. A little 2″x6″ model that I could plug into my cigarette lighter did wonders to make sure that when I returned from a trip I didn’t need a jump in the airport parking lot.
Thinking about it – I could see one value to a solar panel driven climate control. If you put air vent fans on the car that operated on solar power whenever there was sun beating down on the parked car, it would allow you to leave the car out in the sun with the windows up and probably keep the car 10-15 degrees cooler just by air circulation. Better … but I still wouldn’t lock the dog in the car.
JJWFromME // Jun 30, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Yup plug-in technology is key for cars. Solar might be able to help run the AC, but not much else.
LFC // Jun 30, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Interesting stuff. Thanks for your takes on solar panels and cars.
sdspringy // Jul 1, 2010 at 2:30 am
Actually not LFC, since the deity of global warming acolytes is the temperature record, which must show steadily increasing temperature from the 1930s onward, this is a significant blow. Just as the current cooling trend over the last 9 years, 2000 – 2009, there has been no discernable increase in global temperatures, which makes it hard for the AGW priest to fill the collection basket if the CO2 god is not producing the desired effects. And since the drive for Cap & Trade legislation is based on increasing temperatures from the 1930s, the wind for that sail would cease if it were proved false, which it basically has.
What should give you pause is the basic fact that no one on your side of the AGW alter could find these errors in the data. How is it possible that all those expert climate scientist could fail in their own peer review??
I will resupply this link since by your response I can tell you did not follow it:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data/
Which shows that NOAA and NASA are far from being forth coming with their data and the methods used at determining their conclusions.
And measuring ICE should not be that big of a scientific problem yet:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/05/unprecedented-incoherence-in-the-message/
AGW priests get it wrong again.
So again how is this possible, the scientist so smart, the data so accurately acquired, yet mistake after mistake. But don’t let that stop the organ or gospel singers the AGW religion has to keep the pews filled.
And finally your last statement: “the evidence keeps getting improved and new evidence is discovered”. This claim after the East Anglia fired it’s boss and their hiding of data and collection methods.
I would hope you would draw the conclusion that those individual finding the mistakes, pointing out the errors are not from your fundamentalist theology. So whose pushing theology LFC.
balconesfault // Jul 1, 2010 at 8:49 am
AGW priests get it wrong again.
If you want to get people to not take you seriously (except for those who already agree with you), comparing the scientific community to “priests” is a good way to start.
easton // Jul 1, 2010 at 11:56 am
hey sdspringy, I got some beautiful beachfront property on Kiribati I will be happy to sell you for a song, and when the water washes over it, you can pretend it is not there. Islands which have existed for all or mankind’s recorded history are going under the sea. This is irrefutable. Yet you blather on and on.
I think global warming denialists should be made to live on where this land used to be for just 1 week, let them pitch their tent on the open water, after all, according to them it is not there.
JJWFromME // Jul 1, 2010 at 1:13 pm
If you want to get people to not take you seriously (except for those who already agree with you), comparing the scientific community to “priests” is a good way to start.
I think the irony of calling independent, competitive researchers using the scientific method “priests” is lost on springy.