SoCalGas leak -- opportunity for solar?

[Mike90250]

Given that > 95% of climate scientists, > 90% of meteorologists banks, > 90% of biophysical scientists, many insurance companies and banks, and even the Surgeon General all agree that man-made climate change is a serious risk, I don't think moving away from fossil fuels is something to put down as foolish "activism". It's wise planning.
There's lots of evidence of the consensus.....

Consensus by non-experts also gave us flat Earth and Earth centric universe. Didn't make it right. When a large host of non-goverment paid climatologists agree fossil fuel is the cause, then I think we can start tearing down the existing, functional plants. Not rushing to build new fuel burners (on a global scale) would not be a bad start, but till there is good storage means, to store solar and wind, we're cutting off our noses to spite our face.
There are also upper atmosphere aerosols, cyclic solar output and volcanic contributions.

BUT REALLY, if more people REALLY CARED, they would be unplugging their air conditioning and taking public transit. Right ? or just stuff that smokey plant into another state and import electricity.

[DanKegel]

Scientific data is only as good as the devices that are used to measure it....
The earth has been around for billions of years but very very little "good" data has been and can be collected to provide the answers for a extremely complex process like climate change

So... you don't trust science to answer this important question, then? Is that a fundamental problem of science, or just a matter of us not putting enough scientific resources into answering the question?

[DanKegel]

When a large host of non-goverment paid climatologists agree fossil fuel is the cause...

Climate science is basic science, and there's very little funding for basic science outside of government (despite what Cato might tell you).

Why do you distrust publicly-funded research?

Also, I don't think anyone wants to tear down existing gas-fired power plants. We just want to run them less.

[jflorey2]

Consensus by non-experts also gave us flat Earth and Earth centric universe.

And then consensus by experts gave us the heliocentric view of the solar system.

In climate science, whenever you go from non-expert to expert, the number of scientists who agree with the consensus goes up. For example, in one study (Doran/Zimmerman) only 82% of the respondents agreed that temperatures were rising globally and that humans significantly influence the global temperature. But when you isolate the results to climate scientists who published mostly on climate science, that number was 97%. Conversely, the further you get from the climate experts the more likely you are to see disagreement; only about half of "economic geologists" agreed, for example.

When a large host of non-goverment paid climatologists agree fossil fuel is the cause, then I think we can start tearing down the existing, functional plants.

Whoah. A whole lot of false assumptions there.

"Fossil fuel" isn't the cause. If you took all the CO2 that coal plants produced and stored it somewhere safe, then there would be much less warming. It's not the fossil fuels, it's the CO2 (and to a lesser extent the soot and methane) we release that's the problem.

With that correction, yes - a large host of non-government-paid climatologists agree that manmade emissions are the cause. That does NOT mean we should start tearing down all the plants. Only rich people can afford to be environmentalists; if you want to reduce emissions, you have to keep them rich (and make other people rich) to make any progress, because poor people don't care about the future as much as they care about their next meal.

BUT REALLY, if more people REALLY CARED, they would be unplugging their air conditioning and taking public transit. Right ?

Right! Or installing solar, or biking, or using an EV again charged by solar. And a lot of people are doing just that; the number of solar installations and EV's is climbing rapidly, and cities are putting in more bike lanes and light rail. At the same time, coal plants (which are the worst offenders) are closing gradually, and natural gas usage is increasing as renewables (slowly) ramp up. That's the right way to do it.

[SunEagle]

So... you don't trust science to answer this important question, then? Is that a fundamental problem of science, or just a matter of us not putting enough scientific resources into answering the question?

Sorry. But IMO there is not enough data to make be believe that climate change is mainly the product of human beings.

Oh. You never did answer my question back in post #8. What would we need to do to generate electricity if the sun is not available?

[DanKegel]

Sorry. But IMO there is not enough data to make be believe that climate change is mainly the product of human beings.

Well, what research is missing? Where on the continuum of "there's just one piece of evidence missing that would convince me" to "I reject the whole of climate science" do you stand?

Oh. You never did answer my question back in post #8. What would we need to do to generate electricity if the sun is not available?

For now, wind power, natural gas power plants, and nuclear fission reactors should do. Later on, as we get better at load shifting and storage, we can ramp down the use of natural gas.

[SunEagle]

Well, what research is missing? Where on the continuum of "there's just one piece of evidence missing that would convince me" to "I reject the whole of climate science" do you stand?


Unless you can go back in time with lab grade instruments I do not see any way a totally accurate answer for climate control can be found.There just isn't enough data.

For now, wind power, natural gas power plants, and nuclear fission reactors should do. Later on, as we get better at load shifting and storage, we can ramp down the use of natural gas.

Yes all of those power sources will help but if you put a lot of your eggs into the solar basket and then reduce your Insolation hours by 3/4 a lot of people will be in the dark and cold.

You talk about science. How about history. There have been many "mini ice ages" in the past that happened between 1600 & 1900 as well as before most humans were around and according to most scientists they were the result of volcanic releases. What would we do if that happened again? The result is not like the slow climate change but a pretty quick acting problem.

[DanKegel]

Yes all of those power sources will help but if you put a lot of your eggs into the solar basket and then reduce your Insolation hours by 3/4 a lot of people will be in the dark and cold.

Wait, why will people be in the dark and cold if we have natural-gas fired plants that can take up the slack when needed?

You talk about science. How about history. There have been many "mini ice ages" in the past that happened between 1600 & 1900 as well as before most humans were around and according to most scientists they were the result of volcanic releases. What would we do if that happened again? The result is not like the slow climate change but a pretty quick acting problem.

Or what if an asteroid hits us? I mean, you can worry about a lot of unlikely things. But it's probably more productive to worry about something that's actually happening. There's absolutely no question that burning fossil fuels has significantly raised atmospheric and oceanic CO2 levels far higher than they'd be otherwise. That's not hypothetical; probability is about 100%. Let's fix that, and then worry about the asteroids and mega-volcanoes.

You didn't answer the question 'Well, what research is missing? Where on the continuum of "there's just one piece of evidence missing that would convince me" to "I reject the whole of climate science" do you stand?'

It's kind of sounding like you tilt towards the latter...?

[SunEagle]

look at my comments in Blue after your first question.

[SunEagle]

Wait, why will people be in the dark and cold if we have natural-gas fired plants that can take up the slack when needed?



Or what if an asteroid hits us? I mean, you can worry about a lot of unlikely things. But it's probably more productive to worry about something that's actually happening. There's absolutely no question that burning fossil fuels has significantly raised atmospheric and oceanic CO2 levels far higher than they'd be otherwise. That's not hypothetical; probability is about 100%. Let's fix that, and then worry about the asteroids and mega-volcanoes.

Mini ice ages are real. Volcanic releases are real and have recently shut down the air traffic in a lot of areas over that past 10 years as well as cause agriculture to stop growing.

I am not talking about a E.L.E (although we are due for one). I am talking about people expecting the sun the be there all the time to generate GigaWatts of power and then it is not there. In ten years you will not have enough "peakers" to pick up the slack because most base power fossil fuel generation will be shutdown especially in places like CA.

Look. This tete a tete has started to get heated and as I have said before I really don't want to argue this with you or anyone else. So I plan to not respond to this thread again.

[DanKegel]

I am talking about people expecting the sun the be there all the time to generate GigaWatts of power and then it is not there. In ten years you will not have enough "peakers" to pick up the slack because most base power fossil fuel generation will be shutdown especially in places like CA.

You seem to assume people who run utilities are going to plan really, really poorly. I don't think that's going to happen. They eat, sleep, and breathe reliability.

Thanks for answering the question about whether science can answer the question of whether global warming. I guess you're fairly firmly in the 'no' category, because you think a time machine would be required. I'll just note that evolution and geology are fairly well understood without such a device. Ice cores, for instance, provide a measure of previous CO2 levels going back 800,000 years. Also, climate change is an ongoing process; one doesn't need a time machine to measure current physical events.

p.s. I'm sorry it seemed heated for you. It seemed very civil to me. I appreciate your willingness to discuss a touchy subject.

[solar pete]

I really like this thread, I sort of think, like others have said the climate is always changing not matter what we mere mortals do. In saying that I think we should try to slow it down a bit if we can, it cant hurt to try can it? Ok well it can and will hurt the economy, we used to make stuff in this country then it got to expensive so we ship in everything from China. China now has smog so bad you need oxygen to breath there some days, and all the rich ones live oversea's, go figure, gotta stop typing and get coffee

[Mike90250]

Well, what research is missing? Where on the continuum of "there's just one piece of evidence missing that would convince me" to "I reject the whole of climate science" do you stand?

We can't even get a good forecast more than 3 days out. I've been watching the weather reports very intensely the last 3 years I've been off grid, and I'm amazed at the amount of error of cloud cover and even rainfall. Even tried 6 different forecast services, and they "grossly" are the same, but vary quite a bit in the details.
Tornado Alley forecasts and Hurricanes are also missing the "1 season in advance" mark. So the odds that the long term forecast with even more randomness will be correct, is low.

I can see the US (and here in Kalifornia) taking out functional plants (a few years ago King Harbor was demolished to make way for ocean view condos) while China & India are in coal plant mass production !

https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/a-solution-to-success/

And the fiasco of "adjusting the data" to correct it, doesn't bolster the position. https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/...-at-ushcngiss/

Visual records of ice sheet coverage can show a trend.

Warmer temps would seem to increase water vapor cycle rate, but things seem to be getting dryer, not wetter.

[DanKegel]

Predicting climate is very different from - and less detailed than - predicting weather. http://www.popsci.com/environment/ar...E2%80%99s-diff explains the difference.

I haven't heard that any gas-fired powerplants are to be replaced with just solar, and the article you link gives no specifics. Are you sure that's realistic? Sounds like a strawman.

Not sure why people reject the mainstream scientific consensus on this stuff.

[Engineer]

Climate change aside I think it's clear that NG sucks. All you can do with the stuff is burn it, and as it sits around it's dangerous. The distribution system is stupid, it leaks into the ground, overvents into the air and dumps toxic waste in your house as you use it.

Compare to electricity. You can use it to heat, to cool, to light, to run your computers to say communicate across the world, to cook with, to clean your house with, and so forth. The distribution system is smart, or it easily can be, and has built in safety systems you don't/can't get with NG. If we just restricted it to electricity generator plants then fine, but in Ca we got the idea to run pipes everywhere and make it cheaper to use than electricity.

With my system I've been converting over to electricity and haven't been happier

• Cooking is now on an induction cooktop which is insane (in a good way). Boil water faster than NG or anything like crazy
• Looking into solar water heating with electrical tank
• We rarely use central heat, looking to just turn it off and cancel our NG all together.

[DanKegel]

Well... the gas distribution system predated the electric one, and if you need heat, burning it where you need the heat can be more efficient than burning it at a powerplant and sending it over the electrical distribution system. But with heat pumps and solar power, the case for natural gas to the home is getting weaker.

Some people *cough*wife*cough*, especially in historic homes, will want to keep natural gas for stoves and fireplaces. As I sit here in Los Angeles this morning at 9AM on a gloomy June morning, my wife is using our gas fireplance because it makes the family room cozy... sigh.

And I don't see getting rid of both our furnaces any time soon. But at least I can put in a heat pump in parallel (mostly for cooling), switch the water heater to a heat pump, and get a heat pump clothes dryer when the current one needs.