Tag: carbon dioxide

Whose Hoax? The Carbon Cycle & Climate Change Denial

If anyone is perpetrating a climate “hoax,” it’s the Deniers. For why, read on.
Countering one of the deniers’ favorite trick questions.

It’s not necessarily a “trick” question in all cases.   Maybe sometimes it’s an “honest” error, if being honest entails burying one’s head in the sand. But in case of willful tricksters, it’s another one of those niggling questions with which they like to trip up the unsuspecting.  Another piece of their hoax to confuse us.

Here’s how the question goes: A carbon dioxide molecule stays in the atmosphere for only five years. So what’s all this doom and gloom forecasting that CO2 will hang around for hundreds of years in the air even if we stop fossil fuel burning?

Yes it’s doom and gloom. But it’s based on facts (the inconvenient kind).

For an explanation, we have the carbon cycle to thank.

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How to Slow Global Warming, for Real

Failure and More Failure: Time to Get Real

If you are a typical reader of this blog, much of what you’ll see below is not news . But my hope is to frame questions about climate change and its remedies in a coherent way. . . and also to make the argument that. . . you’ll see.

As much as climate change believers have attempted to rein in the combustion of fossil fuels to reduce CO2 emissions, they have largely failed. It doesn’t matter what accord or protocol we’re talking about—Paris, Copenhagen, Kyoto—economic considerations (especially in India and China), and the slow development of zero carbon technologies are preventing us from meeting the goals.

That’s even without the worsening of U.S. emissions we can expect for the next four years—at least.

The good news is that CO2 emissions worldwide have ceased growing—we may be at a plateau with some promise of  reduction.

Slowing CO2 Emissions

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What “Load Following” Means for Renewable Energy in California (hint: it means storage)

Here’s the bottom line of this post, for those who don’t want to wade into the weeds: major reliance on wind and solar electricity generation demands a lot of electrical energy storage—many times what is currently available. For reasons why, we look at “load following” in California in the summer of 2016.

California’s Energy Program

The state of California is pushing ahead rapidly to achieve a goal of 50% renewable electricity power production  by 2030.

This makes sense in California, since its terrain and climate are highly adaptable to both wind and solar generation.  In-state conventional hydroelectric—which in many places currently accounts for the largest fraction of renewable generation— is not included in California’s ambitious program. That also makes good sense, since worsening and recurring droughts make hydroelectric an iffy proposition in the state.

However, the 50% goal will only make sense with abundant energy storage capacity, little of which is currently available. The reason is the intermittency of wind and solar. Solar, obviously, does not generate power at night, and not much in cloudy conditions, and wind power depends on weather.

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Carbon Debt from Biomass Burning

Burning “biomass”—trees, grasses, and other plant matter—to generate electricity has been considered a “clean” technology in some quarters. Currently, European countries do not count carbon dioxide emitted from biomass burning as part of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is curious, given that burning biomass does emit carbon dioxide, as well as a small amount of methane.  How renewable is biomass burning? Does it leave a “carbon debt” of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

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