The Age of Fossil Fuel may be just beginning

June 3, 2011

A little bit over the top from Michael Lind in Salon but still fundamentally not wrong:

Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.

What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?

As everyone who follows news about energy knows by now, in the last decade the technique of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” long used in the oil industry, has evolved to permit energy companies to access reserves of previously-unrecoverable “shale gas” or unconventional natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.

Natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide than coal, can be used in both electricity generation and as a fuel for automobiles.

……

Two arguments for switching to renewable energy — the depletion of fossil fuels and national security — are no longer plausible. What about the claim that a rapid transition to wind and solar energy is necessary, to avert catastrophic global warming?

The scenarios with the most catastrophic outcomes of global warming are low probability outcomes — a fact that explains why the world’s governments in practice treat reducing CO2 emissions as a low priority, despite paying lip service to it. But even if the worst outcomes were likely, the rational response would not be a conversion to wind and solar power but a massive build-out of nuclear power. Nuclear energy already provides around 13-14 percent of the world’s electricity and nearly 3 percent of global final energy consumption, while wind, solar and geothermal power combined account for less than one percent of global final energy consumption. ….

In the meantime, it appears that the prophets of an age of renewable energy following Peak Oil got things backwards. We may be living in the era of Peak Renewables, which will be followed by a very long Age of Fossil Fuels that has only just begun.

Read complete article

 

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Nothing new under the sun: Global warming in the 80’s followed by global cooling after 2000 was predicted back in 1979

June 1, 2011

From JoNova

St Petersburg Times, Jan 1, 1979

Drs Leona Libby and Louise Pandolfi projected world temperatures in 1979 for the next 70 years and got results that, 30 years later, appear to have been broadly correct if out by 5 – 7 years. Ironically, they used, of all things, … tree ring data (going back 1,800 years). The critical difference was they assumed that the climate changes in natural cycles.

Visit Steven Goddard’s blog to read the full news story.

Climate Predictions 1979

St Petersburg times news 1979

http://joannenova.com.au/2009/04/global-warming-a-classic-case-of-alarmism/

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Power generation from shale gas is here to stay

May 31, 2011

The capital cost of building different types of power plants is a reality that cannot be wished away:

November 2010 Capital costs for power plants

Gas fired combined cycle plant use the least capital of all power generation plants. With shale gas set to become even cheaper than natural gas and with gas fired plants having capacity factors well above 90% compared to the 25% of wind power or the 30% of solar plants, it is a no-brainer to conclude that wherever shale gas is available it is going to be used for power generation.

Where it is not available coal fired plants and nuclear plants will continue to be used.

Intermittent renewable power plants are going to need subsidies for a long time to come to get anywhere near the cost of electricity from gas. At best they could be useful to augment production of electricity but being intermittent cannot really contribute to reliable capacity.

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Posted in Energy, Engineering, Gas, Technology | 2 Comments »

2012 US Presidential elections: A visitor’s perceptions

May 31, 2011

After a 2 week visit to the US (New York and Boston) it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe that one has become an expert on all things US!!!

But perceptions are relevant and are probably based on much more than just the observations of the last 2 weeks. In simple terms my perceptions are:

  1. There is no credible opposition to Barack Obama within the Democrats even if he has not quite lived up to the expectations of “Yes we can”. But he has not done anything considered by Democrats to be drastically wrong. The Health Care Bill was passed though it has not (will not) deliver all that was hoped. And above all – even if he did not close Guantanamo – he got Osama!!! But he is less of a leader and more of a follower than I thought he would be.
  2. The economy is still floundering and jobs are still hard to come by. But it cannot get worse and in the two years till the Presidential election the inbuilt American resilience can only make it better (whatever Obama may or may not do).
  3. The Republican candidates – so far – are very unimpressive as potential Presidential candidates.
  4. In many cases they are quite bizarre. That Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin and their ilk could or can even be considered as serious contenders reveals that a large section of the Republican supporters are not merely anti-intellectual but also anti-thought and their world view only extends as far as sound-bites on Fox news takes them.
  5. The tea-party movement and the right-wing of the Republican party seem quite similar in nationalist aspirations and ideology and insularity to the National Socialist electorate Hitler appealed to. But Michelle Malkin is actually closer to Hitler than Sarah Palin.
  6. Some of Sarah Palin’s shenanigans over the weekend suggest she is more interested in promoting brand Palin and her future earnings than in anything else. Even any eventual candidacy would be to make money.
  7. Romney is the front runner and he would certainly not be less competent than George Bush and probably less susceptible to being a puppet in the hands of a Dick Cheney. But he may be too intellectual for the right-wing of the Republican party. Pawlenty seems to be a non-person but that is mainly image.
  8. What political issues would be relevant in 2012 will change but right now the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot over Health Care. If they continue attacking Medicare they could lose this election already within the next few months.
  9. Energy policy is the Democratic Achilles heel. It is beginning to sink in even among the “do-gooders” that fossil fuels and nuclear energy are the main-stay which actually permits the fiddling around with and subsidising of solar and wind power. It is also beginning to be understood that “climate change” is a political ideology and not a science. I cannot see Energy policy alone winning the election for the Republicans but I can see the Democrats losing it if they allow the fungus of “going green” to spread too far.
But the next 12 months will be fascinating. If the Republicans have not found a credible candidate of substance by this time next year Obama will win his second term easily and will be back in 2012.

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, US | 2 Comments »

Conspiracy theory: New York police conspire with hotel maids against ageing foreign bankers?

May 31, 2011

When it happened to former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and since DSK has a reputation for being something of a womaniser I took the reports at face value.

But it has happened a second time just 3 weeks later and again against a foreign banker – 74 years old – and with the same kind of allegations and again with the New York police involved. Since I don’t think hotel maids in New York are all that naive or that New York police are particularly gullible I begin to think they probably have a deal going with selected hotel maids and they probably also have a “hit” list of ageing foreign bankers ( business men?) to be shaken down !!!

Huffington Post:

The former chairman of one of Egypt’s major banks has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel, just weeks after the arrest of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar allegations.

Police say Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was arrested at the Pierre Hotel on Monday morning.

The 74-year-old businessman is accused of sexually abusing the maid and holding her against her will inside his hotel room.

Police say the incident happened Sunday night.

Police spokesman Paul Browne says detectives found the complainant to be credible.

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Posted in Behaviour, Trivia | 3 Comments »

Blatter and his stinking mess of FIFA corruption

May 30, 2011
Sepp Blatter

Image via Wikipedia

Sepp Blatter is standing unopposed and the writhing mess of corruption that FIFA has become continues. That World Cups are bought and sold is patently obvious. Apart from masses of money Qatar brings nothing to a World Cup competition and takes away much. The corruption – under Blatter’s watchful and forgiving eye – has of course resulted in stupid decision after stupid decision.

As long as Blatter continues the corruption and stupidity will remain institutionalised and there is no chance of FIFA even beginning to put its house in order.

The BBC

Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke has denied Jack Warner’s claim in an e-mail that Mohamed Bin Hammam “bought” the 2022 World Cup finals for Qatar. 

Suspended Fifa vice-president Warner made public the e-mail which also questioned why Asian football boss Bin Hammam was running for Fifa president. Valcke wrote: “[Hammam] thought you can buy Fifa as they bought the World Cup”.

But in Valcke’s denial he insisted he was not referring to any “purchase of votes or similar unethical behaviour.” ….. And last week, Qatar 2022 World Cup officials denied allegations, published in the Sunday Times, that they paid bribes in return for votes.

Meanwhile, independent Australian senator Nick Xenophon has demanded that Fifa refunds the Aus$45.6m (£29.6m) his country spent on their unsuccessful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Xenophon said: “It appears corrupt and highly questionable behaviour goes to the core of Fifa. Australia spent almost $46m on a bid we were never in the running for. Now we hear that bribes may have been made to fix the result for who will head up Fifa.”

As vice president, China’s Zhang Jilong will take charge of the AFC in the absence of Bin Hammam. However, the decision to suspend Bin Hammam has been met with widespread criticism throughout the Middle East.

AFC vice president Yousuf al-Serkal, from neighbouring United Arab Emirates, said: “I think Bin Hammam has been mistreated. “Bin Hammam is the right person who should have been elected to the presidency of Fifa from the point of view of change.”

The Telegraph

The prospect that Sepp Blatter will tomorrow be returned unopposed as president of Fifa, the game’s governing body, is enough to make any true football fan, of whatever nationality, cringe with embarrassment.

Unopposed? Does that mean people think he is doing a good job? Couldn’t some tramp be brought in from the streets of Zurich to contest the election? Are ballot papers being printed to give this fiasco a veneer of legitimacy? And who is paying for the prerequisite slap-up lunch for the stooges flying thousands of miles to rubber-stamp Blatter’s election?

The sheer absurdity of the process makes Premier League footballers look like paragons of virtue. Unless 75-year-old Blatter does the decent thing and agrees to the deferment of tomorrow’s election – and nothing in his record of ruthless, self-important nest-feathering suggests that he is capable of doing the decent thing – a coronation of look-away-now awfulness, with toadies in blazers applauding the Supreme Leader, is in prospect. 

His 13-year-old presidency of Fifa has been marked by faux pas after faux pas. When he has not been mulishly resisting long-overdue reforms, such as goal-line technology, he has been insulting women, by advising female footballers to wear tight shorts and low-cut tops, and homosexuals, by urging gay fans to practise sexual restraint at the 2022 
World Cup in Qatar.

But it is the sheer incompetence of Fifa under Blatter that has been truly shocking. Never mind the bribery allegations and counter-allegations swirling around the Qatar bid. No sporting body with any pretensions to seriousness would have agreed to award a World Cup, traditionally held in June/July, to a country where temperatures at that time of year top 40C. ….  Half-cocked plans for air-conditioned stadiums, or for the tournament to be held mid-winter, have only underscored the ludicrousness of the bidding process – with the minnows of world football all too easily seduced by large cheques.

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Computer models are only models – and subject to common sense

May 25, 2011

Once again the blind belief in computer models has closed down parts of European air space. Observations and measurements are given less weight than computer models which are at best crude approximations of a chaotic system. The unthinking belief in approximations to reality merely because they are generated by computer models denies the sapience in homo sapiens!!

BBC:

Most flights have resumed across the UK after a day that saw thousands of passengers affected by an ash cloud from the erupting Icelandic volcano. Air traffic control company Nats said harmful concentrations of ash dispersed from UK airspace overnight. But some flights within the UK and a number to Germany will be cancelled.

As one blogger puts it:

Airline managers are complaining that last year, officials did not do enough to check the actual conditions in the air, instead relying too heavily on computer models showing where the ash was supposed to be. Yet, despite the experience, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is saying that it is “astonishing and unacceptable” that a British aircraft that is supposed to check actual conditions has been unable to fly.

The disruption arises in part from “volatile winds” which are said to be carrying clouds of volcanic ash down from Iceland over the northern British Isles. But those same winds which caused the rough weather yesterday must also have dispersed the ash.

Without real data, however, forecasters are unable to provide accurate information on ash density and particle size, relying instead on weather patterns and computer modelling to give a rough approximation of conditions. And, with no clear guidance as to closure rules, the only significant difference between this year and last is that the weather conditions are more changeable, allowing more favourable estimates of ash dispersion to be made.


Climate Realists: We know that the Met Office doesn’t bother much with evidence, witness Prof John Mitchell’s unguarded remarks at the Downing College Conference:

People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,… Our approach is not entirely empirical.

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Posted in Alarmism, Aviation, European Union | 1 Comment »

The world ends today!

May 21, 2011

Judgement day is today – according to Harold Camping

The homepage of the Family Radio website with a countdown to Judgment Day

Harold Camping, 89, is the leader of Family Radio, an independent ministry which spreads its word via a network on 66 radio stations and online broadcasts. 

Camping has previously written a book called ‘1994?’, in which he wrongly predicted the end of the world in that year, and was later forced to apologise for a mathematical error. 

The Rapture is supposedly the time when God’s chosen people ascend to heaven and the rest are left behind to face apocalyptic scenes of earthquakes and fire.

A period of ‘trial’ on earth for non-believers is forecast to follow and could last six months, but by October 21 all those who have not been saved will be dead, goes the prophecy. 

The concept of Judgment Day is a long-standing one, but the idea of the Rapture is more modern, having first appeared in Christian teaching in the 19th century. 

However, this predicted date is entirely the work of Camping and his followers, who have spent decades studying the bible for coded messages. 

So certain is he of his revised date, following on from his 1994 embarrassment, that he and his followers have spent millions of dollars on billboards across America that have been warning for weeks: ‘Judgment Day is coming May 21st, 2011 – The Bible guarantees it!’

Most Christians barely pay the ‘prophecy’ a second thought but Camping, from Oakland, California, stands by his latest Doomsday warning.

‘We know without any shadow of a doubt it is going to happen,’ said Camping.

‘There’s going to be a huge earthquake that’s going to make the big earthquake in Japan seem like a Sunday School picnic.’

But some more mathematical errors in the analysis will be discovered tomorrow and a new Day of Judgement will soon be forecast. Of course the Mayan end-of-the -world may come first in 2012. And if that is wrong then a world-ending flood when the ice-caps melt may get us in a decade or two — unless another ice-age whittles down the population of the Northern Hemisphere before Global Warming and carbon dioxide poisoning creates Hell on Earth.

I don’t see Mr. Camping and his followers going to the extent of taking a pro-active stand on this to prove the strength of their convictions. Mr. Camping’s organisation is not giving away any of its millions.

In times past Doomsayers could at least be executed by their patrons when their predictions failed.

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New York is easy to love — and hate

May 20, 2011

After a rainy week in New York I am moving on to Boston today. Apart from the obvious about the vibrancy of the city, the variety of its residents, the convenience of the delis, diners and restaurants of every shape colour and cuisine, the steepness of the subway steps, the juxtaposition of luxury and dirt, the ridiculous stretch limousines, the fatigue of the subway travellers, a few other reflections crossed my mind:

  • Time itself seems to move to a faster beat,
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art is fantastic and enormous and why can’t the ticket be valid for at least 2 or 3 days to give the visitor a chance,
  • Most people are friendly but don’t have time to show it,
  • The ethnic origin of taxi drivers is changing and could be quite revealing about the development of the City. Russians, Serbs and Bosnians have joined the ranks. (This is a subject that is probably being studied in depth already)
  • The pavements (sidewalks) are uneven and play havoc with my ankles
  • Rubbish piled on the streets waiting for collection is no doubt a sign of a functioning infrastructure, but it does not enhance walking.
  • Image always wins at the expense of substance
  • Size is everything and quality is of dubious value
  • If it looks good it must be good
  • The bucks stop here

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First Observations

May 16, 2011

Visiting New York  after a break of 3 years.

  1. Changing planes at Munich far more effective and smooth than at Frankfurt. Huge line at JFK immigration but completed immigration and customs in less than 25 minutes. On-line ESTA registration together with machine readable passports actually works.  Entire process was quite painless.
  2. Warm but drizzling in Manhattan. Traffic was horrendous and almost gridlocked on a Sunday afternoon. Our taxi driver demonstrated the ability to accelerate to 70 mph and come to a screeching halt at the traffic lights at the end of every block. But he never managed to get more than one vehicle ahead of the sedate bus he was following for over 10 miles.
  3. All news channels are covering the arrest of the head of the IMF on rape charges. True or not, Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s aspirations in French politics would normally be ended. But one never knows. The macho image has not hurt Berlusconi! And Sarkozy clearly believes that a macho image helps him with the French voters!!
  4. Coverage of the Louisiana flooding was not as overwhelming that I expected it would be and I had to surf through many channels to find some coverage.

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