Gridwatch on TV

[Chris B]

Unless they all rely one someone else's gas, and they no longer wish to play ball.

[Tim Streater]

Which other person's gas would that be, then?

[Chris B]

Well in the last couple of days some commentators have pointed out that the forthcoming closures of coal stations will leave us very dependant on imported gas. I cant recall the source of this gas but I think Qatar was mentioned as being the prime supplier.

[Tim Streater]

And Norway. Notice that Russia does not figure in this at all. Of course, if we stop pissing about and get going with fracking, that could fix everything. That and nuclear, that is.

[Chris Hogg]

Looking at the statistics of the temperature data 2001 - 2014, gives a rise of 0.0078°C/yr, with a 95% confidence limit (2SD) of +/-0.0072°C. In other words, a flat temperature response is just outside the commonly accepted limits of these results, 95% or 2SD (but within the

99% confidence limits, 3SD).

But what you get depends on what data you use, and what processing it's been subjected to. The data you've chosen obviously differs from the graph that I put up earlier

, (although I can't access the raw data for that), in that there's obviously no sign of temperature increase from 2000 onwards in that data. Here's a graph showing global temperatures as estimated from several sources AFAICT none show the very gentle increase after 2000 that the data you've selected show.

Two more points. Global temperatures have been rising slowly ever since the 'little ice age', i.e. after 1910, by about 0.0075°C/yr, as the earth recovers from that cold period

(from the reference I put up earlier , as are the others). That is the same as the figure I derived from your data, suggesting that your data, if reliable, is no more than a continuation of what's been going on for the last 100 years or so, and nothing to do with CO2. Hence my comment about 'wider time scale'.

Second, the accelerated rise in global temperatures between circa 1970 and 2000 is what set off the panic about the effects of CO2. CO2 levels have continued to rise monotonically (see my first link in this post), but this has not been reflected in global temperatures. By any measure (yours or all the others), temperatures have not continued to rise at the rate they were rising between ~1970 and 2000, when they should have done if CO2 played the part in global temperatures that's being attributed to it.

[Nick]

Are you claiming this result signifies something?

If global warming were true and occurring at say a mean drift rate 0.02 degrees a year, how likely is it that we would see periods where there was not a statistically significant rise? Like this one from 1998. Assuming that what you say is true. Please also take into account that the period can be cherry picked. I assume this period is cherry picked?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Of course. It signifies what I said.

According to the IPCC, none. Because they consider that all global warming is down to CO2 increase, and there is a direct and IIRC 3:1 correlation between the two.

Like this one from 1998.

Not really. Its just how long it is since the temperature stopped rising.

You warmistas cant have your cake and eat it, If you cherry pick data and adjust it to fit your bigotry and your paymasters' requirements, you can't complain if others pick different data to show you up.

[Nick]

I would find it very surprising if they actually did say something like that. Have you perhaps forgotten to mention some caveats and are not misrepresenting them.

As I understood it there is a large effectively stochastic variation in global temperatures from year to year. Additionally other factors like solar cycles, orbital variations, ice cover, dust cover, methane, weather patterns, ocean currents may also affect global temperatures. Some are capable of acting on a much shorter scale than CO2 .

If they were claiming that all global warming was due to CO2 we would expect to see a 100% correlation and have little variation of temperatures in the short term.

What do you mean? Temperatures go up and down every year don't they?

I'm not a warmist. I know virtually bugger all about the climate. AIUI there is currently a widespread acceptance of global warming in scientific circles. I accept it is possible they are wrong but I think the best bet is to assume they are not wrong. Badly understood changes are risky.

However I do know a little about statistics and stochastic processes. When I see someone make claims such as yours alarm bells ring.

[hunar]

Your problem.

Not when we have clearly survived much bigger natural variations in climate fine and have seen a dramatic increase in atmospheric CO2 levels and very little evidence of any effect of that on climate.

Your problem.

[Johnny B Good]

It's rated for a max output of 1.728TW whilst its smaller cousin, just down the road at Ffestiniog, can output an additional 360MW (0.36TW compared to Dinorwig's 1.728TW)

Yes, that's the saddest part of all the pointless investment that's been made so far in such hare brained schemes.

We already know the theoretical limits of wind turbine power extraction. AFAICR, the figure was 59%, based on the optimum steady state wind speed for any one particular design. Then we have the utility factor to add to that equation, typically a best utility somewhere round the 25% mark for the most favourable sites and often much less in real life.

A simple bit of mathematics will reveal that even if we could afford the investment to provide, on average, a quarter of the nation's needs, we simply wouldn't have enough room in the whole of the UK to build them. Even if we could, it would destabilise the national grid.

It may come as a surprise to the typical "Greeny" but the most eco- friendly and safest energy option is MSR Thorium based nuclear. Far safer than even the 'safest' of our current crop of nuclear power stations derived from the Cold War designs originally optimised for the production of weapons grade plutonium - gone is the need of the most expensive part of these stations, the high pressure containment vessel around the reactors (those huge domes).

In fact they'd be so safe they could literally be used to upgrade the coal and gas fired boilers of existing conventional fossil fuelled power stations (and the inevitable waste heat used to help power the production of synthesised hydrocarbon fuels or liquified hydrogen which are still our best option for fuelling our road and air transport needs. TBH, I'm surprised that BP hasn't been looking to diversify into nuclear power generation just for the sake of retaining their monopoly position in the liquid fuels market.

The carbon emissions from burning the room temperature liquid fuels will effectively be recycled by the ongoing production of fresh supplies whilst the liquefied hydrogen option totally eliminates man's contribution to the existing carbon (dioxide) cycle whether burnt in a conventional ICE or used with fuel cells to power electrically driven vehicles - literally, hydro-electric vehicles!.

The R&D effort into developing "Safe, Clean" Fusion Power has been ongoing over the past half century with no sign of a production reactor in sight. We may eventually attain this "Holy Grail" of abundant safe and clean fusion power but it might take another half century or even another

150 years for this R&D effort to finally bear fruit. Nobody knows when fusion power will finally arrive to save our arses and this is a big problem.

We need something to, at the very least, 'fill the gap' and our best option today is Molten Salt Reactor technology using Thorium rather than Uranium (other than as part of the initial reactor load to get the thorium fuel cycle started). Thorium is four times more abundant in the Earth's crust than uranium. Thorium allows up to 99% of its nuclear energy to be extracted versus uranium which needs expensive reprocessing after barely one percent or so has been extracted.

A Molten Salt Reactor need only be shutdown once every 25 years or so to refurbish the graphite lining of its core, there being no need to extract 'spent fuel rods' since the molten salt can be 'freshened up' on a continuing basis without the need for a shutdown.

Safety against nuclear accidents is made foolproof by the use of redundant cooling fans to keep a safety plug frozen in the bottom of the MSR vessel during normal operation which will allow the load to swiftly drain into a purpose built sump[1] which will allow the fuel to spread out and inhibit nuclear fission, eliminating the need for a supply of cooling water to be circulated in direct contact with the fuel (the failure of which at Fukushima was the cause of the hydrogen gas explosion that blew the top off the containment vessel, releasing nucleotides into the local environment).

An MSR nuclear power station simply doesn't need a small fleet of diesel generators, protected by an 8 hour UPS, on-site as a vital part of its safety. In fact the only need for a small emergency generator would be to prevent the failsafe protection from failing safe, causing an unplanned shutdown and the ensuing expensive restart procedure this would involve.

We should be developing Thorium fuelled MSR nuclear power plant right now. If we're very lucky, we might see the first of them being built in the next ten years, perhaps just in time to avert the looming energy poverty crisis that threatens the UK's economy. That's where the billions of pounds currently being squandered on pointless 'Renewables' should be going right now.

[1] I would imagine that the "Purpose Built Sump" would channel the molten salt into ingot sized moulds to facilitate a speedier restart from any such extraordinary shutdown events (or at least facilitate a planned and less hazardous 'waste disposal' exercise if the plant was close to EOL at the time and the accident viewed as an opportunity to upgrade the reactor to the latest tried and tested design).

[Johnny B Good]

The two best sites have already been taken (Dinorwig and Ffestiniog). Between them, they can supply a maximum generation capacity of just over

2TW (1.728TW and 0.36TW respectively) for around 4 to 5 hours, afair.

All rechargeable batteries rely on conversion of electrical energy into chemical energy and back again. The pumped storage facilities at Dinorwig and Ffestiniog are effectively giant rechargeable batteries for the national grid. In this case they import electrical energy from the grid during low demand when the price is low and resell it back to the grid at peak demand when the price is higher. The national grid operators sell to and buy from these pumped storage facilites because it helps balance demand, allowing the equivilent of a large coal or gas fired power station to be taken off line instead of running in hot standby mode which is an expense with no financial return.

The only difference between a car battery and Dinorwig and Ffestiniog is that the imported energy pumps water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir increasing the potential energy of a considerable mass of water. The water in the upper reservoir is then released during peak demand periods, recovering the potential energy by converting it back into electrical energy which is exported to the grid.

Funnily enough, the round trip efficiencies of pumped storage and a well specced lead acid battery setup are about the same (around 86% afaicr when I asked the engineer tour guide at Ffestiniog about 8 or 9 years ago).

Since the efficiencies are very similar, you might well ask why lead acid battery storage isn't used. The answer is simply the capital and ongoing maintenance costs of such a system on a scale large enough to make a useful contribution to the national grid would be an order of magnitude greater and a logistics nightmare (thousands of litres of H2SO4 and millions of tons of lead just for starters!).

We could use more of these pumped storage stations but the plain fact is we don't have any more suitable sites to build even another "Ffestiniog" let alone another "Dinorwig".

Scotland has a couple of pumped storage stations with a total capacity of 740MW, with around 70 conventional hydro-electric generating stations at a very rough count of the wikipedia list of power stations in Scotland.

[The Natural Philosopher]

he lied. Its 75% or so at Dinorwig.

Its all in the end pie in the sky..unless you have fjords etc etc. Or steep alpine valleys that are easy to dam.

The point is that the cost of implementing storage is usually comparable to that of implementing a power station of similar output, and the power station generally maintains its output for a far longer period,.

Some short term storage is worth having, but adding more beyond that gets impossibly expensive.

Wind farm + 2 hours storage is already twice the price of wind farm, alone

And you need more like 2 weeks storage.

[The Natural Philosopher]

WHAT!!!!??

The whole world doesn't achieve a terawatt.

IIRC its 1.728GW for a couple of hours only.

75% efficient.

whilst its smaller cousin, just

Thorium is at least a decade away.

What is here right now is Gen 4 BWR and PWR designs, or CANDU recators, and we should simply build some.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You certainly seem to like to engage in a lot of debate about something you admit to almost complete ignorance of..

As you understand it?

And how did you arrive at that understanding?

Reading the Guardian? Watching the BBC?

And what has happened to scientists who disagreed with AGW?

They are not scientists any more!

When all academics are government funded - except for a few who are - gasp - founded by evil capitalist industry - just how much 'research' gets done that does NOT agree with what the giver-ments of the day want to hear?

It is significant that the majority of people who speak out against AGW are retired, or in secure sinecures and no longer can have pressure brought to bear on them.

Well why have alarm bells not rung when you see warmist claims?

That from about 15 years of data they 'prove'; its all about CO2, when the last ten thousand years have exhibited temperature fluctuations far greater than in modern times with no CO2 variation at all?

Ah. the 'precautionary principle' When in doubt don't change anything!

Try telling that to a man falling out of an aeroplane 'don't pull that ripcord, you don't know if it will work'

I will be glad to see the end of Western civilisation and the stupidity of the greens, the socialists and all the rest.

It will be sad that it will take down so many ordinary decent people as well though.

[dennis]

8<

At 75% does pumped storage produce more CO2 than it saves?

Its probably using base load to fill it so that will include coal and gas so its not carbon neutral.

Maybe it should be limited to using wind energy and the greens can do the load balancing by being cut off if its dry. They can pay for the investment by having a new standing charge too.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well I'll leave it to you to decide which electrons were actually produced by a windmill so to speak, which by a nuclear power station, and which by coal..

Or indeed the times when its rained a bit in Scotland, and they are running hydro to avoid spilling water in the middle of the night, and we are using water running down a hill to pump it up another one ;-)

I cant work out if you are being very tongue in cheek, or a total idiot.

[Nick]

I'm not really debating climate change, I'm discussing your points. I only entered the thread because I like nuclear power, a bit like schoolboys like rockets or fast cars.

No I defer to the current scientific consensus. They could potentially be wrong but I don't have anything better to believe. I adopt this view on many issues. I do not have the time or energy to understand everything.

However even with my lack of knowledge I can see holes in your arguments.

Well it hasn't rung any bells because I've not seen such arguments coming from reputable scientific bodies. If the scientific consensus presented the views you state I would be worried. However currently I don't believe they do.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well if you dont do science, how can you judge which bodies are reputable and or scientific?

in 1993 I thought pretty much as you do now, to the point of abandoning a house below sea level and moving to one 300 feet in altitude.

In the last ten years I have actually taken time to look at the data and the arguments, and examine them dispassionately and critically - I have no career to make or lose, no investments in green or non green technology. In short I had no reason to come down on one side or the other.

And I came down overwhelmingly in favour of CO2 induced warming being a minor side effect, and nothing to worry about.

And overwhelmingly of the opinion that AGW the POLITICAL movement, was a far far greater threat to mankind than any real warming might be.

Lomborg calculates that at best even if we 'believe in the models'; the total cost of implementing measures suggested by the Paris climate summit would be in the trillions, and the net effect would be to reduce global temperatures by less than half a degree.

IN short no government would possibly say that it was a worthwhile exercise, and yet we are being told that we must do it?

If (like windmills), it wont actually solve the 'problem' why are they so keen?

Because it means more power to politicians and more money to their attendant rent seekers,.

The whole thing is not about science or climate, its about money, power and control, and you don't need a degree in statistics to see that.

And its difficult to see how statistics could be applied to a chaotic system anyway, which by definition wont have long term trends, but will exhibit a very high degree of variability.

>

[Huge]

[78 lines snipped]

Went to a Skeptics in the Pub talk last night by the Chair of the Campaign against Climate Change. The intermittency problem was repeatedly raised and dismissed with hand-waving. It was pathetic.

[Tim Streater]

Then in the 16thC you would have been with the Catholic Church and against Galileo. How about thinking critically for yourself? Have you no natural curiosity?