Assuming AGW is real, what do we do about it ?

[waldo]

a consistent push-back from the denier camp, one echoed across several MLW climate change related threads (including this one), is that adaptation is the only recourse in dealing with climate change effects... a laissez faire, do-nothing, 'what will be, will be' approach that presumes to discount any considerations toward viable mitigation/prevention alternative scenarios.

typically, the standard denier talking point suggests scalable technology is just not up to the task/need, and will never be - just can't be done, case closed... move along now! Of course, when you challenge the suggestion (as has been done in other MLW climate change related threads - as was done in this thread), and request specifics detailing the so-called missing technologies, particularly against projected need time lines, you're simply ignored. Details, details...

I've previously offered up other IEA documents/info in this and other MLW climate change related threads (the roadmap, subsidy particulars, etc.). In a separate MLW thread, I've previously linked to this document - an IEA 2009 analysis paper intended to identify and address gaps in 'Clean Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D).

- the analysis format follows a breakout identifying current RD&D expenditures, RD&D priorities, gaps between current RD&D spending and the IEA Roadmap's 2050 progressive climate goals and RD&D investment needs.

- areas of focus include, 1. Advanced Vehicle Technologies, 2. Bioenergy, 3. Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage, 4. Energy Efficiency In Buildings, 5. Energy Efficiency in Industry, 6. Higher Efficiency And Lower-Emissions Coal Technologies, 7. Smart Grids, 8. Solar Energy and 9. Wind Energy

this IEA paper's summary section, 'Findings and Conclusions: Assessing the Gap', with commitment from MEP & IEA member countries, addresses and challenges the inaction/delay positions of the denier camp.

Work on low-carbon energy technologies is ongoing in a number of international forums. In particular, development and deployment of low-carbon technologies is an important topic in the Major Economies Forum (MEF) and under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At the request of the G8, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is also developing roadmaps for some of the most important low-carbon energy technologies, including information on how enhanced international collaboration can help advance individual technologies toward commercialization. However, there is a growing awareness of the urgent need to turn such political statements and analytical work into concrete action.

In July 2009, the MEF countries established a collective goal to expand international technology collaboration, with a focus on multiple specific energy technology areas MEF countries called for increased global research, development and demonstration (RD&D) with a view towards doubling expenditures for low-carbon technologies by 2015.

This paper seeks to inform decision making and prioritisation of RD&D investments and other policies to accelerate low-carbon energy technologies in the MEF and IEA member countries and others by providing three primary sets of information: (1)estimated current levels of public RD&D spending for the technology areas initially targeted by the MEF; (2) future RD&D priorities for these technologies, based on the IEA roadmaps and other efforts; and (3) an assessment of the gap between current levels of technology ambition and the levels that will be needed to achieve our shared climate change goals by 2050; concluding with suggestions for next steps that can be taken to advance the technologies.

[TimG]

an IEA 2009 analysis paper intended to identify and address gaps in 'Clean Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D).

It really does not make a difference how many times you post the document it does not change the fact that huge technology barriers exist are there is no way to know when or even if these barriers will be overcome. IOW, the document simply repeats the point I have been making all along and the only problem with the document is its rediculous claim that spending X dollars in R&D will actually overcome those barriers.

Fusion is perhaps the best example of how technological barriers don't dissappear simply because politicians wave their magic taxpayer wand. Despite spending billions on fusion power for decades and they are making progress but we are still a long way away from a commerically viable fusion reactor. The same will be true of many (if not most) of "savoir" technologies which are being touted today.

I am not saying we should not try and spend the money on R&D but if are making policy decisions today we must assume that no breakthough will be found and we have to work with what we have today.

Edited October 7, 2010 by TimG

[TimG]

On a more constructive note:

Why are we wasting time with wind and solar when thorium has so much more promise:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html

Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would light London for a week.

Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. "It’s the Big One," said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering.

"Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free. You don’t have to deal with uranium cartels," he said.

[wyly]

Try this:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008JCLI2722.1

$10 is a fortune to someone who has nothing. Scientists have no work if they don't get funding. They face the same pressures as any other business operator who has to attract customers or die. It does not make a difference if the sums are small.

In any case, I am sure the vast majority of scientists believe what they publish. The only issue hear is understanding the biases that might affect the interpretation of the data. Most people have no problems understanding that studies funded companies may be baised for the same reason. I don't understand why you refuse to accept the same problem exists for each individual.

do you even know a scientist...have you even met a scientist?...none of the ones I know need funding to work they have full time salary positions...funding only permits them to do extra research that they could not do it does not effect them having a job...

my neighbour a scientist, works full time in a lab, salary...my two friends, one a hydrology chemist full time job, salary position; the other full time salary position medical research...my 2 family members, both self employed one gets paid only if he produces a profit for his clients; the other does contract work, he bids on each job and must produce a solution...

so there's 5 scientists none rely on funding for work...

anecdotal evidence to be sure but better than your mythical "Scientists have no work if they don't get funding"

[TimG]

so there's 5 scientists none rely on funding for work.

But none of them decide what to research. They are told what to research by the people paying their salaries. Academic scientists have the freedom to choose what they work on but they need to beg for funding. The only one peddling myths are the people claiming that a scientist's abililty to make a living does not depend on coming up with research that can be sold to people with money. Edited October 7, 2010 by TimG

[Guest TrueMetis]

But none of them decide what to research. They are told what to research by the people paying their salaries. Academic scientists have the freedom to choose what they work on but they need to beg for funding. The only one peddling myths are the people claiming that a scientist's abililty to make a living does not depend on coming up with research that can be sold to people with money.

So how much money do you think the discovery of the Higgs Boson will be worth?

[Bonam]

Scientists obviously need funding. As someone who works in a lab, I've written many funding proposals. These proposals are usually aimed at very specific "requests for proposals" from organizations that have research money to give out, such as NASA, DoE, DoD, (to use US examples since that's where I work). The requests for proposals are related to scientific and technical goals that are determined by these organizations. So yes, what science gets done depends a lot on what science various agencies want to fund.

That being said, this does not necessarily introduce a bias. A NASA rfp regarding climate change does not read "develop a sensor for our satellite that will show that the Earth is warming", it reads more along the lines of "develop a sensor for our satellite that will monitor the Earth's temperature".

[Bonam]

So how much money do you think the discovery of the Higgs Boson will be worth?

Probably about $20 billion all together, the cost of building the accelerator and paying all the people that work there for a few years. That will be the cost, anyway.

As for the value, it will likely be far higher in the long run, since better understanding of fundamental physics leads to the eventual development of new technologies that have immense economic and societal impact.

[TimG]

So how much money do you think the discovery of the Higgs Boson will be worth?

You are missing the point. They only got the funding to study the Higgs-Boson in the first place because somebody with money was interested in it. In this case, the party in question was governments that believe that investing in primary science will lead to long term economic benefits - a case that is relatively easy to make given the amount technology today that only exists because of quantum theory. Edited October 7, 2010 by TimG

[Guest TrueMetis]

Probably about $20 billion all together, the cost of building the accelerator and paying all the people that work there for a few years. That will be the cost, anyway.

As for the value, it will likely be far higher in the long run, since better understanding of fundamental physics leads to the eventual development of new technologies that have immense economic and societal impact.

Ya think? I really wouldn't think that knowledge that something that requires such a massive and expensive to interact with exists would really do much. Some of the other stuff they are doing their but one of the main reasons they built the LHC is to find the Higgs Boson. (A far as I'm aware at least)

[TimG]

That being said, this does not necessarily introduce a bias. A NASA rfp regarding climate change does not read "develop a sensor for our satellite that will show that the Earth is warming", it reads more along the lines of "develop a sensor for our satellite that will monitor the Earth's temperature".

For this type of project you are correct. But when a government starts asking for studies on the impact of future climate change on X then your ability to get future funding depends on the government believing that more research is required. It is much harder to make this case with a study that claims that no significant impacts are found.

Here is a funny cartoon that makes the point: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/10/01/

[Bonam]

Ya think? I really wouldn't think that knowledge that something that requires such a massive and expensive to interact with exists would really do much. Some of the other stuff they are doing their but one of the main reasons they built the LHC is to find the Higgs Boson. (A far as I'm aware at least)

Something that massive and expensive today won't necessarily be so expensive tomorrow. Plasma wakefield accelerators, a technology I've done some research on, hold the promise of achieving energies comparable to the LHC in essentially table top or at least room-size devices. If the Higgs Boson truly is the fundamental source of the mass property of matter (as is theorized) and we can create and manipulate it in some way, that could lead to applications that are literally unfathomable today.

[Bonam]

For this type of project you are correct. But when a government starts asking for studies on the impact of future climate change on X then your ability to get future funding depends on the government believing that more research is required. It is much harder to make this case with a study that claims that no significant impacts are found.

True, but a scientist can study many different things, not just the impact of X on Y. If the scientist does quality work and it comes across in his presentation to whatever funding agency, whether the results support a particular hypothesis or not, chances are that he will be given consideration when they look to award future grants, whether they are in the same exact subject area or are slightly different. That is, unless, of course, the funding agency itself does not actually care about the truth but just wants phony science to back up their preconceived ideas. If that is the case, then the society in question has bigger problems than climate change anyway.

[TimG]

That is, unless, of course, the funding agency itself does not actually care about the truth but just wants phony science to back up their preconceived ideas. If that is the case, then the society in question has bigger problems than climate change anyway.

The issue is not phoney science. The issue is bias that does affect the interpretation of ambiguous data. This is especially true in climate science where the data is difficult to acquire and it is often necessary to apply ad hoc 'corrections' to the data.

[dre]

For this type of project you are correct. But when a government starts asking for studies on the impact of future climate change on X then your ability to get future funding depends on the government believing that more research is required. It is much harder to make this case with a study that claims that no significant impacts are found.

Here is a funny cartoon that makes the point: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/10/01/

Right yeah... Thousands of scientists world wide, and dozens of government bodies and regulatory bodies... are part of conspiracy to alter findings to get them funding for more research

[ToadBrother]

The issue is not phoney science. The issue is bias that does affect the interpretation of ambiguous data. This is especially true in climate science where the data is difficult to acquire and it is often necessary to apply ad hoc 'corrections' to the data.

That's only if the data is as ambiguous as you say. Making allowances for shaky variables in an aspect of virtually every science that works around statistics. If that's as serious an issue as you claim then everything from physics to geology is in jeopardy.

But the simple fact of any statistical science is that you do not have to have absolute values for every variable to see a trend. That's rather the point of statistical methodologies, to construct models on incomplete information.

[dre]

The issue is not phoney science. The issue is bias that does affect the interpretation of ambiguous data. This is especially true in climate science where the data is difficult to acquire and it is often necessary to apply ad hoc 'corrections' to the data.

No. YOUR issue is your OWN bias. You want to believe what you believe so badly that youre engaging in an "everything but the kitchen sink" attack on any sources of information that dont support your position.

[ToadBrother]

For this type of project you are correct. But when a government starts asking for studies on the impact of future climate change on X then your ability to get future funding depends on the government believing that more research is required. It is much harder to make this case with a study that claims that no significant impacts are found.

Here is a funny cartoon that makes the point: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/10/01/

That might be true if that's how things happened. But you've flipped the order of events here.

[dre]

On a more constructive note:

Why are we wasting time with wind and solar when

Why are we wasting time with wind and solar

We dont need message board ideologs opinions on technologies they know nothing about.

thorium has so much more promise:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html

Well disregarding your subjective political view of which technologies have more promise, I think they should look at technologies like the one you mentioned, and if real scientists think it shows promise we should start developing it.

[dre]

It is called reading the scientific claims and understanding what they are based on. If they have a reasonable supporting evidence that can be independently verified then I don't question them. If they are dubious extrapolations from limited and unreliable data then I consider them to be no better than an astrology column in the newspaper. The same goes for claims that depend on a computer model that cannot be tested in a lab to verify its correctness.

I should make it clear - saying I do not consider the arguments to be credible does not mean I believe the opposite view. In most cases I feel we simply do not and cannot know what the future will bring. The only thing worse than making decisions in the face of uncertainty is making decisions with a phoney sense of certainty.

It is called reading the scientific claims and understanding what they are based on

Well wouldnt that be a good place for you to start?

[TimG]

That's only if the data is as ambiguous as you say. Making allowances for shaky variables in an aspect of virtually every science that works around statistics. If that's as serious an issue as you claim then everything from physics to geology is in jeopardy.

You love this red herring. It is true that many other fields are forced to make the same kinds of guesses. These guesses only matter because climate scientists are running around telling people that their wild a** guesses are as good as facts and we have spend trillions of dollars and reorganize the economic structure of society. These kinds of economic investments require much more than the opinion of a bunch of scientists.

[jbg]

betsy, jbg - are you now both content and willing to let the thread move forward, as intended/requested... or do you still have pent-up, denialist, climate change related frustrations driving you to continue to attempt to de-rail the thread?

Waldo: They ruined the sand castle.

Wyly: Yes they bad boys.

[jbg]

tis the way of the denier

Echo chambers don't teach much.

[TimG]

Well disregarding your subjective political view of which technologies have more promise, I think they should look at technologies like the one you mentioned, and if real scientists think it shows promise we should start developing it.

Sorry - choosing technologies is a job for engineers - not scientists. But engineers can only build what the government allows them to build so it is up to the government to allow thorium to be used.

Also: you should look in a mirror before calling people idelogically motivated. Every argument you make is driven from your ideology.

Edited October 7, 2010 by TimG

[dre]

You love this red herring. It is true that many other fields are forced to make the same kinds of guesses. These guesses only matter because climate scientists are running around telling people that their wild a** guesses are as good as facts and we have spend trillions of dollars and reorganize the economic structure of society. These kinds of economic investments require much more than the opinion of a bunch of scientists.

These kinds of economic investments require much more than the opinion of a bunch of scientists.

Governments ARENT spending trillions of dollars based on the opinion of a bunch of scientists. There are a number of different factors driving energy policy. Its guided by scientists, economists, engineers, accountants, private companies, private and public utilities, and a host of other things.

Your simplistic and incomplete view of how science and technology effects policy is not even close to reality. In fact most governments have done very little of what the scientific community recommended they do, and in many cases did none of it at all. Which of course is because government (as I mentioned above) is driven by a host of different factors. Scientists can recommend whatever they want, and the government (at least in the developed world) will certainly listen to them and weigh what they have to say. But then the government consults dozens of other bodies as well... look at which policies are actually politically possible, financially possible, and so on.

Which is why this silly "sky is falling" scenario described by political opponents of energy progress has not happened even though they started these silly predictions in the 90's before Kyoto was even signed.