Stephen Gloor

Mr Hissink is on the list of 400

This is an exchange we had with Louis Hissink on Jennifer Morohasy's blog.  I am posting it here because in the brave new world of this blog it could get deleted because it is potentially embarrasing.

Anyway Louis claims that he is not on the list of the 400 scientists against Global Warming.  When I point out that the he is he denies that he knew he was on it.

________________________________________ start of extract ________________________________

Louis - "SJT has not read the list because if he/she had, he/she would realise I am not on it. So that makes his/her comment above not something one would expect from someone in full command of all the facts."

Is this you or the evil robot Louis that is impersonating you????????

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport

"Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa; Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay; Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adj Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden;

Louis Hissink M.Sc. M.A.I.G., Editor AIG News and Consulting Geologist, Perth, Western Australia;

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, U.S.; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis, Russia; Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, Sydney, NSW, Australia; "

Posted by: Ender  at January  4, 2008 08:55 PM

Why Ender,

Thank you, I hadn't realised I was so notorious. I have erred! I am on the list, not only as one of the 100 but now one of the 400!

Mind you, you have shot yourself in the foot as I have never initiated a law suit (Your post previous to the one above), so I can only assume that the hysterical ranting from you and SJT here means than you (collectively) consider me as a serious threat to your dogma.

Still waiting for the empirical (read experimental) support for your Oil theory, by the way.

Posted by: Louis Hissink  at January  4, 2008 09:56 PM

Given the denseness here, I opted to sign the list of 100, but I had no idea I was included on the list of 400, and would not until Ender corrected me.

Nonetheless, it's an honour.

And keep an eye on Henry Thornton folks, because the editor there has asked I amplify some points. Pure science of course, physics included, which should amuse SJT who thinks I don't have any credibility in that area.

Physics that is.

Posted by: Louis Hissink  at January  4, 2008 10:05 PM

More wiggles!

http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/01/2007-warmest-year-on-record-coldest-in.html

Posted by: Mark  at January  4, 2008 11:16 PM

Louis - "Thank you, I hadn't realised I was so notorious. I have erred! I am on the list, not only as one of the 100 but now one of the 400!"

Thats alright Louis always a pleasure. Now this question rears it's ugly head. If Louis really did not know that he was not on the list then how many of the others also do not know they are on the list?? OR were all the people on the list informed that they were there and Louis is just fibbing when he said he did not know.

Either way it is pretty bad. So what is it Louis? Were some the 400 put there without their knowledge or were you telling a bit of a fib????? I am sure we really need an answer here as most people don't like fibbers that are caught out.

"Still waiting for the empirical (read experimental) support for your Oil theory, by the way."

Do I really have to? I am still waiting for the oil wells that replenish, Oil without biomarkers and where oil has been found where abiotic oil theory predicted it would be. So far your petroleum geologist peers have found a couple of trillion barrels of oil where the biotic theory would predict it would be. So the current score is:

Biotic theory of oil formation ~2 trillion barrels
Abiotic theory of oil formation 0 barrels

Not convincing to a person of your beliefs however to anyone else, including your peers, it would be pretty conclusive.

Posted by: Ender  at January  5, 2008 12:03 AM

___________________________________ end of extract ____________________________________

I will be interested in his response.

Dilbert That Neatly Sums Up Climate Change Skeptics

This Dilbert so neatly sums up the attitude of fossil fuel vested interests it is breathtaking.

HVDC Across Australia

After studying the excellent information available at NEMMCO I started thinking about how good it would be to have a electricity link right across Australia linking the SWIS to the Eastern States.  Then I found out about HVDC and the new high temperature superconducting storage that is becoming available and it all fell into place.

In NSW, Qld, SA and now Tasmania because of BassLink there exists an electricity trading system where supply is matched to demand on a half hourly basis and electricity is treated as a commodity.  There are strict rules to prevent and ENRON style manipulation of electricity prices with mandatory reserves that must be in place of 800MW.  Western Australia operates it own network call the South West Integrated System (SWIS) and is isolated from the Eastern States despite the advantages of being 2 hours out of phase with the East.

One advantage just of being connected with nothing else done is that the time of peak over here (I live in Western Australia) is of course 2 hours different from the East because of Australia's enormous size that encompasses two time zones.

If you look at the diagram on the right, which is a realtime graph of demand in NSW,  you can see 2 peaks one at about 8:00am in the morning and a larger one at 6:00pm at night.  Now assuming that Western Australia has much the same peaks and troughs only 2 hours later WA could be using some of it's off peak capacity to supply the Eastern States peak and vice versa.  However it is when renewable power is added into the equation that the benefits become more apparent.  At 6:00pm in the East there is less solar power available even with daylight saving but as it is 4:00pm in Western Australia, solar thermal plants would be still producing near their peak values and capable of supplying the peak Eastern States time with renewable power.

The problem of course is the distance between Western Australia and Eastern Australia.  Expanding the map and using a calculator gives a distance of 2700 km from Perth to Adelaide which is the nearest point where the Eastern States grid is available.

This is a huge distance!!!.  If this was done with a AC distributer then there would be all sorts of losses.  For more detailed information read this.  From this reference "High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC)Transmission Systems" from the World Bank, the largest HVDC power system is the Itaipu HVDC Transmission Project in Brazil with the following characteristics:

Technical Data:
Commissioning year: 1984-1987
Power rating: 3150+3150 MW
DC voltage: ±600 kV
Length of overhead DC line: 785 km + 805 km
Main reasons for choosing HVDC system: Long distance, 50/60 Hz conversion

It has a total length of 800km is less than a third of what Australia requires so our link would be a technical challenge.  The cost can be estimated from the same reference - assuming a bipolar OH line with a price per km of 250 kUSD/km, converter stations are estimated to 250 MUSD gives a price for our link of:

2 converter stations              $500 000 000 USD
2700 km of cable                  $675 000 000 USD
Total                                $1 175 000 000 USD

Which is a lot however considering that a nuclear reactor will cost 4 billion and just supply base load this supply line across Australia will do far more that this.  For example if Forced Commutator power controls are used then:

Forced Commutated Converters. This type of converters introduces a spectrum of advantages,
e.g. feed of passive networks (without generation), independent control of active and reactive
power, power quality. The valves of these converters are built up with semiconductors with
the ability not only to turn-on but also to turn-off. They are known as VSC (Voltage Source
Converters). Two types of semiconductors are normally used in the voltage source converters:
the GTO (Gate Turn-Off Thyristor) or the IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor). Both of
them have been in frequent use in industrial applications since early eighties. The VSC
commutates with high frequency (not with the net frequency). The operation of the converter
is achieved by Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). With PWM it is possible to create any phase
3 angle and/or amplitude (up to a certain limit) by changing the PWM pattern, which can be
done almost instantaneously. Thus, PWM offers the possibility to control both active and
reactive power independently. This makes the PWM Voltage Source Converter a close to
ideal component in the transmission network. From a transmission network viewpoint, it acts
as a motor or generator without mass that can control active and reactive power almost
instantaneously.

The link can control phase and frequency of the whole Australian grid. This is only the start.

Look on the map and have a look where the link would pass thorough.  The desert areas have an average of between 8 and 9 sun hours per day - every day of the year.  If Concentrating Solar Power plants where set

up along the route of the HVDC link then thousands of megawatts of renewable solar power could be generated and used in both Eastern Australia and Western Australia.  Also as explained before the power is 2 hours out of phase.  Eastern Australia's solar power plants could supply Western Australia's 8:00 am peak and Western Australia could supply Eastern Australia's 6:00pm peak.

Have another look at the map where the link could travel through.  Apart from going across the Great Australian Bight which is a prime wind site where thousands of wind turbines could be situated it also neatly solves the transmission problems for the Hot Dry Rock resource of South Australia.  With construction of such a large HVDC link the extra link to the Cooper Basin would be easy to do and then we have a huge baseload of clean geothermal power to draw on.

Finally there exists one more technology that has the potential to change renewable power in Australia linked to the HVDC link and that is Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage or SMES.  This is basically coils of High Temperature Superconductor that are wound in a large coil and can store vast amounts of energy with almost no losses.  Read this from American Superconductor for working examples.  As we are using DC there does not need to be any conversion from AC to DC for storage and DC to DC conversion can be extremely efficient.  The wikipedia entry says this for large scale storage:

Size - To achieve commercially useful levels of storage, around 1 GW·h (3.6 TJ), a SMES installation would need a loop of around 100 miles (160 km). This is traditionally pictured as a circle, though in practice it could be more like a rounded rectangle. In either case it would require access to a significant amount of land to house the installation, and to contain the health effects noted below.

Now out on the Nullabor or even near Kalgoorlie you could lose a 160km loop without even trying.  Given say 2 of these, one near Perth and one near South Australia we could store 2 or 3 GWh of electricity indefinitely with only small losses and replace the operational reserve that is supplied with fossil fuels with clean storage.  This would also allow much greater clean reserves and allow much more renewable power to be connected that would not need as much storage so it would be cheaper.  Consider also that at both ends of the link would be advanced power converters, now with access to say 2 GW of storage and unlimited amounts of solar and geothermal generation.  These converters can act now as the heart of Australia's generating capacity leading to the possibility of Australia being completely renewable and needing no further coal plants or nuclear power plants for the distant foreseeable future.

The problems of such a link are mainly technical however what a magnificent engineering task it would be - another Snowy Mountains scheme.  The enormous advantages of easy large scale storage, connection of vast amounts of solar power in prime sun areas, wind in prime unpopulated wind areas and baseload geothermal power gives the possibility of reaching a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050.   For the people without vision there is the nuclear option of 19th century thinking with the attendant problems of cooling water, proliferation, and unsolved nuclear waste disposal or even more of the same old coal with the problem of how do you pump 140 million TONS of CO2 into the ground every year.  In comparison the probably huge technical problems of a 2700km electricity distributor seem trivial.  At least there are no unsolved problems.  We may be also able to attract David Mills back to Australia to build the 1 GW CSP thermal plants along the route.

How to Significantly Cut CO2 Emissions With No Economic Effect at All

Here is a simple way to cut 8% or 10% of emissions almost overnight and not disadvantage anyone except the Portland cement manufacturers.  We simply need to ban Portland cement and substitute geopolymer cement instead.

THE CONCRETE JUNGLE OVERHEATS:
Estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from one of the world’s growth industries
have been grossly underestimated.
“CEMENT kilns contribute more to the world’s output of carbon dioxide than aircraft and could soon be responsible for 10 per cent of all emissions of the greenhouse gas. New calculations by an industry scientist reveal that cement manufacturers already produce 7 per cent of global C02 emissions-almost three times previously published estimates, and that C02 output is increasing faster from cement works than from any other industrial source.
Cement production creates C02 in two ways: by the conversion of calcium carbonate to calcium oxide inside the kilns, and by burning large quantities of fossil fuels to heat the kilns to the 1450 C necessary for roasting limestone. Previous estimates for CO2 emissions from cement production have concentrated only on the former source. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts the industry’s total contribution to C02 emissions at 2.4 per cent; the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee quotes 2.6 per cent.
Now Joseph Davidovits of the Geopolymer Institute, a research institution based in Saint-Quentin, Picardie, France, has for the first time looked at both sources. He as calculated that world cement production of 1.4 billion tonnes a year produces 7 per cent of current C02 emissions. This puts it behind power generation and vehicle exhausts as a source of the gas, but ahead of aircraft, which have excited huge attention from politicians concerned about curbing global warming.
Dale Kaiser at Oak Ridge confirmed this week that “our calculation only singles out the chemical transformation aspect”. (...) John Lanchbery director of environmental projects at the Verification Technology Information Centre in London, who analyses national CO2 emissions inventories, says: “Cement is well known as the biggest manufacturing source of CO2, but I certainly had no idea the total was as high as is being suggested.”
Globally cement production is rising by 5 per cent a year, says Davidovits. He predicts that it will be responsible for a tenth of global CO2 emissions by 2000. It is growing fastest in the “tiger” economies of east Asia, where construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure is booming. In Korea, the industry is already responsible for an estimated 13 % of the country’s C02 emissions. (...) The silence on cement manufacture as a cause of global warming contrasts with the growing concern over aircraft emissions, which are estimated to contribute a maximum of 5 percent. Last month at the Earth Summit in New York, the European Union called for a global tax on aircraft fuel. But proposals for an internal EU tax on energy aimed at reducing C02 emissions, specifically excluded the cement industry because its energy use is so high that it was thought a tax would damage it. Fred Pearce

We can ban incandescent light globes - why not Portland Cement?  More information can be found here at the Western Australian Curtin Uni.

I Wonder if Bolty will Post This Comment

This is the post on Bolty's blog.  I have put my comment here just in case they don't make it through.

Glen V - "Somehow you seem to have missed the end of the quote from the IPCC report:"

Not only that Glen, he seems to also be forgetting just a few posts ago that the scientists are computer modelling bureaucracies and therefore not to be trusted:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/P30/

"Cockburn is right to note that much of the warming hysteria is bred by just a handful of huge computer modelling bureaucracies, which have some self interest at stake. Others have noted that these models calculate more than measure, and that they are mutually self-referential, which cuts the chances of dissent from the warming herd."

So now he is quoting from the same IPCC report that just before he was decrying as inaccurate computer models.

So which way is it Andrew?  You like the IPCC report, albeit misquoted, when you can score points against Robin Williams however when you want to score points against AGW 'cultists' the IPCC report is a computer generated list of mistakes.

This is a perfect example of double-speak.  You already have the eternal enemy to make the population fearful in your Muslim bashing now you are holding two mutually exclusive statements as truth.  Orwell would be proud.

Again this will be going on my blog just in case, in true Orwellian style, your editors censor it to preserve the illusion that you are all wise.

Update:  No posting of my comment so far.  BTW here is Bolty with a Blog Criticised post.  Here is my response - wonder if it will get on?

As a quite long time poster at this blog that almost never resorts to abuse I have had many comments censored. They have contained nothing but references to science that show Andrew Bolt or other posters to be plainly wrong.

I stridently object to people being classified for nothing more than being followers of one particular prophet, either Mohomad or Jesus or no prophet at all Judaism, multi god like Hindus or no imaginary friend like Buddhism.  Too often conclusions are drawn about a whole population from the evil actions of a few warped individuals.

In the same vein an enormous amount of incorrect information is posted here about a serious problem - global warming.  I post mainly to point out where the currently correct information can be found so readers of this blog, that have not made up their minds, will not only see the minority view of global warming that according to current scientific thought is totally discredited.

For examples of censored posts including probably this one goto stevegloor.typepad.com

Update 21 May 2007

Some of the above did not make it - here is another that I am sure will not make it on as it contains science - the krytonite for AGW skeptics.

J Hansford - "Science is essentially observation. For AGW there are no observations that match their theory."

Theory of AGW predictions:
Human fossil fuel use releases CO2

Observation
Experiments show that fossil fuel burning releases CO2 - eg: CH4 + O2 = CO2 + 2H2O

Theory predicts
Atmospheric CO2 will have a isotopic ratio consistant with fossil origin:

Observation
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/iso-sio/iso-sio.html

Prediction
Rise in CO2 levels from extra CO2

Observation
Measured rise in atmospheric CO2 - "This is the longest continuous record of CO2 in the world. The annual range of about 7 ppmv and the shape of the annual wave are well defined by these weekly data. An upward trend from about 315 ppmv in 1958 to about 370 ppmv in 2001 is evident; this amounts to an increase of about 1.3 ppmv/year (see the monthly averaged data )."
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel-flask/sio-keel-flaskmlo_c.html

Prediction
Change in radiative balance of the Earth

Observation
"Examination of the Relationship between Outgoing Infrared Window and Total Longwave Fluxes Using Satellite Data," P. Minnis (Atmos. Sci. Div., NASA-Langley, Hampton VA 23665), D.F. Young, E.F. Harrison, J. Clim., 4(11), 1114-1133, Nov. 1991.

To determine the accuracy of outgoing longwave radiation derived from narrowband data, infrared window data from GOES are correlated with longwave data from ERBE. Monthly mean outgoing flux may be determined with an rms uncertainty of 1.7% using a single infrared window channel with coincident cloud and humidity data."

So lets have your list of research that shows that AGW is NOT supported by observation.  Sorry you can't provide one - what a shame.  Just stick to unsupported statements.

See how this one goes.

Update 25May2007 - Here is another one:

Here is Andrew Bolt lying:

"ANDREW BOLT: You claim it's been discredited, that's absolute rubbish, it hasn't. That's absolute rubbish. I would guarantee that's there's not a single ABC staffer in the country with as much qualifications to speak on climate change as some of the professors of climatology and so on that are interviewed in this documentary."

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1932879.htm

Andrew yes it has been discredited by exactly the people with qualifications equal or better than the people speaking on the Swindle.  You know this and yet you still lie that it has not been discredited.

This is what climate scientists say about it.

"Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007

I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise."

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/

"By William and Gavin

On Thursday March 8th, the UK TV Channel 4 aired a programme titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". We were hoping for important revelations and final proof that we have all been hornswoggled by the climate Illuminati, but it just repeated the usual specious claims we hear all the time. We feel swindled. Indeed we are not the only ones: Carl Wunsch (who was a surprise addition to the cast) was apparently misled into thinking this was going to be a balanced look at the issues (the producers have a history of doing this), but who found himself put into a very different context indeed [Update: a full letter from Wunsch appears as comment 109 on this post]"

True that there is not a single ABC staffer with qualifications equal to Christie or Spencer however Gavin Schmidt and William Connolly are climate scientists with equal quals.

You lied mate - how about admitting it.

BTW I am posting this on my blog so censor it if you wish.

 

Bit of a Spat at Bolty's blog

Why I do this I do not know however Bolty's blog draws me like a moth to a flame - so many nutjobs hang out there it is so difficult to resist.  Anyway King Nutjob posted this:

What effect will increasing our emissions have on the world’s temperature?

Hear it explained carefully in scientific terms by Emeritus Professor Reid A. Bryson, founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology and said to be the most frequently cited climatologist in the world:

You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

So Bolty's reference is the "Most referenced climatologist in the world" and Bolty says so here again to Nick:

You and some other warming cultists on this thread have been typically dishonest on this point.

I said, perfectly accurately, that Reid was said to be the most frequently cited climatologist, and I linked to the article which proved it, and stated:

He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.

I note that you cannot dispute the science, so you try instead to vilify the messenger. How shameful. And as I said, how typical.

To which I replied

Andrew - "I said, perfectly accurately, that Reid was said to be the most frequently cited climatologist, and I linked to the article which proved it, and stated:

    He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world."

Funny you should say that because the article you reference has no further reference to where they got that information.  Here is the history of the Institute of British Geographers

"In 1933, some fellows of the Society broke away to form an organisation called the Institute of British Geographers. The RGS and IBG co-existed for 60 years until 1994 when a merger was discussed. In January 1995, the new Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) was formed."

So assuming that what this article said was true then the information must be from before 1994 after which the IBG ceased to exist.   So firstly if he was the most cited climatologist it would have been before 1994 and not really relevant today.

A search of http://www.rgs.org/HomePage.htm failed to uncover any reference to Reid A Bryson.  Are you sure that they said this?

So before you start accusing us of being (a) cultists  and (b)dishonest perhaps you can provide the article where your authority was quoted as the most cited climatologist in the world.

BTW I will put this on my blog as well just in case mysteriously doesn't make it through your censors.

I wonder if it will make it past the favourable comment only censors.

Update 09May2007 - As predicted my comment did not make it past the censors.  It seems Mr Bolt does not like comments that show him up.  I wrote this:

Andrew - So you don't like posts that show up your lack of research?  I was not abusive and I did not attack anyone however my comment did not make it through.

I repeat where is the reference or article or that Raid A Bryson is the most cite climatologist in the world.

Note the word WAS.  When was this, before 1994 when the British Institute of Geographers ceased to exist.

Wonder if it will make it in?

Have a Nice Thermal Maximum

I not sure what it was but this news story froze my heart:

Methane now bubbling from Beaufort Sea

Monday, January 29 2007 @ 06:48 PM MST    

Contributed by: bracewell    

Methane hydrates decomposing

Remotely Operated Vehicle observations revealed streams of methane-rich gas bubbles coming from the crests of pingo-like-features (PLFs) – due to warm water influx. We offer a scenario of how PLFs may be growing offshore as a result of gas pressure associated with gas hydrate decomposition.

Abstract

The Arctic shelf is currently undergoing dramatic thermal changes caused by the continued warming associated with Holocene sea level rise. During this transgression, comparatively warm waters have flooded over cold permafrost areas of the Arctic Shelf. A thermal pulse of more than 10°C is still propagating down into the submerged sediment and may be decomposing gas hydrate as well as permafrost. A search for gas venting on the Arctic seafloor focused on pingo-like-features (PLFs) on the Beaufort Sea Shelf because they may be a direct consequence of gas hydrate decomposition at depth. Vibracores collected from eight PLFs had systematically elevated methane concentrations. ROV observations revealed streams of methane-rich gas bubbles coming from the crests of PLFs. We offer a scenario of how PLFs may be growing offshore as a result of gas pressure associated with gas hydrate decomposition.

If this is widespread this could be disastrous for life on Earth.  Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and there are billions of tons of methane locked up.  One of the consequences of a methane burp is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) which:

In an event marking the start of the Eocene, the planet heated up in one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events recorded in geologic history, currently being identified as the 'Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum' or the 'Initial Eocene Thermal Maximum' (PETM or IETM). Sea surface temperatures rose between 5 and 8°C over a period of a few thousand years, but in the high Arctic, sea surface temperatures rose to a sub-tropical ~23°C/73°F.^[1] In 1990, marine scientists James Kennett and Lowell Stott, both then at the University of California, Santa Barbara, reported analysis of marine sediments showing that, not only had the surface of the Antarctic ocean heated up about 10 degrees at the beginning of the Eocene, but that the entire depth of the ocean had warmed, and its chemistry changed disastrously. There was severely reduced oxygen in deep sea waters, and 30 to 40% of deep sea foraminifera suddenly went extinct. Geologist Jim Zachos of the University of California, Santa Cruz has connected the Eocene heat wave to drastic changes in ocean chemistry that caused the massive worldwide die-off. More recently a synchronous drop in carbon isotope ratios has been identified in many terrestrial environments.

Climate Change Doublespeak

This is really dangerous and demonstrates what brilliance there is still in the Howard Government for deception.  They have with clever manouvering, including a tailor made report, made nuclear power the only solution for climate change.  As well, as the leading advocates of nuclear power, they become therefore the leading lights in combating climate change.  Brilliant!!!!  Of course now anyone who opposes this push for nuclear power, like the Western Australian Government who refuse to lift the uranium mining ban, are not serious about climate change.

Listen to them talk:

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell this week said he wants the WA Labor government to overturn its "obscene" ban because the world needs uranium and nuclear power can help in the fight against climate change.

and the justification:

Senator Campbell's argument for overturning WA's uranium mining ban rests chiefly on a study by Princeton University's Robert Socolow.

The senator said nuclear energy was one of seven measures identified by Professor Socolow, including renewable energies and energy efficiencies, that could stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

"By denying one of those technologies ... you are deciding that you want to cook the planet, Senator Campbell said.

"If you say no to exporting uranium, you are not serious about climate change."

So the postion is clearly that uranium mining means action on climate change.  So lets have a look at the OTHER wedges.

To clarify the scale of the effort, it is helpful to consider the emissions reductions needed over the next 10 years to stay on the flat path of Figures 1a and 1b, assuming the alternative is the currently predicted path. By 2014, as a point of reference, one might implement 20 percent of each of 7 wedges. There are many ways to do this.Addressing demand, to reduce electricity emissions, the world could accomplish the first 20 percent of a buildings efficiency wedge by replacing every burnt-out incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb. Addressing supply, the world could develop the first 20 percent of a wind wedge by completing 400,000 new wind turbines, or of a nuclear power wedge by building 140 new nuclear plants. It could implement CO storage projects with 700 times the capacity of the Sleipner project (see the box on carbon capture and storage on page 18). As part of an augmented strategy to displace coal with natural gas in power plants, it could build 10 natural gas pipelines having the capacity of the Alaska pipeline now under discussion.

• To reduce transport emissions, again addressing demand, the world could improve average vehicle fuel economy by 25 percent with the assumption that the amount of driving also increases by 25 percent. Addressing supply, the world could convert 50 million hectares (200,000 square miles) to crops like sugar cane that can be converted to ethanol with modest fossil fuel inputs. It could accelerate the arrival of hydrogenpowered vehicles and the production of low-carbon hydrogen.

• To reduce emissions from the spaceheating and -cooling of buildings, the world could embark on a campaign of implementing best-available design and construction practices, especially for new buildings but also for the retrofit of buildings.

The world could take some pressure off the energy system by modifying the agricultural practices on nearly one-fifth of all cropland to bring about conservation tillage. It could create 60 million hectares of sustainable plantations on nonforested land and set a new course to eliminate tropical deforestation within 50 years. It is hard not to feel overwhelmed by this menu. Are there ways out? Perhaps an optimum pace for a 50-year campaign would result in bringing some of these wedges forward more slowly, accomplishing less than 20 percent of the job in the first 10 years. But how much more slowly?

Perhaps the number of parallel efforts can be reduced by getting two or three wedges from a single strategy; energy efficiency is the most likely area. But for many of the other strategies, bringing on two wedges is more than twice as hard as bringing on one because cheap and easy opportunities will be used up early on. Perhaps the stabilization triangle will turn out to be smaller: The world economy might grow more slowly, and green plants, in response to elevated CO2 levels, might store more carbon than predicted. But the stabilization triangle could just as easily be larger (see the box on pages 14 and 15). In this case, getting onto a path that avoids doubling the preindustrial CO concentration might require more than seven wedges.

So what after taking SO much notice of Professor Scowscroft's work what else is the government doing to combat climate change?  Has it raised the MRET to encourage further investment in renewable power?  No it has refused on many occasions to do this citing the impact of the economy.  Has the government introduced energy efficiency standards in either cars or houses? No it has been the states that have done this usually against the Federal Government's wishes. 

Senator Campbell has stated that to ignore one type of wedge is not to be serious about climate change.  Nuclear Power and Carbon Capture and Storage are only one part of one of the wedges.  Energy efficiency, land use changes and renewable energy are all just as important and being ignored and sidelined in this insane push to line the pockets of Liberal Party friends by mining more uranium.

Senator Campbell thinks that by denying uranium mining is cooking the planet.  What about denying renewable power and trying to sell more coal?  How about not helping an electric car to be licensed that can cut transport emissions - is that cooking the planet as well?  We can do as much for one wedge simply by banning incandescent light globes and subsidising compact fluorescents than building nuclear power at a lower cost and more easily.  We can stabilise another wedge by raising the MRET to 10%.  We can legislate that all new houses and houses that are sold must have a solar hot water system.  We can introduce a Zero Emission Vehicle mandate on car makers that sell cars in Australia to force them to sell electric cars here.  We can introduce London style congestion taxes in the centers of our most congested cities.  That has already encouraged people to buy electric cars as they are exempt from the tax.

But apparently to be serious about climate change the only option is to sell uranium as Ziggy has said.

Nuclear Power in Australia

Unsurprisingly the nuclear power committee has concluded that nuclear power is needed for Australia.  Of course Mr Howard has promised to move swiftly on the recommendations.  Now swiftly for Mr Howard is the 15 years that the report suggests it would take for nuclear power to get up and running.

Mr Howard said the Government would respond quickly to the board's recommendations.

"Nuclear power is part of the solution both to Australia's energy and climate change challenges," Mr Howard said.

However, he admitted nuclear power was not a "silver bullet" and was not economically feasible at the moment.

"It's not going to come immediately because it's not economic at present, but it will become increasingly economic as we clean up the use of coal," Mr Howard said.

So we need to clean up coal which will also take about 15 years before this useless government will take any action on climate change, which it really does not believe in.

Contrast this with what the party I belong to, the next government of Australia, thinks and says.

Nuclear power will do nothing to protect the Australian economy and environment from climate change, says Labor's treasury spokesman Wayne Swan.

Prime Minister John Howard has released the final report of the government's Uranium Mining Processing and Nuclear Energy Task Force, saying nuclear energy could help stem the rise in electricity prices as the nation attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But Mr Swan says the economics of nuclear energy do not add up.

"The Howard government's fixation on nuclear energy is a massive distraction from the main game of protecting our economy and environment from the dangerous effects of climate change," he said in a statement.

"Even if Australia were to adopt and implement the report's recommendations, it would come too late to be of any practical use in the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 to 15 years," he said.

Mr Swan said the Switkowski report confirms 25 nuclear power stations would only be feasible in Australia with massive government subsidies and would be at least 50 per cent more expensive than existing alternatives.

Renewable energies would be more commercially viable, he said, and would also reduce emissions and meet Australia's energy needs.

"John Howard must face up to the fact that nuclear power costs too much, takes too long and produces dangerous radioactive waste for future generations to manage.

"It is not a solution, it's the creation of a further problem," he said.

This is what I am in total agreement.  Not just because I am a member.  I am a member of the Labor party precisely because this is what the Labor party stands for.  Nuclear power is a dangerous distraction from the solutions that will work in the order of importance.

1.    Reduce energy use

2.    Use the energy more wisely with efficiency gains

3.    Use more and more renewable energy to replace fossil fuels.

4.    Replace fossil fuel transport with electric transport enabled for V2G.

5.   Enhance the present dinosaur grid with micro-grids with local generation and storage.

Nuclear power only addresses the supply side and allow us to ignore the demand side which is a lot more important.

Interesting Presentation on Climate Change

I listened to this presentation on climate change this morning on the train.  Unfortunately it is behind a pay wall that I subscribe to on EVWorld and I do not think they would be too happy if I posted it.  I will post some of the conclusions.

Schrag is a geologist by training who studies climate over the course of millions and billions of years. He pointed out that the earth hasn't seen CO2 concentrations comparable to today since the Eocene age some 30 million years ago, and given current trends, is likely to "be off the top of this page."

On Earth the problem of modeling our climate is complicated by the presence of water in the atmosphere, he said. Using 100 years of ocean and land observations, "we have assembled that information and created the best possible models we have of the future. And now we're taking the planet to someplace it hasn't been for 30 million years, and the question is, how good do you expect those models to be based on a hundred years of observation? That's the experiment we're doing with the planet."

Schrag observed that the last time we think the planet's atmosphere held 500 ppm of CO2 was in the distant Eocene epoch 30-50 million years ago, but because there were no ice caps in Greenland or the Antarctic, we simply can't be sure. There were crocodiles living above the Arctic circle, the deep ocean was 12 degrees C rather than 1 degree C as today, the Antarctic was covered in a pine forest and sea level was at least 100 meters higher than it is today.

While all this doesn't sound all that bad, he said, getting there in a mere 100 years time is problematic. He asked how many people in the audience live within 100 meters of sea level.

The world as it might have appeared during the Eocene epoch more than 30 million years ago when carbon dioxide levels were thought to be in the range of 500 parts per million

Turning back to the climate models, he said the 'dirty little secret' is that when we try to account for influence of rising CO2 levels, "we can't get it right", noting that we don't understand the role of winter in these ancient climates. Palm trees in Wyoming would die in winter, so there's some part of our understanding -- probably the feedback loops -- of those distant times that we can't fully account for.

The real fear isn't that our models don't work that well when carried into the future, but that the real climate is much more sensitive to perturbations than our crude models.

"Whatever Cameron showed you of the model prediction, my worry is that the real world is actually more sensitive than that," he cautioned. "So, what we don't know might hurt us."

He added the caveat that it's entirely possible that climate change could be much milder than the models suggest. But he also pointed out that the difference between the climate of Boston today and 18,000 years ago when it was covered with an ice sheet was a mere 5 degrees C average global temperature.

"We're performing an experiment on a planetary scale that hasn't been done for millions of years and no one, no scientist can actually predict what's going to happen. There is uncertainty in this. The skeptics who say, you know the science is very uncertain, they are absolutely correct. However, the uncertainty cuts both ways. In fact, from my look at geologic history, uncertainty actually tends to the wrong way, most of what we don't know is pretty dangerous... There will be surprises."

For more you need to subscribe to EVWorld for USD$19.00 per year.  I have never regretted my membership as I am very interested in Electric Vehicles.

The main point to this presentation is that response to climate change should be an risk management issue.  I have been talking about this for some time now and this just confirms it.

To put it into a different scenario that is applicable to Australia at the moment is bushfires.  If I moved to a rural bushfire prone area I would have to accept a certain responsibility for the privilidge of living on a rural block with a risk of bushfire.  To mitigate this risk people put in place certain strategies such as large pumps with water reserve, clearing the land around the house of combustibles, and having either an evacuate or stay and fight plan in the case of bushfires.  People that build dream houses in rural blocks that do none of this are treated with disdain when their houses burn down.  For them the strategy of denial, that though bushfires have happened in this area it will not happen to them, might work for a while, in the long term it might kill them. Yet no-one can tell in advance exactly where the bushfire will happen, when it will happen or how severe it will be.  Because of this the bushfire denier people could be quite justified in saying that you cannot tell scientifically predict when the fire will occur or anything about it's effects, so why should they spend thousands of dollars on fire fighting equipment that might never be used.  The sad sight of burnt out houses and deaths of ill-prepared people testify to the ineffectiveness of this strategy.

In exactly the same way Climate Change from anthropogenic global warming should be treated as a risk management case.  No-one can categorically say whether climate change will happen, what it's extent will be, who will be effected and when it will happen as there are too many uncertainties.  However this is not a license to barrel on regardless.  There is a significant risk that climate change will happen and will have some effects on the humans living in the planet.  The sensible thing to do is to take action to mitigate the risk like lowering CO2 emissions so that the eventual climate change is the smallest possible to give the most people the greatest chance to survive and adapt to the changes.  If CO2 gets above 500ppm then the sea rise could be dramatic and swift and the climate changes could be so great that significant human misery could result.

Like bushfire preparations climate change preparation is just good sense.