DC Reade
traveling
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
I'm noticing the usual array of objections to nuclear power: 1) that high level waste storage is impractical; 2) that reactors are easy terrorist targets; 3) that radiation is such a horrific form of pollution that only zero tolerance will suffice; 4) that the track record of Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Miles Island demonstrates that the technology is inherently unsafe.
If people were to investigate these objections instead of regarding them as truisms, they'd find that 1) high-level nuclear waste can be reprocessed using fast-neutron reactor technology and reused to consume nearly all of it; 2) nuclear reactors are not exactly soft targets for terrorist groups, particularly in terms of making bomb-grade fissile material available to them; 3) some level of radiation is inescapable simply in the course of residing on the planet, and people incur much more of an additional radiation load as airline passengers than people do by living in proximity to a nuclear power plant; and 4) Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island are more examples of failure to heed ordinary good sense precautions than they are indications of an inherently dangerous technology.
Furthermore, the best and cleanest nuclear reactor designs- Gen III and Gen IV- are only now coming online. There are designs that don't use water for cooling. There are designs that don't even require uranium.
It's imperative to not fall into the trap of obsessing over every problem while objecting to every solution.
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10 REPLIES
Lynn commented April 6, 2019
L
Lynn
New York
April 6, 2019
@DC Reade
"high-level nuclear waste can be reprocessed using fast-neutron reactor technology and reused to consume nearly all of it"
So is anyone doing that first with all the waste that's already lying around with no plan to go?
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Ian Rasmussen commented April 6, 2019
I
Ian Rasmussen
Chicago
April 6, 2019
@Lynn As my understanding goes, the way to reprocess as @CD Reade mentions is called a Breeder Reactor, and yes, they are used around the world. That's what the authors are talking about when they say "we can either burn the waste as fuel in new types of reactors or bury it underground." For whatever reason we don't use them in America, I'm not sure why, probably politics. Europe and I believe Japan have used them for a while, and China just opened one in the last decade as they push forward on nuclear power. Could be some nuclear arms treaty fine print or something that prevents us in the US, or just the general fear of the word nuclear.
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DC Reade commented April 6, 2019
D
DC Reade
traveling
April 6, 2019
@Ian Rasmussen
In the US, the obstacles are based in politics and litigation. I've gotten to view most of that resistance as based in irrational fear- with the (dys)functional result being that high-level nuclear waste products continue to be stored on-site in cooling ponds long after they've cooled enough to be moved, which is a much more potentially hazardous than transporting the material for reprocessing in a breeder reactor, or moving it to a remote storage site that's nowhere near any bodies of water and relatively secure from being mobilized by the wind and weather.
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617to416 commented April 7, 2019
617to416
617to416
Ontario Via Massachusetts
April 7, 2019
@DC Reade
"Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island are more examples of failure to heed ordinary good sense precautions than they are indications of an inherently dangerous technology. "
And are we confident that "failures to heed ordinary good sense" are a thing of the past and that we've now entered an era where humans will be free from error, always rational, and never motivated by passion, greed, or anger?
The failure to heed ordinary good sense is a significant risk that any truly rational person can't ignore!
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K D commented April 7, 2019
K
K D
Pa
April 7, 2019
@DC Reade
The incident at Three Mile was handled exactly the way it was suppose to be handled. They followed procedures and no radiation escaped.
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Cactus commented April 7, 2019
C
Cactus
RI
April 7, 2019
@DC Reade
You've said everything better than I could. I understand many anti-nuclearists think they are protecting life on our planet. If only they would educate themselves----we are so mis-informed. The author's book is a good start as is Gretchen Craven's Power to Save the World.
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Anne commented April 7, 2019
A
Anne
Chicago
April 7, 2019
In a few years homes can fully power themselves (https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/fuel-cells/solar-panel-prototype-splits-water-to-produce-hydrogen).
That leaves a much smaller production need for industry and vehicles which can be largely covered with other renewables. The US has the open space and latitude for it.
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Peter Melzer commented April 7, 2019
P
Peter Melzer
C'ville, VA
April 7, 2019
@Ian Rasmussen,
Russia is the only country that claims to have developed functional commercial-scale fast breeder reactors. France's Superphenix produced power for a few weeks before the project was abandoned because of technical difficulties. Japan's Monju project never went on grid. Construction of the Clinch River reactor in the US was abandoned in its early infancy.
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Varsityvic commented April 7, 2019
V
Varsityvic
NJ
April 7, 2019
@Ian Rasmussen I worked as a nuclear engineer on the breeder reactor. Government funded, cancelled a few years after TMI accident for both political and economic reasons. They are much more complex than normal reactors. I’m surprised no mention of geothermal in article or comments by others.
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Dirk commented April 7, 2019
D
Dirk
Camden, Maine
April 7, 2019
@K D It may have been handled exactly the way "it should be" but it never should have happened in the first place. What it proves is that nuclear accidents (and blunders) WILL happen. Full Stop.
Therefore we need to expect more of them if we build more of them. You didn't mention the costs of 3-Mile Island. From what I can gather it cost $973M (or almost a billion dollars) to clean up -- which doesn't include the cost of building the reactor. It was new at the time it failed so all the imbedded costs in its construction and startup were lost. These babies are not cheap and some will fail. 3-Mile Island came very close to a complete meltdown. Fukishima is not done melting yet -- it's still a major disaster in progres. But that said, it's predicted to cost Japan over $200Billion (American dollars) over time. Five of those and you have a Trillion. This is playing with fire. Solar is not.
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paul commented April 7, 2019
P
paul
White Plains, NY
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
Finally, a voice of reason in an age of anti-nuclear rhetoric. Nuclear power is efficient, economical and safe, despite the fear mongering of people who simply ignore the science and the facts. Look at New York state, where the witless Governor Andrew Cuomo has frightened the residents of the Hudson Valley into the imminent shut down of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Where will the replacement power come from? How much will it cost? No amount of wind or solar power can generate what Indian Point does, but Cuomo simply ignores the economic realities. Sheer stupidity, or more likely the outright political manipulation of the people.
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rosa commented April 7, 2019
R
rosa
ca
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
I'm 70.
I was born about the time that nuke-poer and nuke-weapons came on the scene.
Nuke power, they said, was going to be cheap!Evry one would use it for pennies a day!
And they never said anything about nuke waste.
They didn't have to.
There was a terrific site in Washington. All they had to do was scrape a deep trench in the soil, throw in the waste, scrape a cover over it, and, VIOLA! No more problem!
When I left Washington, they had 'discovered' that, ooops, the trenches were leaking. Into the Columbia. Heading downstream. So, don't eat the fish.
You'll forgive me, young men, if I don't believe anyone when they say they have a solution to.... pretty much anything, but especially, nuclear waste.
We still have no solution to Chernobyl.
We have no solution to Fukushima Diachi.
Yucca Mountain? It's one of the most earthquake states, Nevada, that there is.
And what about that nuclear power plant that was built on the California coast?
Sorry.
Never.
There is no industry in the world that is run by a more incompetent bunch, ever.
I am 70.
So are nukes.
Seriously, NYTimes?
Is this the next subject that shall be "normalized"?
Solar.
Wind.
Hydro.
Tidal.
They are all cheaper - and safer.
No nukes - for any reason - until the problem with "WASTE" is solved.
Start with the state of Washington.
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3 REPLIES
spike commented April 7, 2019
spike
spike
NYC
April 7, 2019
@rosa Nukes always seem like a great idea on paper, but in the end they always end up much more expensive then alternatives. Any mistake is very expensive to fix, the waste problem is endless. The need to place them next to water and near cities means any problem becomes catastrophic. The huge capital cost means engineers will always be pushed to cut corners so that Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are sited over faults. Hindsight always shows ways that disasters could have been avoided- Fukushima would have survived if the fuel tanks for the back up pumps have been underground so that they were not swept away by the tsunami. But all systems fail at some point. After the Tohoku earthquakes probably the safest place to put a nuke plant is Fukushima- it wouldn't see another earthquake a large for a very long time. Instead Japan maintains nuke plants at other more vulnerable locations. Probably the safest place to dump nuclear waste would be in the deep oceans, where it would be slowly diluted by the vast ocean. Instead it will be placed on land where it will be vulnerable to terrorists, earthquakes, leak into water supplies and always be a danger.
3eeeeeeeddddededeeeee
Blue Moon
Old Pueblo
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
Three Mile Island had a seriously adverse effect on the American psyche. After that, no new nuclear plants were licensed for startup until 2012 (33 years later). And many plants that were being planned at the time wound up delayed or canceled.
China is on track for 100 nuclear generating stations in the near future (as well as robust investment in wind and solar). If they can do it, why can't we? And if we still decide not to do it, that decision isn't going to stop the Chinese.
There is no rational reason for America not to pursue nuclear power in earnest again. We fell off the wagon. It's high time to get back on.
Rod Adams
Rod Adams
Trinity, FL
April 7, 2019
@b fagan Your link points to a graph of installed and projected CAPACITY, not generation.
Because nuclear plants run at 100% of their capacity for major portions of each year, they produce more electricity per unit of capacity than variable sources like wind.
Though nuclear CAPACITY was just 2% in 2016, nuclear electricity generation in 2018 was 294.4 billion kWh. That's 4.2% of the total generation and an 18% increase over 2017.
In 2018, China put 8 new nuclear plants into operation; most of them only generated power for a small portion of the year. Expect another large incremental growth in nuclear electricity production for 2019.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/24/c_137771695.htm
One more thing - China is also building one of the world's largest nuclear powered icebreakers. I'm pretty sure that wind powered icebreaking isn't even a thing.
Blue Moon
Old Pueblo
April 7, 2019
@seattle expat
Natural gas burns cleaner than coal but still pumps CO2 into the atmosphere. Fracking represents an extreme environmental hazard (e.g., water table contamination, earthquakes). Realistically, wind and solar will take many decades to implement effectively for a large portion of the U.S. population, requiring a "transcontinental railroad" infrastructure effort to transmit the power from solar and wind farms to where it is needed. Battery storage capacity will take many more decades to properly develop for commercial applications. We can get nuclear plants up and running within 20 years, in abundance. Natural gas to nuclear to renewables (wind, solar) is the best progression and the way we need to go. Threats from nuclear waste disposal and accidents pale in comparison to the existential threats of global warming and climate change. China certainly has its share of problems, but safely embracing nuclear power generation is not one of them. Nuclear power will provide the path to powering our electric cars of the near future. It is foolish to shun it.
Expanding the technology is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize the economy.
April 6, 2019
Beyond decarbonizing today’s electric grid, we must use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in transportation, industry and heating. We must provide for the fast-growing energy needs of poorer countries and extend the grid to a billion people who now lack electricity. And still more electricity will be needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by midcentury.
Where will this gargantuan amount of carbon-free energy come from? The popular answer is renewables alone, but this is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper, but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon. Today, renewables work only with fossil-fuel backup.
Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and, according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early. //
But we actually have proven models for rapid decarbonization with economic and energy growth: France and Sweden. They decarbonized their grids decades ago and now emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot.
They did this with nuclear power. And they did it fast, taking advantage of nuclear power’s intense concentration of energy per pound of fuel. France replaced almost all of its fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power nationwide in just 15 years; Sweden, in about 20 years. In fact, most of the fastest additions of clean electricity historically are countries rolling out nuclear power.
New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But they don’t need to be so costly. The key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear plants is standardization and repetition. The first product off any assembly line is expensive — it cost more than $150 million to develop the first iPhone — but costs plunge as they are built in quantity and production kinks are worked out.
Yet as a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put it, while France has two types of reactors and hundreds of types of cheese, in the United States it’s the other way around. In recent decades, the United States and some European countries have created ever more complicated reactors, with ever more safety features in response to public fears. New, one-of-a-kind designs, shifting regulations, supply-chain and construction snafus and a lost generation of experts (during the decades when new construction stopped) have driven costs to absurd heights. //
These economic problems are solvable. China and South Korea can build reactors at one-sixth the current cost in the United States. //
dozens of American start-ups are developing “fourth generation” reactors that can be mass-produced, potentially generating electricity at lower cost than fossil fuels. If American activists, politicians and regulators allow it, these reactors could be exported to the world in the 2030s and ’40s, slaking poorer countries’ growing thirst for energy while creating well-paying American jobs. //
Currently, as M.I.T.’s Richard Lester, a nuclear engineer, has written, a company proposing a new reactor design faces “the prospect of having to spend a billion dollars or more on an open-ended, all‑or‑nothing licensing process without any certainty of outcomes.” We need government on the side of this clean-energy transformation, with supportive regulation, streamlined approval, investment in research and incentives that tilt producers and consumers away from carbon.
All this, however, depends on overcoming an irrational dread among the public and many activists. The reality is that nuclear power is the safest form of energy humanity has ever used. Mining accidents, hydroelectric dam failures, natural gas explosions and oil train crashes all kill people, sometimes in large numbers, and smoke from coal-burning kills them in enormous numbers, more than half a million per year.
By contrast, in 60 years of nuclear power, only three accidents have raised public alarm: Three Mile Island in 1979, which killed no one; Fukushima in 2011, which killed no one (many deaths resulted from the tsunami and some from a panicked evacuation near the plant); and Chernobyl in 1986, the result of extraordinary Soviet bungling, which killed 31 in the accident and perhaps several thousand from cancer, around the same number killed by coal emissions every day. (Even if we accepted recent claims that Soviet and international authorities covered up tens of thousands of Chernobyl deaths, the death toll from 60 years of nuclear power would still equal about one month of coal-related deaths.) //
Nuclear waste is compact — America’s total from 60 years would fit in a Walmart — and is safely stored in concrete casks and pools, becoming less radioactive over time. After we have solved the more pressing challenge of climate change, we can either burn the waste as fuel in new types of reactors or bury it deep underground. It’s a far easier environmental challenge than the world’s enormous coal waste, routinely dumped near poor communities and often laden with toxic arsenic, mercury and lead that can last forever.
Characterizing the current warming as an urgent and impending crisis is silly considering the scientific evidence we have today. There is no need to remove national boundaries, form a global government, and abandon capitalism to “save the world.” Climate changes, we all accept this, perhaps it is mostly man-made, perhaps it is mostly natural, we don’t know. What we do know is that many communities may be affected by climate change. Sea level is rising, the best long-term estimates are that it is rising between 1.8 and 3 millimeters per year. This is not a large rate, perhaps seven inches to a foot in 100 years, much less than the daily tides. But, if it causes problems, seawalls can be built, people can move from dangerous areas or elevate their houses; it is a problem that can be dealt with locally, as it has been for thousands of years. Why use a global solution? //
Gordon J. Fulks, Ph.D. is a physicist, originally from the University of Chicago’s Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research. He is currently one of the Directors of the CO2 Coalition, a group of prominent scientists and economists who point out that carbon dioxide and water vapor are the entirely beneficial byproducts of our civilization. He has been fighting the good fight against knaves and fools pushing climate alarmists’ draconian economic solutions for a nonexistent problem that have become manifested in a “Green New Deal.” In a letter below, he provides a colleague with a succinct scientific argument that can be used to educate people about global warming. It is repeated in its entirety with his permission with the hope that the arguments presented can be used by many to combat the Left’s environmental propaganda:
That’s right, you should NOT charge your electric vehicles during a heat wave in California. Why? Because, like the power supply system in many developing countries, California’s electric power generators can’t deliver enough electricity to CAISO to meet demand. //
Meanwhile, in Sacramento the governor, legislators, and regulators still think electric vehicles are vital to California’s plan to reduce emissions over the next two decades. In 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, by executive fiat, set 2035 as a target date for ending the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles as a way to fight “climate change” in the state. //
California suffers from an electric grid problem, because the state has eschewed reliable fossil fuels in favor of unreliable green energy, such as wind and solar power. This presents a problem, because such sources don’t work when the wind stagnates during heat waves or at night. when there’s no sunlight. Simultaneously, the state is exacerbating this problem, creating ever more demand for electricity by promoting electric vehicles and shutting down access to natural gas appliances. //
In 2020, California’s electric grid came within minutes of collapse due to heavy loads at the same time solar power slumped at sunset. On August 17, during the CAISO Board of Governors Meeting, CAISO President Steve Berber let loose with this bit of reality.
According to the transcript, Berber said, “You are trading the loss of 3,000 megawatts for the collapse of the entire system of California and perhaps the entire West. … When you’re at the very edge and you have a contingency and you have no operating reserves, you risk entire system collapse.”
A Boston professor created an invention that reflects the heat off of rooftops and even sucks the heat out of homes and buildings - and the real kicker is that it is 100 percent recyclable.
Yi Zheng, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University, created "cooling paper" so that a building or home could essentially keep cool on its own, with no electricity required, according to Northeastern University's blog.
The paper can cool down a room's temperature by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit - a game-changing alternative to air conditioners that require a lot of electricity and money from home owners. //
Zheng's invention works through the "porous microstructure of the natural fibers" inside the cooling paper, which absorbs warmth and reemits it away from the building. The cooling paper itself is made out of common paper.
The light-colored material is part of Zheng's studies into nanomaterials. His idea was first sparked after seeing a bucket full of printing paper. //
Zheng and his team used a high-speed blender from his home kitchen to turn the paper into a pulp and mixed it with the material that makes up Teflon.
The product can coat buildings and homes, reflecting solar rays away from the interior and even absorbing heat from cooking, electronics and human bodies out of the indoor space.
Even when the paper is recycled, it still performs as well as the original. ///
Nice, but saying that it cools buildings is somewhat misleading: it can cool buildings below the temperature they might otherwise be without it, but it can't cool it below ambient temperature, which is half the point of air conditioning. The other half is reducing humidity, and it does nothing for that.
What this could well do is make existing air conditioning more efficient, and that is a worth doing.
California will spend $500 million to thin forests to prevent fires
dailymail.co.uk //
This is long overdue. When you look at the historical trends of California fires, it was clear that a lack of proper forest management and suppressing of natural burns had caused the last half-decade of carnage. Now that Trump is out of office, California can admit he was right without having to admit he was right. It’s all very convenient, but it’s also deeply cynical. How many people suffered because Democrats wanted to play politics with forest fires? Never mind that in some cases, the fires were man-made, which meant that blaming climate change was even more farcical in those instances.
In the end, Trump was right and his detractors were wrong, again. But they weren’t just wrong by chance. They purposely lied at the expense of people’s lives and homes in order to avoid having to agree that a Republican president was right.
Summary.
A growing number of insurance companies are cutting ties with the fossil fuel companies they used to cover. New insight from data analytics firm Verisk finds that over 30 years, insurers sustained roughly $60 billion in onshore and offshore large risk losses from fossil fuel companies, with only another $30 million or so coming from other companies. The author urges a push toward renewables, examining the obstacles leading to industry hesitancy and how it might overcome them. //
Late last year, Lloyd’s of London announced plans to stop selling insurance for some types of fossil fuel companies by 2030. In the world of insurance, it was a huge move: the centuries-old institution not only took a clear stand in the industry’s debate on climate change, it also cast doubt on the value of the business it intends to give up. And Lloyd’s isn’t the only one with concerns about the future of fossil fuel. Insurers and reinsurers around the world are grappling with issues related to both climate change and the impact of energy transition on their portfolios. Some have made the same commitment that Lloyd’s did, and others are likely to follow.
Emissions of the greenhouse gas commonly known as laughing gas are soaring. Can we cut emissions from its greatest anthropogenic source? //
In the world's effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the source of our food is coming into the spotlight. There's good reason for that: Agriculture accounts for 16 to 27% of human-caused climate-warming emissions. But much of these emissions are not from carbon dioxide, that familiar climate change villain. They're from another gas altogether: nitrous oxide (N2O).
Also known as laughing gas, N2O does not get nearly the attention it deserves, says David Kanter, a nutrient pollution researcher at New York University and vice-chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative, an organisation focused on nitrogen pollution research and policy making. "It's a forgotten greenhouse gas," he says.
Yet molecule for molecule, N2O is about 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide at heating the atmosphere. And like CO2, it is long-lived, spending an average of 114 years in the sky before disintegrating. It also depletes the ozone layer. In all, the climate impact of laughing gas is no joke. Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have estimated that nitrous oxide comprises roughly 6% of greenhouse gas emissions, and about three-quarters of those N2O emissions come from agriculture.
Cities are considering measures to phase out gas hookups amid climate concerns, spurring some states to outlaw such prohibitions //
A growing fight is unfolding across the U.S. as cities consider phasing out natural gas for home cooking and heating, citing concerns about climate change, and states push back against these bans.
Major cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and New York have either enacted or proposed measures to ban or discourage the use of the fossil fuel in new homes and buildings, two years after Berkeley, Calif., passed the first such prohibition in the U.S. in 2019.
one Australian media figure, in particular, was particularly incensed at what he viewed as young folks being spoiled and brainwashed and took to the airwaves to voice his frustrations over the hypocrisy of those young climate activists, many of who are actually pampered snobs being shamelessly used and carefully manipulated by adults who should know better.
Video of that segment in which the man – conservative commentator Alan Jones – reads a piece called “Growing up” that someone sent to him going off on Thunberg and other youth climate change activists //
“To all the school kids going on strike for climate change, you’re the first generation who’ve required air conditioning in every classroom. You want TV in every room and your classes are all computerized. You spend all day and night on electronic devices.
More than ever you don’t walk or ride bikes to school, but you arrive in caravans of private cars that choke suburban roads and worsen rush-hour traffic. You’re the biggest consumers of manufactured goods ever. And update perfectly good, expensive, luxury items to stay trendy. Your entertainment comes from electric devices.
Furthermore, the people driving your protests are the same people who insist on artificially inflating the population growth through immigration, which increases the need for energy, manufacturing, and transport. The more people we have, the more forest and bushland we clear, the more of the environment that’s destroyed.
How about this? Tell your teachers to switch off the aircon, walk or ride to school, switch off your devices and read a book, make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food.
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been the keeper of U.S. wildfire data for decades, tracking both the number of wildfires and acreage burned all the way back to 1926. After making the entire dataset public for decades, in a blatant act of cherry-picking, NIFC “disappeared” a vast portion of it. Now, NIFC only shows wildfire data from 1983.
Fortunately, the internet never forgets, which means the entire dataset is preserved on the world wide web. Data prior to 1983 show U.S. wildfires were far worse 100 years ago, both in frequency and total acreage burned, than they are today.
By disappearing all data prior to 1983, which just happens to be the lowest point in the dataset for the number of fires, NIFC data now show a positive slope of worsening wildfire aligning with increased global temperatures. This truncated dataset is convenient for claiming “climate change is making wildfires worse,” but flawed because it lacks the context of the full dataset.
In June 2011 when this data was first made publicly available by NIFC, the agency said, “Figures prior to 1983 may be revised as NIFC verifies historical data.”
In December 2017, I published an article titled “Is climate change REALLY the culprit causing California’s wildfires?” pointing out the federal government’s own data showed wildfires had declined significantly since the early 1900s. Of course, that undermined claims made by the media that climate change was making wildfires more frequent and severe. Curiously, sometime between January 14 and March 7, 2018, shortly after that article appeared, NIFC added a new caveat on its data page.
According to NIFC, “NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process. As a result, the figures prior to 1983 should not be compared to later data.”
With the Biden administration now in control of NIFC, the agency now says, “Prior to 1983, the federal wildland fire agencies did not track official wildfire data using current reporting processes. As a result, there is no official data prior to 1983 posted on this site.” //
The NIFC decision to declare data prior to 1983 “unreliable” and remove it is not just hiding important wildfire history, but cherry-picking a dataset starting point that is the lowest in the entire record to ensure that an upward trend exists from that point. //
It seems NIFC has caved to political pressure to disappear inconvenient wildfire data. This action is unscientific, dishonest, manipulative, and possibly fraudulent. With this action, NIFC is no longer trustworthy as a source of reliable information on wildfires.
Anthony Watts (awatts@heartland.org) is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute.
In response to Whitmer’s imperialistic order, Enbridge told her to pound sand, saying the oil will keep flowing regardless of her demands because the two sides are still in the middle of court-ordered mediation.
But Whitmer doesn’t care. Her quest to please her climate-change-gods takes precedence over the needs of her residents and the residents of other states which will inevitably suffer as a result of her decision. Though Line 5 has previously had issues with small leaks, those leaks have amounted to just 1.1 million gallons leaked over 29 leak incidents, over the last 53 years. While 1.1 million gallons may seem like a lot, it amounts to 56 gallons a day, less than 5% of the total oil that is pumped through the line in just one day, or just 0.0002% of the 446 Billion gallons of oil that has pumped through the line since 1968. If I were running a business and my safety and prevention efforts resulted in a 99.9998% success rate, I’d be asking for a raise.
That doesn’t stop the fearmongering left. Their stupidity in practice means we shut down those oil pipelines, leading to shortages, stagnation of the economy (or outright economic collapse), further victimization of America’s poverty-stricken population, and of course, a significant rise in carbon pollution as the transportation of those oil resources is moved to truck and diesel pushing trains. Of course, Whitmer and her team of “experts,” don’t factor for any of these issues in the fancy reports. To them, the reduction of the consumption of carbon-producing fuels is worth it. Your immediate physical and mental health matters not to them. Neither does your financial situation or your ability to provide for your family. It all can be sacrificed at the altar of “good intentions” as the left continues the worship of their climate change gods. To them, your health, freedom, and happiness are expendable as long as they feel like they are doing the will of their progressive agenda.
The US Environmental Protection Agency announced a rule Monday that would phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the potent greenhouse gases that are widely used as refrigerants.
Though HFCs aren’t intentionally emitted in the regular use of refrigerators and air conditioners, they often leak out at various phases in an appliance’s life cycle, from manufacturing through disposal. One of the most widely used HFCs, R-134a, causes 1,430 times more warming than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide over 100 years. Another that is commonly used in supermarkets, R-404A, has a global warming potential of 3,900. Eliminating the use of HFCs worldwide would reduce emissions enough to avoid up to 0.5˚C (0.9˚F) of warming by 2100. //
Once again, countries from around the world came together to address the issue, signing the Kigali Amendment that updated the Montreal Protocol to include HFCs. Notably, neither the US nor China has ratified the agreement, but last month, the two largest greenhouse gas emitters both agreed to eliminate the use of HFCs. //
there are already substitutes available for new refrigerators and air conditioners. One substitute that is already in many models of refrigerators is isobutane. Known in the industry as R-600a, it’s inexpensive, it has almost no ozone depletion potential, and it has a small global warming potential (three instead of R-134a's 1,430). //
Almost a decade ago, isobutane and other hydrocarbon refrigerants seemed poised for use in the market. In 2011, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) gave the refrigerants the go-ahead, and the EPA followed soon after. But then UL slashed their limits, citing a risk of fire if hydrocarbon refrigerants were to leak in a small room that also contained an open flame, like from a gas-fired water heater. //
Ultimately, the fire issue may be moot as some grocery stores have begun switching to using carbon dioxide as a refrigerant. Though it requires higher pressures throughout the cooling system, carbon dioxide is not detrimental to the ozone layer. And its global warming potential? One.
O’Keefe knew Gates had been acquiring farmland for years, mostly through various Cascade subsidiaries. The mogul’s holdings include large tracts in Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, California, and about a dozen other states. With the Washington state acreage and other recent additions to his portfolio, O’Keefe calculated, Gates now owns at least 242,000 acres of American farmland.
“Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has an alter ego,” O’Keefe wrote: “Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America.” //
Gates is also quietly funding technology for digital vaccine passports. //
ID2020 is also active in more developed countries such as the US and has partnered with City of Austin, Texas, to provide a blockchain-enabled digital ID platform for the homeless population, as well as to refugees receiving medical treatment from the International Rescue Committee in Thailand.
Now with the sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, this seems to have presented an opportunity to fast track global health into a new era of digital healthcare.
What could go wrong? Well, personal privacy (there’s that word again!), fraud, mass surveillance, and manipulation of information, among other things. But this does not seem to matter to Gates and his wicked schemes for you and your life. //
Finally, Gates remains a proponent of lockdowns, despite much evidence to the contrary that they did not work then, and they will not work now. As states in the U.S. were reopening, he sat down with every legacy media outlet he could to sound the alarm on the dangers of not following the science. Gates was as dogmatic as Dr. Anthony Fauci in his insistence; the problem is, at least Fauci has an M.D. behind his name. Gates does not. He has no medical experience whatsoever. Gates cannot even create software that doesn’t catch viruses. //
If you thought Bill Gates was dangerous while buffeted by a wife (who was equally dangerous, frankly), imagine how much more dangerous he’ll become now that he can truly focus on his dreams of global domination.
Okay, everyone, today is Earth Day, which means one thing: WE ARE DOOMED!
Hey, don’t scream at me; this is the consensus of the scientific community. Welllllll — in actuality, it is the consensus of the media covering the scientific community, but this is serious stuff!
As long as you don’t analyze their claims.
Beginning from the very first Earth Day in 1970 there are issues. Much of the propaganda sermonizing coming from that event concerned us freezing to death from the inevitable approaching ice age. Also, famine was due to wipe out billions by the end of the decade, pollution would block the sun, acid rain would kill all plant life, and we’d run out of oil…uh, 30 years ago. Now, some may want to overstate the fact that the founder of the event, Ira Einhorn, murdered his girlfriend, but it is important to understand that he lived by example — he did compost her body. //
Part of the reason we’ll be heating up is due to an increase in clouds which will have heat-trapping effects. Another reason we’ll be heating up is there will be fewer clouds, and we will roast in the sunlight. Unless – an increase in clouds reflect that sunlight and shade the planet. OR, we’ll see a decrease in clouds altogether. which means they will NOT be trapping the heat nor reflecting the sun, which is either bad or good, depending. Truthfully, when it comes to discussing this subject it is advisable to just avoid any mention of clouds at all, or you will just make the doomsday prophets all kinds of cranky.
The Earth’s rotation will become affected by GW. We just cannot be sure if it will start turning faster or slowing down. Whichever happens, just be sure it’s bad.
Obviously, as we heat up it means there will be less snow, but that means fewer avalanches. Except, we are also promised mountain regions will also experience more avalanches. Not sure how the math works out on that one. Probably best to just hope for the best.
Researchers imagine it might be possible to transform the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, into a giant solar farm, capable of meeting four times the world’s current energy demand. Blueprints have been drawn up for projects in Tunisia and Morocco that would supply electricity for millions of households in Europe.
While the black surfaces of solar panels absorb most of the sunlight that reaches them, only a fraction (around 15 percent) of that incoming energy gets converted to electricity. The rest is returned to the environment as heat. The panels are usually much darker than the ground they cover, so a vast expanse of solar cells will absorb a lot of additional energy and emit it as heat, affecting the climate.
If these effects were only local, they might not matter in a sparsely populated and barren desert. But the scale of the installations that would be needed to make a dent in the world’s fossil energy demand would be vast, covering thousands of square kilometers. Heat re-emitted from an area this size will be redistributed by the flow of air in the atmosphere, having regional and even global effects on the climate. //
The model revealed that when the size of the solar farm reaches 20 percent of the total area of the Sahara, it triggers a feedback loop. Heat emitted by the darker solar panels (compared to the highly reflective desert soil) creates a steep temperature difference between the land and the surrounding oceans that ultimately lowers surface air pressure and causes moist air to rise and condense into raindrops. With more monsoon rainfall, plants grow and the desert reflects less of the sun’s energy, because vegetation absorbs light better than sand and soil. With more plants present, more water is evaporated, creating a more humid environment that causes vegetation to spread. //
Covering 20 percent of the Sahara with solar farms raises local temperatures in the desert by 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to our model. At 50 percent coverage, the temperature increase is 2.5 degrees Celsius. This warming is eventually spread around the globe by atmosphere and ocean movement, raising the world’s average temperature by 0.16 degrees Celsius for 20 percent coverage, and 0.39 degrees Celsius for 50 percent coverage. The global temperature shift is not uniform, though — the polar regions would warm more than the tropics, increasing sea ice loss in the Arctic. This could further accelerate warming, as melting sea ice exposes dark water which absorbs much more solar energy.
This massive new heat source in the Sahara reorganizes global air and ocean circulation, affecting precipitation patterns around the world. The narrow band of heavy rainfall in the tropics, which accounts for more than 30 percent of global precipitation and supports the rainforests of the Amazon and Congo Basin, shifts northward in our simulations. For the Amazon region, this causes droughts as less moisture arrives from the ocean. Roughly the same amount of additional rainfall that falls over the Sahara due to the surface-darkening effects of solar panels is lost from the Amazon. The model also predicts more frequent tropical cyclones hitting North American and East Asian coasts. //
Some important processes are still missing from our model, such as dust blown from large deserts. Saharan dust, carried on the wind, is a vital source of nutrients for the Amazon and the Atlantic Ocean. So a greener Sahara could have an even bigger global effect than our simulations suggested.
In the race against climate change, scientists at Harvard University propose that dimming sunlight could cool down the planet.
But what does that mean? The ambitious project involves launching a huge balloon into the stratosphere, carrying 600kg of calcium carbonate - or chalk, which would be sprayed 12 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Scientists will then monitor how the dust particles interact with the atmosphere. It’s a process known as solar geoengineering.
The chalk would, in theory, reflect sunlight and in turn slow global warming. Some experts predict the sky would also shift from blue to white during daylight hours.
Earlier this week an all-star group of energy and climate scholars published a scientific article in a prestigious journal pointing out that a Stanford professor’s proposal for powering the United States entirely on renewable energy sources rests upon a gigantic lie.
Over the last several years, Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo and many politicians have pointed to Stanford scientist Mark Jacobson’s modeling as proof that we can quickly and cheaply transition to 100 percent renewables.
What is the lie? That we can increase the amount of power from U.S. hydroelectric dams ten-fold. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and all major studies, the real potential increase is just one percent of that.
Without all that additional hydroelectricity, Jacobson’s entire house of cards falls apart. That’s because there’s no other way to store all of that unreliable solar and wind energy, given the shortcomings of current battery technologies.
The authors diplomatically call Jacobson’s lie an “error,” but it is in fact a lie and everyone — Jacobson included — knows it.
In his response, Jacobson writes, “Increasing hydropower's peak instantaneous discharge rate was not a ‘modeling mistake’ but an assumption.”
What is an assumption? It is “a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof” [emphasis added].
But what have Jacobson, Gore, DiCaprio and politicians around the world been insisting for years? That Jacobson’s study proves not only that we can power the world with renewables-alone, but also that doing so would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Upon the big lie rest others.
For example, around the world, politicians and renewables advocates seeking to close nuclear plants justify their actions by claiming Jacobson’s work proves that nuclear plants are not needed as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Jacobson himself told the audience during our debate at UCLA last year that California would replace our last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, entirely with renewables — and at a lower cost than keeping the plant running.
Jacobson says these things even though he knows perfectly well that everywhere in the world nuclear plants are closed, fossil fuels are burned instead.
Nuclear Energy and Global Climate Change are two controversial topics that are rarely debated in a professional or serious manner. Often political agendas take the front seat leaving citizens confused and frustrated. Today’s guest, Walter Horsting, is going to provide insight into the controversial side of these two issues; the side the mass media rarely discusses. He will share with us his views on why 4th generation Nuclear Energy is a positive move for society and why he believes the science shows that global warming is not occurring.
After listening to his talk, it becomes evident that the verdict is not clear on where these issues stand. It is important that we continue to discuss these issues in a professional scientific way to flush out flaws and to figure out where the science really takes us. The truth, no matter how inconvenient, is important for our future. It will enable us to make informed and reasonable decisions.
Scientific Documents and Links on the issues:
Climate Charts and Information:
Whats up with That: https://wattsupwiththat.com/
NoTricksZone: http://notrickszone.com
Ice Age Now: https://www.iceagenow.info/
CO2 the Climate Supriese: http://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/The-Climate-Surprise-CO2C.pdf
JoNova: http://joannenova.com.au/
Climate Depot: http://www.climatedepot.com/
Icecap: http://icecap.us/index.php
4th Nuclear Generation Molten Salt Reactors:
http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/
http://terrestrialenergy.com/
http://www.thoriumenergycheaperthancoal.com/
http://flibe-energy.com/
It’s no secret that the United States’ $13 billion cannabis industry is big business. Less obvious to many is the environmental toll this booming business is taking, in the form of greenhouse gas emissions from commercial, mostly indoor production.
A new study by Colorado State University researchers provides the most detailed accounting to date of the industry’s carbon footprint, a sum around which there is only limited understanding. What is clear, though, is that consumer demand for cannabis is insatiable and shows no signs of stopping as more states sign on to legalization. //
They found that greenhouse gas emissions from cannabis production are largely attributed to electricity production and natural gas consumption from indoor environmental controls, high-intensity grow lights, and supplies of carbon dioxide for accelerated plant growth. //
Their research shows that U.S. indoor cannabis cultivation results in life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of between 2,283 and 5,184 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of dried flower. Compare that to emissions from electricity use in outdoor and greenhouse cannabis growth, which is 22.7 and 326.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide, respectively, according to the New Frontier Data 2018 Cannabis Energy Report. Those outdoor and greenhouse numbers only consider electricity, while the CSU researchers’ estimate is more comprehensive, but the comparison still highlights the enormously larger footprint of indoor grow operations.