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Former Community Member
Our aim is not to “drain the ocean” in a few months but to add a voice of engineering insight to the debate, demolish potential myths and legends and suggest some sensible ways forward. We don’t expect to achieve pinpoint accuracy in our investigation, but we can be honest about that. We want to establish some genuine truths and point to where more work or funding should be focussed. We need more information and guidance to existing reliable reports and research on carbon in materials mining and manufacture, infrastructure provision, renewal and maintenance, and end of life recycling. Please share your thoughts by commenting below.
“Our aim is not to “drain the ocean” in a few months but to add a voice of engineering insight to the debate, demolish potential myths and legends and suggest some sensible ways forward.”
Let’s have a look at some of the myths and legends, do we have climate problem or a climate emergency. A recently released paper looks at 79 predictions of climate-caused apocalypse going back to the first Earth Day in 1970. It notes that 48 (61%) of the predictions have already expired as of the end of 2020.
As I said in that piece I fully support the reduction in the use of our finite resources, reduction of pollution and reduction of our impact on the planet. I don’t think that targeting CO2 is the correct way to achieve these goals.
Where does the CO2 driven climate emergency come from? Mathematical models and extrapolations. If you look at the actual data you can maybe find a problem but certainly not an emergency. The climate has changed, is changing, and will continue to change with or without us. What do we actually know? The longest directly measured temperature series is the Central England series held by the UK Met office:
If you look at the chart, the temperature rose by more than 1.5°C between about 1700 and 1730. The temperature rose around 1°C between about 1975 and 2000. Were both of these man made? Were both of them natural? How do the climate models explain the rise in the 1700s. The temperature is then fairly flat from around 2000. The longest measured CO2 series is from Mauna Loa:
The various temperature series are in reasonable agreement but they only go back to 1900. If you look at the Central England series quite a lot happened before then. There is also a significant difference between the north and south hemispheres. For the northern hemisphere there is somewhat dubious attempt to show an increasing rate of temperature rise by starting from a cool spell in the 1970s.
The next graphs come from the IPCC AR5 Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis:
On page 18 it shows the model outputs in red with a confidence band. Measured temperatures are black. The measure temperatures are always below the model and are starting to leave the confidence band. It also records the reduction in the rate of warming after 1998, the so called ‘Pause’. I am waiting to see how AR6 explains the continuing discrepancy between the models and reality.
The IPCC uses four scenarios, RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5. RCP8.5 is the worst case and it has been suggested it could be difficult to dig coal fast enough to achieve it. Most of the ‘Emergency’ is based on this scenario. RCP6.0 is around business as usual, RCP4.5 is if an effort is made to reduce CO2 emissions and RCP2.6 is an unlikely best case. This is shown graphically in this article:
So do we have a problem or an emergency? Is it more sensible to make changes over a longer timescale, replacing life expired items rather than scraping functional items
What is important is reduction in the use of finite resources, reduction in pollution, reduction in change of land use and sustainable use of natural resources such as fish. Are the current plans in accordance with this?
-Blue hydrogen is not. It is increasing our consumption of finite resources.
-Green hydrogen is dubious due to the large conversion losses. Using wind generated electricity will increase the energy payback time significantly possibly to zero when the energy requirements of the electrolysis plant are taken into account. Using solar PV is unlikely to have an energy payback.
-Biomass is in general not, burning actual wood waste is probably ok but the amounts are quite limited.
-Wind and solar PV are again dubious as they currently only exist parasitically. The true energy payback and resource consumption will only be available when they deal with their own intermittency and backup/storage.
“Our aim is not to “drain the ocean” in a few months but to add a voice of engineering insight to the debate, demolish potential myths and legends and suggest some sensible ways forward.”
Let’s have a look at some of the myths and legends, do we have climate problem or a climate emergency. A recently released paper looks at 79 predictions of climate-caused apocalypse going back to the first Earth Day in 1970. It notes that 48 (61%) of the predictions have already expired as of the end of 2020.
As I said in that piece I fully support the reduction in the use of our finite resources, reduction of pollution and reduction of our impact on the planet. I don’t think that targeting CO2 is the correct way to achieve these goals.
Where does the CO2 driven climate emergency come from? Mathematical models and extrapolations. If you look at the actual data you can maybe find a problem but certainly not an emergency. The climate has changed, is changing, and will continue to change with or without us. What do we actually know? The longest directly measured temperature series is the Central England series held by the UK Met office:
If you look at the chart, the temperature rose by more than 1.5°C between about 1700 and 1730. The temperature rose around 1°C between about 1975 and 2000. Were both of these man made? Were both of them natural? How do the climate models explain the rise in the 1700s. The temperature is then fairly flat from around 2000. The longest measured CO2 series is from Mauna Loa:
The various temperature series are in reasonable agreement but they only go back to 1900. If you look at the Central England series quite a lot happened before then. There is also a significant difference between the north and south hemispheres. For the northern hemisphere there is somewhat dubious attempt to show an increasing rate of temperature rise by starting from a cool spell in the 1970s.
The next graphs come from the IPCC AR5 Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis:
On page 18 it shows the model outputs in red with a confidence band. Measured temperatures are black. The measure temperatures are always below the model and are starting to leave the confidence band. It also records the reduction in the rate of warming after 1998, the so called ‘Pause’. I am waiting to see how AR6 explains the continuing discrepancy between the models and reality.
The IPCC uses four scenarios, RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5. RCP8.5 is the worst case and it has been suggested it could be difficult to dig coal fast enough to achieve it. Most of the ‘Emergency’ is based on this scenario. RCP6.0 is around business as usual, RCP4.5 is if an effort is made to reduce CO2 emissions and RCP2.6 is an unlikely best case. This is shown graphically in this article:
So do we have a problem or an emergency? Is it more sensible to make changes over a longer timescale, replacing life expired items rather than scraping functional items
What is important is reduction in the use of finite resources, reduction in pollution, reduction in change of land use and sustainable use of natural resources such as fish. Are the current plans in accordance with this?
-Blue hydrogen is not. It is increasing our consumption of finite resources.
-Green hydrogen is dubious due to the large conversion losses. Using wind generated electricity will increase the energy payback time significantly possibly to zero when the energy requirements of the electrolysis plant are taken into account. Using solar PV is unlikely to have an energy payback.
-Biomass is in general not, burning actual wood waste is probably ok but the amounts are quite limited.
-Wind and solar PV are again dubious as they currently only exist parasitically. The true energy payback and resource consumption will only be available when they deal with their own intermittency and backup/storage.
