“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol,” said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

“First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.

“It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”

He explained his own support for the original program on his presidential ambitions.

“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Mr. Gore is “implying” that he only supported corn ethanol for political purposes and his own personal gain. I guess that no one should be shocked that he was lying then. He was a politician and we all know when politicians are lying (Hint: when their lips are moving).

It appears that Mr. Gore never stopped being a politician or at least never stopped lying. He supposedly stopped running for office and dedicated his efforts to saving the planet from an overdose of carbon dioxide. He continued to encourage the swapping of food for ethanol as late as his award winning movie, An Inconvenient Truth.  Check out this clip of the credits and go to about 2:25 – you will see that he is encouraging farmers to grow ethanol and not food.

I found this on Portfolio.com.

President Barack Obama today bet $8.3 billion on nuclear energy by offering loan guarantees for two nuclear reactors in Georgia.

The units, which will be constructed by Georgia Power at its existing Plant Vogtle nuclear power facility, will be the first nuclear energy project to break ground in 30 years.

More will follow, if the president has his way. He proposes tripling the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee authority for new nuclear reactors next year to $54.5 billion, enough to build seven to 10 new nukes.

Nuclear energy makes sense to Obama because it is a nearly carbon-free source of electricity.

“To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power,” the president said today, during remarks at a International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall in Lanham, Maryland.

“This one plant, for example, will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared to a similar coal plant,” he said. “That’s like taking 3.5 million cars off the road.”

The new nukes at Plant Vogtle also will create jobs—about 3,500 during construction and 800 permanent jobs when the units are up and running.

Encouraging utilities to build new nuclear power plants also will help the U.S. catch up with the rest of the world in development of advanced nuclear technologies, according to the president.

“There are 56 nuclear reactors under construction around the world: 21 in China alone; six in South Korea; five in India,” Obama said. “And the commitment of these countries is not just generating the jobs in those plants; it’s generating demand for expertise and new technologies.

“Whether it’s nuclear energy, or solar, or wind energy, if we fail to invest in the technologies of tomorrow, then we’re going to be importing those technologies instead of exporting them,” he said.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu made a similar point: “We’ve been sitting on the sidelines in the nuclear technology race for far too long.”

The Department of Energy has been authorized to grant loan guarantees for nuclear power projects since 2005. Now that it has finally done so, more projects could get off the ground.

“This is a great start,” said David Ratcliffe, chairman and CEO of Southern Co., the parent company of Georgia Power. “There will be others that follow.”

Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the loan guarantees will make it easier for electric utilities to access capital markets for new nuclear reactors. They also “send a strong signal to companies throughout the nuclear supply chain to expand their manufacturing capacity for growing domestic, as well as overseas, markets,” he said.

The National Association of Manufacturers likes nuclear power “because it is a reliable, low-cost, clean energy that supports a sustainable growth agenda and helps manufacturers compete globally,” said NAM president John Engler.

Not everyone, however, speaks of nuclear power in such glowing terms.

Conservative groups like the National Taxpayers Union contend the government could lose billions of dollars if Georgia Power or other future recipients of these loan guarantees default on their loans. If nuclear power makes sense economically, it shouldn’t need government subsidies, they contend.

Many environmental groups, meanwhile, remain opposed to nuclear power despite its low carbon emissions. They still don’t think it’s safe.

Obama, meanwhile, cautioned nuclear power advocates that loan guarantees by themselves won’t be enough “to achieve a big boost in nuclear capacity.” That will depend on the same thing that major gains in solar and wind power depend on: “a system of incentives to make clean energy profitable,” Obama said.

“As long as producing carbon pollution carries no cost, traditional plants that use fossil fuels will be more cost-effective than plants that use nuclear fuel,” he said.

In other words, we won’t see a nuclear renaissance unless Congress makes coal-produced electricity really expensive.

By Shannon Bell

Anyone who’s looked into installing solar panels for their home know that solar power for the entire home is very expensive. At minimum, most homeowners can expect to pay at least $15,000. At maximum, homeowners may pay as much as $45,000 or even $60,000 for a solar panel array that will power their entire home.

However, both federal and state tax credits aim to encourage homeowners to take on a solar project anyway. The federal government, according to the US Department of Energy, will kick in 30% of the cost for a solar project registered before December 31, 2016. A 30% tax break would bring the cost of a $15,000 solar project down to $10,500.

This tax credit, established by the recent Recovery Act, is called the “Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit”. The credit applies to solar-electric systems (solar panel systems used to power the home), small-scale wind turbines, solar water heaters, and geothermal heat pumps.

The advantage to the Recovery Act credit is that there is no maximum dollar amount that the credit will pay for. In other words, whether you have a small solar panel array or a huge home with a huge array, that 30% will still apply.

Before you install solar energy, you might consider making your home more energy efficient. The more energy efficient your home already is, the smaller and less expensive your solar panel system will be.

As it so happens, there are also federal tax incentives for weatherizing your home and upgrading your appliances to appliances with the Energy Star label. This tax credit is called the “Home Energy Efficiency Improvement” tax credit, and there’s also the “Weatherization Assistance Program” for low-income homeowners.

State Tax Credits

You can save even more money when you combine the federal tax credit with local state (and even city) tax credits. These tax credits vary widely from state to state; the best place to check the tax credits in your state is the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIREUSA.org).

Some states are well-known for their progressive programs to help homeowners pay for renewable energy. These states include:

• California — probably the state with the best incentives in the country
• States in New England – despite the propensity for cold and snow, northeastern states have some very good programs available to help residents go solar
• Colorado – Colorado has a history of caring about their natural resources, so it’s not surprising that their incentives (combined with federal stimulus money) can potentially cut the cost of installing solar by two-thirds
• Louisiana and North Carolina – if you live in the southeast, Louisiana and North Carolina are the best places to live when it comes to solar incentives

About the Author of this article

Shannon Bell writes for residentialsolarpanels.org a non commercial blog focused on her Photovoltaic experiences to help people understand how and why they should save energy starting investing in solar power. She writes on solar energy for Homes to help people learn how to start save energy from the scratch and then apply those experience to the next level.

Mr. Bernhard goes into great detail on the subject.  He discusses natural gas, wind power, and nuclear.  Please click through and read the entire article but my version will only focus on the first part. In this sampling he discusses Sen. Diane Feinstein and her efforts to block solar energy from the desert.

Forget about developing massive solar projects in one of the sunniest places on earth.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has put the kibosh on such development on a million acres of the Mojave Desert, freezing numerous planned projects in their tracks and making it tougher for her home state to meet its goals of getting more of its electricity from renewable power.

Now why would a good liberal—a likely supporter of legislation to cut greenhouse gases—want to do a thing like that? Of course, it’s not like that’s anything new; the now-canonized liberal lion of the Senate, Edward Kennedy, helped block the development of a wind farm off his beloved Cape Cod for years. So liberals are every bit as NIMBY inclined as anyone else it seems, even when it comes to saving the earth.

But to be fair, Feinstein’s opposition to solar plants in the desert isn’t just knee-jerk opposition to unsightly industrial-scale development. It comes down to a promise made when the federal government got its hands on that land a decade ago. The feds said they would preserve the desert.

And a bunch of mirrors disturbing the vista and disrupting the delicate desert ecosystem doesn’t exactly amount to preservation.

So California companies will have to look elsewhere for their utility-scale solar plants.

But the case of the California solar plants brings up an interesting question as the United States and other countries move to lower their carbon emissions in an attempt to mitigate the worst affects of global warming caused by greenhouse gas. Is there really such a thing as clean energy, at least when it comes to energy produced on the massive scale needed to make a dent in use by a modern economy like that of the United States?

Feinstein is right, for instance, that solar farms and solar thermal plants capable of generating the gigawatts of power California needs to replace the power it gets now from fossil fuel could damage or destroy some of the most scenic and ecologically delicate land in the West. And that goes not just for the Mojave, but for solar plants planned for the deserts throughout the Southwest.

You’re talking giant construction projects that will alter the landscape forever when you talk about solar plants capable of producing big wattage numbers.

---

Now remember, we have a president who pledged to cut emissions when he campaigned for office, and who has since brokered an incomplete climate deal on the international stage in Copenhagen. We have a House of Representatives that has passed legislation capping carbon emissions and a Senate considering similar caps. Our Environmental Protection Agency has determined that it can issue regulations limiting greenhouse-gas emissions.

And all of that may be a good and necessary thing, and it may help lead the world away from the precipice of disastrous climate change. But let’s not pretend the energy we get in any large amounts is “clean.”

About the best we can hope for is “cleaner.”

Lord Lawson was U.K. chancellor of the exchequer in the Thatcher government from 1983 to 1989. He is the author of “An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming” (Overlook Duckworth, paperback 2009), and is chairman of the recently formed Global Warming Policy Foundation (www.thegwpf.org).

The world’s political leaders, not least President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in a state of severe, almost clinical, denial. While acknowledging that the outcome of the United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen fell short of their demand for a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable global agreement on emissions reductions by developed and developing countries alike, they insist that what has been achieved is a breakthrough and a decisive step forward.

---

Far from achieving a major step forward, Copenhagen—predictably—achieved precisely nothing. The nearest thing to a commitment was the promise by the developed world to pay the developing world $30 billion of “climate aid” over the next three years, rising to $100 billion a year from 2020. Not only is that (perhaps fortunately) not legally binding, but there is no agreement whatsoever about which countries it will go to, in which amounts, and on what conditions.

The reasons for the complete and utter failure of Copenhagen are both fundamental and irresolvable. The first is that the economic cost of decarbonizing the world’s economies is massive, and of at least the same order of magnitude as any benefits it may conceivably bring in terms of a cooler world in the next century.

The reason we use carbon-based energy is not the political power of the oil lobby or the coal industry. It is because it is far and away the cheapest source of energy at the present time and is likely to remain so, not forever, but for the foreseeable future.

Switching to much more expensive energy may be acceptable to us in the developed world (although I see no present evidence of this). But in the developing world, including the rapidly developing nations such as China and India, there are still tens if not hundreds of millions of people suffering from acute poverty, and from the consequences of such poverty, in the shape of malnutrition, preventable disease and premature death.

---

Moreover, the argument that they should make this economic and human sacrifice to benefit future generations 100 years and more hence is all the less compelling, given that these future generations will, despite any problems caused by warming, be many times better off than the people of the developing world are today.

Or, at least, that is the assumption on which the climate scientists’ warming projections are based. It is projected economic growth that determines projected carbon emissions, and projected carbon emissions that (according to the somewhat conjectural computer models on which they rely) determine projected warming (according to the same models).

---

Moreover, any assessment of the impact of any future warming that may occur is inevitably highly conjectural, depending as it does not only on the uncertainties of climate science but also on the uncertainties of future technological development. So what we are talking about is risk.
OpinionJournal Related Stories:

Not that the risk is all one way. The risk of a 1930s-style outbreak of protectionism—if the developed world were to abjure cheap energy and faced enhanced competition from China and other rapidly industrializing countries that declined to do so—is probably greater than any risk from warming.

But even without that, there is not even a theoretical (let alone a practical) basis for a global agreement on burden-sharing, since, so far as the risk of global warming is concerned (and probably in other areas too) risk aversion is not uniform throughout the world. Not only do different cultures embody very different degrees of risk aversion, but in general the richer countries will tend to be more risk-averse than the poorer countries, if only because we have more to lose.

---

And the outlines of a credible plan B are clear. First and foremost, we must do what mankind has always done, and adapt to whatever changes in temperature may in the future arise.

This enables us to pocket the benefits of any warming (and there are many) while reducing the costs. None of the projected costs are new phenomena, but the possible exacerbation of problems our climate already throws at us. Addressing these problems directly is many times more cost-effective than anything discussed at Copenhagen. And adaptation does not require a global agreement, although we may well need to help the very poorest countries (not China) to adapt.

---

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the Copenhagen debacle, it is not going to be easy to get our leaders to move to plan B. There is no doubt that calling a halt to the high-profile climate-change traveling circus risks causing a severe conference-deprivation trauma among the participants. If there has to be a small public investment in counseling, it would be money well spent.

Much recent attention has been paid to the email about the “trick” and the effort to “hide the decline”. Climate scientists have complained that this email has been taken “out of context”. In this case, I’m not sure that it’s in their interests that this email be placed in context because the context leads right back to a meeting of IPCC authors in Tanzania, raising serious questions about the role of IPCC itself in “hiding the decline” in the Briffa reconstruction.

Relevant Climategate correspondence in the period (September-October 1999) leading up to the trick email is incomplete, but, in context, is highly revealing. There was a meeting of IPCC lead authors between Sept 1-3, 1999 to consider the “zero-order draft” of the Third Assessment Report. The emails provide clear evidence that IPCC had already decided to include a proxy diagram reconstructing temperature for the past 1000 years and that a version of the proxy diagram was presented at the Tanzania meeting showing the late twentieth century decline. I now have a copy of the proxy diagram presented at this meeting (see below).

The emails show that the late 20th century decline in the Briffa reconstruction was perceived by IPCC as “diluting the message”, that “everyone in the room at IPCC” thought that the Briffa decline was a “problem” and a “potential distraction/detraction”, that this was then the “most important issue” in chapter 2 of the IPCC report and that there was “pressure” on Briffa and other authors to show a “nice tidy story” of “unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more”. [Update Dec 11 - see note at bottom on the chronology. Comments from readers have clarified that the issue at the Arusha meeting was that the Briffa reconstruction "diluted the message" more through its overall inconsistency as opposed to the decline, which was still relatively attenuated in the Arusha version. After the Arusha meeting, Briffa hastily re-calculated his reconstruction sending a new version to Mann on Oct 5, 1999 and it was this hastily re-done version that introduced the very severe decline that was hidden in the First Order Draft and Jones WMO Report]

The chronology in today’s posts show that the version of the Briffa reconstruction shown in the subsequent proxy diagram in the IPCC “First Order Draft” (October 27, 1999), presumably prepared under the direction of IPCC section author Mann, deleted the inconvenient portion (post-1960) of the Briffa reconstruction, together with other modifications that had the effect of not “diluting the message”.

First, catch the people responsible for breaking into the property of the University of East Anglia. Prosecute the offenders to the fullest extent of the law. I am not versed in the laws of the UK but I would assume that each document and email that was illegally stolen from those servers would be an individual count of theft, so the parties involved would be liable for several thousand counts of theft. No one should ever break the law to further their political interest (and remember there was nothing purely scientific in these emails – they are simply emails with opinions and, as such, are not facts). Breaking the law is simply not a way to discuss the scientific relevance of information. So just as I condemn Mr. Al Gore, former Vice President of the US, for suggesting civil disobedience, I condemn the stealing of information from the University.

I sincerely hope that no personal information was stolen to the point that any of the senders or recipients have their personal security or wealth compromised. While we all know that emails are not incredibly secure, the stories of identity theft are countless. It would be a travesty if this crime caused personal harm to any involved. Some of these emails reveal personal information and information about family members so this is a serious issue.

I have reviewed a few hundred of the emails that were stolen.  I had nothing to do with the stealing of these files but they are now readily available on the web so I looked at them. For the vast majority of the emails that I have read, the conversation was the innocent discussion of the global warming topic and typically was regarding the proxy information used to guess at temperatures before decent data gathering techniques and tools were deployed (yes, some would argue that we still don’t have that accomplished). As I stated above, these emails really have no data in them – they are primarily the opinion of the writer of the individual email.

While the emails are only opinion, that opinion is quite unsettling in many ways. Scientists should be, first and foremost, discoverers of the truth. No scientist should ever care which way the data leads them. If the data supports their hypothesis, that is fine. If the data refutes their hypothesis, that is also fine.

After reading the random emails that I have read, I do not feel that a single scientist had his email stolen! If you agree with me that a scientist must first be concerned with the whole truth, then no one that I read would qualify as a scientist! The number of attempts to hide data, modify data, and silence discussion was unnerving and completely unprofessional!

I REPEAT IN CAPS: THESE MEN CANNOT BE SCIENTISTS BECAUSE THEY VIOLATE THE FIRST STANDARD FOR ALL SCIENCE – LET THE DATA DRIVE THE CONCLUSION!

These are the same non-scientists that much of the IPCC conclusions are based on. These gentlemen do not have the authority to stand up and say that they have examined the evidence and the conclusion is obvious. Rather, if they were true scientists they would stand up and explain that some data leads them to one conclusion but a great deal of data, leads them to another conclusion.

We should throw out the entire IPCC findings, fire the people involved, and start over with complete transparency of processes and data. If global warming is found to be true with full transparency of research then that is fine. If the data suggests that we are all not going to die in the desert or a massive flood, so much the better.

I am perfectly disgusted with much of what I read. In particular, Mr. Jones, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Mann, Mr. Wahl, Mr. Ammann and many of the others should, collectively, be ashamed of themselves. They are a disgrace to the title: scientist.

To substantiate my point, I leave you with a small sampling of text from some of the emails.

Email: 1219239172.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@giss.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Revised version the Wengen paper
Date: Wed Aug 20 09:32:52 2008
Cc: Michael Mann <mann@meteo.psu.edu>

    Gavin,
   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
        Keith/Tim still getting FOI requests as well as MOHC and Reading. All our
    FOI officers have been in discussions and are now using the same exceptions
    not to respond – advice they got from the Information Commissioner. As an
    aside and just between us, it seems that Brian Hoskins has withdrawn himself
    from the WG1 Lead nominations. It seems he doesn’t want to have to deal with
    this hassle.
        The FOI line we’re all using is this. IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI – the
   skeptics
    have been told this. Even though we (MOHC, CRU/UEA) possibly hold relevant info
    the IPCC is not part our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don’t
    have an obligation to pass it on.
    Cheers
    Phil

Email: 1107454306.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: For your eyes only
Date: Thu Feb  3 13:11:46 2005

    Mike,
   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
    Phil
   At 15:26 02/02/2005, you wrote:

     Thanks Phil,
     Yes, we’ve learned out lesson about FTP. We’re going to be very careful in the future
     what gets put there. Scott really screwed up big time when he established that directory
     so that Tim could access the data.
     Yeah, there is a freedom of information act in the U.S., and the contrarians are going
     to try to use it for all its worth. But there are also intellectual property rights
     issues, so it isn’t clear how these sorts of things will play out ultimately in the U.S.
     I saw the paleo draft (actually I saw an early version, and sent Keith some minor
     comments). It looks very good at present–will be interesting to see how they deal w/
     the contrarian criticisms–there will be many. I’m hoping they’ll stand firm (I believe
     they will–I think the chapter has the right sort of personalities for that)…
     Will keep you updated on stuff…
     talk to you later,
     mike
     At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

      Mike,
         I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !
      Just sent loads of station data to Scott.  Make sure he documents everything better
      this time !  And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is
     trawling
      them.  The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear
     there
      is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than
     send
      to anyone.  Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within
      20 days? – our does !  The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.
     We also
      have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried
      email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code.  He
      has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.  IPR should be relevant
     here,
      but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere
      to it !
    — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
      Cheers
      Phil
   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

Email: 1212073451.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@meteo.psu.edu>
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

          Mike,

              Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
    Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
        Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?  I don’t
    have his new email address.
        We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
    I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
    Cheers
    Phil

   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

Email: 1189722851.txt

   — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –
—–Original Message—–
From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 11:30 AM
To: Wahl, Eugene R; Caspar Ammann
Subject: Wahl/Ammann

  Gene/Caspar,
     Good to see these two out. Wahl/Ammann doesn’t appear to be in CC’s
  online first, but comes up if you search.
     You likely know that McIntyre will check this one to make sure it
hasn’t
  changed since the IPCC close-off date July 2006!
     Hard copies of the WG1 report from CUP have arrived here today.

  Ammann/Wahl – try and change the Received date!  Don’t give those
skeptics something
  to amuse themselves with.

  Cheers
  Phil

Email: 1047388489.txt

From: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>,rbradley@geo.umass.edu, mhughes@ltrr.arizona.edu,srutherford@gso.uri.edu,tcrowley@duke.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: Soon & Baliunas
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:14:49 -0500
Cc: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk,jto@u.arizona.edu,drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu, keith.alverson@pages.unibe.ch,mmaccrac@comcast.net,jto@u.arizona.edu, mann@virginia.edu

   Thanks Phil,
   (Tom: Congrats again!)
   The Soon & Baliunas paper couldn’t have cleared a ‘legitimate’ peer review process
   anywhere. That leaves only one possibility–that the peer-review process at Climate
   Research has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board. And it isn’t just De
   Frietas, unfortunately I think this group also includes a member of my own department…
   The skeptics appear to have staged a ‘coup’ at “Climate Research” (it was a mediocre
   journal to begin with, but now its a mediocre journal with a definite ‘purpose’).
   Folks might want to check out the editors and review editors:
   [1]http://www.int-res.com/journals/cr/crEditors.html
   In fact, Mike McCracken first pointed out this article to me, and he and I have discussed
   this a bit. I’ve cc’d Mike in on this as well, and I’ve included Peck too. I told Mike that
   I believed our only choice was to ignore this paper. They’ve already achieved what they
   wanted–the claim of a peer-reviewed paper. There is nothing we can do about that now, but
   the last thing we want to do is bring attention to this paper, which will be ignored by the
   community on the whole…
   It is pretty clear that thee skeptics here have staged a bit of a coup, even in the
   presence of a number of reasonable folks on the editorial board (Whetton, Goodess, …). My
   guess is that Von Storch is actually with them (frankly, he’s an odd individual, and I’m
   not sure he isn’t himself somewhat of a skeptic himself), and without Von Storch on their
   side, they would have a very forceful personality promoting their new vision.
   There have been several papers by Pat Michaels, as well as the Soon & Baliunas paper, that
   couldn’t get published in a reputable journal.
   This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the
   “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal!
   So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a
   legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate
   research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.  We would also
   need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently
   sit on the editorial board…
   What do others think?
   mike
     — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

Email: 1089318616.txt

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul  8 16:30:16 2004

    Mike,
       Only have it in the pdf form. FYI ONLY – don’t pass on. Relevant paras are the last
    2 in section 4 on p13.  As I said it is worded carefully due to Adrian knowing Eugenia
    for years. He knows the’re wrong, but he succumbed to her almost pleading with him
    to tone it down as it might affect her proposals in the future !
       I didn’t say any of this, so be careful how you use it – if at all. Keep quiet also
    that you have the pdf.
      The attachment is a very good paper – I’ve been pushing Adrian over the last weeks
    to get it submitted to JGR or J. Climate. The main results are great for CRU and also
    for ERA-40. The basic message is clear – you have to put enough surface and sonde
    obs into a model to produce Reanalyses. The jumps when the data input change stand
    out so clearly. NCEP does many odd things also around sea ice and over snow and ice.
       The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also
    losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see
   it.
       I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep
   them
    out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
    Cheers
    Phil
      — portion removed for brevity and not relevant –

There is little doubt that windmills kill birds and bats. Their remains are found at the foot of windmills on a regular basis. Robert Bryce, the author of “Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence‘”, “Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron“, and “Cronies: How Texas Business Became American Policy– and Brought Bush to Power” recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the wind energy industry is being held to a different standard than other energy companies.

It does seem true and plausible that “green” groups that love to go after oil and coal companies would turn a blind eye to “one of their own” such as wind farms. We all know that the courts are used to serve the self-interest of organizations as opposed to just being used to fairly apply the law. The real travesty here is that federal investigators that get pushed to pursue one energy company aren’t pushed to pursue all forms of law breakers.

A few interesting clips from the Wall Street Journal article:

On Aug. 13, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with crude oil or other pollutants in uncovered tanks or waste-water facilities on its properties. The birds were protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.

ExxonMobil is hardly alone in running afoul of this law. Over the past two decades, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against energy companies. In July, for example, the Oregon-based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over the past two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines.

Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year.

A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.

Altamont’s turbines, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, Calif., kill more than 100 times as many birds as Exxon’s tanks, and they do so every year. But the Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s.

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According to the American Wind Energy Association, the industry’s trade association, each megawatt of installed wind-power results in the killing of between one and six birds per year. At the end of 2008, the U.S. had about 25,000 megawatts of wind turbines.

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Why aren’t wind companies prosecuted for killing eagles and other birds? “The fix here is not easy or cheap,” Mr. Lee told me. He added that he doesn’t expect to see any prosecutions of the politically correct wind industry.

This is a double standard that more people—and not just bird lovers—should be paying attention to. In protecting America’s wildlife, federal law-enforcement officials are turning a blind eye to the harm done by “green” energy.

This movie explains some of the reasons of concern for monitoring the increase in temperatures that we have felt since the 1960s.  It is very well done and enjoyable to watch.  Unlike An Inconvenient Truth, it admits that this is not pure imagery but some CGI has been done.

If you can handle the bandwidth, you will see better graphics here rather than watching the embedded YouTube video below.

While I certainly do not begrudge this gentlemen the right to speak their mind, I wonder if this message (that may be good for America) also is good for their business interests. Mr. Pickens is renown in the energy sector and a large scale switch to natural gas would likely help his wallet. Mr. Turner is a very large landowner in the western States and my gut is that he has found large deposits of natural gas under some of his holdings.

All that being said, I tend to agree with the core of their opinion. The United States should concentrate more on natural gas. It would most likely help the environment and it would help to lessen the choke hold that foreign interests have on our economy.

The following parts of their opinion appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

Renewable energy and clean-burning natural gas are the basis of a new strategy the world needs to create a cleaner and more secure future. And the global transformation to a clean-energy economy may be the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century. According to the authoritative Potential Gas Committee (administered by the Colorado School of Mines), the U.S. sits on top of massive reservoirs of natural gas—an estimated 2,000 trillion cubic feet—that contain more energy than all the oil in Saudi Arabia.

Harnessing this large supply—plus developing wind, solar and biofuel energy sources—is essential to achieve three strategic national priorities:

• Energy security: The internal combustion engine makes us dependent on oil that’s concentrated in a handful of countries in some of the world’s most volatile regions. In June, we imported 374 million barrels of oil, nearly two-thirds of what we used, at a cost of $24.7 billion. With 70% of imported oil going into cars and trucks, our transportation system is perilously at risk to shaky oil markets and even shakier regimes.

• Economic security: Last year more than $155 billion was invested in clean energy technologies such as wind and solar, and China and India plan to invest hundreds of billions in renewable energy sources. The annual market for clean energy may escalate in the next decade to between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. The race is on.

• Climate security: Likewise, the clock is ticking on potentially devastating climate changes. We already are witnessing the disintegration of polar ice, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and altered weather patterns. But if we act now, we can prevent catastrophic human and economic impacts.

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In the electricity sector, natural gas is already cheap, available and ready to meet the nation’s power needs while improving climate security. It emits about half the carbon dioxide per British thermal unit of energy, and far fewer of the heavy metals than does coal.

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…New coal plants should be required to combine natural gas with the coal they burn, resulting in cleaner emissions, and every power plant should meet strict carbon-emissions standards.

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In the transportation sector, renewable energy and natural gas can also be deployed immediately. For a quarter century, natural-gas vehicle technology has been available but stymied by lack of leadership. Of the 10 million natural gas vehicles in the world, fewer than 150,000 are in the U.S.

We can begin transitioning the nation’s fleet of 6.5 million 18-wheelers that run regular routes. It would take just 20 refueling stations along a single highway to get trucks from one coast to the other. Centrally fueled urban business and government fleets also can quickly move to natural gas. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are in the process of buying new natural gas vehicles for their fleets, and many municipalities are harnessing the economic and environmental benefits of natural gas-powered buses.

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The economic, environmental, and national security imperatives of America’s energy posture are clear, as is the proven potential of domestic natural resources like gas, wind and solar power. Coupled with energy efficiency, these resources have the potential to help jump-start the economy, drive prosperity and reduce emissions well into the 21st century. The keys are in our hands. All we have to do is unlock the door and start the engine.

One of the major trade rags in engineering is C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News). It is edited by Mr. Rudy Baum. If you aren’t in that trade, you would probably never pick up an issue so you may not be familiar with it. I haven’t read the publication in a long time but was recently made aware of a bit of controversy by Climate Depot. While the readers of C&EN are likely not climatologists, the science of CO2 and its affect on the atmosphere is very steeped in chemistry which their target market knows a bit about.

Mr. Baum wrote an opinion in June that dealt with global warming and some of the recent politics of the cap and trade legislation. While Mr. Baum is certainly entitled to his opinion on this subject, it appears that his readers were not very happy with his stance and some of the phrasing that he used. I won’t reproduce the editorial here as you can jump over read it for yourself.  I will bring out a few excerpts that have been published in the recent letters to the editor.  Some of them even call for the firing of the man!

I am not going to identify the individual writer of each comment by name.  I don’t think I have that right.  I will simply suggest that you read all of the letters to the editor that are posted for July 27, 2009.

…Instead, what should be a noble organization is turning into another left-wing mouthpiece. I don’t agree with your climate-change views, and I am not happy that you continue to use the pulpit of your editorials to promote your left-wing opinions…

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…Although under your editorial leadership, I suspect we would be treated to a biased and skewed version of scientific debate. I think its time to find a new editor.

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I am always intrigued by claims that science is settled, especially when it comes to something as complex as climate. Rudy Baum’s remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist’s soul. Let’s cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded?
…

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…It makes sense to reduce the combustion of carbon-based fuels, if only to preserve their use as feedstocks for industry. However, I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved….

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Your editorial in the June 22 issue of C&EN was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!
…

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…The more people try to trivialize global warming, the more we and our descendants will suffer the results, some of which have already been quantified (for example, glacier melting and polar ice disappearing). Weather disruptions and shore erosion, for example, will begin to occur. The people who deny global warming are in the same class as those who rejected the negative effects of DDT, those who denied the negative effects of CFCs on the atmosphere, and so on.


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…The only demonstrated way forward is nuclear power. But those who oppose nuclear power are somewhat similar to climate-change deniers. I predict nuclear power will be accepted when the fear of climate change exceeds the fear of nuclear power. When might this happen? Not soon. Among the population at large, climate-change fears are not even in the top 10 worries.


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…I can’t accept as facts the reports of federal agencies, because they have become political and are more likely to support the regime in power than not. Baum’s attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me.


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Your comments about the climate-change deniers are right on target. In fact, your closing paragraph, “Sow doubt; make up statistics,” etc., was one of the best summaries I’ve seen of the deceitful practices that the deniers are allowed to get away with….

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…We cannot continue to burn organic fuels at billions of point sources without usefully recapturing the carbon (utilities should be able to do this)….

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I am furious that idiots such as Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas) helped pass this cap-and-trade bill. How much of a payoff are they getting from General Electric to pass this stupid bill?…

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Having worked as an atmospheric chemist for many years, I have extensive experience with environmental issues, and I usually agree with Rudy Baum’s editorials. But his use of “climate-change deniers” to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific….

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…Given the climate’s complexity and these and other uncertainties, are we justified in legislating major increases in our energy costs unilaterally guided only by a moral imperative to “do our part” for Earth’s climate? I am among many environmentally responsible citizen-scientists who think this is stupid, both because our emissions reductions will be dwarfed by increases elsewhere (China and India, for example) and because the models have large uncertainties….

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…Finally, I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other “free-market fanatics,” and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose.

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The editor’s page of C&EN should not be a political page. Rudy Baum has been pushing the global warming (conveniently changed now to “climate change”) hypothesis as fact very strongly for some time now. He denigrates as foolish and ignorant folks who do not swallow the global warming hypothesis and his comments are rather arrogant….

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…Are the temperature measurements accurate? Eighty-nine percent of the 860 monitoring stations inspected by meteorologist Anthony Watts and volunteers from the surfacestations.org project failed to meet the National Weather Service’s siting requirements (they were too close to artificial heating or radiating/reflecting sources). This is not the only information that does not support Baum’s hypothesis….

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…I would like to see the ACS Board cap Baum’s political pen and trade him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.

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In the interest of brevity, I can limit my response to the diatribe of the editor-in-chief in the June 22 edition of C&EN to one word: Disgusting.

There are many more comments in the letters to Mr. Baum.  Many of them are quite well written and make excellent points.  I encourage you to go there and spend a few minutes reading them.

It is hard to be good.  Sorry, Mr. Gore, but it is true.  Here are a few inconvenient facts:

1. It is very dangerous to the health of you and your children to live in a home or enter a room where a CFL (compact fluorescent) bulb has broken.  That danger is minimized if you have had the room cleaned by a hazardous waste team.  What is the problem?  Mercury.  Check out this article.
2. While Toyota and others are offering a bounty for the return of their hybrid batteries, the disposal of all those ecologically unsafe batteries is a real concern.
3. Even the ultra-rich Pickens is having a hard time “doing good” by building wind mills to power the world!

Contrary to my custom, I will be recreating the complete story here.

Strickland details plans for nuclear plant
Business First of Columbus – by Matt Burns

A third nuclear power station proposed for Ohio likely won’t start operating for years, but government officials and energy industry executives are saying it is time to start considering its construction and Piketon is the place for it.

Politicians and executives from companies and organizations involved in the proposed multibillion-dollar project unveiled plans Thursday for an alliance that will push for development of the power station in southern Ohio. Officials said the project, if approved, would take more than a decade to complete. The initiative would create an estimated 3,000 jobs during construction and up to 700 jobs to operate the facility, provided regulators give it the OK.

With a long approval and construction road ahead and government plans for toughening emissions regulations, Gov. Ted Strickland said Ohio – the fifth-largest electricity consumer in the nation – must take planning steps now.

“We cannot wait to begin building our new energy future,” he said at the gathering in Piketon, about 60 miles south of Columbus.

Working on the Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park Alliance are Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE:DUK); French nuclear power company Areva SA; Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative; nuclear developer UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC; and USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU).

The 3,700-acre site for the plant was home to a 900-worker uranium enrichment complex that ceased operations in 2001. The government created the complex in 1954 to make uranium to fuel military reactors and for nuclear weapons.

Bethesda, Md.-based USEC, which ran the shuttered Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, has maintained a presence there with about 1,200 workers. A recently licensed American Centrifuge Plant, which will create fuel for nuclear power operations, is set to go online there in 2011, USEC told Columbus Business First.

Duke Energy executives and state officials are billing the plant as a key step in moving the state away from a dependence on coal-fired electricity, which is the source of more than 85 percent of Ohio’s electricity. The state is home to two nuclear plants in the north.

“It’s an indisputable fact that the nation and the planet are transitioning to a low-carbon future,” Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers said Thursday. “With the creation of this clean-energy park, we’re preparing to cross the bridge to that low-carbon future.”

Piketon is viewed as a strong site for the proposed plant because of its infrastructure. Strickland said in a phone interview after Thursday’s announcement that the infrastructure advantage, combined with the alliance’s past experience in nuclear development, could even move the project quicker than the average nuclear plant.

Strickland said the alliance is seeking U.S. Energy Department funding for the project’s first phase, which would include permitting. Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy would manage and oversee the project and apply for federal licensing. Duke Energy and Areva would shoulder the bulk of the project’s cost, he said, which is estimated at more than $5 billion.

U.S. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, acknowledged the dark side of the former Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The government has paid out about $325 million to workers who became ill as a result of their jobs there and it has contributed about $41 million toward medical bills, he said.

Strickland said he’s confident the industry has made performance and environmental strides that likely will eliminate any “broad-based objection” to the project.

“I believe we now are wiser, the standards are tougher and that the industry has become safer,” he said.

nuclear, global+warming, Ohio, carbon dioxide, CO2

While there are some problems with relying on wind power for the bulk of our energy needs in the US, wind probably has a place to augment and help us meet our needs, especially if the US doesn’t quickly add more nuclear generation capability!

A short video from Wind Power Works

While I typically do not reproduce pages in whole, I am going to put the entire text of the Wind Day campaign here for your convenience. You should also go to the Global Wind Day site.

In 2009, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), which initiated the Wind Day campaign, will join forces with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) in order to coordinate the first Global Wind Day. The campaign will build on the efforts and success of the European Wind Day 2007 and 2008, in which over 20 countries participated in Europe, with hundreds of public events organised.

At a time of energy and climate crisis, it is vital to explain to the decision makers why the world crucially needs an energy shift. Policy makers are seeking solutions and the wind industry offers the best way to produce CO2-free electricity quickly and efficiently.

Wind can be found everywhere, and energy from wind is helping ease the widespread dependence on fossil fuels. In addition, wind energy creates jobs and contributes to economic growth by offering highly technical know-how and the possibility of exporting wind energy and its technology.

However, wind energy is also close to the everyday life of citizens, and therefore  citizens should be aware of all the benefits deriving from the deployment of this energy source. To fully exploit worldwide wind resources we need the support of local authorities, students, communities and citizens . We need that support to explain that wind power works.

Think global – Act local

The Global Wind Day is an awareness campaign for the promotion of wind energy worldwide. The message is global: wind power works – it tackles climate change, it improves energy dependence on fossil fuels, and it is an intelligent investment. All the events will take place all across 25 countries worldwide. The Global Wind Day will both reach out for and be powered by the people.

On 15 June 2009, thousands of public events will be organised simultaneously. Click here to discover your local events on the wind events map.

2009 will be a crucial year for the fight against climate change. Decision makers from all over the world will meet in Copenhagen in December to discuss the post-Kyoto protocol agreement. By participating in one of the numerous events organised for the Global Wind Day you will have the possibility of learning how wind energy works, and how wind turbines work. Above all, you will join EWEA and GWEC in asking decision makers at national, regional, and local level around the world to endorse new commitments and approve proper legal frameworks that will enable a large-scale development of wind power.

Like nuclear, it takes years to implement a large geothermal plant (perhaps decades). It is imperative that the United States aggressively and quickly begins the construction of these alternative sources of energy rather than building more coal fired plants.

The NY Times ran an editorial on geothermal which I have reproduced, in part, below.  Also, for those that don’t understand the technology, the following video will allow you to learn the basics.

In short, geothermal energy is:

• safe to operate in very populated areas
• fairly clean with few environmentally challenging by-products
• stable
• consistent
• not an obvious target for terrorism

Probably the biggest downside of the technology in many locales is that it does require a large water source; however, coal, oil, and nuclear also need a large water source to be used effectively so this is not that much of a detriment.

In 2006, a panel led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology surveyed the prospects for electricity production from enhanced geothermal systems. Its conclusions were conservative but very optimistic. The panel suggested that with modest federal support, geothermal power could play a critical role in America’s energy future, adding substantially to the nation’s store of renewable energy and more than making up for coal-burning power plants that would have to be retired.

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There is a lot of research yet to be done about geothermal sources, new techniques for deep drilling and energy generation at the surface. But the basics are clear enough. Water is injected deep into the earth where it absorbs heat from the surrounding rock. As the fluid returns to the surface, that heat is used to generate electricity. The fluid is then re-injected. The system forms a closed loop. It creates almost no emissions and is entirely renewable. It also occupies a smaller surface area than either solar or wind power.

Still, large-scale commercial production is at least a decade away and will require improvements on currently available technology. Geothermal development also will mean still more competition for scarce water, more holes in the ground and more roads to service those holes.

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Geothermal development must not be allowed to foster another drilling free-for-all of the kind we’ve seen during the past decade. Done right, it could help free the country of the grievous environmental burden of coal-burning power plants. Done wrong, it could create grievous environmental problems of its own. Mindful of the dangers, the next administration should commit to developing this extraordinary resource.

There is also a case to be made that there is pressure put on food prices due to ethanol production as well.

I am not totally against using ethanol as an additive. I think there is some advantage to keeping the market alive and viable to spur development of new techniques of creating the liquid and new crop energy sources other than corn.

For instance, the article doesn’t cite any greenhouse gas figures if the source of heat during the distillation process is electricity from nuclear (to the best of my knowledge this technique is not used commercially, presumably due to cost).  There is a great explanation of the dry-milling process here.

While I think the US government should continue to mandate the 10% ethanol blend, I see no economic or scientific reason to increase that blend to 15%.

Below are key excerpts from the article at WSJ.com but you can click here to read the full opinion.

The Obama Administration is pushing a big expansion in ethanol, including a mandate to increase the share of the corn-based fuel required in gasoline to 15% from 10%.

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The biofuels industry already receives a 45 cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol produced, or about $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, import tariffs of 54 cents a gallon and an ad valorem tariff of four to seven cents a gallon keep out sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and the Caribbean. The federal 10% blending requirement insures a market for ethanol whether consumers want it or not — a market Congress has mandated will double to 20.5 billion gallons in 2015.

The Congressional Budget Office reported last month that Americans pay another surcharge for ethanol in higher food prices. CBO estimates that from April 2007 to April 2008 “the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices.” Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills.

A second study — by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality — explains that the reduction in CO2 emissions from burning ethanol are minimal and maybe negative. Making ethanol requires new land from clearing forest and grasslands that would otherwise sequester carbon emissions. “As with petroleum based fuels,” the report concludes: “GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions are associated with the conversion and combustion of bio-fuels and every year they are produced GHG emissions could be released through time if new acres are needed to produce corn or other crops for biofuels.”

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Both CBO and EPA find that in theory cellulosic ethanol — from wood chips, grasses and biowaste — would reduce carbon emissions. However, as CBO emphasizes, “current technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol are not commercially viable.” The ethanol lobby is attempting a giant bait-and-switch: Keep claiming that cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, even as it knows the only current technology to meet federal mandates is corn ethanol (or sugar, if it didn’t face an import tariff).

The article is a posting of an essay by Ralph Ellis but I couldn’t find the original essay to link to.

Check out the article here.

The article discusses

• wind power
• solar power
• nuclear power
• tidal power
• hydrogen power
• traditional coal and oil power

The conclusion is that most of the “alternatives” actually hurt our environment more or cost us dramatically more money.  The only realistic alternative is nuclear.

I absolutely agree with Mr. Munger.  My rantings on cap and trade (or carbon trading) are almost constant on this site.

I also agree with Senator Gregg that we need to get 100 nuclear plants online as quickly as possible.  Nuclear has problems but it is the best and most clean way to generate the amounts of energy that the United States needs.

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway, Judd Gregg, nuclear, cap and trade, carbon trading, video, CNBC

If you read this site often, you know that I really don’t like carbon trading.  I don’t think it will help solve any problems and it is only a way to tax people and push industries into doom.  Dr. Lovelock appears to agree with me and he is a fairly strong supporter of the theory that global warming is man made. 

Also in this interview, Dr. Lovelock discusses his favorite approach to reducing the overall carbon footprint.  This approach of burying charcoal is not very popular and there are some other environmental concerns in the production of charcoal.

You can read the entire article at NewScientist.  The interview is much longer than what i have reproduced here.  Please click through to the source.

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside.

What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?

That is a waste of time. It’s a crazy idea – and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.

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So are we doomed?

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste – which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering – into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.

Would it make enough of a difference?

Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won’t do it.

Do you think we will survive?

I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

I don’t think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what’s coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing’s been done except endless talk and meetings.

global warming, carbon trading, cap and trade, charcoal, James Lovelock, carbon dioxide, CO2

Looking at alternatives for getting this to work may be our best chance of reducing pollution (including CO2) via using less gasoline to propel our cars the same distance.

From the Heat2Power website:

The heat2power system is based on the use of one or more cylinders for the regeneration of waste heat. These cylinders can be in replacement of the combustion cylinders inside an existing engine or as an add-on module that is connected to the engine by means of a gear set or a belt drive. Also is it possible to have no mechanical linkage between combustion engine and regeneration unit in case the power from the regeneration unit is taken off electrically. In general for low cost of installation and development we recommend OEMs to use an add-on system. In that way the original engine remains basically unchanged.

The thermal power is extracted from the exhaust of the internal combustion engine by means of a heat exchanger. This is an gas-gas heat exchanger operating at high temperatures: up to about 950°C. Basically the heat2power system works like most other thermodynamic cycles : intake and compress a gas, then heat it up and finally let it expand. The difference between an ICE and the heat2power system is that the heat input is not by a combustion inside the cylinder but by heat exchange external to the cylinder.

After the expansion stroke the air is released at low temperatures (250-300°C instead of 600-950°C). This can also be considered as an advantage for military vehicle that require a low thermal profile.

The heat exchanger in the exhaust is placed after the catalyst (gasoline vehicles) or after the particle filter (diesel vehicles). In such manner the exhaust gas after treatment remains unaffected and the combustion engine does not need its tuning to be done all over again. However we recommend to apply thermal insulation of the exhaust manifold and the first part of the exhaust and catalyst/DPF so that a maximum amount of heat is available for the regeneration process.