Monthly Archives: April 2013

International Nuclear Fusion Project Underway


The UK Independent reports that the Iter fusion project gained final approval “ for the design of the most technically challenging component – the fusion reactor’s “blanket” that will handle the super-heated nuclear fuel.”
The Iter project is designed to produce  at a rate of  500 megawatts of energy using an input of 50 megawatts  during a 1000 seconds run. The Iter fusion project is forecast to cost £ 13billion (US $20 billion) .  The project team is an international combine of 46 nations that are contributing  science and money.  The facility is based in Cadarache, France.
Below is a cut-away of the Iter reactor design and brief description of the elements of the reactor from Howstuffworks.com
fusion-reactor-5

The Alarmists Are The Real Deniers


The new normal according to the Alarmist warmers is that “cooling is warming.”  Every possible weather event, if it is unpleasant, is due to global warming. As the readers  of this post are very intelligent,  they remember that until the last 15 + years, the Alarmists have told us that global warming would mean hotter summers and winters.  That is what the alarmist’s climate models predicted but those predictions are being shown to be terribly wrong.  So what’s an alarmist to do?  They are hoping that you don’t notice that they are changing their mantra without ever acknowledging that they were wrong.
But what are the facts?   The “Updated on 23 April 2013” chart, below, shows that in the past two weeks, the US has experienced 4163 record low temperatures for this time of year.  We believe that this is weather and it is always changing.  But to the desperate Alarmists, it is the result of global warming.
Recordlows2wksUS
Chart by Ham Weather.com (click on chart to enlarge.)
A posting by David Deming  in the Washington Times, titled “The real deniers of climate change”  characterizes the data verses the alarmists contention.  He says:
“The Northern Hemisphere is experiencing unusually cold weather. Snow cover last December was the greatest since satellite monitoring began in 1966. The United Kingdom had the coldest March weather in 50 years, and there were more than a thousand record low temperatures in the United States. The Irish meteorological office reported that March “temperatures were the lowest on record nearly everywhere.” Spring snowfall in Europe was also high. In Moscow, the snow depth was the highest in 134 years of observation. In Kiev, authorities had to bring in military vehicles to clear snow from the streets.
Cold-weather extremes are a natural climatic variation, and this is exactly the point. If the world were experiencing a climate crisis owing to global warming, there shouldn’t be a single record low temperature anywhere in the world. The Associated Press has assured us, though, that this cold spell is not only consistent with a warming globe, it is actually caused by global warming. The proffered explanation is that cold weather in Europe is a result of melting sea ice in the Arctic. If this special pleading strikes you as unusually tendentious, it is all in the best tradition of explaining away ex post facto any weather event that appears to contradict the ruling paradigm.”
Deming cites numerous examples of the how wrong the Alarmists have been over the years.  The full posting is worth the reading to see what he has to say.
He concludes with this:
“With each passing year, it is becoming increasingly clear that global warming is not a scientific theory subject to empirical falsification, but a political ideology that has to be fiercely defended against any challenge. It is ironic that skeptics are called “deniers” when every fact that would tend to falsify global warming is immediately explained away by an industry of denial.”
cbdakota

GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE: SCIENCE AND POLITICS


A referred paper in Quaestiones Geographicae* written by Cliff Ollier titled “Global Warming and Climate Change: Science and Politics “ maintains the idea that global warming will bring on devastation is a dangerous belief.  Ollier challenges the belief that CO2 is a major force in defining the globe’s climate.   He also takes on the corollary issues such as sea level, the Sun and climate.  The abstract to the paper follows:
The threat of dangerous climate change from anthropogenic global warming has decreased.
• Global temperature rose from 1975 to 1998, but since then has leveled off.
• Sea level is now rising at about 1.5mm per year based on tide gauges, and satellite data suggests it may even be falling.
o Coral islands once allegedly threatened by drowning have actually increased in area.
o Ice caps cannot possibly slide into the sea (the alarmist model) because they occupy kilometres-deep basins extending below sea level.
o Deep ice cores show a succession of annual layers of snow accumulation back to 760,000 years and in all that time never melted, despite times when the temperature was higher than it is today.
o Sea ice shows no change in 30 years in the Arctic.
• Emphasis on the greenhouse effect stresses radiation and usually leads to neglect of important factors like convection.
o Water is the main greenhouse gas.
o The CO2 in the ocean and the atmosphere are in equilibrium: if we could remove CO2 from the atmosphere the ocean would give out more to restore the balance. Increasing CO2 might make the ocean less alkaline but never acid.
• The sun is now seen as the major control of climate, but not through greenhouse gases.
o There is a very good correlation of sunspots and climate.
o Solar cycles provide a basis for prediction. Solar Cycle 24 has started and we can expect serious cooling.
• Many think that political decisions about climate are based on scientific predictions but what politicians get are projections based on computer models.
o The UN’s main adviser, the IPCC, uses adjusted data for the input, their models and codes remain secret, and they do not accept responsibility for their projections.
The issues listed in the Abstract are explored in some detail in the full paper that you can access by clicking here.
cbdakota

Reuters Posting Rationalizes Climate Model Failures


Reuters’  March 16 posting “ Climate Scientist struggle to explain warming slowdown,” is looked at by some as a significant refutation of the catastrophic man-made global warming (CAGW) theory.   The theme of the posting, IMHO,  is that the slowdown is puzzling but these brilliant alarmist scientists will straighten out this “glich”.  Then all will be  made right with the world —–which by the way is going to get very, very hot pretty soon according to our climate models.
Here is how the posting opens up:
“Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Often focused on century-long trends, most climate models failed to predict that the temperature rise would slow, starting around 2000. Scientists are now intent on figuring out the causes and determining whether the respite will be brief or a more lasting phenomenon.
Getting this right is essential for the short and long-term planning of governments and businesses ranging from energy to construction, from agriculture to insurance. Many scientists say they expect a revival of warming in coming years.”

Solar Cycle 24 March Update


There was a small upward spike in Sunspot numbers in March.   Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center thinks this will make Cycle 24 a double peak “maximum” event.  He says that the second peak may even last into 2014.
(Click on the Charts for more Clarity)
March13sunspots

Electric Vehicle March Sales Update And Other News


The Nissan Leaf had it biggest ever sales month in March when it moved 2,236 cars.  The increase was attributed in part to a reduced sales price.  It sells for $28,800.  The  Chevy Volt sales were down 35 % compared to February. Total March sales were 1,478.  The Detroit News reports that the Tesla Model S was the best EV seller for the first quarter:
“ The high-end Model S, which after a Monday announcement will start at about $62,400 after federal tax credits, registered 4,750 deliveries, topping the second-place Volt, which had 4,244 sales through March.  Nissan sold 3,539 Leaf vehicles during the first three months of the year and Toyota Motor Corp. had sold 2,353 of its Prius plug-ins.”
Tesla has decided to quit selling the short range S model that is equipped with the 40kWh battery that is said to have a range of 160 miles.  Only 4% want it over the S Model equipped with the 60 kWh battery that is said to have a range of 230 miles. The 85 kWh battery model is said to have a range of up to 300 miles on a single charge.
The Detroit News cites a Japanese survey that finds that about 1/3 of the current owners of EVs wont buy another. The reasons:
A new report from researcher McKinsey and Co. found that about one in three electric-vehicle buyers felt “seduced” by the prospects of low energy costs, attractive subsidies and good test-drives, but became less enthusiastic about electric vehicles when faced with issues like higher electric bills and lack of charging stations
Renault’s new all-electric car, Zoe, has an advertised range of 130 but Motortrades Insight says:
“British drivers are not expected to warm to the new Renault Zoe, an all-electric city car, after Renault today revealed it can only achieve 60 miles in cold weather and 90 miles in normal conditions.” 
Apparently if you buy the Zoe,  you rent the battery. Motortrades Insight adds:
“Drivers will also have to pay between £70 and £93 every month to ‘hire’ the car’s expensively-manufactured batteries, with Renault replacing them when they become worn out.”
Probably everyone by now has heard that Fisker has laid off all its US workers and will soon file for Bankruptcy.  Autobloggreen says:
“Kirkland & Ellis is advising the California-based maker of the extended-range plug-in Karma for a potential bankruptcy filing, which hasn’t produced a car in about eight months and is losing interest from two prospective China-based buyers. Fisker declined to comment to Reuters.
 cbdakota

The Marcott Reconstruction Debunked


 Science” magazine published the Marcott,et al, paper that purported to show a look at  11,300 years of global temperatures.   The temperature curve drawn for the data shows temperatures rising and reaching a peak about 10,000 years ago.  The temperature remained steady for some 6000 years after which it began dropping.   About 100 years ago, it reached a low point that was lower than the temperature at the beginning of the period illustrated.  Then it hockey sticked, going about straight up, exceeding any temperature on the chart through its entire 11,300 years.  This, many took to be conclusive proof that we were experiencing something that had never been seen before and it was all caused by CO2 that resulted from the burning of fossil fuels.  On March 7, the Associated Press said:
“Rapid” head spike unlike anything in 11,000 years. Research released Thursday in the journal Science uses fossils of tiny marine organisms to reconstruct global temperatures …. It shows how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until an unprecedented reversal in the 20th century.
“Wow”, the Alarmist said,  then they said it shows that our theory is correct and it also shows that Michael Mann’s hockey stick was correct. The Marcott, et al chart is shown below.

“The Magic Washing Machine”—–Limiting Energy Access To The World’s Poor Is Wrong


You have to give credit to the Green NGOs in that they are much more upfront about their goals than most of the Global Governments. Greenies want to stop development of all fossil fuel sources and they would like to see the nuclear industry dismantled and no new nukes built.  The Obama Administration is not quite that ambitious, at least for now, although there is not much difference in their objectives. Examples of goals the Administration have announced are: kill coal,  minimize (and in some cases prevent any) use of Federal lands for accessing the mineral resources and raise the price of gasoline and electricity.
Who is it that will feel the most pain, if this cabal is successful?  It will be the poorest among us, of course.  They justify their actions by saying that the Earth will really, really, really go to hell if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels.  And besides they add, we will have wind and solar farms takeover the job of supplying power.  Wind and solar farms are not ready for prime time and who knows if they will ever be. The experience around the world demonstrates that when and if these renewables do replace fossil fuels, the power supplied will be more costly than that supplied by fossil fuels.  No help for the poor here.