I'd like to see a logic map for the need to address anthropogenic climate change.
It'd show the complete logical and scientific analysis from how we know atmospheric CO2 reflects heat to how confident we can be that a given international policy will be effective at preventing changes in our habitat.
I understand that a lot thorough science has taken place approaching each step in the proof from several directions. I think a graphical representation would be the best way to communicate how thorough and robust this process has been and whether there really are any data or analysis choke points (any single crux of the issue that could be false).
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Climate Scientology
I haven’t posted for a long time because I’ve had nothing interesting to say.
But a comment about the hacked climate emails from last week seems to be in order, since I have yet to see traditional media coverage that seems to give a damn about the actual implications of the communications.
The people involved said a lot of dickish things – that is irrelevant and uninteresting. And also seems to be the only thing anyone is talking about.
The only thing that matters is that they confirmed that they were intentionally withholding critical climate data from people who disagree with them – for years. And that they were so dedicated to not sharing their data that they actually said that they would prefer to destroy the data than let people who disagree with them see it. (You can read some of the emails here: http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacked-hadley-cru-foi2009-files.html#more )
Take a moment to think about that.
And another.
If you are not disgusted, enraged, and outraged, there is something wrong with you.
There is never an excuse for scientists to hide data on any matter that impacts humanity and is being used to guide international public policy– ever. Never. Not one. Ever. None.
The whole point of science is to disagree and try to prove each other wrong while constantly moving closer to the most correct interpretation of the data. That is the scientific method. If scientists only talked to people that agreed with them, we never would have made it out of the dark ages.
If you don’t share your data, it can only be because you think your theory is too weak to withstand criticism, because you have no understanding of what it means to be a scientist, or because you have embraced your theory religiously and cannot accept criticism of it because it could slow the spread of your cause. I think the last is the most likely.
I take both science and the environment very seriously. I think human induced climate change is a plausible theory. Unfortunately, the key historical temperature study that has been used to demonstrate that current times are a-historically warm – is the same study that is based on data that hasn’t been shared.
The crux of the climate change argument has never been verified because of the religious anti-scientific actions of a small group of people (I can’t bring myself to call them scientists) that control the critical infrastructure of climate science. These people are Climate Scientologists and they deserve to be ostracized by the community of real scientists. Real Climate Scientists need to lead the charge against them if they want their field to have any credibility.
To any trolls: please disagree with me in a coherent manner. I would love to be wrong about all of this. It has been a traumatic revelation for me. I’ll just delete any of the incoherent name-calling that pops up when you question Climate Scientology.
But a comment about the hacked climate emails from last week seems to be in order, since I have yet to see traditional media coverage that seems to give a damn about the actual implications of the communications.
The people involved said a lot of dickish things – that is irrelevant and uninteresting. And also seems to be the only thing anyone is talking about.
The only thing that matters is that they confirmed that they were intentionally withholding critical climate data from people who disagree with them – for years. And that they were so dedicated to not sharing their data that they actually said that they would prefer to destroy the data than let people who disagree with them see it. (You can read some of the emails here: http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacked-hadley-cru-foi2009-files.html#more )
Take a moment to think about that.
And another.
If you are not disgusted, enraged, and outraged, there is something wrong with you.
There is never an excuse for scientists to hide data on any matter that impacts humanity and is being used to guide international public policy– ever. Never. Not one. Ever. None.
The whole point of science is to disagree and try to prove each other wrong while constantly moving closer to the most correct interpretation of the data. That is the scientific method. If scientists only talked to people that agreed with them, we never would have made it out of the dark ages.
If you don’t share your data, it can only be because you think your theory is too weak to withstand criticism, because you have no understanding of what it means to be a scientist, or because you have embraced your theory religiously and cannot accept criticism of it because it could slow the spread of your cause. I think the last is the most likely.
I take both science and the environment very seriously. I think human induced climate change is a plausible theory. Unfortunately, the key historical temperature study that has been used to demonstrate that current times are a-historically warm – is the same study that is based on data that hasn’t been shared.
The crux of the climate change argument has never been verified because of the religious anti-scientific actions of a small group of people (I can’t bring myself to call them scientists) that control the critical infrastructure of climate science. These people are Climate Scientologists and they deserve to be ostracized by the community of real scientists. Real Climate Scientists need to lead the charge against them if they want their field to have any credibility.
To any trolls: please disagree with me in a coherent manner. I would love to be wrong about all of this. It has been a traumatic revelation for me. I’ll just delete any of the incoherent name-calling that pops up when you question Climate Scientology.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Dubai, Dubai, Dubai
What were they thinking? I really have no idea. I posted a few times about how Dubai was by all appearances, a parade of crazy.
I guess they thought they would follow the example of Las Vegas, building a city in the middle of a wasteland. But it was on the coast, so it had hints of Miami to it as well.
The only problem of course being that Las Vegas and Miami are cities that serve a purpose, that have a source of income. Whereas Dubai was just a way for too rich oil oligarchies to dispose of wealth.
They led the way up with a list of the most preposterous ideas (indoor skiing in the 120 degree desert, underwater hotel rooms, man made islands in custom shapes, world's largest F1 theme park, the world's 55* tallest buildings, why not?).
And now they lead the way down with the world's largest number of ultra-luxury cars abandoned at the airport by debtors hoping to keep their heads and with the world's most rapidly declining real estate values. Their prices have fallen almost as much this year as the worste bubble markets have fallen since their peak. In 7 months they accomplished the same kind of damage that took Las Vegas almost three years to achieve.
Astonishing. Simply astonishing.
Not that it is happening, but that it took so long.
When a city is built primarily from money made by building and selling real estate in that city, how does one determine the underlying value of properties in that city? It is kind of like Detroit, but instead of not designing and building cars any more, they're not designing and building buildings any more. Will the world's 55* tallest buildings stand empty and worthless?
* I made this number up. Nobody knows exactly how many of the world's tallest buildings are in Dubai, because they use the Shariah Law system of measurement based on the distance a donkey can walk in an hour and donkeys can't walk up vertical surfaces. Also, many of these tallest buildings in Dubai are unfinished, so it is questionable as to whether they count as buildings or just as structures.
I guess they thought they would follow the example of Las Vegas, building a city in the middle of a wasteland. But it was on the coast, so it had hints of Miami to it as well.
The only problem of course being that Las Vegas and Miami are cities that serve a purpose, that have a source of income. Whereas Dubai was just a way for too rich oil oligarchies to dispose of wealth.
They led the way up with a list of the most preposterous ideas (indoor skiing in the 120 degree desert, underwater hotel rooms, man made islands in custom shapes, world's largest F1 theme park, the world's 55* tallest buildings, why not?).
And now they lead the way down with the world's largest number of ultra-luxury cars abandoned at the airport by debtors hoping to keep their heads and with the world's most rapidly declining real estate values. Their prices have fallen almost as much this year as the worste bubble markets have fallen since their peak. In 7 months they accomplished the same kind of damage that took Las Vegas almost three years to achieve.
Astonishing. Simply astonishing.
Not that it is happening, but that it took so long.
When a city is built primarily from money made by building and selling real estate in that city, how does one determine the underlying value of properties in that city? It is kind of like Detroit, but instead of not designing and building cars any more, they're not designing and building buildings any more. Will the world's 55* tallest buildings stand empty and worthless?
* I made this number up. Nobody knows exactly how many of the world's tallest buildings are in Dubai, because they use the Shariah Law system of measurement based on the distance a donkey can walk in an hour and donkeys can't walk up vertical surfaces. Also, many of these tallest buildings in Dubai are unfinished, so it is questionable as to whether they count as buildings or just as structures.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
hydrogen powerplant?
I'm tempted to start a "why, oh why" file just for this thing.
The details are sparse, but the general idea is that it takes electricity, uses it to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water via electrolysis, then burns the hydrogen to create electricity.
This is a notoriously wrong idea.
Electrolysis is notoriously inefficient, hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store, burning hydrogen is notoriously a waste of an expensive commodity.
I would be very surprised if they have a round trip efficiency of greater that 15%.
The good news is that they claim all of the funding is private, so at least their money isn't coming from taxes.
My favorite quote from the article:
"We're the first company that had the foresight to jump on creating a combinatory system and putting the pieces together to make it viable for the public and for electrical generation"
I'm not sure if "foresight" is quite the word I would have chosen. The "excess of money and dearth of sense" is closer.
The details are sparse, but the general idea is that it takes electricity, uses it to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water via electrolysis, then burns the hydrogen to create electricity.
This is a notoriously wrong idea.
Electrolysis is notoriously inefficient, hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store, burning hydrogen is notoriously a waste of an expensive commodity.
I would be very surprised if they have a round trip efficiency of greater that 15%.
The good news is that they claim all of the funding is private, so at least their money isn't coming from taxes.
My favorite quote from the article:
"We're the first company that had the foresight to jump on creating a combinatory system and putting the pieces together to make it viable for the public and for electrical generation"
I'm not sure if "foresight" is quite the word I would have chosen. The "excess of money and dearth of sense" is closer.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
wasted waste heat
Nearly every device that uses energy produces waste heat. In your house, most of this waste heat gets just ends up heating your rooms.
In warm climates where air conditioners are common, this is ridiculous. You're paying to pump the heat out of your refrigerator twice. First to pump the heat out of the fridge and into the kitchen, then to pump it out of your house and into the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, you're putting energy into another device to heat cold water.
So, why not combine the two systems? Why not use the waste heat from major household appliances to preheat the cold incoming city water before it gets to your water heater?
Between your refrigerator, air conditioner and clothes dryer there is a fair amount of waste heat just going, well, to waste.
In warm climates where air conditioners are common, this is ridiculous. You're paying to pump the heat out of your refrigerator twice. First to pump the heat out of the fridge and into the kitchen, then to pump it out of your house and into the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, you're putting energy into another device to heat cold water.
So, why not combine the two systems? Why not use the waste heat from major household appliances to preheat the cold incoming city water before it gets to your water heater?
Between your refrigerator, air conditioner and clothes dryer there is a fair amount of waste heat just going, well, to waste.
Friday, July 17, 2009
disruptive power tech?
I was thinking about what it'd take to put me out of a job and am not too worried.
The electric utility industry exists to take advantage of the efficiencies of large scale energy production. Small scale household or neighborhood based production could certainly have a future, but a fairly disruptive technology would have to be invented to make it worthwhile.
No domestic option today is remotely competitive on a cost basis, even with all of the state and federal tax credits. With enough unrealistically optimistic assumptions (like zero maintenance, rapidly escalating utility energy costs, and a 30 year service life), cost inefficient technologies like household solar panels can be sold. But even the vast majority of these systems require being connected to the power system in order to work.
I expect that one day some kind of combined cycle natural gas fuel cell plus solar panel plus batteries system could approach cost parity with the power system, but so what? Most people don't go to the trouble of having that kind of thing installed in order to achieve zero savings.
And I can't think of a system that would require less than two disruptive technologies in order to completely obviate a connection to the power system. The one I think of requires 1) virtually free truly maintenance-free solar panels and 2) ideal energy storage and conversion system(no fumes, no maintenance, no acids, no fire risk, minimal noise, 30 year lifetime, predictable failure).
The other possible source of job loss for me is if some clever exec decides to move my work overseas. The best reason why this is unlikely to happen is that the cost of engineering staff is minuscule compared to the cost of a mistake. I do projects where my time is 5-7% of the project cost. If the project were outsourced, the total project cost might be reduced by 2-3%. But if any mistakes are made and the project construction gets held up by a day or a piece of equipment fails prematurely because it was incorrectly specced or designed, any savings on engineering time would be greatly overcome by construction and maintenance cost overruns.
The electric utility industry exists to take advantage of the efficiencies of large scale energy production. Small scale household or neighborhood based production could certainly have a future, but a fairly disruptive technology would have to be invented to make it worthwhile.
No domestic option today is remotely competitive on a cost basis, even with all of the state and federal tax credits. With enough unrealistically optimistic assumptions (like zero maintenance, rapidly escalating utility energy costs, and a 30 year service life), cost inefficient technologies like household solar panels can be sold. But even the vast majority of these systems require being connected to the power system in order to work.
I expect that one day some kind of combined cycle natural gas fuel cell plus solar panel plus batteries system could approach cost parity with the power system, but so what? Most people don't go to the trouble of having that kind of thing installed in order to achieve zero savings.
And I can't think of a system that would require less than two disruptive technologies in order to completely obviate a connection to the power system. The one I think of requires 1) virtually free truly maintenance-free solar panels and 2) ideal energy storage and conversion system(no fumes, no maintenance, no acids, no fire risk, minimal noise, 30 year lifetime, predictable failure).
The other possible source of job loss for me is if some clever exec decides to move my work overseas. The best reason why this is unlikely to happen is that the cost of engineering staff is minuscule compared to the cost of a mistake. I do projects where my time is 5-7% of the project cost. If the project were outsourced, the total project cost might be reduced by 2-3%. But if any mistakes are made and the project construction gets held up by a day or a piece of equipment fails prematurely because it was incorrectly specced or designed, any savings on engineering time would be greatly overcome by construction and maintenance cost overruns.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
when bad news is good news (for me)
I find myself cheering for global financial panic these days because I'm trying to buy a house and because I have acquired some Australian dollar debt.
Every time a bad economic report comes out, people run to the relative security of the USD and US gov't treasuries. This moves exchange rates in my favor. And mortgage rates are strongly correlated with treasury returns.
The only bad news that is bad for me right now is talk of excessive inflation, because inflation expectations also impact mortgage rates. At the moment, there is a lot of talk about USD inflation, but there is also a lot of talk about USD deflation. And that is fine by me. I expect deflation for the next several quarters followed by inflation above 5% for several years, but what do I know.
So, I say bring on the US stock market crash and let the freedom fighters in China prevail. Better yet, let another smallish currency turn into confetti like the Icelandic Kronor did. Imagine what that would do to exchange rates and treasuries.
And it would put an end to all this diversified reserve currency BS that some G8 leaders have been rambling about.
Every time a bad economic report comes out, people run to the relative security of the USD and US gov't treasuries. This moves exchange rates in my favor. And mortgage rates are strongly correlated with treasury returns.
The only bad news that is bad for me right now is talk of excessive inflation, because inflation expectations also impact mortgage rates. At the moment, there is a lot of talk about USD inflation, but there is also a lot of talk about USD deflation. And that is fine by me. I expect deflation for the next several quarters followed by inflation above 5% for several years, but what do I know.
So, I say bring on the US stock market crash and let the freedom fighters in China prevail. Better yet, let another smallish currency turn into confetti like the Icelandic Kronor did. Imagine what that would do to exchange rates and treasuries.
And it would put an end to all this diversified reserve currency BS that some G8 leaders have been rambling about.
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