They don’t have to win, they only have to confuse
Mark Lynas at the Guardian quite tidily summed up yesterday the current hit and run tactics of climate change deniers:
Like the tobacco lobbyists who spent years denying the links between smoking and cancer, global warming denialists don’t have to win the debate – they simply have to confuse the public indefinitely to successfully undermine any political action which might hit the interests of their backers in the fossil fuel industries. The arguments change all the time: this year it is “global warming has stopped“, while last year it was “hurricanes aren’t linked with warming“, and the year before “satellites don’t show any warming of the atmosphere“. As each argument is laboriously refuted by scientists, the deniers simply drop it and skip onto the next one.
Interestingly he then goes on to use poll data to refute, at least in Britain, the myth that concern about climate change is a middle class luxury, and that poor people have more immediate things to worry about.  It turns out that poorer people are more likely to prioritise the environment over the economy:
The working-class people who they claim “can’t afford to be concerned about climate change” actually care more about the future of the planet than the rich – and are doing a lot less damage to boot. So next time you hear someone defending motorway expansion or cheap flights on behalf of the British poor, ask yourself the question: whose side are they really on?
Hat tip: Canadian Green Party
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
“global warming denialists don’t have to win the debate – they simply have to confuse the public indefinitely to successfully undermine any political action which might hit the interests of their backers in the fossil fuel industries.”
It’s this type of nonsense that will lose you the debate.
It does not follow that those who question AGW have backers in the fossil fuel industries. Personally, I look forward to the day we no longer fill our cars with it.
The reason you are failing to win the debate is because you are not being honest. The debate is now religious - hence the use of the term “denialist” - not scientific.
Now answer Owens questions….
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
frog, they are entitled to do this though, no?
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Apparently we should give up asking questions, and just “believe, y’all”
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I would have said ‘hallelujah brutha’ instead of “y’all” but whatever. What gets me are the [insert name here]’s continuous recycling of old stuff - ‘1998′, ‘cosmic rays’, ‘it’s cold today’ without even bothering to look at what the ‘other science’ says.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
>>I would have said ‘hallelujah brutha’ instead of “y’all� but whatever.
Good call. Brother.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Then again I am whiter than rice.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Incidentally, this discussion came up there: http://poneke.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/bull/ already (Gareth’s 3:41 pm post)
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Take a look at the language frog uses in his headline.
This is NOT about winning and losing Frog it is about the truth, when you use that type of language it only increases the suspicions that many have about climate change being a Trojan horse for hard left socialism or communism.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
please post my comment
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“The facilitator at the event I was attending was blunt. “Most people believe in global warming. Some people don’t. That’s a point of view. If you don’t believe in global warming, it means you drive an SUV, you don’t care about food miles and you don’t care about the planet.â€?”
The smart party, eh?
Meanwhile, your supporters appear to be as thick as…..
No wonder it is so easy to get the party list past them.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
we don’t have to confuse we just want proof, real proof that is not political nonsense.
check out this link from just there other day
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo249.html;jses sionid=8196A10D968B07AA9288B041C2717F
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I would say that person was a green and not a Green.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
this makes it a bit clearer
http://www.geol.canterbury.ac.nz/Abstracts/Waiho%20Loop.shtml
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
From The Grauniad: This economic panic is pushing the planet right back down the agenda, by George Monbiot. Subtitled “The green squeeze”.
“Almost everyone seems to agree: governments now face a choice between saving the planet and saving the economy. As recession looms, the political pressure to abandon green policies intensifies. A report published yesterday by Ernst & Young suggests that the EU’s puny carbon target will raise energy bills by 20% over the next 12 years. Last week the prime minister’s advisers admitted to the Guardian that his renewable energy plans were “on the margins” of what people will tolerate.”
George has (I think) hit the nail on the head: Its fine to talk about paying more when money is available, but when money is in short supply, then peoples priorities change. Then he gets all hopeful about ways to change that perception.
Put it another way: We’re willing to toast the planet ‘cos we have bigger shorter term problems.
As I’ve said before, although climate change may be the biggest issue facing us, the availability and price of energy are far bigger objects bearing down on us fast. Add to that a FUBARed financial system, and, well…
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
BP- But it does follow that those with interests they want to protect in the fossil fuels business have a vested interest in supporting, whether directly or indirectly, debate that opposes, sidesteps, or confuses consensus on AGW. Guess it depends whether you define a “denier” as someone who just doesn’t agree, or someone who doesn’t agree because they stand to lose if action on climate change is taken. Personally, I think “denier” is a much more useful label if only applied to the latter. Hopefully that was what frog was going for.
Climate change is not a religion nor is it being argued for as if it is. The word “denial” (I don’t think “denialist” entered into it) is used to describe people who oppose something because they don’t want to believe in it, rather than because they’ve weighed the facts and think they’re wrong. (hence why denial is used in religious arguments- there are no facts to weigh) The facts do support AGW, they’re just a bit too complex for most of us to understand very easily- hence why people deny them.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
dbuckley
Yep. As Bjørn Lomborg has been (correctly) pointing out….
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Ari
If I was in the fossil fuel business, I’d be backing environmentalists, particularly those banging on about Peak Oil.
>>“denier� is a much more useful label
I think we should act like grown-ups and ditch it all together. We simply disagree on a few points, and may come to agree on them, once the science and arguments have been worked through satisfactorily.
Some may say they have been. However, the shape of the argument (i.e. the fact that there is still a high level of animosity, political interference, incorrect prediction models, and entrenched, divided opinion) doesn’t look right to me.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
The problem is that the “short term” rescue that people are looking for for the economy isn’t going to be had without a whopping price laid against our children. Lomborg has a bug up his butt regarding “how much damage will it do” and uses analysis of the risk that is horribly inadequate in order to say what the costs and benefits are. At some point the additional damage ceases to be meaningful in economic terms… the price is not expressible in dollars.
This IS religious however, as the people who make the most arguments against AGW are almost invariably motivated by a fervent opposition to government actions and powers of any sort. The arguments they bring to the table are recycled, refuted, retired and then recycled again… the most common thread among them is the desperate search for ANY theory that would refute AGW and thus deny any need for governments or the people of the world as a body, to act to contain it.
This leads to “strange science” and strong words. Ought not to be so. If the problem has to do with government and the dangers of bigger government then make it so.. that is a respectable argument to make and I have a lot of time for those who make it. Making arguments against the science however, is a exercise in wasting time. Mine in refuting the arguments as I have repeatedly done, and everyone else’s in reading the excruciatingly detailed exchanges.
respectfully
BJ
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Hmm bjchip - denier comes from the language of political discourse. It is not from the language of science or economics. Re Lomborg, your argument against Lomborg as I read it is:
“that he uses analysis of the risk that is horribly inadequate in order to say what the costs and benefits are. At some point the additional damage ceases to be meaningful in economic terms… the price is not expressible in dollars.”
If this your argument then your argument is an anti-science one. Isn’t science susposed to be the reason why you support action on climate change, if so then there is significant validity in Lomborgs analysis and it should not be rejected so out of hand as you do so.
The term “denier” has entered the current debate because it is a political debate with one side wishing to categories opponents as a homogenous groups, when in fact they can come from many diverse backgrounds and have divergent views. Denier makes it easier to categorise them as all the same and have opponents have to choose a side, when in fact many don’t see this is about a side. This is common whether you look at feminist politics, theology (in fact looking at the reformation era discourse is very reminiscent of the current political discourse as proposed by Frog), colonialism and modern politics.
On this basis I would call anyone using the term “denier” as engaging in partisan politics and ideology to promote a particular objective. This has nothing to do with science, economics or even to climate change.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
BluePeter Says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
> “The facilitator at the event I was attending was blunt. “Most people believe in global warming. Some people don’t. That’s a point of view. If you don’t believe in global warming, it means you drive an SUV, you don’t care about food miles and you don’t care about the planet.��
what event was this, and what connection did it have to the Green Party?
your later comment implied that it reflected negatively on the Green Party, but it couldn’t unless there was some connection.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Comes from here: tinyurl.com/5xptrc
green with a small g, but perhaps rather presumptuous of me assuming she was a Green Party supporter. Apologies.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Hayek lover, there are plenty of people denying, against all available evidence, parts of climate science. They are deniers.
They’re not so much the problem anymore, although they do help the next group: the “delayers”. National seems to fall squarely into that group, as do a number in the Labour Party. Do something, but do it very slowly and hope that technology comes to the rescue.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
What’s the use in trying
All you get is pain
When I wanted sunshine
I got rain
And then I saw her face
Now I’m a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I’m in love
I’m a believer
I couldn’t leave her
If I tried
Praise be brothers and sisters! Can I get me an “I BELIEVE!”
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Seen the latest UAH/RSS Data for June, a real cold one yet again.
RSS is here:
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.htmlNASA GISTEMP (Hansen’s baby) has shown no GW for at least 7 years now. They are also adjusting rural guages upwards in the USA to show warming.
This GW is really coming apart as temps stabilise/fall despite 5% increase in CO2 since 2000.
BTW, apparently there is a bit of volcanic activity under the North Pole, wonder if this could melt ice at all………
Am I a denier or am I a denier mis-reading graphics?
So before the Greens bankrupt the country with the draconian ETS maybe some facts should be looked at first so we do not end up like poor Africans.
Go the truckies tomorrow. What you are really saying is that WE don’t pay enough for the roads as truckies only carry what we want.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
GW Denier, GISTEMP release the previous month’s data about the 10th of the month. You can very easily compare it to any month or timeperiod in the past. It’s worth a look. The trend (and it is only long term trends that matter - days, months, years are inconsequential) is very much still upwards.
Go have a look. Play around. It’s hours of fun!
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
Of course, if you don’t like the results, you could say that the results are false. But since the results of the surface temperature stations are calibrated against satellite measurement, you’d be digging yourself another hole.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
# GW Denier Says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
> Go the truckies tomorrow. What you are really saying is that WE don’t pay enough for the roads as truckies only carry what we want.
but what we don’t pay as customers of the truckies, we pay as taxpayers, so it could just as easily be expressed as ‘we as taxpayers pay too much for the roads’.
But if you adjust the level of effective subsidies to create a level playing field between trucks and trains, businesses will choose whichever is more efficient, and the combined cost (to us as customers plus to us as taxpayers) will be minimised.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:40 pm
GD, I prefer/use the data from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
It is simple and has one point of data for a whole month.
I have done a graph for the last 15 years and the trend for the last 7 years is flat using a basic trend line. For the past 5 years the trend is negative. I am only going by what the Data at NASA says, don’t shoot the messenger. Is this long enough data for you?
Also, CO2 is still rising but temps are not following, so this makes the assumption that CO2 is the bad boy start looking thinner by the month.
Also, everyone knows that the basline of 1951-1980 was cold so you get a steeper looking graph starting at a low point. Also it is interesting that the Antarctic has warmed, but ice area is higher than the 1979-2000 anomoly. This is od to say the least.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:53 am
this is the perfect thread to post this link:
http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=33.8339,129.7265&z=12&m=7
Someone has gone to the trouble of setting up a Google map that can show you what areas of the world will be inundated if sea levels rise due to global climate change.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:49 am
confusion is the game here; mark lynas is right. keep the debate going so there’s more focus on the debate rather than action, which is the name of the game.
This strategy was the specific advice to Bush and republicans in 2001 from their comms guru Frank Luntz. Luntz has now changed his tune but the Bushies are sticking to it, as it seems to be working - indeed a recent poll in the US shows the sceptic public is again on the increase - but that increase is entirely republican. Funny that.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:51 am
sorry meant to link to poll
July 4th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Lomborg is an economist, he makes ECONOMIC arguments and I provided my opinion of his risk analysis based on my knowledge of both the science and how it is obtained. Compare like with like. Lomborg is not respectful of the risk to the future because well… it isn’t going to happen to HIM. That’s not really fair… I suspect that it is more likely that he thinks that science works the same way as economics or the other so-called “social sciences” which in general have as much relationship to science and its methods as tiddlywinks has to brain surgery.
Which is to say, he is not factoring risks adequately… he is essentially counting on unforeseeable “good things” occurring in the future and ignoring the unforeseeable “bad things” that are (for someone who is familiar with the works of Murphy) likely to hit at the worst possible time.
He’s allowed to do this because the IPCC in its wisdom, has issued conservative predictions. Minimum predictions. It has omitted changes to the GIS and WAIS, and it has omitted tipping point risks associated with loss of albedo in the Arctic and sudden increased methane release should the clathrates burp. It necessarily omitted risks of war, and though it mentions famine and drought it can’t quantify those and so they do not percolate into Lomborg’s work in a meaningful way.
If you want to argue about science, please bring up one of those retread misleadings from the wing-nut’s alternate reality. I’ll give it a going over and we can be done. The point I am making and the point of the thread is that it IS NOT science that is the problem.
Risk Management is what this is about, and there is plenty of risk to manage.
The problem is that there is a POLITICAL belief system out there in the world that says that we should not let “government” help us manage risk.
Given the way government is run these days that argument has some substance to it… but the risk does NOT go away if we don’t try to manage it and government is our way of acting collectively. Finding another way to do this that will work is perfectly OK with us Greens, but the human species has not in its history, ever successfully done so.
The argument isn’t however, about science.
respectfully
BJ
respectfully
BJ
July 4th, 2008 at 5:29 am
Denier
Is this long enough data for you?
Actually no…. the trend over LONG periods is what you are after, most of the forcings do not express immediately, CO2 takes 30-40 years to get a signature to show up in the temperature record and C02 is only ONE of the forcing factors in the short term climate. Nobody at NASA and nobody here says it is ONLY CO2.
So no, the fact of the plateau or the short term decline in temps is not an indication of any problem with the idea that CO2 is forcing… one could also look back 35 some years and see the massive recession of the 70’s and early 80’s, the decreased use of fuel as the Arabs embargoed oil. One can also examine the solar insolation and reckon that it has indeed dropped and that can certainly be counteracting CO2 forcing while it continues, but that is NOT to say that the CO2 isn’t forcing. Instead of flat or slight decline you’d see slight to significant declines in temperature.
The point is that you can’t take the data you’re using to draw the conclusion you clearly want to reach. It isn’t long enough. Really not. You have to take 30-100 year bites to filter the CO2 signal out of the rest of the noise.
respectfully
BJ
July 4th, 2008 at 8:22 am
What about Green Party Population Issues denialists (ie “Red Greens”).
July 4th, 2008 at 8:46 am
I just read the link provided by Panda and it is basically stating that a certain geological formation was not caused by climate change. This in no way implies that climate change is not happening, simply that it does not explain everything.
The same article explained in rather technical detail how the formation did come about, and as far as I can tell, the shape of the Earth had no bearing on this either. Does this mean the Earth is not actually round, but shaped like a doughnut.
July 4th, 2008 at 9:02 am
bjchip
your language - tiddlywinks, brain surgery, wing-nut. You also say ” I suspect that it is more likely that he thinks that science works the same way as economics or the other so-called “social sciencesâ€? which in general have as much relationship to science and its methods as tiddlywinks has to brain surgery.”
I call that very strong language that is unnecessary and your appealing to your perspective as being the only perspective that is valid and true.
I spend most of my time worrying about black swans, but because I see different approaches solutions I seem to be classified a denier. I dislike the language of the political discourse because it is designed to polarise and create a only one solution response, when there are alternative course of actions that can provide the same outcome.
Anyway enough of this. I’m going to self ban myself from this site till after the election.
Enjoy.
you also say economics
July 4th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
bj chip re:
Lomborg is a statistician, not an economist. He may portray himself as an economist but that’s not his training nor is it his job. His professional areas of interest are as follows:
“Simulation of strategies in collective action dilemmas; simulation of party behavior in proportional voting systems; use of surveys in public administration; use of statistics in the environmental arena. “
July 5th, 2008 at 1:31 am
bj, The problem is that there is a POLITICAL belief system out there in the world that says that we should not let “government� help us manage risk.
If the political sabotage of road safety risk management in this country is anything to go by then you can count on the current bunch of wallies to continue sabotaging every sensible solution to global warming.
My analysis of our road safety performance over the last half century shows governments (of all colours) as being the biggest problem.
1. When “forgiving roadways” and “crashworthy cars” became the dominant theme in road safety 40 years ago New Zealand had one of the lowest per capita road tolls in the OECD. But to protect the economy spending on roads was cut to the bone right when it needed to be increased to implement this new approach. A decade and a half later half of the OECD had overtaken us.
2. The dramatic improvement in the 1990s was an unintended consequence of 80s deregulation. Car import deregulation led to a flood of cars fitted with speed warning alarms, a collapse in motorcycle ridership, and a dramatic increase in the percentage of cars fitted with modern seatbelts especially in the back seats. The end of 10 oclock pub closing dramaticly increased the conviction rate for drunk driver and combined with taxi deregulation finally provided the right carrot & stick mix to halve the drunk driver kill rate.
3. The 20% improvement this decade is almost entirely due to rising fuel prices, less traffic growth and particularly less weekend getaway traffic. Not one of the component of the official road safety strategy. If every component recommended by the National Road Safety Committee (which included the late Steve Fitzgerald) we would be looking at only 150 deaths, and possibly less if the tantalizing traget of hitting double digits for the first time in 80 years got the public excited.
PS, so far the only glimmer of hope for NZ doing anything about AGW seems to the unintended consequence of the electricity reforms. Prices doubled in a decade and a half
July 5th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Try again - Not one of the components of the official road safety strategy has been fully implemented and most haven’t even been partly implemented.
Raising the driving age, lowering the alcohol limit, lowering the open road speed limit where needed, $60m more for enforcement targetting serious offences (alcohol, speed, seatbelts - not noisy exhaust blitzes ) $360m a year catch-up funding for forgiving roadways - thats all been squandered on more urban motorways.
July 5th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Sigh…
“Denial” has long been the term for anti-science positions. There is a strong overlap between anti-scientific arguments and anti-global warming arguments. If that overlap were to dramatically shrink, perhaps it would no longer be appropriate to label such people deniers. But unless scientific consensus unites behind a better theory than AGW, I don’t really see that happening.
July 5th, 2008 at 9:04 am
What-Would-Hayek-Say
You told me that MY argument with Lomborg was anti-science.
If this your argument then your argument is an anti-science one. Isn’t science susposed to be the reason why you support action on climate change, if so then there is significant validity in Lomborgs analysis and it should not be rejected so out of hand as you do so.
I told you ( YES - using strong language) that Lomborg does not do real science well ) … I hold Lomborg in extremely low regard as a scientist because, as pointed out above he is not a scientist. He is a professional statistician, not even an economist. Predictions of anything DIFFERENT from the past are wholly incomprehensible to statistics and while no few statisticians may recognize the limitations of their craft it is clear that the full weight of the limitations are not accepted. Lomborg has given a wrong answer in terms of risk assessment as a result.
The idea that mine is the only “right” answer isn’t likely to occur to me. The problem for me is that there are many MANY more wrong answers available, and most of them are advocated and championed by people who EXCEPT FOR THEIR POLITICAL BIAS would never be associated with such slipshod analysis.
Nor, I would guess, are you aware of my answer (answers, there are actually several approaches to the problem that I personally espouse)… to the problems of global warming. I never collected them in one single place before, but in no particular order I would want to do the following:
1. Establish a program to reduce human reproduction below replacement values on a global scale. That means Head-to-Head with the Catholic Church, with various racial supremacists and human instincts.
2. Establish a global cost-of-consumption for the various parts of the commons. This relates to the CO2 released into the atmosphere, the acidification of the oceans, the clearing of land and a heap of other things which would have to be specifically enumerated (unlike the habit of the current NZ parliament which writes a vague guide and then leaves lawmaking to the police and courts - phhhht! )
3. Set up a high priority program to establish renewable energy collection industries on a global basis. Solar Cells can be made which produce power cheaper than coal burning already… the factories are currently only licensed in the USA. We SHOULD have one or there should be one in Oz and no tariff barrier on them.
4. Organize the design and construction of wind-assisted shipping vessels with the initial runs to be between NZ and Oz and then extending them.
5. Set up a high priority program in the US to get Cheap Access to Space. This might involve disposing of the dead carcasses of some executives of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. Cheap Access to Space gives us the power to affect a different part of the climate driving variables, solar-insolation, directly through changing the effective albedo of the planet.
6. Arrange for the production of and/or import of, electric or other alternative fuel cars and trucks to NZ.
7. Develop Electricity-to-Methane conversion plants to allow our electricity to be transformed into fuel usable in our current fleet of vehicles.
….
Probably not exactly the list you expected from a “Green” but I am a dues paying member of the party as well as being a motorhead and a former NASA Engineer.
respectfully
BJ
July 5th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Just spotted in examination of Methane production… there’s no end to discovery… this looks like a big negative but… it may be useful once we understand it better.
http://www.physorg.com/news134302188.html
respectfully
BJ
July 5th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
bj, is no.6 ‘geoengineering’? If so, any particular area or any specifics?
July 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
StephenR Perhaps you mistyped and meant 5. Not about changing the planet… but about putting sufficient material between it and the Sun to alter the amount of sunlight reaching us.
respectfully
BJ
July 5th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
i DID mean 5, whoops. Those beyond-extreme large-scale projects sound somewhat pipe-dreamish, if you don’t mind my saying.
July 5th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
StephenR - it’s not quite as far-fetched as it might appear. Near the start of the space-age, one of the first satellites sent up was just a large silver (probably actually aluminium foil) balloon. Incidentally this became the single human construction seen by more people than any other.
The point is that it doesn’t take much out in space to block some of the sunlight reaching Earth. Strength isn’t needed in a weightless environment.
Once you are up there, there are interesting things that you can do with Solar Power Satellites. One scary idea that was seriously proposed a number of years ago is powering jet aeroplanes using lasers mounted on the satellites aimed at targets on the top of the planes.
Trevor.
July 5th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
None of the “large scale” engineering projects is a tenth as challenging as getting people to accept the first project which “only” requires us to modify our behaviour, or the second which requires us to force ourselves to apply a cost to it
The thing is that number three is something we ought to be doing because we’re running out of dead dinosaurs, never mind the environmental impact of burning them. Number four likewise. The economics are pretty compelling and only get more compelling as the years wear on.
Number 5 is a capability we had within our grasp. There was a a working prototype of an SSTO vehicle flying and landing out in the desert when some Lockheed executives white-anted the process and sold NASA some powerpoint slides and the reputation of the skunk-works and a performance guarantee… that happened to be a heap less than the profits they continued to take out of the DISPOSABLE launch systems market for the last 10 years. It isn’t actually as difficult to do as it is difficult to get started… and NASA has had a lot of difficulties placed in its path that have nothing to do with science and technology. Numbers 6 and 7 go together as my personal pet scheme to make the distribution of energy easier to manage. Distributing methane is actually easier than building power pylons undersea cables. Burning it in cars, also easier. The infrastructure needs only limited modifications to remain useful. It finesses the step from petrol to renewables… smooths the transition and has some potential to be an industry that NZ could claim for its own.
In any case, my point is that I know of NO way to influence humans to do the right thing at the right time or even much much too late… As a species and as nations we are pig-headed, stupid, arrogant and self-centered… except when we are much much worse than that. So the call is going out for the magicians to once more produce some sort of rabbit. Engineers and scientists are ridiculed and yet the only answers that have any hope of working are the technical ones.
Because people are people. They won’t be told what to do… and finding ways to persuade them to do what they ought is not something they teach in the Engineering and Physics classes. I don’t disdain to use the social sciences to the extent possible… but I am aware of their limitations in this application. Some answers play to our strengths as a species, others rely on us overcoming our weaknesses. I am happy to work on all of them… but only certain of being able to do the ones that DO NOT rely on the cooperation of my fellow humans.
respectfully
BJ
July 6th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
While finding ways of turning electricity into vehicle fuels such as Methane, Methanol or Ethanol would be useful in the long term, it is more urgent to stop wasting the Methane we do have by using it for electricity generation - or worse. We need to develop alternatives to gas-fired “peaking plants” to meet our peak electricity needs, such as vanadium redox flow batteries or pumped hydro storage. I believe geothermal also has a role to play in meeting our peak demands by firming up our hydro plant.
Trevor.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Let the Aussies get a solar PV cell factory going. New Zealand doesn’t really suit solar PV power generation. Our future lies with wind, geothermal and marine power sources. We have no less than three different marine power resources which individually can produce more electricity per year than our current consumption - wave, tidal flow and salinity gradient. All of them work during winter when our power consumption peaks. That is where we should be investing our research dollars.
Trevor.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:46 am
If I were in Oz the solar plants would be somewhere above first place. Here I like the wind and wave power with the caveat that it does not matter WHAT you put in or near the ocean “rust never sleeps”. For that reason I prefer wind and geothermal here… but only for that, Maintenance of such a power system is going to be an ongoing affair.
But the power is there for the taking. We are in the “Roaring Forties” and the reason they are called that is for the roar of the wind in the rigging. Sailors respect these latitudes … with waves representing the collected power of the wind over the surface of thousands of nautical miles of ocean.
NZ gets more sunlight than you’d suspect I think, but because it is seasonal and not well regulated with respect to our needs, it is less popular as an option. It serves as a useful added source however, when the cells are cheap enough. When the wind is calm in the heat of the summer. The hydro lakes are our natural batteries. No sense draining them just to have AC.
Reminds me of a letter I meant to write to Kapi-Mana. They’re all in a tizzy about wind farms above Pauhatanui. We might have to SEE them.. Oh DEAR!
I’d be proud and pleased to have one in view. That’s a legacy to my kids that it makes some sense to leave to them. My kids know it too.
respectfully
BJ
July 8th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
The main limitation of solar power in New Zealand is that it is usually available when it is least required. We need a decent amount of wind, wave or tidal generation to provide enough winter power. When we have installed that, we won’t need significantly more power than that already generates in summer, so the extra output of solar power will be largely unnecessary. We could use it for generating hydrogen, etc but it just wouldn’t be economical to install.
Trevor.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Trevor
Sorry I was being cute with my wording… “it is seasonal and not well regulated with respect to our needs” is intended to mean the same as “usually available when it is least required” … a little giddy after getting through one of the worst projects I’ve ever had to make work.
In the summer the AC load goes up and the wind goes down… leastways that;s what happens where I live. Solar has a place. It isn’t in first place here, but compared to the others it is dead simple and it IS cheap now that they’re printing the cells. Installed power is getting to be cheaper than coal fired electricity plants… provided you don’t try to store the energy.
My approach to planting a lawn and putting in a sidewalk is different from a lot of folks. First I plant the lawn. Then after people have worn holes in it, that’s where I put the sidewalk. Much the same approach applies here, because the need is to find all the things that work for us we try to do all and observe closely what works and when… a somewhat different form of market dynamic. More efficient in the end than anything I could plan or foresee.
respectfully
BJ
July 9th, 2008 at 12:29 am
“The main limitation of solar power in New Zealand is that it is usually available when it is least required.”
We made that mistake with hydro. The damns fill up in spring and if it doesn’t rain in autumn by the time winter comes around there’s no safety margin left. It made sense at the time because every house had a fireplace (many with wetbacks) so why be extravagant with the size of your dams and lakes.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:42 am
“the main limitation of solar power in New Zealand is that it is usually available when it is least required”.
hmmm…. so 12 hours every day wouldn’t cut it? … solar is PHOTOvoltaic ie needs LIGHT not necessarily SUN.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Cindy, PV solar cells don’t generate 12 hours a day even in summer. They need to face the sun and don’t generate when the sun is side on or even shining on the back of the panel. In winter, the sun is above the horison for only about 9 hours (Canterbury latitudes). Clouds block most of the light so the output falls to nearly zero with thick cloud.
The other problem with solar PV is the cost of the equipment to convert the DC output into something useful.
Trevor.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I have recently been impacted by the failure of a radio repeater powered by solar panels and a large back-up battery. After a week of dank weather, the battery voltage dropped too low for the repeater. This just proves that solar power cannot be relied on over periods of weeks.
Trevor.