China now emits about 8 billion tons of CO2 annually, a quarter of the global emission. With China's GDP growth of nearly 10% it almost does not matter what other nations will be doing to reduce their GHG. If current trend continues, China's own emissions would be some 50% of (current) global level in less than a decade. China per capita GHG emission is now higher than the global average of some 5 metric ton. But it is still a fact that the US contributed most to the accumulated global GHG, and that is what the Chinese are pointing to as their moral right to continue mass GHG emission. The trouble is that we are all in the same boat and we will be suffering together, immaterial who started it and who is adding the fastest to it.

China unbound drive to increase its economic output for both external and local markets drive its enormous need for energy. Its dependence on coal power plants (now 80%) is accelerating despite the rapid increase in green energy generation. Green energy from nuclear, solar and wind is so small compare to coal, it is essentially insignificant. And will remain so small since centralized, large scale coal plants are dependent technology with 24/7 availability, easier and faster to put on line, and their energy monetary cost will continue to be lower than the alternatives, since we are universally ignoring serious environmental costs.

China leadership does not grasp fully the urgency of global warming and how it will soon seriously deteriorate their own environment and thus negating some of their own economic accomplishments. They focus on the urgency of fast economic growth for 800 million of their people eager to emerge from their near absolute poverty, many with income of just a few dollars a day.

Just one example of environmental neglect: most of China modern residential high rise have either no, or minimal insulation. With 25 million unoccupied new apartments, their housing bubble may be around the corner, and when occupied eventually, their demand for electricity/gas would be immense.

I assume that China leadership believes that the impact of GW will come later than the current need for rapid economic growth, and they will have time to deal with GW then. I do not believe they are as wise as some think. Despite China outstanding long-term effort to reduce its population growth, they are constrained by similar limitations of the West: short term thinking and inability to grasp undesirable facts, (however, not to the extent that the US suffers from these and its political disintegration.) China centralized political control, nonetheless, gives them the ability to move on a dime compare to the Democratic West.

Most global leaders, especially in the US, are unable to fully grasp the accelerating negative impacts of GW on agriculture, food supply, ocean productivity, rise in ocean levels, increase in regional aridity, shortage of fresh water, unstable weather patterns, and likelihood of catastrophic events (tipping points). They think we would be able to deal with them in the future. They may even think that some magical technological fix would get us out of the worst aspects of GW. No sensible person should accept that approach.

China, like the rest of humanity, is on a collision course between desire for economic growth and survival.

China is not going to do anything meaningful to reduce its immense Greenhouse Gases. They talk about it, but when you study both their words, and especially their actions you can see clearly how misleading their promises are. The central government can issue impressive guidelines, but provincial and local leadership determine the facts. Economic control and drive is more locally based and influenced by personal relationships and not by the rule of law, as in most Western countries.

Study carefully the double talk about energy in the article below from Chinadaily. They aim to cut energy intensity per GDP by 16% by 2015, letting them continue almost unabated with their rapid GHG increase. But even that is just words.

Listen to this nonsense:

"As a top priority, China will actively nurture new consumption frontiers and optimize the consumption environment to boost its consumption capability and demand."

Matania

CHINADAILY.COM.CN

China to unveil new energy consumption strategy

Updated: 2011-12-17 10:27

By Lan Lan (China Daily)

Final part from:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-12/17/content_14281155.htm

......."It will be an unavoidable dilemma that China will have to deal with in the coming years - continuing the processes of industrialization and urbanization while coming under pressure to act more in cutting emissions," said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University.

China has set a target of cutting energy intensity - which is calculated as units of energy for each unit of GDP - by 16 percent by 2015 from the 2010 level.

"The controls on total energy consumption will be tougher indicators than the energy-intensity targets, because there are loopholes through which local governments can achieve their energy-intensity targets by expanding the GDP base accordingly," said Lin.

The controls will be allocated to provincial governments. The plan will not only have an impact on GDP growth but will also influence the energy structure and price. "Setting limits on energy use means putting limits on GDP," Lin said.

Li Junfeng, deputy director of the Energy Research Institute affiliated with the NDRC, said China must switch to "healthy and qualified GDP", otherwise, it will take years to digest the "junk GDP" at a high environmental cost.

Earlier this month, China laid out detailed plans to control greenhouse gas emissions in the coming five years, with the national target allocated to provincial governments.

In addition, China will adopt more measures to save energy and reduce emissions by increasing the fines imposed for discharging pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, Zhang added.

Stabilizing prices

"Maintaining price stability remains the prime aim of the government's macroeconomic controls next year," said Zhang.

With relatively rapid economic growth and a lower rate of inflation, China's economy has been heading in the right direction this year, the beginning of the nation's 12th Five-Year Plan, he said.

He stressed the need to maintain stable growth next year, an issue that was highlighted at the annual Central Economic Work Conference earlier this week.

As a top priority, China will actively nurture new consumption frontiers and optimize the consumption environment to boost its consumption capability and demand.

Another example:

China rebuffs scheme to cut steel emissions. An ambitious industry-led project to cut carbon dioxide emissions from steel plants is in danger of foundering on account of the refusal by any of China’s producers, which between them account for more than 40 per cent of world production of the metal, to join the initiative. London Financial Times

Dr. Kevin Anderson of the Univ. of Manchester presented earlier this year a down-to-earth and sobering assessment of our GW situation. He strips away the political cover and goes into the realistic and difficult situation we are already in. This 50 minutes presentation must be watched by any one who cares abort GW.

Here is one of his key observations:

… Our key goal was to limit the average global temperature to 2 degrees C. This is unlikely with the little progress to date and inability to speed up drastically CO2 reductions. Some suggest that we need to look at the possibility of 4 degrees.

“ There is a widespread view that a 4 degree C future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of the eco-systems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. 4 degree C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level)

Consequently…

4 DEGREE C SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ‘ALL’ COSTS

Climate Change, Going Beyond the Dangerous:

Introduction:
China is becoming the most powerful player in global events. Its economy is projected to overtake the US in less than a decade!
The US and China are the key players in a tightly woven global community and must cooperate and find common paths to help ourselves and the global community.
China is also the largest generator of greenhouse gases and also suffers considerably from global warming. Reducing GW and increasing economic growth are interwoven elements.

This is just a brief exposure of some key differences between the US and China.

China with its rapidly growing GDP of $6 Trillion is often more influential internationally than the US with its 15 Trillion GDP, a quarter of global GDP. We have by far the strongest military power in the world, but economic power is as important, or often more important, than military power. Exerting military power is not a good option in most cases.

The key reasons that China is so powerful are that it has:
1. A strong central authoritarian government that can make decisions relatively quickly
2. A government which actually care to improve the lot of its population,
3. The ability for planning and executing long term national goals
4. Immense foreign exchange reserves of over $3 Trillion; all of which allow China to achieve its goals rapidly.

The Chinese government and their private economic enterprises operate with less moral and ethical constraints than any other influential nation. This allows China to acquire vast long-term - international energy and mineral resources and exerts its economic influence with little regard to its impact on the local population or international concerns think Iran and Sudan. China's economic power is growing rapidly at 10% per year with less moral concerns or self imposed or external limits. China GDP was one trillion dollar in 2000; it is now 6 times larger! These numbers do not show the total story, since its labor costs are so much lower, China can build twice as much infrastructure and housing per dollar as the US.

Although some assessments predict that China's GDP will surpass the US in just five years, it does not seem realistic- there are always unforeseen difficulties. Serious bumps are around the corner, such as a potential housing bubble, (25 million, often expensive, housing units are unoccupied now). Also there are increasing wage demands, and their artificially low currency exchange rate which would not be tolerated for long. China is already planning to change the rate slowly.

There are a lot of negative elements in China: lack of individual freedom, severe corruption, weak rule of law, building empty cities to sustain employment, lack of environmental control, expanding arid areas due to global warming, diminishing water supplies to vast population centers, no social safety net, suppression of native minorities and more. This is all part of the picture of this vast land. However, it is important to note that most Chinese are happy to have these vast economic opportunities, fast rise in their standard of living at the cost of their political freedom.

The US has serious economic problems most of them politically generated:

1. Representative government, in which local interest prevails over national needs.
2. We have huge and growing national and private debts, totaling $50 trillion, 3 and a half times GDP.
3. We do not have a national vision nor national long term or even short term plan.
4. We let short term self-serving financial forces dictate our direction.
5. Both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congress concentrate on benefiting the financial elite, the wealthy upper few percent of the population to the detriment of the lower income half of the population.

The US richest 10 percent control some 2/3 (73%) of our net worth. The lower 90% has only 27%; this is a ratio of 24 to one on a per capita basis. Think about it, for every thousand dollar a person in the lower 90% can spend monthly, a person in the upper 10% can spend twenty four thousand dollars!

Our US government is divisive, polarized, non transparent, and unable to work for the benefit of the country. And because we generally believe that every one should be free to pursue his/her goals, essentially free from central supervision, our widely spread greed burdens the nation by economic collapse, huge national debt ($14 billions, almost equal to GDP) and immense private debts, some $35 trillions. Recently some 20% of our GDP has been generated by the non-productive financial sector, which mostly shuffled immense amount of fabricated capital from hand to hand with no productive benefit for the country but their own short-term financial wealth.

In summary, China concentrates on achieving its long term rapid national growth at the cost of individual freedom and lack of the rule of law. We concentrate on protecting the wealthy, retaining individual freedom, sustaining the rule of law at a sacrifice of our other important national needs.

The impact on morality of overpopulation:

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.
Isaac Asimov

China is not constrained, nor guided by morality or ethics due largely to its vast population. The more people we have, the less we value each individual. And this is evident especially in China and India. Their population is about 1350 and 1210 millions, respectively; together over a third of the global population.

It is not surprising, therefore, that most Chinese focus on their own economic progress and ignores the suffering of others. It has been so for a long time. The current news from China is that 18 people saw and ignored the suffering of a 2 years old, severely injured girl in a car incident. They looked, did not lift a finger to help, and if you heard the driver explanation why he did not stop you would be revolted of his inhuman attitude. I am glad that a considerable debate started in China about this sad experience.

I am bringing the MORALITY ISSUE up to illustrate the great significance of China to the struggle to reduce economic suffering and global Warming. China is the key to cutting global Greenhouse gases. No effort by any other country, or a combination of countries, will make much impact compare to the impact that China has now and will increasingly have (plus the negative impacts expected from India economic and population growth.)

China is driven; it can not stand still economically. To retain political stability the central and regional governments must supply jobs and housing to the current 600 million urban population and the 200 million more poor rural people that will be moving to urban areas over the next decade.
China is obviously focusing on its own survival and growth and naturally ignores the needs of other nations. China "conforms" to Western moral standards only when it suits it or required to propagate China's own aims. China is especially reluctant to support UN effort that reduce the ability of dictatorial powers such as Syria and Iran to subdue their population by force since they have been doing it in some cases and will do it again. They are extremely concerned about the desire of some of their minorities for self determination. Up to now local rebelions are unrelated and focus on correcting local wrongs. But China leadership fears a possible coordination of these local upsets and widespread instability if they are not stopped early. This is why they clamp down on small events that to us seem so minor nad unjustified. Even if we do not like it, We must look at it from their point of view in order to coordinate better the global fight against GW. Yes, this ultimate danger to humanity is more important than achieving soon our dream of full human rights.

China's Communist leadership is working hard to improve the lives of the majority of their population, concentrating on its Han majority of 91.5%. China controls the major banks and holds the majority of foreign capital and gives just a minimal political freedom to prevent upsetting the apple cart. I admire what China leadership did after the death of Mao and his immediate successors. It understood realistically the needs of the country; the first one was reducing its rapid population growth. Under Mao China's population grew from 530 millions in 1948 to 800 millions in 1970 at a rate of 2.2%.

China long term goal has been to first achieve a zero population growth and eventually to reduce their population over the next century to some 750 millions. Wise and courageous aims. The one child policy came from that and succeeded very well to limit the growth rate to just 0.5% and cut the expected population by some 400 millions people. But despite this marvelous effort it could not cut the actual population growth - the current population is nearly three times the population of 1948!

In addition, the ability of the central government to influence local affairs, which is the key to actual developments and the rule of some level of law, is limited. Regional leaders are very powerful and influence local development by often making their own rules and even breaking national guidelines.

China not only has cheap labor in combination with low cost capital, it also does not insist on profit. Full employment is the key goal. Therefore, their competitive position borders on illegal product dumping.

In contrast, we must follow long established safety laws, environmental protection laws, pay social security taxes, income tax, sales tax, and many other requirements (which I agree with) undercutting most western industries ability to compete with an industry that ignores almost anything but current minimal salaries to a vast labor pool. Most of their product undercut substantially similar US products.

But much of China low cost products also come with big negatives: internally high pollution, and low quality and even dangerous products. It is not only that the color of a toy will fade faster but that dangerous lead paint will be used in children toys. Or dangerous chemicals will be used to modify milk products killing hundreds. Or the death of hundreds (thousands?) of children when their schools buildings collapsed on them in an earthquake because the concrete was well below specified strength- to increase builder's profits.

I will discuss this important aspect of Chinese products at another time.

DO NOT EXPECT CHINA TO BEHAVE ACCORDING TO OUR WESTERN MORALITY AND OUR THEORETICAL LEVEL OF INTEGRITY. We do not do that fully ourselves.

Matania

Ten years ago David Gergen, a renowned public servant, warned us (below) about the serious danger of global warming. All the accumulated effort to curtail GW since then amounts to nothing of any significance! Global greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly growing and no US or international actions have been taken that even minutely have reduced the severe and steadily worsening impacts of our climate.

I am focusing on the US because we are the key: we generated the most cumulative greenhouse gases to date, some 35 to 40%, and we are in the best economic position to reduce GHG here and globally. But we want our comfortable lives, use all the energy we want, and hope that minor measures will make serious impacts.

Nonsense. It can not be done. GW has immense disruptive impact on the global climate and immense, painful measures are necessary to reduce meaningfully future impacts of GW.

The main problem is not that US Republican leaders are stone walling any effort: it is that the liberals, people who already say GW is here and serious, are not actually believing it.

If they believed the seriousness that they state, why are they are not acting on it in the depth and scale required?

Almost no one with scientific knowledge, of public stature, from scientists, to politicians, to religious and environmental leaders, is willing to risk their comfortable positions and raise such a public outcry that it will finally reach the American people and global leaders too.

Almost every article on GW is sugar coated, if we just do this or that all will be well. Look how meekly they present the danger of GW:

1. "Climate change is occurring, is very likely (my emphasis) caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risks for a range of human and natural systems. Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted commits us to further change and greater risk."

-The national Research Council Committee on America's climatic Choices, in its fifth and FINAL report to the United States Congress on Climate Change."

This statement is so weak that most Congress members on the sideline will not be motivated to act. That committee could not even eliminate: "very likely". Do these committee members still have doubts about GW? Just eliminate very likely and see how different the impact is.

2. National Geographic had a major article about the damage to the oceans recently (The Acid Sea, April 2011). I read it with hope. In the past National Geographic warned us clearly and openly about the danger of GW. This article was so weak; you could not sense real urgency in it. The words were too mild to capture our attention. NG leadership is reducing their courage and thinks now more about public acceptance and readership than the future of humankind.

I know it is hard to grasp deeply, personally, the profound danger of GW. It has taken me several painful years of personal struggle to overcome my resistance. We must overcome our fears of personal discomfort. I have talked to GW scientists, environmental leaders, key heads of governmental environmental departments, key staff members in Congress, but none were willing to take any risk to fight more effectively against GW.

We do not have real leaders to fight GW. The inability of liberal leaders from scientists, religious and political leaders, business persons, to environmentalists to overcome their own personal fear for their professional status, loss of face or livelihood, hinders our ability to fight GW effectively.

Matania

WARMING TO THE TASK

E D I T O R I A L

By DAVID GERGEN • EDITOR AT LARGE

TO BE RESPONSIBLE STEWARDS, WE MUST REDUCE THE FUMES AND GASES OVERHEATING OUR PLANET.

Do you remember all those years when scientists argued that smoking would kill us but the doubters insisted that we didn't know for sure? That the evidence was inconclusive, the science uncertain? That the antismoking lobby was out to destroy our way of life and the government should stay out of the way? Lots of Americans bought that malarkey, and over three decades, some 10 million smokers went to early graves.

There are eerie parallels today, as scientists in one wave after another try to awaken us to the growing threat of global warming. The latest was a panel from the National Academy of Sciences, enlisted by the Bush administration, to tell us that the Earth's atmosphere is definitely warming and that the problem is largely man‑made. The clear message is that we should get moving to protect ourselves. The president of the National Academy, Bruce Alberts, added this key point in a preamble to the panel's report: "Science never has all the answers. But science does provide us with the best available guide to the future, and it is critical that our nation and the world base important policies on the best judgments that science can provide concerning the future consequences of present actions."

Paralysis by analysis. Just as on smoking, voices now come from many quarters insisting that the science about global warming is incomplete, that it's OK to keep pouring fumes into the air until we know for sure. This is a dangerous game: By the time 100 percent of the evidence is in, it maybe too late. With the risks obvious and growing, a prudent people would take out an insurance policy now.

Fortunately, the Bush administration is starting to pay attention. But it's obvious that a majority of the president's advisers still don't take global warming seriously. Instead of a plan of action, they continue to press for more research‑a classic case of "paralysis by analysis." The president does have good arguments on his side. He explained to European leaders last week that the Kyoto protocol they favor cannot serve as the international framework for environmental action. Its goals and timetables for reducing U.S. greenhouse emissions? percent below 1990 levels by 2012 are indeed "unrealistic"; the U.S. emissions are currently running some 12 percent above those 1990 levels. To ratchet down so far and so quickly would dampen an economy already too weak.

But we should listen closely to the Europeans and their environmental allies. They correctly say that by trying to blow up the Kyoto protocol and start all over again the United States will encourage lengthy, unacceptable delays in anyone's doing anything. To paraphrase from another context, we should amend Kyoto, not end it.

Other nations are also right to look to the United States for leadership. It cannot be said too often that WE ARE THE WORLD'S WORST POLLUTER. We have less than 5 percent of the world's population and produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide. EMISSIONS FROM OUR POWER PLANTS ALONE EXCEED THE TOTAL EMISSIONS OF 146 OTHER NATIONS COMBINED, WHICH REPRESENT 75 PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION. It is said in defense that our proportion of emissions is roughly equal to our proportion of the world's economy. True, but nations like Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom produce fewer emissions than their economic share. We just aren't as energy‑efficient as we should be.

To serve as responsible stewards of the planet, we must press forward on deeper atmospheric and oceanic research. But research alone is inadequate. If the administration won't take the legislative initiative, Congress should step into the breach to begin fashioning conservation measures. A bill by Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, which would offer financial incentives for private industry, is a promising start. Many see that the country is getting ready to build lots of new power plants to meet our energy needs. If we are ever going to protect the atmosphere, it is crucial that those new plants be environmentally sound.

Meanwhile, the administration must aggressively put ideas on the table that bring Europeans, Japanese, and others into negotiations for a follow‑on treaty to Kyoto. The world urgently needs a commitment from all governments to reduce emissions. Relying upon voluntary restraints in a free market is not an answer; it is an excuse.

We must be serious about these fumes pouring into the air.

Anyone who has watched a parent die from smoking will understand.

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, JUNE 25, 2001

Our inability to solve any serious national and international problem is partially due to the concentration of power by the few. We the people in the US are represented in Congress by mostly wealthy people who are controlled by wealthier people. Their self interest is more powerful than their interest in solving our key national and international problems.

A century ago Justice Louis Brandeis warned us about the negative impact of concentration of great wealth. The facts below tell us that we are in a deep national and international trouble since the people with that wealth and power are few and concerned mostly about their own well being. With the immense troubles the world is now facing: economic collapse, global warming, rapid and unsustainable population growth, and wide-spread deep poverty, unless something drastic change, humanity is facing troubles we never faced before, and especially because the problems are spread globally, and global solutions are mandatory.

Matania

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

Louis D. Brandeis (Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court)

"Between 2003 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the US went to the richest 1 percent of the population. That lopsided distribution means that today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth- significantly more than the bottom 90 percent, who controlled just 26.9 percent.

That is a huge shift from the post-war decades, whose golden glow may have arisen largely from the era's relative income equality. During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent took home just a third of the national income. The last time the gap between the people on top and everyone else was as large as it is today was during the Roaring '20s.

..The rise of today's super-rich is a global phenomenon. ..."

"These global super-rich work and play together...."

..."These meritocrats are the winners in a winner-take-all world. Among the big political questions of our age are weather they will notice that everyone else is falling behind, and whether they will decide it is in their interest to do something about that".

Chrystia Freeland, Editor, Thompson Reuters Digital, The Atlantic, July/August 2011

Dr. Joseph Romm, on his widely popular and educational blog Climate Progress questioned today many of Bill Gates views on energy and global warming. With all due respect to Dr. Romm, I think he is not seeing the full meaning of Bill Gates points. Here are some of the comments I wrote today on his blog:

Listen to Bill Gates!

I have been an environmental scientist for several decades and made significant contributions to the commercialization of wind energy when I was the manager of the solar office and the wind energy program for the California Energy Commission. I tried to look at reality and not mislead myself by wishful thinking. Bill Gates is a wise man and we must listen to him; he has a lot of logical things to say we do not wish to listen to because they are against our dreams. But facts are facts, even if we ignore them.

Many of the points Bill Gates discussed are valid:
First, he did not say efficiency is useless, but that it is limited. I have been advocating energy efficiency and conservation strongly for half a century. Almost no progress was achieved to date. It is not sexy like PV and people do not want to use conservation. Only strict national mandatory laws stronger than California may make a difference. It is not that the efficiency and conservation are not important, they are critically desirable and important, it is the difficulty in spreading them fast and widely to make a difference.
Read: Conservation can cut 30 times more CO2 per dollar, on my blog.

Bill Gates is correct on PV. First he is correct that unless the technology can be widely used in China and India it is essentially useless. PV is too expensive by a significant factor to be use on a large scale in these critical countries. No matter how much we cut GHG these two countries will continue to pass us with GHG by increasing amounts. They are the key to cutting GHG!

The PV global industry is in the order of $20 billion a year! This is a huge industry, not in infancy with starting pain. Why does it need more government support? Only to maintain and increase the profit of the PV industry. The cost of the panels went down a little, but it is not passing on to the consumer. The system price has to drop by ten to one according to Dr. Steven Chu to be significant. Not this expensive PV technology! Panels are less than 35% of system cost!
Without government support PV would have died a long time ago, as it should since it has made less than negligible contribution to reducing GHG. Also, too many supporters are dreaming about a world covered with PV panels and do not do other, more important things such as conservation and efficiency. Current PV technology inherently can't do it. Environmentalists often give Germany as a champion on PV we should emulate. Wrong! Germany spent over $70 B on PV by last year and got less than one half a percent of its electricity from that huge investment. At the same time wind produce 7% of their electricity, but worst of all, Germany has been increasing their dependence on coal power by considerably larger percentage that all the green technologies combined. Let's look at facts as they are, rather as we wish them to be.
Using this money for conservation and efficiency would have reduced GHG by 20 times or more.

The basis fact is that flat panel silicon technology demands very highly refined silicon which demands a lot of electricity to refined which is produced by coal power plants in Germany and China. We have also the several years of energy payback to consider.
It will take too long to demonstrate all the sensible points Bill Gates made. Let's listen to him and review carefully what we are proposing.

BTW, yes, nuclear power is more promising BECAUSE little innovations and improvement were made to date. There are so many new improvements that could be introduced. Without nuclear our green technologies are too erratic and even the promising wind energy may be degraded since future weather patterns would be changing and be less predictable with increasing GW.

Read www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org to understand why PV is not any part of the answer with current technology. R&D is critical to find new more practical solar technologies of converting sun energy to electricity.

Matania

I just wrote this for the very popular GW site of Dr. Joseph Romm: Climate Progress. He asked what could we could have done better in the fight against GW.

Despite being an environmental scientist with decades of work in technology, including wind energy, it took me several years of soul searching to start to grasp the enormity of this human dilemma. We must internalize that Global warming is the most significant event of all human civilization, and therefore we are unable to deal with it emotionally. We think and write as if we have time to select alternatives, to wait for the political process to move, but we do not.

Even the most ardent fighters against global warming, with few exceptions, did not yet internalize the reality of this unique period humanity is in. We must grasp that all the normal forces of nature are moving in the opposite direction that humanity needs: to slow down even slightly the accelerating warming of the planet.

We are unable to change the following direction:
A finite Earth with rapidly increasing population, wanting higher standard of living, demanding more energy, mostly fossil, generating huge amount of CO2, warming the planet, melting its ice coverage, causing positive feedback that may lead to catastrophic release of additional global warming gases.

And against this reality we argue if it is more effective to be polite to the president, among other things.

Again, we the people who are strongly concerned about the impacts of GW are not able to grasp, to internalize, yet, the severity of the emergency we are in.

Read on this website below:
TIME-CRITICALITY OF GLOBAL WARMING

http://www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org/blog1.php?p=9&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

The nuclear problems in Japan are serious, and far from resolved, but the media, for its own interest of gathering viewers and readers, is blowing up this nuclear tragedy above justification. The public is fearful of nuclear power because they still feel it is similar to a nuclear explosion. It is not. Nuclear explosion can not occur in nuclear power stations. The explosions at the nuclear plants are pressure explosions from either high pressure steam, or other gases created in the aftermath of the loss of cooling waters. The danger is from release of radiation material.

Here is some background:
Japan was very sensible in developing nuclear power since they have no energy sources of their own. They produced 30% of their electricity from nuclear power, the rest mostly coal. Japan is the largest coal importer in the world and depends on the Australians to sell it to them, and the US to secure the oceans. In addition, all their oil come from the unstable Middle East which Iran can stop at will by controlling the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
In addition, much of Japan's economy depends on both raw material inputs and energy inputs from not always a stable world.

Looking at all of these, the Japanese wanted some energy security by producing some of their own electric power. True the nuclear material comes from abroad but you can store several years' supplies in Japan itself, thus approaching some measure of control of their electricity.
With all of these considerations you can not fault the Japanese for relying also on nuclear power.
They would have done better if they designed and built their nuclear safety backup systems to be more self-sufficient and less easily destroyed by a Tsunami. The magnitude of this earthquake was also beyond expectation being one of the largest in recorded history. More recent nuclear plants have higher level of backup safety systems than the Japanese may have. New nuclear plants will incorporate the lesson of this tragedy. The damage to Japan would be much larger from its economic slow down due to this earthquake/tsunami than from these unfortunate nuclear accidents.

There are now over 400 nuclear plants in the world. China and India will increase their reliance on nuclear power to satisfy the increase demand of energy for their impoverished population.
We in the US will be one of the few large nations that want to reduce our nuclear power. And it is a mistake. We will simply increase the amount of CO2 over the globe in the process. Nuclear power is expensive and could be dangerous if not built properly, but its possible danger is lower than the certain danger of global warming.

Think about the total global picture. Think about the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases. Try to subdue the raw emotions regarding nuclear power to assess the positive global impact of nuclear power. Coal is dangerous too, but we do not see it so vividly. It kills invisibly, over long periods of time, in non dramatic situations via its poisonous byproducts and destruction of the environment.

Think how many thousands of people have died from this earthquake and its tsunamis? The amount suffering from the nuclear release would be considerably smaller than the total suffering. Almost half a million people, again, half a million people! died from the tsunamis after the 2004 Sumatra earthquake. Hundred of thousands died in Haiti without nuclear power.

Again, we need to look at it in global terms; the green alternatives we want are not real yet, at least not for the foreseeable future. We must reduce our energy consumption and waste. But we are doing nearly nothing in energy conservation and efficiency - the most cost-effective and easily available approaches that are domestic both in material and labor.

For many years the Germans claim great activity in the green energy field. But actually they are increasing their GHG emissions substantially. Many US environmentalists points to the "success" of Germany, even a US Senator said, why we can not be like them...

But the story is misleading

..."Despite its reputation as a world leader in solar- and wind-power technologies (16 percent of its electricity comes from renewable sources), Germany also has a dirty secret. It is highly dependent on lignite, so-called brown coal, which is one of the filthiest fuels known to mankind, emitting 27 percent more carbon dioxide to produce the same amount of electricity as regular black coal. The country mines some 180 million metric tons of the stuff every year-slightly more than China and the United States combined-and is home to six of the 10 most polluting power plants in Europe. "On the one hand, Germany looks quite progressive, but if you take a closer look, it's another story," says Anike Peters, of Greenpeace Germany."

From: The Atlantic, Dec. 10,  What's Eating Germany By Andrew D. Blechman (my emphasis)

The above clip shows how misleading is our understanding of actual environmental situations. We do not look into the details, and as they say: the Devil is in the detail.

While Germany has spent to date nearly a hundred billions dollars for photovoltaic systems, it is actually increasing rapidly its use of coal, but not only black coal, but one of the dirtiest - lignite.

Another misleading information is: "16% renewable." Actually solar, that took most of the money, generates less than one percent of the electricity, and wind almost all the rest.

Matania

Polls indicate that only 6% of US scientists consider themselves Republicans!

That can explain why the Republicans members of Congress and most Republicans, can not accept the reality of global warming. They are afraid of reality.

To be a scientist you need to be open to reality, understand and accept facts, separate your personal bias from your research, and be willing to be found wrong if the evidence indicates so.

Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible, to reduce biased interpretations of results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method)

The open scientific method is unacceptable to most Republicans. This is why so few scientists are Republicans.

Most Republicans are unable and unwilling to accept facts that do not agree with their ideology. And this ideology is based on the dreams of the inherent superiority of the US, and our "ability" to rule over nature.

We all fear change. Our world was so secure. We won WWII, the "good war". We were respected around the world. We went to the moon in a few years. We destroyed the Evil Empire. We were the center of the universe in our minds. We were Americans.

All of these are changing rapidly; many of the things that formed the core of our everyday life are no longer able to hold us up. Terrorism shows our military weakness, our currency is weaker than the Euro, and the Chinese are the biggest producers in the world. Our wealth is flowing overseas in big chunks yearly. Our financial systems nearly collapse. Our homes are no longer our source of wealth. These are just some examples why we are so fearful.

We try to hold on to the past to reduce our fear of the unknown future. Too many Republicans reject reality.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Aldus Huxley

We can not hold on to the past. It has never worked. Humans were able to leave their caves and create modern societies by rejecting superstition and accepting facts and using reason. This openness to facts eventually progressed to develop the scientific method which accepts the physical reality of our universe.

Let's be clear: Too many Democrats are also unable to fully grasp the danger and reality of Global Warming. If they did their Congresspersons would not be so reluctant to fight GW on the scale it must be fought.

Of all advanced countries, only the US is refusing to do anything about GW!

Our self centeredness is deteriorating the global climate and increasing human suffering day by day.

I have not written for months, just read and observe. It was not a satisfying experience. We are digging ourselves deeper into Global Warming trouble.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that GW is already here and marked by air and ocean temperature rise, global glacier melting, ice sheets disappearing and by major, rapidly changing weather patterns. It is causing damage to the environment and our way of life which will be more severe every day we are continuing on our present path: - talking about Greenhouse gas curtailment but doing nothing about it.

True, China is now the largest CO2 emitter and with time India will have a larger population and will emit high amount of GHG. But the US is the path-setter in the Western world since we have emitted the most GHG to date and have the national wealth ($14 Trillion GDP) to make economic sacrifices to reduce GW.

I do not see any evidence that the US as an aggregate accepts the reality of Global Warming or plans to do anything of substance about it. Period. Even under a Democratic controlled Congress, nothing was done. Just think what will happen now under a Conservative controlled House, composed of both Republicans and many conservative Democrats. With their love of wealth, rejection of reality and fear of change, we are in deep trouble. And the president is unable to grasp the time-criticality and magnitude of GW.

And we are all so comfort oriented, we do not want to modify our easy way of life, reduce our standard of living, reduce our energy consumption, or inconvenient ourselves by even a small amount. This also applies to the environmental movement and liberals; we are not willing to accept that our very way of life is under serious and accelerating attack. We are still operating in the 9 to 5, life is good mode. We dream that we Americans are so smart and capable, wind and photovoltaic, or some future miracle technologies, will save us, so why make any sacrifice?

We do not grasp that most of our standard of living has been the gift of ample, cheap fossil fuels. It is tremendously difficult, it may be even impossible, to replace that temporary gift of nature!

So many articles are appearing continuously about the "magnificent potential" of green technology to save us from the damages of GW. They have been too optimistic and often unrealistic. Little attention is paid to the economics, the way investors look at their potential for profit vs. risk. Only private investors can make the huge financial investments needed for large scale energy systems. Governments do not have the resources for that.

Investors are cool customers; they are influenced by potential profits and are less impressed by market penetration artificially created by government subsidies. Our governments also ignore economic realities often.

We are still not accepting the time-criticality of GW. Many of the dire predictions of climate damages arrived considerably faster than predicted. Many of these processes once started are self-driven. There is no way back!

We can't act as a nation since our political leaders are limited; they are mostly lawyers without substantial experience in any things but words. Broader and deeper grasp of reality is needed; courageous thinking and actions are required. And that is not the way our Congress operates.

Our society believes that technical solutions are just around the corner and, therefore, we do not have to impose significant tax on carbon to reduce demand of fossil fuels, reduce energy use and assist development of alternative energies. Governments subsidies to specific technologies are mostly waste of our very limited financial resources. US energy sector is some one and a half trillion dollar a year. Some twenty trillions would be needed to be invested to replace much of our fossil-dependent way of life. We are already in deep borrowing and will be longer. It is not possible to continue to be economically viable with the immense waste of resources we have exhibited to date: 1. Corn-ethanol fuel, 2. Cash for Clunkers car subsidy, 3.Photvoltaic systems rebates.

Examples: It will cost California population some $50 billions to get one percent of its electricity from photovoltaic system including subsidies by the state and federal government. We can not afford this waste. At this rate the investment in electricity generation by PV for just 20% of CA electricity would be $1 Trillion. Unrealistically high. By the way, the state budget is short $20 billion for several years now.

Germany dedicated some $70 billions to generate one third percent (1/3%) of its electricity from PV while continuing to increase its coal-generated electricity beyond 50%.

Governments are generally not in the energy supply field and should instead, dictate national goals, such as reduce GHG by a certain amount by a certain date, not what is the "correct" low-carbon technology to use. Legislatures are not qualified to select technologies for the future. Their decisions are biased towards business interest. They are subjected to powerful pressure by industry, and even by too emotional environmentalists.

We never faced any thing of this nature before, and we are not mature enough to deal with it.

President Johnson was briefed on the danger of GW and made a serious statement to Congress about it, but more immediate events took over. We had time then.

The way we behave in the US, by the time we will feel significant pain from GW to wake us up, it would be too late.

Here are some of the reasons why many people oppose any real action against global warming:

1. Conservatives are inherently afraid of change partially because of the following:

"The old world is organized;

the new world is disorganized.

The old world is certain;

The new world is uncertain."

President Bill Clinton

2. Human nature is self serving; it is hard to accept reality:

It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant, and embrace what is obviously false but comforting.

H.L.Mencken

This is a good site to look at from time to time to remind us where we are and where we are headed steadily. Our CO2 now is 392. The historical level in the last 400,000 years was 280. The maximum scientists believe the Earth can tolerate without severe degradation is 350. The "best" estimate is 550 by 2050. Yet, we are doing nothing to slow this rapid rise.

http://www.co2now.org/

"We know that before 2050, atmospheric CO2 will cross the 500 ppm threshold, a level last seen during the Eocene, 55 million to 36 million yeas ago. There were palm trees in Wyoming and crocodiles in the Arctic then. Antarctica was a coniferous forest, Because there was no continental ice sheets, sea level was 100 meter [328 feet] higher than today."

The Power Problem

Conquering carbon and climate change

Harvard magazine 2006

http://harvardmag.com/pdf/2006/05-pdfs/0506-40.pdf

It is clear that the majority of international leaders are not willing to risk their positions and cut global warming gases in their countries. Every one expects the others to start. Are they unable to grasp the danger? Verbally they say the right things, especially European leaders, but the reality is that no progress of any significance occurred to date.

The USA is a very sad example of a weak, ignorant Administration, self serving Congress, misleading media, poor public understanding, determined right wing forces that rather sink the country than allow national progress, and weak and uncoordinated environmental movement.

Cutting Greenhouse emission is no complex science, but it is very hard politically. Powerful, wealthy corporations control the political process in most, if not all Democratic countries. What is basically required is rapid increase in energy prices to reduce waste and consumption and shift some generation to low polluting technologies. Reduce demand is the most crucial aspect since alternative energies are highly capital intensive and would take decades to make any impact. And time is not on our side. We are already in the danger zone with clear damage to much of the global environment: melting sea ice and glaciers, sea rise, severe storms, dying forests, increase ocean acidity and temperature, less absorption of carbon dioxide, severe reduction of ocean plankton - the basic element of the ocean food chain. All of these are here now, real and increasing in severity.

Also needed are national energy efficiency laws that would reduce energy demand rapidly. This will drive wide use of conservation and energy efficiency. This will allow phasing out of old coal plants, the largest CO2 emitters in most countries, and the conversion of remaining coal plants to natural gas thus cutting emissions per kWh by half.

These are basic starting points, easily achieved technically, but there is no political will from the US Administration nor Congress. And the Senate is especially weak and in denial on GW. Or in almost any other country. In the US the powerful political influence of the coal industry is strong through a small number of coal dominated states with very little population. This is a different subject but just bear in mind that our political system that gives immense power to small population states in the Senate is hindering any national progress and reduce our ability to fight global warming, the most crucial task we are facing globally.

The rush to subsidize green technologies is wasteful and diverts our attention from the real problem - continuous emission of greenhouse gases. Spending billions for alternative energies are business decisions, delightful to the industry and environmentalists but are so insignificant it would not reduce the damage to the globe by any amount for years to come.

The reasons, seems to me, is that the international leadership of well off countries does not believe that global warming is a serious problem. James Hansen just demonstrated it during his visit to Norway. He believed that that so called Green country, would be willing to listen to reason and on a recent visit there sent a letter to the Norway prime minister suggesting that Norway stop work on its Canadian Tar Sand facilities. Norway is the major owner of this most polluting non-conventional source of fossil fuel. Tar Sands emit the highest amount of CO2 per gallon of fossil fuel since the extraction process is highly energy intensive.

Here is what Dr. Hansen wrote:

"The glib response of Norway's Prime Minister is that we are 'future pessimists'. Clever engineers, he says, will solve the problem, perhaps with carbon capture. Meanwhile it is o.k. to develop tar sands and go after the last drop of oil in the Arctic. This is nonsense of course. Even if they use nuclear power to squeeze the oil from tar sands, the CO2 will come out of tailpipes. Also, the environmental destruction in Canada would never be allowed by Norwegians in Norway."

The way this prime minister think is dangerous and may indicate why no government yet started real reduction in greenhouse after some 20 years of global discussions. They may all think the same: we have a way out of GW; it is not so serious after all.

It is important to note:

This PM calls environmental realists, like Dr. Hansen, and Dr. John Holdren, and many hundreds of climate scientists who know full well the danger we are already in: "future pessimists." It is clear that the PM and the people around him in this pseudo "Green" country do not grasp at all that we are already inside the danger zone and we have very short time to act to reduce some of the more severe damages expected from the rapidly growing global warming.

A relatively small number of national leaders are determining the future sustainability of our world. Their courage, ability and willingness to accept scientific facts determine our future. Don't over estimate them. They are capable to project their image well, but that may be just surface thin. They are normal human being and not the great figures we want to believe in. Leaders have huge egos, which often drive them to think they are wiser and smarter than their advisers. Leaders need more than normal courage to accept the seriousness of the damage to our globe. It is easier for them to escape reality by dismissing amply proven scientific facts.

Dismissing GW as done in Norway may be one of the key obstacles to action. The inability to grasp the seriousness of the situation and the willingness to embrace any unsubstantiated excuse to allow inaction is a way out from the political and even emotional difficulty of facing GW.

The question to each of us is how to add our voice to the struggle. Personal participation in the political process is paramount- write letters make phone calls, donate money. Participate. Be outraged, bind with other activists is a beginning. Start raising your voice, talk to your friends, even if it is inconvenient. Don't be passive expecting the leaders to "save" us.

To read Dr. Hansen original notes:

My experience in Norway, including a letter to the Prime Minister, the government response, Sophie Prize remarks, and chance encounter with a war hero have been posted to my website.

Jim Hansen

For decades I told my friends and family that we are spending beyond our means and we will pay for it, both nationally and individually. All my life I was "rich" because my desire for material things were lower than my income, so I did not face drastic economic situations even when I resigned to work for social causes some 30 years ago.

I also knew well the meaning of playing with the stock market; I did everything in the market for a decade, from puts and calls to leverage bonds ten to one, trying to do it the American way-- to get income without working for it. I dropped off the Market almost 40 years ago to live with less economic ups and downs, but with more peace. I recommend that to all of you - the stock market is a game that only some professionals* can win. The ups and downs are not worth it, not economically and not emotionally.

Assuming that you have been following the dire economic situation the US and most of the rest of the developed world is now facing, borrowing to the hilt to shore the troubled economies, I strongly suggest that you rethink how to spend your money wisely. That is not a short term blip! We are now paying for our bubbles and will continue to do so for many years to come. Something in the order of 10 to 15 TRILLION DOLLARS disappeared in this recent economic game. You simply can not spend what you do not have for too long, even a big country like the USA. Our national obligations are way beyond our ability to pay them if we do not change course drastically after a hopeful economic recovery.

Here is what Stanford professor of International Peace, Jeffry Friedman, stated: "We are going to have to produce more than we consume, save more than we invest, and the government will have to take in more than it spends. That translates into austerity; a lower standard of living...Every country that has gone through the crisis successfully has done so by imposing fairly stringent austerity measures. That means real wages are stagnant or declining, you have to increase export, decrease imports, increase savings, and reduce consumption. That is the macroeconomic of dealing with a debt crisis."

[Harvard magazine July- Aug 2010]

Add to this that the foundation of advanced economies is cheap energy sources, from coal to oil and natural gas; these sources will increase in price with time due to higher international demand, by China and India especially, and some replacement by low greenhouse energy sources. Electricity will cost more and so transportation fuels. All of these forces will increase the cost of most of our material things, from houses to foods.

That will impact each and every one of us to a different degree.

Choose your own path to a sensible life.

*" Wall Street is populated by a bunch of people whose primary goal is to make money, and the rules are pretty much caveat emptor. You'd be a fool or a deluded idealist to think ethics would be prominent on Wall Street. That is not a statement against people in the money business, just a fact."

Steven Levitt, Univ. of Chicago economist and best selling author:  Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. [Money - July 2010]

China is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and would continue to be a much larger emitter as its economy grows in its customary rapid rate of close to ten percent. India would be the second over time.

China is the most dangerous country to global survival since no matter what all other developed countries TOGETHER will be adding to GHG; China's would still be larger by a considerable factor.

Read:   Huge India and China impacts on GHG emissions.

China communist leadership decided decades ago to copy the economic model of the Western world instead of developing a unique path that could suit their own special situation better. They assumed that the "old, proven" economic growth of the West over last half a century is the way to go.

But China circumstances are so different from the West, especially our open markets and freedom of financial institutions to "innovate" new methods to drain huge profits from uncontrolled financial instruments- as we saw in the last decades. These freedoms put the world at peak economic crises that are still unresolved.

I expected, erroneously, that their central government, free from our type of political pressure and narrow mindlessness, would allow them to see through some of our key mistakes, but not so. They still think too much like us in many negative respects.

China arrived by trial and error at a mix economic model: overall national control of the of the nation's finances, holding of huge capital reserves, and nearly complete freedom for any local business to innovate and build with minimal supervision or standards.

The problem I want to focus on now is that China national control of its international currency exchange rate has distorted the basis of the key international agreement of floating exchange rates. The freedom of the markets to continuously vary the value of each national currency helps stabilize national economies and provide a more fair international trade. China helds its currency fixed at very low level for many years to allow it to export products at lower cost while making imports much more expensive, resulting in huge benefit to it at a high cost to the rest of the exporting world.

The continuous attempts by the US [the biggest importer of China products] and other nations to gently prod China to allow freer and more rapid changes in its currency was rejected until recently. But China's recent response is a fake; it allows a minor fluctuation of its currency, in the order of just 2%.

So, here we are with a country that is determined to rebuff legitimate international needs and pressure to fully satisfy its own desires.

China maximizing its export at high costs to other nations is a dangerous sign for global warming cooperation. China leadership still does not grasp that we are all in the same sinking boat. If China will do the same regarding GHG emissions, maximize its economy and thus increase its huge GHG emissions, the global community could not curtail GW almost at all. All international efforts would be negligible compare to the huge emissions by China [and India].

But China is already doing just that, it fully refused to commit to any meaningful reduction in GHG. All its statements are essentially nonsense, [the same as the US] and any one who does not see through them is not a realist.

Like the USA, the way China is going now re. GW is window dressing. We can not expect any meaningful cooperation from them. The fact that they are installing vast amount of wind energy, the fact that they are installing more than ten nuclear power plants in the next decade are of such a small scale compare to the problem that it is essentially useless. According to some estimates, may be they could reduce their vast future emissions by 10%, if we are lucky.

Frankly, I was hoping that China's leadership would be able to look at the future with clearer eyes than the politically very limited US Congress and Administration. But so far I am mistaken. I still hope that they will force us to deal with GW in much more realistic terms.

Anything we did up to now globally is inadequate, or more correctly, window dressing, nothing of substance. And the window of opportunity to prevent some of the more serious damages to our small globe is closing very fast.

My wife and I just got the National Democratic Party questioneer about our own top national concerns. Of all the options to choose, there was not even one item related to global warming.

Now, the leaders of the Democratic Party do not see GW as a key national issue. Their level of stupidity is not far behind the Republican Party that rejects the very same subject as if it was invented by the Democrats and therefore bad for the country. The Democrats can not even get all their Senators to agree to support the weak bill offered now in the senate.

The very weak Energy and environment bill that passed the House last year was a sham. It was just a feel good bill that would not reduce global warming by any noticeable level. The Democratic majority was more interested in getting what they wanted individually and not what the country and the world need desperately.

Even the Democrats are now unable to grasp the seriousness of the issue. They do not want to learn what is not beneficial to them individually.

The Senate was not yet able to pass even a weaker bill, and the president is unable even to commit himself to push our nation to accept the gravity of this issue. When he has the clear opportunity to awaken the public and push a viable energy/environment bill in light of the Gulf oil disaster, he just mumbled a few words about energy independence.

Let's be realistic: There is no way to have energy independence for many decades, if at all.

How could the leaders of the two major parties sink so low?

How can our president, who talked at length about the criticality of global warming during his election campaign, drop the ball in the interest of the next election?

How can our nation become so ignorant of reality?

This supposedly great nation is very great in its collective national idiocy, in the face of the greatest national challenge in human history.

Liberal US Judaism lost its compass

For many decades modern liberal Judaism in the US has focused its main attention on Tikkun Olam, making this world a better place for all humanity. The idea was to make the outstanding Jewish Mitzvot [commandments] relevant to today's world by minimizing human suffering. Kashrut [Kosher] laws were changed, for example, to be concerned about animal welfare. Our Mitzvot that focused on Jewish welfare were broadened to care for people suffering every where, such as Darfur.

Tikkun Olam is not about trivia, about doing what is relatively easy and may be popular. It is extending yourself beyond your comfort zone. It is breaking barriers, fighting seriously for an important human cause. About making real impact on the world.

We were active in the anti-discrimination movement from the beginning. Who does not remember the murder of the Jewish youngster in the South while registering African Americans?
Who does not remember Rabbi Heschel marching hand-in-hand in protest with Reverend Martin Luther King?

But for the last decade we are ignoring the key Tikkun Olam issue of our times; the unique, all encompassing danger to all humanity- Global Warming.

Individual Jews are heavily involve in this issue, but I am talking about the liberal jewish community as a powerful voice- and that I do not hear yet. I have tried to interest Jewish leaders on a national scale in Global Warming, but with no result. There are some minor involvement is "eat locally grown food," or minor sustainability issues, but they are all minor and would not impact global warming. Liberal Jews, like many Americans, are mainly focused on their own private lives, or some good souls on the immediate community. May be they feel Global Warming is the problem of the non Jews, not ours. It is not a Jewish issue like Soviet Jewry was. Or is it?

Is the survival of modern life, the sustainability of our world, the pending suffering of hundreds of millions of people across the globe less important than any other issue?

I have seen nearly zero participation from the Jewish community in my own town- Sacramento, and the United States in this subject. Some local actions are commendable, but ineffective. We need national voice, a powerful one.

Unless we raise large outcry, create political pressure of large magnitude, it will be ignored by the President and Congress. Congressman Waxman of Los Angeles and Senator Boxer of California have put their careers on the line to advance the fight against Global Warming. I hope they have substantial private support from powerful Jews, but they do not get the support from the Jewish community nation wide on the scale they need and deserve.

Yes, some Jewish leaders went to Congress to express their concerns about GW, but that is about that. That's nice but not influential. Congress does listen to a mass public pressure- letters and phone calls, but they did not witness any significant, consistent, Jewish public outcry about the lack of action in Congress. Even Conservative Christian groups are working hard against Global Warming, why are we so late in our grasp of the issue?

I do not see any mass Jewish movement, no mass literature, and no repeated discussions in Temples, nearly nothing of substance. I read nothing in the mass media or the web either on a strong Jewish presence on Global Warming.

As long as we are not working hard, taking chances to reduce the danger of global worming, we are not contributing to human survival. Up to now, I have to conclude, we have lost our desire to make this world a better place to all humanity. We have lost our focus on real Tikkun Olam.

O' Yes, it is also an issue of Jewish survival; when our world would be in the midst of global suffering due to the deterioration of the climate, Jews may be again the key scapegoat.

Regarding my previous post on CFL vs. LED. This is the letter I mentioned in that post and mailed to the new, then, general manager of SMUD about improving CFL.

I never heard back from him and neither from the Board, about this issue.

I have discussed a number of these issues with Board members and was a guest speaker before the SMUD Board advocating putting main emphasis on energy efficiency and conservation as major parts of their long term planning.

Matania

Dr. Matania Ginosar

Environmental Science

mginosar@sbcglobal.net

John DiStaio

General Manager

SMUD

6201 S Street, MS. B408

Sacramento, CA 95817-1899

Dear Mr. DiStaio,

Congratulation on your new and important position.

During a recent meeting with Mr. Larry Carr, President of the Board of Directors, I learned that SMUD likes to increase the use of compact florescence lamps throughout your territory.

As an electrical engineer and an environmental scientist I have special interest and experience in cost-effective ways to reduce energy demands, and I have been using CFL for twenty years. Like SMUD I would like to see wide use of CFL too, but unfortunately I believe that the low quality of most CFL can reduce their adoption.

I have used by now some 50 CFL and many of them perform well below expectations. They die quickly, are noisy, reduce their light with time too much, and start slowly. In addition their light output is lower than stated. A 60 W CFL has typically just 50 W equivalent illumination (of standard incandescent lights) in real life. Most CFL can't be used in enclosed fixtures. This is also the experience of many of my friends who do like to use more CFL.

The quality of the original CFL, when they were made in the US and Europe was relatively high. I did not have any one which died early or made noise like the ones made in China for the last few years.

As an example, I have three CFL I bought from Home Depot and were "sponsored" by SMUD. All three failed immediately: one did not light at all, one gave only half the illumination, and the third was noisy. I will gladly mail them to you, if you wish. This is obviously just one example, but your own staff agreed that the general performance of CFL is poor.

Normal incandescent light bulbs are low cost, extremely reliable, noise free, and light instantly. As people experience the very short life, noise and slow start of these low quality CFL, they will reject CFL, and your important effort to spread their use may fail. Most people are not interested in CFL statistical averages, or low lifecycle costs, and when they experience repeated failures with CFL their minds would be set against CFL.

May I suggest that you bring this issue up in national electrical utility meetings and urge the group to put pressure on the CFL industry to drastically improve its quality. Especially do not sponsor suppliers of low quality CFL. I think that one of the poorest is FEIT that SMUD has worked with before.

I believe SMUD will benefit from a reliable CFL technology and seal of approval that the public can trust.

Thank you and SMUD for your excellent work and leadership.

Sincerely,

Matania Ginosar

BS MS EE, MS Mgt. D. Env.

8/1/08

C.c. Larry Carr

Twenty years ago I irritated a member of the Sacramento Municipal Utility Board, SMUD, when I answered media questions about Compact Fluorescent Lamps CFL, honestly and told them they have serious problems that must be solved before CFL could have wide public acceptance. He told them that all is well with CFL. He was wrong then and his type of approach -cover the negatives instead of correcting them - does not work.

Introduction: Standard light bulbs use a lot of electricity; we can save three quarter of the electricity by replacing them by compact fluorescent lamps, CFL. CFL did not capture much of the market because of their many limitations. Could the new light emitting diodes, LED, lamps achieve a much wider penetration, even with laws dictating higher efficiency light? I doubt it if we handle LED in the same poor way we did CFL.

Lighting uses considerable amount of our home electricity because we are using incandescent bulbs. The majority of these bulbs' electricity goes into heat, and less than 5% into light. Not only that, during the summer the heat portion warms the house interior, putting additional load on air conditioning. Since a typical electric power plant is just 33% efficient, reducing electrical waste saves three times as much in energy input [coal, gas] in our electrical systems, resulting in three times reduction in greenhouse gas GHG emissions.

Replacing one standard bulb by compact fluorescent lamp- CFL cut electricity to just one quarter, thus cutting our primary energy use, and GHG, by 12 times!!

Some of the reasons for considerable increase in home electricity use in the last two decades are bigger houses, using lights for decoration, and increasing use of indirect lighting that can demand up to ten times the light of direct lighting.

For the last quarter of a century the drive to reduce electrical demand by replacing standard light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps, CFL, that are typically four times more light efficient, did not make much impact. There are some laws now that would dictate selling of only higher efficiency lights to increase markedly the use of CFL and LED, but we may have the same problems again.

Here are some of the limitations that reduce the use of CFL:

Very poor quality. Originally US and Europeans made CFL had long life and more steady output, but as the Chinese entered the market the quality went down drastically. Because of that and more, the public discarded its initial enthusiasm of CFL when experience showed:

1. Considerably Shorter life than specified.

2. Quick death when CFL are enclosed.

3. Shorter life when the lighting element is placed downward since heat goes up and heats the electronic parts.

4. Slow start

5. Very poor quality control: Noisy CFL and half-light CFL are common, while never with standard bulbs.

6. Light color is not always comparable to standard light bulbs.

7. Use of mercury.

8. Can't adjust light intensity [new adjustable CFL are costly]

There are technical solutions to some of these problems, but many of the problems are due to poor quality control. It is hard to achieve sustained improvements when the seal of approval is given to the CFL by utilities, by mass marketing and by inadequate seal of approvals. In short, little attention is paid to the problems. See my letter in the next posting to my local utility of two years ago. I have not witness any improvements in CFL in recent times.

I am bringing this subject up because some are advocating bypassing the "CFL age" by Light Emitting Diodes- LED.

LED have the advantage of simplicity and very long life, possibly as much as 50,000 hours [15 years] vs., some 8,000 to 10,000 hours for CFL. It is promising but...

The problems are the very high cost of LED and the need for even tighter quality control than on CFL.

The main attraction of LED is their very low electricity consumption, a potential for several times better than CFL. However, the light output of LED vs. energy input, that is, its light efficiency, can vary by ten to one. The manufacturing processes, the material used, the quality control can all contribute to a very low energy efficiency that the buyer is unaware off. Most buyers will seek low cost units, but they would not know the real efficiency of the LED. And the normal tendency to cut corners to increase profits is likely to kill this promising technology too.

Also heat is still a problem, the cooling aspects and the electronic components used could be damaged by heat, depending on positioning, and ease of natural cooling around the LED.

In Summary:

The same problems that have cut down the market penetration of CFL - poor design and poor quality control, can also kill the market potential of LED, and even more so. It is easy and cheap to produce and sell LED that would have low efficiency and shorter life expectancy than possibly CFL. And since the initial cost of LED is expected to be much higher than CFL for the near future, the cost of poor quality and low efficiency could again kill this promising market.

My Suggestion- we could now improve the penetration of CFL, which is already here, by demanding government seal of approval for better design and high quality as the price of selling CFL.

Reader Comment:

This is excellent. You have done a marvelous job. I like the way you wrote this up.

I had the same sad experience over the past two years. I didn't read anything about this until now, but I found out from experience what you have described here. A few years ago I decided to do what I could to install CFLs in fixtures that we use for more than four hours a day. At first, I thought I might be saving as much as ten percent of the electricity we use.  Soon, I experienced every single one of the eight limitations you outlined in your paper below.  The short life of these CFLs is doubly compounded by the mercury problem, as it is still a real hassle to properly dispose of these spent lamps, and since I won't toss them into the landfill, I let them pile up in my house.

A few years ago at Cal, I met up with a top specialist in Conservation and I mentioned my concerns about the billions of CFLs that might be landfilled over the coming years.   He told me how proud he was that Wal-Mart had agreed to sell millions of them and tried to calm me about mercury by telling me that Cal EPA would have the mercury problem well in hand.  I knew better.  Now three years later the problem is still real.

The shortened life of these CFLs due to enclosure and upside down orientation is very real, as the lamps I installed in my bathroom inside the glass globes have only lasted about a year or so, so, maybe 700 to 1000 hours. I didn't take the time to be systematic about which CFLs did what, but this has been my basic experience. So, it's just one more broken promise that the environmentally and cost-conscious consumer has to deal with. Given all these drawbacks, it's impossible to know if one is saving any money, but for sure, it's a big hassle.

As Congress attempts to establish viable energy and environmental laws, it is clear that the political fights have diluted the potential final bill to nearly nothing.

The approved House bill and the potential Senate Kerry- Lieberman bills, after consolidation, would do nearly nothing to slow down US contributions to global warming. The price of carbon would barely make impact on energy use, the potential cuts in GHG are insignificant, some 4% from the 1990 level by 2020, while 30% is needed as a minimum. Read: Kerry - Lieberman bill is a sham.

The Federal Reserve System was created a century ago in response to a series of financial crises and its duties expanded noticeably during the Great Depression.

It was clear a century ago that Congress was unable to respond effectively to varying financial situations that require both immediate response and also long range planning. Congress can not do that.

Energy is the blood life of any modern society, and the global environment is in the midst of rapid deterioration. Members of Congress are subjected to a variety of acute pressures that do not allow them to grasp the complexity of the energy and environment dilemmas and also to develop adequate laws to prevent further deterioration.

We must take these issues away from Congress and create a new FED-like system for energy and environment away as possible from the political constrains. An independent agency that can deal both the immediate crises and set national long term directions.

The standard response would be: you can not get Congress to agree on even very mild energy/environment bills, how would it be possible to create this new agency? After all, Congress has to create this new agency.

I hope there is enough love for the country and the survival of humanity in the heart of most members of Congress that would drive members of both parties to get rid of this political hot potato and give it to a responsible Federal agency.

Central to the things that we must do is to recognize that population growth is the immediate cause of all our resource and environmental crises.

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

I am shaking my head as I study population trends of different countries. I read about this subject quite a bit during my UCLA studies for my doctorate in Environmental Science. I did my first population study: Family Planning in the People's Republic of China in 1974, and several other population studies a few years ago. Except China and Europe, for all practical purpose, the world population has continued to increase with some slow down. The majority of world leadership has closed its eyes on this crucial subject. Even when global warming [GW] is discussed in depth, population growth is rarely on the agenda.

A lot of statistics are available; all are unsettling, since nation after nation is unable to grasp the explosive situation we are in. Let's look at just one example- Egypt.

In 1950 Egypt population was 22 million, now it is 75 million! More than three times larger. They still have the same amount of arable land, but it is less fertile now and less water from the Nile River, their main source of livelihood. Result? More poverty and population dissatisfaction. Western people are unable to grasp the level of deep poverty in the slums of Cairo, for example, it is similar to India's notorious slums.

Obviously, this population growth leads to larger use of resources, more food, more clothing, more electricity, that is: more energy and more GHG emissions.

Egypt has to be governed by dictatorship since otherwise the population would revolt.

"Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity can not survive overpopulation.

Convenience and decency can not survive overpopulation.

As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It does not matter if someone dies, the more people there are, the less one individual maters."

Issac Asimov:

But my main emphasis here is about the global survival and our ability to curtail population growth, so let's return to it:

We can grasp the changes in Egypt, the numbers are within our understanding, but the real problem is global population increase from today's already unsustainable 6.8 Billon people to over 9 Billion in the next three decades. And we have known about it for decades.

In 200 years global population grew 6 times!

1800 - 1 Billion

1900 - 1.8 B

1950 - 2.5 B

1960 - 3 B

1980 - 4.5 B

2000 - 6 B

The crucial issue of population growth is rarely mentioned when GW is discussed in the halls of governments, congress, and the media. It is a taboo. We look at it as a problem for the developing world, mostly Africa, India and China. Europe can not mention it because their own smaller population has already all the modern comforts and their populations are mostly stabilized.

The US population is growing slowly, but our high demand for comfort dictates very high energy use and large GHG emissions second only to China. We are 4.5% of the global population and consume about one quarter [25%] of all global resources. So, we have a real population problem as far as energy and GHG emissions are concerned. And these cause GW. The US emitted to date around 30% of all accumulated GHG!

Developing countries do not want any one to interfere with their own population policies. The result is that the rapid population growth is hindering most efforts to fight GW.

We will always stay behind the ability to supply low-carbon energy as long as energy demand continues to grow rapidly due to population growth.

Even if we stood still in our energy demand, the task is nearly insurmountable, the use of energy from all fossil sources is so large, and it is close to impossible to replace it in the short time frame we must do it to slow down GW. Add to it the need to chase the energy demands of a growing population- the task is nearly impossible.

So many "green" commentators tell us that if we can just put more wind energy farms across the land or put photovoltaic on every roof, or more thermal solar in the deserts. The problem of curtailing GHG emissions would be solved. With all due respect to their strong love of humanity- this is sheer dreaming. They are unable to grasp the magnitude of the energy problem, the shortage of time to cut very significantly GHG and the need to change almost every thing we are doing. Nothing will change sufficiently to make any impact on GHG emissions if we continue according to the old way of thinking. Congress is offering us energy bills that are easy to swallow, but they will have negligible impacts on GW. Major sacrifices have to be made.

The POPUATION BOMB  book was published more than 40 years ago, and the global population has been going up before and after that book at a fast rate, a rate that can not be sustained without severely aggravating the damage to the global climate.

Is there anything that can be done to significantly reduce the growth of global population that we may have a modicum of chance to slow the GHG emissions?

The facts are against that possibility.

Consider the following:

1. The growth of China and India populations is the key to global population impacts on global warming because they have the largest populations and their rate of modernization is the most significant.

2. Both China and India expect major shifts in population from poverty and very low income to the middle class. Some 200 million in each country are projected to move from rural poverty to urban areas with considerably higher standard of living in the next decade or so. Note that India population is 71% rural, and 29% urban. Also half the population does not even have electricity. Therefore, the shift would multiply energy demand by a massive factor.

3. That population shift by China and India would increase their energy use by  an amount equivalent to current US use..

US energy use per GDP is four times better than India or China. Therefore, their new urban population has to increase their standard of living to just one quarter of the US level to cause the same energy and GHG impacts as a full new USA!

Again, although this combined population shift of 400 million would not gain the US standard of living in this period, they are likely to use as much energy as the USA uses now.

4. You can't reduce the desire for sex. The sex drive is a basic human need and can not be changed.

5. Free use of contraception of all types can not reduce population growth significantly to the level needed, and in the time frame needed. Even China tried it. It did not work.

6. The only methods that achieved fast population reductions to date are either massive war [50 million deaths WWII] or mandatory "one-child" laws in China, [China reduction of 400 million potential births].

7. It is not possible to copy the unique China experience without rigid control on the country.

8. Most countries are "freedom loving" and would not accept population control like in China.

9. If India could impose full human rights to most women in a very short time, women would be able to use all means of birth control, including abortion, at will. This change in women's freedom is impossible in the time frame we are discussing in a country deep in old traditions that have not changed in centuries among the majority of the rural population.

10. The current accumulation of children and young people in India [and other high population growth countries] will force high population growth rate independent of any new and even drastic population control attempts.

This is destiny, not open to adjustments or question.

11. Some 3/4 of India population is in the child-bearing age.

Median population age is 24 years; 32% of the population is below 14 years! India Population growth rate is 1.38%. It is not a high rate per se, some Muslim countries have over 3% rate, but because India has a large population it has a very high impact.

12. Approximately one forth of India rural population [200 million] is expected to be urbanized in the next decade or so. That move is expected to be accompanied by reduce population growth in this portion of the population.. How much would the national growth drops by this is not yet clear. The current average rate of India is 2.65 children born/woman.

13. China, with slightly higher population has a dictated low rate of only 0.5% due to its one child policy- that is not fully followed. Even this 0.5% is too high for China. Their official aim was/is to have a negative rate to drop to 700 million.

"The first law of sustainability: population growth and/or growth in the rate of consumption of resources can not e sustained."

Dr. Albert A. Bartlett

My conclusion:

It would be nearly impossible to reduce global population growth by a significant amount to help in the struggle against global warming. We do not have the time for slow changes.

And rapid population reductions are not possible, short of massive wars or massive famines.

Wind energy is getting a lot of favorable attention globally because it is the least costly low-carbon energy source, relatively simple technology and already proven its abilities to generate electricity on a large scale. However, as we plan to rely on more wind energy we need to consider some possible serious problems and study them in depth.

I am concerned that future reliance on wind energy as a major source of electricity may be unwise. I think we must also have human-controlled power in substantial amounts to compensate for the greater uncertainty of wind as GW is changing the climate.

I am a strong supporter of wind energy, and that is why I risked my career at the California Energy Commission, in the late 70' to push for developments in this field against my management. With a lot of work we succeeded to verify with clear, multi year data, the first time any place in the world, that wind can be a profitable commercial electrical source.

Global warming is changing weather patterns all over the globe. The steady patterns of strong winds, suitable for practical wind turbines, may not be relied on in many places in the future.

Here is what Dr. Holdren said  5/27/10:

"Global climate is changing. On average it is warming at a rate that is highly unusual against the background of natural variation that has always characterized the earth's climate. It's warming, on the average, but with that warming come changes in all of the elements of climate and the phenomena related to it. That means rain and snow, atmospheric circulation, ocean currents, storms, all changing in their spacial patterns, in their magnitudes and very importantly changing in their timing."

Temperature differences drive the winds, and the temperatures would not remain the same in the future. That may change the intensity and duration of the winds. You need a minimal amount of wind hours that are both not too low to generate sufficient amount of energy and not too high and especially not erratic, to break the blades.

The increase expectation of erratic weather with more intense storms could reduce the output of wind farms and make it less predictable..

Solar input however, should be a steadier source of energy despite the variations in storms, clouds, and weather patterns. Also, the sun, unlike wind, is not able to generate extreme radiations that may damage the conversion systems. In addition land areas suitable for solar energy systems with very low precipitation are expected to grow, not diminish with increase global temperatures.

Matania

Comments:

Good thought and yet another caution. This adds yet one more risk to siting a wind farms and expecting a thirty year economical project. This will drive wind developers to site in the most energetic sites first and hope that the winds don't change that much while the project is producing so the payback period will be less. That means that a remote site with great wind but an expense to build enough transmission lines to deliver the power will make the site less attractive. That said, I assume that at some point in the not too distant future, electric utility planners will realize this risk, but in the meantime, we have a very long way to go before we even reach ten percent from wind. There's also the nagging question of firm capacity, and that means either an integrated grid, gas fired back up, or as of yet unproven energy storage technology.


I wonder if wind energy climatologists have started to model this. Of course, the uncertainty would be quite large, so the results would be unclear.

J.

Matania  -- I have two thoughts:

1. Not sure the changes in wind patterns would be fast enough to matter: a 20-year life at a site would be good enough, and then part of the investment could be recovered by moving the wind equipment to where new patterns have created more wind.

2. High wind areas would continue to exist, their locations would change and, if the change not too fast, the investment could be recovered well enough.

The way to quantify it is to compare the risk and uncertainties of the changes in wind with the risks and uncertainties of the competing nuclear. Tough to do and do well enough and credibly enough to convince investors and policy makers.

But, it is an argument I had not heard, and it may help to control over-enthusiasm for wind. It supports a more diverse set of energy sources, and avoids the trend toward all wind as the renewable source.

V

My answer:

It may be that way, but the uncertainty is a killer for business. I wish it would not turn out like that, but how can we get a better handle on that to make practical decisions? And with some modicum of success.

My own assessment is that the erratic aspect would not be slow moving. Storms are unpredictable and without pattern. Take tornadoes, locations and intensity are so unpredictable. So, for damage to blades we can expect unpredictability of force and timing.

And what about  average energy wind flow between the upper and lower acceptable values? How can we say now how that will change.

Up to now, every report I am aware of  shows more rapid change in patterns, not slow moving.

This issue deserves in-depth analyses backed up by results from simulations.

Matania

Regarding the American Power Act, the Lieberman- Kerry bill in the Senate.

There are many in the middle environmental mix who say- support this bill because it is the best we can get now. Not only that, the Democrats will lose their ability to gather sufficient votes after the next election.

My first inclination is: something is better than nothing, but a somber thought is also present. Can I ignore reality to get a good feeling that we are actually moving forward?

Here is the reality:

The main emitters by far will be China and India. China is already the biggest emitter and increasing so rapidly. And China is actually doing nothing of substance to cut its GHG. All their emphasis on green technology will have minuscule impact and is basically to make money, not to reduce their GHG. They and India are working hard to build several hundred millions cars in each country. Their buildings are not insulated. Their main energy is and will be coal. Read the latest Sierra Club Magazine for examples. The amount of GHG from China over the next two decades would be five to ten times the total of the rest of the developed world even if we do not reduce it at all! We must grasp that whatever we cut in the US and Europe is insignificant as far as GW is concerned, but important for other reasons.

So, how do we impress China to cut its GHG by a very significant amount? We have the carrot and the stick options. We put carbon tax on their imports to us at the level equivalent to our own carbon tax. And we may have some "moral" influence if we actually do cut ours by such a large amount that we can show some suffering. They are not willing to reduce their drive for modernization and expect 200 millions additional rural Chinese to move to high-energy urban areas. Also, our leverage is becoming smaller all the time since they are driving now to reduce their dependence on exports and be more internal market oriented. With time they will achieve that since they will have the economic mass within their own borders.

By the time we and they realize that GW is already here and the evidence are overwhelming, it would be too late to do anything to stop the global heating.

I have high respect for the Chinese and am glad they had the Communist revolution and the one child policy. That would not be possible without the type of government they now have. Otherwise they would have been 400 millions more Chinese now demanding more and more energy. But we must accept that the Chinese are very clever and also devious people. The way we view morality [but do not really practice] is not practiced in china. They would not give an inch. They will look at every step they can take to get the maximum for themselves. As we are inclined to do also.

So? We must somehow find ways to truly cooperate to cut the ever increasing danger of not only GW but reducing the likelihood of catastrophic climate events.

How will this bill, which is environmentally a sham, could change the attitude of China and the rest of the world? They are not as stupid as most of the American public. Their media will point out clearly that we are cheating and we are cutting our GHG by only 4% vs. theirs 30%.

Can you give me a sound, realistic way that this bill should not be defeated?

It seems to me that the worst thing we can do, which this bill does, is lie to ourselves and attempt to lie to a world that would see very well through our lies.

There is renewed interest in the fact that global warming would cause considerable amount of national and international security risks. One of the main reasons is that rising oceans will cause large population displacements. Simple, obscuring and sanitized words but very crucial to the lives of hundreds of millions who live near oceans. For example, large parts of Bangladesh are very flat and at nearly ocean level. Millions of people live in these zones, and many had to move to higher grounds already.

Large population changes at the rapidity that GW will be driving would cause not only considerable increase in hunger, poverty and human suffering, but international mini wars or even full wars.

Global Warming or not, it is natural for nations to protect their own territories and their economies from foreigners.

We do not know how to deal with this kind of vast population shifts. It is a tragedy waiting to explode.

With this sad reality in mind, which is a minor part of the severe damages expected from GW, just think what has been offered in the US Senate to fight GW:

Senator Kerry just wrote an op-ed about this very national security issue to help him get wider acceptance for his and Senator Lieberman's energy and security legislation. But it is not a new subject at all.

We have known for several years that GW is a severe national security issue; former CIA Director James Woolsey sent me his assessment of it 18 months ago. But the bill that Kerry and Lieberman developed is useless to fight GW. It may be the best they or any senator could achieve but it aims to cuts CO2 by only 4% compare to the yesterday's British proposal to cut it by 30% by 2020.*

Just look how Congress is misleading the American people without any shame:

The proposed international agreement is to cut CO2 levels in comparison to 1990 levels. The US Congress just lied to us by not mentioning too loud that their proposal is using 2005 as the beginning level. 2005 had a much higher level of CO2 than 1990 to start with, and therefore, just a minimal cut in emissions, 4%, is proposed. Europe proposes 30%, we offer 4% on a direct comparison basis!

This bill will require nothing from industry, and allow the electrical utilities to continue to use coal for 50% of their power.

With all due respect to the hard working senators, their bill is a band aid and noting more. And for those who say we can make it more robust later, there is very little time left, as we all should know.

Wishful thinking in this critical time on this crucial issue is not helpful, it is disastrous.

And we want China and India to cut their GHG emissions drastically. Do you think they will listen to us?

To grasp the time-criticality you may want to read:

http://www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org/blog1.php/2009/10/11/time-criticality-of-global-warming

*"The UK government will push the EU to move to a higher target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It will urge the EU to cut emissions by 30% from 1990 levels by 2020, rather than the current 20% target, partly through more support for renewables."

While we are contemplating all the agonies and damages the oil spill in the Gulf is causing, let's think a little deeper, about the ocean itself.

We use the ocean as dumping grounds, we use the oceans to get our sea foods, we use the oceans for recreation,  and it gives us access to some of our oil supply, but we forgot that the ocean is a living thing, perhaps the most crucial element of this Earth.

US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said long ago that: "Trees should have standing" too in the courts of law to be protected as equals, not just be used by humanity. The same should be said now about the ocean. We have forgotten how crucial is the ocean to the life of this limited Earth.

The oceans keep us alive.

The oceans cover 71% of the Earth surface, its average depth is 12,000 feet, and it is the most significant absorber of carbon gas. The oceans stabilize the global temperatures because of their massive energy mass. And  the oceans supply most of the oxygen to the earth living things, and the oceans drive the global water cycle.

The oceans have been stabilized by nature over millions of years and kept this Earth livable. We have been playing with this gift of nature and it is deteriorating in front of our eyes in speeds never experienced before in nature, possibly a thousand times aster than previous massive global changes.

We have overfished most of all the edible fish supplies in the oceans. We are draining much of our poisonous fertilizers into the ocean creating massive dead zones devoid of living things.

We have damped so much plastics that there a "Plastic Central" in the middle of the Pacific ocean, a vast pool of plastic junk covering hundreds of square miles, interfering with the natural flow of marine life.

And we have succeeded to rise the ocean temperature [the upper 2,000 feet] by over half a degree C, a very significant amount for the vastness of the oceans.

And to top it of, our global CO2 emissions increased the ocean acidity sufficiently to damage the skeletons of marine organisms and killing of many corrals colonies, the breading grounds of many fish and other sea life.

The temperature rise, and the related changes of natural near- shore upwelling of ocean waters is decreasing the supply of nutrition, the most basic food chain for ocean organism, thus decreasing the ocean food production.

Over 50,000 cargo ships in the world are emptying their sewer and contaminated ballast-water into the oceans.

Major oil spills get notorious attention, but beyond the US there are ongoing smaller oil spills in nearly every oil region in coastal areas and in the oceans that are accepted as normal, and no one is allowed to do anything to stop them. They are just part of our business as usual approach to environmental damages. This is happening for some time even in Canada!

The major rivers of China and India, for example, empty their contaminated waters directly into the ocean. And many other nations are doing the same. Our high water discharge standards are rare in the world.

The ocean used to absorb 60% of global CO2, but now it can absorb just 55% because of its higher temperature and higher acidity.

And these are just some of the ways we treat our life-giving oceans.

You combine all of these assaults on the oceans and they are losing their ability to sustain us as global climate stabilizer and the main protein supplier for billions of people.

How long can this be going on without catastrophic, irreversible impact?

I wish it would not be the case, but I believe we must start now R&D on geoengineering.

For a long time I opposed anything to do with geoengineering, the massive processes that could artificially reduce the warming of the earth, for all the known objections:

1. It would reduce our effort to do the required hard things: significant cutting of global GHG emissions.

2. Playing with global forces is highly risky. The potential for overshoot; that manipulating the global environment could cool the earth too much and instead bring in a new ice age.

3. The amount of CO2 and other GHG would continue to increase and add to the already large environmental damage, such as increase acidity of the oceans, disturb the climatic balance and make it more erratic, leading to increased weather instabilities.

4. Geoengineering is much cheaper than cutting GHG therefore, nations, private institutions, or even some wealthy people could start their own weather modifications leading to unknown climate changes.

We know that the danger to the global climate is increasing rapidly. The amount of GHG in the atmosphere is steadily increasing instead of decreasing. And it is expected to increase in a faster rate than before due to the "modernization." of China and India. In addition, the evidence is clear that we are not likely to cut the global GHG emissions in the future as science indicates we must.  What's more, the likelihood that we will do it in time to avert tipping points, catastrophic climate events, is increasing all the time since the temperature is increasing.

Furthermore, global cooperation is much further away than we hoped for. The economic competition is so strong that cooperation for our common survival is not promising at all.

Therefore, it is fairly clear that we are unable, at least up to now, to comprehend that we are all in the same sinking boat and it is leaking heavily AND WE DO NOT HAVE MORE SPARE TIME. We have little choice, we must start developing geoengineering systems. At least to give us time to, maybe, to overcome our resistance to global cooperation.

Again: The main reason I see why we must start internationally controlled R&D on geoengineering is the high likelihood that nations, organizations or well off people will start doing their own climate modifications without global control.

That can lead to gross errors and catastrophic events much faster than a globally controlled, scientific, well thought out R&D on geoengineering.

Again:

1. It is cheap and easy to do geoengineering privately away from international control. This is highly dangerous.

2. We need an iron clad international control, way beyond nuclear control, using military power to impose it, and that it remains only international.

3. Must continue to fight GW by cutting GHG much more than before, but we know China and India and our own inaction, or minimal action, are useless in scope.

4. Not starting to find out now the potential benefits and dangers of geoengineering, and not developing tight control over it could be worse than anything.

The main, key, primary attention of our global community should be on reducing global warming in conjunction with a viable economy. If we do not devote maximum effort [all demanding extreme amount of capital] to this area very soon dangerous temperature rise would make this world unhealthy to human life. To this end we must not even discuss second order environmental issues, [such as unappealing transmission lines,] and focus on curtailing the global emissions of GHG.

To this end I am comparing below nuclear vs. solar PV roof installations. One of the reason I am selecting these two technologies is because many caring people for our earth too often see only part of the picture and simplify things very much. For example, "PV is good,  free sun energy, no moving parts, look how marvelous it is." And the opposite: "nuclear is bad, danger of explosions like Chernobyl, the lack of permanent storage for spent fuel, and danger of terrorism." They do not think out the issues in a comprehensive manner. These issues are too complex and often they see just part of the situation.

People who "hate" nuclear power are not focused on the most crucial issue, cut GHG ASAP and as much as possible and instead are looking at secondary issues. Many unaware good people have been happy in the last few months when they found that the cost of nuclear power stations is very high, as much as $12 Billion per 1000 mw station. Not so fast...

Green power that is nature driven, solar and wind, can be more expensive than nuclear when the total network and backup needs are included, as they must. Nature driven power has many limitations, such as intermittent power that must be backed up by human-controlled thermal power, such as gas, nuclear or oil. I am sure few would like to have their lights and refrigerators work only when the sun is in full power....

Here is a quick comparison of mainly cost:

1. Nuclear power:

Typical nuclear power station is rated at 1000 MW.

In the US most plants achieved 92% availability in the last two decades.

Available energy: 8760 hr/yr x 0.92 x 1000 x 10^6 W : 1000 kW/mW =

8 x 10^9 = 8 billion kWh/yr

Capital Cost: $12 Billion.

2. Roof- installed Photovoltaic systems:

Good output is 1,500 kWh /yr/ kW installed, typical PV system is 3 kW/home

Cost of full system, including subsides, since we all pay for it, is $9,000 per installed kW.

Or $27,000 per home. Despite promises and media noise, the price for individuals did not go down in the last five years. The same in Germany, the reduce cost of silicon panels did not reduce system costs.

Amount of installed PV capacity to deliver the same  energy as a nuclear power station:

8 x 10^ 9 divide by 1500 x 3 = 1.8 x 10^6  homes

That is, to generate the same amount of energy of one nuclear power station, that is available most of the time on command, requires PV on 1.8 million homes.

Cost of nuclear power station $12 B

Cost o all solar systems: 1.8 million homes x $27,000 per home: $49 Billions.

THE CAPITAL COST OF ROOF MOUNTED PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS IS 4 TIMES THE COST OF STEADY NUCLEAR POWER.

In addition, as I said, nuclear is available on demand, while PV systems can not be run alone and need steady power station to supply the three-quarter of the time solar is not available. [PV average power is one quarter of peak rated power.]

Several days of cloudy weather will reduce the average solar output even lower.

This is the reality of intermittent low emission power.

Note, the cost of operation and maintenance of nuclear station per kWh output is considerably lower than for PV system.

Wind energy systems have less of these problems of high costs and also have higher average output then solar PV. However, wind still must be complemented by human-controlled power and must have long transmission lines from a variety of wind energy farms distributed over great distances.

We are seeing here just part of the real problem, and electrical untilities must be a major part of the solution. As much as we suspect them they are the ones with real solid experince, and that is crucial.

I am not a friend of big oil, and I am environmentalist by profession and heart, but I look for facts before I decide on a situation. Not so the media and Congress. Their livelihood is based on sensationalism.

I was watching the CNN review of the Congressional heating of the oil spill in the Gulf. Senator Frank Lautenberg of NJ started by gently attacking the three executives of the companies involved, the parent company BP (British petroleum), then the owner and operator of the Oil rig, and then the company responsible for the shut off valve at the sea floor. The three where asked who is responsible for the spill, they all said: we need to find the facts first, what failed, when it failed and so forth.

The CNN commentator laughed at the answers and said: you see they blame each other. Not so fast, they did not, they said let wait for facts. Why? Because billions of dollars are involved and because detail investigation and subsequent legal negotiation will determine who will pay what portion of the cost. First, no one know the full facts of this complex case, and if they say anything now they will be penalized during later negotiation. It is simply too early for Congressional and media hearing.

These answers are proper and justified and also the normal method used in cases with much lower visibility.

However, Congresspersons and the media- CNN, and surely others in the Media, including blogs, will attack these companies and try to paint them as villains.

They are not villains, they were conducting their normal business. Congress set the rules businesses operate in the country and they follow it as they were making profit for their stock holders. They might have erred by selecting the wrong safety approach, or the equipment did not function as expected. I believe they should have used additional safety rigs to increase safety, and reduce the likelihood of massive leak, but this is after the event. They were typical businesses in the vast global oil industry.

Add to it that the government agency controlling these operation has a close relationship with the oil industry it supervises and at the same time lease land and collect fees from them. As the NYT wrote: "On Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he planned to cut the agency that oversees the industry, the Minerals Management Service, in two. One office would be responsible for public safety and environmental enforcement and the other in charge of leasing and revenue."

So, many players are involved, no one wanted this tragedy to happened. Certainly the companies involved will be hurt in the market place and lose money and reputation too.

The governmental safety supervision was weak. And we do not know who did what and when to cause this explosion.

And why are we so mad at the oil industry? Because they have supplied us with ample amount of very low cost oil, cheaper than bottled water?

Should we blame them for not charging also for the CO2 created by using oil? Would we have accepted extra charges willingly? Of course not. President Clinton tried just to add a quarter to the price of a gallon of gasoline and all hell broke loose.

The CIA director in the movie The Tree days of The Condor admonished Robert Redford: what will the people do when suddenly they do not have ample supply of oil? Will they care how we get it for them?

We want, we want, that is our culture. And most of the time we elect and support leaders who follow this approach to life.

But just to make it clear, we can not rely on the oil companies to care for the environment. Their key purpose is to make profit, that is the reason they exists. They do cut corners when they can, and do nothing when they can. Only governmnet regulations that are actively monitored can reduce the damage oil and coal extractions actually cause. And for too long our governemt reduced regulations and did have too close relationship with the oil, coal and gas industries. Afterall, they have the money and the power to influence Congress and the Administration too.

Do not trust speaches by the Administration, including the president, or Congress, look for real actions. As the Presisdent said: Trust and verify, so verify that they actually act to save our environment.

Again, back to the sensationalism. We, the majority of the American people, want answers quickly and without any effort. Very few wants to think clearly. The games of Congress and the media shapes so much of our reality that we, the public, jumps to conclusions that were fed to us by sensationalism when we were full of anger at the oil industry. Congress, after presenting anger and admonition, now has free hands to achieve whatever they want to, and often make laws which the lobbyists of the oil industry suggest to them. And these laws would not necessarily be what are in the best inertest of the American people, who are again led down a path of untruth and manipulation.

This, again, is how sensationalism shapes our world views.

Comment by a reader:

Mat,

Beautiful.  You covered everything and more.  What is a shame that we don’t we see journalist’s stories and editorials that report what you have just written.  Millions should be reading this in a major newspaper editorial, not a few people who happen to see it on your blog.  This is the sort of thing that Tom Friedman or Paul Krugman might write in the NY Times, but maybe they would have softened it a bit.  I will keep looking for this from them.

I saw the same hearing last night and both my wife and I came to the same conclusion.  What are the facts?  Shouldn’t we know that first before we blame someone.   The CNN reporter showed how each of the companies blames the other, which is par for the course, as you say.

The other thing I have felt for days was the US government was somehow equally liable because it failed to require lots of redundancy to prevent just such an accident.  I didn’t know what that was until I learned about the MMS yesterday and guess what, they have the same conflict of interest that the old AEC and the current FAA have, so safety and promotion are under the same roof.  No mystery there.  What is par for the course on “discoveries” like this is that they are suddenly “discovered” after a terrible accident, and then usually, the feds split the agency in two, so we got the NRC and DOE, but we still have the FAA doing both airline safety and promotion.  The “revolving door” and “cozy relationships” of MMS executives and the energy industry is legend.

So, bottom line, no wonder we can’t get anything meaningful done on energy and the environment in our government and why international climate change agreements are even harder to do.

Oh, the other bit of news that I saw in the Bee today was that nearly half of all Americans polled after this oil spill think we should continue with offshore drilling. I don’t know if they also want more stringent oversight.  But, when you have to go to such depths to get the oil, stuff happens.  It’s a major miracle that we did not see such a big spill in the Gulf before this.

Take Care,

J.

Straight to the point LA Times editorial. The problems we are facing from massive oil spill and coal mine disasters are negligible compare to global warming. Time to get real and focus our attention were it belong- the time-criticality of Global warming.

Matania

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-oil-20100511,0,5993736.story

la times.com

Editorial

Climate change is the true crisis

West Virginia's mining disaster and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill were disastrous and investigations are justified, but the real threat is much worse.

Below is a good summary on the inadequacy of the Cap & Trade system.

The Washington Post

Carbon Offsets

Mike Tidwell

Global warming is our biggest environmental problem, and carbon offsets are one of our biggest barriers to a solution.

You know the idea: Let's make climate rescue painless by paying Zambian farmers not to till their soil while America continues its oil- and coal-burning binge. Carbon "sequestered" in the soil -- or in tropical trees -- at one location will "offset" carbon emitted at another.

But the concept requires absolute and permanent knowledge of human activity everywhere on Earth. Were the Zambian farmers letting the land go fallow anyway? Will they avoid tilling forever? Will the purchased forest never see a chain saw or a wildfire?

Tragically, the cap-and-trade bill passed last year by the House of Representatives allows up to 2 billion tons of carbon offsets per year for U.S. companies. This turned the bill into a joke, making it possible for carbon emissions to actually rise in America for the next two decades.

Yes, offsets are cheap. Poor farmers don't need much money to make a promise. But only a hard cap on emissions, free of offsets and trading, will actually decarbonize our economy.

Offsets are ethically troubling, as well. They allow rich countries such as the United States to avoid full responsibility for their actions. One British critic made the point with a parody site, cheatneutral.com. Here, people who cheat on their spouses can pay 2.50 British pounds (slightly less than $4) into a fund that will absolve them of guilt by sending the money to noncheaters as a reward for their fidelity. This way marital cheating can continue -- but everyone wins on paper, and everyone feels better, right?

Big cuts in carbon pollution are achievable in America, and in a cost-effective way, but only if environmental champions stop falling for offsets.

Mike Tidwell is the director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. He can be reached at mikewtidwell@gmail.

Coal-generated electricity emits the highest amount of CO2 per kWh. Depending on the variety of coal used, it is just below one kilogram of CO2 per KWh. But this amount does not include the total GHG that coal is adding to our climate.

When comparing alternative energy sources, it is obvious that we should compare total costs, from cradle to the grave, as the saying goes, or  Life Cycle Costs. Too often we do not do a similar analyses when the total carbon cycle is involved. We need to consider the total coal emitted in the process, from the beginning of the coal extraction to final electricity generation.

A recent study* indicates that the total carbon emissions of coal is not just the one kilogram per kWh of the power plant, but we must add between 7% to 17% for the cutting of the mountains, for coal transportation, and the removal of trees when the coal is extracted from mountain tops.

[*Nature, Feb. 10, issue. P. 1002]

[Modern natural gas plants emit about one half as much per unit of electricity.]

Similarly, we have to compare the CO2 emitted during fabrication, installation and maintenance of  alternative energy systems. For example, when we consider photovoltaic systems we do not include the amount of CO2 emitted during the manufacturing process. PV is the worse "green technology" as far as CO2 emission is concerned.
Past analysis indicates that it took some 8 years to payback the electricity consumes in the manufacturing, system fabrication and installation of roof-mounted silicon PV systems. It takes a considerable amount of electricity to make the pure silicon panels for current technology PV. Because fabrication cost is important many of the PV silicon panels are made where electricity is very cheap, where electricity is generated by coal power plants! A high percentage of PV silicon is made in Germany and China. Germany uses coal to produce 50% of its electricity, and 80% of China's electricity is generated by coal.

Even if we assume that higher production led to higher manufacturing efficiency of silicon, the CO2 payback can still be in the region of 4 to 5 years. The silicon panels are just 30% of total costs, and   considerable amount of additional material and transportation are involved in making and installing a roof-mounted PV system. The amount of CO2 generated by the total the PV life-cycle is almost never included in the analysis of PV net generation of electricity. And in addition, the amount of electricity produced by PV systems is hidden and rarely discussed in order to hide its very high cost per kWh produced, which is the highest of all low-carbon technologies, including nuclear power.

Wind energy has very little CO2 foot print per kWh, and nuclear power has even less than that. But remote new green plants would require long transmission lines with their own CO2 "cost." This is typically not a very high contributor when you divide the initial GHG contribution over the 50 years of typical life of transmission lines.

In all cases of green technology and other reductions of GHG we need to determine and tell the true story, or our ability to reduce GHG emissions would be grossly over estimated.

The deep financial problems of  Greece have resulted in riots and even killings in Athens. This is the result of living with lies for a long time. The Greek for too long lived as if there is no tomorrow. Their productivity is very low. They want a very easy life, with very early retirement, and enjoy life. The problem is the Germans do not want to pay for it. And I can't blame them.

The Greek government falsify its financial data to mask its dire financial situation from the European Union. The EU and especially the German public is angry at being forced to pay to rescue Greece from major financial collapse.

The evidence in Greece were not hidden. I knew that few years ago when my daughter lived in Greece for several years and the Greeks were starting their preparations for their Olympics. There is no place here to write all the economic incompetence of Greece, but it was clearly evident then that they could not afford the ten billion dollars to prepare for the grandiose Olympics they wanted. With a very small national economy, with inability to work efficiently and productively, with incompetent management and lazy workers, you could see the writings on the walls. They were beyond their means. They could not afford this extravagance but their national pride forced them to show to the world how great Greece is. That spending beyond their means was one of the main nails in their financial coffin.

What does this have to do with global warming? A lot. First, all of us who want  greener energy and a greener economy must realize that it will cost a lot of money. Fossil fuel are cheap partially because they do not include the environmental damages they are causing all over the world-vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide -CO2 emissions that are the main cause of global warming.

We will have to make sacrifices to reduce expected damages from the global warming. We can do it. Instead of enriching hundreds of thousands of financial employees, real estate and financial analysts, we will have to redirect our country towards more energy efficient economy based on tighter rules.

We do not like rules and constrains in our country. We want to be free to do what each of us want. That is the same approach the Greeks have been taking, and we too for many decades.

The Greeks ignored reality and lived high, for a while. We have ignored realities, one of which is the "externalities," the damage caused from our wasteful use of energy. The price of energy is artificially low since we have not paid for the severe environmental damages caused from burning fossil fuels.

We have been playing similar financial games in the US and around the world for many years. We have also hidden key facts from governments, and from the public, but because our economy is so large we have been able to muddle through to date. We are not in the same sinking boat the Greeks are sailing now, but we have the same mentality when the financial institutions controlling our economy are playing unproductive financial games, grow from 6% of the US economy to 20%; produce a third of corporate income and make a very narrow section of the public very wealthy while causing millions of unemployed. And all of this false wealth have not created anything. It is based on shuffling of highly leveraged money all around, and at each stage some one is taking a percentage for profit.

Almost every one is angry, how could they lose their stock market gains, the inflated value of their home? Our wealth was false, it was not based on real economic gains. It was a Monopoly game.

We have forgotten that the elevation of millions of workers to the middle class created the purchasing power that elevated the US economy to such a high level.

The public does not know enough about the financial bailout, its magnitude, and potential impact on future generations. So much is hidden, so much is under the table. Congress with its revolving doors with the financial institutions, and with the cooperation of the Administration keep us in the dark.

I wonder if there is any possibility that we will grasp that the Greek financial tragedy is a wake up call for us to look at reality and strip our economy from some of the major lies, and falsehoods we have swept under the rug.

One of the key problems in the global warming issue is our inability to grasp dimensions, to grasp the significance of numbers. Unfortunately, most of the US population has little understanding of even the simplest arithmetic, magnitudes and relationships.

So many unrealistic remarks are made in the media and the blogging world about changing energy from oil, gas and coal to alternative energies, it almost boggles the mind.

At a previous blog I mentioned the magnitude of the energy humanity consumed, as calculated by Dr. Lewis, with the hope to open our minds to the trillions in investments and the decades it takes to make any useful impact on the energy story:

http://www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org/blog1.php?p=93&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

The numbers are huge, the growth in population and consumption are so staggering that one would expect some fast and meaningful actions by Congress, by the Federal government and governments around the world to act. But nothing even started. So many years after Kyoto we are still arguing how important GW is and how much we should spend to slow it down. Most global leaders are politicians without knowledge of technology and especially the complexity and fragility of the environment. But they do not know it, and would not admit it to themselves either.

Without some demand from the population to seriously fight GW most "leaders" talk, and wait, and that is what is happening for a long time. Lack of understanding by the public lull the public into apathy. Lack public outcry combined with lack of leadership by governing bodies around the world, and we are continuing to dig ourselves into a deeper hole re. GW.

Again: this lack of public interest to learn, to understand, leads to apathy and being enclosed in our own little world while the global climate is steadily deteriorating.

If you have some desire to learn, to grasp, to be involved, please listen carefully to the two YOUTUBE explanations below on basic numbers, and how they impact our world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ

I was listening last night to a discussion on energy and global warming at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. It was interesting and the speakers presented their arguments well. Except they essentially  ignored the most critical aspect of global warming, the critically of time. Too many of their "solutions" would take so long to implement that by that time we would lose our ability to slow the increase in global temperature.

They did not seem to me to grasp how deeply we are already into this critical phase. They did not show that time is not on our side. And this time element is the most crucial aspect of fighting global warming effectively! Every day we add globally over 70 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and it will remain there for many centuries.

Many of their key arguments seemed reasonable unless you realize that we are already approaching tipping points that would have positive feedback and, by them selves, would continue to add to the temperature increase even without any addition of Greenhouse Gases, GHG.

Many proposed "solutions" by the speakers and others could have been useful several decades ago when we had time to reduce GHG emissions without disturbing the economy or our way of life. But this is no longer possible.

Some want to leave the price of energy low, for example, not to change our comfortable way of life. This is not possible any longer. We need to concentrate on options that can make very large impacts in the shortest time possible.

As a second priority we should also do R&D and demonstrations of promising technologies, but technologies per se would not save us. And I am saying it as electrical engineer with a considerable background in technology. We want the same easy, energy wasting, ways of life that led us to this global tragedy in the first place. Most of us still do not grasp at all how dire is the situation already.

One of the main contributor to this misunderstanding, it seems to me, is the "certainty" that the IPCC gave to the target of 450 ppm of CO2 equ. and to the time frame it attached to it, 2050, as if our knowledge is so precise. Most people in the field, not the scientists, feel that we have 40 years to move in. Not so, we do not!

We must start with a Step function (Big-Bang as Paul Krugman calls it) to reduce global GHG, and we must pay the price for it. We should not start with a slow implementation that would be gradually ratchet up with time to reduce the economical impact of fighting global warming.

We have to remember that we are already in the midst of the following negative environmental events that are likely to be self-sustaining: Just a few examples:

First - the key impact: In the recent past an emission of one ton of CO2 was partially absorbed by nature, mostly the oceans and forests, and only 0.45 ton remained in the atmosphere to add to the long term CO2 already stored there. Lately it was determined that the absorption dropped and now 0.55 ton remains and added to the accumulation. This is a considerable increase.

That may have been caused partially by the increase of the oceans average temperature by half a degree C in the last two decades. A half degree increase is a enormous amount of energy of the oceans that cover 71% of the surface of the globe. The higher the ocean temperature, the lower its ability to absorb CO2.

In addition the global absorption is reduced by the decrease of forest coverage, mainly forest burnings in Borneo and Brazil, and most significantly* cutting in the Boreal Forests.

This reduce absorption was probably caused by the followings, and other elements we still are not sure of:

1. Some 10.5% of the surface of the Earth is covered by snow and ice- a huge amount. This area faced major reductions in the last decades, which accelerated in the last two decades.

2. The positive feedback (ice to sea) of the global melt of glaciers, and the ice sheets in Greenland. Lately some is melting in the "West wing" of the South pole.

3. Due to longer warm period and less ice coverage, the Tundra changed from net absorber of small amount of CO2, to net emitter of methane.

4. Major infestation and clearing of the very significant tree coverage of the Boreal forests. According to a map I just saw, they are decreasing significantly, by about 1.5% to 2.85% per year between 2000-2005. *[Atlas of Global Conservation -Forest Clearing- Nature Conservancy//spring 2010.]

5. Recent research indicates that some small amount of  methane is being release from the ocean floor in the now warmer seas north of Russia. This may or may not become more significant with time, but it could increase because the temperatures of the North Seas region are projected to increase by a significant amount more than the average global temperatures. Possibly as much as 9 degrees by the end of this century or earlier.

These are but a few of the things we are aware of that indicate that we do not have much time to reduce significantly our global emissions of GHG.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved today the first offshore wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. It took a year of deliberations. Republicans objected on environmental grounds of all things. The Secretary had to overcome a lot of local resistance, by liberals too, that essentially said: Green energy is good, but not in my back yard.

The Cape Wind Associates, LLC facility would cost a billion dollar, occupy a 25-square-mile section of Nantucket Sound and generate a maximum electric output of 468 megawatts with an average anticipated output of 182 megawatts, ( 39% capacity factor- that is a high percentage, meaning a very good site); 130 wind turbines reaching 400 feet would be installed...

http://www.doi.gov/news/doinews/Secretary-Salazar-Announces-Approval-of-Cape-Wind-Energy-Project-on-Outer-Continental-Shelf-off-Massachusetts.cfm

My comments:

It is about time. We should have done it years ago. Wind energy have been economical and practical for a number of years. Europe has been way ahead of the US for years despite the fact that we, in California, did the original development of wind energy resources, at a significant investment by the State of California that led to the first commercial wind farms in the world. Germany, for example, gets some 7% of its electricity from wind. They have been proud in their very visible wind turbines and understand that you can not go green without some sacrifices of local interest.

And allow me to toot my own horn- more than 30 years ago the California Energy Commission developed the pioneering wind energy programs that put commercial wind energy on the world map. I was privileged to have the opportunity to develop and direct that program. That was the introduction to my plan published in 1979:*

"Wind-electric energy is a sleeping giant. Its large energy capabilities, competitive economics, and social and environmental advantages are not generally known. Wind-electric energy, however, should be one of the major renewable energy supplies in California and in the nation.

The goal of this proposed. program is the generation of at least 10 percent (30 billion kWh/year) of the state's electricity by wind-electric systems by the year 2000. This could be generated by approximately 3,300 three-megawatt wind-electric conversion systems (WECS) located on 100 utility-owned, wind-electric farms."

From: A LARGE SCALE WIND ENERGY PROGRAM FOR THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Dr. Matania Ginosar, manager, the Wind Energy Program, California Energy Commission, 1979

*  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a777978700

Some of the exchanges with colleagues regarding the limited actions taken during and past Copenhagen Accord.

Matania,  The article below matches Bill McKibben's choice of title for his book, Eaarth.  The extra a is there because the earth is a changed place, not what we grew up in nor what our societies developed in.  He says 1 deg C has happened and is causing bigger and faster changes than were expected by the scientists.  2 deg C will happen even if we proceed to cut C emissions fast.  6-7 deg C would be a disaster, maybe end civilization (maybe, not sure he said that).  From what I recall, he did not comment on 3 deg C, which this BBC News correspondent's report does, and this BBC one suggests that 3 deg C would be really bad, namely:

Between now and 2020, global emissions are likely to rise by 10-20%, they calculate, and the chances of passing 3C by 2100 are greater than 50%.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this implies a range of serious impacts for the world, including

• significant falls in crop yields across most of the world
• damage to most coral reefs
• likely disruption to water supplies for hundreds of millions of people.

Matania, in addition  -- Bill McKibben spoke at the World Affairs Council "It's Your World"

Major points: 1 deg C and 380 ppm CO2 has been enough to melt the Arctic and raise ocean acidity and raise water vapor in the atmosphere by 5%.  2 deg C warming is already going to happen due to CO2 already in the atmosphere and the inevitable amount in the pipeline of human fossil fuel use.  Already, therefore, we have Eaarth replacing the Earth that existed the past 10,000 years.

Friend: M. PhD Physics

'Paltry' carbon curbs point to 3C

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News

Pledges made at December's UN summit in Copenhagen are unlikely to keep global warming below 2C, a study concludes.

Writing in the journal Nature, analysts at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany say a rise of at least 3C by 2100 is likely.

The team also says many countries, including EU members and China, have pledged slower carbon curbs than they have been achieving anyway.

They say a new global deal is needed if deeper cuts are to materialise.

"There's a big mismatch between the ambitious goal, which is 2C... and the emissions reductions," said Potsdam's Malte Meinshausen.

" It is like racing towards the cliff and hoping you stop just before it "
Dr Malte Meinshausen

"The pledged emissions reductions are in most cases very unambitious," he told BBC News.

In their Nature article, the team uses stronger language, describing the pledges as "paltry".

"The prospects for limiting global warming to 2C - or even to 1.5C, as more than 100 nations demand - are in dire peril," they conclude.

Between now and 2020, global emissions are likely to rise by 10-20%, they calculate, and the chances of passing 3C by 2100 are greater than 50%.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this implies a range of serious impacts for the world, including

• significant falls in crop yields across most of the world
• damage to most coral reefs
• likely disruption to water supplies for hundreds of millions of people.

More than 120 countries have now associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord, the political document stitched together on the summit's final day by a small group of countries led by the US and the BASIC bloc of Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

The accord "recognises" the 2C target as indicated by science. It was also backed at last year's G8 summit.

Many of those 120-odd have said what they are prepared to do to constrain their greenhouse gas emissions - either pledging cuts by 2020, in the case of industrialised countries, or promising to improve their "carbon intensity" in the case of developing nations.

Some of the pledges are little more than vague statements of intent. But all developed countries, and the developing world's major emitters, have all given firm figures or ranges of figures.

The EU, for example, pledges to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020; China promises to improve carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 compared against 2005; and Australia vows an emission cut of 5-25% on 2000 levels by 2020.

The Potsdam team concludes that many of the detailed pledges are nowhere near as ambitious as their proponents would claim.

They calculate that the EU's 20% pledge implies an annual cut of 0.45% between 2010 and 2020, whereas it is already achieving annual reductions larger than that.

EUROPE'S 'AMBITIOUS' CARBON CUTS

The Potsdam team calculates that the EU's emissions have fallen on average by 0.6% per year since 1980

During 2009, emissions from the bloc's power sector alone fell by 11% owing to the recession

Consequently, the current 20% by 2020 pledge equates to 0.45% per year - less than the historical average

China's 40% minimum pledge also amounts to nothing more than business as usual, they relate; and among developed countries, only pledges by Norway and Japan fall into the 25-40% by 2020 range that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends as necessary to give a good chance of meeting the 2C target.

Hot air

Whereas many countries, rich and poor, have indicated they are willing to be more ambitious if there is a binding global deal, the Potsdam team notes that in the absence of a global deal, only the least ambitious end of their range can be counted upon.

Writing in the BBC's Green Room this week, Bryony Worthington from the campaign group Sandbag argues that the EU can easily move to its alternative higher figure of 30% - and that it must, if it wants to stimulate others to cut deeper.

"Many countries are looking to Europe to show how it is possible to achieve growth without increasing emissions," she said.

"Only when they see that this is possible will they be inclined to adopt absolute reduction targets of their own."

An additional factor flagged up in the analysis is that many countries have accrued surplus emissions credits under the Kyoto Protocol.

Countries such as Russia and other former Eastern bloc nations comfortably exceeded their Kyoto targets owing to the collapse of Communist economies in the early 1990s.

Without a binding global agreement preventing the practice, these nations would be allowed to put these "banked" credits towards meeting any future targets - meaning they would have to reduce actual emissions less than they promised.

These "hot air" credits could also be traded between nations.

Stern words

This is not the first analysis of the Copenhagen Accord pledges, but it is one of the starkest.

Lord Stern's team at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in London has also run the figures; and although their conclusions on the numbers are similar, they do not see things in quite such a pessimistic light.

"You cannot characterise an emissions path for a country or the world by focusing solely on the level in 2020 or any other particular date," said the institute's principal research fellow Alex Bowen.

"It is the whole path that matters, and if more action is taken now to reduce emissions, less action will be required later, and vice versa."

The Potsdam team acknowledges that if emissions do rise as they project, it would still be possible to have a reasonable chance of meeting 2C if very strict carbon curbs were applied thereafter, bringing emissions down by 5% per year or so.

"In an ideal world, if you pull off every possible emission reduction from the year 2021 onwards, you can still get to get to 2C if you're lucky," said Dr Meinshausen.

"But it is like racing towards the cliff and hoping you stop just before it."

They argue that positive analyses may "lull decision-makers into a false sense of security".

The UN climate process continues through this year, with many countries saying they still want to reach a binding global agreement by December.

But stark divisions remain between various blocs over emission cuts, finance, technology transfer and other issues; and it is far from certain that all important countries want anything more binding than the current set of voluntary national commitments.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Dr. John Holdren told us:

"...the current state of knowledge of global warming is sufficiently clear to state that failure to act promptly to reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases is overwhelmly likely to lead to changes in climate too extreme and too damaging to be adequately addressed by any adaptation measure that can be foreseen.... "

Every issue we deal with regarding GW must be viewed from this crucial angle: we are moving very fast into a catastrophic event. What would be the most practical approaches that would have the most pronounced reductions in both the speed and the magnitude of GHG


Here are the steps that I would take now to cut GW if I were the US President:

My main goal here would be to achieve full cooperation with China on GW

I. First some basic Facts:

1. No matter how much the developed world would cut its GHG, the growing GHG emissions by the developing world, especially China and India, would overwhelmed all the cuts elsewhere. Over the next two decades their emissions could be 5 to 10 times the combined GHG from developed nations, especially if we will be cutting ours down towards the famous -80% goal of 2050. Therefore we must work now with China especially, and India too, to help them cut their GHG.

2. Europe is willing to cut their GHG faster and further than the US, but they are waiting for the US to act first. They need it politically, but I am stopped by Congress right now. So I will concentrate on the most important partner- China.

3. If the US and China worked jointly and aggressively we could bring the rest of the world together to agree and start fast actions.

II. Actions I would take right now: They can't easily be limited by Congress:

1. Announce to the nation and the world in a very public event that I am going ahead as fast and as far as I can to slow GW as effectively as the presidency allows me.

2. Work with China: Quietly, without political fanfare. Go quietly to China, meet with the Chinese premier and leadership and tell them that I seek maximum cooperation with China on all elements that are possible. I will offer to setup quiet, non political, cooperation effort, with them as equal partners, to share all the knowledge of the issue.

3. Select a director that repot directly to me - the president, for this coordination /education/cooperation effort with China. I will select a leader of utmost abilities, high credibility, humility and integrity to lead this cooperation with china. His technical right-hand man should be Dr. J. Holdren.

4. Above all, we must be honest and open beyond any approach we have been using in the US political arena. China top leaders are more sophisticated than most of the US leadership and we could be destroying any chance of actually cutting GHG effectively if we mislead them.

We are partners; we must respect their long history, culture, and outstanding accomplishments. And we must be humble enough to learn from them too.

5. With China acceptance, send several teams of the best environmental scientists from around the world to spend some time in China to share freely and openly all knowledge with their own scientific leadership on all aspects of GW. China political leadership will listen mostly or solely to their own scientists before taking any significant action. The US should spend all the money needed, no cutting of expenses at this stage since it is the cheapest and most important step. This should be an ongoing effort with no time limit.

Nothing should be under the table. That means leave nothing hidden, the good and the bad about what truly is known and the dangers humanity is moving going towards.

6. Send the best teams of Federal and state regulators (EPA, Energy Dept. CA ARB) to China/India to discuss successes and failures in implementing energy changes. We must be honest and more open than in the political climate in the US. Lying to them, even our typical white lies, would kill cooperation and global ability to progress.We must gain their trust- China is very suspecious of the West.

China basic views of the world and their own political and regulatory system is markedly different than ours. But certainly valid to them. Also their political influences are on different lines than ours, but they still may benefit from our mixed experiences.

As a minimum we must help them to minimize repeating our many major mistakes. This will require some great humility on our part, which is not a readily available commodity in the US political, business, or financial systems. Selecting fine leadership for this cooperative effort, as I mentioned, is critical.

That was my introduction to my talk a few days ago:

If you are driving your car alone in a flat city like Sacramento and you heard strange noises from your breaks, you would think: I better check the breaks some time.

However, if you are driving down a steep mountain road with your kids in the back seat and the road is twisting endlessly, the brakes sound funny, and may not slow you down too well, you will do your utmost to stop and repair the brakes ASAP. The time to think about the breaks is over and you need fast and decisive action at almost any cost. Why, because losing your breaks would be a catastrophic event that could cost the lives of every one who is dear to you, including yourself.

The same holds now for global warming: the time for wishing for perfect solutions, for worrying what the public may think, or how much it may cost is over. All because global warming is both a potential catastrophic event and also highly time -critical.

In all our dealing with global warming we must grasp that humanity does not have any more spare time to argue about it, we have no time and no need to convince skeptics. We do have to start curtailing the continuously growing emission of Greenhouse Gases, GHG, on a massive scale now. That means cut it any place we can across the globe, since we are all in a single boat, and we must cut GHG in a very large quantity since the fast accumulation of GHG is moving us rapidly into a point of no return.

Dr. John Holdren, Director of the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy, one of the most aware and solid scientists about GW said to Congress Dec. 2, 09:

"...the current state of knowledge of global warming is sufficiently clear to state that failure to act promptly to reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases is overwhelmly likely to lead to changes in climate too extreme and too damaging to be adequately addressed by any adaptation measure that can be foreseen.... "

Every issue we deal with regarding GW must be viewed from this crucial angle: we are moving very fast into a catastrophic stage. We need to take now the most practical approaches that would have the most pronounced reductions in both the speed and the magnitude of GHG


And that is the way we should view every aspect of GW:

WILL IT CUT A LOT OF GHG FAST ENOUGH TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE,

OR IS IT ESSENTIALLY WINDOW DRESSING?

Here we go again. The US Solar Industry Association wrote recently how successful they have been in creating jobs and reducing system prices. I wish it was significant and useful to our struggle to reduce global warming, but PV is insignificant contributor. If money was not important, if time was not critical we could continue to play with PV and feel good about the "magical power of sun-to-electricity." But time and money are crucial.

We must focus our attention on what is critical in the urgent fight against global warming--cutting greenhouse gases fast and in large quantities. PV does not do that. It is the least able to do it since it is the costliest and thus produce the least green energy per dollar invested.

The example of Germany goes on deaf ears. They spent $70 B till mid 09 on PV and it supplies only 0.35% of Germany electricity while Germany is increasing its reliance of coal, way beyond 0.35% per year!

Obviously the Solar Industry association will say positive things about PV. But look closely at the reality of PV. First they stretched the price chart in their report to exaggerate the price drop, and the chart does not start at zero, for the same reason. It is easy to fool the general public since when they see government support they believe two things: one is that since it has government support all is legitimate and PV seller's claims have been checked by the government. They have not.

Second, the PV systems seem so cheap because in fact financial support are very large and distort the market place. But our government should not be so naïve as the public. Our officials are so naïve, unfortunately.

Second, no one is mentioning how much CO2 was reduced by PV systems and at what cost PER KWH. If we used the federal state and local financial support for energy efficiency, starting with increasing home insulation and weatherization- we would have cut 20 to 30 times the CO2 per dollar that PV could cut. BTW, energy efficiency would create many times more local jobs, and jobs that could not be transferred overseas. Multitue of studies show PV to be the costliest by far of all low emission energy sources.

We have to grasp that we do not have enough money to fight GW as effectively as needed. We do not have time also, GHG are increasing daily across the globe. The main, but not the only, emphasis should be on cutting greenhouse gases as fast and as much as possible per dollar available.

It is clear that the rapid increase in demand for energy by the major developing countries, mostly China and India, could overshadow any attempt by the developed world to reduce its CO2 emissions.

Therefore, let's look at some of the key uncertainties regarding energy projections for China.

First some personal background: In the Early 70's, as manager of Techno-Economic Dept. at Litton Industries, Data Systems Div. I tried to understand the potential economic growth of likely clients. We sold Military Command and Control Systems to the US military and wanted to expand our markets to foreign governments. I read at the time a book by the futurist Herman Kahn in which he projected the growth of major global economies.

He projected that Japan would be the world powerhouse and overtake the US economy in a few decades.

What was interesting to me was that most of the time he used the existing current growth trends as the key basis to his projections. Japan had then 10% growth. He assumed it would be relatively constant for coming decades. It did not seem solid projection to me. And it was not.

Japan was becoming the world's second largest economy for several decades (average growth rates of 10% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s, and 4% in the 1980s until the Japanese Asset Price Bubble crushed in 1989. The Tokyo stock market dropped from near 45,000 to around 15, 000 Yen over a short period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan).

I had watched the Japanese economy over time and a year or two before the collapse I read an article by a Japanese market specialist that explained that one of the key elements lifting their market was the restricted real estate in Tokyo. Vast numbers of Japanese, especially in Tokyo, were experiencing rapid price growth of their small residential units and "invested" major part of it in the "forever growing" stock market. According to that article rural politicians had disproportionally strong political control on the political process and were able to restrict any urban development around Tokyo. That is, no more land was available for new housing and the growth of Tokyo population pushed housing prices very high.

It was easy to conclude from that article that this situation would eventually collapse and the housing market would drop drastically with the bubble stock market tied to it.

It was not clear; however, when this could happen. A friend I shared these views with reminded me a year so later that the collapse followed the path expected in that article.

I detailed the case to point to the fact that we can not predict the future economy based on current trends and that there are a very large number of unknowns facing China and its economy. Several of these are national-survival dilemmas.

Let's look at some of China's major unknowns:

To understand China we must think in terms of the needs of China, as they see it, and not from the Western, mostly personal interest point of view. We also must focus on the GW implications.

0.  It seems to me that the central government demonstrated in the last few decades, after the destructive decade of the Mao Cultural Revolution, its keen desire for stability and middle ground to benefit the nation as a whole at considerable success with benefits and also costs to the general population. If you do not grasp that just study how the majority of Chinese lived until the Communist Revolution.

I assume here that that trend would continue. The new generation of current and upcoming leaders has engineering education and is less ideology oriented. Also, China national leadership is able to influence national trends in rapid ways due to its very strong, but not complete, central control.

1. Population growth is limited by the one child policy prevailing across much of the country to 0.66%, about half of India.

2. Some 800 millions of China 1.38 billion people still live in primitive rural conditions consuming very little energy. Some 200 millions are expected to migrate to urban areas in the next ten to fifteen years demanding higher energy supply.

3. China economy has been growing at 10% per year until the recent global economic decline.

4. China FAST economic growth was largely based on export. It can not continue like that and internal growth is becoming larger by both government influence and increased internal demand.

5. China has some 1.5 Trillion dollars in US Treasuries- equal to the Japanese holding, with one key difference: The Japanese holding is spread across a vast private industry. However, almost all of the US dollar holding in China is in the hand of the central government. In fact, it uses these funds to influence provincial and local governments to follow the central government line.

6. China CO2 per Dollar GDP is four times larger that the US, leaving China large room to improve its CO2 per GDP. If we assume that the economy would increase by 10% per year, the increase in CO2 emissions could be lower by increasing its CO2 efficiency per dollar GDP.

If we assume that it would do that, with large and consistent assistance from the developing world plus its own increasing ingenuity and drive, it can improve its CO2 to GDP by at least 5%/year. With that China could reach the US level in three decades. It may seem fast, but it is not rapid enough to meet GW urgent needs.

THEREFORE, THE NET RISE OF CO2 DURING THE NEXT THREE DECADES COULD BE IN THE RANGE OF "ONLY" 5%/YR NET. HOWEVER THE GLOBAL NEED IS TO CUT GHG EMISSIONS BY 80% OFF CURRENT LEVEL OF SOME 30 B TONS/YR BEFORE 2050.

THESE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSING PROJECTIONS ARE CLEARLY ON A COLLISION COURSE.

More bad news about China:

1. China has vast arid regions which have been expanding rapidly in the last decades needing population transfer, mass forestation and water supply projects-all demanding massive energy.

2. The major sources of water are the main rivers fed by the Himalayas mountain region. These rivers are over used, polluted and are shrinking from the increasing demand by the urban population and expanding industry. In addition the rapid expansion of electricity generating station, 80% of which are coal driven, demand vast amount of cooling water.

3. The Himalaya region is larger than Europe and stores immense amount of water in its many glaciers. They have been melting in rapid rates for several decades. In some locations the extra melt waters are a temporary blessing, which would diminish with time. In other locations it causes floods, wash away large amount of fertile top soil and create temporary unstable lakes.

Over the next few decades, the melting of the Himalayas thousand years snow pack would not be able to supply sufficient water to the current population of about 2 billion people in the surrounding nations, and the expected increase in population.

4. China, like other nations, will need to supply water to a growing population while the main sources of its water are shrinking. The only solution (in addition to conservation) is water desalination which takes a vast amount of energy. Again the two opposing demands can not be met. China (and all of us) must reduce GHG emissions rapidly while they must increase the use of GHG-producing energy supply to survive.

Imagine the dilemma of the Chinese leadership knowing all these conflicts and trying to find some reasonable solutions.

From one side their population needs for energy are rapidly increasing, from another side this increase in energy demand accelerates GW and destroys the very foundation of their society water and food supplies.

The current economic Bubble in China.

James Chanos, who predicted the Enron downfall, appeared recently on PBS Charlie Rose and predicted the collapse of China apartment bubble. (Chanos specializes in short sell on a large scale of situations like that.)

According to Chanos, the rapid increase in economic growth in the last few years in China is due to a large extent to speculation in high-end apartments in major cities. Some 50 to 60% of the investment in large cities is in unfinished, easy to sell, apartments in high rise. Significant capital has been coming from external speculators and much of the recent financial stimulus of the Chinese economy by its central government probably also has been going to continue this bubble.

These, he emphasized, are not apartment suitable for incoming rural population. They cost in the range of $150,000 while the combined income of even middle class wage earners is in the 10 thousand range. And there is no supply of high income earners that would need these apartments.

This may be important on several fronts: One is that the rapid economic growth of China is unsustainable and is not a basis for valid long term growth projection. Another aspect is that much of the energy demand might have been based on speculating activities and not sustained solid growth, such as infrastructure.

Third, we can not project the energy demand of China with any validity because we do not truly understand and familiar with the Chinese economy. The Chinese are masters in keeping undesirable information to themselves, and also they are not infallible, as we may think. As capable as they are they are probably not wiser than we are. China to a large extent has been following the West's economic model and are too eager "to be like us." And we have revealed our utter ignorance of economic realities coupled by greed across the globe. This desire to follow the West is hurting China considerably.

In short, China is as ignorant and deniers of reality as we are.

If you doubt that just think again about the massive global economic decay that we are still in and will be for some time. Trillions of dollars disappeared in this mess to date, and we are still unaware how many.

With all the complexity mentioned above, and much that we are not aware of, the tendency would be to do little and procrastinate. That is the usual approach that all humanity is taking now. However, to delay tough decisions could be just too late for the Earth ecology to survive.

Sacramento United Nations Association-USA
presents

Dr. Matania Ginosar
discussing

"Cap and Trade vs. Carbon Fee"

Monday, April 19, 2010

7:00 PM
It is our Chapter's Annual Earth Day program, featuring Dr. Matania Ginosar, Environmental Scientist and Electrical Engineer.  Dr. Ginosar has been manager of R&D in Advanced Electronics, a Manager of the Solar Energy Office of the California Energy Commission and a Manager of Wind Energy for the California Energy Commission, where he developed and directed the pioneering  Wind Energy program that led to the first commercial wind energy farms.

This is an appropriate time to hear Dr. Ginosar's views on this subject since pending state and federal actions are slated in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., in the next few weeks and months.  California AB 32, the landmark climate change bill, is before the state legislature.  In Washington Senator Boxer's Energy and Natural Resource Committee will be dealing with very controversial national efforts to slow climate change and protect the health of future generations.

A question and answer session will follow Dr. Ginosar's talk.

NO RESERVATION REQUIRED

SMUD Headquarters
Conference Room

6201 S Street
(North of US 50
between 59th and 65th off-ramps)

Parking available on street

My friends sometimes tell me to be more "polite", less direct in my writings and less "truthful". Here is an exchange with one friend about my writing style.

Matania

Friend x:

You tend to write what you feel and sometimes you don't temper what you say for the audience. I sometimes gasp when I read what you write, but then I know you all too well, and can understand what you are saying and where you are coming from. Also it helps that I agree with almost all that you say. For your blog and emails to us, anything goes and that's fine

MG

Now to my writing. I do believe that one of the most crucial thing in GW is truth, facts, and openness. As long as we will continue with all the lies we normally use, we would not advance in any useful way. The fact is we are already so close to a catastrophe that all the playing around, the games in Congress, the China/India semi participation, the every one for himself that is still going on make our ability to slow the deterioration of our climate nearly impossible.

I have nothing to lose, I have to say it as it is even more openly that Hansen, if I am able to. But I am still too constrained.

X.

I do understand what you are saying about telling the truth. Actually, now that I think of it, you are the only writer I know other than Hansen who tells it like it is. That's why I find your text so refreshing while at the same time I am alarmed because you and Hansen don't seem to be getting much traction. I realize now that given everything I know about you and about this Catastrophe, we have to be truthful. I just don't know how you can have more influence. Is there any way to break through? It seems that Hansen as highly respected and well known as he has been for more than 40 years on this issue is still not getting the traction he deserves, at least in the US.

As I studied in some depth the GW issue in the last few years, the most profound analysis I saw were by Dr. Martin Weitzman of Harvard on uncertainty and the need to fight GW now and forcefully. I wrote about one of his paper on this blog four months ago:

http://www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org/blog1.php?p=66&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1.

Over the last 15 months I contacted key staff in Congress and others to alert them to his important points. I am so glad these ideas are finally in the open. Not only that the highly regarded economist Dr. Paul Krugman accepts Dr. Weitzman idea of uncertainty as the key idea to follow fighting GW.

Matania

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=1

Final points from Krugman's 12 page article above

Finally and most important is the matter of uncertainty. We're uncertain about the magnitude of climate change, which is inevitable, because we're talking about reaching levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not seen in millions of years. The recent doubling of many modelers' predictions for 2100 is itself an illustration of the scope of that uncertainty; who knows what revisions may occur in the years ahead. Beyond that, nobody really knows how much damage would result from temperature rises of the kind now considered likely.

You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it. As Harvard's Martin Weitzman has argued in several influential papers, if there is a significant chance of utter catastrophe, that chance - rather than what is most likely to happen - should dominate cost-benefit calculations. And utter catastrophe does look like a realistic possibility, even if it is not the most likely outcome.

Weitzman argues - and I agree - that this risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy. Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible - it's tempting to say criminally irresponsible - not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.

Krugman conclusions on GW actions:

So what I end up with is basically Martin Weitzman's argument: it's the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis. And that argues for aggressive moves to curb emissions, soon.

In the discussions about global warming we rarely focus on one of the most crucial issues that humanity faces- over population. It seems like a taboo subject. Not only have that, instead of thanking China's aggressive effort to cut its own population growth, most people condemned them for curtailing human rights. We see every thing from our own narrow perspective instead of the reality humanity is facing. The reduction by the leadership of China of some four hundred millions people is one of the greatest contributions to human welfare ever made.

I hope to write about the population explosion; in the meantime I copied the following from Wikipedia Quotes to help focus our attention.

• Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.
  • Isaac Asimov

• I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet.
  • Albert Einstein, letter, 1954

• If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.
  • Jacques Cousteau

• Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the gravest issue the world faces. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine, riots, insurrection and war.
  • Robert McNamara, Former World Bank President

• Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., May 5, 1966

• The greatest form of contraception is development.
  • Mahatma Gandhi

• Overpopulation is one of the greatest threats to human nature
  • Joe Rogan

• In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.
  • Stephen Hawking

I like you to read this short story about the life of three millions very poor Indian rat-catchers to feel what is life for hundreds of millions of people far away from the Western world. These are some of the people who want a better life that more energy can give them. How can we reconcile their needs and the need to curtail aggressively the rapid rise in global GHG?

Think about it.

Matania

In Man vs. Rat, the Humans Get a New Edge

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT ‑ www.USNEWS.COM • JANUARY 21, 2008

A modest advance in rat‑catching technology is improving people's lives in rural India

By Anul Chopra

This is a story about how the development of a better mousetrap‑more like a rat trap, actually‑is helping some of the poorest of the poor in India, raising their incomes and so enabling their children to go to school.

Chinnapayan Krishnan, 41, is a rat exterminator. He belongs to the Irula community, a low‑caste tribe that for many centuries has provided the rat catchers in India's southern Tamil Nadu state. Local farmers hire the Irulas because rats can consume up to a quarter of their crops. For Krishnan and others, rat catching is both their source of modest income‑ the equivalent of 5 cents a rat‑and a key source of food. Rats may provide most of the Irulas' meat and grains (recovered from rat burrows), usually consumed at one meal per day.

Wiping sweat from his brow, Krishnan stands with his rat‑extermination paraphernalia on an arid patch of farmland. In a hushed tone, he asks everyone around to be still. "They can sense us," he says softly, pointing at the spot where a rat has burrowed nearby. "They are very clever creatures." Krishnan plugs two nearby rat holes with dirt, blocking possible escape routes. Then, using a rudimentary‑looking device, a metal drum with a hand‑operated air pump, he blows a torrent of smoke into the burrow. Seconds later, Krishnan reaches in and pulls out a stunned, mangy rat by its tail.

This, believe it or not, is progress. For the Irulas, a disenfranchised community of 3 million people, even simple technology can improve their lives. For ages, Irulas have relied on a traditional fumigation technique: Rats are caught by lighting a fire in a clay pot that covers the mouth of a rat burrow. The rat catcher physically blows air through a small hole in the bottom of the pot to send the smoke into the rat burrow. The rats are retrieved unconscious or dead. But this method is inefficient and hazardous. More than half of the time, the targeted rats manage to get away before being overcome by the puffs of smoke. The Irulas often suffer burns, and smoke inhalation leads to respiratory and cardiac disease. For this and other reasons, Irulas are believed to have a life expectancy of just 45 years.

A few years ago, a Chennai‑based nongovernmental group, the Center for Development of Disadvantaged People, designed a smoke‑producing device that incorporates a hand‑operated air pump, which forces a greater volume of smoke into burrows more quickly than possible using the traditional clay‑pot technique. The device both speeds the job and makes the process less hazardous by reducing the rat catcher's smoke exposure. The World Bank recognized CDDP's achievement with a Global Development Marketplace award and a $98,500 grant to provide the device (made locally) to over 4,000 hula families in Tamil Nadu villages like Sirigumi, which lies 50 miles from Chennai.

One step at a time. The impact has been remarkable. Krishnan has quadrupled his daily catch to as many as 20 rats, increasing his daily earnings to $1 from 25 cents. For the hulas, who have a literacy rate of just 1 percent, even that small amount of extra money means they can afford to send their children to school instead of putting them to work. "The hulas are a great example of how bringing technology to the rural poor can help them improve their lives one step at a time," says Siri Terjesen, a professor at the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth; who has visited the Irulas to study the impact.

No less significant, perhaps, this modest rural innovation has brought a sense of pride to a people characterized as "untouchables" for their lowly caste status. "Everyone wants to abandon their lives as rat catchers‑a miserable existence that only brings shame," says Krishnan. "But this rat trap gives a sense of hope to our community that we, too, can have productive lives."

But even at a cost of just $25 (versus 50 cents for the traditional clay pot), the device is out of the reach of most Irulas. CDDP Director Sethu Sethunarayanan says he hopes the Irulas will be able to obtain microcredit loans to afford the devices. With over 100 million small farmers in the Tamil Nadu and neighboring Andhra Pradesh states, this kind of technological advance is in great demand. Farmers around Sirigumi prefer using rat catchers rather than poisons, which they know can hurt soil productivity and pose a risk to animals and humans.

As shadows lengthen in Sirigumi, Krishnan walks home with his prized catch. He enters his tiny mud but with a straw roof and dirt floor, carrying the malodorous carcasses in with him. He reminisces about awful times when there was nothing but wild fruit from a parched bush near his home with which to feed his nine children. "My children don't go hungry these days," he says, handing over the dead rodents to his wife. "They feast."

From todays, 4/6/10, headlines:

1. Twenty five workers killed in West Virginia coal mine blast:

Four man still missing at coal facility with history of safety violation.

2. China rescuers press ahead, 115 pulled from mine shaft; 5 dead. Xiangning China, - Effort to reach 33 Chinese miners still trapped in a flooded coal pit forged ahead today.

3. A Chinese coal ship stranded on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, is buffet by strong currents, threatening to spill more oil [in this ecologically sensitive area already damaged by warmer water temperatures.]

Some 80% of China electricity is generated by coal plants. Australia is one of the main external suppliers of coal to China's rapidly increasing coal power plants.

One of the main objections generally expressed to nuclear generated electricity is the safety risk of nuclear power stations. We have one very bad example- the USSR Chernobyl nuclear blast. It was a unique and drastic case of poor plant safety. It had a combination of bad factors: wrong safety designed, no containment over the reactor- a must most of the world, and managed by somewhat primitive control systems. The combination caused large damages, unusable land, and many deaths, probably in the thousands.

But we forget that no other accident of this type occurred any place else. And most important, the damages and lost of life from coal is going on all over the world day in and day out for a long period. They are less dramatic but nevertheless the sum total is much higher than even the USSR accident.

Coal is the dirtiest fuel, damage the landscape on a massive scale, emit vast amount of corrosive air pollutants and its vast use and concurrent massive CO2 emissions is one of the main causes and accelerator of global warming.

Even the unpopular nuclear power is so much superior to coal since nuclear has nearly zero CO2 emissions. Nuclear has the lowest per kWh of all green or low polluting energy alternatives.

A group of environmentalists bloggers are planning to visit China soon to learn about their actions and plans on GW. I sent them the following:

By all means go to China, but remember India is our weakest link in the fight against GW.

China and India combined will have close to three billion people in two decades. Their rising population demands better life and will consume considerably more energy than today. Their GHG emissions would much higher and mask all the combined emissions of the developed world in the near future. The West can not force them to cut GHG and all the effort we may be doing in the future to cut our own GHG would mean nothing unless China and India drastically control their increase in GHG.

To a large extent humanity is on the brink already. Our global emission of GHG, now over 30 B tons/yr, must be cut by 80% in several decades, or sooner, to restrict the global temperature rise to not more than 2 degrees C. Otherwise we are likely to trigger serious escalation in release of naturally stored greenhouse gases that we would have no way to stop. This could trigger positive feedback of GHG emissions around the globe that could make our world nearly uninhabitable.

While we in the West, like zombies ignore nature's reality and arguing how much to cut and when, China and India are rapidly increasing their energy consumption with all the negative impacts of increased GHG.

Current average global GHG emission is 4.5 tons per person. The US average is 20 tons per capita, but China and India emit 4 times the CO2 per dollar of GDP! If China and India would not improve their CO2 to GDP ratio substantially, as we did over several decades, their combined GHG emissions would be several times larger that the total global emissions now.

How could humanity reduce today's total GHG by 80% if China/India would emit several times today's total in two decades if they follow current path?

It is just not possible.

Therefore we must find ways to help them to get massive energy supply that are not emitting GHG. We must help them increase substantially their CO2 to GDP ratio. We are at their mercy and they will sink the global climate with us. We will have to donate money, to donate knowledge and all other means to change the direction they are going now, massive use of dirty coal. And this will reduce our competitive position economically.

There is no way around that: in order to survive we have to reduce the huge imbalance of standard of living in the world also.

They will not cut their large GHG emissions sufficiently themselves, they can not. We can not ignore their actions since we live in the same global climate.

We will sink together, or cooperate!

The most dangerous potential is from India since its population rise is almost twice China and they have little control on their own population. Little if any control of population growth or population conduct.

By all means go to China, learn and especially find ways for cooperation beyond any thing ever done in human history.

We either cooperate like never before or we go under together in climate decay.

We must replace our CO2 generating plants with low emission plants to fight GW. I am fully for wide use of alternative energies wherever possible and reasonably economical. First we need to be factual in our numbers; otherwise we are misleading ourselves towards the wrong approaches. Our California government and the Federal too listen too much to environmental SENTIMENTS and do not check the reality when they give financial support to the wrong technologies. These financial support have to be repaid, they are not free! And we do not have them in abundance.

Again: We must be realistic - we do not have money to waste in the fight against Global Warming. It will cost many trillions and they should be directed to those who cut GHG the most and the fastest.

A few days ago US Today had an article: California solar projects rush to beat deadline for subsidies,  By Julie Schmit 4/1/10 USA TODAY (link below)

It seems to me that when writing about electrical systems one should know some basics about the subject. Not the case in this article: Julie Schmit writes the wrong information below that is misleading to most readers. This is the kind of confusing information that sways good people ideas in the wrong direction. Let's look at the numbers she put down:

"Promise of power, jobs

If all are built, the 49 projects seeking stimulus funding would generate 11,000 megawatts of electricity a year. That's enough to supply 7 million California homes and give California utilities a big boost in meeting mandates to get 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The projects also would drive 10,000 construction jobs, 2,200 operational jobs and up to $30 billion in investment, including up to $10 billion in federal stimulus dollars, says Michael Picker, Schwarzenegger's renewable-energy adviser. Twenty-two of the 49 projects account for 83% of the power"

First you do not generate 11,000 megawatt, this is the peak potential power, when the solar plants are operating at peak capacity-- which is only around noon. The average power potential for solar is one quarter of that! The sun shines typically 8 hours every 24 hours. Natural gas, coal and nuclear plants are operating between 80% to 92% of the time, up to four times the potential of solar. So we need to look at the total cost and benefits to remain factual.

She also wrote: The energy Supply 7 million homes? That is 60% of all the homes in California! Actually if all are working well the plants may supply electricity to some 1.5 million homes. Her numbers were five times too high!

But they would supply electricity only during sunny days and sun hours. If they use storage, some of their output goes to storage and therefore the peak output and average outputs would be lower!

These solar thermal plants are quite costly now, so a friend and I did some ballpark estimates to get a more realistic picture of what these plants may supply and compare them to nuclear power plants. Many environmentalists do not like nuclear, and for good reasons, and point to their high cost as a major reason they are out of the cost-range we should use. The result show that the cost of electricity of solar-thermal plants could be in the same range as nuclear!

Ballpark Results:

Solar Thermal:

Capital costs $30B less $10B federal Stimulus subsidy, equals net $20B: 14 cents/kWh if the 11,000 MW of We use 15%/year as the annualization of the capital cost, and add nothing for O&M.

The $20B/11GW is $1818/kW. This is for that 2000 kWh/y per kW.

If no federal Stimulus support, the capital cost is $30B, the price would be 20 cents/kWh.

If $40B,  28 cents/kWh.)

For nuclear: at $12,000/kW capital cost, no subsidies, and 92% annual capacity factor (achieved in the last decades in the US), with the same 15%/y to annualize, and the zero O&M cost, as above, it is some  22 cents/kWh.

Natural gas power plants can range from 5 to 8 cents in comparable generation costs. Coal less: 3 to 4c.

Some additional points: Solar plants would not produce electricity at night and cloudy days, even with storage. Nuclear is human-controlled and could be highly available. See my thoughts on nuclear power elsewhere on this site.  

Note: These are just gross estimates to get a feel. Considerable more data is needed and calculations must be done to be closer to reality. The cost of nuclear power is for today's prevailing 1000 MW, US technology. Lower costs are projected for standardized, smaller size plants, less than 500 MW.

The costs for solar thermal plant used here are close to the ones obtained elsewhere from models developed by federal energy labs:

http://lauder.wharton.upenn.edu/pages/pdf/John_Chien_Final_Thesis.pdf

USA Today article:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/environment/2010-03-31-californiasolar31_CV_N.htm

One way to understand the way this Administration is attempting to fight GW is to follow the interviews and writing of Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu over the last year.

When he was selected to his position over a year ago Dr. Chu was very optimistic about alternative energy and efficiency and sounded eager and willing to concentrate on avenues and tools smart people knew would work and are likely to make a difference.

Before he was selected he stated that carbon tax is superior to Cap & Trade. Once in the administration he reluctantly accepted the prevailing Congressional and Administration views supporting Cap & Trade. The facts did not change.

In one of his first magazine interviews with U.S. News less than a year ago he said that silicon based photovoltaic is not promising now and need to have a ten to one reduction in price with different, more advance, technologies. He changes his utterance now. The PV industry has a powerful voice, and doing its best to maximize its profit despite not delivering much benefit to the users.

Dr. Chu was also a great supporter of energy efficiency and building conservation, following the lead of his friend Dr. Art Rosenfeld, previously of CEC. As you follow Dr. Chu's blogs and interviews, culminating with the latest on Newsweek, you can see that he is changing his support and following the Administration party line; more oil drilling, nuclear power, and little on energy efficiency or green technologies.

This administration even more than the past is very strict on following the party line; no one should deviate from it showing the country, and especially Congress, a united front. This is understandable, but I would not like to be in Dr. Chu position when so much of what he believed is cut out of the Administration approach.

These changes in Dr. Chu's views may have come from two reasons: He has to moderate/change his views to fit the desire of the Administration, and he also learned from practical interaction with the "real world" that many promising technologies are not likely to survive outside science labs, as good as they may be.

1. When he was a scientist guiding the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory he was not subjected to political distortion and was able to see the path to reducing GHG emissions from practical scientific point of view. He was a dream choice by the Environmentalists; however, they did not know how politics would curtail his ability to do what he believed in. So politics, the "Art of the Possible" and the tool of powerful influences by interested parties, now determine the Administration's approach and thus also Dr. Chu's public views.

2. Another aspect, when science meets the real world of finance, global economics, the immense magnitude of electrical power systems, the fossil industry size and complexities, and all the other main forces, including Congress, your own views change. He might have realized that some or many of the solutions that seemed marvelous in the lab, are not practical in the real world.

Dr. Chu latest public views are stated to support the free gifts the Administration has given the GOP. Yes, this administration is giving a gift to the "Take No Prisoners" GOP. President Obama still believes he can pull in a few Republicans in Congress so his policies may look bipartisan. The bad lesson from the Health Care fight did not teach him the GOP side is determined to cut his legs in every opportunity they have. His administration is a slow learner and instead of first bargaining with the GOP on energy issues, they gave them the free gift of offshore oil drilling and support for nuclear power.

Poor thinking. They are not very practical and have little courage to fight for this most serious issue of GW.

They just don't grasp how time-critical GW is.

A comment:

Mat,

Marvelous!  What a tour de force.  If I read an op ed like this in the Bee every day, I would feel a lot better about my subscription.  You are the only one I have read who tells it like it is.  Is that because we are on the same page?

What a shame both for Dr. Chu personally and for us.  You have very ably explained why this is the case and you are right about Obama.  He gives before he seals a deal.

It’s so interesting that my other old friend who is very astute politically sees this so differently.  He was actually very proud of what was accomplished with the health care bill.  Maybe that’s because he believes that this is the art of the possible and that was all that was possible.  That said, I think we are going to get little with the cap and trade bill.  It will set us up for ten years of experiments that tell us this doesn’t deliver and it costs a bundle.

J.

Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek interviewed our secretary of energy recently. Many of Secretary Chu views there are very disappointing to me. It is likely that Newsweek selected what was appealing to them, or their sponsors, and not Dr. Chu' full views. Unfortunately I can only go on the basis of what I know.

First, in this article little was said on energy efficiency where we can reduce waste by a major amount. About 60% of US energy is now non productive. We can easily cut half of this waste!

Second, too optimistic about PV. The price did not go down noticeably for several years. Current silicon technology, the main stay for forty years, is too complex and we need completely new technology, not high purity silicon based. His own financial support for it is a big national waste.

His trust in CCS is misplaced, there is nothing promising in it, while there re considerable negatives in CCS. To tie 50% of our national power system (coal) on this dream is irresponsible. Coal should be replaced, even high efficiency natural gas, NGCC, would be superior to allowing coal to continue.

Nothing of value on Solar Thermal, a very promising technology already on line.

As much as I support nuclear power, he put too much emphasis on that instead of wind energy and solar thermal and energy efficiency.

I have expected much more from Dr. Chu, but it may be that in this administration we are still unable to break with the past. Think about how much they are supporting tar-oil, the dirtiest oil there is, extremely high in GHG emission.

All in all, it is a very poor national plan, no drive to reduce waste, no courage in it. Same standard message.

Compare to Dr. Chu past messages, this is weak, very weak.

Again, it may be very selective reporting.If so Dr. Chu should go on line elsewhere to show his correct views. His views are important.

There is a report by the BBC today about China increased investment in clean energy. China is now number one in investment according to the report by the non profit Pew' Research. This is a poor way of reporting because it has little to do with what is critical -- reducing GHG.

When you talk about money invested without emphasizing result achieved you are misleading most people to think that that is the critical issue. It is not.

Just to focus for a second: cutting GHG is not a luxury, it is not "nice", it is not something to help create jobs- it is a matter of human survival and the coming of a lot of human agonies all over the world. Therefore we must focus on what is important - cut GHG fast and effectively. To do that you need to put your eggs in the right baskets, there are not so many eggs that you can drop some on your way to make a good omelet.

Look at the table below, it shows how much each country put into its green energy program, but NOTHING about what it achieved. How much energy did they produce? how many kWh? how much GHG they have cut or could cut once the systems are on line?

The title is:

China steams ahead on clean energy

TOP FIVE INVESTORS 2009

China - $34.6bn

US - $18.6bn

UK - $11.2bn

Spain - $10.bn

Brazil - $7.4bn

And here is more from the article:

"Even in the midst of a global recession, the clean energy market has experienced impressive growth,"

"Countries are jockeying for leadership.

"They know that investing in clean energy can renew manufacturing bases, and create export opportunities, jobs and businesses."

The US still holds a marginal lead in the total amount of installed capacity, but will be overtaken by China during the course of this year if existing trends continue. "

They briefly mentioned installed capacity but not actual numbers, which still is misleading.

They are looking at it from a very narrow and less important point of view.

They have ignored, and it is ALMOST ALWAYS IGNORED,  the achievement in reducing GW.

Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew's Campaign on Climate Change should known better [may be the BBC did not give the details of usefulness she puts in her report, but I doubt it].

Countries could have spent much of this money and put it into very unproductive technologies, or even into useless technologies  and achieved little, while some other country invested less but put it into much more productive technologies. We are not learning anything important from this reporting.

If they put it into energy efficiency such as CHP they could have reduce GHG by a factor of ten times then PV for example. Efficacy and CHP are two of the most neglected and cheapest way to cut GHG.

Germany, for example, spent $70 B on PV producing miniscule 0.3% of its electricity from it, while at the same time it is increasing its dependence on dirty coal, the source of more than 50% of its electricity. The US is trying to follow the stupidity of Germany because we have here a very vocal combination of dreamers and very effective propaganda by the PV marketing- not necessarily US producers of PV. We buy much of the production from other countries.

They may have created jobs with these large sums, but how many permanent ones? What have they achieved?

The key in working in the GW field should be the results, not the tools, not the money alone, not the technology, but the reduction in GHG!

Energy Efficiency Conference

TECHNICAL DISCUSSIONS - CONTINUE:

Illuminating the Developing world.

Evan Mills, Ph.D.

Staff Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Research Affiliate, Energy & Resources Group, UC Berkeley

There is a substantial global lighting inadequacy. It can easily be seen in the famous satellite picture of the Earth night sky. US, Europe, East side of China, Australia East coast and the like have considerable lights. The poor areas of the world, about one and a half billion people, Africa, much of China, much of interior India, have no electricity. They have been using kerosene lights for a century. And many do not have even that.

The fuel cost of these primitive kerosene lights is around $40 B a year, emitting 190 Million Tones of CO2. Replacing these lights with self generating electricity is equivalent to eliminating CO2 from 30 million cars. And obviously would provide more reliable, steady and non polluting source. The inside air pollution from kerosene is considerable too.

"The most promising modern illumination is by LED because of their high light to energy efficiency, small size, ruggedness, and ability to run on low voltage. It is natural to produce local electricity, away from any power grid, by extremely small PV systems or through temporary connections to grid nodes such as cellphone charging shops. The miniature power supplies may be as low as 3% and thus are a key problem.

The idea is appealing but there are problems and barriers.  PV charging has high initial costs, although well-designed systems can pay for themselves in less than a year.  Poor-quality manufacturing can result in unnecessarily inferior products that spoil the market.  Current LED are up to 60 lpw (lumens per watt.) The best LEDs are approaching 100, but the worst ones tested are around 10 lumens per watt.

Major international initiatives from the World Bank and the U.S. Department of Energy are addressing these issues by instituting better consumer information and quality-assurance testing and rating systems.

Evan"

Dr. Matania Ginosar wrote:

Evan, thank you very much.

I am puzzled by your statement that PV can be paid back in one year. Here roof locations are, according to our utility  $9500/kW installed, and up to 1400 kWh/yr output in good locations.

Matania

Dear Matania,

We are talking about developing country applications for extremely poor people who only have a lantern or two for lighting.  We are powering replacement lights with electricity and providing higher levels of energy services, but we aren't electrifying the whole home.  The system you described is of course running many lights plus major appliances.

The systems we are working with are less than one watt, because the LED itself is less than one watt. 
Households can easily spend $50-$100/year on kerosene lighting, depending on local fuel prices and how they use their lamps. 

LED systems are retailing for $20-$50 with small pv panels.

This is really the power of miniaturization (small light, small battery, small solar cell).  The systems are of course considerably less expensive without the solar cell (if they can be charged at cell-phone charging shops, at work, etc.)

Make sense?
Evan

Dr. Matania Ginosar wrote:

It make sense. I tried last night my 8 LEDs low-cost flashlight. At 4.5V and 0.2 Amps it is close to one watt. But the light in a dark room was very weak, may be equivalent to 10 W incandescent bulb.

We are so accustomed to high intensity light, we probably do not grasp how thankful those without electricity could be even with that small illumination.

Another possibility is that you have a much higher efficiency LEDs than those in my cheap flashlight.

Matania

We've seen LED efficacies ranging from 10 to 60 lpw (and that was several years ago).  Best ones are approaching 100 lpw now!  ~  Evan

From: H

To: 'Dr. Matania Ginosar'

Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 1:56 PM

Subject: RE:

Before you link GW with the healthcare bill and before you link Axelrod with a syrupy "cover", have you given thought to the fact that the parliamentary maneuvering of this healthcare bill is understood only by an esoteric few. If Axelrod would have explained it within the parameters of transparency, probably the only audience left would have been.............  MG.

We Americans want simple solutions, kinda like you see in the movies.  Remember when the movies showed a passage of time; they showed calendar pages flying off; all you saw was the end results. But during the passage of time, all the angst was never shown.

H

My answer to him:

I know you are right, but if you saw many of Charlie Rose programs you will see tremendous amount of openness and even personal info. The facts are that we do not trust Congress, may be 20% is a high level recently, partially because we know that a lot of it is misleading and self serving. As long as we are mislead and lied to we can not run a country with the interest of the people as key consideration--my views.

I was watching last night the PBS- Charlie Rose interview of David Axelrod, Senior Adviser to President Obama.

It was a very illuminating discussion of the movement of the Health Care bill thru Congress. It was illuminating not because you learned anything useful. You did not. But because David Axelrod, a highly regarded man and I am sure a good man, was so skilled in avoiding any meaningful answer to the questions Charlie Rose asked.

To some David Axelrod is the best there is; a dedicated man, gentle to the opposition, he praised the president all the time and gave him an aura I doubt any one deserves, even a caring and capable president. He did not reveal any meaningful fact that you could learn from, that can help us understand the operation in Congress. He snowed us, the citizens of the country that should benefit from this bill. We have no better idea of the reality in Congress or the realities of this bill because David Axelrod responsibility is to spread sugar over reality. "Every thing is fine."

David Axelrod is a master of artfully and pleasantly describing events that actually were politically very bloody both within the Democrats in congress and between the two parties. He did not tell you anything of value!

It was such a lovely mask on everything.

What this have to do with global warming? A lot. It is a good example of  how we are being snowed with all kind of meaningless facts, with misleading names of Congressional bills because they do not want us to really know how convoluted are the "Energy and Security" bills in congress, and how dishonest they are while satisfying the special interests of many congresspersons.

To get a vote the bill will add new provisions that are neither good for the country, neither reduce GHG. It gives too much special consideration to every member of Congress who's vote is needed.

We have a country of special interest, powerful interests that Congress must satisfy.

How can you reduce GHG when so much misleading information covers us, so much is done below the surface. We have no idea what the bills contain, or what it would actually do. We call it white lies, but they are lying to the American people so much, we have little knowledge of reality.

David Axelrod smooth talking is so admired because he knows how to soften  unpleasant reality allowing Congress to satisfy itself first, the American people last.

They treat us like kids, the less we know the better.

.

This is a follow up to my article about India and global Warming: http://www.ginosaronglobalwarming.org/blog1.php?p=109&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

I selected this NYT article to help you get a better feel how difficult is to achieve anything in India. As I mentioned in my discussion,  governmental control is erratic at best and the ability of state and federal governments to get specific results are very poor. It takes years to put a power plant on line due to corruption, incompetence, and lack of political interest. These are deep, old cultural problems. And coupled with the rapid population growth, demand to higher living standard and energy, would compound the problems that India would be facing. Therefore, India would have little ability, in my opinion, to curtail the rise of its GHG emissions.

India is likely to be the weakest country in the global effort to slow the rise in GW!

Matania

India's Woes Reflected in Bid to Restart Old Plant

By VIKAS BAJAJ NYT March 22, 2010

Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/global/23enron.html?th&emc=th

VELDUR, India - "Wherever there is a lamp, there is darkness below it," said Bava Bhalekar, a fisherman and local leader in this village roughly a hundred miles south of Mumbai. "The tragedy is that while our village has this project, we ourselves don't have electricity."

"This project" is the power plant that Enron built.

A decade after Enron withdrew from the project, the Indian government and two Indian companies are promising to bring the plant to full capacity. The tragedy, as Mr. Bhalekar and his fellow villagers see it, is that even after the plant is fully operational, their daily blackouts - now from 3 to 7:30 p.m. - will still occur, with just slightly fewer hours without electricity.

State authorities promise to have the plant running at 100 percent by the end of the month. But, so far, this plant remains a monument not to the problems of Enron, but to India's own corruption, cronyism and weak economic policies - some of the reasons that India remains a perpetual second fiddle to China, its increasingly powerful rival.

For all the progress India has made in information technology and service-sector jobs, the country is still unable to provide reliable power, water, roads and other basic infrastructure to most of its 1.2 billion people. For instance, about 40 percent of the country's population is not connected to the electricity grid.

This energy deficit is also an impediment to development. Here in Maharashtra, India's most industrialized state and the home of its commercial capital, Mumbai, formerly Bombay, the demand for electricity will exceed supply by about 30 percent this year, up from 4.5 percent in 1992.

And if industrial companies that set up here can get electricity, they will pay more for it than elsewhere in the world, according to the Prayas Energy Group, a research organization.

India's slow progress on power has kept some foreign companies away and has led many of them to largely shun the electricity business, in particular. The failure of the Enron plant in 2001, then known as Dabhol Power, was a turning point.

No large power plants have started in Maharashtra since Dabhol.

"Our problem today is power," Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra's chief minister, the equivalent of an American state governor, said late last year when asked about the state's biggest challenges. But he said that his administration would eliminate blackouts that afflict most of the state outside Mumbai within three years.

For villagers here in Veldur, the Enron-built plant's revival - it has been running at below capacity for four years now - is bittersweet. While some people have been hired at the plant as it has ramped up, the lack of reliable electricity means that the ice that the fishermen in the village need to preserve their daily catch has to be trucked in from farther away.

Experts said Mr. Chavan's goal was, like many promises made by Indian policy makers, high rhetoric that is not backed up by real action. State and federal governments reduced red tape in 2003 to help add more generation capacity, but many of those reforms have not been fully put in place.

"These problems, which we have been talking about for the last 10, 15 years, there is no real solution to them," said Madhav Godbole, a retired civil servant who led a committee that studied the problems of Dabhol. "It's the political will that is wanting."

Many of India's utilities, for instance, are financially frail because policy makers look the other way as power is stolen, or because politicians dole out subsidized power to win the votes of farmers. Power plants typically operate below their capacity because the government bureaucracy allocates coal and natural gas, the fuel of power plants, to favored companies. Furthermore, cronyism often dictates who receives permission to build plants because laws requiring competitive bids are not enforced.

Emphasis by mg.

Rest of NYT article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/global/23enron.html?th&emc=th

I just finished translating a real story about some of the personal horrors experienced in the Holocaust in Germany for a friend of mine. He was in those horrific death camps and his knowledge of Hebrew is not as good as mine. I was born and raised in Israel.

My friend personal experience and the translation itself brought to reality, gave me a better grasp, of the human dimensions, not just statistics of the suffering in WWII. Not only did 6 million Jews brutality used as slave labor to advance the German war machine, starved to death on one hundred calories a day, and dehumanized at each step of the way. Fifty million people died in agony, most of them civilians, during that horrific period.

But all of that human suffering would be nothing in comparison to the projected, and possibly hard to reduce, human casualties from the developing global warming.

We are talking about carbon tax, we are talking about how much will it cost us, we talk about better technologies to cut GHG emissions, but we actually are doing nothing since it does not yet sink in. It does not sink in since we are rejecting reality. And we talk about it in sterilized mode. We talk as if human life, human suffering are just numbers.

The projection of human migrations on mass scale, hundreds of millions, the projection of human suffering have been coming from many scientists, from national leaders, from experienced military generals, from the ex. Director of the CIA, from many sensible people with no axe to grind who are concerned about the future of humankind, including the suffering in the USA. And we do not listen and thus our Representatives do not hear it from us.

This is just a remainder that people can cause immense suffering. That tens of millions of German and Japanese and from other nations had been very capable of looking at things from their own narrow point of view and did not care about tomorrow and human life as long it was not theirs. Human nature did not improve in the last half century.

Time to stop the arguments and start cooperating for the common survival of humanity. What happened in the Holocaust, what happened in Rwanda and the Sudan in our time- and in WWII, would be nothing compared to the projected suffering expected due to global warming.

Cold, theoretical discussions are not fruitful, and would not cut human suffering in time.

Again: Hundreds of millions would suffer terribly from the result of GW.

Should we continue to discuss it or start to cooperate to reduce the coming immense human suffering?

Since the developing world will emit the largest amount of GHG by far in the coming decades we need to look at the key players to understand them and their potential to curtail GHG emissions.

The main ones now are India and China.

Let's look at India now: IMMENSE GROWING POPULATION

First, some significant items to grasp the magnitude of India:

Some of the most significant things about India are: its immense and growing population. Second, is its wide spread poverty. Third, is the primitive and nature-dependent living condition of its large rural population. Forth, population wants a better life. Fifth, the rapid rise in motorized transportation combined with lack of infrastructure. Sixth, the difficulty of upward mobility due to India's long established, hard to eradicate - class discrimination.

Result: More people wanting more means higher energy use, and higher GHG emissions.

India population (6/09)  1.16 B just behind China. It is projected to be the largest in the world in 2 decades, over 1.53 B ,

China, now at 1.34 B. In 2 decades 1.53 B

India growth rate: 1.41%, China 0.66%

GDP: $3.5 Trillion, growth rate 7.5%

per capita income: $3,000, with extremely unequal distribution

Land area 3.3 million sq km, one third of US.

DENSITY OF POPULATION IS 12 TIMES THE US!

Half the land is arable, a third of which is irrigated.

Fourth largest coal reserve in world, 500 B BBL oil equivalent

Water supplies, mainly rivers from the Himalayas glaciers, and from Monsoon (seasonal heavy rain falls), both would be affected by GW.

Environmental problems: deforestation; soil erosion; overgrazing; desertification; air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides; tap water is not potable throughout the country; huge and growing population is overstraining natural resources. (CIA data)

Life expectancy 63 years, literacy 52%

High birthrate, with moderate/modern death rate

A third of the population, 400 MILLION, is below 15,

Average education 10 years in schools

Half of India, half a billion people, is estimated to be without electricity! More electricity more GHG.

Some 30% of population, 350 MILLION,  is urban, and the additional urbanization is 2.4%, 25 MILLION per year. Next ten year may have 250 million more in urban areas?

If so, the result is a US size population movement with combination of larger incomes, larger energy demands, and larger slums too. The potential mix is unknown now, may be not easily influenced either.

India is a democracy with 28 somewhat powerful states. The Rule of law determined also the ability of governments to dictate energy related laws. But, unlike the US and Europe, in the vast India continent the actual federal and state control is mostly theoretical. It is more pronounced in the developed urban areas, but not in remote primitive villages. It is hard to control the diverse, wide spread, immense population.

Additional snapshots of India:

It is hard for Western people to grasp the population density and the deep poverty of India. We see the pictures of the modern side. However, when we see pictures of the poverty it is done artistically and in taste and we are ignorant of the reality, the suffering, the malnutrition of millions. India rural area is often isolated, lack electricity, and have very low standard of living.

In the last decade the media emphasized the rapid advance in the urban SOL (Standard of Living) and the new middle class associated with high tech industries. But this is not typical India, it is just the we pay most attention to because it is similar to the US.

The millions of Untouchables continue to be discriminated in a way we can not even imagine. They are the sewer cleaners, no one wants to be near them or let them inside their homes unless mandatory. There are 40 millions nomads that the rest do not want to have any thing to do with or live nearby them. The cast system is in force despite some feeble attempts to reduce it. Because there are so many people, because so many are so discriminated against and so many are in agony, the cast system give the "higher up" the ability to "elevate" themselves above the common.

With one third of the population below 15 and limited schooling many young people just roam aimlessly around. Tens of millions have no place to call home.

The government is composed of mostly middle and upper class people who may be intellectually interested in improving the lot of the downcasts, but their power come from the educated and higher income population. I do not believe they themselves believe something substantial can be done to elevate the downcast out of their misery in the next few decades. It is a almost undoable because of rapid population growth, lack of funds for wide rural education and lack of power by the rural, and underprivileged. They are not important.

An example: The Mumbai slam is the biggest in the world with one million people in about a square mile. It is being liquidated now, against the will of the majority there, to build high rise buildings in this center of the city. The population density there (typically on three primitive levels) was equivalent to 400 people living in the moderate lot my wife and I now occupy!

(From Wikipedia): "In the late 2000s, India's economic growth has averaged 7.5% a year, which will double the average income in a decade. Despite India's impressive economic growth over recent decades, it still contains the largest concentration of poor people in the world, and has a higher rate of malnutrition among children under the age of three (46% in year 2007) than any other country in the world. The percentage of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of $1.25 a day decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005. Even though India has avoided famines in recent decades, half of children are underweight, one of the highest rates in the world and nearly double the rate of Sub-Saharan Africa.^"

Curtailing GHG emissions:

Current situation: Three main areas of high GHG emissions:

1. Modern electricity generation for the urban and industrial areas,

2. Oil (diesel and gasoline) for expanding transportation

3. Wide spread use of solid fuels (wood and charcoal) and also kerosene in rural areas.

India has a very high CO2 emission per GDP dollar, four times the US level. This is a promising opening for cutting projected increases in its looming and immense GHG. Much of it is from its primitive industry, and low efficiency coal driven electricity generation. Coal would continue to be the major source of electricity as its industrialization and urbanization are continuing at rapid rates. It is dirt cheap and India would not replace it with more expansive green technology on its own. It will need a combination of global economic pressure and financial and technical assistance.

Their national pride would resist external pressure, but it would be moderate, unlike China. India government is inclined to be practical, and not rush into fast actions.

Potential changes?

1. Considerable amount of India production, from shoes to clothing, is by very primitive means, with a lot of very cheap hand labor. There is no desire to industrialize that "home industry" which are actually sweat shops on a small and large scale. It provides employment to tens of millions very young people, and their number is increasing. What else would supply this minimal level of sustenance?

2. Demand for oil imports will increase rapidly as the population is moving from bicycles to scooters, to motorcycles, and to small, locally built, cheap cars. The cheap, low weight cars have small engines but are not likely to be very high miles per gallons. GHG emissions from the mass production and use of over a hundred million of these vehicles will be substantial.

3. It is estimated that massive amount of black sooth, accelerating glaciers melting, is emitted by the primitive cooking and lightening in India (and Africa). There are advance testing of combinations of miniature PV, battery, and high efficiency LED light systems that seems economical for this conditions. Reliable, low cost packages would be useful. But hard to spread widely without government intervention and financial assistance. This is not too likely in rural India or any other wide spread, poor society.

4. There is considerable deforestation in India and to cut it substantially they need reliable, very simple, low cost cooking and heating alternatives. A very difficult combination.

Technologists in the West see it as a good potential for replacement by more efficient cooking approach on a large scale. I am doubtful. Where will one find locally available, no cost replacement to locally cut trees and dung?

It is a matter of survival to them and they do not have the luxury to think about complex solutions that cost more and may be require education to operate.

5. Only where there is governmental control/knowledge of a substantial scale, electrical power generation, could changes towards higher efficiency, lower GHG energy, can be made in  2 or 3 decades. And this is already too long a cycle.

SUMMARY:

India emission of GHG will escalate rapidly in the coming decades. It would be at a lower rate than before if the cost of fossil fuel increase noticeably. Only part of its more modern sector emissions could be slowed down by reducing its CO2 to GDP ratio. The majority of the population, the poor and rural community, could only marginally reduce their very high CO2 to GDP ratio.

India rapid increase of GHG would not slow down on its own due to the immense internal pent up demand, which a Democratic government has to listen to. External forces would have to intervene to help India cut its immense GHG emission before the Earth has passed the point of no return and enters a massive positive feedback of GHG emissions.

(Sorry, no time to fully edit.)

There are a lot of discussions about the undesirability of nuclear power and how expensive it is. To answer quickly these concerns I have summarized below the key points to consider. Details are in the different blogs I have written of these issues.

1. GHG are already so high we have little time to slow them down; if we do not, the likelihood of  catastrophic climactic events would increase markedly.

2. Fifty percent of the electricity in Germany and the US, and 80% of China is generated by coal, the biggest polluter of all. Even if CCS would work it would take many years to install on a wide scale, and it is risky technically and environmentally. We should not count on it until proven reliable and economical.

3. With all the conservational and efficiency we could achieve realistically, the demand for electricity is increasing in all the developing world. I am all for cutting our use, but the rest of the world is increasing theirs. They are not bound by our ways and situation.

4. The increasing world population coupled with the increasing demand for higher standard of living by the developing world, especially India and China, [with three billion people in several decades,] outstrip any thing we do elsewhere in the developed world combined.

That is: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHEN AND HOW THE ADVANCED COUNTRIES REDUCE THEIR GHG, the emerging nations are on a current path to have some five to ten times the total GHG emissions of all the other nations combined.

5. Let's grasp the magnitude of the energy the world will need: we essentially need the equivalent of one new nuclear plant on line every day for the next forty years!!!

6. We must eliminate all coal-generated electricity in the world if we want to survive the increasing GW.

7. It does not matter what the US and Europe do in nuclear power. There are 440 nuclear plants globally, 104 in the US and about a hundred in Europe. The China/India and rest of Asia have the majority and are building more. Chain is planning 10 more in the next few years and a faster rate later.

What we feel, what we plan, what we like, does not matter at all to the rest of the world. They have their own agenda, they have completely different needs.

8. The capital cost per kWh produced of photovoltaic in an efficient industrial setting is twice the cost of a 1000 MW nuclear plant at ten billions dollar each.

9. We must have human-controlled electrical power to overcome, to supplement the power obtained from nature.

10. Several technologies must be used globally to generate the immense demand for energy, nuclear power will be part of the mix in the rest of the world. The US may as well participate and make this technology safer and available at lower cost. If we do not participate, the outcome may be worse since the rest of the world dos not have the luxury of being over concerned about safety and reliability as the US is. Be a leader or stay to the side.

All the presentations at the Efficiency - Art Rosenfeld conference were interesting and many illuminating, but the most significant discussion, I believe, was by Professor Richard Muller. He talked about the immense future increase of CO2 by the emerging economies. His assertion, supported by an eye popping graph, is that the amount of CO2 created by the industrialization of the rapid growing economies, especially China and India, will surpass all the rest of the world combined and that is the area we must concentrate on.

Dr. Muller teaches Physics at UC Berkeley. I have discussed GW issued with him several times and read his book: Physics for Future Presidents, too. He likes to debunk what he sees as mistakes in the general beliefs on GW. I talked with him during the reception and told him that his presentation was the most important item in the whole conference. He felt that the interest in his conclusions were not as high as they deserve. And I agreed.

The essence of his lecture here was presented previously in the Wall Street Journal just before the Copenhagen meeting last year. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514404574588673072577680.html

The key graph is titles:

The West's Carbon Emissions Are Irrelevant.

It shows a rising curve of yearly global emissions of CO2 that grows from the current 32 B tonns to some 90 B by 2040; almost all of it from the emerging economies, while the West's contributions are dropping to be insignificant by then.

A few friends discussed the key assumptions that Dr. Muller presented below:

From J.

I first saw this graph in an article on GreenTech Media's (GTM) website about two weeks ago.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/inconvenient-carbon-truths-about-china

The article was summarizing information presented by Richard Muller in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and in a speech at a venture capital firm in S.F. The graph in the article at GTM included some basic assumptions behind the graph. These assumptions include that the Chinese economy grows at 10%/year and other emerging economies grow at 6%/year.

While China may continue a 10% annual growth for a few more years, it is very unlikely to continue this growth rate through 2040 as the graph apparently assumes. The larger their economy becomes, the more difficult it will be to continue their current growth rate.

While the general statement that the developing economies will soon be the main contributors to CO2 emissions seems well supported, the graph most likely overstates the extent of their contributions. Nevertheless the actions of the developing countries will almost certainly be much more important than the actions of the currently developed economies in determining the growth of CO2 emissions.

******

K.

-- Yes, at the Rosenfeld Symposium in Davis on Tuesday, Muller did mention his WSJ op-ed piece. And, in addition to your point that economic growth at 10% sort of numbers will not continue for decades, there is the fact that what China has agreed to and is doing rather aggressively is reducing their "carbon intensity" number (tons of CO2 per $M of GDP).

But, we are all agreeing that China and other emerging economies will dominate the future emissions and the need-to-reduce issues. Best reply to the nay sayers here is (1) economic growth is going to be in the low-C energy business sector so this is good for the economy not bad for it, and (2) the science says conclusively that humans must address the problem: 9 billion people cannot live on the planet in anything like decent way unless this is solved and getting down to 350 ppm or below is the only way to preserve the planet as the 20th century had it.

****

J.

The full set of assumptions behind Muller's graph as stated in the GTM and WSJ articles are as follows:
- USA: 80% cut by 2050
- Kyoto developed states: 60% cut by 2050
- China: 4% per year cut in carbon intensity (amounts to a 70% cut by 2040)
- Chinese economy grows at 10%
- Other emerging economies grow at 6%
- Emerging economies begin 80% cut (over 40 years) in 2040


Some selected quotes from these articles follow:

"'We need cheap green, not expensive green.' Any technology that will not work in China or India is 'feel-good technology.' HEVs (Hybrids Electric Vehicles) like the Prius fall into that category according to Muller. This fits in with investor Vinod Khosla's take on solving the 'Chindia problem'."

"... an expensive effort to reduce Western emissions sets a worthless example. Only emissions cuts that provide measurable economic benefit to the developing nations will be adopted by them. If the 80% U.S. emissions cut winds up hurting the U.S. economy, it guarantees China will never follow our example."

"Cheap green energy is not going to be easy. Coal is dirt cheap, and China has been installing a new gigawatt coal plant each week.... Technological change can help a great deal.... A dollar spent in China can reduce CO2 much more than a dollar spent in the U.S."

"Muller finished with these words: 'If you are seriously worried about global warming, the solution is in technology adopted by India and China.  If you can't come up with cheap green, then the alternative is prayer.'"
**** 

By M. Ginosar:

1. Although the Muller WSJ curve may be steeper than justified, it is significant and important to grasp. By different set of growth assumptions the slope would be lower. But the total global emissions would continue to increase at a rapid rate while we must cut GHG to reduce the more severe damage from already-present GW. So the basic idea of Muller that we must focus on the emerging world is justified and most important!

2. It is also significant that the emerging world, especially China and India, will do, to a large extent, what they need to do for their own population. Their governments have little alternatives; they must not only allow but must encourage fast economic growth. Their population is demanding it by their movement to cities seeking better life for themselves.

Without fast economic growth these governments would fall and we do not know what would replace them, certainly not more favorable to reduction in economic activities.

3. The discussion here is about CO2, which is now just 65-70% of the total GHG. Total GHG cause global temperature rise, not just CO2. The rest of the GHG have shorter life and would decay with time, but they are up in the atmosphere now and not decreasing!

The total impact of GHG is considered by some more aware observers to be already so severe that we should not increase our yearly emissions but cut them starting two decades ago.

4. The comments above by Dr. Muller make a lot of sense to me and I have advocated cost-effective environmental solutions for many decades. The problem is that most people in this field are so dedicated and so aware of the implications of lack-of-action that they want any solution at almost any price.

Again: his key points:

a. To reduce the damage from GW we need the technologies to be adopted on a mass scale in these countries.

b. Unless these solutions are economical and cost-effective in these countries they would not be adopted! And they would not make any real impact on GW.

The bad example of PV: I have analyzed and commented about the most wasteful green energy program to date: photovoltaic, not only because it is wasteful, not only because it is based on misleading information, and not only because it makes the people in the PV industry rich while providing miniature contribution to the solution, but as an example of emotions overcoming economics and facts -which we can not afford.

To repeat briefly a common mistake by environmentalists and good law makers: over the last decade Germany spent $70 B to generate less than 0.5% of its electricity from PV; while at the same time 50% of its electricity is from coal and it is increasing substantially, masking any possible future contributions by PV. If that PV money went to conservation and efficiency they would have cut their CO2 emissions considerably more.

The next known example is the US law mandating substantial use of Corn-Ethanol in our transportation fuel. The result of enthusiastic environmentalists cooperating with profit maximizing corn industry.

My conclusions:

What Dr. Muller stated is correct in principle and must be taken into account despite some arguments about the exact percentages and the shape of the curves.

This is the most important issue we need to focus on- the significant reduction of GHG emissions from the developing world.

To do that, we must cooperate with them to cut their GHG and assist them with technologies, scientific knowledge, and financial support too.

And these would cause conflicts with our desire to shore up our economies.

This is the most significant dilemma we need to find practical solutions for and soon.

The Rosenfeld Symposium

The next generation of Energy Efficiency

A few days ago [3/9/10] I attended an energy efficiency conference at UC Davis honoring the champion of California energy conservation and efficiency, Dr. Art Rosenfeld.

The conference was a tribute to his decades of dedicated work in this field, culminating with two terms as Commissioner on the California Energy Commission. He just retired from this post.

Most of the 400 attendees worked with the commissioner on some aspects of efficiency and conservation. I had the opportunity to discuss with him at length energy efficiency options and he was gracious to send me several of his PowerPoint presentations that he made in India and China last year.

With his permission I sent these presentations to staff of energy and environmental committees in Congress.

I would like to summarize some of the points some speakers made that seems worth attention:

Some of the methods Dr. Rosenfeld used to develop better efficiency measures were his penetrating questions: Why are we doing things the way we do? How can we do them better? What are the implications on a wider scale? And he was persistent. Dr. Rosenfeld is supposed to have said: "The price of efficiency is eternal nagging..."

Anne Smith, Sempra Utilities: Energy Efficiency from the California Perspective.

Natural gas use in homes in southern California is down 40% in 30 years. [I wonder how much of it is due to different distribution of individual homes vs. apartments. Partial statistics are not so useful to draw conclusions from.]

A mind shift for utilities: California pioneering decoupling of sales of energy from utility profit was instrumental in focusing more attention on energy reduction. CA is spending $3B in 2 years to increase efficiency.

The PUC published a hundred page plan to increase efficiency: California long term energy efficiency strategic plan. Sub titled: Achieving Maximum Energy Savings in California for 2009 and beyond.

www.CalifiorniaEnergyEfficicncy.com</a>

One of the plan goals is to achieve zero energy in new residential units by 2020, commercial properties by 2030.

[I think it is a mistaken goal. Total reduction of carbon footprint should be the goal and cost-effectiveness must be considered too. We need to look at the total issue. When some one build the most energy efficient home in the suburbs but drive to her his job five times a week her total carbon foot print is much larger that a person living in the city and walk to work. Second, generating electricity on site, only silicon PV is available now, is very expensive [and would not do well commercially without substantial subsidies] and has hidden costs not taken into account- the energy payback is some 5 to 7 years, and many of the PV panels are made in Germany and China by coal power plants with even longer carbon payback. Hopefully completely new, low cost solar technology would be in production by then, but that is another issue. Doing the maximum energy conservation and ALSO MAXIMUM APPLIANCE EFFICIENCY, including all the home electronics, is a more practical, achievable goal.

The appealing title: "zero energy homes" is a political slogan and not one to cut our total GHG.]

When we are talking about new approaches, she said: "If the consumer does not accept it- it is not worth it." [But the consumer should accept it without substantial subsidies that distort the market too much.]

"It is tough to do better than we are already doing in CA since we are so good already."

[Although CA achieved lower per capita electricity consumptions than the nation, my own observation and studies indicate that we could have cut our energy use in buildings much further. It was evident three decades ago when I directed the Solar office at the California Energy Commission. Some 80% of the reduction was due to building conservation, 20% at most was due to potential passive solar measures.]

[We could have achieved much higher conservation/efficiency, but the building industry, that carries a lot of political weight especially in CA, did its best to cut down conservation measures to reduce the cost of the construction. A small increase in construction cost, much lower than adding PV, would have reduced the total energy use further. The industry does not care that homeowners will pay larger energy bills over many years; it does not affect the sale since most people are not aware of the total cost of housing.

The same for commercial properties; the builder aim is to reduce cost per square foot; the tenets are paying the energy costs. It is the responsibility of decision makers to weigh society needs re. GW on a much higher scale than builder's small increase in profit.]

Ashok Gadgil, LBNL, Energy Efficiency from the Developing World Perspective:

We need to use Human Development Index HDI, when we deal with energy.

HDI should include:

1. Economic wellbeing

2. Life expectancy- health, health care, etc.

3. Literacy and education.

All of the above relate to electricity consumption. The US and Australia are the biggest per capita users, 9200 kWh/yr. Japan and England 7500 kWh. The US emitting 20 Tons of CO2 per person per year. India just 1.5 ton. Ad it is clear that the HDI is very low in India and other low electricity users.

Two billion people cook with solid fuels [wood and charcoal] which are low efficiency and highly polluting, both locally-the users themselves- and adding CO2 globally. Sub Sahara is especially noted to do so. Replacing these cookers with high efficiency, low cost kerosene stoves, sometimes may be solar cookers, would be a large improvement in all categories, and reduce their cost over time.

[It is clear that the underdeveloped countries will increase their energy consumption to elevate their standard of living, or their HDI, for their rapidly increasing populations.]

The above legitimate increase in energy demand by the underdeveloped world would be the main source of future increase of global GHG.

This rapid increase would overshadow all emissions by all developed countries, including the US. [mg]

Notes in [  ] are mine.

Part two of notes will follow.

A small step was finally taken by Congress to reduce the abuse of some earmarks. Democratic House leaders now realized the public's dislike of unethical financial relationship between donors and private congressional allocations, and took this small step.

Note, only $1.7 B would have been cut of last year budget. The total budget is over $3.5 trillion, about two thousand times bigger [but much of it is non discretionary]. We know that the rest of the budget process is not fully "clean" of abuse. Even when many in congress vote on regular issues their main consideration is reelection, not our national needs.

This "cleaning" is only the tip of the iceberg of unethical actions by Congress. To gain some public confidence, they will have to do much more. Read the article below to get the details. It is worth it.

MG

Leaders in House Block Earmarks to Corporations

By ERIC LICHTBLAU   NYTimes

WASHINGTON - House Democratic leaders on Wednesday banned budget earmarks to private industry, ending a practice that has steered billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to companies and set off corruption scandals.

The ban is the most forceful step yet in a three-year effort in Congress to curb abuses in the use of earmarks, which allow individual lawmakers to award financing for pet projects to groups and businesses, many of them campaign donors.

But House Republicans, in a quick round of political one-upmanship, tried to outmaneuver Democrats by calling for a ban on earmarks across the board, not just to for-profit companies. Republicans, who expect an intra-party vote on the issue Thursday, called earmarks "a symbol of a broken Washington."

Both parties are seeking to claim the ethical high ground on the issue by racing to rein in a budgeting practice that has become rife with political influence peddling. So far, though, the Senate is not joining in. House Democrats had tried to reach an agreement with their counterparts to ban for-profit earmarks, but the senators balked, Congressional officials said.

Had the ban on for-profit earmarks been in place last year, it would have meant the elimination of about 1,000 awards worth a total of about $1.7 billion, leaders of the House Appropriations Committee said in announcing that, as a matter of policy, they will no longer approve requests for awards to for-profit groups. Many of those earmarks went to military contractors for projects in lawmakers' home districts.

Under the new restrictions, not-for-profit institutions like schools and colleges, state and local governments, research groups, social service centers and others are still free to receive earmarks. The new restrictions, for example, would still allow the type of award to local governmental agencies that became infamous in 2005 with Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere."

The full story at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11earmark.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

To understand why it is so difficult to pass any meaningful energy and global warming laws in congress please read the article below about Washington's politics. It is so sad for the nation to be frozen in Congressional immaturity. It hurt us all, but benefit the few.

Although we know it, and I commented about it before, this article is very revealing how the power of special interest blocks what we need as a nation. Note also the mental games and juvenile behavior of many Congresspersons. It also shows what a powerful and skillful president can do to overcome Congressional inaction. President Obama is either unwilling to risk it, or unable to muster the courage to fight harder. His approach of leaving it to Congressional action does not work.

m.g.

"For today's legislators, short-term pain for future gain is a nonstarter."

From the Editor: We Need Some Carpenters

By: Jim Toedtman | Source: From the AARP Bulletin print edition | March 1, 2010

Angrily, President Lyndon Johnson went west late in 1964. For the third straight year, Congress had failed to enact a comprehensive health care plan for older people, and he pointedly blamed Republicans and conservative Democrats.

At a California rally, he shared an important Texas truth: "Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one." Nine months later, Congress enacted Medicare.

Four decades later, it's time for another generation of carpenters. Now it's less about revamping the nation's health care system and more about reconstructing our polarized and paralyzed political system. In fact, the federal government seems incapable of making any tough decisions. Grand compromise is a forgotten art. Short-term pain for future gain is a nonstarter. Instead, Capitol Hill politics has become a prelude to combat, when it's supposed to be about problem-solving.

Consider the forces at play:

Election year politics. All 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate are up for grabs. Recent Republican victories have energized Republicans and frightened Democrats. Now both are preoccupied with scoring talking points.

Capitol Hill politics. Members have long memories. Democrats and Republicans both carry grudges from when the other party had the majority. After closed meetings, ignored requests, insulting attacks and presumed slights, it's payback time. All this while American soldiers are losing their lives, 14 million people need jobs, and 30 million lack adequate health insurance.

Special-interest money. The Center for Responsive Politics tracks campaign contributions and lobbying spending on TV ads, town hall rallies, mailings and back-room arm-twisting. With health care reform on the agenda in 2009, no organization spent more on lobbying than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($144.5 million), which successfully opposed mandating employer-provided health insurance and closing a business tax break for health expenses. AARP, which does not contribute to political campaigns, spent $21 million on federal lobbying. The insurance industry, which spent $166.4 million in campaign contributions and lobbying last year, successfully opposed a single-payer system and minimized cuts in Medicare Advantage plans. Trial lawyers, whose contributions and lobbying totaled $63 million, blocked limits on medical malpractice lawsuits.

When Democrats proposed expanding Medicare to people between 55 and 65, hospitals and doctors, whose 2009 campaign and lobbying expenses totaled $200 million, targeted key senators and blocked it. With the nation's obesity problem in mind, another plan would have added a 3-cents-a-bottle excise tax on soft drinks and sugar products. But the food and beverage industry spent $30 million, a 50 percent jump from its 2008 spending, and killed it.

Health care legislation is never easy. But the current battle exposed a larger problem. Today, it's the house of politics and government that needs reconstruction. Bring on the carpenters.

There's plenty to do.

Jim Toedtman is editor of AARP Bulletin.

One of the most powerful, persistent, and overwhelming hindrance to our national ability to reduce GW is our arrogance. We believe we are due special consideration in the world.

This may be even the most significant element in our inadequate response to GW.

We think that whatever we have we have created, and we believe nature is here to serve us.

But that is not how the world operates. Nature does not care what we say or believe. Nature continues to respond to the unbalance we have created in its delicate natural cycles.

Our arrogance may stem from the immense, seemingly unlimited gifts nature gave us when we took over the US. Huge forests were covering much of the land, mighty rivers supplied us easy, low cost transportation, and all the minerals, oil and natural beauty were not yet used or destroyed.

We got the impression that we made all this wealth, and that we can use it as we wish. We ignored nature; it was here for us to use and abuse. It was seemingly unlimited.

Some thirty five years ago Professor Ian L. McHarg told us at UCLA environmental program that you must design WITH nature, not against it. This visionary architect and planner published his first book: Design by Nature, in 1969. In this book he projected his massage clearly against the traditional way that urban development must be imposed upon the landscape.

His craggy face was full of emotions when he discussed how irrational is the way we build our communities and also houses on angry coastlines. How much destruction will rivers continue to cause us as their floods overtake houses so near the flood plains?

Few listened to him. We ignored nature. And our governments, at all levels, continued to allow massive developments in unstable natural areas. The accompanying destructions have been so common, we are not even aware that we could have prevented many of them.There are some improvements, but limited. We continue to strip mountain tops to get our dirty coal with triple devastation: of the landscapes, of the air (local pollution), and massive GHG emissions.

We still believed that we are entitled to take from nature whatever we can. I read recently about a home owner in a flood plain that twice lost his home to floods, twice the federal government paid to rebuild it, and now he wants to do it the third time. And he believes he is entitled to be compensated for his stupidity, actually arrogance. He said he loves the beauty of being so close to the river.

And this American arrogance also shows its head when we are unwilling to reduce our massive emissions of GHG. We that emitted over 30% of all ACCUMULATED GHG TO DATE still believe we should not make any meaningful sacrifices to reduce GW.

But nature will continue on its way; global warming will continue to accelerate, global temperatures will continue to rise while we are arguing about it in Congress and the media.

Over the last several years it became clear to some astute scientists that our slow and ineffective way we have been trying to curtail global warming is not going to slow significantly, if at all, the earth's temperature rise. The magnitude of GHG release is so large that we are likely to be too late to stop the severe damage to our limited Earth.

New information from the National Science Foundation [NSF] indicates that mass release of previously stored methane that we hoped will remain frozen has already started. And if we do not curtails drastically and very soon our global GHG this release of Methane would grow so fast and so large that the earth temperature would climb beyond nature's ability to sustain life as we know it. I suggest you read the NSF short report in the link below.

National Science Foundation:

"The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Ar