Flaws in Global Warming Theory

Climate change, though, is not a scam; it is happening, has happened, and will continue to happen in the future. Flexibility in being able to deal with those changes, globally, is key.

This looks like good research as far as I, a non-expert, can tell. It could be that it reveals a flaw in the climate models so severe that their predictive worth is zero.

But I still don't think it's a scam. The paper is published in the International Journal of Climatology. According to the conspiracy theory, shouldn't such a publication be hostile to this kind of finding? And under "related stories" from your link, I notice that the arctic is melting a lot more than predicted. Is that part of the conspiracy, bad science, or are you cherry-picking stories?

Oh, and some detailed criticism.

No doubt that global warming is very debated. I, however, have never heard that man is causing global cooling. For this - all I can say is that I hope that the people that believe this is natural are not wrong. But if man is causing at least part of the problem then why not do all we can. One thing not in dispute is that we cannot continue to use non-renewable sources on energy forever.
Are you familiar with the ground floor movement to take solar to the masses by a company called Citizenre? They are trying market solar with an approach similar to satellite TV, cellular telephones, and alarm systems. That is to provide the customer a complete solar system with no upfront charges and make money from a service contract. In this case the service contract would be a rent agreement. They intend to put a complete solar system on clients home. When the system produces electricity, it will lower the bill from the current utility provider. In most cases the savings from the lower bill will more than cover the rent fee that the company intends to charge. The company currently has no product available but intends to deploy in the middle of 2008. They are currently taking reservations and have over 26,000 takers so far. I have written several articles on this company in my blog and even have a couple of videos that I have recorded at www.solarjoules.com. Feel free to take a look. I welcome comments. As in any start up business, a chance exists that they may never get off the ground and fulfill any preorders, but if this is the case - the potential client has not lost anything. If you cannot afford the upfront cost of solar today, this may turn out to be a great alternative. This solution would mean that we could produce at least a little less pollution and would be a great step "just in case". And hey, the fact that you will save money on your electricity bill over time is a pretty good reason to look into it as well.
If anyone would like company information you can go to www.jointhesolution.com/razmataz.

Mark: Yes, we have to be flexible, I don't disagree with that.

jez: Well sure, I pick stories that illustrate my beliefs about global warming :) Let the other side make their own case! If I blogged every story written about global warming I wouldn't have time for anything else.

Raz: Solar power is economically unfeasible. It's far too expensive and inefficient for industrial use, and isn't even cost-effective for residential use at this point.

Solar power and any other power generation method that is direct (rather than simply just another way to generate steam that spins turbines) are the ones I'd really like to see improve the most.

I mean, come on.. the sun provides a *ton* of energy.. for FREE.. each day! It's a pretty big shame that we aren't using more of it.

Or, short of all that, I'd like to see the development of a method of harnessing more of the energy produced by nuclear and other power generation methods. Converting more of the energy being generated directly into electricity would be a direct benefit to everyone.

Mark: I'd like to see improvements in power generation that don't depend on coal and oil deposits, mainly because these resources tend to be very localized and difficult to transport. Solar would be fine, but even with 100% efficiency you'd need to cover an area the size of California with solar panels to power the country. Plus, solar is terrible on the grid because of the unevenness of the power it generates (dependent on time and weather, etc.).

I like nuclear -- fuel that's light and easy to transport. Hydro -- but every good hydro source is already dammed. I think geothermal will be the wave of the near future. The more distant future might be solar collector satellites that beam power down by microwave (sounds pretty dangerous to me, though).

MW: Your estimation of solar's efficiency or what it would take to provide a given amount of power seems unrealistic because it cannot take into account any improvements in the technology itself. Essentially, I wouldn't use the status quo of solar power technology as a basis for downplaying future potential.

I would also add that there are parabolic dishes of solar panel material that provide as much energy as a big field of flat panels in a fraction of the space.

Of course, I expect you to cherry pick to a degree, but you report these stories as if there were no stories holding up the mainstream view, when in fact the vast majority of findings support the mainstream.

I'm not holding out much hope for solar, at least as far as generating everything we need from our roofs. Panels are at a maximum about 20% efficient (more exotic ones are a lot more efficient than that but require more energy to produce them than they would produce in their whole lifetime -- only useful for powering satellites really). Roof panels which directly heat water are, on the other hand, an excellent idea and take care of a large percentage of a home's power requirements.
The panels Raz mentioned look quite interesting because they seem very efficient for a domestic panel, and they're cheap to produce according to the sales language. I wonder about their life span.

I'm generally pessimistic -- at best imo we'll get a decent supply from large scale solar parks in the deserts where the weather is more consistent.

I like off-shore wind. Personal windmills are, like the solar panels, a joke imo. I like tidal. I genuinely believe that tidal research has been deliberately stalled by energy business interests. Talk about an untapped hydro source!!

Nuclear has the waste issue.

jez: Like MW, I think you're using the status quo of solar technology to downplay its future potential. The first automobiles got poor gas mileage and were anything but reliable.. but does that mean they wouldn't get any better?

Solar's drawbacks are not insurmountable.

I also think it's a very foolish idea to give up on solar power because, as I said, it's an immensely abundant and FREE resource that we don't have to go to extraordinary lengths to acquire. We should be looking for ways to get more of the sun's energy into our power grid as efficiently and inexpensively as possible.

Solar panel paper has already been demonstrated, and parabolic mirrors that concentrate the sun's energy are being built and used (in small deployments, currently). These parabolic mirrors enable the generation of the same or more power as a traditional flat panel in a fraction of the space. They can even be used to generate more solar power in winter, when the sun's energy only glances us. The point, I suppose, is that there's no reason to be pessimistic about solar. It has hurdles to overcome.. like everything else.. but it also has a lot of potential.

As far as solar power on a cloudy day, consider the following: sunburn is still a problem during the summer even on a cloudy day, which means there's still lots of power from the sun reaching the Earth when it's cloudy. All we have to do is find a way to convert that energy into electricity and integrate it into existing solar power systems.. and voila: solar power, regardless of weather conditions.

Mark: be careful is my advice. Consider the total lifetime costs. Semiconductors are always expensive (energetically) to produce.
Parabolic mirrors are great, but they cast a shadow. They're not going to increase total energy arriving on earth.
They're never gonna be producing at night time, or in perpetual night near the poles at winter. (which is when demand for power is greatest). So lifetime costs come with batteries included, usually very nasty compounds are involved.

But I do think that solar parks in desert regions will happen -- the cost of transferring the power from there to where we live is still going to be cheaper than fossils.

I really think tidal's got the most potential out of all the renewable sources.

jez: Increasing the total energy arriving on Earth is not the goal. The goal is getting more of the energy that reaches the Earth into our power grid.

It's also not an absolute that solar energy will necessarily depend on the materials (and their related production costs) we use today.

The problem of power at night, if solar is desired as the primary source of electricity, could be solved by sharing power with the half of the world where it is daytime. This would most likely require the combined effort of many countries around the entire globe, but with many participants, many can benefit and share the costs. Aside from that, though, power usage at night is generally less than during the day, so solar energy could provide for a chunk of the energy needed during the day.

Power near the poles? Obviously that's a challenge for nearly any power generation method.. but the portion of the human population that lives near the poles is marginal, and not too likely to become significant in the relevant future.

Mark: You're never going to get more power from solar cells than 100% of what the sun delivers to the surface of the earth :) If we had such 100% efficient cells, we'd need to pave California with them to power America (during daylight hours, assuming no clouds). Like biofuels, solar power will ever only contribute a tiny percentage of the energy our country needs.

Now, if we had solar satellites that could beam power back to earth, that would be a different story. They could be huge and would be in eternal daylight... but you'd lose power beaming it back through the atmosphere. Still, they could theoretically be as large as you want.

MW: Where did I say that you'd get more from solar cells than 100% of what the sun delivers to the Earth? I've been saying that we should try to get as close to 100% of the energy from the sun reaching the Earth into our power grid as we can.

Solar will only "ever" contribute a tiny percentage of the energy we need? "Ever" is a long time, you know. How do you know that the future of solar power will not be any appreciable amount better than it is today?

Mark, I don't know when the next magical innovation will arrive or what it will be, although your idea of transferring energy from the day side to the night seems fraught with political challenges at least as hard has the ones we currently face with fossils. And I'll bet you an ice-cream that it will continue to be based on semiconducting materials, which require high temperatures to produce.

My investment pounds go towards tidal and offshore wind long before they go towards solar. Give me the mechanical and constant pounding of the waves over some ethereal photoelectric effect any day. Solar heating panels on the other hand get my pounds before even them.

jez: Yes, it is indeed full of political challenges, but that's only if solar is to be used as a primary source of power for any given country, 24 hours a day. I maintain that its best use is to significantly reduce the amount of energy we need from other sources during the day, as that's when power usage is generally the highest.

I have yet to see a reason why we should abandon the pursuit of ways to efficiently utilize solar energy; a resource that, like tidal, is extremely abundant and readily available.

In North America, the average amount of energy reaching the Earth over a year (including nights and cloudy days) is between 3 and 9 kWh per square meter per day. Why you think we should stop trying to get more of that into our power grid is beyond me.

One other particularly cool and viable way to use the sun is in lighting. Fiber optics can route sunlight from the roof of a building almost anywhere within the building.. all for only the one-time cost of the fiber optic cabling.

I like better using sun power without the indirection of converting it into electricity, ie for heat or light (but especially for, you know, growing crops). It's just the electric bit that I've been trying to temper your enthusiasm for. :)

I'm just saying that I think solar cells have disproportionate mind-share, and with our finite research resources there are other renewables at least as worthy of attention. What makes you so keen on solar in particular?

jez: There are a couple reasons I'm rather interested in the sun's energy:

- It's abundant.. and won't run out until the sun dies, which won't be for around 5 billion years.

- It's free: we don't have to pay anyone to provide it.

They both apply to the other renewables. Why solar in particular?

Because there's between 3 and 9 kWh per square meter per day of energy from the sun available.. everywhere. That's a significant amount of untapped potential. It seems a waste not to pursue it.

Ground-based solar may be a dead end, but space-based solar power has potential! Imagine, a prototype system for under $1 billion, that would be incredible.