In The News

[knocker]

Shell gets cash boost for carbon capture plan

Canada will hand Shell and its partners C$865 million in government subsidies to build a plant that will capture and store carbon emissions from a controversial tar sands project.

Shell, Chevron and Marathon Oil, which jointly own the project in Alberta, together will invest $435 million (£276 million) but do not expect to make a profit on the venture.

“Carbon capture and storage is not in the money,†Graham van’t Hoff, the chairman of Shell UK, said. “That is why you need government help.â€

The CCS plant will reduce carbon emissions from ongoing operations at the tar sands operation by 35 per cent. That will make the process of extracting oil from the area more carbon-efficient than the average carbon-intense process of extracting crude oil.

Overall, the tar sands project will still be more carbon intensive than most crude oil extraction over its lifetime, once the impact of building the plant and other factors are included. It will also still use up vast amounts of water.

Shell said that the CCS project would be a valuable test-case of carbon storage technology, of which there are only eight significant examples around the world, some of which Shell already supplies with equipment.

Carbon is captured either by adding chemicals to chimney stacks or by burning carbon with pure oxygen and then filtering it.

In Canada, Shell plans to attach the carbon-capture technology to its existing facility for refining the bitumen in the tar sands into oil. The resulting carbon dioxide will be channelled through an underground pipeline 80km (50 miles) long and injected into a layer of limestone and salty water 2km undergroud. The gas dissolves in salt water and most of the world’s non-atmospheric CO2 is stored naturally in the sea.

Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, said: “Carbon capture and storage has the potential to help us balance our need for energy with our need to protect the environment.â€

Canada has been widely criticised by environmental groups for allowing oil companies to tap its extensive tar sands for oil because it destroys vast tracts of swamp land, uses large amounts of water and is carbon intensive.

Advocates argue that the sands are a huge domestic and secure source of energy and developing them delivers highly skilled jobs. The Government is also hoping that handing over millions to develop CCS technology will improve its image.

http://www.thetimes....icle3529860.ece

Edited September 8, 2012 by knocker

[knocker]

Enough wind to power global energy demand

Washington, D.C.— There is enough energy available in winds to meet all of the world's demand. Atmospheric turbines that convert steadier and faster high-altitude winds into energy could generate even more power than ground- and ocean-based units. New research from Carnegie's Ken Caldeira examines the limits of the amount of power that could be harvested from winds, as well as the effects high-altitude wind power could have on the climate as a whole. Their work is published September 9 by Nature Climate Change.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/ci-ewt090712.php

[keithlucky]

Well IPPC report no world temperature change in 16yrs http://sunshinehours...-last-15-years.

[knocker]

Or:

New Met Office data shows the United Kingdom is warming in line with global trends

The UK Met Office has just released its latest 30-year climate average. Readings show the UK's annual mean temperature calculated over a thirty year time period has risen 0.52 degrees Celsius over the past two decades. The data handily illustrates scientists' explanation that long-term warming is continuing despite temperature fluctuations over shorter timescales.

The Met Office says the biggest departure from previous years is in the mean UK annual temperature. At 8.84 degrees Celsius, the annual mean temperature between 1981-2010 is 0.25 degrees Celsius higher than during the 1971-2000 period, and 0.52 degrees Celsius warmer than it was between 1961 and 1990.

Mike Kendon of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre says in a statement:

"At a regional level and for individual seasons we expect variability on decadal timescales, from natural cycles, to play a role. Nevertheless, the increases in UK annual mean temperature are consistent with the trend in warming observed globally over land."

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/08/30-year-temperature-data-shows-the-uks-warming-in-line-with-global-trends

[Gray-Wolf]

Remember the newsnight 'Arctic debate'? Peter Lillie was pooh poohing AGW as a driver and making up non-sense as he went/ Guess what?;

http://www.tethyspet...ticleId=2355562

He got a new job in July!

Odd that?

Edited September 12, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[knocker]

Wet Climate May Have Fueled Mongol Invasion

Beginning in the 13th century, the Mongol Empire spread across Asia and into the Middle East like wildfire, growing into the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen.

Historians have long speculated that periods of drought pushed the Mongol hordes to conquer their neighbors, but preliminary new findings suggest that theory may be exactly backward. Instead, consistent rain and warm temperatures may have given the Mongols the energy source they needed to conquer Eurasia: grass for their horses.

http://www.livescience.com/21735-wet-climate-fueled-mongol-invasion.html

[BornFromTheVoid]

http://uk.news.yahoo...-114230983.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Power grid operators signed a deal on Thursday to develop a 5,000 megawatt electricity transportation system which could export wind power from Ireland to the UK within five years.

The UK's National Grid and Portugal's grid operator REN are working on a feasibility study for the project alongside Dublin-based renewable energy generator Mainstream Renewable Power.

REN is 25 percent owned by China's dominant utility firm State Grid Corp.

"REN believes this memorandum of understanding sets the ground for the study of a potentially groundbreaking infrastructure for the future of European energy highways," REN Chief Executive Rui Cartaxo said in a statement.

Mainstream Renewable Power aims to supply 1.2 GW of power to the UK by 2017.

Ireland is expected to produce more wind power than it needs, leaving room for exports to Britain, which has a target to generate 15 percent of its energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020, compared with around 9 percent last year.

[keithlucky]

Still no significant sea level rise in the latest IPPC report considering that its suppose to be the main indicator of GW taking place why is sea levels only slighty higher? This is a extract from the IPPC report Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year. Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear. There is high confidence that the rate of observed sea level rise increased from th3 19th to the 20th century, the total 20th-century rise is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Still no significant sea level rise in the latest IPPC report considering that its suppose to be the main indicator of GW taking place why is sea levels only slighty higher? This is a extract from the IPPC report Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year. Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear. There is high confidence that the rate of observed sea level rise increased from th3 19th to the 20th century, the total 20th-century rise is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m.

Hi Keith.

When you make claims such as that, it's best to provide some charts or links to back them up. When you're quoting from another source, it's good practise to give a link to that source and make the quote clear by using italics, quotation marks or wrap the whole text using the quote symbol in the editor. It would make your posts more clear, as they can be a little difficult to read and understand at times.

[Gray-Wolf]

I thought the 'canary in the coal mine' , as far as AGW was concerned, was a rapidly warming Arctic leading to a seasonal ice pack by 2100 Kieth? Seems the IPCC were a little too conservative in the documentation that the Nations threatening 'Veto' allowed in?

Why do we suddenly see this odd change of heart toward the IPCC all of a sudden? 5 Years ago it was 'doom mongering' and now some predictions have been shown for the senseless compromise the always were it's being held up as the only guidance to use?

[pottyprof]

Why do we suddenly see this odd change of heart toward the IPCC all of a sudden?

I see no change of heart. The IPCC changed their own projections. I find it amusing in a way because like the majority of us mortals, they don't understand what they think they understand.

[Methuselah]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7545648/Conspiracy-theorists-spurn-climate-change

[laserguy]

I've no problem accepting man has walked on the moon, that smoking tobacco promotes lung cancer and that HIV is the causative agent of AIDS, but anthro CO2-inspired climate change? Ha ha ha ha. Cobblers. I suppose elves and pixies really are behind those fairy-ring toadstool arrangements,too?

[BornFromTheVoid]

I've no problem accepting man has walked on the moon, that smoking tobacco promotes lung cancer and that HIV is the causative agent of AIDS, but anthro CO2-inspired climate change? Ha ha ha ha. Cobblers. I suppose elves and pixies really are behind those fairy-ring toadstool arrangements,too?

Anything to back up your AGW opinion?

[Methuselah]

elves and pixies really are behind those fairy-ring toadstool arrangements,too?

And, why not?

[knocker]

Surviving without ice

Arctic crustaceans use currents, deep-water migration to survive sea ice melts

2:06 p.m., Sept. 13, 2012--With sea ice in the Arctic melting to record lows in summer months, marine animals living there face dramatic changes to their environment. Yet some crustaceans, previously thought to spend their entire lives on the underside of sea ice, were recently discovered to migrate deep underwater and follow ocean currents back to colder areas when ice disappears.

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/sep/arctic-migration-091312.html

[Devonian]

I've no problem accepting man has walked on the moon, that smoking tobacco promotes lung cancer and that HIV is the causative agent of AIDS, but anthro CO2-inspired climate change? Ha ha ha ha. Cobblers. I suppose elves and pixies really are behind those fairy-ring toadstool arrangements,too?

'Cobblering' CO2 being a ghg is elves and pixies science.

LG, CO2 IS (that's IS) a ghg. We're adding it to the atmosphere ergo there IS Anthro climate change. What you need to jeer (if that's your best) is the magnitude of that effect not that it exists.

[jethro]

'Cobblering' CO2 being a ghg is elves and pixies science.

LG, CO2 IS (that's IS) a ghg. We're adding it to the atmosphere ergo there IS Anthro climate change. What you need to jeer (if that's your best) is the magnitude of that effect not that it exists.

But you've got to admit CO2, as far as GHG's go, is pretty pathetic. The scary possibilities for the future involve water vapour amplification, without it CO2 alone does not, and cannot cause much warming.

[Methuselah]

But you've got to admit CO2, as far as GHG's go, is pretty pathetic. The scary possibilities for the future involve water vapour amplification, without it CO2 alone does not, and cannot cause much warming.

Come on J, of course it can...Even if we do get asphyxiated first!

[laserguy]

is the magnitude of that effect not that it exists.

Like a gnat flying into a charging elephant.

[laserguy]

Anything to back up your AGW opinion?

No,because I cannot have an opinon on something that does not exist. Anything to back up yours besides conjecture and the miraculous gift of making observations fit with ever-changing predictions?

[Methuselah]

No,because I cannot have an opinon on something that does not exist. Anything to back up yours besides conjecture and the miraculous gift of making observations fit with ever-changing predictions?

So that's why I have no opinions concerning Yorkshire, Barrie?

[jethro]

Come on J, of course it can...Even if we do get asphyxiated first!

I know it's a popular sport to disagree with anything that I, or anyone else who even remotely questions/disagrees with AGW say, but the contrariness has sunk to a new and very silly low when it involves disputing the basic facts of climate change science.

The relationship between CO2 and climate warming is logarithmic, the more you add, the less impact it has. CO2 is limited by it's known (undisputed, Physics Laws) properties. In order to achieve any more warming than this, it has to be aided by the most plentiful and potent greenhouse gas - Water Vapour. It is this positive feedback loop which produces the projected future temperature rises. It is also this feedback loop and the unknown properties of clouds, which produce the different range of projected temperature rises.

http://co2now.org/Know-the-Changing-Climate/Climate-System/ipcc-faq-greenhouse-effect.html

As for comparison between different GHG's, here's a handy reference:

http://en.wikipedia....rming_potential

As I said, CO2 is pretty pathetic when compared to other GHG's and the scary predicted future depends upon amplification from water vapour.

I'm talking the facts of basic science. Either you and BFTV are woefully lacking in the basics (a fact I know to not be true) or you're merely disagreeing because it's something I've said. Either way, it's disappointing and really rather sad.

[Methuselah]

Oh dear, J...it was a joke...

[jethro]

Oh dear, J...it was a joke...

You'll fall off that bike if you back pedal that fast....