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« Climate Neutral | Main | "Peak heat", peak nonsense »
Wednesday
Oct212015

Getting into hot water

As part of their aim to become “carbon neutral”  or something equally daft, the University of St Andrews is planning to close the road to Dundee and to the station at Leuchars for several months in the New Year, requiring diversions of at least three extra miles, while they run a water pipe under the road from their new biomass plant four miles away from St Andrews. They intend to generate hot water which will be piped the four miles to heat university buildings and residences in town. The whole "green energy plant"  is projected to cost £25 million pounds, £10 million from taxpayer via the Scottish government. 

Can anyone give some informed opinion on whether this is possible while retaining enough of the heat to make it worthwhile? Presumably Icelandic district heating systems do something like this but what are the insulating materials used?  Geothermal heat will make the whole process cheaper in Iceland than biomass (“fuel sourced from a radius of 50 miles” -until the trees run out) to be used here, as the Icelanders won't have to generate the heat in the first place. My initial thoughts were that the whole University idea is crackpot, but maybe  I am  wrong? TM

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Reader Comments (97)

What's the traffic like on the road? How many multiples of 3 miles are going to be driven over the time the road is closed? How much additional carbon will this generate?

Oct 21, 2015 at 5:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Crook

Rough ball park, bag of a fag packet ......

2 pipes, 1 flow, 1 return each a foot (300mm) n diam, with 6 inches (150mm) of insulation, requires a trench able to hold 2 tubes 2 foot (600mm) diam, with the ability to access and maintain, plus the 2 walls of the trench, both 150 wide.

At no cost or inconvenience to the highways agency, it is cheaper and quicker to shut the road, as one carriageway will be taken up for the construction, and a second for materials delivery.

Increased costs to local business, reidents and road users are not considered by the client.

There are no acquistion costs for the pipes route. As it is for the good of the planet, it would be selfish and greedy of anyone to charge, or profit out of a Green Scheme, unless their unreasonable charges were part of the scheme as subsidised by the taxpayer.

Oct 21, 2015 at 6:34 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

They can source sea water at 6°C in winter and up to 14°C in summer, and they want to heat rooms to probably 25°C. That can be done with a heat pump producing 5-10kW heating for every 1kW electricity in a large unit. And electricity costs <5x natural gas.

I think piping heat from biomass would be 3rd or 4th most economic option.

Oct 21, 2015 at 6:53 PM | Unregistered CommenterRobL

I'm a gas/heating engineer of 15 years, long time reader but comment virgin. Last summer I worked on a contract for E-On after they boobed up on the specification of a few thousand Heat Interface Units on multiple district-heated newbuild sites across London. (They boobed up countrywide actually, but I only worked on the London ones.) This is the new big thing in residential construction, and if I'm not mistaken any project over a certain number of properties is required to put district systems in by law as of next year.

Lots of problems: there was a large demonstration by residents on one of our sites over very high bills. This was partly because the HIUs (basically two plate heat exchangers, a couple of motorised flow control valves and a heat meter; each individual property has one) had cheapo heat meters fitted that weren't accurate and cheapo flow valves that were passing when meant to be shut, partly because these sites are set up---amazingly considering we're supposed to be encouraging competition in the energy industry---as local monopolies on 25 year contracts (often supplied by E-On apparently thanks to some old legislative quirk that allowed them to get a head start) meaning the supplier can likely get away with murder, and partly because the majority of the residents were given a tarriff that included a standing charge of nearly one pound a day. This is purportedly to cover the maintenance of the HIU and district system and is considerably more than maintenance of a decent boiler and heating system.

As far as the heat sources were concerned, most of the large sites had two or three large gas-fired boilers, a biomass pellet burner and a 'heat engine' CHP unit. I think solar was coming later. The gas boilers were the only ones actually producing heat in the three months that I worked on the contract. None of the biomass burners had even been commissioned (I sense frantic subsidy box-ticking). The heat engines were a sight to behold and the engineers who were completing their commissioning were convinced they were the way forward once they'd got them going. 'The only thing that actually works', or words to that effect.

It was eye-opening to see the guts of district systems for the first time, but I can't help but wonder if their real benefit is to local monopolists rather than users (or polar bears).

Oct 21, 2015 at 8:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterFiend's Brave Victim

From memory there's lots of flattish green land near the sea at St Andrews that would make a better and nearer site.

Here's a few pictures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1gVjfh3OPg

Ideal!

Oct 21, 2015 at 8:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterLatimer Alder

Assuming a cost overrun of 20% making the project cost £30 million how long would that last if used to pay the energy costs of the current heating system? As this is biomass then the energy produced is not free unless the plant is generating electricity and this heat energy would have been wasted. Are there any numbers for the input biomass costs?

Oct 21, 2015 at 8:35 PM | Unregistered CommenterSandyS

' ..."trees from 50 mile radius" ... is the kind of thing that caused Scotland in the 1750s to have so few trees that the maps of William Roy show almost no forest.

It was only when Scotland moved away from unsustainable tree burning to sustainable ..."

That sounds to me to be the same sort of drivelly factoid as the claims that England was denuded of trees for use in iron-making, or in ship-building. It wasn't.

Oct 21, 2015 at 9:04 PM | Unregistered Commenterdearieme

dearime, large areas of the UK are covered in forestry plantations. The Forestry Commission was started in 1919, as a consequence of war time shortages of timber.

Tax incentives for planting trees on land without any other agricultural use, became a bit of a scandal involving famous names 20-30 years ago. (?)

Increased acidity of UK streams and lakes was blamed on acid rain ( remember that man made environmental disaster, that environmentalists have moved on from??) but was probably simply run off from more acidic conifers.


Fiend's Best Victim, thank you for that. I experienced decaying and defunct District Heating Systems in the mid 80s onwards, where they were a disaster for all involved. It seems that modern systems in the UK still fail to provide adequate cost control to the end user, for them to plan around, whereas the developers get their profit guaranteed from day one. The appeal to institutions, and providers of social housing, is there, but I would not want to "buy" into such a scheme without a limit on liability, and financial control of maintenance, as that is where it will go wrong, when it goes wrong.

Oct 21, 2015 at 10:12 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

great post by fiend's brave victim. someone mentioned the biomass plant in glenrothes earlier. i strongly suspect the "biomass" plant in st andrews will be burning the same type of biomass as the glenrothes plant,gas, as opposed to wood pellets. the "biomass" title gets the subsidies ,while in practice everyone over the age of 4 years old knows there is no financial or ecological reason to burn wood pellets transported from the other side of the atlantic.

apparently the glenrothes plant would have needed one hgv every 5 mins to run the plant on pellets,24/7 ,365 days per year.
sadly i think st andrews uni is another trading on past glories and no longer able to attain the funding it once did . the wife of a very good friend left for a far less glamorous uni further south due to the fact it actually attracted enough funding to enable her to carry out her research to the best of her abilities, attracting quality people does not seem a problem ,keeping them appears to be a different story. of course she does actual science that will have a testable benefit , not computer generated gobbledegook with all the difficult stuff missed out.

with that being the case this type of project will be right up st andrews uni's street. i can only hope that at some point someone sees sense and the project is canned. the townsfolk certainly do not like disruption so it would have to be a winter construction project , so much reliance on the lack of viner will be needed.

someone else also mentioned the road from guardbridge to st andrews is a poor road. that would depend on how much you enjoy driving/riding and what times you traveled the road. the only thing wrong with that road late on a warm summer evening is it is far too short.

Oct 21, 2015 at 10:54 PM | Unregistered Commenterbit chilly

In many films with scenes set in industrial complexes, these are the pipes, with steam coming out,, running along roads etc.

Probably steam heated pipes for moving heavy fuel oil around refineries and the plants that use it as fuel. HFO tankage has to be heated as well.

Oct 21, 2015 at 10:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterIt doesn't add up...

Golf Charlie; excuse me giving in to my anorak tendency but all German WW II tanks were petrol-powered, as were many of the other vehicles, afaik. The atrocious cold in Russia froze the lubricating oil - in planes as well as vehicles - not the fuel.

Oct 21, 2015 at 11:13 PM | Registered Commentermikeh

@jorgekafkazar

"...Or it may be sound stewardship of the University's resources." --M Courtney

i question whether sound stewardship involves "several months" to run a pipeline under a road. It sounds suspiciously like they're going to tear up the road and then build the entire system, and put the road back when they're done. Depending on the terrain, it's possible to go under a road without cutting into it. And, otherwise, you only need to have the road torn up long enough to put in the pieces of pipe passing under it, a matter of days. Something doesn't add up.

You beat me to it, I was going to post similar. Road closed for "months" to lay a pipe across beneath road is ridiculous.

@golf charlie

Rough ball park, bag of a fag packet ......

2 pipes, 1 flow, 1 return each a foot (300mm) n diam, with 6 inches (150mm) of insulation, requires a trench able to hold 2 tubes 2 foot (600mm) diam, with the ability to access and maintain, plus the 2 walls of the trench, both 150 wide.

At no cost or inconvenience to the highways agency, it is cheaper and quicker to shut the road, as one carriageway will be taken up for the construction, and a second for materials delivery.

Increased costs to local business, reidents and road users are not considered by the client.

There are no acquistion costs for the pipes route. As it is for the good of the planet, it would be selfish and greedy of anyone to charge, or profit out of a Green Scheme, unless their unreasonable charges were part of the scheme as subsidised by the taxpayer.

Still should not take "months".

Day 1
20:00 hrs: Close North-bound lane, dig 6 feet* wide trench, install shuttering and rebar/mesh for walls and roof, pour concrete, place metal sheet over trench.
07:00 hrs: open lane

Day 2
Repeat for South-bound lane

Day x
20:00 hrs: Close North-bound lane, remove metal sheet, re-instate asphalt road surface
01:00 hrs: open lane
02:00 hrs: Close South-bound lane, remove metal sheet, re-instate asphalt road surface
07:00 hrs: open lane


* Pipes stacked vertically, to provide 2 feet space on both sides for any very rare maintance - oil/gas pipes don't have maintenance space, why is this different?

@Fiend's Brave Victim

I'm a gas/heating engineer of 15 years, long time reader but comment virgin. Last summer I worked on a contract for E-On after they boobed up on the specification of a few thousand Heat Interface Units on multiple district-heated newbuild sites across London. (They boobed up countrywide actually, but I only worked on the London ones.) This is the new big thing in residential construction, and if I'm not mistaken any project over a certain number of properties is required to put district systems in by law as of next year.

Lots of problems: there was a large demonstration by residents on one of our sites over very high bills

Similar thing in Leith, Edinburgh. Residents were promised cheap heating, bills were extortinate.

Oct 21, 2015 at 11:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterPcar

Isn't digging coal out of a hole and then transporting it to town where it is used for fires a form of district heating? If I am right then perhaps we should try that...what could possibly go wrong?

Oct 21, 2015 at 11:31 PM | Unregistered CommenterDannyL

mikeh, I accept your better knowledge of German tank engines! Oil, whether in engines as lubricant or fuel, waxes. As does hydraulic fluid. Engines are reluctant to start when batteries are cold and lubricating oil too viscous. If they do start, engine wear is excessive until lube oil has reached a temperature to be pumped adequately. The German military machine, stopped, as did it's road transport

Users of Russian built military hardware into the 90's would pour wax resistant hydraulic fluids into partially hollowed out loaves of bread, stood on end, with a very small hole in the bottom. Given some time, alcohol would drip out of the hole. It may not have improved their fighting ability, but maintained their spirits, at the correct blood concentration. I declined the offer to try it for myself, and these were survivors of the conflict and drink, 15 years later.

Oct 22, 2015 at 12:05 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

GC, when I first encountered a petrol pump in the US Pacific North West that was serving 10% ethanol/petrol, my chemist brain immediately kicked in. "Hang on", I thought, "This isn't industrial methylated spirits. At this price, I think I know a way to make this economically drinkable." I wouldn't be surprised if someone is doing it.

But I stray off-topic.

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:03 AM | Unregistered Commentermichael hart

michael hart, running moonshine about and evading the law was the origin of some US motorsport. I am not sure whether they didn't hide the moonshine in the petrol and find that the cars then performed better, than hiding the moonshine in the drivers.

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:23 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Most of the large buildings in Manhattan are heated by district heating from steam generated in power plants on the island. Leaks from the system account for the steam clouds seen on the streets in winter. Using waste heat from power plants is efficient because you have to dump the excess heat from the process somewhere (e.g. cooling towers, etc). So yes it is economical as others have said.

One further point, the system might not be a closed loop, but only take water in at the plant and dump it at the other end so only one set of pipes would be needed.

Oct 22, 2015 at 2:45 AM | Unregistered CommenterEli Rabett

"the world’s first carbon neutral university."

Given that all life is carbon based, that presumably means no staff or students. Perfect solution.

Oct 22, 2015 at 4:14 AM | Registered Commenterdavidchappell

Watchman said "you do realise that biomass grows".

Yes, indeed it does. However, the big but is that it cannot grow faster than it is burnt. Consequently, using biomass for fuel is explicitly unsustainable.

Oct 22, 2015 at 4:20 AM | Registered Commenterdavidchappell

It sure looks like investing in wood pellet making companies might be worthwhile for the short term.

1) They're going to close down and tear up a road.
1a) How much are new roads going for in England?
1b) Are there plans to use any of the 'heat' to keep the road snow/ice free?

Redbone uses a ConEd (Consolidated Edison) calculator to estimate a rough per building heating cost with oil, £71,273 pounds per building.
The only 'cheaper' alternative to oil as a fuel is natural gas. Is the University of St Andrews planning on fracking and calling the resulting gas as 'biomass'?

Once one adds in the increased costs for the 'eco-looney' fuel, I seriously doubt that Redbone's estimates are high. Low is more likely.

New road.
New heating plant.
New fuel that is not easy to transport.
New plumbing along the road.
Likely new plumbing for most of each building.

I seriously doubt that the new biomass plant includes plans for cooling the University if the weather turns hot.

Has anybody bothered to test the water they're drinking at that University?

Oct 22, 2015 at 4:54 AM | Unregistered CommenterATheoK

Michael Hurt & Golf Charlie:
Nascar is the racing sport you're thinking of.

I believe that any ethanol distilled in America that is not directly destined for libation is required to be 'denatured'; e.g. methylated spirits as Michael mentions. The concept is to prevent innovative thinkers and chemists circumventing paying their alcoholic beverage taxes.

Rabbit guy:
Most of Manhattan? Well, down to 96th street.

The steam supplied to residents of Manhattan was a method to utilize heat resulting from power generation.

I doubt that University of St. Andrews plans to build a giant biomass power generation plant; selling electricity to unsuspecting residents while using waste heat for the University. Certainly not without locking in some seriously huge incentives guaranteed by the government.

The University could build a steel foundry and utilize the waste heat therein? Nah, too logical with too many benefits for the country. Nor is biomass a legitimate fuel for smelting/melting steel.

It does bring up a question. What are the back up plans?

Oct 22, 2015 at 5:40 AM | Unregistered CommenterATheoK

The heat generation and energy transfer will work well enough, I guess.

The problem is someone better be replanting the trees.
And understanding, that in temperate climes, it will be 30 years until the new tree has stored as much carbon as was released by the burning of the original tree.

It would make far more sense to burn a 'tree's worth' of coal, leave the original tree standing AND plant a new tree somewhere.

I spoke to a CDM advisor the other day who mentioned that he was also consulting to a company which was pelletizing mangroves here in SE Asia, and shipping the pellets to Japan to meet renewable energy project requirements there.
He quietly agreed that it was mind-bogglingly impractical and pointless.

Oct 22, 2015 at 7:55 AM | Unregistered Commentermarkx

While having to do heat loss calculations for my house that I built in 2000, I idly used the tables for stone to calculate how thick a castle wall would have to be, made entirely of stone, to achieve the same heat-loss as modern building regulations require. A couple of meters was all it took.

Burying pipes 2 meter or more underground would be entirely adequate.

Two other bits of physics are available to help ensure low heat loss - pipe diameter and flow rate.

The earth is so large it still hasn't cooled down. (excluding radioactive stuff inside) Large spherical means low surface to volume ratios.

So heatloss is proportional to insulation which is broadly how deep the pipe is buried, and pipe surface area. In te cas of a pipe the larger it is the more heat-loss yes, but the amount of heat in the pipe itself is volume related and so increased more rapidly, so percentage heatloss is reduced.

Finally a given pipe at a given temperature in a given amount of insulation loses energy at a given rate irrespective of how fast the heat containing fluid is circulating: higher flow rates improve the energy transferred for this invariant loss, and thus improve efficiency.

So its all very calculable and soluble if they were to ask an engineer, but these days, who knows where to find one?

Oct 22, 2015 at 7:59 AM | Unregistered CommenterLeo Smith

District heating schemes are sensible, especially when using waste heat from industrial manufacturing. See "The efficient use of steam" from 1947 by Oliver Lyle of Tate & Lyle.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Efficient-Steam-Oliver-Lyle/dp/B0006ARQ7E

Oliver Lyle was managing director of a London sugar refinery but also a highly compentent works engineer. After the Second World War, Britain was caught between fuel shortages and economic growth, and Lyle, who had served on wartime committees for the Ministry of Fuel and Power, was commissioned to write the bible of industrial energy efficiency - which in those days meant efficient use of steam.

It is brilliant, mixing anecdote with theory and practical advice in a way which makes the subject very approachable. It inspired me in my career as an energy engineer and writer on the subject. Two favourite bits for me: one where he is challenging received wisdom on the operation of boiling pans, and decides to prove his point by running the entire plant differently over a whole weekend; and the other where he is suspicious of some meter readings he is trying to analyse, and rather tetchily complains that the staff must have been 'too busy clearing up bomb damage to bother taking proper readings'.

I purchased my eleventh impression 1974 copy, sourced from the Esso Technical Dept Library at Milford Haven.

See also: http://www.theade.co.uk/what-is-district-heating_191.html

Oct 22, 2015 at 9:05 AM | Registered Commenterperry

I wish UK gas fitters wouldn't call themselves engineers. It's not allowed anywhere else in the world.

Oct 22, 2015 at 9:11 AM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG

Pcar golf Charlie et al,
Not to labour my previous point(s).
The only reason for all this nonsense of unreliable power/heat generation, apart from greenie points, is that it is being paid for by the taxpayer.
St Andrews is a very pleasant medium sized town at the very tip of coastal Fife.
Before being destroyed/desecrated by the Calvinistic Taliban it was considered the Eceliastical capital of Scotland with its oldest established university, magnificent Catherdal and sundry infrastructure.
Upon the invention of golf it's Old Course became recognised as one of the original Links.
Nowadays with its 7 or 8 golf courses and the headquarters of Golfs governing body (outside the US and Canada), the R and A, golf generates up to £50 million a year, such is the desire to add it to golfers 'bucket lists'
Sadly the greedy local council of Fife whilst taking the money have not upgraded this pissy single track potholed windy road into St Andrews in over 100 years. It should be pointed out the ONLY access road into St Andrews from the main population centres.
So the idea of using 'both carriageway' during the construction of this white elephant is a bad joke.
Whilst it might be 'a nice drive' in a summer evening, you should try it during the peak golf season.
As mentioned previously the only reason this site became available (for a pittance) was because the previous paper mill was forced to relocate to the far East due to sky high energy prices mandated by the British government to "save the planet from global warming"

Oct 22, 2015 at 9:51 AM | Unregistered Commenterwaterside4

Maybe good for biodiversity - as in this cartoon from the satirical Soviet-era magazine Krokodil...

"Let's spend the winter here, on this heating pipe..."

Oct 22, 2015 at 10:05 AM | Registered CommenterRuth Dixon

Presumably the road is unusable for so long because the pipe is not to cross it, but to run under it along the whole length of the road?

Oct 22, 2015 at 10:34 AM | Unregistered Commenterosseo

Yes Lasso

Oct 22, 2015 at 10:46 AM | Unregistered Commenterwaterside4

When they resurface the road, will they be using biodegradable, non petrochemical tarmac?

From comments above, it would seem that the Highways Agency will be very happy for someone else to rebuild the road on concrete foundations about 1000mm deep. Any escaping heat or steam will reduce the amount of salt and grit required in winter.

If only one pipe is used to deliver heat, without a return, St Andrews could build some frost free tropical greenhouses, so that students will not have to buy imported fruit when the Gulf Stream stops, as has been widely forecast by global warming alarmists. Does anyone know where the heat will go, when the Gulf Stream is turned off? Trenberth with all his expertise, should be asked, so we can all have a laugh.

In climate science, missing heat is turned into money, which then appears in climate scientist's bank accounts.

Oct 22, 2015 at 11:22 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Ref Bishop Hill update

There is a big carbon footprint in transporting all these trees, by ship and lorry. Couldn't they use some of their surplus hot air to inflate freight carrying balloons, so the trees could be towed by a Tesla or Prius? It could become a major tourist attraction, outside the golf spectator season.

Oct 22, 2015 at 12:48 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

There is a handy heat loss calculator at

http://www.engineersedge.com/heat_transfer/heatlossinsulatedpipe/heat_loss_insulated_pipe_equation_and_calculator_13169.htm

Its certainly possible to do this, district heating stations are quite common and waste heat from Battersea Power Station was piped around much of the local area. With the closure of the power station a new district heating plant was built on the Churchill Gardens Estate and was revamped in 2006.

The installation efficiently generates 51GWh of heat and 16GWh of electricity per year using natural gas and incorporates a large thermal storage system to average out heat supply. This is a pretty low tech/low cost solution being little more than a large well insulated storage tank for hot water which can be pumped into the heating system. Overall efficiencies are high and running costs very competitive for both electricity and heat.

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:08 PM | Unregistered CommenterKeith Willshaw

"90 per cent recovered wood waste"

Has it been unwell? 1350 tonnes a day sounds rather a lot. Howcome Drax don't want it..?

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:16 PM | Registered Commenterjamesp

I note with some amusement that the original plan was to use Coal Seam Gas but apparently its greener to ship wood across the Atlantic than use methane seeping out of coal seams.

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:18 PM | Unregistered CommenterKeith Willshaw

"towed by a Tesla"

I wonder that that would do to the range? I might take them seriously when they make tractors as well. After all, Lamborghini do...

Link

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:20 PM | Registered Commenterjamesp

jamesp, Lamborghini started with agricultural machinery. Mr Lambo had a bit of an argument with Mr Ferrari, over the reliability of his cars, and decided to show him how to build an Italian sports car that was reliable. Trying to produce climate science with a track record of reliability, has encountered similar problems.

Tesla would only require another billion dollars of tax payer funds, to produce an electric truck with the power and range of a 1960s diesel truck.

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:59 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

I have a real "heartburn" over the idea of burning trees instead of coal to lower carbon dioxide, when its trees that remove the carbon dioxide from the air. The concept just never has made any damn sense to me,

Oct 22, 2015 at 2:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterTom O

DH seems to work here in my neck of the woods in Sweden.
http://www.res-h-policy.eu/downloads/Swedish_district_heating_case-study_(D5)_final.pdf

Oct 22, 2015 at 8:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterPaul in Sweden

Oct 21, 2015 at 5:15 PM | golf Charlie

Thanks for ruining my day by indirectly referring to the execrable Heidi Cullen. I could possibly have avoided the bad taste in my mouth by not anglicising the spelling: in Icelandic it is Hellisheiði with the letter eth not d.

Oct 22, 2015 at 10:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterBilly Liar

Why don't they just divert the gas main that will be installed into the biomass boiler to the university itself and have that run a large boiler or two to heat the buildings.The gas main is used to start the actual burning of the biomass and i have been informed is used more or less continuously after the biomass is burning,i installed a 6 or 8 inch main on a biomass boiler near Durham a few years ago.

Oct 22, 2015 at 11:03 PM | Unregistered Commentermarc

marc, you are being to logical. Anyway, St Andrews do not want to burn methane anywhere near themselves, when grants and subsidies can pay for it to be 4 miles away. In the Green economy, everything is sustainable, if someone else is paying for it.

Oct 23, 2015 at 2:15 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

What can I say. Cutting down a forest to create wood blocks for burning on the other side of an ocean is crass stupidity. But the stupidity extends to the consumer of these blocks as well who are brainwashed into using this exotic fuel when cheap coal is available. The problem is that the global warming movement has inculcated the world with the belief that carbon dioxide from coal burning will cook us while carbon dioxide from wood burning is just benign recycling. May I point out here that carbon dioxide from any source is just carbon dioxide, period, and it does what it does without permission from pseudo-scientific nitwits.

Fact is that scientists have also examined the situation and have come to the conclusion that carbon dioxide in the air does not warm the atmosphere. Put as much of it into air as you like and temperature does not change.This is what the hiatus experimentally confirms. And this is also what Miskolczi greenhouse theory tells us. Even if you double CO2 the temperature still will not change. The latter fact sets the value of what they like to call "climate sensitivity" to zero.

You do not need maths to see all this - the existence of the so-called "warming pause" or "hiatus" is sufficient proof. The global warming gang is well aware of this and are fighting tooth and nail to undo it. Several papers denying the hiatus are based on nothing but falsified temperature curves. They have also written more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles purporting to prove that the hiatus does not exist. I don't even know how to take the peer review part when the reviewer and the author are both ignorant of the subject. Of course they have not succeeded because they start out with pseudo-scientific premises.

They are searching for that "lost heat" everywhere, including the ocean bottom, but have come up with nothing. The obvious simply escaped them, namely that it absconded into outer space as radiant heat. The key observation is easy to understand. The Keeling curve shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide has been and still is increasing. At the same time, the global temperature remains the same. Now it happens that the Arrhenius greenhouse theory, the one IPCC uses to forecast future temperatures, requires that when carbon dioxide increases the global temperature must also increase in step with it. This has not happened for 18 years. Clearly this is not an occasional deviation but proof of a systemic error of theory.

The Arrhenius theory has made a decidedly wrong prediction and belongs in the waste basket of history. IPCC has had another greenhouse theory in hand since 2007 but they have refused to use it. It is called MGT (Miskolczi greenhouse theory). They simply did not like its predictions, particularly those relating to water vapor. According to MGT, carbon dioxide and water vapor, both greenhouse gases, form a joint absorption window in the infrared whose optical thickness is 1.87. Miskolci showed in 2010 that the IR optical thickness of the Earth's atmosphere is invariant when the amount of carbon dioxide is increased, even if doubled. If you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere anytime this will of course increase its optical thickness. But as soon as it happens water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored.

The added carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing but the reduction of water vapor has lowered the total absorption in their joint absorption window and no warming is possible. To an outside observer, the atmospheric carbon dioxide increases but there is no parallel increase of warming. And that is exactly what our climate has been doing for the last 18 years. It is this stretch of no-warming that these anti-hiatus papers are aimed at.

But there is more to it. Unbeknownst to all these anti-hiatusists there was another period of no-warming in the eighties and nineties. It lasted from 1979 to 1997, an 18 year stretch like the current one. I discovered it in 2008 while using satellite data for research. But when I went to cross check with NASA I found that they had disappeared it. In its place was a fake warming they called "late twentieth century warming." It does not exist. There is no chance that they did this accidentally because I have proof that NASA knew about the lack of warming in 1997.just in case you did not know, the boss at NASA was James Hansen himself.

With two hiatuses to handle instead of one it is now very hard for these papers to prove that hiatuses do not exist. Jointly the two hiatuses cover almost all of the temperature curve during the satellite era that started in 1979, super El Nino excluded. This makes the last 36* years greenhouse free.

IPCC itself was established in 1988, specifically to study human-caused global warming. It follows that during the entire time it has existed there has been no anthropogenic greenhouse warming it could use to study or observe.

[*Figure corrected by request. TM]

Oct 23, 2015 at 3:20 AM | Unregistered CommenterArno Arrak

Typo correction for second to last paragraph on October 23rd: it should be 36 years, not 18 years as shown. Arno

Oct 23, 2015 at 2:20 PM | Unregistered CommenterArno Arrak

@JamesG Sorry I offended you. You're welcome to come and join us in the 21st century when you've put a shilling in the meter and got your pilot relit.

Oct 23, 2015 at 4:54 PM | Unregistered CommenterFiend's Brave Victim

Surely "wood waste" going to landfill will be biodegraded pretty quickly? I think it's called composting or similar -- you know, that natural process that's been going on for quite a few years and without which none of us would be here. Why would you send "wood waste" to landfill? Surely it should be recycled.

Oct 26, 2015 at 12:39 PM | Unregistered CommenterPeter Ward

This is truly helping and informative post you shared with us.

Apr 1, 2021 at 11:58 AM | Unregistered Commentergilsulate

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