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Bishop Hill Sep 30, 2012 COmmenting is playing up somewhat. I have a support ticket in, so with a bit of luck it will be resolved soon.
If your comment doesn't seem to post, please check in another browser window to see if it has appeared rather than reposting. I think they are going through but the server is not telling the browser that it's done.
Bishop Hill Sep 30, 2012 Energy: gas Charles Clover, writing in the Sunday Times (paywalled) seems to have a different understanding of the UK's shale resource to me:
Despite Tory hopes, the most optimistic estimates suggest there will be only enough shale gas — home-fracked or imported — to satisfy 15% of demand in a decade’s time, and we are likely to need that for industry and to heat our homes, not to generate electricity. The Tory frackers should reflect that it is their own rural Nimbys who are likely to ensure fracking moves more slowly on this crowded island than in the US.
This report from a year or two ago seems to suggest something very different.
He's right about the nimbies though.
Bishop Hill Sep 30, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Emily Shuckburgh, who was much discussed here a year or so ago, has written a report about communication of climate science to the public - how well it has gone so far and what can be done to make it better.
The study shows that while a substantial majority of the UK public believe the world’s climate is changing, many feel relatively uninformed about, or uninterested in, the findings of climate science, and a sizable minority do not trust climate scientists to tell the truth about climate change.
This seems fair enough to me. I wonder though if the report might have been better to say "some climate scientists", since even rabid sceptics like me do not think all climatologists are dishonest.
Bishop Hill Sep 29, 2012 Climate: WG2 I missed last week's Dara report, which took the long-since-debunked 300,000 global warming deaths figure, upped it a great deal, and stuck it out on the airwaves to see if the media were interested. By and large they were.
Bjorn Lomborg has responded with a withering analysis of the report's failures, exaggerations and outright deception.
September 26 was a triumph for public relations. An organization called DARA launched a report called "Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2nd Edition. A Guide to the Cold Calculus of a Hot Planet." The study, sponsored by 20 countries, projected some astoundingly large impacts from climate change, both on the number of deaths and the economic impacts. The report has produced a media heyday for climate alarmism, but is a house of cards built on dubious analysis and erroneous claims.
Bishop Hill Sep 28, 2012 Climate: Parliament Climate: other The BBC's FOI correspondent Martin Rosenbaum has persuaded DECC to unredact part of the FOI release about Climategate that we discussed here the other day. The document was the one which was noted for (a) its appalling standards of literacy and (b) that it was written all in capital letters. Rosenbaum reveals that it was written by the then head of climate science at DECC, Nafees Meah. The particular extract was this:
It was recently reported in the Sunday Times that Professor Phil Jones, who’s been at the centre of the firestorm, actually contemplated sucide after his experience of sustained pillory by the media – indeed, redacted redacted George Mombiot demanded his head on a plate in the Guardian.
The words redacted were "the saintly".
Bishop Hill Sep 28, 2012 Energy: gas Energy: wind Mark Lynas The defence of windfarms put forward by Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall, which was discussed a couple of days ago, has now had a response from Gordon Hughes. Hughes is less than impressed with the two greens' table manners:
A final note on civility. After my GWPF report on the economics of wind power, Mark Lynas contacted me by email with a substantial number of requests for elucidation and additional data. I replied promptly and at considerable length. He is entitled to take a different view of the evidence and to reach different conclusions about the impact of further investment in wind power on future emissions of CO2. However, it is neither courteous nor constructive in the broader context to create a straw man that is supposed to represent my position when I have provided detailed analysis and arguments that are clearly different. It is an elementary precept of both journalism and academic enquiry to check whether the views presented are accurate. No attempt has been made to carry out such checks in this case.
He seems even less impressed with their analysis of the electricity grid:
[T]he Goodall-Lynas evidence is incomplete. It relies upon data about the plants which are supplying electricity to the grid. It takes no account of the CO2 emissions of plants that are operating as spinning reserve. For simplicity, let us suppose that all spinning reserve is provided by gas combined cycle plants (CCGTs). If changes in wind output are balanced by changes in the level of spinning reserve, then the total amount of gas that is burned – and, thus, CO2 emissions – is completely independent of change in wind output. In terms of the Goodall-Lynas evidence, higher levels of wind generation displace gas generation one-for-one. But, there is absolutely no saving in CO2 emissions because the gas plants carry on running as before but they are just feeding less electricity into the grid. The reason for the error is that their figures take no account of what is happening in the parts of the electricity system that they have ignored.
There's much more in this vein. Read the whole thing - it will cheer you up no end.
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2012 Energy: gas The Confederation of British Industry has long been the smarter-suited twin brother of the Labour party, voicing endless calls for corporate welfare and cushy government contracts in parallel with the socialists' demands for "benefits" and jobs for the boys.
John Cridland, the latest man to head the organisation, is perhaps greener tinged than many of his predecessors and his speech to the Liberal Democrat conference touched on some of these areas. Although much of it involved the usual calls for investment (see "corporate welfare and cushy government contracts" above) he also found time to repeat that rather strange meme about the impact of shale gas in the UK:
New build can't be 100 per cent nuclear and renewables. To close the supply gap in time we will need some gas. Gas can be built relatively quickly and cheaply, and has roughly half the carbon emissions of coal. Even the government's carbon watchdog, the Committee on Climate Change, recognises the need for some new gas to be built between now and 2020.
But we know the new build can't be 100 per cent gas either. Too much gas would bust our carbon budgets. But even if you forgot about carbon momentarily, look at European gas price projections. They all disagree on the number, but they all agree on the direction: up! European shale will help, but not on a US scale.
As I've pointed out before, it is said that European shale will not affect gas prices as they have in the US essentially because of government policy decisions. Whether UK gas prices come down is therefore simply a question of whether Ed Davey actually gives two hoots about poor people in the UK.
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2012 Blogs Also new in the blogroll is the blog of regular BH commenter Geoff Chambers. Do take a look at his most recent post.
“It’s … not … sustainable …” He gasped, emitting CO2 in short hot pants.
With a final groan he rolled over, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
“Darling, must you wear those when we make love? A little cross dressing is one thing, but pink frills – it’s so kitsch”.
“They belonged to my mother. She taught me to recycle everything”.
“Well you’d better not wear them to the Television studio. And for Gaia’s sake don’t say anything bad about Green”.
Thomas grunted. He’d wear what he bloody well like. Who would know, under his designer jeans? No-one, except that cute little assistant personal assistant’s assistant of Paxo’s, if he got the chance, after the interview.
Bishop Hill Sep 27, 2012 Climate: WG2 A new entry in the blogroll is Polar Bear Science
Here you’ll find polar bear science without advocacy, fearmongering or spin. Most importantly, there will be no predictions about the future of polar bears!
I am a zoologist with more than 35 years experience, including published work on the Holocene history of Arctic animals. I am currently an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
Sounds good to me.
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2012 Climate: Models Energy: gas The BBC's Material World programme today looked at the climate models. The show featured Brian Hoskins and Corinne Le Quere. An excerpt of the show is below.
There are some interesting comments from these climate scientists about the credibility of economic models as well as on the impact of slow warming (not much) as opposed to extreme events (much more).
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2012 Climate: WG3 Energy: wind There is lots of excitement among greens this morning over an article by Mark Lynas, which purports to show that wind farms do not increase carbon emissions.
From analysing National Grid data of more than 4,000 half-hour periods over the last three months, a strong correlation between windiness and a reduction in gas-fired generation becomes clear. The exchange rate is about one for one: a megawatt hour of wind typically meant the UK grid used one less megawatt hour of gas-derived electricity. This means that actual CO2 savings can be calculated from the data with a high degree of accuracy – these are not guesstimates from models, but observations of real-world data.
Bishop Hill Sep 26, 2012 Energy: biofuels Insanity is a possibility, but more likely this is just the great law of unintended consequences - so often a feature of well-meaning politicians. Drax, a major UK energy generator is about to convert one of its major power stations to burn wood. Since wood is categorised as a renewable energy source this plan will enable them to escape the EU's strictures against fossil fuels.
Drax Group Plc will spend $1 billion to turn the U.K.’s biggest coal-fired plant into western Europe’s largest clean- energy producer. The U.K. utility plans to convert one of the facility’s six units to burn wood pellets by June, Chief Executive Officer Dorothy Thompson said in an interview. Drax at a later date plans to switch over two more units to the fuel, investments that if completed would mean the facility harvests a forest four times the size of Rhode Island each year.
Bishop Hill Sep 25, 2012 Energy: wind Readers will remember the UN ruling that Ireland's energy policies were non-compliant with the Aarhus Convention, a point that was somewhat moot since Ireland had not actually ratified the convention anyway.
However, the implications of the ruling were clear for the EU. Nation states are not able to plough on with policies that are alleged to deal with climate change without the consultations that are mandated by the convention. A test case, put before them by Christine Metcalfe, a community councillor from Taynuilt in Argyll, has now been accepted by UNECE. Her "communication", the questions that UNECE require her and the UK government to answer, together with her response can be seen on the UNECE website. The UK government reponse is due in the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, the government and planning authorities around the country are in a quandary. The earlier ruling would appear to mean that the UK's headlong rush for wind power is illegal. Would responsible public authorities give the go-ahead to any more wind farms until the UNECE has ruled on the Metcalfe case? We will have to see. Judgement is expected in the middle of next year.
Bishop Hill Sep 25, 2012 Climate: HSI Climate: Mann Climate: Models 
New York Times blogger Nate Silver has a book on forecasting riding high in the Amazon US charts at the moment. The Signal and the Noise is a survey of forecasting, and looks to be thoroughly entertaining. I've asked the publisher for a review copy.
Unfortunately, Silver has stumbled into the murky world of climate prediction, and has incurred the wrath of Michael E Mann, who has printed a lengthy critique at Think Progress. It's a lot milder than your normal Mannian critique, but includes many of the normal tactics. His invoking Silver's training at the University of Chicago as a cause for concern almost defies belief:
Nate Silver was trained in the Chicago school of Economics, famously characterized by its philosophy of free market fundamentalism. In addition to courses from Milton Friedman, Nate might very well have taken a course from University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, known largely for his provocative 2005 book Freakonomics and its even more audacious 2009 sequel Super Freakonomics.
Silver sounds deeply frustrated, saying that Mann's piece is not a fair critique of what he wrote. I guess he should have read The Hockey Stick Illusion before deciding that Mann was the go-to guy.
The Signal and the Noise can be bought at Amazon US. It will be published in the UK in a couple of days, but they are letting you preorder the Kindle version.
Bishop Hill Sep 24, 2012 Climate: Surface There's a terrible sense of deja vu about this story (via Climate Depot):
In a September 18 video posted by NASA on its website, they admit that the Arctic cyclone, which began on August 5, “wreaked havoc on the Arctic sea ice cover" by "breaking up sea ice."
This is exactly what happened in 2007, when weeks of hype was followed by a quiet admission that the root cause of the loss of ice was winds and ocean currents. I had put the possibility that the 2012 ice loss was similarly down to factors other than global warming to Mark Brandon, a polar regions scientist. He agreed that this was very much a possibility and decried the poor coverage of the issue in the media. There can certainly be little doubt that we have only heard part of the story.
It would be interesting to see who hyped the ice loss in 2007 and who corrected their stories when the truth came out. And it would be interesting to see who hyped it again this time.
