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On Insurance Industry Ill-Prepared for Climate Change Risks and Impacts
The problem is the accumulation of ocean heat.
Deal with it or be prepared to deal with the consequences.
On Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
Robert probably not the best metaphor
You are of course right, things can and likely will get worse. My interest however is in reversing the 75 feet and preventing getting us to 600 ppm. The approaches I offer would make a significant dent in this over the hundreds of years it will take to get to 75 feet SLR and would provide all of the carbon free energy we need in the meantime thus halting the erosion.
Current estimates are conventional OTEC could provide as much as 25 terawatts/year as opposed to the 16 consumed currently. With patent pending counter-current heat transfer system this would be the lower limit.
I also live in British Columbia where in places we get over 10 feet of rain/year thanks to Nature's own desalination efforts. Unfortunately most of this runs right back into the ocean whereas it could be providing relief and restocking aquifers south of us. See Canada and the US: Sea-Level Rise vs. Keystone XL
This is the kind of low hanging fruit that can start us addressing the SLR problem.
On Offshore Wind Energy Grows in Great Lakes, But Not in Ontario
Can any energy development really protect the environment?
Yes!
The more OTEC energy produced, the more the oceans are cooled. A closed cycle using a heatpipe and counter-current heat recovery overcomes the environmental issues associated with the conventional approach.
On Secretary of Energy for a Leaner DOE?
John, the Subductive Waste Disposal Method was considered the state-of-the-art and most viable reponse to the nuclear waste problem. Had it not been buried in the bulldozing effort to push through Yucca Mountain, nuclear power might well be a lot further ahead.
On Secretary of Energy for a Leaner DOE?
Methane leaks erode green credentials of natural gas"Losses of up to 9% show need for broader data on US gas industry’s environmental impact."
Geoff, NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory lends credence to Howarth.
On Oil Prices and Reaching Debt Limits
Rick, Joe Romm and Charles Curtis weren't far off on this 17 years ago. Mideast Oil Forever?
In 1996 they said, "Persian Gulf nations' oil revenues are likely to almost triple, from $90 billion a year today to $250 billion a year in 2010--a huge geopolitical power shift of great concern, especially since some analysts predict increasing internal and regional pressure on Saudi Arabia to alter its pro-Western stance. This represents a $1.5 trillion increase in wealth for Persian Gulf producers over the next decade and a half."
That thought galled me then and makes me no less angry today.
See all the pretty buildings in Dubai.
What a waste.
On US Now Leads in Energy Waste
Sarah not only are we wasting heat, we are not addressing the real climate issue; the 330 terawatts of heat/year accumulating in the oceans. Unless you convert some of this to work (in accordance with the Laws of Thermodynamics) you are doing nothing for the entropy/enthalpy situation. You can claim to be doing something with nuclear or fusion but all you are doing is increasing waste heat by a factor of two for every unit of power produced. Conventional solar or wind only maintains the status quo with respect to production.
All energy wastes heat with use.
On Forget Tar Sands: Canadian Hydropower Can Help US
Time to revive the North American Water and Power Alliance. It would generate 70 million kilowatts of power; 38 million for the U.S., 30 million for Canada and 2 million for Mexico. It would also deliver 120 million acre-feet of water annually; 78 million to the U.S., 22 million to Canada, and 20 million to Mexico.
Joe Romm, meet Lyndon LaRouche.
On New Carbon Capture Catalyst Discovered
Interesting Steven, I am in confrontation with US patent examiner on this issue.
When the bathtub is full, a 1 mm addition ends up on the floor.
On Mental Model for Managing CO2 Emissions
CO2 issue is only addressed by two approaches – either leaving the fossil fuel in the ground forever or using the fossil fuel and returning the CO2 to the ground via CCS - FALSE
Land based photosynthesis extracts close to a net 60 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere each year, Kansas State University Soil Carbon Center. Ergo increase land based photosynthesis in places such as deserts which can also sequester much of the excess water the oceans are accumulating.
Increased food, fuel and fibre for the 10 billion expected by 2050.
On Thawing of Siberian Permafrost Could Speed Up Cimate Change
"The poles are warming faster than the rest of the planet largely as a result of energy in the atmosphere being transported through large weather systems." NASA
This same energy has the alternative potential to produce at least 25 terawatts of carbon-free, constant, renewable energy.
This is an existential problem and a solution that can save us from Armageddon.
On Insurance Industry Ill-Prepared for Climate Change Risks and Impacts
Robin, risk-aversion seems to be endemic to big business.
As an innovator, I am acutely aware this is stultifying and has a way of backfiring. To wit the Fukushima disaster where the cause could have as easily been, and had been offered 20 years earlier as the same, the solution to the waste problem. NIMBY in British Columbia resounded in the province becoming the first to recieve Fukushima's fallout. Although this was not derived from spent fuel, that remains a signifanct source of risk.
Every day we delay in addressing the climate issue the consequences increase.