I read that a small village in Wales, Llangattock, had won a prize from British Gas to improve their energy efficiency. The whole story is a little more complex, it involved seed funding, community organization and a contest. It is a good example of how small community led, but large organization incented, change can create positive change. Here is a report about that uses Llangattock as an example of community led change in the wake of what these authors believe - "it is clear that both centralised state activity and unfettered markets are flawed when it come to achieving deeply embedded social change". Full report here:
http://tinyurl.com/3exoqvf
The key phrase here is "flawed", i.e. central activity and markets are not totally dismissed, but they are not sufficient nor perhaps even structured appropriately.
The story of the Green Valleys project in Llangattock demonstrates that a diversity of efforts, ranging from high tech - solar PV and micro-hydro to low tech revivals such as traditional woodlands managment can achieve remarkable results. Here is their web site for you to explore:
http://www.llangattockgreenvalleys.org/
I was also intrigued by mention of a 'small machinery ring' as a future activity. I did a google search and found this description of the Lothian Machinery ring. Their purpose is to share expensive farm machinery since such machinery forms a large and fixed capital cost in farming.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
What I really wanted to talk about today
So, I do get it, that there are arguments that can be made about how climate change is either not happening or it's just part of the passing parade of weather, don't worry about it.
Let me give an example, the conditions or processes that can change climate are called 'forcings' and forcing can have feedback which either amplifies or attenuates the impact of the forcing. Turns out there are a lot of forcings and a lot of feedbacks.. In the recent report from the Artic council about the state of the Artic cryosphere, we find this - "Of those feedbacks expected to have strong effects, eight lead to further and/or accelerated warming, and just one leads to cooling."
Now, I could go to two different web sites and find one which used as it's 'evidence' that world is in imminent danger one or more of the positive feedbacks and another one which used the negative feedbacks as evidence that everything will be ok.
It's nice having these plausible physical explanations which can be incorporated into predictive models, but more important to me are these two facts, also embedded within the same report:
1) The intensity of feedbacks between
the cryosphere and climate are not yet
well quantified, either within the Arctic
or globally. This lends considerable
uncertainty to predictions of how much
and how fast the cryosphere and the
Arctic environment will change.
2) Model projections reported by
the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) in
2007 underestimated the rates of
change now observed in sea ice.
Ok, so there is uncertainty and the models are wrong, but what's the trend? Things are happening faster and we don't know how fast they will go or if they will slow down.
Seems like that is a pretty big question and we better find out soon. Prudent risk management behavior would be taking mitigation steps for what we do know is happening with a plan to either ramp mitigation up or close it down depending on the outcome of more research and observations.
Let me give an example, the conditions or processes that can change climate are called 'forcings' and forcing can have feedback which either amplifies or attenuates the impact of the forcing. Turns out there are a lot of forcings and a lot of feedbacks.. In the recent report from the Artic council about the state of the Artic cryosphere, we find this - "Of those feedbacks expected to have strong effects, eight lead to further and/or accelerated warming, and just one leads to cooling."
Now, I could go to two different web sites and find one which used as it's 'evidence' that world is in imminent danger one or more of the positive feedbacks and another one which used the negative feedbacks as evidence that everything will be ok.
It's nice having these plausible physical explanations which can be incorporated into predictive models, but more important to me are these two facts, also embedded within the same report:
1) The intensity of feedbacks between
the cryosphere and climate are not yet
well quantified, either within the Arctic
or globally. This lends considerable
uncertainty to predictions of how much
and how fast the cryosphere and the
Arctic environment will change.
2) Model projections reported by
the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) in
2007 underestimated the rates of
change now observed in sea ice.
Ok, so there is uncertainty and the models are wrong, but what's the trend? Things are happening faster and we don't know how fast they will go or if they will slow down.
Seems like that is a pretty big question and we better find out soon. Prudent risk management behavior would be taking mitigation steps for what we do know is happening with a plan to either ramp mitigation up or close it down depending on the outcome of more research and observations.
Follow up on the IPCC blogo-mania
I re-read my post from yesterday (that means at least one person has read my entries :) and realize that it could give the wrong impression. What I meant to say is that the content of the blogosphere reactions is political not scientific, although it claims to be about science...
The level of cross-linking and commentary triggered by Mark Lynas's single post creates a hyper-storm of content. This massive increase in information contains absolutely no increase in knowledge. From this kind of behavior, it's easy to see that after enough of these hyper-storms, finding knowledge in the sea of information get's harder. Already google searches return so much information that one has to be selective in what one chooses to follow-up on, and if you are trying to discern what is actually happening, then good luck.
Let me give a good example. Yesterday I found a youtube video of what looks to be steam release from fukushima reactor 4 that took place on June 14th. Some people called it an explosion, but I can't tell from that video what is happening. Searching the web for an explanation is nearly hopeless, the majority of links are dire warnings for which this 'explosion' is yet more proof for the point of view of the author with a link back to the youtube video.
It's easy to say that no one bothers to check facts anymore, but when it's this difficult, it's hard to see any other outcome but increased paranoia among the people who routinely plug into this stream of self-referential links. It's also easy to see how one can get the impression that the evidence for whatever you are talking about, in this case the 'explosion', is overwhelming, why I found 25 links talking about it!
The level of cross-linking and commentary triggered by Mark Lynas's single post creates a hyper-storm of content. This massive increase in information contains absolutely no increase in knowledge. From this kind of behavior, it's easy to see that after enough of these hyper-storms, finding knowledge in the sea of information get's harder. Already google searches return so much information that one has to be selective in what one chooses to follow-up on, and if you are trying to discern what is actually happening, then good luck.
Let me give a good example. Yesterday I found a youtube video of what looks to be steam release from fukushima reactor 4 that took place on June 14th. Some people called it an explosion, but I can't tell from that video what is happening. Searching the web for an explanation is nearly hopeless, the majority of links are dire warnings for which this 'explosion' is yet more proof for the point of view of the author with a link back to the youtube video.
It's easy to say that no one bothers to check facts anymore, but when it's this difficult, it's hard to see any other outcome but increased paranoia among the people who routinely plug into this stream of self-referential links. It's also easy to see how one can get the impression that the evidence for whatever you are talking about, in this case the 'explosion', is overwhelming, why I found 25 links talking about it!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
IPCC shoot's itself in foot again.
Will the IPCC loose credibility with this event described by Mark Lynas: http://www.marklynas.org/2011/06/new-ipcc-error-renewables-report-conclusion-was-dictated-by-greenpeace/ ?
I suspect so, at least among non-scientists.
You can feel the frustration in Mark Lynas's response. You see, science needs to be 100% perfect in it's communications and on the Internet. It can't make mistakes or have people associated with it that have other, non-scientific, purposes.
The majority of critics get to play by different rules than science. James Hansen has noted that policy discussions and most public discussions take place using rules of Law. Climate Change is treated as the prosecutions case and all that is needed is to create reasonable doubt in at least one of twelve juror's. In other words, critics behave as lawyers and look for flaws.
Scientists look for flaws too and often discuss all possibilities. That is why the legal approach to science criticism is so effective, your 'opponent' provides more than enough 'evidence' to create doubt and spread the impression of confusion and malfeasance in the scientists.
Mark is right about the IPCC 'blowing' this. From a scientific perspective throwing out the possibility that renewable energy can reach 80% is ok, especially if it sparks examination about that goal. But that is not what is happening, because this was not science, it was a press release. Different rules are at play here. Climate Change, for the public, is a propaganda war now, not a scientific exercise.
I suspect so, at least among non-scientists.
You can feel the frustration in Mark Lynas's response. You see, science needs to be 100% perfect in it's communications and on the Internet. It can't make mistakes or have people associated with it that have other, non-scientific, purposes.
The majority of critics get to play by different rules than science. James Hansen has noted that policy discussions and most public discussions take place using rules of Law. Climate Change is treated as the prosecutions case and all that is needed is to create reasonable doubt in at least one of twelve juror's. In other words, critics behave as lawyers and look for flaws.
Scientists look for flaws too and often discuss all possibilities. That is why the legal approach to science criticism is so effective, your 'opponent' provides more than enough 'evidence' to create doubt and spread the impression of confusion and malfeasance in the scientists.
Mark is right about the IPCC 'blowing' this. From a scientific perspective throwing out the possibility that renewable energy can reach 80% is ok, especially if it sparks examination about that goal. But that is not what is happening, because this was not science, it was a press release. Different rules are at play here. Climate Change, for the public, is a propaganda war now, not a scientific exercise.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wow - Donald Trump
So, I have not posted in months, but I saw George Stephanopoulos's interview this morning. Apparently Mr. Trump thinks that we can threaten the worlds suppliers of oil to lower their price and/or increase their production ( to lower the price) by withdrawing US military protection. I think that whether or not we can afford to provide a military presence around the world, let alone in the Persian Gulf, is a good thing to discuss. But the consequences for world oil supply are not going to be that simple.
Sure, I think that if the US chooses to act as a financial trader and ruthlessly manipulate the oil markets even to the extent of invoking our military, prices could go down, but only for a while......they could also go up, way up! But just a spike way up. That's because I think there is some evidence that the world economy and oil prices are in a balancing act. We have reached the point where serious price escalation reduces demand, high prices create a recession and that keeps demand tamped down which creates oil surplus which lowers the price and given other macro economic conditions we can start pulling out of the recession, increase demand and start the whole thing over again....
You can read about this at Robert Rapier's consumer energy blog and also find pointers to other economic analysis. Robert call's this phenomena the "long recession'.
And yet another problem we face is that any surplus that is created by OECD demand destruction is consumed by the rest of world, leaving little surplus for us to build future growth on. Here is a sobering analysis by Jeffrey J. Brown over at the The Oil Drum (handle: westexas): In 2005, the top 33 oil exporting countries in the world produced 62.2 mbpd (million barrels per day) and exported 46 mbpd, that means they consumed, internally in their country about 26% of production. China and India imported 11% of what was exported. In 2009, those same countries produced 60.3 mbpd, consumed 17.5 mppd (about 27.5%), exported 42.8 mbpd and China and India imported 17% of that!
Note two things there, the producing countries are slowly consuming more of their production and the great growth rates in China and India are consuming a ever higher fraction of world oil exports.
So how can this be? How can 2 countries which are considerably poorer per capita than the US be able to afford the oil that we can't afford!
First, is it really true that we in the US are consuming less crude oil? In 2009, US oil consumption was lower than it was in 1998. The downtown in growth started in 2005 for the US and really picked up steam in 2008. From the dot.gov site we can look at monthly and annual miles driven in the US (a proxy for overall oil consumption):
The peak was actually in February of 2008 and we have not recovered back to that level yet. Probably won't this year either. The point is that American's responded to higher oil prices by driving less thus consuming less.
Second, if oil and oil products like gasoline are so much more expensive for us that we change our consumption how can the Chinese and Indians consume more. I think the answer lies in how far one's energy goes. Another post on The OilDrum by Gail Tverberg suspect's that because the American infrastructure requires a higher EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) than Chinese or Indian infrastructure, the impact of higher prices of energy is much greater in America than in Chindia...or maybe it's just because the Chinese have our money in trade surplus that allows them to subsidize oil consumption?
So, I hope you can see that any change in gasoline prices due to military action by the US is not going to address the root causes of high prices. I think Donald Trump has lived too long in the world of high finance, where lot's of capital resources and shrewd bargaining can solve any monetary problem. If only oil were like money and we could print more of it!
Sure, I think that if the US chooses to act as a financial trader and ruthlessly manipulate the oil markets even to the extent of invoking our military, prices could go down, but only for a while......they could also go up, way up! But just a spike way up. That's because I think there is some evidence that the world economy and oil prices are in a balancing act. We have reached the point where serious price escalation reduces demand, high prices create a recession and that keeps demand tamped down which creates oil surplus which lowers the price and given other macro economic conditions we can start pulling out of the recession, increase demand and start the whole thing over again....
You can read about this at Robert Rapier's consumer energy blog and also find pointers to other economic analysis. Robert call's this phenomena the "long recession'.
And yet another problem we face is that any surplus that is created by OECD demand destruction is consumed by the rest of world, leaving little surplus for us to build future growth on. Here is a sobering analysis by Jeffrey J. Brown over at the The Oil Drum (handle: westexas): In 2005, the top 33 oil exporting countries in the world produced 62.2 mbpd (million barrels per day) and exported 46 mbpd, that means they consumed, internally in their country about 26% of production. China and India imported 11% of what was exported. In 2009, those same countries produced 60.3 mbpd, consumed 17.5 mppd (about 27.5%), exported 42.8 mbpd and China and India imported 17% of that!
Note two things there, the producing countries are slowly consuming more of their production and the great growth rates in China and India are consuming a ever higher fraction of world oil exports.
So how can this be? How can 2 countries which are considerably poorer per capita than the US be able to afford the oil that we can't afford!
First, is it really true that we in the US are consuming less crude oil? In 2009, US oil consumption was lower than it was in 1998. The downtown in growth started in 2005 for the US and really picked up steam in 2008. From the dot.gov site we can look at monthly and annual miles driven in the US (a proxy for overall oil consumption):
Second, if oil and oil products like gasoline are so much more expensive for us that we change our consumption how can the Chinese and Indians consume more. I think the answer lies in how far one's energy goes. Another post on The OilDrum by Gail Tverberg suspect's that because the American infrastructure requires a higher EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) than Chinese or Indian infrastructure, the impact of higher prices of energy is much greater in America than in Chindia...or maybe it's just because the Chinese have our money in trade surplus that allows them to subsidize oil consumption?
So, I hope you can see that any change in gasoline prices due to military action by the US is not going to address the root causes of high prices. I think Donald Trump has lived too long in the world of high finance, where lot's of capital resources and shrewd bargaining can solve any monetary problem. If only oil were like money and we could print more of it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)