Climate Climate & Energy

Subsidies for wind power pale beside subsidies for nuclear

I long ago swore off the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- the last straw for me was their cruel swipe at departed "dope fiend" Jerry Garcia back in 1995. But on Monday a friend forwarded me a WSJ editorial whaling away at renewable power's production tax credit:

Solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and ... nuclear power $1.59. Wind and solar have been on the subsidy take for years ...

Now, they insinuate, it's time to kick wind and solar out of the nest to fly (or not) on their own, just like Uncle Nuke did, decades ago.

What's up?, my pal asked, knowing that I not only have a thing for wind power but used to be a walking encyclopedia of nuclear power costs. After a quick trip down memory lane, pencil in hand, here's my brief on federal subsidies for windmills and nukes.

The score (in 2007 dollars):

• Reactor subsidies, 1950-1990: $154 billion, or $3.75 billion a year.
• Wind power subsidies, 1983-2007: $3.75 billion 25-year total.

Human-caused warming is resulting in a broad range of impacts across the globe

Nature has published the first article to "formally link observed global changes in physical and biological systems to human-induced climate change, predominantly from increasing greenhouse gases." See news story here and the article, "Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change" (subs. req'd, abstract below).

NASA's discussion of the piece here explains, "human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa." The image at right: "Impacts from warming are evident in satellite images showing that lakes in Siberia disappearing as the permafrost thaws and lake water drains deeper into the ground." The lead author explained:

The eternal cycle of liquid coal reincarnation

Ali Velshi on CNN, Wednesday morning: "What if you could take a lump of coal and turn that in to your gasoline?"

What if, indeed? A brief (very brief) stroll through the archives...

The problems and principles of energy descent

"How did you get there, Roo?" asked Piglet.

"On Tigger's back!  And Tiggers can't climb downwards, because their tails get in the way, only upwards, and Tigger forgot about that when we started, and he's only just remembered.  So we've got to stay here for ever and ever -- unless we go higher.  What did you say, Tigger?  Oh, Tigger says if we go higher we shan't be able to see Piglet's house so well, so we're going to stop here."

-- A.A. Milne, "The House At Pooh Corner"

My kids were out climbing trees yesterday, supervised by Eric and our visiting friend and my honorary brother, "Uncle" Jesse.  Isaiah really wanted to climb up to a particular spot, but couldn't get there on little four-year-old legs.  Jesse helped him up part of the way, and then told him he had to do it himself or be content with where he could get to.  Jesse observed, "I wanted to give him a boost, but only up to a place he could get back down from himself."

I was struck by what a useful metaphor and perhaps even principle was embodied in that casual statement.  I was also reminded, perhaps because I've now read Winnie the Pooh to my children approximately 1,000 times, of the classic representation of what happens when you climb up and can't climb down. If you can forgive the cuteness, it does seem apt.

Let us imagine ourselves climbing up a rather steep and precarious tree, boosted up by fossil energies into a place we simply could never get to without them. The problems we are facing right now all originate in our fundamental inability to voluntarily set limits -- that is, at no point did most of us even recognize the basic necessity of stopping at a point at which we could get down on our own, without our petrocarbon helpers. So right now we look like Tiggers high in the trees -- we can climb up, but we can't climb down. Is the problem our fear or that our tails (our structural addictions to energy) get in the way? It can be hard to tell. But what is not terribly hard to tell is that one way or another, we have to come down -- and probably quite rapidly. The goal is to avoid a painful "thud" upon descent.

Climate change messing with ecology worldwide, study says

Climate change is messing with ecology worldwide right now, according to a comprehensive new study in the journal Nature. Researchers examined data on shifts in over 28,000 plant and animal systems and over 800 environmental changes across all the world’s continents for the past 30 years. In 90 percent of the cases of change in […]

The delayers’ paradox

The primary goal of the global warming deniers and their disciples is to waste time and delay action, which is why I prefer to call them delayers.

(This post is inspired by the surprising finding that only 27 percent of conservatives say the earth is warming because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels.)

The delayers' paradox

The deniers and delayers are those who argue that failing to embrace strict reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions will not lead to serious or catastrophic impacts. The delayers' paradox is this: If we all actually were persuaded by the deniers and delayers, it would lead to levels of atmospheric GHG concentrations that ensure the most catastrophic impacts imaginable, proving them (fatally) wrong.

How three Southeast cities are changing

For more on Southeast cities, see our full feature on sustainability initiatives underway in Atlanta. With rapid population growth and increased climate vulnerability, the Southeastern U.S. would seem a prime place for sustainability initiatives. But the area has been slow to cotton on to the greening trend. We chalk it up to the South’s shade-shifting […]

Big increases coming in electric costs

From the "Things Grist readers already knew" file comes this report from ClimateWire ($ub. req'd) that price shocks are looming for power plant operators, even before the costs of carbon are factored in.

A few excerpts below the fold:

Melting Arctic ice poses security threat, says Pentagon

Waterways made navigable by melting Arctic ice pose a security threat to the northern U.S. border, says the Pentagon. The shrinking ice cap has led to increased interest in tourism and energy development in the Arctic, and the extra traffic makes the Pentagon wary. “The Arctic is a new area that is important to us […]

Thinking beyond technology to mitigate climate change

If we quit adding carbon to the atmosphere, it won't stop global warming any time soon. That's why people are hoping there are ways to get the extra carbon out of the atmosphere, and that we can put billions of tons of it somewhere safe.

Breaking apart carbon dioxide -- or extracting carbon dioxide from the air -- takes work. Work means energy. It's the reverse of combustion. There's a triple problem here: the technology itself, the disposal, and the energy to do the work.

It's a common saying that you can't unscramble an egg. Once scrambled, the egg proteins won't go back to their raw configuration when they cool, and even if they did, it's impossible to wield a fork in such a way as to separate the yolk from the white. Roomfuls of the latest and greatest laboratory equipment, the best Google algorithms, or even all the king's horses and all the king's men would not unscramble our egg. The mixing and cooking are irreversible processes.

It's a familiar impasse. Can we change the way we see the problem?