Of course it would be a shame if I didn’t post a betting script for July! Here’s your opportunity to bet on the July UAH bets. (It’s been mostly coolish in Chicago, but I hear it’s not coolish-elsewhere.)
[sockulator(../musings/wp-content/uploads/2011/UAHBets5.php?Metric=UAH TTL?Units=C?cutOffMonth=7?cutOffDay=31?cutOffYear=2014?DateMetric=July, 2014?)sockulator]
Betting closes July 31, midnight, GMT!
I need to gear up to do NH-ice bets. It’s late, but better late than never.
I used my lucky dart this time so should be a shoo in to be in the Quatloos this month !
It has been coolish in Dallas as well, by the anomaly or even “first differences” methods.
Which is to say only one +100 degree (F) day so far this summer. An unbroken string of such days is more typical, and as a matter of prediction, now in the forecast. We’ll see. I predict this month will be the same as last month. It’s a very simple climate model, but it will be difficult to find another to do better.
Betting closes at 7/31/2014 0000 GMT, I think.
HaroldW–
Correct. Thanks.
OT:
There’s an article in The Economist proposing a different method of comparing the cost of energy sources. The standard method is levelised cost, the net present value of all costs (capital and operating) of a generating unit over its life cycle, divided by the number of megawatt-hours of electricity it is expected to supply.
But levelised cost ignores the issue of intermittency. When that is factored in, solar becomes very expensive. The article also concluded that nuclear power is far and away the best bet for a zero carbon energy source. However, it’s still more expensive than combined cycle natural gas powered electricity generation.
Obviously I like this article because it confirms my opinion that solar for commercial energy generation would be uneconomical even if the panels themselves were free. Government subsidies for solar and wind is money down the drain. We should be concentrating our resources on nuclear power, particularly thorium. Instead, Germany and Japan are shutting down their nuclear plants.
DeWitt,
I’ve always thought that this would be something just about everybody, skeptic, lukewarmer, and mainstreamer alike would agree on without much trouble. That I’ve noticed no real push towards increasing reliance on nuclear power has always seemed odd to me.
Speaking of betting, we’re probably less than two months away from the Arctic sea ice minimum. It also seems highly likely that Antarctic sea ice will set a new record maximum. It’s running so high that the global sea ice area anomaly is actually positive.
Lucia,
OT but – Any chance you can share the substance of your comments on the SciAm “consensus” article for those of us who got there after they had been deleted?
Mark Bofill,
“I’ve always thought that this would be something just about everybody, skeptic, lukewarmer, and mainstreamer alike would agree on without much trouble.”
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The trouble is that the strongest resistance to nuclear power is from the self-same people who object to fossil fuel use (and worry about global warming, though that is secondary). The Malthusian/green mindset is the fundamental driving force for resistance to both fossil fuel use and nuclear power use. (To wit: Humanity is like a plague on the Earth, and destined to exhaust all natural resources and destroy the Earth’s ecosystems if we don’t all repent: reduce our population drastically, eat only plants, and live in apostolic poverty, while worshiping the Green Commandments of Gaia. 😉 )
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It is not nearly enough to substitute nuclear power for fossil fuel based power. There is no source of energy with the capacity to maintain or (Heaven forbid!) increase material wealth which they will find acceptable. What they want is drastically reduced global population and drastically reduced material wealth, especially in rich countries. These are philosophically motivated desires; there is no amount of reasoning or analysis of factual data which will make a bit of difference.
SteveF,
Yeah, mebbe.
Here’s what WWF has to say about it:
This is usually what I hear, that it’s not safe.
~shrug~ I get that there are risks, but in my view its a sort of cavalier way of dismissing a potential solution. It makes me think that the mainstream isn’t really serious about finding a viable solution to the most dreaded problem of climate change. I can speculate that the mindset you’re referencing could have something to do with this perspective.
(continued) It’s sort of changing goalposts. At first blush, the potential problems for mankind involved in AGW are so horrific that we must do whatever we must, no matter how painful, to mitigate.
But then, it’s not a matter of doing whatever we must. Suddenly, we need a solution that fits in the ‘wiffle-ball world’ mindset. It must be safe and it must encourage energy savings and promote small scale power supply and energy services. It must promote a specific employment agenda, apparently, according to WWF. So on. (To paraphrase Dilbert, it must have a 22 inch screen and yet fit in one’s purse! It must whiten the user’s teeth and cure cancer!)
I mean, seriously. What happened to the original urgency to find a solution?
Arctic sea ice is interesting at the moment
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
The Arctic is never going to end up ice free at that rate. Which is why we should build our new nuclear reactors there..
/ silly
PIOMAS ice volume is up so far this year compared to the previous four years. The AMO index average for the year so far is below where it has been recently. Maybe the warm water flow is shifting South again. OTOH, ice volume in 2010 was looking up until it fell off a cliff about this time of year.
SteveF
“What they want is drastically reduced global population and drastically reduced material wealth, especially in rich countries.”.
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It is a little more simple than that.
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What they want is for you to drastically reduce material wealth.
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Themselves (of which they have control and could make happen tomorrow), not so much.
Nick Stokes cited this dot.earth post on a pro-nuke statement by Hansen, Wigley, and two others, back in March.
Progress!
AMac (#131407) –
Hansen also spoke out against Cap-and-Trade when it was under consideration a couple of years ago. On the other hand, he rather “jumped the shark” (in my opinion, of course) by claiming that the Keystone XL pipeline meant “game over for the climate”.
One of my squash friends is developing 100+ MW solar power plants in Africa and South America. He says that they are already economic for part of the power load in areas of very high power cost or unavailable power where the alternative is diesel. See http://www.jcmcapital.ca/portfolio.php
He says goofy things sometimes, doesn’t he? It’s occurred to me to wonder if he doesn’t do it on purpose. Like he’s got ‘scientist mode’ where he’s more or less speaking straight and ‘press mode’ where he’s trying to get ecogroupies in bed or something with wild and wacky pronouncements.
I dunno. Still, I am grateful that he lends his voice to advocate nuclear power.
(EDIT: uhm, ‘he’ being Dr. Hansen of course. Sorry)
100MW, wow. That seems fairly large scale for solar. Maybe I’m just behind the times. 🙂
Assuming 100 MW is peak generation, a cell efficiency of 18% and maximum solar flux near 1KW per sq meter, that is 10^8 / 180 = 5.56*10^5 square meters, or about 750 X 750 meters square of collectors. But considering much less than 100% coverage, it is more like a square KM of land. So where land is cheap it might not cost too much. Of course, the sun doesn’t shine at night, so while it might make economic sense for marginal production, it doesn’t work for base load power… Conventional power capacity is still needed.
100MW is large for solar, but small compared to fossil fuel or nuclear plants for base load grid generation, which are on the order of 1GW. But when a grid doesn’t exist, natural gas isn’t available and diesel is expensive, solar may be a reasonable proposition. It should be a lot easier to maintain once installed as well. Having electricity when the sun is up is better than not having electricity at all.
The other consideration is cost per KWH produced. If we estimate installed cost of $400 per square meter (including cables and converters, etc…. probably it is more), and assuming land at $20,000 per hectare, capital cost is only about $2 million for land, but $220 million for equipment. The production over 24 hours is unlikely to average more that 20% of the peak capacity, even in a very sunny location, so the net power produced is going to be in the range of 500,000 KWH per day. If local wholesale power is very expensive (say $0.20 per KWH), then the generated electricity is worth about $100,000 per day, or $36 million per year. If capital cost is 7% per year and depreciation is 4% per year, this is about $24 million per year, and the plant turns a net profit of $12 million per year.
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So in the right location the plant makes economic sense if it can displace very expensive local power (eg diesel) at whatever rate it produces. Of course, you would actually need to consider not the local wholesale price, but the marginal cost for the displaced power…. the marginal cost is fuel plus wear on the diesel generators, but ignoring the capital cost for the diesel generators.
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We are a bit off topic, sorry Lucia.
It’s mostly coolish in Toronto too, but then here we are downwind of Chicago. Of course coolish is a subjective observation applied only to the perception of unadjusted temperatures. I am confident that the published temperature trends will get me warmed up.
A big issue on solar is storage. New batteries under development and pumped storage if water is available make sense but fuel cells in industrial sizes can be a game changer. DOE has a number in development that can work at big capacity. Not so much little ones for cars.
Scott
I had not considered it before but I guess the installation of 100 MW of solar generation capacity could be economic in areas where there was no infrastructure to support a large scale project like a hydroelectric, fossil or nuclear generating station.
The solar panels themselves are relatively light weight and modular which would facilitate their transportation to remote locations. The only real hurtles are clearing the land, mounting the panels and integrating their outputs.
But then what? No infrastructure suggests no infrastructure. How do you get the power to customers.
It would be interesting to see what the comparators are that make the solar installation economic.
Perhaps it would be cheaper to expand the national grid to incorporate these remote locations instead of slapping down 100 MW power stations willy nilly.
Jeff Norman (Comment #131416)
“I am confident that the published temperature trends will get me warmed up.”
I fear you’ll be disappointed. Here is the Toronto story. Very little adjustment since 1840, and not in a warming direction.
Oops, fooled around and missed the betting cutoff. Oh well I will double down on AMac and LouisJenks bet of .323. I have been watching global SSTs and we shall see if they are a useful indicator. No El Nino in the cards just yet.
Re: Scott (Jul 30 09:39),
And thermonuclear fusion is right around the corner. Pull the other one.
To get 100MW 24/7, you would need at least 600MW of peak solar capacity. That’s 500 MW for the duty factor and another 100 MW for the loss of efficiency from the storage system. And that’s with an optimistic 90% efficiency each way for the storage system. I’m not holding my breath on that one.
Nick Stokes writes: “Here is the Toronto story. Very little adjustment since 1840, and not in a warming direction.” Given the changes in Toronto since the 1840s and even the 1960s, it is hard to see how one would make a homogeneous record without some recognition of its urbanization.
I’ve lived most of my life in downtown Toronto.
In the 1960s, the station apparently was on the roof of the Meteorological building then on Bloor St in downtown Toronto, a couple of blocks from my high school, which was affiliated with the University. The present station is located near Trinity College, one of the colleges within the University, where I was an undergraduate, a few blocks away.
So I know what the local geography was in the late 1950s and 1960s.
We live in downtown Toronto. While I am familiar with the multiple studies arguing that UHI is a negligible effect, whenever we drive back into the city from the country, one can feel the extra heat in the city.
You refer to the 1840s. I once saw a picture of the original Toronto station – one of the longest max-min stations anywhere. It was located on the location of the present University of Toronto, now far downtown, looks like it was near University College. The setting was then very rustic setting. Toronto was then a very small town, whereas you now have to drive for about 40 miles in any direction to see a field.
Also the downtown city has been drained during the past 150 years. It was swampy in the mid 19th century – lots of spruce trees in the painting. The creeks have been put into storm sewers and the city is much drier.
That was a good temp trend in Toronto. So a long slow thaw as Tonyb says.
Scott
IRT the Arctic ice, I think this is yet another metric of doom that is turning out favorable for skeptics.
It seems reasonable now to point out that NH sea ice is not in a death spiral. And that the skeptics who pointed to the historical reports of past declines in Arctic sea ice were on to something more accurate than the years of impending Arctic doom the climate obsessed have been going on about.
Small world Steve. I was christened at Trinity United, three generations of my family have attended the U of T, and two of my children attended the same “high school” you did.
Somewhere I have a graph comparing the Toronto, the Pearson and the Island Airport temperature records. During the 60’s the Toronto record shot up independent of the other two. This was when many of the large buildings were constructed along Bloor Street eastwards from Spadina.
If I recall correctly Robarts Library (Fort Book), McLennan Physical Laboratories, Galbraith Building and many other large University edifices were completed during the 60’s and early 70’s. During this period the Toronto meteorological station was skittering around to various locations ending up its current location (AFAIK) just west of Philosophers’ Walk, south of the very recently expanded Varsity Stadium, RCM and ROM. No UHI here, okay maybe some.
That is why I prefer the Pearson International Airport record which caught up with the Toronto record during the late 70’s and 80’s with the completion of Terminal 2.
Since then Pearson has grown to three terminals, is surrounded on all four sides by major highways (401, 407, 410, 427) and industrial, commercial and residential neighbourhoods (where there were farms and forested areas sixty years ago). Hundreds of flights per day take off and land on the numerous runways spewing heated gases across the open fields.
Okay, I prefer the Pearson record because Environment Canada updates the unadjusted temperatures regularly.
Jeff, I think that I read somewhere that they put the met station on the roof of the Meteorological Building, which was at the corner of Bloor and Bedford across from Varsity Stadium (as I think I recall.) I passed by this building hundreds of times back in the day without paying any attention to it.
Hey Lucia… did you see this:
http://limitedshirtdeals.com/realwomenknit
AJ, that is too funny! I want one that says the same thing but for crocheter’s!
Analysis of this month’s betting:
NO. OF BETS 54
MAX 1.11
MIN 0.117
MEAN 0.296
MEDIAN 0.299
MODE 0.300
STD DEV 0.125
MEAN 1-27 0.271
MEAN 28-54 0.321
MEAN PLUS 1 SD 0.421
MEAN MINUS 1 SD 0.171
WITHIN +/- 1 SD (%) 94.4
ABOVE MEAN (%) 51.9
BELOW MEAN (%) 46.3
ABOVE MAY (%) 37.0
BELOW MAY (%) 59.3
A slight majority above the mean but quite a big proportion predict a fall on June.
I seem to have hit the mean spot on. I don’t know whether that is a good sign or not!
Results are in. July was +0.31.
More precisely, +0.306. +0.31 is out of the money.
Yay! Joint First (I think) in a 3-way split.
Down to time-of-bet I guess ;(
More ice at both poles, PIOMAS increase . Are these sensors right?
Sour grapes on my part I know.
Wow… My 0.303 is off by 0.003 and out of the money. This is a tough month !
I’ve got a quatloo in my pocket,
yeah, I said yeah
Finger in the socket
No way for you to stop it