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The Week That Was in Climate Science(October 15, 2022)Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: The important thing is to never stop questioning.” ‒ Albert Einstein
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
SUMARY: Last week TWTW discussed the importance of spectroscopy in understanding the greenhouse effect. Reader Geoff Sherrington correctly “nit-pricked” the discussion to point out that often Spectrometry is confused with Spectroscopy. This TWTW will attempt to clarify the difference.
The work of Professors William van Wijngaarden and William Happer (W & H) has not been published in a major western peer reviewed journal. This creates obstacles for its general acceptance. W & H are too busy developing an acceptable hypothesis on the formation and dissipation of clouds that they do not have time to fight with journal editors. TWTW will discuss a few consequences.
The electrical systems planning engineer discussed last week has another essay on the importance of stability in the electrical grid. This stability is being undermined by the demands for use of solar and wind power by politicians and special interest groups on the false notion that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing significant climate change.
In preparing for the upcoming 27th annual Conference of Parties (COP 27) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN officials are making more extreme claims of the consequences to humanity if national governments do not adhere to their demands.
Since UN the summaries of climate reports are contradicted by physical evidence, it appears that UN bureaucrats believe that their words are physical evidence.
Summertime rains have long been an issue in the US Midwest and into Canada. Using rainfall data from 1948 to 2019, a group out of Penn State has announced a technique for predicting heavy summer rains one season ahead. Given the 60-year study period, this may be of great value for farmers and those dependent on their products.
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Spectroscopy and Spectrometry: Geoff Sherrington gave a link to an essay published by ATA Scientific Instruments that articulates the difference between Spectroscopy and Spectrometry. It begins:
“Spectroscopy is the science of studying the interaction between matter and radiated energy. It’s the study of absorption characteristics of matter, or absorption behaviour of matter, when subjected to electromagnetic radiation. Spectroscopy doesn’t generate any results, it’s simply the theoretical approach to science.
“On the other hand, spectrometry is the method used to acquire a quantitative measurement of the spectrum. It’s the practical application where results are generated, helping in the quantification of, for example, absorbance, optical density, or transmittance.
“In short, spectroscopy is the theoretical science, and spectrometry is the practical measurement in the balancing of matter in atomic and molecular levels.”
TWTW will endeavor to carefully distinguish between the theoretical science and the practical measurements. [It is important to note that those working in the field often use the terms without making such careful distinctions. Both approaches involve a quantitative approach. To them the distinction may be careful but meaningless.]
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Peer Review: Professors William van Wijngaarden and William Happer (W & H) used spectrometry to estimate the greenhouse effect of the potency of greenhouse gases, and the thermal radiation effects of these gases. This work has not been published by any US scientific journals.
This is part of an effort to censor valid disagreements with US government fundings and UN climate reports.
It began in the mid-1990s with the now ill named Science magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Headquartered in Washington, DC, the organization is now heavily politicized.
As a result of this politicization, American science is suffering as compared to Russian and Chinese science. For several hundred years it has become obvious that politicized science falls behind. The clearest example was the agricultural disasters in the Soviet Union under biologist Trofim Lysenko whose bogus research led to the starvation of millions.
However, those who seek peer reviewed journals with articles on the results of spectrometry used by W & H can find such articles elsewhere. The history of the HITRAN molecular spectroscopic database for transmission and radiance calculations, and some of its applications was published by Nature Reviews Physics.
As stated in last week’s TWTW, the Russian Academy of Sciences has published a paper using HITRAN which contradicts some of the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The paper cites other works using infrared atmospheric spectroscopy. In part, the abstract states:
“The inconsistency of climatological models of changes in the global temperature because of an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide, which are the basis of the Paris Agreements on Climate, has been demonstrated.
The use of these (climate) models is based on the assumption that the spectra of carbon dioxide and water molecules do not overlap, which contradicts both the data resulting from measurements with NASA programs and calculations based on the spectroscopic parameters of molecules from the HITRAN data bank.”
In today’s world of modern communications, it is more difficult for groups to censor the quest for understanding by curious minds. In the long run, those who censor limit themselves. See links under Other Scientific News.
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Cost of Disagreement: In a wide-ranging talk covering the broad topics he has addressed in his work, Willie Soon explains the difficulty of publishing papers that question the IPCC claims.
He began with the research that the sun can vary by three to four times that claimed by the IPCC. It was difficult to get such studies published as early as the 1990s.
After the IPCC published the Mr. Mann hockey-stick, no one could get a paper published that questioned the IPCC line. There is a great deal we do not understand, so controversy is desirable to evaluate the physical evidence behind different points of view. Soon states there is nothing exceptional about 20th century warming.
Now political attacks dominate the climate issue. Soon emphasizes the importance of correcting mistakes. The question is, why are advocates of dangerous warming afraid of debating the evidence?
Among other issues, Soon brings up the accuracy of the calculations of the earth’s orbit which were done in the 1970s and the lack of knowledge about clouds.
Small variations can make a huge difference. Both issues make the certainty expressed in IPCC reports foolish and the willful destruction of the fossil fuel industry absurd.
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The Working Machine: In his second essay on the problem on adding solar and wind onto the US electrical grid, the planning engineer writes:
“The ‘green’ provisions of the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act are sweeping, and it appears they may do more harm than good.
The philosophy behind the inflation Reduction Act seems to reflect the belief that if you can get the ball rolling, adding additional wind and solar will get easier.
However, as Part 1 discussed, the compounding problems associated with increasing the penetration level of wind and solar generation are extreme.
Replacing conventional synchronous generating resources, which have been the foundation of the power system, with asynchronous intermittent resources will degrade the reliability of the grid and contribute to blackout risk.
The power system is the largest, most complicated wonderful machine ever made. At any given time, it must deal with multiple problems and remain stable.
No resources are perfect; in a large system you will regularly find numerous problems occurring across the system.
Generally, a power system can handle multiple problems and continue to provide reliable service. However, when a system lacks supportive generation sources, it becomes much more likely it will not be able function reliably when problems occur.
A synchronous generator produces electricity with the frequency, voltage, and phase exactly matching that of other generators on the grid.
Asynchronous generators, such as wind turbines, do not. Asynchronous generators may be fine in a stand-alone system, but cause problems in a system with synchronous generators.
The problem intensifies with the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act and its subsides to wind power. The planning engineer writes:
“The Inflation Reduction Act seeks to decarbonize the grid. In looking at the grid, you should not make one goal a priority but should instead seek to balance competing objectives.”
The planning engineer goes through issues arising from using more wind and solar generated electricity to replace natural gas generated energy and gives EIA’s US electricity generation by major energy source and writes:
“If wind and solar step up to replace fossil fuels this leave us vulnerable to energy shortages during winter peaks just before daybreak.
Battery capability would need to be huge, expansive, and probably would not be procured in advance of demonstrated needs.
“It is frightening to imagine how to serve a vast winter system demand just before daybreak in the green future. But one more feature of the Clean Air Act helps raise concerns to an even higher level. The Inflation Reduction Act subsidizes heat pumps!
“Heat pumps are attractive to the Inflation Reeducation Act for only one reason. They help reduce the demand for gas furnaces. Subsidies will be available in areas where today heat pumps are not considered practical.
Today it doesn’t make sense to drive resistance heating with electricity generated from fossil fuels. It’s inefficient and environmentally unsound.
However, you can theorize that if all electricity is green, inefficient electric heat is green too. Replacing natural gas heat with heat pumps is not a good idea when one considers their impact on the power system during winter peak conditions.
“Under the Act’s subsidy provisions people who live in areas where heat pumps don’t make sense may decide to get them anyway with the subsidy.
For example, if you live in a cooler area and you’ve gotten by without air conditioning, now your units can be subsidized and the resistance heat will be there for you in the winter too.
Green advocates talk of shaping the load to better use resources, but that evidently can be quickly forgotten when other green objectives emerge.
Putting in a bunch of heat pumps and building tremendous infrastructure to support their short-term demands is far from environmentally responsible.”
TWTW has often referred to the heavy load in California in the summer when the sun goes down. But in other parts of the country the sharp peak may occur at dawn on a cold winter morning.
The planning engineer concludes:
“How do we encourage smart ways to provide emergency capacity? Current energy policies are seeking to direct as much money toward ‘green’ resources and costs away from them.
As discussed earlier, in Texas they are moving away from recognizing capacity value consistent with a trend towards energy only markets.
I’m a big fan of markets, but they don’t do a good job of protecting against extreme conditions especially when no one has ultimate responsibility (except governmental entities) for ensuring load is served.
Some measures would need to be employed to compensate for providing and ensuring combustion turbines are available for emergency conditions. But no one seems to be talking about such measures.
The Inflation Reduction Act appears to be a single focus approach to a nuanced problem. Cut CO2 emissions and hope for great innovations.
Reliability threats apparently are not on their radar, nor are they an articulated or contemplated concerns. It’s a shame because reduced reliability can wreak havoc on the economy and the environment.”
There is a purpose for some regulated markets, but it is frequently lost to politics.