Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Elvis » Tue Jan 24, 2023 6:59 am
by stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:13 am
Elvis » 24 Jan 2023 10:59 wrote:I concede that fossil fuel industry propaganda is mainstream, and CNBC is a reliable mainstream defender of the fossil-fuel corporatocracy.
Never on RI have I seen such obsequious toadying for capital. How does this virus of disinformation spread? Could it be the billions spent by the industry on public relations telling us how great they are? I think so.
by DrEvil » Tue Jan 24, 2023 5:42 pm
by stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 8:53 pm
by DrEvil » Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:36 pm
EPA docs don’t show any scientific evidence for Scott Pruitt’s climate claims
EPA still has time to search for any science that might have supported Pruitt's comments.
Megan Geuss - 8/9/2018, 1:10 AM
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not been able to offer any scientific evidence for statements made by the agency's former administrator, Scott Pruitt, when he went on CNBC in March 2017 and said that carbon dioxide was not known to be a major contributor to climate change.
During a live interview last year on Squawk Box, the administrator stated: “I would not agree that [carbon dioxide is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” adding, “there’s a tremendous disagreement about the degree of the impact” of “human activity on the climate.”
Pruitt’s statements contradicted overwhelming scientific evidence as well as everything the EPA had published before he took office. In response, a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) formally requested any scientific documentation that might have informed Pruitt’s opinion, given the gravity of the about-face.
The EPA stalled and refused to turn over any documents. PEER responded by suing the agency for dereliction of its duty to supply public documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
In June, a federal judge sided with PEER and ordered the EPA to provide any scientific documentation that might have helped Pruitt come to the conclusion he asserted on CNBC.
The EPA eventually provided a 12-page document to PEER. The document included six pages of emails between CNBC producers and Pruitt aides, as well as four pages of “top-line notes” that Pruitt used, outlining what he would talk about on the interview. None of those notes mentioned climate change or carbon dioxide’s effect on the environment at all.
Pruitt resigned from his post at the EPA in July as scandals involving his spending habits mounted. Before he left, he was asked by the EPA’s attorney to confirm whether there were any other records that he relied on to support his statements on that CNBC interview.
According to a press release from PEER, the 12 pages, which never once mention climate change, were all the scientific support Pruitt used to make statements on national television.
“EPA attorney Jennifer Hammitt confirmed that there was nothing more,” PEER wrote in a press release. The organization included a quote that Hammitt sent to PEER:In addition to the above search, EPA presented the 12 pages of material... to the former administrator before his departure from the agency and asked him if he was aware of any other agency records that he relied upon to make the statement on the Squawk Box appearance. The former Administrator identified no additional responsive records.
The EPA is still engaged in trying to back up the former administrator's comments after the fact. The agency said it would perform an electronic search “for any studies concluding human activity is not the main source of climate change.”
PEER said in its press release that it has urged the EPA to augment that search by asking its own scientific experts whether there is any basis for Pruitt's statements, and the EPA has agreed.
“It appears Scott Pruitt’s positions were utterly unencumbered by facts,” PEER General Counsel Paula Dinerstein said in a statement. “Amazingly, Pruitt had the gall to preach ‘sound science’ until his disgraceful exit.”
Although Pruitt has since departed from his position at the head of the EPA, his views aren’t unique within the Trump administration. Thus far, President Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax,” has not offered any evidence to substantially contradict the current scientific consensus.
by Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 24, 2023 10:32 pm
stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 7:53 pm wrote:Here's my problem with the level of discussion we are having about human activity inevitably turning the Earth into Venus. It has the "reasoned give and take" of the COVID vaccine debate at any major Western university.
Instead of simply engaging in a dialogue about any of this, so many (not just Elvis) reflexively resort to the shaming and killing of the messenger on the sole basis of the messenger's perceived blue vs. red costume. I mean, as if Team Blue hadn't just served up the fucking Ukraine proxy war along with the complete censorship of any reasoned resistance to total pharma Pfascism.
Sure, we should all support large corporations and government departments (like the military) taking as many steps as possible to conserve energy and move to less environmentally destructive sources. But even more importantly, our power sources need to be decentralized, diversified, and not subject to strict authoritarian control.
Even Michael Moore knows that Blackrock's greenwashing ESG is a total scam that will be used primarily to consolidate power and micro-manage us plebes without doing much of anything about saving the Earth's environment unless it is at the direct expense of our individual rights and health.
What I don't understand most of all is the constant reflexive applause for our authoritarian daddies to govern people ever harder even after the COVID debacle. Even right now, after governments just clearly proved that none of their technocratic dictates did anything but worsen the COVID pandemic, so many "liberal minded" people still cling to the (TDS spawned?) emotional narrative that their fellow citizens who disagree with them culturally are their worst enemies and thus still reflexively support any technocratically sanctioned authoritarian control over all the terrible regular people spreading germs and ruining the environment with all of their heinous freedoms to drive, eat any food or buy any product they like that they can afford, travel freely, breathe freely, politically protest, spread "viral disinformation", and control their own bodies! How dare they!
Gnomad » Tue Jan 24, 2023 3:46 am wrote:BelligerentSavant, where did you get the claim that Greenland ice sheet would have recovered?
Greenland’s annual cycle sees the ice sheet largely gain snow from September, accumulating ice through autumn, winter and into spring. Then, as the year warms up into late spring, the ice sheet begins to lose more ice through surface melt than it gains from fresh snowfall. This melt season generally continues until the end of August.
The snow gains and ice losses at the ice sheet’s surface over the past 12 months are the “surface mass balance” (SMB) of the ice sheet.
Below, we show data from the Polar Portal. The blue line in the upper chart shows the day-to-day SMB. The blue line in the lower chart depicts the accumulated SMB, counted from the beginning of the “mass balance year” on 1 September 2021. In grey, the long-term average and its variability are shown. The red line shows the record low year of 2011-12 for comparison.
The map shows the geographic spread of SMB gains (blue) and losses (red) for 2021-22, compared to the long-term average.
Left: Map showing the difference between the annual SMB in 2021-22 and the 1981-2010 period (in mm of ice melt). Blue shows more ice gain than average and red shows more ice loss than average. Right: Daily (upper chart) and cumulative (lower) SMB of the Greenland ice sheet, in gigatonnes (billion tonnes) per day and gigatonnes, respectively. Blue lines show the 2021-22 SMB year; the grey lines show the 1981-2010 average and variability; and the red line in lower chart shows the record low SMB year of 2011-12. Credit: DMI Polar Portal.
According to our calculations, this year the Greenland ice sheet ended with a total SMB of about 471 Gt. This means that 2021-22 ranks the 10th highest for SMB in our dataset that goes back 42 years.
Under current climate conditions, 2021-22 can be considered a relatively favourable year for the ice sheet. Up to the mid-2000s, it would rather have been seen as an average year.
For the 2016-17 SMB year, which ended on 30th August, the ice sheet had gained 544bn tonnes of ice, compared to an average for 1981-2010 of 368bn tonnes.
by DrEvil » Tue Jan 24, 2023 10:49 pm
Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 24, 2023 8:38 am wrote:.
Quite pathetic displays here. A number of you have become tragic cartoon characters, desperate to prop up strawmen rather than consider that, perhaps, the bullshit narratives about C02 and "climate change" are not all exactly as advertised by your preferred mouthpieces. Mouthpieces that, by the way, are JUST AS COMPROMISED as the SHILLS for 'fossil fuels', but since they're shills operating within your preferred political leanings, you remain tragically (but no less shamefully) duped.
In a prior post I shared and bolded a single quote by a former EPA admin, Pruitt, as an example that even in mainstream 'news articles' -- and yes, CNBC is fucking mainstream, Elvis -- there are open questions about the role of C02 and the related storyline that humans are the primary source of any warming. That's it. Sharing a quote by Pruitt, as I did, as part of a larger point was in no way advocacy for him as a spokesperson or individual, needless to fucking say. So you twits choose to take that single excerpt and practically step over yourselves in your efforts to call out how compromised he is. What a fucking revelation. A fucking golf clap to each of you. News flash: Compromise abounds on both sides of the dominant narratives on this topic, while earnest and practical solutions to worthwhile topics like pollution have been largely drowned out from more prominent 'air time' in recent years amid the sheer white noise of "imminent climate change" as depicted by the egregiously well-funded media, govt and "science"-based entities you tools choose to blindly follow w/minimal discernment. Again: pathetic.
Pruitt is not alone in his quoted sentiment, uncommon as it may be in the mainstream, but guess what: not all those making similar claims are shills for gas and oil by default. There was nothing overtly controversial about his comment, either:"I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
But of course those in echo chambers can't conceive of such a notion.
I believe it was Gnomad that, earlier, referenced or alluded to the promotion/investment in utilizing bicycle-focused infrastructure/planning in urban areas to incentivize clean methods of transport and offset pollution/excessive use of cars in dense population areas. This is one of numerous practical and efficient approaches to the pollution problems we face due to excessive industry and waste. Unfortunately, worthwhile Environmental Activism has been largely DISCARDED by this excessive focus on the dubious science behind climate ALARMISM, and even worse, this aggressive push for faulty so-called 'solutions', which -- as mentioned numerous times in my prior postings -- are a NET negative to the environment and are NOT sustainable on their own as an effective means to generate energy at SCALE.
And yet, many that claim to be -- or like to believe they are -- "informed" continue to swallow the dominant narratives on most of these 'climate change' mainstream talking points without any indication of scrutiny. Instead, the climate change dogmatists choose to conflate, misrepresent, and/or apply broad brush criticisms to earnest inquiry or scrutiny. Among other logical fallacies.
Your posts will not age well.
(many of you were the same rubes lashing out at the few of us that called out -- back in 2020/2021 -- the non-science of mask use to curb aerosol spread, or for raising concerns about mRNA technology as 'salvation' for a highly survivable disease; please be aware these mRNA products will NOT solve or remedy any "long covid" issues, either, in the event some of you may still be holding on to that final canard. It seems few, if any of you, learned any lessons from the last couple years. And yes: there are absolutely parallels between covid propaganda and this latest climate change propaganda, not to mention the looming currency-related propaganda which will lead to a stronger push for CBDC and social credit systems, but these are all topics for other threads).
There remain open questions about a number of the key claims in the current dominant "climate change" storylines. None of the zealots in this thread have yet to address them head-on (or at all). A non-exhaustive summary of some of the questions posed can be found in my posting from a couple pages ago, here:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=42029&start=240#p706509
Expanding a bit on some of these themes, there were recent findings by NOAA that indicate that "shutdowns"/lockdowns from Covid policies, as implemented across most first world nations, had practically NO impact on curbing C02, which suggests human activity is NOT as closely tied to C02 levels as fervently insisted by much of current 'climate change' dogma. More info on this can be found in the following pieces, which of course will also include attempts to wave away/explain these findings while maintaining the status quo talking points. A number of you will find these explanations compelling. I continue to keep my eyebrow raised, regardless. I remain skeptical of the role of everyday humans in causing imminent and/or near-term climate change. Sorry -- that's my position right now, subject to change, and nothing I've seen recently has changed this position. To the contrary, it's only added more bricks to the foundation that so much of what we're told to believe these days is outright BULLSHIT.
Time will tell, as always. And thus far, time has caused just about every climate doomer to look utterly foolish. Let's see if that trendline continues in the years ahead. On to a sampling of links, which y'all are welcome to deconstruct and interpret through your own cloudy lens:Despite pandemic shutdowns, carbon dioxide and methane surged in 2020
Levels of the two most important anthropogenic greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, continued their unrelenting rise in 2020 despite the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic response, NOAA announced today.
The global surface average for carbon dioxide (CO2), calculated from measurements collected at NOAA’s remote sampling locations, was 412.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2020, rising by 2.6 ppm during the year. The global rate of increase was the fifth-highest in NOAA’s 63-year record, following 1987, 1998, 2015 and 2016. The annual mean at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii was 414.4 ppm during 2020.
...
Analysis of samples from 2020 also showed a significant jump in the atmospheric burden of methane, which is far less abundant but 28 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat over a 100-year time frame. NOAA’s preliminary analysis showed the annual increase in atmospheric methane for 2020 was 14.7 parts per billion (ppb), which is the largest annual increase recorded since systematic measurements began in 1983. The global average burden of methane for December 2020, the last month for which data has been analyzed, was 1892.3 ppb. That would represent an increase of about 119 ppb, or 6 percent, since 2000.
https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMI ... ed-in-2020
Yes, I skipped past the explanation proffered by the "Assistant Deputy Director", as I disagree with his contention for reasons well beyond the confines of the above-linked article. Others are welcome to believe otherwise -- fine by me.
Here's another related piece from CalTech:A Climate Conundrum: Why Didn’t Atmospheric CO2 Fall During the Pandemic?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, carbon dioxide increased at the same rate in the atmosphere despite lower emissions, say researchers from campus and JPL; plus, what is good for ozone reduction is bad for methane removal.
A comprehensive new survey of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the atmosphere that uses satellite data from NASA and other international space agencies offers insights into addressing the dual threats of climate warming and air pollution.
“We’re past the point where we can think of these as two separate problems,” says Joshua Laughner, lead author of the study and a former postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences who now works at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA. “To understand what is driving changes to the atmosphere, we must consider how air quality and climate influence each other.”
Published in November 2021 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the paper developed out of a workshop sponsored by the W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies and led by scientists on campus and at JPL. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting limitations put on travel and other economic sectors by countries around the globe drastically decreased air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions within just a few weeks. However, while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 5.4 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued to grow at about the same rate as in preceding years. While the drop in emissions was significant, the growth in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 was within the normal range of year-to-year variation caused by natural processes. Also, the ocean did not absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it has in recent years, probably due to the reduced pressure of carbon dioxide in the air at the ocean’s surface.
https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/atmos ... d-pandemic
And here's another snippet, also from NOAA:
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/covid2.html
Whatever the take-away may be from the above 3 samples, one thing is clear: LOCKDOWNS WON'T FUCKING HELP THE CLIMATE.
So any fucking climate-related lockdown proposals that may be raised soon or at any time in the future are ANTI-SCIENCE and FASCIST.
Then there's a recent finding published last year in the Nature journal Climate and Atmospheric Science -- largely ignored by the press -- by six top international scientists led by Nour-Eddine Omrani of the Norwegian Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research. The scientists say that the North Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, an important sea current that has been pumping warmer water into the Arctic, is weakening and that’s leading to a cooler North Atlantic area and lower temperatures, as was observed in the period 1950-1970.Published: 13 July 2022
Coupled stratosphere-troposphere-Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and its importance for near-future climate projection
Nour-Eddine Omrani, Noel Keenlyside, Katja Matthes, Lina Boljka, Davide Zanchettin, Johann H. Jungclaus & Sandro W. Lubis
npj
Climate and Atmospheric Science volume 5, Article number: 59 (2022)
Abstract
Northern Hemisphere (NH) climate has experienced various coherent wintertime multidecadal climate trends in stratosphere, troposphere, ocean, and cryosphere. However, the overall mechanistic framework linking these trends is not well established. Here we show, using long-term transient forced coupled climate simulation, that large parts of the coherent NH-multidecadal changes can be understood within a damped coupled stratosphere/troposphere/ocean-oscillation framework. Wave-induced downward propagating positive stratosphere/troposphere-coupled Northern Annular Mode (NAM) and associated stratospheric cooling initiate delayed thermohaline strengthening of Atlantic overturning circulation and extratropical Atlantic-gyres. These increase the poleward oceanic heat transport leading to Arctic sea-ice melting, Arctic warming amplification, and large-scale Atlantic warming, which in turn initiates wave-induced downward propagating negative NAM and stratospheric warming and therefore reverse the oscillation phase. This coupled variability improves the performance of statistical models, which project further weakening of North Atlantic Oscillation, North Atlantic cooling and hiatus in wintertime North Atlantic-Arctic sea-ice and global surface temperature just like the 1950s–1970s.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-022-00275-1
Of note:
The six scientists still attribute some global warming to human causes. The Northern hemisphere is characterised by “several multidecadal climate trends that have been attributed to anthropogenic climate change”. But producing work that predicts 30 years of global cooling puts them outside the ‘settled’ narrative that claims human-produced carbon dioxide is the main – possibly the only – determinant of global and local temperatures. At the very least, it tamps down the hysteria pushing for almost immediate and punitive 'net-zero' measures.
(Relevant side-note: Arctic summer sea ice stopped declining about a decade ago and has shown recent growth. The Greenland surface ice sheet grew by almost 500 billion tonnes in the year to August 2022, and this was nearly equivalent to its estimated annual loss. despite comments by Sir David Attenborough telling his BBC Frozen Planet II audience that the summer sea ice could all be gone within 12 years)
Before moving on, one more link specific to C02. I don't claim any strong position on the findings of this piece -- I share it here only for added consideration.
https://rclutz.com/2022/03/20/temps-cau ... 22-update/
First, for those that will likely be more interested in attacking the messenger rather than the content, about the author:Ron Clutz
Montreal, Canada
Ron Clutz has more than 30 years experience leading projects analyzing and transforming organizational processes and structures. Ron has designed and administered change management programs involving small groups of executives, as well as organizational interventions involving several hundred people. He has given seminars and lectures and has written manuals and articles on task-group leadership and on strategic planning. As a KPMG partner until 1997 he led that firm's work in Organizational Effectiveness
On to the intro excerpt to the lengthy piece:Temps Cause CO2 Changes, Not the Reverse.
2022 Update
Update March 23, 2022
For a possible explanation of natural warming and CO2 emissions see: Little Ice Age Warming Recovery May be Over
This post is about proving that CO2 changes in response to temperature changes, not the other way around, as is often claimed. In order to do that we need two datasets: one for measurements of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over time and one for estimates of Global Mean Temperature changes over time.
Climate science is unsettling because past data are not fixed, but change later on. I ran into this previously and now again in 2021 and 2022 when I set out to update an analysis done in 2014 by Jeremy Shiers (discussed in a previous post reprinted at the end). Jeremy provided a spreadsheet in his essay Murray Salby Showed CO2 Follows Temperature Now You Can Too posted in January 2014. I downloaded his spreadsheet intending to bring the analysis up to the present to see if the results hold up. The two sources of data were:
Temperature anomalies from RSS here: http://www.remss.com/missions/amsu
CO2 monthly levels from NOAA (Mauna Loa): https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/data.html
Changes in CO2 (ΔCO2)
Uploading the CO2 dataset showed that many numbers had changed (why?).
The blue line shows annual observed differences in monthly values year over year, e.g. June 2020 minus June 2019 etc. The first 12 months (1979) provide the observed starting values from which differentials are calculated. The orange line shows those CO2 values changed slightly in the 2020 dataset vs. the 2014 dataset, on average +0.035 ppm. But there is no pattern or trend added, and deviations vary randomly between + and -. So last year I took the 2020 dataset to replace the older one for updating the analysis.
Now I find the NOAA dataset in 2021 has almost completely new values due to a method shift in February 2021, requiring a recalibration of all previous measurements. The new picture of ΔCO2 is graphed below.
The method shift is reported at a NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory webpage, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) WMO Scale, with a justification for the difference between X2007 results and the new results from X2019 now in force. The orange line shows that the shift has resulted in higher values, especially early on and a general slightly increasing trend over time. However, these are small variations at the decimal level on values 340 and above. Further, the graph shows that yearly differentials month by month are virtually the same as before. Thus I redid the analysis with the new values.
Global Temperature Anomalies (ΔTemp)
The other time series was the record of global temperature anomalies according to RSS. The current RSS dataset is not at all the same as the past.
....
(Continued at link)
Finally -
A couple links on the proposed "green solutions" -- I shared other related pieces like this in earlier pages of this thread, but these 2 are worth adding here:
https://stopthesethings.com/2023/01/20/ ... -near-you/Tonnes of Toxic Solar Panels Already Headed For A Landfill Near You
January 20, 2023 by stopthesethings
Solar panels were meant to be all sunshine and lollipops, with nothing but tingly virtuous feelings for their subsidised owners. With an effective economic lifespan of little more than a decade – after 12 years in service their output is nothing like their original capacity and at the 15-year mark, it becomes a pointless fraction, especially if they’re not cleaned on a very regular basis. Which is the reason why millions of panels are already being crushed and dumped in landfills, with millions more to follow.
Got a landfill in your neighbourhood? Well it’s probably time to do some homework on what is being dumped there.
Solar panels are a veritable toxic cocktail of gallium arsenide, tellurium, silver, crystalline silicon, lead, cadmium and other heavy metals. Ground up and dumped in their millions into landfills, it’s not difficult to imagine the effect on water supplies, the environment and human health as their poisonous entrails leach into the water table over the coming centuries.
John Droz helps rain on the ‘solar can do no wrong’ parade, below.
Solar Realities
Election Integrity
John Droz
13 December 2022
Part 1 – Summary of Solar Energy Concerns
Let’s step back, put aside the marketing hype, and look at some of the key consequences of promoting and subsidizing industrial solar energy:
Solar projects rarely have meaningful state rules or regulations to abide by (note: a similar situation also exists for another current political favorite: wind energy);
Solar lobbyists often attempt to further handicap local communities from enacting meaningful regulations, by advocating an expedited approval process;
Solar projects require 100% backup, so we must pay for twice the energy sources;
Solar projects require 100% backup, which is typically from gas, so that needs to be factored in when discussing cost, environmental impact, CO2 reduction, etc.;
Solar facilities are likely a net energy sink (e.g., see this study);
When a comprehensive and objective financial analysis is done, solar is 5x± the cost of conventional electrical energy sources (e.g., here, here, here, here & here);
Despite states shelling out Billions of dollars to benefit the solar industry, no scientific, thorough, objective studies have shown that solar is a net benefit. See this 2021 Study: Built Solar Facilities are Chronically Underperforming;
Solar has a high potential for substantial environmental harm, like polluting
aquifers with carcinogens (e.g., here, here, here, here and here) [also see Part 2];
Solar will likely reduce nearby home values (e.g., here, here, and here);
Solar can take prime farmland out of production (e.g., here), which results in loss of jobs, loss of farm equipment & supplies sold, and a loss of consumer produce;
Solar facilities with batteries can be a major hazard (e.g., here and here);
Solar facilities can be problematic to nearby airports (e.g., FAA, study and study);
Solar results in an enormous toxic disposal problem for the state (e.g., here, here, here, and here) — who will pay for that and where are the state rules about this?
Solar has no scientifically-proven consequential net reduction of climate change! In fact, some studies (e.g., here, here, here, here, here and here) conclude that there’s good evidence that solar facilities make climate change worse; and
Going solar likely benefits Communist China (e.g., here here, and here).’
Some additional sample relevant information about solar energy:
Uncle Sam’s Solar Racket — a Cesspool of Waste and Corruption
Wind and Solar Are Intermittent and Incapable of Meeting Our Needs
Why Wind and Solar Energy are Doomed to Failure
Surprising Disadvantages of Using Solar Energy
Leaders Hopelessly Misguided on Wind and Solar Power
Study: The More Solar on the Grid, the Less Value it Has
Cost Comparison: Actual Nuclear vs Solar Facilities
Part 2 – Solar Panel Toxicity Overview
When potential solar project host communities ask solar developers what toxic materials are in their solar panels, they typically say that they are not aware of any.
Although that may seem evasive, it may be an accurate response as:
most solar panels come from China,
China does not have anywhere near the environmental concern that we do, and
Chinese suppliers are unlikely to divulge negative information about their products.
The takeaway is: buyer beware. In other words, potential host communities for industrial solar facilities should be aware of what we do know — and then act accordingly to fully protect their community.
So what DO we know? We know that these are some of the toxic (some carcinogenic) chemicals that have been identified as likely being in solar panels (click on the links to get an idea of what some of the adverse health consequences are):
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAs) (also see here and here)
Perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS)
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)
Fluorinated Ethylene (FEP)
Cadmium Telluride
Copper Indium Selenide
Cadmium Gallium diselenide
Copper Indium Gallium diselenide
Silicon Tetrachloride
Hexafluoroethane
Polyvinyl Fluoride
Also, here is a basic explanation of the silicon manufacturing part of solar panels. The following are some additional toxic chemicals that have been identified as possibly being involved in the fabrication of solar panels, which might end up in the finished product:
Hydrogen chloride
Silicon tetrachloride
Hydrochloric acid
Sulfuric acid
Nitric acid
Sulfuric acid
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
Formaldehyde
Arsine gas
Trichlorosilane gas
Silane gas
Sulfur dioxide
Sulfur hexaflouride
Sodium hydroxide
Potassium hydroxide
Lead
Now that they have been alerted to the severity of the solar panel toxicity issue, what do conscientious states and communities do to protect their citizens and eco-systems from these life-threatening chemicals?
With solar, there are two major concerns with these toxic materials:
Over the 20± year estimated life of solar panels, how do states and local communities make sure that these chemicals will not migrate from solar panels into soils and local aquifers? and
How will solar panels with these materials be safely disposed of at the end of their useful life, and who will pay for it?(Note: these panels will not biodegrade, plus it is extremely difficult to recycle very much of these panels.)
The answers to both questions should primarily be found in state laws, and secondarily in local ordinances.
It is unconscionable to have state legislators mandate solar projects (e.g., via Renewable Portfolio Standards [RPS] legislation), yet not likewise pass accompanying appropriate legislation to protect their citizens (and environment) from the well-documented toxic threats that can result from their RPS.
Additionally, for state legislators to throw the responsibility of protecting citizens and the environment onto the backs of local representatives, is beyond unreasonable. In North Carolina, for example, what sense does it make to require that a hundred counties must get educated on the impacts of these toxic materials, and then write (and pass) a hundred local ordinances that try to address that threat to their communities?
Election Integrity
And this, on Electric Vehicles (EVs) and related mining required for the batteries.
https://bfrandall.substack.com/p/anothe ... medium=webAnother Mining Truth Bomb from John Lee Pettimore - EVs Are Anything But "Green"
EV Mandates Are Absurd
Ok, lets talk about EVs. How much mining is required to make an EV battery? Lithium brines typically contain less than 0.1% lithium, so that entails some 25,000 pounds of brines to get the 25 pounds of pure lithium needed to fabricate a single battery. #GreenEnergy
Cobalt ore grades average about 0.1%, thus nearly 30,000 pounds of ore.
Nickel ore grades average about 1%, thus about 6,000 pounds of ore.
Graphite ore is typically 10%, thus about 1,000 pounds per battery.
Copper at about 0.6% in the ore, thus about 25,000 pounds of ore per battery.
In total then, acquiring just these five elements to produce the 1,000-pound EV battery requires mining about 90,000 pounds of ore.
But before we get to any of that ore we must remove the overburden. What is overburden? Its the dirt/rock we must remove to get to the ore body.
Overburden ranges from about 3 to 20 tons of earth removed to access each ton of ore. This means that accessing about 90,000 pounds of ore requires digging and moving between 200,000 and over 1,500,000 pounds of earth or about 500,000 pounds per battery.
Great now that we are into the ore body now what? Now we have to haul it, crush it, run it through ball mills and chemicals in order to get the final product. This is a picture of typical ball mills used to further crush the rock.
Before we begin the mining process we need drills, shovels, haul trucks, support equipment explosives and manpower. Millions of gallons of fuel, oils and coolants, because without these there is no #GreenEnergy mining.
Analyses show that manufacturing a single battery, one capable of holding energy that is equivalent to one barrel of oil, entails processes that use the energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil.
And if the batteries are manufactured in Asia (as 60% of the world’s batteries are now), more than 60% of the electricity to do so is coal-fired. In 2022, China produced a record amount of coal at 4.496 billion tonnes, which is nine percent more than the year before.
Non-battery, electrical systems in an EV use some 300% more overall copper compared with a conventional automobile. How much more mining do we have to do for that?John Lee Pettimore
@JohnLeePettim13
I get a lot of replies on my tweets, "Make mining Green" Energy consumption of mining is 6.2% of the total global energy consumption. The annual global energy consumption is 580 million terajoules or the energy equivalent of a Hiroshima nuclear bomb going off every four seconds.@JohnLeePettim13
Renewable energy is expected to grow from 2-6% of global primary energy use by 2030, but in order for that to happen we must mine more, a lot more.
7:23 PM · Jan 19, 2023@JohnLeePettim13
48,500 active haul trucks (over 90 tons) at surface mines worldwide. The cost to run each truck on average is $500 per hr. $582,000,000 spent every 24 hours worldwide to operate these trucks. Each truck gets approx. 1/2 a mile per gal. You cant make #GreenEnergy without mining.Linda Marie Lovison
@lilo623
Replying to @DameScorpio and @JBillLevy
"A single Tesla battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. At this rate, over the next thirty years we will need to mine more mineral ores than humans have extracted over the last 70,000 years."
@JohnLeePettim13
#GreenEnergy
Wake up, sheep. Or stay asleep.
by stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:12 pm
DrEvil » 25 Jan 2023 01:36 wrote:No one here is applauding our authoritarian daddies, and Scott Pruitt wasn't a messenger, he was a fossil fuel powered puppet brought in to destroy the EPA from the inside.EPA docs don’t show any scientific evidence for Scott Pruitt’s climate claims
EPA still has time to search for any science that might have supported Pruitt's comments.
Megan Geuss - 8/9/2018, 1:10 AM
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not been able to offer any scientific evidence for statements made by the agency's former administrator, Scott Pruitt, when he went on CNBC in March 2017 and said that carbon dioxide was not known to be a major contributor to climate change.
During a live interview last year on Squawk Box, the administrator stated: “I would not agree that [carbon dioxide is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” adding, “there’s a tremendous disagreement about the degree of the impact” of “human activity on the climate.”
Pruitt’s statements contradicted overwhelming scientific evidence as well as everything the EPA had published before he took office. In response, a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) formally requested any scientific documentation that might have informed Pruitt’s opinion, given the gravity of the about-face.
The EPA stalled and refused to turn over any documents. PEER responded by suing the agency for dereliction of its duty to supply public documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
In June, a federal judge sided with PEER and ordered the EPA to provide any scientific documentation that might have helped Pruitt come to the conclusion he asserted on CNBC.
The EPA eventually provided a 12-page document to PEER. The document included six pages of emails between CNBC producers and Pruitt aides, as well as four pages of “top-line notes” that Pruitt used, outlining what he would talk about on the interview. None of those notes mentioned climate change or carbon dioxide’s effect on the environment at all.
Pruitt resigned from his post at the EPA in July as scandals involving his spending habits mounted. Before he left, he was asked by the EPA’s attorney to confirm whether there were any other records that he relied on to support his statements on that CNBC interview.
According to a press release from PEER, the 12 pages, which never once mention climate change, were all the scientific support Pruitt used to make statements on national television.
“EPA attorney Jennifer Hammitt confirmed that there was nothing more,” PEER wrote in a press release. The organization included a quote that Hammitt sent to PEER:In addition to the above search, EPA presented the 12 pages of material... to the former administrator before his departure from the agency and asked him if he was aware of any other agency records that he relied upon to make the statement on the Squawk Box appearance. The former Administrator identified no additional responsive records.
The EPA is still engaged in trying to back up the former administrator's comments after the fact. The agency said it would perform an electronic search “for any studies concluding human activity is not the main source of climate change.”
PEER said in its press release that it has urged the EPA to augment that search by asking its own scientific experts whether there is any basis for Pruitt's statements, and the EPA has agreed.
“It appears Scott Pruitt’s positions were utterly unencumbered by facts,” PEER General Counsel Paula Dinerstein said in a statement. “Amazingly, Pruitt had the gall to preach ‘sound science’ until his disgraceful exit.”
Although Pruitt has since departed from his position at the head of the EPA, his views aren’t unique within the Trump administration. Thus far, President Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax,” has not offered any evidence to substantially contradict the current scientific consensus.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... te-claims/
by Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:18 pm
by Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:29 pm
DrEvil » Tue Jan 24, 2023 9:49 pm wrote:
And of course it's impossible to improve anything about those last two things. It's physically impossible to build recycling plants or to regulate things with an eye towards preventing the problems. And what about the alternative? Just keep burning oil, coal and gas as usual? Unlike fossil fuels solar panels and batteries can be improved over time and recycled. Just because the infrastructure to do so at scale isn't in place right now doesn't mean it never will be. That's just a policy failure, not a hard limit.
by stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 11:37 pm
by Elvis » Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:29 am
stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 6:13 am wrote:Elvis » 24 Jan 2023 10:59 wrote:I concede that fossil fuel industry propaganda is mainstream, and CNBC is a reliable mainstream defender of the fossil-fuel corporatocracy.
Never on RI have I seen such obsequious toadying for capital. How does this virus of disinformation spread? Could it be the billions spent by the industry on public relations telling us how great they are? I think so.
Black-fucking-Rock is literally driving Net Zero.
by stickdog99 » Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:02 am
Elvis » 25 Jan 2023 04:29 wrote:stickdog99 » Tue Jan 24, 2023 6:13 am wrote:Elvis » 24 Jan 2023 10:59 wrote:I concede that fossil fuel industry propaganda is mainstream, and CNBC is a reliable mainstream defender of the fossil-fuel corporatocracy.
Never on RI have I seen such obsequious toadying for capital. How does this virus of disinformation spread? Could it be the billions spent by the industry on public relations telling us how great they are? I think so.
Black-fucking-Rock is literally driving Net Zero.
BlackRock is exploiting a situation they didn't create. They want to own the problem—letting them do it is the policy error..
BlackRock wants to financialize a problem that doesn't need to be financialized.
BlackRock and its finance-capital brethren should be barred from investing in or profiting from the energy transition.
BlackRock must be crowded out with public money.
That's where I stand on BlackRock. They are the enemy. Finance capitalism is the enemy.
(Climate scientists are not the enemy.)
by Gnomad » Wed Jan 25, 2023 3:29 am
The last eight years have been the warmest on record, the European Union's climate monitoring service said in its annual report on Tuesday.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said December 2022 was the seventh warmest in Europe since records began and Europe as a whole recorded its second hottest year last year too.
Climatologists typically use reference periods to create 'climate normals' that represent what can be considered a typical climate for that period. This new report uses 1991-2020 as the main reference period.
"Atmospheric concentrations are continuing to rise with no sign of slowing," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, the head of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.
Extreme temperatures across the globe
"2022 was yet another year of climate extremes across Europe and globally," Samantha Burgess, the deputy head of the climate change service, said in a statement.
"These events highlight that we are already experiencing the devastating consequences of our warming world," she said.
2022 was the fifth warmest year globally since records began, with 2016, 2020, 2019 and 2017 having been hotter, in that order. The last eight years were the eight hottest on record, C3S said.
The UK, France, Spain and Italy set new average temperature records for the year 2022, while the Middle East, China, Central Asia and northern Africa experienced unprecedented levels of heat as well.
Vostok station, one of the most remote research stations in the world in Antarctica, recorded its warmest temperature last year in its 65-year history at minus 17.7 degrees Celsius (0.14 degrees Fahrenheit).
On the other end, Greenland experienced September temperatures 8 degrees Celsius higher than average, leading to widespread ice losses and global sea level rise.
Finland saw its wind power capacity grow by 75 percent in 2022, according to the Finnish Wind Power Association, a wind energy trade group.
“No other electricity generation can be built in Finland as quickly and as cost-effectively right now,” Anni Mikkonen, CEO of the association, said in a statement.
Last year Finland erected 427 new turbines with a combined power capacity of 2,430 megawatts. The country now boasts 1,393 turbines in total, which together have a capacity of 5,677 megawatts. New wind turbines have trended larger over time, with bigger turbines producing more electricity.
Finland is expected to add roughly 1,000 megawatts a year for the next three years. In 2025, wind will cover at least 28 percent of the country’s power consumption, the Finnish Wind Energy Association estimates. A 2018 study published in Nature Energy found that with larger, more efficient turbines, wind could conceivably supply all of Finland’s electricity.
Seeing countless renewable energy records broken and milestones passed has been a constant source of encouraging news for our planet. Now, we have yet another impressive stat to celebrate: in the first half of 2019, Scotland generated enough energy from wind power to supply its homes twice over.
Specifically, turbines generated 9.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity between January and June, enough to supply power to 4.47 million homes – not bad for a country that has around 2.6 million homes to its name.
The bismuth-based nanocrystals do not only consist of non-toxic elements abundant in nature, they are also cheap to produce. The solar cell material is reportedly 10 to 50 times thinner than current thin-film photovoltaics. Also, it is 1 000 times thinner than silicon photovoltaics that are bulky, costly and require a lot of energy to manufacture. “The results show how our research, looking at the underlying chemistry and physics of materials, can help in the design of high-performance, low-cost devices and support a green economy,” notes Kavanagh.
Alsym’s mission is to guarantee that batteries work as expected at a lower cost while also addressing the majority of supply chain issues associated with lithium-based technology.
The cathode is mainly manganese oxide, and the anode is a different metal oxide. In addition, the electrolyte is water-based, with no organic solvents. The main factor is avoiding utilizing pricey metals like cobalt and lithium.
Thanks to years of testing, today’s batteries have performance similar to that of a Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery (LFP Battery). Because Alsym Energy is in the process of obtaining patents, it declined to publish all technical information.
The Alsym Energy team is working to ensure that the batteries not only meet performance expectations at a reduced cost but also avoid most of the supply chain challenges associated with lithium-based technologies.
“ Most of the current materials come from the US, with some coming from Europe and Japan.,” said Chatter. “But let’s put it this way: They are all readily available and none of them are largely controlled by any one country.
For the last decade, Katzner has also researched how birds interact with energy installations like wind and solar projects. During this time, studies have estimated that hundreds of thousands of birds die each year at such facilities in the United States. That's still a small fraction of the millions of birds that at least one paper estimated are killed annually due to habitat destruction, downstream climate change, and other impacts of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. But renewable energy is growing rapidly, and researchers are trying to determine how that continued growth might affect wildlife.
by Elvis » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:25 am
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