nce upon a time...we all wanted to understand renewables. What were the promising technologies? Are they available now? Could they produce enough power? How would the variability be managed? How reliable would a high-grid-penetration renewable energy system be? How much would it cost?

While markets and legislators tussle on aims and rules for 2020 targets, and while some get on with building wind farms, the public analysis on how we integrate increasing levels of renewables into our electricity network struggle to rise above crystal ball gazing. Fairy tales about 'energy futures' were interesting for a while, but now we yearn for a more adult plot line.

Now there is a new kind of interactive website for open analysis of renewable energy options. It says:

Science is special (and works!) because of its capacity to uncover objective truth. Of course, individual scientists are people with a world of subjective, intuitive and more-or-less objective reasons for examining certain questions using chosen methods. But then, in judging scientific claims, the 'who' and the 'why' should not matter; scientific conclusions (ideally) stand or fall based on the evidence for and against their correctness. It can be a little like the Law".

Read more about the oz-energy-analysis.org website

 

IFR FaD 3 – the LWR versus IFR fuel cycle

16 February 2010 on BraveNewClimate.com

Yoon Chang and Barry Brook discuss the IFR over a good wine, June 2009

The following post in the Integral Fast Reactor Facts and Discussion series centres around two important diagrams prepared by Dr Yoon I. Chang – Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratories, a key figure in the development of the IFR between 1984 and 1994, and founding member of the Science Council for Global Initiatives. These allow one to easily — visually — see the difference between the uranium fuel cycle of today’s Gen II and Gen III light water reactors, and the alternative mass flow represented by the IFR.

December 1, 2009

Here in Australia, there’s currently a political storm over a proposed cap-and-trade system for putting a price on carbon pollution. In brief, the federal Labor (left wing) government has passed the legislation for an emissions trading scheme in the house of representatives (where they have a clear parliamentary majority), but have had it blocked in the senate, where they lack a majority.

It has now become clear that the Liberal/National coalition (conservatives) will not pass the bill the second time around, for various reasons (a large number of members are skeptical of a human role in climate change, and others claim it will be an economic disaster). The Greens party, with five senators, have also refused to vote with Labor to pass the bill in the senate for inverse reasons — they claim it is a flawed system because of the way it rewards big polluters and due to its grossly inadequate emissions reduction targets.

Read More about Cap and Trade in Australia

The climate changes because it is forced to do so. That may sound a little strange, but 'forcing' is a real technical term for any pressure that causes the 'average weather' to shift. Positive forcings (e.g. increased solar activity, more greenhouse gases) induce global warming, whereas negative forcings (e.g. more low-level clouds, volcanic dimming) result in cooling. Climate system feedbacks (e.g. melting ice, more water vapour) act to enhance these processes. That's the way it's always been, throughout Earth's long history. When the planet is thrown out of energy balance by a change in forcing, it must respond, by warming or cooling. It can't be bargained with and it has no room to compromise. It will do what it must do. It's the laws of physics.

So there's no point in half-fixing climate change. If this is our strategy, whether implicit or explicit, people may as well enjoy the Platinum Age (as Ross Garnaut calls the last few decades) and be done. Cap-and-trade systems to reduce emissions by some percentage are a good example of an ultimately useless 'half-fix' policy. Due to the long lifetime of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere (about 20 per cent of CO2 released today will still be airborne in 1000 years), it is only the total amount of CO2 released by humanity during the fossil-fuel age that really matters. We must limit total emissions.