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Sandia Applying Solar Thermochemical Hydrogen Technology to Recycling CO2 to Liquid Fuels
9 December 2007
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| The CR5 thermochemical engine is the basis of the Sunshine to Petrol project. Click to enlarge. |
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are extending work on the development of a device for the solar thermochemical production of hydrogen from the splitting of water to recycling CO2 into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
The prototype device—the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5)—will be applied to breaking the carbon-oxygen bond in carbon dioxide to produce carbon monoxide and oxygen. Combining the CO stream with the hydrogen resulting from the splitting of water by a CR5 device, an integrated “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P) system could then synthesize a liquid combustible hydrocarbon fuel.
As originally developed for hydrogen production, the CR5 is a stack of rings made of a reactive ferrite material, consisting of iron oxide mixed with a metal oxide such as cobalt, magnesium, or nickel oxide. Every other ring rotates in opposite directions. Concentrated solar heat is reflected through a small hole onto one side of the stack of rings. The side of the rings in the sunlit area is hot, while the other side is relatively cold. As the rotating rings pass each other in between these regions, the hot rings heat up the cooler rings, and the colder rings cool down the hot rings. This arrangement results in a conservation of heat entering the system, limiting the energy input required from the sunlight.
Hydrogen production with these materials involves two chemical reactions: a high temperature (1,550°C) thermal reduction to produce oxygen followed by a lower temperature (1,100°C) water oxidation to produce hydrogen.
One of the keys to the device is the material used in the rings. For hydrogen production, the team found that suspending the ferrite material in zirconia, a refractory oxide that withstands high temperatures, delivered a high yield of hydrogen “quickly and repeatedly,” even after forming the mixture into complex solid shapes. Without using the zirconia, the ferrite material doesn’t hold together well; it essentially forms a slag and stops reacting.
The ferrite/zirconia structures are laid line-by-line using robocasting, a method developed and perfected by other team members that relies on robotics for computer-controlled deposition of materials through a syringe. The materials flow like toothpaste and are deposited in thin sequential layers onto a base to build up complex shapes.
Over the past year, the Sandia researchers have shown proof of concept of S2P and are completing a prototype device that will use concentrated solar energy to split carbon dioxide or water.
Rich Diver is the inventor of the CR5 device. Co-researchers on the project are Jim E. Miller and Nathan Siegel. Project champion is Ellen B. Stechel, manager of Sandia’s Fuels and Energy Transitions Department. Stechel says that researchers have known for a long time that theoretically it might be possible to recycle carbon dioxide, but many thought it could not be made practical, either technically or economically.
Funding for Sunshine to Petrol come from Sandia’s internal Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The research has also attracted interest and some funding from DoD/DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
Miller says that while the first step would be to capture the carbon dioxide from sources where it is concentrated, ultimate goal would be to snatch it out of the air. A S2P system that includes atmospheric carbon dioxide capture could produce carbon-neutral liquid fuels.
The research team has already proven that the chemistry works repeatedly through multiple cycles without losing performance and on a short enough cycle time for a practical device. The prototype should be completed by early next year. Initial tests will break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. That will be followed by tests that similarly break down carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide and oxygen.
A commercial S2P device is probably at least 15 to 20 years away, according to Stechel.
Resources
Development of Solar-Powered Thermochemical Production of Hydrogen from Water (DOE Hydrogen Program FY 2007 Annual Progress Report)
Development of Solar-powered Thermochemical Production of Hydrogen from Water (UNLV, STCH, 2006)
December 9, 2007 in Climate Change, Emissions, Hydrogen Production, Solar | Permalink | Comments (49) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments
A machine to recycle CO2 into cleaner energy carriers (sources) would be very useful for all current and future coal fired power plants.
Can it be perfected in time or before we 2X CO2 emissions with a 1000 new worldwide coal fired and/NG power plants.
Posted by: Harvey D | Dec 9, 2007 7:58:01 AM
Optomisticly the first commercial unit won't be on-line until 2022. It won't make a significant impact on liquid fuel supply until 2032 and would take at least until 2050 before it could generate all our liquid fuel needs. This is the realistic time line for any new technology be cellulosic ethanol, Brussard's fusion device, fast reactors, whatever.
Posted by: tom deplume | Dec 9, 2007 9:44:16 AM
This is almost certain to be some multiple of the cost of solar thermal electric power, but it neatly addresses the issue of long-term energy storage and special applications (like aviation).
Probably be 20 years before it's ready for prime time, though. Solid-oxide fuel cells have been in the pipeline about that long, and they're not quite here yet.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 9, 2007 9:50:20 AM
Plants are a good collector of CO2 and hydrogen created from gasification would provide the CO2 necessary for this.
Posted by: sjc | Dec 9, 2007 9:55:40 AM
Joy, it's H2Car all over again.
http://greyfalcon.net/h2car
(For some reason I read it as "ThermoNuclear" and wrote this)
http://greyfalcon.net/h2nuke
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 9, 2007 10:19:01 AM
It's not H2CAR. It's a direct thermochemical method, which is far more efficient. H2CAR is a dead end, this looks far better (though maybe not good enough).
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 9, 2007 10:30:15 AM
*Shrug* Okay I guess you would know.
But it really does beg the question that if you were running a solar thermal electricity power plant using the same infrastructure, how much more transportation miles would you get.
The other question being, where will all this CO/CO2 come from?
Just in general, it's annoying when people try to act like these options will be the end all be all solution.
Rather than just a niche for things like cargoships, and aircraft.
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 9, 2007 10:47:18 AM
Fermenting ethanol creates lots of CO2, you could use that as well.
Posted by: sjc | Dec 9, 2007 10:58:05 AM
This goes into the "neat scientific curiosity" department. Though we may see accelerated development if given enough R&D funding.
Posted by: Cervus | Dec 9, 2007 11:54:52 AM
Would have been nice if they had found this 15-20 years ago. For now I agree with Cervus. Nice scientific curiosity, but nothing we could base any public policy on.
Posted by: eric | Dec 9, 2007 12:15:09 PM
What we're not seeing here is the efficiency. I agree that solar thermal is probably loads cheaper, and *with good batteries* BEV is cleaner and easier.
As a CO2 recycling process, this had several challenges:
1) Is there enough acreage near large point sources for CO2 to crack the CO2 and solar-thermally create hydrocarbons?
2) Can you save the CO2 you produce at night?
3) What about in winter time?
Algae consumption of flue gasses has the same challenge, but probably is more vulnerable to invasive species and needs more trace nutrients and such. I've not idea which would ulitmately be cheaper, or preferable.
Still, it seems silly to say this is 15-20 years away. It doesn't sound like tokamak fusion where it needs some kind of unobtainium to make the process economical. It just sounds like it needs pilot projects to prove it at scale.
Posted by: HealthyBreeze | Dec 9, 2007 5:42:36 PM
You find the 15-20 year figure in the original article. If you follow the link, they actually say:
“This invention, though probably a good 15 to 20 years away from being on the market, holds a real promise of being able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions while preserving options to keep using fuels we know and love,” she says. “Recycling carbon dioxide into fuels provides an attractive alternative to burying it.”
Posted by: eric | Dec 9, 2007 7:36:16 PM
Perhaps this system could be used to regenerate Sodium Hydroxide in a system that scrubs CO2 from ambient air.
See:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~keith/papers/84.Stolaroff.AirCaptureGHGT-8.p.pdf
Perhaps the CR5 could be used to drive calcination (extracting the CO2 from the sodium carbonate) and then regenerate the Sodium Hydroxide farther down the pipeline....
Its late, I probably didn't phrase that properly. In any event, the .pdf link I posted describes a ambient air C02 scrubbing technology that has two chemical loops, both of which need energy (thermal..?) to regenerate.
The fact that the rings rotate apparently lowers the thermal requirements placed on the material much in the way intermittent exposure to fresh air allows the piston and cylinder walls to survive in an ICE.
With a process temperature low of 1,100C and an average of 1,325C, I can't imagine that material sciences guys are saying "that makes it way easier, now we can use plain 'ol iron"
Posted by: GreenPlease | Dec 9, 2007 7:41:59 PM
But it really does beg the question that if you were running a solar thermal electricity power plant using the same infrastructure, how much more transportation miles would you get.If you assume that the solar thermal and thermochemical processes have roughly the same efficiency (a guess), the ratio would be close to the efficiency of the combustion engine and drivetrain. I dunno, between 3:1 and 6:1, advantage to thermal?
The other question being, where will all this CO/CO2 come from?There's a lot of CO2 in products of fermentation, anaerobic digestion, and of course combustion. If the process scales down well (and I don't see why not), it could be made farm-sized so that practically all the harvested carbon can become product rather than being lost as gas.
The beauty of this is that a CO+H2 syngas is a good fraction of the way to a huge number of fuel and chemical products. Ethanol, methanol, methane, ethylene, F-T alkanes... all can be made from syngas, some with relatively cheap processes.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 9, 2007 8:51:44 PM
Why not just use the H2 (produced in the first step) directly in vehicles and in power plants for electricity generation? Then, develop methods and matrices for absorbing H2 at 14-17% by weight at relatively low pressure for long-distance transportation and storage of the H2. This will make the transportation of H2 over long distances nearly as efficient as long-distance petroleum transportation.
H2-FCV can be 3x more efficient than current gasoline cars, while it is theoretically possible to make H2-ICE-HEV with 50% thermal efficiency tank-to-wheel, thus making the H2-renewable-energy economy eventually to be even more affordable than current petroleum-dependent transportation system and fossil-fuel electrical generation system.
Posted by: Roger Pham | Dec 9, 2007 9:50:17 PM
Basically anything that uses 1500 deg to 1200 deg thermal energies to create any re useable fuel has been claimed un efficiant since the car motor. Think more on a natural level of chemical and solar transverses that mimic more towards a natural aproach like the pem fuel cell or a tree.
Posted by: Nick | Dec 9, 2007 10:20:36 PM
Living plants have an overall efficiency so low that they can't provide a large fraction of transport fuel needs. You'd have to put tens of millions of hectares under the plow for it, which would be an ecological disaster in itself. In contrast artificial systems like this one, taking CO2 directly from the air and powered by nuclear, Solar, or other renewable sources, would be a complete carbon-neutral solution.
Perhaps "15 to 20 years" is the authors' estimate of how long it would take this process to become economical under existing market assumptions. A $50 per tonne tax on fossil carbon would speed that up a lot.
Posted by: richard schumacher | Dec 10, 2007 7:06:15 AM
trees are much more efficient at turning CO2 and sunlight into useful products. they are also good for moderating surface temperatures, increasing cloud cover, providing fresh water, decreasing erosion.
so, where is the reforestation research?
where are the desert-hardy hybrids of trees that will reclaim the Sahara while providing useful products to those who look after them?
Posted by: shaun | Dec 10, 2007 8:55:20 AM
Richard Schumacher wrote:
Living plants have an overall efficiency so low that they can't provide a large fraction of transport fuel needs.
That may be, but it remains to be seen whether we can get anywhere near those levels of efficiency. Green plants also include in that efficiency the costs of production (including the extraction and processing of raw material), development, maintenance, and deployment.
Posted by: dt | Dec 10, 2007 9:31:27 AM
We should be doing things we can understand and if its old hat thats OK. I have seen nothing really useful in the "waiting for God dept. Pleased to see that a lot of research is going into algae, though not much on
this site recently, I will try to bring some of those links in.
As I understand it a lot of he commentators on site are techs, If they were
also climbers ie technical rope acess climbers or such then they'd be a bit keener on standard ground based wind power. Also any ordinary motor tech with a bit of curiosity to aero props,turbines, lamina flow,
electronics, power generation and a whole host of associated fun stuff.
which should include anyone with one eye open and a spare brain cell or
three must surely find some merit in this technology. I know I'm not alone out there.
Maybe my aesthetics are a bit out there, and that seems to be the critics only valid reason for not getting on with it Someone said "No
It'll spoil the view."
"Better to sit around waiting for god to come up with ?** + good looking to boot."
Trouble is IMHO they wouldn't know good looking if it were gold plated.
Posted by: | Dec 10, 2007 11:14:01 AM
Why not just use the H2 (produced in the first step) directly in vehicles and in power plants for electricity generation?
Roger, you are missing the forest for the trees (again).
That's what's great about this invention: all the advantages of hydrogen, without the schlep of a dangerous and difficult-to-handle fuel.
Posted by: Engineer | Dec 10, 2007 5:20:35 PM
Recycling CO2 from a coal power plant and then burning it still creates the same amount of CO2 from the coal, although it does offset some CO2 from oil.
Posted by: GdB | Dec 10, 2007 7:07:08 PM
==Photosynthesis is much more efficient at turning CO2 and sunlight into useful products.==
No it's not.
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 10, 2007 9:38:10 PM
Toss this one in for good measure.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae4
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 10, 2007 9:39:41 PM
Which is why you don't use CO2 from a coal powerplant. This thermochemical scheme appears to be well-suited to small installations, like the 25 kW/unit solar Stirling dishes. You could use it to turn excess CO2 into syngas (and from there to fuel, like methanol or ethylene) anywhere you have CO2 and sunlight; the closer you do it to the source, the lower the cost of transporting the CO2.
You could build installations like this to sit on farms, at landfills, and all kinds of places where you have a stream of gas containing CO2. Our biggest fuel demand is for transport; if you can supply short-range energy demand with solar thermal plus batteries, solar thermochemical fuel could handle the long-range applications. The big issue is supplying enough carbon to run the system, and my previous calculations say that it's difficult but possible.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 10, 2007 10:01:25 PM
I stated that poorly: it's not just the low efficiency of plants, it's low efficiency plus the relatively low power density (1.4 kW per meter ^2) of Sunlight. Together these would require huge surface areas devoted to farming (in other words a very large factory) to make significant amounts of biofuels. In contrast artificial production systems like the subject of the Sandia work can run at much greater power densities and 24 hours per day, and so the factory can be far smaller. It will not be limited by available farm land and available Sunlight.
Posted by: richard schumacher | Dec 11, 2007 7:13:01 AM
Long before this technology becomes anything more than a laboratory curiosity, the whole question of whether to do anything about CO2 will become academic.
With modern 21st century Science increasingly limiting the the assumed power of GHGs, and CO2 in particular, to alter the climate, we just won't care in half a decade.
Further there is a natural sequestering agent present in the world that will strip the atmosphere of any "surplus" CO2.
In the only true ecological disaster, the Plant kingdom was so successful that it ate most of the atmospheric CO2 out of the atmosphere until it was reduced to such a trace gas that it strangled and stunted Plants. It also allowed the rise of a form of life that actually consumed Plants, the Animals, who used the pollution generated by the Plants, free Oxygen, to breathe and power their consumption of Plants.
The Plants will do so again. Especially as the screwy unique thesis for long enduring CO2 persistence in the atmosphere, as dreamed up by GW doomsayers, is replaced its a return to classical laws of gaseous-liquid solubility and equilibrium, i.e Henry's Law, Henry's Law applies to CO2 as it does for for EVERY other gas-liquid mixture. the special conditions that would make CO2 unique and exempt, have by now been disproved by Science. All that remains is to officially lay the erroneous theory into the grave, as the IPCC has already committed to do, where all incorrect Science eventually is placed.
When the demand for CO2 producing technology declines precipitously, as is already well on the way to being irreversibly committed, the Plant kingdom will do a fine job of eating up the excess CO2 to the point they resume strangling and stunting their own growth.
Mean time enjoy this more green, fecund,and luxuriant world.
Posted by: Stan Peterson | Dec 11, 2007 8:00:16 AM
==Mean time enjoy this more green, fecund,and luxuriant world.==
Actually turns out that there's diminishing returns on adding additional CO2 to plants. And we've practically exhausted the rate of increases in the R curve.
So no adding more CO2 won't make the world a greener place.
If anything water and nitrogen are far more crucial to plant growth. And global warming will play havoc with those.
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 11, 2007 11:02:49 AM
What global warming? Every thirty years or so there's a hue and cry about human caused climate change that goes nowhere when the climate's natural cycles reverse.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070814/NATION02/108140063
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/unsoundscience3.pdf
And CO2 doesn't drive climate, anyway:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Evans-CO2DoesNotCauseGW.pdf
Posted by: Arthur | Dec 11, 2007 2:16:07 PM
Not the trolls again!
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 11, 2007 7:11:56 PM
"Stop! Pay Troll." - Adventure
Posted by: Arthur | Dec 11, 2007 10:16:24 PM
Fee! Fie! Foe! Foo!
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 11, 2007 10:31:49 PM
I cannot believe that this damned spam filter refuses to let me make one little Adventure reference.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 11, 2007 10:34:04 PM
Engineer posted: "That's what's great about this invention: all the advantages of hydrogen, without the schlep of a dangerous and difficult-to-handle fuel[hydrogen]".
I kept thinking that we really want to move away from hydrocarbon fuels in order to improve the local air pollution problem inherent in most large urban centers. This is 50% of the mission of GCC, and 100% the mission of CARB: reduce and eventually eliminate vehicular emission, by going low-carb...and then no carb at all. Plus, direct H2 consumption as an universal fuel for all occasions, will be far more efficient than gathering up the CO2 from the atmosphere, then use to produce the CO, and then use F-T synthesis to combine the H2 and CO into liquid hydrocarbon, and then refine this synthetic "crude" oil into desirable fuels for final consumption. Too many steps that will rob energy efficiency and increase the final cost of the fuel significantly.
Posted by: Roger Pham | Dec 12, 2007 7:23:29 AM
E-P,
Too true; spam/naughty filters can stifle speech.
The point of my "Adventure" reference (a text game from the 1970's, for those who didn't recognize it) is that I have been around long enough to have seen many of these environmentalist fear campaigns over the decades. I attended the first Earth Day festivities in 1969 and saw the "Ice Age" (news media) hysteria in the 70's. There was just as much "scientific consensus" then as now.
Science, by the way, doesn't work by consensus. You make advancements by challenging the status quo. Any theory must explain known facts, be testable, and be predictive. CO2-caused-climate-change falls on its face on all three conditions. It doesn't explain the ice core data that shows that CO2 levels follow temperature trends. It goes counter to the natural temperature cycles that caused cooling from the 30's to the 70's while anthropogenic CO2 emissions were increasing. And the troposphere does not show the warming that was predicted to prove the theory. Since it isn't explanatory, testable, or predictive, it must be political.
The constant thread through the decades is the claim that man is a disaster for the earth and has to give up modern economic activities to lessen man's impact. Thus, all the fear campaigns have one consistent theme: state control of economic activity. If you liked the famines in the Ukraine or China (from the "Great Leap Forward"), then you will love economic policy based on political aims.
What I observe through the decades is that the current "environmental emergency" is no different from any of the others: take a perceived problem, cause a big panic, and get the legislatures to enact policy (and route taxpayer money to those who promote the scare). The urgency demanded for policy change is an attempt to stay ahead of the facts. The lack of warming in the last few years is an "inconvinient truth" for policy change.
This web site's stated purpose is "sustainable mobility." Any progress toward that laudable goal is an appropriate topic here. Recycling carbon sounds like a good idea if it works toward "sustainable mobility." Sequestering carbon looks to be a purely political notion.
So you can call me a "troll" or a "denier," if you want. Name calling is a good sign of intellectually bankruptcy.
Posted by: Arthur | Dec 12, 2007 7:41:06 AM
I heard that over the past 7 years, the U.S. CO2 emissions have gone up 20%, Japan has gone up 13% and Europe has gone down 4%. It was a TV article on the BBC I think, so I have no reference for it, but if this is true then it shows me that CO2 emissions might be reduced without major economic impact. If it makes the U.S. less dependent on fossil fuels, then this would be good.
Posted by: sjc | Dec 12, 2007 8:10:33 AM
sjc, I, too, am in favor of decreasing our (US) exposure to foreign fuel supplies as a national security issue. I have no objection to producing our fuels ourselves. I don't much care what form they take. Except...
Roger, reducing pollution is also a worthy pursuit. I remember the orange air we had in California in the late 60's. We have made great strides and I wouldn't want to go back to those poisonous times.
As far as CO2 goes...
As I understand it, a country's CO2 emissions are estimated from its consumption of fuels. The NYTimes (2/16/07) reported:
"According to the United Nations, the United States accounted for 21.2 percent of world manufacturing in 2000. As China surged ahead in recent years, the American share of world manufacturing barely budged, falling to 21.1 percent by 2005, the most recent year available. American factories produced a record $1.5 trillion in goods that year."
It would appear that the US is making good use of the fuel consumed. If Europe is consuming less fuel, it may mean that Europe is lagging in productivity. Not a good thing for them.
Posted by: Arthur | Dec 12, 2007 10:25:04 AM
"Further there is a natural sequestering agent present in the world that will strip the atmosphere of any "surplus" CO2."
You think the plants will do it? Not likely. Like most ecological illiterates, you think in terms of cause and effect. However, you're forgetting Liebig's Law - that the most limiting resource controls abundance. In the case of plants, carbon dioxide is somewhat limiting - but it is co-limiting with nitrogen. Biomass requires nitrogen just as much as it does CO2;
In enriched CO2 atmospheres, plant biomass increases between 5 and 10%, then asymptotes as it runs into nitrogen limitation. There's not enough nitrogen in ecosystems - biologically available nitrogen fixed by bacterial n-fixers - to scrub any but a small amount of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Posted by: Snark | Dec 12, 2007 3:12:17 PM
"It doesn't explain the ice core data that shows that CO2 levels follow temperature trends."
In the past, when temperature followed solar forcings, this was the case. Now, as opposed to in the past, warming is forced by carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases. That's sort of the whole point. No climatologist has ever argued that carbon dioxide has always caused warming. If that's your misconception, you're welcome to it - but don't stick it in our mouthes.
Posted by: Snark | Dec 12, 2007 3:16:19 PM
In the future, if any of you conspicuously political laymen wish to challenge the current scientific paradigm regarding the climate warming trend, use published scientific articles and data. Disingenuous arguments based on willful misconceptions just make you look bad.
Posted by: Snark | Dec 12, 2007 3:21:45 PM
I was 60% of the way through ripping Arthur a new one last night, when Windoze crashed and lost all my work. But it's dinner time and I've got some time to write, so here it goes again.
I ... saw the "Ice Age" (news media) hysteria in the 70's. There was just as much "scientific consensus" then as now.No there wasn't, and you wouldn't have known it. What's happened in the mean time can be summed up in two words: The Internet. The "new ice age" articles of the 70's had no significant climate modeling behind them; how could they, when computers were so slow and whole categories of scientific data from ice cores to satellite measurements of temperature and ice cover and borehole reconstructions of recent temperature history did not yet exist? And almost nobody reading the magazines would have known that the whole thing was essentially a media craze, because all the data was in journals in research libraries to which few people had access. Today, it's the Internet which allows anyone to look at the scientific literature and see that it's AGW denial which exists only in the media; there is no science to it.
The "new ice age" came essentially from one thing: reconstructions of glacial history associated with Milankovitch cycles. By the cycles, we are indeed about due for renewed glaciation (which observations did not support then, or now). This led straight to the question of why we don't see glaciation despite Earth's orbital state predisposing the climate in that direction. The research into this is what grew into today's IPCC reports.
(cot'd)
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 13, 2007 9:17:13 PM
Arthur gets up to the level of one major falsehood per claim:
Any theory must explain known facts, be testable, and be predictive. CO2-caused-climate-change falls on its face on all three conditions.That's what the propagandists say for the press, and the press quotes them for the sake of "balance". But there's no truth to it.
It doesn't explain the ice core data that shows that CO2 levels follow temperature trends.Yes it does. CO2 in natural systems has large feedback effects; heating reduces the CO2 capacity of seawater and causes droughts, both of which lead to more CO2 going into the air rather than the oceans or biomass. A heating trend can be started by other influences but sustain itself through CO2 feedback. Of course, the same thing could be started by emitting CO2.
It goes counter to the natural temperature cycles that caused cooling from the 30's to the 70's while anthropogenic CO2 emissions were increasing.Emissions of sulfates and other reflective particulates were also increasing until the passage of the Clean Air Act. In China, they're still going up. These particulates reflect sunlight and cause cooling ("global dimming").
The particulates have an atmospheric lifespan of days to weeks; CO2, from decades to centuries. As soon as pollution controls or depletion of coal cuts the particulates, the signal from CO2-induced warming will be unopposed.
(cot'd)
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 13, 2007 9:19:35 PM
And the troposphere does not show the warming that was predicted to prove the theory.That's a flat-out lie. The signal from ground-based thermometry showed it clearly, but there was contradictory data from radiosondes and satellite measurements. Something was clearly being measured wrong. It turned out that some of the data did indeed have systematic errors:
- The radiosonde design had changed over the years in ways not well documented; the temperature sensor in some was exposed to solar heating and was shielded in others. This caused an error in daytime measurements only; older daytime measurements were higher than actual temperature, causing the warming signal to be obscured.
- Satellite measurements were not adjusted correctly for orbital changes. The corrected data shows warming.
Since it isn't explanatory, testable, or predictive, it must be political.That is the exact status of AGW-denialism: explains nothing, fails all the tests, and fails to predict the droughts, ice loss and warming. It has traction only because it has committed financial and ideological supporters, just like the evolution denialists. Projection is their common trait.
(fin)
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 13, 2007 9:20:26 PM
E-P,
Now I'm getting plagued by the "anti" filter.
I have been cordial to you and you have been insulting to me. I will continue to be cordial to you; I hope you will reciprocate.
“No there wasn't, and you wouldn't have known it.”
You don’t know me. While I don’t have a higher degree, I was in a science curriculum in the early 70’s and worked in a succession of laboratories afterwards. You have no idea of what I saw, read, or learned. I was living in the LA area when Ehrlich and company were pushing their notion of a pollution caused global cooling. Smog is very local and the photo-chemical elements break down at night when the sun sets. It never seemed reasonable to me that limited dispersion of man-made pollutants could result in a global climatic reaction. It still doesn’t. I still lived in CA in 1991 when Mt Pinatubo ejected enough garbage into the atmosphere to make summer sunlight feel less hot on the skin. The contrast in what nature can do with what man can do left a lasting impression.
“That's what the propagandists say for the press, and the press quotes them for the sake of "balance". But there's no truth to it.”
You don’t think theories should explain observed data, withstand tests, and not be overthrown by new data? How odd. I thought I was representing a textbook standard definition.
“That's a flat-out lie.”
E-P, I may make mistakes but I do not deliberately lie. That’s insulting. Since I’m not doing field work myself, I have to rely on the published results of others. It would appear to me that researchers are aware of instrumentation issues and can allow for them. Seidal (2001) reports a decline in temperature of half a degree a decade:
http://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/related_papers/2001_seidel_etal_tropopause.pdf
Ah ha. The "spam" was in pulling out the quote from the paper. Let's try a piece of it...
"The utility of the radiosonde data for detection of trends in the tropopause is limited by changes in instrumentation and observing methods."
Okay that survived.
Now, let’s be civil. We share an Adventure.
Posted by: Arthur | Dec 14, 2007 12:50:50 PM
E-P, I may make mistakes but I do not deliberately lie.
When you state with apparent assurance something that isn't so, you are projecting an unwarranted impression that you know what you are talking about. In that sense, you are lying about your own competence.
Posted by: Paul D. | Dec 15, 2007 4:24:11 PM
==saw the "Ice Age" (news media) hysteria in the 70's. There was just as much "scientific consensus" then as now.==
Media hysteria. Yes absolutely.
Scientific consensus. Not at all.
Infact the US National Academy of Sciences issued a report saying that the evidence was far too ambiguous.
http://greyfalcon.net/cooling
And even our good friend Richard Lindzen agrees.
http://greyfalcon.net/lindzencooling.png
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 16, 2007 6:26:42 PM
Well, to be fair, there is a difference between a lie and a false statement.
Gauging intent is rather hard to do though.
Incidentally it's understandable that one might consider the troposheric data to be the opposite of what it really is considering John Christy likes to lie about it on national television.
He was rather prominent about it in "The Great Global Warming Swindle"
_
And when I say lie, I actually mean it.
John Christy, once a legit researcher, has gone to the dark side!
(i.e. Teamed up with S. Fred Singer in making blatantly false publications)
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 16, 2007 6:42:13 PM
Which does beg the question if RoySpencer/JohnChristy merely made an innocent mistake, or if they intentionally skewed their research
by doing things like reversing the day-night cycle, and completely ignoring orbital decay.
Given their present behavior, I'm guessing it wasn't a "mistake".
Posted by: GreyFlcn | Dec 16, 2007 6:49:01 PM
Quoth Arthur:
I have been cordial to you....You perhaps have been cordial in tone, but as for civil... you have been nothing of the sort. You have come here spouting long-refuted canards, and continued despite repeated corrections. Civility includes having integrity and respect for the integrity of others; if there is any truth behind what you claim you should be able to support it, and if there is no truth you disrespect us as much as if you served dog vomit at dinner and called it truffle paté.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Dec 18, 2007 6:32:32 PM
