Catastrophic climate 'doom loops' could start in just 15 years, new study warns
And pigs might fly. This is just speculation. They even admit: "the study of tipping points is a young and contentious science""
Earth's ecosystems may be careering toward collapse much sooner than scientists thought, a new study of our planet's warming climate has warned.
According to the research, more than a fifth of the world's potentially catastrophic tipping points — such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost, the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and the sudden transformation of the Amazon rainforest into savanna — could occur as soon as 2038.
In climatology, a "tipping point" is the threshold beyond which a localized climate system, or "tipping element," irreversibly changes. For instance, if the Greenland ice sheet were to collapse, it would also reduce snowfall in the northern part of the island, making large parts of the sheet irretrievable.
Yet the science behind these dramatic transformations is poorly understood and often based on oversimplified models. Now, a new attempt to understand their inner workings, published June 22 in the journal Nature, has revealed that they may happen much sooner than we thought.
"Over a fifth of ecosystems worldwide are in danger of collapsing," co-author Simon Willcock, a professor of sustainability at Bangor University in the U.K., said in a statement. "However, ongoing stresses and extreme events interact to accelerate rapid changes that may well be out of our control. Once these reach a tipping point, it's too late."
Unlike the well-established link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, the study of tipping points is a young and contentious science.
To understand how rising temperatures and other environmental stressors could cause complex ecosystems to break down, scientists use computer models to simplify ecosystems' dynamics, enabling them to predict the fate of those ecosystems — and when their tipping points could be reached.
But if these simulations miss an important element or interaction, their forecasts can land decades off the mark. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the United Nations' most important body for evaluating climate science) said in its most recent report that the Amazon rainforest could reach a tipping point that will transform it into a savannah by 2100.
The researchers behind the new study say this prediction is too optimistic.
According to the researchers, most tipping-point studies build the math in their models to focus on one predominant driver of collapse, for example deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. However, ecosystems aren't contending with just one problem but rather a swarm of destabilizing factors that compound one another. For example, the Amazon also faces rising temperatures, soil degradation, water pollution and water stress.
To investigate how these elements interact and whether these interactions can, in fact, hasten a system's demise, the scientists behind the new study built computer models of two lake and two forest ecosystems (including one which modeled the collapse of civilization on Easter Island) and ran them more than 70,000 times while adjusting the variables throughout.
After testing their systems across multiple modes — with just one cause of collapse acting, with multiple causes acting and with all of the causes plus the introduction of random noise to mimic fluctuations in climate variables — the scientists made some troubling findings: multiple causes of collapse acting together brought the abrupt transformation of some systems up to 80% closer to the present day.
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UK: Why I handed my electric car back with less than 5,000 miles on the clock
One Sunday last December, it was snowing when I finally admitted it to myself: I had made a dreadful mistake in buying an electric car.
I was driving through a blizzard in heavy traffic on the M6 to collect my mother, who was coming to stay with us for Christmas.
My middle daughter had insisted we listen to an audiobook throughout the interminable journey — on the motorway I hate most in the world.
The wipers on my Renault Zoe were struggling against the snowfall — and even though it was 2pm, the headlights were on.
The farther north we travelled towards Mum's home in Lytham St Annes, the lower the temperature outside dropped. The car's heater was on full blast — and its battery was draining before my eyes.
My 'range anxiety' — always present when I was at the wheel — was in overdrive. Just 30 per cent was left, so perhaps a few dozen miles given how the heater was sucking up all the power.
'Where are the chargers in Lytham?' I asked my daughter.
She checked her phone. 'There's one in Booths supermarket car park — only the app says it isn't working.'
I can't repeat my reply.
Available fast chargers, I had come to realise, more or less vanished north of the Watford Gap. That wasn't in any government policy paper I had read.
And the thing is, I had really wanted an electric car.
I loved the fact that the noise on my street in London had fallen so much over the past few years, as electric cars are so much quieter than their petrol equivalents.
I support the push to cut Britain's carbon emissions to 'net zero': it's a policy that's creating thousands of jobs and helping the environment. Cleaner air means we, our children and grandchildren can live longer, healthier lives.
I used to support the Government's target to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, too — but that was before a pandemic, before Putin invaded Ukraine and before the cost of electricity shot through the roof.
Now, I believe that the target should be delayed. The cost of charging an electric car is bad enough — but the infrastructure to power millions of them simply isn't there.
Even in London, as I learnt with my Renault, finding a working charger can be difficult. And for longer journeys, like going to pick up my mum, it could be a huge issue.
So, back to that journey north last Christmas.
'Let's pull off at Stafford services,' said my daughter, as the illuminated 'Welcome' sign pierced through the freezing fog. 'They have working chargers there.'
It sounded so simple. We cruised around the car park for ten minutes but could see only Tesla chargers, and I'd heard it was difficult to connect my car to that network.
Elon Musk has installed convenient forecourt chargers on the foggy M6. He's nailed it — as long you buy his products. At the back of the lorry park and behind a petrol-station forecourt, we eventually found a charger we could use.
Once I had connected it, it took ten minutes to kick in, with a loud and worrying bang coming from a metal box about five yards away. Eventually, the electric juices were flowing. God, it had been a stressful day.
With a wait of at least half an hour, we decided to go into the service station to buy a coffee.
But from the back end of the lorry park, that involved a long and wet walk in the freezing rain. I would not have felt safe doing it on my own.
So, that was it for me. Early in the New Year, I returned the car to the dealer with less than 5,000 miles on the clock. Now, every time I jump into my Discovery Sport — a hybrid, I'm pleased to say — I feel a sense of relief.
I've had a charger fitted at home and I'm glad to do all my local mileage on the battery.
But I also feel safe in the knowledge that when it runs out, or I have a long journey to make, the petrol kicks in.
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It's all over: East European countries veering away from 2030 climate goals
Central and Eastern European countries display low ambitions with their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs), raising concerns about the region’s ability to meet EU climate goals, campaigners warn.
NECPs are an essential building block in the EU’s climate policy architecture because they lay out the specifics of how each country plans to achieve the collective goals agreed upon at a European level.
Only three EU countries – Spain, Croatia and Slovenia – have met the EU’s annual 30 June deadline to submit their updated national energy and climate plans, campaigners say.
But it is already clear that Central and Eastern European member states are falling short of meeting EU expectations, according to a new report by CEE Bankwatch Network, a green umbrella group.
NECP progress reports “have not always been taken seriously in some countries, such as Slovakia, where data are missing,” the report says. And with the outbreak of war in Ukraine, many have fallen back into old habits by supporting gas and coal consumption instead of renewables.
“This trend is particularly evident in central and eastern European countries, where measures have been taken to slow down the transition away from fossil fuels, backtrack on previous commitments, or even de facto recarbonise the economy,” the report says.
The CEE Bankwatch study echoes warnings by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), which issued a report earlier this week saying EU countries had only submitted vague plans to decarbonise their economy and risked missing their collective climate goals.
The risk is that the whole NECP process ends up being a mere “box-ticking exercise” for Eastern EU member states, CEE Bankwatch warns.
This is no surprise to Klaus-Dieter Borchardt and Christopher Jones, two former senior officials at the European Commission’s energy directorate, who are now with consulting firm Baker McKenzie in Brussels.
“We all knew that achieving the 2030 Green Deal targets would be challenging,” Jones and Borchardt said in emailed comments to EURACTIV.
“However, there is an increasing number of worrying indications that we are far from being on track to achieving them,” they added. “Not only the CEE Bankwatch paper, but also Monday’s Court of Auditors Report, casts doubt that we are on track, even with revised National Energy and Climate Plans,” the two former officials said.
For instance, Hungarian authorities have responded to the 2022 energy crisis by increasing domestic production of fossil fuels and delaying the phase-out of coal power, says the report by CEE Bankwatch. In Bulgaria, previous commitments to decarbonise the power sector could also be reversed, it adds.
Europe risks missing 2030 climate goal, EU auditors warn
EU countries have so far filed only vague plans to meet their climate targets, with early indications pointing to a significant financing gap to meet the EU’s objective of reducing emissions 55% below 1990 levels by 2030, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) said in a new report on Monday (26 June).
Renewables deployment lacking
For Pawel Czyzak, senior energy and climate analyst at think tank Ember, this is a missed opportunity, as National Energy and Climate Plans offer “a perfect opportunity” for clean energy deployment in the region.
“But in most CEE countries no significant announcements have been made yet with regards to updated climate targets,” Czyzak told EURACTIV.
Instead, renewable energy is overlooked, even though there is significant potential for solar and wind power in the region.
“Central European countries can only meet their required share of the EU’s new renewables target by deploying more wind energy,” said industry association WindEurope in a joint statement with think tanks and other trade groups.
Another worrying finding in the CEE Bankwatch report is the lack of transparency and civil society engagement in the process of drafting the updated NECPs. With most negotiations happening behind closed doors, there is little opportunity for public consultations, the report highlights.
“CEE Bankwatch rightly points out that public participation is a key element of this process. Including relevant actors in the NECP update will increase buy-in for the measures,” said Rebekka Popp, policy advisor for E3G, a think tank.
A green transition could yield significant benefits for the region, Christophe Jost, the author of the report, told EURACTIV. It would secure energy supplies, limit price volatility, facilitate access to EU funds and strengthen value chains – but under the strict condition that the transition happens properly, he said.
“This pathway is not yet enough sought by member states, as they are currently not fully reaping the benefits of EU funds to achieve the green transition,” he continued.
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Australia: Road to net zero paved with coal
Professor Alan Finkel launched his new book Powering Up this month, describing global and Australian pathways to net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions via renewable energy technologies (solar, wind, hydropower, and battery storage).
In describing our clean energy future Professor Finkel says, ‘Think forests of wind farms … and endless arrays of solar panels disappearing like a mirage into the desert.’ We may or may not like his vision, but there is some arithmetic we have to consider along the way.
Finkel endorses Australia’s goal of a 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, with 82 per cent of electricity generated by renewable energy (wind, solar, and batteries).
A sobering counter-claim by Paul Broad, former chief executive of Snowy Hydro, suggests that it will take 80 years, not eight, to generate 82 per cent of Australian electricity from renewables.
Given that the Snowy 2.0 pumped storage project including its connection to electricity grids has seen a time blowout of six or more years and a cost blowout from $2 billion to a likely $20 billion, maybe Broad knows a fairy-tale when he reads it.
The Hunter Coast near Newcastle in New South Wales, and the Gippsland Coast in Victoria are two of six Australian regions under evaluation for offshore wind-energy farms.
To get an idea of the potential cost we can look at recently completed Hornsea 2 project which sited 165 turbines off the coast of Yorkshire, England. The construction cost was A$5.2 billion per GW of electric power. This is double the estimated cost of a modern coal-fired power station.
Australia generates over half of its electricity from coal-fired plants, according to Australian Energy Regulator figures for 2023. These plants for the most part use obsolete technology and receive minimal maintenance because they are being shut down progressively.
New technology where boilers run at higher temperatures and pressure are vastly more efficient with lower CO2 emissions. The tragedy is that our clever country has not adopted these ultra-supercritical (USC) or high-efficiency low emission (HELE) plants.
Many countries in the West have these plants as well as ten countries in Asia from India and Bangladesh in the west to Vietnam, China, and Japan in the east which have USC technology installed and have additional plants under construction.
What might such technology achieve in Australia? Large coal-fired power plants (think Loy Yang A in Victoria or Eraring in NSW) have output capacities of about 2 to 3GW. A detailed study by engineering group GHD in 2017 found that a USC plant would cost $2.5 billion per GW in today’s dollars or about $5 billion for a 2GW plant. International Energy Agency estimates and Korean experience suggest an average construction time of four to six years for a USC power plant.
Australia has about 20 GW of conventional coal-fired power plants spread over the eastern states which generate the larger part of the nation’s baseload electricity. These obsolete plants could be replaced with state-of-the-art USC plants for about $50 billion.
If we include Western Australia’s coal-fired generators, and allow additional costs for Victoria’s generators which use brown coal, the national cost may be in the order of $60 billion, with no additional costs for transmission lines since the existing infrastructure already serves these plants. The benefits? A 30 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions using available technology that provides baseload power, removing the threat of blackouts on cloudy or low-wind days.
Finding $60 billion to finance this conversion is challenging, but as a nation, we face bigger demands. Our Aukus nuclear submarines are estimated to cost up to $368 billion over three decades which is justified on national security grounds. Providing energy security for the nation’s industry and its citizens over the next decade is surely deserving of similar serious consideration.
The federal budget last year allocated $20 billion over four years to Rewiring the Nation, a project which is designed to ‘upgrade, expand and modernise Australia’s electricity grid’. How much more secure we would be if we put a similar amount of money into modernising our generators rather than our transmission lines?
The coal-fired plants envisaged in this discussion will not be the forever solution for our power needs. Over two to three decades, aided by our Aukus nuclear submarine development, small modular nuclear plants will become available. Such plants, like USC coal plants, can be sited at existing power stations.
Finkel is confident that the availability of nuclear plants by 2040 will be too late due to the growth of renewable energy sources however, the growth of nuclear power stations overseas (planned, new, or re-commissioned from mothballed plants) suggests his view is likely too pessimistic.
The US Westinghouse Electric Company, with an established record of manufacturing nuclear power plants, has announced the development of small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) for civilian power generation, targeting operation on the electricity grids by 2033.
The estimated cost of these nuclear plants is equivalent to A$5 billion per GW which is twice the cost of established USC coal technology and may well be subject to cost and time blow-outs. But the crucial point is that over the next decade, USC coal-fired power is the efficient, secure, and achievable option and replacement with nuclear and/or renewable energy should follow as alternative sources become proven, stable, and fit for purpose. We also note that the SMR option is comparable in estimated cost with the actual cost of the Yorkshire offshore wind farm discussed above.
If Australia wishes to pursue the goal of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 without nuclear technology the costs may be far greater than the proponents of green energy admit. Former Chief Scientist Professor Robin Batterham led an international consortium which which released their Net Zero Australia report in April. It was written by a team of over 40 collaborators drawn from two Australian universities and two international groups who conducted two years of detailed study and modelling. It covers more than just net-zero power generation detailing the steps needed to create a true net-zero economy covering power, mining, agriculture and exports.
The numbers are sobering. It estimates a cost of between $7,000 billion and $9,000 billion by 2060 covering five different scenarios. The fraction attributable to net-zero electric power generation is not explicitly identified but is likely to be in the range of 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the total cost depending on the pathway chosen.
The analysis incorporates coal-fired power generation as a necessity until 2040 and envisages a continuing need for gas-fired peak power plants through to 2060 with carbon capture and storage technologies designed to remove CO2 to provide a net-zero outcome.
As we contemplate a lower-end estimate of $2,000 billion for Australia to deliver net-zero electricity by 2060, with coal-fired plants operating until 2040, we may well conclude that spending $60 billion over the next decade on efficient, low emissions USC coal-fired power plants is a small price to pay for near-term energy security while we evaluate and implement newer zero-emission technologies such as nuclear and green hydrogen over the next half century.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/road-to-net-zero-paved-with-coal/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
1 comment:
Models that are extremely poor reflections of reality, juiced by inbuilt biases reaching points of no-return on those biases is NOT a reason to spend massive amounts of money.
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