Climate Change (i.e. Global Warming) Science News:
The newest postings are at the top of each heading.
NASA and NOAA find 2014 was the warmest year in modern record.
Climate Mission Impossible: Scientists Say Fossil Fuels Must Go Untapped.
Despite google's best efforts to build an energy future based on renewables, they have now abandoned that effort.
The time constant for CO2 is about one decade according to this study.
2014 was the warmest year on record.
If the IPCC is so concerned about global warming why are they continuing to be anti nuclear?
The oceans throw a monkey wrench into the modeling of climate change.
Pentagon report says climate change (global warming) is a security threat to the US.
CO2 emissions continue to rise unabated meaning that a 2 degree C rise is a given.
June 2014 Citizen Plan for achieving zero CO2 emissions in Austin. The plan is not accepted as valid by Austin Energy professional engineers (nor myself as a PE).
Concerns about CO2 rising in the atmosphere puts endowment funds at risk as students and citizenry ask holders of the funds to dispense those holdings.
IEEE Power and Energy Magazine states his opinions about climate change.
Ivanpah solar plant is turning birds into smoke streamers.
No Republican candidates believe in global warming, which is just political posturing, not science.
Senator Whitehouse drills Inhofe on climate change. This is a good one to watch.
Austin climate change article in the NY Times. Note that the Texas legislature doesn't allow ERCOT to consider climate change.
If you don't believe we need to be doing long range planning for transitioning off fossil fuels, read this AAAS statement.
IEEE Spectrum experts say the risk of nuclear should be taken and coal should be ditched in dealing with the certainty of global warming.
Evidence that global warming is powering up the atmosphere - which can lead to cold fronts in the summer.
Paul Krugman has an important discussion about denialists.
Viable non CO2 energy sources need to be net producers of energy.
President Obama interview explains why we need to transition off fossil fuels.
A Yale University study says people understand the meaning of global warming better than climate change.
Here is a overview of the NCA report on climate change.
Greenland and Antarctica ice melting is accelerating, about 8%/year acceleration according to my analysis.
Germany has a very long way to go in reducing its high CO2 production rate from its use of hard and soft coal.
The Navy is working on a sea water to syn fuel project which makes it carbon neutral,
however, its highly specialized, not for general use at this time, and
here is a similar process using solar energy.
Awakened to climate change reality - Michael Shellenberger has important commentary and here are replies to his commentary.
Here is a summary of the latest IPCC report.
AAAS issues official statement on what we know about climate change science.
This article says the US government should invest in R&D that pays back its investement, but unfortunately that is not happening in energy R&D.
Take a look at this excellent video about life on Earth when it was much hotter than today and CO2 levers were very high and this recent report on Antarctica.
Here is another article talking about how dangerous well meaning "greens" are to solving the climate change problem.
Jim Hansen's presentation to the Chinese at his February 2014 meeting and additional comments about the rapid Chinese growth.
Jim Hansen's summary paper on dealing with climate change as a cooperative effort with China.
Here is a NY Times article saying the real problem with dealing with climate change is not the denialists but the cost to implement.
Can we solve the climate change problem without nuclear power?
In the film Pandora's Promise, hard core environmentalist Michael Shellenberger says the IPCC doesn't have a clue how to actually solve the climate change problem. I think the same can be said for John Kerry in his latest speeches on climate change. He presents no real solution while blaming others for not taking action. This is not very helpful.
President sticks with his energy and environmental plan which is like driving down a highway blindfolded and hoping for the best outcome.
Jim Hansen says greens are still seeing red on the use of nuclear power to address the climate change issue.
Now it is the time for scientists in the know to speak out on the climate change issue as described in this NT Times editorial.
NY Times article says we are going too far and for too long without dealing with climate change. What we are doing is not working.
Everyone needs to see Pandora's Promise to learn the truth about energy, especially Michael Shellenberger's hallucinatory delusion comment.
Drexell study reveals sources of funding for climate change denial.
The sun has not varied enough in recent times to account for climate change variations observed on Earth.
Comprehensive new study says climate change is an elephant in the room most folks choose to ignore. This study may be better than the IPCC studies.
TED Talk: Republican conservative Bob Inglis talks about the need for a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Climate change panel says that the risk of a sudden ocean rise is unknown.
A sobering assessment of where we stand energywise in dealing with climate change.

Nuclear Fission News:
Some of my IFR nuclear friends have designed a new fail safe reactor that burns thorium in a liquid salt.
Nuclear should be in the energy mix for biodiversity.
New nuclear reactor design in UK is being proposed based on Thorium.
Nuclear waste facility cleanup is difficult being deep underground, illustrating what not to do with spent nuclear fuel, i.e. bury it in deep storage.
New EPA regulation on harmless kyrpton gas may be a poltical attempt to make nuclear power more expensive, thus killing it as an option as coal is being phased out.
DOE has collected $37 billion dollars to deal with spent nuclear fuel storage with no progress. The democrats are the cause of this failure.
Environmentalists see cheap natural gas and wind power causing nuclear power closings is going to cause an increase in CO2.
Ukraine military fighting could lead to nuclear reactors melting down.
Here is a way to make fossil fuels from nuclear energy which solves a number of problems in a single process.
The Russians issue a report on their BN600 sodium cooled fast neutron breeder reactor.
Scientific American article on Fukushima radiation is surprisingly objective and informative.
Russia is also taking over the world as the primary supplier of nuclear power leaving the US far behind in both business and technology.
The Russians have done well with their fast neutron sodium cooling loop nuclear reactor.
Here is a debate on CNN concerning a need for nuclear power. As a power system planning engineer I must say that Ralph's non-nuclear plan is not working.
Russia is planning to use Small Modular Reactors on barges, take a look at their interesting business plan.
Russia unveils plans for 21 new nuclear plants by 2030 including new designs burning up waste.

Nuclear Fusion News:
Can tri-alpha fusion benefit from this table top accelerator?
Lochheed Martin announces compact fusion power development.
Fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal.
The boron-proton fusion folks are gearing up for a new experiment.
Fission-fusion concept is discussed in this paper.
Giant laser complex makes fusion advance.

Solar News:
Another power tower project is cancelled because of the birds catching on fire problem.
NREL $/kW cost of renewables and NREL O&M cost of renewables.
Concentrating solar plant causes birds to catch on fire when they fly into the concentrated sunlight.
Desert CSP praised, however CSP is not cost effective compared to PV or nuclear and the study omits the cost of transmission which are both deal killers.
Elon Musk (Tesla and SpaceX) will build solar panels for his batteries.
Recurrent Energy is set to build 150 MW solar plant for Austin Energy in Texas.
NYTimes Paul Krugman asks why solar has not taken off and Gene Preston responds why in his reply.
Austin Energy signs up for one of the lowest cost solar plant deals ever at about 5 cents per kwh.
The economics of solar thermal plants have never been very good and the latest solar thermal plant is just rediscovering what we knew already knew.
California regulators are having second thoughts after power tower concentrating solar plants are found to scorch birds.
India announces 4 GW PV solar plant at a cost of about $1/watt.
As solar grows and especially if too much solar is added this kind of problem may pop up as described in this report.
Here is another reference to the Hawaii solar problem.
Forbes reports that in Colorado some solar homes are separating from the grid after the utility has made a significant investment.
60 minutes exposes President Obama has spent (wasted?) about 150 billion dollars of taxpayer money on failed clean tech projects.

Wind Power News:
NREL $/kW cost of renewables and NREL O&M cost of renewables.
Wind turbine energy payback is calculated to be less than one year in this study.
Texas awards offshore wind development contract.
Mark Jacobson has a zero CO2 plan for Texas. I need to simulate it in detail (hourly and probabistically) to see if it works and what's needed transmission and storage wise, and the plan's cost.
Texas's 11,000 MW wind hits 10,000 MW. The CREZ goal was 18,000 MW wind so we have a ways to go. After the peak wind dies to near zero but load doesn't. This is normal.
Is congress going to renew the wind PTC or let it drop? This could be very signifcant to new wind developers.
China is planning the world's largest wind buildout, 200 GW in six years.
Here is the latest status as of early January 2014 on wind generators killing birds.
As wind generators age, maintenance becomes a major problem for keeping them operating.
UK will increase incentives for off shore wind while decreasing incentives for on shore wind.
Wind drive train failures are a significant problem the industry must deal with.
Duke Energy to pay $1M fine for endangered species bird kills in Wyoming: ref 1 ref 2 ref 3 ref 4 ref 5 ref 6

Geothermal, Water, and Bio News:
NREL $/kW cost of renewables and NREL O&M cost of renewables.
What's worse than burning coal? Burning wood, according to this article written by a staunch environmentalist.
Georgia Power has cancelled plans for a bio mass plant.
DNA sequencing technology is used to create jatropha, a plant with seeds that produce high-quality oil that can be refined into low-carbon biofuel.
Gainsville FL biomass plant turns out to be more expensive than expected. Its a sister plant to the Austin Energy bio plant.
Hydro power is a great energy source but there are environmental imacts as this article shows.

Energy Storage News:
Utilities in California find energy storage to not be cost effective.
New flow battery may be useful for grid applications.
New carbon battery looks like it might be better than Li ion, cheaper, high energy density, lower cost than Li. See the video.
DOE report on grid connected energy storage, some problems in $250/kwh on page 33 and $250/kw on page 38.
If wind can make H gas, could that H then be put into a fuel cell to generate electricity?
New lithium - sodium battery doubles energy storage density but it's far from perfected.

Coal CO2 & CCS News:
See this video to see what's wrong with renewables; however, the speaker does not seem to give enough concern to the long term problem of over reliance on fossil fuels.
Energy costs and emissions comparisons of solar wind gas and nuclear with respect to coal.
Risks in investing in coal and tar sands companies is beginning to be considered by lending companies.
Southern Company patented process for carbon capture and storage. This development appears to be significant.
China is speeding up its R&D on throium reactors because if the average energy consumption per person doubles, China will be choked to death by polluted air.
EPA published final rule for CCS which doesn't matter anyway because CCS is not economically feasible, except with a few exceptions.
President orders 20% energy from renewables by 2020. Wouldn't a CO2 tax make more sense so the best non CO2 technologies would develop in a natural manner?

Oil and Gas News:
The hazards associated with fracking are studied and discussed in this report.
If the Navy successfully manufactures fossil fuels from sea water it might be lower in cost than extracting oil from the deep oceans.
European gas supplies are tied to geo politics more so than the geological supply that is available.
The US natural gas system is more leaky than expected negating the benefits of its climate change benefits. But gas developers aren't interested in climate change anyway. Here is a second reference on this topic.
Univ of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology report on shale fracking gas production estimates by year.
There is no reduction in fossil fuel use. Natural gas is in a growth spurt which seems to have no end in sight.
Low gas prices keep electric rates down but are ruining the switch to non fossil fuels needed for CO2 reduction. A carbon tax would correct this situation.
In Europe fracking is being successfully blocked by environmentalists which is likely to hurt renewables development and keep coal power around much longer than expected.
Some large companies are planning for a CO2 tax while others fight the notion that climate change is caused by humans.
Fracking induced earthquakes might be a significant problem in some locations.

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