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'Pause' in global warming was never real, new research proves
Claims of a 'pause' in observed global temperature warming are comprehensively disproved in a pair of new studies published today.
An international team of climate researchers reviewed existing data and studies and reanalysed them. They concluded there has never been a statistically significant 'pause' in global warming. This conclusion holds whether considering the `pause' as a change in the rate of warming in observations or as a mismatch in rate between observations and expectations from climate models.
[...] Dr. Risbey said: "Our findings show there is little or no statistical evidence for a 'pause' in GMST rise. Neither the current data nor the historical data support it. Moreover, updates to the GMST data through the period of 'pause' research have made this conclusion stronger. But, there was never enough evidence to reasonably draw any other conclusion.
"Global warming did not pause, but we need to understand how and why scientists came to believe it had, to avoid future episodes like this. The climate-research community's acceptance of a 'pause' in global warming caused confusion for the public and policy system about the pace and urgency of climate change.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:39AM (15 children)
Or we're toast. Once again the human race is counting on a technology breakthrough to save our asses. Something like fussion or workable carbon capture . The last breakthrough was the agricultural revolution. Now we need an energy breakthrough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:50AM
Now we need an energy breakthrough.
Or we could just chill... Cutting back on the confidence games will go a helluva long way
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:14AM (3 children)
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/ [ucsd.edu]
Was trying to find some post about how nuclear fusion and no use of fossil fuels would still kill the planet since we would be dumping so much heat. But found that more optimistic blog instead.
You may have heard of a number of companies laying low and working on fusion (such as LPP Fusion, General Fusion, Helion Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, etc.) as well as the big Lockheed Martin.
I think the real game changer could be peel-n-stick/flexible solar panels. Possibly much lower efficiency, but much lower weight, cost(?), and easier to install.
The question is: how cheap will it become to go off the grid (or at least not need the grid 90% of the time)? You could imagine that a cheaper version of Tesla's solar roof concept combined with a battery system could do the trick.
If the household demand for power plateaus or even decreases due to newer, more efficient appliances and A/C systems, and most of the household's needs can be taken care of by solar for some percentage of the time (use battery during the night and bad weather conditions, then rely on grid), then we can start closing redundant and polluting power plants.
Moving away from the household, commercial solar installations would obviously benefit from a cheap, light solar panel.
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:03PM (2 children)
But in that context it's worth noting that with current design we probably don't have enough resources to build enough solar cells. So it's going to need a different design, possibly based around carbon, or at least different doping compounds and different connections.
Of course, cheap energy would help, as part of the reason for lack of materials is that it's too expensive to refine low grade ores. But I can't see running a refining factory on locally sourced solar energy. Especially not one that's even more energy intensive than the current ones.
There are lots of other reasons to want controlled fusion. (For me one big one is space habitats out beyond the asteroids. But they'd need to be large enough to be considered towns to be practical, and the economics are a bit dubious...so it's going to take more than one technological change.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday December 20 2018, @09:35PM (1 child)
[Citation needed]
We may not have enough neodymium for high efficiency generators (or electrical motors for EV), but silicon is abundant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday December 21 2018, @04:05AM
This is a reference to an article that appeared here within the last week. I didn't read it for the details, but they're usually talking about one of the rare earths, which aren't really rare, but which most of the ores for are extremely low grade. I've seen it argued for indium, tellurium, various others. The argument is always economic at it's base, but that doesn't mean it isn't valid. So I didn't check the details of this one. (But the normal argument is why I put in the caveat about "with cheap enough energy we could refine lower grade ores".)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:26AM (8 children)
Seems like if we were in as dire straits as the news has us believe, then we would be switching to nuclear. But we aren't. We are sitting on our hands doing nothing. We could turn all of the US's coal plants into nuclear in a couple of years. And deal with the issue of waste material later.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:30AM (1 child)
The "waste" is actually fuel for when mining and processing the current fuel becomes to expensive. Shit that sits there and heats up is fuel.
I think that is another angle in this whole "energy scam".
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:28PM
Feel free to fact check me on this one, but as I recall breeder reactors that would burn off most of our waste and give us power are illegal because they produce plutonium. Would need to repeal that.
Or like you know use Muh Thorium
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:35AM (5 children)
What kind of nuclear? It's typical for existing projects to be delayed by years and cost billions of dollars over budget [creativeloafing.com]... and then face many cost issues during operation and after being shut down. It's the kind of hot potato that nearly destroyed Toshiba [theregister.co.uk]. I'll at least agree that we could do something with the waste, especially if NIMBYism isn't a factor.
Throw me a bone here. A... thorium-enriched bone?
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:51AM (4 children)
Lead's still less than a buck per pound. Seal it up overkill style, dump it in the middle of a stable mountain that you don't like, and forget about it.
I was going to say launch it in a random direction and get it to escape velocity but then I looked at the cost per pound of payload to escape velocity vs. amount of fuel a reactor uses in a year. I don't think they have enough profit margin to make that financially possible. It's also not something I'd want going up in chincy, WalMart rockets and getting scattered all across the upper atmosphere.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:08PM
Actually, if it were evenly distributed before coming down it wouldn't be much of a problem. It's the concentration that's the problem. The high level radioactives burn out pretty quickly, and could be used for process heat after they were no longer good enough for the reactor.
Actually, IIUC, there are "proposed but never built" reactor designs that could burn the reactor "waste" back to essentially harmless. The problem is that at one stage of the process they create a bunch of plutonium that could be extracted if it wasn't watched carefully.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)
also, there is a whole lot of nimby--it's a problem even for athiest non-voters that believe in neither political party to do the right thing or those that care not who is in charge as long as the lights are on and they have a job.
that one mountain they hollowed out and don't use is a good example of that --but I also am sort of skeptical about burrowing into mountains and calling it stable. those mountains came about because the tectonic plates weren't stable. i imagine that the plates underneath are still moving. Maybe not in our lifetimes, or the next generation or two--or even thousands of years.
but if the goal was to set and forget, wouldn't it be better to find a big flat area that hopefully won't be fracked ever (since that causes earthquakes in places that never had them... something about taking away the grease from stable tectonics...)... and dig down deep enough to set and forget in there?
I'm sure if the world agreed to, say, dig a hole in antarctica since it's frozen over anyway, and keep going and going... until Cthulu wakes up or they have a respository, the world's spent fuel could be safely stored in an area no one lives in and nothing lives in and has been frozen over for millenia. the only way someone would accidentaly come across it would be in some distant future or aliens dig it out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:41PM
And that's good enough.
Here's the thing with radioisotopes -- a given isotope is either hot or long-lived, never both. Now spent fuel has a mixture of various half-lives, but if you leave it sit for a thousand years, all the hot stuff (i.e. half-life under a century) has decayed away to almost nothing, and you're left with a bunch of long-lived, but low intensity, isotopes, along with their decay products. At this point, a release into groundwater is no longer such a big deal.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 21 2018, @01:59AM
Never happen. Eco nuts and scientists would lose every last bit of their minds. Doesn't matter if nothing has lived there since before humans were invented. Logic and reason need not apply to the discussion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @12:36AM
No, we need an Elon Musk.