Month: April 2017

Uncategorized 13 Apr 2017

Belfast International Airport Solar Farm Saves £100K–And Guess Who Pays?

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
http://ift.tt/16C5B6P

By Paul Homewood

Hugh Sharman sent me this story from EDIE, who describe themselves as the market-leading information resource driving sustainability in business for nearly 20 years.

The 4.84MWp Crookedstone facility, located a third of a mile from the airport’s terminal building, is also set to save 2,100 tonnes of carbon emissions each year – equivalent to taking 469 cars off the road.

The solar farm generates more than a quarter of Belfast International’s annual electricity needs, and has reportedly enabled the airport to run on solar power alone for nine hours at certain peak generation times.

Belfast International Airport operations director Alan Whiteside said: "The solar farm project has exceeded all expectations. From switch-on in March to the end of the year, the ‘ballpark’ savings were over £100,000.

“The project is consistently delivering a reliable ‘green’ and cost-saving energy supply for the airport. No other airport in either the rest of the UK or Ireland has a similar energy source and we’re delighted with its operation."

Crookedstone is the largest solar energy connection to an airport in the UK and Ireland. The entire project was funded and operated by solar generator Lightsource Renewable Energy through a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), the largest of its kind for UK airports.

http://ift.tt/2oCE95D

Here’s what EDIE forgot to mention:

1) The project receives payment through the Northern Ireland Renewable Obligation incentive, as it beat the deadline of 1st April 2016, when the subsidy scheme was closed to new solar projects.

Currently the RO is worth about £53/MWh to solar projects (they are awarded 1.2 units per MWh; each unit is worth about £44).

Assuming a load factor of 11% (the UK average), the solar farm would produce about 4600 MWh a year, so the subsidy receive from the RO is worth £244,000 a year.

So when Belfast International Airport brags that it has saved £100,000, just remember that it is electricity bill payers across the UK, who are actually paying for it.

2) As the Irish Farmers Journal also points out:

“The PPA with Belfast International Airport allows Lightsource to sell electricity at a higher rate than it would by exporting power to the national grid. However, a grid connection is still present to export electricity when supply is greater than the airport’s demand.”

By cutting out the middleman, in this case the National Grid, it is hardly surprising the airport can save money.

However, the Grid is still there, and still needs to be paid for by somebody. And as is pointed out, the airport still needs access to it for the 73% of their electricity that the solar farm can’t supply.

So, again, it is everybody else that has to pay the bills that Belfast International have avoided.

It is, of course, doubly ironic that a large chunk of these grid costs are to pay for all of the renewable subsidy schemes, which Lightsource and the airport have generously benefitted from.

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT http://ift.tt/16C5B6P

April 12, 2017 at 11:00PM

Uncategorized 13 Apr 2017

Sceptical of sceptics?

via Scottish Sceptic
http://ift.tt/1wv5Sjx

When I first decided I had to campaign on climate, I knew that the subject had been corrupted – I knew that if this evil dogma was not controlled it would literally destroy western civilisation – and coming from “within … Continue reading →

via Scottish Sceptic http://ift.tt/1wv5Sjx

April 12, 2017 at 10:46PM

Uncategorized 13 Apr 2017

Claim: Next 10 years critical for achieving climate change goals

via Watts Up With That?
http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

From the “climate goalposts are always 10 years out” department and the “maybe you didn’t read the news, but the Paris Climate Agreement is dead” department.

Next 10 years critical for achieving climate change goals

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two ways–by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil.

The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities.

“The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5°C target by 2100,” says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, a study coauthor.

According to the study, fossil fuel consumption would likely need to be reduced to less than 25% of the global energy supply by 2100, compared to 95% today. At the same time, land use change, such as deforestation, must be decreased. This would lead to a 42% decrease in cumulative emissions by the end of the century compared to a business as usual scenario.

“This study gives a broad accounting of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, where it comes from and where it goes. We take into account not just emissions from fossil fuels, but also agriculture, land use, food production, bioenergy, and carbon uptake by natural ecosystems,” explains World Bank consultant Brian Walsh, who led the study while working as an IIASA researcher.

The compares four different scenarios for future energy development, with a range of mixtures of renewable and fossil energy. In a “high-renewable” scenario where wind, solar, and bioenergy increase by around 5% a year, net emissions could peak by 2022, the study shows. Yet without substantial negative emissions technologies, that pathway would still lead to a global average temperature rise of 2.5°C, missing the Paris Agreement target.

Walsh notes that the high-renewable energy scenario is ambitious, but not impossible–global production of renewable energy grew 2.6% between 2013 and 2014, according to the IEA. In contrast, the study finds that continued reliance on fossil fuels (with growth rates of renewables between 2% and 3% per year), would cause carbon emissions to peak only at the end of the century, causing an estimated 3.5°C global temperature rise by 2100.

The authors note that not only the mix of energy matters, but also the overall amount of energy consumed. The study also included ranges for high energy consumption and low energy consumption.

The study adds to a large body of IIASA research on climate mitigation policy and the chances of achieving targets.

“Earlier work on mitigation strategies by IIASA has shown the importance of demand-side measures, including efficiency, conservation, and behavioral change. Success in these areas may explain the difference between reaching 1.5C instead of 2C,” says IIASA Energy Program Director Keywan Riahi, who also contributed to the new work.

A new model

The study is one of the first published results from the newly developed FeliX model, a system dynamics model of social, economic, and environmental earth systems and their interdependencies. The model is freely available for download and use at http://ift.tt/2pwRauC.

“Compared to other climate and integrated assessment models, the FeliX model is less detailed, but it provides a unique systemic view of the whole carbon cycle, which is vital to our understanding of future climate change and energy,” says IIASA Ecosystem Services and Management Program Director.

###

This study received support from the European Research Council Synergy grant ERC-2013-SyG-610028

Reference

Walsh B, Ciais P, Janssens IA, Penuelas J, Riahi K, Rydzak F, vanVuuren D, Obersteiner M (2017). Pathways for balancing Co2 emissions and sinks. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/NCOMMS14856

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

April 12, 2017 at 10:04PM

Uncategorized 13 Apr 2017

New Paper: Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Rose 4–5°C Within A Few Decades 14,700 Years Ago

via NoTricksZone
http://notrickszone.com

Temperatures, Sea Levels ‘Naturally’ Rise

30 – 40 Times Faster Than Today’s Rates

Modern Temperatures Only Rising 0.05°C/Decade

Since 1850, CO2 concentrations have risen from 285 ppm to 400 ppm. During these ~165 years, the IPCC has concluded that surface temperatures have warmed by 0.78°C. This is a warming rate of only 0.05°C per decade for 1850-2012 — which happens to be the same rate of warming over the 1998-2012 period.

IPCC AR5 (2013): “The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85°C over the period 1880 to 2012, when multiple independently produced datasets exist. The total increase between the average of the 1850–1900 period and the 2003–2012 period is 0.78 °C, based on the single longest dataset available 4 (see Figure SPM.1). … [T]he rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 °C per decade).”

Modern Sea Levels Only Rising 0.17 Of A Meter/Century

IPCC AR5 (2013): “[T]he rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 mm yr between 1901 and 2010“

Historical Hemispheric Temperatures Rose 2.0°C/Decade

According to a new paper, the Bølling Warming event 14,700 years ago raised the surface temperature for the entire Northern Hemisphere by 4 to 5°C within a few decades. This is a hemispheric warming rate of approximately 2.0°C per decade, which is 40 times faster than the 0.05 °C per decade global warming rate since 1850 (and 1998).

Historical Sea Levels Rose 5.3 Meters/Century

Central Greenland’s surface temperatures rose by as much as 12°C during this time frame (14,700 years ago to 14,500 years ago). Consequently, glaciers and ice sheets disintegrated rapidly and sea levels rose by about 18 meters (“12-22 m”) in 340 years. An 18 m rise in 340 years is the equivalent of 5.3 meters per century, which is more than 30 times faster than the rate of sea level change (0.17 m per century) between 1901 and 2010.

Ivanovic et al., 2017 “During the Last Glacial Maximum 26–19 thousand years ago (ka), a vast ice sheet stretched over North America [Clark et al., 2009]. In subsequent millennia, as climate warmed and this ice sheet decayed, large volumes of meltwater flooded to the oceans [Tarasov and Peltier, 2006; Wickert, 2016]. This period, known as the “last deglaciation,” included episodes of abrupt climate change, such as the Bølling warming [~14.7–14.5 ka], when Northern Hemisphere temperatures increased by 4–5°C in just a few decades [Lea et al., 2003; Buizert et al., 2014], coinciding with a 12–22 m sea level rise in less than 340 years [5.3 meters per century] (Meltwater Pulse 1a (MWP1a)) [Deschamps et al., 2012].”

Bølling Warming/Sea Level Rise Occurred With Stable CO2

CO2 record for 25 kya-present courtesy of Kawamura et al., 2003

**Greenland Warmed By 10°C Within 3 Years 14,700 Years Ago**

Steffensen et al., 2008 High-Resolution Greenland Ice Core Data Show Abrupt Climate Change Happens in Few Years

“A northern shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone could be the trigger of these abrupt shifts of Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, resulting in changes of 2 to 4 kelvin in Greenland moisture source temperature from one year to the next.”

“The d18O warming transition at 14.7 ka [14,700 years ago] was the most rapid and occurred within a remarkable 3 years, whereas the warming transition at 11.7 ka [11,700 years ago] lasted 60 years; both correspond to a warming of more than 10 K.”

**Greenland Warmed By 8-15°C Within Decades During Last Glacial**

CO2 concentrations remained essentially stable and dangerously low (~180 parts per million) throughout the last glacial (roughly 80,000 to 15,000 years ago). And yet despite the lack of CO2 flux, Greenland’s surface temperatures often warmed by about 10.0°C within a matter of decades during this period. This indicates that CO2 variability is not a detectable factor in abrupt climate changes.

Sánchez et al., 2017

Schmidt and Hertzberg, 2011 “There are twenty-five of these distinct warming-cooling oscillations (Dansgaard 1984) which are now commonly referred to as Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, or D-O cycles. One of the most surprising findings was that the shifts from cold stadials to the warm interstadial intervals occurred in a matter of decades, with air temperatures over Greenland rapidly warming 8 to 15°C (Huber et al. 2006).”

In Contrast, There Has Been No Net Warming In Greenland For 80 Years

Zhao et al., 2016

Hasholt et al., 2016 “We determined that temperatures for the ablation measurement periods in late July to early September were similar in both 1933 and the recent period [1990s – present], indicating that the temperature forcing of ablation within the early warm period and the present are similar.”

van As et al., 2016 “JJA [summer] temperatures were higher in 1928 and 1929 than in any other year of the Qaqortoq record, both attaining values of 9.2°C. This suggests that ablation in those years may have exceeded the largest net ablation measured on the Greenland ice sheet (2010).”

Box et al., 2009 “The annual whole [Greenland] ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming.”

Conclusion

Modern rates of temperature change and sea level rise are quite modest and unremarkable relative to the magnitude of the changes in the geological past (that are 30 to 40 times larger or faster). The abrupt and pronounced historical temperature and sea level rise events occurred without any significant changes in atmospheric CO2 levels.

In contrast, during the last 100 to 150 years there has been a dramatic rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentrations…but no accompanying dramatic rise in temperatures or sea level.

Thus, the conceptualization that human activity or CO2 concentration changes are the primary drivers of temperature changes and sea level rise does not seem to be supported by the geological evidence.

via NoTricksZone http://notrickszone.com

April 12, 2017 at 09:02PM