Watching And Waiting

via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
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via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog http://ift.tt/2i1JH7O

June 21, 2017 at 08:23PM

Hot Jets

via The SPPI Blog
http://sppiblog.org

Source: SPPI

by Dennis Ambler

http://ift.tt/2tr6Nqj?

“In recent days, American Airlines has been forced to cancel more than 40 flights in Phoenix. The reason: With daytime highs hovering around 120 degrees, it was simply too hot for some smaller jets to take off. Hotter air is thinner air, which makes it more difficult — and sometimes impossible — for planes to generate enough lift.

As the global climate changes, disruptions like these are likely to become more frequent, researchers say, potentially making air travel costlier and less predictable with a greater risk of injury to travelers from increased turbulence.

“We tend to ignore the atmosphere and just think that the plane is flying through empty space, but of course, it’s not,” said Paul D. Williams, a professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading in Britain who studies climate change and its effect on aviation. “Airplanes do not fly through a vacuum.

The atmosphere is being modified by climate change.”

This is another “evergreen”, trotted out whenever we get hot weather, to re-inforce the global warming meme:

http://ift.tt/2ssizCr
http://ift.tt/28MzAx0
http://ift.tt/2rWQe3y

However, as usual there is more behind the headline:

http://ift.tt/2tq4HHd

“American Airlines canceled flights using Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) equipment. These are the business jets that cover routes between hubs and smaller markets. Larger passenger jets are rated to tolerate higher temperatures, well above those currently being experienced in the American Southwest—after all, planes also fly from Dubai, Riyadh, and Cairo.

The CRJ’s history might play a role in its airworthiness under extreme heat. CRJs are currently made by Bombardier, a multinational transportation manufacturer. Bombardier bought the CRJ line from Canadair, a Canadian state aerospace company. These jets were originally designed for business use, and only later developed to serve the commercial regional jet market.

They were not necessarily intended for use in all conditions and markets, nor to be packed full of passengers like they are today. (Bombardier did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

That circumstance is a consequence of deregulation and consolidation in the American airline market. When regulation demanded that airlines serve all markets, larger jets serviced smaller airports. But as those requirements lifted, and as more airlines merged, even once-thriving hubs like Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Memphis have become minor markets.

Airlines began relying on equipment like the CRJ, because they can transport a smaller number of people at a lower cost. Were the affected flights on Boeing large jets instead, there would be no question about their ability to fly.”

The Daily Mail confirms this:

http://ift.tt/2sL8cds

“The maximum operating temperature for each aircraft type is based on manufacturer data: Airbus – 127 degrees, Boeing – 126 degrees and Bombardier CRJ regional aircraft – 118 degrees, according to a statement from American Airlines obtained by DailyMail.com.”

Phoenix of course, is HOT. Record high for June is 1990, at 122 F, 50C.  It seems everything is really pretty normal, but hey, it’s Global Warming, right.

As usual, Tony Heller has the detail:
http://ift.tt/2rXt39u

 

via The SPPI Blog http://sppiblog.org

June 21, 2017 at 06:48PM

EPA’s suspect science

via The SPPI Blog
http://sppiblog.org

Source:  SPPI

Its practices have defiled scientific integrity, but proposed corrections bring shock and defiance.

by John Rafuse

President Trump’s budget guidance sought to cut $1.6   billion from the Environmental Protection Agency’s $8.1 billion expectation. Shrieks of looming Armageddon prompted Congress to fund EPA in full until September 2017, when the battle will be joined again.

Then EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said he would prioritize Superfund cleanups based on toxicity, health-impact and other factors. The ensuing caterwauling suggested that EPA had no priorities since Bill Ruckelshaus (EPA’s first administrator, 1970-1975). But consider some standard EPA practices

 

1. EPA advocates claim the US is unhealthy and dirty. They won’t admit that US water quality has improved dramatically since 1970. They deny that factories, cars and power plants are far more efficient and clean. They ignore that, while most nations continue to cut down forest habitats for fuel, the Lower 48 states have more forest coverage than when the Pilgrims landed in 1620.

They never mention that the US did not sign the 1992 Kyoto Accord, nor that it is the only nation to meet its Kyoto targets. Is it ignorance? malignancy? eco-professional propaganda? Yes, yes, and yes.

The United States is one of the cleanest, healthiest nations on earth. Our progress will continue because we rejected the Paris Accord and thus will not cripple our economy, jobs or environmental progress. Other nations must work hard to catch us. They may work hard, but they won’t catch up, and they’ll blame us.

2. Eco-militants at EPA tricked the Supreme Court into letting it label plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide a pollutant. Meanwhile, professional enviros demand “zero tolerance” for pollutants – because they claim “any dose kills.”

However, CO2 is plant fertilizer, the trace gas that makes plant and animal life possible on our planet. Atmospheric CO2 is just 400 parts per million (ppm), or 0.04% of the air we breathe, compared to 21% oxygen and almost 1% argon.  Classrooms average 1,000 to 2,000 ppm; US nuclear submarines average 5,000 to 8,000ppm. We inhale 400 ppm and exhale 40,000 to 50,000 ppm.

That means 100 to 125 times the “fatal dose” of a “zero tolerance pollutant” is always in our lungs.  We don’t die, because CO2 is not a pollutant and because real scientists know that dosage, not microscopic presence, is the key.

EPA keeps cheating, but dosage always determines poisonous impact. In fact, EPA experiments illegally exposed human test subjects to 10 and even 30 times the levels of fine soot particles that EPA claims are lethal. No one got sick or died, and yet EPA continues its “standards” and lies.

3. DDT saved millions in World War II from death by typhus. By 1970 DDT had helped wipe out malaria in 99 countries, including the USA. Administrator Ruckelshaus appointed a scientific committee to examine claims that the pesticide caused cancer and other problems. The experts said it did not, because dosage determines effect.

Ruckelshaus ignored them, never attended a minute of their hearings, never read a page of their extensive report. He simply banned DDT in 1972.  He later said he had a “political problem” due to Rachel Carson’s misinformed book Silent Spring and pressure from the Environmental Defense Fund, and he needed to “fix it.”

Other nations followed suit, banning DDT. Since 1972, some 40 million children and parents have needlessly died from malaria. Today DDT is partially reinstated, but P.A. Offit, Pandora’s Lab, Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong, quotes Michael Crichton, MD: “Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in twentieth century America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die, and we didn’t give a damn.”

4. EPA knowingly relies on fake science. Data from point-source “pollution” are used to “project” thousands of asthma cases and cancer deaths. EPA “validates” the analyses by “assuming” that each projected death and illness happened to someone who had spent every second of a 70-year life at the point-source – within 6 feet of the measurement point. But Newton’s Law of Inverse Squares proves that dosage wanes by the inverse square of the distance; 5 units of distance cuts dosage impact to 1/25 what it was at its source. At 10 units, the impact is 1/100th. EPA’s analysis is a dishonest, purposeful scam.

The 70-year/6-foot/no-movement assumption makes a joke of all its calculations and projections. EPA has relied on that scam for decades to “prove” need for a non-scientific regulatory remedy for every newly invented threat.

5. EPA colludes with professional environmentalists to “fix” “inadequate” draft regulations. EPA then “settles” cases, pays co-conspirators’ fees with taxpayer funds and wins excessive regulatory powers it sought from the beginning. Parties who oppose the decision never get a day in court, and the “sue-and-settle” cases ensure high costs but provide no health or environmental benefits.
6. EPA covers up crimes. As the auto industry cratered since 2000, Flint, Michigan has lost 25,000 citizens and become poorer and more minority. The 2010 Census Report concluded that 42% of the population was in a “level of poverty and health … not comparable to other geographic levels of these estimates.” Yet EPA (and state and local authorities) did nothing to protect them. What happened?

The 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act delegated compliance to EPA, which typically approves a State Compliance Plan, re-delegates authority, and oversees State and local enforcement. Flint’s drinking water has been lead-poisoned for three years – ever since state and local officials switched water sources to save money with no hearings, approvals or notifications to EPA or affected citizens.

Drinking, tasting and smelling nauseating newly-brown water alerted residents to potential dangers. An EPA expert tested the water in 2014 and wrote repeated warnings to Agency officials. A February 2015 Detroit News report said EPA’s Regional Administrator knew the facts but claimed her “hands were tied.”

Then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy forbade the staff expert from meeting, writing or speaking about the issue, and reassigned him.  Thus the two most senior and directly responsible EPA officials “washed their hands” of the problem.

But Flint Medical Center tested for lead in the water and sounded the alarm. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added powerful voices. Flint’s mayor and Michigan’s governor took heat until the state’s attorney general initially charged five Flint and Michigan officials with wrongful issuance of permits, and tampering, altering and falsifying evidence. That has now expanded to more than 50 criminal charges against 15 state officials; including one of involuntary manslaughter (an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease took 12 lives).

The two “clean-handed” EPA officials kept mum until June 12, 2016, when Gina McCarthy wrote to Michigan’s governor and Flint’s mayor. Citing “major challenges” and her “long-term” clean water goal, she blamed state and local staffs and old and (newly) over-large piping. She said EPA had no money to help. Will Michigan’s AG indict EPA officials involved in the EPA cover-ups?  That would be logical, but don’t bet on it.

McCarthy’s was a nasty letter from a culpable official. Later in 2016, Congress voted $110 million to repair Flint’s drinking water, no thanks to EPA. The work will go on for years as Flint residents get bottled water from EPA and the state.

President Trump’s budget guidance exposed decades-old EPA abuses. The evidence exposes EPA’s lack of mission, commitment and integrity. If EPA would use honest, evidence-based science to protect the nation’s health, it would be a welcome and long overdue change – perhaps a miracle.

Independent consultant John Rafuse worked for government agencies, a think-tank and an international oil and gas company on energy, trade, environmental, regulatory and national security issues.

via The SPPI Blog http://sppiblog.org

June 21, 2017 at 06:18PM

Renewables Devilish Details

via Science Matters
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Matthew E. Kahn , Professor of Economics at USC provided this insightful post:

What Does Energy Economics Teach Us About a Zero Carbon Electricity Grid by the year 2050?

Energy engineers are having an interesting fight over whether the US electricity grid can “easily” be 100% renewables (and thus create 0 GHG emissions) in the next 30 years. A prominent Stanford Engineer and his team says “yes” while some important critics say no. In Today’s NY Times (“Economics Scene”) Eduardo Porter sides with the critics. The interesting thing here is that no empirical microeconomists who study energy are part of either research team or are quoted in the NY Times. Yet, at the end of the day — this is a microeconomics issue.

Here are some of the key issues that both the original study and the critique ignore;

1. The land markets?
It would be terrific if wind and solar and hydro are so low cost by the year 2050 that we can generate all of our power using them. Assuming constant returns to scale, how much land would need to be allocated to each of these to generate our expected power demand in 2050? In a world where land is very valuable close to cities, what land would be set aside for this? Would current property owners be compensated for this land? Or would this be “roof top solar”? I do not believe there is any discussion of land markets in the original 2015 PNAS paper or the new critique. So the opportunity cost of land should be included in all of these calculations.

2. Transmission lines?
Assuming the renewables generation is far from cities, where will the transmission lines be built to bring the power to the cities? How will NIMBY issues be solved? How will potential veto power be bought out here? Or will engineers make a breakthrough such that power can be “emailed” without transmission capacity?

3. Comparative Energy Costs?
How much induced innovation will be needed to make the green energy production technologies cheaper than natural gas in the year 2050? So, we need an estimate of dynamic innovation in the dirty sector vs. the clean sector (see the recent work of Daron Acemoglu and co-authors on the “great race”).

4. Flexible power demand?
What will be aggregate electricity demand in 2050? How many consumers in the residential, industrial, commercial sectors will be signed up for dynamic pricing? How elastic will their demands be for power such that if the price of power rises will they in aggregate reduce their consumption by 2% or by 34% This plays a key role in determining the feasibility of the green grid! If demand is highly responsive to higher prices then the green grid is much more viable! So, now we are back to fundamental issues of the microeconomic determinants of the aggregate demand for electricity.

5. Electric vehicles demand?
Building on #4; what will be the aggregate demand of the transportation sector for energy and electricity in 2050? What % of the fleet will be EVs and how many miles will they drive and how many miles per kwh will they achieve? Some of these are micro-economic questions!

6. Air Conditioning Demand?
Building on #4, what will be aggregate demand for air conditioning during hot summers? What thermostat level will businesses and households cool to? How efficient will air conditioners be then (see the 1999 QJE by Newell, Jaffee and Stavins on induced innovation; see point #3 above).

7. Resistence from Vested Interests?
I appreciate that the engineers want to debate what is feasible but this overlooks important implementation issues that may raise the cost of introducing their valuable ideas. For example,
which interest groups would seek to veto the Stanford “vision”? Coal miners will not favor Jacobson’s equilibrium. If Progressives need to buy out West Virginian Senator support for coal, this cost should be added to the full cost of the green economy. Is it included? I doubt it.

“Pie In The Sky”

From the day of your birth
It’s bread and water here on earth
To a child of light, to a child of light

But there’ll be pie in the sky
By and by when I die
And it’ll be alright, it’ll be alright

 

 

 

via Science Matters http://ift.tt/2oqIky9

June 21, 2017 at 06:07PM