The claim that Australia needs to export coal to help people in developing countries is grubby and self serving. It only perpetuates the problem. If some countries can go straight to mobile phones before land lines then they can go straight to clean energy. Coal apologists keep trying on the carbon capture and storage line. As demonstrated by dozens of pilot plants it will clearly never be economic therefore must be seen as a stalling tactic. Other cleaner coal burning methods such as gasification and supercritical willl never achieve the 80% CO2 cuts we need.

It seems odd to admit that most man made CO2 comes from burning coal then in the next breath claim that eliminating coal will barely affect CO2. It's like an alcoholic saying that giving up grog won't help. I have a strong suspicion it might.

The decent thing for the coal industry would be to admit it should bow out. Ask for carbon tax revenues to help pay for clean energy and efficiency measures. The same power lines can be used to carry low carbon energy. The coal industry should redirect its efforts to becoming part of the solution not to perpetuate the problem.

The IEA was set up by the OECD and has shown itself to be a puppet of the USA by suppressing, until recently, concerns about peak oil. Their mantra will never significantly deviate from the self-interest of the OECD governments - hence the support for coal.

Greenpeace gets $250 million income a year, the sources of which they do not disclose even in their Annual Report. This is depsite the fact they claim to be transparent and get nothing from 'Companies'. Yet we now know that Ted Turner and the Rockerfeller foundation donate millions.

Scrutinise the motives of Coal companies, for sure, but don't forget to have a close look at the other side before you naively fall for the 'rich coal companies v the defenders of the planet' scenario.

Taswegian please inform us what "clean" energy you are talking about.

Unless it's nuclear, most places on earth, those without the typography to allow hydro, all other green/clean energy is a pipe dream.

Greenpeace is just as much against hydro as coal, they don't want people to have electricity, so perhaps you could enlighten us on what energy you are suggesting.

Michael, come off the grass mate, peak oil is a dead concept.

Hasbeen that's a fair point that some low carbon sources cannot realistically provide large scale reliable power. That's why Bangladesh for example has decided to neither import nice clean Australian coal nor try for renewables. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15552687
As for Peak Oil remind yourself it's not true when you soon pay $2 a litre for petrol.

Oil price has increased because the demand from China and India, not because of Peak Oil (whatever that actually means).

When will people understand. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is explicit:

all renewables, nuclear and COAL itself are dependent on NET ENERGY input to our global civilisation. Just their transport and mining and manufacturing costs alone, let alone maintenance and upgrades, require endless OIL. The only exception is GEOTHERMAL which is tied up in red tape by fossil fuel magnates. The problem is that there is not an endless supply of oil and there are good reasons to believe that global oil reserves are overstated to prevent economic markets from collapsing with a rapid descent into global war.

The Gillard government and its bean counters are having an each way bet, pinning their economic thrust on coal exports while raising a carbon tax to keep prying minds from the ugly realities of their selfishness. Or perhaps they are just schizophrenic and don't know if they are Arthur of Martha, Abbot or Costello, GREEN or filthy coal tar black.

It doesn't really matter. Despite everyone's GST going to an underperforming Victoria and despite the global warming/carbon tax propagandering to neuter informed debate and despite an overtly dumb CSIRO that has been politically emasculated, the Australian populace has indicated at every election that despite the consequences for their children and future generations they are happy to live it up and use every litre of oil they can while the going's good!

You can't fight a faux immigration/GST-destabilised-democracy and it seems you can't fight the attendant evil.

ITS lurking!And far too few are willing to contest it.

Benjamin, 'bollocks'.

"We need to focus on delivering energy to those who currently lack access to it and supporting developing countries’ economies to grow"

Global coal may have peaked in 2011 (Patzek) or will soon, 2015 (Zittel). Other estimates range as far as 2029-2043. (Heinberg and Fridley) say that “we believe that it is unlikely world energy supplies can continue to meet projected demand beyond 2020.”

Less than one percent of our elected leaders have degrees in science. They’re too busy raising money for the next election and their political duties, even they may not have time to read enough for a “big picture view” of (systems) ecology, population, environment, natural resources, biodiversity/bio-invasion, water, topsoil and fishery depletion, and all the other factors that will be magnified when oil and coal, the master resources decline.

Since peak fossil fuel is here, now (we’re on a plateau), there’s less urgency to do something about climate change for many leaders, because they assume, the remaining fossil fuels won’t trigger a runaway greenhouse. Climate change is a more distant problem than Peak Oil. And again, like peak oil, nothing can be done about it. There’s are no carbon free alternative liquid fuels, let alone a liquid fuel we can burn in our existing combustion engines.

There’s no time left to rebuild a completely new fleet of vehicles based on electricity, the electric grid infrastructure and electricity generation from windmills, solar, nuclear, etc., are too oil dependent to outlast oil. Batteries are too heavy to ever be used by trucks or other large vehicles, and require a revolutionary breakthrough to power electric cars.

I think that those who deny climate change and peak oil, despite knowing they are real, are thinking like chess players several moves ahead. They hope that by denying climate change an awareness of peak oil is less likely to occur, and I’m guessing their motivation is to keep our oil/coal-based economy going as long as possible by preventing a stock market crash, panic, social disorder, and so on.

The burning of coal and other fossil fuels will have to reduce sooner or later. The sooner it is done the less will be the impacts, both economic and in terms of dangerous climate change.

Benjamin, if stopping coal fired generation will reduce temperatures by 0.2 deg over 100 years surely this is preferable to increases of 2-4 degrees that would occur if we keep on burning it?

There are alternatives - solar wind, biomass and geothermal. They are all more expensive than coal and we'll have to get used to paying much more for energy. At three times the cost of coal it would still be cheap.

The ones claiming that renewables are impractical and too expensive are the 'emissions intensive trade exposed' resource corporations They use cheap energy to make billions out of flooding the world with coal and metals that are being used inefficiently by the relatively affluent (e.g. 65 millions unoccupied apartments in China.)

I have seen how effective small PV systems are in providing light and basic communications to villages. I agree with Taswegian, we should be helping the energy poor by assisting them directly into renewables.

Taswegian. I gather that you are a keen supporter of Australia moving from coal to nuclear? What are your chances of getting Green support on that plan?

There is an endless supply of oil! Some algae are up to 60% oil. Algae absorb up to 2.5 times their body weight in Co2 emission; and double that body weight every 24 hours under optimised conditions.
Optimised conditions include a closed circuit system inside long large clear plastic pipes filled with algae being fed by effluent and or its problematic nutrient load; and smoke stack emission, which can be fed directly into a closed cycle system; meaning, zero emission; and, given we are talking about converting 50% or better of all our Co2 emission into algae based oil production; namely, all our oil needs indefinitely!
We can also use wave and or tide power to produce endlessly reliable peak demand energy; and indeed for a lot less than current coal-fired power costs, which is around 3-5 cents per kilowatt hour.
Nuclear power is also an option using either the new safer and vastly less costly pebble reactors or thorium reactors. we can also convert our biological waste to onsite power for around a third of current coal fired power; given, no moving parts to wear out, and an endless supply of virtually free biological material!
India is currently running 2 30 megawatt thorium reactors. Those governed by this or that Ideological imperative need to remove the ideological blinkers and or stop thinking within a very narrow circle of ideas; or, acting as virtual road blocks to effective carbon free/neutral alternatives, which can and must include coal fired power!
We must act with urgent alacrity; given, if the ambient temps rise by as much as 5C by 2070, we will be annihilated, along with all other life forms! This is recorded faithfully as fact in the palaeoecological record the very last time ambient temps rose by around 5C. Rhrosty.

I not only support nuclear but I think there is no realistic alternative. I might add that I've had solar PV for a number of years, I drive a car fuelled by biodiesel and I cook and heat on wood stoves. My conclusion is that these alternatives cannot scale up. At least I'm on grid power at night. Some neighbours who rely on batteries also support nuclear. Funny how the closer you get to raw survivalism the less appealing it becomes.

I might add that it seems stupid to claim that Australian coal exports help the downtrodden. Perhaps we could build a coal fired power station on stilts to help the people of Kiribati as they sink below the waves. We should leave coal in the ground as pre-sequestered carbon. Help the developing countries buy small scale nuclear. Worry about uranium depletion 50 years from now by which time we should have long lasting alternatives, nuclear or otherwise.

What a bunch of nongs.

I bet the average Aussie believes when things get tough they can lift up on their bootstraps till they reach the moon where they can eat green cheeze and get laid by moon maids.

If you don't believe the Second law of thermodynamics is true then all that is possible i guess, just like NET ENERGY from nuclear and algae. Both of which require more energy inputs(from oil mostly) than the energy you can extract over the life cycle of the installation.

Clever country?

F in Hopeless!

If peak oil and the 2nd law are correct how to explain Titan:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/02/14/2162556.htm

Taswegian/KAEP/Geoff of Perth

look fellas, peak oil was declared dead a few weeks back, and not before time. Analysts had mostly stopped considering the concept long before the declaration. Now if you have problems with the work of the Citibank analysts who made the declaration, orm object to analysts abandoning the concept, then what are those objections?

In any case peak oil was never intended to refer to the total supply of oil. It was meant to refer to the easy-lift oil (the sutff in the onshore reservoirs). There's still plenty of unconventional/deep sea stuff. So sorry you'll have to drop that particular scare story. There has been a production plataeu of late, attributed to OPEC's failure to invest in production facilities for internal reasons.

As for a peak coal, its an absurd notion. coal reserves have always varied according to coal prices, not production.. this has been recognised for decades now, so for heaven sake Geoff of Perth start reading about the industry..

Cohenite,

Titan is irrelevant . There is no oxygen so there is no NET ENERGY gradient from the Hydrocarbons. They are just gases vaporised off a GAS Giant planet. The only net energy on Titan comes from tidal heating caused by Saturn's spinning gravity field.

If you take oxygen to Saturn it will cost you more to get it there than the energy you get from any combustion at Titan.

In fact it is true that the only worthwhile NET ENERGY source in this solar system, apart from Earth and Venus Geothermal, is at or about Mercury orbit where 11 times the radiance at earth could support human biology in a very comfy and sustainable fashion. Heat shields and magnetic shields are easily made with materials and energy at Mercury.

NASA's Mars visions are yet to bite them on the butt. They too have a fondness for not fully respecting the 2LT. And they will PAY for that.

The 2LT is a LAW that can be you best chance or your worst nightmare.
IT JUST REQUIRES MORE THOUGHT. Unfortunately Australian politicians and CSIRO scientists don't like to think too much. It interferes with their photo ops & drinking time.

Curmudgeon, Saudi Arabia does not possess the 2-3mbd of spare capacity which most have assumed, they ceded the position of top oil producer to Russia in 2006. They made no production response to the loss of Libyan oil in 2011.

Nearly 60% of global oil supply comes from outside of OPEC from the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, China, and Russia.

There is no spare capacity in this non-OPEC grouping, and there hasn’t been for years.

There is oil to be developed in non-OPEC countries; but that is not production capacity. Russia massively increased its contribution to world supply in 2002. In the past two years, its production growth tapered off and flattened, to just shy of 10mbd.

The problem now is that the oil market has been re-educated. Faith in the non-OPEC countries' ability to increase supply is no more.

The recent great deceleration in Russian oil supply growth has spooked the market. A market with 74mbd of production and a ? spare capacity of 3mbd creates too much uncertainty.

The recognition of supply are now dominant factors in the oil price a point so obvious. The developed world is still largely operating on the classical economic view that higher prices will make new oil resources available.

That is true, it’s just not true in the way most anticipate.

While higher prices have brought on new supply, these have been slow to develop, more difficult to extract, flow at lower rates. As the older fields decline, the price of oil must reflect the economics of this new tranche of oil resources.

There are no vast new supplies of oil that will come online in 2013-15 at the scale to negate existing global declines.

During the entire time that global oil supply has been held at a ceiling of 74mbd, since 2005, a lot of new production in the Americas and Africa has come online, but it has not been enough to increase total world supply. The price of oil has finally started to price in that new reality.
Ditto Coal

NASA Study Illustrates How Global Peak Oil Could Impact Climate09.10.08

Satellites show sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide across Earth, measured here in 2003. High concentrations are shown in red and lower concentrations are shown in blue. Credit: NASA
> Larger image The burning of fossil fuels -- notably coal, oil and gas -- has accounted for about 80 percent of the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial era. Now, NASA researchers have identified feasible emission scenarios that could keep carbon dioxide below levels that some scientists have called dangerous for climate.

When and how global oil production will peak has been debated, making it difficult to anticipate emissions from the burning of fuel and to precisely estimate its impact on climate. To better understand how emissions might change in the future, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York considered a wide range of fossil fuel consumption scenarios. The research, published Aug. 5 in the American Geophysical Union's Global Biogeochemical Cycles, shows that the rise in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels can be kept below harmful levels as long as emissions from coal are phased out globally within the next few decades.

"This is the first paper in the scientific literature that explicitly melds the two vital issues of global peak oil production and human-induced climate change," Kharecha said. "We're illustrating the types of action needed to get to target carbon dioxide levels."

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that concerns climate scientists because it can remain in the atmosphere for many centuries and studies have indicated that humans have already caused those levels to rise for decades by burning fossils fuels. Also, carbon dioxide accounts for more than half of all human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Previously published research shows that a dangerous level of global warming will occur if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeds a concentration of about 450 parts per million. That's equivalent to about a 61 percent increase from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million, but only 17 percent more than the current level of 385 parts per million. The carbon dioxide cap is related to a global temperature rise of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the 2000 global temperature, at or beyond which point the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet and Arctic sea ice could set in motion feedbacks and lead to accelerated melting.

To better understand the possible trajectory of future carbon dioxide, Kharecha and Hansen devised five carbon dioxide emissions scenarios that span the years 1850-2100. Each scenario reflects a different estimate for the global production peak of fossil fuels, the timing of which depends on reserve size, recoverability and technology.

"Even if we assume high-end estimates and unconstrained emissions from conventional oil and gas, we find that these fuels alone are not abundant enough to take carbon dioxide above 450 parts per million," Kharecha said.

The first scenario estimates carbon dioxide levels if emissions from fossil fuels are unconstrained and follow along "business as usual," growing by two percent annually until half of each reservoir has been recovered, after which emissions begin to decline by two percent annually.

The second scenario considers a situation in which emissions from coal are reduced first by developed countries starting in 2013 and then by developing countries a decade later, leading to a global phase out by 2050 of the emissions from burning coal that reach the atmosphere. The reduction of emissions to the atmosphere in this case can come from reducing coal consumption or from capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

The remaining three scenarios include the above-mentioned phase out of coal, but consider different scenarios for oil use and supply. One case considers a delay in the oil peak by about 21 years to 2037. Another considers the implications of fewer-than-expected additions to proven reserves due to overestimated reserves, or the addition of a price on emissions that makes the fuel too expensive to extract. The final scenario looks at emissions from oil fields that peak at different times, extending the peak into a plateau that lasts from 2020-2040.

A quarter pounder with cheese takes .7 lts of petrol and leaves a 5.7 kg carbon footprint. This is equivalent to burning 3.1 kg of coal.

KAEP; all true; but my point about Titan went to the abiotic origin of hydrocarbons.

Geoff of Perth

from your post I think you're beginning to understand the arguments.. that's good. Sure there may be some dislocation because OPEC has refused to invest in production capacity, and the oil industry has to switch to more expensive sources.. but as for absolute limits, no sorry. Even the original proponents of the modern form of peak oil Cambell and Laherrere (you can find the orignal Scientific American article with a quick search), knew there was far too much unconventional oil to put any limits on production. However, they also claimed that there was no more offshore oil, and look what's happened?

You can have short term disruption (although I doubt it will happen, its arguable). But the activist's version of peak oil (as opposed to the original version)is dead.. time to move on..

cohenite, are you saying that you subscribe to the abiotic origin theory of geologic oil?

Hi 579,

Here's some more 'previously published research'. I think it's about as reliable as yours:

"The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pitb and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful."

There's not much to choose between them, but I think I'll believe in this apocalypse in preference to yours. It sounds a lot more entertaining.

Bugsy; yes, on Titan, at the very least.

cohenite, I was asking about geologic oil. Geo- being the prefix meaning 'Earth'. Titanic hydrocarbons formed at very low temperatures in methane 'seas' are one thing, complex hydrocarbons formed at very high temperatures another.

Maybe I should be more direct and less erudite:

Do you believe that oil is formed from an abiotic origin in the Earths crust and is thus is not a 'fossil' fuel?

Alternatives that actually require a net energy input include ethanol. Or if you will, if in the process of producing ethanol; the only fuel available for any of the steps, harvesting, transport, crushing etc; you'd likely run out of ethanol part way through the entire process. However, the sensible use of very low cost and endlessly dependable wave or tidal power would overcome those limitations and allow us to produce a liquid portable fuel, possibly for less than we currently pay for fully imported foreign fuel?
Those who critique algae based bio-fuel on similar grounds should try articulating their view, from a little higher up. Algae based bio-fuel production, would rescue the Murray/Darling basin and indeed increase the economic well being of that area, for a tiny fraction of current water use.
A bio fuel refinery can run on solar power and cost as little as $15,000.00 to set up.
We need as never before genuine tax reform and quite massive simplification; so that, fuel excise or its loss doesn't continue to pose as an impediment to endlessly sustainable bio-fuel production, bio char; and, other carbon reduction or recycling strategies.
Looking for or finding all the reasons something can't be done or won't work; makes the detractors just part of the problem, which is so serious and urgent; it behoves us all to ditch the entirely counter productive ideological imperative; and become part of the solution.
Rhrosty.

Bugsy,

The tone of your questions to cohenite suggest that if he "believed" in abiotic oil, you, with your greater knowledge, would regard that as fanciful BS.

That might indicate that you are not aware of Vladimir Larin's "Hydridic Earth", C Warren Hunt's "Expanding Geospheres" or Thomas Gold's "Abiotic Oil". If you were to read these, you would find some interesting alternative hypotheses relating to the origin of oil, and some evidence that these alternative hypotheses should at least be considered.

Like many things that we may not know a lot about, it is wise to keep an open mind.

Bugsy, please continue to be erudite; dealing with erudite, intellectual people is the only way I can improve my humble, ignorant self.

As mentioned Larin, Hunt and especially the late, lamented Tommy Gold are good sources to catch up on the abiotic/abiogenic theories of oil formation. I read around occasionally on the issue and this is one of the better pieces I have found:

http://www.offshore-mag.com/articles/print/volume-55/issue-4/news/general-interest/middle-east-geology-why-the-middle-east-fields-may-produce-oil-forever.html

But I have to say I subscribe to the Indiana Jones theory of energy; which is all the secret sources of energy are locked away in a big warehouse somewhere.

We confront a future that likely will include a Great Depression in Europe by 2016! We need to see this possible future and plan for it. To that end we need to completely divorce ourselves and our economy from any dependence on foreign food or fossil fuel/oil.
Developing endlessly sustainable alternatives for far less than the current cost of coal-fired power, will prove to be of the greatest use in getting the largest polluters/emerging economies to follow suit or our practical pragmatic example.
Simply and mindlessly espousing the great green gospel of making energy dearer; is simply driving these economies and their vast populations of people living way below any so called poverty line; into the arms of the fossil fuel industry; and or, is entirely counter productive.
As is the usual green generated misinformation or mostly mindless patently political propaganda?
Their real if un-stated agenda, I believe, is to de-industrialize and de-populate the planet?
If nuclear energy can be produced for less than coal-fired power, with comparative safety, it needs to be included in the available carbon free alternatives!
After all, we already have enough nuclear weapons capacity to destroy this planet 40 times over! Therefore, objecting to nuclear energy on the grounds that the waste might be used to make a few more bombs, simply ignores current realities.
Moreover, pebble or thorium reactors overcome most objections; and indeed, fast breeder reactors reduce the half life of nuclear waste to just 300 years?
Surely we humans are smart enough, innovative enough to safely store this waste for 300 years.
Besides, nuclear waste is not presently threatening us with an almost inevitable mass extinction event by as soon as 2070; but, our current carbon load/production does!
In conclusion one notes that old growth trees store carbon whether vertical or horizontal; and, their very selective harvesting allows newer more vigorous growth to replace them; and as a first consequence, vastly improve the capacity of our native forests; to collect and store even more carbon.
Common sense seems to be a very rare commodity; but particularly among green acolytes. Rhrosty.

To add to the excellent contributions by Rhosty and others re biomass energy.

Yes, fuels from fermented grains are a no-no - very little if any net savings in GHG emissions.

But fuels from biological oils - algae and to a lesser extent oilseeds are a completely different story and will be a part of the solution.

Pyrloysis of woody biomass to syngas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) and charcoal has the most potential of all. Syngas is feedstock for Fischer Tropsh diesel (cleanest of all diesels - low GHG and no sulpher). Cleaned syngas can also be burned directly in gas turbines or IC engines to generate electricity.

If 10% of Australia's dryland agricultural land were planted to coppicing oil mallees, at least 4% of our electricity needs could be met while reducing emissions by at least 4% (see my chapter 20, www.thebiocharrevolution.com). Alternaitively it could provide diesel for essential services such as agriculture and public transport.

On top of all this, most important is energy efficiency; we can easily do what we do now on half the energy. Start with the motor car - 1.5 tonnes to move 1.3 (average) occupants - that's the epitome of wasting oil and causing carbon pollution.

Oil mallee biomass has an energy output-input ratio of 40:1. It can be grown in in belts within conventional cropping paddocks with very few inputs - no additional fertilizer

A very interesting thread.

If coal and hydrocarbons aren't going to run out due being of continuous abiogenic origin (debatable but irrelevant) do we just keep burning them while the earth warms? I don't think so.

Could sustainable algal systems harvesting solar energy and scaled up unimaginably be the alternative? Perhaps sustainable biomass systems on a massive scale? What about massive PV arrays? All possibly and partially. But that's all fiddling while Rome burns.

We must go to what we know is proven and base-load viable, safe thorium fast-breeder reactors. I see someone bleating on another thread about nuclear waste storage in Australia. The alternative to storage is worse. Nuclear buys enough time, before thorium and other nuclear fuels run out, to get a full suite of alternatives up and running.

A team of scientists have used the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite to confirm major reductions in the levels of a key air pollutant generated by coal power plants in the eastern United States. The pollutant, sulfur dioxide, contributes to the formation of acid rain and can cause serious health problems.

The scientists, led by an Environment Canada researcher, have shown that sulfur dioxide levels in the vicinity of major coal power plants have fallen by nearly half since 2005. The new findings, the first satellite observations of this type, confirm ground-based measurements of declining sulfur dioxide levels and demonstrate that scientists can potentially measure levels of harmful emissions throughout the world, even in places where ground monitoring is not extensive or does not exist. About two-thirds of sulfur dioxide pollution in American air comes from coal power plants. Geophysical Research Letters published details of the new research this month.

These maps show average sulfur dioxide levels measured by the Aura satellite for the periods 2005-2007 (top) and 2008-2010 (bottom) over a portion of the eastern United States. The black dots represent the locations of many of the nation's top sulfur dioxide emissions sources. Larger dots indicate greater emissions. (Credit: NASA's Earth Observatory)
› Larger image (2005-2007)
› Larger image (2008-2010)

The scientists attribute the decline in sulfur dioxide to the Clean Air Interstate Rule, a rule passed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 that called for deep cuts in sulfur dioxide emissions. In response to that rule, many power plants in the United States have installed desulfurization devices and taken other steps that limit the release of sulfur dioxide. The rule put a cap on emissions, but left it up to power companies to determine how to reduce emissions and allowed companies to trade pollution credits.

While scientists have used the Ozone Monitoring Instrument to observe sulfur dioxide levels within large plumes of volcanic ash and over heavily polluted parts of China in the past, this is the first time they have observed such subtle details over the United States, a region of the world that in comparison to fast-growing parts of Asia now has relatively modest sulfur dioxide emissions. Just a few decades ago, sulfur dioxide pollution was quite severe in the United States. Levels of the pollutant have dropped by about 75 percent since the 1980s due largely to the passage of the Clean Air Act.

I have admired the EPA for the work they and similar organizations have undertaken both in the US and here in Australia (as detailed by 579 above). However, they have lost all my respect as impartial 'science driven' professional organisations since declaring CO2 a 'pollutant'.

What a diverse range of comments, packed with facts, opinion and suggestions. Some good, some self serving and some not so good! It’s my opinion that this planet has only one source of energy, which has over time, has created the energy stored and active in its many forms on, around and in it. We call it the Sun. Logic (without going into the science) would suggest that if we where to release this planets stored energy something will change. The Sun continues to power this planet today and will do into the distant future whether we survive ourselves or not. Why is it that we are not using the energy that our sun produces today, in lieu of digging up the past?

The answer is simple. There are a lot of very greedy lazy parasites that derive a lot of power and wealth supplying convenient (not cheap) energy to an even greater number of just as lazy, apathetic, ignorant although poorer individuals.

Those who support nuclear energy should be made to spend time on their own at Chernobyl and Fukushima. They should lobby that any new plants should be built next door to where they live.

Those individuals who think climate change is crap should spend time on their own on the numerous Pacific islands that are clearly sinking. During a king tide in the local grave yard would serve to amplify the message. This would enable those who have and listen to imaginary friends to have a one on one discussion.

The solution is to control individual wealth and thus power. Take away the big individual money and you take away the engine that drives the greed that creates the problem. Everyone should be allowed to enjoy as much as possible the time we have on this planet but in doing so we must preserve the time and the planet for those that follow.

Producer. Which particular pacific islands should I visit/sit on??

Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji used historical aerial photos and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land surface of 27 Pacific islands over the last 60 years. During that time, local sea levels have risen by 120 millimetres, or 2 millimetres per year on average.

Despite this, Kench and Webb found that just four islands have diminished in size since the 1950s. The area of the remaining 23 has either stayed the same or grown (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2007.11.001).

For the first time, NASA has the tools and expertise to understand the rate at which sea level is changing, some of the mechanisms that drive those changes and the effects that sea level change may have worldwide.

Although scientists have directly measured sea level since the early part of the 20th century, it was not known how many of the observed changes in sea level were real and how many were related to upward or downward movement of the land. Now satellites have changed that by providing a reference by which changes in ocean height can be determined regardless of what the nearby land is doing. With new satellite measurements, scientists are able to better predict the rate at which sea level is rising and the cause of that rise.

"In the last fifty years sea level has risen at an estimated rate of 1.8 mm (.07 inches) per year, but in the last 12 years that rate appears to be 3 mm (.12 inches) per year. Roughly half of that is attributed to the expansion of ocean water as it has increased in temperature, with the rest coming from other sources" said Dr. Steve Nerem Associate Professor, Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Another source of sea level rise is the increase in ice melting. Evidence shows that sea levels rise and fall as ice on land grows and shrinks. With the new measurements now available, it's possible to determine the rate at which ice is growing and shrinking.

"We've found the largest likely factor for sea level rise is changes in the amount of ice that covers the earth. Three-fourths of the planet's freshwater is stored in glaciers and ice sheets or the equivalent of about 220 feet of sea level," said Dr. Eric Rignot,

Principal Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Ice cover is shrinking much faster than we thought, with over half of recent sea level rise due to the melting of ice from Greenland, West Antarctica's Amundsen Sea and mountain glaciers," he said.

Additionally, NASA scientists and partner researchers now are able to measure and monitor the world's waters globally in a sustained and comprehensive way using a combination of satellite observations and sensors in the ocean. By integrating the newly available satellite and surface data, scientists are better able to determine the causes and significance of current sea level changes.

"Now the challenge is to develop an even deeper understanding of what is responsible for sea level rise and to monitor for possible future changes. That's where NASA's satellites come in, with global coverage and ability to examine the many factors involved," said Dr. Laury Miller, Chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, Washington.

NASA works with agency partners such as NOAA and the National Science Foundation to explore and understand sea level change. Critical resources that NASA brings to bear on this issue include such satellites as:

-- Ocean TOPography Experiment (TOPEX/Poseidon), which uses radar to map the precise features of the oceans' surface;
-- Jason, which measures ocean height and monitors ocean circulation;
-- Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which studies the mass of polar ice sheets and their contributions to global sea level change;
-- Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), which maps Earth's gravitational Field, allowing us to better understand movement of water throughout the Earth

I'm not really sure what your point is with the Webb & Kench paper, Prompete.

What are you trying to say? The Pacific islands aren't vulnerable to sea-level rise? Sea-level rise isn't happening? What exactly?

Producer, I spent quite a bit of time on pacific islands, in the 70s.

In fact I built small jetties on a number of them.

On a recent Google earth trip around some of those islands, I found a number of those jetties some distance inland from the sea, or so silted up with growth of the islands around them, that some were extended, & some replaced.

Do try to get some facts in your posts.

Perhaps if you read something of the nature of atolls it would be a start, then be careful of who you pay attention to. You could end up like 579, believing everything some lefty government lacy tells you.

Coastal areas will likely experience major changes in sea levels this century due to climate change. The shifts, however, will be anything but uniform. NASA research shows that some coasts are experiencing sea level rise significantly faster than the global average of 3.27 millimeters (about 1/8 of an inch) per year, while other areas are experiencing slower rates of rise and even falling sea levels. "It would be nice if we could say we can predict exactly how a given island or island chain will react to rising sea levels or some other environmental change, but we're simply not there yet for most islands, especially for many tropical islands where research dollars are scarce. We're still a long way from being able to accurately model how an individual island will change as a result of climate change or even simple development pressure," said Stutz

I generally do not respond to comments as they generally address part of a comment and ignore the context. It’s raining so there’s little I can do!

Prompete - Visit Saibai that’s close and you don’t need a passport!

Hasbeen - Granted not all Pacific Islands are being affected negatively too sea level rise due to global warming. Yes some of them are actually growing, so I hope there wasn’t an extended warranty on those jetties. This however is of little comfort to the ones that are being affected.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-03/king-tide-on-saibai---background-briefing/3866608

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/sinking-pacific-island-kiribati-considers-moving-to-a-manmade-alternative-2350964.html

http://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/environment/climate-change/pacific-island-sinking-20091119-iom7.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carteret_Islands

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1283669/Low-lying-Pacific-islands-growing-sinking-sea-levels-rise.html

It beats me why the author treats Western energy consumption as a given. Sure coal is important to the millions who are energy poor and it should be rationed out to them, but this doesn't alter the fact that the west is in a state of energy glut and can cut down on consumption massively. Let's produce as much coal as we need to cover the transition period to clean energy--which must involve cuts in consumption--and essential services to the impoverished the author is so concerned about.

The truth is it's all about money.

Let's not be hypocrites, Mr Sporton, and pretend this is about efficiencies; it's about money.

Hyperbole about storing nuclear waste in Canberra gets us further from a sensible discussion about the merits or otherwise of nuclear energy.

There's a saying "Experience is a hard teacher, you get the test before the lesson". We have learned enough about nuclear energy, the hard way, to make more of a success of it in the future. Already we are at the point that a miniscule number people have been harmed by it compared with the burning coal and hydrocarbons. Just as we have gradually learned to burn better (less particulates, sulfur dioxide, clean air acts) so it is with nuclear energy. India's thorium stations will lead the way in even safer generation and waste storage.

Without nuclear energy (at least until thorium runs out) the world will not have the time to develop the massive scale alternatives to burning carbon and hydrocarbons needed to survive their depletion and to stop warming. This is more than just adding a few solar panels to our home and feeling good about ourselves. Base-load power is a very serious matter. Without it we will have a different catastrophe to the environmental one we are trying to avoid, but a catastrophe nonetheless.

Yes, there have been nuclear accidents and disasters but we must forge on towards harnessing nuclear power with all the information, knowledge and wisdom we can. There really is no alternative unless fusion experiments bear fruit well ahead of our hopes.

Luciferas good point, clearly written, makes a lot of sense to me.

Bugsy, my apologies for the confusion. I think the point I am trying to make is that comments such as those submitted by Producer, wherein he states that;

"Those individuals who think climate change is crap should spend time on their own on the numerous Pacific islands that are clearly sinking."?

is a comment that over simplifies the debate and attributes that 'sinking' to what? Unstable geology? Erosion? Anthropogenic CO2, rising sea levels? Some satellite studies indicate that some islands are clearly not sinking, but actually growing.
It has been my reading that sea levels have been rising on average 1mm per year since the little ice age 2000 years ago...result, 200mm. It has been reported that Vanuatu has is being eaten away by rising sea levels, but the tide gauges show no such rise. Tuvalu islanders have been requesting relocation funds from western nations because island waters are salt contaminated from encroaching sea waters. In fact, it was found that a Japanese pineapple grower had extracted so much ground water that existing sea water had seeped in to fill the gap (this fact was not reported... The news had moved on!) In 2001 it was reported (CNN) that in 10 years time most of the 9 Attols would be submerged due to AGW and rising sea levels. Here we are 10 years later, and no attol submerged and several grown by 10 to 30%..
Nils-Axel Morner, an IPPC contributing author measured sea levels in the Maldives in the 1970's and found that they fell 20 cm, confirmed by changing topography noted by local fishermen. Since that time, he has continued his monitoring and recorded no change in the 39 years since then.
The point I make is that the complexities of the sea level issue in the pacific island region is incredibly complex and a vast array of factors influence the dynamics of pacific island topography.
I can only reiterate HASBEEN's plea to "do try to get some facts into your posts"

Constructing models for climate change based on cherry pick data without involving the Second Law of Thermodynamics (2LT) is explicitly a subjunctive or wishful endeavor based on base human sexual politics.

Anthropogenic warming is at its root: humangenic warming,
too many women having babies warming,
too many sexually-fraustrated-males warming or
iconically, DIRTY_NAPPYgenic warming.

To isolate the problem to the abstraction of CO2 emissions, which is downstream related to the real sexual problem is laughable. To worsen this with calls for fossil fuel dependent wind, solar, nuclear and algae-oil energy solutions is more daft.

When you consider that respected scientists from the CSIRO are used by Federal Government to frighten people about our future. About a small population confronting climate change and thus ripe for a BIG Australia. An Australia with more taxes to cope with that problem. An Australia accepting Huge Immigration, Baby Bonuses Dirty Nappies and subsequent global warming, you can sense a palpable Federal insanity.

Its an insanity that has pushed the world into war upon war. An insanity that compels Women to justify Kevin Rudd's political patricide, to halt any talk in this country of the POPULATION CONTROL -one baby per woman per lifetime - bogyman.

But what of the future under this misguided feminist regime with its sexually frustrated male political police.

There was damn good reason for WWI and WWII after Queen Victoria's long benign yet suffocating rule. OVERPOPULATION, overcrowding and CONFLICT. Victoria herself had 9 children and umpteen grand children.
Similarly a Gillard government childless or not, exposes this nation to increased male frustration & WAR. Climate change will be the least worry. But behind all of this is the 2LT: when you create cities and nationsand build them high, the 2LT from the getgo is dissolving them in subtle chemical, geological, climatic and statistical physics ways to reach a thermal equilibrium or oblivion. Its life! And climate scientists will NEVER be !LOVED! like an Einstein while they ignore the realities of the 2LT.

They must embrace the Main Chance of POPULATION STABILITY underwritten by fossil-fuel-independent GEOTHERMAL energy-- NOT population CAUSED climate instability.

Scientists using satellite data have confirmed that the amount of sea ice that floats in the chilly Arctic is much less than it used to be, and that's probably because of warmer Arctic temperatures.

Each year, during the month of September, the amount of sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean is typically at its lowest amount for the entire year. This year, and all the way back to 2002, the amount of sea ice has been 20 percent less than the average amount seen normally between 1979 and 2000.

Satellites helped scientists learn that there was about 502,000 square miles less sea ice each September since 2001 than there typically was in previous Septembers.

Satellites have flown over the Arctic and looked at sea ice since 1978. Some sea ice melts in the summertime every year, even in the Arctic, where temperatures are still near freezing. But in 2002, satellites showed that the springtime melting of sea ice started earlier than normal.

There has been lots of talk lately about Antarctica and whether or not the continent's giant ice sheet is melting. One new paper 1, which states there’s less surface melting recently than in past years, has been cited as "proof" that there’s no global warming. Other evidence that the amount of sea ice around Antarctica seems to be increasing slightly 2-4 is being used in the same way. But both of these data points are misleading. Gravity data collected from space using NASA's Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. The latest data reveal that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.

The Antarctic ice sheet. East Antarctica is much higher in elevation than West Antarctica.
Larger Image
Two-thirds of Antarctica is a high, cold desert. Known as East Antarctica, this section has an average altitude of about 2 kilometer (1.2 miles), higher than the American Colorado Plateau. There is a continent about the size of Australia underneath all this ice; the ice sheet sitting on top averages at a little over 2 kilometer (1.2 miles) thick. If all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meter (197 feet). But little, if any, surface warming is occurring over East Antarctica. Radar and laser-based satellite data show a little mass loss at the edges of East Antarctica, which is being partly offset by accumulation of snow in the interior, although a very recent result from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) suggests that since 2006 there has been more ice loss from East Antarctica than previously thought 5. Overall, not much is going on in East Antarctica -- yet.

Black soot deposited on Tibetan glaciers has contributed significantly to the retreat of the world’s largest non-polar ice masses, according to new research by scientists from NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Soot absorbs incoming solar radiation and can speed glacial melting when deposited on snow in sufficient quantities.

Temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau -- sometimes called Earth's "third pole" -- have warmed by 0.3°C (0.5°F) per decade over the past 30 years, about twice the rate of observed global temperature increases. New field research and ongoing quantitative modeling suggests that soot's warming influence on Tibetan glaciers could rival that of greenhouse gases.

"Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate," said James Hansen, coauthor of the study and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. "Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest."

"During the last 20 years, the black soot concentration has increased two- to three-fold relative to its concentration in 1975," said Junji Cao, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and a coauthor of the paper.

The study was published December 7th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Fifty percent of the glaciers were retreating from 1950 to 1980 in the Tibetan region; that rose to 95 percent in the early 21st century," said Tandong Yao, director of the Chinese Academy's Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. Some glaciers are retreating so quickly that they could disappear by mid-century if current trends continue, the researchers suggest

Enough already, 579! Anthropomorphic global warming and climate change is only refuted by those who wish to remain ignorant. World scientific consensus stands and we should all be moving now on to what to do about it. One step at a time. The medium-term answer is nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. Long-term it is everything else.

We have to disable 579s google, before it sends him mad.

All this global warming fraud is melting his brain.

Luciferin Luciferase,

Sufferin Sukotash, anthropomorphic warming is warming that looks like a human being in some way. You must have meant anthropogenic (human caused)warming.

Why you refuse to call it dirty-nappygenic warming which is identical to human caused warming because it reflects all the unwanted up coming polluters and shakers of the world is no mystery to me.

I feel sorry for you and your problem. But your uncompetitive woes don't change the fact that everything is in decay because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

All the economic immigration/overpopulate get-rich quick consenses in the world won't make it different. It won't make it a true scientific consensus either. It will just mean that more humans equals more severe climate change. Lowering CO2 without lowering poo, pee an solid wastes or lowering CO2 by introducing fossil fuel dependent nuclear or any OIL DEPENDENT renewable energies are fool's errands. The 2LT is most explicit about this. To my mind scientists consensing CO2 warming are nothing more than sexual failures trying to bignote themselves into the big-time. But for how long will it last? The consensus is changing rapidly as OIL prices begin to fluctuate ostensibly on short term US foundations. But I suspect much larger prices loom as much larger geopolitical and true-reserve problems exist.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/oil-advances-as-demand-picks-up-20120319-1vf0v.html
And when these CO2 scientists do fail they will be HATED as much as the politicians and corporate goons who have USED them.

Ah Hasbeen, classic! Perhaps the cut and paste function on 579' puter needs a disable function after 3 uses in any particular session :))

I know KAEP has valid and cogent arguments regarding population, peak oil and 2LT buried deep within the miasma of turgid text, and the use of scat analogies are an amusement, but the link to my 'bonking' preferences or behavior continues to ellude me. Fascinating stuff and cheers to all.

Anthropomorphic! Ha,I did write that, my sincere anthropologies!

There is no escaping entropy but by its inevitability the argument boils down to "why worry about anything, we're doomed in the end anyway". Well, where there's life there's hope and ultimately the second law should see humanity break free of our earthly coil and befoul other parts of the universe if we can just survive our own petri-dish for a little longer.

The idea that you put more fossil fuel energy into going nuclear than you get out of it is sheer Green bollocks. Eventually you leave fossil fuels behind while buying time to establish sustainable alternatives. We do not have the luxury of that time given the virtual standing start position we are in developing the alternatives to the point they can provide base-load needs.

The Internet is full of references to global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists website on climate change is titled "Global Warming," just one of many examples. But we don't use global warming much on this website. We use the less appealing "climate change." Why?

To a scientist, global warming describes the average global surface temperature increase from human emissions of greenhouse gases. Its first use was in a 1975 Science article by geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory: "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?"1

Broecker's term was a break with tradition. Earlier studies of human impact on climate had called it "inadvertent climate modification."2 This was because while many scientists accepted that human activities could cause climate change, they did not know what the direction of change might be. Industrial emissions of tiny airborne particles called aerosols might cause cooling, while greenhouse gas emissions would cause warming. Which effect would dominate?

For most of the 1970s, nobody knew. So "inadvertent climate modification," while clunky and dull, was an accurate reflection of the state of knowledge.

The first decisive National Academy of Science study of carbon dioxide's impact on climate, published in 1979, abandoned "inadvertent climate modification." Often called the Charney Report for its chairman, Jule Charney of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, declared: "if carbon dioxide continues to increase, [we find] no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible."3

In place of inadvertent climate modification, Charney adopted Broecker's usage. When referring to surface temperature change, Charney used "global warming." When discussing the many other changes that would be induced by increasing carbon dioxide, Charney used "climate change."

In relation to fossil fuel dependent nuclear, renewable and fossil derivitive energies(eg expensive to harvest algae oil) the following quote from an ex-employer of mine suffices in place of wasting time teaching all the unwelcome 2LT realities to folk who remain stoic, heads in sand:

"Progress does not follow a straight line; the future is not a mere projection of trends in the present. Rather, it is revolutionary. It overturns the conventional wisdom of the present, which often self interestedly conceals or ignores the clues to the future."