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climate sanity climate sanity sea level projections vs tide gauge data february 28 2016 carbon dioxide climate change disaster sea levels will rise you can see all kinds of sea level rise predictions for the 21st century with over wrought images of houses and buildings under water one of the favorite predictions of the hand wringers is 1 8 meters of sea level rise for the 21st century a major purveyor of this lurid climate porn prediction is stefan rahmstorf see here here and here consider the following points 75 of atmospheric anthropogenic co2 arrived after 1950 there has been no obvious acceleration in sea level rise rates since 1950 as seen from tide gauges extrapolating tide gauge time series to 2100 would give about 15cm of sea level rise between 200o and 2100 projections of 1 1 8 or 2 meters of sea level rise between 2000 and 2100 would require extraordinary rise rate accelerations let s compare the sea level data of the 20th century with these wild prediction for the 21st century the movie below will show all the tide gauge data sets available from noaa that extend over at least 75 years in each case the trend is extrapolated to 2100 additionally the likely local relative sea levels corresponding to 1 meter and 1 8 meter global sea level rises for the 21st century are shown music is by mechett and licensed under creative commons the likely local relative sea levels are calculated by by assuming that the global anthropogenic sea level rise would be distributed evenly over the planet this assumption may not be entirely accurate but it is a good first approximation here is how the calculation is done let gslr 20th century be the 2oth century global sea level rise lslr 20th century be a local 20th century sea level rise gslr 21st century be the projected 21st global sea level rise lslr 21st century be the projected local 21st century sea level rise then lslr 21st century lslr 20th century gslr 20th century gslr 21st century say the 2oth century global sea level rise was 18cm and the projected 21st century global sea level rise is 100cm and say the local 20th century sea level rise was 18cm at location a 30cm at location b and 10cm at location c then the local projected 21st century sea level rises would be location a projected rise 100cm 18cm 18cm 100cm location b projected rise 112cm 30cm 18cm 100cm location c projected rise 72cm 10cm 18cm 100cm posted in uncategorized tagged co2 mechett noaa oceanic projections rahmstorf sea level sea level data sea level rise 2 comments comparison of arizona nuclear and solar energy december 9 2015 let s compare and contrast solar energy and nuclear energy in arizona there is only one nuclear power plant in the state the palo verde nuclear generating station in tonopah there are several solar energy sites so we will pick the aqua caliente solar project because it won the renewable energy world solar project of the year category in their 2012 excellence in renewable energy awards palo verde nuclear generating station this nuclear plant consists of three reactors with with a total nameplate capacity of 3 937 mw if these reactors ran for 24 hours day for 365 days a year they would yield 34 500 gwh gigawatt hours per year the actual output is about 31 300 gwh per year 2010 this means they have a capacity factor of about 90 averaged over time palo verde yields 3 543 mw palo verde became operational in 1988 and is currently approved to operate until 2047 giving a lifetime of nearly 60 years palo verde s construction cost was 5 9 billion in 1988 11 86 billion in 2015 dollars its operating costs for fuel and maintenance were about 1 33 cents per kwh in 2004 1 67 cents in 2015 dollars based on an average power yield of 3 543 w and a cost of 11 86 billion in 2015 dollars the construction cost per watt for palo verde was 3 34 per watt in 2015 dollars agua caliente solar project this 9 7 square kilometer solar energy farm has a nameplate capacity of 290 mw peak its first year of full operation was 2014 if it were able to produce its nameplate capacity of 290 mw continuously for one year the energy output would be 2540 gwh the energy output was 741 gwh in 2014 which means a capacity factor of 29 an excellent result for solar energy averaged over time this solar farm yields 84 6 mw construction cost for aqua caliente was 1 8 billion based on an average yield of 84 mw and a construction cost of 1 8 billion the construction cost per watt for aqua caliente was 21 43 per watt comparison the cost per kilowatt hour of energy for either of these sources is combination of the construction cost and the operation fuel and maintenance cost the longer the facilities are in operation the lower the fraction of construction cost per kilowatt hour the operation fuel and maintenance cost for the palo verde nuclear plant were about 1 33 cents per kwh in 2004 1 67 cents in 2015 dollars the great advantage of the agua caliente solar farm is that its fuel cost is zero and we will assume for the sake of argument that its other operation and maintenance costs are also zero the following chart shows various costs per kilowatt hour for each of the facilities for various lifetimes 1 0 0133 per kilowatt hour in 2004 converted to 2015 dollars 2 2013 energy output 3 5 9 million construction cost in 1988 dollars converted to 2015 dollars 4 2014 energy output 5 1 8 billion construction cost in 2014 6 gwh year x number of years x 1 000 000 7 construction cost kilowatt hours produced over lifetime 8 construction cost per kwh operating cost per kwh two blocks of data are highlighted in yellow these are the most likely lifetime scenarios for each of the power generating plants the palo verde nuclear plant has had its license extended to 60 years aqua caliente solar farm is made from first solar cdte modules that have a 10 year material and workmanship warranty and a warranty of 80 of the nominal output power rating during twenty five 25 years it is reasonable to hope that it will last 40 years there is one more thing to be considered we have assumed so far that the yearly output of each of these power generating stations it the same year after year that is not entirely correct historically the palo verde nuclear plant has increased its capacity factor through time as operations have become more efficient whether that trend will continue is unknown solar modules tend to slowly degrade with time the first solar cdte modules that are used at aqua caliente will likely decay at about 0 5 per year the chart above gives a best case estimate for agua caliente and does not compensate for this degradation based on the highlighted sections of the above chart aqua caliente solar farm will likely cost about 2 5 times more per kilowatt hour than the palo verde nuclear plant over the course of their lifetimes one more point aqua caliente requires 9 7 square kilometers to generate an average of 84 6 mw palo verde nuclear plant generates and average of 3 543 mw so it would take 41 agua calientes to equal the power of palo verde that would require about 400 square kilometers energy is the lifeblood of civilization the pursuit of energy abundance is the pursuit of healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle for greater numbers of people i present this data to help inform the choices that need to be made in that pursuit posted in energy nuclear energy solar power tagged energy nuclear energy solar energy solar power 1 comment how much photovoltaics to provide 100 kilowatt hours per person per day november 8 2015 suppose you wanted to power the world at the level that each human being can enjoy the same level of energy abundance as the average american and suppose we wanted to do it all with photovoltaic solar energy what would it take there are an average of 250 kilowatt hours consumed per person per day in the united states maybe that seems like a lot to you because you occasionally look at your home electric bill and see less than 1000 kilowatt hours used in a entire month for a home that houses four people that 1000 kilowatt hours for four people in a month works out to only about eight kilowatt hours per person per day but that electric bill is a very poor indicator of how much energy is actually expended for your benefit that is why claims that some energy source will power x number of homes is incredibly misleading here is the reality according to lawrence livermore national laboratory the united states consumes 98 3 quads of energy every year that works out to about 250 kilowatt hours per person per day 98 3 quads year x 2 933 x 10 11 kw hr quad year 365 days 3 2 x 10 6 people 247 kilowatt hours person day fortunately this daunting amount of energy is also somewhat misleading look at the right side of the graph from lawrence livermore notice that the two final energy outputs on the right side of the graph are energy services and rejected energy energy services is energy that actually does some useful work rejected energy is energy that is lost mostly in form of waste heat for example if you burn a lump of coal in a steam generator and get a kilowatt of energy out in the form of electricity but lose two kilowatts in the form of heat to the atmosphere then you got one kilowatt hour of energy service but two kilowatt hours of rejected energy as you can see from the graph only 40 of the energy that is input comes out the the system as energy services 38 9 quads 98 3 quads one of the big advantages of solar photovoltaics is that you don t lose 60 of your energy to heat electric cars put far more of their stored electric energy into useful work energy services and far less into rejected energy than do blazing hot internal combustion engines let s make the assumption for now that every possible efficiency is applied so that we only need to produce 40 of the 250 kilowatt hours per day per person or 100 kilowatt hours per day per person still a lot of energy but more manageable than 250 kilowatt hours so for 7 billion people we need 700 billion kilowatt hours per day 100 kilowatt hours per person x 7 billion people if we got all that energy from solar photovoltiacs how much land would be required for solar arrays how much would it cost topaz solar farm to get estimates of these values we can look at some of the world s biggest solar arrays consider the topaz solar farm in california it is one of the biggest and one of the newest in the world and in an area of very high solar insolation it is expected to generate 1 100 gwh of energy per year while occupying 25 km 2 with a cost of 2 5 billion therefore it would generate the energy consumed by about 30 000 people at 100 kwh per person per day 1100 gwh year x 1 10 6 kwh gwh x year 365 days 100 kwh person day 30 136 people from this it is clear that it would take about 6 million km 2 of solar photovoltaics of the topaz solar farm density to generate all the energy consumed by 7 billion adequately powered people 7 10 9 people 30 136 people 25 km 2 5 8 10 6 km 2 keeping in mind that the topaz solar farm cost 2 5 billion and yields enough energy for 30 136 people then the cost for 7 billion people would be about 580 trillion 7 10 9 people 30 136 people 2 5 10 9 5 8 10 14 for the sake of comparison the the gross domestic product of the united states is about 17 trillion or less that 3 of that 580 trillion the gross product of the entire world is about 78 trillion or about 13 of that 580 trillion so if every penny or mark or yen etc of world product for about 7 5 years were dedicated to this project it could be accomplished some points to consider what would be the consequences of covering 6 million square kilometers of land with pv this would be like completely covering an area the combined size of arizona nevada colorado wyoming oregon idaho utah kansas minnesota nebraska south dakota north dakota missouri oklahoma washington georgia michigan iowa illinois wisconsin florida arkansas alabama north carolina new york mississippi pennsylvania louisiana tennessee ohio virginia kentucky indiana maine south carolina west virginia maryland vermont new hampshire massachusetts new jersey hawaii connecticut puerto rico delaware rhode island with solar panels of course this would be spread out over the about 100 million square kilometers of land at latitudes lower than about 50 degrees this plan would also require a distribution system that could move energy from daytime areas to nighttime areas or at least a few days of storage for every person on the planet such a distribution system is not feasible at this time and the massive amount of storage is prohibitively expensive two days of storage would be 200 kilowatt hours of stored energy per person probably the best mass storage option today 2015 is with tesla s powerwall which stores 7 kilowatt hours costs 3 000 and weights 220 pounds so we would need about 90 000 and about 6 600 pounds of storage for each of the 7 billion people that adds another 630 trillion to the cost these calculations serve simply to give a feel for what could be done with solar photovoltaics and what the limitations might be i am not suggesting that the world should be powered solely with pv with other energy sources in the mix less money and land would need to be devoted to pv but more to those other sources for example if you did the same calculations for wind then you would find that about twice as much area about 12 million square kilometers would have to be covered by wind farms to get the same amount of energy but at least you can grow corn are graze cattle below the turbines in a wind farm i have led you to water it is up to you to drink up your own conclusions about the viability of using solar energy to bring the world up to a reasonable level of energy consumption posted in uncategorized tagged lawrence livermoor photovoltaics pv solar energy solar pv topaz solar farm 3 comments older entries claims of cities being lost to the sea table of contents for my search for sea level rise acceleration in tide gauge data critique of global sea level linked to global temperature by vermeer and rahmstorf table of contents for a 13 part series on the profoundly absurd 2009 pnas paper by vermeer and rahmstorf blog at wordpress com entries rss and comments rss climate sanity create a free website or blog at wordpress com subscribe subscribed climate sanity join 75 other subscribers sign me up already have a wordpress com account log in now privacy climate sanity subscribe subscribed sign up log in report this content view site in reader manage subscriptions collapse this bar loading comments write a comment email name website design a site like this with wordpress com get started