GW and AGW skepticism is crumbling by Republicans do not care

During much of the last decade, LLNL researcher and University of California Physics professor Richard Muller has been something of a darling too the right-wing GW deniers. In December 2003 Muller published a column in the MIT's Technology Review, announcing support for the contentions of notorious climate change skeptics Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. In a follow up column, dated October 2004, Muller stated,

Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey stick. In his original publications of the stick, Mann purported to use a standard method known as principal component analysis, or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of more than 70 different climate records.

But it wasnt so. McIntyre and McKitrick obtained part of the program that Mann used, and they found serious problems. Not only does the program not do conventional PCA, but it handles data normalization in a way that can only be described as mistaken.

Now comes the real shocker. This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called Monte Carlo analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape!

This statement made Muller a hero to the critics of GW. This brought Muller to the attention to the infamous right wing anti-AGW oil billionaires, the Koch Brothers. Muller had supported the argument of Weather forecaster Anthony Watts, that surface temperature data for the United States was an artifact of the location of temperature measuring platforms. Most official weather measuring were located in inappropriate locations where man made structures - buildings, parking lots, etc. - interfered with temperature readings. Watts had under taken a project document the problem by having his fellow GW skeptics document the weather station location problem by photographing the weather stations. These photographs showed that not only some, but most of the weather stations poorly placed, thus seemingly confirming Watts theory. However. in a paper published by the Journal of Geophysical Research, Matthew J. Menne, Claude N. Williams Jr., and Michael A. Palecki amassed evidence that the Watt hypothesis required further testing. They wrote,

Given the now extensive documentation by surfacestations.org [Watts, 2009] that the exposure charac- teristics of many USHCN stations are far from ideal, it is reasonable to question the role that poor exposure may have played in biasing CONUS temperature trends. However, our analysis and the earlier study by Peterson [2006] illustrate the need for data analysis in establishing the role of station exposure characteristics on temperature trends no matter how compelling the circumstantial evidence of bias may be. In other words, photos and site surveys do not preclude the need for data analysis, and concerns over exposure must be eval- uated in light of other changes in observation practice such as new instrumentation.

Thus definitive confirmation would have to come by comparing the data from well chosen location weather stations with data from poorly chosen location data. This project was large and complex, and Muller helped organize it with the help of Koch brother money. The Muller "Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project" was to be a major test of GW theory. If it could demonstrate that the the temperature trends observed in weather station date was an artifact of weather station locations, then a serious blow would be struct against the the GW hypothesis.

Muller's findings did not turn out to be the triumph for the anti-GW crowd that they had expected. Muller told Congress last winter:

We have done an initial study of the station selection issue. Rather than pick stations with long records (as done by the prior groups) we picked stations randomly from the complete set. This approach eliminates station selection bias. Our results are shown in the Figure; we see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups

We have also studied station quality. Many US stations have low quality rankings according to a study led by Anthony Watts. However, we find that the warming seen in the "poor" stations is virtually indistinguishable from that seen in the "good" stations.

We are developing statistical methods to address the other potential biases.

By the end of this summer the statistical study was completed, and the findings were such that GWs skeptics were wishing that Richard Muller had never joined theur cause. The problem was, as Muller explained to Congress,

poor station quality

although

poor station quality might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends, and for global warming estimates, the trend is what is important

Our key caveat is that our results are preliminary and have not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal. We have begun that process of submitting a paper to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and we are preparing several additional papers for publication elsewhere.

In his congressional testimony, Muller paid tribute to many of the leaders of the anti-AGW movement, even though he rejected their contention:

Without the efforts of Anthony Watts and his team, we would have only a series of anecdotal images of poor temperature stations, and we would not be able to evaluate the integrity of the data

This is a case in which scientists receiving no government funding did work crucial to understanding climate change. Similarly for the work done by Steve McIntyre. Their "amateur" science is not amateur in quality; it is true science, conducted with integrity and high standards.

What ever hopes the anti-GW crowd took from Muller's remarks, they were dashed when he recently published the study's conclusions in the Wall Street Journal.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at www.BerkeleyEarth.org to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes.

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at www.BerkeleyEarth.org to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes.

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.

Global warming is real.

So much for GW evidence being a scientific hoax. So much GW science being careless.

The war over global warming is over, although the war over AGW is not over. Many of the more sophisticated AGW skeptics have acknowledged that global warming is real, but continue to argue that human CO2 emissions are not its cause. The case for such views is crumbling, however. The sophisticated critics point to the work of two climate scientists, Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen to support their beliefs. But these two researchers are not without their own critics, and indeed their conclusions have received troubling questions. Recently as I pointed out:

The work of Climate Change denier Roy Spencer has recently been demonstrated to contain large scientific errors. (see here, here, here, here, and here, here, and here), while a recent paper by Texas A&'M professor Andrew Dessler offers a devastating critique to the skeptical claims of both Spencer and MIT Professor Richard Lindzen. Needless to say the Climate change skeptics are not folding their tents yet, but their days are numbers.

The argument that AGW is a Liberal hoax is in shambles, while the case is growing that AGW skepticism is growing steadily weaker. What has not yet surfaced, although it is obvious, is the argument that GW and AGW skepticism has been a Libertarian/Conservative hoax all along. Almost without exception AGW and GW skeptics identify themselves with Conservative and Libertarian political causes. Right wing Talk Radio figures have fanatically backed the Global Warming hoax line, while Fox News, notorious for its lies about about all sorts of issues, has repeatedly parroted the anti-GW, anti-AGW lines. AGW skeptics have been virtually lionized by Fox News. While right-wing Republican Presidential candidates Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorium, all reject GW or AGW out of hand.

Michele Bachmann demonstrated her profound understanding of science,

Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas; it is a harmless gas ... And yet we're being told that we have to reduce this natural substance and reduce the American standard of living to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the Earth.

Herman Cain believes that he is qualified to determin what real science is and what its conclusions are,

I don't believe ... global warming is real. Do we have climate change? Yes. Is it a crisis? No. ... Because the science, the real science, doesn't say that we have any major crisis or threat when it comes to climate change.

While Rick perry believes that scientists are manipulating data,

I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects. I think we're seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.

If you want' to believe Perry's statement about scientists, don't ask him about his undergraduate science grades. Clearly many Republicans Presidential candidates support the right-wing anti-science hoax.

Flood and Drought

The Southeastern United States is experiencing an Unusual drought, part of the extreme weather condition pattern that is probably related to anthropogenic global warming.

Government climate scientists are using terms such as exceptional and extreme drought to describe the current situation which extends from Arizona eastward into Texas and then into Gulf Cost and South Atlantic Coast states as far north as Maryland and Delaware.
To get an idea about the extent of this years drought event, I looked at a discussion by Weather Reporter Matt Engelbrecht of WITN TV in Greeenville, North Carolina. Engelbrecht found that in contrast to a rainfall average of 9" for may and June, Eastern Carolina received only 3.95" this May and June. Previous record dry May & June periods, were in 1995 4.63" and 2008, 4.27". Engelbrecht observed,

In terms of total rainfall, the last two months have been the driest we've seen since they begin keeping records.

What is strange about this is that in Knoxville, Tennessee less that 400 miles to the west of Greeeville, we had above average rains in May and June. The drought is having a serious impact on agriculture in states like Texas, where corn farmers and Cattle Ranchers have been devastated. In addition to the exceptional drought, many areas have been subjected to extreme and even record setting heat. Last Tuesday the temperature rose to a record 100 degrees at the Raleigh-Durham (North Carolina) International Airport, but that is nothing compared to Hutchinson, Kanasa which experienced 12 degrees heat last Sunday, or Norman Oklahoma which appears headed for an all time record high July temperature, a record not just for Norman, but for the State of Oklahoma. Oklahoma based climate researcher Kelvin Kloesel states that this ,

is likely to be a disastrous summer . . .

As for record temperatures in Texas, what can I tell you? During the last few days these records have been set:

117 F: in Childress, Texas tying an all time record.

113 F: Borger, Texas - hottest on record.

111 F: Amarillo, Texas - hottest temperature ever recorded. In Amarillo the average daytime high for July between 1971 and 2000 was 91.0 degrees, in 2010 it was 87.8, while this year it has risen to 99.2 so far this month.

Such heat can be fatal. A Texas style heat wave struck un-air conditioned Western Europe a few summers ago, and before it was over, something like 50,000 people died from heat related causes.

Monday, while a massive drought heatwave event was devastating the Southern United States, a huge thunderstorm with hurricane-force winds to the Chicago was knocking out the electrical supply of over a third of a million people.

The climate skeptics are not looking out their windows. They are not going outside. They are incapable of feeling the heat, or of noticing the sweat running down their faces. That bump they heard last night was a tree being blown through their roofs by powerful wind storms, but they pretend to not notice the water raining in through the new hole in the roof.

Climate change skeptics are not making Al Gore jokes about the droughts, the floods, the heat waves, and the damaging thunders thunderstorms that lead to massive power outages. It just is not funny.

There is, of course, a difference between weather and climate, but climate is a series of weather events occurring one after another. Normally the weather tends to settle towards average after an unusual weather event, but this has not been the case for the last couple of years. We are witnessing a lot of weather events, one after another, which are consistant with AGW. The climate skeptics keep telling us that this means nothing, but how long are they going to hold out against reality?

The Global Warming and Mitigation Debate Revisited

This post started as a comment on the EfT comment section. It got way to long for a comment, so I decided to turn it into a bog post. I have written everything i have to say here before. But I flatter myself that these things are important, and probably can stand to be repeated. So if all this sounds familiar to the point of being boring, please be patient.

I learned of the CO2/AGW theory during am informal briefing at ORNL by Jerry Olsen in 1971. Jerry was attached to the ORNL-NSF Environmental Studies Program that I was working for. Ihad at the time what amounted to an Internship. Jerry Olson was a plant ecologist who specialized in the role of plants in the world carbon cycle. I suspect hehad just briefed Alvin Weinbero on the increase of the CO2 content of the atmosphere, and its implications for world climate. Shortly afterwards, ORNL set up a group, to study atmospheric CO2, and its effects on global climate, Alvin Weinberg persuaded Freeman Dyson to come to ORNL to participate in the CO2/climate change research. By 1975 Weinberg, who had been director of ORNL, was talking to Congress about climate change. My father was writing about CO2 driven climate change as accepted scientific fact in 1977.

I still find it more than a little shocking that people refuse to accept the what a generation ago highly regarded scientists considered to be a a scientific fact. I stopped arguing with global warming skeptics after I analyzed of how the global warming mitigation costs might be paid. I came to the startling conclusion that CO2 mitigation would have significant secondary economic benefits that might appeal to AGW skeptics. First, many fossil fuel power plants are old and need to be replaced. Coal and natural gas are no longer cheap fuels, and most utilities such as TVA have just gone through a round of very substantial electrical price increases, primarily to cover the increasing cost of fossil fuel. Many older fossil fuel power plants are worn out and in need of replacing. Thus the cost of building replacement power plants will have to be paid regardless of what we believe about global warming.

Secondly, eliminating coal from the power mix will probably lower medical costs now born by tax payers, employers, individuals and their families. A few years ago, a group of Canadian doctors and other medical researchers came to the startling conclusion that Canadian coal burning power plants had an adverse health related cost cost attached to them, That cost was paid by Canadian tax payers and by sick individuals and their families, in terms of direct and insurance payment for treatment of medical conditions caused by coal burning pollution. As much as 20% of Canadian and American health care expenses can be tied to the burning of fossil fuels as an energy source by out society. Thus mitigating CO2 emissions will have a large, positive economic benefit, and will improve the health of many people.

There are also similar powerful arguments against gasoline powered cars. Gasoline powered automotive technology and other internal combustion technologies is already a significant drag on the economy, and will become increasingly so. The United States cannot go on paying for imported oil with credit cards. I favor switching to electrical powered cars rather than some carbon neutral liquid fuel. We would get the same sort of secondary health care cost benefits that carbon mitigations in electrical generation would bring us, provided we used electrical power in the transportation system. Liquid fuels, even carbon neutral liquid fuels, would continue to impose indirect health care costs. Thus one need not believe in AGW to acknowledge the benefits of switching to post carbon transportation. I would expect by 2040 that battery technology will be greatly advanced, and that we will either be plugging in our cars at night. Urban trucking should also be electrified, but the long distance trucking industry will probably die, because rail transportation is far more carbon efficient, and can be electrified. The cost of transforming the transportation system will be at least partially paid for as replacement costs for older, worn out equipment. We will also be partially compensated by lower healthcare costs, and by better health.

I would also like to point out the ideological nature of global warming skepticism, and how I think the ideological problem can be made solved. There is a definite political and ideological divide in the global warming debate, with most global warming skeptics tending to be on the political right. For example, last year surveys found that a clear majority of college educated Republicans were global warming skeptics. Am overwhelming majority of Republican political bloggers are global warming skeptics. If we look at Europe we find a similar pattern with skepticism more associated with the right than the left. There are exceptions. Some extreme left-wingers are also global warming skeptics.

I view the skepticism of the right as most unfortunate, for several reasons. First, my analysis suggests that AGW can be mitigated much less government intrusion into the market than many Greens suggests. While I have no doubt that some intrusion may be required, because the crisis resemble a major war in significant respects, it is highly desirable that there be the widest spread support for the needed intrusions as possible. Woodrow Wilson was wise to give Republican Herbert Hoover a major role in the World War I system of economic controls, for example.

I am concerned about the “Green” capture of the left, because “Greens” are not liberals, and they are not political pragmatists. Greens tend to take a view that would require far more government intrusion into the economy, and into the personal lives and lifestyle of people that is justified by the situation we face. Some greens appear to take what can be described as an anthropophobic view point. They don’t like modern civilization, and view it as doomed by energy and resource shortages. They openly view the mass die off of people that would accompany the collapse of modern civilization as a good thing rather than a tragedy. As a liberal I view this attitude to be reprehensible and antithetical to liberal principles. So while I would not agree with political conservatives on many issues, we need them in the discussion on AGW mitigation to balance the views of the nut case Greens.

Energy and a Broke Country

When countries go broke they run the printing presses to print more money. In the United States money is not literally being printed, it is created by the Federal Reserve System. The money being used for the economy bail out is being created. Not a dollar of it was lying in the all too empty coffers of the US treasury when the crisis broke. I will not point the finger of blame at anyone, least of all one of my Dallas neighbors. Lets just say that some very bad decisions have been made during the last few years.

It is not just the government that is broke. The whole country is broke. Businesses are going under. Not just mom and pop on main street, but businesses that are national institutions. The Chicago Tribune has just gone down in enormous debt. General Motors has run out of money, and will not last till the end of the year without rescue. The banking system would have completely collapsed by now, were it not for a massive intervention by the government. The crisis could have been very easily worse that the collapse that triggered the great depression, and it may yet be.

Individuals are broke too. The crisis began because a lot of people in the United States were too broke to pay their mortgages. Who would have believed that the international financial order could be brought down by some bad Main Street loans in the US. It was! When workers begin to loose their jobs, the loose their ability to pay their debts, and as the job loss increases, more and more bad debt piles up, until the system begins to crash.

Historians say that the Great Depression did not end until the start of World War II, when war time spending made the factories hum again. But the Government started World War II with very little debt. Today the Government is deep in debt.

In this catastrophic financial situation we face an energy crisis of enormous proportions. First we are going to soon begin to run out of oil. That has been predictable for a long time. Secondly burning fossil fuels produces huge amounts of CO2, which will force climate change on us. Even if it didn't there are pressing reasons for eliminating coal fired generation of electricity. There are significant health and environmental consequences of burning coal. People who live near coal fired power plants have significantly more health problems than people in other areas do. Coal related health care costs effects local residents, employeers and insurance companies. In addition the price of coal is rising. Coal exacts indirect tolls on the economy Therefore there are compelling arguments for the replacement of coal in electrical generation quite asside from the possibility of climate change.

It is also the case that many coal fired power plants are old and reaching the end of their useful life, and will have to be replaced. Thus the expense of replacing coal fired power plants cannot be avoided. The only question then is what technology to use. As I have noted the country is broke, and power plants have to be built as cheaply as possible.

Current estimates of the future costs of nuclear power plants indicate very high capitol costs, but the same cost inflation factors that will effect the cost of nuclear plants will also inflate the cost of renewables including solar and wind generating systems, probably to a greater extent. The cost of base equivalent power with solar and wind is very expensive, and future costs are likely to rise with inflation rather than drop as renewable advocates assume. It seems unlikely that a virtually bankrupt country like the United States will be able to afford the expensive fixes offered to thenational generating system, by either reneables or conventional nuclear power any time soon.

I have argued in the past that LFTR technology has a very significant potential to lower the capital costs of nuclear power plants. Mass production of transportable reactors will lower nuclear manufacturing costs. Innovative siting approachs such as under water or underground siting, and recycling old coal fired power facilities can also lower costs. Small transportable reactors can be wildly dispursed. Small LFTRs can be clustered, creating the equivalent of a large coal or nuclear power plant, but with greater thermal efficiency. Not only would LFTRs provide a low cost alternative to expensive renewables base load power, but they would provide a very superior and less expensive alternative to current old fashion and expensive Light Water Reactors.

LFTRs produce little to almost no nuclear waste. They have many attractive safety features, and pose no danger to the public. LFTRs are also recognized by the International Atomic Energy Agency as proliferation resistant. And the fuel for LFTRs cost almost nothing. Thorium is the basis for the LFTR fuel cycle. At present enough wasted thorium sits above ground in mine tailings, to power the American economy for hundreds of year. There is enough easily recoverable thorium in the crust of the earth, to provide the human economy with all its energy needs for millions of years. Thus LFTRs constitute a sustainable energy source.

Thus not do LFTRs answer all of the traditonal objections to nuclear power, but they will do it at a far lower cost than traditional Light Water Reactors, and renewable power systems.

Thus because the United States is broke, it has no option other than to choose the lowest cost post-carbon power system. But it turns out that the lowest cost choice, the LFTR is also the best choice, the choice that will involve the fewest compromises.

The Sovietologist Wipes the Floor with Joe Room

Joe Romm recently launched a stunning attack on global warming standard barer Jim Hansen. Jim's crim in Romm's eyes was to advocate for a CO2 emission standard that would role back atmospheric CO2 levels to 350 PPM,

For Romm, Hansen is a heretic because he advocates rapid development of generation IV nuclear power technology including the LFTR. The Sovietologist puts his finger on the real issue:

With Romm's favored technologies, 350 ppm is impossible; with LFTRs and IFRs, 350 ppm becomes feasible and potentially not even that difficult.

Romm's fanatic opposition to nuclear power, inspired by soft path guru and pseudo-physicist Amory Lovins, far outweighs his commitment to fighting global warming. For Romm it is my way - the soft path - or the highway. Romm would far prefer to see global warming run away, than to see nuks in every back yard.

Romm uses the old bate and switch approach toargue against Generation IV technology asthe Sovietologist notes. Romm attacks Generation IV nuclear technology by a

critique of Gen III+ reactors . . .

Obama's Greatest Task: Winning the Energy War

The American Election is over and the next president, Mr. Barack Obama, faces an extremely daunting set of problems. The most obvious is an economic crises that still threatens to spiral into an international depression. It is not yet clear that the disaster has been avoided, but quite obviously the problems that lie at the heart of the crises are still with us. The real problem is the structure of the world economy. The current world economy is unsustainable because it depends on American borrowing to purchase foreign manufactured goods. Since American businesses have decided that they can keep prices lower, by shipping manufacturing jobs abroad. But since we no longer manufacture things, we have nothing to trade for the goods we want. Since we Americans cannot pay for things we buy through trade, we have to borrow money to buy Japanese cars, and Chinese manufactured TV sets. But we have ultimately no way to repay the loans.

Foreign lenders are hungry for investment opportunities in the United States, and hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign loans are pouring into the American economy. Americans are no ones fools, and if a bank is willing to offer me a mortgage to pay for a much larger home at a fire sale rate, we are going to take the money and run. Foreign investment has paid for American real estate inflation, but the bubble, in an unproductive economy, could not last forever. The Obama Administration must address the structural problems of the international trading system, but beyond that it must lay the groundwork for a new American Industrial revolution, one which again makes the United States a center of international industrial production, and a major source of industrial goods in the world trading system. Those structural changes in the world and the American economies will not come without a great deal of pain.

In order for the United States to restore its industrial productivity, its energy problems must be solved. Our political leadership already knew in the 1970's that we faced an energy crises. M. King Hubbert had projected an eventual decline in both American and world oil production in 1949. In December 1957 when Edward Teller spoke to the American Chemical Society, he noted a that world use of carbon based fuels posed a serious problem for the future of society. Teller simply stated what scientist knew for all of the 20th century, that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas, and by adding it to the atmosphere we were creating a condition that would make our planet warmer.

Today, both Hubbert's and Teller's predictions are coming to pass. World production of oil can only keep pace with world oil production in a depressed economy. The world transportation economies are based on technologies that are unsustainable. With ever declining oil production, oil fueled air, sea and land transportation systems will start grinding to a halt, unless substitute power systems are designed and put in place. World society has not even begun to do that yet, and we have already seen the first wave of the peek oil crisis.

Facing the peak oil and global warming crises will require a great deal of rethinking about our basic assumptions about the economy, society and the political system. M. King Hubbart pointed out:

"The world's present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy; and the associated monetary culture which has evloved from folkways of prehistoric origin.

"The first of these two systems has been responsible for the spectacular rise, principally during the last two centuries, of the present industrial system and is essential for its continuance. The second, an inheritance from the prescientific past, operates by rules of its own having little in common with those of the matter-energy system. Nevertheless, the monetary system, by means of a loose coupling, exercises a general control over the matter-energy system upon which it is super[im]posed.

"Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely, exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and, according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest. This disparity between a monetary system which continues to grow exponentially and a physical system which is unable to do so leads to an increase with time in the ratio of money to the output of the physical system. This manifests itself as price inflation. A monetary alternative corresponding to a zero physical growth rate would be a zero interest rate. The result in either case would be large-scale financial instability."

"With such relationships in mind, a review will be made of the evolution of the world's matter-energy system culminating in the present industrial society. Questions will then be considered regarding the future:

What are the constraints and possibilities imposed by the matter-energy system? human society sustained at near optimum conditions?
Will it be possible to so reform the monetary system that it can serve as a control system to achieve these results?

If not, can an accounting and control system of a non-monetary nature be devised that would be approptirate for the management of an advanced industrial system?
"It appears that the stage is now set for a critical examination of this problem, and that out of such inquries, if a catastrophic solution can be avoided, there can hardly fail to emerge what the historian of science, Thomas S. Kuhn, has called a major scientific and intellectual revolution."

In is not in any ordinary age that Barack Obama will step into the office of the Presidency. By the way the name Barack means lightening in Hebrew. Lets how that he can electrify the world. Doing so will require every bit of his very considerable talent. He must lead the world as if we were at war, and he must do no less than lead us into a new energy age. This is a task that is fully comparable to national and global leadership during World War II Franklin D. Roosevelt played during World War II. Our energy war will not be against other people, but rather it will be against the human misery that we will see if we do not win the war. The energy war is Mr. Obama's to win or loose, and on that victory rests the fate of human society.

Two public statements on energy by C.J. Barton, Sr.

Two comments on energy and CO2 by George Parker and C.J. Barton, Sr.

From his retirement from ORNL in1977 onward my father continued to speak out on nuclear power, fossil fuels, CO2, and global warming.  He and George Parker continued to collaborate on statements in support of nuclear power.  They had first called attention to the problem of global warming in 1977, and 18 years later their concerns had grown.  I believe that the 1995 statement, published in the Oak Ridger, was the last public statement they made together.  Below I have also included my fathers last published statement on energy issues to date.  In that statement he called for a National Energy Policy.   He speaks as a scientist, and calls attention to the wastefulness of using oil and natural gas -  nonrenewable natural resources - for energy rather than as feed stock for the petrochemical industry.   My father was 91, when his wrote the last statement, and although almost every voice of his generation had been silenced by time by death or old age, he still spoke out firmly. The same year he also published a statement of opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

Nuclear power less damaging to environment than coal
By Charles J. Barton, Sr. and George Parker (The Oak Ridger, 1995)

The protest demonstration at the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant and efforts to prevent its starting show that opposition to nuclear power production in this country is alive and flourishing. Even more convincing evidence of anti-nuclear sentiment is that no new U.S. nuclear power plants have been ordered since 1978.

Two aspects of the Watts Bar demon­stration need particular attention: the state­ment of the demonstrators that their aim is to protect the environment and their signs attempting to associate the Watts Bar plant with the Chernobyl disaster.

There are presently 419 operating nu­clear power plants worldwide (108 in the United States). Of these, 330 are light-wa­ter moderated, as is the Watts Bar plant, Many of them have been safely operated for 10 to 20 years. To date, there has been only one major accident in an operating reactor of the light-water type.

The accident at Three Mile Island at­tracted a tremendous amount of TV and newspaper attention. However, the fact that no one exposed to radiation from that, accident received a radiation dose greater than that which the average U.S. citizen receives from natural sources in a year has largely been ignored.

The Chernobyl-type reactor is far from reaching the safety requirements for nucle­ar power plants in this country. In fact, this country and several European nations have offered Ukraine substantial inducements to close power plants of this type because of doubts concerning their safety.

Coal-burning power plants produce about 52 percent of the electricity used in this country. Coal contains a small amount of radioactive materials: 1.3 parts, per mil­'lion,ofuranium and 3.2 ppm of thorium on the average.

Because of the tremendous amount of coal required to produce electricity, 4 mil­lion tons per year for a 1000-megawatt plant, a significant quantity of these natu­rally occurring radioactive materials is dis­tributed to the environment around coal burning plants in fly ash.

Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have calculated that people in the vicinity of such plants receive a radia­tion dose from this source about 100 times greater than that which they would receive from a nuclear power plant.

The above-mentioned radiation dose from uranium and thorium in fly ash is of small consequence when compared to the adverse effects of other impurities in coal. Sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxides in coal combustion gases is an important contrib­utor to acid rain. The increasing concen­tration of carbon dioxide in the atmo­sphere (greenhouse effect) is also believed to contribute to global warming.

Unfortunately, health effects of coal combustion products are not nearly as well known as the effect of radioactive materi­als, but studies at the Electric Power Re­search Institute and elsewhere have shown the total health effects of generating elec­tricity with coal are greater than for nucle­ar power plants.

Accidents in coal mines, health effects in mining (black lung) and accidents at railroad crossings are principal contribu­tors to the total health effects of the coal­plant fuel cycle. The health effect of min­ing uranium, principally lung cancer from exposure to radon, is an important contrib­utor to the health effects of the nuclear re­actor fuel cycle.

The information cited above provides evidence that nuclear power plants are less harmful to the environment than coal­burning plants.

This raises the question: Why are peo­ple in groups like Earth First willing to risk being jailed in efforts to, as they view it, protect the environment?

Richard Roberts, an official in the Energy Research and Development Administration, a Department of Energy predecessor agency, stated in 1976 that our country seemed to be swept by a virulent form of "nuclearphobia" exhibited by a disbelief in any encouraging thing that experts in the nuclear energy area might say. There does not seem to have been much improvement in this situation in the last 18 years.

One cause of nuclearphobia is an appar­ent lack of interest on the part of newspa­pers and TV news people in positive news. It seems that anyone can produce an arti­cle saying that something will hurt you, especially radiation, and can get the atten­tion of news people.

Efforts to rebut misinformation seldom get published in newspapers or aired on TV, the only sources of most of the pub­lic's information. Better educated news people should be able to weigh the evi­dence and, at least, present both sides of such arguments.

A large effort has been put forth in this country in recent years to develop new standard nuclear power plant designs.

These plants will be even safer to operate than those presently in use and can proba­bly be built more economically. As aging nuclear power plants are retired and elec­tricity requirements continue to increase, electric utilities will have to choose the technology for future power plants.

In spite of wishful thinking about new power sources such as wind and sun, the choices for large power plants presently are coal and nuclear.

Some countries, notably France, Japan and Great Britain, have already made their choice in favor of nuclear power. France is already producing 75 percent of its elec­tricity in such plants.

Our choice for meeting future electricity needs should be based on facts, not fear.

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Concerns about use of fossil fuels and global warming
By Charles J. Barton, Sr., (The Oak Ridger, 2003)

Hans Blix, outgoing director general of The IAEA published an article entitled Atomic Energy in the 21st Century in the September Issue of Nuclear News, a publication of the American Nuclear Society.

This excellent article considers factors affecting energy policy from the global viewpoint that his position provides..

I will discuss here the pressing need for adopting a national energy policy to guide the expansion of U.S. electrical power production in the 21st century.

First, a little history. In 1975 I attended a Project Independence hear­ing in Philadelphia at the request of Ed Struxness, my boss at the time. This was one of a series of 10 such hearings held at various locations around the country.

Their announced objective was development of a national strategy to reduce the likelihood of a repetition of the scarcity of oil caused by the earlier Arab embargo on oil shipments to the United States. This strategy, if it had been achieved, could have served as a limited na­tional energy policy.

My report to Struxness on the Philadelphia hearing was subtitled "An Axe-Grinders Convention."

Many speakers were scientists es­pousing various energy-producing techniques such as solar and wind power or use of renewable fuels for electricity generation.

These speakers were obviously hoping for funds to further develop their pet projects. Other axe ­grinders were politicians ranging from senators and governors to mayors, with a wide range of objectives.

The results of the Project Inde­pendence hearings were to be sum­marized in a report soon after the hearings were concluded and, pre­sumably, actions to reduce our de­pendence on imported oil were to be undertaken.

Although a number of projects that I heard discussed at the hearing continued to be funded, only the fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - have been widely used for large scale production of electricity.

The principal result of the early 1970's oil shortage was the storage of a large quantity of oil in under­ ground salt mines.

Nothing resembling a national energy policy emerged. Although nuclear power plants produce ap­proximately 20 percent of U.S. electricity, there have been no new orders for nuclear power plants in the United States since 1978;

Blix points out the advantage of nuclear power as compared to use of fossil fuels. He says that, world­wide, the fossil fuels provide about 85 percent of commercial energy, divided as follows: 37 percent for oil, 25% for coal, 21 percent for gas. The balance is divided nearly equally between hydro and nuclear power.

In the United States, coal burning power plants produce more than 50 percent of the electricity used.

One advantage of nuclear power that Blix emphasized is the limited volume of nuclear waste in comparison to coal. He stated that the limited volume of nuclear waste is one of the greatest advantages of nuclear power.

This statement is in contrast to the common belief that nuclear wastes are one of the greatest liabil­ities of nuclear power.

Blix introduced me to the concept of energy density. He says that one kilogram (kg) of firewood pro­duces about one kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity; 1 kg of coal produces about 3 kWh; 1 kg of oil produces about 4 kWh; 1 kg of natural uranium produces about 50,000 kWh; and 1 kg of plutonium produces about 6,000,000 kWh.

The latter figure confirms my be­lief that President Jimmy Carter dealt a major blow to the U.S. nu­clear power industry by eliminating the used fuel reprocessing option.

Although there are significant en­vironmental effects of coal-burning power plants resulting from produc­tion of huge qualities of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and waste, the most worrisome factor ls the global warming effect of carbon dioxide, an effect coal shares with oil, gas and other burnable fuels.

It seems like an argument to limit worldwide production of carbon dioxide will be reached in the near future. The only options for a large scale increase in the production of electricity that do not produce carbon dioxide are nuclear and hydro power.

In most country these are for new dam projects. Blix states: “If the fear of global warming after all were to be unfounded, nothing would have been lost by greater use of nuclear power, as the cost of nuclear power is roughly competitive with fossil fuel alternatives.

Not mentioned in Blix' article but of concern to me as a chemist is the continued use of oil and natural gas for the generation of electricity. These non-renewable resources, particularly Natural gas, could be better used in my opinion for future production of petrochemicals.

I believe that all of the above-mentioned factors and others discussed by Blix need to be carefully examined in preparation for the adoption of a US energy policy, which is long overdue.

I pushed Blair's Nuclear Buttons

In case anyone missed the story by Jonathan Leake in Sunday's London Times, titled "I pushed Blair's Nuclear Buttons," let me give you a quick run down.

The story discusses the role of freshly retired Labor Government cabinet level chief scientist, Sir David King, in that governments decision to build new nuclear power plants in the UK. King should be credited with a major sales job. “When I became chief scientist in 2000 Tony Blair was still very cautious about nuclear power," Jing told Leake. "He did not even have an adequate understanding of climate change until 2002. For those first two years I was battling against the odds.”

King knew that things had to change, “Britain’s CO2 emissions were steadily rising despite our promises to reduce them, and the closure of ageing nuclear power stations and replacement with gas and coal was the main reason for that. That had to stop.”

After King delivered the Zuckerman lecture for the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he was able to repeat the lecture to the British Cabinet in person. He also gave Blair a copy. “For Blair that was a turning point,” he said. “It was when he read that lecture that he realised that we had to do something about climate change.”

“I think the point is that Blair had not understood the urgency,” King said. “He knew about climate change but until then it had just been another political problem.”

King believes that there is a serious problem with ignorance of science in out society. Key decision makers simply do not understand scientific issues. This is undoubtedly true both in the Europe and the United States. King stated:

“We have an education system where kids choose whether to study science as young as 12, and now we have a society where a lot of people do not understand what science is and what it can do. There are a lot of people in politics and the civil service who are from that background. It is a huge weakness,” he said. “The absence of scientific understanding often leads to superficial decision-making. The 2003 energy white paper was a good example of that. I would not like publicly to call it amateurish but it did not tackle the problem in a realistic way.”

King told the story of how in 2003, deputy prime minister John “Punchy” Prescott believed that a ministerial committee had reached a decision to ignore nuclear power and concentrate on renewables. “That was when I put my hand up,” King told Leake, “and told him I still did not believe we could cut CO2 without nuclear power. Nor would I pretend I had changed my mind.”

Prescott “went ballistic”, shouting about collective responsibility and thumping the table. “I wondered if I was going to get punched,” King recalled.

Margaret Beckett, the then environment secretary got Prescott under control. She told Prescott that King was suppose to be an independent voice and not a cabinet hack. A year later, King dot an invitation to visit Prescott. "I went to see him and he apologized, saying I had been right about nuclear after all. He had simply been too worried about the public reaction to supporting nuclear to agree with me.”

You can read the whole story here.

Comment: This is an important story. King makes quite clear the role fear and ignorance play in the "Green" opposition to nuclear power. The fear mongering Greens continue to replay the same old tired scratched record, without taking a serious assessment of our energy future, or an objective review of nuclear safety. In a speech delivered in November to the Foundation for Science and Technology, King emphasized the importance of nuclear technology in fighting global warming:

“Alternative technologies and energy-efficiency gains will certainly help the UK to achieve our target of reducing emissions by 60 per cent by 2050,” King said . “But we will also need to look at other low-emission ways of making energy. It is now the time to give the green light to nuclear energy. While I have high hopes for new zero-emissions technologies in the future, efficient nuclear-fission power stations are already available."

King has stated that global warming is a more serious threat to our society than terrorism. The fight against global warming comes in three stages. The first stage is to overcome the denial of the problem promoted by the fossil fuel lobby. The second step requires overcoming of the opposition to nuclear power by the pro-fossil fuel green interests. The final step involves the mobilization of society is a quasi-warlike effort to systimatically alter energy production and distribution in advanced societies.

King has focused on the first two steps. The third step has yet to be invisioned, and will not be until we have effectively completed the first two. How far we are from completing the second step can be judged by this attack on King by George Monbiot. Monbiot, posing as an expert on science, bites on Amory Lovins absurd dribble, hook, line and sinker.