Thongchai Thailand

BBC REPORTS THAT COP26 IS FALLING APART BEFORE IT OPENS

WHAT THE BBC REPORT SAYS

A document leak reveals that Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia {and a few other countries} not identified by the BBC are asking the UN to play down the need to move away from fossil fuels. We also find that {unidentified} “wealthy nations” are unwilling to participate in the climate finance program where they were expected to pay the UN $billions to help poor countries with climate change impacts and with climate action costs.

In other words what distinguishes COP26 from the failure of the previous 25 COPs is that it is falling apart even before the grand “Confernce of the Parties” {COP} is assembled. The assumed commitment of the Parties to keep global warming below 1.5C since pre-industrial is is not possible under these circumstances.

Many thousands of documents have been submitted by the participating nations to the UN. These documents contain the climate action and climate finance commitments of the participating nations in the COP26 meeting. More than 32,000 of thes documents have been leaked by unknown means and unknown individuals. The documents were submitted to a team of scientists that was compiling the UN COP26 report in advance of the meeting. This team of scientists are the ones that provided the UN with the best scientific recommendation on what is needed to tackle climate change and keep warming under 1.5C since pre-industrial. The COP26 climate action and climate finance program is based on this scientific report.

This advance information about the COP26 meeting had been released to journalists and to Greenpeace. The essence of the information in the leak is that the claim by the UN and the UK organizers of COP26, that the participating nations are ready and willing to sign the anticipated COP26 climate action deal, is false.

THIS COMES ON TOP OF THE ACCEPTANCE BY COP26 OF THE FLAWED “NET ZERO” AS CLIMATE ACTION. THE NET ZERO ISSUE IS DESCRIBED IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/25/net-zero/

THE FAILURE IN ADVANCE OF COP26 IS A FIRST FOR WHAT WE SEE IN THE HISTORY OF THE PRIOR 25 COPS IS THAT SUCCESS WAS ASSUMED IN THE PRIOR 25 COPS. IT WAS ONLY WHEN THE MEETING ENDED WITHOUT A CLIMATE ACTION AGREEMENT THAT FAILURE BECAME APPPARENT AND EVEN SO, THE FAILURES WERE NOT UNDERSTOOD AS FAILURES BUT AS THE REASON TO SCHEDULE THE NEXT COP. THIS SORDID HISTORY OF THE COPS IS DESCRIBED IN TWO RELATED POSTS ON THIS SITE LINKED BELOW.

HISTORY OF THE COPS#1: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/06/05/the-paris-agreement/

HISTORY OF THE COPS#2: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/08/21/cop26-glasgow-2021/

Science is always a work in progress. Challenging the current state of the orthodoxy in any field of science is an essential part of the process that leads to understanding. However, in climate science this essential dynamic of the advance of science is viewed by climate science as anti-science or science denial.

What climate science calls denial is actually how science works and how scientific knowledge advances. If the climate science position that questioning orthodoxy is evil science denial that must not be allowed and must not be acknowledged becomes how science will work in the future, then tragically 400 years of scientific advance may be coming to an end.

RELATED POSTS ON THE CLIMATE SCIENCE POSITION THAT CHALLENGING THE ORTHODOXY OF THEIR CONSENSUS SCIENCE IS AN EVIL AND THEREFORE FUNDED BY THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY

RELATED POST#1: CLIMATE DENIALISM IS A WELL FUNDED ANTI SCIENCE INDUSTRY:

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/06/22/climate-change-denial-research/

RELATED POST#2: DARK MONEY IS FUNDING THE CLIMATE DENIAL INDUSTRY

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/21/denialfunding/

RELATED POST#3: TO QUESTION ANY ASPECT OF THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IS CLIMATE DENIAL

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/23/climate-denialism-busted/

RELATED POST#4: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLIMATE DENIAL

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/20/the-psychology-of-climate-denial/

RELATED POST#5: THE COVID PANDEMIC WILL KILL CLIMATE DENIALISM

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/05/a-covid-sales-strategy-for-the-climate/

RELATED POST#6: A HISTORY OF SCIENCE DENIAL

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/12/10/science-denial/

RELATED POST#7: CLIMATE DENIALISM BUSTED

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/09/22/33009/

RELATED POST#8: DARK MONEY FUNDS CLIMATE DENIAL

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/09/28/dark-money-funds-climate-denial/

RELATED POST#9: THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT HAS BECOME A RELIGION

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/10/11/anthropogenic-global-warming-in-a-post-modern-world/

RELATED POST#10: FEAR BASED ACTIVISM FOR CLIMATE ACTION

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/29/climate-activism/

RELATED POST#11: THE USE OF FEAR APPEAL IN CLIMATE SCIENCE

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/07/22/fear-appeal-in-climate-change/

RELATED POST#12: ELITE CONSENSUS POLITICS

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/03/07/how-the-elite-subvert-democracy/

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

ELITE CONSENSUS POLITICS AND FEAR APPEAL ACTIVISM ARE DISCUSSED IN RELATED POSTS LINKED ABOVE. THESE TOOLS OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION ARE TOOLS OF ACTIVISM AND THE SUCCESS OF SUCH ACTIVISM CAN BE ENHANCED WITH AN APPEAL TO SCIENCE FOR CREDIBILITY.

IN FACT, WHAT WE FIND IN THE LITERATURE IS THAT THE NEED FOR THE APPEAL TO SCIENCE FOR CREDIBILITY IS FOUND ONLY IN THESE CASES WHERE THE ESSENCE OF THE ISSUE IS ACTIVISM AND WHERE THE ACTIVISM IS RATIONALIZED WITH THE THE APPEAL TO SCIENCE BUT THE SCIENCE IS UNABLE TO RESPOND TO CRITICAL REVIEW.

SUCH REVIEW MUST THEREFORE BE BLOCKED WITH

(#1) AN EXTREME DANGER OF THE CONSEQUENCES WHEN THE ACTIVISM DEMANDS ARE NOT MET AND

(#2) THE VILLIFICATION OF CRITICAL REVIEW AS A FORM OF SCIENCE DENIAL WITH EVIL INTENT FUNDED BY DARK MONEY.

(#3): IN THESE SCENARIOS, AS IN CLIMATE CHANGE, THERE IS ALWAYS A ROLE FOR ELITE CONSENSUS POLITICS WHERE THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE ELITE AND THE FEAR APPEAL OF THE PROPOSED SCIENCE ARE USED TO GAIN DICTATORIAL POWER THAT SUBVERTS NOT ONLY RATIONAL THOUGHT AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, BUT ALSO DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

FEAR APPEAL AND ELITE CONSENSUS POLITICS TOGETHER CREATE A DICTATORSHP OF THE INVISIBLE ELITE. IN THE MODERN ERA BOTH THE CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE AND THE COVID PANDEMIC ISSUE SERVE AS EXAMPLES.

THIS POST IS A PRESENTATION OF THE NEW GREEN HYDROGEN ACTIVISM IN THE SETTLED SCIENCE

PART-1: THE CASE FOR GREEN HYDROGEN

SOURCE#1: BLOOMBERG: LINK: http://BLOOMBERG.COM (edited by the blogger)

Solar panels and wind turbines can’t clean up everything. Making steel requires higher temperatures than electric furnaces can deliver. This is why the new climate action plan of climate science requires a role for green hydrogen in curbing industrial emissions and for powering cars, trucks and ships. Green hydrogen is free of CO2 emissions. But meeting the ambitious plans being made for it means building a giant industry from scratch.

Why do we need to do this? Green hydrogen burns hot and clean. Replacing the fossil fuels in furnaces that reach 1,500C with hydrogen gas could make a big dent in the 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions that now come from this industry. In steelmaking, hydrogen could replace the coal that’s now used to heat and purify iron ore. The byproduct is water vapor rather than CO2. And while batteries currently dominate the field of electric vehicles, some companies are betting that hydrogen-powered fuel cells will be a better choice than batteries for heavy vehicles, such as trucks, ships and airplanes.

What is green hydrogen? For hydrogen to be green, the electricity used in the electrolysis process must be renewable energy. In the fossil fuel economy, hydrogen is made from natural gas, a processs with CO2 emissions. In contrast, green hydrogen processes emit H2O instead of CO2. Making green hydrogen cost higher by $2.50 to $4.50 per kg. This cost needs to fall below $1 per kg to to compete with traditional hydrogen from natural gas. It is projected that this cost target will be met by 2030 based on the assumption of a an unrealistic expansion of electrolyzer capacity at a time when the world’s generators and grids are strained to keep up with demand from newly electrified vehicles. Also, hydrogen must be compressed or mixed with natural gas to send through a pipeline or chilled to a liquid state to be transported by ship. These are costly complications that make it impossible for this process to compete with the natural gas process for making hydrogen. The proposition on the table is that this additional cost is the cost of the climate action needed to save the planet.

Who’s leading on green hydrogen goals?
The European Union has set the most ambitious goal: building electrolyzers that are capable of converting 40 gigawatts of renewable electricity into hydrogen by 2030. It’s made hydrogen a central component of its Green Deal plan, envisaging as much as 470 billion euros ($560 billion) of public and private investments by 2050 in the hope of kickstarting a global hydrogen market. Germany has declared that green hydrogen will play a central role in transforming the country’s industrial base as it moves to zero emissions by 2045. China plans to have a million vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells on its roads by the end of 2030. The value of its hydrogen production could reach 1 trillion yuan ($155 billion) by 2025, according to the China Hydrogen Alliance. Australia will invest $214 million to speed development of four hydrogen hubs with 26 gigawatts of capacity. Japan, where Toyota Motor Corp. has invested heavily in fuel cell technology, is the world leader in hydrogen refueling stations, while South Korea is building fueling and other infrastructure in six cities where it hopes to make hydrogen the main energy source by 2025. The U.S. has set a goal of reducing the cost of green hydrogen by 80% by 2030. Industry groups, including some fossil-fuel companies, are pushing for tax credits for hydrogen production and for subsidies for converting natural gas pipelines to transport hydrogen.

GREEN HYDROGEN PROJECTS ON THE DRAWING BOARD
Royal Dutch Shell Plc is leading a consortium developing a project to produce up to 10 gigawatts of green hydrogen by 2040. Germany’s RWE AG, together with 26 other companies, plans to set up electrolysis units in the North Sea with 10 gigawatts of capacity by 2035. European’s Airbus SE is working on designs for hydrogen-powered aircraft.

SOURCE: LINDE ENGINEERING: LINK: https://www.linde-engineering.com/ THE MANY PATHS TO HYDROGEN

Traditional steam reforming processes for hydrogen production generate CO2 emissions. The conversion of this process to a non-CO2 emission process on an industrial scale to produce Green Hydroen is proposed as an important element in climate action.Green hydrogen (H2) is obtained either by steam reforming or by splitting water with electrolysis with the electricity needed generated from renewable sources. Linde is one of the world’s leading suppliers of photon exchange membrane electrolyzer technology which means that our customers can rely on us for end-to-end, integrated green hydrogen solutions.

Steam reforming initially produces a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. We use cryogenic processes to remove CO2. Pressure swing adsorption plants are used to obtain H2 from hydrogen-rich synthesis gases or refinery and petrochemical gases. We have also developed an alternative hybrid process where we combine membrane and pressure swing adsorption technologies for new-found levels of flexibility and efficiency in the production of green hydrogen. This system can also be used to remove or recover carbon dioxide from process gas streams at synthesis gas plants. CO2 can also be recovered from the flue gas of hydrogen plants by Post Combustion Capture. The use of low-energy coil-wound heat exchangers makes this a particularly economical gas purification method. Where needed, the captured CO2 can be used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) or fed into a purification or liquefaction plant to enable other uses. Linde can also offer synthesis plants for the production of ammonia (NH3) or methanol (CH3OH) converting the produced hydrogen and nitrogen, respectively syngas stream. These products may be called green ammonia or green methanol if green hydrogen is utilized as a feedstock. Cryogenic plants are used to liquefy hydrogen so it can be transported and stored efficiently. They cool the volatile gas down to minus 253 degrees Celsius to create liquefied hydrogen (LH2). This process increases the density of the gas. In addition, we offer turbocompressors for hydrogen and LH2 pumps. We supply this equipment as part of integrated offerings for our customers’ hydrogen rojects.

SOURCE: TOPSOE: LINK: http://INFO.TOPSOE.COM

The energy industry is looking to build attractive business cases for low-carbon fuels and chemicals. To achieve this, a crucial point is the ability to produce green hydrogen from electrolysis of water with no carbon emissions at a competitive price. Green hydrogen is produced by electrolysis. This process uses electrical power to split water and produce hydrogen. In the case of green hydrogen, the electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind turbines, solar panels, or hydropower. The electrolysis process emits no carbon or harmful substances. Less than 0.1% of the hydrogen produced today comes from water electrolysis because most of it comes from natural gas, a fossil fuel withh CO2 emssions.. Now, as the availability of renewable electricity is increasing and the cost goes down, interest in green hydrogen is booming because we can use renewable electrcity to generate green hydrogen. Topsoe offers the most efficient form of electrolysis today. Topsoe has chosen to focus on the most efficient electrolysis technology available today. Our high-temperature SOEC – solid oxide electrolyzer cell – deliver up to 30% more green hydrogen from the same amount of renewable electricity, compared to standard technologies like PEM and alkaline electrolysis. The superior efficiency stems from the fact that the SOEC works at temperatures above 700 degrees Celsius, which sets it apart from standard electrolysis technologies.SOEC-1. We deliver the SOEC electrolysis unit as a stand-alone unit with power and gas connections. Our modular design allows for flexibility in plant size. The facility is fully automated with a user-friendly interface.

SOURCE: GREENTECH MEDIA: LINK: GREENTECHMEDIA.COM

So, What Exactly Is Green Hydrogen? For a colorless gas, hydrogen gets described in very colorful terms. A new GTM series helps explain the weird and wonderful world of clean energy. Companies and industry groups often join together to promote their products. Far more unusual was the step taken last month by 10 major European energy companies and two of the continent’s top renewable industry bodies, which joined up to launch a campaign touting a product that none of them actually sell. That product is renewable or “green” hydrogen. And while it’s not a central concern today for those companies all see green hydrogen playing a vital role in achieving deep decarbonization of the energy system. Interest in green hydrogen is skyrocketing among major oil and gas firms. Europe is planning to make hydrogen a big part of its trillion-dollar Green Deal package, with an EU-wide green hydrogen strategy expected to be published in July. Some industrial processes and heavy transport will have to run on gas. And that gas of the future is green hydrogen. It is completely clean. It will be affordable with renewables being so cheap now. So, What Exactly Is Green Hydrogen? Most of the gas that is already widely used as an industrial chemical is either brown, if it’s made through the gasification of coal or lignite; or gray, if it is made through steam methane reformation, which typically uses natural gas as the feedstock. Neither of these processes is exactly carbon-friendly.A purportedly cleaner option is known as blue hydrogen, where the gas is produced by steam methane reformation but the emissions are curtailed using carbon capture and storage. This process could roughly halve the amount of carbon produced, but it’s still far from emissions-free. Green hydrogen, in contrast, could almost eliminate emissions by using renewable energy — increasingly abundant and often generated at less-than-ideal times — to power the electrolysis of water. A more recent addition to the hydrogen-production palette is turquoise. This is produced by breaking methane down into hydrogen and solid carbon using a process called pyrolysis. Turquoise hydrogen might seem relatively low in terms of emissions because the carbon can either be buried or used for industrial processes such as steelmaking or battery manufacturing, so it doesn’t escape into the atmosphere. However, recent research shows turquoise hydrogen is actually likely to be no more carbon-free than the blue variety, owing to emissions from the natural-gas supplies and process heat required. How do you make green hydrogen? With electrolysis, all you need to produce large amounts of hydrogen is water, a big electrolyzer and plentiful supplies of electricity. If the electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro, then the hydrogen is effectively green; the only carbon emissions are from those embodied in the generation infrastructure. The challenge right now is that big electrolyzers are in short supply, and plentiful supplies of renewable electricity still come at a significant price. Compared to more established production processes, electrolysis is very expensive, so the market for electrolyzers has been small. And while renewable energy production is now sizable enough to cause duck curves in California and grid problems in Germany, overproduction is a relatively recent development. Most energy markets still have a need for plenty of renewables just to serve the grid.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

#1: THE CHEAP AND EASY WAY TO MAKE HYDROGEN IS FROM NATURAL GAS BUT THE PROBLEM WITH THE CHEAP AND EASY IS THE FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS FROM THE PROCESS. AS A RESULT THE CHEAP AND EASY IS NOT ACCEPTABLE NOR POSSIBLE IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE ERA.

#2: IT WAS THEREFORE NECESSARY TO INVENT EXPENSIVE AND DIFFICULT PROCESSES FOR MAKING HYDROGEN WITHOUT FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS. WHAT IS PROPOSED IS THAT ELECTRICITY FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY SUCH AS WIND AND SOLAR CAN USED IN AN ELECTROLYSIS PROCESS THAT CAN SPLIT OUT THE HYDROGEN FROM WATER AND OTHER NON-FOSSIL FUEL FLUIDS. THE PROCESS HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED BUT AT 5 TIMES THE COST PER KG OF HYDROGEN THAN THE NATURAL GAS PROCESS. HOWEVER, GIVEN THE CLIMATE CHANGE EMEGENCY, THE COST MUST BE BORNE AND THE PLANET MUST BE SAVED.

#3: IN ADDITION TO THE COST ISSUE, YET ANOTHER CONSIDERATION FOR THE ELECROLYSIS OF WATER WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY IS THE ENERGY COVERSION EFFICIENCY. BRIEFLY, THE EFFICIENCY IS VERY LOW SO THAT IN THE CONVERSION OF ELECTRICITY TO HYDROGEN AND THEN LATER FOR THE HYDROGEN TO DELIVER THAT SAME ENERGY AS ELECTRICITY, ALMOST 70% OF THE ENERGY IS LOST TO ENERGY CONVERSION INEFFICIENCY SO THAT LESS THAN 30% OF THE ENERGY IS DELIVERED. THIS DRAMATIC ENERGY LOSS TAKES THE BUZZ OUT OF THE GREEN HYDROGEN BUZZ.

#4: LASTLY, ALL THAT STRONG AND EXCITING LANGUAGE ABOUT “GREEN HYDROGEN” OVERLOOKS AND SIDESTEPS THE VERY WEIRD ISSUE THAT THERE IS NO GREEN HYDROGEN AVAILABLE FOR DELIVERY. IT IS THOUGHT THAT THEY MAY BE ABLE TO PROVIDE THIS EXCITING NEW “GREEN” TECHNOLOGY ABOUT A DECADE FROM NOW AT SOME TIME AFTER 2030. BOTTOM LINE: WE DON’T REALLY HAVE GREEN HYDROGEN BUT MAYBE WE WILL IN ABOUT A DECADE.

#4: THE COST AND EFFICIENCY ISSUES NOTWITHSTANDING, THE GREEN HYDROGEN MOVEMENT IS A MUCH NEEDED HEROISM BOOST FOR THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT ALTHOUGH WE DON’T REALLY HAVE ANY YET.

CONWAY TWITTY EXPLAINS

THIS POST IS A PRESENTATION OF THE SOCIAL IMPACTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AS DESCRIBED ON CPS.ORG. LINK TO SOURCE: https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10599/Social%20Effects%20of%20the%20Industrial%20Revolution.pdf

ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IS VIEWED AS EVIL IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IT GAVE US THE FOLLOWING SOCIAL BENEFITS THAT WE NOW TAKE FOR GRANTED.

#1: POWER TO THE WORKERS: THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION GAVE US LABOR UNIONS, COLLECTIVE BARGANING, THE RIGHT TO STRIKE, AND IMPROVED WORKING CONDITIONS FOR WORKERS. THESE ADVANCES LED TO LEGAL PROCESSES IN GOVERNMENTS THAT PASSED LAWS TO PROTECT WORKERS AND PROHIBIT CHILD LABOR.

#2: THAT IN TURN LED TO RISING WEALTH AND STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE WORKING CLASS AND THEIR RISING CONSUMPTION AND DEMAND. AND THAT LED TO HEALTHIER DIETS, BETTER HOUSING, AND RISING DEMAND FOR GOODS AND SERVICES, AND THEIR FALLING PRICES. THE MODERN LIFESTYL WE LIVE TODAY IS A CREATION OF THESE DEVELOPMENTS.

#3: THESE ADVANCES LED TO CONDITIONS WHERE WORKERS COULD SEND THEIR KIDS TO SCHOOL AND WHERE THE DEMAND FOR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION CREATED THE SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE COMMONERS AND TO EVOLVE INTO AN EDUCATION INFRASTRUCTURE THAT IN TURN CREATED AN EDUCATED POPULATION. AN EDUCATED POPULATION IN TURN LED TO DEMOCRACTIC RULE AND ELECTED GOVERNMENTS.

#4: CLOSING THE GENDER GAP

THESE ADVANCES IN TURN LED TO GIRLS GOING TO SCHOOL, EDUCATED WOMEN ENTERING THE WORK FORCE, AND THE RISE OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND GENDER EQUALITY – AND MOST OF ALL THE BIRTH OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE.

IN SHORT, THE MODERN WESTERN WORLD WE KNOW AND LOVE AND THE MODERN WESTERN CIVLIZATION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER ARE CREATIONS OF THE SAME INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION THAT CLIMATE SCIENCE HAS TAUGHT US TO HATE AND FEAR.

THANK YOU ENGLAND

#4:

THIS POST IS A PRESENTATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTALISM TERMINOLOGY “TECHNOPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM” IN THE CONTEXT OF THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM DESCRIBED IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/10/11/anthropogenic-global-warming-in-a-post-modern-world/

TERMINOLOGY

“TECHNOPRENEURSHP” MEANS ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH INVESTMENT IN A NEW ENTERPRISE THAT INVOLVES TECHNOLOGY.

“TECHNOPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM” MEANS A TECHNOENTREPRENEURSHIP WHERE THE INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES INVOLVE NOT ONLY INVESTMENT AND RETURNS BUT THE STATE OF THE ECOSYSTEM AND THE IMPACT OF THE TECHNOENTREPRENEURSHIP ENTERPRISE ON THE ECOSYSTEM.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY

THESE INVENTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM ARE BEST UNDERSTOOD FIRST AS THE CORRUPTION OF ENVIRONMENTALISM WITH BAMBI-ISM WHERE THE ORIGINAL IDEA OF ENVIRONMENTALISM TO IMPROVE HUMAN WELFARE MORPHED INTO GENESIS BAMBI-ISM WHERE THE HUMANS MUST TAKE CARE OF NATURE, NOW DESCRIBED AS “THE ENVIRONMENT”.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/15/the-bambi-principle/

THE NEW PROPOSITION THAT EVOLVED FROM THE CORRUPTION OF ENVIRONMENTALISM DESCRIBED ABOVE, IS THE NEED FOR A GOD-LIKE HUMAN ENTERPRISE THAT MANAGES AND TAKES CARE OF NATURE AND THIS ENTERPPRISE IS BEST UNDERSTOOD AS A NEW VERSION OF RELIGION AS DESCRIBED IN THE RELATED POST LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/10/11/anthropogenic-global-warming-in-a-post-modern-world/

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ALGAL BIOFUEL ENVIRONMENTALISM HYPE????

THE ASSESSMENT BY LABROOTS:

LINK: https://www.labroots.com/trending/chemistry-and-physics/14258/algae-biofuel-what-happened-hype

During the first decade of the 21st century, the world saw a rapid surge of research and development activities surrounding algae biofuel. The concept, which combines biological carbon capture and accelerated fossil fuel creation in its essence, has the environment-friendly appears.and advantages over the production of fossil fuel and energy source from other types of biomass. After dozens of organizations spending hundreds of millions of dollars-worth investment, a significant portion of which came from Exxon Mobile and the Department of Energy, the bubble burst as no one managed to achieve a commercial scale process. The idea of extracting fuel oil from algae was since considered neither commercially viable nor environmentally responsible. The boom started when algae were discovered to be much more efficient in capturing carbon and turn them into biofuel, as compared to terrestrial plants such as palms and corns. Algae do not require good quality land, so using algae as a source for biodiesel can alleviate the competition with food crops. The genetically diverse, lipid-rich watery plant is not picky about water either: wastewater from farming, contaminated with fertilizers can be used as its primary source of water and nutrients. Since many algae species are excellent bio-fixers, meaning the production process of algae biofuel can be a carbon-negative process, even though about a good percentage of the carbon will be released back to the atmosphere during fuel consumption. But the byproducts and scrap from algae can be easily buried as composting. Later on, as more R&D was carried out, it turns out that growing algae in the industrial scale would require about the same footage of land if not ocean as other traditional fuel crops. It was calculated that an algae pond would need to suck around 4g of carbon from the atmosphere and transformed that into biomass per square meter (or 11 square feet) every day, in order to sustain fuel production and extraction. From the biochemistry point of view, the amount of fertilizer that the growth of algae would need in an industrial setting is also astounding and may result in unhealthy competition with the need for food crop farming. Some of the biofuel startups survived the burst, but they all switched gears to focus turning algae into other high-value products such as cooking oil, dietary supplement, and food coloring products. Meanwhile, algae biofuels research and development is still alive, with a smaller amount of funding dedicated to plausibly breakthroughs, in both biology and engineering. For instance, chemical engineers from the University of Utah reported a new, energy-efficient method to extract lipids from the watery plant: they developed a new mixing reactor in which jets of the extraction solvent run against jets of algae, creating turbulence that “suck out” liquid from algae with ease. As many are hopeful that more innovation will put us closer to turning algae into a viable, cost-effective alternative fuel, it is important to bear in mind that any breakthrough in industrial technology takes time, money, and careful, lengthy R&D.

THE ASSSESSMENT BY GREENTECH MEDIA

LINK: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-the-great-algae-biofuel-bubble

From 2005 to 2012, dozens of companies managed to extract hundreds of millions in cash from VCs in hopes of ultimately extracting fuel oil from algae. CEOs, entrepreneurs and investors were making huge claims about the promise of algae-based biofuels; the U.S. Department of Energy was also making big bets through its bioenergy technologies office; industry advocates claimed that commercial algae fuels were within near-term reach. Jim Lane of Biofuels Digest authored what was possibly history’s least accurate market forecast, projecting that algal biofuel capacity would reach 1 billion gallons by 2014. In 2009, Solazyme promised competitively priced fuel from algae by 2012. Algenol planned to make 100 million gallons of ethanol annually in Mexico’s Sonoran Desert by the end of 2009 and 1 billion gallons by the end of 2012 at a production rate of 10,000 gallons per acre. PetroSun looked to develop an algae farm network of 1,100 acres of saltwater ponds that could produce 4.4 million gallons of algal oil and 110 million pounds of biomass per year. Nothing close to 1 billion (or even 1 million) gallons has yet been achieved — nor has competitive pricing. The promise of algae is tantalizing. Some algal species contain up to 40 percent lipids by weight, a figure that could be boosted further through selective breeding and genetic modification. That basic lipid can be converted into diesel, synthetic petroleum, butanol or industrial chemicals. According to some sources, an acre of algae could yield 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of oil a year, making algae far more productive than soy (50 gallons per acre), rapeseed (110 to 145 gallons), jatropha (175 gallons), palm (650 gallons), or cellulosic ethanol from poplars (2,700 gallons). The question is: Can algae be economically cultivated and commercially scaled to make a material contribution to humanity’s liquid fuel needs? Can biofuels from algae compete on price with fossil-derived petroleum? Once capital needs, water availability, energy balance, growing, collecting, drying, and algae’s pickiness about light and CO2 are factored in — the answer, so far, is an emphatic no. There is incredible potential for algae technology in drug discovery and production, specialty oils and a range of chemicals. Will we be running commercial engines on algae-derived fuels in the 21st century? Nope.

THE ASSESSMENT BY THE CONVERSATION

LINK: https://theconversation.com/can-we-save-the-algae-biofuel-industry-58518

Algal biofuels are in trouble. This alternative fuel source could help reduce overall carbon emissions without taking land from food production, like many crop-based biofuels do. But several major companies including Shell and ExxonMobil are seemingly abandoning their investments in this environmentally friendly fuel. So why has this promising technology failed to deliver, and what could be done to save it? Algae are photosynthetic organisms related to plants that grow in water and produce energy from carbon dioxide and sunlight. Single-celled microalgae can be used to produce large amounts of fat, which can be converted into biodiesel, the most common form of biofuel. There are many possible ingredients for making biofuels, from corn to used cooking oil. But algae are particularly interesting because they can be grown rapidly and produce large amounts of fuel relative to the resources used to grow them (high productivity). In the last decade or so, vast amounts of money have been invested in the development of algae for biofuel production. This made sense because, ten years ago, there was a need to find alternatives to fossil fuels due to the high oil price and the increasing recognition that carbon emissions were causing climate change. Algal biofuels were touted as the answer to these twin problems, and huge investment followed. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite to plan. Companies making algal biofuels struggled to retain their high productivity at a larger scale and found predators often contaminated their farms. They also found that the economics just didn’t make sense. Building the ponds in which to grow the algae and providing enough light and nutrients for them to grow proved too expensive, and to make matters worse the oil price has plummeted. But algae don’t just produce biofuels. In fact, algae are like microscopic factories producing all sorts of useful compounds that can be used to make an amazingly diverse range of products. This means that the “biorefinery” concept can bring the algae revolution back as a new wave of the algae revolution.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

THE ALGAL BIOFUEL MOVEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS THAT WAS PROPOSED AS A SOLUTION TO ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE HAS FAILED BECAUSE OF HIDDEN COMPLEXITIES AND COSTS NOT TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION IN ITS INITIAL EVALUATION. A THOROUGH ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUE IS PROVIDED IN THE BOOK “THE MYTH OF ALGAE BUIFUELS” AND SUMARIZED IN THE HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW LINK: https://harvardpolitics.com/the-myth-of-algae-biofuels/ WHERE WE FIND:

The Myth of Algae Biofuels: The algae that has received the most attention is microalgae, single-celled photosynthetic organisms that live on the water’s surface. Microalgae are one of the most abundant and important organisms on the planet. They play a significant role in balancing marine ecosystems and regulating global nutrient cycles. To transform these tiny plants into fuel, researchers typically grow microalgae in large, open ponds. Scientists harvest the algae, break down the plants’ cell walls using a chemical solvent, and then extract their inner lipids, proteins, and carbs, which undergo a final processing step that turns them into biofuel. But energy companies have long since given up on algae biofuels. Despite industry optimism, decades of research seem to have converged upon a disappointing reality: The economic and biological limitations of algae make it an unrealistic fuel alternative to fossil fuels.

THIS POST IS A CRITICAL REVIEW OF A SPACE.COM ARTICLE ON HOW SPACE TRAVEL AFFECTS GLOBAL WARMING AND OZONE DEPLETION.

LINK TO SOURCE: https://www.space.com/environmental-impact-space-tourism-flights

MEDIA HYPE:

THE JAW DROPINGLY HIGH, OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD CARBON FOOTPRINT OF SPACE TOURISM (NBC NEWS)

PART-1: WHAT THE SPACE.COM ARTICLE SAYS

The rise of space tourism could affect Earth’s climate in unforeseen ways. Are the effects of rocket launches on the atmosphere really negligible? Hybrid rocket motors such as those used in Virgin Galactic’s rocket planes emit a lot of soot. Scientists worry that growing numbers of rocket flights and the rise of space tourism could harm Earth’s atmosphere and contribute to climate change. When Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos soared into space in suborbital tourism vehicles, much of the world clapped in awe but for some scientists, these milestones represented something other than technical accomplishment. The flights marked the potential beginning of a long-awaited era that might see rockets fly through the so-far rather pristine upper layers of the atmosphere far more often than they do today. These flights are powered by a hybrid engine that burns rubber and leaves behind a cloud of soot. Hybrid engines can use different types of fuels, but they always generate a lot of soot, These engines work like a candle, and their burning process creates conditions that are favorable for soot generation. A single Virgin Galactic suborbital space tourism flight, lasting about an hour and a half, can generate as much pollution as a 10-hour trans-Atlantic flight. Even if the suborbital tourism market is launching at a fraction of the number of launches compared to the rest of the tourism industry, each of their flights has a much higher contribution, and that could be a problem. Galactic’s rockets are not the only culprits. All rocket motors burning hydrocarbon fuels generate soot. Solid rocket engines, such as those used in the past burn metallic compounds and emit aluminum oxide particles together with hydrochloric acid, both of which have a damaging effect on the atmosphere. The engine that powers Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle combines liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to create thrust and is not a big polluter compared to other rocket engines. Rockets pollute the otherwise pristine upper layers of the atmosphere. but too little is known about this issue. The problem is that rockets pollute the higher layers of the atmosphere, the stratosphere, which starts at an altitude of about 6.2 miles and the mesosphere, which goes upward from 31 miles. We are emitting pollutants in places where we don’t normally emit it. We need to understand if we increase these things, what is the potential damage? So far, the impact of rocket launches on the atmosphere has been negligible. but that’s simply because there have not been that many launches. The amount of fuel currently burned by the space industry is less than 1% of the fuel burned by aviation so there has not been a lot of research but things are changing in a way that suggests that we should learn about this in more detail. It is anticipated that space tourism flights will skyrocket over the next decade, from around10 a year to maybe 360 a year. Demand for suborbital tourism is extremely high, these companies have customers waiting in a line, and so they want to scale up. Ultimately, they would want to fly multiple times a day. The problem is that the scientific community has no idea and not enough data to tell at what point rocket launches will start having a measurable effect on the planet’s climate. At the same time, the stratosphere is already changing as the number of rocket launches sneakily grows. The impacts of these [rocket-generated] particles are not well understood even to an order of magnitude, the factor of 10.The uncertainty is large, and we need to narrow that down and predict how space might be impacting the atmosphere. NASA’s space shuttle generates ozone-damaging substances and created the space shuttle’s ozone holes. So far, the only direct measurements of the effects of rocket launches on atmospheric chemistry come from the space shuttle era. In the 1990s the U.S. Air Force looked at the effects of the emissions from the space shuttle’s solid fuel boosters on ozone in the stratosphere with significant concerns about chlorine from solid rocket motors. Chlorine is the bad guy to ozone in the stratosphere, and there were some models which suggested that ozone depletion from solid rocket motors would be very significant. One of the fundamental questions was how much chlorine is being made in these solid rocket motors and in what form. They measured it and then analyzed the results. At that time, there were not enough space shuttle launches to make a difference globally, but locally one could deplete the ozone layer due to this diffuse plume. The space shuttle retired 10 years ago, but rockets generating ozone-damaging substances continue launching humans and satellites to space today. In 2018, in its latest Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, the WMO included rockets as a potential future concern and called for more research. Rocket planes inject pollutants into very high altitudes. The effects of human-made substances in the higher layers of the atmosphere contains large uncertainties. The work is akin to predicting the proverbial butterfly effect, the influence of minuscule changes in the chemistry of the air tens of miles above Earth on climate and weather patterns on the ground. But black carbon, or soot, emitted by rockets burning hydrocarbon fuels, is of particular concern. “The problem with soot is that it absorbs ultraviolet light, and that means that it could heat the stratosphere. and that could actually affect what is happening on the ground. Many of the particles generated by rockets have been of interest to scientists due to the possible effects they could have on the global climate in a different context — that of geoengineering, the deliberate tampering with the atmosphere with the aim of stopping or mitigating global warming. The team was interested in the climate effects of dispersing sulfur dioxide particles, which are known to reflect light away from Earth, in combination with soot in the lower stratosphere. Soot absorbs energy from sunlight and pushes the sulfur dioxide aerosol particles to a higher altitude by warming up the surrounding air. At that higher altitude, the sulfur dioxide can start its climate-cooling work. The experiment modeled what would happen when 1.1 million tons of sunlight-reflecting sulfur dioxide mixed with 11,000 tons of black carbon were released in the upper troposphere by aircraft over a 10-day period. The study didn’t find any significant negative effects on weather on Earth. The soot particles generated by hybrid rocket engines are extremely small and light-weight. In fact, when he and his colleagues tried to measure the soot output of hybrid rocket engines in a laboratory, they couldn’t reliably do it with precision because of the particles’ minuscule size. We were able to measure the particle output from solid rocket motors. These are about a micron in size. Because they are large, they fall to the ground more quickly. In hybrid rocket engines, we were not able to collect the soot from the plume because it’s extremely fine, a few nanometres in size.These particles could stay in the stratosphere forever. They have the same size as the carbon emitted by aircraft and we know that there is a layer of carbon in the atmosphere at the flight level of aircrafts which is staying there. Particles coming from rocket motors may do the same.The accumulation of these particles over years and decades is what worries the scientists. Just as the current climate crisis started relatively slowly as the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere grew, the pollution in the stratosphere may only start causing harm some years down the road. In the long term, injecting pollutants into the stratosphere could alter the polar jet stream, change winter storm patterns or affect average rainfall. BUT THERE IS A LOT OF WORK TO BE DONE IN THIS AREA OF RESEARCH. Therefore it is critical that we start now to evaluate the future risks. THERE IS THIS FUNDAMENTAL GAP WHERE WE DON’T HAVE THE NUMBERS. THE SCIENCE IS LIMITED BY LACK OF INFORMATION. YET IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TO ASSESS TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY ON THE STRATOSPHERE. We need a bigger research program that would analyze the emissions and impacts of individual types of rocket engines and fuels on the stratosphere. The U.S. Congress seems to be aware of the problem and things might soon start to move.We need a national program run to develop a database with emission data for modern rocket propulsion systems.

PART-2: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

#1: The issue proposed here is that rocketry pollutes the stratosphere with both gases and particulates and that this pollution raises environmental issues with respect to anthropogenic global warming and ozone depletion and these issues imply that the proposed space tourism services of the rocketry industry imply significant impacts on the climate change and ozone depletion crises of our time.

#2: This assesment is made with the admission by the scientists that they don’t really have the data to make such assessments but that the possible dangers posed by rocketry that have been identified by the scientists make it imperative that there should be a well funded government program for these scientists to study this issue.

#3: The scientists have determined that the real danger in these rocketry emissions into the stratisphere is how little the scientists actually know and that the less the scientists know the more dangerous it gets because the more imaginative the climate change and ozone depletion impacts become.

#4: Here we present a related post on the ozone issue: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/12/27/the-hole-in-the-sky/ where we find a long and failed history of scientists speculating that air and space travel in the stratosphere will cause ozone depletion and climate change. This list is reproduced below.

However, a more significant issue in the theory of human caused ozone depletion is detailed in the related post linked above. It is that (1) no evidence is found in the data of long term decline in global mean total column ozone and (2) the periodic, short term, and localized changes in ozone concentration above the south pole that is called an ozone hole is neither a hole nor evidence that supports the theory of anthropogenic ozone depletion by way of the Rowland Molina theory of ozone depletion.

Long and failed history of ozone depletion and climate change speculation

1. 1969: A plan to develop high altitude supersonic airliners with the Boeing 2707 as a concept vehicle. The very high cruising altitude of the SST raised environmental alarms that included both climate change and ozone depletion. First an alarm is raised that chemicals and aerosols in the exhaust of the SST jet engines will cause climate change.
2. 1970 the climate change theory is quietly shelved after critical reviews by skeptics and deniers and a new alarm is raised. Water vapor in the SST jet exhaust will cause a 4% depletion of ozone in the ozone layer causing 40,000 additional cases of skin cancer every year in the USA alone. The water vapor theory is quietly forgotten after critical reviews by skeptics and deniers with data showing that higher levels of water in the stratosphere is coincident with higher levels of ozone.
3. 1970: A new ozone depletion theory emerges. Nitric oxide (NOx) in the SST jet exhaust will cause ozone depletion because NOx acts as a catalyst to destroy ozone without being consumed in the process.
4. 1971: A computer model is developed to assess the impact of NOx in SST exhaust on the ozone layer. The model predicts that there will be a 50% ozone depletion and a worldwide epidemic of skin cancer. Animals that venture out during daylight will become blinded by UV radiation. It was an apocalyptic scenario.
5. 1971: NOx in the fireball of open air nuclear tests provide a ready laboratory to test the ozone depletion properties of NOx. The computer model predicted 10% ozone depletion by NOx from nuclear testing. Measurements showed no ozone depletion; but the model won and the ozone depletion scare endured.
6. 1972: Death of the SST: We were so frightened by the ozone depletion scare that the SST program was canceled although America’s skies soon became filled with supersonic fighters and bombers spewing NOx without any evidence of ozone depletion or of skin cancer or of blindness in animals.
7. 1973: Space Shuttle: Unperturbed by the skeptics and emboldened by their SST success, fear mongering ozone depletion scientists turned their attention to the proposed Space Shuttle program. The shuttle design included two solid fuel rockets that emit hydrogen chloride (HCl). The scientists calculated that 50 flights per year would deposit 5000 tons of HCl per year in the stratosphere that could cause a 10% ozone depletion over Florida and 1% to 2% elsewhere. Although the scare was hyped it never got to the SST levels and the space shuttle miraculously survived the ozone scare.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

THE COMMONLY PROPOSED LOGIC BY ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENTISTS THAT THE LESS THEY KNOW THE SCARIER IT GETS IS NOT CREDIBLE AND AS DESCRIBED IN THE RELATED POST LINKED BELOW, IT VIOLATES FUNDAMENTAL STATISTICAL PRINCIPLES IN HYPOTHESIS TESTING. THESE ARE (1) A HYPOTHESIS DERIVED FROM THE DATA CANNOT BE TESTED WITH THE SAME DATA, AND (2) IN HYPOTHESIS TESTS, THE NULL HYPOTHESIS MUST BE THE NEGATION OF THE RESEARCHER’S HYPOTHESIS WITH THAT HYPOTHESIS PRESENTED AS THE ALTERNATE AND NOT THE NULL.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/05/01/the-fear-of-ignorance-derives-from-the-null-hypothesis-issue-in-climate-science/

IN YET ANOTHER RELATED POST WE PROVIDE A LIST OF STATISTICAL ERRORS SEEN IN ACTIVISM DRIVEN RESEARCH WHERE UNBIASED AND OBJECTIVE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IS CORRUPTED BY THE ACTIVISM NEEDS OF THE RESEARCHER.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/05/18/climate-science-vs-statistics/

WHAT THE SCIENTISTS ARE TELLING US IN THE ARTICLE ON THE DANGERS OF SPACE TRAVEL IS THAT THEY DON’T REALLY KNOW AND THEY DON’T HAVE THE DATA BUT THEIR SPECULATION IMPLIES SIGNIFICANT DANGERS OF SPACE TRAVEL IN TERMS OF BOTH CLIMATE CHANGE AND OZONE DEPLETION. HOWEVER, THE REAL INFORMATION HERE IS THAT THEY DON’T KNOW AND THAT THEIR SPECULATION IS JUST THAT – SPECULATION.

A FURTHER INTERPRETATON OF THE SPECULATIONS PRESENTED ABOVE IS THAT THE SCIENTISTS ARE SEEKING A SIGNIFICANT GOVERNMENT FUNDED RESEARCH PROGRAM IN WHICH THEY WOULD PRESUMABLY PARTICIPATE. THE SPECUALATIVE FEAR APPEAL ARGUMENTS MAY HAVE AN INTERPRETTION IN TERMS OF MOTIVATING AND MAXIMIZING SUCH TAXPAYER FUNDING.

POSTSCRIPT

ENVIRONMENTALISM IS THE NEW RELIGION *** GLOBAL IMPACT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY IS THE NEW ENVIRONMENTALISM *** THE OZONE DEPLETION AND CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES ARE JUST THE BEGINNING OF THIS NEW PHASE OF THE ENVIRONMENTALISM RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT. ***

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/10/11/anthropogenic-global-warming-in-a-post-modern-world/

10/17/2021: THIS POST IS A LIST OF RECENT EXCHANGES ON QUORA WITH REGARD TO CLIMATE CHANGE

RELATED POST ON CLIMATE CHANGE ANXIETY:

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/10/climate-anxiety/

#1: QUESTION: HOW DOES CLIMATE AFFECT CULTURE?

ANSWER: ABOUT 8,000 YEARS AGO OR SO, GLOBAL WARMING CREATED HUMAN CIVILIZATION.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/06/27/modern-humans-climate-change/

#2: QUESTION: CAN WE SAFELY SAY THAT THE AGE OF PETROLEUM IS OVER?

ANSWER: IN THE DOCUMENT LINKED BELOW IS A CHART SHOWING A RISING LONG TERM TREND IN RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPACITY WORLDWIDE. BELOW THAT IS A CHART SHOWING RISING GLOBAL FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS OVER THE SAME PERIOD OF TIME. ONLY WHEN THE LONG TERM TREND IN FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS IS HEADED DOWNWARD AND APPROACHING ZERO CAN WE SPECULATE THAT THE AGE OF FOSSIL FUELS IS COMING TO AN END.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/02/23/renewable-energy-statistics/

#3: QUESTION: WHAT IS THE GREATEST THREAT TO MANKIND IN THE ENVIRONMENT?

ANSWER: THE GREATEST THREAT TO MANKIND IN THE ENVRONMENT IS THE ENVIRONMENT OF FEAR CREATED BY THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT THAT IN TURN HAS CREATED AN OBSESSION OF MANKIND WITH FINDING THINGS TO FEAR.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/05/27/unnatural-humans/

#4: QUESTION: HOW CONCERNED ARE YOU ABOUT FUTURE JET STREAMS CREATING CONDITIONS THAT WOULD DECIMATE THE GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLY?

ANSWER: STRANGE HOW CLIMATE FEAR-MONGERING HAS TURNED OUR LIVES INTO A HORROR MOVIE AND GAVE US THIS OBSESSION WITH IMAGINING AND THEN ANTICIPATING HORRORS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/08/25/gaia-vs-climate-change/

#5: QUESTION: WHO’S TO BLAME FOR THE BUSH FIRES THAT HAVE DEVASTATED AUSTRALIA?

ANSWER: THAT ALL NATURAL DISASTERS ARE NOW SOME KIND OF BLAME GAME IS THE REAL CLIMATE CHANGE CATASTROPHE WHERE ONCE INTELLIGENT AND RATIONAL HUMANS HAVE TURNED INTO SUPERSTITIOUS CLIMATE CHANGE GOOFBALLS.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/

#6: QUESTION: WHAT CAUSES TYPHOONS IN THE PHILIPPINES? IS IT BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE?

ANSWER: TYPHOONS ARE TROPICAL CYCLONES AND TROPICAL CYCLONES NATURALLY OCCUR IN SIX AREAS OF THE WORLD KNOWN AS CYCLONE BASINS. ONE OF THESE CYCLONE BASINS IS THE WEST PACIFIC BASIN WHERE TROPICAL CYCLONES ARE CALLED TYPHOONS AND AS IT TURNS OUT, THE WEST PACIFIC BASIN IS THE MOST ACTIVE CYCLONE BASIN IN THE WORLD – ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/04/1737/

PART-1: WHAT THE UK ENVIRONMENT AGENCY SAYS

Hundreds of people could die in floods in the UK. The country is not ready for the impact of climate change. Earlier this year in Germany, dozens of people died in floods and (“therefore”) that will happen in the UK. sooner or later unless the UK becomes resilient. The bottom line for the UK in the climate change issue is this: adapt or die. Global warming effects such as higher sea levels and more extremes of rainfall and drought requires the country’s readiness to cope with climate change impacts. The UK Environment department will take measures to protct the UK from climate change impacts. We are currently heading for an increase in the global average temperature of just under 3C by the end of the century but even a smaller rise of 2C would have severe consequences: Winter rainfall up by 6% by the 2050s and 8% by the 2080s, Summer rainfall down by about 15% by the 2050s, London’s sea level up by 23cm by the 2050s and 45cm by the 2080s, peak river flows up 27% and summer flows down by 82% that will increase demand for water supply by 3.4 billion litres per day. To successfully tackle the climate emergency the UK must implement effective adaptation measures. To avoid Germany’s flood catastrophe, the UK must build flood defences. The UK must adapt to increasing weather extremes. As for COP26, Governments around the world must promise more ambitious cuts in warming gases if we are to prevent global temperature rise. The summit in Glasgow is where this change could happen. The question is whether promises made by the big polluters like the USA and China will be kept. Climate change will change our lives and impact our jobs, how we heat our homes, what we eat and how we travel. In addition, the UK needs to restore natural systems that absorb carbon dioxide and hold back rainwater. If the UK gets it right their citizens will be safer and more prosperous. The UK must invest in flood protection and coastal defences like the Thames Barrier to avoid the flood tragedy of 1953. COP26: The COP26 climate summit is important. Questions with no answers: What will climate change look like for you?, Will the UK meet it’s climate targets?, How extreme weather is linked to climate change? The UK needs better technology for warning communities about food risk and with better coordination among emergncy services. Billions of pounds have been spent on flood defences – and that more is earmarked. As the host of COP26, the UK is highlighting the importance of helping communities and nature to adapt to climate change. £5.2bn has been budgeted to protect 336,000 propertis from flooding and £640m has been budgeted to tackle climate change and adaptation together. The UK is taking robust action to increase resilience to climate change as a climate change adaptation policy and using the COP26 presidency to promote climate adaptation strategies around the world.

PART-2: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

THE ISSUE AND SUBJECT MATTER OF COPS IN GENERAL AND COP26 IN PARTICULAR IS STRICTLY CLIMATE ACTION. TO FORMULATE AND TO IMPLEMENT A CLIMATE ACTION PLAN ON A GLOBAL SCALE IN THE IMAGE OF THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL – THE SO CALLED “MONTREAL PROTOCOL FOR THE CLIMATE. (MPFC).

BUT WHAT WE SEE IN UK CLIMATE HEROISM AS HOST OF COP26 AND ON THE EVE OF COP26 IS THAT THE UK IS FOCUSSED ENTIRELY ON ADAPTATION. IT SHOULD BE MENTIONED THAT CLIMATE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES ARE NECESSARY ONLY IF AND WHEN CLIMATE ACTION HAS BEEN ABANDONED.

PERHAPS THE UK IS WISER THAN THE REST SUCH THAT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LOGIC THAT THE REASON WE NEED THE GLASGOW COP26 IN THE YEAR 2021 IS THAT THE 25 PREVIOUS COPS HELD SINCE 1995 HAVE ALL FAILED. EVEN THE SO CALLED “PARIS AGREEMENT” THAT HAD BEEN PRESENTED TO US AS A SUCCESS IS NOW REVEALED TO BE A FAILURE SIMPLY BECAUSE THE NEED FOR COP26 REVEALS THE UGLY TRUTH THAT ALL THE PREVIOUS COPS HAVE FAILED. AND INDEED THEY HAVE.

AND THE UK KNOWS THAT WELL. AND THEY HAVE CHOSEN THE RATIONAL OPTION AS IN “SINCE WE KNOW THAT COP CLIMATE ACTIONS DON’T WORK AND SINCE WE WANT TO PROTECT OUR CITIZENS, OUR CLIMATE CHANGE STRATEGY HAS TO BE ONE OF ADAPTATION.

BRAVO!!!!

ESSENTIALLY, ENGLAND HAS GIVEN THE FINGER TO THE UN AND ITS COPS.

OTHER GLORIOUS MOMENTS IN ENGLAND’S HISTORY

RELATED POST ON COPS: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/08/21/cop26-glasgow-2021/

POSTSCRIPT:

MEANWHILE IN SWEDEN,

Greta Thunberg wants climate action success at COP26. She wants world leaders to honestly admit that their action is not living up to their words.

COPs secure pledges from member countries

but COPs have no way of enforcing those pledges

so what do the pledges mean?

A crude translation of Greta’s observation about the COP program of the United Nations {in the blogger’s crude language} is that it is a fucking joke.

The decision by the UK to give up on COPs and focus on adaptation is consistent with this assessment of the COP program for global climate action and with the long history of 25 COPs consisting of 25 faiures and zero successes.

For reasons unknown and unfathomable, this charade continues with great aplomb and fanfare.

RELATED POST ON COPS: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/08/21/cop26-glasgow-2021/

LINK TO THE GRETA ARTICLE: https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/greta-seeks-honesty-from-world-leaders-at-cop-26-79666

RELATED POSTS:

LINK#1: THE GEOLOGY OF HAWAII: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/08/hawaiianhotspot/

LINK#2: GEOLOGICAL CARBON FLOWS#3: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/04/25/geological-carbon-flows-part-3/

LINK#3: GEOLOGICAL CARBON FLOWS#2: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/20/offshore-hydrocarbon-seeps/

LINK#4: GEOLOGIC AL CARBON FLOWS#1 https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/08/27/carbonflows/https://www.youtube.com/embed/hmMlspNoZMs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

THE CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE:

THIS POST IS A PRESENTATION OF SOURCES OF CARBON TRANSFERS FROM THE MANTLE TO THE SURFACE BY WAY OF SEEPAGE, HYDROTHERMAL VENTS, HYDROTHERMAL PLUMES, SUBMARINE VOLCANISM, AND ASSOCATED GEOLOGICAL ACTIVITY. THE CONTEXT OF THIS STUDY IS THE THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (AGW) WHERE FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS ARE ASSUMED TO BE THE SOLE SOURCE OF CARBON EXTERNAL TO THE CARBON CYCLE. A further argument in climate science for human cause is that the source of the carbon causing atmospheric CO2 to rise has to be fossil fuels because this carbon is devoid  of the 14C and 13C isotopes. It is noted that this argument does not exclude geological carbon because that carbon is also devoid of 13C and 14C isotopes. It is not possible to distinguish fossil fuel carbon from geological carbon. It is proposed therefore that natural flows of CO2 to the atmosphere that may have been missed or underestimated in climate science must be reconsidered, specifically the known carbon flows from the mantle to the atmosphere.

LINK: https://www.wired.com/story/a-huge-subterranean-tree-is-moving-magma-to-earths-surface/

PART-1: WHAT THE SOURCE DOCUMENT SAYS

A Huge Subterranean ‘Tree’ Is Moving Magma to Earth’s Surface
Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity.

Reunion, A French island in the western Indian Ocean, is like a marshmallow hovering above the business end of a blowtorch. It sits above one of Earth’s mantle plumes—a tower of superheated rock that ascends from the deep mantle and flambées the bases of tectonic plates, the jigsaw pieces that make up the ever-changing face of the world. The plume’s effects are hard to miss: One of the island’s two massive volcanoes, the aptly named Piton de la Fournaise, or “Peak of the Furnace,” is one of the most hyperactive volcanoes on the planet. But the plume’s modern-day punch is nothing compared to its past. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences. Around 65 million years ago, when the plume was under what is now India, a series of lava floods named the Deccan Traps smothered 1.5 million square kilometers of land—enough to bury Texas, California, and Montana—in a mere 700,000 years, a geologic heartbeat. A giant asteroid strike would be the coup de grâce for the dinosaurs, but the Deccan Traps have long muddled the picture of the climatic conditions the dinosaurs had to contend with. In 2012, a team of geophysicists and seismologists set out to map the plume, deploying a giant network of seismometers across the vast depths of the Indian Ocean seafloor. Nearly a decade later, the team has revealed that the mantle is stranger than expected. The team reported in June in Nature Geoscience that the plume isn’t a simple column. Instead, a titanic mantle plume “tree” rises from the fringes of the planet’s molten heart, with superheated branchlike structures appearing to grow diagonally out of it. As these branches approach the crust, they seem to sprout smaller, vertically rising branches—super hot plumes that underlie known volcanic hot spots at the surface. The discovery of this massive structure beneath Réunion nearly coincides with another recent discovery, reported in November, that found additional structures in the plumes under Africa. Taken together, the two findings represent a significant scientific advance: They suggest that plumes can be more idiosyncratic, and can have more elaborate backstories, than traditional models presumed. The Réunion tree’s root, which researchers already knew about from prior work, is likely a primordial object, perhaps almost as old as Earth itself. So it is possible this torrid tree has been growing its canopy of plumes for billions of years. Presuming that more branches continue to grow, scientists now have a window into Earth’s fiery future. “From looking at the core-mantle boundary, you can maybe predict where the oceans will open,” said study coauthor Karin Sigloch. Researchers can also forecast the land that will one day be obliterated. If the new models are accurate, a few tens of millions of years from now, you may not want to be in South Africa—or, perhaps, on planet Earth at all. Fountains of Fire: Back in the 1960s, when the theory of plate tectonics was rapidly gaining acceptance, certain geological features seemed to evade explanation. While the theory provided explanations for questions that had long puzzled scientists—where volcanoes appear, where land is born, where ocean basins are carved out, where ancient crust was annihilated—it couldn’t explain something like Hawai‘i. Plate tectonics predicts that the boundaries of tectonic plates—where two plates collide, slide over or under one another, grind side by side, or move apart—are where most of the planet’s geologic fireworks can be found. The so-called Ring of Fire, the horseshoe-shaped region that marks the fringes of the many plates surrounding the Pacific plate, is home to 75 percent of the world’s active volcanoes. The Hawai‘i–Emperor seamount chain is a series of mostly underwater volcanoes, many dormant, that stretch more than 6,000 kilometers across the Pacific Ocean.PHOTOGRAPH: NATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL DATA CENTER/USGS But despite being nowhere near a plate boundary, Hawai‘i is an archipelago of giant volcanoes. The active submarine volcano Lō‘ihi, off the southeastern shore of the island of Hawai‘i, is the youngest member of a warped chain of volcanoes 6,000 kilometers long, one that can be traced all the way to long-expired underwater volcanoes in the northwest Pacific. This phenomenon, known as intraplate volcanism, stood out as a geologic aberration. In 1963, the Canadian geophysicist John Tuzo Wilson suggested that volcanic chains like this are forged when a tectonic plate continuously drifts over a stationary hot spot in the mantle—the scorching rock that makes up 84 percent of Earth’s volume. This creates a sequence of volcanoes that erupt, grow, then die out as the plate migrates away from the magmatic fuel source. In 1971, the American geophysicist William Jason Morgan proposed that these hot spots were caused by plumes of particularly hot material rising from the lower mantle. Over the following decades, geophysicists concluded that plumes are around 200 degrees Celsius hotter than the ambient mantle. When plumes reach the base of tectonic plates, their heat melts their surroundings, making plenty of magma. The plumes also carry mantle material up from Earth’s depths. This material melts at the lower pressures found away from the core, feeding additional magma into the crust. The combined supply of hot magma neatly explains a great number of Earth’s intraplate volcanoes.

Chains of volcanoes, also known as hot spot tracks, are difficult to explain without invoking plumes. Hawai‘i is an oceanic example, but they can be found on land, too: The Yellowstone supervolcano is the youngest member of a hot spot track dating back at least 17 million years, one that poured 210,000 cubic kilometers of lava across the Pacific Northwest before blasting out a trail of giant volcanic cauldrons from Oregon to Wyoming—the undeniable scar tissue of an unrelenting mantle plume. Heat from a mantle plume powers thermal features such as this one in Yellowstone National Park. Chemical evidence also implies the existence of mantle plumes. There are two stable types of helium: helium-3 and helium-4. Helium-3 was trapped deep within Earth during its formation and is decidedly ancient. Several hot spot volcanoes, including Hawai‘i’s Kīlauea, erupt lavas with an abundance of the stuff. That, said Godfrey Fitton, a petrologist at the University of Edinburgh, suggests that these volcanoes are mining mantle matter from considerable depth—and a plume is a reasonable explanation. No eyes have ever directly seen a plume; they are inferred to exist. But researchers have gathered considerable evidence in their favor. Seismic waves have provided revelatory validation. They emanate from earthquakes that dive through Earth’s viscera before curving back toward the surface. As these waves travel, the geologic bodies they pass through alter their speed and trajectory. Seismometers pick up this information, and scientists use the data to try and work out what is hiding within that great abyss. Seismic waves move more slowly through hot rock, and study after study has shown that they often slow down through elongate structures that rise from the deep mantle and connect with volcanic hot spots at the surface. Seismologists have also discovered two giant blobs of material—one beneath Africa, the other below the Pacific—that sit astride the boundary between the mantle and the core. Deep-diving waves decelerate as they move through both giant blobs, suggesting that they are hot colossi, together covering about 30 percent of the entire core-mantle boundary. The duo have all manner of possible origin stories, ranging from a graveyard of defunct tectonic plate slabs to the dissected corpse of Theia, the protoplanet that collided with the infant Earth and manufactured the moon. With some exceptions—Yellowstone among them—Earth’s plumes seem rooted to one of those two giant blobs, said Saskia Goes, a geophysicist at Imperial College London. This suggests they play a role in most plumes’ origin stories. The Pu‘u‘ō‘ō eruption on Hawai‘i’s Kīlauea Volcano lasted 35 years. But seismology is not omniscient. Seismic waves can detect structures within the mantle, but they cannot reveal every characteristic of those structures. “You can slow down a seismic wave by heating a material up,” said Harriet Lau, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley. But a change in the rock’s mineral makeup can achieve the same effect. Scientists are forced to choose which option is more likely in each measurement they do. Seismology may be a hard science, but there is an art to it. Subcrustal structures are also equipped with camouflage. Seismic waves like to take the fast lane: They preferentially channel into colder, rigid rock. Plumes, being hot, are repulsive to seismic waves. Plumes are also thin, allowing most incoming seismic waves to dodge them with ease. The more seismic waves you have crossing through the same point in the plume, the more confident you can be that it exists. But “earthquakes don’t happen everywhere,” said Catherine Rychert, a geophysicist at the University of Southampton. And seismic stations are mostly on land, not on the seafloor, which means oceans have poor seismic coverage. “Theoretically, we know [plumes] have to exist,” said Lau. “But they’re just so hard to see seismically.” Consequently, seismic waves capture only slices of plumes, and their properties are often the subject of unresolvable debate. Ideally, scientists want to produce a plume image that stretches from its base to the planet’s surface. That would require a cornucopia of seismometers spread over a vast area, forming a huge aperture that could eat up as many seismic waves as possible and thereby see a sizable segment of the mantle—a seismic equivalent of a giant telescope. So, in 2012, scientists built one. The Tree and the Truth: That year, two vessels zigzagged across the western Indian Ocean, occasionally stopping to make a submarine seismometer walk the plank and sink to the seafloor. In total, 57 were thrown overboard, ultimately creating a 2,000-by-2,000-kilometer aperture. This vast array was augmented by 37 seismic stations positioned on Madagascar and various smaller islands. For 13 months between 2012 and 2013, that aperture was open. Its objective: to hunt down the Réunion plume, one of the most consequential fountains of fire to grace the planet in the past 100 million years. But as the team looked at the entire region, the data began to reveal a spectacular sight. The African giant blob, 2,900 kilometers below the surface, grows up from its middle to form a “trunk,” reaching a depth of 1,500 kilometers. The top of the trunk, dubbed the cusp, appears to grow thick branches of hot matter from its western and eastern extremities. These grow diagonally upward until they reach a depth of 1,000 to 800 kilometers; at this point, the tops of these branches sprout vertically rising thin branches. One of these thin branches reaches the underside of hyper-volcanic Réunion. Around 3,000 kilometers northwest, another diagonal branch stretches to East Africa, a region awash with volcanism and which prior seismic work has found to be home to one or perhaps two mantle plumes. But there was a problem: This structure was difficult to reconcile with the laws of thermodynamics. Plumes, being so hot and buoyant, rise quickly—at 10 times the speed of other mantle migrations, including the movement of plates. “The plumes are so quick. You don’t have time to tilt them” as they ascend, said Goes. Tsekhmistrenko, Sigloch, and company agree: Plumes rise straight up. The tree structure, then, is evidence for a more complex process going on in the mantle. Here’s how they think it works: The African blob—including the trunk and cusp—gets heated by the core. The eastern and western peripheries of the hot cusp, surrounded by a large proportion of relatively cooler ambient mantle material, are considerably buoyant. Eventually, an 800-kilometer blob pinches off from each end; both rise vertically for tens of millions of years. Eventually, they reach the shallow boundary between the dense lower mantle and the less dense upper mantle. There, they spread out laterally. Several tails sprout off the top of them and rise vertically, forming those narrow towers classically referred to as plumes. Maria Tsekhmistrenko and others wearing construction clothes Maria Tsekhmistrenko (right) and other technicians during the month-long cruise to deploy 57 seismometers on the Indian Ocean seafloor in October 2012. Meanwhile, as one of these two sub-blobs rises toward East Africa and one rises toward Réunion, the eastern and western extremities of the cusp—now closer to its middle—produce two new blobs, which also rise straight up. Since they leave later and are positioned to the lower right and lower left of the East African and Réunion blobs respectively, they resemble diagonal, interconnected branches. In reality, they are separate blobs, all rising vertically. Independent scientists have largely applauded the research. Classically, the problem with imaging plume structures in high resolution is a lack of seismic data. Not so this time, said Rychert, “because they had this amazing experiment in the Indian Ocean,” one that gorged itself on a smorgasbord of seismic waves. Combining the data from the giant array with additional seismic data sets proved instrumental, as it allowed the team to precisely resolve an entire swath of the mantle, from its greatest depths to its highest reaches. “In terms of the seismology, it is a step forward,” said Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, a geophysicist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “In that sense, I think it’s great.” The tree structure is “an intriguing observation,” said Fitton, and the team’s model of how it branches up from the core is “quite a clever idea.” But he cautions that their precise model for what’s going on in the mantle is just one of several possible interpretations of what is happening. “I think that’s a really cool idea,” said Rychert. “I don’t know if it’s the right idea, but it’s cool.” “Seismic tomography is a snapshot of today,” said Lithgow-Bertelloni. Taking snapshots of present-day structures and speculating on how they formed over millions of years, and how they will continue to evolve, is rife with uncertainty, she cautions.

The Cataclysms to Come
If the team’s theoretical model is correct, it bolsters two long-held trains of thought. The first, said Goes, is that Earth’s plumes are “not as simple as just making an upwelling in a box of syrup in a laboratory.” Nature is complex, and in oft-surprising ways. The second is that these giant blobs have played, and will continue to play, a pivotal role in the planet’s tumultuous history. Some scientists suspect that plumes from the African giant blob spent at least 120 million years tearing the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana into shards. As the plumes rose into its base, they heated it and weakened it; like moles making hills, they caused the land atop these plumes to dome upward, then slide downhill. Australia was unzipped from India and Antarctica, Madagascar from Africa, and the Seychelles microcontinent from India—an act of destruction that made the Indian Ocean. Should the plume or plumes beneath East Africa sustain their onslaught, they will contribute to the future disintegration of the African continent: specifically, the breakup of East Africa and the creation of a new microcontinent floating beside the world’s youngest ocean.

But that future tectonic divorce seems insignificant when you consider the catastrophe that may befall the continent’s southern tip. The team estimates that, in tens of millions of years, a blob of nightmarishly gargantuan proportions will pinch off from the central cusp and rise to meet what is now South Africa’s foundations. This, said Sigloch, would produce cataclysmic eruptions. The Deccan Traps were caused by what we would think of as a solitary mantle plume. This future mega-blob, though, would be capable of producing volcanism so prolific and extensive that the Deccan Traps would be a firecracker in comparison. Envisioning future volcanic apocalypses may be disquieting. But that is precisely why painting precise pictures of plumes matters: They are arbiters of life and death. And yet, for all the chaos they cause, they are a key part of the unceasing cycle of plate tectonics, one that erratically buries and erupts carbon and water and has, miraculously, resulted in a habitable planet with a breathable atmosphere and expansive oceans—a paradise made by abyssal behemoths. “Knowing how a planet manages to do this for billions of years to basically allow human existence is important,” said Rychert. It will be some time yet before the mantle’s monsters are thoroughly understood. Until that day arrives, scientists will keep sketching out the shape-shifting mantle, all the while listening to the many beasts stirring far below their feet. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

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