Better power lines, dammit!

Steam pollution

The Times' Matthew Wald finds that warming rivers may hamper the water cooling on which all steam-generating reactors depend:

 Using computer projections of climate change possible outcomes, the researchers wrote that generating capacity in the United States could fall 4.4 to 16 percent on hot days from 2031 to 2060. And the number of days when river water is at a temperature that is now considered extremely high will be triple the number today, on average, they said.

But here's the spit-take moment:

It found that in addition to making electricity harder to generate, warm weather would make peaks in electricity demand even higher. That would raise costs, it said, because utilities might need more generating stations that would run for only a few hours a year, during the peak summer demand periods.

It also pointed out that if rainfall patterns changed, hydroelectric dams would be less productive.

The solutions to this problem are not obvious. Wind generation might not help much, because the wind usually does not blow much in hot weather. Solar photovoltaic cells could help, but they do not generate much in the last hour before sunset, and not at all after that. That is the period in which many utilities experience peak demand, as people return home from work and turn on air-conditioners, television sets and ovens.

Mr. Wald is talking about the energy of the future -- two to four decades out, no less! -- but assuming we will still be saddled with the same inefficient power grid in which -- due to technology, local energy monopolies, and a Balkanized regulatory environment -- power is mostly generated and consumed within a couple hundred mile radius.

Make it easy to exchange power over a few thousand miles, practical with the current lines, or even further, with HVDC upgrades, and you do have an easy solution to peak demand at sunset -- get the power from somewhere it's not sunset. Spread your turbines over a wider area so that torpid spells idle only a fraction of them. Build your nuclear plants in cooler climes and send the power southward (or northward, as the case may be.) And so on.

Seems like a pretty obvious solution to me -- and one that happens to involve opening up local monopolies to competition and simplifying and streamlining local regulations. Seems like Heartland would want to get right on that. Perhaps they're a bit preoccupied.

Heartland apologizes to donors for sunlight

From an email to Heartland donors in the wake of Heartlandgate:

I Apologize

I am very sorry that the identities of some of our donors were revealed by this theft. I apologize to them, from the bottom of my heart.

We are calling everyone who was named in these documents to give them the bad news and offer whatever assistance we can to repair the damage.

We promise anonymity to many of our donors because nobody wants the risk of nutty environmentalists or Occupy Wall Street goons harassing them. We know that privacy is important to you.

Literally the first Google Image for "Occupy Wall Street goon." Terrifying.

 

What on earth is Criag Idso doing for Heartland's $11,600 a month?

Making Dad proud

From the annals of corruption:

Funding for selected individuals outside of Heartland. 

Our current budget includes funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message. At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found.

This is all the more disturbing because I am not entirely sure who Craig Idso is. And yet he's pulling down six figures courtesy of the denialosphere? I am wasting my life.

As to who this guy is:

Craig D. Idso is Chairman, founder and former President of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a contrarian Arizona-based group funded in part by ExxonMobil. He is the son of its president, Sherwood B. Idso^[1], and the brother of its vice president, Keith E. Idso.^[2]

 Thus Sourcewatch, raising more questions than they answer. How many denialist think tanks are running on the mom-and-pop family business model, where the kids go off to college to secure their degrees in Agronomy and Geography before taking up the mantle of pretending to be a scientist? Is the Idso clan grooming the grandkids? When in 2030 the Arctic flips over into an ice-free state, are we going to be subjected to the analysis of William Howell Keith Idso the Third, on the strength of his degrees in Sports Marketing and Biblical Anthropology?

Maybe we'll get lucky and young William will be the black sheep of the family. "I'm leaving all this behind, Dad, and when you see me again, I'm going to have a degree in atmospheric physics!" "No son of mine!" "You can't stop me!" "Two weeks on a grad student stipend grading papers and you'll come crawling back!" "You can change the biometric security settings for the Compound, because I'm never coming back!"

Alternately, the rebellious young William could chose a career as a male escort, which would be more of a lateral move.



 

Peter Gleick tricks Heartland scum, feels bad about it.

Peter Gleick turns out to be the clever prankster that coaxed Heartland's professional liars into sending him the inside scoop on their charity-status-abusing, million-dollar-donor approach to manipulating the public.

He apparently regrets his trickery. Bloggers pronounce themselves outraged.

Maybe I'm missing the big story here. Gleick fibbed and took advantage of the gullibility of the Heartland extremists to uncover their criminal use of charitable funds for political ends. These are people funneling millions of dollars from right-wing whales into a well-oiled propaganda machine that pays for fake science and fake scientists, a la Bob Carter. He gave them a fake name? Meh.