So much education! Very interesting. I was thinking about high school physics when we learned for every action there is an opposite or equal reaction or something like that. I found this article very informative. It would be a great read for the carbon capture pushers.
Let's see, if man-made CO2 is estimated to be only 3.225% out of the total of .04% in the atmosphere, with the other 96.775% naturally occurring, then only 3.225% of the .04% total, or 0.00129% is man-caused.
So CO2 alarmists think global warming is an existential threat, and that it's caused by too much CO2, and that if we could just control our 0.00129% of it, we could save the planet?!?!
And could we PLEASE all start with acknowledging that climate change is normal.
I keep asking the Chicken Littles; if man had never existed, how would today's climates be different? I insist on mathematical proofs, not hyperbole. I'm still waiting for a Chicken Little to even attempt an answer.
DAC is even stupider than CCS and that's pretty damn stupid. Pay far more $/ton of CO2 captured than it would cost to replace coal or gas with nuclear generation or $/ton of GHG emissions avoided.
And the ruling idiots refuse to use mother nature for what it really is good at which is fixing carbon out of the atmosphere, been doing it for a billion years, and instead do crazy shit like grow biomass to use as fuel in power plants, the whole full lifecycle efficiency is about 0.03%.
The sane way to do carbon capture is to grow forest, convert deserts to forest and grasslands, which is already happening naturally thanks to the increased CO2 in the atmosphere has increased plant growth rate and a higher CO2 level allows plants to withstand drought better and hence move into desert areas. Also harvest dead & decaying biomass and wildfire causing forest overgrowth and directly convert it into methanol fuel in mobile processing plants. A direct replacement for NG, LNG & Petroleum.
And even better, install floating Nuclear power plants in the deep ocean to pump nutrients up from the seafloor. Much of the World's oceans are deserted of life due to the lack of nutrients to allow the marine food web to flourish in those regions. Phytoplankton will grow, absorbing CO2 & sunlight which is the base of the web of life in the sea. Not only would it consume vast amounts of CO2 but cause a large increase in fish that we can harvest.
It's almost criminal not releasing all that fossil carbon into the atmosphere so that we can essentially take the dead plant life accumulated over eons and convert it into vast amounts of living biota, increasing the biodiversity and richness of the Earth's biosphere. A NO-BRAINER. Too bad our rulers have no brains or more accurately use what brains the do have to figure out ways to impoverish and subjugate us proletariat.
And all this effort to do what? Solve a non-problem!
Since when was CO2 a pollutant or the primary driver of so claimed climate change, aka formerly global warming?
Whilst I'm no scientist, unless I'm seriously mistaken, CO2 is a minuscule, invisible, colourless, tasteless, odourless atmospheric trace gas necessary for life on this planet. Without it we'd be dead!
Where is the empirical evidence proving it to be otherwise? In the absence of same, we're spinning our wheels on a road to no where. This whole scaremongering over CO2 is a charade & madness of the nth degree.
Thanks! However, promoting the CO2 scare has been very lucrative for some. Furthermore, Socialism, particularly as advocated by Chinese Communists has pushed for the West to unilaterally disarm during the past quarter century on the altar of the CO2 scare.
The West's disarmament includes both economic and military dimensions. OTOH, Chinese Communists burn massive amounts of coal and other forms of fossil energy with no sanctions while they sell massive quantities of wasteful and inefficient means of power generation including solar, wind, and batteries to the West.
This psychological operation includes persuading the West, most notably in Germany, to abandon safe, reliable, abundant, cost-effective, and non-polluting nuclear power to weaponize Russia's vast supplies of natural gas. I remain optimistic that this set of nonsensical policies can be discarded before it is too late.
I couldn't agree with you more Gene. Especially when it comes to that key word 'policies'!
Whilst I'm Australian based, it's my firm view that our respective countries (the USA & Australia) simply need a sensible Energy Policy in place.
In the absence of empirical evidence proving the case against CO2 (there isn't any), how about adoption of a sensible Energy Policy that's fair to all (including the unreliables of wind & solar-PV's), is market driven & works from the consumers interests back, NOT from the energy industry’s interests forward that;
• Is Technology agnostic;
• Removes current anti-competitive subsidies favouring the unreliables;
• Requires industry to comply with clearly defined QOS (Quality of Service) standards of reliability & availability (i.e.; 99.98% reliability as per current AEMO specs in Australia);
• Invites industry to commit by way of auction (a week or a month in advance of the offered opportunity) to provide reliable 24/7, base load power at their best competitive price(s);
• Imposes SUBSTANTIAL financial penalties upon power generators for failure to deliver in accord with their mandatory QOS obligations (Force Majeure notwithstanding eg earth quakes, floods, bushfires, tornados etc);
• Requires a substantial bond to restore the environment (i.e. recycle aged solar-PV’s & wind turbine blades etc as is already commonplace in the coal mining industry);
• Repeals anti-competitive CO2 legislation (i.e., in Australia that would be the Safeguard Mechanism, LRET, RET etc, in the USA probably something similar, but under a different name).
Thus, let market forces prevail on a level playing field.
Doubtless, some Eco-enthusiasts will invest in their perceived market opportunities associated with the unreliables plus ‘firming’ (i.e., back-up by way of batteries etc, but at their cost) to meet mandatory QOS reliability obligations.
Whereas others might be just a titch more circumspect (like me), investing in proven, reliable, base-load (fossil) technology.
Longer term, in nuclear, assuming the current legislative ban in Australia is repealed & nuclear is (of course) cost competitive Vs competing technologies, not least fossil fuel technology.
Power reliability is important. Your proposed standard of 99.98% still implies an average of 17.28 seconds per hour of unavailability. I believe that modern society requires even better reliability than 99.98%. I suggest 99.99% reliability as a better standard. Regulators should penalize generators failing to meet this standard.
Furthermore, there are negative externalities such air and water pollution of coal-fired generation causing disease and premature deaths that should be included in the accounting. See this 2022 accounting showing significant premature deaths from fossil fuels:
Finally, the production of synchronous grid inertia (SGI,) which stabilizes the grid should receive economic benefits. For an introductions see: "Why is Grid Inertia Important?
Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs." March 4, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important Nuclear power plants typically produce the greatest amount of SGI. When all these factors are included, nuclear power is the undisputed champion.
Now you can see why IPCC and others like to report emissions in tons, it gives them big scary numbers
BUT
Capturing 7,800 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, only removes 1 ppm!
How much will we/they have to capture to reduce the total atmospheric concentration down from the current level of 422 ppm to say 399 ppm? Yes 23 times as much, now that's a scary number.
AND
As 7,800 million tons is ~3,900 billion Cubic metres, just a tad less than global production of 4,059 BCM in 2023
Ask yourself how many injection wells will be needed?
How long will it take to do this, while we are busy capturing the 2.5 ppm annual increase recorded at Mauna Loa?
And how much cooler will the planet be if you are successful?
Numbers don't lie and you nailed it! A very useful illustration.
Imagine if we were able to remove let's say 25-50 % or some other significant fraction of CO2 from the air…I surmise that the other sinks (land, ocean) would backfill the deficit in some period of time.
I missed out 'and cost' after 'How long will it take ....-
There is also the discussion to be had about the other inconvenient fact that half of human emissions appear to be sequestrated from the atmosphere by the biosphere and oceans so to reduce atmospheric concentrations by 1ppm you would need to capture 2 ppm of emissions. Capturing from the air is in theory a better way to go ....
Now you can see why IPCC and others like to report emissions in tons, it gives them big scary numbers
BUT
Capturing 7,800 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, only removes 1 ppm!
How much will we/they have to capture to reduce the total atmospheric concentration down from the current level of 422 ppm to say 399 ppm? Yes 23 times as much, now that's a scary number.
AND
As 7,800 million tons is ~3,900 billion Cubic metres, just a tad less than global production of 4,059 BCM in 2023
Ask yourself how many injection wells will be needed?
How long will it take to do this, while we are busy capturing the 2.5 ppm annual increase recorded at Mauna Loa?
And how much cooler will the planet be if you are successful?
Numbers don't lie, and that is the one blue balloon amongst the 3 red balloons.
We also suggest that ocean and land are massive sinks of CO2 in some kind of equilibrium or exchange with the atmosphere. The true anthropogenic contribution is difficult to trace and poorly understood in reality.
Sneak preview, Pt. 2 : oil and gas industry are the primary consumers of captured or air distilled CO2.
It's been my argument for quite some time that, given the massive amount of natural emissions (really only somewhat understood in the last two decades), natural sequestration must be operating one or two orders of magnitude faster than the alarmists said back in the 90s. That puts the half life in atmosphere of our piddling contribution between 2-30 years, not hundreds. Time to find a new excuse for the observed increase.
I don't know... Oceans warming up because the Little Ice Age ended perhaps?
For the past few decades Willie Soon et. al. has been investigating the variability of the solar constant. Given that in about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant. The solar constant has been increasing since the Sun became a star. Heliophysical measurements show there are also long-period cycles, some over 1,000 years in length that affect the energy output of the Sun. There have been concerted attempts by global warming alarmists to marginalize Willie Soon.
I have never understood why the climate hysterics don't recognize the sun as the major source of warmth on the planet and its interaction with the earth, whether through changes in albedo or solar cycles are going to be the main drivers of any changes in climate. a few diesel engines don't seem like they are going to matter. after all, how many diesel engines were around when the last ice age ended and the earth warmed substantially, 6 degrees is what I believe I read.
Clearly, global warming alarmists don't want us to exercise critical thinking skills. I believe the main purpose of the hysteria is to convince the West to unilaterally disarm. The first Western nation to unilaterally disarm was Germany. During the past quarter of a century, Germany was convinced to shut down its safe, reliable, abundant, cost-effective and non-polluting nuclear power fleet. Nuclear power does not create air pollution, but German nuclear was still targeted by Socialists, likely to disarm Germany. See: "Protesting California's Ongoing Nuclear to Coal Transition - Part 2 - German deindustrialization follows slashing safe, reliable, cost-effective and zero-pollution nuclear power generation," November 12, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/protesting-californias-ongoing-nuclear-4fa
Hello Evan, comment appreciated, glad you stopped by.
Per your points, the ocean and land are massive sinks of CO2 in some kind of equilibrium or exchange with the atmosphere. The true anthropogenic contribution is difficult to trace and poorly understood in reality.
The internals of atmospheric heat transfer are the climate! The radiation-in versus the radiation-out do not matter. What does matters is the transport of energy within the climate system and the time it takes to reach space. Put another way, it is the residence time of the energy in the climate system and how much of the energy is used for work, e.g. the weather.
There is no law of the conservation of radiation, as Schwarzschild so eloquently described in 1906:
There is a rough balance in radiation-in and radiation-out, but it doesn’t matter. The change in the heat storage in the climate system with time is the important factor in our weather and thus the climate. All this talk about Earth’s energy imbalance is silly and irrelevant as far as climate change is concerned. What matters is energy transport in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere and how it changes with time and the work that is carried out
Which leads to the accumulation of coal seams, limestones and oil source rocks all o f which have taken energy to create work within the climate system and storage of energy in the system which varies at all time scales, storage in the atmosphere might only last days, storage in the mixed layer is on the order of weeks, storage in the deep ocean is millennia, storage in plants, years to millions of years; rocks, millions of years, some of which is subducted and gone almost forever ....
The main point is the climate systems energy storage and its variability matters, and should not be ignored. Our measurements of solar energy in and IR out are extremely poor. As Loeb, et al., 2018 explain, the measured net energy imbalance is about 4.3 W/m2 from CERES, which is too large, so everyone assumes it is between .5 and 1 and forgets that is an assumed and unmeasured value. We can get a little closer using assumed values of Ocean Heat Content, but still the value is assumed.
The dirty little secret is that it really doesn’t matter vis-à-vis climate. Climate is a function of heat movement and storage in the system, not the in and out. The in and out might partially determine the global average surface temperature, but that is an extremely minor component of the overall climate in any given region.
However, variations over time of the solar energy input, aka the solar "constant," currently about a kilowatt per square meter at the equator also play a role as Ronan Connolly , Willie Soon et. al. note in this 2021 review paper, "How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate" Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Vol. 21 No. 6, 131 (68 pp.) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131/pdf
Abstract: In order to evaluate how much Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has influenced Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends, it is important to have reliable estimates of both quantities. Sixteen different estimates of the changes in TSI since at least the 19th century were compiled from the literature. Half of these estimates are “low variability” and half are “high variability”......
We have two extremes; forgive me if I have put this out previously
1: The world’s atmospheric CO2 would be the same as it is today, IF there had been NO emissions
2: Today’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations are ENTIRELY due to human emissions
And that is just on our side of the hill!
Pays no attention to what the increase in CO2 does or does not do, to the climate! Mostly agree that extra CO2 is ‘mostly’ beneficial and we could do with more of it!
1: Throughout geological time, changes in atmospheric CO2 have always followed or ignored changes in temperature, so there is no possible justification for spending a penny more on CCS (or on net zero).
2: The only proven effect of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the LIA, has been the increase in global greening, of crop and vegetation productivity, so reducing it would be madness.
Thanks, and perhaps you could address the strangeness of the Grifters? Obviously a proliferation of PhDs but which seem not to have brought much in the way of Nous/Nouse? Or is it just about grants?
Cost benefit analysis shows Carbon Capture and Storage/sequestration (CCS) is prohibitively expensive due to the massive scale required to be effective.
It takes 7,800 million tons (Mt) of CO2 emissions to add just 1 ppme into the atmosphere,
BUT
approximately one half of this is amount is sequestrated naturally by the biosphere and oceans.
SO
To remove 1 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere requires capture and sequestration of 15,600 Mt of CO2 emissions OR the capture and sequestration of 7,800 Mt of CO2 already in the atmosphere, every year.
SO
To reduce the atmospheric concentration of CO2 from the present level of 422 ppm to say 395 ppm, would require CCS of 23 times as much CO2, a truly frighteningly large number and utterly unachievable as world’s largest CCS project on Barrow Island in WA only captures 5Mt per year.
IN ADDITION
7,800 Mt of CO2 is ~3,900 Billion Cubic Metres (BCM), just a tad less than the 4,059 BCM of natural gas produced globally in 2023.
How many wells would have to be drilled to enable just 1 ppm of global emissions to be captured, collected, transported, compressed and injected into the subsurface? How many pipelines would be needed? Far too many to ever be commercially attractive, even with subsidies.
AND
How much cooler would the planet be if just 1 ppm were captured – assuming CO2 causes warming, which it does not?
FINALLY, for the moment,
Any removal of CO2 from the atmosphere or oceans would trigger release of replacement quantities - completely futile
Thank you for your analysis, Howard. In our sequel to this article, we will attempt to grapple with the massive expenditures needed for this pointless exercise. I suggest the title should include the phrase, "Green Grift."
Any removal of CO2 from the atmosphere will stimulate he oceans to replace the removed quantities, just as the removal of CO2 from the oceans will stimulate the atmosphere to replace the removed quantities?
The carbon cycle is quite complex with the CO2 exchange and quasi-equilibria in terms of the ocean CO2 solubility and carbonic acid /carbonate formation/ speciation and precipitation. Gigatons of carbonates precipitate every year into the abyss.
In other words, the oceans at 75 % of the earth's surface area are a dominant force, notwithstanding plankton uptake.
So much education! Very interesting. I was thinking about high school physics when we learned for every action there is an opposite or equal reaction or something like that. I found this article very informative. It would be a great read for the carbon capture pushers.
Thanks for your support Dave. We appreciate that and restacks. We are paywall free all the time.
Thank you. The world will thank you too.
Love the graphic. Where did you find it?
Let's see, if man-made CO2 is estimated to be only 3.225% out of the total of .04% in the atmosphere, with the other 96.775% naturally occurring, then only 3.225% of the .04% total, or 0.00129% is man-caused.
So CO2 alarmists think global warming is an existential threat, and that it's caused by too much CO2, and that if we could just control our 0.00129% of it, we could save the planet?!?!
Hello Al, thanks for being a loyal reader!
I fished out the graphic from the interwebs because of the flea on the elephant look.
And yes, the fraction of the fraction is a great point.
you will like this classic that illustrates the same concept:
World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018)
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/08/fresh-science-challenges-unproven-claims-that-human-caused-carbon-dioxide-controls-climate/
https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/abstract/2022/02000/world_atmospheric_co2,_its_14c_specific_activity,.2.aspx
And could we PLEASE all start with acknowledging that climate change is normal.
I keep asking the Chicken Littles; if man had never existed, how would today's climates be different? I insist on mathematical proofs, not hyperbole. I'm still waiting for a Chicken Little to even attempt an answer.
DAC is even stupider than CCS and that's pretty damn stupid. Pay far more $/ton of CO2 captured than it would cost to replace coal or gas with nuclear generation or $/ton of GHG emissions avoided.
And the ruling idiots refuse to use mother nature for what it really is good at which is fixing carbon out of the atmosphere, been doing it for a billion years, and instead do crazy shit like grow biomass to use as fuel in power plants, the whole full lifecycle efficiency is about 0.03%.
The sane way to do carbon capture is to grow forest, convert deserts to forest and grasslands, which is already happening naturally thanks to the increased CO2 in the atmosphere has increased plant growth rate and a higher CO2 level allows plants to withstand drought better and hence move into desert areas. Also harvest dead & decaying biomass and wildfire causing forest overgrowth and directly convert it into methanol fuel in mobile processing plants. A direct replacement for NG, LNG & Petroleum.
And even better, install floating Nuclear power plants in the deep ocean to pump nutrients up from the seafloor. Much of the World's oceans are deserted of life due to the lack of nutrients to allow the marine food web to flourish in those regions. Phytoplankton will grow, absorbing CO2 & sunlight which is the base of the web of life in the sea. Not only would it consume vast amounts of CO2 but cause a large increase in fish that we can harvest.
It's almost criminal not releasing all that fossil carbon into the atmosphere so that we can essentially take the dead plant life accumulated over eons and convert it into vast amounts of living biota, increasing the biodiversity and richness of the Earth's biosphere. A NO-BRAINER. Too bad our rulers have no brains or more accurately use what brains the do have to figure out ways to impoverish and subjugate us proletariat.
And all this effort to do what? Solve a non-problem!
Since when was CO2 a pollutant or the primary driver of so claimed climate change, aka formerly global warming?
Whilst I'm no scientist, unless I'm seriously mistaken, CO2 is a minuscule, invisible, colourless, tasteless, odourless atmospheric trace gas necessary for life on this planet. Without it we'd be dead!
Where is the empirical evidence proving it to be otherwise? In the absence of same, we're spinning our wheels on a road to no where. This whole scaremongering over CO2 is a charade & madness of the nth degree.
Thanks! However, promoting the CO2 scare has been very lucrative for some. Furthermore, Socialism, particularly as advocated by Chinese Communists has pushed for the West to unilaterally disarm during the past quarter century on the altar of the CO2 scare.
The West's disarmament includes both economic and military dimensions. OTOH, Chinese Communists burn massive amounts of coal and other forms of fossil energy with no sanctions while they sell massive quantities of wasteful and inefficient means of power generation including solar, wind, and batteries to the West.
This psychological operation includes persuading the West, most notably in Germany, to abandon safe, reliable, abundant, cost-effective, and non-polluting nuclear power to weaponize Russia's vast supplies of natural gas. I remain optimistic that this set of nonsensical policies can be discarded before it is too late.
I couldn't agree with you more Gene. Especially when it comes to that key word 'policies'!
Whilst I'm Australian based, it's my firm view that our respective countries (the USA & Australia) simply need a sensible Energy Policy in place.
In the absence of empirical evidence proving the case against CO2 (there isn't any), how about adoption of a sensible Energy Policy that's fair to all (including the unreliables of wind & solar-PV's), is market driven & works from the consumers interests back, NOT from the energy industry’s interests forward that;
• Is Technology agnostic;
• Removes current anti-competitive subsidies favouring the unreliables;
• Requires industry to comply with clearly defined QOS (Quality of Service) standards of reliability & availability (i.e.; 99.98% reliability as per current AEMO specs in Australia);
• Invites industry to commit by way of auction (a week or a month in advance of the offered opportunity) to provide reliable 24/7, base load power at their best competitive price(s);
• Imposes SUBSTANTIAL financial penalties upon power generators for failure to deliver in accord with their mandatory QOS obligations (Force Majeure notwithstanding eg earth quakes, floods, bushfires, tornados etc);
• Requires a substantial bond to restore the environment (i.e. recycle aged solar-PV’s & wind turbine blades etc as is already commonplace in the coal mining industry);
• Repeals anti-competitive CO2 legislation (i.e., in Australia that would be the Safeguard Mechanism, LRET, RET etc, in the USA probably something similar, but under a different name).
Thus, let market forces prevail on a level playing field.
Doubtless, some Eco-enthusiasts will invest in their perceived market opportunities associated with the unreliables plus ‘firming’ (i.e., back-up by way of batteries etc, but at their cost) to meet mandatory QOS reliability obligations.
Whereas others might be just a titch more circumspect (like me), investing in proven, reliable, base-load (fossil) technology.
Longer term, in nuclear, assuming the current legislative ban in Australia is repealed & nuclear is (of course) cost competitive Vs competing technologies, not least fossil fuel technology.
Easy.
Power reliability is important. Your proposed standard of 99.98% still implies an average of 17.28 seconds per hour of unavailability. I believe that modern society requires even better reliability than 99.98%. I suggest 99.99% reliability as a better standard. Regulators should penalize generators failing to meet this standard.
Furthermore, there are negative externalities such air and water pollution of coal-fired generation causing disease and premature deaths that should be included in the accounting. See this 2022 accounting showing significant premature deaths from fossil fuels:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/
Finally, the production of synchronous grid inertia (SGI,) which stabilizes the grid should receive economic benefits. For an introductions see: "Why is Grid Inertia Important?
Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs." March 4, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important Nuclear power plants typically produce the greatest amount of SGI. When all these factors are included, nuclear power is the undisputed champion.
Thank You for your common sense comment Jim.
Part 2 mini-spoiler: 80 % of captured CO2 is used by the oil and gas industry in the enhanced recovery of oil and gas.
Stay in touch.
TC
Now you can see why IPCC and others like to report emissions in tons, it gives them big scary numbers
BUT
Capturing 7,800 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, only removes 1 ppm!
How much will we/they have to capture to reduce the total atmospheric concentration down from the current level of 422 ppm to say 399 ppm? Yes 23 times as much, now that's a scary number.
AND
As 7,800 million tons is ~3,900 billion Cubic metres, just a tad less than global production of 4,059 BCM in 2023
Ask yourself how many injection wells will be needed?
How long will it take to do this, while we are busy capturing the 2.5 ppm annual increase recorded at Mauna Loa?
And how much cooler will the planet be if you are successful?
Numbers don't lie and you nailed it! A very useful illustration.
Imagine if we were able to remove let's say 25-50 % or some other significant fraction of CO2 from the air…I surmise that the other sinks (land, ocean) would backfill the deficit in some period of time.
More explanations and optimism at https://hargraves.substack.com/p/seafuel-914
There is always a lot to take in and unpack in Tuco's Child substacks. Makes for re-reading over and over!
JF, you are the best. We try and reach a balance of ideas and details before glaze over, lol.
I missed out 'and cost' after 'How long will it take ....-
There is also the discussion to be had about the other inconvenient fact that half of human emissions appear to be sequestrated from the atmosphere by the biosphere and oceans so to reduce atmospheric concentrations by 1ppm you would need to capture 2 ppm of emissions. Capturing from the air is in theory a better way to go ....
In theory. But why? Seems like more CO2 has been amazingly beneficial in practice.
Indeed Evan!
I recently learned that CO2 via tanks and via CO2 generators (engines) is big business for growing crops and ornamentals in agricultural greenhouses.
😎
TC, please include the above information in an upcoming Substack.
Yep. The pot growers love it!
Now you can see why IPCC and others like to report emissions in tons, it gives them big scary numbers
BUT
Capturing 7,800 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, only removes 1 ppm!
How much will we/they have to capture to reduce the total atmospheric concentration down from the current level of 422 ppm to say 399 ppm? Yes 23 times as much, now that's a scary number.
AND
As 7,800 million tons is ~3,900 billion Cubic metres, just a tad less than global production of 4,059 BCM in 2023
Ask yourself how many injection wells will be needed?
How long will it take to do this, while we are busy capturing the 2.5 ppm annual increase recorded at Mauna Loa?
And how much cooler will the planet be if you are successful?
Numbers don't lie, and that is the one blue balloon amongst the 3 red balloons.
We also suggest that ocean and land are massive sinks of CO2 in some kind of equilibrium or exchange with the atmosphere. The true anthropogenic contribution is difficult to trace and poorly understood in reality.
Sneak preview, Pt. 2 : oil and gas industry are the primary consumers of captured or air distilled CO2.
TC
It's been my argument for quite some time that, given the massive amount of natural emissions (really only somewhat understood in the last two decades), natural sequestration must be operating one or two orders of magnitude faster than the alarmists said back in the 90s. That puts the half life in atmosphere of our piddling contribution between 2-30 years, not hundreds. Time to find a new excuse for the observed increase.
I don't know... Oceans warming up because the Little Ice Age ended perhaps?
For the past few decades Willie Soon et. al. has been investigating the variability of the solar constant. Given that in about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant. The solar constant has been increasing since the Sun became a star. Heliophysical measurements show there are also long-period cycles, some over 1,000 years in length that affect the energy output of the Sun. There have been concerted attempts by global warming alarmists to marginalize Willie Soon.
I have never understood why the climate hysterics don't recognize the sun as the major source of warmth on the planet and its interaction with the earth, whether through changes in albedo or solar cycles are going to be the main drivers of any changes in climate. a few diesel engines don't seem like they are going to matter. after all, how many diesel engines were around when the last ice age ended and the earth warmed substantially, 6 degrees is what I believe I read.
Clearly, global warming alarmists don't want us to exercise critical thinking skills. I believe the main purpose of the hysteria is to convince the West to unilaterally disarm. The first Western nation to unilaterally disarm was Germany. During the past quarter of a century, Germany was convinced to shut down its safe, reliable, abundant, cost-effective and non-polluting nuclear power fleet. Nuclear power does not create air pollution, but German nuclear was still targeted by Socialists, likely to disarm Germany. See: "Protesting California's Ongoing Nuclear to Coal Transition - Part 2 - German deindustrialization follows slashing safe, reliable, cost-effective and zero-pollution nuclear power generation," November 12, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/protesting-californias-ongoing-nuclear-4fa
Exactly Andy, well said.
I recently saw data showing that cloud albedo has been decreasing somewhat over the last 10 years in a normal behavior.
This means that more heat from the sun is reaching the earth's surface and warming us a bit. This factor alone would swamp out so called CO2 warming.
We appreciate your comments and participation here.
TC
Hello Evan, comment appreciated, glad you stopped by.
Per your points, the ocean and land are massive sinks of CO2 in some kind of equilibrium or exchange with the atmosphere. The true anthropogenic contribution is difficult to trace and poorly understood in reality.
from a colleague, an idea to reckon with:
The internals of atmospheric heat transfer are the climate! The radiation-in versus the radiation-out do not matter. What does matters is the transport of energy within the climate system and the time it takes to reach space. Put another way, it is the residence time of the energy in the climate system and how much of the energy is used for work, e.g. the weather.
There is no law of the conservation of radiation, as Schwarzschild so eloquently described in 1906:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2025/02/15/schwarzschild-about-the-equilibrium-of-the-solar-atmosphere/
There is a rough balance in radiation-in and radiation-out, but it doesn’t matter. The change in the heat storage in the climate system with time is the important factor in our weather and thus the climate. All this talk about Earth’s energy imbalance is silly and irrelevant as far as climate change is concerned. What matters is energy transport in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere and how it changes with time and the work that is carried out
Which leads to the accumulation of coal seams, limestones and oil source rocks all o f which have taken energy to create work within the climate system and storage of energy in the system which varies at all time scales, storage in the atmosphere might only last days, storage in the mixed layer is on the order of weeks, storage in the deep ocean is millennia, storage in plants, years to millions of years; rocks, millions of years, some of which is subducted and gone almost forever ....
The main point is the climate systems energy storage and its variability matters, and should not be ignored. Our measurements of solar energy in and IR out are extremely poor. As Loeb, et al., 2018 explain, the measured net energy imbalance is about 4.3 W/m2 from CERES, which is too large, so everyone assumes it is between .5 and 1 and forgets that is an assumed and unmeasured value. We can get a little closer using assumed values of Ocean Heat Content, but still the value is assumed.
The dirty little secret is that it really doesn’t matter vis-à-vis climate. Climate is a function of heat movement and storage in the system, not the in and out. The in and out might partially determine the global average surface temperature, but that is an extremely minor component of the overall climate in any given region.
What say you to this small broadside?
Thank you. It's food for thought.
However, variations over time of the solar energy input, aka the solar "constant," currently about a kilowatt per square meter at the equator also play a role as Ronan Connolly , Willie Soon et. al. note in this 2021 review paper, "How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate" Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Vol. 21 No. 6, 131 (68 pp.) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131/pdf
Abstract: In order to evaluate how much Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has influenced Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends, it is important to have reliable estimates of both quantities. Sixteen different estimates of the changes in TSI since at least the 19th century were compiled from the literature. Half of these estimates are “low variability” and half are “high variability”......
We have two extremes; forgive me if I have put this out previously
1: The world’s atmospheric CO2 would be the same as it is today, IF there had been NO emissions
2: Today’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations are ENTIRELY due to human emissions
And that is just on our side of the hill!
Pays no attention to what the increase in CO2 does or does not do, to the climate! Mostly agree that extra CO2 is ‘mostly’ beneficial and we could do with more of it!
1: Throughout geological time, changes in atmospheric CO2 have always followed or ignored changes in temperature, so there is no possible justification for spending a penny more on CCS (or on net zero).
2: The only proven effect of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the LIA, has been the increase in global greening, of crop and vegetation productivity, so reducing it would be madness.
Good points, Howard.
Thanks, and perhaps you could address the strangeness of the Grifters? Obviously a proliferation of PhDs but which seem not to have brought much in the way of Nous/Nouse? Or is it just about grants?
My preferred explanation is the advice of Deep Throat, "Follow the Money!"
Cost benefit analysis shows Carbon Capture and Storage/sequestration (CCS) is prohibitively expensive due to the massive scale required to be effective.
It takes 7,800 million tons (Mt) of CO2 emissions to add just 1 ppme into the atmosphere,
BUT
approximately one half of this is amount is sequestrated naturally by the biosphere and oceans.
SO
To remove 1 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere requires capture and sequestration of 15,600 Mt of CO2 emissions OR the capture and sequestration of 7,800 Mt of CO2 already in the atmosphere, every year.
SO
To reduce the atmospheric concentration of CO2 from the present level of 422 ppm to say 395 ppm, would require CCS of 23 times as much CO2, a truly frighteningly large number and utterly unachievable as world’s largest CCS project on Barrow Island in WA only captures 5Mt per year.
IN ADDITION
7,800 Mt of CO2 is ~3,900 Billion Cubic Metres (BCM), just a tad less than the 4,059 BCM of natural gas produced globally in 2023.
How many wells would have to be drilled to enable just 1 ppm of global emissions to be captured, collected, transported, compressed and injected into the subsurface? How many pipelines would be needed? Far too many to ever be commercially attractive, even with subsidies.
AND
How much cooler would the planet be if just 1 ppm were captured – assuming CO2 causes warming, which it does not?
FINALLY, for the moment,
Any removal of CO2 from the atmosphere or oceans would trigger release of replacement quantities - completely futile
I believe we have found a new collaborator. Thank you for taking your time and that excellent 👌 response Howard.
Happy to help but happier to find a way to attract people who need to listen but who don’t
Howard, stop by here and read Mr. Dale's comments. Maybe you can contribute?
https://tucoschild.substack.com/p/we-are-exiting-an-ice-age-global?r=2mh23j
Thank you for your analysis, Howard. In our sequel to this article, we will attempt to grapple with the massive expenditures needed for this pointless exercise. I suggest the title should include the phrase, "Green Grift."
Any removal of CO2 from the atmosphere will stimulate he oceans to replace the removed quantities, just as the removal of CO2 from the oceans will stimulate the atmosphere to replace the removed quantities?
Talking like a common sense chemist 🧪, I relate.
The carbon cycle is quite complex with the CO2 exchange and quasi-equilibria in terms of the ocean CO2 solubility and carbonic acid /carbonate formation/ speciation and precipitation. Gigatons of carbonates precipitate every year into the abyss.
In other words, the oceans at 75 % of the earth's surface area are a dominant force, notwithstanding plankton uptake.
Yes. You have stated Le Chatlier's Principle from physical chemistry.