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  1. If we are to replace coal rapidly with gas someone has to step on the pedal to manage the global warming effect. Some geo engineering will be needed faster than we think.

    Indeed, if we replace coal with gas, the cooling provided by coal’s sulfur shield is lost. Other things being equal, a world that burns more natural gas and less coal will experience more near-term warming for the same amount of carbon dioxide.

    There could be a technical fix. Sulphur in the stratosphere, a natural result of volcanic eruptions, provides a lot more cooling per tonne than the coal-emitted sort. Deliberate emissions into the stratosphere (using, it should be stressed, a technology a little less disruptive than a volcano) might provide a cooling like that produced by coal without the ghastly side effects.

    But alas the world is neither scientifically nor politically ready to consider such geo-engineering.

    1. Coal is also not a renewable source of energy. They problem will continue unless we invent and increase the usages of renewable energy.

      I found an American independent organization who produces atmpospheric simulations that indicate TEPCO vastly under-reported radionuclide emissions from the Fukushima Plant.

      http://www.datapoke.org/blog/8/study-modeling-fukushima-npp-radioactive-contamination-dispersion-utilizing-chino-m-et-al-source-terms/

      http://www.datapoke.org/partmom/a=40

      I’ve suspected for some time that the publicly released emissions data had been manipulated – If the models are correct I suppose this re enforces my hunch. Is there anyone here that can help us explain the implications of this model?

      1. The implications is the source of information has an anti-nuke agenda. Models of complex systems like the environment are always incorrect.

        A simple example would be the mileage sticker on your car when you buy it. I can accurately measure my mileage when I buy gas. This does not suggest that EPA has an agenda other than providing a standard so that consumers can be informed.

        I would expect different models to get different results. Does not mean anyone is wrong.

        The purpose of models is to help predict exposure. Using a model to calculate how many horses got of the barn in hindsight is just stupid.

    2. I have to admit I’m wary of large scale geo-engineering schemes, given that the current models are still soft. Wholesale attempts to modify climate in this manner could well have unintended consequences far greater than the problems they are attempting to solve.

    3. One person’s fix is another person’s disaster. S02 in the atmosphere is nasty stuff for the Adirondack park in New York state, from the Acid rain. There are dead lakes and dying trees. There is simply no limestone to balance the acidity of the rain. Midwestern coal plants are the major source.

      The clear solution is Nuclear, not Geo-engineering. Geo-Engineering would also be based on the pretense that we can ever have climate models that make predictions past complex *chaotic* sets of interrelated variables and form definitive conclusions. Where chaos principles repealed?

      Somehow people need to understand that we need to do much more with much less, and to do that, we need to move to higher power and energy densities. The next step past combustion is huge, and scares people, but people need to be convinced that we need to move in that direction. How do we convince folks?

  2. I wonder if Russian spies are as active in Japan as they are in Germany, so that Gazprom can market the gas reserves of Sakhalin?

    1. You don’t need Russian spies. The fact is the Japanese government itself is using Fukushima Daiichi as a smoke screen to obscure the fact that the general level of preparedness for an event the size of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami was less than what it should have been. Invoking an on-going nuclear disaster keeps everyone’s attention focused on something else. By the time the press wakes up over there, the real disaster that was happening will be old news, and all the usual suspects will have bulletproof butt covers in place.

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