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Submission + - IPCC WG2 report now out (realclimate.org)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The report from Working Group II of the IPCC is out now and is getting headlines like: Worst Is Yet to Come. But the really new thing about the report is the inclusion of a feasible low emissions mitigation pathway in the modelling. We've never really been treated to an exploration of what technology could do to help us, but now that has started (somehow that slipped past the Saudis). In the summary for Policy Makers, http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images... Figure SPM.5 shows how mitigation could avoid species extinction. Figure SPM.4 puts everything nicely on the same scale and shows that even with a scenario with substantial future emissions, RCP 2.6, but feasible reduction from present levels, things can be kept from getting worse. So, the headlines may be missing the newest thing in the report.

Submission + - Major Climate Report Describes A Changing World, Striving to Adapt (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Earth's changing climate is already having an impact on ecosystems, agriculture, coastal infrastructure and a host of other human and natural systems. And a host of serious risks await as global warming intensifies, although nascent efforts are underway to adapt and prepare for a hotter, more uncompromising planet. Those are the take away messages of a major new report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international group of scientists convened by United Nations to report on the science and policy implications of a changing climate every seven years or so.

Weighing in at more than 2000 pages, the tome encompasses the work of 309 authors and reviewers, aided by more than 400 so-called contributing authors. The scientists needed all the help they could get: the number of scientific publications assessing climate impacts, vulnerability, or adaptation "more than doubled" between 2005 and 2010. More than 1700 reviewers from the government, academic, or nonprofit sector offered comments on draft report, which assessed literature published up until last summer.

Comment Re:Nobel != technocatic (Score 1) 33

by mdsolar (#46609913) Attached to: Technocrat James Schlesinger Is Dead At 85
Technocracy was a political movement. The idea was that people educated in technical fields could do a better job running things than people who did politics for a living. Schlesinger falls into their ranks mostly by being omnicompetent and dismissive of politicians when they were flaunting ignorance.

Comment Re:Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan dated 1980 (Score 1) 33

by mdsolar (#46608977) Attached to: Technocrat James Schlesinger Is Dead At 85
I agree that we've let that lapse. The President is supposed to appoint an Administrator for the Economic Regulatory Administration, but Reagan didn't and no one else has since. It is too bad too. The State Department is handing cross border pipelines, which is not really their area. It is supposed to be the Economic Regulatory Administration that does that. http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc...

Submission + - Technocrat James Schlesinger Is Dead at 85 (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: James Schlesinger who served as Secretary of Defense under Presidents Nixon and Ford and as the first Secretary of Energy under President Carter passed away on Thursday in Baltimore at the age of 85. Schlesinger is perhaps the most technocratic person to reach such high office. He had a keen awareness of the connection between energy supply and national defense and as Administrator of the Economic Regulatory Administration, brought our Standby Gasoline Rationing Plan into existence. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/12000/1... The existence of such a plan along with our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Schlesinger also brought into being, have been a bulwark against further oil embargoes and essentially broke OPEC for a period of more than a decade. The NYT has an obituary that covers more of his career.

Submission + - Nine officers removed, one resigns in Air Force cheating probe (reuters.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The head of the nuclear missile wing at a base in Montana resigned on Thursday and nine officers were removed from their jobs over a test-cheating scandal that involved 91 missile launch officers, the Air Force said.

Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson, head of the Air Force's Global Strike Command, said Colonel Robert Stanley, commander of the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, had resigned on Thursday and would retire from the service.

The nine other officers, mainly colonels and lieutenant colonels, were removed from their positions of command at the Montana base that is home to a third of the nation's nearly 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles. They will be reassigned to staff jobs and face discipline ranging from reprimands to courts martial for failures of leadership.

Submission + - Solar Energy Is Now Same Price As Conventional Power In Germany, Italy, Spain (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: A new study by International consulting firm Eclareon found that the cost of solar- and conventional-powered electricity has the same per kilowatt hour (kWh) price tag in Germany, Italy and Spain. The report covered 19 cities in 10 countries (Australia, Brazil, U.S., Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the U.K.). In Latin America, while the cost of renewable energy has gone down, high installation prices still prevent PV technology from being competitive against grid electricity. Meanwhile, in the U.S., there has been a 50% reduction in the cost of renewable energy over the past five years, according to an August 2013 report from global financial adviser and asset manager firm Lazard Freres & Co. In areas of the U.S., the dropping costs of solar, wind and hydroelectric power has spurred utilities to sign contracts to use renewable energy rather than conventional fuels like gas in power plants, according to Cory Honeyman, a solar power analyst with GTM research.

Submission + - Yes, Obama Really Is Worried About a Manhattan Nuke (time.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "The president was accused of changing a difficult subject when he said a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan was more of a threat to the U.S. than Russia, but the President is actually laser-focused on non-proliferation and nuclear security issues.

President Obama invoked a bracing image responding to a question about the threat Russia poses to America while speaking at a nuclear-security summit in Brussels on Tuesday.

Russia’s actions “don’t pose the No. 1 national-security threat to the United States,” Obama said in the Hague, the Netherlands. “I continue to be much more concerned, when it comes to our security, with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.”

Yikes! Does Obama really think there’s a serious chance that Manhattan could get nuked?

He almost certainly does."

Comment Stimulated emission of particle/anti-particle pair (Score 1) 75

by mdsolar (#46583835) Attached to: Lasers May Solve the Black Hole Information Paradox
From the paper: "Note that as 2m anti-particles are stimulated behind the horizon in region II, particle number is conserved. We should also point out that because the incident particle carries energy and momentum, the black hole does not have to donate mass in order to allow the emission of stimulated pairs, as it does for virtual pairs." While stimulated emission of photons plays a big role in this, it is not really the physics of lasers.

Comment Re:Fossil fuels are 50 cents per watt? (Score 1) 79

by mdsolar (#46580073) Attached to: Scientists Develop Solar Cell That Can Also Emit Light
I agree this is the wrong unit since fuel costs are the main thing (plus environmental and public health costs) but someone may have tried to make things inter-comparable by integrating over twenty years of solar panel use, found the equivalent fossil fuel cost and divided back down. Looks like they may have forgotten to make electricity from the fossil fuels (neglected efficiency) since grid parity comes in at around $1/Watt for solar.

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