Month: June 2023

Originally published in Spectator | Australia

Brian Wawn

Coal will be essential to power generation in Australia for the foreseeable future. Of its competitors, natural gas for base load electricity (i.e. continuous electricity) is significantly more expensive; Nuclear power is at least a decade away; and wind and solar power are weather and cloud dependent and therefore unreliable. In addition, both prove to be expensive.

Nevertheless, coal is hardly part of the public discussion about future energy developments. Rather, it is a discussion dominated by renewable energy and natural gas. That should change.

Coal: should emissions rule out?

When it comes to coal, the first question that arises is whether emissions should be excluded or not. Reliable and cost-effective coal-fired power causes higher greenhouse gas emissions than electricity based on natural gas, renewable energies or nuclear power. Is that important?

Yes, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body responsible for climate change information. In its latest Synthesis Report (March 2023), the IPCC states:

“To limit human-caused global warming, net carbon emissions must be zero…Climate change poses a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet…The window of opportunity for ensuring a livable and sustainable future for all is fast closing .

However, there is significant disagreement on this view.

For example, US climate researcher Judith Curry wrote in The Australian on March 29, 2023 that the IPCC’s “extreme scenarios” on emissions and global warming “are now generally accepted as implausible”.

This “has rendered much of the literature and assessments of climate impacts of the last decade obsolete”. These extreme scenarios are “still prominently highlighted” in the IPCC’s latest synthesis report.

Moreover (notes Professor Curry) the comments in this latest report are much more alarming than those in the IPCC’s assessment reports, which (as opposed to the synthesis report) were written by scientists.

Steven Koonin, a prominent US physicist, author of the 2021 book Unsettled, and former senior Obama administration official. says that “there is not enough science to make any useful predictions about how the climate will change in the coming decades, let alone what impact our actions will have on it”.

Professor Ian Plimer, a prominent Australian geologist and Spectator author, says: “If governments, the United Nations or climate activists want to stop the normal planetary process of climate change, then they have to stop plate tectonics and the Earth’s surface variations in orbit and stop fluctuations.” of solar power.’

Professor Michael Asten (retired Professor of Geophysics at Monash University and former Senior Geophysicist at BHP) is part of an international team researching the growing field of climate science: natural cycles of climate change over the past 2,000 years.

These cycles include warm periods in Roman times up to the year 500 AD and in the Middle Ages between 900 and 1300 AD, followed by a cooling period for 550 years. Until 1850, global temperature fluctuations had nothing to do with emissions.

Are natural cycles more important – and possibly even more important – than man-made emissions? This is not yet known, and until it is known, “climate science should be viewed as work in progress and not something settled,” according to Professor Asten.

In short, while scientists agree that man-made emissions are causing global warming, they disagree on whether those emissions are the primary cause of that warming.

With this problem unresolved, there is no reason to ban coal because of the emissions. There may be such a case in the future – and maybe not.

Nuclear power: not a short-term option

Nuclear power is not a short-term option. Unlike coal, nuclear power is emission-free. But nuclear power in Australia is at least 10 to 15 years away.

This reflects the time required to achieve sufficient political consensus to allow the development of the first commercial nuclear power plant, followed by regulatory changes, site selection, planning approvals (including consideration for radioactive waste management), engineering design and construction.

As a result, nuclear power will do nothing to solve the electricity problems of the next decade. And even if it is there, it may be supplemented by other forms of power generation (e.g. coal) for decades to come.

Wind and solar energy: emerging issues

Meanwhile, wind and solar power are facing serious problems. First, wind and solar power are proving expensive. Up until 2000, when coal dominated electricity generation, Australia had one of the lowest electricity prices in the world.

Since then, the share of wind and solar energy in electricity generation has increased from almost zero to over 20 percent today. Australia now has some of the highest energy costs in the world. Reasons for this include: high transmission costs associated with wind; Solar farms, which are often located far from the main grid; the need for backup power from the battery; Coal and gas-fired power plants are forced to operate below capacity (but remain online); and the cost of maintaining frequency and stability in the network.

Wind and solar power are unreliable and will continue to be, even with battery backup.

Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute explains the battery problem in relation to the US: “The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could supply the annual electricity needs of the US for three minutes.” It would take 1,000 years of production time to produce enough Make batteries to power the United States for two days.” (The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking)

And note that in the US and Australia, wind and solar droughts can last longer than two days.

In most countries, including Australia, reliance on renewable energy and batteries for base-load power poses seemingly insurmountable financial and logistical challenges.

The prevailing political opinion is that the future belongs to renewable energies. But unless these two problems are overcome, renewable energy may not have a future at all.

Open discussion about coal

By avoiding the public discussion about coal, Australia is burying its head in the sand. Liberal leader Peter Dutton did Australia a favor this month by opening a debate on nuclear power and questioning the Labor Party’s approach to natural gas. But Liberals have yet to grapple with the importance of coal and are talking much more about the importance of natural gas.

And the natural gas industry doesn’t help with its view that coal is its competitor – that “we can significantly reduce emissions by replacing higher-emission fuels (that is, coal) with cleaner natural gas.” (Australian Petroleum & Production Exploration Association, August 10, 2021)

For those calling for continued reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, natural gas (like coal) is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

In January 1940, at the start of World War II, Winston Churchill – who would become British Prime Minister in May 1940 – said of the neutrality of European countries:

“Everyone hopes that if they feed the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat them last.” They all hope the storm will pass before it’s their turn to be devoured. But I fear – I fear very much – that the storm will not pass.’

Churchill was prophetic. Most of the affected neutral countries (notably Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway) were overrun by Germany a few months after its January 1940 declaration.

The natural gas industry in Australia is practically feeding the crocodile. The possibility that it might be next on the list after coal should be considered. And think of coal as an ally, not a rival.

Liberals should think the same way.

Footnote: For costs and other issues associated with solar energy, see John Mole’s article, Solar: a risky waste of time and money, Spectator Australia, 17 May 2023.

Brian Wawn is Director of the Energy Bureau, a non-profit organization dedicated to stimulating discussion about climate and related energy policy.

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Human technology is crossing another threshold. Tractor beams have been common in science fiction for decades. Now a team of researchers is working on a real-life tractor beam that could help us with our burgeoning space debris problem.

Space debris is made up of human-made objects in space that are now defunct. It ranges from complete satellites or spacecraft, to cast-off pieces like debris shields, all the way down to tiny pieces of those objects produced by collisions. Collision debris is the most numerous, and it has a tendency to multiply.

In 2009, a non-functioning Russian satellite collided with an Iridium satellite over the Siberian Peninsula. The collision produced over 1,800 pieces of debris that are now orbiting the Earth at high velocity. That’s just one source of debris, and when scientists add up all the other debris, they conclude that there are over 25,000 pieces of debris orbiting Earth that are large enough to be measured. Estimates show that there are far larger numbers of objects too small to be tracked, including more than 128 million pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm (0.4 in). And these numbers will grow.

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That constitutes a palpable hazard for functioning spacecraft. Even small pieces can cause damage because of their high velocities. In low-Earth orbit (LEO,) debris travels at about 25,250 kph (15,700 mph), according to NASA, so when two pieces both travelling that fast collide, the energy released is substantial. And satellites are not hardened targets.

On May 12th, 2021, a routine check showed that a piece of debris hit the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station, poking a hole in its thermal blanket. Credit: NASA/Canadian Space Agency

“The problem with space debris is that once you have a collision, you’re creating even more space debris.”

Julian Hammerl, doctoral student in aerospace engineering sciences at CU Boulder

Professor Hanspeter Schaub is leading a team of researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who are working on a real-life tractor beam. It uses the electrostatic force to influence an object’s motion. While a working model or prototype is a ways away, the researchers are creating a small vacuum chamber mimicking space in their lab. It’s called the Electrostatic Charging Laboratory for Interactions between Plasma and Spacecraft (ECLIPS.)

Hanspeter Schaub in his lab with the ECLIPS facility in the background. Image Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder

The problem with space debris is that it will only get worse. Collisions between objects produce even more objects in a cascading effect. Even if we stopped launching things into orbit, the number of objects will keep growing.

“The problem with space debris is that once you have a collision, you’re creating even more space debris,” said Julian Hammerl, a doctoral student in aerospace engineering sciences at CU Boulder. “You have an increased likelihood of causing another collision, which will create even more debris. There’s a cascade effect.”

The only way to reduce collisions is to reduce the number of objects, and in recent years there’s been a lot of thinking and research into how to reduce space debris and collisions.

A team from the Australian National University looked at using ground-based lasers to alter the trajectory of objects on a collision course. Both the ESA and China have used drag sails to hasten the de-orbiting of rocket boosters. And a UK company called RemoveDebris tested an interesting harpoon system for handling space debris.

But if Schaub’s team can find an answer to space debris, it’ll start in their little vacuum chamber. They’re developing electron beams that can either be attractive or repulsive and could hopefully be used to change the trajectory of individual pieces of space debris. The small chamber is where they perform tests.

“We’re creating an attractive or repulsive electrostatic force,” said Schaub, chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “It’s similar to the tractor beam you see in Star Trek, although not nearly as powerful.”

Their potential solution could bypass one of the huge risks in mitigating the space debris problem: touching it. Contacting a piece of fast-moving, tumbling space debris could change its trajectory unintentionally, making the problem even worse. That could add to the cascading collision problem.

“Touching things in space is very dangerous. Objects are moving very fast and often unpredictably,” said Kaylee Champion, a doctoral student working with Schaub. “This could open up a lot of safer avenues for servicing spacecraft.”

Eventually, if their work bears fruit, the team envisions a fleet of small spacecraft orbiting Earth. The spacecraft would rendezvous with things like defunct satellites and then use either attractive or repulsive electron beams to alter its trajectory. It’s all based on the Coulombe force.

Inside ECLIPS, the researchers recreate the space environment around Earth. That region isn’t empty. Instead, it’s full of plasma, charged atoms and free electrons. In recent experiments, Schaub and his team recreated a geosynchronous orbit (GEO) environment in their chamber. GEO is much higher than low-Earth orbit (LEO.) LEO is a region extending to about 2,000 km (1,200 mi) above Earth’s surface, whereas GEO begins about 34,000 km (22,000 mi) above the Earth’s surface.

GEO is where the big boys play. Up there, we find satellites as large as school buses, dedicated to military and telecommunication applications. “GEO is like the Bel Air of space,” Schaub said, comparing it to the high-rent neighbourhood in Los Angeles.

But like Earthly Bel-Air, orbital Bel-Air only has so many addresses, and they’re filling up quickly. Engineers estimate there are about 180 orbital slots up there that can hold satellites. All 180 or either already filled or have been claimed. The UN’s International Telecommunications Union allocates the slots on a first-come, first-served basis.

Satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO) circle Earth above the equator from west to east following Earth’s rotation – taking 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds – by travelling at exactly the same rate as Earth.
This makes satellites in GEO appear to be ‘stationary’ over a fixed position. In order to perfectly match Earth’s rotation, the speed of satellites in this orbit should be about 3 km per second at an altitude of 35 786 km. This is much farther from Earth’s surface compared to many satellites. Image Credit: ESA – L. Boldt-Christmas

The problem is that some of those slots are occupied by defunct satellites, and those slots are in high demand. According to Schaub, tractor beams could safely remove defunct satellites and clear the slot for another functioning satellite, and it’s based on a fairly simple principle that we all come across when we’re kids.

Everybody remembers rubbing a balloon on their hair and then sticking it to the wall. The rubbing creates a static charge by moving electrons from one object to the other. Then the two objects, the balloon and the wall, have different charges. The stationary wall holds the mobile balloon in place. For a while, anyway.

Schaub’s team sees it working this way: the spacecraft with the tractor beam would approach a defunct satellite to a distance of about 15 to 25 meters (49 to 89 feet.) Then the spacecraft would fire a stream of electrons at it. The electrons give the spacecraft a negative charge, and the servicing spacecraft would be more positively charged.

Every kid that’s played with magnets knows opposites attract. And once the servicing spacecraft and the defunct satellite have opposite charges, they’re attracted to one another. This creates what Schaub and his team call a ‘virtual tether.’

“With that attractive force, you can essentially tug away the debris without ever touching it,” Hammerl said. “It acts like what we call a virtual tether.”

Julian Hammerl makes adjustments to a metal cube representing a derelict spacecraft inside the ECLIPS facility. Image Credit: Nico Goda/CU Boulder

The team’s experiments in ECLIPS show it could work. So do computer models. Schaub’s work shows that their space-tug idea, the Geosynchronous Large Debris Reorbiter (GLiDeR,) could move a spacecraft weighing 1000 kg a distance of 320 km (200 miles) in two or three months. The dead spacecraft would be evicted from orbital Bel-Air and placed into a Graveyard Orbit. That’s not fast, but it doesn’t need to be fast. It just needs to work to start solving the problem and freeing up orbital slots in GEO.

It could work, but a lot of details need to be worked out.

Defunct satellites aren’t moving in a uniform fashion in GEO. Instead, they’re tumbling around wildly, and this invites a serious challenge. But Schaub’s team thinks they may be on to a solution.

Their experiments show that a pulsed beam fired in a rhythm can calm down the wild tumbling. Once it’s calm, it’s easier to deal with. Not only could it be directed into a different orbit, but the beam could even be used to calm spacecraft so a repair vehicle could dock with them, or refuel them. Tricky, but not forever impossible.

Earth’s orbit is crowded with debris, and it’s only getting worse. It needs a remedy. But Schaub and his team are also looking to the future. The cislunar space between the Earth and the Moon is likely to see the same problem arise, and rather than wait, it would be good to have a solution ready before the region gets too active.

But, there’s a huge problem: The Sun.

The plasma environment around Earth is much different than it is nearer the Sun. The Sun emits a constant stream of plasma called the Solar Wind. Sometimes vast blobs of plasma burst free of the Sun’s embrace, too.

This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, orbiting more than 20,000 miles above Earth, shows a stream of plasma burst out from the sun on May 27, 2014. Since the stream lacked enough force to break away, most of it fell back into the sun. The video, seen in a combination of two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, covers a little over two hours. This eruption was minor, and such events occur almost every day on the sun and suggest the kind of dynamic activity being driven by powerful magnetic forces near the sun’s surface. Credit: NASA/SDO

The closer to the Sun you go, the more unpredictable the plasma environment is. In cis-lunar space, things can get wild and woolly. As a vehicle travels through the plasma, it can create a kind of wake, similar to a boat moving through water. If you’ve sat on the shoreline while a large vessel passes by, you know what it’s like. A large enough vessel can imperil a smaller vessel with its turbulence and wake.

Since the ‘wake’ is in plasma, it could disrupt the function of an electron beam.

“That’s what makes this technology so challenging,” Champion said. “You have completely different plasma environments in low-Earth orbit, versus geosynchronous orbit versus around the moon. You have to deal with that.”

The team has developed an ion gun that they’ve used inside ECLIPS to deal with the Sun’s disruptive plasma. It creates its own stream of fast-moving ions. It could be used to shape the plasma region where the spacecraft is operating and counteract the Sun’s effect.

We’ll soon need a solution similar to what the team is working on in their ECLIPS chamber. The Artemis effort to build a presence on the Moon will mean that cislunar space will develop its own space debris problem. Champion hopes that the work her team is doing can help deal with that problem before it gets started and that it can be a part of the effort to get not only to the Moon but to Mars.

“Once we put people back on the moon, that’s a stepping stone to travelling to Mars,” Champion said.

The team is also examining the idea of using UV lasers as a replacement for electron beams. UV lasers aren’t sensitive to the electrostatic environment the same way electron beams are. This would lead to more controllable systems nearer the Sun, the researchers say, and the lasers could be combined with electron beams to achieve even greater flexibility and results.

So can we add tractor beams to the list of things that make the leap from science fiction to reality? Maybe, but not yet. If they can attract the necessary funding, a prototype electrostatic tractor could be launched into space in five to ten years, Schaub says.

“The exciting thing about this technology is that the same servicing craft could move two or three or even dozens of objects during its lifetime. That brings your cost way down,” Schaub said. “No one wants to spend a billion dollars to move trash.”

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Essay by Eric Worrall

… A diplomat from a developed country said, “It couldn’t be much worse.” Another said, “You couldn’t make that up.” …

“The window is closing”: Cop28 must bring about a change of course in terms of climate

Six months to the UN summit in Dubai: Can the country’s oil exec bring unwilling countries to the line?

Fiona Harvey Environmental Editor Fri 2 Jun 2023 at 9pm AEST

…

“Cop28 needs to set tougher emissions reduction targets and commit to peak global emissions by 2025,” he said. “[There must be] a plan to fuel the clean energy revolution and a commitment to phase out fossil fuels. And a meaningful agreement on how to scale up public and private finance to help developing countries decarbonize their economies – from billions to trillions.”

…

That’s the theory. But even the most optimistic cop supporters might find their high hopes dwindling in the face of Cop28.

…

In such dire circumstances, any cop would be a challenge. There is an additional twist for Cop28. The event takes place in Dubai and is hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a leading oil and gas producer. And the official chosen to chair the summit – Sultan Al Jaber – is the CEO of the country’s national oil company, Adnoc, which is planning a major expansion in production capacity.

A diplomat from a developed country said: “It couldn’t be much worse.” Another said: “You couldn’t make that up.”

Jaber’s appointment in January was met with disbelief and dismay from climate activists and experts around the world. “If I were asked how to make Cop28 a success, I wouldn’t put the head of a fossil fuel company in charge of organizing it,” said Friederike Otto, Lecturer in Climate at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute. “I would not invite fossil fuel company lobbyists. I would try to see that everything is done to phase out fossil fuels from the world’s energy supply as quickly as possible.”

…

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/window-closing-cop28-change-course-climate-dubai

At least you can’t criticize COP for a lack of innovation – who knew they’d hire an oil sheik to chair a climate conference?

It’s clear that the only way forward is if the oil exec doesn’t live up to her expectations. Put a climate skeptic in charge. I hereby offer my services to organize the next COP conference after this one, COP29. For a modest, inflation-adjusted eight-figure salary and budget to match, I promise I’ll do at least as well as the Arab oilman.

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