More BS - Bad Science at SPTC in Sugar Land TX October 2019

Subtitle:  Consensus Conclusions are Wrong; Even When Repeated Over and Over

This article discusses the main points and my comments on the presentation made by Stephanie Thomas, PhD(1)  at the AIChE Southwest Process Technology Conference, Climate Solutions Session in Oct, 2019,  Sugar Land, Texas.  Dr. Thomas' presentation title is "Evidence of Climate Change; an Overview of the Science."   (see link to another SLB article on the presentation on Climate and Energy by 2070, made by a Shell executive at the Tuesday night dinner meeting at the same conference. )

(1) PhD Earth Sciences, listed as a community organizer at Public Citizen, a NGO.  Lead article at present (10-9-2019) on the Public Citizen website is "Impeach Donald Trump"

(my comments below the main points are in parentheses)

1. Overview  -  “Multiple Lines of Evidence”  - she attributed these four slogans to Professor Mark Holtzapple of Texas A&M University. 
   a. It’s Warming 
   b. It’s Bad
   c. It’s Us
   d. We Can Fix It
(this is very sophomoric sloganeering; a conference of chemical engineers certainly deserves a presentation at a much higher level.  But, sloganeering is typical of the Bad Science proponents, perhaps they don't want anyone to actually investigate the data, the analyses methods, and the computer simulation models.)

2. Showed the GATA Chart, Global Average Temperature Anomaly, from 1880 - 2016.  
(this is the same chart that clearly shows decreasing temperatures, a region of no change at all for 35 years, then two separated periods with similar increasing trends, one before 1945 and a similar one before 2015.   Meanwhile, CO2 was steadily increasing in each year)

3. Showed a few false causes of the warming trend – discarded each due to inadequate correlation
   a. Sun’s energy output
   b. Volcanoes
   c. Ice ages due to Earth Orbit variation (presumably the warming that ended the last glacial period 14,000 years ago was due to orbital changes accelerated by volcanic ash and dark particles on the ice surface)

4. Then showed a strong correlation between GHGs and Temperature  
(ignored the 800 year lag between temperature change and CO2 change)

5. Weakened her case by saying a correlation exists between temperature rise with
   a. Aerosols
   b. Ozone
   c. Land Use
(actually, aerosols increased during the temperature decline 1945-1975)

6. Venus surface temperature – claimed it is very hot due to CO2 in the atmosphere 
(wrong, Venus is very hot due to the very dense and thick atmosphere that is many miles deep.  Earth has a few miles deep.   See NASA for corroboration.  The adiabatic lapse rate requires the surface to be very hot.  ) 

7. Said CO2 is higher today than past 800,000 years as shown by Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, varied from 180 to 280 ppm in the ice cores.  
(How, then, were the previous inter-glacial periods hotter than this one?  Approximately 8 degrees C warmer.  The CO2 was never more than 280 ppm, yet the BS claims the climate was much hotter)

8. Showed chart of temp varies with CO2 
(wrong, Temperature changes occur 800 years before CO2 changes. Implies that warmer oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere, and cooler oceans absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.)

9. Energy use in total has increased over time, said this is the source of CO2 in atmosphere.  
(Energy use is also the source of soot, particulate matter, smoke, jet exhaust, fly ash)

10. Claimed researchers since 1800s reported GHG effects 
(This is immaterial, what matters is the magnitude of the impact; CO2 has a numerically insignificant impact)

11. Claimed a prediction made in 1950 was accurate, for 1 deg C increase by year 2000, with 30 percent increase in CO2.   
(approx. 300 ppm to 370 ppm, what happened was about 0.8 deg C increase)

12. Mentioned Gore’s movie as good evidence  
(wrong, the movie has multiple false statements as clearly documented in many sources)

13. Said oil companies now have statements that climate change is due to CO2 
(only because of shareholder pressure and a desire to avoid defending costly lawsuits)

14. Ocean alkalinity is decreasing, says this is a big problem for crustaceans  (somehow, they did not go extinct during the previous warm-ocean periods)

15. Ocean Temperature is increasing, says this harms coral reefs 
(here we go again, how did coral reefs survive the last several times Temperature was much hotter than today?)

16. Said extreme weather is increasing, example is Austin TX had the hottest September on record 
(no mention of drought, no rain, and very little wind in September 2019 in Austin.  No mention of the late Spring this year, late crop planting, and early cold weather that is threatening the crops and yields)

17. Said Arctic is heating, ice is melting, Arctic ocean absorbs more heat from Sun 
(BS, bad science, the Arctic is at such a low angle to the Sun, very little heat is absorbed due to reflection off the water; instead, open water radiates heat much faster than does ice; ice acts like a blanket and keeps heat in the water; ice at Summer minimum has stabilized since 2006 – that’s 13 years now)

18. Glaciers are receding 
(BS, same rate today as in 1850; more dark soot and ash fall on the ice from the air due to man’s coal-burning and jet aircraft exhaust, and large forest fires due to bad management)

19. More torrential rain due to GHGs, said Houston has record flooding over past 5 years.   
(Wrong causation, the intense storms were due to stationary cold fronts that prevented the hurricanes from moving inland quickly; intense flooding was from bad infrastructure management, and increased building with impervious ground cover e.g. foundations, roads) 

20. Sea level rise has an increasing rate, due to warmer water and more ice melted and flowed into oceans  
(false, only after splicing together buoy data with satellite data.  Buoy data shows no increase in rate of SLR)

21. More deaths due to disease that was caused by GHG.  
(Flat out wrong).

End of S. Thomas presentation. 

(No mention of:

   a. El Nino / La Nina  warming effects
   b. Timing and duration of droughts – causes warming trend
   c. Increased humidity from power plants, cooling towers, lawn watering, crop irrigation in deserts, etc
   d. Cleaner air due to air pollution laws  - removes aerosols and lets more Sunshine in
   e. Less cloud cover due to fewer sunspots from 1950 – 2009
   f. Arctic ice extent stabilized for past 13 years -  2006 – 2019
   g. Antarctic ice has grown for decades
   h. Coral reefs damaged by ships and humans with suntan lotion, antifreeze, copper paint on ship bottoms, human waste dumped overboard
   i. Polar bears populations are increasing  - they survived at least 500,00 years of ice ages and interglacials much warmer than today
   j. Zero correlation between severe weather and increased CO2 (IPCC said this)
   k. Floods more severe due to increased runoff from land use changes – more impervious cover, more siltation blockage in flow channels, more infrastructure blocking natural flow areas e.g. highways such as Houston’s Beltway   Houston Harvey flooding was made worse by bad decisions by government to not maintain flood control dams at Barker, Addicks
   l. Hurricanes' ACE has not increased since 1970)
.

Conclusion

Sadly, this presentation is quite typical of the misinformation, disinformation, and glossing over of key points that completely refute the alarmists' basic message.  

Roger E. Sowell

Houston, Texas
copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here, here,  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

The Wisdom of Nuclear Plant Operating in a Flood

Subtitle: Very Risky Activity to Operate A Nuclear Plant with No Evacuations Possible

Very recently, a Category 4 Hurricane, Harvey 2017, came ashore on 25 August near Corpus Christi, Texas in the United States.   The weather fronts were such that the hurricane moved inland only approximately 50 miles, stalled there, then moved southward back over the Gulf of Mexico on 28 August.   The weather front north of the hurricane weakened, such that the hurricane or tropical storm system then moved parallel to the Texas coast in a north-easterly direction before crossing the shore near the Texas-Louisiana border and moving northward up the Mississippi River valley.   

Figure 1.  Location of South Texas Nuclear Plant and Houston
source: google maps

The slow movement over land and over water for the second time resulted in heavy rains over much of southeast Texas and parts of Louisiana.  In many Texas locations, records for rainfall in one storm event were broken.   Just over 50 inches of rain fell in at least one location.   Rivers swelled, overflowed, and many set new records for high levels.  Property was flooded in thousands of locations.   A set of two artificial dams just to the west of Houston, Texas (Barker and Addicks dams) were filled to the danger point.  The water operating authorities chose to release water from the reservoirs behind the dams to prevent catastrophic dam failures.   That water release flooded thousands more homes. 

Many roads were underwater in Houston and surrounding areas, including major freeways.  

No evacuation order was issued for the large, populous city of Houston, Texas.  Instead, the mayor advised the residents to shelter in place.   There were, however, a number of mandatory and voluntary evacuations ordered in other smaller cities and towns.    

The mayor stated publicly that it was impossible to safely evacuate 3-4 million people in such short time, citing the recent failed evacuation attempt for Hurricane Rita.   There were also many deaths on the highways in that failed evacuation attempt. 

Meanwhile, with all the flooding over such a widespread area, the 2,700 MW twin-reactor nuclear power plant located only 70 miles southeast of Houston's downtown area, kept running at full power.  (see figure 1)  The South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company chose to keep running, at least in part to further their reputation as the nuclear plant with the highest on-stream factor in the US. 

The question explored here is, was it wise to keep the STP (South Texas Project) operating at all during the flooding period of several days, when it would be impossible to evacuate the population located downwind of the plant if a massive radiation release event occurred. 

The fundamental issue is that nuclear plants certainly can meltdown, as at least five have done so in the past.  (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and three each at Fukushima-Dai-ichi).   All nuclear plants must have an evacuation plan, per government requirements.  That evacuation plan is predicated on the affected population having the means to evacuate.  

Clearly, the huge area in south and east Texas had no means to evacuate after the flooding began.  

It appears that the STP made it through the flooding and high winds, but were they simply lucky this time?   A look at the events that cause nuclear plants to shut down suddenly, without warning, shows that even the smallest problem can result in a shutdown.   A pump can breakdown, a valve can stick, a steam generator tube can rupture, just to list a few. 

It is also necessary to consider whether the electricity grid was or would be stressed if the STP shut down.  The Texas grid operator is ERCOT, for Electric Reliability Council of Texas.  It certainly appears that ERCOT did not need the power from the nuclear plant, with so much of the service area without power due to the winds and flooding.  

Instead, it appears the nuclear plant owners and operators placed their reputation for onstream days, for high onstream factor, above the safety of the public in the fourth largest metropolis in the country.  Knowing the city could not evacuate even if they tried, they kept running the reactors, pumping electricity into the grid when nearly one-fourth or more of the state's electric customers could not take power even though they wanted to. 

And, why would a business take such a risk?  In this case, it is entirely due to the federal government taking almost all the financial liability from harm and damage created by a radiation incident.    The Price-Anderson Act pays for all damages above a stated amount.  The nuclear plant itself would not pay for much, at all.  (see link to SLB articles on nuclear and Price-Anderson Act)

Surely the entire liability scheme must be re-examined in light of these events.   

For anyone other than a nuclear plant that is protected by the Price-Anderson Act provisions, operating with reckless disregard for human life, or operating in a normal manner that is reckless in the circumstances, can be a criminal act. 

The nuclear power plants must be shut down, and as soon as possible.   Millions of lives are at stake, or damaged forever for those that survive a nuclear meltdown with high winds that blow the radioactive particles into their homes, their businesses, and their very lungs.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here