Coal’s Welsh Comeback

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An AP story a couple of days ago is a reminder of why I’m so pessimistic about the possibility of effective climate change mitigation. People want energy, and they want it cheap. The story opens with a young Welsh man, whose father and grandfather worked the mines:

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard there were jobs down the pit again,” said Gary Williams, an 18-year-old apprentice at the Unity mine. “My dad was a miner. His old man was a miner, everyone we knew was a miner, but he told me not to think of going down the mines. He said it would never happen.”

This, from a nation that is a Kyoto signatory:

Europe’s energy goals are changing. It is growing nervous about being so dependent on Russian energy. Nuclear power remains a hard sell, and many of Britain’s 10 nuclear power stations are nearing the end of their natural life.

Enter coal — cheap, plentiful and easily stored. Europe holds a third of the world’s reserves, and to many, coal-fired power stations seem a good idea again. Britain plans to open seven new coal-fired electricity plants. One application has been formally submitted, and if successful, will lead to Britain’s first new coal-fired power station in 24 years.

Bridled titmouse

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I swear I got a good look at it. But it’s really not supposed to be here.

Courtesy Cornell

Courtesy Cornell

Is I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a terribly experienced birdwatcher. But lately I’ve spent a lot of time at it, making lists using eBird, keeping close track of my yard birds, and dragging the books and binoculars with me when we go on our walks wherever.

This afternoon, Lissa and I were walking one of our favorite trails in the foothills (from the parking lot at the east end of Indian School for you Albuquerque folks). The trail winds up past a big city water tank and an earthen flood control dam, then crosses an alluvial plain to a notch where the bedrock pushes water to the surface. I figured we’d see birds there.

Not so much. But on the side of the dam, right next to the trail, I caught a clear look of a bird in the bushes that I’d never seen before. Clear facial markings (black throat, black stripe across the eye, gray crest). The book had an unmistakable picture: the Bridled titmouse. I dutifully wrote it down.

Here’s the problem. The book, the Cornell web site and eBird all say it should not be this far north, all the way up here in Bernalillo County. None of the eBirders have ever reported seeing one in Bernalillo County. Have I seen my first rare bird? Or am I just full of it?

I reported it to eBird. They have a cheerful “are you sure?” check-off box when you report a rare bird. I thought hard, then checked “yes”.

Elasticity

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I took a crack this morning at explaining, by example, three things that are currently going on in our U.S. energy economy. The first is the way gasoline consumption has remained depressed, even as prices dropped. The second is the way the drop in consumption has been disproportionately carried out by people near the bottom of the economic spectrum. The third is the way that, even as prices have dropped a lot in recent weeks, the decline in consumption has gotten steeper. Meet the students, as John uses them to work out his economics explaining skills:

You could think of Eric Peterson’s bike shop, tucked in a corner of the University of New Mexico’s gym, as the epicenter of the new energy economy.

When gasoline prices rise, people at the bottom of the economic spectrum — like, say, college students — feel it the most.

“We are poor,” said Peterson, the 27-year-old manager of the UNM Recreation Services Outdoor and Bicycle Shop. “Trust me.”

Silver Linings

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One bright spot in the global economic picture: worldwide financial collapse has led to lower food prices! From the Economist, the global food price index is down 16 percent from a month ago, and is essentially unchanged from prices a year ago.

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere, Plutonium Edition

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Lab May Be Nuke Center

Federal officials will unveil a proposal today to make Los Alamos National Laboratory the nation’s center for nuclear weapons plutonium research, consolidating work now done at other sites around the country.
The proposal, to be unveiled at a news conference in Oak Ridge, Tenn., lays out a road map for the future of the nation’s nuclear weapons research and manufacturing complex.
“We believe that Los Alamos will, in fact, be the nation’s center of excellence for plutonium,” Robert Smolen, head of the nuclear weapons program at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in an interview.
But the proposed designation comes as lab and federal officials scramble to provide the necessary lab space to do the work.
Los Alamos’s 56-year-old plutonium laboratory, which government nuclear safety experts have called a “significant risk” to workers and the public, will have to last a few years longer, federal and lab officials have concluded.
Construction of a replacement has been delayed, so a plan completed by the lab in August calls for continued nuclear operations in parts of the old lab for as long as a decade.

Abject Terror

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Seen on a University of New Mexico blackboard last night in an empty classroom. Kinda tough to read, so I’ll transcribe:

Matthew –

We thought maybe the zombies wouldn’t be able to chase us up the stairs. They’re smarter than we thought. If you find this, we’re headed for Atlanta. Send the kids our love. Our prayers are with you.

Love,

Becca

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture – a quick snap from a cell phone. Seemed best not to hang around too long.

Paraffin Mafia

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South African firm Sasol and Exxon Mobil were among a group of firms fined last week by the European Union for running a wax cartel, trying to control the global price of wax. Really. I am not making this up:

“There is probably not a household or company in Europe that has not bought products affected by this `paraffin mafia’ cartel,” said EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement. “Such illegal cartel behavior cannot and will not be tolerated.”

Establishing a Water Market

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I don’t think this is exactly what David Zetland has in mind when he argues for establishing water markets, but hey, whatever works! From the International Herald Tribune:

In the world’s driest inhabited continent, there is simply not enough water to go around, and households, cities, industries and agriculture all demand their share from stressed reservoirs and rivers. So Australia’s irrigation planting sector relies on a unique trading system to make the most of every drop.

What began as a localized trade within states is now an active national market that shares water along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of river systems used by thousands of farmers. And with the drought, the trading of water is picking up pace.

Leap Year Bias

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Fascinating paper out this week in GRL on the “leap year bias” in temperature records:

The addition of one extra day in February normally every fourth year produces a significant seasonal drift in the monthly values of that year in four major temperature datasets used in climate change analysis. The addition of a ‘leap year day’ for the Northern Hemisphere creates statistically significantly colder months of July to December and, to a lesser degree warmer months of February to June than correspondingly common (non-leap year) months.

This seems to be of no great import in discussions of long term trends, but it’s a clever bit of work.