By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.

Summary: Now that the alarmists have had their day trumpeting the IPCC’s worst case scenario (it’s unlikely and becoming more so), let’s look at their best case scenario (hidden by journalists). The risk probabilities are asymmetric: the good news is more likely than the bad news. This is inspirational, telling people that we can make a better world.

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” — Attributed to Roy Charles Amara as paraphrased by Robert X. Cringely.

The IPCC’s AR5 used four scenarios to discuss the future of climate change. These Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) describe trends for future emissions, concentrations, and land-use, ending with radiative forcing levels of 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 W/m2 by 2100. The worst case is RCP8.5. It assumes ugly changes in long-standing trends of population growth and technological development. It is unlikely, and becoming more so each year. But it allows climate activists and click-hungry journalists to spin useful nightmares to terrify the public.

The middle two scenarios seem likely, RCP4.5 and RCP6.0. Both would have ill effects on the world, adding to the stress from increase in pollution and population growth. Neither are Armageddon (combined with our other problems, RCP8.5 might be close to Armageddon).

RCP2.6 is the ignored orphan. It provides no sad stories for journalists and no propaganda for activists. In a sane world it would be headline news, showing us a feasible future achievable — with some work. But not like the revolution activists advocate. See the best guide to this path to a better world.

“RCP2.6: exploring the possibility to keep global mean temperature increase below 2°C.” by Detlef P. van Vuuren et al. in Climatic Change, November 2011.

This paper is too complex to summarize here. Let’s look at the key points about this vision of the future, and how it is already happening.

One way to get to negative emissions by the 2020s.

From “Ecosystem Services, Land Use Change and future Emission Pathways”

by Andy Wiltshire of the UK Met Office.

A decline in the use of fossil fuels after 2020 contributes most to reduced emissions, along with a shift to biofuels and carbon-capture systems. How can that be done? In the below graph, Detlef P. van Vuuren et al. shows one path to negative emissions while energy consumption continues to grow. Like most of these projections, they assume a century of tech stagnation — so that coal becomes the fuel of the future. CCS is carbon capture and storage. There are no signs whatsoever of this happening.

Primary energy use per year (in EJ), by source.

Explaining one of the good paths to the future.

Detlef P. van Vuuren et al. explains one path, relying on strong government policies. Low assumptions for technological progress is a prudent conservatism in the construction of the RCPs, but that is seldom mentioned by the fear-mongers that dominate the news media.

“Clearly, emissions would need to decline substantially in order to reach a level of 2.6 W/m2 by the end of the century. The cumulative emission reduction over the century amounts to about 70% and the emission reduction in 2100 to more than 95% compared to baseline. …The emission reduction rates for methane and nitrous oxide are less than for CO2. The reason is that the abatement potential for several important sources of these gases is limited. …

“Climate policy leads to an improvement in energy efficiency, more use of {carbon capture and storage (CCS)}, increased use of bioenergy, and some increase in the use of nuclear power and PV/Wind. PV/wind increase their market share in the energy system but the increase in absolute terms is only small in this scenario, caused by 1) other options (e.g. CCS) being more economic, 2) limitations associated with intermittent nature of renewables, and 3) the share of power in total energy use. …

“Both the IMAGE calculations and the current literature suggest that there are a number of key conditions that need to be met in order to achieve the required level of emission reductions.

“First of all, emissions need to be reduced rapidly (around 4% of 2000 emissions annually) over a period of decades. This requires an improvement of greenhouse gas intensity of around 5–6% per year, considerably above the historical rates of around 1–2% per year. …

“Secondly, achieving the ambitious emission reductions associated with the RCP2.6 requires sufficient potential to reduce emissions for all major emission sources. In RCP2.6, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use are reduced by a combination of energy efficiency, increased use of renewables and nuclear power, use of carbon capture and storage and increased use of bioenergy. …

“The third important condition is that non-CO2 gases are strongly reduced.”

How can we do this?

Cost of solar cells. ……..

There are two keys to achieving RCP2.6 without massive government policy action. First, replacing coal as a primary source for electric generation. Second, replacing petroleum liquid fuels as a primary source for cars.

The first is already happening. Renewable energy sources (e.g., solar, wind, geothermal) are slowly becoming able to provide substantial grid power. For example, see the graph on the right showing Swanson’s Law in action, the relationship of solar cell costs to volume.

For the near future, substitution of natural gas for coal will make the most difference. Burning coal to produce a million BTUs of energy produces an average of 210 pounds of CO2; burning natural gas to do so produces 117 pounds of CO2 (see coal produced and CO2 emitted per EIA) — a reduction of 45%! For details read Coal bankruptcies point to a better future for our climate.

The second is also already happening. Volvo plans to make only hybrid or all-electric cars by 2019. Toyota plans to sell a car in 2022 powered by a solid state battery that significantly increases driving range and reduces charging time. Norway plans to allow sale only of electric cars after 2025. India is aiming for 2030. Britain will ban sales of gas and diesel cars after 2040. As will France. These are just first movers in this race.

Looking further out, a host of radical new batteries are under development. For example, U Texas-Austin engineers led by Professor John Goodenough, co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, have developed the first all-solid-state battery cells that could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries (see their press release and their paper in Energy & Environmental Science, Jan 2017).

If pushed with government policies, these measure can push us towards the RCP2.6 scenario during the 2020s. To get the rest of the way we will need breakthroughs that give us new energy sources. These are already under development. A 2015 report by Third Way describes that some have matured to the stage attracting private capital:

“The American energy sector has experienced enormous technological innovation over the past decade in everything from renewables (solar and wind power), to extraction (hydraulic fracturing), to storage (advanced batteries), to consumer efficiency (advanced thermostats). What has gone largely unnoticed is that nuclear power is poised to join the innovation list. “A new generation of engineers, entrepreneurs and investors are working to commercialize innovative and advanced nuclear reactors. …Third Way has found that there are nearly 50 companies, backed by more than $1.3 billion in private capital, developing plans for new nuclear plants in the U.S. and Canada. The mix includes startups and big-name investors like Bill Gates, all placing bets on a nuclear comeback, hoping to get the technology in position to win in an increasingly carbon-constrained world.”

More daring are projects to harness fusion. Nature reviewed them in this 2016 article. Most interesting is Tri Alpha Energy (see Wikipedia) was founded in 1998 and has raised $150 million from hard-nosed capitalists ($500 million according to the company, $700 million per Pitchbook). Their fifth-generation reactor, “Norman”, achieved first plasma this month. An article in this month’s Scientific Reports describes how the previous generation reactor (C-2U) …

“led to the discovery of an unexpected record confinement regime with positive net heating power in a field-reversed configuration plasma, characterised by a >50% reduction in the energy loss rate and concomitant increase in ion temperature and total plasma energy.”

Animation of their previous machine at work, the C-2U.

“Watch an animation of Tri Alpha Energy’s C-2U machine in action. It is 23 meters long. The machine forms two smoke rings of plasma and fires them toward the middle to merge into a bigger FRC. There they turn kinetic energy into heat.”

Is this unrealistic? No. We need only continue current trends.

Energy efficiency has been improving for decades, as shown in this graph from “Reaching peak emissions” by Robert B. Jackson, Nature Climate Change, January 2016 (also see energy efficiency by nation from the World Bank). New technologies, such as cheaper and better batteries, can take this trend to levels we can only imagine today.

Progress has been fastest in the developed nations. For example, one form of energy intensity — electricity use/GDP — has been declining in the US since 1976. Per capita electricity consumption has been declining in the US since 1999. See this April 2017 Bloomberg article for details (e.g., “most other developed countries have experienced a plateauing or decline in electricity use similar to that in the U.S. over the past decade.”).

The results are already visible — except in the mainstream news. Growth in CO2 emissions was strong during the China-driven boom years of 2000-09, but has been slowing during the past five years. Emissions were flat in 2014-15, and are estimated to have grown only slightly in 2016. This graph is from”Global Carbon Budget 2016” by Corinne Le Quéré et al in Earth System Science Data, 14 November 2016. Click to enlarge.

The bottom line: Co2 levels in an RCP2.6 world

Here are predictions of humanity’s CO2 emissions in three RCP scenarios, at decade intervals. Green is RCP2.6, blue is RCP4.5, and red is RCP6.0. RCP8.5 is off this scale. In RCP2.6 CO2 emissions steeply fall in the 2020s. Graph is from the interactive tool at the RCP Database.

What about levels of greenhouse gasses (GHG)? This shows the total expressed as equivalent of CO2 (in parts per million). For reasons discussed above, they only decline — and slowly — starting in the 2040s. By 2100 the level is … It does not matter. That is far beyond what we can reliably predict now, any more than the people of 1934 could predict our world of today.

What happens to global atmosphere and ocean temperatures in the world of RCP2.6? Estimates vary. The rise is probably close to 2 degrees Centigrade over pre-industrial levels, a long-standing goal for limiting anthropogenic climate change.

Why we don’t hear more good news?

The answer can be seen from readers’ reaction to the 4,000+ posts on the FM website. “If it bleeds, it leads.” People want to read scary stories. They want to read exciting stories cheering our side’s angelic warriors — and hissing at our foes, satan’s minions. Good news does not get big traffic. We love scary stories. The reason why reveals a secret about America.

For More Information

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information about this vital issue see the posts about the RCPs, about the keys to understanding climate change and these posts about the politics of climate change…

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