New Weekly Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory for CO2 Concentrations: 418.03 ppm.

[NNadir]

As I've indicated several times I somewhat obsessively keep a spreadsheet of the weekly data at the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory, which I use to do calculations to record the dying of our atmosphere, a triumph of fear, dogma and ignorance that did not have to be, but nonetheless is.

This week's reading is the first in the history of weekly average readings, going back, to 1975 posted by the Mauna Loa is the highest ever recorded at the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide observatory, 418.03.

Generally, each year, these measurements peak in May or early June. I expect we will see 420 ppm this year, less than 10 years after we first saw 400 ppm.

Up-to-date weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

Week beginning on March 28, 2021: 418.03 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 415.95 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 393.88 ppm

The increase in carbon dioxide concentrations when compared to the same week in 2020 is "only" 2.08 ppm, unusually low for these times. (If one keeps track as I do, there is a fair amount of statistical noise in these measurements, but the trends are consistent.) The highest weekly increase over 2020 this year, 2021, was 3.90 ppm, observed in the week beginning February 28, 2021.

In my spreadsheet, I keep records of the increases over 10 year periods, in this case, a comparison of the reading this past week, with the last week of May in 2011. Using Excel functions, I can sort them by values high to low and do a lot of other things.

The 12 month running average for increases over a ten year period, week to week, 2021 to 2011, is 24.15 ppm, 2.41 ppm per year.

If any of this troubles you, don't worry, be happy. You can always head over to the E&E forum and read that "renewable energy is growing 'exponentially.'" I've been hearing that, of course, my whole damned life and I'm not young, but again, don't worry, be happy.

But with respect to the most recent data point at the Mauna Loa observatory, so much for Bill McKibben's "350.org." Bill is another one of those putative "environmentalists" who has trouble mouthing the word "nuclear." He certainly wouldn't want to offend anyone by saying that word. Many of his supporters say things like: "Nuclear is 'too expensive,'" and "Nuclear is 'too dangerous,'" even while 18,000 to 19,000 people die every damned day - more than have died worldwide on Covid's worst day., from air pollution, precisely because we don't embrace nuclear energy.

By contrast, climate change is apparently not "too expensive." Climate change is also apparently not "too dangerous."

As for "too expensive:"

The earliest nuclear plant ever built in the Western World produced electricity for half a century. It was built on 1940's and early 1950's technology. Modern nuclear plants are designed to last 60 years or more. After they are amortized they are cash cows, they produce electricity only requiring trivial low fuel costs and maintenance costs.

By contrast, every damned piece of so called "renewable energy" on this planet will need replacement in 25 years or less - a few wind turbines, very few, as reported at the comprehensive Master Register of Wind Turbines from the Energy Agency of that off shore oil and gas drilling hellhole, Denmark, lasted 30 years; almost all of them were landfill in 25 years or less, with an average lifetime of under 20 years. Wind turbines will be greasy rotting hulks requiring diesel trucks to haul the blades to landfills before most babies born in 2021 graduate from college. Pretty much every damned solar cell now on this planet will all be more already intractable electronic waste in 25 years.

Nuclear energy is too expensive for whom? Certainly not for future generations, but we certainly don't give a rat's ass about their lives. When it comes to providing for them, we couldn't care less. We all turn into Ayn Rand when discussing nuclear energy; we only care for ourselves and those babies born today will have to deal with the shit we leave behind on a planet choking to death on dangerous fossil fuel waste, leaking fracking fields, destroyed ground water, abandoned depleted mines dug so we could be "green," with all of the world's best ores completely depleted etc.

History will not forgive us; nor should it.

I trust you are having a pleasant and safe Sunday.

[IbogaProject]

1. Nuclear is only worth consideration with a walkaway safe design

Nuclear is only worth consideration with a walkaway safe design, the technologies in use and you're promoting are not walkway safe. Boiling water reactors were always crazy and very dangerous.

My opinion is we need to get going with Thorium based reactors and burn up our waste.

Replacing Solar panels in 25-30 to 30 years, will be ok the first time around, as the costs are plummeting and the efficiencies are increasing.

[NNadir]

2. Let me know when there's a dangerous fossil fuel plant that's walkaway safe.

They kill people whenever they operate normally.

Only people who engage in very, very, very, very, very selective attention could possibly complain about nuclear "safety" when 18,000 to 19,000 people die every day because we hold nuclear energy to a standard that no other form of energy could even dream of meeting, including the semiconductor junk pushed out by the solar industry.

As for the fantasy about solar in 30 years, I was hearing this bull 30 years ago, 40 years ago, how it would somehow become magically acceptable. It isn't. It won't be.

The time to put up or shut up was decades ago.

The low energy to mass ratio makes it an environmental catastrophe in the making. If it wasn't trivial after 50 years of insane cheering, while we race to 420 ppm while cheering for it, the environmental consequences would already be obvious.