Climate Change and Projects
Monday’s Class : Climate Change: The Science
Before Class:
- I’ve posted MT#1 on the main class website. Please answer all the questions that gave you some difficulty.
- Please see problem set #4, posted on the main class website.
- Stay on top of the Keeling Curve!!! It’s updated hourly. Change the scales to look at the changes over the year, over the past century, and over the past 80,000 years… does it seem that the present rise could be explained as “part of earth’s natural cyclic changes”?
- See this video about what causes climate changes CC Causes
- See the Effects of CC … Can you distinguish climate change from the ozone hole UV problems? and CC Slides, also see the Slide of GHG Sources
- Effects of CC are first physical, and then biological… in one extreme example: no male sea turtles?
- Please read the GHG part of Arrhenius biography
- If you want more information about radiative forcing, see this NOAA document.
- Massive die off of endangered antelope… by climate change? – spoiler: photo of cute baby.
- WOW! Please read… no one knows how severe tundra-methane feedback could be. It could radically change the earth in our time.
- Deadly diseases?… more death from the permafrost?
- Please consider coming to this talk at 4:00 PM Monday. I know the speaker. He’s a riot, and it will likely be super entertaining. Also, most of what I know about internal combustion, I learned from him in a 1-hour discussion. Zero CO2 power plants
During Class
After Class
Wednesday’s Class: Climate Change, the Policy and Politics.
Before Class
- Please read this rand report. Please come ready to talk about it in class:
- In particular, I find this paragraph compelling. “Much progress has been made in improving disclosure of corporate exposure to greenhouse gas reduction policies through mechanisms such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures, a private sector initiative working to help businesses identify and disclose risks to their operations from climate policy. But less attention has been given to disclosing risks to businesses from climate impacts, such as the disruption of supply chains, or those faced by public organizations, such as city governments.”
- In the 5 stages of grief, where would you put this article?
- Please see video: Solar PV , and slides
- Please see video: Concentrated Solar and slides
- Please see Pete’s Solar Research page. What makes our research special? What makes Solar electricity particularly timely right now? What questions do you have for special guest Pete Schwartz?
- Please read: What’s going to happen when solar is free and batteries are really cheap? Collapse of the Grid? What you need to know: distinguish “load defection” from “grid defection”.
During Class
After Class
Friday:
We are hosting Tom Kabat, board member and consultant for SunWork . For our activity, Bryan Noel will teach us about the installation of solar panels.
Before Class
- Make sure you can answer the following questions
- What did Tom study as an undergraduate? Where did he study?
- What is unique about SunWork’s business model?
- In the video, what do people express as the value they receive from SunWork?
- Please see the video about Nuclear Power
- Please see video Nuclear Safety
- Please see slides for videos on nuclear.
- MUST READ! this short article from Forbes about deaths per unit of electricity generated. Which technology is the least, the most dangerous? Where do deaths from rooftop solar come from?
- Please see video about Nuclear Waste, Cost
- Read about the latest and perhaps last (?) US nuclear reactor to be built.
- Prepare MT #1 corrections to hand in on Monday! I originally posted that I would collect them today (Friday). However, I have extended it to Monday. Please prepare good answers for the questions that you had difficulty with.
During Class
After Class
What I did not assign: