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Unveiling the Truth about the CO2 Crisis and a Smart Approach to Addressing It

Annual CO2 Emissions Including land use change

Going green can have different interpretations for different people. However, the ultimate measure of success or failure in this endeavor is often determined by one key factor – carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Despite the widespread discussions on solar panels, electric vehicles, and ESG scores, the most effective way to combat the rising CO2 emissions remains largely overlooked.

It is a matter of great concern that the simplest solution to this issue is hardly ever talked about. The solution is straightforward – we need to reduce our carbon footprint.

Rising Concerns: China’s Skyrocketing CO2 Emissions

To better understand the issue, we must first focus on China. Since becoming a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001, China’s CO2 emissions have surged from 4 billion tons to almost 12 billion tons, a worrying trend. In contrast, the US has managed to decrease its CO2 emissions to 5 billion tons over the same period.

It’s true that China has grown rapidly over the years, but its carbon footprint has grown at an alarming rate as well. One of the primary sources of CO2 emissions is manufacturing, and China remains the global manufacturing hub. It’s reasonable to assume that as China’s production capacity increases, so do its CO2 emissions.

However, the scale of the increase is staggering. It’s difficult to ignore the reality that China is not an environmentally friendly place for manufacturing. Unlike the US, China does not have abundant natural resources, and it’s likely not employing modern technology in the same way. It’s also doubtful whether China is adhering to acceptable environmental standards during its production processes.

Super cold in Dallas with many cloudy days

dallas, tx cold

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On Monday the 15th of February 2021 Texas is experiencing record electric demand while struggling with some loss of power from both renewable and non renewable sources.  Many people have seen their power shut off sometimes for hours.  While some maintain that we are headed for warmer weather in winter and summer this record breaking cold spell that grips much of the US shows that simplification of the complex climate system is foolish.  What would be the situation if we were dependent on solar power for much of our electricity?  After a number of cloudy days no reasonable amount of batteries would have any charge and today with some sun the panels would have to be cleared of snow to be able to generate a few hours of power at a small fraction of their rated capacity.  We must get real about energy and its use.  Times like this with extremely low temperatures make clear that we need to build more well insulated buildings with less glass.  Building designers don’t really prioritize energy efficiency in so many cases.  In normal winter weather here in Dallas the heat is barely needed and a south facing window may pickup more heat than it gives off but on a very cold cloudy day that big window is a huge energy thief chilling the space.
 
Many advocated for the use of electric heat pumps as a better alternative to natural gas heating.  In fact some areas are banning new natural gas hookups for home.  Some builders are building homes in the outer areas of Dallas where there isn’t natural gas piping and choosing to save money developing the lots by not paying to bring it in.  My engineer lives in a nice home outside Dallas that doesn’t have sewer or natural gas in a subdivision that was built with big lots that allow micro-sewer systems to be installed at each home that use the treated waste water to irrigate a small part of the back yard.  Heat pumps work as an air conditioner in reverse cooling the outdoors and directing the heat from condensing the refrigerant into the house.  As is well known such systems move more heat by far than the electrical energy that powers them when the climate conditions are warm enough to allow the evaporation of the refrigerant to cool the outside air.  The problem comes when the outside air is colder than the evaporation temperature, then the refrigerant remains liquid and the system stops moving heat.  Heat pump designers deal with this by installing much less efficient electric resistance heating coils in the inside air handler to take over when the temperature is too low for the much more efficient heat pump to work.  That is what is happening today when the temperature is at record lows.  Luckily a large amount of the heating in Texas is done by natural gas or propane which doesn’t face a huge increase in energy use when the temperature drops low other than the increased heat load of the house.  With an electric heat pump there is a double hit of increased need for heating and a sharply lower efficiency of the system.
 
Texas has a lot of wind power but the news today said that some are frozen so that further cuts the power supply.  Luckily my house so far as not had a power outage but when I came to my office today thru the snow a number of red lights were out indicating blackouts and while my power was luckily back on at my office it had gone out during the night.  Sadly with the large amount of wind power that has been constructed and solar promoters building new solar farms the market for a natural gas power plant has shrunk and is losing favor as a badly needed backup of unreliable renewable power. 
Texas has an auction market for electricity in which prices fluctuate wildly depending on weather, time of day and availability of power sources.  The state grid operator just chooses the lowest price power provider at any time which means that at night when the always on coal and nuclear plants are competing with usually abundant wind power that is strongest at night the rates in normal times can drop near zero.  But last night with record cold and some of the wind turbines frozen there was a shortage of power and up to a million Texans lost their power.  My stepson spend the night at a friends where the power went off and the house was 40 degrees in the morning!!! 
 
Investors in something like a quick acting natural gas power plant called a peaker face uncertain income and the myth that cheap battery storage is coming to provide extra power like they really do.  People look at the long term when investing and why invest in a needed natural gas plant if miracle batteries are going to make them obsolete!!  Much is made of big battery installations which have come down in price which are usually rated in terms of how many homes they can power for two hours.  Battery proponents see batteries as being able to soak up excess renewable energy such as solar at mid day and emit it when the solar power is gone in the late afternoon and on an ideal day that can work for some of the time.  No one talks about what to do on a week like last week with days of cold cloudy weather where there is no solar power for many days.  Battery materials are limited and costs will increase with more demand.  There are proposals to build some limited battery storage but these are intended for short duration power delivery with recharges twice a day to meet peak power demand in the morning and evening when solar doesn’t make power.  There is not anything like the amount of battery backup needed for more than a fraction of the needed power during those short spells.  In practice if we are realistic about solar power every megawatt of solar should be backed up by a megawatt of natural gas peaker power plant that can quickly step in during all the time when solar is offline including for days of cloudy weather like last week.
 
WE need to get real about solar energy capability which the industry hates to be truthful about.  They love to talk about rated capacity which is the electric output at an optimal 1000 watts of solar radiation per square meter.  They use that benchmark to talk about how cheap solar power is when you divide the rated capacity by the installed cost being very optimistic about received solar radiation and other factors.  What they don’t like to talk about is how short the time of power production actually is and how in a city like Dallas the actual solar radiation on a typical winter week could look like this.
Now it maybe hard for you to read the numbers on the graph but the good days peaks for a short time at just 500 watts per square meter for such a short time as to make it impossible to charge a battery.  The three cloudy days mark solar radiation so low as to not make significant power.  This week is far better than last week was but would be a disaster if you were relying on a very optimistic ideal of solar power and short term battery backup.  We need to get real and take action to make sure that we have reliable power especially on days like today when indoor temperatures can drop dramatically if the power goes out.
 
Solar in the winter really can’t deliver more than a fraction of the summer power but if we have natural gas power plants sized to provide more than enough power to back it up we can get some use out of solar on sunny winter days even if they are only a day or two a week.    Now there is another problem and that is a failure to have extra natural gas available with the wells not being run at a near maximum level as the desperate for cash small natural gas exploration companies have to do to fight off bankruptcy.  We need to reform the way we price natural gas and get utilities and big users to get away from pricing natural gas based on the commodity markets often distorted low level of pricing that is currently below the cost of delivering natural gas due to speculators taking advantage of the deeply indebted natural gas companies often being required to hedge their production on the futures market with more hedging when prices ever creep up towards a profitable level.  We need utilities and natural gas power plants to be more focused on guaranteed availability of as much natural gas as needed so that in really cold times we have enough natural gas capacity to keep everybody warm unlike this spell where many shivered in houses where the pipes busted.  People have died because of the neglect to be prepared with extra natural gas capacity which affected heating but also importantly power generation.
 
America’s infatuation with pursuing the lowest cost even if it may not be reliable led Texas to a bad situation that has resulted in lots of damage and perhaps even loss of life.  Geothermal energy is the most reliable and longest lasting source of power but suffers from higher installed cost in many cases and also fails to satisfy investors and utilities that seek large power production instead of distributed power.   When you look at carbon emissions it is important to look at total lifetime emissions and in that case solar and wind with relatively short lives and lots of embedded carbon emissions really fail to be that desirable.  Geothermal electric power plants actually  make more energy as the temperature goes down as they are thermal processes that benefit from cooler condensation temperatures in the typical organic rankine cycle powerplant.  The best geothermal plants produce both electricity  and low temperature heat for heating needs or even to power a heat powered air conditioning unit.  This sharply boost overall efficiency. 
 
The other so called geothermal energy use is very sensible which is using the vast cool region of the near surface earth as a heat sink in summer to sharply reduce air conditioning bills and as an area for a electric heat pump to draw heat from in the winter very efficiently regardless of air temperature.  Texas wouldn’t have had the problem it had if we had gone to such systems that are very available yet require more investment than a typical air conditioner or heat pump.  Builders choose to build the cheapest way they can without regard to energy use or society having adequate power.  Geothermal heat pumps should be mandated for new buildings and retrofits encouraged for existing buildings.
 
We need to get real about providing stable secure essentials for all.

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Remineralization of Soil | Fighting Climate Change

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Remineralization of Soil | Fighting Climate Change
We need to start lobbying congress to consider the get real alliance carbon sequestration program outlined on the website.  Please share the website http://www.getrealalliance.org
 
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Senators and Representative (you only need to provide your zip code). It will take 3 separate calls.  This really makes a difference in making them aware of your belief that our program makes the most sense.
 
 

To learn more about our Carbon Sequestration Program please click below!

David Munson speaks on the Leah Belding show

Leah belding show

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David Munson Jr went on the Leah Belding Show to discuss the presidential elections and his take on the whole climate change crisis. Using the show as a platform to promote the Get Real Alliance, which is a non profit founded by David, himself. David hopes to gain money donation along with email signups to his newsletter, which teaches about soil care and benefits on how soil can help fight climate change. David Munson Jr  would also love to see the world go carbon negative even with the use of natural gas as the main source of energy, which would be 55% less harmful than coal, which is currently the major source of energy in most parts of the world. 

Leah is now back with her new show, a call in format designed to deal with the current issues of today’s world and to gain feedback from her listening audience.

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The GET REAL Alliance is a young advocacy group that is doing research on climate issues, providing insight and hoping to influence the climate debate towards a better and more positive solution.  We are glad you have found us but to be effective we need you to both signup on our website and follow us on social media.  Numbers matter in so many ways for an advocacy group.  We hope you will find our distinctive realistic look at climate and related issues compelling.  We offer a better way to prepare for the future than those who just advocate for cutting man’s emissions with no attempt to make the environment better.  By signing up on the website you will be on our mailing list and get newsletters and notification when the very disruptive book: GET REAL: A Positive solution to climate is out.  Believe it or not it lays out how America and the World can be carbon negative in just a few years while we still use oil and gas.  IF you are somewhat skeptical about the seriousness of the climate change issue rest assured our program actually solves other problems that are beyond dispute.  These include growing deserts, soil loss, declining nutrition and hunger.
 
Much of the answer lies beneath our feet in the soil.  We can see life on top of the land but fail to realize that it represents less than 10% of life on earth with the vast majority being in the soil.  The sad fact is that soil life is actually at a low level due to the demineralized nature of much soil along with man’s use of toxic chemicals in many areas.  The base of the soil life food chain is rock nutrients and carbohydrates from plant roots.  Adding needed rock nutrients to the soil boosts soil life if it is not killed by man.  You can learn more about remineralization at http://www.remineralize.org and please sign up for their newsletter and donate to them.  Remineralization is a key strategy to make the world carbon negative as it is proven to make the plants and soil sequester more carbon.  You can learn a lot more by being involved with us in promoting basalt rock dust remineralization.  Imagine a world where the nutrition of abundant food is better than the past instead of being drastically lower in key nutrients as it is today. 
 
Help us produce position papers and spread the word about our positive viewpoint by signing up, joining and ideally donating to proclaim the good news. Numbers count and will help us with donors who like to see growing support.  We are doomed to a dark future if current climate proposals are adopted which do nothing positive about saving the soil and only slow the rise of carbon dioxide.  This year we see what decades of bad forest management have wrought while some politicians carry on about climate change being responsible.  The GET REAL alliance advocates for a active bold program of restoring forests to health thru remineralization and removal of dead wood.  We need realism and that is what the words GET REAL advocate!!!  Join us in our fight.
 

Texas Philanthropist Makes Remineralization Part of His Christian Mission

David Munson

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Love your neighbor as yourself’ is not only the Second Great Commandment as cited by Jesus Christ in the New Testament, but it’s the mantra by which David Munson operates — both when he’s booking guests on his Dallas-Fort Worth-area TV show, as well when he advocates on behalf of remineralization to politicians.

“There’s a fight between good and evil going on in this world,” he says. “You can either be on the good side or the bad side. You can either be working to make the world a better place, or you could be pulling it down and mining it and just living for immediate pleasure.”

As for his digital program (available on YouTube), Munson’s Christian faith has him interviewing people who through their good works and charity strive to contribute to a better world for all. When it comes to his passion for remineralization, Munson says, it too falls under the neighborly love theme, because people need healthy, abundant food, and they need a clean environment, which rock dust can help achieve by promoting soil carbon sequestration.

It solves the rising carbon dioxide problem as it solves the soil depletion problem. By increasing the ability of soil to soak up water and air, pollution is minimized as is soil runoff. My goal is to promote soil remineralization and soil revitalization to solve the carbon dioxide crisis and to ensure humanity doesn’t starve to death in a few decades.”

Munson first became aware of remineralization after his family bought a commercial ranch in the 1980s along the Red River in northeastern Texas.

He says: It had a mixture of river bottom soil, which was fertile, and native upland soils that were depleted, demineralized and infertile. I saw how important soil is to productivity, going from soil that would grow huge, abundant crops to depleted lands with very little topsoil and infertile subsoil that basically grew almost nothing.

A mechanical engineer by trade, Munson started studying soil fertility and remineralization, applying concentrated rock dust like limestone and dolomite and other rocks, based on soil tests of what nutrients his soils were lacking.

“We boosted our production dramatically by balancing soil nutrients and trace elements in the soil on the ranch,” he said, adding basalt rock also carries some unique, beneficial remineralization qualities that are almost intangible. “I think one of the reasons people have seen big increases by using basalt rock dust in remineralizing soils is magnetism.

“Magnetism is kind of an unusual force that works in the world, and we don’t really understand all the ways life interacts with magnetism. But we know with these soils that when they’re high in paramagnetic qualities and have a mild magnetic attraction, they grow some of the best foods, and basalt is high in paramagnetism.”

A different kind of environmentalist

While passionate about soil and environmental issues, Munson might not be what everyone would consider as a typical environmentalist. He is, after all, co-owner of some partially-developed natural gas reserves, and he believes development of natural gas as a cleaner, lower-emissions hydrocarbon alternative to coal is vital to combating climate change while also ensuring stable, plentiful and independent access to energy for the United States.

Unlike coal, he notes, natural gas-fired power plants easily can be turned on and off to accommodate renewables such as wind and solar, which only provide electricity when the wind actually blows or the sun is shining.

As for combating climate change, Munson clearly sees remineralization as the preferred method. He has decided to devote substantial energy to supporting Remineralize the Earth, both in terms of raising money and advocacy.

I’ve reached out to other people to donate, I’ve donated myself, and I’m working hard to build more support for the organization,” he says, noting he has also spoken with politicians, including recently meeting with the staff of Sen. Ted Cruz to discuss remineralization options. I have had meetings with several congressmen about remineralization, trying to build support through legislation in the future. We’ll see what I can accomplish.”

He added: “People want to protect the soil and save the soil, and I think it’s possible to change the dialogue. Even for people who are not as convinced that global warming is as big a threat, it’s still a risk.

Making the world a better place

Remineralization is an important part of Munson’s Christian mission, and he has discussed the topic repeatedly on his regular broadcast, as well as with the politicians, farmers and everyday people with whom he comes in contact.

“I’m speaking with people I meet with about [remineralization], and I’m trying to work with some landowners in the North Texas area to do trial plots,” he says. I have one man doing a very smallscale rock dust plot, and I want to work with some commercial farmers to do trial applications to their fields of significant size. I’m trying to raise money and gather donations for the cause.

The Texas philanthropist hopes others will join him in reaching out to their legislators to advocate on behalf of rock dust, as well as financially supporting the cause by donating to such groups as RTE.

We desperately need broad-based support,” he says, adding the remineralization cause desperately needs people to share information and build awareness on rock dust’s potential as a tool for soil carbon sequestration that helps produce abundant, nutritious crops in the process.

“This is a very positive message about empowering people to grow more food and do more things.”

Why California’s Climate Policies Are Causing Electricity Blackouts

California blackouts due to climate policy

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Millions of Californians were denied electrical power and thus air conditioning during a heatwave, raising the risk of heatstroke and death, particularly among the elderly and sick. 

The blackouts come at a time when people, particularly the elderly, are forced to remain indoors due to Covid-19.

At first, the state’s electrical grid operator last night asked customers to voluntarily reduce electricity use. But after power reserves fell to dangerous levels it declared a “Stage 3 emergency” cutting off power to people across the state at 6:30 pm.

The immediate reason for the black-outs was the failure of a 500-megawatt power plant and an out-of-service 750-megawatt unit not being available. “There is nothing nefarious going on here,” said a spokeswoman for California Independent System Operator (CAISO). “We are just trying to run the grid.” 

But the underlying reasons that California is experiencing rolling black-outs for the second time in less than a year stem from the state’s climate policies, which California policymakers have justified as necessary to prevent deaths from heatwaves. 

In October, Pacific Gas and Electric cut off power to homes across California to avoid starting forest fires. The utility and California’s leaders had over the previous decade diverted billions meant for grid maintenance to renewables. 

And yesterday, California had to impose rolling blackouts because it had failed to maintain sufficient reliable power from natural gas and nuclear plants, or pay in advance for enough guaranteed electricity imports from other states.

It may be that California’s utilities and their regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission, which is also controlled by Gov. Newsom, didn’t want to spend the extra money to guarantee the additional electricity out of fears of raising California’s electricity prices even more than they had already raised them.

California saw its electricity prices rise six times more than the rest of the United States from 2011 to 2019, due to its huge expansion of renewables. Republicans in the U.S. Congress point to that massive increase to challenge justifications by Democrats to spend $2 trillion on renewables in the name of climate change.

Even though the cost of solar panels declined dramatically between 2011 and 2019, their unreliable and weather-dependent nature meant that they imposed large new costs in the form of storage and transmission to keep electricity as reliable. California’s solar panels and farms were all turning off as the blackouts began, with no help available from the states to the East already in nightfall.

Electricity from solar goes away at the very moment when the demand for electricity rises. “The peak demand was steady in late hours,” said the spokesperson for CAISO, which is controlled by Gov. Gavin Newsom, “and we had thousands of megawatts of solar reducing their output as the sunset.”

The two blackouts in less than a year are strong evidence that the tens of billions that Californians have spent on renewables come with high human, economic, and environmental costs.

Last December, a report by done for PG&E concludedthat the utility’s customers could see blackouts double over the next 15 years and quadruple over the next 30.

California’s anti-nuclear policies also contributed to the blackouts. In 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown forced a nuclear power plant, San Onofre, in southern California to close.

Had San Onofre still been operating, there almost certainly would not have been blackouts on Friday as the reserve margin would have been significantly larger. The capacity of San Onofre was double that of the lost generation capacity that triggered the blackout.

California’s current and former large nuclear plants are located on the coast, which allows for their electricity to travel shorter distances, and through less-constrained transmission lines than the state’s industrial solar farms, to get to the coastal cities where electricity is in highest demand.

There has been very little electricity from wind during the summer heatwave in California and the broader western U.S., further driving up demand. In fact, the same weather pattern, a stable high-pressure bubble, is the cause of heatwaves, since it brought very low wind for days on end along with very high temperatures.

Things won’t be any better, and may be worse, in the winter, which produces far less solar electricity than the summer. Solar plus storage, an expensive attempt to fix problems like what led to this blackout, cannot help through long winters of low output.

California’s electricity prices will continue to rise if it continues to add more renewables to its grid, and goes forward with plans to shut down its last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025.

Had California spent an estimated $100 billion on nuclear instead of on wind and solar, it would have had enough energy to replace all fossil fuels in its in-state electricity mix.

To manage the increasingly unreliable grid, California will either need to keep its nuclear plant operating, build more natural gas plants, or pay ever more money annually to reserve emergency electricity supplies from its neighbors.

After the blackouts last October, Gov. Newsom attacked PG&E Corp. for “greed and mismanagement” and named a top aide, Ana Matosantos, to be his “energy czar.” 

“This is not the new normal, and this does not take 10 years to solve,” Newsom said. “The entire system needs to be reimagined.”

 

Source: Forbes