Thermodynamics 101: Compression increases temperature.

Question: If I had a container, full with air, and I suddenly decreased the volume of the container, forcing the air into a smaller volume, will it be considered as compression, will it result in an increase in temperature, and why?

Answer on Stack Exchange by Luboš Motl: Yes, it is compression and yes, it will heat up the gas.

If there’s no heat exchange between the gas and the container (or the environment), we call it an adiabatic process. For an adiabatic process involving an ideal gas (which is a very good approximation for most common gases), pV^γ is constant where γ is an exponent such as 5/3. Because the temperature is equal to T=pV/nR and pV/pV^γ=V^1−γ is a decreasing function of V, the temperature will increase when the volume decreases.

Macroscopically, the heating is inevitable because one needs to perform work p|dV| to do the compression, the energy has to be preserved, and the only place where it can go is the interior of the gas given by a formula similar to (3/2)nRT.

The Chequers Cabinet conclusions – an assessment by Lawyers for Britain

The fix is in. UK prime minister Theresa May is on her hind legs telling us black is white and expecting us to swallow the lie. Brexit minsters David Davis and Steve Baker have resigned. Foreign secretary Boris Johnson has followed suit. Several parliamentary private secretaries have also resigned in protest at TMay’s non-brexit plan.

Lawyers for Britain chair Martin Howe has written this assessment of the ‘Chequers deal’ summary released to the press. It lays out in strong terms just how deceptive TMay is when she claims in parliament that her Chequers deal represents the Brexit the country voted for. If it was, those ministers wouldn’t have felt the need to resign their positions.

Board meeting turns ‘toxic’ as UN climate fund runs low

Ructions as poor financial management and zero dollars from the US drain the UN’s so-called ‘green climate fund’. Even agreeing an agenda was a major struggle.
H/T Steve Milloy

Rich and poor country representatives clash over policy priorities and replenishment at Green Climate Fund board meeting, reports Climate Change News.

Update on Wednesday 4 July: UN climate fund chief resigns for personal reasons while board meeting collapses

Disputes between rich and poor nations at the UN’s flagship climate fund are intensifying as the money runs low.

A meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) board in Songdo started unevenly on Sunday, as co-chair Paul Oquist was detained by political turmoil in Nicaragua, leaving Sweden’s Lennart Båge to run the session single-handed.

With developing countries complaining their priorities were not properly represented, it took nearly two days to agree on the agenda for the meeting.

Chinese self-drive buses enter ‘mass production’

Baidu’s self-driving mini bus on show in Shanghai.

The march of the robots gets wheels.

One of China’s biggest technology companies has declared it has begun mass production of a self-driving bus, reports BBC News.

Baidu made the announcement after building its 100th Apolong vehicle at its factory in the country’s south-eastern Fujian province.

It said the vehicles would initially be put to commercial use within Chinese cities but added it was also targeting foreign markets.

Arizona appellate court decides ‘Hockey Stick’ emails must be released

Hockey stick or not? Tell the truth

This is not necessarily the end of the appeals process, but it looks like progress.

H/T The GWPF

Press Release from FME Law
July 3, 2018

One thousand seven hundred and sixty-three days ago, on behalf of its client, the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, PLLC (FME Law) asked the University of Arizona to hand over public records that would expose to the world the genesis of what some consider the most influential scientific publication of that decade – the Mann-Bradley-Hughes temperature reconstruction that looks like a hockey stick.

The University refused.

Wind power can’t fill Sweden’s nuclear energy gap

Ringhals nuclear power site, Sweden [image credit: Vattenfall]

Another example of the obvious inadequacy of part-time unpredictable wind power, and its consequencies for countries that insist on pursuing it. Relying on imports to avoid power shortages can’t be ideal for any country.
H/T The GWPF/Reuters

Sweden will have to import more electricity during winter as the country, a net power exporter to the rest of Europe, shifts from nuclear to wind, its grid operator said.

Ed Hoskins: GLOBAL MAN-MADE CO2 EMISSIONS 1965 – 2017: BP DATA

The following calculations and graphics are based on information on worldwide CO2 emission levels published by BP in June 2018 for the period from 1965 up until the end of 2017.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html

The data can be summarised as follows:

Some initial points arising from the BP data:

• Having been relatively stable for the last 7 years global CO2 emissions grew by ~1.3% in 2017.  This growth was in spite of all the international “commitments” arising from the Paris Climate Agreement.
• The contrast between the developed and developing worlds remains stark:
  • developing world emissions overtook Developed world CO2 emissions in 2005 and they have been escalating since.
  • in terms of their history and the likely prognosis of their CO2 emissions.
• Since 1990 CO2 emissions from the developed world have decreased, whereas the developing world has shown a fourfold increase since 1980.  CO2 emissions in the developing world are accelerating as the quality of the lives for people in the underdeveloped and developing world improves.  At least 1.12 billion people in the developing world still have no access to reliable mains electricity.
• As a result CO2 emissions / head for India and the rest of the world’s Underdeveloped nations (~53% of the world population) remains very low at ~1.7 tonnes / head, (~40% of the Global average) meaning that the state of serious human deprivation and underdevelopment is continuing.
• By 2017 CO2 emissions from the developing world were some 65% of the global emissions.
• India and the underdeveloped world will certainly be continuing to promote their own development to attain comparable development levels to their other peer group developing nations.
• India’s growth in CO2 emissions 2016 – 2017 was by a further 4.1%
• China, (considered here as a “Developing Nation”),  showed CO2 emission growth of 1.4% in 2017.
• China’s CO2 emissions / head for its population of some 1.4 billion has now approached the average emissions / head in Europe.
• China’s CO2 emissions / head was already higher than most of the EU Nations other than Germany.

Even as long ago as October 2010 Professor Richard Muller made the dilemma for all those who hope to control global warming by reducing CO2 emissions, particularly by means of CO2 reductions from Western Nations, clear:  in essence he said:

“the Developing World is not joining-in with CO2 emission reductions nor does it have any intention of doing so.  The failure of worldwide action negates the unilateral action of any individual Western Nation”.