Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Few Must-Know

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Energy-Climate Continuum

  • 539 Accesses

Abstract

As noted in the preface, climate and energy issues have become extremely trendy. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because thanks to this media exposure, everyone knows there is a problem with climate change and energy, or “something like that.” A curse, because you can hear about anyone claiming anything on these issues, so that most people are in fact extremely confused. And as a highly spirited climate scientist rightly claimed, when it comes to climate science issues, it takes ten seconds to proclaim an absurdity, but 10 min to explain why it is so.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See Nature peer-review policies at www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html.

  2. 2.

    Number returned by the ISI Web of Knowledge database on May 16, 2013, running the query “Year \(=\) 2000–2010” and “Documents Types \(=\) ARTICLE or LETTER”.

  3. 3.

    ISI Web of Knowledge, consulted May 16, 2013.

  4. 4.

    “Investigación y Ciencia,” “Pour la Science,” and “Spektrum der Wissenschaft” are the Spanish, French, and German versions, respectively, of “Scientific American.”

  5. 5.

    See www.nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html.

  6. 6.

    Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Act II, Scene IV.

  7. 7.

    2012 mean value at Mauna Loa. See www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends. A CO\(_2\) concentration of “1 ppm” means that out of 1 million liters of atmosphere, 1 L is pure CO\(_2\).

  8. 8.

    See Wikipedia page on “Fermi problem”.

  9. 9.

    See Instituto Nacional de Estadística, www.ine.es.

  10. 10.

    See www.unfccc.int.

  11. 11.

    I really recommend in this respect Richard Feynman’s illustration in The Feynman Lectures on Physics ([7], Chap. 4).

  12. 12.

    One of the problems with defining “energy” is that you cannot do it in terms of more fundamental concepts. “Energy” is already a highly fundamental concepts in physics [8].

  13. 13.

    Wolfang Pauli hypothesized the existence of this particle in 1930 to ensure conservation of energy (among others) during a particular nuclear reaction [10]. The neutrino was discovered in 1956 [11].

  14. 14.

    see Sect. 5.3 for a little more on this.

  15. 15.

    As is the case in most countries but a few like France, where it is 75 % nuclear [13].

  16. 16.

    See www.ine.es.

  17. 17.

    Even this seems slightly inaccurate. Nuclear energy provided 20.1 % of Spanish’ electricity in 2013, against 19.4 % for wind [14].

  18. 18.

    The electromagnetic force keeps protons apart from each other’s. Without the nuclear force, nucleus would not hold together, and there would be no atoms at all.

  19. 19.

    Solar energy could equally fit into the “electromagnetic potential energy” box, because it is just the electromagnetic energy of sunlight.

  20. 20.

    Dismantling a molecule has to cost some energy. It would not be there otherwise, having been destroyed long ago by the slightest bump with an atom.

References

  1. A. Cho, Y. Bhattacharjee, First wrinkles in spacetime confirm cosmic inflation. Science 343, 1296 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. J.M. Kovac, E.M. Leitch, C. Pryke, J.E. Carlstrom, N.W. Halverson, W.L. Holzapfel, Detection of polarization in the cosmic microwave background using DASI. Nature 420, 772 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. D. Normile, Hwang convicted but dodges jail; stem cell research has moved on. Science 326(5953), 650–651 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. R. Van Noorden, Science publishing: the trouble with retractions. Nature 478(7367), 26–28 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. J. Giles, Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature 438(7070), 900 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. P. Falkowski, R.J. Scholes, E. Boyle, J. Canadell, D. Canfield, J. Elser, N. Gruber, K. Hibbard, P. Hgberg, S. Linder, F.T. Mackenzie, B. Moore III, T. Pedersen, Y. Rosenthal, S. Seitzinger, V. Smetacek, W. Steffen, The global carbon cycle: a test of our knowledge of earth as a system. Science 290(5490), 291 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. R.P. Feynman, R.B. Leighton, M. Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, MA, 1977)

    Google Scholar 

  8. E. Brewe, Energy as a substance like quantity that flows: theoretical considerations and pedagogical consequences. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res 7, 020106 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. H. Goldstein, C. Poole, J. Safko, Classical Mechanics (Pearson Education, New Jersey, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  10. L.M. Brown, The idea of the neutrino. Phys. Today 31, 23 (1978)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. C.L. Cowan, F. Reines, F.B. Harrison, H.W. Kruse, A.D. McGuire, Detection of the free neutrino: a confirmation. Science 124(3212), 103–104 (1956)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. PATH. Annual report on world progress in hydrogen. Technical report, Partnership for Advancing the Transition to Hydrogen, June (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  13. International Energy Agency, Key World Energy Statistics (International Energy Agency, Paris, 2012)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Red Eléctrica de España, The Spanish electricity system preliminary report 2013 (S.A.U, Technical report, Red Eléctrica de España , December 2013)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ETSI Industriales, Universidad Castilla La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Antoine Bret

Authors
  1. Antoine Bret
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antoine Bret .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bret, A. (2014). A Few Must-Know. In: The Energy-Climate Continuum. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07920-2_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07920-2_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07919-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07920-2

  • eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation