Greenpeace caught playing the scary scenario

Before President Bush touched down in Pennsylvania Wednesday to promote his nuclear energy policy, the environmental group Greenpeace was mobilizing.

"This volatile and dangerous source of energy" is no answer to the country's energy needs, shouted a Greenpeace fact sheet decrying the "threat" posed by the Limerick reactors Bush visited.

But a factoid or two later, the Greenpeace authors were stumped while searching for the ideal menacing metaphor.

We present it here exactly as it was written, capital letters and all: "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]."

Had Greenpeace been hacked by a nuke-loving Bush fan? Or was this proof of Greenpeace fear-mongering?

The aghast Greenpeace spokesman who issued the memo, Steve Smith, said a colleague was making a joke by inserting the language in a draft that was then mistakenly released.

"Given the seriousness of the issue at hand, I don't even think it's funny," Smith said.

No we do .

Energy security the G8 energy initiatives.Part 2 Russia

International energy security is of special significance to Russia, which has one of the world’s biggest fuel and energy potentials. It occupies 13% of the world’s territory and has less than 3% of the world’s population, but 34% of gas and some 13% of the prospected oil reserves. Russia’s energy complex is an inalienable part of the global energy market. Russia leads the world in international gas trade and is the second biggest oil and petrochemicals exporter. From 2002 to 2004, it posted the world’s highest growth rate for major oil producing countries.

Based on current estimates, we can conclude that Russia’s oil production can reach 530 million tons and export 310 million tons by 2015. Its role of a reliable energy supplier has been reinforced by the efforts to diversify oil export routes. The Russian government has made a decision on building an East Siberia – Pacific oil pipeline with the throughput capacity of 30 million tons and a terminal on the Pacific coast by 2008. The capacity of its trunk oil pipelines and sea terminals can be increased by 20% by 2010 and 40-50% by 2015 compared to 2005.
Its gas production can reach 740 billion cubic meters and export 290 billion cubic meters by 2015. Russia is energetically working on new projects, such as the North European Gas Pipeline, and is preparing to develop the Shtokman field and East Siberian and Far Eastern fields.

On the one hand, Russia is a full member of the G8, a group of countries that are the world’s biggest energy consumers. But on the other hand, it is one of the biggest producers, which makes it objectively close to hydrocarbons exporters, above all the OPEC countries. Taking this into account, Russia can act as the link between hydrocarbons suppliers and consumers, taking into account the opinions of all concerned parties and promoting the search for a balance of interests of all players on the global energy market.

This strategy will stipulate joint measures to ensure the stability of global energy markets, increase investment into the main links of global energy, develop alternative sources of energy, accelerate the introduction of energy saving and efficient technologies, and ensure access to modern energy services for everyone.
Russia will put forth a package of measures and an action plan to overcome economic and technological barriers to raising the efficiency of traditional and developing new energy technologies. As the holder of a considerable share of the world’s energy resources and a major energy producer and exporter with a high research and technological potential, Russia is ready to participate in the creation of a global energy infrastructure to ensure effective production, transfer and use of clean energy.

The initial initiatives are firstly for a stable global hydrocarbon market to allow reasoned investment and returns on investment and long term stability in pricing and purchasing.

With the longterm sustainability of the global energy markets Russia has announced the creation of a new trading bourse in Moscow for metals and hydrocarbon crudes and products.

The Russian Trading System, Russia's premier stock market, announced Monday that it would start trading in gold, oil and oil products on June 8.

The announcement comes in the wake of President Vladimir Putin's state of the nation address May 10, when he said Russia, as a leading oil exporting nation, should establish its own oil exchange to trade crude and petroleum products for rubles.

"The first trading in contracts for gold will commence in Russia on June 8," the RTS said in a statement.

The stock exchange also said it would start trading in futures and options on oil and oil derivatives, including Urals brand, diesel fuel, jet fuel and fuel oil. Trade will be in rubles based on prices calculated by the Platts agency. The settlement period for a contract is one month and the minimum security guarantee on a contract is 10% of its overall value.

Background Oil Production and Refining.

Since 1999, Russian oil production has been growing faster than anywhere else in the world, with the initial growth rate three times as high as in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Last year’s output was 470 million metric tons (3.45 billion bbl) compared to 323.5 million tons (2.38 billion bbl) in 2000 – a figure that the Russian Industry and Energy Ministry expects to increase to 530 million tons per year (10.67 million bpd) by 2015, primarily on the back of new explorations and developments.

Oil is transported through a unique world-largest pipeline system. Transneft, Russia’s state-owned pipeline company, operates 50,000 km (31,000 miles) of trunk and over 19,000 km (12,000 miles) of auxiliary pipelines; 856 oil tanks with a total capacity of 13.4 million cu m (84 million bbl), and 360 oil booster stations. Centralized management of the main pipeline network spanning 53 Russia’s regions enables unified economic, financial and technological policies and an ability to concentrate on the most effective projects and know-how.

Though Russia’s oil exports (the country is the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia) are still focused on Europe (93%), supplies to the Asia-Pacific Region are also growing. The Asian dimension is largely about China, both in absolute numbers and in growth proportions. A future oil export system will rely as much on seaports as on pipelines. European supplies will increase as soon as the Baltic Pipeline System and the 62-million-ton seaport of Primorsk come on stream. The Asia-Pacific is to be covered by the proposed Eastern Siberia-Pacific pipeline network with the Perevoznaya transshipment terminal. The latest feasibility study of this system suggests a total capacity of 80 million tons (588 million bbl) per year.

In the long term, U.S. markets are going to be accessed through the Western Siberia-Barents Sea pipeline system that is also expected to pump through up to 80 million tons (588 million bbl) of crude annually by 2020. Another increase is anticipated from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium expected to transit up to 67 million tons per year (1.35 million bpd) through Kazakhstan. All these projects might raise Russia’s total pipeline and tanker export capacity to 303 million tons per year (6.1 million bpd) by 2010. Oil is also exported in steadily increasing quantities by rail.

Russia’s refining sector includes 28 facilities refining 295 million tons of oil per year (5.94 million bpd). Primary refining is increasingly concentrated at home: 2005 growth rate in this sector was 6.5%. Growth has also been strong in the production of automotive fuels (gasoline and diesel) and heavy fuel oils.

Energy security the G8 energy initiatives.Part 1 The problem

Reliable and adequate energy supply is key to the socio-economic development of mankind. The existing energy networks have become highly integrated and achieved global scale, which is a positive trend. Indeed the era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of cleaner energy. But the last century's headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline.It could be described as the prime driver in the evolution of mankind.

Unfortunately, the failure of one element in a highly integrated network inevitably affects the others. Parochial national efforts to ensure energy security have so far proved unsuccessful. A global challenge calls for concerted global action.

The known hydrocarbon resources and the existing investment and technological capabilities are sufficient to ensure the reliable and affordable supply of adequate amount of energy in the foreseeable future . This, however, will only come through an efficient system of global, regional, and local markets, in which the role of governments would be to set the rules, defend and protect key energy facilities, insure against market failures, stimulate technological innovation, and - importantly - ensure environmental sustainability of energy development.

Sustainable global energy security requires security of demand as well as of supply, which in turn implies a need for more transparent and predictable activities at the level of statistics and energy policies. This tremendous objective will be achieved through further producer-consumer dialog, fair distribution of investment risks, mutual openness to capital. More transparent, predictable, and stable energy markets are key to success.

Predictable government regulation in producer, transporter, and consumer countries will stimulate energy investment - provided multilateral market tools are effective enough and such key prerequisites as clear investment frameworks, consistent taxation, minimization of red tape, timely and full enforcement of contracts, and access to workable dispute settlement procedures be in place.

In stimulating investment, an important thing to look at is different investment sensitivity at the sending as well as the receiving end of the energy train. Possible ways to balance it off are long-term contracts and producer-consumer interdependence achieved, for example, through asset swaps.

Energy efficiency and energy saving represent another crucial dimension of global security as they help decrease power consumption, thus alleviating energy tensions. This objective can be achieved through national and multilateral energy intensity statistics, shared information of energy saving targets, comprehensive power consumption identification, and enforcement of energy efficiency standards.

In the energy industry, higher energy efficiency comes hand in hand with lesser impact on the environment. In this light, the industry is planning new efforts to increase oil and gas recovery, oil refinement ratio, petroleum gas utilization, and infrastructure reliability. Energy saving will become a priority issue for transportation, a sector responsible for 2/3 of global oil consumption.

Energy security will not become a reality without diversification, which most importantly means the expansion of types of energy in use into low-carbon alternative power, renewables, and innovations for conventional energy sectors. Nuclear energy is also a way but it requires appreciable efforts to ensure safety, environmental accountability, and rigorous international monitoring - something Russian and U.S. presidents have called for in their recent nuclear initiatives.

Diversification will also be promoted by an effort maintained by G8-encouraged international partnerships working on carbon capture, hydrogen economy, ITER and other projects.

Energy security the G8 energy initiatives.Overview.

One of the cornerstones of the G8 St Petersberg summit is on energy security,with multifaceted solutions across a broad series of energy resources,technology and innovation.There is no simple solution of an emergent technology that is better than an existing one,each is limited by economic or perceived constraints real or imagined.

What the G8 initatives will do,is to implement transperancy of the energy complex,identify areas of cooperation in energy resource management and transfer.Provide structure for the efficient and economic transfer of technology to the worlds poorest countries to enable development and independence,This will also enable those countries to bypass the carbon cycle where possible and to enable positive economic growth and improved standards for education,health,and infrastructure.The initiatives will enable existing economic growth .

To enable an overview of the problems and solutions the post will be in several parts to allow intepretation and pbjective analysis.

Unpredictability for Post Kyoto commitee

In a little reported outcome from the new international body to REPLACE the Kyoto agreement,the 189 nation international body selected Australia to chair the new body.

Environment Minister Ian Campbell has defended Australia's place at the head of a new international climate change body despite its refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement.

"I think it's a recognition that the sort of targets and timetables of Kyoto, although incredibly well-intentioned, are simply not effective to date in achieving that twin goal," he said.

The Australians focused on one question: What climate change strategies should we adopt in the future? Two options have emerged. Replace the fractured Kyoto model with another model using regulations to reduce greenhouse gases; or change tack and foster technologies that reduce emissions.

The Greens' solution is to propose something even more draconian than Kyoto. They propose a national system to regulate and trade emissions and targets to make deeper cuts in emissions than those proposed in the Kyoto Protocol, specifically to halve by 2050 today's emissions.

The preferred international approach now is the US strategy to develop low-emission technologies. It is the only realistic global strategy. Kyoto stalled because the threat to growth it presented was unacceptable to developing countries. The more radical alternative is even more unacceptable.

This reconfirms the G8 Gleneagles agreement,and the St Petersberg agreement for 2006

UPDATE

Canada is expected to join the APC 6 country agreement,the break from the ideological command and control systems of the Eu based beaucrracy of the IPCC and kyoto is to be expected.The beureaucracy that produced the EU Commission Directive 1677/88 of 15.06.1988
17 pages od directives into the specification of a cumcumber including the optima,maima and minima of the curvature of the arc(bend) obviously has no innovation capacity.

The APC 6 commitment is to technology.

NZ Brain Drain

Both prior and after the budget we have seen the leaders of both major parties arguing the ideologies of tax cuts and the transfer of highly educated New Zealanders to Australia and beyond.The Financial Times has an interesting flow chart that shows the transfer of graduates from European and Western countries,

The two way flow shows the net transfers,and how NZ cannot attract sufficient replacement.
One picture tells a thousand words.

Why electricity is the energy of the future.

105 Years ago the motor carriage was an emerging technology.As I have mentioned before I have a collection of periodicals dating from the 1850-1910 including the Scientific American.Reading them the emphasis is on technological and scientific innovation the reward being the commercial success.

In the motor carriage reviews the energy source is mostly electric,with some petroleum and steam.Electricty was the favored energy supply.Even with the technology of the 1890's plug and play vehicles that could outperform petroleum was the mainstream.

The Columbia having a range of 100km.speed of 20kmh(twice the speed limit) and a 2 hour charge from the domestic supply.This gave a running cost of 1c per mile.

We have the Government here trying to create a biofuels market that has constraints and high running costs of fuel exceeding existing oil costs,and coal to oil production by 25%.

In the US an innovation refugee from New Zealand shows what innovation and imagination can achieve in a developed technological market.

Ian Wright has a car that blows away a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT in drag races, and whose 0-to-60 acceleration time ranks it among the fastest production autos in the world. In fact, it's second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph half a second faster and goes for $1.25 million.
The key difference? The Bugatti gets eight miles per gallon. Wright's car? It runs off an electric battery.

Wright, a 50-year-old entrepreneur from New Zealand, thinks his electric car, the X1, can soon be made into a small-production roadster that car fanatics and weekend warriors will happily take home for about $100,000 - a quarter ton of batteries included. He has even launched a startup, called Wrightspeed, to custom-make and sell the cars.

But Wright isn't some quixotic loner. He's part of a growing cluster of engineers, startups, and investors, most of them based in Silicon Valley, that believe they can do what major automakers have failed at for decades: Think beyond the golf cart and deliver an electric vehicle (EV) to the mass market.

Plug and play EV are indeed both technologicaly proven,operating cost more efficient,quieter.
The benefits of existing in a technological oasis with availability of R&D funding are obvious.

In Russia the technology parks for start up industries are being created around existing research institutes and universities.Plug and play is the recipient of 450mUs$ this year.

In Todays budget I expect no sign of innovative thinking as they identify the wrong future once again.

Watch the future racing 11mb

Major reformation of NZ energy complex to be announced in Budget.PT3

Further to our posts on possibilities in the budget and the recommendations from the IEA,there are strong signals for reformation of the NZ electrical sector.

1 Seek to allay stakeholder concerns about certainty and predictability of
regulatory policies, institutions and regimes in order to underpin appropriate
energy market investments.

2 Ensure security of electricity supply through appropriate regulatory policies
that do not inhibit infrastructure investment in either transmission or
generation, in light of the country’s medium-term supply constraints.

3 Ensure regulatory independence of the Electricity Commission from the
government.

4 Consider establishing a streamlined merit-based appeals mechanism for
energy-sector decisions from the Commerce and Electricity Commissions;
consider implementing or strengthening time limits for energy-related
hearings and decisions from the Electricity Commission, the Commerce
Commission and the Environment Court.

5 Remove any inefficient barriers to entry for new market participants.
6 Revise the triggering mechanism for the Whirinaki power plant so that it is
triggered only by hydro levels; ensure that the Electricity Commission’s
ongoing tendering for capacity minimises any distortion of the competitive
market.

7 Ensure that the Commerce Commission’s threshold mechanism provides
appropriate incentives for network investment and that regulatory reviews
are completed in a timely manner.

8 Consider providing for ex ante approval of investment projects on request in
order to increase regulatory certainty.

There are a number of interesting signals being sent that there is a possibility of further deregulation of the line companies and the vertical intergration of Generators/retail operators in the energy market.Similar to what has happened with telecom and its local loop.It was suggested to the IEA that the generators may be limited to wholesale operations only and the creation of financial insturments(futures) for forward selling of electricity to met investment requirements.This was stated as in working papers only but may be signalled in the budget.

The technical limtation to new entry players by line distribution companies is one part that needs serious analysis and it is far beyond the expertise of the Electricity commission.It would better for NZ to adapt its own standards and remove the audit function from the Australian standards system.

Major reformation of NZ energy complex to be announced in Budget.PT2

As we said in our previous post the IEA in its 5 year review of energy policies for participant governments undertakes a broad based review and provides conclusions and outcomes with Government participation under Chatham House rules.The suggested outcomes can be taken as a foregone conclusion.

As has been seen in the MSM one of the recommendations was for a review of the Carbon Tax .Whilst certain malthusians will undoubtedly be right behind this outcome,political constraints will prohibit this.

The IEA says

It is disappointing that the government has decided not to proceed with its planned carbon tax for some sectors of the economy, as incorporating a carbon price signal into the market is a cost-effective means of reducing GHG emissions. Following on this decision, the government is considering other options, including in the short term a more narrow carbon tax and in the longer term other measures. The government should also consider policy options beyond a revised carbon tax, including an emissions trading scheme linked to international markets.

The IEA recommends .

1 Outline a budget and plan for international actions to meet New Zealand’s projected Kyoto Protocol shortfall, and implement the plan as quickly as possible.

2 Consider implementing a carbon tax or emissions trading – or a combination
of the two – as quickly as possible.

3 Address CO2 emissions from the transport sector through appropriate fiscal and regulatory measures.

One of my researchers in Europe said that the Carbon tax will be introduced under another name for transport.The government told the IEA that this will alleviate political problems as the shortfall in the mineral fuels tax for road funding can be used as a de facto Road transport carbon tax.

Various prebudget costing scenarios for an increase in the Mineral fuels tax and road user levies from the shortfall of 5% to an increase of 15% as well as inflation indexing are with treasury.

In addition the changes of registration fees for differing vehicle CC and fuel economy ratings is to be introduced.

Major reformation of NZ energy complex to be announced in Budget.PT1

New Zealand has been undertaking a major review of its energy complex as part of its requirements as memebrship of the IEA.

The IEA in its 5 year review of energy policies for participant governments undertakes a broad based review and provides conclusions and outcomes with Government participation under Chatham House rules.The suggested outcomes can be taken as a foregone conclusion.

As most international organisations there is factional discourse between the various economic schools and the deregulatory framework,and even the technical analysis of engineering outcomes.

A large proportion of the recommendations are in financial instruments,international treaty obligations and the constraints observed by the Government Control of the electricity commissioner.

Whilst NZ was held as the model of a lassiz faire deregulated market the inefficiencies by the geography,government regulation,the vertical intergration of government energy oligarchies were seen as a discensetive for energy efficiencies.

Overseas the NZ model whilst an example promoted by the Harvard school as an example,it is used as an example of what NOT to do by Canadian and european schools of energy anaylisis.

Figuratively speaking, and in an historical sense, the writing is on the wall in block letters so large that they cannot possibly be avoided or misinterpreted. For instance, the exchange trading of financial assets (e.g. stocks, bonds, and derivatives like futures and options) makes all the objective sense in the world, while most attempts to duplicate on a large scale the successes of these items with electricity and gas have been unsuccessful. In addition, they are largely without any engineering or economic justification. Indeed the post RMA regulatory framework has provided the inverse relationship beween suppliers and consumers that has effectively licensed the existing providers to print money at the cost of the consumer.

For example, in the study and remarks about electricity deregulation in Canada’s largest province (Ontario), makes it clear that buyers of electricity have been treated in a completely unprincipled fashion. Similarly, in a long review of deregulation failure in Ontario, Treblicock and Hrab (2005) suggest that workable reform requires a government capable of effectively communicating to citizens the arguments for reform. This sounds wonderful, but unfortunately it is not easy to do,examining deregulation failure in the US), effective communication seems to be a function of the ability of elected or appointed officials to confect and spread untruths and/or obfuscation – with, of course, the precious assistance of hired-hands from academia.

What that establishment is basically involved in is bleeding consumers via the mechanism of short-run marginal cost pricing, which means that some of the most inexpensive electricity in the world, costwise, is frequently sold at the price of some of the most expensive in Europe .

No where has the deregulation of conduits and generation supply complexes and the introduction of financial instuments to provide consistency of supply as a smoothing mechanism worked to lower prices.The deregulatory framework ALWAYS limits due to pseudo.technical regulatory constraints always provides protrction to the existing players,thus the price constraints of limitation are circumvented as the existing players always realise BEST PRICE for their products.

Putin announces innovation in Economics and Industry

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Wednesday for work on making the national currency convertible to be completed, oil and gas to be traded in rubles on a domestic exchange, and an innovation-based economy.In his annual state of the nation address before both houses of parliament, ministers and reporters, the president also said human rights and freedoms had to be upheld to ensure economic growth and corruption had to be eradicated for the good of the nation.

The commodities boom of the last 24 months has helped Russia to move from a high debt position in 1998 to one of the most solvent economies in the world.

The foreign reserves surplus was up 24% to reach 226 B$US as of the 1st May.The federal surplus of 56B$US in the last year and increases in the Pension stabalisation account to 66B$US have meant Russias financial position is surpassed only by China,Japan,and Taiwan.The current account surplus grows by 8.5Bus per month.Whilst energy is an important export it is only 35% of the RF exports.

As we suggested in February the transfer of the Russian economy to a financial and innovation economy was announced.

Putin said work on making the national currency fully convertible should be completed by July 1, almost six months ahead of the original January 1, 2007 deadline.
"In my address of 2003, I set the goal of making the ruble convertible," Putin said. "I must say the [outlined] plans are being implemented."

In an effort to promote the national currency, the president called for the establishment of a ruble-denominated oil and natural gas stock exchange in Russia.

"The ruble must become a more widespread means of international transactions. To this end, we need to open a stock exchange in Russia to trade in oil, gas, and other goods to be paid for in rubles," he said.

Putin praised the government for seeking to provide an innovation basis for the economy, reorienting it from the current commodity bias that has led to billions of petrodollars flowing into the country.
"We have already started altering the structure of the economy and making it oriented to innovations," Putin said. "I think the government's policy in this area is correct."

With the country embarking projects to set up technoparks and special industrial zones, the president also said investment in production infrastructure and innovations had to be encouraged.
"We have to work hard to stimulate investment in production infrastructure and innovation," Putin said, adding that one way to encourage investment in innovative research was through the introduction of tax breaks.

The president said Russia had to make substantial progress in such high-tech areas as modern energy, communications, space, aircraft building, and become a leading exporter of intellectual services.

Russia is already the largest exporter of electrical turbines and power generating technology.The introduction of special scientific economic zones centred around established scientific research centres of excellence has companies operating R&D and manufacturing in the areas having favorable tax incentives and enhanced research facilities.

There are a number of specific examples such as the investment in nanotechnology of 500m and the hydrogen industry.The new Russian carbon fibre metallurgy that means the Boeing dreamliners airframes will be mostly built in Russia under a JV project.

Earthquakes cause of Sea surface temperature rise.

A joint US-Indian team of researchers analysed satellite data on ocean coastal areas lying near the epicentres of four recent quakes. A published paper in the in the journal Advances in Space Research links the rise in chlrophyllic plankton prior to the recent earthquakes . In this paper, they have analyzed remote sensing data of the ocean coasts lying near the epicenters of recent four major earthquakes (Gujarat of January 26, 2001, Andaman of September 13, 2002, Algeria of May 21, 2002 and Bam, Iran earthquake of December 26, 2003).

The increase of Chl-a concentration is due to the change in sea surface temperature (SST) associated with the changes in stress regime in the epicentral region which is responsible for modifying the in situ thermal structure of the water and enhancing the upwelling of nutrient-rich water. Using satellite images and measurements of sea temperatures, they found a correlation between peaks in chlorophyll and proximity to an impending earthquake.

The increase of Chl-a concentration also shows one to one relation with the increase of surface latent heat flux (SLHF) which is found to increase significantly prior to the earthquake events.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s reports primarily from Russia and China indicated that concentrations of radon gas in the earth apparently changed prior to the occurrences of nearby earthquakes (Lomnitz, 1994). This stimulated a number of experiments in other parts of the world to monitor underground radon with time and to look for radon changes associated with earthquakes. Since radon is a radioactive gas, it is easy and relatively to monitor instrumentally, and its short half-life (3.8 days) means that short-term changes in the radon concentrations in the earth can be monitored with very good time resolution. While other gases have also been looked at as possible earthquake precursors, the bulk of the experiments reported in the scientific literature have focused on radon.

In our literature survey, we found reports of 159 observations of changes in gas emissions from 107 earthquakes. Of these, there were 125 radon observations from 86 earthquakes, 7 observations of hydrogen gas from 7 earthquakes, 7 observations of helium gas from 7 earthquakes, 10 observations of helium/argon gas ratios from 10 earthquakes, 4 observations of methane/argon ratios from 4 earthquakes, 3 observations of nitrogen/argon ratios from 3 earthquakes, 2 observations of chlorine ions from 2 earthquakes, and 1 observation of mercury gas from 1 earthquake. There are also reports of changes in the emission of other gases, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, from the earth associated with earthquakes.

some general statements can be made about the observational data for these other gases. First, for the other gases the distribution of reported anomaly amplitudes, time durations, time of initiation before the event, and distance to the epicenter appear in all cases to be similar to the observations for radon gas. The amplitudes of the anomalies seem to vary from gas to gas, with the largest reported increase being 100,000% for an observation of H2 prior to an earthquake. This would seem to suggest that other gases besides radon may give higher amplitude gas emissions prior to earthquakes if they were widely monitored.

Computer models and the randomness of probability

The IPCC draft review for the 2007 climate change review is now online IPCC 2007 update http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/ipcc/wg14ar-review.htm with the various possibilites and probabilities.

Firstly the suggested confidence(how confident they are correct in the modelling of the inputs.
The 2007 draft statement from the IPCC even further identifies failure band in probability(confidence)for the various exogenous variables.

Confidence of understanding.
Co2 methane 80% high
Ozone,atmospheric gases,solar forcing 50% medium
Aerosols,stratosphericwater vapour,high cirrus. 20% low
.Land surface and secondary cloud albedo. 10% very low.

This is the knowledge confidence bands for the input varibles for the various datasets that are used to produce selective outcomes ie predictions,

When constructing the models we have a correlating coefficient for the verification of the prediciton.These are merely random numbers usually with say temperature for the range of the deviation say -1 to +1.By running various montecarlo simulations we get a run time STDV.

Now this is interesting as the IPCC is suggesting time dependent (historical antecedents) whilst using the Markov chain(time discrete probabilites of outcomes)IE If you are at state S at time n, then the probability that you will move on to state x at time n + 1 does not depend on n, and only depends on the current state s that you are in.So whilst the snapshot of forecast may be correct at say 6pm gmt on the 5th may the next runtime simulation may provide a different result dependent on corrected observations.

The markov chain probabilites can provide a wide range of possible outcomes by redistributing the datasets over a wide range of forecasts.The markov montecarlo simulations can even rewrite the bible in real time so here we have selected outcomes much the same as the IPCC.Try it.