GREENIE WATCH

2024-10-28T00:46:00.002+13:00

Net Zero Debate is Running Out of Ideas

At the weekend I attended the Battle of Ideas Festival in London.

It is a fascinating event, with interesting debates taking place across a wide variety of topics like free speech, culture wars, the economy, education and women’s freedom.

I was there primarily for the energy discussions. Unfortunately, I missed the book launch on nuclear power on the Saturday, but I did attend the two energy debates that took place in the scientific dilemmas section on Sunday.

First up was a lunchtime debate entitled “Is nuclear the future of energy… again?” Unfortunately, the speaker who was supposed to speak for this position had some sort of transportation nightmare and could not attend.

I did not catch the name of the man who replaced her, but he did put up a valiant effort considering he was drafted in at the last minute. Speaking against the idea of a nuclear renaissance was Robert Reid, policy development officer for the Alba Party who was in mourning for the late Alec Salmond.

We can therefore forgive him somewhat for advancing the hoary old chestnut that offshore wind is cheap: he claimed £41/MWh without citing any sources. Of course, the existing CfD funded offshore wind farms have cost us over £150/MWh so far this financial year and the new projects awarded in AR6 will cost us over £82/MWh in today’s money, more than twice Robert’s claim.

Emma Bateman, who is an environmental campaigner and founding member of Together Against Sizewell C, unsurprisingly spoke against the idea of nuclear power and made some spurious claims about safety that if nuclear power were a person would have resulted in the libel lawyers being called on Monday morning.

The gist of her substantive argument was that nuclear is too expensive and takes too long so we should therefore spend more on wind and solar.

In the ensuing debate, I managed to correct Robert Reid’s ‘facts’ and make the point that if your primary concern is the environment, then you should be an advocate of nuclear power because it has the smallest overall environmental footprint of all energy sources because it doesn’t take up much land and has very low mineral intensity.

I also made the point about the chocolate teapot fallacy. Arguing for wind and solar in place of nuclear power is akin to arguing in favour of chocolate teapots because you cannot wait for a ceramic one.

No matter how many chocolate teapots you buy, you can never make tea; just like no matter how many wind turbines and solar panels you install you can never run a modern economy on intermittent electricity.

The physics of nuclear power are far superior to any other energy source because of its extremely high energy return on energy invested, meaning we get far more energy out than we expend building the power plants, and the output is reliable.

There are even designs on the drawing board and beginning to be built that will allow nuclear power plants to follow fluctuations in demand.

The barriers to nuclear power are all political: the West over-regulates nuclear power and it is unsurprising that it takes so long because of all the paperwork that must be produced before a new reactor can be built.

We can fix man-made political and regulatory problems, but mere mortals cannot change the faulty physics of intermittent renewables, just like you can never make tea in a chocolate teapot.

We would be far better off committing to a significant nuclear power programme so we can deliver reliable electricity. If we fix the regulations, invest in rebuilding the skills base and supply chains and choose the right reactor design, we can even have cheap, reliable energy with only a small impact on the environment.

This is what the French did in the 1970s and 1980s and now they produce around 70% of their electricity from nuclear.

The next debate was on the “Great British Energy Crisis”. It was encouraging to see that three of the five panellists are subscribers to this Substack (you know who you are and thank you).

Two of the speakers, James Woudhuysen and Lord David Frost both made eloquent attacks on Net Zero and its consequences. Professor Michaela Kendall who is the U.K.

Hydrogen Champion for Mission Innovation suggested we needed more facts to inform the debate on energy, but managed to skirt around the fact that the Government agreed contracts for green hydrogen at £241/MWh, which is about seven times the current cost of U.K. natural gas, which in turn costs more than five times U.S. gas.

Dr. Shahrar Ali is a former spokesperson for the Green Party who has recently won a discrimination court case against the Greens because they sacked him for his gender critical beliefs.

It is a shame Dr. Ali cannot apply his critical thinking skills to Net Zero. The gist of his argument was the world is warming, it is going to be a catastrophe, it is all our fault, so build more windmills.

I managed to take him to task in the ensuing debate by pointing out that even if you believe CO2 causes warming, then it is a big leap to conclude that building windmills will change the weather.

This is the so-called mitigation strategy that can only work if 1) CO2 is the only climate control knob (we know this to be untrue from paleo-climate records) and 2) everyone else follows the strategy (you only need to look at charts of global greenhouse gas emissions to see this is also untrue).

A far better strategy is one of adaptation which has the advantages of being cheaper and will work regardless of the actions of others and regardless of the causes of global warming.

The mitigation strategy we are pursuing is one of unilateral economic impoverishment and the Net Zero “cure” is far worse than the alleged climate change “disease”.

It is encouraging that my intervention drew an enthusiastic round of applause which is testament to the growing scepticism about Net Zero among the general public.

It appears to me that cracks are appearing in the cosy green consensus in Westminster and if we get our arguments right, we can win this debate.

All in all, the Battle of Ideas is a thoroughly enjoyable event and I highly recommend everyone to attend next year, whatever your beliefs. It is only through free and open debate that we can get to the truth.

https://principia-scientific.com/net-zero-debate-is-running-out-of-ideas/

*****************************************************

Overnight Success: Biden’s Climate Splurge Gives Billions to Nonprofit Newbies

Although there isn’t much public information available about the Justice Climate Fund, it appears to have been an overnight success.

After gaining nonprofit status in August 2023, the organization was awarded $940 million by the Biden administration just eight months later in connection with the White House’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to provide financial assistance to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution.

The Justice Climate Fund is not the only nonprofit newcomer suddenly made rich by the GGRF. Within a month of gaining nonprofit status from the IRS, Power Forward Communities, which reported 2023 revenues of $100, was awarded $2 billion.

The awards were made by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is new to the world of major grantmaking. The agency acknowledges it has never handed out such gigantic sums of money, and its inspector general told Congress last month it marked a “fantastically complex” and “unusual” setup that his small staff would be hard-pressed to follow.

Critics note that many of the awardees are run by politically connected figures. The single biggest winner in the awards, which were announced in April, was the Climate United Fund, which is slated to receive $6.97 billion. The fund’s directors include prominent Democrats, such as Phil Angelides, a former California State Treasurer. After this article was published Climate United told RCI that Anthony Foxx, who served as Transportation Secretary in the Obama administration, was “listed as a board member for our [grant] application but did not commit to serving post award.” A press release on the group’s website names Foxx as a member of its “Inaugural Board of Directors.”

The unprecedented nature of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created as part of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, is raising concerns about the Biden administration’s efforts to spend tens of billions of dollars in its final months, a gusher of taxpayer money that will flow into a poorly understood, untested, and difficult to audit format. The tremendous sums involved, the novelty of the program, and the EPA’s lack of experience in the field, as well as the unproven track record of some of the newly hatched recipients, have drawn the attention of lawmakers and others uncertain about how the taxpayers’ billions will ultimately be spent and who will keep track of it all.

“These groups are political front groups that are simply created to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to Democrat campaigns under the guise of doing something good,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff in the Trump administration.

Daren Bakst, director of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment and a sharp critic of the Biden administration’s climate change spending splurge, said, “It’s worse than a slush fund – it’s a slush fund to create non-profit slush funds.”

The EPA describes the Greenhouse Fund as “an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the adoption of greenhouse gas reducing technologies.” By investing in making residential homes and neighborhoods more “eco-friendly,” the money will pay dividends in both lower utility bills and higher employment, the agency says.

Neither the Justice Climate Fund nor Power Forward Communities responded to questions about their plans to spend the close to $3 billion in public funds they had received.

The $27 billion assigned to the Greenhouse Fund represents a fraction of the money the Biden-Harris administration has embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act for its green energy revolution. Biden acknowledged the bill’s true purpose this summer when he called the IRA a “climate” bill, thereby aligning the administration’s position with what leftist environmental groups such as the World Resource Institute hailed from the beginning as “the largest piece of climate legislation in U.S. history.” The IRA involved “hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy, electric vehicles, environmental justice and more.” Billions more would be spent on the global warming front under the Biden-Harris Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed in 2021.

The EPA has made it clear it views the bonanza as seed money. The agency expects that each dollar the nonprofit recipients spend in seeking to reduce America’s carbon footprint will attract seven times its value in private investment. This anticipated capitalist activity has led many media accounts to label the nonprofits “green banks,” and it has created an entirely new wrinkle in the EPA, according to its inspector general. The Fund’s requirements also carry mandates that at least 40% of the billions be spent in “low income or disadvantaged communities” or “tribal” lands, and in some cases, winners have pledged to spend up to 70% of the money in those same areas.

“I can’t say enough about how complex this system will be,” EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell testified to a House subcommittee in September. “It’s like they created an investment bank. It’s fantastically complex. I think it’s unusual.”

“I think it’s more than unusual,” responded Ohio Republican Rep. David Joyce.

EPA Special Advisor Zealan Hoover pushed back at the claim that unusual secrecy surrounded the process and criticism that there are flimsy guardrails to ensure the $27 billion is well spent.

Greenhouse Fund money has been divided into three programs. The biggest is in the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), which will divide $14 billion among three groups, followed by Solar For All, which has $7 billion, and then $6 billion divided among five groups under the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA).

While the degree of competition involved was not immediately made public, the EPA did provide the numbers to RealClearInvestigations. Three National Clean Investment Fund winners were chosen from a dozen applicants, while Clean Communities Investment Accelerator winners came from a pool of 26 proposals. “Solar For All,” which has the smallest awards, had 60 winners and 150 applicants, according to the EPA. Some of the NCIF and CCIA winners are associated with one another and publicly speak of their collaboration.

“In some cases, the umbrella organizations are new, but it’s set up to help long established groups such as the United Way or Habitat for Humanity,” Hoover said. “These are partnerships and coalitions in which we are very confident, and they submitted remarkably comprehensive applications.”

Hoover also told RCI the EPA will retain spending and auditing oversight, though that responsibility was not spelled out in any of the press releases that have accompanied the Greenhouse Reduction Fund. None of the groups receiving the billions responded to questions or agreed to comment on their plans for spending and how the money will be tracked and audited.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/10/22/overnight_success_bidens_climate_splurge_gives_billions_to_nonprofit_newbies_1066437.html

*****************************************************

$24 billion is missing from spending on FAKE climate change! Was it stolen?

Climate science is a ruse. But the money spent on fake research and gifts to nations is real.

Between 24 and 41 billion dollars of that money is missing from the World Bank. No one knows where it went.

Oxfam, October 17: “Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance—nearly 40 percent of all climate funds disbursed by the Bank over the past seven years—is unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping practices, reveals a new Oxfam report published today ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Washington D.C. [October 21—26, 2024]”

“An Oxfam audit of the World Bank’s 2017-2023 climate finance portfolio found that between $24 billion and $41 billion in climate finance went unaccounted for between the time projects were approved and when they closed.”

“There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible. It also remains unclear whether these funds were even spent on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy.” (link in footnote)

A source at the World Bank told the NY Post that the actual amount of missing money “could be twice or ten times more…all the figures are routinely made up. Nobody has a clue about who spends what.” (link in footnote)

The World Bank gets its money from national governments’ donations, from its own issuance of bonds, and from repayment of loans it makes.

As mainstream reports on this scandal appear, they’ll be couched in terms of horribly deficient accounting practices, “mistakes,” lack of executive oversight at the Bank, etc.

I raise the distinct possibility that the money was stolen

https://jonrappoport.substack.com/p/real-24-billion-missing-from-spending-fake-climate-change

************************************************

Indonesia Dumps Climate Politics in Favor of Energy Security

The archipelago nation of Indonesia represents just 1% of Earth’s land area, but it has set the stage for global geopolitics surrounding fossil fuels and climate policies.

As a part of climate negotiations between G-7 nations, Indonesia was expected to be the first among developing countries to announce early closures of coal plants.

In the spotlight is the 660-megawatt Cirebon-1 plant in West Java province, which had been scheduled to shut down by 2035. However, it is understood that Jakarta will not follow that timeline but rather continue to operate the plant to its originally projected end of life in 2042. A stumbling block to the early closure is a price tag of more than $1 billion to replace the coal plant with so-called renewable energy.

In reaffirming its commitment to the unrestricted use of coal, Indonesia makes a bold and sensible decision to put energy security and economic priorities ahead of international climate politics. The move sets up Indonesia as a model for other developing countries to defy the western agenda to reduce emissions in favor of their own self-interest.

Coal in Indonesia

For developing nations like Indonesia, the path to prosperity is paved with affordable energy. Coal, abundant and cheap, has long been the fuel of choice for powering economic growth. The country sits atop vast coal reserves, estimated at 37 billion metric tons, which are primarily located in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Jakarta has approved a coal production quota of 922 million metric tons for 2024, a significant increase from previous years. This move has sparked international criticism, but it’s a calculated step to ensure energy affordability.

Coal remains the backbone of Indonesia’s energy sector, accounting for over 60% of its electricity generation. Also, Indonesia relies on coal-fueled smelters for most of its nickel production.

Producing about half of the world’s nickel, Indonesia is the top producer of the metal, which is needed to make batteries that run electric vehicles and energy storage devices.

Economic Case for Fossil Fuels

In the late 1990s, nearly 50% of Indonesia’s population lived in poverty. Today, that number is closer to 10%, thanks to unabated use of coal during the past two decades. At 70%, Indonesia manages to maintain one of the highest employment rates among the G20 countries.

“Despite challenges in 2023, Indonesia has demonstrated resilience to global shocks and an ever more diversified economic base is expected to mitigate adverse impacts,” says a spokesman for financial services company PwC.

Much of this success is due to a stable and reliable energy supply of coal, oil, and natural gas for electricity and industries. Coal and petroleum, along with nickel and ferroalloys, are among Indonesia’s top exports.

Poverty, though declining, remains a pressing issue, with over 26 million Indonesians classified as poor. Rapid industrialization and economic growth are essential for improving living standards and creating opportunities for millions.

Western Hypocrisy

Many western leaders lecturing Indonesia on the evils of coal had their own economies built with that very fuel and continue to rely on oil and gas.

The United States, for instance, underwent an energy revolution through fracking, which unlocked vast reserves of natural gas and oil. In 2023, U.S. was the number one oil producer in the world.

Similarly, Norway, often lauded for its commitment to “sustainability,” continues to issue oil drilling permits in the North Sea. If Norway, a country with a superior economy and high standard of living, can still prioritize its economic self-interest by extracting its oil, why should Indonesia be criticized for utilizing its coal reserves?

The $1.4 trillion Indonesian economy is in no mood to compromise its future or the continuing upward trend in economic growth. Count on Jakarta to exploit its natural resources well into the future.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/10/indonesia-dumps-climate-politics-in-favor-of-energy-security/

***************************************

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

***********************************************

2024-10-27T13:50:00.001+13:00

Shocking Rise in Whale, Dolphin and Porpoise Strandings as Wind Farms Proliferate Around British Coast

Over the last decade as offshore wind farms proliferated around the U.K., there has been a disturbing rise in coastline strandings of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Since the turn of the century, strandings have more than doubled and are now running at over 1,000 animals a year.

The slaughter has been largely ignored by the mainstream media that runs with the agreed narrative that offshore wind is environmentally friendly and is the key to achieving Net Zero by 2050. In fact, wind turbines, whether on or off the shore, are a clear danger to many endangered species and concerns are mounting about their widespread and harmful effects on the natural world. Years ago, the great cause in environmentalism was to save the whales, but these concerns seem to have abated of late, while the slaughter of millions of onshore bats, along with the destruction of many types of large raptors, is simply ignored.

Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch has updated his graph on the stranding of U.K. cetaceans and compared it to the rise of offshore wind capacity.

Both totals have soared in recent years. Is there a causal link? Perhaps not one that would inconvenience Net Zero fanatics, but Montford says the suggestion of a causal relationship “remains very strong”.

The Daily Sceptic has reported in the past about the mounting casualties of whales stranded off the north eastern coast of the United States in the wake of massive offshore windfarm construction. There have been around 300 fatalities in the last five years, and many suggest the extensive sonar soundings, pile driving and heavy concentrated vessel traffic is causing havoc with aquatic feeding, breeding and migration up and down the coast.

The latest U.K. stranding figures have been reported to Ascobans, a UN environmental conservation body for cetaceans in the NE Atlantic. Commenting on the “shocking” figures, the environmental writer and campaigner Jason Endfield called them “a wake-up call to those planning to further industrialise our seas in the name of renewable energy, and especially offshore wind farms”. In his view, it made no sense to increase ocean noise to levels that are “literally unbearable for marine mammals”.

The great cover-up of this environmental disaster continues with massive industrial parks being erected around the coasts of many countries. In the U.K., the incoming Labour government is committed to a massive expansion with the Mad Miliband spraying around billions of pounds in additional subsidies to boost an industry that would not exist in a free market.

To the fore in blowing smoke over the issue is Greenpeace USA’s senior oceans campaigner Arlo Hemphill who claims there is “no evidence whatsoever” connecting wind turbines to whale deaths. “It’s just a cynical disinformation campaign,” says another Greenpeace spokesman. The mainstream media often goes along with this narrative as shown by recent tweets from Agence France-Presse reporter Manon Jacob. He dismissed the focus on wind farms as a red herring “when offshore wind remains thus far marginal in the U.S. and scientific evidence of large marine mammal deaths is lacking”. This is the same Jacob who wrote a recent ‘fact check’ of the Daily Sceptic that was so bad and misleading it should feature in future journalism schools as an example of how not to criticise well-sourced material.

The investigative science journalist Jo Nova has a different take on the matter: “Researchers have known since at least 2013 that pile drivers were permanently deafening porpoises, leaving them presumably to die miserable deaths wandering blindly through dark or murky seas. Where were all the professors of marine science, paid by the public to know these things, and where was the BBC?” Spread the word, she continued. Fifty years ago, environmentalists would have raised hell about a thousand dead whales and dolphins. Now they are part of the cover-up. “They don’t want to draw attention to the blubber on the beach in case people start asking hard questions,” she observed.

There are however some signs that the ‘nothing to see here, guv’ line is starting to crack. A recent essay in Watts Up With That? suggested that an impact statement from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) had finally acknowledged the harm caused by offshore wind farms. Examining leases off the New Jersey and New York coast covering over 488,000 acres, the BOEM hints that these developments are not entirely benign “despite being repeatedly framed as environmentally friendly solutions to the climate crisis”. Marine mammals, sea turtles, birds and fish could suffer due to noise, habitat displacement and changes in migration patterns, it is said. Even bats, says WUWT?, which are not typically associated with offshore environments, could be affected.

The essay noted that this latest BOEM work may signal a more cautious approach, “perhaps influenced by increasing legal challenges, public backlash, and even emerging scientific research indicating that wind turbines are not as harmless as once believed”.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/28/shocking-rise-in-whale-dolphin-and-porpoise-strandings-as-wind-farms-proliferate-around-british-coast/

**********************************************

Study Exposes Hidden Health Risks from Wind Turbines

New research by Dr. Bellut-Staeck in the journal Medical Research and Its Applications suggests chronic infrasound exposure can lead to serious blood vessel problems.

This underpins earlier literature that has reached similar conclusions.

But the government refuses to accept the results.

Wind turbines are known to disrupt wildlife and severely damage the surrounding biotope, And, despite being inaudible, it is known that low-frequency vibrations from wind turbines can be harmful to human health.

Humans can only perceive sound waves over a range of approximately between 20 and 20,000 Hertz. Soundwaves below 20 Hz cannot be heard by humans and are called infrasound.

Natural infrasound emitted by nature is harmless but it is increasingly being understood that infra-sound generated by wind turbines pulsates and makes people who are subjected to them over extended periods sick.

Strong evidence of a hazard to health

The rotating blades of wind turbines cause air pressure changes, which in turn can cause pressure on the ears and chest and lead to health issues and even serious problems like arrhythmia and vision impairment, according to a German Medical Journal.

The study’s abstract states:

“Noise-exposed citizens, who live near infrastructures such as biogas installations, heat pumps, block-type thermal power stations, and bigger industrial wind turbines (IWT’s), show worldwide mainly a symptomatology associated with microcirculatory disorder.”

In other words: Infrasound from wind turbines, or other industrial machinery, even though we can’t hear it, can disrupt the natural balance of chemicals in our blood vessels, which can lead to inflammation and problems like atherosclerosis.

So what is the German government going to do about this well-established health hazard? Don’t expect much.

Germany’s green Utopian vision is broadly based on wind power and so far the country has installed more than 30,000 turbines, many being sited near populated areas.

The government isn’t about to admit it has completely goofed.

It’s a situation very similar to the COVID mRNA vaccine, which has long been exposed as a health hazard. Yet, the government insists they’re safe!

German government ignores obvious hazard

Tichy’s Einblick writes:

“For its part, the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) continues to maintain that there is no scientific evidence of a possible harmful effect of infrasound from wind turbines.

This argument from the chronically green-tinged authority is astonishing – because in the case of glyphosate and many other phenomena, the UBA did not need any ‘scientific proof’ of harmfulness. Suspicion was always enough to call for a ban.”

https://principia-scientific.com/study-exposes-hidden-health-risks-from-wind-turbines/

*********************************************

No, CBS, Climate Change Will Not Put Chicago at Heightened Risk for Hurricanes

A recent article posted by CBS News, Chicago asks the question on nobody’s mind: “Will climate change put the Chicago area at heightened risk for hurricanes?” This question and the thinking behind it are ridiculous. Although it is true that the remnants of tropical storms and hurricanes can reach Chicago, and have in the past, there is little reason to think that climate change will make it more likely to occur in the future or more severe if or when it does.

CBS claims that the recent hurricane Helene “brought tropical flooding to inland regions not typically at risk,” warning that it’s now clear that “climate disasters can happen anywhere.” Besides the obvious issue of CBS conflating climate (long term average) with weather (a short term event), it is also untrue that it’s unusual for hurricanes to bring heavy rain inland. In fact, hurricane related flooding has occurred in the Appalachians long before industrialization could be blamed. The flood of 1916 in Asheville, North Carolina was much worse than this recent one.

If that wasn’t silly enough, CBS turns to the unscientific realm of rapid attribution studies to claim that human contributions to climate change “fueled Milton’s rapid intensification, according to Climate Central,” and asks the question “[a]s the impacts of climate change get worse faster, what, if anything, could reach Illinois now or in the future from hurricanes?”

This question carries a tiny thread of truth, that is, that the remnants of tropical storms and hurricanes can and do affect regions far away from the coasts, with CBS giving the examples of Hurricane Ike and Tropical Storm Lowell, the latter of which which caused flooding in Chicago that was severe enough to warrant an emergency declaration in 2008. However, this is not new, and the evidence CBS uses to try to frighten readers into believing that hurricanes will soon pose a greater threat up north is mere propaganda and not real data.

CBS cites Climate Central, a climate activism and advocacy group which is often caught spreading fake news and misleading information about climate science in order to push alarmist narratives. For instance, they touted the University of Maine’s faulty climate reanalyzer in 2023 as though it represented measured data when it does not. CBS also references rapid attribution analyses from groups like World Weather Attribution. Climate Realism has covered their false “science” assertions many times, where they use counterfactual computer models to claim that any given storm is the result of human-caused climate change. There will never be a weather event that World Weather Attribution can’t tie to climate change, because they begin with the assumption that climate change juices every weather event.

The reason mainstream media organizations like CBS rely on attribution study groups instead of real data, is because the available data do not show that hurricanes are getting more intense, wetter, or more frequent. Although Climate Realism has covered hurricanes many times this season (here, here, and here, just in the last 2 weeks), it is worth going over the facts again.

Major hurricanes, according to global hurricane frequency data, are not getting more common, nor are less powerful hurricanes.

In regards to strength, there is no demonstrable increasing trend in global accumulated cyclone energy. If that’s not enough, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, in Chapter 12, Table 12.12, identifies no connection between tropical cyclones and climate change. Not in the present, or the future, even under extreme emissions scenarios

Facts are inconvenient for climate hucksters like CBS, which end up looking like fools trying to ignore reality in order to frighten readers in places like Chicago. Yes, the remnants of a hurricane or tropical storm can make it up to Chicago, but no, there is no indication that such occurrences are common or are set to become a frequent problem in the future. CBS has to know this, otherwise they would not rely so heavily on the nebulous claims of attribution artists.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/10/no-cbs-climate-change-will-not-put-chicago-at-heightened-risk-for-hurricanes/

***************************************************

Even with a price tag, Australia's renewables future is already broken

The Silverton Wind Farm and Broken Hill Solar plant were supposed to produce enough electricity to power 117,000 homes. They’re supported by AGL’s 50MWh battery facility at Pinnacles Place, one of the largest in Australia. Yet Broken Hill, population 19,000, has been in a semi-permanent state of blackout since a storm brought down the transmission line connecting the town to the east coast grid.

Broken Hill’s plight exposes the gap between the promise of renewable energy and what it actually delivers. AGL claimed its battery would ensure a reliable electricity supply to the town if the transmission lines went down. The combination of wind, solar and storage would allow Broken Hill to operate on a renewable microgrid until its connection to the outside world was restored.

Yet the battery wasn’t switched on until Friday. Diesel generators are being used to recharge it because the wind and solar generators are disconnected from the rest of the grid. Rooftop solar is affecting the grid’s stability. Essential Energy, which supplies power to Broken Hill, has asked customers to turn off their solar supply main switch to prevent the 40-year-old backup gas turbine generator from tripping.

Yet Broken Hill’s experience shows how crucial baseload generation is to the grid’s stability. Without it, balancing supply and demand becomes impossible.

Some $650m worth of renewable energy investment within a 25km radius of Broken Hill has proved to be dysfunctional. The technical challenges of operating a grid on renewable energy alone appear insurmountable using the current technology.

Broken Hill’s experience should serve as a cautionary tale for the incoming Liberal National Party government in Queensland as it assesses the energy policy mess left by Labor. Among the expensive proposals on the books is CopperString, a 100km high-voltage transmission line from Townsville to Mount Isa, crossing the remote and rugged terrain of North Queensland.

Mount Isa operates on a micro-grid served by two gas-fired power stations with diesel generators used as a backup. Replacing locally generated power by linking Mount Isa to the National Energy Market is costly and introduces the risk of transmission failure.

The latest estimate for CopperString, which would be funded entirely by the government, is $5bn, but the cost of building transmission lines is escalating dramatically.

David Crisafulli has every reason to put the project on hold while other options are considered. One solution could be micro modular reactors – self-contained, mass-produced nuclear power plants that are relatively easy to transport and install close to where the electricity is needed. This is the preferred option in Canada, where MMRs are seen as a breakthrough for remote indigenous communities and mining operations.

Bowen’s claims about the cost of renewable energy were called into question last week when senior executives from the Australian Electricity Market Operator gave evidence under oath to a Senate select committee.

AEMO’s assertion that its blueprint for the transition to renewables was “the lowest-cost pathway” is misleading. AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman told the committee its modelling only considered the wholesale cost of electricity. AEMO did not model network costs, transmission and distribution costs or retailer margins. “A home electricity bill will need to consider all of those factors,” he said.

Senator Matt Canavan asked: “You’re saying you cannot guarantee that the current government policy settings you model will deliver lower power prices?”

Westerman replied: “I can’t guarantee that. No.” He said AEMO “explicitly doesn’t consider other parts of the consumer energy bill”.

Westerman was asked if AEMO had costed other policy options before concluding that the cheapest path was renewable energy backed by storage and gas.

No, said Westerman. “It is the role of policymakers to identify alternatives and make those public policy decisions.

“If policymakers wanted to ask AEMO for advice, we would be pleased to provide it. But it’s not really our role to judge on whether it’s a good policy or not.”

Canavan asked: “So there’s no analysis of whether that’s a good idea or not?”

“No. Sorry. We don’t analyse that,” replied Merryn York, AEMO’s executive general manager for system design.

In summary, AEMO’s “least-cost pathway” turns out to be the wholesale cost of a transition to renewable energy on the accelerated timetable stipulated by the government. The destination of this plan is not cheaper electricity or cleaner energy.

Instead, AEMO’s lowest-cost pathway aims to meet Labor’s political target of 82 per cent carbon-free electricity by 2030 and 100 per cent renewable power by 2050, using mostly wind, solar and some gas. AEMO’s model excludes any consideration of nuclear energy.

It’s alarming that AEMO has not even attempted to model the retail cost of electricity. AEMO’s Integrated Systems Plan is the blueprint for the government’s energy transition. It sets the deadline for phasing out coal generation by 2038, a fourfold increase in rooftop solar, a sixfold increase in grid-scale wind and solar, and a 13-fold increase in battery storage.

Yet AEMO doesn’t consider it part of its brief to estimate how much this will cost. Nor does AEMO attempt to vouch for the technical feasibility of its plan. Engineering, like economic modelling, is not part of its job.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/even-with-a-price-tag-our-renewables-future-is-already-broken/news-story/889525e04688e0bd112988428a37cad7

2024-10-23T14:42:00.000+13:00

Molten Salt Reactor at ACU Receives Historic NRC Construction Permit

Molten salt is very hard to control. Expect disasters

ABILENE, Texas – September 16th: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a construction permit (CP) for the deployment of the Natura Resources’ MSR-1 system at Abilene Christian University (ACU).This marks the first construction permit for a liquid-fueled advanced reactor and only the second for any advanced reactor issued by the NRC.

“Natura recognized early on that the NRC is the gold standard of licensing of nuclear reactors.We made a conscious decision to work with the NRC to license our technology for deployment here in the States rather than taking our technology outside their jurisdiction or attempting to avoid the licensing process entirely.The NRC’s issuance of the Construction Permit for the Natura MSR-1 deployment at ACU shows that our technology can be licensed and de-risks the licensure of Natura’s 100MWe systems,” said Douglass Robison, Founder and President.

Natura Resources has taken an iterative, milestone-based approach to advanced reactor development and deployment, focused on efficiency and performance.This started in 2020 when Natura brought together ACU’s NEXT Lab with Texas A&M University, the University of Texas, and the Georgia Institute of Technology to form the Natura Resources Research Alliance.In only four years, Natura and its partners have developed a system that the NRC has successfully licensed.The successful deployment of the Natura MSR-1 system at ACU as the molten salt research reactor (MSRR) is going to provide valuable operational data to support Natura’s 100MWe systems and will also serve as a world-class research tool to train advanced reactor operators and educate students.

“We appreciate the thorough reviews by the NRC staff.The environmental review was completed in March and found that the MSRR would have no significant impact on the environment.The safety review that was just completed found that the Natura MSR-1 design and analysis meets the federal regulations and is safe to construct.This construction permit is the first step in the NRC’s two-step licensing process.It allows Natura and ACU to build and operate the MSRR without uranium.The next step is the operating license, which will authorize Natura and ACU to fuel the reactor and demonstrate the elegance of molten salt technology,” said Ben Beasley, Director of Licensing.

While this is a significant milestone, there is still work to be done.The advanced reactor deployment site that will house the reactor, the Science and Engineering Research Center at ACU, was completed in August 2023, and the issuance of the construction permit allows the team to begin fabrication of the reactor.Zachry Nuclear Engineering will complete the Detailed Engineering and Design of the Natura MSR-1 in the first part of 2025, which will be followed quickly by the submission of the Operating License application to the NRC.The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provides fuel for the current operating fleet of university research reactors, and its commitment in 2019 to provide fuel and salt for the MSRR was the impetus for Natura Resources to develop and deploy the Natura MSR-1 with ACU.The fuel and salt needs for the MSRR are unique, and Natura Resources and ACU are committed to working with the DOE to finalize details related to the provision of fuel and salt.

“We are proud to have been working with Natura over the past year on the detailed design engineering for their first molten salt reactor system, a truly groundbreaking project in clean energy. This partnership highlights the innovative leadership both of our Texas-based companies bring to the industry as we work together to drive progress and shape the future of energy.Our shared commitment to advancing technology and economic growth makes this collaboration especially meaningful,” said John B. Zachry, President and CEO of Zachry Group.

“ACU is thrilled to have Natura as a partner as we work together to answer the world’s increased demand for reliable energy, medical isotopes, and clean water through the deployment of liquid-fueled molten salt reactors. With the NRC’s issuance of the construction permit, we are one step closer to making that a reality. The performance-driven approach of Natura Resources to advanced reactor deployment has quickly moved them from a relative unknown to a leader in the upstart advanced reactor industry,” said Dr. Phil Schubert, ACU President.

“If we're going to meet the growing energy needs, not only in the State of Texas but in our country and the world at large, we must begin deploying advanced nuclear reactors,” said Douglass Robison.

https://www.naturaresources.com/natura-resources-molten-salt-reactor-at-acu-receives-historic-nrc-construction-permit

**********************************************

Climate Alarmists Now Attack Growing Your Own Food

Allotment produce, much prized by proud food-growing citizens the world over, has six times the ‘carbon’ footprint of conventional agriculture, according to a recent paper published by Nature

“Steps must be taken to ensure that urban agriculture supports, and does not undermine, urban decarbonisation efforts,” demand the authors.

What have these people been smoking? Surely not some of the puff circulating at the recent Psychedelic Climate Week in New York.

Highlights included a discussion on funding ketamine-assisted therapy and a panel on ‘Balancing Investing and Impact with Climate and Psychedelic Capital’.

The lead authors of the Nature paper are academics working out of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. They suggest using urban farms as sites for “education, leisure and community building”.

Perhaps the locals could sit cross-legged and listen to early Pink Floyd music. Maybe clap the setting sun to some Atom Heart Mother.

Excuse your correspondent if he cannot take this paper seriously. It is a classic example of ‘greens’ picking on a human activity – almost any will do – and complaining that it causes the devil-gas carbon dioxide to be released.

At the recent New York climate happening, according to the Guardian, revellers were told that using hallucinogens can spark “consciousness shifts” to inspire ‘climate-friendly behaviour’.

What climate friendly behaviour, one might ask, given that almost anything humans do to improve their lot of Earth is demonised by an increasingly weird millenarian ‘green’ cult.

The authors of the Nature paper seem to have a particular down on home composting. Poorly-managed composting is said to exacerbate the release of ‘greenhouse gases’. “The carbon footprint of compost grows tenfold when methane-generated anaerobic conditions persist in compost piles,” it says.

This is particularly common during small-scale composting, apparently. With a seeming complete ignorance of how small allotments farming functions, the authors suggest that “cities can offset this risk by centralising compost operations for professional management”.

Wherever these cultists look, there are gases being released that are contributing to their invented existential climate crisis. The high application rates of compost in urban agriculture can also lead to nitrous oxide, we’re told.

Needless to say, “strategic management of application scheduling and fertiliser combinations may be required to minimise emissions”.

For allotment holders, few pleasures in life compare with a break from arduous work and a hot cup of tea in the shed. Surrounded by the tools of the trade, it is the labourer’s equivalent of passing around a few liveners at National Climate Week, with the added attraction that it doesn’t turn you into a self-important dope.

But such pleasure will come to an end if the climate cops have their way. Infrastructure, we’re told, is the largest driver of ‘carbon’ emissions at what are termed “low-tech” urban agricultural sites.

As well as sheds, this includes beds (for vegetables, not a crash pad for ketamine heads) and compost facilities. A raised bed built and used for five years will have approximately four times the environmental impact as one used for 20.

Other infrastructure supplies are said to include fertiliser, gasoline and weed block textile.

Plants need water, but only the ‘right’ sort of water can help ‘save the planet’.

In their site samples, the researchers found that most allotment-holders use potable municipal water sources or groundwater wells. Big no, no, of course, since such irrigation emits ‘GHG’s from pumping, water treatment and distribution.

“Cities should support low-carbon (and drought-conscious) irrigation for urban agriculture via subsidies for rainwater catchment infrastructure, or through established guidelines for greywater use,” it is suggested.

Presumably, the subsidies will come from the magic bread tree and the infrastructure will be of the special type that does not produce ‘GHG’s.

This crackpot climate paper is just the latest sign that the ‘green’ movement is riven with disagreements as its climate crisis grift starts to fall apart in the face of reality.

There are no realistic back-ups for intermittent wind and solar, while ‘carbon capture’ is a colossal and potentially dangerous waste of money.

Without hydrocarbon use, humankind is doomed. Billions will die and society will be returned to the dark ages.

Hydrocarbons are ubiquitous in modern society, and so almost everything that humans do to survive and thrive can be demonised.

Eventually, you end up with Sir David Attenborough making the appalling observation that it was “barmy” for the United Nations to send bags of flour to famine-stricken Ethiopia.

Or to read earlier this year the tweet from the UN contributing author and UCL professor Bill McGuire that the only “realistic way” to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown is to cull the human population with a high fatality pandemic.

Many ‘green’ extremists seem to take the view that anything humans do, including growing their own veg, is causing existential harm to the planet.

https://principia-scientific.com/climate-alarmists-now-attack-growing-you-own-food/

************************************************

Overnight Success: Biden’s Climate Splurge Gives Billions to Nonprofit Newbies

Although there isn’t much public information available about the Justice Climate Fund, it appears to have been an overnight success.

After gaining nonprofit status in August 2023, the organization was awarded $940 million by the Biden administration just eight months later in connection with the White House’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to provide financial assistance to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution.

The Justice Climate Fund is not the only nonprofit newcomer suddenly made rich by the GGRF. Within a month of gaining nonprofit status from the IRS, Power Forward Communities, which reported 2023 revenues of $100, was awarded $2 billion.

The awards were made by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is new to the world of major grantmaking. The agency acknowledges it has never handed out such gigantic sums of money, and its inspector general told Congress last month it marked a “fantastically complex” and “unusual” setup that his small staff would be hard-pressed to follow.

Critics note that many of the awardees are run by politically connected figures. The single biggest winner in the awards, which were announced in April, was the Climate United Fund, which is slated to receive $6.97 billion. The fund’s directors include prominent Democrats, such as Phil Angelides, a former California State Treasurer. After this article was published Climate United told RCI that Anthony Foxx, who served as Transportation Secretary in the Obama administration, was “listed as a board member for our [grant] application but did not commit to serving post award.” A press release on the group’s website names Foxx as a member of its “Inaugural Board of Directors.”

The unprecedented nature of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created as part of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, is raising concerns about the Biden administration’s efforts to spend tens of billions of dollars in its final months, a gusher of taxpayer money that will flow into a poorly understood, untested, and difficult to audit format. The tremendous sums involved, the novelty of the program, and the EPA’s lack of experience in the field, as well as the unproven track record of some of the newly hatched recipients, have drawn the attention of lawmakers and others uncertain about how the taxpayers’ billions will ultimately be spent and who will keep track of it all.

“These groups are political front groups that are simply created to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to Democrat campaigns under the guise of doing something good,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff in the Trump administration.

Daren Bakst, director of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment and a sharp critic of the Biden administration’s climate change spending splurge, said, “It’s worse than a slush fund – it’s a slush fund to create non-profit slush funds.”

The EPA describes the Greenhouse Fund as “an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the adoption of greenhouse gas reducing technologies.” By investing in making residential homes and neighborhoods more “eco-friendly,” the money will pay dividends in both lower utility bills and higher employment, the agency says.

Neither the Justice Climate Fund nor Power Forward Communities responded to questions about their plans to spend the close to $3 billion in public funds they had received.

The $27 billion assigned to the Greenhouse Fund represents a fraction of the money the Biden-Harris administration has embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act for its green energy revolution. Biden acknowledged the bill’s true purpose this summer when he called the IRA a “climate” bill, thereby aligning the administration’s position with what leftist environmental groups such as the World Resource Institute hailed from the beginning as “the largest piece of climate legislation in U.S. history.” The IRA involved “hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy, electric vehicles, environmental justice and more.” Billions more would be spent on the global warming front under the Biden-Harris Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed in 2021.

The EPA has made it clear it views the bonanza as seed money. The agency expects that each dollar the nonprofit recipients spend in seeking to reduce America’s carbon footprint will attract seven times its value in private investment. This anticipated capitalist activity has led many media accounts to label the nonprofits “green banks,” and it has created an entirely new wrinkle in the EPA, according to its inspector general. The Fund’s requirements also carry mandates that at least 40% of the billions be spent in “low income or disadvantaged communities” or “tribal” lands, and in some cases, winners have pledged to spend up to 70% of the money in those same areas.

“I can’t say enough about how complex this system will be,” EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell testified to a House subcommittee in September. “It’s like they created an investment bank. It’s fantastically complex. I think it’s unusual.”

“I think it’s more than unusual,” responded Ohio Republican Rep. David Joyce.

EPA Special Advisor Zealan Hoover pushed back at the claim that unusual secrecy surrounded the process and criticism that there are flimsy guardrails to ensure the $27 billion is well spent.

Greenhouse Fund money has been divided into three programs. The biggest is in the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), which will divide $14 billion among three groups, followed by Solar For All, which has $7 billion, and then $6 billion divided among five groups under the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA).

While the degree of competition involved was not immediately made public, the EPA did provide the numbers to RealClearInvestigations. Three National Clean Investment Fund winners were chosen from a dozen applicants, while Clean Communities Investment Accelerator winners came from a pool of 26 proposals. “Solar For All,” which has the smallest awards, had 60 winners and 150 applicants, according to the EPA. Some of the NCIF and CCIA winners are associated with one another and publicly speak of their collaboration.

“In some cases, the umbrella organizations are new, but it’s set up to help long established groups such as the United Way or Habitat for Humanity,” Hoover said. “These are partnerships and coalitions in which we are very confident, and they submitted remarkably comprehensive applications.”

Hoover also told RCI the EPA will retain spending and auditing oversight, though that responsibility was not spelled out in any of the press releases that have accompanied the Greenhouse Reduction Fund. None of the groups receiving the billions responded to questions or agreed to comment on their plans for spending and how the money will be tracked and audited.

State-directed spending on new technology raises major questions about the role of government in promoting industrial development and in “picking winners.” In other words, are neighborhoods clamoring for what the nonprofits will sell, and how will the award winners attract $189 billion in private investment?

“Is there really any organic demand for all this?” said Travis Fisher, director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies at the conservative Cato Institute.

But Hoover said the answer lies in the gargantuan scale, and that the lump sum awards will actually be spent in myriad smaller projects throughout the country.

“The theory is that by unlocking the market we’ll create the market,” he said. “The top line numbers are large, but this will jumpstart lending.” That activity will also be spurred because the award winners will offer a smorgasbord of energy-efficient projects rather than one standardized one, Hoover said.

The EPA and the award winners speak in glowing terms of what they will accomplish.

“To date, the eight selected applicants have supported thousands of individuals, businesses, and community organizations to access capital for climate and clean energy projects,” the EPA said when announcing the awards. “With their awards, selectees will unleash tens of thousands of more projects like these across the country for decades to come.”

The press release went on to describe individuals who needed water heaters replaced, communities that are investing in solar panels, and even the “sustainable rehabilitation of the historic National Guard Armory building located in one of Owosso, Michigan.”

This sort of activity also contributed to the “green banks” label, and it aligns with IG O’Donnell’s testimony that the EPA had essentially created a “fantastically complex” investment bank.

Critics say such problems are compounded by the political connections of many of the awardees, whose boards and directors are peppered with people with careers in various credit unions and what are known as “Community Development Financial Institutions,” or banks that are focused on distressed communities.

The board of the Coalition for Green Capital, which got the second biggest NCIF award of $5 billion, includes Hugh Frater, who headed Fannie Mae at the end of the Obama administration. Another board member,Cecilia Martinez, was the top “environmental justice official” in Biden’s White House before moving to the advocacy and nonprofit sector. Stephen Brown, the Coalition’s chief network officer, began his Washington career in the Clinton White House, while Jessie Buendia, chief impact officer, was previously part of the California state government. Another highlighted officer with the Coalition is Daniela Nyiri, who worked on campaigns for Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens before moving to the Progressive Turnout Project.

The last NCIF installment of $2 billion was awarded to a group called Power Forward Communities, which was formed in 2023. It is led by Timothy J. Mayopoulos, who headed Obama’s Fannie Mae from 2012 to 2018. One of its directors is Shaun Donovan, who served in the Obama administration for all of its eight years, including a stint as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Power Forward Communities was granted its tax-exempt status by the IRS last March, one month before it landed the $2 billion award.

Some of the CCIA awards went to more established players, such as Inclusiv Inc., an outfit that has been around since 1977 and will get $1.87 billion, and the Opportunity Finance Network, which in 2022 had revenues of $76 million, according to tax records. Others are new arrivals on the scene, like the Justice Climate Fund, which formed in August 2023. The Justice Climate Fund’s CEO, Amir Kirkwood, had previously been with the Opportunity Finance Network, which received a $2.29 billion award.

Almost without fail, each award winner appears to have received a massive revenue boost from this surge of tax money under the Biden-Harris administration.

“The EPA does not have the wherewithal to handle $2-billlion grants – they were terrible at handling much smaller ones when I was there – much less an organization that previously disclosed a minuscule budget,” Gunasekara told RCI in an email. “There is very little oversight once the money goes out the door and even less accountability on whether the funds achieve the stated purpose in grant applications.”

House Republicans sounded a similar note at the September hearing, dubbed “Holding the Biden-Harris EPA Accountable for Radical Rush-to-Green Spending.” Democrats insisted that GOP concerns were hypothetical, given most of the actual spending has not yet occurred and is earmarked for a good cause. Republicans called attention to the unprecedented nature of the EPA’s arrangement.

“The Biden-Harris administration’s radical rush-to-green energy policies have fueled out-of-control inflation, which has driven up prices by more than 20 percent and destroyed the economic stability American families deserve,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“While American families are increasingly worried about unaffordable costs, the Biden-Harris administration is working relentlessly to expand its radical energy agenda,” added the Washington state Republican.

O’Donnell acknowledged that his staff, which has not grown apace with the EPA’s massive surge under Biden, would not be able to keep tabs on the $27 billion Greenhouse Fund.

Republican representatives said the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund follows enormous sums of money the Biden-Harris administration had already sunk into the EPA in the form of some $100 billion via the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts, effectively doubling the agency’s budget for five consecutive years.

“Spending at this pace and scale for any agency should raise concerns, but especially for an agency like the EPA with a known track record of waste, fraud, and abuse,” Rodgers said. “Under the Obama administration the EPA was given roughly $7.2 billion – nearly doubling its annual budget at the time. Even at that level, the EPA was not able to responsibly manage the spending.”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/10/22/overnight_success_bidens_climate_splurge_gives_billions_to_nonprofit_newbies_1066437.html

**********************************************

Offshore wind’s bogus benefits bragged on

Resources for the Future (RFF) has produced a combined cost benefit analysis for 32 U.S. offshore wind projects now in development. They proudly point to the benefits outweighing the costs by a whopping 14 times. But these supposed benefits are not just exaggerated; they are fabricated. They simply do not exist.

Their lengthy title is “Offshore Wind Power Examined: Effects, Benefits, and Costs of Offshore Wind Farms along the US Atlantic and Gulf Coasts”.

The analysis is fairly simple which makes it easy to see the fallacies. There are just four basic benefit claims. And of course it is all based on highly questionable modeling.

Before looking at each of these benefit claims it is worth noting a pervasive misconception. They assume that when a MWh of wind displaces a MWh of coal or gas fired power the emissions of the latter are reduced by the amount it takes to produce a MWh. As I have written at length this is not true.

Baseload fossil fueled power plants run on very high pressure steam produced by gigantic boilers. These plants have to be ready to produce power while wind and solar run intermittently. They are typically running while their output is temporarily displaced by offshore wind. The reduction in emissions is relatively quite small compared to the power displacement.

Each of the RFF benefit quantities is based on this mistaken displacement assumption. Thus each would be much smaller than they estimate if it were real. But as we shall now see they are not real.

The first and by far the biggest purported benefit is in changing climate change. This benefit is greater than the other three combined.

The claimed climate benefit is in reducing global climate change deaths for just under the next 300 years. I am not making this up. Here is their preposterous explanation:

“The GIVE Model, one of the three models on which the EPA (2023c) social cost of CO2 is based, projects that each million short tons of CO2 emitted in 2020 will cause 43 premature deaths globally between then and 2300 (after which the GIVE model does not project effects). Using this deaths-per-million-tons value, we estimate that the CO2 emissions reductions caused by the modeled offshore wind farms, in each year of their operation, will prevent 1,600 premature deaths. This mortality reduction is a major part of the overall estimated dollar value of the GHG emissions reductions caused by the offshore wind farms.”

Our emissions are not causing any climate change deaths, much less from now until 2300 so this benefit does not exist.

The next biggest benefit is in reducing the purported deaths caused by power plant pollution. Here is their summary:

“Our model estimates that the offshore wind farms will prevent approximately 436 premature deaths per year in the United States by reducing ground-level PM2.5. We estimate an additional 84 avoided premature deaths per year from reductions in ground-level ozone pollution; however, this is more uncertain than our PM2.5 related mortality estimate because ozone formation is more sensitive to background assumptions, and we base the estimate on a national average estimated ozone mortality rate of power plant emissions (EPA 2023a) rather than on modeling that accounts for the locations of the emissions changes.”

Power plant emissions are not causing these EPA dreamed up deaths so this benefit does not exist. In particular a great book on the PM2.5 hoax is Steve Milloy’s “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA”.

The third supposed benefit is “electric bill savings”. Again I am not making this up. That the cost of backup makes renewables expensive is well established and offshore wind is very expensive renewables so bills will go way up not down.

To get these supposed savings they basically rebuild the land based power generation system and given the offshore generation they build with cheaper stuff. Here is their opaque summary:

“In our results, building 35 GW of offshore wind farms reduces the average capacity factor of non-variable generation capacity and causes a change in the mix of such capacity. The change is a shift of several GW of capacity from types with higher fixed costs and lower operating costs to types with lower fixed costs and higher operating costs, which reduces costs and increases profits in light of the lower capacity factor.”

That lowering the capacity factor reduced people’s electric bill sounds like a model driven fantasy for sure. Moreover it sounds like the so-called savings are from what bills would otherwise be in some future scenario, not from what they are today. In that case the claim is a trick.

The last benefit is even more far fetched. It is “Natural gas user savings outside the electricity sector”. The simple idea is that so much gas is displaced by wind that the price of gas to everyone goes down. Not much mind you but a little bit.

They say “The offshore wind farms reduce the US and Canadian projected average natural gas price by 2.5 percent, from $4.12 to $4.02 per MMBtu, because of decreased demand for natural gas in the power sector.”

If only economics were that simple but it is not. Gas is a huge market besides electric power. Also most of the area in question is now served by fracked gas that runs around $2.00. So this tiny 2.5% change is not credible.

That is it for the bogus benefits. They are claimed to be 14 times the cost but they do not exist. The costs however are very real. At least RFF did not include jobs as benefits, as they are costs. They just used fairy tales.

Perhaps this report is written for politicians and other people who will cite it but never read it. Or maybe for people who believe the fairy tale of America’s tons of emissions killing people around the world for the next 300 years. I like to think my readers are smarter than that.

Offshore wind has no benefits; it is a destructive and wildly expensive policy mistake.

https://www.cfact.org/2024/10/07/offshore-winds-bogus-benefits-bragged-on/

2024-10-22T23:31:00.003+13:00

Green Blob-Funded Report Calls for Massive Frequent Flyer Levies That Would Devastate International Air Travel

A radical new plan to reduce international air travel from Europe to minimal levels over the next few years has been proposed by a group of Net Zero fanatics led by the New Economics Foundation (NEF). Massive charges under a ‘frequent flyer levy’ are proposed, the effect of which could quickly destroy large sections of the international air transportation industry. Some of the money raised – or not as the case may be – will be sent abroad as ‘climate aid’ to less developed countries forced to stay poor by mandated restrictions on their use of hydrocarbons. Needless to say, the work is the product of what Ben Pile recently termed “bog-standard Green Blob fronts”. Writing and promoting the NEF publication involved a number of operations heavily funded by the usual suspects including the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and ClimateWorks.

The fantasy plan calls for large European surcharges to be added to ticket prices for multiple annual trips. Financial details are not provided in the press release but the report suggests €50 for a medium distance trip and additional levies of €100 for long and “comfort” classes. This would appear to suggest an extra €250 charge for long-distance business and first class travel. George Monbiot of the Guardian boasts of the report having been shared exclusively with his newspaper and writes that the €100 levy on both distance and class will rise with each trip. It is hoped the surcharges will raise €64 billion, a sum said to be equivalent to 30% of the entire EU annual budget. This would be spent, at least until the golden goose is killed stone dead, on accelerating Europe to a “fairer, greener economy”. More virtuous bungs can be sent to countries to stop them using hydrocarbons and recompense them for the non-existent climate crisis.

Although the report talks of reducing travel by around 25%, the blow will be much worse in financial terms. Many airlines rely on premium travel to keep economy tickets low and severe reductions would affect the economics of aviation, both in the air and on the ground. Reducing passenger traffic by a suggested 25% and very likely much more, would require massive restructuring across the board including air traffic control, baggage handling, security and border activities and airport management. Yet more lost jobs to be added to the increasing pile of Net Zero casualties.

Not that this is the end of the attack. Air travel has enabled countless millions to travel for pleasure, holidays, education, business and to connect with family over the last few decades. In pursuit of ther mad Net Zero policies, the eco-zealots tell us, further restrictions “would therefore be necessary”. These would include caps on the number of flights, airport slots, night flights, private jets and “limits on the more damaging comfort classes of travel”.

Want to know what is being planned by the Net Zero fanatics – look at what their Blob-funded puppets are writing. In this case, forget about flying within just a few short years.

The New Economics Foundation has been around for a few years pumping out Left wing propaganda. It is no surprise that the hard Left’s favourite money tree the Rowntree Trust has funnelled in cash, although much larger amounts have been supplied by the Laudes Foundation and the ECF. As Ben Pile noted recently in the Daily Sceptic, most of the organisations active in the climate domain in the U.K. are funded by the ECF directly, or by one of the half dozen or so of the ECF’s grantor philanthropic foundations. As Pile also observes, the “hapless consumer” is ensnared by the phantom institutions that represent the green-ideology-addled British Establishment.

The NEF report is co-written by the Stay Grounded Network which, perhaps to nobody’s surprise, is funded by the ECF. The aviation campaigner at this outfit, Magdalena Heuwieser, says that the single trip flyer is paying the same tax as a traveller making 10 trips. Except that the more frequent flyer is actually paying 10 times more tax. Designed to fit a political narrative, Left wing sums often diverge from reality. In his article, Monbiot notes that air travel, heavily taxed as most passengers are aware, is “heavily subsidised” since the fuel is exempt from duties. In Monbiot’s world, a lack of a specific tax is often seen as a ‘subsidy’, while an actual £12 billion annual subsidy loaded onto U.K. electricity consumers to pay for unreliable renewable power is passed off as an ‘investment’. One reason fuel duty is not levied on aviation is that mobile jet aircraft will ‘tanker up’ at cheaper locations.

Monbiot reports on the view of Marlene Engelhorn who states that the “mile-high club of private planet combustion, where wealthy people like me can ferment in our comfort zones, needs to close it doors”. Easy to say of course when you are a wealthy heiress who has inherited a fortune from the BASF chemical operation. Other people who work for a living and need holidays and some modest comfort as they travel to drum up business might take a different view.

According to Monbiot, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) reviewed an early draft of the NEF report. Another Green Blob-funded operation of course, mostly it seems through ClimateWorks. This large operation channels considerable flows of money from other billionaire foundations such as Hewlett and Packard. These two latter operations are also direct funders of ICCT. Flying less is obviously the most effective solution to cutting emissions, states Sola Zhang, described by Monbiot as an aviation “expert”. Another operation quoted by Monbiot, More in Common, found that rich people would be most affected by a frequent flyer levy because they fly more. Again such value, such insight – funders ECF, the George Soros Open Society Foundation and Hewlett must be very pleased.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/21/green-blob-funded-report-calls-for-massive-frequent-flyer-levies-that-would-devastate-international-air-travel/

*********************************************

Grid scale battery fires loom large

America faces a growing threat from grid scale lithium battery fires. Construction of huge battery arrays with no concern for potentially catastrophic fires is out of control. There are no established standards to follow and local permitting authorities seem oblivious to this very real danger.

The batteries are teamed with a big solar facility because until recently that was the only way to get the battery subsidies. Each lithium battery unit is the size of a tractor trailer or big shipping container and there are well over a hundred of them, with a rated storage capacity of 230 MW. This is a medium sized storage facility.

That these units can spontaneously burst into flames is well established. The question is how to design and prepare for this destructive event?

To scale the problem consider the following event. A battery powered tractor trailer rig recently crashed and it’s battery burned on an interstate in California. Lithium battery fires cannot be put out so this one burned for around eleven hours. In order to keep the fire from spreading to create a wildfire the fire crew continuously sprayed it using a reported 50,000 gallons of water in the process. The interstate was closed due to the toxic fumes from the fire.

One of these grid scale battery units is easily 10 to 20 times the size of that truck battery. If the water usage required to keep a grid battery fire from spreading scales with size that is 500,000 to a million gallons of water. The actual amount is an engineering calculation that needs to be established and incorporated into battery facility design standards.

Note that we are not talking about the fire spreading to create a wildfire although that is certainly a concern. The vital need is to keep it from igniting the nearby batteries. If this happened the whole facility could go up with a hundred or more giant batteries burning. That would be truly catastrophic.

So now look at the Desert Sunlight photo and note there is no water tank. There should be something like a million gallon water tank with a high volume system to deliver that water to every unit in the facility. Clearly there is not.

There is also the engineering question of how far apart these units should be to enable that water to work keeping the fire from spreading. I doubt the Desert Sunlight spacing is even close to big enough. It looks like just room to walk between them.

Now let’s turn to permitting these facilities where I have another example that speaks volumes. This is a facility that just got permitted by Washington State. It is a combined wind, solar and battery project with a proposed storage capacity of 300 MW, which is considerably bigger than Desert Sunlight. It might have 200 huge lithium battery units. That number is not disclosed.

The project is named the Horse Heaven Wind Farm despite its massive solar and battery components. The name, usually shortened to Horse Heaven, is truly ironic because it will be no place for horses. Horse Hell might be better.

The permitting authority is the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council or EFSEC for short. The permit is called a Site Certification Agreement or CSA and Horse Heaven just got one, with a big push from the Governor.

The astounding point is that there was no discussion, or even recognition, of the fire threat posed by this enormous lithium battery facility. The CSA has numerous requirements for lots of issues, big and small, right down to the facility having water to keep the road dust down. There is nothing on having a million or so gallons to prevent a catastrophic conflagration, nor on the environmental impact of such.

This is wildfire country so there should be liability insurance for harm to others from a fire. Other potential sources of harm are huge amounts of contaminated water runoff as well as toxic air emissions, especially if the whole facility burns.

This neglect no doubt flows from the Horse Heaven Application. The App is over 500 pages long and I can find just one sentence about battery fires. Buried in a long paragraph on PDF page 366 we read “Lithium-ion battery storage may pose a risk of fire and explosion due to the tendency for lithium-ion batteries to overheat.”

This single sentence does not even refer to the project. For that matter there are only a few paragraphs about the battery facility in the entire App, mostly just describing it in general terms. There is nothing about the number of giant battery containers or that it is a huge project in its own right, posing an equally huge fire threat. In fact the App says they might double deck these container sized battery units which is absurd given the risk of setting off a chain reaction in the whole complex.

One can easily think from the Application that the batteries are of no significance and that appears to be exactly what has happened at the EFSEC.

This systematic neglect looks to be what is happening around the country. We desperately need a national code or standard covering this issue. The National Fire Protection Association says it is working on one, but it is up to the permitting authorities to make something happen.

The growing threat of grid scale battery fires is a very serious issue calling for equally serious action.

https://www.cfact.org/2024/10/01/grid-scale-battery-fires-loom-large/

**************************************************

IEA: The World Is Not on Track to Triple Renewable Capacity by 2030

Despite the surge in renewable energy additions, the world is not yet on track to reach the goal of tripling renewables capacity by 2030, according to the Renewables 2024 report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday.

Global renewable capacity is expected to grow by 2.7 times by 2030, surpassing countries’ current ambitions by nearly 25%. But it still falls short of tripling, said the agency advocating for a swift move away from fossil fuels.

While climate and energy security policies have boosted the attractiveness of renewables by making them cost-competitive with fossil-fired generation, “this is not quite sufficient to reach the goal of tripling renewable energy capacity worldwide established by nearly 200 countries at the COP28 climate summit,” the IEA said.

The agency’s main case, assuming existing policies and market conditions, forecasts 5,500 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable capacity becoming operational by 2030. This implies that global renewable capacity additions will continue to grow every year, reaching nearly 940 GW annually by 2030 – 70% more than the record level achieved in 2023, the IEA said.

Solar PV and wind together are expected to account for 95% of all renewable capacity growth through the end of this decade due their growing economic attractiveness in almost all countries.

As a result of these trends, nearly 70 countries that collectively account for 80% of global renewable power capacity are expected to reach or surpass their current renewable ambitions for 2030. But this would still fall short of the COP28 pledge for tripling renewables capacity.

Growth is there, but governments need to boost their efforts to integrate variable renewable sources into power systems, the IEA said, noting that the rates of curtailment of renewable electricity generation have been increasing substantially recently, and already reaching around 10% in several countries.

In a separate report last month, the IEA said that the global goal to triple renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade is still within reach, but massive investments in power grids and energy storage would be needed.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/IEA-The-World-Is-Not-on-Track-to-Triple-Renewable-Capacity-by-2030.html

****************************************************

Australia is already a successful nuclear nation

ANSTO – the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation – recently celebrated 70 years since Australia’s nuclear age began in Sydney.

On April 15, 1953, Australia entered the nuclear science arena as the Atomic Energy Act came into effect. The Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) followed and in 1987 the AAEC evolved into ANSTO as it’s known today.

ANSTO is the home of Australia’s most significant landmark and national infrastructure for research. Thousands of scientists from industry and academia benefit from gaining access to state-of-the-art instruments every year.

Thousands of visitors, including many schoolchildren, have safely toured the site at Lucas Heights, which is located 40km southwest of the Sydney CBD. They had the opportunity to learn a great deal about nuclear science as a result of that experience.

I recently became one of those visitors when I was invited to a 3-hour escorted tour of their facilities. As former Executive Director of the National Safety Council of Australia (NSW/ACT) I was particularly interested in their WHS procedures as well as the management of waste, as the latter could impact on the wider community if poorly managed.

What impressed me most was seeing just how advanced we are as a nuclear nation. Despite being relatively small in scale compared to a full civil nuclear energy plant, it has much the same range of issues and complexities to deal with. And it certainly appears to successfully do so at both their Sydney and Melbourne campuses.

During his visit to Australia in July 2022, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi expressed deep confidence in Australia, acknowledging the solid foundations established through ANSTO since its formation.

The obvious question is, why is the Albanese Labor-Greens government, together with the Teals, opposed to extending our obvious expertise into producing nuclear energy on a commercial scale, as proposed by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s LNP?

As you’d expect, there are a number of reasons for both their reluctance to accept nuclear despite it being cheap, reliable and emissions-free and their manic obsession with unreliable, hugely expensive, and environmentally/socially disastrous wind, solar, and battery renewables.

Political factors play a major part. The Greens and Teals are directly opposed to nuclear, but for different reasons.

The Greens have shown beyond doubt that they want to disrupt society across as many issues as possible. They are doing this on a regular basis – even appearing to stand with crowds that hold sympathies toward recognised terrorist groups.

People who think the Greens are still a well-meaning environmental group like they were under Bob Brown are fooling themselves – they are not!

In the case of the Teals, they started life as political entities via funding from Climate 200, whose primary financial supporters are deeply entrenched in the lucrative and heavily taxpayer-subsidised renewables industry.

The Teals are ignorant pawns in the high-stakes game of climate change and the hysterical pursuit of ‘saving the planet’.

There is a lot of money involved in this issue and ordinary Australians are being played by the so-called elites, including left-wing mainstream media such as the ABC.

A good example is the almost total lack of media reporting on the very recent and hugely important US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lift-off Report that includes significant findings:

The system cost of electricity with nuclear and renewables combination is 30 per cent lower than just renewables.
⁠The jobs from nuclear are 50 per cent higher paying than solar or wind.

⁠⁠Nuclear provides the lowest emissions, is the most reliable form of energy production, has the lowest land use requirement, and lowest material usage.

The report also outlines a pathway for the USA to reach their ambition to triple their nuclear energy capacity by 2050, in direct contradiction of our government’s refusal to even legalise nuclear energy.

It also directly contradicts the policy position of the Albanese government.

The report debunks repeated claims that nuclear is ‘too expensive’ and will ‘increase power bills’ and outlines various other benefits of nuclear energy.

The DoE report could not disagree more with Australian anti-nuclear campaigners and the Albanese Labor-Greens government, Teals, and other sources of ignorance.

Their report also completely debunks the much-criticised report produced by CSIRO GenCost that our Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, refers to constantly as his renewables crusade ‘Bible’.

This is despite the fact that the CSIRO GenCost report totally failed to accurately estimate the likely total cost of renewables compared to nuclear.

It also used in its modelling a 30-year life for a nuclear plant instead of the far more accurate 80 years. This created a false financial outcome by not comparing the total cost of nuclear with renewables over an 80-year period.

It also totally neglected the fact that waste management costs for renewables will be many times greater than for nuclear. There will be the need to replace wind turbines and solar panels three or four times during an 80-year period.

And who is going to be responsible for dismantling and disposing of the millions of components – some of which have toxic ingredients?

Many people, including some of our top scientists and engineers, believe that the CSIRO GenCost report was simply designed to support the Albanese government’s narrative as depicted in their childish three-eyed fish media splash some months ago.

‘Blackouts’ Bowen promoted that infantile campaign in his usual gloating, arrogant manner and then compounded his evident stupidity by stating that he had not even read the US report – dismissing it completely!

And this typifies the problem we face with the Albanese government. They have Ministers like Bowen, Wong, Burke, Plibersek, Clare and, of course, Albanese whose sole objective is to win the coming election and thereby remain in power; they simply don’t want to suffer the ignominy of becoming a one-term government.

Hopefully, in the very best interests of our country, they will fail to achieve that objective because we need a government that protects our borders, controls immigration, decreases our cost-of-living, and helps young people to buy their own homes.

It’s becoming clearer on a daily basis that none of that will happen under the current Labor-Greens government.

One major impediment to reducing living expenses is the rising cost of energy.

Renewables alone will continue to increase the cost of electricity and that will in turn increase the prices paid at our shops and for commercial or residential electricity usage.

Nuclear energy will add to the range of resources available to us – as it has done in many other countries.

Nuclear power plants operate in 32 countries and generate about a tenth of the world’s electricity. Most are in Europe, North America, and East Asia.

The United States is the largest producer of nuclear power, while France has the largest share of electricity generated by nuclear power, at about 70 per cent.

The only way we are going to catch up with the rest of the world in relation to nuclear energy production is to replace our current government with Peter Dutton’s Liberal-National Coalition.

That might be hard to accept for some people – but it’s an undeniable fact.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/australia-is-already-a-successful-nuclear-nation/

2024-10-21T20:34:00.002+13:00

In 2024 it can be difficult to sort wheat from chaff in the peer-reviewed literature.

There has always been better and worse science — that goes with the territory — but as I argued last week, we are now in an era of tactical research, with science curated to advance narratives over knowledge. That makes knowing what’s what even more difficult.

I spend a lot of time here at THB on the chaff, and by reader request, I am going to try to spend more time also on the wheat.

To that end, this week has already seen cross my desk an unusually large number of really interesting recent peer-reviewed papers that I’m sharing with you today. Let’s get to it . . .

A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet (Beaulieu et al. 2024, open access). Top line results:

“Our results show limited evidence for a warming surge; in most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023.”

The paper employs the traditional IPCC framework for detection and attribution and assesses what levels of global temperature increases would have to occur to achieve detection. The authors find that the recent “surge” is not very close to that magnitude of increase:

“Accounting for the short-term variability in the HadCRUT GMST over 1970–2023 and the added uncertainty for the changepoint location, the second segment (2013–2023) would need a slope of at least 0.039∘C/year (more than a 100% increase) to be statistically different than 0.019 at the α = 0.05 significance level right now.

The estimated slope of 0.029 ∘C/year falls far short of this needed increase. While it is still possible there was a change in the warming rate starting in 2013, the HadCRUT record is simply not long enough for the surge to be statistically detectable at this time.”

This paper is sure to motivate much debate as it is contrary to gobsmacking claims made by some visible scientists. Debate is good for science and for science in the public eye.

Crucial role of sea surface temperature warming patterns in near-term high-impact weather and climate projection (Zhao and Knutson 2024, open access). Top line results:

“Model biases in SST [sea surface temperature] trend patterns are shown to have profound implications for near-term projections of high-impact storm statistics, including the frequency of atmospheric rivers, tropical storms and mesoscale convection systems, as well as for hydrological and climate sensitivity.

If the future SST warming pattern continues to resemble the observed pattern from the past few decades rather than the model-simulated/predicted patterns, these results suggest:

A drastically different future projection of high-impact storms and their associated hydroclimate changes, especially over the Western Hemisphere.

Stronger global hydrological sensitivity.

Substantially less global warming due to stronger negative feedback and lower climate sensitivity.”

This paper identifies systematic biases in how climate models represent ocean temperatures and explores the implications of these biases for projections of the climate future.

The paper concludes:

“Our results indicate that if the future SST trend pattern continues to resemble the observed pattern from the past few decades rather than that simulated or predicted by climate models, we would anticipate a drastically different picture of future changes of high-impact storm statistics . . .”

This paper will also likely motivate some interesting discussions and future work.

The most important implication for consumers of climate research is to recognize that our near-term climate future likely encompasses a much wider range of possibilities than we (collectively) generally expect or hear discussed.

Robust future projections of global spatial distribution of major tropical cyclones and sea level pressure gradients (Murakami et al. 2024, open access).

I found this paper particularly interesting because it was published just a few weeks before Hurricanes Helene and Milton made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and resulting in tens of billions of dollars in economic losses.

I share this paper not because I believe its projections over other studies — actually, tell me what result you want for projected future hurricane incidence and I can produce a peer-reviewed study to support that view! — but because it is at odds with major media reporting and claims by activists (including some scientists) about trends and projections in hurricanes.

The gap between popular climate discourse and peer-reviewed research (including the assessments of the IPCC WG1) remains massive. This paper offers another timely example.

https://principia-scientific.com/more-studies-published-discrediting-climate-alarm/

**********************************************

From Your Wallet to Theirs: How EV Subsidies Favor the Wealthy

“I grew up in the middle class,” Vice President Kamala Harris says repeatedly to show that she understands what policies would best support the average American.

However, Harris’ electric vehicle subsidies don’t help middle- and lower-income households; they go to upper-income households.

It’s one of many hypocritical policies of the Biden-Harris administration.

This year, the government has issued $2 billion in tax credits for over 300,000 electric-battery and plug-in hybrids—mostly to wealthy households that don’t necessarily need them.

Nationally, 14% of households earning over $100,000 own an electric vehicle, compared to 5% of middle-income households and 2% of those earning $40,000 or less, according to a recent Gallup poll.

In California, the state leading in electric vehicles, the Top 20 ZIP codes with the highest percentage of EVs have median household incomes above $100,000, while the lowest-income areas have almost no EV ownership.

Electric vehicles are simply too expensive for lower- and middle-class households. The electric version of the average compact SUV (the most popular class of cars) costs $53,048—49% more than the $35,722 price tag of the model with an internal combustion engine.

The federal government offers up to $7,500 in tax credits for a new electric vehicle, up to $4,000 for used electric vehicles, and up to $40,000 for commercial electric vehicles, all depending on domestic content requirements.

Tax credits are designed so that electric vehicles have more American components. However, contrary to congressional intent, a loophole allows people to lease (not buy) EVs without the domestic content restrictions. This benefits foreign automakers, primarily those making cars with components made in China.

The Biden-Harris administration also requires automakers to produce EVs or face financial penalties. The Environmental Protection Agency finalized strict emission standards that are projected to lead to 68% of new car sales being battery- and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles by 2032.

Similarly, the Department of Transportation’s final rule will bring the average fuel economy standard of a light-duty vehicle to 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031, a goal that is impossible to meet without EV sales. Currently, the average car runs on 26.9 miles per gallon.

An additional 13 states and the District of Columbia have signed up for California’s rules forbidding sales of gasoline-powered cars after 2035.

These three sets of regulations will force an oversupply of electric vehicles that will sit unsold on dealership lots. Not only are they too expensive for the average American to purchase, but they also take an hour or more to recharge and lose range in cold or hot climates.

People in cold climates are reluctant to purchase EVs because freezing conditions lower the vehicles’ average ranges by about 30%. EV registrations are low in Alaska (2,697), North Dakota (959), and Wyoming (1,139).

That’s why 26 Republican state attorneys general recently filed a lawsuit to challenge “unworkable” fuel economy standards that “leverage the weight of the federal government to require auto manufacturers to produce more electric vehicles.”

By a vote of 215-191, the House of Representatives last month passed a bill to repeal the EPA’s “out-of-touch regulation,” in the words of Rep. John James, R-Mich., sponsor of the legislation.

Other challenges to EVs make them impractical to many Americans, such as poor charging infrastructure and long-distance challenges. Those were two of the top three reasons why 46% of current EV owners say they would switch back to an internal combustion engine vehicle, according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

In the aftermath of two recent hurricanes, Helene and Milton, electric vehicles exploded into flames and were difficult to extinguish, posing one more problem for EVs in areas vulnerable to natural disasters.

The choice of what car to buy should depend on the drivers, whose preferences are tecbased on affordability, climate, range, and other design features.

It’s clear now that drivers in hurricane-prone zones have one more reason to choose gas-powered vehicles.

https://principia-scientific.com/more-studies-published-discrediting-climate-alarm/

***********************************************

IEA: The World Is Not on Track to Triple Renewable Capacity by 2030

Despite the surge in renewable energy additions, the world is not yet on track to reach the goal of tripling renewables capacity by 2030, according to the Renewables 2024 report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday.

Global renewable capacity is expected to grow by 2.7 times by 2030, surpassing countries’ current ambitions by nearly 25%. But it still falls short of tripling, said the agency advocating for a swift move away from fossil fuels.

While climate and energy security policies have boosted the attractiveness of renewables by making them cost-competitive with fossil-fired generation, “this is not quite sufficient to reach the goal of tripling renewable energy capacity worldwide established by nearly 200 countries at the COP28 climate summit,” the IEA said.

The agency’s main case, assuming existing policies and market conditions, forecasts 5,500 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable capacity becoming operational by 2030. This implies that global renewable capacity additions will continue to grow every year, reaching nearly 940 GW annually by 2030 – 70% more than the record level achieved in 2023, the IEA said.

Solar PV and wind together are expected to account for 95% of all renewable capacity growth through the end of this decade due their growing economic attractiveness in almost all countries.

As a result of these trends, nearly 70 countries that collectively account for 80% of global renewable power capacity are expected to reach or surpass their current renewable ambitions for 2030. But this would still fall short of the COP28 pledge for tripling renewables capacity.

Growth is there, but governments need to boost their efforts to integrate variable renewable sources into power systems, the IEA said, noting that the rates of curtailment of renewable electricity generation have been increasing substantially recently, and already reaching around 10% in several countries.

In a separate report last month, the IEA said that the global goal to triple renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade is still within reach, but massive investments in power grids and energy storage would be needed.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/IEA-The-World-Is-Not-on-Track-to-Triple-Renewable-Capacity-by-2030.html

*************************************

Australia's "renewables" policy in trouble

The wheels are falling off Mr Bowen’s energy policy as the Albanese government heads downhill like an out-of-control billy cart. Mr Bowen’s energy policy can be summed up as ‘not Mr Dutton’s policy’. That’s the extent of the substance to it, as each day brings more bad news for the 82 per cent renewables charade. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is turning to nuclear to meet future demand.

Rather than remove the prohibition on nuclear to enable market testing, the Albanese government will publicly fund a government-dominated inquiry to discredit the opposition’s nuclear energy plan. The aim is to ‘clear the decks’ for an election next year, rather than to deliver cheaper, cleaner energy for Australian households.

The Albanese government has gone on a crusade against nuclear. How Mr Bowen will produce costings for Mr Dutton’s plan when he is yet to provide costings for his own plan is anybody’s guess. This government is clearly afraid of nuclear and will do anything to put it down rather than face facts.

Microsoft is on the way to securing the Three Mile Island reactor to power a data centre. The reactor was the scene of the worst commercial nuclear accident in US history in 1979. Midnight Oil sang about it with the scaremongering lines, ‘And when the stuff gets in, you cannot get it out.’ Microsoft plans to restart Three Mile Island’s Unit 1, not Unit 2 which suffered the meltdown.

Both Google and Amazon plan to use nuclear energy to power their data centres, too. Artificial intelligence and data centres are driving up energy use and the trend is only likely to continue. How wind, solar, and batteries will be enough for Australia’s future needs is not clear from Mr Bowen’s policy.

In Australia, two major green hydrogen plans have recently fallen through.

Further, two major investors in the unpopular Illawarra Wind Zone have pulled the pin on deploying offshore wind turbines. The move comes amid community concerns over the size of the zone and the proximity to the coast. The smaller zone was part of a political compromise that apparently didn’t sit well with investors.

In the US, the Department of Energy has announced US$900 million to support small nuclear reactors. President Biden’s administration:

‘…believes nuclear power is critical in the fight against climate change because it generates electricity virtually free from emissions, and that US nuclear power capacity must triple to meet emissions goals.’

This is a blow to Mr Bowen who has mocked nuclear energy on a daily basis for some time.

The biggest problem with Mr Bowen’s energy policy is that the evidence doesn’t support his assurances. For example, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) stated last week that the:

‘…cost of wholesale electricity rose during winter as periods of depressed renewable energy generation coincided with soaring demand for power in bitterly cold weather, data.’

Further, and although wholesale electricity costs were less compared to the previous quarter, the year-on-year costs were much higher. According to the AER:

‘Year-on-year prices were significantly higher across all regions, with Tasmania up 290 per cent, Victoria up 114 per cent and South Australia up 76 per cent.’

The $275 saving is long down amid such lofty numbers.

Unsuitable weather conditions for renewables generation in July and early August coinciding with increased demand was at the heart of the problem. Talk of batteries and pumped hydro (Snowy 2.0 is way behind its timeline and several times over its budget) are fantasy at this stage, with the reliance being placed on extending coal-fired power stations and increasing the amount of electricity generated by gas-fired stations.

Gas, too, is expected to remain at elevated prices for several years.

Yet the problem was recently exacerbated by wind drought – what Germans refer to as ‘dunkelflaute’ – and also that wind and solar projects are taking too long. So, any criticism of nuclear denies the lessons from overseas while pretending the current renewables rollout is progressing well.

Can renewables meet current demand? And can renewables scale-up like nuclear can? (As Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are betting on.)

The short answer is no. The long answer is that Mr Bowen’s Plan A is failing rapidly, and, by his own admission, he has no Plan B.

It will take more than hot air to fix Australia’s energy woes. It would seem that only a change of government will solve the crisis Mr Bowen got us into.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/it-will-take-more-than-hot-air-to-fix-labors-renewables-woes/

2024-10-20T23:34:00.003+13:00

Poland: The Heartland Institute and Solidarity Labor Union Leaders Take Historic Steps to Oppose UN Climate Activism

Solidarity labor union leaders and The Heartland Institute signed an historic agreement Tuesday to work together to preserve conventional energy and individual freedom while opposing the United Nations’ oppressive climate change agenda.

In a pair of Joint Declarations (here and here) Solidarity’s National Secretariat for Mining and Energy, Solidarity’s Independent Self-Governing Trade Union for Individual Farmers, and three other prominent Polish trade unions joined The Heartland Institute in voicing serious concern that UN climate policies are destroying jobs, driving up the cost of living, and threatening precious personal freedoms that Solidarity fought so hard to win a generation ago from the Soviet communists occupying the Polish nation.

“In our view, such actions [to address the so-called climate crisis] aim solely to provoke widespread fear and a sense of threat, especially among young people, without finding – so far – confirmation in scientific research,” stated one of the declarations.

“The Parties declare mutual assistance in preparing for a referendum in which Poles will decide on the verification of suspension of the European Green Deal,” stated the second declaration. “The key actions in this area will include: preparing resources including analyses, assessments, forecasts, interviews, reports, and informational threads as well as securing international support from the strongest member states. Fully appreciating the Heartland Institute’s extensive experience in managing large international projects, we are convinced that such cooperation can significantly contribute to increasing the effectiveness of our joint actions in the future.”

This is not the first time Solidarity has called on Heartland’s expertise on climate and energy policy. Heartland and Solidarity signed similar declarations in Katowice, Poland, site of the 2018 United Nations Conference of the Parties on the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Before and after the meetings, Solidarity officials introduced Heartland Institute President James Taylor to members of the Polish Parliament and Polish members of the European Union Parliament who share Heartland’s commitment to individual freedom.

“Fighting to advance climate realism in the face of a globalist climate-hysteria agenda is an international labor issue as well as a scientific, environmental, and economic issue,” said Taylor in Krakow. “After inviting me here to Poland, these union leaders emphasized how important it will be for Heartland to form and lead an alliance of organizations to fight for common-sense climate policy. I vow that Heartland will not let them down and we will provide as much information and leadership as humanly possible.”

Also, during the meetings, Solidarity advisors requested permission to translate and publish a Polish-language version of Heartland’s groundbreaking informational book, Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students. Climate at a Glance provides concise, compelling climate-realist summaries of 30 frequently discussed topics related to climate change, such as hurricanes, droughts, coral reefs, etc. The book is also publicly available for free in digital format and as a free smart-phone app. Heartland will work with its Polish allies to make a Polish-language version speedily available in Poland.

https://heartland.org/opinion/press-release-the-heartland-institute-and-solidarity-labor-union-leaders-take-historic-steps-to-oppose-un-climate-activism/

**************************************************

EV Owners Have Big Carbon Footprints

A recent report in the Daily Mail shows that while electric vehicle owners may virtue-signal by crowing about their green credentials, especially wealthy elites and celebrities, their carbon dioxide footprints are larger than those of most average folks who still drive vehicles that use gasoline and diesel for fuel. The Daily Mail reports:

Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that on average EV drivers actually have a bigger carbon footprint than drivers who own petrol or diesel cars.

While their cars might cut down on emissions, the researchers say that EV owners’ glitzier lifestyles mean they contribute more to climate change overall.

The average EV owner churns out half a tonne more CO2 per year with owners of the sportiest models producing almost two tonnes more pollution.

The researchers surveyed almost 4,000 Finnish people about their car ownership, background and lifestyle.

The participants also provided answers about their housing, transport, and purchasing habits to estimate their carbon footprint.

Overall, someone who owned an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) which runs on petrol or diesel created 8.05 tonnes of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases per year.

Considering that environmental concerns are a major reason for purchasing an electric vehicle you might expect EV owners’ emissions to be lower.

However, the average EV driver actually has a slightly larger carbon footprint than those who opt for cars powered by fossil fuels, producing 8.66 tonnes of emissions per year.

Owners of low-end EVs, smaller or less-expensive vehicles, who were less concerned about performance and reliability, had smaller carbon footprints than non-EV owners and EV owners concerned about those two factors. The owners of low-end EVs were also the smallest category of EV owners. Most EV owners are in the top income bracket. The average income of households with EVs in Europe was more than double the average income of households in the U.K.

According to the research, published in PLOS CLIMATE, the EV owners’ higher carbon footprint is a result of their lifestyle: multiple vehicles, including internal combustion engine vehicles, with the EV being a second or show vehicle; more travel; larger homes; multiple homes; more spending on nonessential goods, etc.

“Prior research has established that income is the strongest predictor of carbon footprint as higher income is associated with larger homes as well as more travel and consumption,” the researchers write. “’Since EV households tend to have a high income, their total carbon footprint is also above average.”

On this point the Daily Mail notes,

It’s no secret that the rich and famous who have most vocally championed electric vehicles are among some of the biggest individual polluters. This is especially true for those celebs who still enjoy flying around the world on their private planes. During a single four-hour flight, a single private jet can produce more than eight tonnes of CO2—more than the average person produces in an entire year.

Additionally, those who owned EVs typically owned more cars and reported driving significantly further than those who owned cars powered by petrol or diesel. On average, EV users drove 18,640 miles (30,000 km) which was more than double the 8,800 miles (14,200 km) covered by non-EV drivers.

https://heartland.org/opinion/climate-change-weekly-522-ev-owners-have-big-carbon-footprints/

*******************************************

Heartland Institute Applauds Louisiana Governor’s Declaration Supporting Natural Gas

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday issued a proclamation urging the Biden/Harris administration to “withdraw unlawful and senseless rules and regulations not authorized by Congress” that he said are leading to higher energy costs for Louisianans.

In Proclamation 68, Gov. Landry also announced that Louisiana “opposes efforts to limit, delay, or ban the approval of new and existing liquified natural gas export facilities in Louisiana” and across America. Landry, while endorsing an “all of the above” national energy strategy, also urged the Biden/Harris administration to “remove barriers to the production of natural gas.”

The following statement by Cameron Sholty, director of government relations at The Heartland Institute, may be used for attribution.

“Louisiana has all the pieces of the puzzle to be an economic power house and this move by Governor Landry sets the stage for a Louisiana Renaissance,” Sholty said.

“Affordable, reliable, clean energy is the most important input for economic growth from which prosperity flows. We hope the legislature in 2025 follows suit and capitalizes on the state’s abundant resources to bring opportunity to Pelican Staters.”

https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-institute-applauds-louisiana-governors-declaration-supporting-natural-gas/

****************************************************

The Irrationality of Western Energy Policies

What leads a country to begin winding down domestic oil and gas production while promoting the use of imported wood for power generation?

What leads policymakers to shut down a nation’s last and still-functional coal generating power plant after almost 150 years of using coal and within months arrive at a situation where blackout prevention notices have to be issued to its power generators?

The U.K. is by no means the only Western country to go down this perverse path of deindustrialisation and national economic suicide. Why are energy policies of leading Western countries afflicted by magical thinking and irrationality?

The Western World is in a hypnotic trance from 30 years of relentless propaganda pushing climate alarmism.

Energy Policy Mayhem

Evidence abounds of the mayhem that passes for energy policy in the West. It is only appropriate to start with Germany, the epicentre of the green trance that policymakers there have been hypnotised into. This follows decades of worship in the ‘Church of Climate‘ by the media and intellectual chattering class.

Let’s start with the destruction of thousands of acres of ancient Teutonic forests – the setting for the folktales of the brothers Grimm — to make way for wind farms. The irony is lost on Germany’s green ideologues that their energy policies threaten endangered species of birds and bats in their sacrifice at the altar of Mother Gaia. Consecrating thousands of eco-crucifixes with arms of petroleum-based glass-fibre-reinforced polyester resins manufactured in Chinese furnaces fuelled by coal or natural gas may seem particularly absurd to those not steeped in that miasma of green ideology.

Other examples of Germany’s green lunacy include the shutting down of the country’s nuclear power plants, only to then approve putting dirty lignite-fired power plants back online for German households to keep warm in the winter of 2022-23.

Adding to the economic gloom afflicting the country for the past two years, Reuters reported in July that the economy is expected to contract by 0.2% in 2024 from a previous projection of an anaemic 0.3% growth. It strains credulity to call this an “unexpected” contraction as the news wire does.

Irina Slav puts it succinctly:

In case anyone’s wondering how the least surprising thing ever could be described as surprising, that’s because economists and analysts did not expect the contraction and as we all know economists — and analysts — can never be wrong, especially when they’re actively turning a blind eye on obvious developments such as the cause-and-effect relationship between cost of energy and economic growth.

Let’s turn to other absurdities. We recently learned that in the wisdom of Scandinavian planners, dairy farmers in Denmark face having to pay an annual tax of 672 krone ($96) per cow “for the planet-heating emissions they generate”. This policy proposal came in the wake of widespread farmers’ protests in Europe which escalated across the width and breadth of the continent, from Sweden to Spain, Poland to Portugal, since they first started in the Netherlands in October 2019.

The Great European Farmer Revolt led to the shocking win in March 2023 by the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) in the Netherlands, putting it ahead of the governing party in the Senate. In a reaction to Left-wing green parties in Government, farmers became an important part of the equation in the country’s political future. As part of the EU Green Deal to make agriculture consistent with being “carbon-neutral” by 2050, Brussels’ bureaucrats assured citizens that their farms would be rendered more “sustainable”, “environmentally friendly” and “biodiverse”.

Perhaps the pride of place belongs to Ed Milliband (“Mad Ed”), the U.K.’s Secretary of State for the oxymoronically-named Department of Energy Security and Net Zero. U.K.’s “Net Zero” policies, pursued by both the Conservatives, in power for 14 years, and the new Labour Government, have compromised the country’s energy security like nothing else. In Mad Ed’s short time in the office, the country’s last coal plant and its Port Talbot steel plant have been shut down, regulatory approvals for solar farms were rushed through over the heads of local community objections and the North Sea’s oil and gas field developments have been sacrificed to Greenpeace’s climate lawsuit.

Unsurprisingly, it was reported in July that Britain fell out of the top 10 manufacturing nations list for the first time. Mr. Miliband’s decision not to challenge a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace has compromised the country’s investment environment. According to Brendon Long, Director of Research at investment company Zeus Capital, Mr. Miliband’s decision would put wider investment in Britain at risk. He said:

London has fallen out of the top 10 capital markets in terms of monies raised from initial public offerings. That might reflect that financial markets are increasingly concerned with the U.K. as a jurisdiction that values and defends property rights and the sanctity of honouring agreements made.

To be fair to Mad Ed, some of these developments were already in train during the previous Tory Government’s term of office. Nevertheless, he has built up a CV that would be the envy of the wildest Left-wing Brussels bureaucrat.

But most egregious in the Labour Government’s short record of rule is its move to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners while pledging nearly £22bn for projects in unproven technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions. Rubbing salt into the wound, Ed Miliband insisted in July that Labour will honour its pledge of £11.6bn in overseas climate aid.

It is not much better across the pond. President Biden’s promised to make climate change front and centre of his administration’s policies across the whole of Government. This has been followed by the duplicitously-named Inflation Reduction Act, which unleashes a debt-driven tsunami of subsidies on favoured industries – solar, wind, EVs, batteries, hydrogen. I have written on Biden’s fractured and contradictory energy policies elsewhere (here, here and here).

Models Not Fit For Purpose

These absurd and immiserating “Net Zero” policies of the West imposed at great cost to ordinary working men and women are justified by the true believers in the Church of Climate by invocations of the “climate crisis”. Mr. Miliband and his ilk would respond along the lines that when the house is on fire, you don’t muck about but do “whatever it takes”. Doubtless, the lockdown and vaccination mandates imposed by “experts” in response to Covid would be offered as an example.

These twin hysterias – Covid and climate – share much in common. Both spring from not-fit-for-purpose and impossible to validate computer models that escalated alleged risks on flimsy assumptions. An infamous March 16th 2020 bombshell report by Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London, warned of 510,000 deaths in the country if the country did not immediately adopt a ruthless Covid suppression strategy.

By March 25th, Ferguson’s prediction of half a million fatalities in the U.K. was adjusted downward to “unlikely to exceed 20,000”, a reduction by a factor of 25. This drastic reduction was credited to the U.K.’s lockdown, imposed two days previously. It was later found that Dr. Ferguson’s model was not fit for purpose.

Much as Ferguson’s model drove governments to impose Covid lockdowns affecting nearly three billion people on the planet, Professor Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” model was used by the UN’s IPCC, mainstream media and politicians to push the man-made global warming (now called climate change or climate crisis) hysteria over the past two decades. But like Prof. Ferguson’s model, Dr. Mann’s work has been cited by credible scientists as more in keeping with junk science.

Yet these hysterias prove irresistible for governments which love to accumulate power, activist academics in search of research grants and Left-wing billionaire foundations that support the vast climate industrial complex. The great essayist H.L. Mencken had this to say about governments:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Yet it would be naïve to view the climate industrial complex as a vast conspiracy. Steve Koonin in his book Unsettled offers a more plausible explanation, seeing a “self-reinforcing alignment of perspectives and interests” among governments doing practical politics à la Mencken, hubristic academics ‘saving the planet’, grifting NGOs, businesses eager for crony capitalist rents, intellectuals virtue-signalling their luxury beliefs and the mass of followers who make the mistake of believing what they’re told.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/19/the-irrationality-of-western-energy-policies/

2024-10-17T23:56:00.001+13:00

Peeling White Paint on Weather Stations – Major ‘Cause’ of Global Warming

According to a new study, weather station data has been shown to non-climatically and erroneously record warmer-than-actual temperatures due to the steady and perpetual aging process almost universally observed in temperature gauges.

When a weather station temperature gauge’s white paint or white plastic ages and darkens, this allows more solar radiation to be absorbed by the gauge than when the gauge is bright white and new.

Within a span of just 2 to 5 years, a gauge has been observed to record maximum temperatures 0.46°C to 0.49°C warmer than in gauges that have not undergone an aging process.

This artificial warming is not corrected in modern data sets, and it builds up over time – even when the gauges are cleaned or resurfaced every few years.

If these systematic artificial warming errors were to be corrected rather than ignored, the 140-year (1880-’90 to 2010-’20) GISTEMP global warming trend plummets from the current estimate of +1.43°C down to +0.83°C, a 42% differential.

The temperature reduction can be even more pronounced – from +1.43°C down to +0.41°C – if a set of conservative assumptions (described in detail in the paper) are removed.

Interestingly, when the systematically erroneous temperature data are removed, or homogenized, at different intervals of time (2 years vs. 12 to 30 years, etc.)

The global temperature trend – indeed, the long-term global warming trend – can be shown to effectively disappear, depending on the time interval. This can be observed below, in Figure 7.

As this chart illustrates, temperature data can homogenized, or adjusted, to exhibit just about any trend or non-trend the creator of the chart intends to. Data can be bent and manipulated to show strong warming, weak warming, or even no warming over the last 140 years.

Perhaps the modern version of global warming is not nearly as unprecedented or even unusual as it is purported to be.

https://principia-scientific.com/peeling-white-paint-on-weather-stations-true-cause-of-global-warming/

*********************************************

Why EV Ownership Is a Ticking Time Bomb

It is now, or should be, common knowledge that electric vehicles—cars, trucks, buses, bikes, scooters—under conditions of even low humidity or water damage, are prone to catching fire, owing to the unstable nature of the lithium-ion battery

As Chris Morrison writes at The Daily Skeptic, EVs are known to explode “with the force of a bomb blasting super-heated jets of flame, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere.”

Jammed into underground parking garages or packed in ferries, EVs are harbingers of almost unimaginable disaster—ecological and safety menaces to which the ‘Net Zero’ fanatics among our political leadership are comatosely indifferent.

We have witnessed lethal battery explosions in South Korea and elsewhere with significant loss of life. QBE Europe reports that such fires are increasing at a worrisome rate and explains:

“Lithium-ion fires are the result of thermal runaway, where batteries start to irreversibly overheat, usually due to impact damage, over-charging or over-heating…

The resulting explosive fire incidents are significantly more energetic [than ordinary fires], causing extensive damage, and potentially injury or even death.”

They cannot be readily put out and will often re-ignite.

We read of an electric truck loaded with lithium batteries catching fire, closing down the Port of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

We learn that Audi’s signature e-tron GT has been recalled multiple times over fire concerns. A massive fire at a Rivian Plant crisped over 50 vehicles. In 2022, Hurricane Ian caused 20 electric cars to catch fire “after they flooded with salt water, creating hazards for first responders.”

We have seen the damage that Hurricane Helene caused in Florida and other states, involving the volatile nature of EVs as well. According to Florida Politics, “Gov. Ron DeSantis urged owners of electric vehicles in Florida on Wednesday to drive them to higher ground to avoid them being exposed to seawater.”

A Toronto apartment complex has just banned all electric vehicles, including electric bikes, motorbikes, unicycles, hoverboards, mopeds, Segways, skateboards, and scooters, citing fire risk. These are only a few of the instances that are on record.

It is to be expected that EV advocates—government officials, industry executives, interested buyers, and committed owners—will claim that internal combustion fires far outnumber their electric competitors, which does make statistical sense.

Editor’s note: there are statistically more ICE fires than EV fires because EV’s represent only a small fraction of the total number of vehicles. If numbers were equal, EV fires would be many times more than ICE fires.

There is significantly more of one than of the other. According to various reports (e.g., International Energy Agency, Regie de l’énergie du Canada, etc.), EVs make up anywhere from only five percent to 18 percent of the market, depending on the country.

In any case, it is a sales number that is now markedly declining as consumers and major companies are turning off EVs.

As I have previously pointed out, Ford Motors is backing away from EVs and reconditioning an EV plant to build high-demand Super Duty trucks. Nissan’s EV earnings dropped 99% in the first quarter of the year.

General Motors delayed (perhaps indefinitely) the new Buick EV and a new electric truck factory. Hertz Global Holdings is selling off 20,000 EVs from its fleet. The Financial Post reports that Volkswagen has cut EV output in Germany as demand craters.

Indeed, The Telegraph reports that Germany suffered a “spectacular 70pc drop in electric car sales.” EV automobile manufacturer Stellantis has laid off thousands of Michigan workers. Italy has called for a review of the European Union’s coming internal combustion car ban, claiming that the “absurd” policy was ideologically driven and ignored the realities of the market.

But even if this were not so, EVs would continue to pose a much greater danger than ICE vehicles. I have only seldom heard of a gas-powered vehicle aflame, yet EV fires seem to be a regular event, giving off clouds of toxic emissions and burning almost uncontrollably.

They are a source of ecological havoc whose effects will grow increasingly evident despite government mandates and media silence.

Although I have written about the EV hazard on several occasions for this site and others, the issue’s implications recently came home to me with renewed force. Embarking on one of the myriad ferries that ply between Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, and the Gulf Islands, I noticed a late-model EV among the hundreds of cars, trucks, and tankers making the crossing.

There were certainly more, but one was enough to get me thinking. A single “thermal event” would cause a near-unquenchable fire, release volumes of toxic emissions, and set off explosions in the confined hold of the ship that would likely result in its foundering and the death of many passengers from fire, poisonous fumes, and drowning.

This was a nightmare vision that I sensed would one day translate into the real world. I also knew that very few of the officials in charge of the ferry service would accept the very real possibility of such a cataclysm.

If such an event should occur, denial and subterfuge would be the response. The cause would have to be located elsewhere. The combination of inertia and vested interest, bureaucratic sluggishness, and profiteering avarice would constitute nothing less than criminal indifference.

I was encouraged to read that the Norwegian shipping firm Havila Kystruten, which operates car ferries around the coast of Norway, has banned the transportation of electric, hybrid, and hydrogen vehicles. And with good reason.

Neil Dalus of the freight insurer TT Club points out:

“During a lithium battery thermal runaway event… significant amounts of vapour can be produced in many common supply chain scenarios, including ships’ holds and warehouses.”

The potential toxic effects, as noted, can be and have been fatal. “Drivers, stevedores, ships’ crews and first responders attempting to control the blazes encounter what might appear to be smoke but is in fact a mix of toxic gases, generated quickly and in large volumes.”

The freight insurer warns that the failure of these batteries can occur “with such speed that there is typically no time to react.”

Such disasters may not be as improbable as we may have thought. They are just waiting to happen. Mike Gallagher, CEO of Ports Australia, warns of the ferocity of such fires:

“You can’t put them out. So you can imagine it on the street if you can’t put them out, imagine them on a vessel out at sea or in a port.”

In 2022, the Felicity Ace, a large cargo vessel carrying 4,000 cars, including EVs, not-so mysteriously caught fire and sunk. In July 2023, the Dutch vessel Freemantle Highway, with a cargo of 3,783 vehicles, including 498 EVs, burst into flames, the fire starting “in the battery of an electric car,” according to a crewman.

The National Transportation Safety Board has also advised of the inherent risks. EVs are ticking time bombs.

Of course, engineers and technicians are working to improve the safety co-efficient of the lithium battery, but success is years in the future—if at all. Moreover, the electrical grid cannot sustain the drain on its capacity, which in itself is enough to put paid to so ill-advised a project.

Whatever way we look at it, the EV revolution is premature and appears destined to failure.

One should keep in mind that many professional firms and the media will almost always gloss over the danger and the lethal radius of these fires in the same way that “fact-checkers” almost always manipulate rather than check the facts.

Believe them at your peril. The risk factor is not susceptible to standard data analysis.

Indeed, the purring statistical distributions we find all over the Net with respect to the comparative dangers of driving an EV and an ICE vehicle, assuring us we have no need to worry about EVs, depend on a selective approach to weak or imperfect data arrays.

The statistical apparatus that is usually brought to bear upon the events in question is not only starved of appropriate data but is meant to distort our perception of the situation. It cannot accommodate the scalene and empirical properties of certain sorts of phenomena—in this instance, what we might refer to as “crisis events.”

One EV fire can sink a ship; the damage is incalculably greater than any number of regular vehicles can give rise to. How do we compute so disproportionate a probability?

We are dealing with a category error. One apple, so to speak, may be far more septic than innumerable oranges. As the old saw goes, “Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say.”

“Companies flourish in a free market economy not by serving bureaucrats but consumers, the true ‘bosses,” writes Jonathan Miltimore at The Epoch Times, condemning the “hamfisted” misallocation of government resources.

“Fortunately, the centrally planned EV Revolution now appears dead in the water, or at least in full retreat.” One hopes he is right.

Although governments everywhere continue to push for increased “adoption,” the time has plainly arrived to end EV mandates, wasteful government subsidies and incentives, and the political, corporate and media propaganda campaigns leading to the inevitable economic, ecological and life-threatening debacles everyone will come to regret.

The time is now, before the treasury collapses and the fatalities begin to mount up.

https://principia-scientific.com/why-ev-ownership-is-a-ticking-time-bomb/

*************************************************

Expert Calls Out VP Debate Moderators’ Climate Lies

Climate alarmists, despite what CBS debate moderators asserted, “can't demonstrate that emissions are really having any effects on anything other than maybe they're helping the planet get greener, which means there's more life,” Junk Science’s Steve Milloy told PJ Media.

The CBS vice presidential debate moderators, Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, tried to tie Hurricane Helene to “climate change” and pressured both Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz to endorse government climate action. But “the notion that this is a man-made or -enhanced or -caused weather event is just without a foundation,” Milloy explained.

Milloy, a Senior E&E Institute Legal Fellow and former Trump EPA Transition Team Member, insisted that there’s “been no increase in strong hurricanes. There's been no increase in the frequency of hurricanes. The sort of storm that hit the Big Bend of Florida has happened before.” Indeed, as of Jan. 2023, data indicated major hurricanes were becoming less frequent.

In terms of “observational data,” Milloy continued, the theory that “emissions have somehow warmed the ocean water is completely faulty, because it's physically impossible for the atmosphere to warm the ocean. So it's impossible for emissions to warm the ocean.” While Helene “may be a record weather event … that's not really going to be unexpected, because we've been through a pretty extraordinary past year, which is not explainable by emissions. It was an El Nino year. There are other factors.” Helene wasn’t caused or intensified by human actions.

Alarmists assert storms are “made more likely by climate change. I have no idea what they're talking about,” Milloy told me. “Storms have always happened. They always will happen. The ocean water … has warmed recently. But once again, the atmosphere cannot warm the ocean.” Rather, “the primary warmer of the ocean is the sun, and the other is [that] water can be warmed from beneath. That's probably how El Nino has developed. So both of these things are natural, have nothing to do with humans.”

Milloy cited an “ironic” article he found from last year saying people were moving to Asheville, NC, which has since been devastated by Helene, “because they thought it would be … safe climate wise. And of course, you know, climate is a ridiculous reason to do anything. They should have been thinking about the weather.” After all, “those mountains get storms,” Milloy pointed out, “it's a flood-prone area. And this time they got a really big one, and no one was ready for it, because I guess they're imagining that emissions are a problem.”

When you make decisions based on what climate alarmists say, disaster is sure to follow; not a single climate doom prophecy has come true in many decades.

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/10/02/exclusive-expert-calls-out-vp-debate-moderators-climate-lies-n49330210

***************************************

Organizations that manage, coordinate and monitor electricity service for 156 million Americans across 30 states are warning that the Biden-Harris administration’s power plant rule will be catastrophic for the nation’s grid

Four regional trade organizations (RTO), as they’re called, recently filed an amicus brief, also known as a friend of the court brief, in support of a multi-state lawsuit against the EPA over the rule.

The EPA released the rules in April. They require coal-fired power plants that will be operating past 2039 to begin implementing carbon-capture technologies in just eight years. New gas-fired power plants will also need to add the technologies, with those operating 40% of their annual capacity or more to add carbon capture starting in 2032.

Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling, co-founder and researchers with Always On Energy Research, performed an analysis on behalf of the North Dakota Transmission Authority on the impacts the rules would have on the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), an RTO that covers a swath of the center of the U.S.

The researchers say they found a number of problems. The EPA grossly overestimated the ability of intermittent wind and solar to deliver reliable electricity during peak demand periods, according to the analysis, and it also found the agency didn’t perform any reliability analysis on the rules. The result would be blackouts lasting days in some cases.

The RTOs’ amicus brief points out these same problems. It argues that the EPA’s timeline is too short. The requirements for compliance assume feasibility of carbon capture technology that has not been “adequately demonstrated,” the RTOs explain, and the rules would result in vast retirements of coal-fired power plants while preventing investments in baseload generators, such as natural gas-fired power plants, to replace the lost capacity. The RTOs also noted that the EPA performed no reliability operational assessments. Baseload generation refers to the minimum level of constant power supply that a utility or power grid must produce to meet the continuous and consistent demand for electricity.

“It would be absolutely devastating for the grid,” Rolling told Just the News.

Rolling and Orr reached out to several regulatory attorneys, and none of them were aware of another situation in which RTOs filed an amicus brief asking the court to remand regulations back to the agency. The fact the RTOs intervened in the case suggests that they are especially concerned about the rules.

Supporters of the rules, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), argue the rules are necessary to achieve net-zero by 2050. The target is a key goal for anti-fossil fuel advocates, because they say it would limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The criticisms the EPA’s rules have received suggest the goal isn’t achievable without serious threats to the reliability of the nation’s grid. Net zero means cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere.

Rolling said that many grid engineers and planners know that eliminating thermal units — coal- and gas-fired power plants — on the time scale that achieving net zero by 2050 would result in frequent and lasting blackouts. He said, however, there’s a reluctance to be too vocal about it. The industries that contribute to the U.S. electricity supply are interconnected, and there’s pressure to maintain harmony and cooperation, to not rock the boat so to speak, which is a feature of many industries and organizations.

“So they don't say things out in the open, that maybe they should,” Rolling said.

The 2019 blackouts in California, the deadly Texas blackouts in the 2021 Winter Storm Uri, and the Christmas 2022 blackouts in the Southeast, Rolling said, should have been a wakeup call for the country that there are growing risks to our electricity grid. So far, they haven’t deterred the net-zero by 2050 advocates from their agenda.

Rolling said that RTOs and utilities have traditionally been policy takers, as opposed to policy makers. This is leaving a lot of the policymaking up to people who are not as knowledgeable or concerned about the impacts policies can have on the nation’s electricity supply.

“At a certain point, you can't be policy takers. You have to get in the mix of policy. These are the people that know this best. They know their regions the best. They know what their system needs to maintain reliability, and the EPA should listen to them,” Rolling said.

So far, the EPA doesn’t appear to be willing to do that. In its response to the arguments of the plaintiffs, the EPA defended its rule and its authority to enact it. The agency defended carbon capture, pointing to projects the agency claims were successful, and insisted the technology is financially viable. Rolling said he’s talked to engineers that tell him the technology is still in its infancy, but the EPA is trying to force it into primetime.

“We're jumping off a cliff and we're hoping to create the parachute while we're in the air,” Rolling said.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/grid-operators-warn-us-supreme-court-epas-rules-will-cause-widespread

******************************************

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

***********************************************

2024-10-16T20:27:00.003+13:00

Google will help build seven nuclear reactors to power its AI systems

Google is adding nuclear plants to its seemingly ever-growing portfolio. The company has partnered with Kairos Power to back the construction of seven small nuclear reactors in the U.S. It’s the first agreement of its kind.

The first plant is expected to come online by 2030, the company announced in a blog post. Other reactors will be deployed by 2035. All totaled, the deal will funnel 500 megawatts of power to the company’s AI technologies—enough to power a midsize city.

“Nuclear solutions offer a clean, round-the-clock power source that can help us reliably meet electricity demands with carbon-free energy every hour of every day,” Google wrote in the blog post. “Advancing these power sources in close partnership with supportive local communities will rapidly drive the decarbonization of electricity grids around the world.”

The smaller reactors created by Kairos, a nuclear-energy startup, are different from the towers most people think of when they conjure up an image of a nuclear reactor. The company uses a molten salt cooling system (much like the one that will be used for the on-site reactor being built on the campus of Abilene Christian University), which operates at a lower pressure. The company broke ground on a demonstration reactor, which will be unpowered, earlier this year in Tennessee.

Google did not unveil the cost of the partnership. The project site (or sites) have not yet been determined.

Google’s announcement comes weeks after Microsoft announced a partnership with Constellation Energy that will see the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, resume operations to power Microsoft’s AI data centers.

Experts have warned data centers could become a big strain on the U.S. power grid, with the nine-year projected growth forecast for North America essentially doubling from where it stood a year ago. Last year, the five-year forecast from Grid Strategies projected growth of 2.6%. That number has since nearly doubled to 4.7%—and planners expect peak demand to grow by 38 gigawatts. In real-world terms, that’s sufficient to power 12.7 million homes.

https://fortune.com/2024/10/15/google-nuclear-reactors/

*****************************************************

Global warming is NOT surging, scientists say - despite record-breaking temperatures

From the UK's hottest day to the hottest year on record globally, there's no doubt some worrying temperature records have been broken in recent years.

Many people think the rate of global warming has dramatically accelerated or 'surged' over the past 15 years – and is a cause of more extreme weather.

But a new study says there is not any statistical evidence for this so-called 'surge' or 'leap'.

Researchers looked at long-term global surface temperatures since records began back in 1850 and found no evidence of a surge since the 1970s.

While the academics agree that human-caused global warming is happening, they say it is not statistically 'surging' as some claim.

The team’s findings demonstrate a lack of statistical evidence for an increased warming rate that could be defined as a surge. In this graph, the circled part section is the part that some scientists have highlighted as a period of increased warming (the 'surge'), but the team say this model is 'not plausible' (inset)
The team’s findings demonstrate a lack of statistical evidence for an increased warming rate that could be defined as a surge. In this graph, the circled part section is the part that some scientists have highlighted as a period of increased warming (the 'surge'), but the team say this model is 'not plausible' (inset)

Recent years have seen record-breaking temperatures and heat waves globally, including the hottest UK record set in July 2022.

Last year was officially the hottest year since global records began in 1850, while that the 10 warmest years in the historical record have all occurred in the past decade (2014-2023).

However, the new study found a lack of statistical evidence for an increased warming rate that could be defined as a surge.

'Our concern with the current discussion around the presence of a "surge" is that there was no rigorous statistical treatment or evidence,' said co-author Professor Rebecca Killick, a statistician at Lancaster University.

'We decided to address this head on, using all commonly used statistical approaches and comparing their results.'

To learn more, Professor Killick and partners at UC Santa Cruz in the US studied 'global mean surface temperature' (GMST),

GMST is simply the average temperature of Earth's surface – and a metric that is widely studied to monitor climate change.

It's usually recorded by weather balloons, radars, ships and buoys, and satellites, over both oceans and land.

The experts looked at GMST from four main agencies that track the average temperature of Earth’s surface – NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), Berkeley and the UK's HadCRUT – since 1850.

Although GMST is rising long-term, in the short-term it tends to fluctuate due to natural phenomena – like major volcanic eruptions and the El Niño Southern Oscillation.

Therefore, the team deemed a warming 'surge' as statistically detectable if it exceeded and sustained a level above those temporary fluctuations over a long period of time.

'Imagine temperature records plotted on a graph – a small change in the slope would require more time to detect it as significant, whereas a large change would be evident quicker,' said Professor Killick.

After accounting for short-term fluctuations in the GMST, a warming surge could 'not be reliably detected' anytime after 1970, the team found.

'No change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023,' they write in their paper, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

The team stress that a surge in global warming may be happening – just that it's not detectable yet.

'Of course, it is still possible that an acceleration in global warming is occurring,' said lead author Claudie Beaulieu, a professor of ocean sciences at UC Santa Cruz.

'But we found that the magnitude of the acceleration is either statistically too small, or there isn’t enough data yet to robustly detect it.'

Professor Beaulieu agreed that Earth is the warmest it has ever been since records began because of human activities.

She said: 'To be clear, our analysis demonstrates the ongoing warming; however, if there's an acceleration in global warming, we can't statistically detect it yet.'

In response to the findings, Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, suggested that only one line of evidence was considered for the study.

'In fact, when all lines of evidence are scrutinized it is apparent that climate change is accelerating rather continuing steadily,' said Professor Allan, who was not part of the research team.

'Halting global warming by stabilizing Earth’s climate and limiting further damage from worsening extreme weather and rising sea levels is only possible through rapid and massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.'

Dr Kevin Collins, a senior lecturer in environment and systems at Open University, said there is a 'very real danger' that the findings are misinterpreted.

'With many people and places experiencing year on year record temperatures around the globe in the last decade, it is very human to assume global warming is accelerating or "surging",' said Dr Collins, also not involved with the study.

'However, through an authoritative statistical analysis of temperature increases since 1970, this research concludes that there is no detectable surge – yet.

'Instead, the results suggest global warming is occurring at a steady state.

'However, as the authors acknowledge, this may be because the size of any acceleration is either statistically too small, or there is simply not enough data to detect a surge in the last decade.'

'In other words, it is still too early to tell if the last decade – the warmest on record – represents a "leap" in the warming trend.

'By 2035 or 2040 we may look back and be able to see from 2015 onwards there has been a fundamental shift in the warming trend.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13961409/Global-warming-not-surging-scientists-climate.html

*******************************************************

Another Captive Agency Weaponized Against White House Critics

Note from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

On September 4, I received a letter from Mr. Todd J. Smith, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the National Marine Fisheries Service, United States Department of Commerce. In the letter, the agency states that they are investigating the alleged claim that I collected a specimen from a rotting carcass found on a Massachusetts beach in 1994. It claims that I may have violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The agency sent its letter just 12 days after I endorsed President Trump on August 23, raising the concern that this investigation is yet another instance of the systematic weaponization of federal enforcement agencies against White House critics.

Here’s my response to his letter, which I sent to Mr. Smith on Oct. 8:

October 8, 2024

RE: Alleged Violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act

Mr. Smith:

This is my response to your inquiry about the unsubstantiated allegation that my collection, in 1994 on a Massachusetts beach, of a specimen from a rotting carcass may have violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act. I never collected a whale specimen in Massachusetts or transported marine mammal specimens across state lines, nor do I have such a specimen in my collection.

While I am impressed with the alacrity with which the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) launched its investigation of the fate of a 30-year-old specimen, the rapid reaction contrasts sharply with your stubborn intransigeance in addressing the apparent massacre of marine mammals by the offshore wind industry. Recently approved offshore wind farms appear to be putting several protected dolphin and whale species, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, in dire crisis.

Your agency has idly watched the approval of 30 offshore wind leases from Maine to North Carolina effectively privatizing 2.3 million acres of ocean bottom, mostly on extremely productive fishing grounds and critical habitat for migratory whales and other marine mammals, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Many Americans suspect that your agency’s anemic response to this serious emergency may be rooted in its reluctance to obstruct the profit ambitions of a politically powerful cabal of energy titans including Dominion, Shell, and General Electric, and U.S. financial houses Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Wells Fargo, Citibank, J.P. Morgan, and Blackstone. These firms either directly own or are funding projects by foreign energy behemoths including Equinor (Norwegian government), Ørsted (Danish state majority-owned), Iberdrola (Spain), and TotalEnergies (France). The backing by those U.S.-based financial houses allows foreign governments and foreign-owned wind developers to collect tens of billions of dollars in U.S. subsidies and tax credits. These subsidies are provided for by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature “environmental” legislation. In the U.S., offshore wind is an environmentally destructive boondoggle. No financial institution will fund these projects in the absence of obscene government subsidies. Offshore wind farms produce energy 300% more expensive than cheap and abundant onshore wind, which I strongly support.

These companies, based on present offshore wind construction plans that have been approved or are in the process of being approved, will pile-drive 2,200 offshore wind turbines into the ocean floor at intervals of one mile or less across 5,816 square miles. Each turbine with blades will be approximately 1,000 feet tall, on par with the height of the Eiffel Tower.

The advent of the first wind project on Block Island and the arrival of seismic survey boats in 2016 and 2017 were coterminous with an alarming uptick in unexplained whale deaths so unusual that the NOAA Office of Protected Resources declared three Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs): one for humpbacks, one for minke, and one for North Atlantic right whales. The North Atlantic right whale has a total population of fewer than 360 individuals, so every stranding poses a threat to its total extinction.

Prior to the inception of increased seismic survey and construction activity for the wind industry, ship strikes killed 1.4 humpbacks annually from Maine to Virginia. In 2016, as the offshore wind gold rush gathered steam, 26 humpbacks stranded from Maine to North Carolina. Fifteen more stranded from January to April of 2017. Of the 20 humpback whales that were necropsied from that time period, 10 of them were ship strikes. There was no increase in shipping during this period. The only thing that changed was a flurry of offshore wind survey boats, from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

Mass deaths have increased in lockstep with expanding exploration and construction activities. In the 13 months beginning in December of 2022, there were 85 large whale strandings on the East Coast with zero entanglements. A total of 109 large whale deaths occurred from December 1, 2022, through June 6, 2024, mostly within range of offshore wind survey and construction vessels. This amounts to an average of 5.7 dead whales a month for 19 months — a record number of dead whales the likes of which have not occurred in a lifetime. Hundreds of dolphins and porpoises have also died. Only last month, a dead humpback washed ashore on Block Island in the vicinity of the Revolution Wind wind farm, and a dead fin whale landed on Cupsogue Beach on Long Island after being seen the day before floating 12 miles south of Shinnecock, while a young minke whale was found alive struggling in the surf in Montauk, only to die and then to float out to sea.

In September of 2020, 17 environmental groups conveyed to NMFS their “profound concerns” about NMFS’s systematic coddling of the offshore wind farm industry. In that letter, they discussed the 12 previous comment letters they submitted to NMFS since 2018 identifying your agency’s multiple failures in enforcing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). They repeatedly urged your agency to “require even stronger protections … for marine site characterization surveys required for offshore wind development” in compliance with the MMPA. Despite their urgings, NMFS has taken no meaningful steps to mitigate the massacre.

Instead of calling an immediate moratorium on offshore wind development, government regulators continued to permit lethally deficient Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) that allow the wind farm industry to “take” Atlantic whales by the drove. Your reckless dereliction of your statutory obligations to protect these magnificent creatures has resulted in up to 108 vessels conducting geophysical survey activities over more than 10,000 survey days from 2017 to 2022. Independent analysis of your own data suggests that these activities have already resulted in more than 113,000 instances of “taking” of marine mammals, including 402 North Atlantic right whales, 647 endangered fin whales, 53 endangered sei whales, 93 endangered sperm whales, 494 humpback whales, 329 minke whales, and 12,493 harbor porpoises. These are all noise-vulnerable marine mammal species.

Newer analysis conducted in 2023 predicted that when NOAA’s currently authorized offshore wind activities were combined with then-proposed and yet-to-be-authorized offshore wind activities, the impacted number of marine mammals would rise astronomically to over 630,000 animals. Industry proposals included up to 996 requests for Level B harassment takes of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. That number is now almost triple the population size of the species, suggesting that the species may go extinct as a result of your hand-sitting. NOAA has approved just one project off the coast of New England that, on its own, will “take” 126 North Atlantic right whales.

On January 9, 2023, after six large whales had stranded on New Jersey and New York beaches in as many weeks, five grassroots environmental groups demanded a federal investigation into the whale deaths.

They also submitted a letter to President Biden demanding:

“an immediate investigation into the marine mammal mortalities from Cape May, NJ, to Montauk Point, NY, and/or beyond, be conducted by qualified scientists including those of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and a halt to all current lessees’ offshore wind energy development activity within the Atlantic Ocean from Cape May, NJ, to Montauk Point, NY, including assessment, characterization, and construction-related activities until an investigation has been conducted.”

Instead of vigorously investigating these mortalities and taking steps to end this massacre, your agency has bent over backwards to enable the slaughter to continue. NOAA has protected the offshore wind industry — with its strong connections to the Democratic Party — by refusing to conduct basic science that might link the slaughter to industry activities. This strategic lethargy in conducting vital and obvious studies allows your agency, and by extension, the wind industry, to conveniently claim, as Benjamin Laws did on January of 2023, “There is no information supporting that any of the equipment that’s being used in support of wind development for these site characterization surveys could directly lead to the death of a whale.”

I offer just one of many examples of this species of agency sandbagging: The fin, humpback, minke, sei, and right whales that are now dying in droves are all part of the Mysticetes family of whales that all hear in low frequency. Yet your agency has stubbornly refused to collect direct hearing data from large whales to determine whether offshore wind survey boats and seismic survey machinery are emitting sounds within this hearing profile.

Here is another example: In the Gulf of Mexico, NOAA requires immediate survey shutdowns in the event of live mammal strandings or millings within 50 km of oil and gas survey activity. In deference to powerhouse offshore wind titans, NOAA has ignored those long-standing IHA rules for offshore wind in the Atlantic, despite the fact that the Gulf of Mexico surveys use the same equipment as the Atlantic surveys and NOAA permits the same levels of marine mammal impacts for both.

Furthermore, only Atlantic offshore wind surveys are expected to impact multiple endangered whale populations, and only in the Atlantic have energy development activities coincided in time and space with unprecedented whale deaths. This suggests that federal agencies should be providing more protections for impacted marine mammals in the Atlantic, not less. Yet NOAA continues to turn a blind eye, inexplicably applying weaker Marine Mammal Protection Act standards for Atlantic wind farms than for identical High-Resolution Geophysical (HRG) surveys in the Gulf of Mexico. The Marine Mammal Protection Act does not allow for differential application to the same activity; it is designed to protect mammals, not foreign energy companies and their Wall Street financiers.

Your agency has also stonewalled the issuance of uniform necropsy protocols that might point a finger at offshore wind. It’s obvious that the standardized protocol should include early examination of ear damage in dead whales. Despite the pleadings of the environmental community, you have refused to recommend this procedure. This step is so fundamental that it suggests a deliberate dereliction. In fact, your agency actually allows what partial or full necropsies of dead whales do occur to be conducted by Marine Mammal Stranding Network partners that have been funded by offshore wind companies and even maintain offshore wind executives, lobbyists, and third-party contractors on their board, ensuring that no “investigation” taken by such NOAA partners is objective.

In addition, commercial fishermen complain that the areas around the turbines — the Atlantic cod’s critical spawning grounds — have been emptied of fish. This outcome is consistent with your agency’s early warning that the turbines may cause the collapse of the cod fishery.

You sent the investigatory letter to me on September 4, just 12 days after my August 23 endorsement of President Trump, raising the issue that this investigation is yet another salient in the systematic weaponization of federal enforcement agencies against White House critics.

You acknowledge that you launched your investigation publicly on August 26, at the urging of the Center for Biological Diversity, a formerly effective NGO that now functions as a subsidiary of the DNC.

Your enthusiasm in launching an investigation based upon an unsubstantiated anecdote of a specimen collected from a rotting corpse three decades ago compares unfavorably with your abject failure to stop, much less investigate, the ongoing slaughter of whales by politically connected energy companies and financial houses that number among the Democratic Party’s biggest patrons. Your agency’s systematic insouciance is likely to result in the permanent extinction of the very species you are charged with protecting. Please let me know the steps that you plan to take to avert this agency-sanctioned calamity to Atlantic whale populations.

https://robertfkennedyjr.substack.com/p/rfk-jr-kennedy-whale-investigation

***********************************************************

Green Hydrogen limps toward inevitable demise

Fortescue Metals Group, a leading Australian iron ore miner, has been actively pursuing green hydrogen as a key component of its decarbonisation strategy. Green hydrogen reportedly results in no carbon dioxide emission or production.

In May 2024, Fortescue launched its first US green hydrogen production project. It represented a $550 million investment in a facility to produce up to 11,000 tons of liquid green hydrogen annually. They renamed their green hydrogen facility in Buckeye, Arizona, to Arizona Hydrogen. However, recent developments have forced them to scale back their green hydrogen plans.

The same is true for Woodside, citing a lack of renewable electricity, and similarly for Origin Energy, when it realised that it is uneconomical. Each company withdrew from the market for the same reason – the lack of cheap electricity – which ‘renewables’ cannot provide. You need hydrocarbon (coal, petroleum, or natural gas) fired electricity generation for that.

Buying into what I call the Climate Cult dream, Fortescue had set an ambitious goal to produce 15 million tons of green hydrogen annually by 2030. The company invested in renewable energy projects and developed its own green hydrogen technology, including the PEM50 project, a 50 MW green hydrogen electrolysis production plant.

But in July 2024, Fortescue announced a significant scaling back of its green hydrogen plans, citing high electricity prices as a major factor. The company put its goal of producing 15 million tons of green hydrogen on hold until electricity prices fall. (That is like waiting for hell to freeze over.)

Additionally, Fortescue cut 700 jobs, affecting various parts of its business, including its green hydrogen operations.

You have got to love the irony there!

High electricity prices that have resulted from massive government (read ‘taxpayer’) subsidies to the green electricity sector are the reason companies cannot produce cheap enough hydrogen gas from electrolysis. As I explained in Hydrogen Gas: another Climate Cult myth busted the problem is basic physics.

And the dream of finding a pure source of hydrogen from a gas well is just that, more mythological than pink unicorns.

However, mining magnate Andrew Forrest, Fortescue’s chairman, appears to be unfazed and downplayed the cuts made to the industry, stating that they do not signal a retreat from the company’s green hydrogen ambitions. Forrest emphasised the importance of investing in renewable energy generation to drive down power prices, making green hydrogen production more commercially viable.

More dreaming! Or is it just wishful thinking?

Fortescue remains committed to green hydrogen and its potential to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors, such as iron ore operations. To extract the metallic iron from iron ore you need to use copious amounts of coal, and to make steel from that you need an enormous supply of both coal and electricity.

Solar and wind power just will not do it. It was coal and cheap electricity that got us out of the poverty of the Dark Ages. Why do they want to send us back there?

On October 2, 2024, Forrest said that it’s time to walk away from the ‘proven fantasy’ of Net Zero. That sounds like he is coming to see the light! Well, not quite it turns out. So, what did he mean by that?

Australian mining tycoon Andrew Forrest, founder and executive chairman of Fortescue, says it is time for the world to walk away from the ‘proven fantasy’ of Net Zero emissions by 2050 and to embrace ‘Real Zero’ by 2040 instead.

What? He is a true believer, despite the fundamentals of the underlying physics of the universe. Forrest continues:

‘What they are really saying is that you can’t do it. And I’m saying to each of those chief executives and those political leaders who use the words, “I can’t…” Okay, what about you get off the stage and let on a young girl [does he mean Greta?] or wiser leader who can. Someone with a bit of ticker because the technology is there.’

‘We know the world can go Real Zero 2040 and I’m reaching out to the business people and politicians across our planet to say it is time now to walk away from this proven fantasy [of] Net Zero 2050 and adopt Real Zero 2040,’ Forrest said. ‘We can, we must, let’s do it.’

His company is retreating from green hydrogen because it is not economically feasible to produce hydrogen by electrolysis. Neither is it by the two methods that do it well – steam reforming and methane pyrolysis. All these methods are energy-intensive.

Currently, 95 per cent of hydrogen fuel is ‘grey hydrogen’ made from natural gas via the steam reformation process, but that method produces more carbon dioxide than burning an equivalent amount of petrol.

And by our current understanding of physics the Climate Cult dream of mythical hydrogen gas mined straight out of the ground is just that. More mythology! It is a pain when you come up against the laws of physics and chemistry.

No amount of religious cries like, ‘We can, we must, let’s do it!’ can change the laws of physics.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/green-hydrogen-limps-toward-inevitable-demise/

2024-10-16T00:27:00.002+13:00

Bill Nye never was a science guy

He's really ga-ga now

Bill Nye on MSNBC claims we can prevent Hurricanes like Milton if we vote the right way – ‘The main thing is vote’

Bill Nye on MSNBC: "The other side, as we often call it, has no plans to address climate change. No plans for long-term dealing with these sorts of problems. If you have young voters out there, encourage them to vote. People say, 'What can I do about climate change?' If we were talking about it, associating it with big storms like this, that would be really good. But the main thing is vote."

A few points about @BillNye the Science Lie:

1. Americans could vote in 1921 and 1841 -- but the Tampa Bay area still got hit by massive storms.

2. Emissions can't warm ocean water. https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1809073798160736620

3. Recall Bill Nye thinks climate skeptics are not dying fast enough.…

https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/10/09/watch-bill-nye-on-msnbc-claims-we-can-prevent-hurricanes-like-milton-if-we-vote-the-right-way-the-main-thing-is-vote/

*********************************************

Kamala Harris Is Full On Hiding Her Climate Agenda From Voters – Pursuing ‘strategic ambiguity’ on climate — ‘otherwise known as deception’

Climate change does not poll well so Vice President Kamala Harris is downplaying the whole issue. Gone is the drumbeating that nothing is more important to the next generation than addressing climate change.

During the presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris turned the moderator’s question about climate change into a discussion about housing insurance costs.

She declared climate change was “very real” and then she pivoted to what NPR described as morphing climate change into a “pocketbook issue.”

“You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences who now is either being denied home insurance or it’s being jacked up; you ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go,” Harris said during the debate.

Why has the climate issue, formerly known as an “existential threat” — complete with doomsday tipping points — now turned into a question of mere insurance costs for the Democratic presidential nominee? The Washington Post reported that Democratic Party leaders “appear to have calculated that climate silence is the safest strategy.” The Post explained, “Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition.”

When Harris was finally asked about “climate change” during her first sit-down media interview on CNN, she addressed her recent campaign reversals on fracking, EVs and net zero issues by claiming her ‘values’ have not changed.

Harris told CNN that there is a “climate crisis” and the way to solve it was by spending “a trillion dollars” and applying “metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

Huh? So, Harris’ position on the alleged threat of man-made climate change still duplicates her 2019 brief presidential run. Her repeated claims that she will no longer seek to “ban” fracking do not address the fact that continuing Green New Deal and Inflation Reduction Act policies will result in a death by a thousand cuts on fracking and other U.S. energy production methods.

She pledged to continue the ideological net zero fairy-tale that government spending and mandates can alter the Earth’s climate system. Harris’ energy plans will continue to hammer America first.

Let’s remember that Harris’ “values” have included being an original co-sponsor of AOC’s Green New Deal, casting a tie-breaking vote in 2022 for the Inflation Reduction Act, supporting gas-powered car bans, gas stove bans, looking at climate change as one of the “root causes” of illegal immigration, and meat restrictions via the administration’s EPA regulations on agricultural methane emissions.

In addition, the Biden-Harris administration has talked openly about the possibility of declaring a national climate emergency, which — according to NBC News — “can unlock special powers for a president in a crisis without needing approval from Congress.”

Bypassing democracy to impose a Green New Deal on America appears central to Harris’ “values.” But, somehow, her “values” have rapidly gone silent on the alleged “existential” climate threat of the 21st century during this heated presidential campaign.

If you listen closely, the Harris “silence” fades away. The Harris campaign raucously boasted to Reuters that the “climate silence” is all part of her master election plan.

“She has been pursuing a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on energy policy, [Harris] aides told Reuters last month. She is anxious not to put off undecided voters in swing states, especially gas-producing Pennsylvania, by trumpeting her climate credentials too loudly.”

“Too loudly?!” The only Harris climate “values” that seem to matter are “strategic ambiguity” — otherwise known as deception.

The reality is that Harris’ “climate silence” is a concession to scientific reality and the failed solar and wind promises that are causing a pointless drain on the U.S. economy. The public has been hearing for years of how solar and wind are “cheaper” than fossil fuels and how they are about to replace fossil fuels. But the reality is starkly the opposite of these claims and the Democrat Party knows this.

Despite trillions of dollars in subsidies, green energy mandates, UN climate summits, net zero commitments and restrictions on fossil fuels, solar & wind power made up just 13.9% of the world’s electricity in 2023. Meanwhile, the U.S. still consumed 82% of our energy from fossil fuels in 2023.

When these energy realities are screaming in your face, silence may be the only answer.

The most surprising aspect of the Harris-Walz climate shush campaign may be why the climate establishment has no qualms about muzzling climate change. The New York Times reported that “[Harris] has mentioned climate change only in passing” and noted that “[c]limate leaders say they are fine with that.”

Why are climate activists suddenly “fine” with their standard bearers hushing up on climate during a heated presidential race? Perhaps the answer can be found in the advice of Democratic Party activist Rev. Mark Thompson at the August DNC convention in Chicago, when he declared, “We got 70 days to act right, y’all. Now, after 70 days, we can go back to acting crazy, right?” he said. Thompson added, “Just wait 70 days to go back, please. Be good.”

Let’s hope Americans can glean the climate “crazy” blaring from Harris-Walz’s sham “climate silence” campaign.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/09/12/opinion-harris-is-full-in-on-hiding-her-climate-agenda-from-voters-marc-morano/

**********************************************

Extreme Weather Expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. on ‘extreme weather event attribution’ – It’s ‘research performed explicitly to serve legal & political ends

By Roger Pielke Jr.

Weather Attribution Alchemy: A new THB series takes a close look at extreme weather event attribution, Part 1

Excerpt: In the aftermath of many high profile extreme weather events we see headlines like the following:

Climate change made US and Mexico heatwave 35 times more likely — BBC

Study Finds Climate Change Doubled Likelihood of Recent European Floods — NYT

Severe Amazon Drought was Made 30 Times More Likely by Climate Change — Bloomberg

For those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such headlines can be difficult to make sense of because neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close to making such strong and certain claims of attribution.

How then might we understand such high profile claims?

…

Weather event attribution does not appear in the IPCC Glossary, however it does appear in the body of the AR6 report, where the IPCC explains that event attribution research seeks to “to attribute aspects of specific extreme weather and climate events to certain causes.”

The IPCC continues:

“Scientists cannot answer directly whether a particular event was caused by climate change,1 as extremes do occur naturally, and any specific weather and climate event is the result of a complex mix of human and natural factors. Instead, scientists quantify the relative importance of human and natural influences on the magnitude and/or probability of specific extreme weather events.”

With this post I want to introduce three starting points for our discussions which will unfold over a series of posts in coming weeks and months.

First, event attribution research is a form tactical science — research performed explicitly to serve legal and political ends. This is not my opinion, but has been openly stated on many occasions by the researchers who developed and perform event attribution research.2 Such research is not always subjected to peer review, and this is often by design as peer-review takes much longer than the news cycle. Instead, event attribution studies are generally promoted via press release.

For instance, researchers behind the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative explain that one of their key motives in conducting such studies is, “increasing the ‘immediacy’ of climate change, thereby increasing support for mitigation.” WWA’s chief scientist, Friederike Otto, explains, “Unlike every other branch of climate science or science in general, event attribution was actually originally suggested with the courts in mind.” Another oft-quoted scientist who performs rapid attribution analyses, Michael Wehner, summarized their importance (emphasis in original) — “The most important message from this (and previous) analyses is that “Dangerous climate change is here now!”

…

Weather event attribution methodologies have been developed not just to feed media narratives or support general climate advocacy. Otto and others have been very forthright that the main function of such studies is to create a defensible scientific basis in support of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies — She explains the strategy in detail in this interview, From Extreme Event Attribution to Climate Litigation.

As I recently argued, tactical science is not necessarily bad science, but it should elevate the degree of scrutiny that such analyses face, especially when they generally are not subjected to independent peer review. In this series I’ll apply some scrutiny and invite you to participate as we go along.

Second, extreme event attribution was developed as a response to the failure of the IPCC’s conventional approach to detection and attribution (D&A) to reach high confidence in the detection of increasing trends in the frequency or intensity of most types of impactful extreme events — notably hurricanes, floods, drought, and tornadoes.

…

The underlying theory of change here appears to be that people must be fearful of climate change and thus need come to understand that it threatens their lives, not in the future, but today and tomorrow. If they don’t have that fear, the argument goes, then they will discount the threat and fail to support the right climate policies. Hence, from this perspective, the IPCC”s failure to reach strong claims of detection and attribution represents a political problem — a problem that can be rectified via the invention of extreme event attribution

https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/10/07/extreme-weather-expert-dr-roger-pielke-jr-on-extreme-weather-event-attribution-its-research-performed-explicitly-to-serve-legal-political-ends-promoted-via-press-release/

**********************************************

Biden labels people ‘brain dead’ to doubt ‘climate crisis’ fueled Hurricane Helene

President Biden called on Americans Wednesday to “put politics aside” to focus on Hurricane Helene recovery efforts — moments before stepping on his own message by saying that anyone who doubts climate change’s role in the disaster “must be brain dead.”

“In a moment like this, we put politics aside, at least we should put it all aside, and we have here,” the retiring 81-year-old president said during a recovery briefing in Raleigh, NC.

“There are no Democrats or Republicans, there are only Americans, and our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, and as thoroughly as we can.”

The consoler-in-chief, seated next to the Tar Heel State’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, and emergency officials after an aerial tour of the Asheville area, pivoted moments later to an attack on the mostly Republican skeptics about the role of fossil fuel use in severe weather.

“Nobody can deny the impact of [the] climate crisis anymore — at least I hope they don’t. They must be brain dead if they do,” Biden jabbed.

“Scientists report that with warming oceans powering more intense rains, storms like Helene are getting stronger and stronger — they’re not going to get less, they’re going to get stronger. Today in North Carolina, I saw the impacts of that fury.”

https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/us-news/biden-says-people-must-be-brain-dead-to-doubt-climate-crisis-fueled-hurricane-helene/

2024-10-14T14:10:00.001+13:00

Solar farms ‘good’ for desert environments?

Solar farms are good for desert environments… That is what we are being asked to believe in a new study coming out of China.

For context, China has a stranglehold on the world’s renewable energy construction and is responsible for mining and distributing at least 90+ per cent of the rare earths and other raw materials required in the industry. Many of these are sourced from Chinese territories, but increasingly, China has set up mines in third world nations or inside contested areas of water in the South China Sea. Renewable energy is becoming a geopolitical conversation as much as it is an environmental debate.

Confusingly, if you like to live in a world of logic and consistency, China is also operating a record number of coal-fired plants (1,161) and constructing the world’s largest oil and gas pipelines from neighbouring regions. Australia has 18 coal-fired plants left. Meanwhile, Beijing drowns coral reefs and atolls in concrete to make military bases while also claiming to pioneer ‘planet saving’ energy. As we used to say, ‘pick a lane’.

Most people would reasonably assume that the best thing for fragile desert environments is to stop touching them.

Leave no footprints, remember? That was the mantra of the 90s.

Whether it is a desert, a rainforest, or a marine park – humans should not be industrialising these areas for profit.

The problem for so-called green energy is that it is not looking particularly green. Renewable projects do not leave footprints, they stomp around leaving boot-prints on the natural world.

Locals are watching hundreds and sometimes thousands of acres of habitat squandered to accommodate infrastructure. Once the construction is finished, these areas are more-or-less lost to the wildlife that once inhabited them.

Destroying the planet to save it, as sceptics are quick to point out.

These complaints are not speculative. We have years of research documenting harm. One of the best case studies is California where the deserts are slowly being consumed by solar farms described as ‘photovoltaic seas’ whose mirages are so convincing that the illusion of frozen waves has led some tourists to go in search of places to launch their boats.

There are dozens of articles containing the testimonies of residents who have suffered medical and psychological conditions caused, they believe, by the approaching green utopia which has taken over their lives.

It is interesting to read comments underneath some of these articles, left by a self-described pro-renewables audience. Some ask why the desert ecosystem cannot ‘adapt to having shade’ or insist that articles that highlight the impact of solar should ‘be taken down’ before they ‘fall into the wrong hands’.

‘Truth’ in the wrong hands? I wonder what that means to these individuals if we were to draw a discussion out of them. We can see here why support for the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill has festered within certain ideological groups. Are they worried that too much exposure to the sunlight might melt their solar panels?

Regardless of whether green voters like to hear it or not, environmental scientists and organisations continue to harbour concerns. Nature acknowledges, ‘…the global climate pattern can also be disturbed by massive deployment of solar energy. This is attributed to the resultant changes in land surface properties.’

ScienceDirect wrote:

‘The construction of a PPP significantly alters the surface disturbance of the soil, affects the balance between the photosynthetically active radiation and radiant flux, reduces the surface albedo, changes the precipitation distribution, and forms a heat island effect. These changes critically impact the driving factors of the local microclimate, such as evaporation, wind speed, temperature, soil moisture, and soil temperature, on both temporal and spatial scales, thereby increasing the land degradation risk in fragile arid ecosystems … it is usually necessary to perform liberal applications of dust suppressant and water to clean the panels and prevent large amounts of dust or sand from affecting the PPP operation. These chemicals are extremely toxic to the environment and may cause extensive negative effects on the local ecological environment in the long run.’

EcoWatch warned earlier this year that a solar farm planned for the Mojave desert in California could result in the destruction of endangered desert tortoise habitat and the removal of Joshua trees. There was also concern that the construction process would stir up the sand and with it, release ‘valley fever’ pathogens into the air.

‘The clean energy project, which is expected to power 180,000 homes – with that power estimated to be for wealthy residents along the coast, the Los Angeles Times reported – could also have lasting impacts on the desert ecosystem.’

The company website insists:

‘While individual trees will be impacted during project construction, clean energy projects like Aratina directly address the existential threat of climate change caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions that threaten vastly more trees.’

The solar farm creators were quick to insist the carbon offset would be ‘equivalent to planting 14 million trees’ but residents are wondering why governments don’t simply plant those theoretical trees if they want to save the world. ‘More trees’ is what the average voter envisions when they vote for ‘green energy’ and yet green energy is deforesting the world.

Returning to the study out of China.

The study opens with the admission that solar farms have had ‘significant impacts on the ecological environment’ and proposes the establishment of an ‘indicator system to assess the ecological and environmental effects of photovoltaic development’.

In their case, they use Driving-Pressure-Status-Impact-Response (DPSIR) as a framework to measure various types of environmental impact.

Their solar farm is a 3,182MW project which takes up 64 square kilometres and has a stated lifespan between 20-30 years.

The introduction claims, ‘Overall, the large-scale development of desert photovoltaics in Gonghe Country has had a positive impact on the ecological environment.’ In this case, the elevated area is described as ‘alpine arid desert’ and ‘semiarid grassland’.

These tests returned various scores including ‘good’ and ‘poor’ but the long detail of the study remains ambiguous.

To take one example. The study talks about soil evaporation and water content beneath the panels.

‘The construction of these power stations has led to a reduction in soil evaporation, while the cleaning of photovoltaic panels has increased the water content of the soil located under the panels. The cleaning frequency of photovoltaic panels in this study is once a month, as a result, the growth conditions for vegetation indirectly improved. This has led to an increase in both vegetation species and biomass.’

And read this alongside some of the ‘poor’ responses.

‘The analysis indicated that the ecological environment still faces tremendous pressure, with lower scores for various indicators in the status layer and lower scores for onsite indicators such as fungal abundance and daily photosynthetic radiation than outside the zone. These results may result in more significant impacts in the future.’

Aside from the obvious question, ‘How many of these are weeds?’ We know from other studies that cleaning the panels isn’t neutral to the environment. The water itself could be a problem as water is a scarce resource in deserts – so where do the solar farms source these enormous quantities of water from? Which other environment is losing out to put a garden hose on a solar farm?

If we look at solar farms across China and around the world, grass in otherwise arid areas can grow better beneath the solar panels where it gets tall enough to obstruct sunlight to the panel. It then carries a fire risk when it dries out during the winter months. Sheep have been brought in to some parks to address this problem – except if you ask the climate zealots at the UN, they think sheep, like cows, are killing the planet. Are we getting rid of farm animals and going vegan, or expanding livestock to keep the solar panels safe?

Grazing might be sustainable for the duration of the farm’s short lifespan, but it only takes one grass fire running through the solar panels to render the entire operation a net-negative for the environment.

No matter what, the original desert landscape and its biology is gone.

Farmers make landscapes ‘greener’ with intensive farming as well – but you would not see a headline from environmental movements praising them for it in this ideological climate.

It is very difficult to argue that these projects preserve fragile ecosystems, rather, they change them – for better or worse is up to the customer to decide.

The study, meanwhile, concludes, ‘Photovoltaic development in desert areas has significantly improved local ecological and environmental conditions.’

Which sounds good on paper, until you open up a picture…

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/solar-farms-good-for-desert-environments/

********************************************************

Some Australian states are discovering what happens when they have too much rooftop solar

What a muddle!

When Victoria basks in mostly sunny spring weather this weekend, energy authorities will be monitoring how far electricity demand ebbs. If needed, they’ll turn off rooftop solar systems to ensure stability for the grid.

Such minimum system load events, as they are called, have emerged as a new challenge as households across Australia take advantage of plunging prices for solar panels to shield themselves from rising power bills and cut carbon emissions.

The Australian Energy Market Operator issued two such alerts for Victoria during the AFL grand final weekend a fortnight ago, and warned of two for this Saturday and Sunday.

Prior to this cluster, the state’s only previous warning was last 31 December.

The public has become inured to annual alerts to possible power shortfalls during summer heatwaves or extended cold snaps during winter.

It won’t be long before the obverse – a grid strained by too little demand – is common during mild, sunny spring and autumn days, when the need for cooling or heating abates, experts say.

“It’s all going to be uncomfortably interesting for energy system people,” said Tennant Reed, director of climate change and energy at the Ai Group, noting there are “emerging rules to keep the show on the road”.

Having a grid that is supplied entirely by renewable energy is something Aemo and state and federal governments have anticipated as they step up support for so-called consumer energy resources. Australian households have already embraced rooftop solar at a pace unmatched anywhere, with more than a third generating power at home.

Many options are available to source extra demand, such as encouraging people to use more of their generation at peak sunny periods, renewable advocates say.

Hot water heaters, now often operating at night, could be switched on during the day, while certain industrial users could be given incentives to increase production, much like they are now rewarded to power down during summer heatwaves.

Still, the looming challenges aren’t small, particularly as coal-fired power plants shut.

The grid’s system strength is “projected to decline sharply over the next decade”, Aemo said in its latest 2024 Electricity Statement of Opportunities report.

From October to December is likely to be when demand sinks to its lowest for most parts of the national electricity market. (The national electricity market or Nem serves all regions except Western Australia and the Northern Territory.)

Windy, sunny spring days – much like the coming weekend in Victoria – also mean an elevated supply of renewable energy in a season of minimal heating or cooling need.

A year ago, on 29 October, Nem grid demand hit a record minimum of about 11 gigawatts for 30 minutes. Small-scale solar, most of it on residential roofs, met 52% of underlying demand.

As more homes install solar, the Nem’s minimum demand may continue to shrink at the present rate of 1.2GW each year, Aemo said.

The Nem needs at least 4.3GW of electricity moving across its transmission network. If there are “unplanned network or unit outages”, the threshold rises to about 7GW – a level that may be breached as soon as next spring, Aemo said.

“While these periods of very high distributed PV levels relative to underlying demand are currently not frequent, they will increase over time and could occur during unusual events and outage conditions,” it said.

“A credible disturbance could lead to reliance on emergency frequency control schemes which are known to be compromised in such low operational demand periods, escalating risks of system collapse and blackouts.”

However, the market has a sizeable toolkit to address those risks. South Australia, where about half the homes have solar panels, already has coped with two minimum system load events of level 3 – the most serious – on 11 October 2020 and 14 March 2021.

For the latter, SA Power Networks, a company part-owned by the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Cheung Kong Infrastructure, was ordered to turn off 71 megawatts of photovoltaic systems. It was the first such intervention by Aemo.

So-called solar curtailment is now a feature of SA’s operating system even if such an intervention is meant to be a “last resort”, the network group said.

Before such action, large-scale solar and wind farms will be turned off, as will big solar systems on shopping centres and factories. Exports of surplus solar power from homes will also be halted before the systems themselves are turned off.

According to WattClarity, a leading energy data website, SA had at least eight such rooftop solar curtailments in 2022 and 2o23.

Victoria, which introduced similar “backstop” rules on 1 October this year, says consumers can do their bit. Solar curtailment should be authorities’ last move.

“We encourage households with solar panels to make the most of their clean energy and save on bills by using their solar power during the day – whether it’s charging electric vehicles, doing laundry or running dishwashers,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.

For Victoria, the backstop mechanism won’t affect a household’s ability to consume their own solar generation. Large batteries are part of the toolkit from this spring, with storage on standby to create additional demand by charging up.

New South Wales and Queensland are expected to face similar challenges in coming years. NSW, though, is yet to start public consultation on restrictions of solar exports, with minimum load issues not forecast until late 2025 or beyond.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/12/australian-states-too-much-rooftop-solar

********************************************************

Australian Greens accused of ‘extremism crisis’ after candidate James Cruz’s Hezbollah post

An ACT Greens candidate has been forced to issue a clarifying statement after a social media post in which he appeared to suggest Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah should be removed from Australia’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

James Cruz, Greens candidate for the seat of Kurrajong, came under fire after he said on X that “more and more” people were arguing that Hezbollah should be taken off the terror list, prompting Coalition calls for the Greens to address their “growing extremism crisis”.

Mr Cruz was replying to Guardian podcaster Nour Haydar, who suggested Jewish groups had led the charge for Hezbollah to be listed as a terrorist group.

Mr Cruz replied: “Remove Hezbollah from the list of terrorist organisations? You’re hearing it more and more.”

Amid a backlash over the post, Mr Cruz issued a statement saying he had only remarked that “other people have queried the listing”.

“Hezbollah is a listed terrorist organisation and the Greens are not arguing to change that,” Mr Cruz said. “I back that position of the Australian Greens.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was “utterly extraordinary” that an endorsed Greens candidate believed the remarks were appropriate, calling on the left-wing party to dump Mr Cruz from its ticket.

“Hezbollah are proscribed in Australia and around the world for very good reason – they are terrorists,” he said.

“Over a four-decade reign of terror they’ve killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and even Argentina, where they blew up a Jewish community centre in 1995, killing 84 people.

“The Greens must address their growing extremism crisis and it should start with disendorsing James Cruz.”

During a recent wave of demonstrations marking one year since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, the Australian Federal Police targeted protesters displaying the Hezbollah flag, which is a prohibited symbol due to concerns it could ignite violence.

The furore over Mr Cruz’s post came just a week out from the October 19 ACT election, which will see Chief Minister Andrew Barr pitch for another term after 23 years of Labor government.

ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said the comments raised a “sensitive and complicated issue”, but declined to comment further.

Greens sources told The Weekend Australian Mr Cruz’s X account had recently been hacked and deleted by a third party.

Conservative group Advance accused the Greens of “standing with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests”, rather than acting as a “party of environmentalists”.

“Not only do they stand with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests, they float changes to how those barbaric organisations are treated by our national security apparatuses,” spokeswoman Sandra Bourke

“The Greens aren’t who they used to be, and more and more Australians are seeing it as the Greens show their true colours.”

The stoush followed federal Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi’s refusal to declare Hamas should be dismantled.

Mr Cruz’s comments surfaced the day after revelations came to light that ACT Greens candidate Harini Rangarajan had reportedly written a blog post comparing 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to Jesus Christ.

“I’ve gone on to idolise several other martyrs – Bhagat Singh, Husayn ibn Ali, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, Balachandran Prabhakaran, Joan of Arc, Osama bin Laden, etc,” her post reportedly said.

In his pitch to voters Mr Cruz said he was drawn to run for the Greens because of the party’s commitment to end homelessness and its recognition of housing as a fundamental human right.

“Growing up in poverty and living in public housing showed me the urgent need for a society that addresses inequality and the growing housing crisis,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/greens-accused-of-extremism-crisis-after-candidates-hezbollah-post/news-story/108c0ecd5411bc97d85cf5ec8173b49f

************************************************

Greens Declare War on Growing Greens

Grow your own fruit and veg – and destroy the planet. Allotment produce, much prized by proud food-growing citizens the world over, has six times the ‘carbon’ footprint of conventional agriculture, according to a recent paper published by Nature. “Steps must be taken to ensure that urban agriculture supports, and does not undermine, urban decarbonisation efforts,” demand the authors. What have these people been smoking? Surely not some of the puff circulating at the recent Psychedelic Climate Week in New York. Highlights included a discussion on funding ketamine-assisted therapy and a panel on ‘Balancing Investing and Impact with Climate and Psychedelic Capital’.

The lead authors of the Nature paper are academics working out of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. They suggest using urban farms as sites for “education, leisure and community building”. Perhaps the locals could sit cross-legged and listen to early Pink Floyd music. Maybe clap the setting sun to some Atom Heart Mother. Excuse your correspondent if he cannot take this paper seriously. It is a classic example of greens picking on a human activity – almost any will do – and complaining that it causes the devil-gas carbon dioxide to be released. At the recent New York climate happening, according to the Guardian, revellers were told that using hallucinogens can spark “consciousness shifts” to inspire climate-friendly behaviour. What climate friendly behaviour, one might ask, given that almost anything humans do to improve their lot of Earth is demonised by an increasingly weird millenarian green cult.

The authors of the Nature paper seem to have a particular down on home composting. Poorly-managed composting is said to exacerbate the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs). “The carbon footprint of compost grows tenfold when methane-generated anaerobic conditions persist in compost piles,” it says. This is particularly common during small-scale composting, apparently. With a seeming complete ignorance of how small allotments farming functions, the authors suggest that “cities can offset this risk by centralising compost operations for professional management”.

Wherever these cultists look, there are gases being released that are contributing to their invented existential climate crisis. The high application rates of compost in urban agriculture can also lead to nitrous oxide, we’re told. Needless to say, “strategic management of application scheduling and fertiliser combinations may be required to minimise emissions”.

For allotment holders, few pleasures in life compare with a break from arduous work and a hot cup of tea in the shed. Surrounded by the tools of the trade, it is the labourer’s equivalent of passing around a few liveners at National Climate Week, with the added attraction that it doesn’t turn you into a self-important dope. But such pleasure will come to an end if the climate cops have their way. Infrastructure, we’re told, is the largest driver of carbon emissions at what are termed “low-tech” urban agricultural sites. As well as sheds, this includes beds (for vegetables, not a crash pad for ketamine heads) and compost facilities. A raised bed built and used for five years will have approximately four times the environmental impact as one used for 20. Other infrastructure supplies are said to include fertiliser, gasoline and weed block textile.

Plants need water, but only the right sort of water can help save the planet. In their site samples, the researchers found that most allotment-holders use potable municipal water sources or groundwater wells. Big no, no, of course, since such irrigation emits GHGs from pumping, water treatment and distribution. “Cities should support low-carbon (and drought-conscious) irrigation for urban agriculture via subsidies for rainwater catchment infrastructure, or through established guidelines for greywater use,” it is suggested. Presumably, the subsidies will come from the magic bread tree and the infrastructure will be of the special type that does not produce GHGs.

This crackpot climate paper is just the latest sign that the green movement is riven with disagreements as its climate crisis grift starts to fall apart in the face of reality. There are no realistic back-ups for intermittent wind and solar, while carbon capture is a colossal and potentially dangerous waste of money. Without hydrocarbon use, humankind is doomed. Billions will die and society will be returned to the dark ages. Hydrocarbons are ubiquitous in modern society, and so almost everything that humans do to survive and thrive on a dangerous planet can be demonised. Eventually, you end up with Sir David Attenborough making the appalling observation that it was “barmy” for the United Nations to send bags of flour to famine-stricken Ethiopia. Or to read earlier this year the tweet from the United Nations contributing author and UCL professor Bill McGuire that the only “realistic way” to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown was to cull the human population with a high fatality pandemic.

Many green extremists seem to take the view that anything humans do, including growing their own veg, is causing existential harm to the planet. What they really hate, some may conclude, are humans themselves. Treble bongs all round.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/14/greens-declare-war-on-growing-greens/

2024-10-13T17:27:00.002+13:00

Indonesia Biomass Drive Threatens Key Forests

Indonesia's push to add wood-burning to its energy mix and exports is driving deforestation, including in key habitats for endangered species such as orangutans, a report said Thursday.

Bioenergy, which uses organic material like trees to produce power, is considered renewable by the International Energy Agency as carbon released by burning biomass can theoretically be absorbed by planting more trees.

But critics say biomass power plants emit more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than modern coal plants, and warn that using biomass to "co-fire" coal plants is just a way to extend the life of the polluting fossil fuel.

Producing the wood pellets and chips used for "co-fire" coal plants also risks driving deforestation, with natural forests cut down and replaced by quick-growing monocultures.

That, according to a report produced by a group of Indonesian and regional NGOs, is exactly what is happening in Indonesia, home to the world's third-largest rainforest area.

"The country's forests face unprecedented threats from the industrial scale projected for biomass demand," said the groups, which include Auriga Nusantara and Earth Insight.

Indonesia's production of wood pellets alone jumped from 20,000 to 330,000 tonnes from 2012 to 2021, the report said.

Auriga Nusantara estimates nearly 10,000 hectares of deforestation has been caused by biomass production in the last four years.

But the report warns that much more is at risk as Indonesia ramps up biomass, particularly in its coal-fired power plants.

The report looked at existing co-firing plants and pulp mills around Indonesia and the 100 kilometres (62 miles) surrounding each.

They estimate more than 10 million hectares of "undisturbed forest" lie within these areas and are at risk of deforestation, many of which "significantly overlap" with the habitat of endangered species.

Animals at risk include orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo, the report said.

Using wood to achieve just a 10 percent reduction in coal at Indonesia's largest power plants "could trigger the deforestation of an area roughly 35 times the size of Jakarta," the report warned.

Indonesia's environment and forestry ministry officials did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Indonesia saw a 27 percent jump in primary forest loss last year after a downward trend from a peak in 2015-2016, according to the World Resources Institute.

The groups also point the finger at growing demand in South Korea and Japan, two major export destinations for Indonesia's wood pellets.

They urged Indonesia to commit to protecting its remaining natural forest and reform its energy plans to focus on solar, while banning new coal projects.

Japan and South Korea should end biomass incentives and focus on cleaner renewable options, the group urged.

"There are no math tricks that can justify burning forests for energy," the NGOs said.

"Science has clearly proven the vital role of tropical forests for climate stability, biodiversity and human survival."

https://phys.org/news/2024-10-indonesia-biomass-threatens-key-forests.html

*********************************************

UK: Some rare realism from a Greenie

The government risks a huge political backlash if it keeps pushing the public to install heat pumps to replace their boilers, one of Britain’s leading green entrepreneurs has warned.

Dale Vince, a major Labour donor and renewable energy advocate, called on Keir Starmer to rethink national programmes, championed by Boris Johnson, pushing the technology. Vince argued that Whitehall should explore alternatives to the devices, which he said were expensive, caused serious disruption and could end up increasing energy bills for some people.

Vince, whose criticism of heat pumps has proved divisive among environmentalists, said mass use could bring a bigger political backlash than London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), which led to a surprise byelection defeat for Labour last year in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

“It’s a Johnson-era policy, and like most Johnson ideas, it wasn’t thought through,” Vince said. “It wasn’t meant for the real world, if you look at the amount of money committed. Electricity energy bills overall in our households will go up unless you assume heroic levels of performance.

“You’ve got this incredible disruption of home life for tens of millions of people – the need to change heating systems for a lot of people, not just the boiler – and substandard outcomes in a lot of cases.”

He added: “It’s politically threatening for any government to have a heat-pump programme. If you look back at the Ulez byelection and the fuss made about it in elements of the press, imagine a heat-pump programme where a household has just spent thousands of pounds on some technology that doesn’t do the job.” In June, Vince tweeted that heat pumps were like “Ulez on steroids”.

The entrepreneur’s latest comments expose divides even among environmentalists about the best way to move home heating away from the burning of fossil fuels via a regular gas boiler. Critics such as Vince state that heat pumps could increase bills because the electricity used to run them costs far more than gas. A study by the independent Energy Saving Trust put the cost at £20 a year more than using a new A-rated gas boiler. However, new specialist heat pump tariffs could make them cheaper to run.

Johnson’s government was an advocate of the technology, setting a goal of 600,000 new heat pumps a year by 2028. While installations in the UK have hit a record number this year, they have still only reached about 42,000 since January.

Air-source heat pumps cost just over £12,500 to buy and install on average, about four to five times more than a gas boiler. But the government currently offers a £7,500 grant for households installing the technology.

Vince claimed that he was speaking in the “national interest” in criticising heat pumps. He proposes an alternative – green gas, or biomethane, made from organic material, which his company Ecotricity develops.

Other environmentalists claim that the amount of land needed to produce enough green gas would be unrealistic, lead to food insecurity and damage biodiversity.

The Heat Pump Association, an industry body, insisted that the devices are a “proven, efficient, low-carbon heating solution which are readily available and scalable with the potential to reduce carbon emissions from heating by over 75% relative to fossil fuel heating systems”.

“Electricity prices are higher than gas prices in the UK,” it said. “However, heat pumps use three to five times less energy. Well-installed heat pumps that operate efficiently and make use of flexible electricity tariffs will in the vast majority of cases save the consumer money in comparison to their existing heating system.”

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said of Vince’s concerns: “We do not recognise these claims. The energy shocks of recent years have shown the urgent need to upgrade British homes, and heat pumps are a critical technology for decarbonising heating.

“Biomethane also has an important role in the transition to net zero as a green gas that can decarbonise gas supply, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and increase energy security.”

Vince also revealed plans to take advantage of the government’s decision to end the effective ban on onshore wind by “dusting off” a plan for 100 turbines in Gloucestershire, where his company is based, to power the county’s homes.

He said they could ultimately be transferred to the council’s ownership, handing it both an asset and long-term income. “If they were owned by the local authority, the windmills would bring £7m a year into local authority coffers,” he said.

“We will take the lead on this. We will find the sites, take them through planning and at some point in the future hope to work with local authorities to hand them over for public ownership.”

https://www.pressreader.com/

*********************************************

Human CO2 Emissions Are Supercharging Corn Yields

How can carbon dioxide, which has been portrayed as a dangerous pollutant threatening the very existence of humankind, be considered even remotely beneficial? Sadly, such a question can be expected from people – children and adults – who have been fed irrational fears in place of well-established science that shows CO2 to be an irreplaceable food for plants and necessary for all life.

Even some who recognize CO2 as sustenance consider increasing atmospheric concentrations of the gas to be potentially catastrophic, a view devoid of scientific basis and inimical to the fortunes of malnourished millions.

Corn, or maize, is foundational—along with rice, wheat, soyabean—to global food security, serving as a critical source of nourishment for both humans and livestock. Over the past few decades, increases in atmospheric CO2 from industrial emissions have tracked with notable boosts in corn yields.

Between 1900 and 2024, the national corn yield in the U.S. rose to 183 bushels per acre (bu/A) from just 28 bushels. During the same period, atmospheric CO2 increased from 295 parts per million (ppm) to 419 ppm. Worldwide, corn yield rose from a mere 29 bu/A in 1961 to 86 bu/A in 2021.

This phenomenon is not merely coincidental; it is deeply rooted in the physiological characteristics of corn as a C4 category plant. C4 plants like corn – so named for the number of carbon atoms in their photosynthetic product — possess unique biochemical pathways that make their photosynthesis particularly efficient under high concentrations of CO2 and elevated temperatures. Such plants employ a mechanism that concentrates CO2 in specialized structures called bundle sheath cells.

Higher CO2 levels also improve water-use efficiency in corn, which is particularly beneficial where water supplies are limited or during droughts. This efficiency translates into enhanced growth rates and potentially greater yields. In fact, researchers say that “less water will be required for corn under a high-CO2 environment in the future than at present.”

Augmented corn yields driven by increased atmospheric CO2 have had profound effects worldwide, contributing to an agricultural boom that bolstered farm incomes and enhanced food security across diverse regions. Countries like the U.S. with significant corn production have experienced elevated export revenues, strengthening national economies and their positions in the global market.

But this remarkable impact of elevated CO2 is not just limited to C4 crops like corn. C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, potatoes, and soybeans, all rely on an enzyme called rubisco for carbon fixation. Rubisco’s efficiency improves significantly with higher CO2 concentrations because it reduces the enzyme’s tendency to bind with oxygen—a process known as photorespiration that limits productivity.

Consequently, elevated atmospheric CO2 often results in enhanced photosynthesis and biomass accumulation in C3 species, although to a lesser extent than with C4 plants. This is why rice and wheat yields can increase by up to 20-30% under elevated CO2 conditions. We have witnessed this in yield increases across most C3 food crops.

Notably, greenhouse farming—agronomy practiced inside a translucent tent to retain the sun’s warmth—often uses CO2 concentrations artificially increased to more than twice ambient levels to enhance growth.

The relationship between rising atmospheric CO2 and crop yields is clearly a positive one. So, ignore fearmongering media headlines about toxic human CO2 emissions. You, your family and the industries that support our society have greened the planet with daily emissions of carbon dioxide, making food more plentiful and affordable for those grappling with poverty and everybody else.

https://co2coalition.org/2024/09/18/human-co2-emissions-are-supercharging-corn-yields/

************************************************

‘It’s almost beyond belief’: Findings blast Australia’s biggest carbon offset scheme

Australia’s biggest carbon credit scheme is barely removing any greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, according to a new study, despite hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into it by businesses and the government.

One of the study’s authors, Dr Megan Evans from UNSW Canberra, said the findings about the Human Induced Regeneration scheme, known as HIR, pointed to “such huge failures that it’s almost beyond belief”.

Co-author and University of NSW senior lecturer Megan Evans.
Co-author and University of NSW senior lecturer Megan Evans.

The HIR is intended to allow farmers and project proponents to reduce stock and feral animals from vast areas of rangeland Australia which, they argue, allows forest to regrow there in a way it would not otherwise.

Credits are then issued for each tonne of carbon dioxide abated by the assumed growth in trees based on a model of how the forest should regrow in those areas, plus on regular audits.

The new research from a group of ANU and UNSW scientists, led by Professor Andrew Macintosh, used historical and current satellite images to suggest there was no meaningful change between forest growth on areas that were claiming carbon credits compared with neighbouring areas.

The new paper suggests that whatever trees have grown on the 116 projects surveyed was overwhelmingly due to recent rainfall, not the human management of projects.

The study found most projects showed “minimal impact on woody vegetation cover in credited areas” even though they had already generated about $495 million in carbon credits.

Their findings were immediately rejected by another ANU scientist, natural resource management associate professor Cris Brack, who has done extensive work for the government regulator, the Clean Energy Regulator.

Brack rejected the statement that little or no abatement had taken place, saying he had “personally reviewed numerous projects across NSW, Queensland and WA”, and had access to independent assurance-audit reports that proved projects were on track.

The HIR method is the largest single contributor of carbon credits to the Australian government and private industry, with 465 projects covering 42 million hectares – an area significantly larger than Japan. Having issued 44 million carbon credits, the Australian scheme is, according to the new study, the fifth-largest nature-based scheme in the world, making these findings of global significance.

The problem, the researchers say, is that HIR schemes are being credited on rangeland that was unsuitable because it was never cleared of forest in the first place, and is already close to its natural coverage of forest (trees above two metres tall over at least 20 per cent of the landscape).

Since 2021, Macintosh and a growing team of scientists have described the method as a fraud that would cost Australia up to $5 billion by 2030.

Their concerns have prompted a number of reviews, most notably by former chief scientist Ian Chubb. In 2023, he found the method was sound and said, “we have no reason to believe that there are substantial numbers of [Australian Carbon Credit Units] ACCUs not credible at the moment”.

But the new, peer-reviewed report, published by Macintosh and his team on Friday in The Rangeland Journal, closely analysed 116 sites in NSW, Queensland and South Australia using high-resolution satellite images.

Based on the number of carbon credits generated on the project areas, the tree canopy should have covered 30 per cent of the sites. Instead, they found the average cover was just 13 per cent. They also found the project’s management had made little difference to tree coverage.

“The areas are likely to be at or near their carrying capacity for woody vegetation, meaning any changes in tree cover are most likely to be attributable to seasonal variability in rainfall,” the report said. “Projects are being credited for regenerating forests in areas that contained forest cover when the projects started.

“Given that 2023 was the third year of a rare triple-dip wet La Niña, if the projects were performing as expected, observed levels of canopy cover across the projects would be significantly higher.”

The scientists said the real problem with this was that emitters would not alter their behaviour because they could buy offsets, then if those offsets did not produce real cuts in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Australia would not genuinely reduce its emissions.

Another of the project’s authors, Professor Don Butler from the ANU, said the government body that administers the scheme, the Clean Energy Regulator, had “let us all down terribly”.

“They’ve used hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to build a house of cards that is enabling climate inaction ... The failure of this scheme will only become more obvious as time goes on.”

But Brack, who has audited the scheme for the Clean Energy Regulator, and found it was meeting its targets, said the other scientists had got their measurements wrong.

The satellite images they used were not picking up all the extra growth, he said, much of which could only be seen from photographs or “in situation measurements” on the ground.

Brack added that projects could still meet targets if there were small trees that had not yet reached full size.

In a statement, the Clean Energy Regulator said the HIR method had been reviewed and found to be sound, by Chubb, the Australian National Audit Office and most recently by Brack who had given “strong assurance that the projects are being managed properly”.

If a project was not compliant, carbon credits already paid out were clawed back, the statement said. “We only issue carbon credits where a project can demonstrate regenerating native forest,” it said.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-s-biggest-source-of-carbon-offsets-built-on-house-of-cards-credits-worth-495m-20241009-p5kh3m.html

*********************************************

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

***********************************************

2024-10-10T16:28:00.000+13:00

Democracies Stand In The Way Of Globalists Climate Agenda

I have frequently written over the last several years that the agenda of the climate-alarm lobby in the Western world is not consistent with the maintenance of democratic forms of government

Governments maintained by free elections, the free flow of communications, and other democratic institutions are not able to engage in the kinds of long-term central planning exercises required to force a transition from one form of energy and transportation systems to completely different ones.

Why? Once the negative impacts of vastly higher prices for all forms of energy begin to impact the masses, the masses in such democratic societies are going to rebel, first at the ballot box, and if that is not allowed by the elites to work, then by more aggressive means.

This is not a problem for authoritarian or totalitarian forms of government, like those in Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia, where long-term central planning projects invoking government control of the means of production is a long-ingrained way of life.

If the people revolt, then the crackdowns are bound to come.

This societal dynamic is a simple reality of life that the pushers of the climate alarmist narrative and forced energy transition in Western societies have been loathe to admit.

But, in recent days, two key figures who have pushed the climate alarm narrative in both the United States and Canada have agreed with my thesis in public remarks.

In so doing, climate alarmists are uttering the quiet part out loud about their real agenda.

Last week, former Obama Secretary of State and Biden climate czar John Kerry made remarks about the “problem” posed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that should make every American’s skin crawl.

Speaking about the inability of the federal government to stamp out what it believes to be misinformation on big social media platforms, Kerry said:

“Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” adding, “I think democracies are, are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges that we are facing.”

Never mind that the U.S. government has long been the most focused purveyor of disinformation and misinformation in our society. Kerry wants to stop the free flow of information on the Internet.

The most obvious targets are Elon Musk and X, the only big social media platform that does not willingly submit to the government’s demands to censor speech.

Kerry’s desired solution is for Democrats to “win the ground, win the right to govern by hopefully having, you know, winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to, to, implement change.”

The change desired by Kerry, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other prominent Democrats is to obtain enough power in Congress and the presidency to revoke the Senate filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, enact the economically ruinous Green New Deal, and do it all before the public has any opportunity to rebel.

Not to be outdone by Kerry, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland of Canada, who is a longtime member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum, was quoted Monday as saying:

“Our shrinking glaciers, and our warming oceans, are asking us wordlessly but emphatically if democratic societies can rise to the existential challenge of climate change.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the central governments of both Canada and the United States have moved in increasingly authoritarian directions under their current leadership, both of which have used the climate alarmist narrative as justification.

This move was widely predicted once the utility of the Covid ‘pandemic’ to rationalize government censorship and restrictions of individual liberties began to fade in 2021.

Frustrated by their perceived need to move even faster to restrict freedoms and destroy democratic levers of public response to their actions, these zealots are now discarding their soft talking points in favor of more aggressive messaging.

This new willingness to say the quiet part out loud should truly alarm anyone who values their freedoms.

https://principia-scientific.com/democracies-stand-in-the-way-of-globalists-climate-agenda/

********************************************

Ex-Green leader declares war on strawberries

Who remembers Natalie Bennett, the Aussie-accented eco-warrior whose car crash interviews briefly enlivened the 2015 election campaign? The onetime Green leader has since been installed as one of our great unelected masters in the House of Lords. But it seems that all that the institutional knowledge there has not yet rubbed off on Bennett, who continues to suffer a chronic case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Many such cases…

In her never-ending quest to make life worse for the British people, Bennett has found a new scourge on which to direct her ire: strawberries. Yes, that’s right, apparently growing the popular red fruit in colder months is killing the planet and must be banned immediately. Talk about priorities eh? Taking to Twitter last night, the Green peer shared a Times article on a British farm which dared to use LEDs to grow strawberries for Christmas. It prompted Bennett to indignantly thunder that:

Do we _need_ strawberries in winter? No. Maybe

Put that on a poster and vote for it. When the Greens promised a new kind of politics, Mr S didn’t realise that Cromwellian Puritanism is what they had in mind…

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/ex-green-leader-declares-war-on-strawberries/

*****************************************

Toyota's portable hydrogen cartridges look like giant AA batteries – and could spell the end of lengthy EV charging

Toyota is showcasing a series of sustainable developments at the Japan Mobility Bizweek later this month – including its vision of a portable hydrogen cartridge future, which could apparently provide 'swappable' power for next-gen hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).

Originally a project of Toyota’s mobility technology subsidiary Woven (formerly Woven Planet), the team produced a working prototype of a hydrogen cartridge back in 2022 but has since developed the idea further… and appears to be running with it.

The latest cartridges are lighter and easier to transport, with Toyota claiming the current iteration has been developed with the experience the company has gained in reducing the size and weight of the hydrogen tanks used in its fuel cell electric vehicles.

The concept involves hydrogen cartridges that are compact and light enough to be carried by hand, with one model wearing what looks like an oversized AA battery on his back in a specially design backpack.

Put simply, the cartridges would allow fuel cell electric vehicle drivers to swap out their power source when hydrogen levels run low, rather than having to refuel at a station like you typically would with a fossil fuel-powered car.

But Toyota also feels that these refillable and renewable cartridges could be used in a multitude of situations, such as to generate electricity in a fuel cell to power the home or even providing hydrogen to burn for cooking.

In fact, Toyota and the Rinnai Corporation are exhibiting a stove at Japan Mobility Bizweek that does just that. Similarly, in emergency situations, the hydrogen cartridge could be removed from the car and used to power any applicable device in the case of a blackout, for example.

Although just a concept for now, Toyota feels that these lightweight, portable cartridges could create a more affordable and more convenient way to deliver hydrogen to where people live and work, without the need to lay a huge network of pipes.

With advances in battery technology, the next generation of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars, such as Renault's recent Emblème concept, could well boast more energy dense battery packs, so can harness the power of much smaller hydrogen tanks to help zero emissions vehicles travel further without lengthy charging stops.

Toyota’s vision of portable hydrogen cartridges has the potential to power a multitude of vehicles and everyday objects, from smaller capacity motorcycles to cars and even home appliances.

The company’s concept would see fresh hydrogen cartridges delivered, alongside food and other items, with the spent cartridges retrieved and refilled. As a result, Toyota says it is currently looking to find matches with technologies and ideas from companies and startups in different fields, including both service provision and the development and sale of devices using the cartridges.

Although much debated in the automotive space, hydrogen is a flexible fuel source, with the ability to generate electricity in fuel cells or used as a combustion fuel.

It emits nothing in the way of CO2 when used (water is the only byproduct), and it can help contribute to net zero targets if it is produced using renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

With demand waning globally for EVs, it feels as if hydrogen is back on the agenda, with the likes of Hyundai, BMW and Honda all exploring ways of making the technology commercially viable.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/toyotas-portable-hydrogen-cartridges-look-105254958.html?guccounter=1

******************************************

Australian conservatives commit to keep coal fired power stations open ‘indefinitely’

David Crisafulli will keep Queensland’s coal fired power stations open “indefinitely” if he is elected to ensure energy remains “reliable and affordable” during the transition to renewables.

The Liberal National Party leader has committed to net zero emissions by 2050, but is yet to release a detailed plan on how that would be achieved.

Speaking in Mackay on Thursday, Mr Crisafulli said Queensland had the youngest fleet of coal-fired power plants in the country and he would keep them maintained and operational.

“We will continue to ensure that they operate whilst they are needed to form part of the mix of affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity,” he said.

“There is no way the vast majority of thinking Queenslanders would want us to shut off baseload power before the capacity of the next generation of energy has been developed.”

Asked if that meant they would run indefinitely, Mr Crisafulli said: “Well, I guess the answer to that is yes”.

“We need the baseload power that comes from those coal-fired power generators, we need that there,“ he said.

“We also need to have a vision to make sure that we are part of a transition to renewable energy, but it’s got to be done in a way that makes sure that Queenslanders can continue to afford their bills whilst we work towards the future.”

Mr Crisafulli’s LNP voted to support Labor’s legislated plan to cut 75 per cent of emissions by 2035, but has not set a renewable energy target.

Labor is relying on the proposed Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro project, near Mackay, to enable it to shut down the state’s five coal-fired power stations and reach its target of 80 per cent renewable energy by 2035.

The project is still being subjected to financial, engineering and environmental investigations and is yet to get government approvals or substantive funding.

Initial estimates put the project at $12bn but that figure is expected to balloon after more detailed financial modelling is complete.

Mr Crisafulli has backed Labor’s other Borumba pumped-hydro station, near Gympie, but has rubbished Pioneer-Burdekin as a “hoax”.

He has pledged to fund Borumba and partner with the private sector to build smaller pumped-hydro projects.

On Thursday he refused to say how many pumped hydro plans would be built if the LNP won government, when or where they would be built and the estimated cost to taxpayers.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/lnp-commits-to-keep-coal-fired-power-stations-open-indefinitely/news-story/550d8c34ae75c3415485399f02d1f2ad

2024-10-09T22:51:00.003+13:00

Hurricane Milton Historic, Not Unprecedented

It is wrong to blame human activity and ‘climate change’ for strength of hurricane

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (October 8, 2024) – Hurricane Milton is on track Wednesday to be one of the biggest storms to ever hit the Tampa Bay, Florida area, and is one of the few Category 5 hurricanes on record in the satellite era (1966-onwards). It may join Hurricane Michael in 2018 as the only Category 5 hurricanes to form in the Gulf of Mexico in October and make landfall at that strength.

While the history of Gulf hurricanes growing this strong and making a direct hit on Tampa Bay shows this is a rare occurrence, it is not unprecedented and “climate change” driven by human emissions of carbon dioxide is not to blame.

Storms of similar size and strength struck the Tampa Bay area in 1848 and 1921. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tracked at least 146 hurricanes that have formed in the Gulf since 1851.

Historical data show there has been little to no long-term trend since 1900 in Florida major hurricane activity through Hurricane Helene, which hit the panhandle last month.

People born in the 1950s or later did not experience the record-high hurricane activity of the 1940s, and the early 1900s activity was likely under-reported as virtually no one lived in Florida in 1900.

https://heartland.org/opinion/press-release-hurricane-milton-historic-not-unprecedented/

**************************************************

The Guardian Tries, and Fails, To Link Firefly Endangerment To Climate Change

A recent post by The Guardian titled “Firefly species may blink out as US seeks to list it as endangered for first time,” claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing a firefly species native to the North Eastern United States as endangered because of climate change. This is false, or at least the focus on the climate element at the start of the article is false. The threats listed are not climate effects, and the U.S. government proposal even acknowledges that human development poses the true threat.

The article describes a firefly species called the Bethany Beach firefly, which is found in coastal parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, claiming that it is “facing increasing dangers to its natural habitat because of climate change-related events” including sea level rise over time and “lowering groundwater aquifers.”

It is important to note first that the article admits the sea level rise issue is projected to impact firefly habitat “by the end of the century” – about 76 years from now. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the firefly is only found in freshwater marshes near coastal dune environments. The FWS release is more specific, and says between 76-95 percent of those habitats may be lost to high-tide flooding by 2100… according to climate models.

This might be true, but it is not clear that those habitats will be lost forever because of rising sea levels, and not just pushed back inland gradually over the course of those intervening decades. Dune environments are by default extremely volatile, changing with every tide, and left to nature will grow and recede. The freshwater marshes (swales) associated with them likewise change by the season.

Climate Realism has on several occasions pointed out that sea level rise is hardly the accelerating danger that the media make it out to be, here, here, and here, for examples on the East Coast specifically.

Amazingly, the Guardian article itself quickly mentions a contributing factor to relative sea level rise on the East coast that is also damaging the freshwater environments the firefly needs, and that is “lowering groundwater aquifers.” These aquifers on the East Coast are not lowering due to climate change, they are lowering due to increasing populations necessitating greater water withdrawals. This causes the land to sink, increasing the relative rate of sea level rise in some areas. Delaware, for example, is seeing about 1.7 millimeters of land subsidence each year, which adds up to about 7 inches over 100 years.

The real crux of the issue comes later in the article, where the Guardian finally mentions the abrupt changes to the firefly’s habitat that actually impact its survival on the short term, and that is “growing threats from coastal development and light pollution, the latter of which can interfere with the insects’ ability to use their bioluminescent lights to communicate with each other.” The Guardian points out that the Bethany Beach firefly only flashes in full darkness, which is becoming less available due to light pollution from housing development on the coast.

Looking at human population trends for the three states that have Bethany Beach fireflies; Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, all three have seen exploding population growth over the past few decades.

“Within the past several years,” the Guardian reports, “Bethany Beach fireflies have been displaced and populations wiped out because of development on coastal wetlands.”

This is obviously not due to climate change, and it comes across as cynical and misleading when the article, and the FWS report, try to make that connection as though climate change is the driver behind declining firefly numbers. The FWS went so far as to try to claim intensifying severe storms were also projected to cause more firefly habitat destruction, but the data simply does not support that hypothesis.

The Guardian and the FWS would be better served telling the truth upfront instead of allowing it to be buried at the bottom of an article, which fewer readers will end up seeing. It’s deceptive and doesn’t help the Bethany Beach firefly they allegedly care about.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/10/the-guardian-tries-and-fails-to-link-firefly-endangerment-to-climate-change/

*********************************************************

It’s Time for Climate Candor

The proposed global energy transition to “all-electric everything” and Net Zero by 2050 is not unfolding as we were told it would. Rather, it is unraveling as many of us thought it would. Rising energy costs, declining energy reliability, fuel selection mandates, reduced freedom of movement, dietary changes and other real and perceived issues have spawned resistance to the transition. The lack of candor regarding the transition is palpable. It is clearly time for climate candor.

The UNFCCC and the IPCC need to be candid about the continued existence and influence of natural climate variation and include research into the causes of natural variation in their programs.

The IPCC Working Group authors need to be fair in including all relevant research in their evaluations, not just research which supports the consensus narrative.

The consensed climate science community needs to cease its efforts to prevent publication of climate research which does not comport with the consensus narrative.

The IPCC Working Group authors need to insist that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers is a real summary of the conclusions of the Working Groups and not a gross exaggeration describing the current situation as a “crisis” or “existential threat” of an emergency.

The UN Secretariat needs to tone down the “earth on fire” and “boiling oceans” rhetoric intended to scare the population into precipitous action.

NOAA and NASA need to justify why and explain how they repeatedly “adjust” historic temperature anomalies.

The renewable generation developers need to tone down the “cheapest electricity” rhetoric, acknowledge that their generation systems are redundant capacity and will remain so until hey are combined with sufficient storage capacity to render their generating capacity dispatchable.

Electric utilities need to clearly communicate their need for dispatchable capacity sufficient to meet current and projected future peak demand.

Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate to both government and regulatory agencies that existing coal and natural gas generation cannot be shuttered until sufficient alternative dispatchable generation has been commissioned to replace their generating capacity and accommodate growth in expected peak demand.

Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate that additional natural gas generation capacity might be necessary to accommodate peak demand growth if dispatchable renewable generation capacity is not connected to the grid rapidly enough to meet growing demand resulting from “all-electric everything”

Federal and state agencies responsible for the energy transition need to acknowledge that the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs) they are relying upon to supplement renewable generation do not exist and are therefore not currently available for deployment. These agencies also need to acknowledge that the future availability of these DEFRs is uncertain.

Federal and state agencies also need to acknowledge that DEFRs, if and when they become available, render intermittent renewable generation redundant capacity to the extent that they are employed as backup capacity to renewable generation.

Federal and state agencies need to acknowledge that the promise of reduced energy costs resulting from the energy transition is a fraudulent fantasy.

While the above actions need to occur in the interest of candor, it seems highly unlikely that they will occur before there is a major grid outage followed by a self-serving “blame game”.

A repetition of the “Six Phases of a Project” appears inevitable.

https://edreid.substack.com/p/its-time-for-climate-candor

*****************************************

Australia: Put Greens last: peak Jewish groups demand major parties agree to preferences swap

Two of the nation’s peak Jewish groups have taken the unprecedented step of seeking to influence the make-up of the future parliament by writing to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, urging the major parties to preference each other above the Greens at the next election.

The letter sent on Tuesday morning by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia also seeks a public commitment from both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader that they will not allow the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government or make concessions to them in return for Greens support on confidence and supply.

Separate versions of the letter have also been sent to the five recontesting teal MPs – Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel – urging them not to form a negotiating bloc with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament.

Signed by ZFA president Jeremy Leibler and ECAJ president Daniel Aghion, the letter to the major party leaders says there is a precedent for such a step given Labor and Liberals “committed to preference One Nation last on multiple occasions, including by former prime minister Scott Morrison at the 2019 federal election.”

The letter sparked a ferocious response from Greens leader Adam Bandt who warned Labor that preferencing the Liberals above the minor party would devastate the ALP primary vote and trigger an exodus in support.

“Voters will desert them,” Mr Bandt told The Australian.

The letter urges Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton to work together to “counteract the shameful and cynical behaviour of the Greens” over the past 12 months, accusing the minor party of seeking “political gains by exploiting intercommunity tensions that have been heightened by overseas conflicts, without regard for the social consequences”.

Mr Leibler and Mr Aghion warn in the letter that the Greens have undermined social cohesion and “threaten the foundations of our freedoms and democracy”.

“The Greens have knowingly spread outright falsehoods, including the monstrous lie that this government is complicit in genocide,” the letter says. “In doing so, the Greens have joined forces with and incited political and religious extremists who have at times engaged in violence.”

“We are writing to each of you to make a public commitment that you will not permit the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government,” the letter says. “We are also writing to seek a public commitment from each of your parties to preference each other above the Greens.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/put-greens-last-peak-jewish-groups-demand-major-parties-agree-to-preferences-swap/news-story/396ac727b7304d39a432cd1c8e40baec

2024-10-08T20:36:00.001+13:00

Democrats Want ‘Climate Literacy’ In Schools As Actual Literacy Slips

The Democratic Party is pushing to increase “literacy” on climate change-related material in America’s schools while students are performing poorly with respect to actual literacy.

The party’s education platform mentions the importance of “climate literacy” for American K-12 students several times, emphasizing the purported need for students to be able to understand and interpret information relating to climate change. Meanwhile, the average reading score for both fourth and eighth grade students in 2022 had fallen by three points relative to 2019, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

“We will equip students with the knowledge and skills to understand complex scientific issues, counter the rising tide of denialism by promoting environmental and climate literacy, and reverse the Trump Administration’s cuts to the National Environmental Education Act,” the platform states. (RELATED: Even Democrats Aren’t Sold On Pushing Gender Ideology In Schools, Polls Show)

Less than 50% of all fourth grade students were able to read at or above the standard for proficiency in 2022, with only 17% of black students and 21% of Latino pupils meeting the mark, according to the NAEP.

The U.S. is seeing “staggering numbers of children, especially children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, without fundamental literacy skills,” Allison Socol, the vice president of policy, practice and research for the Education Trust, wrote earlier this year.

NAEP data “consistently” demonstrates that about two in every three American students cannot read proficiently, and about 40% of all students are effectively non-readers, according to an analysis published by Scientific American in September 2023.

Notably, the Democratic platform mentions conventional literacy just once, while “climate literacy” is mentioned on two occasions. The word “writing” or its cognates do not appear at all in the platform.

The emphasis on “climate literacy” aligns with a broader push by Democrats to make education more climate-friendly, even as many American students are struggling in the classroom.

For example, the Biden-Harris administration is spending big to replace existing school bus fleets with electric models in order to bring down emissions and fight climate change. While Vice President Kamala Harris has promoted the program as beneficial for students, it could end up lining the pockets of Chinese manufacturers and is potentially susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse, according to reports by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of the Inspector General.

In June, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) — a labor organization that is closely allied with the Democratic Party — issued a list of climate-related demands as a part of their contract negotiations with the city, even though educational achievement statistics for the city’s schools are lackluster, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. CTU’s demands included calling for the removal of all lead pipes in school buildings, the replacement of windows that do not open, and the creation of a “climate champion” position at each school to organize climate-related activities.

In 2022, Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Department of Health released a five-part climate curriculum for students that suggested it may be best for students to rely on “emotions” rather than “rational thinking” when engaging with climate change-related subject matter.

Moreover, pandemic-era school shutdowns — a policy pushed widely by Democrats at the time — have also resulted in significant learning loss that is continuing to disrupt educational outcomes, The New York Times found in March.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/09/22/dems-climate-literacy-schools-literacy-slips/

*********************************************

California’s High Energy Prices Will Be Coming to YOUR City if Kamala Harris Gets Elected

The “Green New Deal” and “Net Zero” policies in California promoted by Kamala Harris have led to increasingly high costs of living, housing, and transportation. This, coupled with an increase in crime, smash-and-grab robberies, homelessness, pollution, and congestion, has caused many tax-paying residents and companies to exodus from California to more affordable cities and states.

California’s net move-out number of residents in 2022 alone was more than 343,000 people that left California — the highest exodus of any state in the U.S.

The California Policy Institute counted more than 237 businesses that have left the state since 2005. Among these businesses were eleven Fortune 1000 companies, inclusive of AT&T, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron.

Kamala Harris continues to support California’s tax-and-spend, overreaching, and economy-crushing policies and their threats to America’s energy, agricultural, economic, employment, living standards, and national security future.

Kamala Harris has a long relationship with California. She became the San Francisco district attorney in 2004 and served two terms in that role from 2004 to 2010. In 2010, she succeeded Jerry Brown as California Attorney General. She was sworn into the role in January 2011 and served until 2017, when she joined the U.S. Senate after being elected in 2016.

Kamala has supported the closure of coal, natural gas, and nuclear electricity generating plants that provided continuous, uninterruptible, reliable, and dispatchable electricity in favor of renewables that generate intermittent, unreliable, and non-dispatchable electricity.

With her continued advocacy of California policies, California now imports more electric power than any other US state, more than twice the amount in Virginia. The imported electricity from adjoining states is mostly from emission-generating coal-fired or natural gas power plants, the same types of power plants that California has been shuttering.

Further, she has supported the ban on fracking and continually decreased the states’ in-state oil production. With her support for eliminating oil production in the State, ever since she became Attorney General, California has increased crude oil imports from 5 percent in 1992 to more than 60 percent of total consumption from foreign countries.

With Kamala’s advocacy of California energy policies, the State has become a national security risk for the entire country. The State’s 9 international airports, 41 military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping terminals in the nation are growing their dependency on foreign crude oil to support the demands of the State and the country.

Kamala continues to support California’s banning the sale of gasoline cars after 2035. To make the huge 1,000 lb. Tesla EV batteries comprised of exotic minerals and metals mined in developing countries; she is shockingly advocating that Californians continue “financially supporting” developing countries like China and Africa, with inferior or non-existent labor laws and environmental regulations, to continue humanity atrocities against their people with yellow, brown, and black skin, and the environmental degradation in those developing countries, for the exotic minerals and metals to make EV batteries, JUST so California can go “green”!

Now, she is campaigning for the presidency of the United States to “clone” California’s electricity and crude oil energy policies for the entire country.

Kamala remains oblivious that people use CONTINUOUS and UNINTERRUPTIBLE electricity for safety, security, and life support that wind and solar CANNOT provide for computers, communications, airports, air traffic control, hospitals, telemetry, data centers, AI (artificial intelligence), and cloud storage.

Without an oil “replacement” to support the supply chain of the products demanded by society that are now made from fossil fuels, she would ELIMINATE Electricity, Transportation, and Communications, as they are all made from the thousands of products made from fossil fuels.

Not only are aircraft, merchant ships, and space exploration equipment constructed from the same products made from fossil fuels, eradicating the world of crude oil usage would ground the 20,000 commercial aircraft, and ground more than 50,000 military aircraft, and the 23,000 private planes in the world, leave the 50,000 merchant ships and 33 million pleasure boats tied up at docks, and discontinue the military and space programs!

Those few wealthy countries attempting to go “green” seem oblivious that at least 80 percent of humanity, or more than six billion in this world, are living on less than $10 a day, and billions have little to no access to electricity. Today, politicians in a few wealthy countries are pursuing the most expensive ways to generate intermittent electricity.

Meanwhile, many countries, including India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China, and the ASEAN countries, focus on the availability of cost-effective, dispatchable baseload electricity for the growth of energy-intensive industries that can drive economic progress and improve living standards. These countries have their baseload electricity provided primarily through coal-fired, natural gas, and nuclear power stations to support their rapid industrialization and economic growth. That is partly why they are the highest economic growth economies in the world.

America’s investments in unreliable and unproven renewable electricity sources like wind and solar should be reconsidered. They are ill-suited to meet long-term economic demands, particularly in the mining, manufacturing, AI, data center, and agricultural sectors.

A stable and secure supply of crude oil to meet the demands of citizens and businesses, as well as continuous, uninterruptible, dispatchable electricity, are both non-negotiable requirements for sustainable economic growth, not just for California but for the entire country.

The good news for Californians is that Gavin Newsom is terming out as Governor of the State. The bad news for America is that if Kamala gets elected president, she can nominate her “buddy” Gavin Newsom as Secretary of Energy for the country. God Bless America to live with similar energy polices of California.

https://heartland.org/opinion/californias-high-energy-prices-will-be-coming-to-your-city-if-kamala-harris-gets-elected/

*********************************************

NOAA’s U.S. Temperature Data Demonstrate that Population Growth UHIs & Measurement Inadequacies Drive Average Temperature – Not Climate Change

Editor’s Note: The media regularly reports on temperature extremes, whether it is local, statewide, or global. They are especially guilty of hyping supposed “hottest” days, months, years, or decades. Climate Realism has covered the false or misleading hottest year claims across dozens of articles, for example here, here, and here, are prime examples of the hottest ever hype that Climate Realism has debunked. When it comes to climate, the mainstream media often only report on the average global temperature rather than look at or track to high temperature and low temperature datasets. As Larry Hamlin describes below, the media completely misses a good part of the temperature story because they ignore these parts of the temperature record, which tell a far less alarming story about climate. Worse than that, now the media has been relying on climate models rather than actual data to determine their “hottest ever” claims.

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin:

NOAA’s U.S. contiguous U.S. summer (June through August) measured minimum and maximum temperatures trends over the period 1895 through 2024 (shown below from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance Times series data website) show clear and distinct differing temperature trend increasing growth compared to the calculated average temperature trend outcome.

The minimum temperature trend outcomes after 1985 climb significantly faster than do the maximum measured temperature trend outcomes. U.S. population data shows an increase of about 100 million during the 1980 to 2023 period.

Since the average temperature is not a measured value but instead the calculated mathematical average of the minimum and maximum measured temperatures {(TMax + TMin)/2} the average temperature calculated trend outcome is controlled and dominated by the much larger increase occurring in the minimum measured temperature trend versus the maximum measured temperature trend.

This differing trend distinction can be more clearly seen in the graphs below where the NOAA Climate at a Glance website time period interval is broken into the time intervals from 1895 to 1950 and 1950 to 2024

Dr. Spencer also provided another study which displayed in graphical form the UHI impacts of U.S. and Global wide temperatures during the period June 1850 through June 2023 as shown below and found here.

In addition to large population growth UHIs acting as a prime driver of rising calculated Tavg temperature outcomes, these temperature measurements are also being significantly impacted by NOAA’s improper siting of thousands of temperature measurement stations.

These thousands of improperly sited temperature measurement devices do not meet NOAA/NWS siting standards and are located far too close to artificial heat sinks that falsely increase both maximum and minimum temperature measurements

As noted in this report (page 18) the year 2019 Oak Ridge National Laboratory measurement station data accuracy experiment showed that flawed station siting temperature measurement impact outcomes were much greater during the evening periods (heat sink contributions to minimum temperatures were a factor of 3 larger than maximum day temperature contributions) versus during the day.

NOAA bases its evaluation of U.S. and global average temperature anomaly value changes over time by using and comparing the calculated Tavg values over time.

As indicted by the temperature measurement graphs and studies noted above NOAA’s contiguous U.S. calculated Tavg increasing trend values since about 1985 are clearly driven upward by station measurement siting flaws and UHI Tmin outcomes versus Tmax measured outcomes.

This results in NOAA’s calculated Tavg assessments of increasing temperature anomalies over time being a flawed and exaggerated claim driven by NOAA’s measurement siting inadequacies and population growth driven UHI impacts – and not “climate change”.

This outcome is also applicable to NOAA’s global wide calculated Tavg temperature anomaly increasing trend assessments as well.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/10/noaas-u-s-temperature-data-demonstrate-that-population-growth-uhis-measurement-inadequacies-drive-tavg-increasing-outcomes-not-climate-change/

********************************************

Tally Of US Wind & Solar Rejections Hits 735

You won’t read much about this in major media outlets, but nearly every week, local communities across the US are rejecting or restricting solar and wind projects. The latest rejection occurred a few days ago in Center, Nebraska, when the Knox County Board of Supervisors voted 6 to 1 to deny a conditional-use permit for a proposed solar project. According to an article by Mark Mahoney of the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan, the board’s decision “drew applause from most of a nearly full courtroom at the county courthouse.”

The denial of the project in Knox County marks the 58th rejection or restriction of solar energy in the US this year. In addition, as can be seen in the Renewable Rejection Database, which I have just updated, there have also been 35 rejections of wind energy. Thus, since 2015, there have been 735 rejections or restrictions of wind and solar energy in the US.

To be clear, outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio have published a handful of articles in recent years about land-use conflicts over alt-energy in rural America. And to its credit, the Times has covered some of the conflicts in upstate New York. But that coverage routinely ignores the scale and frequency of the rejections and the conflicts. These rejections don’t fit the narrative that’s promoted by climate activists, academics at elite universities, and their myriad allies in the media about “clean,” “green,” and “renewable” energy. The Times has not written a single article about the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history: the Osage Nation’s 13-year legal fight with Enel. Last December, a federal court judge in Tulsa determined that the Italian company violated the tribe’s sovereignty when it built a 150-megawatt wind project in Osage County without getting permission to mine the tribe’s mineral estate. For more on that case, see my December 23, 2023, article.

Although big media outlets seldom cover these conflicts, the facts — and the numbers — are undeniable. Rural landowners and homeowners from Maine to Hawaii are fighting to protect the integrity of their neighborhoods. They don’t want their landscapes and viewsheds destroyed by oceans of solar panels and forests of 600-foot-high wind turbines. They are also rightly concerned about the diminution of their property values and the noise pollution that comes with these projects.

Furthermore, the latest rejections of wind and solar provide only a partial snapshot of the resistance across rural America to alt-energy projects. I am being contacted almost weekly by people across the country who are fighting wind projects, solar projects, battery facilities, or high-voltage transmission lines. In Arkansas, local residents are fighting the Nimbus Wind project. In Shasta County, California, locals have been fighting the Fountain Wind project for years. In Wisconsin, Christiana residents, including John Barnes and Roxann Engelstad, pictured above, are fighting the Koshkonong Solar project.

Last month, in Oklahoma, Jim Shaw, a conservative Republican and political novice from Chandler, defeated a four-term incumbent, Kevin Wallace, by nearly 10 percentage points to become Oklahoma’s House Representative for District 32. Wind-energy developers have been targeting Shaw’s district. A few weeks ago, Shaw told me that one of the main reasons he beat Wallace is that he ran on an anti-wind platform.

How deep is the resistance to Big Wind? Entire states are now opposing wind projects. Last year, the Idaho House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution stating its opposition to the proposed Lava Ridge wind project. That 1,200-megawatt facility is proposed to be built near the southern Idaho town of Dietrich. Idaho residents are objecting because the project will infringe on the Minidoka National Historic Site, which commemorates the incarceration of thousands of Japanese American citizens during World War II.

Lava Ridge is being pushed by New York City-based LS Power. The privately held company wants to install 241 turbines on 104,000 acres of federal land. Opposition to the wind project is coming from across the political spectrum. In August, Twin Falls County Commissioner Jack Johnson told a state legislative committee, “This is the one thing I think that Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, conservationists – I haven’t met anybody from any group that has expressed an interest in wanting these on our public lands...Everybody that we have engaged, that has engaged us, is against these being on our public lands.”

https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/tally-of-us-wind-and-solar-rejections

2024-10-07T16:13:00.001+13:00

Great Hurricane of 1780 Remains the Worst

Climate Change dramatists have incentivized the media to blare the talking point that human-induced climate change has made Atlantic tropical storms more powerful than they were in the past.

Sediment studies indicate that major hurricanes have been blasting through the Atlantic for centuries, and were especially strong during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly—a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from c. 950 to c. 1250.

Christopher Columbus recorded two “violent hurricanes” in the years 1494 and 1495, the latter sinking three of his ships anchored in La Isabela harbor (now the Dominican Republic). Major hurricanes were a headache for the Spanish Treasure Fleet, sinking multiple treasure-laden galleons in the years 1622, 1715, 1733 and 1750. I grew up dreaming of finding one of these treasures in the Florida Keys. Mel Fisher beat me to it when he found the Atocha that sank in the Keys in the hurricane of 1622.

By far the deadliest hurricane in history was the Great Hurricane of 1780, which is estimated to have killed 22,000. Wikipedia provides a decent, succinct description:

The Great Hurricane of 1780 was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, as well as the deadliest tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 22,000 people died throughout the Lesser Antilles when the storm passed through the islands from October 10 to October 16. Specifics on the hurricane's track and strength are unknown, as the official Atlantic hurricane database only goes back to 1851.

The hurricane struck Barbados likely as a Category 5 hurricane, with at least one estimate of wind gusts as high as 200 mph before moving past Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Sint Eustatius, and causing thousands of deaths on those islands. Coming in the midst of the American Revolution, the storm caused heavy losses to the British fleet contesting for control of the area, significantly weakening British control over the Atlantic. The hurricane later passed near Puerto Rico and over the eastern portion of Hispaniola, causing heavy damage near the coastlines. It ultimately turned to the northeast and was last observed on October 20 southeast of Atlantic Canada.

The death toll from the Great Hurricane alone exceeds that of many entire decades of Atlantic hurricanes.

On a technical note: wind strength on Barbados was estimated from damage to solid structures and debris such as straw that was found embedded in tree trunks. Seasoned naval officers also recorded their observations of the storm’s stupendous strength.

Stone warehouses on St. Eustatius destroyed by Great Hurricane of 1780.
Studying history gives us a sense of perspective about the human condition. Understanding the calamities, tragedies, and errors of the past equips us to recognize when people in positions authority are distorting reality in the pursuit of their selfish interests.

https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/great-hurricane-of-1780-remains-the

*************************************************************

Bureaucrats Afraid Democracy Will Undermine Their Climate Alarmist Agenda

I have frequently written over the last several years that the agenda of the climate-alarm lobby in the Western world is not consistent with the maintenance of democratic forms of government. [emphasis, links added]

Governments maintained by free elections, the free flow of communications, and other democratic institutions are not able to engage in the kinds of long-term central planning exercises required to force a transition from one form of energy and transportation systems to completely different ones.

Why? Once the negative impacts of vastly higher prices for all forms of energy begin to impact the masses, the masses in such democratic societies are going to rebel, first at the ballot box, and if that is not allowed by the elites to work, then by more aggressive means.

This is not a problem for authoritarian or totalitarian forms of government, like those in Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia, where long-term central planning projects invoking government control of the means of production is a long-ingrained way of life. If the people revolt, then the crackdowns are bound to come.

This societal dynamic is a simple reality of life that the pushers of the climate alarmist narrative and forced energy transition in Western societies have been loathe to admit.

But, in recent days, two key figures who have pushed the climate alarm narrative in both the United States and Canada have agreed with my thesis in public remarks.

In so doing, climate alarmists are uttering the quiet part out loud about their real agenda.

Last week, former Obama Secretary of State and Biden climate czar John Kerry made remarks about the “problem” posed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that should make every American’s skin crawl.

Speaking about the inability of the federal government to stamp out what it believes to be misinformation on big social media platforms, Kerry said:

“Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” adding, “I think democracies are, are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges that we are facing.”

Never mind that the U.S. government has long been the most focused purveyor of disinformation and misinformation in our society. Kerry wants to stop the free flow of information on the Internet.

The most obvious targets are Elon Musk and X, the only big social media platform that does not willingly submit to the government’s demands to censor speech.

Kerry’s desired solution is for Democrats to “win the ground, win the right to govern by hopefully having, you know, winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to, to, implement change.”

The change desired by Kerry, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other prominent Democrats is to obtain enough power in Congress and the presidency to revoke the Senate filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, enact the economically ruinous Green New Deal, and do it all before the public has any opportunity to rebel.

Not to be outdone by Kerry, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland of Canada, who is a longtime member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum, was quoted Monday as saying:

“Our shrinking glaciers, and our warming oceans, are asking us wordlessly but emphatically if democratic societies can rise to the existential challenge of climate change.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the central governments of both Canada and the United States have moved in increasingly authoritarian directions under their current leadership, both of which have used the climate alarmist narrative as justification.

This move was widely predicted once the utility of the COVID-19 pandemic to rationalize government censorship and restrictions of individual liberties began to fade in 2021.

Frustrated by their perceived need to move even faster to restrict freedoms and destroy democratic levers of public response to their actions, these zealots are now discarding their soft talking points in favor of more aggressive messaging.

This new willingness to say the quiet part out loud should truly alarm anyone who values their freedoms.

https://principia-scientific.com/bureaucrats-terrified-democracy-will-undermine-their-climate-alarmist-agenda/

**********************************************

German Leaders Resign After ‘Green’ Party’s Crushing Election Loss

Things just keep getting worse for the ‘greens’ in Germany. After two terrible performances in recent state elections the Party “crashed out of the state parliament” in the Brandenburg region of Germany (which surrounds Berlin)

Results were so awful, the two current leaders of the German ‘greens’ have jointly stepped down.

The ‘greens’ won a mere four percent of the vote in the region, not even reaching the minimum five percent required to win a parliamentary seat in the State election.

About 70% of their voter base had abandoned them in the last five years.

In Thuringia, the entire traffic light ruling coalition of three parties barely amassed 10 percent of the vote collectively.

The right-leaning AfD (Alternative for Germany) party “keeps rising despite efforts to stop the party” says Nette Nöstlinger at Politico, slightly baffled. The establishment used the nastiest names they could think of, and it didn’t work:

The AfD keeps rising despite efforts to stop the party

Germany’s mainstream leaders have made a concerted effort to stop the rise of the AfD by warning voters of the party’s growing extremism, with some leaders even calling it a Nazi party.

We’ve heard this before:

State-level domestic intelligence authorities have classified the local branches of the party in both Saxony and Thuringia as extremist organizations aiming to undermine German democracy.

The nasty names are backfiring, because no one is listening anymore:

That points to a core problem that won’t be easy for centrist parties to grapple with — a growing mistrust of the centrists and the country’s institutions that has fomented anti-establishment fervor across a large swath of the country.

In other words, even as many centrist leaders and institutions in Germany warn of the AfD’s extremism, many voters have simply stopped listening. In fact, the approach may be backfiring by alienating AfD voters.

When the TV commentators called the AfD “extremist”, the leader in Thuringia said:

“Please stop stigmatizing me … We are the number one people’s party in Thuringia. You don’t want to classify one-third of Thuringian voters as right-wing extremists, do you?”

But of course, the TV commentariat probably did want to do exactly that…

Bullying is brittle. When it fails, it crumbles into anti-matter, because there was nothing but nastiness to fall back on.

Even The Guardian has noticed that the ‘greens’ have a crisis:

In the recent election campaigns, it [The greens] often appeared to be the punchbag for parties across the spectrum.

Accusations were rife that the party was trying to “dictate” the lives of ordinary Germans – from which type of heating system to use, to which car to drive – with the BSW and AfD going so far as to compare the gtreens to the Communist regime of the former German Democratic Republic.

There is hope. Young voters are abandoning the party faster than any other age bracket:

The party has also lost a larger proportion of its younger voters at recent elections than any other party.

In Sunday’s Brandenburg poll, for instance, it saw its support in the 16-to-24 age bracket drop by 24 percentage points, a bigger fall than in any other age range. —

Eugyppius says — Something strange and unexpected is happening to the Greens — “Everyone hates them”.

The Crisis of the Greens and the Future of the Left

I have been thinking a lot about the Greens since their drubbing in the recent German elections. Something strange and unexpected is happening to them – something that even two years ago I wouldn’t have predicted.

They are bleeding support; they are on the defensive and suddenly everybody hates them. In East Germany you could even say that they are in outright collapse.

The party of the future, the party of the youth, the party at the cutting edge of progressivism, is now withering on the vine. And I suspect that this is not just happening in Germany.

It may be happening here faster than it is in other countries, but the Greens are an international phenomenon, and Green politics are in trouble in many places beyond the Federal Republic.

Votes for the ‘greens’ have been stolen from both sides

The collapse in popularity is about the climate, the heat pumps, the cars, the energy prices — but it’s also about immigration and the war. A new leftist force has appeared from nowhere in the last few months, run by a former communist, but wanting to curb immigration:

In some ways, the biggest winner of the night was the populist-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which is led by a former member of East Germany’s communist party.

The BSW finished third in both states, a notable result for a party that only formed several months ago.

The party, which merges traditional right-wing stances on immigration and other social issues, has repeatedly called for an end to German military aid for Ukraine and negotiations with Putin — a view for which there is much sympathy in Germany’s formerly communist East. — Politico

It’s part of the Great Realignment of politics. The new force on the left attacks the Greens for being arrogant and out of touch with the workers:

Is Germany’s rising superstar so far left she’s far right?

Sahra Wagenknecht’s brand of “left conservatism” is upending German politics ahead of critical elections in the east.

Listening to Sahra Wagenknecht, Germany’s hard-left icon, you could be forgiven for coming away with the impression that the greatest threat to democracy is “lifestyle leftists” nursing lattes in reusable cups while shopping for organic kale at a Berlin farmers’ market.

Such well-off, eco-friendly urban bohemians hold what they deem to be “morally impeccable” views about everything from Ukraine to climate change, she says, and then impose those beliefs over regular people with draconian zeal.

Sahra Wagenknecht’s brand of “left conservatism” is very tailored to East Germany, but some of it will translate widely. Uncontrolled immigration is a hot button everywhere.

She attacks the influx of asylum seekers as a threat to the welfare state, which, she says, requires a “certain degree of homogeneity to function”.

She attacks the gender-bender transformations as something that benefits the big pharmaceutical companies. All of this will resonate across the political divide.

At one point last year, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia was so impressed with her that he invited her to join the party in a speech.

The pure environmental ‘greens’ are a luxury bubble that no one can afford anymore.

Those days are over.

https://principia-scientific.com/german-leaders-resign-after-green-partys-crushing-election-loss/

**************************************************

We have reached the end of the Olympic summer in Paris, comprising of the Olympics and the Paralympics

Though the U.S. finished at the top in the Olympics and in the top three at Paralympics, much of the world’s attention was on the Olympics’ obscene mockery of Christianity in its opening ceremony at Paris.

It also overshadowed some unprecedented events in the city. A few days prior to the games, French authorities fined the country’s second most popular news channel 20,000 euros for challenging the popular narrative about a purported climate crisis.

CNews, a round-the-clock news operation, was charged by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) with a broadcast’s failing to adequately challenge views skeptical of the global warming scare.

“This is the first time in France and internationally that ARCOM or a regulatory authority has issued a financial sanction for a breach concerning an environmental subject,” said QuotaClimat, an organization that reportedly has complained in the past about the climate reporting of various media.

The case of CNews raises serious concerns about press freedom – a cornerstone of democratic societies — and the public’s access to diverse perspectives on environmental issues. While the regulator argued that the channel failed to provide sufficient context and counterarguments, critics contend that the decision sets a dangerous precedent, effectively requiring media outlets to adhere to a specific ideological position.

The role of journalism in a democracy is not to parrot official viewpoints or consensus opinions but rather to investigate, question and present different perspectives on important issues. By imposing restrictions on how climate issues can be reported, France undermines this crucial function of the media.

This crackdown on climate reporting exemplifies a broader trend of using authorities backed by official powers to curb the expression of views that challenge a government’s preferred narrative, a concerning development for anybody favoring an open society.

The practice has become far too common in academic research as well. Scientists who challenge the crisis narrative are subjected to witch hunts and termination from their professions.

Many climate scientists, influenced heavily by funding sources, are transforming their discipline into something that hardly qualifies as science. While their work has the appearance of scientific research and is conducted by those with scientific credentials, both its methodologies and findings are heavily shaped by the agendas of special interest groups, political figures and international governing bodies.

Researchers and their organizations, in too many cases, have become harvesters of grants rather than seekers of truth. Such scientists are supplicants of governments and wealthy foundations wanting particular findings and willing to pay for them.

Those who champion genuine scientific inquiry must speak out against deliberate efforts by climate alarmists to discredit sceptics, whose questions are manifestations of critical thinking. Inquiry into popular theories should be welcome, not treated as sedition.

From Galileo’s astronomical discoveries to more recent controversies in fields like genetics and nuclear energy, attempts to protect the popular view have often backfired. slowing scientific progress and technological advancement.

In the case of climate change, this is true too. Restrictive energy policies — justified on the basis of addressing a “climate crisis” — already have impeded economic growth and increased prices. Ideologues seek to reverse decades of advancement in clean-coal power generation, oil and gas development and other technologies.

Scientific understanding of Earth’s climate is not furthered by silencing dissent but through rigorous research, peer review and open debate. By allowing a diversity of voices in the media, including those that challenge the so-called “consensus,” opportunities for truth arise.

Isolated intrusions on press freedom are annoying. But actions like that of the French regulator for reporting on a climate story can be replicated by other governments and for other subjects – a certain eventuality without the intervention of honest citizens

For this is the proverbial slippery slope greased by powerful people’s lust for control or money or both. Left alone, only the most ruthless of the politically connected get to say where it ends. Even they can’t say for sure, but history tells us it ends badly.

https://cornwallalliance.org/gag-on-climate-reporting-is-another-french-obscenity/

2024-10-06T16:18:00.001+13:00

AI could be giving natural gas a second lease on life

The inexorable rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is forcing a reassessment of the clean energy transition. Training and running AI models are both energy-intensive processes, adding significantly to the electricity needs of data centers. Despite the widespread use of renewable energy and progress to make processes more energy efficient, demand is expected to grow.

AI’s appetite for energy is colossal. Goldman Sachs estimates that around 47 GW of additional power generation capacity will be needed in the U.S. alone by 2030 to meet the burgeoning demand. They predict that some 60% of this new demand will need to be satisfied by legacy energy sources, most likely natural gas, or 3.3 billion cubic feet of additional incremental demand. This forecasted demand is being driven in large part by data centers, the humming engines driving AI, which require massive quantities of dependable power generation rather than relying on inherently intermittent renewables.

In the U.S., tech companies are planning a constellation of over 2,000 new data centers across the country. These data centres are in some regions reversing the trend towards renewable energy. For example, in Virginia, data center provider Vantage built a 100 MW natural gas power plant entirely off the grid to power its data centers. EQT, one of the largest providers of natural gas in the U.S., is also specifically targeting data centers in Virginia as part of its long-term growth strategy.

The dash for gas is not a U.S.-only phenomenon. Several utility-scale “private wire” agreements have already been struck around the world between natural gas companies and data centers, securing all the power produced by a power plant to a single private client. For example, Microsoft last year gained approval to use its own private wire natural gas-fired power plant to supply electricity for the company’s data centers at its Grange Castle Business Park in Dublin.

Victory Hill does not invest in natural gas in the U.S. However, we invest in a fuel storage terminal for low-sulfur fuel oils that are sold into Mexico. We are also investors in a flexible power natural gas plant in the U.K. that once fully operational will use carbon capture technology to capture over 95% of all its generated emissions.

The likely spike in demand for natural gas is not yet reflected in many models forecasting the energy sector’s transition to a low-carbon future.

The dominant narrative surrounding fossil fuels indicates natural gas functioning as a transition fuel that pushes us toward a future where renewables meet all our energy needs. However, the specific requirements of always-on data centers reveal an important challenge to the notion that natural gas assets will inevitably be stranded.

Current models fail to price in the cost of intermittency and the effect of spikes or falls on the demand for fossil fuels. Some models calculate future lost profits in the upstream oil and gas sector exceeding $1 trillion under plausible changes in expectations about the effects of climate policy.

With the advent of AI, natural gas could become a destination fuel rather than a temporary stopgap.

With an election supercycle this year that will see more than 40% of the world population going to the polls, incoming governments must weigh competing priorities—from squeezed budgets to rising emissions to the race to create ever more powerful AI. It’s a balancing act that will necessitate a change in their approaches to the energy transition to ensure their rulemaking is future-proof.

Similarly, investors rushing to divest from fossil fuels, with the view that this would preserve their clients' wealth, may want to reassess whether this continues to be true, particularly considering the continued demand for, and critical nature of, natural gas within our economy going forward.

The key to this challenge lies in embracing technological advancements. Carbon Capture and Reuse (CCR) technology is available today and can be scaled. It captures carbon emissions from natural gas plants, preventing them from entering the atmosphere. By reusing the captured carbon for various industrial processes, CCR creates a win-win scenario for both energy security and climate goals.

CCR commercially incentivizes power companies to create the most efficient carbon capture technology with minimal leakage when capturing and reselling carbon. Carbon dioxide is an in-demand industrial gas with a ready global market, used in everything from food production to brake pads. It can also be used to create lower-emission fuels such as methanol to bring down emissions in the transport sector.

We believe that the path to a clean energy future does not lie in a one-size-fits-all solution. It lies in a complex network with multiple players, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Natural gas, coupled with CCR, can be a vital bridge on this journey. It can ensure both energy security and the reliable power needed for AI innovation.

This doesn't downplay the importance of renewables. Solar and wind remain essential pieces of the clean energy puzzle. The ideal scenario lies in a diversified energy mix, where renewables take the lead whenever possible, with natural gas stepping in to fill the gaps and ensure a stable, reliable grid

https://fortune.com/2024/10/03/ai-natural-gas-demand-data-centers-finance-tech-environment-energy/

*******************************************

An inconvenient truth: nuclear energy is cleaner and cheaper

Largely buried by a media that peddles climate alarmism was a key report from the US Department of Energy – yes, from Joe Biden’s officials – debunking the myth that renewables are the cheapest form of emissions-free electricity. The US report completely contradicts Chris Bowen’s constant assertion that the CSIRO’s “levelized cost of electricity” proves that emissions free nuclear power is much more expensive than firmed renewables.

The US report states that “levelized cost of electricity does not capture the full benefits of nuclear as a clean, firm resource. These include the value of an 80-year operating asset, the value of firm generation to provide power during key periods of grid need or when other variable resources are not generating, and the value of clean electricity relative to carbon emitting resources”.

Using modelling based on the experience of California, the report says that the cost, per megawatt-hour of renewables and storage ONLY, ranges from $129 to $150 – while the cost of renewables and storage WITH nuclear is just $80 to $94. In other words, using nuclear makes electricity 37 per cent less expensive.

It was always absurd of the Albanese government to insist that nuclear power is cost-efficient at sea (in our nuclear-powered subs) but prohibitively expensive on land. Now that this authoritative costing has emerged from Biden’s America, its clear that green ideology is the only thing stopping us from repealing the ban on civil nuclear power.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/peta-credlin-why-police-must-act-if-antiisrael-protests-degenerate-into-orgies-of-hate-speech/news-story/1583cf97d7dae8e4a3bf46c6451e50e4

********************************************************

Data centre emissions are soaring – it’s AI or the climate

Artificial intelligence (AI) is curating your social media feed and giving you directions to the train station. It’s also throwing the fossil fuel industry a lifeline.

Three of the biggest tech companies, Microsoft, Google and Meta, have reported ballooning greenhouse gas emissions since 2020. Data centres packed with servers running AI programs day and night are largely to blame.

AI models consume a lot of electricity, and the World Economic Forum estimated in April that the computer power dedicated to AI is doubling every 100 days. Powering this boom in the US, where many AI tech pioneers are based, have been revitalised gas power plants once slated for closure.

First, what actually is AI?

AI sucks (power and water)

“At its core, the kind of AI we are seeing in consumer products today identifies patterns,” say Sandra Peter and Kai Riemer, computing experts at the University of Sydney.

“Unlike traditional coding, where developers explicitly program how a system works, AI ‘learns’ these patterns from vast datasets, enabling it to perform tasks.”

While AI programs are being “trained” and fed huge sums of data over several weeks and months, data processors run 24/7. Once up to speed, an AI can use 33 times more energy to complete a function than traditional software.

In fact, a single query to an AI-powered chatbot can consume ten times as much energy as a traditional Google search according to Gordon Noble and Fiona Berry, sustainability researchers at the University of Technology Sydney.

“This enormous demand for energy translates into surges in carbon emissions and water use, and may place further stress on electricity grids already strained by climate change,” they say.

Data centres are thirsty as well as power-hungry: millions of litres of water have to be pumped to keep them cool.

These enormous server warehouses are vying with people for an increasing share of power and water, a situation which could prove deadly during a heatwave or drought.

Noble and Berry argue. One survey showed that just 5% of sustainability professionals in Australia believed data centre operators provided detailed information about their environmental impact.

Its fierce appetite aside, AI is feted as a Swiss army knife of fixes for our ailing planet.

AI’s ability to process mountains of data means it could spot the warning signs of a building storm or flood and track how the environment is changing say Ehsan Noroozinejad and Seyedali Mirjalili, AI experts at Western Sydney University and Torrens University Australia respectively.

“For example, it can reportedly measure changes in icebergs 10,000 times faster than a human can,” they add.

Kirk Chang and Alina Vaduva, management experts at the University of East London, highlight hopes that AI might make simulations of Earth’s climate more accurate.

AI could closely monitor an entire electricity grid and coordinate generators so that they waste less energy while meeting demand. AI models could identify materials for sorting in a recycling facility and analyse air pollution to pinpoint its sources. On farms, AI systems could track weather and soil conditions to ensure crops receive only as much water as they need.

However, AI’s claims to efficiency are sadly undermined by a well-worn problem. When humanity makes an activity more efficient through innovation, the energy or resource savings are generally ploughed into expanding that activity or others.

“The convenience of an autonomous vehicle may increase people’s travel and in a worst-case scenario, double the amount of energy used for transport,” says Felippa Amanta, a PhD candidate in digital technologies and climate change.

And while there is value in imagining what AI might help us do, it is important to recognise what it is already doing. An investigation by Scientific American found AI was deployed in oil extraction in 2019 to substantially increase production. Elsewhere, targeted advertising that uses AI creates demand for material goods. More mass-produced stuff, more emissions.

Does our answer to climate change need to be high-tech?

During a climate disaster like Hurricane Helene, which claimed more than 150 lives in the south-eastern US over the weekend, a reliable power supply is often the first thing to go. AI can be of little help in these circumstances.

Low-tech solutions to life’s problems are generally more resilient and low carbon. Indeed, most of them – like fruit walls, that used renewable energy to grow Mediterranean produce in England as early as the Middle Ages – have been around for a very long time.

“‘Low-tech’ does not mean a return to medieval ways of living. But it does demand more discernment in our choice of technologies – and consideration of their disadvantages,” says Chris McMahon, an engineering expert at the University of Bristol.

“What’s more, low-tech solutions often focus on conviviality. This involves encouraging social connections, for example through communal music or dance, rather than fostering the hyper-individualism encouraged by resource-hungry digital devices.”

https://theconversation.com/data-centre-emissions-are-soaring-its-ai-or-the-climate-240137

***********************************************

ONS Reveals the Pitiful Number of New Green Jobs Being Created in the U.K. Economy

The problem with the green U.K. economy, and its associated destruction of the hydrocarbon environment, is that there are very few jobs being created.

The few remaining ‘workers’ in the ruling Labour party are starting to rumble all the luxury boondoggles that are set to further decimate well-paid jobs in their communities.

The figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), trying to estimate the actual number of green jobs, are always a highly creative hoot, and the latest batch are no exception. Many jobs identified are simply displacement activity, with one repair or maintenance occupation taking over from another.

Around 6% of the total are to be found in ‘environmental charities’, an interesting way to describe elite billionaire political funding to push the Net Zero fantasy.

Such is the seeming desperation to rustle up a green job, the ONS even includes repairing home appliances, controlling forest fires and separating hydrogen by carbon dioxide-producing electrolysis.

The latest ‘estimates’ from the ONS cover 2021 and 2022, and they are said to show an increase in both years. But as the graph below reveals, the rises are pitiful over a decade, and the 2022 estimate of 639,000 is less than 2% of jobs in the economy as a whole.

As can be seen, environmental charities employ 40,000 people, almost as many as the 47,000 that work in renewable energy.

But the charities figure does not include all those make-work jobs in environmental consultancy and education or what is described as in-house environmental activities.

If all the displacement, invented or re-badged jobs in repair, electric vehicles, waste disposal, water treatment, energy efficiency, Net Zero promotion, teaching and the ubiquitous bureaucracy are rightly ignored, it is unlikely that more than 150,000 new jobs have been created.

Fairly small pickings, it might be thought, from all the cash sprayed at subsidy-hunting chancers over at least two decades. Even worse, any new jobs are easily offset by the occupations being destroyed in steel making, refining hydrocarbons, coal mining and oil and gas exploration.

Fracking for gas would transform a number of deprived areas in the U.K. at little environmental cost, as it has done in the U.S. Energy security would likely be achieved, and the tax take would be considerable. But fracking is anathema to the major political parties in the U.K., except the emerging Reform party.

Last week saw some real push back on the madness of Net Zero and the so-called green economy.

The boss of GMB, the third largest trade union in the country, told the annual Labour party conference that its plans to decarbonise the energy network by 2030 will cost up to one million jobs, decimate working communities and push up bills for the poorest. According to Smith, Government’s plans for Net Zero were “bonkers” and “fundamentally dishonest”.

In a week when it was revealed that British consumers, both industrial and private, had some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world, he charged that current energy policy amounted to virtue signalling by politicians.

He accused them of exporting jobs and importing virtue because the jobs were being created abroad rather than in the U.K.

Meanwhile, a recent paper published in Science came to a damning conclusion that will not surprise sceptics, namely that 96% of climate policies over the last 25 years, ultimately designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, have been a waste of money.

“That’s where green spin has got us,” writes George Monbiot, although these days the Guardian’s extremist-in-chief seems to have given up on all life enhancing processes that run the risk of disturbing anything on the planet.

“Finally, 15 years and a trillion dollars too late, George Monbiot says what sceptics have been saying all along,” observes the sceptical journalist Jo Nova. “Nearly every single carbon reduction scheme is a useless make-work machination that creates the illusion that the government is doing something,” she says.

As we can see, the ONS survey is full of these make-work schemes providing jobs that can only exist by rigging free markets and providing eye-watering subsidies from consumers and taxpayers.

As the more concerned trade unionists can see, much of the cost of these fantasy ventures falls on the poorest members of society forced to pay higher prices for many of the basic essentials of life.

In addition, as we have observed, most green schemes make mugs of the wider investing public, with the RENIXX, a stock capitalisation global index of the 30 largest renewable industrial companies, showing near zero growth since it was started in 2006.

None of this matters, of course, to the Mad Miliband and his weird wonks at the U.K. Department of Energy, who are ramping up ideological plans to hose cash at daft ideas like carbon capture, battery energy storage and hydrogen production.

But all is not lost on the jobs front – opportunities must be taken when they occur. Earlier this year, Gary Smith was able to point to some new employment clearing away the animal casualties of wind farm blades. “It’s usually a man in a rowing boat, sweeping up the dead birds,” he observed.

https://principia-scientific.com/ons-reveals-the-pitiful-number-of-new-green-jobs-being-created-in-the-u-k-economy-2/

2024-10-02T23:27:00.002+13:00

The chattering climate class and their war on coal

Electricity is slippery stuff, in that it can be difficult to properly grasp what it is or how to quantify it.

We can blame the school system. Teachers who were taught social politics at University must somehow teach mathematics and physics.

There is a reason for everything in the world and that reason usually comes down to physics until politics gets mixed in. This is a problem. In politics, the same big lie can be repeated many times, as loudly as possible, until people accept it as truth or give up trying to argue the toss.

Readers will be familiar with the nameplate rating on wind farms and solar plants. It lists the rated output under ideal circumstances, measured in watts. If a heater has 1,000W we all understand it is telling us the output at one instant in time. Consumption is a different thing and is measured in watts/hour. Reversing this, we can understand we are seeing a generator’s nameplate watts as the size of the generator and watt hours as how much it provides.

Mr Bowen claims wind and solar are clean, green, and cheap.

An interesting idea making its way around the energy conversation at present is that there is no such thing as baseload energy. The lie is perpetrated by the political system which is, at present, intending to destroy the concept (and existence) of baseload energy. Baseload is created by heavy generators that operate all day, every day, and are typically cheap. The disadvantage of this structure is that baseload plants usually take time to reach full production. Then, they need to run for extended periods of time to be economically viable. Coal and nuclear are the only two types feasible for most of the Australian market.

Gas and diesel plants can provide electricity but they are expensive when operated in this way. Peaking power is where gas comes to the fore. It can be fired up quickly and make electricity rapidly. This is ideal for peaks when people come home from their day and want heating or cooling and to cook. Gas can cover this surge very happily. Diesel is lovely stuff and great in remote locations where there is no access to the grid or if the grid fails. It might not be pretty, but it delivers when needed.

In the whole clean grid argument, those words should be enshrined…

‘When it is needed.’

Coal, nuclear, gas, and diesel will deliver when needed. Reliability has been ignored by the chattering classes who have created the current disaster of high prices and brownouts that continue to destroy various industries.

Perhaps that is the whole point of ‘renewable’ energy.

I put that in quotes because the best figures I can find are that they only return seven-tenths of the power used to build them.

Every wind tower is a hallmark to coal-fired power being able to carry inefficient freeloaders. Freeloaders because renewable technologies can never produce energy when it is needed, only when it wishes.

Solar and wind dump themselves on the energy market, making it impossible for reliable supplies to remain economic. If they had to obey the same bidding rules, they would never survive.

Let’s compare the costs of wind, solar, and nuclear. To do this we can look at the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm, Topaz Solar Farm, and Barakah Nuclear Power Plant.

We can skittle the first anti-nuclear claim about taking too long to build. Barakah was completed within eight years. The global average for modern nuclear plant construction (globally) is between seven and eight years. Sadly in Australia we have a less than helpful public service that thrives on inefficiency that might drag out this timeline.

The nameplate ratings on these plants were 845MW for Shepherds Flat, 550MW for Topaz and 5,600MW for Barakah. Nuclear can appear expensive if you compare build cost against the nameplate rating but not markedly. Shepherds Flat cost $2 billion, Topaz $2.5 billion, and Barakah $24.4 billion. Comparing build cost to nameplate rating, Shepherds Flat cost 42 cents/MW, Topaz 22 cents/MW, and Barakah 23 cents/MW.

Looking at the size per dollar, nuclear is almost as good as solar and better than wind. The issue already demonstrated is not size as much as provision. That nameplate value is giving you one second of use. One second later, you are going to need that much again. This means the Watt/Hrs is crucial.

This is where wind and solar fail massively. The watts produced are not as important as the Watt Hours provided to the market. Assuming a generous 25-year life span for Shepherds Flat, 30 years for Topaz, and a mean-spirited 60 years for Barakah (when it is likely to still be running 100 years after it started), I calculated the GWh per annum compared to the Build Price over the life of the project. That is Build Price divided by annual GWh times lifespan. Shepherds Flat was $40,000, Topaz $75,000 and Barakah $9,300. On this measure, nuclear is significantly cheaper, but the price of firming wind and solar is not added to their totals. So that you can have power on those hot still days of summer when the wind doesn’t blow or the cold nights of winter when the sun is not shining you will need either nuclear or coal to provide you with the electricity you need.

We can discuss batteries some other time, but the new super battery has been coming about as long as perpetual motion and flying cars. Lithium ion batteries are old tech that has been developed to a point of maturity where there is little left to squeeze out of them and without mountains we are not going to get enough pumped hydro no matter how economically bad that model is.

If I magically had the power I would build more coal-fired stations, only because nuclear will need time to be made legal and that cannot be predicted. Nuclear however beats wind and solar to bits as far as costs and output and reliability are concerned.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/the-chattering-climate-class-and-their-war-on-coal/

**********************************************

Solar Panels On Swiss Dam Already Cracked After Only Two Years

It’s often how the green racket works: Conjure up some ‘green’ energy-producing pie-in-the-sky project, no matter how unfeasible it may be, propose it to technically illiterate bureaucrats – who permit and fund it with little hesitation – build it, and, after realizing it won’t ever work, abandon it and let the next generation deal with the mess

In the meantime, you will have earned a tidy sum of money.

The latest likely example of such a project is “Axpo in Glarus Süd”, described at Blackout News here:

“Solar panels at Muttsee dam fail after two years – solar plant not suitable for mountain use.”

The Swiss Axpo Glarus Süd solar project consisted of installing solar panels on a dam with ideal orientation.

It was heralded as a pioneering project and designed to last 20 years while providing ‘green’ power (at least in the summertime) to nearly 3,000 people.

But, as Blackout News reports:

“After just two years, considerable problems are already apparent. Of the 5,000 or so solar panels installed, around 270 are damaged, reports the newspaper Südostschweiz.”

Solar panels in the harsh environment of the Swiss Alps? What could possibly go wrong?

Surely the builders and those approving the project had to have been familiar with extremely harsh winter conditions and massive snowfalls of the Swiss Alps, and that the system would never have a chance.

Obviously, no one cares much about reality anymore. The important thing, it seems, is to grab all that ‘green’ cash and make a stash.

Already, just two years in operation, 270 panels of the Muttsee project need to be replaced, and that is at an exorbitant cost.

Just check out the Axpo promotion video and take a look at the equipment needed to build the project. The helicopters, cranes, rigging, and this caliber of personnel aren’t cheap.

So far I haven’t found data on the project’s return on investment time.

Another embarrassing fact: “The full extent of the damage only became clear when the snow at 2,500 meters above sea level had completely melted,” reports Blackout News.

No one became aware of the damage until spring had arrived.

https://principia-scientific.com/solar-panels-on-swiss-dam-already-cracked-after-only-two-years/

*********************************************

A few days prior to the games, French authorities fined the country’s second most popular news channel 20,000 euros for challenging the popular narrative about a purported climate crisis.

CNews, a round-the-clock news operation, was charged by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) with a broadcast’s failing to adequately challenge views skeptical of the global warming scare.

“This is the first time in France and internationally that ARCOM or a regulatory authority has issued a financial sanction for a breach concerning an environmental subject,” said QuotaClimat, an organization that reportedly has complained in the past about the climate reporting of various media.

The case of CNews raises serious concerns about press freedom – a cornerstone of democratic societies — and the public’s access to diverse perspectives on environmental issues. While the regulator argued that the channel failed to provide sufficient context and counterarguments, critics contend that the decision sets a dangerous precedent, effectively requiring media outlets to adhere to a specific ideological position.

The role of journalism in a democracy is not to parrot official viewpoints or consensus opinions but rather to investigate, question and present different perspectives on important issues. By imposing restrictions on how climate issues can be reported, France undermines this crucial function of the media.

This crackdown on climate reporting exemplifies a broader trend of using authorities backed by official powers to curb the expression of views that challenge a government’s preferred narrative, a concerning development for anybody favoring an open society.

The practice has become far too common in academic research as well. Scientists who challenge the crisis narrative are subjected to witch hunts and termination from their professions.

Many climate scientists, influenced heavily by funding sources, are transforming their discipline into something that hardly qualifies as science. While their work has the appearance of scientific research and is conducted by those with scientific credentials, both its methodologies and findings are heavily shaped by the agendas of special interest groups, political figures and international governing bodies.

Researchers and their organizations, in too many cases, have become harvesters of grants rather than seekers of truth. Such scientists are supplicants of governments and wealthy foundations wanting particular findings and willing to pay for them.

Those who champion genuine scientific inquiry must speak out against deliberate efforts by climate alarmists to discredit sceptics, whose questions are manifestations of critical thinking. Inquiry into popular theories should be welcome, not treated as sedition.

From Galileo’s astronomical discoveries to more recent controversies in fields like genetics and nuclear energy, attempts to protect the popular view have often backfired. slowing scientific progress and technological advancement.

In the case of climate change, this is true too. Restrictive energy policies — justified on the basis of addressing a “climate crisis” — already have impeded economic growth and increased prices. Ideologues seek to reverse decades of advancement in clean-coal power generation, oil and gas development and other technologies.

Scientific understanding of Earth’s climate is not furthered by silencing dissent but through rigorous research, peer review and open debate. By allowing a diversity of voices in the media, including those that challenge the so-called “consensus,” opportunities for truth arise.

Isolated intrusions on press freedom are annoying. But actions like that of the French regulator for reporting on a climate story can be replicated by other governments and for other subjects – a certain eventuality without the intervention of honest citizens

For this is the proverbial slippery slope greased by powerful people’s lust for control or money or both. Left alone, only the most ruthless of the politically connected get to say where it ends. Even they can’t say for sure, but history tells us it ends badly.

https://cornwallalliance.org/gag-on-climate-reporting-is-another-french-obscenity/

*************************************************

Why There Will Never Be A Zero Emissions Electricity System Powered Mainly By Wind And Sun

“Net Zero” — That’s the two-word slogan that has been adopted as the official goal of every virtuous state or country for decarbonizing its energy system. The “net” part is backhanded recognition that some parts of the energy system (like maybe air travel or steelmaking) may never be fully de-carbonized. Thus some kind of offsets or indulgences may need to be accepted to claim achievement of the goal.

But the “net” thing is not for the easy parts of decarbonization. And by the easy parts, I mean the generation of electricity, and the powering of anything that can be run on electricity or batteries. In electrifiable parts of the energy system, there is to be no tolerance for “net”; only “zero emissions” will do. The official line is that zero emissions electricity is easy and cheap because it can be provided by the wind and sun.

The official line is wrong. As the build-out of these wind and solar generation systems continues to progress, it has become increasingly obvious that there will never be a zero-emissions electricity system powered mainly by wind and sun.

The reason should be obvious to everyone although, for some reason I cannot understand, it is not. The reason is that the intermittency of wind and solar generators means that they require full back-up from some other source. But the back-up source will by hypothesis be woefully underused and idle most of the time so long as most of the electricity comes from wind and sun. No back-up source can possibly be economical under these conditions, and therefore nobody will develop and deploy such a source.

This issue has already arisen in many places, as increasing generation from wind and sun has put natural gas power plants into back-up mode, running half or less of the time.

Now consider how things are supposed to proceed as we move to zero-emissions electricity. First, we build more and more wind and solar facilities. Second, we disallow natural gas or any other hydrocarbon fuel as the back-up. Now the back-up must itself be zero-emissions, and also dispatchable. In New York, our regulators have devised the acronym DEFR (“Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource”). Several possibilities have been suggested as the DEFR, the main ones being nuclear, hydrogen, and batteries. All possibilities for the DEFR that have been suggested share the characteristic that they don’t exist today at anything close to the scale that will be needed to fully back up an electricity system powered mainly by wind and sun. In other words, somebody will have to make a huge investment in one or more of these things on a grand scale if we are to have an electricity system powered mainly by wind and sun.

Given New York’s political environment, the regulators who have raised the need for the DEFR have generally buried their discussion of the subject deep in lengthy documents. Roger Caiazza, the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York, has done yeoman’s work in digging up and highlighting these items. Roger has created a “Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource Page” where he has accumulated the key information.

For example, we have the Scoping Plan of the Climate Action Council, which Roger describes as “the ‘official’ Hochul Administration strategy description of the Climate Act transition.” The document is some 800+ pages of text plus appendices. Somehow, Roger made it to page 49 of Appendix G, where he found this quote:

During a week with persistently low solar and wind generation, additional firm zero-carbon resources, beyond the contributions of existing nuclear, imports, and hydro, are needed to avoid a significant shortfall; Figure 34 demonstrates the system needs during this type of week. During the first day of this week, most of the short-duration battery storage is quickly depleted, and there are still several days in which wind and solar are not sufficient to meet demand. A zero-carbon firm resource becomes essential to maintaining system reliability during such instances. In the modeled pathways, the need for a firm zero-carbon resource is met with hydrogen-based resources; ultimately, this system need could be met by a number of different emerging technologies.

For reference, New York State’s current average electricity usage is well less than 20 GW. Meanwhile, even during this low wind/sun week there are times when this DEFR is not called on at all, and other times when it is called on for only a few GW.

So without saying so in as many words, they are telling us that as part of a predominantly wind/sun system we will need to build DEFRs of capacity equal to or greater than our entire current average electricity usage. But if the electricity system is powered mainly by wind and sun, then by definition the DEFRs are only going to operate a minority of the time. We will have now built an entire fleet of new nuclear power plants capable of fulfilling our entire peak electricity demand. Or maybe it’s an entire fleet of new hydrogen power plants of same capacity, or an entire fleet of grid-scale batteries of same capacity, only to keep them idle most of the time.

These are extremely capital-intensive facilities, which can only hope to be economical if they are operated to as much of their capacity as possible. Instead the proposal is that will be intentionally kept idle most of the time.

Who is going to make the investment in these DEFRs that will be kept mostly idle. Certainly, no private investors will do it without enormous government subsidies.

And if we were to build an entire system of these DEFRs capable of supplying all of our electricity needs to back up worst-case wind/sun lulls, wouldn’t it make far more sense just to leave out the wind and solar generation and go with the DEFRs all the time? Of course it would.

At some point this is going to become too obvious to ignore.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-9-21-why-there-will-never-be-a-zero-emissions-electricity-system-powered-mainly-by-wind-and-sun

2024-10-01T15:04:00.001+13:00

The Political Contamination of Climate Science

Few scientific efforts have been so dramatically ruined by politics as climate science. For over 30 years, thousands of climate scientists have pushed the message that the world is in serious jeopardy because of human-caused climate change. They have signed manifestos saying we are in a “climate emergency” that will lead to “untold suffering,” that humanity is at “code red,” and that life as we know it is “under siege.”

Climate science should have provided us with facts on which we can debate policies.

It is curious, given all these scientists stating all these extreme warnings, that many Americans haven’t paid them a lot of attention. In fact, a Pew poll suggested that although most Americans showed concern about climate change, it is often viewed as comparatively unimportant.

In the words of the Pew survey authors, “[Climate change] is a lower priority than issues such as strengthening the economy and reducing health care costs.” This statement does not seem congruent with a “code red” emergency that suggests life is “under siege.” Why worry about mere health care costs when the world is ending via climate apocalypse?

This incongruent apathy isn’t just a conservative thing. That same Pew survey also found that although Republicans are more likely than Democrats to have negative attitudes towards climate change, climate science skepticism can nonetheless be found on both sides. What accounts for this bipartisan doubt? (READ MORE from Lucian G. Conway: Can We Please Give Philadelphia to New Jersey?)

The answer is easy: Climate science isn’t viewed as especially scientific. It is instead viewed as political.

Nothing makes people distrust sources of information like the belief that they are over-politicized. For example, recent research by Clark and colleagues shows that people distrust institutions they view as overly politicized, even when they agree with the political goals of the institutions. Even liberals distrust over-politicized liberal institutions.

No movement has cannibalized its own credibility with political contamination quite like climate science. Our lab’s research in the Journal of Environmental Psychology showed that a primary predictor of why people oppose climate change policies is that they think the claimed “97% scientific consensus” around climate change represents political agendas more than scientific fact. Americans began to suspect that the scientific consensus isn’t really a consensus about science at all.

Is this because the American public is anti-science? No. It is because climate scientists themselves insisted on blurring the lines between provable scientific facts and a far-left political agenda.

For example, in the original 1992 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity — a document signed by over 1,700 academics that became a manifesto for climate science — scientists listed five things we “must” do. Number five is instructive: “We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.”

Whatever you think about those issues, it is noteworthy that on the surface they don’t have anything specific to do with the science of climate change. They don’t tell us facts or base conclusions on those facts. Instead, at least 20 percent of the recommendations signed by all those scientists were fundamentally political.

And it isn’t getting better. In the manifesto version updated in 2022, scientists claim that the original 1972 version was abhorrently too politically conservative, noting that the original “is a narrative rooted in colonialism and racism, and current-day unjust and inequitable socioeconomic systems.”

I’m not sure what that has to do with climate science — and that’s the point. Right now, this doesn’t strike me (or a lot of Americans) as especially about science, but rather about a giant political package that we’re required to accept whole or else be decried as heretics.

Science and Political Power

If climate scientists were only promoting an abstract political ideology, we could perhaps afford to dismiss this state of things with a sigh. But their political positions often push for extreme action. They want to make us use less fuel and eat less meat. They want to control the number of kids we have. They don’t want us to care about economic growth. Even if climate scientists prove to be right about some of the down-stream consequences of human activity — and I’m still open to that possibility — that uncertain outcome must be weighed against the costs of their proposed policies. (READ MORE: The Curious Case of Conservative Happiness)

Like the farmers protesting green policies in Europe, I see the costs of these policies with my own eyes in the present. Those costs seem far more certain than the vague uncertain outcomes pitched by the climate-science crowd. As a result, what we really need is a truly balanced discussion of climate policies that weighs the known real costs against the potential gains. With climate scientists, we generally get instead a lot of simple-minded political propaganda as a substitute for serious scientific thought.

Climate science should have provided us with facts on which we can debate policies. Instead, it took an axe to the scaffolding of scientific credibility that held it upright, and we’re all worse off as a result

https://spectator.org/the-political-contamination-of-climate-science/

*********************************************************

The Texas Billionaire Who Could Bankrupt Greenpeace USA

Fossil-fuel billionaire Kelcy Warren is about to land a knockout punch on Greenpeace

The pipeline magnate’s company, Energy Transfer is behind a lawsuit that Greenpeace says could bankrupt the environmental group’s U.S. affiliate.

A courtroom victory, which some Greenpeace officials fear is likely, would be a coda in the nearly decadelong battle between the two sides over one of Warren’s signature projects: the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In 2016, Greenpeace, Native American tribal groups and thousands of other activists camped in a remote corner of North Dakota to block the project.

The monthslong protests impeded the oil pipeline’s completion and became a flashpoint in the fight over ‘fossil fuels’. Images of sometimes violent confrontations between protesters and law enforcement made international news.

Warren ultimately completed the pipeline, but the fight wasn’t over for him.

Warren sees green activists, who he once said should be “removed from the gene pool,” as a serious threat to the industry. Starting with protests of Keystone XL, which successfully derailed that project, activists have targeted pipelines across the country.

“Everybody is afraid of these environmental groups and the fear that it may look wrong if you fight back with these people,” Warren said in a 2017 TV interview. “But what they did to us is wrong, and they’re gonna pay for it.”

Now the pugnacious tycoon, who is valued at more than $7 billion, is within spitting distance of dealing a serious blow to Greenpeace—and the U.S. green movement.

Energy Transfer’s lawsuit alleges several Greenpeace entities incited the Dakota Access protests, funded attacks to damage the pipeline, and spread misinformation about the company and its project.

The case is set for trial in February in a North Dakota state court, where both sides expect a ‘fossil-fuel’-friendly jury. Energy Transfer is seeking $300 million in damages, which would likely wipe out Greenpeace USA, according to the group’s leadership.

Deepa Padmanabha, Greenpeace USA’s acting co-executive director, said the lawsuit is “an existential threat” to the group.

In court papers, Greenpeace says it played a limited role in the protests, which it says were organized by Native American groups, and never took part in any property destruction or violence.

The litigation is unlikely to affect Greenpeace’s international operations. While the Greenpeace network’s coordinating body in the Netherlands is also a defendant, Energy Transfer may struggle to enforce any award against it because it doesn’t own assets in the U.S.

But Greenpeace says losing its affiliate—and influence—in the U.S. would have a profound impact on the group’s ability to address ‘climate change’.

Environmental leaders fear the demise of Greenpeace USA would send a chilling message to their movement. Josh Galperin, an associate professor of law at Pace University, said that environmentalists have long recognized that they can choke off pipelines by challenging them on legal grounds.

Now, some oil-and-gas companies are realizing they can use litigation to stop ‘green’ activists.

Warren declined an interview request. “We support the rights of all Americans to lawfully protest and express their opinions,” an Energy Transfer spokeswoman said. “However, when it is not done in accordance with our laws, we have a legal system to deal with that.”

In the sedate world of pipelines—a low-risk, fee-based business—Warren stands out for his aggressive style. Since co-founding Energy Transfer in 1996, he has snagged one competitor after another and built one of the largest pipeline firms in the U.S., with about 125,000 miles of oil and gas lines and related assets and a market capitalization of roughly $55 billion.

His success has afforded him a $46.5-million ranch in Colorado, a castle-like home in Dallas, and a private island in Honduras, where visitors can ride a zip line over a lagoon and nearby sharks.

Warren has also emerged as a key oil industry supporter for Donald Trump. He co-hosted a May fundraiser in Houston for the former president, and he and his wife have contributed more than $20 million to Trump’s presidential runs since 2016.

Warren’s congenial demeanor belies his drive, his friends say. When he and Marshall McCrea, Energy Transfer’s current co-chief executive, were preparing to run the Athens marathon in Greece, Warren warned the executive he would beat him—despite only sporadic training. On race day, he finished ahead of McCrea.

“He enjoys business so very much because he sees it as a game,” said Charlie Waters, a former Dallas Cowboys football player who worked at Warren’s company. “He’s so damn competitive.”

The son of a Sun Oil Co. employee, Warren grew up in East Texas and was a pole vaulter in high-school. After graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington with a civil engineering degree, he got a job at a pipeline company.

Following the demise of Enron, Warren bought thousands of miles of pipelines. The shale boom, which saw scrappy drillers in Texas, Pennsylvania and North Dakota scramble for steel tubes to ship their product in, made the conduits hot property, and further whetted his appetite: Between 2011 and 2014, Energy Transfer splurged more than $12 billion on deals.

While his stature in the industry grew, Warren remained largely unknown to the broader public.

That changed in the spring of 2016.

That year, protesters descended on North Dakota to try to block the Dakota Access project, a nearly 1,200-mile pipeline designed to ferry about 570,000 barrels of crude from the Bakken Shale field to Illinois.

Native American leaders said the $3.8 billion pipeline threatened sacred sites and posed a drinking-water risk.

The protests saw a number of clashes between authorities and activists. At one point, law enforcement trained water cannons on protesters in freezing temperatures. President Trump ultimately reversed a decision by President Obama halting the pipeline and, after years of litigation, it was completed.

In Warren’s view, Greenpeace was largely to blame for a construction delay he said cost the company millions of dollars, and Energy Transfer sued the group for $300 million under a law created to prosecute the mafia that could allow the company to claim triple that amount.

When a federal judge dismissed the suit, the company filed a new one in a North Dakota state court.

Greenpeace says that it only played a supporting role in the protests, and that the lawsuit, which alleges the group spread false claims about Dakota Access, is an attack on free speech.

It has paid for radio ads in Dallas, where Warren lives, that say, “This is America, we all have a right to speak—but Energy Transfer disagrees.”

“That sets a really dangerous precedent no matter who you are or what your politics are,” said Greenpeace USA’s Padmanabha.

Energy Transfer’s claim has caught the attention of high-ranking Democrats. “Energy Transfer’s $300 million lawsuit against Greenpeace shows how megacorporations deploy legal strategies to strong-arm and crush their critics,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), who has introduced legislation to establish a procedure to dismiss and deter strategic lawsuits against public participation.

The lawsuit has thrown Greenpeace USA, which has been active since the 1970s, into turmoil. It is preparing contingency plans for a number of scenarios, including a bankruptcy.

The group’s leadership and the board have clashed over what would constitute an acceptable settlement with Energy Transfer, according to people familiar with the matter.

The lawsuit poses its own risks for Warren. Some oil-and-gas investors expressed concerns about the claim, saying it makes the industry look vindictive and could result in a reinvigorated protest movement.

But people close to him say that Warren, who has gone to the mat with competitors and critics alike, isn’t the kind to lay down arms.

“You’re not going to wear Kelcy Warren out, I can promise you that,” said Matthew Ramsey, a director on Energy Transfer’s board. “He will fight to the bitter end.”

https://principia-scientific.com/the-texas-billionaire-who-could-bankrupt-greenpeace-usa/

********************************************************

Multiple Media Outlets Claim Antarctica Seeing A ‘Heatwave’

Various media outlets have recently claimed Antarctia is seeing record high temperatures. Some have even described it as a ‘heatwave’ and claimed 70F above usual

SciTechDaily, CNN and The Economic Times all of course blamed these ‘record’ temperatures on ‘climate change’, when nothing could be further from the truth.

A peer-reviewed paper published on July 31st this year described these events in the abstract thus:

Record high temperatures were documented in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, on 18 March 2022, exceeding average temperatures for that day by nearly 30°C.

Satellite imagery and stream gage measurements indicate that surface wetting coincided with this warming more than 2 months after peak summer thaw and likely exceeded thresholds for rehydration and activation of resident organisms that typically survive the cold and dry conditions of the polar fall in a freeze-dried state.

This weather event is notable in both the timing and magnitude of the warming and wetting when temperatures exceeded 0°C at a time when biological communities and streams have typically entered a persistent frozen state.

Such events may be a harbinger of future climate conditions characterized by warmer temperatures and greater thaw in this region of Antarctica, which could influence the distribution, activity, and abundance of sentinel taxa.

Here we describe the ecosystem responses to this weather anomaly reporting on meteorological and hydrological measurements across the region and on later biological observations from Canada Stream, one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems within the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Notice the words ‘for that day’, ‘weather event’, ‘may’ and ‘could’.

In other words, the temperature at four locations went above zero for ONE DAY, before dropping to BELOW what is usual for that time of year for several days, then returning to ‘normal’.

As usual, none of the MSM articles that covered it bothered to mention that fact.

All four locations were in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the coldest and driest places on the planet.

Notice the paper calls it a weather anomaly and a weather event, not a change in the climate, and says this may be an indication of a future climatic state that could affect resident organisms.

That is pure speculation, and probably had to be included by the authors to avoid the paper being rejected by the reviewers.

The paper can be seen here agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com, with the title ‘Response of a Terrestrial Polar Ecosystem to the March 2022 Antarctic Weather Anomaly‘

By the time it came to the attention of the mainstream media, a ‘weather anomaly’ had morphed into ‘climate change’.

CNN carried an article on August 3rd this year with the headline ‘‘Astonishing’ Antarctica heat wave sends temperatures 50 degrees above normal‘

Two days later, The Economic Times carried an article entitled ‘Antarctica’s record heat wave: A threat to global sea levels and ice integrity‘

SciTechDaily seemed unaware of it until September 6th, with the headline ‘Earth’s Last Frontier Burns: Record-Breaking Heat Strikes Antarctica in Winter‘

All three of these articles completely ignored what the paper actually said, and automatically blamed this ‘heatwave’ on us.

None of them carried a link to the paper.

You can see the temperature spike does not qualify as being a ‘heatwave’ as it occurred for just one day.

The British Met Office describes a heatwave as being three consecutive days above the average temperatures for the time of year.

It should not be forgotten that for decades, a heatwave was seven consecutive days above the average for the UK, then about ten years ago it was reduced to three days, allowing people to claim heatwaves are becoming more common.

The American NOAA website describes a heatwave as being the same, but for just two days, which allows for even more propaganda.

The most annoying part is despicable reporting is that the indoctrinated and the gullible will believe these lies without question, and will be totally unaware of the existence of the published paper, let alone what it actually says.

The three alarmist articles also fail to mention that the following year; 2023, saw Antarctic tempertures in July and August much colder than usual, as reported by us here.

https://principia-scientific.com/multiple-media-outlets-claim-antarctica-seeing-a-heatwave/

**********************************************

CBS Gets the Facts Wrong About Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Trends

A recent broadcast weather segment on CBS News, Los Angeles, titled “Helene gaining strength from climate change effects,” features a staff meteorologist claiming that hurricane Helene was strengthened by climate change, and that indeed hurricanes in general are increasing in intensity and power. This is false. It is actually shocking how wrong CBS is with regards to what actual hurricane data show, which is that hurricanes are not getting more intense, frequent, or powerful.

The CBS video description reads “…Helene is gaining strength from warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico, an effect linked to climate change that appears to make hurricanes and storms more powerful.”

The CBS anchor hands the segment over to meteorologist Marina Jurica, who alleges that “the increasing intensity of hurricanes is basically rooted in physics… hurricanes draw energy from that warm ocean water and as that climate change causes sea surface temperatures to rise the energy available for these storms increases.”

It is true that warm sea surface temperatures contribute to hurricane formation, However, they are far from the only element, and in fact for most of this hurricane season, despite warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures, storms struggled to form at all.

Jurica asserts the usual claim that warm water causes stronger winds and more moisture which causes heavier rainfall, “one of the most significant effects of climate change is its impact on hurricane intensity… which is why we’re seeing more catastrophic flooding associated with all of these recent storms.” The anchor went on to assert that hurricanes have been more intense in recent years and “the level of the storms is rising,” and Jurica added that “over the last several decades storms are moving slower” using Harvey as an example of this effect. Most of these claims are made out of whole cloth, complete nonsense.

Starting with the Hurricane Harvey anecdote, when the storm hit Texas in 2017, it was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2005, after a 12-year major hurricane drought in one of the most active tropical storm regions in the world. The longest such major hurricane drought since records have been kept in the United States.

Jurica claims in the CBS clip that Harvey was stalled and dumped more water on Texas because of global warming causing more moisture in the air, and while it is true that the precipitation was unprecedented for the area, reality shows that it was cooler-than-normal trough that stalled the storm out over Houston. Stalled storms are not new, as pointed out by professional meteorologist and hurricane-historian Joe Bastardi here. As a meteorologist herself it was Jurica’s job to look this up before going on live television.

No measured hurricane data supports the claim that hurricanes have been becoming more intense. This is only found flawed computer model outputs.

Publicly available data record no trend in increasing frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic or elsewhere around the globe. Accumulated Cyclone Energy is a metric used to track the overall strength of tropical cyclones over time, and if anything, the data here presented by Dr. Ryan Maue suggest they have been getting less powerful since the 1990s.

Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees, stating that there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.”

The CBS broadcast was before Helene made landfall, and while hurricane Helene proved to be very destructive, it is not unprecedented. Past hurricanes have likewise caused significant flooding and wind and tornado damage well inland in the Appalachians and surrounding regions, such as hurricane Gracie in 1959 which made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 4, during which 13 people died in Virginia due to tornados. There are many other examples, the most damaging of which was the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900, a category 4 storm which took between 6,000 and 12,000 lives, most due to storm surge and flooding.

Every major storm involving loss of life and property is a tragedy, and they need to be taken seriously, which is why it is so appalling when the mainstream media takes advantage of peoples’ fear preceding dangerous storms, and their losses and misery following them, in order to make false claims about climate change. CBS’s meteorologist is either shockingly poorly informed about hurricane data or just doesn’t care about facts, despite her training as a meteorologist.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/10/cbs-gets-the-facts-wrong-about-hurricane-helene-and-hurricane-trends/

2024-09-30T14:11:00.000+13:00

Why Are Renewable Equipment Companies Such Poor Investments?

Headlines promote renewable energy equipment companies as part of efforts to transition to Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Wind and solar system providers, electric vehicle manufacturers, green hydrogen producers, and other green equipment firms form a growing share of world industry. But renewable equipment firms suffer poor market returns, so investors should beware.

The Renewable Energy Industrial Index (RENIXX) is a global stock index of the 30 largest renewable energy industrial companies in the world by stock market capitalization. Current RENIXX companies include Enphase Energy, First Solar, Orsted, Plug Power, Tesla, and Vestas.

IWR of Germany established the RENIXX on May 1, 2006, with an initial value of 1,000 points. This month, the RENIXX stood at 1,013 points, essentially zero value growth over the last 18 years. In comparison, the S&P 500 Index more than quadrupled over the same period. The RENIXX is down three years in a row from 2021, losing about half its value.

Wind turbine manufacturers faced serious financial challenges over the last three years, even with rising sales. Rising costs, high interest rates, and project delays continue to impact the profitability of wind projects and equipment suppliers. The stock of Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest supplier, rose only 7% over the last 16 years, and its stock price has fallen 58% from a high in 2021. Vestas struggled to make a profit in 2022 and 2023 and suspended dividends to shareholders.

Other major wind suppliers have also been poor investments for shareholders. The stock of Siemens Gamesa, the number two turbine maker, is down 65% since a peak in 2021. Gamesa reported a loss of €4.4 billion in 2023 and received a €7.5 billion bailout from the German government that same year. Other top wind suppliers suffered major stock price declines since 2021, including Goldwind of China (down 77%) and Nordex of Germany (-36%).

Some 80% of the world’s solar panels are manufactured in China and the top six suppliers reside in China. The solar panel industry is beset by overcapacity and severe competition. Stock prices of the top seven suppliers have all declined by more than 50% since 2021. The stock of U.S. firm First Solar has risen since 2021 but remains below its all-time high price reached in 2008.

Tesla, which was founded in 2003, remained the only pure-play, publicly traded EV stock until 2018. By the end of 2021, Tesla’s value had soared to over $1 Trillion, boasting a market value more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Ford, BMW, and Honda combined. But Tesla is the exception.

But in most cases, electric vehicle (EV) companies have been very poor investments. Between 2020 and 2024, 31 EV companies went public on U.S. stock exchanges. Only one of these 31 companies, the Chinese firm Li Auto, saw its price rise since the initial public offering (IPO). Thirty EV firms saw their stock prices fall, most precipitously.

EV company price declines from the IPO price include Fisker (-99%), Nikola (-94%), NIO (-50%), Lucid Group (-75%), and Rivian (-88%). Six others of the 31 companies went bankrupt. Tesla and Chinese firms BYD and Li Auto are the only EV firms profitable today.

ChargePoint is the world’s largest dedicated EV charger company (behind EV manufacturer Tesla), with over 25,000 charging stations in the U.S. and Canada. ChargePoint went public in 2021 by merging with Switchback Energy Acquisition Corporation, valued at $2.4 billion. The firm’s value today is about $585 million, down 76% since 2021. For fiscal year 2024, ChargePoint lost $458 million on revenue of $507 million.

It’s not clear that any charging company can make money. High-speed, 50-kilowatt EV chargers cost about five times as much as traditional gasoline pumps. Around 80% of EV charging is done at home, reducing the demand for public charging. ChargePoint, EVgo, Wallbox, Allego, and Blink Charging are all valued today at small fractions of their original IPO price. No EV charger firm is profitable, even after continuing to receive large government subsidies.

Plug Power is a leading supplier of hydrogen energy systems, including battery-cells for hydrogen vehicles and electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen fuel. Founded in 1997, the company went public in October 1999 at a split-adjusted price of about $160 per share.

But during its 27-year history, Plug Power has never turned a profit. According to financial reports, the firm lost $1.45 billion in 2024, up from a loss of $43.8 million in 2018. Its current stock price is under two dollars per share.

Traditional established firms are finding that renewable equipment can be poor business. In 2023, Ford lost $4.7 billion on sales of 116,000 electric vehicles, or over $40,000 per vehicle. General Electric’s wind turbine business lost $1.1 billion in 2023.

The U.S. federal government provided subsidies to renewable equipment companies of between $7 billion and $16 billion per year between 2010 and 2022. But the Cato Institute estimates that because of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, subsidies will skyrocket to about $80 billion in fiscal year 2025.

Without the fear of human-caused climate change and a rising level of government subsidies and mandates, many of these green companies would not exist. It’s doubtful that carbon dioxide pipelines, heavy electric trucks, offshore wind systems, green hydrogen fuel equipment, and EV charging stations would be viable businesses in unsubsidized capital markets.

During this last year, leading financial firms pulled back on their climate change pledges. Bank of America, JP Morgan, State Street, and Pimco withdrew from Climate Action 100+, which seeks to force companies and investment funds to address climate issues and adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies. But it’s difficult to invest in renewable equipment companies when they are losing money.

https://heartland.org/opinion/why-are-renewable-equipment-companies-such-poor-investments/

*******************************************

Wrong, Associated Press, New Short Corn Variety Is a Marketing Ploy, Not a Response to Climate Change

The Associated Press (AP) released a story claiming climate change is causing windstorms to worsen, threatening corn production, leading farmers to consider a new short corn variety. This story is false on almost every front. If farmers are considering a newly developed corn variety, its due to clever marketing by the company developing the crop, not changing climate conditions. Wind speeds and storms haven’t been increasing, aren’t forecast to at any time in the foreseeable future, and corn yields and production continue to set records with existing corn types.

The AP story, titled, “‘Short corn’ could replace the towering cornfields steamrolled by a changing climate,” the news agency writes:

Taking a late-summer country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone, snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls that seem to block out nearly everything other than the sun and an occasional water tower.

. . .

But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the green giants that have dominated fields for so long.

The short corn developed by Bayer Crop Science is being tested on about 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) in the Midwest with the promise of offering farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms that could become more frequent due to climate change. (emphasis mine)

The facts tell a different story, however. Long corn is in no way being “steamrolled.” Corn yields and production continue to set new records, with some regularity, and there is no evidence that windstorms are becoming more frequent, or that wind speeds are increasing.

To the latter point first. The AP and other mainstream media outlets usually treat reports and pronouncements of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as authoritative on climate change. The IPCC’s latest report is clear concerning the impacts of climate change on wind speeds and damaging windstorms: no change has been detected at present; and, under the even the most extreme climate scenario, no change is anticipated in the foreseeable future, through 2100 at least. (see the figure, below)

So much for the AP’s claim that worsening winds pose a threat to corn production.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also show no climate change impacts on corn yields or production in the United States or globally.

A recently updated USDA report says that corn yields are expected to set a new record in 2024, increasing by 0.5 bushels per acre over the previous estimate, and by a full six bushels per acre of the previous record set in 2023.

Data from the FAO confirm the USDA’s findings concerning U.S. corn production and also determine that corn production and yields are regularly setting records around the world as well. Between 1990 and 2022 (the last full year of FAO records), spanning the three decades climate alarmists commonly assert have been the warmest on record:

Corn yields globally have increased by more than 54 percent.
On record yields, crop production has similarly set new records repeatedly as well between 1990 and 2022.

Even if, contrary to the AP’s suggestion, corn production is not being harmed by worsening climate conditions, Bayer’s short corn variety may prove beneficial for farmers. It seems that, per the AP, “[t]he smaller plants also let farmers plant at greater density, so they can grow more corn on the same amount of land, increasing their profits.” The shorter corn may also use less water. Both conditions should, in theory, make corn production more profitable, regardless of climate change, so there is a bit of good news in the AP’s otherwise unjustifiably foreboding climate change tale.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/09/wrong-associated-press-new-short-corn-variety-is-a-marketing-ploy-not-a-response-to-climate-change/

*********************************************

Wallace Manheimer: Leaders of climate science societies are suffering from mass delusion

Renowned American physicist, member of the CO2 Coalition, and a life fellow of both the American Physical Society (“APS”) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (“IEEE”) Wallace Manheimer has expressed concerns about the climate crisis narrative and its implications for modern civilisation.

Wallace Manheimer argues that there is no scientific basis for expecting a climate crisis from increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere within the next century and the emphasis on a false climate crisis is becoming a tragedy for modern civilisation.

His research debunks many fashionable claims surrounding politicised “settled” climate science. And he argues that “Net Zero” policies would be disastrous, unreliable and expensive, both in the United States and globally. He has also expressed dismay at learned societies making definitive claims despite the availability of contrary information.

Last year, Manheimer published a book titled ‘MASS DELUSIONS: How they harm sustainable energy, climate policy, fusion and fusion breeding’.

In June 2024, a paper authored by Manheimer titled ‘Science Societies’ Climate Statements: Some Concerns’ was published in the Open Journal of Applied Sciences. A summary of which, authored by Manheimer, was published last year in The Washington Times.

In The Washington Times’ article, Manheimer described how statements by scientific societies, such as APS, are often used to justify extreme measures for addressing a supposed climate emergency. However, these proclamations are frequently almost universally false and do real harm.

Manheimer highlighted APS’s statement on climate change, which asserts that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant driver of global warming. However, he disputes this claim, citing a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) graph of world temperature from 1880 to 2022 showing that temperature increases before and after carbon dioxide’s rise in the atmosphere were similar. Additionally, he references historical and archaeological evidence of warmer periods, including the Holocene optimum, Roman optimum and medieval optimum, which contradict the notion of a catastrophic, human-induced climate crisis.

Manheimer suggests that APS may have been swayed by the “climate industrial complex” or prioritised grant funding over scientific integrity:

This author cannot read the minds of APS leadership. However, two possibilities are hard to dismiss: (1) The organisation was so completely taken in by what renowned physicist Richard Lindzen has called a “mass delusion” that carbon dioxide threatens climate doom that APS did not even perform minimal due diligence or (2) even worse, APS knows that there are big-dollar grants for alarmists, but none for sceptics. It may have sold its soul to the devil.

On Wednesday, Manheimer joined the Tom Nelson Podcast to present and expand on his June 2024 paper. His presentation covers an overview of climate crisis scepticism, arguments against net zero carbon emissions, historical climate data and misinterpretations, the impact of carbon dioxide on plant growth, an analysis of scientific societies’ climate statements and much more.

Speaking of the scientific society leaders he said, “How can people who are so smart do something that is so dumb? I believe there’s no other explanation for it other than mass delusion, they’re suffering a mass delusion.”

https://expose-news.com/2024/09/05/climate-science-societies-are-suffering-from-mass-delusion/

*********************************************

A radical proposal: bring back coal

Up to the year 2000, coal was responsible for over 80 per cent of Australia’s electricity generation. Its share today for the country as a whole is under 50 per cent.

In 2000, we had among the lowest electricity prices in the world. We now have among the highest.

In 2000, Australia had a smoothly-functioning electricity system. The system is now tottering, with supply interruptions and regular threats of blackouts.

Fixing our electricity system requires a completely different way of thinking about it.

Electricity demand over the next 15 years – between now and 2040 – is likely to increase by 20-25 per cent. To meet this additional demand, we need new generating capacity.

This means new coal-fired plants. There are no other options for reliable, low-cost electricity.

Natural gas is in short supply in the eastern states and, in any case, is roughly twice the cost of coal for electricity generation.

Nuclear power, if accepted in Australia, will not be in place before the mid-2030s and will play no major role before the 2040s.

Wind and solar farms are not suitable as they cannot generate reliable electricity, given that cloud cover and wind are variable.

In addition, they are inherently expensive. This is because of high transmission costs (which form roughly 40 per cent of total electricity costs) and because the development of wind and solar farms to meet the needs of the grid requires serious overbuilding.

To illustrate the point on overbuilding, to match the electricity produced by one coal-fired plant of (say) 500 megawatts requires wind and solar farms and rooftop solar panels with total capacity of at least 1,500 megawatts.

The reason? Coal-fired plants can operate 85-90 per cent of the time, about three times the average for wind and solar farms.

Such overbuilding is enormously wasteful.

Conventional thinking requires that there should be a transition in Australia from coal to renewables.

The transition should be the other way around, from renewables to coal.

The critical first step in making this transition is mounting the case for new coal-fired plants.

And a way of starting this process would be the preparation of a concept studies of new plants, one (say) in the Latrobe Valley and one (say) in the Hunter Valley. The studies would almost certainly show that coal was the most cost-effective way of meeting Australia’s immediate electricity needs.

Widespread dissemination of such studies would stimulate public discussion on the way forward for our electricity system and put pressure on Labor and Liberals to say why the coal route should not be pursued.

Who will provide the financial and organisational support for such studies and their dissemination?

To date, there has been no clear answer to this question, given that opponents of our current approach to electricity have been scattered and lacking organisation.

However, the launch in August of a new organisation, Coal Australia, raises the possibility that support is at hand.

Mobilising coal companies and others to join Coal Australia, an effort led by Nick Jorss, Executive Chairman of Bowen Coking Coal, has been an impressive achievement.

The organisation aims to promote the industry in Australia, focusing on both thermal coal (used for electricity generation) and metallurgical coal (used for steel production).

It recognises that ‘without our coal industry, Australia would not have reliable and affordable baseload electricity’.

But is it willing to take the next step and support new coal-fired plants?

A serious problem in this context is Coal Australia’s apparent support for the goal of reaching Net Zero emissions.

For example, it says on its website that it ‘strongly supports the work of Australia’s mining industry associations, such as the Minerals Council of Australia, Queensland Resources Council and NSW Minerals Council’.

But the Minerals Council says that it ‘and its members have a strong commitment to climate action, supporting the Paris Agreement and an industry ambition of Net Zero by 2050’.

This is nowhere challenged by Coal Australia.

Coal Australia also says on its website that ‘by investing in low emissions technologies, together with carbon capture and storage, the industry can contribute to meeting both our energy needs and emissions goals’.

It wants to be seen as contributing to ‘emissions goals’, whose end game is Net Zero emissions.

The Net Zero goal entails the death of the coal industry in Australia – and the death of Coal Australia itself.

In supporting Net Zero, Coal Australia is attempting to walk both sides of the street, supporting coal and supporting those trying to destroy coal.

It should change course and oppose the target of Net Zero emissions If this is a bridge too far, it should at least not take any position on emissions.

Coal Australia may consider the conclusion here to be wrong – that it can walk both sides of the street.

If so, would it consider supporting the preparation of concept studies for new plants, in the Latrobe Valley and the Hunter Valley respectively?

And would it consider moving quickly on this work, completing and starting to disseminate the concept studies by February next year?

This would allow it to play a significant role in stimulating discussion of coal in the lead-up to the next Federal election (due by May 2025), with the chance that such discussion would force political decision makers to stop pretending that coal can be ignored for electricity generation.

It would be wonderful way of supporting coal.

Finally, a little post script on the topic of Net Zero. Not only does the Net Zero goal entail the death of the coal industry, it is also a fundamentally-flawed concept.

It risks the destruction of our economy as we know it, requiring impossible levels of expenditure to achieve ($7,000-9,000 billion according to a comprehensive study released last year, chaired by Professor Robin Batterham, former Chief Scientist of Australia).

And it is a disastrous concept when applied to countries poorer than ours.

For example, electricity consumption per capita in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka is less than 15 per cent of that in Australia.

‘In Africa, electricity is so scarce that the total electricity available per person is much less than what a single refrigerator in the rich world uses.’ (Bjorn Lomborg)

Addressing these problems overwhelmingly requires fossil fuels, notably coal and natural gas, not renewables.

‘Fossil fuels are the most important factor in explaining the advance of modern civilisation.’ (Vaclav Smil, Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, Canada)

In addition to being economically threatening, the Net Zero concept is contentious on scientific grounds.

While scientists agree that emissions contribute to global warming, there is no agreement that they are the main driver of warming.

Other drivers are at work, something that is clear from warming periods in the past, most recently in the Medieval period (around 950 to 1,200 AD) and the Roman period (around 300 BC to 300 AD).

These warming periods, referred to as ‘natural cycles’, had nothing to do with emissions, which did not start increasing until about 1850.

Natural cycles are probably solar related; they (not emissions) may be the main driver of the current warming period, which started around 1800.

Michael Asten, a retired professor of geophysics at Monash university who has done considerable work in this area as part of an international team, says that ‘until mainstream climate-science opinion can be reconciled with observations of natural cycles, climate science can be considered a work-in-progress’.

Or in the words of Judith Curry, a prominent US atmospheric scientist, ‘The climate system is way more complex than just something that you can tune with a carbon-dioxide control knob’.

On political and economic grounds, the goal of Net Zero emissions should be strongly opposed.

On scientific grounds, it should also be opposed, unless future climate science reaches the firm conclusion that emissions are the main driver, not just one driver, of global warming.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/a-radical-proposal-bring-back-coal/

2024-09-29T05:20:00.001+13:00

Evidence Mounts that Green Tech Is Wiping Out SpeciesScience or Speculation? The Uncomfortable Truth About Climate Proxies

During my time as a graduate student, my advisor and I often steered clear of climate science discussions due to the increasingly politicized and contentious nature of the field.

However, we frequently engaged in philosophical debates about science itself. My advisor had a habit of beginning every qualifying exam with a deceptively simple yet profoundly challenging question: “What is science?” This question wasn’t just a test of knowledge, it was a probing inquiry into the very foundation of our work.

I vividly recall being asked this question during my exam, and though I likely flubbed the answer, it left a deep impression on me. It made me question whether I truly understood the field I was dedicating my life to.

This question stuck with me, particularly when we ventured into discussions about climate science. One paper that consistently came up in our conversations was an analysis of speleothems from Moondyne Cave in southwest Australia.

This study became a focal point because it so clearly illustrated the inherent challenges in reconstructing past climates using proxies. The discrepancies between the speleothem’s isotopic record and actual measured temperature data always left me questioning: How well do we truly understand the climate of the past?

These discussions highlighted the limitations and uncertainties inherent in using proxies like speleothems to reconstruct historical climates, and they raised a fundamental question: Are these reconstructions truly scientific? If science is about creating logically defensible knowledge through rational investigative methods, then how do we reconcile these inconsistencies?

This lingering skepticism about the reliability of proxies has deeply shaped my perspective on climate reconstructions, intensifying my doubts about the certainty with which we claim to understand historical climate variations, and, by extension, modern climate change.

My advisor’s insistence on questioning the very nature of science became even more relevant as I delved deeper into paleoclimatology. His approach forced me to confront the uncomfortable reality that the field, like many others, is not immune to subjectivity, bias, or the pressures of consensus.

This realization deepened my skepticism about the certainty of past climate reconstructions, particularly when they rely on proxies that can be so easily misinterpreted or influenced by factors other than the ones we aim to measure.

The question “What is science?” continues to resonate with me as I explore these complexities, reminding me that true scientific inquiry requires constant questioning, even of the methods and assumptions we hold most dear.

Speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites, form over centuries or millennia as water seeps through the soil and drips into caves. As this water evaporates, it leaves behind minerals like calcium carbonate, which build up layer by layer to create these impressive formations.

The key to using speleothems as climate proxies lies in the isotopic composition of the oxygen and carbon within these layers. The ratio of oxygen isotopes (δ18O) in the calcite is thought to reflect the temperature at the time the water was deposited, warmer temperatures should result in lower δ18O values, while cooler temperatures should lead to higher ones.

For a refresher on oxygen isotopes check out…

However, this process is not as straightforward as it might seem. The Moondyne Cave study revealed that the δ18O variations in the stalagmite were not primarily driven by temperature changes

https://principia-scientific.com/science-or-speculation-the-uncomfortable-truth-about-climate-proxies/

*********************************************

Reduced Cloud Cover, Not CO2, behind Warming

In 2021 we reported on a pair of studies (here and here) that analysed satellite-measured data and found that clouds were not shielding the Earth’s surface from incoming solar radiation as much as they used to, causing an increase in heat absorption at the surface which accounts for much of the warming experienced in the past few years without reference to ‘greenhouse gases’

Speaking of which, an especially surprising feature of those studies was that while extra solar energy was accumulating at the surface, the total amount of longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere was going up.

Why is that surprising? Because the crux of climate orthodoxy is that more CO2 (plus other ‘GHGS’) in the atmosphere is trapping more of that radiation and letting less of it escape back into space, thus heating the planet.

And now one of the teams is back with a new paper with updated data that shows… more of the same. Over the past 20 years the net inflow of energy into the Earth’s atmosphere has doubled, mostly because more is being absorbed at the Earth’s surface.

But at the same time more is being expelled by the atmosphere, opposite to what would be expected from increased ‘greenhouse gas’ levels. Yep, climate is complicated.

Let’s start by looking back at the second of the studies we mentioned in 2021, by Dubal and Vahrenholt. They presented a remarkable graph of cloudiness and outgoing longwave radiation (meaning thermal, and known as OLR) from 1980 to 2020:

Around 2000 there was a dramatic, mysterious drop in average cloud cover, which the authors attribute to oceanic changes in the Pacific region and which the standard climate models cannot begin to account for.

Since on the whole clouds reflect heat, with less cloud cover the Earth warms up. Meanwhile if CO2 is the “The Thermostat that Controls Earth’s Temperature” as NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies infamously claimed in October 2010, trapping OLR instead of letting it escape, then as carbon dioxide increases in the air the OLR should be dropping.

In fact it has to be. But instead OLR jumped just as cloud cover plummeted, and has continued increasing ever since.

That chart of course only goes up to 2018. But in the new Loeb et al. paper the post-2000 data are shown as follows, with the red line in the top panel showing Absorbed Solar Radiation and the blue line OLR.

The green line in the bottom panel is the net effect of the two in combination, graphed along with gray bars showing the “Multivariate ENSO Index” (a measure of the intensity of an El Niño Southern Oscillation event) to demonstrate that they do not correlate with it:

The top panel shows Absorbed Solar Radiation or ASR, the amount of heat the planet is gaining overall, going up steadily for 25 years, which the authors attribute not only to reduced cover of certain kinds of clouds but also lower reflectiveness of other cloud types, and here again the authors tie it to oceanic changes in the Pacific region.

And the blue line in that panel might seem to show OLR decreasing, except that it’s counterintuitively measured as if you were upside down at the top of the atmosphere, indicating how much is being trapped so the line going down means more heat escaping to space.

What does this mean? We’re not the sort of simpletons who declare ‘the science is settled’, or think one study ends all controversy. We want more data and more analysis.

But the preliminary indication is that if Mother Nature flipped a switch 25 years ago that reduced cloud cover and warmed the planet, it wasn’t us that did it, and presumably she could flip it back any time and we’d see a corresponding cooling, especially since we really don’t know what that switch actually was.

P.S. While we like sunny and warm weather more than cloudy and cool, it would be worth witnessing such a reversal just for the perverse enjoyment of seeing the climate crowd blame that too on ‘greenhouse gases’ and claim they’d actually predicted it all along.

Heck, why not another man-made global cooling scare?

https://principia-scientific.com/reduced-cloud-cover-not-co2-behind-warming/

****************************************

UK: Three Just Stop Oil eco-activist are charged with criminal damage after orange soup was thrown at Van Gogh paintings

Three Just Stop Oil eco-activists have been charged with criminal damage after orange soup was thrown at two Van Gogh paintings in the National Gallery on Friday.

Stephen Simpson, 61, of Bradford, West Yorkshire; Phillipa Green, 24, of Penryn, Cornwall; and Mary Somerville, 77, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday, the Metropolitan Police said.

It comes after Just Stop Oil activists poured soup over two Vincent Van Gogh paintings just hours after other members of the group were jailed for damaging the gold frame of the artist's Sunflowers.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Just Stop Oil said: 'BREAKING: 2 VAN GOGH PAINTINGS SOUPED HOURS AFTER PHOEBE AND ANNA SENTENCED.

The National Gallery confirmed on Friday the three activists had been arrested and the paintings remain unharmed.

A statement said: 'At just after 2.30pm this afternoon, three people entered room six of the National Gallery Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition.

'They appeared to throw a soup-like substance over two works - Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London) and Sunflowers (1889, Philadelphia Museum of Art).

'Police were called and three people have been arrested.

'The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator and are unharmed.

'We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible.'

Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed on Friday after causing as much as £10,000 worth of damage to the artwork's gold-coloured frame when they targeted it at London's National Gallery.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13902689/Three-Just-Stop-Oil-eco-activist-charged-criminal-damage-orange-soup-thrown-Van-Gogh-paintings.html

2024-09-27T00:00:00.002+12:00

A basic flaw in IPCC science

Detailed research is underway that threatens to undermine the foundations of the climate science promoted by the IPCC since its First Assessment Report in 1992. The research is re-examining the rural and urban temperature records in the Northern Hemisphere that are the foundation for the IPCC’s estimates of global warming since 1850. The research team has been led by Dr Willie Soon (a Malaysian solar astrophysicist associated with the Smithsonian Institute for many years) and two highly qualified Irish academics – Dr Michael Connolly and his son Dr Ronan Connolly. They have formed a climate research group CERES-SCIENCE. Their detailed research will be a challenge for the IPCC 7th Assessment Report due to be released in 2029 as their research results challenge the very foundations of IPCC science.

The climate warming trend published by the IPCC is a continually updated graph based on the temperature records of Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature stations dating from the mid 19th Century. The latest IPCC 2021 report uses data for the period 1850-2018. The IPCC’s selection of Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature records is not in question and is justifiable. The Northern Hemisphere records provide the best database for this period. The Southern Hemisphere land temperature records are not that extensive and are sparse for the 19th and early 20th Century. It is generally agreed that the urban temperature data is significantly warmer than the rural data in the same region because of an urban warming bias. This bias is due to night-time surface radiation of the daytime solar radiation absorbed by concrete and bitumen. Such radiation leads to higher urban night-time temperatures than say in the nearby countryside. The IPCC acknowledges such a warming bias but alleges the increased effect is only 10 per cent and therefore does not significantly distort its published global warming trend lines.

Since 2018, Dr Soon and his partners have analysed the data from rural and urban temperature recording stations in China, the USA, the Arctic, and Ireland. The number of stations with reliable temperature records in these areas increased from very few in the mid-19th Century to around 4,000 in the 1970s before decreasing to around 2,000 by the 1990s. The rural temperature recording stations with good records peaked at 400 and are presently around 200. Their analysis of individual stations needs to account for any variation in their exposure to the Sun due to changes in their location, OR shadowing due to the construction of nearby buildings, OR nearby vegetation growth. The analysis of rural temperature stations is further complicated as over time many are encroached by nearby cities. Consequently, the data from such stations needs to be shifted at certain dates from the rural temperature database to either an intermediate database or to a full urban database. Consequently, an accurate analysis of the temperature records of each recording station is a time-consuming task.

This new analysis of 4,000 temperature recording stations in China, the USA, the Arctic, and Ireland shows a warming trend of 0.89ºC per century in the urban stations that is 1.61 times higher that a warming trend of 0.55ºC per century in the rural stations. This difference is far more significant than the 10 per cent divergence between urban and rural stations alleged in the IPCC reports; a divergence explained by a potential flaw in the IPCC’s methodology. The IPCC uses a technique called homogenisation that averages the rural and urban temperatures in a particular region. This method distorts the rural temperature records as over 75 per cent of the temperature records used in this homogenisation methodology are urban stations. So, a methodology that attempts to statistically identify and correct some biases that may be in the raw data, in effect, leads to an urban blending of the rural dataset. This result is biased as it downgrades the actual values of each rural temperature station. In contrast, Dr Soon and his coworkers avoided homogenisation so the temperature trends they identify for each rural region are accurate as the rural data are not distorted by the readings from nearby urban stations.

The rural temperature trend measured by this new research is 0.55ºC per century and it indicates the Earth has warmed 0.9ºC since 1850. In contrast, the urban temperature trend measured by this new research is 0.89ºC per century and indicates a much higher warming of 1.5ºC since 1850. Consequently, a distorted urban warming trend has been used by the IPCC to quantify the warming of the whole of the Earth since 1850. The exaggeration is significant as the urban temperature record database used by the IPCC only represents the temperatures on 3-4 per cent of the Earth’s land surface area; an area less than 2 per cent of the Earth’s total surface area. During the next few years, Dr Willie Soon and his research team are currently analysing the meta-history of 800 European temperature recording stations. When this is done their research will be based on very significant database of Northern Hemisphere rural and urban temperature records from China, the USA, the Arctic, Ireland, and Europe.

This new research has unveiled another flaw in the IPCC‘s temperature narrative as trend lines in its revised temperature datasets are different from those published by the IPCC. For example, the rural records now show a marked warming trend in the 1930s and 1940s while there is only a slight warming trend in the IPCC dataset. The most significant difference is the existence of a marked cooling period in the rural dataset for the 1960s and 1970s that is almost absent in the IPCC’s urban dataset. This later divergence upsets the common narrative that rising carbon dioxide levels control modern warming trends. For, if carbon dioxide levels are the driver of modern warming, how can a higher rate of increasing carbon dioxide levels exist within a cooling period in the 1960s and 1970s while a lower increasing rate of carbon dioxide levels coincides with an earlier warming interval in the 1930s and 1940s? Or, in other words, how can carbon dioxide levels increasing at 1.7 parts per million per decade cause a distinct warming period in the 1930s and 1940s while a larger increasing rate of 10.63 parts per million per decade is associated with a distinct cooling period in the 1960s and 1970s! Consequently, the research of Willie Soon and his coworkers is discrediting, not only the higher rate of global warming trends specified in IPCC Reports, but also the theory that rising carbon dioxide levels explain modern warming trends; a lynchpin of IPCC science for the last 25 years.

Willie Soon and his coworkers maintain that climate scientists need to consider other possible explanations for recent global warming. Willie Soon and his coworkers point to the Sun, but the IPCC maintains that variations in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) are over eons and not over shorter periods such as the last few centuries. For that reason, the IPCC point to changes in greenhouse gases as the most obvious explanation for global warming since 1850. In contrast, Willie Soon and his coworkers maintain there can be short-term changes in solar activity and, for example, refer to a period of no sunspot activity that coincided with the Little Ice Age in the 17th Century. They also point out there is still no agreed average figure for Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) despite 30 years of measurements taken by various satellites. Consequently, they contend research in this area is not settled.

The CERES-SCIENCE research project pioneered by Dr Willie Soon and the father-son Connolly team has questioned the validity of the high global warming trends for the 1850-present period that have been published by the IPCC since its first report in 1992. The research also queries the IPCC narrative that rising greenhouse gas concentrations, particularly carbon dioxide, are the primary driver of global warming since 1850. That narrative has been the foundation of IPCC climate science for the last 40 years. It will be interesting to see how the IPCC’s 7th Assessment Report in 2029 treats this new research that questions the very basis of IPCC’s climate science.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/a-basic-flaw-in-ipcc-science/

**************************************************

You Are Being Fooled If You Think Wind Energy Is Cheap

The late great P.J. O’Rourke once wrote, in The Atlantic in April 2002, that: “Beyond a certain point complexity is fraud…. when someone creates a system in which you can’t tell whether or not you’re being fooled, you’re being fooled.”

Which brings us to wind energy and its complicated contractual arrangements with modern electricity grids.

It’s not just a simple matter of bidding on contracts and supplying power when needed.

No, it’s become a mare’s nest of renewables mandates, portfolio standards, feed-in-tariffs, first-to-the-grid rules, dispatch, curtailment, hype, blame and losses that somehow no one saw coming.

And yes, you’re being fooled.

Debates over alternative energy, including its alleged cost advantages, often take place at a very high, almost abstract level. The general macro rule is that aggressive climate policies cause rising energy costs and often deindustrialization as well, not to mention brown- and blackouts, and this generalization is borne out across a wide range of jurisdictions.

When someone does go down into the weeds, as Parker Gallant frequently does in the Canadian province of Ontario, it’s amazing what muck he finds there.

For instance, he recently wrote that:

“on Sunday, September 8th, a somewhat cool summer day, Ontario’s peak electricity demand only reached a low 15,567 MW at Hour 20 which could have been principally supplied by nuclear and hydro baseload power (with a sprinkling of natural gas generation) but those IWT (industrial wind turbines) were humming!

At that hour those IWT generated 1,661 MWh but it really wasn’t needed however, due to their ‘first-to-the-rights’, IESO were obliged to either take their power or curtail it.”

To “curtail” means to tell the turbine owners not to generate then pay them a guaranteed price way above the market rate anyway, in this case $120/MWh when the going rate was $26.60.

So IESO, the “Independent Electricity System Operator” (and “Independent” here means it’s a government agency that isn’t answerable to anyone including the politicians we elect) bought the power and sold it at a massive loss.

And that triumph of wasting money and power is just the tip of the cashberg here.

As, we predict with some confidence, you’d find where you live as well especially if the green zealots designed the power system or tried to. It need not have been done with that express purpose; as with much else in human affairs, particularly governmental, complexity can arise from incompetence, including in managing growing systems.

But if those who operate and work within a system tolerate a degree of complexity over many years so great that not even they can really understand what’s happening, and the public is utterly incapable of grasping it and imposing accountability, they are guilty of perpetuating it out of self-interest, zealotry or both.

Power systems are generally complicated for necessary reasons as well as others. But when it comes to alternative energy, the impulse to make it look as good as possible pushes insiders in the direction of distortions and distractions that, if anyone else were doing it for a cause they did not share, would surely cause them to shake their heads.

To take one trivial example, we frequently hear about how more and more of a system’s power needs are being met by wind and solar every day. But of course if a power system is required to purchase those kinds first, then the fact that it buys a lot of its energy from them doesn’t prove that they are “winning” or “cheaper” or anything else.

The massive conventional backup system sits there, perfectly capable of powering the grid, often at lower price, and is forbidden by law or regulation from doing so.

In the case of Ontario, the IESO is forced to buy extremely expensive alternative energy and then dump much cheaper conventional onto the market, which the green crowd calls a triumph. As Gallant went on, showing just how baroque that provincial system is and how broke it’s making residents (and using more exclamation marks than we would advise):

“if we fast forward to September 10th, 11th and 12th, IESO reported much higher demand of 17,734 MW on the 10th, 18,522 MW on the 11th and 19,583 MW on the 12th… how did those IWT perform?

As it turns out, those 4,900 MW of IWT capacity were pretty well absent during the peak hours generating only 308 MWh on the 10th, 287 MWh on the 11th and 128 MWh on the 12th!

So, totaling their performance over the peak hours during those three days they operated at a miserly 4.8 percent of their capacity despite those ‘first-to-the-grid’ rights they enjoy! For the full 72 hours of those three days their total generation was 27,706 MWh which was only 7.8 percent of their rated capacity!”

Brutal. And it gets worse because luckily the province has natural gas backups and:

“Over the three days those natural gas plants ramped up and down as needed and provided the grid with 276,747 MWh or ten (10) times what those IWT generated.”

This kind of thing makes for depressing reading as well as a headache. In another post, he cites a new report by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute that calculated the real cost of IWT over a decade and put a major dent in claims that wind and solar are cheap.

Especially given, for instance, that from 2020-23 alone the province paid just one (also government) entity, Ontario Power Generation or OPG, to “spill” some 6.6 TWh (yes, that’s terawatt/hours) generated by hydro dams.

Now the power in question mostly came from hydro… but it only wasn’t needed in the grid because of the mandated preference for wind that was used instead, making the hydro power redundant, and that wind costs far more.

So even once you net out the sale proceeds, the real cost of that “spill” exceeds $1 billion but in ways that, as you’ve doubtless noticed, are extremely hard to understand.

Or not, in that on the macro scale they drive up the cost of government and everything else. The system haemorrhages millions a day and it adds up to a sum you just can’t make vanish. As the report’s executive summary observes:

“Hoping to jump-start wind generation, Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government established high wind prices, fixed for 20 years, which averaged $151/MWh over the 2020–23 period.

As the sector grew, so did the fiscal liability of those contracts. Multi-billion-dollar government subsidies started in 2017 and will total $7.3 billion for the current fiscal year (Ontario 2024a), equivalent to 0.65 percent of provincial GDP (Ontario 2024b).”

Not of the provincial budget. Of the entire provincial economy. It’s fully three percent of the provincial budget which, at $214.5 billion, has reached a record high. Accounting jiggery-pokery just can’t make that kind of excessive costs vanish even if it can make them hard to understand and fix.

The MLI report ends up saying the real value of IWT generation is $46/MWh, less than 30 percent of what they’re paid to make it. And we’re meant to believe it’s a bargain?

Yup. An article in The Hub by the “Director for Ontario at Clean Prosperity” burbles that “The economic case for new clean electricity is now undeniable.”

And claims that:

“anyone still suggesting that [Ontario’s nominally conservative but actually rudderless] Premier Doug Ford has flip-flopped on renewable energy may not be keeping up with the pace of technological change.”

Because see batteries or something. Even that piece concedes that:

“Ontario’s prior missteps with clean electricity are well known. The previous government’s Green Energy Act offered renewable energy project developers guaranteed premium prices for their power that far exceeded fair market value.

It threatened to undermine energy affordability in the province. The Ford government quickly repealed the Green Energy Act when it was elected in 2018 and until recently was reluctant to risk driving up energy prices by making new investments in renewables.

Six years later, we’re in a new economic and technological reality. The cost of batteries has plummeted by 80 percent in the last decade. Since the repeal of the Green Energy Act, the cost of wind power has fallen 40 percent and the cost of solar roughly 30 percent.”

In just six years? Really? And nobody else noticed, since governments everywhere are still massively subsidizing the stuff?

The article propagandizes that:

“Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) now expects to pay less than half as much for new renewable energy generation than in the mid-2000s.

More cost declines are forecast. The investment case for zero-carbon energy will only get stronger.”

But when’s the last time IESO’s proclaimed expectations were fulfilled, or were even comprehensible given the hideous complexity of Ontario’s power system? Who can even really tell?

At that point citizens are being had, by design or by fortuitous happenstance from a certain point of view.

As Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote in Federalist #62 in 1788:

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.”

If you cannot tell whether your power system really is delivering more cheaply because of wind, solar, geothermal or sunbeams from cucumbers, it is of little avail that you are being asked to applaud it and can, in principle, vote for a number of different people who will perpetrate it and its complexity regardless.

https://principia-scientific.com/you-are-being-fooled-if-you-think-wind-energy-is-cheap/

*************************************************

It’s Time to Follow the Navy’s 50-Year Safety Record of Nuclear Power Generation

By Ronald Stein, P.E.

Delivery of affordable, abundant, reliable, clean, and emissions-free electricity to customers is very important to modern quality of life. Achieving this is threatened by a vulnerable grid and the intermittency of wind and solar electricity generation methods. To meet the coming power supply crisis for the demands of data centers and AI, it’s time to stimulate conversations about electricity generation to meet the needs of the end users.

The nuclear power systems developed for the Navy have functioned well for five decades. All commissioned U.S. Navy submarines and supercarriers built since 1975 are nuclear-powered. Other military services are now getting on board. If such a profoundly reliable and resilient system for the generation of emissions free electricity that is continuous and interruptible can be extended to the commercial power market, it would allow a variety of suppliers to compete for the business of the end user, allowing greatly reduced electricity prices.

Today, about 440 nuclear power reactors are in operation in 32 countries and Taiwan, with 62 new reactors under construction. As of August 1, 2023, the United States had 54 nuclear power plants with 93 operating commercial nuclear reactors in 28 states. These plants generate about 20% of the country’s electricity. Nuclear power has the competitive advantage of being the only baseload power source that can accommodate the desired expansion of a clean electricity supply to the end users that is emission free, continuous, and uninterruptible.

As of May 2024, there were 214 nuclear reactors permanently shut down worldwide. The United States recorded the largest number of shutdowns, with 41 units. More recently, twelve U.S. nuclear power reactors have permanently closed since 2012. We’ve also experienced the shutdown of nuclear plants in California and the recent one in New York, which were perfectly viable and profitable.

Another seven U.S. reactor retirements have been announced through 2025, with total generating capacity of 7,109 MW (equal to roughly 7% of U.S. nuclear power production).

However, announced retirements have not always occurred as planned: 16 reactors previously announced for permanent closure have continued operating pursuant to state interventions that provide them with additional revenue sources. Those 16 reactors in 6 states represent 15,734 MW of electricity generation capacity (16% of total U.S. nuclear power production). Recent studies have identified many other U.S. reactors as being “at risk” of shutdown for economic reasons, although their closures have not been announced.

Next-generation reactors are the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and the Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR). SMRs are new types of reactors that produce Slightly Used Nuclear Fuel (SUNF) but do NOT recycle it. While SMR deployment is beneficial for various applications and will be part of future electricity mixes, these are very different from the Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) that use fast neutrons to generate more nuclear fuels than they consume while generating power, dramatically enhancing the efficiency of energy resources.

Commercialization of nuclear power for the generation of electricity that is emissions free, continuous, and uninterruptible, seems to be more practical than ever before.

The introduction of intermittent power has disrupted the “on-demand” delivery system in that sun and wind patterns force the utility to adopt steadier “baseload” power production to accommodate these patterns. This has increased the chances of power blackouts and brownouts when weather conditions are not ideal. The reason for these changes is the desire to migrate the power production sources to “clean electricity.”

Coal and natural gas can supply continuous, uninterruptable, and adjustable baseload power that can be adjusted as demand changes. However, these are considered “dirty electricity.” Since baseload power is essential for a constant supply of electricity, additional baseload power sources are likely to be nuclear power plants since they are not “dirty electricity” producers.

Consistent and resilient power delivery is a national security issue and a quality-of-life issue. People and economies have grown to depend on electricity so much that they no longer have alternative methods to replace heat, lights, food preservation, and air conditioning in the event of a power outage. So, economic electricity must be delivered to people 100% of the time or serious disruptions in their lives and the economy will be apparent, including loss of life in certain medical situations.

The largest impediment to this goal appears to be mainstream media and the climate-NGO-industrial-environmental complex that is against nuclear since it massively increases taxpayer subsidies for renewables and the political attitude to eliminate nuclear power from the market in the United States. They also encourage massive unnecessary Government regulation, thus increasing the price of nuclear power.

The nuclear power production industry has the best industrial safety record among all industries for electricity production. So, the fear that most needs attention is the one surrounding spent nuclear fuel, which is commonly referred to as “nuclear waste.” The solution, then, lies in educating heads of state, mainstream media, and policymakers by extending the concept of recycling to include the unspent energy in used nuclear fuels, a method that can convince people that the “nuclear waste” issue is being dealt with, the cost of power is competitive, and that the production of nuclear power is safe.

Recycling Slightly Used Nuclear Fuel (SUNF) in a Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) provides all these remedies in a way that is competitive and publicly acceptable.

The advantages to recycling used nuclear fuel in Fast Breeder Reactors are many:

It provides a solution to the disposition of the stockpile of Slightly Used Nuclear Fuel (SUNF).

Current inventories of SUNF provide an essentially unlimited supply of domestic fuel.

The fuel material is already mined, so the energy produced is much closer to 100% clean, and further environmental degradation from mining operations is not required.

The public would be more receptive to nuclear power because “waste” is being used as “fuel,” reducing the retention of unspent fuels and diminishing perceived risks.

The design is “intrinsically safe”. This means that the reactor is designed to cool sufficiently in the case of an accident without human intervention.

The current stockpile of SUNF has a value of $10 Trillion when the electric power that it produces is sold at 1 cent per kWh.
Process heat can be used for industrial purposes such as hydrogen, freshwater production, and synthetic fuel production.
Rather than pursue renewables of wind and solar that require huge land footprints, huge taxpayer subsidies, and even then, only generate electricity occasionally, it’s time to focus our technology resources on the nuclear power production industry that has the best industrial safety record among all companies and a track record of producing the cheapest non-subsidized electricity.

Specifically, focusing technology on commercializing emissions-free electricity that is continuous and uninterruptible to support the exponential growth of power demands from data centers, AI, airports, hospitals, telemetry, and the military. A great primer for definitions and companies engaged in the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and the Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) space is An Introduction to Advanced Nuclear Reactors.

For a brief primer education on the electricity generation marketplace, please view the 1-hour video with Chris Powers, and Robert Bryce at Power Hungry, as they discuss energy, politics, nuclear, and fossil fuels.

The main growth of electric power usage is coming from new data centers housing AI technologies. It is expected that over the next few decades, 50% of additional electric power will be needed just for AI, but data centers CANNOT run on occasional electricity from wind and solar. It’s time to stimulate conversations about electricity generation to meet the demands of the end users.

https://heartland.org/opinion/its-time-to-follow-the-navys-50-year-safety-record-of-nuclear-power-generation/

************************************************

Florida braces for Hurricane Helene as storm expected to wreak 'unprecedented damage'

It’s a pity New York cannot power its economy on hubris, but state officials this week gave it a try.

The “Future Energy Economy Summit” convened in Syracuse by Gov. Hochul brought together many of the same groups and characters who have shaped New York’s current energy policy — and somehow expected something different out of them.

Helming the summit was Richard Kauffman, New York’s “energy czar,” who for almost a decade has played a major role both in setting New York energy policy and working with companies in the energy sector.

Kauffman is hardly unique in this respect: If anything, he’s the embodiment of New York’s energy policy, which for decades has increasingly seen the political class imposing its preferences — sometimes quite suddenly, and sometimes quite lucratively — with little regard for how their whims translated into higher costs or reduced reliability for families and businesses.

Albany turned seemingly on a dime in 2016, going from encouraging the use of natural gas to blockading projects to bring natural gas to New York or New England.

The switch left the Northeast more reliant on older power plants and dirtier fuels while preventing customers from getting cleaner-burning fuel.

State officials soon after bullied Indian Point, a profitable nuclear plant that was generating close to a quarter of downstate’s electricity, to shut down.

Then they pressed ahead with costly plans to build wind turbines off Long Island, allowing the tiny roster of eligible developers to essentially name their price — because the rushed process left few companies able to bid.

These policies pushed up both costs and emissions, but they brought political windfalls: Environmentalists celebrated Indian Point’s closure, and inefficient construction unions cheered when the state effectively banned non-unionized construction firms from working on the offshore projects.

And Hamptonites breathed a sigh of relief as the federal government — at New York’s urging — quietly excluded their viewshed from the areas eligible for offshore wind development.

Albany took things to a more extreme level in 2019 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

The law went far beyond setting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing renewable energy generation.

It imposed arbitrary, mandatory levels for solar, offshore wind and energy storage projects — while excluding more reliable hydroelectric and nuclear generation from that same public funding.

Each of these constraints made it more expensive, and less practical, for the state to hit its own greenhouse gas goals.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/05/opinion/hochuls-energy-summit-cant-solve-impossible-green-goals

2024-09-25T23:07:00.001+12:00

‘You Flew Here’: Dem AG Suing Exxon Struggles To Defend His Own Lawsuit On Live TV

Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta struggled to defend his own lawsuit against ExxonMobil during a Tuesday appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Bonta’s office filed suit against ExxonMobil on Monday, alleging that the corporation deceived the public about the efficacy of recycling plastics and specifically its “advanced recycling” program, which essentially breaks down old plastics into their molecular component parts that are then used to produce other products. During the interview, Bonta struggled to defend the merits of his lawsuit and was also called out by one of the program’s hosts for being hypocritical about jet fuel given that he seems to have flown into New York City for this week’s “Climate Week NYC” summit.

“They’re lying in different ways. They are saying that essentially, 100% of U.S. plastic could be recycled, and that was the myth they wanted to perpetuate,” Bonta said in response to questions from CNBC’s anchors.

After some more back and forth, Bonta continued to try to explain his lawsuit against ExxonMobil.

“Of all the plastics that ExxonMobil produces, from their product, only 1% goes into the advanced recycling process at all, and of that one percent, 92% becomes mostly transportation fuel,” Bonta said. “So the other 99% of what ExxonMobil produces in plastic and what the world produces in plastic, advanced recycling doesn’t touch.”

“But advanced recycling sounds like a better thing than nothing, than going into a landfill,” CNBC host Becky Quick interjected.

“They don’t get any credit for advanced recycling, turning things into jet fuel that’s emitted into the air or transportation fuel that becomes part of our …” Bonta fired back.

“So your point is we shouldn’t have jet fuel?” Quick said in response.

“My point is ExxonMobil shouldn’t lie. And they shouldn’t point to another lie —” Bonta said, before CNBC anchor Joe Kernen cut him off to point out the irony of Bonta railing against jet fuel after flying to New York City to partake in a climate summit attended by numerous business and political elites.

“You flew here though, right?” Kernen asked.

“We travel,” Bonta replied.

If Bonta flew roundtrip from Sacramento to New York City to appear at Climate Week, he would have flown approximately 5,000 miles and emitted about 2.26 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to calculations done on Sustainable Travel

https://dailycaller.com/2024/09/24/dem-ag-exxon-struggles-defend-lawsuit/

*******************************************

Promote energy choice by protecting access to natural gas for homes and businesses

This November, Washington voters will decide if consumer energy choices deserve protection. Over the course of the last year, Washington state bureaucrats and elected officials have followed the climate posturing of high-cost energy states, by banning natural gas in future builds and pushing for grid electrification for existing natural gas users. Washington Initiative 2066 is the response to this government-created restriction on consumer energy choices, reversing the natural gas bans and prohibiting any and all future energy restrictions.

There are currently only seven states plus Washington, D.C. with jurisdictions restricting natural gas use in new construction. Washington state is one of these regions with restrictions on natural gas. On the other hand, over half of the states in the country have placed preemptive measures in place prohibiting any natural gas bans by local or state jurisdictions. Regional neighbors of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have all voted to prohibit these local bans on natural gas.

On Sept. 15, 2023, Washington’s State Building Code Council (SBCC) adopted new natural gas restrictions which ignored federal law and restricted consumer energy choices. The code removed the mandate for heat pump adoption but created credit incentives that would be so cost-prohibitive to natural gas it would deter its usage in new homes. The SBCC voted to delay the code implementation until after the following session.

Washington Policy Center (WPC) has actively participated in the critique of these codes and their failure to follow the regulatory codes, which call for economic impact reports to small businesses. WPC has petitioned both the SBCC council and the governor to ensure the economic impact of the new codes is addressed. The requests were denied.

The trouble continued during the latest 2024 session, when the Washington legislature passed House Bill 1589. Lt. Gov. Denny Heck said of the draft form of the house bill submitted to the Senate, “There is no other way of saying this clearly, the president is troubled by this legislation. The drafting and construction of this bill is very simply a hot mess.” The bill unconstitutionally avoided identifying what existing legislation would be affected if enacted, essentially a blank check of regulatory oversight and energy limitations on consumers.

The bill was partially revised but remained very ambiguous on many details.

The ballot summary for Initiative Measure No. 2066 says: “This measure would require utilities and local governments to provide natural gas to eligible customers, prevent state approval of rate plans requiring or incentivizing gas service termination, restricting access to gas service, or making it cost-prohibitive; and prohibit the state energy code, localities, and air pollution control agencies from penalizing gas use. It would repeal sections of chapter 351, Laws of 2024, including planning requirements for cost-effective electrification and prohibitions on gas rebates and incentives.”

Even if Washington state moves forward on limiting natural gas bans on the consumers, the state's reliance on natural gas electricity is likely to remain the same for some time. Currently, Washington is one of the lowest consumers of natural gas-fired electricity, but banning natural gas use at the consumer level will not alter the state’s energy profile.

Washington has already diversified its electricity grid with one of the highest rates of renewable power in the country. The state is unlikely to fully wean off of natural gas-fired electricity nor should it from a diversification and reliability standpoint. However, the state’s recent rules and legislation limit consumer choices, while still permitting choice for electrical providers, based on cost, supply, and weather.

Natural gas bans argue electrification is justified because of efficiency gains. Anyone who has used a gas oven can attest through simple qualitative experience that the gas oven is more efficient. It is assumed in the restaurant business that there is a 40% loss in productivity if using an electric stove. Even the California Energy Commission argues that a gas stove will cost less to operate and take less energy to produce and deliver heat to your stove.

Ability to pay is always a better determinant of adoption over efficiency gains and environmental impact. Leaving consumers free to make their energy choices, allows them to judge what will be most affordable in the long run.

Consumers know the most about what they like, need, and can afford. Climate ideologies turned government regulations interfere with consumer preferences, causing economic and physical harm to consumers, while rarely meeting any climate-centered goal. Natural gas bans often disguised as ‘grid electrification’ are policy directives with imagined benefits and real-world harm.

Limiting energy options endangers the financial well-being of consumers and prioritizes government grandstanding over individual liberty. Natural gas bans are not good policy and should be prohibited because market drivers will encourage consumers to adopt greener and more economical energy choices while leaving them free to choose the energy that fits their needs, budgets, and priorities best.

https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_0d272560-7a8f-11ef-895f-43e9c6733cfa.html

*******************************************

Opponents rally to stop carbon capture projects near water supplies in Illinois

There is growing opposition to carbon capture projects that some say threaten drinking water supplies in Illinois.

A new Illinois law requires corporations to provide an alternative drinking source if it becomes contaminated from the injection and storage of CO2. But Pan Rickert, with Eco-Justice Collaborative, said there is one issue that wasn’t addressed in the legislation which is sole source aquifers like the Mahomet that supplies water to nearly a million people in over a dozen counties.

“Developers have to replace water that is contaminated, and if it would be under the Mahomet Aquifer, there is no readily available supply of water to become an alternative water source,” said Rickert. “It doesn’t exist without a huge economic impact.”

Rickert adds that the aquifer serves over 100 communities, businesses, and farmers throughout central Illinois and is vital to the economy.

Rickert’s group released poll results that showed 82% of Illinois registered voters say they oppose private corporations' use of eminent domain for their private carbon dioxide pipeline and sequestration projects, and 89% think carbon capture and storage poses a serious risk of carbon dioxide leaks, potentially at lethal levels.

"A private corporation should not be allowed to take our property by eminent domain for a project that could damage our land, and be routed close enough to our homes and schools to put our lives in danger,” said Kathy Campbell, vice president of Citizens Against Heartland Greenwashing projects.

According to the Illinois Prairie Rivers Network, three carbon capture projects are proposing to inject carbon through the aquifer and store it underneath.

Opponents are pointing to a Sept. 13 incident in Decatur. E&E News reported that corrosion in one of Archer Daniels-Midland Co.’s carbon sequestration wells allowed carbon dioxide to leak.

“This incident demonstrates how important strict CCS regulations are to protect our communities and environment, and is exactly why we passed the CCS protections act in Illinois this year,” said the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition in a statement.

State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said he has filed legislation that needs to be passed immediately he said would protect the aquifer from CO2 injection.

“This is exactly what I was sounding the alarm about back in May when Democrats were ramming through their supposedly ‘green’ Carbon Sequestration bill,” said Rose. “This is exactly why that bill should not have passed, why Governor Pritzker should never have signed that bill.”

https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/article_b9bef798-7522-11ef-8e63-23dc5b861865.html

***************************************

Australian government grants extension to three coal mines

A decision by the federal government to extend three coal mines is in line with climate laws, the environment minister says, despite concerns the move undermines credibility in tackling rising emissions.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek signed off on Tuesday to extensions to two coal mines in the NSW Hunter Valley and another in the state's north-west.

Ms Plibersek said the decision was consistent with environmental laws.

"The Albanese government has to make decisions in accordance with the facts and the national environmental law, that's what happened on every project and that's what's happened here," she said in a statement.

"The government will continue to consider each project on a case-by-case basis, under the law. These are not new projects, these three approvals are all extensions of existing operations."

The decisions relate to coal producer Whitehaven's Narrabri underground mine's stage three expansion project, Ashton Coal's Ravensworth mine and Mach Energy's Mount Pleasant optimisation project.

It's expected emissions from the extensions meet the threshold under the federal government's safeguard mechanism, which aims at reducing emissions from large industrial sites.

"The emissions from these projects will be considered by (Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen) under the government's strong climate laws that were supported by the Greens political party and independents.

But Greens leader Adam Bandt said the decision damaged the government's standing on climate action. "(The decision is) a betrayal of our environment, the science and everyone who voted for climate action," he said on social media. "If Labor every gave a damn about the climate crisis, they don't now."

Climate program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation Gavan McFadzean said the move was a backwards step.

"It is grossly irresponsible to be approving coal mines when global scientists and the International Energy Agency have repeated calls for no new coal and gas projects if we have any chance of having a safe climate," he said.

"These approvals will have consequences for everyday Australians who are forced to live on the forefront of climate damage."

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/government-grants-extension-to-three-coal-mines/ar-AA1r6KWv

***************************************

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

***********************************************

2024-09-24T03:24:00.000+12:00

Wrong, Media and Climate Plaintiffs, Exxon Can’t Have Known What Is Still Being Studied and Debated

“The contrived sense of accomplishment in history matching is spurious correlation for an infinitesimally small period of time. Using Exxon’s internal analysis of CO2 climate forcing is little more than a propaganda tool.”

“Exxon Knew” is a political-lawyer campaign focusing on certain internal company documents to make a case that the oil major knew that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were a future threat to human betterment.

Smoking gun? Hardly.

A half century later, the IPCC is still trying to update and figure out physical climate science. Exxon did not do a study on the benefits of CO2 or the offset of sulfur dioxide emissions. The concern way back then was Global Cooling, Peak Oil, and Peak Gas. And as the company knew, fossil fuels had no viable substitute, as in wind and solar.

This historical correction has been documented in many posts here at MasterResource, including:

Big Oil, Exxon Not Guilty as Charged: Six-part Rebuttal (September 22, 2022)

‘ExxonKnew’: More Correction (September 18, 2023)

Shell Knew? No (July 19, 2023)

Climate Alarmist as ExxonMobil Whistleblower (March 27, 2024)

In Search of the “Greenhouse Signal” in the 1990s (June 21, 2023)

Unsettled Science, IPCC-style (February 18, 2020)

It became my turn when I encountered this argument by Mark Burger on social media, He stated:

As opposed to fossil fuel industries war on hiding their impacts for decades? One example: “Exxon scientists predicted global warming with ‘shocking skill and accuracy,’ Harvard researchers say“

My Rebuttal

To which I respond (expanded from my reply on social media):

To say that Exxon knew the truth back in the early 80s is a laughable fallacy. Effectively they built a primitive model that is characteristically similar to the erroneous modern climate models of today.

Fundamentally their work is based on the poorly understood climate sensitivity (ECS) derived from radiative convective models and GCM models. To their credit, they actually acknowledged the high degree of uncertainty in these estimations. Today, even Hausfather (2022 vs 2019) is beginning to understand the climate sensitivity (ECS) is too high. CMIP6 is running still even hotter than CMIP5 and using ECS of 3 to 5° C rather than ~ 1.2° C as highlighted in Nick Lewis’s 2022 study.

CMIP6 should have been better because it incorporated solar particle forcing (Matthes et. al.) and as they incorporate more elements of natural forcing (an active area of research as we still do not have a predictive theory for climate), the effect is highlighting more underlying problems with the models.

However, Exxon investigators fell into the same trap that climate modelers of today where they build the models to history match temperatures and then wow, because they can create a model that appears to history match temperatures, they assume it is telling them something. Truth? Anyone can create a model to do this, but it would never mean the model is correct. While the models today are much more complex, they are based on a complex set of non-linear equations, and the understanding of the various sources of nonlineararity is poor. This opens up wide degrees of uncertainty yet wide opportunity for tuning. Furthermore, natural forcing is undercharacterized and deemed inconsequential.

The contrived sense of accomplishment in history matching is spurious correlation for an infinitesimally small period of time. Using Exxon’s internal analysis of CO2 climate forcing is little more than a propaganda tool. Current climate models, much more sophisticated, face the same problem of unknown, false causality.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/09/wrong-media-and-climate-plaintiffs-exxon-cant-have-known-what-is-still-being-studied-and-debated/

*********************************************************

Wrong, Time, Climate Change Did Not Cause Flooding in Europe

Time magazine recently posted an article, titled “Is Climate Change Causing the Deadly Floods in Europe?” that, while providing some balance, still asserts that the recent flooding in Poland and other parts of Europe reflects a broader worsening pattern caused by climate change. This is false. There is no indication in the data showing a “pattern” of increasing flood severity or incidence.

Time admits that it’s “difficult to draw a conclusive link between this event and climate change,” but then says “experts say the most severe floods to hit the region in at least two decades fit into a broader pattern of extreme weather events.”

Later, Time quotes a professor from the University of Bristol who recommends attribution studies to determine whether or not the flooding is caused by climate change:

“It’s really difficult to relate a single event to climate change impact,” says Paul Bates, a professor of hydrology at the University of Bristol who specializes in the science of flooding. Bates says that in order to definitively prove whether or not climate change contributed to the flooding in Europe, researchers will need to conduct an attribution study, which takes at least several weeks. “Every time we do an attribution study, we tend to find that the events we see have been exacerbated by climate change, and I’m pretty sure that will be the case here, but we don’t yet conclusively know,” says Bates.

Several weeks for a peer reviewed study, that would be amazingly rapid.

As Climate Realism has pointed out before many times, attribution studies are over-trusted by the media and scientists, and are often used more like propaganda than science. Attribution studies compare unverified, counterfactual models of the Earth’s climate and emissions, assuming ahead of time that any difference between the models is due to human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. Neither model represents the world as it really is, and the modelers assume the conclusion before it is reached, using the models only to confirm their preexisting belief. As a result, the models never discover anything other than a human influence on weather events, and almost invariably suggest that human activities likely contributed to each event studied.

While it is true that warmer air holds more water, that does not translate directly to an increase in intense rainfall. Also, warming does not occur consistently even within a nation’s own borders, with some places (like cities) seeing more warming than the countryside, which in some places can even see cooling trends. Global average warming does not cause regional storms.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report indicates that there is no sign yet of any increase in heavy precipitation and pluvial (flash or rain-caused) flooding. And only under the most extreme, unrealistic scenario does the IPCC speculate with medium confidence that climate change might impact flooding after 2050.

The European flood discussed in the article was not unprecedented. The Danube River, which carried much of the flooding in Europe this year, had an even worse flood in 1997. Similar floods devastated Budapest in 1838, Vienna has always fought with the Danube, and there are many other longstanding historical records of major floods throughout history in the region.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/09/wong-time-climate-change-did-not-cause-flooding-in-europe/

********************************************************

Two Days of Fall Weather in Late Summer Demonstrates Industrial Wind’s Incredible Costs

Here in Ontario and elsewhere in North America we are heading for the fall and the weather it brings us, but waking up this morning in Prince Edward County our outside thermometer noted it was only 8°C. Had fall arrived early was the question on my mind! That question led to a check on the temperature in Timmins, Ontario at 8 AM and the weather network noted it was a not so balmy 4°C! Hardly “summer weather”!

So does that mean we have solved climate change or did the fox take over the chicken coop when the IWT (industrial wind turbines), solar panels, and battery storage suddenly became de rigour?

It is humorous and somewhat frightening here in Ontario when one reads a recent article in the Financial Post about the plans to add 5,000 MW of new capacity as directed by the Minister of Energy and Electrification, Steven Lecce! Some of that may be natural gas generation which has the ability to ramp up or down unlike renewable generation so actually available when it is needed and help to avoid blackouts.

The article contains quotes from lawyers and eco-warriors such as Keith Brooks, programs director at Environmental Defence, who blatantly claim solar and wind generation projects are more affordable then natural gas generation. It should be noted those two sources of generation can only be ramped down so when demand is heading higher, they are totally useless!

It appears those the media frequently contact, and quote, are those who dance around the truth and are members of the Church of the Climate Change Cult. Maybe those reporters should either spend some time examining what is actually happening or get quotes from those who understand how the electricity grid operates!

The recent two days of cool fall weather while we are still in the summer season are great examples of what the media appear to ignore!

What Actually Happens:

September 6th and 7th were fall like days (no air-conditioners on and no furnaces running) resulting in Ontario’s peak demand only reaching 17,961MW at Hour 14 on the 6th (a workday) and 15,284 MW on the 7th at Hour 20! While the sun wasn’t shining as long as it does in the early summer the wind was blowing and those IWT were humming. The IWT generated 29% of their capacity on the 6th and 40% on the 7th! It is worth mentioning that IESO forecast those IWT will only average 15% during the summer months but 45% during the Spring and Fall.

Despite those two low demand days IESO accepted most of the IWT generation only curtailing about 4,500 MWh on the 7th! On September 6th IESO accepted 34,211 MWh and on the 7th forecast they would generate 55,211 MWh but only accepted 50,726 MWh.

Where Was that IWT Generation Used:

As noted above Ontario’s demand for generation on both days was low and as it turned out our baseload power (nuclear and most hydro) could have supplied what we needed for most hours but those “first-to-the-grid” rights enjoyed by the IWT owners takes precedent. As a result they were handed just over $12 million dollars for UNNEEDED surplus power!

IESO were busy on both days selling off our surplus power for cheap prices averaging only $27.30/MWh (2.7 cents/kWh) on the 6th and a piddly $20.34/MWh (2 cents/kWh) on the 7th! The result is we recovered only about $1.9 Million of the IWT costs meaning we ratepayers and taxpayers coughed up over $10 million for just those two days for the unneeded power.

Over those two days IESO exported over 153,000 MWh or 68,000 MWh more then the 85,000 MWh those IWT generated suggesting some baseload power along with solar, hydro and gas plant were surplus generation and added more costs to the $10 million for those IWT! Needless to say Quebec, New York and Michigan were scooping up that cheap power paid for by us Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers. That cheap power allows Hydro-Quebec to keep their hydro reservoirs full so they can continue to sell their power under those lucrative contracts they have with several US entities.

Conclusion:

Should we be confident that Minister Lecce and IESO are viewing future demand in the province in a sensible way or is the planned full “electrification” simply a “pie in the sky” outlook. Driving costs of our electric generation up in the manner we Ontarians have become accustomed to will not attract the jobs the Federal or Provincial governments tell us and will instead increase our costs of living along with energy poverty.

The media and the politicians should stop believing we can change the climate by eliminating our use of fossil fuels as IWT and solar panels, along with battery storage are not the panacea the eco-warrior’s push!

Time to recognize the fox has indeed “taken over the chicken coop”!

https://parkergallantenergyperspectivesblog.wordpress.com/2024/09/08/two-days-of-fall-weather-in-late-summer-demonstrates-industrial-winds-incredible-costs/

*******************************************

Political ambition may endanger Australia's energy costs for a long time

Robert Gottliebsen

The intense political pressure to win the renewables/climate debate is now creating great danger to Australia’s long term energy costs.

Both the ALP government and the Coalition are setting themselves on a path that, unless modified, could make us a high cost poorer nation unable to afford current social services.

To accuse both major political parties of getting it wrong is obviously a big call for a commentator, but when you’ve been around six decades, you get a sixth sense that tells you when politicians are aiming at elections.

My justification for these statements start with clear facts:

* Both the ALP and the Coalition attempted to reduce emissions with major projects, which have failed. The Coalition’s attempt via Snowy hydro is plagued with exploding costs and delays.

The ALP’s equivalent disaster is massive wind and solar farms in rural areas where the farmers are white-hot with anger, and that anger is multiplied many times when the projects attempt to bring power to market through some of Australia’s best rural and tourist areas with ugly transmission towers. When projects don’t have community support, they normally fail and end in courts to enrich lawyers.

* Given the above big project disasters, the target of reducing emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 is simply not achievable, and politicians who claim it can be done are either lying or ignoring the facts.

* We now have more major project plans where have not learned either from the above two disasters or from the projects that have worked.

One idea is to connect Tasmanian power to the mainland. This was originally a pre-election, a Coalition plan. The costs are becoming monumental and it simply not feasible on present technology.

Victoria is planning an uneconomic Bass Strait wind farm, and NSW has a similar project offshore from the Hunter Region. Victoria is the most advanced, and it is being erected in the middle of a global wind farm boom with costs will saddle the state with uneconomic power for a generation. While there is debate about nuclear costs, there was no proper debate about the enormous cost of uneconomic offshore wind projects. This reflects very poorly on the media and on the opposition.

Subsidies of around $4bn and $5bn a year to generate big profits for the project investors are on the table.

The most promising technology is nuclear, and the world is now spending vast sums to adapt it to current conditions. In the UK, Rolls-Royce has joined nuclear development. We don’t have to commit at this stage, but we can undertake preliminary cost estimates that show that nuclear is far cheaper than offshore wind. But both technologies are likely to improve dramatically in the next two or three years.

It is completely ludicrous to ban any technology, as the ALP has done with nuclear.

While the world has decided that nuclear looks the best option, we don’t have to race in and commit to nuclear at this stage. After two disasters, it’s time to go for cheaper options that will be popular in the community.

* Arguably, Daniel Andrews led one of the nation’s worst state governments since federation. But he won three elections because he was one of the best “one-liners” in the country, and he embarked on an infrastructure program – removing rail level crossings – that worked.

The politicians in both major parties can actually learn from Andrews. Embark on projects that have community support and work. If you don’t do that and saddle the country with uneconomic power generation, the whole process of emissions reductions will be put in jeopardy, which is happening in many parts of the world, including Europe.

Here are some simple ideas that will work and will have popular appeal among Australians.

We have large areas of factory/warehouse roof space in all our capital cities. We should embark on a program of incentives that puts solar panels on every available factory/warehouse roof. They can be linked to the established network which will require alterations that are a lot easier and, cheaper than those destroying our countryside

And the investment can be used to improve the economics of home rooftop generation. It will attract capital investment.

There are areas near transmission lines where wind farms can be erected if the farmers are happy to sell their land or rent the space. There are many such areas around our cities.

One of Australia’s biggest and lowest cost gas deposit sits on the national pipeline but is being blocked by one person – Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio.

The deposit does require six wells to determine permeability, but the deep water in which the gas is dissolved can be used to promote irrigation and carbon reducing plantings to make Victoria’s on shore non fracking gas the lowest net emitting gas in the world.

Gas was always seen as an interim stage and our unique gas cannot only help the nation but gas fired power stations can replace ageing brown coal station with enormous reductions in emissions especially when combined with the use of water for stored carbon plantings.

Naturally, the Palestine/Green movement will oppose it, but I think Australians will understand the benefits. Selected coal eliminating gas power than works well with renewables helps us buy time so that we can actually undertake a major project whether it be nuclear, technology improved offshore wind or other global developments without the sort of disasters that have so far plagued our carbon reduction efforts.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/political-madness-may-endanger-our-energy-costs-for-a-long-time/news-story/0a01fb8da8dbba9d08f7c22f011a4f36

***************************************

2024-09-23T22:45:00.000+12:00

Climate Negotiations on Hold, Pending U.S. Elections

No matter how big China’s economy has become and how outsized Russia’s influence on geopolitics has grown, the United States is still the straw that stirs the drink on climate policy, an article published in the Japan Times shows.

The article, “Trump stalks global climate talks as COP29 draws near,” describes the planning and negotiations, or more accurately the lack thereof, going on in the lead-up to the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 29) to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 11 through 22. Planning for these conferences, including settling on a theme or main focus, begins almost as soon as the previous year’s event ends, so a year of scheduling and planning goes into it.

In the run-up to each COP, nations send representatives to multiple meetings to establish the framework of topics to be discussed and to negotiate treaty language in anticipation of the lead negotiators arriving, so everyone will be on the same page. The main topic for this meeting is supposed to be (and not for the first time) “climate finance” (it’s always about money, isn’t it?): who pays (rich nations), who gets paid (developing countries), how much, on what timetable, and through what mechanism.

Despite advance agreement on the main topic of the conference, it seems the negotiations have gotten bogged down, in no large part because the payor countries are uncertain what the United States will do or what role it will play if Donald Trump gets reelected as president. The United Nations and most developing countries have argued over the years that the United States, as the biggest source of historical carbon dioxide emissions, should pay the most for climate reparations, mitigation, and adaptation. It hasn’t worked out that way under any administration so far, and Trump was by far the most recalcitrant on this point.

Trump continues to refer to climate change as a “hoax,” saying or implying China and other economic and geopolitical adversary and competitor nations are using the issue as a backdoor means of diminishing the United States, harming its economy, and reducing its influence globally. In keeping with that belief, Trump as president cut climate funding and programs, reprioritized policies to advance America’s interests over those of the “global community” concerned about climate change, implemented policies to unleash American energy dominance, and withdrew the country from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. If Trump is reelected president, COP 29 negotiators fear, probably rightly, that he will undercut the Biden administration’s commitments to policies intended to cut emissions sharply and to contribute a lot of money to various UN climate slush funds.

Japan Times describes the problems hampering significant climate negotiations in advance of COP 29:

The prospect of Donald Trump returning as president is hanging over crucial U.N.-sponsored climate negotiations, with countries “holding back” their positions until they know who sits in the White House.

Veteran observers of climate diplomacy say uncertainty over the election outcome is stalking this November’s COP29 summit, which starts just six days after voters decide between Trump and Kamala Harris.

The election lands awkwardly as governments try to build global consensus in coming months not just around climate but stronger protections for the environment and a treaty to address plastic pollution.

As president, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement on global warming—Joe Biden later rejoined the accord—and there are concerns over what his re-election might mean for climate action.

This year’s negotiations hope to increase money for poorer countries to handle climate change, but some governments have not proposed a concrete dollar figure, wary of committing too soon. …

This apparent wait-and-see approach has frustrated those seeking a new long-term commitment at COP29 from rich nations to pay the trillions of dollars needed for clean energy and climate adaptation in developing countries.

With just two months to go, there still isn’t an agreed definition of “climate finance” let alone how much should be paid, which countries should receive it and how, and who should be on the hook for it.

Wealthy donors historically obligated to pay, like the United States, European Union and Canada, have not put forward a figure, instead pushing for China and other big emerging economies to also chip in.

“Governments are holding back, and they’re trying to hedge their bets. Many of them don’t have a strong enough motive to move,” said Tom Evans, policy advisor at E3G, a think tank.

The U.S. election was “hanging over everyone, and it’s hard to look past that sometimes.”

Clearly, other developed nations can move forward with trillions in climate commitments without the United States participating, but no one wants to go first or be committed to spending scarce resources on a plan that the top industrialized nation is not also committing money to. Doing so would place them at a competitive disadvantage, something they won’t abide—even, evidently, at the risk of destroying the planet, which is what they claim is at stake without action.

This problem for COP 29’s negotiators is further complicated by the recent widespread grassroots rejection of various climate policies in EU countries, reflected in protests and electoral gains by climate realists and the replacement of presidents and prime ministers, both in member states and in the European Parliament. In Canada, meanwhile, the Trudeau government’s coalition has collapsed in disagreements over climate policies.

I have discussed what’s gone on in the EU previously, where right-of-center parties, some relatively newly arrived on the scene specifically in response to costly climate initiatives, have gained representation in various countries’ parliaments, some as the largest or at least the swing vote party, and where right-of-center leaders have come to power. One of the common policy threads through all these right-wing gains and victories is a rejection of the extreme climate commitments and policies imposed in response to past COP agreements. Nations have rolled back various climate crisis technology mandates and blocked new proposals.

The Heartland Institute has played a leading role in the EU’s shift on climate change. Austrian members of the European Parliament asked Heartland President James Taylor to deliver a presentation to members of parliament. After his talk and one-on-one meetings with various delegations, the EU defeated legislation mandating the European Union get to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Before Taylor’s talk and discussions, the proposal had been fast-tracked for approval.

Even the extreme, green, virtue-signaling government of our neighbor to the north is feeling the heat for pushing too far, too fast on extreme climate policies. With grassroots groups raising a ruckus with their local MPs, leading to shifts in local and regional elections, the Trudeau government lost its ruling coalition partner when Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) withdrew from the governing coalition. The NDP’s support had been crucial to Trudeau’s climate initiatives, which have raised prices and cost jobs. The increasing backlash against these policies led Singh to end the NDP’s coalition agreement.

It is an open question whether Singh will now join the opposition Conservative Party’s call for a national carbon tax referendum, which, in the words of Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, would allow Canadian citizens to decide directly “between the Costly Coalition of NDP-Liberals who tax your food, punish your work, take your money, double your housing costs and unleash crime and drugs in your communities OR common sense Conservatives who will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime.”

Rising costs have led to a resurgence of the Conservatives, with the ruling Liberals losing previously safe seats in by-elections and polls showing the Liberals currently 20 percentage points behind the Conservatives if elections were called today.

COP 29 will still be held. After all, the ruling elites and bureaucrats will not forego their luxury junket to Baku—it’s the event of the season—but with the turmoil roiling the West it is unclear whether much will be accomplished besides the spewing of a lot of hot air from the attendees and carbon-dioxide emissions from their planes and cars.

And despite the impression that such an outcome would be bad for developing nations, those countries, who come with their hands out to each conference, are doing well amid climate change, with growing GDP’s and increasing crop production and human lifespans. The biggest threats to progress in the developing world are continued reliance on Western handouts with strings attached; government and financial climate policies and restrictions hampering fossil fuel use in Africa, Asia, and South America; and civil strife. Climate change isn’t harming the poor; climate policies are.

https://heartland.org/opinion/climate-change-weekly-519-climate-negotiations-on-hold-pending-u-s-elections/

****************************************************

Kamala Harris’ Non Sequitur on Energy Independence

We don’t want to be dependent on foreign oil, and we should invest in diverse forms of energy. That’s what we heard from sitting Vice President Kamala Harris in the most recent debate spectacle.

Her exact words: “My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”

Now let’s be fair. If she wants to persuade people to spend more money on “diverse” energy sources, then this is a clever angle. If you’re one of those stubborn contrarians opposed to scaring people about the climate, then perhaps you’ll join up in the spirit of American independence.

Renewables are not just about being green—they’re about freedom from the stranglehold of foreign powers. And with people wising up to the not-so-green realities of wind and solar, we would be prudent to find an alternate virtue to which we can appeal. Independence. Very clever.

So much for fair. Now let’s be accurate. If your goal is to avoid dependence on foreign oil, then we can simply use American oil. Our country is flush with the stuff, and we are quite good at getting it out of the ground, thanks especially to the fracking boom.

Ever since 2018, the U.S. has been the world’s largest oil producer—a title previously held by Saudi Arabia and Russia. Among countries well-positioned for oil independence, ours is head of the class. But that’s not a complete picture.

It’s one thing to have the oil (geologically speaking). It’s another to extract it, transport it, refine it into usable products, and get those products to the consumer. Thanks to human ingenuity, we have the science and engineering to do those things in a largely safe and responsible manner. (The dramatic reduction in methane emissions is a good example.)

Accidents are far less frequent than even just 20 or 30 years ago. But even with responsible industry behavior, we face a persistent obstacle—government behavior. The reasons are a topic for another day, but it is a plain fact we have government officials and agencies who raise themselves up as fierce enemies of our friend, the hydrocarbon.

So, they do things like shut down pipeline projects. And they arbitrarily raise the cost to drill on public land while simultaneously cutting the cost for producing “renewable” energy on the same land. And they impose exceedingly aggressive limits and thresholds that threaten grid reliability.

And the pièce de résistance: They team up with media friends to inundate the citizenry with alarmist messaging until we’re all convinced we must quit our addiction to fossil fuels or risk our own destruction. If your friends from the oil and gas industry look tired, this is why.

I should point out this sort of obstructionism does not fully permeate our government at all levels. There are pockets of reasonable thinkers who make some effort toward smart decisions about energy policy. But the anti-hydrocarbon religion has been sufficiently evangelized so as to hinder what ought to be one of our most revered industries. It is certainly the most valuable, existentially speaking.

As we say in The BEN Declaration, energy independence is essential to American independence. In this regard, we agree with Harris: We don’t want dependence on foreign oil. But her solution as advertised is disingenuous and defies fundamental logic.

Very recently, I wrote a blog post where I employed the metaphor of a horse race, the horses being various energy sources. The article ended with the notion that someone might be throwing rocks in the path of the lead horse. And then I watched a presidential debate where one of the candidates implied that the lead horse from our own country cannot finish the race.

So, naturally, she would like us to shoot that horse and put our “investment” elsewhere. Say, there’s a nice palomino over here with a beautiful gold coat and a lovely white mane. Unfortunately, it only has three legs.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/09/20/kamala-harris-non-sequitur-energy-independence/

*****************************************************

No, Daily Climate, People Need Protection from Higher Energy Costs and Weather, Not Climate Change

A recent post at The Daily Climate news website, titled “Op-ed: People need shelter from climate change — their health hangs in the balance,” claims that climate change is making it harder for people to stay safe from the elements and extreme weather, and that federal housing policy is how to fix that problem. This is false on multiple fronts. Climate change is not causing an increase in dangerous conditions for people, and federal policies that involve subsidized housing will not protect homeless people from weather threats.

The authors assert that vice president Kamala Harris’ proposals to expand federal housing policies, including using federal funds to build housing and down payment assistance, “is actually a climate change adaptation policy” because people need shelter from extreme weather. The Daily Climate refers to this summer as the warmest on record and hypes an early start to the Atlantic hurricane season, asserting that “it is growing increasingly difficult to weather the many different catastrophes — a critical threat to health — that climate change is throwing at us.”

Continuing, they write that it is also becoming more difficult for Americans “to take refuge from climate threats at home, as the cost of housing keeps rising.”

They point out correctly that homeless people are more likely to become ill and die from exposure to extreme high temperatures because of a lack of shelter and air conditioning. This, however, is not because of climate change. In fact, none of the things this article asserts as threats to American families because of climate change are genuine.

Regarding the “hottest on record” claims, as always, it depends on what record you look at. As Climate Realism points out here, here, and here, these claims are at best speculative, even though alarmists present them as definite. Prior to satellites, there are almost no records outside of the U.S. and Europe. We are forced to rely on proxy data, which again are location-specific, but even so, many of them indicate that there were several periods in just the last 10,000 years that were warmer than today.

Regarding hurricanes, there was a single early powerful hurricane that came outside the normal window, but the rest of the season has been remarkably quiet. Fearmongering on hurricanes this year, as with many previous above average hurricane season predictions in the past, is falling extremely flat. Global tropical cyclone accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is well within normal bounds this year, according to available data.

But the major point of the article is that extreme weather is posing an ever greater threat to an increasing number of people, and especially American families, than before, and this is simply not true.

While it is true that people who are homeless or who don’t have adequate housing and electricity are more susceptible to temperature related illnesses and death, heat and even more so cold, incidences of of people dying from those conditions has declined rapidly around the world over the past hundred plus years of modest warming. It is especially telling that the article focuses on heat, when it is cold that is the real killer. A 2021 Lancet study found that overall deaths due to extreme temperatures have declined in large part due to a massive drop in cold-related deaths.

Ironically, The Daily Climate post complains about the high costs of utility bills, and therefore air conditioning and heating, which are becoming increasingly expensive precisely because of the fossil fuel policies that these same alarmists promote.

Studies have found that Biden’s EPA rules and regulations targeting power plants are expected to cause instability in the electric grid and lead to massive blackouts, because the expectations of the policies are not technologically sound, or even possible, and will only lead to a reduction of power supply. Wind and solar are not dispatchable power, and battery technology is not anywhere near scalable for what is needed. This causes higher prices and less power reliability, which won’t help anyone trying to handle even natural weather extremes. Indeed, real world data suggests that Biden’s energy and climate policies have driven the recent large increases in energy costs across the board, impacting poorer households the most.

https://climaterealism.com/2024/09/no-daily-climate-people-need-protection-from-higher-energy-costs-and-weather-not-climate-change/

**********************************************

Energy entrepreneur says Australia’s solar and battery boom is a ‘clear and present danger’

Israel’s booby-trap explosions – inside walkie-talkies and pagers – that killed and injured Hezbollah operatives has sparked a chilling warning that Australia’s battery storage systems are vulnerable to similar attacks.

While Australia isn’t facing any active threats, Brian Craighead – chief executive of Energy Renaissance which has developed a “cyber secure battery management system” with the CSIRO to power defence bases – says Australia’s love affair with solar power, and cheap Chinese-made batteries, has left the nation exposed.

He says the “hidden threat to national security” is in the software of about 250,000 home batteries that have been installed across Australia – “220,000 of which are from potentially non-friendly” sources.

“These things are good until they turn bad,” Mr Craighead said.

“When everyone talks about battery safety, we tend to think about the chemical stuff – these fires that you see on videos of Tesla cars going up. But those are relatively unusual. The key thing to focus on is battery software … that’s what protects them from overcharging.

“Let’s say you were a bad actor from a bad country, here’s what you could do, and this would be horribly easy. For example, you could say on January 7, 2025, I’m going to turn off the overcharge on 200,000 batteries installed in homes in Australia. Nothing is going to happen until then.”

Mr Craighead said the batteries would then keep charging with solar energy, instead of “stopping at a certain point” and “overcharge is when all hell breaks loose”.

“Whenever you talk about battery problem, it’s because it’s overcharging. Consider that a standard home battery contains approximately 7,500 times more energy than a pager. The catastrophic potential if such a device were compromised is immense,” he said.

“A co-ordinated attack exploiting these vulnerabilities could lead to widespread fires, explosions, and a crippling of our energy infrastructure. The risk extends beyond individual homes. Large, imported grid-connected batteries are becoming integral to Australia’s national energy grid. These massive storage systems, often managed by foreign-developed software, could be susceptible to cyber-attacks or sabotage, posing a threat to national security and public safety.

“There’s a clear and present danger.”

The nature of the risk is similar to the one linked to the boom in “smart home” devices. Hackers have infiltrated devices from baby monitors to spy on families, webcams have been hijacked to take down computer networks, while home thermostats have been raised – given most lack the virus protection and security updates that are found in PCs and smartphones.

Hackers have infiltrated devices from baby monitors to spy on families, and webcams to take down computer networks,
Hackers have infiltrated devices from baby monitors to spy on families, and webcams to take down computer networks,
And when it comes to batteries, Ms Craighead said most people did not think of them as smart devices.

“We describe this as a malevolent actor issue but equally it’s just incompetence. Think of IoT (Internet of Things devices). They just plug them in and nobody maintains the IoT software, so that smart camera you have is massively open to a hack.

“Chinese batteries are being dumped into Australia at the moment – they’re not being sold anywhere else. So it’s probably just as possible that through sheer negligence and incompetence this cheap battery, whoever built it has gone or it has been rebadged three times. They’re not maintaining it.”

The US banned the Pentagon from buying batteries from six Chinese manufacturers earlier this year.

Mr Craighead said it was not too late for the Australian government to take action, urging them to mandate that batteries are cyber-secure and issue product recalls if they’re not.

Energy Renaissance developed a cyberscure battery management system with the CSIRO, which embeds security measures at the core of the battery’s operation, protecting agains malicious interference in the nation’s energy grid.

“There is an architecture to this. We went to CSIRO, and it cost us millions, because they were the only ones that Defence would trust to do it the right way. But nobody does that because the pressure is to get the cheapest batteries in, buy them from China, plug them in and off we go.

“If you said you wanted to store 100 cans of diesel in your granny’s garage, you’d probably think twice about it. But because it (a battery) is this little thing in a box that looks cool, you never really think about it in that way. Any everything I’m saying, just multiply it by 1000 or 10,000 when it comes to big batteries. It’s nuts.

“It’s like pink batts on steroids. That’s the level of risk we’ve got right now.”

Mr Craighead was referring to the Rudd government’s $2.45bn Home Insulation Program, which was axed in 2010 after it was linked to three deaths and more than 200 house fires.

“The tragic events in Lebanon serve as a sad reminder of the potential dangers lurking within unsecured technology. As Australia continues its transition towards renewable energy, we must recognise the importance of securing the systems upon which we increasingly rely.

“There is a path forward. We can mitigate these risks by embracing secure, Australian-made solutions and enforcing strict cybersecurity protocols. The power that fuels our lives should be a source of security and confidence, not vulnerability. Now is the time to act decisively.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/energy-entrepreneur-says-australias-solar-and-battery-boom-is-a-clear-and-present-danger/news-story/03511639766fc7101a824789a8a3516a

***************************************

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

***********************************************

2024-09-22T15:26:00.000+12:00

Follow the Science: Biden Climate Policy Is a Fraud

Even Democrats don’t want to hear about climate change. The words were barely mentioned at the convention, and every transcript I examined omitted the once obligatory Biden modifier “existential.”

The reason isn’t a mystery. Joe Biden’s policies are having not the slightest effect on climate change and yet somebody will still have to pay Ford’s $130,000 in losses per electric vehicle in the first quarter. This sum, a calculation shows, is equal to $64.80 per gallon of gasoline saved over four years of average driving. And yes, this amounts to a ludicrously costly subsidy to somebody else to use the gasoline that EV drivers are paid to forgo.

Voilà, the flaw in the Biden strategy from the get-go, which completely defeats the goal of reducing emissions.
Regular readers may feel vindicated by a new study this week in the prestigious journal Science. It examines 1,500 “climate” policies adopted around the world and finds only 63—or 4%—produced any emissions reductions. Even so, press accounts strained to muddy the study’s simple lesson so let’s spell it out: Taxing carbon reduces emissions. Subsidizing “green energy” doesn’t.

In fact, this should be old hat. One of the most cited papers in climate economics is 2012’s “Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels?” by the University of Oregon’s Richard York. His answer: not “when net effects are considered.”

Mr. York and a colleague returned with a 2019 empirical paper showing that while “renewable energy sources compose a larger share of overall energy production, they are not replacing fossil fuels but are rather expanding the overall amount of energy that is produced.”

The result can’t really surprise the Obama-Biden Democrats, who sponsored a 2012 National Research Council study of their own, led by a future Nobel Prize winner no less. For similar reasons, the author didn’t mince words, concluding that green subsidies were a “poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases and achieving climate-change objectives.”

Yet this poor strategy Mr. Biden would later quadruple down on with upward of $1 trillion in taxpayer and energy consumer money.

I won’t rehearse the official lying that went into selling this folly, especially in the form of Mr. Biden’s laughably named Inflation Reduction Act. But nothing in presidential memory resembles Mr. Biden’s record of exceptionally unwise choices in office.

You know the litany: the second Covid spendathon that caused 9% inflation, the border collapse, the Afghanistan withdrawal, his attempt to appease Vladimir Putin after lying about a Russian connection to Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Mr. Biden’s green-energy strategy was wrongheaded by every bit of economic advice, with nothing to show now except billions added to the deficit and a budding disaster from forcing Detroit to build EVs the public doesn’t want.

So let us welcome the new Science magazine study. “Backfire” was a term already turning up in the economics literature for policies that claim to reduce emissions but actually increase them.

Green-energy subsidies, in the first instance, subsidize extra fossil-fuel consumption to produce battery minerals, wind turbines and solar panels. U.S. policies particularly incentivize oversize SUVs whose net emissions are greater than any gasoline-fueled miles they could possibly displace.

When Washington spends hundreds of billions to lure some drivers to use EVs, guess what? It ends up making gasoline cheaper and more available for other consumers around the world to use.

The 2023 data have arrived. Fossil-fuel use, emissions and green energy all have grown right alongside each other, as economics predicted. Global emissions finally broke the 40 billion gigaton threshold, having doubled since 1984.

A few years ago the United Nations climate panel dropped its once-standard emissions scenario RCP 8.5 as unduly pessimistic. It may have to be revived. RCP 8.5 was a model of emissions under systematically bad global economic policies, such as Mr. Biden’s green-energy trade wars and industrial pork barrel, that inhibit the global economy’s quest for energy efficiency.

Obama handler David Axelrod ventured on CNN this week that the Democratic convention had turned out to be a “values-laden” affair, short on “policy specifics.”

This understates how thoroughly the convention left voters having to guess how Kamala Harris will act on a myriad of issues. Their only guide is apparently that she doesn’t kick puppies and Donald Trump does.

Every scintilla suggests Ms. Harris nevertheless would bring better natural judgment than Mr. Biden. But because she, like America, has been swathed in the New York Times’s unanalytical, uncritical cheerleading, she will still likely be dumbfounded to learn the truth about Biden climate policies.

Perhaps we should say “if” she chooses to hear the truth. Because there’s a good chance she will keep throwing your money and mine on the pyre to avoid admitting a mistake.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-follow-the-science-biden-climate-policy-is-a-fraud/ar-AA1pkEOG

******************************************

LA Times: ‘To fix climate anxiety (and also climate change), we first have to fix individualism’

By Rosanna Xia - La Times Staff Writer: How do you cope? I feel the sorrow, the quiet plea for guidance every time someone asks me this question. As an environmental reporter dedicated to helping people make sense of climate change, I know I should have answers. But the truth is, it took me until now to face my own grief. ...With each new heat record shattered, and each new report declaring a code red for humanity, I can’t help but feel like we’re just counting down the days to our own extinction. ...

How can they feel hopeful about the future, they asked, when, on top of everything already stacked against them, they also have to worry about wildfires, extreme heat and air pollution getting out of control?

‘Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question’ asks: With American society feeling more socially and politically polarized than ever, is it right to bring another person into the world?

When talking about climate anxiety, it’s important to differentiate whether you’re assessing these emotions as a mental health condition, or as a cultural phenomenon. Let’s start with mental health: Polls show climate anxiety is on the rise and that people all around the world are losing sleep over climate change. Organizations like the Climate-Aware Therapist Directory and the American Psychiatric Assn. have put together an increasing number of guides and resources to help more people understand how climate change has affected our emotional well-being.

But you can’t treat climate anxiety like other forms of anxiety, and here’s where the cultural politics come in: The only way to make climate anxiety go away is to make climate change go away, and given the fraught and deeply systemic underpinnings of climate change, we must also consider this context when it comes to our climate emotions.

“Climate anxiety can’t be limited to just a clinical setting — we have to take it out of the therapy room and look at it through a lens of privilege, and power, and the economic, historical and social structures that are at the root of the problem,” said Sarah Jaquette Ray, whose book “A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety” is a call to arms to think more expansively about our despair. “Treating a person’s climate anxiety without challenging these systems only addresses the symptoms, not the causes... and if white or more privileged emotions get the most airtime, and if we don’t see how climate is intersecting with all these other problems, that can result in a greater silencing of the people most impacted.”

The trick to fixing climate anxiety is to fix individualism, she said. Start small, tap into what you’re already good at, join something bigger than yourself. ... And by fixing individualism, as many young activists like Patel have already figured out, we just might have a better shot at fixing climate change.

https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/09/11/la-times-to-fix-climate-anxiety-and-also-climate-change-we-first-have-to-fix-individualism-feels-like-were-just-counting-down-the-days-to-our-own-extinction/

********************************************

Talking points on Kamala Harris's fracking reversal

Kamala Harris is still for banning fracking—as is everyone who advocates the net-zero agenda

Myth: Kamala Harris used to be for banning fracking, but now she supports fracking.

Truth: Kamala Harris is still for banning fracking—because she is still for the net-zero agenda that requires banning fracking along with all other fossil fuel activities.

Kamala Harris, who in 2019 said, “There is no question I am in favor of banning fracking,” now tells voters in fracking-dependent states like Pennsylvania that she is no longer wants to ban fracking.

They shouldn’t believe her, since Harris’s net-zero agenda requires banning fracking.1

To know what to make of Harris’s reversal on a fracking ban, we need to first recognize that banning fracking would have been one of the most harmful policies in US history. It would have destroyed 60% of our oil production and 75% of our natural gas production.2

Fracking is very likely the single most beneficial technological development of the last 25 years. By extracting cheap, abundant oil and natural gas from once useless rock, it has made energy far cheaper than it would otherwise be.

Fracking and agriculture: The availability of food is highly determined by the cost of oil, which powers crucial machinery, and gas, which is the basis of the fertilizer that allows us to feed 8 billion people. Thanks to fracking, the world is far better fed than it would otherwise be.

Given how life-giving fracking is to humanity and how essential it is to the prosperity and security of the US, any politician who has ever suggested banning fracking should be considered an energy menace until and unless they issue a deeply reflective apology.

Harris and others who have advocated banning fracking should apologize along the following lines: “I called for banning something crucial because I listened only to exaggerated claims about its negatives and ignored its huge benefits. I am deeply sorry, and pledge to do better.”

Someone who comes to understand why it’s wrong to ban fracking—because the benefits you would destroy are far greater than the harms you would avoid—should also understand that the same problem exists with the broader anti-fossil-fuel, “net zero” agenda.

Harris has not apologized whatsoever for her support of a murderous fracking ban.

And far from questioning the anti-fossil-fuel, “net zero” agenda, she has remained 100% committed to it.

Which means she’s an enemy of not just fracking but all fossil fuel use.

The guiding energy goal of Biden/Harris is “net zero by 2050”—rapidly banning activities that add CO2 to the atmosphere.

Since there’s no scalable way to capture CO2, burning fossil fuels necessarily means more CO2.

“Net zero” = “ban most fossil fuel use”—including fracking.3

Given that “net zero by 2050” requires banning virtually all fossil fuel activity, the whole conversation about whether Kamala Harris wants to ban fracking is absurd.

You can’t be for fracking and for net-zero anymore than you can be for penicillin and for banning all antibiotics.

For “net zero by 2050” advocates there’s no question of if they want to ban particular fossil fuel activities such as fracking in the next 25 years, just when and in what order.

If Harris doesn’t try to ban fracking soon she’ll just try to ban other vital fossil fuel activities.

The Biden-Harris administration has already shown us that they will try to do everything they can to ban fossil fuels in pursuit of net-zero—and that they will only be limited by pro-fossil-fuel political opponents’ opposition and the resistance of voters.

Both Biden and Harris made it clear when campaigning that their guiding energy goal was “net zero by 2050” and that meant rapidly banning fossil fuels.

Biden: “I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel.” Harris’s cosponsored Green New Deal called for banning fossil fuels.4

When they entered office, Biden and Harris continued to make “net zero by 2050” their guiding goal by rejoining the Paris Agreement that committed us to it and by announcing a “whole of government” focus on “climate”—code for: rapidly getting rid of fossil fuels.

https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/talking-points-on-kamala-harriss

****************************************

Wanted: a leader to change the world

The political leader who unmasks and debunks the false premise on which climate alarm is built will change the world. I say this apropos the global headlong rush into economic disaster favoured by fanatical climate alarmists like UN Secretary-General Antonio ‘boiling earth’ Guterres, King (and climate change book author) Charles III, Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris ‘renewables are cheap’ Bowen … and the Teals.

To debunk the hysterical and unscientifically dishonest climate alarmism is not that hard to do, given the crowd of credible climate scientists not bound by the ruling orthodoxy who are more than happy to provide good evidence that there is no climate emergency; fossil fuels do not drive global warming; carbon dioxide is a clean trace element in our atmosphere essential to life on this planet; and that the claim of a consensus (‘the science is in’) is false – and blatantly anti-scientific.

Don’t listen to me, check the evidence as provided by hundreds of scientists. But the starting point from a policy point of view is that the climate change debate has long ago shed its skin of climate science and revealed the raw political agenda underneath: economic revolution, empowering the new elites, such as the economic carpetbaggers on the renewables gravy train.

Am I seriously suggesting that debunking climate alarmism would change the world? I am. Just as climate change hysteria has changed the world, calming the alarmism would, too. Think of the plethora of panicky policies enacted to chase emission reductions. Think of the reckless manufacture and installation of wind turbines and solar panels across the land – around the world. That’s just the top-line policies … most readers (especially in the regions) would be aware of many others.

I recognise that any political leader embarking on such a mission would require powerful arguments – and powerful nerves – to face down a well-embedded climate of orthodox catastrophism. And that’s just within their own party.

But everything is at stake. From the mental health of school children to the economies of the Western world.

So let me kick start the thinking with some observations from scientists working in the subject field:

Writing in June 2022 on clintel.org, petrophysicist Andy May reported:

‘Recently, the Biden administration has tried to use the powers of the SEC to force companies to disclose information on their supposed climate-related business risks through a proposed SEC rule. Two esteemed members of the CO2 Coalition, Princeton Professor, emeritus, William Happer and MIT Professor, emeritus, Richard Lindzen have reviewed the proposed rule and filed a critical comment on the rule with the SEC. In addition, they have filed an amicus curiae court brief with the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stating that they do not believe there is a climate-related risk related to burning fossil fuels, and the resulting CO2 and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.’

Happer and Lindzen also make the observations:

Elites are always searching for ways to advertise their virtue and assert the authority they believe they are entitled to.
They view science as source of authority rather than a process, and they try to appropriate science, suitably and incorrectly simplified, as the basis for their movement.
Movements need goals, and these goals are generally embedded in legislation.
The effect of legislation long outlasts the alleged science. The Immigration Reduction Act of 1924 remained until 1964.
As long as scientists are rewarded for doing so, they are unlikely to oppose the exploitation of science.
Politicians (perhaps a coalition of world-changers?) willing to tackle this consequential issue must be good scouts: be prepared. And brave.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/wanted-a-leader-to-change-the-world/

***************************************

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

***********************************************