This document is part of an archive of postings on Greenie Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written
This is a backup copy of the original blog
29 September, 2023
The Problems With Net Zero
Net zero is in trouble. In utterly predictable trouble, in the king's-wearing-no-clothes trouble.
The signs are all around. Governments from coastal America to Communist China and businesses from automakers to toymakers have promised that they will produce no net carbon emissions by some date conveniently far in the future. But as years have gone on, those dates have come to seem inconveniently near. Something has to give.
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama has described the process of improving societies -- making them more politically democratic, economically advanced and culturally tolerant -- as "getting to Denmark." And in fact, Denmark, though far from perfect, has done a better job of getting there than just about any other country.
Which makes it interesting that Denmark's most widely known business, Lego, has thrown in the figurative towel in its effort to manufacture net-zero bricks. It turns out, as the Wall Street Journal's Dominic Chopping reports, bricks made of corn were "too soft," bricks made of wheat "didn't look right" and bricks made of other materials "proved too hard to pull apart or lost their grip."
Plus, sad to say, bricks made of recycled bottles would emit more carbon than its current processes. Lacking the power of a government to require consumers, at least outside tiny Denmark, to buy a palpably inferior product, Lego will go on emitting just as much carbon per brick as before.
Like the Danish King Canute who brushed aside his English courtiers' urgings that he stop the incoming tide, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delayed from 2030 to 2035 the ban on the sale of gasoline-powered automobiles and also postponed a ban on gas-fired furnaces and water heaters.
Sunak's Conservative party seems unlikely to win the general election, which must be held by January 2025, but he evidently calculated that its chances would be reduced if voters thought his party would within a five-year term force them to buy expensive electric cars that could run out of charge on cold days or expensive heat pumps that produce little heat.
Similarly, Germany's socialist-Green coalition government limited its ban on gas heaters, Poland is suing the European Union over its 2035 gas car ban, and Dutch voters gave first place to a new political party protesting limits on the nation's highly efficient farmers' nitrogen emissions.
Of course, imposing such privations on ordinary citizens is just the point for climate activists who combine a penchant for aristocratic private jet travel with a loathing for the plebeian tastes of low- and middle-income consumers. As the Wall Street Journal's Gerard Baker points out, a British ban on carbon emissions and return to subsistence agriculture "wouldn't make the slightest difference to the climate."
There's similar resistance in the United States, and not just on the Right. Matt Huber, leftist author of "Climate Change as Class War," decries net-zero "climate-minded policymakers" who have moved from "policy tools" to discourage driving and meat-eating to "outright coercion: banning fossil-fuel boilers, gas stoves, internal combustion engines ..."
Speaking of which, one reason the United Auto Workers is on strike against the Big Three -- General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (Chrysler) -- is to bolster its current members against the job losses inevitable if the Biden administration's net zero-inspired electric vehicle policies go into effect. EVs require only 70% as much labor as -- and maybe less than -- gasoline-powered vehicles.
Administration policy aims at a 67% sales share for electric vehicles in the 2030s, astronomically higher than the 7% this year.
Ford announced this week it was "pausing" construction of a battery plant with Chinese technology in Marshall, Michigan, and nonunionized Tesla and foreign-based EV and battery manufacturing is scheduled for nonunionized Sun Belt plants.
President Joe Biden may have marched briefly on the UAW picket line in Michigan, but, writes Michigan-based auto journalist Dale Buss, he is "no ally" of the strike. The UAW has conspicuously not endorsed Biden for reelection.
Net-zero policies get good marks from affluent voters in polls, but, as American Enterprise Institute's Ruy Teixeira writes, "The working class did not really sign up for the rapid green transition envisioned by Biden and most Democrats" -- what Rep. Nancy Pelosi referred to in 2019 as "the Green Dream or whatever they call it."
New York Democrats seeking to phase out gas stoves, California Democrats seeking to ban nonelectric trucks, national Democrats forcing production of electric cars without provision for needed electricity production, transmission lines and charging stations -- these are reasons that, to the puzzlement of liberal pundits, more voters see Biden-era Democrats than Trump-era Republicans as "extreme."
Net zero helps to explain why noncollege whites are less supportive of liberal economic policies than white college graduates. Working-class voters see Democrats not offering them free stuff, but instead piling on costs and preventing them from buying things they want. Net zero indeed.
https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2023/09/27/the-problems-with-net-zero-n2629037
**************************************President Biden’s Offshore Wind Policies Make National Lobster Day a Day to Mourn
National Lobster Day was established by Congress to celebrate the tasty crustacean’s place in American history, culture, and commerce.
Sadly, due to President Biden’s offshore wind policies, and his agencies’ blame shifting, it may soon become a day to memorialize the passing of a great industry, tradition, and a tasty meal.
On December 1, President Joe Biden hosted a state dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron, at which more than 200 Maine lobsters were served.
The dinner was rife with hypocrisy since earlier in his administration, Biden’s National Marine Fisheries Service, an office in the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA), issued new restrictions on Maine’s lobster fishers to protect North American right whales from entanglement with lobster fishing gear.
Mind you, the Biden administration enacted these rules despite limited or no evidence that lobster traps were harming the whales.
Maine’s lobster fishing industry filed a lawsuit to block the rules. The plaintiffs’ claim the rules will force the majority of lobstermen, who are family-owned, single-boat operators, out of business, leaving only a few large-scale operators, who have permits to operate in federal as well as state waters, catching lobster in Maine’s waters.
Although entanglement in fishing gear was implicated in nine NARW deaths since 2017 and 19 serious injuries, none of these deaths was caused by entanglement with lobster fishing gear. NOAA’s own data covering all whale species show discarded fishing nets, long-line fishing gear, monofilament, and nets—all tied to large-scale commercial fishing operations—are responsible for the vast majority of whale entanglement injuries. This abandoned fishing gear is the same material which makes up a large percentage of the plastic waste floating in the world’s oceans and almost all of it comes from overseas commercial fishing operations.
From 2020 through 2022, NOAA determined that no right whales were injured from entanglement in Maine lobster fishing gear. Indeed, there has never been a documented whale death or serious injury linked to the Maine lobster fishery.
If America’s lobster fishers aren’t responsible for the rise in very visible whale deaths over the past few years, then what is.
Collisions with ships are the single biggest human-caused reason for whale deaths in U. S. waters. Despite this, the Biden administration has initiated efforts to build 45,000 megawatts of offshore wind facilities in federal waters by 2035. All of this development and the shipping it requires is right smack dab in the middle of critical whale habitat and migration routes.
Since the COVID pandemic, ports and shipping lanes on the U.S. east coast have surpassed those on the west coast as America’s busiest. Part of the increased ship traffic is due to the rapid deployment of hundreds of ships involved with mapping federal waters to site industrial offshore wind developments.
Aside from the ships themselves, the high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels to map the ocean floor for offshore wind siting poses a huge threat to whales. Who says so? NOAA’s own Chief of the Protected Species department, Sean Hayes. In a letter to the Interior Department objecting to the reckless expansion of offshore wind, wrote:
“Additional noise, vessel traffic and habitat modifications due to offshore wind development will likely cause added stress that could result in additional population consequences to a species that is already experiencing rapid decline. Wind turbines may disrupt the dense concentration of zooplankton that the whales depend on for sustenance, potentially forcing them to spend more energy and take more risks searching elsewhere for food.”
Hayes’ concerns have since been borne out by an increase dead whales washing up on eastern U.S. shores, 60 recorded whale deaths of all species on the East Coast since December 1, 2022, and more than 200 since the offshore wind industry first started ramping up operations of the U.S. east coast in 2016. Hayes’ concerns have also been confirmed by a new documentary by noted environmental author, Michael Shellenberger.
In a New York Post article, Shellenberger explains how offshore wind development is contributing to whale deaths, writing, “There appear to be at least two distinct mechanisms by which wind industry activities are killing whales.”
The first is through boat traffic in areas where there hasn’t historically been traffic,” says Shellenberger. “The second is through high-decibel sonar mapping that can disorient whales, separate mothers from their calves, and send them into harm’s way, either into boat traffic or poorer feeding grounds.”
In the end, the North Atlantic right whale and other whale species faces many threats. But lobster fishing is not significant among them. Yet the lobster industry may suffer for the sins of the offshore wind energy industry and its promoters in the Biden administration.
So as we celebrate the lobster on National Lobster day (while we still can), some of us with bibs and garlic butter sauce, let’s place the blame for the increasing number of whale deaths were it belongs, on Biden’s rapid, little studied push to expand offshore wind. For whales, most especially the North Atlantic Right Whale, the expedited development incentivized by the Biden administration could well qualify as an extinction-level event.
***********************************************
British PM hails the approval of a major oil and gas project as he says the invasion of Ukraine proves the UK has to drill
Rishi Sunak hailed the approval of a major oil and gas drilling project yesterday as he stepped up his opposition to counter-productive green pledges.
The Prime Minister said the decision was the best way to ensure Britain's energy security after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring.
Mr Sunak has already moved to delay or dilute costly green pledges such as banning new petrol and diesel cars and gas boilers.
His support for the scheme will draw a clear battle line with Labour, which has said it opposes new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
Mr Sunak tweeted: 'As we make the transition to renewables, we will still need oil and gas – it makes sense to use our own supplies such as Rosebank. This is the right long-term decision for the UK's energy security.'
Announcing the move yesterday, Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said that even by 2050, fossil fuels will still be producing a quarter of Britain's power and accused critics of 'relying on foreign regimes'.
Regulators approved the Rosebank development off the northern coast of Scotland despite condemnation from Labour, the SNP and campaigners. Ministers hailed the move as a step towards energy independence.
A BBC emergency
A BBC presenter was not following corporation guidelines in referring to climate change as 'the climate emergency' yesterday.
Martha Kearney used the phrase as she discussed the Rosebank decision with Ithaca Energy boss Gilad Myerson on Radio 4.
It sparked speculation the BBC may have changed its house style to use the term but sources said this was not the case. It is understood there are no strict rules on the phrase.
Ms Coutinho said: 'The choice we face is this: Do we shut down our own oil and gas leaving us reliant on foreign regimes? Do we lose 200,000 jobs across the UK? Do we import fuel with much higher carbon footprints instead? And lose billions in tax revenue?
'Keir Starmer's approach will lead to higher emissions and fewer British jobs. Labour would leave us worse off and threaten our ability to keep the lights on.'
The site – 80 miles west of Shetland – contains more than 300million barrels of oil – twice the size of the controversial Cambo oil field.
The North Sea Transition Authority announced it had given its consent for the largest untapped oil reserve in UK waters to be developed.
Approval was given to owners Equinor and Ithaca Energy, following reassurances over environmental concerns, and production is expected to start in late 2026.
The site could produce 69,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak – about 8 per cent of the United Kingdom's daily output – and about 44million cubic feet of gas per day in its first ten years.
Supporters say it will reduce reliance on imports and provide jobs in the UK. Gilad Myerson, executive chairman of Ithaca Energy, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it will create more than 1,600 jobs and provide 'a significant amount of tax revenues for the Treasury'. The Government said in July that it would issue hundreds of new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
Labour has said that, while it opposed the Rosebank development, it would not revoke the licence if it won the next general election. The party has pledged to end new North Sea oil and gas exploration. Labour's business and trade spokesman Jonathan Reynolds told Sky News the priority should be on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
He added: 'Real energy security will only come from moving to nuclear, to renewables, to technologies that will insulate us from those pressures.'
'But we have said we understand this is a difficult position for investors. We will not revoke any licences but we don't think this is good value for money.'
The project also faces criticism due to its impact on climate change and Britain meeting its net zero commitments. Last month 50 MPs and peers from all major parties raised concerns Rosebank could produce 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
They wrote to then energy secretary Grant Shapps urging him to block the oil field.
Scotland First Minister Humza Yousaf said developing Rosebank was 'the wrong decision'.
Last night Conservative former environment minister Lord Goldsmith told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: 'It just trashes the UK's reputation as a reliable, grown-up member of the global community; it's done us immeasurable harm.
'If this is the direction that the party is determined to take, there's no way I can vote for a party that positions itself where the Conservative Party is currently positioning itself on climate and nature.'
Lord Goldsmith resigned as a minister after accusing Mr Sunak of being 'uninterested' in the environment.
************************************************
Seismic blasting in the hunt for a new Australian gas field said to threaten whales
Activists in Australia are trying to stop oil and gas company Woodside Energy from conducting seismic blasting off the country’s western coast, which they say could deafen and ultimately kill endangered migratory whales.
The court challenge is part of a long-running campaign by Indigenous and environmental activists to frustrate Woodside’s plans for “Scarborough,” a massive fossil fuel project set to pump out carbon emissions for decades even as Australia attempts to meet tougher climate targets.
Earlier this month, Marthudunera woman Raelene Cooper sought an injunction to delay the blasting, but that order is due to expire on Thursday, allowing Woodside to resume work it says is required to indicate the location of large gas reserves.
On Tuesday, Cooper argued her case in the Federal Court, saying she was not properly consulted by Woodside Energy before it announced the blasting, a precursor to exploratory drilling.
During the process, airguns fire compressed air toward the ocean floor and the soundwaves penetrate the seabed before bouncing back to receivers towed by a boat. The pattern of the soundwaves gives geologists an indication of oil and gas reserves trapped under the ocean bedrock.
According to the Australian Marine Conservation Society, the noise can reach 250 decibels, around a million times “more intense” than the loudest whale sounds.
“Now, that’s really problematic if you’re a whale because whales depend on their hearing for everything – to navigate, to find their mates and their food,” said Richard George, Greenpeace Australia Pacific senior campaigner.
“So, a deaf whale is a dead whale.”
Woodside Energy plans to extract millions of tons of gas from the Scarborough field, about 375 kilometers (233 miles) off the coast of Western Australia, mostly for export to Asia.
The project was signed off by the previous Australian government led by Scott Morrison, however it retains the support of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s administration, despite its pledge of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Gas is generally less carbon-intensive than coal, but it’s still a planet-warming fossil fuel, and there is a growing understanding that its infrastructure leaks huge amounts of methane – a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the shorter term.
Australia’s offshore oil and gas regulator, NOPSEMA, approved the blasting in July, despite acknowledging that Woodside may not have identified all Indigenous people in need of consultation on the seismic blasting plans, or given them adequate time to be consulted.
In a statement to CNN, Woodside said it had “consulted extensively on our environment plans, dedicating time and effort so our approach to environmental management and [Environmental Plan] consultation meets our current understanding of regulatory requirements and standards.”
Woodside Energy provided CNN with its marine environmental plan for Scarborough dated June 2023.
The document lists dozens of threatened and migratory species of sharks, mammals, reptiles and birds that can be found in the vicinity of the blast zone, including loggerhead and leatherback turtles, great white sharks and pygmy blue whales.
Greenpeace said Woodside’s plans “skirt close” to a major migration route for pygmy blue whales, a smaller subspecies of blue whale that travels north each year from the Antarctic into waters off Australia’s northwest.
The population size of pygmy blue whales is unclear, but the Australian government considers the mammal to be endangered.
The government’s species profile warns about the dangers of “man-made noise” to the whales, saying it can “potentially result in injury or death, masking of vocalisations, displacement from essential resources (e.g. prey, breeding habitat), and behavioural responses.”
“Potential sources of man-made underwater noise interference in Australian waters include seismic surveys for oil, gas and geophysical exploration,” the profile adds.
However in its environmental report, Woodside said any impact on whales would be short term.
“There will be no lasting effect on whales, however there could be short term hearing impacts,” Woodside wrote in its report.
The company also said it “will have dedicated marine fauna observers and systems which can listen for whale song on some vessels” and that the “presence of whales can postpone activities.”
***************************************
27 September, 2023
Terrifying moment firefighters rescue a claustrophobic man after he gets TRAPPED inside his electric Corvette when the power doors stop working
I am glad that electricity goes nowhere near the door handles in my car
A TikTok video showed the scary moment firefighters had to rescue a man who was trapped inside his Corvette when the vehicle's electric doors stopped working.
The video, posted by user 'BigBroQuan95,' shows the claustrophobic man sweating in the Florida heat on a summer day as first responders surround the car.
The man, who says in the video that he is having 'an anxiety attack,' begs the firefighters to break the window, saying he doesn't care about the cost.
'Break the window. Y'all sitting here trying to Goddamn jump it, get me out of this motherf**ker,' the man says as he laughs nervously while sweat drips down his face.
In 2015, a man and his dog died in Texas after his electric-powered Corvette stopped working and they became trapped inside. His family later filed a lawsuit against GM.
The terrifying video begins with the man - who was sitting at a gas station when his car 'went dead' showing off the vehicle and the firefighters outside.
Quan - wearing a shirt embossed with the words 'determination over negativity' - says the firefighters have been working to jump the car as the temperatures soared.
'I'm sweating,' he says. 'It's hot, like 100 degrees outside. I can't get out.'
He continues, stating that he even was in fear that he was 'about to die' before the firefighters arrived to assist in his rescue.
Throughout the 90-second video, the man repeats that he is not worried about the cost of the repairs on the expensive, luxury vehicle. 'Break the window,' he screams at the first responder as they check out the car to look for alternative ways to save him. 'I'll pay for the Goddamn damage,' Quan shouts before giving one firefighter the thumbs up to shatter the glass.
A firefighter eventually comes to the passenger-side window and smashes it with a long and heavy item, immediately shattering the glass.
The first responder then has to pry the glass off car window as tiny slivers of the window fall onto the seat next to the driver.
'Get me out of this motherf**ker,' he says while laughing after the glass shattered.
The one and a half minute video eventually ends with Quan showing off his sweaty forehead and face and laughing off the stress.
In a follow-up TikTok, the Corvette owner explained that the car's door handles are electrical and require power to be able to exit the vehicle.
He told his 17,000 followers that despite 'freaking the f**k out' and 'hyperventilating' he had to calm himself down and call the police.
Quan also said he was banging on the windows trying to get people at the gas station around him to help as he was struggling inside the vehicle.
In total, Quan's original video has been liked more than 500,000 times and has surpassed more than five million views as of Monday afternoon.
Additionally, nearly 12,000 comments have been left on the clip with the general consensus being that the experience would have scared anyone.
'The way my claustrophobia is set up I woulda been kicking that window like I was in a self defense class!'
'The way my claustrophobia is set up I woulda been kicking that window like I was in a self defense class!'
'I keep a window breaking device in any car I drive because I have a fear of being trapped in a car under water. Everyone should have one.'
***************************************************
Even Bill Gates is backtracking — the air’s gone out of the climate-crisis balloon
By Glenn H. Reynolds
Has the air gone out of the “climate crisis” balloon? It’s starting to look like it. Some other causes du jour are looking limp lately, too.
Oh, hysteria is still out there. In Boston this month, I passed a church whose door bore a lurid poster reading “DUE TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS, WORSHIP IN SANCTUARY 9-17-23 CANCELED.”
If it were really a global crisis, wouldn’t you want to be praying?
I first thought it was referring to Hurricane Lee, which had been predicted to bring apocalyptic storm conditions to Beantown. Lee, though, veered out to sea, and that Sunday was sunny, warm and delightful.
(While the soldiers of God had fled the scene in advance, the armies of Mammon were out in force on the Boston Common, in the form of a massive cannabis fair. Say what you will about the stoners, they’re not prone to panic or overthinking.)
But this seems actually a case of closing church so parishioners could go to New York to “Join us in the March to End Fossil Fuels,” which is even more amusing, since traveling uses a lot more fossil fuels than staying in Boston and praying for an end to fossil fuels, which would be at least as effective.
Bill Gates, however, is pumping the brakes on climate panic.
Speaking at a New York Times event, he observed heavy-handed policies won’t work: “If you try to do climate brute force, you will get people who say, ‘I like climate but I don’t want to bear that cost and reduce my standard of living.’”
As Gates noted, many of these people are in middle-income countries, like China and India, that are the biggest contributors to carbon emissions today and whose emissions (unlike those of the United States) have been growing.
He also rained on the greens’ apocalyptic parade, saying “no temperate country is going to become uninhabitable.”
And he cautioned against untested approaches like massive tree planting: “Are we the science people or are we the idiots? Which one do we want to be?”
Well, the climate policies the political system supports are mostly the ones likely to yield the most graft, and those the corporate world supports are mostly the ones involving massive government subsidies.
But it’s interesting to see Gates softening his tone; it feels as if climate outrage has passed its sell-by date.
Oh, sure, there are still kooks in Europe gluing themselves to roadways and the occasional nut throwing oil on famous works of art, but it’s all started to seem rather forced.
When you see a shift in a social trend like this, it’s almost always happening for the same reason: The people behind it have figured out it’s doing the left more harm than good.
It’s of a piece with the sudden de-emphasis of ESG (environmental, social, governance) as a tool of corporate management.
In both cases, the detached, well-off white people who mostly run the left dreamed up causes and slogans, which their follow-the-herd peers uncritically adopted until they ran into reality and the rest of the world noticed.
The reality, as Gates is reminding us, is there’s not actually a climate “crisis” calling for drastic action tomorrow, and running businesses and institutions as if there is one is counterproductive and even outright destructive.
Another reality is the great mass of people around the globe knows this and has lost patience with it.
Likewise, investors have figured out ESG is just a way for managers to substitute fuzzy, hard-to-assess performance metrics — basically a “net wokeness” calculus — for clear and well-defined metrics like, you know, how much profit managers produce for shareholders.
It’s not really surprising that, on reflection, shareholders would rather have profit than trendy causes, and voters would rather have jobs and functioning societies than nonstop apocalyptic rhetoric.
Even Ibram X. Kendi’s antiracism center is falling apart, having produced nothing of substance.
I hope this trend continues. It would be nice to see the New York City government emphasize crime control, subway maintenance and pothole-fixing instead of trendy (and grift-filled) social-justice projects.
It would be nice to see the Department of Defense — which hasn’t won a war since Desert Storm more than 30 years ago — emphasize defeating our country’s enemies over training commanders to avoid “whiteness” and get their soldiers’ pronouns right.
Kipling’s “Gods of the Copybook Headings” are always waiting for civilizations that lose sight of fundamentals in favor of glittering fictions.
Let’s pray ours is returning to good sense before it’s too late.
***********************************************
Biden State Dept. Launches New Attack on Fossil Fuels
The Biden State Department announced the release of a new guidebook for the U.S. and other countries on Tuesday and — rather than being focused on diplomatic efforts to allow human flourishing or defeating terrorists and those who give them safe harbor — it's all about cutting greenhouse gases, specifically methane, within the oil and gas industry.
Titled "Methane Abatement for Oil and Gas – Handbook for Policymakers," the new result of taxpayer funded work at the Departments of State and Commerce to advance the "Global Methane Pledge and Clean EDGE (Enhancing Development and Growth through Energy)" is little more than the Biden administration's latest attempt to go after oil and gas companies who've already been dealt a series of blows courtesy of the president's crusade to "end" fossil fuels.
A letter from Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in the guidebook repeats the same blather that's become customary for the Biden administration. "Methane emissions are a major contributor to climate change," her letter states. "Abating methane emissions are also a unique opportunity. For that reason, in 2021, the United States and its international partners established the Global Methane Pledge," another worldwide climate-related pact that includes goals and policies not assented to by Congress.
"Under the Pledge, countries commit to collectively reduce methane by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels," Raimondo explains. "The U.S. and its partners are working now to help countries adopt methane abatement policies, mobilize methane financing, deploy abatement technologies and practices, and reform laws and regulations."
That is, the Biden administration is working to make both the U.S. and other countries around the world as strict and inhospitable to the fossil fuel industry as possible.
Within the more than 200-page "handbook," the Biden administration's guide proposes strict standards for developing countries — standards that require significantly more capital to construct and bring online, making them unreasonable for emerging markets. It also advocates for countries of the world to enact regulatory regimes across the board for existing and mid-level producers.
These regulations, according to the guide, include "prescriptive measures" to "directly require entities to undertake or not undertake specific actions or procedures" including requirements, equipment standards, and bans or moratoriums" along with "performance" requirements to "establish a mandatory performance standard for regulated entities" and economic penalties to "induce action by applying fees or introducing financial incentives for certain behaviors." In addition, the guidebook suggests information requirements under which "regulated entities estimate, measure, and report their emissions to public bodies."
Not only is the Biden administration's latest (yet rather quietly announced) attack on the fossil fuel industry at home and abroad another prescription for suffocating regulations aimed at the ultimate goal of ending oil and gas production, it's also entirely hypocritical.
Despite the handbook being produced, in part, by State Department bureaucrats, the agency isn't living up to existing climate-related pledges, let alone the regulations and requirements being prescribed for the oil and gas industry.
As Townhall noted in previous coverage of the Biden administration's climate hypocrisy, the State Department is supposed to — per a 2021 executive order signed by President Biden — report annually all greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned or controlled by a federal agency such as government vehicles and aircraft, sources that generate electricity used to keep the lights on at federal buildings, and sources not owned by but related to an agency's activities such as business travel.
Despite this requirement for the State Department, an attempt by Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) to find reported emissions data from the State Department — as they're required to do — turned up nothing. According to the Government Accountability Office, the State Department still does "not have a systematic way to calculate greenhouse gas emissions from," among other means, "U.S. delegation travel."
It's another case of "do as I say, not as I do" from the climate wokescolds within the Biden administration — all for the greater goal of forcing the "green" energy transition that's anything but and ending the use of fossil fuels in the process.
********************************************
Australia's Green shoe brigade: Red carpet for renewable koala killers
Mount Morgan, less than 40 kilometres from Rockhampton, was once the largest gold mine in the world. It closed in 1990 but there’s still gold in them thar hills. These days however it comes from Renewable Energy Certificates or RECs, pronounced wrecks, which is what renewable projects are doing to grid security and the environment.
The RECs have been so lucrative that companies from all over the world have poured into Queensland lured not just by the generous REC subsidies but by a lax regulatory environment in which ministers have the discretion to override, for ‘relevant infrastructure activities’, environmental regulations regarding tree clearing, ground cover, and the amount of run-off allowed to flow into the Great Barrier Reef.
When Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was premier in the 1980s, deals were done for the ‘white shoe brigade’ that ignored regulations and delivered rapid rezoning, government loans, and subsidies for controversial developments on the basis of a nod and a wink and sometimes a rumoured brown paper bag of cash.
Under Premier Palaszczuk, Queensland is rolling out the red carpet for the Green Shoe Brigade, not so much carpetbaggers as sun and windbaggers. There’s no need for a brown paper bag. The ‘climate crisis’ justifies the immediate rezoning of pastoral and forested land to allow for industrial-scale renewable utilities.
There is an ‘anything goes’ atmosphere of the Wild West or the Wild North making Queensland’s Renewable Energy Rush every bit as feverish as the gold rush that preceded it.
The scale of what Palaszczuk is planning is Bowen-esque. The Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan launched this month has set a 50-per-cent Renewable Energy Target by 2030 and a 2032 target of up to 2,000 turbines generating 8GW of electricity, 14 million solar panels generating 4GW of electricity, and 5GW of pumped hydro and battery storage.
Yet of 54 wind plants listed, only five are operational, four are under construction, and 42 proposed. Of 129 solar plants, 40 are operational, three are under construction, and eight proposed. And of four pumped hydro storage plants, one is operational, one is committed, and two proposed.
What makes any of this credible is the speed with which projects have gone ahead in the last year and the ruthless indifference to bulldozing the last remnants of old-growth forests. Too rugged for agriculture or mining, these are the last refuges for dozens of Queensland’s most rare and threatened creatures including koalas and greater gliders.
Conservationist Steven Nowakowski calculates that 14,100 hectares of remnant forest will be cleared for 17 renewable projects in North Queensland, and 4,625 kilometres of new haulage roads will have to be bulldozed through forests to service 88 renewable energy projects in the pipeline throughout Queensland.
If a mining or oil and gas company was committing environmental destruction on this scale and it was being rubber-stamped by a Coalition government every green group and parliamentarian in the country would be up in arms. But state-funded conservation groups have said off the record that they don’t dare criticise the state government for fear of losing their funding.
Almost every renewable energy project in Queensland has triggered the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act passed by the federal government in 1999 to protect our unique plants, animals, habitats, and places.
To date, Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek has not covered herself in glory. Her Liberal predecessor Sussan Ley put a stop to a project at Lotus Creek to build 81 wind turbines 230 metres high spread over 48,000 hectares including 632 hectares of koala habitat and 340 hectares of greater glider habitat because it posed a ‘clearly unacceptable’ threat to koalas. The Australian Conservation Foundation welcomed the decision saying, ‘renewable energy projects should not leave biodiversity and threatened species worse off’, but said nothing when Plibersek reinstated the project with increased power generation.
Lotus Creek has a thriving koala community including females with young on their backs in pristine old-growth forests with nesting hollows supporting a flourishing ecosystem of wildlife.
A former Greens candidate, Nowakowski is a voice in the wilderness calling for the state government to turn the area into a national koala park. Horrified by the destruction wreaked by renewable energy’s massive footprint he now supports the Liberals’ nuclear energy policy and the Nationals call for a moratorium on renewables.
‘No one wants to imagine an Australia without the koalas,’ said Plibersek last month, but when it comes to a choice between protecting endangered koalas in native forests and building a wind farm, she opted for the latter.
Bulldozers will arrive any day now at Lotus Creek and if a koala is injured it must, by law, be clubbed to death. Yet unlike Ley, Plibersek hasn’t had to face accusations of being a koala killer.
Glen and Nikki Kelly are the sixth generation to run the family farm near Rockhampton – the essence of sustainable land management. They are horrified that their flourishing property will be ringed with 120 wind turbines 275 metre high which will destroy the habitat of rare and threatened species, create landslides feeding into the Great Barrier Reef, and in summer, firefighters will no longer be assisted by aircraft because the smoke-obscured turbines will make it too dangerous.
Nearby, Cedric and Therese Creed are battling a 36km2 solar plant, bigger than Norfolk Island, to be built on prime agricultural land on the Don river. In extreme weather, toxic leakage from damaged panels and batteries will poison the land and the reef. In a bushfire firefighters can’t even approach it because of toxic fumes and the risk of explosions.
What might save regions from reckless renewable development is the massive uptake of rooftop solar. Queensland’s grid is approaching what energy economist Stephen Wilson calls ‘peak renewables’. When the operator can’t buy any more renewable electricity, companies can’t earn RECs and profits are curtailed. Investment in renewable generation is at its lowest level in five years because of diminishing returns, yet electricity bills are soaring because of renewable subsidies, capital costs and weather-driven shortages.
It was National Threatened Species Day on 7 September but the threat that most concerns Plibersek and Prime Minister Albanese is the vote for the Greens in their adjacent inner-city electorates. So far, it seems their voters care more about closing down coal-fired power plants than whether Big Wind is killing koalas.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/green-shoe-brigade/
***************************************26 September, 2023
Giant utility rejects net zero power, big fight follows
Dominion Energy, Virginia’s big electric utility, is telling the State it does not foresee complying with the 2045 net zero power target in the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The preferred option in Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) retires no fossil-fueled power generators, other than the few old ones that are already in the process of retirement. In fact, it adds a lot more fossil juice.
Up front in the IRP, Dominion puts it this way: “Due to an increasing load forecast, and the need for dispatchable generation, the Alternative Plans show additional natural gas-fired resources and preserve existing carbon-emitting units beyond statutory retirement deadlines established in the VCEA. The law explicitly authorizes the Company to petition the SCC for relief from these requirements on the basis that the unit retirements would threaten the reliability or security of electric service to customers.”
So, in effect, this is a notice to Virginia’s utility regulator, the State Corporation Commission (SCC), that Dominion is prepared to petition for permission to not comply with the net zero power generation mandate in the VCEA.
In fact, this IRP may constitute such a petition. The anti-fossil forces apparently think so because they have petitioned the SCC to reject the IRP because it includes more gas-fired generation. In response, the SCC has initiated a formal legal proceeding to consider this request. A number of green groups have joined the proceeding; there has been a hearing, public comments have been taken, etc. The whole rulemaking deal.
The impetus for this unexpected bout of rationality from Dominion is, as the quote says, an increased load forecast. Specifically, the SCC requires Dominion to use the load forecast from the regional grid operator, which is PJM. They issued a whopping new forecast that is roughly double their earlier ones going back years.
So Dominion is saying they don’t think we can service this enormous new load and comply with the VCEA net zero mandate. They specifically propose not to retire most of their fossil fleet, plus adding almost 3,000 MW of gas-fired generation over the next 15 years. No wonder the anti-fossils are apoplectic.
Unfortunately, they also add a ridiculous amount of renewables. This is about 11,000 Megawatts (MW) of solar and 3,000 MW of mostly offshore wind, on top of the 2,600 MW of offshore already in process. With their usual smoke and mirrors, there is virtually no storage to make this intermittent junk reliable despite costing tens of billions of dollars. If the gas-fired power does that, why not just use it instead of the renewables? Plus, offshore wind is hell on whales. But I digress.
Dominion has 7 million customers in 16 States, so its Virginia no net zero action has much wider implications. Beyond that, it could be a national precedent, so other utilities, States, and interest groups should be watching closely.
What the SCC decides could be very important. Ironically, in a ridiculous sense, the SCC does not exist at this time. Due to a political stalemate, there is only one Commissioner, out of the called-for three, and it takes a quorum of two to issue a formal order. It looks like the most that can happen is that an administrative law judge can render an opinion on the anti-fossil petition.
The SCC legal mess is beyond my knowledge or understanding. Rejecting an IRP seems odd to begin with. Then, too, the VCEA seems to allow what Dominion is describing specifically. Nor is it at all clear that an IRP is a petition when the matter is just presented as an option. Perhaps it is a petition to be allowed to suggest it. The whole fight strikes me as an absurd confusion, but alarmism is like that. Maybe that is the message. Anti-fossil alarmism is an absurd confusion.
https://www.cfact.org/2023/09/13/giant-utility-rejects-net-zero-power-big-fight-follows/
***************************************************FERC approves gas projects despite calls for fossil fuel phaseout
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted to approve the expansion of two liquefied natural gas projects on the Gulf Coast, potentially locking in planet-warming emissions for decades to come.
During its monthly meeting Thursday, FERC granted certificates for the expansion of Sempra Energy’s Port Arthur Phase II project in Jefferson County, Tex., and Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass project in Cameron Parish, La.
The first certificate will allow Sempra to increase a terminal’s capacity to liquefy natural gas for export from 13.46 million tons per year to 26.92 million tons annually. The terminal could be in operation for nearly 30 years.
The second will enable Venture Global to boost the peak capacity of a facility that has allegedly violated its air permits on more than 100 occasions.
“In the middle of this climate emergency, the Biden administration is lighting the fuse to massive carbon bombs,” Jamie Henn, founder and director of Fossil Free Media, told The Climate 202 of the certificates.
To be clear, FERC is an independent agency that does not directly answer to President Biden. Although its five commissioners are nominated by the president, no more than three may be of the same political party, and it is currently split 2-2 between each party.
Still, Henn argued the commission’s decisions undermined the climate record of Biden, who skipped the summit in New York on Wednesday, instead sending climate envoy John F. Kerry.
‘Enough is enough’
Environmental justice activists said the first project in particular could increase not only planet-warming emissions — but also health-harming air pollution — in overburdened communities of color.
At a rally outside FERC’s headquarters before the meeting, activists emphasized that the mostly Black and Latino residents of Port Arthur, Tex., already live near three oil refineries, two liquefied natural gas terminals and at least 40 other facilities that release toxins into the air.
“We don’t want to see any of these projects approved. Enough is enough,” John Beard, founder and executive director of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, told The Climate 202 before the rally. “We refuse to be sacrificed anymore.”
Activists also alleged the second facility has violated its air permits more than 138 times, citing reporting by New Orleans Public Radio. Some unauthorized emissions lasted more than a week, according to a compliance order issued in June by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, which could impose hefty fines.
Spokespeople for Sempra did not respond to a request for comment. But Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for Venture Global, disputed activists’ assertions about the permit violations.
“Environmental compliance and safety is Venture Global’s highest priority and our team is committed to meeting all state and federal regulatory requirements,” Hynes said in an email. “We have complied with all annual emissions limits under our air permits and do not agree with the claim that we have violated our air permits more than 138 times.”
Internal divisions
Yesterday’s meeting came as FERC struggles to decide whether — and how — to weigh greenhouse gas emissions caused by pipelines and other gas projects.
In February 2022, the commission voted to approve landmark rules that would require consideration of new gas projects’ effects on climate change and environmental justice.
But a month later, FERC backtracked in the face of pushback from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), voting to recategorize the policies as mere drafts.
Then in January, the White House Council on Environmental Quality issued interim guidance that strongly encouraged all agencies — including FERC — to consider all projects’ emissions under the National Environmental Policy Act.
FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, a Democrat, still hasn’t said how the commission will interpret this guidance. But at its July meeting, the commission abruptly struck six gas projects from its agenda, a move that seemingly stemmed from internal divisions over the matter.
Commissioner James Danly, a Republican, has argued that FERC “has no means to determine the significance” of greenhouse gas emissions. But Commissioner Allison Clements, a Democrat, has strongly rejected that notion, and she dissented in part from yesterday’s orders approving the gas certificates.
“I continue to disagree with my colleagues’ view that it is impossible to determine the significance of greenhouse gas emissions,” Clements said yesterday.
For his part, Phillips told reporters after the meeting that the commission would “continue to review” the guidance, although he declined to share specific next steps.
****************************************************
European emission laws to be weakened after car-makers push back – report
The European Union’s proposed ‘Euro 7’ emissions laws are reportedly expected to be weakened, as car-makers believe the tight environmental restrictions will result in a delay to their electric-car plans.
News agency Reuters reports a proposal by Spain has led to the Euro 7 emissions standards – due to be introduced for passenger vehicles from 2025 – being watered down, with EU countries largely agreeing on the compromised laws.
The Euro 7 regulations aim to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) and tailpipe particulate emissions from petrol and diesel vehicles by 35 per cent and 13 per cent compared to current levels, respectively – as well as limit the amount of particulate matter caused by tyres and brakes.
The original proposal called for a 25 per cent reduction in NOx from diesel cars, bringing them into line with their petrol counterparts.
Car-makers have previously complained the costs of adhering to Euro 7 would impact their investments towards the development of electric cars.
In April 2023, Volkswagen called for the regulations to be pushed back to the northern hemisphere autumn (September to November) in 2026 at the earliest.
As previously reported, the European Union will effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, as its regulations will require a 100 per cent reduction in tailpipe emissions – effectively leaving electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles as the only alternatives.
German car-maker BMW has also criticised the proposed Euro 7 regulations for making an insignificant difference to emissions.
“Euro 6 and in particular Euro 6d are effective and already cover 95 per cent of all statistically relevant driving situations," a spokesperson for BMW told German publication Automobilwoche earlier this year.
"However, the (European Union's) draft focuses precisely on such special cases – instead of reducing the limits for everyday traffic more strongly, as proposed by the (European Automobile Manufacturers Association)."
The Euro 7 regulations are yet to be formally signed off and enforced, though it is likely the approved version of the proposal will affect cars, SUVs and light commercial vehicles (utes, vans) sold in Europe from mid-2025.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/euro-7-emissions-laws-to-be-weakened/
***************************************************Over 300 Threatened Eagles Killed or Injured by Wind Turbines in Tasmania: Study
Over the past decade, wind turbines and transmission lines have led to the deaths or injuries of 321 threatened eagles in Tasmania, according to a study.
More cases are believed to be unreported due to a lack of systemic research on wind farms and public information.
It found that from 2010-2022, wind farms caused the deaths of 268 eagles and injured 53, with state-owned power company TasNetworks reporting 139 deaths, and eagle rescuers witnessing 91 deaths and 50 injuries.
Study author Gregory Pullen said the number of eagle deaths was a “stark reminder” that an urgent solution was needed to mitigate further harm to the vulnerable species.
“The real number can only be higher since surveying at wind farms is incomplete,” Mr. Pullen noted in the study.
“Specifically, it is only close to turbines, is periodic, and does not involve all turbines or all habitat around each turbine, scrub often being excluded.”
Of great concern is that 272 deaths involved the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, and 49 of the vulnerable white-bellied sea eagles.
Both species could face further risk as the expansion of wind turbine construction continues amid the federal government’s net-zero push.
“Accelerated deaths of the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle and white-bellied sea-eagle are a grim reality if thousands of new wind turbines and hundreds of kilometres of transmission lines are erected across Tasmania to meet a legislated doubling of renewable energy production by 2040,” Mr. Pullen said.
The study estimated that less than 1,000 Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles remain and emphasised ongoing monitoring to ensure the species does not become extinct.
It includes observing the number of eagles, stability of breeding pairs, nesting success and surviving chicks, presence of juvenile birds, and whether disruption to the natural habitat causes dislocation.
While the Tasmanian government has guidelines in place to protect threatened eagles, Mr. Pullen found that these have not contributed to real-life decisions regarding wind farm placement.
For instance, despite great differences in eagle densities across Tasmania, there are currently no designated "no turbine zones."
Some researchers have suggested Tasmanian eagles be fitted with GPS trackers, but the concept has been slow to establish and has yet to be used in wind farm planning.
The study comes as Tasmanian authorities continue their push towards net zero, recently inking a deal with the German city Bremen.
State Energy Minister Guy Barnett said the collaboration was evidence of the state's plan to become a leader in large-scale green hydrogen production by 2030 to meet both domestic and international demand.
“This joint declaration demonstrates the opportunity the rest of the world sees in Tasmania and confidence in the government’s renewable energy agenda,” Mr. Barnett said in a statement on Sept. 17.
“Tasmania is well placed, with our 100 percent renewable electricity, abundant water supplies, and excellent port infrastructure to seize these important opportunities with international partners.”
Scientist Questions Wind Power Reliability
There are concerns, however, over the viability of large-scale renewable energy generation. One Oxford University mathematician and physicist has criticised wind power saying it is historically and scientifically unreliable, noting that governments are prioritising "windfarm politics" over numerical evidence.
Professor Emeritus Wade Allison made the assertion in response to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, where the “instinctive reaction” around the world was to embrace renewables.
“Today, modern technology is deployed to harvest these weak sources of energy. Vast ‘farms’ that monopolise the natural environment are built, to the detriment of other creatures,” Mr. Allison said in the report, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
“Developments are made regardless of the damage wrought. Hydro-electric schemes, enormous turbines, and square miles of solar panels are constructed, despite being unreliable and ineffective.”
***************************************
25 September, 2023
EVs and the American Autoworker
For decades, Democrats and autoworkers were joined at the hip. Which makes sense because Democrats and Big Labor were joined at the hip. But not anymore. Indeed, many of those rank-and-file workers are now at odds with the same party they’ve traditionally supported.
Why, it’s almost as if the Democrats are no longer the party of blue-collar America.
The effort by Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Gavin Newsom to ram unwanted electric vehicles down our throats threatens to end the cozy relationship between the politicians pushing EVs and the union workers tasked with building them.
The Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act provided “unprecedented levels of support for EVs, including at least $83 billion of loans, grants, and tax credits that could support the production of low or zero-emission vehicles, batteries, or chargers,” reports EV Hub. And just this month, Biden’s Department of Energy announced that it’s doling out another $15 billion in grants and loans.
With all that taxpayer money floating around, it’s no wonder that big automakers are tripping over themselves to lead the way with EVs. Unfortunately, they’re also abandoning the very men and women who’ve built those companies.
“The UAW strike entered its seventh day on Thursday,” reports Fox Business, “in what is the union’s first strike simultaneously targeting each of Detroit’s Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. About 12,700 workers at a trio of facilities operated by the Big Three went on strike last Friday in the initial wave of walkouts.”
The UAW is asking for a 46% pay raise over four years, a 32-hour work week while getting paid for 40, and the unionization of workers who build electric vehicles. But the biggest sticking point is that tens of billions of dollars being poured into EV infrastructure will take jobs away from autoworkers up and down the line.
As Business Insider reports: “Workers who assemble gasoline engines, transmissions, exhaust systems, and the myriad of other parts not needed in electric vehicles will likely bear the brunt of the transition. Moreover, electric motors and batteries are much simpler than traditional powertrains, allowing carmakers to maintain the same production output with fewer workers.”
The Big Three themselves are facing competition from Tesla, which is turning a profit on its EVs. On the other hand, Ford and other companies continue to lose billions on their EV production.
Ford last $3 billion last year on EVs and may lose another $4.5 billion this year. Yet according to to The New York Times, “If the union got all the increases in pay, pensions and other benefits it is seeking, the company said, its workers’ total compensation would be twice as much as Tesla’s employees.”
But it’s not all about short-term pay and benefits. Some union workers see a broader strategy to phase out gas-powered vehicles.
“In both public and private, union officials have made clear their belief that the auto industry is using the technological transition to mask a second, economic, transition,” reports The Atlantic. “They worry that the companies are using the shift from internal-combustion engines to carbon-free electric vehicles to simultaneously shift more of their operations from high-paying union jobs mostly in northern states to lower-paying, nonunion jobs mostly in southern states.”
And it turns out their fears are well-founded. Thanks to fewer regulations, lower electricity costs, and right-to-work laws, red states are benefitting from the EV transition. Hyundai, for example, plans to open a $4.6 billion EV factory in Georgia. And Ford is building a $5.6 billion battery and vehicle manufacturing campus in Tennessee called BlueOval City.
On the other hand, the transition from combustible engines to EVs is not only affecting future jobs in the auto industry; it also threatens to leave the U.S. even more dependent on China, which is the world’s leading producer of key elements needed in the production of EV battery cells. A future in which the majority of Americans own EVs is a future that China would be happy to supply.
It looks like the EV revolution is coming, but it won’t come without risks.
Democrats could lose support from the UAW and leave the U.S. even more energy dependent. And the precious environment that leftists claim to care about takes a big hit when renewable resources are mined. In the end, most Americans don’t want an EV and even fewer can afford one.
Biden and the Democrats won’t listen to the people, but a UAW strike may be just what’s needed to wake them up to the folly of electric vehicles.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/100665-evs-and-the-american-autoworker-2023-09-22
*************************************************Berkey Water Filter Maker Sues EPA Over Claims That Its Products Are 'Pesticides'
The maker of Berkey water filters, New Millennium Concepts, is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over what it says are false claims by the federal agency that its products are “pesticides.”
Using COVID-19-era regulatory powers, the EPA issued a stop-sales order to several Berkey vendors and distributors in May, resulting in mounting financial losses for the Texas-based company, which was founded in 1998.
On Aug. 3, New Millennium Concepts filed a lawsuit in a Fort Worth federal court that challenges the EPA's stop-sales order as “unjustified persecution.”
In 2022, the agency demanded the company register its mechanical filter as a “pesticide device,” and then recently as a “pesticide,” without compliance with Administrative Procedures Act (APA) guidelines, the lawsuit argues.
'EPA Fail'
“The EPA’s failure to operate using plain language and follow APA guidelines has caused plaintiffs devastating damage,” the suit claims.
“What the EPA is doing is attacking the vendors to Berkey products,” Mr. Norred said. “They’re interfering in the supply chain.”
The EPA has been regulating pesticides since 1947 under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). However, the lawsuit argues that Berkey filters don't use chemical pesticides to treat water—its purification process is entirely mechanical.
“FIFRA is exactly what it looks like—a law that seeks to regulate chemical pesticides,” according to the Norred Law website. “But the law distinguishes between actual pesticides, ‘substances or mixtures of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest,’ and ‘treated devices,' which use registered pesticides in their construction, e.g. seeds that are sold after being treated with a registered pesticide.”
In February, the EPA issued a compliance advisory announcing changes in regulations governing the production, distribution, and sale of “pesticide devices.”
“There has been a significant increase in the number of devices being distributed or sold in the United States,” the advisory stated.
“EPA has found substantial non-compliance with FIFRA in the device and pesticide marketplace. Examples of non-compliance include unregistered pesticides claiming to be devices, devices bearing false and misleading statements, and devices being sold and distributed that were not produced in an EPA registered establishment.”
The EPA said examples of pesticide devices include water or air filters, ultraviolet light systems, ozone generators, and sound generators.
“If a device incorporates a substance or mixture of substances to perform its intended pesticidal purpose, then it is considered a pesticide, not a device, and would require registration under FIFRA Section 3.”
Silver-Protected Filters
New Millennium Concepts agreed to an EPA condition designating Berkey water filters as treated devices, because they use silver to protect the filters that remove pathogens by means of a “tortuous maze of micropores.”
The use of the antiviral silver in Berkey filters has been found to trap more than 99 percent of COVID-19 strains, Mr. Norred said.
“Silver is often used in pesticides for pesticidal purposes. The EPA has latched on to the use of silver to protect the filter, and said you’re using silver and you are making pesticidal claims—poof, you’re a pesticide.”
“We do use a registered pesticide that has silver in it. So the filters are technically a treated article because there is a pesticide Berkey uses to protect its filters. But that pesticide does not have any pesticidal purpose for the water. It just protects and lengthens the lifetime of the filter,” Mr. Norred added.
Not Enough
But the company agreeing to brand its Berkey water filters as treated devices "wasn’t enough,” the legal website added.
‘The EPA recently decided that the filters are actual pesticides, again without notice or warning, issued orders preventing Berkey filters from sale in some parts of the country, and preventing their export.”
“If the EPA wants to regulate gravity-fed mechanical water filters, it has a process to follow, at the very least. Berkey’s water filters have never caused any harm to anyone, and the removal of Berkey filters from the market inexorably means that the demand will be met with untested knockoff and counterfeit filters.”
*************************************************
UK: Running out of power: Value of used electric cars drops by a fifth, plummeting in price by a quarter in a year
Prices of second-hand electric cars have plummeted by almost a quarter in a year, figures show, amid a drop in consumer confidence.
Dealers have warned that Electric Vehicles (EVs) are sitting on forecourts for 'months on end while they haemorrhage value', with some at risk of selling at a loss if the market does not recover.
Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak ditched the 2030 target for a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles, post- poning it until 2035.
The Prime Minister warned that imposing 'unacceptable costs' on families risked wrecking support for saving the planet.
The move, which brings the UK in line with the European Union, was a victory for the Mail's campaign to rethink the 2030 deadline.
Mid-month figures for September released by AutoTrader – the largest online marketplace for cars – reveal that the average price of a used EV has fallen by 21.4 per cent to £32,463.
Premium sector EVs, including Tesla, BMW, Mini and Mercedes-Benz, were hit hardest – with values falling by up to 24.1 per cent year-on-year.
The data, reported by The Times, showed that prices of second-hand premium sector EVs peaked at £51,704 last August and have since plummeted by more than £10,000 to £39,268.
Marc Palmer, the head of strategy and insights at AutoTrader, said: 'The used market will now be slower to mature. There will be fewer new EVs registered and fewer used cars coming to market.
'There will be sections of the public, especially those who are sceptical, who will want to wait.
'Used cars are the biggest part of the industry, but getting the majority of motorists into second-hand EVs will take longer. A lot of things are up in the air.'
Figures revealed earlier this week also showed that sales of new zero-emission vehicles to private buyers have fallen by more than 11 per cent.
Umesh Samani, chairman of the Independent Motor Dealers Association, which represents more than 1,000 traders, said the delay to the ban on petrol and diesel cars had given 'everyone some breathing space'.
He said: 'It has been so volatile, dealers have been very frightened of getting involved with EVs.
'Many of our members have been stuck with EVs on their forecourts that they cannot shift, even as they are falling by £2,000 to £3,000 a month. That's a phenomenal amount.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12551439/used-electric-cars-price.html?ico=mol_desktop_home
***********************************************************Australia: Rooftop solar 'cannibalising' power prices as Australian generators pay to stay online
"Ecological" power generation is basically nuts. It tries to get something stable out of power sources with wildly fluctuating outputs. Basically, everybody loses. For much of the day both the ecological generators AND the conventional generators lose -- as a big daytime electicity suplus plunges power prices so low that ALL generators get nothing or near nothing for their output
Daytime power prices are plunging into negative territory – meaning generators have to pay to produce – as renewable energy increasingly cannibalises the market, according to experts.
As the share of green energy in Australia's biggest electricity system momentarily reached a record high of 70 per cent this week, energy software company Gridcog said "price cannibalisation" was becoming an increasingly common phenomenon.
Wholesale power prices in the national electricity market across the eastern states dropped to as low as -$64 per megawatt hour last Saturday, when soaring output from millions of rooftop solar panels flooded into the system.
The phenomenon is particularly pronounced in mild, sunny conditions and especially on weekends, when solar output is at its highest but demand for electricity is relatively low.
In a post to its social media followers, Gridcog said large-scale solar farms were, perversely, being hit hardest by the trend because rooftop solar was generally beyond the control of the market operator.
It noted utility-scale solar plants were having to pare back generation or switch off entirely during such periods to avoid having to pay to maintain production.
"Price cannibalisation is a major emerging feature of the energy transition," the company wrote on LinkedIn.
"It occurs when increased volumes of renewables with the same generation profile produce at the same time.
"This depresses prices in the market, often to the point that prices turn negative, and it presents a serious challenge for investors, particularly of utility-scale projects."
The firm said the trend was likely to accelerate as ever-more solar was added to household and business rooftops across the country.
More than 3.3 million Australian homes have solar panels – almost one in three – and there are forecasts this will almost double by 2032.
"These systems compete directly with large utility-scale assets connected to the transmission system," Gridcog wrote.
"As an aside, it also demonstrates the dominance that distributed [rooftop] solar has in Australia compared to utility-scale, something we expect to see more of in other markets in coming years."
Dylan McConnell, a senior research associate from the University of New South Wales, said rooftop solar was no longer a marginal player but central to the running of the grid.
He said the technology was reshaping the power system in sometimes unexpected ways. "It's very significant in some jurisdictions," Dr McConnell said. "It varies across the country, but in places like South Australia there are periods where production from rooftop solar actually exceeds the demand of the entire state. "It's huge."
Dr McConnell said SA was an extreme example of a different, though related, phenomenon known as minimum operational demand.
The term referred to the minimum level of demand for power from the grid.
Crucially, it stripped out the demand that customers were meeting themselves through resources that sat behind the meter — principally, rooftop solar.
Dr McConnell said generation from rooftop solar panels was so great at times that it was not only meeting owners' demands, but also those of most other customers as well.
He said this was pushing demand for power from the grid ever lower and squeezing out conventional generators such as coal- and gas-fired plants.
But Dr McConnell said the electricity system was not ready to run without those generators, which were increasingly having to ramp up and down to cope with the intermittency of solar supply.
"The other day in NSW, [coal generation] was just above two gigawatts in the middle of the day, and then that evening it was above 9GW," he said.
"So we had a 7GW ramp in the space of a few hours — they're capable of doing it.
But then, I guess more importantly, is the impact on economic viability." That, says Dr McConnell, represents the challenge.
"When you have low prices in the middle of the day and low volumes, is the increase in prices in the evening and the higher volumes there enough to offset that? The answer to that seems to be no."
Alex Wonhas, a former electricity system planner, noted that record lows for demand for power from the grid were being broken routinely as more and more rooftop solar was added to the system.
"At times when the renewable resources are high they will replace the conventional generators," Dr Wonhas said.
"But then at other times when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining we need either storage or conventional generators to step in.
"So it's a much more dynamic and much orchestrated system that we're facing in the future."
For Dr McConnell, the growth of rooftop solar in Australia would continue to test other generators and the power system more broadly.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-23/rooftop-solar-cannibalising-australian-power-market/102889710
***************************************24 September, 2023
Coming soon to Fox? Tony Abbott, the Australian former PM who said climate crisis was ‘absolute crap’
If there was any doubt as to whether Fox Corporation would follow its controversial rightwing trajectory under the sole leadership of Lachlan Murdoch, after his father’s retirement, it ended with the endorsement of former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to join the Fox board.
Abbott has been a highly controversial figure in Australia for decades, accused of misogyny and climate change scepticism, and once threatening to “shirtfront” Russian president Vladimir Putin.
His nomination, which came a day after Rupert Murdoch announced his retirement, shows Lachlan is “doubling down” on the company’s “right-wing crusading”, critics say.
Abbott served as prime minister for two years from 2013 to 2015, having received a glowing endorsement from Rupert Murdoch on the campaign trail during his successful attempt to oust Kevin Rudd, now Australia’s ambassador to the US. Rudd had previously enjoyed the support of Murdoch’s Australian newspapers.
“Conviction politicians hard to find anywhere. Australia’s Tony Abbott rare exception. Opponent Rudd all over the place, convincing nobody,” Rupert Murdoch tweeted at the time.
His ascension came after a period of brutal efficacy as opposition leader from 2009 to 2013, when he relentlessly attacked Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard.
Gillard’s famous misogyny speech in 2012 – voted by Guardian readers as the most unforgettable moment of Australian television history – was directed at Abbott.
“I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man,” Gillard said. “I will not… not now, not ever.”
She then listed examples of what she called his “repulsive double standards when it comes to misogyny and sexism”, including him standing in front of protest signs referring to Gillard as former Greens leader Bob Brown’s “bitch” and “ditch the witch”.
But it was Abbott’s attitudes to climate change which eventually caused his downfall.
Abbott notoriously once said that the “so-called settled science of climate change” was “absolute crap”. He has also previously said that climate change is “probably doing good”. Under his leadership, Australia’s carbon price was repealed, as bitter climate change wars continued.
He was deposed as prime minister when he lost a leadership spill to rival Malcolm Turnbull, a moderate, in 2015. He then lost his seat of Warringah in the 2019 election to Zali Steggall, one of a raft of independent candidates promising stronger action on climate change, after 25 years in parliament.
Earlier this year Abbott joined the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK thinktank that is critical of climate change science
****************************************************
The empire strikes back
The editor-in-chief of one of the world's leading academic journals has rebuked a scientist who claimed that research about climate change is rejected if it does not 'support certain narratives'.
Dr Magdalena Skipper, the top editor at Nature, accused Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, of 'poor research practices' that are 'highly irresponsible'.
Brown claimed in an article for The Free Press that editors at Nature and Science - two of the most prestigious scientific journals - select 'climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives' and favor 'distorted' research which hypes up dangers.
He referred to an article he authored which was published in Nature last week and said the study - titled 'Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California' - focused exclusively on climate change and intentionally ignored other key factors. Brown said researchers often 'tailor' their work in such a way to 'support the mainstream narrative'.
In a scathing response, Skipper said: 'The only thing in Patrick Brown's statements about the editorial processes in scholarly journals that we agree on is that science should not work through the efforts by which he published this [study].
'We are now carefully considering the implications of his stated actions; certainly, they reflect poor research practices and are not in line with the standards we set for our journal.'
Skipper said Nature has an 'expectation' that researchers use the most appropriate data, methods and results.
'When researchers do not do so, it goes against the interests of both fellow researchers and the research field as a whole. To deliberately not do so is, at best, highly irresponsible. Researchers have a responsibility for their research which they must take seriously,' she said.
Nature, which is based in London, was founded in 1869 and is one of the world's most cited scientific journals.
'When it comes to science, Nature does not have a preferred narrative,' said Skipper.
The strongly-worded rebuttal came after Brown claimed top scientific journals approach climate change research in the way 'the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause' of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii.
He pointed out research that said 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans.
Brown said 'the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.'
He wrote: 'To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change.
'However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.'
Scientists whose careers depend on their work being published in major journals also 'tailor' their work to 'support the mainstream narrative', he said.
'This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate paper,' he added. 'The authors should ignore—or at least downplay—practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change.'
Skipper's response also pointed to the peer review process for Brown's paper - which was written along with seven other researchers - which highlighted the 'lack of inclusion of variables other than climate change' and said 'the authors themselves argued against including it'.
She also listed three recent examples of research published in Nature that does not 'follow the purported editorial biases alleged by Brown'.
**************************************************
Biden’s American Climate Cult
With a swipe of his pen, Joe Biden unilaterally (and unconstitutionally) created his so-called “American Climate Corps.”
Touting the Biden administration’s ongoing effort to indoctrinate the country into the climate change dogma, White House policy adviser Ali Azaida contended, “This is important because we’re not only opening up pathways to bold climate action, we’re not just opening up pathways to decarbonization, we’re opening up pathways to good paying careers, lifetimes of being involved in the work of making our communities more sustainable, more fair, more resilient in the face of a changing climate.”
In other words, Biden is acting to create an army of climate cult activists, 20,000 strong. Never mind the fact that, constitutionally speaking, he doesn’t have the authority to do so. That’s because Congress shot down this idea last year.
It harkens back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps, though notably that was established by Congress. Along with other ecofascists, Varshini Prakash, head of the environmental activist group Sunrise Movement, has been calling on Biden to declare climate change a national emergency. Of this move, Prakash gushed, “This climate corps will conserve our land and water, bolster community resilience, advance environmental justice and tackle the climate crisis.”
Except that it will do no such thing.
In truth the corps will exist to enlist a bunch of young leftists to browbeat the public into acquiescing to the radical Left’s anti-fossil fuel agenda. As the White House’s announcement states, the American Climate Corps would “train young people in clean energy, conservation and climate resilience related skills,” and “streamline pathways into civil service.”
Becoming proselytes of Gaia, this army of Greta Thunbergs will call for the public to increasingly sacrifice their living standards in the face of dire warnings of a global warming apocalypse should these instructions fail to be heeded.
Revealing that in truth this organization is ultimately all about empowering more government in order to advance greater wealth redistribution, the program will advance Biden’s “Justice40 Initiative.” That initiative is a plan to allocate 40% of “federal investment” to “disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution.” In other words, it’s a race-based effort to use the climate change “emergency” as an excuse to implement socialism.
That has always been the goal of the “green” movement. It’s actually red.
At its root, Biden’s American Climate Corps is anti-capitalist, which is why it failed to pass muster with Congress. But never mind that. Biden and the rest of his Democrat colleagues constantly harangue the country over the nonexistent threat that “MAGA Republicans” pose to democracy, though they are more than willing to throw the democratic process aside in order to “save democracy.”
Ignoring the limits the Constitution sets upon the three branches of government in order create a favored program is the mark of a tyrant, not a democratically elected representative of the people whose power is constrained by the rule of law. The more Washington elites like Biden flout the rule of law, the more he encourages the rest of the country to do the same.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/100666-bidens-american-climate-cult-2023-09-22
***********************************************Our moral guardians: Climate activists teach children to send cookie malware to skeptical grandparents
The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is asking supporters to send deceptive links out to friends and family that look like a cookie recipe but embed software cookies instead on the victim’s computer. The digital cookie then pushes green climate videos into their feeds, (as if the ABC news wasn’t loaded enough).
Look out for any links to oneminutecookie.com.
The AYCC gets about $3m in donations, and even visits schools, teaching children how to cheat and lie to save the planet, or something like that. What are good family relationships built on after all, if not deception? What is science if it is not propaganda?
These are all good questions to raise with the children in your life and the schools in your area. Don’t wait for an email to arrive, thank the AYCC for providing the opportunity to start the conversation now.
If the believers are so caring, ethical and moral why are they teaching children it’s OK to deceive family members? Is this the kind of “fair and just” world we want to live in?
Call up schools and the local P&C and ask if they are aware the AYCC — which runs programs in schools — teaches children to fool parents and grandparents and use malware. Are these the kind of family values that belong in our schools? Will the local school guarantee that they will not allow this group to manipulate children?
The Australian exposed their crooked game this week, and traffic to oneminutecookies.com has fallen to zero. So presumably the link trap will change. (The campaign has been put on hold).
***************************************
21 September, 2023
The Biden Admin Just Declared 'War on Consumers'
In the Biden administration's whole-of-government attempt to force a transition to supposedly "green" and ethical energy that's anything but — just ask the whales off the coast of New England or forced/child laborers in EV battery supply chains in Africa — another department is jumping into the crusade.
On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released its "Principles for Net-Zero Financing & Investment" to press ahead with "best practices for private sector financial institutions that have made net-zero commitments and promote consistency and credibility in approaches to implementing them."
These principles, the Treasury Department and Secretary Janet Yellen say, are key to "supporting the mobilization of more private sector capital to address the physical and economic impacts of climate change and to seize on the historic economic opportunity presented by the green transition."
To that end, Yellen and her department heralded "a number of announcements from civil society including a $340 million commitment" from the likes of the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Climate Arc, ClimateWorks, Hewlett Foundation, and Sequoia Climate Foundation over the next three years "to support the continued development of research, data availability, and technical resources intended to help financial institutions develop and execute robust, voluntary net-zero commitments" and "facilitate the transition planning efforts of non-financial sectors of the economy."
According to the Treasury Department, the "climate crisis is propelling a massive economic shift and is hitting the most vulnerable countries and communities first and hardest" and there's an "increasing demand for technologies, products, and services that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support a clean energy future, and help adapt to a changing climate across all sectors." Notably, however, that demand is not high enough to see the market move truly voluntarily to meet it. As such, "[i]n the United States, government support is playing a role in accelerating this transition," the Treasury Department admitted as it pushes for more net-zero agreements and investment, as seen in the principles released on Tuesday.
"This announcement from the Department of the Treasury forcing financial institutions to adopt net-zero principles should come as no surprise to American consumers as the Biden Administration openly declares war on consumers," reacted Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers' Research.
"Treasury Secretary Yellen, with her announcement of these new net-zero principals at the Bloom Transition Finance Action Forum, has made it abundantly clear that the Treasury Department is working with and for ESG activists like Michael Bloomberg to make the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) goals for financial institutions into U.S. government policy, leaving consumers with nothing," Hild added. "The Biden Administration is littered with former BlackRock employees such as Brian Deese and Eric Van Nostrand who are pushing these liberal, progressive, net-zero, and ESG policies on Americans, rather than focusing on reducing costs at the grocery store and gas pump and tamping down inflation."
"Make no mistake, the Biden administration is running cover for the financial industry's net zero cartel, protecting megalomaniac CEOs like Larry Fink and leaving consumers with nothing," said Hild.
As summarized by the Treasury Department, the principles established to reinforce the woke, economically damaging priorities of the left are:
PRINCIPLE 1: A financial institution’s net-zero commitment (commitment) is a declaration of intent to work toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Treasury recommends that commitments be in line with limiting the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5°C. To be credible, this declaration should be accompanied or followed by the development and execution of a net-zero transition plan.
PRINCIPLE 2: Financial institutions should consider transition finance, managed phaseout, and climate solutions practices when deciding how to realize their commitments.
PRINCIPLE 3: Financial institutions should establish credible metrics and targets and endeavor, over time, for all relevant financing, investment, and advisory services to have associated metrics and targets.
PRINCIPLE 4: Financial institutions should assess client and portfolio company alignment to their (i.e., financial institutions’) targets and to limiting the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5°C.
PRINCIPLE 5: Financial institutions should align engagement practices — with clients, portfolio companies, and other stakeholders — to their commitments.
PRINCIPLE 6: Financial institutions should develop and execute an implementation strategy that integrates the goals of their commitments into relevant aspects of their businesses and operating procedures.
PRINCIPLE 7: Financial institutions should establish robust governance processes to provide oversight of the implementation of their commitments.
PRINCIPLE 8: Financial institutions should, in the context of activities associated with their net-zero transition plans, account for environmental justice and environmental impacts, where applicable.
PRINCIPLE 9: Financial institutions should be transparent about their commitments and progress towards them.
The voluntary net-zero commitments the Biden administration is seeking to foist on the private sector, however, may put companies which join them in legal jeopardy.
As Townhall has reported previously, state attorneys general from across the U.S. have put insurance and financial service companies on notice that their net-zero commitments may constitute a violation of antitrust and consumer protection laws. One recent letter to signatories of a net-zero commitment led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti noted how such net-zero alliances see companies "colluding to limit consumer choices and manipulate market outcomes in support of international climate activists," moves that "could violate [his state's] antitrust and consumer protection laws." As AG Skrmetti rightfully noted, "[d]ecisions about energy policy should be made by our elected representatives, not by transnational corporate alliances."
Already, an earlier warning to insurance signatories to a net-zero pact saw several companies back out of the agreement rather than face additional scrutiny from state attorneys general for their activities that may have constituted antitrust violations.
Despite such warnings about net-zero priorities being potentially in violation of state law, the Biden administration and its climate alarmist allies in the private and nonprofit sector are plunging ahead with more agreements — an unsurprising development from the administration that has not allowed federal law or the U.S. Constitution curb its ambitions, leading to a series of high-profile losses before the Supreme Court for its attempts to force an energy transition.
*****************************************************
‘Unacceptable costs’: Britain delays petrol car ban, weakens net-zero targets
Britain will delay its ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and relax a transition away from gas and oil heaters in homes amid cost of living fears and a looming electoral wipe-out for the ruling Conservatives next year.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a series of U-turns on key targets to tackle climate change on Wednesday, claiming his “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic” approach to reaching Britain’s 2050 target for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions would protect vulnerable households.
In a press conference at Downing Street he said that the country’s present approach would “impose unacceptable costs” on the poorest families and lead to the collapse of the national consensus on tackling climate change.
Polling from YouGov released after the announcement found 50 per cent of Britons supported the government’s proposal to push back the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, 34 per cent opposed, and 16 per cent didn’t know.
About 44 per cent supported delaying or dropping some commitments, while 38 per cent said the government should stick to its plans and its 2050 commitment.
But the move was greeted with anger by a coalition of environmental groups, business lobbyists, trade unions and politicians who say it would damage the UK’s chances of reaching its climate goals.
The announcement also coincided with United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, telling world leaders in New York that they were still “decades behind” in moving away from fossil fuels, launching a scathing critique at the UN’s inaugural climate ambition day.
Sunak, who said governments “of all stripes” had not been “honest with the public” about the costs of net-zero, said a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars would be delayed from 2030 to 2035, a move strongly opposed by some carmakers.
He said still expected that by 2030 “the vast majority” of cars will be electric, because of improving technology and the move would bring Britain into line with several European countries.
The government also relaxed the 2035 phaseout target for the installation of new gas boilers by introducing a new exemption for the most hard-pressed households, so they will “never have to switch at all”.
Other retreats Sunak announced included abandoning tougher energy efficiency rules for landlords and delaying a ban on oil boilers off the gas grid, with £7500 grants for boiler upgrades. The government will also “fast track” through the planning system projects to improve connections to the grid.
Sunak was forced to rush forward his speech after his plan to dilute Britain’s green policies was leaked. He said he was aligning himself with ordinary households who want Britain to meet its 2050 net-zero commitments, but on a reasonable timetable.
He said the debate around climate change had been charged with “too much emotion and not enough clarity” and that the approach should shift to “consent, not imposition, honesty not obfuscation, pragmatism not ideology.”
“If we continue down this path, we risk losing the consent of the British people and the resulting backlash would not just be against specific policies, but against the wider mission itself,” he said.
Sunak also ruled out several other climate policies - none of which had been promised — such as taxing meat, requiring people to share cars, fly less or use seven bins to aid recycling.
Leading car brands such as Ford, Vauxhall and Volvo have pledged to go fully electric this decade and had made manufacturing decisions with the 2030 ban in mind, with Ford accusing the government of lacking ambition, commitment and consistency to net-zero.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman backed Sunak’s decision, saying the government was “not going to save the planet by bankrupting the British people”.
**************************************************
Transmission lines rage in Australia: power struggle and a ‘shocked minister’
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King joined farmers, councils and environmentalists in attacking consultation on the Victorian-NSW Interconnector transmission project, which will plug renewables into the grid and help achieve Labor’s 2030 emissions reduction target.
Amid growing concerns in regional Australia about transmission line upgrades and offshore wind turbines, Ms King told the Australian Energy Market Operator to “engage thoroughly and honestly with impacted communities … from project conception, to construction and beyond”.
Ms King’s extraordinary intervention heaps pressure on Energy Minister Chris Bowen to urgently address rising community anger over government consultation on renewable projects and massive transmission lines integrating solar and wind farms into the electricity system.
In her submission to AEMO, which is overseeing a project plagued by delays and cost blowouts, Ms King said parts of her electorate would be significantly impacted if a Western Renewables Link transmission station was built by VNI West north of Ballarat.
“Throughout this process, I have been shocked and disappointed by the lack of respect that has been shown to local communities and the lack of consideration of their land uses, local government views and landscape,” Ms King, writing in her capacity as Ballarat MP, told AEMO.
“In my view, a significant amount of the anger felt by the community could have been avoided if their views and interests were considered from the very start of the project, rather than four years down the fact.”
AEMO has established TCV, a wholly owned subsidiary, to progress early works on Victoria’s centrepiece $3.3bn electricity transmission project, finalise the route and consult with landholders, community groups and traditional owners. It will not physically construct or own the high-capacity 500Kv double-circuit overhead Victoria-NSW transmission lines.
Mr Bowen, who is working to “improve” renewable energy project engagement with stakeholders, received a hostile reception on Tuesday when he arrived at a closed-door meeting in Nelson Bay to discuss the NSW Hunter Offshore Wind Zone with hand-picked community representatives.
Community leaders who attended the meeting in Labor MP Meryl Swanson’s battleground seat of Paterson, where the Liberals secured a 4.2 per cent swing at the 2022 federal election, claimed Mr Bowen rejected their request to reopen consultation.
The government’s rapid push to meet its 82 per cent renewables and 43 per cent emissions reduction targets by 2030 has sparked anxiety in coastal and regional communities earmarked for transmission line projects and offshore wind zones.
Confirmed and proposed projects in NSW, Victoria and South Australia have united seafood producers, fishermen, boaties, farmers, environmentalists, tourism operators, local governments and community groups who are demanding better consultation and independent analysis.
Major concerns raised by stakeholders about offshore wind turbines and transmission projects include negative impacts on endangered and at-risk wildlife, tourism and whale-watching, the seafood industry, sacred traditional Indigenous sites, visual amenity and farmland.
In her submission published by AEMO on May 27, Ms King welcomed an “increased focus … on social license” but warned VNI West proponents to “engage fully with the communities around Bulgana who will be impacted by this proposal and to mitigate any negative impacts it may have on their lives or livelihoods”.
“More broadly, I welcome the focus on cultural heritage, land use and the environmental impacts of the proposed route. The region north of Ballarat is not only home to the finest potato-growing country in Australia, but is a region of notable heritage and natural beauty,” she wrote.
“It has always been an inappropriate location for a development of this type as I, and many in the community, have been saying from the start. As Australia continues its transition to net zero, there will be increasing need for new projects just like this one in order to maintain a stable electricity grid.
“In rolling out these projects, it will be important to engage thoroughly and honestly with impacted communities all throughout the process – from project conception, to construction and beyond.”
Ms King’s intervention preceded a review ordered by Mr Bowen in July to “bolster reforms in community engagement around renewable energy infrastructure upgrades and new developments”.
A spokeswoman for Mr Bowen said Ms King “is a strong advocate for the energy transition, and for listening carefully to local communities about its opportunities and impacts – and the minister agrees”.
“Our traditional energy assets are ageing – with over 4GW of dispatchable power leaving the grid over the past decade and only 1GW to replace it because of chaos on climate and energy,” she said.
“Australia has needed much better consultation around energy infrastructure for years – so with the states we are making the overdue changes to electricity rules to ensure proponents of all energy projects must engage properly with communities – and landholders and communities have better guidance about their rights and entitlements.”
Regional Victorian councils, environmental groups and farmers have lodged concerns with AEMO about the route of VNI West’s overhead transmission lines. The project will connect the Western Renewables Link, north of Ballarat, with Project EnergyConnect at Dinawan.
Concerns about the VNI West and Western Renewables Link projects focus on vegetation loss, land clearing, threats to woodland bird species, impacts on cultural sites and economic damage to agricultural production and tourism.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Mr Bowen must explain the true cost and impacts of Labor’s renewables plan. “If Chris Bowen pretends that his policy is going to cost less than $1.2 trillion, he needs to provide the detail because the experts … are saying that the Labor plan will cost between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion – and Australians will pay for that through increased electricity bills. People are going to end up with 28,000km of new poles and wires, which is a considerable eyesore through many communities.
“People in metropolitan areas, or outer metropolitan areas like mine in my electorate … don’t want those wind turbines. So why should people in regional areas be forced to take them when they’re not reliable, and you need to firm them up?”
After the Bureau of Meteorology on Tuesday confirmed that Australia had entered an El Nino phase, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government was taking the long-term climate change threat seriously. “Part of that is a shift in the energy mix to 82 per cent renewables by 2030,” Mr Albanese said. Mr Bowen this week said transmission projects like VNI West and Hume Link were “absolutely essential for the country, for our plans for emissions reduction, but also communities deserve proper engagement”.
Mr Bowen, who released departmental modelling this week claiming the Coalition would need to spend $387bn to replace coal-fired generation with nuclear small modular reactors, on Tuesday said it “never hurts to do a bit of engagement”.
“I understand people’s concerns. But I also understand the jobs that will be created,” he said. “I understand people in the Hunter want to see action on climate change. They want to see local jobs created as well. These are things to be balanced.”
************************************
Qld. Deputy Premier slams ‘rich inner-city elites’ for trying to stop flights
He is referring to the Greens -- accurately
Deputy Premier Steven Miles has let fly at “wealthy inner-city elites”, accusing them of trying to clip Brisbane Airport’s wings by restricting flights and driving up airfares.
In an extraordinary attack, Mr Miles said the “elites” don’t want planes flying over their own homes or “working people” to be able to afford to fly.
His comments follow a bid by the Greens to impose a curfew and flight caps at Brisbane Airport “to bring peace and a good night’s sleep to thousands of Brisbane residents impacted by flight noise”.
Brisbane-based Greens federal MPs Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates have championed a bill to introduce hourly flight caps and a late night curfew at the airport for non-emergency flights.
Ms Watson-Brown has proposed a radical plan to divert planes to Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport and put passengers on high-speed trains to Brisbane.
The bill – set to be debated in federal parliament next month – has been estimated to come at a cost of $3b a year to the state economy if enacted.
Sharing the stage with Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner at a major aviation industry conference in Brisbane last week, Mr Miles joined forces with his political foe to slam the plan.
“Our airport is just so critical to our region’s economic prosperity, and I can’t think of anything more hypocritical than the Greens political party’s campaign against the airport,” he told a panel discussion at the CAPA (Centre for Aviation) Australia Pacific Aviation Summit.
“The blokes running this campaign are just about the most frequent travellers from Brisbane Airport to their engagements on (ABC show) Q+A and down to Canberra for the parliament.
“I’m an environmentalist, former environment minister and former conservation activist but the Greens are not a party of the environment – they’re a party of wealthy inner-city elites.
“And what they’re saying is that planes shouldn’t fly over the homes of wealthy inner-city elites, they should only fly over the homes of working people.
“And that only wealthy inner-city elites should be able to afford to fly but working people shouldn’t be able to afford to fly.
“That’s despite the fact that it’s those wealthy inner city elites who benefit disproportionately from the economic opportunity and prosperity that the airport delivers.”
Cr Schrinner said the Greens’ proposal was simplistic and would drive up travel costs and concentrate aircraft noise.
He said Brisbane City Council received far more complaints about barking dogs, loud parties and noisy air-conditioners than it did about airport noise.
“Offering simplistic solutions to this is not going to cut it,” he said.
“It’s a reminder that living in a large city is about managing impacts and noise. There are other ways to achieve that other than what’s being proposed.”
Meanwhile, the Senate inquiry into the federal government’s controversial decision to block extra Qatar Airways flights into Australia is due to sit in Brisbane next Tuesday.
The decision has also been blamed for helping keep international airfares sky-high, particularly out of Brisbane.
Brisbane Airport Corporation is understood to have made a submission to the inquiry.
***************************************
20 September, 2023
Brazil’s Big Cats Under Threat From Wind Farms
Weighing more than 100 pounds, big cats have long reigned over this hot and semi-arid region of Brazil, developing tougher paws for the scorched earth and reaching speeds of 50 miles an hour to bring down wild boar and deer.
But nothing could have prepared them for the 150-foot blades now slicing up the deep blue sky above them.
Jaguars and pumas are facing extinction in the Caatinga, Brazil’s northeastern shrublands, as Europe and China pour investment into wind farms, puncturing the land with vast turbines that are scaring the animals away from the region’s scant water sources.
Particularly sensitive to changes to their habitat, the jaguars and pumas abandon their lairs as soon as construction work on the wind farms begins, said Claudia Bueno de Campos, a biologist who helped found the group Friends of the Jaguars and has tracked the region’s vanishing feline population. They then roam vast distances across the dusty plains in search of new streams and rivers.
The weakest perish along the way. Others venture closer to villages, where locals have started laying traps to protect their small herds of goats and sheep, often their only form of survival in this impoverished region.
The wind power industry has doubled its capacity in Brazil since 2018, setting the country up to be the world’s fourth-biggest producer by 2027 behind China, the U.S. and Germany, according to the Brazilian Wind Power Association, an industry body.
But by helping to solve one problem—climate change—the wind industry risks creating others, warn conservationists. Indigenous groups recently staged protests in Brazil over the installation of turbines on lands they say are rightfully theirs, while environmentalists have also raised concerns that wind farms installed on compacted sand dunes on the northern coast could have damaged underground water reservoirs.
“Wind power is a fantastic proposal, and the northeast certainly has plenty of wind…but wind parks must also take into account what is happening here on the ground,” said Campos, who also works for the government-run Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity.
Killing jaguars or pumas—or most other wild animals in Brazil—carries a jail sentence of up to 18 months, but there is little enforcement, Campos said. “Normally, the villagers bury or burn the bodies—they find a way to make them disappear.”
There are now an estimated 30 jaguars and 160 pumas left in Boqueirão da Onça, or Jaguars’ Ravine, a protected area that is their main habitat in the Caatinga, according to Friends of the Jaguars. Since 2009, the number of jaguars in the Caatinga has fallen 40% while the number of pumas has dropped 20%.
While the big cats are still plentiful in the Amazon and Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, those in the Caatinga are unique, having adapted to cope with the intense heat. Jaguars have yellowish fur with black spots and are stockier than pumas, which feature a single brown to gray color. Jaguars are more sensitive to changes in their environment, biologists say.
The disappearance of the felines would throw the region’s ecosystem out of whack, leading to a proliferation of animals that serve as prey, such as wild boar, deer and armadillos, said Felipe Melo, a researcher at the Federal University of Pernambuco who has studied the impact of the wind power industry in the Caatinga.
As jaguars and pumas have been pushed into closer contact with communities, many villagers mistakenly believe they are growing in number—not facing extinction, making it harder to persuade locals to save them, said Campos.
“My god, the jaguars are everywhere now,” said José Barros da Silva, 72, who lives in Laje dos Negros, a small community in Jaguars’ Ravine. He lost five calves last year—worth some $2,500, equivalent to a year’s minimum wage.
“Only last week my son went to check on the herd and one of the cows had claw marks across its back.”
Few people in the town admit to having laid traps. But resentment is growing.
“One of my goats disappeared three weeks ago, I know it was a jaguar,” said José Ribeiro Marques, who has been eking out a living in the nearby village of São Pedro for the past 20 years.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “We raise our animals with such care.”
Much of Jaguars’ Ravine falls into an area of environmental protection that prohibits most forms of commercial activity.
Wind companies pay local farmers to erect turbines on their lands and employ local men during construction of the sites.
With 26 gigawatts of capacity, Brazil’s onshore wind power industry now ranks as the world’s sixth-biggest, accounting for 13% of the country’s electricity. Of all Brazilian power generation, 53% comes from hydroelectric plants.
***********************************************
Tories risk losing elections over Net Zero, British advisers warn
Rishi Sunak is conducting an 'audit' of the Government's Net Zero green strategy after his advisers warned that the cost burden on families is hitting the Conservative Party's chances at the next Election.
Downing Street insists that the Government remains committed to its target of reducing the UK's net emissions of greenhouse gases by 100 per cent – relative to 1990 levels – by 2050.
But the Prime Minister has been told he has enough 'wriggle room' to water this down because the UK is doing better than countries such as Germany, the US and Canada at lowering emissions.
Controversial policies, such as phasing out petrol cars by 2030 and replacing boilers with heat pumps, are unpopular with voters struggling with the cost of living crisis.
And while a review has ruled out relaxing the ban on petrol cars over fears it may scare off foreign investors in the necessary battery technology, other policies such as the boiler ban are being looked at.
The 'audit' follows the Conservatives' unexpected win in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election in July, which Tory advisers attributed to Labour's expansion of ULEZ in London, penalising drivers of older cars.
Mr Sunak has hinted he will mitigate the impact of Net Zero for families while keeping green voters onside.
He says he wants to hit the target 'in a proportionate and pragmatic way that doesn't unnecessarily give people more hassle and costs' and without forcing people to wear 'hairshirts'.
Under the Net Zero strategy, 600,000 heat pumps – at a cost of up to £45,000 each – would be installed every year until 2028 to replace gas boilers.
The scheme also pledges that all electricity would be generated from clean sources by 2035 and that carbon capture will remove between 20 and 30 million tons of CO2 a year by 2030.
Any dilution of the strategy will be watched closely by Boris Johnson, who made it a central plank of his premiership.
Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Tory MPs, said of the audit: 'I expect there will be little of substance.
'The Net Zero strategy has already hit the road. In a capitalist economy, it is unwise to try to rig the market with compulsory sales targets in this way.'
**************************************************
Richard North: Net-Zero: the annals of absurdity
Except for a few small-scale specialists, most of the UK's car industry is already in foreign hands, so handing it over to the coal-fired Chinese shouldn’t make too much difference. In the pursuit of net-zero targets, nothing is too much or too absurd for our government to countenance.
Most readers will recall the excited chatter of some commentators, speculating on the result of the summer’s Uxbridge by-election – which was attributed to a backlash over Khan’s ULEZ plans.
After vague noises from No.10 about being “pragmatic”, there was a widespread feeling that Sunak might capitalise on what some took to be an “anti-green” rebellion, and row back on the implementation of net-zero.
Whatever hopes there might have been, though, it must now be crystal clear that, short of any trivial, cosmetic concessions, Sunak has absolutely no intention of slowing down to destroy the British economy in the name of the Great God climate change.
If any further evidence was needed, it comes in an article in The Times yesterday, which tells us that the prime minister has rejected any idea of a reprieve for petrol and diesel cars. The 2030 electric vehicle targets, we are told, will stay.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, we are also warned to expect punitive measures aimed at incentivising the few remaining car manufacturers in the UK to increase their sales of EVs.
The plan is that next year, 22 percent of new cars sold will have to be electric, rising to more than 50 percent in 2028. It is left to the Independent, though, to tell us that manufacturers who fail to meet the targets will face fines of up to £15,000 per car.
A similar stratagem is being used to push the sales of heat pumps, with gas and oil-fired boiler manufacturers being required in the financial year 2024-2025 to ensure that heat pumps make up 4 percent of their sales.
An alternative is to buy “credits” from manufacturers who are over-quota, failing which the manufacturers will have to pay an eye-watering fine of £5,000 for every heat pump short of the quota. As with EVs, the quota will increase each year.
This has led some manufacturers to warn that they will have to increase the unit prices of boilers by £300 – a sum which also might have to increase each year as sales quotas increase.
This way of doing things is particularly devious as it distances the government from the consumer and puts the responsibility on manufacturers to implement net-zero policy, which must then take the blame for the increased prices when people turn their backs on “green” products.
As such, one might expect that manufacturers would be up in arms at this cynical attempt to make them take the fall, except in the case of car-makers, the sales quota system favours those which have committed only to produce EVs – apparently an intended consequence of the plan.
This has emerged after talks between the government an BMW, when it was announced that the car-maker would receive a subsidy of £600 million for its Cowley plant in Oxford – a bribe to dissuade the company from moving its whole operation to China.
But part of the package, it seems, was an “understanding” that the net-zero timescale would not be relaxed, giving the company “certainty” about the rules, and thereby protecting their investment in EVs. In order to protect the developing market, car-makers are said to be keen to see the 2030 ICE new car sales ban go ahead.
*****************************************************
Australian government is running out of time and options on power
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is proof that Australians are likely to pay a high price for ideological purity when it comes to energy. By continuing to reject even consideration of nuclear power or other high-density forms of electricity generation to replace coal, the Albanese government is leaving itself little room to move.
Mr Bowen has outlined the scale of the task required, including millions of solar panels, thousands of wind turbines and tens of billions of dollars’ worth of new transmission lines. The Australian Energy Market Operator has sounded the alarm that the build-out is behind schedule and over budget, risking the security of electricity supplies unless something is done to preserve coal-fired generation.
The renewable energy industry has confirmed that commitments from companies to invest in projects have collapsed to levels below what was being achieved by the Morrison government.
For all the talk of certainty provided by a legislated emissions target, companies are not willing to invest until government has provided the distribution networks needed to get the power to market. Getting access to the land required to build the networks is proving more difficult and expensive than anticipated. So, too, is getting access to farmland and environmentally cherished areas to build wind and solar farms. Community outrage is plain to see from southern Victoria to north Queensland.
Plans to boost the renewable energy network with offshore wind also are facing heavy weather. Australians are being told we are lucky to have the attention of offshore wind developers given the global demand.
But the reality is investment in offshore wind has collapsed in Britain and North America because of rising costs and inadequate government subsidies. In Australia, there is growing community anger about the impact of offshore wind turbines on visual amenity and wildlife, including whales and seabirds.
As community opposition to both onshore and offshore projects continues to build, so does the political pressure in seats that traditionally have been safe for Labor.
Meanwhile, the constituents calling loudest for change are most often those least likely to experience the disruption first-hand, and they are likely to vote green or teal independent. The major parties must manage the transition.
The Albanese government is learning a lesson that has been consistent in efforts to tackle climate change around the world. Public support for action does not always extend to a willingness to pay for it or to suffer material or environmental inconvenience as a result.
As a dense form of energy, nuclear can use existing infrastructure and have a much smaller footprint. Mr Bowen seems determined to push on regardless.
His attempts to dismiss a call by the Coalition for nuclear to be considered was ham-fisted and further damaged the government’s credibility. Even the inflated costs put forward for nuclear by Mr Bowen looked cheap compared with accepted estimates of trillions of dollars for a renewable alternative. Given the global rush for small-scale nuclear development, the long-term costs are likely to be much lower than Mr Bowen’s estimates for energy that will be available on demand.
To forgo options other than wind, solar and batteries, the government must deal with the issue of where they will go. In an energy transition where enthusiasts, including the government’s net-zero tsar, Greg Combet, are quick to talk about warlike footings, it can be only a matter of time before reasonable objections are swept away by authoritarian compulsion in the name of an energy emergency that is entirely of the government’s making.
***************************************
19 September, 2023
Meteorologists, Scientists Explain Why There Is ‘No Climate Emergency’
There's no climate emergency. And the alarmist messaging pushed by global elites is purely political. That's what 1,609 scientists and informed professionals stated when they signed the Global Climate Intelligence Group's "World Climate Declaration."
"Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific," the declaration begins. "Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures."
The group is an independent "climate watchdog" founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and Marcel Crok, a science journalist. According to its website, the organization's objective is to "generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change as well as the effects of climate policy." And it does so by objectively looking at the facts and engaging in scientific research into climate change and climate policy.
The declaration's signatories include Nobel laureates, theoretical physicists, meteorologists, professors, and environmental scientists worldwide. And when a select few were asked by The Epoch Times why they signed the declaration stating that the "climate emergency" is a farce, they all stated a variation of "because it's true."
"I signed the declaration because I believe the climate is no longer studied scientifically. Rather, it has become an item of faith," Haym Benaroya, a distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers University, told The Epoch Times.
"The earth has warmed about 2 degrees F since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, but that hardly constitutes an emergency—or even a crisis—since the planet has been warmer yet over the last few millennia," Ralph Alexander, a retired physicist and author of the website "Science Under Attack," told The Epoch Times.
"There is plenty of evidence that average temperatures were higher during the so-called Medieval Warm Period (centered around the year 1000), the Roman Warm Period (when grapes and citrus fruits were grown in now much colder Britain), and in the early Holocene (after the last regular Ice Age ended)."
The climate emergency is "fiction," he said unequivocally.
image-5490975
Human activities and the resulting greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Specifically, the IPCC says that in 1750, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations were 280 parts per million (ppm), and today, the atmospheric CO2 concentrations are 420 ppm, which affects temperature.
The IPCC is the U.N. body for assessing the "science related to climate change." It was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Programme to help policymakers develop climate policies.
Edwin Berry, a theoretical physicist and certified consulting meteorologist, said that one of the IPCC's central theories is that natural CO2 has stayed constant at 280 ppm since 1750 and that human CO2 is responsible for the 140 ppm increase.
This IPCC theory makes human CO2 responsible for 33 percent of today's total CO2 level, he told The Epoch Times.
Consequently, to decrease temperatures, the IPCC says, we must reduce human-caused CO2—thus, the current push by lawmakers and climate activists to forcibly transition the world's transportation to electric vehicles, get rid of fossil fuels, and generally reduce all activities that contribute to human-caused CO2.
That entire premise, according to Mr. Berry, is problematic.
"The public perception of carbon dioxide is that it goes into the atmosphere and stays there," Mr. Berry said. "They think it just accumulates. But it doesn't."
He explained that when you look at the flow of carbon dioxide—"flow" meaning the carbon moving from one carbon reservoir to another, i.e., through photosynthesis, the eating of plants, and back out through respiration—a 140 ppm constant level requires a continual inflow of 40 ppm per year of carbon dioxide, because, according to the IPCC, carbon dioxide has a turnover time of 3.5 years (meaning carbon dioxide molecules stay in the atmosphere for about 3 1/2 years).
"A level of 280 ppm is twice that—80 ppm of inflow. Now, we're saying that the inflow of human carbon dioxide is one-third of the total. Even IPCC data says, 'No, human carbon dioxide inflow is about 5 percent to 7 percent of the total carbon dioxide inflow into the atmosphere,'" he said.
So, to make up for the lack of necessary human-caused carbon dioxide flowing into the atmosphere, the IPCC claims that instead of having a turnover time of 3.5 years, human CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds or even thousands of years.
"[The IPCC is] saying that something is different about human carbon dioxide and that it can't flow as fast out of the atmosphere as natural carbon dioxide," Mr. Berry said. "Well, IPCC scientists—when they've gone through, what, billions of dollars?—should have asked a simple question: 'Is a human carbon dioxide molecule exactly identical to a natural carbon dioxide molecule?' And the answer is yes. Of course!
"Well, if human and natural CO2 molecules are identical, their outflow times must be identical. So, the whole idea where they say it's in there for hundreds, or thousands, of years, is wrong."
Mr. Berry said that means nature—not humans—caused the increase in CO2. And consequently, attempts to decrease human CO2 are pointless.
************************************************
Paying a Premium for “Green Steel”: Paying for an Illusion?
Abstract
The iron and steel industry generates around 10 % of global greenhouse gas emissions. The bulk of the emissions originates from the iron ore reduction. In this reduction, coal is used as a reagent. Steelmakers could switch to hydrogen-based direct reduction using hydrogen instead of coal as a reagent to reduce iron ore to pig iron. This would eliminate the CO2 emissions from the equivalent process in a traditional blast furnace. However, the process requires massive amounts of electricity.
This paper looks at the economics of such a switch to “green steel.” We assess a marginal increase in the production of a hypothetical green steelmaker. We also undertake an investment appraisal of a green plant, based on an ongoing installation in Northern Sweden, but also briefly consider a possible/planned investment in the US.
This appraisal is complemented by computing the survival function for the net present value in a systematic sensitivity analysis. It seems highly unlikely that a green steel plant can be socially profitable. If the green plant displaces conventional steel produced within the European Union’s cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, total emissions remain more or less unaffected; permits and emissions are simply reshuffled. Hence, if end-users of green steel pay a premium, they might pay for an illusion.
***************************************************
Journalists are failing the public in their reporting on renewables
The main sources of misinformation on Australia’s renewable energy transition are journalists from the ABC and the Nine newspapers.
And it’s not just about exaggerated reporting of natural disasters. Think about preconceptions among environment writers about the rights of people directly affected by the renewables grid expansion. Add to that journalists who ignore inconvenient facts about what is really happening to emissions around the world, and especially in China and India.
This column suggested last year that editors should send reporters into regional Australia to look at the reaction of rural communities affected by the rollout of more than 10,000km of poles and wires to connect renewables projects to the eastern states’ grid. This column has also pointed many times to misreporting of China’s renewables expansion while ignoring its rapidly expanding CO2 emissions.
This paper’s chief writer, Christine Middap, is the former editor of The Weekend Australian Magazine. She published a compelling piece on Saturday July 21 under the headline “Casualties on the road to renewables”.
The piece examined the plight of landholders affected by Transgrid’s HumeLink transmission project. Middap explained what fourth-generation Snow Valleys land holder Dave Purcell sees from his farm: eight to 14 steel towers, up to 76m high, carrying cables crisscrossing his cattle property.
Even Minister for Energy Chris Bowen sympathised with the plight of such farmers. “In my experience, most concerned community members are not anti-renewables, anti-transmission or anti-progress. Nor in most cases are they opposed to projects going ahead if their concerns are addressed,” Bowen was quoted saying.
The Sydney Morning Herald took a very different tack on the issue on Saturday September 9. This is a paper that has devoted probably hundreds of thousands of words in the past 50 years to disputes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs over trees disrupting multimillion-dollar harbour views.
National environment and climate editor Nick O’Malley savaged the new NSW Labor government’s decision to extend the life of the Eraring power station in the Hunter Valley. This is the country’s largest power source and the likelihood it would need to remain open beyond the 2025 date owner Origin Energy has flagged for closure has been known for years.
O’Malley quoted NSW Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe on social licence and renewables. “As Sharpe says, transition involves dispersing energy production that was once centralised mostly in the Hunter Valley across the state. Objections to new solar farms, wind turbines and transmission lines from landholders across the east coast are increasing.”
The piece, a full page, went on to quote several green energy lobbyists and planning experts about the slow processes of the NSW Department of Planning. From people whose land is being dissected by such projects – not a word. The renewables industry lobby owns the SMH’s journalism.
Reporting about the renewables commitments of the No.1 and No.3 global CO2 emitters, China and India, is just as lacking. Too many environment writers focus on increasing renewables use while ignoring that both countries are expanding their coal capacity.
In fact, The Telegraph in London on September 6 said China had this year started on new coal capacity greater than the entire existing US coal fleet. Yet in much media here it is Australia that is the emissions pariah.
At least The Guardian was honest enough to publish the truth on August 29. Quoting analysis by the Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research of Energy and Clean Air, The Guardian said “… in the first half of 2023 (China’s) authorities granted approval for 52 gigawatts of new coal power, began construction on 37GW of new coal power, announced 41GW worth of new projects and revived 8GW of previously shelved projects.”
Yet ABC radio’s flagship morning current affairs program, AM, on September 11 reported – po-faced – that Australia was being left behind by China’s energy transition as renewables industry leaders here pleaded for subsidies to help compete with US President Joe Biden’s misnamed Inflation Reduction Act spending on US emissions reduction.
Reporter Annie Guest interviewed Tim Buckley from the consultancy Climate Energy Finance who called for $100bn in government investment in renewables and critical minerals such as copper and lithium. Buckley believed the Future Fund should become an equity holder in renewables projects.
John Grimes, CEO of the Smart Energy Council, told Guest China was leading the world in the production and export of solar panels, wind turbines and EVs. “The rest of the world is in China’s dust,” he said.
Indeed, China has been the biggest beneficiary of the global energy transition across the West, even though it has increased domestic coal consumption by 300 million tonnes a year and last year increased emissions by 10 per cent over the pre-Covid peak set in 2019, according to The Conversation on July 10.
It is the biggest emitter by far, has the fastest-growing emissions and yet is the winner from commitments in Europe, East Asia, North America and Australia to reduce their emissions. In effect, the rest of the world is exporting its industrial base to China for no net gain on global emissions.
In fact, several European car makers, including German giant Volkswagen, have warned in recent months that European car production is on the verge of collapse in the face of cheap imported Chinese EVs and conventional cars and soaring power prices in Europe.
Now President Biden is using the Inflation Reduction Act to get a piece of the action China has been enjoying and European vehicle, electronics and chemical companies are moving manufacturing facilities to the US. Renewables lobbyists here want government subsidies so they can get some of the cake too. But what if it all fails?
AM was incurious about China’s rising emissions, the dangers of governments picking winners, the severe economic downturn in China, and the possibility Biden’s green agenda may just be a trillion dollar act of self-harm.
An editorial in The Wall Street Journal on September 4 warned many projects that were made possible only by Biden subsidies are now seeking large price increases from utility ratepayers to compensate for higher interest rates and soaring investment costs. Offshore wind developers in New York are seeking a 48 per cent rise in their power delivery contacts.
“The Alliance for Clean Energy NY is also requesting an average 64 per cent price increase on 86 wind and solar projects,’’ the Journal said. It noted growing demand nationally for renewables projects in the wake of Biden’s subsidies had driven inflation in the prices of renewables components.
So the laws of supply and demand apply even in the green economy? Who knew.
Good journalists should cast a sceptical eye over the self-interested claims of people wanting government handouts to boost private profits. Many consumers don’t pay for their media, relying on free sources such as the ABC and The Guardian.
It is incumbent on such sources to test the claims of those who stand to profit from new technologies. ABC consumers may be astounded to know there is as yet no economically viable technology pathway to green hydrogen. Nor would many realise most energy specialists expect all countries will continue to rely on gas for decades to firm renewables.
**************************************************
House Dems cross party lines, demand Biden admin expand oil drilling
A group of House Democrats penned a letter Thursday to several top Biden administration and White House officials, demanding the immediate continuance of uninterrupted offshore oil and gas leasing.
The Democrats — led by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas — called for the Department of the Interior (DOI) to immediately issue its legally mandated plan for offshore fossil fuel lease sales, which the agency has delayed for more than 12 months. The lawmakers noted that the Inflation Reduction Act tethers new wind leases to oil and gas leases, meaning the former could be threatened without consistent fossil fuel leasing.
"As members of Congress representing Americans across six districts in three states, we write to urge the U.S. Department of the Interior to take immediate action necessary to hold uninterrupted offshore oil and gas lease sales under the pending 2023-2028 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program to avoid the now expected offshore wind leasing cliff," they wrote in the letter.
"Limiting oil and gas sales to one per year eliminates much needed flexibility and opens the possibility for unforeseen circumstances that would delay or cancel lease sales, including the possibility of future administrations holding offshore wind leasing hostage," the Democrats continued.
Under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the federal government is required to issue plans every five years laying out prospective offshore oil and gas lease sales. The most recent plan, which was implemented in 2017, expired in June 2022.
On July 1, 2022, the DOI published a draft proposal for a replacement five-year plan, which laid out multiple options for leasing between 2023 and 2028. The plan included an option with no lease sales during the time span and a maximum option of 11 lease sales. The plan ruled out any lease sales in the Atlantic or Pacific, mainly proposing Gulf of Mexico sales.
"We urge the Department to quickly release a full five-year oil and gas leasing program that includes all eleven proposed sales and promptly take action to hold these sales without interruption," Gonzalez and the other lawmakers wrote.
"Following through on its Congressionally mandated obligations as passed in the IRA is the only way to ensure offshore wind energy has a clear path to leasing, permitting, development, and production," they added. "This means holding oil and gas lease sales under a robust, timely, and functioning five-year program as well."
The delay in issuing a finalized plan represents a departure from precedent set by both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have historically finalized replacements immediately after previous plans expired. The option to hold no lease sales over the course of five years also represents an unprecedented departure.
The most recent two plans, both formulated under the Obama administration, included more than 10 offshore oil and gas lease sales each. The Trump administration sought to hold a total of 47 lease sales across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coasts between 2022 and 2027.
"NOIA expresses our gratitude towards Congressman Gonzalez and his fellow Members of Congress for pushing for the timely completion of the next federal offshore oil and gas leasing program," National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito said in a statement Thursday.
"The reinstatement of consistent and predictable offshore oil and gas lease sales is paramount, safeguarding against potential disruptions to future offshore wind opportunities during this pivotal juncture for the industry," Milito continued. "Sound energy policy stands as a cornerstone of our nation's prosperity and should always serve as a unifying issue."
The DOI is expected to propose its five-year offshore leasing plan in the coming weeks and finalize it either later this year or early next year.
In addition to Gonzalez, Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, Jim Costa, D-Calif., Marc Veasey, D-Texas, and Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, signed the letter. The letter was sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and copied to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and White House Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta among others.
***************************************
18 September, 2023
Then they came for your pets…
Judith Sloan
Do you sometimes read a sentence or phrase and think ‘I wish I’d written that’. Well, I came across one the other day written by Andy Kessler in the Wall Street Journal: ‘climate-excuse assaults on our liberties’. He was running through the range of restrictions, bans and taxes being imposed on citizens around the world in the name of climate change – or should I say, climate emergency or even global boiling.
But here’s the thing: these assaults are now going beyond reducing our freedoms; they are also driving up the cost of living while diminishing our scope to have fun. It’s early days, but there are some signs that the peasants are revolting – thank God.
The reaction to the extension of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone mandated by Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is a compelling story. Undertaken in the name of reducing air pollution, revenue raising or reaching net zero – take your pick – ULEZ now imposes a £12.50 per day charge on drivers of non-compliant vehicles in the middle and outer suburbs of London. It has applied to close-in areas for a while.
Of course, the rich toffs are not affected because they all have compliant cars bought yesterday, including expensive electric vehicles, or wouldn’t even notice the daily charge. But for many others, ULEZ imposes a very real burden as the owners of non-compliant vehicles go about their daily business. Imposing such a clearly regressive policy is quite astonishing for a left-leaning politician such as Khan.
The most adversely affected are business owners who must use their vehicles to make a living and those on lower incomes who cannot afford to buy new cars, even with the addition of the insulting grant – it’s around £2,000 – offered by the city. I love the irony that if your car is old enough – say a 30-year-old E-type Jag – you are exempt from the ULEZ charge.
Khan has encountered some choppy waters and one of the bits of the story I particularly like is the overt driver sabotage of the ULEZ extension. The spying cameras are being painted over; there is a brisk online trade in fake registration plates; and there is an adhesive you can buy that prevents the cameras from reading the plates.
At this stage, it is estimated that at least 2 million ordinary UK folk have engaged in these subversive activities.
Unsurprisingy, Khan, the messiah, decided to enlist some academic supporters for his campaign to make life even more difficult for Londoners. The dons down at Imperial College were happy to oblige to endorse ‘the benefits of the mayoral air quality policies’. Let’s face it, the fee of nearly one million quid is a lot of money for academics. Yet the results were very disappointing for the man waging a war against cars. The first ULEZ rollout was found to have had no significant impact on air quality in London. Even its extension was not predicted to do anything noticeable. And what has been the response from the climate zealots employed at the City of London? To fudge and bury the results – obviously.
It is worth noting here that London is part of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. According to the blurb, ‘C40 is a global network of mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis’. Needless to say, it offers a lot of opportunities for global junketeering paid for by ratepayers. Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, was president of the board and a driving force.
Both Sydney and Melbourne are part of the cabal. The recent show-off tactic of Clover Moore, Mayor of Sydney, to ban the reticulation of natural gas in the City of Sydney is an example of action designed to impress the other gravy train participants in the network.
The C40 cities have signed on to ‘an ambitious target for 2030’ which is packed with fun-filled ideas – not. No meat, no dairy, no private vehicles and only three new clothing items per person per year. One short flight every three years will be permitted.
Of course, the C40 is not the only organisation attempting to rob ordinary folk of fun and convenience. The Absolute Zero Report developed by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and released in 2019 contains an inventory of enjoyment-sapping proposals for the UK while driving up the cost of living. The demands include: smaller fridges, no beef or lamb, no flying, no shipping except for nuclear-powered ships, no cement or steel produced and no gas for cooking or heating. Road use would need to be reduced by 60 per cent and vehicles must be exclusively electric. By 2029, all airports in the UK must be closed with three exceptions.
My guess is the no flying rule doesn’t apply to the report’s authors because they must travel far and wide to spread the message, naturally.
Of course, academics on mad frolics are nothing new. But the UK government’s own Climate Change Committee, which is part of the legislated architecture on the UK’s road to net zero, has made a series of ‘helpful’ suggestions. It was headed by that mad green lefty, Lord Deben, who describes climate action in the UK now as ‘worryingly slow’.
The recommendations are all the predictable ones: more trees planted, flying less, no new coal or oil projects. Debs was mightily unimpressed, and let it be known, when Boris was PM – yes, mad green lefty Boris who first introduced ULEZ – he approved a 30-year coal mine in Cumbria.
One of the core recommendations of the CCC is ‘no net airport expansion’. Current UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has decided to ignore this suggestion and is approving various airport expansions. Seven of the UK’s main airports have plans to expand. It’s almost as if Debs and his like want to take away the joys of travel from the masses and return overseas travel to the elites, ‘people like us’-types. No doubt, they have always taken a dim view of Ryanair and the like.
But here’s a drum roll moment: pet ownership is bad for the climate and needs to be limited, if not prohibited. All those dogs, cats and whatever burping and farting and just think about all the meat they eat and the carbon emissions associated with that. Gosh, it’s the equivalent of (insert really frighteningly large number) of cars (non-electric, of course) on the road.
So farewell Fido, farewell Kitty – your days are numbered in the name of doing something about the climate crisis.
That will go down well with the masses – not.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/then-they-came-for-your-pets/
*********************************************************UK’s Onshore Wind Scheme Could Backfire, With Far More Potent Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Shortly after naming Claire Coutinho as secretary of state for energy security and net zero on Aug. 31, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a plan to accelerate the approval process for onshore wind projects.
Previously, a 2015 ruling allowed a single complaint within a community to halt an onshore wind program and fully stopped subsidies for such projects.
Under the new rule, communities can speed up the process for allocating sites through local development orders or community right-to-build orders.
However, wind farms can drastically raise the cost of electricity when the wind doesn’t blow and could leak a chemical that is exponentially more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.
Perhaps Coutinho isn’t aware of the influential 2019 BBC article that uncovered how the U.K.’s offshore wind turbine gearboxes are utilizing the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, sulfur hexafluoride, and that these gearboxes are leaking 15% of the gas over their lifecycle.
Sulfur hexafluoride is 23,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide. For reference, methane and nitrous oxide are roughly 25 and 298 times more potent than carbon dioxide, respectively. Additionally, these estimates are only over a 100-year perspective, and sulfur hexafluoride could exist up to 3,200 years in the atmosphere. Consequently, a single pound of released sulfur hexafluoride is the equivalent of 11 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere.
No energy source, not even wind, can be fully without externalities, even with the most advanced recycling techniques. That’s not to mention the hydrocarbons needed to fabricate the nylon and fiberglass for blades and to create the steel and concrete for towers.
Speaking of externalities, Coutinho should also acknowledge the potential of 100,000 birds killed every year by wind turbines in the U.K. However, losses could be minimized by adopting the Norwegian practice of painting one rotor blade black to reduce those deaths by an estimated 70%.
Despite the calls for expansion of energy generation, one of the largest hurdles is the time it takes to link to the grid, with more than 1,100 projects currently waiting to connect. With such a backlog of projects and the lack of transmission infrastructure, the U.K. government should contemplate allowing these projects to compete in an unsubsidized market to weed out economically unviable projects and restore reliability and adaptability to the grid.
Furthermore, the U.K. should also be wary of greenlighting or expanding every wind project without completing the due diligence to investigate local environmental harm and to acknowledge the wishes of local constituents.
Abandoning reliable generation capacity for intermittent wind power without first investing in viable storage capacity is a recipe for disaster.
For example, scalable gas-fired power stations saved the U.K. last winter by providing 60% of the needed electricity while wind turbines contributed a paltry 3%.
In order to end the economic malaise caused by ever-increasing energy prices and a culture of strangling economic freedom into stagnation, the U.K. needs to adopt an energy policy that will lower prices of electricity, rather than adopting the German model of closing reliable nuclear power stations and massively expanding intermittent solar and wind. Instead, the U.K. should adopt the Trump-era all-of-the-above strategy for energy security.
Similarly, the U.K. should roll back pre-Brexit European laws and rebuff current proposed measures that seek to control people’s everyday lives, such as mandating that properties meet net-zero targets or pay 15,000 pounds (about $18,750).
In an economic climate of spiraling inflation, the U.K. government should look to all avenues, including retaining its coal power until viable base-load generation alternatives can be secured.
The U.K.’s remaining nuclear reactors should be left online or expanded, and small modular nuclear reactors should be explored. Rather than solely expanding wind turbines that could leak a greenhouse gas 23,500 times more potent than CO2, the U.K. should explore scalable alternatives, such as the zero-emission natural gas plant that is being brought online in 2025.
With continuing inflation, connected insiders colluding with unelected bureaucrats, and a worldwide populace increasingly leery of increasing government censorship, the U.K. needs to abandon anti-energy policies and acknowledge that economic growth will always require more energy and more ingenuity. Lifting restrictions on wind power and other sources is but the first step to allowing the U.K. to become energy secure.
Intermittent sources alone cannot ensure energy security, as they are only as good as their storage capacity. Wind power must also be upfront about its tangible greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.K. needs stable and scalable energy sources to alleviate its energy woes. Only by lowering high energy bills and lowering the cost of living can the U.K. reignite the boundless energy of human potential.
***********************************************
Huge cost of Australia’s renewable energy dream, according to industry leaders
The race to connect renewable energy to the grid is challenging and costly, industry leaders say, as they urge a focus on affordable electricity.
Alinta Energy chief executive officer Jeff Dimery said his firm was investing $10bn into renewable power, including offshore wind, battery technology and pumped hydro, but cautioned that affordability must remain a key driver.
He cited the giant Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project, the cost of which in August was announced as having blown out to $12bn from an original $2bn.
Mr Dimery said this would deliver $100m of monthly revenue once complete, which translated to a capital cost of more than $60 per megawatt hour.
The market paid less than $15 per megawatt hour for pumped hydro less than three years ago – a more than fourfold cost hike.
“We need to clean up our energy supply..... And I guess what I’m saying is that, ultimately, I agree with the Prime Minister, his vision and how we need to get there. Where we’re differing is at the pace at which we might do that,” Mr Dimery said.
Transgrid executive general manager Craig Stallan, whose firm operates and manages the high-voltage transmission network in NSW and the ACT, said infrastructure needed to be built to create a superhighway across the national power grid.
*************************************************
Climate change impacts Crop production MSN Pushes Rice, Sugar, Tomato Crises – Despite New Crop Records
This morning, the MSN news feed that displays for millions of people when they open a new Internet tab prominently displayed an article titled, “The climate crisis is here, the ecosystem is starting to collapse.” Embedded in the usual debunked claims of worsening extreme weather were claims that climate change is devastating crop production around the world. In particular, the article singled out rice, sugar, and tomato production as particularly ravaged by climate change. The objective facts, however, show just the opposite.
Fake claims of tomato shortages. According to the article, “India’s Burger King has taken tomatoes off their burgers after this year’s crop failed and the cost of tomatoes has become prohibitively expensive.”
An anecdotal claim that Burger King is taking tomatoes off its hamburgers in some locations does not prove that climate change is destroying tomato crops. Instead, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), global tomato production is faring quite well. In fact, the UNFAO reports that global tomato production has set new records an amazing 10 years in a row.
Sugar data is record sweet, not sour. The article continued, “The world’s largest sugar trader expects the coming season to see a deficit for the sixth consecutive year as unfavourable crop forecasts in India will reduce global stocks of the sweetener. ‘The world will be as close to running out of sugar as it can be,’ said Mauro Virgino, trading intelligence lead at Alvean, a trading house controlled by Brazilian producer Copersucar SA, in a recent interview.”
Claims by a trading professional who has a financial stake in leading people to expect higher sugar prices are neither evidence of declining sugar production nor evidence of any climate change impact. Fortunately, the UNFAO keeps meticulous data for world sugar production, also. According to the UNFAO, 2019 saw the largest global sugar crop in history. All 10 of the largest sugar crops in history occurred during the past 10 years. During the past 15 years, global sugar production has increased by more than 33 percent.
Rice crops continue to set records. Also, claimed the article, “Most seriously of all, rice yields across southeast Asia have fallen sending prices up across the board. A rapidly escalating rice crisis is unfolding in Asia that has put hundreds of millions of people at food security risk. … The poor rice yields are going to get worse in the coming months as due to the record high sea waters, this year’s El Niño effect is expected to be especially strong that will cause rice yields to fall further. The food issue and soaring prices in Yangon in Myanmar has already become so bad that residents are turning to charity run food banks for help as they are unable to feed themselves.”
The UNFAO, however, reports an entirely different story. According to the UNFAO, global rice production set a new record in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. All three of the three largest crop years occurred during the past three years. All five of the five largest crop years occurred during the past five years. All 10 of the 10 largest crop years occurred during the past 10 years.
The article focuses special attention on rice yields in India, China, and Myanmar. However, the growth in India’s rice production is even more impressive than the growth in global rice production. India has absolutely smashed its rice production records six years in a row. In China, 2021 was the second-highest rice crop in history. All six of China’s highest-ever rice crops were produced in the past six years. Myanmar rice production is declining – an aberration compared to the global trend – but that is because of Myanmar’s horrible domestic political situation, not climate change. As reported by Human Rights Watch, “Since staging a coup on February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military has carried out a brutal nationwide crackdown on millions of people opposed to its rule. The junta security forces have carried out mass killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, and other abuses that amount to crimes against humanity.” Blaming climate change for Myanmar’s declining crop production is giving a pass to political brutality and human rights abuses.
The overall global crop picture is amazing. It is not surprising that MSN, when cherry-picking its worst-possible scenarios to claim a global crop crisis created by climate change, cannot even find one or two outliers to support its misinformation. The objective fact, as shown definitively by United Nations crop data, is that crop production of nearly all kinds throughout virtually the entire world is setting is setting impressive and live-providing new records nearly every year. This is happening in concurrence with more atmospheric carbon dioxide and modestly warming temperatures.
https://climaterealism.com/2023/09/msn-pushes-rice-sugar-tomato-crises-despite-new-crop-records/
***************************************17 September, 2023
‘Heat waves are the killer’: Australia's very own false prophet warns of deadly risk over summer
Flannery is well-known for prophesying that Perth would become a ghost city for a lack of water. Perth of course continues to thrive
His latest prophecy is just as mad. It is COLD weather, not hot weather, when most deaths occur
The long-range weather forecasts have been worrying. Australia faces a long hot summer with an increased risk of drought.
And while there will always be fears of bushfires, especially after the devastating black summer of 2019-2020, Tim Flannery warns that heat waves might be the biggest concern this season.
“All indications are we’re heading for a very hot summer, but we’re still getting some rain,” the Climate Council’s chief councillor said. “The potential for heat waves to have a big impact on human health is really there.
“You don’t need floods or bushfires to impact human health. Heat waves are the number one killer of people among natural phenomena so that’s a big concern.”
Flannery, a long-time advocate for more action to combat climate change, cited the 2009 heat wave in south-east Australia that health authorities have said contributed to the death of more than 370 people in Victoria alone.
“Melbourne saw it very clearly [then] when there was four days above 40 degrees and very little cooling at night,” he said.
Flannery was speaking before the release of a new documentary, Johan Gabrielsson’s Climate Changers, which has him interviewing leaders of the climate movement around the world. It launches in cinemas with a live Q&A session on Sunday.
**************************************************
Is the EU sacrificing net zero to protect its electric car industry?
A conflict between Green values
They are too expensive. There are not enough of them on the market. It’s too much hassle to charge them. There are lots of reasons why people are still reluctant to switch from petrol to electric cars, with their cost right at the very top of the list.
Still, with the world about to be flooded with cheap Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), that is about to change. You might think that anyone seriously worried about combating climate change would welcome that. Except now it turns out that the EU, for all its rhetoric, cares more about protecting its own auto industry and is planning to slap tariffs on Chinese imports.
The trouble is, tariffs will slow down the adoption of EVs, and make it harder to hit net zero
Ursula von der Leyen’s state of the union address yesterday was full of the usual self-congratulatory guff about closer cooperation, and deepening the union. It, however, did contain one nugget of news.
The EU is launching an ‘investigation’ into whether China’s EVs have received subsidies from the state. For an organisation that has been loudly boasting about how much it is spending on ‘green industries’, such as new types of vehicles and the batteries that power them, it seems, to put it mildly, just a touch hypocritical to ‘investigate’ China for doing exactly the same thing. Even so, there is little doubt about what will happen next. The subsidies will be ‘found’ and tariffs applied. Indeed, China has already started complaining about just that.
Sure, of course on one level we can see what the EU is worried about. While companies such as Tesla led the way in the early shift to EVs, China is about to overtake everyone else. BYD has already surpassed Tesla as the world’s largest manufacturer in the industry, and a whole generation of new Chinese brands are launching impressive, cheap models around the world.
With the Chinese manufacturers charging around £10,000 per vehicle compared with £30,000-plus for European rivals, it is not hard to see that they will soon dominate the global industry. To protect Volkswagen, BMW and Renault, tariffs will have to be applied. The trouble is, that will slow down the adoption of EVs, and make it harder to hit net zero.
In reality, when Europe’s political elite went all in on prioritising climate change over everything else it failed to notice that this would hand China clear industrial leadership. China already dominates global production of solar panels (at least 75 per cent), wind turbines (70 per cent) and heat pumps (40 per cent). Very soon it will dominate EVs as well.
At some point, the EU will have to decide about whether it cares more about climate change or protecting its industrial base. Very soon this conflict will be too obvious to sweep under the carpet.
*************************************************
True, Indianapolis Star, “Climate Change is not ‘Theoretical,’” but Its Connection to Extreme Weather Is
The Indianapolis Star (IndyStar) published a story claiming climate change is causing dangerous weather changes in Indiana. Climate change is a fact, but data shows, contrary to what is implied by the expert interviewed by the IndyStar, that neither flooding, nor hot temperatures have become more extreme or common in Indiana than they have been historically in the state.
IndyStar reporter Karl Schneider interviewed Gabe Filippelli, executive director of Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, for his story, “Climate change not ‘theoretical, or even debatable,’ an IU expert says. What’s the solution?”
“Climate change already is affecting the everyday lives of Hoosiers and experts at Indiana University are exploring potential solutions,” writes Schneider.
“We do have some significant short-term challenges and one of them is flooding,” Filippelli told Schneider. “We’re already seeing a lot more extreme rainfall events and … we’re going to see even more into the future.
“The other issue is extreme heat. We see an increase in extreme heat events globally, but also right here in Indiana …,” Filippelli continued to opine.
I say opine because the data on flooding and extreme heat in Indiana refute his claims.
Concerning extreme rainfall and flooding, data from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that Indiana’s single day record for precipitation was set in August 1905, more than 118 years of global warming ago.
Also, although records do indicate the mid-western United States is receiving modestly more precipitation now on average during the present period of modest warming than it did in the early and mid-20th century, this has not led to a worsening of flooding. In fact, in its most recent report the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it has detected no changes in flooding and that it can attribute no particular floods or patterns in floods to human caused climate change.
Concerning extreme heat, once again data from the NCEI refute Filippelli’s uncorroborated assertion that extreme heat is increasing. Indiana’s single day maximum temperature record, of 116? was set in 1936, 87 years of climate change ago. Indeed, more record hot temperatures in the United States were set during the dust bowl decade of the 1930s than in any other decade before or since, and far more record high temperatures for the country were set prior to 1950, before the recent period of modest warming, than have been set or tied in the past 70 years of climate change. Only six high temperature records have been set or tied since 2000 during what most alarmists call the hottest two decades on record. By contrast, 25 state maximum temperature records set in the 1930s still stand as records today.
Neither flooding nor extreme heat have worsened during the recent period of modest warming. Had Schneider checked the data, rather than relying on “expert opinion,” he could easily have established this fact and produced an accurate story, rather than one more in a long line of climate crisis scare stories.
************************************************
The 2023 Burning Man Rainstorm Wasn’t Caused By Climate Change
This year, the popular music festival Burning Man, which is held in the Black Rock Desert area of Nevada, was interrupted by a rainstorm that left many participants stranded. Wired and The Conversation, among other media outlets, attributed the rain storm, as well as the heat wave the area experienced a few weeks prior, to human-caused climate change. This is false. The recent rains were made more intense by the aftermath of hurricane Hilary, and neither “monsoon” rains, nor heatwaves, are an unprecedented or even rare in the region.
In a story posted by Wired, “Climate Change Has Finally Come for Burning Man,” contributor Chris Stokel-Walker writes that the downpour that trapped many festival-goers was caused by climate change. He wrote:
Extreme weather wrought by climate change, which is resulting in increasing amounts of rain being dumped on the southwestern US states at this time of year. “These sorts of heavy summer rainfall events in the region are expected, as the well-known southwestern summer monsoon is expected to yield larger amounts of rainfall in a warming climate,” says Michael Mann, presidential distinguished professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science.
A piece in The Conversation took a more balanced approach, pointing out that bad weather striking a festival isn’t new, that “[t]he legendary 1969 Woodstock festival in New York State was also a mud pit.”
Along with reasonably suggesting that festival planners take potential weather problems into account, The Conversation unfortunately also claims that “[a]s we heat the planet, we’re getting more frequent, intense and longer-lasting heatwaves across the world. We also know we’re seeing more and more intense short-duration downpours which cause flash flooding.”
These claims are also false.
To Dr. Mann and Wired’s credit, the summer monsoon is a real season in the southwest, and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has “high confidence” that precipitation in general has increased over the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. This has not led to more flooding, however, according to the IPCC as discussed in Climate at a Glance: Floods.
Heatwaves likewise do not appear to be getting worse in the United States, and data show that most the U.S., including parts of Nevada, have seen fewer unusually hot days, as shown in the post “Media Chases ‘Climate Enhanced’ Heat Waves, Misses Data Showing They are Less Frequent.”
Hurricane Hilary, discussed in the Climate Realism post “No, BBC, Hurricane Hilary Was Not Unprecedented,” undoubtedly had an impact on the amount of rainfall Burning Man saw this year as the remnants of the storm moved inland from its landfall as a tropical storm in Southern California.
The monsoon season is a regular event known to scientists and nearby residents. Also, this isn’t the first time Burning Man itself was disturbed by a downpour. A brief Google search reveals many articles and blog posts from as far back as 2000 that describe rain around the same time of year creating sticky, impassible mud. Anyone operates an outdoors festival in the desert Southwest during the monsoon season should not be surprised to get heavy amounts of rain on occasion.
This particularly sticky, slippery mud, is also a known feature of the dry lakebed Burning Man takes place in. Its primary composition is gypsum, silica, and bentonite-clay type dirt that can form famous white-out dust storms when dry, and soak up water and turn into particularly sticky mud when wet. When it rains – and rains hard – in the desert, a dry lakebed is not the place to be.
As discussed, many times by Climate Realism, here, here, and here, for example, these kinds of drought and deluge patterns are normal for the region; desert rain does not soak easily into the ground, it runs off and collects, leading to flooding, including flash floods, which are dangerous.
While there were certainly unsafe and unsanitary conditions at Burning Man this year, the weather that led to it is not unprecedented. Burning Man has been rained out before, and none of the conditions that led to the situation can be honestly attributed to human emissions of carbon dioxide, as outlets like Wired and The Conversation are implying when they claim this kind of rainfall is indicative of climate change. Data does not show that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent or intense in the Southwestern United States. Climate change can’t be causing weather changes that data show aren’t occurring.
***************************************
14 September, 2023
Earth is outside its ‘safe operating space for humanity’ on most key measurements, study says
LOL the old Potsdam (Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung) alarmists are on deck again with more prophecies to replace their old failed ones. They've got around 400 employees so they have to come up with something. In 2017, Potsdam eminence Schellnhuber said that unless climate action is taken by 2020, the world "may be fatally wounded.". I must say I haven't noticed that. We've just had a very mild winter in Australia. I could take more fatal wounds like that
Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said.
Earth’s climate, biodiversity, land, freshwater, nutrient pollution and “novel” chemicals (human-made compounds like microplastics and nuclear waste) are all out of whack, a group of international scientists said in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances. Only the acidity of the oceans, the health of the air and the ozone layer are within the boundaries considered safe, and both ocean and air pollution are heading in the wrong direction, the study said.
“We are in very bad shape,” said study co-author Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “We show in this analysis that the planet is losing resilience and the patient is sick.”
In 2009, Rockstrom and other researchers created nine different broad boundary areas and used scientific measurements to judge Earth’s health as a whole. Wednesday’s paper was an update from 2015 and it added a sixth factor to the unsafe category. Water went from barely safe to the out-of-bounds category because of worsening river run-off and better measurements and understanding of the problem, Rockstrom said.
These boundaries “determine the fate of the planet,” said Rockstrom, a climate scientist. The nine factors have been “scientifically well established” by numerous outside studies, he said.
If Earth can manage these nine factors, Earth could be relatively safe. But it’s not, he said.
In most of the cases, the team uses other peer-reviewed science to create measurable thresholds for a safety boundary. For example, they use 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air, instead of the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times. This year carbon in the air peaked at 424 parts per million.
The nine factors are intermingled. When the team used computer simulations, they found that making one factor worse, like the climate or biodiversity, made other Earth environmental issues degrade, while fixing one helped others. Rockstrom said this was like a simulated stress test for the planet.
The simulations showed “that one of the most powerful means that humanity has at its disposal to combat climate change” is cleaning up its land and saving forests, the study said. Returning forests to late 20th century levels would provide substantial natural sinks to store carbon dioxide instead of the air, where it traps heat, the study said.
Biodiversity – the amount and different types of species of life – is in some of the most troubling shape and it doesn’t get as much attention as other issues, like climate change, Rockstrom said.
“Biodiversity is fundamental to keeping the carbon cycle and the water cycle intact,” Rockstrom said. “The biggest headache we have today is the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis.”
University of Michigan environmental studies dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn’t part of the study, called the study “deeply troubling in its implications for the planet and people should be worried.”
“The analysis is balanced in that it clearly sounds a flashing red alarm, but it is not overly alarmist,” Overpeck said. “Importantly, there is hope.”
The fact that ozone layer is the sole improving factor shows that when the world and its leaders decide to recognize and act on a problem, it can be fixed and “for the most part there are things that we know how to do” to improve the remaining problems, said Carnegie Mellon chemistry and environment professor Neil Donahue.
Some biodiversity scientists, such as Duke’s Stuart Pimm, have long disputed Rockstrom’s methods and measurements, saying it makes the results not worth much.
But Carnegie Mellon environmental engineering professor Granger Morgan, who wasn’t part of the study, said, “Experts don’t agree on exactly where the limits are, or how much the planet’s different systems may interact, but we are getting dangerously close.”
“I’ve often said if we don’t quickly cut back on how we are stressing the Earth, we’re toast,” Morgan said in an email. “This paper says it’s more likely that we’re burnt toast.”
********************************************************
New paper reveals classic logical fallacy in IPCC report
A new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that the IPCC’s 2013 report contained a remarkable logical fallacy.
The author, Professor Norman Fenton, shows that the authors of the Summary for Policymakers claimed, with 95% certainty, that more than half of the warming observed since 1950 had been caused by man. But as Professor Fenton explains, their logic in reaching this conclusion was fatally flawed.
"Given the observed temperature increase, and the output from their computer simulations of the climate system, the IPCC rejected the idea that less than half the warming was man-made. They said there was less than a 5% chance that this was true."
"But they then turned this around and concluded that there was a 95% chance that more than half of observed warming was man-made."
This is an example of what is known as the Prosecutor’s Fallacy, in which the probability of a hypothesis given certain evidence, is mistakenly taken to be the same as the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis.
As Professor Fenton explains
"If an animal is a cat, there is a very high probability that it has four legs. However, if an animal has four legs, we cannot conclude that it is a cat. It’s a classic error, and is precisely what the IPCC has done."
Professor Fenton’s paper is entitled The Prosecutor’s Fallacy and the IPCC Report.
About the author
Norman Fenton is Professor Emeritus of Risk at Queen Mary University of London (retired as Full Professor, December 2022) and a Director of Agena, a company that specialises in artificial intelligence and Bayesian probabilistic reasoning. He is a mathematician by training, with a current focus on quantifying risk and uncertainty using causal, probabilistic models that combine data and knowledge (Bayesian networks). He has published 7 books and over 350 peer reviewed articles. His works covers multiple domains, including law and forensics, health, and system safety. Since 2020 he has been active in analysing data related to Covid risk.
https://mailchi.mp/af47a8c0020a/the-prosecutors-fallacy-and-the-ipcc-report-198567?e=cc88839e92
*********************************************Here's the Climate Dissent You're Not Hearing About Because It's Muffled by Society's Top Institutions
As the Biden administration and governments worldwide make massive commitments to rapidly decarbonize the global economy, the persistent effort to silence climate change skeptics is intensifying – and the critics keep pushing back.
This summer the International Monetary Fund summarily canceled a presentation by John Clauser, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who publicly disavows the existence of a climate “crisis.” The head of the nonprofit with which Clauser is affiliated, the CO2 Coalition, has said he and other members have been delisted from LinkedIn for their dissident views.
Meanwhile, a top academic journal retracted published research doubting a climate emergency after negative coverage in legacy media. The move was decried by another prominent climate dissenter, Roger Pielke Jr., as “one of the most egregious failures of scientific publishing that I have seen” – criticism muffled because the academic says he has been blocked on Twitter (now X) by reporters on the climate beat.
The climate dissenters are pressing their case as President Biden, United Nations officials, and climate action advocates in media and academia argue that the “settled science” demands a wholesale societal transformation. That means halving U.S. carbon emissions by 2035 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050 to stave off the “existential threat” of human-induced climate change.
In response last month, more than 1,600 scientists, among them two Nobel physics laureates, Clauser and Ivar Giaever of Norway, signed a declaration stating that there is no climate emergency, and that climate advocacy has devolved into mass hysteria. The skeptics say the radical transformation of entire societies is marching forth without a full debate, based on dubious scientific claims amplified by knee-jerk journalism.
Many of these climate skeptics reject the optimistic scenarios of economic prosperity promised by advocates of a net-zero world order. They say the global emissions-reduction targets are not achievable on such an accelerated timetable without lowering living standards and unleashing worldwide political unrest.
“What advocates of climate action are trying to do is scare the bejesus out of the public so they’ll think we need to [act] fast,” said Steven Koonin, author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.”
“You have to balance the certainties and uncertainties of the changing climate – the risks and hazards – against many other factors,” he adds.
These dissenters don’t all agree on all scientific questions and do not speak in a single voice. Clauser, for example, is a self-styled “climate denialist” who believes climate is regulated by clouds, while Pielke, a political scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Bjørn Lomborg, the former director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute, acknowledge humans are affecting the climate but say there is sufficient time to adapt. The dissenters do, however, agree that the public and government officials are getting a one-sided, apocalyptic account that stokes fear, politicizes science, misuses climate modeling, and shuts down debate.
They also say it is a troubling sign for scientific integrity that they are systematically sidelined and diminished by government funding agencies, foundation grant-makers, academic journals, and much of the media. Delving into their claims, RealClearInvestigations reviewed a sampling of their books, articles, and podcast interviews. This loose coalition of writers and thinkers acknowledges that the climate is warming, but they typically ascribe as much, if not more, influence to natural cycles and climate variability than to human activities, such as burning fossil fuel.
Among their arguments:
* There is no climate crisis or existential threat as expressed in catastrophic predictions by activists in the media and academia. As global temperatures gradually increase, human societies will need to make adjustments in the coming century, just as societies have adapted to earlier climate changes. By and large, humans cannot control the climate, which Pielke describes as “the fanciful idea that emissions are a disaster control knob.”
* Global temperatures are increasing incrementally, and have been for centuries, but the degree of human influence is uncertain or negligible. Climate skeptics themselves don’t agree on how much humans are contributing to global warming by burning fossil fuels, and how much is caused by natural variability from El Niño and other cycles that can take centuries to play out. “The real question is not whether the globe has warmed recently,” writes Koonin, “but rather to what extent this warming is being caused by humans.”
* Rapidly replacing fossil fuels with renewables and electricity by mid-century would be economically risky and may have a negligible effect on global warming. Some say mitigation decrees – such as phasing out the combustion engine and banning gas stoves – are not likely to prevent climate change because humans play a minor role in global climate trends. Others say mitigation is necessary but won’t happen without capable replacement technologies. It’s unrealistic, they say, to force societies to rely on intermittent energy from wind and solar, or wager the future on technologies that are still in experimental stages.
* The global political push to kill the fossil fuel industry to get to “net zero” and “carbon neutrality” by 2050, as advocated by the United Nations and the Biden administration, will erase millions of jobs and raise energy costs, leading to a prolonged economic depression and political instability. The result would be that developing regions will pay the highest price, while the biggest polluters (China and India) and hostile nations (like Russia and Iran) will simply ignore the net-zero mandate. This could be a case where the cure could be worse than the disease.
* Despite the common refrain in the media, there is no evidence that a gradually warming planet is affecting the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, storms, droughts, rainfall, or other weather events. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has expressed low confidence such weather events can be linked to human activities. Still, “it is a fertile field for cherry pickers,” notes Pielke.
* Extreme weather events, such as wildfires and flooding, are not claiming more human lives than previously. The human death toll is largely caused by cold weather, which accounts for eight times as many deaths as hot weather, and overall weather-related mortality has fallen by about 99% in the past century. “People are safer from climate-related disasters than ever before,” statistician and author Bjørn Lomborg has said.
* Climate science has been hijacked and politicized by activists, creating a culture of self-censorship that’s enforced by a code of silence that Koonin likens to the Mafia’s omerta. In her 2023 book, “Climate Uncertainty and Risk,” climatologist Judith Curry asks: “How many skeptical papers were not published by activist editorial boards? How many published papers have buried results in order to avoid highlighting findings that conflict with preferred narratives? I am aware of anecdotal examples of each of these actions, but the total number is unknowable.”
* Slogans such as “follow the science” and “scientific consensus” are misleading and disingenuous. There is no consensus on many key questions, such as the urgency to cease and desist burning fossil fuels, or the accuracy of computer modeling predictions of future global temperatures. The apparent consensus of imminent disaster is manufactured through peer pressure, intimidation, and research funding priorities, based on the conviction that “noble lies,” “consensus entrepreneurship,” and “stealth advocacy” are necessary to save humanity from itself. “One day PhD dissertations will be written about our current moment of apocalyptic panic,” Pielke predicts.
* The warming of the planet is a complicated phenomenon that will cause some disruptions but will also bring benefits, particularly in agricultural yields and increased vegetation. Some climate skeptics, including the CO2 Coalition, say CO2 is not a pollutant – it is “plant food.”
Curry, the former Chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expresses a common theme among the climate refuseniks: that they are the sane, rational voices in a maelstrom of quasi-religious mania.
“In the 1500s, they used to drown witches in Europe because they blamed them for bad weather. You had the pagan people trying to appease the gods with sacrifices,” Curry said. “What we’re doing now is like a pseudoscientific version of that, and it’s no more effective than those other strategies.’
**********************************************
Now Biden Wants to Deny Your Consumer’s Choice in Water Heaters
President Joe Biden’s proposed energy efficiency standards for water heaters, released July 21 by the Energy Department, not only would raise the cost of water heaters for consumers but take certain products off the market.
One popular tankless natural gas water heater, made by Rinnai in Griffin, Georgia, would have to be discontinued. The public has until Sept. 26 to file comments.
Beginning in 2029, the Energy Department’s proposed regulation would set government standards for all types of water heaters, including gas-fired, oil-fired, electric, and instantaneous tankless water heaters.
The proposed rule would raise standards disproportionately for tankless, gas-fired water heaters to over 91% efficiency. Trouble is, achieving this level of efficiency with noncondensing technology is impossible to do.
This change would deprive Americans of a valuable option when it comes to water heaters. Consumers could purchase electric tankless water heaters, but not the less expensive models heated with natural gas.
Rinnai, whose products are used all over the world, is headquartered in Nagoya, Japan. It set up production in Georgia in 2001 and directly employs around 350 in a factory there, benefiting local restaurants and small businesses.
Rinnai is the only company that produces tankless water heaters in the United States. Its noncondensing natural gas water heater sells for about $1,100 at Home Depot, compared to $1,800 for a 75-gallon tank.
The Energy Department’s proposed efficiency standard essentially would ban noncondensing, gas-fired, tankless water heaters because the technology of heating water with gas reaches its efficiency limit without using more expensive “condensing” technology.
Although noncondensing, gas-fired, tankless water heaters are more efficient than water heaters with tanks, the latter aren’t subject to the same standard.
The change would leave consumers with fewer, more expensive options to heat their water. It also would raise costs for consumers because government policies that artificially prioritize one attribute (such as efficiency) over others (such as cost, capability, or quality) virtually ensure that products will be less responsive to consumer needs as technology develops to meet a government mandate instead of the needs of consumers.
This subject is especially important to low-income Americans, who depend on lower cost options to manage more limited budgets.
Tankless water heaters are about the size of a small suitcase, far smaller than regular water heaters. They heat the water as needed and used, rather than keeping 50 to 75 gallons of water hot at all times, adding flexibility.
Tankless technology is useful when space is at a premium, such as in apartment buildings and smaller homes. Tankless heaters are also practical in case of blackouts: When power returns, a user can bring a small amount of water to the desired temperature relatively quickly, instead of heating water in a larger tank.
And again, denying the tankless option to consumers would be an especially hard blow to low-income Americans, who tend to live in smaller spaces.
The efficiency of tankless, natural gas water heaters generally peaks at about 85%, so an Energy Department requirement for 91% efficiency would put these water heaters out of business. Electric water heaters would remain on the market, but not those powered by natural gas.
Biden’s Energy Department wants to shift American consumers toward electric appliances because they’re supposed to emit less carbon. However, unless electricity is produced only with renewables or with nuclear power, it still would result in carbon dioxide emissions.
Furthermore, even if America’s economy were to operate without fossil fuels, global temperatures in the year 2100 would be only 0.2 degrees Celsius cooler than today, according to The Heritage Foundation’s chief statistician, Kevin Dayaratna.
The Energy Department regulates water heaters under authority granted by the Environmental Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Gerald Ford after disruptions in oil supplies created by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. However, nearly 50 years later, America is a net exporter of oil and natural gas and is energy independent.
Biden’s Energy Department also regulates dishwashers and natural gas stoves under the same statute, removing freedom of choice and raising prices with no improvement in the climate or in America’s energy security.
The president likes to justify these actions by claiming that he is raising U.S. standards, as if he alone should arbitrate such guidelines. The truth is American families and businesses should set standards for appliance efficiency through their purchasing decisions.
With a broad variety of water tanks available for purchase, both natural gas and electric, the Energy Department should allow Americans to purchase the models they see fit.
***************************************
13 September, 2023
The Biden Administration Misleads the Public on the Vast Expanses of Land Needed for 'Net Zero'
The Department of Energy’s official line – echoed by many environmental activists and academics – is that the vast array of solar panels and wind turbines required to meet Biden’s goal of “100% clean electricity” by 2035 will require “less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area.” This topline number translates into 15,000 of the lower 48’s roughly 3 million square miles.
However, the government report that furnished those estimates also notes that the wind farm footprint alone could require an expanse nine times as large: 134,000 square miles.
Even that figure is misleading because it does not include land for the new transmission systems that would connect the energy, created by the solar panels carpeting the ground and skyscraper-tall wind turbines filling the horizons, to American businesses and homes.
“It’s hundreds of thousands of acres if not millions for transmissions alone,” said David Blackmon, an energy consultant and writer based in Texas. “The wind and solar farms will take enormous swaths of land all over the country and no one is talking about that.”???
And these vast plots, along with the chains of transmission towers, do not include other aspects that would take up even more land: nationwide vehicle charging stations, mines for rare-earth minerals, maintenance space for huge propeller blades and panels, and so forth.
In addition, all projections increase substantially if the U.S. were to meet Biden’s larger goal of aligning the nation with a global plan, set by the International Energy Association and pushed by the World Economic Forum of Davos, dubbed “NetZero 2050.”
Professor Jesse Jenkins at Princeton University, whose work is often cited by renewable energy advocates, did not respond to RCI’s questions, but he detailed the scope of the challenge in the May/June issue of progressive Mother Jones magazine. He urged the U.S. to embark on a moon-shot level transformation of its energy sector, using hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars that Biden provided for the renewable sector in the spending bill that Democrats named the Inflation Reduction Act.??
“We’ll have to build as much new clean generation by 2035 as the total electricity produced by all sources today, then build the same amount again by 2050,” Jenkins wrote. “This could ultimately require utility-scale solar projects that cover the size of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined, and wind farms that span an area equal to that of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.”??
Given the ambitious goals and tight time frames Biden has committed the nation to, it seems natural to assume there would be a master plan detailing where and when this renewable infrastructure will be built and come online. Yet despite strong resistance by many communities across the country to serve as hosts for these massive projects, there has been no robust public debate about how all the necessary land will be acquired – and whether, for example, it will include the taking of private property through eminent domain or use of national park lands, an idea the government officially dismisses.
************************************************
How the Wheels Came Off Energy Secretary Granholm's Electric Vehicle Roadtrip
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, for whatever reason, decided that she would take a summer road trip — something that, along with everything else in Biden's America, has gotten more expensive — and declared that she would do it in an electric vehicle in an apparent attempt to show their capabilities and somehow convince Americans to drop some major moola on new EVs for their own lives. Things, however, did not go according to plan. In fact, they went so horribly bad that at one point police had to be called.
These revelations come courtesy of a National Public Radio reporter who gleefully joined Sec. Granholm for her EV roadtrip. As NPR explained, "Granholm's trip through the southeast, from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., was intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars."
Instead, Granholm's publicity stunt drew attention to the trials and tribulations of electric vehicle ownership — especially for those with non-Tesla EVs.
"I rode along with Granholm during her trip, eager to see firsthand how the White House intends to promote a potentially transformative initiative to the public and what kind of issues it would encounter on the road," NPR's Camila Domonoske effused. "Granholm is in many ways the perfect person to help pitch the United States' ambitious shift to EVs," she gushed, tossing her partially taxpayer-funded NPR objectivity out the EV's window.
But even NPR could not avoid retelling what happened when the trip intended to show off EVs had its proverbial wheels come off:
Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.
Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.
That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?
In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.
The sheriff's office couldn't do anything. It's not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge.
While highlighting one set of issues with the Biden administration's attempts to force an energy "transition," Granholm showed why such attempts to force Americans into buying only government-approved items — cars, appliances, food, etc. — don't go well. Without the free market moving along with demand from consumers, the system just won't work.
As the NPR reporter noted, "EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem." That's because Tesla has seen wild success without — and even in spite of — a lack of public support from the Biden administration which seems to go out of its way to avoid even mentioning Elon Musk's success getting Americans to switch to EVs without forcing them to do so.
As more people bought Teslas, more charging stations were established, contributing to more people buying Teslas, and even more chargers being added. The market met demand from consumers and the system works. But the clumsy and overreaching federal government is attempting to bind Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and force the market and consumers to follow its will. That just doesn't work, as Granholm discovered and demonstrated.
***************************************************
The Coming Eco-Totalitarianism
The Government’s plans to force Britain to achieve ‘Net Zero’ CO2 emissions by 2050 seem to be falling apart. Few people seem interested in buying expensive, range-limited electric vehicles. Even fewer want to replace their cheap efficient gas boilers with expensive and poor-performing heat pumps. Offshore windfarms were a key part of our Government’s ‘Net Zero’ decarbonisation plans, yet there were no companies bidding for the recent group of offshore windfarm contracts. And our rulers seem unable to make up their minds about which technology to choose for Britain’s new generation of SMRs (small modular nuclear reactors) even though Rolls Royce has already developed a version which can work in the hostile underwater operating environment of nuclear-powered submarines and so could be quickly and inexpensively adapted for use on dry land.
However, having realised that it cannot provide sufficient electricity to power Britain as a supposed ‘renewable energy superpower’, the Government has come up with a brilliant solution – force us to use much less electricity.
I recently wrote an article for the Daily Sceptic explaining some of the more worrying aspects of the Energy Bill currently approved by a massive majority in the Commons and likely to be enthusiastically passed with a similar massive majority in the Lords.
In my article I quoted several sections from the Energy Bill. However, as these were written in almost incomprehensible legalese, I though it might be useful to describe three common scenarios which will arise once the Energy Bill has become law.
First, there is the replacement of existing electricity and gas meters. Our electricity and gas meters have a registered lifetime of anywhere between 10 and 25 years depending on the type of meter. Once a meter’s lifetime has expired, it should be replaced. Under the terms of the Energy Bill, someone from your power supplier will have the right to enter your home to replace your current meter with a smart meter. If you refuse him entry or try to refuse having a smart meter installed, he can legally return with police back-up, force entry into your home and use what is called “reasonable force” to restrain you while he rips out your old-fashioned meter and replaces it with a smart meter. “Reasonable force” might just mean handcuffing you during the installation or could even mean detaining you in a cell at the local police station while your meters are changed.
Second, there is what happens when you wish to rent or sell your home or another property. It seems likely that we will be banned from renting out or selling any residential property unless it has an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating of ‘C’ or above. Currently there are just over one million home sales a year in Britain. Of these home sales, around 41% have an EPC rating of ‘C’ or above. This means that under the terms of the Energy Bill, over 590,000 homes a year would have to have alterations made to improve their EPC rating before they could be rented out or sold. These alterations could range from just installing double glazing or adding a little loft or wall insulation to spending tens of thousands of pounds installing a heat pump which would include replacing all the pipes and radiators in a home and could even require ripping up carpets and floors to install underfloor heating.
Third, there are what are known as Energy Saving Opportunity Schemes (ESOS), where “opportunity” has a distinctly Orwellian flavour. With ever more homes having smart meters, energy suppliers will be able to identify towns, neighbourhoods, streets and even individual homes which Government ‘experts’ consider to be using too much electricity. The Energy Bill introduces ESOSs, which would give the legal right for energy inspectors to enter any home, using “reasonable force” if necessary, in order to make an energy-saving assessment and propose ways the homeowner could improve the property’s energy efficiency.
In all three of the above three scenarios, refusal by the homeowner to comply with the Government’s requirements would be a criminal offence with penalties of fines of up to £15,000 and imprisonment of up to one year. That a supposedly “Conservative” Government would use its parliamentary majority to introduce such intrusive and oppressive eco-totalitarianism is something that few of us would have imagined possible.
**********************************************
Australia: Energy lawyers experience record boom as renewables transition takes hold
An explosion of green tape under the Albanese government’s energy reforms has sparked a race between top law firms to hire energy transition and construction lawyers, with one international firm poaching a full nine-person team from a rival practice.
As top-tier law firm Baker McKenzie acquires a whole team of partners, associates and paralegals from competing practice Norton Rose Fulbright, lawyers across the country are taking on mammoth caseloads, hiring in record droves, and paying high sums for top quality talent who are across the growing number environmental and energy matters.
When Anthony Albanese at the G20 Summit committed to tripling Australia’s renewable energy technology capacity, and a global emissions peak by 2025, lawyers were keenly listening in.
Newly appointed Baker McKenzie construction boss Emanuel Confos told The Australian the interest in the renewables sector had increased at an incredible pace, to the point that “everybody wants to get a piece of the energy market”.
“This is a booming industry. In the same way any industry booms, there are people out there making a lot of money,” said Mr Confos, who has more that 20 years experience in the fast-growing energy and renewables sector.
“There is getting approvals to build a solar farm, getting an offtake agreement to sell the electricity, package it up and sell it on. This is a big industry gain.”
Mr Confos said when the first large scale solar farm was built in Australia in 2010, “no one was really interested”.
“Now, every place I go, people want to hear about energy work,” he said. “It is at the forefront of everything. The stockmarket is interested, investment houses are interested. Everyone wants to get a piece of the energy market.”
Since Labor has come to power, the government has legislated Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target as 43 per cent below the 2005 level, and are targeting net-zero emissions by 2050.
The government also introduced a safeguard mechanism to force the nation’s 215 biggest-emitting facilities to cut nearly 5 per cent of their emissions each year until the end of the decade.
Baker McKenzie partner Aylin Cunsolo said federal government policies were boosting work levels across both the public and private sector. “It’s a policy decision to achieve net-zero emissions, and that is a policy decision both at a government level but also at the private sector level. Part of that is driven by global targets, as well as shareholder pressure,” she said.
Ms Cunsolo said the firm had landed deals with major brands such as Aldi and Fujitsu to assist in securing power purchase agreements that allow the companies to contract directly with a renewable energy project to acquire electricity and green products.
Her colleague, energy partner Harriet Oldmeadow, agreed, saying community expectations had contributed to the booming market. “In Australia, there is 100 per cent an expectation that we turn ourselves to net zero,” she said.
“One of the most critical things for our clients … is ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and advising clients on how they meet their ESG (targets).”
Pinsent Masons construction partner Rob Buchanan told The Australian there would be an international shortage of energy transition, construction and infrastructure lawyers as the sector continued to heat up.
“The level of work in Australia in the infrastructure space – including energy and road infrastructure – has resulted in lawyers like that becoming more sought after and attracting better salaries,” he said. “I think globally there is going to be a shortage of high-quality lawyers that service the energy community.”
Mr Buchanan said the bulk of the work coming from the public sector related to issues with network transition as coal-fired stations power down and clean energy gears up.
“In Australia, we’ve seen the initial wave of solar and wind go in, and it’s become apparent because Australian is much bigger and the population density is lower and a lot of these installations are going in the middle of nowhere, and so we’ve seen a lot of novel problems come out of that,” he said.
“The main one is the problem with our transmission network which was designed to hold stable, coal-power generated electricity with no variations.”
Herbert Smith Freehills partner Nick Baker said there is an “incredible demand at the moment for people with deep energy sector experience.”
“We have seen a significant increase in energy work coming from all parts of sector. Renewables remains hot while energy security and storage related transactions and issues have emerged and are dominating headlines,” he said.
“These trends are driving M&A, project development, environment and planning, social licence, and disputes work, although finance is slower to take off.”
***************************************
12 September, 2023
Offshore wind project will damage ocean ecosystem to no environmental avail
On Aug. 22, 2023, Revolution Wind was approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM. The Biden-Harris administration hailed the approval of the fourth major wind turbine project. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the project will be located about 15 nautical miles southeast of Point Judith, R.I., and have an estimated capacity of 704 megawatts of clean energy, which can power nearly 250,000 homes. A group of concerned citizens, pointing out that they will not release the biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is up in arms. See: https://green-oceans.org/
Revolution Wind is one of nine developments slated for the area off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts that will install more than 1,000 turbines, each 873-1,100 feet high, over 1,400 square miles of ocean. The four closest projects to Rhode Island, Revolution Wind 1 and 2, South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind, will severely damage Coxes Ledge, one of the most fertile marine ecosystems in New England. Coxes Ledge is a terminal glacial moraine, a complex geological formation that supports a diversity of marine species equivalent to a coral reef. Teeming with life, it hosts the endangered North Atlantic right whale during the winter months and is the only remaining spawning ground for the Atlantic cod. The construction of hundreds of turbines with miles of cables will demolish this ecosystem. The developers chose Coxes Ledge for financial reasons; constructing turbines in shallow waters costs less.
If off shore wind projects could actually mitigate climate change, one might reluctantly accept the destruction of this unique ecosystem. However, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency tasked with permitting these projects, acknowledges in its environmental impact statement that they will have "no measurable influence on climate change." These projects will still require 100% capacity of backup electricity generation with natural gas power plants. Rarely discussed, the European experience demonstrates that off shore wind does not reduce reliance on fossil fuels, nor does it diminish carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, the intermittency of the wind causes traditional generators to operate inefficiently, producing less electricity with greater emissions.
According to the citizens group Green Oceans, the off shore wind developer of the projects on Coxes Ledge, Orsted, has misled people about the impact. The company maintains two sets of visual simulations. The viewer cannot discern turbines in the publicly available version; yet, in the confidential version, one can. Moreover, the developers will not release 25 out of 51 technical reports to the public, including the emergency response plans, the air emissions calculations and even the economic benefits to Rhode Island. Why hide the economic benefits in a confidential, Freedom of Information Act-exempt appendix?
It's a David-against-Goliath fight. Listen to the administration and they'll say we're helping Rhode Island meet its renewable energy mandate and that it's building a clean-energy future. Listen to the community leaders and you'll hear passionate opposition to the status quo, determination to fight the well-financed opposition and a desperate eff ort to save the ocean.
Who do you believe? How can you afford not to take a second look? Check out https://green-oceans.org/ white-paper-1.
If offshore wind projects could actually mitigate climate change, one might reluctantly accept the destruction of this unique ecosystem.
*********************************************************
America’s Wind-Farm Revolution Is Broken
Offshore wind farms should be one of the best solutions to the climate crisis but are turning out to be a lousy business. Getting the struggling industry back on its feet will require a new approach from companies and politicians alike.
The public face of the dilemma is Ørsted, a former oil and gas producer that became the world’s largest offshore wind-farm developer. The Danish company’s stock has lost more than $10 billion, or a third of its market value, since warning last week that it may take impairments of up to $2.3 billion on its U.S. projects. On Tuesday, ratings provider Moody’s downgraded the stock, a further challenge for a company that, like a property developer, needs debt to fund its plans.
Ørsted won contracts to develop wind farms off the coasts of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey in late 2018 and 2019. Since committing to sell the power from these projects at a fixed price, permitting delays, rising costs and higher interest rates have torched the returns it expected to make.
The Biden administration wants to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, from less than 50 megawatts today. Generous subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act are meant to turbocharge investment. Ørsted hoped bonus tax credits in the climate bill for using locally produced components would paper over financial cracks, but now says its wind farms may not qualify.
The company says it will abandon projects if it doesn’t get more government support, and rivals are also rethinking their U.S. plans. Shell and Avangrid face multimillion-dollar fines for calling it quits on offshore wind-farm developments in Massachusetts that they can no longer justify. There is trouble further up the supply chain, too. Siemens Gamesa and Vestas, which together make roughly 80% of all turbine blades and nacelles for projects outside China, are losing money.
Of all renewable energy projects, offshore wind farms may be the most vulnerable to rising interest rates as they take longer to build and have higher upfront costs. According to George Bilicic, global head of power, energy and infrastructure at Lazard, building a U.S. offshore wind farm can cost $4,000 per kilowatt at the midpoint of estimates, compared with $1,360 for onshore farms and $1,050 for solar facilities. Average costs to build an offshore wind farm have shot up 36% since 2019, compared with 5% for land-based ones, in part because of pricier debt.
Offshore wind is a promising clean-power technology because it should be highly productive once the capital is invested. As the ocean is windy, the capacity factor of offshore farms—a measure of how efficiently they generate electricity—is higher than both onshore wind farms and solar power. Installing wind turbines out at sea is also less controversial than on land, so the politics should be easier, in theory.
In reality, the industry is hamstrung by politics at all levels. Transmission bottlenecks to get power from offshore wind farms to land are now a major obstacle to delivering projects on time. Governments that dole out green subsidies with one hand set unfavorable terms for seabed auctions with the other.
There are also self-inflicted problems. Turbine manufacturers raced to make bigger and bigger models, driving down costs and making offshore wind nominally competitive with fossil fuels in many regions. But the rapid churn also made important parts of the supply chain obsolete: Older-installation vessels can’t handle the new, supersize turbine blades and towers.
While the industry needs to get better at understanding the hidden costs of innovation, governments will have to pay more if they want offshore wind power to help reduce carbon emissions. “Policymakers got used to 20 years of continuously falling prices for renewables. All of a sudden, that has reversed and they have been slow to react,” says Chris Seiple, vice chairman of Wood Mackenzie’s power and renewables group.
Contracts should be linked to inflation. Right now, developers take on huge risks when they win a bid: Their future revenue is locked in but they are exposed to rising input costs throughout the years it takes to get a wind farm up and running. If governments have to shoulder these costs, they might overhaul permitting processes that are causing delays.
Even in Europe, where the offshore wind industry is more mature, the rollout has slowed to a crawl. In 2022, the European Union installed 2.5 gigawatts of new offshore capacity, less than the 3 gigawatts it managed back in 2015.
Offshore wind power is becoming a prime casualty of the shift in financial markets away from the old world of smooth supply chains, low inflation and free money. The industry and its political backers need to work together to find a model better suited to stormier times.
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/americas-wind-farm-revolution-is-broken-fa82d64e
************************************************Once Again, Natural Gas Rescued Ontario From Blackouts
Well September 7th,2023 came and went and we Ontarians had another day without power blackouts thanks to our natural gas plants.
Our natural gas plants were humming throughout the day and generated 131,407 MWh which kept our businesses operating and the lights in our houses on. The day’s peak demand hour came at Hour 17 reaching 21,266 MW but wasn’t high enough to make the “Top 10” peak hour list in the current year. At that hour our gas plant generated 6,485 MWh or 30.4% of peak demand. Over the day IWT (industrial wind turbines) were operating well above their frequent low generation status during a summer day producing 19,957 MWh of power. They operated at 16.9% of their capacity and at the peak hour generated 1,181 MWh or 5.5% of the hour’s peak demand.
The major reason we needed all that power from our gas plants was partly related to the fact Bruce Nuclear had three of their 800 MW plants (G-3, G-6 and G-8) down and at hour 11 they shut down G-1 so 3,200 MW of nuclear capacity were down meaning only 7,800 MW of nuclear capacity were operating from that hour forward.
As a side note the G-6 unit was down for MCR (Major Component Replacements) but restarted at 1 AM today (September 8th, 2023) as the MCR was finished and by Hour 10 was generating 234 MW.
Fossil Fuels are Needed
It is amusing but potentially damaging the “climate change” organizations such as the David Suzuki Foundation continue to push for an exit of fossil fuels to create electricity as they pontificate in an article posted yesterday containing the following:
“ Experts working with organizations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the International Energy Agency tell us we must curtail rampant consumerism, leave fossil fuels behind and shift quickly to renewable energy.“
Based on the foregoing they are obviously advocating for blackouts and energy poverty as; along with advocating for fossil fuel exits they are also against nuclear power as an earlier article on their website from May 2023 states:
“Along with its many known problems, as an inflexible, costly baseload power source, nuclear is becoming as outdated as fossil fuels. Small modular reactors will create even more waste and cost more — and slow the necessary transition to renewable energy.“
It seems obvious those many charitable “climate change” advocates such as the David Suzuki Foundation (annual revenue of $11,573,083 in last CRA filing) and others of their ilk have absolutely no concept on how reliable energy is necessary for our livelihood.
Conclusion
The time has come for the CRA to do what they had planned to do back in 2014 and investigate those charities involved in political advocacy. Those investigations were cancelled after the Trudeau led Liberals gained power and their damage to the Canadian economy has only gained traction since then!
***************************************************
‘The green movement is a disinformation campaign’
The planet is on fire – and it’s all our fault. That has become the abiding mantra of the climate movement. This summer, wildfires from Greece to Hawaii have been portrayed as nature’s punishment for mankind’s polluting activities. Each disaster has been treated as a portent of the End Times. Reining in human development, we’re told, is the only way to avert an even more serious catastrophe. But is there any truth to these apocalyptic claims?
Journalist and best-selling author Michel Shellenberger recently joined Brendan O’Neill to discuss all this and more in a special live episode of The Brendan O’Neill Show. Below is an edited extract from their conversation. Watch the full episode here.
Brendan O’Neill: The recent wildfires across Europe and America are held up by many as proof that Mother Earth is punishing mankind. Is this another example of disinformation from the climate-change lobby?
Michael Shellenberger: In this case, the word ‘disinformation’ is certainly accurate. It is a type of organised lying that needs to be disproved.
There has been a concerted effort since the 1990s to convince people that climate change is making natural disasters worse. Yes, there is some evidence that climate change is causing more heatwaves and changes to precipitation. But a disaster is defined by two things: deaths and costs. And we’re not seeing an increase in either. In fact, deaths from extreme weather events have actually drastically declined over the past century. Only a few hundred people now die each year from natural disasters in the US, for example. So the climate movement is undeniably a disinformation campaign.
Michael Mann, a world-famous climate scientist, has claimed that the only way to prevent these catastrophic fires is by reducing carbon emissions and stopping global warming. That’s just not true. We are not doomed to face out-of-control fires. And we’re absolutely able to prevent these catastrophic blazes from spreading. In the recent cases in California, Greece and Hawaii, for example, it was bad fire prevention, bad forest management or bad grasslands management that played a key role. In the American cases, authorities failed to clear the area around electrical wires, which are often the trigger for fires. They also failed to stabilise electrical poles, which likely collapsed and contributed to the fires. Hawaii in particular did not have the proper kind of disaster preparedness, such as working sirens and widespread training, that would equip people to escape unharmed.
In the case of the Greek fires, we were told by the media that the main cause was climate change, then it emerged that arson was more likely to blame. Warmer weather isn’t even a necessary factor. We’ve had catastrophic fires before, without high temperatures. Likewise, we can have higher temperatures and not have fires. This issue is fundamentally a question of land management and disaster preparedness.
Blaming climate change only serves the interests of powerful politicians. It allows them to cede responsibility for their own failures. Doing this also allows them to raise money and demand more subsidies for renewables.
At the same time, stirring up predictions of a secular apocalypse feeds people’s spiritual needs. It encourages them to embody an almost superhero self-image. They want to be the ones to sound the alarm and ultimately harmonise humankind with nature. This narrative is powerful on a visceral level due to the incessant, hellish imagery that accompanies coverage of the so-called climate crisis. Telling people that they must play a role in avoiding the ultimate apocalypse serves a perfect storm of political, financial and spiritual interests all at once.
O’Neill: Many of these environmental groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, are increasingly fanatical in how they declare the coming of the End Times. What do you think drives this religious impulse?
Shellenberger: Part of it is a healthy desire to feel a sense of transcendence. This is what Ernest Becker called an ‘immortality project’. We want to feel that our lives will make a difference, but that desire can quite easily become destructive or self-destructive. This is what we’ve seen with these new apocalyptic religions, particularly when it comes to climate change. I suspect that this largely stems from the decline of traditional religions and the collapse in meaning this has brought about.
After all, people may have stopped believing in God, the soul and the afterlife, but they still yearn for meaning, purpose and transcendence. That makes people vulnerable to the fantasy that they can save the world by importing solar panels made in China. This brings to life all kinds of purification rituals that have very little to do with serving humankind.
This speaks to a deep need to affirm a different set of positive values – a celebration of how humankind is special, creative, wonderful, constructive and loving. We need to affirm civilisation, too. Because if we love humanity, we must love civilisation and the way in which it enables us to protect all people – especially the vulnerable, the poor and the marginalised. If you’re pro-human, you have to be pro-civilisation. That means being in favour of all the basics, from cheap and abundant energy to the expansion of freedom and human flourishing.
We’ve found ourselves in a really dark, nihilistic place, characterised by repugnant new religions. A pro-human vision of humankind and civilisation needs to be urgently articulated. Otherwise, the future is going to look a whole lot darker than the nihilism and apocalypticism we are facing even now.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/04/the-green-movement-is-a-disinformation-campaign/
***************************************11 September, 2023
More and Worse Hurricanes? Nope
Climate change is the Left’s “god of the gaps.” It’s the scapegoat for bad governance and the bogeyman used to threaten people to comply with the Left’s people-last agenda. It bares a passing resemblance to ancient pagan civilizations. Like those long-ago primitive peoples, climate change cultists also seek to appease an angry god by sacrificing humanity. They do this via green energy boondoggles that attempt to take away modern necessities like fans and gas stoves and cars, the latter of which actually get people places without a battery recharge lull in the middle.
Climate change is now regularly blamed for an increase in hurricane intensity and frequency. In other words, there are more hurricanes now, and those hurricanes are more often a Category 3 or higher because of humanity’s carbon footprint and use of fossil fuels and aerosols.
This is a lie, plain and simple. Looking at the actual hurricane data, it’s easily disproved.
Even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) debunks this particular untruth. A summary NOAA released in May 2023 definitively states: “Several Atlantic hurricane activity metrics show pronounced increases since 1980. However, evidence for any significant trends is much weaker considering trends beginning from the early 20th century, partly due to observed data limitations.” In other words, we have been recording hurricane activity for more than 150 years, and weather patterns, when viewed over that longer period of time, show no anomalous trends in hurricane fluctuation (either number or intensity).
NOAA’s table shows the accumulated data from as early as 1860. When viewed on a larger time scale, the current trend in hurricane frequency shows little to no change since the 1900s and is actually trending slightly downward in terms of intensity.
In the shorter term (1980-2023), it seems like perhaps the U.S. is being pummeled by more hurricanes. But though hurricanes are scary and potentially devastating storms, their occurrences haven’t increased in either of the scary metrics like climate alarmists would have you believe.
In fact, climate change due to humanity — which has been dubbed the “climate emergency” by climate cultists — is being denounced by more and more scientists. For example, 1,609 scientists from around the world, including two Nobel laureates, just signed on to a declaration stating that “there is no climate emergency.” But the ecofascists will continue to push the alarmism, because who cares about actual data? Climate change, after all, has become such a useful political tool that such sane declarations sound unusual and newsworthy.
The alarmists, some politicians, and those with a misanthropic agenda write off hurricanes as a judgment on humanity. But it’s not even really about saving the planet. It’s all about power, their fanatical religion, and appeasing their ever-angry “god of the gaps.”
https://patriotpost.us/articles/100296-more-and-worse-hurricanes-nope-2023-09-08
*****************************************************Electricity from wind isn’t cheap and it never will be
Politicians should stop endorsing an energy source that isn’t particularly clean or secure, and won’t bring down prices
The MPs who have forced Rishi Sunak into a U-turn on onshore wind power love to repeat the favourite slogan of the wind industry: “wind is cheap”. “Cheap, clean, secure,” says Sir Alok Sharma. “Cheap,” cheeps Ed Miliband.
It conceals the truth. Electricity from wind is not cheap and never will be. The latest auction of rights to build offshore wind farms failed to attract any bids, despite offering higher subsidised prices. That alone indicates that wind is not cheap or getting cheaper.
But the real reason for the lack of interest in the auction is that, for the first time, bidders are not free to walk away from their bids when it suits them. In the past, they could put in low offers, boast about them being cheap, then take the higher market price later. The Government has at last called their bluff, so they are having to admit that electricity prices need to be higher to make wind farms pay.
The cost of subsidising wind is vast. Then add the cost of getting the power from remote wind farms to where people live. And the cost of balancing the grid and backing wind up with gas plants for the times when the wind drops. And the cost of paying wind farms to reduce output on windy days when the grid can’t take it.
If wind power is so cheap, how come energy bills have risen in step with the amount of installed wind power? Says the energy expert John Constable: “We had a huge amount of wind... and it not only did absolutely nothing to protect against the recent gas crisis: it actually made it worse, because the UK’s security of supply now hangs by the single thread of gas, as the sole thermodynamically competent fuel in the system, coal being near absent and nuclear a small fraction.”
And yet the wind industry is complaining that today’s high electricity prices are not high enough, and without more subsidies they will stop building: “The race to the bottom on strike prices incentivised by the current auction process is at odds with the reality of project costs and investment needs, jeopardising deployment targets,” said RenewableUK recently. How does that square with claims it is cheap?
The wind industry’s capital costs were very high before the Ukraine crisis, and now, like everybody else’s, are shooting up still further: the cost of steel, concrete, carbon fibre, copper and all the other ingredients of a wind turbine have risen sharply. Operating costs are rising. Inevitably, the energy generated by wind is expensive.
And, as Constable suggests, wind itself is thermodynamically inferior. Consequently, it takes a huge machine – the building of which requires a lot of energy – to extract a small amount of electricity from randomly fluctuating, low-density wind, which bloweth as and when it listeth. By contrast, in a nuclear plant, it takes a small machine to produce a flood of energy from a dense, “thermodynamically competent” energy source, and on demand.
****************************************************
Germany's 10GW solar time bomb
Some 15% of Germany’s solar capacity – 10 GW – could suffer from prematurely aging. That equates to up to €2 billion ($2.18 billion) in replacement costs, with only a fraction of the affected panels likely detected thus far.
It is estimated that 10 GW of solar modules in Germany suffer from prematurely aging backsheets, with sites of all sizes affected. pv magazine Germany’s Cornelia Lichner looks at how to detect and repair such defects.
Holger Schultheiß suspected what the installer inspecting his 11-year-old roof-mounted solar system last fall would find. Neighbors had experienced the same problems with inverter failure and strings staying offline.
The rear of the modules displayed checkerboard cracks, some visible from the front. Moisture in the panels caused leakage currents to flow between positive terminals and the ground. The inverter, which measures insulation, does not activate if insulation is too low. Around half the modules in Schultheiß’ 200 kW system were affected – in a year when installers had no time for repairs.
It has long been known some “AAA” backsheet films – made of triple-layer polyamide and widely deployed from 2010 to 2013 – can become brittle and tear. “By now, you would have to see the signs in all modules affected by this, whether they are installed in ground-mounted systems or on roofs,” says Bernhard Weinreich, managing director of HaWe Engineering. Now, younger modules and other foil types are exhibiting similar behavior.
Big problem
Some 15% of Germany’s solar capacity – 10 GW – could be affected. That equates to up to €2 billion ($2.18 billion) in replacement costs, with only a fraction of the affected panels likely detected thus far.
***********************************************
Australia: Huge new solar farm upsetting country people
There’s nothing but heartbreak and dismay as another renewable energy project looms over regional Australia.
Danish company European Energy has been given approval to build Australia’s largest solar ‘farm’ a mere 70km from the Great Barrier Reef – the same reef that climate scientists weep dramatically over whenever a government grant surfaces.
We say ‘farm’ because nothing grows beneath the scorched Earth veneer of silicon panels.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘captain’s call’ of $443 million to save the Great Barrier Reef is starting to feel like a nasty, expensive joke. If the argument is ‘carbon emissions are killing the reef’ then the associated emissions from Queensland’s ‘green’ projects are nothing short of catastrophic. The reef would be better off with the old coal-fired power stations.
Locals whose communities are sitting in the path of these projects are upset that the current Labor government’s desire to reach Net Zero at any cost – frequently cheered on by the nearest Liberal – is threatening the environment rather than conserving it.
‘They’re not subject to reef regulations,’ complained one local. ‘It’s just out of control. Complete disregard for the reef and the people it destroys.’
This particular solar ‘farm’ is expected to cover an area of roughly 2,700 ha with 2 million solar panels. If the build runs to schedule, it will connect to the grid in 2026. What’s the carbon footprint of these panels? Who knows. If it’s ever completed, it should produce 2.8 TWh/year unless it under-performs due to dust, damage, and bad weather. All things that never happen in Queensland … right?
Community comments from unhappy residents sound eerily similar to those from coastal communities that ‘love’ wind energy but don’t want any turbines in their ocean views. Farmers in the Gladstone region feel the same way about solar farms. They’re pro-renewable energy but only in the ‘right place’ which, presumably, is not their place.
No matter where you put these projects, they destroy the local area.
There is going to be a lot more of them which you can find in the REZ Roadmap. Spread across three regions, Queensland is carpeting itself in over 100 solar farms and 1,000s kms of transmission lines. No more pristine outback wilderness. The CopperString project, for example, is an 840 km transmission line marked as ‘the largest ever economic development project in North Queensland’. Largest ever mess, too.
Despite ‘powering central Queensland’ the project is not removing remote Queensland’s reliance on diesel as ‘these communities are not connected to the main energy grid, decarbonisation of the main grid will not impact them’. Strange. Maybe the Queensland government should have focused on bringing these remote areas into the 19th Century before sending the rest of the state into the Dark Ages.
For a nation that keeps voting for renewable energy, professing a sort of endless love affair with the technology, property values decrease everywhere they are installed. Virtue signalling does not translate to extra dollars on home valuations. Homeowners in the area of this solar farm are furious that they haven’t been offered any compensation for the expected value decrease of 30 per cent.
‘That’s basically it, mate, suffer your jocks. It’s destroying us, destroying our family, destroying the district…’ said one farmer, facing an uncertain future. ‘It’s a beautiful little valley.’
Will it still be beautiful glinting in the sunlight with an artificial hide of silicon?
‘I’ve got a neighbour, he’s in a proper mess. We’re struggling to look after him. It’s just not right.’
They later added, ‘It’s hard to believe in Australia that you can just do this. We’re collateral damage in this rush to Net Zero.’
Unfortunately, once the public ‘vote green’, they issue a social licence and public mandate to the ruling government to do exactly this… Elections have consequences.
The project website has a statement addressing community concerns. ‘How will the project benefit the community?’ It replies: ‘Opportunities will be given for local contractors to supply goods and services, particularly during the construction … rates and rent will be paid to the Gladstone Regional Council and local landowners respectively during the life of the project.’
That resolves everything.(!!)
***************************************
10 September, 2023
Texas Suffers a Solar and Wind Power ‘Drought’
Triple-digit temperatures aren’t unusual during Texas summers, but power shortages coupled with urgent orders to conserve electricity are now routine. While Texans barely averted blackouts Wednesday evening, the state’s energy ordeals are a flickering warning to the rest of the country.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) called a Stage 2 emergency on Wednesday evening, one step from rolling blackouts. “High demand, lower wind generation, and the declining solar generation during sunset led to lower operating reserves on the grid and eventually contributed to lower frequency,” the grid operator’s CEO said.
Businesses that use large amounts of power were directed to curb their energy consumption—i.e., scale back operations. Utilities urged Texans to unplug electric vehicles, turn off pool filters, and prepare backup plans for medical equipment in case the power goes out. In other words, double check that backyard emergency generator.
Texans conserved enough power Wednesday to prevent blackouts, but they were asked again Thursday to use less power in the evening—when many come home from work and want to crank up the AC. Last month Ercot issued eight emergency alerts to conserve power.
Ercot says Texas set a new September record for peak demand on Wednesday, which follows 10 records this summer. Don’t blame a warming climate. The problem is that Texas’s booming population and economy have caused electricity demand to grow faster than the reliable supply—emphasis on the reliable.
The state’s refineries, manufacturing plants and data centers need huge amounts of power. Texas produces 10 times as much solar power as it did five years ago. An estimated 7.7 gigawatts of solar power capacity will be installed this year—about 9% of the state’s peak demand on Wednesday. Renewables at times can generate 40% of the state’s power.
But neither solar nor wind provides reliable power around the clock. Solar predictably wanes during the late afternoon, and the state doesn’t have anywhere close to enough large-scale batteries to make up the shortfall. So as usual Texas on Wednesday leaned on natural-gas plants to ramp up, though this still wasn’t enough.
The Legislature is asking voters in November to approve a special fund to issue low-interest loans and grants for building more backup power sources—namely, gas plants. So now Texas taxpayers are being asked to subsidize gas power to back up solar and wind that are heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.
The Texas power shortages are a harbinger of what’s to come for Americans amid the Biden Administration’s force-fed green energy transition. California has avoided rolling blackouts this summer because last winter’s storms replenished reservoirs and hydropower, though population and business flight is also working in the state’s favor on energy.
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (Nerc) last month for the first time deemed “energy policy” among the biggest risks to grid reliability. “The resource mix is increasingly characterized as one that is sensitive to extreme, widespread, and long duration temperatures as well as wind and solar droughts,” Nerc said.
Unlike actual droughts, power shortages are caused by, and can be prevented by, government.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-energy-blackouts-ercot-solar-power-f3476ad9
**********************************************Climate change goals emerge as sticking point in G20 Sherpa meet, sources say
After division over Russia's war in Ukraine, differences about climate change goals have emerged as another stumbling block for G20 leaders to iron out at their two-day meeting in New Delhi, six Indian sources said.
The bloc is divided on commitments to phasing down fossil-fuel use, increasing renewable energy targets and reducing green house gas emissions, five of the officials cited above said.
The disagreements resurfaced during the last two days of sherpa level meetings ahead of the Sept 9-10 summit. The phrase on the war on Ukraine still remains the core concern for India, which is trying to convince all the 20 countries to agree on a joint statement known as Leaders' Declaration.
The bloc had failed to reach consensus during concluding ministerial meetings on environment and energy in the last week of July.
"The issue on climate is stuck mostly on one line or two lines, related to phasing out fossil fuels and tripling renewable energy capacity," one of the Indian officials, present in the Sherpa level meetings, said.
Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and India have opposed a proposal by Western countries to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 and cut green house gas emissions by 60% by 2035, three officials said.
The fossil fuel producing and developing countries are also opposing G7 nations' push to reach net zero commitments faster, one official said.
United Arab Emirates is set to host the next round of climate change discussions at the COP28 meeting in November and December and countries want to discuss the issue there, one official said.
"Nobody wants to make a commitment now, as then you will have a problem at your hands because you can get tied down to what you agree at this summit," another Indian official said.
None of the officials wanted to be named as they are not allowed to speak to media. Indian government did not immediately reply to emails seeking comments.
Indian power minister R K Singh has on several occasions said the country's average per person emissions are among the lowest in the world and it would not compromise on its energy needs by committing to cut coal use.
************************************************
Heat pumps show how hard decarbonisation will be
Twelve European countries plan to phase fossil fuels out of the heating of buildings, and air-source heat pumps have emerged as the best alternative. These extract ambient heat from the outside air, even when it is below freezing, and concentrate it to warm inside spaces. Heat pumps are far more efficient than boilers, in terms of the amount of energy used per unit of heat generated. Lately, however, they have become a symbol of the obstacles that await as countries try to decarbonise. Until recently, green policies had seldom required private citizens to roll up their sleeves and make big, disruptive changes to their lives. Now they are starting to, and many people do not like it.
The annoying thing about heat pumps is that you cannot simply swap a gas boiler for one—at least not yet. Heat pumps are larger than gas boilers, require outside space and, for the 60% of European properties that are old and leaky, their installation must come with extra insulation.
In Britain, knowing whom to trust on the best green heating design for your home is hard enough to discourage all but the most determined and wealthy eco-warriors. Owners of older houses face difficult choices, such as whether to lift up their floorboards and line their inside walls with thick insulation, or wrap their homes in a much thicker layer of external insulation, which may not be allowed by local planning rules. All this can quickly become costly, disruptive—and politically toxic. A plan in Germany to ban gas- and oil-boiler installations as early as next year, for instance, was abandoned after a public outcry.
What to do? Heat pumps that are an easy swap for boilers are likely to come onto the market eventually. But even then households cannot be entirely spared from disruption. The least governments can do is make adoption as easy as possible. Although grants covering part of the cost are available in some countries, their administration is often sluggish and should be speeded up. A target cannot be enforced if there are not enough skilled workers to retrofit homes; more will need to be trained. The clash between planning regulations and green rules, which makes householders feel helpless, must somehow be resolved.
Germany’s watered-down rules, which are due to be passed in parliament later this week, wisely give households more time, and also ask local authorities to be involved in their administration. They will give large and small municipalities until 2026 or 2028, respectively, to draw up transition plans, which can allow for greener heating that does not involve single-home heat pumps. Municipalities know their local housing stock better than central governments do, and they make the planning decisions that often collide with the demands of retrofitting. They must start favouring the planet more and nimbys less.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/09/06/heat-pumps-show-how-hard-decarbonisation-will-be
*************************************************Fear the wind droughts
Matthew Warren knows as much about the energy industry as anyone and his book Blackout (2019) is a very good overview of the system.
In the Financial Review on the weekend, he called for a contest of ideas and not a rigid central plan because the timetable for decarbonisation that AEMO provided for the government in the so-called Integrated System Plan is purely aspirational and it is not really a plan at all.
As a former chief executive officer of the Australian Energy Council and a veteran of the Energy Supply Association and the Clean Energy Council, some may argue Warren is too embedded in the parallel universe to fully challenge the decarbonisation narrative.
In my view, the story will not have a happy ending and the time has come for a new energy narrative based on realism and concern for the welfare of people and the planet. Let’s be energy realists and responsible stewards of the environment at the same time.
On that basis we can move forward using conventional power, including nuclear, to generate cheap, relatively clean and reliable energy, as we did two decades ago.
It has been acknowledged that building a power system driven by intermittent energy only is a radical and unproven venture, but the Western world is betting the farm on it. Given this, it is already admitted that we will have to adjust to unforeseen difficulties.
Wind droughts were not anticipated and they have emerged as the fundamental problem, a fatal flaw in the system, the Achilles heel of Net Zero the program… The official wind-watchers and meteorologists did not warn us.
It was left to others, notably the world-leading wind-watchers Anton Lang and Paul Miskelly, who documented our wind droughts over a decade ago. Now everyone can see them in the public records from AEMO, displayed at Aneroid Energy.
You can also look at the Nemwatch Widget at breakfast and dinnertime and see how often you will sit down to a hot meal on the back of wind power!
The time has come to face the facts about wind droughts and the futility of the three strategies, the ‘Holy Trinity’: transmission lines, pumped hydro, and batteries that are supposed to keep the lights on through windless nights.
When the wind is low across the whole of the NEM, there is no spare wind power for the interstate connectors to carry. As for pumped hydro, where in the world are large pumped hydro schemes powered by intermittent energy? And batteries! Do the arithmetic and see the puny capacity of even the largest ‘big batteries’ compared with the demands of the grid on a windless night.
As Mark Mills explains, the so-called energy transition is not happening worldwide. Trillions of dollars of expenditure over two decades have hardly moved the needle from fossil fuels to green energy.
What is more, there is no way that it can happen, considering the amount of rocks that have to be dug up and transported and then converted into a myriad of products using highly energy-intensive processes.
The AEMO data dashboard has a tab for Renewable Penetration which gives the impression that we are making steady progress with the green transition. The high point is approaching 70 per cent, and the average was up to 36 per cent last month. That is the metric of choice in the parallel ‘Net Zero’ universe.
In the real world, the critical indicator is the amount of wind and solar power generated in the worst case, the night with little or no wind. That is next to nothing and increasing the installed capacity by a factor of 5 or even 10 (if you can imagine that) will not help because 5 or 10 times next to nothing is still next to nothing.
Do not dismiss that argument as unfair or misleading cherry-picking. It is due diligence to see if the equipment is fit for purpose. So we put our weight on the rungs of the ladder before we use it, maintenance workers look for defective parts in aero engines, we check the low point of the flood levy, the gap in the fence around the stock, and the weak link in the chain.
The tipping point in warming was a bogey invented by climate alarmists and now we are approaching a very real tipping point in the power supply.
This is a highly simplified picture of the way we are approaching a critical tipping point in the power supply as conventional power capacity (mostly coal) has run down since the turn of the century.
We expect that coal will continue to exit the system until it falls below the level of peak demand at dinner times. Then the first shocks of wind droughts will be felt. Eventually, the supply of conventional power will fall below the base load that is required day and night. Then there will be rolling blackouts every night when the wind power falls away to a point where it cannot make up the difference between the downward-sloping line of conventional power and the horizontal line representing demand.
The Renewable Energy enthusiasts expect that increasing the capacity of wind and solar will ensure that the gap is closed but on windless nights there nothing to fill the gap. Heroic load shedding, and widespread rolling blackouts, will be required to avoid a system-wide blackout.
All the states and nations on the road to Net Zero by wind and solar power will arrive at the tipping point sooner or later. Britain and Germany have arrived there but their collapse is cushioned by power imported from other places. We are on the brink and we don’t have any extension cords.
Lately, there has been a flurry of alarm about this potentially catastrophic situation but it should not come as a surprise. Since early 2020 the Energy Realists of Australia sent a series of briefing notes to all state and federal MPs and many journalists to raise concern about wind droughts, lack of storage and cognate matters. However, the major parties all pressed on with aggressive policies to eliminate coal (surely the biggest public policy blunder in our history) and they all share the responsibility for the impending crisis.
Moreover, the press corps neglected to inform the general public about the issues and voters sleep-walked into the last election without understanding the energy policy issues that are at stake. Echoing Paul Keating’s pronouncement on his recession, you could say that this is the energy crisis that we had to have!
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/end-the-net-zero-nightmare/
***************************************8 September, 2023
One volcano can ruin your climate dogma
Kandahalagalaa is an atoll in the Maldives where drill holes show that sea level rose and fell like a yoyo well before humans started to emit carbon dioxide in the Industrial Revolution. Sea level changes were obviously unrelated to human activities. Drilling showed that the atoll thrived each time sea level rose.
Scientific work nearly 200 years ago showed that as sea level rises, coral atolls grow bigger and the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) were used as an example. It was at Funafuti that Professor Sir Edgeworth David’s drill holes in 1896 to 1898 validated the theories of coral atoll growth by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin.
The work of Lyell, Darwin and Edgeworth David was validated by 1954 to 1958 drilling of the Bikini Atoll and was validated yet again using satellite imagery that showed that most of the 1,100 Indian and Pacific Ocean atolls have increased in size over the last 40 years. Sea level measurements at Tuvalu over the last 30 years show no sea level rise. Drilling, satellite imagery and sea level measurements show that no atoll island nation is being inundated.
Experiments cooking up lava with gases such as water vapour or carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure show that some common gases lower both the melting and freezing points of lava. The lava type that characterises the Pacific Ring of Fire (andesite) can dissolve a large amount of water vapour and almost no carbon dioxide or other gases. As lava rises, the pressure of the dissolved water increases, steam flashes, expands instantaneously and is suddenly catastrophically released from the lava at a shallow depth. A column of pulverised rock, fine glassy needles of instantly frozen lava (‘ash’) and steam are blasted high into the atmosphere. Such eruptions are common in the Andes, central America, the Rockies, the Japanese island arc (Mt Fuji), Papua New Guinea (Rabaul), Indonesia (Krakatoa) and the Mediterranean (Vesuvius).
At Santorini in Greece, there was a massive eruption in 1,600BC as a result of Africa pushing wet Mediterranean sea-floor sediments deep beneath Europe. The high temperature, high pressure and saturation with water at depth induced melting. Seawater also entered the mass of molten rock beneath Santorini.
The lighter molten rock charged with huge amounts of water in solution started to rise to the surface and rising lava elbowed aside other rocks resulting in earthquakes. Choking sulphurous gas was released. As the lava rose, the weight of overlying rocks became lower. There was a sudden catastrophic expansion and release of steam from the lava resulting in a massive explosive eruption producing an ash cloud that was blasted 25 km into the atmosphere.
Ash particles created internal bleeding of the lungs and people drowned in their own blood, the lungs of people and their animals became lithified, many died from poisoning by sulphurous fumes, tsunamis up to scores of metres high swept across the eastern Mediterranean, crops were covered in a thick layer of volcanic ash and heavy rain triggered by ash particles in the air led to mudflows and flooding.
Some 30 cubic kilometres of Santorini was pulverised into ash which fell as thick layers in and around the Mediterranean and as thin layers on the polar ice caps. The Minoan Empire was destroyed. It was the Santorini eruption that changed the course of Western civilisation leading to the rise of the Mycenæans and Athenians.
After the April 1815 eruption of Tambora (Indonesia), the following year was globally ‘the year without summer’. It was dark, cold and wet. There was a competition between Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley in Geneva to write the scariest horror story commensurate with the appalling weather. In 1816, Mary wrote Frankenstein and Byron wrote Darkness, a poem about depression.
After the Calbuco eruption in Chile on 7 January 1893, Brisbane had a massive rain bomb and the biggest floods ever recorded in February 1893. In 2011, volcanic ash from the Chilean volcano Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle shut Sydney Airport for a week. After another lap of the planet by the ash, the airport was shut again ten days later.
The underwater eruption from the Pacific Ocean volcano in Tonga called Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai occurred on 15 January 2022. Nasa published satellite time-lapse footage showing a column of water rising 50 km to the stratosphere. The volume of water that entered the stratosphere was 10 per cent of all the water in the stratosphere. As a result, Eastern Australia had numerous rain bombs in 2022 and 2023. Elsewhere in the world, there were rain bombs and large snowfalls.
The water and volcanic ash from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai will remain in the atmosphere for years while it does laps of the planet and eventually falls to Earth. Small sub-aerial eruptions such as Tambora (1815), Krakatoa (1883), Pinatubo (1991), Kasatochi (2008) and Calbuco (2015) cooled the Earth because the ash and water rose to only 25 km in the atmosphere where it reflected light and heat resulting in short-term cooling. By contrast, the massive volume of water from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai rose to an altitude of 50 km and created a temporary warming effect due to the trapping of heat.
Most andesite volcanoes such as those in the Pacific Ring of Fire pulverise and eject about 30 cubic kilometres of rock. Supervolcanoes eject thousands of cubic kilometres of rock. During the last glaciation, the eruption of Toba (Indonesia) 73,000 years ago blasted 3,000 cubic kilometres of pulverised rock into the atmosphere. There was even more cooling of an icehouse planet, darkness, choking clouds of volcanic ash that took decades to settle, the collapse of plant life (especially in the tropics) and the migration of humans. Around that time three human species became extinct and Homo sapiens was reduced to 4,000 breeding pairs. We very nearly became extinct.
The closest supervolcanoes to Australia are in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and in New Zealand. If the Wallabies are ever to win the Bledisloe Cup again, then a resurgence of a supervolcano in the Taupo Volcanic Zone might do the job. New Zealand will be all black.
Every slight variation in natural events is now blamed on ‘climate change’. All settled, no argument. If the science of climate change is settled, then there is no reason for taxpayers to fund climate research any longer.
Normal geological processes in the oceans that were documented nearly 200 years ago are now evidence for a climate crisis. Monstrous volcanic eruptions that produce climate and weather changes have been well documented since Adam was a boy. Heavy rain with the resultant flooding and snow we are told is evidence of a human-induced climate catastrophe and the possibility of a natural phenomenon is not even considered by the hysterical green-tinged media. Massive wildfires are obviously due to sinful Westerners emitting plant food while arsonists, sparking machines and fallen power lines don’t enter the equation.
If you have sneezing fits or stutter, don’t try to say Kandahalagalaa or Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/one-volcano-can-ruin-your-climate-dogma/
****************************************************Stop Blaming the 'Climate Crisis' for Democrat Mismanagement
“I don't think anybody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore,” said President Joe Biden while touring the damage caused by Hurricane Idalia in Florida last weekend. “Just look around,” he urged. “Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage,” Biden continued in his attempt to blame natural disasters on the “climate crisis.” Biden's claims might be a politically expedient excuse, but it's just that: an excuse to cover for what is often mismanagement by Democrat leaders.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, rightfully so, rebutted Biden’s claims. “The notion that somehow hurricanes are something new, that’s just false,” he pointed out. “We’ve got to stop politicizing the weather and stop politicizing natural disasters,” he urged of those on the other side of the aisle who use natural disasters to underscore their climate alarmism which naturally turns into attacks on Republican leaders who refuse to enact restrictions on reliable and affordable energy and know it’s a fool’s errand to try spending their way out of the path of severe weather. “We know from history there’s been times when it’s very busy in Florida, late ‘40s, early ‘50s, you had a lot of hits of significant hurricanes,” DeSantis reminded.
But beyond using the “climate crisis” as a bludgeon with which to attack Republicans, Democrats’ use of such buzzwords is also an attempt to cover for Democrat mismanagement of natural resources, utilities, and tools at their disposal.
As we learned in the aftermath of the devastating Maui fires, there were years of warnings about wildfire danger that went ignored or unaddressed. The Wall Street Journal reported that Hawaiian Electric knew since 2019 that it “needed to do far more to prevent its power lines from emitting sparks,” yet that threat was not properly mitigated because, “politically, the focus was on electricity generation.” As summarized by Michael Shellenberger, “what caused the fires was Hawaiian Electric’s failure to clear flammable grasses from around electric wires because its focus, and ratepayer money, was going to renewables.”
That is, it wasn’t a fire caused by a radically changing climate, it was mismanagement caused, at least in part, due to prioritizing the demands of climate alarmists that saw resources used in pursuit of renewable energy instead of safeguarding power transmission infrastructure. In the end, hundreds of people died and even more, many of them children, are still “missing.”
The tragic events in Maui are hardly the first instance of Democrats attempting to use a “climate crisis” to paper over their own failures to manage natural resources.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom took office in 2019 declaring “everybody has had enough” with wildfires in the Golden State, citing climate change as the culprit but pledging to “fundamentally” change the way California responded to such infernos.
But, just more than two years after taking office, an investigation conducted by the Sacramento National Public Radio affiliate CapRadio found that Newsom had botched the whole plan and failed to deliver on his promises — even going so far as to lie about how much work California had undertaken while cutting wildfire prevention spending.
According to CapRadio’s report on its investigation, “the governor has misrepresented his accomplishments and even disinvested in wildfire prevention” and “overstated, by an astounding 690%, the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns in the very forestry projects he said needed to be prioritized to protect the state’s most vulnerable communities. Newsom has claimed that 35 ‘priority projects’ carried out as a result of his executive order resulted in fire prevention work on 90,000 acres,” CapRadio recounted. “But the state’s own data show the actual number is 11,399.”
Meanwhile, after Newsom promised to do better managing California’s natural resources but failed to do so, cut prevention efforts, and lied about how much he was doing, “4.3 million acres burned” in 2020, “the most in California’s recorded history,” according to CapRadio. “That was more than double the previous record, set in 2018, when the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, killing 85 people.”
So after Newsom took office in January 2019 and pledged to better manage forests and focus on wildfire prevention, he proceeded to mismanage the state’s wild lands so dramatically that by 2020 the Golden State saw the most acres burned — ever.
That statistic, of course, was and has been used to show how the “climate crisis” is making conditions worse and triggering record-setting blazes. But why is it blamed on something supposedly out of control while there’s no serious discussion about how Newsom mismanaged — and tried to cover up — the vital work of managing California’s forests and wild lands?
Since then, Newsom has continued to chalk wildfires up to climate change, even though he’s been found to have been negligent in keeping his promise to adequately manage California’s natural resources.
Newsom’s use of climate alarmism is just another ploy to skirt blame or accountability for his failures, and people shouldn’t take Democrat demands for radical climate policies seriously until they’ve proven some ability to do the immediate and tangible things that can prevent fires and slow their spread.
Just as Democrat climate alarmists often foolishly reject expanding nuclear power generation in their demands to “decarbonise” the energy sector, refusing to take logical actions such as active land management render their hooting and hollering unserious at best.
****************************************************
The US is facing a blackout ‘crisis’ – thanks to green energy
Power grids in the US are currently providing a case study of the risks of a mis-managed energy transition. Prematurely closing coal, gas and nuclear power stations risks blackouts. Who knew?
Well, apparently lots of people.
Back in April, lawmakers wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) saying that “blackouts, brownouts, and energy rationing have become far too common in the past few years. The primary cause of the electricity shortages Americans have experienced in recent history is a lack of generation capacity ... These shortages often happen in the cold of winter or the heat of summer. This is due, in no small part, to the premature retirement of dispatchable generation resources, like coal, nuclear, and natural gas, and the rapid expansion of intermittent resources, like wind and solar, onto the bulk power system.”
The FERC agrees. Appearing before the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this summer, FERC Commissioner Mark Christie said “the United States is heading for a reliability crisis. I do not use the term ‘crisis’ for melodrama, but because it is an accurate description of what we are facing.”
Christie said that too many coal, natural gas and nuclear power stations are being mothballed too quickly, threatening security of supply. Jim Robb, CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), an agency which enforces grid reliability standards, told the same committee that operating the electric grid “ever closer to the edge” by relying on weather-dependent renewables will likely lead to “more frequent and more serious disruptions.”
In June, the NERC warned that two-thirds of North America was at risk of energy shortfalls in high heat, in its summer reliability report. It found that all 20 assessment areas have adequate power resources to meet normal peak summer demand, but some areas are at elevated risk of supply shortages in the event of “more extreme summer conditions”. Evening solar drop off and a reliance on wind were a common theme across these areas.
“Low wind and high demand periods could result in energy emergencies,” said the report. Similar risks were identified last year and the year before.
Despite these warnings, the US Environmental Protection Agency has issued new power-plant emissions standards that will effectively dismantle baseload coal and gas capacity by 2030, much to the discomfort of grid operators across the country, while utilities have announced plans to retire more than 40 percent of the remaining US coal fleet by 2030. Meanwhile millions of Americans are facing blackout risks right now.
Texas has been hit particularly hard, but states from California to the Canadian border are facing potential power outages as an extended heatwave boosts demand for air-conditioning at a time when wind output is low. Despite large amounts of solar generation in some states, fossil fuels are being relied on to meet demand, but a combination of outages and premature closures means there’s a lot less of that available than in the past.
This should not be a surprise. The US is experiencing a high pressure weather system, characterised by sunny but still weather. In Britain these weather systems in winter pose a problem as they bring cold temperatures and low wind conditions – in the summer they bring heat and low wind conditions. The common theme is: electricity demand peaking at the same time that wind output is low, and the problems this creates are being repeated in the US year after year.
*************************************************
Hotel giant declares war on plastics in green push
A lot of this makes sense. The little plastic bottles of various things that often come with a hotel room will not be much missed. People would mostly have their own versions of such things
When Accor Pacific boss Sarah Derry hosted a lunch for her top executives in Brisbane this week there was nary a single use plastic item in sight.
The nosh up at the Pullman & Mercure King George Square was to celebrate the hotel and three other Accor properties - Sofitel Brisbane Central, ibis Styles Brisbane Elizabeth
Street and Novotel Brisbane South Bank - receiving coveted sustainable tourism certification from Ecotourism Australia.
The former Townsville girl earlier this year declared war on plastic in a new sustainability push for the group, which included a drastic reduction in plastic use across its properties in Australia including the Softel, Novotel, Ibis and Mercure brands.
Derry says that includes getting rid of the little plastic bottles of shampoo and body lotion offered in hotel rooms, plastic water bottles and numerous other single use plastic items. “We have removed some 43 single use plastic items such as individual toiletries from guest facing areas in over 80 per cent of our hotels,” says Derry.
She says the Ecotourism Australia certification is a rigorous process that evaluates a hotel’s environmental performance, community engagement, and contribution to conservation.
Derry says “sustainability is redefining our business model” with the company enrolling a further 150 hotels in the Pacific into the certification program.
Attending the lunch at the Pullman’s Goldfinch restaurant was Ecotourism Australia chief Elissa Keenan, who says Accor Pacific is leading the industry across Australia and New Zealand with its commitment to sustainability.
***************************************
7 September, 2023
Biden moves to block oil drilling in Alaskan wilderness
The Biden administration moved to ban oil drilling in a swath of Alaskan wilderness, including cancelling all remaining oil and gas leases issued in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge under the previous administration.
The announcement on Wednesday comes after the Biden administration approved the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve earlier this year over the objections of many Democrats and environmentalists.
The Interior Department’s proposed regulation would bar new oil or gas leasing on 4.3 million hectares, or more than 40 per centof the National Petroleum Reserve. The reserve is a 9.3 million hectare area managed by the department.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said she also authorised the cancellation of seven oil and gas leases issued by the Trump administration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The leases had been suspended in 2021.
“As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to protect this treasured region for all ages,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) criticised the decision, suggesting it was driven by politics rather than sound policy.
“It just kind of sends a signal that when it comes to Alaska, it depends on the whim of an administration,” Senator Murkowski said. “But that’s not coherent, in my view.”
Politicians in Washington have been looking for a way forward on energy policy as they grapple with concerns over overseas threats, high prices and climate change. While the Biden administration has tried to strike a balance on oil drilling, Republicans have consistently pushed for increased energy production.
A GOP-authored bill that passed the House of Representatives in March would boost oil and gas production and accelerate new projects by streamlining environmental reviews, though it isn’t expected to move forward in the Democratic Party-controlled Senate.
Republican 2024 presidential hopefuls have made the same case for expediting production. “This isn’t that complicated, guys, unlock American energy, drill, frack, burn coal and embrace nuclear,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said at last month’s GOP primary debate in Milwaukee. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would “open up all energy production.” The approval of the Willow project earlier this year allowed Houston-based ConocoPhillips to go ahead with the roughly $US7bn ($11bn) project in the National Petroleum Reserve. At its peak, the company expects to produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day there.
The new actions by the Biden administration don’t impact the Willow project, which won the support of the oil-and-gas industry and Alaska’s congressional delegation, as well as many Alaskans.
The reserve was originally established in 1923 for the US Navy, and was later transferred to the Interior Department in 1976. The isolated region in northwest Alaska is home to caribou, polar bears and walruses. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while similar in size at about 7.7 million hectares, is in northeast Alaska and is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. About the size of South Carolina, the refuge has no roads and was established in 1960.
Following the new rule proposed for the reserve Wednesday, there will be a 60-day public comment period. A draft of a supplemental environmental impact statement related to the cancelled leases will also be available for public comment.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/biden-moves-to-block-oil-drilling-in-alaskan-wilderness/news-story/aea66409eeabe2b606f43b24c823dcad
*********************************************
British Conservatives warn government's pursuit of ‘cultish’ eco-policies could see customers paying more/div>
6 September, 2023
Top scientist Patrick Brown says he deliberately OMITTED key fact in climate change piece he's just had published in prestigious journal to ensure woke editors ran it
A climate change scientist has claimed the world's leading academic journals reject papers which don't 'support certain narratives' about the issue and instead favor 'distorted' research which hypes up dangers rather than solutions.
Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, said editors at Nature and Science - two of the most prestigious scientific journals - select 'climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives'.
In an article for The Free Press, Brown likened the approach to the way 'the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause' of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii.
*He pointed out research that said 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans*.
Brown gave the example of a paper he recently authored titled 'Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California'. Brown said the paper, published in Nature last week, 'focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior' and ignored other key factors.
Brown laid out his claims in an article titled 'I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published'. 'I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work,' the article begins.
'I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell,' he wrote of his recently-published work.
'This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
'To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.'
A spokesperson for Nature said 'all submitted manuscripts are considered independently on the basis of the quality and timeliness of their science'.
'Our editors make decisions based solely on whether research meets our criteria for publication – original scientific research (where conclusions are sufficiently supported by the available evidence), of outstanding scientific importance, which reaches a conclusion of interest to a multidisciplinary readership,' a statement said.
'Intentional omission of facts and results that are relevant to the main conclusions of a paper is not considered best practice with regards to accepted research integrity principles,' the spokesperson added.
Science was approached for comment.
Brown opened his missive with links to stories by AP, PBS NewsHour, The New York Times and Bloomberg which he said give the impression global wildfires are 'mostly the result of climate change'.
He said that 'climate change is an important factor' but 'isn't close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus'.
Much reporting of the wildfires in Maui has said climate change contributed to the disaster by helping to create conditions that caused the fires to spark and spread quickly.
The blazes, which killed at least 115 people, are believed to have been started by a downed electricity line, but observers have said rising temperatures caused extremely dry conditions on the Hawaiian island.
Brown said the media operates like scientific journals in that the focus on climate change 'fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it'.
Scientists whose careers depend on their work being published in major journals also 'tailor' their work to 'support the mainstream narrative', he said.
'This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate paper,' he added. 'The authors should ignore—or at least downplay—practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change.'
He gave examples of factors which are ignored, including a 'decline in deaths from weather and climate disasters over the last century'. In the case of wildfires, Brown says 'current research indicates that these changes in forest management practices could completely negate the detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires'.
Poor forest management has also been blamed for a record number of wildfires in Canada this year.
But 'the more practical kind of analysis is discouraged' because it 'weakens the case for greenhouse gas emissions reductions', Brown said.
Successful papers also often use 'less intuitive metrics' to measure the impacts of climate change because they 'generate the most eye-popping numbers', he said.
He went onto to claim that other papers he's written which don't match a certain narrative have been 'rejected out of hand by the editors of distinguished journals, and I had to settle for less prestigious outlets'.
*******************************************
The Coming Green Energy Bailout
According to a report late last month by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Nyserda), large offshore wind developers are asking for an average 48% price adjustment in their contracts to cover rising costs. The Alliance for Clean Energy NY is also requesting an average 64% price increase on 86 solar and wind projects.
The IRA includes federal tax credits that can offset 50% of a project’s costs. But renewable developers say their costs are increasing faster than inflation and that the projects will “not be economically viable and would be unable to proceed to construction and operation under their existing pricing,” says Nyserda.
Irony alert: One reason is that the government-forced green energy transition is driving up demand for equipment, material and labor.· Growing demand for renewable energy projects nationwide ‘has exacerbated inflation for renewable project cost components relative to broader inflation levels,’” Nyserda says, citing the Alliance for Clean Energy NY.
Green energy developers are blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for increasing demand for renewable energy and its components. But the real culprits are government mandates and subsidies, which they lobbied for. Developers also blame rising interest rates for increasing project costs. But as Nyserda notes, “it does not appear reasonable for developers to have assumed that a low interest rate environment would persist throughout the period in which their projects were to be financed, given that the levels of interest rates witnessed today are indeed precedented.”
The climate lobby says power from wind and solar is cheaper than from fossil fuels, but that’s true only with generous subsidies and near-zero interest rates. Price adjustments that renewable developers want in New York would make solar and wind two- to five-times more expensive than natural gas power.
Another irony: The IRA’s prevailing wage and domestic content conditions for bonus tax credits, which are necessary to make projects viable, inflate costs. That means U.S. taxpayers will pay more for the green corporate welfare, and utility ratepayers will pay more for renewable power. The climate lobby hits you coming and going.
Nyserda adds that “requests for inflationary relief on clean energy projects” have also been submitted in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, among other states. Electric customers will get no such relief when their bills increase.
Meantime, the computer chip maker Micron Technology recently disclosed that its planned factories in upstate New York, which are set to receive up to $5.5 billion in state subsidies, will consume as much power as New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Where will all the power come from?
Don’t be surprised if the state eventually asks New Yorkers to turn down their thermostats or turn off the lights at some hours of the day. The green energy crunch and bailout are coming.
***************************************************
Electric cars are a danger to pedestrians
As a driver, one of the best things about EVs is their swift, silent acceleration. As a pedestrian, this absence of noise could prove dangerous.
Whether you're aware of it or not, most of us rely heavily on the audio cues of conventional engines to warn us a vehicle is approaching.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a pedestrian walk out in front of an electric car I was driving, without even realising it was there.
In one instance, I tailed an elderly man who was walking down the middle of a side street for a good 20 metres before he realised I was there and almost jumped out of his skin with shock.
It's difficult to know what to do in that scenario, as beeping someone could frighten a pedestrian and result in injury while overtaking them is risky if they're not aware you're there. Your sole option is to roll down the window and shout at them... not ideal.
Making matters worse is the fact we are currently facing a mounting crisis of distraction.
Most pedestrians are wearing AirPods, texting on phones, listening to music or taking calls.
Don’t start me on drivers – many of whom use every stop sign or red traffic light to check notifications on their smartphone.
With road users reaching peak distraction, the subconscious signals we use to identify other vehicles are more crucial than ever.
This is – and has always been – particularly true for vision-impaired people who are already contending with footpaths littered with e-scooters or distracted pedestrians.
A colleague recently re-shared a 2020 Facebook post that has been shared by 828,000 people.
“Today my husband and I with our two guide dogs had another near miss with an electric car,” the post reads.
“We were crossing a side road and it came in off the main road and passed very close in front of us.
“If it’d been a petrol or diesel engine, or if it’d had a sound emitter fitted, we’d have heard it, but, apart from the sound of the tyres on the road, it was virtually silent.
“I am a confident guide dog handler but I can honestly say that silent electric vehicles scare me. I fear that it will take serious injury to a blind person, or even worse, death, before any meaningful legislation is put into place.”
It’s true that electric car manufacturers are trying to circumvent the issue of silent electric cars by adding fake acceleration noises and reversing tones to their vehicles.
Overseas, most markets have mandated all electric cars be fitted with acoustic vehicle alerting systems (AVAS) that make noise when the car is reversing or travelling at speeds at or below 20km/h.
A proposal to do the same in Australia is currently under consideration, and many models already sold here offer this functionality.
Unfortunately these systems play Jetsons-inspired bleeps and bloops – not the typical noises we associate with conventional cars.
Given electric cars are still a relatively new addition to our roads, pedestrians don’t immediately connect the dots and realise these noises belong to a vehicle. And I don’t believe they’ll recognise these sounds as “car sounds” for some time.
The better solution is to run extensive public education campaigns around electric cars and to start equipping electric cars with the ability of play fake engine noises when required.
The onus is also on EV owners to be hyper-vigilant of pedestrians while we're in this transition period.
Electric Vehicles Are Causing Issues After Hurricane Idalia
Electric vehicles are catching on fire after Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida last week.
According to local reports, at least two Tesla EVs ignited after saltwater from the storm surge damaged their batteries and other electrical components. One vehicle lit up in Pinellas Park and another car fire occurred in Palm Harbor.
“Carfax says owners need to understand the fire risk doesn’t go away after their EV dries out,” ABC Actions News told viewers.
“The salt water that is flooding can get into the battery and dry there and once it dries it creates what federal safety officials call bridges between cells and that can lead to fires and those fires can come anywhere from days to weeks later and once an EV catches fire it is incredible difficult to put it out,” said Patrick Olsen of Carfax.
After Hurricane Ian, 21 electric vehicles caught fire in the state, prompting officials to warn residents ahead of Idalia's approach.
“We saw a number of fires associated with EVs from Hurricane Ian. We know that the saltwater from storm surge can compromise these batteries, causing fires which cannot be easily suppressed,” Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said at the time.
“The best fire teams can do is keep water on the battery until the fuel burns out. If you’re evacuating and leaving an EV, or other lithium ion powered devices like scooters or golf carts in your garage, you’re creating a real fire threat for your home, your communities, and first responders," he added. "Take this threat seriously. If there’s even a small risk of your EV being impacted by storm surge, move it to higher ground before it’s too late.”
One home that managed to survive Ian ended up burning to the ground because of a saltwater-damaged EV.
EV vehicle owners are being advised to park affected cars at least 50 feet away from any structures that could catch fire.
5 September, 2023
Droughts, Hurricanes, Wildfires Aren’t Living Up to Alarmists’ Expectations
H. Sterling Burnett
Just before the beginning of summer last year, I wrote a Climate Change Weekly article titled “It’s Climate Catastrophe Du Jour Season, Again!,” warning of what I predicted would be a coming tidal wave of stories claiming the then-extended drought and expected hurricanes and wildfires would be blamed on climate change. I was right. Hundreds if not thousands of stories were published by both the mainstream and progressive fringe media last year blaming the drought, every hurricane, and large wildfire season on climate change.
This despite there being no evidence that long-term trends in droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires showed any increase in number or severity. Absent such upward trends, it’s hard to honestly link one or a few years of extreme weather events to climate change, but then honesty has never been a strong point for climate alarmists or at the heart of the climate change debate.
With the current summer coming to an end, let’s revisit the dread three seasons—drought, hurricanes, and wildfires—and see how they went in 2023.
Headline stories on drought have been nearly nonexistent this year. That’s because, as I write on August 29, the U.S. Drought monitor reports nearly 57 percent of the United States is exhibiting no drought whatsoever despite a long, admittedly hot summer. Another 16 percent is recorded as “abnormally dry,” and only 27 percent of the country is listed as being in any category of drought, from moderate to extreme (5 percent) or exceptional (1 percent). Three months ago, at the beginning of summer, 66 percent of the nation was completely drought-free, with only 16 percent of the country listed as facing moderate, severe, extreme, or exceptional drought.
As El Niño left, it dumped huge amounts of precipitation across the country, and especially in the historically drought-prone western United States, much of it in the form of record-setting snow, resulting in a nearly record-low percentage of the country being considered very dry.
At the beginning of the “water year” in September 2022, the U.S. Drought Monitor recorded just 36 percent of the country was at any level of drought. As of September 27, 2022, more than 41 percent of the U.S. was experiencing some degree of drought—25 percent with severe, extreme, or exceptional drought—and 63 percent of America was listed as abnormally dry, at a minimum.
Oh, what a difference a year makes, not in climate but in weather—and in media coverage of claims of climate-induced drought!
With the Maui wildfire a recent memory and Hurricane Idalia hammering Florida’s Gulf Coast, it may seem an inopportune time to bring up wildfires and hurricanes, but that’s not so. As I’ve previously discussed, neither the wildfire in Maui, nor those in Canada, nor the ones that scorched Greece this summer, were caused by climate change: nature combined with human error, malfeasance, or evil was behind each of these devastating fires.
As of August 11, data showed wildfires in the United States in 2023 are the fourth-lowest in nearly 100 years of recordkeeping. Globally, over the past two decades of modest warming (but heightened fearmongering), satellite data from NASA show a 25 percent decrease in acreage lost to wildfires since 2003.
That leads us to the 2023 hurricane season and Hurricane Idalia. Although the global average temperature, a made-up metric if ever there was one, has increased modestly over the past 150 years, neither the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change nor hard data shows any increasing trend in the number or severity of tropical cyclones. Over the past 50 and 100 years, if anything, the data indicates there has been a modest decline in the yearly number of hurricanes and major hurricanes on average, according to multiple studies.
What’s true for the whole world is true also for the United States and Florida. From 2009 through 2017, America experienced the fewest hurricane strikes in any eight-year period in recorded history. And it was just in 2016 that Florida, America’s most vulnerable state for hurricanes, concluded an 11-year period without a landfalling hurricane, the longest such period in recorded history.
The “official” hurricane season runs from June 1 through the end of November. This year, until the past week, tropical storm numbers and accumulated energy or sustained wind speeds were below normal. The hurricane season typically peaks in late-August through mid-September, so there is absolutely nothing unusual about multiple storms forming during this short time span.
Idalia forming and strengthening now is not only not outside the norm, it fits the historic pattern perfectly.
This year’s climate disaster de jour season has been a bust so far. This is good for people but bad for those who hype the narrative that “climate change causes everything.” That is not true now, nor has it ever been.
**************************************************
Net Zero is condemning more Brits to energy poverty
Here’s another great idea from the net zero establishment: only heat your home when it is warm and sunny outdoors. In its Sixth Carbon Budget paper, the government’s Climate Change Committee advises homeowners to turn their heating on in the afternoon, so that they can turn it off again during the evening when demand for electricity is higher. ‘Where homes are sufficiently well-insulated,’ it says, ‘it is possible to pre-heat ahead of peak times, enabling access to cheaper tariffs which reflect the reduced costs associated with running networks and producing power during off-peak times.’ In other words, boil yourself when the outdoor temperature is relatively warm, and with any luck you might still be tolerably warm when it is freezing outdoors at eight in the evening.
The advice is an admission of where we are headed. At the moment, for most of us, there is no difference between the price of electricity during the afternoon and the evening – it is only at night that we can buy off-peak electricity. That is not how it looks like being in the future. A big part of the plan for decarbonising the electricity system is to manage demand by varying tariffs throughout the day. That is the whole point of smart meters. We had a foretaste of this last winter when customers with smart meters were offered small discounts if they agreed to turn off appliances during the early evening on days when demand was high but, thanks to a lack of sun and wind, renewable energy was in short supply.
That, however, is only the beginning. At the moment, with the help of back-up from gas plants, we don’t have a huge problem in balancing demand and with supply. But by 2035 (2030 in the case of the Labour party) the government wants to remove all fossil fuels from the electricity grid. What do we do then? No-one seems able to explain. Investment in – very expensive – energy storage isn’t coming along at anything like the pace it would need to if we are going to be able to enjoy an uninterrupted supply of power throughout the day. Given that the supply of wind energy can fall away to virtually nothing during calm periods, and solar energy falls to zero every evening, we have a very serious problem. The tendency for still periods to concur with the coldest winter nights exacerbates the problem – especially if the country does as the government wants and switches to heat pumps.
As you can see, from the report of the Commons Business Select Committee ‘demand-side response’ is a big part of the energy industry’s plans. But it isn’t going to be nice little incentives like those offered to householders last winter in the form of £10 vouchers and the like. In future there will be a lot less carrot and a lot more stick – with surge pricing structures akin to those used by companies like Uber. Just think of the price of electricity is going to have to be jacked up to match supply and demand on a cold, still winter’s evening when – in normal times – demand would be at its highest.
In Britain’s net zero future it won’t just be a case of turning your heating on a few hours early to pre-heat your home. Many customers face being priced out of the electricity market altogether when supply of renewables is weak. On a sunny, windy afternoon you may be able to turn on your heating with abandon, even if you don’t need it on. But freezing, still evenings? Maybe there will be a special deal on woolly jumpers.
Fresh proof that New York’s ‘climate plan’ is pure fantasy
In a fresh sign that New York’s state climate agenda is pure fantasy, contractors key to making good on a major piece of the so-called plan just filed to charge 54% more to build their offshore wind farms.
Taxpayers won’t be on the line for that, but ratepayers will.
That’s the bottom line of New York’s “net zero” climate plan to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
It aims is to stop burning natural gas and other fossil fuels (even for cooking and heat), vastly increasing the use of electricity — even while magically switching the state’s electricity generation from mostly fossil-fuel-based to all-alternative energy.
Since we can’t add significant hydro power and won’t build more nuclear plants, that means ginormous increases in solar and wind power — plus new transmission lines.
And vast energy-storage capacities, for which affordable technology doesn’t even exist yet.
State officials pretend this will “only” cost a few hundred billion bucks (it’ll actually cost far more) but don’t dare appropriate enough tax dollars for it, which means they’re mandating outlays that must eventually show up in utility bills. (That’s what “Con Ed will pay” means, since it and other utilities have nowhere else to get the cash.)
This is the truth about the state Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act; recent hikes in your utility bills are just a taste of what’s coming unless and until the law gets changed.
That is: State law orders bureaucrats to shut down fossil-fuel power plants and utilities to get ever-more power from alternative sources that mostly aren’t even on the drawing board yet.
And as the wind-farm price-hike “request” filed in the runup to the holiday weekend (plainly so that few would notice it) indicates, the state’s leaders even lowballed the cost of the early rounds of building that alternative capacity.
Even if they weren’t going to soar past initial estimates, the costs to New Yorkers don’t remotely match the benefits to them.
Fact is, making New York and California and New Jersey and every other blue state — heck, the whole country — carbon-neutral will make only a minuscule dent in global carbon emissions: China’s still building coal plants at a record clip and doesn’t even pretend it’ll stop any year soon.
By the way, no one’s even talking about the big risks to New York’s plan.
One of them is the simple fact that the transition means the peak electric load will stop being in the summer, when power’s needed to run air-conditioning.
Instead, if the plan works as intended, most blackouts will come in the deepest part of winter, when everyone’s relying on electricity for heat.
Extreme cold already kills more people than extreme heat; that death toll will now grow.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state lawmakers imposing this idiocy will be long out of office when the bills in dollars and blood really start coming due.
They’re now just telling eco-conscious voters what they want to hear, trusting the public to forget that everything always costs more and takes longer, with fewer benefits, than politicians (and the bureaucrats who answer to them) claim.
The only real question is how much harm is done by this madness in the name only of fighting climate change before New Yorkers wake up to the truth and put a stop to it.
Australia: Coal still needed in NSW
The NSW government will seek a deal with Origin Energy to prolong the lifespan of the state’s largest coal generator beyond 2025 after the state government said it has accepted the recommendations of an independent report that Eraring coal power station would need to stay open to safeguard electricity supplies.
Origin Energy’s Eraring coal power station was set to retire in 2025, but an independent report said such a closure at that time would expose the state to possible blackouts and further price increases.
NSW premier Chris Minns said affordability and guaranteeing electricity supply was paramount.
“One of the biggest challenges facing NSW is ensuring we can keep the lights on while managing the biggest change in energy mix and consumption in the shortest period of time in our nation’s history,” Mr Minns said.
Australia has endured two years of consecutive price rises of more than 20 per cent, a key driver in an affordability crisis.
Should a deal be struck, NSW will be the second state to move to guarantee a coal power station remains in the system as Australia’s energy transition falters.
To strike a deal, however, NSW will likely have to underwrite Eraring – leaving NSW taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. Origin has said Eraring requires an annual spend of about $200m-$250m plus the cost of buying coal to run, though it earns money from selling electricity.
Eraring is, however, on course to be losing money as soon as next year when the emergency coal price cap finishes.
The federal government in conjunction with state counterparts introduced a $120 a tonne cap on the price of coal, a scheme designed to put downward pressure on household and business bills.
The scheme will end in 2024 and Origin’s supply costs will spike, likely plunging the facility back to a loss-making operation.
NSW taxpayers would likely have to cover the losses until the state has developed sufficient sources of renewable energy to compensate for the retirement of Eraring in Lake Macquarie.
***************************************
4 September, 2023
Hurricane Season, Not Climate Change, Is to Blame for Hurricane Idalia
With Hurricane Idalia bearing down on Florida, climate activists and some media outlets are already blaming climate change for the storm. In reality, hurricane activity—and especially hurricane activity affecting Florida—is not getting any worse as the planet modestly warms. Hurricanes and other extreme weather events occur in spite of climate change, not because of it.
Global hurricane data show there has been a significant and consistent decline in the number of hurricanes during the past 40 years. Moreover, there has been no increase in the cumulative energy from all hurricanes and tropical cyclones. While climate pundits fill the airwaves with theories about warmer ocean temperatures fueling more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, the verifiable storm data show no increase at all. Indeed, scientists have long suspected that warming global temperatures facilitate wind shear, which pulls hurricanes and tropical storms apart.
Not only is there no global increase in hurricanes, but Florida in particular is enjoying a golden age of hurricane avoidance. Florida recently underwent an 11-year period without a single hurricane strike, which was the longest such period in recorded history. Yet when a hurricane finally put an end to Florida's record hurricane drought, climate activists and many media outlets predictably blamed climate change.
No matter what good news there is on the subject, climate activists and their champions in the media are committed to their apocalyptic narrative. It's why you probably don't know that the United States as a whole has enjoyed a remarkable lack of major hurricanes in recent years; from 2009 through 2017, the U.S. experienced fewer hurricane strikes than during any other time period in recorded history. Just as importantly, the United States recently underwent a record 11 years without a major hurricane strike of Category 3 or higher.
Yet when Hurricane Harvey finally struck and ended the record time frame without major hurricanes, climate activists and the mainstream media predictably blamed climate change for the storm.
They simply refuse to acknowledge the truth, which is this: The facts show climate change is not causing a worsening of hurricanes.
But to those invested in the truth, this should come as no surprise. Objective scientific data show a similar lack of climate change impacts on other extreme weather events.
More here:
British Prime Minister defies Net Zero ban on new airports
Rishi Sunak will face down the Government’s climate advisers over demands for ministers to halt the expansion of airports, The Telegraph can disclose.
In one of the most significant moves yet of the Prime Minister’s shift to approaching net zero in a “proportionate and pragmatic” way, the Government will reject the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) formal advice that all airport expansions must be halted.
The move comes days after Mr Sunak appointed Claire Coutinho, one of his closest political allies, as Net Zero Secretary, amid a growing backlash among Tory MPs over the Government’s climate policies and the cost they are adding to consumer bills.
Ministers believe airport growth will have a “key role” in boosting the UK’s global links and helping to grow the economy.
Bristol and Southampton airports are among those preparing to significantly expand their capacity after legal challenges against their expansions failed, while London’s Gatwick, City and Heathrow airports are also hoping to embark on major expansion projects.
Elsewhere in the world, new international airports are being built in cities such as Mumbai, while major expansions are under consideration in Dubai and Sydney.
The CCC was set up by the 2008 Climate Change Act to hold the Government to account over its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, with its most recent five-year “carbon budget” put into law by Boris Johnson in 2021.
Rejecting its recommendations would set the Government up for a major legal clash with environmental groups. Last year, a High Court judgment said that “considerable weight” should be given to the CCC’s advice. Groups such as Greenpeace are planning to cite the committee’s latest recommendation in legal challenges against further airport expansions.
But a Department for Transport spokesman told The Telegraph: “Airport growth, and the aviation sector as a whole, has a key role to play in boosting our global connectivity and helping grow the economy. We remain supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way.”
Ministers are putting their hope in the rapid development of green aviation fuels to decarbonise the sector. This week, Ms Coutinho will unveil a proposed legal duty on the Government to draw up plans to subsidise so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
The Government’s approach will heap pressure on Labour to take a position on the issue.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told The Telegraph last week that she would do “whatever it takes” to attract investment to Britain.
Heathrow is in the process of revising plans for a third runway, which Labour previously said failed its “four tests” for expansion of the airport.
But a Heathrow spokesman said: “We have always been clear that expansion will be delivered within strict environmental targets, including on carbon, minimising noise and local environmental impact, thereby meeting Labour’s four tests.
“We are confident Heathrow’s plans and the aviation industry roadmap provide a credible path to net zero flight by 2050.
“Adding capacity to the UK’s only hub airport would bring benefits to all of the UK, creating jobs, boosting Britain’s exports and delivering for the country’s global ambitions.”
The CCC’s decision to issue formal advice against further expansions was taken in one of the final meetings chaired by Lord Deben – formerly John Gummer – before he stepped down from the body this summer.
The committee was frustrated that plans to expand airports across the country were continuing despite its warnings that the net growth of airports was incompatible with the country’s net zero target.
****************************************************
Like Communism, the Climate Change Agenda Will Kill Millions
As the Biden Administration and tyrannical central planners across the globe continue with their push to control people’s lives through an overbearing "climate change" agenda, implementing socialism under the guise of saving the planet, the human cost of their lunacy is becoming increasingly glaring.
When a brush fire ripped through the Maui town of Lahaina in August, traveling a mile a minute, water to keep it from advancing was unavailable. “Access to water should be predicated on ‘conversations about equity,’ according to the Hawaii official under fire for delaying access to water during the Maui wildfires,” the New York Post reports. "M. Kaleo Manuel, former deputy director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management, waited for more than five hours to release water during the wildfires that devastated Maui.”
The local government still claims the death toll is just north of 100 souls, but at least 1000 people are still “missing,” many of them children.
On the global stage, former Secretary of State and Biden Climate Czar John Kerry is playing with fire by targeting the agriculture industry.
“Cutting greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production is essential to the global fight against climate change, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said on Wednesday,” Reuters reported in May, “Agriculture generates 10% to 12% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The food system as a whole - including packaging, transportation, and waste management - generates a third of global emissions, according to a 2021 study published in the academic journal Nature Food.”
“‘We can’t get to net zero, we don’t get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,’ Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said at the AIM for Climate summit in Washington,” the report continues.
The essential component to human life, food, requires emissions. It's a basic cost of humanity. Wind and solar energy aren’t getting food out of the ground and to the market. Oil and gas do this successfully, preventing famine.
We’ve already seen this dangerous, nightmare experiment play out in Sri Lanka.
In April 2021, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned all chemical fertilizers, citing the need to cut down on emissions for the sake of fighting “climate change.” It was, and still is, a complete disaster.
Forced conversion to organic farming caused an economic collapse and a crop shortage.
“Farmers say their livelihoods are under threat and for the first time in its modern history, Sri Lanka, which usually grows rice and vegetables in abundance, could run out of food as harvests drop and the government can no longer afford the food imports the country has become overdependent on in recent years. The rice yield dropped to 2.92m tonnes in 2021-22, down from the previous year’s 3.39m, and the speaker in parliament last week warned of imminent starvation among the island’s 22 million people,” The Guardian reports.
But starvation isn’t the only human suffering the climate fanatics are willing to inflict on the population. They justify slave labor currently used to build solar panels in China and to mine rare earth minerals in Africa. In the United States, President Joe Biden and his bureaucrats are working to take away gas stoves, air conditioning, and cheap natural gas. All of these things make the human condition better and life affordable for the average person, which is why the left is working overtime to banish them — not for themselves, of course, but for those they rule over.
Kerry and his ilk have made it clear human suffering and death is just part of the agenda and a necessary cost to meet their “climate change” goals. If they aren’t stopped, much like communism, this central planner push for control will cause suffering and death for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of human beings around the world.
**************************************************
Australia: More waste in chasing the Green dream
A new deal has been struck to keep the Victoria/Tasmania Marinus Link undersea power cable project – central to the "battery of the nation" dream – afloat.
In a joint announcement on Sunday, the federal and Tasmanian governments said they were "acting with a new deal to keep the critical Marinus Link project plugged in – driving economic growth and putting downwards pressure on prices across Tasmania and the national east coast grid".
The project, which was to deliver a connection via more than 300 kilometres of undersea and underground high voltage cable between Tasmania and Victoria's Latrobe Valley, was originally estimated to cost between $3.1 billion and $3.8 billion.
However, the financial burden of the project saw the Tasmanian government announce last month it wanted to renegotiate the terms of the deal.
Today, in a joint statement the federal and Tasmanian governments said they had "worked closely to ensure the project continues" – with amendments made to the deal including:
The original vision of two cables downgraded to one, with "negotiations to continue on a second cable"
Tasmania's contribution towards construction drops by almost half, with the Commonwealth's share to increase and Victoria's to stay as originally negotiated
Tasmania to "have the option to sell its stake to the Commonwealth upon commissioning of the project"
Marinus Link is part of Tasmania's "battery of the nation" strategy and is also listed among the Australian Energy Market Operator's top five priority projects.
Tasmania has enough green hydro energy capacity to power the entire state and also has five wind farms, with several other wind projects under consideration.
However, some analysts have argued that as Victoria invested more in its own wind farms and battery storage, it made less business sense to fund an expensive multi-billion-dollar cable between the mainland and Tasmania.
Tasmania has long argued the largest benefits of the project go to the mainland and Tasmanians should not pay a disproportionate amount.
Today, both governments conceded Marinus Link was "competing in a global market with tight supply chains and is facing similar inflationary pressures to other major energy and infrastructure projects around the world".
Stage one of the project, the proponents say, would "deliver economic stimulus over $2 billion and over 2,400 jobs, with around 1,400 in Tasmania".
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said it was "a game-changing project for both Tasmania and the mainland and this updated agreement will not only deliver the benefits of Marinus Link, it will be cheaper to Tasmanians".
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said it would mean "jobs, economic growth, energy security and lower power prices with Tasmania investing its fair share and no more".
The governments said they were "working towards a delivery time frame as close as possible to 2028, or earlier if possible".
In a statement, Marinus Link's chief executive Caroline Wykamp said today's announcement was "a signal of confidence for the project, which stood to deliver significant environmental, economic and social benefits".
"Marinus Link is more than an interconnector; it's an enabler," she said.
"This project will deliver more renewable generation development in Tasmania and the mainland, more energy security to both Tasmania and the mainland and more movement and access to lower-cost renewable energy sources, helping deliver lower energy costs in the long term."
Ex-Liberals question deal, condemn Father's Day timing
In a joint statement, Lara Alexander and John Tucker — former Liberals who quit the party in part over the Marinus deal — said the renegotiated deal "raises more questions than answers", saying the Tasmanians premier's "numbers simply do not stack up".
"The figures are not believable, the claim that Tasmania's maximum exposure would be $117 million dollars does not stack up with the federal minister's confirmation of that the cut down project will cost $3.3 billion dollars and the claim that Tasmania will be up for 17 per cent," the statement said.
"Today's announcement from the premier reveals nothing of the cost blowouts which the government has admitted would have sent the state broke if it pursued the deal it signed last October. It conveniently leaves out how much we have already spent on this project.
"It also does NOT address the impact of these massive energy projects on Tasmania's power bills with the exception of an unsubstantiated claim by the premier that it will deliver savings.
3 September, 2023
New study suggests global warming could be mostly an urban problem
A new study published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal, Climate, by 37 researchers from 18 countries suggests that current estimates of global warming are contaminated by urban warming biases.
The study also suggests that the solar activity estimates considered in the most recent reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimated the role of the Sun in global warming since the 19th century.
It is well-known that cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. While urban areas only account for less than 4% of the global land surface, many of the weather stations used for calculating global temperatures are located in urban areas. For this reason, some scientists have been concerned that the current global warming estimates may have been contaminated by urban heat island effects. In their latest report, the IPCC estimated that urban warming accounted for less than 10% of global warming. However, this new study suggests that urban warming might account for up to 40% of the warming since 1850.
The study also found that the IPCC’s chosen estimate of solar activity appeared to have prematurely ruled out a substantial role for the Sun in the observed warming.
When the authors analysed the temperature data only using the IPCC’s solar dataset, they could not explain any of the warming since the mid-20th century. That is, they replicated the IPCC’s iconic finding that global warming is mostly human-caused. However, when the authors repeated the analysis using a different estimate of solar activity – one that is often used by the scientific community – they found that most of the warming and cooling trends of the rural data could actually be explained in terms of changing solar activity.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Willie Soon, of the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES-Science.com) described the implications of their findings,
“For many years, the general public has been assuming that the science on climate change is settled. This new study shows that this is not the case.”
Another author of the study, Prof. Ana Elias, the Director of the Laboratorio de Ionosfera, Atmósfera Neutra y Magnetosfera (LIANM) at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina, explained:
“This analysis opens the door to a proper scientific investigation into the causes of climate change.”
This study finds similar conclusions to another study that was recently published in a separate scientific peer-reviewed journal, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. This other study involved many of the same co-authors (led by Dr. Ronan Connolly, also at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences). It took a different approach to analysing the causes of climate change – using an additional 25 estimates of solar activity and three extra temperature estimates.
*********************************************
Why are greens making it so hard to grow plants in NYC
Under the city’s Million Trees program, which offers to plant free trees around the five boroughs, I put in a request for the city to entrust my block with a new tree.
“Your Service Request has been sent to the Department of Parks and Recreation,” the automated response read. “DPR will respond within 720 days.”
Considering trees literally eat carbon from the air (one tree averages 48 pounds a year, according to the Arbor Foundation), 720 days seems a long time to wait for a response during a “climate emergency.” That was 457 days ago and I’ve yet to receive my tree — or a response.
It’s incredible to watch people who claim to love the environment do so little to actually improve it. In fact, many seem openly hostile to the idea. No one more than big city Democrats, who ironically embrace ugliness and sterility in their pursuit of a greener planet.
Environmentalists were once called tree-huggers and wore “Save the Whales” t-shirts. Now, they desecrate priceless works of art while turning a blind eye to the mass killing of both trees and historically endangered marine mammals
In fact, the government of Scotland admitted this week it had downed 15.7 million trees since the year 2000 to make way for wind farms as a part of its “green energy” and “net-zero” carbon emission goals. That comes out to around 1,700 trees a day.
Closer to home, activists claim controversial wind farm development off the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island has contributed to a record number of dead whales washing ashore this year, including at least 14 humpbacks so far.
While New York City bans plastic straws, shopping bags, and wood-fired pizza ovens, why hasn’t it occurred to any of these climate warriors to incentivize gardening?
Gardens not only remove carbon and combat the heat island effect of big cities, but they also increase human happiness. How much more incentivizing do we need?
Gardens beautify our streets and lower crime — a block with well-maintained gardens, in the broken-windows mentality, is less likely to attract lawlessness. How much less? According to a 2022 study in crime-plagued South Africa, for every 1% increase in total green space, there is a 1.2% decrease in violent crime and a 1.3% decrease in property crime.
Gardening is also a much healthier hobby than doom-scrolling or binge-watching Netflix.
But gardening can get expensive, as anyone knows. And in New York City’s “green” crusade, trees and plants for your stoop, backyard, sidewalk bed, or window box are still charged sales tax. The same goes for soil, fertilizer, gardening tools, containers, and anything else you might need.
While produce in grocery stores is tax-free, in New York, Uncle Sam wants his cut if you plant your own tomatoes or grow a bit of basil on your windowsill.
And just imagine how much carbon it takes to ship those veggies to the store, not to mention the plastic packaging. If the city was serious about being greener, it would eliminate this tax while awarding tax credits to serious citizen-greenskeepers.
Funny enough, New York Democrats have made this very point through legislation, but — surprise, surprise — it only benefits rich people and developers, not average New Yorkers and renters. The city offers a “Green Roof” tax Abatement of up to $200,000 for developers who cover residential rooftops of new buildings in at least 50% green space
Why wind and solar power are running out of juice
Green energy and the push to electrify everything have been in the news recently but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of the green energy nirvana politicians and green energy advocates have promised, economic and physical reality has begun to set in.
Start with the economic realities.
Wind turbine manufacturers like Siemens and General Electric have reported huge losses for the first half of this year, almost $5 billion for the former and $1 billion for the latter.
Among other problems, turbine quality control has suffered, forcing manufacturers such as Siemens and Vestas to incur costly warranty repairs.
In Europe, offshore wind output has been less than promised, while operating costs have been much higher than advertised.
Offshore wind developers in Europe and the US are canceling projects because of higher materials and construction costs.
In Massachusetts, Avangrid, the developer of the 1,200 MW Commonwealth Wind project paid $48 million to get out of its existing contract to sell power to ratepayers.
That way, the company can rebid the project next year at an even higher price.
Close by, the developers of the 1,200 MW SouthCoast Wind Project off Martha’s Vineyard will pay about $60 million to exit their existing contract.
Rhode Island Energy, the state’s main electric utility, recently rejected the second Revolution Wind Project because the contract price was too high.
And Ørsted, the Danish government-owned company that is developing the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects off Long Island — as well as the Ocean Wind project off the New Jersey coast — last week announced that, without additional subsidies and higher contract prices, it will have to write-off billions of dollars in potential losses.
The result: Even though Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch insists that “energy transition without wind energy does not work,” 2022 saw 16% less new wind-power capacity than in 2021, according to the American Clean Power Association.
In New Jersey, the legislature passed a law in July, which is likely unconstitutional, to bail out Ørsted.
The legislation will award the company with several billion dollars of investment tax credits that were supposed to go to consumers.
Back on dry land, opposition to siting land-gobbling wind and solar projects continues to grow.
Local governments in Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio have all rejected or restricted projects.
Rural communities, it seems, do not want to host massive turbine farms — nor the high-voltage transmission lines needed to deliver electricity to power-hungry cities.
According to the New York Climate Action Committee’s Final Scoping Plan, New York will meet that increased demand by building almost 15,000 MW of offshore wind, like the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects, and over 40,000 MW of solar panels. (By comparison, the emissions-free Indian Point Nuclear Plant, which former Governor Cuomo forced to close, had a capacity of just over 1,000 MW.)
This “reserve margin” – basically, the amount of generating capacity available to step in and meet electric demand – will need to increase from the current 20% to over 100%.
In other words, for every MW of generating capacity in 2040, there will have to be an equal amount or more in reserve.
That’s like having to buy a second car and keep it idling all the time in case the first one won’t start.
The Scoping Plan claims this will be accomplished by building over 20,000 MW of so-called “dispatchable emissions-free generating resources” (DEFRs) and installing over 12,000 MW of battery storage.
Those claims are fantasy.
Start with DEFRs, which are generators that burn pure hydrogen manufactured from surplus wind and solar power.
They have yet to be invented (we repeat – they do not yet exist). Nor do any large-scale commercial plants to manufacture green hydrogen exist either.
Hydrogen cannot be transported in existing natural gas pipelines.
An entirely new infrastructure will need to be built.
Assuming a new technology will be invented by whatever date politicians decree is foolish.
That’s not how technology works.
Australia: Tyre Extinguishers target Toorak SUVs as part of environmental protest
An extremist environmental group has targeted one of Australia’s wealthiest suburbs, with SUV owners waking to find their tyres slashed and their cars undriveable.
Residents of Toorak in Melbourne woke on Friday to find the vandalised cars and an explanation note left on their windscreens detailing why SUVs are toxic to the environment.
The environmental group, Tyre Extinguishers, left those affected with a note alerting them: “Your gas guzzler kills.”
“We have deflated one or more of your tires,” the note reads.
“You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car. “We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others.
“SUVs and 4x4s are a disaster for our climate. SUVs are the second-largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions over the past decade – more than the entire aviation industry.
“Even if you don’t care about the impacts on people far away from you, perhaps think about the impacts around your neighbourhood. SUVs cause far more air pollution than smaller cars.
“While the impacts on you so far have probably been minimal, every day millions of people are directly affected. Emergency action is needed to reduce emissions immediately.”
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there had been several reports made following the group’s antics. “At least 10 four-wheel drive and sports utility vehicles in the vicinity of Tintern Ave were tampered with,” she said.
“Notes were also left on the vehicles describing the environmental impact of these types of vehicles. “The investigation is ongoing.”
Tintern Avenue was once home to Dame Nellie Melba, and Toorak is home to more members of The Australian’s Richest 250 list than anywhere else in the country.
Anyone who witnessed anything or with CCTV or other footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The group is well known in the UK and the US, yet it’s understood this is the first time the group have targeted Melbourne.
It lists instructions on its website about the best way to deflate an SUV tyre.
***************************************
1 September, 2023
Over 1,600 Scientists and Professionals Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration
International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth.
“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”
A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.
The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.
"Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming," the declaration said.
Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models "exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases" and "ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”
Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.
CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.
“There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.
“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?”
Climate Models and Sunlight Reflection
Among the CLINTEL signatories are two Nobel laureates—physicists John Francis Clauser from the United States and Ivan Giaever, a Norwegian-American.
Mr. Clauser has made a significant addition to climate models to dismiss the narrative of global warming: the visible light reflected by cumulus clouds which, on average, cover half of the earth.
Young demonstrators hold placards as they attend a climate change protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London on Feb. 15, 2019. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Young demonstrators hold placards as they attend a climate change protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London on Feb. 15, 2019. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Current climate models vastly underestimate this aspect of cumulus cloud reflection, which plays a key role in regulating the earth’s temperature. Mr. Clauser previously told President Joe Biden that he disagreed with his climate policies.
In May, Mr. Clauser was elected to the board of directors at the CO2 Coalition, a group focusing on the beneficial contributions of carbon dioxide in the environment.
“The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people,” Mr. Clauser said in a May 5 statement.
“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills.”
“It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”
******************************************************
Central banks are fake climate heroes
The Bank of England has rejigged how it tenders for the polymer used in banknotes to reduce their carbon intensity. The UK central bank will investigate alternatives to gas-fired heating for its London headquarters and Essex printing works. Zoom calls are preferred to flights. Such are the details in the BoE’s first ‘Climate transition plan’ that was released in July and outlines how the central bank intends to reach net-zero emissions from its ‘physical’ operations by 2040.
The BoE is aiming to hit net zero a decade before the UK’s legislated goal because the central bank wants to ‘meet the standards it sets for others’ as it drives climate actions across the financial sector.
All the major central banks have adopted similar, ambitious green goals without any parliamentary or formal executive approval. Their motivation – as stated in a study released in April by the Reserve Bank of Australia – is that ‘climate change introduces new sources of risk’ for financial stability. In 2021, the European Central Bank even said it will embed environmental goals within monetary-policy decisions because wild and warmer weather can affect ‘inflation, output, employment, interest rates, investment and productivity; financial stability; and the transmission of monetary policy’.
Fired up about sustainability, central bankers are calling for net-zero targets. Warning of climate systemic risks, they talk of using their regulatory powers to enforce climate-risk-based capital standards on banks, conduct climate-change stress tests and force businesses to disclose carbon risks. To encourage such activism, governments have sought to appoint climate campaigners to leadership roles in central banks.
Many question whether it’s wise for central bankers who style themselves as above politics to tackle such a politically contentious issue. As central bankers push sustainability, two questions stand out.
The first is whether central bankers can achieve anything. Advocates say standardising climate-related disclosures and making them mandatory improves the pricing of climate risks. They say central banks highlighting the long-term financial risks of climate change will marshal public support towards net zero. They claim central banks can protect the financial system by limiting crises triggered by changed weather. They say central banks elevating climate risks would make commercial banks more wary of adding to – even reduce – the US$4 trillion lent to the fossil fuel industry.
Central bankers, however, might achieve less than activists hope. For one, climate change seems to pose little risk to financial stability. Bushfires, droughts, heat waves, rising and warmer oceans, storms and the like have never in modern times triggered a systemic crisis.
Second, the industries that lose from the shift to a low-carbon economy (‘stranded assets’) are unlikely to imperil the financial system. It’s usually the next big things that bubble to the point of crisis. Studies find that excessive debt is the common cause behind centuries of financial crashes, not weather patterns or passé things.
A third reason is banks don’t appear to be threatened by climate change and seem capable of judging such risks. Studies find no link between bank stability and disasters, even one on banks in the hurricane-prone Caribbean. A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found banks even gain from calamities due to lending for rebuilding.
Another disappointment for activists is that central bank climate activism is unlikely to trouble fossil fuel companies. The fact is that when commercial banks shun fossil fuel companies, private firms buy these businesses cheaply. The Economist estimates private equity firms have swooped on at least US$60 billion of ‘dirty’ assets in recent years.
The fifth problem is that central banks have little legal basis on which to act along green lines. Central banks lack authority to direct bank lending. As there is no link between interest rates and meteorological events, central banks can only target net zero indirectly by using regulatory powers.
The other overarching question is whether central banks might stir risks when they pursue sustainability. The answer is yes. The biggest risk is that climate-risk management clashes with mandates to control inflation. The problem is that a shift to net zero stirs ‘greenflation’. This is the term for when the price of fossil fuels jumps because their supply falls before demand does. It’s rife.
The second hazard is that central banks are adopting an explicit role of capital allocation, which breaches their principle of ‘market neutrality’. Climate stress tests, for example, apply pressure on banks to shun lending to fossil fuel companies. While central banks control the quantity of money, the allocation of money is a choice for the political sphere. Smudge the roles of central bankers and politicians and central-bank credibility and independence could be dented.
Another risk is central banks might encourage a green investment bubble, one that could metastasise into a systemic threat. Another concern is central banks might engage in ‘mission creep’. What, for instance, stops central banks pursuing other social goals such as reducing inequality? Another problem with central bankers sanctioning progressive causes is that it might encourage banks on similar frolics. Some bankers, for instance, might think it OK to ‘de-bank’ customers for their views on climate change.
The little central banks might accomplish through climate activism and the risks they stir as they try is another example where the use of public regulatory powers is a poor substitute for political solutions. Rather than become politically tainted, it’s best central bankers push aside climate-change concerns and focus on their legislated tasks, at which, as today’s elevated inflation shows, they are failing.
Now, central banks recognise that executives and parliaments have ‘primary responsibility’ to act on climate change and that their contribution might be modest. Then why speak up? It’s true that government action on climate could hurt the economy to the point of creating financial instability. But that’s different from saying the weather or stranded assets could.
Perhaps the true green vocation of central bankers is to warn the public of the risks (above all on inflation) that politicians are taking with their climate actions. Their efforts to have greener office blocks and climate-friendly banknotes are worthwhile if they boost their credibility to do that.
Net Zero Watch slams British Government’s ‘desperate’ and ‘unethical’ heat pump proposals
Campaign group Net Zero Watch has ridiculed the Government’s decision to remove consumer protections relating to the installation of heat pumps in homes.
Faced with a widespread consumer boycott of the technology, ministers are hoping that they can kickstart a heating revolution by removing the requirement that properties be adequately insulated before gas boilers are removed.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
"The insulation requirement was put in place to ensure heat pumps were only installed where they were likely to work. Removing a key consumer protection is hardly going to help the Government’s cause."
Mr Montford points to a recent study of heat pump economics, which shows that, even in a well-insulated property, most heat pump installations do not give lower bills, let alone justifying the substantial capital costs. This is because electricity is four times the price of gas.
Mr Montford said:
"The contradictions in Government policy are becoming clear. Renewables are incompatible with heat pumps because they make electricity so much more expensive than gas. In their desperation to persuade consumers to switch anyway, ministers are proposing steps that would be foolish, are arguably unethical, and would certainly be counterproductive. This is a brand of fanaticism as dangerous as Mr Khan’s ULEZ obsession."
*************************************************
The astonishingly woke Australian Academy of Science
Peter Ridd
The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) recently released a report Reef Futures Roundtable, which is ostensibly about the doomed Great Barrier Reef. However, the report only demonstrates that the AAS, Australia’s peak science body, has become not just unscientific, but anti-scientific. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has also become astonishingly Woke.
The AAS report predictably concluded that the Great Barrier Reef could already be ‘irreversibly’ damaged. The fact that UNESCO has just declared it not endangered did not rate a mention, and neither did the latest two years of statistics showing the reef is at record high coral levels. Remarkably, the report does not contain a single fact or figure to support any of its claims about the reef – except the area of the reef is 340,000 square kilometres. There are no figures, no percentages. Nowhere does it mention that coral grows 30 per cent faster for every degree increase in water temperatures. Or that there is 100 per cent more coral on the reef today than in 2012. Or that just 1 per cent of the reef has the potential to be impacted by farm sediment, fertiliser or pesticides, even in the slightest way. Or that the sea level has fallen by 1 metre in the last 5,000 years.
The problem with this completely unanalytical approach is seen in the ‘interventions’ it recommends to fix the reef. Their impracticality is breathtaking. For example, it suggests ‘solar radiation management’ – shading the reef from the sun with man-made fog and clouds to prevent the water heating up and causing coral bleaching. The only number cited in the entire report – the area of the reef, which is as big as Germany – should have given them a hint that this is crazy. How are you going to make a cloud as big as Germany and keep it anchored over the reef for the whole summer over the next few hundred years? And you will also have to stop hot water flowing into the reef from the Coral Sea at the same time. That would require a dam 2,000 kilometres long and 100 metres high.
While a simple calculation is all that is required to reveal the absurdity of this idea, modern science is full of people who are almost completely non-quantitative and, as such, impractical and virtually useless as scientists.
Next there is rubble stabilisation. The supposed experts worry that the Great Barrier Reef will break up from climate change. Each of the 3,000 reefs is an almost solid lump of calcium carbonate rock (fragments of coral glued together over eons) a few kilometres wide and 100 metres high. How this is going to be broken up by some climate change magic is unexplained. But even if that were to happen, are they seriously suggesting we can wire it back together with steel reinforcing and concrete? Just do the calculation on how much concrete and steel this would entail.
The unscientific nature of the AAS report is largely a result of its anti-scientific approach. The report is actually a parody of wokeness and romantic mythology. This starts with the way the roundtable committees of ‘experts’, whom they questioned about the reef, were formed. Each roundtable had two chairs, a non-Indigenous chair, and a specially selected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chair. The romantic mythology about the special knowledge of any person with Indigenous heritage pervades the entire document, and starts in the foreword by the head of the AAS.
As the Academy approached the task of planning this project it became immediately obvious that there was no separating nature and culture when it comes to the GBR. Land and sea cannot be separated. No priority can be selected on an ecological basis alone. Having a Traditional Knowledges co-Chair in each roundtable allowed for different sources of knowledge to be shared and to form a basis for a number of the observations featured in this report.
Having a diversity of ideas and scientific thought would have gone some of the way to curing the AAS of the groupthink which renders its report risible. And the views and experience of people from the coral islands of the Torres Straits and northern Great Barrier Reef could have been used to great effect. These people tend to be deeply practical about the reef – like almost all seafaring people who live and work on the reef. And practical people know you cannot bolt the reef, which is the size of Germany, down to the seafloor. But selecting people for their ‘roundtables’ on the basis of their ethnicity rather than their scientific or real-world experience is a fundamentally anti-scientific approach.
But it gets worse. The dearth of statistics about the reef are made up for by an abundance of data on the gender identification of all those who participated in the ‘roundtables’. There is also the Indigenous percentage. And not just of those who participated, but also of those who were invited to participate but did not. One could quibble and point out that those claiming to be male or female added up to exactly 100 per cent in all categories, indicating a terrifying lack of diversity on the LGBQTI+++ spectrum. But there is no question, on the important matters for the Woke brigade, that this report is brimming with instructive statistics.
The AAS ascribes such importance to facts and figures on gender and race, but not to scientific facts. This demonstrates it is anti-science. Science is about evidence and logic. It does not matter whether one is male or female or whatever else, it is still impossible to make clouds as big as Germany for the next hundred years. That is called a fact, and facts do not vary with race, gender, or any ideology.
I have been saying for some time that many of our science institutions have become totally untrustworthy. By its wilful abandonment of quantitative analysis, the AAS has destroyed its reputation as a source of useful scientific advice. The media loves a bad news story – they should focus on what has happened to a once-esteemed organisation.
The Australian Academy of Science is now a joke.
My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
Conservative MPs have warned that the flagship Energy Bill is a “recipe for energy disaster” and risks making customers pay more to deliver “cultish” eco-policies.
Former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was among a group of Tories who pressed ministers to “keep people with us” and avoid “undue burdens” while reforming the energy sector and pursuing net-zero emissions targets.
The Bill seeks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, unlock investment in low-carbon energy technologies, increase resilience and produce more energy in the UK, and lower energy bills in the longer term.
The Government avoided a potential rebellion from some of its backbenchers by announcing ahead of Tuesday’s report stage debate that planning permission for onshore wind farms was to be relaxed.
Energy minister Andrew Bowie also confirmed changes to remove the proposed hydrogen levy on households and said the Government will explore the potential of renewable liquid heating fuel for heat by issuing a consultation within 12 months.
But several Tory MPs expressed concerns over the wider impact of the Bill and suggested it risks going too far too soon.
The Bill cleared the Commons after MPs voted 280 to 19, majority 261, to approve it at third reading – although the division list showed nine Tory MPs, including Sir Jacob, rebelled to oppose it.
Another rebel Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the backbench Tory Net Zero Scrutiny Group, told the Commons: “I have to say, I absolutely despise this Bill.”
On the plans that could see property owners who fail to comply with new energy efficiency rules facing prison, he said: “I do feel that when we create criminal penalties in this place, it is a duty that it is discussed properly that we put our fellow citizens potentially in prison for 12 months for an unknown offence of the future relating to net zero.
“This is going to be the first time that we are potentially criminalising people in this country for not being adherent to this new code of net zero. We should not be doing this lightly.”
The MP for South Thanet also argued the Bill will “drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore and China will be very pleased that they can sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on their steel that are being produced on the back of very cheap coal power”.
He went on: “This is a recipe for not energy security, this is a recipe for energy disaster and I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net-zero proposals, banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this, banning that, that’s not what we do as Conservatives.
“We actually allow freedoms, we allow the market to decide and this Bill goes in the wrong direction.”
Sir Jacob said several amendments tabled by Mr Mackinlay sought to “ameliorate the burden this Bill is placing on all of our constituents”, adding: “Throughout this Bill, we are creating cost and regulation and penalties and obligations.”
He added: “We need to keep people with us and we risk losing them if we put undue burdens on them.”
Sir John Redwood, another Tory former minister, said: “The wish to carry through a great electrical revolution is going to require a lot of goodwill from the British people.
“My worry about this legislation is that it may antagonise them by being unduly restrictive and particularly by the threat of civil and even criminal penalties on some of their conduct.
“We need to persuade people that the green products are going to be cheaper, better, more acceptable and make a more general contribution, we shouldn’t be trying to bamboozle them.”
Richard Drax, Tory MP for South Dorset, said the “green revolution is coming”, but added: “We cannot impoverish our country to meet some, well, I’d like to call it in some cases almost cultish policy … until we can afford it, until it works, that’s when I think we should adopt all these policies.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/business/tory-mps-warn-pursuit-of-cultish-ecopolicies-could-see-customers-paying-more-b2405396.html
**********************************************
‘Horrific - completely offensive!’ Outrage as Britons risk jail for breaking Net Zero rules
Pressure is mounting on Rishi Sunak over his Energy Bill that could lead to legal ramifications for homeowners across the country.
A group of MPs from his own party are set to rebel, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, as they cite draconian measures which could impact many, possibly even leading to jail terms.
Another disavowing Tory MP is Craig Mackinlay, who dubbed the bill “horrendous” in a scathing rant on GB News.
He added the bill could result in homeowners facing jail time for breaking new rules which all come as a part of the drive for net zero.
“I think it’s a horrendous bill”, he said.
“It’s 379 pages, there’s 144 pages of amendments, many of them in my name. It’s a bill of yesteryear, it was founded on Boris who certainly drunk the Kool-Aid on many of these environmental issues.
“This is a truly horrific bill. It allows all sorts of intrusive powers to tell you exactly what you must and mustn’t do.
“I would rather it was scrapped and we start again.”
Mackinlay told Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner that a specific clause relating to sanctions could spell grave consequences for those who break new rules.
He said: “I’m particularly concerned about clause 248. It’s helpfully called sanctions.
“Under section two there are civil penalties, up to £15,000 for not doing the right thing on net zero.
“It’s even worse in clause and subsection three - energy performance regulations may provide for criminal offences with imprisonment for up to 12 months.”
According to The Telegraph, the Energy Bill will allow councils the right to be able to build proposed wind farms if there is community support.
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/homeowner-jail-net-zero-rishi-sunak-jail-latest
***************************************************
What is mis-dis in climate change debate?
Speaking in Suva in July 2022, Anthony Albanese declared a climate emergency in the Pacific. This came after joining regional leaders in Fiji to warn Australia’s neighbours face an immediate threat to their security and wellbeing. Pacific islands were sinking under rising sea levels, claimed the islands.
But back in January 2021, ABC News had reported new research that found hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size. Sticking stubbornly to the climate alarmist playbook like most politicians, the Prime Minister appears to give cover to those agitating for ever more draconian actions through misinformation about climate change.
At last count, a global network of over 1,600 scientists and professionals had signed the CLINTEL Climate Declaration stating there is no climate emergency. Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) is an independent foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok.
The persistent climate alarmism, now at ‘global boiling’ hysteria level, is one of the most pernicious elements of discussion in the public square. How would fact-checkers in the proposed new world of mis-dis laws deal with the diametrically opposed views within not just politics but science itself? The ruling orthodoxy as espoused by government is based on science that is still largely a science of computer simulations. The reality is, as often emphasised by scientists not captured by the orthodoxy or reliant on it, climate science is full of wicked problems; uncertainty not consensus is the dominant status.
When tech giant Meta suspended its partnership with FactLab at the beginning of September 2023, some took that as a public indication of how risky it is to have fact-checking as a fixture of media oversight. That relationship break-up was over apprehended bias in regards to fact-checking amidst the Voice referendum discussions online. Climate change is a topic ripe for such controversial procedures. The disparaging of and billion dollar funding for climate alarm orthodoxy skews the integrity of fact checking carried out on behalf of the ruling orthodoxy.
What would fact-checkers make, say, of geology Professor Ian Plimer’s observation that, ‘Annual human emissions (3 per cent of the total) of carbon dioxide [in the atmosphere] are meant to drive global warming. This has never been shown. If it could be shown, then it would also have to be shown that natural emissions (97 per cent) don’t drive global warming.’ The 3 per cent of the total of 0.04 per cent of carbon dioxide, 0.0012 per cent, is what climate alarmists tell politicians is frying the planet. (That 97 per cent from natural sources includes outgassing from the ocean, decomposing vegetation and other biomass, venting volcanoes, naturally occurring wildfires, and belches from ruminant animals.)
‘When a society loses the desire to know the truth, that is a precursor to totalitarianism,’ observed author, Holocaust survivor, and political philosopher Hanna Arendt (1906–1975). And the truth is not going to be revealed by mis-dis fact checkers who are powered by authority to enforce the ruling orthodoxy.
It is indeed loudly broadcast disinformation that perpetrated the absurdity of climate alarmism in the first place. The unreliability of global warming enthusiasts was demonstrated long ago when Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, was criticised in October 2007 by a high court judge in Britain who highlighted what he said were ‘nine scientific errors’ in the film. The mistakes identified mainly deal with the predicted impacts of climate change, and include Gore’s claims that a sea-level rise of up to 6 metres would be caused by melting in either west Antarctica or Greenland ‘in the near future’. The judge said: ‘This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s ‘wake-up call’.’ He accepted that melting of the ice would release this amount of water ‘but only after, and over, millennia’.
How would mis-dis fact checkers deal with that part of the story?
The zealotry of climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, for example, helps propel any fact-checker to equal zealotry, ignoring the thousands of scientists who have nothing to gain by challenging the orthodoxy.
Dr Richard Lindzen, former MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science and past IPCC contributor, says: ‘The narrative of climate alarm … is pretty absurd. Many people (though by no means all) have great difficulty entertaining this possibility. They can’t believe that something so absurd could gain such universal acceptance.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/what-is-mis-dis-in-climate-change-debate/
***************************************
6 September, 2023
Top scientist Patrick Brown says he deliberately OMITTED key fact in climate change piece he's just had published in prestigious journal to ensure woke editors ran it
A climate change scientist has claimed the world's leading academic journals reject papers which don't 'support certain narratives' about the issue and instead favor 'distorted' research which hypes up dangers rather than solutions.
Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, said editors at Nature and Science - two of the most prestigious scientific journals - select 'climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives'.
In an article for The Free Press, Brown likened the approach to the way 'the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause' of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii.
*He pointed out research that said 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans*.
Brown gave the example of a paper he recently authored titled 'Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California'. Brown said the paper, published in Nature last week, 'focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior' and ignored other key factors.
Brown laid out his claims in an article titled 'I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published'. 'I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work,' the article begins.
'I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell,' he wrote of his recently-published work.
'This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
'To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.'
A spokesperson for Nature said 'all submitted manuscripts are considered independently on the basis of the quality and timeliness of their science'.
'Our editors make decisions based solely on whether research meets our criteria for publication – original scientific research (where conclusions are sufficiently supported by the available evidence), of outstanding scientific importance, which reaches a conclusion of interest to a multidisciplinary readership,' a statement said.
'Intentional omission of facts and results that are relevant to the main conclusions of a paper is not considered best practice with regards to accepted research integrity principles,' the spokesperson added.
Science was approached for comment.
Brown opened his missive with links to stories by AP, PBS NewsHour, The New York Times and Bloomberg which he said give the impression global wildfires are 'mostly the result of climate change'.
He said that 'climate change is an important factor' but 'isn't close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus'.
Much reporting of the wildfires in Maui has said climate change contributed to the disaster by helping to create conditions that caused the fires to spark and spread quickly.
The blazes, which killed at least 115 people, are believed to have been started by a downed electricity line, but observers have said rising temperatures caused extremely dry conditions on the Hawaiian island.
Brown said the media operates like scientific journals in that the focus on climate change 'fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it'.
Scientists whose careers depend on their work being published in major journals also 'tailor' their work to 'support the mainstream narrative', he said.
'This leads to a second unspoken rule in writing a successful climate paper,' he added. 'The authors should ignore—or at least downplay—practical actions that can counter the impact of climate change.'
He gave examples of factors which are ignored, including a 'decline in deaths from weather and climate disasters over the last century'. In the case of wildfires, Brown says 'current research indicates that these changes in forest management practices could completely negate the detrimental impacts of climate change on wildfires'.
Poor forest management has also been blamed for a record number of wildfires in Canada this year.
But 'the more practical kind of analysis is discouraged' because it 'weakens the case for greenhouse gas emissions reductions', Brown said.
Successful papers also often use 'less intuitive metrics' to measure the impacts of climate change because they 'generate the most eye-popping numbers', he said.
He went onto to claim that other papers he's written which don't match a certain narrative have been 'rejected out of hand by the editors of distinguished journals, and I had to settle for less prestigious outlets'.
*******************************************
The Coming Green Energy Bailout
According to a report late last month by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Nyserda), large offshore wind developers are asking for an average 48% price adjustment in their contracts to cover rising costs. The Alliance for Clean Energy NY is also requesting an average 64% price increase on 86 solar and wind projects.
The IRA includes federal tax credits that can offset 50% of a project’s costs. But renewable developers say their costs are increasing faster than inflation and that the projects will “not be economically viable and would be unable to proceed to construction and operation under their existing pricing,” says Nyserda.
Irony alert: One reason is that the government-forced green energy transition is driving up demand for equipment, material and labor.· Growing demand for renewable energy projects nationwide ‘has exacerbated inflation for renewable project cost components relative to broader inflation levels,’” Nyserda says, citing the Alliance for Clean Energy NY.
Green energy developers are blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for increasing demand for renewable energy and its components. But the real culprits are government mandates and subsidies, which they lobbied for. Developers also blame rising interest rates for increasing project costs. But as Nyserda notes, “it does not appear reasonable for developers to have assumed that a low interest rate environment would persist throughout the period in which their projects were to be financed, given that the levels of interest rates witnessed today are indeed precedented.”
The climate lobby says power from wind and solar is cheaper than from fossil fuels, but that’s true only with generous subsidies and near-zero interest rates. Price adjustments that renewable developers want in New York would make solar and wind two- to five-times more expensive than natural gas power.
Another irony: The IRA’s prevailing wage and domestic content conditions for bonus tax credits, which are necessary to make projects viable, inflate costs. That means U.S. taxpayers will pay more for the green corporate welfare, and utility ratepayers will pay more for renewable power. The climate lobby hits you coming and going.
Nyserda adds that “requests for inflationary relief on clean energy projects” have also been submitted in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Rhode Island, among other states. Electric customers will get no such relief when their bills increase.
Meantime, the computer chip maker Micron Technology recently disclosed that its planned factories in upstate New York, which are set to receive up to $5.5 billion in state subsidies, will consume as much power as New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Where will all the power come from?
Don’t be surprised if the state eventually asks New Yorkers to turn down their thermostats or turn off the lights at some hours of the day. The green energy crunch and bailout are coming.
***************************************************
Electric cars are a danger to pedestrians
As a driver, one of the best things about EVs is their swift, silent acceleration. As a pedestrian, this absence of noise could prove dangerous.
Whether you're aware of it or not, most of us rely heavily on the audio cues of conventional engines to warn us a vehicle is approaching.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a pedestrian walk out in front of an electric car I was driving, without even realising it was there.
In one instance, I tailed an elderly man who was walking down the middle of a side street for a good 20 metres before he realised I was there and almost jumped out of his skin with shock.
It's difficult to know what to do in that scenario, as beeping someone could frighten a pedestrian and result in injury while overtaking them is risky if they're not aware you're there. Your sole option is to roll down the window and shout at them... not ideal.
Making matters worse is the fact we are currently facing a mounting crisis of distraction.
Most pedestrians are wearing AirPods, texting on phones, listening to music or taking calls.
Don’t start me on drivers – many of whom use every stop sign or red traffic light to check notifications on their smartphone.
With road users reaching peak distraction, the subconscious signals we use to identify other vehicles are more crucial than ever.
This is – and has always been – particularly true for vision-impaired people who are already contending with footpaths littered with e-scooters or distracted pedestrians.
A colleague recently re-shared a 2020 Facebook post that has been shared by 828,000 people.
“Today my husband and I with our two guide dogs had another near miss with an electric car,” the post reads.
“We were crossing a side road and it came in off the main road and passed very close in front of us.
“If it’d been a petrol or diesel engine, or if it’d had a sound emitter fitted, we’d have heard it, but, apart from the sound of the tyres on the road, it was virtually silent.
“I am a confident guide dog handler but I can honestly say that silent electric vehicles scare me. I fear that it will take serious injury to a blind person, or even worse, death, before any meaningful legislation is put into place.”
It’s true that electric car manufacturers are trying to circumvent the issue of silent electric cars by adding fake acceleration noises and reversing tones to their vehicles.
Overseas, most markets have mandated all electric cars be fitted with acoustic vehicle alerting systems (AVAS) that make noise when the car is reversing or travelling at speeds at or below 20km/h.
A proposal to do the same in Australia is currently under consideration, and many models already sold here offer this functionality.
Unfortunately these systems play Jetsons-inspired bleeps and bloops – not the typical noises we associate with conventional cars.
Given electric cars are still a relatively new addition to our roads, pedestrians don’t immediately connect the dots and realise these noises belong to a vehicle. And I don’t believe they’ll recognise these sounds as “car sounds” for some time.
The better solution is to run extensive public education campaigns around electric cars and to start equipping electric cars with the ability of play fake engine noises when required.
The onus is also on EV owners to be hyper-vigilant of pedestrians while we're in this transition period.
https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/we-need-to-talk-about-this-problem-with-electric-cars
*********************************************Electric Vehicles Are Causing Issues After Hurricane Idalia
Electric vehicles are catching on fire after Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida last week.
According to local reports, at least two Tesla EVs ignited after saltwater from the storm surge damaged their batteries and other electrical components. One vehicle lit up in Pinellas Park and another car fire occurred in Palm Harbor.
“Carfax says owners need to understand the fire risk doesn’t go away after their EV dries out,” ABC Actions News told viewers.
“The salt water that is flooding can get into the battery and dry there and once it dries it creates what federal safety officials call bridges between cells and that can lead to fires and those fires can come anywhere from days to weeks later and once an EV catches fire it is incredible difficult to put it out,” said Patrick Olsen of Carfax.
After Hurricane Ian, 21 electric vehicles caught fire in the state, prompting officials to warn residents ahead of Idalia's approach.
“We saw a number of fires associated with EVs from Hurricane Ian. We know that the saltwater from storm surge can compromise these batteries, causing fires which cannot be easily suppressed,” Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said at the time.
“The best fire teams can do is keep water on the battery until the fuel burns out. If you’re evacuating and leaving an EV, or other lithium ion powered devices like scooters or golf carts in your garage, you’re creating a real fire threat for your home, your communities, and first responders," he added. "Take this threat seriously. If there’s even a small risk of your EV being impacted by storm surge, move it to higher ground before it’s too late.”
One home that managed to survive Ian ended up burning to the ground because of a saltwater-damaged EV.
EV vehicle owners are being advised to park affected cars at least 50 feet away from any structures that could catch fire.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/09/05/ev-florida-n2627949
***************************************5 September, 2023
Droughts, Hurricanes, Wildfires Aren’t Living Up to Alarmists’ Expectations
H. Sterling Burnett
Just before the beginning of summer last year, I wrote a Climate Change Weekly article titled “It’s Climate Catastrophe Du Jour Season, Again!,” warning of what I predicted would be a coming tidal wave of stories claiming the then-extended drought and expected hurricanes and wildfires would be blamed on climate change. I was right. Hundreds if not thousands of stories were published by both the mainstream and progressive fringe media last year blaming the drought, every hurricane, and large wildfire season on climate change.
This despite there being no evidence that long-term trends in droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires showed any increase in number or severity. Absent such upward trends, it’s hard to honestly link one or a few years of extreme weather events to climate change, but then honesty has never been a strong point for climate alarmists or at the heart of the climate change debate.
With the current summer coming to an end, let’s revisit the dread three seasons—drought, hurricanes, and wildfires—and see how they went in 2023.
Headline stories on drought have been nearly nonexistent this year. That’s because, as I write on August 29, the U.S. Drought monitor reports nearly 57 percent of the United States is exhibiting no drought whatsoever despite a long, admittedly hot summer. Another 16 percent is recorded as “abnormally dry,” and only 27 percent of the country is listed as being in any category of drought, from moderate to extreme (5 percent) or exceptional (1 percent). Three months ago, at the beginning of summer, 66 percent of the nation was completely drought-free, with only 16 percent of the country listed as facing moderate, severe, extreme, or exceptional drought.
As El Niño left, it dumped huge amounts of precipitation across the country, and especially in the historically drought-prone western United States, much of it in the form of record-setting snow, resulting in a nearly record-low percentage of the country being considered very dry.
At the beginning of the “water year” in September 2022, the U.S. Drought Monitor recorded just 36 percent of the country was at any level of drought. As of September 27, 2022, more than 41 percent of the U.S. was experiencing some degree of drought—25 percent with severe, extreme, or exceptional drought—and 63 percent of America was listed as abnormally dry, at a minimum.
Oh, what a difference a year makes, not in climate but in weather—and in media coverage of claims of climate-induced drought!
With the Maui wildfire a recent memory and Hurricane Idalia hammering Florida’s Gulf Coast, it may seem an inopportune time to bring up wildfires and hurricanes, but that’s not so. As I’ve previously discussed, neither the wildfire in Maui, nor those in Canada, nor the ones that scorched Greece this summer, were caused by climate change: nature combined with human error, malfeasance, or evil was behind each of these devastating fires.
As of August 11, data showed wildfires in the United States in 2023 are the fourth-lowest in nearly 100 years of recordkeeping. Globally, over the past two decades of modest warming (but heightened fearmongering), satellite data from NASA show a 25 percent decrease in acreage lost to wildfires since 2003.
That leads us to the 2023 hurricane season and Hurricane Idalia. Although the global average temperature, a made-up metric if ever there was one, has increased modestly over the past 150 years, neither the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change nor hard data shows any increasing trend in the number or severity of tropical cyclones. Over the past 50 and 100 years, if anything, the data indicates there has been a modest decline in the yearly number of hurricanes and major hurricanes on average, according to multiple studies.
What’s true for the whole world is true also for the United States and Florida. From 2009 through 2017, America experienced the fewest hurricane strikes in any eight-year period in recorded history. And it was just in 2016 that Florida, America’s most vulnerable state for hurricanes, concluded an 11-year period without a landfalling hurricane, the longest such period in recorded history.
The “official” hurricane season runs from June 1 through the end of November. This year, until the past week, tropical storm numbers and accumulated energy or sustained wind speeds were below normal. The hurricane season typically peaks in late-August through mid-September, so there is absolutely nothing unusual about multiple storms forming during this short time span.
Idalia forming and strengthening now is not only not outside the norm, it fits the historic pattern perfectly.
This year’s climate disaster de jour season has been a bust so far. This is good for people but bad for those who hype the narrative that “climate change causes everything.” That is not true now, nor has it ever been.
**************************************************
Net Zero is condemning more Brits to energy poverty
Here’s another great idea from the net zero establishment: only heat your home when it is warm and sunny outdoors. In its Sixth Carbon Budget paper, the government’s Climate Change Committee advises homeowners to turn their heating on in the afternoon, so that they can turn it off again during the evening when demand for electricity is higher. ‘Where homes are sufficiently well-insulated,’ it says, ‘it is possible to pre-heat ahead of peak times, enabling access to cheaper tariffs which reflect the reduced costs associated with running networks and producing power during off-peak times.’ In other words, boil yourself when the outdoor temperature is relatively warm, and with any luck you might still be tolerably warm when it is freezing outdoors at eight in the evening.
The advice is an admission of where we are headed. At the moment, for most of us, there is no difference between the price of electricity during the afternoon and the evening – it is only at night that we can buy off-peak electricity. That is not how it looks like being in the future. A big part of the plan for decarbonising the electricity system is to manage demand by varying tariffs throughout the day. That is the whole point of smart meters. We had a foretaste of this last winter when customers with smart meters were offered small discounts if they agreed to turn off appliances during the early evening on days when demand was high but, thanks to a lack of sun and wind, renewable energy was in short supply.
That, however, is only the beginning. At the moment, with the help of back-up from gas plants, we don’t have a huge problem in balancing demand and with supply. But by 2035 (2030 in the case of the Labour party) the government wants to remove all fossil fuels from the electricity grid. What do we do then? No-one seems able to explain. Investment in – very expensive – energy storage isn’t coming along at anything like the pace it would need to if we are going to be able to enjoy an uninterrupted supply of power throughout the day. Given that the supply of wind energy can fall away to virtually nothing during calm periods, and solar energy falls to zero every evening, we have a very serious problem. The tendency for still periods to concur with the coldest winter nights exacerbates the problem – especially if the country does as the government wants and switches to heat pumps.
As you can see, from the report of the Commons Business Select Committee ‘demand-side response’ is a big part of the energy industry’s plans. But it isn’t going to be nice little incentives like those offered to householders last winter in the form of £10 vouchers and the like. In future there will be a lot less carrot and a lot more stick – with surge pricing structures akin to those used by companies like Uber. Just think of the price of electricity is going to have to be jacked up to match supply and demand on a cold, still winter’s evening when – in normal times – demand would be at its highest.
In Britain’s net zero future it won’t just be a case of turning your heating on a few hours early to pre-heat your home. Many customers face being priced out of the electricity market altogether when supply of renewables is weak. On a sunny, windy afternoon you may be able to turn on your heating with abandon, even if you don’t need it on. But freezing, still evenings? Maybe there will be a special deal on woolly jumpers.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/net-zero-is-condemning-more-brits-to-energy-poverty/
*********************************************Fresh proof that New York’s ‘climate plan’ is pure fantasy
In a fresh sign that New York’s state climate agenda is pure fantasy, contractors key to making good on a major piece of the so-called plan just filed to charge 54% more to build their offshore wind farms.
Taxpayers won’t be on the line for that, but ratepayers will.
That’s the bottom line of New York’s “net zero” climate plan to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
It aims is to stop burning natural gas and other fossil fuels (even for cooking and heat), vastly increasing the use of electricity — even while magically switching the state’s electricity generation from mostly fossil-fuel-based to all-alternative energy.
Since we can’t add significant hydro power and won’t build more nuclear plants, that means ginormous increases in solar and wind power — plus new transmission lines.
And vast energy-storage capacities, for which affordable technology doesn’t even exist yet.
State officials pretend this will “only” cost a few hundred billion bucks (it’ll actually cost far more) but don’t dare appropriate enough tax dollars for it, which means they’re mandating outlays that must eventually show up in utility bills. (That’s what “Con Ed will pay” means, since it and other utilities have nowhere else to get the cash.)
This is the truth about the state Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act; recent hikes in your utility bills are just a taste of what’s coming unless and until the law gets changed.
That is: State law orders bureaucrats to shut down fossil-fuel power plants and utilities to get ever-more power from alternative sources that mostly aren’t even on the drawing board yet.
And as the wind-farm price-hike “request” filed in the runup to the holiday weekend (plainly so that few would notice it) indicates, the state’s leaders even lowballed the cost of the early rounds of building that alternative capacity.
Even if they weren’t going to soar past initial estimates, the costs to New Yorkers don’t remotely match the benefits to them.
Fact is, making New York and California and New Jersey and every other blue state — heck, the whole country — carbon-neutral will make only a minuscule dent in global carbon emissions: China’s still building coal plants at a record clip and doesn’t even pretend it’ll stop any year soon.
By the way, no one’s even talking about the big risks to New York’s plan.
One of them is the simple fact that the transition means the peak electric load will stop being in the summer, when power’s needed to run air-conditioning.
Instead, if the plan works as intended, most blackouts will come in the deepest part of winter, when everyone’s relying on electricity for heat.
Extreme cold already kills more people than extreme heat; that death toll will now grow.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state lawmakers imposing this idiocy will be long out of office when the bills in dollars and blood really start coming due.
They’re now just telling eco-conscious voters what they want to hear, trusting the public to forget that everything always costs more and takes longer, with fewer benefits, than politicians (and the bureaucrats who answer to them) claim.
The only real question is how much harm is done by this madness in the name only of fighting climate change before New Yorkers wake up to the truth and put a stop to it.
https://nypost.com/2023/09/04/contractors-up-the-price-by-54-for-offshore-wind-farms/
****************************************************Australia: Coal still needed in NSW
The NSW government will seek a deal with Origin Energy to prolong the lifespan of the state’s largest coal generator beyond 2025 after the state government said it has accepted the recommendations of an independent report that Eraring coal power station would need to stay open to safeguard electricity supplies.
Origin Energy’s Eraring coal power station was set to retire in 2025, but an independent report said such a closure at that time would expose the state to possible blackouts and further price increases.
NSW premier Chris Minns said affordability and guaranteeing electricity supply was paramount.
“One of the biggest challenges facing NSW is ensuring we can keep the lights on while managing the biggest change in energy mix and consumption in the shortest period of time in our nation’s history,” Mr Minns said.
Australia has endured two years of consecutive price rises of more than 20 per cent, a key driver in an affordability crisis.
Should a deal be struck, NSW will be the second state to move to guarantee a coal power station remains in the system as Australia’s energy transition falters.
To strike a deal, however, NSW will likely have to underwrite Eraring – leaving NSW taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. Origin has said Eraring requires an annual spend of about $200m-$250m plus the cost of buying coal to run, though it earns money from selling electricity.
Eraring is, however, on course to be losing money as soon as next year when the emergency coal price cap finishes.
The federal government in conjunction with state counterparts introduced a $120 a tonne cap on the price of coal, a scheme designed to put downward pressure on household and business bills.
The scheme will end in 2024 and Origin’s supply costs will spike, likely plunging the facility back to a loss-making operation.
NSW taxpayers would likely have to cover the losses until the state has developed sufficient sources of renewable energy to compensate for the retirement of Eraring in Lake Macquarie.
***************************************
4 September, 2023
Hurricane Season, Not Climate Change, Is to Blame for Hurricane Idalia
With Hurricane Idalia bearing down on Florida, climate activists and some media outlets are already blaming climate change for the storm. In reality, hurricane activity—and especially hurricane activity affecting Florida—is not getting any worse as the planet modestly warms. Hurricanes and other extreme weather events occur in spite of climate change, not because of it.
Global hurricane data show there has been a significant and consistent decline in the number of hurricanes during the past 40 years. Moreover, there has been no increase in the cumulative energy from all hurricanes and tropical cyclones. While climate pundits fill the airwaves with theories about warmer ocean temperatures fueling more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, the verifiable storm data show no increase at all. Indeed, scientists have long suspected that warming global temperatures facilitate wind shear, which pulls hurricanes and tropical storms apart.
Not only is there no global increase in hurricanes, but Florida in particular is enjoying a golden age of hurricane avoidance. Florida recently underwent an 11-year period without a single hurricane strike, which was the longest such period in recorded history. Yet when a hurricane finally put an end to Florida's record hurricane drought, climate activists and many media outlets predictably blamed climate change.
No matter what good news there is on the subject, climate activists and their champions in the media are committed to their apocalyptic narrative. It's why you probably don't know that the United States as a whole has enjoyed a remarkable lack of major hurricanes in recent years; from 2009 through 2017, the U.S. experienced fewer hurricane strikes than during any other time period in recorded history. Just as importantly, the United States recently underwent a record 11 years without a major hurricane strike of Category 3 or higher.
Yet when Hurricane Harvey finally struck and ended the record time frame without major hurricanes, climate activists and the mainstream media predictably blamed climate change for the storm.
They simply refuse to acknowledge the truth, which is this: The facts show climate change is not causing a worsening of hurricanes.
But to those invested in the truth, this should come as no surprise. Objective scientific data show a similar lack of climate change impacts on other extreme weather events.
More here:
https://www.newsweek.com/hurricane-season-not-climate-change-blame-hurricane-idalia-opinion-1823148
************************************************British Prime Minister defies Net Zero ban on new airports
Rishi Sunak will face down the Government’s climate advisers over demands for ministers to halt the expansion of airports, The Telegraph can disclose.
In one of the most significant moves yet of the Prime Minister’s shift to approaching net zero in a “proportionate and pragmatic” way, the Government will reject the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) formal advice that all airport expansions must be halted.
The move comes days after Mr Sunak appointed Claire Coutinho, one of his closest political allies, as Net Zero Secretary, amid a growing backlash among Tory MPs over the Government’s climate policies and the cost they are adding to consumer bills.
Ministers believe airport growth will have a “key role” in boosting the UK’s global links and helping to grow the economy.
Bristol and Southampton airports are among those preparing to significantly expand their capacity after legal challenges against their expansions failed, while London’s Gatwick, City and Heathrow airports are also hoping to embark on major expansion projects.
Elsewhere in the world, new international airports are being built in cities such as Mumbai, while major expansions are under consideration in Dubai and Sydney.
The CCC was set up by the 2008 Climate Change Act to hold the Government to account over its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, with its most recent five-year “carbon budget” put into law by Boris Johnson in 2021.
Rejecting its recommendations would set the Government up for a major legal clash with environmental groups. Last year, a High Court judgment said that “considerable weight” should be given to the CCC’s advice. Groups such as Greenpeace are planning to cite the committee’s latest recommendation in legal challenges against further airport expansions.
But a Department for Transport spokesman told The Telegraph: “Airport growth, and the aviation sector as a whole, has a key role to play in boosting our global connectivity and helping grow the economy. We remain supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way.”
Ministers are putting their hope in the rapid development of green aviation fuels to decarbonise the sector. This week, Ms Coutinho will unveil a proposed legal duty on the Government to draw up plans to subsidise so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
The Government’s approach will heap pressure on Labour to take a position on the issue.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told The Telegraph last week that she would do “whatever it takes” to attract investment to Britain.
Heathrow is in the process of revising plans for a third runway, which Labour previously said failed its “four tests” for expansion of the airport.
But a Heathrow spokesman said: “We have always been clear that expansion will be delivered within strict environmental targets, including on carbon, minimising noise and local environmental impact, thereby meeting Labour’s four tests.
“We are confident Heathrow’s plans and the aviation industry roadmap provide a credible path to net zero flight by 2050.
“Adding capacity to the UK’s only hub airport would bring benefits to all of the UK, creating jobs, boosting Britain’s exports and delivering for the country’s global ambitions.”
The CCC’s decision to issue formal advice against further expansions was taken in one of the final meetings chaired by Lord Deben – formerly John Gummer – before he stepped down from the body this summer.
The committee was frustrated that plans to expand airports across the country were continuing despite its warnings that the net growth of airports was incompatible with the country’s net zero target.
****************************************************
Like Communism, the Climate Change Agenda Will Kill Millions
As the Biden Administration and tyrannical central planners across the globe continue with their push to control people’s lives through an overbearing "climate change" agenda, implementing socialism under the guise of saving the planet, the human cost of their lunacy is becoming increasingly glaring.
When a brush fire ripped through the Maui town of Lahaina in August, traveling a mile a minute, water to keep it from advancing was unavailable. “Access to water should be predicated on ‘conversations about equity,’ according to the Hawaii official under fire for delaying access to water during the Maui wildfires,” the New York Post reports. "M. Kaleo Manuel, former deputy director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management, waited for more than five hours to release water during the wildfires that devastated Maui.”
The local government still claims the death toll is just north of 100 souls, but at least 1000 people are still “missing,” many of them children.
On the global stage, former Secretary of State and Biden Climate Czar John Kerry is playing with fire by targeting the agriculture industry.
“Cutting greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production is essential to the global fight against climate change, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said on Wednesday,” Reuters reported in May, “Agriculture generates 10% to 12% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The food system as a whole - including packaging, transportation, and waste management - generates a third of global emissions, according to a 2021 study published in the academic journal Nature Food.”
“‘We can’t get to net zero, we don’t get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,’ Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said at the AIM for Climate summit in Washington,” the report continues.
The essential component to human life, food, requires emissions. It's a basic cost of humanity. Wind and solar energy aren’t getting food out of the ground and to the market. Oil and gas do this successfully, preventing famine.
We’ve already seen this dangerous, nightmare experiment play out in Sri Lanka.
In April 2021, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned all chemical fertilizers, citing the need to cut down on emissions for the sake of fighting “climate change.” It was, and still is, a complete disaster.
Forced conversion to organic farming caused an economic collapse and a crop shortage.
“Farmers say their livelihoods are under threat and for the first time in its modern history, Sri Lanka, which usually grows rice and vegetables in abundance, could run out of food as harvests drop and the government can no longer afford the food imports the country has become overdependent on in recent years. The rice yield dropped to 2.92m tonnes in 2021-22, down from the previous year’s 3.39m, and the speaker in parliament last week warned of imminent starvation among the island’s 22 million people,” The Guardian reports.
But starvation isn’t the only human suffering the climate fanatics are willing to inflict on the population. They justify slave labor currently used to build solar panels in China and to mine rare earth minerals in Africa. In the United States, President Joe Biden and his bureaucrats are working to take away gas stoves, air conditioning, and cheap natural gas. All of these things make the human condition better and life affordable for the average person, which is why the left is working overtime to banish them — not for themselves, of course, but for those they rule over.
Kerry and his ilk have made it clear human suffering and death is just part of the agenda and a necessary cost to meet their “climate change” goals. If they aren’t stopped, much like communism, this central planner push for control will cause suffering and death for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of human beings around the world.
**************************************************
Australia: More waste in chasing the Green dream
A new deal has been struck to keep the Victoria/Tasmania Marinus Link undersea power cable project – central to the "battery of the nation" dream – afloat.
In a joint announcement on Sunday, the federal and Tasmanian governments said they were "acting with a new deal to keep the critical Marinus Link project plugged in – driving economic growth and putting downwards pressure on prices across Tasmania and the national east coast grid".
The project, which was to deliver a connection via more than 300 kilometres of undersea and underground high voltage cable between Tasmania and Victoria's Latrobe Valley, was originally estimated to cost between $3.1 billion and $3.8 billion.
However, the financial burden of the project saw the Tasmanian government announce last month it wanted to renegotiate the terms of the deal.
Today, in a joint statement the federal and Tasmanian governments said they had "worked closely to ensure the project continues" – with amendments made to the deal including:
The original vision of two cables downgraded to one, with "negotiations to continue on a second cable"
Tasmania's contribution towards construction drops by almost half, with the Commonwealth's share to increase and Victoria's to stay as originally negotiated
Tasmania to "have the option to sell its stake to the Commonwealth upon commissioning of the project"
Marinus Link is part of Tasmania's "battery of the nation" strategy and is also listed among the Australian Energy Market Operator's top five priority projects.
Tasmania has enough green hydro energy capacity to power the entire state and also has five wind farms, with several other wind projects under consideration.
However, some analysts have argued that as Victoria invested more in its own wind farms and battery storage, it made less business sense to fund an expensive multi-billion-dollar cable between the mainland and Tasmania.
Tasmania has long argued the largest benefits of the project go to the mainland and Tasmanians should not pay a disproportionate amount.
Today, both governments conceded Marinus Link was "competing in a global market with tight supply chains and is facing similar inflationary pressures to other major energy and infrastructure projects around the world".
Stage one of the project, the proponents say, would "deliver economic stimulus over $2 billion and over 2,400 jobs, with around 1,400 in Tasmania".
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said it was "a game-changing project for both Tasmania and the mainland and this updated agreement will not only deliver the benefits of Marinus Link, it will be cheaper to Tasmanians".
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said it would mean "jobs, economic growth, energy security and lower power prices with Tasmania investing its fair share and no more".
The governments said they were "working towards a delivery time frame as close as possible to 2028, or earlier if possible".
In a statement, Marinus Link's chief executive Caroline Wykamp said today's announcement was "a signal of confidence for the project, which stood to deliver significant environmental, economic and social benefits".
"Marinus Link is more than an interconnector; it's an enabler," she said.
"This project will deliver more renewable generation development in Tasmania and the mainland, more energy security to both Tasmania and the mainland and more movement and access to lower-cost renewable energy sources, helping deliver lower energy costs in the long term."
Ex-Liberals question deal, condemn Father's Day timing
In a joint statement, Lara Alexander and John Tucker — former Liberals who quit the party in part over the Marinus deal — said the renegotiated deal "raises more questions than answers", saying the Tasmanians premier's "numbers simply do not stack up".
"The figures are not believable, the claim that Tasmania's maximum exposure would be $117 million dollars does not stack up with the federal minister's confirmation of that the cut down project will cost $3.3 billion dollars and the claim that Tasmania will be up for 17 per cent," the statement said.
"Today's announcement from the premier reveals nothing of the cost blowouts which the government has admitted would have sent the state broke if it pursued the deal it signed last October. It conveniently leaves out how much we have already spent on this project.
"It also does NOT address the impact of these massive energy projects on Tasmania's power bills with the exception of an unsubstantiated claim by the premier that it will deliver savings.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-03/marinus-link-undersea-cable-costs-renegotiated/102808504
***************************************3 September, 2023
New study suggests global warming could be mostly an urban problem
A new study published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal, Climate, by 37 researchers from 18 countries suggests that current estimates of global warming are contaminated by urban warming biases.
The study also suggests that the solar activity estimates considered in the most recent reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimated the role of the Sun in global warming since the 19th century.
It is well-known that cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. While urban areas only account for less than 4% of the global land surface, many of the weather stations used for calculating global temperatures are located in urban areas. For this reason, some scientists have been concerned that the current global warming estimates may have been contaminated by urban heat island effects. In their latest report, the IPCC estimated that urban warming accounted for less than 10% of global warming. However, this new study suggests that urban warming might account for up to 40% of the warming since 1850.
The study also found that the IPCC’s chosen estimate of solar activity appeared to have prematurely ruled out a substantial role for the Sun in the observed warming.
When the authors analysed the temperature data only using the IPCC’s solar dataset, they could not explain any of the warming since the mid-20th century. That is, they replicated the IPCC’s iconic finding that global warming is mostly human-caused. However, when the authors repeated the analysis using a different estimate of solar activity – one that is often used by the scientific community – they found that most of the warming and cooling trends of the rural data could actually be explained in terms of changing solar activity.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Willie Soon, of the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES-Science.com) described the implications of their findings,
“For many years, the general public has been assuming that the science on climate change is settled. This new study shows that this is not the case.”
Another author of the study, Prof. Ana Elias, the Director of the Laboratorio de Ionosfera, Atmósfera Neutra y Magnetosfera (LIANM) at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina, explained:
“This analysis opens the door to a proper scientific investigation into the causes of climate change.”
This study finds similar conclusions to another study that was recently published in a separate scientific peer-reviewed journal, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. This other study involved many of the same co-authors (led by Dr. Ronan Connolly, also at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences). It took a different approach to analysing the causes of climate change – using an additional 25 estimates of solar activity and three extra temperature estimates.
*********************************************
Why are greens making it so hard to grow plants in NYC
Under the city’s Million Trees program, which offers to plant free trees around the five boroughs, I put in a request for the city to entrust my block with a new tree.
“Your Service Request has been sent to the Department of Parks and Recreation,” the automated response read. “DPR will respond within 720 days.”
Considering trees literally eat carbon from the air (one tree averages 48 pounds a year, according to the Arbor Foundation), 720 days seems a long time to wait for a response during a “climate emergency.” That was 457 days ago and I’ve yet to receive my tree — or a response.
It’s incredible to watch people who claim to love the environment do so little to actually improve it. In fact, many seem openly hostile to the idea. No one more than big city Democrats, who ironically embrace ugliness and sterility in their pursuit of a greener planet.
Environmentalists were once called tree-huggers and wore “Save the Whales” t-shirts. Now, they desecrate priceless works of art while turning a blind eye to the mass killing of both trees and historically endangered marine mammals
In fact, the government of Scotland admitted this week it had downed 15.7 million trees since the year 2000 to make way for wind farms as a part of its “green energy” and “net-zero” carbon emission goals. That comes out to around 1,700 trees a day.
Closer to home, activists claim controversial wind farm development off the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island has contributed to a record number of dead whales washing ashore this year, including at least 14 humpbacks so far.
While New York City bans plastic straws, shopping bags, and wood-fired pizza ovens, why hasn’t it occurred to any of these climate warriors to incentivize gardening?
Gardens not only remove carbon and combat the heat island effect of big cities, but they also increase human happiness. How much more incentivizing do we need?
Gardens beautify our streets and lower crime — a block with well-maintained gardens, in the broken-windows mentality, is less likely to attract lawlessness. How much less? According to a 2022 study in crime-plagued South Africa, for every 1% increase in total green space, there is a 1.2% decrease in violent crime and a 1.3% decrease in property crime.
Gardening is also a much healthier hobby than doom-scrolling or binge-watching Netflix.
But gardening can get expensive, as anyone knows. And in New York City’s “green” crusade, trees and plants for your stoop, backyard, sidewalk bed, or window box are still charged sales tax. The same goes for soil, fertilizer, gardening tools, containers, and anything else you might need.
While produce in grocery stores is tax-free, in New York, Uncle Sam wants his cut if you plant your own tomatoes or grow a bit of basil on your windowsill.
And just imagine how much carbon it takes to ship those veggies to the store, not to mention the plastic packaging. If the city was serious about being greener, it would eliminate this tax while awarding tax credits to serious citizen-greenskeepers.
Funny enough, New York Democrats have made this very point through legislation, but — surprise, surprise — it only benefits rich people and developers, not average New Yorkers and renters. The city offers a “Green Roof” tax Abatement of up to $200,000 for developers who cover residential rooftops of new buildings in at least 50% green space
https://nypost.com/2023/09/02/green-pols-are-making-hard-to-grow-trees-in-nyc/
**********************************************Why wind and solar power are running out of juice
Green energy and the push to electrify everything have been in the news recently but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of the green energy nirvana politicians and green energy advocates have promised, economic and physical reality has begun to set in.
Start with the economic realities.
Wind turbine manufacturers like Siemens and General Electric have reported huge losses for the first half of this year, almost $5 billion for the former and $1 billion for the latter.
Among other problems, turbine quality control has suffered, forcing manufacturers such as Siemens and Vestas to incur costly warranty repairs.
In Europe, offshore wind output has been less than promised, while operating costs have been much higher than advertised.
Offshore wind developers in Europe and the US are canceling projects because of higher materials and construction costs.
In Massachusetts, Avangrid, the developer of the 1,200 MW Commonwealth Wind project paid $48 million to get out of its existing contract to sell power to ratepayers.
That way, the company can rebid the project next year at an even higher price.
Close by, the developers of the 1,200 MW SouthCoast Wind Project off Martha’s Vineyard will pay about $60 million to exit their existing contract.
Rhode Island Energy, the state’s main electric utility, recently rejected the second Revolution Wind Project because the contract price was too high.
And Ørsted, the Danish government-owned company that is developing the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects off Long Island — as well as the Ocean Wind project off the New Jersey coast — last week announced that, without additional subsidies and higher contract prices, it will have to write-off billions of dollars in potential losses.
The result: Even though Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch insists that “energy transition without wind energy does not work,” 2022 saw 16% less new wind-power capacity than in 2021, according to the American Clean Power Association.
In New Jersey, the legislature passed a law in July, which is likely unconstitutional, to bail out Ørsted.
The legislation will award the company with several billion dollars of investment tax credits that were supposed to go to consumers.
Back on dry land, opposition to siting land-gobbling wind and solar projects continues to grow.
Local governments in Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio have all rejected or restricted projects.
Rural communities, it seems, do not want to host massive turbine farms — nor the high-voltage transmission lines needed to deliver electricity to power-hungry cities.
According to the New York Climate Action Committee’s Final Scoping Plan, New York will meet that increased demand by building almost 15,000 MW of offshore wind, like the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects, and over 40,000 MW of solar panels. (By comparison, the emissions-free Indian Point Nuclear Plant, which former Governor Cuomo forced to close, had a capacity of just over 1,000 MW.)
This “reserve margin” – basically, the amount of generating capacity available to step in and meet electric demand – will need to increase from the current 20% to over 100%.
In other words, for every MW of generating capacity in 2040, there will have to be an equal amount or more in reserve.
That’s like having to buy a second car and keep it idling all the time in case the first one won’t start.
The Scoping Plan claims this will be accomplished by building over 20,000 MW of so-called “dispatchable emissions-free generating resources” (DEFRs) and installing over 12,000 MW of battery storage.
Those claims are fantasy.
Start with DEFRs, which are generators that burn pure hydrogen manufactured from surplus wind and solar power.
They have yet to be invented (we repeat – they do not yet exist). Nor do any large-scale commercial plants to manufacture green hydrogen exist either.
Hydrogen cannot be transported in existing natural gas pipelines.
An entirely new infrastructure will need to be built.
Assuming a new technology will be invented by whatever date politicians decree is foolish.
That’s not how technology works.
https://nypost.com/2023/09/02/why-the-promise-of-green-energy-has-yet-to-deliver/
*******************************************Australia: Tyre Extinguishers target Toorak SUVs as part of environmental protest
An extremist environmental group has targeted one of Australia’s wealthiest suburbs, with SUV owners waking to find their tyres slashed and their cars undriveable.
Residents of Toorak in Melbourne woke on Friday to find the vandalised cars and an explanation note left on their windscreens detailing why SUVs are toxic to the environment.
The environmental group, Tyre Extinguishers, left those affected with a note alerting them: “Your gas guzzler kills.”
“We have deflated one or more of your tires,” the note reads.
“You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car. “We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others.
“SUVs and 4x4s are a disaster for our climate. SUVs are the second-largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions over the past decade – more than the entire aviation industry.
“Even if you don’t care about the impacts on people far away from you, perhaps think about the impacts around your neighbourhood. SUVs cause far more air pollution than smaller cars.
“While the impacts on you so far have probably been minimal, every day millions of people are directly affected. Emergency action is needed to reduce emissions immediately.”
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there had been several reports made following the group’s antics. “At least 10 four-wheel drive and sports utility vehicles in the vicinity of Tintern Ave were tampered with,” she said.
“Notes were also left on the vehicles describing the environmental impact of these types of vehicles. “The investigation is ongoing.”
Tintern Avenue was once home to Dame Nellie Melba, and Toorak is home to more members of The Australian’s Richest 250 list than anywhere else in the country.
Anyone who witnessed anything or with CCTV or other footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The group is well known in the UK and the US, yet it’s understood this is the first time the group have targeted Melbourne.
It lists instructions on its website about the best way to deflate an SUV tyre.
***************************************
1 September, 2023
Over 1,600 Scientists and Professionals Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration
International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth.
“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”
A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.
The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.
"Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming," the declaration said.
Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models "exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases" and "ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”
Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.
CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.
“There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.
“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?”
Climate Models and Sunlight Reflection
Among the CLINTEL signatories are two Nobel laureates—physicists John Francis Clauser from the United States and Ivan Giaever, a Norwegian-American.
Mr. Clauser has made a significant addition to climate models to dismiss the narrative of global warming: the visible light reflected by cumulus clouds which, on average, cover half of the earth.
Young demonstrators hold placards as they attend a climate change protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London on Feb. 15, 2019. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Young demonstrators hold placards as they attend a climate change protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London on Feb. 15, 2019. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Current climate models vastly underestimate this aspect of cumulus cloud reflection, which plays a key role in regulating the earth’s temperature. Mr. Clauser previously told President Joe Biden that he disagreed with his climate policies.
In May, Mr. Clauser was elected to the board of directors at the CO2 Coalition, a group focusing on the beneficial contributions of carbon dioxide in the environment.
“The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people,” Mr. Clauser said in a May 5 statement.
“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills.”
“It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”
******************************************************
Central banks are fake climate heroes
The Bank of England has rejigged how it tenders for the polymer used in banknotes to reduce their carbon intensity. The UK central bank will investigate alternatives to gas-fired heating for its London headquarters and Essex printing works. Zoom calls are preferred to flights. Such are the details in the BoE’s first ‘Climate transition plan’ that was released in July and outlines how the central bank intends to reach net-zero emissions from its ‘physical’ operations by 2040.
The BoE is aiming to hit net zero a decade before the UK’s legislated goal because the central bank wants to ‘meet the standards it sets for others’ as it drives climate actions across the financial sector.
All the major central banks have adopted similar, ambitious green goals without any parliamentary or formal executive approval. Their motivation – as stated in a study released in April by the Reserve Bank of Australia – is that ‘climate change introduces new sources of risk’ for financial stability. In 2021, the European Central Bank even said it will embed environmental goals within monetary-policy decisions because wild and warmer weather can affect ‘inflation, output, employment, interest rates, investment and productivity; financial stability; and the transmission of monetary policy’.
Fired up about sustainability, central bankers are calling for net-zero targets. Warning of climate systemic risks, they talk of using their regulatory powers to enforce climate-risk-based capital standards on banks, conduct climate-change stress tests and force businesses to disclose carbon risks. To encourage such activism, governments have sought to appoint climate campaigners to leadership roles in central banks.
Many question whether it’s wise for central bankers who style themselves as above politics to tackle such a politically contentious issue. As central bankers push sustainability, two questions stand out.
The first is whether central bankers can achieve anything. Advocates say standardising climate-related disclosures and making them mandatory improves the pricing of climate risks. They say central banks highlighting the long-term financial risks of climate change will marshal public support towards net zero. They claim central banks can protect the financial system by limiting crises triggered by changed weather. They say central banks elevating climate risks would make commercial banks more wary of adding to – even reduce – the US$4 trillion lent to the fossil fuel industry.
Central bankers, however, might achieve less than activists hope. For one, climate change seems to pose little risk to financial stability. Bushfires, droughts, heat waves, rising and warmer oceans, storms and the like have never in modern times triggered a systemic crisis.
Second, the industries that lose from the shift to a low-carbon economy (‘stranded assets’) are unlikely to imperil the financial system. It’s usually the next big things that bubble to the point of crisis. Studies find that excessive debt is the common cause behind centuries of financial crashes, not weather patterns or passé things.
A third reason is banks don’t appear to be threatened by climate change and seem capable of judging such risks. Studies find no link between bank stability and disasters, even one on banks in the hurricane-prone Caribbean. A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found banks even gain from calamities due to lending for rebuilding.
Another disappointment for activists is that central bank climate activism is unlikely to trouble fossil fuel companies. The fact is that when commercial banks shun fossil fuel companies, private firms buy these businesses cheaply. The Economist estimates private equity firms have swooped on at least US$60 billion of ‘dirty’ assets in recent years.
The fifth problem is that central banks have little legal basis on which to act along green lines. Central banks lack authority to direct bank lending. As there is no link between interest rates and meteorological events, central banks can only target net zero indirectly by using regulatory powers.
The other overarching question is whether central banks might stir risks when they pursue sustainability. The answer is yes. The biggest risk is that climate-risk management clashes with mandates to control inflation. The problem is that a shift to net zero stirs ‘greenflation’. This is the term for when the price of fossil fuels jumps because their supply falls before demand does. It’s rife.
The second hazard is that central banks are adopting an explicit role of capital allocation, which breaches their principle of ‘market neutrality’. Climate stress tests, for example, apply pressure on banks to shun lending to fossil fuel companies. While central banks control the quantity of money, the allocation of money is a choice for the political sphere. Smudge the roles of central bankers and politicians and central-bank credibility and independence could be dented.
Another risk is central banks might encourage a green investment bubble, one that could metastasise into a systemic threat. Another concern is central banks might engage in ‘mission creep’. What, for instance, stops central banks pursuing other social goals such as reducing inequality? Another problem with central bankers sanctioning progressive causes is that it might encourage banks on similar frolics. Some bankers, for instance, might think it OK to ‘de-bank’ customers for their views on climate change.
The little central banks might accomplish through climate activism and the risks they stir as they try is another example where the use of public regulatory powers is a poor substitute for political solutions. Rather than become politically tainted, it’s best central bankers push aside climate-change concerns and focus on their legislated tasks, at which, as today’s elevated inflation shows, they are failing.
Now, central banks recognise that executives and parliaments have ‘primary responsibility’ to act on climate change and that their contribution might be modest. Then why speak up? It’s true that government action on climate could hurt the economy to the point of creating financial instability. But that’s different from saying the weather or stranded assets could.
Perhaps the true green vocation of central bankers is to warn the public of the risks (above all on inflation) that politicians are taking with their climate actions. Their efforts to have greener office blocks and climate-friendly banknotes are worthwhile if they boost their credibility to do that.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/central-banks-are-fake-climate-heroes/
***********************************************Net Zero Watch slams British Government’s ‘desperate’ and ‘unethical’ heat pump proposals
Campaign group Net Zero Watch has ridiculed the Government’s decision to remove consumer protections relating to the installation of heat pumps in homes.
Faced with a widespread consumer boycott of the technology, ministers are hoping that they can kickstart a heating revolution by removing the requirement that properties be adequately insulated before gas boilers are removed.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
"The insulation requirement was put in place to ensure heat pumps were only installed where they were likely to work. Removing a key consumer protection is hardly going to help the Government’s cause."
Mr Montford points to a recent study of heat pump economics, which shows that, even in a well-insulated property, most heat pump installations do not give lower bills, let alone justifying the substantial capital costs. This is because electricity is four times the price of gas.
Mr Montford said:
"The contradictions in Government policy are becoming clear. Renewables are incompatible with heat pumps because they make electricity so much more expensive than gas. In their desperation to persuade consumers to switch anyway, ministers are proposing steps that would be foolish, are arguably unethical, and would certainly be counterproductive. This is a brand of fanaticism as dangerous as Mr Khan’s ULEZ obsession."
*************************************************
The astonishingly woke Australian Academy of Science
Peter Ridd
The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) recently released a report Reef Futures Roundtable, which is ostensibly about the doomed Great Barrier Reef. However, the report only demonstrates that the AAS, Australia’s peak science body, has become not just unscientific, but anti-scientific. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has also become astonishingly Woke.
The AAS report predictably concluded that the Great Barrier Reef could already be ‘irreversibly’ damaged. The fact that UNESCO has just declared it not endangered did not rate a mention, and neither did the latest two years of statistics showing the reef is at record high coral levels. Remarkably, the report does not contain a single fact or figure to support any of its claims about the reef – except the area of the reef is 340,000 square kilometres. There are no figures, no percentages. Nowhere does it mention that coral grows 30 per cent faster for every degree increase in water temperatures. Or that there is 100 per cent more coral on the reef today than in 2012. Or that just 1 per cent of the reef has the potential to be impacted by farm sediment, fertiliser or pesticides, even in the slightest way. Or that the sea level has fallen by 1 metre in the last 5,000 years.
The problem with this completely unanalytical approach is seen in the ‘interventions’ it recommends to fix the reef. Their impracticality is breathtaking. For example, it suggests ‘solar radiation management’ – shading the reef from the sun with man-made fog and clouds to prevent the water heating up and causing coral bleaching. The only number cited in the entire report – the area of the reef, which is as big as Germany – should have given them a hint that this is crazy. How are you going to make a cloud as big as Germany and keep it anchored over the reef for the whole summer over the next few hundred years? And you will also have to stop hot water flowing into the reef from the Coral Sea at the same time. That would require a dam 2,000 kilometres long and 100 metres high.
While a simple calculation is all that is required to reveal the absurdity of this idea, modern science is full of people who are almost completely non-quantitative and, as such, impractical and virtually useless as scientists.
Next there is rubble stabilisation. The supposed experts worry that the Great Barrier Reef will break up from climate change. Each of the 3,000 reefs is an almost solid lump of calcium carbonate rock (fragments of coral glued together over eons) a few kilometres wide and 100 metres high. How this is going to be broken up by some climate change magic is unexplained. But even if that were to happen, are they seriously suggesting we can wire it back together with steel reinforcing and concrete? Just do the calculation on how much concrete and steel this would entail.
The unscientific nature of the AAS report is largely a result of its anti-scientific approach. The report is actually a parody of wokeness and romantic mythology. This starts with the way the roundtable committees of ‘experts’, whom they questioned about the reef, were formed. Each roundtable had two chairs, a non-Indigenous chair, and a specially selected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chair. The romantic mythology about the special knowledge of any person with Indigenous heritage pervades the entire document, and starts in the foreword by the head of the AAS.
As the Academy approached the task of planning this project it became immediately obvious that there was no separating nature and culture when it comes to the GBR. Land and sea cannot be separated. No priority can be selected on an ecological basis alone. Having a Traditional Knowledges co-Chair in each roundtable allowed for different sources of knowledge to be shared and to form a basis for a number of the observations featured in this report.
Having a diversity of ideas and scientific thought would have gone some of the way to curing the AAS of the groupthink which renders its report risible. And the views and experience of people from the coral islands of the Torres Straits and northern Great Barrier Reef could have been used to great effect. These people tend to be deeply practical about the reef – like almost all seafaring people who live and work on the reef. And practical people know you cannot bolt the reef, which is the size of Germany, down to the seafloor. But selecting people for their ‘roundtables’ on the basis of their ethnicity rather than their scientific or real-world experience is a fundamentally anti-scientific approach.
But it gets worse. The dearth of statistics about the reef are made up for by an abundance of data on the gender identification of all those who participated in the ‘roundtables’. There is also the Indigenous percentage. And not just of those who participated, but also of those who were invited to participate but did not. One could quibble and point out that those claiming to be male or female added up to exactly 100 per cent in all categories, indicating a terrifying lack of diversity on the LGBQTI+++ spectrum. But there is no question, on the important matters for the Woke brigade, that this report is brimming with instructive statistics.
The AAS ascribes such importance to facts and figures on gender and race, but not to scientific facts. This demonstrates it is anti-science. Science is about evidence and logic. It does not matter whether one is male or female or whatever else, it is still impossible to make clouds as big as Germany for the next hundred years. That is called a fact, and facts do not vary with race, gender, or any ideology.
I have been saying for some time that many of our science institutions have become totally untrustworthy. By its wilful abandonment of quantitative analysis, the AAS has destroyed its reputation as a source of useful scientific advice. The media loves a bad news story – they should focus on what has happened to a once-esteemed organisation.
The Australian Academy of Science is now a joke.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/the-astonishingly-woke-australian-academy-of-science
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************