Somewhere a couple of decades or so ago, the rich parts of the world embarked on a program of replacing energy from fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) with energy from intermittent “renewables” (mainly wind and solar). In trendy academic, journalistic, and otherwise progressive circles, the idea took hold that this was the way to “save the planet.” This program was undertaken without any detailed engineering study of how or whether it might actually work, or how much it might cost to fully implement. In the trendy circles, there took hold a blind faith in the complete ability of the government, by dispensing taxpayer funds, to order up whatever innovation might be needed to move us forward to this energy utopia.
The latest UN-orchestrated effort to implement the renewable energy program, known as COP 26, has just broken up. To read the verbiage emanating from the affair, all is on track, if a bit slower than one might have hoped.
But I have long predicted that this program would come to an end when (absent some miraculous innovation that nobody has yet conceived) the usage of the renewables got to a sufficient level that their costs and unworkability could not be covered up any longer. Until very recently the pressure of elite groupthink has been able to maintain a united front of lip service to the cause. But consider a few developments from the past few weeks, just since the end of COP 26:
Japan
Japan tends to keep its head down in international affairs, and at COP 26 signed on to the happy talk group communiqués without raising any particular issues. But there is no getting around that Japan has the third largest economy in the world — after the U.S. and China, and larger than any European country — so its actions in energy policy are inherently significant. Also, Japan has relatively little energy production of its own, is heavily dependent on imports, has harsh winters, and has a growing Chinese military and economic threat right on its doorstep. Is Japan really going to trust its fate to intermittent wind and solar energy?
On December 1 Bloomberg reported: “Japan Is Backing Oil and Gas Even After COP26 Climate Talks.” It seems that this rather significant country may be seriously re-thinking the move away from fossil fuels. Excerpt:
Government officials have been quietly urging trading houses, refiners and utilities to slow down their move away from fossil fuels, and even encouraging new investments in oil-and-gas projects, according to people within the Japanese government and industry, who requested anonymity as the talks are private.
What is motivating Japan to break from the world groupthink? According to the Bloomberg piece, the main motivator is security of energy supply — which wind and solar obviously cannot provide:
The officials are concerned about the long-term supply of traditional fuels as the world doubles down on renewable energy, the people said. The import-dependent nation wants to avoid a potential shortage of fuel this winter, as well as during future cold spells, after a deficit last year sparked fears of nationwide blackouts. . . . Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry declined to comment directly on whether it is encouraging industries to boost investment in upstream energy supply, and instead pointed to a strategic energy plan approved by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s cabinet on October 22. That plan says “no compromise is acceptable to ensure energy security, and it is the obligation of a nation to continue securing necessary resources.”
(Emphasis added.). Well, if “no compromise is acceptable” on “energy security,” that pretty much rules out principal reliance on wind and solar for powering the Japanese economy, at least until some magical new inventions come along.
United States
In the U.S., Republicans have only very gradually caught on to the idea that fossil fuel restrictions in the name of “climate” are becoming a political liability for the Democrats. Up to now, there have been some politicians willing to speak out in opposition to such restrictions, but little in the way of concrete steps taken in opposition. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to move forward with initiatives at the SEC, Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to pressure banks and other financial institutions to reduce their participation in the fossil fuel industries.
So this is a big development: On November 22, a coalition of state treasurers sent a letter to large financial institutions threatening to end relationships, including the deposit of state and pension funds, with institutions that cut off financing for the coal, oil and natural gas industries. National Review reports in a November 22 piece headlined “Fifteen States Respond to ‘Woke Capitalism,’ Threaten to Cut Off Banks That Refuse to Service Coal, Oil Industries.” Excerpt:
A coalition of financial officers from 15 states sent a letter to the U.S. banking industry on Monday warning they plan to take “collective action” against banks that adopt corporate policies to cut off financing for the coal, oil, and natural gas industries. . . . The letter puts the financial institutions that have “adopted policies aimed at diminishing a large portion of our states’ revenue” on notice, saying the banks have “a major conflict of interest against holding, maintaining, or managing those funds.”
According to the NR piece, the state treasurers signing on to the letter include those from West Virginia, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Alabama, Texas and Kentucky. Recipients of the letter included JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs. Between the states’ own accounts and their pension funds, the amounts at issue would be well into the multiple hundreds of billions of dollars, if not approaching a trillion.
Meanwhile, over in Europe . . .
Another Bloomberg piece, this one from November 28, describes the sense of impending doom hanging over Europe with the combination of low natural gas supplies, price spikes, and complete inability to coax more production out of proliferating and essentially useless wind and solar generators. The headline is “Europe’s energy crisis is about to get worse as winter arrives.” Excerpt:
The situation is already so dire this early in the winter season because of a blistering rally in natural gas prices. Stores of the fuel, used to heat homes and to generate electricity, are lower than usual and are being depleted quickly. Analysts have warned that gas stores could drop to zero this winter if cold weather boosts demand. Rolling blackouts are a possibility, warned Jeremy Weir, chief executive officer of Trafigura Group, a Swiss commodity trading house on Nov. 16.
And then there’s this comment:
“If the weather gets cold in Europe there’s not going to be an easy supply solution, it’s going to need a demand solution,” said Adam Lewis, partner at trading house Hartree Partners LP.
I think that a “demand solution” means some combination of either blackouts or intentionally cutting people off and, I guess, leaving them to freeze. The “supply solution” mentioned by Lewis would be allowing fracking in the extensive shale formations underlying Western Europe. Such fracking is currently banned. Even if those bans were lifted today, it would be way too late for this winter.
Predicting the date when the Europeans will wake up to their ridiculous energy folly is a lot like predicting the date of the demise of the regimes in North Korea or Venezuela.
The EU Energy Plan, Load Shedding and Imports (and in Germany, continuing to burn lignite, temporarily)
Markit, October 28, 2021
The EC is not backing down. It is looking to ensure that whatever form the market takes, renewable energy remains key. “We all agree the only solution to price volatility is more renewable energy,” said Simson.
Green group European Environmental Bureau agreed in an open letter ahead of the TTE meeting noting that “the current energy prices emergency in Europe is a wake-up call for more climate action, not less” and suggested transitioning to a 100%-renewable electricity supply…
…But the EU’s “net energy import dependency” increased to 60.6% in 2019 compared with 56% in 2000, which was the highest level in the past three decades, the report found.
“More cowbell!”
It always works.
I found this great electricity map which purports to show real time electricity use and source of power for various countries. It also includes European interconnectors. It looks accurate as it tallies with other sources.
https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE
The Germans have a very long way to go if they want to get rid of coal and nuclear. Wind and solar are not going to cut it.
Not sure if there is enough space on the planet for “more renewable energy” much less in the EU.
They just need some lebensraum.
That push didn’t end well last time.
It seems to me, that large windfarms have a damming effect. Wind travels from a high atmospheric pressure area to a low pressure area. The resistance at the wind farm would cause a change in direction of flow to the low pressure area with the ‘banked up air’ making an end run around the windfarm and even drawing new air to low pressure from other directions- probably changing the weather itself at both ends.
Change in weather anyone?
One hundred years ago, windbreaks were the rage. Long and narrow bands of forest to stop prevailing winds. Maybe windfarms could be almost as useful as windbreaks.
All they need in this picture are solar panels behind the wind turbines to make it perfect.
Not only should we be burning as much fossil fuel as possible to replenish the depleted carbon dioxide gas content in our atmosphere, we should also implement a program to convert limestone (calcium carbonate) to cement thereby undoing the last 60 million years of dangerous global draw down by calcareous marine organisms of this life giving gas.
1000ppm looks about right for food crops.
‘Depleted’?
I wonder sometimes how the primeval forests of Europe and America managed to grow at all with so little CO2 around thousands of years ago…
there is no issue of plants not having sufficient CO2 and little benefit from more of it for crops.
I see that you are ignorant of crop production practices in the Netherlands where the greenhouses have specifically raised levels of CO2 to increase yields. Try using a search engine to educate yourself.
You may as well have stopped right there Greytide.
Griff’s ignorance continues to astound us. Primary schoolchildren understand Photosynthesis better than he does.
The boy has been educated in the UK state education system as mandated by Blair. Simple science is excluded.
But even for Griff that’s a corker.
The science may have been excluded but he most certainly got the ‘simple’.
I wonder if the griff likewise uses a balloon to comb his hair.
They didn’t.
There were continental icecaps covering this area 20,000 years ago and the world’s ocean is still only a cold +4 Celsius at depth.
That is the whole point of why there are dangerously depleted gas levels during the current series of ice ages.
Your ignorance of bio-history is astonishing.
griff, NASA reports a satellite-detected 10% greening (chlorophyll has a spectral peak in the near IR, and is easy to detect) of the earth. That translates to 10% more vegetable/grain foodstuffs. How can you be against impoverished persons getting 10% more food?
sure, the trees grew- but slowly- they would grow faster with more CO2- it’s not rocket science
Griff and reality never met.
wow!
Nothing like making a complete public fool of yourself!
again
It’s not what you do that counts – it’s what you do well. And on that we have to say that griff is truly an expert.
Every day
That’s an 9.6 on the Guffawometer, Griff, mate
But they were rotten trees.
All you all – reread the comments. Griff makes a couple of points – primeval forests grew with low level CO2 and the benefit or lack of benefit of CO2 on crops. Two points. Why bring the snarly comments into the discussion? Who gains what by doing this? You look ignorant when you do this! Attack the points Griff made – Don’t attack Griff.
The points that griff made, he makes on a regular basis.
After the 20th time, it’s time to play the man.
That’s being kind. After years of absurdly ignorant giffie is pushing the same lies over a hundred times.
Too ignorant. Giffie is not here to learn. giffie’s attendance here is pecuniary, it earns a pittance for every stupid comment.
We slag Griff off because his posts are, without exception, ill-informed and demonstrably false. His sole contribution is to bring levity to this site for other commenters, which is something.
You must give Griff credit for eliciting Little known but useful bits of information with which we lesser informed individuals become better educated. His wanderings into la-la land are a distraction but some evidently feel his levity is a necessary component.
ill-informed, demonstrably false and excessively repetitive.
Griff isn’t a real person though KyBill.
No sentient being could be so obtuse.
Griff, like average global temperature, is just a construct.
And the Griff construct is just as flawed as the AGW conjecture.
Neither work.
” All you all ” I haven’t seen or heard this in awhile.
Ol-y’all
Thats the plural. You all is singular.
Regional dialect.
Not back when I was being raised in Florida:
“You” is singular.
“Y’all” is plural (you all), corresponding to “you guys” in other regions.
“All y’all” sounds like it’s on the same level as “I don’t know nuthin.”
In Louisiana, Y’all is a direct reference to one person.
When a person means to include a group, they include a hand movement/wave indicating the group.
Not on my side of the state. Y’all is plural. You is singular.
“All y’all” is kind of like the imperative in Latin. “Y’all” is addressed to the group without emphasis. “‘Mornin y’all” “All y’all” means each and every one of you needs to pay close attention right now! “All y’all got to git yer butts in gear and git this here truck unloaded.”
Well, you know what they say in southern Russia: Full of bullshitski, y’all.
KyBill
That is not the point at issue. The modern flowering (angiosperm dicotyledonous) plants evolved in the Cretaceous when CO2 levels were at least 1,000 ppmV and likely to have been higher. The more ancient conifers (gymnosperms) evolved in the Jurassic when CO2 levels were around 2,000 ppmV (5 times today’s values). Biochemical evolution is constrained by structural realities.
The ability of a plant to absorb CO2 depends on its ancestry. Low CO2 levels in the Tertiary led to the evolution of C4 photosynthetic pathways in some grasses (monocots), a biochemical trait that is specifically designed to cope with low CO2 levels and requires a special adaptation that uses extra energy to achieve this.
The older Jurassic and Cretaceous plant lineages cannot suddenly adapt their biochemistry and so do not thrive in the modern low CO2 environment.
Primeval forests were at semi-starvation during the last ice age. They pretty much remained at stasis rather than grew.
Plants don’t start dying until CO2 levels get below 200ppm.
As long as levels are above that, they can survive. 280ppm is enough for plants to grow, but if you want them to really thrive, you have to get levels up closer to 1000ppm.
I’m not surprised that you didn’t want to know this.
“there is no issue of plants not having sufficient CO2 and little benefit from more of it for crops“
Such platitudes are really not doing much for your cause.
Experiments on cottonwood show increasing net productivity with higher concentrations of CO² 400, 800 and 1200ppm, winter wheat and semi-dwarf spring wheat show the same.
Greenhouse-grown vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce show earlier maturity, larger fruit size, greater numbers of fruit, a reduction in cropping time, and yield increases averaging 20 to 50 percent, with increased CO² levels.
griff, no!
Please, turn off your automatic text synthesizer, if you leave it alone it will produce losts of nonsensical garbage like this one!
Remember, computers, including text sinthesizers, only spit what you put inside them, and apparently you forgot to “train” the “model” with a few pages of any book of introduction to plant physiology…
Abject ignorance in flagrante delicto.
Pine tree growth under different levels of CO₂
?w=640&ssl=1
Only the most idiotic people fail to notice the difference.
It is also why commercial greenhouses pump their greenhouse CO₂ levels to over 1,200ppm.
How dumb can someone be.
In primeval times when plants evolved, CO₂ levels were in the thousands parts per million.
America and Europe did not exist.
At the end of the last ice age, trees were near death from lack of CO₂. What growth they experienced was extremely slow from cold and lack of CO₂.
Those trees died long before Europe came into existence.
They grew because there weren’t European humans to cut them all down.
during the Cambrian period , lasting millions of years, the CO2 levels were 15X today’s levels. The period experienced the greatest increase in biodiversity seen on the planet. How did it manage with all that CO2.
—-
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth/
This is an important thread,
I don’t think turning this into a Griff thread is at all useful.
I would ban Griff..
An excellent suggestion.
I see your point, but then how would we get our daily chuckle??
“the main motivator for Japan is security of energy supply — which wind and solar obviously cannot provide”
Why should Japan care? Come on man, Japan is a relatively small country so you don’t need a lot of fuel to get around. It doesn’t get super hot so no need for ac, and if it gets cold they can just bundle up, what’s so hard about that? As far as factory output just make do with less! Minimalists do that on purpose so having less can’t be that bad. Jesus, Japan is being so selfish when the whole world has pledged to take serious steps to stop the bad weather. /
Japan doesn’t get hot? Have you ever been there? Tokyo is stiflingly hot and humid in July .
I think Eric Simpson was channelling Joe Biden for a laugh.
Speculation doesn’t change Simpson’s comment. Downvoted.
It doesn’t get SUPER hot. /
Do you mean UNPRECEDENTED hot? UNPRECEDENTED EMERGENCY hot?…
Sarcasm? (Or just plain ill-informed stupidity?)
/=sarc
I always give posters the benefit of the doubt. Some 80% of human communication is non-verbal and pretty much impossible to convey easily via the written word. Someone could do humanity a great service by inventing a “sarcasm” font.
The territory of Japan extends from 24’N to 45’N with four main islands the largest is roughly the size of the UK.
it’s so cold in the north that the macaques love soaking in the hot springs
So what are you personally giving up to save Gaia? You never leave your house? You moved into a cave? Willing to starve yourself to death to reduce your carbon footprint?
I got the joke. Don’t worry about the down votes.
Many here don’t have English a a first language. It’s a US website, after all.
See: Poe’s Law
“Many here don’t have English a a first language. It’s a US website, after all.”
Oooooo, ouch! Hey, I resemble that remark!
Do you not know why silk is so important as a fabric for Japanese culture?
Even a cursory reading of James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun would give you a hint.
Great book!
Bad movie…
“the whole world has pledged to take serious steps to stop the bad weather. /”
I should correct that. The whole world, except developing countries, and CHINA. But it’s not like China is an industrial powerhouse, or is competing with us economically or militarily, so we should let them slide. Let them build their weakling economy and military for several decades before pressing them on CO2. /
You keep forgetting the /s for sarcasm.
/ is shorterhand for /s
Your sarcasm could be taken as something coming from the griff.
Anyway, I’m reminded of visiting a number of offices in Japan where notices in the washroom indicated that paper towels were to be used by guests only. That, and their sparing use of heat in winter or AC in summer made me come away with the feeling that Japanese are already frugal, not wasteful.
You forgot the s part of /s for sarcasm. It’s best just to write /sarcasm otherwise it will get misconstrued.
Then why use sarcasm if people don’t have to think about what you’re saying and its motivation.
Unfortunately no matter how ludicrous your sarcasm may be, there is a leftist out there who has said it.
Obviously you haven’t been to Japan during the summer, or you’re acclimated to someplace like Mississippi or Bangladesh.
Yeah and you get one of the largest economies by doing lots of vegan friendly economic activities 🙂
Japan will still be burning Fosil Fuels in 2050 they have stated as much.
I also just read that Jennifer “laughs a lot” Granholm is pushing California not to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant as apparently there is concern about blackouts in the Golden state. Of course at the same time she is not sharp enough to see the connection between high gas prices, short supplies and the Dems’ anti-fossil fuel policies. If it’s an especially cold winter, people may start to notice the renewables emperor has no clothes.
Californians’ look into the future:
it’s a feature, not a bug.
Yes, correct. She would rather put them up against the wall, but having them expire from heat exhaustion or exposure is ok, too. Whatever it takes to remove 90% of the population.
Next, imagine this scene with the weather below freezing, when recharging isn’t even possible.
Buy your pedicab futures now.
93 degrees F is not a lethal temperature, if it were we would all be dead as our body temperature is 98.4 F
But for most people in the developed world, it is considered warm and would prompt the use of A/C units requiring electricity that might not be available due to either Time of Day (Solar) or windless high pressure cell (Wind Turbine) or a combination of the two.
Daily Temperature peaks well after Solar PV production falls off
Bryan,
I was in Texas this summer when night time lows were 86F and like a true born Englishman I was out walking in the afternoon sun at plus 100F. I survived.
You cannot survive if you lack water. Water the key in heat, heat stroke is tricky, only be careless for a few minutes can bring it on. I live in Arizona grew up in the north. Yes I am out hiking in the average summer temps. I make sure I am near water and have water.
Agreed, carrying water is essential in those conditions as I soon found out.
Bryan, I bet you lived and worked in A/C controlled environments.
Dave. The quoted value in the Tweet is an outside temperature 93 F and not the inside temperature of 140 F that you just made up.
See any mad dogs?
Just me.
Tell that to a pet locked in a car with no AC on a 93F day.
That means anyone with any sense will be standing outside and very ill tempered..
and still alive.
But those deemed responsible won’t be for long.
For the red thumbs that have not read the tweet that gringojay posted the text specifically states that it is 93 F outside. Anyone that stays in a car with no AC at 140 F inside is a Darwin Award candidate.
Used to work in superheated buildings that were above 140F. Two hours was the most you could work at those temps though. Had to cover hands with cloths because all metalwork, including tools, too hot to hold.
A lot depends on humidity. 93F with 100% humidity, your body has to struggle to remove the heat that just staying alive produces. Forget actually trying to do anything.
98.4 ? that’s about 100 years out of date; try 97.5 +/-
I am old. 🙂
Temperatures inside the vehicles reach 140 F and there is no wind.
Close enough. 37C, routinely rendered as 98.6F. I’ve always chuckled at the precise temperature we ‘Murcans are taught is body temperature. It’s an overly precise conversion of 37C which itself is not all that accurate. We should just say 99F.
You’re sort of right that it shouldn’t be a problem if they open the windows. But we’re talking about California, land of fruits and nuts. Guaranteed there would be enough numbnuts who try to run the A/C that the freeways would all be gridlocked with disabled EVs.
Unfortunately, at 99F, my hair starts to hurt. At 98.6 and a little lower, I am just fine.
India? Not CA?
yes, a congested Californian road is not pictured. I did not create the message composition.
Simple solution: Government bans traffic jams. [Or, a more likely solution, government jams people into high-density housing, busses, bicycles & etc.]
Dam Starting to Break
__________________
I wish I were wrong, but the modern day Bolsheviks using climate as a wedge issue not to mention Covid 19 and racism to install their one party rule, aren’t about to pull up stakes and go quietly into the night. The party that funds the Extinction Rebellion, organized the riots of 2020 and spent four years trying to unseat a duly elected president with a bunch of phony made up crap isn’t, because of the action of 15 state treasurers from states they don’t run, going to abandon the achievement of their ultimate goal. They aren’t playing bean bag.
When people start perceiving that they are hurting they vote accordingly, no matter the government spin.
Yes, but the letters weren’t sent to XR and BLM, they were sent to large financial institutions, who aren’t so committed to the AGW ideology. They’ve been responding to pressure from the activists, and now there is pressure back the other way.
Any knowledge how climate scientist Nakamura Mototaka has influenced native discussios in Japan after his 2018 book ”Confessions of a climate scientist The global warming hypothesis is an unproven hypothesis”?
Unfortunately it is japanize and only 15 pages is translated to English.
English short:
https://c-c-netzwerk.ch/images/ccn-blog_articles/717/Confessions-Nakamura.pdf
Full
https://www.amazon.com/kikoukagakushanokokuhaku-chikyuuonndannkahamikennshounokasetsu-Japanese-Nakamura-Mototaka-ebook/dp/B07FKHF7T2
”…
Now, I must emphasize here that my skepticism on the “global warming hypothesis” is targeted on the “catastrophic” part of the hypothesis and not on the “global warming” per se. That is, there is no doubt that increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere does have some warming effect on the lower troposphere (about 0. 5 degrees Kelvin for a doubling from the pre-industrial revolution era, according to true experts), although it has not been proven that the warming effect actually results in a rise in the global mean surface temperature, because of the extremely complex processes operating in the real climate system, many of which are represented in perfunctory manner at best or ignored altogether in climate simulation models. I also want to emphasize that I am not negating the possibility of a major climate change as a result of the change as a result of the human activity, either catastrophic global warming or a return of severe glacial period (the real climate system that has a myriad of physical and biogeochemical processes is highly nonlinear, much more so than the toys used for climate predictions). I am simply pointing out the fact that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy how the climate of this planet will change in the future.
…”
Actually it is possible – see Dr. Happer’s report here yesterday in Science Roundup.
Basically the CO2 effect is already saturated, doubling will have no noticable effect whatsoever, except of course to feed more green plants.
There is support for that position: For the troposphere to warm the stratosphere must cool (TOA radiation must balance between net Sun inputs and LW outputs). Measurements show the stratosphere has not cooled in the 21st Century while atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased significantly. Only adjusted surface datasets (Karlization) show any significant 21st Century warming.
“Now, I must emphasize here that my skepticism on the “global warming hypothesis” is targeted on the “catastrophic” part of the hypothesis and not on the “global warming” per se. That is, there is no doubt that increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere does have some warming effect on the lower troposphere (about 0. 5 degrees Kelvin for a doubling from the pre-industrial revolution era, according to true experts), although it has not been proven that the warming effect actually results in a rise in the global mean surface temperature, because of the extremely complex processes operating in the real climate system”
Isn’t that beautiful!
That statement decribes the process perfectly.
The Alarmists haven’t gotten past the “CO2 causes warming” part of the equation. They don’t consider, as mentioned above, that the CO2 warming might not result in a rise in the global mean surface temperature. That would be due to negative feedbacks, if that’s the case.
Alarmists have a long way to go to figure out just what CO2 does once it is in the atmosphere and interacting with all the other elements present.
Some climate scientists claim CO2 warming results in net cooling, not net warming. Something alarmists apparently never consider.
In the UK we are governed by intellectual pygmies, unable to put 2 + 2 together. Our country is responsible for 0.000012% of CO2 emissions. Even if manmade CO2 was responsible for catastrophic global warming, which it clearly isn’t, moving to Net Zero is plainly idiotic. Meanwhile, China is ploughing ahead with the greatest installation of coal-fired power stations in human history. Can’t read a thing about this in UK media. AND, by the way, it’s getting colder…
No, this is silly. The UK does a bit over 1%. Something like 450 million tons a year out of about 37 billion. If you count emissions related to imports its probably nearer to 1.5%,
It is still completely ridiculous to think that the UK can affect climate by making unilateral reductions in its emissions. Any it makes will be eaten in a few months by China. Even were the UK to vanish, go to Net Zero, the resulting reductions of emissions would be in the noise.
But we should get the numbers right.
The numbers are correct .
CO2 in the atmosphere is 413 parts per million .
Human emissions are about 3% of the total .
The UK does about 1% of the all of the human produced CO2 .
So that is a total of 0.000012% of the atmosphere , [ or 1 part in 10 million parts ]
But the media will never admit the truth as more people would start to see how the whole CO2 scam is a load of lies .
“If you count emissions related to imports…”. I don’t think our woke corporations do this, nor do they publicly say much about all the jobs they have off-shored to China.
China is also ploughing ahead with a rapid military buildup. And Russia too- while Europeans self castrate.
Japan has dealt with Chinese aggression in the past and know well exactly what their neighbor to the west is capable of. Hopefully, they will continue to study history and plan accordingly.
Unfortunately or fortunately, aggression is a two way street, but diplomacy and free trade underpins friendly competition, as does mutual respect.
With regard to recent history, I have one word: “Nanking”.
As a people, the Chinese have a long memory, and “revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Japan has of course now abandoned new coal plant…
But is keeping existing capacity beyond 2030.
Griff, its abandoned one in planning. But it seems to be continuing on quite a number which are replacements of older tech plants. I am not at all sure that its eliminating coal. And its certainly not eliminating oil and gas.
See NY Times piece
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html
A couple of years back, but still. Bloomberg is also not forecasting and end to coal. Down to something like 25% by 2030. Its not elimination.
Japan is eyeing woody biomass- expected to grow 33% in ’21.
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/17690/2021-major-changes-to-the-japanese-biomass-market
griff,
It wasn’t pretty the last time Japan’s fuel supplies were threatened by the West. Maybe you should be grateful they’re only paying lip service to the CAGW agenda.
Griff, you still haven’t got the hang of backing up your wild and erroneous statements, but then your latest offering is so wide of the mark it can only have been made in deliberate denial of reality.
“Nevertheless the new coal power stations due over the next five years will ensure that Japan remains committed to a substantial contribution from coal power for decades to come.
The Economist naturally bemoans the slow transformation to renewables, but Japan knows full well that heavy reliance on wind and solar would be far too dangerous.”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/07/04/japan-to-build-22-new-coal-power-plants/
The Japanese know, why don’t you?
A year or two ago, China’s slowing economy caused the country to reduce the number of coal plants it was planning to build in the next 10 years from something like 600 to only 590.
griff spent the next year proclaiming that this proved that China no longer needed coal plants.
It is a real pity Australia lost that coal market for 590 new stations, and all that because of a virus theory. Russia has to take up the slack….
1) The loss in coal had nothing to do with the WuFlu.
2) China is still buying Australian coal, they are just doing it through 3rd parties.
Are the Japanese also starting to doubt the so-called necessity to go all electric in car transport?
The International Energy Agency in its ‘Update on EVs’ (28th August 2021) noted that sales of EVs in Japan declined by 25% in 2020 and that the EV market in the country had fallen in absolute and relative terms every year since 2017.
Japan have many new coal fired power stations and are building more.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
You’ve been shown this a dozen times by me alone so why do you never follow the link and learn?
griff doesn’t care about learning. He already knows everything his handlers want him to know.
Just a point of clarification- Griff doesn’t have handlers.
He handles himself.
Toobining?
TMI dude.
Exactly all they said is they won’t build unabated coal power stations that is there is an emission level all new stations must meet and that can be by carbon offsets, carbon capture or new technology.
If they continue to build natural gas plants, so what if they have a temporary hold on new coal?
Right now natural gas is cheaper, so you expect countries to be prioritizing natural gas. In the future when coal becomes cheaper again, that will change.
Not really, reading between the lines here, they have at least one 1.3 GW Coal powered plant being built:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/climate-change-blue-hydrogen-japan-011126867.html
NO THEY HAVEN’T
Perhaps stop dribbling absolute crap and go and read exactly what they said, I have quoted you it enough times. So you are either mentally handicapped or can not read.
Europe desperately needs some warming, to cope with the consequences of climate politics..
Me too!
In the UK we are having a practise run in NE England where electricity supplies have been cut off in some areas for 10 days following a storm that cut off transmission lines.
People, and even the MSM are realising the importance of having a reliable source of electricity.
Heat pumps and EVs would only add to the fragility of the system.
http://Www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/05/storm-barra-arwen-uk-weather-today-met-office-warning/
” Heat pumps and EVs would only add to the fragility of the system.”
Exactly, without providing any benefits. I lived with a heat pump in central Virginia for exactly one year of being cold and hit with exorbitant electric bills when the backup cut in. After that we relied on a soapstone wood-burning stove and disconnected the thermostat. As for EVs, ever tried to move a 1200-pound round bale in an ice storm? Our trusty John Deere did the job handily, no electricity, just a little farm diesel.
Very strange omission – not one mention of NordStream 2 in the full article, first delayed by US arbitrary sanctions even by Trump’s admin, and now on hold by so-called regulators over a legal crumb that went unnoticed during years of construction.
This is raw geopolitics, and voters notice at the pump.
To hear Don Pompeo pronounce US LNG at 4 times Russian prices with Europe’s energy security in his mind (only) takes the biscuit.
Next, Belarus is so annoyed with Brussels they may cut gas transit. No one forgets Ukraine doing that a few years ago, as well as siphoning. Now Ukraine wants a war – just imagine what would happen to gas transit (before it went nuclear).
FLOP26 ended not with a bang, rather with Sharma’s whimper – he could not deliver.
This means UN Climate finance czar Mark Carney, ex-Bank of England chief, has a major problem – where is he going to get $100 TRILLION (his words at Bloomberg) for a Green Great New Reset? Will the transatlantic financial system last long enough?
Fascinating how in your mind the US rules the world, and everything that happens, anywhere in the world, is because it benefits the US.
Rules Based Order ring a bell? Well actually this did not come from the US, rather Mister Blair. Blinken uses Blair’s words quite frequently. Not known where Biden finds words – from a committee?
Anyway Wall Street and the City of London have yuuuge problem. Will they start WWIII to distract those with poor jobs, lockdown, pandemic, inflation like the last 2 times?
Just because you and your paranoid friends have come up with a name for something, doesn’t make it true.
Wall Street, all on it’s lonesome is getting ready to start WWIII, just to distract the plebes from their failures to run the world?????
Please tell me, what is the color of the sky in your world and how many moons does it have?
The EU changed the rules after construction of NordStream 2 was underway. That is the sort of lowlifes they are. Seems pretty fair that Gazprom were not happy about it.
You don’t understand, Blair instructed the EU to change those rules, and he did it at the behest of Wall Street, because they weren’t making enough money off of the pandemic so as a distraction, they are going to start WWIII.
You forgot to mention aliens, Bigfoot, and the tooth fairy….
“Now Ukraine wants a war” – and tricked Russia (a proud guarantor of Ukrainian territorial integrity) into posting over 100,000 troops along its border. It is always a pleasure to meet an unusually well informed source. 🙂
“Now Ukraine wants a war”
Sane people in the Ukraine don’t want a war.
If you have a particular leader in mind who wants this, then name that person, instead of smearing every person living in Ukraine by claiming they are all eager to go to war.
Most people just want to get on with their lives with as little interference as possible. I have to think this applies to most Ukrainians. And most people in the world.
It’s the leaders that want war, for their own personal reasons.
It is the same level of insanity as claiming that “Mexico wants a war with the US.” Madness.
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick wanted to go to war with the US and lose.
A great movie!
Interesting how cold weather, and the imminent fear of freezing to death in the dark, is concentrating the minds of political entities who depend upon the votes of those people freezing in the dark to survive.
“But I have long predicted that this program would come to an end when (absent some miraculous innovation that nobody has yet conceived) the usage of the renewables got to a sufficient level that their costs and unworkability could not be covered up any longer…”
We need to learn from History. Charlie Mackay’s excellent book: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds points out that:
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
So what is going to happen, IF people recover, is a shamefaced individual retreat from the green tenets of zero carbon, while not mentioning the fact in any way. But that is IF they come to their senses. History is replete with examples of cultures which did not, and which destroyed themselves as a result. Take the Xhosa Cattle Killing episode for example and substitute Greta for Nongqawuse. We know from history that human beings (and those in 1856 are no different to those in 2021) are quite capable of committing mass suicide if the society approves of it….
Yes, this is the frightening possibility. There seems to be such an inability to think coherently and reason from evidence among the UK political classes that its very possible they will drive off the cliff without realizing what they are doing.
We are in an age not so much of amateurs, but of people who cannot put together evidence and confront theory with it. Its worse than amateurism.
You notice in the Guardian or Ars comments people with zero experience of planning and running a grid who are confidently certain of their prescriptions for power generation. This is what is going on in Downing Street. And in Washington for that matter.
You’ll find on Ars for instance editorial staff as well as commenters claiming that intermittency is not a relevant thing. Don’t ask how much time they have spent running an electricity generating company.
Very scary.
And as they start to come to their senses “one by one” they are easy pickings for the remaining “mad scientists” and thus learn to shut up for their career’s sake.
The only hope may be a “tipping point” where sanity eventually outnumbers madness.
Someone said “science advances funeral by funeral” so it might be a while yet.
CliSciFi is driven solely by Western government funding. When voters stop that funding CliSciFi will collapse. Exactly when I don’t know, but look what governments are doing in response to current price increases: Mass panic!
Happened in East Germany. One day “everyone” loved the Stalinist Government. Once the Wall fell they were amazed to find that everyone hated the Stazi as much as they (secretly) had all along. That’s the tipping point the Alarmists fear so much. Thus the cancel culture, in an attempt to keep everyone from finding out that everyone else finds the Climate Scientology as absurd as they themselves do….
It’s absolutely BITTER cold in Northern Europe at the moment, and it wasn’t exactly warm in central France last week!
I have never seen temperatures of -27C in our own area of Europe in the 1st week of December, and nearby Riga was snowed out with a landing incident on one air baltic flight owing to so much snowfall.
I can predict my (communal) heating bill will be sky high, and of course it’s flat calm with no wind and no solar either!
Even here in central Italy it was -6C this morning with a freezing wind blowing.
If this is only the beginning of winter in Baltic and Russia, may I suggest our resident fool GRIFF goes and pays a visit to St Petersburg Russia tonight, hovering around -18>-22C for the next few days.
It will give him a first hand experience of “the science”.
Better wrap up warm!
In 1994 during a geoscience conference in St Petersburg my wife went shopping in Nevsky Prospect. She noticed that the street entrances to the stores had triple doors to keep out the cold, as a native of Edinburgh and used to cold weather this impressed her.
You are on the cold side of the jet stream (marked). It has dipped down bringing cold air with it.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=28.26,27.65,350/loc=13.113,42.875
And on the other side of the planet, the jet stream has dipped clear down to Hawaii, bringing what were described as blizzards to some parts of the Islands.
Don’t tell Griff about this, he will swear that snow in Hawaii means Human-caused Climate Change is the reason for it.
It’s just a dip in the jet stream, Griff. They happen all the time.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-155.06,28.51,350/loc=-157.686,20.929
Tom.
Thanks Useful examples, particularly the Pacific cut off low.
Posting tip for nullschool. Because the #current timestamp changes, open the earth panel GUI and tweak the control time forward one step, this will give you a fixed time for future reference
Divesting in crude oil guarantees’ shortages and inflation. The movement to “net zero” shutters the crude oil supply that is responsible for thousands of products, assures a threat to civilization.
Tinkering with the supply chain of crude oil, the only fossil fuel that gets manufactured into a) the oil derivatives for thousands of products, and b) the fuels for the world’s heavy-weight and long-range business infrastructures, could be the greatest threat to civilization, not climate change.
https://www.cfact.org/2021/12/06/divesting-in-crude-oil-guarantees-shortages-and-inflation/
Don’t panic: As the profits from FF development increase due to Western governments’ anti-FF policies and financing restrictions, plenty of investors will step in to reap those increased profits.
Waiting for Climatista’s to recognize error? The leftist toolbox is nothing but a huge array of hammers ranging from tiny to huge sledges, and dealing with resistance requires but a single idea: If it doesn’t work, use a bigger hammer.
Excellent overview, however in the interest of fact filled discussion I would point out that at least some of the ban on natural gas extraction in Europe (Netherlands) is due to surface subsidence and small earthquakes not caused by fracking. Apparently the underground geology is sensitive to pressure reductions as gas is removed and this has caused damage to surface structures as subsidence occurs.
I don’t see how that would be possible.
Natural gas requires some kind of impermeable layer in order to prevent the gas from escaping. If there were no such barrier, the gas would have seeped out millions of years ago.
If the ground was subsiding, this would fracture that barrier and the Netherlands would have problem with natural gas seeping into homes and buildings.
I suspect that any subsidence is being caused by water being pumped out.
I think he was saying that fracking would crack that impermeable rock, or even that extracting the gas normally would take away the pressure that is helping to support the rock (at least a little support), which would then lead to earthquakes. I know, sounds pretty flimsy, but it’s probably ‘sciency’ enough to fool the average Greenpeacer or Green Party lemming.
Quite so. If the Dutch want to experience real industrial mineral extraction caused earthquakes then they should try our British coalfield earthquakes for size.
Maybe David M could pipe in here, but I don’t believe natural gas provides enough support to the ground above, that it’s removal would result in the surface subsiding.
Anyway, natural gas is found deep enough that any subsiding that did occur would be spread over such a large area as to make it all but immeasurable.
Not apparent to me. This is a dry gas field held in a Permian age desert sandstone reservoir sealed by a massive layer of Zechstein salt that deforms plastically (which is why the gas is there). This Carboniferous sourced gas has been in the reservior for at a rough guess 60 million years and “just last week ” all of this robust structure suddenly began to transmit brittle stress thru the plastic salt seal?
Talk about gas-lighting. I suggest that salt dissolution is the real problem. See Salt Flashes in Sandbach, Cheshire for an example of the surface damage caused by removal of underground salt by natural geologic processes.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
—Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
The albedo/atmosphere make the Earth cooler not warmer.
Is that a yes or no? If no pls ‘splain.
The GHGs must absorb “extra” energy upwelling from the surface radiating as a black body. The kinetic energy in the contiguous atmospheric molecules make this impossible as demonstrated by experiment.
Agree or disagree? If disagree ‘splain why.
If either of these points is correct the greenhouse effect is not.
No greenhouse effect, no GHG warming, no man/CO2 driven global warming or climate change.
Version 1.0 120621
WARNING! Crank alert.
Look in the mirror.
I would tend to agree. The clouds are part of the atmosphere and they certainly cool the Earth. And any greenhouse gases that can slow down the cooling of heat given off the ground can certainly do exactly same thing with the much greater amount of heat and other energy coming in to the system from the Sun.
I have always found it convincing that on several planets with atmospheres, including the Earth and of course Venus, with it’s ‘runaway greenhouse effect’ – the average temperature of the atmosphere, measured at the center of mass (on Earth at an altitude where the air pressure is .5 Bar or 500KPa) is what the blackbody radiation temp should be. It’s like the whole atmosphere acts like a black body and it’s only hotter on the surface because the heat in the air is more concentrated.
Before anyone starts with the tired bicycle pump analogies, please note that the hottest places on the Earth happen to be the lowest like Death Valley and the Dead Sea area, even though they aren’t near the equator. It’s not a perfect axiom all over the globe, but that’s because it’s the complicated real world, not the perfect world of math and climate models.
Noting that places that are lower have higher temperatures is not equivalent to the claim that it is pressure that causes the higher temperatures.
So the scam is unraveling and catching up with itself before the goal is achieved. Meanwhile the damage already done and waste of money and resources mounts. Soon/next we will have finger pointing and scapegoats named. My guess for scapegoats will be the scientists they bribed with grants and elites that took monetary advantage. The very people they convinced in the beginning that they were saving the world and becoming rich doing it. The epitome of useful idiots. Nobody is safe in the Marxist world.
Imagine the situation in London and the South East of England if they had been without any electricity for 12 days as people in Scotland and the north of England have been after the recent storm did so much damage to the national grid in those areas.
Now imagine that, like some in the affected areas, you are a virtue signaler and have an all electric house, heat pump, EV, Charging point for EV and only mobile phones. 12 days with no heat, no light, no car and no phone; you can’t cry for help and the snow has got you stuck in your house unable to get out and likely to freeze to death never mind if you survive and have to get a plumber to replace your leaking pipes which may have caused flooding when they thawed. I’ll leave you to add any other inconvenience that I haven’t thought of.
Please will all people living in the UK sign the petition to get parliament to debate delaying Net Zero 2050. Personally I would prefer the Climate Change Act 2008 to be repealed; we are the only country to put net zero into law but a debate in parliament to delay the implementation of net zero might help to bring our Government to its senses.
The link is https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599602.
Thank you to all who sign.
Re the pic of dam failure at the head of the article. Note that the failure is of both abutments (unusual I suspect). As an engineer studying in the late 1950s, the famous St. Francis dam failure (California) of 1928, killing 400 people. It became a case study for engineers, at least in N. America.
One abutment gave away followed by massive total failure. There were smal cracks leaking water in the abutment area during an inspection not long before the failure. An abutment failure today is almost prima facie evidence of incompetent design. Two abutment failures …what can I say?
The first paragraph of this article neatly sums up the situation. It reminds me of the story of the Wasa, the 17th Century Swedish warship that sank on its maiden voyage. Protestant Sweden and Catholic Poland were at war at the time and vied for control of the Baltic. The Wasa was intended to be the most powerful ship in the area, and construction had already begun when the Swedes heard rumours that the Poles were building an even bigger ship. Since it was too late to start again it was decided to add an extra gun deck to the existing hull; the shipwrights must have known very well that this would make the ship top-heavy but went ahead anyway. When the hull was floated it was found that it was unstable as expected, but trusted that God, who was a Protestant, would not allow them to fail. It was handed over to the Swedish Navy and when first sailed into open water a gust of wind caused it to heel over and sink. It turns out that wishful thinking doesn’t trump physics, apparently a lesson we must all re-learn.
You can’t repeal the laws of thermodynamics.
Liberals have gotten so used to just ignoring any law they don’t like, that they just don’t understand why they can’t ignore the laws of physics as well.
Looking for a Progressive Judge to overturn the laws of physics hasn’t worked out as well as hoped for////
If the weather gets cold in Europe, what”s the odds! The odds are best to be safe than sorry.
The Germans will be burning their furniture come winter.
“at least until some magical new inventions come along.”
With the expansion of the private sector into outer space, perhaps some asteroids will be discovered to contain dilithium crystals.
Those people who die from the cold caused by a lack of energy for basics like heating can pass away knowing they did their bit to save the planet.
When are these renewables fanatics going to be held to account???