By John Droz, Jr. — January 31, 2022
Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.
Of special interest in this issue is an article by Donn Dears, “Texas Remains in Peril.”
Greed Energy Economics:
*** Report: Cost of onshore wind has been rising for 20 years
*** Some Cost of Renewable Electricity Web pages
Net Zero Watch pours scorn on Tony Blair Institute claims about ‘cheap’ onshore wind
Revisiting the Keystone XL Pipeline and Joe Biden’s False Promise of ‘Green Jobs’
Activists, progressives say NY needs to spend $15B in climate fight
College symposium on climate change should look at costs of putting big solar, wind energy in rural NY
Wind Energy — Offshore:
*** Furious Fishermen Take On Offshore Wind Industry Wrecking Atlantic Fishing Grounds
Video: How offshore wind development threatens the environment, and human livelihoods
Biden 30,000 MW Offshore Wind by 2030 — An Expensive Fantasy
New York State just sealed a deal for 2.5 GW of offshore wind
Developer Requests Delay Putting One of NY’s First Offshore Wind Projects in Operation
Wind Energy — Other:
Texas Energy System Remains in Peril
Two More Contributions On The Impossibility Of Electrifying Everything Using Only Wind, Solar And Batteries
Another Low Blow — Wind Energy Falters (Again)
VCEA makes Virginia’s electric grid dangerously unreliable
New York’s Heritage Wind Decision Aims To Reduce Project’s Impact On Birds
Backlash Against Renewables Surged In 2021, With 31 Big Wind And 13 Big Solar Projects Vetoed Across US
Solar Energy:
*** Unreliability makes solar power impossibly expensive
Supervisors delay decision on VA solar facility as neighbors speak against proposal
Pennsylvania community may ban future solar projects in ag zone
Nuclear Energy:
*** Nuclear power: The case for small modular reactors
*** Modular Molten Salt Reactors Starting 2028
*** Report: Without Nuclear energy, there is no large-scale decarbonization
This Alaskan Air Base Will Host An Experimental Mini Nuclear Reactor
The Idaho National Lab Director speaks out for urgent action in support of nuclear
Russia will use nuclear energy from the world’s first land-based small modular reactor
Lab hits milestone on long road to fusion power
South Korea to explore hydrogen production in ‘close to its largest’ nuclear plant
California’s Nuke Follies
Fossil Fuel Energy:
*** Extreme Shortages Guaranteed!
How long can humans survive?
Icarus, the billionaires and global resetters
China coal output hits record in Dec and in 2021
As coal use surges, America finds it’s hard to unplug from carbon
Biden rattles his saber at oil producers as prices surge to 2014 high
Fossil Fuels Aren’t Going Anywhere As New England Learns
As Colorado coal plant shuts down, a town dependent on coal for jobs grapples with a bleak-looking future
Civilization needs courageous warriors, — not pitiful, helpless giants
UK Court rejects legal challenge of Oil & Gas Authority strategy
Russia Moves Into the Arctic As Biden Surrenders to Putin
Miscellaneous Energy News:
Pumped hydro provides the vast majority of long-term energy storage
Electric Vehicles Need Uncle Sam’s Help
Rolling blackouts possible this winter, New England grid warns
New York must develop a coherent energy strategy
Britain Goes Off the Rails on Energy and Biden Is Following!
400 miles (650 km) Wintertime Trip With VW E-Car Took 13 Hours, 3 Recharges And Lots Of Warm Clothes
Biden’s war on American energy made us dependent, again
We should not compare electricity sources using nameplate ratings
Short video: The Power of Power Density
Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:
*** Global agency sows fear with misinformation
Reducing reason to net zero
The EU is sabotaging its economy in the name of unattainable climate targets
Climate Activists Keep Moving the Goalposts
Linking Cold and Snow to Global Warming: An Extreme Climate Conundrum?
Dispelling the Milankovitch Myth
Climate Action in New York Is Nothing But Virtue Signaling
Bigger spend needed for net-zero world than assumed
The Unrealistic Myth of Carbon Neutrality
Manmade Global Warming — Miscellaneous News:
*** E.O. Wilson and the climate cult
Weather- Just How Does It Happen?
Climate Claim: Joe Manchin Controls “the fate of the world”
The global warming question that can change people’s minds
Video: An Alternative Climate Change Theory
Biden Plans to Force Banks to Push Climate Policies
I’ve seen how climate change is being used by alarmist politicians to promote their own agenda
In today’s Boston Globe: “Debate stirs over the limits of New England’s power grid”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/01/science/debate-stirs-over-limits-new-englands-power-grid/?et_rid=603599907&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter#bgmp-comments
a collection of comments- the following is part of the first, written by a guy who is the president of a company that “specializes in the development of large-scale electric transmission and storage systems to bring renewable energy to markets”
He’s unbiased, of course. :-}
Sounds like Boston just needs a bit more funding for management costs and bobsyeruncle-
AEMO calls for funding hike as renewable energy levels send management costs soaring (msn.com)
The original article in the Globe- that those comments were commenting on (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/25/business/cold-january-brings-warning-new-englands-electric-grid/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link) says, “However, New England’s grid has its own glaring weakness: an overreliance on natural gas, which is the primary fuel for many of the region’s power plants”
totally nuts- the same idiotic complaint about Texas- just to the west in NY is a vast amount of shale gas, if NY allowed fracking- but it won’t- and Mass. won’t allow new pipes passing through NY- I think gas is a fantastic fuel- I once had a gas home furnace (in a previous home) that never needed cleaning- unlike my oil furnace that needs a tune up/cleaning every year
Yes you’d suspect the costs of ‘managing’ coal and gas out of the grid would be chalked up to fossil fuels by the climate changers with their all too familiar accounting methods.
That is a lot more reading than I have time for.
Hmmm… should start a fiction section for all these links…
We already have one for all of your posts
I labeled it “comedy”.
I took the time to read the article and comments on dispelling the “Milankovitch myth”. Quite frankly, I did not find it especially believable. You have to assume their data on temperature and dates for thousands of years in the past are accurate, along with all of their charts. I have seen enough of this sort of stuff to have developed serious doubts about the accuracy. Amusingly enough, one of the charts presented which claimed to disprove the cycles did somewhat the opposite.
Data I have seen for the past couple of thousand years, coupled with the history I have read, all indicate that the climate is now growing colder, ignoring the shorter term (less than thousand years or so) trends. I am still waiting for any serious proof in favor of the global warming claims.
There is none
You are correct, we are in the latest short reprieve from temps cooling to glaciation
Anything else is a lie
Extreme heat in oceans ‘passed point of no return’ in 2014 | Oceans | The Guardian
Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research.
Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have occurred at least 50% of the time across the global ocean since 2014.
In some hotspots, extreme temperatures occur 90% of the time, severely affecting wildlife. More than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean, which plays a critical role in maintaining a stable climate.
“By using this measure of extremes, we’ve shown that climate change is not something that is uncertain and may happen in the distant future – it’s something that is a historical fact and has occurred already,” said Kyle Van Houtan, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, US, and one of the research team. “Extreme climate change is here, it’s in the ocean, and the ocean underpins all life on Earth.”
Sounds just as ridiculous as those “disproofs” of the Milankovitch Cycles I saw!
Somehow, all that atmospheric heat gets into the deep ocean? I thought heat rises?
The atmosphere cannot warm the ocean Griff, it doesn’t hold anywhere enough heat to do so
To raise the ocean temp that way you have to increase the atmospheric temps by at least a magnitude more than has occurred.
How do you get everything backward?
I see they’re graphing- ‘Percentage of ocean above temperature record set 1870-1919’
Techniques for measuring sea surface temperature have evolved since the 1800s. For instance, the earliest data were collected by inserting a thermometer into a water sample collected by lowering a bucket from a ship. Today, temperature measurements are collected more systematically from ships, as well as at stationary and drifting buoys.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has carefully reconstructed and filtered the data in Figure 1 to correct for biases in the different collection techniques and to minimize the effects of sampling changes over various locations and times.
Climate Change Indicators: Sea Surface Temperature | US EPA
And that’s your 150 years worth with a straight face is it griff?