When I began this blog back in 2012, I had already studied up on the “climate change” issue. And I had already come to the conclusions that not only was the science of human-caused catastrophic global warming hogwash, but also that the proposed solution of replacing energy from fossil fuels with the wind and sun could never work at reasonable cost. My first post on the subject was on December 4, 2012.
But at that time there was almost no organized political opposition to the program to “save the planet” by transitioning to “green” energy. Here in the U.S., the Democrats were unanimous in their plans to replace fossil fuels, and Republicans mostly went along — some enthusiastically, others perhaps trying to slow things down a little. Indeed, when I began the blog, I had only recently attended a fundraiser for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election (yes, I gave the guy money) where he chose to make his speech mostly about how he would fix the environment by promoting green energy. And over in Europe it was even crazier, with essentially no major political party in any country taking a position in opposition to the forced elimination of fossil fuels. The so-called “Energiewende” in Germany had kicked off in 2010, with essentially no significant political opposition.
I have long thought that the political situation would change, perhaps suddenly, when the costs and unworkability of the intermittent energy sources started to become more obvious. Meanwhile the Democrats have only become more zealous and extreme in their plans (now known as the “Green New Deal”), with loud support from the megaphones in the media and academia.
But meanwhile, after a long wait, the costs are bubbling to the surface, and the opposition is growing rapidly and headed toward critical mass. Today, some developments from the UK and US.
UK
The headline from today’s Times of London is “Britons facing biggest drop in living standards.” The lede:
In a bleak assessment of the year ahead, the Bank of England warned people that take-home pay would fall by five times the amount it did during the financial crisis of 2008. It will be the worst hit to real incomes since comparable records began in 1990.
Here is the front page with the picture of Chacellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak looking deeply concerned:
And what is the main cause of the drop in living standards? Soaring energy costs. The government had tried to conceal the costs of suppressing fossil fuels by imposing price caps on household energy bills, but that only resulted in dozens of the local suppliers going out of business. Now, the authorities are unable to hold to the price caps:
Ofgem, the energy regulator, announced yesterday that the price cap on energy bills for 22 million households would rise by 54 per cent from April. For most households the increase will be £693 to £1,971 a year, whereas the costs for 4.5 million with prepayment meters will rise by £708 to £2,017 on average.
The conservative newspapers, particularly the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, have completely figured out that soaring energy prices are a self-inflicted consequence of failed government fossil-fuel-suppression policies. Excerpts from an editorial in the Daily Mail today:
Successive governments ignored warnings about the insanity of having no long-term strategy to safeguard energy security. Now the chickens have come home to roost. How unnecessary this is. For Britain sits on an energy goldmine. We have vast unexploited reserves of oil, gas and shale. And we had the chance to expand nuclear power. But hypnotised by the apocalyptic alarmism of eco-activists, our politicians have pursued an aggressive green agenda, shunning these abundant power sources. It means we are left at the mercy of unreliable renewables and importing high-priced energy to stop the lights going out.
And from the Daily Telegraph, also today:
The big political question is whether the country is prepared to pay for net zero now that people can see the implications of a policy that will do nothing to combat global climate change for as long as the world’s biggest CO2 producers refuse to change their own practices.
Of course, the insane energy policies, at least for the moment, are being inflicted on the people by the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But by now many of the Tory back benchers have figured this out, and the demands to stop the insanity have even begun to seep up to the cabinet level. From another article in today’s Daily Telegraph:
A number of ministers have expressed concern that the pace of the planned switch to renewable energy is too fast and is increasing costs for consumers. They believe Britain should use more of its own gas in the short-term. . . . Cabinet ministers are increasingly uneasy about Downing Street’s focus on its net zero target and have warned that the cost of living crisis should be given more priority in the coming years.
OK, I have some news for these cabinet ministers: so-called “green” energy isn’t going to get any cheaper or more affordable or more useful if you merely slow down the transition. The problems of intermittency and need for full backup and/or storage are intractable and are not going to go away. But at least the effort to slow things down is a start. Next up: replacing Johnson. With all the other major UK parties having gone all in for “green” energy, the only route to rescue the country is via a Tory Party led by someone other than Johnson that puts an end to the “green” energy madness..
U.S.
In a post last week, I reported on how the insane push for “green” energy had infested even the major money managers in the U.S., led by Larry Fink of Black Rock, who were using their voting power to attempt to force large public companies to make “net zero” pledges. For years this trend has proceeded without significant pushback. But today a post at RealClearPolitics by Andy Puzder and Stephen Soukup reports that “Larry Fink’s Crusade Runs Into Resistance.” (You may remember Puzder as Trump’s first nominee for Labor Secretary, who did not get Senate confirmation.) Excerpt:
By year’s end, the resistance to ESG and woke capital had increased in size and variety. Everyone from shareholder activists to U.S. senators, state treasurers, legislators, and governors, as well as the former director of “sustainable investing” for BlackRock itself – were charting various forms of pushback against the newly woke masters of the financial universe.
Leading the charge are elected official in Republican-led states, with Texas, West Virginia and Florida in the forefront:
State officials, in particular, have started resisting. . . . Texas has enacted legislation banning companies that engage in political vendettas against oil and gas or gun companies from doing business with the state. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked the state’s comptroller to place BlackRock on this list of banned companies. West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore announced that the Board of Treasury Investments, which manages the state’s roughly $8 billion operating funds, will cease doing business with BlackRock because it embraces “‘net zero’ investment strategies” that harm the energy sector, “while increasing investments in Chinese companies.” “[T]o combat woke corporate ideology,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the trustees for the State Board of Administration voted to “clarify the state’s expectation that all fund managers should act solely in the financial interest of the state’s funds” and revoked “all proxy voting authority of outside fund managers,” including BlackRock.
It’s fair to say that at this point almost the entire Republican Party in Congress and state governments has caught on to the “green” energy scam. I say “almost” because I’m sure there are a few — like Romney — who have not. But unlike ten years ago, it’s no longer so easy for the left to intimidate potential opponents into silence with accusations that fossil fuels are “dirty” or that anyone questioning progressive climate dogma is a “denier.”
Wind and solar are weather dependent, and unreliable. We in Texas experienced the results of such diversion of resources to unreliables last year, despite gaslighting that it was a failure to weatherize the gas system.
Are you able to gauge public opinion on that?
Many refugees are moving from New York and California to Texas so they can get away from the stupidity. The trouble is that they are bringing the stupidity with them. Can Texas withstand that?
Well, presumably, those moving to avoid the stupidity will not be part of that stupidity!
The problem is that the majority of the movers don’t do a root-cause analysis – they move to find jobs, not get away from the stupidity, although that is the root cause of their disaffection with their former states. Then they try to make Texas more like their old home state – witness Austin.
The mass movement to Alberta for oil jobs came in a large part from lefty Maritime provinces (obviously not having understood the reason they couldn’t find work in the Maritimes). In a few years, they voted in the very first non- conservative government (NDP -New ‘Democratic’ Party) in the over one hundred yr history of the prov. Y’all know what their politics is when they need to name themselves ‘Democratic’.
I actually thought that that’s what happened to Austin TX.
Austin has attracted leftists for at least three decades and likely four. They went to expensive Austin because it is warm for most of the year.
That is probably a vain hope.
The worry is that they will. link
Maybe
Or maybe they are cancer cells infecting healthy tissue?
Maybe they aren’t smart enough to understand that the problems they are fleeing are the result of policies and politicians they voted for?
They just think it was something else causing the issue.
“No matter where you go, there you are”.
Do we really think they have this much self awareness?
I doubt it
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.”
Yogi Berra
There are good reasons that states neighboring California hate the sight of cars with California license plates. Irrational spoiled self centered narcissists who often are rich because the value of their properties skyrocketed.
or they’ll be Texaified
Unfortunately, IanE, that is not the case. We’re living it in NC. You have no idea how many people I’ve met who have left CA (mostly) because it’s getting so bad who are incapable of understanding that the very policies they supported were the cause of their problems. So they continue to support them.
When someone voluntarily opts to leave California for Texas the IQ of both states drops Think about who I am complementing here
People entering Florida or Texas from New York or California should quarantine – for about 30 years.
Only if these migrants see themselves as refugees rather than missionaries.
“Red” states seeing an influx of “Blue” state escapees should establish the equivalent to the old Welcome Wagon, now a property of a mass mail advertising firm. Emblazoned on each and every piece of mail it sends out should be the following:
“Welcome to [fill in state name]. If you have moved here from a “Blue” state, remember this: You’re a refugee, not a missionary.”
The Democrats taking over the federal government in 2020, has and will cause huge damage to the US, from which it will be difficult to recover.
Compared to the damage to the US, the problem Texas had, due to a cold spell a year ago, is like an elephant to a mouse.
It is absolutely imperative to vote these incompetent, socialistic, communistic, un-American imposters out of office in November 2022
We have to:
1) Turn out EN MASSE, to offset any and all election shenanigans perpetrated by desperate Democrats to hold on to power, plus
2) Enough people must turn out to witness and record, on video, any and all suspicious election events, AROUND THE CLOCK; give them no breathing space.
We have to:
1) Ban drop boxes
2) Ban mail-in voting
3) Sanitize the registered voter lists
These are the three most egregious election system flaws, that enabled the Democrats to get “elected” in 2020, and likely in prior elections as well.
This sordidness has to end, before it will ruin the US
Let’s hear it for experience!
We now have lots of experience with various jurisdictions trying to make wind and solar a viable replacement for fossil fuels. There are approximately zero success stories.
There are stories touting the success of wind and solar but they rely on Hollywood accounting. And those, in the light of experience, are less and less credible.
Mother Nature and the laws of physics don’t care two hoots for the left’s ‘perfect’ Marxist theories.
In the light of experience, lots of people are beginning to mock the Emperor for his lack of clothing.
How much longer do we have to wait untill the voting public wake up that they are being conned in all western countries.
The answer hopefully is not very much longer .
The crazy energy policies around the western world are forcing up the basic costs of energy and that effects the cost of every thing that is consumed .
Inflation is on the rise and will affect all countries negatively.
Here is one example from New Zealand .
The price of urea fertilizer was around nz $380 per tonne 12 months ago .It is now over nz $1400 per tonne .
Similar massive price hikes will happen through out the western world for many basic commodities in the foreseeable future.
New Zealand does have a small urea plant in Taranaki but when our communist Prime Minister Jacinda (the red queen ) was elected she declared that she had a nuclear moment and banned any off shore additional oil and gas exploration.
Using our own gas supplies to produce urea makes great economic sense as New Zealand feeds 40 million people from a population of 5 million with the lowest GHG emissions even after accounting for shipping .
The world is facing rates of inflation that have only been see in Germany and some South American countries many years ago .
Carbon Zero could well be zero for some countries as we know them .
Good to see some realism expressed about our Red Queen Cindy. With Covid as with Energy, early results can easily be cast as beneficial results, but eventually chickens come home to roost!
You are lucky to have Urea fertiliser – it’s been outlawed in the UK
Seemingly UK farmers are so dumb that they apply it in conditions where it converts to ammomia, blows away in the wind and because of the GHGE, lays waste the climate
Why not apply that to mothers of young babies, the mothers who insist on bottle-feeding their babies because: Breast feeding is ‘awkward‘
Yet bottle-fed babies produce 4 or 5 nappy fulls of ammoniacal stink every day while their breast fed counterparts produce virtually none.
While the vast cost of formula milk AND the nappies is disregarded
Unfortunately, politics does not care about real world examples; that is why we are still experiencing COVId measures that were known not to work before they were instituted.
“There are approximately zero success stories.”
The real meaning of net zero.
Bob Hope warned us about the Democrats long ago … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdUbRu4FX8A
According to those in the know the ‘supermarket trolley’ has been pushed from ‘cheesecakes’ to the ‘green’ isle by the Lady Macbeth of ‘Drowning’ street. Now the ‘trolley’ is stuck on down escalator and about to hit concrete floor face down.
Many of us are not surprised by what can be achieved in the bedroom.
It’s taken nearly 15 years for the bleeding obvious to become bleeding obvious to politicians.
Since they wont be lighting streets, perhaps this suggests a new – or a rather an old – use for lamp posts?
Needs hemp to finish off the decoration.
There was a very recent headline in The Atlantic claiming that Biden wasn’t causing inflation, climate change was.
That reminds me of the story about the man on trial for murdering his parents who pleaded with the court for mercy on grounds he was an orphan.
I think they are partially right. Climate change policies are enhancing inflation even beyond the monetary policies and politically induced supply change problems.
Never mind that trying to control natural climate change is Sisyphean in nature.
Three things are happening simultaneously. Collectively they signal the beginning of the end of the warmunist nonsense like GND and Net Zero.
So the warmunists increasingly find themselves between a rock and a hard place of their own making. You can fool all the people some of the time (thru AR4), some of the people all the time (AOC and Greta Thunberg), BUT NOT all the people all the time—which is where we have now arrived.
You don’t have to convince people that your ideas are correct; you only need the power to force them to do things even if they are wrong. “Green energy” and “COVId response” have demonstrated they have the power.
Not in the long run. The Freedom Convoy22 in Ottawa shows what happens if people like Trudeau keep pushing stuff that obviously doesn’t work.
GoFundMe has delisted Convoy22 because in their words, there have been reports of violence and because they believe the convoy has become an occupation.
On the other hand, just a year ago they not only supported the BLM/Antifa rioters, they helped to promote them.
The convoy is mostly being ignored by the MSM and the politicians. And big tech is actively trying to shut them down.
MarkW mentioned one example. FB also recently banned a group planning a similar protest in DC.
Point 3 is the only one that has any political value. Quibbling over costs is irrelevant when the debate is a moral issue.
How much would you pay to save the lives of our grandchildren?
How can you claim to be able to make better predictions than the experts when if you are wrong you are taking a risk with the lives of our grandchildren.
But if NetZero is unachievable then the debate is avoided.
NetZero is watching a man drown 10 feet away and choosing to throw him a 5 foot rope while saying “I’ve done my bit” as he drowns.
That’s a moral argument against NetZero.
It is the insanity of our so called elites that has energised Russia and China.
They can see that the West is severely, perhaps fatally, weakened.
The fact that they are waking up at the same time as we are collapsing is no coincidence.
It all makes one marvel at the administrative skills of the old British Empire in holding things together for several centuries.
All those skills have evaporated due to the complacency and ignorance that has steadily increased since WW2.
Winning that war made the West vastly overconfident.
Stephen, you got the “…elites…energised Russia and China.” statement correct. Maybe the Schweizer book “Red Handed” has identified the commercial aspect of this? Looks like it.
Having Brussels to hold their hands and be ultimately answerable along with the rise of the career politician class has eliminated most of the effective people in Parliament. It’s become a shadow of its former self – hopefully we’ll see more politicians willing to make the hard decisions but not right now when it’s needed. Who in their right mind agrees to hand out billions to renewable energy companies as subsidies, then billions more in rebates to families hit by high fuel costs when removing those subsidies would cost less and enable market forces to regulate the energy sector for them?
I would contend that hydraulic fracturing was the best thing to happen to green energy, particularly here in the states. The reduction in price of natural gas allowed the cost of fossil energy generation to fall masking the costs of increased wind and solar. Natural gas fired power plants are also the most easily ramped up and down which makes up for the fickle generation of renewables.
From 2015 to 2020 natural gas prices stayed below $3/MBTU. It 2021 is rose substantially and is now running about 50% higher than the end of the last decade. With the price veil down, the cost to supporting multiple energy generation infrastructures, each running at under 40% nameplate capacity (solar <25%, wind <40% and fossil fuels <40% (as back-up)) is going to be reflected in consumer utility rates.
Precisely. Not everyone knows that, despite how conspicuous and uncomplicated it is. But Biden/Harris/Schumer/Pelosi will waste about a $trillion on wind, solar, and batteries, during the next 6 years, before the US low information voting crowd “gets it”. Let’s hope our economy survives (I’m not optimistic).
And it will just keep getting worse. As governments keep pushing EVs, and outlawing new homes and businesses from using gas as California has, and prohibiting new pipelines as the population grows, and closing down nuclear plants, and in some cases even NG plants, the inability of so called RE power to maintain the economy will become greater and more obvious. Yes, even eventually to those loath to pay any attention.
I have yet to hear a politician elucidate a coherent message on how to deal with the climate change issue. My thoughts are:
I know that does not make for very good sound bites, but that’s what we need.
I think 2. is additionally about them being used with unlikely extreme assumptions.
Since 2, 3 and 4 are demonstrably true, 1 should be restated to read that “it is a non-problem”.
At this point the issue of AGW/Climate Change is much more of a political issue than a scientific one. You can’t deny the impact it is having on policy decisions at all levels. However, to deny the science (even if true) is to relegate yourself to the sidelines, and as the saying goes, “If you’re not at the table you’re on the menu.” Politics may require giving some lip service to things as a convenience of being able to be a player. We need politicians who can have influence and steer things in a more reasonable direction rather than being on the outside looking in.
When you admit that a non-problem is a problem, then you justify all the nuttiness that the warmunists are trying to foist on us.
It is only the fact that climate change is a non-problem that disarms them.
Tom.1,
I understand what you’re saying. However, the strategy of always allowing the left to set the terms of the debate is why the right has basically been getting rolled for over a century.
There is no science in AGW/Climate change. Heat Transfer, Therodynamics and fluid dynamics (winds, ocean currents etc) are engineering (chemical and mechanical) subjects which no person who calls themselves “climate scientists” understands. Thermodynamics clearly has it that CO2 can not affect surface temperatures.It is time the word science invented in mid 19th century for people like Darwin was dropped. Chemical and mechanical engineers also know about electricity generation whether it is batteries, solar, internal combustion engines, turbines or nuclear. It should be left to these engineers to design, build and operate electricity in the most reliable way and at the cheapest cost. Politics only always gets in the way of good outcomes which can benefit human kind.
That’s because most politicians in the West are career politicians, more concerned with covering their own backsides, doing nothing that will hurt their re-election/pension chances and only doing and saying things that are in line with popular culture/knee-jerk reactions to media campaigns. It’s a culture of idiocy, complacency and blinkered vision.
You recommend a lie, item 1, as a go along, to get along? Hmmm. Does Mother Nature care is ATM CO2 is 0.03%, 0.04%, 0.05%, 0.06% or even 0.07%? Surely, long before 0.07%, we’ll be running our economies on fast neutron reactors and the demon CH4/CO2 molecules will be “contained”.
I could sort of agree that the climate is changing, it has always changed, and there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it. There, I agreed with OP, right?
I guess. Red 94 Viper want-to-be or real? I have a 94 Thunderbird Super coupe with 150K, still running great. Super cool car….but not in the Viper league.
One would hope the the modelling of hugh mortality that failed to materialize for the recent “pandemic” might make a few more people skeptical of models.
Sorry Tom, but once again, all wrong. It isn’t a problem, there is no problem today, that is the entire point.
Any potential problem is unproven and only exists in models developed to show a problem.
The only thing we know for absolute surety is that we will go back into glaciation, a true existential threat, and all the rest of the above is just pissing into the wind
I provide the sharpened wooden stakes, someone else can bring the mallets!
The Earth is cooler with the atmosphere/GHGs/albedo not warmer.
Is this correct or incorrect?
To perform as advertised the GHGs require “extra” energy upwelling from the terrestrial surface radiating LWIR as a black body. See these graphics which contain egregious arithmetic and thermodynamic errors: https://youtu.be/0Jijw7-YG-U
Is this correct or incorrect?
As explained and demonstrated by experiment the terrestrial surface cannot radiate/upwell “extra” energy as a black body. For the experimental write up see:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
“The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth.””
Richard P. Feynman, “Six Easy Pieces”
Is this correct or incorrect?
If even one of the above three points is correct the greenhouse effect theory is not.
No GHE, no GHG warming, no mankind/CO2 driven climate change or global warming.
Version 1.0 020522
Q1.”….cooler with the atmosphere/GHGs/albedo…” since clouds have an Albedo of up to .9 and cover up to 2/3 of the ocean (Albedo .1) a more appropriate question would be whether the Earth would be warmer or cooler without clouds. The answer is more sunshine at ground level = warmer. On the other hand, with 2/3 cloud cover, adding more greenhouse gases should cause some atmospheric warming because those GHG absorb heat that would otherwise escape to outer space. So the answer to your question is “that depends on a clearer definition of the question”.
Q2.”the GHGs require “extra” energy upwelling from the terrestrial surface…is this correct”. The surface temp averages 288 K, and thus radiates about 375 watts/M^2 IR upward on average. The entire planet radiates about 240 to outer space. The difference is called the Greenhouse Effect, and is caused mostly by IR emitted by clouds and water vapor back towards the surface, from where it is reemitted upwards. So again a clearer definition of the question is required….but I will say “Incorrect” as no extra energy is required from the sun, and your statement that there are math and thermodynamic errors in the back radiation calculation is also “Incorrect”.
Q3. “the terrestrial surface cannot radiate/upwell “extra” energy as a black body”. See above regarding “extra” energy. Also the Earth radiates about 95% of Black body values. See attached table. And your boiling kettle experiment is subject to the usual convective heat transfer and accuracy errors that plague the “shining a heat lamp on pop bottles with and without CO2” experiments. Experiments that are NFG are NOT the sole judge of scientific “truth”.
I will continue to troll your posts and make my counter comments solely so that new and casual readers are not deluded by your bu11sh’t.
Q1: Remove the atmosphere or just the GHGs and the Earth loses its 30% albedo, i.e. no water vapor, no clouds, no ice and snow, no oceans, no vegetation – now being baked by the full 394 K ISR becoming much like the barren rock ball 10 % albedo Moon, i.e. hot^3 400 K on the lit side cold^3 95 K on the dark as evidenced in UCLA Diviner mission lunar surface data and the HVAC criteria for the ISS’s 250 F lit side – a direct refutation of the greenhouse theory’s ice ball Earth.
Btw 288 K – 255 K = 33 C cooler is trash. 255 K assumes the w/o Earth keeps the 30% albedo, IMO that’s fraud!
Q2: Referencing the attached K-T atmospheric heat balance. 342 ISR, 240 net albedo, 161 net/net to the surface. Per 1st LoT 161 is ALL!!!! that can leave. 17 sensible, 80 latent, balance of 63 by LWIR. That’s ALL!! NO MORE!!!
The “extra” out-of-nowhere 396 upwelling is the theoretical “What if?” S-B BB calculation for a 16 C surface that goes in the denominator of the textbook emissivity ratio, 63/396=0.16. (See attached.)
It is NOT real!!
Neither is the 333 downwelling.
The plethora of copy-cats have the same errors.
And it is NOT measured.
IR instruments do not directly measure power flux, they measure relative & comparative temperatures and infer power flux by assuming emissivity and assuming 1.0 instead of 0.16 is incorrect. I have an experiment that demonstrates this, too. (‘nother reply)
Q3: The experiment clearly demonstrates that a surface’s sensible, latent and radiation heat transfer processes are co-dependent.
Conduction/convection/latent heat transfers are functions of the kinetic energy of stuff. Radiation is a function of temperature alone. What is temperature? The kinetic energy of stuff. Duh!
Radiation does not function separately from those sensible heat transfer processes and as such cannot radiate as BB. The only way a surface can radiate BB is into a vacuum, as demonstrated. Placed under vacuum the heating element displayed the predicted BB temperature.
Any one of these points takes out the GHE.
Herein I spoof an IR instrument to display temperature and power flux that do not exist.
The purpose of this little experiment is to demonstrate: 1) configuration of the IR thermometer/instrument can easily create temperature/power flux readings where none exist and 2) radiative heat transfer from a surface is not independent from the non-radiative processes.
One:
Emissivity is the ratio between the radiative energy leaving and ALL the energy leaving the surface. ALL is the sum of (conduction+convection+advection (wind)+latent (condensation & evaporation) and radiation) = ALL.
Emissivity = Radiation/ALL
When the instrument is set at an emissivity, say 0.4, it believes that what it sees is 40% of ALL, i.e. sees = 0.4 * ALL. A temperature and power flux consistent with the calculated ALL is then displayed which is much higher than the observed T/C/power flux reading.
The assumed surface temperature of 16 C, 289 K is inserted in the S-B equation assuming an emissivity of 1.0 to get a result of 396 W/m^2. The assumption of 1.0 is incorrect. Actual radiation from the balance is 63 W/m^2 for an emissivity of 63/396=0.16.
This explains how IR instruments read “extra” upwelling and downwelling LWIR values that defy both reality and physics.
These IR instruments are also not independent measurements because it appears from USCRN data they are adjusted to match surface temperatures which are measured, per WMO, 1.5 m above the ground and not the ground per se.
Two:
The fan reduces the surface temperature by about 20 F and radiation decreases as well. This is why ideal BB LWIR upwelling “extra” energy from the surface is not possible especially over the oceans where non-radiative heat transfer processes are the major heat transfer modes.
There are those who claim to measure the up/down, trapped/”back” radiated energy of the GHGs. I have explained and demonstrated how that energy cannot exist without violating the conservation of energy laws. Their extraordinary claim demanding extraordinary evidence is in their court not mine.
You need to go back to your heat transfer courses and more carefully study the chapter on radiative heat transfer. Your failure to recognize the -Tcold^4 term in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is a meme in your calcs that is wrong.
Let’s do the ENTIRE equation: Q, kJ/h = sigma * epsilon * A * T^4.
Write one for hot system and one for cold system.
Subtract c from h: Qh – Qc = sigma *((eph * Ah * Th^4) – (epc * Ac * Tc^4)).
Now, assume ep is 1.0 and Ah = Ac. Rearrange.
Q/Anet = sigma * (Th^4 – Tc^4)
This describes the energy/work needed to remove energy from a system of constant A making it colder or move energy from inside system Ac (kegerator) to outside system Ah (man cave).
(Th^4t – T^4c) is not “back” radiation, it is the work/energy required of the refrigeration loop to move heat from the cold system to the warm one, e.g. refrigerator. If “back” radiation existed there would be refrigerators w/o power cords. I haven’t seen any. You?
And BTW your change of subject dodges my 3 points any of which fails GHE.
Colder w atmos/albedo/GHGs not warmer.
GHGs loop needs magical extra energy upwelling from a BB surface (See heat balance link)
Because of the non-radiative heat transfer processes of the contiguous participating atmos molecules such upwelling BB is not possible. (See attached slide)
You don’t even answer his quoted statements correctly how can you refute what he says.
Your Q2 starts off with a quote from Nick then you say no “extra energy is required from the SUN…”. He never said sun.
Nick is correct in (what I think is) his underlying assertion. If earth was devoid of an atmosphere the surface would be hotter. You even agree when you say “more sunshine … = warmer”.
I am saying ‘more sunshine=warmer‘ due to albedo, which is fairly obvious, whereas Nick says that same phenomenon proves GHE does not exist, which is false. And his experiment calcs just shows that he thinks the net 63 watts of IR is something other than [fore minus back] radiated photons, which is just nonsense on his part.
Wrong all around.
More albedo the Earth cools, less albedo the Earth warms, no albedo the Earth bakes just like the Moon. GHE theory says no GHGs = no albedo & Earth becomes ball of ice. WRONG^4!
One of the 63’s is the balance from the real ISR. 160 – 17 -80 = 63
Ta’ second 63 is from the 396 “What if?” calc that is the denominator of the emissivity ratio and is NOT real!
If by GHGs you mean water in all its form, then it is cooler. This occurs because cloud formation over tropical oceans limits energy uptake through a powerful surface temperature control process known as convective instability.
The direct action of clouds reflecting more sunlight than the reduction in LWIR from cloud tops means atmospheric water is a net cooling agent.
Tropical open ocean warm pools are temperature limited to annual average of 30C. That is as warm as they can possibly get because the surface insolation is only 200W/sq.m at that surface temperature, which balances the atmospheric column LWIR loss of 200W/sq.m at cloud top at 245K.
You can put any gas or aerosol in the atmosphere and the only way to alter the temperature limit is to increase atmospheric mass. It has to be significant mass to alter the temperature – not a trace gas.
The idea of a delicate radiative balance altered by a trace gas is nuts – naive in the extreme.
I wish for Menton to be correct in his political assessment, but I think he might be overly optimistic. I don’t see any significant push back on Klimate Kraziness from any pols, let alone a party of them. Divesting from BlackRock is a paltry move, not a pendulum swing.
However, if climate realist politicians exist, then we should support them. But who are they? Any suggested names?
Candace Bergen
“Divesting from BlackRock is a paltry move, not a pendulum swing.”
Maybe not divestment, but this snip from the article suggests an outcome that would be huge:
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the trustees for the State Board of Administration voted to “clarify the state’s expectation that all fund managers should act solely in the financial interest of the state’s funds” and revoked “all proxy voting authority of outside fund managers,” including BlackRock.”
I’m not a securities lawyer, but I think that there’s a good case to be made, or at least a law that could be passed by a free market oriented Congress, that as the ‘fundies’ don’t own the shares, they shouldn’t be able to vote the proxies. This would nullify the ability of progressive ‘activists’ in all areas from using OPM (other peoples money) to attain their goals.
“…whereas the costs for 4.5 million with prepayment meters will rise by £708 to £2,017 on average.”
What is a “prepayment meter”? Do you insert coins like the “magic fingers” device they used to have in Holiday Inns back in the ‘60’s?
Not coins – its more like a payg SIM. You can buy prepayment cards or use apps.
You preload a card with credits and stick that in the meter, when the credits run out the meter stops and the lights go out.
What is a prepayment meter?Prepayment meters also known as ‘pay-as-you-go’ meters are a type of domestic energy meter that requires users to pay for energy before using it. Energy is added by using a smartcard, token or key that can be topped up at a shop or via a smartphone app.
https://www.edfenergy.com/for-home/help-support/pay-as-you-go
I meant to add that is from an energy supplier website.
Prepayment meters are predominantly used by those with the lowest incomes.
Well, those with the worst credit scores, that have shown a tendency to skip out on paying validly incurred debts. Which might actually be a fair idea. The more deadbeat customers a utility is forced to deal with, the higher the rates go on everybody, borne by those that pay their bills.
Unless those “deadbeat customers” are unable to pay artificially inflated bills due to government imposed RE subsidies raising electricity costs for everyone. I just can’t find it in me to call families forced to choose between buying food or paying sky high utility bills “deadbeats”.
And that is only half the equation Industry pays also some less profitable some moved to locations such as China who produce electricity at a third of the cost with coal.
So in aggregate wages follow a lower trajectory.
People are very sensitive to the rise or fall of fortune. The Economist many years ago talked of studies trying to find what made people happy and a wealthy country going nowhere was far less happy than a modestly wealthy country growing well.
This will prove the undoing of the left.
Unfortunately, the Republican governor of NH Chris Sununu is fully onboard the “green” energy cuckoo train. He’s a popular governor, now serving his 3rd term, and who will likely serve a fourth term as well. He loves the retarded idea of offshore wind. My guess is that he’s intellectually lazy, and not willing to investigate ideas fully. Thus, “green energy is good”, and “will provide jobs”, and will help “save the planet” is about as far as he gets. Sad.
“Saving the Planet” is exactly like “Saving the Children”. It is impossible to quantify, based only on emotion and requires a lot of donations from do gooders who spend their days watching Sally Struthers cry on TV.
The fact of the matter is that something needs to be burned in order to stay warm. If you’re not willing to use the natural resources that provide the most energy dense solution to do that, then you are guaranteed to pay more for less.
And when you pay more for less, your standard of living goes down every time too. Guaranteed.
Of course, off shore for New Hampshire means the wind turbines are an eye sore in someone else’s state at another state’s taxpayers subsidy.
NH actually does have some coast, but yes, I think the plan is to use Maine’s coast as well. NIMBYism will of course play a part, and maybe, hopefully, could succeed in sidelining the effort.
I bet the people of Maine won’t like turbines for NH energy. They refused the power line for Canadian hydro going to Mass.
No, New Hampshire has some coastline! But it’s such a short coastline, you may be right, even if those wind turbines are located in (technically) NH coastal waters, they will be visible, probably from both Massachusetts and Maine.
I live a few miles south of NY in central Mass. Gonna be minus 13 F tonight. Probably colder in NH. Somebody should ask Sununu where is the climate crisis? Maybe he’ll blame the ultra cold on it. NH doesn’t have a long coast line- where is gonna put the bird choppers?
EXCERPT from:
BIDEN 30,000 MW OFFSHORE WIND SYSTEMS BY 2030; AN EXPENSIVE FANTASY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/biden-30-000-mw-of-offshore-wind-systems-by-2030-a-total-fantasy
The Biden administration announced on October 13, 2021, it will subsidize the development of up to seven offshore wind systems (never call them farms) on the US East and West coasts, and in the Gulf of Mexico; a total of about 30,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
Biden’s offshore wind systems would have an adverse, long-term impact on US electricity wholesale prices, and the prices of all other goods and services, because their expensive electricity would permeate into all economic activities.
The wind turbines would be at least 800-ft-tall, which would need to be located at least 30 miles from shores, to ensure minimal disturbance from night-time strobe lights.
Any commercial fishing areas would be significantly impacted by below-water infrastructures and cables. The low-frequency noise (less than 20 cycles per second, aka infrasound) of the wind turbines would adversely affect marine life, and productivity of fishing areas.
Production: Annual production would be about 30,000 x 8766 h/y x 0.45, capacity factor = 118,341,000 MWh, or 118.3 TWh of variable, intermittent, wind/weather/season-dependent electricity.
The additional wind production would be about 100 x 118.3/4000 = 2.96% of the annual electricity loaded onto US grids.
That US load would increase, due to tens of millions of future electric vehicles and heat pumps.
This would require a large capacity of combined-cycle, gas-turbine plants, CCGTs, to cost-effectively:
1) Counteract the wind output variations, MW, aka grid balancing
2) Fill-in wind production shortfalls, MWh, during any wind lulls
Such lulls occur at random throughout the year, and may last 5 to 7 days in the New England area.
These URLs provide examples of similar wind/solar lull conditions in Germany and New England
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/analysis-of-a-6-day-lull-of-wind-and-solar-during-summer-in-new
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-plus-solar-plus-storage-in-new-england
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-and-solar-energy-lulls-energy-storage-in-germany
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/playing-russian-roulette-with-reliable-electricity-service-to-new
High Costs of Balancing the Grid with Increased Wind and Solar
The ANNUAL grid balancing costs are entirely due to the variations and intermittencies of wind and solar, because the OTHER power plants have to operate far from their efficient modes of operation, 24/7/365. They experience:
1) More up/down production at lower efficiencies, which have more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh
2) More equipment wear-and-tear cost/kWh, due to up/down production
3) More-frequent plant starts/stops, which have high Btu/kWh, high CO2/kWh
Increased wind and solar also requires:
– Increased hot, synchronous (3,600 rpm), standby plant capacity, MW, to immediately provide power, if wind/solar generation suddenly decreases, or any other power system outage occurs.
– Increased cold, standby plant capacity, MW, to provide power after a plant’s start-up period.
When wind and solar were only a very small percent of the electricity loaded onto the NE grid, those balancing costs were minimal, sort of “lost in the data fog”
When wind and solar became a large percent, those balancing costs in the UK became 1.3 BILLION U.K. pounds in 2020, likely even more in 2021, 2022, etc.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/grid-balancing-costs-sky-rocket-in-the-uk-due-to-increased-wind
Those balancing costs should have been charged to the Owners of wind and solar systems, but, in reality, they were politically shifted to taxpayers, ratepayers, and government debts.
Those balancing costs are in addition to the various government subsidies, which are also politically shifted to taxpayers, ratepayers, and government debts.
Now you all are finally beginning to see just how wonderful wind and solar have been, and will be, for your pocketbook.
Energy systems analysts, with decades of experience, saw this mess coming about 20 years ago, but all-knowing legislators and bureaucrats ignored them, because they were pressured into aiding and abetting the harvesting of federal and state subsidies for RE businesses.
Turnkey Capital Cost: The turnkey capital cost for wind systems, plus offshore/onshore grid extension/augmentation would be about 30,000 MW x $5,000,000/MW = $150 BILLION, excluding financing costs. Biden’s excessive inflation rates, about 7% at present, surely would increase that cost.
Area Requirements: The 8-MW wind turbines would be arranged on a grid, spaced at least one mile apart (8 rotor diameters), about 1 sq mile per wind turbine. The minimum sea area requirement for 30,000/8 = 3,750 wind turbines would be 3,750 sq miles, or 2,400,000 acres
Electricity Cost/kWh: Based on the real-world European, mostly UK and German, operating experience in the North Sea and Baltic, such highly subsidized wind turbine systems:
1) Last about 20 years
2) Have high maintenance and operating costs, due to the adverse marine environment
3) Produce electricity at an “al-in” cost of about 2.25 times NE wholesale prices. See Appendix
The “all-in” wholesale prices of the offshore electricity of new systems are calculated at about 17 c/kWh, without cost shifting and subsidies, and about 9 c/kWh, with cost shifting and subsidies. The shifted costs and subsidies would result in:
1) Increased tax burdens on taxpayers
2) Increased household electric rates on ratepayers
3) Additions to federal and state government debts.
4) Additional burdens on the owners of traditional generators, because their power plants have to counteract the wind output variations, 24/7/365; the more wind (and solar), the greater the electricity quantities involved in the counteracting, plus their plants have to spend more time on standby, and are required to have more-frequent start/stops. See URLs and Appendix
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/grid-balancing-costs-sky-rocket-in-the-uk-due-to-increased-wind
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-shifting-is-the-name-of-the-game-regarding-wind-and-solar
NOTE: These rates compare with the average New England wholesale price of 5 c/kWh, during the 2009 – 2022 period, 13 years, courtesy of:
1) Abundant, domestic, natural gas-fueled CCGT plants, that have: 1) low-cost/kWh, low-CO2/kWh, extremely-low particulate/kWh
2) Domestic, uranium-fueled nuclear plants, that have low-cost/kWh, near-zero CO2/kWh, zero particulate/kWh
3) Long-lasting hydro plants, that have low-cost/kWh, near-zero-CO2/kWh, zero particulate/kWh
NOTE: Cost shifting and subsidies have not yet affected NE wholesale prices, because the percent of new RE (mostly wind and solar) on the NE grid is very small, after 20 years of subsidies.
The image shows the negligeable “contribution” of wind + solar to the NE grid load, during 2021, after 20 years of subsidies!!
Wind and solar became significant in Germany and Denmark after more than 20 years of subsidies, resulting in:
– Politicians excessively allocating RE costs to households, thereby greatly increasing household electric rates.
– Politicians keeping industrial rates artificially low for international competitiveness reasons (a hidden trade subsidy). See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/german-household-electricity-prices-reach-new-record-high-in-2021
I’d feel better if I did not feel that these politicians are not taking this stance out of knowledge, but for political reasons. Just as many green Democrats support the agenda because they think it will win them votes, even if they don’t see it as an issue. I’m sure there are lots of Conservative politicians who do it for the opposite reason.
Power and money.
Nothing to do with saving the planet.
I strongly suspect that if we could truly follow-the-money through all its twists and turns and laundering we would find that every politician that advocates for “green energy” gets a kickback in some manner, whether it’s just in votes or outright cash. Take as example #1, the 0bummers… When they arrived in Washington D.C. in 2006 they were flat broke, even in debt. Upon leaving the presidency 10 years later, they have mansions in Martha’s Vineyard, Chicago and (rumor has it, but I haven’t seen proof) his alleged “home state” of Hawaii. That was the kickback/bribe money, for delivering the goods to all his crony capitalism cronies while he was in office, both as Senator and as President. And since they’re “Public Figure” now, their best and only defense to find me libelous in a court of law, showing that I told a falsehood, is not available to them, is it!
I remember stupid Newt sitting next to Nancy Pelosi. And I thought it was over. Then stupid Matt Goetz promoting “green” energy to appeal to young folks and I thought it was over then too.
Not yet though. Turns out the GOP has some balls after all.
Nah, they are just running like crazy to get to the front of the parade as represented by the common citizen they despise, but who’s votes they need.
The first time I did any research into “Global Warming” Google helpfully auto-completed for me with “Global Warming scam”. Many articles I read at the time that surveyed the political aspect of the “Global Warming scam” said most Republicans were frantically running around D.C. frantically searching for someone to frantically surrender to! At least we have pulled back from that stance. Maybe even quite a bit.
The Big Corp wing of the Republican Party, just like the Democrat Party, exists to provide subsidies (aka taxpayer guaranteed profit) to their campaign contributors. America is a crony capitalist system and both parties exist to provide government guaranteed profits. “Green energy” is just one of many gimmicks used to fool the voters; “job creation” is any even bigger scam.
If they were honest, they’d call it fascism or syndicalism, but “progressivism” sounds better, and “liberalism” better yet.
The house-of-cards of “green, renewable energy replacing fossil fuels” was destined to fail from the get-go . . . I’m glad to see it is happening now rather than later. But it will be painful (and taxpayer-costly) to go through it.
Still, it is amazing that it took such a mass of so-called-intelligent people to come to realize the underlying FACTS of the situation . . . and even more amazing that a few (such as Bernie Sanders, AOC and Joe Biden) continue to believe in the equivalent of a modern day unicorn.
It demonstrates the value of our wonderful modern education system which fails young people so disastrously. Examples – Greta, and all those kids attending “climate protest rallies”. Growing up can be such a painful experience!
You can’t convince me that anyone fully believes it. What they see is their path to continued power and money and control forever more into perpetuity!!! And that is all they want from it.
Just because a radical politician rants and raves about something, doesn’t mean they actually believe what they are saying. Often it only means they believe saying it will get them votes in a very liberal, typically uninformed, district.
It’s almost certain that the above revelations will be thoroughly covered by ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, New York Times etc.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
We keep being told the cost of unreliables has fallen well below that of fossil fuels. Can anyone think of a jurisdiction where the price of electricity has fallen because of a switch from fossil fuels to unreliables.
None exist because the GND assertion (like from EIA) is false. Details over at Judith’s in post True Cost of Wind. Correcting the deliberate EIA errors, and using ERCOT for transmission, LCOE of CCGT. Is about $58/MWh. Comparable cost of onshore wind is $146/MWh.
They can only make the claim by ignoring the cost of backup. And in fact, relying on fossil fuels as backup means a significant amount of capital equipment must be running up to temperature and up to speed but generating no billable power, to be able to provide that back up and pick up the slack when the unreliable power (inevitably) fails. Which is putting wear and tear on that machinery but generates no revenue, so the “Levelized Cost Of Energy” (LCOE) (the expenses minus revenue, divided by the amount of power produced) rises significantly. In other words, fossil fuels in this equation, are penalized for providing backup to the favored unreliables! As an engineer, I see red every time I encounter another LCOE based write-up, ’cause I know it’s worse than just fiction (that can at least be sometimes entertaining), it’s an outright lie meant to defraud! Grrrrrrr!!!!!!
It’s creating wear and tear, and it’s also consuming fuel. Which puts the lie to the claim that renewable power reduces CO2 emissions.
I can just never get past the irony of the fact that nuclear power is in every respect, and by a wide margin, the best option available for decarbonizing our energy supply, but Greeny-Lefties are against it, ‘cuz reasons.
As the Germans move back toward coal and as the world moves to more fossil fuels especially coal, I want Jane Fonda to survive and thrive so she can see what she has done with her demonization of nuclear.
Before she goes to her reward I want her to be aware of how much she is personally responsible for evil CO2 emissions.
“Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.”
William Shatner, Airplane 2
and don;t forget that serious greens like the Sierra Club are against hydroelectric also.
It’s bad for the environment..
The members of the Sierra Club should really boycott electricity.
Nuclear has been scapegoated and regulated almost to death. I contend that if a nuclear plant could be constructed with the same level of regulatory oversight as a fossil fuel plant, the cost of the nuclear plants would drop by two-thirds. Just a feeling, mind you, can anyone provide any supporting, or even refuting, documentation for this claim?
Viper,
Yes, see the extensive analyses by Australian colleague Peter Lang.
Sample to start here –
Energies | Free Full-Text | Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone (mdpi.com)
Geoff S
Prior to the Three Mile Island incident, the cost of building a nuclear power plant was less than the cost of building a coal plant. The coal industry was in a panic about it, and Three Mile Island, and later Chernobyl, were godsends for them, because those incidents lead to the creation of the NRC and to nuclear power being regulated to death by huge regulatory burden costs.
I don’t have all the figure to hand, but here are some: Until 1983, the cost of new nuclear power capacity was ~$1,000/kW. By 1986, it had risen to ~$4,000 kW, and now in most of the western world, it’s up to ~$5,000-$7,000/kW. Again, this is pretty much entirely the result of regulatory burden. Here’s a source to back up these figures for you: https://youtu.be/b0Tg_Sh1NFY?t=2555
We are witnessing the inevitable consequence of “rock and hard place”….in this case, the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
wishful thinking and pious appeals to green wokery will not keep the lights on and the homes warm
The UK chancellor is using the same words as Obama did. This is the new normal get used to it.
In mainland Europe we are phooked.
We have gone from 50 euros/MWh at the start of 2021 to 222 euros/MWh in December 2021.
Here in oligarchical collectivist Europe, energy producers must purchase CO² emission rights to save the planet.
The more CO² you create in electricity production, the more the producer must buy quotas.
When CO2 emission quota prices increased as it did back in December to 80 euros per ton, well guess what happens to your electricity bill?
So, the same amount of CO² has still gone into the atmosphere but you’re dramatically out of pocket, the government is richer, and gets to piss that money away on “Green™”, plus inflation is now up at 5.3%, which gives you €1.67/$1.90 for a litre of diesel at the pump, that’s only 0.2 freakin’ gallons, and there is no end insight to the insane mess we’ve got ourselves into.
… and there’s some virus going around apparently as well…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/04/25/a-planetary-problem
I read the series and swallowed most of the Global Warming bait … but I could see the obvious solution … replace coal, oil and gas generation with nuclear power. Hasn’t happened. Yet.
It will. The only question is how much will we spend on wind, solar and other intermittent power sources before nuclear returns to its rightful spot as the safe, clean, reliable source of almost all the power necessary to support us all.
The question is how do we get the engineers and scientists in the same room with the ignorant politicians long enough without disruption from the Green police to actually understand the actual and historical data, understand why man made CO2 is not the driver of the planet temperature, ask questions and actually listen, run the real math on going Zero? Too much to ask I am afraid …
There is hope …
https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2022/02/04/california-urged-to-keep-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-open-for-its-clean-energy/
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-activists-who-embrace-nuclear-power
From what others have stated here, it’s too late save the plant. In order to prepare the plant for decommissioning, the operators have started procedures that can’t be reversed.
This is a wonderful article. What is good about it is that this fellow steps back and looks at the big picture without getting mired down in endless technicalities of whether this view of science or another is proper. Most of us can’t understand all the specialty terms and math. The point is can wind and solar replace fossil fuels and nuclear? The answer is no. Not just that it can’t be done economically but it can’t be done period.
Yes, this is the point. It cannot be done, and therefore will not be done.
And this impossibility is what the Net Zero plans will run headfirst into. If they carry on as they are now, they will force everyone to electric cars and heat pumps, while at the same time reducing the amount of electricity available to power even existing demand.
The practical proof of this is found in the plans to put EV chargers on smart meters, so they can be turned off centrally. Heat pumps, its being hinted, will have to be the same.
The result is, obliging everyone to buy appliances which require electricity while at the same time refusing them the electricity they require.
And in fact increasing dependence on gas. Think about it. When you move electricity generation on a large scale to a high proportion of supply from wind, what you actually do is increase the demand for gas, because of intermittency.
When you convert from gasoline to electricity for EVs you are therefore in practice moving cars to gas power, because its gas that is mainly supplying what electricity there is. When you throw out oil or gas boilers and replace them with heat pumps, its still gas that is used to generate the electricity that they need.
This is a way of increasing gas dependence. Its sold as increasing reliance on electricity, but ask where the electricity comes from, and what supplies there are will be will be entirely dependent on gas, without which the grid will fall over in a few weeks.
Meanwhile there is increasing awareness in the Conservative Party that Net Zero is a disaster in the making.
I don’t know whether to share the author’s optimism that this is all coming to a head and an end. I think there’s a serious possibility that it will take a disaster for any of the political parties in the UK to turn. Yes, there are voices in the Conservative Party, just about the only ones in the UK, who are calling this craziness out. But for them to get a majority behind them? Its reasonable to doubt that it will happen in time to avert disaster.
Australia started getting rid of coal at the beginning of this century. This is what has been achieved:
https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all&interval=1M
Back in 2000, coal was supplying 13.5GW average output. Last year it has dropped to 11GW.
If that trend was maintained, Australia could be coal free by 2108; all without nuclear.
Problem is the easy part has been done. Without very low cost storage, it becomes horrendously expensive to maintain this strategy.
Australia has close to the best solar resource of any country. Rooftop solar often outperform all the grid scale wind generators and rooftops have made grid scale solar uneconomic, even with current grid scale subsidies. The rooftops are more heavily subsidised.
And they have the grid instability to prove it
Reposting from below
As the Germans move back toward coal and as the world moves to more fossil fuels especially coal, I want Jane Fonda to survive and thrive so she can see what she has done with her demonization of nuclear.
Before she goes to her reward I want her to be aware of how much she is personally responsible for evil CO2 emissions.
“Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.”
William Shatner, Airplane 2
The Daily Mail said, “We have vast unexploited reserves of oil, gas and shale.”
Vast?? In the UK??
Not massive but fairly substantial. If we exploited those reserves we’d be energy secure for more than the next 50 years or so, easily enough time to build up a substantial nuclear infrastructure.
the call should be to change net zero to Nyet Zero.
One of the problems we have in the UK is the low intelligence of our elected representatives. Our MPs are, basically, thick. Look. Take three countries – China, Japan and the UK. China has more than 1,000 coal-fired power stations and is building 44 more this year. Japan, which is 1.6 times bigger than the UK, has 85 coal-fired power stations and is planning to build 22 more. The UK has three coal-fired power stations and plans to close all three. Now – of these three countries, which one is moving to a net zero economy? Yes, that’s right, it is the UK!
These facts are not hard to find. Here’s another. The UK’s contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere is 0.000012%. Again, pretty easy to work out. But they don’t.
Of course, another big problem in the UK is we have the BBC to contend with, a state-sponsored communications company that, via radio, television and the internet, pours socialist and ‘woke’ propaganda into every living room. Since it took the decision, in 2006, not to report global warming issues impartially it has frozen out all opposing news and views. For example, few people in Britain are aware that there has been no global warming for the last 7 years. The BBC never publishes the science (how could they?) just consistent messaging that unless we end the use of fossil fuels the earth will experience catastrophe.
Meanwhile in the UK we are suffering huge rises in energy costs – while having massive reserves of natural gas beneath our feet. There are signs that one or two Cabinet ministers are feeling their brain cells stirring as they realise the absurdity of the situation. But most MPs are just brain-dead – they literally lack the intelligence to understand the science, research for themselves. Most of our journalists are the same, even in the Telegraph, just pursuing ‘nodding dog’ journalism and not asking the most obvious questions. Britain, like much of the world, is in the grip of the latest mass delusion. Manmade climate change is a fact-free world religion. Logic has departed. All we can do is wait for the mania to subside.
For the benefit of non-Brits, our chancellor Sunak is rich. His wife is stinking rich. So when this idiot stands up and says that ‘We will have to get used to high energy prices’ it is an insult to virtually all of the UK population as the ‘we’ certainly does not include him.
If Trump taught the Republicans anything it was to take the fight to the Dems, don’t sit back and let them win. He called out the news media for what it is, “fake news”. The left hated him for it and still do. We can no longer let the left get away with their fakery, take it to them.
I note the Telegraph having an each way bet here:
“The big political question is whether the country is prepared to pay for net zero now that people can see the implications of a policy that will do nothing to combat global climate change for as long as the world’s biggest CO2 producers refuse to change their own practices.”
the correct statement would be:
“The big political question is whether the country is prepared to pay for net zero now that people can see the implications of a policy that will do nothing to alter natural climate change. even if was implemented globally”
There, fixed it for them.
P.S. What’s the going rate for an editor at a toilet paper printing works?