The Week That Was: 2023-10-14 (October 14, 2023)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project

Quote of the Week: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” ‒ Carl Sagan

Number of the Week: 41 Times greater

THIS WEEK:

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

Scope: This TWTW discusses what Europe calls Net Zero, and what Washington calls the Green New Deal. Michael Kelly of the UK gives an analysis of the costs and feasibility for the US to implement the current energy transition undertaken by Washington. This fall, there are few alarming reports on Western wildfires or droughts. At the suggestion of reader Bud Bromley, TWTW addresses some of the problems of changing definitions in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

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Green New Deal: The US government is implementing what can be called the Green New Deal – an energy transformation from fossil fuels to so-called renewable (unreliable) energy sources. Yet TWTW has seen no report from a government agency or US scientific organization with a rigorous study of what is required, what technological limitations exist, and what costs are involved. According to an article published in The Telegraph, UK on October 11:

“Michael Kelly is Emeritus Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Royal Academy of Engineering, of the Royal Society of New Zealand, of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, as well as Senior Member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering in the USA. He is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.”

Paul Homewood reproduces most of the article, which provides the best analysis of the feasibility and costs of Washington’s energy dreams that TWTW has seen. Homewood’s post is copied with boldface added by TWTW. Note that Kelley refers to Net Zero, while Washington calls Net Zero the Green New Deal. Be forewarned, Kelly spent his entire professional life as a highly competent engineer. As such, his essay may embody well established engineering concepts that fellow engineers and others familiar with such profession writing clearly understand, but the lack of explanation may confuse some readers. Kelly states:

“Three very large, interrelated, and multidisciplinary engineering projects will need to be completed. Transport will have been electrified. Industrial and domestic heat will have been electrified. The electricity sector – generation, transmission, and distribution – will have been greatly expanded in order to cope with the first two projects and will have ceased to use fossil fuels.

I have had a long career in industrial and academic engineering, and recently retired as Professor of Technology in electrical engineering at Cambridge University. I’ve spent some time looking into the feasibility of these ideas, and these are the facts.

At the moment the USA uses on average 7,768 trillion British Thermal Units of energy every month, most of which is supplied by burning fossil fuel either directly for heat or transport, or indirectly to generate electricity.

Because an internal combustion engine converts the energy stored in its fuel into transport motion with an efficiency of about 30 per cent, while electric motors are more than 90 per cent efficient at using energy stored in a battery, we will need to increase the US electricity supply by about 25 per cent to maintain transport in the USA at today’s level. Let’s assume that replacing today’s fossil-powered vehicles and trains with electric ones will cost no more than we would have spent replacing them anyway: it’s not really true but the difference is small compared to the rest of this. I should note however that a small part of today’s transport energy is used for aviation and shipping, which are much harder to electrify than ground transport, but we’ll ignore that for now.

Next, we need to electrify all the heat. If this heat was provided by ordinary electric heaters, we would need an extra electrical sector equal to the size of today’s. But if we mostly use air-source and ground-source heat pumps and assume a coefficient of performance of 3:1 – optimistic, but not wildly unreasonable – then we only need new grid capacity equivalent to 35 per cent of the size of the present grid for the heat task.

So far, the grid in 2050 will need to be more than 60 per cent bigger than its present size. We also need to work on the buildings. US building stock is made up of nearly 150 million housing units, commercial and industrial buildings, with an estimated floor space of 367 billion square feet. Some of this is well insulated, much of it is not. All of it would need to be for our heat pumps to work at the efficiencies we need them to. Based on a UK pilot retrofit program the national scale cost for this is $1 trillion per 15 million population. The figure in the USA could therefore be about $20 trillion. It might be as high as $35 trillion.

We should note here that as with transport, some specialist types of heating cannot at the moment be done electrically, for instance in primary steel production. These will involve extra costs if net zero is to be reached, but we’ll ignore that for now, even though we’re going to need an awful lot of steel.

Now let’s get the power grid decarbonized and make it 60 per cent bigger and more powerful. Taken together, the US electrical grid has been called the largest machine in the world: 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 5.5 million miles of local distribution ones. We will need to add a further 120,000 miles of transmission line. This will cost in the order of $0.6 trillion, based on US cost data.

The 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines will have to be upgraded to carry much higher currents. Most houses in the USA have a main circuit-breaker panel that allows between 100 and 200 amps (A) current into the house, although some new ones are rated at 300A. The 100A standard was set nearly a century ago, when the electric kettle was the largest single appliance. In a modern all-electric home, some of the new appliances draw rather higher currents: ground-source heat pumps may draw 85A on start-up, radiant hobs when starting up draw 37A, fast chargers for electric vehicles draw 46A, and even slow ones may draw 17A, while electric showers draw 46A. The local wiring in streets and local transformers were all sized to the 100-A limit. Most homes will need an upgraded circuit breaker panel and at least some rewiring, and much local wiring and many local substations will need upsizing. The UK costs have been estimated in detail at £1 trillion, which would scale to the order of $6 trillion on a per-capita basis.

As 60 per cent of the current electrical generation is fossil fueled, we need to close all the fossil stations down and increase the remaining, non-fossil generation capacity four times over. There isn’t much scope for new hydropower, and so far, carbon capture doesn’t exist outside fossil fuel production. Using a mixture of wind (onshore $1600/kW, offshore $6500/kW), solar ($1000/kW at the utility level) and nuclear ($6000/kW), the capital cost of this task alone is around $5 trillion, and we have not dealt with the enormous problem of wind and solar being intermittent.

So far, we’re up to $32 trillion as the cost of providing insulated buildings and the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in a net-zero world. Although not all borne by households, this figure is of the order of $260,000 per US household.

Now let’s think about intermittent. Sometimes there is no wind and no sunshine, and our largely renewables-driven grid will have no power. Current hydropower storage would run a net-zero grid in the USA for a few hours; current battery capacity could do so for a few minutes. Net-zero advocates often suggest simply building huge amounts of battery storage, but the costs of this are colossal: 80 times as much as the power plants, hundreds of trillions of dollars. And indeed, this is simply fantasy as the necessary minerals are not available in anything like the required amounts. If prices climbed, more reserves would become economic – but the prices are already impossibly high.

Straight away, we can see that a net-zero grid with a large proportion of renewables simply cannot be built. But for now, let’s just ignore the storage problem and look at some more numbers.

The UK engineering firm Atkins estimates that a $1-billion project in the electrical sector over 30 years needs 24 or more professional, graduate engineers and 100 or more skilled tradespeople for the whole period. Scaling up these figures for the $12 trillion of electricity sector projects just described, we will need 300,000 professional electrical engineers and 1.2 million skilled tradespeople, full time, for the 30 years to 2050 on just this part of the net-zero project. Based on the budget, we might expect the buildings retrofit sector to need a similar workforce of roughly three million people. This is a combined workforce roughly the size of the entire existing construction sector.

Now let’s think about materials. A 600-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) needs 300 [metric] tonnes of high-performance steel. We would need 360 5-MW wind turbines, each running at an optimistic average 33 per cent efficiency (and a major energy storage facility alongside which we are just ignoring as it would be impossibly expensive) to achieve the same continuous 600-MW supply. In fact, since the life of wind turbines at 25 years is less than half that of CCGT turbines, we would actually need more than 720 of them.

The mass of the nacelle (the turbine at the top of the tower) for a 5-MW wind turbine is comparable to that of a CCGT. Furthermore, the mass of concrete in the plinth of a single CCGT is comparable to the mass of concrete for the foundations of each individual onshore wind turbine, and much smaller than the concrete and ballast for each offshore one. We are going to need enormous amounts of high-energy materials such as steel and concrete: something like a thousand times as much as we need to build CCGT or nuclear powerplants and renewed more frequently. This vast requirement is probably going to affect prices, both of materials and energy – and not in a good way – but for now we’ll just assume costs remain at something like current levels.

So, we can see that the infrastructure parts of the net-zero project which are theoretically possible would cost comfortably in excess of $35 trillion and would require a dedicated and highly skilled workforce comparable to that of the construction sector as well as enormous amounts of materials. Net zero would also require several things which today are completely impossible: scalable non-fossil energy storage, very high temperature electrical industrial processes, serious electrical aviation, and shipping. There would also be the matter of decarbonizing agriculture. These things, if they can even be achieved, would multiply the cost at least several times over, to more than $100 trillion.

So, the real cost of net-zero, or more likely of trying and failing to achieve it, would be similar to – or even more than – total projected US government spending out to 2050. There is no likelihood of that amount of money being diverted from other purposes under anything resembling normal market economics and standards of living.

The idea that net zero can be achieved on the current timelines by any means short of a command economy combined with a drastic decline in standards of living – and several unlikely technological miracles – is a blatant falsehood. The silence of the National Academies and the professional science and engineering bodies about these big picture engineering realities is despicable.

People need to know the realities of net zero.”

Perhaps there is a reason why Washington is so enthusiastic about The Green New Deal but refuses to discuss the feasibility and the costs involved – given the current technology it requires a doubling of the Federal spending with no assurances of success. According to the Congressional Budget Office: “In CBO’s projections, federal outlays total $6.2 trillion, or 23.7 percent of GDP, in 2023.” The fiscal year ended on September 30, but not all the data is compiled.

See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946#:~:text=In%20CBO’s%20projections%2C%20federal%20outlays,percent%20of%20GDP%2C%20in%202023.

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Missing in Action: Several years ago, Ocean Acidification was a hot “science” topic of global warming literature. Now, it seems to have dropped out. Perhaps enough people began to realize that if chalk, limestone, etc. could form in atmospheres with far more carbon dioxide than today’s atmosphere, ocean acidification is meaningless. Missing this Fall in hot “science’ topic of global warming are Western Wildfires and Western Droughts Perhaps they go together. Meteorologist Cliff Mass writes that this was a very low wildfire year over Western U.S. He states:

“You should not be surprised that the wildfire threat has stayed tame over the last few years and probably won’t accelerate during the years ahead.

Let me give you several reasons:

1.  Global warming for all the hype and exaggeration is quite modest at this point…. the western U.S. has warmed up by roughly 2F over the past half century with very little change in precipitation.  Not enough to profoundly alter the fire situation.

2.  The areas that have burned during the past decades will enjoy suppressed fire potential for a while.

3. Many of the wildfires in the western U.S.  during the past decade were caused by failing electrical infrastructure. After severe impacts on their bottom lines, many power companies (like PG&E) are hardening their powerlines and turning off power when strong winds are predicted.

4. After much delay or insufficient efforts, states are getting more serious about restoring forests, using approaches such as thinning and prescribed burning. This reduces the potential for catastrophic fire.

5. Fire management policy changes allowed more fires to burn in previous decades and contributed to more fires and smoke.

The bottom line is that all the scary talk about rapidly rising wildfire threats in our future is really not based on solid facts, and reality is going a different way.”

In Nothings to Do with Climate Change, John Robson writes:

“The Canadian Press breathes a huge sigh of relief that ‘‘Miracle’ water year in California: Rain, snow put state’s reservoirs at 128% of historical average’.”

It appears that disasters in climate change for alarmists change as frequently as the weather. See links under Changing Weather.

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Additions and Corrections: Reader Bud Bromley writes:

For sound scientific reasons, NOAA’s Global Monitoring Labs such as Mauna Loa as well as the World Meteorological Organization calibrate and report CO2 concentration in air as µmol mol−1 which is parts per million (ppm), measured in dry air, not parts per million by volume (ppmv).

“The quantity to be measured is the mole fraction of CO2 in dry air (µmol mol−1, abbreviated as ppm, from parts per million) because it is conserved when air expands or contracts or when water vapor is added or removed.” https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/14/3015/2021/https://gml.noaa.gov/ccl/co2_calsystem.html

In a single measurement, there is very little difference between ppm and ppmv. But in repetitious measurements, the high natural variability of the water vapor in air samples causes high variability in the sample volume (or density or pressure).  Also, water vapor and aerosol cause very high background variation in infrared-based spectroscopy techniques due to large overlaps of the water vapor and CO2 absorption spectra. These two sources of high variations would make repetitious calibration and measurements very time consuming and expensive, if not impractical.

Bromley’s points are well taken. But there are no definitions chiseled in stone. If one consistently takes measurements in the same place, and the water vapor there is nearly constant, then there should be little difference and the trend is what is important.

However, measuring in areas with different water vapor levels presents a rationale for using dry air as the standard. But a different problem arises. Organizations which should know better, such as NOAA, WMO, and NASA-GISS, frequently report the greenhouse effect of gases such as methane and nitrous oxide (from artificial fertilizers) as if there were no water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas, which greatly influences the warming potential of other greenhouse gases when it is present. Since minor amounts of water vapor dominate (even at 100 ppm rather than the average estimated at 1.5 percent, 15,000 ppm), even in arid regions, such as the Sahara, the warming influence of methane and nitrous oxide is minimal, at most.

By using the HITRAN database from laboratory experiments corrected by some fifty years of atmospheric observations using instruments on weather balloons, van Wijngaarden and Happer made a great contribution to understanding the greenhouse effect in today’s atmosphere and in the individual warming potential of major greenhouse gases.

Several readers corrected TWTW for misdating the 1997/98 El Niño as 1998. With the lag that may be 2 to 6 months, the strength of the El Niño was over in 1998 but the influence continued. TWTW appreciates all such corrections and will endeavor to be more precise.

See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Number of the Week: 41 Times greater. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) published a report on “Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy in Fiscal Years 2016–2022.” Using the data for FY 2022, Robert Bradley Jr calculated the energy subsidies per Billion BTUs of energy produced. He found that US Energy Subsides to renewable energy are 41 times greater than to oil and natural gas on a per unit energy basis. See links under Subsidies and Mandates Forever.

NEWS YOU CAN USE:

Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?

Taking the sun seriously

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

Taking the sun seriously

“From that Scaffeta concludes that scientists really ought to get to work nailing down what the potential indirect mechanisms of solar influence on the climate might be. Sadly such work is hard to get funded, and even when it’s published the IPCC ignores it. But if Scaffeta’s results are correct, we will see far less warming in the coming years than alarmists have predicted, and at some point we’re going to want to know why. Now would be a good time.”

Total Eclipse Of The Heart – ‘Ring Of Fire’ Eclipse To Stress Power Grids From California To Texas

By Jason Lindquist, RBN Energy, Oct 12, 2023

https://rbnenergy.com/total-eclipse-of-the-heart-ring-of-fire-eclipse-to-stress-power-grids-from-california-to-texas

Solar researcher warns of solar activity decrease, imminent MINI ICE AGE and GLOBAL FAMINE by 2030

By Belle Carter, Natural News, Oct 6, 2023

https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-06-researcher-warns-mini-ice-age-famine-by-2030.html

Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science

Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013

Click to access CCR-II-Full.pdf

Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts

Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/

Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels

By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019

http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/

Download with no charge:

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Climate-Change-Reconsidered-II-Fossil-Fuels-FULL-Volume-with-covers.pdf

Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming

The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus

By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

Download with no charge:

https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate

S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008

http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf

Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data

By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019

Click to access SeaLevelRiseCCRII.pdf

Challenging the Orthodoxy

Atmosphere and Greenhouse Gas Primer

By W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023

https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/files/2023/03/GreenhousePrimerArxiv.pdf?x45936

Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules

By W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Jan 14, 2021

https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/files/2021/03/WPotency.pdf?x45936

Michael Kelly: The green energy Net Zero plan will require a command economy

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 13, 2023

Michael Kelly: The green energy Net Zero plan will require a command economy

Book Review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry

By Rupert Darwall, Real Clear Energy, Oct 8, 2023

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/08/book_review_climate_uncertainty_and_risk_by_judith_curry_984521.html

“Climate Uncertainty and Risk is more than a book. Curry has produced a single-author counter to the IPCC that offers a radical alternative to the UN paradigm of climate change that could well serve as a manual for a future Republican administration.”

[SEPP Comment: Or for any administration more interested in policies that address the issue than policies that enhance their power.]

Marcel Crok Speaks in the Danish Parliament

By Andy May, WUWT, Oct 7, 2023

Marcel Crok Speaks in the Danish Parliament

Wake Up, America: Our Climate Policies Are A Catastrophe In The Making

By Henry I. Miller, MS, MD and Andew I. Fillat, ACSH, Oct 10, 2023

https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/10/10/wake-america-our-climate-policies-are-catastrophe-making-17268

“In a May Senate hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) managed to extract from the deputy energy secretary three critical admissions concerning emissions. One, the United States is currently responsible for only 13% of global carbon emissions, and we cannot control what China, India, or other countries do; two, it will cost an estimated $50 trillion to decarbonize the U.S. by 2050; and three, the feds do not know how many degrees of warming such spending might mitigate, unsurprising given the small fraction of emissions U.S. actions can affect.”

[SEPP Comment: No matter what we do, it won’t make much difference, the cost is incredible, and the effect on warming may be insignificant. But let’s bankrupt the country anyway?]

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Covers-up UN failures by Blaming Climate Change!

By Jim Steele, WUWT, Oct 10, 2023

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Covers-up UN failures by Blaming Climate Change!

See links under Defending the Orthodoxy

Defending the Orthodoxy

New United Nations Report Signals Need for Mud and Grass Huts by 2050

By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 10, 2023 [H/t WUWT]

New United Nations Report Signals Need for Mud and Grass Huts by 2050

Link to UN report: ‘Building Materials and the Climate: Constructing a New Future

By Staff, United Nations Environment Programme, 2023

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cYHq0HDL78xJjo-uWd13bqwZ24Elgz5L/view

“War on modern building materials has also been declared by U.K. FIRES, an academic collaboration funded with a £5 million state grant. It has called for a ruthless purge of traditional building supplies, to be replaced with materials such as ‘rammed earth’.”

[SEPP Comment: Nothing like sod huts until the rains come.]

Extreme weather events expected to displace millions of children: UNICEF

By Lauren Irwin, The Hill, Oct 6, 2023

Extreme weather events expected to displace millions of children: UNICEF

Link to report: Children Displaced in a Changing Climate: preparing for a future already underway.

This United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) publication was developed jointly by UNICEF’s Programme Division; Division of Data and Analytics, Planning and Monitoring; and Division of Global Communication and Advocacy, in partnership with Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and with support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. 2023

Click to access Climate%20displacement%20report%20(English).pdf

Reducing US oil demand, not production, is the way forward for the climate

By Samantha Gross, Brookings, September 2023

Reducing US oil demand, not production, is the way forward for the climate

“The United States under the Biden administration has made ambitious promises of greenhouse emissions reductions, pledging a 50% to 52% reduction of net U.S. emissions by 2030, from a 2005 baseline. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in August 2022, is a key down payment on that promise.”

“The U.S. produces and consumes one-fifth of the world’s oil”, Figure 2

“We must learn from past experiences to lessen the impacts of the energy transition on those with the most to lose and orient economic development toward new industries.”

[SEPP Comment: Does not analyze the physical evidence of the effect of GHGs on temperature or the cost of the reduction of net emissions.]

Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science

We’ll take it

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

We’ll take it

“Climate change is very trendy. Which isn’t to say that people who link their favourite cause to it are cynical. They may just be alert to opportunities. But also prone to a herd mentality. In any case, when we read that Montreal aims to become a ‘sponge city’ in order ‘to respond to the climate crisis’ our view is that we’ll take it even if the rationale is fatuous, because as we have explained, the increasing frequency and severity of urban flooding due to poor municipal planning is a real issue even if the connection with climate is spurious.”

Questioning the Orthodoxy

Climate “out of control”? A reality check

By David Whitehouse, Net Zero Watch, Oct 11, 2023

Climate “out of control”? A reality check

How Could the IPCC Make an Error this Large?

A major mistake with profound consequences for science and policy

By Roger Pielke Jr. The Honest Broker, Oct 11, 2023

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-could-the-ipcc-make-an-error?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=137873276&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=f7h7&utm_medium=email

“Earlier this week I discussed the mystifying continued prioritization of the outdated and implausible RCP8.5 scenario by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in its scenarios expected to guide Dutch climate policies for the next decade.”

Net Zero Watch calls for a clearout at the Climate Change Committee

Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Oct 13, 2023

Net Zero Watch calls for a clearout at the Climate Change Committee

“Campaign group Net Zero Watch has called for a management clearout at the Climate Change Committee (CCC), accusing it of ‘shameless’ deceit over the costs of Net Zero.”

Eliminating Fossil Fuels Will Produce A Crippling Decline In Human Well-Being

By William Brooks, Via Tyler Durden Zero Hedge, Aug 3, 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/eliminating-fossil-fuels-will-produce-crippling-decline-human-well-being

Climate Fact-Check September 2023 Edition

By Steve Milloy, Climate Realism, Oct 11, 20223

Climate Fact-Check September 2023 Edition

COP In

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

COP In

“Among climate alarmists, to our mingled relief and amusement, reality is starting to set in. A quarter-century ago, they could rant, rave and visualize all they wanted about the coming apocalypse in 2030 or so. But now they have to deliver (a) an apocalypse and (b) a solution. The former seems to be no problem, rhetorically at least, including now that we live not in the time of global boiling but the ‘Flame Age.’”

Carbon Dioxide Does Not Cause Warming

By James T. Moodey, American Thinker, Oct 13, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/carbion_dioxide_does_not_cause_warming.html

“We need to stop thinking, ‘It has to cause at least some warming.’ No, it doesn’t — obviously, it doesn’t.  The question we should be asking is, ‘Why doesn’t carbon dioxide cause warming?’ That leads to the proper scientific conclusion: measure it.”

[SEPP Comment: Carbon dioxide does not cause warming; it reduces heat loss to space.]

Energy and Environmental Review: October 9, 2023

By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Oct 9, 2023

Energy and Environmental Review: October 9, 2023

After Paris!

Why COPs Should Have No Teeth

By Ivor Williams, WUWT, Oct 12, 2023

Why COPs Should Have No Teeth

Tidbits

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

Tidbits

Link to: The Human-Centric City of the Future

By Staff, COP28 UAE, Accessed Oct 11, 2023

https://www.cop28.com/en/cop28-uae-venue

“The venue’s size and design enable COP28 UAE to serve as an inclusive platform for dialogue, by offering a dedicated space to the accredited parties and observer delegates site (Blue Zone) and to civil society (Green Zone).

The conference is expected to convene over 70,000 participants, including heads of state, government officials, industry leaders, academics, and representatives from civil society organizations.”

[SEPP Comment: Was Dubai built with low carbon dioxide emissions?]

Seeking a Common Ground

Thou Shalt Use RCP8.5

Governments are mandating the use of outdated climate scenarios as scientists stand by silently

By Roger Pielke Jr. The Honest Broker, Oct 9, 2023

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/thou-shalt-use-rcp85?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=137809966&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=f7h7&utm_medium=email

Science, Policy, and Evidence

Bad Policy: Germany Keeps Making Its Energy Increasingly Expensive, Fueling Inflation

By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 10, 2023

Bad Policy: Germany Keeps Making Its Energy Increasingly Expensive, Fueling Inflation

Model Issues

Regression attenuation only depends upon the relative noise in “X”

By Roy Spencer, Global Warming, Oct 11, 2023

Regression attenuation only depends upon the relative noise in “X”

“Ross McKitrick has responded to my email to him on this subject, and it turns out he has one paper published, and another soon to be published, on this subject. Pretty technical. He claims that climate researchers using climate model output are actually getting over-inflated regression relationships by using ‘errors-in-variables’ regression models that make improper assumptions regarding the source of ‘noise’ in climate model data.”

Measurement Issues — Surface

NOAA U.S. Contiguous USCRN Temperature Anomaly September 2023 Data Shows No “Climate Emergency”

By Larry Hamlin, WUWT, Oct 12, 2023

NOAA U.S. Contiguous USCRN Temperature Anomaly September 2023 Data Shows No “Climate Emergency”

Changing Weather

Are You Sure a Changing Climate Causes Severe Weather?

By William D.  Balgord, Townhall, Oct 7, 2023

https://townhall.com/columnists/williamdbalgord/2023/10/07/are-you-sure-a-changing-climate-causes-severe-weather-n2629485

The Solution to Extreme Weather Issues is not to Reduce GHG Emissions

By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Oct 8, 2023

The Solution to Extreme Weather Issues is not to Reduce GHG Emissions

“For example, Rachael Fauss noted that the investments are necessary ‘in this era of climate change’ misses the point that climate is what you expect and weather is what you get.  Climate change had very little effect on this event and certainly not enough to cause the storm or materially change its impacts.”

Nothing to do with climate change

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

Nothing to do with climate change

“The Canadian Press breathes a huge sigh of relief that ‘‘Miracle’ water year in California: Rain, snow put state’s reservoirs at 128% of historical average’.”

A Very Low Wildfire Year over the Western U.S.

By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Oct 9, 2023

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-very-low-wildfire-year-over-western-us.html

So Violent A Sea & Wind

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 10, 2023

So Violent A Sea & Wind

“None of this would have come as any surprise to HH Lamb, who wrote about it in Climate, History and the Modern World:”

Changing Climate

Millennial moisture variability on the eastern Tibetan Plateau

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

Millennial moisture variability on the eastern Tibetan Plateau

From the CO2Science Archive:

Changing Seas

How Brown the Corals – That were Pink Last Year

By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Oct 12, 2023

How Brown the Corals – That were Pink Last Year

“Coral reefs are the most extraordinary places, and they are essentially layer upon layer of dead coral topped with a thin veneer of living coral.”

Greenland Ice Melt Has Added Just 1.2 Centimeters To Sea Levels Since 1992

By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 9, 2023

Greenland Ice Melt Has Added Just 1.2 Centimeters To Sea Levels Since 1992

Link to one study: Retreat and Regrowth of the Greenland Ice Sheet During the Last Interglacial as Simulated by the CESM2-CISM2 Coupled Climate–Ice Sheet Model

By Aleah N. Sommers, et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 2021

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2021PA004272

Link to second study: Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Balance (1992–2020) From Calibrated Radar Altimetry

By Sebastian B. Simonsen, et al, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 19, 2021

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL091216

Shoreline Management Plans Based On Fake Sea Level Rise Projections

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 8, 2023

Shoreline Management Plans Based On Fake Sea Level Rise Projections

Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice

A lake under Antarctica and what it contains

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

A lake under Antarctica and what it contains

Link to paper: Constraints on the Timing and Extent of Deglacial Grounding Line Retreat in West Antarctica

By Ryan A. Venturelli et al. AGU, April 26, 2023

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2022AV000846

From the summary: “We found that this region, now 150 km from the modern ocean, was part of the marine environment only a few thousand years ago. That past connection to the ocean is powering today’s population of microbial life, which moves carbon from the sediment to the water column in the lake and is eventually flushed into the Southern Ocean.”

October 2023 Arctic Ice Flash Freezing

By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Oct 11, 2023

October 2023 Arctic Ice Flash Freezing

Veteran German Meteorologist: Arctic Showing “Significant Trend Towards More Ice!” Since 2007

By Klaus-Eckart Puls, Via No Tricks Zone, Oct 7, 2023

Veteran German Meteorologist: Arctic Showing “Significant Trend Towards More Ice!” Since 2007

Changing Earth

New Study Upends Modeling, Finds Earth’s Rocks Are A Net Source Of CO2 Rivaling Volcanic Emissions

By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 12, 2023

New Study Upends Modeling, Finds Earth’s Rocks Are A Net Source Of CO2 Rivaling Volcanic Emissions

“These wildly varying results and consequent large uncertainties underscore just how guess-based carbon budget modeled estimates are.”

Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine

Climate intervention technologies may create winners and losers in world food supply

Analysis by scientists shows future techniques limiting global climate change may create uneven benefits, forcing difficult decisions worldwide

Press Release, Rutgers University, Oct 5, 2023

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1003504

Link to paper: Optimal climate intervention scenarios for crop production vary by nation

By Brendan Clark, Nature Food, Oct 5, 2023

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00853-3

Lowering Standards

BBC Say It’s OK To Lie

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 7, 2023

BBC Say It’s OK To Lie

“In the response from the BBC Executive Complaints Unit, ECU, they were unable to offer any evidence to back up the claim. Nor were they able to provide evidence that the rate of erosion has increased in recent years.

There is no mention in the article of the fact that the coastline at Happisburgh and elsewhere in Norfolk has been eroding at the same rate for thousands of years. This omission was clearly designed to persuade readers that climate change is the main factor behind the erosion.”

[SEPP Comment: Making alarming claims with no evidence is not lying?]

Dismantling the Royal Society Large-Scale Electricity Storage Report

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 9, 2023

Dismantling the Royal Society Large-Scale Electricity Storage Report

Link to review: Dismantling the Royal Society Large-Scale Electricity Storage Report

The Royal Society report makes extraordinary claims that do not stand up to scrutiny.

By David Turver, Eigen Values, Oct 8, 2023

https://davidturver.substack.com/p/royal-society-large-electricity-storage-report

New ONS Heat Deaths Claims Don’t Stack Up

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 6, 2023

New ONS Heat Deaths Claims Don’t Stack Up

“’There have been more than 50,000 heat-related deaths and more than 200,000 related to cold in England and Wales since 1988, new official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics [ONS] said very low and very high temperatures both increased the risk of death.

And although cold is the bigger killer, the ONS said heat-related deaths appeared to have risen in recent years.”

“And with the media giving full publicity to this fraudulent report, the government is no doubt very happy!”

Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?

Climate Soothsayers: Why your hay fever is a “sign” you should vote for a carbon tax

By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 14, 2023

Climate Soothsayers: Why your hay fever is a “sign” you should vote for a carbon tax

[SEPP Comment: Green life is flourishing; the end is near!]

But it was

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

But it was

Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?

Can extreme heat make parts of the Earth too hot for humans?

By Andy May, WUWT, Oct 12, 2023

Can extreme heat make parts of the Earth too hot for humans?

Link to: Greatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically determined lower moist heat stress tolerance

By DanielJ.Vecellio, et al., Edited by Kerry Emanuel, PNAS, Aug 15, 2023

https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2305427120

[SEPP Comment: Based on this paper, humanity cannot survive in humid, tropical Africa where humanity evolved?]

Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.

The End Of Penguins

By Tony Heller, His Blog, Oct 11, 2023

The End Of Penguins

Link to: “A ‘once every 7.5 million years’ event is currently unfolding in Antarctica: ‘To say unprecedented isn’t strong enough’”

By Laurelle Stelle, Yahoo News, Sep 14, 2023

https://news.yahoo.com/once-every-7-5-million-180000122.html

From foolish article: “According to physical oceanographer Edward Doddridge, this is the first time an event like this has been observed, the ABC reports — and it’s extremely unlikely to have happened on its own.

‘To say unprecedented isn’t strong enough,” Doddridge told the ABC. ‘This is a five-sigma event. … Which means that if nothing had changed, we’d expect to see a winter like this about once every 7.5 million years. … There are people saying it could be natural variability … but it’s very unlikely.’”

Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda

Correct, WBUR, Many Climate Scientists Don’t Tell the Truth

By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Oct 9,2023

Correct, WBUR, Many Climate Scientists Don’t Tell the Truth

Hottest Ever September — just more headline clickbait for heat loving mammals that live across a 90 degree range

By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 9, 2023

Hottest Ever September — just more headline clickbait for heat loving mammals that live across a 90 degree range

Communicating Better to the Public – Protest

Climate protesters crash Buttigieg interview, chanting ‘stop Petro Pete’

By Lauren Irwin, The Hill, Oct 11, 2023

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4250204-climate-protesters-crash-buttigieg-interview/

Enraged Portuguese Motorists Clear Climate Roadblock

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 8, 2023

Enraged Portuguese Motorists Clear Climate Roadblock

Expanding the Orthodoxy

Climate Coup Alert: CEQ Proposes to Transform NEPA

By Marlo Lewis, Real Clear Energy, Oct 9, 2023

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/09/climate_coup_alert_ceq_proposes_to_transform_nepa_984880.html

“Comments I submitted to CEQ make that same overarching point. The Proposed Rule is designed to advance the Biden administration’s “whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis.” Like the AGs, I politely advised CEQ to cease and desist.”

Corporate interests and the UN treaty on plastic pollution: neglecting lessons from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

By Rob Ralston, et al., The Lancet, Oct 4, 2023

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02040-8/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email

[SEPP Comment: More reason why the US should not participate in any UN treaty.]

Environmental group raises concerns about loophole in ozone, climate treaty

By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 10, 2023

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4248610-environmental-group-raises-concerns-about-loophole-in-ozone-climate-treaty/

Link to claim: F-Gases at the Fenceline

Exposing The Fluorochemical Production Sector’s Undisclosed Emissions

By Staff, Environmental Investigation Agency, Oct 10, 2023

https://us.eia.org/report/f-gases-at-the-fenceline/

“The substances detected pose serious concerns for human health and the environment given their high climate warming impact, ozone depletion, and/or breakdown into persistent degradation by-products. Many of these gases are associated with unexpected rising global emissions identified in recent scientific studies, suggesting that global fluorochemical production and/or illegal production and use are the primary sources of approx. 870 million tonnes CO2 in emissions on an annual basis.”

[SEPP Comment: But ozone is a greenhouse gas, doesn’t the UN wish to destroy greenhouse gases?]

Questioning European Green

Andrew Neil: Everywhere, there’s a growing public revolt against net zero, forcing politicians across Europe to renege on green virtue signalling

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 9, 2023

Andrew Neil: Everywhere, there’s a growing public revolt against net zero, forcing politicians across Europe to renege on green virtue signalling

Why heat pumps will never work in Britain

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 10, 2023

Why heat pumps will never work in Britain

“The environmental levies he refers to are neither “tax” or “policy costs”. They are subsidies paid out to renewable generators, and thus reflect the true cost of producing that electricity.

Simply taxing gas and subsidising the price of electricity in order to persuade people to buy heat pumps would make no sense. Once we all stop using gas, the levies would have to be added back to our electricity bills anyway.”

Ed Miliband Wants £200 Billion Of Your Money To Plaster The Countryside With Pylons

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 9, 2023

Ed Miliband Wants £200 Billion Of Your Money To Plaster The Countryside With Pylons

“Ed Miliband, shadow energy secretary, and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, will set out plans at this week’s party conference to ‘rewire Britain’ and build a cleaner energy grid, potentially unlocking £200bn of private investment.”

“Whenever Labour talks of ‘investment’, keep a tight hold of your wallets! Private investors are not going to hand that money over out of the kindness of their hearts. They will demand a hefty pay back.

Consequently, energy users will not just have to pay the £200bn back, which by the way amounts to about £8000 for every home in the UK, but a handsome profit on top.”

Questioning Green Elsewhere

Biden Promotes Climate Change At The Expense Of More Global Poverty

The mad rush to deal with climate change, even if it works (it won’t), has a nasty tradeoff (more global poverty).

By Mike Shedlock, Via Zero Hedge, Oct 9, 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-promotes-climate-change-expense-more-global-poverty

The myth of affordable green energy is over

By Kathryn Porter, Yahoo News, Oct 10, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]

https://news.yahoo.com/myth-affordable-green-energy-over-120436500.html

“Wishful thinking can only go so far before market realities begin to bite. The litany of problems facing offshore wind should prompt policymakers to re-evaluate their assumptions about this market.”

Green Jobs

Electric Van Maker On Verge Of Bankruptcy

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 13, 2023

Electric Van Maker On Verge Of Bankruptcy

“Where have all the green jobs gone?”

Non-Green Jobs

Nearly 1M coal jobs may be lost by 2050: Research

By Miranda Nazzaro, Oct 10, 2023

https://thehill.com/business/4247587-nearly-1m-coal-jobs-lost-by-2050-research/

Link to press release: 100 miners a day face job cuts as industry winds down coal

By Staff, Global Energy Monitor, Oct 9, 2023

100 miners a day face job cuts as industry winds down coal

“China and India will likely be hardest hit: China’s Shanxi province would shed the most jobs globally — nearly a quarter of a million (241,900) by 2050 — while Coal India is the producer facing the largest potential jobs cuts of 73,800 by mid-century.”

Link to report: Scraping By: Global Coal Miners and the Urgency of a Just Transition

By Ryan Driskell Tate, et al, Global Energy Monitor, October 2023

Click to access GEM_Coal_Mine_Employment_2023.pdf

Funding Issues

Investors are starting to abandon clean green energy as they realize it’s never going to be cheap

By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 13, 2023

Investors are starting to abandon clean green energy as they realize it’s never going to be cheap

Litigation Issues

Prosecutors: Climate activist emails stolen by hackers were later cited in court by ExxonMobil

By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Oct 13, 2023

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4254706-prosecutors-climate-activist-emails-stolen-by-hackers-were-later-cited-in-court-by-exxonmobil/

“That press coverage, he said, was also incorporated into Exxon’s own state and federal filings in those cases. The memo does not accuse Exxon of involvement in the hacks, and the company has already denied any connection with the hacks.”

[SEPP Comment: Isn’t hacking a long-accepted practice by those opposing fossil fuels?]

Charleston’s Climate Suit Is a Stalking Horse for the Green New Deal

By O.H. Skinner, Real Clear Energy, Oct 11, 2023

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/11/charlestons_climate_suit_is_a_stalking_horse_for_the_green_new_deal_985382.html

Link to suit: City of Charleston vs. Brabham Oil Company, etc.

Court of Common Appeals, Civic Action No. 2020-CP-10, Sep 9, 2022

https://www.charleston-sc.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/716

“Defendants Are Responsible for Causing and Accelerating Climate Change.”

“Since 1960, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone from under 320 parts per million (“ppm”) to approximately 415 ppm.”

[SEPP Comment: Get at the real culprit, sue China!]

Subsidies and Mandates Forever

Wind and Solar Bribes: The Taxpayer Pays

By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Oct 13, 2023

Wind and Solar Bribes: The Taxpayer Pays

Link to report: Federal Financial Interventions and Subsides in Energy in Fiscal Years 2016-2022

By Staff, EIA, Aug 1, 2023

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/#:~:text=During%20FY%202016%E2%80%9322%2C%20nearly,%2415.6%20billion%20in%20FY%202022.

Energy Issues – Non-US

The Net Zero Ship Starting to Sink

Governments and business leaders are now changing their tune on net zero.

By Nicole James, The Epoch Times, Oct 12, 2023

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-net-zero-ship-starting-to-sink-5509416?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-10-13&src_cmp=gv-2023-10-13&utm_medium=email&cta_utm_source=Goodevening&est=rCGN1NWgghRK764pAyhoXaqB1fbLixqlmEUcMnN%2BQEKBBcsaWgQqQtiNng%3D%3D

Bitter Defeat For Germany’s Ruling Socialist/Green Government In State Elections

By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 8, 2023

Bitter Defeat For Germany’s Ruling Socialist/Green Government In State Elections

Climate Tales: BlackRock got Exxon to divest oil fields that PetroChina wanted (which BlackRock also owned shares in)

By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 7, 2023

Climate Tales: BlackRock got Exxon to divest oil fields that PetroChina wanted (which BlackRock also owned shares in)

Energy Issues – Australia

Blackouts are coming: Australian grid so fragile, expensive, cement giant already shuts down nearly every day

By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 11, 2023

Blackouts are coming: Australian grid so fragile, expensive, cement giant already shuts down nearly every day

“Mr Bansal [the chief executive of Boral] told the Summit that Boral’s electricity price rose by 54 per cent in the 12 months to the second half of last year, and have not retreated, counter to expectations.

He said Boral had about 5500 ‘blue collar’ workers who were being told to stand aside and do nothing for 30 minutes at a time when power prices made it too expensive to operate.

‘At a certain price during the day, when the price goes up [to] a certain level, our manufacturing stops because we’ve worked out economically it’s actually better to have thousands of people waiting idle for the prices to come down then actually do the work,’ he said.

‘That’s a real issue we are facing every single day on 300 manufacturing sites across the country. So we are extremely nervous what that means.’”

Wake up Australia – renewable energy won’t save the planet if it costs the earth

By Robert Onfray, His Blog, Oct 6, 2023 [H/t WUWT]

Wake up Australia – renewable energy won’t save the planet if it costs the earth

[SEPP Comment: Solar and wind proponents emphasize benefits and ignore costs. The author frankly states, he does the reverse.]

Energy Issues — US

Extraordinary Costs Of Green Energy Creeping Slowly Into Public Awareness

By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Oct 9, 2023

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-10-9-extraordinary-costs-of-green-energy-creeping-into-public-awareness

[SEPP Comment: As Menton states, the Lazard claims of Levelized Cost of Energy Comparison calculations “calculation completely omits the dominant costs of generating reliable electricity using mostly or entirely wind and solar generators. These dominant costs are the costs of energy storage and/or backup, the costs of overbuilding, and the costs of additional transmission.”]

The electric grid needs good failure mode analysis

By David Wojick, CFACT, Oct 6, 2023

https://www.cfact.org/2023/10/06/the-electric-grid-needs-good-failure-mode-analysis/

“Everyone talks about blackouts, but I have not seen a detailed analysis of the various ways these might occur. I suspect there are several different basic ways, each calling for a different approach. So here are some starter thoughts.”

Electric Grid Reliability: Texas vs. EPA

By Ed Ireland, Master Resource, Oct 10, 2023

Electric Grid Reliability: Texas vs. EPA

Just One More – How New England Would Benefit From A Gas Pipeline Expansion

By Housley Carr, RBN Energy, Oct 11, 2023

https://rbnenergy.com/just-one-more-how-new-england-would-benefit-from-a-gas-pipeline-expansion

[SEPP Comment: Less than 20,000 years ago New England was covered by ice thousands of feet deep, and its politicians fear warming?]

A Precipitous Dash to a Power Grid Reliability Crisis

By Michelle Bloodworth, Real Clear Energy, Oct 6, 2023

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/06/a_precipitous_dash_to_a_grid_reliability_crisis_984481.html

Stealth Electricity Statism: Giberson Exchange (for the record)

By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 12, 2023

Stealth Electricity Statism: Giberson Exchange (for the record)

Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?

Global fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions to rise through 2050, US EIA projects

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 13, 2023

Global fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions to rise through 2050, US EIA projects

Link to: EIA projects global energy consumption will outpace efficiency gains in most cases

By Michelle Bowman, et al., EIA, Oct 11, 2023

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=60642&mc_cid=b8e6cdffc5&mc_eid=4961da7cb1

Homewood: “What is particularly significant is that emissions and consumption of fossil fuel remain effectively at least as high as now across all scenarios. The lowest in terms of fossil fuels is LM – Low Economic Growth Case.

The analysis is clearly deep, and I suspect a lot more realistic than the fantasies peddled by the IEA.”

Economic and Fiscal Impact of Pennsylvania Shale Development

By Staff, FTI Consulting, August 2023

Click to access Economic-and-Fiscal-Impact-of-Pennsylvania-Shale-Development.pdf

“Marcellus Shale Coalition (“MSC”) engaged FTI Consulting (“FTI”) to analyze the economic and fiscal impacts of the shale gas development industry (“the industry”) on the Pennsylvania economy under three scenarios from 2022-2050. FTI created and distributed a survey to MSC board members to capture data on the industry’s upstream, midstream, and downstream capital and operating expenditures to support this analysis.”

Drill, Baby, Drill

Exxon Mobil’s purchase of Pioneer proves the Permian Basin is still the hottest hydrocarbon province on earth

By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Accessed, Oct 13, 2023

https://substack.com/notes/post/p-137871911

Nuclear Energy and Fears

The Seven Dirty Secrets of Solar Energy

By Lorraine Miles, American Thinker, Oct 11, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/the_seven_dirty_secrets_of_solar_energy.html

Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind

Four NY offshore projects ask for almost 50% price rise

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 7, 2023

Four NY offshore projects ask for almost 50% price rise

Regulatory Rebuff Blow to Offshore Wind Projects

By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 13, 2023

Regulatory Rebuff Blow to Offshore Wind Projects

Leah Stokes, PNAS, and Conflicts of Interest

By Andy May, WUWT, Oct 10, 2023

Leah Stokes, PNAS, and Conflicts of Interest

Link to paper: Prevalence and predictors of wind energy opposition in North America

By Leah C. Stokes, editor Michael Mann, PNAS, Sep 25, 2023

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2302313120

‘Turbine graveyards’ sprawled across Texas

By James Morrow, Sky News, Accessed Oct 12, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]

Video – Junkyards in 10 years.

Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage

Bidenomics at Work: ‘Green’ Hydrogen Is a Very Expensive Waste of Money

By Frank Lasee, Real Clear Power, Oct 6, 2023

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/06/bidenomics_at_work_green_hydrogen_is_a_very_expensive_waste_of_money_984468.html

Biden administration announces $7 billion for 7 regional hydrogen energy ‘hubs’

By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 13, 2023

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4253601-biden-administration-7-billion-hydrogen-energy-hubs/

“The Appalachian hub will span West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, will be powered by natural gas, and its emissions will be captured and stored.

The California hub will be powered by renewables and biomass and will look to power public transit, heavy-duty trucks and port operations.”

Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles

Luton Car Park Fire Update

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 12, 2023

Luton Car Park Fire Update

“It has been claimed by the Fire Service that the fire started on a Range Rover diesel, but experts are dismissive of this.

For instance, AA technical expert Greg Carter said the most common cause of car fires is an electrical fault with the 12-volt battery system. But he added that diesel is ‘much less flammable’ than petrol and in a car it takes ‘intense pressure or sustained flame’ to ignite diesel.”

Car Park Fires

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 12, 2023

Car Park Fires

Link to report: Kings Dock Car Park Fre, Protection Report

By Staff, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, April 2018

Click to access Merseyside-FRS-Car-Park-Report.pdf

“One final comment.

The Merseyside report noted the absence of sprinkler systems, and it appears that Luton’s car park also did not have any sprinklers working.

While these would clearly be invaluable in an ordinary car fire, they would be worse than useless in a lithium battery fire.

I can only repeat – if a fire occurred in an underground car park full EVs below a block of flats, it would be a disaster.”

California Dreaming

Offshore Wind is an Economic and Environmental Catastrophe

California project would be one of the most egregious cases of environmental destruction in human history

By Edward Ring, American Greatness, Oct 11, 2023 [Bernie Kepshire]

Offshore Wind is an Economic and Environmental Catastrophe

Oh Mann!

Mann Tweets Study Claiming Climate Deniers Are Misogynist Authoritarians

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 10, 2023

Mann Tweets Study Claiming Climate Deniers Are Misogynist Authoritarians

BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE

Global Heating Will Make Your Beers Taste Worse!

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 11, 2023

Global Heating Will Make Your Beers Taste Worse!

Link to paper: Climate-induced decline in the quality and quantity of European hops calls for immediate adaptation measures

By Martin Mozny, et al., Nature Communications, Oct 10, 2023

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41474-5

“The best bit though is the Guardian’s claim that global heating will push up prices, because the very last paragraph includes this quote from a German hop farmer:

“’Auernhammer said the climate threat to hops was important but added it was not the biggest factor in the price of a beer. High energy costs, driven by the soaring price of fossil gas since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have played a bigger role for brewers. ‘The hops inside a beer do not cost as much as the cap on top of the bottle,’ he said.’”

A Review of Missy’s Twitch and the Scourge of Climatosis

By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 10, 2023

A Review of Missy’s Twitch and the Scourge of Climatosis

It really bugs them

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 11, 2023

It really bugs them

“So, it’s an old impulse on the part of our supposed betters to snatch from our hands those things we like, and are too dumb to realize are making us effeminate and boiling the planet.”

Fat Bear Week winner a ‘gutsy girl’

By Tara Suter, The Hill, Oct 11, 2023

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4250321-fat-bear-week-winner-a-gutsy-girl/

[Gutsy Girl] “Grazer easily squashed her male rival, 32 Chunk, in the final round of this year’s Fat Bear Week by over 80,000 votes.]

ARTICLES

1. Climate Change and ‘Poor’ South Korea

A study claims heat suppresses economic growth. It falls apart under scrutiny.

By David Barker, WSJ, Oct. 12, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/debunking-study-saying-climate-change-hurts-economic-growth-16e07ec3?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

TWTW Summary: The author begins:

“Climate change hurts the economy, according to a celebrated 2012 paper by economists Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken. That paper is in the top 1% of all academic economics publications by citation count, and it has received glowing coverage in the media. The authors teach at Harvard, Northwestern and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively, and have received some of the highest awards in the profession. I took a closer look at their study, and it doesn’t hold up.

The study claims that higher temperatures suppress economic growth in poor countries. The claim falls apart when you look at their definitions. The authors study the period 1961-2003 and assign each country a binary designation as “poor” or “rich” based on whether their per capita gross domestic product was below or above the median for countries in 1960.

But some countries faced drastic changes in fortune at the time.

South Korea is “poor,” according to the authors. In reality, it was very poor in the early 1960s and then became very wealthy. When I simply reclassified South Korea as poor from 1961-76 and rich from 1977-2003, the study’s results nearly disappeared. When I allowed classifications of all countries to change when they moved either above or below median GDP per capita, the results disappeared completely. Any study with results that collapse after such a simple specification change shouldn’t be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

I also found that unusual economic circumstances greatly influenced countries’ results. Per capita GDP in Rwanda dropped by 63% in 1994, the year of the genocide. That year happened to be warmer than average, tricking the model into showing that high temperatures cause GDP to fall. Dropping 16 unusual country/year observations out of 4,924 eliminated the main effect the study reported. Other seemingly arbitrary aspects of their technique, when changed, weakened or eliminated their results.

I extended their data from 2003 to 2017 and added additional countries to the sample. I found again that correctly classifying countries as poor or rich eliminated their results. Going back to their original data source, I discovered that monthly temperatures are available, although they used only annual temperature data. If high temperatures really reduce GDP growth, it seems likely that this effect would be greatest in the warmest months of the year. I found no evidence to support that hypothesis in the original or the extended data. I also used a completely different set of data on GDP by country and found no effect of temperature on growth.

Climate activists need evidence that high temperatures reduce economic growth to advance their policies. Responsible economists have found that high temperatures have only small effects on the level of GDP.”

Mr. Barker goes into detail on the absurdity of the paper and concludes by stating that the publisher of his paper contacted Merses Jones and Olken to respond, and they declined.

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

2. The Next Big Solar Storm Could Fry the Grid

Scientists are using artificial intelligence to better predict what the sun will do and give Earth re warning to protect satellites and electronics

By Christopher Mims, WSJ, Oct. 11, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/science/environment/solar-storm-early-warning-system-b6324524?mod=wknd_pos1

TWTW Summary: The journalist begins:

“One day, you wake up, and the power is out. You try to get information on your phone, and you have no internet access. Gradually you discover millions of people across the U.S. are in the same situation–one that will bring months or years of rebuilding.

A gigantic solar storm has hit Earth.

The odds are low that in any given year a storm big enough to cause effects this widespread will happen. And the severity of those impacts will depend on many factors, including the state of our planet’s magnetic field on that day. But it’s a near certainty that some form of this catastrophe will happen someday, says Ian Cohen, a chief scientist who studies heliophysics at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

To get ahead of this threat, a loose federation of U.S. and international government agencies, and hundreds of scientists affiliated with those bodies, have begun working on how to make predictions about what our Sun might do. And a small but growing cadre of scientists argue that artificial intelligence will be an essential component of efforts to give us advance notice of such a storm.

The most dangerous of these solar storms is known as a coronal mass ejection, when a gargantuan blob of charged particles is catapulted from the Sun’s atmosphere by rapidly shifting magnetic fields, at speeds in excess of 8,000 times that of sound. These happen often, but we’re rarely aware of them because they only affect us when they happen to strike earth.

What makes these huge blasts of particles so dangerous to our power grid and electronics is that, when they collide with Earth, the interaction of the sun’s magnetic field with our own can induce large currents in power lines on Earth. If you’ve ever moved a magnet back and forth across a copper wire to illuminate a lightbulb in science class, this is the same effect–but on a global scale. A solar storm can induce currents in power lines that are strong enough to trip safety mechanisms–or even seriously damage parts of our power-distribution infrastructure.”

The author concludes with examples of past interruptions and by discussing several proposals for systems to predict solar storms. He does not go into the possibility of hardening the grid to survive such a storm, to include interrupters such as fuses and circuit breakers that are sized to prevent any arcing over them.