What will the death of the green energy illusion look like? From time to time (see, for example, here and here) I have described a vision where some state or country runs headlong into a “green energy wall” — an impassable barricade of physical impossibility, characterized by scarcity and blackouts, into which the country crashes suddenly. Among the net zero zealot countries I have identified as the leading candidates for imminently hitting such a wall are Germany and the UK.
But perhaps, instead of a sudden crash, the demise of the green energy illusion will look more like a slow but steady decline, a gradual withering of economic activity and prosperity. In this scenario, high energy prices brought about by energy restrictions drive important industries out of business and, as good jobs disappear and energy prices increase, the people gradually and inexorably get poorer. Recent events in the UK and Germany seem to point in the direction of this type of scenario.
The latest edition of the GWPF’s Net Zero Watch Newsletter has the headline “Net Zero is dying.” (Go here and follow the link for your own copy of the newsletter. Full disclosure — I am on the board of the American affiliate of the GWPF.). Nine linked news articles from the past couple of days all deal with recent instances of industrial decline in the UK and Germany, each one a consequence of energy prices intentionally driven upward in the pursuit of “net zero.”
Several of the pieces cover the impending closure of the Port Talbot steelworks in Wales, with the loss of up to 2,500 jobs. Illustrative is a January 19 piece in the Daily Telegraph by Allison Pearson, headline “Port Talbot has been sacrificed to the angry god of net zero.” Although the Telegraph is behind paywall, the NZW Newsletter has a lengthy excerpt. Here is a part:
The high price of UK energy makes Port Talbot uncompetitive. . . . [N]et zero. That absurd and misanthropic creed . . . calls British workers losing their jobs “progress” while their carbon will now be emitted in India and China. . . . [The UK will now be] the only G7 nation with no first-class steel manufacturing – are they serious? You might almost get the impression the nation was run by a fifth column plotting its downfall.
In another item in the current Newsletter, GWPF points to its own warnings of what was coming from 2016 and 2021. From 2016:
“As an energy-intensive manufacturer of internationally traded commodities, the steel sector is particularly sensitive to energy costs. It is the first to feel the pain of the UK’s climate policies, but it will not be the last. [Steel] and the energy-intensive sector more broadly can be regarded as a miner’s canary, giving early warning of general economic damage as the costs of climate policies are passed through from energy to all other sectors of the economy.”
And from 2021:
[T]he underlying and fundamental cause [of the ongoing closure of the steel industry in the UK] is the uncompetitiveness of all heavy industry in the UK, and for this government is itself largely to blame. GWPF has long predicted that Britain’s unilateral climate policies were making it all but impossible to operate heavy industry the UK.
Elsewhere in the Newsletter, the focus is Germany. A January 19 piece from the Times of London has the headline “What’s gone wrong with Germany?” Again it’s behind paywall; but the overall picture is a combination of self-inflicted consumer pain and equally self-inflicted industrial decline brought about by senseless mandates and high energy prices from the so-called “energy transition.” Excerpt:
The coalition has been plagued by unforced errors, typified by a hugely unpopular attempt to force homeowners to install heat pumps instead of gas or oil boilers. It has been riddled with public infighting and has presided over the worst economic performance in the G7.
That Times article does not go into detail on the industrial decline. But for some specifics consider this piece from July 13, 2023 from Politico, headline “Rust Belt on the Rhine.” Example:
Chemical giant BASF has been a pillar of German business for more than 150 years, underpinning the country’s industrial rise with a steady stream of innovation that helped make “Made in Germany” the envy of the world. But its latest moonshot — a $10 billion investment in a state-of-the-art complex the company claims will be the gold standard for sustainable production — isn’t going up in Germany. Instead, it’s being erected 9,000 kilometers away in China. . . . [BASF] is scaling back in Germany. In February, the company announced the shutdown of a fertilizer plant in its hometown of Ludwigshafen and other facilities, which led to about 2,600 job cuts. . . . [T]he company lost €130 million in Germany last year.
The explanation? From Politico:
Confronted by a toxic cocktail of high energy costs, worker shortages and reams of red tape, many of Germany’s biggest companies — from giants like Volkswagen and Siemens to a host of lesser-known, smaller ones — are experiencing a rude awakening and scrambling for greener pastures in North America and Asia.
Politico notes that in the 15 years since the 2008/09 recession, the U.S. economy has grown by some 76%, while the German economy has grown by only 19%. Oh, that is the same period of Germany’s “Energiewende,” which has included forcing electricity prices to go to triple the U.S. level.
For the big picture of the German industrial situation, here is a chart from YCharts.com, showing the trend over the last 5 years:
After you eliminate the steep Covid-induced valley of 2020-21, you are left with a decline that is steady and inexorable.
Frankly, the UK and Germany would be better off hitting a hard wall, which could wake them up in time to potentially turn things around. The current situation of steady ongoing decline is inflicting damage that may well not be reversible. Even if energy prices suddenly come down in the UK by a factor of 3 or more, is anyone going to re-build Port Talbot once it has been dismantled?
Net zero may be dying, but so are the economies of the UK and Germany. I just hope that the U.S. can be rescued in time.
A coalition of the greedy and of the naive plan to continue to export the manufacturing base of the USA to the PRC, in large measure due to the blithe assertion that economic growth leads inexorably to more individual liberty.
The US can’t, at this point in time, produce the reactor vessels for their Navy nuclear reactors. They all come from Ontario, Canada.
Sad for a country that produced massive amounts of iron and steel into the 1970s.
I find it fascinating how so many people want to blame companies for taking the only option the government has left for them.
Well, under the current economic patterns, governments continue to get larger and larger. What is wrong with all those companies that can’t do the same? Obviously they need politicians and civil service bureaucrats to take over running all of them.
You left off “/sarc”. Governments can grow because the take money from the private sector by fiat. The private sector cannot take money from the government – at least not for long. Subsidies eventually run out.
I got the “sarc” without the footnote. Andy could’ve exaggerated more, I suppose.
For example, “Gubmints continue to get larger, and larger, and LARGER as they absorb all paid employment to supervise industries that no longer exist, until even the do-gooder minions are running around starving, hysterical, naked, shouting, ‘How did this happen? Did we run out of other people’s money?'”
So you believe that the companies should stay in the US and go out of business instead.
The companies that are moving are doing so not because they want to increase liberty in China, rather they are fleeing the loss of liberty here in the US.
The grain of truth in the statement by GeorgeinSanDiago is so hidden and snidely composed that it is, while wearing boxing gloves, harder to find than a truffle.
Australia is also heading that way.
As is the US, specifically California.
Gruesome Newsom wants to have the state utilities lower electric rates (which sounds good to start with) but then wants to have the utilities gather, via consumer bills, taxes based on income. Your electricity usage will be taxed by the state according to how much income is reported to the state tax board. People earning less than $24,000 will be taxed about $15 per bill. People earning $25,000 – $65,000 will be taxed at one rate. People earning $65,000 – 180,000 will be taxed at a higher rate. And people earning >$180,000 will be taxed at the highest rate (about $82 per monthly bill)
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/the-grid/california-imposes-a-graduated-tax-on-utility-bills/
Yeah, like this is going to work out well. It will just further drive CA’s population and business loss. At some point the socialists will *have* to wake up and understand that ever increasing taxes to support a welfare state is a vicious cycle downward to oblivion. As Thatcher said, sooner or later socialism runs out of money to spend, not even printing money can save it.
Even as Britain’s economy was collapsing, the socialists still didn’t wake up. Even today, British socialists hate lady Thatcher with a passion for thwarting their plans. They are still convinced that everything would have worked out had the country stayed the course.
But CA can, to a large extent, as history has so obviously shown, depend on the taxpayers of the rest of the US. As had been said elsewhere, some deaths are exaggerated .
Gruesome would extend that to other purchases such as a car, or a house. The bigger the reported GROSS income the higher the state surcharge.
Gruesome has to pay all the folks who get checks and do not work, and all the folks who just walk in over Biden’s open border.
The idiocy of it all is off-the-charts
The top 1% already pay better than 50% of all taxes in CA.
When 2 or 3 people moving out of state can make a noticeable drop in tax revenues, your system is all screwed up.
What’s the next step, start building walls to keep the victims in/
“What’s the next step, start building walls to keep the victims in/”
No. Guess they better start installing one-way borders. Their open ones ain’t helping :<)
This is one of the main reasons China and India will continue to voice their support for ‘climate action’ (as long as their own ‘climate goals’ are 20-30 years away and they’ll be paid handsomely to ‘achieve’ them):
-Sun Tzu’s Art of War
I own 2 copies of that book and I can say with some certainty that it’s in neither. It’s usually attributed to Napoleon or, occasionally, Wellington. But I really didn’t want to be the one to interrupt.
I think the more apt quote is “The supreme art of war is to subdue your enemy without fighting”, and there may be no better way to subdue an enemy than by making their energy systems expensive and unreliable (stealing a quote from Ed Hoskins). The race to nut zero is truly a collective national (global?) security risk and our enemies are ROFL at the stupidity of western woke “leaders” as they race to mandate economy destroying policies – like everyone has to buy an EV. At some point, we will have so weakened ourselves that we will be effectively defenseless when our take some decisive action.
from quote investigator:
“In that case,” said Napoleon, “let us wait twenty minutes; when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.”
[1805]
And its all for nothing. As Francis quoted in his last piece of a few days ago from Rupert Darwall:
2008-2019
UK emissions fall from 545 million tons to 365.
World emissions rise from 31.5 billion to 36.7 billion.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-1-15-status-report-from-another-would-be-climate-leader-the-uk
It is a sort of religious hysteria. To insist on doing something so damaging and so totally ineffectual, which cannot affect the alleged problem being used to justify it.
In the case of the intended move to EVs and heat pumps, they are trying at the same time to power generation to wind and solar, while moving the country to EVs and heat pumps. The plans are not only ineffectual if implemented, they are also impossible to implement.
The attempt, though, is proving cripplingly expensive. Look at the wind auction failures, the latest plans to spend huge amounts, 40 billion sterling, on carbon capture for one UK power station, Drax. The plan to spend another few billion subsidizing hydrogen production to get a weighted average strike price of £241/MWh for the resulting energy. And this is probably leaving out half the real costs.
Paul Homewood has done a great service in publicizing this nonsense.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/another-2-billion-handed-out-to-subsidise-hydrogen/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/drax-carbon-capture-could-cost-bill-payers-40-billion/
This is a country where lots of people rely on food banks to feed their families and where millions are living in fuel poverty. What are these people thinking of? Not the well being of their citizens, that’s for sure. Not the climate, either.
And yet in the UK the entire political class, Labour, Conservatives, SNP, Liberals, Greens, Plaid are all totally bent on doing it. Including increasing numbers of local authorities who want to go local Net Zero ahead of the national program. All ‘because climate’.
Voting Reform in the autumn election in the UK will almost certainly lead to a Labour landslide, and that will be a national disaster. A party still with a large mutinous minority of anti-semitic Trotskyite terrorist sympathizers. Though it will perhaps not be a lot more disastrous on climate and energy than the present Conservatives. But even so, Reform is increasingly seeming like the only way of even trying to do anything to reverse the madness.
Don’t blame the government.
The bigger question is: why are the people of the UK, USA, Australia, Germany … allowing their elected representatives to do this to them?
Look around. These cleverly inverted problems are the people’s doing. Now it is dawning that they shot themselves in both feet, it was they (and their tribal mates) that held the gun!
Cheers,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
The problem in Britain is the enormous amount of propaganda in the media which says that global warming is bad. For the average person who doesn’t know much science, this propaganda has had a huge effect. Most people think that something has to be done about climate change.
Before covid, I used to have letters printed regularly in the press pointing out the absurdities of catastrophic global warming. Now I can get virtually no letters printed at all. In the last four years, the vast majority of the British media has banned anything critical of the narratives being promoted by the major political parties. This applies to a large number of topics, but especially global warming.
Don’t forget the schools…
Also, Bill, Labour implemented the Climate Change Act in 2008, without consulting the electorate, and minimal scrutiny in Parliament. Then, vindictive May, committed us to an accelerated reduction in 2019. She did it knowing that when Brexit happened in 2020, we would be prevented from changing it, by the EU TCA agreement.
I don’t know whether any party, with the will, would be able to change it now.
Good morning Bill,
No different here in Oz. I tried to publish numerous papers in scientific journals but they were rejected on spurious grounds, which is why a colleague and I started http://www.bomwatch.com.au.
Placing the science basis in the public domain is one thing, but having control over the communication pathway is another entirely. While having the material there is useful when raising issues with my local representatives, I can only do so much in the time available.
All the best,
Bill Johnston
What are they to do, at least in the UK? All of the political parties anyone has heard of are following the same line. The constituency electoral system means that its very very difficult to start a new national party. Its either going to be Labour or Conservative at the next election, and Labour is only a little more extreme than the Conservatives on energy and climate.
Add to this the almost total consensus in the media so up to now they have been largely uninformed. Its hard to see what the people do.
“Labour is only a little more extreme than the Conservatives on energy and climate.”
If the Conservatives think they’re going over the cliff, they might slam the brakes on but Labour will floor the accelerator in the belief that they can take off and fly.
A big part of the problem here in the US is not so much any real concern for “doing something about climate change”, which generally ranks dead last or close to it on polls of voter concerns. However, a big problem here is voters who are too stupid (or impulsive) to bother to take a look at ALL of a candidate’s positions.
The last major election is a great example. In many states, abortion was a major issue on the ballots. Unfortunately hot button political issues like this tend to blot out all others. People who voted for pro-abortion candidates also voted (likely without thinking or knowingly) for candidates who would take away their gas stoves, gas heat, non-EV cars and make it difficult to acquire meat and other animal products. This is like someone who holds out a tasty treat for a dog, but has a club in their other hand. The dog can see the club, but it pays no attention as all it can focus on in the moment (being that it is an animal) is the treat. It only notices the club when it comes down on its head!
Poorly educated voters who only see the one or two shiny things (others like increase in minimum wage and other “gifts” to voters) and don’t bother to look for the club in the politician’s other hand.
I know women (and men) who are fervently pro-abortion (pro increased wages, Black Lives Matter supporters, pro whatever), but yet I don’t know anyone, of any political stripe, who wants to go back to cooking over a wood fire and in general, an 18th century lifestyle.
There’s only one or two states that are actually talking about banning all abortion.
Yet if you listen to the Democrats, unless you vote for them, that is what is going to happen for the entire country.
According to them, any restriction is the equivalent to a 100% ban.
Dear Lee,
I find US politics interesting to say the least. I have been following the latest Presidential campaign, the tribalism stirred by candidates, donors, and the MSM, and the way it all unfolds.
However, the only way to gather valid ‘unfiltered’ impressions is via Fox News US, C-SPAN and a few other free-to-air channels and Tucker Carlson; not CNN, CNBC, ABC etc. The US is obviously in a pretty bad shape and rapidly imploding, politically, but not as a people. There is some sense in crowds, and eventually a solution will evolve, and it is evolving as we speak.
Lots of normal folk turn-up at rallies and polling places and while the messages are repetitive and in some cases cringe-worthy, the future is really in their hands. To exercise that future, however; as voting is optional, they have to get out and vote.
While I don’t understand ‘primaries’ it is pretty clear that Trump will prevail. Also, that if he does what he says he will do, the fog will clear pretty quickly post-November. His energy-policies alone will undermine the Paris Agreement, while other actions will go a long way to restoring world order. Like-Trump-or-not tribalism is immaterial to the outcomes people may be seeking via the electoral process.
Milei’s Speech at Davos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtegqgKYR-U) is also a turning point. I’m surprised that Davos has lasted as long as it has (as if the world has not not seen enough of selfish, manipulative, nasty German dictators). It does not help the Davos cause that Germany is in decline; nor that hopefully Argentina will rise from the ashes of the same socialist disease afflicting Germany, France, Britain … and now Oz.
All the best,
Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
why are the people of the UK, USA, Australia, Germany … allowing their elected representatives to do this to them?
Because they (in general) accept what they’re told by their respective MSMs and are either unable or unwilling to engage in critical thinking and actually look beyond what they’re being told. (or even at alternative sources)
Re Heat Pumps:
quote:“The energy minister, Lord Callanan, has accused “vested interests” of “funding campaigns of misinformation” about heat pumps.
“I’m not going to mention names but people have a vested interest in maintaining our current supplies of gas boilers and the like”, he told The Climate Show with Tom Heap.
https://news.sky.com/story/campaigns-of-misinformation-around-heat-pumps-says-energy-minister-amid-record-number-of-installations-13052428
and where have we heard that same childish and tired rhetoric before, one million times before?
>>It is he that has been misinformed: That most heat pumps in the UK will require to be air-source-pumps and in the UK will be working with air that will typically be in the temperature range of 5 to 10 °C
That air will also be fully saturated with water vapour. For the pump to extract any energy (heat) it will require to cool that air in what is a glorified car radiator.
Cooling that air, from that temperature, means resulting air of less than 0°C at which point the water vapour will freeze into/onto the intricate thing that is a car radiator and block the thing up.
At which point, all heat pumping ceases and with UK air as it typically is when heat pumps are required to work, that means within minutes of switching the thing on.
That Callanan muppet is ‘doing a King Knut’ – he is trying assert that water doesn’t freeze at 0 °C – just because he says so and because ‘disinformation’ and vested interests says it does.
Peta,
it is the government’s own department that provides misinformation.
I have been coresponding with that department for some time, (it takes an age to get any response) pointing out that heat pumps need a lot of gas generation for the little power they consume (relatively). They keep coming back claiming they (Air source heat pumps) are 280% efficient, contrary to physical laws that say no device can be 100% efficient. It bases that figure on electrical units consumed by the heat pump which is wrong, it should,be how much gas is burned to provide that electrcity, that is the energy in side of the equation.
I suspect that they are much less efficient than a modern gas boiler, as ground source is approximately 40% more efficient than air source..
More than 50 years ago, in a physics lecture at college, we did the topic of heat exchangers.
I recall the lecturer saying that it can be shown that heat pumps are more than 100% efficient. But, he added, it’s actually a fiddle with the parameters. I just wish I could recall how it was done.
It takes more than just a “fiddle” with the parameters.
Obviously nothing can really be more than 100% efficient, it would require the creation of energy from nothing. The trick is that a heat pump is not actually making heat from another form of energy, such as the combustion of gas, but just moving the existing heat around, from outside to inside. If you open your loft hatch, warm air will move from the house into the cold loft and the loft will be warmer. Warming your loft is almost free since the effort required to open the hatch is negligible – except of course your house will be colder.
The clue to the actual efficiency is in the name: heat “PUMP“. Any time a “PUMP” is involved there can’t be “negligible” effort involved. Something has to drive that “PUMP“, it’s called “energy” and energy isn’t free.
The only way to even get 100% efficiency, let alone a higher value, is to ignore some of the inputs to the process.
This explanation is not valid. There no “heat” outside as the temperature outside is less than the temperature inside in the winter.
You then contradict yourself with the loft comparison. The comparison would be opening the front door and letting the warmth from outside flow in. Not going happen in winter.
Forgot to add Mr. Gorman below is correct. Only two things can cross a boundary. Work and heat. The pump uses electrical energy to transform mechanical energy into work. Work and heat are both in joules so are equivalent.
I think its time to revisit school level physics….
Imagine there is some boiling water outside. Pumping some of that boiling water into the house will cost some electricity but will deliver some heat into the house.
Now imagine the water is at 80C instead of boiling. The pumping action uses the same amount of energy per amount of water but will bring in less heat than from 100C water.
From still cooler water, the same amount of electricity by the pump will bring in the same amount of water but still less heat.
Efficiency might be a misused word in this case but the fact that more heat is available from the water than from resistance heating, for the same amount of electricity, means the heat pump is a multiplier.
Likewise with air instead of water. More than 100% of the resistance derived heat will be delivered using the heat pump (supposedly down to 20C air with the best modern heat pumps. Thus the heat pump provides heat at a lower cost than any other use of electricity.
In any case, using electricity to heat the house will cost a great deal more than using gas — until the price of gas is artificially raised above the price of electricity.
If the temperature is above absolute zero, there is heat in the air.
If using 100 units of power causes 200 units power to move from place A to place B, then by the definitions being used, you have an efficiency of 200%.
For some definitions of ‘efficiency’ only.
Yes, a much better and more succinct version of what I was trying, rather laboriously, to say!
Power is energy/time. You don’t usually move power, you move energy and then use that to do work, i.e. energy used per unit time.
From a thermodynamics point of view, it takes energy to move energy thus you have more energy involved in the system than before you did the move. Thus the efficiency can never be more than 100%.
Every heat pump has a compressor. Compressors do work. That work raises the temperature and pressure of gas in the heat pump system, i.e. it adds energy to the system.
That heat can be transformed into work, e.g. raising the temperature of the air inside the house, but you can never quite get as much work from the heat as it took to create the heat, doing so would violate entropy. Thus you will always have loss in the system that prevents a 100% efficiency.
Ther is heat outside as long as its not absolute zero.
The heat pump makes outside colder as it makes the inside warmer.
It takes less energy to do that than to actually use the energy to make the inside warm.
Lets try to explain very clearly.
In a colloquial sense you are correct. This is the sense in which someone says, don’t leave the door open (on a very hot day) you will let the heat in. In this sense it would be silly to say that on a cold day. There would be, in the colloquial sense, no heat to let in.
However in the scientific sense, which is what the heat pump talk uses, there is heat in the air outside my house as long as the outside temperature is above absolute zero. It may feel cold, but there is still some heat in it. It doesn’t matter what the temperature in the house is, the heat content of the outside air is the same.
What is meant by saying it has heat content is simply that it is possible to cool it. Cooling it means extracting heat from it. In temperate climates there is going to be as a practical matter more heat in the outside air than anyone can ever extract in any domestic appliance.
So, we have a device, a heat pump, which extracts heat from the huge supply of it in the outside air and transfers it to the inside of the house. It can do this whatever the temperatures of the outside air and the inside are. Though it gets harder the colder the outside air is, because there is less heat to be harvested.
The question is: what is the energy cost of doing this? The energy cost is however much electricity it takes to drive the system. Now ask, how in general does this energy compare to the heat which is extracted and transferred? It depends on the outside temperature, but for an air source heat pump it seems to be that you can extract and transfer betwen 2 and 3 times as much heat as you burn electricity to run the appliance. In the right temperature and climate conditions, at least. The ratio falls as the temperature falls.
When people talk about a heat pump being 200% efficient, what they are in effect saying is that if you compare the heat you get by using the same amount of electricity for a heat pump versus resistive heating – an oil filled radiator, for instance – you get twice as much out of the heat pump as you get out of the oil filled radiator.
There are all kinds of things wrong with heat pumps in many climates, but this is the argument in favor offered by advocates, and at least in theory it is correct. Whether in most real world systems and weather conditions they deliver what is claimed, that’s a different matter. The theory of how they work, and the practice of how they work in optimal climate and temperature conditions, they are both valid.
Simple really. Instead of fiddling while Rome burns, they burn Rome then fiddle!
b.
Paul Homewood at NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT had a post on 14th Jan about an article in the Daily Telegraph and on the web entitled
‘I don’t regret my heat pump – here’s why you should get one too’
The guy lived in a terrace house, the system cost £11,000 plus £7,000 for insulation and says installation was a pain To save money and emissions he only heats the kitchen, lounge and bathroom and to do this adequately he has to run it 18 hours a day! He doesn’t mention how he heats his water.
People were asked would you install a heat pump in your house? The results were very encouraging. 96,468 votes 16% yes. 84% NO.
My neighbor uses a heat pump in his house. He turns it on once the outside gets cold enough to require inside heating. It stays turned on until spring provides enough heat without the heat pump, even though he often goes away for several days at a time. Of course the heat pump cycles on and off by virtue of its thermostat setting, just like your refrigerator. Yes, it is quite expensive but there is no gas in this area.
I think heat pumps get expensive when the resistance heat kicks in.
I recently shared some records of how my mini-split worked on some cold days – but I learned after the fact that it has a resistance heating element also.
I would be very interested to see how one worked in colder temperatures without that heating element engaged.
First, a heat pump is an air conditioner working in reverse. Most heat pumps can do both jobs by virtue of a switch that reverses the direction of operation. Air conditioners are always expensive to run but the exact energy usage depends on the temperature gradient.
Second, while it isn’t my area of knowledge, I am informed that heat pumps in any area where the temperatures get to freezing or below requires, at the least, heating elements to “defrost” the mechanism, much as any frost free freezer requires defrosting cycles. Without that ability the mechanism can freeze over, which forces it to stop and can destroy the compressor.
I worked in a couple of data centers that didn’t control their equipment adequately during some very hot California summer days. The computer rooms especially needed to be kept rather chilly. At times the burden became too great for the air conditioners, which froze solid, requiring everything to be shut down for hours.
Freezing air conditioners typically happen from low refrigerant levels and/or an undersized fresh air intake system (which can also happen with plugged up filters). Since most systems are capable of only dropping the air temp by 20F-25F it’s hard to freeze one up in hot conditions unless something is wrong. It’s why car air conditioners can freeze up if you set the controls to use only recycled air from the passenger compartment, it just keeps getting colder and colder till it freezes. Switch it to use fresh air and the passenger compartment may get warmer but the air conditioner won’t freeze.
AC systems that freeze over generally happen due to there being something wrong. When that happens with mine, the first thing I do is change the filter, as low airflow is one common reason. Low freon is the other most common reason. But one that a lot of people don’t know is a wrong-sized unit – it’s very possible to have too big of a system. If it’s oversized, it cycles too often. (I’m not clear on exactly how that causes the freezes but i’ve picked that up from a few techs). Bigger isn’t always better.
That’s freezing over on the inside during cooling cycles, which gets worse as it happens because the freezing cuts the airflow.
Winter freezing, you’re absolutely right about the defrost mechanism. It doesn’t happen often for me – I’m not in that cold of a region, but when it’s really cold AND wet it might. If it’s bad enough (where it’s starting to get cold inside), I crack a valve so my hoses work and take a hose to it to melt the frost.
My understanding, if it exist in reality, is that the “efficiency” factor is how much electricity is required to extract a given amount of heat from the atmosphere compared to how much electricity is required to provide that same amount of heat with resistance coils.
X amount of kWh will provide Y amount of heat energy inside the house with resistance heating.
X amount of kWh will provide (up to) 2.8 times Y amount of heat energy inside the house by squeezing it from the outside air.
That’s why my parents got rid of their heat pump experiment 20 years ago – it didn’t work when it got cold. Their electric bill would spike because of the electric heater in the heat pump. They went back to the venerable furnace/air conditioner.
It’s like the politicians and scientists of today have never lived in the real world. My guess is that most of them wouldn’t even recognize a car radiator if it were dropped on their desk!
“A party still with a large mutinous minority of anti-semitic Trotskyite terrorist sympathizers.”. My goodness you have got that so wrong. Minority?????
It’s the media and the schools coupled with far too many highly educated idiots. As has been posted here a WUWT, there is an organization called Covering Climate Now that provides the narrative that is used by virtually every main stream media outlet, and no skepticism is allowed – only the blaring of catastrophic globalclimatewarmingchange. While not quite as bad as in the UK, far too many republicans (including Nikki Haley) who give credence to the narrative instead of rejecting it out right – and there are some number who fully embrace it. We (the US) are heading in the same direction.
Not for long and does it matter. Both UK and Germany are declining economies. German steel production has been in terminal decline for the past decade. All G7 nations have declining steel production. In fact Chine produces almost 5 times the output of all G7 nations.
UK can continue selling the farm to rich Arabians and Germany can continue to trade its intellectual property for goods being made in China.
China now builds more than half of almost everything manufactured. Ship building is another industry where China now builds more than the rest of the world. Building bulk carriers goes hand-in-hand with expanding navy. Chinese navy fleet is now just behind the Russian fleet in number while each is larger in number than USA.
China is yet to crack commercial aircraft manufacture as a global force but it produces 56% of the world’s aluminium so it is only a matter of time before it dominates aircraft manufacture. Boeing are now making aircraft in China meaning the technology will transfer rapidly and Chinese engineers will then improve on it.
G7 is rapidly becoming irrelevant to global economics. China dominates global trade and that will ultimately leads to unparalleled dominance. The problems for China are growing old and declining population but these not yet impacting growth as the world looks to China to make all the stuff then will waste on NutZero.
“I just hope that the U.S. can be rescued in time.”
Then you must hope that Trump is elected because that is what depends on.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who believe that no more mean tweets is more important than saving the country.
A significant fraction of the Republican party would rather be loved by the NYT, than be effective.
The U.K. may be beyond saving. The decisions taken by politicians – and supported on both sides of the political fence – are so economically disastrous for our nation that it seems as if our MPs are deliberately trying to ruin the nation. Indeed, some of the actions are so bizarre that many simply would not believe they are happening – beyond fiction, as it were:
Britain is truly governed by politicians of low intelligence who produce policies that are truly, head-scratchingly, damaging and stupid.
John, I entirely agree with your view. The only small thing I disagree with in your comment is the line that says “politicians on both sides of the fence”.
Unfortunately we have no politicians either side of the fence. They are all firmly say on it doing nothing. They simply wait for the next instruction to come along from the actual authority controlling Western political activity.
This is the first year the Davos globalist movement have had to sit through a couple of dissenting speakers at their annual, ‘pat on the back’ gathering.
Let us hope it is the start of a change in who actually has authority over our political class. Voters need to reassert their authority over the political class.
“Britain is truly governed by politicians of low intelligence who produce policies that are truly, head-scratchingly, damaging and stupid.”
That should be an electoral slogan. It’s so bl**dy true! 😠
“arranged for forests in the United States to be bulldozed”
bullshit
Strictly you are correct. They are bulldozing forests in Canada, the US and Eastern Europe. Chipping the wood then KILN DRYING, then making pellets, then transporting via ship and rail.
It’s an environmental disaster wrapped up as green.
bullshit- if you want to understand what happens to the forests- talk to a forester- I’ve discussed this subject here many times- they DON’T bulldoze forests to make chips- you have no f*****g clue
Using giant diesel powered clippers and industrial chain saws on tracked vehicles to cut the trees down is a more accurate description, but it doesn’t change the end result. The trees are cut down, processed and shipped, by fuel oil powered transport.
It’s all part of modern forestry whether you approve or not. Maybe we should cut the trees with an axe and drag out the trees with a mule? Some forests are indeed clearcut- as part of “even age silviculture” whether you can grasp that fact or not. Then, the trees are separated- the best go to sawmills or veneer mills, low grades go elsewhere, to make pallets (not the same as pellets), or pulp for paper, some goes to firewood, the lowest grade goes into chips or pellets. Then the forest grows up again. Can you gasp that? Here in New England and other northern US and Canadian areas- most forestry is uneven age- that is, we thin the forests. But what we remove will be the full range of products including chips. Your comment that the clippers are diesel powered, so f*****g what? The forestry world LOVES fossil fuels. Do you live in a wood home with wood furniture and paper products? Where do you think that wood comes from? Somebody with an ax and a mule? And, the wood gets processed and shipped- so f****g what? Everything you own started off as a raw material in the Earth- got dug up, processed and shipped. Get it? Do you homework when talking about forestry and not basing idiot comments on propaganda by forestry haters and climate nut jobs. Talk to foresters.
I am a fan of modern forestry and FF. I live in a state with vast forests, (Washington, USA) that are not well managed and occasionally erupt in large fires due to the build up of fuel.
I point out the use of diesel and fuel oil to illuminate the utter hypocrisy of using wood from across the Atlantic to power a power plant sitting on a ready supply of coal. They should use the cheaper coal and get rid of the idiot policies.
The fact that Drax sits on coal- and the coal is not being used- certainly makes no sense- but, too many people then attack forestry. If the owners of Drax want to buy chips- anyone who can sell them chips will do so. But, then the critics will say the forests are being destroyed to produce chips which is not true. No reason to attack forestry just because the idiots of Drax and the UK government hate coal. What confuses the economics of all energy policies is subsidies. If the cost to ship the chips to the UK, on huge carbon ships, is small enough- so that the cost of the chips in the UK is reasonable (in some sense)- then the fact that they’re shipped is irrelevant as everything gets shipped or trucked. What’s really nuts is that we could be using those chips here in America, but the enviro lunatics are fighting hard to prevent that. For example, Dartmouth College was going to spend $200 million bucks to build a woody biomass power plant which would have greatly benefited forestry across the region- it would have mean locally produced energy- and using the latest smokestack tech to minimize air pollution- but no, the climate whack jobs wouldn’t let that happen. So now Dartmouth will install huge wind and solar farms and most likely import energy from the Middle East. So, this is analogous to Drax importing chips while sitting on coal. Every nation should tried to use its own energy. I’m all for Drax burning coal and I’m all for America managing forests to produce excellent wood products including chips and pellets for energy.
It may indeed by good for the forest, wherever it is done intelligently, but it is not, in the case of Drax and similar electricity producers, economically reasonable. Without the huge taxpayer subsidies, Drax could not operate. Power stations near the forest, where the process can be done at an overall commercial profit, can be a different story.
And if they went back to coal- with vastly over paid coal mine workers, thanks to a labor union- that’s a kind of subsidy too. I suggest all union workers are subsidized- especially government “workers”.
And if you look close, almost every industry on the planet is subsidized in one way or another. Fine, I just hate is seeing people claim the forests are being bulldozed to produce chips- which is taken right out of the propaganda from forestry haters and climate nut jobs.
Britain is truly governed by politicians of low intelligence who produce policies that are truly, head-scratchingly, damaging and stupid.
Like most of the rest of the west, it is governed by a fifth column that has been educated for its task and slipped into place for the past half century or more.
Just like our politicians, especially the bolshiecrats, they are fit for no other job. That’s why they are desperate to get and keep their positions. Just like entertainers, if they didn’t have their positions, they’d be parking cars or slinging burgers.
“”Their Carbon….””
Stuff and nonsense.
News….
The BBC News website is now governed by Ofcom
Right, like that’ll make any difference whatsoever. BBC gets a free pass from Ofcom on the TV and radio so more of the same on the website.
How will one complain in future about the BBC’s [add noun here] reporting? Presumably to Ofcom and not the BBC?
You’ll write on a piece o’ paper, set light to it, and shove it up the chimney.
Ah, smoke signals??
I don’t know how wide spread it was, but at one time there was a tradition that the way for kids to send their letters to Santa was to burn those letters in the fireplace.
Spot on Mark 😊
I don’t know if they ever did that in the US, but they used to do it here some 40 – 50+ years ago? Kids probably, use their phone now, and fireplaces with a chimney, will get replaced by heat pumps 😒
Certainly one can complain to Ofcom but will they bother to look at it? And what is the likely outcome if they do?
Russian troops along the Ukraine front line will be pleased – there goes another source of 155 mm shells and similar
“Net zero may be dying, but so are the economies of the UK and Germany. I just hope that the U.S. can be rescued in time.”
We are on a knife’s edge under the sword of Damocles above a cauldron. From your keyboard to God’s eyes, I hope we can. Although this is said about every election, the 2024 election will be pivotal.
The result of elections won’t change anything. The explanation for what’s happening now is in Joseph Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies. His archeological investigations reveal that a number of societies simply disappeared because, among other things, there were simply too many parasites living off of the producers, the workers couldn’t continue to follow the diktats of the bureaucrats and rent-seekers that greatly outnumbered them. So they walked away from the situation.
Whether this occurs next year or decades into the future can’t be known but happen it will. The big difference with Tainter’s examples is that the ones he describes were localized affairs that exterminated smaller societies, except perhaps the Roman Empire. In our present dilemma, (dare I use the word crisis?) large portions of the earth will be affected. The results may not be predictable in detail but in economic terms nothing will be the same. It seems likely that the production of hydrocarbon energy, large industrial units, rapid and relatively cheap international travel and shipping, a varied and healthful diet, all of the elements of a developed culture will regress to a level before the peak of technological innovation. Texts will remain, knowledge won’t be lost, but the technology will no longer be accessible to implement that knowledge. Small bands of tribal scavengers will spend their nights in abandoned computer chip fabs that won’t have the raw materials or energy to produce products to make use of the digital revolution. Who wins an election won’t have any bearing on this.
In fact, the “democratic republic” sham has proven its worth. Elections don’t change the make-up the various bureaucracies, at least in the US. The bureaucratic population, at one time a part of the much maligned “spoils system” is now a fruit of government’s primary purpose, perpetuating itself. Just as the Emperor’s personal guard selected the next emperor, there are enough bureaucrats to select the senior managers of the federal complex.
We don’t live under a constitutional, elected government. We live under a Bureaucratic Hegemony. The BH is alive and like anything alive eats everything around it until there is nothing left. The end of a BH isn’t pretty.
Mad Max?
I mostly agree with you, but as Trump showed after 2016, it is possible to at least slow it all down. That’s why the deep state hates him so much. He came around, bucking the trend by doing something novel in politics- actually doing what he said he was going to do (or at least try; the deep state Never Trumpers were still able to thwart him quite a bit).
And the biggest irony, last solar panel manufacturer in Germany to close.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/germanys-last-solar-panel-producer-prepares-to-close-shop/
They’re not even begging anymore but demanding-
Energy bills must rise to pay for net zero, says Siemens Energy boss (yahoo.com)
PS: We need a bit more transition time folks as there’s some nasty tripping points looming-
Full steam ahead as government secures gas deal (msn.com)
“Gas is also indispensable in the processing of critical minerals and technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels.”
Never mind that we import all the wind turbines and solar panels. Who do they think they’re kidding?
This might sound perverse, but that is good news. It proves what we’re all saying. We can share the link with others, to get the message out.
You’re right in one sense but it just goes to show that weasel Bowen is getting the inevitable advice on looming blackouts and knows his neck’s on the block. So he has to save it in the short run while spinning the double back somersault with full pike as best he can to the usual suspects. The coal generators are running on sticky tape and string but his lauded saviour with offshore wind is caught between the NIMBYs and their precious sea views and the Siemens doing their Oliver Twist thing. Only a matter of time now.
Funny that – the Renewable Energy fanbois kept telling us that Wind and Solar would save us money as the fuel costs were zero…
“It’s free!” — Nitpick Nick Stokes
I agree with Francis. Hitting a hard wall would be better, otherwise the decline is not reversible. Politicians sometimes frivolously set targets just to benefit from a hype (like the Greta Thunberg hype in 2019/20). They don’t understand which grave, long lasting consequences this can have. For example the ban of ICE car sale in the EU by 2035. The EU politicians implemented the backdoor to “re-evaluate” this ban in 2030. But then it’s too late. Car manufacturers are already now planning to stop ICE car R&D and announcing that the actual ICE models are the last ones. Already now, no young, smart engineer will choose to get an education for a technology with the outlook to be banned in 2035. The result is a decline, which might not be visible in short term, but will accelerate in mid term and is no longer reversible in long term.
EVs have plateaued and this guy is on to it-
The Imminent Collapse Of The Electric Car Market! – YouTube
and are Polestar owners going the way of China’s Weltmeister owners?
EV Market Woes: Polestar “worth NOTHING” – Ford cuts F150 – Tesla cuts prices | MGUY Australia (youtube.com)
Which is the worst of two evils, Labour or Tories? I suppose if Labour gets in and drives their idiotic nut-zero policies, the proverbial might hit the fan sooner. But would it be enough to save the UK?
If the Tories stay in then they might see what’s happening and shift away from net zero. Labour won’t – once they’re in they will go all out without let-up no matter the consequences. It’s the difference between a possible hard fail and a guaranteed one.
“Not with a bang but a whimper.” Robert Frost.
It appears a “hard crash” is needed to persuade the “stupidity.” Rational thinking, reason, logic and critical thinking are indeed in short supply nowadays.
Dependence on renewables in the UK has resulted in a shortfall of generation capacity when there is little or no wind (who could have guessed that?) This is hidden by two policies – the importation of foreign-generated electricity via interconnectors, and the ESO Demand Flexibility Scheme. The former allows European neighbours to sell us electricity, naturally enough at a price premium – according to the London Stock Exchange, last year the UK bought 12% of requirement from France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands costing net 3.5 billion GBP. The latter is a scheme to cut demand by paying customers not to use electricity. registered users are paid 3 GBP per kWh not used – presumably against their usual requirement. This has two negative effects – it encourages industry to shut down and cut productivity and it pushes up the price of consumers to pay off non-consumers. This scheme was most recently implemented on 25th and 26th December last year and on 17th January this year.
“high energy prices brought about by energy restrictions drive important industries out of business and, as good jobs disappear and energy prices increase, the people gradually and inexorably get poorer.”
Elites and Tesla drivers (but I repeat myself) affected last. They will actually drive their EVs around thinking that has proved them right and us stupid.
The laws of nature (physics), and those of human society (economics), cannot be repealed by progressive wingnuts who are hallucinating about the end of times. But if we keep voting and appointing this imbeciles into positions of power we can repeal the progress of modern society and bring ourselves back in time to darkness, cold and hunger. So far we have made a pretty depressing start on that project.
Yes, because the bolshietards think that every useful advanced product ever invented and produced for the last 200 years was done out of the goodness of someone’s heart. Can you imagine some commisar approving the design and production of a smart phone?
Many of the defenders of socialism, like to point out that California has a bigger economy than does Germany.
Imagine that, pointing out that someone else is collapsing faster than you are, as a defense of your own actions.
Net Zero is meaningless gibberish, a pathway for more government power and control.
“Net zero may be dying, but so are the economies of the UK and Germany. I just hope that the U.S. can be rescued in time.”
Unfortunately, the worst part of this economic decline is that the Green Movement will see nothing wrong with it. They are slowly achieving their goals. The developed and industrialized status quo that Germany and the UK have been enjoying for so long now is evil and has to go. People have to learn to live with less and a lower standard of living. The Greens demand it.
If Trump wins in November here in the U.S., we may stave off economic decline for a while. But if a Democrat succeeds him in 2028 with more of the usual Green Movement beliefs and credentials, the damage that [Let’s Go] Brandon has been responsible for may resume — especially with the massive fortune he is squandering on wind and solar energy and the EV mandate and charging stations.
All of this of course is predicated on the notion that the green energy and climate alarmist narratives will continue to enjoy undeserved credibility in the years ahead in government and the mass media. Whether we admit it or not, we humans have a long history of self-destruction due to our own stupidity. With inadequate (if any) questions and critical analysis for them to answer for when we choose to listen to them, the Green Movement’s political clout and credibility in government and the mass media demonstrate how that self-destruction can happen.
Before his death, Dr. Carl Sagan warned us a long time ago what the consequences are of a populace and a government ruling over us who are all scientifically and technologically illiterate.
It will be far more than 2500 jobs that go as the steel workers spend money in the local economy so lots of other mainly small businesses will suffer. There are already calls for the Cumbrian cokeing coal mine to be scrapped as there is no UK need for it but that will lose out on exporting 75% of its production to earn money for UK plc. And given our sky high electricity costs I don’t believe the electric arc furnaces will ever be built. Having spent all the taxpayers £500m Tata will suddenly find there is nothing left for the new plant and will ship the steel from India.
20 hours ago I wrote the first post on this article outlining that both the Port Talbot (Indian owner) and a North Lincolnshire steelworks (Chinese owner) were both cutting 2000 jobs, closing the blast furnaces and moving to electric arc furnaces. That post is STILL in bloody moderation because (I think) I used the name of the town in North Lincolnshire with the steelworks which has 4 letters in the name which the software obviously doesn’t like. Shame really as it was a good post, outlining that these two steelworks are the last in the country and they’re both on their last legs.