The Week That Was: 2024 08-24 (August 24, 2024)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Those who can make you believe absurdities; can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire [H/t Richard Lindzen]
Number of the Week: Half-life less than 4.2 years
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: Discussed below is Richard Lindzen’s view how we arrived at the modern absurdity of considering carbon dioxide a pollutant and a danger to life. Tom Gallagher continues his discussion on Earth’s energy flows and what climate models miss, particularly the importance of carbonic acid for most life on Earth. Briefly discussed is the fact that the temperature trends reported by UAH, Huntsville, are calculated, not measured.
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A Modern Absurdity: The demonization of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, is amazing. By far, water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas. Without the greenhouse effect, with the same albedo, land masses on Earth would become too cold at night to support the growth of plants, and Earth would be as barren as the Moon or Mars. Yet the greenhouse effect is demonized by the UN and its collaborators. Their focus is on carbon dioxide which accounts for less than 25% of the greenhouse effect. Other gases have a minimal effect, except ozone. But ozone primarily occurs in the stratosphere, where it is created by solar radiation hitting oxygen molecules. That causes stratospheric temperature to rise above the tropopause but does not impact Earth’s surface temperature.
To make the current craze of demonizing carbon dioxide even more absurd is that carbon dioxide is essential for photosynthesis, the mechanism by which green plants grow, and become the food source of all complex life on Earth. Without photosynthesis, life on Earth would be limited to chemo-synthesizing bacteria – hardly a food source for human life. Yet, the popular political belief in western Europe, North America and the anglicized world is that carbon dioxide, essential for photosynthesis, is a pollutant that will kill life on Earth.
Atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen gave a blunt assessment of this absurd belief in speech to the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), Brussels. Formed in Hungary, MCC is a leading talent promotion institution in East Central Europe. CLINTEL provided a video and a transcript of the address. In his address “Hopefully, we will awaken from this nightmare before it is too late,” Lindzen began with [Boldface added]:
“In modern history there are several examples of political movements claiming a scientific basis. From immigration restriction and eugenics (in the US after WWI) to antisemitism and race ideology (in Hitler’s Germany) and communism and Lysenkoism (under Stalin). Each of these claimed a scientific consensus that allowed highly educated citizens, who were nonetheless ignorant of science, to have the anxieties associated with their ignorance alleviated. Since all scientists supposedly agreed, there was no need for them to understand the science. Indeed, ‘the science’ is the opposite of science itself. Science is a mode of inquiry rather than a source of authority. However, the success that science achieves has earned it a measure of authority in the public’s mind, and this is what politicians frequently envy and attempt to appropriate.
The exploitation of climate fits into the preceding pattern, and as with all its predecessors, science is, in fact, irrelevant. At best, it is a distraction which led many of us to focus on the numerous misrepresentations of science in what was purely a political movement.
The following focuses on the situation in the United States, though a similar dynamic occurred throughout the developed world, with meetings at the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation’s Bellagio Center and at Villach in the 1980’s playing an important role. Most of this talk will concern the origin of the obsession with decarbonization in the US. I will return briefly to the matter of the consensus at the end of this talk.
I would suggest that the obsession with decarbonization (i.e., Net Zero) had its roots in the reaction to the amazing post WW2 period when ordinary workers were able to own a house and a car. I was a student in the 50’s and early 60’s. The mockery of the poor taste and materialism of these so-called ordinary people was endemic. With the Vietnam War, things got amplified as the working class got drafted while students sought draft deferments. Students, during this period, were still a relative elite; the massive expansion of higher education was only beginning. Students justified their behavior by insisting that the Vietnam War was illegitimate while ignoring the obvious fact that Vietnamese people were fleeing south rather than north. It was fashionable to regard the US as evil and deserving of overthrow. Opposition often turned to violence with groups like the Weather Underground and SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). In 1968, I was teaching at the University of Chicago. We were spending the summer in Colorado, and we had a student taking care of our apartment. When we returned, we found a police car monitoring our apartment. The house-sitter had apparently turned our apartment into a crash pad for the SDS during the Democrat Party Convention. Our apartment was littered with their literature which included instructions for poisoning Chicago’s water supply. This period seemed to end with Nixon’s election, but we now know that this was just the beginning of the long march through the institutions: a march being conducted by avowed revolutionaries’ intent on destroying Western society. For the new revolutionaries, however, the enemy was not the capitalists, but, rather, the working middle class. The capitalists, they realized, could easily be bought off.
Currently, there is great emphasis on the march through the educational institutions: first the schools of education and then higher education in the humanities and the social sciences and now STEM. What is usually ignored is that the first institutions to be captured were professional societies. My wife attended a meeting of the Modern Language Association in the late 60’s, and it was already fully ‘woke.’
While there is currently a focus on the capture of education, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a movement emphasizing racial differences and encouraging conflict) was not the only goal of the march through the institutions. I think it would be a mistake to ignore the traditional focus of revolutionary movements on the means of production. The vehicle for this was the capture of the environmental movement. Prior to 1970, the focus of this movement was on things like whales, endangered species, landscape, clean air and water, and population. However, with the first Earth Day in April of 1970, the focus turned to the energy sector which, after all, is fundamental to all production, and relatedly, involves trillions of dollars.
As we will see, this last item was fundamental. This new focus was accompanied by the creation of new environmental organizations like Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It was also accompanied by new governmental organizations like the EPA and the Department of Transportation. Once again, professional societies were easy pickings: the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and even the honorary societies like the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, etc. The capture of the Royal Society in the UK was an obvious European example. There was a bit of floundering to begin with. The movement initially attempted to focus on global cooling due to the reflection of sunlight by sulfate aerosols emitted by coal fired generators. Afterall, there seemed to have been global cooling between the 1930’s and the 1970’s.
However, the cooling ended in the 1970’s. There was an additional effort to tie the sulfates to acid rain which was allegedly killing forests. This also turned out to be a dud. In the 70’s, attention turned to CO2 and its contribution to warming via the greenhouse effect. The attraction of controlling CO2 to political control freaks was obvious. It was the inevitable product of all burning of carbon-based fuels. It was also the product of breathing. However, there was a problem: CO2 was a minor greenhouse gas compared to the naturally produced water vapor. Doubling CO2 would only lead to warming of less than 1 degree C. A paper in the early 70’s by Manabe and Wetherald came to the rescue. Using a highly unrealistic one-dimensional model of the atmosphere, they found that assuming (without any basis) that relative humidity remained constant as the atmosphere warmed, would provide a positive feedback that would amplify the impact of CO2 by a factor of 2. This violated Le Chatelier’s Principle that held that natural systems tended to oppose change, but to be fair, the principle was not something that had been rigorously proven. Positive feedbacks now became the stock in trade of all climate models which now were producing responses to doubling CO2 of 3 degrees C and even 4 degrees C rather than a paltry 1 degree C or less.
The enthusiasm of politicians became boundless. Virtue signaling elites promised to achieve net zero emissions within a decade or 2 or 3 with no idea of how to achieve this without destroying their society (and, with offshore wind, killing marine mammals). Ordinary people, confronted with impossible demands on their own well-being, have not found warming of a few degrees to be very impressive since the warming projected was what everyone successfully negotiates every day. By contrast, most educated elites learned how to rationalize anything in order to please their professors – a skill that leaves them particularly vulnerable to propaganda. Few ordinary people, by contrast, contemplate retiring to the arctic rather than Florida. Excited politicians, confronted by this resistance, have frantically changed their story. Rather than emphasizing miniscule changes in their temperature metric (which, itself, is a false measure of climate), they now point to weather extremes which occur almost daily some place on earth, as proof not only of climate change but of climate change due to increasing CO2 (and now also to the even more negligible contributors to the greenhouse effect like methane and nitrous oxide) even though such extremes show no significant correlation with the emissions. From the political point of view, extremes provide convenient visuals that have more emotional impact than small temperature changes. The desperation of political figures often goes beyond this to claiming that climate change is an existential threat (associated with alleged ‘tipping points’) even though the official documents (for example, the Working Group 1 reports of the IPCC) produced to support climate concerns never come close to claiming this, and where there is no theoretical or observational basis for tipping points.”
Lindzen discusses the that Montreal Protocol [not verified by the US Senate] which banned Freon, for ozone depletion, constituted a dry run for the current absurdities. He concludes with:
“That the claim of consensus was always propagandistic should be obvious, but the claim of consensus has its own interesting aspects. When global warming was first exposed to the American public in a Senate hearing in 1988, Newsweek Magazine had a cover showing the Earth on fire with the subtitle ‘All scientists agree.’ This was at a time when there were only a handful of institutions dealing with climate and even these institutions were more concerned with understanding the present climate rather than the impact of CO2 on climate. Nonetheless, a few politicians (most notably Al Gore) were already making this their signature issue. And, when the Clinton-Gore administration won the election in 1992, there began a rapid increase by a factor of about 15 in funding related to climate. This, indeed, created a major increase in individuals claiming to work on climate, and who understood that the support demanded agreement with the alleged danger of CO2. Whenever, there was an announcement of something that needed to be found (i.e., the elimination of the medieval warm period, the attribution of change to CO2, etc.), there were, inevitably, so-called scientists who would claim to have found what was asked for (Ben Santer for attribution and Michael Mann for the elimination of the medieval warm period) and received remarkable rewards and recognition despite the absurd arguments. This did produce a consensus of sorts. It was not a consensus that we were facing an existential threat, but rather, as noted by Steven Koonin, that the projected increase in GDP by the end of the 21st century would be decreased from about 200% to 197% and even this prediction is an exaggeration – especially since it ignores the undeniable benefits of CO2.
So here we are, confronted with policies that destroy western economies, impoverish the working middle class, condemn billions of the world’s poorest to continued poverty and increased starvation, leave our children despairing over the alleged absence of a future, and will enrich the enemies of the West who are enjoying the spectacle of our suicide march, a march that the energy sector cowardly accepts, being too lazy to exert the modest effort needed to check what is being claimed. As Voltaire once noted, ‘Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.’ Hopefully, we will awaken from this nightmare before it is too late.”
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Rethinking Global Warming: Last week, TWTW began discussing the very informative lecture by geoscientist Tom Gallagher covering the Holocene, the past 11,700 years. This week TWTW will continue with the discussion emphasizing major problems with Global Climate Models.
Earth’s Real Internal climate driver are the oceans, at all depth levels. Most significant is the ENSO in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Tree growth data nearby show oscillations since about 900 AD. Interestingly the oscillations have declined since the end of the Little Ice Age. The pulses are in 2 to 7 years cycles and they significantly affect precipitation.
The models trying to predict ENSO cycles are scattered widely. Ocean cycles need to be researched carefully; they contain far more heat balance flow than the atmosphere. North of the ENSO we have the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, that is longer than ENSO cycles.
The European weather systems are controlled by the North Atlantic Oscillation Current. Data shows it varies from warmer periods to colder periods since 1864 (NCAR)
The atmosphere is a “Leaky Radiating Cap”
- “Complex Layered Composition Gases and Water, Ozone and Plasmas
- Preserved by Magnetosphere Layer / by the Magnetic field of Earth
- Lower Troposphere Dominated by Water Vapor/Ocean Energy
- Water Vapor is 10,000 to 40,000 PM, Lighter than Air (largely N2 and O2)/ Buoyant/ Storing energy in Phase Changes
- Thermal Inversion above Tropopause/Stratosphere//Ozone Cap
- Low thermal capacity/ Radiation energy loss to space
- CO2 Present in lower parts as Carbonic Acid, not pure CO2
The thermal tropopause is very low in the polar regions rising slowly from about 60 degree in latitude at an altitude of about 8 km to about 12 km at 30 degrees latitude then rising quickly to the about 16 to 18 km in the tropical regions. (Roughly the height of cloud tops) The jet streams separate the tropical world from the temperate/polar world. The jet streams can go 200 to 400 km/hr., but are usually between 130 to 225 km/hr.”
[The data comes from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)]
Gallagher then discusses a brief history of Global Warming Theories, which still need a lot of development, they are only theories. He suggests the earliest ones came in 1823. Starting in 1859 John Tyndall began his experiments, which Arrhenius used in 1896 hoping carbonic acid would prevent Earth from Ice Ages. Gallagher does not mention the 1906 retraction by Arrhenius.
Gallagher states that only with the development of photosynthesis did an understanding develop on how plants break down carbonic acid to Carbonic Anhydrase (a family of enzymes that catalyze the interconversion between carbon dioxide and water and the dissociated ions of carbonic acid. The active side of most carbonic anhydrases contain a zinc ion.)
The dynamics of carbonic acid in the lower atmosphere need a closer look. [Performed by van Wijngaarden and Happer but not stating carbonic acid]
The global climate models have not done well when compared with balloon and satellite datasets. Gallagher asks:
“Why do we use models that fail? – The error limits are not stated. Usually, the concentration is on the atmosphere, the roles of the oceans and clouds are ignored.
Global Climate Models have significant error ranges that are not mentioned by their adherents. The Surface Imbalance is 0.6 +/- 17 W/M2 – an absurd error – the error range is 28 times the estimated value. This is a problem of using models in a dynamic system, the resolutions of the answers are so small that they are overwhelmed by the error range of the assumptions.
The very large variations in the oceans and in clouds are lost in the global climate models.
Gallagher uses the calculations by the American Chemical Society (2020) to state that the black body radiation of the Sun is 252,000 times greater than that of Earth. Solar power is many times that of Earthglow. The differences of the two scales must be noted but frequently ignored.
Gallagher states that the energy level of light diminishes logarithmically with increasing wavelength. Carbon dioxide is important at a wavelength of Earthglow at a comparatively high energy level with little interference from water vapor, but methane and Nitrous oxide are largely interfered with by water vapor.
The energy band for carbon dioxide is partially blocked and redirected by water vapor. This is a problem from using the data from satellites, they cannot view that which is important.
NASA and the European Space Agency use just a very small frequency band (with a wavelength between 1.5 and 2 microns) for CO2 blocking and ignore the much larger bands where water vapor is dominant. To understand the influence of CO2 on the interference of infrared energy, all the frequency bands (wavelengths) must be used. Where CO2 is dominant, water vapor partially blocks its influence. Geographic areas where water vapor is largely absent (deserts and polar regions) cool rapidly at night because CO2 does not store or retain energy over the nighttime. Water vapor can.
The following slides sum things up: [Boldface is in colors in the original]
“Outgoing Heat (I.R. (infrared radiation)) Long wavelength Radiation Window and Water Vapor vs CO2:
- Water Vapor Acts, over a broad spectrum of Radiation. It blocks, controls and redistributes Radiation.
- Water Vapor Quantity increases logarithmically, directly along with Temperature. Regulating Temp.
- Water Vapor, Through Latent Heat, Stores and Moves Atmospheric Energy and all other gases.
- The Daily and Seasonal Lag of peak temperatures are excellent examples of the Water Energy Storage on Earth. Seasonally, in NH [Northern Hemisphere] June is the longest, but August the warmest. Daily noon is not the hottest, 2PM is.
- Water is the dominant / and only condensable Gas in Earth’s Atmosphere
- CO2 Acts: through Radiation at the speed of light. CO2 does not store energy; it vibrates it away.
- CO2 acts over confined wavelength packets, mostly at 15 microns, but is blocked by water vapor.
- CO2’s abundance in not proportion to temperature.
- CO2 can not Store Heat, only radiate at away to space above the tropopause or to Water Vapor below this level
- CO2 is not a condensable Gas in Earth’s atmosphere. As Carbonic Acid, CO2 is not properly understood.”
Another Slide:
“The Chemistry, Biology and Physics of CO2
- CO2 is a heavy Gas [How does it get into the upper atmosphere?]
- Solubility of CO2 in H2O [Liquid] is high. Water vapor is a Light Gas
- Rain pH/ HCO3- [minus an electron]
- Plant origin [and] adaptation Carbonic Anhydrase (CA)
- Plant takes HCO3- and H+ with CA to Yield H2O and CO2
- [Need to] Analyze the thermal contribution of Bicarbonate / HCO3- / CO2”
Another Slide:
“CO2’s ‘polar molecules’ become more soluble in water as the temperature falls. As water vapor ascends, the CO2/Carbonic Acid is taken up in humid air and rises with it as Carbonic Acid [H2CO3 [HCO3-]]
It is this weak Carbonic Acid diluted by Water Vapor that is seen in rain, which has a lowered pH.
Water Vapor (H2O) is the Lightest Atmospheric Gas (18) [Atomic Weight of 18]
Oxygen O2 is (32), Nitrogen N2 is (28), Pure CO2 Gas is very heavy (44). As a pure gas CO2 can not float but accumulates in lows. Only by bonding with Light Warter Vapor / Carbonic Acid, can it be transported to Plants and used.”
The solubility of CO2 in water rises as the temperature of the water falls.”
Another Slide:
The Biology [of the System]: CO2 Bi-Carbonate/Carbonic Acid
Plants take up CO2, not as a pure gas but with Water Vapor, as Bicarbonate/Carbonic Acid in the lower Troposphere. Rainwater / Cloud moisture reflects the pH of this Carbonic Acid. Water Vapor, Evaporates at pH 7 and moves to pH 5.6, before falling as precipitation.
A unique and Ancient Enzyme/Catalyst (Carbonic Anhydrase) in the plant allows the CO2 and Water to be separated and used by the plant to conduct Photosynthesis.
The Basic Plant / Carbonic Acid Biology has been forgotten in the analysis of current Green-House Gas Theory. This oversight is a fundamental and serious error which models do not consider.
Carbonic Anhydrase is a Rapid acting and high-volume catalyst: it converts H2CO3 to H2O and CO2.
Zinc is the central element in the structure of the enzyme. There are animals and bacteria that use a slightly different version of this enzyme. For example, human lungs use a similar enzyme to balance the pH in blood and the removal of CO2 from blood.
Green plants use the enzyme in their stoma. Under higher altitude and colder conditions carbonic acid cannot be easily delivered to plants, defining tree lines for latitude and elevations of mountains. Tree ring growth (reduced growth) show this reduction in the winter. This is based on reduction of delivery of carbonic acid. Nature would not have developed this system if plants could use CO2 directly. The whole process of CO2 induced global warming theory needs to be rethought. [Boldface added]
TWTW will continue with this informative lecture next week. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer and Challenging the Orthodoxy: Paleoclimatology Part 2
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Calculations, Not Measurements: John Robson discovered that the atmospheric temperature trend data by University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), are based on calculations not measurements. TWTW has long recognized this and has considered the data as showing temperature trends, not actual temperatures. The important issues are consistency of observations and adjustments for orbital drift plus any malfunctions in instrument readings. These adjustments are stated in “Climate Data Record (CDR) Program: Climate Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (C-ATBD); Mean Layer Temperature – UAH” published by NOAA.
Microwave sending units detect some exceedingly weak (per molecule) but detectable (because of the very high molecular density) spectral lines in oxygen molecules, and the intensity is temperature dependent. How they do this is not clear. While this may not be perfect in any absolute sense, the temperature difference between now and at some specified time can tell the trend.
No doubt, this document is carefully scrutinized by NOAA, because NOAA’s policy is contrary to what the UAH data is revealing – there is no alarming increase in temperature trends as atmospheric CO2 is increasing. See links under Measurement Issues – Atmosphere.
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Number of the Week: Half-life less than 4.2 years. Gordon Hughes is a senior fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics and Professional Fellow of economics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He has studied wind power in several countries. As the turbines get larger, the time of first failure becomes shorter. This applies to both onshore and offshore turbines. Further with salt spray, offshore turbines do not last as long as onshore turbines. Yet, the political trend is building larger offshore turbines in deeper water, making repairs more difficult. Based on data from Denmark, which keeps good records, a graph compiled by Hughes shows that the first-time failure rate (half-life) of large offshore turbines is less than 4.2 years. See links under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind and Article # 1.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Scientists: 100% Of 2000-2023 Warming Explained By Solar Forcing…Human Climate Forcing ‘Does Not Exist In Reality’
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 23, 2024
Link to paper: Roles of Earth’s Albedo Variations and Top-of-the-Atmosphere Energy Imbalance in Recent Warming: New Insights from Satellite and Surface Observations
By Ned Nikolov and Karl F. Zeller, Geomatics, Aug 20, 2024
Nikolov is with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Zeller is a retired research meteorologist with the USDA Forest Service
“Our analysis revealed that the observed decrease of planetary albedo along with reported variations of the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) explain 100% of the global warming trend and 83% of the GSAT interannual variability as documented by six satellite- and ground-based monitoring systems over the past 24 years.”
[SEPP Comment: Using a “follow the energy” approach to Earth’s warming. GSAT is Earth’s Global Surface Air Temperature (GSAT)]
Censorship
CARDS: Using AI to Manipulate the Global Conversation on Climate Change
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 18, 2024
Link to paper: Hierarchical machine learning models can identify stimuli of climate change misinformation on social media
By Cristian Rojas, et al., Nature, Communications, Earth & Environment, Aug 16, 2024
The abstract begins: Misinformation about climate change poses a substantial threat to societal well-being, prompting the urgent need for effective mitigation strategies. However, the rapid proliferation of online misinformation on social media platforms outpaces the ability of fact-checkers to debunk false claims.
[SEPP Comment: Say climate misinformers of climate information such as John Cook.]
‘Think before you post’: Britain’s slide into censorship
This authoritarian mess has been decades in the making.
By Tom Slater, Spiked, Aug 9, 2024
Of course, misinformation exists. The question is, who do you want to act as your Ministry of Truth? Big Tech? The state? Neither has a particularly encouraging track record.
One-Two Punch
The UK is diving off the energy cliff. Lamenting it might soon be illegal.
By Doomberg, Aug 22, 2024
In a piece we wrote in March titled “Climate Newspeak,” we chronicled how the self-appointed internet watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) was agitating to include opposition to wind and solar projects as “New Denial,” which they helpfully defined as “rhetoric seeking to undermine confidence in solutions to climate change.” At the time, the CCDH—led by founder and CEO Imran Ahmed, who was previously a political strategist for the Labour Party—was demanding censorship of a wide range of popular YouTube channels:
Illogically Facts —“Fact-Checking” by Innuendo
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Aug 23, 2024
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
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/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
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/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
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, December 22, 202o
Challenging the Orthodoxy
“Hopefully, we will awaken from this nightmare before it is too late.”
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”
By Richard Lindzen, CLINTEL, Accessed Aug 22, 2024
Lessons from Paleoclimatology: Conveniently Ignored By the IPCC
By Tom Gallagher, Irish Climate Science Forum and CLINTEL, April 20, 2022 [H/t Jim O’Brien]
Slides: http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/ICSF%20Paleo%20Talk.pdf
Videos
Paleoclimatology Part 1 https://youtu.be/K6tWEjkEiZU
Paleoclimatology Part 2 https://youtu.be/iZSYSWPYEbU
Paleoclimatology Part 3 https://youtu.be/YMHKt9ylPpQ
Link to paper: An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years
By Thomas Westerhold, et al. (over 20 co-authors), AAAS Science, Sep 11, 2020 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba6853
The Quest for Climate’s “Golden Fleece”
By Arvid Pasto, WUWT, Aug 28, 2024
As Carbon Dioxide Increases It Has Less Warming Effect
[SEPP Comment: Illustrates calculations from the MODTRAN Database which shows most of the warming from carbon dioxide occurs in the first 20 million parts per million in volume. Then the author gives other physical evidence showing that CO2 is not the driver of climate change as claimed by the IPCC and its collaborators.]
The Energy Transition Ain’t Happening: “Clean Fuels”
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 19, 2024
The [Wall Street] Journal’s label of “clean fuels” is used to cover two different categories, one being biofuels, and the other being so-called “green hydrogen” (the stuff produced by electrolysis of water using electricity produced by wind or sun).
Defending the Orthodoxy
Sea Level Rise In Samoa Due To 2009 Volcano, Not Climate Change
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
More lies from the UN Liar-in Chief:
[SEPP Comment: Nothing like using local sea level rise to claim global panic.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
How to Force Capitalism to Stop Climate Change
Central banks should stop pretending to be neutral about saving the planet.
By Jason Hickel and Charles Stevenson, Foreign Policy, Aug 16, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Use force! Will government use of force stop Geothermal activity, Stop plate tectonics, Unify the Milankovitch cycles, Stop sunspots and Cosmic rays?]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Our Rising ‘Climate Costs’: Are They Really Proof of Climate Change Causing More Devastating Extreme Weather Events?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
Link to: Our Rising ‘Climate Costs’: Are They Really Proof of Climate Change Causing More Devastating Extreme Weather Events?
Dr. Jessica Weinkle argues that a practical approach rather than emotional media coverage is needed to make necessary conclusions about extreme weather and other climate events.
By Hannes Sary, Freedom Research, Aug 7, 2024
Climate Meltdown
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Aug 22, 2024
The commentary includes a 16-minute video, with interviews conducted by Alex Newman.
Gold medal in hypocrisy
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
Link to: Raymond J. de Souza: Olympic athletes condemned to hot rooms, climate priests dine in luxury
The most fashionable religion of the Olympic elites is climate change
By Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, Can, Aug 4, 2024
He quoted a Euro News story about how the British team flew out a chef to help them (and when the British are complaining about the food you know there’s an issue) that contained this classic passage: [Boldface added]
Dear Elon, 1,000ppm of carbon dioxide is safe, we breathe it every day
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 16, 2024
Energy & Environmental Review: August 19, 2024
By John Droz, Jr. Master Resource, Aug 19, 2024
After Paris!
It isn’t easy going green
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Percent photosynthesis (net CO2 exchange rate) increases for apple following 300, 600 and 900 ppm increases in the air’s CO2 concentration
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
From the CO2Science archive:
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Newly Industrialized Economies Are Wiping Out CO2 Emissions Reductions
By Gary J. DiElsi, Real Clear Energy, August 19, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Apparently the spelling of the author’s last name is correct.]
Climate Claim: The UN “… need to resist the assertion that mining is always beneficial …”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 21, 2024
How Governments Impact the Global Mineral Supply
By Gregory Wischer & Lyle Trytten, Real Clear Energy, August 19, 2024
India Accentuates Coal Reliance in its New Economic Policy Brief
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2, Coalition, Aug 20, 2024
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Climate Policies Fail in Fact and in Theory
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Aug 23, 2024
Link to: Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades
By Annika Stechemesser, et al., AAAS Science, Aug 23, 2024
Link to: Ross McKitrick: Economists’ letter misses the point about the carbon tax revolt
Yes, the carbon tax works great in a ‘first-best’ world where it’s the only carbon policy. In the real world, carbon policies are piled high
By Ross McKitrick, Financial Post (Can) Apr 2, 2024
Clutz: Postscript: All the Pain for No Gain is Unnecessary
[SEPP Comment: Commentary on the AAAS Science paper.]
Models v. Observations
New AI-powered tool could help predict heat waves, link them to climate change
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Aug 21, 2024
Following the training, which relied on climate simulations from 1850 to 2100, the authors shifted focus to real-world heat waves: predicting how hot those events would have been under the same weather conditions but different levels of warming. They also factored in how climate change has influenced the frequency and severity of historical weather events.
[SEPP Comment: Train the model with worthless “global” data? The link to the paper did not work, unable to find it.]
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
And you know that how exactly?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
Link to report: Climate Data Record (CDR) Program: Climate Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (C-ATBD): Mean Layer Temperature – UAH
By John Christy, UAH, Apr 13, 20217
Changing Weather
Hurricane Season on the Atlantic Coast of the United States
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Aug 21, 2024
Edward Lorenz and Dave Fultz’s dishpan experiments showed quite clearly that these cyclonic storms are chaotic in origin and nature.
Less Extreme Pacific Weather … Number Of Typhoons Trending Downward Over 70 Years!
By P Gosselin, Charts by Kirye, No Tricks Zone, Aug 17, 2024
GFS Expects Global Temperature To Drop To Lowest Level Of The Year
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 18, 2024
From Data.Gov The Global Forecast System (GFS) is a weather forecast model produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). Dozens of atmospheric and land-soil variables are available through this dataset, from temperatures, winds, and precipitation to soil moisture and atmospheric ozone concentration.
Alarmist Predictions False! Not A Single Heat Wave This Summer At Cologne-Bonn
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 21, 2024
To someone with a hammer
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
If you were looking for a really hot decade based on those stats, for which Chris Martz has now done a map like the one he did for the United States, but this time with Environment Canada data, you’d almost have to go with the 1930s, which hold the record for six of our 13 provinces and territories, with the 1920s tied with the 2020s for second. Strange, isn’t it?
Changing Climate
Paper finds the world was cooling for most of the last 2,000 years and started warming long before Big Coal arrived
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 17, 2024
Link to article: Study finds temperature reconstructions during the Common Era are affected by the selection of paleoclimate data
By Science China Press, via Phys.org, Aug 15, 2024
Link to paper: The influence of proxy selection on global annual mean temperature reconstructions during the Common Era
By Bao Yang, et al., Science China Earth Sciences, July 3, 2024
From the abstract: The reconstruction of global annual mean temperatures made by the PAGES 2k Consortium in 2019 represents one of the most influential sequences of global climate variability over the Common Era. However, it is still not clear how the reconstruction can be influenced by the selection of reconstruction methods and the selection of proxy records with different temporal resolutions over different regions.
[SEPP Comment: Steve McIntyre has shown that PAGES 2k data are bits and pieces made to fit an outcome. No standardization or control periods are used to ensure the bits and pieces measure the same thing the same way.]
Changing Seas
Somebody Knows Why
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 22, 2024
Scientists are baffled about the rapid cooling of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m not baffled, because this was the core of Bill Gray’s thermohaline circulation theory.
Early Holocene Reef Growth ‘Substantial And Active’ Despite Faster-Than-Today Environmental Changes
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 19, 2024
From abstract: The impact of elevated nutrients on the Holocene evolution of the Great Barrier Reef
By Kelsey L. Sanborn, et al., Quaternary Science Reviews, May 15, 2024
From abstract: These data 8 [and 7,000 years ago] suggest that increased terrigenous discharge of sediment and nutrients did not inhibit reef growth, rather led to the establishment of slower-growing, deeper and more sediment-tolerant coral communities. Understanding the capacity for reef growth under adverse environmental conditions provides insight into thresholds and resilience of the GBR over centennial-millennial timescales.
[SEPP Comment: Life adapts.]
600 years of coral at Fiji shows the ocean was just as warm in 1400AD
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 21, 2024
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Tropical glaciers now smallest in 11,700 years, scientists find
Press Release, NSF, August 16, 2024
Link to paper: Recent tropical Andean glacier retreat is unprecedented in the Holocene
By Andrew L. Gorin, AAAS Science, Aug 1, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Amazing! Both NSF and AAAS Science think that it is significant tropical glaciers have not grown during the interglacial warm period.]
Antarctica’s ice cliff conundrum
Alexander A. Robel, AAAS Science Advances, Aug 21, 2024
Link to paper: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet may not be vulnerable to marine ice cliff instability during the 21st century
By Mathieu Morlighem, et al., AAAS Science Advances, Aug 21, 2024
Antarctic Collapse Scam Collapses
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 22, 2024
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
#CheerfulCharts #3: World per capita food supply
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
Iowa Farmers Threatened by Climate “Solutions”
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Aug 20, 2024
Yet today, these same farmers feel the very foundations of their way of life threatened by proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions to address a fabricated climate emergency.
[SEPP Comment: The false claim by organizations that nitrous oxide emissions are a significant greenhouse gas shows the greenhouse effect ignorance of those making the claim. The effect of water vapor is more important in the frequencies (wave lengths) that nitrous oxide is active.]
Lowering Standards
Hottest Day This Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
The Met Office stats might be more credible if they only used pristine Class 1 stations.
Met Office Records Hottest Day of the Year at a Weather Station Next to a Massive Heat-Generating Electricity Sub-Station
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 20, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Homewood has photos of the sub-station.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
No, Press Democrat, One Hottest Month Means Nothing in The Scheme of Climate Change
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Aug 20, 2024
BBC climate change output blasted as ‘ludicrous’–GB News
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
Article favorable to: Tall Climate Tales from the BBC, 2023
By Paul Homewood, Net Zero Watch, 2024
Homewood’s comment on BBC’s response: In other words, we cannot argue with any of the facts presented, but trust us anyway because we are cleverer than you!
BBC climate change output blasted ‘ludicrous’ as shock report exposes 30 cases of bias
By Hannah Ross, MSN.com, Accessed Aug 23, 2024
Link to: Tall Climate Tales from the BBC, 2023
By Paul Homewood, Net Zero Watch, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Favorable coverage on Homewood’s report.]
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
No, BBC, Polar Bears Are Not In Decline
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 18, 2024
So once again, we see that the BBC is making up its news to suit an agenda.
Another complaint is being filed, and no doubt it will be at the top of next year’s BBC Tall Tales Report!!
No, Evie Magazine, Climate Change is Not Causing Anxiety
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, Aug 19, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Scientists discover talk is cheap
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Aug 21, 2024
Link to: Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries
By Madalina Vlascean et al., (over 250 authors), AAAS Science Advances, Feb 7, 2024
Robson: But the themes of the messages differed. Some made appeals to patriotism, some offered doom-and-gloom warnings, some went in for think-of-the-children finger-wagging, and so forth. As a control they also chose a random paragraph from a Charles Dickens novel, so they could measure how much each type of message boosts climate activism compared to one that obviously would have no effect. Then they went out into the highways and by-ways of the internet to get thousands of people around the world to participate in the experiment, arguably a study design flaw but one that should have made participants more rather than less receptive to such missives from the Ministry of Climate Truth.
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Orwellian NASA [GISS] Maps
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 23, 2024
Fake US Temperature Data
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 22, 2024
[SEPP Comment; Heller shows the big difference in temperature trends between USHCN raw data and NOAA USHCN reported data.]
Faking US Temperature Data
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 23, 2024
Fabricated US temperature data from NOAA appears to have a change in their algorithm after the 1998 El Nino. The fake temperatures were shifted upwards by about three degrees.
Hottest Evah Pulled Out Of Thin Air!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 21, 2024
Still, at least they [NOAA] did not site their weather stations next to airport runways and electricity sub-stations in those days!
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
We teach kids only half the scientific method
By David Wojick, CFACT, Aug 19, 2024
In a nutshell, which is explained more fully below, only the happy half of the scientific method is being taught. This is the fun formulation of possible hypotheses and models that might explain what we observe. The hard half, where these tentative explanations get evaluated and are likely to fail, is not taught.
The Subtle Art of Teaching Climate Change
Emily Walker, Earth Day.org, Aug 15, 2024
Link to report: The School Guide to Climate Education: An Interdisciplinary Framework for School-Wide Implementation
By Bryce Coon, Dennis Nolasco and Emily Walker, Earth Day.org, August 2024
[SEPP Comment: No discussion of climate history such as why we are in Icehouse Earth, importance of sun, oceans, etc. Just touchy-feely topics such as Green Muscle Memory to create behavior changes.]
Expanding the Orthodoxy
If we were to create robust governance and ethics protocols around climate intervention, where would we start?
Apply to join a workshop series hosted by the U.S. National Science Foundation to discuss this critical question.
By Staff, U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Accessed Aug 19, 2024
Questioning European Green
Germany Just Cancelled Ukraine – Was Dependence on Russian Gas the Reason?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 18, 2024
Net zero is sinking to new lows
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Air New Zealand Scraps 2030 Carbon Target, Withdraws from SBTi
By Donna M. Airoldi, Business Travel News, July 29, 2024
Fuel Load and Forest Fires
By Don Healy, WUWT, Aug 19, 2024
The Political Games Continue
Where’s The Beef? DNC Asks Food Vendors To ‘Prioritize Lower-Emission Meats’
By Nick Pope, Daily Caller, Aug 19, 2024
Litigation Issues
‘Egregious Federal Overreach’: Utah Files Major Lawsuit That Could Diminish Federal Control Of Public Lands
By Nick Pope, Daily Caller, Aug 20, 2024
In the context of federal lands, “appropriated” land is that which has been designated for specific purposes like military use or to serve as a national park, for example, according to the state of Utah. By comparison, “unappropriated” territory is essentially land that the federal government is controlling “without formally reserving it for any designated purpose.”
DC appeals court tosses Biden administration pipeline safety rules
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Aug 21, 2024
Writing for the majority, Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of President Biden, said the government’s cost-benefit analysis did not properly lay out why the benefits exceed the cost, the main source of the trade group’s objection.
UK approval for gas-fired power station was lawful, court rules
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 17, 2024
EPA and other Regulators on the March
To Make America Great, We Need Federal Permitting Reform
By Heather Reams, Real Clear Energy, August 21, 2024
Federal judge permanently blocks EPA ‘disparate impact’ civil rights enforcement in Louisiana
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Aug 23, 2024
The Thursday ruling comes after the Supreme Court ruled this summer against the so-called Chevron deference, under which federal agencies were given broader latitude to interpret federal law.
EPA determines formaldehyde causes cancer, in step toward regulation
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 21, 2024
The American Chemistry Council industry group released a statement from its formaldehyde panel saying that the EPA’s assessment “fails to reflect fundamental criticism” and said that banning the substance would have “an overwhelmingly negative impact on the environment, human health, national security, and the economy.”
[SEPP Comment: Occupational inhalation of formaldehyde can cause problems. But the average human creates and consumers over 40 grams of formaldehyde daily in producing DNA and proteins. The issue is the dose rate.]
‘Shoehorning’ a fire into the climate narrative
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Aug 21, 2024
[SEPP Comment: A chart shows the decrease in Federal acreage of timber harvested, v. the increase in Federal acreage of timber burned since the Spotted Owl was falsely listed as endangered due to timber harvesting. This demonstrates the abuse of the Endangered Species Act.]
Energy Issues – Non-US
Energy Price Cap Goes Up
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
New Offshore Wind Prices 17% Higher Than Market Price
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
OFGEM’s new Energy Price Cap is based on a wholesale price for electricity of £86.75/MWh.
This is still well below the new Administrative Strike Price for offshore wind, and also below onshore. Only solar power is slightly cheaper, but of course strike prices do not factor in all of the indirect costs associated with intermittent renewables.
Energy Issues – Australia
Bleeding Australia dry
By Alan Moran, Regulatory Review, Aug 20, 2024
Over two-thirds of our [Australia’s] exports comprise ores, coal, gas, and gold with food accounting for a further 10 per cent. And the share of these and other primary products has tended to rise.
Without these exports our living standards would be at third-world levels. And yet the miners and farmers responsible for developing and producing these exports are in the sights of the ALP [Australian Labor Party] and its associates, the greens and teals.
Transition hell: Solar plants sit idle for 4 years in NT because of fears they’d make the grid too unstable
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 23, 2024
In 2016, the new Labor Government waved a magic wand and commanded they would be 50% renewable by 2030. The experts said it was doable and would save $30 million a year. They gave out the permits for large solar installations, which began construction in 2019, but then suddenly changed the rules in 2020, and wouldn’t let the solar plants connect to the main Darwin-Katherine grid. Unbelievably, 64 megawatts of solar panels that cost $40 million dollars have sat, doing nothing, for four long years.
There are only about 250,000 people living in the Northern Territory. There are two separate grids and several microgrids. All of these are perfect test cases to showcase renewable energy, as I keep saying, and none of them are managing to do it.
When will we get the message? If a town of 30,000 can’t live off the sun and wind, why would anyone bet the whole nation on it? [Boldface added]
Australia is running out of electricity to charge electric cars, and they’re only 0.9% of cars on the road
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 22, 2024
Aussie EV Ambition Collides with Grid Shortage Reality
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 23, 2024
Energy Issues — US
TAPS Attack: Biden Administration vs. Alaska
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 20, 2024
“It is now time for DOI and BLM to prove their worth, and whether they are truly working in the public interest, or merely pandering to the Lower-48 radical environmental elite … trying to shut down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) … [and] Alaska.” ( U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan)
American Natural Gas Is America’s Clean Energy Standard
By Jason Hayes & Timothy G. Nash, Real Clear Energy, August 20, 2024
Debate: Is A Demonstration Project Really Necessary?
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 17, 2024
Florida’s Fossil Fuel Renaissance: Why the Sunshine State is Laughing Off Climate Hysteria
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Aug 23, 2024
Clarkson’s Attempt to Join South Carolina’s Public Service Commission
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 22, 2024
Jim Clarkson, an energy consultant and principled libertarian, is a veteran of gas and electric politics in South Carolina and other southeastern states. Clarkson has been a thorn in the side of cronyism between the utilities and their regulators for several decades.
Summer Talking Points: Unreliable Power
Don’t blame the climate for unreliable power, blame climate policies that shut down reliable power
By Alex Epstein, His Blog, Aug 13, 2024
Return of King Coal?
Coal To Remain Cornerstone Of India’s Energy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 21, 2024
India clearly has enough coal reserves to keep it going for hundreds of years, and there is no sign that India will start cutting back on coal output or consumption any time soon.
India produces 11% of the world’s coal.
Coal to be the Cornerstone of India’s Energy Continuity
By Riya Vyas, World Coal, August 2024, pp 11 & 12 [H/t Dennis Ambler]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Tangled Comparisons: Renewables Versus Fossil Fuels
By Norman Rogers, Real Clear Energy, August 21, 2024
If there is a looming climate catastrophe, the only thing that will save us is nuclear power. Wind and solar are incredibly expensive methods of reducing CO2 emissions. The more wind and solar you build, the cost of removing CO2 increases disproportionately.
US Plans to Start Recycling Nuclear Waste
‘Used nuclear fuel is only waste if you waste it,’ the communications director at a recycling company says.
By Kevin Stocklin, The Epoch Times, Aug 18, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees America’s nuclear power industry, “identified 23 gaps in its own regulations for reprocessing, which it never has completely resolved,” Roberts [communications director of [Orano a] reprocessing firm said, although “the means to overcome those gaps have largely been identified.”
In addition to regulatory issues, there is also U.S. law to contend with.
“Any effort to take a new look at this valuable national resource and take a recycling sustainable approach wasn’t really possible because you would have to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and that would take bipartisan support,” McGinnis said. [Ed McGinnis, CEO of Curio, a company that plans to recycle fuel in America,]
[SEPP Comment: Reprocessing was shut down by the Carter Administration. Since then, politicians have promoted fear.]
Where Are The Pro-Nuclear Democrats?
Once again, nuclear energy is absent from the Democratic Party Platform and it’s gone missing at the same time China is accelerating its nuclear buildout. Plus, radio and podcast hits.
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Aug 21, 2024
Toward the end of our conversation, he said that one of the biggest problems with nuclear energy is that it needs bipartisan support in Congress. That hasn’t happened because “Democrats are pro-government and anti-nuclear,” he said. Meanwhile, “Republicans are pro-nuclear and anti-government.”
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
The Solar Panel cyber threat: Dutch hacker gets into 4 million panels in 150 countries
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 20, 2024
The Short Lives of Wind Turbines
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Aug 21, 2024
Video and text
Link to: Wind Power Economics – Rhetoric and Reality
By Gordon Hughes, Renewable Energy Foundation, UK, Nov 3, 2020
[SEPP Comment: From the data, in Denmark for larger 2+ MW (newer) offshore turbines, after about 20 month of production, the first-time failure rate approaches 40%. The half-life when 50% or more fail the first time is about 50 months (4.12 years).]
Offshore Wind Turbines May Kill You
By G. Allen Brooks, Real Clear Energy, August 2024
[SEPP Comment: Analyzes the issue than offshore wind turbines interfere with radar needed for commercial airports and marine search and rescue operations. The hope for a new radar technology is not the same as having a new radar technology.]
U.S. Offshore Wind: The Struggle Continues
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Aug 21, 2024
This post updates the financial troubles of Denmark’s Ørsted, recent BOEM auctions, and pushback against Maryland governor Wes Moore. Today, operational offshore wind capacity is less than 50 megawatts versus the Biden-Harris Administration goal of 30,000 MW by 2030.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
The Cascade of Failures in the Biofuel Industry: A Case of Economic and Environmental Mismanagement
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Aug 18, 2024
In the end, the biofuel experiment has left behind a trail of bankruptcies, environmental degradation, and unfulfilled promises. It serves as a stark reminder that the pursuit of green energy solutions must be grounded in reality, not wishful thinking. As we look to the future of energy, it is crucial to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that our energy supply and development is based on sound science and economics, not on ideological fervor.
[SEPP Comment; Subsidies for biofuels began with The Energy Policy Act of 1978, when the Carter administration feared that the US would soon run out of oil and natural gas. When unexpected technological breakthroughs proved this to be wrong, the subsidies should have stopped.]
‘Mostly unusable’ | Existing gas pipes would need massive retrofit or crippling de-rating to carry hydrogen: study
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
If Ford can’t crack electric cars, no one can
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 23, 2024
California Dreaming
Floating Offshore Wind – An Environmental Catastrophe
By Edward Ring, What’s Current, Accessed Aug 22, 2024
Last week we examined California’s plans to install between 2,500 and 10,000 floating offshore wind turbines approximately 20 miles off the coast of San Luis Obispo and Humboldt counties. The estimated cost to install 25 gigawatts of capacity, which equates to 10 gigawatts of steady power if adequate storage assets are available, is at least $100 billion.
[SEPP Comment: And no one knows how much the needed storage will cost!]
Guice to California Dept. of Conservation: End Virtue Signaling, Liberate Oil and Gas
By Rod Guice, Master Resource, Aug 23, 2024
It’s been sitting there for 73 years. So, what is it about the well that makes it hazardous now? Why is it only now, a threat to “public health, safety, and environment?” If the well is so hazardous, why wasn’t it plugged 40-years ago?
Environmental Industry
Climate groups say they’re putting $55M into pro-Harris ads
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 19, 2024
From Dust to Green: The Ever-Shifting Sands of Climate Alarmism
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Aug 19, 2024
“Desertification was supposed to be the ‘greatest environmental challenge of our time.’ Why are experts now worried about greening?”
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Newly discovered tarantulas may already be in danger
Aphonopelma jacobii’s habitat is getting hotter and drier.
By Andrew Paul, Popular Science, Aug 20, 2024
Met Office Records Hottest Day of the Year at a Weather Station Next to a Massive Heat-Generating Electricity Sub-Station
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Aug 20, 2024
Lock Up Your Daughters! Climate Change Causes Rise in Child Marriages
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Aug 18, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
The AFP nonsense story is just the latest in a tidal wave of mainstream fear-mongering designed to boost Net Zero. It takes an emotional theme and tacks on unprovable claims of climate damage caused by humans. The emotion is obvious, but false claims about the volume of rainfall and the inundation of a recent flood are made. Do the people who write this stuff think that nobody will check their facts and sources? Apparently not.
ARTICLES
1. Why Is New York Paying So Much for Wind Power?
Two projects will pay producers prices far above the break-even cost of generating electricity.
By Gordon Hughes, WSJ, Aug. 23, 2024
The energy scholar begins with:
“New York state signed a contract in June to buy electricity generated by two large wind farms, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind, off the coast of Long Island. The projects are expected to begin in 2026 and 2027, with power delivered to Brooklyn (Empire) and Long Island (Sunrise). The state will pay $155 and $146 per megawatt-hour, respectively. These prices are steep, at least four times the average grid cost paid over the past year. New Yorkers should be asking why.
States agree to pay wind-power operators—known as the “offtake price”—based on a project’s “break-even cost,” the estimated bill for building and operating the wind farm over its useful life. That is undoubtedly part of the problem. The offshore wind business off the East Coast is in turmoil. Operators have canceled projects from Massachusetts to Maryland that were due to be constructed in the next four years. Some have been delayed, while others have renegotiated their contracts at prices 30% to 50% higher than originally promised.
Two widely quoted sources of break-even costs are the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Lazard, an investment bank. In its most recent estimates, the EIA suggests the average break-even cost of offshore wind farms, adjusted to 2024 prices, is $131 per megawatt-hour, not counting government subsidies, and $101 per megawatt-hour after allowing for basic tax credits. The latter figure is what matters, because every offshore wind farm expects to take advantage of investment or production tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Lazard is far more optimistic about break-even costs. Its 2024 estimates imply a minimum of $53 per megawatt-hour and a maximum of $79 after tax credits.
Both estimates refer to offshore wind projects expected to reach full output in 2027, as are Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise. Why, then, has New York agreed to pay much higher prices?”
The author gives some details of the bidding then concludes:
“The difference between these new agreements and the hypothetical break-even costs produced by the EIA and Lazard means one of two things: either the true break-even costs are 50% to 100% higher than what the EIA and Lazard claim, or the projects will earn huge profits at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and New York ratepayers.
The EIA and Lazard both assume much lower capital and annual operating costs for U.S. projects than the actual costs for large offshore wind farms in the North Sea. European supply chains and firms are far more developed than in the U.S., which would mean higher prices for projects in the states.
Using actual European capital and operating costs, Empire Wind will be exceptionally profitable, with an after-tax return on equity of 24% thanks to a federal investment tax credit of 30% of the construction cost. If Empire Wind qualifies for a 40% investment tax credit, which it is likely to do after the Biden administration reinterpreted the requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act, the company’s pretax return would be even higher. If these return estimates are true, New York made a drastic mistake in agreeing to the offtake price of $155 per megawatt hour. Meanwhile, the average wholesale value of power in New York from July 2023 to June 2024 was $36 per megawatt hour.
In addition, Equinor and Orsted will each receive a total subsidy of more than $3 billion courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. Who is the patsy here? Are American taxpayers funding an extraordinarily expensive form of electricity generation? Did New York sign an agreement that allows large wind-farm operators to earn unreasonably high after-tax profits at the expense of its residents? Or both? Either way, New Yorkers are the big losers.”
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I think that all discussions of climate should start with a recognition of, and why the Earth is such a wonderful planet and why it provides benign conditions for life and survival. Compare with other planets such as Mars and Venus. The Earth has a benign distance to the Sun for not being too cold, like Mars, and not too warm as Venus. The atmosphere has the appropriate thickness to keep an average tempertaure of ca 14-15 C. 71 % of Earth´s surface is covered by sea, functioning as a gigantic cooling mechanism. We are blessed with CO2 to get greening of the Earth and making it possible to grow food through photosynthesis, which also adds to oxygene we can breath. Once that starting point is recognized, we can discuss what is driving variations in climate and weather conditions. That is a matter of much complexity, involving both extraterrestial factors and Earthbound ones. LIsten to one of the best lectures on the matter, Jordan B Peterson´s interview with MIT-professor Richard Lindzen. It takes less than two hours abd is avaiable on You Tube. Good Luck!
The Earth certainly is wonderful and it’s extremely resilient. No need for humans to panic that the planet will burn up and the oceans boil.
“”Those who can make you believe absurdities.””
And those who give it a go.
Keir Starmer issues stark warning: ‘Things will get worse before they get better’
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/keir-starmer-issues-stark-warning-things-will-get-worse-before-they-get-better/ar-AA1pn4mx
He promised quite the contrary. In addition to his new lords…
CRONY STORM Keir Starmer hit by fresh cronyism row after top Labour donor given Downing Street pass
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/30077624/keir-starmer-hit-by-fresh-cronyism-row/
He’s packed plum Civil Service jobs with ‘other donors’. But more seriously, another cladding fire
London tower block with ‘non-compliant cladding’ goes up in flames
Work had been under way to remove “non-compliant cladding” from the building, called Spectrum House, this month.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/26/fire-dagenham-tower-block-london/
Why? Here’s a primer
https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/06/26/grenfell-clad-in-climate-change-politics/
Some might say the CCC is not only absurd, but dangerous.
I’m so disappointed in the UK. The once proud and vigorous nation that resisted H*tler when other nations failed to do so- is now so pusillanimous. Has any scholar tried to explain this decline? Is it the fall of the Empire or wokeness?
Try David Starkey, an historian who doesn’t shy away from unpalatable facts
https://www.davidstarkey.com/
I subscribed to his YouTube channel so I’ll get into his views as time goes by.
The Musk of Cambridge history. They tried to cancel him. He won’t be on telly any time soon.
On the contrary, the warming shown in UAH is statistically significant. Indeed, over the past 20 years the warming in UAH was faster than in NOAA!
Shame we missed out on that. Unless you read the Guardian.
No need to read the papers. UAH is published by WUWT monthly.
Global and yet far from very old. Blink of an eye stuf. You should know better
What Voltaire actually wrote was:
“Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde, est en droit de vous rendre injuste”
Roughly: someone who has the power to make you absurd has the power to make you unjust.
Absurd in the sense of believing the ridiculous, the irrational, the unfounded. A little less than the quotation. Injuste is not really atrocities.
I’ll defer to your superior understanding of the French language, but would kindly point out that injustice at the level of the individual becomes an atrocity when scaled up to the level of the masses.
Perhaps channeling Stalin?
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/
Speaking of Stalin, there’s also ‘quantity has a quality all its own’, which seems particularly appropriate re. his atrocities.
Story Tip
Warning and Heads Up from Kansas 4th District Congressman Ron Estes.
Dear Friend,
At an event last week I heard many of you express your concerns about the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed designation of the Midwest-Plains National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) that would go through Kansas, including two counties in the 4th District – Edwards and Pawnee. I take property rights very seriously – landownership and property rights are fundamental to our constitutional republic, and we’ve seen the federal government abuse its power and infringe on personal property far too often.
Respect for private property rights is essential to our American way of life, and I am firmly committed to protecting it.
Instead, with the NIETC project, the DOE is overstepping and trampling on the rights of Kansans by using the Grain Belt Express route as a starting place for this new designation. Areas designated as NIETCs are subject to federal land grabs that can override state and local jurisdictions, meaning the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would be empowered to approve the construction or modification of electricity transmission facilities even when a state has previously denied these applications.
The 45-day comment period for this project did not provide enough time for local groups to fully understand the impacts this designation would have on their communities, nor were many Kansans even aware of the comment period. Since the comment period closed, there have been a number of public meetings, community engagement, and stakeholder outreach on this issue. The Department should reopen the comment period to fully address the concerns of Kansans living in the path of this proposal.
This is simply unacceptable, and many Kansans are rightfully outraged that their land could be usurped by the federal government. I’m working to push back on this land grab and will have more information in the coming weeks. Be assured that I will continue to stand up for the private property rights of Kansans and do all I can to keep you posted on the status of this project and how it would impact 4th District Kansans.
Sincerely,
Member of Congress
RE: the short life of wind turbines. I’ve seen onshore turbine mainshaft bearings 4-1/2′ in diameter reduced (by catastrophic failure) to pieces no larger than one’s fist after 2-1/2 years of operation.