Two days. Two alarming statements about power.
via Big Picture News, Informed Analysis
March 27, 2019 at 06:39AM
Month: March 2019
By Paul Homewood
There is a new report out from the Manhattan Institute, which exposes the illusions behind renewable energy:
Executive Summary
A movement has been growing for decades to replace hydrocarbons, which collectively supply 84% of the world’s energy. It began with the fear that we were running out of oil. That fear has since migrated to the belief that, because of climate change and other environmental concerns, society can no longer tolerate burning oil, natural gas, and coal—all of which have turned out to be abundant.
So far, wind, solar, and batteries—the favored alternatives to hydrocarbons—provide about 2% of the world’s energy and 3% of America’s. Nonetheless, a bold new claim has gained popularity: that we’re on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution that not only can, but inevitably will, rapidly replace all hydrocarbons.
This “new energy economy” rests on the belief—a centerpiece of the Green New Deal and other similar proposals both here and in Europe—that the technologies of wind and solar power and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences, grounded in physics, between systems that produce energy and those that produce information.
In the world of people, cars, planes, and factories, increases in consumption, speed, or carrying capacity cause hardware to expand, not shrink. The energy needed to move a ton of people, heat a ton of steel or silicon, or grow a ton of food is determined by properties of nature whose boundaries are set by laws of gravity, inertia, friction, mass, and thermodynamics—not clever software.
This paper highlights the physics of energy to illustrate why there is no possibility that the world is undergoing—or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.”
Among the reasons:
- Scientists have yet to discover, and entrepreneurs have yet to invent, anything as remarkable as hydrocarbons in terms of the combination of low-cost, high-energy density, stability, safety, and portability. In practical terms, this means that spending $1 million on utility-scale wind turbines, or solar panels will each, over 30 years of operation, produce about 50 million kilowatt-hours (kWh)—while an equivalent $1 million spent on a shale rig produces enough natural gas over 30 years to generate over 300 million kWh.
- Solar technologies have improved greatly and will continue to become cheaper and more efficient. But the era of 10-fold gains is over. The physics boundary for silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells, the Shockley-Queisser Limit, is a maximum conversion of 34% of photons into electrons; the best commercial PV technology today exceeds 26%.
- Wind power technology has also improved greatly, but here, too, no 10-fold gains are left. The physics boundary for a wind turbine, the Betz Limit, is a maximum capture of 60% of kinetic energy in moving air; commercial turbines today exceed 40%.
- The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand. It would require 1,000 years of production to make enough batteries for two days’ worth of U.S. electricity demand. Meanwhile, 50–100 pounds of materials are mined, moved, and processed for every pound of battery produced.
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 27, 2019 at 06:15AM
By Paul Homewood
From Dr Susan Crockford:
It’s long past time for polar bear specialists to stop holding out for a scientifically accurate global estimate that will never be achieved and determine a reasonable and credible ‘best guess’. Since they have so far refused to do this, I have done it for them. My extrapolated estimate of 39,000 (range 26,000-58,000) at 2018 is not only plausible but scientifically defensible.
In 2014, the chairman of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) emailed me to say that their global population size number ‘has never been an estimate of total abundance in a scientific sense, but simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand.’
In my new book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, I contend that this situation will probably never change, so it’s time to stop holding out for a scientifically accurate global estimate and generate a reasonable and credible ‘best guess’. Recent surveys from several critical polar bear subpopulations have given us the information necessary to do this.
These new numbers make it possible to extrapolate from ‘known’ to ‘unknown’ subpopulations within so-called ‘sea ice ecoregions’ (defined in 2007 by polar bear scientists at the US Geological Survey, see Amstrup et al. 2007), as shown below, to update old estimates and generate new ones for never-studied areas.
Read the full post here.
It is amazing that the polar bear alarmists, who have been warning about the decline in bear populations, have now turned round and claim that their numbers were just made up all the time!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 27, 2019 at 06:15AM
The Senate roundly rejected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal as expected on Tuesday with not a single senator voting ‘yes’ for the progressive star’s signature policy initiative.
Ocasio-Cortez defended herself after the defeat and argued she encouraged the Democratic senators to vote ‘present’ instead of in the affirmative.
‘I encouraged them to vote present, along w/ others. McConnell tried to rush the #GreenNewDeal straight to the floor without a hearing. The real question we should be asking: Why does the Senate GOP refuse to hold any major hearings on climate change?,’ the self-described socialist explained in a tweet responding to the lack of Democratic votes.
‘The GOP’s climate delaying is costing us lives + destroying communities. Iowa, Nebraska & many in the Midwest are catastrophically flooded right now, in one of the 1st major climate change disasters of 2019. A #GreenNewDeal urges us to pursue a plan on the scale of the problem,’ she added.
Democrats slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for holding a ‘sham’ vote on the matter – it was a non-binding resolution, meaning it had no force of law, and needed 60 votes to advance in the legislative process, which was an impossible task given Democrats only have 47 votes in their corner.
Most of the Democrats voted ‘present’ in protest while Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, who represents the red state of West Virginia; Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona; and Doug Jones of Alabama voted no, as did Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats.
The final vote was 57 nays and 43 present.
Ahead of the vote, Democrats and Republicans exchanged bitter words on the Senate floor while Ocasio-Cortez slammed the Republican senator who mocked her Green New Deal in a speech that used props and photos – including one of a Aquaman riding seahorse – to make his point.
‘If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything,’ she said via Twitter, retweeting a tweet with photos and comments from Sen. Mike Lee’s floor speech making fun of her signature program.
‘GOP Senators are using their Congressional allowances to print Aquaman posters for themselves to argue that a #GreenNewDeal saving our nation from climate change is a ‘waste of money,” she also tweeted, adding an emoji of laughing face.
Lee, in a colorful speech, used a variety of photos to make his point, including Aquaman on a sea horse, Ronald Reagan and a dinosaur, a still from the ‘Star Wars’ franchise of Luke Skywalker riding a tauntaun, and cows.
‘After reading the Green New Deal I’m afraid of not being able to get through this speech with a straight face,’ he said as he began his remarks.
He claimed the Green New Deal wants to eliminate airplanes – a likely reference to its goal to end reliance on fossil fuels – and suggested states like Hawaii would have to use a fleet of sea horses to travel instead.
The post U.S. Senate Unanimously Votes Down Green New Deal: Democrats Join Republicans appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
March 27, 2019 at 05:55AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 