From the other side of the world comes this extraordinary collection of data that few in Australia have compiled.

Satellite datasets carefully record a nation on fire. In a quiet year, only 20 million hectares burns, but in a busy year nearly 100 million hectares is scorched. A lot of this land area is in the far north and western part of the continent, which is hot and often arid. It’s not the same as the cool wet corner of South East Australia which has some of the tallest trees in the world. The fuel loads will not be anywhere near as high. But nonetheless, Australia is a nation of fire, especially across the “top end” where large areas burn each and every year.

So far this season the fires that gained so much attention around the world have burned around 10 million hectares, which is only a fifth of the usual area burnt, though presumably that will increase after satellite data is analyzed and the rest of the fire season plays out.

Faktantarkistus Yleinen points out that ten years ago a researcher showed there was a link between a strong Indian Ocean Dipole and bad forest fires on the […]

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February 3, 2020 at 09:08AM

By Paul Homewood

 

Well I did warn you!!

 

 

Plans to put ten million electric vehicles on the road within ten years and rip gas central heating from every home are unveiled today.

Energy regulator Ofgem has outlined how the nation will have to change the way it travels and heats homes to meet the Government’s target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The radical scheme to ‘greenwire’ Britain will be built around plans for a four-fold increase in electricity from wind farms around the coast. But the proposals will largely be paid for by families and businesses, adding billions of pounds to bills over the next 30 years.

And switching away from natural gas heating and hot water for homes and businesses will require spending as much as £20billion a year by 2050.

The Citizens Advice charity says there is evidence that millions of people do not understand the enormous scale of the changes required. And it warns efforts will be needed to help customers, particularly the most vulnerable, with the costs they face.

There will be doubts as to whether the regulator and energy industry can deliver on the proposals, not least because of the delays and massive cost overrun on the installation of smart energy meters in all homes.

Ofgem argues that the electricity generated by wind farms will, in the future, be considerably cheaper than from traditional sources such as gas, coal and oil.

And it is proposing that owners of electric cars charge them through the night when power is cheap and then sell it back to the national grid at a higher price at peak periods.

As a result, the embedded power stored in the cars’ batteries will reduce the need to build new gas-fired power stations.

Ofgem said: ‘Increased uptake of electric vehicles creates a rare opportunity for a win-win-win for society, through lower carbon emissions, improved air quality and a more robust and low-cost energy system. But this will only be achieved if drivers are supported to charge their vehicles typically at off-peak times.

‘Support for drivers using their electric vehicles in novel ways will also be needed, for example by “vehicle-to-grid” technology to share energy from car batteries back to the electricity grid when it is needed.’ Ofgem envisages the number of electric vehicles will surge from 230,000 today to ten million by 2030 and 39million by 2050. It argues this will only be possible if the current total of 30,000 public car chargers rises to 210,000, plus 3,500 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers near motorways.

It is suggested that building and running the infrastructure to support the roll-out of electric vehicles could be £2billion a year, equivalent to £30 on every household bill (stock image)

At the same time, traditional natural gas central heating and hot water systems will have to be ripped out of millions of homes.

These will be replaced with electric heating and, potentially, a new gas system run on hydrogen, where the only emissions are water.

The regulator said: ‘The future of heating is less certain, with a range of possible different pathways to decarbonise.

‘In 2017, just 4.5 per cent of the energy used for heating the UK’s 29million homes and other non-residential buildings was from a low-carbon source.

‘This number needs to rise significantly by 2050.’ 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7959041/Energy-regulator-Ofgem-announces-plans-10m-electric-vehicles-road-10-years.html

 

I am not quite sure what any of this has to do with OFGEM, whose role is supposed to be to regulate the energy market, not set public policy.

As for the 10 million electric cars on the roads by 2030, dream on. Only 37000 fully electric cars (ie excl hybrids) were sold last year. Somehow that need to rise to an average of 1 million a year over the next decade.

Regardless of how many public chargers are installed, the problem of what all of the millions of drivers without off street parking are supposed to remains unanswered. Are they expected to queue up at these chargers for hours on their way home from work?

The claim that using EVs to sell power back to the grid, and thus save building more gas power stations is also illiterate. The grid will still need full back up from gas power, or other dispatchable sources, regardless, for the times when wind power is negligible.

 

But my main complaint about this report is that OFGEM still are not being honest about the true cost implications.

They claim that wind power will be considerably cheaper than from traditional sources such as gas, coal and oil. But there is absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever. Even with recent lower CfD prices for offshore wind, when the cost of integrating intermittent power and standby power is factored in wind power remains more expensive. Hence the calls for punitive carbon taxing.

A cost of £20bn a year by 2050 is mentioned, but this is way below the £50bn estimated by the CCC.

Large numbers like this don’t mean much to the public. But they would be horrified if they found out that replacing their boilers with heat pumps will cost upwards of £10000. Particularly if they are forced to stop using gas boilers which have years of life left in them.

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February 3, 2020 at 08:21AM

GWPF readers become more cautious on cooling

We’ve now passed the deadline for entering the GWPF 2020 Global Temperature Prediction Competition. It’s fair to say there was a great deal of interest this year, with well over 300 entries received. The general theme among the punters of expecting a bit of cooling continues for another year, although perhaps not as much cooling as in previous years. If we go back to last year’s competition, the modal prediction was cooling of around 0.2 degrees for the year. This time round, opinions seem to be tending to around half that amount.

The Met Office, meanwhile, are going for a little bit of warming, with an uncertainty band that is wide enough to cover most eventualities.

We’ll update you on how things stand later in the year.

The post Your bets have been placed appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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February 3, 2020 at 08:08AM

Intermittency, meaning unreliability, is of course guaranteed with wind and solar power. The problem being that some governments now proceed as though that doesn’t matter any more, preferring to trumpet absurd claims about ‘saving the climate’. If they persist, eventual power shortages look inevitable.
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Germany now generates over 35% of its yearly electricity consumption from wind and solar sources, says the Asia Times.

Over 30,000 wind turbines have been built, with a total installed capacity of nearly 60 GW.

Germany now has approximately 1.7 million solar power (photovoltaic) installations, with an installed capacity of 46 GW. This looks very impressive.

Unfortunately, most of the time the actual amount of electricity produced is only a fraction of the installed capacity. Worse, on “bad days” it can fall to nearly zero.

In 2016 for example there were 52 nights with essentially no wind blowing in the country. No Sun, no wind.

Even taking “better days” into account, the average electricity output of wind and solar energy installations in Germany amounts to only about 17% of the installed capacity.

The obvious lesson is: if you want a stable, secure electricity supply, then you will need reserve, or backup sources of electricity which can be activated on more or less short notice to fill the gaps between electricity demand and the fluctuating output from wind and solar sources.

The more wind and solar energy a nation decides to generate, the more backup capacity it will require.

On “bad days” these backup sources must be able to supply up to 100% of the nation’s electricity demand. On “good days” (or during “good hours”) the backup sources will be used less, or even turned off, so that their capacity utilization will also be poor.

Not very good economics.

Much better would be to limit wind and solar to a relative minimum, and rely instead upon controllable, non-fluctuating power sources operating with a high capacity factor, to meet the nation’s base load electricity requirements and to adjust total output in accordance with varying demand.

This corresponds to world-wide practice prior to the recent huge buildup with renewable energy.

Continued here.

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February 3, 2020 at 07:43AM