"This is a political decision and it’s harming U.S. national security and it misses the elephant in the room. Why not produce more oil instead of using the existing oil and draining us down to nothing."
The post Watch CFACT’s Morano on Newsmax: raiding the Petroleum Reserve harms national security appeared first on CFACT.
via CFACT
April 5, 2022 at 02:09PM
By Paul Homewood
This is a story that has got our old friend, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, excited lately:
https://www.ft.com/content/0d14e8e9-63a1-400b-81af-e705d6eaaba9
According to AEP:
“Look at the deal just reached between Andy Fortescue and EON to ship green hydrogen (as ammonia) from his 200 GW planned solar and wind zone in Australia to Germany. Simply amazing. This is where the world is going”
The first thing to point out is that there is no deal to ship anything. It is simply a commitment to a research and study partnership. In particular, there is no obligation at all for Fortescue to spend a penny beyond this research. [Fortescue Future Industries, FFI, is, by the way the company. Andy Forrest is its Chairman – “Andy Fortescue” does not exist!]
But is green hydrogen really the breakthrough AEP thinks?
The first thing to note is that hydrogen does not grow on trees! FFI plan to use wind and solar power in Australia to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, an expensive process which also wastes some of the energy input.
The hydrogen is then combined with nitrogen in another expensive process to produce ammonia, which is more energy dense, and thus cheaper to ship. The ammonia then has to be cracked in another expensive process to split the hydrogen out again.
It therefore goes without saying that in energy terms hydrogen is much more expensive than the electricity used in the first place.
Solar power, of course, will be relatively cheap in the deserts of Australia. The IEA carried out a detailed study on hydrogen a couple of years ago, and reckoned that green hydrogen there would cost around $2.20 per kg:
https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-hydrogen
That translates to $72.60/MWh, say £55/MWh. But on top of that we need to add all of the other costs.
The current, extremely high wholesale price of gas is about 270p/therm, or £92/MWh. Even now, green hydrogen is unlikely to offer any significant savings, once all of the other costs are added in.
But there is no reason why natural gas costs should stay as high as they are now. Historically, market prices, which have reflected the “real” costs of extraction, have been around £14/MWh.
Allowed to function freely, markets will quickly correct the current imbalance of supply and demand, and prices will fall accordingly. It clearly makes no sense at all to spend literally hundreds of millions developing a green hydrogen alternative.
Indeed if we go down this route, we are locking in the current unaffordably high prices of gas for the long term.
So why are FFI and E.ON getting into bed on this one? The answer is simple – subsidy hunting.
There is no question from a technical point of view that green hydrogen can be produced and shipped in bulk in this way. But neither FFI or E.ON, nor for that matter their bankers, are going to invest big money just in the hope that the Ukraine crisis goes on forever.
There is only one way this project will get off the ground. They will be wholly dependent on subsidies from the EU or German government. This is most likely to be in the form of Contracts for Difference, already being mooted for hydrogen production in the UK.
Such a scheme would offer a guaranteed price to FFI and E.ON, with the cost passed on to consumers.
Finally, let’s put the production numbers into perspective.
The deal talks about 5 million tonnes of hydrogen a year. That equates to 165 TWh. In comparison, the UK consumes 855 TWh a year. Europe as a whole uses close to 6000 TWh annually.
Clearly this FFI project will make no more than a dent in the overall gas market.
Finally, one last number. The FT talk of a 200 GW wind and solar zone in Australia to make this happen.
Currently the global capacity of solar power is only 707 GW, and in Australia it is a tiny 17 GW.
It seems like we will need an awful lot of solar panels, simply to replace a tiny amount of gas!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
April 5, 2022 at 01:22PM
By Linnea Lueken -April 5, 2022
The Denver Post recently ran an article claiming global warming will cause more severe wildfire seasons, as well as more severe floods in the Western United States. Data indicates that these claims are false; wildfires in the West are not due to climate change, and there is no trend of increasing or decreasing precipitation in the U.S.
The article, titled “Fire and rain: West to get more one-two extreme climate hits,” quotes researchers who published a study analyzing climate model “fire weather” simulations and precipitation projections alongside presumed continued climate change.
The Denver Post writes:
“The one-two punch of nasty wildfires followed by heavy downpours, triggering flooding and mudslides, will strike the U.S. West far more often in a warming-hopped world, becoming a frequent occurrence, a new study said.”
It is first vital to point out these claims aren’t based observations or recorded data but rather climate model projections of future fire and flood weather conditions, using the same models and warming scenarios that fail to replicate current and past temperatures. Climate Realism has repeatedly demonstrated that climate models are flawed and their projections cannot be trusted, here, here, and here, for example.
The study authors themselves admitted they used modeled “worst-case” warming scenarios, which are highly unlikely to come to pass. To justify using extreme scenarios the researchers said they were “unable at the time to use simulations of more likely scenarios with some moderate emission reductions.” The researchers asserted even moderate warming scenarios would result in a “four-fold increase in fire and flooding” in the Pacific Northwest. They provided no evidence or supporting reasons to back this assertion, and there are none.
The Denver Post spoke to a scientist not involved in the study, who indicated global temperature and climate models may not work at the local level in the way the study is applying them. Despite offering this statement of caution, ever happy to toe the line, he then reverses himself and unscientifically says, “[s]till, the results make sense.”
Real world data shows these projections are implausible.
The American West and Pacific Northwest in particular, have been prone throughout history to dry and wet seasons due to the oscillating nature of Pacific weather patterns, called El Niño and La Niña. As described in Climate Realism articles here and here, for example, those weather patterns are completely natural, and occurred long before the industrial revolution. These cycles can last for years and there is no sign that they are being enhanced in severity.
Drought is a major factor for the ignition of wildfires. Data from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Palmer Drought Severity Index show that drought severity in the Southwest, including California and Colorado, has decreased over time, as shown in the chart below.
This data does not suggest that wildfire frequency or severity should increase due to drought conditions.
Climate at a Glance: Wildfires thoroughly debunks the claim that wildfires are on the rise in the United States, demonstrating in the chart below that these fires are much less severe than they were in the beginning of the 20th century, with only recent climbs.
Recent upticks in uncontrolled fires in Western states like California, Washington, and Oregon, are most likely due to decades of poor forest management. State and federal governments have refused to take an active role in removing dry underbrush and dead trees for almost 40 years now, as explained in a Climate Realism article, here, leading to a dangerously high fuel load which can easily light in the right conditions.
Taken as a whole, the available observed data provides no reason for believing that the kind of modest warming the earth has experienced over the century will suddenly lead to catastrophic wildfire and flood conditions for the American West. The Denver Post article is long on unsupported claims and short on facts. Faulty computer model projections are no replacements for evidence and data on climate trends, and present trends aren’t alarming in the least.
https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/linnea-lueken
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy. While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”
via Watts Up With That?
April 5, 2022 at 12:44PM
As the grapevines bud for the season in France, a mild spring followed by a savage frost is bad news for farmers.
There have been three bad frosts in recent years. The young fashionable expert tells us that frost means it’s climate change. But people didn’t realize…” it’s a form of denial” she says with a straight face.
Thank goodness for fossil fuels:
Because global warming means you need more insurance against frost and “heating cables” to keep the plants warm:
The change in weather pattern is also pushing up his insurance coverage for loss of harvest, he added. In Yonne, two-thirds of the harvest was destroyed as a result of the frost last year, according to the farm ministry.
Winemakers were starting to join forces to invest in new tools, such as heating cables, to help mitigate the effects of such frosts, she said. However, many in the industry are still reluctant to face up to the fact that the impact of climate change could be long-lasting, Civet said.
Mass Psychosis?
Coldest night on a national scale since records began in France in 1947
Météo-France, the country’s meteorological service, said the night […]
via JoNova
April 5, 2022 at 11:38AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 