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via JoNova
November 30, 2023 at 09:38AM
Month: November 2023
By Paul Homewood
"India cannot survive without coal as it has no other options."
India has committed itself to greater coal-fired generation use ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai and is set to voice developing nations’ demands for a greater share of the carbon emissions budget at the Nov. 30-Dec. 12 summit.
India is the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after China and the US, with a booming economy driving electricity demand up 9.6% in fiscal year 2023.
"There will be pressure again on those countries who use coal," RK Singh, minister of power and new and renewable energy, said Nov. 6. "Our point of view is that we are not going to compromise with the availability of power for growth."
Public sector power companies are constructing about 27 GW of thermal plants — almost all coal — but this is insufficient, according to Singh. The country needs "at least 80 GW" of new capacity to meet future demand, he said.
India generated 149.66 TWh of electricity in September, of which 108.70 TWh, or 73%, was coal-fired, data from Central Electricity Authority showed. The coal-fired figure was up 17% year on year.
S&P Global Commodity Insights forecasts the share of coal-fired generation in India’s power mix will rise to 77% by 2025 before falling to 71% in 2030 and 52% by 2050.
"India cannot survive without coal as it has no other options," said Rashika Gupta, research and analysis director at S&P Global. "Nuclear and hydro take a decade to build, gas is not available, and LNG is very expensive. India’s forte has always been coal — it knows how to operate it, and there is indigenous capacity to build it."
Full story
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
November 30, 2023 at 09:24AM
By Paul Homewood
This week’s disinformation from the ECIU propaganda unit!
Ahead of the Government’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate’s being debated in Parliamentary committee tomorrow, Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, said,
The Government’s impact assessment for the ZEV mandate clearly states that, once you subtract the policy’s costs from its economic benefits, the net benefit to the UK economy is £39bn [1], or around £1,400 per household.
That’s because the ZEV mandate will accelerate the UK’s uptake of EVs, and EVs are much cheaper to own and operate. Research by the ECIU has found that a Nissan Leaf, compared to a petrol equivalent, can save its owner over £1200 a year in fuel costs alone. [2]
To access these savings, most UK households will rely on the second-hand market – its where most of us buy our cars. And this is where the ZEV mandate will play a critical role – in driving up sales of new EVs, it will drive up the pace at which EVs arrive on the second hand market. Without it, the UK’s drivers will be stuck driving slower and more expensive petrol cars for longer”.
WOW!! The ZEV mandate must be wonderful to save us all £1400 each!
But as with all con-merchants, it pays to check the small print first.
Firstly, the Government Impact Assessment they quote covers the period 2024 to 2071! So that £1400 actually works out at just £30 a year. The amount is so tiny in overall terms that statistically it is meaningless.
But if we burrow deeper into the Impact Assessment we find that it is based on a set of very dodgy assumptions.
First off, the supposed benefits include £103bn in “emissions savings” :
But nobody will be any better off economically just because we cut CO2 emissions. It is just a made up number to make the benefits look substantial.
Secondly the assessment uses unrealistically low price assumptions for EVs:
To claim that an EV will only cost £3100 more in 2025 simply does not reflect the current reality, which tells us that the price differential is at least £10000, even for small cars.
I certainly don’t know what they might cost in ten or twenty years time, but neither does the Government or ECIU. But it is dishonest to pretend that people won’t be much worse off in the foreseeable future if they are forced to buy EVs.
We then come on to the second claim:
The link they give is wrong, as it takes us back to the Impact Assessment.
However their costs for petrol include fuel duty and VAT – the typical annual fuel bill including these taxes would be around £1400 for a small petrol engined car.
Take the taxes away, which is the true comparison, and fuels costs would drop to about £800. The saving with an EV would at best about £200, which plainly would not compensate for the higher purchase price.
But that saving would only apply to motorists with off street parking, and who never use public charging.
According to the RAC, anybody using a public charger the cost/mile would be double that of petrol, with fuel duty excluded.
Finally, the ECIU make a big claim about second hand EVs, which supposedly UK drivers are desperate to get their hands on:
Buyers of second hand cars tend to be relatively poor. And poorer people are less likely to have off street parking. So it is the less well off who will be hardest hit by the ZEV mandate, which will perforce lead to many fewer ICEs appearing in the second hand market in a few years time.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
November 30, 2023 at 08:18AM
The U.S. Forest Service’s recent proposal to store carbon dioxide beneath national forests and grasslands is a subject that demands a scrutinizing eye. This plan, although framed as a stride towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, introduces several practical and environmental concerns.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow the agency to consider proposals for potential carbon capture and sequestration projects on national forests and grasslands. This proposal would harmonize the framework between the federal government’s two largest land managers by aligning with regulatory structures already established for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.
The core idea involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions and transporting them for underground storage in forest areas. The proposition, as stated, aims to support the Administration’s goal of cutting emissions. However, the feasibility and impact of such an endeavor warrant a closer examination.
Transporting CO2 to forests necessitates constructing extensive pipelines, a point underscored by Boston University research fellow June Sekera:
“To get the CO2 to the injection site in the midst of our national forest, they’ve got to build huge pipelines.”
This introduces a rather ironic scenario where forest land could be compromised for the sake of environmental protection.
Safety is a critical issue often sidelined in the broader discussion. The risks associated with CO2 pipelines, exemplified by the incident in Satartia, Mississippi, cannot be overlooked. Victoria Bogdan Tejeda from the Center for Biological Diversity underscores the hazards of CO2 as an asphyxiant, which are heightened by the remote nature of forest locations.
Carbon capture and storage often doesn’t work well, says Bruce Robertson, an independent energy finance analyst. “They are not capturing at the rates they said they would capture and they don’t store at the rate they were supposed to store,” he says.
The resistance from local communities against CO2 pipelines, highlighted by the cancellation of Navigator CO2’s pipeline project, signals a broader disapproval of such initiatives. The Forest Service’s approach, which could potentially override local concerns, brings up issues of transparency and accountability in policy decisions.
In response to these multifaceted concerns, the Forest Service, through press officer Scott Owen, assures a thorough secondary screening for proposals.
He writes that any proposals must still pass through a secondary screening, adding: “The Forest Service has been ‘screening’ proposals for use of National Forest System lands for over 20 years as a means to be increasingly consistent in our processes and also be able to reject those uses that are incompatible with the management of the public’s land.”
However, this procedural assurance does little to address the more profound questions of environmental integrity and technological viability.
The proposal to store carbon dioxide under U.S. forests is a complex and potentially dangerous issue that requires a critical examination beyond surface-level intentions. The implications of implementing such a plan, both environmentally and logistically, are significant and must be thoroughly evaluated.
The public comment period is open until January 2, 2024, it is an opportunity for critical public discourse on the drawbacks of such environmental strategies.
H/T Yooper
via Watts Up With That?
November 30, 2023 at 08:04AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 