May 2024 – Page 156 – Iowa Climate Science Education

By Paul Homewood

Further to the debate about the weather map colours used by the BBC, this was their “justification” of the changes last year:

We have lots of visual tools we can use to illustrate the weather forecast.

The graphics we choose depend on the forecast and the story about the weather we are trying to tell. One of the most common graphics we use is something called a temperature contour map, as seen in the image above.

The colours on the map match this temperature scale, below.

We use this scale all year around because it is a good way of showing audiences broad temperature differences. You can also see the colour scale reflected in a line at the bottom of the temperature box with the number in it.

The darker the blues or reds the colder or hotter it is. Those colours are an accepted way of expressing heat and cold. They are also easy to see for most audiences.

Have you changed the map colours for greater impact?

No – there have been no changes since 2017, when amendments were made to our graphics because of improvements in forecasting and technology. The quality of weather data has changed dramatically in the last 20 years as has the digital technology we use in the BBC Weather Centre to make our forecasts. At that time we also made the graphics clearer for people who have visual impairments and who see colour differently.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/66293839

The colour chart is difficult to read, but runs from –22C to 41C.

But here’s the problem.

The colour maps are nearly always used just to illustrate daily high temperatures. (To be fair, they are sometimes used for night temperatures in winter).

And the annual daily max is around 13 to 14C. Yet the mid point of that chart is the yellow 11 to 12C band. Logically the mid point should therefore also be 13 to 14C.

Yellow, of course, is subconsciously associated with sunshine, and therefore warm weather.

And while daytime temperatures can occasionally reach the mid 30s, they would rarely go much below freezing outside of mountainous or other extreme regions.

Daytime temperatures in England average about 14C in autumn and spring, which most people would correctly assume is also about average for the year. Yet this appears a band above the yellow one.

Surely then it is the 13 to 14C band which should appear in the middle of the chart?

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

https://ift.tt/bklKFwX

May 2, 2024 at 09:10AM

By Paul Homewood

Here is the reply from Claire Coutinho:

Thank you for your email of 4 March regarding the UK’s net zero policy .I am responding in my capacity as both your constituency MP and Secretary of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Please accept my apologies for the delay in my response.

As you note, and as Paul Homewood also raises in his article, solar and wind power are variable energy sources and energy is still needed when the weather is unfavourable. That is why we are supporting the development and deployment of a portfolio of low-carbon technologies for generation, storage and system flexibility. We have one of the most reliable and diverse energy systems in the world, and we intend to maintain that security as we decarbonise. We have also committed to a minimum 5GW of new unabated gas, to maintain energy security until the clean technology is ready. This is likely to come from a mixture of refurbishing existing plants and building new, net zero ready gas plants.

As we re-committed to in our recent Civil Nuclear Roadmap, we are aiming for 24GW of nuclear power by 2050, meeting around a quarter of electricity demand. We are looking to deploy both Small Modular Reactors and further large-scale nuclear over the next decade. We launched the arm’s-length body Great British Nuclear (GBN) in March 2023 to deliver a programmatic approach for new nuclear projects. It has also been possible to extend the original lifespan of some of the existing fleet, although the Government has no direct involvement in those decisions. The Roadmap can be found here: http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-nuclear-roadmap-to-2050.

We are also seeing exciting progress in other renewables that will supplement solar and wind. The nearly 94MW of tidal stream capacity procured in the last two rounds of the Contracts for Difference scheme will increase the UK’s installed capacity tenfold, while 12MW of geothermal energy was procured in the last round (AR5) – the first time geothermal bids had been successful.

Low-carbon hydrogen will be critical to supporting the UK’s energy security and presents significant economic opportunities for our industrial heartlands. The UK’s geography, geology, infrastructure and expertise make it particularly suited to rapidly developing a low-carbon hydrogen economy, with the potential to become a global leader. In December 2023, we announced 11 projects that will deliver 125MW of new electrolytic hydrogen production capacity. We have also opened a second round of funding for an extra 875MW.

Electricity storage can enable us to use energy more flexibly and decarbonise our energy system cost-effectively by helping to balance the system at lower cost, maximising the usable output from solar and wind, and deferring or avoiding the need for costly network upgrades and new generation capacity. A variety of storage technologies will be needed, including technologies that can deploy at different scales and provide output for different durations such as lithium-ion battery storage and pumped hydropower storage, as well as emerging technologies including liquid air energy storage and flow batteries. Today, there is around 6.4 GW of electricity storage operational in Great Britain. There is a pipeline of at least 35GW of lithium-ion battery storage and 3GW of pumped hydropower.

Our target is to remove coal from our electricity mix by October 2024, a year earlier than originally planned, and the remaining coal fired power station in Great Britain is scheduled to close before this date.

I don’t it needs me to point out the massive holes in these plans?

We have now replied to her as follows:

Many thanks for your reply concerning Net Zero policy.

I appreciate the Government has many ambitious low carbon plans for 2050, which you list. However, none appear to offer a solution to the catastrophic problems facing us during the 2030s and neither the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change nor the Climate Change Committee can be relied upon for such important policy decisions.

To lay it out in simple terms, according to the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios, peak demand for electricity will be about 100 GW in 2035. We will probably have about 10 GW of dispatchable capacity (nuclear, biomass and hydro) – this assumes that all unabated gas power is shut down.

Even with 20 GW of interconnectors, which we most certainly cannot depend on, we will be woefully short of electricity when wind and solar power is at low levels; wind is erratic and solar is not just net-zero for half the day but in winter, when the sun is low, it is net-useless.

There is nothing ‘secure’ about wind power; most of the UK’s offshore windfarms could be knocked out in a single night by special forces, just as US forces quietly destroyed the Nordstream pipelines. (no one seriously believes any other ‘explanations’)

You plan on 5 GW of new unabated gas, but clearly this will be nowhere enough. We will likely need ten times as much. Building new gas power plants incorporating carbon capture may be a solution, but I see no plans to do so in the time scale we are looking at, ie the mid 2030s. In any event, carbon capture adds significantly to the cost of electricity, and increases the amount of gas needed to produce each unit of electricity. Are you happy to see energy bills rising as a consequence?

The other plans you mention are currently far to small to make any difference, and will certainly not be ready in any scale by 2035.

Low carbon hydrogen, for instance, will need tens of billions spending on a whole new infrastructure – electrolysers, distribution networks, seasonal storage and hydrogen burning power stations. The new batch of projects outlined will only supply about 0.1% of the UK’s annual gas consumption, and are not grid-scale solutions.

On top of that, there simply won’t be enough wind/solar power in your plans to produce the hydrogen anyway. And if that is not enough, the contract price you have agreed for the next batch of hydrogen projects is ten times that of natural gas. Are you prepared to see household energy bills rocket to pay for these subsidies?

Similarly tidal and geothermal are extremely expensive, and the 106 MW currently procured is a tiny amount. While these technologies may bear fruit in thirty years’ time, we clearly cannot rely on them making any difference in the next decade.

You mention 35 GW of battery storage, but typically such batteries can only store enough for an hour’s use. Plainly these will be useless when we go days on end with little wind power.

So there you have it! We are staring at a gigantic black hole in our potential electricity supply come 2035.

I can only see one solution – begin construction now on a fleet of new CCGT plants, if necessary made CCS ready. (Bear in mind, CCS is still not a proven technology at scale). It will need to be at least 50 GW. In addition the current fleet needs to be contracted for at least 15 years, to provide standby capacity.

Evidently this is not part of your government’s plans. In which case, could you please explain how your plans will avoid the blackouts which appear inevitable?