We use a tremendous amount of electricity which net zero cannot possibly provide
via CFACT
June 10, 2024 at 04:20AM
Month: June 2024
CFACT to GM on its EV about face: "Will GM continue to resist the political pressure to impose electric vehicles on an unwilling public?”
via CFACT
June 10, 2024 at 04:13AM
The Week That Was: 2024 06-08 (June 8, 2024)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, or to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. – Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist (1998)
Number of the Week: $25 billion
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: The primary focus of this TWTW is presenting the content of slides used in the Clauser presentation. First it will discuss misunderstandings arising from last week’s TWTW, then transcribe slides Clauser used in describing his cloud-thermostat model. Several posts will be briefly discussed, including how Roy Spencer double-checked his work on estimates of lower troposphere temperature trends. Stephen McIntyre discusses another hockey-stick. Renee Hannon has an essay on the strengths and limitations of proxy data in measuring temperature and CO2 concentrations, and Roger Caiazza has an essay exposing the lack of prior planning in the plan to implement New York State’s Climate Act.
**********************
The Clauser Presentation: TWTW was unable to find a transcript of the Clauser presentation and a link to the sides used which are rich in content. This was not an interpretation of what Clauser presented, but an accurate transcription (there may have been some small errors). The only interpretation is in the selection of slides, not in editing any content. As usual, TWTW comments are clearly enclosed in brackets.
For example, under the heading “What is the basic power-imbalance calculation? It is really quite simple” there are two slides starting about 15 minutes into the presentation. TWTW presented the first slide but not the second. Clauser uses the numbers presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) power flow diagrams found in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, 2021) and the original sources. He shows that incorrect calculations are made, and error ranges are inappropriately rounded up.
In the second slide under the heading “What is the basic power-imbalance calculation?” he shows the correct calculation (not discussed in TWTW) which is when combining numbers with different error ranges, the error range of each is squared, then the squares are summed and the square root of the sum is taken. In the subsequent slide “The earliest data are reported by Stephen’s et al. (1981) and Ramanathan (1987)” Clauser shows the significant difference between his calculations (jfc calculation) and the calculations of Stephens and Ramanathan.
Clauser then asserts that when correct calculations are used: “Both Stephens et al and Ramanathan’s data are fully consistent with net zero global warming and/or cooling.” This is not to say that Clauser asserts that CO2 has no warming effect on temperatures, but merely that the IPCC did not demonstrate that it has an effect. The key power-flow diagrams, Wild (2019) and AR6 (2021) are shown about 29 minutes into the presentation.
See the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpcqzZliEag
*******************
John Clauser III: Clauser’s main assertion: The cloud thermostat is the dominant climate controlling mechanism. It starts about 34 minutes into the presentations with Part II – The cloud thermostat. The introduction was presented in last week’s TWTW. Clauser presents “Features of the cloud thermostat mechanism.” In the slide he asserts:
- In preparation for the introduction of this model, I describe the important, underappreciated, but conspicuous properties of clouds – their variability and strong reflectivity of sunlight (SW radiation).
- I show that the cloud-thermostat mechanism involves the dominant (73%) use of sunlight energy by the planet.
- I show that when the cloud-thermostat mechanism is viewed as a form of climate stabilizing negative feedback, it is by far the most powerful of any such mechanism heretofore considered.
- The IPCC estimates that the net stabilizing feedback strength of the Earth’s climate including the destabilizing feedback strength of the greenhouses is about -1 W/m2/°C.
- I show that the cloud thermostat feedback increases the net natural stabilizing feedback strength to about anywhere between -7 W/m2/°C and -14 W/m2/°C, depending on the assumptions used.”
[This last assertion is the core of the argument. If he is correct, then Clauser has a clear explanation for the Little Ice Age. During that time, contemporary European observers and artists noted extreme cloudiness during a cold, wet period when crops did not ripen, and famine struck many countries. Good written records were kept in France, Britain, and Finland. Roman vineyards as far north as York, England, were wiped out and many strange diseases struck whole villages. HH Lamb discusses it at length in his book, Climate, History, and the Modern World (1982). The IPCC and global climate modelers ignore this extended cold period of hardship for humanity. Perhaps because it detracts from their preferred political message that all global warming is the result of human activity, and that it really started with the Industrial Revolution.
Further, Clauser assertion is consistent with Le Chatelier’s principle that if a dynamic system is disturbed by changing conditions, the system shifts to counteract the disturbance. It dampens, reduces, the impact.]
Clauser gives multiple photos of Earth from space illuminated by the sun. Large parts of the blue marble are covered by clouds. Clauser then states:
“There are 5 important take-home messages gleaned from these satellite photographs:
- Clouds reflect dramatically more sunlight than the rest of the planet does!
- Clouds of all types appear bright white!
- The photos (along with a large number of careful measurements) strongly suggest that the average cloud reflectivity (of sunlight) is about 0.8 – 0.9. (For comparison, white paper has a reflectivity of ~ [about] 0.99.) [Wild et al. (2019) claim that cloud reflectivity is 0.36.]
- The rest of the planet appears much darker than the clouds. The average reflectivity of land (green and brown areas) and ocean (dark blue areas) is ~ 0.16.
- Cloud coverage area is highly variable over the Earth.”
In the following slide Clauser asserts “Clouds cast dark shadows.
- Clouds cast dark sharply defined shadows on the surface below them. Just stand on a hillside or look down from an airplane on a partly cloudy day and watch the clouds shadows cast on the land below.
- Watch your solar-panel output when a solitary cloud passes in front of the sun. Typically, the output drops to 50% or less.
- Try reading a book indoors on a heavily overcast day without turning on the lights. You can’t. It’s too dark! Where did all the missing sunlight go? Since water droplets negligibly absorb sunlight, the missing sunlight (typically 80-90% of it) got reflected back to space.”
In the slide “What does sunlight mostly do when it reaches Earth surface?” Clauser wrote:
- “It is commonly believed that sunlight that is absorbed by the Earth’s surface simply warms the surface. That may be true over land. But land represents only about 30% of the surface.
- Oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface. Correspondingly, about 70% of incoming sunlight falls on the oceans. Virtually all the Earth’s exposed water surface occurs in the oceans.
- Following the AR6 power-flow diagram, 160 W/m2 is absorbed by the whole Earth, meaning that roughly 70% X 160 = 112 W/m2 is absorbed by oceans.
- The AR6 power-flow diagram indicates that 82 W/m2 is used for evaporating water and not for heating the surface.
- Since clouds are mostly produced over the oceans (because that’s where the exposed water is), then 82/112 = 73% of the input energy absorbed by Earth’s oceans is used, not for warming the Earth, but instead simply for making clouds.”
Under “Satellite observations of cloud-cover fraction by King et al (2013)” Clauser shows a graph titled “Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Clouds Observed by MODIS Onboard the Terra and Aqua Satellites.” In a sidebar Clauser writes:
- “King et al. (2013) analyzed more than 12 years of data from the CERES terra and Aqua sun-synchronous satellites, and measured the daytime fractional cloud cover, over ocean, land, and combined.
- I have added Outgoing (reflected sunlight) SW power scales, assuming a constant solar input power, 340 W/m2.”
About 43 minutes into the presentation, Clauser then introduces the three slides titled: “My cloud thermostat model – how does it work?
- Recall that the IPCC’s AR6 power-flow map asserts that 73% of the input energy absorbed by the Earth’s oceans is used, not for warming the Earth, but instead simply for evaporating seawater and making clouds, rather than for raising the Earth’s surface temperature. Recall that Earth has a strongly varying cloud cover and albedo.
- Temperature control of the Earth’s surface by this mechanism works exactly the same way as does a common home thermostat. A thermostat automatically corrects a structure’s temperature in the presence of varying modest heat leaks. For earth, the presence of significant CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere, manmade or not, provides, in fact, a very small heat leak (at most, about 2 W/m2). Note that, just like the Earth, the power imbalance for a thermostatically controlled system is never zero. It is always fully heating or fully cooling.
[Boldface added, note that Clauser is discussing a fully automatic thermostat, not one that must be adjusted to either heat or cool.]
- How does the cloud thermostat work? When the Earth’s cloud-cover fraction is too high, then the earth’s surface temperature is too low. Why? Clouds produce shadows. Cloudy days are cooler than sunny days. A high cloud-cover fraction equals a highly shadowed area. With reduced sunlight reaching the ocean’s surface and lower temperature, the evaporation rate of seawater is reduced. The cloud production rate over ocean (70% of the earth) is low because sunlight is needed to evaporate seawater. The earth’s too-high cloud-cover fraction obediently starts to decrease. Very quickly, cloud-cover fraction decreases, the temperature increases. The Earth’s cloud-cover fraction is no longer too high. Equilibrium cloud cover and temperature are restored.
- When the Earth’s cloud-cover fraction is too low, the surface temperature is then too high, then the reverse process occurs. With low cloud cover, lots of sunlight reaches the ocean surface. Increased sunlit area then evaporates more seawater. The cloud-production rate obediently increases, and the cloud cover is no longer too low. Equilibrium cloud cover and temperature are again restored.
- Depending on one’s assumption regarding cloud reflectivity (albedo), the cloud thermostat mechanism has anywhere between 18 and 55 W/m2 power available from cloud-fraction variability to overcome a wimpy 0.7 W/m2 heat leak (allegedly blamed on greenhouse gasses) and to stabilize the Earth’s temperature no matter what the greenhouse gas atmospheric concentration is! [Emphasis in original]
- These two fluctuating opposing processes, when in equilibrium, provide an equilibrium cloud-cover fraction, and an equilibrium average temperature. The earth thus has a built-in thermostat!”
About 28 minutes into the presentation Clauser presents an “Analysis of the atmospheric feedback system” in which he writes:
- “The IPCC’s second sacred task was to estimate the so-called feedback stability of the Earth’s atmosphere and its sensitivity to external perturbations, such as increased greenhouse gasses, volcanism, etc.
- Given huge observed fluctuation in Outgoing power, the Earth obviously maintains a surprising stable long-term temperature. Why?
- Climate scientists have proposed the existence of a variety of feedback mechanisms that account for the evident stability.
- Climate feedback systems are discussed extensively by the 2003 National Research Council / National Academy report “Understanding Climate Change Feedbacks”, by Sherwood et al. (2020 – the Ringsberg Castle study), and by AR6 (2021, Chapter 7.4).
- The detailed calculation methodology used by Sherwood et al. (2020) is outlined in Appendix C.
- By removing one of Sherwood et al. (2020)’s overly restrictive assumption, their methodology becomes applicable to the cloud thermostat mechanism, as is shown in Appendix D.”
In the slide titled “Feedback strength of the cloud thermostat model” Clauser writes:
- “The resulting cloud-thermostat mechanism’s feedback parameter is not readily evaluated under two scenarios associated with two choices for cloud albedo. The details of the calculation are shown in Appendix D.
- Using the AR6 choice for cloud albedo αClouds = 0.36, we have λ Clouds ≈-7.7 W/m2K, which is 1.7 times larger than (the misnamed) λ Planck, heretofore the strongest feedback term.
- Alternatively, using the more reasonable choice for cloud albedo, α Clouds =0.8, we have λ Clouds ≈ -12.7 W/m2K, which is 3.8 times large than (the misnamed) λ Planck
- These values are plotted as a extension of the AR6 Figure 7.1, which shows the feedback strength for the various mechanisms. The total system strength is shown in the left-hand column.
- Viewed as a temperature-control feedback mechanism, in either scenario, the cloud thermostat has the strongest negative (stabilizing) feedback of any mechanism heretofore considered.
- It very powerfully controls and stabilizes the Earth’s climate and temperature.”
[Clauser gives graphs and additional arguments demonstrating the difference between the IPCC estimates and his calculations. The “(the misnamed) λ Planck,” refers to the Stefan-Boltzmann law rather than the Planck curve which came some 20 years after the Stefan-Boltzmann law.]
Clauser then states his Conclusions:
- “I have introduced here the cloud-thermostat mechanism. It is clearly the overwhelmingly dominant climate controlling feedback mechanism that controls, stabilizes, the Earth’s climate and temperature. It thereby prevents global warming and climate change.
- The IPCC’s 2021 AR6 report (p.978) claims that climate stabilizing natural feedback mechanisms have a net (total) stabilizing strength of -1.16 ±0.6 W/m2/K. My cloud feedback mechanism has a net stabilizing strength of anywhere between -5.7 to -12.7 W/m2/K, depending on one’s assumptions regarding the albedo of clouds.
- My cloud thermostat mechanism provides nature’s own Solar Radiation Management System. The mechanism already exists. It is built into nature’s own cloud factory. It works very well to stabilize the Earth’s temperature on a long-term basis. And it is free!
In the slide titled “Recommendations for policy makers” Clauser states:
- “There is no climate crisis! There is, however, a very real problems with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s now enormous population. There is indeed an energy shortage crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect science, and by the government’s associated incorrect muddled response to it.
- Government and business are currently needlessly spending trillions of dollars on efforts to limit the greenhouse gases, CO2 and CH4 [methane], in the Earth’s atmosphere.
- CO2 and CH4 are not pollutants. They must be removed from every list of defined pollutants. The have a negligible effect on the climate. Trillions of dollars can be saved by this one simple measure alone! Additionally, the CO2 Coalition points out that atmospheric CO2 is actually beneficial.
- I recommend that all efforts to limit environmental carbon should be terminated immediately! Trillions of dollars can be saved by eliminating carbon caps, carbon credits, carbon sequestration, carbon footprints, zero-carbon targets, carbon taxes, anti-carbon policies and fossil-fuel limits, in energy policy and elsewhere.
- Government requirements and subsidies for electric vehicles, all electric power, solar and wind power, etc. should all be eliminated.
- Geoengineering programs to reduce global warming should be cancelled.
- To paraphrase (and update for inflation) the late Sen. Everett Dirksen’s 1969 comment about the Vietnam war and Apollo programs and redirect it to the IPCC’s anti-carbon policies – ‘A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.’”
This concludes TWTW’s efforts to reproduce key parts of the Clauser presentation. In the last minutes of his presentation, Clauser gives a series of appendices showing definition, assumptions, power-flow map data, and analyses; which TWTW encourages interested readers to review. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*******************
Double Checking: Like most thorough scientists Roy Spencer double-checks his work. He posted his recent double-checking on his website. In his work, he verifies lower troposphere data calculations with other data calculations. See links under Measurement Issues – Atmosphere for this work and the latest UAH Global Temperature update.
*******************
Hockey Stick Again: Stephen McIntyre exposed another “hockey stick.” He writes:
“As discussed in previous article, Esper et al (2024) link, the newest hockey stick diagram, asserted that 2023 was the ‘warmest summer’ in millennia by an updated version of ‘Mike’s Nature trick’ – by comparing 2023 instrumental temperature to purported confidence intervals of temperature estimates from ‘ancient tree rings’ for the past two millennia. In today’s article, I will report on detective work on Esper’s calculations, showing that the article is not merely a trick, but a joke.”
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*******************
Measuring CO2: We have no way of directly measuring historic CO2 and temperature trends and must rely on proxy data. All proxy data have limitations that must be considered. For example, TWTW believes that certain marine sediments formed by organisms living at or near the surface of the oceans which die and fall as marine snow, eventually becoming chalk, limestone, etc., provide the best proxy data covering the past 65 million years or so for both temperatures and CO2 concentrations. The organisms evolved about 65 million years ago and are still live today. So, their life cycles can be studied today. Since these sediments form slowly, these proxy data are not suitable for year to year or even century to century comparisons, only for long-term trends.
Similarly, ice core data and plant stomata (small pores on the leaf surface that allow for exchange of gases such as the intake of CO2 and the loss of water) have limitations that must be considered. Writing for the CO2 Coalition, geoscientist Renee Hannon gives a good account of the strengths and limitations of using both proxies. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
*******************
63 Years? Retired utility metrologist Roger Caiazza writes on the poor prior planning being used in the New York State’s Implementation Plan under the New York Climate Act. The grid serving New York is already fragile. It is being made more so by the insistence that wind and solar be added to “fight” the non-existent “climate crisis.” In WUWT Caiazza writes:
“I cannot imagine a business case for the deployment of energy storage or the magical dispatchable emissions free resource that will only be needed once in 63 years. For one thing, the life expectancy of these technologies is much less than 63 years. Even over a shorter horizon such as the last ten years, how will a required facility be able to stay solvent when it runs so rarely without subsidies and very high payments when they do run.
I have long argued that New York should perform a feasibility study to determine if the net-zero outline to comply with the Climate Act in the Scoping Plan could possibly work. Francis Menton has convinced me that it would be better to do a demonstration project in some smaller jurisdiction to prove that it can work. The described tradeoff between the practicality of deploying resources for the observed worst-case resource deficit and the necessity to do so to prevent a catastrophic blackout should be a key consideration in either workability evaluation.”
See link under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
*******************
DDP 2024: The 42nd Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness is scheduled for July 5-7, 2024, in El Paso, Texas. The speakers include a number of outstanding scientists such as John Clauser, the 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physics for contribution to the foundations of quantum mechanics; Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, recipients of the 2023 Fredrick Seitz award by SEPP for upholding integrity in using the scientific method; Willie Soon, Michael Connolly, and Ronan Connolly of the Center for Environmental Research & Earth Science (CERES); and Patrick Moore, former Greenpeace co-founder. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
********************
April Fools Award: TWTW intends to announce the winner of the 2024 April Fools award at the July 5 meeting of the DDP. Please submit your nominee by June 30.
********************
Number of the Week: $25 billion
In arguing for the development of nuclear produced hydrogen to make a net zero fuel, Robert Hargraves reveals that under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, the Department of Energy has $25 billion to spend on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Yet, carbon dioxide is essential for photosynthesis and all complex life on Earth. Reducing it could well result in major reductions of farm productivity and mass starvation both in the USA and world-wide at scales never even imagined.
Further, the Department of Energy seems blissfully unaware of the increasingly fragile nature of the US grid, made more fragile by adding wind and solar into the mix. It would be better to spend a small fraction of $25 billion on a demonstration project showing how wind and solar plus storage can deliver reliable, affordable electricity. Perhaps Washington is afraid of the results of such a study. See links under Carbon Schemes.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Censorship
UN Chief Calls For Governments To Censor Fossil Fuel Advertisements
By Owen Klinksy, Daily Caller, June 5, 2024
‘Climate Justice’ Now Requires Edinburgh City Council to Ban Ads Tempting Locals to Go on a Cruise
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, June 2, 2024
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Challenging the Orthodoxy
The cloud thermostat is the dominant climate controlling mechanism
Video by Nobel Laurate John F Clauser, Irish Climate Science Forum & Climate Intelligence, May 8, 2024
Reconstructing the Esper Reconstruction
By Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit, Jun 2, 2024
Measurement of CO2 Concentrations Through Time
By Renee Hannon, CO2 Coalition, June 2024
New study confirms GWPF reports on declining climate disasters
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 7, 2024
Link to: Is the number of global natural disasters increasing?
By Gianluca Alimonti & Luigi Mariani, Environmental Hazards, Aug 7, 2023
Fooled On Climate and Energy by UN Lobbyists
By John McLean, WUWT, June 3, 2024
Most people probably believe that the IPCC and UNFCCC are honest UN agencies with great integrity. In effect, the IPCC is a lobbying coordinator and publicizer, and the UNFCCC is taking the IPCC’s lobbying and trying to pressure governments into political decisions, with both agencies using the might of the UN’s media machine to further their aims.
The Claim ‘Exxon Knew’ Their Products Induced ‘Catastrophic Climate Impacts’ In The 1970s Is Bunk
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 4, 2024
ClimateMovie: the 2-minute version
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
At some point these “scientists who are so alarmed” need to step up and acknowledge that 42 years later reality didn’t live up to their computer-generated expectations.
Defending the Orthodoxy
Earth warming at record rate, researchers say
By Miranda Nazzaro, The Hill, June 5, 2024
Link to report: Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence
By Piers M. Forster, et al., Earth System Science Data, 2024
From the Abstract: We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report.
The indicators show that, for the 2014–2023 decade average, observed warming was 1.19 [1.06 to 1.30] °C, of which 1.19 [1.0 to 1.4] °C was human-induced.
[SEPP Comment: According to UAH, the decadal average atmosphere increase is 0.15C for the full record since January 1979. So, we have much more surface warming than atmospheric warming. It must come from something else than CO2.]
UN Chief says ban Fossil Fuel Adverts to cool world (Whatever you do, don’t let the people see how useful fossil fuels are!)
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 6, 2024
World Economic Forum Welcomes Our New Climate Activist AI Overlords
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 3, 2024
[SEPP Comment: More nonsense from the WEF.]
The WEF Denies Demanding the Arrest of Climate Deniers
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 7, 2024
Widely used climate theory doesn’t ‘ring’ true, according to new tree data
Press Release, NSF, June 3, 2024
Link to paper: Tree rings reveal the transient risk of extinction hidden inside climate envelope forecasts
By Margaret E. K. Evans, et al., PNAS, June 3, 2024
From press release: “Instead of half the distribution benefiting from warming, all trees at all sampled locations suffer with warming. Without evolutionary change of individual-scale climate tolerances, common piñon faces a risk of extinction as the climate warms.”
[SEPP Comment: Given that the boreal forests were much further north than today about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago when it warmer that today, doubt the conclusions in a study which fails to distinguish between “climate change” and increasing CO2. “Climate change” is not defined. The sample is limited to arid land pine (Pinus edulis) which grows in high deserts, such as in Afghanistan. The NSF press release misleads the public.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Even climate deniers can’t hide from climate change
By Willliam Becker, The Hill, June 3, 2024
“William S. Becker is a former regional director at the U.S. Department of Energy and author of several books on climate change and national disaster policies, including the ‘100-Day Action Plan to Save the Planet’ and ‘The Creeks Will Rise: People Co-Existing with Floods.’”
[SEPP Comment: Relies on the false claim of increasing weather disasters by NOAA, led by former administrator Jane Lubchenco and Tom Karl.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
“Bonus” Gets it wrong about May and Crok, 2024
By Andy May, WUWT, June 1, 2024
Alarmist Scientists’ Schizophrenia Has Corrupted the Conclusions by Early Climate Science Greats.
By Jim Steele, WUWT, June 2, 2024
Why in the sky
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
Almost All Recent Global Warming Caused by Green Air Policies – Shock Revelation From NASA
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, June 4, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Uses a highly questionable assumption: the drop in maritime cloudiness is the result of a drop in aerosols emitted by ships shifting from high sulfur fuels.]
Oops…Cleaner Fuels Mean Less Clouds, More Warming!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 1, 2024
Conspiracy Theory!
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 2, 224
Video: Is it conspiracy or fraud?
Problems in the Orthodoxy
AI Takes Top Spot – Climate Change in 4th Place at This Year’s Bilderberg Meeting
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 3, 2024
[SEPP Comment: How to generate the reliable, affordably electricity AI needs?]
Seeking a Common Ground
Scientific integrity and U.S. “Billion Dollar Disasters”
A high-profile opportunity for self-correction in climate science and policy
By Roger Pielke, Jr. His Blog, June 3, 2024 [H/t William Readdy]
Link to paper: Scientific integrity and U.S. “Billion Dollar Disasters.
By Roger Pielke, Jr., npj Natural Hazards, June 3, 2024
From abstract: This paper performs an evaluation of the dataset under criteria of procedure and substance defined under NOAA’s Information Quality and Scientific Integrity policies. The evaluation finds that the “billion-dollar disaster” dataset falls short of meeting these criteria. Thus, public claims promoted by NOAA associated with the dataset and its significance are flawed and at times misleading.
Big Science, the Enemy of Great Science
By Rafe Champion, Quadrant, June 5, 2024
In the 1950s Popper was horrified by the growing role of government in science, inspired by the example of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb. He feared for the future of Great Science as a result of Big Science in the service of politicians. He saw the danger of too much money chasing too few ideas, the publication explosion (good buried under bad) and the distortion of incentives by the pressure to obtain grants for fashionable and politically “hot” topics.
Opportunities for Better Rainfall Forecasts, & AI
By Jennefer Marohasy, Her Blog, June 8, 2024
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Canada’s climate tyranny growing; America is not far behind
By Peter Murphy, CFACT, May 31, 2024
Pants on fire
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
Justin Trudeau says Canada is on fire. That no one in Canada had noticed the flames only proves that climate change can do anything including burn invisibly… or that alarmists have reached a tipping point where they no longer need evidence.
Models v. Observations
All things Equal
By Andy May, WUWT, June 4, 2024
Measurement Issues — Surface
Comparing Temperatures: Past and Present
By (call me Stephen), WUWT, June 1, 2024
Earth hits full year of back-to-back monthly heat records
By Flip Timotija, The Hill, June 5, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Not in the US which has the best records of any large country in the world which are maintained by state climatologists, not NOAA.]
Neatishead
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 6, 2024
I mentioned the Met Office station at Neatishead the other day, which had set the highest temperature in the UK one day last week.
Ray Sanders has found out that it has only been operational since December 2022, and has been trying to find out its WMO classification. The Met Office has steadfastly refused, asking him why he wants to know.
Such an arrogant attitude from a publicly funded organisation is utterly unacceptable, and one can only wonder what they are trying to hide. Ray has now submitted an official FOI, which they cannot legitimately refuse.
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH Global Temperature Update for May 2024: +0.90 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, June 4, 2024
The linear warming trend since January 1979 remains at +0.15 C/decade (+0.13 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.20 C/decade over global-averaged land).
UAH Upper Tropospheric Temperatures Corroborate LT Temperature Trends
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, June 7, 2024
Changing Weather
We are not helpless in the face of climate change.
If we bring the right people to the table and think outside the box, we can reduce insurance rates, bring down heat levels within our city, put our youth to work, have strong roofs, dry streets, cooler neighborhoods and be a national leader in climate adaptation.
By Arthur Hunter, The Lens, May 28, 2024
As we enter hurricane season, we need to talk about climate change. But it needs to be more than mere talk and debates.
[SEPP Comment: Extreme weather events are not increasing, however the author’s suggestions for New Orleans to adapt to extreme weather events is practical.]
Changing Climate
New Study: Western Greenland Was ‘1.5-2°C Warmer Than Today’ During Medieval Warm Period
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 6, 2024
Link to paper: Two millennia of climate change, wildfires, and caribou hunting in west Greenland
By Astrid Strunk, et al. The Holocene,
Changing Seas
Author Of New Paper: No AMOC Collapse…”Should Dissuade People From Climate Doomism”
By Frank Bosse, Via P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 5, 2024
The AMOC is the Atlantic overturning circulation.
Sea Surface Temperature Blues
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 5, 2024
Shore Acres Floods — of course it does
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, June 7, 2024
Florida is famous for its vices and one of them, just to pick one out of the oh-so-many, is Miami’s Vice. Untold thousands of homes are built along the coasts of Florida within one to three feet of average high tide, with canals to bring the sea close to the homes – as in ‘just there, across the backyard’.
Global Sea Levels are believed to be rising, on average, at a rate of about 1 foot (0.3 meters) per century as the Earth slowly warms up a bit out of the Little Ice Age, which ended sometime between 1750 and 1850 (opinions vary).
[SEPP Comment: Actually, the rate of rise has been quite constant for over four thousand years. See NIPCC, 2008, above.]
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Antarctic ice expanding! New Study in journal Nature reveals ’85 years of glacier growth & stability in East Antarctica’ – ‘Ice-sheet wide mass balance estimates start[ed] in late 1970s…have exhibited either an overall mass gain or been relative unchanged’
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot, May 31, 2024
Link to paper: Early aerial expedition photos reveal 85 years of glacier growth and stability in East Antarctica
By Mads Dømgaard, et al., Nature Communications, May 25, 2024
Our results demonstrate that the stability and growth in ice elevations observed in terrestrial basins over the past few decades are part of a trend spanning at least a century and highlight the importance of understanding long-term changes when interpreting current dynamics.
2,000 kilometers of East Antarctic glaciers don’t look much different after 85 years and 1.6 trillion tons of carbon dioxide
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 3, 2024
A Norwegian whaler paid for 2,200 aerial photos of East Antarctica in 1937. Since then, humankind has emitted 91% of all the emissions we’ve ever produced and the world is facing an extinction level catastrophe and yet satellite photos show this 2,000 kilometer long section of East Antarctica hasn’t changed — or at least, not in any way related to our uptake of coal power or planes, trains, air conditioners and cars. Basically the human race emitted 1,600 billion tons of carbon dioxide which was supposed to warm the poles twice as fast as anywhere else, but there is still nothing to see here.
Thirty years of propaganda won’t die easily:
Giving Proper Credit
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 4, 2024
Arctic sea ice extent declined from 1979-2007, but since then the trend has been flat.
Arctic Ice Persists May 2024
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 1, 2024
New data show Svalbard polar bears are fatter than they were in 1993 despite continued low sea ice
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, June 4, 2024
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Reducing methane emissions from cows
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
From the CO2Science archive:
If one feels strongly about the (debatable) need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to the atmosphere, a good place to start is with the next most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, i.e., methane (CH4), each molecule of which has a global warming potential about 21 times greater than that of a CO2 molecule.
[SEPP Comment: Robson forgets the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, which greatly reduces the effect of methane on temperatures.]
Lowering Standards
IEA: Higher Energy Prices are Russia’s Fault, Not Renewable Energy
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 1, 2024
Link to report: Strategies for Affordable and Fair Clean Energy Transitions
World Energy Outlook Special Report
By Staff, International Energy Agency, May 2024
From report: A more electrified, renewables-rich and efficient system brings important gains for affordability, alongside the clear environmental benefits. When all costs of delivering energy are considered (e.g. operating expenses, the need to pay back previous investments, financing costs) the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario’s 1.5 °C pathway is less costly on a global basis than the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), which is based on today’s policy settings.
The costs of inaction are huge.
[SEPP Comment: And the costs of inaction are largely imaginary!]
The Met Office is Gaslighting Us With its Claim that Our Damp and Chilly May Was “Warmest on Record”
By Ben Pile, The Daily Sceptic, June 6, 2024 [H/t Paul Homewood]
However, I was surprised to discover that data from the weather stations that are used in the Met Office’s analysis are not available to the public at higher than monthly resolution.
That’s a problem because in order to build an estimate of how useful minimum and maximum temperature data are, even in one location, never mind across an entire country, it would need to be compared to hourly data at a minimum. But not even daily data are available.
You might have thought that scientists and institutions that are so keen to tell us that their metric is so significant would be just as keen to make all of that data available to us. But you would be mistaken. The data is jealously guarded. It’s not for public consumption. We are supposed to take the good faith of institutional science for granted and are neither welcome nor even permitted to check for ourselves. ‘Follow the science’, means ‘obey’, not ‘try to understand’. And that’s what makes me – and, I hope, you – a sceptic. [Boldface added]
Hottest May! Believe Us, Not Your Lying Eyes!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 4, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Carbon dioxide levels rising ‘faster than ever’ amid unprecedented heat: Report
By Saul Elbein, The Hill, June 6, 2024
Link to article: During Year of Extremes, Carbon Dioxide Levels Surge Faster than Ever
By Robert Monroe, UC San Diego, June 6, 2024
May is historically the month when CO2 reaches its highest level in the Northern Hemisphere.
Levels measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory surged to a seasonal peak of just under 427 parts per million (426.90 ppm) in May. That’s an increase of 2.9 ppm over May 2023, and the fifth-largest annual growth in NOAA’s 50-year record.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Beefing up the climate alarm
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
So up to the early 1800s there were vast herds of methane-emitting buffalo comparable to today’s herds of cattle. Yet the early 1800s was the end of the Little Ice Age, namely the coldest interval in the Northern Hemisphere in the previous 10,000 years.
Climate Headlines Claim, But IPCC Details Deny
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, June 3, 2024
Many know of the Latin phrase “caveat emptor,” meaning “Let the buyer beware”.
When it comes to climate science, remember also “caveat lector”–”Let the reader beware”.
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Global deaths and disasters down: UN shameless lies, up
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 7, 2024
Hockey Match
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 5, 2024
Video https://realclimatescience.com/2024/06/hockey-match-2/#gsc.tab=0
Text: https://realclimatescience.com/2024/06/hockey-match/#gsc.tab=0
On climate you can say just anything
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Half Of German E-Car Buyers Regret Their Purchase Or Lease!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 2, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
Aussie Government Grudgingly Retreats from Dictating Content Moderation to the Entire World
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 5, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Elon Musk did not cower to the government regulator; therefore, he is evil?]
NZ government accused of “war on the nature” as it cuts $100m environmental spending
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 1, 2024
The New Zealand government has been accused of waging a “war on nature” after it announced sweeping cuts to climate action projects, while making no significant new investments in environmental protection or climate crisis-related policy.
[SEPP Comment: Allowing carbon dioxide emissions that is causing the flourishing of green life is a war on nature?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
More Agriculture, Supersized Fish, Best Dive Site – The Yongala
By Jennifere Marohasy, Her Blog, June 6, 2024
Misinformation abounds when it comes to the environment – and what makes it tick, especially at the Great Barrier Reef. There is this mantra, this insisting from some that there is no impact from agriculture – while there is this mantra, this insisting from the mainstream institutions and most recently a Peta campaign that agriculture is killing the same Great Barrier Reef.
Even closer to the mouth of the Burdekin River, in fact in the direct path of river flood plumes, is the Yongala – regularly listed as one of the best diving sites in the world.
Guardian withdraws cheap renewables claim
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, June 4, 2024
“The Guardian has been forced to withdraw an advertorial, paid for by National Grid, that purported to debunk ‘myths’ about clean energy.
Energy writer David Turver, who had formulated a detailed rebuttal,[1] submitted complaints to both the Guardian and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).”
Having children in a climate-conscious world
By EHN Curators, May 30, 2024
“Climate anxiety is a normal, natural response to climate change. Let’s fight and solve climate change, and then you won’t have the thing to be anxious about.”
[SEPP Comment: Climate anxiety is a response to climate change propaganda!]
Expanding the Orthodoxy
UNFCCC Partners with Qlik to Drive Data-Driven Climate Action
By Staff, Globe Newswire, Via Morningstar.com, June 3, 2024 [H/t Dennis Ambler]
Qlik®, a global leader in data integration, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI), today announced an expanded partnership with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This collaboration aims to enhance the UNFCCC’s ability to accelerate climate change negotiations, enabling a greater focus on data-informed action.
[SEPP Comment: Spreading propaganda faster. The results of untested models are not data nor are unsubstantiated attribution claims.]
Questioning European Green
We Can Still Avoid the Net Zero Trap
By Kees de Lange and Guus Berkhout, Clintel, June 2024
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The inhumanity of the green agenda
The ‘sustainability’ regime is impoverishing the world.
By Joel Kotkin, Spiked, Apr 24, 2024 [H/t Ron Clutz]
US Ally’s Climate Fetish Could Decimate Key Industry For Natives In That Country
By Vijay Jayaraj, Daily Caller, June 1, 2024
Funding Issues
Call that science?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
Conflicts of interest? Alarmists are quick to smear skeptics as in the pay of oil companies. But the real gravy train is tidal waves of government funding for research that confirms the orthodox narrative and almost exclusively that kind. It doesn’t prove they’re wrong, of course, or even that they’re venal. But it is a massive issue and one that they do not disclose or discuss.
Not So Super Fund
By Staff, Government Accountability & Oversight.org, June 6, 2024
Link to article: Vermont Takes On Big Oil. Will Other States Follow?
By Lee Wasserman, NYT, June 6, 2024
Mr. Wasserman is the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund.
“The Rockefeller Family Fund, which I direct, has spent roughly $200,000 since 2022 in support of environmental efforts in Vermont, including passage of the climate Superfund law.”
I Wouldn’t Buy a Secondhand Car From Quentin Willson, Let Alone a Transport Policy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 1, 2024
“According to former motoring journalist, now Net Zero lobbyist, Quentin Willson, slow consumer take-up of EVs is due to ‘myths and misinformation’.
The ECF [European Climate Foundation which also funds many European pressure groups] was set up largely with money from US far left foundations, such as Rockefeller, ClimateWorks, Bloomberg and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. More money comes from the Grantham Foundation and CIFF.” [Boldface added.]
Labour’s energy plan doesn’t add up
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 1, 2024
From: Labour’s energy plan doesn’t add up
By Ross Clark, The Spectator, May 31, 2024
Homewood: Carbon capture is even worse than Ross Clark thinks. The process is hopelessly energy inefficient, so it not only costs much more, but also needs even more of those fossil fuels Labour so despises.
Labour’s Green Obsession Will Cost £18 Billion A Year
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 7, 2024
Link to: Make Britian a Clean Energy Superpower: To Cut Bills, Create Jobs and Deliver Security With Cheaper, Zero-Carbon Electricity By 2030, Accelerating to Net Zero
By Staff, Labour Party, 2024
Comment by Homewood: Meanwhile, Labour clearly has no plan for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.
Starmer mocked for flying in private jet to launch party’s clean energy plan
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 1, 2024
Keir Stamer is a UK political party leader.
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Permanent Tax Subsidy? Solar’s 15 extensions
By Robert Bradley Jr.., Master Resource, June 4, 2024
Energy Issues – Non-US
Britain’s reliance on foreign energy is a national tragedy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 7, 2024
Increasing reliance on electricity imports is the direct result of closing coal plants and making gas power plants economically unviable, while at the same time building ever more intermittent renewable capacity.
DESNZ Admit–We Will Need 50GW Of CCGT In 2035
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 7, 2024
And nobody is going to build new plant, when they know the government of the day will shut it down a few years later.
It is clearer than ever that we now need an emergency program to build at least 30GW of new CCGT, as well as guaranteeing at least 15 years of operation/capacity market payments to all existing plants.
[SEPP Comment The response is from the Deputy Director, Strategy, Net Zero]
Energy Issues — US
The renewable green energy disaster off the northeastern US is getting worse
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 5, 2024
Addressing the Electricity Supply Strain in Texas
By Emily Arthun, Real Clear Energy, June 06, 2024
Nice work if you can get it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
Canary Media chirps that “Vermont is on the cusp of mandating 100% clean electricity by 2035.
Which when translated from Zealotese to English says the state already can’t cover its energy needs from these fabled renewables, so it’s planning to increase its need for them while eliminating its backup option. What could go wrong?
Washington’s Control of Energy
A Win for ‘Keep it in the Ground’
Coal mining in Wyoming will take a major hit as a result of a U.S. Department of Interior plan to cease future leasing of coal mines in the nation’s most productive coal mining basin. The decision casts a spotlight on the presidential election.
By Irvin Dawid, Planetizen, June 4, 2024
[SEPP Comment: A win for greens, a loss for US prosperity.]
Transportation Department issues final fuel economy rule for model years 2027-31
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 7, 2024
On the environmental policy side, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign criticized the final rule as allowing too much pollution and eschewing its own most stringent option, which would have improved car efficiency by about 6 percent annually and light trucks by 8 percent.
[SEPP Comment: The Center for Biological Diversity calls carbon dioxide a pollutant and is opposed to carbon dioxide increasing photosynthesis which is causing a flourishing of life?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Wind and Solar Resource Availability Fatal Flaw
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, June 4, 2024
Wind industry aims to influence Euro-elections
By John Constable, Net Zero Watch, June 6, 2024
A trade lobby has no business engaging in political activity of this kind, and they must know this.
Freedom advocates are the Right Whale’s best hope
By David Wojick, CFACT, June 3, 2024
The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC) has long been the leading advocate for their namesake whales. They do lots of research and have promoted both reduced ship speeds and so-called “ropeless” fishing as ways to save the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. Sadly. when it come to offshore wind they look to have abandoned the whales in favor of green nirvana.
Industrial Wind Power: A Depleting Resource?
By Robeert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, June 6, 2024
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
New map shows vast potential for geothermal energy beneath entire US
By Saul Elbein, The Hill, June 4, 2024
Link to: The Geothermal Exploration Opportunities Map Beta (GeoMap™)
By Staff, GeoMap, 2023
From article: But it also shows other data demand hot spots where new or existing data centers could defray their electricity costs by dumping their heat into the bedrock below — places like Kansas City, Miami, Dallas or the nation’s data-demand heartland of Northern Virginia.
[SEPP Comment: What??]
The Farm Bill Is an Opportunity for Bold Action on Advanced Biofuels
By Michael McAdams, Real Clear Energy, June 04, 2024
[SEPP Comment: More subsides Uncle.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
The Many Problems With Batteries
By Iddo Wernick, WUWT, June 2, 2024
“Nonetheless, because battery costs play such a dominant role in the price of electric vehicles, manufacturers are turning to less expensive battery chemistries, like LFP, that exclude rare metals but have lower energy densities than current Lithium-ion batteries. For residential power grids, the volume of batteries needed to keep a city going for a full day is staggering. Consider the greater Seattle area. Powering the Seattle grid for 24 hours using batteries would require a cylinder over sixty meters in diameter at the height of the Space Needle (184 meters), filled with manufactured battery packs. Today, at the Kapolei Energy Storage outside Honolulu, over 6,000 tons of LFP batteries (enough to fill a pole one meter in diameter and the height of Mauna Loa (4170 meters)) can supply the electricity demanded by a sixth of the million residents of Oahu for three to six hours.”
Stress Testing California’s Grid Batteries
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, June 4, 2024
The first time — Tuesday last week around 8:10 p.m. PT, according to GridStatus.io — batteries reached a record peak output of 6,177 megawatts. For about two hours, that made electricity generated earlier and stored in batteries the single largest source of power in the Golden state, eclipsing real-time production from natural gas, nuclear, renewable sources like wind and solar, and all other sources of energy.
From Clutz: Again, demand requires from the grid 50k [[50,000] MW per hour in 2022 with less than 1% for charging EVs. That is projected to go 10 times higher in 13 years.
[SEPP Comment: No cost of batteries and instillation given.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
BREAKING: The First Domino Falls on EV Mandates in Virginia
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, June 5, 2024
Link to press releasee: Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares: Virginia Will Exit California Electric Vehicle Mandate at End of Year
By Christian Martinez, Office of Governor, June 5, 2024
Governor Youngkin today announced the end of the California electric vehicle mandate in Virginia, effective at the end of 2024 when California’s current regulations expire. An official opinion from Attorney General Jason Miyares in response to a request by the Governor and Senate Republican Leader Ryan McDougle confirms that Virginia is not required to comply with expansive new mandates adopted by the unelected California Air Resources Board (CARB) set to take effect January 1, 2025.
Electric car discounts now ‘unsustainable’ amid record price cuts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 5, 2024
Motor manufacturers are now between a rock and a hard place. If they cut prices to boost EV sales, they lose money. If they cur petrol car sales, they lose money. And if they don’t meet the ZEV target, they also lose money.
The Truth On EVs Hertz
Video by John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 28, 2024
AP Poll: Biden EV Push Runs Into US Resistance
By AP, Via Newsmax, June 4, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Carbon Schemes
Bury CO2 or Revive It?
Add nuclear hydrogen to make net zero vehicle fuel.
By Robert Hargraves, Real Clear Energy, June 05, 2024
Link to promotion of $25 Billion DOE Programs, The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
By Staff, OCED, Accessed June 7, 2024
Boondoggle: Carbon Capture Projects Are Worse Than a Public Nuisance
By Bonner Russell Cohen, Real Clear Energy, June 04, 2024
But the price paid by ordinary people for solving a non-existent climate crisis is incalculable.
California Dreaming
In California, Coffee Both Causes And Prevents Cancer
By Josh Bloom, ACSH, May 30, 2024
Unsafe Harbors: EPA Must Stop CARB’s Dangerous Maritime Mandate
By Jennifer Carpenter, Real Clear Energy, June 05, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Does Washington even care if the California Air Resources Board (CARB) shuts down California’s ports?]
Health, Energy, and Climate
Climate Policy Should Not Be Used To Determine Limits on Hospital Emissions
By Vijay Jayaraj, Human Events, June 4, 2024
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Claim: Climate Change is “An intergenerational crime against humanity”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 4, 2024
Guardian: “The Day After Tomorrow” at 20 is a “Prescient Ecological Warning”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 5, 2024
Most American lakes endure smoke impacts, even when they’re nowhere near the fire: Study
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, June 7, 2024
Link to paper: Wildfire smoke impacts lake ecosystems
By Mary Jade Farruggia, et al., Global Change Biology, June 5, 2024
Opening sentence of article: Smoke from wildfires has become one of the most visible and widely reported global-change disturbances (Groff, 2021). In part, this is because the frequency and severity of wildfires are increasing in many regions of the world. Not only do wildfires now occur regularly in regions where they were once rare (e.g., the Arctic), wildfire seasons start earlier and last longer (Abatzoglou et al., 2019; Flannigan et al., 2013). [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: Pure bunk. As HH Lamb demonstrated, during the Holocene, 6 to 8 thousand years ago, northern boreal forests burned as trees died from the cold.]
No Potatoes, Warns Irish Times
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 2, 2024
[SEPP Comment: In the US potato producing states include Georgia, Florida, and Texas and a warming of Ireland will stop potato production? What about Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco?]
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 5, 2024
From the “oh shut up” file, Scientific American has the gall to say “Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Is Melting Even Faster Than Scientists Thought”. Yes, again. And if you won’t shut up, then we wish you’d tell us this one thing: How many times do scientists have to say the glacier is melting even faster than scientists thought before scientists start to think it’s melting as fast as scientists say they think it is? And for bonus points, how many times does it have to melt faster than fast before it actually melts? Inquiring penguins want to know.
The 13th First Climate Refugees
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 2, 2024
Note the large swings, including a 100mm (4 inch) rise in one year. YIKES! For reasons like this, in their study Sea Level Rise in Australia and the Pacific, Mitchell et al. open by saying:
”It is generally accepted that the determination of a trend in a sea level record is only possible when a long time series of observed elevations over many years is available. The small magnitude of the trend on the one hand, and the perturbation of the record by systematic noise over a wide range of frequencies on the other, determine that this is so.”
Per Mitchell et al in the same study, a “long time series” is 50 years or more … so you can see how using a paltry six-year record will give bogus answers like the 20 mm/year sea level rise quoted by the Smithsonian folks.
ARTICLES
1. The Aging U.S. Power Grid Is About to Get a Jolt
Bracing for an expected surge in demand for electricity, utilities adopt new tech to boost transmission capacity
By Scott Patterson, WSJ, June 6, 2024
TWTW Summary: The article begins with:
“The country’s aging power grid, built over the past 100 years, is about to leap into the 21st century as the Biden administration scrambles to meet a coming burst of new power demand.
To boost the grid’s capacity, the administration is pushing to step up efficiency of existing power lines with new technologies. The upgrades are far cheaper and faster than big transmission projects, which are often plagued by red tape and can take years to build.
In Illinois, Algonquin Power AQN -0.12%decrease; red down pointing triangle won a $42.9 million grant to install devices that automatically redeploy power when lines are overloaded. Virginia’s Dominion Energy D -0.48%decrease; red down pointing triangle won $33.7 million for a project that includes devices that will let it adjust power distribution in response to changing conditions on the grid. The funds are part of a $3.5 billion program for grid-boosting projects the Energy Department rolled out in October.
‘We actually need stuff that can cook right now, right away, very very quickly, and the way to do that is by deploying grid-enhancing technologies,’ said Ali Zaidi, the White House’s national climate adviser, at an event in Washington, D.C., last week.
Zaidi made the remarks the same day the Biden administration launched a push with 21 states, including California, Michigan and New York, to step up the capacity of existing power lines.
The plans come ahead of an expected surge in electricity demand, driven by a wave of power-hungry electric vehicles and new data centers for artificial-intelligence technology. That is a departure from the past two decades, when stagnant demand gave power companies little incentive to modernize their systems.
Data center development is booming across the U.S. thanks to AI. Some industry analysts estimate global capacity to double by 2030. But it faces a big obstacle: getting enough power.
Now utilities are scrambling for relatively fast ways to boost capacity.”
The article then goes into specific fixes but ignores that wind and solar are unreliable.
via Watts Up With That?
June 10, 2024 at 04:08AM
Talking about an energy transition on a dead calm, cloudy winter’s morning, when wind and solar output amounts to a doughnut, is positively delusional; claiming that wind and solar are the cheapest generation source of all (when wind and solar can’t be hundred any price) is utterly bonkers.
The fact that the matter is (and will always be) that every single MW of wind or solar capacity has to be matched somewhere in the system by a MW of reliable, dispatchable generation capacity. Not batteries (which don’t generate power at all), not wishes, not hopes and not dreams.
In essence, as The Australian’s Economics Editor, Judith Sloan outlines below, the grand wind and solar transition is about the cost of building 2 systems: one which works around-the-clock whatever the weather and the other which doesn’t.
True cost of renewables has long been hidden in the small print
The Australian
Judith Sloan
4 June 2024
One incidental benefit of the release of the dubious CSIRO GenCost report damning the economics of nuclear power is the opening up of the debate on the future of the National Electricity Market.
No one in their right mind thinks it’s going well. But where there is money and ideology at play, strong opinions will be expressed, even if they make no practical sense. Let’s face it, low-density, intermittent and decentralised energy can’t possibly be a match for high-density, continuous and centralised energy if affordable and reliable power are the only criteria.
And let’s not forget about the trampling of the property rights of those in rural and regional communities as a result of renewable energy. Under other circumstances, this onslaught would simply be rejected – mainly on environmental grounds, no less.
But the RE industry would have us believe multiple turbines, hectares of solar panels and kilometres of ugly transmission lines are the highway to cheap electricity as well as lower emissions. This is notwithstanding the noticeable slowdown in the rollout of RE and associated facilities over several years. It’s something dear to the heart of Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. But in his case, the stark reality of the need to keep the lights on has led to his support, albeit faint-hearted, for the role of gas in the grid, much to the horror of his deep-green-tinged colleagues and political allies.
The progress of the NEM these past two decades has been both ill-conceived and badly executed. It was one thing to allow a small portion of RE on to the grid; it’s another thing altogether to have RE as the main source of generation. It’s hard not to laugh when we are told, for example, that South Australia was powered entirely by RE for seven hours on one particular day. What about the other 17 hours? What about the other days? And beware the claim that a new RE installation will power 50,000 homes. That’s if they want power some of the time.
In the meantime, RE has contributed to the destruction of the business cases of reliable coal-fired plants without providing the alternative of reliable, affordable electricity. By and large, RE investment has only happened because of the massive subsidies – billions of dollars. The combination of priority dispatch, renewable energy certificates and other government interventions, particularly from state governments, has made RE one of the most highly subsidised industry in Australian history – and that’s saying something.
The economics of storage that is needed to offset the intermittency of RE is not promising. Think Snowy 2.0, but also the non-existence of long-duration, affordable batteries – which in part explains the immediate need for the continuation of coal-fired power stations. Here’s my bet: the coal-fired Eraring plant will continue into the next decade propped up by the NSW government. Loy Yang A in Victoria will keep chugging along as well, courtesy of the Victorian taxpayers.
The reality is that coal is still the cheapest form of 24/7 generation at a system level. A more realistic working of the CostGen report confirms this. Of course, coal-fired plants break down often these days – there’s hardly been strong incentives for the owners to spend on maintenance. Even so, with realistically priced coal – the impact of the war in Ukraine can now be discounted – coal is still king. The grid would not work but for coal.
The loss of ancillary services associated with the uptake of renewable generation – voltage and frequency control, system strength – is a further complication. Prior to renewables, these services were provided incidentally and free of charge by virtue of constantly spinning turbines. These must now be provided separately – some expensive installations are being rolled out by the transmission companies – and will significantly add to the retail price of electricity. Large-scale batteries can also perform this function – again, for a price.
One reason there has not been a widespread public revolt (and the associated political response) about the mollycoddled RE industry is the prevalence of small-scale solar panels installed by many households. The benefits for those households include generous upfront support as well as ongoing feed-in tariffs, with very high tariffs grandfathered in some states.
From a technical point of view, however, small-scale solar panels are probably more trouble than they are worth. All the electrons flow at the same time – in the early afternoon when demand is low. This puts massive pressure on local distribution systems, which need upgrading. It has got to the point that power is not even accepted from some homes; in other cases, money is spent on curtailing the flow. Subsidising household solar panels is highly regressive: higher-income households are subsidised by lower-income ones and renters. But for those households who manage to cut their electricity bills this way, it’s understandably popular. They think they are helping the environment as well as saving money.
There is also a degree of conflation in the minds of many voters between small-scale and large-scale RE. This is an important political consideration, particularly as it is only folk in rural and regional areas who bear the external costs of large-scale RE installations and new transmission lines.
It is worth looking at how costly it has been to reduce emissions from electricity generation sourced from RE. The costs of large-scale RE range from $60 to $220 per tonne of carbon dioxide abated. Higher figures above $100, say, cast doubt on the environmental case for the use of renewable energy certificates.
(The interventions designed to promote the uptake of electric vehicles are simply impossible to justify. The cost of the exemption of EVs from fringe benefit tax range from almost $1000 to $20,000 per tonne of carbon dioxide abated. Add in the state-based schemes promoting EV uptake and these interventions are the most inefficient by far. And, of course, they are also highly regressive.)
It all comes down to the trilemma: reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity. We were expected to believe these objectives could be simultaneously met. It turns out that we were misled.
The regulatory and financial backing for RE always involved placing a much greater weight on emissions reduction than the other two factors. We are paying the price for this.
Absent some rapid development of gas plants to offset the intermittency of RE – which will be expensive – we should expect problems down the track, with the lives of coal-fired plants further extended. It has been the antithesis of good policymaking, with the main culprits being misguided state governments (which own the NEM) with a large dose of bad decisions by the federal government.
The Australian
via STOP THESE THINGS
June 10, 2024 at 02:31AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 