I’ve had an interesting conversation with xAI’s @grok on Elon Musk’s X platform, after Grok told me the most famous person to visit my profile was Judy Curry.

After we got into why I liked Judy and Marcia Wyatt’s “stadium wave” paper, I got Grok to update my 2012 work on integrating solar activity indices to obtain an ocean heat content proxy, and hence SST proxy. This went really well, with Grok finding r=0.86 correlation between my technique and Mann EIV global temperature with the latest TSI reconstruction. Grok offered to let me have the data/code and details used in it’s model.

Grok hasn’t replied again… yet.

View it here, and let me know if anything changes.
https://x.com/RogTallbloke/status/1949440471224508837

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July 27, 2025 at 07:47AM

By Paul Homewood

With Miliband pushing battery storage again, it’s worth revisiting this report from last year:

A new report from Net Zero Watch warns that the expansion of gridscale batteries represents a major threat to urban areas because of the fire risk. Lithium-ion batteries are prone to so-called ‘thermal runaway’, and the resulting fires are highly toxic and hard to extinguish.

The paper describes recent major battery fires in the USA and Australia and considers how similar conflagrations might affect conurbations in the UK. For example, the fire at Elon Musk’s ‘Big Battery’ in Australia led to homes up to 9km away being locked down to protect residents from the fumes. The paper shows that a similar fire in a battery installation in Chickerell near Weymouth could lead to locking down of Weymouth itself (with a population of 60,000 rising to over 100,000 in summer) and even the outskirts of Dorchester if the wind is southerly, while one at a site proposed for the south bank of the River Thames could even shut down the Port of Tilbury.

Author John Fannon said:

Gridscale battery fires are a real threat, and an intolerable risk in densely populated countries like the UK.”

Peter Edwards , Emeritus Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Oxford noted

All lithium-ion batteries carry an inherent risk of fires, explosions and off- gassing of toxic gases and particulates. With gridscale batteries, the more lithium , the greater the risk. 

Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:

There are huge numbers of these batteries in planning, and some will get through. Eventually, one will go up in smoke and there will be chaos.”

Notes for editors

The paper is entitled Gridscale Batteries and Fire Risk, and can be downloaded by clicking the cover image.

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July 27, 2025 at 07:43AM

Here’s what the ECMWF is forecasting for the next 7 days:

Source: ECMWF via Snowfan. 

Earlier this year, the usual suspects were putting out horror scenarios of a summer of heat and drought across Europe in 2025. The most extreme model runs, with temperatures soaring to 45°C, were presented as serious forecasts and as being worrying evidence of runaway climate change.

But now the opposite has occurred and the fear-mongers are now either quiet or simply distorting the facts.

Especially in Central Europe, like across Germany, the weather has turned cool and rainy.

Germany’s Das Wetter.com here recently has since warned of 30 com of snowfall in the Alps – in July!:

Anyone who thought the last few weeks had been cool and changeable should dress warmly. Because from Monday, temperatures across Germany will continue to plummet. This is due to a wave of cold Arctic air rushing in from the far north. Highs of under 20 degrees will then be the reality in many places – in July!”

Heavy snow in the Alps in July

In his article, meteorologist Johannes Habermehl then adds that the snow line in the Alps will be dropping “to just 2500 meters – in some places even lower”, with some forecasting “up to 30 centimetres of fresh snow” at higher altitudes.

And that’s during peak summer!

Global temps plummet

Global temperatures have also been plummeting since the start of this year.

Image: via Snowfan

According to NCEP data, the global mean temperature has dropped roughly 0.7°C! But the media have been completely silent about it.

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July 27, 2025 at 06:28AM

By Paul Homewood

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-7-administrative-strike-prices-methodology-note

As we know, the new Administrative Strike Prices for offshore wind are well above wholesale market prices, which have been trundling along at between £70 and £80/MWh for the last year or so:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators

It is generally accepted that wholesale prices tend to be set by the marginal cost of gas power. But as I noted the other day, the marginal cost of a CCGT plant, ie the fuel cost, is currently £49/MWh – so why the discrepancy between this and £80/MWh?

Carbon Pricing

The main factor is the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS), effectively a carbon tax. CCGT plant operators must purchase allowances to cover the amount of CO2 emitted. The current market price for these allowances is around £50/Tonne CO2.

This equates to a surcharge on CCGTs of about £18/MWh.

So although the cost of fuel might only be £49/MWh, the carbon tax increases this to £67/MWh.

Market prices, of course, reflect supply and demand – when wind power is plentiful, for instance, prices fall. Often the market price might also be set by interconnectors or the most expensive gas generators when supply is tight.

But ultimately, at current gas prices, the new strike prices for offshore wind are more than double the cost of a modern CCGT plant.

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July 27, 2025 at 05:18AM