By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

Nissan and Honda are in merger talks, as the forced transition to EVs threatens to bankrupt both of them.

According to the Telegraph:

Honda and Nissan have opened talks to merge as the two Japanese carmakers confront a “crisis” caused by the shift to electric vehicles (EVs).

The companies on Monday confirmed they were in talks to combine at a joint press conference in Tokyo, following earlier reports that the pair were considering a combination.

Mitsubishi Motors, which has a partnership with Nissan, is also considering joining the deal.

The two companies said the deal was necessary to cope with “dramatic changes in the environment surrounding both companies and the automotive industry”.

Mr Mibe said that the companies needed to scale up to compete in the electric vehicle (EV) and self-driving car markets amid fierce competition from a new generation of Chinese carmakers and Tesla.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/23/net-zero-crisis-42bn-merger-talks-honda-nissan/

These sort of consolidations rarely work. This one will inevitably lead to slimming down to save money, but retrenchment usually becomes a downward spiral. Lower production, lower market share, leading to yet more cuts.

I have seen this all before in the steel industry here.

There is a very simple message here. With all the benefits of low labour costs, cheap energy and monopoly of battery supply, China will always be able to undercut both European and Japanese carmakers. The banning of petrol/diesel cars takes away the one big advantage the latter had – superior engineering technology.

Meanwhile the likes of Nissan and Honda face the double whammy of punitive fines for selling the wrong sort of car.

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December 24, 2024 at 04:17AM

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

Who would have thought!

Global demand for food may rise by 60% mid-century. A central challenge is to meet this need using less land in a changing climate. Nearly all crop carbon is assimilated through Rubisco, which is catalytically slow, reactive with oxygen, and a major component of leaf nitrogen. Developing more efficient forms of Rubisco, or engineering CO₂ concentrating mechanisms into C₃ crops to competitively repress oxygenation, are major endeavors, which could hugely increase photosynthetic productivity (≥ 60%). New technologies are bringing this closer, but improvements remain in the discovery phase and have not been reduced to practice. A simpler shorter-term strategy that could fill this time gap, but with smaller productivity increases (c. 10%) is to increase leaf Rubisco content. This has been demonstrated in initial field trials, improving the productivity of C₃ and C₄ crops. Combining three-dimensional leaf canopies with metabolic models infers that a 20% increase in Rubisco increases canopy photosynthesis by 14% in sugarcane (C₄) and 9% in soybean (C₃). This is consistent with observed productivity increases in rice, maize, sorghum and sugarcane. Upregulation of Rubisco is calculated not to require more nitrogen per unit yield and although achieved transgenically to date, might be achieved using gene editing to produce transgene-free gain of function mutations or using breeding.

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.20298

All a bit arcane!

But this is what it really means in English, as revealed by New Scientist:

A simple change to maize, sorghum and sugarcane that allows them to take advantage of rising CO₂ levels can boost their growth by around a fifth.

The growth of maize, sugarcane and sorghum has been greatly boosted by modifying the plants to take advantage of higher carbon dioxide levels now found in the air.

This was done by simply increasing the activity of two genes, says Coralie Salesse-Smith at the University of Illinois. The finding should lead to the creation of new varieties whose yields go up as CO₂ levels continue to rise.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2460964-genetic-tweak-to-three-key-crops-massively-boosts-their-growth

Thank you Coralie and your colleagues.

You are doing what proper scientists have always done in the past, and should be doing now. Contributing to the knowledge of how the world works, and finding ways to make all of our lives better.

You shame the bunch of charlatans and cowboys, who hide behind their fake computer models and tell us we are destroying the planet.

---

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December 24, 2024 at 04:00AM

The slightly used nuclear fuel still has 97% of its electricity potential yet to be realized.

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December 24, 2024 at 03:54AM

54.18913 -7.56126 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/98 Temperature readings from 2010

This is my first review of any station in Northern Ireland. I had hoped to find a different regime but unfortunately the same low quality standards seem to be applied there as well. This site displays all the problems I have highlighted in reviews of stations such as Seavington, Cavendish and many others which calls the use of such data into question.

The first problem comes from the lack of any enclosure around the instruments. Anything can come into close proximity at any time which is undocumented and even completely unknown. Here is the Streetview image from the A509 taken in October 2022.

The site does not look especially bad but being alongside a fence next to a field means the adjacent area is probably not under the site owners direct control – anything could come alongside and vegetation levels are not controlled. But that is only a part of the problem when an alternative date image is chosen from July 2021 show this.

The screen can just be made out in front of the large blue and white tents in an area that is under the owners control. Not only are the tents and occupant’s activities likely to interfere with reading accuracy but also the grass height to the nearside of the screen is well above regulations.

I have no wish to demean the work of those responsible for the readings and maintenance of this site, however, there is quite evidently little quality control being enforced. The Met Office uses the data from such sites without having even the remotest surety of their ongoing accuracy. It all appears to be “on trust”.

For example for all anyone could subsequently prove, a barbecue could be lit right alongside the screen quite inadvertently elevating temperatures and nobody would know. A hot day’s readings could suddenly become a “record breaker”. As was shown with the case of Faversham {note: this review will follow soon} no amount of scientific rigour from highly qualified (but independent) professionals could sway the Met office from their belief that their equipment was anything other than totally accurate. Site insecurity issues always seem to be overlooked and as at Floors Castle, inappropriate siting is rarely a concern.

Another unfortunate consideration with such unregulated sites is that of motivated interference. I am not suggesting any specific problems here or elsewhere, but with records carrying such newsworthy coverage, and such small margins as a tenth of a degree being enough , there is always a danger of readings being given a little “assistance”. As I noted in my review of Bournemouth there used to be a great store set by sunshine recorder readings leading to accusations of them being interfered with by rival resorts. Councillors at Gravesend expressed dismay at the closure of their station “Gravesham councillor Mick Wenban (Con) was shocked to learn the news. He said: “It’s a real shame because it always put Gravesend on the map by recording the highest temperatures in the country.”

Derrylin is almost certainly a worthy site run well but there are few guarantees to prove that. The inclusion of its data beyond area forecasting and into use for the historic temperature record as a lowly Class 5 site seems unjustified.

Foot note: I originally drafted this review 21st December 2024, I subsequently noted this:

How does anybody know this figure is genuine?

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December 24, 2024 at 03:45AM