With temperatures below 0F (-18C), Northern Colorado is only getting 3% of their electricity from wind. “Platte River Power Authority is committed to working toward achieving a 100% noncarbon energy mix by 2030” Current energy production – Platte River Power … Continue reading →
via Real Climate Science
February 12, 2025 at 11:38AM
Germany’s Blackout News here reports the latest example of what happens when green energy fantasies clash with reality, in this case trains powered by hydrogen. 
Symbol image. Source: Alstom press release here.
According to the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV), the hydrogen trains on the Taunusbahn have been temporarily taken out of service and diesel locomotives are being used again. The hydrogen locomotives are manufactured by Alstom and are reported to have been “fault-prone” and are currently being improved.
“The project was launched in December 2022 with great expectations. The plan was to deploy the world’s largest fleet of hydrogen trains on the Taunusbahn. But problems arose early on,” reports Blackout News. “Even at the start, Alstom was unable to deliver the promised number of vehicles. Technical defects became more frequent in the following months.”
RMV was thus forced to put the diesel locomotives back in service, but calls the measure “a temporary solution until the end of 2025.” The hydrogen powered operation remains the the overall aim. Alstom is currently overhauling the hydrogen trains to make them ready for long-term, reliable operation.
By returning to the diesel trains, RMV is focusing on reliability while hoping hydrogen will improve enough to be put back in service by the end of this year. “This measure shows that sustainable technologies continue to pose challenges,” Blackout News summarizes.
While green energies can be used in a number of applications, they are proving to be a major technological challenge in the transport sector.
via NoTricksZone
February 12, 2025 at 11:33AM
The problem here is the use of the notorious RCP 8.5 model scenario as a climate prediction tool, which has been widely rejected as not credible for scientific use. It should have been sidelined years ago but still keeps popping up, in this case linked to imagined sea level rise in future centuries. The researchers say their results are their ‘best approximation’ but admit ‘significant uncertainties persist’. The article summary even claims this research ‘will lead to more accurate projections of sea level rise’.
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Researchers have generated the first dataset of water flow beneath the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet, which will lead to more accurate projections of sea level rise, says Science Daily.
The team modeled Antarctica’s subglacial environment.
The dataset represents the researchers’ best approximation of what the water flow underneath the ice sheet might currently look like.
The results include numerous subglacial lakes developing below ice streams in both East and West Antarctica, and an extensive network of subglacial water channels that discharge large fluxes of water under many major glaciers.
. . .
“The water layer between the ice sheet and the bedrock is either entirely ignored in projections of sea level rise or modelers have to make an approximation as to what this layer should look like,” said Dr. Christine Dow, professor in the Faculty of Environment and Canada Research Chair in Glacial Hydrology and Ice Dynamics. “Now we’ve provided the dataset as a product so there’s no excuse any more for not including this really important aspect of ice behaviour.”
Studies that include this water layer in their models of glacier flow end up predicting much higher degrees of glacier melt and mass loss by the end of the century.
Full article here.
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Image: Emperor penguins, Antarctica [credit: USAF / Wikipedia]
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The study (here) introduction says:
Antarctica is the largest body of ice on the planet, and has the potential to raise global sea level several meters alone by the year 2,300 (Golledge et al., 2015). It is critically important to reduce the remaining uncertainties within modeled sea level rise projections. Current estimates are between 7.8 and 30.0 cm from Antarctica by the year 2100 under the RCP 8.5 scenario forcing (Seroussi et al., 2020). While various factors contribute to this range, significant uncertainties persist due to remaining knowledge gaps, including the role of subglacial hydrology. [bold added]
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
February 12, 2025 at 10:35AM
Deregulation is in the air. Prepare to breathe easier.
via CFACT
February 12, 2025 at 08:43AM
