Reality Checkpoint 2018
News from previous year
JUDITH CURRY REPORT ON SEA-LEVEL RISE
Judith has put together an 80-page report on sea level rise. It can be seen on her website: https://judithcurry.com
28 Dec 18
CONTAINS 100% NUTS
Unconcerned with reality, some incoming members of the new Democratic majority in the House are calling to create a select committee to map out an astonishing “Green New Deal”. It will be designed, if that is the correct word, to move the U.S. toward using 100% renewable energy for the electric grid whilst guaranteeing jobs for everyone.
In Australia, the Greens have recently announced they want to make coal mining an illegal act, saying that coal kills. They have already called for the shutting down of all coal mining by 2030. Now they want to make miners into criminals for providing the coal used to generate 80%+ of NSW electricity.
Unless they are stopped, these activists will wreck the economy. Coal is the main export in Australia.
15 Dec 18
PARIS RIOTS & DIESEL TAX
A United Nations special climate states that a carbon tax of $5,500 per ton in twelve years time is necessary, to limit global warming. This is equivalent to $49 per gallon of petrol or diesel. Yes, you read that correctly.
The UN further estimates that a carbon tax of $27,000 per ton (sic) is needed by 2100 ($240 per gallon)—to limit alleged man-made global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Obviously these enormous taxes are fantasy. If not, the UN has a problem with reality. Meanwhile, in Paris, people have been rioting and setting cars on fire in Paris in response to a 25 cents per gallon increase in petrol tax, and a 10 cents rise on diesel, to fight alleged man-made global warming.
This illustrates the chasm between ordinary people and the overpaid elite which makes the rules. Diesel vehicles are common in France, and private transport is usually necessary for anyone who lives in the countryside. The protests have been serious; 280,000 people on the streets, hundreds injured, and 8 deaths. The President has been forced to give way and has removed the tax increases, at least for the time being, but the riots are continuing.
15 Dec 18
UPSIDE-DOWN ENEGY POLICY IN AUSTRALIA
Many of you will not be aware that politicians in Australia are sabotaging their own National Grid by closing down coal-fired power stations.
However, Australia is the fourth-biggest coal exporter in the world, mainly to undeveloped countries.
It is unclear how sending coal abroad to be burnt will benefit the planet.
Here is Jo Nova explaining how to destroy a perfectly good electricity grid, in 3 easy steps, as illustrated by current Australian energy policy. Watch and wonder.
Jo Nova - how to destroy the Grid
14 Dec 18
WIND TURBINES & HYDROGEN
Shell, Siemens and TenneT have joined together to ask the German government to tender for more wind farms, with the aim of using the electricity generated to form hydrogen by electrolysis.
The companies are talking about 900MW of nameplate capacity, to be built between 2026 and 2030.
Electricity generated at sea would be brought ashore via an offshore grid and then used to generate hydrogen, which could be transported via the country's gas network.
12 Dec 18
Comment from ND:
Hydrogen, because of its small molecular size, leaks much more rapidly than methane. Will the network be sound enough to cope with it?
INAPPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY: CRITICAL MASS
There is always a danger of any area or technology getting to the level of critical mass from which it cannot be diverted. Wind farms, smart meters and electric cars all seem to be getting to that point of no return. Only continuous challenge of their mantra stands between us and a commitment to a power source which cannot be stored or delivered on demand.
Well done those that challenge the belief that renewables is the future. In its present form much of it is not fit for purpose. Even hydro has only a 30% deliverable capacity. Wind has zero when the weather is becalmed, and charging electric vehicles from solar cells over our long winter's nights is a nonsense.
Smart meters do not deliver savings unless the user sits glued to the dial rushing from room to room turning off lights and appliances whilst providing suppliers with data they have no right to.
The theory of balancing supply against demand with smart meters would require the populace to replace all white goods with compliant technology. I am not sure suuitable technology exists except in the corridors of some University. (JG, engineer)
15 Nov 18
NUCLEAR POWER, GERMANY
Environmentalists are meeting up in Munich this Sunday to demand a halt to nuclear plant closures. They say such closures are increasing air pollution and locking us in to fossil-fuel energy production.
16 Oct 18
SCIENTIFIC v POLITICS
At the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Annual Lecture, Professor Richard Lindzen launched a scathing attack on the scientific illiteracy of politicians and activists who claim ‘the science is settled’ and demand ‘unprecedented changes in all aspects of society’.
Professor Lindzen, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued that it was totally implausible for such a complex ‘multifactor system’ as the climate to be summarised by just one variable, global mean temperature change, and primarily controlled by just a 1-2 per cent variance in the energy budget due to CO2.
Providing a much-needed antidote to the latest climate nonsense from the IPCC, Lindzen described how 'an implausible conjecture backed by false evidence repeated incessantly has become “knowledge,” used to promote the overturn of industrial civilisation’.
Directly criticising the extravagant models for which climate scientists have become famous, Lindzen likens them to ‘the formula for being an expert marksman: shoot first and declare whatever you hit to be the target.’ This cannot be evidence for anything.
The BBC says that all scientists agree on the need to limit warming to 1.5 degrees; Lindzen’s highly informed testimony refutes this absurd claim.
15 Oct 18
CO2 & TEMPERATURE
Here is a graph illustrating temperature and carbon dioxide data from the US, from 1895-2011.
The black dots show CO2 concentration (right-hand scale) and the red line is temperature.
No comment is required.
4 Jul 18
A NOTE FROM OZ
From our geologist friend in Australia:
I object to our Ministry of Energy formulating Australia's Energy Policies according to the fraudulent anti-carbon mythology promoted by the United Nations. We must get rid of the Renewable Energy Targets at the State and Federal level, which are stifling our economic development. They are based on UN anti-carbon bunkum: that they can control a supposed rise in the Earth's temperature by 2 degrees thus preventing catastrophic global warming. If you believe that you'll also believe in Father Christmas. Geologists are predicting a global cooling and another Ice Age.
AT, 3 Jul 18
JN adds:
About ten years ago, I worked for a while as a motoring magazine writer. I went to Toyota’s 70th anniversary celebrations, and asked one of Toyota’s senior management people why the motoring industry didn’t hire its own scientists to challenge the CO2 story. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said “We just do what governments tell us to.”
and a reminder from Josef Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
COST OF INSTALLED ACAPACITY
Very roughly, a gas turbine is $1m per MW and a wind turbine $1.5m per MW nameplate power.
A gas turbine can be self contained, dropped on simple foundations and up and running in no time.
You need maybe 40 large wind turbines to match the output of one large gas turbine requiring acres of land and miles of cable.
Gas trumps wind every time from an economic point of view.
(Thanks PH)
19 Jun 2018
WIND TURBINE MAINTENANCE DIFFICULTIES
Recent reports indicate that major repairs are required on 500 offshore wind turbines in United Kingdom waters, and about two hundred more at sites off the Danish and German coasts. Whether this is just normal wear and tear is as yet unclear, and is, according to Danish news reports, in dispute.
Some of the manufacturers are no longer trading. It won't be simple or cheap to do the repairs.
An email just arrived (thanks JG)...
I rented a holiday cottage last year off a chap who was an off shore wind turbine engineer. He said the whole thing was a licence to print money because the things don’t work and are constantly breaking down.
[ The weather / daylight dependants, wind and solar can never take on the steady base load role or the demand response role on a power grid. They are the least efficacious types of energy yet subsidised more per MWh than more efficient forms of generation such as gas, coal or nuclear. - Ed]
20 May 2018
TESLA ELECTRIC CAR SALES
Tesla´s sales in Hong Kong plummeted in late 2017 after the local government cut tax incentives for electric vehicles.
Data from the Transport Department in Hong Kong shows Tesla sales decreasing to 32 vehicles between April and December 2017, compared to nearly 2,000 sales over the same period in 2016. The removal of tax incentives in Hong Kong almost doubled the price of some models.
There was a similar fall in electric car sales in Denmark following the decision of local authorities to end tax breaks.
13 Feb 2018
POLITICS
Politics now is the same as it was 100 years ago. Here is some wisdom from the American writer, Henry Mencken, who died in 1956:
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself. Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable."
13 Feb 2018
ELECTRICITY GENERATION 2012-2016, UK
The data are from BM reports via Gridwatch and National Grid.
12 Feb 2018
FAKE NEWS
We all depend on our media environment to give us a roughly accurate view of the world around us. Tim Cook, the head of Apple, said last year that fake news is killing people's minds. I prefer to call fake news by its proper name - lies. And when it comes to lying or distortion, the mainstream media are not exempt from criticism.
The BBC has been broadcasting propaganda on certain topics for years. For example - in 2006 it said the arctic would be ice free by 2013. As for its relentlessly negative Brexit coverage, that's an ongoing joke.
The day the media become truly independent of any political party will be the day people start believing them.
Media credibility is now lower than it has ever been. Look at the ongoing attacks on Brexit voters, Trump supporters, climate sceptics, diesel car owners and others.
Orwell warned us against letting the government decide what was true and what was fake.
It is not surprising that people are now looking for alternative sources of news which they trust.
10 Feb 2018
IMPACT OF RENEWABLES USE ON ELECTRICITY PRICE
3 Feb 18
DUTCH RENEWABLES
The Financieele Dagblad has carried out research predicting that cheap natural gas may kill off wind power. Hundreds of wind turbines in the Netherlands are operating at a loss and are in danger of being demolished. The main cause is low energy prices, which means that maintaining the turbines costs more than the electricity is worth.
23 Jan 18
GERMAN RENEWABLES
According to Prof. Hans-Günter Appel of Wilhelmshaven University of Applied Sciences for Materials Science, the installed capacity of Germany’s wind and solar (Nov 2017) is 100GW. It produces a mean output of approximately 15GW.
22 Jan 18
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
I learned something today which is not generally known. If a hybrid or EV vehicle has an accident it cannot be moved by highways officers or police because of the danger of electrocution through the bodyshell. They have to wait for a special tow truck and specially trained staff to isolate the batteries. In the case I was watching, the truck took 45 minutes to arrive, plus the time to isolate and load the crunched vehicle. In the meantime this blocked the A1M to all traffic. The accident was a minor shunt which would have been cleared in five to ten minutes if it was a petrol or diesel car. (message from JG, engineer, 22 Jan)
15 Jan 18
FRACKING
I have no personal experience of fracking. However, the UK Royal Society states that fracking is safe, as long as it's properly regulated.
A review by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering says that fracking can be undertaken safely, as long as best practices are implemented and strictly enforced through regulation.
Robert Mair, chairman of the review's working group, says they found that the most common areas of concern, such as the causation of earthquakes or drinking water contamination, were very low risk.
15 Jan 18
WIND TURBINES TO BE DISMANTLED AND REMOVED
A dozen 140ft wind turbines on the edge of the Lake District are due to be dismantled next summer, 2018. The decision follows a campaign by the Friends of the Lake District and the Open Spaces Society. They said that the turbines spoiled views in the Lake District National Park. Kate Ashbrook, OSS general secretary, said that they objected because the turbines were a severe intrusion in a wild landscape.
22 Dec 17
big turbines
small turbines