Destroying offshore wind farms is top priority for Trump if he returns to presidency In a rally held on Saturday in Wildwood, New Jersey, former US President Donald Trump promised that his first day back in office would feature the destruction of offshore wind farms. "We are going to make sure that that ends on day one," the Guardian quotes the embattled politician and alleged billionaire as saying. "I'm going …
This.
And the fundamental issue is that Drumpf's main motivation for what he does is to buy votes, not because he has any clear stance on anything other than greed. He's not an environmentalist, he's not an oil man, there are all kinds of things he's not.
But greedy? He's very, very good at that. He thoroughly understands the motivation of the oil barons, and all he thinks about is the greenback, so he goes with them. You could easily replace him with an amortization calculator.
I'm pretty sure there were a number of huge solar farms being built in some states of the US built prior to Trump getting in last time and the tariff's and trade embargoes imposed on solar panels and other stuff from China once he was in office meant that the panels for the farms became too expensive so the projects were scrapped and thousands of people lost their jobs.
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Well, yes and no.
I don't believe China has any rules about forced labour, so they're hardly breaking those rules when the reportedly high population of "re-education camps" can churn things out cheaper than paid employees in the West.
Of course, the US won't pick them up on this, because when they abolished slavery, they put in a bit about how it didn't apply to prisoners, and the US has both the highest per-capita and absolute prison population in the world, the value of whom to the US economy, as forced labourers, is immense.
I guess Chinese prisoners are just more motivated. Trump will probably level the playing field by introducing an executive order to harvest and sell prisoners' organs, to catch up...
"So increase tariffs and then increase subsidies - is that pure communism or the ultimate expression of capitalism ?"
I'm all for free trade if it's with trusted partners who are willing to play by the rules. China has rightly earned a deep distrust. Even if it's completely anti-free trade and anti-capitalist, raising tariffs on Chinese imports and diverting that cash into subsidising companies who can make the same goods locally is the right thing to do *if* the result is a reduced dependency on an unreliable partner (or one that seems reliable now but could grab you by the balls later if it has near-monopoly control of strategic resources). Of course there is that *if* in there.... the money has to go to companies who are going to actually make stuff not use any subsidies to make some numbers dance on a balance sheet to siphon much of it to C-level execs and shareholders.
Tariffs are effectively a tax on consumers and, therefore, rarely successful if the aim is to promote local production. To do this, it's usually more effective to promote "non-tarrif" barriers such as specifications or company ownership rules.
When it comes to solar panels, at least as much added value is in the installation and maitenance of them, so imposing tarrifs is likely to be counterproductives. EVs impose their own barriers through the charging infrastructure, or lack of it.
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Park of the motive perhaps, but a weak one to be sure. US solar production is a rounding error. The factories are heavily automated so there is little to applaud for the usual political fodder, like job creation, green jobs, etc. This leaves "supply chain" and sovereign production as minor notes.
Mostly this looks like the major impacts will be to try to force production outside of China. That's a play to break up a nascent production monopoly in solar, which the Chinese invested HEAVILY in and have seen real success now as a result. China will probably try and succeed to shift production outside china but controlled by Chinese companies, but that will take years to spin up. It will also prevent them from using an embargo to pressure it's adversaries. So I see this as mostly an extension of the sanctions regime and a shorter term play than one to bring US solar production up to the level of real completion. That would take mass investment in fabs like we are seeing in the broader Semi's space, which hasn't been happening.
In absence of that matching investment, US solar will remain an overpriced niche market, and the world solar market may be slowly steered to rely on production outside either the US or China if other nations follow suit. It will also probably favor wind farms to scale out faster. That said Solar costs are less about panels and more about the rest of the installation and charge handling system. It sucks because it will keep useful solar in the hands of the grid operators and the upper middle class and higher. People who can drop $$,$$$ or $$$,$$$ not $,$$$. That's a shame because the customers who are often worst served and will have to wait the longest for grid upgrades are outside the city centers and don't usually have the money to drop on a solar project. They are also farther from power plants, and the utility lines are often dangerously poorly maintained, so raising the bar for them further makes little sense. That's where shifting money from a tariff back to a targeted subsidy might have some identifiable benefits. But good luck getting Biden to create a program that will primarily benefit red state residents that will not vote for him, or if they do, it won't be for access to cheap solar and energy independence.
Mine were made in the US. The price wasn't all that bad, after you take the efficiency and warranty into account. They even sent a consultant out for free to make sure I knew what I was doing ... and suggested that I purchase about 20% fewer units than I had initially ordered. I stuck with my initial order. I always did like a little elbow room ...
Yep, more than one supplier specced a 2kW system for me; which I insisted on increasing to 3.6kW (plus battery).
It will pay for itself in 5 years; given post-Ukraine Invasion pricing. You would literally be insane not to act on returns like that if you have the capital available to install one in the first place.
Cede it back to the Seminole, make an apology for the theft of their land whilst Trump is there, and the cedeing makes anyone resident in florida no longer a us citizen and thus any approach to the court he makes should in theory be ruled moot
But gerrymandering extends to the supreme court
Or the seminole nation...well before those peace loving colonists annexed their land after waging a bloody and violent war before expelling multiple other sovereign native American nations to what is now Oklahoma along the "trail of tears" where literal thousands died to "make space for white colonists "
When the USA bangs on about the wrongdoings of others, it just makes me think POT, KETTLE, BLACK
So exactly how do wind farms kill whales...? I'm confused on this. Trump didn't like them being visible from one of his golf resorts and then started complaining about them. But, I've seen/heard no reports on them killing whales. It's not like the blades are going into the water.
As for the electric car issue.... Much confusion and many issues. Some zoning rules say the chargers have to be in a garage or other building with the charging done in them, other say the equipment and charging has to be outside of structures. And then there's the Tesla degradation in quality creating issues (fires, mechanical and electrical failures) in the newer models. Where I am, you need your own charger as there are no "charging stations". And if you live in an apartment, you're up a creek as none have charging stations.
One of the problems with EVs is the explosive potential of their batteries, particularly during charging. There has been a spike in the number of fires in UK properties courtesy of EV scooter batteries. Cars haven't been going pop quite so frequently but a couple of electric buses have caught fire. This wasn't such a problem with ICE vehicles. They might get nicked, but are unlikely to detonate when you park them.
So if you are charging an EV anything, especially in extreme weather, you might not want to be doing it too close to your home, especially at night when you are asleep in it.
Some time back I audited old devices and found a mobile phone with a bulging battery. It went straight in the garden in several plastic bags, away from anything combustible. I took it to a recycling point in a Lipo bag. Nervously.
Phones are easily dropped. Unfortunately, lithium batteries do not like being dropped. Never put Lithium batteries in general waste either, as waste trucks are not gentle environments. There have been a number of Lithium-based fires in bin lorries and at waste sites. As awareness grows, this sort of thing should decline. Audit your rare earth metalware regularly.
I wonder how much work has been done on the impact of Lithium batteries in RTAs. It may be why police have been closing roads for so long after some crashes recently in the UK. As well as injured people, bits/oil on the road etc, there may now be an issue with damaged EV batteries causing problems.
Your conflating a lot of issues.
Scooters catching fire:
When you buy the cheapest piece of crap off Wish couple with a charger with no regulator and has as little as possible copper in the cable, what do people expect?
ICE don't catch fire? I've seen plenty of cars, lorries and buses on fire in my time, and if it melts the tarmac, look for a resurface. However, that said, there IS a genuine issue with putting out the fires, but the same happened in the early days of ICE.
As for disposing of phone batteries. Rather than sticking in a a (flammable) plastic bag. Just chuck it in a baked bean tin and pack it with dirt , before disposing of it. As for bin lorry fires. Pretty good chance it's going to be due to disposable capes.
Re bin lorry fires: "Pretty good chance it's going to be due to disposable [v]apes."
Indeed, a recently published report indicates a 71% increase in fires in bin trucks and at waste handling facilities, largely due to disposable vapes, which contain a lithium battery (could be recharged, but not as used in these products), and by design the battery still has charge when the vape liquid is exhausted. Put it into a
With scooters, as you say it's the cheap crap (or mixing of unsuitable chargers and batteries, or home built kits), and these normally go bang when being charged, often overnight - in the past year about 11 people killed by these fires, a 78% year on year increase and one fire in London every couple of days.
"a mobile phone with a bulging battery"
I took an old bulging battery out of a pair of headphones (eeek!) and rigged up something to drop a weighted nail directly into it. When nothing happened I hit it with a pickaxe. Damn near chopped it in half. Still nothing.
Apparently it is only when they're full of power that there is an issue. A dead battery is...a dead battery.
Yes. People look at "Lithium" in a lithium-ion battery, and equate it to metalic lithium, which is very dangerous and hard to handle. But it's not in a metallic form. It's in compounds.
Think on this. Sodium is similarly difficult to handle in metalic form. But you have significant amounts of it in compounds in your kitchen, and there is no fire hazard, because the reactivity has already been used up forming largely inert compounds like table salt. Often very reactive elements form very stable compounds, primarily because of their high reactivity.
Occasionally, you will find a battery electrolyte formulation that will spontaneously combust when exposed to air (Big Clive used to take batteries apart on YouTube videos to see what would happen, and came across a couple of those), but more often than not, it is the power stored in the battery that is the problem. Li-Ion batteries are capable of astounding current delivery (look at the Li-Ion car starters that are about the size of a pack of cards), and this can ignite other flammable objects in the vicinity (and may persist to re-ignite even if the fire is put out). It is also possible that out-gassing caused by rapid discharge can cause an explosion of a sealed battery, and there is also hydrogen generation caused by electrolysis of water, sometimes even in the electrolyte itself that can be a fire hazard.
Yeah, quite a number of the current lithium battery formulations are flammable. Some explosively so, and not just by exposing their guts to air. It has actually gotten worse as the batteries are optimized for charge density and charge rate over stability. The main thing holding this in check are comparatively smarter charging circuits, often build into the individual batteries. This in one reason for the exploding e-scooters, which use high power batteries and cheap electronics.
That said you are also correct that a short can pull enough current to fry all sorts of things outside the battery as well. But the cores of many of those batteries are enthusiastically flammable, and once charged any internal damage to a cell can cause it to heat up to it's combustion temperature and rupture, and damage and burn adjacent cells. That said hot exhaust manifolds and a 15 gallon petrol tank have caused a few garage and carport fires if thinks aren't kept clear. Bins full of oily rags and old spills can lead to "fun" for either gas or battery cars parked inside. Also, even if the garage has a fire system, it's probably water, and not the best thing to fight an EV battery fire.
"smarter charging circuits, often build into the individual batteries."
I was quite surprised the first time a drivers/firmware update check reported there was a battery firmware update that needed to be applied on a laptop. The BIOS/UEFI, yes, maybe a WiFi adaptor, and even an SSD, but a fecking battery? Of course, I know why now, but that first time was a surprise :-)
The "fun" aspect of the highly-volatile electrolytes is the self-oygenating process when they burn.
A petrol/gasoline fire can be smothered by foam, or blankets, etc., to suffocate the combustion.
Liion fires cannot be smothered, they will burn furiously in the absence of air.
Also, the amount of energy is prodigous. Not only the charge energy available, but the volatile electrolyte itself has a large amount of chemical potential energy.
The energy in petrol is only the chemical potential energy.
In UK some electric buses - Alexander Dennis Enviro200 and Enviro400 - have caught fire in their climate control units.
An incident in 2022 was caused by the diesel engine side of its hybrid powerplant.
Illustrates that fire precautions need to consider the whole vehicle not just the battery
> Illustrates that fire precautions need to consider the whole vehicle not just the battery
It goes beyond the individual vehicle, there have been sufficient faults (of the type you mention) for bus operators reconsider how they park their fleets of buses overnight. Ie. There is a high probably with electric buses that a simple CCU fire in one will take out an entire bus shed…
The issue with EV's and RTC's blocking the road for a long time (at least in my experience) is normally because the cars are so heavy we can't easily move them. As one of the first things the fire brigade do is disconnect the batteries to make them safe. You're not towing a Model X with a 1.0 Ecoboost focus unfortunately
Looks like yet another EV denier proving bumblebees can't fly because they must be so heavy.
Tesla X 2300kg
Tesla Model Y 1909kg
Mitsi Outlander 1690kg (Petrol only 2.5)
I'm not seeing the significant difference in weight that make it possible to push an ICE, but not an EV.
> Of the 10 heaviest cars on UK roads, NONE are EVs.
The GMC EV Hummer can be legally driven in the UK and is a mere 4.1 tonnes; been imported here for sale for over a year now. Not sure what 10 other, non-EV, cars you think are heavier than that running around the UK.
> The Tesla Model X is only #11.
Number 11 out of how many? There are a *lot* of different models of car around, so "only" being the 11th heaviest is really not a way to claim "it isn't heavy"!
> So exactly how do wind farms kill whales...? I'm confused on this.
They don't. Trump- as you note- hates wind farms, and when it comes to something or someone he hates personally, his vindictive, partisan brain will spew out anything to rationalise his personal belief and self-interest and smear whatever he opposes.
And frankly, I've no doubt he's convinced himself that's the "truth" of the matter in this case and countless others- because he's a pathological narcissist, therefore anything he says must be the truth, he must always be right and by definition anyone who agrees with him must be wrong and deserving of contempt.
Even your question overly dignifies his comment by implying it was ever worthy of serious discussion in the first place.
> Trump didn't like them being visible from one of his golf resorts and then started complaining about them.
Yeah, apparently it was the offshore windfarm that was planned- and later built- near his golf resort in north-east Scotland that triggered his hatred for them in the first place.
What's funny about that- if nothing else- is that it's not in the US, so that orange p**** can't do anything about it, even if he wins the election.
That's the golf resort in NE Scotland that he got permission to build on the back of a promise for all sorts of other benefits - houses, infrastructure etc. - that, oddly enough, never appeared. He's a grifter, plain and simple, but sadly, here in Scotland, it took a few of us a while to realise it. If you want a laugh, read up about the residents he tried to shift but couldn't.
> He's a grifter, plain and simple, but sadly, here in Scotland, it took a few of us a while to realise it.
I'm Scottish as well, and I'm familiar with the case. The thing is, people in other countries who'd already been screwed over in a similar manner had already warned us of that at the time. Along with the environmental destruction, I was also opposed to the development on that basis.
The one thing I'll say in the Scottish Governments's defence is that back then- years before he became president- Trump wasn't nearly as well-known here as he is today and very few of us had seen personally what an outright unpleasant, disreputable and contemptible excuse for a human being he was. (Most people would have vaguely known his name from somewhere, with some being aware that he was a "rich" American developer, but that was about it.)
(Not to mention that- in the same context- I'm certain the Scottish Tories, and quite possibly Labour, would have tried to paint any refusal as anti-business and anti-jobs.)
> back then- years before he became president- Trump wasn't nearly as well-known here as he is today
Even in the USA that applies: until people started paying more attention in the run-up to 2016 to what he's actually like, the general impression of him was as a person of little account, an arrogant blowhard and definitely a crook but a somewhat amusing one. He'd say something silly in public or put up a gaudy building and people would shake their heads and chuckle and say "Oh, that Donald, he's a character".
There were plenty of people who knew better (his business partners and tenants, New Yorkers in general), but unfortunately they were in the minority.
Iit might be linked to beaching of whales but as yet I haven't seen any conclusive study. Putting large vibrating electomagnets in the oceans may well cause issues with aquatic and avian navigation though I suspect it will more likely lead to avoidance of the area (and possible change ot local ecosystems) rather than too many long term negative impacts.
Um, I believe the electromagnets are supposed to well *out* of the sea!
As for local ecosystems - it seems that smaller sea mammals than whales love the way that the weeds grow around the offshore turbine bases, giving lots of new places for other marine life to flourish and provide a good lunch. Tracking of tagged animals draws out a nice diagram of the windfarm as they visit each for a quick nibble.
Iit might be linked to beaching of whales but as yet I haven't seen any conclusive study. Putting large vibrating electomagnets in the oceans may well cause issues with aquatic and avian navigation though I suspect it will more likely lead to avoidance of the area (and possible change ot local ecosystems) rather than too many long term negative impacts.
Somewhat OT (in respect of not being a rant about whether the orange one can swim backwards, or if Musk floats) but..
If you're in the trade, any idea why whales beach? I've found some theories that they attempt to flee noise, end up in shallow waters and then get stranded at low tide. I also know they're not exactly great at reversing, but why they may be unable to sense the shallows and avoid them. AFAIK a lot of the depth perception is via pressure, not acoustics that might be affected by man-made noise. I also know that electromagnetic fields from power cables, attracting some species and repelling others. That was one of the fun things I learned working in the submarine cable business, including some sharks trying to eat cables, so having to bury or protect them.
Hopefully though it's one of those things where we'll get a better understanding with more data, ie whales fitted with trackers and their behaviour around wind farms.
Mark 85,
As I understand it, the allegation is that the rotation of blades and turbine generate vibrations that affect the whales' sonar, leading to mass stranding events, or something along those lines.
As, sadly, seems to be the case with anything related to energy production and net zero, this theory is either utter rubbish claims by climate sceptics and therefore to be dismissed without any thought or investigation, or 100% the truth and a reason to dismantle every wind turbine ever built, whether on land or sea.
That vibrations are generated seems to be a real thing. To what extent they affect marine mammals or other wildlife seems less clear (though not a subject I read up on much, so I admit I don't really know).
There would seem to be enough evidence to justify further research, particularly since off-shore wind is increasingly moving further off-shore / to deeper waters, and potentially will see the use of tethered/floating turbines, rather than turbines anchored to the seabed through a mono-pile, meaning potentially a change in how vibrations might be transferred into the water.
That vibrations are generated seems to be a real thing.
Are they? I've not seen any published (as in a real scientific journal) details of vibrations any magnitude from wind farms. There are some examples of sub sonic sound (which could be considered vibrations) but these are small and extremely unlikely to propagate into the water.
One report (can't remember the source) indicated that the sub sonic sound from the sea waves was much louder that those generated by the wind farm turbine. And when you think about it the mass of water in an ocean wave moving up and down will generate quite a bit of sonic energy. Hence the use in wave powered generators.
It's not certain. There is research to indicate that offshore wind makes sound in the same spectrum as whales communicate: https://capecodcommission.org/resource-library/file/?url=/dept/commission/team/Website_Resources/dcpc/Whales_and_Sound_KS_PCCS.pdf
We don't understand what impact a continuous frequency-varying additional undersea sound will have on these intelligent mammals.
It is suggested that there is a degree of "nothing to see here" about the vociferous assertion that there is no problem.
Thus saving the jobs of American coal miners. They have been produced before, and turbine tech has improved since they were.
I double dare El Reg to ask His Orangeness if this is on the table.
Biden and Trump trying to make green tech ever more expensive? Hmm. Probably not worth investing in anything. Just enjoy yourselves, spending your cash, whilst enjoying yourself is still possible.
Biden and Trump trying to make green tech ever more expensive?
Of course. Then the 10% for the big guys gets bigger. Like the $600bn or so being handed over to the Green blob as part of Biden's ironiically named 'Inflation Reduction Act'. Which will do anything but, as the UK & Europe's energy prices and inflation rate have shown.
Then there's whether Trump may have a point or not. The loony Left have been conditioned to hate him, and anything he stands for. They've also been conditioned to hate nuclear. And of course they've been conditioned to believe windmills are good for the environment, even when there's ample evidence that they're not. So that's based on correlation. Temperatures rise, CO2 follows, therefore CO2 must be the cause. Off-shore windmills have increased in the US, so have whale beachings. There does appear to be some evidence offshore windmills are responsible, but wind farmers want that $600bn, so just ignore the whales.
> The loony Left have been conditioned to …hate nuclear.
It might surprise you, Trump is not a member of the loony left, but of the loony right; who have also been conditioned to hate nuclear as it reduces the need for coal and oil, and political sponsors do need to be kept happy…
loony right; who have also been conditioned to hate nuclear as it reduces the need for coal and oil
I've never spoken to anyone one the right who've expressed misgivings about nuclear. If anything I've only spotted enthusiasm. Same with climate change sceptics. Many of the sceptics embrace nuclear energy.
If the left were truly concerned about actually solving climate change, they would meet nothing but open doors if they suggest nuclear power.
It is a very obvious solution.
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Wind is better than nuclear if you're trying to avoid a small amount of CO2 emissions now. Because it's quicker and easier to build a wind turbine, and every kWh of electricity generated is some CO2 emissions avoided.
But as wind becomes a larger share of the electricity grid, then it's disadvantages become bigger problems. It doesn't work all the time, and you can't control when it works. So you need either lots of energy storage, which is very hard, or backup power plants that will have to run on fossil fuels, or "demand management" (getting people to schedule things like charging an electric car for when electricity is available). Or more likely all three.
So a sensible approach to avoid that problem is to invest in nuclear power as well. That gives you a stable, reliable, non-fossil-fuel power supply. With a good mix of nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, pumped storage, battery storage, and demand management, you have a diverse energy grid that is more resilient and much less reliant on fossil fuel backup power stations.
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Hmm.. I'm pretty sure that any mention elsewhere on El Reg about using hydrogen for mobility (fuel cells or hydrogen ICE) receives a lot of negativity along the lines of 'it will never work' or 'batteries are more efficient' and 'hydrogen explodes!' and whenever there has been mention of hydrogen to replace natural gas there are wails of 'it will leak out of the pipes' and 'hydrogen explodes!!1'.
> I've never spoken to anyone one the right who've expressed misgivings about nuclear.
Yet it is the right (in the UK) who kept kicking nuclear down the road… Cameron, got a lot of flack from his own party over Hinckley Point in 2015 and subsequently the Conservatives have returned to kicking the ball down the road, even though they say we need a new nuclear plant going live every year for the next ten years…
Maggie was pro nuclear but the realities of short termism in government (not just the UK) ended in the dash for gas. The revenue from all that drilling was just too tempting.
Politicians now basically see having a nuclear power station in their area as political suicide. The small but very vocal anti whatever it is they are anti today brigade are enough to make them think twice. It is better to appease the mob than to have a long term strategy. Even HS2 has fallen foul of this.
Yet it is the right (in the UK) who kept kicking nuclear down the road… Cameron, got a lot of flack from his own party over Hinckley Point in 2015 and subsequently the Conservatives have returned to kicking the ball down the road, even though they say we need a new nuclear plant going live every year for the next ten years…
Some of that is just an accident of history, ie we've had a 'Conservative' government since 2010. For the first part, that was a coalitiion with the Lib Dems, with Chris Huhne being put in charge of DECC where he rigged the market to penalise nuclear (and modern coal) and promote the interests of the 'renewables' lobby. Then Huhne was convicted of being a pervert and replaced by Ed Davey, who pretty much carried on in the same fashion. Both had their snouts deeply in the 'renewables' trough, eg-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Davey#Business_appointments
There may be some light at the end of the tunnel though. At COP28, the annual climate jolly, nuclear was recognised as a vital part of the low-carbon strategy and the UK signed up to triple our nuclear capacity. This hasn't really translated into action, yet. And if it doesn't soon, we'll almost certainly end up with Labour, complete with Ed Milliband, who gave us the most expensive and destrutive Act in UK history with his Climate Change Act.
The need for new nuclear was identified in the early 1990s, the Conservatives with their short term election winning mindset, kicked the ball down the road, something New Labour (aka Tory Lite) also did…
Yes the coalition left much to be desired… opting to support the vanity HS2 project over “useful” and necessary infrastructure investment…
I'd say that extra capacity on the rails between London and the north is not a vanity project. They just turned it into one and now it is like the California high speed rail, going from somewhere not very helpful to somewhere else not very helpful for a huge amount of money.
Do you have shares in tin foil (Aluminium) ???
Do you have anything constructive to add? No? Just more projection, and insults. But Trump might not need to do anything. The US market is rigged somewhat differently to the UK. So a couple of large offshore dollar-farming projects were cancelled-
https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-orsted-cancellation-biden-new-jersey-3f2ff7c9832210ce862f6e7179fae439
The Danish wind energy developer Ørsted said this week it’s scrapping its Ocean Wind I and II projects off southern New Jersey due to problems with supply chains, higher interest rates and a failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted. Together, the projects were supposed to deliver over 2.2 gigawatts of power.
And there's more-
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/wind-power/offshore/gone-with-the-wind-tracking-sunken-u-s-offshore-wind-projects/
With Equinor, Avangrid and <drumroll> BP & Shell also cancelling projects claiming they're uneconomic. Which is odd because the 'renewables' scumbags have also been claiming costs have been falling and whale-killing wind energy is the cheapest evah!
Funny how that works.
Another difference between the US and UK, which has also had projects cancelled is the US seems able to write better contracts. So the whale killers have having to also pay penalties for terminating those contracts. Producing evidence that windmills are responsible for the increasing number of whale deaths could be a convenient, and environmentally friendly way of covering up for the fact that wind is just totally uneconomic. The subsidy farmers can stil go after that $600bn by doing onshore wind, solar or a variety of other subsidy sucking scams. Obama's Solyndra showed just how much money can be made, so Biden's just after his windfall..
Burn, baby, burn ...
Do what you want, when you want, whatever turns you on, baby, and to hell with the consequences!
We don't think, we do.
It's all about me, we don't care about you.
I'm not to blame for the fucked up mess,
that's all behind me.
Some bunch of losers can take the hit,
for the fires and the floods,
and for believing my shit.
Some bunch of losers can take the hit,
Err.. right. Not entirely sure what you took a hit of, but I hope it's legal in your jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, back to the story. If windmills are killing whales and/or negative effects on marine life, isn't that a bad thing? Especially if you think you're environmentally friendly? Aren't we supposed to be, like, saving the planet or something?
Alternatively, given ecofreaks also like spurious correlations such as CO2 and temperature, you could just rename yourself and any children Eleanor. After that other famous Democrat, Roosevelt. Not the car because that might get you sued. But works for windfarms in Poland!
http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/2239_popularity-of-the-first-name-eleanor_correlates-with_wind-power-generated-in-poland
> If windmills are killing whales and/or negative effects on marine life
We would know about it before the orangutan opened his mouth.
There are these people called scientists would monitor and investigate such matters and like to publish their findings…
Then a whole bunch of environmentalist and media outlets would see the story and give it wider coverage…
"Then a whole bunch of environmentalist and media outlets would see the story and give it wider coverage…"
Okay guys, say it with me: FAKE NEWS !
FFS, that twat's already been the President once, surely we all know how this script goes by now?
The world is flat - fact.
It's covered by a massive dome, with holes punched in it - fact.
And the 'Sun' is a flaming chariot, which some dude drives out of his underground garage every morning, to go charging across the inner surface. It's a punishment, not a job. Fact.
Just remember, saying something doesn't make it so.
What is true is what remains after death shuts our lying and corrupted minds.
"If windmills are killing whales and/or negative effects on marine life, isn't that a bad thing?"
I've seen that little two letter word do some heavy lifting in the past but this is really over the top. Which little two letter word do I mean? The one right at the start of your sentence.
On the wider topic - even before climate change was considered it should have been obvious to even the meanest intelligence that fossil fuels are not in infinite supply and must therefore run out at some point. That raises two questions: the first is what do you or your descendents do for energy when they do run out? Shiver? The second is that they provide chemical feedstocks. Wouldn't it be wise to conserve them for those purposes rather then shoving them up power-station chimneys? There's been no excuse for that for the whole of my adult life.
I've seen that little two letter word do some heavy lifting in the past but this is really over the top. Which little two letter word do I mean? The one right at the start of your sentence.
If is the most dangerous word in the English language, especially combined with selective application of the Precautionary Principle. So it's been widely abused to waste billions. If there's a problem with CO2, then maybe that's justified. If it isn't, then it's not. If Germany builds new nuclear plants, there's an extremely tiny risk of Tsunamis, so let's not bother and build new coal & gas power stations instead.
On the wider topic - even before climate change was considered it should have been obvious to even the meanest intelligence that fossil fuels are not in infinite supply and must therefore run out at some point. That raises two questions: the first is what do you or your descendents do for energy when they do run out? Shiver? The second is that they provide chemical feedstocks.
'Fossil' fuels aren't that finite. This is much the same argument as shifting from methane to hydrogen. We can make H2 from CH4 or H2O, but it's energy intensive. We could then use Fischer-Tropsch or Sabatier to make CH4. Germany pioneered syngas and synfuel production during WW2 and S.Africa during it's apartheid sanctions. If you have cheap energy, it can be cost effective. Renewables provide neither cheap, nor reliable energy, so the product (eg Green H2) would be ruinously expensive. It may make more sense to use surplus energy from nuclear fission, or even fusion though.
Chemical feedstocks are a much bigger looming problem. Chemical production is energy intensive, so becoming uneconomic in Europe. Policy costs form a big part of that, along with irrational decisions to ban products. Haber process makes ammonia, EU seems to want to ban that as a fertilser.. maybe to divert production to explosives manufacture. Or if ammonia production is uneconomic, we can't manufacture those explosives. This is already a problem for the EU. Ukraine wants 155mm shells. We can maybe cast some, but we can't fill them. Russia of course can because it used to supply a lot of our nitrogen-based compounds, or feedstocks.
Then there's the general policy of banning oil & gas production and exploration. Currently we have a whole slew of stuff like plastics, medicines etc essentially as byproducts of oil & gas production. If that ceases, what happens? We might be able to substitute some, but costs will rocket if those costs aren't essentially subsidised by selling oil & gas as fuels. But that's also part of the scarcity meme. There are a LOT of oil & gas wells in places like the Gulf of Mexico where they've been drilled and capped because it's not currently economic to produce from them. Same is true for coal, ie known coal deposits that aren't being worked. Also true for other resources like Uranium. There's been a resurgence in exploration, but while anti-nuclear lobbying dominated, there was no point spending money looking for minerals with no market.
And then of course there's space.. with some interesting economics, but huge quantities of resources that our descendents could exploit, if they weren't being constrained by neo-Luddites.
If you know windmills are killing whales, then you must be able to point to a scientific study that reaches this conclusion. How else would you know?
If you merely suspect this may be the case, then someone - maybe Donald Trump, he's got enough money - should be commissioning such a study into the subject, to be conducted by engineers and marine biologists under the auspices of some reputable research institute.
But to simply state it as a fact without giving references? That's not worthy of consideration. Cite or STFU.
I could explain to you how you are 100% wrong about temperature change driving CO2 levels - but something tells me that a, you don't have the middle school level understanding of science required and b, you wouldn't listen and learn.
Then again, you also appear to think that correlation is causation.
a, you don't have the middle school level understanding of science required and b, you wouldn't listen and learn.
Projecting again. See the funny thing is, to be a sceptic (ie a scientist) you do need an understanding of the science. To be a believer and simple (in all senses of the word) follower of dogma, you do not. In fact your cult leaders actively discourage thinking for yourself, or asking questions. It's also strange that many of the high priests that preach the doctrine of the faith do not have any science education. So as an example, the entirety of the Bbc's 'climate' team. Or very often the people in their 'Verify' division. And then of course there's dear'ol Greta.. Rose to fame by skipping school and abandoning her education, and now seems to have switched activist tracks to that other lefty darling, Palestine.
Then again, you also appear to think that correlation is causation.
Sometimes. But that's just the way science is supposed to work. Notice a correlation, like temperature & CO2. Then set out to try and determine if correlation = causation, or not. Thus far, there's plenty of evidence that an increase in temperatures leads to an increase in CO2. Ice cores appear to support this, basic biology and ecology supports it. But there are still some who insist the reverse is true, and effect precedes cause. And they'll deny any evidence to the contrary, along with refusing the concept of a null hypothesis. This isn't really science, but it's been awesome for making money from the gullible.
And then there's whales. An interesting article on that here-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scotttravers/2024/04/27/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-the-offshore-windwhale-death-connection/
which even quotes from NOAA saying they don't know. And maybe they don't really want to know. Yet we do think man-made noise disturbs whales and other ocean life, ie the sonar in use for surveying might be restricted to ocean-friendly frequencies. But then there's other sources of noise, like pile driving, or just noise transmitted from spinning machinery into the ocean and seabed. You, of course jump straight into denial mode..
> Thus far, there's plenty of evidence that an increase in temperatures leads to an increase in CO2.
There is even more evidence that burning fossil fuels release large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Likewise there is evidence that increased levels of CO2 (to a point) lead to increases in retained heat and thus atmospheric temperatures, there is also evidence that up to a point plants benefit from elevated temperatures and CO2 levels - just a couple ofreasons for building greenhouses…
I think this illustrates where you are going wrong in your “scientific” thinking.
Both are true for certain values of large. Oceans release CO2 as they warm and sequestor CO2 as they cool and as the world is 2/3rds ocean that is a lot of CO2. The burning of fossil fuels whilst considered "large" are a very small part of the carbon cycle in total (and before you shout "denier" small deon't mean they can't have an effect). The world about us is not binary and in a complex chaotic system there is rarely a single cause of anything.
> The world about us is not binary and in a complex chaotic system there is rarely a single cause of anything.
But, I want to cherry pick a cause and then blow it up out of all proportion ! :)
One of the issues we have is the science and the message and their disconnect. Going back too many years the climate action complexity was reduced to the simple message “reduce CO2 emissions”. In part because that was necessary and in part because the actions we needed to take to address the other major environmental issue were the same. Moving on a few years and CO2 levels are no longer the primary driver of atmospheric warming, yet the message hasn’t changed, because we still need people to undertake environmentally/earth friendly actions.
And there is plenty of evidence that global warming happens often, and very quickly and much faster than the last couple of centuries. And it has nothing to do with fossil fuel burning. From Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Among the surprises that have emerged from analyses of oxygen isotopes in ice cores (long cylinders of ice collected by drilling through glaciers and ice sheets) has been the recognition of very sudden, short-lived climate changes. Ice core records in samples extracted from Greenland, Antarctica, Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, and high mountain glaciers in South America show that these climate changes have been large, very rapid, and globally synchronous. Over a period of a few years to a few decades, average temperatures have shifted by up to half of the temperature differences seen between the Pleistocene ice ages and their interglacial periods—that is, as much as 5–15 °C (9–27 °F).
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dansgaard-Oeschger-event
Roman Warm Period; Medieval Warm Period being examples. In fact it seems to happen every few hundred years. most likely, or rather primarily, caused by variations in the orbit and intensity of the Sun..
Even NASA said the Sun was the primary forcing of Earth's climate:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100416015231/https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/big-questions/what-are-the-primary-causes-of-the-earth-system-variability/
How's that for a trawl in the archives?
Argument: because the Sun has a significant impact on Earth climate, therefore 'human activity' has no significant impact on Earth climate.
Yeah, well we can believe that kind of nonsensical rationale if we choose to. OTOH, we may want to explore the possibility that we take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, and so explore just what those consequences might actually be. Preferably before it becomes too late to do anything useful about them.
> Among the surprises that have emerged from analyses of oxygen isotopes in ice cores
It’s only really surprising, because we over estimate our understanding of the climate from a few decades of observation and the interpretation of a few longer term records.
Reducing our consumption of fossil fuels can only help them to last longer, which gives us more time to develop other high density fuels…
Here's something on the ice core analysis from Encyclopaedia Britannica:
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dansgaard-Oeschger-event
Among the surprises that have emerged from analyses of oxygen isotopes in ice cores (long cylinders of ice collected by drilling through glaciers and ice sheets) has been the recognition of very sudden, short-lived climate changes. Ice core records in samples extracted from Greenland, Antarctica, Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, and high mountain glaciers in South America show that these climate changes have been large, very rapid, and globally synchronous. Over a period of a few years to a few decades, average temperatures have shifted by up to half of the temperature differences seen between the Pleistocene ice ages and their interglacial periods—that is, as much as 5–15 °C (9–27 °F).
----
No fossil fuel emissions required for frequent rapid climate changes.
Just wondering...
Which part of the, let's call it the "greenhouse hypothesis" are you disputing?
The part where CO2 traps heat? Because that part has been experimentally shown and verified many times. The part where CO2 concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere are substantially increasing? Yeah, we have pretty good records of that.
Or the part where human CO2 emissions over the past 100 years have driven that increase? That's usually where "climate deniers" try to drive the wedge, but it's not hard to do some simple maths yourself. Look at the increase in atmospheric CO2, and compare it with human emissions - these are hard to calculate with much precision, but a simple order-of-magnitude level estimate isn't that difficult, and should suffice for our purposes.
Get back to me when you've done that.
Which part of the, let's call it the "greenhouse hypothesis" are you disputing?
TΔCO2. The bit everyone's disputing. So the exact relationship.
The part where CO2 traps heat? Because that part has been experimentally shown and verified many times. The part where CO2 concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere are substantially increasing? Yeah, we have pretty good records of that.
Nope, I mean the part where smug morons grab memes, repeat them without thinking and end up looking like idiots.
So CO2 doesn't 'trap heat'. CO2 has 4 absorption bands that grab a photon, alter it's excitation state temporarily until physics makes the CO2 molecule spit the photon out again. This is also the radiative 'heat' exchange bit. Other forms are available, conduction, convection, evaporation etc etc. But sure, experiments have shown CO2 'traps heat'. Many greenhouse growers use CO2 to warm greenhouses. You can warm your home in the same way. CO2 levels in your lounge may already be 2,000ppmv, keeping you warm and cosy.
Of course that meme is one of the best for demonstrating the mistake made by referring to this as the 'Greenhouse Effect'. Mainly because you can experimentally prove the heating power of CO2 by altering the levels in a greenhouse. Where it has no measurable effect until it gets to very toxic levels. You can also try this at home! Pop down to your nearest dive shop and buy some sorb. AKA sodium hydroxide and calcium oxide. Tell the shop staff you're looking for a scrubber.
So use your buckets of sodalime in your living room to absorb CO2 down to say, 275ppmv. Remember to wear thermals while doing this to avoid frostbite*. Note the temperature. Then, remove buckets from the room and open a window. You may want to don flame retardent clothing to cope with the sudden and extreme temperature increase. Note the temperature.
So, oh smug one.. what do you think the temperature increase per doubling of CO2 should be, according to The Science? Con artists use far higher than realistic levels of CO2 to demonstrate the 'heat trapping', but don't really even do that. So the stock demo using a container of nearly pure CO2 and a dimming candle. Given TΔCO2 per doubling, the heat trapped in the CO2 from the candle flame should cause the container to melt. It doesn't. Can't imagine why not.
And finally, nah, we don't actually have pretty good records for CO2 levels. We have the Keeling Curve, but that only started in the 1960s. We have ice cores, but they show CO2 levels increase following temperature rises. Which is to be expected, but if effect precedes cause, the reason for those temperature increases isn't CO2..
So, care to try again, and perhaps give it some thought this time, rather than parotting easily debunked memes from the reality deniers?
*yes, this is sarcasm.
Burn, baby, burn those petrochemicals.
Consume more product.
Do whatever the hell you like because there are no consequences.
Everything that says different is fake.
You mean nothing to me.
All that matters is me.
One day I'll be dead.
Until that day comes it's all about me.
I see what you are trying to say but your omission over the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and H2O specifically (*) and global warming, does not help your argument.
Yes much has been learnt since the 1970s, in part because of hand waving based on what scientists then knew and understood about climate and global warming and the part played by CO2 caused research monies to be allocated to the investigation of such matters…
By reducing man-made CO2 emissions, we enable natural processes to cool the atmosphere and reduce its ability to hold water and so enable it to further cool (and cool the oceans) hopefully to return to what seems to be a stable level of 200~250ppm. Additionally, by reducing man made CO2 emissions we also reduce some other environmentally unfriendly emissions arising fro the use of fossil oil/gas.
(*) I’m ignoring the other Greenhouse gases ( https://naei.beis.gov.uk/overview/ghg-overview ), even though methane, with the large amounts currently locked in the Siberian tundra is looking problematic ( https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240402-the-surprising-sources-of-methane )
By reducing man-made CO2 emissions, we enable natural processes to cool the atmosphere and reduce its ability to hold water and so enable it to further cool (and cool the oceans) hopefully to return to what seems to be a stable level of 200~250ppm. Additionally, by reducing man made CO2 emissions we also reduce some other environmentally unfriendly emissions arising fro the use of fossil oil/gas.
This is the multi-trillion dollar assumption, with the dreaded 'IF' writ large. So basically the exact relationship between CO2, and temperature. Then there are the assumption wrt historic CO2 levels. Those are inexact, ie your 200-250ppmv is based on ice core data. So drill an ice core, slice it into sections, attempt to date those, and extract CO2. But it takes time for snow to fall, settle, accumulate and convert to ice and there are effects like diffusion that mean correlations between CO2 levels in ice and atmosphere are imprecise. It also has the same challenges as trying to use tree rings as thermometers. So take a sample where we know temperatures reasonably accurately. Measure density of those rings, and use them to calibrate your temperature assumption. Ice is much harder given we only have reasonably accurate CO2 data since Keeling started collecting samples in 1960. So available ice for calibration, or just collecting data on diffusion rates is very sparse.
But ice cores do appear to show cyclical climate change in the past, and CO2 lagging temperatures, not leading. This is to be expected, ie if you look at the Keeling Curve, you can clearly see the big swings in annual CO2 levels caused by seasonal fluctuations given the vast majority of CO2 comes from natural sources, not human activity. Plus there's the CO2 fertilisation effect. We know plants love CO2, yields increase and water requirements reduce. Hence why greenhouse growers use CO2 levels well above atmospheric to increase crop production. And it has no measurable affect on greenhouse temperatures.
But we also know CO2 is a very weak greenhouse gas. It's physics are well understood. The problem is (not) explained here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Historical_estimates
where the physics of CO2 are combined with other guesses to come up with a blended 'climate sensitivity' number, not the number for CO2 alone. Hansen's model has been disproven given it's assumptions were based on various CO2 emissions scenarios, which haven't been met. This is kind of the good thing about climate science. Reality trumps theory, and if observations diverge from the models, something about the models is obviously incorrect. Probem is in climate 'science', that's ignored and people claim Hansen got it right because his lowest sensitivity prediction almost matches observations, if you ignore the fact that also assumed low CO2. This is also true for most early models that assumed high climate sensititvity wrt CO2, so they ran hotter than reality.
Which to actual scientists, or most rational people would indicated CO2 sensitivity really is low. That's also supported by lack of correlation between past climate changes, and CO2 levels, which again suggest the climate is insensitive.. And something else must be responsible for those +/-5C variations, but we don't really know what. And then if the 'greening of the Earth' from elevated CO2 levels is actually a benefit.
Which is why actual climate science is quite fascinating, and climate 'science' frustrating because a lot is clearly just misinformation. But with so many careers and so much money depending on demonising CO2, this is hardly unexpected. The oceans are also a simple thing to research, if you want to learn some real climate science. So fundamentals of CO2 dogma depend on radiative transfer. 4 absorption/emission bands, 3 overlap with H2O. Both science and dogma rely on the same process. CO2 molecule absorbs energy, and generally spits it right back out as IR radiation. IR doesn't penetrate liquid water more than a few molecules. That water has multiple heat transfer processes acting on it, so conduction, convection, evaporation and radiation. So any heat from CO2's IR hitting the ocean is lost practically instantly, and it can't heat deep water because that basically breaks the laws of physics.. Give or take overturning currents. But that's the real mechanism for climate change, ie the way the oceans and atmosphere heat from the equator polewards, and then it's lost to space.
Climate 'science' denies all this reality, even when it's staring them in the face. But again there's an awful lot of money to be made clinging to CO2 dogma.
As has been noted not only is climate complex, so is the interpretation of the available data.
Those ice cores and tree rings…
We know from direct observation the atmosphere isn’t globally consistent; Beijing can be covered in smog and a walker on the North Yorkshire moors can breath (relatively) clean air…
Likewise, as many have pointed out the weather station data is also susceptible to changes in surrounding land use.
So I take those ice cores etc. with a pinch of salt: yes at that particular point in time and at that location those values were achieved, but that doesn’t mean they applied globally or even a 100 miles down the road.
Additonally, it has been noted our understanding of the seas and their role (in global climate and thus global warming) is very limited, with our measurements largely limited to the first few metres and from a few measuring points.
However, the modern record of atmospheric CO2 levels (collected since 1958) clearly show the continued massive increases in CO2 levels which isotope analysis has shown to be due to the release of fossilised carbon.
Is CO2 a demon?
It plays a part in global warming, although some of the science I’ve read indicates it’s role was merely to make it easier for the atmosphere to take up water… hence I would agree water vapour is probably a bigger factor now along with the other greenhouse gases (eg. Methane) that are slowing the lost of heat to space. However, it also plays other roles in the ecology of the earth, which also need to be considered.
Additionally, we need to consider those fossil fuel reserves, still no new Saudi Arabia has been found, although tapping the methane embedded in the permafrost and burning it might be more beneficial than letting it vent directly into the atmosphere…
So I can see good reasons for the public message to demonise CO2, but the science has moved on…
However, the modern record of atmospheric CO2 levels (collected since 1958) clearly show the continued massive increases in CO2 levels which isotope analysis has shown to be due to the release of fossilised carbon.
Be wary of that one, so you say-
..tapping the methane embedded in the permafrost
And that methane will disassociate in atmosphere with a 'fossil' fingerprint, even though it's natural. But there are also these kinds of issues-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating
Research has been ongoing since the 1960s to determine what the proportion of 14C in the atmosphere has been over the past 50,000 years. The resulting data, in the form of a calibration curve, is now used to convert a given measurement of radiocarbon in a sample into an estimate of the sample's calendar age. Other corrections must be made to account for the proportion of 14C in different types of organisms (fractionation), and the varying levels of 14C throughout the biosphere (reservoir effects). Additional complications come from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, and from the above-ground nuclear tests performed in the 1950s and 1960s.
Although 14C isn't used (AFAIK) for anthropogenic CO2 fingerprinting, the same issues apply. There are natural 'fossil' methane and CO2 seeps, and the carbon cycle is recycling. So the uncertainties around natural vs anthropogenic are huge for both, and often estimated based on how much fossil fuel we think we've burned.
This is also an interesting one to look at-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_isotope_ratio_cycle#Connection_between_temperature_and_climate
A plot of ancient water temperature over time indicates that climate has varied cyclically, with large cycles and harmonics, or smaller cycles, superimposed on the large ones.
Which.. glosses over how this can be. But glossing over that, provides yet more evidence of natural climate change, with the harmonics leading to even warmer, or colder intervals. And there's no correlation with CO2, so CO2 can't be the 'control knob'. Then the next bit about sediment cores is also interesting because it assumes a relationship between temperature and 18O ratios in forminafera. Which also assumes a relationship between forminafera and temperatures, so more forminafera = colder, yet there have been experiments showing the opposite, and thriving in warmer conditions.
And then there's other fun stuff. Like how exactly does temperature relate to 18O?-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9418O
Based on the simplifying assumption that the signal can be attributed to temperature change alone, with the effects of salinity and ice volume change ignored,
Err.. right. Like a lot of climate science, it's assumptions and uncertainties piled on top of each other to create a conclusion that we must raise carbon taxes! Don't look behind the curtain, you filthy denier!
So what actually creates 16O and 18O? Answer is 'not temperature', at least not on this Earth-
Most 16O is synthesized at the end of the helium fusion process in massive stars but some is made in the neon burning process. 17O is primarily made by the burning of hydrogen into helium during the CNO cycle, making it a common isotope in the hydrogen burning zones of stars. Most 18O is produced when 14N (made abundant from CNO burning) captures a 4He nucleus, making 18O common in the helium-rich zones of evolved, massive stars.
Sooo.. Voyager discovered something funky when it encounted 'cosmic fluff' and slowed down-
As part of the interplanetary magnetic field, the heliosphere shields the Solar System from significant amounts of cosmic ionizing radiation
We know the Sun orbits, maybe the path takes it (and us) through denser patches of stardust occasionally, and isotopes are deposited? Not fresh ones obviously because passing through the helium rich zone of a massive star would be.. bad. It's also the same with other isotopes and cosmic effects in general. Climate deniers will tell you there's no trend, yet clearly there are-
https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_shower_(physics)
Which is one I find fascinating. A scientist, Henrik Svensmark proposed a theory that cosmic rays create CCNs, or Cloud Condensation Nuclei, which H2O condenses around. So variations in cloud cover due to cosmic rays. CERN ran an experiment that confirmed this theory. We can observe cosmic rays, and clouds. And we know clouds have a big impact on temperatures, both positive and negative. So just another of the many variables in real climate science to learn about. Or be shouted down and told to ignore because CO2 is the one, true control knob..
All your words seem to add up to nothing more than a bizarre attempt to convince yourself that human activity is irrelevant to what happens to the Earth.
Why, what are you so frightened of - taking responsibility for your mess?
"Clean up your room."
"I didn't mess it up."
All your words seem to add up to nothing more than a bizarre attempt to convince yourself that human activity is irrelevant to what happens to the Earth
And you words add nothing either. It's CO2 and bust. My words are simply an attempt to point out that climate science is actually far more complex, with far more variables and uncertainty involved than just CO2. Rather odd behaviour, don't you think for someone who's supposedly a 'denier', who's been studying climate science for almost three decades now..
Why, what are you so frightened of - taking responsibility for your mess?
I am not responsible for the Minoan, Roman or Medieval Warm Periods, or the Little Ice Age, and neither were my ancestors. I am not responsible for the billions that have been wasted to create this-
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind
minimum: 0.518 GW maximum: 3.277 GW average: 1.304 GW
Yesterday's wind generation results. 30GW+ of windmills installed, 518MW produced for a capacity factor of 1.7%. That is the real mess, and everyone in the UK is forced to take responsibility for that mess because the costs are added to our energy bills, increasing energy poverty and inflaton. I am not frightened by the weather either. Many people are though and after spending millions on climate propaganda, we've created figures like Greta Thunberg, famous for her "How dare you!" rant and ability to 'see' CO2 belching from power station cooling towers. Or as an Australian journalist called her, a "miserable little doom goblin". But it gets worse. People have suicided because they've been convinced they have no future. Meanwhile, others have become very rich promoting climate fear, like one of the biggest Merchants of Doom, Al Gore.
He famously invented the Internet, algorithm and a website called RealClimate to promote his climate disaster movie. That had a cover showing CO2 belching from a power station. Actually steam, but imagery frequently used by the climate propagandists. It also featured the infamous Hockey Stick, long discredited and included predictions that have been long falsified. The Arctic ice caps would melt by 2014! Except of course they didn't, and the paper behind that (Maslowski) has long since been discredited. But he's made millions out of spreading climate misinformation, as have others.
Meanwhile, I'm in the process of building a home based on this idea-
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/09/how-to-power-homes-with-pvt-energy-stirling-engines-battery-storage/
based around a heat store, solar PVT, a Sterling Engine and a wood/waste burner. It's not exactly cheap, and it needs a house basically designed around it. But far, far better than just solar PV or the heat pumps people are being conned into buying. Fear is used to flog those as well.
But such is politics. You're probably afraid the world will burn if you don't Act Now! and allow more money to be wasted tilting at windmills, a power source long since obsoleted when the Age of Sail gave way to the Age of Steam and allowed massive economic growth, and quality of life improvements. But Greens hate this idea, and demand that we all go back to a pre-industrial lifestyle. Which sucked for most people. Not the rich of course, but they're the ones profiting off the doom mongering. We will be expected to eat bugs, own nothing but be happy because we're saving the Earth..
But you are responsible for your response, and your response is manifestly 'We(I) have no responsibility for whatever is happening here; it's nothing to do with what I/we are doing'.
As far as I know, nobody with any sense is suggesting that there are no other factors to consider when looking at changing Earth climate. The issue is: what influence are OUR actions having, alongside whatever other factors are involved. All the evidence strongly indicates that our actions are now having a significant impact on climate. We can bury our heads in the sand, or we can keep investigating and doing our best to understand, both our responsibility and what actions we can take to reduce/remove negative consequences.
Could our actions be insignificant on current climate change—it's just a coincidental occurrence? Not impossible, but in the light of the evidence we do have that seems highly improbable.
So, what do you suggest humanity does: sit on it's hands, blame other factors, self-exterminate,...?
The ball's in your court: what are you offering those whose homes are being flooded and burnt, whose crops are failing, whose livelihoods are being destroyed?
We've only got one planet, are you seriously arguing that we have no responsibility for the consequences of our actions, and that our actions ultimately have no consequences?
But you are responsible for your response, and your response is manifestly 'We(I) have no responsibility for whatever is happening here; it's nothing to do with what I/we are doing'.
Nowhere did I say that. Again, I'm simply pointing out that frequently there is no correlation between CO2 and temperatures. From proxies like ice cores, it's possible (or probable) that CO2 levels rise following temperature. If effect precedes cause, CO2 can't be the demon molecule it's been made out to be.
We can bury our heads in the sand, or we can keep investigating and doing our best to understand, both our responsibility and what actions we can take to reduce/remove negative consequences.
Correct. If you read the IPCC annual reports, they're split into 3 parts. WG1 is the 'science', WG2 (impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) and WG3 (mitigation of climate change). If the assumptions in WG1 are incorrect, then it follows that the conclusions made in WG2 and WG3 will also be wrong. So the latest WG3 report says this-
The report concluded that in order to achieve net zero emissions, it is necessary to employ carbon dioxide removal technologies, stating "All global pathways that limit warming to 1.5 °C ... with no or limited overshoot, and those that limit warming to 2 °C... involve rapid and deep and in most cases immediate GHG emission reductions in all sectors.
Which makes several huge assumptions, and incorrect conclusions. But if you understood how the IPCC actually works, you'll understand why this is. But IF climate sensitivity wrt CO2 is low, as pretty much all the evidence appears to indicate.. Then that's a collosal waste of money that could be better used elsewhere. Activities like CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) are completly pointless given they don't produce anything. Well, unless you have holes to fill, pipes to transport CO2 and can profit from this futile activity. Oh, and you might be able to sell the CO2 to the oil & gas industry for enhanced recovery. And it also reduces the efficiency of gas & coal powerstations.
The ball's in your court: what are you offering those whose homes are being flooded and burnt, whose crops are failing, whose livelihoods are being destroyed?
None of those have anything to do with CO2. Or 'Global Warming'. But they are very human problems. We build on flood plains, homes flood. We build in woodland, homes burn. Both are human problems caused by building in the wrong places, or failing to do mitigation. So improving flood defences, drainage, dredging rivers, managing forests properly to reduce fuel loads etc etc. Crop failures are part of farming, and history again shows there's nothing really CO2 related causing these. We are however risking the 1922-style dustbowl conditions, again by poor land management.
And of course there's good'ol 'renewables'. The IPCC predicts extreme weather. Storms, hurricanes, rain, snow, floods, hailstorms and more. So.. is it wise to waste billions on mighty windmills, and solar panels that can easily be damaged or destroyed by the weather extremes the IPCC predicts will happen? That.. doesn't seem logical to me compared to zero carbon nuclear that's practically immune to the weather. Or of course there's less 'extreme' weather like we've had for the last couple of weeks resulting in low wind & solar output. Again nuclear just don't care.
On the basis of your argument, if I pump CO2 into my house in ever increasing concentrations there will be no consequences to the people in the house.
No doubt you will say the world is a bit bigger than my house. I will say my house doesn't have 8 billion people living in it.
At some point ever increasing concentrations of CO2, and other gases released by human activity, will start to have noticeable large scale effects, regardless of the effect of orbital dynamics and solar activity, etc.
Your ice-core 'evidence' is like arguing that because the dog barked every time someone leaves the house, banging the door as they go, that it's banging the door that makes the dog bark. When I leave the house I close the door quietly and the dog still barks. Banging the door may indeed incite the dog to bark, but there may be other reasons as well, and it may not be the door banging that influences the dog at all. You are determined that the ice core evidence tells us that increasing levels of human generated CO2 has no influence on global temperatures. It actually does no such thing, and of course, as we all know, correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation.
Fundamentally your argument seems to actually be about wanting to maintain the status quo in term of how we wealthy 'Captialists' live, regardless of what that may cost humanity and the planet.
On the basis of your argument, if I pump CO2 into my house in ever increasing concentrations there will be no consequences to the people in the house.
You may already be doing this, especially if your home is well insulated but poorly ventilated. But I really recommend you do this. Get a decent air quality meter, a very sensitive thermometer and a cylinder of CO2. Here's a paper regarding current and proposed CO2 exposure levels-
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11170/chapter/2#5
24-h EEGL Currrent 40,000 Proposed 15,000 NRC Recommended 25,000
90-day CEGL Current 5,000 Proposed 7,000 NRC Recommended 9,000
According to the climate 'science', CO2 is supposed to create around 1.2C warming per doubling. You should be able to achieve better results given you're in a closed environment rather than open air.
...and of course, as we all know, correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation.
Unless it's CO2 and temperature. Even when there is clearly no correlation. And if you attempt to dispute the dogma using evidence, you'll be branded a denier, or worse.
Fundamentally your argument seems to actually be about wanting to maintain the status quo in term of how we wealthy 'Captialists' live, regardless of what that may cost humanity and the planet.
Quite the opposite. Capitalists have finally found a way to make money out of thin air. Or convince gullible, brain dead politicians to tax thin air and hand over the money to those wealthy 'Capitalist'. Who of course then invest some of the proceeds on lobbying to maintain or increase subsidies, or just keep the fear-fuelled gravy train rolling so they can get ever richer. This explains the problem, and the dishonesty-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/05/17/lord-callanan-misleads-parliament/
Lord Frost asks a reasonable question. If wind is allegedly so cheap, why are we forced to pay over £12bn a year subsidisng it? Callanan then doubled down on dumb by claiming offshore-wind 'costs' only £44/MWh, and avoided answering the question. Or why nobody bid the last round of CfDs when £100.27/MWh (in 2023 money) was offered.
When I say 'Capitalist', as I'm sure you understand, I mean the culture that embodies the materialist consumerist lifestyle that we in the 'West', and many other parts of the world, are familiar with and even regard as normal and our 'right'.
And, despite your protestations and attempts to distract, the underlying point of your argument continues to be one that undermines attempts to deal with a real problem (of course the alleged solutions aren't perfect, and they never will be), whilst offering nothing but 'business as usual' in their place. You are defending the status quo.
I mean the culture that embodies the materialist consumerist lifestyle that we in the 'West', and many other parts of the world, are familiar with and even regard as normal and our 'right'.
You mean Capitalists like dear'ol Dale Vince? Early to jump onto the gravy train and went from living in a caravan to living in a castle & buying a football team. All thanks to that £12bn+ a year that's loaded onto our energy bills.
the underlying point of your argument continues to be one that undermines attempts to deal with a real problem (of course the alleged solutions aren't perfect, and they never will be), whilst offering nothing but 'business as usual' in their place. You are defending the status quo.
Not at all. As an engineer, I'm used to sales types being unable to scope the problem, or sometimes trying to come up with their own solution. There are many supposed 'problems' with many chancers trying to flog solutions. So assuming CO2 is a problem, then a solution is to reduce carbon emissions. So electrify stuff, and reduce emissions from fossil fuels. Somehow.. well, thanks to intensive lobbying, the 'solution' became wind and solar, and not the obvious solution, nuclear. That has diverted and wasted billions. Currently, the 'status quo' is high pressure sales and more lobbying to lock in subsidies for 25yrs because the 'renewables' scumbags love free money.
Councils have wasted billions on 'Green' initiatives as well, instead of doing more practical adaptation & mitigation stuff, like preventing floods or wildfires. Same with things like schools & hospitals who've been conned into a variety of 'renewables' scams that just drain resources away from education or healthcare.
And all because of a humble molecule that exists in our atmosphere, and yet thanks to slick marketing has become worth trillions.
'Nuclear' is NOT an obvious solution, except to venture capitalists and those who buy into a positivist—things can only get better—understanding of human history.
'Nuclear' (as presently formulated) is a massively expensive, hi-tech, unsustainable gamble on future generations having the wherewithal to deal with our shit.
As an engineering and scientific exercise it is fascinating; as an exercise in providing cheap energy that is accessible, sustainable, and maintainable by the vast majority of the world's nations and people it's a toxic nightmare (where 'toxic' doesn't just refer to the effect of waste on living things).
Your 'obvious solution' is only a solution to a tiny fraction of people, and in fact is no solution at all in the grand scheme of things.
How is it a toxic nightmare? Is it more toxic than the lithium extraction going on in the Atacama that is leaving people without clean, or any, water? Or the rare earth mining in the DRC being done without any oversight whatsoever by children?
We have the knowledge to deal with the nuclear waste problem (as it isn't actually waste at all) and in turn near enough zero the need for new uranium to be mined, society just doesn't want to do it as they have been programmed to fear it.
The VCs LOVE wind and solar as it is quick ROI, subsidised up the wazoo and someone else's problem to clean up.
It is 'toxic' in terms of being presented as some kind of panacea to 'green energy' generation, when in reality it locks societies into massive upfront and ongoing costs, costs which extend out over multiple generations, profiteering, huge technical and health and safety issues which only a handful of corporate and government institutions are capable of handling. And to cap it all, the electricity provided to the domestic user is anything but cheap. As a solution to providing cheap, sustainable, safe, and easily and safely demountable energy to a society 'nuclear' is a huge and shameful con. It is, however, a very interesting technical exploration, and that tantalising possibility of 'energy too cheap to meter in the next thirty years of fusion research' is always dangling in front of the those seeking research grants and those wanting to make money.
You could equally use those words to describe wind and solar.
Wind suffers from issues like unexpected blade edge erosion where some blades have life expired after less than 10 years. The situation is improving but the fundamentals are that fast moving composite blades are not as resilient as mother nature. Other issues like the blade pitch bearings wearing where the pitch angle doesn't change much putting massive forces through the same area of the bearing.
Solar, especially in certain areas, needs frequent cleaning. Dust and other stuff needs to be cleaned off. And 'innovative' projects like the floating solar array in India that washed ashore require huge amounts of extra infrastructure (plastic floats which will degrade or can get damaged) and are subject to more complex maintenance (the whole thing can move around and cleaning is more complex).
15-20 years down the line all these projects will be getting pulled down, or just left to rot, and will need replacing. Add to that the govt subsidies and it makes it more attractive from an investor POV to build new than repair what is there.
As an engineering and scientific exercise it is fascinating; as an exercise in providing cheap energy that is accessible, sustainable, and maintainable by the vast majority of the world's nations and people it's a toxic nightmare (where 'toxic' doesn't just refer to the effect of waste on living things).
This is where the propaganda and misinformation comes in. Various lobbying groups have spent billions demonising nuclear, and now promoting 'renewables' because they want to keep their snouts in the trough and grab subsidies. They are not providing cheap or sustainable energy, they're providing expensive, intermittent and unreliable energy.
Nuclear on the other hand is mature technology that just keeps getting better. More people get killed by 'renewables' than nuclear, simply because of the risks involved, ie working at heights, working at sea, working around HVDC etc. This site for example tracks accidents related to wind farms-
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/tag/accidents/?titles=on
But my favourite example is SMR related. Take a tube roughly 100m long by 11m in diameter. Seal 100 people inside that tube with a 500MW nuclear reactor-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astute-class_submarine#
so tube also contains all the other assorted gubbins to keep the crew alive, fed, and occupied whilst the skulk around in the oceans doing whatever they do. And at the end of their tours, the crew comes back entirely normal. Well, as normal as can be expected for submariners. OK, so the RR SMR doesn't run on HEU, but is based on their naval reactors that are tried and tested. And also probably somewhat simplified and easier to operate & maintain when they're not inside a submarine.
And maybe also part of the problem, ie because we've not invested in nuclear energy outside of those naval reactors, we don't have many people trained to operate and maintain them outside the Navy. Which is also true for a lot of engineering, so to build projects like Hinkley we've had to import people with what should be basic skills like welding.. Which isn't saying welding is basic, but to develop skilled welders, we need industry to create that pipeline. Instead, we've been letting that shut down and focusing on services.
To be fair to the Left in general and conservationists in particular, their fears about nuclear energy were justified in the 1970s. When it came to our record at handling dangerous materials and protecting the most vulnerable, it was not (up to then) impressive. Three Mile Island & Windscale didn't help either.
In the intervening 50 years, the degree to which the regulators, governments & those who run nuclear power plants has shown us how safe nuclear energy can be, has ameliorated the position of the Left & conservationists on nuclear power. Now, most see it as a part of the mix of a CO₂-free energy generation system but not as the only source of CO₂ energy generation.
Speaking as a signed-up lefty and a 35-year member of Greenpeace, my only lasting problem with nuclear power is the utterly shite and cowardly approach successive governments have shown to addressing the problem of nuclear waste. And just because I haven't always agreed with Greenpeace regarding their nuclear power policy doesn't mean I've ever concluded that I should cancel my membership either. Life is more nuanced than that. I even give the Orange Shitgibbon the time of day on rare occasions, if only on the basis that a pig-ignorant, badly-damaged and fuckwittedly-demented clock can infrequently be very briefly right.
And Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace has this to say about the climate nonsense:
https://fakta360.no/movies/patrick%20moore%20lie%20ctm.mp4
"There is no truth to the idea that the planet is warmer now than it has been in the past. It is a lie.
There is no truth to the idea that CO2 is higher than it should be. That is a lie."
Well here's another article on previous periods of warming:
And another-
https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-wealthy-traveler-discovered-thawing-glacier-archaeology-2024-3/
The Theodul Glacier was expanding when a mysterious man in thin leather shoes trekked across its surface about 400 years ago.
This field of ice high in the Alps, below the range's iconic and imposing Matterhorn, formed a treacherous pass between what's now Switzerland and Italy. It was the middle of the Little Ice Age, and more ice was forming along its edges every year.
That had changed by 1984. The glacier was retreating, and the leather-shoed man was gradually emerging from the ice into the sun when a hiker stumbled upon his remains.
All fairly normal. Stuff gets discovered after glaciers melt due to 'Global Warming'. Stuff wouldn't have been there, if it wasn't at least as warm then as now. The way the world has warmed since the end of the LIA has been ruthlessly exploited by the climate deniers to make billions. All whilst attempting to deny the LIA ever happened, or waving it away by claiming all the evidence for it's existence were localised phenomena, even though there's no physical process that could allow that to happen in so many locations at the same time..
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Snow fall from above and accumulates.
So you do actually know something about weather/climate.
It's not clear why you believe that finding 400 years old stuff at the surface of the glacier does not imply that 1984 average temperature equals that of 400 years ago. It suggests that we had already melted 400 years of snow in 1984 in that particular spot.
Many things are unclear to you. Similar things have happened around the world, including recovering artefacts from when passes were, well, passable.. Until they became impassable, on account of the LIA. Climate deniers such as yourself claim the LIA never happened, thus all warming since the phantom LIA was due to CO2. So tax carbon, NOW!
Organic debris is perhaps more interesting. So glacial retreat uncovering plants that also grew in those locations 400yrs ago. The usual one you gish-gallop around are, of course viking settlements in Greenland. Plants grew in places they haven't until now, which is pretty strong evidence it was at least as warm then as now. Ok, so some of this may have been a transient thing, ie for a few hundred years, climate conditions may have been more optimal, like during the Medieval Warm Period. But then the climate changed, and cycled into the LIA.. But of course climate deniers pretend the MWP never happened either.
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Thanks for so effectively proving your own self wrong.
Huh?
- The little ice age dates are around 16th to the 19th century. Which includes the period (400 years ago) which you claimed, in your earlier post, was as warm as now ("Stuff wouldn't have been there, if it wasn't at least as warm then as now.").
At least you're admitting the LIA existed. But as wiki puts it-
The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals. One began about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850
Remind me, when did Global Warming start, ie the baseline use to calculate those warming 'anomalies'? Then you claim the MWP was only "on average 0.2° warmer.", presumably using your patented wooden thermometers. But imagine 400yrs ago, planting your last magic bean. This time, you're hoping for a bumper crop. But nope, your plant grows a bit, then vanishes under the snow. 400 years later, the snow has melted, uncovering the remains and you can plant your magic beans again.
"Snow fall from above and accumulates."
Or consider the "star dust" crash in the Andes in 1947. It vanished from sight but bits of it started appearing from the ice after 50 years as the glacier melted. Clearly this proves that the glacier was at the same level when the plane crashed....
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That proves we've melted 50 years of accumulated snow. Most people believe general glaciers meltdown across all regions of the globe are a clue to global warming. Sorry to have to state the obvious.
Most people believing something isn't science, it's faith. Glaciers aren't melting across all regions of the globe, some are advancing. Oh, and polar ice is also at record levels btw.
So let me again attempt to state the obvious. Imagine you are a tree, or lichen. This shouldn't be too difficult for you given you both have similar intelligence levels. You've been happily growing, but noticed it turning a bit nippy. Then it goes dark, and very cold because you've been buried under the ice. It stays cold, so snow and ice accumulate. Finally, 400yrs later you emerge into the light because it's warmed up enough to melt the ice and you're back in a similar climate for growth as you were.
Oh, and no thoughts on 1850 or 1860 being especially cold years during the LIA? What effect do you think an exceptionally cold year might have, if you're plotting a time series for temperatures? Reckon that might show an exagerated warming trend?
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Oh, and polar ice is also at record [LOW] levels btw.FTFY
Err.. Nope. As usual, your view of reality is inverted. Here's a video, which you will of course deny-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUPASUoozfE
and another view, which you'll also probably deny-
https://web.nersc.no/WebData/arctic-roos.org/observation/ssmi_ice_area.png
where you can see the record set in winter. Funny how that works. Plus of course there's ENSO, and any transient effects form Hunga Tonga to come next winter.. And of course no correlation with CO2 levels.
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Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace
Patrick Moore does claim that he was a co-founder of Greenpeace, and sadly many people have fallen for this lie. He was indeed involved in the early work of Greenpeace Canada (then known as the Don't Make A Wave Committee), but all of the actual co-founders of Greenpeace Canada reject his claim. They employed him when he applied to join in 1971, but they founded the group in 1969.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/patrick-moore-climate-doubter/
"Moore was one of Greenpeace’s earliest and more influential members"
This implies he was a member of the original org prior to 1971.
Greenpeace are just desperately trying to memory hole him for his blasphemy.
Yes and no but the US decision to go the light water PWR route was heavily influenced by the planned use of the same concepts by the navy.
The early UK magnox stations (calder hall and chapel cross) were setup for bomb plutonium manufacture. The later reactors ran too hot so quickly turn the Pu239 to Pu240 which is no good.
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Good try bringing forward some difference of opinion. I don't trust ANY politician for ANY party. What you all hear in the UK is a steady BBC stream of anti-Trump nonsense. Never anything about the other side. That naturally leads you to think Trump bad, Biden good. Neither are really what the folks in the USA want, and often it results in voting for the least damaging to your personal concerns.
Beyond the whale concerns, which need further research to identify any relationship, nobody talks about other damage to the environment as a whole when going all-in for a particular "green" solution. Sometimes the attempt to correct a situation creates more problems for the next generation. In my part of the USA we just put 2 more nuclear power plants online and enjoy some of the lowest utility costs in the country. I'm no fan of nuclear power plants, but in the current mix it is the one that provides the amount of power needed to support other green solutions.
As for the comments about Florida--the wealthiest of all politicians have one or more very large homes in that state, and even more shocking along the coast. Former president Obama has a home on the coast in the northeast. Those folks aren't worried about rising oceans or climate change---you have to wonder why. Those same folks (politicians and extremely wealthy donors) are the ones that fight to prevent offshore or onshore windmills. Funny that they don't want them in their backyard, but ok for the rest of us to enjoy the view.
Over the last few years the damage of government lies (all parties) has increased. COVID, immigration, inflation, [insert the gov talking point].....read the book 1984 or watch the movie Idiocracy and you'll see that our governments are reaching those tipping points.
Enjoy your steady stream of BBC propaganda! We have our share of it with mainstream media being heavily biased.
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No, COVID was very real. What was the lie is the origins of COVID. Via US congressional research the sources point to a renegade arm of the US National Institutes of Health partially funding gain of function research in the Wuhan lab that so many denied. Just this week the contractor responsible for this research was banned from doing further business.
The lies from COVID resulted in folks being harmed by government disinformation. Dr Fauci himself commented on the ineffectiveness of masks in private, then magically went to double masking. He was aware of the origins and the renegade contractor, but did all possible to quash that information from coming forward. The Director for the Centers for Disease Control was not allowed into the circle of government officials because he questioned the "science" Fauci was selling. Science used to be open discussion to hear all credible sources. Trump appointed Fauci for this primary role--his mistake was not vetting this "expert" and not managing the early crisis.
Here are some links to my receipts--there are many more out there and if anything folks should be pissed off at the US for funding such research and covering it up.
Early Fauci communication regarding masks: https://twitter.com/PhilHollowayEsq/status/1399912718015082504/photo/1
Contractor banned from further research: https://twitter.com/COVIDSelect/status/1790762368898654308/photo/1
Director of CDC congressional testimony statement: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023.03.08-Statement-of-Dr.-Robert-R-Redfield88.pdf
Something like the horrid vehicles in Gene Roddenberry's Planet Earth? Did they burn wood or coal??
It's fine. A lot of US EVs are already coal-powered, only indirectly. Can't remember which climate supercomputer it was, either NOAA or NASA that moved to a coal state for cheap, reliable energy as well.
To be honest, I wouldn't trust data out of China one bit but this is one thing we can have quite accurate data on. You don't have to trust the Chinese government, you can just use satellite imagery.
If you can spot methane clouds (invisible to the human eye) from space you can certainly spot dozens of square kilometres of solar farms from space. There's no way the Chinese government can realistically fudge that data. Thanks to the Copernicus system you could even dive into such satellite data yourself.
Dear God,
Please please can you stop Trump talking or if that is difficult please ensure Trump thinks *before* he talks !!!
I would mention something about Truth *but* that is a horse that has long bolted for Trump and I am not sure even you can 'fix' that particular problem !!!
Thanks in advance,
Anon C.
:)
"that the CCP have continued to add hundreds of gigawatts of new coal power plants every year, and show no signs of slowing up."
They are also hoovering up more and more of the manufacturing sector from all over the world, so some of their expansion isn't additive, but is power being moved from somewhere such as the US to China so they can produce cheap plastic doodads to feed the disposable economy. In order to feed their manufacturing growth as fast as possible, it's easiest to throw up a coal power plant. Even in a country with little to no red tape for building a nuclear plant, they still take lots of time to do properly. China is also working on more advanced nuclear power generation so as that can be connected up, they can delete or idle a dirty and expensive coal plant. It's not like they don't realize that burning coal is having a negative impact on their local environment and population.
"Even in a country with little to no red tape for building a nuclear plant, they still take lots of time to do properly."
At the rate China builds nuclear plants, the advantage of coal is only that its cheaper. Recent nuclear projects have been in the 5-7 years range, and a brand new coal plant is barely any quicker. Even when building overseas, China manages this time frame:
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-rate-of-nuclear-construction
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Obvious: there is no supervision authority. Taishan 1 nearly blew up. Some Framatome whistleblower had to tip CNN..
Or as wiki describes that event-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Leaks_and_Shutdown
On April 11, 2021, the Chinese NNSA reported that another level 0 incident occurred on April 5, resulting in the unexpected release of radioactive gas into the atmosphere. Post-accident investigation calculated the amount of radioactive release to contribute to 0.00044% of annual limit, well within safety parameters..
On June 14, 2021, CNN reported that the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant had a suspected leak, based on a report by Framatome communicated to the United States on June 8. Said incident was the level 0 incident previously reported on April 11, 2021. Further details provided by Framatome revealed that the issue was build-up of xenon and krypton inert fission gases in the primary circuit of Taishan 1, potentially from a leak in a fuel rod housing. The build-up was described as "known phenomenon" which is well covered in the plant's operating and safety procedures
So there is a supervision authority that reported the event. Taishan 1 didn't 'nearly blow up'. Given the event was reported, no whistleblower had to 'tip CNN'. And if CNN reported this as a near disaster, it's just another example of how dumb they are. And you for believing this.. Unless of course you are deliberately spreading misinformation, again.
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So, JE, let's make a deal: you leave the security of civil nuclear to me and I'll leave the art of disinformation to you. Do we have a deal?
Again, no deal. But it seems El Reg's moderators have stepped in and memory holed a load of posts. I suggest they also do the same with your original Taishan claim given it was so comprehensively proven false.
"Recent nuclear projects have been in the 5-7 years range, and a brand new coal plant is barely any quicker. "
True, but a nuclear plant is still more expensive. China has a big development program for MSR's so they could be hedging by not building half century old PWR designs in any great quantity that will need to operate for decades to have a ROI.
"Yet per capita, the US still uses / wastes more energy than China by a huge margin. "
hmmmmmm. You'd need to define waste to make that argument. Is it anything beyond basic survival? Do I need to feel guilty that the aircon is going so I can get the house temp under 27C so I can sleep properly? I can sleep when it's hotter, but I don't sleep well and feel like carp when I wake up. I watched a movie earlier, is that waste if I do that by myself?
You'd need to define waste to make that argument. Is it anything beyond basic survival? Do I need to feel guilty that the aircon is going so I can get the house temp under 27C so I can sleep properly?
This is the problem with politicians demanding we 'save energy'. You first. Especially when our MPs can probably expense bills, or award themselves big payrises. But they could also lead by example. So cap their energy use at the current price cap, and charge say, 10x for any overage. Most of their electorate are already forced to cut usage thanks to our electricity being among the most expensive in the world. What do they propose people do? Bathe once a week? Buy NVG, keep their lights turned off and recharge the NVG's off-peak?
"This is the problem with politicians demanding we 'save energy'. "
The thing is that I have been looking for ways to save energy. Nearly every light in the house is LED. All that's left is one bathroom where I'd have to spend a bunch of money for new fixtures which would take years to recover the cost. I also have a number of spare lamps and don't use that bathroom very often. I commentard from my laptop and keep the big phat production desktop off when I'm not doing work on it. I also use the laptop for mail and general web surfing. The list goes on and on. I might have had solar on the roof by now, but the approvals and permits double the cost and time to have it done. There also isn't a path with the city to put in the rails and conduits for a larger installation and add panels over time. It's the whole process every time. I see that as government talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Mr The Sky is Falling, Al Gore has been called out numerous times for the prodigious amounts of energy consumed on his compound every month and the fleet of XL black SUV's all over the place. The city I live in has city workers driving here and there in full size pickups. Even the supervisor(s) driver about in a V8 monster rather than a BEV or hybrid. The airport manager does have a hybrid Ford Escape but that would be easy to replace at some point with a second hand Nissan Leaf. It's not a big city and it's a small municipal airport that has a very old deprecated charging post in front of the terminal that could be brought up to modern spec. It's a nice shady spot as well.
Wind power is a profitable industry, even if subsidies were dropped tomorrow. Red state Montana is doing great with it. The benefits are spread evenly across all power consumers.
On the other hand, even with subsidies, EV sales have plummeted. The tax credits overwhelmingly advantaged those who needed it the least. CA law is still planning to force car makers to sell an percentage of EV's - hybrids won't count as EV. That's going to get very ugly and - rightfully - unpopular. Tesla (among other companies) moved HQ from CA to TX, where there are no state EV subsidies.
This "similarity" only exists in the well worn logic of political dogma, which is trailing reality by a huge gap. If Trump wins, it's not because of his ultra loyal base, it because of the Democratic party wallowing in political dogma and overlooking needs and interests of swing voters because it's easier to stick with the dogma and cajoling the MAGA hats.
One thing the CA legislature got right is passing SB9 in 2021 - that should allow home owners to split their lots into up to 4 family homes. If it weren't for the fact that judges and cities have gutted the intent of that law (thanks, Demistocrats), it would enable many more families to live closer to their work, thus enabling them to drive less - or even not at all and take public transportation instead.
> Trumps first priority would be reducing electricity generation capacity
If all the lights go off across the USA, Trump and his MAGA-men think they can just hide in the dark and pretend that all those troubles have gone away; it worked when they pulled blanky over their heads.
Donald Trump said he had a plan to end the war in Ukraine. I assume that he is going to nuke Kyiv and all other significant population centres. War over.
Perhaps he also has a plan to end the war in Gaza. But Americans like that war. I mean, a lot of them don't, but whenever there is a war near Israel, Jesus is supposed to come back to the world, which he will destroy. This won't happen, but people are looking forward to it.
@Robert Carnegie
"Donald Trump said he had a plan to end the war in Ukraine. I assume that he is going to nuke Kyiv and all other significant population centres. War over."
Before Trump was the never ending wars in the middle east. And he brought an end (the current occupant ran on pulling out of Afghan just to have a chance). As with Obama, the US looks weaker under Brandon
Before Trump was the never ending wars in the middle east. And he brought an end (the current occupant ran on pulling out of Afghan just to have a chance). As with Obama, the US looks weaker under Brandon
Trump's plan sounds like it's just as delusional as Zelensky, Biden or currently Blinken. Blinken's been in Kiev explaining how Russia will pay reperations for the destruction caused because this is 'the law'. Ask Lybia, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq etc etc how compensation works. Ukraine also said Europe needs to give them 0.25% of GDP and Blinken played guitar, looking weird and ghoulish. Also not bothering to understand the lyrics or the meaning behind 'Rocking in the Free World'. And while there, Ukraine's been suffering from shrinkflation after Russians crossed the border around Kharkiv. Ukrainians wondered where the defences that were supposed to have been constructed were. Ukraine's Pravda answered by pointing out the millions given to phantom countries to construct phantom defences. But I digress.
Trump's 'plan' is apparently telling Russia to stop being naughty, hand back all the territory, pay compensation and then he might, just might think about lifting sanctions. Alternatively, Borrell mentioned a much simpler proposal to force serious negotiations. Just stop giving money to the most corrupt country in Europe. But the longer it goes on, the worse it'll be for Ukraine when they eventually have to seek terms. But Ukraine will have a semi-legitimate leader in a week when Zelensky's term expires.
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@Casca
"the current occupant ran on pulling out of Afghan just to have a chance)
You mean he did it on the timeplane the orange monkey set..."
Nope. Biden moved the withdrawal date further away. It was the time set by Biden, as Bidens policy, not Trump.
"But dont let me distract you from worshiping trump and putin. You do it so well."
Fairly sure you are talking about someone else there. At no point am I worshipping either.
That wasn't at a "rally", rather it was at a dinner at Mar.a.lago where Trump hosted around 20 fossil fuel executives and billionaire lobbyists. Not just getting rid of offshore windmills, he also promised them that he'd get rid of most other environment regulations, including an outright ban on electric cars, open up unlimited imports of LNG, and, of course, being billionaires, he'd also cut all their taxes ... if they gave him one billion dollars.
Selling political favo(u)rs, with a delicious hint of extortion. Out in the open. Lovely.
If I were to try that, I'd be hauled off to jail immediately. Two-tiered justice system indeed ... one for Teflon Don II, and one for the rest of us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/climate/trump-oil-gas-mar-a-lago.html
Pile driving operations for placing the wind mills create noise levels of 190 dB and sonar equipment for surveying even goes up to 200 dB. Under water, sound travels much faster and is dampened less than in the atmosphere. To compare, 190 dB is a sound pressure 1 million times the sound of of a jackhammer (130 dB) which can cause almost instant measurable hearing loss in humans.
To whales, sound is critical for communication, and important for navigation, finding food, and avoiding predators. There is some controversy whether whale deaths are linked to wind turbines, looks like the jury is still out on that. Keep in mind though that whales are not the only sea mammals that will be effected.
This said, I seriously hope the orange man is lawfully convicted and put away where he can do no more harm to society.
Not wanting to simply dismiss your statements out of hand, but...
The undersea environment is not exactly quiet even when there is no human activity taking place; melting ice is noisy (ok, 110 dB is peanuts compared to 190 dB but it is hardly silence), the calving of ice floes and 'bergs, the same continually rubbing against each other, and not infrequently crashing together. The occasional earthquake, volcano, tidal wave. These are all loud, especially around approximately 100Hz.
> which can cause almost instant measurable hearing loss in humans
I'd be careful about drawing comparison between human and whale susceptibility to noise at these levels - not trying to day that they aren't damaged, even deafened; I don't have any figures on that. But given that they evolved in a much different environment than we did, with much higher normal background sound levels, trying to draw a direct comparison between their and our hearing seems dubious and - flashy? Crowd pleasing? Not the right words, but hopefully you get the gist.
Human created underwater noise is most definitely a great problem, because we tend to be very broadband and pollute the (much) quieter frequencies away from the general rumble - whalesong ranges from about 20Hz to 20kHz and above (there are notes here about sonar-style clicks in whales & dolphins ranging from < 1hZ to around 150 kHz). Our machinery can easily generate noise across that entire range.
> Pile driving operations...
There are different designs of offshore wind turbines that can be chosen from, ranging from thick solid pillars that descend into seafloor foundations to floating buoys. These designs' construction require varying amounts of heavy operations, such as pile driving (the buoys do still tend to need anchor lines to be, well, anchored). Lower (won't claim "low") impact designs can be choosen, if the will is there, even in situations (e.g. sea depth) when another design might be the obvious (read, cheaper) choice.
There are different designs of offshore wind turbines that can be chosen from, ranging from thick solid pillars that descend into seafloor foundations to floating buoys. These designs' construction require varying amounts of heavy operations, such as pile driving (the buoys do still tend to need anchor lines to be, well, anchored).
Floating buoys is somewhat disingeneous. Wiki explains-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_wind_turbine
So pretty large structures required to support large windmills, with the obvious route to transmit sound/vibrations into the oceans from any part in contact, ie floats or anchoring cables. If there's a negative effect on marine life, then it may be possible to try and damp vibrations, but that would just add costs to an already expensive/uneconomic technology.
It's also not just a marine issue. Same issues of vibration, low frequency noise and shadow flicker exist on land and the effects on wildlife and humans disputed. It's also something I've personally experienced. I sensed a disturbance in the force, and noticed ripples in my coffee mug. That was a combination of the building I was in's design, and it vibrating when it was directly downstream from a nearby windmill. The psychology was interesting though, ie from noticing something weird to mostly being able to filter that out once realising what was causing it. Wildlife may not be so fortunate, nor people having to live with that more constantly.
Half a million or so birds killed by wind turbines is barely a rounding error.
The American Bird Conservancy puts the number killed by power lines at over 30 million.
Cars and trucks kill over 100 million.
But that is nothing compared to the number killed by cats - an estimated 2.4 Billion.
So sticking a bell on Tiddles will save far more birds than banning all wind turbines.
Well, yes; in sheer numbers, Tiddles is an absolute monster.
But if you want to get a comparison that'll keep the argument a bit more focussed, and away from numbers that are just too big for many people to get their heads around ("No, I can't believe that, not Tiddles; I shall stop listening now"), from an article that also agrees about murderous moggies:
> A 2012 study found that wind projects kill 0.269 birds per gigawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared to 5.18 birds killed per gigawatt-hour of electricity from fossil fuel projects
Even Red Neck Burt can hopefully understand the idea that fossil fuel electricity is killing some 16 times as many birds per gigawatt-hour (or tell him in Joules or BTUs or whatever, if "gigawatt" just makes him start quoting Doc Brown: the ratio still holds).
Moggies don't kill eagles. It is more likely that an eagle would kill the moggie.
Wind turbines are not making much of a dent in the sparrow population though.
If it is the study I think it is then it includes every part of the fossil fuel cycle to bump up the bird numbers and also includes an incident where a murmur of starlings randomly decided to fly into the side of a nuclear reactor building. The fact that the building contained an active nuclear reactor had no influence on the collision. If it had been a warehouse or an office block the birds might have done the exact same thing. The building didn't move into their path.
Wind turbines have big spinning blades and concentrated solar has invisible heat rays that birds can't understand.
I always find it hilarious that people who would normally speed up if they see a bird in front of their car to try and hit it for points are suddenly concerned about bird strikes around windfarms. It's almost as if they read verbatim off the talking points list disseminated by Big Fossil Fuel.
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《[Trump] claims offshore wind farms "kill the whales." According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), though, there's no evidence to suggest that offshore wind turbines have a taste for whale blood.》
I suspect in the Don's latest senile demented tilting at windmills he has confused wind farms with the Japanese.
He has to be is on a par with Reagan in one of his less rational starwars (SDI) moments or the mad manchego any time.
Let us hope that on day one, he has retained some small spark of lucidity and that its the wind farms that he ends and not Nippon. :(
I don't know about the US but in Europe you can run offshore wind farms without subsidies as it's very cheap to produce per MWh. Only solar is cheaper. The Netherlands already has wind farms built without subsidies and BP and SSE are now doing the same in the UK.
I find it interesting that Trump is focusing specifically on offshore wind farms, though. Perhaps because Texas is quite big in onshore wind farms and he doesn't want to hurt that base as he needs Texas to have a chance at winning the elections.
I don't know about the US but in Europe you can run offshore wind farms without subsidies as it's very cheap to produce per MWh. Only solar is cheaper. The Netherlands already has wind farms built without subsidies and BP and SSE are now doing the same in the UK.
This is, of course something that certainly needs a citation given it's not at all cheap and windfarms have been cancelled as they're uneconomic. But it wouldn't be the first time the 'renewables' scumbags have lied about their economics.
"This is, of course something that certainly needs a citation given it's not at all cheap and windfarms have been cancelled as they're uneconomic."
A quick web search on 'windpark zonder subsidie' will take you to at least 3 unsubsidised offshore wind projects in the Netherlands. The current market conditions, specifically price increases, mean that is now more difficult. However, such price increases will also make conventional power stations more expensive.
Incidentally, as someone who started his career in oil & gas, and is currently occasionally involved with wind and nuclear projects I'm not impressed by your use of the term 'scumbags'. I haven't really come across such language in discussions since leaving the primary school playground behind. But perhaps you feel using language like that makes you come across as more credible and adult. Or perhaps not.
I'm not impressed by your use of the term 'scumbags'. I haven't really come across such language in discussions since leaving the primary school playground behind. But perhaps you feel using language like that makes you come across as more credible and adult. Or perhaps not.
I think it's a very apt description, especially given the dishonesty on display by promoters of 'renewables', such as my dear anonymong. They intentionally used outdated information and forward looking statements to make an obviously false claim. That, to me seems like the behaviour of an obvious scumbag and troll.
The rest depends on the definition of subsidy, and local market regulations. So I know the Netherlands is very different to the UK, and PPA's described aren't possible in the UK market. And if they were, I'd have no problem with windmills. If buyer & seller can agree a contract, then whatever happens is their problem. But I also know that the Netherlands has been having some fun due to it's 'success' with solar, eg-
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/10/netherlands-approves-grid-fees-for-rooftop-pv-system-owners/
The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has investigated the grid fees that four energy suppliers – Budget Energie, Vattenfall, Eneco and Engie – are currently applying to residential PV system owners. It has concluded that these fees are legitimate.
The authority said the “terugleverkosten” fees depend on higher purchasing costs, higher imbalance costs, and the net-metering costs that the energy suppliers have to deal with when their customers own and operate rooftop PV systems.
With Dutch 'market' rates for electricity going negative a few times so far this month. This in theory could be good, ie people can get paid to use electricity. Except that never seems to happen and it's just more profit for the scumbags. It also raises some fun thoughts for producers. So you have a 'smart' export meter. Prices go negative, so your home's meter starts charging you. Or because prices are negative, it constrains you and disconnects you from the grid. The latter potentially being ok because after all, the problem is caused by you generating a surplus.
You might want to check your sources as certainly in the UK the offshore and onshore wind is subsidised. I believe the Dutch also use a CfD type arrangement in which the govt subsidised the generators if the market price falls below a set level.
Nothing is ever built today without taking some form of govt handout.
Here is a source for the Dutch wind farm: Subsidy-Free Offshore Wind Power Starts Flowing into Dutch Grid and here are two sources for companies planning to do this in the UK: BP Contemplates Unsubsidized Offshore Wind Farms in the UK and SSE Renewables confirms unsubsidized extension for Scottish wind farm
Here are some general sources. It's a pretty recent development, something of the last five years:
100-MW Power Purchase Shows Unsubsidized Offshore Wind Taking Off in Europe
Vattenfall proves offshore wind can be profitable without subsidies
Offshore wind power now so cheap it could pay money back to consumers
4 year old article from imperial and SSE and 5 years for Vattenfall. In the meantime Orsted has pulled the plug on some major projects stating that there needs to be more money, no-one bid on the UK govts last wind auction and a major turbine manufacturer is complaining about huge losses.
From the BP link "However, BP is considering self-financing the projects as it expects to use the electricity generated by the wind farms for its own needs."
So its not actually selling the elec.
A lot has changed in the last few years.
Here are some general sources. It's a pretty recent development, something of the last five years:
Much as I thought. Past performance is no indication of future performance, and you cherry-picked a bunch of old news and forward-looking statements.
So the PPA is from 2019, and isn't really possible in the UK given the need to buy via sleeving contracts through a regulated supplier, in which case subsidies apply. Your Vattenfall link proves that financial forecasting can be as hard as climate forecasting given since that claim in 2019, Vattenfall has proved the opposite. So cancelling projects as uneconomic without massive subsidy (ie CfD) increases. And the best till last-
The UK’s September 2019 auction made the headlines as winning companies said they could build new offshore wind farms for around £40 per megawatt hour (MWh) of power. This was a new record set by these wind farms with bids 30 percent lower than just two years earlier.
Part of the incredibly dumb way we rig our energy market, wind farmers that contracted at low prices in that auction round subsequently didn't take up those contracts. So made massive windfalls selling at the peak 'gas' rate caused by our sanctioning of Russia. Others either cancelled those projects for being uneconomic, or like Vatenfall at trying to renegotiate far higher CfD rates. Again where US and UK diverge given the US is charging the subsidy farmers for breach of contract.
"American Bird Conservancy says between 500K and a million birds or so are killed every year by turbines" vs "A recent study by the Smithsonian Institution and the US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats kill about 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion small mammals each year in the lower forty-eight states." A million vs billions. Just say it aloud that all domestic cats in the USA will be executed on day one :)
One quote more from Google - "Window strikes are among the top three human-related cause of bird deaths, along with cats and habitat destruction. Up to one billion birds die each year in the United States due to collisions with windows and research shows that 54-76 percent of window collisions are fatal.". Remove all windows in the USA on day one! :-D
Now look at the types of birds killed.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/06/1091250692/esi-energy-bald-eagles
https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/illegal-shooting-along-power-lines-a-leading-cause-death-bald-eagles
The second one is interesting, more large birds are shot and killed while sitting on wires/pylons than by impact with the structure/wires or electrocution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/02/eagle-cam-pittsburgh-cat-owners
""Window strikes are among the top three human-related cause of bird deaths, along with cats and habitat destruction. "
My last cat was firmly an indoor cat. I think she had some run ins with ravens when she was young and hadn't adopted me yet so she preferred to stay inside. My property is a bird haven. I added a few nesting boxes last year that appear to be in use (I'll check inside after chicks should have fledged), I have a watering station and I'm looking for a good deal on a more traditional bird bath on a pedestal. I had to modify the watering station to make it more bee friendly. There's a constant stream of bees coming and going. The cuttings from my Mulberry tree were set up in the vacant lot next door to provide perches for the birds and I'm seeing quail using the underside as a shelter. I've got a high quality long zoom lens on my list to get some photos. Every once in a while, the hummingbird collection my neighbor has built will come over to my tree for a rest. It's all rather enjoyable and not much work. I also have a bird feeder that I fill more frequently during the breeding season and taper off afterwards so the birds don't stop foraging on their own.
Trump might sound like a wannabe dictator issuing decrees that play to his base but its more important to look behind the curtain at the people formulating policy. This is where the real action's going on. The blueprint for this isn't at all secret, its the "Heritage 2025 Project". (Although this isn't the official Trump plan ("Agenda 47") its where the money and the detailed planning are.) Its quite a comprehensive plan but a quick overview would be instituting a form of fascism into the US.
I can't say I'm enamored of the current administration but I will stick with it no matter what until something better turns up because another Trump administration will not only try to impose authoritarianism at the Federal level but will be extremely uncomfortable and unnecessarily divisive in those states that don't readily follow their playbook (states that include a majority of the population, BTW). It will, in short, not "Make American Great (Again)" but seriously hasten its decline.
@martinusher
"Trump might sound like a wannabe dictator issuing decrees that play to his base but its more important to look behind the curtain at the people formulating policy"
Brandon Executive orders bypassing congress on student loans. Trump being on the side of freedom during covid while Brandon broke the rules and laws acting like a dick-tator. And on and on.
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@ecofeco
"I don't care what an insurrectionist leader and traitor who stole nuclear secrets, who also killed a over a million Americans, says."
Are people still pushing this nonsense? Almost like the idiots pushing Trump (germophobe) being peed on after it was clear the document was fabricated and the security services knew it was bull.
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"4/ Discrediting vaccines"
You are the moron and I claim my £10.
Trump was the one who initiated project warp speed and paved the way for the awful 'vaccine'. Don't you remember all the lefty idiots saying they will never take the Trump vaccine yet a year later are telling everyone to stop complaining and get vaxxed?
"And here me thinking murkins believed in freedom."
I think I see your confusion. Most Americans do believe in freedom, without a doubt.
It is the dues-paying MAGA[0] cult[1] who do not. They want everybody to march in lockgoosestep with Trump's brand of pseudo-christian fascism.
[0] Muppets Annoying Genuine Americans.
[1] Somewhat less than 8% of the population, and falling rapidly according to Trump's sub-$100 campaign contributions.
I think long-term wind turbines won't be around anyway, especially offshore.
Simply speaking, wind turbines are expensive, offshore ones even more so. Solar panels are already cheaper than onshore wind, and getting cheaper (to be fair, tariffs on Chinese SPs might slow / stop / reverse that trend until other cheap-manufacturing Asian countries get in on the action or production can be largely automated in 'the west'). While generally speaking the best future energy solution for the next 10-20 years is "a-mix-of-all-of-them-except-coal", I expect that ultimately it will stabilise, as it always does, on the cheapest solution that meets minimum requirements.
That is going to be nuclear for places (like S. Korea) that don't deliberately stifle it with over-regulation, and solar (with intermittency filled in by a combination of electric storage and gas turbine) for everyone else especially in the lower latitudes. I'd add a wildcard of deep geothermal if they manage to deliver cheaper deep drilling as some companies are claiming (which would enable geothermal everywhere not only in certain close-to-the-surface hotspots)
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Wind, including offshore, is the cheapest form of transmission-scale generation per kWh. Expensive is a relative term. A single big nuke looks expensive, but per kWh it's much more favourable than Gas or Coal.
Put the right units in to do your comparisons instead of allowing Murdoch media do them for you and the maths will tell you as much.
The only reason "cheap" generation prices don't see bottom-line gain once bills hit retail is that the generators themselves know they can sell energy at the same price as that coming from other sources as long as there is not enough competition in the market to force prices down. And hence, in the UK at least, all energy sales align to the price of gas.
You won't hear a wind farm complaining about it, they are making a killing off doing so.
This is why Starmer's GB Energy proposal is so clever - by operating in the space that Orsted currently occupies they would be able to re-sell wind generation AT COST as opposed to at gas prices - and therefore forcing the other generators to compete with them rather than aligning to gas. The only other realistic way to bring domestic prices under control and break the oil-gas price dependency would be outright nationalisation, which, for all of it's proponents, is not a majority vote winner. (For better or worse).
Market theories are all well and good, but it's a constrained market, and therefore ripe to abuse if you know what you are doing.
"Wind, including offshore, is the cheapest form of transmission-scale generation per kWh. Expensive is a relative term. A single big nuke looks expensive, but per kWh it's much more favourable than Gas or Coal."
Nope, not correct about offshore. You are right that onshore wind seems to be / have gotten cheaper than photovoltaic (probably due to recent supply / trade issues with China). In any case, different sources give slightly different results, but most sources agree on onshore wind/solar being the cheapest, and offshore wind being 2-3X more costly than onshore. Based on how quickly solar was getting cheaper compared to onshore wind I think it's fair to say that it would be cheaper without external factors of trade issues with China (because the more mature a technology is, the less gains can be made, and the longer it takes to eke out those gains).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/levelized-cost-of-energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
With respect to nuclear, the nominal cost is much higher than that of solar/wind, BUT (a) it's difficult to estimate true cost, because many costs on late/over-budget 'western' reactors are unnecessary design changes forced by NIMBYism, and regulatory requirements that enforce unreasonably low radiation levels (lower than background in some cases!!!) and (b) solar/wind have to be supplemented. by storage or gas turbines to give 24-hour, 365-day coverage, while nuclear gives you full coverage. That means that for a single unit, wind and solar are cheaper, but for full coverage you need to fill in the gaps by having gas turbines burning expensive gas, very expensive storage, or very expensive huge overcapacity plus interconnectors plus some storage. I don't have any figures for that (and there probably aren't any realistic ones anyway), but it's likely that nuclear is at least economically competitive with that mix.
In any case, I wasn't disagreeing that there is room for wind right now, rather than it's likely that in 20 years offshore wind will be far expensive compared to other better solutions.
Re energy markets, I'm in complete agreement, it's one thing to have cheap energy production, quite another to have those low prices reach the consumer.
With respect to nuclear, the nominal cost is much higher than that of solar/wind, BUT (a) it's difficult to estimate true cost, because many costs on late/over-budget 'western' reactors are unnecessary design changes forced by NIMBYism, and regulatory requirements that enforce unreasonably low radiation levels (lower than background in some cases!!!) and (b) solar/wind have to be supplemented.
Actually.. the 'nominal cost' is lower. But as you say, it depends on how you interpret the 'levelised cost' figures. These generally aren't like-for-like comparisons, so not level at all. Nuclear is excluded from some of the low-carbon bungs, and the biggest is that nuclear provides baseload capacity, and solar/wind simply cannot do that. Modern NPPs can also load follow to some extent, although AFAIK they're still the most efficient at full power. But NPPs are obviously unconcerned about the day/night cycle or blocking high pressure weather systems and 'dunkelflaute'. So wind should really be costed on the basis of MWh delivered, which for wind/solar should include the costs of any stand-by capacity required.
Of course if that happened, there would be far fewer wind & solar farms because they'd be even less economic than they are now. I think this is also why the 'renewables' scumbags are so desperate to lock in long term contracts now. SMRs are approaching the market and have the potential to be faster and cheaper to build than their full size cousins. Plus they don't need collosally expensive batteries, grid re-engineering or CCGTs for when the weather conditions aren't favorable. And the UK announced at COP28 that we've signed up to triple the amount of NPPs. So windmills face technological obsolence once again.. at last.
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Ah yes, the French NPPs where they cheaped out and didn't build cooling towers and just used river water. All the ones with cooling towers worked fine.
The cracked pipes would happen in any very hot and very high pressure environment.
And EDF subsidise their French elec by shafting the UK consumers :)
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Simply because of the drought as some rivers were reduced to mere creeks. That's getting more and more frequent as summers get warmer and drier. Clearly global warming cannot be fought with that kind of "solution".
And of course this will be a problem for the UK because all our NPPS, past, present and future have been, or will be built on rivers. Not the coastline, of which we have plenty. I guess it might become an issue for picking SMR sites, but those could also be coastal.
Or the other way around: EDF consolidated accounting show that Hinkley point C is weighing heavily on the balance sheet.
Depends. EDF's long been a bit of a trainwreck and the decision, and extremely generous Hinkley contract was probably one way dear'ol G.Brown Esq helped bail out his brother. Rest gets buried in EDF's structure, along with stuff like this-
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Int
where we're currently importing 2GW via the French interconnectors. Mainly because of this-
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind
And our mighty 30GW+ of installed wind capacity only running at an average of 1.604 GW, or a capacity (not load) factor of a miserable 5.34%. But then this is also part of the UK and EDF's problem. They own EDF Energy in the UK, and a JV with EDF Renewables, a French company. This of course allows the usual shell game of loading debt onto UK entities, and repatriating the profits back to France.
Saddest part is the way France has managed to keep it's main energy supplier nationalised, while we did the usual and flogged off the crown jewels, thus allowing foreign energy business to exploit the UK market.
"Wind, including offshore, is the cheapest form of transmission-scale generation per kWh. "
Maybe when it's producing, but there's no way to rely on it to be available. Business has been built around energy being to hand with a flip of a switch. They'd have to go back and redo all of their schedules and calculations if that were to change and we're talking about MBA's here, not anybody with technical prowess.
Wind isn't useless in and of itself, but how it's used isn't very good. There needs to be a good match between the realities of wind generation and usage. The Grid isn't smart enough at this point to cope with such a wide range of variability. The cure thus far as been to take wind generation offline when there's an oversupply. That really bites since that potential energy goes unrealized.
"A single big nuke looks expensive, but per kWh it's much more favourable than Gas or Coal."
Tufton Street (NetZeroWatch et al) and their supporters in this comments section do not understand kW vs kWh or MW vs MWh so please don't use facts/units such as those as they are too thick to grasp them.
Tufton Street (NetZeroWatch et al) and their supporters in this comments section do not understand kW vs kWh or MW vs MWh so please don't use facts/units such as those as they are too thick to grasp them.
Says the person who's too thick to understand the diference between capacity & load factors. And is so thick that they think a Level 0 event at a nuclear plant means it's about to blow up. But the units are important, and frequently used to misinform, generally by the thick 'renewables' supporters.
So power, or 1W=1 Joule per second. Energy is also 1J/s, but for electricty, more usually refers to kWh or MWh. Gas & coal are usually cheaper per MWh, and especially cheaper than variable generators like wind or solar. Favorable depends on the eye of the beholder. Today, wind is producing an average of 2.2GW, from 30GW of installed wind capacity, or 7.3% capacity factor. A 1GW NPP can produce 1GW all day, every day so is far more predictable and dependable for producing both energy and power than wind can ever be.
"So you're saying we should trust a govt that has been wrong on pretty much every infrastructure project to date?"
Politicians get sold a bill of goods all of the time by a slick presentation from a company looking to score a fat government contract. I think it would be worth the time to send out some of these projects in a standardized format to be peer reviewed. Like him or hate him, Thunderf00t's busting videos do have an explanation why, from a science standpoint, that something is completely useless. A proposed project would have to state goals, timelines, costs, returns for that cost, etc. A counter to the proposal would be required to show how it won't return value for money (in a standardized format). Anything with ad hominem attacks against a person or company would hit the waste bin. Arguments against would also need to include a solution even if the solution is a fanciful rewrite of physical laws. Obviously, there's no way to suggest an improvement to a perpetual motion machine or show value for money as, being impossible, it has no value. As above, if 30MW of installed wind turbines has an average under 10MW, calculations using the 30MW figure aren't valid if they are used to justify a monetary return.
What is needed is a way to debunk the most egregious claims of value before a project goes forward and tax money is wasted while at the same time, getting more useful ideas suggested even when they aren't coming from large politically connected companies. Case in point, California's HSR to nowhere. The entire premise makes no sense and an alternative was already sitting there, upgrade the tracks of the existing passenger line for higher speeds and dedicated to passenger train use primarily, find a route to connect the main Los Angeles terminal to where the central rail line operates (there are freight lines already) and do some work to eliminate level crossings with over/under passes. The current service from Bakersfield to Emeryville averages 46mph, certainly that can be improved to 70mph for less than $100bn. More frequent trains on a station skipping schedule could go even faster. Anybody that needs to get between those points faster still has the option of flying with over 40 flights per day.
"A 1GW NPP can produce 1GW all day, every day so is far more predictable and dependable for producing both energy and power than wind can ever be."
For a lot of applications, that reliability makes it possible to create plans that don't need constant updating. Rather than installing wind generation with the intention of hooking it into the grid, there should be plans to use if for something like a desalination plant with the output pumped into a reservoir. While pumped storage is used in a few places, how about gravity storage based on a mass on tracks, on an inclined plane such as the side of a hill/mountain? When power goes in, the mass is winched up. When power is needed, the chocks are released and the mass drives a generator as it descends down. There was a tower crane based concept that was riddled with issues such as wind causing problems with the crane. Something fixed the side of a hill might do better as in strong winds, there isn't a mass dangling on the end of a long cable. There's still the issue of suitable geography, but there isn't the need to have a suitable water supply.
For a lot of applications, that reliability makes it possible to create plans that don't need constant updating. Rather than installing wind generation with the intention of hooking it into the grid, there should be plans to use if for something like a desalination plant with the output pumped into a reservoir.
That challenge is much the same as with 'green' hydrogen. If the energy cost is high, the product's cost will also be high. Some of that depends on the market. So I think in the US, if you had the land, you could build a wind farm, cover the area around the windmills with solar panels, and use the electricity generated how you like. So you could use that to run a desalination plant-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Costs
The energy intensity of seawater desalination has improved: It is now about 3 kWh/m3... ...Desalination costs in 2013 ranged from US$0.45 to US$1.00/m3. More than half of the cost comes directly from energy cost, and since energy prices are very volatile, actual costs can vary substantially
So you could try to make a business case to cover the cost of both desalination plant, and renewables and come up with a cost to produce 1m3 of water. Conveniently, that's 1000l. Even more conveniently (for us in metric land) that's 1000kg, or a metric tonne. Then, again conveniently, 1 Joule the force needed to move 1kg 1m, and the work needed to produce 1W/s. Soo.. you kinda need 1W to move 1l of water 1m*. On top of the energy you've used to create that water, so 1kW/m in addition to the 3kW per tonne.
Then.. there's gravity to overcome, which is a less convenient 9.8m/s, but pretend we've metrificated that and call it 10. So it's now 10kW to lift that tonne 1m against the force of gravity..
While pumped storage is used in a few places, how about gravity storage based on a mass on tracks, on an inclined plane such as the side of a hill/mountain? When power goes in, the mass is winched up. When power is needed, the chocks are released and the mass drives a generator as it descends down.
People are trying this. I saw one recently that proposed using an old mine shaft to drop a weight. Winch it up when energy is cheap, drop it when when it's expensive and hope to make money. Except to create any decent amount of energy, ie say, 1MWh you need a very large weight and/or a very long drop. Especially when you also factor in energy losses due to the efficiency of whatever you're using to pump water or lift the mass vs the energy recovered when you drop the weight. Which is what generall kills these schemes. Promoters tend to gloss over those boring laws of physics.
But it can kinda work, eg the UK's Dinorwig-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
The scheme can supply a maximum power of 1,728 MW (2,317,000 hp) and has a storage capacity of around 9.1 GWh (33 TJ)
and was designed to deal with demand surges, ie everyone making a cuppa when the adverts were on TV. And it works at around 75% effficiency. Problem though is it takes time to refill the storage reservoir, and it was assumed it could use cheaper off-peak electricty.. Which is also where 'renewables' don't help given they may not be generating much electricity for days, and demand patterns are shifting. So instead of turning kettles on, millions of people may want to charge their EVs.. And Dinorwig can only provide that 1.7GW for 6hrs.. Which is the same problem with 'grid scale' batteries. They have to be very very big, and very very expensive or they run flat very quickly. And the UK, and much of Europe has had 'dunkleflaute' for days now, reducing both wind and solar output.
But there's other possiblities, ie tidal power running desalination. Tide times don't suit energy demands, but if the costs could work, might be suitable for running desalination plants. Or there's still nuclear. So they tend to be peak efficiency at full power, so could maybe divert power if/when there's no demand. Regulatory decisions still play a part though, eg in the UK currently I can't get a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with an electricity generator directly, but have to get a 'sleeving contract' passing that through a supplier, if electricity touches the grid at all. And then subsidies get added to my costs. Plus there's the risk that if the PPA isn't for 100% of the output, cross-subsidisation may occur, ie I end up with discount electricity subsidised by all the other energy customers. This is something governments are going to have to work out, if SMRs are going to be viable for things like collocated datacentres.
*you see why most of the world prefers metric? Or linguini?
"Then.. there's gravity to overcome, which is a less convenient 9.8m/s, but pretend we've metrificated that and call it 10. So it's now 10kW to lift that tonne 1m against the force of gravity.."
Horses for courses. If there a good area for wind turbines, the choice of how to use/store the energy is dictated by that location. If you don't have any sea water to hand, but you do have a handy hill, a gravity battery can be the better choice. I'm just throwing out some examples, but they are in no way the ideal case or an exhaustive list. In Geysers, CA, they inject treated waste water at some geothermal plants since they ran out of water that was there naturally. That requires pumping the water to the locations from the treatment plants. What if they could do that with wind turbine power and fill a reservoir nearby as a buffer? I have no clue if the eROI works out for that, but somebody figured that using grid power to get water to that location is economical.
I like to throw ideas out to generate ideas on how to use energy that aren't trying to be a complete Silver Bullet substitutions. I see that as one of the biggest problems as why many projects don't move forward. The powers that be will not like it because it isn't a perfect replacement and it's an "unproven technology". In actuality, many of these things are proven but haven't been employed in exactly the same way as the new proposal. The unproven technology argument is a poor one as it stifles innovation. If PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) is theoretically a good fit for a city center, saying that it's unproven and therefore the council is going to add more diesel busses because those are a known entity is being lazy and ignoring that getting rid of diesel busses should be a large part of the goal. Of course, that has to be balanced to prevent pie-in-the-sky projects from being funded and never doing what is promised.
What if they could do that with wind turbine power and fill a reservoir nearby as a buffer? I have no clue if the eROI works out for that, but somebody figured that using grid power to get water to that location is economical.
Like in real estate, it's location, location, location. So for the UK, we don't have many places where we could lop the top off a mountain, dig a lake and build more Dinorwigs. There would be environmental objections, which can be a huge cost. In the US, I keep wondering. So in coal country, there's been a lot of mountain lopping and digging down to extract coal. Could any of those be turned into Dinorwig-style hydro plants? Pollution would be a risk, but if the water was safely contained and recirculated, it could be less of a risk. On which point, researchers looking at water used for fracking around the Marcellus Shale formation may have found massive lithium deposits based on concentrations in some of the well water.
If PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) is theoretically a good fit for a city center, saying that it's unproven and therefore the council is going to add more diesel busses because those are a known entity is being lazy and ignoring that getting rid of diesel busses should be a large part of the goal.
Yep. The Bbc just ran an article on buses in the UK-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clke3g03rljo
And I recognised the good'ol purple #17 from many a journey. Reading was lucky in keeping control of it's buses when many other councils flogged theirs off. But the article discusses the challengs in running a decent service, or trying to set one up from scratch. Where I live currently, the bus services are privatised, and suck.
"Where I live currently, the bus services are privatised, and suck."
It has to be understood that public transportation doesn't have to pay for itself from the fare box. People being able to get to jobs can stimulate the economy and in overbuilt and poorly planned large cities, there isn't the option of people each driving themselves to work/shopping and needing to find parking. When government privatizes something like busses, they probably aren't considering anything beyond the cost to operate the system and what they are collecting in fares. It all looks good on paper with those blinders on, but then the private bus company starts cutting routes and stretching schedules because they DO have to look at money coming and going and make sure that the executives can get their bonuses come December (March, June, September). Even in a dedicated capitalist region, there are things that only make sense as a shared expense spread across everybody. Those that claim they get no benefit are likely no more than whiny Oxygen thieves and have never been shown the indirect ways they ARE getting value returned. Nothing's perfect. There's no bus from where I live that leaves early enough to get me to the nearest train station to catch the first train. The last bus starts off about 20 minutes earlier than the return train. This means I have to drive to the train station and park there. I would never leave my car there overnight as the station is in a rough part of town and the car park is wide open so any overnight journey I might make will be done with the car. 90 degrees to that is another station going north that does have better parking/security, but again, one bus that doesn't line up very well with the train schedules. It's these sorts of issues that never seem to be addressed.
It has to be understood that public transportation doesn't have to pay for itself from the fare box. People being able to get to jobs can stimulate the economy and in overbuilt and poorly planned large cities, there isn't the option of people each driving themselves to work/shopping and needing to find parking. When government privatizes something like busses, they probably aren't considering anything beyond the cost to operate the system and what they are collecting in fares. It all looks good on paper with those blinders on, but then the private bus company starts cutting routes and stretching schedules because they DO have to look at money
Exactly. Situation was complicated in the UK by allowing competition, rather than privatisation. So bus competition was opened up, private companies came in and ran buses on the most profitable routes starving council run services of cash. Then when councill services were squeezed out, private operators started increasing fares and cutting services. Reading somehow managed to survive this. It's also somewhat fortunate in it's design with a fairly compact town centre close to the train station, so runs a hub & spoke with bus stops in a short walking distance for many residents. Traffic congestion is pretty bad, but the buses take a lot of pressure off. I had a car, but rarely needed to use it unless I needed to go out of town.
But like with energy, it's also a lack of joined up thinking. Planning rules were changed so offices weren't allowed a parking space per employee, and same with housing developments so fewer parking spaces than properties. Fine if properties have off-road parking, but a lot of houses don't. So then that increases off-road parking and congestion again, as well as making ideas like EV charging impossible or impractical. At least Reading has the ability to add or alter bus routes. It's all well and good for government to make this grand decisions to 'encourage use of public transport', but not if that public transport doesn't exist.
"Then when councill services were squeezed out,"
I'd argue that these services were not squeezed out. The old national bus company was actively being killed from within.
I live out in the sticks and we had a regular bus service that was council subsidised due to very low ridership. Often the bus would go past my house empty or with 1 person on board. It probably would be cheaper and less environmentally damaging to have a ride on demand minibus service to the two nearest towns.
@Jason Hindle
"The right tried to undermine green energy by ignoring it for decades. Capitalism found a way. Green business is now big business, and big business bites back when threatened."
By capitalism I assume you really dont mean free markets as the gov wouldnt need to step in if it was worth doing. Instead the gov has stepped in with a lot of tax payer capital to throw at 'green' business and even then added regulations and tax to further subsidise some truly terrible projects. I hear Drax is currently planning to make 'green' ships that run on burning wood so they can transport more wood for burning.
I hoped you were joking but no, Drax are planning wood fired ships to send wood pellets to Japan.
I'm frowned upon as I have a log burner which burns wood I harvest from fallen or dead trees (sadly lots of ash dieback where I live) but they can harvest vast areas of North America and get green kickbacks for doing so.
"I'm frowned upon as I have a log burner which burns wood I harvest from fallen or dead trees (sadly lots of ash dieback where I live) but they can harvest vast areas of North America and get green kickbacks for doing so."
I'd really like to get a log burner for my house. The Mulberry tree on my property grows like mad and I have a couple of piles of branches. One pile I built into a wildlife habitat. I could take a few cuttings and plant the vacant lot on one side of me as it looks like the title is so encumbered that it will never be built upon. I'm not going to live long enough to be logging that grove for winter heating, but somebody could. I think my tree does so well as it's rooted deep enough that it gets a good water and nutrient supply from the septic tank. I'm hoping the tank is far enough away that the tree doesn't damage it. When I rinse things like the bird waterer, I do it at the tree so it's supplied right at the base too.
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