UK Domestic energy prices skyrocket at five times the rate of the RPI since year 2000

A shocking statistic, when you consider wage increases for many low income families have been below inflation for most of this time. The Government report on fuel poverty needs to be read with this graph in mind. H/T the Carbon Brief.

Peter Gleick: This may be the stupidest of your many stupid #climate posts

Earlier today, I spotted the wailing and gnashing of teeth beginning over the fact that the airborne fraction of co2 is about to pass 400 parts per million – 0.04% of the atmosphere. Peter Gleick was one of the protagonists.

So I tweeted this response:

The mystery of the vanishing cheap power source

20 years ago, I met two bright British engineers who had developed a superb piece of engineering technology. The setup was in two units about the size of steel lorry containers. One contained a fairly stock steam turbine and generator set, capable of producing around a Megawatt. The other unit contained their invention. It consisted of a chain-link conveyor belt made from high quality chrome-vanadium steel, which ran through a chamber from which air was excluded. In this chamber, waste materials such as old car tyres were heated to very high temperatures without burning, due to the lack of oxygen.

Through the process of pyrolysis, the tyres would be reduced to their constituents, and the volatile combustible gases were transferred to a second chamber where they were combusted under very carefully controlled conditions. This enabled the combustion process to be very efficient.  The heat generated by the combustion was then run round the first chamber, generating the heat needed to perform the pyrolysis process on the following tyres, and from there to a heat exchanger where steam was developed to power the turbine, and spin the generating set to produce electricity.

Professor Roger Pielke Jr Snaps Marcott et al Hockeystick

Hats off to Prof. Roger Pileke Jr, who has followed Steve McIntyre’s lead in standing up for science in the face of continued lies and scientific fraud. Here are some highlights from the post linked above:

In 1991 the National Research Council proposed what has come to be a widely accepted definition of misconduct in science:
Misconduct in science is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism, in proposing, performing, or reporting research. Misconduct in science does not include errors of judgment; errors in the recording, selection, or analysis of data; differences in opinions involving the interpretation of data; or misconduct unrelated to the research process.
Arguments over data and methods are the lifeblood of science, and are not instances of misconduct.

However, here I document the gross misrepresentation of the findings of a recent scientific paper via press release which appears to skirt awfully close to crossing the line into research misconduct, as defined by the NRC. I recommend steps to fix this mess, saving face for all involved, and a chance for this small part of the climate community to take a step back toward unambiguous scientific integrity.

Quote of the week: Eurocrat Martin Schulz on Britain’s place in Europe

This one made me laugh. He’s probably right so far as it goes, if it were to be one of the failed main parties sorting out the mess. However, Mr Schulz little world, constrained and demarcated by red tape and rules as it is, could be in for a seismic shift if the political tide turns in the UK and ordinary folk get a say in the matter, like they’ve been promised on more than one occasion. Ordinary folk in the UK are a little freer than mainstream politicos with the old anglo-Saxon and might take exception to what Mr Schulz is telling them…

Any attempt by the UK government to repatriate powers to Westminster is likely to be a drawn out and cumbersome negotiation.

Christopher Booker: It’s Payback Time for Britain’s Insane Energy Policy

Another stinging column from Christopher Booker in the Telegraph, summarising several of the stories published recently at the Talkshop around taxation, energy policy, and the failure of a generation of politicians to get real about the needs of the British people who pay their comfortable salaries.

Christopher Booker: It’s Payback Time For Britain’s Insane Energy Policy
23/03/13 Christopher Booker, The Daily Telegraph

Drax powerstation, generating 7% of Britains needs, is being forced to convert to imported woodchips.

An obsession with CO2 has left us dangerously short of power as coal-powered stations are forced to close

As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us.

The grotesque mishandling of Britain’s energy policy by the politicians of all parties, as they chase their childish chimeras of CO2-induced global warming and windmills, has been arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history.

Gabfest: Putting down the heretics Soon, Balliunas, Shaviv, Veizer

all.7z 1061565012

cc: ‘The Team’
date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 11:21:57 -0400
from: Gabi Hegerl
subject: Re: POLL ON SOON-BALIUNAS
to: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@virginia.edu>, Tom Crowley

I have seen Balliunas give a talk quite a long while ago, unfortunately, I

cannot recall what the meeting was, it was some kind of global change meeting,

more than 5 years ago.

I do recall that I was thoroughly unimpressed though. There was not much real

exchange between her and the audience. I remember that Jerry North was there

also, because we exchanged amazement in differences in style of approach between the
detection side of work he and I presented, and her – well lets say

more-qualitative style…

Gabi

At 11:07 AM -0400 8/12/03, Michael E. Mann wrote:

Thanks Tom,
The impact ratings you provided seem to be on a different scale from the ones I’ve seen,
but the relative magnitudes and ordering appear about right (in the ratings I’ve seen,
CR comes in at 0.4!).

Christopher Booker: Eco Madness

Eco Madness

Christopher Booker 09 March 2013

“Sir David King told Radio 4′s Today programme that when the full ‘life cycle’ of the wood chips is factored in, he doubted there would be any real saving in carbon dioxide emissions.”

“Alistair Buchanan, the retiring head of our energy regulator Ofgem, recently warned that our electricity supplies are now running so low and close to ‘danger point’ that we may face major power cuts.”

“The tragedy is that, listening to our politicians such as Ed Davey, the Lib Dem Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, it is only too obvious that they haven’t the faintest idea of what they are talking about.”

There could be no better symbol of the madness of Britain’s energy policy than what is happening at the giant Drax power station in Yorkshire, easily the largest in Britain. Indeed, it is one of the biggest and most efficiently run coal-fired power stations in the world. Its almost 1,000ft-tall flue chimney is the highest in the country, and its 12 monster cooling towers (each taller than St Paul’s Cathedral) dominate the flat countryside of eastern Yorkshire for miles around.

Every day, Drax burns 36,000 tons of coal, brought to its vast site by 140 coal trains every week — and it supplies seven per cent of all the electricity used in Britain. That’s enough to light up a good many of our major cities.

But as a result of a change in Government policy, triggered by EU rules, Drax is about to undergo a major change that would have astonished those who built it in the Seventies and Eighties right next to Selby coalfield, which was then highly productive but has since closed.

As from next month, Drax will embark on a £700 million switch away from burning coal for which it was designed, in order to convert its six colossal boilers to burn millions of tons a year of wood chips instead.

Russell Cook: Al Gore: Arguing for censorship in 1992

Al Gore: Arguing for censorship in 1992  (a blast from the UK media past)
guest post by Russell Cook

When the idea of human-induced global warming cannot stand on its own scientific merits, the critical necessity now – as it always has been – is to marginalize critics in the eyes of the public by any means possible. And to erase any hint that a “consensus” does not actually exist.

Thankfully, the UK Independent sees fit to maintain a current web link to a July 6, 1992 US New Republic “Green Cassandras” article by Gregg Easterbrook. (original scan is at the U. of California San Francisco Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, despite the article not mentioning a single word about tobacco or cigarette smoking).

Most UK Windfarms Release More CO2 Than They Save

From the Sunday Telegraph, an article by Tony Blairs bette noir, Andrew Gilligan:

Writing in the scientific journal Nature, the scientists, Dr Jo Smith, Dr Dali Nayak and Prof Pete Smith, of Aberdeen University, say:

“We contend that wind farms on peatlands will probably not reduce emissions …we suggest that the construction of wind farms on non-degraded peats should always be avoided.”

Dr Nayak told The Telegraph: “Our full paper is not yet published, but we should definitely be worried about this. If the peatland is already degraded, there is no problem. But if it is in good condition, we should avoid it.”

Another peat scientist, Richard Lindsay of the University of East London, said: “If we are concerned about CO2, we shouldn’t be worrying first about the rainforests, we should be worrying about peatlands.

“The world’s peatlands have four times the amount of carbon than all the world’s rainforests. But they are a Cinderella habitat, completely invisible to decision- makers.”