‘CO2 levels’ and your ‘carbon footprint’ — NOT the problem you’ve been told

CO2 is not pollution

Irrational fears about essential carbon dioxide in relation to the Earth’s climate have long since degenerated into superstition or old wives’ tales, for which we’re all paying the price, as discussed here.
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Last year a student at a nearby university complained she couldn’t focus in class; she was convinced high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) were the cause, says Dan Nevert @ CFACT.

The entire building was immediately evacuated and tested for “toxic levels of this dangerous gas.” After determining the CO2 levels were less than 500 parts-per-million (ppm), the classroom air was considered “safe” and classes again resumed.

Recently, this same school advertised that you can now “offset carbon emissions from previously completed university-funded ground-transportation and air travel trips” — by filling out a “travel carbon offsets” form, available in their “Sustainability Office.” Plus, this school is offering a course on “how to lower your carbon footprint.”

Near-zero emissions diesel engine technology is here

The focus here is on heavy duty engines. Of course they have to claim that carbon dioxide, vital to plants and vegetation, is a ‘pollutant’ but this is from the crazy side of today’s climate-obsessed world.
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Southwest Research Institute engineers have developed the next generation of clean diesel engine technology to reduce hazardous nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide emissions while minimizing fuel consumption, says Green Car Congress.

Working with regulatory agencies, vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, SwRI combined engine modifications with integrated aftertreatment technology and control strategies to reach near-zero emissions levels (0.02 g/hp-hr NOx emissions).

SwRI developed the technology for the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The work is described in a pair of SAE Technical Papers.

The induced magnetosphere of Mars

It now seems all planetary bodies can have magnetospheres, whether or not they have a significant magnetic field. This would also help to explain why Venus, with hardly any ‘protective’ magnetic field, has a much thicker atmosphere than Earth. Wikipedia might need an update.
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Five years after NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars, data from the mission has led to the creation of a map of electric current systems in the Martian atmosphere, reports Phys.org.

“These currents play a fundamental role in the atmospheric loss that transformed Mars from a world that could have supported life into an inhospitable desert,” said experimental physicist Robin Ramstad of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

“We are now currently working on using the currents to determine the precise amount of energy that is drawn from the solar wind and powers atmospheric escape.” Ramstad is lead author of a paper on this research published May 25 in Nature Astronomy.

Your 2030 electric vehicle is parked on the bottom of the ocean

Typical electric car set-up

For the vast majority of today’s car buyers it’s welcome to stay there, judging by the puny sales figures.

Materials required for the emerging global electric vehicle industry can be found in abundance on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and Mexico, says DW.com.

In a region called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), on the seafloor at depths between 4 and 5.5 kilometers, an estimated 21 billion metric tons of “polymetallic nodules” wait to be picked up by mining robots.

The nodules have been estimated to contain 6 billion tons of manganese, 270 million tons of nickel, 230 million tons of copper and 50 million tons of cobalt.

Weaknesses Of Wind And Solar: When Science And Reality Clash – Part 2

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If you’re in a country spending fortunes on erratic renewables you won’t enjoy these engineering-based conclusions about them.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Terigi Ciccone~

In Part One we established a Rule of Thumb for electrical engineering which states: All Solar and Wind Power on an Electric Grid Must Be Backed Up With an Equal or Greater Amount of Fossil Fuel Power Running on Standby 100% OF The Time.

There are those who claim that one day these intermittent sources will be backed up by batteries, which is the claim of the solar plant to be built in the Mohave Desert 30 miles NE of Las Vegas. In a future article we will explain with simple arithmetic why this can never happen at any affordable costs based on the laws of physics. For now we want to address the claims that have lead to the distorted interest in solar and wind power.

Daily academia, the press/media, the CO2 industry, and politicians sound the alarms with headlines screeching:

View original post 1,531 more words

Why astronomers now doubt there is an undiscovered 9th planet in our solar system

Credit: NASA

Looks like game over for the Planet Nine idea. Unavoidable observational biases may be at least partly to blame.
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Planet Nine is a theoretical, undiscovered giant planet in the mysterious far reaches of our solar system, says The Conversation (via Phys.org)

The presence of Planet Nine has been hypothesized to explain everything from the tilt of the sun’s spin axis to the apparent clustering in the orbits of small, icy asteroids beyond Neptune.

But does Planet Nine actually exist?

Solar energy farms could offer second life for electric vehicle batteries, say MIT researchers

Image credit: MIT

Who wants to buy a secondhand EV after reading this? Maybe sellers should have to get a test certificate stating how much life there is left in the battery.
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Modeling study shows battery reuse systems could be profitable for both electric vehicle companies and grid-scale solar operations. — Technology.org reporting.

As electric vehicles rapidly grow in popularity worldwide [Talkshop comment – do they?], there will soon be a wave of used batteries whose performance is no longer sufficient for vehicles that need reliable acceleration and range.

But a new study shows that these batteries could still have a useful and profitable second life as backup storage for grid-scale solar photovoltaic installations, where they could perform for more than a decade in this less demanding role.

EU climate policy means exporting ’emissions’ to other parts of the world

Exporting jobs as well, in pursuit of their ‘climate ambition’ aka fantasy. EU voters should be careful what they wish for.
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The EU has an ambition of being climate neutral in 2050, says Science Daily.

It is hoped that this can be achieved through a green transition in the energy sector and CO2-intensive industries, as well as through altered consumer behavior such as food habits and travel demands among the EU population.

However, should the EU implement its most ambitious decarbonization agenda, while the rest of the world continues with the status quo, non-EU nations will end up emitting more greenhouse gases, thereby significantly offsetting the reductions of EU emissions.

Following Arrhenius on global warming

Svante Arrhenius

The eternal question – was the Arrhenius climate theory erroneous? Still looking for convincing evidence of it, the author concludes.
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But he did change his mind …

This 1912 newspaper article (here) shows that a century ago the worthy citizens of Warkworth were followers of Svante Arrhenius’s new theory that global warming would be caused by mankind’s emissions of greenhouse gases, says Richard Treadgold @ Climate Conversation (NZ).

Forty years earlier Tyndall had identified CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

Arrhenius followed up with newly available data in 1896 and calculated that doubling CO2 would increase temperatures by 5°C or 6°C. In 1906 he reduced it to 4.0°C.

Conservative Council Borrowed £1 Billion From Taxpayers To Bet On British Sunshine

Borrowed from ratepayers, strictly speaking. But there seems to be something rotten here anyway. Are solar farms an ‘investment’ of public money? Even if they are, they have an unfortunate reputation for going bust in some cases.
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A major investigation has revealed how Thurrock Council got into more than £1billion in debt, borrowing the money from around 150 local authorities across the UK, reports The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

But instead of funding council services, the council gambled at least £604million in solar farms located outside of the borough.

Among Thurrock’s rundown council estates and neglected public parks, typical of many towns after a decade of austerity, there is nothing to suggest that over the past three years the local council has borrowed and then invested hundreds of millions of pounds of other councils’ money.

Under the direction of a senior council officer Thurrock borrowed from about 150 local authorities across the UK with little public scrutiny. These loans were not for direct funding of council services, or investing in infrastructure – instead they financed solar farms more than a hundred miles away.

UK court allows Drax gas power station appeal

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

The climate-obsessed BBC frames this as a hard luck story for a charity. But for energy consumers it will be the biggest gas power station in Europe if/when built, providing on-demand power to help replace the many coal-fired plants closed in recent years.
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An environmental charity has lost a High Court challenge against a government decision to approve a new gas-fired power plant, reports BBC News.

ClientEarth had argued the decision did not take enough account of environmental targets at the Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire.

But the judge Mr Justice Holgate, said the targets were outweighed by other “public interest issues” involved.

The charity is now considering an appeal against the decision.

Onboard separation technology set to improve fuel economy

Promotional video:

Regardless of questionable greenhouse climate theories, who wouldn’t want lower fuel consumption rates for their vehicle? ‘Up to 30%’ better economy is mentioned.
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A technology developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory could pave the way for increased fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions as part of an octane-on-demand fuel-delivery system, reports Phys.org.

Designed to work with a car’s existing fuel, the onboard separation technology is the first to use chemistry—not a physical membrane—to separate ethanol-blended gasoline into high- and low-octane fuel components.

An octane-on-demand system can then meter out the appropriate fuel mixture to the engine depending on the power required: lower octane for idling, higher octane for accelerating.

Calls to add ‘climate change’ to Australian death certificates

Tasmanian bush fire, 2013 [image credit: Chuq @ Wikipedia]

Climate alarmists yet again strain credulity to the limit, no doubt hoping to stir up guilt in the populace about energy use.
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Heat-related deaths have been “substantially underreported” on Australia’s national records, according to experts from The Australian National University (ANU).  

Researchers say the amount of deaths attributed to excessive natural heat is at least 50 times more than recorded on death certificates.  

Published in The Lancet Planetary Health, figures show over the past 11 years 340 deaths in Australia were recorded as being due to excessive heat but statistical analysis found 36,765 deaths could have been attributed to heat.

“Climate change is a killer, but we don’t acknowledge it on death certificates,” co-author Dr Arnagretta Hunter, from the ANU Medical School, said.

Swarm probes weakening of Earth’s magnetic field

Credit: NASA

This BBC link includes a video which shows the weakening of the magnetic field over the last 400 years (under ‘Magnetic flip’ sub-heading).
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In an area stretching from Africa to South America, Earth’s magnetic field is gradually weakening, says Phys.org.

This strange behaviour has geophysicists puzzled and is causing technical disturbances in satellites orbiting Earth.

Scientists are using data from ESA’s Swarm constellation to improve our understanding of this area known as the ‘South Atlantic Anomaly.’

The pivot from Covid to climate is starting – Joe Bastardi

Some more inconvenient data and discussion from an experienced and well-known meteorologist. Planting more trees may as he proposes be useful, but so might chopping down fewer of them for biomass burning and wind turbine land clearances.

I believe that as the COVID-19 situation diminishes, a major pivot to man made climate change as the major driver of impending doom will come front and center, says Joe Bastardi.

Perhaps I will be wrong, but the naming of AOC by Joe Biden as an advisor on how to fight climate change, to me, was the first signal this is going to happen.

This is an insensitive tactic, since the misery of Covid-19 is real, immediate, and loaded with great uncertainty. Future generations can opine on the result of the measures taken to combat it. Yet, as I wrote back in March:

Covid-19 and climate false equivalencies

Climate change accused of being deadlier than Covid 19 — Fact check

and the foundation for this was being set for the turn we are seeing now.

Spain seeks to pass new climate law to reach net zero by 2050

It looks as if most European countries intend to learn the hard way that industrial economies can’t run successfully on expensive and intermittent electricity supplies. If their governments are happy to de-industrialise they should say so, then voters working in power-hungry industries would know the score. The price of climate superstition could be high for a lot of people.
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Spain has announced it is seeking to pass a new climate law to ensure it can cut its emissions to net zero by 2050, reports Energy Live News.

The draft law proposals would ban all new coal, oil and gas projects with immediate effect in order to rapidly reduce Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth before 2030, relative to 1990 levels, as well as increase the renewable share of the country’s energy mix from around 50% to 70% by this time.

Why Phi? – resonances of exoplanets LHS 1140 b and c

Wikipedia says:
LHS 1140 is a red dwarf in the constellation of Cetus…The star is over 5 billion years old and has 15% of the mass of the Sun. LHS 1140’s rotational period is 130 days…LHS 1140 is known to have two confirmed rocky planets orbiting it, and a third candidate planet not yet confirmed.

Planet b was in the media spotlight in 2017:
LHS 1140b: Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Found Orbiting Nearby Red Dwarf – Sci-News.

“This is the most exciting exoplanet I’ve seen in the past decade,” said Dr. Jason Dittmann, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lead author of the Nature paper.
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“The LHS 1140 system might prove to be an even more important target for the future characterization of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1,” concluded co-authors Dr. Xavier Delfosse and Dr. Xavier Bonfils, both at the CNRS and IPAG in Grenoble, France.

Planet Of The Greens

Standard green response to criticism: ‘Shoot the messenger!’ They like to travel around the world telling people it’s a bad idea to travel around so much, due to some flaky climate theory.
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Attempts by eco-activists to censor and shut down Planet of the Humans reveals the green movement’s authoritarian nature that turns most aggressively on its own apostates.

Jeff Gibbs’ and Michael Moore’s new film, Planet of the Humans has been watched more than eight million times, says The GWPF.

It has cast doubt on the green movement’s claims to be concerned with the environment and questions the motivations and integrity of its leaders and backers.

In reply, environmental activists have attacked Moore and Gibbs, and called for their film to be censored.

Gravitricity to launch trial energy storage project in Scotland

Coal mine shaft and winding tower [image credit: Andy Dingley @ Wikipedia]

Like pumped hydro or any gravity-based system it uses more power than it stores. Euan Mearns and Roger Andrews did an interesting analysis on this idea in 2018, comparing it to batteries and hydro. One issue is finding enough suitable disused mine shafts that aren’t flooded. At least heavy weights don’t degrade over time, unlike batteries.
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The pilot project aims to demonstrate the firm’s technology, which works by using excess electricity to lift 12,000 tonnes of weights in a deep shaft and releasing them at a later time to generate energy, says Energy Live News.

The trial aims to assess the response speed of energy generation once the weights are released.

Charles Moore: Lockdown is showing us the misery that Net Zero will demand

Nairobi traffic

The problem, as climate alarmists see it, is of course that ’emissions will rebound’ when something like normal economic activity eventually resumes. The author says: “And why will economies recover? Because growth is a function of activity, and activity is made possible by energy, and globally energy remains about 85 per cent dependent on fossil fuels.” Leaving the usual conundrum for CO2 demonisers of how to strangle fossil fuel use without strangling the modern economies we rely on, and/or imposing yet more restrictions on citizens but this time using climate as the excuse.
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Eco-politics succeeds only with voters who feel guilty about being rich. Covid-19 will put paid to that, says Charles Moore via The GWPF.

Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s evangelically green environment analyst, recently wrote this on his employer’s website:
“I’ve just had a light bulb moment. The feisty little wren chirping loudly in the matted ivy outside my back door is telling us something important about global climate change. That’s because, intertwined with the melodious notes of a robin, I can actually hear its song clearly. Normally, both birds are muffled by the insistent rumble of traffic, but the din has been all but extinguished in the peace of lockdown.”