UK Says 100% Renewables Won’t Work

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We already knew this, but UK public policy in energy matters tends to prefer ideology to reality.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

A lot of countries (as well as many U.S. states and utilities) are announcing so-called zero-carbon plans, typically with a target year around 2050. These are often reported as calling for 100% renewable energy, which is wrong.

There is a difference between zero-carbon and 100% renewables, but this is often hidden and unclear. In the new UK plan it is still hidden, but once found it is very clear. Renewables provide just 57% of the energy, which is a lot less than 100%. Perhaps most surprising is that nuclear might provide as much as 38% of the energy!

By way of introduction, the plan comes from the government’s own Committee on Climate Change (CCC), in a report titled “Net-Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming.” The CCC is the UK’s top climate action planning group.

The surprising numbers occur in…

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EU court rejects historic citizen’s climate case

Global warming – more tortoise than hare? [image credit: hevria.com]

So ‘historic’ that few have heard of it? ‘There are currently around 1,000 cases brought against governments across the world related to climate change and habitat loss’, reports Phys.org. Good news for lawyers.

The European Court of Justice threw out a landmark case brought by 10 families who sued the European Union over the threats climate change poses to their homes and livelihoods, lawyers said Wednesday.

Lawyers said the ECJ earlier this month dismissed the case on procedural grounds, arguing that individuals do not have the right to challenge the bloc’s environmental plans.

The ruling could have a major impact on future climate litigation, experts said.

Lawyers for the “People’s Climate Case” said they would appeal.

Denver weather: City sees biggest late May snow in 44 years

Credit: ezilon.com

Unusually cold local weather for this time of year, not conforming to supposed warming trends claimed to be due to too many SUVs, power stations etc. Records may fall.

As of 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Denver had officially received 3.4 inches of snow, says CBS4 News.

That’s the most snow measured this late in the season since May 29, 1975 when 5.6 inches hit the city.

In addition to the snow, Denver tied the record low temperature for May 21 when the official thermometer for the city dropped to 31 degrees Tuesday morning. It was previously 31 degrees on this date in 2001 when 1 inch of snow fell.

In terms of high temperatures on Tuesday, they will struggle to reach into the lower 40s again making it the second day in a row with temperatures staying 30 to 35 degrees below normal for the third week in May.

The record “coldest maximum” for May 21 is 40 degrees set 128 years ago in 1891. It’s possible that record could also be challenged.

Full report here.

Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes

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Noctilucent clouds form when molecules from summertime water vapour stick to the microscopic debris of disintegrated meteoroids.

Spaceweather.com

May 21, 2019: Every summer since the late 1970s, radars probing Earth’s upper atmosphere have detected strong echoes from altitudes between 80 km and 90 km. The signals come from noctilucent clouds (NLCs).  NASA’s AIM spacecraft is still waiting to spot the first NLCS of the 2019 season, but the echoes have already begun. Rob Stammes of the Polarlightcenter in Lofoten, Norway, detected them on May 19th and 20th:

“I detected these VHF signals from Eastern Europe,” he explains. “They reflected from the mesosphere back down to my receiver in Norway. The wave patterns were recognizable and very strong.”

Researchers call them “Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes” or “PMSEs.” They occur over the Arctic during the months of May through August, and over the Antarctic during the months of November through February. These are the same months that NLCs appear.

The underlying physics of these echoes is still uncertain.

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Ending Obama’s EPA Climate Deception

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Calling the essential trace gas carbon dioxide a pollutant was always an absurdity.

PA Pundits - International

By Paul Driessen ~

In December 2009, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency issued its Endangerment Finding (EF) – decreeing that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) endanger the health and welfare of Americans. In the process, EPA ignored the incredible economic, health and welfare benefits of fossil fuels – and the fact that (even at just 0.04% of the atmosphere) carbon dioxide is the miracle molecule that enables plants to grow and makes nearly all live on Earth possible.

EPA turned CO2 into a “dangerous pollutant” and ruled that fossil fuels must be eradicated. The agency subsequently used its EF to justify tens of billions of dollars in climate research, anti-fossil fuel regulations, and wind and solar subsidies; President Obama’s signing of the Paris climate treaty; and proposals to spend trillions of dollars a year on Green New Deal (GND) programs.

And yet, despite multiple demands that this…

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UK’s EV growth ‘is severely lagging behind the rest of Europe’

Nissan Leaf electric car on charge [image credit: drive.co.uk]

Oh dear. Bribes not big enough any more? No sign of mass market take-up anyway.

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association says 2018 sales of EVs were more than twice as high in France and Germany than in the UK, says Energy Live News.

That’s the verdict from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), which has published a new report showing the UK sold a total of 15,510 fully electric cars last year, a rate of 13.8% growth on 2017.

However, it highlights that average growth across the continent between the two years was 48.2%, rising to 53.2% among just EU member states.

Growing Iceland, Greenland glaciers make scientists gasp

Seems like the ‘carbon dioxide control knob’ has gone wonky. Alarmists must wonder: how can that be?
H/T CFACT

It appears that Iceland won’t have to be renamed Tepidlandia anytime soon, says Larry Bell.

According to researchers at the University of Iceland, each of the country’s glaciers will expand this year for the first time in the past 25 years.

As reported in Electroverse, the Hofsjökull, Langjökull, Mýrdalsjökull, and Vatnajökull glaciers have expanded over the last twelve months, from autumn to autumn, “With Mýrdalsjökull showing a really significant addition of ice this year.”

These are the largest glaciers in Iceland: Hofsjökull is third largest after Vatnajökull and Langjökull, while Mýrdalsjökull is the country’s fourth largest ice cap.

Climate Hysteria Costs Labor Australian Elections

Wind farm in South Australia [image credit: reneweconomy.com.au]

One national newspaper headline: ‘Climate Hysteria Costs Labor Party ‘unlosable’ Elections’. Many voters seem to have found the notion of ‘fighting climate change’ either unconvincing or irrelevant. Alarmists are shocked and baffled.
H/T The GWPF

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has retained power in the Australian election while Labor’s election strategy to make climate alarmism the key issue has backfired, says The Australian.

Bill Shorten’s Labor Party will finish behind Scott Morrison’s Coalition and the Prime Minister still has a path to a majority government.

Energy-free superfast computing invented by scientists using light pulses

A computer-generated image of Apple’s first Irish data centre [credit: Apple]

Data centres consume a lot of electricity so this could be a big deal if scalable as claimed here.

Superfast data processing using light pulses instead of electricity has been created by scientists, reports Phys.org.

The invention uses magnets to record computer data which consume virtually zero energy, solving the dilemma of how to create faster data processing speeds without the accompanying high energy costs.

Today’s data centre servers consume between 2 to 5% of global electricity consumption, producing heat which in turn requires more power to cool the servers.

The problem is so acute that Microsoft has even submerged hundreds of its data centre services in the ocean in an effort to keep them cool and cut costs.

Guardian Hacks Told To Use Scary Language To Describe Climate Change

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As Guardian climate alarmaholics find less and less to shout about, they decide their best option is to shout louder anyway.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Willie Soon

https://twitter.com/LeoHickman/status/1129322707110236160

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Electric vehicles without power should not be towed to charge points

Towing is not suitable for EVs

All wheels should ideally be off the ground when moving EVs from point to point. But now a diesel rescue van can generate enough of a boost charge to enable stranded drivers to get to the nearest charge point in their own EV – in parts of the UK at least.

In readiness for the UK’s expected electric vehicle boom, the RAC has developed its EV Boost system – the first lightweight mobile EV-charger capable of giving stranded out-of-charge cars a power boost from one of its standard orange roadside rescue vans, says NextGreenCar.

The bespoke solution can be rolled-out to hundreds of patrol vehicles ensuring the RAC can match the scale of demand as electric vehicle ownership grows in the coming years.

Tropical Pacific is major player in global ocean heat transport

The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt – blue = deep cold and saltier water current, red = shallower and warmer current
[credit: NWS / NOAA]

Researchers put forward the idea that the role of the global ocean conveyor belt may be overrated in the grand scheme of ocean dynamics, and offer alternative ideas.

Far from the vast, fixed bodies of water oceanographers thought they were a century ago, oceans today are known to be interconnected, highly influential agents in Earth’s climate system, says Phys.org.

A major turning point in our understanding of ocean circulation came in the early 1980s, when research began to indicate that water flowed between remote regions, a concept later termed the “great ocean conveyor belt.”

The theory holds that warm, shallow water from the South Pacific flows to the Indian and Atlantic oceans, where, upon encountering frigid Arctic water, it cools and sinks to great depth.

This cold water then cycles back to the Pacific, where it reheats and rises to the surface, beginning the cycle again.

Why Phi? – the three planets of the Kepler-47 circumbinary planet system

Kepler-47 system [Image Credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/T. Pyle]

Astronomers have discovered a third planet in the Kepler-47 system, securing the system’s title as the most interesting of the binary-star worlds, says NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration team.

Using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, a team of researchers, led by astronomers at San Diego State University, detected the new Neptune-to-Saturn-size planet orbiting between two previously known planets.

With its three planets orbiting two suns, Kepler-47 is the only known multi-planet circumbinary system. Circumbinary planets are those that orbit two stars.

Continued here.
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Now at the Talkshop let’s take a quick look at the data.

Feel Free To Exhale

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Once more: CO2 is not a pollutant.

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

Global warming campaigners aren’t very good at being green.

There’s their bird and bat chopping wind turbines, lifeless fields covered over by solar panel silicone, and generating electricity by grinding trees into pellets and burning them as “renewable” biomass.

Then there’s their demonization of CO2, the gas you just exhaled.

CO2 is the gas of life.  Plants are green because they use chlorophyll to convert CO2 and water into glucose and oxygen.  That’s where food comes from.

CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen posted a thoughtful meditation on the benefits of CO2 at CFACT.org:

What if manmade CO2 isn’t the villain deep-thinking elites say it is? What if rising levels of atmospheric CO2 are instead fighting the scourge of malnutrition in the world’s poorest regions? A new White Paper, “What Rising CO2 Means for Global Food Security,” published by the CO2 Coalition points out that…

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#Brexit blackmail: EU extorts UK taxpayers by withholding carbon creds from UK industry

Brussels strikes again. The EU commission has decided to withhold the free carbon credits it gives to member states’ industries from the UK ‘until a Brexit withdrawal agreement is ratified’.

A UK government which had any capable negotiators would respond in kind by withholding the much bigger amount in membership fees we are still paying to Brussels every month, despite taxpayers having voted to leave the EU almost three years ago.

Taxpaying voters will get an opportunity on May 23 to let our incompetent government and the Brussels mafia know that they now support the Brexit Party which seeks a mandate to take over negotiations with the EU and leave on WTO terms in the meantime.

Mighty Greenland glacier slams on brakes

Jakobshavn glacier, West Greenland [image credit: Wikipedia]

Even the climate alarm oriented BBC has finally had to admit the inconvenient truth about Greenland’s largest glacier. Instead of dropping in height by 20m. a year, it’s now thickening by 20m. a year. This isn’t supposed to happen when one of the stock phrases of the fearmongering media is ‘the rapidly melting Arctic’. Of course logic says that since glaciers can grow naturally they can also retreat naturally, despite attempts to blame humans.

European satellites have detailed the abrupt change in behaviour of one of Greenland’s most important glaciers, says BBC News.

In the 2000s, Jakobshavn Isbrae was the fastest flowing ice stream on the island, travelling at 17km a year.

As it sped to the ocean, its front end also retreated and thinned, dropping in height by as much as 20m year.

But now it’s all change. Jakobshavn is travelling much more slowly, and its trunk has even begun to thicken and lengthen.

‘My smart meter is driving me mad’

‘Smart’ meter [image credit: heartland.org]

The UK ‘smart’ meter roll-out fiasco rumbles on in its usual amateurish fashion. Pretending it has something to do with the climate is just window dressing.

Energy customers are under pressure to install smart meters, but many just don’t function properly, says BBC News.

There are government adverts on TV suggesting they are a small but important step to tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, companies are calling customers to ask them to switch, or telling them that the best deals are only available with a smart meter.

Met chief: ‘Climate protesters caught us out’

The police chief also said that officers seen skateboarding and dancing with activists were “not professional”. And they were getting paid for it. British understatement at its best.

Police must be more assertive in dealing with any future climate change protests in London, Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick accepted today.

The Met Commissioner said Extinction Rebellion, which organised the demonstrations last month, came in “larger numbers than we expected” and used new tactics “well beyond anything we had seen before”, reports the Evening Standard.

Moonquakes rattle the Moon as it shrinks like a raisin

View from the Moon [credit: NASA]

Moons don’t generally ‘shrink’, so what’s going on here? The abstract of the research paper speaks of compressional stresses, but the only potential source of compression would seem to be the Earth. It’s known that ‘the crust on the far side is a lot thicker than it is on the near side’, as discussed here.

The moon is still tectonically active, like Earth, generating moonquakes as our planet creates earthquakes, a new study based on Apollo mission data found.

These moonquakes likely happen because the moon is quivering as it shrinks, researchers added.

On Earth, tectonic activity, such as earthquakes and volcanism, results from shuffling of the crust’s tectonic plates driven by the churning of the planet’s molten interior, says Charles Quoi at Space.com.

However, the moon is much smaller than Earth and therefore largely cooled off long ago, so one might not expect much, if any, tectonic activity.

Chinese UHI study finds 0.34C/century inflation effect on average temperature estimate.

New study published by Springer today makes interesting reading. Phil Jones’ ears will be burning brightly.

Abstract:
Historical temperature records are often partially biased by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. However, the exact magnitude of these biases is an ongoing, controversial scientific question, especially in regions like China where urbanization has greatly increased in recent decades. Previous studies have mainly used statistical information and selected static population targets, or urban areas in a particular year, to classify urban-rural stations and estimate the influence of urbanization on observed warming trends. However, there is a lack of consideration for the dynamic processes of urbanization. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and Pearl River Delta (PRD) are three major urban agglomerations in China which were selected to investigate the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of urban expansion effects on observed warming trends in this study. Based on remote sensing (RS) data, urban area expansion processes were taken into consideration and the relationship between urban expansion rates and warming trends was investigated using data from 975 meteorological stations throughout China.