UK’s Ferrybridge coal plant closes after 50 years

Ferrybridge ‘C’ Power Station
[image credit: Lynne Kirton / Wikipedia]

What exactly is replacing this generating giant? Only a small-scale waste wood burning operation it seems.

One of the UK’s landmark coal-fired power plants will close today after half a century of service. Ferrybridge C in Yorkshire was taken offline last week and will officially shut this afternoon, reports PEI.

Construction of the plant began in 1961 and it started generating electricity on February 27 1966. It became a record-breaking example of coal-fired power.

Rocky ‘super Earth’ exoplanet has one side much hotter than the other

Artist’s view of 55 Cancri e [credit: Wikipedia]

Unusual atmospheric data from this exoplanet: not much heat transfer from the side permanently facing its star to the dark side, giving it a ‘large day–night temperature gradient’.

The orbit period is only 18 hours, as it’s much nearer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun. It may also have ‘an unknown source of heat’, as Phys.org reports.

An international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, has obtained the most detailed ‘fingerprint’ of a rocky planet outside our solar system to date, and found a planet of two halves: one that is almost completely molten, and the other which is almost completely solid.

Europe’s suicidal green energy policies

Expensive heating [image credit: the Guardian]

James Delingpole has some typically harsh words for dogma-driven promoters of heavily subsidised renewable energy.

Europe’s suicidal green energy policies are killing at least 40,000 people a year. [H/T Notrickszone]

That’s just the number estimated to have died in the winter of 2014 because they were unable to afford fuel bills driven artificially high by renewable energy tariffs.

EDF engineers urge delay for Hinkley Point C

Hinkley Point C nuclear site [image credit: BBC]

The Hinkley Point nuclear saga rumbles on. Engineers reckon the design is out-of-date and needs replacing, as PEI reports.

EDF’s engineers have circulated a paper to all executives internally counselling against developing the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project.

The white paper said that the “realistic service date was 2027” due to the size of the project, continuing design modifications to the European Pressurised Reactor system and the “very low” competency of French supplier Areva in making some of the large components.

Scientists find more evidence of a ninth planet in our solar system

The hunt for ‘Planet 9’ [image credit: Caltech]

Still no guarantee that such a planet exists, but the signs seem promising.
H/T Daily Mail Online

Since its discovery at the beginning of this year, the mysterious ‘Planet Nine’ has had scientists looking for the signs that could confirm its existence.

Now, astronomer Mike Brown of Caltech, one of the scientists behind the January announcement, claims he’s found further evidence to support it. The giant hidden planet is thought to sit on the edge of our solar system and is 10 times more massive than the Earth, gaseous, and similar to Uranus or Neptune.

Scientists: no proof polar bears undergoing climate crisis

Dive! [image credit: BBC]

Another manufactured climate scare takes a dive. Faulty science seems to be the issue. Nothing to see here, move along please!
H/T The Daily Caller

A new study by Canadian scientists once again debunks the notion polar bears are currently being harmed by global warming. Researchers with Canada’s Lakehead University found “no evidence” polar bears are currently threatened by warming.

Germany’s Wind Power Meltdown

Repost from Stop These Things

The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance.

The subsidies have been colossal and the impacts on the electricity market chaotic.

Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. Power starved Germans, instead of freezing, grabbed their axes and tramped into their forests to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).

German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are packing up and heading to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and hereand here). And the “green” dream of creating thousands of jobs in the wind industry has turned out to be just that: a dream (see our post here).

Why Phi? – Pluto’s eccentric orbit

Pluto’s non-standard orbit [credit: Wikipedia]

‘Pluto’s orbital period is 248 Earth years. Its orbital characteristics are substantially different from those of the planets, which follow nearly circular orbits around the Sun close to a flat reference plane called the ecliptic. In contrast, Pluto’s orbit is moderately inclined relative to the ecliptic (over 17°) and moderately eccentric (elliptical). This eccentricity means a small region of Pluto’s orbit lies nearer the Sun than Neptune’s.’ – Wikipedia

Researchers find new mechanism to explain the birth of cloud droplets

Cumuliform cloudscape over Swifts Creek, Australia
[image credit: Wikipedia]

Climate modellers know less about cloud formation than they thought they did, according to new research.

There is enough known about cloud formation that replicating its mechanism has become a staple of the school science project scene. But a new study by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) reveals that much more is going on at the microscopic level of cloud formation than previously thought.

How Green Is My Industrial Wind Turbine?

.
.
Industrialising parts of the countryside is never going to do anyone except subsidy harvesters any good.

Climatism

Despite a lifespan of only fifteen years, running at max 30% output, an industrial windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.

Sadly however, such facts that contradict the conventional-climate-wisdom of the day matter little in the ideological, groupthink echo charmer of the great global warming swindle/religion.

60 tonne Coking coal, Steel and cement wind turbine

Because wind power fails when the wind stops blowing, 100% of its capacity has to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuels which run constantly in the background to balance the grid and prevent blackouts when wind power output collapses:

The energy required for a helicopter to de-ice all the blades on a wind farm must outweigh any supposed saving in CO2 by a factor of 100 or more. Notwithstanding that no wind farm has saved a gram of CO…

View original post 263 more words

Study finds decarbonisation numbers don’t add up

Petrochemical industry plant [image credit: Business Korea]

Green dreams are just that and little more, it seems.

The goals set a few months ago in Paris to prevent further rising of worldwide temperatures are almost sure to fail and will never be achieved, according to a new study.

Last December, officials representing more than 190 countries met in Paris to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

A closer look at Kepler’s third law

Kepler’s laws [credit: thesimplephysicist.com]

The Physics Classroom website says:
‘Kepler’s third law provides an accurate description of the period and distance for a planet’s orbits about the sun. Additionally, the same law that describes the T²/R³ ratio for the planets’ orbits about the sun also accurately describes the T²/R³ ratio for any satellite (whether a moon or a man-made satellite) about any planet. There is something much deeper to be found in this T²/R³ ratio – something that must relate to basic fundamental principles of motion.’

But is it really quite simple?

Tasmania turns to diesel power to prevent blackouts

Hydro power in Tasmania [image credit: ABC Rural]

Tasmania has got itself into a power generation mess and has been forced into expensive emergency measures to ‘keep the lights on’, reports PEI. For more background on the policies that led to this situation, see here.

The government of Tasmania believes a decision to use diesel power generation on a temporary basis can prevent power blackouts, despite present and ongoing difficulties with its power infrastructure.

The island’s Basslink subsea cable, a vital interconnection with Australia, has been under repair since breaking in December, while drought has reduced water for its hydroelectric power facilities to record lows.

One-third of AMS members don’t agree with climate change orthodoxy

Credit: NOAA

Reblogged this from Dr Roy Spencer’s website as he no longer accepts comments. Climate consensus mythology exposed once again.

A George Mason University survey of 4,092 members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) on climate change attitudes in the meteorological community has just been released.

It shows fairly general acceptance of the view that climate change is happening, that it is at least partly due to humans, and that we can mitigate it somewhat by our energy policies. Fully 37% of those surveyed (including me) consider themselves “expert” in climate science.

The battle for free speech in science has begun

See you in court [image credit: coindesk.com]

The ‘climate wars’ take another twist with a new legal fund being set up to help counter threats from supporters of ‘official’ climate science, as the GWPF reports.

Galileo Galilei was tried in 1633 for spreading the heretical view that the Earth orbits the sun, convicted by the Roman Catholic Inquisition, and remained under house arrest until his death. Today’s inquisitors seek their quarry’s imprisonment and financial ruin.

As the scientific case for a climate-change catastrophe wanes, proponents of big-ticket climate policies are increasingly focused on punishing dissent from an asserted “consensus” view that the only way to address global warming is to restructure society—how it harnesses and uses energy.

Solar storms trigger Jupiter’s ‘Northern Lights’

Jupiter [image credit: NASA]

Interesting electrical phenomena occurring on Jupiter. When they say things like ‘countless magnetic objects across the galaxy’ they don’t mention that magnetism derives from electricity. The solar wind itself is a stream of charged particles.

Solar storms trigger Jupiter’s intense ‘Northern Lights’ by generating a new X-ray aurora that is eight times brighter than normal and hundreds of times more energetic than Earth’s aurora borealis, finds new UCL-led research using NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. It is the first time that Jupiter’s X-ray aurora has been studied when a giant storm from the Sun has arrived at the planet.

Rolls-Royce angling as medium term solution to UK power crisis

.
.
Could this be the UK’s last chance to be even slightly sensible about electricity generation?

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Rolls-Royce is engaged in discussion with the UK government over the possibility of its expertise being used to develop small modular nuclear reactors as an alternative to larger projects such as the controversial Hinkley Point C plant.
The company argues that the mini reactors it is championing are a more viable medium-term solution to Britain’s looming energy crisis, although the first crop of new large reactors will still need to be deployed.

Rolls says its expertise gained producing power plants for the Royal Navy’s submarines means it’s ideally positioned to fill the gap in the UK’s energy requirement while larger projects are being developed.
Hinkley Point C was initially meant to start generating next year but has been beset with problems linked to design and financing arrangements.
Paul Stein, Rolls’s director of research and technology, said: “Traditional plants are bespoke projects and aren’t getting cheaper…

View original post 214 more words

Statoil to store energy from floating Scottish wind farm in batteries

Floating wind turbine [image credit: greenunivers.com]

No mention of the cost of project Batwind in this report.

Norwegian oil group Statoil said Monday it would store energy from a Scottish floating wind farm on a powerful battery storage system, in a pioneering pilot project. The system’s one megawatt-hour Lithium battery capacity corresponds to that of “more than two million iPhones,” Statoil said in a statement, making it one of the world’s most ambitious projects in the field.

The specialised website Recharge referred to the project as a “potentially game-changing battery storage system” in an industry where storage is a key issue.

Open Letter to Sir John

.
.
Wise words from an experienced politician

Roger Helmer MEP

He stands with the Union Jack.  But is he campaigning for Brussels?

Dear Sir John,

I am sure you will remember the memorable night in Huntingdon — in 1978 I think — when I had the privilege of voting for you as the Conservative Candidate for the Huntingdon Constituency.  I believe we have met once or twice since.

I have just read your piece in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, and it is such a litany of old, tired and discredited clichés, and slogans from years ago, that I really have to take issue with some of your points.

“Reckless to divorce ourselves from the world’s pre-eminent trading block”.  Pre-eminent?  The only major economic area in the world in long term relative decline?  Shouldn’t we be looking outward to the rest of the world (including the Anglosphere and the Commonwealth) where the growth and the opportunities are?  And who said “divorce”? …

View original post 949 more words

EU Renewable Energy Stats

.
.
Renewable generation still within levels which won’t destabilise grids. More than double this 4% figure spells trouble.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

I looked at the EU’s progress in cutting GHG emissions the other day. Let’s now take a closer look at renewable energy stats.

All figures are from the BP Energy Review.

As far as wind power is concerned, the UK sits 7th on the list, with 3.8%.

As for solar, unsurprisingly it is the Mediterranean states leading the way.

Across the EU as a whole, including the seven smaller states not show above, solar/wind power accounted for 4.8% of Primary Energy Consumption in 2014. In the UK, this figure was 4.3%.

Bear this in mind when the renewables industry, greenies and others say we are not pulling our weight.

View original post