Self-driving cars may end gasoline era

Driver-less car [image credit: google.com]

Or they may not. Robotic futures tend not to work out as predicted, but here’s another one, as DW.COM reports.

One likely roadblock is the amount of electricity required to make it feasible. Another one could be public resistance…

By 2025, self-driving cars could lead to a steep decline in fossil fuels – and in personal car ownership. Smart electric vehicles will pick you up, drop you off, and mostly look after themselves. A realistic scenario?

Swedish government spending millions encouraging eating insects

Insect pizza anyone? [image credit: RFE/RL]

It seems nothing – not even a ‘barbecued grasshopper burger’ – is too absurd to promote if it can somehow be related to imaginary climate problems, as Breitbart explains. The Swedes claim it’s the “climate smart” diet.

The Swedish government is showing their commitment to green principles and fighting climate change by spending tax payer money on developing ‘meat’ made out of crickets and mealworms.

Evidence of Solar flares bigger than Carrington event in the past millenium

From Science Nordic:

The Sun regularly, spews out solar flares–violent explosions that hurl enormous amounts of plasma into space, disrupting satellites and causing power failures here on Earth.

But these outbreaks are still small compared with the gigantic eruptions on other stars. These so-called ‘superflares’ can be up to 10,000 times bigger than the largest solar flares from our own sun.

Now new research suggests that our sun might be capable of forming similarly large superflares every 1000 years, and this could have devastating consequences, says lead-author Christoffer Karoff, from the Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Denmark.

“We know that these electrical particles from the Sun destroy the ozone layer. It’s suggested that the major flares that we know of led to a reduction in the ozone layer of five per cent. But no one really knows what will happen at this [superflare] level,” says Karoff.

Fracking would pose no danger to water supplies, new research suggests

Hydraulic fracturing wellhead
[image credit: Joshua Doubek / Wikipedia]

It’s enough to make celebrity anti-fracking protesters choke on their cakes. — H/T Phys.org

Potential future fracking activity in the UK is unlikely to pose a pollution danger to overlying aquifers, new research from a leading academic suggests.

One of the primary concerns of those who oppose the development of shale gas by hydraulic fracturing is that creation of new fractures in the earth could cause fracking fluids to leak into, and contaminate, underground freshwater aquifers.

EU drive for ‘green’ biodiesel has increased emissions, study finds

For how much longer?
[image credit: thecostaricanews.com]

The Telegraph reports that the biodiesel ‘cure’ is about 1.8 times worse than the imagined carbon dioxide ‘disease’. Another own goal by misguided government-supported environmentalists.
H/T GWPF

The use of supposedly ‘green’ biodiesel to hit EU renewable energy targets has actually significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions, a new study finds.

By 2020, continued use of biodiesel derived from vegetable oil will increase total EU transport emissions by almost four per cent compared with using its fossil fuel alternative, according to analysis by Transport & Environment, a green group.

Major New Complaint Submitted To BBC Over Climate Bias

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When it comes to climate matters the BBC’s claims of impartiality crumble to dust.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

A major new and serious complaint has been sent to the Director General of the BBC, regarding the Corporation’s persistent bias in reporting of climate change issues. The complaint is a massive 163 pages long, and is a joint submission from ten complainants. In addition, there are several technical annexes, totalling 125 pages.

Below is the letter sent to the DG:

—————————————————————————————————————————-

22nd April 2016

The Director General
BBC
180 Great Portland Street
London

W1W 5QZ.

Amanda.churchill@bbc.co.uk

Dear Director General,

Complaint of BBC prejudice in covering of climate change and warning of potential judicial review

We enclose a complaint from all of us about persistent partiality in the BBC’s coverage of climate change. From the outset, on the climate question the BBC has tended to reflect only one view – that of the climate science establishment who are promoting a view that man is causing significant global…

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ESA finds a frigid surprise hiding at Venus’ poles

Ultraviolet image of Venus’ clouds [credit: NASA]

Is it the cloud cover or the enormous atmospheric pressure at the surface that makes Venus hot? Whatever, it seems the poles are colder than Earth, and by a wide margin, as Astronomy.com reports. Models based on a ‘greenhouse effect’ weren’t expecting this.

Thanks to a thick layer of cloud cover trapping in heat, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, with temperatures boiling over at 850 degrees Fahrenheit (454 C). But in a study published last week in Nature Physics, the European Space Agency found something surprising at the planet’s poles: temperatures more frigid than anywhere on Earth.

These 7 Predictions From The Original Earth Day Were Way Off | The Daily Caller

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Another crackpot claim was for 200 million climate refugees.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23899195

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

Environmentalists truly believed and predicted that the planet was doomed during the first Earth Day in 1970, unless drastic actions were taken to save it. Humanity never quite got around to that drastic action, but environmentalists still recall the first Earth Day fondly and hold many of the predictions in high regard.
 
So this Earth Day, The Daily Caller News Foundation takes a look at predictions made by environmentalists around the original Earth Day in 1970 to see how they’ve held up.
 
Have any of these dire predictions come true? No, but that hasn’t stopped environmentalists from worrying. From predicting the end of civilization to classic worries about peak oil, here are seven green predictions that were just flat out wrong.

Read the full list here.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/22/7-enviro-predictions-from-earth-day-1970-that-were-just-dead-wrong/

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Nicola Scafetta: High resolution coherence analysis between planetary and climate oscillations

Image credit: NASA

Note from the author: I am sending you my new paper. It has been just published.

Scafetta, N.: High resolution coherence analysis between planetary and climate oscillations.
Advances in Space Research 57, 2121-2135, 2016.
DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2016.02.029

To help access and share the article, there is the following article link, which will provide free access to the article until June 9, 2016.
http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SvYs~6OiTa4q

French government financial support for Hinkley Point could break EU rules

Hinkley Point, Somerset
[image credit: conservativehome.com]

This could be yet another spanner in the works for the tottering nuclear power project that Britain’s political leaders seem so keen on. On the other hand a negative view from Greenpeace of nuclear power is no surprise.
H/T Power Engineering International

Legal opinion commissioned by Greenpeace suggests that any French government financial support to EDF to enable the company to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in the UK would almost certainly be blocked by the European Commission.

The legal viewpoint is that the commission would not agree to government assistance as it would constitute a breach of state aid guidelines.

Ed Hoskins: An ex-pat’s view on the EU and the prospect of #Brexit

Ed Hoskins writes:

I am an ex-pat in France. In spite of the mess its likely to cause me directly I am 100% for Brexit.

The EU has far exceeded the mandate I and many others throughout the UK and Europe gave it from 1975 onwards.

The crazy thing is that the “Common Market” that was sold to the unwitting people of Europe in 1975 was all that needed to maintain peace in Europe.  The European peoples were duped because the real unifying intent of the EU project was never disclosed.

It is overweening and vain political ambition of “ever closer union” that has destroyed that the laudable aim of a real “Common Market”.

Met Office Scarborough, site 99142

Tim writes

Under can’t make it up comes the Met Office adding Scarborough to Datapoint and Swanage vanishing.

Figure 1, photograph ©2013 Copyright Christopher Hall under CC, annotation, the author, same licence.

Hall’s image legend: –

Springhill Lane
Just above the hedge can be seen the top of a World War II pill box. This was sited to give protective cover to the Royal Navy radio station in Sandybed Lane at the foot of the hill. The fenced flat area in the background is Springhill Reservoir opened in 1928 to augment the town’s water supply at a time when new developments were taking place. Water is pumped to here from Irton Waterworks.

Boss of German power group RWE warns of ‘horror scenario’

Bumpy road ahead?[image credit: RWE]

Pursuit of short-sighted energy policies is leading Germany on a dangerous path, as DW.COM reports from the AGM of major company RWE (aka ‘npower’ in the UK). Turning a blind eye to the possibility of future reliance on renewables won’t end well, says the CEO. Will any top politicians listen to the advice?

German power group RWE endures a bruising shareholders’ meeting. Still heavily involved with coal, the energy company has caught the brunt of activists and market changes. But its CEO has fought back, making the case for non-renewable energy sources.

Ocean currents push phytoplankton around the globe faster than thought

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

Evidence here from researchers of shorter oceanic cycles than expected. They say ‘The general message is that all parts of the ocean surface are connected on surprisingly short time scales’, which could be ‘just 10 years’.

#EUref: Remanians are going for the gut

The FUD campaign by Cameron and the Remainians continues. By getting big cheeses from the international stage to talk down Britain’s prospects outside the EU, they hope to undermine the British people’s confidence in their own ability to succeed in the wider world.

The mainstream media operates a complimentary tactic. Ignore or belittle the efforts of ‘the little people’ to make a positive difference to the ‘public’ debate. Downplay their popular movements, disparage their spokesmen and women. Deny them the oxygen of publicity. We’ve seen it all before in the climate wars. Now we’re getting the same thing again in spades with the EU referendum.

Between them, the establishment politicians and the mainstream media are trying to make us believe we can’t succeed with a brexit plan they and their paymasters disapprove of as being against their lobbying interests. They don’t believe in Britain any more, but they do believe in protecting their own financial interests.

From Science Daily

When it comes to forming opinions and making judgments on hot political issues, partisans of both parties don’t let facts get in the way of their decision-making, according to a new Emory University study. The research sheds light on why staunch Democrats and Republicans can hear the same information, but walk away with opposite conclusions.

Gavin Schmidt and Reference Period “Trickery”

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Still hiding the decline. They never learn.

Climate Audit

In the past few weeks, I’ve been re-examining the long-standing dispute over the discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere.  My interest was prompted in part by Gavin Schmidt’s recent attack on a graphic used by John Christy in numerous presentations (see recent discussion here by Judy Curry).   Schmidt made the sort of offensive allegations that he makes far too often:

@curryja use of Christy’s misleading graph instead is the sign of partisan not a scientist. YMMV. tweet;

@curryja Hey, if you think it’s fine to hide uncertainties, error bars & exaggerate differences to make political points, go right ahead.  tweet.

As a result, Curry decided not to use Christy’s graphic in her recent presentation to a congressional committee.  In today’s post, I’ll examine the validity (or lack) of Schmidt’s critique.

Schmidt’s primary dispute, as best as I can understand it, was about…

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British shale oil may be ready to boom

Shale oil in south-east England [credit: BBC]

Surely even Britain can’t mess up an economic opportunity like this?
H/T GWPF

LONDON, April 18 (UPI) — The so-called Gatwick Gusher, a shale basin in the United Kingdom, could add as much as $74 billion to the nation’s economy, a study finds.

New law threatens survival of Polish wind power industry

Not for Poland? [image credit: Wikipedia]

If it gets approved, this looks a lot like an onshore ban in practice if not in name.
H/T PEI

A new bill submitted to Poland’s parliament threatens the very survival of the wind energy industry in the country.

The bill will make it illegal to build wind turbines within 2km of other buildings or forests — a measure campaigners said would rule out 99 per cent of land — and quadruple the rate of tax payable on existing turbines — making most unprofitable.

Time to panic: the world is running out of [fill in the blank]

Empty supermarket shelves before Hurricane Sandy [credit: Wikipedia]

Running out of…sanity? Probably not, but the media has to get its ‘news’ stories from somewhere, as this GWPF report implies.

What explains our insatiable appetite for stories about shortages? Ever since Thomas Malthus warned of imminent food shortages and mass starvation in 1779, the spectre of a Malthusian resource catastrophe has resurfaced among each new generation of pessimists.

Pacific plate quakes

Tim writes,

There have been two signifcant ring of fire earthquakes, in habitable areas during the past day or so. One in Japan, oddly not in a locality used to quakes, as seems so common, cold and raining, mudslides are doing great damage. The other on the coast of Equador.

Both magnitude > 7 death and severe damage.

See http://earthquake-report.com

I’ve previously pointed at geomagnetic correlation. Doesn’t seem present this time.