German wind farms to be terminated as subsidies run out

The short working life of wind turbines compared to power stations, plus their lack of commercial viability, will likely put the brakes on German renewables expansion according to this GWPF report. Where do used wind farms go to die?

Wind power is the most important component of Germany’s green energy transition.

The end of subsidies for older turbines, however, threatens countless wind farms. By 2023, more than a quarter of Germany’s onshore wind farms may be gone.

Juno finds that Jupiter’s gravitational field is “askew”

Juno probe

There’s nothing like observation for contradicting, or supporting, theory and the Juno probe has already upset a few ideas that scientists had about Jupiter.

Since it established orbit around Jupiter in July of 2016, the Juno mission has been sending back vital information about the gas giant’s atmosphere, magnetic field and weather patterns, as Universe Today reports.

With every passing orbit – known as perijoves, which take place every 53 days – the probe has revealed more interesting things about Jupiter, which scientists will rely on to learn more about its formation and evolution.

During its latest pass, the probe managed to provide the most detailed look to date of the planet’s interior. In so doing, it learned that Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field is askew, with different patterns in its northern and southern hemispheres.

Did a space storm contribute to Auckland’s fuel crisis?

Pipeline corrosion

The technical term for the alleged problem seems to be
stray current corrosion. However in the reported incident the pipeline itself may or may not have been partly to blame, as it was ‘finally damaged by a digger’.

Scientists say the sun may be corroding New Zealand’s pipelines, and might have played a role in Auckland’s recent fuel crisis – but not in the way we might think,
says the NZ Herald.

Geomagnetic storms are a temporary disturbance of the magnetosphere, which surrounds our planet and is formed by the interaction of the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field.

When giant explosions on the sun – or solar flares – send energy, light and high-speed particles into space, the solar wind shock waves typically strike Earth’s magnetic field 24 to 36 hours later.

Coronal mass ejections – eruptions of gas and magnetised material from the sun – similarly have the potential to wreak havoc on satellites and Earth-bound technologies, disrupting radio transmissions and causing transformer blowouts and blackouts.

“We’re vulnerable to these as we’ve become more and more technologically dependent,” said Otago University’s Professor Craig Rodger.

The Great Cnuts of Climate

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Another one in the eye for the tedious prophets of man-made climate doom.

MalagaBay

According to the history books Cnut the Great became King of England in 1016 AD.

Cnut the Great (c. 995 – 1035), also known as Canute – whose father was Sweyn Forkbeard (which gave him the patronym Sweynsson, Old Norse: Sveinsson) – was King of Denmark, England and Norway; together often referred to as the North Sea Empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great

Cnut the Great is famously remembered for knowing he had no control over the elements.

The story of King Canute and the tide is an apocryphal anecdote illustrating the piety or humility of King Canute the Great, recorded in the 12th century by Henry of Huntingdon.

In the story, Canute demonstrates to his flattering courtiers that he has no control over the elements (the incoming tide), explaining that secular power is vain compared to the supreme power of God.

The episode is frequently alluded to in contexts where the futility of…

View original post 714 more words

Rupert Darwall’s Green Tyranny

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Darwall takes an in-depth look at some of the political machinations behind so-called ‘climate change’.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06Y3LR2JV/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Rupert Darwall’s new book is now out on Amazon. Here is the summary:

Climate change was political long before Al Gore first started talking about it. In the 1970s, the Swedish Social Democrats used global warming to get political support for building a string of nuclear power stations. It was the second phase of their war on coal, which began with the acid rain scare and the first big UN environment conference in Stockholm in 1969.
Acid rain swept all before it. America held out for as long as Ronald Reagan was in the White House, but capitulated under his successor. Like global warming, acid rain had the vocal support of the scientific establishment, but the consensus science collapsed just as Congress was passing acid rain cap-and-trade legislation. Rather than tell legislators and the nation the truth, the EPA attacked a lead scientist and suppressed the…

View original post 239 more words

Why Phi? – solar and lunar rotation

This started as a search for a period when the Sun and the Moon would both complete a whole number of rotations.
The result was:
Solar: 25.38 days * 197 = 4999.860 d
Lunar: 27.321662 * 183 = 4999.864 d
(data sources: see reference notes at end)

Taking these as equivalent, we have 197-183 = 14 ‘beats’.
197 = 14*14, +1
183 = 13*14, +1
4999.864 / 14 = 357.13314 days
357.13314 days * 45/44 = 365.2498 days
45 * 14 (630) beats = 44 * 14 (616) calendar years, difference = 0.022 day

So the beat period of the two rotations is 44/45ths of a year, i.e. the difference in number of rotations is exactly 1 in that length of time.
630 beats = 616 years (630 – 616 = 14)
616/45 = 13.68888 calendar years = 4999.8663 days
184 lunar sidereal months (rotations) = 4999.864 days

Then something else popped up…

The Phi factor:
‘We recover a 22.14-year cycle of the solar dynamo.’ (2016 paper)
See: Why Phi? – modelling the solar cycle

Solar Hale cycle = ~22.14 years (est. mean)
13.68888 * Phi = 22.149~ years
22.14 / 13.68888 = 1.61737 (99.96% of Phi)
(55/34 = 1.617647)

From the same post:
Jupiter-Saturn axial period (J+S) is 8.456146 years.
That’s when the sum of J and S orbital movement in the conjunction period = 1
13.68888 / 8.456146 = 1.618808
Phi = 1.618034

Conclusion:
This cycle of solar and lunar sidereal rotation (SRC) sits at the mid-point of the Phi²:1 ratio between the J+S axial period and the mean solar Hale cycle, i.e. with a Phi ratio to one and inverse Phi to the other.
SRC = (J+S) * Phi
SRC = Hale / Phi
SRC = Hale – (J+S)
(Mean Hale value is assumed)

In a period of 616 years there are 45 SRC.
The period is 44 * 14 years = 45 SRC = 45 * 14 beats.
SRC * (45/44) = 14 years.

Cross-checks:
Carrington rotations per 616 y = 8249
8249 CR / 45 = 4999.865 days

Synodic months per 616 y = 7619
7619 SM / 45 = 4999.856 days
8249 – 7619 = 630 = 45 * 14

45*183 sidereal months = 8235
8235 – 7619 = 616
8249 CR – 8235 Sid.M = 14
Beat period of CR and Sid.M = 616/14 = 44 years = 45 * (13.6888 / 14)
Every 44 years there will be exactly one less lunar rotation (sidereal month) than the number of Carrington rotations.

8249 CR – 7619 synodic months = 630 = 45 * 14
630 – 616 = 14
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The anomalistic year

The beat period of the tropical month and solar sidereal rotation * 45/44 = the anomalistic year.
(27.321582 * 25.38) / (27.321582 – 25.38) = 357.14265 days
45 * 357.14265 = 16071.419 days
44 * 365.259636 = 16071.423 days

The anomalistic year is the time taken for the Earth to complete one revolution with respect to its apsides. The orbit of the Earth is elliptical; the extreme points, called apsides, are the perihelion, where the Earth is closest to the Sun (January 3 in 2011), and the aphelion, where the Earth is farthest from the Sun (July 4 in 2011). The anomalistic year is usually defined as the time between perihelion passages. Its average duration is 365.259636 days (365 d 6 h 13 min 52.6 s) (at the epoch J2011.0).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year#Sidereal.2C_tropical.2C_and_anomalistic_years
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Data sources

— Carrington Solar Coordinates:
Richard C. Carrington determined the solar rotation rate by watching low-latitude sunspots in the 1850s. He defined a fixed solar coordinate system that rotates in a sidereal frame exactly once every 25.38 days (Carrington, Observations of the Spots on the Sun, 1863, p 221, 244). The synodic rotation rate varies a little during the year because of the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit; the mean synodic value is about 27.2753 days.
http://wso.stanford.edu/words/Coordinates.html

— The standard meridian on the sun is defined to be the meridian that passed through the ascending node of the sun’s equator on 1 January 1854 at 1200 UTC and is calculated for the present day by assuming a uniform sidereal period of rotation of 25.38 days (synodic rotation period of 27.2753 days, Carrington rotation).
http://jgiesen.de/sunrot/index.html

The sidereal month is the time between maximum elevations of a fixed star as seen from the Moon. In 1994-1998, it was 27.321662 days.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/SiderealMonth.html

Climate policy threatens to crash German coalition negotiations

Coalition crisis?

German politics could be reduced to a divisive squabble over ineffective attempts to alter global climate by industrial means, amidst threats of crashing the talks.

Exploratory talks in Berlin over the possible first Jamaican coalition at federal level have so far been quite harmonious, reports the GWPF.

Despite arguments between the Liberal Democrats (FDP) and the Greens over the abolition of the solidarity surcharge (established nearly 30 years ago to rebuild the public infrastructure of the former communist states in East Germany) – overall the discussions seem to be relaxed so far.

This could change on Thursday when there are delicate topics on the agenda: refugees, climate and energy.

Small asteroid or comet ‘visits’ from beyond the solar system

A/2017 U1 may be from beyond our solar system [image credit: Tony873004 / Wikipedia]

This is real, unlike the object in the 1980s spoof ‘It Came From Somewhere Else’, described by one critic as ‘filmed on a shoestring budget, without the shoe and without the string’ – but amusing anyway. “We have been waiting for this day for decades,” said one scientist.

A small, recently discovered asteroid – or perhaps a comet – appears to have originated from outside the solar system, coming from somewhere else in our galaxy, says Phys.org. If so, it would be the first “interstellar object” to be observed and confirmed by astronomers.

This unusual object – for now designated A/2017 U1 – is less than a quarter-mile (400 meters) in diameter and is moving remarkably fast.

Astronomers are urgently working to point telescopes around the world and in space at this notable object. Once these data are obtained and analyzed, astronomers may know more about the origin and possibly the composition of the object.

The BBC’s Green Journalism

Under their cloak of phony impartiality everyone knows, or ought to by now, that the BBC is as partisan as it gets over climate issues. Their web pages are full of stories supporting alarmism week in and week out.

With weary inevitability, the BBC has decided that it is going to issue an apology after a sceptic – Nigel Lawson in this case – was allowed a rare opportunity to state their case on the airwaves, says Andrew Montford. 

This is starting to be something of a ritual for the corporation. Once in a month of Sundays, a dissenting voice will be given a brief airing, an event that will be followed by a screams of outrage from greens and their cronies, a “fact-checking” by some green-minded BBC journalist, a public climb down and an apology for not being ruder to said sceptic on air or for allowing them on in the first place.

Ice sheets may melt rapidly in response to distant volcanoes

This is the finding from a new research paper entitled ‘Enhanced ice sheet melting driven by volcanic eruptions during the last deglaciation.’

Another very recently published paper (‘Very large release of mostly volcanic carbon during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum’) says something similar:
‘The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum [PETM], was a global warming event that occurred about 56 million years ago, and is commonly thought to have been driven primarily by the destabilization of carbon from surface sedimentary reservoirs such as methane hydrates. However, it remains controversial whether such reservoirs were indeed the source of the carbon that drove the warming…[We] identify volcanism associated with the North Atlantic Igneous Province rather than carbon from a surface reservoir, as the main driver of the PETM. This finding implies that climate-driven amplification of organic carbon feedbacks probably played only a minor part in driving the event.’

So two papers saying volcanic ash on the ice, not carbon dioxide in the air, was the main player in PETM deglaciation.
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Volcanic eruptions have been known to cool the global climate, but they can also exacerbate the melting of ice sheets, according to a paper published today in Nature Communications, says Phys.org.

Researchers who analyzed ice cores and meltwater deposits found that ancient eruptions caused immediate and significant melting of the ice sheet that covered much of northern Europe at the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 to 13,000 years ago.

UK Minister pledges to ‘break the deadlock’ on CCS

Image credit: BBC

UK taxpayers are about to face another futile trip into green fantasy land, as top politicians refuse to believe that CCS is not a realistic or affordable technology.

Climate change minister Claire Perry is convening a taskforce next month to deliver carbon capture and storage plants more cost effectively, reorts Utility Week.

Perry told a House of Commons debate on CCS last week that the Cost Challenge Taskforce, which was unveiled in the clean growth strategy, was being constituted ‘rapidly’.

She said that the taskforce aimed to repeat the success of a similar group, which had helped to identify ways of delivering offshore windfarms more cheaply.

WCC4 Rome: Interview with Nils-Axel Morner

Nils-Axel Morner is a remarkable scientist, with 650 peer reviewed papers to his name. Long in experience but still young at heart, his energy and devotion to the scientific method has taken him all over the world studying sea level and geomorphology. A great communicator, he is a natural teacher and revels in the cut and thrust of debate. This ten minute interview covers his views on the 4th World Climate Change Conference in Rome, and touches on some of the issues and challenges in the climate debate (and the lack of it hitherto).

Study may explain counterintuitive effect of why hotter systems can cool more quickly

Good luck grappling with this longstanding physics conundrum. Even the meaning of ‘faster’ in this context could be open to question. For example there’s rate of heat loss, then there’s total time taken.

Ever since the days of Aristotle, people have made the counterintuitive observation that hot water sometimes freezes faster than cold water, says Phys.org.

In modern times, the observation has been named the Mpemba effect after Erasto Mpemba, an elementary school student living in what is now Tanzania in the early ’60s. When making ice cream, Mpemba observed that using warmer milk causes the ice cream to freeze faster than when using colder milk.

WCC4 Rome: Interview with Nikolov and Zeller

I got back from Rome last night following the highly successful World Climate Conference. Quite a number of CO2 sceptics gave presentations, which were politely received and discussed by all present. We even made a few converts. Here’s a short interview I made with Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller where they give their impressions and some insight into their paradigm shifting discovery of the temperature-pressure relationship which holds good across the entire solar system.

Ned and Karl’s two papers are here:

New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse
Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model

On the average temperature of airless spherical bodies and the magnitude of Earth’s atmospheric thermal effect

They show that the uplift in temperature on Earth’s surface due to the presence of the atmosphere is not 33K as the current greenhouse theory states but 90K, and is due to atmospheric pressure at the surface, not the back radiation from ‘greenhouse gases’.

We’ve been following Ned and Karl’s work since 2010 here at the Talkshop. They are finally getting heard in a wider forum.

All electric vehicle chargers sold in the UK to be ‘smart’ under government plans

Waiting for a recharge

One day the loss of fuel taxes will have to be addressed if electric cars are to become compulsory (after 2032 in Scotland, 2040 in England). Automatic pay-per-mile road tolls could be an option, probably still a long way off.

All electric vehicle (EV) charge points sold in the UK will have to be ‘smart’ and able to interact with the grid to help manage the increased demand for electricity expected to arrive alongside higher take-up, says Clean Energy News.

The Department for Transport yesterday published its intended Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, setting out broad stroke proposals for how the government will seek to increase the access and availability of charge points for electric cars.

The document also confirmed powers to make it compulsory for motorway services and large petrol retailers to install charge points for electric cars, as well as ensuring access to live data of the location and availability of charge points.

Climate excuses add up as climate theory fails

Credit: sciencedaily.com

Finding a measure of climate that can be successfully used to stir up public anxiety and fear is getting tougher for climate alarmists, as rowing back on earlier claims and scenarios – or at least postponing the supposed days of reckoning – becomes the order of the day.

Tony Abbott may have annoyed the climate change mob with his speech in London, but a far more serious problem for that industry is an admission that global temperatures have not been following climate models, says Climate Change Dispatch.

Besides the two papers making that admission, including one in Nature Geoscience, that massive industry also faces the problem of a possible La Niña this year, which will pull global temperatures down.

Selling disaster stories about rising temperatures, the main way the industry justifies itself, is harder if temperatures are falling rather than rising.

NASA’s MAVEN mission finds Mars has a twisted magnetic tail

Mars [image credit: ESA]

Invisible goings-on at Mars. Having referred to ‘the magnetotail found at Venus, a planet with no magnetic field of its own’, it seems clear that such things must have a lot to do with the electro-magnetic forces being delivered in the solar wind, as this ScienceDaily report explains.

Mars has an invisible magnetic “tail” that is twisted by interaction with the solar wind, according to new research using data from NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft.

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) spacecraft is in orbit around Mars gathering data on how the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere and water, transforming from a world that could have supported life billions of years ago into a cold and inhospitable place today.

The process that creates the twisted tail could also allow some of Mars’ already thin atmosphere to escape to space, according to the research team.

Green energy campaigners may kill the world’s biggest science project

Credit: ITER

A rosy picture of cheap renewables is put forward by Bloomberg, but they rely on ‘promises’ and ignore the true logistics of plastering the world with their Hollywood-style vision of wind turbines, solar panels and industrial-scale batteries. The extravagant claim is made that ‘the concept of the need for baseload generation is fading away’. How’s that going in Australia for example?
H/T The GWPF

The world’s biggest scientific experiment is on course to become the most expensive source of surplus power. 

With wind-farm campaigners starting to promise subsidy-free power by 2025 and electricity demand in Europe stagnating, the future of fusion research looks bleak.

UK grid power balance to get support from 10MW battery

Image credit: energy-storage.news

As the advance of subsidised renewables makes new gas or coal fired power stations ever less economic to build and operate, one of the supposed answers to the artificially created reliability problem is to add batteries to help ‘balance’ the grid. Of course this will also be expensive, and only marginally useful as batteries don’t generate their own power, but that’s just an issue for bill-paying consumers in the privatised UK energy system.

A battery installation at a UK biomass power plant is making news this month says TechXplore . Supporters call it an important recognition of the “enormous potential for battery solutions” in the UK.

The company is E.ON. The challenge, as they attempt to meet it, is doing their bit to balance the grid.

World’s first floating windfarm opens

Image credit: Statoil

They’re only tethered to the sea floor, but you still wouldn’t want to bump into one. The five turbines are 253 metres tall (of which 78m. submerged) and 720-1,600 metres apart, about 25 km.(15 miles) offshore. Will they throw the towel in if one floats away – or sinks?

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has officially opened the 30 MW Hywind Scotland windfarm today (18 October), which is situated 25 kilometres off the coast of Aberdeenshire, and being operated by Statoil in partnership with Masdar reports Utility Week.

“This marks an exciting development for renewable energy in Scotland,” said Sturgeon. “Our support for floating offshore wind is testament to this government’s commitment to the development of this technology and, coupled with Statoil’s Battery Storage Project, Batwind, puts us at the forefront of this global race and positions Scotland as a world centre for energy innovation.”

Statoil’s executive vice president of new energy solutions, Irene Rummelhoff, said Hywind can be used for water depths up to 800 metres and will be able to open areas “that so far have been inaccessible for offshore wind”.