PM’s “green industrial revolution” plan hits the road — subsidies all round

Image credit: BBC

Of course the assumption behind most of this is that the climate needs ‘saving’ from the demonic trace gas CO2, according to failing climate models anyway. We’ll skip most of the BBC commentary and show the main points of the plan. The expressed aim is ‘to put the UK on track to meet its goal of net zero emissions by 2050’. No sign of the eye-watering costs, in this report at least.
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New cars and vans powered wholly by petrol and diesel will not be sold in the UK from 2030, Boris Johnson has said.

But some hybrids would still be allowed, he confirmed.

It is part of what the prime minister calls a “green industrial revolution” to tackle climate change and create jobs in industries such as nuclear.

Meet ‘The Centre for Climate Repair’

Fine summer weather [image credit: BBC]

This takes climate pretension to a new level. Bizarre.
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WHO WE ARE — The Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge is working in affiliation with Cambridge Zero at the University of Cambridge to safeguard our planet from the disastrous effects of global warming.

We are a cross-disciplinary research institution, aiming to develop and understand the solutions that will safeguard our planet from the disastrous consequences of global warming.
[Talkshop note: their repetition, not ours.]

UK: emission impossible?

Green dreamland

Futile obsession with the trace gas carbon dioxide looks likely to expose the UK government’s so-called climate policies as hopelessly unrealistic, soon enough. Net zero or not zero?
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The UK is on course to reduce its emissions by less than a fifth of what’s needed to meet interim climate change targets, according to data shared exclusively with Sky News.

The think tank Green Alliance says its analysis of current policies shows the longer-term goal of being net zero by 2050 is also in jeopardy.

The government is shortly expected to announce a ten point plan of action on climate change. But Green Alliance says even proposed policies including bringing forward the banning of sales of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars wouldn’t be enough to get the government to even half of its interim reduction target.

Sales of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars are currently due to end in 2040 though the government is considering bringing that forward to 2035 and green groups want them withdrawn by 2030.

Space-based solar power stations research launched by UK Space Agency and government

Credit: IEEE Spectrum

Does this by any chance suggest that wind and solar power may not quite be the wondrous energy future our leaders keep trying to hoodwink the public with? No word on costs so far.
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It is thought that energy could be beamed anywhere on the planet, save for the poles, according to the UK Space Agency.

From an idea first mooted in 1941, the UK has launched research into whether solar power in space could be beamed back to Earth as a sustainable energy source, reports Sky News.

The concept was first thought up by science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov; now the UK Space Agency and UK government are aiming to make the idea a reality.

Space-based solar power (SBSP) stations would capture the solar energy emitted by the sun that never makes it to Earth, and beam it back down using lasers to meet energy demands.

Could Germany be charged with ecocide? – as per German TV film

German Chancellor Merkel surveys an offshore wind site [image credit: evwind.es]

What are the limits on courts telling democratic governments what they can or can’t do? Here the film director’s spotlight is on ‘climate policy’, a recent invention pushed by the UN IPCC. It seems governments are expected to change the weather now, or to prevent it changing – take your pick.
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In award-winning director Andres Veiel’s film “Ecocide,” Germany stands trial at the International Court of Justice for its destructive climate policies.

In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands became the first highest-level domestic court to establish a government’s legal duty to prevent climate change in line with its human rights obligations.

It was a historic ruling, says DW.com.

Along with the Dutch case, initially filed in 2013, there are now hundreds of similar climate justice lawsuits ongoing around the world.

UK to ban sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, say media reports

Not the latest model

They may imagine this will have some sort of effect on the global climate in the long run, but even if it does it will be too small to be worth mentioning. But so-called green ideology must prevail, in the minds of most of today’s political leaders.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to announce next week a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, five years earlier than previously planned, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

Britain had originally planned to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel-powered cars from 2040, as part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and in February Johnson brought this forward to 2035, reports Car and Bike.

Citing unidentified industry and government figures, the FT said Johnson now intended to move the date forward again to 2030 in a speech on environmental policy he is expected to give next week.

Tidal turbine project for Welsh ‘blue energy island’ (population: 11) gets £1.2m funding

Bardsey island

Cost per head: over £100,000. Four of the eleven (2019 data) even reside there in winter, when they should be able to enjoy the output of a turbine each with one to spare, in theory. The island is only one mile long.
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The Welsh island of Ynys Enlli could ditch its dependency on diesel to become the world’s first ‘blue energy island’ thanks to a new tidal energy project, reports the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Nova Innovation has secured an investment of £1.2m from the Welsh government through the European Regional Development Fund for its Enlli project in north Wales.

The installation will generate electricity from the natural ebb and flow of the tide between Ynys Enlli – also known as Bardsey Island – and the mainland of the Llŷn Peninsula.

‘Unstoppable’ global warming claim withdrawn by Scientific Reports journal

Overblown warming claims, arising from climate modellers obsessing over trace gases, may be unstoppable but some measure of reality surfaces briefly here.
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A top scientific journal which claimed that global warming may already be unstoppable has been forced to issue a clarification after being accused of potentially causing “unnecessary despair”, says The GWPF.

Scientific Reports sought to publicise a study by Norwegian scientists with a doom-laden press release headlined: “Ending greenhouse gas emissions may not stop global warming.”

After being strongly criticised by leading British scientists, the journal issued a revised press release which admitted that the prediction was based on a particular computer model and said the results should be tested by “alternative models”.

STEVE may be even less like typical auroras than scientists thought

Image credit: Elfiehall @ Wikipedia

More unexplained goings-on as the solar wind’s charged particles reach Earth’s ionosphere. For the latest photos showing bright green light, see the source article here.
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The purple-and-green, atmospheric light show nicknamed STEVE just got even stranger, says Science News.

STEVE, short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, is a sky glow that appears south of the northern lights (SN: 3/15/18).

STEVE’s main feature is a mauve band of light formed by a stream of plasma flowing westward through the atmosphere — a different phenomenon from the one that gives rise to auroras (SN: 4/30/19).

But STEVE’s purple arc is often accompanied by a “picket fence” of vertical green stripes.

Boris Johnson seeks advice on how to create 2 million green jobs

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

Tree planters required – no experience in climate saving necessary? Government announcement here.
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Investors are keen to create ‘green jobs’ in technologies such as nuclear, hydrogen and carbon capture but they are too expensive to work without subsidy, says The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seeking advice from industry on how to create green jobs in the U.K. as unemployment rose at the quickest pace in a decade.

The government is gathering a green jobs taskforce that seeks to create employment for 2 million by 2030.

Johnson is planning a major speech on how he will spur an industrial revolution in clean-energy technologies, part of a series of initiative leading up to global talks on climate change the U.K. will host next year.

Smart devices to schedule electricity use may prevent blackouts

Image credit: thecount.com

May – or may not? Electricity users will need to be re-educated to show ‘responsibility’, it seems, and to submit to ‘demand side control’ in future. So the power provider may decide when, or which, items of plug-in electrical equipment can or cannot be used in your local area at any given time, or vary its charges, as already happens in some contracts. The idea of having adequate resources of electricity generation is no longer put forward as the desired standard. Into this new set-up they want to bring millions of electric vehicles and abolish domestic gas heating systems, straining credibility.
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Power plants generate electricity and send it into power lines that distribute energy to nodes, or sites, where it can be used, says TechXplore.

But if the electricity load is more than the system’s capacity, transmission can fail, leading to a cascade of failures throughout the electric grid.

This domino effect was responsible for the largest blackout in U.S. history in 2003, which left 55 million Americans and Canadians without power at an estimated cost of $6 billion.

An even larger blackout in 2015 affected 57 million people in Italy.

Wind farms creating ‘new Clearances’ for residents in Scotland

Windfarm objection in Galloway

The suspicion may exist that the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party never seems to win in this sparsely populated region, so is not inclined to much sympathy for its residents when making decisions on the many windfarm applications.
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Residents are moving away from parts of south-west Scotland because they are losing much of the local landscape to wind farm developments, it has been claimed.

Now Trevor and Elaine Procter, who live at Knockvennie, near Dumfries, are urging people to contact local councillors to object to the “tsunami” of planning applications for such developments, reports The National (via Wind Watch).

They have lived in their current home for 12-years, and Trevor said the effect on locals was comparable to the Highland Clearances.

Rolls-Royce to create 6,000 UK jobs to build 16 mini nuclear power stations

SMR transporter

RR has also linked up with American and Czech nuclear firms with a view to developing the international market. Hard to see how the government can get anywhere near its ‘net zero’ electricity targets without this technology. They keep saying ‘build back better’ so here’s an obvious chance to do that, as existing UK nuclear is being retired.
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A consortium led by the engine maker is hoping to secure a further £217m of funding from the government for the project, says Sky News.

A group led by Rolls-Royce has pledged to create 6,000 regional UK jobs within the next five years under plans to build 16 mini nuclear power stations.

The consortium said the jobs would help support the government’s “levelling up” agenda, with up to 80% of the power station components set to be made in factories across the Midlands and the north of England.

These components would then be sent on to existing nuclear sites around the country for rapid assembly.

The plans come at a crucial time for the UK amid rising unemployment caused by the pandemic.

Cloud shapes and formations impact global warming – but we still don’t understand them

Cumulus clouds over the Atlantic Ocean [image credit: Tiago Fioreze @ Wikipedia]

Clouds again: “For 50 years, people have been making climate projections, but all of them have had a false representation of clouds”, says a top atmospheric science professor who served as a lead-author of Chapter 7, “Cloud and Aerosols” for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Despite this glaring deficiency in climate models, governments insist on framing energy policies on the assertion that human ’emissions’ will be the main cause of any observed or future global climate change.
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Above the Atlantic Ocean, puffy white clouds scud across the sky buffeted by invisible trade winds.

They are not ‘particularly big, impressive or extended,” says Dr. Sandrine Bony, a climatologist and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “But they are the most ubiquitous clouds on Earth.”

Clouds are one of the biggest question marks in global climate models, and a wild card in predicting what will happen to the climate as temperatures rise, says Phys.org.

They play a vital role in how much of the sun’s radiation makes it into and gets trapped in our atmosphere.

The more clouds there are, the more radiation bounces off their tops and is reflected back into space; it also means that if there are more clouds, the radiation reflected by Earth gets trapped.

Study puts ‘agriculturally-driven climate change’ on the alarmist menu

Irish farm [image credit: climatenewsnetwork.net]

Get ready to be told what the new rules of food consumption should be, according to climate-obsessed researchers. That seems to be the message being pushed here. All based on the assertion that minor trace gases in the atmosphere are going to dictate what happens to the weather, of course.
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Reducing fossil fuel use is essential to stopping climate change, but that goal will remain out of reach unless global agriculture and eating habits are also transformed, according to new research from the University of Minnesota and University of Oxford.

A paper published Thursday in the journal Science reveals that emissions from global food production alone could lead to a global temperature increase of more than 1.5°C by mid-century and of nearly 2°C by the end of the century, even if emissions from fossil fuels were to end immediately, reports Phys.org.

The study also identifies the need for large and rapid improvements in farming practices, as well as changes in what we eat and in how much food we waste, to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5°C or 2°C.

EU seeks to wipe out ‘planet-warming refrigerants’, but smugglers cash in

Another outbreak of trace gas climate paranoia, with vehicle air conditioning in the firing line this time. But attempts to choke off supplies of supposedly offending refrigerants have created a market for smugglers bringing cheap HFCs from China.
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The EU’s legislation on fluorinated gases, adopted in 2014, needs an overhaul “to increase ambition in line with the European Green Deal” and “better prevent” an ongoing surge of illegal imports coming from China, an EU official told EURACTIV.

Demand for F-gases, a family of chemicals used as a refrigerant, has increased steadily since they were introduced in the early 1990s to replace the ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

But F-gases are also among the most potent greenhouse gases [Talkshop comment: assertion with no supporting evidence, as usual] and are now also being phased out as a result.

Australia constructing giant 300-megawatt battery

Power lines in Victoria, Australia [credit: Wikipedia]

Come the next potential blackout situation, the battery could give Victorians up to an hour to find a way out of trouble. But making the wind blow harder or the sun shine more won’t be among their options, of course.
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Australia is poised to construct one of the world’s largest batteries, using Tesla’s technology for lithium-ion batteries, reports TechXplore.

The football-field sized battery will provide up to 300 megawatts of power output and 450 megawatts-hours of storage in a country that has been struggling to meet energy demands during skyrocketing power usage triggered by record-breaking temperatures.

Last year, Australia suffered its hottest and driest year ever, with temperatures topping 121 degrees Fahrenheit last December.

The battery, known as the Victorian Big Battery Megapack, will be located in the state of Victoria, Australia’s second most populous region.

UK energy plant to use liquid air

Liquid air energy storage: Highview’s 5 MW pre-commercial demonstrator [credit: ModernPowerSystems]

Under the heading ‘Cool air technology for a cooler planet’, the firm behind the scheme says:
‘Our CRYOBattery can deliver anywhere from 20 MW/80 MWh to more than 200 MW/1.2 GWh of energy and can power up to 200,000 homes for a whole day. We do this at half the cost of lithium-ion batteries and release zero emissions in the process.’
The system is intended to run on surplus night-time output from wind farms, but as ever, converting electricity to some form of storage and then back to electricity again is adding yet more costs and complexity to the system.
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Work is beginning on what is thought to be the world’s first major plant to store energy in the form of liquid air, reports BBC News.

It will use surplus electricity from wind farms at night to compress air so hard that it becomes a liquid at -196 Celsius.

Then when there is a peak in demand in a day or a month, the liquid air will be warmed so it expands.

The resulting rush of air will drive a turbine to make electricity, which can be sold back to the grid.

The foul-smelling fuel that could power big ships

Design concept

Another attempt to play the imaginary ‘human-caused climate’ game gets underway. This time it’s ammonia (NH3), a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, used as fuel to appease the legions of carbophobes in power today.
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An enormous engine, the height of three floors, growls loudly at a test centre in Copenhagen.

Nearby a team of engineers supervise it from a control room resembling a ship’s bridge.

Usually such an engine would be propelling a large ship across the sea, but this one is being prepared to take part in a ground-breaking project, says BBC News.

Engineers want to see if they can make it run on liquid ammonia.

Researchers discover a new way to produce hydrogen using microwaves

Some extraordinary claims are being made, or at least suggested, here. The idea of charging a battery in a few seconds, especially a lithium one, using microwaves (not the kitchen version) sounds a bit hairy to say the least.
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A team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has discovered a new method that makes it possible to transform electricity into hydrogen or chemical products solely using microwaves — without cables and without any type of contact with electrodes, reports TechXplore.

This represents a revolution in the field of energy research and a key development for the process of industrial decarbonisation, as well as for the future of the automotive sector and the chemical industry, among many others.

The study has been published in the latest edition of Nature Energy, where the discovery is explained.