Boilergeddon could topple Germany’s heat pump-loving leaders

Air source heat pump

Does the phrase ‘climate targets’ ring any bells? This article says: ‘Germans are in open revolt against the ‘heat hammer’ – Britain must take note’. All should be aware there are more unwelcome policies like that in the pipeline.
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Ah Germany, land of economic resilience, political consensus, low debt, social compliance, manufacturing prowess, beer gardens and lederhosen.

But for how much longer? – asks Jeremy Warner @ The Telegraph.

Alone among G7 advanced economies, Germany has recently slipped into recession, and hard though it may be to believe, the Government is in some danger of being toppled by, of all things, a mass revolt against heat pumps.

Rocks beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet reveal ‘surprising past’- i.e. natural variation

Thwaites Glacier [image credit: NASA]

Why the surprise? Natural climate cycles are well documented in Earth’s history. Their ‘many glaciers’ turn out to mostly mean the area around Thwaites Glacier (aka the Doomsday Glacier), known to be affected by subglacial volcanoes and other geothermal “hotspots”, which obviously have nothing to do with the current obsession over atmospheric trace gases.
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The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is shrinking, with many glaciers across the region retreating and melting at an alarming rate, claims the British Antarctic Survey @ Phys.org.

However, this was not always the case according to new research published last month (April 28) in The Cryosphere. [Talkshop comment – self-evident].

A team of scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), including two researchers from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), discovered that the ice sheet near Thwaites Glacier was thinner in the last few thousand years than it is today.

This unexpected find shows that glaciers in the region were able to regrow following earlier shrinkage.

Funding appeal: Mike McCulloch needs your help to make interstellar travel possible.

Dr Mike McCulloch has been making truly remarkable discoveries about some of the mysteries of the cosmos over the last two decades. He has answers to fundamental questions such as ‘what causes the force that resists the change in speed and direction of any mass?’, ‘why do observations indicate that the inertial force varies with acceleration in the outer reaches of galaxies?’ and ‘how can we tap into the implicated energy fields to generate propellant-less thrust, and potentially generate electrical energy to power our homes, industries and vehicles?’. His published papers cover the first two of these questions, and touch on the third, although there’s plenty more to be teased out of the implications of his Quantised Inertia theory. The third question is the acid test.

Mike believes science has to have practical, applicable results, and for the last few years, he has been successfully generating those at his lab in Plymouth University, funded by DARPA. He has been getting measurable thrust from purely electrical input. Other collaborating labs have similar results. Exciting times indeed.

But like many scientists who threaten the established and accepted theory in their field, his work has been largely ignored because it falsifies mainstream ‘dark matter’ theory, or dismissed because it ‘must be impossible’. Although he has got measurable results, DARPA funding is ending, and he has no more teaching work to return to at Plymouth University. Mike wants, as far as possible, to keep the ongoing developments of QI publicly accessible, by crowdfunding. He needs our help to fund and equip a new lab, and set up a ‘Horizon Institute’, online initially, to enable the collaboration of academics and citizen scientists. Please read his message below, and then I’ll let you know how you can help.

The Climate War On Food

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Is this really what people want in countries that claim to be democracies?

PA Pundits International

By Craig Rucker ~

Then they came for our food supply.

CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen reports at CFACT.org on “climate czar” John Kerry’s recent pronouncements at a Department of Agriculture summit.

“We can’t get to net-zero,” Kerry said, “we can’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution. So all of us here understand the depths of this mission.”

“Food systems themselves contribute a significant amount of emissions just in the way we do the things we’ve been doing,” he continued. “With a growing population on the planet – we’ve just crossed the threshold of 8 billion fellow citizens around the world – emissions from the food system alone are expected to cause another half a degree of warming by mid-century.”

Bonner fleshes out what Kerry’s words mean in practice:

“Though the Department of Agriculture has yet to elaborate on what…

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Is Green Hydrogen Being Overhyped?

Credit: Scottish Power

Plenty of talk but not very much action, it seems. The author notes that ‘the small size of hydrogen molecules poses safety and greenhouse gas-related risks that must be mitigated’, while most current gas grids can’t cope with more than 20% hydrogen content anyway. Affordability looks at least questionable. Such issues will require years of effort and expense to even attempt to get to grips with.
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The global discourse on addressing climate change, energy transition, and investments is currently dominated by the topic of green hydrogen, says Dr. Cyril Widdershoven @ OilPrice.com.

The media frenzy surrounding the expanding array of projects, subsidy schemes, and international strategies is fueled by the influence of Washington’s IRA plans and the EU’s energy strategic projects.

It appears as if the choice for a post-hydrocarbon world has already been made, with green hydrogen or its derivative, green ammonia, emerging as the favored options. Western parties remain highly optimistic, as large-scale renewable energy initiatives are closely tied to these alternatives.

However, it is crucial to bring realism into the discussion. This aspect should be addressed sooner rather than later.

Lord Frost: Net zero route “inevitably wasteful and damaging”

Leaving aside all discussion of whether ‘the climate’ is under any sort of human control, Lord Frost forecasts national economic pain and asks: where are the viable electricity storage options?
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Lord David Frost, the former Brexit minister has voiced significant concerns regarding the nation’s chosen path towards achieving net zero emissions, reports Energy Live News.

In a speech delivered at the Global Warming Policy Foundation to an audience in Central London last night, Lord Frost expressed doubts about the viability and potential damage associated with the current approach.

Lord Frost said: “I am going to argue that the route we have chosen to deliver net zero is inevitably wasteful and damaging; that it is totally implausible that it will boost growth and much more likely that it will reduce it; that as a result governments are pursuing completely incompatible political and economic objectives, but will not be able to do so forever; that when the crunch comes they may well double down on further economically damaging measures in order to meet the goal; and, therefore, finally, that people like me must prepare for that moment when we will need to try to get onto a more rational path with a rethink of net zero methods and, almost certainly, timetable.”

Deep-sea mining controversy: hotspot teems with mystery animals

Seabed mining

There’s already friction between some of the big car firms and the mining concerns, with the car people backing a moratorium but the miners insisting they wouldn’t be able to produce enough for the EV markets without exploiting the sea bed.
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A vast stretch of ocean floor earmarked for deep sea mining is home to thousands of oddball sea creatures, most of them unknown to science, says BBC News.

They include weird worms, brightly coloured sea cucumbers and corals.

Scientists have put together the first full stocktake of species to help weigh up the risks to biodiversity.

They say more than 5,000 different animals have been found in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean.

The area is a prime contender for the mining of precious metals from the sea bed, which could begin as early as this year.

Claim: Ozone treaty is delaying first ice-free Arctic summer

Sea ice optional? [image credit: BBC]

Why has it taken so long for greenhouse gas obsessives to come up with this, using ‘new climate model simulations’? The Arctic summer sea ice was supposed to be on its last legs at least fifteen years ago. Of course natural variation is ignored or discounted, as usual.
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A 1987 global deal to protect the ozone layer is delaying the first ice-free Arctic summer by up to 15 years, new research shows.

The Montreal Protocol – the first treaty to be ratified by every United Nations country – regulates nearly 100 man-made chemicals called ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), says EurekAlert.

While the main aim was to preserve the ozone layer, ODSs are also potent greenhouse gases, so the deal has slowed global warming.

The new study shows the effects of this include delaying the first ice-free Arctic summer (currently projected to happen the middle of this century) by up to 15 years, depending on future emissions.

Grounded – France bans short-haul flights to cut ‘carbon’ emissions

CO2 is not pollution

France is scared of the vital trace gas carbon dioxide, or so its government leads us to believe.
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France has banned domestic short-haul flights where train alternatives exist, in a bid to cut carbon emissions, reports BBC News.

The law came into force two years after lawmakers had voted to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours.

The ban all but rules out air travel between Paris and cities including Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, while connecting flights are unaffected.

Critics have described the latest measures as “symbolic bans”.

Mud volcano discovered in the Barents Sea

Credit: Norman Einstein @ Wikipedia

An expedition co-leader said the team found thousands of methane seeps. The ocean floor is still very much unexplored territory.
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Scientists from UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, in partnership with REV Ocean, have discovered the second ever mud volcano found within Norwegian waters.

This unusual geological phenomenon was discovered onboard the research vessel Kronprins Haakon with the piloted submersible vehicle ROV Aurora in the Southwestern Barents Sea at the outer part of Bjørnøyrenna (Outer Bear Island Trough).

It lies at approximately 70 nautical miles south of Bear Island and at 400m depth.

“Seeing an underwater mud eruption in real time reminded me how “alive” our planet is,” says Professor Giuliana Panieri, expedition leader and Principal Investigator of the AKMA project.

Clintel Report Blows Lid Off Biased IPCC Report, Permeated With Errors, Bias

But not the end he was thinking of ? [credit: wizbangblog.com]

Each successive report is spun up for political purposes to look more alarming than the last one, with minimal change to any relevant data.
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The IPCC ignored crucial peer-reviewed literature showing that normalized disaster losses have decreased since 1990 and that human mortality due to extreme weather has decreased by more than 95% since 1920, say Marcel Crok and Andy May @ Climate Change Dispatch.

The IPCC, by cherry-picking from the literature, drew the opposite conclusions, claiming increases in damage and mortality due to anthropogenic climate change.

These are two important conclusions of the report The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC, published by the Clintel Foundation.

The 180-page report is – as far as we know – the first serious international ‘assessment’ of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.

Mysterious “Aurora Blobs” Explained

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Earth’s rings ‘are made of electricity–a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet.’ But proton auroras are ‘still mysterious’.

Spaceweather.com

May 15, 2023: Europeans are still trying to wrap their minds around what happened after sunset on April 23, 2023. Everyone knew that a CME was coming; photographers were already outside waiting for auroras. But when the auroras appeared, they were very strange.

“I had never seen anything quite like it,” says Heiko Ulbricht of Saxony, Germany. “The auroras began to tear themselves apart, pulsating as they formed individual blobs that floated high in the sky.”

“It literally took my breath away,” he says. “My pulse was still racing hours later!” The same blobs were sighted in France and Poland, and in Denmark they were caught flashing like a disco strobe light.

Ordinary auroras don’t act like this.

Indeed, “these were not ordinary auroras,” confirms space physicist Toshi Nishimura of Boston University. “They are called ‘proton auroras,’ and they come from Earth’s ring current system.”

Most people don’t…

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Death Of The EV Dream, Er, Nightmare

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American fuels vs. Chinese batteries. Place bets now!

PA Pundits International

By Duggan Flanakin ~

Now that the American Dream has been turned into a nightmare in part by overspending that has led to the highest interest rates in the 21^st Century, it is high time to admit that, as Melanie Mcdonagh writes in The Telegraph, the electric vehicle dream, too, “has turned into a nightmare.”

Mcdonagh, who admits she does not drive, points out many problems, among them the horrific impact when a heavy, quiet-running electric vehicle hits an unsuspecting pedestrian or a cyclist. She also notes that some of these “vehicles” are collecting data on route history and road speed that governments (and corporations) can use for remote surveillance (and marketing gimmickry). Another problem is that the much heavier EVs could collapse bridges and force lengthy detours.

Mcdonagh, however, has barely scratched the surface of the mess created by the hipster culture that believes everything sacred…

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BBC kicks off 2023 alarm season: Global warming set to break key 1.5C limit for first time

Credit: nationalreview.com

The 1.5C relates back to sometime in the 19th century, when global temperature data was minimal compared to today, one exception being the Central England data which shows nothing dramatic. After three years of La Niña, climate alarmists are relishing the prospect of an El Niño to revive their sagging crisis narrative a bit.
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Our overheating world [Talkshop comment – BBC climate hype] is likely to break a key temperature limit for the first time over the next few years, scientists predict.

Researchers say there’s now a 66% chance we will pass the 1.5C global warming threshold between now and 2027.

The chances are rising due to emissions from human activities and a change in weather patterns expected this summer, says BBC News.

If the world passes the limit, scientists stress the breach, while worrying, will likely be temporary.

Study: ‘Warm ice age’ changed climate cycles

Credit: Robert A. Rohde @ Wikipedia

Re. the well-known 100,000 year problem, the researchers propose new climate-related evidence for ‘the shift from the 40,000-year cycles to the 100,000-year cycles we experience today’.
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Approximately 700,000 years ago, a “warm ice age” permanently changed the climate cycles on Earth, says Phys.org.

Contemporaneous with this exceptionally warm and moist period, the polar glaciers greatly expanded.

A European research team including Earth scientists from Heidelberg University used recently acquired geological data in combination with computer simulations to identify this seemingly paradoxical connection.

Today’s ocean models can only simulate less than 5% of the currents at 1,000-meter depth

The study hopes its observations will help the search for ways to ‘reduce the large and significant biases between models and observations’. The article refers to a ‘mismatch between scientific knowledge and the actual ocean environment’.
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Ocean motion plays a key role in the Earth’s energy and climate systems. In recent decades, ocean science has made great strides in providing general estimates of large-scale ocean motion, says Phys.org.

However, there are still many dynamic mechanisms that are not fully understood or resolved.

Prof. Su Fenzhen’s team at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators found that humans know less than 5% of the ocean currents at depths of 1,000 meters below the sea surface, with important implications for modeled predictions of climate change and carbon sequestration.

Solar Flares and the Origin of Life

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Countering extra-terrestrial delivery theories of life on Earth.

Paper: Formation of Amino Acids and Carboxylic Acids in Weakly Reducing Planetary Atmospheres by Solar Energetic Particles from the Young Sun (April 2023)
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Spaceweather.com

In 1952 the famous Miller-Urey experiment proved that lightning in the atmosphere of early Earth could produce the chemical building blocks of life. New research reveals that solar flares might do an even better job.

“The production rate of amino acids by lightning is a million times less than by solar protons,” says Vladimir Airapetian of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, a coauthor of the new paper.

Above: An artist’s concept of the early Earth

Early research on the origins of life mostly ignored the sun, focusing instead on lightning as an energy source. In the 1950s Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago filled a closed chamber with methane, ammonia, water, and molecular hydrogen – gases thought to be prevalent in Earth’s early atmosphere – and repeatedly ignited an electrical spark to simulate lightning. A week later, Miller and his graduate advisor Harold Urey analyzed the chamber’s contents and…

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The Coming Of The “Green” King

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The king of hot air?

PA Pundits International

By Adam Houser ~

Skyrocketing energy prices. A health care system in crisis. A growing budget deficit.

Where shall the people of Great Britain find answers to these existential threats? Never fear, here comes the “Green” King, coronated in all his environmental glory and bringing resolution to the real problems Britons should be worried about: climate change, pollution, and sustainability.

King Charles III was coronated this past Saturday, and to emphasize his passion for the environment and the planet, several Earth-friendly initiatives were pursued related to the ceremony.

As reported by inews.co.uk, “King Charles’s coronation is set to be the most sustainable ever, with cruelty-free holy oil and recycled ceremonial robes.” But it doesn’t stop there.

Let’s go through the “Green” King’s symbolic initiatives briefly.

First, the coronation invitation. Of particular note was the design of the art on the invitation, which is known as the “Green Man.” Some claim…

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After court blocks renewables push, US promotes carbon capture & hydrogen

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

The Environmental Protection Agency will set limits on power plants’ emissions, forcing them to ‘clean up’ (as they erroneously describe it) or shut down. But carbon capture is energy-intensive and expensive, so the idea doesn’t really work – hence the very low or often non-existent level of adoption even in climate-obsessed countries, and burning hydrogen has its own scientifically proven pollution issues, contrary to popular belief.
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The Biden administration unveiled a sweeping plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power industry on Thursday, one of the biggest steps so far in its effort to decarbonise the American economy to fight climate change, says Climate Home News.

The proposal would limit the amount of carbon dioxide that power plants, which are the source of more than a quarter of U.S. emissions, can send into the atmosphere, putting the industry on a years-long course to install billions of dollars of new equipment or shut down.

Environmental groups and scientists have long argued that such steps are crucial to curb global warming, but fossil-fuel-producing states argue that they represent government overreach and threaten to destabilise the electric grid.

The Environmental Protection Agency projects the plan would cut carbon emissions from coal plants and new gas plants by 617 million tonnes between 2028 and 2042.

That’s around 44m tonnes a year, about the same as the nation of Denmark pumps out.

CCS or hydrogen

The proposal sets standards that would push companies to install carbon capture equipment that can siphon the carbon dioxide from a power plant’s smokestack before it reaches the atmosphere, or use super-low-emissions hydrogen as a fuel.

“EPA’s proposal relies on proven, readily available technologies to limit carbon pollution and seizes the momentum already underway in the power sector to move toward a cleaner future,” Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

Full article here.
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Talkshop comment: ‘carbon pollution’ is a misnomer.

Gridlock: renewable energy projects worth billions stuck on hold

Green dreamland

Quote: ‘The system was built when just a few fossil fuel power plants were requesting a connection each year, but now there are 1,100 projects in the queue’. The climate goldrush is stalling.
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Billions of pounds’ worth of green energy projects are on hold because they cannot plug into the UK’s electricity system, BBC research shows.

Some new solar and wind sites are waiting up to 10 to 15 years to be connected because of a lack of capacity in the system – known as the “grid”.

Renewable energy companies worry it could threaten UK climate targets.

National Grid, which manages the system, acknowledges the problem but says fundamental reform is needed.