The next Green front? Your front lawn

Never mind the advancing weeds. The war on anything fuel-powered in the name of climate obsessions continues unabated.
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First, they came for your gas-powered car, says Larry Behrens @ CFACT. Then they came for the gas-powered stove.

Up next on the chopping block of the environmental left is the gas-powered lawn mower and the start of “No Mow May.”

If you haven’t heard of this phenomenon it means forgoing mowing your lawn for a month, so it takes on a more natural presence all in the name of helping bees.

Don’t get me wrong, I love those little honey generators as much as the next guy but in this case, they are being used as a proxy in the green fight. Here’s the real buzz.

Is Charles too political to make a good constitutional monarch?

“I have dedicated much of my life to the restoration of harmony between humanity, nature and the environment, and to the encouragement of corporate social and environmental responsibility. Quite frankly, it has been a bit of an uphill struggle. But, now, it is time to take it to the next level.

“In order to secure our future and to prosper, we need to evolve our economic model. Having been engaged in these issues since I suppose 1968, when I made my first speech on the environment, and having talked to countless experts across the globe over those decades, I have come to realise that it is not a lack of capital that is holding us back, but rather the way in which we deploy it. Therefore, to move forward, we need nothing short of a paradigm shift, one that inspires action at revolutionary levels and pace. With this in mind, I am delighted to be launching a Sustainable Markets Initiative, with the generous support of the World Economic Forum.”

This man is about to take an oath promising to govern us according to our laws and customs. But he actually wants to do away with such customs as being able to choose what sort of transport to buy, and being able to use the Kings highway without impediment. Because of his long held ideological stances and alignments, he is not respected by a large proportion of the people in the disunited kingdom. Tough times for pro-monarchists.

ULEZ Extension: Damning New Report Shatters ‘Scientific’ Claims Made By London Mayor Khan

The alarmist foundation for ULEZ expansion has disintegrated.

Read the new Together Declaration & Climate Debate UK report by Ben Pile demonstrating that neither the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) nor the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) find evidence of a causal link between air pollution and mortality.

Despite Khan claiming that 4,000 Londoners die each year, both UKHSA and COMEAP explicitly advise against framing the potential mortality risk associated with air pollution exposure in terms of deaths because it is untrue and unscientific.

One in Five Germans Fear Green Agenda Will Destroy Their Jobs

Image credit: autocarbrands.com

Needless to say, high energy prices and job insecurity isn’t what workers wanted in exchange for obscure future benefits. But the country’s Green Party says in effect ‘like it or lump it’. Welcome to the effects of manic climate obsessions.
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A survey done by the German Trade Union Confederation has reportedly found that one in five employees now fear for the future of their jobs as a result of the country’s push for green agenda measures aimed at curbing climate change, says Breitbart.

It is the latest piece of evidence showing how the European Union’s leading economy is struggling with its own carbon emission goals, with the price of energy soaring over last year as renewable energy sources are unable to fill the hole left by missing Russian gas and deliberately scrapped nuclear energy.

The surging price of electricity and home heating is not all that Germans are worrying about, though, with a report by Die Welt claiming that around 20 per cent of the German workforce now feel the country’s green push could endanger their employment.

Ireland rues mistakes of the past as it struggles to keep the lights on

Irish transmission line [image credit: thejournal.ie]

No surprise to find that ‘Surging demand and insecure supply has left the country vulnerable indefinitely’, after years of climate-driven policies on electricity supply. The self-induced emergency has led to desperate measures like these ‘effectively jet engines’. Another case of replacing what worked with what sounded good.
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Back-up power generators have started to arrive in Ireland to help it keep the lights on during the next few winters, reports The Telegraph.

The mobile turbines, described as “effectively jet engines”, are set to be installed in areas including Dublin and nearby County Meath.

The €350m (£308m) temporary capacity was ordered by environment minister Eamon Ryan last year as a “last resort”, after regulators flagged a looming shortfall in generation.

“This is an electricity emergency,” minister of state Ossian Smyth told its parliament in October.

“It is a national scandal,” retorted Darren O’Rourke, the Teachta Dála for Meath East.

Biden’s Hometown Just Vetoed A Solar Farm: ‘No Benefit’ To City

Image credit: MIT

Scranton’s zoning board vetoed a four-megawatt solar project, one resident saying ‘nobody wants to look at them’. So much for the President’s ‘most significant investment ever in climate change’.
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Last Tuesday during his State of The Union speech, President Joe Biden repeated a claim he has made many times over the past few years about renewable energy, says Climate Change Dispatch.

Biden declared that the Inflation Reduction Act is “the most significant investment ever in climate change, ever. Lowering utility bills, creating American jobs, leading the world to a clean energy future.”

In 2020, while campaigning for the White House, Biden released an energy plan that promised to “spur the installation of millions of solar panels, including utility-scale, rooftop, and community solar systems.”

In 2021, Biden’s White House released a plan that claimed the U.S. could be getting nearly half of its electricity from solar by 2050.

The plan was released a few days after Biden declared we need to overhaul our energy and power systems because climate change poses “an existential threat to our lives.”
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The rejection of the solar project in Scranton provides yet more proof that land-use conflicts are slowing or stopping the growth of renewable energy projects all across America.

Full article here.

2050: The never-ending nightmare of Net Zero

Classifying this as humour may not be appropriate, but we live in hope.
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IT IS the year 2050 and Britain, relentlessly driven by the governing Labour-Green coalition, has achieved Net Zero, imagines David Wright @ TCW (The Conservative Woman).

The nation is quite unrecognisable from the comfortable, well-fed country it was in the early part of the 21st century.

Massive wind turbines cover the landscape; the old ones built 25 years ago now knocked down and lying next to the new ones because it was uneconomic to remove them.

The whole country is covered in a dense spider’s web of power lines from the multitude of wind and solar farms miles from where the power is needed.

Energy Grid Changes Leave California And The Midwest Vulnerable To Blackouts

Windfarm in the California desert

They plan to keep increasing electricity demand by (for example) mandating EVs, while reducing reliable supply in pursuit of climate obsessions. How long can US States go on ignoring the obvious?
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California and parts of the Midwest are at a high risk of electricity shortages in the coming years amid the transformation of their grid from one reliant on fossil fuels to one reliant on other sources of energy such as wind and solar, says OilPrice.com.

The warning comes from the latest annual assessment of the grid by the North American Reliability Corporation, as cited by CNBC.

According to the assessment, the Midwest and Ontario in Canada risk power shortages because they are retiring more generation capacity than they are adding.

Bacton, Norfolk ‘has undeveloped gas reserves of up to 2 trillion cubic feet’

Of course climate-obsessed policymakers want to use it produce hydrogen and capture any CO2, at unknown but hefty expense — doing things the hard way. Why not save a fortune and just put it into the existing gas network?
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Low carbon hydrogen could heat up to 20 million homes and businesses across London and the South East of England for decades to come, according to a new industry report.

The Bacton Energy Hub (BEH), a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) hydrogen project, located on the coast of Norfolk, could not only help to secure the UK’s energy supply but also play a major role in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, says the North Sea Transition Authority.

Currently the National Transmission System (NTS), supplying gas to homes and businesses in London and the South East of England, consists largely of methane. However, it is possible that by 2030 hydrogen produced at Bacton could be blended into the NTS, helping the transition to net zero while ensuring energy security.

Sales of £1,400 batteries surge amid winter blackout fears

In demand

Soothing words about electricity supplies from power bosses and politicians are not fooling the public. If the wind doesn’t blow on a cold winter evening they need to be prepared. Net zero ideology matters more than people’s well-being it seems.
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Britons are snapping up large batteries costing up to £1,400, as concerns grow over winter power cuts, reports The Telegraph.

A large manufacturer of portable batteries, Anker Innovations Technology, has said that sales were up to three times higher in October than in the previous month.

Normally, it sells power station products to the US where power cuts are more common, while UK customers have traditionally only bought them for camping.

But Britons who worry about blackouts this winter are now stocking up, PR manager Lorna Smith told Bloomberg.

The 757 Powerhouse model, which costs around £1400 and can recharge a portable fridge for 22 hours, is sold out until December “due to overwhelming demand”.

Full article here.
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Meanwhile the UK National Grid informs:
Without the Demand Flexibility Service, we would expect to see a reduction in margins. In this scenario on days when it was cold (therefore likely high demand), with low levels of wind (reduced available generation), there is the potential to need to interrupt supply to some customers for limited periods of time in a managed and controlled manner. [bold added]

Swiss professor: “We still haven’t come up with the perfect energy storage solution.”

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

They’ve had coal, gas and oil filling that requirement for many decades. But now they scratch their heads and look for viable alternatives, with nothing of note to show for their effort. Climate obsessions like the ‘net zero’ illusion can do strange things to people’s ability to think rationally. Throwing away something vital without a suitable replacement is asking for trouble.
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If the transition to renewables is to succeed, we will need a viable means of storing surplus heat and electricity, says TechXplore.

Globe spoke to experts from ETH Zurich about the promising technologies that could help us reach net zero.

Switzerland aims to transition to a net-zero energy system by 2050. To meet this goal, it will need to replace fossil fuels with renewables.

Electric Car Obsession

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Those with a media platform using their manufactured climate stick to beat people with unwelcome demands, as usual.

Science Matters

Times Square Billboard

World Economic Forum Urges Public To Eliminate Ownership Of Private Vehicles

The World Economic Forum is advocating for the abolition of “wasteful” private vehicle ownership for the planet’s greater good as the organization attempts to advance its “Great Reset” agenda and transform the world so that the average person will “own nothing.”

“We need a clean energy revolution, and we need it now,” states a WEF’s July 18 article titled, “3 circular economy approaches to reduce demand for critical metals.”

“But this transition from fossil fuels to renewables will need large supplies of critical metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, to name a few. Shortages of these critical minerals could raise the costs of clean energy technologies,” the forum continues.

The unelected globalist group recommends the public “go from owning to using” by implementing “vehicle sharing initiatives” to decrease mass reliance on critical metals.

“The average car…

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Unable to Pay Their Rocketing Power Bills, Germans Told to ‘Huddle Up’ Next Winter

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They’ll be trying to save themselves, not the climate. Moving from farce to disaster in pursuit of pointless and hopeless targets.

STOP THESE THINGS

Germany’s obsession with unreliable wind and solar has households and businesses paying the Europe’s highest power prices, when electricity isn’t being rationed, that is.

That more than 300,000 German households can no longer afford electricity, comes as no surprise. That hundreds of thousands of people in Europe’s richest economy are forced to heat their homes using timber scavenged from forests is criminal. But, that’s what the inevitable transition to an all wind and solar powered future looks like, for those forced to suffer it.

A few months from now, as another bitter northern European winter bites, those households will be belted from both angles: power and gas prices continue to skyrocket to a level that hundreds of thousands more will be unable to light and heat their homes.

But, never fear, their local governments have a cunning plan to prevent their constituents from freezing to death.

With a nod to…

View original post 849 more words

California emissions, carbon neutrality plan draws criticism

Los Angeles, CA

Desperately seeking ‘carbon’ capture. One of the obvious problems of course is that it’s energy-intensive, and that energy has to be generated by non-fossil sources to qualify as suitable for the job, in the eyes of climate obsessives. Ignoring other practical difficulties (storage etc.), where is all the extra power supposed to come from? If wealthy California can’t resolve such issues, most other climate-obsessed regions (excluding those with lots of hydro-power) will surely also struggle to do so, and it all has to be paid for. For ‘ambitious’ read ‘unworkable’?
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California air regulators are likely to hear a barrage of criticism Thursday on a plan to slash fossil fuel use and reach carbon neutrality by 2045, a proposal that would require a sweeping shift in how the state powers its massive economy in the face of climate change, says Phys.org.

It will be the California Air Resources Board’s first public discussion of this year’s draft scoping plan, which is updated every five years and lays out a roadmap for the state to reach its climate goals.

The 2045 goal is among the most ambitious in the nation, but the proposal has many critics beyond the oil industry, which says the strategy has too many bans and mandates.

Boris Johnson warned he won’t survive continued ban of UK shale gas

Plans to keep 1,2 or maybe 3 coal-fired power stations on standby over winter look somewhat threadbare for a population of around 70 million, as the gas crisis rages on. Meanwhile politicians cling to their climate saver fantasies.
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London, 15 June – Net Zero Watch is calling on Boris Johnson to stop dithering on UK shale gas, in the face of a sharp intensification of Britain’s energy crisis.

In recent days, UK natural gas prices have risen 25% in response to a fire at a major US LNG facility, which will severely reduce the supply for many months to come.

In addition, political turmoil has caused Libyan production to almost grind to a halt while Russia has announced to curtail gas exports to Europe.

Ireland’s climate targets problem: livestock numbers need to be reduced, say analysts

Irish farm [image credit: climatenewsnetwork.net]

Yet another climate folly induced by arbitrary targets. As usual they conveniently forget that most of their so-called ‘greenhouse’ gas is water vapour, which depends on the temperature. There’s so little methane in the atmosphere it has to be measured in parts per billion, but alarmism has taken over.
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In order for legally binding climate targets to be met, and agricultural subsidies to be granted, the number of livestock on the island needs to go down says Buzz.

The size of herds both North and South of the border is being scrutinised. It is likely both cow and sheep herds on both sides of the border will need to be cut – and soon.

Germany’s global hydrogen plans could accelerate climate change, UK government study suggests

German hydrogen train [image credit: Euractiv]

The issue is leakage. In any case the notion of part of the supposed cure for ‘climate change’ being worse than the supposed disease is ironic. Germany imagines a future of so-called climate neutrality, a concept lacking any real-world meaning.
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German Economy Minister Robert Habeck plans to import hydrogen from all over the world to satisfy Germany’s hunger for energy despite a new study questioning the climate-friendliness of hydrogen transport, EURACTIV Germany reports.

One thing is clear to all politicians and experts: Germany is an energy importing country.

To move towards climate neutrality, the German government wants to rely primarily on importing hydrogen molecules from all over the world – efforts which have been further accelerated due to the war in Ukraine and Germany’s dependence on Russian energy imports.

Government says half of all new UK cars should be electric by 2028

The availability of new hybrids after 2030 is also thrown into question, as the government puts its foot on the climate obsession accelerator. Sales figures of full EVs will now be part of that policy decision. Basically freedom of choice will end in 2027, well before the government’s latest energy strategy has had much chance to take any effect. This looks over-ambitious in terms of electricity supply, to put it mildly.
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More than half of all new cars sold in the UK must be fully electric by 2028, under detailed government proposals unveiled on Thursday to pave the way for phasing out the sale of traditional petrol and diesel vehicles by the end of the decade, says DUK News.

Ministers want to bring in a China-style sales mandate from 2024, which would force carmakers to increase the proportion of electric cars as a percentage of their sales each year until 2035, when all models must be zero emission.

Under plans unveiled two years ago, the government would ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 but allow some new hybrid models to be sold until 2035.

Specific year-by-year goals disclosed online on Thursday include a 22 per cent mandated all-electric share by manufacturer at the start of the scheme in 2024, rising every year to 52 per cent in 2028 and 80 per cent by 2030.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders industry body said the new rules “must encourage consumers to purchase not just compel manufacturers to produce.” It renewed its call for manufacturers to be released from the binding targets if not enough electric chargers were installed across the UK.

Last month the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that 59 per cent of new car sales would be electric by 2027, double the level it forecast in October.

Battery-electric cars accounted for 12 per cent of the new vehicles sold last year but some manufacturers, such as Toyota, currently rely on hybrid systems to lower emissions and have only this year begun selling full electric vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s largest carmaker, only sells one electric model and is not due to release its next electric car until 2024.

Full article here.

New inquiry into how the UK can (?) cut fossil fuels and accelerate net zero transition

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

Re-writing the laws of physics is not an option. The only thing accelerating at the moment is the downward spiral into energy poverty for ever larger numbers of the population, in manic pursuit of the mystical ‘net zero’ climate target. Another trip to cloud cuckoo land beckons for these blinkered climate obsessives.
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The Environmental Audit Committee announced the inquiry in response to the rise in fossil fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued speculation on what will be included in the government’s Energy Security Strategy, reports Energy Live News.

The Committee believes protecting consumers from high fossil fuel prices and fuel poverty while ensuring security of supply and continued progress towards net zero is critical for any strategy on energy security to be successful.

IEA Wants Energy Lockdowns

The war in Ukraine will morph into the war on climate change. So predictable we already predicted it. Paul Homewood provides the details of the plan.

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/03/18/iea-wants-energy-lockdowns/