#Brexit blackmail: EU extorts UK taxpayers by withholding carbon creds from UK industry

Brussels strikes again. The EU commission has decided to withhold the free carbon credits it gives to member states’ industries from the UK ‘until a Brexit withdrawal agreement is ratified’.

A UK government which had any capable negotiators would respond in kind by withholding the much bigger amount in membership fees we are still paying to Brussels every month, despite taxpayers having voted to leave the EU almost three years ago.

Taxpaying voters will get an opportunity on May 23 to let our incompetent government and the Brussels mafia know that they now support the Brexit Party which seeks a mandate to take over negotiations with the EU and leave on WTO terms in the meantime.

‘My smart meter is driving me mad’

‘Smart’ meter [image credit: heartland.org]

The UK ‘smart’ meter roll-out fiasco rumbles on in its usual amateurish fashion. Pretending it has something to do with the climate is just window dressing.

Energy customers are under pressure to install smart meters, but many just don’t function properly, says BBC News.

There are government adverts on TV suggesting they are a small but important step to tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, companies are calling customers to ask them to switch, or telling them that the best deals are only available with a smart meter.

USGS: California wildfires emitted as much CO2 as an entire year’s worth of electricity for the state

California wildfire [image credit: NASA]

Buying electric cars, solar panels and the like isn’t going to make much of a dent in the ’emissions’ California likes to fret about, as long as current forestry practices – or lack of them – are allowed to continue.

According to data analyzed by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the 2018 wildfire season in California is estimated to have released emissions equivalent to roughly 68 million tons of carbon dioxide, reports Green Car Congress.

This number equates to about 15% of all California emissions, and it is on par with the annual emissions produced by generating enough electricity to power the entire state for a year.

Met Office fakes the Foehn effect

Descending air in the atmosphere rises in temperature as it is adiabatically compressed in the pressure gradient created by gravity acting on atmospheric mass. This has been known for centuries. However, the MET Office has decided to do away with this fundamental fact of physics in a short video it has produced.

Here is some more information on what we mean by the Foehn Effect pic.twitter.com/h8Zr9XJ2Y2

— Met Office (@metoffice) October 23, 2018

Even their own website page on the Foehn effect (now safely screenshotted and web-cited) tells us:

“ foehn air… becomes warmer and drier on the leeside after it is compressed with descent due to the increase in pressure towards the surface.”

Jeremy Corbyn goes to Gasland: Calls for UK fracking ban

 

UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is calling for a UK wide ban on fracking. He has put out a video in a tweet, requoted (and then deleted) by one of his MPs, Chris Williamson.

As “evidence” showing how dangerous fracking is, he uses a clip from the #fakenews film ‘Gasland’ where someone ignites gas coming out with water from a kitchen sink tap. The depth of ignorance of our politicians concerning energy will collapse our electricity grid unless we vote them out and replace them with sensible people.

DT Chris Williamson MP #GTTO: RT Jeremy Corbyn: A Labour government will ban fracking immediately. pic.twitter.com/JTW1WeCghv https://t.co/UNiOxGZtiT

— Tweets MPs Delete (@deletedbyMPs) October 22, 2018

Federal auditors call out Germany’s failing green energy transition

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

Spending fortunes, having little of any benefit to show for it, and not being in control of what’s going on. That seems to be the verdict from the auditors on their government. The sums involved are eye-watering.

Germany’s Federal Audit Office has accused the government of a catastrophic mis-management of the green energy transition (Energiewende), reports The GWPF.

The wastage of resources is “unprecedented”. Germany’s Federal Audit Office has accused the federal government of having largely failed to manage the transformation of Germany’s energy systems.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: It is time to chuck Chequers

When the British people voted to leave the EU over two years ago it was an act of great political courage against the prophets of doom. 17 million people voted to leave because they believed in better. They believe in Britain and the kind of country we can build.

The Government would be wrong to be fearful of Britain enjoying an independent future. Theresa May’s Chequers proposals would shackle us to the EU forever. We would be out of Europe yet still run by Europe. This is why the Prime Minister should “chuck Chequers” and instead seek an a Canada style free trade agreement with the EU to make the most of the global opportunities that lie ahead.

The United Kingdom does not need to do a deal with the EU. The EU needs to do a deal with us at all costs. No deal means no divorce bill – handing a £40 billion Brexit bonus to the Government.

Board meeting turns ‘toxic’ as UN climate fund runs low

Ructions as poor financial management and zero dollars from the US drain the UN’s so-called ‘green climate fund’. Even agreeing an agenda was a major struggle.
H/T Steve Milloy

Rich and poor country representatives clash over policy priorities and replenishment at Green Climate Fund board meeting, reports Climate Change News.

Update on Wednesday 4 July: UN climate fund chief resigns for personal reasons while board meeting collapses

Disputes between rich and poor nations at the UN’s flagship climate fund are intensifying as the money runs low.

A meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) board in Songdo started unevenly on Sunday, as co-chair Paul Oquist was detained by political turmoil in Nicaragua, leaving Sweden’s Lennart Båge to run the session single-handed.

With developing countries complaining their priorities were not properly represented, it took nearly two days to agree on the agenda for the meeting.

Ever wonder where the 275 billion taxpayers money went that got poured down the EU carbon trading system hole?

Talkshop readers may remember a damning report by UBS about the billions of public money lost in the ETS carbon trading system. It calculated that if the money had been invested in modernising the European power generation fleet, CO2 could have been cut by 40% (and generate a huge number of high quality jobs). EU emissions rose 1.8% last year.

Despite all the recent turmoil over the UK steel industry and meetings in Brussels today, the reality is that the European Union has actually been subsidising the Chinese steel industry for years, in payments hidden amongst its efforts to combat Climate Change.

Using complex methods of carbon credits and carbon offsets, the EU devised rules on climate change ended up paying Chinese steel manufacturers billions to upgrade their steel mills and other energy intensive industry.

According to the analysis company, European Insights, almost €1.5 billion was paid to over 90 steel plants in China with the purpose of modernising them to consume less energy, and making the plants more efficient. Taken with the downturn in Chinese trade and the need for them to reduce world market prices to sell their product, the output of these mills has flooded onto the European market making steel products artificially cheap and endangering thousands of jobs in the UK. One plant alone, Anshan Iron and Steel, received a payment of €150 million to help pay for the installation of up to date equipment and replace the old inefficient Communist era machinery.

Media starting to pick up on our Solar slowdown warnings: Food production could be hit soon.

As we’ve been warning for years on the talkshop, the incoming solar grand minimum is likely to hit world food production negatively.

@dbirch214 @GrizzlyGovFan @RogTallbloke @canberroo @andyoz2 @climaterra @climatempo @metsul @SMN_Argentina @ClimaFlorida @boleadorcharrua @CharlesAmorin @navegoYpirateo @Balinteractive https://t.co/z75RREF6Vd

— gddcunha1961 (@gddcunha1961) May 23, 2018

Politicians and policy makers have no excuses here. They’ve been enthralled by the scientists they pay to tell them what they want to hear for years.

Energy poverty and the home truths MPs would rather ignore

Governments often waste, but rarely run out of, other people’s money. Take renewables for example – the UK is already committed to vastly excessive payments until 2030 in the hope of possibly reducing a trace gas in the atmosphere.

Why has the Government still not formally responded to the independent review that it commissioned into the cost of energy?

Perhaps its findings are too damning, says Harry Wilkinson at The Conservative Woman.

Staggeringly, the review found that the government has wasted the best part of £100billion on the decarbonisation of the power sector.

Ed Hoskins: UK Weather Dependent Renewable Energy installations: Installed capacity, costs and output 2017

Introduction

This post is concerned with the two main forms of UK Weather Dependent Renewable Energy in the UK, Wind Power, (Onshore and Offshore), and on grid Photovoltaic Solar Power.  In the UK these amount to ~75% of all installed Weather Dependent Renewable Energy.  The other Renewable energy inputs are traditional Hydro power ~8% and the remainder are other sources such as biomass, waste and landfill gas amounting to ~17%.

The capacity percentage, or load factor, of any power generating installation is calculated as the actual electrical output achieved annually divided by the nominal maximum Nameplate output.  This article uses the real measures of capacity reported in up to date time series data of UK Renewable installations.  It thus provides reasonably correct comparisons of the efficacy of Weather Dependent Renewables as is reported annually by the Renewable Energy Foundation in the UK.
 

Renewables Rush Sends Germans Back to the Dark Ages: Blackouts Now Part of Daily Life

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Germans are supposed to understand engineering but that doesn’t seem to apply to their leaders, at least where ideological obsession is a factor.
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Talkshop link: Diesel generators installed in South Australia

STOP THESE THINGS

Mutti Merkel’s suicidal obsession with sun &
wind sends Germans to a New Dark Age.

Renewable energy zealots keep ranting about the ‘inevitable transition’ to wind and solar power. The only thing inevitable about it, is rocketing power prices and routine blackouts.

If you don’t believe us, ask a German, South Australian or a Victorian.

All three have been hijacked by lunatics, obsessed with nature’s wonder fuels, the sun and wind; all three suffer retail power prices which are the highest in the world (or in Victoria’s case, rocketing in that direction); and all three have suffered, and will continue to suffer, mass blackouts and routine load shedding, simply because they’re attempting the impossible.

If the tech-savvy Germans can’t make wind and solar power work (despite trillions of euros in subsidies), it’s a pretty fair bet that this wholly weather-dependent nonsense isn’t going to work anywhere on…

View original post 836 more words

Rupert Darwall: Europe’s Energy Crack-Up

Excerpt from National Review.  Whichever way you look at it, burning the world’s carbon sinks to meet the EU’s arbitrary renewable-energy targets is environmentally insane. Not only will the voracious appetite of Europe’s power stations for American timber threaten valued woodland habitats in forests across Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia, it has damaging economic effects, as it pushes up the price of timber, with knock-on effects to the cost of building new homes. Without question, it is better for the environment to burn coal and plant trees than to cut down trees and burn them in power stations.

Spread the warmth this Christmas

The Paris Climate Treaty, the UK Climate Change Act, the US CO2 endangerment finding. These misconceived policies decided on by scientifically ignorant and socially cocooned politicians KILL people. Far more people die of cold and cold related illnesses than suffer from heat-stroke. As the effects of these policies bite harder on personal finances, we need to look after those vulnerable people in our communities who cannot afford to heat their homes, or don’t even have a home to heat.

UK made grave errors over Hinkley nuclear project: MPs

Planned nuclear power station at Hinkley Point

Wasting vast amounts of money and selling consumers short seems to be par for the course in UK electricity generation, as this Phys.org report highlights.

Britain made “grave strategic errors” in its handling of the Franco-Chinese Hinkley Point nuclear project, a critical parliamentary report concluded Wednesday.

The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee stressed that consumers will pay a high price for construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, which was given the green light by the government in September 2016.

The £19.6-billion ($26-billion, 22-billion-euro) project, which is to be built by French energy giant EDF and China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), is highly symbolic of the UK’s nuclear renewal.

Energy customers foot the bill for failed climate policy

Not only do we have a bad policy, we have a badly implemented bad policy, as the GWPF explains.

Dr John Constable, GWPF’s Energy Editor, contributed a “Thunderer” column to The Times on the 27th of October 2017 commenting on Professor Helm’s recent study for the UK government on the cost of energy (“Energy customers foot the bill for failed climate policy”).

Subsidies to renewable electricity in the UK cost £5 billion a year at present and will rise to more than £8 billion a year by 2020, all drawn from the bills of domestic and business consumers.

One third of this hits households directly through their electricity bills — about 20 per cent of the bill in fact — while the other two thirds, paid in the first instance by businesses, is passed on to households in the general cost of living.

The global warming backpedalling begins. “It’s less worse than we thought”

Computer modelling used a decade ago to predict how quickly global average temperatures would rise may have forecast too much warming, a study has found.

Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford and one of the study’s authors told The Times: “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.”

Global warming ate my data

Reproducibility is a cornerstone of the scientific method. It must be possible to replicate experiments or datasets which scientific claims rest on. Especially when billions of pounds of public money financing public policy decisions stemming from those scientific claims are at stake. Here’s just one reminder of certain climate scientist’s approach to this fundamental aspect of scientific method and ethics.

We’ve lost the numbers: CRU responds to FOIA requests

By Andrew Orlowski 13 Aug 2009 at 14:35

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The world’s source for global temperature record admits it’s lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia – permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

The CRU has refused to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection – except to hand-picked academics – for several years. Instead, it releases a processed version, in gridded form. NASA maintains its own (GISSTEMP), but the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC. So any errors in CRU cascade around the world, and become part of “the science”.

Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004:

Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.

Monckton: Green policy kills jobs and causes energy poverty

Visit Cartoonsbyjosh.com

Excerpt from an open letter to the head of MIT:

Professor Reif of MIT says, “In 2016 alone, solar industry employment grew by 25 percent, while wind jobs grew 32%.” These numbers are highly misleading. In fact, they underscore how deficient these energy sources are as job creators.

Growing jobs by subsidy is easy, provided that one cares nothing for the far greater number of jobs destroyed by the additional taxation, energy price hikes or public borrowing necessary to pay for the subsidy. Several studieshave shown that the creation of one “green” job results in the loss of two to four jobs elsewhere in the economy. In Spain the estimated ratio was two jobs lost for each one created by renewable energy, prompting the government to finally end most renewable subsidies.

And yet, despite all those subsidies, wind and solar power generation expensively and unreliably account for 5.6% and 0.9% of total U.S. electricity production, respectively. On its own, electricity provides only a small fraction of total energy consumption, including transportation, industrial processes, heating and electricity generation, so these numbers actually exaggerate the contribution of wind and solar facilities to overall energy consumption.