Virginia judge dismisses youth climate change lawsuit

Case dismissed

Out of order. Next!
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RICHMOND, Va. (AP via the Daily Mail.) – A Virginia judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of 13 young people who claim that the state’s permitting of fossil fuel projects is exacerbating climate change and violating their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit filed by Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit public interest law firm, asked the court to declare portions of the Virginia Gas and Oil Act unconstitutional.

It also seeks to find the state’s reliance on and promotion of fossil fuels violates the rights of the plaintiffs, who range in age from 10 to 19.

But Richmond Circuit Court Judge Clarence Jenkins Jr. granted the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, finding that the complaint is barred by sovereign immunity.

That’s a legal doctrine that says a state cannot be sued without its consent. The state argued that sovereign immunity prohibited the plaintiffs’ claims because they sought to restrain the state from issuing permits for fossil fuel infrastructure and to interfere with governmental functions.

The judge did not rule on the merits of the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims.

Full report here.

Shetland Island residents must earn £104,000 to avoid fuel poverty next year, warns official

Sullom Voe oil and gas terminal [image credit: shetland.org]

The climate hasn’t got colder, so something else has to take the blame. How did a place on the doorstep of various gas and oil fields, and even touted as ideal for wind power, get itself into such a state?
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Some 96% of residents of the Shetland Islands could find themselves in fuel poverty by next April, according to a local official, who issued a stark warning about the future of the archipelago, reports Sky News.

Despite Scotland supplying much of the UK’s gas, islanders must earn a salary of £104,000 to avoid slipping into fuel poverty, according to the Leader of Shetland Islands Council.

The estimated average energy cost on the Shetland Islands will rise to £10,300 per household by next April, with the vast majority of residents spending 10% of their income on energy bills.

Disappearing glaciers ‘reveal’ 50-year-old plane wreckage in the Swiss Alps – so it became snow-covered after it crashed?

Disappearing glaciers for a century or more – so why wasn’t the crashed plane visible on the surface the whole time? We’re told: ‘The bodies of the three passengers were recovered by authorities at the time, but police say they didn’t have the capabilities to remove the plane from such a remote area.’ A video about the same story says ‘the glaciers have lost half their volume in less than a century’. Did they mean less than half a century? Something seems amiss here.
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In a helicopter high above the Swiss Alps, we see climate change in action, asserts Sky News.

The glacial ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, revealing items frozen long ago.

A scar suddenly appears in the bright white snow. A crumple of silver and red.

“That’s the plane,” says our guide, Dominik Nellen, pointing.

Small company from Cornwall to oversee huge £70 billion Net Zero contract

Money down the drain?
[image credit: thisismoney.co.uk]

The government-backed buy-a-climate fantasy steamrollers on. No expense spared in the war on one of Earth’s most vital trace gases.
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A company based in Cornwall has been given the job of overseeing a £70 billion contract to help deliver the country’s transition to Net Zero – the target of completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases by reducing emissions, says Cornwall Live.

The Place Group – which is based at The Regent, Chapel Street, Penzance – has won the huge framework contract to “control, manage and deliver” the public sector transition to Net Zero.

It will oversee the framework for services, products, solutions and support for Everything Net Zero. The small company is a “specialist consulting, project management and research company with 18 years’ experience in the field of education”.

Wind Turbine Collapses: ‘Leaking Oil Everywhere!’

Example of product type used by the wind industry

So much for ‘keeping it in the ground’, as climate obsessives like to intone to anyone who will listen to their anti-oil rants.
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On Sunday, puzzled Swedish journalist and political commentator Peter Imanuelsen tweeted the news: “A wind power turbine just collapsed in Sweden”, says CNS News.

“People are being warned to keep their distance because…it is now leaking oil everywhere! “Wait, these “green” wind turbines use oil???”

Welsh coal mine expansion facing legal challenge – EV battery production could be impacted

Welsh anthracite [image credit: BL Fuels]

Climate obsessives shooting themselves in the foot here? Interesting that coal is needed to make EV batteries though.
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A legal challenge will go ahead into mine expansion plans after opponents were granted a judicial review, reports BBC News.

In January approval was given for another 40 million tonnes of coal to be dug at Aberpergwm, Neath Port Talbot.

Campaigners said at the time they were considering legal action.

Alarmist dismay as US Supreme Court rules against EPA on climate regulation powers

Verdict [image credit: coindesk.com]

Democracy overseeing the flow of EPA climate edicts? A ‘huge blow’, say alarmists, as over-the-top reactions from some of the usual suspects pour in.
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This means Congress will now have to pass off on any climate regulations, says Energy Live News.

In what’s been considered a blow to climate mitigation in the US, the Supreme Court has ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This means the EPA will now be limited in how it can regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and help stave off global warming in the country.

Rolls-Royce returns to Manchester, making city its small modular reactor division HQ

SMR transporter

Talk is moving to action in SMR world. The background of the present energy situation seems to favour it, given the ongoing reluctance to burn ‘fossil’ fuels.
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Engineering giant Rolls-Royce has confirmed that its small modular reactors (SMR) division is to locate its head office in Manchester, reports TheBusinessDesk.com.

Tom Samson, Rolls-Royce SMR’s chief executive, made the announcement during a stakeholder event in Manchester, where the company’s senior leadership team gave an update on the project to deploy a fleet of SMR power stations.

Nuclear start-up seeks to turn Britain’s waste plutonium into clean energy

Sellafield nuclear site, UK

Newcleo aims to build new small reactors that can consume spent fuel, although its designs are said to be at an early stage. The report states that ‘The UK has the largest civil plutonium stockpile in the world’. Units could be smaller SMR’s than Rolls-Royce plans to offer, and also sealed ones suitable for ships. Similar types of proposal have happened before, but seem to have fizzled out.
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A nuclear power start-up is seeking to create clean energy out of 140 tonnes of waste plutonium stored in Cumbria as Britain scrambles to wean itself off fossil fuels, says the Daily Telegraph.

Newcleo hopes to use spent fuel deposited in Sellafield in a pioneering reactor design that will rival the small nuclear generators being developed by Rolls-Royce.

The proposals come as Boris Johnson seeks to usher in a nuclear revolution for Britain after vowing to triple capacity with eight additional reactors by 2050.

Shell’s Jackdaw gas field given go-ahead by UK regulators

North Sea gas rig [image credit: safety4sea.com]

The government decides in favour of UK energy over uncertain imported energy for once. Dismay for climate obsessives.
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Development of a major North Sea gas field has been approved by regulators, reports BBC News.

The Jackdaw field, east of Aberdeen, has the potential to produce 6.5% of Britain’s gas output.

The regulatory approval comes as the UK government seeks to boost domestic energy output following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

London bus explosion: Five electric buses go up in a fireball – smoke seen for miles

BYD electric bus, London [image credit: China Daily]

Getting to be a monotonously regular thing. Insurers and fire brigades won’t need telling that. What about the travelling public? Hard to tell from the footage which type of e-bus it was, so may or may not be like the one pictured here.
[Update 1: A BBC report shows pictures of some buses that appear similar to the one pictured and says up to seven may be on fire]
[Update 2: BBC reported six buses caught fire, two electric and four diesel].
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FIVE electric double decker buses have exploded at the Potters Bar Bus Garage near London, reports the Daily Express.

Video footage posted on line shows flames and thick black smoke billowing skywards from the garage in the High Street, as by-standers watch on in horror.

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said six fire engines had been sent to the scene. The fire brigade urged the public to avoid the area and said the emergency could last for a “long time”.

Full report here.

Namibia comes to Europe to sell its sunshine

Credit: worldatlas.com

Namibia is a long way from Europe, but desperate emissions-obsessed governments may not care. Morocco is a lot nearer as one UK energy firm has already noticed.
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As Europe struggles to decarbonise its economy and wean itself off Russian oil and gas, one of the world’s sunniest and most arid nations is pitching itself to the continent as an answer to its problems, says Euractiv.

A delegation from sub-Saharan Africa’s driest country has been touring Europe to tout their nation as a potential powerhouse of clean energy.

They say Namibia can produce so much solar power it will soon be self-sufficient in electricity – and, by the end of the decade, could become an exporter of so-called green hydrogen.

“We came to Europe saying we have this amazing sun,” said James Mnyupe, economic adviser to the Namibian presidency.

Aramco dethrones Apple as the world’s most valuable company

Anti-fossil fuel types should ask themselves who’s doing all the buying and why. Whoever it may be, i.e. most countries, they don’t want to sit around waiting for renewables — which themselves need renewing every 20 years or so — to take over in some imaginary far distant future.
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Saudi Aramco reported a net profit of $39.5 billion for the first quarter of the year on the back of increasingly strong crude oil prices, reports OilPrice.com.

The figure represented an 82-percent annual improvement and a record quarterly profit for Aramco since it went public three years ago.

Exploding e-scooters kill four as heatwave damages batteries

Ballistic battery time again. Insurers and fire fighters must be nervous as mass battery-powered travel is supposed to be the future in many countries.
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There have been near daily reports of electric scooters catching fire across India amid record-breaking temperatures, says The Telegraph.

At least four Indians have died since March after their electric scooters caught fire, with record-breaking temperatures caused by climate change now feared to be behind the deadly blazes.

A father and daughter died in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in March, while two men died in two separate incidents in April in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Paris suspends electric bus fleet after fires

Image credit: sustainable-bus.com

H/T JohnM
One bus…30 fire fighters. Best wear running shoes and travel light if boarding such a vehicle. This has happened before.
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Dozens of electric buses will be taken off the streets of Paris temporarily “as a precaution” after two of the vehicles caught fire, public transport operator RATP said on Friday. The Local – France reporting.

Following a second blaze on Friday morning, in which no one was hurt, “RATP has taken the decision to suspend use of 149 electric buses” of manufacturer Bollore’s Bluebus 5SE model, the state-owned company said.

The number 71 bus that caught fire in southeast Paris early on Friday released thick clouds of black smoke and a strong smell of burning plastic, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.

“The bus driver immediately evacuated all the passengers. Nobody was hurt,” RATP said, while the city fire service said the blaze was put out by around 30 firefighters.

Tesla on autopilot crashes into $3 million jet

Tesla Model 3 [image credit: Vauxford @ Wikipedia]

EVs can at least offer accidental entertainment, except to their victims of course. “There’s still plenty of idiots to go around”.
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A new Reddit clip shows a Tesla using the Smart Summon feature at a Cirrus event crash into a small private jet worth millions.

Autopilot didn’t work, says Futurism.

World’s biggest carbon removal machine ‘freezes over’ in Iceland

Priceless!
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Enormous device to halt global warming brought to heel by unusually cold weather, reports The Independent.

Alternative source: World’s Largest Carbon Removal Facility Designed to Fight Global Warming Suffers Major Setback After Arctic Blast Freezes Machinery.

Rolls-Royce expecting UK approval for mini nuclear reactor by mid-2024

Rolls-Royce’s revised reactor building design.

If anyone mentions nuclear waste, let’s remember the toxic waste from rare earth mining and from used batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.
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A Rolls-Royce design for a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) will likely receive UK regulatory approval by mid-2024 and be able to produce grid power by 2029, Paul Stein, chairman of Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactors, told Reuters (via Euractiv).

The British government asked its nuclear regulator to start the approval process in March, having backed Rolls-Royce’s $546 million funding round in November to develop the country’s first SMR reactor.

Policymakers hope SMRs will help cut dependence on fossil fuels and lower carbon emissions.

French winemakers fan flames to save 2022 crop after unexpectedly sharp frosts

A winegrower lights anti-frost candles in a French vineyard [image credit: thelocal.fr]

‘Climate change’ gets the blame of course, which is code for human activities in the media, politics etc. How trace gases might cause warmth one month and frosts the next in a particular region of the world is not explained. Short video via link below.
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Climate extremes in France this spring have again made it a race against time for vineyard owners to protect their crops, reports BBC News.

March warmth and April frosts in 2021 resulted in one of the country’s lowest wine production in years. This year is proving every bit as tough.
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France experiences coldest April night since 1947
Published: 4 April 2022

The French weather forecaster Météo France recorded temperatures of -9C on Sunday night, reports Thelocal.fr.

New Small Modular Reactor proposal for the UK

[credit: green lantern electric]

The small modular reactor contest looks to be getting underway. Whether the UK wants to be the ‘test bed’ as suggested remains to be seen, but something has to take the place of all the retired power stations. Part-time weather-dependent renewables can’t do that.
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A US energy developer linked to Elon Musk is in talks with the Government to build a fleet of small nuclear reactors across the UK.

Last Energy wants to build its first “mini-nuclear” power plant by 2025 and has identified its first site in Wales, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

The company intends to spend £1.4bn on 10 reactors by the end of the decade.

Last Energy’s end goal is to build “hundreds of plants” across the UK, sources close to the company said.

The proposals are a direct challenge to Rolls-Royce, which is racing to secure approval for its own British-made fleet of mini reactors.