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.

Putin to stop gas exports to ‘unfriendly’ nations unless they pay in rubles — ITV News

Germany’s main gas supplier: Russia

Not quite what it seems, perhaps. It looks like a device to convert foreign currency into rubles to get round sanctions. But countries like Germany, which has placed heavy bets on gas by getting rid of coal and nuclear power and throwing fortunes at renewables, must be feeling the pressure and checking their gas storage levels.
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“Unfriendly countries” must start paying for Russian gas in rubles, or their supplies will be cut, Moscow has said.

The decree, published on Thursday by state media, came a day after the leaders of Italy and Germany said they received assurances from President Vladimir Putin, reports ITV News.

Mr Putin talked tougher, saying that starting from Friday, Russia will start accepting ruble payments from Western countries that imposed sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

He said contracts will be stopped if buyers don’t sign up to the new conditions, which include opening ruble accounts in Russian banks.

European leaders had previously rejected paying for deliveries in rubles, saying it would undermine sanctions imposed because of the war in Ukraine.

Brussels takes legal action against UK over use of British parts in wind farms

Offshore wind farm [image credit: Wikipedia]

Will Brexit bitterness ever die? Renewables are now mired in international politics.
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Brussels has launched a legal challenge over the use of British parts in the UK’s offshore wind farms, reports the Telegraph.

The European Commission submitted its complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the first such move it has made since Brexit.

The UK Government asks offshore wind farm developers to say how many of the parts they are using are from Britain.

Landmark Decision Vindicates Victims: Supreme Court Orders Total Wind Farm Shutdown

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One in the eye for wind farm racketeers.

STOP THESE THINGS

In a world-first, neighbours tormented by wind turbine noise have won a landmark victory, forcing the operator to shut down all of its turbines at night-time.

Yesterday, Justice Melinda Richards of the Victorian Supreme Court slapped an injunction on a wind farm because the noise it generates has been driving neighbours nuts for seven years, and the operator has done absolutely nothing about their suffering.

Her Honour also ordered damages, including aggravated damages for the high-handed way in which the operator has treated its victims. Since March 2015, the community surrounding the Bald Hills wind farm have been tortured by low-frequency noise and infrasound generated by 52, 2 MW Senvion MM92s.

Neighbours started complaining to the operator about noise, straightaway. But, as is their wont, the operator simply rejected the mounting complaints and carried on regardless.

Locals, however, were not perturbed. Instead, they lawyered up. Engaging the tough and tenacious

View original post 10,908 more words

Endurance: Shackleton’s lost ship is found in Antarctic

The Endurance

After the search vessel nearly suffered the same fate, what was one of the world’s greatest undiscovered shipwrecks is identified on the Antarctic seafloor.
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Scientists have found and filmed one of the greatest ever undiscovered shipwrecks 107 years after it sank, reports BBC News.

The Endurance, the lost vessel of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, was found at the weekend at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.

The ship was crushed by sea-ice and sank in 1915, forcing Shackleton and his men to make an astonishing escape on foot and in small boats.

Video of the remains show Endurance to be in remarkable condition.

Brexit Leader Farage Launches Crusade Against ‘Net Zero Madness’

Not before time. The idea that ‘the climate’ is in imminent danger from human activities has no serious scientific basis, other than unreliable computer models. Current so-called green policies are ‘net stupid’ says Farage.
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Establishment beware: ‘Mr. Brexit’ Nigel Farage has launched a new campaign with Britain’s ‘net zero madness’ in his crosshairs, calling for ruinous green policies to be put to a referendum, says Breitbart (via Climate Change Dispatch).

British political firebrand and Brexit pioneer Nigel Farage has turned his sights on what he calls the UK government’s “net zero madness”, and will now campaign for a referendum on green policies championed by Boris Johnson.

Alaska court rules against youths in climate change lawsuit

Case dismissed

Another climate lawfare caper, supposedly by youths (who pays the legal costs?), bites the dust. Governments can’t control the climate, but may pretend they can. Next!
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The Alaska Supreme Court on Friday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by 16 young Alaskans who claimed long-term effects of climate change will devastate Alaska and interfere with their individual constitutional rights, reports AP via the Daily Mail.

The lawsuit against the state of Alaska claimed the state´s legislative and executive branches had not taken steps to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The lower court dismissed the case in 2018, saying these questions were better left to other branches of government.

Frozen Turkey, snow havoc in southeast Europe

‘Climate crisis’ latest: too much snow and severe cold at night in parts of the Mediterranean region.
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Europe’s busiest airport shut down in Istanbul on Monday while schools and vaccination centres closed in Athens as a rare snowstorm blanketed swathes of the eastern Mediterranean, causing blackouts and traffic havoc, reports Phys.org.

The closure of Istanbul Airport — where the roof of one of the cargo terminals collapsed under heavy snow, causing no injuries — grounded flights stretching from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and Asia.

Travel officials told AFP it marked the glass-and-steel structure’s first shutdown since it replaced Istanbul’s old Ataturk Airport as the new hub for Turkish Airlines in 2019.

Multiple Extreme Cold Warnings Have Been Issued In Canada & You Could Actually Get Frostbite

Canadian rail route

A short break from media global warming propaganda maybe. Environment Canada says temps could drop to -55 C in some places, with an Arctic ridge of high pressure playing its part. 🥶❄️
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Welcome to winter, folks! – says Narcity.

It looks like the weather in Canada is about to get seriously brutal, as Environment Canada has issued multiple “extreme cold warnings” across parts of the country.

On Monday, December 27, the government agency updated its public weather alerts for all over Canada.

La Palma volcanic eruption officially ended on Christmas Day

After flaring for 85 days and 8 hours, La Palma’s longest eruption on record has finally ceased activity.
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Authorities on one of Spain’s Canary Islands declared a volcanic eruption that started in September officially finished Saturday following 10 days of no lava flows, seismic activity or significant sulfur dioxide emissions, reports Phys.org.

But the emergency in La Palma, the most northwest island in the Atlantic Ocean archipelago, is not over due to the widespread damage the eruption caused, the director of the Canaries’ volcanic emergency committee said in announcing the much-anticipated milestone.

Council’s Climate Change Director ‘to be paid more than the Energy Minister’

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

Attempting to save the world, or this bit of it anyway,
from ‘climate change’ is a lucrative game.
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A North East London council is actively searching to find a new director to lead its climate change work offering a salary that is reportedly larger than that of Energy Minister Greg Hands.

The role of Director of Climate Emergency and Behavioural Change at Waltham Forest Council will be paid £109,000 a year, reports Energy Live News.

That is £5,000 more than the Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Hands, according to the Daily Mail.

Revellers snowed in at Britain’s highest pub – BBC News

Tan Hill Inn [image credit: North Yorkshire Weather]

The BBC says ‘Customers and an Oasis cover band are trapped at the Tan Hill Inn, near Keld, after heavy snowfall.’ It’s still only November, and the Met Office has forecast a mild winter. In fact parts of Scotland and the English North East also had wintry conditions with all kinds of damage going on.
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A number of people had to sleep on the floor of Britain’s highest pub after Storm Arwen battered Yorkshire.

Twenty people, including an Oasis tribute band, were unable to leave the Tan Hill Inn in the Yorkshire Dales after being snowed in on Friday.

Elsewhere in the region, strong winds and snow have caused power cuts, fallen tress and travel disruption.

Dozens of ships stuck in Arctic as ice freezes early in reverse of recent warming winters

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

Where are the ‘rapidly warming winters’ this time round? It seems global warming is behaving badly, in parts of the Arctic at least.
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Shipping firms blame the Russian Met office for a forecast that failed to predict the early ice, says the Telegraph.

More than two dozen cargo vessels are stuck in Russia’s Arctic ice, waiting for ice-breakers to come to their rescue, after an inaccurate forecast from the country’s Met Office.

Maritime traffic in the Northern Sea Route has been on the rise in recent years as rapidly warming winters reduce ice cover, and Russia invests in its Arctic ports in preparation for a further boom.

But this year several segments of the Northern Sea Route froze up about a fortnight earlier than usual, catching many ships unawares.

Alexei Likhachyov – director general of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, which manages the country’s nuclear-power fleet of ice-breakers – said on Monday that the ships included vessels sailing under the flags of Hong Kong and Marshall Islands.

He blamed the Russian Met office for a forecast that failed to predict the early ice, in comments to local media.

Continued here.

Early freeze: Arctic shippers eye release from Russian ice captivity

Russian icebreaker Novorossisk [image credit: Okras @ Wikipedia]

Good news for ever-fearful climate obsessives leaving COP26, but not for stranded sea captains.
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The 15 ships that for the last two weeks have been ice-locked in Russian Arctic waters see release coming as a second icebreaker makes its way into the East Siberian Sea, says the Barents Observer.

Diesel-powered icebreaker Novorossisk early this week made its way into the Chukchi Sea with course for the ships that are battling to make it out of the sea-ice in the East Siberian Sea.

The vessels, among them an oil tanker and several fully loaded bulk carriers, have been captured in thick sea-ice in the far eastern Arctic waters since early November as an early freeze took captains and shipping companies by surprise.

Over the last weeks, only one icebreaker, the nuclear-powered Vaigach, has been available for escorts through the increasingly icy waters. That has been insufficient to aid the many vessels that have been on their way across the Northern Sea Route.

Over the past years, ice conditions in late October and early November have allowed extensive shipping along the vast Russian Arctic coast. This year, however, large parts of the remote Arctic waters were already in late October covered by sea-ice.

There is now an ice layer more than 30 cm thick cross most of the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea. And in the strait separating the mainland with the Island of Wrangel is an area with more than a meter thick multi-year old ice.

Full article here.