Electric vehicles could ‘fix the grid’? Still pushing an optimistic theory

Electric car home charging point [image credit: evcompare.ie]

Looks like yet another visit to cloud cuckoo land for climate alarmists fretting about trace gases in the atmosphere. They’re creating a massive problem with insistence on an EV-only future and now cast around frantically for solutions, as the clock ticks to chaos. Let’s try a food analogy: juggling oranges doesn’t give you more oranges.
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Transportation is the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for about a third of all emissions, says TechXplore.

We could quickly lower those emissions by electrifying vehicles, but there’s just one hitch: we don’t currently generate enough power.

“If all transportation goes electric, we are effectively doubling demand,” said Matthias Preindl, an EV expert at Columbia Engineering. “And the grid isn’t built to withstand that.”

European Hypocrites Return To Fossil Fuels

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Politics: Putin effect overtakes greenhouse effect.

PA Pundits - International

By Duggan Flanakin ~

At the beginning of March, Frans Timmermans, the European Union’s Executive Vice President for the European Green New Deal and European Commissioner for Climate Action, announced that EU nations planning to burn coal as an alternative to Russian natural gas are not out of line with the EU’s climate goals.

The news came just a week ago that United Kingdom housing secretary Michael Gove would likely approve the nation’s first new coal mine in three decades. The new plant, if approved, would produce coking coal for steelmaking. The reason? Russian coal is toxic now.

In Germany, whose leaders have been busy decommissioning nuclear plants, RWE, Vattenfall, and Steagare now preparing to run their coal-fired power plants perhaps long beyond yesterday’s 2030 death date. Today, German coal companies are preparing power plants to operate at full speed, arming themselves in the event Russia cuts off…

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The Impact Of CO2 Is Overstated So Why Dismantle Society? Part 1

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Misleading climate models have a lot to answer for.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Robert Lyman~

That is a great question, and yes, there is a chance that it could happen. But it would not be meaningfully caused by humans burning fossil fuels and producing more CO2.

Additional CO2 in our atmosphere stopped having a meaningful role in the earth’s temperature when it reached 300 parts per million, and that portion of our atmosphere that absorbs CO2 was all used up. Seriously that is a fact. So today, adding any amount of more CO2 has no impact on climate whatever. If CO2 doubled from the present 420 parts per million (PPM) to 840 PPM, the earth would just get greener, and crops would increase their yields on every farm and every forest. There would be no negative impacts at all. Atomic submarines travel the world underwater with an average CO2 content of over 5,000 PPM. Yes, that is…

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Ban fracking, rock concerts and football matches!

Image credit: Iridescent @ Wikipedia

And heavy vehicles – or armies – from bridges, obviously.
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If the government is banning fracking for producing imperceptible tremors then it should be consistent and not allow the seismic carnage caused by rock concerts or football matches for that matter, jokes Net Zero Watch.

When many members of the public think about fracking their very next thought is likely to be “earthquakes.”

That’s because in the public’s perception fracking is a danger – nobody wants an induced earthquake just as nobody would want an induced volcanic eruption or tidal wave.

Nature is capricious enough to be threatening if you live in certain parts of the world. We don’t want earthquakes near Blackpool or Burnley, do we?

That’s the problem with the word earthquake. A better term is micro-seismicity and when viewed that way such events are everywhere.
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Now, have you ever wondered why armies break step on a bridge?

Full article here.

China continues to laugh at Western “Green Energy” foolishness

Bigger energy bills and decreasing reliability of energy supply are the only guaranteed results of climate-obsessed policies.
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With an energy cost crisis now striking Europe and to a lesser extent the U.S., some cracks have begun to appear in the “net zero” utopian dreams being pursued almost universally by Western politicians, says the Manhattan Contrarian.

Nevertheless, at this writing, the rapid elimination of use of fossil fuels, supposedly to fight “climate change,” remains official government policy throughout Europe, at the federal level in the U.S., in most blue American states, and as well in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

EV Race Ignores Russian, Chinese Mineral Speed Traps

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Beep beep! Trouble ahead for mineral-hungry EV producers, especially in countries that don’t want mining on their soil.

PA Pundits - International

By Larry Bell ~

Billboard size speed limit signs and flashing police radar scanning dashboard warnings be damned!

U.S. and European electric vehicle (EV) companies are racing to cash in on markets driven by dependence upon government subsidies which, in turn, rely on scarce and costly materials needed for batteries controlled by foreign adversaries.

Mining required for those EV batteries will soon dominate the world production of many critical minerals, and already accounts for about 40% and 25%, respectively, of all global lithium and cobalt.

Take nickel, for example, of which Russia produces about 7% of the global supply and 20% of the world’s class 1 (98% pure quality) used both for advanced electric vehicle batteries and stainless steel production.

In March, after prices soared 66% to more than $100,000 a metric ton, the London Metal Exchange suspended nickel trading after a three-month contract price more than doubled.

Prompted…

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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.

Climate worriers bemoan ‘decades of failure’

CO2 is not pollution

Somehow this is largely due to ‘top-down diktats from Davos’ and ‘Davos culture’ needs to be disrupted, according to this article. The central sticking points of course being that pulling out of fossil fuel use equates to giving up on being a modern and prosperous industrial society, and doing so wouldn’t alter the climate in any noticeable way anyway. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.
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Carbon emissions are 60% higher than they were in 1990, when the first IPCC report was published. This is a symptom of a highly unsustainable political economy, asserts Climate Home News.

The UK Government approves new North Sea oil fields and presides over airport expansion. The EU ignores climate science, embraces ‘gas as a transition fuel’ and sees SUV sales soar to a record high.

Across the Atlantic, US president Joe Biden’s climate claims are undermined by $25 billion of federal funding for airport development and a rise of over 6% in US CO2 emissions in 2021.

Stop funding Putin’s war, Boris! – Net Zero Watch

The era of silly but damaging climate games is over, or should be. The world has far more serious matters to attend to.
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London, 25 February – Net Zero Watch has called on Boris Johnson to stop all Russian gas imports and follow through on his statement to Parliament yesterday that the UK should use domestic hydrocarbons “rather than pointlessly importing them from abroad.”

According to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy the UK has imported 73,770 Gwh of Russian LNG in the last 4 years. At 4 pence per kwh – that gas has a value of £2.95bn.

In other words, Britain has been funding Putin’s war machine to the tune of £14 million per week.

The great climate backslide: How governments are regressing worldwide

Wyoming coal trains [image credit: energycatalyzer3.com/

A cold blast of reality is upsetting the fragile dreams of climate obsessives, who like to think humans can make the weather cooler by spending fortunes on expensive and often inefficient technologies. Renewables will never get anywhere near meeting global energy demand, which always rises.
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At the conclusion of the UN climate summit in November, COP26 President Alok Sharma praised the “heroic efforts” of nations showing that they could rise above their differences and unite to tackle climate change, an outcome that “the world had come to doubt.”

It turns out that the world was right to be skeptical, says the Taipei Times / Bloomberg.

Three months later, political intransigence, an energy crisis and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic have cast doubt on the progress made in Glasgow, Scotland.

If last year was marked by optimism that the biggest polluters were finally willing to set ambitious net-zero targets, this year threatens to be the year of global backsliding.

Emails Cast Further Light on the Plot to Re-educate Boris About Climate Change

Caution – alarmist brainwashers at work. Never mind the ‘unrealistic’ climate models.
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Thirty-eight emails released under a recent FOI request provide an interesting insight into the way Government science advisers plotted to change Boris Johnson’s mind over the causes of climate change, ahead of a Cabinet Office presentation, says The Daily Sceptic.

The event on January 28th 2020 was led by the Government’s Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance and presented, using 11 slides, by the Chief Scientist of the Met Office, Professor Stephen Belcher.

According to Belcher, the stated goal of the presentation was to “stabilise climate which requires net zero emissions”.

It’s Energy Will Make or Break the World Now

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How long will people tolerate big cost increases without asking awkward questions about supposedly climate-oriented energy policies?

Science Matters

Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains how Energy has become the first and foremost world public concern in her Spectator article Energy is the most important issue in the world. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Gas prices are climbing, Russia is building pipelines, yet we’re focused instead on appeasing climate activists

One issue more than any other will dominate airtime and influence policy in 2022: energy.Americans are seeing the highest prices at the pump in seven years. Since Biden took office, average gas prices are up by more than $1 a gallon. In November, gas prices in Mono County, California hit more than $6 per gallon, forcing some residents to drive to Nevada (where gas taxes are lower) to buy fuel.

The price of natural gas in the US is at its highest in seven years, and up more than 180 percent in the last year…

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The Era of Cheap Renewables Grinds To A Halt

Digging for cobalt [image credit: mining.com]

When was that, you may ask. Anyway, whoever thinks there was such a time is about to find out it’s becoming a memory only, according to this article. For one thing, the required mining has been exposed as lacking investor appeal due to its environmental footprint, so to speak. Also, demand is likely to accelerate and the mining industry could well struggle to keep pace.
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Supply chain disruptions, rising raw materials costs, and geopolitical tensions have jolted the price of solar panels, wind turbines, and EV batteries, and some analysts now think that the era of cheap renewable energy is over, says OilPrice.com.

The continual decline in production cost for wind, solar, and EV batteries was touted as the driver of their growing adoption and ultimate takeover of the global grid.

Up until two years ago, there was no other scenario on the table—even though inflation was as much a reality then as it is now.

Only now, it has become a lot more pronounced.

Environmentalism Has Lost Its Way

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Funny how all the intensive mining for battery, solar panel and wind turbine components, and all the resulting toxic and other waste, gets billed as clean energy by climate obsessives.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

Driven by climate madness, the environmental movement has become the greatest advocate of destructive industrial development in history.

As Kant said: “To will the end is to will the means”. In this case the means to the phantom end of climate control have led environmentalists to abandon all of their principles. Solar and wind require environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale. Electrification requires the use of toxic chemicals on a similar scale. The hazardous waste stream is enormous.

Solar is the worst because the destruction of forests and open land is complete. Perhaps something lives under these vast solar slabs but not much and certainly nothing like what they destroy and displace.

As I pointed out in my recent article on Virginia’s ill-named Clean Economy Act, we are talking about hundreds of square miles of solar devastation today, for just one state. See my https://www.cfact.org/2021/12/27/paving-virginia-with-solar-slabs-is-a-bad-law/

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Declare an energy emergency or risk economic disaster, Boris Johnson warned – Net Zero Watch

Fracking: note the deep shaft

The chances of the UK government listening to anybody other than climate obsessives on energy matters are about zero. Most of the opposition parties are even more addicted to the notion of climate being determined by the level of trace gases in the atmosphere, with wildly unrealistic policies to match.
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London, 29 December – Net Zero Watch has called on Boris Johnson to declare an energy emergency and introduce radical policy reforms in order to prevent the energy cost crisis turning into an economic and social disaster.

The call comes as fears grow over a devastating energy cost and energy security crisis, with spiralling prices hitting households and businesses hard, and warnings that energy bills could double or even treble next year.

It is reported that Boris Johnson is considering to hand out £20 billion of taxpayers’ money to energy suppliers who are threatening to double or treble energy costs.

IPCC Climate Models Keep Failing Because They Don’t Respect Physics – The Daily Sceptic

Credit: NASA

H/T Tallbloke
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By Dr. Rudolph Kalveks — As the media, politicians and climate activists continue to circulate hysterical hot air from the Cop26 conference, the topic of climate change or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has become an emotional one, increasingly detached from the thoughtful and meticulous process of theory development, calculation and observation that is supposed to characterise scientific endeavour.

It may come as a surprise to some that “The Science”, as expounded in the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers that inform conference participants, is not uncritically accepted by all scientists in the field, and that widely different views are held by a substantial cadre of experienced and eminent researchers.

Moreover, a multitude of peer-reviewed papers contradict many aspects of the IPCC’s alarmist narrative.

Furthermore, a coherent theory about the impact of changes in greenhouse gases (GHGs) is starting to emerge, one that is built up from the underlying physics, rather than extracted from fanciful computer simulations.

My aim here is to highlight some of the relevant papers and to inform any motivated layman who wishes to explore outside the dogmatic strictures of the mainstream narrative.

Let us start with an irrefutable example of the inability of climate models (general circulation models, GCMs) to provide meaningful projections.

Continued here.

The real reasons COP26 flopped – Climate Change Dispatch

Only alarmists could be impressed by an alarmist echo chamber, and even that didn’t work on the street protesters. As CCD puts it: ‘what kind of conference is it that invites only people with one viewpoint?’
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King coal is dead, long live king coal! That might be a fitting epitaph for COP26, which mercifully ended last Friday, says Climate Change Dispatch.

It culminated with an agreement, which had not so much been watered down as to have virtually evaporated. Fossil fuels, it seems, are here for the foreseeable.

What went wrong? That’s a question the ‘deeply frustrated’ COP26 president Alok Sharma might well be asking himself.

He appeared to be close to tears at the denouement of the negotiations, pushed to emotional extremis by the last-minute wrangling over a single word: should we commit ourselves to phase out our use of coal, or phase- down our use of coal.

Coal And Oil Continue Domination: Unexpected Demand Creates Global Energy Havoc

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When the energy going gets tough…coal, gas and oil get going.

PA Pundits - International

By Vijay Raj Jayaraj~

Coal is no longer the king. Era of Oil is over. Our economies will be Carbon neutral.

These are some of the common claims that you might have heard or read in the mainstream media.

Many people truly believe that our economies are being decarbonized and getting rid of the dirty coal and evil oil. This is because they have been informed so.

However, the ground reality is strikingly different. Not only are fossil fuels still leading the energy mix, their prospects are stronger than ever.

The post-pandemic economic recovery has sent the fuel demand skyrocketing across the globe. Coal and Oil–the two most used energy resources are in high demand and their prices have touched record highs.

Unfortunately, many nations were caught off-guard, partly because of the unexpected pace of economic recovery and partly due to misleading projections about coal and oil demand.

Early…

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Heating homes with clean hydrogen will be ‘pretty much impossible’, says UK energy minister

Eco house with hydrogen heating technology. [Image credit: emergingrisks.co.uk]

Another green energy pipe dream bites the dust, before trials have even started? Massive cost compared to other options is just one of the stumbling blocks. Anything more expensive than electricity seems pointless anyway.
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Lord Callanan’s comments come as the British government continues to invest millions of pounds in H2 heating trials, says the Telegraph (via Recharge News).

“If I’m being honest, the idea that we could produce enough hydrogen at reasonable cost to displace mains gas is pretty much impossible,” said Lord Callanan, parliamentary under-secretary of state for climate change & corporate responsibility at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The UK government is currently investing millions of pounds in studies on hydrogen heating, with £25m ($34m) ploughed into the Hy4Heat programme; a pilot scheme in Scotland to heat 300 homes with 100% hydrogen via the existing gas grid due to take place in 2023, backed by up to £18m of grants from the industry regulator Ofgem; and plans to heat a whole town with H2 by 2030.

Update on the world’s progress eliminating fossil fuels

Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com]

Progress? There isn’t any worth mentioning, and that will continue. Meanwhile ‘net zero’ fantasies are served up daily to obscure the reality and make believe that politicians can be managers of the climate.
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The bureaucrats of the world, particularly in the UN and developed countries, have the idea that they are going to eliminate all use of fossil fuels by somewhere around 2040-50, says Francis Menton at the Manhattan Contrarian (via Climate Change Dispatch).

They have no conception how to accomplish that, other than to order from on high that it shall occur and assume that somebody else will figure out the details.

This gives the rest of us the opportunity to sit on the sidelines and observe how bureaucratic fantasy gradually runs into the brick wall of physical reality.