New technology could wean the battery world off cobalt

Lithium ion battery

Of course the ‘could’ in the headline tells us this has yet to be proven beyond the laboratory, and many of these battery claims seem to fizzle out in the end, or may be overtaken by newer ideas. But a professor here is saying: “We’ve opened up a new chemical space for battery technology”.

A research team led by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, has opened the door to using metals other than cobalt in lithium-based batteries, and have built cathodes with 50 percent more lithium-storage capacity than conventional materials, reports EurekAlert.

Lithium-based batteries use more than 50 percent of all cobalt produced in the world. These batteries are in your cell phone, laptop and maybe even your car.

About 50 percent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Congo, where it’s largely mined by hand, in some instances by children.

But now, a research team led by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, has opened the door to using other metals in lithium-based batteries, and have built cathodes with 50 percent more lithium-storage capacity than conventional materials.

Are El Niños Fueled By Deep-Sea Geological Heat Flow?

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Is there evidence of a cause and effect connection between geological forces and El Niño generation? A look at one theory.

The Next Grand Minimum

El Niño and La Niña weather patterns have a significant impact on California climate. This illustration shows the drought impacts.

Long-term La Niña periods have been associated with long-term droughts in the southwest lasting 200, 90 and 55 years. More specifically severe droughts from AD1021 to 1051, AD1130 to 1180, AD1240 to 1265, AD1360 to 1365.

I often wondered what was the controlling mechanism that generated long-term La Niña conditions with few La Niño conditions. Plate Climatology Theory may be one possible answer, the generation of La Niña events by undersea volcanic activity.

I found this article on Plate Climatology most interesting.

Geologically induced “Eruptive” warm burst that helps generate 2014-2015 El Nino.

All El Ninos originate at the same fixed “Point Source” located east of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Fixed point sources are typical of geological features, and not typical of ever moving atmospheric or ocean…

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Canada’s environmental agenda is on the verge of collapse

Canadian rail route

All pain for no obvious gain is a hard sell for climate-obsessed politicians. The Canadian public seems to be suffering from propaganda overload.

There is no issue dividing us more than the environment, says Canada’s Globe and Mail.

The debate around climate change has, at times, devolved into one big shouting match. And, today it’s louder than it’s ever been.

Most people believe human-caused climate change is real, but far fewer agree on how to fix the problem. A new poll says a majority of Canadians favour setting emissions targets but aren’t sure carbon taxes are the way to reach these goals.

Meantime, hypocrisy abounds.

British Antarctic snowfall study deepens the mystery of global warming

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

Another mystery in ‘settled’ climate science. Experts now say they ‘acknowledge that the Antarctic is an important factor in climate change, but still a poorly understood one’. Snowfall is arriving on the land mass while ice is drifting into the sea – as usual in that part of the world. What is needed is accurate data before reaching for the alarm bell.
H/T The GWPF

Previous climate change models predicted that global sea levels would rise by a meter by the year 2100 due in part to melting Antarctic ice, but those estimates have proven to be flawed.

Over the past century, the Antarctic has gone from being a vast Terra Incognita to a continent-sized ticking time bomb: according to NASA, Antarctica has lost “approximately 125 gigatons of ice per year [between 2002 and 2016], causing global sea level to rise by 0.35 millimeters per year.”

Recycling renewables

Recycled wind turbine tower [image credit: inhabitat.com]

Like it or not, there are already industrial quantities of renewable installations and their hardware in many places around the world. Sooner or later the problem of what to do with hordes of obsolete wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and suchlike ‘green’ paraphernalia has to be addressed to prevent a massive pile-up of industrial waste.

Renewable energy has been hailed as the great salve for the world’s climate change woes, says Chemical & Engineering News.

Building massive infrastructure for solar and wind energy, and introducing electric vehicles, will help citizens in developing countries live the lifestyles they desire without the need to burn dirty fossil fuels.

But though these technologies have existed for decades, there’s no plan to make sure they remain green to the end.

Experts forecast hundreds of thousands of tons of old wind turbine blades, batteries, and solar modules will need to be disposed of or recycled in the next decade—and millions of tons by 2050.

Read on about the technologies evolving around the world to handle this unusual waste stream – here.

Nitrogen discovery ‘could greatly improve climate change projections’

Earth’s atmosphere [image credit: BBC]

“These results are going to require rewriting the textbooks,” according to the research program director.

Not all of the nitrogen on the planet comes from the atmosphere, according to a UC Davis study in the journal Science. Up to a quarter comes from Earth’s bedrock. 

The discovery could greatly improve climate change projections, says Eurekalert. 

Why Phi? – resonant moons of Uranus

A montage of Uranus’ large moons and one smaller moon: from left to right Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon. Size proportions are correct. [image credit: Vzb83 @ Wikipedia (from originals taken by NASA’s Voyager 2)]

The five major moons of Uranus in ascending distance from the planet are:
Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon

Of these, the first three exhibit a synodic resonance similar to that of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, as we showed here:
Why Phi? – the resonance of Jupiter’s Galilean moons

Quoting from that post:
The only exact ratio is between the synodic periods which is 3:2:1.
It isn’t necessary to have an exact 4:2:1 orbit ratio in order to get a 3:2:1 synodic ratio.

Hunting mystery lightning from space

Sprites, elves and jets [image credit: NOAA / BBC]

While speculation about theoretical dark matter and big bangs may be more popular, there’s plenty still to learn about these observed near-Earth electrical phenomena.

A new mission aboard the International Space Station is taking storm chasing to new heights, reports BBC News.

Thunderstorms are some of the most spectacular events in nature, yet what we can see from the surface of our planet is only the beginning.

There are bizarre goings on in Earth’s upper atmosphere, and a new mission aims to learn more about them.

Launched to the International Space Station on Monday, the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) will observe the strange electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms.

New paper: Model falsifiability and climate slow modes

Image credit: NOAA @ Wikipedia]

Two professors question the validity of current climate modelling, pointing to a number of apparent difficulties.

New understanding of ultra-long timescales provides a new take on climate, says The GWPF.
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A newly published paper in the journal Physica A suggests that there is an undiscovered universe all around us that we are too short-lived to perceive.

Authors Prof. Christopher Essex (Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario) and Prof. Anastasios Tsonis (Mathematical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) explain that even without external influences (e.g. man-made carbon dioxide) the weather patterns change over very long timescales, locally and globally.

If some elderly person claims to recall summers, say, that were different when that person was a child, that may not be faulty memory. Just because summers seemed warmer or colder; spring or winter seemed sooner; more or less snow was recalled, it doesn’t follow that the climate system has changed in any meaningful way.

Prof. Essex explains, “Unlike the stable virtual ‘climates’ seen in computer simulations, corresponding real-world conditions aren’t stable at all. There are perpetual, natural, internal changes in play that take longer than human lifetimes to play out.”

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.
 

Human-engineered changes on Mississippi River increased extreme floods

Levee breach on the Mississippi river [image credit: Wikipedia]

This shows once again that glib claims about climate-related flooding due to ‘extreme weather’ should be treated with great caution, or even suspicion. The reality is that other factors are at work.

A new study has revealed for the first time the last 500-year flood history of the Mississippi River, as Eurakalert reports.

It shows a dramatic rise in the size and frequency of extreme floods in the past century — mostly due to projects to straighten, channelize, and bound the river with artificial levees.

The new research, led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), also uncovered a clear pattern over the centuries linking flooding on the Mississippi with natural fluctuations of Pacific and Atlantic Ocean water temperatures.

James Annan, Syd Levitus and the 35% exaggeration of Ocean Heat Content rise

I ran across this interesting exchange recently. In it, James Annan, one of the IPCC authors who got Pattern Recognition in Physics shut down after we published our findings on the solar-planetary theory in it because he thought it was wrong, doesn’t seem as bothered to deal with errors by his fellow oceanographer Syd Levitus. Not even when it’s a whopper that has been costing the taxpayer billions due to the climate! panic! James and his colleagues have promoted for years.

James Annan did eventually write a short letter to the journal, but it went unpublished. The Levitus papers were never corrected, though later IPCC reports show a figure for 1955-96 closer to 13×10^22J than the 18×10^22J Levitus et al reported. The increase was actually caused by the reduction in cloud cover letting more sunshine through, as measured by the ISCCP. The latest graphs have also ‘disappeared’ the fall in OHC between 2003-9 measured by ARGO buoys and replaced it with a rise.

Russia debuts postal drone, which immediately crashes into wall

Ex-drone, somewhere in Siberia

Testing in public – a risky business.

Russia wants to use drones to deliver mail in Siberia. If this first test is any indication, their technology isn’t quite there yet, reports Futurism.

Someday, in the future, our skies will be full of whirring machines delivering anything we could ever want or need, from medical supplies to pizzas to the latest item from our Amazon overlords.

That day is not today.

Climate policies blamed for rising UK electricity prices

Nothing new there perhaps but, like the boiling frog, the reality of an endless upward ratchet of climate charges on bills may still not have fully sunk in with some of the public yet.
H/T The GWPF

Any doubt that increases in UK electricity prices are the result of energy and climate policies, rather than underlying wholesale energy costs, is firmly set aside by the recent announcement from Opus Energy that it must increase its prices to consumers by 7.5% even to those on Fixed Term contracts because of sharply rising “pass through” costs, namely subsidies to renewables, grid management, and the Capacity Market.

Opus Energy, part of the Drax Group and winner of the British Small Business award for Energy Provider of the Year (2017), has written to customers in the last week announcing a 7.5% increase in electricity supply charges.

Policymakers! Listen up!

I was trained as an engineer and then did a degree in the History and philosophy of science.

I know how to calculate forces, I understand thermodynamics and radiative theory and I don’t ignore data inimical to any hypothesis.

After thirty years of monitoring and appraising the data, the global warming hypothesis and working out what really causes climatic change I’ve concluded that it ain’t CO2. The real causes of climatic change at the planetary scale are the enormous forces transferring energy between solar system bodies.

Jupiter and Saturn between them hold over 85% of the angular momentum of the system. Venus has, within an order of magnitude, the same gravitational force on the Earth-Moon system as Jupiter. The two of them have shaped the orbit of our Moon, whose tidal forces have a profound effect on the overturning circulation of Earth’s oceans, which contain 1000 times more heat than the atmosphere of which CO2 comprises 0.04%.

Shipping faces demands to cut CO2

Another day, another issue for trace gas obsessed climate worriers who want a ‘clean-up’. We’re informed that ‘Campaigners say huge improvements in CO2 emissions from existing ships can easily be made by obliging them to travel more slowly’. No absurdity is too great to be considered.
Next: horse-drawn barges?

The industry could contribute almost a fifth of the global total of CO2 by 2050 but some nations resist targets, says BBC News.

A battle is under way to force the global shipping industry to play its part in tackling climate change.

A meeting of the International Maritime Organisation in London next week will face demands for shipping to radically reduce its CO2 emissions.

‘Renewables Are Cheap’ Myth Busted: Full Cost of Wind & Solar Simply Staggering

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Fans of expensive, unreliable, part-time electricity that has to be replaced at short (or no) notice by other power sources should look away now.

STOP THESE THINGS

South Australia is renowned as a renewable energy ‘superpower’: by some strange coincidence, it’s also renowned for having the highest retail power prices in the world.

Wind and sun worshippers keep telling us that by plugging into nature’s wonder fuels we’ll soon enjoy power at 1970s prices. Except that that mantra is part myth and part fantasy and, wherever you find endless seas of solar panels and windmills, power prices just keep on rocketing. In SA, wholesale power prices doubled in just 12 months:

Comparing 2016 (red) and 2017 (blue) average
wholesale prices of electricity ($per MWh) by state

For power punters battered with crippling bills, predictions don’t count for much. But still renewables rent seekers keep pumping the line that, one day soon, power prices will plummet. Here’s Donn Dears spelling out precisely why they won’t.

EIA Energy Forecasts Part 1
Power for USA
Dnn Dears
6 March 2018

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Wilson & Sidorenkov: A Luni-Solar Connection to Weather and Climate I: Centennial Time Scales

Ian Robert George Wilson and Nikolay S Sidorenkov

Wilson and Sidorenkov, J Earth Sci Clim Change 2018, 9:1, p. 446

https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-lunisolar-connection-to-weather-and-climate-i-centennial-times-scales-2157-7617-1000446.pdf

Abstract

Lunar ephemeris data is used to find the times when the Perigee of the lunar orbit points directly toward or away from the Sun, at times when the Earth is located at one of its solstices or equinoxes, for the period from 1993 to 2528 A.D. The precision of these lunar alignments is expressed in the form of a lunar alignment index (ϕ). When a plot is made of ϕ, in a frame-of-reference that is fixed with respect to the Perihelion of the Earth’s orbit, distinct periodicities are seen at 28.75, 31.0, 88.5 (Gleissberg Cycle), 148.25, and 208.0 years (de Vries Cycle). The full significance of the 208.0-year repetition pattern in ϕ only becomes apparent when these periodicities are compared to those observed in the spectra for two proxy time series. The first is the amplitude spectrum of the maximum daytime temperatures (Tm ) on the Southern Colorado Plateau for the period from 266 BC to 1997 AD. The second is the Fourier spectrum of the solar modulation potential (ϕm) over the last 9400 years. A comparison between these three spectra shows that of the nine most prominent periods seen in ϕ, eight have matching peaks in the spectrum of ϕm, and seven have matching peaks in the spectrum of Tm. This strongly supports the contention that all three of these phenomena are related to one another. A heuristic Luni-Solar climate model is developed in order to explain the connections between ϕ, Tm and ϕm.

Uncertainties about human caused climate change were deleted from IPCC report.

Document Page 1 of 2
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
A major deception on ‘global warming’
Wall Street Journal; New York; lun 12, 1996; Seitz, Frederick;
Edition: Eastern edition
Start Pa~e: A16
ISSN: 00999660
Subject Terms: Research
Professional ethics
Greenhouseffect
Climate
Companies: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Abstract:
Frederick Seitz asserts that the report on global warming released in Jun 1996 by the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not the same version that was approved by the  contributing body of scientists listed on the title page. Seitz explains how the events that led to the IPCC report are “a disturbing corruption of the peer-review process” and says the deleted passages removed “hints of the skepticism” with which many scientists regard claims about global warming.

State of the Climate 2017

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From the GWPF’s own preamble to the Humlum report, quoting the professor:
“It is clear that temperatures in the troposphere are continuing to diverge from surface temperatures. In other words, they are warming more slowly than global warming theory says they should. The contrast with theory is even more marked in the stratosphere, where temperatures have barely changed for 23 years. We still have much to learn about the climate.”

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2018/03/State-of-the-Climate2017.pdf

The GWPF has published its State of the Climate 2017 Report, written by Ole Humlum, former Professor of Physical Geography at the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway, and Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography, University of Oslo, Norway.

Here are the main points:

Lower troposphere temperatures show the persistence of the pause:

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