How the death of a mega-turbine rattled US offshore wind

Three New York wind projects were dropped after the massive wind tower they were to be based on was cancelled. This report notes that analysts say ‘bigger wind turbines tend to break more’. Planting ever-larger top-heavy objects on long thin poles in zones with potentially stronger winds clearly has its challenges. Even getting them to their site can be a major undertaking.
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The wind industry’s global race to make ever-bigger turbines stumbled to a sudden slowdown last week, jarring U.S. offshore wind projects, says E&E News.

When GE Vernova confirmed that it was canceling one of the largest wind turbines ever designed, it signaled a pause in an arms race that for years had led manufacturers to go higher, longer and wider when building towers, blades and other components.

Now, that decision is reverberating across U.S. efforts to build wind projects in the Atlantic.

Britain must spend £30bn to strip CO2 from atmosphere and hit net zero, experts warn

This ‘essential’ expense would likely go the way of HS2 and double or triple in real cost, with at least some costs continuing well after the target date. Absurd is too weak a word to describe this fear of a harmless trace gas essential to nature. CO2 is not pollution.
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Britain must invest [sic] £30bn in a network of massive air cleansing systems designed to strip CO2 from the atmosphere if it is to reach net zero, a government-funded report has warned.

The “direct air carbon capture systems” would remove up to 48 million tonnes of CO2 from the air each year and then pump it into disused oil and gas reservoirs under the North Sea or Irish Sea, says The Telegraph.

Without such a scheme the UK will never reach its target of net zero emissions by 2050, according to the report by Energy Systems Catapult, a government-funded body that promotes innovation.

A chemical mystery solved – the reaction explaining large carbon sinks

A ‘Holy Grail’ explanation of a process in nature’s carbon cycle is claimed.
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A mystery that has puzzled the scientific community for over 50 years has finally been solved, says EurekAlert.

A team from Linköping University, Sweden, and Helmholtz Munich have discovered that a certain type of chemical reaction can explain why organic matter found in rivers and lakes is so resistant to degradation.

Their study has been published in the journal Nature.

“This has been the holy grail within my field of research for over 50 years”, says Norbert Hertkorn, scientist in analytical chemistry previously at Helmholtz Munich and currently at Linköping University.

The UK’s Climate Change Act ‘faces a stress test’

So says an ardent fan of the idea of human-caused weather variations, who thinks UK climate laws were ‘once the envy of the world’. But unwelcome reality strikes in due course, because those in charge ‘underestimate just how far-reaching the necessary changes are’. The article tries to make out that a bit more belt tightening will do the trick, which almost certainly underplays the pain ahead if the current over-the-top net zero policies are persisted with.
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The Scottish government’s decision to row back on its 2030 climate pledge illustrates the crux of any target: it’s easy to set one with a big political flourish, but harder to follow through with a careful plan to achieve it, says The Conversation (via Phys.org).

Does that mean that targets for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gas driving climate change are worthless? Not necessarily.

There are two types of climate target: the empty promise and the calculated ambition. Only one of these works.

How light can vaporize water without the need for heat – MIT research

The researchers say the effect can be substantial and call it ‘a major part of the picture’. Under the optimum conditions of color, angle, and polarization “the evaporation rate is four times the thermal limit.” It was reported last year but this paper was only accepted last month. That report said: ‘The phenomenon might play a role in the formation and evolution of fog and clouds, and thus would be important to incorporate into climate models to improve their accuracy, the researchers say.’ The best incident angle for the light is 45°, according to the pre-print.
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It’s the most fundamental of processes—the evaporation of water from the surfaces of oceans and lakes, the burning off of fog in the morning sun, and the drying of briny ponds that leaves solid salt behind, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, via Phys.org).

Evaporation is all around us, and humans have been observing it and making use of it for as long as we have existed.

And yet, it turns out, we’ve been missing a major part of the picture all along.

In a series of painstakingly precise experiments, a team of researchers at MIT has demonstrated that heat isn’t alone in causing water to evaporate.

The Stark Reality: Net Zero is a Tar-Baby

David Turver writes:

Outgoing Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), Chris Stark has been doing interviews with the BBC and the Guardian before his term finally comes to an end on the 26^th of April.

In his Guardian interview he seemed to suggest that all that was wrong with the Net Zero agenda is the name. He said, “Net zero has definitely become a slogan that I feel occasionally is now unhelpful, because it’s so associated with the campaigns against it.” He went on, “It’s the culture warriors who have really taken against it,” said Stark. “A small group of politicians or political voices has moved in to say that net zero is something that you can’t afford, net zero is something that you should be afraid of … But we’ve still got to reduce emissions. In the end, that’s all that matters.”

Why is methane seeping on Mars? NASA scientists have new ideas

Only at night though, it seems. “It’s a story with a lot of plot twists”, said a Mars project scientist. Saturn’s moon Titan is awash with methane, but no sign of life present or past, so why should Mars having some be a surprise?
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The most surprising revelation from NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover—that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater—has scientists scratching their heads, says Phys.org.

Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth [Talkshop comment – really?]. But scientists haven’t found convincing signs of current or ancient life on Mars, and thus didn’t expect to find methane there.

Yet, the portable chemistry lab aboard Curiosity, known as SAM, or Sample Analysis at Mars, has continually sniffed out traces of the gas near the surface of Gale Crater, the only place on the surface of Mars where methane has been detected thus far.

Net zero CO2 emissions: A damaging and totally unnecessary goal – Roy Spencer explains why

We may not believe CO2 plays a big part in global atmospherics anyway, but even if it somehow does, the full story is not being told according to this information. Quote: ‘Even though the CO2 emissions continue, atmospheric CO2 levels start to fall around 2060.’
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The goal of reaching “net zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult.

But that’s not true, because nature doesn’t work that way, says Dr.Roy Spencer (via Climate Change Dispatch).

While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060?

What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2.

Climate policy fiasco: Scot Nats mocked for replacing flagship green target with ‘accelerated’ plan

Humza Yousaf is just another in a long list of politicians in various countries forced to backtrack on extravagant and disruptive so-called climate change plans. Attempts to reinvent their national electricity systems, along with numerous other energy-related interventions like mandatory electric car target dates, are proving a lot tougher to achieve than imagined when breezily announced. They all ignore the fact that nature relies on carbon dioxide to survive and grow. To paraphrase Groucho Marx: “If you don’t like our climate targets, we have others.”
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Humza Yousaf and his Green coalition partners have been mocked after insisting they were pursuing an “accelerated response to the climate emergency” by abandoning a flagship greenhouse gas target, says The Telegraph.

The First Minister admitted that his government was scrapping Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to cut Scotland’s carbon emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 after experts warned it was unachievable.

He said it would be replaced by “an accelerated climate change proposal and plan”, including a controversial measure to impose a new carbon tax on large country estates.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said during First Minister’s Questions: “Only Humza Yousaf could believe that slamming on the brakes – because that is exactly what the SNP is doing this afternoon – is an acceleration.”

Europe is revolting against the tyranny of electric cars

As Scotland makes an embarrassing climbdown on its much touted ‘net zero’ targets, widespread problems with the big EV push due to public resistance are highlighted. Bad news for climate worriers and the EV industry, a glimmer of hope for nearly everyone else.
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The rest of Europe, Remainers like to tell us, is forging ahead into a glorious green future while Brexit Britain is stalling, the government backsliding one by one on its net zero commitments, says Ross Clark @ The Telegraph.

It is hard to square that narrative with what’s really going on across the channel. In March, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, registrations of new electric vehicles plummeted by 11.3 per cent.

In Germany – the grown-up country that’s supposed to show childish Britain how it’s done – the drop was even more precipitous at 28.9 per cent.

Photos of torrential Dubai flash floods show the downsides of trying to control the weather

The UAE’s cloud seeding operations worsened the Dubai flash floods according to this source. Would-be climate savers with grandiose schemes can take note.
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Summary:
— The United Arab Emirates experienced torrential rainfall and severe flash floods on Tuesday.
— The flooding was worsened by the UAE’s cloud seeding practice to address water scarcity.
— The weather modification method involves getting clouds to drop more precipitation.
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Torrential rainfall pummeled the United Arab Emirates this week, resulting in flash floods that have caused air travel delays, closed schools, and deluged homes, says Business Insider.

Dubai International Airport — recently named the most luxurious airport in the world — was diverting planes as of Tuesday evening until the weather conditions improved, according to a statement.

El Niño ends with uncertainty over cooler future, says BBC

The BBC likes to lace articles like this with ‘climate change’ as though it’s a brand, without ever defining it. As usual an obvious case of a natural cycle is infected by some preconceived ideas and assertions of alarmists. But their high hopes and predictions of a lengthy El Niño have faded on this occasion, as potential La Niña conditions start to appear. There’s talk of uncharted territory ahead due to last year’s unexpected ‘heat spike’.
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The powerful El Niño weather event which along with climate change has helped push global temperatures to new highs, has ended, say scientists.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology says the Pacific Ocean has “cooled substantially” in the past week.

This naturally occurring episode that began last June brought warmer waters to the surface of the Pacific, adding extra heat to the atmosphere, says BBC News.

But what happens next is uncertain, say researchers.

World’s top cosmologists convene to question conventional view of the universe

A meeting at London’s Royal Society will scrutinise the basic model first formulated in 1922 that the universe is a vast, even expanse with no notable features and ask (after 100+ years): is it wrong, and if so, what next? Competing measurements of the Hubble ‘constant’ will come under yet more scrutiny.
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If you zoomed out on the universe, well beyond the level of planets, stars or galaxies, you would eventually see a vast, evenly speckled expanse with no notable features. At least, that has been the conventional view, says The Guardian.

The principle that everything looks the same everywhere is a fundamental pillar of the standard model of cosmology, which aims to explain the big bang and how the universe has evolved in the 13.7bn years since.

But this week a meeting of some of the world’s leading cosmologists will convene at London’s Royal Society to ask the question: what if this basic assumption is wrong?

Swiss climate policy – a case of failing to do the impossible?

Phrases like ‘action against climate change’ and ‘climate protection’ are uttered without any clear idea of what, if anything, they might mean. Natural variation at all timescales is an ongoing process, but difficult to measure or predict with any accuracy. Warming has followed the lengthy Little Ice Age, but now some countries – even those with glaciers and ‘snow-capped’ peaks like Switzerland – are being saddled with a legal obligation to attempt to put the brakes on that, by swallowing the argument that a trace gas in the atmosphere is the main source of a supposedly solvable problem of slightly rising temperatures.
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Switzerland, known for pristine countryside and snow-capped [sic] peaks, is facing scrutiny of its environmental policies after becoming the first country faulted by an international court for failing to do enough against climate change, says Phys.org.

The European Court of Human Rights’s ruling last week highlighted a number of failings in Swiss policies, but experts stressed that the wealthy Alpine country was not necessarily doing much worse than its peers.

“The judgment made it really clear that there are critical gaps in the Swiss domestic regulatory framework,” said Tiffanie Chan, a policy analyst at the London School of Economics and Political Science specializing in climate change laws.

“But it’s definitely not a Switzerland-only case,” she told AFP.

Dundee blame global warming for Rangers pitch call-off

The UN’s climate change mind virus is having damaging effects on a variety of people. Weather conditions can sometimes be a problem for sports venues, but inventing spurious excuses only leads to ridicule. This may be a minor story but indicative of a wider malaise in some people’s thinking, or lack of thinking perhaps.
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Dundee have just been embarrassed by an amateur Tayside club after their call off with Rangers, says Rangers News.

The Ibrox side are furious after Dens Park failed a second pitch inspection ahead of the visit of Philippe Clement’s treble-chasing bears.
. . .
Tayside Fire Brigade game goes ahead

The Tayside Fire Brigade – who play in the Dundee Saturday Morning Football League Division 1 – will be able to play their game this evening. [Talkshop comment – morning/evening?!]

The club are set to take on St Andrews Amatuers at the Riverside Playing Fields at the University of Dundee.

On the banks of the River Tay, Riverside is only 12 minutes drive from Dens Park and the game will add extra embarrassment to Dundee following the Rangers game being called off.

Net zero mania update: German transport minister warns of weekend driving ban

Unsurprisingly he gets accused of ‘scaremongering through absurd proposals’. But isn’t the real issue a blind insistence on the unworkable ideology of so-called climate policy that lies behind the proposals? Muttering about pollution is just a means of confusing people into accepting the argument that CO2 is a problem.
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Germany’s transport minister has warned that driving will have to be banned at the weekends unless the country’s net zero laws are changed, says The Telegraph.

Volker Wissing’s FDP party wants the law amended so the polluting transport sector can miss carbon emissions reduction targets, as long as Germany as a whole reaches them. [Talkshop comment – carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant].

But the change is opposed by the Greens, who are part of the three-way coalition with the pro-business FDP and the Social Democrats (SPD), led by Olaf Scholz, the chancellor.

Negotiations over the law have dragged on since September last year.

New coal plants in China ‘soar’, dismaying climate worriers

Obsessing about Chinese coal power, and its imagined effect on air temperatures, doesn’t stop the same people doing the obsessing from buying Chinese products made using that power, such as wind turbines, batteries and solar panels.
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China ramped up coal power capacity last year, according to new analysis, despite a pledge to “strictly control” the dirtiest fossil fuel, says Sky News.

The country added 47.4 Gigawatts (GW) of new coal power in 2023, more than double the amount added by the rest of the world combined.

It raises concerns that gains in clean power, including by China, are being undermined by the persistent use of coal, the worst energy form for climate change and air pollution. [Talkshop comment – CO2 makes zero difference to air pollution].

European court rules human rights violated by ‘climate inaction’

A victory for cloud cuckoo land thinking. The court has in effect granted a disputed hypothesis the status of truth, based on its assumption that ’emissions’ are driving changes in the climate. Once courts can pick sides in scientific debates, where does that lead?
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A group of older Swiss women have won the first ever climate case victory in the European Court of Human Rights, reports BBC News.

The women, mostly in their 70s, said that their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to the effects of heatwaves linked to climate change.

The court said Switzerland’s efforts to meet its emission reduction targets had been woefully inadequate.

It is the first time the powerful court has ruled on global warming.

Carbon dioxide, methane levels in the atmosphere hit ‘record highs’ last year – but only since 1959!

We’ll ignore any climate-related assertions in this article and try to look at actual information. How much of the variation of the trace gases mentioned would have occurred anyway, regardless of human activities? As the article says: ‘Carbon dioxide and methane levels have been higher in the far ancient past’. The world obviously didn’t self-destruct back then, so maybe a bit of context there for these latest ‘records’. It’s also known that warmer oceans absorb less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – an entirely natural process.
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The 2.8 parts per million increase in carbon dioxide airborne levels from January 2023 to December, wasn’t as high as the jumps were in 2014 and 2015, but they were larger than every other year since 1959, when precise records started, says PBS Online.

Carbon dioxide’s average level for 2023 was 419.3 parts per million, up 50% from pre-industrial times.

Last year’s methane’s jump of 11.1 parts per billion was lower than record annual rises from 2020 to 2022. It averaged 1922.6 parts per billion last year.

World first UK prototype could pave the way for constant energy all the time – from space

Building the solar power ‘farm’ in space would take more than 60 rocket flights, possibly with SpaceX, and a team of robot builders. The power would be directed away from inhabited areas, probably offshore. Whether the finance numbers would add up is anyone’s guess, but it’s claimed to be a lot cheaper than nuclear power for example, with no waste product.
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A company hoping to launch the first solar farm into space has passed a critical milestone with a prototype on Earth, says Sky News.

Oxfordshire-based Space Solar plans to power more than a million homes by the 2030s with mile-wide complex of mirrors and solar panels orbiting 22,000 miles above the planet.

But its super-efficient design for harvesting constant sunlight – called CASSIOPeiA – requires the system to rotate towards the sun, whatever its position, while still sending power to a fixed receiver on the ground.