Airbus reveals ‘zero-emission’ plane plan – maybe by 2035

Image credit: Airbus

Nonsensical climate virtue signalling takes to the skies. Hydrogen production is expensive, and operating two fuelling systems at airports also sounds costly. ‘Zero emission’ only applies if hydrogen is produced without burning any fuels – as the EU recently told the Netherlands – so the burden on renewables to power entire countries, plus all their vehicles, will have to extend to aircraft as well? Pie in the sky springs to mind.
– – –
Aerospace giant Airbus has announced plans to build zero-emission aircraft using hydrogen power technology.

On Monday (21 September), the firm revealed three concept designs that are on the table and is targeting a 2035 entry-into-service, reports Euractiv.

Airbus is working on three designs for aircraft that could be zero-emission, which range from a conventional turbofan jet with space for 200 passengers to a ‘blended wing’ concept that is a significant departure from the current generation of planes.

“These concepts will help us explore and mature the design and layout of the world’s first climate-neutral, zero-emission commercial aircraft, which we aim to put into service by 2035,” said CEO Guillaume Faury.

Brexit: Ireland’s land bridge to the continent boosts UK ’emissions’

Dublin-Holyhead ferry link [image credit: Stena Line]

The report below refers to air pollution but ignores carbon dioxide emissions, which are *supposed to be* a much bigger problem according to climate obsessives.
– – –
A no-deal Brexit could cost up to 5,000 jobs in Ireland’s fisheries, but it’s not just access to the UK’s coastal waters that the country is hoping to hold on to in any post-Brexit arrangement, says The Conversation @ Phys.org.

Perhaps more important to Ireland is the UK’s motorway network.

Every year, more than 150,000 trucks transport over 3 million tons of freight to and from Ireland to the rest of the single market across the UK land bridge.

One route involves goods being shipped from Dublin to Holyhead by ferry and then by road to Dover before being shipped to Calais.

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of this land bridge for Ireland.

Power companies ‘hindering’ move to green energy – or being realistic?

Customers aren’t going to be impressed if electricity generation becomes as intermittent as the wind, or is limited by the time of day and the weather like solar power. Most want reliable and affordable power, ahead of any theoretical climate obsessions based on misleading computer models.
– – –
New research suggests utilities are dragging their feet when it comes to embracing wind and solar, says BBC News.

Only one in 10 energy suppliers globally has prioritised renewables over fossil fuels, the study finds.

Even those that are spending on greener energy are continuing to invest in carbon heavy coal and natural gas.

New confirmation that climate models overstate atmospheric warming

.
.
Quote re. the Canadian climate model…
The sticker should read: “WARNING! This model predicts atmospheric warming roughly 7 times larger than observed trends. Use of this model for anything other than entertainment purposes is not recommended.”

Climate Etc.

by Ross McKitrick

Two new peer-reviewed papers from independent teams confirm that climate models overstate atmospheric warming and the problem has gotten worse over time, not better.

View original post 1,653 more words

California doomed to frequent blackouts due to battery shortage – Bloomberg Green

A self-induced shortage of reliable electricity generation is the real issue in California but its leaders can’t accept that, for mistaken ideological reasons supposedly related to the climate of the Earth. Instead they create their own problems due to unworkable energy policies, then discover they can’t solve them. Other leaders with similar ideas should take note and learn, but probably won’t, preferring to parrot ‘net zero’.

H/T The GWPF
– – –
Problem is there aren’t enough of these massive batteries to go around right now, says Bloomberg Green.

As the threat of blackouts continues to plague California, officials are pointing to battery storage as a key to preventing future power shortfalls.

Florida current is weaker now than at any point in the past century

Image credit: NASA

And by coincidence (?) so is the sun.
– – –
A key component of the Gulf Stream has markedly slowed over the past century—that’s the conclusion of a new research paper in Nature Communications published on August 7, says Phys.org.

The study develops a method of tracking the strength of near-shore ocean currents using measurements made at the coast, offering the potential to reduce one of the biggest uncertainties related to observations of climate change over the past century.

“In the ocean, almost everything is connected,” said Christopher Piecuch, an assistant scientist in the Physical Oceanography Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and author of the study. “We can use those connections to look at things in the past or far from shore, giving us a more complete view of the ocean and how it changes across space and time.”

Piecuch, who specializes in coastal and regional sea level change, used a connection between coastal sea level and the strength of near-shore currents to trace the evolution of the Florida Current, which forms the beginning of the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream flows north along the Southeast Atlantic Coast of the United States and eventually east into the North Atlantic Ocean, carrying heat, salt, momentum, and other properties that influence Earth’s climate.

Because nearly continuous records of sea level stretch back more than a century along Florida’s Atlantic Coast and in some parts of the Caribbean, he was able to use mathematical models and simple physics to extend the reach of direct measurements of the Gulf Stream to conclude that it has weakened steadily and is weaker now than at any other point in the past 110 years.

One of the biggest uncertainties in climate models is the behavior of ocean currents either leading to or responding to changes in Earth’s climate. Of these, one of the most important is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, which is a large system or “conveyor belt” of ocean currents in the Atlantic that includes the Gulf Stream and that helps regulate global climate.

Piecuch’s analysis agrees with relationships seen in models between the deeper branches of the AMOC and the Gulf Stream, and it corroborates studies suggesting that the deeper branches of AMOC have slowed in recent years.

Full article here.

Solar cycle 14 – was the fourteenth solar cycle since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. The solar cycle lasted 11.5 years, beginning in January 1902 and ending in July 1913. The maximum smoothed sunspot number (SIDC formula) observed during the solar cycle was 107.1, in February 1906 (the lowest since the Dalton Minimum) – Wikipedia

Report suggests SUVs are a health risk, or equivalent to one

Image credit: Carbuyer

A ‘climate think tank’ proposes trying to choke off SUV demand by banning adverts, but the most obvious advert is the vehicle that’s already on the road, visible to all. This report claims ‘soaring sales for electric vehicles’, but the actual numbers are tiny compared to total sales of all propulsion types – especially SUVs.
– – –
A new report draws parallels between the ban on tobacco advertising and changed behaviors, says Greenbiz.

The United Kingdom should ban the advertising of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in order to help drive down transport emissions and accelerate progress towards the country’s net zero goals, a study published this week has urged, drawing parallels with the ban on tobacco advertising and its success in changing behaviors.

Produced by climate think tank the New Weather Foundation, the report highlights how average emissions for new cars sold in the U.K. increased in 2019 for the fourth year in a row.

The same trend has been documented across much of Europe, as soaring sales for electric vehicles and low emission models are more than offset by increased demand for heavier and more polluting SUVs, which made up four in 10 of the U.K.’s new car sales last year.

By contrast, while sales of electric and plug-in hybrid models are growing exponentially, they are doing so from a low base with data from the European Environment Agency showing that fewer than two in every 100 new cars are fully electric.

The growth in SUV sales comes alongside increased advertising expenditure to promote the vehicles, the study adds, a marketing strategy that appears to run in conflict with the stated decarbonization ambitions of some of the world’s biggest car firms.

The study highlights the example provided Ford, which has set a net zero emissions target and promised to invest $11.5 billion in developing electric models through to 2022, but has at the same time stepped up efforts to promote its most high carbon models.

From September 2016 to September 2018, Ford went from a roughly 50/50 split in U.S. advertising spend between cars and SUVs/pickup trucks, to spending 85 percent on the latter, in pursuit of the higher profit margins provided by larger vehicles, the study notes.

Full article: We banned advertising for cigarettes. Should we do the same for SUVs?

Mass EV charging: Is a can of worms hiding under the bonnet?

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

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Scenario — having been pushed into buying an electric car, and spending large sums on upgrading your home electricity system, to cope with the government’s haphazard but supposedly climate-related demands: “Should you charge visitors for a recharge? You might gift the cost to friends and relatives, but what about the plumber or the carer?” – asks Transport Xtra.
– – –
The Government’s push to electrify road transport and domestic heating could place major cost burdens on consumers, says a new report.

Electric vehicles have become something of a panacea for politicians as they grapple with how to decarbonise the transport sector.

But for some engineers, the headlong rush to electrify road transport and domestic heating too is a major cause for concern.

Searching for the missing link: the hole in the zero-carbon bucket

*Missing* being the operative word. Any article such as this one, showing power station cooling towers appearing to emit black steam – by careful use of dusk shadowing – instantly announces itself as human-accusing climate propaganda, like all the others before it using the same camera trick. But as Star Trek’s Scotty used to say: ‘Ye canna change the laws of physics’, which climate dreamers tend to forget. Outlandish costs and highly inefficient methods are not going to work on an industrial scale either. In short, there’s a massive hole in their renewables-based bucket.
– – –
Governments and electric utilities are rapidly embracing the imperative to decarbonize energy use, says the Atlantic Council.

In the context of this effort, they have made substantial commitments to renewable energy generation and battery-based electricity storage through renewable portfolio standards and contractual commitments.

But while the costs of renewable energy generation have rapidly decreased, and their performance has improved, renewable generation is intermittent, and electric-system operators continue to rely on existing thermal resources, particularly natural gas generation, to fill in the gaps when renewable generation is not available.

HS2 rail project touts ‘carbon benefits’ through increased freight capacity

West Coast main line and M1 motorway, southern England

Can’t blame the promoters for claiming their monster rail project is a benefit to all and sundry, by any means available. It’s obviously part of their job to try and do so. Cue climate propaganda.
– – –
The project promoter has said that HS2 will enable new train paths on the existing network which can be used to move more goods by rail, and has released a new video to demonstrate this potential, reports New Civil Engineer.

The video uses Derby-based rail freight company DC Rail, which specialises in moving construction materials by rail, as an example. The firm is part of construction firm Cappagh Group which is currently constructing a new rail freight terminal in Wembley, on the West Coast Main Line, that will help it offer new rail services to customers in London.

HS2 Ltd has said that building HS2 will free up a “massive amount of space” by moving high speed services onto dedicated tracks to free up more train paths on the existing network for freight.

Lib Dems’ Ed Davey calls for zero carbon domestic flights by 2030

Experimental E-plane [image credit: Siemens]

If only batteries could lose some of their heavy weight during flight, matching the reductions achieved by burning fuel, he might be onto something. But as they can’t, this looks like more pie in the sky.
– – –
Exclusive: Acting Liberal Democrat leader calls for green short haul flights to be UK’s next “moon landing mission”, reports i-news.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey is calling for all domestic flights to be zero carbon by 2030, arguing the target must become the UK’s new “moon landing mission”.

Commercial planes run mainly on fossil fuels, and engineers are struggling to design a zero carbon passenger jet to replace them.

The biofuel boom was doomed from the start

That’s the verdict of OilPrice.com. Climate catastrophists seem more interested in other supposed panaceas these days.
– – –
Why haven’t biofuels taken off? For years they have been touted as the fuel of the future, with high-profile commercial aircraft making headlines for pioneering all-biofuel international flights and promising a greener future for air travel.

The first transatlantic flight powered solely by biofuel, a Gulfstream G450 owned by Honeywell International Inc., took place nearly a decade ago, in 2011, and was lauded as a harbinger of green jet fuel for all.

At that time, Honeywell Vice President Jim Rekoske told the world, “We’re ready to go to commercial scale and commercial use.”

But now, nine years later, the biofuel revolution that we were promised, both in the air and on our highways, is nowhere to be seen.

Tree planting does not always boost ecosystem carbon stocks, study finds

Looks like another setback for those looking for solutions to imaginary problems.
– – –
Planting huge numbers of trees to mitigate climate change is “not always the best strategy”—with some experimental sites in Scotland failing to increase carbon stocks, a new study has found.

Experts at the University of Stirling and the James Hutton Institute analysed four locations in Scotland where birch trees were planted onto heather moorland—and found that, over decades, there was no net increase in ecosystem carbon storage, reports Phys.org.

The team—led by Dr. Nina Friggens, of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Stirling—found that any increase to carbon storage in tree biomass was offset by a loss of carbon stored in the soil.

Giant flywheel project in Scotland could prevent UK power outages

Windy Standard wind farm, Scotland [credit: RWE.com]

H/T Chaeremon

We’re supposed to believe that spending £25 million is going to somehow make UK power supplies cheaper. No explanation of where the energy for the flywheel is going to come from. Maybe more trees will have to be burnt, as wind can’t be relied on? Don’t even think about a catastrophic failure of the flywheel itself.

A giant flywheel in the north-east of Scotland could soon help prevent power outages across Britain by mimicking the effect of a power plant but without using fossil fuels, reports FR24News.

The pioneering project near Keith in Moray, which would cost around £25 million, will not produce electricity or produce carbon emissions – but it could help keep the lights on by stabilizing the grid’s electrical frequency.

Norwegian energy company Statkraft hopes that starting next winter, the new flywheel, designed by a division of General Electric, will be able to mimic the rotating turbines of a traditional power plant, which have helped balance the network frequency at around 50 hertz for decades.

Bring UK petrol and diesel car ban forward to 2032, say Government advisers

Raising taxes on something you’re trying to get rid of doesn’t look like a great way to raise lots of money. But it should make a big dent in the culprits’ political popularity, especially with car and motorbike dealers. Another product of climate fantasies.
– – –
The ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars should be brought forward from 2035 to 2032 “at the latest”, a group of politicians and scientists that advise the Government has said.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) – an independent body that advises ministers on decarbonisation – is asking the Government to provide “detailed policy arrangements” to enable the 2032 ban, reports Auto Express.

The CCC also advises that sales of new motorcycles with an internal combustion engine should be outlawed.

Biomass: The Burning Question

What use is it? That would be the obvious one, when better alternatives not requiring ludicrously high subsidies are readily available.
– – –
A new report from climate change think tank Ember reveals the cost of burning wood for power, with energy billpayers committed to subsidies of more than £13 billion, including £10bn at Drax power station alone.

In addition to the direct subsidy, we estimate biomass generators are receiving carbon tax breaks of £333 million a year.

The UK has now left the EU, and there’s an opportunity to reassess carbon pricing – including in the design of the UK emissions trading system.

In this research, we demonstrate why the UK should abandon the carbon tax break afforded to large power stations burning biomass (mostly wood in the form of pellets or chips).

UK consumers face £2-3bn annual bill to prevent green-energy blackouts

Price gouging on the grand scale to keep the ruinables show on the road, regardless of electricity grid stability. But our leaders love this fiasco and label it as climate policy, so that’s OK? No, but they seem to face few obstacles to their blinkered obsession, even though the problems look bound to get worse.
– – –
Lockdown reveals the UK’s power grid is fragile, costly, and failing – because of renewables, says Dr. Benny Peiser @ Climate Change Dispatch.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is today publishing a collection of papers by energy expert Dr. John Constable, documenting the rapid decay of the UK electricity system, with system balancing costs spiraling out of control over the last few weeks.

The cost of balancing the grid over the Bank Holiday weekend amounted to £50m, and National Grid has predicted additional costs of £700m from May to August alone.

Britain’s electric car strategy is ‘doomed to failure’

Making the insanity obvious is one thing, but getting UK political leaders to take any notice is another matter altogether. Most of them won’t be in office anyway when their climate/energy policies run into the roadblock of reality. Renewables are totally inadequate for projected electricity demands, but nobody in power understands that, or they pretend they don’t.
– – –
The UK Government’s push to electrify road transport is based on naivety, the undue influence of the Committee on Climate Change, and a lack of engineering expertise within Government, an academic has said. 

Professor Michael Kelly, the former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Communities and Local Government, issues the warning in a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

He warns the Government’s ambitions for EVs and electric heating in buildings will end in damaging failure.

Weaknesses Of Wind And Solar: When Science And Reality Clash – Part 3

.
.
The demonisation of carbon dioxide is essentially a marketing tactic masquerading as science, to fool the gullible.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Terigi Ciccone~

In Parts One and Two of this Series, we established the Ciccone/Lehr Rule of Thumb which states that All Wind and Solar Power must be backed up with an equal or greater amount of Fossil Fuel Power running on standby 100% of the time.

In this concluding segment, we summarize the critical climate change facts that you need to be optimistic for a better future and do so with confidence, tolerance, and good humor. The facts are fully substantiated in the book A HITCHHIKER’S JOURNEY THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE, now on Amazon.

The climate change industry is enormous. Untold hundreds of $billions are in play each year, and charlatans are fiercely competing for the biggest bites. An editorial in the May 27 Wall Street Journal by Steve Milloy described how many Fortune 500 companies brag about what they are doing…

View original post 1,223 more words

UK court allows Drax gas power station appeal

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

The climate-obsessed BBC frames this as a hard luck story for a charity. But for energy consumers it will be the biggest gas power station in Europe if/when built, providing on-demand power to help replace the many coal-fired plants closed in recent years.
– – –
An environmental charity has lost a High Court challenge against a government decision to approve a new gas-fired power plant, reports BBC News.

ClientEarth had argued the decision did not take enough account of environmental targets at the Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire.

But the judge Mr Justice Holgate, said the targets were outweighed by other “public interest issues” involved.

The charity is now considering an appeal against the decision.