Approval for £175m Cumbria coal mine

An artist’s impression of Woodhouse Colliery (Credit: West Cumbria Mining)

The ‘new-found energy realism of Cumbrian councillors’ has been praised by the GWPF and others, but has predictably dismayed hardline climate miserablists..

Cumbria County Council has backed plans for a £175m metallurgical coal mine on a brownfield site near Whitehaven with work set to get under way by the end of the year, reports Place North West.

The plans by West Cumbria Mining cover mineral extraction over 50 years over a 689-acre site running to and beyond the St Bees coast, along with associated development such as the refurbishment of two existing drifts leading to two new underground drifts; coal storage and processing buildings; office and change building, an access road, ventilation, power and water infrastructure and landscaping.

Australian court rejects coal mine on climate grounds

Lots of coal in Australia

Are some judges being tempted into overstepping their roles in cases like this? If they are ‘calling climate scientists to testify’ as the report says, which climate scientists get invited? The ruling could yet be appealed.

An Australian court on Friday delivered a landmark ruling by rejecting plans to build a coal mine on the grounds it would worsen climate change, reports Phys.org.

Chief Justice Brian Preston said a planned open cut coal mine in a scenic part of New South Wales state would be in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.

Asia coal plants worrying for climate targets: IEA

[image credit: Pakistan Defence]

They need to find something else to worry about. Renewables are simply too feeble to take the place of coal and gas power generation, even if such were desirable, and restricting power usage is not a credible option. Quite the reverse in fact – everyone wants electricity, and more of it as time goes by.
H/T Phys.org

Coal-fired power plants operating and under construction in Asia pose a threat to achieving the goal of halting global warming, the head of the International Energy Agency told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

Powering Australia: Keeping the Lights On Means Coal-Fired Power For Generations to Come

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Australia fiddles while its own coal burns…elsewhere. That’s exactly it, but what are its apparently confused leaders thinking to allow this to happen?

STOP THESE THINGS

Australia is in the process of destroying what was the world’s most reliable and affordable power supply. The destruction is all down to heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar.

Meanwhile, our major Asian trading partners, China and Japan are chewing up Australian coal and uranium as fast as we can ship it – and building hundreds of new plants to use our high-grade thermal coal: Full-Steam Ahead: China & Japan Snub Intermittent Wind & Solar to Build Hundreds of New-Age Coal-Fired Plants

That a country once renowned as an affordable energy superpower is throttling itself to death with a cocktail of suicidal renewable energy policies, is not just ironic, it is flat out criminal.

Tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs in mining, mineral processing and manufacturing have already been destroyed by rocketing power prices; and tens of thousands more remain under threat. Once lost, those jobs will never…

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Australia’s top scientist calls for hydrogen revolution to replace fossil fuels

An obvious problem with hydrogen is the likely high cost of production. Another one is the vast amounts of renewables needed to make the plan work, or if coal or gas is used, the high cost and doubtful viability of large-scale carbon capture.

Meantime, Environment Minister Melissa Price has rejected the findings of a major climate report, despite not having read it, says the Sydney Morning Herald.

The federal government’s top scientist Alan Finkel says Australia could slash global carbon emissions and create a multi-billion dollar export industry by developing hydrogen as an everyday energy source to replace fossil fuels used in vehicles, homes and industry.

Germany struggles to end coal power as populist AfD challenges green consensus

Hambach surface mine, Germany [image credit: Wikipedia]

To be more realistic, delete ‘struggles’ and insert ‘fails totally’. The bottom line is that part-time unpredictable electricity supplies are of strictly limited use to modern industrial economies dependent on continuous and adequate – preferably affordable – power for their survival and prosperity. Granted, lignite is not a great choice of fuel but something has to be used to keep the show on the road 24/7.

Coal showdown reflects government’s floundering shift to renewable power, says The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

Not far from Germany’s Rhine River, a fight to thwart giant excavators from grinding away what’s left of the 1,200-year-old Hambach forest came to a head this month as thousands of protesters faced off with police in a tense, and at times violent, showdown.

Doomsday: New Energy Minister – Angus Taylor Declares War On Subsidises for Wind & Solar

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New Australian energy minister Taylor: ‘Something has gone terribly wrong’. Can’t argue with that.

[Note re. heading: ‘subsidises’ should read ‘subsidies’]

STOP THESE THINGS

Angus Taylor’s elevation to Energy Minister is the beginning of the end for subsidised wind and solar in Australia. And the merry mix of zealots and profiteers that people the anti-carbon dioxide industrial complex, surely know it.

As every history buff knows, the French Revolution kicked into gear when an angry mob overran the Bastille on 14 July 1789. But the fun and games didn’t really commence until Maximilian Robespierre launched his Reign of Terror. ‘The Terror’ was clearly a nervous time for those who had fallen out of favour with Robespierre and his revolutionaries. Old certainties and aristocratic manners gave way to the brutal efficiency of the guillotine, and the public squares in Paris were quickly filled with the panicked screams of condemned ‘aristos’ and anyone else deemed to be an apologist for the Bourbon King’s slights and tyrannies.

Sure, things got out of hand and way too bloody…

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Climate change action off the agenda under new Australian government

Lots of coal in Australia

Disastrous virtue signalling is out and reliable affordable energy generation is in, according to this GWPF report.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has unveiled a new energy policy focused exclusively on reducing electricity prices, in a strong signal the Morrison government will abandon all efforts to lower carbon emissions.

The move comes a week after the issue of climate change precipitated the ousting of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. “My No.1 priority is very, very simple,” Mr Taylor said in a speech on Thursday. “It is to reduce power prices, and to do this while we keep the lights on.”

Ousted Australian PM: This government cannot address climate change

Ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull [image credit: BBC]

Same for every other government. Unless they can change the orbit of the Earth or control the Sun, they are likely to be out of luck.

Turnbull replaced by treasurer who brought lump of coal to parliament, says Climate Home News.

Australia’s governing party cannot agree a climate policy because of anti-science forces within, the outgoing prime minister said just moments after being deposed in a party room coup on Friday.

Most-polluting UK home fuels to be burned up

Where does this leave people who were encouraged to buy wood burning stoves?

The UK government is consulting on proposals to ban wood and coal burning in households, reports Energy Live News.

The sale of the most-polluting fuels used in UK households are to get the chop as part of government plans to reduce emissions.

Unions tell Poland to push coal as UN climate host

Poland’s miners understandably don’t want their jobs to be sacrificed on the questionable altar of the UN’s climate ideology.

A government-backed trade union conference in Katowice this week puts mining jobs on the agenda of climate change negotiations, says Climate Change News.

Poland’s trade unions are mounting a defence of coal workers against the impacts of climate policies in a government-backed conference this week.

The “social pre-cop” meeting is an effort to influence the agenda of Cop24, the UN climate summit to be held in the same city of Katowice this December.

Coal boom: India slashes plans for new nuclear reactors by two thirds

Credit: Coal India Limited

A big vote of no confidence in the Paris climate agreement, by the world’s second most populous country. Political reality comes first: coal is much cheaper than nuclear.

India has decided to cut its planned nuclear power plant construction by two-thirds, says The GWPF. This will further expand the country’s use of coal for electrical power generation.

The Financial Express, one of India’s major newspapers, reports that the Narendra Modi government, which had set an ambitious 63,000 MW nuclear power capacity addition target by the year 2031-32, has cut it to 22,480 MW, or by roughly two-thirds.

The decision has enormous implications for expanding use of coal for electrical power generation and for release of CO2, other greenhouse gases, and for adding to India’s dire air pollution problems in its major cities.

German energy executive severely injured in acid attack

Hambach surface mine, Germany [image credit: Wikipedia]

Looks like a case of protest gone mad over Europe’s largest surface coal mining operation.

The finance chief of an RWE renewable energy subsidiary was struck by unknown assailants as he crossed a park near Düsseldorf, reports DW.com. Police said they were investigating “in every direction”.
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A German energy executive has been badly injured in an acid attack, his company confirmed early Monday. Bernhard Günther, the CFO of energy giant RWE’s green subsidiary, Innogy, was struck as he crossed a park in Haan, a well-to-do suburb of Düsseldorf on Sunday.

“We are deeply shocked,” said Innogy chairman Uwe Tiggs. “Our thoughts are with Bernhard and his family and we wish him a speedy recovery.”

Two unknown perpetrators poured acid over the 51-year-old’s face before fleeing the scene on foot, according to a statement Günter made to police.

Britain’s energy market is under the spotlight – for all the wrong reasons

Carrington gas power station, Greater Manchester

Britain badly needs new power stations but current national policy is working against that, argues an industry insider. Instead we have a ‘sticking plaster’ strategy.

Great Britain’s energy market, once the envy of free-marketeers after Margaret Thatcher ended decades of nationalisation in the 1980s, is once again under the spotlight – for all the wrong reasons, says businessman Peter Hughes at PEI.

The current Prime Minister Theresa May is fond of referring to the UK’s “broken energy market”. While she may use the phrase to justify a cap on consumer energy bills, she could just as easily apply it to the failure of successive governments to encourage the building of new power plants.

As old coal and aged gas and nuclear power plants head towards decommissioning, the UK faces the possibility of a shortfall in its future electricity supply that cannot be plugged by intermittent renewables alone.

Macron lectures on global warming at Davos as France misses climate targets

France’s President Macron at Davos

France’s virtue-signalling anti-coal pledge may sound grand, but as the report points out it ‘only has three power plants that burn coal’, providing 1% of its electricity. Another potential problem for France is the inflexibility of nuclear power, which is not suitable for rapid ramping up and down in response to changes in demand and/or short-term fluctuations in renewable energy. In February 2017 the German nuclear plant at Brokdorf was taken offline after the operation of the plant in “load-following” mode had contributed to unexpected oxidation of its fuel rods.

France failed to meet its global warming target, as The Daily Caller reports.

Why Wind Power Is Not Equal To Coal Fired Power

Hazelwood power station, Australia – closed in 2017 [image credit: Simpsons fan 66 at English Wikipedia]

How much enforced variability in electricity generation can a country’s power system tolerate? A close look at the numbers for Australia is not encouraging, to say the least.

How often have you heard that Wind power is intermittent, but has anyone ever explained that to you, or shown just how it actually is intermittent, and what it means, asks TonyfromOz.

What if you need a dedicated amount of power all the time? Can wind power be relied on to generate that dedicated amount of power?

Over the last Month, I have been detailing the closure of the 53 year old Hazelwood brown coal fired power plant in the State of Victoria here in Australia, and comparing that plant’s power generation with wind power across the whole of Australia, and that Post is at this link.

The main comparison was with all the wind plants across the whole of Australia, but I was also including the data for just the wind plants in the same State that the Hazelwood plant was in, Victoria.

China’s first all-electric cargo ship will transport coal

Guangzhou, China

If there were prizes for irony, this would have to be a contender. Does the coal generate its electricity?

China, already the world’s biggest electric-vehicle market, is now using battery power to fuel cargo shipping as well, reports Quartz Media.

A Chinese company has built a 2,000 metric-ton (2,204 tons) all-electric cargo ship, which was launched from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in mid-November, according to state-run newspaper People’s Daily.

The 70-meter long (229 feet) and 14-meter wide (45 feet) ship is equipped with over 1,000 lithium batteries, with a total capacity of 2,400 kilowatt-hours.

By comparison, Tesla’s Model X is equipped with a 100-kWh battery that allows it to drive nearly 570 kilometers (350 miles).

Poland ready for EU climate showdown over coal use

Gateway to the COP24 climate conference in 2018

Poland doesn’t plan to undermine its economy to please the EU or anyone else with an agenda. The report notes: ‘Ironically, next year’s climate conference will be held in the southern Polish city of Katowice – the centre of the coal-producing Silesia region’. Maybe the local miners would like to pay them a visit 😎

Poland is on a collision course with EU chiefs over its continued heavy use of fossil fuels, as the country prepares to receive its first shipment of US coal, reports the GWPF.

Prime Minister Beata Szydło has warned MEPs she will “throw it back at them” if they criticise her nation’s carbon consumption at next month’s EU summit.

And that could set the scene for more stand-offs next year, when Poland hosts the next round of UN climate talks.

Germany’s ‘Energiewende has made things worse for climate’ says report

‘The donkey goes on to the ice until it breaks’ – German proverb [image credit: evwind.es]

Debatable claim in the headline, but the German ‘energy transition’ has certainly hurt electricity consumers as prices have shot up in the last decade, with fortunes being wasted on vain attempts to tweak the climate system.

As Bonn this week hosts the COP23 climate talks, a new report claims that Germany’s Energiewende programme “has made things worse for the climate”, reports PEI.

It says it has done this “by shutting down nuclear capacity and locking in dependency on coal for decades, despite hundreds of billions in investments and subsidy-schemes”.

US to promote ‘universal access’ to fossil fuels at climate talks

Needless to say this will go down like a lead balloon with climate obsessives, but that’s their problem. How many of them live in parts of the world where electricity and other types of power are in short supply?

President Donald Trump’s administration has envoys at the UN-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany, even though the US has derided the Paris Agreement climate accord and has begun a years-long process to withdraw from it, reports the South China Morning Post.

The meeting, the Conference of Parties 23, is intended to hammer out the details of the Paris Agreement’s efforts to try to fight climate change.

While a small State Department team has been on the ground for technical negotiations since the talks opened last week, the administration is sending another delegation for the second week that will include senior White House advisers.