Day: September 12, 2023

The U.S. and UK Are Getting Coal Cocked

Some Western nations appear to be waking up to the reality that they are being duped – that Net Zero is a fabrication of their own egos that other nations hardly take seriously. Just don’t count on the world’s two leading English-speaking nations, or the plutocrats in Paris, Geneva, and Davos, to follow suit. They still talk as if they still control the unfolding of world affairs.

By Duggan Flanakin

Some Western nations appear to be waking up to the reality that they are being duped – that Net Zero is a fabrication of their own egos that other nations hardly take seriously. Just don’t count on the world’s two leading English-speaking nations, or the plutocrats in Paris, Geneva, and Davos, to follow suit. They still talk as if they still control the unfolding of world affairs.

Just last year, for example, a German company demolished an aging wind farm to expand a coal mine. To the BBC’s chagrin, Australia, too, continues to rely on its coal industry for much-needed jobs and revenues. 

Yet the modern-day utopians in the U.S. and the UK still cling to the myth that emerging superpower nations like China, India, and Russia will bow before the World Economic Forum and United Nations grifters.

The BBC calls Australia “a stark outlier … in a world racing to reduce pollution.” They squawk that China, “along with G7 rich nations,” has made the Net Zero by 2050 pledge – despite watching China and many other nations dramatically increase their reliance on coal energy.

The BBC ignores the fact that global coal consumption has nearly doubled since 1998. Consumption jumped from 94.9 exajoules (3.24 billion tonnes) in 1998 to 150.4 exajoules 5.15 billion tonnes) in 2010 to a record high 8 billion tonnes in 2022.

China has doubled consumption from 1.5 billion tonnes in 2002 to more than 3 billion tonnes in 2022 (officially, but surely higher now). Coal consumption in India has skyrocketed, rising from 240 million tonnes in 2007 to 906 million tonnes in 2021.

China in the first half of 2023 started construction on 37 gigawtts of new coal power capacity, issued permits for another 52 GW, and announced the revival of 49 GW. China now has added 243 GW of new coal power, increasing capacity by up to 33% since January 2022.

India in 2022 reopened more than 100 coal mines to meet growing demand for coal energy. Again this year India stepped up coal production to stop outages caused by lower hydropower output due to an ongoing drought. India has failed to meet its Paris Agreement goals for renewable energy, as coal in August provided three-quarters of the nation’s electricity.

Meanwhile, the U.S. consumed just 495 million tonnes of coal in 2021, down from a record 1,127 million tonnes in 2007. The major decrease began with President Obama’s pledge to bankrupt the U.S. coal industry. As House Natural Resources Committee chair Rep. Doc Hastings (R, WA) said in 2012, Obama “tried at every turn to make that goal a reality.”

As Hastings put it, the Obama Administration rescinded the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule, entered into a consent agreement with environmental groups and spent millions of taxpayer dollars to rewrite the rule, attempted to manipulate data to conceal its economic impact, and hid the final rule from the public until after the 2012 election.

China and India were exempted from having to cut carbon dioxide emissions both under the failed 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2016 Paris Agreement.  Grist claimed it was only fair for “the fattest man at the table” to be lenient with “hungry” nations “upon realizing that the food is running out.”

While the U.S. Senate rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the Senate never got to vote on the Paris Agreement. President Biden has doubled down on Obama’s pledge to make coal as much a pariah in the U.S. as it is in the UK.

Just a year ago, President Biden claimed coal plants in the U.S. were “too expensive to operate” – though he did not add, “because of President Obama’s egregious regulations.” He promised that “we’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America” and rely on increasingly expensive, intermittent wind and solar electricity.

U.S coal production is also being hindered as Western U.S. ports seek to ban coal exports. Just since 2010, nine proposals that would have added 133 million tonnes of annual coal-handling capacity in the Pacific Northwest have been cancelled. This has dealt major blows to coal mining operations and the economies in states like Utah, Montana, and Wyoming.

Just last year, the city of Oakland blocked a plan to ship low-sulfur Utah coal to Japan via a bulk terminal on the San Francisco Bay. The Utah Legislature had set aside $53 milllion to invest in terminal development. Utah coal is still shipped from three other California ports despite growing local opposition to any handling of coal.

To fill the void, Russia is ramping up coal production, with a goal of 668 million tonnes per year by 2035 – up from 441 million tonnes in 2019. Coal production had already risen 30% from 2011 to 2021.

A significant project upgrading operations at the 2.2 billion tonne deposit of coal in the Siberian town of Elga, which is covered by snow up to 9 months a year. According to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, “Growth prospects are primarily related to the growing market of the Asia-Pacific region.”

Indonesia, on a pace to be the world’s fourth largest economy by 2045, is building 19 gigawatts of new coal plant capacity, two-thirds of which will power nickel, cobalt, and aluminum smelters. The Jakarta government plans to turn Indonesia into a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles and batteries.

Coal today accounts for 43% of Indonesia’s grid electricity, but Indonesia is also one of the world’s leading coal exporters. The new plants will bump national capacity by a third to nearly 60 GW over a short time frame.

U.S. policy, by contrast, is aimed at shuttering coal plants, banning natural gas even for home appliances, and heavily subsidizing wind and solar projects to meet Net Zero decarbonization goals that Congress has never approved. As a result, the nationwide average electricity price rose 11% from 2021 to 2022. Electricity bills in 2023 are rising as much as 40%.

Similarly, household electricity prices in the UK doubled in the past decade despite the government setting a tariff cap to protect consumers. Last summer, electricity prices peaked at £363.7 per megawatt-hour.

A century ago, the British lion was the world’s leading economy. The Suez Crisis of 1956, it is said, confirmed Britain’s decline as a global power, and the transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 literally buried the British Empire.

The U.S. secured its position as the world leader after World War II but began a long decline just 15 years later with the Vietnam war. Today, the inheritors of U.S. policy – many from the Vietnam era – are making the withdrawal from Afghanistan (despite the pretenses of power in the Russia-Ukraine war) the sign of the end of the American empire.

How long will it be before the (likely) fall of Taiwan buries the remnants of American power?

How quickly can an empire collapse from its own rot?

Why have the U.S. and the UK backed away from fossil fuels even as other nations double down to upgrade their own economies with coal? One might believe that Western leaders just want to transfer their guilt for mismanaging their power by punishing the citizens who let them do it?

Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a frequent writer on public policy issues. 

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

The BRICS and CO₂ are reshuffling the geopolitical deck

The BRICS+ and the Global South are therefore objective allies for economic growth and will therefore consume more energy. Meanwhile, in the EU, which is the big loser in this BRICS development, the raison d’être is decarbonisation.

From Friends of Science Calgary

by Samuel Furfari – originally published in Factuel in French. Republished here in English translation with permission of the author.

As the BRICS countries have expanded to include six new members, economic commentators have focused on the role of currencies. This is understandable. But we should not lose sight of the power of the BRICS+, which stems from their control over oil and gas reserves. These countries are also concerned about their own economic growth and that of their customers in the Global South, so next November’s COP28 is already shaping up to be a failure for the EU’s anti-growth agenda.

Image sourced from the original article:
https://factuel.media/blogs/blog-articles/brics-et-co%E2%82%82-rebattent-les-cartes-de-la-geopolitique_ba_20552247

More BRICS… Powerful

The BRICS group of countries has decided to expand: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will join founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on 1 January 2024.

The other candidate countries will have to wait to join, because this club of countries attracts a lot of people. Some ‘political’ researchers scoffed, arguing in particular that there are huge disparities between the countries of what I will call the BRICS+. Aren’t there huge disparities in the EU, for example between the economies of Germany and Cyprus? After all, there is no question of a union or institutions between the BRICS countries, as there is in the EU.

The BRICS+ are an informal grouping, just like the G7 or the G20. These groups have emerged because formal multilateral cooperation, sublimated in the United Nations, has become ineffective, unnecessary and costly. The strategic competition between the great powers is growing and can no longer be reduced to the great UN convolutions and lost in agencies or bodies such as the COPs, which have sufficiently demonstrated their emptiness.

These 11 countries carry considerable weight on a global scale. They account for 36% of the world’s landmass, compared with 16% of the G7. With 45% of the world’s population, they are almost five times as populous as the G7. In economic terms, the BRICS+ are also larger than the G7 (37% of world GDP compared to 30% of the G7). In terms of food, they are also better off than the G7: they produce almost half of the wheat and 55% of the rice. Brazil, India and Argentina are among the top five beef-exporting countries. They are also dominant in steel and aluminium production. Steel, so vital to the construction and automotive industries, is 70% produced in the BRIC+ countries, including five of the world’s top eleven producers. Aluminium, an essential metal for modern life, especially in the mobility sector, is almost 80% in the hands of this group of countries. We will see later on their strategic importance in terms of energy, but it is worth remembering that without coal there is no steel production and without electricity there is no aluminium production. Not surprisingly, energy is of strategic importance to these consumer giants.

Clearly, China is the heavyweight in almost all of these comparisons. Most economists, both inside and outside China, expect its economy to grow by 5% a year. This growth cycle has been impressive over the years, but we are seeing a shift in pace that could be worrying if confirmed. The problems facing the Chinese economy are political and systemic. China’s economy is struggling because its authoritarian demons are catching up with it and crippling the private sector. This possible decline in China’s influence will affect the internal balance of the BRICS+, which will not displease the other members of the group, but will not call into question the predominant and growing weight of this grouping, because one way or another, China will not collapse.

United Nations Pond

The BRICS meet at the highest leadership level to further consolidate and strengthen mutual trust in order to influence the world’s major strategic directions. It is clear that this group intends to mark its difference from the G7, the main leaders of the OECD countries (and NATO, with the exception of Japan and Australia). Indeed, how can we not see the BRICS as an alter ego of the OECD, which no longer accepts the dominance of the United States? The war in Ukraine has brought this opposition to the fore, so much so that Vladimir Putin was unable to travel to Johannesburg due to sanctions imposed by the West and had to participate via videoconference. He will have his revenge next year when the BRICS meet in Moscow.

But the bridges have not been completely burned, because beyond bilateral relations, which remain largely intact, the G20 is an opportunity for the BRICS+ and the G7 to talk to each other. Argentina, Brazil, China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia are members of these two informal groups, and the latter will host the annual G20 meeting on 9–10 September.

New geopolitics

Western media often speculate about whether China wants to introduce the yuan to compete with the dollar, or whether the BRICS want to have a common currency. The state of the Chinese currency discredits this hypothesis. In fact, it is a distraction because it is not the real issue.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the geopolitical cards are being reshuffled.

The rise of the ‘workshop of the world’ — China – and the ‘office of the world’ — India – thanks to the enormous firepower of a population that is at last educated and no longer dependent on subsistence farming is arousing the interest of what is now called the ‘Global South’. This neologism refers to countries that have been described as ‘emerging’, ‘developing’ or even, ‘less developed or underdeveloped’. The majority of these countries are located in the global south, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

These countries, their leaders, their populations and, above all, their young people, who are discovering the reality of the rich world thanks to the Internet, only want to live well, like the G7 countries. There is only one condition for this: economic growth.

China shows that economic growth is possible even in a dictatorship.

The corollary of economic growth is the growth of energy consumption, because the physical concept of work is exactly the same as that of energy. Without energy, there can be no work, and without work, there can be no economic growth and therefore no social development.

The rise of India

In contrast to Russia’s failed moon landing on 19 August, the successful landing of the Indian lunar module near the moon’s south pole on 23 August confirms India’s mastery of space technology. This gives India the right to claim to be a leading power. Of the four countries that have successfully landed on the Moon, three are BRICS members (China and Russia before India). The success of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing confirms India’s place in the Artemis Agreement, the multilateral initiative led by the US NASA to send men to the Moon by 2025.

Another area in which India has surprised is the extraordinary progress it has made in electrifying the country, a key parameter of prosperity. Millions of Indians suffered from backward economic development, negatively affecting health care and quality of life. Poor lighting prevented people from working after dark, and a lack of water pumps limited the use of modern toilets. Since 2000, successive governments have been determined to end this energy poverty, manifested primarily in the lack of electricity. Today, 99% of Indians are connected to the grid, even as the population has grown from 926 million in 1993 to 1,428 million today. Thirty years ago, that figure was only 50%. How has this been possible? It was the massive use of coal that made this electricity revolution possible. Thirty years ago, India consumed 5.36 exajoules (EJ) of coal, compared with 20.09 EJ today.

Seventy-five percent of India’s electricity is generated by coal, so much maligned in the EU. There can be no economic miracle without abundant and cheap energy, as China has shown.

Obviously, unlike Brussels-Strasbourg, the Indian authorities are not obsessed with reducing CO₂ emissions. That is why India, along with China, opposed the inclusion in the Glasgow COP26 conclusions of the need to reduce coal consumption.

On August 25, India’s Minister of Electricity and New and Renewable Energy, Shri R. K. Singh, called for a change in the discourse and argument on global climate change, shifting the focus from total emissions to per capita emissions in each country. On the Ministry of Energy’s website, his call is clear: ‘India’s per capita emissions are one third of the global average, one of the lowest in the world; despite this, developed countries have until recently pressured large countries like India to reduce their emissions. Their per capita emissions remained three to four times higher than the global average. The speech was [so far] about each country’s total emissions.’

Shri Singh delivered the coup de grace by declaring that ‘the housing stock of developing countries will multiply, as we grow; We will need more cement, steel and aluminium to build these buildings and factories. This will lead to an increase in emissions. So we need to develop [to be allowed to develop].’

High-risk COP28

The Global South has understood that if it wants to develop, it must do so by consuming fossil fuels and thus emitting CO₂.

The United Arab Emirates – a new member of BRICS+ – has chosen to include the colour black in its flag as a reminder that its prosperity is due to black gold.

MEPs have asked the Emir of the United Arab Emirates to remove Sultan al Jabal from the presidency of COP 28, to be held in Dubai in November 2023, because – the ultimate sin – he is the president of ADNOC, the company that manages the country’s hydrocarbon production. Federal Council member Ali bin Rashid al-Nuaimi did not hesitate to criticise these lessons: European lawmakers, ‘advocate international intervention in a sovereign decision – the latest effort in a long series of Western efforts to impose their will on global governments in the Global South for national political gain.’

With 46% of world consumption, the BRICS+ are major energy consumers: 35% of world oil, 36% of natural gas and 72% of coal.

They hold 42% of oil reserves, 50% of gas reserves and even 40% of coal reserves. Their energy future is therefore secure, which is clearly not the case for the EU, which is isolated in this area because its privileged ally, the United States, has also secured its energy future thanks to shale oil and gas. There is not enough space here to highlight the blow of Iran’s admission to this group at a time when the country is still being roundly criticised by the US and, to some extent, the European Union. With 9% and 17% of the world’s oil and gas reserves respectively, the BRICS+ have secured a significant proportion of their hydrocarbon needs.

The decline of the EU

Not only are the BRICS+ big consumers, as we have seen, but they also need customers to ensure their growth. The Global South does not want to consume for consumption’s sake, as some of the G7 countries do, but out of a need to get out of poverty or even to limit emigration, which, if it continued, would have harmful consequences for African countries.

The BRICS+ and the Global South are therefore objective allies for economic growth and will therefore consume more energy.

Given that, after fifty years of research and promotion, wind and solar PV account for only 3% of primary energy demand globally and in the EU, the demand for conventional energy (fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro) will only increase.

Meanwhile, in the EU, which is the big loser in this BRICS development, the raison d’être is decarbonisation.

But because it is utopian, it has to resort to economic and demographic decline. Is it because it knows that its energy future is not green but gloomy that it is funding studies on degrowth? The Flemish media Doorbraak has just reported that three activists from the degrowth movement have been awarded a contract worth 9.9 million euros to write pamphlets and campaign for six years at the expense of the European Union to defend their retrograde political choice. Will MEPs speak out against this political abuse of the so-called Horizon Europe research programme? It reminds me of what an Italian MEP once said: ‘If you think you are a leader and nobody follows you, you are a loser.’ The BRICS+ demonstrate this obviousness.

~~~~

Prof. Samuel Furfari’s books available on Amazon.

Recent work:

https://www.amazon.ca/Samuel-Furfari/e/B00DW7D5KU/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Europe’s solar industry warns of bankruptcy risk as prices drop

So much for cheap solar power then!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t idau

So much for cheap solar power then!

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s solar power industry warned on Monday of a “precarious” situation for European solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturers as solar PV prices reached record lows.

Industry trade group SolarPower Europe said in a letter sent to the European Commission that European companies risk bankruptcies, which they said would hurt the EU’s goal of reshoring 30 GW of the solar PV supply chain.

Prices of PV modules have dropped by more than a quarter since the beginning of the year, according to SolarPower.

“This is creating concrete risks for companies to go into insolvency as their significant stock will need to be devalued,” SolarPower Europe said.

Strong demand, combined with large investments and fierce competition among Chinese suppliers led to overcapacities in the market and a price fall.

The industry calls on the European Commission to buy up European companies’ solar module stockpiles, to set up a Solar Manufacturing Bank at EU level and to boost demand for solar PV in Europe among others.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/europes-solar-industry-warns-of-bankruptcy-risk-as-prices-drop/ar-AA1gz7yu

FILE PHOTO: European flags fly outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels,© Thomson Reuters

Pyrenean caves reveal a warmer past

 New research published in the journal ‘Climate of the Past,’ investigating climate proxy data based on stalagmites is revealing that past climates were warmer than our own.

From Net Zero Watch

By Dr David Whitehouse, Science editor

The world’s high mountain regions are particularly sensitive to climate change. Straddling the border between France and Spain the Pyrenees occupy a crucial position in southern Europe, influenced by both Mediterranean and Atlantic climates. New research published in the journal ‘Climate of the Past,’ investigating climate proxy data based on stalagmites is revealing that past climates were warmer than our own.

This is the first climate reconstruction in the region based on speleothems over the past 2500 years. Previous reconstructions have been based on lake sediments, tree-rings and glaciers.

Global surface temperatures in the first two decades of the 21st century (2001–2020) were 0.84 to 1.10°C warmer than 1850–1900 AD (IPCC, 2021). According to the IPCC anthropogenic global warming is unprecedented in terms of absolute temperatures and spatial consistency over the past 2000 years. However, pre-industrial temperatures were less spatially coherent, and further work is needed to explain regional and natural climate change. Thus, according to the authors of the new study, “obtaining new and high-quality records in terms of resolution, dating and regional representativeness is thus critical for characterising natural climate variability on decadal to centennial scales.”

It is clear that the Pyrenees has followed the global trend. Their temperature has increased by more than 1.5 °C since 1882, as shown by the longest time series recorded at the Pic du Midi observatory. Recent studies confirm this warming trend, showing an increase of 0.1 °C per decade during the last century in the Central Pyrenees, or even 0.28°C per decade if only the 1959-2015 period is considered.

In addition, long-term snow depth observations (starting in 1955) show a statistically significant decline, especially at elevations above 2000 m. The glaciated area has decreased by 21.9% in the last decade from 2060 ha during the Little Ice Age (LIA) to 242 ha in 2016.

Stalagmites and stalactites record long-term climate data.

The new work has been carried out by researchers from seven nations and led by the Department of Geoenvironmental Processes and Global Change, Pyrenean Institute of Ecology in Zaragoza (Spain). It presents a composite record of oxygen isotope variations during last 2500 years based on eight stalagmites from four caves in the central Pyrenees dominated by temperature variations, with precipitation playing a minor role.

Main climate drivers: Solar and volcanoes

The scientists find that the Roman Period (especially 0-200 AD), the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), and part of the Little Ice Age represent the warmest periods, while the coldest decades occurred during the Dark Ages and most of the LIA intervals (520-550 AD and 1800-1850 AD). Importantly, the LIA cooling or the MCA warming were not continuous or uniform and exhibited high decadal variability. The Industrial Era shows an overall warming trend although with marked cycles and partial stabilisation during the last two decades (1990-2010).

The researchers say that the strong coherence between the speleothem data, European temperature reconstructions and global tree-ring data means that the new data tells us about the nature of past climates importantly revealing that it is solar variability and major volcanic eruptions that appear to be the two main drivers of climate change in southwestern Europe during the past 2.5 millennia.

In summary: Over the past 2500 years it was the Roman Period that was the warmest. A cold period started around 300 AD with two particularly cold events in 500-650 and 750-850. The warm and dry Medieval Climatic Anomaly was well observed as well as the Little Ice Age. Cooling was observed during the Maunder Minimum and possibly the Dalton Minimum, both periods of low solar activity. Low temperatures started to increase around 1950 and the temperature increase since then is most notable in the past 2500 years.

Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com

EV Charger RAGE: US Secretary of Energy Convoy Boxes Out a Young Family and Baby

Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy

From Watts Up With That?

h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm’s 4 day EV celebration road trip backfired, after the Sheriff was called by a young family desperate to get their baby home.

Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy

September 10, 20236:00 AM ET

…

Granholm’s trip through the southeast, from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., was intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars. The administration’s ambitious energy agenda, if successful, could significantly cut U.S. emissions and reshape Americans’ lives in fundamental ways, including by putting many more people in electric vehicles.

…

But between stops, Granholm’s entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.

Her advance team realized there weren’t going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station’s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.

That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?

In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.

The sheriff’s office couldn’t do anything. It’s not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge.

…Read more: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1187224861/electric-vehicles-evs-cars-chargers-charging-energy-secretary-jennifer-granholm

How heartless. Can any of you imagine keeping a young family and baby waiting in the sweltering heat? I can’t count the number of times when I waved mum and kids ahead at a supermarket checkout line, especially if the kids are in any kind of distress.

If only there was a way to recharge vehicles quickly. Then there would be no reason for people to get distressed and block each other while fighting over a handful of charging spots, they could just recharge their vehicle quickly and drive off, with minimal delay and inconvenience to other motorists.

Lab Experiment Shows A 2500-Fold CO2 Increase Delivers Surface Cooling, Not Warming

“In a modified experiment, where IR emission from the heating source is present, no heating but a slight cooling of a black object is found when air is replaced by CO2. The modified experimental situation is also more like the earth/atmosphere situation.”  – Seim and Olsen, 2023

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 11. September 2023

“In a modified experiment, where IR emission from the heating source is present, no heating but a slight cooling of a black object is found when air is replaced by CO2. The modified experimental situation is also more like the earth/atmosphere situation.”  – Seim and Olsen, 2023

acs_2023042615431593Herunterladen

Scientists Hermann Harde and Michael Schnell published a paper in 2021 entitled “Verification of the Greenhouse Effect in the Laboratory.” The study purported to experimentally determine that the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effect not only exists, but functions in concert with physical laws.

“To our knowledge we present the first demonstration of the atmospheric greenhouse effect in a laboratory experiment, which also allows quantitative measurements under conditions as in the lower troposphere. We use an experimental set-up consisting of two plates in a closed housing, one plate in the upper position heated to 30°C, the other at the bottom and cooled to -11.4°C.”

Thorstein Seim and Borgar Olsen (2023) have analyzed their experimental setup in further detail. They discover that in the Harde and Schnell (2021) greenhouse effect experiment, when the CO2 is increased 500-fold, or from 0.04% (400 ppm) to 20% (200,000 ppm), the plate temperature increases by just 1.18°C. Further, raising CO2 from 20% to 100% (1,000,000 ppm) adds just 0.4°C additional warming (1.6°C).

Since it is assumed that the 100 ppm (0.01%) atmospheric CO2 increase since 1950, from ~310 to 410 ppm, has been the primary cause of 1950-to-present global warming, an experiment that shows increasing CO2 2500-fold (0.04% to 100%) only produces a warming of 1.6°C would hardly appear to support the “verification” of the CO2 greenhouse effect.

Image Source: Seim and Olsen, 2023

But it may be worse than that. Seim and Olsen modify the Harde and Schnell experiment to better simulate “the earth/atmosphere situation.” Instead of modestly increasing the plate temperature by a degree and a half, the modified experiment shows that increasing CO2 from 0.04% to 100% actually cools the blackbody (plate) by about -0.2 to -0.3°C.

The temperature stabilizes at 1.1°C after 150 minutes of heating when only air (78% N2, 21% O2, 0.04% CO2) is used in the container. But when the air is replaced by CO2 (100%), the temperature stabilizes at 0.8°C − a few tenths of a degree cooler. The average cooling when 0.04% CO2 is replaced with 100% CO2 is determined to be -0.22°C.

An observation that shows increasing CO2 by a factor of 2500 elicits cooling in a laboratory is characterized as an “unexpected surprise” by the authors.

Either way, experimental results that show only modest temperature changes occur when CO2 is dramatically increased do not lend support to the “verification” of the CO2 greenhouse effect. And it especially does not validate the popular viewpoint that CO2 is a driving factor in modern global warming.

Sorry, Guardian and Reuters, Island Nations Have No Climate Case

The Guardian story, “Small island nations take high-emitting countries to court to protect the ocean,” and Reuters article, “Island states seek climate protection from Law of the Sea,” are just two of the news stories today covering a case brought by the Commission of Small Island States (COSIS), which includes as members, the Bahamas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Antigua, and Barbuda among other small island nations.

From ClimateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

The Guardian and Reuters, along with other mainstream media outlets and news services, are covering a “landmark” hearing in a case a group of small island nations are bringing to have carbon dioxide emissions from developed nations considered pollution under the Law of the Sea treaty, requiring countries to take action to prevent or mitigate emissions. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not pollution but rather is a naturally occurring gas necessary for life on earth and is not toxic at levels more than 10 times what they are today. Nor does data show carbon dioxide emissions are driving dangerous ocean or weather conditions which specifically threaten island nations justifying them having standing to bring a lawsuit.

The Guardian story, “Small island nations take high-emitting countries to court to protect the ocean,” and Reuters article, “Island states seek climate protection from Law of the Sea,” are just two of the news stories today covering a case brought by the Commission of Small Island States (COSIS), which includes as members, the Bahamas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Antigua, and Barbuda among other small island nations.

As The Guardian describes it:

In a landmark hearing, small island nations disproportionately affected by the climate crisis will take on high-emitting countries in a court in Hamburg, Germany, on 11 September, in what is being seen as the first climate justice case aimed at protecting the ocean.

During the two-day hearing, the nations – including the Bahamas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Antigua, and Barbuda among others – will ask the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos) to determine whether greenhouse gas emissions absorbed by the marine environment should be considered pollution.

…

Most countries have obligations under the legally binding UN convention on the law of the sea to take measures to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution.

If the case, brought by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), is successful, these obligations would include carbon-emission reduction and protection of marine environments already damaged by CO2 pollution.

Foremost among the claims made by COSIS is that rising CO2 is: causing sea levels to increase at a rapid rate threatening to swamp the islands; producing more extreme weather; and acidifying the seas. Each of these claims is false.

Concerning rising seas and island nations, Climate Realism has published multiple posts showing that island nations are not being swamped by rising seas, here, here, and here, for example. Indeed, data shows that they are expanding in size, development, and population.

Nor is purported CO2 induced climate change causing worsening tropical storms threatening islands survival, as demonstrated in Climate Realism reports here and here, for instance.

Also, contrary to COSIS assertions, the world’s seas are not becoming dangerously acidic due to rising CO2. This idea has been thoroughly refuted by the EPA’s own data and by other research as presented here, here, and here.

In short, COSIS’ Law of the Sea claims raised in the international court in Germany lack merit. COSIS can’t show that increased carbon dioxide is a pollutant because it is necessary to life and not toxic at any foreseeable levels. Nor can COSIS demonstrate that increased CO2 it is causing dangerous climate change in general, much less that it is producing any of the specific harms which they cite as evidence of climate damage, because none of the problems they claim are occurring are, in fact, taking place.

H. Sterling Burnett

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News. In addition to directing The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, Burett puts Environment & Climate News together, is the editor of Heartland’s Climate Change Weekly email, and the host of the Environment & Climate News Podcast.

History Shows Today’s Ocean at Cool End of Range

You may have heard claims recently that the ocean is now “boiling”.  Fortunately, a world expert in ocean heat uptake provides a deep dive into oceanic temperature history, thereby putting that fear to rest.

Nature Landscapes Sunset Cool Ocean Excelent Fun Beautiful Desktop Backgrounds

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

You may have heard claims recently that the ocean is now “boiling”.  Fortunately, a world expert in ocean heat uptake provides a deep dive into oceanic temperature history, thereby putting that fear to rest.

Geoffrey Gebbie of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has published an highly informative study Combining Modern and Paleoceanographic Perspectives on Ocean Heat Uptake in Annual Review of Marine Science (2021).  H/T Kenneth Richard.  Below are the main findings, along with some excerpts in italics with my bolds, explaining some oceanography for the rest of us.

The large climatic shifts that started with the melting of the great ice sheets have
involved significant ocean heat uptake that was sustained over centuries and millennia,
and modern-ocean heat content changes are small by comparison.

Abstract

Monitoring Earth’s energy imbalance requires monitoring changes in the heat content of the ocean. Recent observational estimates indicate that ocean heat uptake is accelerating in the twenty-first century. Examination of estimates of ocean heat uptake over the industrial era, the Common Era of the last 2,000 years, and the period since the Last Glacial Maximum, 20,000 years ago, permits a wide perspective on modern-day warming rates. In addition, this longer-term focus illustrates how the dynamics of the deep ocean and the cryosphere were active in the past and are still active today. The large climatic shifts that started with the melting of the great ice sheets have involved significant ocean heat uptake that was sustained over centuries and millennia, and modern-ocean heat content changes are small by comparison.

Objective

This review seeks to put the most recent ocean heat uptake estimates of 0.5–0.7 W m−2 into the context of longer (multidecadal to millennial) timescales. Such timescales put a wider perspective on present-day heat uptake. In addition, the dynamics of these longer timescales may still have some expression today. This research direction leads to the long temperature time series of paleoceanographic proxies that predate the instrumental record. Ocean heat uptake over the last deglaciation (∼20,000–10,000 years ago) and the Common Era (previous two millennia) will serve as examples to explore the longer-timescale dynamics of ocean heat uptake.

Common Era Evolution of Mean Ocean Temperature

The Ocean2k global-mean SST compilation is derived from 57 marine proxy records that, in aggregate, show a statistically significant cooling trend from 700 to 1700 CE over the MCA–LIA transition (Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age). The data compilation contains a time series of 200-year averages that have been nondimensionalized. Here, we dimensionalize the values with the recommended values of McGregor et al. (2015) to obtain temperature anomalies, and the inferred global-mean surface cooling over the MCA–LIA transition is near the high end of the expected 0.4–0.6°C range (Figure 4a).

Figure 4  The Common Era. (a) The evolution of Ocean2k SST (blue circles, with σ/2 error bars) and mean ocean temperature, , as inferred from noble-gas measurements (red circles, with σ/2 error bars), the Gebbie & Huybers (2019) Common Era inversion (red line), and a power-law estimate (black line, with 2σ error shown in gray), referenced to global-mean SST in 1870. (b,c) Average ocean heat uptake over a running 50-year interval (panel b) and a 500-year interval (panel c) plotted from the Gebbie & Huybers (2019) inversion (red line) and a power-law estimate (black line, with 1σ error shown in gray). Heat uptake is expressed in terms of an equivalent planetary energy imbalance. Abbreviation: SST, sea-surface temperature.

One realization of the Common Era was produced by an inversion that attempted to reconstruct the three-dimensional evolution of oceanic temperature anomalies over the last 2,000 years (Gebbie & Huybers 2019). The inversion fits an empirical ocean circulation model to modern-day tracer observations, historical temperature observations from the HMS Challenger expedition of 1872–1876 (Murray 1895), and the global-mean Ocean2k SST. The resulting ocean temperature evolution is dominated by the propagation of surface climate anomalies from the MCA and LIA into the subsurface ocean, where the propagation is coherent for several centuries (red line in Figure 4a). Although the Gebbie & Huybers (2019) inversion was not constrained with oceanic power laws, the resulting mean ocean temperature is consistent with a power-law estimate over the Common Era.

Early-twenty-first-century SST may already be warmer than MCA SST, but it is
less likely that modern mean ocean temperature has surpassed MCA values.

From the Gebbie & Huybers (2019) inversion, it was inferred that the MCA ocean stored 1,000 ZJ more than the ocean of the year 2000, and that the ∼500 ZJ of heat uptake during the modern warming era is just one-third of what is required to reach MCA levels. Amplification of the high-latitude SST signal relative to the global mean can produce a greater MCA–LIA mean ocean cooling, which explains the greater MCA heat content relative to the present day. When considering the range of Common Era scenarios consistent with a power law, however, some cases are admitted where the MCA and the present day have similar oceanic heat content.

Deep-Ocean Heat Uptake During Modern Warming
Figure 6  Ocean heat uptake below 2,000-m depth, in terms of a planetary energy imbalance, for 50-year averages given by Zanna et al. (2019) (blue line), Gebbie & Huybers (2019) (red line), and the power-law estimate from this review (black line, with 2σ error in gray). An observational estimate (purple, with 2σ error bar) for 1990–2010 is also included (Purkey & Johnson 2010).

The confidence in upper-ocean heat content during the modern warming era starkly contrasts with the remaining uncertainties in heat content below 2,000-m depth (Figure 6). Observational estimates have indicated a deep-ocean heat uptake of 68 ± 61 mW m−2 (2σ) when differencing hydrographic sections between 1990 and 2010 (Purkey & Johnson 2010, Desbruyères et al. 2017). Estimation of deep-ocean heat uptake over the entire instrumental era relies to a greater extent on circulation models. Simulations of modern warming that are initialized from equilibrium in 1870 suggest that heat penetrates downward (Gregory 2000) and that average deep-ocean heat uptake is small over 50-year time intervals (Zanna et al. 2019). These estimates would not capture ongoing trends from the earlier Common Era, if any existed. An inversion that accounts for the LIA found a deep-ocean heat loss of 80 mW m−2 early in the modern warming era (Gebbie & Huybers 2019), and our power-law estimate suggests that an even greater cooling is possible, although the uncertainties are large. These discrepancies highlight the ongoing effect that Common Era variability could play in the modern-day ocean. Unfortunately, recent observations do not appear to be sufficient to distinguish between these scenarios, as they all suggest a weak deep-ocean heat uptake in the early twenty-first century.

Deep-ocean cooling could exist as the result of
disequilibrium between the upper and deep ocean.

Oceanic disequilibrium exists at a range of spatial and temporal scales, from local, short-term variability to longer-term changes that are anticipated to generally have greater spatial extent. Oceanic disequilibrium has been anticipated as a result of the 1815 Tambora (Stenchikov et al. 2009) and 1883 Krakatoa (Gleckler et al. 2006) Simulations of modern warming and their lingering effects on energy imbalance. More generally, ocean disequilibrium can result from the differing adjustment times of the interior ocean to surface forcing, where the deep-ocean response may take longer than 1,000 years (e.g., Wunsch & Heimbach 2008). Accordingly, some influence of changes in surface climate over the last millennium is potentially present today. The most isolated waters of the mid-depth Pacific, for example, should still be adjusting to the MCA–LIA transition. In this scenario, these deep waters are cooling, but they are anomalously warm due to the residual influence of the MCA. 

The degree to which the ocean’s long memory affects today’s ocean is uncertain due to difficulties in integrating state-of-the-art circulation models over the entire Common Era. An accurate assessment may also require a model that can skillfully predict ocean circulation changes in both the past and the future. The climate history of the Common Era should also be better constrained by recovering additional observations, such as historical subsurface temperature observations and paleoceanographic data. Proper inference of climate sensitivity depends on the past oceanic heat uptake, which this review suggests is tied to the long timescale of deep-ocean dynamics.

Do notice the scale on the left axis. As though we can measure the whole ocean (71% of earth surface) to 0.05 C. It’s a formula converting zettajoules to temp change.

Offshore wind encounters financial turbulence

Ambitious plans by the ruling political class, in league with well-connected purveyors of renewable energy, to erect industrial-scale wind-power facilities off the coasts of the United States are running into the harsh commercial realities of an unfavorable economic environment.

 From CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Vertical axis wind turbines generator farm for renewable sustainable and alternative energy production along coast baltic sea near Denmark. Eco power, ecology.

Ambitious plans by the ruling political class, in league with well-connected purveyors of renewable energy, to erect industrial-scale wind-power facilities off the coasts of the United States are running into the harsh commercial realities of an unfavorable economic environment.

The Biden administration’s lofty goal of having 30 gigawatts of offshore wind “capacity” by 2030, from less than 50 megawatts today, is looking increasingly like a bridge too far, despite mammoth subsidies contained in last year’s ill-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA’s goodies for wind developers, coupled with a federal regulatory bureaucracy eager to greenlight offshore wind projects – no matter what the risk posed to marine life – created a temptation the climate cartel could not resist.

One of the climate cartel’s most prominent members is Orsted, a Danish company that – in keeping with the times – transformed itself from an oil and gas producer to the world’s largest offshore wind-power developer. Orsted set its sights on wind projects off the coasts of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey – bagging contracts in 2018 and 2019 – well before the enactment of the IRA, whose generous subsidies made such projects even more enticing. What could go wrong?

Just about everything.

“Offshore wind projects are becoming a prime casualty of the shift in financial markets away from the old world of smooth supply chains, low inflation, and free money,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Sept. 8). Inflation has driven up the cost of materials; rising interest rates have driven up the cost of borrowing; and permitting delays (not even friendly bureaucracies work efficiently) have combined to toss overboard Orsted’s once rosy calculations. Now, the company says that not even the IRA’s lavish tax breaks are enough to make its projects profitable. It wants U.S. taxpayers to fork over more money to keep the company’s dream alive. And if it does not get its way, it will abandon its U.S. projects altogether.

Orsted is not alone. The Journal pointed out two of its competitors, Shell and Avangrid, face multi-million-dollar fines for calling it quits on offshore wind farms in Massachusetts. The reason? Rising costs mean they cannot make a go of it. “There is trouble further up the supply chain, too,” the Journal added. “Siemens Gamesa and Vestas, which together make roughly 80% of all turbine blades and nacelles for projects outside China, are losing money.”

Not Living Up to Expectations

At first glance, offshore wind would appear to offer certain advantages. First and foremost, offshore wind blows with greater reliability than onshore wind. This makes them less inefficient than their onshore counterparts. But financing the construction and operation of hundreds of gigantic offshore wind turbines and transmitting the electricity they generate onshore where needed runs into real money.

Offshore wind projects take longer to build, have higher upfront costs (financed by borrowing), and have much higher maintenance costs than either onshore wind farms or solar arrays. Seaborne wind turbines frequently break down, and their power-generating efficiency starts declining the day they go into operation, with the decline accelerating each year. Replacing offshore wind turbines, which can soar over 700 feet above the ocean’s surface, is hugely expensive, and the costs are passed on to ratepayers. As more and more ocean-front communities sue to stop wind projects, developers find themselves saddled with the added expense of litigation.

Word is getting out that there may not be a pot of gold at the end of this green rainbow. The Biden administration recently held an auction for leases in the Gulf of Mexico, and wind-power developers were invited to submit bids. The auction came and went, without any bids being submitted.

Author


Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments.

Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country.

He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.

He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.

Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh.

He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

The Times view on scientific journals and editorial bias: Climate Change

The physicist Alan Sokal pulled off one of the most damning scholarly hoaxes of recent decades when, in 1996, he persuaded a literary journal to accept a wilfully nonsensical paper. The Sokal Affair, as it became known, was designed to expose the lax standards in the less rigorous publications, where research passed muster so long as it “flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions”.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

It’s good to see that The Times has covered this story:

The physicist Alan Sokal pulled off one of the most damning scholarly hoaxes of recent decades when, in 1996, he persuaded a literary journal to accept a wilfully nonsensical paper. The Sokal Affair, as it became known, was designed to expose the lax standards in the less rigorous publications, where research passed muster so long as it “flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions”.


It might be hoped that climate science is immune to such groupthink. But in our weekend essay, Patrick Brown, a former academic, argues persuasively that it isn’t. His research into Californian wildfires was published last week in Nature, one of the most renowned scientific journals. To ensure it was accepted, however, required “customising the research” so as to render it “compatible with the confirmation bias of the editors”.


Influential journals, Dr Brown alleges, are unwilling to consider research which downplays the scale of climate change or which emphasises the viability of adaptive measures as an alternative to emissions reductions. In the competitive world of academia, where landing papers in leading publications determines one’s career prospects, the perception of bias on the part of editors can fundamentally warp the direction of research.


There is no suggestion that Dr Brown’s paper contained outright falsehood. The bias is subtler than that. Instead, he isolated climate change as the sole variable in explaining the risk of Californian wildfires, a misleading focus given that 80 per cent of wildfires in America are started by humans. According to Brown, other strategies are often used to inflate the scale of climate change, yielding eye-popping statistics.


These tactics lead to work that is deceptive and neglects promising lines of inquiry for fear of challenging consensus. Such incuriosity is the hallmark of bad science and timid politics.

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