Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, is a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere. “The ionosphere stretches roughly 50 to 400 miles above Earth’s surface, right at the edge of space. Along with the neutral upper atmosphere, the ionosphere forms the boundary between Earth’s lower atmosphere โ where we live and breathe โ and the vacuum of space.” (NASA)
NOTE: The HAARP facility was closed some years ago, and now it is operational again. Back then I was happy it was closed because it (mostly) ended the silly conspiracy theories about weather and climate effects, which were baseless. If you want to expound on those theories again here, watch how fast Iโll delete them. Anthony
Alaskans and visitors may be able to see an artificial airglow in the sky created by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program during a four-day research campaign that starts Saturday.
Scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Cornell University, University of Colorado Denver, University of Florida and Georgia Institute of Technology will conduct a variety of experiments at the UAF-operated research site.
The experiments will focus on the ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere between about 30 and 350 miles above the Earthโs surface.
Scientists will investigate ionosphere mechanisms that cause optical emissions. Theyโll also try to understand whether certain plasma waves โ gas so hot that electrons get knocked off atoms โ amplify other very low frequency waves. And theyโll investigate how satellites can use plasma waves in the ionosphere for collision detection and avoidance.
Each day, the airglow could be visible up to 300 hundred miles from the HAARP facility in Gakona. The site lies about 200 miles northeast of Anchorage and 230 miles southeast of Fairbanks, or about 300 to 350 kilometers.
HAARP creates airglow by exciting electrons in Earthโs ionosphere, similar to how solar energy creates natural aurora, with on and off pulses of high-frequency radio transmissions. HAARPโs Ionospheric Research Instrument, a phased array of 180 high-frequency antennas spread across 33 acres, can radiate 3.6 megawatts into the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.
HAARP antenna array.
The airglow, if visible, will appear as a faint red or possibly green patch. Because of the way the human eye operates, the airglow might be easier to see when looking just to the side.
HAARP will create an airglow at a specific point in the sky. The angle of visibility for anyone wanting to look for it will depend on a personโs distance from HAARP.
HAARP transmission frequencies will vary but will occur between 2.8 and 10 megahertz. Actual transmit days and times are highly variable based on real-time ionospheric and/or geomagnetic conditions.
Additional information about the research campaign will be available on the HAARP website.
The National Science Foundation in 2021 awarded the UAF Geophysical Institute a five-year, $9.3 million grant to establish the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory at HAARP. The observatory explores Earthโs upper atmosphere and geospace environment.
The grant has supported several HAARP research campaigns, including this one. It also helped fund the return to HAARP of the Polar Aeronomy and Radio Science Summer School, which hosted more than 50 researchers in August.
The Air Force originally developed and owned HAARP but transferred the research instruments to UAF in August 2015. UAF operates the site under an agreement with the Air Force.
Pilots flying in the Gulkana area are asked to check with the Federal Aviation Administration for temporary flight restriction details.
How great is the economic damage caused by the nuclear power plant closure decided by the traffic light remit really? With billions of taxpayers’ money, the subsidized industrial electricity price for the chemical, automotive and steel industries is now supposed to fix it so that our economy does not collapse.
With billions from the tax pot, Economics Minister Habeck wants to stabilize the supported electricity price for the chemical, automotive and steel industries in order to support our economy. At the presentation of his industrial strategy, he warned of “critically high energy prices” and declining prosperity in Germany (Bild:27.10.23). How bad is the economic impact of the traffic light coalition’s nuclear power plant stop really?
Economics Minister Habeck warns: Industrial loss threatens prosperity โ Secret e-mails reveal truth about nuclear power plants
“Industries are being lost, and that means not only the loss of employers and sectors, but also of an important part of our prosperity,” said Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck at the presentation of his detailed “Industrial Strategy”. The official government document even speaks of “critically high energy costs”!
Economics Minister Habeck warns: Industrial loss threatens prosperity โ Secret e-mails reveal truth about nuclear power plants
An internal email exchange from 2022 between the press departments of the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Economic Affairs is available to BILD. This shows that the Ministry of Economic Affairs recognized early on that nuclear power plants would provide cheaper electricity if they continued to operate.
In the e-mails, the opinion of the “technical level of the BMWK” on the advantages of the continued operation of the nuclear power plants is quoted. This is presumably about Department III Electricity, which was previously under the direction of former State Secretary Patrick Graichen. However, this information has not been disclosed to the public.
The e-mails contain the following statement: “In addition to the (small) gas savings, the continued operation of the nuclear power plants brings two other plus points: electricity prices fall and grid stability improves. Since Neckarwestheim and Isar2 are located in the south of Germany (and are constantly in operation), they significantly reduce grid bottlenecks.”
The fact that this information was never made public seems strange. It certainly wasn’t an oversight.
Top economist warns of energy crisis: Germany imports record quantities of nuclear power
The renowned economist Prof. Clemens Fuest, head of the Ifo Institute in Munich, does not believe that a special industrial electricity price can solve the energy problem. He sees Germany’s economic decline as sealed.
“It doesn’t make sense to reduce the supply of electricity and then use subsidies against it, if you look at the impact. This only harms us,” Fuest said in an interview. It is risky to lose industries and rely on alternative sources of value.
Instead of using our own nuclear power plants, we are buying more and more expensive nuclear power from abroad! In 2023, Germany will purchase more electricity from outside than ever before. Nuclear power is now actually the main source of our imported electricity! “Agora Energiewende” analysed imports and found that with 12.6 terawatt hours, the largest part of electricity was supplied to Germany from nuclear power. Nuclear energy accounts for more than 4 percent of Germany’s electricity consumption. This is more than before the shutdown of Germany’s nuclear power plants on April 15.
FDP alarmed: Nuclear power phase-out threatens to destroy Germany’s prosperity
The FDP is shocked and calls for a stop to the dismantling of nuclear power plants.
Michael Kruse, energy expert of the FDP, told BILD: “This destroys our prosperity. If we continue like this, we’ll soon be living in trees again.” He does not see any benefit for the environment in the nuclear phase-out, but only economic loss.
Despite the COโ cost of coal, imported electricity was the cheapest option. A representative of the Federal Network Agency explained: “This is the goal of the European single market: we do not always produce the electricity ourselves, but buy it where it is offered at the cheapest price. This saves German consumers money.”
Expensive electricity imports burden Germany: More than 5 billion euros spent, nuclear power overlooked as a cheaper alternative
However, we paid an average of 111 euros for each megawatt hour imported, while only 78 euros were collected for exported electricity. If Germany had more of its own cheap electricity, whether green or nuclear, imports would be lower. Electricity would become cheaper.
After three quarters, Germany has paid over five billion euros for imported electricity this year. This is more than two billion euros more than what was earned from electricity exports. Nuclear power would have been the more cost-effective choice. Imported electricity could only compete with coal-fired electricity in terms of price in summer. But now coal-fired power generation is also on the rise again!
The whole Green New Deal is falling apart right before our very eyes. Offshore wind is collapsing. Bidenโs favorite electric bus company Proterra just filed for bankruptcy…
Morano: “Everything is collapsing on its own now. You can no longer virtue signal this nonsense. We had world leaders at UN summit all proclaim to limit the earth’s temperature to two degrees all go to 1.5 as though they were playing The Price is Righ spinning a giant dial.
It’s no longer possible, as you just laid out, Jesse, on every metric of Biden’s green energy agenda. It is in complete collapse. And this is the key part despite the massive Inflation Reduction Act –so called. Despite subsidies, mandates, tax credits, and I’m talking about not just now but subsidies for many years in the future… It’s easier to transition your gender than your energy. It’s just not happening… This is a celebration. They’re collapsing; it’s time to celebrate.”
Jesse Watters: Primetime has just scored another big victory. The whales have received the stay of execution, along with my beach views. Weโve been telling you for months that Bidenโs offshore wind projects are destroying the Jersey Shore. But just yesterday, the Danish Windmill company pulled the plug on two massive projects off the Jersey coast. The companyโs admitting Bidenomics doesnโt work. Despite billions and giveaways the windmills still wonโt work. They wonโt make money because of high rates of inflation and China. But thatโs not all. Offshore wind farms in Massachusetts were just cancelled. Offshore wind in Connecticut is collapsing. And offshore wind projects in New York are about to get canceled.
The whole Green New Deal is falling apart right before our very eyes. Bidenโs favorite electric bus company Proterra just filed for bankruptcy. Itโs what happens when your buses catch on fire. General Motors and Honda just killed their low-price electric car joint venture. Ford just stopped work on their new Michigan electric battery plant. The company is losing $36,000 per Evie per Bidenโs handing out $7,000 coupons to buy electric cars and no oneโs buying them. This is what happens when companies make cars for politicians instead of companies making cars for customers. No one even thought to ask the customers if they wanted an electric car.
The smart money is an oil. Thatโs right. Exxon Mobil and Hess have discovered 11 billion barrels of oil off the coast of South America. Itโs the biggest discovery in a decade. It appears weโre going to run out of minerals for batteries before we run out of oil for cars.
Joe Biden tried to run our economy like Joe Stalin. But just like the Soviet Union, the math doesnโt add up. And now billions of dollars are gone. And all we have are cars that never made it off the lot and windmills that never made it out of the warehouse. Now we find no Democrats, and I do. Weโre about to witness one of the biggest green bailouts in history. Marc Morano is the Climate Depot publisher and author of the Green Fraud. Did you see this coming?
Morano: I hate to say I told you so. But absolutely. I was working in the US Senate Environment Public Works Committee when what was really the first governor to make a splash with climate, was Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. He did it 2006, the California climate bill, the Global Warming Solutions Act, and he was praised as a man saving the planet. It was the ultimate virtue signal. Well guess what? Many other governors, Senators, countries, all wanted in on that virtue signal. So for decades, they kept coming up with the net zero the solar, the wind mandates, the tax credits, the subsidies, and it was small enough that it didnโt really affect the energy mix, or we werenโt feeling it, obviously enough.
And all of this happened as well as the Inflation Reduction Act last year. Everything is collapsing on its own now. You can no longer virtue signal this nonsense. We had world leaders at UN summit all proclaim to limit the earthโs temperature to two degrees all go to 1.5 as though they were playing The Price is Righ spinning a giant dial.
Itโs no longer possible, as you just laid out, Jesse, on every metric of Bidenโs green energy agenda. It is in complete collapse. And this is the key part despite the massive Inflation Reduction Act โso called. Despite subsidies, mandates, tax credits, and Iโm talking about not just now but subsidies for many years in the future. And youโre right. We look to Europe to see the future. Germany is already bailing out offshore wind, theyโre already going to double down and start bailing out. A report came out and said we have to spend 75 trillion on these green energy mandates.
Itโs easier to transition your gender than your energy. Itโs just not happening.
Jesse Watters: Marc, How arrogant you have to be to think you all of a sudden can just build all brand new cars, all brand new energy, put windmills all up and down the coast, put solar panels all over and just change the entire world economy like that. How arrogant you have to be?
We asked the question: โWhere are the Volvo driving, save the whale liberals, when you need them? Well, the liberals came out and now you have 50 mayors in New Jersey opposing the offshore wind.
This is arrogance at its height. You canโt manage an energy economy. Before save the planet, you need to save the people in it. They forgot that simple rule, and they literally came up with their 5, 10, 20-year plans, and theyโre not backing down. This green energy failure is only proof that they havenโt spent enough, or mandated enough.
This is a celebration. Theyโre collapsing; itโs time to celebrate.
Climate Depotโs Morano: โThe Treasury Dept report is complete nonsense. The report claims that โclimate changeโ will have โsubstantial financial costs,โ create unemployment, food shortages, inflation, and make energy bills rise. The Treasury report has it completely backward: it is the Biden administrationโs climate & energy policies that are already having โsubstantial financial costs,โ creating unemployment, food shortages, inflation, and making energy bills rise.โ
Morano: โEverything is collapsing on its own now. You can no longer virtue signal this nonsense. We had world leaders at UN summit all proclaim to limit the earthโs temperature to two degrees all go to 1.5 as though they were playing The Price is Righ spinning a giant dial.
Itโs no longer possible, as you just laid out, Jesse, on every metric of Bidenโs green energy agenda. It is in complete collapse. And this is the key part despite the massive Inflation Reduction Act โso called. Despite subsidies, mandates, tax credits, and Iโm talking about not just now but subsidies for many years in the futureโฆ
Itโs easier to transition your gender than your energy. Itโs just not happeningโฆ
This is a celebration. Theyโre collapsing; itโs time to celebrate.โ
He makes the critical point that fossil fuels are a very high-quality energy source and have produced a very wealthy and high productivity world. Coal was only a seed to that economic growth.
The Universidad de las Hespรฉrides is in the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco. The Hespรฉrides are the nymphs of the evening and golden sunsets, so I imagine it is a beautiful location to travel to. Dr. Constableโs talk can be viewed in full here. The beginning is in Spanish, but they turn to English about 4 minutes in.
His talk is about our energy economy and how it has evolved over time. He makes the critical point that fossil fuels are a very high-quality energy source and have produced a very wealthy and high productivity world. As a result, the medieval hold that landowners had over the peasants of a feudal society was broken. Land ownership in the past controlled the food supply, since travel and food transport were prohibitively expensive and time consuming. Controlling food meant the landowners (lords and kings) controlled, and basically enslaved, the general population.
Fossil fuels broke that control and built our modern free societies. Previously, primary occupations, basically farming and mineral extraction, dominated employment. Tertiary occupations, like scientists, medical doctors, shop keepers; and secondary occupations like manufacturing and construction; were very small in 1600 but dominated employment in 1850. Why? Fossil fuels, especially coal.
During the industrial revolution, the use of coal grew rapidly, but the economy grew even faster. Coal was only a seed to that economic growth. Constable found that coal worked to insulate England from catastrophes, like bad harvest years, as it allowed for rapid and cheap transport of food. It created the English middle class between 1840 and 1890, a period when average household wealth quadrupled. Coal was a great equalizer of wealth, it brought it to many, many more people. The population of the English wealthy grew four times faster than population growth as a whole. From 1840 to 1885 crime decreased tremendously (70%).
Fossil fuels are a high-quality fuel. What happens if they are replaced with low quality (much lower density and lower value-add) renewable fuels, like wind and solar? The ratio of the non-energy economy to the energy sector reduces, as shown in the figure below.
Figure 1. Adding lower quality wind and solar fuels and displacing higher quality fossil fuels.
What figure 1 says is that, relative to fossil fuels, the energy gained from wind and solar is much less than the energy required to build and operate the wind and solar facilities. Wind and solar are lower energy gain, and more expensive per unit of energy output. This means the rest of the economy must shrink.
Indeed, Constable mentions that there is a hinge point in the U.S. and other western economies in 2005 when it started to emphasize renewable energy. After 2005 U.S., Spanish, U.K., and EU energy consumption flatlined or has fallen. This is quite alarming because since overall energy consumption has fallen, energy consumption in all private sectors has fallen. Only the less productive public sector energy consumption has increased, think jetting to climate conferences.
In China, industrial energy growth is rapid, feeding their overall growth. In the U.S. it is the opposite, suggesting an overall economic decline. Dr. Constable believes that the West is conducting a very dangerous experiment. What will happen if energy consumption in the West declines and energy becomes much more expensive overall? Energy is the feedstock of wealth and prosperity, if its use declines, so will wealth and prosperity. He believes we are on a very dangerous road to travel.
This is a very thoughtful and important talk. I highly recommend watching it in full.
A judge has slammed a Just Stop Oil protester โ after she asked for her trial to be delayed so she could fly to India. Lydia Gribbin, 28, appeared in court yesterday charged withย storming a West End performance of Les Miserables.
Noah Crane, Hannah Taylor, Hanan Ameur, Poppy Bliss and Lydia Gribbin from Just Stop Oil outside Westminster Magistratesโ Court (Picture: PA; Just Stop Oil)
A judge has refused to delay the trial ofย Just Stop Oilย protesters charged with storming a performance of West End musical, Les Miserables, at the request of one defendant who said they were flying to India.
Hannah Taylor, 23; Lydia Gribbin, 28; Hanan Ameur, 22; Noah Crane, 18; and Poppy Bliss, 19, all appeared at Westminster Magistratesโ Court today where they denied one count of aggravated trespass.
District Judge Michael Snow set the trial date for February 5 next year.
But Gribbin asked the judge if the hearing could be delayed until the end of February, as she will be away.
The judge appeared less than impressed, responding: โI am afraid I am not going to wait for you to get back from India.
โIf you have to miss out on things, you have to miss out on things.โ
The estimated cost to the theatre of cancelling the performance was ยฃ80,000, the court heard.
The judge said that they could be liable to pay the full amount if they are found guilty.
A group of activists disrupted the long-running theatre show during a rendition of the song, One Day More, which sees a performer waving a red flag.
They unfurled their trademark orange Just Stop Oil flag instead โ to be met by boos by furious audience members.
The protesters then chained themselves to the stage with bicycle locks โ prompting the cast to be forced backstage while the audience was ushered outside.
At that pressure, the energy that one gets out of one litre of hydrogen is one sixth of the energy one gets out of one litre of gasoline. The Hydrogen Crusade is exorbitant because the costs are unbearable and unsustainable, a ruinous drain on our energy resources.
Those promoting hydrogen as a substitute for carbon fuels are blind to the physical and economic facts, as well as miscontruing CO2 as some kind of demon gas boiling the planet.ย Thus their crusade is absurd, exorbitant and pointless.
Hydrogen Replacing Carbon Fuels Is Absurd
The absurdity is explained by Sabine Hossenfelder in the video below:ย Hydrogen Wonโt Save Us. Hereโs Why.ย For those who prefer reading, I provide a transcript in italics with my bolds and added images.
Today I want to talk about something light. Hydrogen. Hydrogen is one of the currently most popular alternatives to fossil fuel in transport. Many companies and nations have put money into it.
In 2021, the number of hydrogen-fueled passenger cars bought in the UK was 12. Does that sound like a booming business? Not exactly. Indeed, a report from the British Science and Technology Committee that just appeared last month warned that โwe do not believe that [hydrogen] will be the panacea to our problems that might sometimes be inferred from the hopes placed on itโ.
Ouch. So whatโs the deal with hydrogen?ย Hope or hype?ย Thatโs what weโll talk about today.
Hydrogen Basics
Hydrogen is the first element of the periodic table.ย If you mix it with oxygen and put fire to the mixture you get water. This reaction releases energy,ย so if you do it under controlled conditions, you can drive a motor or turbine with it.ย The only exhaust you get is pure water,ย no carbon dioxide, no nitrogen oxides, no particulates, no radioactive waste, no chopped-up birds. Itโs really difficult to complain about pure water.
But letโs not give up that easily, certainly we can find something to complain about. For example, hydrogen is a gas that, at normal atmospheric pressure and temperature, takes up a lot of volume, and itโs somewhat impractical to drag a zeppelin behind your car. Thatโs why to store and transport hydrogen, one compresses it by putting it under a lot of pressure. Typically, thatโs something like 700 bar, or about 700 times atmospheric pressure.
At that pressure, the energy that one gets out of one litre of hydrogen is one sixth of the energy one gets out of one litre of gasoline.
This means if you power a car with hydrogen, one needs more litres of hydrogen than one needs litres of gasoline to cover the same distance. But litres are a measure of volume. The amount of energy you get out of hydrogen per mass is about twice as high as what you get from gasoline. Then again, since the hydrogen must be kept under high pressure hydrogen tanks tend to be heavy compared to gasoline tanks. When everything is said and done, hydrogen-powered cars end up being somewhat heavier than gasoline-powered ones, but itโs not such a big difference.
Okay, but how do you get the energy out of the hydrogen? The technology for this isnโt new, itโs been around for more than 200 years. The first hydrogen fuel cell was developed by William Grove in 1839 but it was only in the 1960s that two engineers at General Electric proposed a smart way to go about it. They developed whatโs now called a Proton Exchange Membrane. Those keep the hydrogen and oxygen largely separate and allow chemical reactions only at the membrane. That way itโs much easier to control the reaction which also makes the system safer.
Those hydrogen fuel cells were then further developed byย NASA.ย One of the first uses was onย the Gemini spacecraft, which was launched in the mid-1960s. They were later also used onย the Apollo spacecraftย that carried astronauts to the moon and for the space shuttle. Theย International Space Station uses hydrogen fuel cellsย to generate electricity and also to produce drinking water for the astronauts on board.
The Hydrogen Market
So, hydrogen fuel cells have been around for a long time, but theyโve never been particularly popular. One of the reasons has certainly been that there was simply no need for them, because fossil fuels are considerably more convenient. Unfortunately, they have side-effects, which is why companies like Hyundai and Toyota have been selling hydrogen-fuelled cars for about a decade. BMW, Ford, and other automobile giants have plans for hydrogen cars, and some governments are looking at hydrogen to power their transit systems, for example Scotland and Germany.
The UK with its measly 12 sales in 2021, I admit, is a particularly sad example. For one thing, thatโs only passenger cars. They also put about 50 hydrogen-powered busses on the road. And globally the market doesnโt look quite as dire. In total, about 16 thousand hydrogen powered cars were sold in 2021, about three thousand 500 of those in the US. The total number of new cars sold in 2021 was about 67 million, so at the moment itโs about one in four thousand new cars thatโs hydrogen powered. Itโs a small market, but itโs an existing market.
Some plans are extremely ambitious. For example, in May last year, the European Union rolled out a strategy called REPowerEU, with the goal of replacing up to 50 billion cubic meters per year of imported Russian gas with hydrogen. Thisโd mean replacing almost 10 percent of the EUโs total gas consumption with hydrogen power. Thatโs substantial.
Itโs not only Europe.ย Many other countries are also investing in hydrogen production facilities, that includes Japan, Canada, Egypt, China, and the United States. For example, in March last year, the company Green Hydrogen International unveiledย plans to create a plant in Texasย thatโll use 60 Gigawatt of electricity from solar and wind to produce 2 point 5 billion kilograms hydrogen per year. Itโll be calledย Hydrogen City.ย And Individual companies are investing in it, too. Microsoft, for example, wants to use hydrogen fuel cells as climate-friendly backup generators for their data centres. As you see, hydrogen is booming. But.
The Colors Of Hydrogen
The first โbutโ that might spring to your mind is: But where does the hydrogen come from? Now, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Indeed, three quarters of all normal matter in the universe is hydrogen, but you normally canโt buy it in the supermarket. So where do you get it? Naturally occurring geological deposits of pure hydrogen are rare on Earth. Most of the hydrogen we have is bound, either in water or in methane. And this is where the problem begins. Because you have to break those chemical bonds to get the hydrogen and that requires energy.
Hydrogen is therefore not really a source of energy, but a storage system. You use energy to create it in its pure form, transport it, and then you release this energy elsewhere.
How environmentally friendly this is depends strongly on where the hydrogen comes from. To keep track of this, scientists are using a color scale. You all know this, but this is YouTube, so I have to say this anyway: The hydrogen itself has always the same color, which is transparent. This color scale is just a way of keeping track of the production method.
On this color scale, the rare, naturally occurring hydrogen is white. Hydrogen obtained from water using coal or lignite has the colors black or brown, respectively. Its production emits carbon dioxide and methane; both are greenhouse gases. Grey hydrogen is derived from methane and water; this also produces carbon dioxide and usually some of the methane escapes.
At the moment, almost all hydrogen is produced in one of those ways by using fossil fuels. According to the World Energy Council, in 2019 more than 95 percent of the hydrogen worldwide was assigned one of those colors, black, brown, or grey. This releases about 830 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. Thatโs 2 percent of the total global emissions and about the same as air traffic.
But there are more colors on the hydrogen rainbow. Next there is blue. Like grey hydrogen, blue hydrogen is made from methane, but the carbon dioxide is stored underground and does not escape into the atmosphere. This method is currently only used for1 percent of hydrogen production, but it could be expanded. The industry association Hydrogen Council has touted blue hydrogen as a climate-friendly initiative. Itโs not entirely irrelevant, so let me mention that this council was created by the oil and gas industry. Many of its members have a financial interest in switching from natural gas to hydrogen produced from natural gas.
So maybe one shouldnโt take their argument that blue hydrogen is climate-friendly for granted. Hasnโt someone looked into this? Well, since you asked, in 2021, two American researchers calculated the amount of greenhouse gases released by grey and blue hydrogen technology. They not only took carbon dioxide into account, but also methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas. To make comparisons easier, the greenhouse effect from methane is usually converted to a carbon dioxide equivalent, which is the amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same effect.
They came to the conclusion that grey hydrogen has a carbon dioxide equivalent of about 550 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour and blue only slightly less, 486 grams. Thatโs about the same as the emissions you get from using natural gas directly to generate electricity. Part of the reason blue hydrogen performs so poorly is that not all the carbon dioxide from hydrogen production is captured and stored. Another reason is that the process of storing the carbon dioxide also requires energy and leads to carbon dioxide emissions. The authors estimate that under the most favourable conditions, it might be possible to reduce those emissions to around 200 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour by using renewable energy sources. So blue hydrogen doesnโt help much with climate protection.
Then there is green hydrogen, which is produced from water using renewable energy. Again that sounds good, and again, itโs not that simple. According to a calculation by researchers from Australia, greenhouse gas emissions from green hydrogen produced with solar energy are ideally about a quarter of those from grey hydrogen. Under realistic conditions, however, they find that emissions are comparable, particularly due to fluctuations in solar radiation that make hydrogen production inefficient. There is neither data nor any study for hydrogen production from wind but you expect this method to suffer even more from fluctuations because wind is far less reliable than sunlight.
And since these methods are inefficient, they are also expensive. Indeed, producing hydrogen with solar and wind is pretty much the most expensive way you can do it, according to a review in 2019. Now maybe those costs will go down a bit as the technology improves. But seeing that the biggest problem is that energy input fluctuates I doubt itโll become economically competitive with the โdirtyโ hydrogen. This problem can be fixed by using nuclear power to generate hydrogen which has been assigned the colors pink and purple. A few projects for this are underway but itโs early days and nuclear power isnโt exactly popular.
OK, so we have seen that it isnโt all that clear whether hydrogen is climate friendly, and also,ย itโsexpensive. And this is only the production cost. It doesnโt include the entire infrastructureย thatโd be necessary to fuel a fleet of hydrogen cars. Remember you have to keep the stuff at several hundred bars and you canโt just use a normal gas station for that.
Water Supply
Letโs move on to the next problem that might come to your mind: where do we get the water from? From a distance, the world has no shortage of water, but freshwater can be scarce in certain regions of the planet. According to estimates from researchers at the University of Delaware, however, water supply issues probably wonโt stand in the way of a hydrogen economy. They looked at a scenario in which we replace 18 percent of fossil fuels with hydrogen, and found that this would require about 2 percent of the amount of freshwater thatโs currently used for irrigation.
Watch out, this figure has a logarithmic scale. You also see on this figure that using fossil fuels requires freshwater too, for cooling, mining, hydraulic fracturing, and refining, and itโs currently actually more than the projection for hydrogen. Thatโs 2 percent on the global average, butย in some regions the fraction can be higher.ย For example, estimates for Australia are that youโd need about 4% of the water amount used for irrigation. So that seems a manageable amount, but itโs something to take into account if you want to make this work.
The Cold Start Problem
Another problem withย waterย is that itย can freeze. This is why you shouldnโt leave the beer in the car in the winter. And itโs alsoย why hydrogen fuel cells like it warm. If the temperature drops more than a few degrees below zero, theย water that the fuel cells create at start will freeze immediately, which swiftlyย degrades the membranes and tubes. Itโs known as the โCold Startโ problem of hydrogen fuel cell. And, no, you canโt just pour antifreeze into it, remember the water is created in the fuel cell. So,ย youโll either have to stay in California or keep your car warm. The solution that manufacturers pursue at the moment is pre-heating systems.
Rare Metal Shortages
But the biggest problem for a hydrogen economy may be making those proton exchange membranes to begin with. Itโs not because itโs so difficult, but because theyโre made of platinum and iridium. Platinum you may have heard of, itโs an expensive noble metal thatโs also used for jewellery. The reason itโs expensive is that itโs rare. Iridium is also a noble metal. Itโs so rare that most people have never heard of it. Both of those metals are difficult to replace with anything else in the hydrogen fuel cells.
Thatโs a problem because it means that the entire hydrogen economy hinges on the availability of those two metals. Thereโs only so much of those in the world and they are only in very specific geological formations. Almost all the platinum and iridium supply comes from only three countries: South Africa, Russia, and Zimbabwe, and colonies have gone out of fashion recently. China, which has invested heavily in hydrogen technology is already feeling the consequences.
And weโve only just barely begun with building the hydrogen economy. This issue has been highlighted recently in reports from various international organizations including the International Energy Agency and the World Bank. According to the business consulting group Wood Mackenzie, the increased demand for platinum might be manageable in the near future, but it looks like by 2030 demand for iridium will be several times higher than the supply. I donโt know much about trade, but I think this isnโt good.
Itโs possible to make fuel cells somewhat more efficient and decrease the demand for those rare metals. But this situation isnโt going to change and iridium isnโt going to move to the US even if you ask it really nicely.
Have we learned nothing from the Hindenburg Disaster?
Hydrogen Embrittlement
One final problem thatโs worth mentioning is thatย hydrogen is just nasty to deal with.ย Hydrogen is the smallest molecule. If you squeeze it into a tank,ย itโll creep into the walls of the tank. That destroys the chemical structure of the material and makes it brittle.ย Itโs called โhydrogen embrittlementโ. For this reason,ย hydrogen tanks must be thick and specially coated, which makes them both heavy and expensive.ย Like the cold start problem, this oneโs basic chemistry and isnโt going to go away. And the need to keep the hydrogen under pressure makes the stuff inconvenient to handle. The city of Wiesbaden in Germany, for example, recently retired its six new hydrogen powered buses because the filling station broke down, sinking a few million Euro.
Summary
In summary, hydrogen production at the moment has a high carbon footprint because itโs almost exclusively done using fossil fuels. Reducing the carbon footprint of hydrogen production seems difficult according to estimates, but at the moment thereโs basically no real-world data. Hydrogen produced by wind and solar will almost certainly not be economically competitive with that derived from fossil fuels but using nuclear power might be an option. Building infrastructure for a transport-system based on hydrogen would eat up a lot of money. It seems that rare metal supply for hydrogen fuel cells is going to become a problem in the near future which wonโt help making the technology affordable. Keeping hydrogen stored and under pressure adds to the cost and makes those systems heavy which isnโt great for transport. And finally, hydrogen-powered cars donโt like cold temperatures.
So. Well, it seems to me that the British Science and Technology committee is right. A hydrogen economy isnโt a panacea for climate change. Indeed, the French have a similar committee that likewise concluded โlโhydrogรจne nโest pas une solution miracleโ. I must admit that I was considerably more upbeat about hydrogen before I started working on this video. How about you? Did you learn something new? Did you change your mind? Let us know in the comments.
Summation: The Hydrogen Crusade is absurd because hydrogen is not an energy source, but a storage system, and natural properties and scarcities will not be suspended for the sake of human ambitions.
The White House has awarded $7 billion dollars of tax money for the first seven U.S. hydrogen hubs. They say it will leverage $43 billion in private money. Yet, the rules only require a 50/50 match. We are far more likely to see a $7 billion private money match. Why put more of your own money at risk than you have to?
It is risky because green hydrogen costs at least five times more to produce than the methane reforming method, which makes 95% today. That is $5 versus $1. All of the regional hydrogen infrastructure will need to be built, and the future hydrogen demand will need to be created and incentivized. Because green hydrogen still costs more. Even with upfront and downstream aggressive subsidies.
Because it is tax money we donโt have, it is added to our unprecedented $33 trillion dollar national debt. We are at an inflection point where interest payments are more than our national defense budget. Debt interest is projected to be more than a trillion dollars by the end of the decade. And the Rich Men North of Richmond just keep spending.
It costs $5 or more to produce green hydrogen through hydrolysis. Which takes super heating, electrocuting, super chilling, and compression. Then additional costs for storage and transportation before it is used somewhere.
And it needs 53 times more water than hydrogen made. Not a good idea in dry California, which is awarded $1 billion in giveaway hub money.
All of this takes lots of full-time energy. Not the part-time unpredictable electricity wind and solar make. Letโs not talk about our stressed national grid with regular blackout and shortage notices. Or the fact that 60% of the electricity made for the grid comes from coal and natural gas.
Paying for full-time and part-time generation, and thousands of miles of transmission wires will at leastย tripleย our electric rates in no time.
This hurts the poor the most, because they use the biggest amount of their budgets on energy costs. Stressing their lives, hurting their ability to live independently. All of this, while Biden and the democrats blather about climate justice and social justice.
We are doing all this subsidizing to stop the addition of the super plant food CO2.
That is greening our earth, regrowing forests the size of France, and increasing crop yields and harvests around the world. To supposedly stop the warming of the planet that started naturally in 1850. As if we can.
The Rich Men North of Richmond are going to waste 100s of billions on green taxpayer giveaways on top of the $9.5 billion upfront hydrogen give away.
Throwing money at a climate emergency that doesnโt really exist is part of Bidenomics. Fueling inflation by spending money we donโt have, fueling high interest rates by fueling inflation.Making it difficult and expensive to harvest the fossil fuels that supply 80% of our energy. And sending 100s of billions, if not trillions, to our main rival and biggest threat, totalitarian, communist China is the Biden way.
Wind, solar, batteries, and soon EVs made in China with forced labor, low-cost coal electricity and little environmental protections.
China burns more than half of the worldโs 8.5 billion tons of coal used annually and is building hundreds of coal plants that last 50 to 75 years. I am sure they intend to use them for a few decades or 75 years.
For those that think CO2 emissions are important, China emits more than the U.S. and all the other industrialized nations combined. Including India, which is no slouch when it comes to using coal for power, getting even a larger percentage of their energy from coal than China.
We need to end this crazy fantasy of a centrally forced transition to hydrogen, wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles. It isnโt working and is making everything more costly. Because energy is in everything we eat, buy, use, consume, even Netflix and AI.
Summation:ย The Hydrogen Crusade is exorbitant because the costs are unbearable and unsustainable, a ruinous drain on our energy resources.
Hydrogen Replacing Carbon Fuels Is Pointless
The greatest insanity is that all of this crusade is unecessary. The delusional premise of the Hossenfelder video is that we and the planet need saving from CO2. When in fact throughout history, atmospheric CO2 changes lag Temperature changes on all time scales; from last monthโs observations to ice cores showing climate changes over thousands and millions of years. Nothing in nature can be the cause of an effect if it occurs afterward. A thorough debate on this issue occured recently at Dr. Judith Curryโs website Climate Etc. on the topic Causality and climate. My synopsis is below.
I recommend the discussion thread at climate etc. (on going) as a tutorial for the competing paradigms regarding the CO2 cycle. I gained clarity from the lead author (a frequent and constructive participant) as well others on the core misunderstanding that has plagued such discussions for decades. Some comments are below in italics with my bolds.
First, note that the paper had a narrowly defined scope: to demonstrate from available data that changes in atmospheric CO2 lag rather than lead temperature changes. Because the authors recognized that this finding is contrary to IPCC consensus climate science, appendices were supplied to counter the expected objections crediting human CO2 emissions from hydrocarbons as the main, or sole source of rising CO2 since the Little Ice Age (LIA). As Koutsoyiannis explained in a summary comment near the end:
Demetris Koutsoyiannis September 29, 2023 at 4:54 pm
I think I have rebutted all the different critiques ON MY PAPERS. I am not going to reply to critiques on any other issues related to the issue of climate. Please make your critiques SPECIFIC, by quoting phrases in my papers that you think are incorrect. And before it, please read the papers.
For example you say:
> And that would be the cause of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere?
If you read the paper you will see that we write (p. 17): *What is the cause of the modern increase in temperature? Apparently, this question is much more difficult to reply to, as we can no longer attribute everything to any single agent. We do not claim to have the answer to this question, whose study is far beyond the articleโs scope. Neither do we believe that mainstream climatic theory, which is focused upon human CO2 emissions as the main cause and regards everything else as feedback of the single main cause, can explain what happened on Earth for 4.5 billion years of changing climate.*
We have proposed a necessary condition for causality, which is time precedence of the cause over the effect. I hope you accept that necessary condition, am I wrong? We make our inference based on this necessary condition. Your numbers make no reference of time succession. When you find a way to test whether the direction in time is reversed, that will be great. But for now, all this looks to me an unproven conjecture. I hope you can excuse me that, being a Greek, I have to stick to Aristotelian logic.
You also say:
> While there is an elephant in the room, human emissions that released twice as much CO2 as measured in the atmosphereโฆ
If this is the elephant, what is (copying from our paper, p. 25), *a total global increase in the respiration rate of ฮR = 31.6 Gt C/year. This rate, which is a result of natural processes, is 3.4 times greater than the CO2 emission by fossil fuel combustion (9.4 Gt C /year including cement production)*.
My Comment: The confounding issue in all this was identified as the mistaken analogy treating CO2 fluxes as though they are cash transactions between bank accounts. Within that notion, a natural source/sink must net out intakes and releases. Yet as others commented, geobiologists know that both absorption and release can be increasing or can be decreasing. The source/sinks function dynamically, not statically as assumed by the analogy.
What It Means: CO2 flows through Dynamic Reservoirs
The other puzzle piece is described by Ed Berry following his peer-reviewed paper Nature Controls the CO2 Increase II. A summary comment ties his analysis into the above discussion. Early in the thread the point was made that all CO2 sources are involved in supporting the level of atmospheric concentration at any point in time. Ed Berry made this point in this way.
He explained that when you look at the flow of carbon dioxideโโflowโ meaning the carbon moving from one carbon reservoir to another, i.e., through photosynthesis, the eating of plants, and back out through respirationโa 140 ppm constant level requires a continual inflow of 40 ppm per year of carbon dioxide, because, according to the IPCC, carbon dioxide has a turnover time of 3.5 years (meaning carbon dioxide molecules stay in the atmosphere for about 3 1/2 years). 140 ppm divided by 3.5 is 40 ppm CO2.
โA level of 280 ppm is twice thatโ80 ppm of inflow. Now, weโre saying that the inflow of human carbon dioxide is one-third of the total. Even IPCC data says, โNo, human carbon dioxide inflow is about 5 percent to 7 percent of the total carbon dioxide inflow into the atmosphere,โโ he said.
[Todayโs level of nearly 420 ppm means that 120 ppm of inflow is required annually, or 120 +2 ppm if it is to increase as it has been. Where does 122 ppm of CO2 come from? Well, letโs say we can count on 6 ppm of FF CO2 (5%) and the other 116 being non-human emissions.]
Summation:ย The Hydrogen Crusade is pointless because our carbon emissions do not determine either atmospheric CO2 or the Earthโs temperatures.
In an unexpected twist, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) think they have discovered a whole new source of evaporation, and its transformative effect on liquid water could eclipse even that of heat. Light itself.
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [See update at end]
From the Ministry of Settled Climate Science, I came across a most fascinating press report entitled Surprise Discovery Reveals a Whole New Source of Evaporation. Seems that scientists have noticed that light alone can evaporate water. I always figured they knew that, it only seemed logical to me. Light strikes a water molecule and has enough energy to knock it loose from the liquid surface. I even made a graphic of it somewhere in the past, but itโs lost in the mists of time.
Seems like it wasnโt known, though. Turns out thereโs something called the โThermal Limit of Liquid Waterโ which was believed to give the maximum evaporation rate for a given temperature and vapor pressure.
But if the water is exposed to light, the Thermal Limit can be exceeded. And not by a little. In one study they induced evaporation at 278% of the Thermal Limit.
White condensation on glass as green light evaporates a water-laden hydrogel. (Tu et al., PNAS, 2023)
There are a couple of big implications of this if the early experiments are verified. One is that it will make solar desalination much cheaper. Given the planetโs population and current water scarcity, this is huge news.
The other is that itโs going to mess with climate science. Consider the water droplets at the top of the clouds. Normally, when water evaporates, it cools the surroundings. But if some of it is evaporating without changing temperature โฆ itโs gonna change the energy budget numbers.
I mean, before this you could say โX mass of surface water evaporated cools the surrounding by Y amount. When it condenses in the clouds it releases the latent heat and warms the cloud bases. And when the cloud evaporates, it cools the surroundings by Y amountโ.
But with this new finding, both the first and last steps, the steps involving evaporation, are more complex. Now it seems that some of it evaporates without cooling the surroundings.
Not sure what to think about all that. My first question, unanswered in the press release, is:
Does the same hold true regarding longwave thermal radiation? My guess is no, but who knows?
My best to all,
w.
[UPDATEโThanks to Johanus in the comments for pointing out that the draft version of the full paper is available here.]
Coal still generates around 70% of Indiaโs electricity. Just like India, China is currently prioritizing energy security and is urging more domestic coal supply.
Indiaโs coal production jumped by 18.59% to 78.65 million tons in October compared to the same month last year, data from the Indian Ministry of Coal showed on Friday.
Between April and October, the first seven months of the Indian fiscal year 2023/2024, Indian coal production also rose, by 13.05% year-on-year to 507 million tons, according to the data.
Coal India, the giant producer accounting for 80% of the countryโs coal output, saw its production rise by 15.36% year-over-year in October, and by 11.95% between April and October.
Indiaโs coal-fired power generation jumped by 38.98% in October this year compared to October 2022, and overall power generation last month was 22.83% higher than the power generated in the same month of 2022, the official ministry data showed.
โThe Ministry of Coal remains resolute in its commitment to ensuring continuous coal production and distribution, thereby securing a dependable energy supply that bolsters the nation’s ongoing development,โ it said.
India continues to rely heavily on coal for power generation and industry development. Coal still generates around 70% of the countryโs electricity.
India had anticipated that its power generation from coal would increase in the current fiscal year as authorities plan to have coal-fired units maximize electricity production from imported coal to meet rising demand.
Early this year, Indiaโs government expected coal-fired power plants to use 8% more coal in the financial year between March 2023 and March 2024, as demand is set to continue rising thanks to growing economic activity and unpredictable weather.
Last year Indiaโs state power giant NTPC said it could increase its coal-generation capacity as it prioritizes energy security after the power outages in the spring of 2022.
The coal phase-out in India is โgoing to take 2-3 decades, if not more,โ NTPCโs chairman Gurdeep Singh said at the time.
A TYRE HAS BEEN STUCK AROUND THE CROCODILE’S NECK FOR THREE YEARS
Saltwater crocodiles prefer rivers or estuaries with murky water, plenty of tree logs or roots, an abundant food supply, and far from human activities.
The reason for the increase in crocodile encounters in part of Indonesia is due to aย greater human presence and destruction of habitat. Blast fishing and turn over of habitat into farms push the crocodiles into a desperate situation with less of their traditional food or habitat available.
You will recall this BBC report a couple of weeks ago:
When Sariah went to fetch water in a pit near her home in Bangka Island, Indonesia, last September, she was unaware that a 3m-long saltwater crocodile had been resting in the crater, watching as she filled one of her buckets.
“The water was calm and there was no sign of a crocodile, so I decided to take a bath. Suddenly, it appeared out of nowhere and bit me, dragging me by my left arm into the water,” the 54-year-old says.
Indonesia sees the most saltwater crocodile attacks in the world. In the past decade, there have been about 1,000 attacks, killing more than 450 people. Nearly 90 of these attacks took place in Bangka and its neighbouring Belitung island, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Bangka island is one of the richest tin-mining regions in the world.
The island โ almost the size of Hawaii โ has a population of one million, and about 80% of them are miners. More than 60% of the islandโs land has already been converted into tin mines, says wildlife conservation group Walhi. Many of these mines are illegal.
Decades of tin exploitation have stripped the island of its forest, leaving behind thousands of vast craters and pits that resemble a lunar landscape. And as land deposits diminish, miners are turning to the sea.
That means saltwater crocodiles, which can also live in freshwater, are squeezed out of their natural habitats. Now they are living in abandoned and active mining pits close to peopleโs homes, contributing to the rise in attacks.
Last yearโs prolonged dry season, driven by climate change, dried up the well in front of Sariahโs house. Her water supply was cut after she fell behind on payments for three months. So, the abandoned pits were the only source of water for her family and many others.
Five days after the attack on Sariah, a miner in the island was almost killed by a crocodile when he was washing tin ore in another pit. He suffered injuries in his head, shoulder and an arm.
The report claims that “Last yearโs prolonged dry season, driven by climate change, dried up the well in front of Sariahโs house” Droughts in Indonesia are driven by El Nino cycles and the Indian Ocean Dipole. When these are positive, as they have been this year, droughts occur in the region โ see here: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/ Neither of these cycles are connected to climate change, and there is no evidence that the current drought is any worse than previous ones in Indonesia A correction should be published to make this clear
The BBC has responded:
Thank you for contacting us about the article: “Why Indonesia canโt stop crocodile attacks.” We have noted your concerns that you feel it was wrong to attribute the drying up of a well to climate change. Upon review, we found that the article states that it was โdriven byโ climate change, as opposed to being a direct result. The evidence supporting worsening droughts in Indonesia due to climate change is supported by established organisations including the World Bank and the United Nations. Their outlook is provided at the links below which we hope you will find useful. However, we acknowledge you feel that greater attention could have been given to the historic El Nino cycle which affects Indonesia. (The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sources.) https://indonesia.un.org/en/172909-climate-change https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/indonesia We appreciate your feedback. All complaints are sent to senior management, and weโve included your points in our overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the company and ensures that your concerns have been seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future content. Thank you, once again, for getting in touch.
Neither of the links they have given offer any evidence supporting worsening droughts in Indonesia.
The first link is just a general global assessment of climate change, which is not specific to Indonesia at all. Even then it is no more than a political propaganda statement, containing no science or data at all.
The second link takes us to the World Bank Portal.
Naturally, the darker the blue, the wetter the year โ click on the link, and you can hover over the chart to see the actual data. It would appear that recent years have actually been wetter than average.
The Portal also has this chart, which shows two things:
1) Annual rainfall in the last 30 years is higher than previously
2) There is less annual variability between 1991-2020 than in the past.
The World Bank claim is also contradicted by this statement in the same paragraph::
โUSAIDโs climate risk profile for Indonesia describes a decreased average annual precipitation of 3% during 1901โ2013, but a 12% increase between 1985 and 2015โ,
something which is clearly borne out in the above graph.
The BBCโs claim and response are therefore contradicted by the actual data.
Itโs time to tell the truth about lithium-ion battery-powered electric cars. The manufacture of a lithium-ion battery-powered EV generates much greater carbon emissions than for a conventional car. And the safety issues associated with them have been underplayed.
On 10 October a fire broke out at the Terminal 2 car park at London Luton Airport (which is located 32 miles from central London). It raged for nearly a day and resulted in the complete shut-down of the airport causing massive disruption for travellers. By the time firefighters extinguished the blaze it became apparent that around 1,500 vehicles, mostly parked there by holidaymakers, had become burnt-out wrecks. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured, but the economic cost going forward will be colossal.
CCTV footage suggests that the fire broke out in a parked diesel SUV โ an unusual event (though, interestingly, there was no thick black smoke as one might have expected from a diesel fire, so the origin of the fire is contested). But one of the reasons the fire spread with such intensity was that a number of electric cars caught fire. Notoriously, once a lithium-ion battery catches fire it is almost impossible to extinguish it until all its chemical components have been consumed. These unstoppable chemical fires are called โthermal runawaysโ by the cognoscenti as they can sustain themselves without a supply of oxygen. They emit toxic gases including hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen fluoride, so firefighters require special gear when they tackle them.
In the past couple of years, two container ships carrying thousands of EVs have gone up in flames. A fire on board car carrier Felicity Ace in February 2022 led to the vessel sinking in the Atlantic, along with its cargo of 4,000 vehicles. Lithium-ion batteries were cited as a factor in keeping the fire ablaze. And in July this year, the Fremantle Highway cargo ship caught fire in the North Sea. It was alleged that batteries in EVs on board had overheated. During the salvage operation, all the cars were washed to remove any chemicals from the fire before they were taken off the ship. One charred vehicle, in which the fire appeared to be extinguished, reignited as it was lowered into the water.
Or consider that Parisโs metropolitan transport authority withdrew 149 electric buses from operation last year after two ignited in separate incidents.
It should come as no surprise, then, that according to a new report from the building consultants Arup, our car parks may need to become a lot more spacious because of the fire risk posed by electric cars. Parking spaces will have to be wider, or cars will have to be parked further apart because of the danger of electric battery fire contagion. That means fewer parking places โ and higher parking charges.
Moreover, cash-strapped local governments will have to build more multi-storey car parks, which will have to be robust enough to support the weight of cars which weigh, in many cases, double what their petrol-powered forebears weighed. (The Audi E-tron weighs 2,351 kilos).
An EV battery weighs about 500 kilos โ so hopefully your local authority will not use aerated concrete this time round. The same applies to bridges. (If readers have noticed a spate of road and bridge closures across the UK due to engineering issues, please let me know โ Iโm compiling a dossier). Roads will have to be re-surfaced more frequently as these heavy monsters take their toll, making the ubiquitous pot holes even worse.
Meanwhile, the automobile insurers have cottoned on, at last. The cost of insuring an EV is soaring. Insurers are struggling to anticipate the costs of battery repairs, according to Thatcham Research. Some EVs are effectively being written off because relatively minor scrapes can destabilise battery cells, requiring extensive repairs to their batteries. Whatโs more, damaged batteries are more prone to thermal runaways, which raises the nightmare of spontaneous combustion.
As a result, Aviva withdrew insurance products for the Tesla Model Y earlier this year before reinstating them several months later; and John Lewis Finance has stopped insuring EVs at all, at the request of its French underwriter, Covรฉa. Other motor insurers have been raising premiums on EVs as estimates of repair costs rise, according to the Association of British Insurers. Average annual electric car insurance premiums rose 72 percent in the year to September, compared to 29 percent for petrol and diesel models, according to Confused.com. The price comparison website notes that premiums for the Tesla Model 3s have risen by more than two thirds over the last two years.
One reason why repair costs are rising is that repair shops are now advised to keep EVs at least 50 feet apart in case of an explosion. Obviously, this limits the number of cars that can be repaired at any one time meaning that repairs will take longer.
The EV future: More Traffic Jams
The governmentโs plan for the adoption of electric cars, called the ZEV Mandate 2024, will require 22 percent of cars sold by manufacturers in the UK to be electric from next year. By 2030, that quota will rise to 80 and, of course, to 100 percent by 2035. Carmakers which cannot hit the annual targets must either sell more electric vehicles in future years, purchase credits from rivals or pay a fine of ยฃ15,000 per car. That means that, whatever their drawbacks, and however dangerous and unpopular they are, thanks to state intervention the number of EVs on our roads is likely to surpass the number of conventional cars some time before the end of this decade.
How will that affect the state of traffic on our roads? The Department of Transport recently published a study on this question. It concluded that because EVs are cheaper to run than conventional cars the cost differential between a journey in an EV and one on our expensive public transport system will widen. Therefore, people will make more car journeys โ and traffic congestion will worsen. Itโs kind of the DoT to let us know.
There will be those who argue that this issue is simply resolved by building more roads. No doubt there will be residential road building at scale in response to Labourโs plan to build 300,000 new homes a year which I discussed recently. The problem here is one of Parkinsonโs Law: just as bureaucracy expands to fill the time available to it, so the number of cars on the road rises in tandem with the size of the road network. Professor Andrew Graves of the University of Bath, doubts that building more roads will halt the threat of congestion. โThe more roads you build, the quicker youโll fill them upโ, he told the Daily Telegraph last week.
It would be paradoxical if a policy designed to save the planet resulted in concreting over more of our countryside
EV Sales Slow
Car dealers in the UK are reporting that electric cars are taking longer to sell than conventional internal combustion engine-powered cars. Unsold inventory is starting to stack up, which is why some EVs are now on offer at a discount. Global EV sales grew by 49 percent in the first half of this year โ but that is well down from the 63 percent growth achieved last year. Whatโs more, the global figure is skewed by China, which is responsible for 55 percent of all EVs sold worldwide.
One reason why EVs are failing to impress the punters is that there are too few charging stations and too many charge-points are out of service, forcing people to drive elsewhere in a desperate search for power. The more EVs there are on the road, the more competition there is for charge points โ hence reports of people having to queue for an hour or more to charge their car.
Also, the range of EVs is often less than advertised. The range of an EV tends to decline as the battery gets older, although reportedly manufacturers are working on this. EVs are still much more expensive than their petrol and diesel-powered analogues. Their second-hand value is difficult to assess as there is no deep second-hand market as exists for petrol and diesel cars. Their batteries last no more than 15 years and are expensive to replace.
Reading The Runes
Itโs time to tell the truth about lithium-ion battery-powered electric cars. The manufacture of a lithium-ion battery-powered EV generates much greater carbon emissions than for a conventional car. And the safety issues associated with them have been underplayed.
The determination of governments in the EU and the UK to force automotive giants in the direction of one single fundamentally flawed technology, while proscribing any alternative internal combustion engine technologies, will come be seen as a huge mistake. If it had been left to the market we would have got to minimal carbon quicker. (Zero CO2 emissions is a chimera โ you emit CO2 every time you exhale!).
Itโs akin to the Locomotives Act of 1865 which compelled a man waving a red flag to walk in front of any horseless carriage. (Happily, that was repealed in 1896). It will saddle Europe and the UK with a massive competitive disadvantage, since no other continent is likely to embark on parallel policy.
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