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.
In the wake of the EUโs decision to delay plans to push European households to shift to heat pumps, campaign group Net Zero Watch is warning Rishi Sunak that if he sticks to his guns, it will hit Conservative Party support still further.
In the wake of the EUโs decision to delay plans to push European households to shift to heat pumps, campaign group Net Zero Watch is warning Rishi Sunak that if he sticks to his guns, it will hit Conservative Party support still further.
The groupโs director, Andrew Montford, said:
Itโs clear that people donโt want heat pumps, donโt trust heat pumps, and donโt trust the politicians who are pushing them. If the Government insists that households get them anyway, they will suffer at the ballot box. The EU seems to understand that, but the penny doesnโt yet seem to have dropped for Mr Sunak.
And Net Zero Watch is warning that delaying measures is unlikely to convince anyone. Mr Montford said:
The EU clearly thinks they can reintroduce the same measures after the elections, but nobody is fooled. Across the continent, itโs clear that Net Zero is in retreat and sceptical parties are on the rise. Unfortunately, Mr Sunak seems to want to stick with his failed eco-religion for now. His MPs will pay the price.
More low temperature records tumbled across China on Thursday, as the country endures a persistent cold snap that has crowned a year of extreme weather.
More low temperature records tumbled across China on Thursday, as the country endures a persistent cold snap that has crowned a year of extreme weather.
The national weather office said in aย social mediaย post that more than 20 stations posted all-time December lows in the early hours of Thursday.The Phys.org has the story.
They included Hohhot, capital of the northern Inner Mongolia region, where a reading of -29.1 degrees Celsius (-20.4 Fahrenheit) broke a nearly 70-year record.
Authorities have issued an alert for low temperatures across a vast area of northern, eastern and southeastern China.
The brutal cold follows a summer of record-smashing heat and devastating floods across the country’s north.
Experts(?) warn thatย global warmingย caused by greenhouse gas emissions makes extreme weather more likely.๐คช๐คช๐คช๐คช
More low temperature records tumbled across China on Thursday, as the country endures a persistent cold snap that has crowned a year of extreme weather.
The national weather office said in a social media post that more than 20 stations posted all-time December lows in the early hours of Thursday morning.
They included Hohhot, the capital of the northern Inner Mongolia region, where a reading of -29.1 degrees Celsius (-20.4 Fahrenheit) broke a nearly 70-year record.
Authorities have issued an alert for low temperatures across a vast area of northern, eastern and southeastern China.
The brutal cold follows a summer of record-smashing heat and devastating floods across the country’s north.
Today, temperature in southern China has dropped to the lowest point in recent years. Hefei -11.7C is the lowest since 1991, and Shanghai -5.1C is the lowest since 2020. The temperature line of 0C has been all the way into Guangdong and Fujian! @extremetempspic.twitter.com/u2G4VbZzv1
ใAn interesting recordใ Today, the air pressure at Shanghai Xujiahui Weather Station (established in 1872) rose to 1043.6hpa (SLP=1044.0hpa), breaking the highest air pressure record in more than 150 years! https://t.co/BVCQ8mx5g6
Historic blizzard! It has snowed on 7 of the past 10 days in the northern part of the Shandong Peninsula. The snow depth in Yantai and Wendeng broke the historical record with 52cm and 55cm! It is also the biggest blizzard ever recorded along the coast of China! pic.twitter.com/AgTVpFi7sK
While Europe, the UK, US and Australia are busily destroying their energy supplies, China and India are building coal-fired and nuclear power plants, hand over first โ providing reliable and cheap power to industry, businesses and households is central to their economic development.
While Europe, the UK, US and Australia are busily destroying their energy supplies, China and India are building coal-fired and nuclear power plants, hand over first โ providing reliable and cheap power to industry, businesses and households is central to their economic development.
There was nothing sustainable about subsidised wind and solar. The sudden and catastrophic collapse in the value of wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers; the raft of grand offshore wind projects which have been scrapped; and the improved electoral fortunes of political parties ready to call the scam for what it is, look entirely inevitable.
Start at the beginning: without massive subsidies there would be no wind or solar industries. Full stop.
In the article below, David Blackmon draws a stark contrast between the delusional ideology that has driven energy policy in the wealthy West and the perfectly practical approach adopted by China and India.
The US should take warning from the huge costs of British floating wind power The Telegraph David Blackmon 20 November 2023
I must admit I laughed out loud when reading a November 16 report by the BBC detailing the Rishi Sunak governmentโs latest award of massive new subsidies to the UKโs offshore wind developers.
โThe price paid to generate electricity by offshore wind farms has been raised by 66 per cent as the government tries to entice energy firms to invest,โ the BBC report begins, adding, โIt comes after an auction for offshore wind projects failed to attract any bids, with firms arguing the price set for electricity generated was too low. The government has lifted the price it pays from ยฃ44 per MWh to ยฃ73. It is hoped that more offshore wind capacity will lead to cheaper energy bills.โ
That doesnโt make a lot of sense: paying (a lot) more for electricity is going to mean cheaper bills?
The UK has also raised the price for floating offshore wind to a staggering ยฃ176/MWh. Thatโs bad news for us here in the USA, as we donโt have a lot of seabed suitable for fixed offshore wind. Most of our offshore wind power is planned to be hugely expensive floating plant. Yet government officials and most media continue to parrot the idea that renewable energy is cheap without apparent curiosity.
Meanwhile in the US, the Biden government continues to license more offshore wind projects even in the face of recent major write-downs by big wind developers and the decision by Orsted to cancel two major projects off New Jersey. On October 31, the administration awarded Dominion the license to develop the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project, a 900 MW development off Virginia Beach. At the same time, Biden regulators continue their work to shut down the US coal-fired power generation fleet entirely.
While the Sunak government in the UK focuses on ways to disguise what is a de facto bailout for the financially troubled Big Wind operators, Xi Jinpingโs communist government in China is busy devising ways to add even more new coal-fired power generation to its own grid. To that end, Chinaโs National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently announced a new program in which the Chinese government will subsidize the building of new coal-fired electricity generation plants. The new subsidy goes into effect January 1, and is a key part of an effort to ensure power grid reliability and stability into the future.
The Chinese government understands the vital need for abundant thermal baseload and dispatchable generation in any stable and reliable power grid. Whether London, Washington DC, or the UN like it or not, coal remains the cheapest and most abundant fuel source available to fill this role in most developing nations. So, China, which already has more new coal plants in the development chain than the rest of the world combined, will now subsidize the building of even more new capacity starting in 2024. China says it will achieve โcarbon neutralityโ โ this is not the same as net zero, as it doesnโt include other greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide โ in 2060, ten years after the US and UK will apparently be at net zero.
India, too, is moving more heavily to reliance on coal. Indiaโs Coal Ministry announced on November 13 plans to increase domestic coal production to 1.404 billion tonnes by 2027, with plans to raise production to 1.577 billion tonnes by 2030. The Ministry said the increased production plans are in anticipation of the addition of another 80 GW of new coal-fired generation capacity in the coming 6 years. Domestic demand for thermal generation has risen by 20 per cent in just the past year, and India says itโs not doing net zero until 2070.
The BBC quotes unnamed corporate sources as claiming, โelectricity produced out at sea would remain cheaper and less prone to shock increases compared with power derived from gas-fired power stations.โ There have certainly been gas price shocks in Europe following Vladimir Putinโs war in Ukraine, but UK wholesale electricity prices have dipped below the new offshore-wind strike price this year: and that is by no means the highest strike price being offered.
This reliance on tired narratives that have shown little if any relationship to observed results as the basis for massive debt-funded spending compelled by government policy mandates perfectly illustrates why the political class is the worst possible segment of western societies to be making these energy decisions for the rest of us. This reality also illustrates why this effort to override the market is leading inevitably to bad outcomes.
The hard fact is that wind power and other renewable energy sources are expensive, not cheap. If they were actually cheap, we would have started using them without any government action. The Western world will make its industries uncompetitive (or in some cases, such as primary steel, non existent) and its people poorer by adopting renewables, and will still have to retain a duplicate thermal power sector to take over when the wind isnโt blowing and the sun isnโt shining. Texas is now having to subsidise the building of gas generation for this purpose, as renewables subsidies have warped the markets beyond recognition: thereโs no shortage of gas in Texas.
And no matter what anyone tells you, there is no move away from fossil fuels taking place in some very large world economies. An โenergy transitionโ which is not happening in China or India isnโt really a transition at all. The Telegraph
โThis is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency,โ assistant U.S. attorney Nicolas Roosย declaredย in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, after accusing the defendant of building FTX on a โpyramid of deceit.โ Much the same can be said about the foundations of Britainโs net zero experiment. Energy is complicated, and electricity is essential to modern society and our quality of life, but as with FTX, the underlying story is straightforward: wind power and net zero are built on a pyramid of deceit.
โThis is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency,โ assistant U.S. attorney Nicolas Roos declared in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, after accusing the defendant of building FTX on a โpyramid of deceit.โ Much the same can be said about the foundations of Britainโs net zero experiment. Energy is complicated, and electricity is essential to modern society and our quality of life, but as with FTX, the underlying story is straightforward: wind power and net zero are built on a pyramid of deceit.
Net zero was sold to Parliament and the British people on claims that wind-power costs were low and falling. This was untrue: wind-power costs are high and have been rising. In the net zero version of โcrypto will make you rich,โ official analyses produced by the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility rely on the falsehood that wind power is cheap, that net zero would have minimal costs, and that it could boost productivity and economic growth. None of these has any basis in reality.
The push for net zero began in 2019, when the U.K.โs Climate Change Committee produced a report urging the government to adopt the policy. Part of the justification was historic climate guilt. In the words of committee chair Lord Deben, Britain had been โone of the largest historical contributors to climate change.โ But the key economic justification for raising Britainโs decarbonization from 80% to 100% by 2050 โ i.e., net zero โ was โrapid cost reductions during mass deployment for key technologies,โ notably in offshore wind. These illusory cost reductions, the committee claimed, โhave made tighter emission reduction targets achievable at the same costs as previous looser targets.โ It was green snake oil.
During the subsequent 88-minute debate in the House of Commons to write net zero into law, the clean-energy minister, Chris Skidmore, also asserted that net zeroโs cost would be the same as the previous 80% target, which Parliament had approved in 2008. Challenged by a Labour MP on the absence of a regulatory-impact assessment, Skidmore misled Parliament, saying that there had been no regulatory-impact assessment in respect of raising the initial 60 percent target to 80 percent.
The regulatory-impact assessment that Skidmore says doesnโt exist gave a range of ยฃ324 billion to ยฃ404 billion when the target was raised to 80% โ an estimate that excluded transitional costs โ and cautioned that costs could exceed this range. Unlike todayโs political pronouncements, the assessment was honest about the consequences of Britain acting if the rest of the world did not. โThe economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak,โ it warned.
The Climate Change Act was passed to show Britainโs climate leadership and inspire the rest of the world to follow its example. How did that work out? In the 11 years that transpired from passing the Act to legislating net zero in 2019, Britainโs fossil fuel emissions fell by 180 million metric tons โ a 33% reduction. Over the same period, the rest of the worldโs emissions increased by 5,177 million metric tons โ a rise of 16%. Put another way, 11 years of British emissions reduction were wiped out in around 140 days by increased emissions from the rest of the world.
Someone who claims that heโs a leader but who has no followers is typically regarded as a fool. Itโs different with climate. Politicians parade their green virtue โ Skidmore is to quit the House of Commons, and he teaches net zero studies at Harvardโs Kennedy School โ while voters get mugged with higher energy bills. Analysis of Britainโs Big Six energy companiesโ regulatory filings reveals that fuel-input costs for gas and coal-fired power stations were flat from 2009 to 2020. Still, the average price per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity paid by households rose 67%, driven by high environmental levies to subsidize renewable-energy investors. Yet supposedly the cost of renewable energy has plummeted.
During Prime Ministerโs Questions earlier this year, Rishi Sunak claimed the cost of offshore wind had fallen from ยฃ140 per megawatt hour (MWh) to ยฃ40 per MWh, numbers assiduously propagated by the wind lobby and the Climate Change Committee. His claim is flat-out false. The prime minister has been suckered by falling per MWh price bids made by wind investors in successive allocation-round bids for offshore wind subsidies.
The explanation for this is to be found not in falling costs but in a flawed bidding process that rewards opportunistic bidding by wind investors. The government was giving away valuable options that commit the government to honor the prices paid for winning bids but commit investors to nothing. Because investors donโt pay anything for these options, the only way they can get them is by cutting the price they offer โ but are not obliged to take โ for their electricity unless they choose to exercise their options much later in the process.
Falling prices in successive allocation rounds are thus an artefact of moral hazard hardwired into the allocation mechanism; they reveal nothing about the trend in the costs of offshore wind. Analysis of audited financial data of wind farm companies undertaken by a handful of independent researchers comprehensively debunks the falling wind costs claim. The unavoidable move to deeper waters offset any cost reductions and operating costs per MWh of electricity for new offshore wind projects; the prices for the move are around double those assumed in the subsidy bids.
Preeminent among these researchers is Gordon Hughes, a former economics professor at Edinburgh University and adviser to the World Bank on power plant economics. Hughesโs analysis shows that by the twelfth year of operation, rising per MWh operating costs of deep-water wind turbines exceed their government-guaranteed prices, squeezing out their capacity to repay their capital and financing costs.
The intermittency and variability of wind and solar led the government to create a capacity market to pay for standby generation. In any economic appraisal of renewables, the costs of running the capacity market should be allocated to wind and solar as their intermittency and variability create the need for it. Electricity procured from the capacity market is not cheap. In 2020, German-owned Uniperโs thermal power stations obtained an average price of ยฃ224 per MWh, around four times the typical wholesale price.
Confirmation that offshore wind has huge, likely insuperable, cost and operating difficulties came in June, when Siemens Energy issued a shock profits warning and saw its shares plunge by 37 percent, in part because of higher-than-anticipated turbine failure rates. According to Hughes, the implication is that future wind operating costs will be higher, and output significantly lower, shortening the turbinesโ economic lives. His conclusion is crushing:
The whole justification for the falling costs of wind generation rested on the assumption that much bigger wind turbines would produce more output at lower capex cost per megawatt, without the large costs of generational change. Now we have confirmation that such optimism is entirely unjustified . . . It follows that current energy policies in the UK, Europe and the United States are based on foundations of sand โ naรฏve optimism reinforced by enthusiastic lobbying divorced from engineering reality.
The British government has been conned into placing a massive bet on offshore wind and is forcing electricity consumers to spend billions of pounds on a dead-end technology.
The falling cost of wind deception contaminates official assessments of the macroeconomic consequences of net zero. The Office for Budget Responsibility claims that the cost of low-carbon generation has fallen so fast that it is now cheaper than fossil fuel generation. Similarly, the Treasury erroneously took falling prices in wind subsidy allocation rounds as indicating falling wind costs. Both see the economy riddled with multiple layers of market failures, while not recognizing the real danger of government policy being captured by vested interests, as, indeed, it has been. Taken to its logical conclusion, theirs is an argument for switching to central planning and a command-and-control economy.
The Treasury argues that โother things being equal,โ the added investment required by renewable energy โwill translate into additional GDP growth.โ Other things, of course, are not equal. As recent history shows, thereโs a world of difference between investors and politicians making capital-allocation decisions. The centrally planned economies of the former communist bloc squandered colossal amounts of capital, immiserating their populations. Few now believe that investment in those economies boosted growth.
We donโt need to hypothesize. Government data disprove the Treasuryโs contention and demonstrate that increasing deployment of renewable capacity reduces the productivity of Britainโs grid. In 2009, 87.3 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity, comprising only 5.1 percent of wind and solar, generated 376.8 terrawatt hours (TWh) of electricity. In 2020, 100.9 GW of generating capacity, with wind and solar accounting for 37.6 percent of capacity, produced 312.3 TWh of electricity. Thanks to renewables, 13.6 GW (15.6 percent) more generating capacity produced 64.5 TWh (17.1 percent) less electricity.
Those numbers are damning for renewables and demonstrate why they make electricity more expensive and people poorer. Before mass deployment of renewables, 1 MW of capacity in 2009 produced 4,312 MWh of electricity. In 2020, 1 MW of capacity generated 3,094 MWh, a decline of 28.3 percent. Itโs as clear as can be: investment in renewables shrinks the economyโs productive potential. This is confirmed by the International Energy Agencyโs net zero modelling. Its net zero pathway sees the global energy sector in 2030 employing nearly 25 million more people, using $16.5 trillion more capital and taking an additional land area the combined size of California and Texas for wind and solar farms and the combined size of Mexico and France for bioenergy โ all to produce 7 percent less energy.
Britainโs energy-policy disaster has lessons for America. The physics and economics of wind power are not magically transformed when they cross the Atlantic. Whenever a politician or wind lobbyist touts wind as low-cost or says net zero will boost growth, they become accessories to the wind power scam. The data lead ineluctably to a decisive conclusion: net zero is anti-growth. It is a formula for prolonged economic stagnation. Anyone who wants the truth about renewables should look at Britain and the sorry state of its economy. For the last decade and a half, it has been going through its worst period of growth since 1780.
Unlike in business and finance, there are no criminal or civil penalties for those who promote policies based on fraud and misrepresentation. Rather, net zero is similar to communism. Like net zero, communism was based on a lie: that it would outproduce capitalism. But it failed to produce, and belief in communism evaporated. When the collapse came, it was sudden and rapid. The truth could not be hidden. A similar fate awaits net zero.
The Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will hear challenges against one of the Environmental Protection Agencyโs (EPA) key regulatory proposals.
The EPAย introducedย its โgood neighbor planโ in March, with the policy designed to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, especially from manufacturing facilities and power plants; if finalized in its current form, the policy would impose tighter standards on 23 โupwindโ states whose emissions are thought to cause air pollution in โdownwindโ states. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for four emergency challenges against the regulation in February 2024,ย accordingย to the Supreme Courtโs website.
The rule could cost American firms up to $910 million each year in compliance costs, and it would have particularly acute effects on industrial companies in the Midwest,ย accordingย to the EPA. The agency estimates that the finalized rule would prevent about 1,300 premature deaths and avert 2,300 hospital and emergency room visits in 2026 alone, as well as provide billions of dollarsโ worth of economic benefits.ย (RELATED: Biden EPAโs Air Quality Rule Proposal Would Crush American Industry And Jobs, Executives Warn)
BLACKMON: โThe authority sought by the EPA in that regulation was so expansive that critics argued it would give the agency the ability to regulate every drainage ditch and even swimming pools in the country.โhttps://t.co/1vpP3Xewxs
The EPA cites the Clean Air Act as the enabling statute for the โgood neighbor planโ and maintains that the policy is legal as written. However, Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who is leading one of the challenges against the rule, wrote in court papers that the EPA โignored obvious problems with its attempt to twist the Clean Air Act into a system of top-down regulation instead of the system of cooperative federalism that Congress intended.โ
Other states involved in a challenge against the EPAโs regulation assert in court documents that it would jeopardize power grid reliability and impose excessive, unreasonable costs. The rule was designed with an eye toward emissions sources such as natural gas pipelines, iron and steel mills, cement manufacturing, paper manufacturing, according to the EPA.
If the Supreme Court takes up the case, its decision could ultimately end up being the second major ruling pertaining to the extent of EPAโs authority in the last several years. In June 2022, the nationโs highest court dealt a blow to the agency in West Virginia v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court reined in the EPAโs ability to limit emissions of existing power plants.
The EPA declined to comment, citing the pending nature of the litigation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporterโs byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contactย licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Card stacking is a โpropaganda technique where an organization may use media to favorably show one side of an issue or an argument, while simultaneously downplaying the other side.โ NOAA is clearly guilty of card stacking as seen in NOAAโs iconic Ocean Acidification illustration (graphic #1) commonly accompanying their articles warning about ocean acidification.
Card stacking is a โpropaganda technique where an organization may use media to favorably show one side of an issue or an argument, while simultaneously downplaying the other side.โ NOAA is clearly guilty of card stacking as seen in NOAAโs iconic Ocean Acidification illustration (graphic #1) commonly accompanying their articles warning about ocean acidification.
First, notice only CO2 entering from the atmosphere is emphasized. NOAAโs graph ignores the fact that the oceans contain 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. CO2 first entered some deep ocean water hundreds to thousands of years ago. While surface waters are not corrosive with a pH 8.1 (graphic #7), corrosive conditions are more likely where deeper ocean water with 2X to 3X more CO2 and pH 7.6 are upwelled.
Second, NOAA suggests disastrous effects from acidification for marine life by showcasing the disintegration of a dead sea butterfly (snail) shell in 7.8 pH water. NOAA cherry-picked a sea butterfly shell as a climate indicator because its shell is extremely thin and the worldโs most easily dissolved snail shell. Furthermore, the dissolvable calcium carbonate crystals that make shells hard in living animals are prevented from dissolving by a protective insoluble organic layer (#5). Using a dissolving dead shell to suggest life-threatening conditions is a scam!
Third, NOAAโs equation (highlighted by my red rectangle in #1) is backwards and does NOT reflect reality! When CO2 enters the water, it first results in carbonic acid that immediately breaks down to form a bicarbonate ion (HCO3-) and an H+ ion. Indeed, added H+ ions will โconsumeโ carbonate ions, but thatโs how carbonate ions buffer seawater and prevent rapid acidification. Equally important, reduced carbonate ions in seawater does NOT impede calcification. Shell makers never absorb carbonate ions from sea water. All shell makers absorb the very abundant bicarbonate ions and then produce carbonate ions internally! Thus, the real calcification equation should be the one I inserted.
Because the public is not familiar with sea butterfly shells, fear is easily evoked. People are more likely familiar with larger thicker-shelled garden snails (#2). Sea butterflies however evolved to float in the ocean, mostly between 5- and 50-meters depth to capture sinking organic matter and thus require an extremely light-weight shell. Sea butterflies are extremely tiny (#3), and their shells are so thin, its thickness is beyond the human eyeโs capability to measure. The shells thickness is measured with Scanning Electron Microscopes (#5).
For people unfamiliar with microns as a measurement, illustration #4 shows a pencil point equals one millimeter, which equals 1000 microns. The width of a human hair is about 50-70 microns in diameter. Pollen or mold spores are less than 10 microns. The sea butterflyโs shell thickness is even smaller (#5) with the prismatic and crossed lamellar layers of calcium carbonate ranging from 2 to 4 microns thick.
Finally, NOAA states, โWhen carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration, and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals.โ While it is true that ocean pH affects carbonate ion concentrations, NOAA is engaging in more card stacking.
Ocean pH is highest near the surface where atmospheric CO2 is first absorbed, and pH then decreases with depth. In sunlit surfaces where photosynthesis utilizes CO2 to produce and store organic matter faster than digestion and decay can release CO2 from that matter, pH remains high, around 8.1 (#7) and shell dissolution is rare. As organic matter is digested while sinking to greater depth, pH then falls.
When ocean water is classified as saturated with calcium and carbonate ions, the calcium carbonate of dead shells is unlikely to dissolve. When the water becomes unsaturated, shells begin to dissolve. So, NOAA argues โcontinued ocean acidification is causing many parts of the ocean to become undersaturatedโ and then fear mongers โLower environmental calcium carbonate saturation states can have a dramatic effect on some calcifying species, including oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton,โ that more than a billion people worldwide rely on for food. However most marine life lives at depths where the water is supersaturated with no threat to the worldโs food supply!
The depth at which ocean chemistry switches from saturated to unsaturated is the saturation horizon and varies around the world as seen in illustration #6. It also varies with the variety of calcium carbonate minerals, such as aragonite that sea butterflies use being more susceptible. For most of the worldโs ocean, waters remain super-saturated from 0 to 1000-meter depths. In most of the north Atlantic, waters remain supersaturated even between 2000 and 4000 meters. The saturation horizon does fall below 750 meters along the west coast of the Americas due to the upwelling of low pH water (#6). But upwelling low pH water brings nutrients and CO2 into the sunlit surfaces making those waters the most biologically productive in the world.
Is it possible to simplify the climate sensitivity debate? Einstein was famous for solving the most difficult problems on the back of an old envelope. Without pretending to be in the same league as the great man, is it possible to follow his example, take a sharp pencil and on the back of an old envelope write the following words.
Foreword: Climate sensitivity is the central point of all climate change arguments, yet it is still undefined. As we point out in our Everything Climate reference page:
Declaring future predictions of global warming โsettled scienceโ requires a fairly precise calculation of future temperatures. However, since climate sensitivity was first identified more than 40 years ago, scientists and climate models have produced a very broad range of potential future temperature patterns. Calculations for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide range from 0.8ยฐC warming to 6.0ยฐC future warming by 2100.
So, this thought experiment, a genre Einstein was so fond of, really isnโt any better than any of those guesses. Channeling Kevin Trenberth we can say this: โThe fact is that we canโt account for the lack of a known climate sensitivity value at the moment and it is a travesty that we canโt.โ โ Anthony
By Bob Irvine
Is it possible to simplify the climate sensitivity debate? Einstein was famous for solving the most difficult problems on the back of an old envelope. Without pretending to be in the same league as the great man, is it possible to follow his example, take a sharp pencil and on the back of an old envelope write the following words.
โThere are only two things that contribute to the energy content of a body or system. They are input energy and energy residence time within that system.โ (Davidโs Law, Thanks David)
All the complex changes to energy pathways, changes of state and movement of molecules can be summarised and simplified with these words. They give us a base from which important conclusions can be drawn.
If there were room on the back of that envelope, we might also write the corollary,
โIt follows that a positive-feedback to any increase in system energy content from any cause will, by definition, further increase the residence time of that energy within the system while a negative-feedback will effectively reduce that residence time.โ
There is, of course, nothing controversial about these statements. We put a jacket on, and our body heat is retained for longer. We warm up.
Solar radiation better penetrates a matt black steel ball and consequently remains within the ball for longer than it would in a shiny and reflective silver steel ball. It is understood that no reflection is perfect, and also understood that energy residence time determines that the temperature at the centre of the black ball will be higher assuming similar solar input energy. (See Note B)
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE CLIMATE SENSITIVITY DEBATE?
Essentially, the Green House gases (GHG) absorb and reemit a small fraction of long wave radiation that would otherwise have found its way to space more quickly. GHGs increase energy residence time as discussed above and consequently warm the global surface.
Equilibrium is still eventually reached at the Top of the Atmosphere (TOA) but this equilibrium takes a little longer. Hansen (2) โ..show analytically, with ocean mixing approximated as a diffusive process, that the response time (TOA) increases as the square of climate sensitivity.โ
None of the statements so far are controversial in any way. These are now followed by another uncontroversial statement. Energy reemitted by CO2 sometimes strikes the ocean surface and is almost totally absorbed within the first 0.015mm and within the evaporation layer of that ocean surface and from there is returned very quickly to the atmosphere and space as latent heat of evaporation. Consequently, equilibrium at the TOA is restored relatively quickly.
An uncontroversial consequence of all this is that energy reemitted by CO2 will, on average, act somewhere in the atmosphere while short wave solar energy will, on average, act at a depth of some meters below the ocean surface. This is a physical consequence of the different wave lengths involved and is not disputed.
The agreed forcing for a doubling of CO2 is approximately 3.7 w/m^2 at the surface. A similar solar forcing increase of 3.7 w/m^2 would, on the other hand, be absorbed on average a number of meters below the ocean surface. Although it is not a gas, water has a much stronger greenhouse effect than do the GHGs. By the time that solar energy on average reaches the surface it has been delayed significantly, all the time adding to its residence time in the system.
The whole GHG debate relates to surface temperature as it effects our day-to-day activities at the global surface. A 3.7w/m^2 increase in solar forcing will have a much bigger effect on surface temperature than a similar 3.7w/m^2 increase in CO2 forcing that, on average, acts in the atmosphere. As noted, equilibrium will still be restored at the TOA but will simply take longer for an equivalent solar forcing.
Or to put it another way, the consensus is that a doubling of CO2 is consistent with a forcing increase of about 3.7 w/m^2 and, by calculation, a surface temperature increase of about 1.2C before the atmospheric feedback has acted.
A 3.7 w/m^2 change in solar forcing, on the other hand, would already have been subject to significant delay and consequently strong positive ocean feedback by the time it on average caused a surface temperature change. That surface temperature change would then be subject to various atmospheric feedback and could conceivably be up to 10C or more (my best guess is about 5.2C with significant error bars) at equilibrium, and consequently should change our approach to all reality-based Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) studies as they apply to GHG forcing.
I define ECS here as the surface temperature change after an extra 3.7 w/m^2 (CO2 doubling equivalent) of any type of forcing has been applied and the climate system is allowed to attain equilibrium. The point being made here is that ECS at the global surface will be higher for an incremental change in solar forcing than it would be for a similar sized change in CO2 forcing.
CONCLUSION
Nothing written in this essay to date is controversial except my ECS surface temperature guess of 5.2C (approx.) for a 3.7w/m^2 increase in solar forcing. (See Note C) I am proposing here a solar ECS of about 5.2C and a CO2 ECS of about 1.3C because, when applied in tandem, they reproduce with surprising accuracy our best estimates of global surface temperatures for the last century and millennium. They are a guide only but do have a physical basis that is relatively uncontroversial.
Note A; It is important to note here that an incremental change in solar forcing is generally believed to have the same warming affect at the global surface as does a similar change in CO2 forcing. General opinion, including that of the IPCC and many sceptics, concedes that the oceans will delay that temperature change at the surface for solar forcing but maintains that the surface temperature change will still eventually be approximately the same. This essay argues that not only will the oceans delay that temperature change but that they will also enhance that change as a result of that delay. This point or mechanism is well described by Forster (1) in the following quote;
โImagine, for example, that the atmosphere alone (perhaps through some cloud change unrelated to any surface temperature response) quickly responds to a large Radiative Forcing to restore the flux imbalance at the TOA (Top Of Atmosphere), yielding a small effective climate forcing. In this case the ocean would never get a chance to respond to the initial Radiative Forcing, so the resulting climate response would be small, and this would be consistent with our diagnosed โEffective Climate Forcingโ rather than the conventional โRadiative Forcing.โ
Note B; A slightly more detailed analysis of the black ball/reflective silver ball example might be that, while the temperature in the centre of the two balls differs, the surface of the two balls are actually the same temperature. The surface of the black ball only feels hotter due to higher conductivity. In the Earthโs case, the surface of the globe or ball is the average emission height, and this also stays at the same approximate temperature after a forcing increase, while the temperature in the interior and importantly, on the surface where we live, is warmed by increased energy residence time.
Note C; It is, of course, quite possible that my estimated global average of 5.2C for solar ECS due to increased relative residence time is too high, the difference being made up with various solar multipliers and or other feedback in an extremely complex and chaotic climate system.
Note D; The consensus argument that CO2 atmospheric warming will act as a blanket and consequently slow ocean cooling is not being disputed here. This insulation affect is insignificant when compared to the fact that solar energy is absorbed, on average, meters below the ocean surface and in this way is overwhelmingly responsible for the temperature profile of the earthโs oceans.
Note E; In support, changing radiative penetration has been shown to have a significant effect on Ocean Heat Content. For example, radiative transfer is significantly affected by oceanic pigment as discussed by Gordon [3] and Morel [4]. Ohlmann [5] showed that the heating rate of a 20-meter mixed layer can be changed by about 0.33ยฐC per month by a solar radiative penetration that can reach 40w/m2 in the tropical ocean. Siegel [6] concluded that a 10 w/m2 change in penetrative solar flux at 20 meters can result from a 0.10 mgm-3 change in phytoplankton concentration.
Forster, P.M.F., & Taylor, K.E., โ Climate Forcings and Climate sensitivities Diagnosed from Climate Model Integrations Coupled. Journal of Climate, 6183, 2006.
Hansen, J., Sato, M., Kharecha, P., von Schuckmann, K., โ Earthโs Energy Imbalance & Implications. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss, 11, 27031-27105, pp 19-21, 2011.
Gordon, H.R., & Morel, A., โ Remote assessment of ocean color for interpretation of satellite visible imagery, โ A review. SpringโVerlag. 114pp, 1983.
Morel, A., โ Optical modelling of the upper ocean in relation to itโs biogenous matter content (case 1 waters). โ J. Geophys. Res., 93. 10749-10768. 1988.
Ohlmann, J.C., Siegel, D.A. & Gautier, C., โ Ocean mixed layer radiant heating and solar penetration. A global analysis. J. Climate. 9, 2265-2280. 1996.
Siegel, D.A., Ohlmann, J.C., Washburn, L., Bidigare, R.R., Nosse, C., Field, E. & Zhou, Y. โย Solar radiation, phytoplanktonย pigments, and radiant heating of the equatorial pacific warm pool. โย J. Geophys. Res., 100, 4885-4891. 1995.
Against all odds, Chile was once again saved from having aย new Constitutionย (12/17/23) soaked with progressist footprints and DNA of the UNโs โAgenda 2030โ that also included a climate change chapter. The 1980 Constitution, thus, remained in force.
Against all odds, Chile was once again saved from having a new Constitution (12/17/23) soaked with progressist footprints and DNA of the UNโs โAgenda 2030โ that also included a climate change chapter. The 1980 Constitution, thus, remained in force.
The chances of rejecting the new text seemed to vanish since the most right-wing party (Republican), together with woke companies and unions, called to approve the new proposal even before knowing its draft. The โIn Favorโ option had thus everything to win: the right, the left and the money. The other option had nothing except courage and awareness to expose the huge threat that the former posed.
The scenario for those who promoted the โClimate Constitutionโ, Republicans and the center-right (the extreme left didnโt promote anything), was favored by blaming libertarians for โvoting the same as the communistsโ who said they would vote for the โAgainstโ option. It is not clear why that wing acted in such a contradictory manner, since they were more than happy with the โIn Favorโ option because they would finally achieve a Venezuela-like Constitution and of other Marxist paradises.
The fact is that advocates of the โAgainstโ option called to vote without caring whether the communists agreed with them or not and, instead, to be aware of the text that was being offered to the country in which they saw a socialist, progressist and globalist document. The patriotsโ alleged loyalty to the communists turned out to be, apart from false, a weak argument that served, at best, to narrow the difference of a comfortable victory.
In the end, without resources, using only the social media along with the awakening of peopleโs common sense, conservatives achieved a clear victory of 55.8% against 44.2%, a great defeat for the entire political establishment.
This success, however, did not stop Chileโs journey towards the cliff.
In parallel, climate policies in Congress continue to progress. One is the โEnergy Transition Lawโ, that aims to incorporate electricity transmission as a sector enabled for carbon-neutrality, a guise that actually seeks to save European renewable energy companies from bankruptcy. This bill, dispatched by โpresidentโ Boric as a matter of urgency, arose from a one-day visit to Chile last June of Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, asking him to โsolve the problemโ. With this new climate action, electricity rates will continue to skyrocket along with the countryโs social and economic crisis, but saving the planet and foreign companies at taxpayersโ expense.
Climate policies of a country that doesnโt exist for the purposes of preventing the climate from changing on the planet, along with a political right on the verge of extinction not quite because of global warming but for its violent turn to the left, are the bitter return to reality after the triumph of freedom against tyranny, hence, with hope of solution.
The largest oil producer in the North Sea has reached an $11.2bn (ยฃ8.8bn) agreement to acquire a German rival in its latest moves to expand from its North Sea roots into a global oil and gas company.
The largest oil producer in the North Sea has reached an $11.2bn (ยฃ8.8bn) agreement to acquire a German rival in its latest moves to expand from its North Sea roots into a global oil and gas company.
Harbour Energy will buy the upstream assets of oil-and-gas producer Wintershall Dea from chemicals giant BASF and investor LetterOne, which was co-founded byย sanctioned Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman.
The deal will see Harbourโs operations expand across Norway, Germany, Denmark, Argentina, Mexico, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, as well as the companyโs carbon dioxide capture and storage licences in Europe.
BASF, a majority shareholder in Wintershall Dea, will own 46.5pc of Harbour and will be entitled to nominate two non-executive directors to the latterโs board, as part of the deal. However, it has said it wants to exit the oil and gas industry and so will be disposing of those holdings over coming years
Harbour Energy chief executive Linda Z Cook said: โTodayโs announcement marks Harbourโs fourth major acquisition and the most transformational step yet in our journey to build a uniquely positioned, large-scale, geographically diverse independent oil and gas company.โ
She said that adding Wintershallโs assets would increase the companyโs production, โextend our reserves life, and enhance our margins and cash flow, all supporting enhanced shareholder returns over the longer runโ.
Annabel’s owner Richard Caring explores sale of stake in Ivy restaurants chain
Richard Caring is plotting the sale of a stake in his Ivy restaurant empire, writesย Daniel Woolfson:
The billionaire tycoon, who also owns the private memberโs club Annabelโs, has hired bankers to explore options for The Ivy Collection, which runs a chain of 30 upmarket restaurants.
It is understood that talks with potential suitors are at an early stage, with no decision made over how much of Mr Caringโs hospitality empire could be sold.
Any potential deal could value The Ivy Collection at around ยฃ1bn, as first reported by Sky News.
Mr Caring, one of Britainโs best-known restaurateurs, has been dubbed โthe King of Mayfairโ based on his record of opening opulent, upscale restaurants, such as Sexy Fish, Scottโs and J Sheekey.
He moved into the restaurant sector in 2005 when he bought The Ivy and Caprice Holdings restaurant group.
After buying The Ivy, which was founded in 1917, Mr Caring opened a private membersโ club which quickly became a haunt for celebrities visiting the capital, with the likes of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Sting among its patrons.
Mr Caringโs Ivy empire has since expanded to 30 restaurants, which includes The Ivy Asia. Separately, he also owns a stake in casual dining chain Billโs.
The most recent company filings for the parent group of The Ivy Collection show that the business recorded almost ยฃ303m of turnover in the year to January 2023.
Mr Caring and HSBC declined to comment.
05:11 PM GMT
Crisis deepens at Hipgnosis as board clashes with founder
The chairman of Hipgnosis has publicly clashed with founder Merck Mercuriadis as the crisis at the troubled music rights firm deepens. James Warrington reports:
Robert Naylor, who took over as chairman of Hipgnosis Songs Fund last month, has criticised Mr Mercuriadis and his investment advisers over โongoing failures in the financial reporting and control processโ.
In a statement today, Mr Naylor pointed to a contract drafting blunder that could have cost the company $21m (ยฃ16.6m). The contract has been amended but losses are still expected.
The chairman said shareholders had raised concerns about financial reporting issues at the firm, which comes after the company was last month forced to scrap its dividend.
Hipgnosis said that while it believes it has the financial headroom for next year, this was โqualifiedโ by issues around reporting and controls.
Concerns over Mr Mercuriadisโs conflicts of interest were also raised on Thursday, something Mr Naylor said the company will look to address โin the coming monthsโ.
The management spat comes as a slump in the music rights market sparks concerns about the value of Hipgnosisโs song catalogue, which includes hits by artists such as Justin Bieber, Blondie and Neil Young.
This uncertainty prompted the company to delay its results, which were scheduled to be released earlier this week.
Hipgnosis today said the value of its song portfolio has dropped by more than ยฃ200m since April to ยฃ2.1bn at the end of September.
But the board warned there was a high degree of uncertainty over this figure and urged investors to use it with caution.
Mr Naylor criticised Mr Mercuriadis for a lack of transparency over the valuation after the founder initially refused to give his opinion.
He also took aim at Mr Mercuruadis for refusing to publish their correspondence on the companyโs website, citing confidentiality clauses.
Mr Naylor added: โOn behalf of the board, I therefore urge the investment adviser to provide the board with their opinion as to the fair value of the company assets, without caveats, such that we can provide greater certainty and transparency to our shareholders.โ
In a statement earlier this week, Mr Mercuriadisโs investment advisers said it would โcontinue to work in a constructive manner to support the interests of the company and its shareholdersโ.
Time to take another look at heat pump costs, both installation and running.
Here I will be looking specifically at air to water heat pumps. There are lots of figures floated around for installation costs, and obviously a lot depends on the size of the house and other variables. Some, like Which, merely give a ballpark figure of around ยฃ10,000; others, like Ecoexperts give a range of between ยฃ7000 for 2-bedrooms and ยฃ13000 for 4-bedrooms. None seem to say exactly what is included.
Claims from heat pump suppliers need to be treated with extra caution. Certainly some I have seen, such as Octopus Energy, are grossly misleading.
I am therefore using data from the Energy Saving Trust and Greenmatch, neither of which can be described as anti-heat pump! The fact sheets from both are fully up to date.
According to the former, the typical cost is ยฃ14000, which they imply includes the cost of new radiators or other changes to the way heat is distributed. This cost of course does not include extra insulation.
In addition to this would be the cost of a new hot water tank. This would be a particular problem if there is no existing space to put one, which might involve building work. Alternatives such as hybrid systems (basically running the heat pump alongside a boiler!) would also be costly.
Greenmatch suggest anything between ยฃ8000 and ยฃ18000 for 2 and 3 bedrooms.
With insulation and water tanks, it is easy to see the cost approaching ยฃ20000 for an average sized home.
Running costs of a heat pump ultimately come down to what is called the Coefficient of Performance (COP). You will often see a COP of 3.0 bandied around as โtypicalโ โ this means that you 3 units of heat out of the system for every 1 unit of energy put in. For more details, see here.
However such claims are extremely oversimplistic. Greenmatch suggest anything between 2.5 and 3.5, assuming โadequate insulationโ.
Greenmatch also state that the system will run at a COP of 3.0 when the outside temperature is above 7C. However they note that UK monthly averageย temperatures are constantly below 7C between November and March, meaning a COP of 2.8 is more realistic. (Their figure of 4.5, by the way, is for ground source heat pumps.)
So letโs plug a few numbers in.
A typical 3-bedroom house is reckoned to use about 12000 KWh a year of gas for heating. Some of that energy is wasted, as gas boilers do not run at 100% efficiency. Greenmatch claim that the typical boiler only achieves 82.5% efficiency, but this is grossly misleading. Although this figure is derived from government studies, they were published as long ago as 2009, and were based on boilers that were already several years old at the time. As with heat pumps and other appliances, efficiency will inevitably decline over time. But nobody with a working gas boiler is likely to buy a heat pump, so the proper comparison must be made with a new modern gas boiler.
By law, A-rated gas boilers must be a minimum of 92% efficient. Even allowing for non-optimal working, a figure of 90% is not unreasonable, meaning that 12000 KWh of input energy supplies 10800 KWh of heat. With the price of gas set at 7p/KWh from Jan 2024, 12000 KWh will cost ยฃ840 a year. (Even assuming boiler efficiency of 85%, the cost would only increase to ยฃ889).
A heat pump working at a COP of 2.8 will use 3857 KWh. At a price of 29p/KWh, this amounts to ยฃ1118 a year.
A heat pump therefore is going to increase most peopleโs energy bills by ยฃ200 or more.
There is also the issue of hot water to consider, as heat pumps are neither able to supply super hot water, or hot water on demand. (The Energy Saving Trust talk about circulating water at between 35C and 45C, hence the need for much larger radiators).
This means that a heat pump will need a separate means of heating water, such as an immersion tank. But given that electricity is four times the price of gas, this could drastically raise the cost of hot water, compared to gas.
So donโt believe industry claims that heat pumps can save you money. And with gas prices set to fall in April, when the new Energy Price Cap is due, heat pumps will become even more costly in relative terms.
Finally, a quick comment about Air-to Air Heat Pumps, which have been commented on in previous posts:
The Energy Saving Trust have a separate factsheet for these.
The obvious advantage is that they are cheaper to install, between ยฃ1500 and ยฃ3500, according to Greenmatch. But the Energy Saving Trust note that โIn the UK, air-to-air heat pumps are not typically used for heating larger homes, with most domestic air source heat pumps installations using air-to-water systems. More often, air-to-air heat pumps are installed in smaller properties, such as park homes or flatsโ
The first big problem for average sized homes is that you would need some sort of ducting system, which would be costly and disruptive to install. Moreover air cannot carry the large amounts of heat that water can.
Secondly, of course, you would need to install a hot water system, further adding to the cost:
And as we have seen already, using electricity to heat water is four times the cost of using a gas boiler.
According to a 2018 study, hot water accounts for a fifth of a typical householdโs gas usage. At current prices that would be about ยฃ200.
Replacing a gas boiler with an immersion tank could see that bill rise to ยฃ800.
You must be logged in to post a comment.