Day: March 16, 2024

Patients Will Die, Thanks To The NHS Net Zero Drive

Will somebody please stop this nonsense now, before people die!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby/Paul Kolk

Will somebody please stop this nonsense now, before people die!

The NHS is to introduce electric ambulances, raising concerns that its drive for net zero is being put above patient safety.

Paramedics fear patients will be forced to wait longer because of the hours lost recharging the vehicles, with particular concern about coverage of rural areas, given the limited range.

The move next month is part of a series of measures that whistleblowers fear put green credentials above medical priorities.

The drive had created a bureaucracy that was diverting vast sums from the front line, and placing “grossly unethical” obstacles in the way of clinical decisions, one whistleblower warned.

NHS England has set up a Greener NHS team with a combined salary bill of £3 million a year, leaked documents reveal.

Officials created 48 roles, including five on six-figure salaries, as part of efforts to pursue an environmental agenda which means every medicine and product has to undergo an “evergreen assessment”.

The 135-question process means that no decision can be taken without a product’s social values and contribution to emissions targets being considered.

One supplier alleged that devices such as plastic cannulas were routinely being rejected on environmental grounds, despite the fact they would improve patient safety.

An extra layer of bureaucracy will be added next month, with every NHS supplier asked to draw up a carbon reduction plan.

Other eco-initiatives being rolled out include “climate-friendly pain relief” for mothers in labour and chemotherapy deliveries and GP visits via e-bikes.

A whistleblower told the Telegraph: “Every part of the NHS is under-resourced and waiting lists remain historically high, but commitment to green zealotry remains unchanged.

“The amount of resources dedicated to the green agenda is astounding, and the fact that it is now impacting clinical decision-making is, I believe, grossly unethical.”

Next month, electric ambulances will be piloted across swathes of the country. Under the scheme, electric ambulances will be trailed across the North West, East of England, Yorkshire, South West and London at a cost of around £150,000 each.

The West Midlands has already introduced the vehicles, although last year board papers from the West Midlands Ambulance Service revealed major concerns.

An evaluation of the pilot scheme found the ambulances took up to four hours to charge and travelled an average of 70 miles between charging, with the papers warning “range and recharge time is a significant limiting factor”.

While the vehicles had a range of 100 miles, which would cover a shift in urban areas, this would not be the case from most of its hubs, it states, adding: “Rural areas in particular are covering twice this mileage and more in a shift.” The report says that, as a minimum, ambulances need to be able to cover 160 miles.

Standard ambulances can cover up to 800 miles a day and be filled up in just minutes.

It follows warnings that ambulances are already spending vast amounts of time off the road, with two millions hours lost to waits in hospital car parks in the 12 months ending March 2023, while heart attack and stroke victims faced average waits of 36 minutes in 2023, twice the target.

Paramedics said they were fearful of the risks if electric ambulances were rolled out widely without a proper safety assessment.

Richard Webber, a paramedic and spokesman for the College of Paramedics, said he could see the benefits of such schemes in urban areas, for short distances.

He said: “I think they really need to produce the evidence that this is safe before this is rolled out beyond urban areas. I would be very wary of that. If I have got a very sick patient, someone who has had a heart attack and I am trying to get them to hospital I don’t want to be worrying about the battery.”

“Staff will want some convincing,” Mr Webber added, urging the health service to “go very cautiously” pushing the green agenda when safety was at risk.

One emergency medical consultant said: “If they could put the charging points at hospitals I would have less of a concern: waits are so long at Emergency Departments you could charge a jumbo jet. My worry is that they are looking to have charging points only in the ambulance station, so that’s even more time lost.”

One in 10 ambulances already spends more than an hour waiting outside hospitals, latest NHS data show.

The emergency medical consultant said: “The worst-case scenario is running out of juice with a patient in the back. I think this is untested territory, I would rather they started testing all of this in Patient Transport Services, where patterns are much more predictable, than in emergency care.”

Paul Bristow, a Tory member of the Commons health and social care committee, said: “Saving lives and patient safety must always come first. The idea that anyone can consider that climate concerns and green zealotry should come before what is best for patients boggles the mind.

“If concerns of first responders and ambulance crews are being overridden it just shows that eco group-think in our NHS is a very real concern.”

Mark Francois, a Conservative member of the public accounts committee urged the NHS not to forget its true purpose.

He said: “Florence Nightingale once famously said that ‘the very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.’ While achieving net zero is a laudable aim, we cannot allow it to trump common sense, especially if it compromises patient safety.

“The most important consideration must be patient safety, comfort and wellbeing.”

An NHS spokesman said: “NHS services must always put patients first when procuring products and it is also right we seek green alternatives, but only when they save the taxpayer money.

“The new electric ambulances are benefiting thousands of patients, hospitals report they are working efficiently, and they could help deliver annual operational savings of £59 million.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/14/nhs-electric-ambulances-concern-net-zero-above-patients

The chart shown above highlights everything that is wrong with the NHS’s obsession with Net Zero. Anybody who thinks it is appropriate to analyse carbon emissions in such minute detail, even down into supply chains, should not be working in the NHS. Or for that matter in any position of public responsibility.

Unlike buses, for instance, ambulances are needed around the clock, so every hour of downtime recharging is an hour when patients are not being treated/taken to hospital. This can only lead to patients dying – it is that simple.

The NHS claims electric ambulances will save £59 million a year, but this is farthings in terms of the £100 billion cost of running the NHS, even if true, which anybody with an ounce of commonsense would know disbelieve. (To be fair, patients dead on arrival will save the NHS money).

And note they use the weasel words “operational savings, but don’t mention the extra capital costs entailed in buying electric ambulances, and of course installing all of the charging points/sub stations required.

In any event, the NHS’ overriding priority is healing patients. If it is that concerned about money, it would immediately disband its decarbonisation team.

As usual the Telegraph’s commenters show why they should be deciding policy, but this comment stands out:

As we know too well, EVs struggle to get anywhere near their advertised mileage even in the best of conditions, never mind in winter.

Poppy is quite right to point out all of the other energy hungry devices in an ambulance. No wonder they only average 70 miles per charge.

And in an average environment, that would mean recharging maybe three or four times a day. In short, ambulances will be out of action for half of the time.

Singapore: A Tale of Two IEAs

Will Singapore and its Southeast Asian neighbors continue to hew toward free markets to promote economic development, or will they follow the examples of countries in Europe and North America in pursuing “clean energy transitions” by policy mandates which curtail the use of fossil fuels?

From Watts Up With That?

By Tilak K. Doshi Peter A. Coclanis

Singapore gained attention in the world press last week as reports emerged of neighboring countries accusing the city-state of paying Taylor Swift to engage in a series of concerts exclusively, without allowing other concert venues in Southeast Asia to vie for the superstar’s services on her worldwide Eras Tour. But two recent events that went unnoticed carry far more momentous consequences for the city-state and the Southeast Asia region.

On February 15, the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs tweeted a link to a new Fraser Institute study of Singapore’s economic miracle. IEA – Britain’s oldest free market think tank – argues that economic freedom was key to the approach that turned Singapore from an impoverished Third World backwater on the eve of its independence in 1965 to one of the world’s richest countries.

Just two days earlier, the Paris-based International Energy Agency announced the establishment in Singapore of an IEA Regional Cooperation Centre, “which will work with all countries in Southeast Asia and beyond to enhance energy security and accelerate clean energy transitions.” This will be the energy agency’s first office outside of its headquarters in Paris, France. IEA (Paris), quite unlike its London-based acronym-sake, subscribes to the climate change agenda that calls for massive government intrusion into energy markets “to save the planet.”

Will Singapore and its Southeast Asian neighbors continue to hew toward free markets to promote economic development, or will they follow the examples of countries in Europe and North America in pursuing “clean energy transitions” by policy mandates which curtail the use of fossil fuels? The livelihoods and prospects of hundreds of millions of people in the region depend quite literally on the answer to this question.

Free Markets, or Collectivist Net Zero?

The Fraser Institute report examines the island-nation’s remarkable economic rise over the past sixty years, which surpasses in some measures even the records compiled by the likes of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. It explores what other nations can learn from Singapore’s story. It also sheds light on matters other than economic growth, such as healthcare, education, and social welfare.

A few key themes emerge out of the report: the emphasis on personal responsibility; the vital importance of markets, incentives, and free trade; and the government’s flexible, open-minded, “pragmatic” approach to public policy, promoting policies that worked without getting hung up on labels.

The report’s authors see Singapore’s rise not as a simple textbook case demonstrating how “free market” or “laissez faire” capitalism was responsible for the island nation’s success. The government’s role was too prominent in many social and economic sectors for that argument to work. Yet it is hard to deny that the government’s overall approach to economic policies was informed by certain abiding beliefs in basic capitalist principles: economic freedom (and with it, self-reliance), the rule of law, private property rights, competition, openness, and the efficacy of material incentives. It was this basic orientation more than anything else that enabled Singapore’s world-leading growth record since the late 1960s. This was “capitalism, with Singaporean characteristics.”

And that’s what makes the news regarding Singapore’s partnership with IEA Paris rather incongruous. Singapore’s partnership will be a “strategic asset” for the agency, according to Tan See Leng, the Republic’s Second Minister for Trade and Industry. Dr. Tan believes that the partnership will “energize the region’s decarbonisation journey, while continuing to provide advice on energy security and resilience.”

The policy posture that IEA Paris recommends for its members would cause Lenin much envy. IEA Paris would have governments cease all investments on coal, oil, and gas projects, and recommends government support for investments in “clean” energy industries such as wind, solar, and electric vehicles. Its “net zero by 2050” mantra would make European agriculture “sustainable” by reducing hydrocarbon-based fertilizer use, keeping increasing amounts of land fallow, and convincing people to eat less meat. It also would have governments bet taxpayers’ money on hydrogen and carbon capture and storage – unproven technologies that have yet to achieve commercial viability despite huge investments over recent decades.

The Real World Intrudes

Since 1870, Singapore’s development path has incorporated oil storage and trading, and over time the island-state gained its status as the “East of Suez” hub for oil refining, petrochemicals manufacturing, and trading. But in October 2022, turning its back on its investments in oil and gas – accumulated over more than a century – Singapore committed to “net zero emissions by 2050” as part of its long-term low-emissions development strategy. How will it fare a quarter century from now when the utopia of “net zero” arrives? And will Southeast Asia – comprised of 700 million inhabitants living in eleven extremely diverse countries, some at very low levels of economic development – follow its example?

We can already see where the “decarbonization” path recommended by IEA Paris will lead. In a report published last week, Gordon Hughes – a former adviser to the World Bank and professor of economics at the University of Edinburgh – puts it unambiguously: the plan is simply “posturing about targets that are patently not achievable and might be economically ruinous.” As one commentator observed, “[t]he idea that hydrocarbons – a natural resource whose use from medicines to reliable energy is ubiquitous in modern industrial society – can be removed within less than 30 years is ridiculous.”

Professor Hughes clearly articulates the fundamental tensions between energy transition and energy security. He goes on to state that “China, India and Indonesia are among the many countries in the rest of the world whose leaders are not fools and can draw their own conclusions about the realism and consequences of the energy transition as currently pursued.”

Singapore’s partnership with IEA Paris may well be a regrettable decision. Ironically, its Southeast Asian neighbors are more likely to emulate Singapore’s historic “pragmatism” and decide their own destinies along Adam Smith’s path of free markets and human flourishing – the one described by IEA London.

Dr. Tilak K. Doshi is an energy consultant, a fellow at the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (USA), and a Forbes contributor.

Dr. Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (USA).

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

Federal Court Halts Biden Admin’s Corporate Emissions Disclosure Rule

An appellate court paused the Biden administration’s corporate emissions disclosure rule on Friday.

From The Daily Caller

NICK POPE

CONTRIBUTOR

An appellate court paused the Biden administration’s corporate emissions disclosure rule on Friday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted Liberty Energy’s request for an administrative stay against the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) corporate climate risk and emissions disclosure rule, according to a court filing. The regulation requires medium-sized and large public corporations to disclose climate change-related risks and data on the emissions created directly by their businesses in financial reports.

Liberty Energy, a company that specializes in fracking, asked the court to halt the policy’s implementation while its case works through the judicial system, according to Bloomberg. The judges who signed off on the stay did not specify why they decided to do so in the court order. (RELATED: Green Firm That Advised SEC On Proposed Emissions Rule Sold Carbon Credits From Chinese Region Known For Slave Labor)

713692259-5th-Circuit-StayHerunterladen

A coalition of Republican state attorneys general hit the SEC with their own legal challenge over the policy on March 6, just hours after the agency announced the final rule. The Sierra Club and Earthjustice are also suing the SEC for the disclosure, arguing that it is not aggressive enough.

The final version of the rule was not as ambitious as the SEC’s initial March 2022 proposal, which would have also required companies to track, calculate and disclose the emissions generated by the end use of their products and services, for example.

“Today’s ruling is a fantastic and expected win for consumers. This rule is the largest power grab in SEC history,” Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation after the Fifth Circuit granted the stay. “It’s illegitimate, mocks their statutory purpose, and hopefully will be fully annulled by the courts in coming days.”

Neither the SEC nor the White House responded immediately to requests for comment.

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 reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The Holocene Climatic Optimum and the “pre-industrial”

The “pre-industrial” according to the IPCC in a footnote on page 43 of AR6 WGI is prior to 1750 for radiative forcings and before 1850 for temperature. Both dates are within the period commonly described as the Little Ice Age.

From Watts Up With That?

By Andy May

The “pre-industrial” according to the IPCC in a footnote on page 43 of AR6 WGI is prior to 1750 for radiative forcings and before 1850 for temperature. Both dates are within the period commonly described as the Little Ice Age.

The Little Ice Age was a brutal and a miserable time for humanity, but none-the-less the IPCC has chosen to measure and define “climate change” using the global average surface temperature change from that period. They talk about dangers if we exceed 1.5 to 2 degrees above the “pre-industrial” period. These numerical limits have no scientific basis, but they set them anyway.

Then they have the problem of the Holocene Climatic Optimum. This period from roughly 8,000BC to 4,200BC (see figure 1) is widely thought to have been warmer than today based on glacial advance and retreat data, and insolation models of temperatures around the world (figure 2). There has been an attempt to claim that the Holocene Climatic Optimum was actually colder than today by Bova, et al. (2021), but the paper has drawn two serious criticisms (see Laepple, et al., 2022 and Zhang & Chen, 2021 in the bibliography) and undergone a major revision. Bova, et al. is not very credible, and it is likely that the method they used was deeply flawed. A previous post on this paper appeared in WUWT here, it was written before the critical responses were published by Nature.

Figure 1. This compares two temperature proxy reconstructions. The orange reconstruction is the Vinther (2009) elevation corrected Greenland temperature reconstruction from ice cores. The black reconstruction is from Rosenthal (2013) and is his 500-meter depth temperature reconstruction in the Makassar Strait, Indonesia. It is thought to represent sea surface temperatures in the North Pacific Ocean.

Bova, et al. write in their paper:

“Proxy reconstructions from marine sediment cores indicate peak temperatures in the first half of the last and current interglacial periods (the thermal maxima of the Holocene epoch, 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, and the last interglacial period, 128,000 to 123,000 years ago) that arguably exceed modern warmth. By contrast, climate models simulate monotonic warming throughout both periods. This substantial model–data discrepancy undermines confidence in both proxy reconstructions and climate models, and inhibits a mechanistic understanding of recent climate change.”Bova, et al., 2021

Bova, et al. attempt to make a case that, previous models and global temperature proxy reconstructions confused seasonal with annual temperatures and that actually temperatures during the Holocene Climatic Optimum were lower than today. Essentially, Bova, et al. believe the models are correct and the data is wrong.

Bova, et al. constructed a model to transform seasonal temperature records to annual temperature records. Their critics show that the transform is flawed because it assumes that climate is equally sensitive to insolation throughout the year and that outside forcing, for example greenhouse gas forcing is independent of season and spread out evenly throughout a calendar year. These assumptions predetermine the outcome of the model, as shown by Laepple, et al. In addition, Bova, et al. assume that the climate response to insolation is linear, when it is well known that it is nonlinear (Laepple, et al.). The IPCC often makes the same mistake.

Finally, Bova, et al. ignore the effect of Earth’s internal feedback mechanisms, causing their model to overcorrect for seasonality (Zhang & Chen, 2021). In short, Bova, et al. oversimplified a very complicated problem, overstepped their data, and came to the wrong conclusion as a result. Let’s look at some other studies that have a different view.

Global and hemispheric temperature reconstructions from multiple proxies are very problematic, it is better to compare individual proxies to modern temperatures at the proxy location (see here). There are several hundred proxy temperature records around the world, we have described many of them and their distribution previously in a four-part series here. They all produce temperature estimates at different temporal resolutions, some a temperature every year, some every decade or two, and some only one temperature for every 100 or 200 years. Many are sensitive only to summer, some only to winter, and so on. Some estimate air temperature, some ocean temperature at varying depths. The result is that when you combine them into one global or hemispheric record, they smooth out the peaks and valleys. The resulting record is very rough and cannot be compared to the daily thermometer air temperature readings we have available today. Thus, saying it was warming slower or faster thousands of years ago, relative to today, is a meaningless statement, you can’t possible know that. In addition, comparing a modern global average temperature to a “global” or “hemispheric” average of disparate proxies thousands or millions of years ago is a meaningless comparison.

We can see in figure 1 that two high-quality temperature proxies, one from Greenland and one from tropical Indonesia, 9,500 miles away match surprisingly well, both show roughly 3.5 to 4°C of cooling from their peaks in the Holocene Climatic Optimum to their coldest points in the Little Ice Age (“pre-industrial”). Even though, or perhaps because of this warmth, human civilization developed during the Holocene Climatic Optimum. This was when Neolithic agriculture and settlements blossomed, became widespread, and well established in the Middle East. So, we can see 3.5 to 4°C of warming over the “pre-industrial” was not a problem for humans in the Middle East.

Because the HCO was caused by changes in Earth’s orbital characteristics (see here, figure 2), the effect was different in different parts of the Earth and was different in different seasons. This is a point made in both Bova’s possibly flawed paper and in another paper by Renssen, et al. on the Holocene Thermal Maximum (another name for the Holocene Climatic Optimum).

Renssen et al. used a model to compute the timing of the maximum temperature, relative to the Little Ice Age/pre-industrial period in numerous locations. He summarizes this data in our figure 2.

Figure 2. Simulated maximum temperatures over the Little Ice Age/pre-industrial period by latitude (Y axis) and age in thousands of years before 1950 (X axis). The greatest warming, about five degrees, is in the higher latitudes and the smallest warming is in the tropics. The green arrow shows the month when the maximum warming occurred at each latitude.

As figure 2 shows, the dates of maximum warming, at least according to Renssen’s model, were all during the later portion of the Holocene Climatic Optimum. The warming is stronger in the Northern Hemisphere polar region than anywhere else. Both Renssen’s model and Bova’s incorporate the effect of the melting glaciers left over from the last glacial period prior to 9,000BC.

Renssen’s insolation model of the Holocene is consistent with global glacial advances as documented by Olga Solomina and colleagues. Both Renssen and Solomina suggest maximum warming occurred in the Holocene Climatic Optimum and then gradually cooled into the Little Ice Age, with some warming coming out of the depths of the Little Ice Age.

Summary

While figure 1 only shows two temperature proxy records over the Holocene, and both are for the Northern Hemisphere, they are 9,500 miles apart and both show the Holocene Climatic Optimum peaked in the Northern Hemisphere at about four degrees warmer than the Little Ice Age/pre-industrial. The peak warmth coincided with the development of a modern agrarian civilization. It is also consistent with Renssen’s insolation model for the period, which modeled a Holocene Climatic Optimum that was five degrees warmer than the Little Ice Age in the higher Northern Hemisphere latitudes.

Renssen’s results are very consistent with global glacier advance data collected by Solomina. In fact, they both found an early Holocene retreat of glaciers in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, although the modeled warming was larger in the Northern Hemisphere. The correspondence in the timing of Renssen’s insolation model and Solomina’s glacier advances is remarkable.

In short, it seems very likely that the Holocene Climatic Optimum was warmer than the Little Ice Age and warmer than today, the evidence is most compelling in the Northern Hemisphere.

Download the bibliography here.

Budget Blowout: Escalating Cost of Subsidising Wind & Solar Simply Staggering

Now they’re talking in $trillions, the mere $billions in wind and solar subsidies pocketed so far sounds like chump change.

From STOP THESE THINGS

Now they’re talking in $trillions, the mere $billions in wind and solar subsidies pocketed so far sounds like chump change.

When we’re talking about subsidies to wind and solar,  we are including all the thoroughly unnecessary associated costs, like new pumped-hydro schemes; giant lithium-ion batteries; additional fast-start peaking plants (either diesel or gas); and tens of thousands of kilometres of additional transmission lines to bring occasional power from far-flung places to market. And that’s why the total cost of what taxpayers and power consumers are required to stump up for the grand wind and solar ‘transition’ is being spoken about in terms of multiple $trillions.

As Alan Moran explains below, the wind and solar industries’ demand for subsidies is simply insatiable. However, power consumers and taxpayers are unlikely to keep stumping up the amounts now being demanded by those profiting from the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

Retrieving Australia’s energy policy disaster
Spectator Australia
Alan Moran
29 February 2024

Australian governments are in denial but it’s clear that the great green revolution they planned for energy supply has failed abysmally. Supply has become precarious and electricity prices to households and commercial users alike are skyrocketing. This is threatening the ongoing viability of industries like nickel and aluminium smelting where energy accounts for a third of the costs.

Rather than abandoning the folly of an energy policy dictated by ideology and bereft of industry knowledge, governments are responding with ever more market interventions. These attempts to remedy the adverse effects of the interventions already in place will aggravate the economic injuries.

Federal and state government measures impose a cost on energy customers of $10 billion per year. These measures include regulations plus direct spending on wind/solar and the costs of system management, transmission, and battery support to counter their poor reliability.

New programs are constantly being announced. But anyone who thinks the government can accurately forecast the costs of these should recall that its original announcement to convert the Snowy system into a pumped hydro storage had a price tag of an estimated $2 billion – that has now grown to $20 billion.

Among Canberra’s more recent new initiatives is the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), which is to provide further direct assistance to wind and solar and for battery storage to combat the shortcomings of those electricity generation sources. The government said this policy would ‘unleash’ $10 billion of investment. Even renewable-friendly voices suggest the CIS will cost the taxpayer over $30 billion out of a $50 billion national spend. Others estimate that a minimum of 7 days of storage is required and that the forced abandonment of the existing coal facilities will require at least 3,600 GWh of battery storage at a cost of $1,800 billion ($500M per GWh) and that would need replacement every 10 years.

Placing these numbers in perspective, replacing Australia’s 21 gigawatts of existing coal plant – which supplies over 60 per cent of electricity – would cost $3 billion per gigawatt or $63 billion with no need for battery backup or additional transmission. The existing coal plant actually provides some 13,000 GWh of storage.

A previously unanticipated subsidy is the compensation to coal generators as a result of the Ukraine War’s effect on global energy prices.

Compensation for generators’ additional coal cost is estimated at $1.85 billion. In previous years, reimbursing such costs would have been out of the question. Moreover, any additional costs would have been modest until recently. This is because coal generators were (and mainly remain) co-located with coal mines. Victorian brown coal is non-transportable and, being abundant, its costs remain insulated from international energy prices. But NSW and Queensland black coal used by Australian generators is also largely untradeable as it is mainly of a lower quality than that required by overseas generators.

Moreover, most generators were either commonly owned or closely contracted to their coal source. Those using coal that may have export potential are Eraring and Mount Piper in NSW and Gladstone in Queensland. Gladstone is half-owned by Rio Tinto which, seemingly under pressure from Woke politicians and shareholders, sold its mines. Rio declared that this delivers ‘exceptional value to our shareholders’ and it would surely be double-dipping if it also received compensation for what, in retrospect, was a poor commercial decision. However, if unreimbursed, Rio would shut the Boyne Island aluminium smelter in an act that would reveal the enormity of the government-induced energy policy disaster (with a state election
looming).

Energy-intensive industries like smelting were originally attracted to Australia in the wake of oil price hikes 40 years ago and most industries received a fillip in their competitiveness because Australian coal was insulated from cost impacts from the global increase in oil prices. Political actions have changed all this and energy-intensive industries are now being kept open only by a mounting series of ad hoc subsidies to counter the adverse impact of the very subsidies governments themselves have put in place.

The fact is that the electricity and gas industries are now totally under government control and subject to the associated political whims and inefficiencies. Governments have conspired with others to create the myth of cheap wind and solar, while traducing the superiority of coal (and gas and nuclear). The impetus for this were ill-founded concerns about climate change and a conviction that Australia could prevent this by closing down coal (and gas) at little or no cost. Instead of allowing that belief to be tested in a market, governments tilted the playing field thereby destroying the nation’s comparative advantage.

Politicians are now discovering the economic and, above all, political penalty being incurred in terms of overpriced energy. To restore past efficiencies, a start would require removing all energy subsidies, discriminatory requirements, and restraints on new power stations (including nuclear – though for eastern Australia, given the fabulous low-cost coal and gas resources, this is unlikely to be commercial). Sadly, such a hands-off policy approach is anathematic to most current politicians who, like supporters of full socialism, attribute past political disasters to their predecessors’ failure to do it properly.
The Spectator

Vattenfall Ditches Project to Produce Hydrogen From Offshore Wind

Swedish utility Vattenfall is scrapping a project to explore the possibilities of hydrogen production on offshore wind farms and transportation to shore, nearly two years after it began.?

From OilPrice.com

By Charles Kennedy

Swedish utility Vattenfall is scrapping a project to explore the possibilities of hydrogen production on offshore wind farms and transportation to shore, nearly two years after it began.?

The HT1 Project was designed around Vattenfall’s European Offshore Wind Development Centre off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, and was partly funded by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero through the Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 funding program.?

“Having tested the development phase for decentralised offshore hydrogen production, and in light of other industry advances, Vattenfall has now taken the decision to conclude the project,” Vattenfall said on Thursday, adding that it would continue to explore fossil fuel-free hydrogen production.

The HT1 project has helped the creation of a new regulatory and consenting regime by the UK Government for offshore hydrogen transportation and storage, Vattenfall said.   

“The technological and environmental progress we have made will also enable further advances by the industry towards the creation of a thriving offshore hydrogen production market,” Lisa Christie, Country Manager for Vattenfall in the UK, said.

In July 2023, Vattenfall canceled a large UK offshore wind project due to surging costs and challenging market conditions pressuring new developments. Vattenfall will not proceed with the development of the 1.4-GW Norfolk Boreas offshore wind project as the industry has seen cost increases by up to 40%, the company said at the time. The soaring costs, coupled with increased cost of capital, put significant pressure on all new offshore wind projects, according to the Swedish firm.

At the end of 2023, Germany’s RWE said it would buy the UK Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone portfolio from Vattenfall. The portfolio includes three offshore wind development projects off the east coast of England – Norfolk Vanguard West, Norfolk Vanguard East, and Norfolk Boreas, whose development Vattenfall had canceled. RWE will resume the development of the Norfolk Boreas project, which was previously halted, the German firm said in December.  

Britishvolt buyer Recharge hit with winding up petition

The company that promised to buy collapsed UK gigafactory Britishvolt has been hit with a winding up petition as creditors chase it for unpaid wages and other monies owed.

Britishvolt had hoped to build a battery plant in the North East, but collapsed into administration.

The company that promised to buy collapsed UK gigafactory Britishvolt has been hit with a winding up petition as creditors chase it for unpaid wages and other monies owed.

Recharge Industries UK, led by Australian entrepreneur David Collard, was issued with a winding up demand by Tom Cowling, a former board member at Britishvolt and its chief governance officer, court records show.

The Telegraph has the story.

Mr Cowling spent two years at Britishvolt, leaving in August last year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He declined to comment. Details of the winding up petition were not publicly available.

It is the latest legal action against Recharge, which promised to buy the assets of Britishvolt out of administration and revive the project but has struggled to follow through.

Administrators EY said in February that the prospective buyer remained “in default of the business sale agreement” and has yet to pay the full £8.75m owed under the deal. Work on developing the site has remained in limbo.

Two recent employment tribunal judgments, seen by The Telegraph, show Recharge was ordered to pay a total of £240,000 to two former senior employees for “unlawfully” failing to pay wages. In each case, Recharge failed to file a response, the judgments said.

Among those owed money were Timon Orlob, its former chief commercial officer. He declined to comment on the judgment.

Britishvolt had hoped to build a £3.8bn battery plant in the North East, near Blyth, creating thousands of jobs. However, it collapsed into administration last year.

Read the full story here.

Climate Fact Checks with Guest Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com

Climate Change Roundtable is now The Climate Realism Show. The same great climate news and analysis from The Heartland Institute’s world-class climate and energy experts, but a snazzy new name that gets right to the heart of what it is about.

Climate Change Roundtable is now The Climate Realism Show. The same great climate news and analysis from The Heartland Institute’s world-class climate and energy experts, but a snazzy new name that gets right to the heart of what it is about.

On episode 102 of The Climate Realism Show, we do a “Climate Fact Check” for some recent claims that have been made in the media.

The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts is host, while Linnea Lueken and guest Steve Milloy provide expert dissection of the climate claims.

Plus, we will also have our regular weekly feature, Crazy Climate News – where we look at some of the most absurd climate alarmism stories of the week. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET (12 p.m. CT) to get the latest news and join the chat to ask questions of your own.

India Power Sector In 2023

India’s thermal power production continues to forge ahead, growing by 9% last year, from 1190 to 1294 TWh.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Displacement and Exploitation in the Jharia Coal Mines, India - BORGEN

India’s thermal power production continues to forge ahead, growing by 9% last year, from 1190 to 1294 TWh.

Meanwhile there has been barely any increase at all in their much vaunted renewables. Wind and solar only increased by 16 TWh in the 10 months to October (latest data), and still only account for less than 12% of India’s electricity:

https://cea.nic.in/dashboard/

New coal generating capacity added 2120 MW last year, and now stands at 208 GW. In the last three years 9630 MW has been added.

https://cea.nic.in/dashboard/?lang=en

Demand peaks at around 240 GW in summer; with wind and solar averaging just 19 GW, it is plainly absurd to suggest that India will be transitioning away from coal any time soon!

https://cea.nic.in/dashboard/?lang=en

Coral Growth at the Great Barrier Reef has “Exploded” in Recent Years

Almost constant scares are raised by activist scientists and journalists about bleaching events including a nonsense story recently published by the Daily Mail and Reuters that suggested the GBR was in danger of disappearing.

From The Daily Sceptic

BY CHRIS MORRISON

Coral numbers on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have “exploded” in recent years despite highly publicised episodes of bleaching, according to a recently published report from the distinguished scientist Dr. Peter Ridd.

Almost constant scares are raised by activist scientists and journalists about bleaching events including a nonsense story recently published by the Daily Mail and Reuters that suggested the GBR was in danger of disappearing.

Ridd notes that the impact of bleaching is “routinely exaggerated by the media and some science organisations”. He goes on to state that all 3,000 individual reefs in the world’s largest reef system have excellent coral. “Not a single reef or even a single species of reef life has been lost since British settlement,” he adds.

Coral loss on the GBR and elsewhere is one of the great poster scares used by climate alarmists to promote the collectivist Net Zero agenda. Every bleaching event, when corals expel algae in response to natural and localised spikes in water temperatures, is used to forecast catastrophe. Peter Ridd has been studying coral at the GBR for 40 years and is almost a lone voice in calling out what is a major scientific scandal. “The public is being deceived about the reef. How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which  has embraced emotion, ideology and raw self-interest to maintain funding.”

Ridd goes on to note that Australia spends $500 million each year to “save the reef”, but this money could be much better spent on genuine environmental problems such as control of invasive weeds and feral animals, or restoring indigenous fire practices into forests and range land. The GBR is observed to be “one of the most pristine ecosystems in Australia”. It has no feral animals or invasive plants, “unlike virtually any other Australian ecosystem”.

Mainstream attempts to catastrophise natural events at the GBR have suffered a few setbacks of late with record levels of coral being declared in the last two years. Coral alarmism was understandably dropped from the headlines for a short while but the hysterics have been out in force recently with another outbreak of bleaching reported. The graph below compiled by Ridd shows the recent sensational coral growth at the GBR with a note of recent bleaching events that are, needless to say,  often portrayed in Armageddon terms.

Despite the GBR experiencing four supposedly devastating bleaching events between 2016 and 2022, there has never been more coral in the modern record than in 2022-23, Ridd points out. Quite how the Daily Mail and Reuters can publish their drivel about the GBR being on the “cusp of the worst bleaching event in history” is a mystery, unless, perhaps, they define history as starting sometime around lunchtime last Tuesday.

Ridd goes back a little further in his GBR researches, stating that there has been no decline in the rate of growth of coral going back to 1570. Alas, there is no publicly available information taken from coral growth rings since 2005, “despite this being the period of most interest”, and he suggests this is scandalous.

Interestingly, there had been no slowing of growth between 1860 and 1960 when agricultural production and pesticide use started. It is a common eco scare to suggest the GBR is being badly affected by the run off from fertiliser and pesticides, but Ridd finds that agricultural pesticides are generally in such low concentrations “that they cannot be measured even with the most sensitive of instruments”. Much of the GBR is a long way from land and there is massive flushing of water from the Pacific Ocean. Sediment and run-off from farms are said to have “negligible impact” on the GBR.

Ridd also considers claims that coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass meadows and freshwater wetlands are seriously degraded, degradation said to negatively impact the GBR. “There is limited evidence that that these linkages are significant,” states Ridd. “In addition we should note that of these ecosystems, mangroves are in excellent condition, and seagrass meadows are still widespread and generally healthy despite fluctuating greatly due to cyclones and floods,” he adds.

Dr. Peter Ridd is a man on a mission to bring sanity to the science and debate over corals, and the GBR in particular. He was fired from his professorial post at Queensland-based James Cook University in 2018 for “uncollegiate” behaviour. As the Guardian has observed, Ridd was sacked “for breaches of the university’s code of conduct relating to public commentary about the GBR”. In other words, he was punished for rocking the boat on the ‘settled’ narrative surrounding the doomed ‘send more money immediately’ reef. He is only too keen to test his work in public, and he throws down the gauntlet to the controlling scientific elite. Rather than ignoring the data and hoping nobody will notice, “I challenge them to a public science duel – any time any place,” he says.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.