Day: November 21, 2024

Who sets forests on fire?

The topic of forest fires takes place regularly in this blog. You can actually set the clock according to it, whenever there is a fire, especially in Germany, then climate change is brought out. It gets really bad in summer, because it is more or less suggested that high temperatures set the forest on fire by themselves. Of course, this is complete nonsense. Even in midsummer, temperatures are not reached that mean spontaneous ignition.

From Klimanachrichten

By KlimaNachrichten Editor

The topic of forest fires takes place regularly in this blog. You can actually set the clock according to it, whenever there is a fire, especially in Germany, then climate change is brought out. It gets really bad in summer, because it is more or less suggested that high temperatures set the forest on fire by themselves. Of course, this is complete nonsense. Even in midsummer, temperatures are not reached that mean spontaneous ignition.

Forests burn particularly well when there has been no precipitation for a long time. So it must be dry. And it burns when people are out and about in the forest who deliberately or negligently set it on fire. Natural sources are almost completely ruled out as a cause of fire in our country. There are almost always people involved, whatever the motives may be.

RBB has an interesting story about arson in the forests of Brandenburg. The state has to contend with an additional difficulty. There are numerous former military training areas there. Extinguishing work on ammunition-contaminated soil is life-threatening. While fires can be extinguished well in normal forests, this is not possible due to danger to life and limb if ammunition is lying around.

The really remarkable thing about this series of arsons in the Löwenburg region is not how it took place – but that it was solved. 

According to statistics from the State Forestry Office, there are indications that around 400 of about 1,800 forest fires have occurred in Brandenburg since 2019 that the fires were set intentionally. “On average, this proportion is around 20 to 25 percent of all forest fires per year,” explains Brandenburg’s forest fire protection officer Raimund Engel in an interview with rbb|24. In many cases, police investigations have been underway for years. 

It is likely that some arsons are not even included in the statistics as such, says Engel. “Only if there are concrete indications of arson do we state ‘suspicion of intent’.” Witness statements or suspicious objects that forensic technicians find at the scene of the escape can tip the scales. According to Engel, firefighters and forensic technicians have already found hairspray cans, matches or suspiciously placed barbecue lighters on the fire areas. Without such traces, the cases often disappear into the category of “unknown cause” – since 2019, 650 cases. 

According to the Brandenburg police, it is difficult to say how often it is possible to catch and charge arsonists in forests. Such information could not be queried individually, as arson in forests would not be recorded separately from other arsons, it said. 

Low Carbon Dispatchable Power

You will recall the NESO’s Clean Power 2030 report to Ed Miliband a couple of weeks ago, which made it absolutely clear that we would need to retain our full fleet of gas power stations, in order to provide power when the wind does not blow.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://www.neso.energy/publications/clean-power-2030

You will recall the NESO’s Clean Power 2030 report to Ed Miliband a couple of weeks ago, which made it absolutely clear that we would need to retain our full fleet of gas power stations, in order to provide power when the wind does not blow.

The report made it clear that this would continue to be necessary well beyond 2030, until enough low carbon dispatchable capacity came on stream. That effectively means either CCGT with carbon capture, or hydrogen burning plants.

Carbon capture is still not proven at commercial scale, and even if it could be introduced, it would make the cost of generation much higher, as well as increasing the amount of gas used, which makes zero sense to anybody outside of Ed Miliband’s little bubble.

But what about hydrogen?

In 2020, John Constable wrote a report on hydrogen use for GWPF, analysing the CCC’s proposals. It contained this section:

In other words, most of the hydrogen would have to be made via steam reforming natural gas. With an assumed fuel efficiency of 80%., that would need 282 TWh of natural gas supply, nearly half the current annual usage of just over 700 TWh. However, 80% efficiency is extremely optimistic – 65 to 75% is deemed to be the norm at the moment, and that does not take carbon capture into account. A gas requirement of 500 TWh would not be unrealistic.

Coming back to the NESO proposals, they reckon we would need at least 15 TWh in a “typical” weather year, but plainly we would need to build a much larger margin of safety.

During the first week of this month, gas plants were supplying half our power, when winds were low. During midwinter, if wind power was a low as it was in that week, we would need the full 35 GW capacity churning out nearly 1 TWh a day, particularly given the fact that NESO say demand will be 11% higher by 2030.

A month or more of that weather would mean at least 30 TWh of gas power, all of which would have to be stored for winter months.

To produce this amount of hydrogen would not be an insurmountable problem in itself, requiring about 4 GW of steam reforming capacity. John Constable suggests a capital cost of about £5 billion for this. But the hydrogen would then need to be distributed and stored, and a fleet of hydrogen burning power stations built at a potential cost of £50 billion. (It seems unlikely that it would be viable for older CCGTs  to be adapted to burn hydrogen).

Given the continued dependence on imported natural gas, with all the upstream emissions involved, of the steam reforming option, it can hardly be regarded as Net Zero! There can be no justification for imposing a cost of tens of billions on the public for what would be no more than a box ticking exercise. And it’s not just a matter of cost. To waste massive amounts of gas converting it to hydrogen and then capturing the carbon would be an obscene misuse of a valuable and sparse commodity.

What about electrolysis though?

Constable’s study reckons fuel efficiency of 73% – 44 TWh from 60 TWh of electricity. As we could potentially need at least 30 TWh, we would need to input roughly 60 TWh of hydrogen, given the operating efficiency of thermal power stations.

That would mean 82 TWh of electricity to feed the electrolysers, probably more if line losses are taken into account. In turn, you would therefore need about 25 GW of offshore wind power capacity, which is more than we currently have.

All that just to supply 5% of our electricity demand. And we have not even started with all the other uses of natural gas that will have to be catered for.

Does anybody still believe this is a good idea?

Labour is facing a civil war over net zero

It was Europe for the Conservatives for much of the last twenty years, reform of public services and the Iraq war for the Blair government, and Europe again during the Thatcher years. Every governing party starts fighting amongst themselves eventually. And this government won’t be any different. 

With looming job losses from Ed Miliband’s ideological crusade to make Britain the global leader on climate change it is already clear that a civil war within Labour is about to break out over net zero – and the battle will be a vicious one.

It was Europe for the Conservatives for much of the last twenty years, reform of public services and the Iraq war for the Blair government, and Europe again during the Thatcher years. Every governing party starts fighting amongst themselves eventually. And this government won’t be any different. 

With looming job losses from Ed Miliband’s ideological crusade to make Britain the global leader on climate change it is already clear that a civil war within Labour is about to break out over net zero – and the battle will be a vicious one. The Telegraph has the story.

At a crunch meeting later this week, the car-makers will tell the Transport Secretary Louise Haigh and the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds that thousands of jobs in the industry will soon be lost because of the unrealistic targets to sell Electric Vehicles. 

The companies already have to make sure that 22 per cent of the vehicles they sell are battery-powered, and that is set to increase to 28 per cent in January. If they don’t, there will be fines of up to £15,000 per vehicle. Stellantis, which owns Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat, will warn that the plan may mean factories have to close, and others may follow that lead. 

Haigh and Reynolds may well be sympathetic. The trouble is, trying to tell the party’s leading Green Commissar Ed Miliband that the target has to be relaxed. High on his own apocalyptic rhetoric, Miliband will no doubt refuse. After all, what do a few cars factory jobs count for when the very survival of the planet is at stake? And, anyway, any workers made redundant can simply switch to one of the hundreds of thousands of “well-paid green jobs” the transition to a carbon-free economy will create. Haigh will be sent packing.

The looming battle over EV quotas will just be a foretaste of what is to come. The net zero obsession is going to throw a lot of people out of work over the next few years. We have already seen that with the closure of the Port Talbot steel works in Wales, and now we are seeing it with the potential shuttering of car factories as well. 

Read the full story here.

Climate scientists officially declare ‘climate emergency’ at an end

Climate scientists have issued a shock declaration that the “climate emergency” is over.

From Watts Up With That?

Press release by the Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL)

The Chamber of Deputies in session

Climate scientists have issued a shock declaration that the “climate emergency” is over.

A two-day climate conference in Prague, organised by the Czech division of the international Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), which took place on November 12-13 in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague, “declares and affirms that the imagined and imaginary ‘climate emergency’ is at an end”.

The communiqué, drafted by the eminent scientists and researchers who spoke at the conference, makes clear that for several decades climate scientists have  systematically exaggerated the influence of CO2 on global temperature.

The high-level scientific conference also declared:

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which excludes participants and published papers disagreeing with its narrative, fails to comply with its own error-reporting protocol and draws conclusions some of which are dishonest, should be forthwith dismantled.”

The declaration supports the conclusions of the major Clintel report The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC [presented to the Conference by Marcel Crok, Clintel’s co-founder].

Moreover, the scientists at the conference declared that even if all nations moved straight to net zero emissions, by the 2050 target date the world would be only about 0.1 C cooler than with no emissions reduction.

So far, the attempts to mitigate climate change by international agreements such as the Paris Agreement have made no difference to our influence on climate, since nations such as Russia and China, India and Pakistan continue greatly to expand their combustion of coal, oil and gas.

The cost of achieving that 0.1 C reduction in global warming would be $2 quadrillion, equivalent to 20 years’ worldwide gross domestic product.

Finally, the conference “calls upon the entire scientific community to cease and desist from its persecution of scientists and researchers who disagree with the current official narrative on climate change and instead to encourage once again the long and noble tradition of free, open and uncensored scientific research, investigation, publication and discussion”.

The full text of the communiqué follows:

The International Scientific Conference of the Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague assembled on the Twelfth and Thirteenth Days of November 2024, has resolved and now declares as follows, that is to say –

  1. The modest increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that has taken place since the end of the Little Ice Age has been net-beneficial to humanity.
  2. Foreseeable future increases in greenhouse gases in the air will probably also prove net-beneficial.
  3. The rate and amplitude of global warming have been and will continue to be appreciably less than climate scientists have long predicted.
  4. The Sun, and not greenhouse gases, has contributed and will continue to contribute the overwhelming majority of global temperature.
  5. Geological evidence compellingly suggests that the rate and amplitude of global warming during the industrial era are neither unprecedented nor unusual.
  6. Climate models are inherently incapable of telling us anything about how much global warming there will be or about whether or to what extent the warming has a natural or anthropogenic cause.
  7. Global warming will likely continue to be slow, small, harmless and net-beneficial.
  8. There is broad agreement among the scientific community that extreme weather events have not increased in frequency, intensity or duration and are in future unlikely to do so.
  9. Though global population has increased fourfold over the past century, annually averaged deaths attributable to any climate-related or weather-related event have declined by 99%.
  10. Global climate-related financial losses, expressed as a percentage of global annual gross domestic product, have declined and continue to decline notwithstanding the increase in built infrastructure in harm’s way.
  11. Despite trillions of dollars spent chiefly in Western countries on emissions abatement, global temperature has continued to rise since 1990.
  12. Even if all nations, rather than chiefly western nations, were to move directly and together from the current trajectory to net zero emissions by the official target year of 2050, the global warming prevented by that year would be no more than 0.05 to 0.1 Celsius.
  13. If the Czech Republic, the host of this conference, were to move directly to net zero emissions by 2050, it would prevent only 1/4000 of a degree of warming by that target date.
  14. Based pro rata on the estimate by the UK national grid authority that preparing the grid for net zero would cost $3.8 trillion (the only such estimate that is properly-costed), and on the fact that the grid accounts for 25% of UK emissions, and that UK emissions account for 0.8% of global emissions, the global cost of attaining net zero would approach $2 quadrillion, equivalent to 20 years’ global annual GDP.
  15. On any grid where the installed nameplate capacity of wind and solar power exceeds the mean demand on that grid, adding any further wind or solar power will barely reduce grid CO2 emissions but will greatly increase the cost of electricity and yet will reduce the revenues earned by both new and existing wind and solar generators.
  16. The resources of techno-metals required to achieve global net zero emissions are entirely insufficient even for one 15-year generation of net zero infrastructure, so that net zero is in practice unattainable.
  17. Since wind and solar power are costly, intermittent and more environmentally destructive per TWh generated than any other energy source, governments should cease to subsidize or to prioritize them, and should instead expand coal, gas and, above, all nuclear generation.
  18. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which excludes participants and published papers disagreeing with its narrative, fails to comply with its own error-reporting protocol and draws conclusions some of which are dishonest, should be forthwith dismantled.

Therefore, this conference hereby declares and affirms that the imagined and imaginary “climate emergency” is at an end.

This conference calls upon the entire scientific community to cease and desist from its persecution of scientists and researchers who disagree with the current official narrative on climate change and instead to encourage once again the long and noble tradition of free, open and uncensored scientific research, investigation, publication and discussion.

Given under our signs manual this Thirteenth Day of November in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Four.

Pavel Kalenda, Czech Republic [Conference Chairman]

Guus Berkhout, The Netherlands [Co-founder, Clintel]

Marcel Crok, The Netherlands [Co-founder, Clintel]

Lord Monckton, United Kingdom

Valentina Zharkova, United Kingdom

Milan Šálek, Czech Republic

Václav Procházka, Czech Republic

Gregory Wrightstone, United States

Jan Pokorný, Czech Republic

Szarka László, Hungary

James Croll, United Kingdom

Tomas Furst, Czech Republic

Gerald Ratzer, Canada

Douglas Pollock, Chile

Henri Masson, Belgium

Miroslav Žáček, Czech Republic

Jan-Erik Solheim, Norway

Host Nation of UN COP29 Summit Explodes Climate Narrative

Upon arriving in Azerbaijan two weekends ago to attend the United Nations’ COP29 Climate Summit with my colleagues at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), I had no idea who the President was of this small, former Soviet Republic, and now independent nation, hosting this annual event.

From RealClearEnergy

By Peter Murphy

Azerbaijan president makes no apology for fossil fuels.

Baku, Azerbaijan

Upon arriving in Azerbaijan two weekends ago to attend the United Nations’ COP29 Climate Summit with my colleagues at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), I had no idea who the President was of this small, former Soviet Republic, and now independent nation, hosting this annual event.

I sure do now.

His name is Ilham Aliyev, and my ‘o my did he make a splash this week at the summit. 

The president’s statements and other features of this remote host nation raise several ironies about this year’s climate summit.

President Aliyev stated on Tuesday, the 2nd day of the summit, that oil and natural gas are a “gift of God.”  “Oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, all… are natural resources and countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market, because the market needs them.”  The president also criticized “western fake news.”

He sounded downright “Trumpian,” as President-elect Donald Trump has similarly described oil as “liquid gold” and coined the term “fake news” to describe much of the U.S. national news media.

Those truth nuggets from President Aliyev dropped like lead balloons on the conference organizers, starting with the biggest climate hysteric on campus, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who criticized the “doubling down on fossil fuels.”

In other words, no dissent from the climate groupthink is tolerated, even from the president of the host country.

It struck me as very odd last year when I heard that the COP29 Climate Summit would be held in Baku, which is the capital of this developing country and is heavily dependent on its oil and natural gas deposits. As with the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE), the host of the COP28 summit in 2023, the UN agenda appears to showcase that even oil nations “get it,” when it comes to the international climate change narrative that fossil fuels must be phased out.

Except of course, when the host nation’s president blurts out the obvious benefit of traditional sources of energy which are steadily prospering its citizenry.

Oil and natural gas are abundant in Azerbaijan, a nation of just 86,000 square miles, comparable in size to the state of Maine. These energy sources comprise one-third of the country’s gross domestic product and 90% of its exports. Government and foreign investment in the nation’s energy sector has led to growing sectors in manufacturing, retail, trade, transportation and hospitality, according to the International Energy Agency.

The dominance of the oil and gas sector in Azerbaijan was immediately apparent to us, as we made our way to the climate summit. The CFACT team ended up staying at a cheaper, out of the way hotel in the opposite direction from the summit location to downtown Baku.

As we taxied to the climate event, we passed miles upon miles of small oil rigs moving up and down, and miles of exposed pipeline transporting the extracted fuel for the country’s citizens, businesses and export markets. Suddenly, I spotted a COP29 makeshift display, directly in front of one of the many oil fields, and worthy of a photo-op to capture the irony.

It turns out that residing in a hotel on the other side of the tracks, so to speak, and away from the impressive architecture and prosperity of downtown Baku, you see the tangible reality of what upholds the nation itself: oil and gas.

Since Azerbaijan became an independent nation in 1991, its poverty rate has dramatically fallen while its natural resource development and exports expanded, and its private economy burgeoned (though oil and gas industries remain mostly under government control).  According to the State Statistical Committee, the nation achieved a significant decrease in the poverty rate from more than 61% in 1995 to just below 5% by 2019. 

According to the Human Development Index, a report of the UN Development Programme that ranks nations on measures of health, access to education and standard of living, Azerbaijan for 2023-24, ranks number 76, equivalent to Brazil, Peru and Colombia.

Somehow, I don’t think President Aliyev is losing any sleep if his nation falls short of its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 35% by 2030, nor will the average global temperature otherwise deviate one scintilla from where it is naturally headed.

With its copious “liquid gold” underground, Azerbaijan may or may not end up like the wealthy UAE, but it is clearly heading in the right direction with falling poverty and rising living standards.

President Ilham Aliyev would obviously like to continue in that positive direction, regardless of how many UN bureaucrats and international grifters cry wolf over climate.

Peter Murphy is Senior Fellow at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). 

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

Wrong, USA Today, Climate Change Isn’t Worsening Dengue Fever

A recent post at USA Today, “Dengue fever spiked to record levels in 2024: Climate change will make it even worse,” claims that global warming has already led to a spike in dengue fever, and will lead to further increases of the disease as warming continues. This claim is likely false. No data supports the claim, rather the climate change impact on Dengue fever, as with other vector-borne diseases, is in the realm of theory, relying heavily on counterfactual computer modelling.

From ClimateRealism

ByLinnea Lueken

A recent post at USA Today, “Dengue fever spiked to record levels in 2024: Climate change will make it even worse,” claims that global warming has already led to a spike in dengue fever, and will lead to further increases of the disease as warming continues. This claim is likely false. No data supports the claim, rather the climate change impact on Dengue fever, as with other vector-borne diseases, is in the realm of theory, relying heavily on counterfactual computer modelling.

USA Today reports that there has been an increase in the number of infections from dengue fever, “three times the number of cases in 2023, which was record-setting at the time.” The report relies heavily on a study published in medRxiv “Climate warming is expanding dengue burden in the Americas and Asia,” which claims to have found that climate change caused the vector-borne illness’ spread as temperatures have risen. This study can be categorized as largely an attribution study with a little real medical data thrown in. However, like all climate attribution studies, it presumes that climate change would have an impact on the spread of dengue and other vector-borne illnesses, and relies on the sixth generation climate models (CMIP6) that are known to be flawed because they run too hot.

The study authors admit that their method is an expansion of the kind of work done by other attribution groups, “it is among the first studies to attribute changes in infectious disease to climate change—expanding on the attribution literature centered on more direct effects such as heat waves, storms, and fires—providing a road map for future studies on other ecological and health impacts.” This is notable, because those other attribution studies are deeply flawed and do not reflect reality, as Climate Realism has repeatedly shown.

The study acknowledges that many factors outside of temperature also influence the prevalence of mosquito-driven diseases like dengue, and although they claim that they worked to isolate and control for or rule out those other factors effects, it is unclear whether they were able to successfully do so. One would think that if rising global average or regional temperatures were causing spikes in dengue in Southeast Asia and Central and South America, as the study indicates, that the United States would see it as well. However, the USA Today article admits that the U.S. “hasn’t had a high rate of infections compared with the early 2010s.”

As importantly, the countries covered are largely equatorial, where temperatures, as opposed to at the poles, haven’t changed that much. Dengue was native to and already endemic in those tropical and subtropical regions. Humidity hasn’t increased there, and there is no reason to believe the environment is more conducive to mosquitos flourishing in those countries now than before. It is likely that the reported increase in Dengue fever is just that, a reported increase, with better detection and tracking of the disease available now in those regions than has existed previously.

One individual interviewed by USA Today later in the article, Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, admits that global warming “isn’t the only factor that explains the continued rise in dengue.” He went on to explain that impoverished communities “often lack air conditioning and window or door screens […] also lack efficient sanitation to remove standing water where mosquitoes can grow and infect people nearby.”

These are by and large the factors that have the greatest influence on whether or not a vector borne illness, like Dengue Fever, can spread, along with lack of widespread access to and use of modern pesticides, as discussed in detail in “Stop Misinforming about Malaria’s Spread, Washington Post.” Urbanization, for example, can affect the spread of mosquitos through management of standing water, as discussed by Climate Realism using Houston as an example, here. A chapter in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, discusses how the results of more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies show that temperature alone is not enough to guarantee the greater incidence of mosquito-spread illnesses, and one expert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even called attribution like that promoted by USA Today “facile.”

Ironically, USA Today ends their article by explaining that all you need do to prevent the spread of dengue is protect yourself from getting bit by mosquitos using technology like “loose-fitting clothing” and “insect repellant.” These are much more direct and affordable strategies than cutting fossil fuel use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the hopes of reducing temperatures slightly, a very indirect approach to mosquito borne disease reduction.

The Storm Reveals Itself. The Eastside Wind Threat

The latest satellite image shows the rapid development of the offshore storm.

From Cliff Mass Weather Blog

By CliffMass

The latest satellite image shows the rapid development of the offshore storm.

The visible satellite image around 9 AM was stunning, with low-level clouds swirling around the low center (the orange arrow points to the low center).

Stunning.

Here is the blow-up of the clouds around the low center.  The circulation is obvious.

Strong, rapidly developing storms not only have rising motion that produces clouds, but intense sinking motion that produces a “slot” dry air coming in from the southeast.   

We can view the “dry slot” using satellite images that reveal water vapor content in the upper and middle troposphere.  Such an image is shown below, with blue indicating very dry air.    This is a strong storm… no doubt about it.

The latest National Weather Service surface map (and I do have some issues with the quality of their analyses) shows the storm at 7 AM, with an analyzed lowest surface pressure of  974 hPa.   The storm is rapidly deepening today, so the pressure will fall considerably more.

As I mentioned in my previous blogs, although strong coastal winds are an issue, my biggest concern is for strong winds east of Puget Sound tonight.  

The models are still going for threatening winds….with the clear threat of substantial tree damage and power outages.

The latest European Center forecast predicts winds exceeding 70 mph on the east side of Puget Sound, particularly towards the western Cascade foothills.  These are all easterly and southeasterly winds….not the usual direction of strong local winds.

The NOAA/NWS HRRR model, run at high resolution, is similar but extends strong winds over Whidbey Island and the San Juans.

The UW Model is also threatening with strong winds on the eastside, gusting to 50 kts (around 57 mph) at 10 PM. 

The maximum wind over Seattle based on dozens of predictions is predicted to hit 45-60 mph…from the east (see below). 

Bottom line:  strong winds from the east, gusting to 40-70 mph, will occur east of Puget Sound and will be stronger towards the Cascades.  Expect substantial vegetation damage and many power outages.    Driving down streets with lots of trees might not be a good idea after 6-7 PM if you living in the vulnerable areas noted above.

_________________________________________

Addendum:

Here is the 1 PM satellite image…the circulation has become very, very obvious.

Some satellites can measure low-level winds by measuring wave action…called scatterometers.  Here are the surface winds from a scatterometer around the storm around 12:30 PM PST.    The intense circulation around the low is obvious.

German Industry Is Failing Due to Lack of Russian Gas

The German economy is in crisis. Plants and factories are shuttering. Industrial production is down. And overall GDP hasn’t risen since 2019. According to Andreas Rüter, a corporate consultant interviewed by the Financial Times, the present crisis is of a “completely different order of magnitude” from the dotcom bust, September 11, the financial crisis, the euro crisis and the Covid pandemic.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Noah Carl

The German economy is in crisis. Plants and factories are shuttering. Industrial production is down. And overall GDP hasn’t risen since 2019. According to Andreas Rüter, a corporate consultant interviewed by the Financial Times, the present crisis is of a “completely different order of magnitude” from the dotcom bust, September 11, the financial crisis, the euro crisis and the Covid pandemic.

Real GDP in Germany. Source.

In the latest piece of bad news, the car manufacturing giant Volkswagen announced that it may have to shut down several German factories for the first time in its 87-year history.

Everyone agrees that a major cause of Germany’s economic troubles is high energy costs. Indeed, the price that industry pays for electricity is about three times higher in Germany than in the US. But why have energy costs risen?

Many people on social media blame the Energiewende (Energy Transition), a policy that involves expanding solar, wind and hydroelectric power, while phasing out the country’s remaining nuclear plants.

There can be little doubt that energy costs would be lower in the absence of the Energy Transition. However, it can’t explain why the economy is suddenly in so much trouble. The Energy Transition was formally announced in 2010 and has been implemented in various stages since then. Yet as the chart above shows, Germany enjoyed robust growth between 2010 and 2019. In fact, industrial production reached an all-time high as recently as 2018.

A related claim is that energy costs have soared because of the decision to close three nuclear plants in April of 2023. But this doesn’t fit the facts either. The chart below shows the price of electricity for non-household users in band IC from the first half of 2010 to the first half of 2024. As you can see, practically all of the increase happened before the three nuclear plants were closed. (Charts for other consumption bands tell a similar story.)

Price of electricity for non-household users in band IC. Source.

Indeed, most countries in Europe saw a sharp rise in energy costs at exactly the same time, including France, which relies heavily on nuclear power.

The chart below plots the same quantity as above but with taxes and levies included. Here the increase is much less steep, which suggests that fiscal policy has actually been making energy cheaper over the last few years, relative to the period before the increase.

Price of electricity for non-household users in band IC, including taxes and levies. Source.

The main reason energy costs have soared is that Germany is no longer buying large quantities of cheap Russian gas. Indeed, practically all of the increase happened between the first half of 2022 and the first half of 2023 – the exact period in which the price of gas spiked owing to the drastic reduction in Russian gas flows. (Europe still gets about 20% of its gas from Russia, as compared to 45% before the war.)

In the medium-term, there are things Germany can do to bring down energy costs, like building more LNG terminals, reversing its phase out of nuclear power and shifting to less energy-intensive industries. But in the short-term, there’s nothing it can do to replace large quantities of cheap Russian gas. So, the country’s economic troubles will continue for the foreseeable future.

Now, That’s the Bomb!

A powerful weather system is set to explode off the U.S. West Coast, bringing with it hurricane-force winds and massive wave heights.

The rapidly intensifying low-pressure system is expected to create treacherous conditions for shipping and coastal communities alike.

From Watts Up With That?

News Brief by Kip Hansen

Very briefly, mostly in one video and one image.  This is what a Bomb Cyclone looks like:

I would not want to be at sea, in any sized vessel, off the Washington coast in this:

The shipping news service, gCaptain says:

“A powerful weather system is set to explode off the U.S. West Coast, bringing with it hurricane-force winds and massive wave heights.”

“The rapidly intensifying low-pressure system is expected to create treacherous conditions for shipping and coastal communities alike.

“The National Weather Service has issued a Hurricane Force Wind Warning, indicating the severity of the impending storm. “A very strong area of low pressure will be intensifying to the W of the outer waters later Tue and Tue night and pass along or just W of the waters as it moves N of the waters later Tue night into Wed.” forecasters warn.”

….

“Key developments in the storm’s progression include:

  1. Initial Formation: The low-pressure system, currently at 1013 MB, is moving eastward at 40 knots and rapidly intensifying.
  2. Rapid Intensification: Within 24 hours, the system is forecast to deepen to 980 MB, with winds reaching 50 to 65 knots in some quadrants.
  3. Peak Intensity: By the 36-hour mark, the low is expected to reach a staggering 942 MB, with winds of 55 to 75 knots (63-86 mph) within 180 NM of its southern semicircle.
  4. Massive Waves: Sea conditions are predicted to deteriorate rapidly, with waves building to an staggering 24 to 34 feet in height.“

“The impact on shipping will be significant. Vessels in the affected area should expect extremely hazardous conditions. “Winds 55 to 75 KT. Seas 24 to 34 FT,” the forecast warns for the most severe part of the storm.“

“This “bomb cyclone” – a term used when a storm’s central pressure drops at least 24 millibars in 24 hours – poses a serious threat to maritime operations. Ship captains and crew members are advised to take all necessary precautions and consider altering routes to avoid the most dangerous areas of the storm.“

Copy that.

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Author’s Comment:

When I first took to sailing Caribbean waters, the only weather charts I could get were the National Weather Service Wind and Waves.  Via SSB radio modem to my printer.  And then, only sometimes.  Thankfully, we never got anything that looked like the one in the essay.

Hang tight up there.

Thanks for reading.

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Trump taps Zeldin (EPA), Burgum (Interior), Chris Wright (Energy) for cabinet posts

In Episode 470 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the selection of Lee Zeldin to lead EPA, Doug Burgum to lead Department of the Interior, and Chris Wright to helm Department of Energy. Plus, Burgum and Wright co-leading the inaugural National Energy Council. Tune in to learn more about these picks!

From CFACT

By Gabriella Hoffman

“The National Energy Council will foster an unprecedented level of coordination among federal agencies to advance American energy. By establishing U.S. energy dominance, we can jumpstart our economy, drive down costs for consumers and generate billions in revenue to help reduce our deficit…Focusing on innovation over regulation to solve the nation’s challenges will allow us to smartly expand American energy and make our world cleaner and safer by selling energy to our friends and allies versus them having to buy it from our adversaries.” – Doug Burgum, Interior Secretary designate

In Episode 470 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the selection of Lee Zeldin to lead EPA, Doug Burgum to lead Department of the Interior, and Chris Wright to helm Department of Energy. Plus, Burgum and Wright co-leading the inaugural National Energy Council. Tune in to learn more about these picks!

Listen on Apple Podcasts

EP 579: BAAJA Blast: Permitting Reform or Bust – District of Conservation

In Episode 579 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the permitting reform bill – aka BAAJA – that is gaining traction in Congress now. The Senate will hold a cloture vote starting at 3:30pm ET in a motion to proceed. Gabriella discusses the status quo without permitting reform, how BAAJA is good for the environment and affordability. Tune in!SHOW NOTESBipartisan Policy Center: BAAJA ExplainerEstimating the US Energy System Impacts of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
  1. EP 579: BAAJA Blast: Permitting Reform or Bust
  2. EP 578: Midterms, CO Amendment 83, Disneyland Goes Electric
  3. EP 577: Kaylyn Glenn – Florida Gladeswoman & Conservationist
  4. EP 576: Chiricahua National Park & Energy Security Index
  5. EP 575: Menhaden Madness (ft. Whit Fosburgh, Forage Fish Campaign)