Day: November 26, 2024

Matt McGrath Still Does Not Get It!

The absurd Matt McGrath still does not get it!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Paul Kolk

The absurd Matt McGrath still does not get it!

COP29 is over, with developing countries complaining that the $300bn (about £240bn) a year in climate finance they will receive by 2035 is a “paltry sum”.

Many of the rich country voices at the UN’s climate conference were amazed that developing nations were unhappy with what on the surface seems a huge settlement. It is an improvement – on the current contribution of $100bn (£79.8bn) a year.

However, the developing world, which had pushed for more, had many genuine issues with the final sum.

A massive deal, but bitter divisions remain

There were complaints it simply was not enough and that it was a mixture of grants and loans. And countries were deeply annoyed by the way the wealthy waited until the last minute to reveal their hand.

“It’s a paltry sum,” India’s delegate Chandni Raina told other delegates, after the deal had been gavelled through.

“This document is little more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”

Ultimately, the developing world was compelled to accept it, with many rich countries pointing to next year’s arrival of President Donald Trump, a known climate sceptic, and arguing that they would not get a better deal.

But this package is also being criticised as short-sighted from the richer world’s perspective.

The argument runs that if you want to keep the world safe from rising temperatures, then wealthier nations need to help emerging economies cut their emissions, because that is where 75% of the growth in emissions has occurred in the past decade.

New national plans are due to be published next spring to outline how every country will limit their planet warming gases over the next 10 years.

A more generous cash settlement at COP29 would undoubtedly have had a positive knock-on effect on those efforts.

And at a time of geopolitical uncertainty and distraction, keeping countries united on climate should be critical. The big fight over money re-opened old divisions between rich and poor, with an anger and bitterness I have not seen in years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp35rrvv2dpo

Why does McGrath still not realise that the rest of the world don’t give a toss about emissions, and have no interest at all in giving up fossil fuels?

They have already been handed $100 billion a year, and what difference has that made?

Chaos at COP29

For those who have been living on Mars during the last few years, COPs, officially titled Conference of the Parties, are the annual UN-run climate jamborees, intended to forge global agreements to fight climate change. Since the first was held in 1995 in Berlin, the world’s emissions of CO2 have steadily grown by 60%, despite a small reduction in richer countries.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Paul Homewood

For those who have been living on Mars during the last few years, COPs, officially titled Conference of the Parties, are the annual UN-run climate jamborees, intended to forge global agreements to fight climate change. Since the first was held in 1995 in Berlin, the world’s emissions of CO2 have steadily grown by 60%, despite a small reduction in richer countries.

You might therefore have thought that the UN would have taken the hint by now and stopped having COPs. But then the great and the good would not have an opportunity to show the rest of us how important they are, as they fly in on their private jets.

As is the norm, COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan did not actually address the issue of cutting emissions. It was agreed long ago that developing countries would be under no obligation whatsoever to make any such cuts. Strangely, countries like China, India and the Middle East oil states are all still classified as “developing”, and they have long made it clear they have no intention of following the lemmings over the cliff.

Instead, COP29 was all about the money. For years, poorer countries have been demanding more money to “fight climate change” and “reduce emissions”. Their latest demand is for $1.3 trillion a year.

Currently, the West hands over around $100 billion, but most of this is in the form of repayable loans, which isn’t very attractive to poor African countries who think the money should just be given to them, no strings attached.

In Baku, the richer countries upped their offer to $300 billion a year, but not before a number of poor nations walked out of the conference in disgust. Eventually, developing countries agreed to take the offer, no doubt worried they might not get a penny if they didn’t.

However, the agreement was widely slammed by both environmental charities and many poorer nations. This is all academic, because the recipients of the West’s largesse are unlikely to see much of that $300 billion, particularly if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

To put the money into perspective, if £300 billion is averaged out according to GDP, without the U.S. contribution, the U.K. would end up paying $36 billion a year, which is nearly three times the overseas aid budget. Even Rachel from Accounts would have difficulty magicking this out of thin air!

Needless to say, developing countries will not be obliged to cut emissions in return for their Danegeld. Back in the heady days of 2009, the naive Barack Obama believed that throwing dollar bills around would magically lower the world’s emissions. We now know the reality!

Nor is there any obligation for China, India, or the Middle Eastern oil states, all still classified as “developing”, to cough up a penny.

And more fundamentally, COP29 never even addressed the issue of emission reductions. No new pledges were made, no NDCs updated. Not even a timetable for discussing them in future.

Perhaps the most ludicrous part of the Conference was the first day agreement on carbon markets.

As the BBC explained, a poor country with lots of trees can sell carbon credits to richer nations, so they can continue to burn fossil fuels.

Apparently, carbon emissions are alright, so long as you pay a penance!

It is time to dump these annual jamborees. Western countries need to make it clear that they will not make any further emission cuts until the rest of the world starts doing so as well.

And they also need to refuse to give in to any further blackmail.

Improving hurricane modeling with physics-informed machine learning

Algorithm reconstructs wind fields quickly, accurately, and with less observational data.

Via Eurekalert, maybe this will work, maybe not. Worth a try.

From Watts Up With That?

By Anthony Watts

Algorithm reconstructs wind fields quickly, accurately, and with less observational data.

Via Eurekalert, maybe this will work, maybe not. Worth a try.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2024 – Hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, can be devastating natural disasters, leveling entire cities and claiming hundreds or thousands of lives. A key aspect of their destructive potential is their unpredictability. Hurricanes are complex weather phenomena, and how strong one will be or where it will make landfall is difficult to estimate.

In a paper published this week in Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, a pair of researchers from the City University of Hong Kong employed machine learning to more accurately model the boundary layer wind field of tropical cyclones.

In atmospheric science, the boundary layer of the atmosphere is the region closest to the Earth’s surface.

“We human beings are living in this boundary layer, so understanding and accurately modeling it is essential for storm forecasting and hazard preparedness,” said author Qiusheng Li.

However, because air in the boundary layer interacts with land, the ocean, and everything else at surface level, modeling it is especially challenging. Conventional approaches to storm forecasting involve large numerical simulations run on supercomputers incorporating mountains of observational data, and they still often result in inaccurate or incomplete predictions.

In contrast, the author’s machine learning algorithm is equipped with atmospheric physics equations that can produce more accurate results faster and with less data.

“Unlike traditional numerical models, our model employs an advanced physics-informed machine learning framework,” said author Feng Hu. “Only a small amount of real data is required by our model to capture the complex behavior of the wind field of tropical cyclones. The model’s flexibility and ability to integrate sparse observational data result in more accurate and realistic reconstructions.”

Being able to reconstruct a tropical cyclone’s wind field provides valuable data that experts can use to determine how severe the storm will be.

Wind fields modeled by the authors’ physics-informed neural network (PINN) produces similar results to a Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) simulation while using far fewer resources. Credit:
Feng Hu and Qiusheng Li

“The wind field of a tropical cyclone contains the information of the storm’s intensity, structure, and potential impact on coastal regions,” said Li.

With a more detailed picture of what that wind field looks like, disaster authorities can better prepare for storms before they make landfall.

“With more frequent and intense hurricanes due to climate change, our model could significantly improve the accuracy of wind field predictions,” said Hu. “This advancement can help refine weather forecasts and risk assessments, providing timely warnings and enhancing the resilience of coastal communities and infrastructure. “

The authors are planning to continue to develop their model and employ it to study different types of storms.

“We are planning to incorporate more observational data sources and improve the model’s capability to handle the time evolution of winds,” said Hu. “Expanding the application to more storm events across the world and integrating the model into real-time forecasting systems is also planned to enhance its utility for weather prediction and risk management.”

###

The article “Reconstruction of tropical cyclone boundary layer wind field using physics-informed machine learning” is authored by Feng Hu and Qiusheng Li. It will appear in Physics of Fluids on Nov. 19, 2024 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0234728). After that date, it can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0234728.

COP 29 diplomacy delivers perfectly vague promises a decade away

In Cop 29’s “Finance agreement” diplomacy is truly the art of agreeing to nothing. There is no agreement of substance here because there is no substance to this agreement. Each side gets its number someday and that is all there is to it.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

In Cop 29’s “Finance agreement” diplomacy is truly the art of agreeing to nothing. There is no agreement of substance here because there is no substance to this agreement. Each side gets its number someday and that is all there is to it.

Let’s look at the actual text to see the nothing. But first recall what was supposed to happen. The Paris Agreement committed the developed country members to providing $100 billion a year to the developing countries through 2025. COP 29 was simply supposed to revise that annual payment up beginning in 2026. That did not happen, not even close.

The fiasco started when the developing countries demanded huge impossibly sums centered on $1.3 trillion. That set in motion a series of side steps leading to the present agreement which is very different from the intended goal.

To begin with the $1.3 trillion annual payment is there but it is “by 2035” so ten years from now not in 2026. I can see delaying it until a few years after Trump leaves office, but these folks are wedded to their five-year plans.

Moreover, this money need not come from the developed countries and certainly not from their governments. First it is to come “from all public and private sources.” Second the eligible sources have been expanded to include all the developing countries as well as the developed ones.

These two provisions have fundamentally changed the concept of climate finance. It used to just include mostly government money going from developed to developing countries. Now it sounds like any climate related investment or contribution that winds up in a developing country counts.

Working this out will be supremely challenging. For example if China builds itself an offshore wind array, and they are building plenty, is that climate finance? How about if they build it in Indonesia?

Oh, and it looks like coal fired power plants count too. In early drafts of the agreement counting coal plants was ruled out because people were doing that in the name of adaptation. Having electricity certainly helps when extreme weather hits. But that prohibition does not appear in the final agreement, so the practice looks allowable.

Then there is the other big number, the $300 billion a year. This is widely assumed to replace the $100 billion a year mandated by the Paris Agreement through 2025. For example, CBS has a headline that yells “deal reached at UN’s COP29 climate talks for $300 billion a year (up from $100 billion).”

This is incorrect as here too the new agreement says the goal is “by 2035.” Nor is all (or any) of this distant sum necessarily coming from developed countries as the yearly $100 billion had to. The new agreement just says, “with developed country Parties taking the lead.” (Parties means to the Paris Agreement.)

“Taking the lead” is an extremely vague concept. It might mean paying over half say $151 billion. Or just being the biggest donor at say $20 billion. Or even just running a bunch of promotions to get private investors to invest, which might only millions.

The overall fiasco becomes clear when we ask what the finance requirement or goal is for 2026? There is none, nor for any other year ahead until 2035. Nor is anyone responsible for meeting those far distant goals.

In short this is a huge mess and nothing like what the Paris agreement called for. Regulatory confusion is a many-year field of mine and this is as bad as I have ever seen. But this is what you get when a complex big money deal is struck at 2:40 am Sunday by people who have not slept much for days.

Surely the next few COPs and many lesser meetings will be spent trying to straighten out this hopelessly vague and seriously misstated agreement. Or if they want to wait until 2035 with no finance before then, that is fine with me.

A fascinating sidebar is that the developing countries reportedly have something like a combined cost of $10 trillion in official climate plans through 2030. These are all contingent on getting finance which under this agreement need not happen.

The big money game has just opened, and it is wall to wall confusion. Stay tuned to see how it plays.

AI Energy Surge – Microsoft to Re-Open Three Mile Island

The entire output of the re-opened Three Mile Island nuclear plant will be used to drive artificial intelligence computers.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

The entire output of the re-opened Three Mile Island nuclear plant will be used to drive artificial intelligence computers.

A once-shuttered nuclear plant could soon return to the grid. 

The planned reopening of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is praised as a boon for Pennsylvania and a boost for AI, but it is loathed by residents still haunted by a near-catastrophic meltdown there in 1979.

…

The resurrection of Three Mile Island (TMI) — half of which remained operating after the 1979 meltdown, only closing down due to economic reasons in 2019 — was prompted by Microsoft’s need to fuel its power-hungry data centers.

A revolution in generative artificial intelligence has triggered a surge in energy needs for those data centers, pushing cloud computing giants to look for additional low carbon energy sources. 

…

For others, the fear and anxiety of 1979 is still strong.

…

A series of equipment malfunctions and human errors saw the plant’s Unit 2 melt down in 1979, releasing radioactive materials into the atmosphere and launching mass evacuations.

…Read more:

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cheers-angst-as-us-nuclear-plant-three-mile-island-to-reopen/ar-AA1uDRIg

It is hard to get your mind around – the entire output of the re-opened Three Mile Island nuclear plant will be used by Microsoft’s artificial intelligence data centers.

Why does AI need so much power? The reason is big AI systems need to sift through trillions, sometimes quintillions of failed attempts to find the solution they are looking for. Even at billions of potential solution evaluations per second it can take days, months or even years to achieve a result. But this process of digitally mining neural networks to find the nuggets of rightness can be accelerated by adding more computer hardware – an AI hardware arms race which has led to the current situation, in which big tech companies have started rehabilitating nuclear reactors, for the sole purpose of powering their next generation data centers.

Anyone wanting to delve deeper into why AI needs so much power can read an explanation in my recent article about AI and see a real AI in action.

Artificial Intelligence: A Working Demonstration, and Why Big Tech Ditched Big Green

The renewable energy revolution is dead man walking thanks to the rise of AI. Even if better algorithms are discovered, the huge AI data centres won’t be retired, the better algorithms will be used to increase the processing power of existing AI systems, and help design next generation systems which suck even more power.

We stand at the dawn of the Information Age, the age of Artificial Intelligence. Politicians and even tech companies might still pay lip service to renewables, and some of the more intellectually challenged holdout politicians in Britain and Australia still haven’t received the memo, but one thing is beyond doubt: the energy hungry Information Age will not be powered by rooftop solar and “community batteries”, it will be powered by nuclear, coal, gas, whatever scraps of power energy hungry AI companies can scrounge to feed the wolf, to cast into the gaping maw of their frantically growing AI systems, to maintain their competitive edge. Anyone who hesitates or pauses even slightly to question what they are creating will be trampled by the stampede, the race to the finish line.

Drill, baby, drill.

Oceans Warms Atmosphere, with Meteorologist Bill Kininmonth

Australia experienced severe drought during the 1990s, and for much of that decade Australia’s National Climate Centre was headed by meteorologist Bill Kininmonth. He provided advice to government and also to the IPCC. Bill subsequently published an important book entitled ‘Climate Change: A Natural Hazard’. In it he explains that the model of the climate system represented by the IPCC is inadequate as a foundation for future planning. Of course, we need to have some idea of the likely severity of droughts and floods if we are to adequately plan for them.

From Jennifer Marohasy

By jennifer 

Australia experienced severe drought during the 1990s, and for much of that decade Australia’s National Climate Centre was headed by meteorologist Bill Kininmonth.  He provided advice to government and also to the IPCC.  Bill subsequently published an important book entitled ‘Climate Change: A Natural Hazard’.  In it he explains that the model of the climate system represented by the IPCC is inadequate as a foundation for future planning.  Of course, we need to have some idea of the likely severity of droughts and floods if we are to adequately plan for them.

Just recently, Bill wrote a short piece (click here) based on his analysis of publicly available temperature data concerning both the tropical oceans and lower atmospheric temperatures as measured by satellites.   Based on this evidence, Bill argues:

  1. Temperatures, and rates of warming globally, are regulated by the tropical ocean,
  2. The pattern of warming both at altitude and across latitudes is not consistent with the theory of human-caused global warming.

This is important information, if we are to understand how the Earth might heat up and how it might cool down.   Some of us like reworking this puzzle, as we develop a new and more robust theory of climate complete with accurate new equations to describe global energetic constraints as they apply to the atmosphere.

If you would like to listen to my very first zoom interview, it will be next Thursday, with Bill.

You are invited to listen live.
When: Dec 5, 2024 07:00 PM Brisbane

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItdeCuqjwoE90uponYR8ANj-jtzXpQo7bc

After registering, you will hopefully receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the zoom.

At Lake Weyba ten years ago, photographed for The Australian newspaper, when it ran a series explaining  how the Bureau corrupt the historical temperature series stripping away the natural climate cycles until the record shows slow and consistent warming

Postscript

Very often, I’m told that it would be more useful if I simplified my message, as though the world needs another slogan.    Of course, those who subscribe to the theory of human-caused global warming have many successful slogans and symbols, it is just a pity that their theory has no predictive value because it is not really a scientific theory at all.   It persists because of its political utility.

The history of science shows that paradigms, even when they turn out to be nonsense, are never disproven.  They are only ever replaced.

So, for sure we need a new theory of climate change, one based on realistic historical temperature reconstructions and consistent with the laws of physics.

One of the best tests of any scientific theory is its predictive value, its capacity to generate forecast and predictions with some degree of skill.

These are summaries of some of my historical temperature reconstructions for parts of mainland Australia, when I concerned myself with understanding the accuracy of the measurements and sorting and extracting the best data for my work forecasting monthly rainfall using artificial neural networks that are a form of AI.

Lighting Up America: Why Chris Wright Should Be Welcomed, Not Spurned

Access to affordable and reliable energy is central to a flourishing society. Everything we do, from waking up in the morning, to going to work, to enjoying time with our families, requires energy. Fortunately, Chris Wright, President-elect Trump’s choice to serve as Secretary of Energy, understands this.

NASA 2071129 78.4F

From Watts Up With That?

By Kevin Dayaratna Roy Spencer

Access to affordable and reliable energy is central to a flourishing society. Everything we do, from waking up in the morning, to going to work, to enjoying time with our families, requires energy. Fortunately, Chris Wright, President-elect Trump’s choice to serve as Secretary of Energy, understands this.

But Mr. Wright’s qualifications have become obscured by media focus on his views on climate change. For example, the Washington Post derides Mr. Wright as a “skeptic of mainstream climate science.” But mainstream climate scientists say that there have been no changes in severe weather that can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning. There likely will be few, if any, such changes by the end of this century.

This is the problem with most media reporting: If the subject is climate change, then the sky is falling. But even the U.N.-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits that there have been no changes in severe weather, anywhere, that can be tied to human greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s true that temperatures have risen modestly, at a rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade (with large, natural year-to-year variations). But it’s not at all clear this is bad news for humans, flora, or fauna. Growing seasons are lengthening. Cold weather-related deaths far exceed hot weather deaths. Global crop yields continue to set records in most years. If you have been led to believe otherwise, blame your local alarmist cadre of environmental organizations, activist scientists, and alarmist media outlets.

The fact is that global warming has been progressing at a lesser rate than predicted by most climate models used to alarm elected representatives into climate action. After 40 years and billions of dollars in investment in the climate modeling enterprise, those models now disagree with each other more than ever.

In projections of future warming in response to the same assumptions about changes in CO2, the model with the largest change has three times the temperature change of the model with the smallest forecast. This is surprising given that climate models are allegedly based upon “known physical principles,” and so the different models should produce about the same levels of warming.

The lack of climate model accuracy is especially pronounced in the U.S. corn belt, where every one of three dozen state-of-the-art models has over-predicted warming in the last 50 years — despite knowing the answer ahead of time. But global greening from more CO2 in the atmosphere is a fact, attested to by multiple NASA-sponsored studies (e.g. here, here, here).

More fundamentally, policies aimed to constrict Americans’ choices of energy away from fossil fuels will have significant effects on the economy. Using government models, Heritage Foundation analysis concluded that the regulations pursued by the Biden-Harris administration seeking to diminish the use of fossil fuels would have cost the economy over $7 trillion over a 20-year time horizon, amounting to a loss of over $80,000 for a family of four.

And all these trillions of dollars for a reduction of less than 0.2 degrees Celsius in global temperatures by 2100. That’s a huge amount of pain for miniscule gain.

Increasing access to fossil fuels here in the United States, on the other hand, would expand the economy by over $3 trillion a 20-year time horizon. This would result in less than 0.13 degrees Celsius temperature increase in 2100, again using government models.

America is fortunate to have vast resources of fossil fuels that enable energy independence both from OPEC and from China, which dominates renewables, batteries, and electric vehicles. Increasing production of fossil fuels can lower electricity prices, benefiting all Americans, and help allies abroad. Chris Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy—one of the largest fracking companies in the U.S.—has the experience to pave the way for a massive private-sector expansion.

Mr. Wright’s knowledge of energy markets should be celebrated, not derided. Allowing the incoming administration to leverage his talents and expertise will put affordable and reliable energy back on the pedestal, thereby enabling America to flourish for years to come.

Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D., is Chief Statistician and Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where Roy Spencer, Ph.D., is a Visiting Fellow.

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

Hey, Carbon Brief, Quit Conflating Model Based ‘Attribution Study’ Outputs with Real Weather Data

The Carbon Brief (TCB) recently put an interactive web page online titled: Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. However, the web page gives a false impression that TCB is using actual data showing how climate change is affecting severe weather. It is not. Instead, TCB relies heavily on so-called “attribution studies” which use climate model simulations and estimates. Output from climate models is not the same as actual data, which debunks TCB’s webpage.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

The Carbon Brief (TCB) recently put an interactive web page online titled: Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. However, the web page gives a false impression that TCB is using actual data showing how climate change is affecting severe weather. It is not. Instead, TCB relies heavily on so-called “attribution studies” which use climate model simulations and estimates. Output from climate models is not the same as actual data, which debunks TCB’s webpage.

TCB’s interactive feature page on attribution studies presents a comprehensive overview of “attribution” research linking climate change to extreme weather events. While the compilation is extensive, it is essential to approach such narratives with a critical eye, especially when considering the broader context of severe weather trends and the methodologies employed in these studies.

Attribution studies aim to determine the extent to which claimed human-induced climate change influences specific weather events. These studies often utilize climate models to compare real-world scenarios with hypothetical situations devoid of the models (modelers) assumed estimates of human impact. The reliability of these models is unverifiable and to the extent their outputs have been tested against real world data and historical events and trends, they have failed. As highlighted by Climate At A Glance, climate models have historically exhibited significant discrepancies when compared to observed temperature data, raising questions about their predictive accuracy.

Contrary to the prevalent narrative, empirical data does not support the claim that severe weather events are becoming more frequent or intense. For instance, Climate Realism points out that despite increased media coverage, data indicates no significant upward trend in the frequency or severity of hurricanes, tornadoes, or floods over the past several decades. As discussed in several Climate at a Glance papers, data shows floods, hurricanes, instances of extreme heat or cold, tornadoes, and wildfires have not increased over the past century, much less over the past 30 years. This strongly suggests that the perception of worsening weather may be more attributable to heightened awareness, reporting, and the mainstream media’s uncritical promotion of attribution studies themselves, rather than actual changes in weather patterns.

The perception of escalating severe weather is often amplified by media coverage and technological advancements. In a 2011 article on Watts Up With That, it was noted that the proliferation of instant communication tools and 24/7 news cycles has led to more immediate and widespread reporting of weather events. A follow up article in 2017, Reporting bias and the “increase” in weather events in the US, noted the same issues.

This increased visibility can create a false impression of rising frequency and severity, even when statistical data demonstrates no such trends.

Attribution studies rely on climate models to simulate scenarios with and without estimates of human influence. However, these models are inherently limited by the assumptions and parameters set by researchers. The main problem is that attribution models, and the studies generated using them, assume what they are attempting to prove. Attribution studies start with the assumption that for any extreme weather event being “modeled,” climate change has affected, impacted, or caused it, the only question being how much influence climate change has had. As discussed on Climate At A Glance, the fallibility of climate models is evident in their inability to accurately replicate observed climate patterns, casting doubt on their utility in attribution studies.

While TCB’s interactive page on attribution studies offers some insights into ongoing climate research, it’s important to discern that what they are presenting is not rooted in actual data, but in computer model output.

Actual empirical data does not support the narrative of increasing numbers of severe weather events or increasing severity of such events, and the methodologies employed in attribution studies have notable failures and bias. Moreover, the amplified media perception of worsening weather is often a byproduct of enhanced reporting capabilities rather than actual climatic changes. As such, TCB does a grave disservice to readers by not addressing these issues and limitations, and by falsely presenting model outcomes as fact.

Rising Tide Demonstrates Even Climate Protestors Need Fossil Fuel

Last week Rising tide provided an impressive showcase for plastic fossil fuel products during their climate protest.

Opponents of oil trains and barges that service the Port of Albany paddle along the Hudson River on Friday in Albany, N.Y. The demonstration was part of the Break Free from Fossil Fuels movement.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Last week Rising tide provided an impressive showcase for plastic fossil fuel products during their climate protest.

Arrests made as Rising Tide climate change protesters take to Newcastle Harbour over coal exports

By Romy Stephens and Bridget Murphy

In short:

Activism group Rising Tide says multiple people have been arrested at an anti-fossil fuels demonstration in Newcastle.

Thousands have attended the multi-day protest, where Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett delivered a speech and performed.

What’s next?

The demonstration is expected to continue until Sunday evening.

Several people have been arrested at a climate protest in Newcastle that involved hundreds of activists taking to the city’s harbour in canoes and kayaks.

The demonstration, organised by activism group Rising Tide, was advertised as a “blockade” of the world’s largest coal port.

A Rising Tide statement said multiple people were arrested on Saturday afternoon, most of whom were released without charge.

…Read more: 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-23/police-arrests-climate-change-protest-rising-tide-newcastle/104620058

If you look closely at the picture above, you would struggle to find one thing which is not made of plastic, other than the ship carrying the coal. Their life jackets are plastic, their oars are made of plastic, their kayaks are made of plastic, their T-shirts are mostly plastic, and if we could see them, we would likely discover whatever they were wearing on their feet is likely made of plastic.

If all the petroleum products carried by and being used by the protestors were to suddenly disappear, they would all find themselves naked and swimming in the water.

China makes extensive use of coal in plastics synthesis. Mainland China has lots of coal but very little oil or gas, so their petrochemical industry is increasingly geared to use coal as its base plastic synthesis hydrocarbon.

Black Coal to White Trash

February 13, 2020 By Richard Liu

Coal has long been China’s “black gold,” supplying over half of the nation’s electricity. Yet as coal’s energy share decreases due to domestic action to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, a new coal industry is emerging. In China’s arid northwest, eight plants are pulverizing coal chunks and “cooking” coal powder into something more valuable than power—or maybe even gold. These coal conversion plants, soon numbering over 20, churn out chemicals to produce plastic.

In China’s Thirteenth Five-Year Energy Development Plan, central policymakers set a target to decrease coal’s share in China’s energy mix. Reducing coal power puts China on track to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement commitment to peak emissions by 2030. But China’s investments in coal conversion now threaten to increase coal consumption. The risk of China deepening its coal dependency intensified at the 2019 United Nations Climate Summit, when China’s State Councilor Wang Yi made no new commitments to cut coal.

…

China’s love affair with CTO

While most plastics are produced from natural gas or crude oil, Chinese plants are converting coal into chemicals used to produce plastics through direct coal-to-olefins (CTO) or the multistep coal-to-methanol (from coal) and then methanol-to-olefins. China is the only country to implement CTO at scale. From 2011 to 2015, China’s CTO capacity grew from 1 million tons annually (MTA) to 7.2 MTA, equivalent to 20 percent of China’s plastic feedstock capacity.

While methanol-to-olefins has become unviable in recent years due to uncompetitive methanol pricing, the profitability of CTO draws investment. According to Tian Yajun, a coal conversion expert from the National Institute of Clean and Low Carbon Energy, “CTO companies profit from high oil prices. In recent years, CTO has the best return out of all coal conversion industries because demand is high and the central government doesn’t control olefins or plastic prices.”

…Read more: https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/02/black-coal-white-trash/

Most Kayaks today are made from polyethylene resins – a direct product of China’s growing coal to plastic chemistry.

I find it difficult to see this ridiculous plastic Rising Tide “climate protest” as a legitimate protest. I see it more as an unconscious cry for help from young adults who were failed by their teachers and the Aussie education system. If they had the faintest clue about science or the machine age products they take for granted, they wouldn’t be out there making such fools of themselves.

What happens to the coal which is exported from Newcastle? You are wearing it and sitting on it, Rising Tide.

Update (EW): purecolorartist points out I neglected to mention which Newcastle. The protest was in Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

High-mileage electric car usage is working out almost twice as expensive as petrol

What’s promised isn’t always what you get with electric cars – my 11,000 miles in Ford Mustang Mach-E proved it’s far from an EV panacea

What’s promised isn’t always what you get with electric cars – my 11,000 miles in Ford Mustang Mach-E proved it’s far from an EV panacea

Perhaps autumn half-term week was not the best time for driving long distances in an EV on largely unplanned routes, but then family life is like that, full of the unexpected, joyful and sometimes sad.

The first thing I learnt during 11,000 miles in the Mach-E was that it isn’t a “proper” Mustang. Secondly, if you regularly cover high mileage in an EV, you need to travel when everyone else isn’t to avoid queuing at chargers.

Fortunately, now that my three-month eschewal of fossil fuels is over, I’m able to use my Honda Civic Type R for long personal journeys, although the Ford is still pressed into service when work calls. The Telegraph has the story.

Recently, a family illness was a force majeure and the Civic was being serviced so the Ford was the only transport. Unfortunately, no amount of planning could avoid bank-holiday travel and the armada of electric vehicles needing to charge.

It looked as though Gridserve hadn’t done much planning, either. Of its 24 high-current chargers at Exeter services, eight were out of service. It was chaos.

“I’m glad my boss will be doing this next week so he can see what it’s like,” said Gridserve’s Matt Sidwell, who was doing sterling work trying to instil order to the rambunctious queuing system. With no space to stack cars, no signposting and people constantly trying to push in, he was fighting a losing battle.

“The thing that drives me crazy is the people who stay on the charger to get a 100 per cent charge,” he said. “It’s virtually impossible to achieve and takes so long because the charger is only trickling current in at that point.”

I looked enviously at the rows of Tesla-only chargers, most of them unoccupied.

It took 45 minutes for a charger to become vacant. I plugged in the Ford, unwrapped a bacon sandwich and wondered why Colmans no longer sells mustard in tubes.

There was a sharp tap at the window. “The chargers are rated at 175kWh,” said an elderly motorist who’d emerged from a Nissan Leaf and was peering at the charger display. “You’re only getting 80.”

I didn’t tell him I’ve rarely seen more than 80 and even then, not for long, although the Ford’s DC fast charging is rated at 150kWh.

I just wish Ed Miliband, the energy security minister, was there so I could stuff my bacon sandwich where the sun doesn’t shine, but he was packing his swimmers for the COP conference in Baku.

With the Mustang averaging 2.8 miles per kWh on motorways, it has an effective range of 250 to 270 miles (from the 91kWh lithium-ion battery) against a claim of 372 miles (although, to be fair, Ford advertises the Mach-E with a “motorway range” of 306 miles).

To eke out the range I travel everywhere with the heater off, which currently demands a substantial coat, hat and gloves. I’m writing to Santa for thick socks this Christmas.

As any long-distance EV user will tell you, speed, hills and lower temperatures are the chief enemy of battery range. I recently learnt from Moni Islam, Audi’s chief aerodynamicist, that in the official Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, 40 per cent of the battery usage is occupied by aerodynamic drag – but if, like me, you only do long motorway journeys, that figure rises to nearer to 60 per cent.

Like any experienced EV user, I’m well acquainted with the rapid falling of predicted range against actual journey distance. For example, when I started with a 95 per cent charge, which had a predicted range of 269 miles, the Exeter Gridserve chargers seemed easily within range. The Ford showed an 85-mile excess over the distance calculated by Waze.

Yet, an hour and a half into the journey, the excess had dropped to 48 miles and, after three hours, I crawled into the services with less than 12 per cent charge.

My poorly mother proved to be in rather better health than the UK charging system on that day. She was interested in the Ford parked outside.

“So, how much does it cost to run?” she asked, ever the mathematician.

I grabbed some paper.

While I once had to pay a whopping £1.12 per kWh at a Shell Recharge station, in general fast charging averages at between 85 and 90p per kWh. On a long motorway journey, the Ford averages between 2.6 and 2.8 miles per kWh, which is by no means unexceptional in large battery SUVs I’ve tested. Using the more generous figures in both cases, the Ford is costing at least 30p per mile for the electricity alone.

“And what about your Honda?” she continued. My scrap of paper was getting crowded, but at similar speeds my Civic Type R will return about 34 miles per gallon, which means that the fuel cost per mile is about 16p. She gave me a hard stare.

“Is it worth it?”

Read the full story here.