Day: March 6, 2025

January 2025 Oceans Still Cool

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures.  It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around. 

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:

  • The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
  • SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
  • A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.

HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source. Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated.  HadSST4 is the same as v.3, except that the older data from ship water intake was re-estimated to be generally lower temperatures than shown in v.3.  The effect is that v.4 has lower average anomalies for the baseline period 1961-1990, thereby showing higher current anomalies than v.3. This analysis concerns more recent time periods and depends on very similar differentials as those from v.3 despite higher absolute anomaly values in v.4.  More on what distinguishes HadSST3 and 4 from other SST products at the end. The user guide for HadSST4 is here.

Note:  When doing monthly updates of HadSST4, it’s typical that values for the previous month or two will appear with slight adjustments.  However this time there were scores of changed values scattered throughout the set and all values since 1979.  Strangely, the new values were in text format, so I needed to convert them to values in the spreadsheets.  Comparing the new and old datasets showed that the changes were mostly in the third decimal, and mostly negative (i.e. the adjusted value lower than the previous one.)  Overall, the global average anomaly since 1980 was lower by 0.01C.  The charts and analysis below is produced from the current data.

The Current Context

The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST3 starting in 2015 through January 2025. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024.

Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes.  That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period.  A small warming was driven by NH summer peaks in 2021-22, but offset by cooling in SH and the tropics, By January 2023 the global anomaly was again below the mean.

Now in 2023-24 came an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside, all higher than 2015-16. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 1.1°C last year, ~0.3° higher than the 2015 peak.  Then NH started down autumn 2023, followed by Tropics and SH descending 2024 to the present. After 10 months of cooling in SH and the Tropics, the Global anomaly came back down, led by NH cooling the last 4 months from its peak in August. It’s now about 0.1C higher than the average for this period. Note that the Tropical anomaly has cooled from 1.28C in 2024/01 to 0.63C as of 2025/1.

Comment:

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures.  It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around.  Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:

El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years.  Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on.  Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds.  As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century  It iswell understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.

Now people talk about changes in that phenomenon as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world.   We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example.  So, for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.

It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well.  One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.

A longer view of SSTs

The graph below is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations.  Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.  This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since.  The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies.  Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July.

The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations.  Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.  This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since.  The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies.  Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.

The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 is dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.

SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8, a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12.  Again, SSTs are average 2013-14.

Now a different pattern appears.  The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off.  But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average.  In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16.  NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.

The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.)  Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021.  In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.

Then in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping.  After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September and October resumed cooling in all regions.

What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH.  The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before.  After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.

Contemporary AMO Observations

Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future.  So, I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data.  It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic.  “ERSST5 AMO follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.”  So, the values represent SST anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global Ocean.

The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed.  As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin.  Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Then in 2023 the peak was holding at 1.4C before declining.  An annual chart below is informative:

Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years.  2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September.  1998 and 2007 were mildly warm.  2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average.  2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an extraordinary peak in July.  August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.

Then in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April.  Remarkably, May showed an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June.  In July, August and September 2024 the anomaly declined, and despite a small rise in October, ended close to where it began.  Now 2025 is starting lower than the previous year.

The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.

The purple line is the average anomaly 1980-1996 inclusive, value 0.17.  The orange line the average 1980-2024, value 0.38, also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2013-2024, value 0.67. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.

Curiosity:  Solar Coincidence?

The news about our current solar cycle 25 is that the solar activity is hitting peak numbers now and higher  than expected 1-2 years in the future.  As livescience put it:  Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun’s chaotic peak be?  Some charts from spaceweatherlive look familar to these sea surface temperature charts.

Summary

The oceans are driving the warming this century.  SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.”  The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect.  The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?

Footnote: Why Rely on HadSST4

HadSST is distinguished from other SST products because HadCRU (Hadley Climatic Research Unit) does not engage in SST interpolation, i.e. infilling estimated anomalies into grid cells lacking sufficient sampling in a given month. From reading the documentation and from queries to Met Office, this is their procedure.

HadSST4 imports data from gridcells containing ocean, excluding land cells. From past records, they have calculated daily and monthly average readings for each grid cell for the period 1961 to 1990. Those temperatures form the baseline from which anomalies are calculated.

In a given month, each gridcell with sufficient sampling is averaged for the month and then the baseline value for that cell and that month is subtracted, resulting in the monthly anomaly for that cell. All cells with monthly anomalies are averaged to produce global, hemispheric and tropical anomalies for the month, based on the cells in those locations. For example, Tropics averages include ocean grid cells lying between latitudes 20N and 20S.

Gridcells lacking sufficient sampling that month are left out of the averaging, and the uncertainty from such missing data is estimated. IMO that is more reasonable than inventing data to infill. And it seems that the Global Drifter Array displayed in the top image is providing more uniform coverage of the oceans than in the past.

USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean

Thank goodness Climate Change is reducing the number of cyclones…

It’s not often a cyclone heads straight for a big population center in Australia, and the media is running minute by minute updates

From JoNova

Cyclone Alfred headed straight for Brisbane

It’s not often a cyclone heads straight for a big population center in Australia, and the media is running minute by minute updates:

Nullschool

It’s a slow moving category 2 storm, that won’t set any wind speed records, but will cross paths with 3 or 4 million people. Current wind speeds at 20 locations are available here. Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain for too long. The latest BOM report says sustained winds are 95km / hour with gusts to 130 km/hr. (Roughly 60 to 80 mph).

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml

If “Climate Change” has any effect on Australian cyclones, it’s to reduce them:

With the usual logic and reason of top climate experts, this suggests that car engines, burgers, cows and coal can prevent cyclones. Anyone driving an EV, or eating vegeburgers clearly doesn’t care about koalas (or delicate solar panels):

BOM

These were Australian cyclone tracks 51 years ago, before mankind emitted 75% of all emissions of CO2 ––

Two cyclones went past Brisbane.

BOM — Cyclone Tracks Southern Hemisphere_

Back in days when humankind had barely started jumping on planes for hot weekends and footy finals, cyclones even threatened New Zealand.

Best wishes for readers and their homes in the path. Thank you to everyone who uses petrol, diesel, coal, and beef. We appreciate your sacrifice.

Solar on the Rocks: Sunnova stock falls 70% — warns of bankruptcy “Overall environment is terrible”

Bloomberg writers call it “chaos” and Barrons blames Trump for “uncertainty”, but the truth is the value of solar was always a false bubble held up by forced payments, fantasy, or vicarious political whimsy that spread the costs onto other people. Trump has merely restored the certainty of real value in the free market.

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

Without forced theft from the poor, Sunnova (and others in the solar industry) might disappear

Bloomberg writers call it “chaos” and Barrons blames Trump for “uncertainty”, but the truth is the value of solar was always a false bubble held up by forced payments, fantasy, or vicarious political whimsy that spread the costs onto other people. Trump has merely restored the certainty of real value in the free market. He hasn’t banned a single person from buying solar panels, it’s just that not many people want to spend their money on glass panels that make green expensive electrons. They don’t want to spend money on “cheap electricity” that only comes at lunchtime either.

The 70% fall in the stock price is just the last few days since Sunnova officially warned it might not be a “going concern”. The longer term figures are much worse.

On November 4th, when some investors though the word-salad-woman might win, the share price briefly spiked to $7. Right now it is 58 cents, meaning it has lost 92 percent of its value since Trump won the election. The entire $12 mini-boom peak in September last year, arguably, was a bet that Kamala-grift would be worth something.

Sunnova has $3 billion in assets (allegedly) and employs 1,200 people according to Wiki. (Or it did).

Sunnova Energy International stock price | GoogleFinance

The news reporting is full of delusional excuses

Sunnova’s 71% Stock Plunge Heralds US Solar State of ‘Chaos’

Bloomberg

Sunnova Energy International Inc. shares plunged 71% as the company warned there’s substantial doubt it will remain in business. That came less than a week after First Solar Inc., the biggest US solar manufacturer, said it was seeing increasing customer delays. And it was also on the heels of Sunrun Inc., the biggest US residential solar company, saying it expects installation volumes to be flat this year.

The US solar industry is in the midst of the biggest reckoning it’s faced since going mainstream more than a decade ago.

Solar had been viewed as a crucial answer for dealing with rising electric demand while capping global emissions…

Analysts have been lowering their home solar installation projections in 2025 after installs fell by nearly 20% in 2024. And meanwhile, the Trump administration and Congress are considering moving to cut the tax credits that Sunnova and others have counted on to generate cash. That’s on top of a federal freeze of loans and grants that were aided by Biden’s signature climate law.

It’s all the fault of the “uncertain regulatory policies” — even though Trump is dead set certain he will not subsidize these things.

What they mean to say is Donald Trump has turned off the tap, and the solar panels weren’t worth buying if other people didn’t pay:

Sunnova Energy Stock Sinks as the Company Warns It Might Go Out of Business. ‘The Overall Environment Is Terrible.’

Barrons

The rooftop solar industry has struggled lately, because fewer people are installing solar panels due to high interest rates and unfavorable or uncertain regulatory policies. As of December, energy-data firm Wood Mackenzie said 2024 U.S. installations were on track to fall 26% from the year before. The Trump administration’s policies have only added more uncertainty.

“The overall environment is terrible,” said Sunnova CEO John Berger on a conference call with analysts. “I mean, it’s the political environment, the capital markets—look at the equity trading off. And so, that just gets everybody in a very bad mood, candidly.”

Yahoo Finance blames high interest rates as if the long artificially low interest rates, set by a government appointed politburo-style-committee, weren’t just another sort of subsidy.

Much of the industry’s turbulence can be traced to high interest rates and uncertainty about the future of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Solar installers have benefited in the past from low interest rates, which make solar loans and leasing attractive to consumers. By spreading the cost of rooftop solar over many years, consumers don’t have to pay up front and often save relative to their monthly utility bills. But as rates have risen, it can take longer for consumers to benefit financially.

On the policy front, the Inflation Reduction Act extended tax credits that were set to expire at the end of last year. The new credits run through 2032, though the Trump administration has vowed to unravel the law.

It’s one of the best kept secrets of modern civilization, that low interest rates steal from long term savers and subsidize speculators and borrowers (rich people). The central bankers force institutions to charge low rates, lots of people borrow money, which increases the money supply hunting for things in the same limited pool of goods. In turn, that creates inflation and steals the purchasing power from every dollar — from children and grandparents alike.

Bloomberg writers think Trump creates chaos, but the truth is that the whole fake market in solar has been one gigantic bubble. At one point in early 2021, Sunnova shares were selling for $53.

REFERENCE

Sunnova Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results

Photo: Tadeáš Bednarz

Tectonic Political Shifts Have Made The Climate Issue Virtually Irrelevant (For Now)

With the election of Donald Trump and the ongoing geopolitical conflicts, the climate issue has lost much relevance over the recent months. It’s exceedingly clear that people are much worried about other issues. Few people care about the climate issue.

From NoTrickZone

By P Gosselin 

With the election of Donald Trump and the ongoing geopolitical conflicts, the climate issue has lost much relevance over the recent months. It’s exceedingly clear that people are much worried about other issues. Few people care about the climate issue.

From now on, I’ll be blogging less frequently as climate news play a lesser role in the current political discourse and public interest. Kenneth will likely continue with his excellent posts.

Climate change has rapidly become a fringe issue. Moreover, for the time being, there’s no charismatic figure out there standing ready to take over for the Democrats and the leftists in Europe and to bring the climate issue back to the forefront.

Another development: people have come to realize that climate policy only means more crazy rules, less choice, higher taxes and a loss of freedom.

As far as Europe is concerned, its leaders have (finally) realized that their situation is indeed extremely dire in terms of geopolitical relevance and that the USA is done babysitting and funding them. Their latest off-the-cuff scheme: they hope that printing trillions of euros will lead their sick old continent out of its deep crisis. But don’t expect that to be successful. A substantial portion of the planned trillions in new debt will be earmarked for the green new deal and other wasteful projects, which ultimately will make them even weaker than they currently are.

What’s lies beyond that point is open to speculation. One possible scenario is widespread discontent and resistance by citizens after things go from really bad to really much worse, which could lead the continent to enact dictatorial suppression measures against the people. Or a second scenario: a revolution that could put the establishment out of power and usher in a new era.

One thing is certain: we are living in a very transformative time. Stay calm, confident and resolute.

They Fought the Carbon and The … Carbon Won

Short post. A graph that some people will prefer you ignore.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Short post. A graph that some people will prefer you ignore.

hat’s it. That’s the whole post.

Rock on!

w.

My Usual Request: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. This avoids endless misunderstandings.

Trump White House snubs UN climate talks and prepares to scuttle EPA regulatory tool

The Trump administration has made another in-your-face move away from global greenhouse gas-reduction commitments by barring U.S. officials from traveling to China to participate in an international conference to draft the next UN climate assessment. Trump is also on the verge of jettisoning an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy that served as the backbone of U.S. climate regulations.

From CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

The Trump administration has made another in-your-face move away from global greenhouse gas-reduction commitments by barring U.S. officials from traveling to China to participate in an international conference to draft the next UN climate assessment. Trump is also on the verge of jettisoning an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy that served as the backbone of U.S. climate regulations.

Upon receiving the news that the trip to Hangzhou, China for a Feb. 24 to 28 meeting of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a no go, Katherine Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate adviser was likely disappointed. Lest anyone miss the message, NASA also terminated its contract with a U.S.-based group of scientists and staff who were working closely with Calvin on the IPCC’s next climate assessment, due to be released in 2029, the Washington Post reported.

The IPCC has issued six climate assessments since the U.N. body’s creation in 1988. The release of each of these, accompanied by great fanfare, has triggered warnings of dire consequences unless global emissions of greenhouse gases are not substantially reduced. With the absence of American participation in drafting the next report, calls for climate-related sacrifices by governments of other major emitters of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases risk encountering political resistance. After all, if the U.S. isn’t playing, is there really a game?

The shunning of the U.N. climate working group comes on the heels of Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, something he had done in his first term, only to have the Biden administration rejoin the pact in 2021. Now Trump is going one step further by scuttling U.S. cooperation in crafting the next IPCC Climate Assessment.

Rather than move away from fossil fuels in the spirit of global climate negotiators, Washington is headed in the opposite direction. Trump officials at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for example, have identified over 600 energy and other infrastructure projects to be fast-tracked under Trump’s day-one declaration of a National Energy Emergency. Projects include an oil pipeline under Lake Michigan, several natural gas power plants, and new liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals on the Gulf Coast.

Abandoning an EPA Regulatory Tool

Of even greater importance is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s Feb. 26 recommendation to the White House that his agency repeal an Obama-era finding that underpins EPA’s authority to regulate man-made greenhouse gases. Known as the “endangerment finding,” the policy was rooted in a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, that said EPA had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

Two years later, Obama administration officials at EPA used the court’s decision to limit emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources. Under Biden, the regulations were expanded to include tailpipe emissions (leading to the EV mandate), restrictions on oil and gas development on federal lands and waters, and even household appliances. Other federal agencies and numerous state agencies have cited the endangerment finding when imposing regulations costing billions of dollars.

Environmental groups are vowing to take the Trump EPA to court, aware of the threat that tossing the endangerment finding would pose to the entire climate-related regulatory structure. David Doninger of the Natural Resources Defense Council is optimistic that the Trump administration’s effort will be shot down in the courts.

“This would be a fool’s errand,” he told the Associated Press. “In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court.”

But during his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Zeldin rejected the idea that the Supreme Court had “mandated” that EPA treat manmade carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

“The decision does not require the EPA” to act on greenhouse gases, “it authorizes it,” Zeldin told Massachusetts’ Democrat Sen. Ed Markey. “There are steps the EPA would have to take in order for an obligation to be created.”

Markey and Dininger hew to the “science-is-settled” narrative on human-induced climate change, according to which the only question is how rigorous regulations need to be to force the nation into a green-energy transition. Trump calls the whole enterprise a “Green New Scam,” while Zeldin rejects the idea that his agency is legally bound to regulate greenhouse gases.

The forthcoming litigation will probably wind up at the Supreme Court, which in recent years has curtailed administrative agencies’ power to regulate absent a specific congressional mandate. In its landmark 2022 decision, West Virginia v. EPA, the high court ruled that EPA lacked congressional authority to issue a rule that led to the closure of coal-fired power plants in the Mountaineer State and elsewhere.

Challenging Zeldin could lead to the Supreme Court’s revisiting, and perhaps even overturning, its 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, an outcome climate alarmists don’t want to contemplate.

This article originally appeared at Human Events

Sorry, Rigzone and Telegraph, Oil and Gas Companies Are Wise to Reject Net Zero and Renewables

Rigzone and The Telegraph, among other outlets, are reporting that many major energy companies are tempering net-zero pledges they made in recent years, turning away from renewables and back towards oil and gas. This move makes sense, as subsidies that wind and solar depend on may dry up, and traditional sources outcompete them.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

Rigzone and The Telegraph, among other outlets, are reporting that many major energy companies are tempering net-zero pledges they made in recent years, turning away from renewables and back towards oil and gas. This move makes sense, as subsidies that wind and solar depend on may dry up, and traditional sources outcompete them.

The Rigzone post, “Leading Energy Companies Holding Back Renewables Commitments, BMI Says,” reports that the Fitch Group, a financial information company, says that companies like BP, Shell, and others, are “holding back renewables commitments to secure higher short-term return.”

Most notably, Fitch told the outlet that Equinor “halved its low carbon investment from $10 billion to $5 billion,” BP “abandoned its 2030 oil output reduction target and is divesting its U.S. onshore wind business,” and even Shell “weakened its carbon reduction targets and is investing in Bonga North deep-water oil and gas project in Nigeria.”

The reason? Rigzone reports that high costs for renewables projects, supply chain disruptions, and the need for energy security all factored in, according to the Fitch analysts.

Reporting from the Telegraph in “We were wrong on net zero, BP boss admits,” suggests that pressure from a hedge fund Elliott Management incentivized BP to abandon their focus on net-zero, because “the company’s shares are underperforming partly because it has wasted too much money on renewables.”

All of this is unsurprising, especially given that many subsidies for wind and solar may soon dry up with the new Trump administration, these companies may be seeing the writing on the wall.

Wind companies in particular have struggled even with large government subsidies backing renewable investment. For example, Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project cost $2 billion more than promised when the development first was proposed by 2021, and today only half completed has again re-evaluated the costs up another billion dollars. These costs are being passed onto consumers.

Approximately 46 percent of all federal government subsidies went to wind and solar between 2016 and 2022. President Trump has already paused offshore wind lease sales and paused approvals for onshore wind. Likewise, the new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working to “claw back” billions from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which threw money at various renewables projects and green organizations.

Oil companies certainly received money from these subsidies and funds for their renewable’s projects and pledges, and if that cash flow ends, it would be difficult for them to maintain the grift.

Both Rigzone and The Telegraph imply that these divestments from renewables are a bad thing, however, The Telegraph notes the forced “rapid energy transition” is far has been causing more harm than benefits and threatens energy security and reliability.

As Climate Realism has covered for foreign countries, the United States, and all the way down to individual states, energy security is at risk when the so-called “energy transition” is pursued. The premature closure of reliable energy sources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas, have had grid operators and even individuals from federal commissions sounding the alarm; renewables just cannot fill the gap. Add to that the fact that there is no transition occurring at a global scale: electricity production data show that while wind, biofuels, and solar are being added to the overall mix, traditional sources of energy are still growing as energy consumption in general increases. (See figure below)

Despite Rigzone’s and The Telegraph’s apparent dismay that major oil companies are back-tracking on their net-zero goals and investments in renewables, for consumers and energy security the move is a boon. Reliable, affordable energy benefits people and nations. While reports of these companies’ actions are upsetting climate activists, hopefully it will signal to other firms and industries that it is safe to divest from climate alarm.

Small Modular Reactors will benefit developing economies.

Today, with 8 billion humans on this planet, only the few wealthy countries are extracting natural resources to bolster their economies and provide prosperous lives for their citizens.

From Watts Up With That?

Today, with 8 billion humans on this planet, only the few wealthy countries are extracting natural resources to bolster their economies and provide prosperous lives for their citizens.

Ronald Stein

Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”

Dr Robert Jeffrey is an economist, business manager and energy expert.  He has a Master’s degree in economics from Cambridge, a Master’s degree in business management and holds a PhD in Engineering Management.  He was on the economic round table advising the South African Reserve Bank

Olivia Vaughan is a business strategist. She has a Bachelor of Commerce in Law and an MBA and operates across key sectors in the circular economy, sustainable systems and the built environment.  She is co-founder of a Nuclear innovation company in South Africa, Stratek Global.

Co-authored by Ronald Stein, Dr. Robert Jeffrey and Olivia Vaughan

Published March 3, 2025, at America Out Loud NEWS

https://www.americaoutloud.news/small-modular-reactors-will-benefit-developing-economies/

Earth has existed for more than 4 billion years without present-day humans. In the past, dinosaurs and cavemen never used its plentiful natural resources.

The discrepancy in the allocation of earth’s natural resources between developed and developing economies, emphasizes a critical point affecting the future of the human species. 

When we consider the needs of developing economies, we have no choice but to consider that access to electricity is a crucial cornerstone to alleviating poverty, promoting economic growth and improving living standards. It is an essential social and economic indicator. The link between electricity and GDP per capita is one of the strongest correlations in the social sciences. Why are we not utilizing a seemingly endless clean supply of electricity to shine some light on the hundreds of millions of people living in the dark?

Small Modular Reactors (SMR’s) hold the potential to revolutionize the clean electricity landscape by providing scalable and flexible solutions across both the developed and the developing world. Generation IV SMRs do not need to be near any large waterbody at all, a critical factor in many water scarce countries. They also incorporate a number of technological advances to meet the criteria of sustainability, nuclear safety, economic competitiveness and resistance to nuclear proliferation.

Small modular reactor development globally, is in part due to many South African engineers and scientists having been absorbed into private industry in South Africa and all over the world, including the USA. SMR’s have the potential to bring significant benefits to developing economies due to:

  • Lower initial capital investment as SMRs require a lower upfront capital investment due to their compact size and modular design.
  • Reduced construction time as SMRs can be deployed relatively quickly, with deployment timelines as short as three years.
  • Siting flexibility as SMRs can be installed in a variety of locations, including remote areas with less developed infrastructure.
  • Scalability as SMRs can be scaled up or down to meet energy demands. This flexibility allows developing economies to adjust their energy production as their needs change.
  • Job creation and economic impact as the construction and operation of SMRs can create jobs and stimulate economic activity.
  • Enhanced safety as SMRs have simpler designs and use passive cooling systems, making them inherently safer to operate than traditional reactors.

The generally accepted definition of access to electricity includes the provision of electricity, safe cooking facilities, and a minimum level of consumption. The International Energy Agency (IEA) takes a more holistic approach to its definition, requiring households to meet a minimum specified level of electricity, which gradually increases over time and is based on whether the household is in a rural or urban environment. The set minimum threshold is currently at 250 kWh per year for rural households and 500 kW per year for urban households according to the IEA.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average annual electricity used by a US residential customer in 2022, was 10,791 kWh. This equates to an average of roughly 900 kWh per month, 43 times the minimum rural threshold accepted by the IEA. We can thus understandably surmise that economic growth in developing economies inevitably requires growth in demand for electricity. Those economies that continue to grow, along with their long-term electricity sovereignty, must therefore develop their nuclear energy capability as a matter of fact rather than of opinion. Referring particularly to South Africa, which is an economy based on developing its mining, industrial and agricultural growth. It must focus its substantial base load electricity and energy growth on domestic nuclear power growth.

As a species, WE CANNOT accurately predict all future economic, technical and energy developments, which may radically change the upcoming economy and other progress of humans.  However, we CAN focus on certain existing issues which need to be highlighted as the very reality that cannot be ignored. The proverbial elephant in the room is that there are consequences of those wealthier developed countries avoiding methods to deliver electricity to those in developing countries.

The electricity from wind and solar renewables is weak, intermittent and unreliable. This makes them only suitable for certain situational applications, but the reality is that economic demand to achieve steady growth is for continuous, uninterruptable, dispatchable power.  Delivery of electricity to humans makes them suitable to grow industries that provide products and services to the 8 billion on this planet.

Using current nuclear technology methods, the used energy rods are taken out and replaced after approximately five to ten years.  However, only 3% of the energy available contained in nuclear fuel is used at this stage and 97% of the energy originally contained in this stored material is still available and can be used.  In other words, there is still a further 10 times the energy used still available from the Slightly Used Nuclear Fuel (SUNF) with revised usage methods. It can then be extrapolated that nuclear power will be available to humans for a further 50,000 years or more from these SUNF sources. How are we not as a species, embracing this gift from galactic solar events the universe has bestowed upon us?

Next-generation reactor designs like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and advanced fast reactors offer greater efficiency, improved safety features, and a notable reduction of spent fuel.

Two of the co-authors of this article are from South Africa, and they believe their country is well positioned to stand on its rich history of nuclear transparency and compliance as a gateway into Africa, as well as the Middle East and SE Asia. With increased safety, oversight and non-proliferation measures, isn’t it time that the developing world share in the power needed to build resilient economies of their own?

The costings from South African based nuclear companies developing SMR’s, are estimating ~$0.12/kWh by the third plant with no need for back up capacity, cost of capital and disposal costed in. It has an energy availability factor of 95%, all of the time. So, we can accurately predict production. As the modular production supply chain grows and incorporating recycled material, the cost is predicted to reduce to ~$0.01/kWh within the next generation.

Now is as good a time, as we are going to get to take the critical leap as a species to nuclear power. As a species, we can make use of the infinite power that we have access to because of collapsing stars, and hundreds of millions of nova and supernova galactic events across space and time. The infinite light in our universe has sent us the densest form of solar power it could ever muster when we use atoms for peace. Nuclear generated electricity and a rapid roll-out of Small Modular Reactors is the fastest way to cast a lasting beacon of light in forgotten developing worlds living in the dark.

Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.

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