Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Have you ever heard of—or even seen—red lightning? These are not animated characters, but real atmospheric phenomena known as electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorms. Scientists refer to them as “red sprites”, named for their jellyfish-like appearance and vivid red flashes. Now, imagine witnessing these mesmerizing displays over the world’s highest mountain range—the Himalayas!
Have you ever heard of—or even seen—red lightning? These are not animated characters, but real atmospheric phenomena known as electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorms. Scientists refer to them as “red sprites”, named for their jellyfish-like appearance and vivid red flashes. Now, imagine witnessing these mesmerizing displays over the world’s highest mountain range—the Himalayas!
On the night of May 19, 2022, two Chinese astrophotographers, Angel An and Shuchang Dong, captured a spectacular display of over one hundred red sprites over the Himalayas. The observation site, located on the southern Tibetan Plateau near Pumoyongcuo Lake—one of the region’s three sacred lakes—revealed a breathtaking celestial event. Among the phenomena captured were dancing sprites, rare secondary jets, and the first-ever recorded case in Asia of green airglow at the base of the nighttime ionosphere, dubbed “ghost sprites”. This extraordinary event attracted global attention and was widely covered by major media outlets.
A recent study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences by Professor Gaopeng Lu and his team at the University of Science and Technology of China sheds light on the driving force behind this grand “sprite fireworks”—lightning and thunderstorms.
“This event was truly remarkable,” said Professor Gaopeng Lu. “By analyzing the parent lightning discharges, we discovered that the sprites were triggered by high-peak current positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes within a massive mesoscale convective system. This suggests that thunderstorms in the Himalayan region have the potential to produce some of the most complex and intense upper-atmospheric electrical discharges on Earth.”
Lacking precise timestamps for detailed analysis, the research team developed an innovative method to synchronize video time using satellite trajectories and star field analysis. This innovative approach allowed them to determine the exact occurrence times of the sprites and link them to their parent lightning discharges. One of the anonymous reviewers praised the technique, highlighting its potential as a reliable timing tool for citizen scientists contributing to scientific observations.
The study revealed that the parent lightning discharges occurred within stratiform precipitation regions of a mesoscale convective complex stretching from the Ganges Plain to the southern foothills of the Tibetan Plateau. This event recorded the highest number of sprites during a single thunderstorm in South Asia, suggesting that thunderstorms in this region possess upper-atmospheric discharge capabilities comparable to those in the U.S. Great Plains and offshore European storms. Moreover, the findings indicate that these storms may generate even more complex discharge structures, potentially influencing atmospheric coupling processes with significant physical and chemical effects.
Carney is now supposed to act for the good of the country after lobbying to defund and drive out of existence Canada’s oil and gas companies, steel companies, car companies and any other sector dependent on fossil fuels. He’s done this through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which he founded in 2021.
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England (BOE), reacts during a news conference at the United Nations COP21 climate summit at Le Bourget in Paris, France, on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015. Photo by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
The soon-to-be prime minister’s plan for net-zero banking would have devastated the country
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is very concerned about financial conflicts of interest that new Liberal leader (and our next prime minister) Mark Carney may be hiding. But I’m far more concerned about the one out in the open: Carney is now supposed to act for the good of the country after lobbying to defund and drive out of existence Canada’s oil and gas companies, steel companies, car companies and any other sector dependent on fossil fuels. He’s done this through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which he founded in 2021.
Carney is a climate zealot. He may try to fool Canadians into thinking he wants new pipelines, liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and other hydrocarbon infrastructure, but he doesn’t. Far from it. He wants half the existing ones gone by 2030 and the rest soon after.
He has said so, repeatedly and emphatically. He believes that the world “must achieve about a 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030” and “rapidly scale climate solutions to provide cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable replacements for unabated fossil fuels.” (By “unabated” he means usage without full carbon capture, which in practice is virtually all cases.) And since societies don’t seem keen on doing this, Carney created GFANZ to pressure banks, insurance companies and investment firms to cut off financing for recalcitrant firms.
“This transition to net zero requires companies across the whole economy to change behaviors through application of innovative technologies and new ways of doing business” he wrote in 2022 with his GFANZ co-chairs, using bureaucratic euphemisms to make his radical agenda somehow seem normal.
The GFANZ plan they articulated that year put companies intofour categories. Those selling green technologies or engaged in work that displaces fossil fuels would be rewarded with financing from member institutions. Those still using fossil fuels, or have investments in others that do, but are committed to being “climate leaders” and have set a path to net-zero, would also still be eligible for financing, as would those that do business with “high-emitting firms” but plan to reach net-zero targets on approved timelines. Companies that own or invest in high-emitting assets, however, would operate under a “managed phaseout” regime and could even be cut off from investment capital.
What are “high-emitting assets”? Carney’s group hasn’t released a complete list, but a June 2022 report listed some examples: coal mines, fossil-fuel power stations, oil fields, gas pipelines, steel mills, ships, cement plants and consumer gasoline-powered vehicles. GFANZ envisions a future in which the finance sector either severs all connections to such assets or puts them under a “managed phaseout” regime, which means exactly what it sounds like.
So when Carney jokingly suggested it won’t matter if his climate plan drives up costs for steel mills because people don’t buy steel, he could have added that there likely won’t be any steel mills before long anyway. If his work as prime minister echoes his work as GFANZ chair, we can expect steel mills to be phased out, along with cars, gas-fired power plants, pipelines, oil wells and so forth.
Mark Carney, former Co-Chair of GFANZ, accompanied by (from left) Ravi Menon, Loh Boon Chye, and Yuki Yasui, at the Singapore Exchange, for the GFANZ announcement on the formation of its Asia-Pacific (APAC) Network.
GFANZ boasts at length about its members strong-arming clients into embracing net-zero. For instance, it extols British insurance multinational Aviva for its climate engagement escalation program: “Aviva is prepared to send a message to all companies through voting actions when those companies do not have adequate climate plans or do not act quickly enough.”
To support these coercive goals, Carney’s lobbying helped secure a requirement in Canadafor banks, life insurance companies, trust and loan companies and others to develop and file reports disclosing their “climate transition risk,” set out by the federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI).
The rule, Guideline B-15 on Climate Risk Management, was initially published in 2023 and requires federally regulated financial institutions (other than foreign bank branches) to conduct extensive and costly research into their holdings to determine whether value may be at risk from future climate policies. The vagueness and potential liabilities created by this menacing set of expectations could push Canada’s largest investment firms to eventually decide it’s easier to divest altogether from fossil fuel and heavy industry sectors, furthering Carney’s ultimate goal.
Yet Carney will become prime minister just when Canadians face a trade crisis that requires the construction of new coastal energy infrastructure to ensure our fossil fuel commodities can be exported without going through the United States. He has said he would take emergency measures to support“energy projects,” but I assume he means windmills and solar panels. He has not (to my knowledge) said he supports pipelines, LNG terminals, fracking wells or new refineries. Unless he disowns everything, he has said for years, we must assume he doesn’t.
Canadian journalists should insist he clear this up. Ask Carney if he supports the repeal of OSFI’s Climate Risk Management guideline. Show Carney his GFANZ report. Ask him, “Do you still endorse the contents of this document?” If he says yes, ask him how we can build new pipelines and LNG terminals, expand our oil and gas sector, run our electricity grid using Canadian natural gas, heat our homes and put gasoline in our cars if banks are to phase out these activities.
If he tries to claim he no longer endorses it, ask him when he changed his mind, and why we should believe him now.
The media must not allow Carney to be evasive or ambiguous on these matters. We don’t have time for a bait-and-switch prime minister. If Carney still believes the rhetoric, he published through GFANZ, he should say so openly, so Canadians can assess whether he really is the right man to address our current crisis.
Well, well, well—looks like Greenpeace finally got a taste of its own medicine. A North Dakota jury has slammed the environmental darling with a bill for hundreds of millions, payable to Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based oil and gas titan behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Announced today, this delicious verdict ties back to the 2016 and 2017 protests that tried—and failed—to stop the pipeline.
Well, well, well—looks like Greenpeace finally got a taste of its own medicine. A North Dakota jury has slammed the environmental darling with a bill for hundreds of millions, payable to Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based oil and gas titan behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Announced today, this delicious verdict ties back to the 2016 and 2017 protests that tried—and failed—to stop the pipeline. Energy Transfer claimed Greenpeace’s “misinformation campaign” incited criminal antics and smeared their good name, demanding $300 million. The jury? They ate it up, siding with the company on most counts. Ouch.
This has been a long time coming. Energy Transfer argued that Greenpeace didn’t just cheer from the sidelines—they whipped up a frenzy that crossed legal lines. Meanwhile, Greenpeace is crying foul, clutching their pearls and insisting this lawsuit is a corporate plot to “destroy the right to peaceful protest.” Constitutional rights experts are wringing their hands too, fretting about a “chilling effect” on free speech. Boo-hoo. The jury wasn’t buying the sob story, and now Greenpeace is staring down a payout that might just bankrupt their U.S. outfit. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
Deepa Padmanabha, Greenpeace’s senior legal adviser, tried to spin it:
“What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take.”
Nice try, Deepa, but the jury saw through the sanctimony. Energy Transfer even played a clever card, suing three Greenpeace entities as one big happy family—checkmate.
So, what’s the takeaway? Is this a glorious win for holding activist groups accountable when their antics go too far? You bet it is. Greenpeace had it coming, and now they’re squirming. Sure, they’ll wail about corporate overreach and appeal until the cows come home, but for now, let’s savor the moment. The Dakota Access Pipeline’s been pumping oil for years despite their tantrums, and this ruling? It’s the cherry on top.
Generous grants do little to curb climbing costs – and allow installers to cash in.
Generous grants do little to curb climbing costs – and allow installers to cash in.
The cost of fitting a heat pump has risen by a third in six years despite generous government grants – leading critics to accuse installers of profiteering.
But the price of fitting an air-source heat pump actually increased by 33pc, from £9,686 to £12,951 in the six years to January 2025, according to Telegraph analysis of data from the trade standards body, MCS.
Industry experts blamed a host of factors for the spike such as the rising cost of copper and energy, while a government spokesman said the figures did not account for inflation. But even after factoring in inflation, the cost of installing a heat pump has still risen £700 – despite promises from successive governments it would fall in real terms.
Dramatic charts show that between March and April 2022, the same month the first Government grant was introduced, the cost of installing a heat pump suddenly rose by 25pc to £1,465 per kW. It meant a 4kW heat pump cost almost £6,000 while a large 15kW device was upwards of £21,000.
MCS claimed this jump was due to a difference in sample size, as well as the end of the renewable heating incentive – the precursor to the grant.
Mike Foster, of the Energy Utilities Alliance trade body, told The Telegraph: “When subsidies increase, we always see sales volumes follow, that’s just basic economics. But it is also likely that price competition is less keen and as a result average costs drift upwards. That’s just basic human nature.
“Given it is larger companies primarily benefitting from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, having a dedicated workforce fitting large numbers of heat pumps, we should see average costs of installations falling – indeed that is what the Government predicted would happen – it’s called the ‘learning curve’.
“But the data suggests this is not happening anywhere near fast enough. Either the learning curve isn’t working for heat pump installations, which would be unusual, or companies are taking higher profit margins on each job. Both require closer examination by Ministers.”
In November, ministers announced that a planned clean heat market mechanism – which would see manufacturers fined for not selling enough heat pumps – was to be drastically scaled back.
Back in 2005, AccuWeather, possibly along with other commercial weather companies, convinced former senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill, S.786, 109th Congress, to prevent NOAA and the NWS from sharing data that was available from commercial vendors. The only support came from the weather companies.
Back in 2005, AccuWeather, possibly along with other commercial weather companies, convinced former senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill, S.786, 109th Congress, to prevent NOAA and the NWS from sharing data that was available from commercial vendors. The only support came from the weather companies. Most thought it would mean paying for weather data the taxpayers already funded — if they could even buy it from the vendors. The bill did not get a single co-sponsor; nor did a companion bill appear in the House. It died in committee.
Is AccuWeather using Project 2025 to try again?
The Heritage Foundation recently published Project 2025. It is a massive document that addresses, among other things, the administrative state. It steps through the entire federal government, with specific recommendations regarding each organization. One of the organizations it discusses is the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) is responsible for weather forecasting. NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) acquires and operates environmental satellites, among other things. Full disclosure: I spent about a third of my engineering and management career working as a contractor for NOAA. I worked weather forecasting and weather satellite development projects. This analysis focuses only on the National Weather Service and the satellite portion of NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).
Project 2025 proposes sweeping changes to NOAA. To a large degree, it recommends replacing NOAA’s operations with private-sector commercial efforts. It claims this will result in lower cost and higher quality. But will it? Project 2025 provides virtually no evidence of that. Nor does Project 2025 give a complete view of how the NWS works.
A key flaw in Project 2025 is its emphasis on existing commercial forecasting. It says the NWS provides data to private companies and complains the NWS does not use “commercial partnerships as some other agencies do.” This is supposed to improve weather technology and cost-effectiveness by investing in “different sizes of commercial partners.” The document provides no evidence this is true. Nor does it show how this would improve forecasting accuracy.
Project 2025 greatly oversimplifies what the NWS does, how the NWS operates, and who its customers are. For example, it fails to mention the largest beneficiary of NWS forecasting: the public. A key part of local forecasting Project 2025 misses is watches and warnings. Local offices and national centers issue them. For obvious liability reasons, the commercial companies simply parrot NWS watches and warnings. Would a company such as AccuWeather accept that liability? It seems unlikely. Local offices also interact directly with local government officials, such as county disaster managers, when the situation warrants. Will a commercial company do that?
The NWS is mostly a local organization. Its “front line” is the 122 weather forecasting offices (WFO) and 13 river forecast centers (RFC). Operating 24/7/365, the WFOs are scattered throughout the 50 states, Guam, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico. RFCs, chartered with flood forecasting, normally operate 16 hours a day, 7 days per week, but will extend to 24-hour operation when necessary. Do any commercial companies forecast floods? Would they accept the liability? The WFOs and RFCs have specific areas of responsibility around the country. Their meteorologists and hydrologists are familiar with the local conditions and use that knowledge to supplement information from space and terrestrial sensors, and models, as they build their daily forecasts. About 90% of all weather data comes from satellites; NWS’s supercomputer models depend on satellite data.
This map, found on the NWS home page, frequently updates as forecasters issue and cancel watches and warnings.
In all, the NWS has over 4,000 employees, over 2,000 of which are meteorologists. AccuWeather has 4 – 500, with about 100 meteorologists. It is difficult to believe they can match the NWS’s local knowledge.
At the national level, NWS’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has nine national centers (NC). Each is responsible for a particular type of forecasting. The centers often trade information to improve forecasting.
• Climate Prediction Center (CPC) — Issues probabilistic climate forecasts from a week to three months in the future; up to a year for some conditions.
• Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) — Develop and operate the NWS supercomputer numerical prediction models used for daily forecasts.
• Weather Prediction Center (WPC) — Generates nationwide forecasts, such as winter storms and precipitation
After very severe weather events, the NWS puts teams on the ground to assess damage. That is how they determine tornado strength. Sometimes, following a severe event such as a disastrous hurricane or major tornado outbreak, NWS performs service assessments to assess how well they performed. These are available to the public. Are the commercial companies willing to do that?
Another problem with Project 2025’s argument is how the NWS interacts with other government organizations, particularly the military. The NWS shares data with Air Force Global Weather Central, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, and other organizations. It is hard to see how a commercial entity in this interaction would contribute value.
Finally, the NWS interacts with other countries’ forecasting activities.
Weirdly, Project 2025 combines the National Hurricane Center and National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), complaining that data should be presented neutrally, while ignoring all other national centers. The NHC focuses on forecasting individual hurricanes. Its web site provides statistical information regarding what the USA can expect during hurricane season. Each year, it publishes provides a hurricane season outlook and a mid-season update. While this addresses climatic conditions, the discussion is strictly in terms of how climatic conditions affect hurricane development. It does not address the political climate debate. The CPC, with NHC collaboration, issues NOAA’s seasonal hurricane outlooks. These outlooks use climatic conditions, such as ocean temperature, to establish probable hurricane numbers and strengths. It is important to note as in all NOAA’s climatic forecasts, the hurricane outlook is strictly probabilistic. I.e. the 2024 Atlantic forecast predicted an 85% chance of above normal activity, with 17-25 named storms. NHC’s final 2024 monthly summary lists 18 named storms so far and says the year’s activity was “above normal.”
NESDIS is not part of the NWS. It is a separate NOAA branch. It is puzzling why Project 2025 thinks of them as a single organization. NESDIS acquires and operates weather satellites and serves as NOAA’s data depository. On the satellite side, it figures out how to turn weather satellite data into information useful to the public. It also works with EMC to use satellite data to properly initialize EMC’s forecasting models. Like the NWS forecasters, NESDIS satellite offices work hard to provide the most accurate information they can achieve for public consumption. NESDIS’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) provide the depository for all NOAA scientific data. Project 2025 is probably referring to NCEI. NCEI has been criticized for adjusting some archival data.
Project 2025 cites a 2020 AccuWeather report to claim studies “have found that the forecasts and warnings provided by the private companies are more reliable than those provided by the NWS.” This is misleading. The study does not even mention the NWS. It compares AccuWeather to five other commercial companies. The claim commercial companies are better than the NWS is therefore, completely unfounded.
I have seen several claims online that in 2019, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) published a study stating for every dollar spent on the NWS, the country receives $73 in value. This claim is actually in the Congressional Record. I have searched exhaustively and doubt it exists. Failing to find it online, I contacted AMS to request a copy. AMS drew a blank but kindly sent me a different, comprehensive, study, published last year. It does not reach the same “value added” result, but concludes the public is quite satisfied with NWS forecasts. It uses a modified contingent valuation method to statistically estimate the public’s “willingness to pay” for NWS forecasts. The basis was a 2022 survey. The basic finding is people who use NWS forecasts are willing to pay about 900 tax dollars per year, with lower bound of about $700/year and upper bound of $1300/year. Multiplying these by the number of people who use NWS forecasts — about 114 million — the result is a total annual value ranging $795 million to $1.48 billion. The NWS FY22 budget request was $1.33 billion. It looks like the public is getting the value it expects from the National Weather Service. How many other federal organizations can say that?
Project 2025’s argument to restructure the NWS is not convincing. If DOGE used Project 2025 as its guidance for analyzing NOAA, it needs to rethink its approach.
In 2017, Broderick submitted written evidence to a Parliamentary Select Committee, concerning his research into the impact of EVs on the UK electricity distribution network:
I covered Steve Broderick’s research a few years ago, but it is now doubly relevant:
In 2017, Broderick submitted written evidence to a Parliamentary Select Committee, concerning his research into the impact of EVs on the UK electricity distribution network:
Written evidence from Stephen Broderick (EVD0062)
Basis of Opinion: This is my doctoral research area at Southampton University. The work is as yet incomplete (I am in my final year). To research the topic, I have developed a system able to simulate, study and manage networks with EVs undertaking various trip duties. Further, the below is informed opinion based on observing / modelling likely UK situations but not proven in practice.
Comments are the authors own and relate to home charging of EVs on existing Low Voltage (LV mains) distribution networks.
Summary: The UK Distribution network “as is” is adequate for immediate needs but will be substantively overtaxed by unconstrained EV home charging (by up to 7:1), for EVs draw c. 7 kW for hours. These issues follow uptake of EVs i.e. minimal at first then overwhelming as years pass.
Consequences will depend on local circumstances, but have potential to include:
• power cuts (overloads of supply equipment => power equipment “blowing fuses”)
• brownouts (loss of sufficient voltage) potentially causing:
◦ home appliance damage and
◦ household fires
• potentially, a move to restrict EVs to (say) 1 in 7 homes.
Two general methods are seen to alleviate these situations:
reinforcement of the networks (asset replacement) – expensive, slow, disruptive
use of a control system capable of managing EV home charging.
Further, the EVs would need to obey the issued commands; this is not assured.
Note that the ICT / SG method does not provide a complete solution, but is expected to defer major costs for decades.
Background information to assist the reader:
A brief summary of technical terms is appended.
The UK “electricity grid” is a set of millions of connected components, individually selected to affordably perform a given goal. These parts have been installed in an as-needed / piecemeal manner since c. 1900. Many parts date from the 1950 / 1960’s
The grid can be broken into 3 main sections:
Supply (the making of electricity)
Transmission (sending electricity at high voltage around the country e.g. National Grid)
Distribution (of power at medium and low voltage to customers e.g. “mains” 230 V)
Many papers have been published concerning EVs and “the grid”; however most relate to US networks – similar to the UK only at higher levels. The lower Distribution level is different, so to meet the challenges of different situations.
• US: adequate (occasionally challenged) Generation and Transmission. Strong Distribution which can provide 8 – 14 kW to each home simultaneously, the major load being Air Conditioning.
• The US Distribution system typically uses many “near-home” local transformers each supplying 1 – 4 houses.
• UK: adequate Generation, strong Transmission. Adequate Distribution (for present loads) able to provide 1 – 2 kW to each home simultaneously.
• The UK Distribution system typically uses a small number of “substations” with a transformer, each supplying 1 – 100’s of houses.
Reiterating the US / UK difference in Distribution capability:
◦ US: 8 – 14 kW per home, able to sustain peak loads for long periods vs.
◦ UK: 1 – 2 kW per home on average, able to support occasional higher loads due to averaging over many customers
Most published papers originate from the US so silently assume the US model. However, the respective Distribution networks have quite different characteristics.
* * * Overseas studies and experience-based advice may not relate to the UK.
Some Numbers:
a) there are about 250,000 Distribution networks in the UK, each of individual nature;
b) the design of these has historically been guided by a measure called “ADMD” which has been set variously to c. 1 to 2 kW per supplied home. This is a statistical measure and assumes customers take random loads at random times;
c) to drive an “average” day’s distance (c. 27 mpd) an EV consumes c. 9 kWh at the wheel;
d) (at the time of writing) batteries loose c. 8% on charging and the same on discharging; the inverter electronics lose a similar percentage;
e) the daily average EV power draw (at the home charging point) is then consumed power plus losses i.e.
9 * 1.08 * 1.08 * 1.08 = 11.3 kWh
Other aspects cause losses; 12 kWh is a reasonable “EV supply average daily demand”.
f) driving distances are, in general, dependant on location / nearness to a city. RAC studies suggest the following mileage ratios:
City : Urban : Rural of 1 : 1.4 : 2 (i.e. country dwellers drive twice as far as those in the city)
g) a modern EV home charger draws 7 kW.
A 100 Home Illustration
A 100-home development built in 2017 has an LV distribution network fitted to supply 150 kW simultaneously. An overload of c. 50% is possible for up to 8 hours (following this a period of cooling / low load is necessary). This network includes:
• substation (with transformer and switching)
• in-road cabling (3-phase 230 V per phase)
which has an asset value of c. £ 30 – 45 k.
If 100 EVs arrive in the evening and start to charge, the peak load is 700 kW and the distribution assets go into immediate substantive overload.
However, the EVs require (on average) 100 * 12 kWh => 1,200 kWh of energy, which if supplied in a staggered manner over 10 hours is 120 kW continuous load thus doable.
This suggests that a local rationing or management system (able to pace demand intelligently) would help. A simplified version of this was successfully trialled in 2015 (My Electric Avenue).
Yet this has ignored the usual demand of the households; in winter they will need power for home use. In extremis, it may be necessary to upgrade (reinforce) local substations and cables.
Such reinforcement includes:
• replacing the transformer
• digging up the road and relaying cables
• a spend of c. £45 k per 100 served homes i.e.
25 million * £ 450 = £11.25 billion (approx assets costs; a “broad-brush” estimate)
Which, after manpower costs plus profit is added may be perhaps x 2 or x3 as much.
Note that the politics to this fall into three sections:
the money – who pays?
the inconvenience, primarily digging up the roads to relay cables (especially in cities)
the manpower – with the best will in the world, this is a project which may take a decade or more – with present manpower. To achieve this faster requires more hands.
Hence, a new generation of electrical engineers and technicians are needed.
The initial threat though is simultaneous arrival and charging; even with 1 in 7 of homes having an EV the system is at full capacity in the early evening.
NOTE This ignores home-heating by Heat Pumps (HP) scheduled from c. 2040 on as part of the UK’s CO2 minimisation initiative.
** HP alone impose more load than EVs; immediate reinforcement will be necessary **
In short, Broderick states that the vast majority of homes distribution networks provide on average between 1 and 2 kW to each home.
If every home on the network switches on their 7 kW EV chargers at the same time, the system will be quickly overloaded. Even if EV charging is staggered over a ten hour period, there will be little spare capacity for other uses – not least heat pumps, which the government wants us to run at night as they would cripple the grid if all switched in early morning.
The only robust solution is to embark on a rapid upgrade of the nation’s distribution grid, but it is clearly now much too late to have this ready in time for the EV rollout.
Remember that when Broderick submitted his evidence, the petrol ban was still set for 2040. He has also pointed out that his figures of EV demand are probably understated, because EVs have become heavier in the interim and don’t allow for electric vans. There is also the proliferation of two and three car households, who may want to charge all their EVs.
The only alternative suggested is to use smart charging to stagger EV charging – in effect a local rationing system. I understand that there may be provisions to do this when there is a shortage of power on the grid, but this does not seem to extend to the local level rationing which would be needed.
In any event, if drivers are faced with the prospect of not having their car fully charged next morning, I suspect many will simply resort to bypassing their smart chargers.
Since Broderick’s report to Parliament, nothing actually appears to have been done.
But within ten years, most of the cars on the road will be electric, by which time this problem will become real and widespread.
Britain faces years of industrial decline as net zero sends factory energy prices rocketing, economists have warned.
Manufacturing sector on track for three years of falling employment.
Britain faces years of industrial decline as net zero sends factory energy prices rocketing, economists have warned.
EY Item Club said Britain’s manufacturing sector was on track for three years of falling employment in the face of energy costs that are four times as high as those in the US, and 50pc more than those paid by factories in France and Germany. The Telegraph has the story.
Factory output is also expected to shrink by 0.6pc this year, the influential forecaster predicted.
Peter Arnold, the UK chief economist at EY, said the sky-high energy costs were the result of running down fossil fuels without a reliable replacement.
He said: “UK businesses currently pay the highest electricity prices in the developed world. This has been driven by high and volatile global energy prices, particularly for gas, which has left the UK exposed given its reliance on gas for electricity and heating and combined with declining oil and gas production, has not been helpful for prices.
“The UK has invested heavily in renewables like wind and solar, but these are intermittent, as opposed to say nuclear power, and this can also increase pricing volatility.”
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is racing to move Britain towards an entirely clean energy system by 2030, necessitating a switch to energy sources that are quicker to construct than nuclear – such as wind and solar.
Mr Miliband has argued that breaking Britain’s reliance on oil and gas will ultimately lower energy bills. However, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, and industrialist Sir Jim Ratcliffe have both blamed net zero policies for surging prices.
Sir Jim, the Ineos boss, warned in January that Britain’s chemicals industry was facing “extinction” because of high energy bills and the shift to net zero. After Ineos closed down a synthetic ethanol centre in Scotland because of carbon taxes and energy costs, Sir Jim said: “We are witnessing the extinction of one of our major industries as chemical manufacture has the life squeezed out of it.”
Ms Badenoch said the UK’s goal to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is “impossible” and risks “bankrupting” the country.
She said in a speech this week: “Our success at reducing emissions has also come at a significant cost: the highest electricity bills in the developed world.”
Only a few wealthy countries have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing what they call “renewable energy” in the name of “carbon-free electricity” that is unreliable and weather dependent. Yet, despite picking our pockets through taxes and borrowing to support humongous subsidies for wind and solar, our direct costs are rising for electricity, our electric grid is becoming more failure-prone, and we still live with a monopolistic system called utilities of marketing electricity.
Cooling towers emit vapor into the night sky at a nuclear power plant operated by EON SE in Grohnde, Germany, on Wednesday, Aug. 07, 2013. Germany’s air pollution is set to worsen for a second year, the first back-to-back increase since at least the 1980s, after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to shut nuclear plants led utilities to burn more coal. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Only a few wealthy countries have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing what they call “renewable energy” in the name of “carbon-free electricity” that is unreliable and weather dependent. Yet, despite picking our pockets through taxes and borrowing to support humongous subsidies for wind and solar, our direct costs are rising for electricity, our electric grid is becoming more failure-prone, and we still live with a monopolistic system called utilities of marketing electricity.
There is nothing more critical to our quality of life than all the 6,000 products made from oil derivatives manufactured from raw crude oil and continuous and uninterruptible electricity. So, what good has all our tax money done for everyday citizens to ease their lives as those renewables only generate electricity but CANNOT make any products demanded by our materialistic society?
The best way to ensure delivery and low prices of electricity for our materialistic society is a free enterprise system free of useless and expensive regulations. So why are we allowing electricity to be marketed to us in the most expensive and precarious way imaginable?
We have pointed out that nuclear power, when marketed in a levelized free-enterprise system with fair laws for all, is by far the cheapest way to produce electricity that is safe, continuous, uninterruptible, emission-free, and utilizes the least amount of the earth’s natural resources to generate that electricity.
Yet, we continue to trust wealthy country governments’ intervention (remember you pay for all government expenditures) when the result is higher prices, less safe delivery systems, and effectively no lowering of pollution from poorer developing countries. Common sense would tell us that something is wrong.
All of us should be environmentalists at heart. Our daily purchases and actions should contribute to the preservation of clean air and water on the planet. Yet, we also care about our quality of life and our peaceful existence on this planet. So, we make compromises. One such compromise would be to ensure that any replacement for electricity production would be better than what we abandoned. We would also prefer not to abandon an existing solution until an even better solution comes along.
Nuclear power has earned the reputation of being the safest industry in the world. Not a single person has been harmed by a commercial nuclear power plant under normal operation in more than 70 years. About 10% of the world’s electricity and about 20% of the US electricity is produced with nuclear power. That is a lot of production, and such a safety record is certainly worth noting.
Before you write letters, nobody was harmed in Three-Mile Island or Fukushima from a failed reactor, and Chernobyl was not under normal operation when it failed. Perspective is based on perception, and we want to present this perception since so many people seem to believe differently.
Why is your perception so important? If fear drives your perspective, you may tolerate more expensive or environmentally destructive methods of power production that are not to your advantage. This attitude is especially devastating in a monopolistic market in which you are not free to choose the merchant you think is best. You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit. But we are not kindergarten children; we are thinking, discerning consumers, right?
A common-sense approach would be to have all production facilities in place before we start shutting down existing, perfectly good facilities. We should not change over until we get a cheaper price on the new commodity. Since electricity delivered on the grid is all the same, why would we pay more for something we could get cheaper? Yet, our electricity prices have skyrocketed of late on top of our being forced to expend our hard-earned tax money as well.
We have shown in other articles that recycling slightly used nuclear fuel (SUNF) from existing stockpiles could produce such a volume of electricity that it would be delivered at around a penny per kWh. It is safer, more compact, more available, cleaner, and less imposing than all other forms of electricity generation. Since we are constantly producing more SUNF than we can use, it is also renewable. We still need petroleum for most of the products in our society that did not exist 200 years ago, and aviation, gasoline, and diesel fuels for transportation infrastructure since it is also compact and widely available. So, why are we paying trillions of dollars in subsidies for more expensive and less available electricity? Shouldn’t that be a consumer choice?
Unlike those living in Russia and China, US citizens have a direct choice of who our leaders are. Over the last 60 years, they have bankrupted our treasury while making our quality of life lower, at least in our most important factor, electricity. It may be time to demand a return to free enterprise and away from artificial fear to improve our lives. Consider this perspective and make your desires known. No politician can stand up to popular demand.
For once, let us drive demand instead of being told what we are going to suffer with. Nothing will improve world quality of life in developing countries like free or penny per-kWh electric power and access to the more than 6,000 products being enjoyed by those in the wealthier developed countries. Nuclear technology is here, and we have the time to innovate without disrupting our lives if we only demand our right to free enterprise in electricity production and delivery. We only need the shackles of government subsidy and overregulation to be released to allow it to happen.
“Lisa Sachs repeated refusal to address intellectual diversity and the need for balanced debate on open climate questions speak for themselves. It is climate propaganda at Columbia U.”
“Lisa Sachs repeated refusal to address intellectual diversity and the need for balanced debate on open climate questions speak for themselves. It is climate propaganda at Columbia U.”
Yesterday’s post focused on Lisa Sachs, Director of Columbia Climate School’s Masters in Climate Finance. What is the course, and what is missing from a scholarly viewpoint? First, the parent’s Mission Statement:
The Columbia Climate School’s mission is to further knowledge and educate leaders to achieve equitable and just solutions to the changing climate and related sustainability challenges.
Education: The Columbia Climate School educates future climate leaders to address the urgent challenges facing our planet with graduate degree programs and offers other powerful learning opportunities for students, educators, and professionals.
Research: The Columbia Climate School nurtures and supports innovative research in the science, consequences, and human dimensions of climate change, including the methods of achieving a more sustainable and just world.
Impact: The Columbia Climate School translates its academic work into evidence-based analysis and advice to inform decision- and policy-makers in communities, governments, industries, and nonprofits in the US and globally.
Professor Sachs’ course is described on the Columbia Climate School’s website:
The Master of Science (MS) in Climate Finance is a one-year, 39-credit professional degree program offered by the Columbia Climate School in close collaboration with the Columbia Business School. This interdisciplinary degree integrates climate science with fundamental financial management practices that equip students with the financial decision-making skills to respond to climate change.
Equipped with a robust understanding of climate science, and the costs, risks and opportunities associated with climate change, graduates will be uniquely suited for senior positions in public, private, and intergovernmental institutions, navigating their organizations to success while supporting a more rigorous and coherent approach to climate finance more generally.
Comment
This all sounds reasonable, but where is the “first, check your premises” caveat? Greater speed to the wrong destination is not a virtue, as the late founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Fred Smith, stated. Path dependency and “the tyranny of the status quo” in climate research and understanding can ruin a student’s time and subsequent career path.
Lisa Sachs repeated refusal to address intellectual diversity and the need for balanced debate on open climate questions speak for themselves. It is climate propaganda at Columbia U.
Appendix: Climate Realism Resources
There is no substitute for a climate degree program to not have a critic of the narrative of alarm and forced energy transition. One or more such professors can both teach courses and be a resource for students who are taking activist/alarmist courses. The “power of opposites” is very effective learning.
A second recommendation is to have debates for students between CO2/climate optimists and pessimists. In person or on Zoom. This is not nearly as good as having opposing professors, but it is necessary to reduce the present bias.
2025 isn’t just the current year, or a Heritage Foundation project of conservative principles for political action for the new Republican President. In the 1990s it was also the result of an Air Force directive to “examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future“.
Fig. 1. “Study of Cirrus Clouds”, painting by John Constable, circa 1822. Cirrus as a cloud type was first defined by Luke Howard in 1802.
2025 isn’t just the current year, or a Heritage Foundation project of conservative principles for political action for the new Republican President. In the 1990s it was also the result of an Air Force directive to “examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future“.
As a partial response to that directive, several students at the Air War College in 1996 produced a document, largely theoretical in content, entitled Weather As a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025. That document, which was declassified in 1998, seems to have provided sufficient evidence some people needed to claim that our government has been secretly modifying the weather, altering the atmosphere, poisoning us with chemicals, or whatever else you can think of.
Now, as a general rule, I’m not against conspiracy theories. For example, it has become clear that experts knew early on that the COVID-19 virus likely did indeed come from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, and one might reasonably conclude there was a conspiracy to hide such evidence. Even the New York Times says we were misled. Conspiracies exist.
But not everything we see in the world that we perceive as a threat is the result of a conspiracy, and some people are just easily triggered by what they see. Many years ago I attended a local town hall meeting where a congressional candidate was speaking. During the Q&A period, an appropriately-attired biker dude got up and wanted to know what the candidate was going to do about all of the “chemtrails” the biker saw in the skies above him as he traveled around the country. The candidate provided a an appropriately vague and soothing response.
So, how did this “chemtrail” theory arise?
It seems to be a combination of peoples’ misunderstanding of the clouds they see in the sky combined with increasing distrust in our government, fueled by the 2025 Air Force study alluded to above. It also seems to be exacerbated by lesser standards of math and science education in recent decades, leading to a new generation of adults who can not critically examine claims made by others.
Contrail Production by Jet Aircraft is Well Understood
For those of us who know meteorology, those visible cloud streaks left behind travelling jets are “contrails” (condensation trails), produced during the combustion of jet fuel. The chemistry of jet fuel combustion is well understood, which includes the by-products of that combustion. During combustion, 1 kg of jet fuel produces about 1.3 kg of water (hydrogen in the fuel combines with oxygen from the atmosphere to produce H2O, water). That water exits the jet engine as water vapor in such high concentrations at extremely cold temperatures (around generally -30 to -50 deg. F) that there is much more water than the atmosphere can hold without condensation (cloud formation) occurring.
As a result, trails of cirrus clouds (contrails) are produced. Depending upon the relative humidity (RH) of the surrounding environmental air, those contrails can either rapidly evaporate (if RH is very low), leaving essentially no visible evidence, or can persist and even expand in coverage for many hours if the RH is high. In a high RH environment, jet-produced cirrus can actually scavenge water vapor from the surrounding atmosphere, causing continued growth of the contrails.
Fig. 2. Four-engine contrails produced by jet aircraft. Different illumination situations can change the contrail appearance, just as is the case with natural cirrus clouds (source).
The presence of wind shear (changing wind direction or speed with height) can cause distortion of the resulting clouds into myriad shapes. Often, the resulting jet-produced cirrus clouds are not easily distinguishable from natural cirrus clouds produced by weather systems; other times they are easily distinguishable. Literally as I was writing this, I took a picture out my office window showing both natural and jet-produced cirrus clouds.
Fig. 3. Natural and jet-produced cirrus clouds at sunrise, Huntsville, Alabama, 19 March 2025.
But when, and why, did the “chemtrail” conspiracy theory theory gain traction? And why does it persist today? The theory posits that the visual trails of condensed water vapor seen behind jet aircraft operating at high altitudes in reality represent the spraying of chemicals for some nefarious purpose(s). I routinely see comments on X and Facebook from people alarmed at the “chemtrails” they see. Those evil purposes of chemtrail production range from geoengineering (purposely changing the climate) to mind control and the spread of sickness that can be treated by pharmaceutical companies to increase their profits. Many weather experts have tried to debunk these ideas, for example Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington.
Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025
So, does the U.S. Air Force now own the weather in 2025, as predicted in the 1996 report? Of course not. Most of the theoretically possible technologies in that report for either clearing clouds, or creating clouds, in the battlefield did not exist in the 1990s. The report is full of pie-in-the-sky concepts, including cloud seeding to produce precipitation (the subject of much civilian research in recent decades), but admits “artificial weather technologies do not currently exist. But as they are developed, the importance of their potential applications rises rapidly.”
Yes, there have been experiments (mainly civilian) extending back to the 1950s involving seeding clouds to get them to precipitate. This involved dropping a chemical, such as dry ice or silver iodide crystals, to help convert super-cooled water droplets into precipitation. Project Stormfury, started in the 1960s, researched seeding hurricanes in the periphery to reduce the intensity of the central part of the cyclone, which is where most of the damaging winds and storm surge occur. But the idea was abandoned when it was realized hurricanes already convert almost all of the condensed cloud into precipitation anyway, without any help from humans.
This isn’t to say that it is impossible to seed clouds and produce precipitation, at least on a very localized basis in specific weather situations. But the research results have been mixed, and generally speaking, unless a cloud is getting ready to precipitate anyway, seeding doesn’t do much to the cloud, except make it precipitate sooner rather than later. People have a greatly exaggerated perception of what humans can do to purposely impact weather processes.
Now, I’m not privy to any weather modification technologies that DoD might have in the works. But after nearly a half-century of working in weather and climate, I can tell you there is little we can do to affect weather, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Let’s examine the AF report example of creating or clearing clouds in the battlefield. Imagine a wartime situation where the AF wants to clear a cloud (or fog) to allow precision visual identification of a target for bombing. Theoretically, this could be done with a powerful microwave directed-beam energy source (maybe from a special aircraft flying just ahead of a missile-carrying aircraft) to temporarily evaporate the cloud water. To give some idea of the energy that would be required to do that, we can compute how much energy is required to evaporate a path of fog having dimensions of 100x100x100 meters having a liquid water content of 0.1 grams water per kg of air. Assuming maybe 25% or so of the directed microwave beam energy will go into heating air and evaporating the liquid water, one can estimate the energy required of such a directed-beam device would be around 1 billion Watts (1 billion Joules of energy produced for 1 second). This is indeed in the realm of the estimated power output of DoD directed beam energy sources, at least from the ground. I have no idea whether such a large energy source could be produced by an aircraft.
But, even if the Air Force could, would they even want to? I’m pretty sure smart weapons now exist which have passive microwave technology allowing a target to be seen through relatively modest cloud cover.
So, What About Chemtrails? And Geoengineering?
As far as I can tell, the AF report cited above does not mention technologies that would disperse chemicals through jet exhaust (or other aircraft orifices). Besides, if such chemtrails exist, they are spreading their “chemicals” over everyone, including the families of the people conspiring to cause chemtrails.
Why would anyone do that?
Isolated photos do exist of jets dumping fuel, which comes out of different special wing ports, away from the engines. Sometimes this is cited as evidence of chemicals being spread for nefarious purposes. But this “fuel jettisoning” is a rare occurrence, usually in emergency situations, and is estimated to occur less than once per 100,000 commercial flights.
But there has been lots of research into whether jet contrails inadvertently affect climate, which would be a case of accidental geoengineering. Contrails reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface (a cooling effect), but that is more than offset by their reduction in the infrared (IR) cooling of the climate system, leading to a net heating. The best estimates are that global jet traffic produces less than 0.1 Watt per sq. meter of net radiative heating of the climate system, which is in the noise level (by comparison, natural solar heating and infrared cooling of the global-average climate system is ~240 Watts per sq. meter). Locally, where there is lots of air traffic, that value goes up to possibly 0.5 Watts per sq. meter, which is probably still not detectable in the presence of natural variations in temperature. An early study of the temperature effects of a jet traffic shutdown after 9/11 were later debunked by a subsequent study.
Now, what IS being discussed is the possibility of carrying large quantities of sulfur into the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere) to produce sulfur dioxide aerosols in an attempt to slightly reduce incoming sunlight and so partially offset global warming. This is an example of what “geoengineering” usually refers to. This would require huge amounts of sulfur compounds and many jet flights to even come close to the natural cooling effects of a major volcanic eruption, the most recent example of which was the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. That eruption injected an estimated 15-20 million tons of SO2 into the stratosphere, which resulted in cool-ish summers over Northern Hemisphere land areas in 1992. Personally, I don’t ever see this happening because there would be too much public resistance to the idea.
But no one bats an eye when Mother Nature does it.
And the few news reports you see where supposed experiments involving the ground-level release of a few kg of sulfur compounds to test the idea of altering clouds are laughable. The EPA estimates that in 2023, 1.7 million tons of SO2 were released in the U.S. from anthropogenic sources. That is over 9 million pounds per day. Compare that to the “experimental” release of a few pounds by some headline-grabbing “researchers”. As I said… laughable.
A Major Reason for the Hysteria: Jet Contrails are Visible
Chemtrail hysteria would not exist if not for the fact that jet contrails are visible. Cars and trucks also produce huge amounts of water vapor, which is sometimes seen as condensed water in cold or high-RH conditions. The reason they don’t persist is that at the temperatures and air pressures present at ground level, the air can hold orders of magnitude more water vapor without cloud formation than jet-altitude air can hold.
But no one accuses car drivers (or car manufacturers) of purposely poisoning our air with chemicals, do they?
Yes, cars produce some chemicals as a by-product of combustion (all invisible), and through EPA regulations some of those chemicals have been greatly reduced with new fuel formulations, engine design changes, and catalytic converters. But cars are never blamed for producing chemtrails because, generally speaking, we never see those emissions (including the water vapor emissions). But we DO see jet contrails.
Finally, one part of the problem is that our public education system has produced too many science-illiterate adults. They are susceptible to crazy ideas spread by attention- (and money-) seeking charlatans, some of whom might be convinced that a chemtrail conspiracy exists. Too many people today seem to be incapable of independent, critical thought.
After all, who would doubt evidence such as this?:
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