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.
The Met Office has kindly told us how to stay safe when it’s windy!
1. Protecting your property from damage and other people from injury
Don’t risk injury to others or damage to your property. Check for loose items outside your home and plan how you could secure them in high winds. Items include:
bins
plant pots
garden furniture (bring inside or secure in place)
trampolines (turn upside down or secure with tent pegs)
sheds (ensure doors are locked)
2. Things you can do before a journey
Windy weather can cause delays and make driving conditions dangerous. Follow these few simple steps to prepare before journeys:
Plan your route, check for delays and road closures
Listen out for travel updates on your car radio/sat nav
If you don’t have essentials in your car then pack for the worst (warm clothing, food, drink, blanket, torch)
Take a fully charged mobile phone with an in-car charger or battery pack
3. Driving safely in strong wind
Driving in these conditions can be dangerous, for yourself and other road users. If you must drive, you can do this more safely by:
Driving slowly to minimise the impact of wind gusts
Be aware of high sided vehicles/caravans on more exposed roads
Be cautious overtaking high sided vehicles/caravans
Make sure you hold the steering wheel firmly
Give cyclists, motorcyclists, lorries and buses more room than usual
If you live or work on the coast, take extra care during windy and stormy weather. Keep yourself and others safe by following these simple steps:
Check the forecasts and tides in your local area here
Beware of large waves, even from the shore large breaking waves can sweep you off your feet and out to sea
Take care if walking near cliffs – know your route and keep dogs on a lead
In an emergency 999 (UK) or 112 (Ireland) and ask for the Coastguard
5. Avoiding injury if you’re out and about
Being outside in high winds makes you more vulnerable to injury. Stay indoors as much as possible. If you do go out, try not to walk or shelter close to buildings and trees.
Be prepared for weather warnings to change quickly. When a weather warning is issued, stay up to date with the weather in your area.
This week, three outlets – The Guardian, NPR, and Politico – ran near-identical stories on what they claim is a Trump administration “crackdown” on climate language inside the U.S. Department of Energy. At issue: an internal email to staff at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the branch that doles out billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind, solar, and other “green” projects.
This week, three outlets – The Guardian, NPR, and Politico – ran near-identical stories on what they claim is a Trump administration “crackdown” on climate language inside the U.S. Department of Energy. At issue: an internal email to staff at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the branch that doles out billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind, solar, and other “green” projects.
The supposed controversy? Staff were told to avoid buzzwords like “climate change,” “green,” “sustainable,” “emissions,” “decarbonization,” “clean energy,” and “energy transition” in official documents.
Cue the outrage machine.
The Guardian framed it as part of a “post-truth” assault on the “climate crisis,” quoting anonymous staffers warning that the DOE is “silencing science”.
NPR emphasized that the language ban extends to funding requests and websites, calling it an effort to “restrict access to information”.
Politico called it the latest attempt to “downplay the realities of climate change”.
Of course, DOE press secretary Ben Dietderich flatly denied there’s any directive against using those words, stating:
“There is no directive at the Energy Department instructing employees to avoid using phrases such as ‘climate change’ or ‘emissions.’ President Trump and Secretary Wright remain committed to transparency and fostering an open, honest dialogue about climate science”.
So which is it?
On one hand, bureaucrats say they got an email telling them to trim their vocabulary. On the other, DOE leadership denies it’s policy. In reality, this looks less like censorship and more like political reframing: Washington word-policing to avoid loaded terminology that’s become shorthand for policy activism rather than objective science.
Consider: “climate change” today is less a scientific descriptor than a rallying cry. Likewise, “decarbonization” and “energy transition” are not neutral words – they’re policy prescriptions dressed up as inevitabilities. DOE officials may be saying, “Let’s focus on the engineering and economics, not the slogans.”
And it’s not like past administrations didn’t play the same semantic game. Under Obama and Biden, “global warming” was phased out in favor of “climate change,” then “climate crisis,” then “climate emergency.” Words are weapons in policy battles. What’s new is simply who’s choosing which ones to avoid.
Meanwhile, the media is treating this as if banning a few buzzwords will stop hurricanes, wildfires, or sea level rise. It won’t. But it might stop government reports from reading like Greenpeace press releases – and that’s probably the point.
The DOE’s role should be clear: fund energy R&D that works, not promote loaded climate narratives. If that means a little less “decarbonization” rhetoric and a little more technical focus, maybe that’s a feature, not a bug.
Another day, another Guardian article pushing net zero, by virtue of yet another report specifically commissioned by a charity for just that purpose. Today’s headline is “Biomethane not viable for widespread use in UK home heating, report finds – Gas derived from farm waste can meet only 18% of current gas demand by 2050, despite claims of fossil fuel lobbyists, study finds”.
Another day, another Guardian article pushing net zero, by virtue of yet another report specifically commissioned by a charity for just that purpose. Today’s headline is “Biomethane not viable for widespread use in UK home heating, report finds – Gas derived from farm waste can meet only 18% of current gas demand by 2050, despite claims of fossil fuel lobbyists, study finds”.
Personally I am quite happy with my gas boiler, and am not particularly interested in replacing natural gas with biomethane. My current set-up works nicely, and my new gas boiler is efficient. I just want to be left alone, without pressure to replace my current perfectly satisfactory home heating arrangements, whether by replacing natural gas with methane, or by ripping out my new gas boiler and replacing it with an electric heat pump.
What, then, is this latest report , and why am I bothered about it? It runs to 59 pages, and has been prepared by Regen at the behest of the MCS Foundation.
Regen
According to its website:
Regen provides independent, evidence-led insight and advice in support of our mission to transform the UK’s energy system for a net zero future. We focus on analysing the systemic challenges of decarbonising power, heat and transport. We know that a transformation of this scale will require engaging the whole of society in a just transition.
No surprises there, then. But who (or what) are they? It takes a little bit of work (but not much) to find out. Regen’s website has a little note tucked away at its foot, saying that Regen is “a trading name of RegenSW” and its company number (04554636) is supplied. Wikipedia tells us that “Regen is a not-for-profit organisation which promotes renewable energy and energy efficiency across the UK.” It also says that it was funded by the South West of England Regional Development Agency, until that agency was abolished in March 2012. Since then, funding has come from subscription-based membership and partner organisations, advisory work, and grant funding. Its most recent accounts are made up to the year ended 31st March 2024, but they are small companies accounts, and they tell us very little. (As a small company, its financial statements include this: “…the income statement has been omitted from the filing copy of the financial statements…”.). Certainly we learn nothing about its sources of funding, and we don’t know who is paying it grant money. We do learn that it now employs 40 people rather than the 37 it employed in the previous year.
There is nothing wrong with such short-form accounts – they comply fully with the legislation. Fortunately, its website is considerably more forthcoming (and furthermore it is rather swish). Its Membership Directory can be found here, and it lists a significant number of organisations. In urging local authorities to become a Regen member, it says:
Our members help us to be a strong, informed and independent force for change. Together we’re transforming the UK’s energy system for a zero-carbon future, driving change in policy[my emphasis] and regulation to remove the key barriers facing the transition.
We have finally got to the point. This is what annoys me. Lobby group after lobby group, vested interest after vested interest seeking to influence policy, seeking to double down on net zero, regardless of what the public wants. Its basic membership fee of £1,200+VAT (or “core” membership, as Regen describes it), is “for those organisations at the heart of the energy system who want to stay informed, connected and influential” [my emphasis]. The basic enhanced package (£1,350 + VAT) offers “…exclusive access to storage-specific insights, events and advocacy” [my emphasis]. The irony isn’t lost on me that another recent Guardian article includes this in its headline: “Labour must fight rightwing billionaires undermining net zero, says Ed Miliband”.
The MCS Foundation
The Report was written by Regen staff, but it was commissioned by the MCS Foundation. In the introduction to the report, it claims this about itself:
The MCS Foundation drives positive change to decarbonise homes, heat and energy. It commissions robust, independent research that informs and shapes better decision making to drive a carbon-free future for all UK homes.
“Independent” strikes me as a much-abused word when it comes to lobbying for net zero. I refer readers to Jit’s piece in January 2023 pointing out how Chris Skidmore’s “independent” review of net zero was anything but independent, since it was carried out by a net zero cheer-leader. Regen’s report strikes me as being “independent” in the way that Mr Skidmore’s review for the then Tory government was independent – i.e. it isn’t.
The MCS Foundation is the operating name of the MCS Charitable Foundation, a UK registered charity. I think there’s a strong argument that organisations like this shouldn’t enjoy charitable status at the expense of the UK taxpayer. I had a go at this subject in Big Green Charity. There is even a section of the website devoted to campaigns. Should charities enjoy tax perks to enable them to engage in “policy and advocacy work” with regard to net zero issues, as The MCS Foundation does? Some would say so, but I don’t think it’s appropriate.
The “about” section of the website says this:
In the face of today’s climate emergency, we know that a carbon free future for UK homes is vital – for our communities, our country and our planet. This is a future where everyone has access to reliable and affordable renewable energy in homes that are warm and efficient. Making this happen as quickly as possible drives all our work.
We were founded to oversee the MCS standards scheme which certifies the quality of renewable energy across UK homes….
I wondered what sort of official status the MCS standards scheme enjoys and also who founded the MCS Foundation to oversee it. Is this realistically an appropriate role for a charity? Well, according to its most recent accounts it seems the then Labour Government thought so:
The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) plays an important part in the growth of the installation of renewables in homes and small businesses. It was set up by the Government in 2008 to certify buildings-scale renewable electricity and heat products and installers, to provide assurance to consumers about the quality and standard of their installation. The Government transferred the assets comprising MCS, as well as the MCS Fund (the historical profits from the operation of the Scheme) to the MCS Charitable Foundation on 25 April 2018. [More on this below].
The Charity Commission enables us to learn more about the MCS Foundation here. It has 76 employees, of whom seven earn £60,000-£70,000 per annum; three earn £80,000-£90,000; one earns £120,000-£130,000; and one earns £130,000-£140,000 per annum. Charities, it seems, are now a lucrative business providing some with a lucrative income.
I didn’t previously know this:
The Foundation and the Service Company executive teams continued to develop during the year, reflecting the growing ambitions of the Group and the increasing income levels. In July 2024, the previous CEO of the Foundation resigned after being elected MP for Waveney Valley…
And who is the newly-elected MP for Waveney Valley? It’s Adrian Ramsay, the Green Party MP who was deputy leader of the Green Party from 2008 to 2012 and co-leader of the party between 2021 and 2025. The world of net zero is full of connections and links, it seems. It can also enjoy more financial benefits from the taxpayer than just privileged tax status. Although the Foundation’s ongoing income seems to be almost entirely generated by its trading subsidiary, it did enjoy a healthy bonus from the UK taxpayer under the last Tory government:
The significant sum received from The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (“BEIS”) in the year ended 31 March 2019 (£6,649,610) was intended to fund the Foundation to deliver its charitable objects over a number of years.
Conclusion
As always, everything we see here is lawful and above-board, and sufficiently transparent that a little digging on my part has enabled me to convey the information set out above. Almost certainly everyone involved with the report which triggered my interest, and with the two organisations involved with it, are decent people who mean well.
My concern is that charitable status now embraces activities that I do not believe should be charitable. Charities now often receive generous taxpayer funding (as well as beneficial tax status) and their senior executives often enjoy substantial salaries. Governments even expect them to perform roles which arguably should be the government’s responsibility, and charities commission reports to support their lobbying activities.
I haven’t commented on the contents of the report written by Regen at the behest of the MCS Foundation because I’m not really that interested in its rather predictable contents. Rather, I’m interested in what the act of commissioning the report reveals. Ed Miliband may rail against rightwing billionaires who he claims are undermining net zero, but I rail against charities and others who in my view are potentially undermining democracy by using government funding and charitable status to lobby for overtly political ends that are increasingly opposed by the British people.
Germany’s Klimanachrichten here publishes an article titled “The Disappearing Islands (That Don’t Want to Disappear)” summarizes findings suggesting that the widespread assumption about low-lying islands inevitably sinking due to rising sea levels is too simplistic and detached from reality.
Germany’s Klimanachrichten here publishes an article titled “The Disappearing Islands (That Don’t Want to Disappear)” summarizes findings suggesting that the widespread assumption about low-lying islands inevitably sinking due to rising sea levels is too simplistic and detached from reality.
Earlier, the media often tried to scoff at and discredit findings from inconvenient sea level experts, like Axel Mörner:
Undeniable science: Mörner et all, 2011
But today, climate alarmist media are forced to concede things are not as dire as they once believed.
74 of 101 islands are growing
The Klimanachrichten article references a ZDF documentary by journalist Johannes Hano, which notes that locals in Tuvalu aren’t fearful of climate change. A 2018 study (Paul Kench, University of Auckland) found that 74 out of 101 of Tuvalu’s islands have remained stable or have actually grown in size, despite an approximate 15 cm rise in sea level over recent decades. This is attributed to coral-derived sediments being washed onto the islands by currents and storms, increasing their area.
Maldives stable – even building airports
In the Maldives, similar conclusions are drawn. Citing a New York Times story from mid-2024. Research suggests that, generally, the islands haven’t shrunk but in some cases have grown, even as sea levels have risen.
It turns out that the Maldives government is actively expanding airports (e.g., Velana International Airport, Hanimaadhoo International Airport), which suggests doesn’t reflect an expectation of imminent demise. Yet (unsurprisingly) the country continues to demand funding from Western nations, blaming them for their potential “downfall.”
Reality shows that the simple equation of “rising sea levels = island disappearance” is naive oversimplification. Scientists suggest that some islands will shrink, others will grow, and many will remain stable.
In conclusion: The article challenges the “Science Is Settled” argument, emphasizing that science is a continuously evolving process of correction as the system complexities (long-known by skeptics) become increasingly apparent.
China’s Useful Idiot is peddling his fake news again!
From the Telegraph:
The US is in danger of losing the global AI race for the most banal and careless of reasons: it is critically short of electricity.
The country is sitting on a neglected pre-modern grid that cannot meet surging power demand for data centres, cryptocurrencies, the reshoring of semiconductor plants and the proclaimed revival of the American industrial base.
Nor can it meet the needs for air conditioning through hotter and more humid summers. While we all talk about AI, the chief cause of rising electricity use last year was for cooling.
The article itself is hopelessly confused, talking one minute about the lack of grid transmission capacity, and then the next of available generation.
It is, of course, all Donald Trump’s fault, despite the fact that the nation’s regional grids have been neglected and underinvested for decades.
But AEP’s answer to all of this is to build more wind and solar farms – “because that is what China is doing”!
As usual, AEP tries to paint China in a glowing but false light. The data shows that the share of wind and solar in the electricity mix in the two countries is very similar – 18% in China versus 17% in the US.
And building a big offshore wind farm off the New York coast, as he suggests, would not help Texas in the slightest, as there is no national grid to move the power around the country.
But America’s real problem lies in the gradual phasing out in the last few years of reliable dispatchable generation – coal and gas – partly by design and partly because of competition from subsidised renewables. Nor has there been any market incentive to build new gas power plants for the same reasons.
AI datacentres need reliable 24/7 power, which they certainly won’t get from intermittent renewables.
In the last seven days, wind power has fluctuated between 12 and 64 GW, against peak demand of 588 GW.
Meanwhile although solar power peaks at 95 GW, it drops away to nothing for 12 hours at a time in autumn.
Coal and nuclear provide about a quarter of demand as a reliable baseload. But it is only the availability of gas power that keeps the grid going at all during those times when wind and solar power fail to do the job.
But according to Grok, coal and gas power capacity have declined from 723 GW in 2010, to 685 GW in 2023:
Not a huge drop, except that demand for electricity has increased by 6% over the same period, an average of 27 GW. We therefore have in effect a shortfall of 65 GW.
Currently the grid can just about cope, but extra demand from data centres can only be met by a rapid and massive rollout of new gas power stations around the country.
A new study suggests blackouts will only happen sometimes, if we build enough batteries and overcapacity, and a hydrogen export industry.
What is ‘dunkelflaute’? And how will a new long-duration battery change Australia’s energy grid? Limondale project designed to store excess renewable power during day and dispatch when demand is high
Australia’s longest duration battery will come online this year, a major milestone as the power grid charges towards a mostly renewableenergy future.
When fully charged, the Limondale battery in south-west New South Wales will be able to pump 50MW of power back into the grid over eight hours.
…
What is ‘dunkelflaute’ and can we avoid it?
Seasonal, or deep storage (beyond 12 hours), is more like an insurance policy, a strategic reserve for managing rare but unpredictable periods when cloudy and still weather conditions persist over several days.
The phenomenon known as “dunkelflaute” (dark doldrums) is specific to highly renewable grids.
“That’s the bit that is hardest to solve,” Reeve says.
In Australia this risk is low and it can be minimised by the geographic spread of solar, wind and hydro generation, or managed with seasonal storage like pumped hydro, like Snowy 2.0.
The study which claims the risk of prolonged blackouts is low is model based, they attempt to infer real historical conditions by hind casting based on scraps of historical data.
Quantifying the risk of renewable energy droughts in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) using MERRA-2 weather data☆
Joel Gilmore, Tim Nelson, Tahlia Nolan,
Abstract
It is anticipated that Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) will be almost entirely dependent upon variable renewable energy (VRE) production in the coming decades. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and other researchers have provided detailed forecasts of the storage and firming required to ensure a secure electricity system that is supplied exclusively by VRE. However, these forecasts utilise existing VRE datasets which are often limited by historical observation given the relatively recent deployment of renewables in the Australian electricity system. This article seeks to significantly expand this analysis by building a VRE output forecast model that utilises 42 years of real-world weather data. This ‘backcasting’ approach provides data that will allow planners to far more accurately determine firming and storage requirements to overcome real-world instantaneous and medium-term production risk in a system supplied entirely by VRE resources. Our results can be used by policy makers to better plan the just transition to a renewable energy-based electricity system.Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625001134
From the body of the study, “… The end goal is a consistent weather dataset with much higher spatial resolution than can be obtained from only physical historical measurements. …”.
The authors claim a high degree of accuracy, and also claim their model avoids overfitting. The following shows one of their models back casts vs real world data.
Personally I have my doubts. Overfitting is an insidious problem with these kinds of back casting attempts, especially when you are dealing with inadequate historical data. Even if you try to keep a portion of the data isolated to test the skill of a model trained on the rest of the data, knowledge of how to overfit that allegedly isolated test data can leak into your model through repeated attempts to get the model right.
An overfit model looks deceptively good. An overfit model achieves a better score than a well trained model on the training data but fails horribly when presented with real world data which has not previously been presented to the model.
The conclusion of the study is interesting;
Through the MERRA-2 reanalysis dataset, we have undertaken a calibrated backcast of the existing VRE fleet as well as a hypothetical Future NEM fleet with greater geographical distribution. While the concept of energy droughts have received much attention, we do not find evidence of extended time periods of low VRE production in the NEM. For example, over a two-week period in the worst historical time sequence, the VRE fleet would still have delivered 70 % of the expected output once seasonal trends (e.g., winter solar production) are taken into account. A 30 % reduction in expected energy is therefore the worst two-week historical VRE drought on record.
…
Firstly, it highlights the amount of firming required. For example, consider the simplest case of flat demand across the year, and the VRE fleet were built such that average generation equalled average demand. Section 4.2 suggests the worst casefirming energy requirements would be equal to i) two-thirds of the daily average energy demand; and ii) one-third of average monthly energy demand. This firming could be delivered through conventional hydro, seasonal energy storage, or zero emissionsgas peaking units but “overbuilding” the renewable energy fleet (that is, allowing for some spilled energy over time) is also likely to be an efficient source of energy firming. The relatively flat production risk over periods longer than two weeks (Fig. 15) means technologies that can deliver additional energy over longer periods will be favoured (i.e., building additional VRE capacity and fuel based technologies such as zero emission OCGTs). A highly flexible demand side (e.g., hydrogen export industry) will support additional VRE build and provide its own source of firming.
See – we Aussies can have our glorious renewable future, all we need is to put up with a few more blackouts, create a hydrogen export industry nobody wants, build lots of renewable overcapacity, and provide just over a week (a third of a month) of firming backup capacity, either through gas plants which will sit idle and burn money most of the time, or through lots of batteries.
Of course for a fraction of the money required to ensure a week of battery backup and 2-3x renewable overcapacity we could refurbish all our coal plants and have near zero blackouts and not have to bet the farm on a hydrogen export business which does not exist, but that kind of thinking is obviously evil and wrong.
How on earth did this useless woman ever get to be PM?
From the Telegraph:
Baroness May of Maidenhead has called Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to scrap the Climate Change Act a “catastrophic mistake”.
She said: “I am deeply disappointed by this retrograde step, which upends 17 years of consensus between our main political parties and the scientific community.
“For nearly two decades, the United Kingdom has led the way in tackling climate change, initially with the Climate Change Act in 2008, and again in 2019, when we became the first G7 country to legislate to get to net zero by 2050.
“To row back now would be a catastrophic mistake, for while that consensus is being tested, the science remains the same. The harms are undeniable. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to ensure we protect the planet for their futures, and that means giving business the reassurance it needs to find the solutions for the very grave challenges we face.
“Ultimately, it is innovation and investment that will take us forward, but that can only be achieved by providing consistency and showing a clear determination to stick to the long-term path of reducing emissions, achieving net zero and protecting our planet for future generations.”
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