Patrick Moore–Fake Catastrophes
By Paul Homewood
h/t Mike Rennoldson
Dr Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has produced this very watchable video:
Will The US Climate Bill Make Any Real Difference?
By Paul Homewood
There has been a lot of hopelessly wishful thinking over the effects of the newly passed climate legislation in the US;
The US Senate has approved a sweeping $700bn (£577bn) economic package that includes major legislation on healthcare, tax and climate change.
The bill seeks to lower the cost of some medicines, increase corporate taxes and reduce carbon emissions.
The passing of the bill – a flagship part of President Joe Biden’s agenda – is a boost ahead of mid-term elections.
But it is a significantly scaled-back version of the $3.5tn package that was first proposed by his administration.
The bill also includes $369bn for climate action – the largest investment in the issue in US history.
Some households could receive up to $7,500 in tax credits to buy an electric car, or $4,000 for a used car. Billions will also be spent in an effort to speed up the production of clean technology such as solar panels and wind turbines.
There will also be $60bn given to communities that have suffered the most from fossil fuel pollution.
The authors of the bill say it will cut the country’s carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62457386?at_campaign=KARANGA&at_medium=RSS
First, a few basic observations:
- This bill has been massively slimmed down since the original proposals last year. The $368bn is spread over ten years, works out at less than 0.2% of GDP – in UK terms, that equates to about £2bn a year. This is chicken feed, given that we are already spending £12bn a year on renewable subsidies, on top of the billions more spent on EV and heat pump subsidies, grid upgrades, EV charging points and the rest of the green boondoggle – yet we are still nowhere near the emission cuts targeted.
- US federal expenditure is notorious for pork barrelling. The scope of this bill is extremely wide, and it is inevitable that tens of billons will be diverted, spent on bureaucracy or simply enrich green lobbyists.
- The BBC say “it will cut the country’s carbon emissions by 40% by 2030”, but the 40% is a cut to 2005 levels, not today’s. Currently CO2 emissions are already 20% below 2005’s, in large part because of the switch from coal to gas. Just to print such nonsense shows the BBC’s total delusion over decarbonisation – they clearly believe that it is something that is very easy and cheap to do.
- The bill focuses mainly on decarbonising the power sector and the roll out of EVs. However, in both cases it merely extends existing subsidy programmes, which have had limited effect. For instance, the $7500 EV subsidy is the same as already paid.
- What is done can be undone. It is highly likely that a future President and Congress will ratchet back on a lot of this stuff.
Now to the nitty gritty.
It is in the interest of the green lobby and Democrats to overstate cuts in emissions, as it diverts attention away from the true, horrifying costs of Net Zero. Historically, by far the most source of analysis of climate policies has been the Climate Action Tracker (CAT); they are not a sceptical group by any means, and are devoted to the green agenda.
They have not yet evaluated the new bill, but according to them, based on the “policies and actions” already in place prior to this bill, emissions are projected to decline only very slowly up to 2030, by about 5% from today’s levels. Bear in mind that these policies include all of Obama’s as well as Biden’s prior to this new bill. The 40% objective takes emissions down to 4461 MtCO2e, close to that Domestic Target, which means a cut of 30% from 2021 levels. It is wise to ask how Biden’s will achieve such a big reduction, when Obama’s own tenure managed so little in comparison:
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/
According to CAT, this is how US emissions break down:
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/policies-action/
Power Sector
Despite the billions already shovelled into renewables, wind and solar still only supply 12% of US electricity. It must be remembered that even if wind and solar are cheaper per se than fossil fuels, regional grids simply cannot forget about their imperative to have security of supply.
Let’s suppose then that this figure could double by 2030, an extremely optimistic view, emissions from the power sector may drop by about 200 MtCO2e, which is 3% of total US emissions.
EVs
Currently less than 1% of the 250 million cars, SUVs and light-duty trucks on the road in the United States are electric, with plug ins accounting for about 3% of annual sales of 17 million.
As we know in the UK, EVs are utterly unsuitable for most drivers. And a subsidy of $7500 is pretty irrelevant when the purchase price is $20000 higher than petrol. It is difficult to see why EV sales are suddenly going to take off.
Let us suppose though that the annual sales double to 1 million a year, emissions from transport might only drop by 10% at most; probably a lot less as the sector also includes HGVs etc. That would work out at a cut of 170 MtCO2e.
Biden, by the way, thinks that half of all car sales will be electric by 2030! Delusionists like him need to ask themselves why the UK is banning all conventional cars, an action that would hardly be necessary if EVs were so popular.
And the rest?
I think you can already see the problem. So far we have only got savings of 370 MtCO2e, a cut of 6% from current levels. Not the 30% targeted by this bill.
And there is very little scope for substantial savings in the other sectors.
The bill budgets for heat pump subsidies, for instance. But, again, the lesson in the UK is that houseowners are simply not interested in heat pumps, even with subsidies of £5000 on offer.
Industry too has no financial incentive to decarbonise, and the farm lobby will resist any such impositions.
Climate Action Tracker project that current policies will reduce 2030 emissions by 5% from today’s levels. This new bill might increase that cut to 10%.
Finally I want to return to the comment I made earlier.
The BBC consistently underplay the costs of Net Zero. To them, it is really simple – wind and solar power are now “dirt cheap”, the public are eager to embrace “clean energy”, eat less meat and give up their SUVs. It is only the government which is holding us all back.
In the BBC’s world, the government has a bottomless purse to pay for all this.
In part, I believe, this is based on the naive green ideology, which most of the BBC are signed up members of.
In part too, it is a deliberate attempt to divert the public’s attention away from the truly terrifying costs involved, not to mention the whole pointlessness of it all.
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Just another reminder of how smart meters will control our energy use:
Households with smart meters could find themselves moved onto prepayment plans without their consent if they refuse to pay their energy bills.
A growing movement to shun rising energy bills in the autumn has gathered momentum, however, participants could find themselves forced to pay for energy up front within weeks.
Don’t Pay UK, a campaign group, has urged households to stop paying energy bills from Oct 1. More than 100,000 people have “pledged” to withhold payment. Households traditionally pay for energy in arrears, settling bills via direct debit or on a monthly or quarterly basis.
However, energy companies can switch smart meter users to prepayment with minimal notice and not have to enter a home.
More than half of all meters are either smart or advanced, according to the most recent Government statistics. Roughly 14 million households could therefore have meters changed remotely.
Providers have historically had to obtain a warrant to enter households and replace a meter with a prepayment alternative – where customers must add credit to their account before being allowed to use gas and electricity.
This is a significantly longer and more expensive process, but 61,000 warrants were still issued last year despite these obstacles, a Freedom of Information request has shown.
The need for a warrant does not apply when suppliers are switching smart meters to prepayment mode remotely. However, Ofgem, the energy regulator, has said suppliers must give customers four weeks to settle debts, and a further week’s notice before switching.
Heat Pumps Are A “Frail Technology”
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
This interview with the Technical Support Director of Worcester Bosch is a must watch for anybody who thinks heat pumps are a viable option.
The relevant segment starts at 170 minutes in:
The contradictory Green policies to limit CO2 emissions
By Paul Homewood
Ed Hoskins has carried out a detailed analysis of CO2 emissions from biomass:
Full analysis here.
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
From the Guardian:
Construction of a huge electric car battery factory that has attracted tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer cash and been hailed as a flagship project of Boris Johnson’s levelling up policy has been put on “life support” to cut spending, leaked internal documents suggest.
Work on Britishvolt’s 95-hectare site near Blyth in Northumberland has been severely limited until February to minimise spending as it focuses on unlocking its next round of funding and critical power supply infrastructure, the documents suggest.
Britishvolt, which since its formation in 2019 has made a string of increasingly ambitious promises about powering the boom in electric cars, chose the “life support” option in order to “minimise cash out”, the presentation dated 25 July suggests.
Britishvolt and ISG, its main construction contractor, said the pause affected only some parts of the project while they awaited final designs which are due in October. Britishvolt said “life support” in the documents only referred to specific “packages of work as we optimise the design”.
Battery factories for electric cars are seen by the UK government as essential to preserving high-volume car manufacturing in Britain. Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng last month confirmed state support thought to be worth tens of millions of pounds for the factory, which is planned to employ 3,000 people by 2028 in an area previously left behind by industry.
The state support, first promised as early as January, was confirmed on 27 July, two days after the date on the documents seen by the Guardian.
The documents also discuss “mitigations … to deal with immature design and design release delays” ahead of an institutional investor contract due on 5 September.
Britishvolt has attracted an increasingly stellar cast of backers including FTSE 100 commodities trader Glencore, FTSE 100 equipment rental company Ashtead, and Tritax, an arm of Abrdn, a major institutional investor. Aston Martin and Lotus have also formally said they are interested in buying batteries from Britishvolt.
It has said its factory will be the fourth-biggest building in the UK and the sixteenth-biggest in the world.
Britishvolt claims the backing announced so far could eventually be worth more than £1.7bn, a significant share of the estimated £3.8bn that may be required. However, the company will only receive the money in stages as it achieves milestones.
Given the policy decision to ban the sale of conventional cars in 2030, a car battery factory would appear to be a financial banker, with a large, guaranteed market price. Surely then private sector investors would be piling into this project?
Of course, with rocketing prices and global shortages of raw materials, its not quite as attractive after all!
Hot Weather Means Climate Change–Cold Means Weather!
By Paul Homewood
This meteorological set up with a run of high pressure across the North Atlantic and northern Europe has been a common sight this summer, and is the reason for the persistently high temperatures, rather than climate change as is routinely claimed.
But for every area of high pressure, there is one of low pressure. And for much of this summer, it has sat over Greenland. That means plenty of cloud, lower temperatures and snowfall.
The summer melt of Greenland’s ice sheet started two weeks later than normal, and the surface ice mass is currently about 100 Gt above average:
By Paul Homewood
h/t Frank
Better late than never!
The importing of wood to burn in Drax power station “is not sustainable” and “doesn’t make any sense”, the business and energy secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, told a private meeting of MPs this week.
The remarks are significant as the burning of biomass to produce energy is an important part of the UK government’s net zero strategy and has received £5.6bn in subsidies from energy bill payers over the last decade. Scientists and campaigners have long argued that burning wood to produce electricity is far from green and can even increase the CO2 emissions driving the climate crisis.
In a recording of the meeting obtained by the Guardian, Kwarteng also admitted “we haven’t actually questioned some of the [sustainability] premises of it”. He said the government’s advisers, the Climate Change Committee, had said biomass was a necessary part of climate action in the UK.
But Kwarteng added: “I can well see a point where we just draw the line and say: This isn’t working, this doesn’t help carbon emission reduction, that’s it – we should end it. All I’m saying is that we haven’t quite reached that point yet.” Drax’s share price fell 10% in early trading on Wednesday, wiping about £280m off the value of the company.
About 80% of the wood pellets burned by Drax come from North America. Kwarteng said: “There’s no point getting it from Louisiana – that isn’t sustainable … transporting these wood pellets halfway across the world – that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.” Since 2019, when Kwarteng became an energy minister, Drax has received £2.5bn in subsidies for its power station, which previously burned coal.
The subsidies are due to end in 2027, but Drax is hoping to gain new subsidies by adding carbon capture technology to its plant. This would mean the CO2 taken from the atmosphere when the trees grew would end up buried underground, potentially reducing CO2 levels. This process accounts for about three-quarters of the “negative emissions” that the government’s net zero strategy says the UK must capture.
The European Academies Science Advisory Council said last year that burning wood in power stations was “not effective in mitigating climate change and may even increase the risk of dangerous climate change”. Environmental campaigners also say harvesting the wood damages forests.
One MP at the meeting told Kwarteng: “It can take 100 years to grow a tree but 100 seconds to combust it. So, unless we actually have a measure of how much CO2 is being released in the same period of time as is being sequestered by new growth, it seems to me ludicrous to say that this is carbon neutral.” Another MP said: “It’s cutting down huge numbers of forests and it’s not defensible.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/burning-imported-wood-drax-power-112334451.html
Biomass generation is far from insignificant, producing more electricity than onshore wind in the UK and a tenth of our power. To lose it would seriously create further imbalance in the grid.
But it is foolish and dishonest to pretend that it will lower emissions of carbon dioxide in our lifetime.
Hiding The Decline In US Wildfires
By Paul Homewood
It’s summer. so there are wildfires!
Tony Heller reminds us that this has always been the case:
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Confirmation of Tony’s video comes in this publication by the US Forest Service:
Kentucky Floods Made Worse By Lack Of Dredging
By Paul Homewood
There’s an interesting segment in Rand Paul’s interview here:
(Click on link to start).
https://youtu.be/Eew0L-KCXo8?t=348
It appears the EPA is as bad as our Environmental Agency!
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 