“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. – James Hansen (Former NASA-climate chief)
•
Quality analysis from a quality journalist of the traditional Left, Chris Uhlmann.
Uhlmann’s well considered article ends here for mine …
“Germany stands as a stark testimony. It has spent more than €500 billion ($743 billion) transitioning its electricity system, boosting wind and solar to more than 45 per cent of generation since 2000. But it had to keep 89 per cent of its fossil-fired capacity to deal with the problems caused by calm, dark days. It now boasts Europe’s most expensive retail power and is strategically exposed because the country can’t function without imported gas.”
Electricity generation represents only 19 per cent of the world’s final global energy consumption.CREDIT:BLOOMBERG
“We have no readily deployable commercial-scale alternatives for energising the production of the four pillars of modern civilisation solely by electricity,” Smil writes.“This means that even with an abundant and reliable renewable electricity supply, we would still have to develop new large-scale processes to produce steel, ammonia, cement and plastics.”
The IEA notes that getting the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050requires transition-related investment to rise to around $US4 trillion a year by 2030, “but only a minority of these investments immediately deliver zero emissions energy or energy services”.
The energy transition is inevitable, but it will be a lot harder than politicians, activists, service sector chief executives and billionaire energy hobbyists would have you believe. In trying to solve the current crisis, the political class should keep one thing in mind, no one ever won an election by promising to make voters colder, poorer and hungrier.
Rather inconvenient numbers for “climate crisis” enthusiasts! However, as the MainstreamMedia™️ will never inform them of the abundance and above average levels of Arctic sea-ice for May, they will be none the wiser and continue their jolly sleepwalk into “NetZero” oblivion.
The animation shows Arctic ice extents on day 151 (end of May) from 2006 to yesterday 2022. It is evident that typically there are some regional seas starting to melt by this date, whereas 2022 remains frozen solid. More detailed analysis is below, but note the 2022 surplus is 600k km2, or 5% above the 16 year average for day 151. That extra ice extent amounts to 0.6 Wadhams, or 6826 Manhattan Islands, whichever index you prefer. The graph below shows May 2022 daily ice extents compared to the 16-year average and some other years of note.
The black line shows during May on average Arctic ice extents decline ~1.8M km2 down to 11.7M km2. The 2022 cyan MASIE line only lost 1.3M km2, starting the month 141k km2 above average and on day 151 showed a surplus of 598k km2. The Sea Ice Index in orange (SII from NOAA)…
“An HTMR-100 cannot melt down. If the worst possible event were to occur, the reactor will just shut itself down. If all cooling stops, the reactor will heat up a bit for 24 hours and then over the next 4 to 5 days will just cool down with no incident. That is ‘walk away safe’.”
“Nuclear power is the future of mankind. The world’s electricity insecurity experienced since 2020 has shown the way forward with great clarity.”
Hear, hear.
Furthermore, nuclear is the only known efficient, reliable, continuous and truly ‘green’ energy technology:
• Zero CO2 emissions, if you believe that invisible trace gas and plant food CO2 is destroying the planet.
• Zero particulate (smog) pollution.
• The least land-intensive energy technology for both plant exposure and the mining required for key resource uranium.
• ~60 year lifespan.
A win, win for both the environment and for humanity.
The first two decades of the 21st Century will go down in history as a time of amazing world confusion about energy supplies, particularly electricity.
This is all due to electricity planning being done too much at a political policy level, and not by engineers and scientists. This in turn was linked to an inordinate fear of supposed man-induced climate change linked to fossil fuels, primarily driven by extreme green activist groups. Sadly, much scientific logic was trampled under the feet of street demonstrators, clamoring for Mother Nature’s natural energy: wind and solar.
The result has been soaring electricity prices in many countries, and power shortages leading to blackouts, resulting in major economic and social upheaval.
There has also been significant interference from European countries in the affairs of African and other countries around the world, insisting that developing countries adapt their energy usage…
“While America’s unabated movement toward electricity from breezes and sunshine have transferred the countries’ fossil fuel demands onto foreign countries, the data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that the growing demands of societies for petroleum-based liquid fuels will remain strong — and in fact grow — through at least 2050 as America, like much of the European Union, places more reliance on hostile foreign powers for its energy security.”
Not only is the climate-obsessed West suffering from a dangerous deficit of cheap, reliable energy, but also a deficit in reason, common sense, logic, and debate.
Putin has been emboldened to invade Ukraine, not because he’s a “murderer and a war criminal” but because the indolent and ideological West has become so weakened in their obsession with ridding the world of invisible, odourless trace gas and plant food, Carbon Dioxide.
Why attack Carbon dioxide? Because it’s the byproduct of ~80% of the world’s cheap, reliable energy supply — fossil fuels/thermal energy.
Control CO2 and you control the world and the lives and livelihoods of every single person on the planet.
This *is* the ClimateChange™️ agenda.
This is what it’s always been about — power and control over you.
China and Russia are great War historians of WWI and WWII, and know that the countries that controls the minerals, crude oil, and natural gas, controls the world! Biden has done an excellent job of relinquishing “CONTROL” for the “green” materials to China, and relinquishing “CONTROL” of the crude oil to OPEC and Russia! God help America!
Neptune Planetary temperature conundrums are not confined to Earth. Nobody foresaw the observed changes that occurred on Neptune between 2018 and 2020.
– – –
An international team of astronomers have used ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track Neptune’s atmospheric temperatures over a 17-year period, Phys.org.
They found a surprising drop in Neptune’s global temperatures followed by a dramatic warming at its south pole.
“This change was unexpected,” says Michael Roman, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Leicester, UK, and lead author of the study published today in The Planetary Science Journal. “Since we have been observing Neptune during its early southern summer, we expected temperatures to be slowly growing warmer, not colder.”
“Engineers have always played a leading role in the development of powerful adaptation technology. Engineering education should therefore stay far away from ideology-driven computer models. These models steer them in the wrong direction. That is my message to the Academies of Engineering and the Universities of Technology.”
I’ll take the undeniable power, safety and consistency of technical-based decisions made through reason, data and the scientific method (engineering) over politics, ideology, UN climate models and fact-free emotions any day.
Professor Guus Berkhout has published a challenge to the engineering community, to step up and make the Western energy transition work. He emphasizes that reliable and affordable energy is the key to future prosperity and well-being. So, if the transition fails then the Western world will fall back into poor economies without any power and authority. His opening call is pointed and clear:
“Experienced Engineers must take the lead in the Energy Transition. Green politicians made a big mess of the energy transition and climate scientists encouraged them with their computer models. Putin and Xi JinPing must have watched the self-destruction of the Western World with utter amazement and gratitude. Experienced engineers must pick up the pieces soonest.”
Berkhout says there are actually three distinct challenges, all engineering intensive. One is developing the technology needed for adaptation to climate change, whatever the cause of…
Like the entire #UkraineRussiaWar (real-energy War) isn’t a result of the indolent West’s capitulation to UNreliable ‘green’ energy ideology and it’s, subsequent, TOTAL dependence on Russian fossil-fuels!
Cognitive dissonance on steroids.
Though, completely unsurprising. And, completely by design.
Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com] More doom-laden propaganda, pretending climate theories are facts and so on.
– – –
The UN Secretary General says the rush to use fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine is “madness” and threatens global climate targets.
The invasion of Ukraine has seen rapid rises in the prices of coal, oil and gas as countries scramble to replace Russian sources, says BBC News.
But Antonio Guterres warns that these short-term measures might “close the window” on the Paris climate goals.
Sea ice optional [image credit: BBC] Not an indicator of supposedly dire global warming this season then? Groans from climate obsessives perhaps. Nothingburgers all round.
– – –
Arctic sea ice appeared to have hit its annual maximum extent on Feb. 25 after growing through the fall and winter, says NASA (via Phys.org).
This year’s wintertime extent is the 10th-lowest in the satellite record maintained by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, one of NASA’s Distributed Active Archive Centers.
“Switching one’s energy dependence from oil supplies to China-controlled electrical energy equipment is foolish, bordering on insane, in strategic terms. Where are the senior security analysts in the US Department of Defense willing to point this out?”
Where are they? They are purposefully and actively weakening America, by design, by authority.
“Build Back Better” isn’t merely a slogan. They mean it.
The problem is, what does “better” actually mean? They haven’t told us yet, just as Marx (to his credit) warned that he had no idea what his theory of Marxism would portend for the future.
We all (now) know how Marxist doctrine has played out since — misery and death for all.
The United States Army has just published its climate strategy. In the foreword, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Williams College and a former civilian employee of the Department of Defense, proudly stated that:
“The army must adapt across our entire enterprise and purposefully pursue greenhouse gas mitigation strategies to reduce climate risks. If we do not take action now, across our installations, acquisition and logistics, and training, our options to mitigate these risks will become more constrained with each passing year.”
One might wonder why, as Russian troops invade the Ukraine and China ceaselessly builds up its air, surface and naval forces, the United States Army is turning its mighty attention to the goal of defeating carbon dioxide emissions. The Army’s former recruiting slogan, “Be…
Recent Comments