Frozen in Time
Jan 10, 2011
Customers face huge bill for wind farms that don’t work in the cold

By Tom Mcghie

The failure of Britain’s wind farms to produce electricity in the extreme cold will cost billions of pounds, create an economic crisis and lead to blackouts, leading industrialists have warned.

To cover up the ineffectiveness of wind farms the Government will be forced to build emergency back-up power plants, the cost of which will be paid by industry and consumers.

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Enlarged here.
Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents major companies employing hundreds of thousands of workers in the steel, glass, pottery, paper and chemical industries, said the failure of wind power had profound implications.

Flawed: To cover up the ineffectiveness of wind farms the Government will be forced to build emergency back-up power plants, the cost of which will be paid by industry and consumers. He was speaking after new figures showed that during the latest cold snap wind turbines produced less than two per cent of the nation’s electricity.

Now Mr Nicholson predicts that the Government will encourage power companies to build billions of pounds worth of standby power stations in case of further prolonged wind failures.Last updated at 1:20 AM on 9th January 2011

And the cost of the standby generation will be paid for by industry and households through higher bills - which could double by 2020. Industry regulator Ofgem has already calculated that the cost of achieving sustainable energy targets - set by Brussels but backed by the British Government - will amount to 200 billion pounds, which will mean that annual household fuel bills will double to about 2,400 pounds on average within the next ten years.

In the last quarter ending December 23, wind turbines produced on average 8.6 per cent of our electricity, but the moment the latest bad weather arrived with snow and freezing temperatures, this figure fell to as low as 1.8 per cent.

The slack was immediately taken up by efficient, but dirty, coal-fired power stations and oil-fired plants. ‘What is so worrying is that these sort of figures are not a one off,’ said Mr Nicholson. ‘It was exactly the same last January and February when high pressure brought freezing cold temperatures, snow and no wind.’

In fact last year, the failure of wind power to produce electricity was even more profound. Then, over a few days, the lack of wind meant that only 0.2 per cent of a possible five per cent of the UK’s energy was generated by wind turbines. So little energy was generated then that the National Grid, which is responsible for balancing supply and demand of energy in the UK, was forced to ask its biggest users - industry - to ration supplies.

What really concerns industrial users is that it is Government policy to put wind power at the centre of its efforts to ensure that 30 per cent of electricity is generated by renewable resources by 2020. This means that the number of turbines now running - 3,140 - will have to be massively increased to well over 6,000 in ten years time.

But this huge surge in wind farm activity will come at the same time as an EU Directive will insist that we close down our coal-fired and oil-fired power stations. Mr Nicholson said: ‘We can cope at the moment because there is still not that much power generated from wind. But all this will change. What happens when we are dependent on wind turbines for 30 per cent of our power and there is suddenly a period when the wind does not blow and there is high demand?

‘We will be forced to switch off the gas and it could even lead to power cuts.’ The Government is aware of the dangers of relying on intermittent power sources and is working on plans to encourage energy companies through financial inducements to have stand-by generation.

Mr Nicholson said: ‘At least the Government is aware of the problem, but it will cost billions to put these measures in place and we will have to pick up the tab. A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: ‘Wind power provides a home-grown source of electricity that doesn’t produce carbon dioxide. The electricity system always has more generating capacity available than the expected demand. By having a diverse energy mix, we can manage the fact that some technologies are intermittent.’

The National Grid is also aware of the problem and has set up a team to look at solving the problem of erratic energy supplies. One of the solutions being considered is changing demand at times of crisis. For example, setting up systems to stop electricity supplies to millions of fridges for an hour or so. This would be possible by having ‘smart’ meters and would save massive amounts of energy.

Read post here.

In Maine, one wind turbine is delivering just 1/10th of the promised output. The wind company told the town they need to move it to a better location....and so need more money. The town will be throwing good money after bad. They should sue not reward the wind company.

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Coal takes the strain...again
By Paul Hudson, BBC

On BBC Look North on friday I reported that during the recent intense cold weather, it’s been our traditional coal and gas fired power stations that have been working flat out to keep our homes and businesses warm.

And for the third winter running, the intense cold has gone hand in hand with periods of little or no wind. This should come as no surprise since prolonged cold is invariably associated with areas of high pressure.

Peak demand also comes during summer heat waves - as we all turn on our air conditioning units - again usually associated with areas of high pressure, with little or no wind.

December 21st 2010 was one of the coldest days on record in Yorkshire. The bar chart below gives an idea of how much electricity was being generated by which type of power facility, when temperatures were at their lowest.

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Enlarged here.

With much of the country experiencing very little wind, both onshore and offshore, wind turbines were largely inactive.

At the moment that is not a problem. Only 5% of electricity is currently generated by wind farms, and so other power stations can step in and ramp up output.

But in only 9 years time, the UK will legally have to generate around 30% of its electricity from renewable sources, of which 25% is expected to come from wind farms alone, as it is seen as a clean, carbon free energy source.

So what will happen then, when the wind doesn’t blow?

If a similar meteorological situation occurred in 2020, then almost 25% of power would have to come from sources other than wind.

This means that there would have to be some power stations - using coal or gas, since nuclear power output can’t be increased at short notice - that simply exist as a stand-by facility, in case the wind doesn’t blow.

And that’s a very expensive way of producing electricity.

And what happens if, as seems at least possible, the next 10-15 years sees an increase in the type of disrupted weather patterns that we have experienced recently, because of solar considerations?

Professor Mike Lockwood at Reading University thinks that the UK could indeed experience colder winters on average, compared with the last few decades because of the sun’s low activity.

This would lead to a higher frequency of ‘blocking’ weather patterns leading to less frequent windy conditions than would normally be expected if one looks at climatological averages - suggesting we would have to continue to rely on coal and gas fired power generation well into the future - and possibly more than is currently envisaged. Read more here.

Jan 09, 2011
“2010 was the Warmest Year on Record”

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley on SPPI

Michael Steketee, writing in The Australian in January 2011, echoed the BBC (whose journalists’ pension fund is heavily weighted towards “green” “investments") and other climate-extremist vested interests in claiming that 2010 was the warmest year on record worldwide. Mr. Steketee’s short article makes two dozen questionable assertions, which either require heavy qualification or are downright false. His assertions will be printed in bold face: the truth will appear in Roman face.

1. BASED ON PRELIMINARY DATA TO NOVEMBER 30, SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES AROUND AUSTRALIA WERE THE WARMEST ON RECORD LAST YEAR, AS WERE THOSE FOR THE PAST DECADE.

The record only began ten decades ago. As for sea temperatures, they are less significant for analyzing “global warming” than estimated total ocean heat content. A recent paper by Professors David Douglass and Robert Knox of Rochester University, New York, has established that - contrary to various climate-extremist assertions - there has been no net accumulation of “missing energy” in the form of heat in the oceans worldwide in the six years since ocean heat content was first reliably measured by the 3000 automated ARGO bathythermographs in 2003. This finding implies that the amount of warming we can expect from even quite a large increase in CO2 concentration is far less than the IPCC and other climate-extremist groups maintain.

2. THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANISATION SAYS THE YEAR TO THE END OF OCTOBER WAS THE WARMEST SINCE INSTRUMENTAL CLIMATE RECORDS STARTED IN 1850 - 0.55 C ABOVE THE 1961-90 AVERAGE OF 14 C.

It is easy to cherry-pick periods of less than a calendar year and say they establish a new record. The cherry-picking of the first nine months of 2010 is particularly unacceptable, since that period was dominated by a substantial El Nino Southern Oscillation, a sudden alteration in the pattern of ocean currents worldwide that leads to warmer weather for several months all round the world. The last few months of the year, carefully excluded from Mr. Steketee’s statement, showed the beginnings of a La Nina event, which tends largely to reverse the effect of its preceding El Nino and make the world cooler. Indeed, the calendar year from January to December 2010, according to the reliable RSS and UAH satellite records, was not the warmest on record. Besides, what is important is how fast the world is warming. In fact, the rate of warming from 1975-2001, at 0.16 C per decade, was the fastest rate to be sustained for more than a decade in the 160-year record, but exactly the same rate occurred from 1860-1880 and again from 1910-1940, when we could not possibly have had anything to do with it. Since late 2001 there has been virtually no “global warming” at all.

3. THE LAST DECADE ALSO WAS THE WARMEST ON RECORD.

After 300 years of global warming, during nearly all of which we could not on any view have influenced the climate to a measurable degree, it is scarcely surprising that recent decades will be warmer than earlier decades. That is what one would expect. If one has been climbing up a steep hill for a long time, one should not be surprised to find oneself higher up at the end of the climb than at the beginning.

4. THE WORLD IS NOT COOLER COMPARED TO 1998.

Actually, it is cooler. There was a remarkable spike in global temperatures in 1998, caused not by manmade “global warming” but by a Great El Nino event - an alteration in the pattern of ocean currents that begins in the equatorial eastern Pacific and spreads around the globe, lasting a few months. In the first nine months of 2010 there was another substantial El Nino, but even at its peak it did not match the Great El Nino of 1998.

5. THE TRENDS HAPPEN TO FOLLOW CLOSELY THE PREDICTIONS OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS OF TEMPERATURE RISES RESULTING FROM INCREASED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.

In the 40 years since 1970, global temperatures have risen at a linear rate equivalent to around 1.3 C/century. CO2 concentration is rising in a straight line at just 2 ppmv/year at present and, even if it were to accelerate to an exponential rate of increase, the corresponding temperature increase would be expected to rise merely in a straight line. On any view, 1.3 C of further “global warming” this century would be harmless. The IPCC is predicting 3.4 C, but since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001 global temperature has risen (taking the average of the two satellite datasets) at a rate equivalent to just 0.6 C/century, rather less than the warming rate of the entire 20th century. In these numbers, there is nothing whatever to worry about - except the tendency of some journalists to conceal them.

6. MOST SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT DOUBLING THE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LIKELY TO LEAD TO WARMING OF 2-3 C.

It is doubtful whether Mr. Steketee had consulted “most scientists”. Most scientists, not being climate scientists, rightly take no view on the climate debate. Most climate scientists have not studied the question of how much warming a given increase in CO2 concentration will cause: therefore, whatever opinion they may have is not much more valuable than that of a layman. Most of the few dozen scientists worldwide whom Prof. Richard Lindzen of MIT estimates have actually studied climate sensitivity to the point of publication in a learned journal have reached their results not by measurement and observation but by mere modeling. The models predict warming in the range mentioned by Mr. Steketee, but at numerous crucial points the models are known to reflect the climate inaccurately. In particular, the models predict that if and only if Man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot” has not been observed in 50 years of measurement by balloon-mounted radiosondes, sondes dropped from high-flying aircraft, or satellites. Also, the models predict that every Celsius degree of warming should increase evaporation from the Earth’s surface by 1-3%, but the observed increase is more like 6%. From this it is simple to calculate that the IPCC has overestimated fourfold the amount of warming we can expect from adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Take away that prodigious exaggeration, demonstrated repeatedly in scientific papers but never reported by the likes of Mr. Steketee, and the climate “crisis” vanishes.

Read the rest of Chris’s rebuttal here.

Jan 08, 2011
How can climate scientists spend so much money?

Climate Quotes

ICECAP NOTE: One of the certain brain-dead, knee-jerk reactions in comments to any posted article with any semblence of balance or skepticism on greenhouse global warming is that “big oil” must be funding the author or the skeptics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Exxon was accused of funding alternative thinking on climate change to the tune of $22 million the last few decades (most of the before 2000). No mention that Exxon gave $100million to Stanford and BP $500 million to the University of California Berkeley. Exxon and most big oil companies have gone green. There is also no recognition that the government funds climate change research - read global warming - to the tune of $2.3 billion to further their social agenda as this excellent expose shows below. That is a place for the congress to look to save money. The remaining research sollars should be to study climate change not global warming because there is a very real possibility that due to the sun and oceans, a major global cooling could take place and very little research dollars focus on this.

How can climate scientists spend so much money?

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US Federal government spending on climate change research in 2011 (enlarged here).

Until a few days ago I knew that the US government spent an excessive amount of taxpayer money on climate change research. It was just a general notion; I had read occasional articles showing the funding of certain agencies like NASA but I didn’t know many specifics. Then on New Years Day, I wrote a very quick article where I randomly picked a document from a Google search showing funding for climate change. The numbers astonished me. I decided to take a closer look.

The document is the The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s report: AAAS REPORT XXXV, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FY 2011

The entire report is here, but I am only looking at chapter 15 which is here. Icecap Note: See how the AMS has authored this chapter. The report is basically a snapshot of US Federal spending on research, including budgets for 2011 and how these numbers compare to previous years. The chapter on climate change is short and easy to read. It shows that all US agencies that conduct climate change research are expected to have larger budgets for 2011. Remember, these numbers are not set in stone, but they will not be drastically different from the actual numbers. I also need to make a caveat. Just because this funding has been labeled ‘climate change research’ does not mean it is necessarily not linked to another field as well. For example, some of the costs associated are for satellites, which are important in more than just climate research. This is not entirely frivolous spending. Even so, the numbers are staggering. Let’s look at some agencies and their budgets.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA’s total budget request is $5.6 billion, which would be an increase of 17.0 percent. Of this, $437 million would be for climate research funding, which is an increase of $77 million.

$437 million spent on climate change research in one year, in one agency. Here’s another:

National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF would receive $7.4 billion in FY 2011, an increase of 8 percent relative to the FY 2010 appropriation. The request includes $370 million under the USGCRP framework, which is an increase of 16.0 percent. The Geosciences Directorate would receive $955 million (a 7.4 percent increase) in FY 2011 with $480 million going to Atmospheric and Earth Sciences. NSF’s Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) program would receive $765.5 million. This is intended to promote discoveries and capability needed to inform societal actions in ways that contribute to environmental and economic sustainability. NSF’s request also includes $19 million for RE-ENERGYSE, a joint program with the Department of Energy intended to promote education in clean energy research. An additional $10 million would fund Climate Change Education, which seeks to increase understanding of climate among the next generation of Americans.

$480 million here, $765.5 million there, throw in another $10 million for climate education and you’ve got $1.25 billion dollars spent on climate change research just at the NSF, just in ONE YEAR! Next is NASA:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA’s FY 2011 budget request is $19.0 billion. NASA Earth Science is a relatively small fraction of this total, $1.8 billion or 9.5 percent, but would increase substantially relative to the FY 2010 appropriation (up 26.8 percent). NASA Earth Science funds climate change R&D through several programs. Two of particular note are Earth Science Research, which would receive $438.1 million (an increase of 14 percent)…

It seems like the $450 million mark is a common budget for climate research among these agencies. NOAA’s funding, the NSF’s atmospheric science funding, and NASA’s Earth Science research are all around $450 million. It may be an interesting coincidence. Next is the Department of Energy:

Department of Energy (DOE).

The President’s budget request for DOE in FY 2011 is $28.4 billion. This includes $4.6 billion for R&D in the Office of Science (an increase of 3.8 percent), and $2.4 billion for energy R&D (an increase of 6.8 percent). Within the Office of Science, the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), which supports basic research in atmospheric sciences, terrestrial ecosystems and climate modeling, would receive $627 million (an increase of 3.8 percent). BER’s request includes $28.6 million for the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) program, which examines the impact of climate change on biological systems and land-surface carbon cycle feedbacks to climate change.

$627 million taken from a taxpayer or borrowed from a future taxpayer, spent in one year. Next the Department of the Interior:

Department of the Interior (DOI).

DOI requests $171 million (an increase of 26.0 percent) for its Climate Change Adaptation initiative, which seeks to identify areas and species most vulnerable to climate change and implement coping strategies. Of this, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) would receive $77.9 million for climate science (an increase of 15.5 percent).

How many jobs could be created in 2011 if $171 million were still in the hands of US taxpayers, instead of being spent on climate studies which have been done many times before? Studying areas vulnerable to climate change? That’s already been done by every agency, twice. Next is the EPA:

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

EPA requests $169 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (an increase of 1 percent). Of this, $43.5 million is new funding for regulatory efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act. EPA requests $22 million for its Global Change Research Program, which assesses the impacts of global change on air and water quality, ecosystems, human health, and socioeconomic systems in the United States with a primary goal of promoting adaptation efforts.

I don’t even understand what this means. How does giving the EPA $169 million reduce emissions? Also, does it really cost $43.5 million a year (more) to regulate greenhouse gases? Lastly, the USDA:

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

USDA requests $159 million for climate change research, an increase of 42.0 percent, and $179 million for renewable energy, an increase of 41.0 percent. USDA’s climate change efforts (and those of the U.S. Forest Service which is part of USDA) center on helping farmers and land owners adapt to climate change impacts (e.g., enhanced fire stress, insect outbreaks, droughts, floods, and heat stress) and promoting carbon storage in soils and forests.

A 42% increase in climate change research? $159 million spent in a single year, by the USDA? Crop yields are up! CO2 helps crops! Imagine spending $159 million in 2011 to research things that actually help people.

The amount of money being spent on climate change research this year is astounding. I urge you to read the document yourself. Here is the question to take away: what are we getting for the billions of dollars we’ve spent? When 2011 is over will we look back at the published research and be satisfied with how our billions have been spent? This type of spending has occurred for some time, and what do we have to show for it? Multiple federal agencies having multi-hundred million dollar budgets in the same (controversial) field is wasteful. Let’s make sure 2011 is the last year these budgets increase.

See the analysis here.

Jan 07, 2011
Martinez axes all Environmental Improvement Board: Names Astronaut Schmitt to clean up policy

By Matthew Reichbach

Gov. Susana Martinez removed all the members of the state Environmental Improvement Board Tuesday for helping create an “anti-business environment.” Before being sworn in, Martinez was critical of the board’s decision to institute cap-and-trade rules in New Mexico.

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Martinez wrote a letter to the members of the board informing them of her decision. She also said the members could apply for their old positions again and would consider their re-employment on a case by case basis.

In a stinging statement sent to the press, Martinez harshly criticized the members of the board.

“Unfortunately, the majority of EIB members have made it clear that they are more interested in advancing political ideology than implementing common-sense policies that balance economic growth with responsible stewardship in New Mexico,” Martinez wrote.

On her first day in office, Martinez had halted “all proposed and pending regulations,” which includes the cap-and-trade regulation. To rescind those rules, the new members of the EIB, which will be appointed by Martinez, will have to hold new public hearings and allow for public comment.

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Martinez picks former astronaut, global warming denier to head energy, natural resources department

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Harrison Schmitt says government exerting pressure in climate science. Gov. Susana Martinez announced today that former astronaut and global warming denier Harrison Schmitt is her choice to run the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. A geologist and former senator, Schmitt would be in charge of the Mining and Minerals Division, State Parks Division, Oil Conservation Division and Energy Conservation Management Division if confirmed by the state Senate.

Schmitt, one of just 12 men to ever walk on the moon, was on Apollo 17, the final manned mission to the moon. He entered politics and served as U.S. Senator from 1977 to 1983. He was defeated by current U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman in the 1982 election.

Schmitt does not believe global warming exists and says the government pressures scientists to support its existence. The vast majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is happening and say that humans are at least partially responsible. as do we, mainly through urbanization and land use changes

Schmitt has a doctorate in geology from Harvard University. Earlier this week, Martinez removed all the members of the Environmental Improvement Board, citing the board’s approval of regional and state cap and trade statutes. Read more here.

Let’s hope this starts a chain reaction in other states and in DC to undo the terrible harm done by the enviros.

Jan 06, 2011
Destroying the Credibility of Science

By Alan Caruba

Back in 1990 when I founded The National Anxiety Center as a clearinghouse for information about “scare campaigns” designed to influence public opinion and policy, I was mainly concerned about the torrent of lies about global warming.

Their beginning is usually dated to an appearance by James E. Hansen before a congressional committee in 1988 in which he claimed that global warming would destroy the earth. To this day Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has held that position since 1981. There is no rational reason why he continues to be employed by the U.S. government.

Global warming has been widely discredited thanks to the November 2009 release of thousands of emails between UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “scientists” that revealed their collusion to rig the data that supported the fraud.

GLOBAL WARMING. Climate alarmists are already worrying that the public has grown so tired of their idiotic claims that huge blizzards are caused by “warming” they are beginning to pour money into the education of a new generation of “environmental journalists” to ensure that more such lies make it to the front page of your daily newspaper or via other media.

Meanwhile, billions of taxpayer’s dollars have been flushed down the federal government rat hole to fund “research” guaranteed to support the hoax. It gets worse. Despite the defeat of the Cap-and-Trade bill based on the Big Lie that carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases cause global warming, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is attempting an end-run around Congress to impose limits on the carbon dioxide emissions of utilities and every form of manufacturing and business in America.

The EPA is engaged in a perversion of science, but what else is new? Americans have been ill-served by the alphabet soup of government agencies supposedly in place to protect the food we eat, medicines we take, the air and the water. In the process they are just as often stripping Americans of the protection afforded by pharmaceuticals and beneficial chemicals.

VACCINES v. AUTISM. A case in point is an article in the British Medical Journal that “accused a disgraced British doctor of committing an ‘elaborate fraud’ by faking data in his studies linking vaccines with autism.”

The result of that fraud was to convince thousands, if not millions, of parents that vaccines to protect their children against measles and mumps were a threat to their health. The ancillary question is why Andrew Wakefield’s paper was published in 1998. Science journals are expected to peer review such papers and determine if the data presented is valid. If it cannot be reproduced, it fails that test.

DDT. Starting in 1972, an EPA ban essentially ended its use anywhere in the nation and other nations followed suit. A year later a court upheld the EPA and that is an object lesson in what happens when matters of science are decided by men and women, lawyers, with no training or background in science. The DDT hoax continues to cause malaria deaths, particularly in Africa and mostly affecting women and children.

The U.S. is experiencing an outbreak of the bed bug population, eliminated decades ago, because the EPA has banned or limited the use of virtually every pesticide to exterminate them.

ALAR. Recall, too, the fraud perpetrated by environmental groups against Alar, a chemical that was widely used by apple growers to ensure that the crop would ripen in a fashion that permitted an efficient harvest. The Alar hoax cost American apple growers millions in lost revenue until it became known that Alar posed no health threat whatever.

SACCHARINE. Though cleared of charges dating from the 1980s that saccharin was a cancer-causing substance, it took until the 1990s to get it removed from the 9th edition of the “Report on Carcinogens” and it took until mid-December 2010 for the EPA to finally admit what everyone knew by then. You can thank “consumer” groups for foisting this fraud on everyone and agencies of the U.S. government for maintaining it until they no longer could.

BPA. A similar campaign exists to ban BPA, bisphenol-A, a chemical used to line plastic bottles and containers. It is literally a worldwide effort and it too is without any scientific merit. In the same way the claim that linked vaccines and autism, BPA is under attack, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. I have written about this in the past and intend to follow this to demonstrate how these “scientific” frauds debase all science in the process.

Aside from the fact that these claims always begin with a dubious “scientific” study and then escalate as other “scientists” climb on the funding bandwagon, the other element is always the role that the mainstream media plays in keeping the fraud alive until the sheer weight of evidence makes it impossible to do so.

Ultimately, this destroys the trust we normally accord to legitimate scientists, exhausting our ability and willingness to embrace the science that has prolonged and protected the lives of millions. Read more here.

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