SOLAR POWER IN THE UK - AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

This study first contributes to the debate by estimating the output of a model UK fleet of solar farms rated at 8.4GW, by using ten years of half-hourly aviation weather reports as a data source.  The key findings for such a solar fleet are that: - It has a capacity factor of just 9% when the panels are new, and so generates less than a tenth of its nominal output over the course of a year. - It produces hardly any power in winter when demand is highest. - Power output is severely intermittent, lying below 10% of installed capacity for 5,790 hours a year and exceeding 60% for only 7. The whole report is quite long and detailed but should not be ignored.

TRUMP STEPS UP A GEAR

This piece describes the massive change that has come over the USA government since the new president took over. It all seems unbelievable to me after what we have been used to. I hope he gets the support he needs to follow through.

UK GOVERNMENT PAYS MILLIONAIRES TO HEAT SWIMMING POOLS

This story in the Mail draws attention to yet more madness in a pathetic attempt to reach renewable targets. You really could not make this up.

LIES AND PROPAGANDA

This piece looks at some recent examples which show all too clearly what is going on. When will the media wake up to the lies and start to print some more truthful material?

WHAT ABOUT THE TEMPERATURE TREND?

The mainstream media makes much mention of 2016 being the hottest year ever, but they are very quiet about the temperature trend. This article looks at that point for us. You can guess that the actual rate of increase in world average surface temperature over the past 20 years has been much less than predicted. In fact a paltry 0.06 C per decade, which translates to 0.6 C per century, which is even less than the last century. Why won't the BBC mention it?

ARCTIC ICE AT SAME LEVEL AS 2007

This article gives the details. It goes on to say that ice levels are considerably up on those of the 1970's. I wonder why we never hear that?

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CLAMPS DOWN ON GRATUITOUS PROPAGANDA BY PUBLIC SERVANTS

At last we have someone in power who can call a halt to the never ending flow of climate alarmist propaganda being pushed out by government employees. Here is an example of the new stricter control being put in place and long overdue it is. We may yet see some of the hidden evidence that shows how much uncertainty there is about all this - so much that it would be foolish to spend billion of dollars to reduce CO2 (as the previous president was doing).

TRUMP'S NEW ENERGY POLICY ON PRESIDENT'S WEBSITE

Here is the President's new energy policy which makes sensible reading. It includes "eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan" and  "take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves", "reviving America’s coal industry" and "refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water".  How refreshing to see such a common sense policy.

UK GOVERNMENT BLOWS £160 MILLION ON CANCELLED CO2 CAPTURE PROJECT

This post looks at the phenomenal waste of money by the UK in trying to get a "carbon" capture power plant going. In the end you cannot buck the market (unless the government is prepared to spend huge amounts of taxpayers money).  We have to spend around 60% more to build every new power station and then throw away 40% the electricity it makes in order to capture the CO2.

TEMPERATURE DATA - SURFACE v SATELLITE, WHICH IS BEST?

There is a lot of argument over this issue. This article looks at the question and declares why the satellite is far superior. And yet some climate scientists try to make out the reverse is true. There is a lot of faith put into the surface data by alarmists which might be because the surface data show a larger warming effect. 

OBAMA SENDS FINAL CHEQUE TO HIS FAVOURITE CHARITY

USA taxpayers waved goodbye to another $500 Million, sent by the outgoing president to the UN's Green Climate Fund. This piece gives the details. It will be interesting to see how Trump deals with similar requests in the future.

PROF TIM BALL MEETS TEAM TRUMP

This piece comes from an interesting website called "The Rebel Media" and there looks to be some interesting stuff on it. Meanwhile climate alarmists are hopeful that Trump can be persuaded to change his views according to the BBC. 

STEPS TRUMP SHOULD TAKE TO END INTERNATIONAL ENERGY POVERTY

Trump And International Energy Poverty: Five Steps
Watts Up With That, 17 January 2017
 By Caleb Stewart Rossiter, School of International Service and Department of Mathematics and Statistics, American University.

 Primum non nocere — above all, do no harm, says the medical maxim. In public policy, where every action has different effects on different people, the maxim becomes “above all, do no net harm.” That means that the benefits of a policy should outweigh its costs. For example, it’s all well and good for the government to start a jobs program, but we also have to estimate how many other jobs would never exist because raising taxes to pay for the program reduces private investment and consumption. What, we properly ask, will be the net effect of the program on employment?

Consider the Obama administration’s efforts to avoid fossil-fueled climate catastrophes. While well-intentioned, these efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gasses did a lot of net harm to the people of the formerly colonized countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Indeed, Obama’s policies were reminiscent of colonialism’s attempt to make these regions producers of raw materials rather than industrial competitors. Obama’s climate alarmists discouraged poor countries from building power plants and modern transmission grids, and instead offered foreign aid to help them stay “off the grid” with small-scale wind and solar projects. The administration also drove up the price of food in poor countries by diverting crops to meet “green” fuels quotas, and stood by while the European Union punished these countries for exporting “carbon-intensive” products. The moral issue here is that the costs of the predicted climate catastrophes are hypothetical, meager, and in the distant future, while the health and economic benefits of fossil-fueled growth for poor countries are real, massive, and available right now.

In terms of health, people need reliable power in their homes, factories, and offices. If they cannot get it from electricity they will get it by burning wood, dung, and charcoal and firing up their personal diesel generators. In Africa, where only 25 percent of homes have reliable electricity and most factories and office suffer from frequent black-outs, the particulate matter emitted by these inefficient energy sources pose a constant crisis in respiratory disease. In terms of economic growth and the increase in life expectancy that it creates, we can simply note that since embracing fossil-fueled capitalism with a vengeance China has nearly eliminated its 20-year gap with the 80-year life expectancy of developed countries, while Africa lags at 59 years.

Here are five steps President Trump can take to stop us from doing harm, and maybe even start us doing some good, in the developing world’s quest for the better and longer life that reliable electric power can bring.

Generate Power: Instruct U.S. representatives at the World Bank and the regional development banks, as well as officials of the Agency for International Development (the State Department’s foreign aid office) to support rather than oppose, as we currently do, loans and grants for power plants that rely on coal, gas, or oil. By helping countries build modern, efficient plants outfitted with “scrubbers” we can dramatically cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and other particulates. Unlike carbon dioxide, which is a beneficial trace gas that increases crop yields as a fertilizer, these are real pollutants, and need to be controlled.

Support the Grid: The Obama administration’s Power Africa campaign is biased in favor of “off-grid” solutions such as small-scale, local wind and solar farms. This is colonialist to the core in a continent that is still “under-developing” by exporting raw materials to its former masters in return for imports of finished goods. Africa needs to have consistent power for factories and offices, or it will never be able to compete in the global economy. The only way to have consistent power is with a modern grid. Period. The grid can develop slowly, so that it can be maintained, but in the long run, as the success of China shows, you can’t get there without it.

Aid only sustainable infrastructure projects: Developing countries, and African ones in particular, are littered with abandoned “White Elephants” – high-technology factories, dams, processing plants, wells, and tractors provided by well-meaning foreign aid donors. They fell into disuse because recipient governments lacked the political will and the economic environment needed to sustain them.

Bringing technology in from a different country that is at a different stage of economic development is tricky in the best of circumstances. It is a waste of money and time if the recipient government is undemocratic, corrupt, or repressive. American diplomats and foreign aid officials need to be rewarded rather than punished, as they inevitably are in the foreign aid game, for properly assessing the likelihood of sustainability and cancelling projects. Most economic development comes when the local conditions permit it. Foreign aid can do little when dictatorship and corruption prevail, as they do in most African countries.

End biofuel requirements: “Biofuel starvation” is what Africans call it when companies from developed countries take over villages’ crop lands so they can make a profit meeting “green” fuel requirements. The Trump administration should drop our own ethanol minimums, and make it a principal point of trade and diplomacy talks with European countries to get them to drop theirs.

Oppose “carbon-content” rules: In their never-ending quest to find phony “carbon off-sets” that allow them to claim reductions in carbon dioxide without closing their own power plants, European countries have made a mess out of the simple act of importing goods from developing countries. Flowers from Kenya, for example, pay a carbon tax because they are transported on airplanes, which use more fossil-fuel per flower than a slower ship. As part of an international consortium on air travel, the United States can object to and reverse such rules, leading to more trade, and jobs, in developing countries. Congress enacted legislation in 2011 that blocked the consortium’s scheme to place a carbon tax on all air travel. As we protect our travel rights we should also look out for those of exporters in developing countries.

CLIMATE EXTREMISTS GOING FOR BROKE

These are the aims of an organisation called Avaaz according to an email sent out to their supporters:

In the next 2 years, our community has voted to drive forward 3 more game changers -- things we don't need Trump* for:

• Push 10 major countries and corporations to switch to 100% clean energy.
• Pass laws in the 5 major car-manufacturing countries requiring all new vehicles to be electric.
• Eliminate $1 trillion in taxpayer subsidies for big oil and coal, and invest it clean energy.

*Obama couldn't achieve this either.

I would suggest this is a tiny bit ambitious, going much further than even the UK Climate Change Act. I hear there is a new film out called "La La Land". Maybe this is the sequel!

THE LAST ICE AGE ARRIVED IN SIX MONTHS ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH

Well actually it's seven years old research, but I only just caught up with it!

Here is the detail from the Daily Mail article back in November 2009. I thought it was interesting and still relevant. What it implies is that an ice age is still something to be concerned about, despite all the hype and exaggeration about warming. It's the unexpected that is likely to cause us the worst problems despite all the best endeavours of scientists.

UK FUTURE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY LOOKS INSECURE AND COSTLY

The two papers below are from the Scientific Alliance. They make worrying reading for citizens, businesses and government. The authors are people with impressive credentials in the field.

National Grid, in its 2016 study Future Energy Scenarios, considered four alternative views of UK energy supply and demand up to 2040. While these may be useful as a framework within which to plan, they say nothing about one essential factor, security of supply. For each of the scenarios, we estimate the possibility of meeting an established risk baseline: a grid supply failure occurring in no more than four winters every hundred years (as used prior to privatization).
The security of supply under future energy scenarios

Despite having installed more than 38GW of renewable energy generating capacity in the last decade, The UK has reached a capacity crisis. There is no hard evidence that this push for renewables has been an effective way to reduce CO2 emissions, and the cost has certainly been very large. The analysis presented in these two papers makes a strong case for a radical review of energy policy from an engineering perspective, placing equal weight on cost, security and environmental impacts. 
The cost of supply under future energy scenarios

WHY TIDAL POWER IS NOT FOR THE UK

Here is a good and balanced piece on the tidal power debate which is currently going on here fuelled by a new report in favour by an ex MP Charles Hendry.  The final analysis leads to the conclusion that it is too expensive.

CENSORSHIP GROWS IN THE CLIMATE DEBATE

This piece illustrates what is going on. In the end such action is counter-productive to those who do it as it re-enforces in the public mind that they have things to hide - as they have.

GERMANY'S SELF-INFLICTED DECLINE

Here is a most interesting article by Fritz Vahrenholt who was one of the founders of the environmental movement in Germany. He holds a PhD in chemistry and is Honorary Professor at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hamburg. Since 1969 he has been a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). From 1976 until 1997 he served in several public positions with environmental agencies such as the Federal Environment Agency, the Hessian Ministry of Environment and as Deputy Environment Minister and Senator of the City of Hamburg. In 2001, he founded the wind energy company REpower and was director of RWE’s renewable energy division Innogy, one of Europe’s largest renewable energy companies. His 2012 book The Neglected Sun sparked a broad public discussion in Germany about the dogmatism in climate science. He is the chairman of the German Wildlife Foundation and a member of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council. As you can see he is a man of considerable achievement. When he says Germany is in trouble it is clearly something to take note of.

TRUMP'S GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

This article takes a look at the opportunity missed by President Obama in going full out to support the USA fracking industry. It goes on to suggest that Obama's missed opportunity is now President Trump's chance to take and make America great again.

FULL PAGE ARTICLE IN DAILY MAIL ON HOW CLIMATE SCAMS ARE COSTING THE EARTH

Only the Irish, you might think, could come up with a scheme where the more energy you used the more money you made. Yet this is only one of the many stupid schemes that politicians have planned to "save the planet".
Here is the article by James Delingpole who has encapsulated many of the scams and rip-offs in an excellent summary which will be read by millions. Thanks to writers like Delingpole (and Booker and David Rose) the public are becoming increasingly aware of the growing costs of policies that are also failing in their primary objective of "saving the climate".  

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH PROMISE TO STOP LYING

This piece explains the background to this, which was a leaflet they have been putting out stating the negatives of fracking. Unfortunately for them they were reported to the ASA (advertising standards authority) and they were unable to substantiate their highly contentious claims. From what is said in the article it does not look like they are likely to keep their promise. 

YELLOWSTONE PARK, WHERE GW IS ALLEGEDLY CAUSING PROBLEMS

I have been watching a new series on the wildlife of Yellowstone Park with presenter Kate Humble. It was not long before I discovered that she was pushing the effects of global warming as having bad effects on the flora and fauna. You can watch an episode here. The global warming narrative is slipped in as though it is taken for granted, with no ifs or buts. I have no doubt that this is part of a concerted effort by the leadership at the BBC to persuade the public that this is the case, with the unspoken caveat that we are all responsible. There is an excellent debunk of the proposition here by our good friend Paul Homewood. I don't know if Kate Humble has any views other than those expressed in the film, though I doubt it, but even if she had she knows that to express doubts would be likely to end her career, as it did for David Bellamy.

WHY IS THE UK GOVERNMENT GOING SO QUIET OVER THE "SOCIAL COST OF CARBON"?

Could it be because they know that it is actually lower than the cost of their policies to reduce CO2 emissions? That is the conclusion of this report which looks at the sums, including those carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

If it is true that the costs outweigh the benefits then surely the public should be told?

THERE IS MORE JOY WHEN ONE CLIMATE ALARMIST REPENTS....

This post looks in detail at the gradual conversion of Judith Curry from being a full supporter of the IPCC to becoming a climate sceptic. This will have much greater traction with the public than someone simply taking up a position on one side or the other and then sticking to it steadfastly. In particular someone as qualified and thoughtful as Professor Curry. Her "journey" is one that many others may have taken and many more will take.

MARK STEYN ON JUDITH CURRY AND THE CRAZY CLIMATE SCIENCE ECHO CHAMBER

This piece from Mark Steyn's blog pulls no punches as usual. His anecdotes of how Judith was treated when giving testimony to Congress as well as the disgraceful comments of Michael Mann make this an article worth reading. 

UK £18 MILLION TIDAL ENERGY SCHEME BREAKS DOWN AFTER 3 MONTHS

This article explains the details of this modern white elephant that is pushing up our energy costs.

JUDITH CURRY TO RETIRE

One of the most high-profile sceptical climate scientists, Professor Judith Curry, has announced that she is to retire from academic life. This article gives the details. Her common sense approach has been a breath of fresh air. We need more scientists to speak out in this way, but such is the intimidation that they face that it is understandable that few do.

ANOTHER UK MP GETS IT ON THE CLIMATE CHANGE ACT

This post by the UK's only UKIP MP, Douglas Carswell, shows that he understands the damage being caused by the UK's climate change policy, and he is not the only one, though sadly he is still in a minority.

RUBBISH DUMP POLAR BEARS ARE "CLIMATE REFUGEES"

This piece makes the claim in the title, which is designed to persuade us that the bears are in trouble when the evidence is that they are doing fine. Just one more small piece of propaganda. 

SCEPTICAL CLIMATE SCIENTISTS

This article explains that in the USA there are now quite a few sceptical climate scientists who are optimistic that they will get an opportunity to research natural climate change as well as so-called man made change. The incoming Trump administration may allow their views to be developed and heard. I certainly hope this will happen.

SCIENTIST SACKED FOR TOO MUCH HONESTY

Read about it here - Scientist fired for being too open and honest. What a strange and twisted world we live in. Happy New Year!