HEAT PUMPS DEBATE - THE PROs AND CONs

Will the public accept the change from gas central heating to heat pumps? This is one of the vital changes which the government want to bring in to cut CO2 emissions in the home heating sector. The following article looks at the calculations of the capital and running costs. 

Are Heat Pumps Cheaper To Run? Don’t Believe Octopus! | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

THE PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP TO REALITY OVER NET ZERO

By Benny Peiser & Andrew Montford Daily Sceptic, 26th April 2023   

The Net Zero bandwagon was always going to grind to a halt when it bumped up against hard realities. As Abraham Lincoln observed, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. To which the physicist Richard Feynman added the important rejoinder that you can’t fool nature either.

The eco-zealots in the think tanks, the civil service and the Green Blob have been trying to do both. Consider, for example, the oft-repeated claim that wind and solar power are cheap, which is demonstrably false, and carefully overlooks the fact that a renewables-dominated grid would require trillions of pounds of electricity storage to make it function without backup. As a result, we have seen gigawatts of wind and solar power installed, and the slow strangulation of investment in conventional energy sources. However, nature, refusing to be taken in by all the claims of ‘cheap renewables’, has responded with 20 years of relentless electricity price rises.

The silver lining to the very dark cloud of the Ukraine war and the energy cost crisis that followed is that most people now realise that a world with rising energy costs is not very pleasant at all. Others have been awakened, perhaps rather unexpectedly, by the Biden administration’s decision to launch its own Net Zero spending spree. It is rapidly becoming clear that this has the potential to turn into a disaster for the U.K.

Already unable to compete with the cheap energy and cheap labour of the Far East, many businesses are now having to face the reality that they will soon be unable to compete with the U.S. either, because of its abundance of cheap gas and its tidal wave of subsidies. Even companies that have been here for years are now thinking of upping sticks and crossing the Atlantic to take advantage of the green bonanza on offer. The U.K. and much of Europe are therefore facing an exodus of businesses, and a drying up of foreign direct investment. That could be catastrophic for the economy, and for Government finances already reeling from the pandemic.

The realities of Net Zero are also hitting home for the general public. The threat that the project represents to livelihoods and liberties is becoming more evident by the day. Recently, the mathematician Norman Fenton tweeted an excerpt from a Government-funded report that set out what Net Zero U.K. might look like: no airports, no shipping, no beef and lamb to eat, and most food imports eliminated. Sounds grim, doesn’t it? Lots of people thought so, and the tweet went viral, garnering over three million views.

The threat of being effectively locked into a 15-minute zone of a city has also concentrated minds. Anti-ULEZ protests are kicking off, and civil disobedience has followed in their wake, with cameras vandalised, bollards ripped out and barriers destroyed. Awareness of the threat of programmable digital currencies, which would allow the authorities to dictate your purchases (“No beef for you this week!”), is becoming more widespread too.

Seeing such policies alongside the restrictions on movement and lifestyle, and the ongoing censorship of criticism and opposition, many will conclude that climate catastrophism is simply the latest manifestation of mankind’s habitual tendency to totalitarianism. They are right to do so: green fanatics aspire to dictate every aspect of life, for you and everyone else in the world, just as the National Socialists and the Communist commissars tried to do.

So, as more and more of the impacts of Net Zero hit home, word of the economic and societal threat is spreading. Another surge in energy prices next winter or the winter after could prove the final straw for hundreds of thousands of businesses and the public alike. A small ray of hope is that in some parts of the world, the green cult is having to make compromises. The EU was recently forced by Germany to abandon its planned ban of combustion-engined cars. At the recent G7 meeting, ministers refused to set a date for the elimination of coal from the bloc’s energy systems, rolling back a pledge made at the Glasgow climate summit.

Yet most Western governments, including Mr. Sunak and his cabinet, remain almost entirely in thrall to green dogma. The reality is that far too many of them are Net Zero ideologues themselves, and far too many of the rest are cowed by the antics of the eco-zealots and the fulminations of their supporters in the mainstream media. We should expect no real change of direction under the current generation of ministers and MPs.

This inability to tackle the Net Zero cost crisis is almost certain to clear the way for Labour to sweep into power and to do… precisely nothing about the energy crisis. The damage being done to our economy and society will continue, and perhaps even accelerate.

But eventually a turning point will be reached, and the public, mugged by reality, will realise where the Establishment is taking them. They will look at the cold, dark, miserable Net Zero world that Norman Fenton described and will refuse to go any further. They will instead return to the path they have chosen in the past, the path to liberty and prosperity. The established political parties cannot see the inevitability of this reversal, but eventually they will have to accept it, and follow on behind, or face becoming irrelevant.

Benny Peiser and Andrew Montford are Director and Deputy Director of Net Zero Watch.

19,000 UNDERSEA VOLCANOES DISCOVERED

There is still much to discover about the oceans and yet the climate so-called experts think they know all the answers. Good science always needs to have an open mind.  See article below: 

Bingo front row, 19k undersea volcanoes "discovered" - CFACT

CAN WE TRUST OFFICIAL DATA?

 Most people would assume that they could quote from official data without any fear of it being inaccurate or incomplete. So it is a great shock to find out that this is quite wrong. Here is an example:

The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). EM-DAT contains essential core data on the occurrence and effects of over 22,000 mass disasters in the world from 1900 to the present day. The database is compiled from various sources, including UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, insurance companies, research institutes and press agencies.

Yet it failed to include one of the worst flooding events to affect the UK, the Great North Sea floods of 1953. This article has the details:

EM-DAT Miss The Great North Sea Floods Of 1953 | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

So we should not take anyone's word for it. 

CHINA POWERS AHEAD WITH INCREASED COAL

 Chinese provinces approved more new coal power plants in the first three months of this year than in all of 2021, as Beijing continues a rapid expansion of fossil fuel generation capacity in an effort to guarantee reliable electricity supplies.

Provincial governments gave the green light to at least 20.5 gigawatts of new coal in the first quarter, topping the 18.5 gigawatts for all of 2021, Greenpeace said in a new research report. Approvals began to soar last year, to at least 90.7 gigawatts, after a series of economy-crippling power shortages, according to the study.

Greenpeace’s report is the latest in a series of research findings and industry comments highlighting Beijing’s plan to rely on its mainstay fuel as a backstop for reliable and affordable power amid rising global fuel prices and the development of intermittent renewable generation. The government is also leaning on miners to boost coal output to record levels to avoid a reliance on foreign supplies.

“The 2022 coal boom has clearly continued into this year,” said Xie Wenwen, Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner. Reasons given by governments in approval documents included ensuring safe energy supply, meeting heating demand and stimulating local economic development, Xie said.

What a sensible policy.

SMART METERS TO RATION ELECTRICITY FROM 2024 IN GERMANY

I bet we are only a short way behind. Smart meters were always destined to be used for controlling our use of electricity. There is no way we will ever produce enough electricity to give everyone what they want. The future looks to be one of increasing control and rationing to deal with a "crisis" that has been made up by man, rather than man made.

 Big Brother: German Bundestag Approves Law To Accelerate Installation of Smart Meters (notrickszone.com)

CLIMATE CONTROLS GRADUALLY TIGHTEN

It would seem that climate change has been used as an excuse for some very authoritarian policies to be put forward. How much of this stuff will people put up with before protests spill out on to the streets I wonder. As a councillor myself I would never support such measures, and I am sure my fellow councillors would not either. But a few years ago I would have said that our council would never employ a full time climate change officer, and yet now we do. This stuff creeps up slowly and we are told that we must comply, as otherwise we will be "left behind", "become a pariah", "not get government grants".  

NYC Mayor to Cut Carbon Emissions by Cutting Off Food – Watts Up With That?

IT'S A CRAZY WORLD - YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THIS WAS POSSIBLE

 The article below looks at the way some organisations in the USA are behaving in connection with a number of minority issues. for example The FWS is offering paid leave to employees who attend “eco-anxiety” and “climate grief” training. And Employees can take as much paid time off as needed for diversity and “gay pride” programs and eco-anguish counseling.

What is going on? It appears that these organisations are focused on emotions and not facts. Read the whole article here: Your Taxes at Work: ‘Eco-Anxiety’ Counseling – Watts Up With That?

Is it not time that we asked these weak individuals to grow up, instead of pandering to them?

ARCTIC SEA ICE DECEPTION

Here is another example of a lack of balance in looking at climate issues.

 NASA Credibility Melting At 100% Per Decade | Real Climate Science

Science always considers all sides of an issue, whereas politics often tends towards one-sided propaganda.

SATELLITE DATA SHOWS UP CLIMATE MODEL FAILURE

The facts you will never see on the mainstream news bulletins. 

40 years of expert failure: New NOAA STAR satellite temperatures only show half the warming that climate models do « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)

The warming trend in the troposphere was only half of what the expert models predicted. 

Zou’s team notes that their findings “have strong implications for trends in climate model simulations and other observations” because the atmosphere has warmed at half the average rate predicted by climate models over the same period. They also note that their findings are “consistent with conclusions in McKitrick and Christy (2020),” namely that climate models have a pervasive global warming bias.

PETITION FOR A REFERENDUM ON NET ZERO

 Here is a link to the petition:

Hold a referendum on the 2050 Net Zero target - Petitions (parliament.uk)

HIDE THE DECLINE - A LESSON IN DECEIT

 Climategate Hide the Decline Backgrounder - Climate Discussion Nexus

This video recalls the deceit of the IPCC in pursuit of their agenda of climate alarm.

GREENHOUSE EFFECT IS DECLINING ACCORDING TO SCIENTIFIC STUDY

 It would appear that nothing is actually settled in the area of climate science. In the article, linked below, scientists have shown that, despite levels of CO2 increasing, the greenhouse effect has actually got weaker in the recent decades, in which case there must be some other explanation for the slight warming that has been recorded. Political leaders cannot work with uncertainty, so they cling to a certainty which simply does not exist in reality. How foolish this will all look when the coming decades prove the whole CO2/warming fad to be based on nothing more than guesswork. 

Here is the link: Earth’s Greenhouse Effect Has Not Been Enhanced, But Instead Its Impact Has Declined Since 1983 (notrickszone.com)

GROWTH IN TROPICAL ISLANDS IS QUITE REMARKABLE

 A remarkable discovery by scientists looking at the alleged sinking of tropical islands is that it is completely wrong. Read it here:

Tropical Paradise Islands Are Not Sinking And Shrinking…Most Are In Fact Growing! (notrickszone.com) 

So yet another climate myth bites the dust!

AUSTRALIAN WEATHER AGENCY (BOM) HIDES DATA

BOM stands for the Bureau of Meteorology. 

Why is it that these agencies seem determined to make life difficult for themselves by trying to conceal data. There was ample evidence of this in the leaked emails from a few years back, yet here we are again. Concealing and tampering are the hall mark of people pushing an agenda instead of the pursuit of scientific truth. Read it here:

Is Climate Change really caused by electronic thermometers? (The BOM don’t want Australians to see the data) « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)

CLIMATE -- NO NEED TO PANIC, IT'S MUCH BETTER THAN WE THOUGHT

Yes, it's true, there is no longer any need to panic over rapidly rising temperatures. The link below looks at the latest research by scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  The new value for the warming trend in the mid-troposphere is now down to 0.09*C per decade, and remember the mid-troposphere is, according to greenhouse gas theory, supposed to be where we should expect to find the greatest amount of warming, the so-called "hot-spot".        

 NOAA Confirm UAH Tropospheric Temperature Trends | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

So we can all relax and enjoy the good weather and make sure we are prepared for the bad, just as we always have.

WHY WE SHOULD BE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT OUR FUTURE ENERGY SUPPLIES

The article below is by a university organisation that is keen to reach net zero. It is right with its prediction that the UK will be nowhere near ready to have enough electricity to cope. But they don't seem to realise that the government is only interested in getting through to the next election. Beyond that and it's someone else's problem.

Is Absolute Zero pessimistic about UK energy supplies? – UK FIRES

WHO ARE C40?

Below is part of an essay by Tony Lock. The whole essay is quite long and covers a lot of aspects of UK climate topics. In this passage he looks at a network of city mayors trying to force the pace and burnish their green credentials.

 One of the organizations which has been driving the green agenda, particularly in London, is C40: [[15]]. C40 is an international organization, which describes itself as “A global network of mayors taking urgent action to confront the climate crisis and create a future where everyone can thrive.” C40’s mission, so they say, “is to halve the emissions of its member cities within a decade, while improving equity, building resilience, and creating the conditions for everyone, everywhere to thrive.” Moreover: “C40 member cities earn their membership through action. C40’s most distinguishing feature is that it operates on performance-based requirements, not membership fees.”

And every year, they hold a world mayors’ summit, at which they gather and gab about forcing us to reduce our emissions, for example by making us walk or cycle instead of driving our cars. But not many of them actually walk or cycle from their homes to and from the mayors’ summit, do they? What a bunch of hypocrites.

C40 has, so its website says, been in existence since 2005. I retched when I found out the name of its founder: “Red Ken” Livingstone, former mayor of London. But in retrospect, I found it hardly surprising, since I already knew the identity of its chair, the current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Put Boris Johnson in between them, and you have three extremist green stooges in a row as mayors of London.

Read their website and find out about the huge list of backers from around the world. Here is a link:

Funders & Partners - C40 Cities

THE FREE MARKET IS DEAD

Nowhere in a modern democracy is there a truly free market, because the state has (quite rightly) introduced laws to control it, such as to ensure that what is sold is safe and fit for purpose and that workers rights are upheld. However businesses still had a reasonable degree of freedom to decide things like the type of heating and insulation used in their factories and offices, or the packaging of their products. but all that is now having to change under the guise of "climate change" and "net zero".  If a product produces CO2 in its manufacture then the government will try and tax it. 

So what we are seeing is that the interference is becoming so great that the market is completely distorted, which is leading to higher prices and reduced competition. See the good article in this link:

Net zero subsidies are a disaster for Britain | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

HEAT PUMP DISASTER LOOMS IN GERMANY

According to this article the Germans are even worse off than here in the UK:

 German Professor Warns Of Country’s Pending “Heat Pump Disaster”…”Saves No CO2″…Painful Costs (notrickszone.com)

CLIMATE STORM SET TO RUIN UK HIGH STREETS

It's not the weather that is causing all the damage, but government net zero policies, as the following piece explains:

 Net zero rules saddle high street with ‘disastrous’ £90bn upgrade bill | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

We are now finding that more and more rules and regulations are interfering and adding substantial costs on top of inflation. It is a perfect storm for our high street businesses, already facing the internet. I hope the government will decide to drop all this, but I doubt it. 

THE GROUP PUSHING OUT CLIMATE PROPAGANDA

 We all see climate change exaggeration being pushed out via the main TV news channels, but here is where a lot of these stories come from:

The Climate religion is so fragile they had to train hairdressers to keep the fantasy levitating « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)  

This is a religion in all but name and anyone who challenges it is portrayed as evil. It is the modern equivalent of tablets of stone which no one dares to challenge unless they become an outcast.

UK ENERGY BILLS ARE HIGH DUE TO GOVERNMENT TAXES

 Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, vowed to give Britain the “cheapest energy in Europe” as he set out to overhaul the power system as part of the push to go green.

For struggling households and businesses across Britain, the promise was doubtless a welcome one. But it was also a tacit admission that they have long been saddled with some of Europe's highest bills.

Industrialists including Sir Jim Ratcliffe have bemoaned the huge costs faced by energy intensive businesses, while households have been better off in a raft of countries on the Continent.
 
Data suggest this has had an outsized effect on the UK economy. Inflation in February was 10.4pc when energy prices were included, according to official statistics – but a much lower 7.6pc without them.
 
In the eurozone, inflation including energy bills was 8.5pc. But excluding them, it would actually have been higher than in Britain at 7.8pc.
 
A toxic combination of net zero charges and subsidies means that unfortunately for Shapps, there are few quick fixes if he wants to meet his goal.

Green levies
 
The energy bills households and businesses pay are split into two parts – for the gas that heats boilers, and the electricity that keeps the lights on. These are very different markets.
 
The price of each to the end consumer is made up of the wholesale price of the product, as well as fees and taxes lumped on top.

Wholesale electricity prices in Britain had been higher than much of Europe for several years before the energy crisis, in large part owing to a move away from coal in favour of less polluting but more expensive sources of power.
 
The UK introduced extra carbon taxes – fees paid by a polluter for every tonne of carbon dioxide they emit – in 2013, to push electricity generators away from coal. Meanwhile, in the European Union, the price paid for carbon fell.
 
It meant UK power generators paid an initial minimum £16 per tonne of carbon dioxide, encouraging them to swap coal-fired stations for lower-carbon natural gas, biomass, or move into wind power generation.

In the EU, carbon costs at one point fell as low as €2.75 (£2.41). Britain's higher charges have been a success in terms of cutting carbon emissions. The UK generated around 2pc of its electricity from coal in 2021, compared to about 30pc in Germany.
 
However, the extra carbon taxes have added to wholesale electricity prices as generators were forced to charge more to cover their costs.
 
For example, in 2021, average electricity wholesale prices in Britain were £113 per MWh, compared to €96 per MWh in Germany.
 
“Within Europe, wholesale prices have been more expensive in Britain basically because of the higher carbon price,” says Tom Smout, senior associate at Aurora Energy Research.
 
By the time electricity reaches the consumer, it also includes further levies on top of the wholesale price.

These levies account for about 8pc of today’s UK domestic electricity bills, according to analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit – equivalent to £131 per household.

The bulk of these costs have been spent on subsidising wind farms. There are also fees to insulate homes and help vulnerable households with their energy costs.
Britain has resisted calls to remove green levies despite the jump in overall bills.

In contrast, Germany scrapped a controversial renewable energy levy last year, a move expected to save the typical household an annual €200, with subsidies instead funded by public money.
 
Full story

NEW RESEARCH SHEDS MORE DOUBT ON EFFECT OF CO2 ON GW

 

New research into the global warming effect of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) confirms that they have played a much larger role in climate change that many previously supposed. This in turn means that the role of CO2 must be smaller than has been claimed.
 
The finding will require a reassessment of carbon dioxide’s pervasiveness in the climate debate, affecting current climate models and future predictions of global and regional temperature changes, especially in the Arctic.
 
The study in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the warming due to ODSs was more than half of that due to the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide, that is a about one third of total anthropogenic warming in recent decades.This is because ODSs have been about 20% more effective than CO2 at causing global warming. In addition ODS warming peaks in the Arctic where it is estimated to be 66% of that due to carbon dioxide.

Ozone-depleting substances are chemicals developed in the 1920s and 1930s for use in refrigerators, spray cans and plastic foams. Their use increased rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. Following the realisation of their devastating impact on the stratospheric ozone layer and the signing of the Montreal Protocol in the 1987 their phase-out is underway.
 
It is well known that ODSs are powerful greenhouse gases, estimated to have the second largest warming effect between 1955 and 2005 as reported in 2020 in Nature Climate Change. Building on this work is the aim of this research carried out by scientists from Canada, The United States, Britain and Austria.
 
Analysing all but one climate forcing factors they find that between 1955–2005 ODSs are responsible for 30% of global warming, 37% of Arctic warming, and 33% of summertime Arctic sea ice loss. In addition, they find that the impact of ODSs on global temperatures is about 20% larger than expected based on the impacts they have on the Earth’s radiative balance.
 
What is particularly surprising say the researchers is that ODSs have contributed considerably to Arctic warming and sea ice loss in the second half of the 20th century. This research adds to the evidence that ODSs have played a more significant role in historical climate change than appreciated.
 
Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com

NET ZERO SET TO FAIL SAYS NEW REPORT

 Of 44 policies encompassing about 85 percent of Defra’s proposed emissions savings, 21 were marked red or red/amber, indicating they will be hard to achieve. A further 18 were marked as amber or amber/green, and only five were marked green, two of which disappeared from the final “carbon budget delivery plan” document published last Thursday.

Read it here;

Net-zero: battle lines | Turbulent Times

GERMANS GIVING UP ON THE RENEWABLE DREAM

The truth is starting to emerge and the German people don't like what they see.

Germans Overwhelmingly Fed Up With Move To Green Energies As Massive Costs Loom (notrickszone.com)

As the government gears up to try to pass legislation that would force most homeowners to carry out extensive renovation to their homes and upgrades to their heating systems, the Energiewende is suddenly no longer looking like a bargain and is no longer welcome by the vast majority of Germans, according to a Forsa survey. The sun and wind don’t deliver energy for free after all.

FAREWELL TO LORD LAWSON

 We owe a great deal to Lord Lawson for his courage in speaking out against the climate change dogma. Not only that, he founded the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) and was able to attract a number of highly qualified scientists to join, thus becoming very influential. Today the GWPF is highly respected and widely used organisation.

See other tributes here:

Nigel Lawson (1932-2023) - The Global Warming Policy Foundation (thegwpf.org) 

WELCOME TO THE SOVIET-STYLE "PLANNED ECONOMY"

 It seems that the only way the population can be "persuaded" to follow the climate change policy is by the force of penalising taxes. Without this they would simply ignore the pleas of ministers. But how long will it be before these massive tax hikes cause outright dissent and French-style civil disobedience? Sadly there is no way these policies can be changed through the ballot box, since all main parties are signed up to the same disastrous course

Read the detail in the latest government announcement here;

Gas Boiler Manufacturers Face Fines For Missing Soviet Style Heat Pump Targets | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

BRITISH NET ZERO POLICY LOOKS LIKE SELF-HARM

 Experts and politicians warned that British rules due to take effect in 2030 are untenable following the European climbdown, which will allow internal combustion engines as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.

The European Union will now ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 but permit these so-called e-fuels following a backroom compromise forced on it by the German authorities and signed off on Tuesday night.

The EU's e-fuel exemption will allow a synthetic alternative to petrol which is made by mixing carbon dioxide captured from the air with hydrogen obtained by splitting water molecules using renewable energy.

This is expected to be far more expensive than petrol, meaning it will initially benefit high-end carmakers whose customers will not be put off by the costs involved.

What a farce, the winners will be second-hand petrol and diesel cars!

ANTARCTIC ICE MASS TO GROW IN 21st CENTURY

No, this is not an April fools day headline, just one you didn't expect to see. However the study, using a computer programme (so not sure how much reliance can be placed on it), claims that the Antarctic will lock up sufficient extra ice in the 21st century to lower sea level 22mm by 2100 under a current energy use scenario. See here:

 Antarctic Ice Cap To Grow Despite Global Warming–New Study | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)