The UK parliament has decided to phase out fossil fueled cars entirely by 2040 or even 2035,  but right now only 4% of the UK public are even planning to buy an EV, which makes it a very forced transition.  Forty four percent say they won’t even be ready in fifteen years time, and a quarter effectively say “over my dead body”.

Half of Britons say a 2035 deadline to switch to an electric car is too soon!

Rob Hull and Grace Gausden, ThisIsMoney.co.uk

But despite the growing availability and wider selection of motors to choose from, a survey commissioned by the SMMT found that almost half of drivers are not only unprepared to make a transition to zero-emission motoring now but don’t think they will be in 2035 – five years ahead of the existing deadline for the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars to be banished.

A quarter (24 per cent) of the 2,185 drivers interviewed claimed they don’t foresee themselves ever buying an electric car in their lifetimes, despite the impeding ban in 2040.

96% say they are not even thinking of buying one at the moment Hardly anyone […]Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

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September 8, 2020 at 02:07PM

New rules to restrict spending by network operators risk plunging the UK grid into blackout chaos, National Grid has warned.

Tensions between energy regulator Ofgem and the public companies that run the UK’s electricity grid have reached fever pitch in recent weeks, following the release in July of Ofgem proposals to slash returns energy firms like National Grid can make on investments.

Network operators maintain the pipes and wires that supply heat and power across the country. Ofgem wants to cut the baseline rate of return these companies can make from 7-8 per cent to 3.95 per cent from April 2021. Some £8bn of proposed spending on infrastructure projects would also be cut under the plans, after Ofgem concluded energy firms had not done enough to prove the schemes represented value for money.

Blackout threat

Network operators have responded furiously to the proposals, claiming the restrictions threaten the stability of the UK energy system and the transition to green power.

National Grid said it had “serious concerns”, arguing the plans are not in the best interests of its customers.

In a consultation response published on Monday, National Grid warned the rules would leave it struggling to make the network investments needed to avoid future blackouts. The new rules would also choke off investment in net zero grid technologies, it warned.

“The impacts of these proposals are to create unnecessary delay and uncertainty to the delivery of projects supporting net zero, perverse incentives to delay low carbon connections and avoidable regulatory burden and transaction costs,” National Grid warned in an accompanying letter to Ofgem CEO Jonathan Brierly.

Wales & West Utilities also joined the row this week. The privately owned company warned the proposed rule changes would stop £194m worth of essential work. This could threaten the firm’s health and safety compliance and its ability to prepare for the net zero transition, it warned.

Ofgem insists the reforms do not threaten the UK’s net zero ambitions. It says the new return rates will bring energy markets in line with similar sectors such as water. A final decision on whether to proceed will be made by Ofgem in December.

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The post Blackout Warnings As Row Over Energy Costs Escalates appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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September 8, 2020 at 01:55PM

Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel branded Extinction Rebellion protesters as ‘so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals’ today as she vowed to crack down on their ‘guerrilla tactics’.

Speaking to the Police Superintendents’ Association annual conference, the Home Secretary said she would not allow the group to cause ‘anarchy’.

The strong words come after XR’s printing press blockade which left some newsagents’ shelves empty on Saturday morning.

Addressing the conference, held digitally due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms Patel said:

Now it is said that where there is no law there is no freedom, and that law and order is the cornerstone of our free society.

‘And without it we have nothing. But events of the last week have exposed another emerging threat – the so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals.

‘Attempting to thwart the media’s right to publish without fear nor favour. And a shameful attack on our way of life, our economy, and the livelihoods of the hardworking majority.

‘I refuse point plank to allow that kind of anarchy on our streets.

‘And I’m right behind you as you bring the full might of the law down upon that selfish minority.

‘The very criminals who disrupt our free society must be stopped.

‘And together we must all stand firm against the guerrilla tactics of Extinction Rebellion.

‘And that means adapting to the threat that they pose and ensuring that justice is served.’

Ms Patel said ‘attacking people’s jobs and livelihoods’ is not ‘peaceful protest’.

She added:

‘These are not peaceful tactics. These are tactics that are deployed to cause maximum damage to society, blocking of roads for example.

‘Last week we saw ambulances and blue lights not even being able to get through to hospitals basically, you know threatening people’s lives in addition to the economic wellbeing of our society at a time when actually we’re trying to get society up and running all over again.’

Ms Patel’s comments come after the Government said powers to help police deal with disruptive protests are ‘under constant review’.

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The post Priti Patel Brands Extinction Rebellion Protesters ‘Eco-Crusaders Turned Criminals’ appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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September 8, 2020 at 01:41PM

Building the future one log at a time.

Thanks to climate activists, coal deposits underground are safe but Europe’s old forests are being converted to industrial plantations and wood pellets

 Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone thinks the media, which raged over Brazil’s Amazonian forest fires may be finally noticing their own man-made disaster.

The ARD’s “Das Erste” reports how satellite images show deforestation has risen 49% since 2016 in Sweden, Finland and the Baltic countries. The reason: “Because of the CO2 targets.

Who needs massive hardwoods anyway?

For “CO2-neutral” wood pellets

Where once massive hardwoods once stood now grows tiny fir trees. The harvested trees, the report says, were used for wood pellets – a form of renewable green energy. The trees, the pellet industry says, will grow back.

Not only are the forests taking a hit, but so is the wildlife that once inhabited in them. According to Ms. Steinberg, bird life has fallen some 25%. “It’s wasted. Now we have to start all over again.”

 The problem is particularly severe in Estonia where one sixth of the forest has been razed since just 2001 to feed the worlds second largest […]Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

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September 8, 2020 at 01:31PM

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Bill McKibben sees climate change every day, and he wants you to see climate change as well. But his dramatic description of “Hiroshimas” worth of energy leaves out some important context.

How Fast Is the Climate Changing?: It’s a New World, Each and Every Day

By Bill McKibben
September 3, 2020

The struggle over climate change is necessarily political and economic and noisy—if we’re going to get anything done, we’ll have to do it in parliaments and stock exchanges, and quickly.

But, every once in a while, it’s worth stepping back and reminding ourselves what’s actually going on, silently, every hour of every day. And what’s going on is that we’re radically remaking our planet, in the course of a human lifetime. Hell, in the course of a human adolescence.

The sun, our star, pours out energy, which falls on this planet, where the atmosphere traps some of it. Because we’ve thickened that atmosphere by burning coal and gas and oil—in particular, because we’ve increased the amount of carbon dioxide and methane it contains—more of that sun’s energy is trapped around the Earth: about three-fourths of a watt of extra energy per square meter, or slightly less than, say, one of those tiny white Christmas-tree lights. But there are a lot of square meters on our planet—roughly five hundred and ten trillion of them, which is a lot of Christmas-tree lights. It’s the heat equivalent, to switch units rather dramatically, of exploding four Hiroshima-sized bombs each second.

We get a sense of what that feels like when we have a week like the one we just came through. Hurricane Laura detonated in intensity in a few hours before it made landfall—that escalation was one of the most rapid that has ever been observed in the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s because of the extra heat that’s available. …

Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/how-fast-is-the-climate-changing-its-a-new-world-each-and-every-day

Back in the real world, there is a weak correlation between warming and wind speed, but the correlation is not statistically significant (see the graph at the top of the page).

Bill McKibben’s talk of Hiroshima’s worth of energy is very dramatic. But that 3/4 of a watt per square meter Bill talks about has to be seen in the context of other climate phenomena, such as changes to insolation caused by Earth’s not quite circular orbit around the Sun.

In January the Earth is only 0.9833 AU from the Sun, in June the Earth is 1017 AU from the sun (AU – astronomical unit = 93 million miles). This results in a variation of solar intensity of 1413 w/m2 in early January, when the Earth is closest to the sun, which drops to 1321 w/m2 in June.

Obviously there are other numbers you could use, such as total sunlight striking the Earth’s surface, but my point is natural annual variations in total solar intensity are at least an order of magnitude larger than any anthropogenic CO2 signal.

In the context of this and other large climate shifts such as seasons, variations in snow cover, or random changes in ocean currents and cloudiness, Bill McKibben’s 3/4 of a watt / square meter of anthropogenic warming could best be described as “noise”.

There is no substantial evidence anthropogenic CO2 is adding enough energy to the climate system to make a significant difference to storm intensity.

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September 8, 2020 at 12:15PM

By Paul Homewood

Jan Smelik has sent me his video about windmills in the Netherlands.

It presents the impossibility of relying on wind power in a very visual and graphic way:

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September 8, 2020 at 10:06AM