Day: 4 November 2020

By Paul Homewood

From GWPF/Times:

For the second time in weeks National Grid has warned that Britain’s big onshore and offshore wind farms will be failing to deliver, generating only about 2.5GW today because of low wind speeds.

In the meantime, the costs of stabilising the national grid and avoiding catastrophic blackouts have been rising sharply, as unreliable renewables have taken a leading role in electricity supply. During the first lockdown, National Grid expected the total cost of these rescue measures to be about £2bn this year, but even that figure was based on the erroneous assumption that the country and stabilising costs would return to normal after the summer.

The time has come to pause the blind rush into a renewable energy disaster and reassess the evident technological, national security and economic costs and problems the renewable energy obsession faces.

National Grid last night sent out an urgent call for more power stations to fire up to keep Britain’s lights on today after plant outages and low wind farm output increased the risk of blackouts.

The electricity system operator issued an “margin notice”, its most serious security of supply alert in four years, warning of a supply crunch between 4:30pm and 6:30pm today.

It forecast a shortfall of 740 megawatts, or 1.5 per cent, compared with the power plant capacity it wants to have available to meet demand and to provide back-up in case plants break down.

Sources said the operator was in talks for coal-fired power stations to fire up to provide back-up. EDF confirmed it had been asked to warm up its West Burton A plant in Nottinghamshire.

National Grid said the margin notice “highlights that we would like a greater safety cushion between power demand and available supply” but “does not signal that blackouts are imminent”.

The alert and the prospect of Britain relying on polluting coal plants to keep the lights on will raise concerns about energy security. All coal plants are due to close by October 2024, while the government recently committed to a renewed push for offshore wind farms.

National Grid said that it was “forecasting tight margins on the electricity system . . . owing to a number of factors, including low renewable output and the availability of generators over periods of the day with higher demand”. It was “exploring measures to make sure there is enough generation available to increase our buffer of capacity”.

Britain faces green energy disaster as lack of wind triggers new blackout warning

Worth pointing out the only reason there have been blackouts so far toady is that gas plants have been supplying as much as 24 GW, with coal adding an extra 2 GW.

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=eds/main

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November 4, 2020 at 01:21PM

My column at RealClearEnergy.com. Better late than never. And it may still help with the post-election voting going on in, say, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

Joe Biden is no moderate. He admitted as much at the final presidential debate when he said that he would “transition” America away from oil. Many don’t realize how radical a statement that is.

Since at least 1988, politicians and advocates have tried to sell the American people two demonstrably false ideas. The first: that our use of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas is bad for the planet. The second: that we have access to affordable substitutes for these energy sources.

Since the mid-2000s, these notions have been incorporated into K-12 and university curricula and adopted and propagated by virtually every public and private institution, including U.S. oil companies striving to be politically correct.

When Biden says that the U.S. will get rid of fossil fuels, many believe that this is both a worthy goal and an achievable one.

It’s neither.

Fossil fuels are inextricable from our lives. Nothing happens in our modern world without them. While it’s possible to replace one fossil fuel (e.g., coal) with another (natural gas), nothing can replace fossil fuels themselves as an energy source.

You may support wind turbines and solar panels, but they can’t be manufactured or installed without massive quantities of fossil fuels. And wind and solar, as intermittent energy sources, must be backed up by fossil fuels when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

You want to buy an electric vehicle? They can’t be made or even re-charged without fossil fuels. It’s not possible to build an electric grid powered by wind and solar that would supply a nation driving 250 million electric vehicles.

Look at where you live. How would your home be built without fossil fuels? How would the bricks, concrete, steel, lumber, windows, paint, and siding materials be produced and transported in an affordable way without fossil fuels? Or look inside your home. You see cars, TVs, computers, phones, kitchen products, furniture, clothing, and so one – and all require plastic. If we phased out oil, how would we make plastic and other products with synthetic materials? What would replace it, wood or metal or glass?

It takes fossil fuels to make them, too.

Ever been to a hospital and noticed all the plastic equipment and single-use supplies? Maybe a restaurant can replace plastic straws with paper ones, but a paper IV tube is just not going to cut it.

Do you like eating? Fossil fuels are the reason why we can feed the 7.8 billion people on our planet. Growing, harvesting, transporting, storing, and refrigerating food all require fossil fuels. Even organic farming depends on fossil fuels – in fact, organic farming requires even more fossil fuels than conventional farming.

How would you enjoy French or even California wine without fossil fuels unless you lived in France or California? Or winter grapes from Chile? How about seafood? There is no such thing as an electric fishing boat – and even if there was, it would require fossil fuels to build and charge.

Need to fly for business or pleasure? There are no battery-powered 747s and there never will be. The only way that airlines can reduce emissions is to fly less.

Now imagine a man running for president who announces that he wants to do away with these indispensable sources of energy. He offers no hints on how he would do this or what he would replace them with. But he wants to make the “transition,” regardless of its practicality.

That’s Joe Biden.

If Biden is elected president, would he seriously try to get rid of fossil fuels, or is he saying such things just to appeal to green-minded Democratic voters?

Do you really want to take the chance to find out the answer?

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com, served on the Trump EPA transition team and is the author of “Scare Pollution: How and Why to Fix the EPA” (Bench Press, 2016).

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November 4, 2020 at 01:00PM

The United States presidential race is still up in the air, and the battle for control of the  Senate  appears far from over. But one thing is clear the day after Election Day 2020: The “green wave” that environmentalists had hoped for failed to materialize.

There were bright spots for the environment. In the Senate, two Democrats, John Hickenlooper in Colorado and Mark Kelly in Arizona, have defeated incumbent Republicans who have received poor marks from environmental and conservation groups for their voting records.

Mr. Kelly was endorsed by Climate Hawks Vote, a progressive group that promotes candidates who promise to take action on climate change. Mr. Hickenlooper was not. While he declared during the campaign that action on climate change was urgently needed, his past ties to the oil and gas industry in Colorado made some groups wary.

Mr. Hickenlooper could turn out to be the greenest of green lawmakers, but if Democrats don’t win control of the Senate it might make little difference. While the House looks certain to remain in Democratic hands, in the Senate the party needs more victories: Two, if Joseph R. Biden Jr. wins the presidency, which would allow Kamala Harris to break tie votes; or three, if President Trump is re-elected. Even two more Democratic victories seemed less likely on Wednesday than they did before the vote count began.

Climate and the environment were front and center in several state and local elections, and the outcomes appear certain in a few of those.

In a Texas race that was closely watched by environmental groups, a Democrat, Chrysta Castañeda, appears to have lost her bid to serve on the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator. The Republican candidate, Jim Wright, led by nearly 10 percentage points, with most of the votes counted, according to Decision Desk HQ.

As my colleague Lisa Friedman wrote recently, Ms. Castañeda’s campaign received an infusion of $2.5 million from the billionaire Michael Bloomberg in hopes that a Democrat would win a seat on the three-member commission for the first time in the 21st century and prompt more oversight on climate-related issues like methane flaring. Mr. Wright, who was supported by the oil and gas industry, was criticized by environmental groups for promoting fringe theories about climate change and renewable energy.

Full story

The post US Elections: The ‘Green Wave’ that failed to materialise appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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November 4, 2020 at 12:35PM

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Breathe the free air America – whatever happens in the next few days, with this act of defiance the USA under President Trump has struck a heavy blow against the climate globalists.

Climate change: US formally withdraws from Paris agreement

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in the world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations meant that his decision only takes effect today, the day after the US election.

The US could re-join it in future, should a president choose to do so.

…

What will the withdrawal mean in practice?

While the US now represents around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains the world’s biggest and most powerful economy. 

…

While the US now represents around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains the world’s biggest and most powerful economy. 

“Being out formally obviously hurts the US reputation,” said Andrew Light, a former senior climate change official in the Obama administration.

…

Others are hopeful that the US withdrawal will drive a sense of unity among others, and see new leadership emerge. 

“The EU green deal and carbon neutrality commitments from China, Japan and South Korea point to the inevitability of our collective transition off fossil fuels,” said Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris agreement and now chief executive of the European Climate Foundation.

…

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54797743

Lets hope this withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is permanent.

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November 4, 2020 at 12:24PM