License Renewal Forms 2017-2021: Fill & Download for Free

Impossible, as the energy density advantage of fossil fuels and the intermittency of wind and solar ensure they have a dim future. This means that with market based pricing economies around the world will bend to fossil fuel dominance. This is happening today with the unexpected rebound in coal powered electricity. Geology and innovation will ensure that we do not run out of fossil fuels as supply of coal and natural gas look infinite today at least.“…the green madness that’s threatening our ability to turn on the lights and air conditioners is being exposed as a socialist policy-driven, big government debacle…”Jamie SpryThe best renewable energy is hydro and nuclear power, but they are limited by negative public opinion.RENEWABLE ENERGYIs unreliable and will not become a significant energy source compared to fossil fuels especially coal that is on the rebound with many power plants being financed and built by China.“Don’t Bank On Solar Power In Winter!Posted: December 12, 2017 | Author: Jamie Spry | Filed under: BIG Government, | 1 Comment“…for the last month, solar power has been running at a tiny 4% of its capacity, with many days well below this.”Unreliables. Enough said.NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THATBy Paul Homewood“Wait till the Health & Safety Stasi see this!“The renewable lobby would like you to believe that solar power is an important part of our future energy strategy.But they don’t tell you just how little power is produced during winter months, at the time when demand is at its peak.”Search Results for “solar power” – ClimatismUNRELIABLE Energy – Wind and Solar – A Climate Of CommunismPosted: October 16, 2017 | Author: Jamie Spry | Filed under: Agenda 21, Australia,|3 CommentsGreen is the new red.“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (The Godfather of global warming alarmism and former NASA climate chief)“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers***IN AUSTRALIA, where the Liberal party, the Labor opposition and the Greens have all embraced massive renewable energy targets, we have some of the most expensive electricity anywhere in the world, South Australia officially the highest.THE massive subsidies tipped into the renewable unreliable energy sector makes it unprofitable for 24/7/365 base-load power solutions (coal, hydrocarbons) to operate when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.JUST as socialist central planning failed miserably before it was replaced by free market economies, green central planning will have to be discarded before Australia will be able to see a return to energy security and erase its name from the unenviable title of having the “highest power prices in the world.”UNTIL big government backs off, taxpayers and businesses will continue to pay billions of dollars more for the most important utility they need to sustain life and prosperity – cheap, abundant and reliable electricity.FINALLY the green madness that’s threatening our ability to turn on the lights and air conditioners is being exposed as a socialist policy-driven, big government debacle…Australia’s poor left powerless by soaring prices and green energyIT’S 100 years ago next month that Lenin forced communism on to Russia, sending armed thugs to storm the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.Yet even though he, Stalin, Mao and Castro then put their people in chains and kept them poor, faith in Big Government is miraculously on the rise again in Australia.See, green is the new red. Global warming is the excuse that has brought back the commissars who love ordering people how to live, even down to the things they make and the prices they charge.All big parties share the blame. Even the Turnbull Government forces us with its renewable energy targets to use more electricity from the wind and solar plants it subsidises.True, this green power is expensive, unreliable and driving cheap coal-fired power stations out of business, leaving us dangerously short of electricity for summer.But the government now has an equally crazy $30 million scheme to fix that, too: it will bribe Australians with movie tickets and $25 vouchers to turn off their electricity when they most need it — like during a heatwave, when a million air conditioners are switched on.Movie tickets are a bribe only the poor would take.That’s a bribe only the poor will take. Would Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull really turn off the switches at his Point Piper mansion for two free tickets to Hoyts?And with power prices so high, the very poor would have little real choice. Conclusion: the poor will sweat so the rich may have air con.But it was actually Greens leader Richard Di Natale who last week took out the Lenin Prize for useful idiocy.Asked on the ABC about our soaring gas prices, Di Natale suggested a solution once found in a Soviet Five Year Plan: “The simple way of dealing with the problem … is government has got to step in and regulate prices.”Same deal with electricity prices, which Greens MP Adam Bandt has urged be “capped”.“Governments absolutely need to step in,” insisted Di Natale.“They can regulate prices. We’ve got a plan … We build battery storage technology. We get more solar and wind in the system …“It’s good for prices, it’s good for jobs and most of all, it’s good for the planet.”All lies, of course. Look at South Australia: the state with the most wind power has the world’s most expensive electricity and Australia’s worst unemployment.Adelaide’s Salamon family reading by candle and torch light during South Australia’s frequent blackouts.And it’s all for nothing, because our emissions are just too tiny.As Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has admitted, even if Australia ended all emissions from cars, power stations, factories and cows, the difference to the climate would be “virtually nothing”. But the difference to the economy would be devastating.To Commissar Di Natale, it all sounds simple: just force business to charge less for the product they risked a fortune to find, extract, market and transport. But which business would risk a dollar to find more gas if they were then forced to charge prices so low that they’d lose their shirts?Already, Labor and the Greens have frightened off investment in new coal-fired power stations or even in big upgrades to existing ones, which is why we now face summer blackouts.That’s dragged even the Turnbull Government into considering whether to itself finance a new coal-fired plant, just as Lenin would have done and as Nationals MPs now demand.But Labor last Saturday proposed its own Big Government fix. In a speech in South Australia, federal leader Bill Shorten actually praised the state government for having “climate-proofed” the electricity supply.Adelaide Hills pharmacist Kirrily Chambers forced to throw out medicine from the fridge after a blackout. Picture: Kelly Barnes/The AustralianNever mind that it’s left the state with power prices so high that businesses have been driven broke.Shorten on Saturday promised South Australia relief, but not by dropping his own lunatic promise to force all Australia by 2030 to take 50 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy.No, he simply promised more subsidies — a $1 billion Australian Manufacturing Future Fund to hand out cheap business loans no bank would risk.Shorten said this new fund for manufacturers would be like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which hands out cheap government loans for the kind of renewable energy schemes that have helped to destroy our electricity system.The circle is complete: Labor in effect promises to subsidise business to survive the electricity crisis caused by subsidising green power, while the Liberals subsidise the poor not to use it at all. Meanwhile, we all pay. And all for nothing.Only Big Government could cause such a dog-chases-tail circus. We didn’t learn from Lenin, did we?Andrew Bolt on energy crisis: Poor will be left powerless by soaring prices and green energy | Herald SunWeather is a “severe problem” and explains why wind and solar have no long term future.RESEARCH PAPERIce protection systems for wind turbines in cold climate: characteristics, comparisons and analysishttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.06.080Get rights and contentAbstract“The impact of icing on wind turbines and energy production in northern regions is a severe problem. Therefore, emphasis on developing ice mitigation systems has become a significant part of the wind energy conversion systems. These systems use various technologies and have different specifications, sometimes with no clear indication of their efficiency. Since the effect of cold climate on wind turbines is complex, not every ice protection system is suitable for a given wind farm.”Ice protection systems for wind turbines in cold climate: characteristics, comparisons and analysisHome2020December24Iced Covered Wind Turbines Hamper China’s Efforts to Retire CoalOffshore Wind Turbine iced over.COALWIND POWER“Iced Covered Wind Turbines Hamper China’s Efforts to Retire Coal2 hours ago Eric Worrall 21 CommentsGuest essay by Eric WorrallAs China struggles with a surge in energy demand brought on by their economic recovery and a cold snap, the reputation of wind power has suffered a blow, as freezing temperatures covered wind turbines in Hunan with ice.China’s winter chills clean energy transition as factories fire upPUBLISHED 4 HOURS AGOBEIJING/YIWU, CHINA (REUTERS) – China’s harsh winter and stunning manufacturing recovery this year have pushed up electricity demand across the country’s industrial belt, complicating Beijing’s drive to cut businesses’ power usage and their reliance on polluting coal-fired energy.The surge in demand also comes as the cold hampers the ability of renewable energy to fill the gap left by a severe coal shortage, raising doubts about the reliability of cleaner sources to power the world’s second-largest economy during critical periods.…Coal supplies, meanwhile, are tight despite record domestic output in November as a runaway economic recovery sucks up power.…To address localised power shortages, Beijing has urged coal miners to ramp up output and energy firms to diversify gas sources. It has also allowed customs to clear imported coal that had built up at ports during the summer due to unofficial import quotas aimed at supporting local producers.While Australian coal has reportedly been excluded from customs clearances, it accounts for less than 3 per cent of China’s total thermal coal usage.…In the southern provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan, which rely heavily on hydro and renewables, demand this season overwhelmed supply, with coal plants unable to fill the gap after local miners were shut due to environmental and safety reasons and national curbs on output earlier this year, crimping supply.In Hunan, wind turbines were frozen by an early cold snap this month that brought ice and snow.…Read more: China's winter chills clean energy transition as factories fire upIf only China had built more wind turbines in Hunan, then they could have had even more pretty static ice sculptures to celebrate the Christmas season.The pictures above were taken in in 2019, so my guess is icing up of wind turbines in Hunan is a regular occurrence.Time to terminate Big Wind subsidies– and protect environmental values, endangered species, jobs and human welfare Guest post by Paul Driessen Unprecedented! As bills to extend seemingly perpetual wind energy subsidies were again introduced by industry lobbyists late last year, taxpayers finally decided they’d had enough. Informed and inspired by a loose but growing national…21 COMMENTSOldestJeff AlbertsDecember 24, 2020 10:05 amHelicopters with big diesel tanks and giant flame-throwers. Problem solved!Paul CReply toJeff AlbertsDecember 24, 2020 11:53 amAs you probably know, it’s the same as de-icing aircraft wings – glycol from the helicopter. The other way is install electric heaters in the blades, but that turns them into even bigger consumers of electricity at peak demand.The cold, hard truth about ice on turbine blades0ReplyRod EvansDecember 24, 2020 10:15 amLet’s look on the bright side, all that cold weather will ensure solar panels are delivering high levels of power output this winter. 🙂 I wonder if it takes long to shovel the snow of them?MarkWDecember 24, 2020 10:24 amSolar panels don’t work well when they are covered by ice either.Nor do they work well when covered by dust, pollen, bird poo …1ReplyDave BurtonDecember 24, 2020 10:44 amSome might wonder why they don’t let them spin, with ice on them. The blade tip speed on a wind turbine can top 150 mph (=220 fps =67m/s =241 kph), so with ice buildup they have the potential to become gigantic spinning trebuchets. A large projectile launched at a 45° angle at 150 mph would travel nearly 3/10 of a mile.Last edited 1 hour ago by Dave BurtonDave BurtonDecember 24, 2020 11:22 amThe ice on them will also unbalance the blades. That can tear a turbine apart real fast.MarkWDecember 24, 2020 11:48 amSo first a several hundred pound slab of ice is launched a quarter of a mile and then the turbine blows apart. Cool! Would make a great video!Dave BurtonDecember 24, 2020 12:02 pmThe ice would not break clear of all blades at the same time. The imbalance could then shake the entire turbine assembly to piecesRon LongDecember 24, 2020 10:46 amGood catch from Reuters, Eric. Here’s the comment that is a reality check for me: “…raising doubts about the reliability of cleaner sources to power the world’s second largest economy during critical periods.” But for the world’s actual largest economy this somehow isn’t an alarm signal? Hello, Presumptive President Elect Joe Biden, who says that climate change is an existential threat and will be at the center of his administrations agenda! This kind of statement suggests Joe’s elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.”Iced Covered Wind Turbines Hamper China’s Efforts to Retire Coal“The truth behind renewable energy2 months agoGuest BloggerPreviously published in the October 2020, issue of International Cement ReviewCan renewable energy sources supply the world with a large share of the energy it requires? While some environmentalists advocate the total replacement of fossil fuels by solar, wind and battery power, Dr Lars Schernikau explains why this is impossible.by Dr. Lars Schernikau, HMS Bergbau Group, Germany & SingaporePhoto: A young man burning electrical wires to recover copper at Agbogbloshie, September 2019; Wikipedia Free License“Today we hear and read about the climate crisis every day, driven by well-funded campaigns. But we hear little of the perils of switching from conventional energy to wind, solar and battery-powered vehicles. It appears that every second person has become an atmospheric physicist understanding that carbon dioxide is the main driver of global warming and switching to renewables will save us from devastating hurricanes and floods reaching the ceilings of our dream seaside properties. Every other person appears to be an energy specialist being certain that wind, solar and battery-powered vehicles will be a happy, safe and environmentally friendly way to power our everyday electricity and transportation needs. However, little could be farther from the truth.The author is all for sensible use of renewable energy and for reducing everyday energy waste. Society needs to invest in additional filtering systems, cleaner transportation and mining operations that minimise the negative impact on the planet. Moreover, many trees should be planted. However, are current climate actions good for the environment? Are today’s wind and solar technologies the solution to our energy problems? This article aims to take the reader on a journey away from current standard thinking.Current and future energy needsToday, close to 8bn people live on Earth and they feed 80 per cent of their hunger for energy with hydrocarbons or fossil fuels (see Figure 1). Wind and solar make up an estimated two per cent of 2018 primary energy, the remainder largely comes from nuclear, hydropower and some biomass. This is in sharp contrast with the 2bn people that inhabited the Earth only a 100 years ago and had just learnt how to spell “oil and gas”. Of today’s world population, there are at least 3bn with no or only erratic access to power. In the next 50 years, a further +3bn people could be added, and as a result, the pure number of people plus the additional air conditioning equipment, new electronic gadgets, cars, aeroplanes and space travel, will increase the demand for energy dramatically.Extrapolating the trends shown in Figure 1 to the future, it becomes questionable that non-hydro renewable sources such as wind and solar will provide the energy required in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.The media says the share of solar and wind will grow exponentially but does not mention the growth of electronic waste shipped to Africa that comes with it. And it certainly does not mention that solar and wind technology can literally never be the main source for the world’s power generation due to their low energy density and the issues described below.Figure 1: A Life without Fossils is Decades Away[1]ERoEI, energy density and intermittency: en-masse deployment of wind and solar is detrimentalThe now-famous documentary “Planet of the Humans” from Michael Moore, which has 9m views on YouTube, illustrates this problem very well.Solar and wind power are not new energy sources – we had to “wean off” low efficiency wind- and solar-based power to fuel humanities technological revolution. While there is nothing extraordinary or revolutionary about these power sources, their efficiency has greatly improved over recent decades. Moreover, these sources are getting close to their physical limits. The Schockley-Queisser Law states that a maximum of 33 per cent of incoming photons can be converted into electrons in silicon photovoltaic (PV) with modern PV reaching 26 per cent. In wind power, the Betz Law states that a blade can capture up to 60 per cent of kinetic energy in air. Modern wind turbines reached 45 per cent.The era of 10-fold gains is over.[2] There is no Moore’s Law in energy and therefore, what is seen in the domain of computers, cannot be expected from energy. Costs will not continue dropping and it is time that a whole-system view is taken when looking at solar and wind or any form of power generation.The three key problems of wind and solar generation are:their variability, or intermittencyextraordinarily low energy return on energy invested (ERoEI)low energy density (see also Figure 2).Figure 2: Wind has very low energy density with density in Asia even lower than Europe[3]Virtually every solar panel and every windmill requires a back-up for times when the wind does not blow, or the sun does not shine. The German press proudly presented that at around 13.00h on 4 July 2020, 97 per cent of Germany’s power demand was sourced from renewables for one hour (see Figure 3). However, it was not reported that:During the same hour, 22 per cent (~15GW) of power demand was waste energy that had to be exported or dumped across German borders, likely at negative prices.At around 21.00h on 18 July 2020, ~16 per cent of Germany’s power demand was sourced from renewables for one hour (nil per cent from wind and solar, all from reliable biomass and hydro).During that hour on 18 July 2020, about nine per cent (~4GW) needed to be imported from surrounding countries at high prices because Germany did not produce enough power (see Figure 3).There is no area practically large enough to ensure that there is always wind or sun. It happens every few years, probably at least once a decade, when a continent such as North America experiences a full day or two of no sun or wind anywhere.The logical requirement for back-up capacity for all variable renewable energy (VRE) and all consequences that come with it need to be considered when costs are compared to fossil or nuclear power. However, virtually all cost comparisons published use the so-called levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) measure that only considers investment, operations and fuel costs. Fuel costs for wind and solar are of course virtually zero. However, LCOE fails to consider the other cost categories.Figure 3: Record: 97.2% renewable power in Germany on 4th of July 2020 (left) vs. a typical summer period in Germany during July 2020[4]The true cost of solar and wind has to include:Back-up costs (profile costs): cost originating from “temporal” deviation between generation and demand. Includes cost of batteries, decline in conventional power utilisation, increased ramping and cycling.Interconnection costs: costs originating from “spatial” deviation between generation of variable renewable energy (VRE) and power demand, includes grid/ interconnections management costs, and balancing costs.Material and energy costs: costs for energy and materials to build solar and wind capacity (the ERoEI is far too low for wind and solar).Efficiency losses: costs associated with efficiency losses from underutilisation of conventional backup power.Spatial costs: costs related to the space required for VRE (energy density is far too low), crop land, forests, effected bird and animal life, changing wind and local climate, noise pollution, etc.Recycling costs: higher recycling costs of VRE and back-up capacity after its useful life.Contrary to popular belief and press, costs for conventional energy as backup and the resulting efficiency losses of conventional energy explain, amongst others, why the total cost of variable renewable energy always increases with more installed capacity beyond a certain point. This point varies by country and region, but one thing is sure: Germany is far beyond this point, which explains the country’s high power prices (see Figure 4).Figure 4: Global prices for power – power in Germany is the most expensive[5]Figure 5 illustrates the misleading LCOE measure used in the popular press and by most governments, and compares it to the still incomplete but better value-adjusted LCOE (VALCOE) from the IEA, which was first published in 2019. In January 2020 the prestigious Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ) published its 280-page ‘IEEJ Energy Outlook 2020’ and raised concerns about renewables’ rising unaccounted-for integration costs, concluding that LCOE is not capable of capturing the true cost of wind and solar.Germany has become aware that it needs conventional power despite its large wind and solar capacity installed. However, Germany decided to exit coal power in addition to exiting nuclear power. Despite Germany’s Environment Minister, Svenja Schultze, proudly claiming in July 2020 “We will solely rely on wind and solar for our country’s power generation”, Germany, very quietly, is building new gas-fired power plants as back-up. Gas is a legitimate fuel with many positive properties, but Germany does not have any itself. Despite gas’ “clean” transportation and combustion, we know that gas is typically more expensive than coal, more difficult and expensive to transport than coal since it requires pipelines or LNG, and generally more difficult and sometimes dangerous to store. So, why is Germany shutting down its existing coal mines, coal-fired power and nuclear plants and is now building new, gas-fired ones? The response usually is greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because gas emits about half the CO2/kWh during combustion than coal, so the switch is supposed to save the climate.If we adhere to the popular, but in the author’s view, misinterpreted global warming theory, what appears to be a lesser known fact is that gas supply results in methane leakages during production, processing and transportation (methane is an 84 times more potent GHG gas than CO2 over 20 years, and 28 times more potent over 100 years). This has been documented in several studies, including Poyry’s 2016 German study on ‘Comparison of greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired and gas-fired power plants. It was also picked up by Bloomberg in a January 2020 article discussing methane leakages associated with LNG. Methane emissions vary widely, but there are many instances – as also documented by a Total Gas sponsored study from 2016 – when GHG emissions are higher for gas than for coal. The study states that “with 95 per cent confidence, US shale gas may emit more GHGs than Colombian hard coal.”Gas emits about half of CO2 compared to coal during combustion.Gas emits more CO2eq (mostly in form of methane) during production, processing and transportation. This includes, but is not limited to, leakages and energy requirements for LNG processing and transportation.Total gas CO2eq emissions are on par with or higher than coal, depending on the turbine type, location and the source and type of gas.Gas is a good and necessary fuel in the power mix, but if global warming theory is to be believed in, one must be consistent and not spend tax payers’ money switching from coal and nuclear to gas when even by one’s own admission it will have no positive impact on ‘the climate’. Methane emissions are neither measured nor taxed. Is this fair for coal or for the environment or the everyday citizen that pays the taxes?Figure 5: Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and value-adjusted LCOE (VALCOE) for solar PV and coal-fired power plants in India[6]Battery technology is not capable of grid storage for powerIf gas is not the solution, then what is? What about those great batteries? It is true that an affordable and sustainable storage system would be the solution to wind and solar’s intermittency issue (but not to the issues of energy density or ERoEI). Over the years, batteries have become far more efficient and the recent move towards electrical vehicles has driven large investments in battery “gigafactories” around the world.The largest known and discussed factory for batteries is Tesla’s US$5bn Gigafactory in Nevada, which is expected to provide an annual battery production output of 50GWh in 2020. By 2021 CATL in China is expected to double that. Berlin’s Gigafactory 4 will start producing electric vehicles in 2021-22. These factories will provide the batteries for our future cars and also provide backup batteries for houses, but what about their environmental and economic impact? Figures 6 and 7 summarise the environmental challenges of today’s battery technology. The three main issues with any known battery technology are:energy densitymaterial requirementsrecycling.Figure 6: Comparing mineral needs for renewable technology (IEA 2019 data)[7]Energy densityHydrocarbons such as oil, gas and coal are one of nature’s most efficient ways to store energy. Today’s most advanced battery technology can only store 2.5 per cent of the energy that coal can store. The energy that a 540kg, 85kWh Tesla battery can store equals 30kg of coal energy after combustion. A Tesla battery must then still be charged with power (often through the grid) while coal is already ‘charged’, albeit only once.In addition, you can calculate that one annual gigafactory production of 50GWh of Tesla batteries would be enough to provide back-up for 6min for the entire US power consumption (and then no Teslas to drive). Today’s battery technology cannot be the solution to intermittency.Material and energy requirementsNext comes the question of the energy inputs and materials required to produce a battery. The required materials include lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, graphite, rare earths & bauxite, coal and iron ore (for aluminium and steel).Additionally, energy of 10-18MWh is required to build one Tesla battery, resulting in 15-20t of CO2emissions assuming 50 per cent renewable power. Assuming conservatively that 1-2 per cent of mined ores end up in the battery in the form of metals, one Tesla battery requires 25-50t of raw materials to be mined, transported and processed (see Figure 7).2RecyclingThis is slowly hitting the main-stream media.[8] The first larger batches of retired and unusable wind farms and solar panels are hitting landfills and insufficient recycling plant capacities. There is not yet an affordable, large-scale way to recycle wind blades. The electronic waste we create is already a devastating problem for landfills outside Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya) and Mombasa (Kenya).Figure 7: case in point – energy density and environmental impact of Tesla batteriesA New Energy Revolution“What do we do now? Are we all doomed?” A young engineer asked the author this question after one of the latter’s presentations when he realised that currently there is simply no viable alternative to conventional energy from coal, oil, gas and nuclear. It is concerning that young people are taught in school to fear the slight warming of about 1˚C during the past 150 years. At least half of the past warming is natural, caused by the sun as we are coming out of the Little Ice Age that ended roughly 300 years ago. The other half, or less, may be ‘human-caused’, which includes the heat all consumed energy produces that is released into the biosphere plus the greenhouse-gas CO2.The additional greening – and therefore biomass – created by this additional CO2is rarely spoken of.That the warming effect of CO2 declines logarithmically with higher CO2levels is not published by mainstream media either.A catastrophe is not looming, but real pollutants to the environment and the waste created by humans are a concern – and this is where resources should be focussed.[9]On global warming and the upcoming catastrophe, the IPCC confirms as follows:IPCC 2020 Climate Change and Land, p9, A2.3: “Satellite observations have shown vegetation greening over the last three decades …. Causes of greening include combinations of an extended growing season, nitrogen deposition, carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilisation …”IPCC 2013 Climate Change, Chapter 2, p235: “There is limited evidence of changes in extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century.” ȗ IPCC 2018 Third Assessment Report 14, p771: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”On the tuning of climate models – that are the sole basis for today’s energy policy – the Max Planck Institute, Germany, writes in April 2020: “When we were faced with a model system that was bound to fail at reproducing the instrumental record warming, we chose an explicit approach where the past temperature trend is a tuning target.” Moreover, Bjørn Lomborg, who runs the Copenhagen Consensus Center thinktank, explains in his recent book ‘False Alarm’ many interesting scientific facts. He states “Climate change is real, but it’s not the apocalyptic threat that we’ve been told it is.”Either way, even if people believe that catastrophic predictions for global warming are the correct way to approach environmentalism, this article highlights that wind and solar – while certainly being appropriate for applications such as heating a pool, and thus earning a place in the energy mix – cannot and will not replace conventional power.As Michael Shellenberger, Time Magazine Hero of the Environment 2008, said in an article published in Forbes in May 2019: “The reason renewables cannot power modern civilisation is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could”. His recent book ‘Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All’ details his rationale.What is needed in the next one or two centuries is a ‘New Energy Revolution’. Future energy may be completely new, possibly more renewable, and fusion- or fission-based, but will have little to do with wind and photovoltaic. To reach this New Energy Revolution, more must be invested in education and base research (power generation, storage, supra-conductors, etc) while simultaneously investing in conventional power to make it more efficient and environmentally friendly. There will be the need to invest in fossils to clean them up, not divest from them. This is the most sensible path to save the planet from the negative impact that human existence has on it. However, please consider, humankind has never been better off than today. Shouldn’t we celebrate this fact?”About the author:Dr. Lars Schernikau, born and raised in Berlin, Germany studied at New York University and INSEAD in France before earning his PhD in Energy Economics from Technical University in Berlin. Lars has extensive knowledge and experience in the raw material and energy sector. Lars has founded, worked for, and advised a number of companies and organizations in the energy, raw material, and coal sectors in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Before joining the world of energy and raw materials over 15 years ago he worked at Boston Consulting Group in the US and Germany. He published two industry trade books on the Economics of the International Coal Trade (Springer, available on Amazon) in 2010 and 2017. He is a member of various economics, energy and environmental associations including the non-profit CO2Coalition in the US. He is a regular speaker at international energy and coal conferences and advised governments and leading energy organizations on energy policy. Lars can be reached at [email protected] truth behind renewable energy“[1] Prepared by Lars Schernikau: primary electricity converted by direct equivalent method. Source: data compiled by J David Hughes. Pre-1965 data from GRUBLER, A (1998) Technology and Global Change: Data Appendix. Post-1965 data from BP, Statistical Review of World Energy (annual publication).[2] MILLS, M (2019): The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking. New York, USA: Manhattan Institute, 26 March. www. http://manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible[3] Global Wind Atlas: Global Wind Atlas [Accessed 24 April 2020][4] Schernikau analysis based on Agora Energiewende – Agora Energiewende [Accessed 20 July 2020][5] STATISTA (2019): Global electricity prices in 2018, by select country – Statista - The Statistics Portal statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/[6] WANNER, B (2019): Is exponential growth of solar PV the obvious conclusion? – IEA – International Energy Agency commentaries/is-exponential-growth-of-solar-pv-the-obvious-conclusion[7] IEA (2020): Clean energy progress after the Covid-19 crisis will need reliable supplies of critical minerals – http://www.iea.org/articles/clean-energy-progress-after-the-covid-19-crisis-willneed-reliable-supplies-of-critical-minerals[8] MARTIN, C (2020): Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills – www. http://bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/ wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills[9] PETERSON, J (2020): What Greta Thunberg does not understand about climate change – https:// http://youtu.be/y564PsKvNZs”.””The truth behind renewable energy

No. Wind and solar are not alternatives to fossil fuels because of intermittency that means any grid level power plant must also connect to a consistent and reliable fossil fuel source. See this ubiquitous photo showing the reality of wind power achilles heel.Double costs because of backup power by fossil fuels.On a market cost basis wind and solar are failing to have an impact while fossil fuel based energy is increasing its share of world energy needs.Why is the latest coal powered energy plant built by China in Dubai is non- renewables are financially unsustainable?CHINA’S DUPLICITOUS SUPPORT OF THE PARIS ACCORDWRITTEN BY AP ONOCT 23, 2020Despite Climate Pledges, China’s Building Dubai Its First Coal PlantA new wonder is rising in the southern desert of Dubai against the backdrop of Persian Gulf beaches, but it’s not another skyscraper to grace the futuristic sheikhdom.Instead, it’s one of mankind’s oldest power sources gaining its own space on the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula — a coal-fired power plant.The construction of the $3.4 billion Hassyan plant in Dubai appears puzzling, as the United Arab Emirates hosts the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency.It’s also building the peninsula’s first nuclear power plant and endlessly promotes its vast solar-power plant named after Dubai’s ruler. Dubai has also set the lofty goal of having the world’s lowest carbon footprint in the world by 2050 — something that would be impacted by burning coal.The coal plant’s arrival comes as Gulf Arab nations remain among the world’s hungriest for energy and amid political concerns over the use of natural gas imported from abroad, concerns underscored by a yearslong dispute with gas-producer Qatar, which is boycotted by four Arab nations, including the UAE.“Dubai was really saying we’re far too exposed on gas imports, those could be interrupted by all kinds of things, the cost is very high and so we have to do something else to diversify our fuel supply and bring down the total cost,” said Robin Mills, the CEO of Qamar Energy, a Dubai-based consulting company. “They got a very competitive offer on the coal plant … and so the decision was made.” …Enter the coal plant. The Hassyan power plant is being built in part by China, which describes the plant as a “major engineering project of the Belt and Road Initiative,” a project which seeks to expand its influence in Africa and Asia. China anticipates that the plant, which has General Electric Co. involved in its construction, will meet 20% of Dubai’s electrical demand.UKLawrence Solomon: Are solar and wind finally cheaper than fossil fuels? Not a chanceVirtually every major German solar producer has gone underA wind turbine spins amidst exhaust plumes from cooling towers at a coal-fired power station in Jaenschwalde, Germany.Getty ImagesLawrence SolomonApril 27, 20188:32 AM EDT“’Spectacular’ drop in renewable energy costs leads to record global boost,” The Guardian headline reported last year. “Clean Energy Is About to Become Cheaper Than Coal,” pronounced MIT’s Technology Review. “The cost of installing solar energy is going to plummet again,” echoed Grist, the environmental journal.Other sources declare that renewables are not only getting cheaper, they have already become cheaper than conventional power. The climate-crusading DeSmogBlog reports that “Falling Costs of Renewable Power Make (B.C.’s) Site C Dam Obsolete” and that “Coal Just Became Uneconomic in Canada.” It implores us to discover “What Canada Can Learn From Germany’s Renewable Revolution,” as does Energy Post, an authoritative European journal, which described “The spectacular success of the German Energiewende (energy transition).”Virtually every major German solar producer has gone underHere’s what Canada can learn from Germany, the poster child for the global warming movement. After the German government decided to reduce subsidies to the solar industry in 2012, the industry nose-dived. By this year, virtually every major German solar producer had gone under as new capacity declined by 90 per cent and new investment by 92 per cent. Some 80,000 workers — 70 per cent of the solar workforce — lost their jobs. Solar power’s market share is shrinking and solar panels, having outlived their usefulness, are being retired without being replaced.Wind power faces a similar fate. Germany has some 29,000 wind turbines, almost all of which have been benefitting from a 20-year subsidy program that began in 2000. Starting in 2020, when subsidies run out for some 5,700 wind turbines, thousands of them each year will lose government support, making the continued operation of most of them uneconomic based on current market prices. To make matters worse, with many of the turbines failing and becoming uneconomic to maintain, they represent an environmental liability and pose the possibility of abandonment. No funds have been set aside to dispose of the blades, which are unrecyclable, or to remove the turbines’ 3,000-tonne reinforced concrete bases, which reach depths of 20 metres, making them a hazard to the aquifers they pierce.The cost to the German economy of its transition to renewables is estimated to reach 2 to 3 trillion euros by 2050Those who hoped that Germany’s newest coalition government would provide the renewable industries with a reprieve were disappointed last week when Germany’s new economic minister indicated that there would be no turning back. All told, the cost to the German economy of its much-vaunted energy transition to renewables is estimated to reach 2 to 3 trillion euros by 2050.Germany’s experience is being replicated throughout Europe — as subsidies fall, so does investment in wind turbines and solar plants, and so do jobs in these industries.As Warren Buffett said wind farms don’t make sense without the tax creditIn the real world of business and commerce, the cost of renewables makes them unaffordable without intervention by the state. As Warren Buffet explained in 2014, “on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”In the imagined world of politicians and environmental ideologues, renewables are not only affordable, they are inevitable. The difference in cost cited by those in the real and imagined worlds is called wishful thinking. This wishfulness is propped up through academic exercises that provide a stamp of authority on the ideologues’ beliefs.One method for proving that renewables have arrived is something called “levelized cost of electricity,” which the U.S. Energy Information Administration says is “often cited as a convenient summary measure of the overall competiveness of different generating technologies.” Environmentalists cite levelized costs as if you can take them to the bank, but they are really no more than predictions of what the costs of various technologies will be over subsequent decades. By assuming that costs of producing solar panels and wind turbines will drop and the costs of fossil fuels will rise over the 30-, 40- or 50-year lifetime of a new plant a utility must build, and describing those levelized costs as if they were current costs, studies state authoritatively that renewables have become cheaper than fossil fuels.Today’s claims that renewables are cheap and getting cheaper are familiar. They harken back to the first Earth Day in 1970, whose message of “New Energy for a New Era” was all about accelerating the transition to renewable energy worldwide. Then, as now, the belief in the viability of a renewable energy future was twinned with the conviction that fossil fuels, being finite, would inevitably become scarce and price themselves out of the market. To the ideologues’ never-ending dismay, peak oil never comes. Instead comes shale gas, shale oil, and peak renewables.Lawrence Solomon executive director of Toronto-based Energy [email protected] Grant Matkin ·In the real world of business and commerce, the cost of renewables makes them unaffordable without intervention by the state." The data supports this conclusion of Lawrence Solomon. Australia, Denmark, Germany and Italy are highest in electricity costs and wind and solar output: > 40 Euros / Kwh. US is lowest in renewables and lowest in electricity costs: 15 Euros / Kwh. In a paper for Energy Policy, Leon Hirth estimated that the economic value of wind and solar would decline significantly as they become a larger part of electricity supply.The reason? Their fundamentally unreliable nature. Both solar and wind produce too much energy when societies don’t need it, and not enough when they do.Solar and wind thus require that natural gas plants, hydro-electric dams, batteries or some other form of reliable power be ready at a moment’s notice to start churning out electricity when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.And unreliability requires solar- and/or wind-heavy places like Germany, California and Denmark to pay neighboring nations or states to take their solar and wind energy when they are producing too much of it.Hirth predicted that the economic value of wind on the European grid would decline 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of electricity while the value of solar would drop by 50 percent when it got to just 15 percent.https://climatism.blog/.../clima...http://business.financialpost.co...Subsidies of wind and solar to encourage utilities to add these renewables to existing grid power has a devastating effect on the power by raising the price of electricity with research showing seniors must chose between eating and heating.UK poverty from renewable subsidies is a major health problem today.The more installed wind and solar capacity the more expensive is the residential price of electricity. YUK.The truth behind renewable energyGuest Blogger / 1 week ago October 18, 2020Previously published in the October 2020, issue of International Cement ReviewCan renewable energy sources supply the world with a large share of the energy it requires? While some environmentalists advocate the total replacement of fossil fuels by solar, wind and battery power, Dr Lars Schernikau explains why this is impossible.by Dr. Lars Schernikau, HMS Bergbau Group, Germany & SingaporePhoto: A young man burning electrical wires to recover copper at Agbogbloshie, September 2019; Wikipedia Free LicenseToday we hear and read about the climate crisis every day, driven by well-funded campaigns. But we hear little of the perils of switching from conventional energy to wind, solar and battery-powered vehicles. It appears that every second person has become an atmospheric physicist understanding that carbon dioxide is the main driver of global warming and switching to renewables will save us from devastating hurricanes and floods reaching the ceilings of our dream seaside properties. Every other person appears to be an energy specialist being certain that wind, solar and battery-powered vehicles will be a happy, safe and environmentally friendly way to power our everyday electricity and transportation needs. However, little could be farther from the truth.The author is all for sensible use of renewable energy and for reducing everyday energy waste. Society needs to invest in additional filtering systems, cleaner transportation and mining operations that minimise the negative impact on the planet. Moreover, many trees should be planted. However, are current climate actions good for the environment? Are today’s wind and solar technologies the solution to our energy problems? This article aims to take the reader on a journey away from current standard thinking.Current and future energy needsToday, close to 8bn people live on Earth and they feed 80 per cent of their hunger for energy with hydrocarbons or fossil fuels (see Figure 1). Wind and solar make up an estimated two per cent of 2018 primary energy, the remainder largely comes from nuclear, hydropower and some biomass. This is in sharp contrast with the 2bn people that inhabited the Earth only a 100 years ago and had just learnt how to spell “oil and gas”. Of today’s world population, there are at least 3bn with no or only erratic access to power. In the next 50 years, a further +3bn people could be added, and as a result, the pure number of people plus the additional air conditioning equipment, new electronic gadgets, cars, aeroplanes and space travel, will increase the demand for energy dramatically.Extrapolating the trends shown in Figure 1 to the future, it becomes questionable that non-hydro renewable sources such as wind and solar will provide the energy required in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.The media says the share of solar and wind will grow exponentially but does not mention the growth of electronic waste shipped to Africa that comes with it. And it certainly does not mention that solar and wind technology can literally never be the main source for the world’s power generation due to their low energy density and the issues described below.Figure 1: A Life without Fossils is Decades Away[1]ERoEI, energy density and intermittency: en-masse deployment of wind and solar is detrimentalThe now-famous documentary “Planet of the Humans” from Michael Moore, which has 9m views on YouTube, illustrates this problem very well.Solar and wind power are not new energy sources – we had to “wean off” low efficiency wind- and solar-based power to fuel humanities technological revolution. While there is nothing extraordinary or revolutionary about these power sources, their efficiency has greatly improved over recent decades. Moreover, these sources are getting close to their physical limits. The Schockley-Queisser Law states that a maximum of 33 per cent of incoming photons can be converted into electrons in silicon photovoltaic (PV) with modern PV reaching 26 per cent. In wind power, the Betz Law states that a blade can capture up to 60 per cent of kinetic energy in air. Modern wind turbines reached 45 per cent.The era of 10-fold gains is over.[2] There is no Moore’s Law in energy and therefore, what is seen in the domain of computers, cannot be expected from energy. Costs will not continue dropping and it is time that a whole-system view is taken when looking at solar and wind or any form of power generation.The three key problems of wind and solar generation are:their variability, or intermittencyextraordinarily low energy return on energy invested (ERoEI)low energy density (see also Figure 2).Figure 2: Wind has very low energy density with density in Asia even lower than Europe[3]Virtually every solar panel and every windmill requires a back-up for times when the wind does not blow, or the sun does not shine. The German press proudly presented that at around 13.00h on 4 July 2020, 97 per cent of Germany’s power demand was sourced from renewables for one hour (see Figure 3). However, it was not reported that:During the same hour, 22 per cent (~15GW) of power demand was waste energy that had to be exported or dumped across German borders, likely at negative prices.At around 21.00h on 18 July 2020, ~16 per cent of Germany’s power demand was sourced from renewables for one hour (nil per cent from wind and solar, all from reliable biomass and hydro).During that hour on 18 July 2020, about nine per cent (~4GW) needed to be imported from surrounding countries at high prices because Germany did not produce enough power (see Figure 3).There is no area practically large enough to ensure that there is always wind or sun. It happens every few years, probably at least once a decade, when a continent such as North America experiences a full day or two of no sun or wind anywhere.The logical requirement for back-up capacity for all variable renewable energy (VRE) and all consequences that come with it need to be considered when costs are compared to fossil or nuclear power. However, virtually all cost comparisons published use the so-called levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) measure that only considers investment, operations and fuel costs. Fuel costs for wind and solar are of course virtually zero. However, LCOE fails to consider the other cost categories.Figure 3: Record: 97.2% renewable power in Germany on 4th of July 2020 (left) vs. a typical summer period in Germany during July 2020[4]The true cost of solar and wind has to include:Back-up costs (profile costs): cost originating from “temporal” deviation between generation and demand. Includes cost of batteries, decline in conventional power utilisation, increased ramping and cycling.Interconnection costs: costs originating from “spatial” deviation between generation of variable renewable energy (VRE) and power demand, includes grid/ interconnections management costs, and balancing costs.Material and energy costs: costs for energy and materials to build solar and wind capacity (the ERoEI is far too low for wind and solar).Efficiency losses: costs associated with efficiency losses from underutilisation of conventional backup power.Spatial costs: costs related to the space required for VRE (energy density is far too low), crop land, forests, effected bird and animal life, changing wind and local climate, noise pollution, etc.Recycling costs: higher recycling costs of VRE and back-up capacity after its useful life.Contrary to popular belief and press, costs for conventional energy as backup and the resulting efficiency losses of conventional energy explain, amongst others, why the total cost of variable renewable energy always increases with more installed capacity beyond a certain point. This point varies by country and region, but one thing is sure: Germany is far beyond this point, which explains the country’s high power prices (see Figure 4).Figure 4: Global prices for power – power in Germany is the most expensive[5]Figure 5 illustrates the misleading LCOE measure used in the popular press and by most governments, and compares it to the still incomplete but better value-adjusted LCOE (VALCOE) from the IEA, which was first published in 2019. In January 2020 the prestigious Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ) published its 280-page ‘IEEJ Energy Outlook 2020’ and raised concerns about renewables’ rising unaccounted-for integration costs, concluding that LCOE is not capable of capturing the true cost of wind and solar.Germany has become aware that it needs conventional power despite its large wind and solar capacity installed. However, Germany decided to exit coal power in addition to exiting nuclear power. Despite Germany’s Environment Minister, Svenja Schultze, proudly claiming in July 2020 “We will solely rely on wind and solar for our country’s power generation”, Germany, very quietly, is building new gas-fired power plants as back-up. Gas is a legitimate fuel with many positive properties, but Germany does not have any itself. Despite gas’ “clean” transportation and combustion, we know that gas is typically more expensive than coal, more difficult and expensive to transport than coal since it requires pipelines or LNG, and generally more difficult and sometimes dangerous to store. So, why is Germany shutting down its existing coal mines, coal-fired power and nuclear plants and is now building new, gas-fired ones? The response usually is greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because gas emits about half the CO2/kWh during combustion than coal, so the switch is supposed to save the climate.If we adhere to the popular, but in the author’s view, misinterpreted global warming theory, what appears to be a lesser known fact is that gas supply results in methane leakages during production, processing and transportation (methane is an 84 times more potent GHG gas than CO2 over 20 years, and 28 times more potent over 100 years). This has been documented in several studies, including Poyry’s 2016 German study on ‘Comparison of greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired and gas-fired power plants. It was also picked up by Bloomberg in a January 2020 article discussing methane leakages associated with LNG. Methane emissions vary widely, but there are many instances – as also documented by a Total Gas sponsored study from 2016 – when GHG emissions are higher for gas than for coal. The study states that “with 95 per cent confidence, US shale gas may emit more GHGs than Colombian hard coal.”Gas emits about half of CO2 compared to coal during combustion.Gas emits more CO2eq (mostly in form of methane) during production, processing and transportation. This includes, but is not limited to, leakages and energy requirements for LNG processing and transportation.Total gas CO2eq emissions are on par with or higher than coal, depending on the turbine type, location and the source and type of gas.Gas is a good and necessary fuel in the power mix, but if global warming theory is to be believed in, one must be consistent and not spend tax payers’ money switching from coal and nuclear to gas when even by one’s own admission it will have no positive impact on ‘the climate’. Methane emissions are neither measured nor taxed. Is this fair for coal or for the environment or the everyday citizen that pays the taxes?Figure 5: Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and value-adjusted LCOE (VALCOE) for solar PV and coal-fired power plants in India[6]Battery technology is not capable of grid storage for powerIf gas is not the solution, then what is? What about those great batteries? It is true that an affordable and sustainable storage system would be the solution to wind and solar’s intermittency issue (but not to the issues of energy density or ERoEI). Over the years, batteries have become far more efficient and the recent move towards electrical vehicles has driven large investments in battery “gigafactories” around the world.The largest known and discussed factory for batteries is Tesla’s US$5bn Gigafactory in Nevada, which is expected to provide an annual battery production output of 50GWh in 2020. By 2021 CATL in China is expected to double that. Berlin’s Gigafactory 4 will start producing electric vehicles in 2021-22. These factories will provide the batteries for our future cars and also provide backup batteries for houses, but what about their environmental and economic impact? Figures 6 and 7 summarise the environmental challenges of today’s battery technology. The three main issues with any known battery technology are:energy densitymaterial requirementsrecycling.Figure 6: Comparing mineral needs for renewable technology (IEA 2019 data)[7]Energy densityHydrocarbons such as oil, gas and coal are one of nature’s most efficient ways to store energy. Today’s most advanced battery technology can only store 2.5 per cent of the energy that coal can store. The energy that a 540kg, 85kWh Tesla battery can store equals 30kg of coal energy after combustion. A Tesla battery must then still be charged with power (often through the grid) while coal is already ‘charged’, albeit only once.In addition, you can calculate that one annual gigafactory production of 50GWh of Tesla batteries would be enough to provide back-up for 6min for the entire US power consumption (and then no Teslas to drive). Today’s battery technology cannot be the solution to intermittency.Material and energy requirementsNext comes the question of the energy inputs and materials required to produce a battery. The required materials include lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, graphite, rare earths & bauxite, coal and iron ore (for aluminium and steel).Additionally, energy of 10-18MWh is required to build one Tesla battery, resulting in 15-20t of CO2emissions assuming 50 per cent renewable power. Assuming conservatively that 1-2 per cent of mined ores end up in the battery in the form of metals, one Tesla battery requires 25-50t of raw materials to be mined, transported and processed (see Figure 7).2RecyclingThis is slowly hitting the main-stream media.[8] The first larger batches of retired and unusable wind farms and solar panels are hitting landfills and insufficient recycling plant capacities. There is not yet an affordable, large-scale way to recycle wind blades. The electronic waste we create is already a devastating problem for landfills outside Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya) and Mombasa (Mozambique).Figure 7: case in point – energy density and environmental impact of Tesla batteriesA New Energy Revolution“What do we do now? Are we all doomed?” A young engineer asked the author this question after one of the latter’s presentations when he realised that currently there is simply no viable alternative to conventional energy from coal, oil, gas and nuclear. It is concerning that young people are taught in school to fear the slight warming of about 1˚C during the past 150 years. At least half of the past warming is natural, caused by the sun as we are coming out of the Little Ice Age that ended roughly 300 years ago. The other half, or less, may be ‘human-caused’, which includes the heat all consumed energy produces that is released into the biosphere plus the greenhouse-gas CO2. The additional greening – and therefore biomass – created by this additional CO2is rarely spoken of. That the warming effect of CO2declines logarithmically with higher CO2 levels is not published by mainstream media either. A catastrophe is not looming, but real pollutants to the environment and the waste created by humans are a concern – and this is where resources should be focussed.[9]On global warming and the upcoming catastrophe, the IPCC confirms as follows:IPCC 2020 Climate Change and Land, p9, A2.3: “Satellite observations have shown vegetation greening over the last three decades …. Causes of greening include combinations of an extended growing season, nitrogen deposition, carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilisation …”IPCC 2013 Climate Change, Chapter 2, p235: “There is limited evidence of changes in extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century.” ȗ IPCC 2018 Third Assessment Report 14, p771: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”On the tuning of climate models – that are the sole basis for today’s energy policy – the Max Planck Institute, Germany, writes in April 2020: “When we were faced with a model system that was bound to fail at reproducing the instrumental record warming, we chose an explicit approach where the past temperature trend is a tuning target.” Moreover, Bjørn Lomborg, who runs the Copenhagen Consensus Center thinktank, explains in his recent book ‘False Alarm’ many interesting scientific facts. He states “Climate change is real, but it’s not the apocalyptic threat that we’ve been told it is.”Either way, even if people believe that catastrophic predictions for global warming are the correct way to approach environmentalism, this article highlights that wind and solar – while certainly being appropriate for applications such as heating a pool, and thus earning a place in the energy mix – cannot and will not replace conventional power.As Michael Shellenberger, Time Magazine Hero of the Environment 2008, said in an article published in Forbes in May 2019: “The reason renewables cannot power modern civilisation is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could”. His recent book ‘Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All’ details his rationale.What is needed in the next one or two centuries is a ‘New Energy Revolution’. Future energy may be completely new, possibly more renewable, and fusion- or fission-based, but will have little to do with wind and photovoltaic. To reach this New Energy Revolution, more must be invested in education and base research (power generation, storage, supra-conductors, etc) while simultaneously investing in conventional power to make it more efficient and environmentally friendly. There will be the need to invest in fossils to clean them up, not divest from them. This is the most sensible path to save the planet from the negative impact that human existence has on it. However, please consider, humankind has never been better off than today. Shouldn’t we celebrate this fact?About the author:Dr. Lars Schernikau, born and raised in Berlin, Germany studied at New York University and INSEAD in France before earning his PhD in Energy Economics from Technical University in Berlin. Lars has extensive knowledge and experience in the raw material and energy sector. Lars has founded, worked for, and advised a number of companies and organizations in the energy, raw material, and coal sectors in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Before joining the world of energy and raw materials over 15 years ago he worked at Boston Consulting Group in the US and Germany. He published two industry trade books on the Economics of the International Coal Trade (Springer, available on Amazon) in 2010 and 2017. He is a member of various economics, energy and environmental associations including the non-profit CO2Coalition in the US. He is a regular speaker at international energy and coal conferences and advised governments and leading energy organizations on energy policy. Lars can be reached at [email protected].[1] Prepared by Lars Schernikau: primary electricity converted by direct equivalent method. Source: data compiled by J David Hughes. Pre-1965 data from GRUBLER, A (1998) Technology and Global Change: Data Appendix. Post-1965 data from BP, Statistical Review of World Energy (annual publication).[2] MILLS, M (2019): The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking. New York, USA: Manhattan Institute, 26 March. www. http://manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible[3] Global Wind Atlas: Global Wind Atlas [Accessed 24 April 2020][4] Schernikau analysis based on Agora Energiewende – Agora Energiewende [Accessed 20 July 2020][5] STATISTA (2019): Global electricity prices in 2018, by select country – Statista - The Statistics Portal statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/[6] WANNER, B (2019): Is exponential growth of solar PV the obvious conclusion? – IEA – International Energy Agency commentaries/is-exponential-growth-of-solar-pv-the-obvious-conclusion[7] IEA (2020): Clean energy progress after the Covid-19 crisis will need reliable supplies of critical minerals – http://www.iea.org/articles/clean-energy-progress-after-the-covid-19-crisis-willneed-reliable-supplies-of-critical-minerals[8] MARTIN, C (2020): Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills – www. http://bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/ wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills[9] PETERSON, J (2020): What Greta Thunberg does not understand about climate change – https:// http://youtu.be/y564PsKvNZs”.The truth behind renewable energyGwyn Morgan: Liberals’ plan to replace fossil fuel with wind and solar is technically impossible and economically disastrousTrying to solve any problem with a fix that defies the laws of physics is bound to failAuthor of the article:Gwyn Morgan, Special to Financial PostPublishing date:Oct 27, 2020 •• 4 minute readSheep graze close to wind turbines in the German town of Husum. Germans know the hazards of pursuing a green power utopia all too well. PHOTO BY JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/GETTY IMAGESArticle SidebarShareTRENDINGArticle contentThe combination of wildfires along the U.S. Pacific Coast, two simultaneous hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, melting glaciers and peat bog fires in Canada and an unusually hot summer in Europe has raised global warming fears to frenzied proportions. Environmentalists are urging political leaders to legislate the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. Curiously, the most extreme call for action came from the future King of England. Prince Charles urged a “warlike footing” that would require the implementation of a centralized global authority to save the planet from catastrophic climate change. Just how such an unelected regime would exert power over the Earth’s 7.8 billion inhabitants wasn’t clear.If Canada were to disappear from the face of the Earth, new coal plants would replace our 1.6% of global emissions in just a few monthsThe California and Oregon wildfires turned into a U.S. election issue, with Joe Biden pointing to Donald Trump’s pro-oil industry policies as a cause — even though American greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by over 14 per cent since 2005. Meanwhile, led by China and India, Asian emissions have doubled over the past decade and continue to grow. Overall, less than a third of global emissions now come from Western developed countries. China, India, Vietnam, South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan, all signatories to the Paris Climate Accord, are in various stages of constructing a total of 1,800 coal-fired power plants. If Canada were to disappear from the face of the Earth, those new plants would replace our 1.6 per cent of global emissions in just a few months.AdvertisementSTORY CONTINUES BELOWThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article content continuedDespite that reality, the Trudeau government continues its ideologically driven crusade to replace fossil fuels with so-called green energy, mainly wind and solar. The government’s throne speech virtually ignored the economic destitution its anti-oil policies have wrought in Alberta. Even the potential market access of Trans Mountain Pipeline was couched in terms of providing a bridge to a fossil-fuel free paradise.That green energy fixation was the focus of the Sept. 26 “Climate Issue” of the Globe and Mail. Columnist David Berman asserted that the cost of wind and solar power have “become attractive next to fossil fuels generating assets, particularly coal.” As evidence, he cited Tucson Electric Power’s phase-out of coal-fired electricity generation. U.S. Energy Administration data show that coal-fired plants are indeed being phased out, but they’re being replaced by natural gas. In fact, wind and solar provide less than one per cent of Arizona’s electricity requirements.Fellow columnist Eric Reguly stated that Canada’s share of renewables — i.e., hydro, wind, biomass, solar and ethanol — is above the OECD average. But as is often the case with selective fact statements from green power advocates, he fails to mention that Natural Resources Canada data show wind and solar accounting for just 2.3 per cent per cent of Canada’s electricity supply in 2019.The widely respected BP World Energy Outlook 2019 shows that, despite hundreds of billions of dollars invested, wind and solar contributed the same two per cent of world energy supplies, while the contribution of fossil fuels has actually increased to 84 per cent.Germans know the hazards of pursuing a green power utopia all too well. Their country’s decade-long attempt to replace coal and nuclear with wind and solar sent electricity costs soaring to the second highest in the EU. Despite hundreds of billions of Euros invested, the unreliability of wind and solar necessitated rehabilitating coal-fired power plants. In an ironic twist, the coal is sourced from the U.S. and is available only because of the conversion of American power plants to natural gas.Ontario’s McGuinty government also implemented a German-style green power and with equally disastrous results. Coal-fired power plants were shuttered and the planned expansion of nuclear plants cancelled. The government signed 25-year locked-in windmill and solar contracts at several times existing rates. Electricity prices more than doubled, taking Ontario from one of North America’s lowest-cost power jurisdictions to among the highest, with prices more than twice those in other provinces. As beleaguered homeowners struggled to pay their electricity bills, manufacturers decamped to low-cost states like Georgia and the Carolinas. Caterpillar, United Steel, Heinz, General Motors, Navistar, Kellogg’s, John Deere, Kraft Foods, Unilever and Bacardi closed some or all of their Ontario plants.Then there’s the impact on the land. More than 8,000 wind turbines were built, requiring three acres each on average. Many are near bird habitats, causing locals to label them “bird blenders.” And that’s only part of the story. Because (surprise!) the wind blows irregularly and solar panels are useless during Ontario’s long, dark winter nights, several new natural gas-fired power plants were needed to back up those unreliable wind and solar facilities, pushing power prices even higher. The only winners from this made-in-Ontario fiasco were the so-called “green-preneurs,” who became very wealthy as a result of those locked-in power contracts.The moral of this sad story is that the Liberals’ plan to replace fossil fuel with wind and solar is technically impossible and economically disastrous. Moreover, phasing out the oilsands would simply hand the market to such sterling global citizens as Russia and Iran, even as it threw more than a million Canadians out of work and destroyed the country’s largest source of wealth generation and export revenues — all at a time when that wealth generation is needed more than ever.Trying to solve any problem with a fix that defies the laws of physics is bound to fail. What can Canada actually do to reduce global emissions and help the economy? That, dear readers, will be the subject of next month’s column.Gwyn Morgan is a retired business leader who has been a director of five global corporations.

Coal power is plentiful, cheap and reliable unlike wind and solar that never stand alone without support from fossil fuels. India and China are increasing investments in long term coal power plants for these reasons. They realize the false economics of following the political only goals of the Paris Accord lacking scientific validity.China and India big coal powered countries also read the science studies and books that increasingly debunk any climate crisis from more CO2 plant food in the atmosphere. For example, this paper just in -Physicists’ Lab Experiment Shows A CO2 Increase From 0.04% To 100% Leads To No Observable WarmingTwo University of Oslo physicists designed several variations of a tabletop experiment trying to confirm the IPCC’s claimed CO2-forcing capacity. Instead they found (a) 100% (1,000,000 ppm) CO2 “heats” air to about the same temperature that non-greenhouse gases (N2, O2 [air], Ar) do, and (b) no significant temperature difference in containers with 0.04% vs. 100% CO2. Observations, experiments do not support a large forcing effect for CO2 Real-world outdoor observations indicate that even a massive variance in the CO2 concentration, from 0.1% to 75% during a 24-hour period over a mofette field , has no detectable effect in stimulating changes to the surface temperature. Instead, the CO2 concentration changes in response to the temperature. Indoor tabletop experiments also demonstrate there is a very small temperature difference when adding 100% CO2 to a container . And even this tiny temperature change can be attributed to the reduction in convective cooling effect of adding CO2 molecules, not the radiative or “greenhouse” effect of CO2. There is also no temperature difference detected when comparing CO2’s “heating” capacity to that of a non-greenhouse gas like Argon ( Wagoner et al., 2010 ), as the “ temperature rose by approximately the same amount and at the same rate as for CO2 ” when 100% Argon was used. Another study questions claims of CO2’s temperature-forcing effect And now a recently published study ( Seim and Olsen, 2020 ) further affirms these experimental observations. The authors tested the forcing effects of increased IR radiation on temperature using a specially-designed meter-long chamber, a 500 watt halogen bulb, and IR radiation detectors. The fundamental assumption of the greenhouse theory is that increasing the CO2 concentration by a factor of 2 or more (i.e., from 0.03% to 0.06%) leads to 2 to 4 degrees of additional warming (at least), aligning with expectations from the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Instead of observing these strong temperature responses to increasing CO2 concentrations, Seim and Olsen found there is almost no effect at all – perhaps an additional 0.15 ° C at most – when adding pure (100%) CO2 to a halogen-heated chamber (+30°C). There isn’t even a detectable difference in temperature when comparing the temperature effects of CO2 to a non-greenhouse gas like Argon. The results of these experiments led the authors to “ question the fundament of the forcing laws used by the IPCC .” Notable quotes from the Seim and Olsen, 2020 study: • “[T]he idea that backscatters from CO2 is the main driver of global temperatures might be wrong.” • “[T]he temperature [in a thermophile] with [100%] CO2 increased slightly, about 0.5% [an additional 0.15°C for a container heated from 20°C to 50°C].” • “We do not observe any significant difference in the two curves due to the increase in the CO2 concentration from ca. 400 ppm to about 100% in the front chamber.” • “The results of our study show the near-identical heating curves when wehttps://notrickszone.com/2021/04/01/physicists-lab-experiment-shows-a-co2-increase-from-0-04-to-100-leads-to-no-observable-warming/By Kenneth Richard on1. April 2021Two University of Oslo physicists designed several variations of a tabletop experiment trying to confirm the IPCC’s claimed CO2-forcing capacity. Instead they found (a) 100% (1,000,000 ppm) CO2 “heats” air to about the same temperature that non-greenhouse gases (N2, O2 [air], Ar) do, and (b) no significant temperature difference in containers with 0.04% vs. 100% CO2.Observations, experiments do not support a large forcing effect for CO2Real-world outdoor observations indicate that even a massive variance in the CO2 concentration, from 0.1% to 75% during a 24-hour period over a mofette field, has no detectable effect in stimulating changes to the surface temperature. Instead, the CO2 concentration changes in response to the temperature.Indoor tabletop experiments also demonstrate there is a very small temperature difference when adding 100% CO2 to a container. And even this tiny temperature change can be attributed to the reduction in convective cooling effect of adding CO2 molecules, not the radiative or “greenhouse” effect of CO2.There is also no temperature difference detected when comparing CO2’s “heating” capacity to that of a non-greenhouse gas like Argon (Wagoner et al., 2010), as the “temperature rose by approximately the same amount and at the same rate as for CO2” when 100% Argon was used.Another study questions claims of CO2’s temperature-forcing effectAnd now a recently published study (Seim and Olsen, 2020) further affirms these experimental observations. The authors tested the forcing effects of increased IR radiation on temperature using a specially-designed meter-long chamber, a 500 watt halogen bulb, and IR radiation detectors.The fundamental assumption of the greenhouse theory is that increasing the CO2 concentration by a factor of 2 or more (i.e., from 0.03% to 0.06%) leads to 2 to 4 degrees of additional warming (at least), aligning with expectations from the Stefan-Boltzmann law.Instead of observing these strong temperature responses to increasing CO2 concentrations, Seim and Olsen found there is almost no effect at all – perhaps an additional 0.15°C at most – when adding pure (100%) CO2 to a halogen-heated chamber (+30°C). There isn’t even a detectable difference in temperature when comparing the temperature effects of CO2 to a non-greenhouse gas like Argon.The results of these experiments led the authors to “question the fundament of the forcing laws used by the IPCC.”Image Source: Seim and Olsen, 2020Notable quotes from the Seim and Olsen, 2020 study:• “[T]he idea that backscatters from CO2 is the main driver of global temperatures might be wrong.”• “[T]he temperature [in a thermophile] with [100%] CO2 increased slightly, about 0.5% [an additional 0.15°C for a container heated from 20°C to 50°C].”• “We do not observe any significant difference in the two curves due to the increase in the CO2 concentration from ca. 400 ppm to about 100% in the front chamber.”• “The results of our study show the near-identical heating curves when we change from air [N2, O2] to 100% CO2 or to Argon gas with low CO2 concentration.”• “The warming of the Al-plate was also measured, but no extra heating was found by filling CO2 in the front chamber.”• “These findings might question the fundament of the forcing laws used by the IPCC.”There is a third option for climate action that accomodates increasing cheap and efficient coal powered electricity and the evidence is that China is on this path.Climate change: China's forest carbon uptake 'underestimated'By Jonathan AmosBBC Science CorrespondentPublished28 October 2020Climate change - BBC NewsIMAGE COPYRIGHTSPLimage captionSome tree planting has come from a desire to establish vibrant timber and paper industriesChina's aggressive policy of planting trees is likely playing a significant role in tempering its climate impacts.An international team has identified two areas in the country where the scale of carbon dioxide absorption by new forests has been underestimated.Taken together, these areas account for a little over 35% of China's entire land carbon "sink", the group says.The researchers' analysis, based on ground and satellite observations, is reported in Nature journal.Norway funds satellite map of world's tropical forestsClimate change: older trees loss continue around the worldA carbon sink is any reservoir - such as peatlands, or forests - that absorbs more carbon than it releases, thereby lowering the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.China is the world's biggest source of human-produced carbon dioxide, responsible for around 28% of global emissions.But it recently stated an intention to peak those emissions before 2030 and then to move to carbon neutrality by 2060…The specifics of how the country would reach these goals is not clear, but it inevitably has to include not only deep cuts in fossil fuel use but ways also to pull carbon out of the atmosphere… more below.Please review this related post that helps explain why China is building so many more coal fired power plants.James Matkin's answer to Why does China have so many coal plants?This is a most pressing question with implications far beyond coal in my opinion. Is the West being blind sided by China’s expansions of coal fired energy at “insane levels” around the world and at home? Does China privately understand from its scientists that natural forces not minute amounts of CO2 from coal are the driving forces of climate change giving China confidence to go it alone on coal power expansions? There is evidence that they do. See NATURE STUDY below.Coal power does not make the climate too hot if anything it can cause localized cooling by the aerosols hiding the sun. No observed experiments since the flawed experiment of John Tyndal used by the old Svante Arrhenius in the 1800’s to hypothesize that CO2 has a climate impact.“Andrew Bolt: Well, China, I don’t actually believe that China believes in this global warming stuff, right? They’ve had a lot of scientists say, “Hey, listen, this is not a real issue.” I just think they’re just playing the West though. They think oh the West is stupid enough to de-industrialise while we get richer. Fine….“People recognize that they’ve got to have cheap power. And the cheapest power for most countries is coal. It’s certainly the cheapest. We have the best coal in the world, the cheapest in the world. We should have the lowest cost of electricity in the world, we did until recently”.Climate Warriors Furious Over India & China’s Insatiable Thirst for Coal-Fired PowerThe Speech Erin O’Toole Could Have GivenGwyn MorganApril 5, 2021Gwyn Morgan is a contributing writer for The Globe and Mail. He has become one of Canada’s foremost business leaders and ardent champion of the importance of Canadian-headquartered international enterprises. Gwyn has served on the board of directors of five global corporations. He serves as a trustee of the Fraser Institute, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy and the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.While China’s industry continues to profit from rapidly-growing, low-cost coal-fired electricity, Canada imposes a carbon tax and pours money into high-priced, inefficient alternative energy – while becoming ever-more tied to Chinese manufactured imports. (Sources clockwise from upper-left: Mike Mareen/ Shutterstock; Ian D, licensed under CC BY 2.0; Adam Melnyk/ Shutterstock; Frame China/ Shutterstock)Today, coal-burning electric generating plants make China the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China has pledged to turn itself into a green energy champion by replacing those coal-fired plants with wind and solar power. But a recent joint report by the U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor and the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that China last year added three times more coal-fired electrical capacity than the rest of the world combined. Many more plants are still under construction, and those new plants alone will soon be producing more than Canada’s national total of greenhouse gas emissions. Canada’s manufacturers have a much lower carbon footprint than China, partly because we have converted nearly all our coal-burning plants to much lower-emitting natural gas.In modern-day China, the Communist regime is exercising a classic example of Sun Tzu’s ancient art of strategic deception. What better way to ‘subdue the enemy without battle’ than to trick Canada into implementing carbon taxes on Canadian-made goods, all while further driving up electricity costs by building more of the wind and solar facilities that have already hollowed-out Ontario’s industrial heartland.President Xi knows we in Canada are addicted to China’s cheap manufactured goods, and he must be overjoyed to see our government’s carbon taxes and costly green power plans further tighten the financial noose on our hard-pressed manufacturers. He has us exactly where he wants us.Share a link on TwitterThose new alternative energy facilities in Canada will largely be equipped with panels and components made at a handsome profit in China – whose manufacturers benefit from the low energy costs of largely coal-fired electricity. Meanwhile, as we continue to kill our manufacturers with carbon taxes, all those higher-carbon-footprint goods we import from China drive up global emissions.In his approach to Canada, Chinese President Xi Jinping (above) seems to be employing Han Dynasty general Sun Tzu’s (below) principle to “subdue the enemy without battle.” (Source of upper image: Paul Kagame, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0President Xi knows we in Canada are addicted to China’s cheap manufactured goods, and he must be overjoyed to see our government’s carbon taxes and costly green power plans further tighten the financial noose on our hard-pressed manufacturers. He has us exactly where he wants us, and no amount of indignation over hostage diplomacy, Uyghur forced-labour camps or his other outrageous behaviour will change that.Addiction to Chinese goods represents the most existential threat to the West since the Cold War with the Soviet Bloc. But while the Soviet threat included mutual nuclear destruction, Chinese President XI has adopted Sun Tzu’s strategy ‘to contest for world supremacy’. Xi’s words, ‘the East is rising – the West is declining’ couldn’t be clearer. Yet the Trudeau government continues to accept his green assurances.So what would a new Conservative government do? We will encourage manufacturing of our own goods by eliminating carbon taxes and we’ll transfer those carbon taxes to those high-emission Chinese imports. And we’ll work with the provinces to streamline regulations and remove internal trade barriers upon manufacturers. We’ll build jobs not in China – but here at home!It’s time for a Prime Minister who refuses to be a pawn in Xi’s grasping hand.Thank you all very much. And God Bless the great country of Canada and all its people.”Gwyn Morgan is the retired founding CEO of EnCana Corp., formerly Canada’s largest producer of natural gas.CHINA SCIENTIST FIND THE DRIVING FORCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT GREENHOUSE GASESMmm how does this figure in to the Xi plan?Here is a powerful science paper published by the famous NATURE JOURNAL by China scientists working in Beijing answering the key issue what causes climate change? The answer is the driving forces are ‘the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively. Moreover, these driving forces were modulated in amplitude by signals with millennial timescales.’Greenhouse gases are not the driving forces of climate change therefore.Do you think China politicians like Xi would know about this study and therefore knew that the whole Paris Accord therefore is a deck of cards only? Are we being blindided by China? Yes.Identification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature recordIdentification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature recordGeli Wang,Peicai Yang &Scientific Reports volume 7, Article number: 46091 (2017) Cite this article2488 Accesses9 Citations50 AltmetricIdentification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature recordAbstractThe identification of causal effects is a fundamental problem in climate change research. Here, a new perspective on climate change causality is presented using the central England temperature (CET) dataset, the longest instrumental temperature record, and a combination of slow feature analysis and wavelet analysis. The driving forces of climate change were investigated and the results showed two independent degrees of freedom —a 3.36-year cycle and a 22.6-year cycle, which seem to be connected to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively. Moreover, these driving forces were modulated in amplitude by signals with millennial timescales.IntroductionCausality analysis in climate change is an active and challenging research area that remains highly uncertain. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1 advocates that human activity is the most important driving force of climate change, while some researchers have argued that natural forces might be the main cause. These different views are mainly due to a lack of methods to address the complexity of climate system and insufficiency in observational climate data.Global circulation model (GCM) simulations are generally used to investigate the causality of climate change. However, due to the limited knowledge of the climate system, large uncertainties are still associated with GCMs; therefore, the improvement of current GCMs to meet the requirements for causality analysis is still an urgent issue. An alternative method to GCMs is to use long-term observational climate data to study the driving forces of climate change, a method that has recently benefited from the great progress made by physical and biological scientists in studying the driving forces in non-stationary time series. The main advantage of this approach is that observational data can be used to directly extract the driving forces of an unknown dynamical system. This can be achieved by two techniques. The first technique involves finding the driving forces by studying the connections among different physical factors. These types of relations cannot be established using general correlation analysis, but only in dynamical directional influences. Granger causality2 is a pioneering approach for achieving this task. Mutual information and transfer entropy3 are used to identify cause-effect relationships between components which is equivalent to Granger causality in the linear case and some attempts have been made to extend Granger causality to the nonlinear case4,5. Recently, Sugihara et al.6 presented another effective method known as convergent cross-mapping (CCM) to justify causality in some biological complex systems. Tsonis et al.7 used CCM to identify a causal relationship between cosmic rays and interannual variation in global temperature.The second technique is to directly extract the driving force information behind the observational data. For example, cross-prediction error8 and slow feature analysis (SFA)9 have been successfully applied to extract slowly changing driving forces from non-stationary time series. To evaluate SFA, a modified logistic map has been used to test the ability of SFA to construct the driving forces from an observational time series, and the results showed that there is a good agreement between the constructed and the true driving forces with a correlation coefficient of 0.99810. This suggests that SFA is suitable for extracting the driving force from observational time series…Figure 1: The Driving force constructed using CET dataset and SFA with embedding dimension m = 13.Discussion and ConclusionsA new investigation on climate change causality is given using the longest instrumental temperature record — the CET dataset— which was analyzed using SFA and wavelet analysis. This investigation into the driving forces of climate change reproduces a 3.36-year cycle and a 22.6-year cycle, which may be connected to the ENSO cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively. Other beats from interdecadal to centennial components were also reproduced at 7.5, 14.5, 67.7, 90.4, 113.9 and 215 years, which could also be induced by ENSO and the Hale sunspot cycle as they are harmonics of the two basic frequencies. They are all strongly amplitude and phase modulated, and the modulating signals acting on the scale components are oscillations with a period of about 1000 years, which represent the impacts of GHGs as presented using the surface air temperature time series in the Northern Hemisphere in Yang16.Tung and Zhou25 presented an interesting analysis result for the scale structure of the CET time series and found a scale component with a spectrum band from 50 to 90 years that propagates through the phase space of the indices considered as the AMO, due to the large thermal inertia associated with slow oceanic processes. This scale signal is reflected in the Northern Hemisphere area-averaged surface temperature signal and the CET dataset, which explains, by inference, a large fraction of the multidecadal non-uniformity of the observed global surface temperature warming in the twentieth century. However, the relationship between the 67.7 years found in this paper and the solar scales suggests that this climate component plays a key role in multidecadal variability26. This scale signal that has a period of 67.7 years in the CET dataset is regarded as a harmonic of the solar cycle because of the harmonic relationship with the Hale sunspot cycle. Note that a quasi-millennial cycle could also be forced on the Sun by the rotation of the Trigon of the great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn18. These results clearly indicate that both solar and climate oscillations are linked to planetary motion.Identifying causality in complex climate systems can be difficult; therefore, this study is a further attempt to better understand causality using the longest instrumental time series of temperature based on observed climate data associated with climate change. Such an approach may provide another method to study causality in climate change. As an alternative approach to GCMs, the technique directly utilizes the observed nonstationary data to directly construct the driving forces, referred to as the ‘inverse problem’ in mathematics.It has been shown in a number of other fields27,28,29 that SFA can be applied to nonstationary time series to estimate a single underlying driving force with high accuracy. However, application in the climate sciences, which involves nonlinear and complex systems, is at a preliminary stage. There are uncertainties related to observational limitations, as well as missing or uncertain external forces. In particular, SFA may not account for possible nonlinear interactions between the different scales. In addition, this study used the longest instrumental record in central England, in which different sources of uncertainty may exist. Further work to evaluate this source of uncertainty is therefore desirable. These issues, among others, will be considered in forthcoming studies.Published commentsJames Matkin 4 years agoThis research is very relevant and should make climate alarmists pause in their crusade against Co2 emissions from fossil fuels. Far too much focus on Co2 like a one trick pony in a big tent circus where solar radiation is a more compelling show.The thrust of recent research has demonstrated that climate changes continually and is determined by natural forces that humans have no significant control over. Many leading scientists have presented research of other "driving forces" and cautioned against the arrogance of many that "the science is settled." See Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and blogger at Climate Etc. talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about climate change. Curry argues that climate change is a "wicked problem" with a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the expected damage as well as the political and technical challenges of dealing with the phenomenon. She emphasizes the complexity of the climate and how much of the basic science remains incomplete. The conversation closes with a discussion of how concerned citizens can improve their understanding of climate change and climate change policy…−James Matkin jack dale 4 years agoYou unfairly take a swipe at Judith Curry as the link in her blog did not ignore or leave out the reference to the "long period cycle of GHGs" as you suggest. Leaving out relevant scientific data is the preserve of rogue scientists like Michael Mann author of the infamous and fudged "hockey stick" graph. The Chinese study focused on the simple question: is climate change natural or artificially caused by fossil fuel emissions as believed by the IPCC and some scientists? The study concludes the "driving forces" are natural climate variation. The study using real data rather than computer models refers to anthropogenic warming and does not identify it as a driving force. You focus one the "long period signals of 1000 years for GHGs does not suggest GHGs are driving forces, particularly the small amount of GHGs emitted by humans. Yes, the natural solar driving forces are "modulated in amplitude by GHGs on a millennial time scale." But this does not make GHGs the driving forces of climate change. I suggest the analogy is GHGs are like turning on the bright lights of a car. The bright lights modulates the amplitude of the lights, but surely they are not the driving force of the headlights. The importance of the Chinese study is that climate change cannot be stopped because the driving forces are natural and will not yield to fiddling with Co2 levels as the Paris Climate Accord attempts to do.Identification of the driving forces of climate change using the longest instrumental temperature recordThis just in confirming the observed driving forces of climate change in the Chinese study.WRITTEN BY DAVID WHITEHOUSE ONAPR 6, 2021. POSTED IN LATEST NEWSThe Climate Role Of Our Sun ConfirmedIf you ask most climate scientists, they will tell you that the Sun’s small variability is unimportant when it comes to influencing climate.They may have to change their minds if a new line of research holds up.It seems that solar variability can drive climate variability on Earth on decadal timescales (the decadal climatic variability that Michael Mann recently ‘proved’ doesn’t exist).That’s the conclusion of a new study showing a correlation between the end of solar cycles and a switch from El Nino to La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean.Top: Six-month smoothed monthly sunspot number from SILSO. Bottom: Oceanic El Niño Index from NOAA. Red and blue boxes mark the El Niño and La Niña periods in the repeating pattern. Source: Climate Etc, September 2019It’s a result that could significantly improve the predictability of the largest El Nino and La Nina events, which have several global climate effects.Energy from the Sun is the major driver of our entire Earth system and makes life on Earth possible,” said Scott McIntosh, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a co-author of the paper. “Even so, the scientific community has been unclear on the role that solar variability plays in influencing weather and climate events here on Earth. This study shows there’s reason to believe it absolutely does and why the connection may have been missed in the past.”The approximately 11-year solar cycle – the appearance (and disappearance) of spots on the Sun – has been known for hundreds of years.In this new study, the researchers use a 22-year “clock” for solar activity derived from the Sun’s magnetic polarity cycle, which they consider a more regular alternative to the 11-year solar cycle.This research was published last year.‘Coincidence Unlikely‘Applying this to climate studies the researchers found that the five estimates of the end of a solar cycle that occurred between 1960 and 2010-11 all coincided with a flip from an El Nino (when sea surface temperatures are warmer than average) to a La Nina (when the sea surface temperatures are cooler than average).The end of the most recent solar cycle – happening now – is also coincident with the beginning of a La Nina event. Robert Leamon of the University of Maryland/Baltimore County said, “Five consecutive terminators lining up with a switch in the El Nino oscillation is not likely to be a coincidence.”In fact, only a 1 in 5,000 chance or less (depending on the statistical test) that all five terminator events included in the study would randomly coincide with the flip in ocean temperatures.Now that a sixth terminator event — and the corresponding start of a new solar cycle in 2020 — has also coincided with a La Nina event, the chance of a random occurrence is even more remote.The paper does not delve into what physical connection between the Sun and Earth could be responsible for the correlation, but the authors note that there are several possibilities that warrant further study, including the influence of the Sun’s magnetic field on the number of cosmic rays that escape into the solar system and ultimately bombard Earth.However, a robust physical link between cosmic ray variations and climate has yet to be determined.If further research can establish that there is a physical connection and that changes on the Sun are truly causing variability in the oceans, then we may be able to improve our ability to predict El Nino and La Nina events,” McIntosh said.Read more at the GWPFClimate Warriors Furious Over India & China’s Insatiable Thirst for Coal-Fired PowerApril 5, 2021 by stopthesethings Leave a CommentFor years now, we’ve been told that “coal is dead” and that India and China will plump for wind and solar, instead of coal-fired power. Well, that’s the line being run by renewable energy rent seekers and wind and solar zealots around the globe.It is, of course, complete bunkum.With hundreds of millions still in abject poverty, both China and India haven’t got time to muck around with expensive, part-time power. Industrialisation requires cheap and reliable power, not stuff that’s delivered in chaotic fits and spurts and, when it is, is insanely expensive, anyway.Don’t forget, we wouldn’t be talking about wind or solar ‘industries’ in the absence of massive subsidies, guaranteed Feed in Tariffs, government mandates, targets or tax credits.Australia is one of the world’s largest coal exporters, has abundant, high-quality reserves, and yet is faced with suicidal energy policies, which demonizes reliable and affordable coal-fired power and promotes chaotically intermittent wind and solar, with a raft of subsidies doled out under the Federal government Renewable Energy TargetThe RET will cost power consumers more than $60,000,000,000 over the life of the scheme.Where Australia’s political leadership seems hell-bent on destroying our economic competitiveness, both China and India have directed their efforts and resources at building phenomenal coal-fired power generation capacity.Whatever lipservice might be paid by China’s wolf warriors and Indian diplomats in international forums about ditching coal-fired power plants, the reality is that both countries are building coal-fired power plants, hand over fist. And have absolutely no intention of slowing down that process.In the first piece Andrew Bolt interviews energy market economist, Alan Moran, who, quite rightly, remains dumbfounded at Australia’s suicidal energy policies.In the second, Bloomberg Green – a propaganda outlet for the climate industrial complex and renewable energy rent seekers – is simply dumbfounded by the fact that coal-fired power accounts for over 65% of India’s energy needs and that India is all set to expand that proportion by placing its coalmines in the hands of private entrepreneurs – with a view to improving productivity and output.Steps which sound like a country that needs more reliable and affordable power, not less; and one which is unlikely to chase the wind and solar pipe dream being peddled by the likes of Bloomberg Green.‘Going broke by being woke’: Not embracing coal ‘undermines our economic superiority’Sky NewsAndrew Bolt and Alan Moran30 March 2021Energy economist Alan Moran says Australia is “going broke by being woke” for not “embracing” coal as the cheapest form of electricity – unlike China, we are negating any chance of once again becoming an “economic superpower”.“We are being forced to reduce our competitiveness … at a time when China is becoming more and more affluent as a result of its uses of coal or the cheapest forms of electricity – and we are going broke by being woke,” he told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.“The cheapest power for most countries is coal.“We have the best coal in the world – the cheapest in the world. We should have the lowest cost of electricity in the world – we did until recently – but we have basically undermined this through our domestic policies.“Basically, coal is the cheapest form of electricity we have and we can be again an economic superpower – but only if we embrace this.”TranscriptAndrew Bolt: Joining me is Alan Moran of Regulation Economics, which looks at the economics of green energy. Alan here we are in the West, we’re cutting our coal-fired power stations, China ramping it up. It’s preaching global warming. We’re doing… We’re making ourselves weaker. They’re making themselves stronger. Is it a game to them?Alan Moran: Well it’s not a game. They’ve got a colossal amount of coal. I mean seven times the amount of coal that we produce is produced in China and they unabashedly use that to produce power cheaply. Indeed, if you look at the cost of electricity, then they’re basically coal generated as ours is. But in their case, the cost of electricity is less than half our cost. They have a lot… They do have some wind, less than half, as much as we have per capita, much less than half as much, but they basically use this low cost energy to be the backbone of their booming economy.And we’ve benefited from this, of course, as 35% of our exports are to China and they dominate our steel and our iron ore. But we benefited from it, but its made us part of their, I guess, part of their economy, really. We were a junior partner to China and it’s very difficult to see how we get out of this or whether we should get out of it. There aren’t any alternative markets for us. And yet we are now wedded, as you say to, in a dangerous situation in the world to a power which is partly democratic-Andrew Bolt: Look it’s not just the fact that we are sending our coal to help make them richer and stronger. My point is with global warming, they pay lip service to the theory, they’ve been allowed under the Paris Agreement, they can increase their emissions to double. They’re saying, yes, get on board the global warming thing, which means we de-industrialise. We get weaker. We get less rich.Alan Moran: Exactly so.Andrew Bolt: They meanwhile exploit coal and get more rich. This is a game.Alan Moran: They make a statement that, oh, by 2060 or something like that-Andrew Bolt: 2060!Alan Moran: They’re going to be carbon neutral or something like it. Meanwhile, we are actually acting in terms of reducing the efficiency of our energy by implementing more and more wind and solar at the behest of the United States. And this is one reason why it’s a dangerous world because we are being forced to reduce our competitiveness. Maybe we want to do it anyway. There are people in Australia like Mr Turnbull who do want to do that anyway, but we’re being forced to do it at a time when China is becoming more and more affluent as a result of its usage of coal, the cheapest form of electricity. And we are going broke by being woke if you like-Andrew Bolt: Well, China, I don’t actually believe that China believes in this global warming stuff, right? They’ve had a lot of scientists say, “Hey, listen, this is not a real issue.” I just think they’re just playing the West though. They think oh the West is stupid enough to de-industrialise while we get richer. Fine. There’s one other thing in this Alan, we’ve had the greens push this idea that coal is dead, right? Coal is dead. If you build a new coal fired power station or a mine, it’s a stranded asset. The world’s moving. China’s proving this completely wrong. Isn’t it?Alan Moran: Oh, yes. They’re building lots and lots of new power stations all the time. As are the other developing countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, India, of course, too. People recognise that they’ve got to have cheap power. And the cheapest power for most countries is coal. It’s certainly the cheapest. We have the best coal in the world, the cheapest in the world. We should have the lowest cost of electricity in the world, we did until recently. But we basically undermine this through our domestic policies and they’re paying lip service, more than paying lip service, they’re actuated by a general consensus if you like that, that the Flannerys in this world have told us that coal is the thing of the past. That it’s dearer anyway, but we have to subsidise renewables just to get them over this hump. It’s all rubbish. Basically coal is the cheapest form of electricity that we have. And we can be an economic superpower, again, but only if we embrace this.Andrew Bolt: Honestly, we are such fools and China is exploiting our weaknesses. This is a dictatorship. This is the world’s biggest emitter by far. This is the world’s biggest user of coal-fired power, bigger than the rest of the world combined. And they’re preaching to us about global warming. So would I, if you had an idiot at the other end, that was meanwhile buying Chinese built wind turbines.Alan Moran: Exactly.Andrew Bolt: Oh my God. Just to make our idiocy even more… Oh gosh. Alan Moran. Thank you so much indeed for your time.Alan Moran: You’re welcome.Sky NewsIndia to Double Down on Coal Projects Amid Climate WarningsBloomberg GreenRajesh Kumar Singh26 March 2021India has set in motion the biggest ever auction of coal mines in the country despite the fossil fuel’s key role in contributing to global warming.The country will put 67 mines on the block, the most in a single auction. Winners will be allowed to produce and sell the fuel, a reform meant to dislodge state monopoly over the domestic coal market and open it up to private firms. The deadline for submitting technical bids is May 27 and electronic auctions have been scheduled from June 28 to July 28, the coal ministry said on Thursday.The auction sends mixed signals at a time when the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases needs to shed its dependence on coal. India is under growing pressure to improve its climate commitments, which have forced government officials to debate a possible net-zero emissions target. The country is one of the most vulnerable to climate impacts, and coal mining and burning also contributes to deadly air pollution.To be sure, the country has set aggressive goals to expand its renewable power portfolio, but coal still accounts for around 65% of its electricity generation.“India can’t just stop using coal overnight, it will take a decade or two to do that,” according to Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies for Australia and South Asia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, or IEEFA. “It’s still a necessary evil for the country for the medium term.”King CoalFossil fuel remains India’s biggest source of electricityThe government also sees private coal mining as a way to create jobs in an economy devastated by the pandemic. Mining projects will bring in new investments and boost socio-economic development in mining regions, according to the ministry’s statement.“In this tranche of auction special emphasis has been given on protection of the environment,” the coal ministry’s statement said Thursday. “Coal blocks have been selected in those areas where forest cover is low, coal quality is good, mines are close to the infrastructure facilities and resettlement and rehabilitation has to be done at the minimum.”The government began liberalization of the coal market last year. But after opposition from some states and a lack of investor interest, it whittled down the list of mines to be auctioned from 41 to 19. As the government prepared for the bids then, United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautioned against investments in fossil fuels, calling such projects “a human disaster and bad economics.”Bloomberg GreenClimate Warriors Furious Over India & China’s Insatiable Thirst for Coal-Fired PowerClimate change: China's forest carbon uptake 'underestimated'By Jonathan AmosBBC Science CorrespondentPublished28 October 2020"Achieving China's net-zero target by 2060, recently announced by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, will involve a massive change in energy production and also the growth of sustainable land carbon sinks," said co-author Prof Yi Liu at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China."The afforestation activities described in [our Nature] paper will play a role in achieving that target," he told BBC News.China's increasing leafiness has been evident for some time. Billions of trees have been planted in recent decades, to tackle desertification and soil loss, and to establish vibrant timber and paper industries.The new study refines estimates for how much CO2 all these extra trees could be taking up as they grow.IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGESimage captionChina is engaged in large programmes to conserve and expand its forestsThe latest analysis examined a host of data sources. These comprised forestry records, satellite remote-sensing measurements of vegetation greenness, soil water availability; and observations of CO2, again made from space but also from direct sampling of the air at ground level."China is one of the major global emitters of CO2 but how much is absorbed by its forests is very uncertain," said the IAP scientist Jing Wang, the report's lead author."Working with CO2 data collected by the Chinese Meteorological Administration we have been able to locate and quantify how much CO2 is absorbed by Chinese forests."https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47210849https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53613336The two previously under-appreciated carbon sink areas are centred on China's southwest, in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces; and its northeast, particularly Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces.The land biosphere over southwest China, by far the largest single region of uptake, represents a sink of about -0.35 petagrams per year, representing 31.5% of the Chinese land carbon sink.A petagram is a billion tonnes.The land biosphere over northeast China, the researchers say, is seasonal, so it takes up carbon during the growing season but emits carbon otherwise. Its net annual balance is roughly -0.05 petagrams per year, representing about 4.5% of the Chinese land carbon sink.To put these numbers in context, the group adds, China was emitting 2.67 petagrams of carbon as a consequence of fossil fuel use in 2017.Prof Paul Palmer, a co-author from Edinburgh University, UK, said the size of the forest sinks might surprise people but pointed to the very good agreement between space and in situ measurements as reason to have confidence in the analysis."Bold scientific statements must be supported by massive amounts of evidence and this is what we have done in this study," the NERC National Centre of Earth Observation scientist told BBC News."We have collected together a range of ground-based and satellite data-driven evidence to form a consistent and robust narrative about the Chinese carbon cycle."IMAGE COPYRIGHTESAimage captionArtwork: The Biomass satellite is one of several new mission to refine understanding of Earth carbon budgetsProf Shaun Quegan from Sheffield University, UK, studies Earth's carbon balance but was not involved in this research.He said the extent of the northeast sink was not a surprise to him, but the southwest one was. But he cautioned that new forests' ability to draw down carbon declines with time as the growth rate declines and the systems move towards a more steady state."This paper clearly illustrates how multiple sources of evidence from space data can increase our confidence in carbon flux estimates based on sparse ground data," he said."This augurs well for the use of the new generation of space sensors to aid nations' efforts to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement."Prof Quegan is the lead scientist on Europe's upcoming Biomass mission (UK wins satellite contract to 'weigh' Earth's forests), a radar spacecraft that will essentially weigh forests from orbit. It will be able to tell where exactly the carbon is being stored, be it in tree trunks, in the soil or somewhere else.Another future satellite project of note in this context is the planned EU Sentinel mission (currently codenamed CO2M) (European Sentinel satellites to map global CO2 emissions) to measure CO2 in the atmosphere at very high resolution.Richard Black is director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a non-profit think-tank working on climate change and energy issues.He commented: "With China setting out its ambition for net zero, it's obviously crucial to know the size of the national carbon sink, so this is an important study."However, although the forest sink is bigger than thought, no-one should mistake this as constituting a 'free pass' way to reach net zero. For one thing, carbon absorption will be needed to compensate for ongoing emissions of all greenhouse gases, not just CO2; for another, the carbon balance of China's forests may be compromised by climate change impacts, as we're seeing now in places such as California, Australia and Russia."Climate change: China's forest carbon uptake 'underestimated'