Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

better to know...?, energy and fields

How Wind And Solar Sent Energy Prices Sky-High in ‘Green’ Countries

by B. Lomborg, May 8, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Ask families in Germany and the UK what happens when more and more supposedly “cheap” solar and wind power is added to the national power mix, and they can tell you by looking at their utility bills: It gets far more expensive. [emphasis, links added]

The idea that power should get cheaper as we get more green energy is only true if we exclusively use electricity when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.

But modern societies need power around the clock. When there is no sun and wind, green energy needs plenty of backup, often powered by fossil fuels. What this means is that we pay for not one but two power systems.

And as the backup fossil fuel power sources are used less, they need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.

This means the real energy costs of solar and wind are far higher.

One study looking at China showed that the real cost of solar power on average turns out to be twice as high as coal, while a peer-reviewed study of Germany and Texas shows solar and wind are many times more expensive than fossil fuels.

Germany and the UK now have so much “low-cost” solar and wind that their electricity costs have become among the world’s most expensive.

The latest data from the International Energy Agency make it clear that there is a strong and clear correlation between more solar and wind and much higher average energy prices for households and industries.

In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is a bit over 11¢ per kilowatt-hour.

For every 10 percentage points of solar and wind, the cost increases by more than 4¢. The results are nearly similar for 2019, before any impacts of COVID and the Ukraine war.

Look at Germany, where 34¢ per kWh is more than twice the US cost and nearly four times the Chinese price.

Countries that use a higher percentage of solar and wind power tend to have higher energy prices per household. Mike Guillen/NY Post Design

Germany has installed so much solar and wind that, at full capacity, it could produce two times Germany’s electricity demand.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Phys.org Editorial Falsely Links Hurricanes To ‘Widespread’ School Closures

by A. Watts, May 06, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

school closed storm damage
In a recent editorial published by Phys.org, researchers claim that climate change is driving more powerful and frequent hurricanes, which in turn are causing widespread school closures, labeling it an “overlooked consequence” of our supposedly worsening climate. [emphasis, links added]

This narrative is false.

The available data shows no trend of increasing hurricane frequency or intensity due to human-induced climate change, and if the storms themselves aren’t worsening, the claim that they are causing more missed school days due to climate change collapses under its own weight.

The central claim that hurricanes are becoming more destructive and frequent due to climate change is contradicted by both long-term observational data and the official position of major scientific institutions.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), there is no strong evidence of an increase in either the number or intensity of hurricanes globally due to human-caused climate change.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Antarctica’s Astonishing Rebound: Ice Sheet Grows for the First Time in Decades

by SciTec, Apr 25 2025

The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) plays a major role in global sea-level rise. Since March 2002, the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission and its successor, GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On), have provided valuable data to monitor changes in ice mass across the AIS.

Previous studies have consistently shown a long-term trend of mass loss, particularly in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, while glaciers in East Antarctica appeared relatively stable. However, a recent study led by Dr. Wang and Prof. Shen at Tongji University has found a surprising shift: between 2021 and 2023, the AIS experienced a record-breaking increase in overall mass.

Antarctic Ice Sheet’s Mass Drama,From Accelerated Loss to Surprising Gain
Antarctic Ice Sheet mass change series (April 2002–December 2023) derived from GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry. Ellipses highlight period-specific mass change rates, while the grey shadow indicates the data gap between missions. Credit: Science China Press

Notably, four major glaciers in the Wilkes Land–Queen Mary Land region of East Antarctica reversed their previous pattern of accelerated mass loss from 2011 to 2020 and instead showed significant mass gain during the 2021 to 2023 period.

Record-breaking mass gain over the Antarctic Ice Sheet

From 2002 to 2010, the AIS has experienced a mass loss with a change rate of –73.79±56.27 Gt/yr, which nearly doubled to –142.06±56.12 Gt/yr for the period 2011–2020. This accelerated mass loss was primarily related to intensified mass depletion in West Antarctica and the WL-QML region of East Antarctica. However, a significant reversal occurred thereafter, driven by anomalous precipitation accumulation, the AIS gained mass at a rate of 107.79±74.90 Gt/yr between 2021 and 2023.

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better to know...?

The Hidden Cost Of Net Zero

by P. Homewood, May 8, 2025 in WUWT

UK Electricity Consumption

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-section-5-energy-trends

The REF’s new report on green energy subsidies noted that renewables subsidies are now costing £25.8 bn per year – or over £900 per household annually – about one third of which, £280, will hit the average domestic electricity bill directly.

For a long time, part of the gaslighting around the cost of Net Zero has been focus people’s attention over the impact on their energy bills.

However, as John Constable pointed out, only about a third of the cost hits the public directly via their electricity bills, because only a third of electricity is consumed by domestic users.

The other two thirds is used by industry and commerce, transport and the public sector.

But that does not mean that the public at large don’t end up footing the entire bill one way or another.

Higher electricity costs for industry and commerce mean higher prices in the shops. And higher electricity costs in the public sector mean higher taxes or poorer public services.

At the worst, businesses may shut or move their production abroad, leaving us all worse off.

Miliband and co would love you to think you are only paying a hundred quid or so for Net Zero. People would be horrified to learn that the price is nearer a thousand quid a year.

And that cost is of course just for starters. When we all have to buy expensive EVs and heat pumps we don’t want, we will be much worse off.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Former British PM Tony Blair Slams Net Zero as “Irrational”

by E. Worrall, Apr 30, 2025 in WUWT

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The original piece by Tony Blair;

The Climate Paradox: Why We Need to Reset Action on Climate Change

PAPER 29TH APRIL 2025
LINDY FURSMAN

Foreword [By Tony Blair]

People know that the current state of debate over climate change is riven with irrationality. As a result, though most people will accept that climate change is a reality caused by human activity, they’re turning away from the politics of the issue because they believe the proposed solutions are not founded on good policy.

So, in developed countries, voters feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal. Whatever the historical responsibility of the developed world for climate change, those with even a cursory knowledge of the facts understand that in the future the major sources of pollution will come principally from the developing world.

But for that developing world, there is an equal resentment when they’re told the investment is not available for the energy necessary for their development because it is not “green”. They believe, correctly, that they have a right to develop and that those who have already developed using fossil fuels do not have the right to inhibit them from whatever is the most effective way of developing.

Therefore, there has been a period where climate-change action and global agreements, notably the Paris Agreement in 2015, seemed to herald a new era; but that momentum has been followed – exacerbated by external shocks like Covid and the Ukraine war – by a backlash against such action, which threatens to derail the whole agenda.

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Tony Blair

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Read more: https://institute.global/insights/climate-and-energy/the-climate-paradox-why-we-need-to-reset-action-on-climate-change

better to know...?

Climate change and prehistoric human populations: Eastward shift of settlement areas at the end of the last ice age

by University of Cologne, Apr 3, 2025 in ScienceDaily

A new study sheds light on how prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations in Europe coped with climate changes over 12,000 years ago. Led by scientists from the University of Cologne, a team of 25 prehistoric archaeologists from twenty European universities and research institutions revealed significant shifts in population size and density during key periods at the end of the last Ice Age, specifically during the Final Palaeolithic between 14,000 and 11,600 years ago. The study has been published in PLOS One under the title ‘Large scale and regional demographic responses to climatic changes in Europe during the Final Palaeolithic’.

 The results reveal that the first establishment of a larger human population in north-eastern central Europe during the Final Palaeolithic was followed by a dramatic population decline during the last cold period (Greenland Stadial 1) of the Ice Age. This decline reduced the total population of Europe by half. However, the study found that some areas in central Europe show stability or even a slight increase in population size against the general trend. The team interprets this finding as evidence of human migration towards the east in response to worsening climate conditions.
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Australia, better to know...?, climate-debate

State Of The Great Barrier Reef 2024

by P. Homewood, Mar 14, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat 

The Australian Environment foundation (AEF), which is a farmer friendly conservation group, has issued a new report entitled “State of the Great Barrier Reef 2024.”

Peter Ridd, the Chairman of the AEF, said the report shows that the reef is in excellent condition with record amounts of coral. “Despite all the catastrophism about hot water bleaching events in the last decade, the species most susceptible to bleaching, (the plate and staghorn corals), have exploded in number. Sadly, the impact of bleaching is routinely exaggerated by the media and some science organisations.”

“The impact of farm pollution in the Reef is negligible and all 3000 individual reefs have excellent coral. No other Australian ecosystem has shown such little change in modern times” Ridd said.

Peter Ridd added, “Australia spends roughly $500 million each year to “save the reef” but this money could be much better spent on genuine environmental problems such as control of invasive weeds and feral animals, or restoring indigenous fire practices into forests and rangeland”.

He concluded, “The public is being deceived about the reef. How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which has embraced emotion, ideology, and raw self-interest to maintain funding”.

“This new report distils a great deal of data about the reef” said Ridd “it is time that the reef

science institutions confront this data rather than ignoring it and hoping nobody will notice. I challenge them to a public science duel – any time any place.”

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest reef system in the world, and scientists have been warning of its imminent demise since the 1960s.

The report is here.

better to know...?, climate-debate

German Droughts Were Much More Common Back In The Old Days, Before 1980!

by P. Gosselin, Apr 23, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Central Europe has been experiencing a bout of dry weather since February. Germany’s DWD national weather service reported in a recent press release that just 19 liters per square meter (l/m²) fell in March compared to the approx. 60 liters that normally fall in the month. This made last March one of the driest since measurements began in 1881.

“The pronounced drought, which had already lasted in some regions since the beginning or middle of February, was caused by high-pressure areas that repeatedly settled over Central Europe or in the surrounding area,” reports the DWD.

Not surprisingly, the media are making alarmist claims of unprecedented drought, and all hinting it’s due to climate sins by mankind.

Driest years overwhelmingly before 1980

So is drought in rainy Germany something new that we have only begun to experience, like the media and pols suggest?

The historical data show that the answer is clearly NO.

Four of the 5 driest years on record in Germany occurred before 1960. Eight of the top 9 occurred before man-made climate change was ever an issue (before 1980).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

In alarmist imaginations, January 2025 was ‘hottest on record’; in reality, it was darned cold

by J. Robson, March 12, 2025 in ClimateRealistsofBritishColumbia

We continue to be baffled by alarmist claims that the long, cold winter of 2024-25 did not happen, is not happening, and must not happen.

Sometimes things occur that surprise us and run contrary to our general understanding of the world, but when they do we notice them and admit them. (Under which heading file that thus far in 2025 Arctic sea ice extent is at its lowest in a decade, the opposite of 2024.)

But what are we to make of “The Science Behind the Hottest January on Record: What It Means for the Future” or “The Impact of Record-Breaking January Temperatures on Global Climate Trends”?

In fact, as we reported recently, the best available satellite data shows a sharp drop in temperature in January. And we recently learned that Ottawa “just had its coldest February since February 2015.” In which it is far from alone, with harsh conditions from here to Central Asia. And we’re not out of the snowy woods yet. But who are you going to believe, data, headlines or your own eyes and frosty toes?

DESPERATELY SEEKING EXPLANATIONS…

If they do admit that it’s happening, and they look a bit silly trying not to, they produce an explanation-like object that lacks a certain rigour. For instance a piece on the topic in the Hindustan Times (oh what a globalized world we live in as MSN delivers us the Delhi take on cold in Timmins) explains that:

“After last month’s polar vortex collapse, a second one is expected to unleash freezing conditions across North America. With the winter weather phenomenon predictions eyeing a mid-March comeback, parts of Canada and the United States could be submerged in deep freezes, possibly even impacting travel as was seen in the previous cycle. The UK and Europe may also end up facing the brunt of the extreme winter weather.”

OK, so what’s with the dreaded warming? Well, the piece goes on for a while about how weird stuff is happening weirdly:

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better to know...?

EU Commission Gave NGOs Taxpayer Billions To Lobby Politicians For Leftist Causes

by K. Zindulka, Apr 28, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

eu parliament building
Corruption concerns have been raised amid an investigation into the billions handed out from the EU to NGOs, allegedly in exchange for lobbying efforts on behalf of the European Commission to advance left-wing causes such as the green agenda. [emphasis, links added]

The European Court of Auditors has found that between 2021 and 2023, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) received a total of €7.4 billion ($8.4B) from the EU, including 4.8 billion euros from the governing Commission and another 2.6 billion euros from member states.

Thousands of NGOs were funded with taxpayer cash to promote so-called EU values and advance left-wing causes on immigration, environmentalism, and even lobbying for the ban on combustion engine cars, Germany’s Focus magazine reported.

The Court of Auditors report, which found that there was “no reliable overview of EU funding granted to NGOs”, raised concerns that some such organizations were disguising themselves as NGOs to lobby politicians on behalf of their economic interests while claiming to be nonprofits, or by government actors using the groups to advance their endsclandestinely.

An unnamed research facility in the textile and cosmetics industry, which claimed to be an NGO to receive EU funding, was identified by the Court of Auditors as having pursued the “business interests of its predominantly for-profit members” while maintaining a nonprofit status.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

“Solar Madness In Germany”: Gigawatt-Hours Of Subsidized Electricity Gets Dumped Abroad For Free”

by  P. Gosselin, Apr 16, 2025 in NoTricksZone

Blackout News here reports on how Germany’s uncontrolled solar production without appropriate storage and consumption models is putting a huge burden on the domestic market and consumers.

At the same time, neighboring countries are benefiting from all the free electricity Germany uncontrollably overproduces and consumers just don’t need!

Image generated by Grok AI

Experts are warning of the collapse of an over-regulated energy system that is increasingly moving away from reality. Germany has significantly expanded its solar PV capacity in recent years. According to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), the total installed solar PV capacity in Germany reached 99.3 GW at the end of December 2024.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Geothermal electricity generation

by C. Morris, Apr 12, 2025 in WUWT

Geothermal power stations are mature technology with proven performance, reliable operation and ideal for baseload generation. The units are synchronous, so they support the grid.  The production from them is considered by most to be renewable. They do not use fossil fuels to provide the heat. It is not “carbon free”, but no generation truly is. It has a relatively small footprint, environment harm is low, and it can coexist with farming or industrial development. Most developments have a cheaper energy cost than onshore wind, using published accounts for analysis. For countries or areas where the resource is there, geothermal generation is very viable.

The resource

Geothermal power stations are very much a niche generation source (only about 15GW worldwide,  from 673 units at 198 fields according to Google), totally dependent on locality. They are mainly associated with plate boundaries, particularly the Pacific Ring of Fire. Compare the plate boundaries and volcanic activity in Figure 1 with station locations in Figure  2

Associated with the plate boundaries and other weak points in the earth’s crust, the deep underlying heat in the mantle can find its way to the surface easier. “Bubbles” of magma can push up to relatively shallow depths. These may force their way to the actual surface as volcanoes with their lava. With the distortion and earth movement from this activity, the crust’s rock formations are deformed and cracked – earthquakes.  Groundwater can enter all the fault cracking in the rocks. This will be heated up by the hot magma, even if that has solidified.

Geothermal resources exploited for power production are the plumes of hot water formed from the heating of this deep groundwater. In geologic terms, such convection systems are short lived – generally lasting between 200 and 450 thousand years. They end because the heat source has gone or the cracking has been filled by precipitated minerals from the circulating water as it cools. The world is full of solidified magma (granite) and prehistoric geothermal systems. Many of the latter are now mined for gold and other precious materials.

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better to know...?

The Top Ten Environmentalist Myths

by E. Ring, Apr 11, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Here are ten issues where environmentalism has been misused and even caused harm.

earth wind crops
The first Earth Day was organized in 1970 in response to growing public concern for the environment. Many of these concerns were entirely justified. [emphasis, links added]

In 1969, for example, an oil slick along an industrialized stretch of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire, generating national awareness of the need to reduce water pollution.

Similarly, in coastal cities in California, most notably in Los Angeles, the exhaust from unleaded gasoline created air pollution so dense you couldn’t see the hills a few miles away.

We’ve come a long way in 51 years.

This month, as Americans celebrate Earth Day on April 22, we are challenged to differentiate between legitimate environmental priorities and those priorities chosen for us by special interests with ulterior motives for whom environmentalism is a sentiment to be manipulated.

Here are ten issues where environmentalism has been misused, with consequences that have either been of no benefit whatsoever to the environment or have even caused harm.

(1) We are in a climate crisis

We may as well begin with the most controversial environmentalist claim, that our planet is at imminent risk of catastrophic climate change. The problem with this claim is two-fold.

First, there remains vigorous—if suppressed—debate over whether the data actually supports this claim. There is ample evidence that average global temperatures are not rapidly increasing, if they are even increasing at all.

There is also strong evidence that extreme weather events are not increasing but rather that our ability to detect them has improved and that population increases have led more people to live in places that are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather.

Second, even if there is some truth to the claims of climate catastrophists, it is not possible to precipitously transform our entire energy infrastructure. The technology isn’t ready, the funding isn’t available, and most nations will not participate.

Adaptation is our only rational course of action.

(2) There are too many people

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(10) …

better to know...?, climate-debate

Over 30 items here: Evidence that the climate scam is collapsin

by T. Neslon,  Apr 10, 2025 in WUWT

The climate scam is imploding right now. Of course there are still plenty of remaining pockets of climate cultism, but the whole movement is crumbling.

It’s the most massive scientific fraud in human history, and it will take significant time to completely die, but make no mistake: It IS dying.

In no particular order, here are some updates on the climate scam implosion. Please keep scrolling.

  1. “Huge: A powerful climate alliance of the World Economic Forum, major companies, the UN, and banks is “at an end“.
  2. “Bill Gates is giving up on climate change…Breakthrough Energy, a joint venture between Bill Gates and a handful of other billionaires… is slashing much of its policy staff.”
  3. NASA GISS funding “terminated”?: “New NASA Chief Will Wind Down Climate Alarm Shop“.
  4. Delicious straight talk from U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin: “we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion“.
  5. Wonderful straight talk from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “ 2050 “; he suggests climate change alarmism is “a quasi-cult religion”.
  6. The Tories have ditched Net Zero by 2050.
  7. Remarkably, Just Stop Oil just announced “the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets“.
  8. Shellenberger/Pielke Jr: “Climate change is going to fade from view like overpopulation did…Lack of protests over Trump’s action on energy shows how little anyone every really cared about global warming“.
  9. One of the longest running climate cases, Juliana v. United States, just ended in rejection at the Supreme Court.
  10. A climate startup that boasted a roster of celebrity backers and arranged carbon credits for Meta, Microsoft and other large companies just filed bankruptcy.
  11. Blackrock chief Larry Fink mentioned “climate” a total of 29 times in his 2020 letter to CEOs, then ZERO times in his 2025 letter!
  12. Michael Mann is now losing in court to Mark Steyn.
  13. SEC Votes to End Defense of Climate Disclosure Rules.
  14. New Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard failed to even mention “climate change” as a national security threat.
  15. The warmist International Energy Agency just remembered that we need hydrocarbon fuels.
  16. Greenpeace was just hit with a $667 million judgement.
  17. Britain’s banks are quietly distancing themselves from Net Zero commitments.
  18. Warmist Sabine Hossenfelder laments that “Everyone is Giving Up On Climate Goals…global businesses are done pretending they care about carbon neutrality.”
  19. New Jersey’s massive lawsuit accusing the oil industry of causing climate change was dismissed with prejudice.
  20. Google Is No Longer Claiming to Be Carbon Neutral.
  21. The left “went from wanting EV mandates to now burning those same EV’s in the blink of a cultural eye”.
  22. Indonesia casts doubt on Paris climate accord after Donald Trump’s exit.
  23. Australian pension funds are backing away from climate pledges too.
  24. Davos speaker specifically lists *climate* first as a cause that is “simply being gradually kind of marginalised“!
  25. EU exploring weaker 2040 climate goal.
  26. Bloomberg: “Years of Climate Action Demolished in Days“.
  27. After lots of episodes guffawing at climate realists, The Climate Denier’s Playbook podcast went dark without explanation in Oct. 2024.
  28. Facing increasing pushback, many warmist scientists have fled from X. NASA’s Gavin Schmidt is one example.
  29. In recent months, lots of companies have been abandoning climate goals. Air New Zealand is one example.
  30. Greta Thunberg’s last X “school strike” post was in Oct. 2024. This Fridays for Future social media feed hasn’t been updated for almost three years.
  31. Last year Climate Nexus, a warmist organization which pushed climate hysteria for over a decade and had tens of employees, suddenly threw in the towel.
  32. Just over a year ago, The Daily Kos ClimateDenierRoundup page, which spewed climate scam propaganda incessantly (2,200 posts!) for many years, abruptly stopped posting.
  33. Joe Rogan, with his huge audience, was a full-on warmist in 2018 but now routinely scoffs at the climate scam.
better to know...?, climate-debate

Role of Climate Change in LA Wildfires “Not Statistically Significant”, Says Report Author

by C. Morrison, Apr 4, 2025 in WUWT

Climate change was a major factor behind the recent Los Angeles wildfires, reported Matt McGrath of the BBC last January. According to a ‘scientific study’ instantly produced by World Weather Attribution (WWA), the prevailing weather conditions were made about 35% more likely due to humans using hydrocarbons. The WWA study, according to the trusting McGrath, is said to confirm this somewhat precise attribution of blame. Possibly the BBC and most of the mainstream that also parroted the WWA line might consider some corrective copy in the light of a devasting critique of the claims from the theoretical physicist, science writer and prominent youtuber Dr Sabine Hossenfelder. In a YouTube video broadcast here that has gone viral on social media, she elicited an astonishing admission from one of the report’s authors that, “as you can see from the numbers, the changes in intensity and likelihood are unsurprisingly not statistically significant”.

Not statistically significant is exactly what Hossenfelder found since she noted that the figures supplied by the WWA were within a 95% statistical probability level. Her broadcast goes into detail about the numbers falling within the 95% level meaning that an alternative explanation is that climate change had no part to play in the LA fires.

But the laughter has a touch of gallows humour since Hossenfelder is concerned about matters of public policy arising from such widespread fearmongering. Wildfires affect the lives of millions of people and the claims of the WWA broadcast worldwide by unquestioning activists are policy relevant numbers, she observes. People in LA need to consider their response to the recent tragedy and judge whether it will happen more frequently in the future, she says, observing: “This research matters for people’s lives.” Of course similar observations can be made about all the other mainstream pseudoscience babble designed to deliberately induce mass climate psychosis and promote the collectivist Net Zero fantasy.

Lost in all the mainstream narrative-driven madness was any report about the recent sensational scientific finding that wildfires across the United States and Canada were occurring at a rate of only 23% of that expected from a review of the tree ring fire scar record going back to the 17th century. The findings published in Nature Communications effectively blew the politicised wildfire climate change scam out of the water. It was noted that a current ”widespread fire deficit” persisted across a range of forest types, and the areas burned in the recent past “are not unprecedented”.

Such was the alarm created by these inconvenient findings that one pre-publication reviewer noted: “I see this paper as potentially being used by deniers of climate change impacts.” Advice was given to rephrase “to put even more emphasis on impact rather than burned area”. In other words, concentrate on emotion rather than facts to help produce the Ultra Processed Message that is slowly but surely destroying faith in both climate science and the useful idiot media.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Tech Giants quietly drop renewables and sign pledge to triple Nuclear Power

by Jo Nova, Mar 14, 2025

Renewables are so over

Just like that — the renewables bubble went phht.

After twenty years of hailing wind and solar, suddenly the world’s tech giants are cheering for nuclear power. Worse —  they don’t even mention the words carbon, low emissions or CO2. The new buzzwords are “safe, clean and firm“. They talk about needing energy “round the clock”, and they talk about “energy resilience” — but they don’t saynuclear is “low emissions”. It’s like they want everyone to forget their activism. Did someone say something about climate change?

Meta, Amazon, and Google have flipped like a school of barracuda. Five minutes ago, life on Earth depended on achieving Net-Zero with fleets of wind farms in the sunset, now, they just want energy and lots of it. The big tech fish and their friends have signed a Large Energy Users Pledge admitting that the demand for energy is rising rapidly, that nuclear should triple by 2050 and that large energy users depend on the availability of abundant cheap energy (Small energy users too,  Mr Bezos-Zuckerburg-Pichai.) The closest they come to hinting at the ghost of renewables is when they say they want energy that’s not dependent on “the weather, the season, or the geographical location”.

There’s no “Sorry we got it wrong”. There’s no apology for hectoring us, censoring us, or wasting billions of dollars. It’s just Mr Don’t-Look-Over-Here telling us what most engineers knew for 30 years. This is the billionaire club asking the taxpayers to build them more nuclear plants.

Signatories include Siemens Energy, which suffered a 36% share price fall 18 months ago when it admitted it was losing billions trying to maintain wind turbines.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Open peer review: State of the Climate 2024

by O. Humlum, Mar 14, 2025 in GWPF

We are keen to receive review comments for our new draft paper which is now available for open peer review here.

Ole Humlum: State of the Climate 2024

This report on the state of the climate in 2024 has its focus on observations, and not on output from numerical models. The observed data series presented here reveals a vast number of natural variations. The existence of such natural climatic variations is not always fully acknowledged, and therefore often not considered in contemporary climate conversations.

Global average surface air temperature for 2024 was the highest on record for all databases considered in this report. The years 2023 and 2024 were both affected by a warm El Niño episode. Towards the end of 2024 the most recent El Niño episode declined. 

Submitted comments and contributions will be subject to a moderation process and will be published, provided they are substantive and not abusive.

Review comments should be emailed to: harry.wilkinson@thegwpf.org.

The deadline for review comments is 4 April 2025.

better to know...?, energy and fields

CERAWEEK IEA chief sees need for investments in existing oil, gas fields

by T. Gardner, Mar 10, 2025 in Reuters

HOUSTON, March 10 (Reuters) – Fatih Birol, the director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said on Monday there is a need for investment in oil and gas fields to support global energy security.
The comment puts the energy watchdog for industrialized nations more in line with President Donald Trump’s pro-drilling agenda, after it came under pressure from fossil fuel advocates years ago for proposing an end to new oil and gas projects.
“I want to make it clear … there would be a need for investment, especially to address the decline in the existing fields,” he said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. “There is a need for oil and gas upstream investments, full stop,” he said.
Birol has been under pressure from Trump’s administration and from the president’s fellow Republicans in Congress for the IEA’s shift in recent years toward a focus on clean energy policy.
In 2021, the IEA said companies should not invest, opens new tab in new coal, oil and gas projects if the international community wants to reach net zero emissions by mid-century to fight climate change. Countering global warming was a key priority for the administration of former President Joe Biden.
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better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Crusader SLAPPed: Michael Mann Sanctioned For ‘Extraordinary’ Misconduct

by R. Bryce, Mar 13,2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

My, oh my, how the worm has turned.

Thirteen months ago, in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann and his lawyer, Peter J. Fontaine, were crowing about their victory in federal court a few days earlier. [emphasis, links added]

They were thrilled that a jury in Washington, DC, had decided that the defendants in the case, Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn, had defamed Mann.

The jury awarded the combative academic one dollar in compensatory damages from Simberg and Steyn. It also awarded Mann punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.

Mann claimed the jury’s decision was “a victory for science and it’s a victory for scientists.”

In their February 15, 2024, op-ed, Mann and Fontaine said, “We hope this sends a broader message that defamatory attacks on scientists go beyond the bounds of protected speech and have consequences… However, we lament the time lost to this battle. This case is part of a larger culture war in which research is distorted and the truth about the climate threat is dissembled.”

Yes, well.

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As reported here on Substack by Roger Pielke Jr., a federal court in Washington, DC, ruled yesterday that Mann and his lawyers acted in “bad faith” and “made false representations to the jury and the Court regarding damages stemming from loss of grant funding.”

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Peer-Reviewed Study Confirms Wind And Solar Are Far Costlier Than Coal, Natural Gas

by J. Taylor, Mar 4, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Renewable power advocates often claim wind and solar are less expensive energy sources than coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. [emphasis, links added]

Such a claim begs the question of why the heavily subsidized Ivanpah solar power facility is going out of business, following a long line of other renewable energy project bankruptcies.

Also, why would most of the world continue to build coal power plants if it is more expensive than wind and solar? The answer is wind and solar are expensive, financial losers. A recent peer-reviewed analysis proves that point.

A recent study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Energy, reports on the full-system levelized cost of electricity generation. The term “full system” is key.

Many entities have assessed what it costs utilities to purchase or produce electricity from existing sources and deliver it to customers.

These cost assessments, however, ignore the intermittency of wind and solar and how intermittency adds substantial costs to the entire electric grid.

The cost assessments also fail to account for how wind and solar projects cannot be built just anywhere and often require new, long, expensive, and inefficient transformation lines to deliver power from the generation locations to consumers. This also adds substantial costs to the overall electric grid.

The peer-reviewed Energy study analyzes these factors and presents an apples-to-apples cost comparison of the full-system cost of wind, solar, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power.

The verdict is devastating to wind and solar power and explains why most of the world prefers to build coal and natural gas power plants.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

How the “scientific consensus” on climate change was invented

by C. Rotter, Feb 27, 2025 in WUWT

How a “scientific consensus” that “climate change is mostly human-caused” was forced by:
1) Shutting down funding for scientific research into natural causes.
2) Punishing scientists who continued this research anyway.

This is an excerpt from “Climate The Movie” (2024). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAUsvVhgsU

better to know...?, energy and fields, minerals and ores

The rising tide of sand mining: A growing threat to marine life

by Michigan State University, Feb 21, 2025 in ScienceDaily

In the delicate balancing act between human development and protecting the fragile natural world, sand is weighing down the scales on the human side.

A group of international scientists in this week’s journal One Earth are calling for balancing those scales to better identify the significant damage sand extraction across the world heaps upon marine biodiversity. The first step: acknowledging sand and gravel (discussed as sand in this publication) — the world’s most extracted solid materials by mass — are a threat hiding in plain sight.

“Sand is a critical resource that shapes the built and natural worlds,” said senior author Jianguo “Jack” Liu, Michigan State University Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability. “Extracting sand is a complex global challenge. Systems approaches such as the metacoupling framework are essential to untangle the complexity. They can help reveal the hidden cascading impacts not only on the sand extraction sites but also other places such as sand transport routes and sites using sand for construction.”

Sand is the literal foundation of human development across the globe, a key ingredient of concrete, asphalt, glass, and electronics. It is relatively cheap and easily extracted.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Pay Up, Mr. Mann

by The Editors, Jan 10, 2005 in NationalReview

For more than eight years, the climate scientist Michael Mann harassed National Review through litigation over a blog post — until, eventually, the First Amendment brought an end to his attack. This week, a court in our nation’s capital ordered Mann to pay us $530,820.21 worth of attorney’s fees and costs, and to do so within 30 days. It is time for him to get out his checkbook, and sign on the dotted line.

This restitution is welcome, if incomplete. As was made clear during the discovery process, Mann’s explicitly stated intention was to use a “major lawsuit” as a vehicle with which to “ruin National Review.” Happily, Mann failed in this endeavor. But, while all’s well that ends well, his failure exacted costs nevertheless. Between 2012 and 2019 — with the courts inexplicably refusing to apply legal provisions ostensibly designed to prevent frivolous lawsuits such as Mann’s — we were forced to spend a considerable amount of time and money defending ourselves against his malicious, meritless suit. Between 2019 and now, we have been obliged to expend yet more effort trying to recoup at least some of our costs. This week’s award will not undo all of the damage that Mann has inflicted upon us, and upon journalism more broadly — we had asked for $1 million in fees and costs, and even that was a fraction of what we have spent — but it will, at least, go some way toward making us whole.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Conflicts of Interest in Climate Science: A Systemic Blind Spot

by C. Rotter, Feb 18, 2025 in WUWT

Introduction

The field of climate science has long been presented as an objective, data-driven discipline, immune to the biases and financial conflicts that plague other scientific domains. However, a recent preprint study by Jessica Weinkle et al, Conflicts of Interest, Funding Support, and Author Affiliation in Peer-Reviewed Research on the Relationship between Climate Change and Geophysical Characteristics of Hurricanes, challenges this assumption, shedding light on an alarming lack of conflict of interest (COI) disclosures in climate research, particularly in studies linking hurricanes to climate change​. She also has an excellent write up of the study on her Substack, Conflicted.

The study’s findings reveal a disturbing trend: not a single one of the 331 authors analyzed disclosed any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest​. Moreover, the research found that funding from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was a significant predictor of studies reporting a positive association between climate change and hurricane behavior​.

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Time to Clean House

The Weinkle et al. study is a wake-up call for anyone who still believes climate science is an objective, bias-free discipline. The overwhelming correlation between NGO funding and climate change-hurricane research outcomes, coupled with the complete absence of COI disclosures, exposes a deeply entrenched problem​.

The fact that not a single author among 331 disclosed a conflict of interest should be viewed as a scientific scandal. If such a pattern were observed in pharmaceutical or medical research, there would be widespread public outcry and immediate reforms. Yet, in climate science, this level of opacity is tolerated—perhaps because it serves the interests of powerful political and financial actors.

At the very least, this study proves that climate science is not above bias. The question is: Will the scientific community acknowledge and correct these issues, or will it continue to operate under a veil of selective transparency?