Archives par mot-clé : Net Zero

better to know...?, energy and fields

Europe: AI Development or Net Zero?

by  S. Goreham, Sep 18, 2025 in CornwallAlliance

This year, European nations announced plans to pursue artificial intelligence. National leaders announced AI spending goals totaling hundreds of billions of euros in efforts to catch up to the United States. But AI requires huge amounts of electrical power, conflicting with Europe’s commitment to achieve a Net Zero power grid.

Since ChatGPT released their AI chatbot in November of 2022, artificial intelligence has exploded. In only two years, the AI revolution became the driving force in the US high-tech industry. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other firms will spend over $100 billion this year building and upgrading data centers to run AI. Nvidia, the dominant supplier of AI graphics processor units (GPUs), became the most valuable company in the world, its market capitalization soaring from $300 billion to $4.3 trillion in less than three years.

Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity. AI processors run 24 hours a day, enabling computers to think like humans. When servers are upgraded to support AI, they consume 6 to 10 times more power than when used for cloud storage and the internet. Data centers consumed 4% of US power at the start of 2024 but are projected to consume 20% within the next decade.

The need for new generating capacity for AI now drives US electricity markets. Coal-fired power plant closures have been postponed in Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and other states. Nuclear plants are restarting in Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Dozens of small modular reactors are on the drawing board. More than 200 gas-fired plants are in planning or under construction, including more than 100 in Texas. Companies building AI data centers are constructing their own on-site power plants, unwilling to wait for grid power. The pursuit of artificial intelligence is rapidly replacing obsolete US Net Zero policies.

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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

climate-debate

‘No Measurable Effect’: Study Finds ‘Net Zero’ Emissions Would Have Negligible Climate Impact

by K. Richard, Dec 16, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

net zero
Cost-benefit analyses affirm it would be better to abandon Net Zero policy initiatives and instead “do nothing” about greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis, links added]

New research finds that CO2’s largest possible climate impact is “negligible.”

The cumulative expected temperature change in doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 PPM is only 0.81°C at most, and this is “certainly not cause for alarm or for declaring a climate emergency”.

As Figure 1 from the paper shows [pictured below], the temperature effects of increasing CO2 are strongest when concentrations hover below 100 PPM.

After that, the CO2 impact collapses logarithmically to less than 0.05°C even as concentrations rise to 900 PPM.

Using heat-transfer calculations, it is estimated that even if governments across the world were to actually achieve all of their proposed Net Zero policy goals, it would only elicit a 0.28°C reduction in global temperature.

In other words, it would have “no measurable effect” on climate.

The tens of trillions in costs to achieve an inconsequential global temperature reduction would be much better spent on policies that would improve the economic, health, and educational conditions of those living in poverty.

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climate-debate

Net Zero CO2 Emissions: A Damaging and Totally Unnecessary Goal

by R. Spencer, Apr 18, 2024 in GlobalWarming

The goal of reaching “Net Zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult. While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060?

What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2.

Let me repeat that, in case you missed the point:

Atmospheric CO2 levels will start to fall even with modest reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Why is that? The reason is due to something called the CO2 “sink rate”. It has been observed that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more quickly nature removes the excess. The NASA studies showing “global greening” in satellite imagery since the 1980s is evidence of that.

Last year I published a paper showing that the record of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, HI suggests that each year nature removes an average of 2% of the atmospheric excess above 295 ppm (parts per million). The purpose of the paper was to not only show how well a simple CO2 budget model fits the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements, but also to demonstrate that the common assumption that nature is becoming less able to remove “excess” CO2 from the atmosphere appears to be an artifact of El Nino and La Nina activity since monitoring began in 1959. As a result, that 2% sink rate has remained remarkably constant over the last 60+ years. (By the way, the previously popular CO2 “airborne fraction” has huge problems as a meaningful statistic, and I wish it had never been invented. If you doubt this, just assume CO2 emissions are cut in half and see what the computed airborne fraction does. It’s meaningless.)

Here’s my latest model fit to the Mauna Loa record through 2023, where I have added a stratospheric aerosol term to account for the fact that major volcanic eruptions actually *reduce* atmospheric CO2 due to increased photosynthesis from diffuse sunlight penetrating deeper into vegetation canopies:

What Would a “Modest” 1% per Year Reduction in Global CO2 Emissions Do?

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