Category: Morons
Europe To Burn Dirty Filthy Lignite Instead of Clean Fracked Natural Gas (or Nuclear)
Green fanatics have worked really, really hard to prevent fracking in Europe. And to shut down nuclear power plants.
So what happens? A huge number of lignite power plants are being built. Lignite is filthy coal. High CO2 coal. Lignite produces 80% more CO2 per kWh than natural gas.
Stupid Green Policies have consequences.
“Lignite – also known as brown coal – power stations currently make up more than 10% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions. Greenpeace said that if Europe is to continue to play its part in keeping the world within the internationally accepted limit of 2C of warming, 90% of the carbon contained in its lignite reserves must remain buried.
Despite this, lignite-fuelled power stations are still being built, locking in consumption of the fuel for decades. There are 19 such facilities in various stages of approval, planning or construction in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. Greenpeace figures show these new projects alone would emit almost 120m tonnes of CO2 every year – equivalent to three-quarters of the annual carbon output of the UK’s energy sector. The average lifespan for a coal power station is about 40 years, meaning the plants could release nearly 5bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.”
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/guardian-panic-over-new-coal-power-stations/
Widespread Methane Leakage Oxidizing Into CO2
Widespread methane leakage … from the sea floor on the northern US Atlantic margin.
“In an area between North Carolina and Massachusetts, they have now found at least 570 seeps at varying depths between 50m and 1,700m. […] The scientists say there could be about 30,000 of these hidden methane vents worldwide.
“The methane is dissolving into the ocean at depths of hundreds of metres and being oxidised to CO2,” said [Prof Adam Skarke from Mississippi State University, who led the study].
http://www.thegwpf.org/underwater-methane-discovery-shows-how-little-we-know-about-climate-system/
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2232.html
“Contemporary upper-slope seepage there may be triggered by ongoing warming of intermediate waters, but authigenic carbonates observed imply that emissions have continued for more than 1,000 years at some seeps.”
Translation: We’d love to blame global warming … but since it has been going on for 1,000 years … we can’t … unless you are dumb.
NRDC Recommends Gas Dryers
The National Resources Defense Council went on a little rant about clothes dryers in the USA.
A couple of items stood out:
“natural gas dryers typically cost 50 percent to 75 percent less to operate.”
“A typical household pays over $100 in annual utility bills to operate an electric dryer and $40 for a gas dryer.“
Clearly, to me, the NRDC is telling people: Buy A Gas Dryer!
“If all of America’s electric dryers were updated to the most efficient models sold in other parts of the world, U.S. consumers would not only save $4 billion worth of energy per year”
The NRDC are certifiably insane. An “Eco-Dry” dryer costs 1,199$. There are 89,000,000 dryers in the USA. That would cost 107 billion dollars to save 4 billion dollars. Does that make sense?
And if the USA did have a spare 108 billion dollars to send to Korea or China or Europe for new dryers:
” it would prevent roughly 16 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equivalent to the pollution from three coal-fired power plants””
Or one natural gas power plant. Unless the 107 billion dollars was spent on gas dryers (as the NRDC recommends) in which case it would probably increase the amount of CO2. Just kidding. Gas dryers produce less CO2 than electric ones because a large portion of US electricity comes from coal.
“How a consumer uses a dryer is almost as important as which dryer is purchased. Choosing a lower operating temperature can slow the drying process a little, but it cuts energy use significantly. Stopping the dryer before all of the clothes are bone-dry saves time and energy, while reducing wrinkles and helping clothes last longer.”
Sure. Lets spend 107 billion, burn more natural gas (actually I like that recommendation) so we can have slow drying wet clothes.
“We like systems that can explain everything.”
I was reading this article by Stephen L Carter and came across this paragraph.
“The literary critic George Steiner, in a wonderful little book titled “Nostalgia for the Absolute,” long ago predicted this moment. We have an attraction, he contended, to higher truths that can sweep away complexity and nuance. We like systems that can explain everything. Intellectuals in the West are nostalgic for the tight grip religion once held on the Western imagination. They are attracted to modes of thought that are as comprehensive and authoritarian as the medieval church.”
Immediately the idea of CO2/AGW as a cult religion sprang to mind.
“We have an attraction, he contended, to higher truths that can sweep away complexity and nuance.”
Yes indeed. Who cares about sunspots or the AMO or PDO or solar cycles or the LIA. There is no need in the AGW cult to really care about any or those or any of the other inputs into climate systems. Blame everything on CO2.
“We like systems that can explain everything.”
Yes. The cult of CO2 explains warming and cooling and more snow and less snow and drought and floods. There is no need for anything else.
“Intellectuals in the West are nostalgic for the tight grip religion once held on the Western imagination. They are attracted to modes of thought that are as comprehensive and authoritarian as the medieval church.”
That explains so many things including the threatened excommunication of anyone who strays from the church of CO2 and AGW.
AGW is a cult that worships CO2 and Climate Change as god. As I’ve said before.
DUH!!! ( Animals and Plants are Learning to Adapt)
“As the planet warms, animals and plants are learning to adapt to their new environment by either migrating or evolving, new research has revealed.”
What kind of idiots didn’t think plants and animals couldn’t adapt?
Words of the Day: “Bird Vaporization” and “Streamers”
The title of this post is not one I ever expected to write … even when I write a post mocking the evil greenies.
“Investigators from the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, in a report kept confidential until this week, describe the power towers as a “mega trap” that claims layers of species in the same food chain. The lab is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“There were hundreds upon hundreds of butterflies (including monarchs, Danaus plexippus) and dragonfly carcasses,” the investigators said. “Some showed singeing, and many appeared to have just fallen from the sky. … Birds were also observed feeding on the insects. At times birds flew into the solar flux and ignited.””
Forensics lab staff observed a falcon or falcon-like bird with a plume of smoke streaming from its tail as it passed through the heat zone. The bird lost stability and descended, but the team could not locate it. The investigators could not identify many burning objects, which they call streamers.
“We observed many streamer events,” the report said. “It is claimed that these events represent the combustion of loose debris, or insects. Although some of the events are likely that, there were instances in which the amount of smoke produced by the ignition could only be explained by a larger flammable biomass such as a bird. Indeed, OLE (office of law enforcement) staff observed birds entering the solar flux and igniting, consequently becoming a streamer.
“OLE staff observed an average of one streamer event every two minutes.”
Read the rest … if you can.
(h/t Master Resource Blog)
“It’s not the oil that’s dirty, it’s the politics. “
If oil is moving around North America, the best way to do it is via pipeline, not via railroads (which is happening). The latest delay in Keystone XL is disgusting.
“Republicans are denouncing President Obama’s latest delay on the Keystone XL pipeline, six long years after it was proposed. But for cold political fury they have nothing on Terry O’Sullivan, who runs the Laborers’ International Union that represents a half-million construction workers.
“This is once again politics at its worst,” Mr. O’Sullivan said in a public statement that deserves to be quoted at length. “In another gutless move, the Administration is delaying a finding on whether the pipeline is in the national interest based on months-old litigation in Nebraska regarding a state level challenge to a state process—and which has nothing to with the national interest. They waited until Good Friday, believing no one would be paying attention. The only surprise is they didn’t wait to do it in the dark of night.
“It’s not the oil that’s dirty, it’s the politics. Once again, the Administration is making a political calculation instead of doing what is right for the country. This certainly is no example of profiles in courage. It’s clear the Administration needs to grow a set of antlers, or perhaps take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.
“This is another low blow to the working men and women of our country for whom the Keystone XL Pipeline is a lifeline to good jobs and energy security.”
The pipeline is expected to create some 2,000 new jobs from construction and thousands more related to the project. Many of those jobs would go to Mr. O’Sullivan’s union members, who do not live on San Francisco’s Pacific Heights like billionaire donor Tom Steyer who opposes Keystone.”
We don’t want this:
Climate Change Is Damaging Brains (of the Researchers Probably)
Every once in a while I read the Daily Mail website Today I came across:
Climate change is damaging fish brains and causing them to lose their survival instinct, researchers warn
Immediately all I could think of was:
Climate change is damaging fish brains researchers brains and causing them to lose their minds
So lets get to the key point. They claim fish act bolder when exposed to water with a lower pH level:
“There’s no difference between the fish treated with CO2 in the lab in tests for chemical senses versus the fish we caught and tested from the CO2 reef”
Could it be that catching the fish and not killing them causes the fish to act differently?
93 Harvard Faculty Admit They Are Idiots
I see 93 faculty at Harvard University have signed a petition insisting that Harvard divest itself of investments in fossil fuel industries.
It is quite nice for them to come out of the closet and admit they are idiots. It is brave of them.
I may add to this post, but for the moment I amazed that on a day when global sea ice is 1,000,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 mean, those idiotic 93 lie and say:
“a melting of ice the world over“
If they had said “a melting of the arctic sea ice” I would have just called them ignorant (well ok … I still would have called them idiots) for not knowing there is sea ice at each pole.
But they are liars. And idiots. Students and Alumni who had the misfortune of being taught by those lying idiots should ask for their money back.
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