I have a foolproof plan for cheap high speed rail.
(Inspiration Tim Blair)
It is too bad the EU has worked so hard to stop fracking in Europe. Europe might had have some spare natural gas to sell the Ukraine.
“Ukraine’s Western-backed leaders scrambled on Friday to find new sources of energy after Russia hiked its gas price by 80 percent in response to the overthrow of Kiev’s pro-Kremlin regime.”
“We are now reviewing our electricity and fuel balance for 2014 with a view of using as much domestic coal as possible at the expense of natural gas,”
http://www.thegwpf.org/ukraine-shifts-to-coal-after-russian-gas-price-hike/
Embed from Getty Images
Europe is freaking out about Putin’s control of Europe’s energy supplies. The Greens and the EU Central Planning Authority (same group I think) have done everything in their power to thwart attempts to explore for shale gas (fracking) in Europe.
So guess what? The Polish PM want to “rehabilitate” coal. Europe could have been burning nice clean shale gas by now. Now they want to burn even more coal. And probably trees. And books. Anything with high CO2 and anything without the word fracking in it.
“Russia, which provides around one third of the EU’s oil and gas, sent shockwaves through the international community with its military intervention and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula two weeks ago.
The action prompted the United States and its European allies to begin imposing sanctions on President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and to threaten to penalise key sectors of Russia’s economy.
Some 40 percent of Russia’s gas destined for Europe is shipped through Ukraine.
“The experience of the last few weeks shows that Europe must strive towards solidarity when it comes to energy,” Tusk said.
He said Poland’s proposed energy union would be based on six points including the “rehabilitation” of coal as a valid energy source, more shale gas exploration and common purchases to ensure the best price.”
http://www.thegwpf.org/polish-pm-eu-should-form-energy-union-based-on-coal-gas-to-secure-supplies/
I think Mother Jones is trying for the top of the list for stupid claims about “Global Warming”.
“Scientists say man-made climate change has fundamentally altered the currents of the vast, deep oceans where investigators are currently scouring for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, setting a complex stage for the ongoing search for MH370. If the Boeing 777 did plunge into the ocean somewhere in the vicinity of where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, the location where its debris finally ends up, if found at all, may be vastly different from where investigators could have anticipated 30 years ago. “
I’m laughing too hard to write any more.
Haven’t the “deniers” been saying this for a long time? Biofuels are a cruel joke on the poor. Driving up food prices and creating more CO2.
“The United Nations will officially warn that growing crops to make “green” biofuel harms the environment and drives up food prices, The Telegraph can disclose.
A leaked draft of a UN report condemns the widespread use of biofuels made from crops as a replacement for petrol and diesel. It says that biofuels, rather than combating the effects of global warming, could make them worse.
The draft report represents a dramatic about-turn for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”
Billions squandered by idiots.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10716756/Biofuels-do-more-harm-than-good-UN-warns.html
There is a new scare story in the Guardian claiming “climate change” will cut crops harvests by 2% per decade due to global warming. The chief clown seems to be Dr Mark Howden of the CSIRO. CSIRO are a group of idiots in Australia pretending to be climate scientists.
“An analysis of more than 1,700 simulations found that across all regions and all crops, including wheat, maize and rice, yields will drop by 2% each decade, based on a 2C rise by 2050.”
Lets look at this irrational story with rational eyes.
A 2C rise by 2050 is extremely unlikely considering that temperatures have been flat since 1998 and have declined since 2002.
But lets humor the idiots and assume temperatures will rise by 2C by 2050. Lets assume farmer Bob with 160 acres of land or Agribusiness XYZ Corporation with 10 square miles of land is currently growing wheat that has been chosen by the collective brainpower of Bob or XYZ to produce the best yield possible at current temperatures and rainfall. And lets say over the next 9 years temperature rises by (correction – I had .25C) .5C (it is 36 years to 2050 so lets use 9 years).
Now because CIRO and Mark Howden are idiots, they assume farmer Bob and all the top scientists at XYZ Corporation are going to keep growing the exact same strain of wheat and they will irrigate (if they irrigate) using the same amount of water and they will use the same fertilizer and they will plant the crop at the exact same time as they always have.
Bullsh*t. They won’t do that. Farmer Bob might be an idiot, but I doubt it. XYZ might be staffed by morons. But I doubt it. If farmer Bob and XYZ are still in business, I assume they are smart enough to do something different. They might plant a little earlier and harvest a little earlier since winters will be warmer. They might use a different strain of wheat or plant a different crop like canola or soybeans or whatever responds to a small rise in temepratures. They might use a different fertilizer. They will adapt. And if the temperature kept rising they will adapt again.
On top of that, along the cold edge of the growing region in North America, new land will become productive if it is warmer, leading to even more crops being grown. And in the southern (warm) edge of the growing region, they will adapt too by growing crops better suited to the newer climate.
World grain production has been rising for decades. It will keep rising. And idiots pretending to be scientists will keep squandering money on stupidity.
It is scary to think about how stupid some of the world’s politicans have been. Europe and its big green collaborators have fought long and hard to stop fracking in Europe. Putin got his money’s worth.
Embed from Getty Images“Europe has had nearly a decade — since Moscow cut off gas supplies to the region for the first time– to ready itself for renewed Russian misbehavior, but has been caught as flatfooted as Obama. Instead of reducing their dependence on gas from Ukraine and Russia, the leaders of Western Europe have chosen to combat climate change. Instead of investing in secure energy, the EU has invested in green energy, driving up energy costs, reducing competitiveness, and allowing Putin to remain in the driver’s seat.
Russia today supplies 30 percent of Europe’s natural gas; half of that flows through Ukraine. In 2006, when the Kremlin first cut exports to the region, Siberian gas provided only 20 percent of EU consumption.“
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/03/19/How-Europe-and-Obama-Lost-Leverage-Putin
Don’t you just love a good news story. The greedy companies raking in green subsides paid for by the poor and elderly are now the target for the tax man.
“Governments across Europe, regretting the over-generous deals doled out to the renewable energy sector, have begun reneging on them. To slow ruinous power bills hikes, governments are unilaterally rewriting contracts and clawing back unseemly profits.
In Italy, one of Europe’s largest economies and one that lavished billions in subsidies on the renewable sector, the government in 2013 applied its so-called “Robin Hood tax” to renewable energy producers. Under the new rule, renewable energy producers with more than €3 million in revenue and income greater than €300,000 must now pay a tax of 10.5%.”
More here.
(h/t Small Dead Animals)
The Incredibly Stupid Journey graphic from the Daily Mail article on the trees journey from the USA to the DRAX wood burning power plant in the U.K.
Isn’t this insane?
“The UK is committed by law to a radical shift to renewable energy. By 2020, the proportion of Britain’s electricity generated from ‘renewable’ sources is supposed to almost triple to 30 per cent, with more than a third of that from what is called ‘biomass’.”
“The only large-scale way to do this is by burning wood”
So the UK is switching from burning high-CO2 coal to even higher-CO2 wood imported from the USA.
“In the longer term, the Government has decreed that customers will pay £105 per MW/hr for Drax’s biomass electricity” … instead of the going rate of £50 per MW/hr.
This quote is hilarious and sad. “‘We’re a power company. We’ve been told to take coal out of the equation. What would you have us do – build a dirty great windfarm?’”
This is really, really sad. They lied and said they didn’t use whole trees, but they do. And then they said they grew back quickly. But they don’t.
“Clear-cut wetlands cannot be replanted” and it could take 100 years to regrow.
Read it all and weep over what the insane AGW Cult has brought about.
Another in a long line of AGW Cult Leaders runs away from debate.
“The president of the Irish National Trust has refused to debate a leading sceptic of man-made global warming. Professor John Sweeney of ‘An Tasice, the Irish National Trust’, had been due to debate Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the RTE show ‘Prime Time’, but pulled out when he learnt who his opponent was.
An Taisce issued a statement saying: “We looked forward to contributing to the debate on how we should deal with the serious problems that ‘Climate Change’ will present to our children and grandchildren.
“However, we have since learnt that Prime Time will be flying a ‘Climate Denier‘ in from the UK for the night. “
The AGW Cult is terrified of debating “sceptics” because “sceptics” are better informed.
sunshine hours 