Tag: Europe

UN forest accounting loophole allows CO2 underreporting

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

The CO2 Forest Accounting Loophole

  • Emissions accounting helps determine whether or not nations are on target to achieve their voluntary Paris Agreement reduction goals. Ideally, the global community’s CO2 pledges, adjusted downward over time, would, taken together, help keep the world from heating up by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 from a 1900 baseline.
  • But scientists are raising the alarm that this goal may already be beyond reach. One reason: a carbon accounting loophole within UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines accepting the burning of wood pellets (biomass) as a carbon neutral replacement for coal — with wood now used in many European Union and United Kingdom power plants.
  • Scientists warn, however, that their research shows that replacing coal with wood pellets in power plants is not carbon neutral. That’s partly because burning wood, which is celebrated by governments as a renewable and sustainable energy resource, is less efficient than coal burning, so it actually produces more CO2 emissions than coal.
  • Also, while wood burning and tree replanting over hundreds of years will end up carbon neutral, that doesn’t help right now. Over a short timeframe, at a historical moment when we require aggressive greenhouse gas reductions, wood burning is adding to global emissions. Analysts say that this loophole needs to be closed, and soon, to avoid further climate chaos.

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/05/un-forest-accounting-loophole-allows-co2-underreporting-by-eu-uk-us/

Where I live they are generating 800MW of power using biomass.

Europeans Are Stupid

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

Europe’s energy policies are worse than stupid.

“At the end of last year, Sir John Beddington, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, lifted the lid on the scandal at the heart of the EU’s renewable policies. According to Sir John, since the EU’s first renewables directive in 2008, the growth of bioenergy — much of it sourced from North American woods and forests — has provided around half the expansion of renewable energy. To supply even one third of the additional renewable energy needed to meet Europe’s new 2030 target will require an amount of wood roughly equivalent to the combined harvest in the U.S. and Canada. The fiction currently being peddled is that Europe is only burning wood residues — the bits of trees left over from other uses — but new EU rules agreed to last week by the European Parliament will expand the definition of bioenergy to include trees specifically harvested to be burnt in power stations.”

They love CO2 in Europe.

Subsidized Swimming Pools – Cash For Ash-holes in UK

Published on by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

Cash For Ash in the UK

Greenies are ash-holes.

Wealthy owners of country estates are rewarded for using excessive amounts of heat – as long as it is made using ‘green’ energy.

Some are given as much as £50,000 every year in taxpayers’ money so the UK can meet renewable energy targets agreed with the European Union.

The House of Schivas estate (pictured) is under investigation after being paid thousands in subsidies to heat its swimming pool which it is said to have had on all the time

Rewards increase as the landowners use more heat, so profits can be maximised by turning up the temperature.

The House of Schivas estate in Aberdeenshire run by Lord Catto, 66, is under investigation after the Daily Mail found it has been paid thousands in government subsidies to heat its indoor swimming pool 24 hours a day.

A reporter was told the water was kept hot at all times, even in summer.

In another case an undercover reporter was advised by a green energy salesman to raise the heat in the pool at a country manor to take advantage of the system.

The extraordinary deals mean the wealthy landowners are guaranteed to get the payments for 20 years. Almost £800million has been set aside to cover the payments this year and costs are expected to rise to more than £1billion by 2020.

Meanwhile thousands of homeowners across the country struggle to heat their homes and pay their winter bills.

 

Protected forests in Europe felled

Published on by sunshinehours14 Comments

What an insane world we live in where environmentalists are killing forests and bats and eagles all in the name of saving them from AGW.

Today the outrage is forests.

Protected forests in Europe felled to meet EU renewable targets – report

Europe’s bioenergy plants are burning trees felled from protected conservation areas rather than using forest waste, new report shows.

Protected forests are being indiscriminately felled across Europe to meet the EU’s renewable energy targets, according to an investigation by the conservation group Birdlife.

Up to 65% of Europe’s renewable output currently comes from bioenergy, involving fuels such as wood pellets and chips, rather than wind and solar power.

Bioenergy fuel is supposed to be harvested from residue such as forest waste but, under current legislation, European bioenergy plants do not have to produce evidence that their wood products have been sustainably sourced.

Birdlife found logging taking place in conservation zones such as Poloniny national park in eastern Slovakia and in Italian riverside forests around Emilia-Romagna, where it said it had been falsely presented as flood-risk mitigation.

 

Coal: China vs Germany

Published on by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

China’s economy continues to drive ahead powered by coal. They consume 50% of the world production. The use the cheap electricity produced by burning coal to manufacture inexpensive goods and then sell them all over the world.

Germany, on the other hand, has chosen to use cheap electricity to subsidize wind turbines and solar panels.

“At the center of Europe’s coal renaissance is the region around the German-Polish border, already home to five of Europe’s most polluting coal plants, says the report, which was compiled by CAN Europe, WWF, the European Environmental Bureau, the Health and Environment Alliance and Climate Alliance Germany. Swedish power firm Vattenfall GmbH is now planning to expand the number of open-cast mines in the Lausitz area to exploit its deposits of  lignite, a particularly polluting type of coal.

Vattenfall says the Lausitz mines, with their vast deposits, are there to take up the slack when renewable energy sources fail to meet Germany’s needs. “Without flexible and reliable brown coal, we wouldn’t be able to provide stable electricity supplies at stable prices,” the company says on its website.”

http://www.thegwpf.com/europes-coal-renaissance-undermines-it-green-credentials/

 

Europe To Burn Dirty Filthy Lignite Instead of Clean Fracked Natural Gas (or Nuclear)

Published on by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

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/

Sweden: Coal To Play Important Role In Future

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

Thanks to anti-fracking activities in Europe by environmentalists, the only plentiful fuel available cheap enough to use against Putin’s control is Coal.

I’ve mentioned Poland and Germany and Japan. Now it is Sweden’s turn.

“In the wake of the Ukraine crisis and Germany’s nuclear shutdown, Swedish-state-owned Vattenfall is supplying even more energy from coal. Vattenfal’s chief executive officer told Swedish public television that coal power will have an important role to play in the future.

The state-owned power company, which runs Sweden’s hydro and nuclear plants, had its annual general meeting on Monday. Despite getting badly burned by buying the now-devalued Dutch company Nuon, Vattenfall has plans to buy up even more foreign coal companies.

The Swedish state is the owner of Vattenfall. The government’s representative at the meeting says that, despite setting a goal of reducing carbon emissions, the government has no objection to Vattenfall investing in coal, and leaves such decisions to the company board.”

http://www.thegwpf.org/sweden-coal-to-play-important-role-in-future/

If Europe had jumped into fracking as soon as possible, the natural gas would have been coming on stream by now and they could be replacing coal with cleaner, lower CO2 gas. But Europe bet the farm on wind and solar. Idiots.

Embed from Getty Images

Japan Chooses Coal Over Renewable Energy

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

Japan isn’t as dumb as Environmentalists hoped. After working hard to shutdown Japans nuclear power because of the earthquake/tidal wave, Japan is choosing coal instead of renewables.

“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing Japan’s coal industry to expand sales at home and abroad, undermining hopes among environmentalists that he’d use the Fukushima nuclear accident to switch the nation to renewables.

A new energy plan approved by Japan’s cabinet on April 11 designates coal an important long-term electricity source while falling short of setting specific targets for cleaner energy from wind, solar and geothermal. The policy also gives nuclear power the same prominence as coal in Japan’s energy strategy.”

“Before the accident, Japan got 62 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels, and nuclear made up about a third, according to government figures. Since then, utilities reverted to fossil fuels such as liquefied natural gas and coal to replace nuclear capacity taken offline. Those thermal power sources generated about 90 percent of Japan’s electricity in fiscal 2012, according to figures in the energy plan.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-13/post-fukushima-japan-chooses-coal-over-renewable-energy.html

japan_nuclear

Japan Will Encourage Coal Use In Eastern Europe

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

Thanks to anti-fracking activities in Europe by environmentalists, the only plentiful fuel available cheap enough to use against Putin’s control is Coal.

“The government plans to support Ukraine and other Eastern European nations in the construction of next-generation coal-fired power plants that can generate power with less fuel, according to informed sources.

Under the initiative, Japan would stand behind the nations’ efforts to use coal—abundant in Eastern Europe—instead of natural gas, the supply of which makes them dependent on Russia. The government is expected to announce the initiative at the meeting of energy ministers from Japan and other Group of Seven industrialized nations to be held in Rome from May 5.

Japan’s support will involve the construction of coal-fired power plants using technologies known as supercritical steam pressure and ultra supercritical pressure to spin the turbines, enabling these nations to obtain electricity while using less fuel and emitting less carbon dioxide.”

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001241034

Embed from Getty Images

Other Than Germany … COAL!

Published on by sunshinehours12 Comments

Poland is suggesting that coal make a big comeback in the European Union in order to thwart Putin’s use of Natural Gas as a weapon.

“Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says the country’s giant coal fields should become a cornerstone in Europe’s defense against a newly aggressive Russia.”

(Too bad the EU has fought against fracking to the point of insanity)

But the sentence that jumped out at me is

“Poland burns over 50 million tons of coal a year, more than any European nation other than Germany, “

Wait! I thought Germany was the poster boy for green energy!

Yes indeed. BP Statistical Review of World Energy says Germany burned more coal than any other European nation and it burned 3.9% more coal in 2012 than it did in 2011.

Why? The shutdown of some of its nuclear power plants.

Country 2012 Change
Austria 2.0 -23.8%
Azerbaijan ^ 3.8%
Belarus ^ 1.2%
Belgium 3.0 -9.5%
Bulgaria 7.0 -13.4%
Czech Republic 16.6 -7.8%
Denmark 2.5 -23.4%
Finland 2.9 -15.1%
France 11.4 20.1%
Germany 79.2 3.9%
Greece 7.5 -0.5%
Hungary 3.0 -1.9%
Republic of Ireland 1.5 16.9%
Italy 16.2 0.3%
Kazakhstan 35.0 2.6%
Lithuania 0.2 -5.5%
Netherlands 8.5 8.2%
Norway 0.7 -0.5%
Poland 54.0 -4.0%
Portugal 2.9 31.4%
Romania 6.7 -9.5%
Slovakia 3.2 -3.5%
Spain 19.3 24.2%
Sweden 1.5 -25.7%
Switzerland 0.1 6.5%
Turkey 31.3 -5.6%
Turkmenistan – –
Ukraine 44.6 6.9%
United Kingdom 39.1 24.0%
Uzbekistan 1.2 -0.3%
Other Europe & Eurasia 22.2 -1.7%