Global Warming Causes 1500 Private Jets to Gather at Davos.
And then the passengers will lecture the rest of us on how to lower our carbon footprint.
Tag: morons
Biomass : Accounting Fiction / Accounting Fraud
The big fraud:
It takes more than 30 tractor-trailer loads of wood a day to feed Nova Scotia Power’s Port Hawkesbury biomass plant when it’s running.
But according to the province’s new cap-and-trade carbon-pricing plan, nothing comes out of the facility’s stacks.
The plan classifies biomass as a carbon-neutral way to create electricity or heat.
The province is taking its cue from federal government policy, along with that of the United States and European Union.
All are attempting to meet promises they made at a much-touted 2015 summit in Paris to reduce carbon emissions to a level that would ideally slow global warming.
The problem is that a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases come out of a biomass plant – often more per unit of electricity than if you’d burned coal.
“It’s an accounting fiction,” John Sterman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s System Dynamics Group, said of the carbon neutrality of biomass.
“I’d go so far as to call it an accounting fraud.”
Last January, Sterman released a model for analyzing the life-cycle carbon emission of biomass.
He joined a chorus of scientists warning that in the rush to be seen to be doing something to reduce carbon emissions by subsidizing biomass, the western world will actually make them worse.
Read the rest …
Roadways lined with solar panels may not be as promising as hoped, first studies show
When you come up with a dumb idea and call it green …
“Four years ago a viral campaign wooed the world with a promise of fighting climate change and jump-starting the economy by replacing tarmac on the world’s roads with solar panels. The bold idea has undergone some road testing since then.
The first results from preliminary studies have recently come out, and they’re a bit underwhelming.
A solar panel lying under a road is at a number of disadvantages.
As it’s not at the optimum tilt angle, it’s going to produce less power and it’s going to be more prone to shading, which is a problem as shade over just 5% of the surface of a panel can reduce power generation by 50%.”
“The panels are also likely to be covered by dirt and dust, and would need far thicker glass than conventional panels to withstand the weight of traffic, which will further limit the light they absorb.
Unable to benefit from air circulation, its inevitable these panels will heat up more than a rooftop solar panel too. For every 1°C over optimum temperature you lose 0.5% of energy efficiency.
As a result a significant drop in performance for a solar road, compared to rooftop solar panels, has to be expected. The question is by how much and what is the economic cost?”
Snow Graphs From the Rutgers Snow Lab
These graphs are NH only.
Its a pity Rutgers graphing script can’t spell Hemisphere.
But …
Fall up 1,500,000 sq km
Winter up 900,000 sq km
Spring down 3,000,000
https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/index.php
Wood Burning in UK = Massive Air Pollution
Regular readers know I’ve been going on about the UK power plant DRAX switching from coal to wood pellets.
And I’ve mentioned the EU directives that encourage wood boilers to be installed in the UK instead of gas.
And I’ve mentioned the trees being felled to burn in Europe.
And the morons at my alma mater SFU.
Guess what … the air is filthy in the UK .
“The current weather conditions, coupled with an “unusually high amount of domestic wood burning“, has led to the highest pollution alert being issued.”
Wood is a crappy high CO2 high particulate matter fuel. Combine that with diesel cars (which I’ve also mentioned) and the great killer fogs aren’t far away.
Cash For Ash – Northern Ireland
Another insane scheme to subsidize the burning of wood unravels.
“November 2012: The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is set up by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in a bid to encourage businesses to switch from oil or gas to wood pellet boilers.”
Just stop and think. They subsidized wood pellets (one of the dirtiest fossil fuels) to get people to switch from natural gas (the cleanest fossil fuel). Not only that … wood pellets produce way more CO2 than natural gas.
Utter insanity.
Why?
“It is part of Northern Ireland’s plan to meet renewable energy targets.”
Ahhh. The scheme relied on the stupidity of people and politicians confusing the term green and renewable with clean and CO2 free.
Sure. Wood pellets are renewable. But they are filthy with particulate matter and they produce 2x more CO2 (or more) than gas.
What went wrong? Can you guess?
“Autumn 2013: A whistleblower contacts the department, warning of flaws with the RHI, which she claims overpays businesses and does not provide an incentive to be energy efficient. Officials at the department look into her allegations but they are dismissed.”
Right. The subsidy pays you more if you burn more wood pellets. To an unlimited amount. If the government promised to pay you 10$ for every 5$ bill you burned there would be mass bonfires of $5 bills.
Summer 2015: Officials move to cut the subsidy paid to businesses, which has no cap, after realising an error in how the initiative was set up means companies could make hundreds of thousands of pounds off it.
The more heat a business generates, the higher the subsidy it is paid, making the scheme bad for both the taxpayer and the environment. For every £1 a business spends on fuel, it gets £1.60 in subsidies from the government.
Insane.
There is a jump in applications to join the scheme before the changes come into effect.
No shit.
Read the article … if you can stomach it.
A global tax on meat and milk … to punish the Poor and Middle Class
“A new report has called for taxes to be added to food prices in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent obesity-related deaths by cutting consumption.
The team of researchers from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food in the U.K. and the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington modelled what effects tax hikes on meat and dairy products would have on consumption, gas emissions and health.
The report based the amount of tax charged on how much greenhouse gas emissions each food group was responsible for through its farming and transportation around the world. Therefore meat including beef, lamb and pork would incur higher taxes than rice and other crops.
The report found that a 40 per cent tax on beef would reduce consumption by 15 per cent and cut global greenhouse gas emissions by around 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, while a 20 per cent tax on milk cut consumption by around 7 per cent and reduced emissions by around 200 million tonnes.”
Instead of taxing meat and milk, lets tax stupid climate research and private jets at 100%. Or maybe 1000%. And trips to climate conferences.
Whatever it takes to punish people who wrote that report or are named Leonardo DiCaprio or work for organizations like The International Food Policy Research Institute.
Simon Fraser University Hates Air Quality in Vancouver
Imagine a giant wood stove at the top of Burnaby Mountain (where my alma mater SFU is situated).
Imagine all the CO2. Imagine all the smoke.
It appears the idiots running SFU hate air quality in Vancouver and the lower mainland.
“The district energy system will produce energy using locally sourced biomass that would otherwise be destined for local landfills. It could include urban wood waste (from tree cuttings and trimmings), uncontaminated wood waste (such as wood chips from sawmills and shavings), and clean construction wood waste.”
If we know anything about wood waste we know:
- They will run out of wood waste and start burning whole trees
- There will be more CO2 produced than if they were burning coal (let alone natural gas)
- There will be more particulate matter than if they are burning clean natural gas.
Biomass is a Filthy Con
You know … I don’t agree with Henry A Waxman on much. At all in fact until I read this. But I do on part of this recent article.
And I don’t agree with Waxman that there is urgency on CO2 or climate change.
I only obliquely agree with him because the hypocrisy of a “green” that hates clean natural gas while supporting biomass burning is breathtaking.
Anyway … here is what he has to say:
… the House bill includes a little-known provision that would altogether ignore the carbon pollution emitted by burning biomass—trees and other wood products—to generate power.
Logging companies claim that biomass burned for power is “carbon neutral” – thus, not yielding a net pollution increase. They claim that growing new trees absorbs enough carbon pollution to offset the emissions created by burning mature trees. In effect, they assert that wood power is as clean as solar or wind electricity. This is simply not true. The reality is that burning biomass to generate electricity can produce more carbon pollution than it saves by replacing coal.
This biomass loophole would increase carbon pollution at a time when it is imperative that we reduce it. New trees require up to a century of growth to absorb enough carbon dioxide to offset pollution from mature tree combustion. Worse, there is no guarantee that replacement trees planted today to offset the pollution will survive that long. And even if the new trees eventually offset this pollution after a century, climate change is happening now. We can’t wait.
Notice the BS he is trying to peddle that only “logging companies” want biomass. Almost every greenie wants biomass. There is tremendous amounts of money involved in biomass and biomass subsidies.
Governments around the world are exempting the CO2 and pollution biomass is producing. Its a giant con. As is most of the subsidy farming and green anti-CO2 hysteria.
EU Biofuels = 80% More CO2 Than Oil
No surprise for anyone paying attention.
A study published in late April by an environmental group found that Europe’s biofuel regulations created 80 percent more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than the conventional oil they replaced. The report estimates the biofuels create new emissions equivalent to putting an extra 12 million cars on the road.
Europe has been blending small percentages of biofuels into conventional gasoline and oil and diesel specifically to reduce CO2 emissions. The continent plans to require biofuels account for 10 percent of all fuel used by 2020. The EU’s CO2 emissions are estimated to have increased by 0.7 percent last year relative to 2014, even though the continent has spent an estimated $1.2 trillion financially supporting green and bio-energy with the goal of lowering CO2 emissions.
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