Climate Change? What Climate Change?

Scientists unearth a consequence of solar panels in the Sahara A giant solar farm sounds perfect, right? Not quite. Wadstock/Shutterstock Zhengyao Lu and Benjamin Smith 2.21.2021 3:00 AM The world’s most forbidding deserts could be the best places on Earth for harvesting solar power — the most abundant and clean source of energy we have. Deserts are spacious, relatively flat, rich in silicon – the raw material for the semiconductors from which solar cells are made — and never short of sunlight. In fact, the ten largest solar plants around the world are all located in deserts or dry regions. By Christian Yates and Ed Feil Researchers imagine it might be possible to transform the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, into a giant solar farm, capable of meeting four times the world’s current energy demand. Blueprints have been drawn up for projects in Tunisia and Morocco that would supply electricity for millions of households in Europe. While the black surfaces of solar panels ...

  Perhaps some clarification for us all...   Emergency Order 202-21-1. Here is a good synopsis that someone wrote. Very sadly, people have died as a result! The Dept. of Energy Blocked Texas from Increasing Power Ahead of Storm. A week before, Texas begged for help and asked for DOE to lift federal regulations barring state's energy. An Emergency Order from the Biden administration’s Department of Energy shows Texas energy grid operator ERCOT was instructed to stay within green energy standards by purchasing energy from outside the state at a higher cost, throttling power output throughout the state ahead of a catastrophic polar vortex. Going into effect Sunday, Feb. 14, Emergency Order 202-21-1 shows the Energy Dept. was aware of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s statewide disaster declaration and that ERCOT was readying gas utilities in preparation for a demand surge. The order shows Acting Energy Secretary David Huizenga did not waive environmental restrictions to allow for maximum ...

  Texas’s Blackouts Are The Result Of Unreliable ‘Green’ Energy The blackouts, which have left as many as 4 million Texans trapped in the cold, show the numerous chilling consequences of putting too many eggs in the renewable basket. By Jason Isaac February 18, 2021 As Texans reel from ongoing blackouts at the worst possible time, during a nationwide cold snap that has sent temperatures plummeting to single digits, the news has left people in other states wondering: How could this happen in Texas, the nation’s energy powerhouse? But policy experts have seen this moment coming for years. The only surprise is that the house of cards collapsed in the dead of winter, not the toasty Texas summers that usually shatter peak electricity demand records. The blackouts, which have left as many as 4 million Texans trapped in the cold, show the numerous chilling consequences of putting too many eggs in the renewable basket. Fossil Fuels Aren’t to Blame There are m...

  The Failure Of The Texas Power Grid Is Worse Than You Think A rare winter storm has put ordinary Texans in danger — and exposed the corrupt and parasitic nature of the energy industry in oil-rich Texas. By John Daniel Davidson February 18, 2021 Things are surreal here in Texas right now. From Dallas to San Antonio, century-old low temperature records were shattered almost every day this week. The state is blanketed in snow and ice, and the power grid has failed. What began Sunday morning as an exciting novelty — six inches of snow in Central Texas — has devolved over the week into something more sinister. Four million Texans are now without power, many of them unable to drive on roads covered in ice and made impassable by snowfall. There have been massive pile-ups on the interstates and highways, many of them fatal. Food is running low for some people, and lines outside grocery stores stretch into the hundreds. One friend told me more than 1,000 pe...

  This Basic Math Shows How Wind Energy Failures Contributed To Texas’s Deadly Power Loss We can learn from what happened in Texas if we have a serious and necessary conversation about renewable energy. But will we? By Daniel Turner February 18, 2021 Why did Texas lose power? Math — apolitical, non-ideological, and sometimes cruel math. During such an extreme cold for which Texas is mostly unprepared, the demands on the electric grid exceeded its output capacity. The majority of Texans heat their home with electricity, and, under typical circumstances, it makes sense. Why spend money to bring natural gas heat into the home when it’s very likely you can go an entire winter without turning it on? As temperatures plummeted, Texans turned on and turned up the heat. But something else was happening. The extreme cold was impacting all electricity production. All of it: coal, natural gas, nuclear, but most of all wind. The Department of Energy tracks electr...

  The Rolling Chain of Events Behind Texas Blackouts What happened yesterday to cause the rolling power blackouts across Texas? A chain reaction of problems involving the state's coal and gas appeared to be the cause — and wind plants were having trouble, too. by Kate Galbraith Feb. 3, 2011 1 PM    What happened yesterday to cause the rolling power blackouts across Texas? State Sen. Troy Fraser , R-Horseshoe Bay,  in a phone call with the Tribune today, stressed that conclusions are still tentative but said a chain reaction of problems involving the state's coal and gas plants appeared to be the cause — and wind plants were having trouble, too. So far no...

  Unscrambling plans to remove CO2 from the atmosphere By Dr. Jay Lehr | February 18th, 2021 | Climate | 8 Comments Several states and a significant number of electric utilities have committed to decarbonization goals. Net zero emissions is the term most generally used when expressing these goals. Of course decarbonization is a totally false term. It actually means no carbon dioxide emissions, but as alway the term carbon is scarier as most folks relate it to soot. Actually to all the global warming alarmists, which today includes our entire new federal government, net zero emissions means: All man made greenhouse gas emissions must be removed from the atmosphere by either eliminating their source or cleansing them from the atmosphere through reduction measures such as pumping them underground. This definition means that greenhouse gas emissions are permitted as long as any emissions are removed from th...

  With blackouts across Texas, many are wondering: what happened? Leftists are cheering a “red state” having energy problems. Here’s the truth about what happened. Summary: A mix of over-subsidized wind energy and under-investment in gas power means we didn’t have enough base load energy for a massive spike in demand. Also, Texas infrastructure isn’t designed for once-in-a-century freezes. #1 - Frozen Wind Turbines: West Texas had wind turbines that had to be de-iced. The little energy that power regulators planned on being supplied from wind was now gone. We have almost 31GW of wind installed on the grid, but on Monday we couldn’t even depend on 6 GW working. To make matters worse, existing storage of wind energy in batteries was also gone, because batteries were losing 60% of their energy in the cold. Bottom line: renewables don’t work well in extreme weather. Never will. This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather condit...

Texas’ Electricity Resources WHERE POWER COMES FROM — AND HOW IT GETS TO YOU by Lisa Minton Published August 2020 In 1883, Galveston became the first city in Texas to install electric lights. It wasn’t long before power plants were built in other Texas towns and cities, providing energy for lights, appliances, elevators, pumps and industrial machinery, and transforming our lives in ways Benjamin Franklin couldn’t have imagined during his kite experiment on a stormy day in 1752. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Texas both produces and consumes more electricity than any other state. Texas’ abundant natural resources, including natural gas, coal and wind, are readily available to fuel our power plants. So far, our electricity resources have kept stride through broiling summers and destructive hurricanes, but Texas power producers will be challenged to sustain t...

Roses are red and contributing to climate change, florists warn | Arts and Culture News    Roses are red and contributing to climate change, florists warn Florists in Paris are trying to convince their customers to choose locally grown flowers over roses, which must be flown in and contribute to carbon emissions. Most of the roses sold in France in the run-up to Valentine's Day have to be imported from countries such as Kenya, resulting in carbon emissions that contribute to climate change [File: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters] It is the classic romantic combination: Valentine’s Day and a bouquet of red roses. But some Parisian florists are trying to wean customers off the flowers because of their ecological cost. Most roses sold in France in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, a peak sales period for the global flower industry, have to be imported by air freight from countries such as Kenya, resulting in carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Florists worrie...

  Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says Brandon Mulder Austin American-Statesman Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.  Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt. As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas' installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don't typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year. Texas power outages: Rolling blackouts possible amid record demand for energy Fortunately for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state's electric grid,...

Kivalina: A Case Study of How Media & Politics Mangle Objective Climate Science! By Jim Steele The town of Kivalina bordered by the Chukchi Sea to the left and a lagoon to the right. The lagoon side experiences the most erosion. What appears to be more failed alarmist predictions, the BBC’s 2013 headlines read Alaskan Village Set to Disappear Under Water in A Decade . “Gone, forever. Remembered – if at all – as the birthplace of America’s first climate change refugees . ” (see Willis on “first refugees” ) The assumed cause? “Temperature records show the Arctic region of Alaska is warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Retreating ice, slowly rising sea levels and increased coastal erosion have left three Inuit settlements facing imminent destruction .” Similarly, in 2017 Huffington Post wrote , “It is disappearing. Fast. As one of the most apparent and shocking examples of coastal erosion, Kivalina could be uninhabitable by 2025, all thanks ...