GWPF Newsletter: Global Temperatures Drop Back To 2002 Levels

Arctic Sea Ice Back To 2007 Levels

In this newsletter:

1) Global Temperatures Drop Back To 2002 Levels
Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 2 September 2018 
 
2) Arctic Sea Ice Back To 2007 Levels
Ron Clutz, Science Matters, 31 August 2018 

 
3) Greenland Gains 500 Billion Tons Of Ice -- For The Second Year In A Row
The Deplorable Climate Science Blog, 31 August 2018  

4) German Social Democrats Warn Against Hasty Exit From Coal Power
Xinhua, 1 September 2018 
 
5) Judith Sloan: Beginning Of The End For Subsidised Renewables
The Australian, 1 September 2018 
 
6) Rocketing Power Prices Spell The End For Subsidised Wind & Solar
Stop These Things, 2 September 2018
 
7) Christopher Booker: Political Earthquake Triggers Climate Policy Change Down Under
The Sunday Telegraph, 2 September 2018 
 
8) And Finally: 5000 Victorian Knitters In High Demand For Victims Of Green Madness Who Can’t Afford To Stay Warm
JoNova, 3 September 2018

Full details:

1) Global Temperatures Drop Back To 2002 Levels
Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 2 September 2018 

Global temperatures fell back to 0.19C in August. This means the year to date (YTD) average is 0.23C, putting them back to roughly where they were in 2002.

Arctic sea ice is tracking close to 2014, which finished with one of the highest minimums in the last decade. Current extent is well above the last three years.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php

Greenland’s Ice Sheet Surface Mass Balance grew at close to record levels for the second year running:

http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/

While at the bottom of the world, sea ice around Antarctica is perfectly normal:



http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Full post & comments
 
2) Arctic Sea Ice Back To 2007 Levels
Ron Clutz, Science Matters, 31 August 2018 

Arctic sea ice is on pace to be close to last year and above those minima observed in 2015 and 2016.

There are two more days to complete August, but these provisional results show what has happened. July was a surprise with both MASIE and SII showing a monthly surplus to the 11-year average.

August ice decline in MASIE was large with 2018 coming in 400k km2 below 11 year average. Meanwhile SII which most years was lower than MASIE (note 2012) this year shows a greater extent and matches SII 11 year average. Note also that both indices are close to 2007 monthly ice extent. (MASIE is described in more detail below; SII refers to NOAA’s Sea Ice Index)

Full post
 
3) Greenland Gains 500 Billion Tons Of Ice -- For The Second Year In A Row
The Deplorable Climate Science Blog, 31 August 2018 

Summer is over, and Greenland’s surface has gained 510 billion tons of ice over the past year – about 40% above normal.  The surface mass budget is snow/ice accumulation minus melt.  It does not include ice loss caused by glaciers flowing to the sea, which is very difficult to measure, and is driven by processes which have little to do with the current climate.

Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI

Last year Greenland gained a little more ice, about 50% above normal.

Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI

The trajectories were very different last year and this year, but the final result was about the same.

Lining the two graphs up side by side, you can see the more than one trillion tons of ice which Greenland’s surface has gained over the past two years.

Last year, the Danish Meteorological Institute reported on the gain in ice, and blamed it on Hurricane Nicole. I wonder what their excuse will be this year?

Full post
 
4) German Social Democrats Warn Against Hasty Exit From Coal Power
Xinhua, 1 September 2018 

BERLIN, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- German Social Democrat (SPD) leader Andrea Nahles has issued a warning on Friday against a hasty exit from national coal power generation in Germany without taking the impact thereof on regional unemployment into account.



Speaking to the magazine "SPIEGEL", Nahles attacked the Green party (Gruene) for condemning steel workers to material deprivation by pursuing radical climate policies in this context. "The Greens are seeking to protect the climate with a state-ordered decommissioning of coal power plants without taking care of the local population in affected areas", the SPD leader complained.

Nahles added that it was "unacceptable" for the SPD to reduce issues surrounding man-made climate change to coal. While nobody denied that coal power needed to be phased out in Germany, the party would not support any measures which did not open up new opportunities to people whose livelihood currently depended on employment in the sector.

"Inhabitants of the Lausitz or Rhineland (coal mining areas) are well aware that coal is not the energy source of the future", Nahles said. The key challenge faced by policymakers was to ensure a "successful structural transformation" which led to the creation of new well-paid jobs.

The comments were interpreted in some media reports as an attempt by an SPD which has recently languished in polls to ward off a growing electoral challenge from the Green party in Germany. Nevertheless, the appeal made by Nahles in "SPIEGEL" echoed earlier calls by the mining trade union IG Bergbau, Chemie and Energie (IG BCE) for legislators to soften the blow of the planned exit from coal power.

Full story
 
See also background for the SPD’s sudden U-turn: 
New election poll: AfD on the rise, close to overtaking the SPD
 
5) Judith Sloan: Beginning Of The End For Subsidised Renewables
The Australian, 1 September 2018 

Without subsidies and the ongoing presence of backup power based on fossil-fuel generation, the outlook for more renewable energy in Australia is extremely uncertain. Indeed, without the intervention of governments, the salad days for renewable energy will quickly fade.

One of the most astute investors in the world is Warren Buffett. Since 2004 his company, Berkshire Hathaway, has invested more than $US17 billion in renewable energy, predominantly wind farms. In case you think Buffett is some bleeding-heart global warming believer, here is his explana­tion for the investment: “I will do any­thing that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate … We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

Under the US production tax credit scheme, American taxpayers forked out more than $US14bn to renewable energy operators between 2014 and last year. The scheme provides for a tax credit of $US23 per megawatt hour and each project can claim this credit for 10 years. Unfortunately for the renewable energy sector, the scheme is being phased out.

Moreover, with the dramatic cut to the federal company tax rate (from 35 per cent to 21 per cent) implemented by the Trump administration, the value of tax credits for existing renewable energy schemes suddenly has dropped.

Just recently the plan to construct the largest wind farm in the US, to be located in Oklahoma, has been shelved. The business case for the project just didn’t stack up without the tax credits. Its loca­tion in a remote, albeit windy, part of the country meant that close to 900km of transmission lines would need to be built. The cost of and local opposition to the erection of the pylons were further factors killing the project.
It’s early days, but there are indications that investment in renewable energy worldwide may have peaked and is trending down.

To be sure, there is the left-wing Californian government proposing that the state’s electricity generation should be carbon-free by 2045, although electricity still will be sourced from interstate generators using fossil fuels.

By contrast, the recent election of a conservative government in Ontario — Canada’s most populous province — and the wipe-out of the previous progressive Liberal government has meant a rapid reversal of fortune for renewable energy there. The Liberals had held power since 2003, implementing a radical green agenda. Coal-fired electricity plants were closed, albeit with significant delays, and incentives were put in place for investment in renewable energy projects, particularly wind farms.

Ontario joined a limited cap-and-trade scheme with California and several US eastern states, thereby imposing a form of carbon tax in Ontario. Interestingly, the emissions reduction targets set by the Liberal government still were not achieved, notwithstanding these interventions. The election of Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford has taken a big stick to most of these policies. The latest cap-and-trade auction has been cancelled and approvals for new wind farms have been withdrawn. The $C14,000 ($14,863) subsidy to the purchasers of electric vehicles has been cancelled.

At a federal level in Canada, the Trudeau government has run into difficulties with its plan to impose an escalating carbon tax. The original idea was that the tax would be levied in all provinces deemed to be acting inadequately to reduce emissions. Some provincial governments are threatening to sue the federal government. And the Trudeau government has needed to tweak its carbon tax plans to deal with the commercial threats to energy-intensive, trade-exposed firms operating in Canada. This situation has been made more difficult by the recently imposed tariffs on some Canadian exports by the US administration.

In Germany, the solar industry basically has collapsed in line with sharply reduced subsidies from the government. Subsidies to wind turbines have oper­ated since 2000 but are due to run out in 2020. Some older turbines will need to be decommissioned, raising several thorny issues, including the lack of provisioning for the costs by the operators. The blades are incapable of being recycled and the turbines are anchored to the ground using hundreds of tonnes of concrete, making the decommissioning process problem­atic. One estimate puts a potential loss of existing turbines in Germany at 5 per cent of the stock by 2022.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure to extend the life of coal-fired power stations. And recently she rejected the proposal of several EU countries to lift the shared emissions reduction target by 2030 from 40 per cent to 45 per cent. This is notwithstanding her earlier support for the higher target.

China often is cited as an example of a country that has invested heavily in renewable energy. What is less often cited is China’s substantial investments in new coal-fired and nuclear power stations. Providing affordable and reliable electricity across the country while shutting down old coal-fired power stations with damaging particulate emissions has been the top priority in China for some time.

A major event occurred in June with the decision of the Chinese government to slash the subsidies paid to solar power operators. In the future, there will be no subsidies and the incentives for existing projects are being cut to 10c per kilowatt hour. As a result of this change, the price of solar stocks has fallen significantly. (We should note here the dominance of China in the production of solar panels. Of the 10 largest firms, seven are China-based and another is based in Hong Kong. There is a large supplier in Canada but the firm has Chinese links.)

So what does this mean for Australia? The renewable energy sector is keen to spruik its economic case. It notes that about 7200MW of capacity has been added in the past few years, although this is nameplate capacity rather than actual 24/7 generation capacity. It also notes that the cost of renewable energy is falling, more so for solar than wind.

The combination of the dying days of the renewable energy target and active subsidisation of renewable energy projects by state and territory governments, mainly through the reverse auction process, has driven this latest burst of investment in wind and solar farms. However, no new projects are proceeding in which operators are taking the merchant risk. (A possible exception could be Chinese-backed projects.) Without power purchasing agreements from users, no new projects are likely to proceed.

Full post
 
6) Rocketing Power Prices Spell The End For Subsidised Wind & Solar
Stop These Things, 2 September 2018

The appointment of Angus Taylor as Australia’s new Energy Minister has guaranteed that the end to subsidised wind and solar will be brutal and swift.

Malcolm Turnbull’s downfall resulted from stratospheric power prices, sent into orbit by unreliable and intermittent wind and solar.

His fate was sealed when he started spinning the line that his National Energy Guarantee (which would have effectively doubled wind and solar capacity) would result in power being delivered at 1970s prices.

The same line is currently being spun by wind and solar outfits and their propaganda wings, in an effort to forestall the end of the world as they know it.
The problem for that line of argument is that everyone, almost everywhere, has heard of South Australia.

SA is the place renowned for setting and then meeting its own ludicrous 50% Renewable Energy Target – blowing up a perfectly good coal-fired power plant along the way- and, funnily enough, equally renowned for routine load shedding, statewide blackouts and the world’s highest power prices.

Large swathes of Adelaide (the city that never sleeps) were powerless last week, when the State was hit with some inclement spring weather, giving its long-suffering residents a literally chilling reminder of September 2016 and ‘Black Wednesday’; the day that saw a whole state freezing in the dark, in part without power for more than a week.

The nonsense being spouted about adding more chaotically intermittent and heavily subsidised wind and solar to bring down power prices is a reflection of the desperation that’s spread amongst renewable energy rent seekers and the zealots, charged with marketing the purported merits of nature’s wonder fuels.

Panic is not a strategy, but what follows when it’s revealed that what was thought to be a strategy, turns out to be a one-way ticket to oblivion. And oblivion is where Australia’s wind and solar industries are headed.
The appointment of Angus Taylor as Energy Minister has guaranteed that the end to subsidised wind and solar will be brutal and swift.

Taylor’s, soon-to-be-launched, full-frontal attack on subsidised wind and solar is – as STT has pointed out once or twice before – just the inevitable consequence of the fact that the Federal government’s renewable energy policy is inherently unsustainable.

Throwing more than $3 billion a year in subsidies to wind and solar at power consumer’s expense – while they suffer the highest power prices in the world or, in the case of 200,000 families, do without power altogether because they can’t afford it – was never sustainable on any level, but particularly the political.

Much the same story is being played out around the globe, wherever governments have allowed renewable energy rent seekers to hijack energy policy.

First, there’s the Blitzkrieg-like attack on conventional generators, with market distorting policies that favour unreliable wind and solar; next comes destruction of electricity markets and grid reliability; rocketing power prices follow, as night follows day; furious power consumers turn on the government responsible; and, the rest as they say, is history.

Any politician that misunderstands that sequence of events hasn’t been paying attention. Malcolm Turnbull didn’t, nor did Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne. Both are now rattling at the bottom of the dustbin of history.

The only thing ‘inevitable’ about subsidised wind and solar, is rocketing power prices. And what inevitably follows is an end to the policies that inevitably infuriate power consumers.

The good news is that in Australia, the US and Ontario the wind and solar industries now face their Armageddon. The bad news is that it took almost 20 years.

The better news is that – once the subsidies, mandates, penalties and targets that built and sustain wind and solar are removed, slashed or scrapped – no politician in their right mind will ever attempt to re-introduce any such scheme, policy or plan, ever again.

Full post
 
7) Christopher Booker: Political Earthquake Triggers Climate Policy Change Down Under
The Sunday Telegraph, 2 September 2018 

Something so extraordinary has lately been going on at the other end of the world that, if it did not run so flatly contrary to the prevailing groupthink of our time, it would surely have made big headlines over here.

We may have gathered that there has been something of an earthquake in the politics of Australia, where the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull faced such a revolt by his Cabinet colleagues over “climate change” that he was eventually forced out of office, to be replaced as leader by Scott Morrison.

But the real significance of this has only now come to light with the unveiling by Australia’s new energy minister, Angus Taylor, of the country’s wholly new energy policy, which completely reverses that of the Turnbull government.

Taylor has made it clear that he is not remotely interested in reducing Australia’s “carbon emissions”, or in pouring ever-larger subsidies into the wind farms which were one of the previous government’s chief obsessions. In recent years, he said, something had gone “terribly wrong” with Australia’s energy policy – which resulted in soaring electricity prices and power blackouts like the one which in September 2016 plunged South Australia into darkness, as the state which, more than any other bar Tasmania, had come to rely on wind turbines for its power.

From now on, said Mr Taylor, he would fix this “mess”, with “one aim only: to reduce power prices while keeping the lights on”. Instead of getting bogged down in ideological complexities, he said his overriding priority would be to end all subsidies to wind farms, and to use Australia’s vast coal reserves to ensure that it would once again draw its electricity from the cheapest, most reliable source.

The full ramifications of this complete policy U-turn, however, stretch far beyond Australia. For a start, coal is far from being as cheap as it was. On the international market, its cost in the past year has more than doubled, thanks to huge demand from China and other eastern countries which, to keep their economies growing, are building hundreds of new coal-fired power plants, as if the much-touted Paris climate “accord” had never happened. Hence President Trump’s decision to pull America out of it.

Following the US, Australia – whose biggest coal customer is China – has called the bluff of that delusion that a country can somehow replace fossil fuels with hopelessly weather-dependent renewables without doing irreparable damage to its economy.

It is already clear that few European countries, least of all Germany, have any prospect of meeting their crippling “CO2 reduction targets” set by the EU for 2020 and beyond. Sweden is another country where the unreliability of wind power now threatens the survival of its “green” pro-renewables energy policy.

All of which leaves Britain locked into this delusion more than any other country in the world, committed by the Climate Change Act to precisely the suicidal energy policy Australia has firmly rejected. In recent windless weeks, we have repeatedly been drawing more than half our electricity from the gas our Government wants to see phased out; while only one per cent or less was coming from the windmills which are costing us billions a year in subsidies. If only we had a single politician with Mr Taylor’s common sense to grasp the great black hole this is heading us for.

Full post
 
8) And Finally: 5000 Victorian Knitters In High Demand For Victims Of Green Madness Who Can’t Afford To Stay Warm
JoNova, 3 September 2018

Once upon a time we could afford heating.

ABC News:  Volunteer knitters in high demand as soaring power prices leave people cold

A national army of knitters is in desperate need of more volunteers to help them meet the growing demand for winter woollies.

Victoria returns to the Victorian era

Knitters can not keep up with demand

“Some people say it has been a colder winter — I actually don’t think so,” Ms Rogers said. I think it’s been milder than what we’ve had, it’s just the need that’s so much greater unfortunately.

“Even if people have got heating, they can’t afford to run it, so they need the warm clothes or the blankets.”

Can you knit to keep a poor Victorian warm?

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.