Another Nail In The LNT Coffin
In this newsletter:
1) What If You Can’t Resell Your Electric Car?
Anjani Trivedi, Bloomberg, 30 July 2020
2) Oh Dear: Plug Pulled On French Electric Car Which Nobody Wants To Buy
Car Advice, 29 July 2020
3) John O'Sullivan: The Hidden Costs of Net Zero’
The Pipeline, 28 July 2020
The Pipeline, 28 July 2020
4) Mass EV Charging: Is A Can Of Worms Hiding Under The Bonnet?
Transport Xtra, 24 July 2020
5) Another Nail In The LNT Coffin
Andrew Montford, GWPF, 30 July 2020
Andrew Montford, GWPF, 30 July 2020
6) New Scientific Findings Suggest Radiation Risks Are Exaggerated
Resource World, 18 June 2020
7) Flawed Models Are Throwing Off Climate Forecasts Of Rain And Storms
Science Magazine, 29 July 2020
Science Magazine, 29 July 2020
8) Peter Ridd Challenge Goes To The Heart Of A Free Society
Gideon Rozner, The Australian, 28 July 2020
Gideon Rozner, The Australian, 28 July 2020
9) And Finally: Climate Hysteria On Stilts: Labour Council Bans Meat
Gaia Fawkes, 28 July 2020
Gaia Fawkes, 28 July 2020
Full details:
1) What If You Can’t Resell Your Electric Car?
Anjani Trivedi, Bloomberg, 30 July 2020
Would you still buy an electric car if you knew you wouldn’t be able to resell it in the future? That’s the latest hurdle potential buyers are contending with, and it’s bound to become a big driver of demand.
The expenses of owning an electric vehicle have always stood in the way of mass adoption, even in China, which has an extensive subsidy program.
Starting from the cost of the battery to how far a charge will take drivers, not to mention the shortage of points where they can plug in, there’s a lot to grapple with before green cars can overtake those powered by internal combustion engines.
Much of the anxiety stems from batteries – the price, technology, density, and where to charge them. Manufacturers have worked for years to bring down the price on a per kilowatt-hour basis. Technology has improved, with different materials helping cars run longer and further, thus needing less charge. The chemistry has become more stable. In May, for instance, Svolt Energy Technology Co., owned by the parent of China’s Great Wall Motor Co., launched the world’s first battery that doesn’t use the controversial yet once-essential cobalt. It costs less than the mainstream competition and has higher density, meaning more energy is packed into the same volume.
So the good news is, battery prices are dropping, down to 1.1 yuan ($0.13) per watt-hour in 2019 from 2.1 yuan per watt-hour in 2016. That also means that the cost of electric vehicles is coming down (though the good ones still aren’t that affordable), since batteries typically account for 50% to 60% of their value.But therein lies the trap: As the technology evolves and drives prices of new vehicles lower, existing owners are taking a disproportionate beating in the secondhand market. The average resale value of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids is less than 40% of the original purchase price, versus 50% to 70% on conventional cars. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts note that consumer concerns about the quality and reliability of “old batteries appear to weigh on used cars’ prices.” That doesn’t really help make the case for current new buyers, either.
Then there are underlying demand trends. Sales of all cars were falling even before Covid-19. The market for batteries has been inching lower across the U.S., China and Europe. Installations fell around 30% in June from the previous year in the world’s largest auto market, China. Driven by regulatory pressures, vehicle manufacturers are tying up with and taking big stakes in battery makers to push forward ways to make greener cars. But confidence to buy them hasn’t picked up in most countries, despite subsidies in some shape or form to encourage sales. Meanwhile, the auto market in China is maturing and that has changed preferences, too.
Post-pandemic, the last thing consumers will want to buy is an asset that depreciates faster and is more expensive than its main competition, in this case, cars with internal combustion engines. Buying behavior in China shows as much: Purchases are being delayed until automakers drop their prices for electric cars below 300,000 yuan to qualify for the government’s rebate program.
Full post
2) Oh Dear: Plug Pulled On French Electric Car Which Nobody Wants To Buy
Car Advice, 29 July 2020
One of Australia’s cheapest electric cars – the Renault Zoe – has had its plug pulled after just 63 were sold over the past three years.
Indeed, over the same period, Australians bought two-and-a-half times more Rolls-Royces (158), seven times as many Lamborghinis (457), and 12 times as many Ferraris (818) than Renault Zoe electric cars.
In an online briefing with media, Renault Australia executives blamed absent government incentives for the lack of widespread interest in the Zoe, even though it was already one of the cheapest electric cars on sale, priced from $47,490 plus on-road costs.
Critics of electric-car subsidies say the vehicles should sell on their merits rather than receiving taxpayer support – especially as drivers of such vehicles are perceived as getting a free ride on Australian roads by avoiding fuel excise.
Full story
4) Mass EV Charging: Is A Can Of Worms Hiding Under The Bonnet?
Transport Xtra, 24 July 2020
The Government’s push to electrify road transport and domestic heating could place major cost burdens on consumers, says a new report.
Electric vehicles have become something of a panacea for politicians as they grapple with how to decarbonise the transport sector. But for some engineers, the headlong rush to electrify road transport and domestic heating too is a major cause for concern. LTT reported in May the top-down analysis of Michael Kelly, the former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Communities and Local Government (LTT 29 May & Letters 26 Jun). Now a more bottom-up analysis has been prepared by retired engineer Mike Travers. Both reports have been published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank.
“It is clear that the costs of supporting all the plans the Government has for transport and homes is going to be very high, and it is going to be made worse by the fact that the changeover is not being thought through, let alone planned effectively,” says Travers. “Part of the problem is that there is no institution or organisation in a suitable position to do so. The distribution companies own the transformers and cables, but may or may not be responsible for the smart meters. They therefore have little interest in some form of smart control [of electricity demand]. As profit-making companies, they also have no interest in investing for the future load increases, as they can charge for all the upgrading work as it is required.”
Decarbonisation will place huge new demands on the electricity network, with homeowners installing electric vehicle charging points, heat pumps and electric showers. “The extra demand for electricity will overwhelm most domestic fuses, thus requiring homeowners to install new ones, as well as circuit-breakers and new distribution boards,” says Travers. “Most will also have to rewire between their main fuse and the distribution network. In urban areas, where most electrical cabling is underground, this will involve paying for a trench to be dug between the home and the feeder circuits in the street.”
The Government wants millions of electric vehicles on Britain’s roads within the next decade. Those residents lucky enough to have off-street parking, will have two main choices for charging their EVs, says Travers: slow charging using a standard 13-amp supply, or fast charging using a special 7kW (32-amp) supply.
“For those with time on their hands, the 12 hours needed to fully charge a typical battery car on a 13-amp connection may be acceptable, although there is still the cost of fitting earth fault protection, which will set the homeowner back around £250. Most people will require fast chargers, however, and indeed the Government is considering making their installation mandatory in new homes. Homeowners will therefore need to install a charging pillar.
“These will cost £1,200 to install in new homes, or twice that to retrofit to old ones, because the household distribution board is likely to require upgrading.”
Travers says home chargers will present residents with new social dilemmas as friends and relatives ask to recharge when visiting. “Should you charge visitors for a recharge? You might gift the cost to friends and relatives, but what about the plumber or the carer?”
Full post
6) New Scientific Findings Suggest Radiation Risks Are Exaggerated
Resource World, 18 June 2020
London – An important new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that low-level nuclear radiation might be much less dangerous than previously thought.
According to authors, Professor Edward Calabrese and Dr Mikko Paunio, recent reviews of seminal research conducted in the decades after the Second World War has uncovered serious flaws in the “linear no-threshold” assumption – the idea that nuclear radiation is dangerous even at very low exposures.
According to Professor Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, these claims are now known to be based on scientific studies that were deceptive, flawed, or even fraudulent:
“The key work that was done in the US after the war was fatally flawed. But influential scientists managed to suppress the evidence and ensure that the linear no-threshold assumption survived.”
And Professor Calabrese’s position is confirmed by a review of recent findings from Japan, which have been reviewed by Dr Paunio, a former chairman of the Finnish Radiological Protection Board. According to Dr Paunio, key support for the linear no-threshold assumption came from a major study that followed the life histories of the Hibakusha – the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs.
“Their error was extraordinary,” says Dr Paunio. “They failed to account for the effects of secondary radiation exposures and fallout. This means that the rather low numbers of cancers observed in the hibakusha in the decades after the war were actually caused by quite high exposures to radiation.”
The implication of these reviews is that nuclear radiation seems to be relatively harmless at low levels. If correct, it means that the nuclear energy industry is being grossly over-regulated for no reason at all.
According to GWPF director Benny Peiser, there is now a need for government to act.
“Over the weekend, it was reported that the government might finally kick the small modular nuclear programme into action. If so, then it’s a welcome development, but there remains a real risk that the programme will be sunk by the environmental bureaucracy.”
“If the extremely costly regulatory burden is really as pointless as these new findings suggest, there is an important opportunity for the country. It’s time for a major review of the new radiation science.”
Anjani Trivedi, Bloomberg, 30 July 2020
Would you still buy an electric car if you knew you wouldn’t be able to resell it in the future? That’s the latest hurdle potential buyers are contending with, and it’s bound to become a big driver of demand.
The expenses of owning an electric vehicle have always stood in the way of mass adoption, even in China, which has an extensive subsidy program.
Starting from the cost of the battery to how far a charge will take drivers, not to mention the shortage of points where they can plug in, there’s a lot to grapple with before green cars can overtake those powered by internal combustion engines.
Much of the anxiety stems from batteries – the price, technology, density, and where to charge them. Manufacturers have worked for years to bring down the price on a per kilowatt-hour basis. Technology has improved, with different materials helping cars run longer and further, thus needing less charge. The chemistry has become more stable. In May, for instance, Svolt Energy Technology Co., owned by the parent of China’s Great Wall Motor Co., launched the world’s first battery that doesn’t use the controversial yet once-essential cobalt. It costs less than the mainstream competition and has higher density, meaning more energy is packed into the same volume.
So the good news is, battery prices are dropping, down to 1.1 yuan ($0.13) per watt-hour in 2019 from 2.1 yuan per watt-hour in 2016. That also means that the cost of electric vehicles is coming down (though the good ones still aren’t that affordable), since batteries typically account for 50% to 60% of their value.But therein lies the trap: As the technology evolves and drives prices of new vehicles lower, existing owners are taking a disproportionate beating in the secondhand market. The average resale value of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids is less than 40% of the original purchase price, versus 50% to 70% on conventional cars. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts note that consumer concerns about the quality and reliability of “old batteries appear to weigh on used cars’ prices.” That doesn’t really help make the case for current new buyers, either.
Then there are underlying demand trends. Sales of all cars were falling even before Covid-19. The market for batteries has been inching lower across the U.S., China and Europe. Installations fell around 30% in June from the previous year in the world’s largest auto market, China. Driven by regulatory pressures, vehicle manufacturers are tying up with and taking big stakes in battery makers to push forward ways to make greener cars. But confidence to buy them hasn’t picked up in most countries, despite subsidies in some shape or form to encourage sales. Meanwhile, the auto market in China is maturing and that has changed preferences, too.
Post-pandemic, the last thing consumers will want to buy is an asset that depreciates faster and is more expensive than its main competition, in this case, cars with internal combustion engines. Buying behavior in China shows as much: Purchases are being delayed until automakers drop their prices for electric cars below 300,000 yuan to qualify for the government’s rebate program.
Full post
2) Oh Dear: Plug Pulled On French Electric Car Which Nobody Wants To Buy
Car Advice, 29 July 2020
One of Australia’s cheapest electric cars – the Renault Zoe – has had its plug pulled after just 63 were sold over the past three years.
Indeed, over the same period, Australians bought two-and-a-half times more Rolls-Royces (158), seven times as many Lamborghinis (457), and 12 times as many Ferraris (818) than Renault Zoe electric cars.
In an online briefing with media, Renault Australia executives blamed absent government incentives for the lack of widespread interest in the Zoe, even though it was already one of the cheapest electric cars on sale, priced from $47,490 plus on-road costs.
Critics of electric-car subsidies say the vehicles should sell on their merits rather than receiving taxpayer support – especially as drivers of such vehicles are perceived as getting a free ride on Australian roads by avoiding fuel excise.
Full story
3) John O'Sullivan: The Hidden Costs of Net Zero’
The Pipeline, 28 July 2020
If Ministers pay heed to Travers on the costs and practicality of their policies, they will reconsider de-carbonization and look instead at going nuclear or choosing adaptation over mitigation.
In last week’s column I argued that in dealing with the threats of climate change, our best approach would be to forget labels like “climate denialism” and “climate alarmism,” make a fair accounting of the problems, and set about tackling them practically. When I advocated this approach of “climate practicality,” I was thinking in Big Picture terms: How best should we allocate scarce resources between adapting to climate change and seeking to mitigate it, for instance? Or between generating energy mainly from fossil fuels, as now, or from “renewables,” or from going nuclear? Where will our money get the best results?
Answering those Big Picture questions is obviously necessary, indeed unavoidable, but it’s also very difficult to answer them well, i.e, convincingly, because they contain so many variables. It’s somewhat easier (though still hard) to examine the practicality of specific policies from the standpoint not only of governments which propose and implement them but also of the ordinary citizens who have to live with their impact.
That’s done with deep practical expertise and occasional dry wit in a new monograph from the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled Rewiring the UK: the Hidden Costs of Net Zeroby Mike Travers, a distinguished engineer with wide experience in that most practical of disciplines.
"I am sure every one of us in the UK supports cutting waste, not polluting the oceans with plastic, collecting our rubbish (though people are still throwing tons of waste out of car windows), reducing discharges of all types into our fragile atmosphere and still maintaining a reasonable lifestyle. To do this we need to plan, engineer and build in a sensible way. What we cannot afford to do is inflate electricity prices and other costs: this will simply result in manufacturing industry leaving the country and the export of our carbon dioxide emissions."
Travers starts with the problem, which is that electricity prices have been rising sharply in the U.K.: “[B]usinesses and consumers have been facing steadily increasing electricity bills for the last 12 years. Average domestic prices have risen from 6p to 16p per unit. That is more than 150 percent in twelve years, faster than any other commodity. This is partly the result of poor planning of the system.”
And why is that? Travers first gives vent to an understandable professional pique that “[e]ngineers have long since lost control of the electrical supply, and the regulators, accountants, and lawyers who now hold sway have conspired to prevent sensible improvements to the system.”
His second explanation, however, goes to the nub of the problem, which is that rising electricity prices stem mainly from government policies to “decarbonize the economy’” (i.e. the hidden costs of the monograph’s title), as the country switches from gas turbines to the much more expensive wind turbines to generate electcicity and move towards net zero carbon emissions.
As we head towards a fully decarbonised grid, the expense will become truly astronomical. We even have to pay windfarms to switch off. These so-called ‘constraint payments’ reached £140 million in 2019.
Rising electricity prices from decarbonization are a major problem, especially so when consumers are facing harder times as the cumulative impact of Covid-19 and the lockdowns kicks in, but they are far from the only negative results. For the U.K. government, though headed by an easy-going optimististic prime minister in Boris Johnson, is committed to requiring ordinary Brits to make major changes in their life-styles that will mean imposing heavier costs on them as both consumers, electricity users, and taxpayers. For instance, the government has already announced that it is making a transition to electric cars compulsory by 2035—and that regulation will include hybrid cars. Nor is it likely to be only such regulation. Brits will also be required to install in their homes such other devices as heat pumps and electric vehicle charging points.
The cost of installing EV charging points alone will be a considerable one. Travers estimates that it will be of the order of 31 billion pounds. But that’s small beer compared to the overall losses from the installation and use of all the additional electric devices needed for decarbonization (italics mine):
"The extra demand for electricity will overwhelm most domestic fuses, thus requiring homeowners to install new ones, as well as circuit-breakers and new distribution boards. Most will also have to rewire between their main fuse and the distribution network. In urban areas, where most electrical cabling is underground, this will involve paying for a trench to be dug between the home and the feeder circuits in the street. In addition, increased demand along a street will mean that the distribution network will need to be upgraded too. This will involve installing larger cables and replacing distribution transformers with larger ones. Most urban streets will need to be dug up. The cost to the country of rewiring alone will probably exceed £200 billion, or over £7,000 per household. This figure excludes the cost of new equipment, such as EV chargers, heat pumps and electric showers."
That’s the total impact on householders. It’s alarming. But the details of how many of these centrally-imposed regulations will impact the individual householder is where Travers shines.
Full post
The Pipeline, 28 July 2020
If Ministers pay heed to Travers on the costs and practicality of their policies, they will reconsider de-carbonization and look instead at going nuclear or choosing adaptation over mitigation.
In last week’s column I argued that in dealing with the threats of climate change, our best approach would be to forget labels like “climate denialism” and “climate alarmism,” make a fair accounting of the problems, and set about tackling them practically. When I advocated this approach of “climate practicality,” I was thinking in Big Picture terms: How best should we allocate scarce resources between adapting to climate change and seeking to mitigate it, for instance? Or between generating energy mainly from fossil fuels, as now, or from “renewables,” or from going nuclear? Where will our money get the best results?
Answering those Big Picture questions is obviously necessary, indeed unavoidable, but it’s also very difficult to answer them well, i.e, convincingly, because they contain so many variables. It’s somewhat easier (though still hard) to examine the practicality of specific policies from the standpoint not only of governments which propose and implement them but also of the ordinary citizens who have to live with their impact.
That’s done with deep practical expertise and occasional dry wit in a new monograph from the Global Warming Policy Foundation titled Rewiring the UK: the Hidden Costs of Net Zeroby Mike Travers, a distinguished engineer with wide experience in that most practical of disciplines.
"I am sure every one of us in the UK supports cutting waste, not polluting the oceans with plastic, collecting our rubbish (though people are still throwing tons of waste out of car windows), reducing discharges of all types into our fragile atmosphere and still maintaining a reasonable lifestyle. To do this we need to plan, engineer and build in a sensible way. What we cannot afford to do is inflate electricity prices and other costs: this will simply result in manufacturing industry leaving the country and the export of our carbon dioxide emissions."
Travers starts with the problem, which is that electricity prices have been rising sharply in the U.K.: “[B]usinesses and consumers have been facing steadily increasing electricity bills for the last 12 years. Average domestic prices have risen from 6p to 16p per unit. That is more than 150 percent in twelve years, faster than any other commodity. This is partly the result of poor planning of the system.”
And why is that? Travers first gives vent to an understandable professional pique that “[e]ngineers have long since lost control of the electrical supply, and the regulators, accountants, and lawyers who now hold sway have conspired to prevent sensible improvements to the system.”
His second explanation, however, goes to the nub of the problem, which is that rising electricity prices stem mainly from government policies to “decarbonize the economy’” (i.e. the hidden costs of the monograph’s title), as the country switches from gas turbines to the much more expensive wind turbines to generate electcicity and move towards net zero carbon emissions.
As we head towards a fully decarbonised grid, the expense will become truly astronomical. We even have to pay windfarms to switch off. These so-called ‘constraint payments’ reached £140 million in 2019.
Rising electricity prices from decarbonization are a major problem, especially so when consumers are facing harder times as the cumulative impact of Covid-19 and the lockdowns kicks in, but they are far from the only negative results. For the U.K. government, though headed by an easy-going optimististic prime minister in Boris Johnson, is committed to requiring ordinary Brits to make major changes in their life-styles that will mean imposing heavier costs on them as both consumers, electricity users, and taxpayers. For instance, the government has already announced that it is making a transition to electric cars compulsory by 2035—and that regulation will include hybrid cars. Nor is it likely to be only such regulation. Brits will also be required to install in their homes such other devices as heat pumps and electric vehicle charging points.
The cost of installing EV charging points alone will be a considerable one. Travers estimates that it will be of the order of 31 billion pounds. But that’s small beer compared to the overall losses from the installation and use of all the additional electric devices needed for decarbonization (italics mine):
"The extra demand for electricity will overwhelm most domestic fuses, thus requiring homeowners to install new ones, as well as circuit-breakers and new distribution boards. Most will also have to rewire between their main fuse and the distribution network. In urban areas, where most electrical cabling is underground, this will involve paying for a trench to be dug between the home and the feeder circuits in the street. In addition, increased demand along a street will mean that the distribution network will need to be upgraded too. This will involve installing larger cables and replacing distribution transformers with larger ones. Most urban streets will need to be dug up. The cost to the country of rewiring alone will probably exceed £200 billion, or over £7,000 per household. This figure excludes the cost of new equipment, such as EV chargers, heat pumps and electric showers."
That’s the total impact on householders. It’s alarming. But the details of how many of these centrally-imposed regulations will impact the individual householder is where Travers shines.
Full post
4) Mass EV Charging: Is A Can Of Worms Hiding Under The Bonnet?
Transport Xtra, 24 July 2020
The Government’s push to electrify road transport and domestic heating could place major cost burdens on consumers, says a new report.
Electric vehicles have become something of a panacea for politicians as they grapple with how to decarbonise the transport sector. But for some engineers, the headlong rush to electrify road transport and domestic heating too is a major cause for concern. LTT reported in May the top-down analysis of Michael Kelly, the former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Communities and Local Government (LTT 29 May & Letters 26 Jun). Now a more bottom-up analysis has been prepared by retired engineer Mike Travers. Both reports have been published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank.
“It is clear that the costs of supporting all the plans the Government has for transport and homes is going to be very high, and it is going to be made worse by the fact that the changeover is not being thought through, let alone planned effectively,” says Travers. “Part of the problem is that there is no institution or organisation in a suitable position to do so. The distribution companies own the transformers and cables, but may or may not be responsible for the smart meters. They therefore have little interest in some form of smart control [of electricity demand]. As profit-making companies, they also have no interest in investing for the future load increases, as they can charge for all the upgrading work as it is required.”
Decarbonisation will place huge new demands on the electricity network, with homeowners installing electric vehicle charging points, heat pumps and electric showers. “The extra demand for electricity will overwhelm most domestic fuses, thus requiring homeowners to install new ones, as well as circuit-breakers and new distribution boards,” says Travers. “Most will also have to rewire between their main fuse and the distribution network. In urban areas, where most electrical cabling is underground, this will involve paying for a trench to be dug between the home and the feeder circuits in the street.”
The Government wants millions of electric vehicles on Britain’s roads within the next decade. Those residents lucky enough to have off-street parking, will have two main choices for charging their EVs, says Travers: slow charging using a standard 13-amp supply, or fast charging using a special 7kW (32-amp) supply.
“For those with time on their hands, the 12 hours needed to fully charge a typical battery car on a 13-amp connection may be acceptable, although there is still the cost of fitting earth fault protection, which will set the homeowner back around £250. Most people will require fast chargers, however, and indeed the Government is considering making their installation mandatory in new homes. Homeowners will therefore need to install a charging pillar.
“These will cost £1,200 to install in new homes, or twice that to retrofit to old ones, because the household distribution board is likely to require upgrading.”
Travers says home chargers will present residents with new social dilemmas as friends and relatives ask to recharge when visiting. “Should you charge visitors for a recharge? You might gift the cost to friends and relatives, but what about the plumber or the carer?”
Full post
5) Another Nail In The LNT Coffin
Andrew Montford, GWPF, 30 July 2020
A favourite lie of the environmental movement takes another blow
James V. Neel, author of the ABCC study
A few weeks ago, we at GWPF published a paper by Ed Calabrese and Mikko Paunio, about the linear no-threshold (LNT) model as applied to the harms caused by nuclear radiation. The LNT model encapsulates the idea that there is no safe level of radiation exposure, no threshold below which exposure is not a problem. It is therefore the cause of all extraordinary levels of bureaucracy and safety measures that have all but killed off the nuclear industry in much of the western world.
As our paper showed, however, the post-war science that led to the LNT model’s acceptance was at best plain wrong and potentially even fraudulent. For those who haven’t read the paper, it’s well worth taking a look, but those who have may well be interested in Ed Calabrese’s new paper, which is another nail in the coffin of the LNT hypothesis.
“The Muller-Neel dispute and the fate of cancer risk assessment” is a review of the correspondence between members of the so-called BEAR I panel, which was tasked by the US government with assessing radiation risk during the 1950s. It subsequently concluded that the LNT model should be adopted, with fateful consequences for civil nuclear energy ever since.
Calabrese was trying to understand how the panel had reached this conclusion despite the existence of the report of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), a major study, commissioned by the US National Academy of Sciences, which had found that the children of atomic bomb survivors seemed to have suffered no ill effects, at least in the shape of genetic damage. This seemed to indicate that prolonged exposure to low-levels of radiation was in fact harmless.
Why then had the BEAR panel reached the opposite conclusion? Calabrese’s review shows that it not only did not take the ABCC study into account in reporting its findings, it didn’t even look at it, instead concentrating solely on studies that extrapolated from animal subjects to human ones. These could be used to argue in favour of the LNT model.
Why would this be? The panel’s correspondence shows that its members’ minds were made up before they started work, and that they had “a strongly unified belief in the LNT model”. Worse still, many of its members were involved in animal studies themselves, and were unhappy that studies on humans were giving a different answer. Essentially the ABCC work had shown that the whole approach of extrapolating from animals to humans was flawed. In essence, groupthink and the self-interest of the panel members put paid to any truth-seeking tendencies they might have had.
Hermann Muller, the man behind the BEAR panel
As Calabrese puts it:
"This history should represent a profound embarrassment to the US NAS, regulatory agencies worldwide, and especially the US EPA, and the risk-assessment community whose founding principles were so ideologically determined and accepted with little if any critical reflection."
The evidence that the LNT model is hopelessly wrong, and that we have been lied to for nearly a century, is now overwhelming. It is surely time for the government to commission a complete review of the question of radiation safety.
Andrew Montford, GWPF, 30 July 2020
A favourite lie of the environmental movement takes another blow
James V. Neel, author of the ABCC study
A few weeks ago, we at GWPF published a paper by Ed Calabrese and Mikko Paunio, about the linear no-threshold (LNT) model as applied to the harms caused by nuclear radiation. The LNT model encapsulates the idea that there is no safe level of radiation exposure, no threshold below which exposure is not a problem. It is therefore the cause of all extraordinary levels of bureaucracy and safety measures that have all but killed off the nuclear industry in much of the western world.
As our paper showed, however, the post-war science that led to the LNT model’s acceptance was at best plain wrong and potentially even fraudulent. For those who haven’t read the paper, it’s well worth taking a look, but those who have may well be interested in Ed Calabrese’s new paper, which is another nail in the coffin of the LNT hypothesis.
“The Muller-Neel dispute and the fate of cancer risk assessment” is a review of the correspondence between members of the so-called BEAR I panel, which was tasked by the US government with assessing radiation risk during the 1950s. It subsequently concluded that the LNT model should be adopted, with fateful consequences for civil nuclear energy ever since.
Calabrese was trying to understand how the panel had reached this conclusion despite the existence of the report of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), a major study, commissioned by the US National Academy of Sciences, which had found that the children of atomic bomb survivors seemed to have suffered no ill effects, at least in the shape of genetic damage. This seemed to indicate that prolonged exposure to low-levels of radiation was in fact harmless.
Why then had the BEAR panel reached the opposite conclusion? Calabrese’s review shows that it not only did not take the ABCC study into account in reporting its findings, it didn’t even look at it, instead concentrating solely on studies that extrapolated from animal subjects to human ones. These could be used to argue in favour of the LNT model.
Why would this be? The panel’s correspondence shows that its members’ minds were made up before they started work, and that they had “a strongly unified belief in the LNT model”. Worse still, many of its members were involved in animal studies themselves, and were unhappy that studies on humans were giving a different answer. Essentially the ABCC work had shown that the whole approach of extrapolating from animals to humans was flawed. In essence, groupthink and the self-interest of the panel members put paid to any truth-seeking tendencies they might have had.
Hermann Muller, the man behind the BEAR panel
As Calabrese puts it:
"This history should represent a profound embarrassment to the US NAS, regulatory agencies worldwide, and especially the US EPA, and the risk-assessment community whose founding principles were so ideologically determined and accepted with little if any critical reflection."
The evidence that the LNT model is hopelessly wrong, and that we have been lied to for nearly a century, is now overwhelming. It is surely time for the government to commission a complete review of the question of radiation safety.
6) New Scientific Findings Suggest Radiation Risks Are Exaggerated
Resource World, 18 June 2020
London – An important new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that low-level nuclear radiation might be much less dangerous than previously thought.
According to authors, Professor Edward Calabrese and Dr Mikko Paunio, recent reviews of seminal research conducted in the decades after the Second World War has uncovered serious flaws in the “linear no-threshold” assumption – the idea that nuclear radiation is dangerous even at very low exposures.
According to Professor Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, these claims are now known to be based on scientific studies that were deceptive, flawed, or even fraudulent:
“The key work that was done in the US after the war was fatally flawed. But influential scientists managed to suppress the evidence and ensure that the linear no-threshold assumption survived.”
And Professor Calabrese’s position is confirmed by a review of recent findings from Japan, which have been reviewed by Dr Paunio, a former chairman of the Finnish Radiological Protection Board. According to Dr Paunio, key support for the linear no-threshold assumption came from a major study that followed the life histories of the Hibakusha – the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs.
“Their error was extraordinary,” says Dr Paunio. “They failed to account for the effects of secondary radiation exposures and fallout. This means that the rather low numbers of cancers observed in the hibakusha in the decades after the war were actually caused by quite high exposures to radiation.”
The implication of these reviews is that nuclear radiation seems to be relatively harmless at low levels. If correct, it means that the nuclear energy industry is being grossly over-regulated for no reason at all.
According to GWPF director Benny Peiser, there is now a need for government to act.
“Over the weekend, it was reported that the government might finally kick the small modular nuclear programme into action. If so, then it’s a welcome development, but there remains a real risk that the programme will be sunk by the environmental bureaucracy.”
“If the extremely costly regulatory burden is really as pointless as these new findings suggest, there is an important opportunity for the country. It’s time for a major review of the new radiation science.”
7) Flawed Models Are Throwing Off Climate Forecasts Of Rain And Storms
Science Magazine, 29 July 2020
Efforts to attribute specific weather events to global warming, now much in vogue, are rife with errors
Climate scientists can confidently tie global warming to impacts such as sea-level rise and extreme heat. But ask how rising temperatures will affect rainfall and storms, and the answers get a lot shakier. For a long time, researchers chalked the problem up to natural variability in wind patterns—the inherently unpredictable fluctuations of a chaotic atmosphere.
Now, however, a new analysis has found that the problem is not with the climate, it’s with the massive computer models designed to forecast its behavior. “The climate is much more predictable than we previously thought,” says Doug Smith, a climate scientist at the United Kingdom’s Met Office who led the 39-person effort published this week in Nature. But models don’t capture that predictability, which means they are unlikely to correctly predict the long-term changes that are most influenced by large-scale wind patterns: rainfall, drought, flooding, and extreme storms. “Obviously we need to solve it,” Smith says.
The study, which includes authors from several leading modeling centers, casts doubt on many forecasts of regional climate change, which are crucial for policymaking. It also means efforts to attribute specific weather events to global warming, now much in vogue, are rife with errors. “The whole thing is concerning,” says Isla Simpson, an atmospheric dynamicist and modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who was not involved in the study. “It could mean we’re not getting future climate projections right.”
The study does not cast doubt on forecasts of overall global warming, which is driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases. And it has a hopeful side: If models could be refined to capture the newfound predictability of winds and rains, they could be a boon for farming, flood management, and much else, says Laura Baker, a meteorologist at the University of Reading who was not involved in the study. “If you have reliable seasonal forecasts, that could make a big difference.”
The study stems from efforts at the Met Office to predict changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a large-scale wind pattern driven by the air pressure difference between Iceland and the Azores. The pressure difference reverses every few years, shunting the jet stream north or south; a more northerly jet stream drives warm, wet winters in northern Europe while drying out the continent’s south, and vice versa. In previous attempts to project the pattern decades into the future, a single model might yield opposite forecasts in different runs. The uncertainty seemed “huge and irreducible,” Smith says. […]
The missed predictability appears to be universal. “This is being pursued everywhere,” says Yochanan Kushnir, a climate scientist at Columbia University, whose team reported last week in Scientific Reports that rainfall in the Sahel zone is more predictable than models indicate. In forthcoming work, a group led by Benjamin Kirtman, an atmospheric scientist and model developer at the University of Miami, will flag similar missed predictability in wind patterns above many of the world’s oceans.
Kirtman thinks something fundamental is wrong with the models’ code. For the time being, he says, “You’re probably making pretty profound mistakes in your climate change assessment” by relying on regional forecasts. For example, models predicted that the Horn of Africa, which is heavily influenced by Indian Ocean winds, would get wetter with climate change. But since the early 1990s, rains have plummeted and the region has dried.
The missing predictability also undermines so-called event attribution, which attempts to link extreme weather to climate change by using models to predict how sea surface warming is altering wind patterns. The changes in winds, in turn, affect the odds of extreme weather events, like hurricanes or floods. But the new work suggests “the probabilities they derive will probably not be correct,” Smith says.
Full story
Science Magazine, 29 July 2020
Efforts to attribute specific weather events to global warming, now much in vogue, are rife with errors
Climate scientists can confidently tie global warming to impacts such as sea-level rise and extreme heat. But ask how rising temperatures will affect rainfall and storms, and the answers get a lot shakier. For a long time, researchers chalked the problem up to natural variability in wind patterns—the inherently unpredictable fluctuations of a chaotic atmosphere.
Now, however, a new analysis has found that the problem is not with the climate, it’s with the massive computer models designed to forecast its behavior. “The climate is much more predictable than we previously thought,” says Doug Smith, a climate scientist at the United Kingdom’s Met Office who led the 39-person effort published this week in Nature. But models don’t capture that predictability, which means they are unlikely to correctly predict the long-term changes that are most influenced by large-scale wind patterns: rainfall, drought, flooding, and extreme storms. “Obviously we need to solve it,” Smith says.
The study, which includes authors from several leading modeling centers, casts doubt on many forecasts of regional climate change, which are crucial for policymaking. It also means efforts to attribute specific weather events to global warming, now much in vogue, are rife with errors. “The whole thing is concerning,” says Isla Simpson, an atmospheric dynamicist and modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who was not involved in the study. “It could mean we’re not getting future climate projections right.”
The study does not cast doubt on forecasts of overall global warming, which is driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases. And it has a hopeful side: If models could be refined to capture the newfound predictability of winds and rains, they could be a boon for farming, flood management, and much else, says Laura Baker, a meteorologist at the University of Reading who was not involved in the study. “If you have reliable seasonal forecasts, that could make a big difference.”
The study stems from efforts at the Met Office to predict changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a large-scale wind pattern driven by the air pressure difference between Iceland and the Azores. The pressure difference reverses every few years, shunting the jet stream north or south; a more northerly jet stream drives warm, wet winters in northern Europe while drying out the continent’s south, and vice versa. In previous attempts to project the pattern decades into the future, a single model might yield opposite forecasts in different runs. The uncertainty seemed “huge and irreducible,” Smith says. […]
The missed predictability appears to be universal. “This is being pursued everywhere,” says Yochanan Kushnir, a climate scientist at Columbia University, whose team reported last week in Scientific Reports that rainfall in the Sahel zone is more predictable than models indicate. In forthcoming work, a group led by Benjamin Kirtman, an atmospheric scientist and model developer at the University of Miami, will flag similar missed predictability in wind patterns above many of the world’s oceans.
Kirtman thinks something fundamental is wrong with the models’ code. For the time being, he says, “You’re probably making pretty profound mistakes in your climate change assessment” by relying on regional forecasts. For example, models predicted that the Horn of Africa, which is heavily influenced by Indian Ocean winds, would get wetter with climate change. But since the early 1990s, rains have plummeted and the region has dried.
The missing predictability also undermines so-called event attribution, which attempts to link extreme weather to climate change by using models to predict how sea surface warming is altering wind patterns. The changes in winds, in turn, affect the odds of extreme weather events, like hurricanes or floods. But the new work suggests “the probabilities they derive will probably not be correct,” Smith says.
Full story
8) Peter Ridd Challenge Goes To The Heart Of A Free Society
Gideon Rozner, The Australian, 28 July 2020
Peter Ridd has decided to fight last week’s decision in favour of James Cook University, and the case is of such public importance that the High Court simply must allow the appeal to be heard.
The Ridd case is much more than a mere workplace relations dispute between an academic and his employer. It is even bigger than a dispute about climate change.
It is about the free speech crisis at our universities, and goes to the heart of the “cancel culture” epidemic engulfing the Western world.
Ridd is a Townsville-based marine geophysicist and Great Barrier Reef expert, whose 30-year academic career effectively ended when he started disputing the conventional wisdom that climate change was “killing” the reef. He subsequently took the university to court, winning $1.2m in compensation for his unlawful sacking. Last week, the Federal Court overturned that win in a 2-1 decision.
In deciding whether to grant special leave for the appeal, the High Court will consider whether the case involves “a question of law that is of public importance”. The Ridd matter easily meets this threshold. It would be the first time the High Court has been called upon to consider the meaning of “academic and intellectual freedom”, which is used in enterprise agreements covering staff at almost all Australian universities.
The court’s decision will therefore have very real consequences in terms of university governance, and the extent to which administrators tolerate controversial (and, often, commercially inconvenient) opinions from the professoriate.
Should “intellectual freedom” be limited by the whims of university administrators, as JCU is arguing? Or should it be wide enough to allow for the kind of controversial, but honestly held opinions for which Ridd was ultimately sacked?
The Federal Court’s answer to that question is deeply disturbing. In its judgment last week, the majority seemed to suggest that free speech on campus is past its use-by date.
“There is little to be gained in resorting to historical concepts of academic freedom,” scoffed justices Griffiths and Derrington. For good measure, the majority judgment quoted — arguably out of context — from an academic textbook outlining “a host of new challenges”, like “the rise of social media” and “student demands for accommodations such as content warnings and safe spaces”.
If nothing else, the Federal Court has exposed just how much our public institutions have been corroded by modern cancel culture. The free speech crisis at our universities has been apparent for years, but now the hypersensitivity of woke undergraduates is being taken seriously by our penultimate court. It sets a precedent, and a dangerous one. While The Australian does not suggest the judges acted improperly, it is worrying that the idea the boundaries of free speech should be defined by self-appointed cultural arbiters and anonymous Twitter mobs is on the verge of formal legal recognition.
This is not about the polite notion of so-called “acceptable limits” to free speech. It is a radical departure from how our society treats knowledge. Former opinion editor Bari Weiss recognised this dynamic in her sensational resignation from The New York Times recently: “I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history,” Weiss wrote. “Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing moulded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.”
You could replace the words “journalism” and “history” with almost any intellectual discipline. Woke revisionism has trashed the humanities faculties almost beyond repair. Now it is creeping into the “hard sciences”. That is how we have arrived at a situation in which a respected academic such as Ridd is put through hell for offering a critique of the “settled science” of climate change.
If our judicial system lets JCU get away with it, every academic in the country — present and future — will be forced to choose between speaking the truth and putting bread on the table.
Full post ($)
* * * Please support Peter Ridd's Legal Action Fund!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund-2019
Gideon Rozner, The Australian, 28 July 2020
Peter Ridd has decided to fight last week’s decision in favour of James Cook University, and the case is of such public importance that the High Court simply must allow the appeal to be heard.
The Ridd case is much more than a mere workplace relations dispute between an academic and his employer. It is even bigger than a dispute about climate change.
It is about the free speech crisis at our universities, and goes to the heart of the “cancel culture” epidemic engulfing the Western world.
Ridd is a Townsville-based marine geophysicist and Great Barrier Reef expert, whose 30-year academic career effectively ended when he started disputing the conventional wisdom that climate change was “killing” the reef. He subsequently took the university to court, winning $1.2m in compensation for his unlawful sacking. Last week, the Federal Court overturned that win in a 2-1 decision.
In deciding whether to grant special leave for the appeal, the High Court will consider whether the case involves “a question of law that is of public importance”. The Ridd matter easily meets this threshold. It would be the first time the High Court has been called upon to consider the meaning of “academic and intellectual freedom”, which is used in enterprise agreements covering staff at almost all Australian universities.
The court’s decision will therefore have very real consequences in terms of university governance, and the extent to which administrators tolerate controversial (and, often, commercially inconvenient) opinions from the professoriate.
Should “intellectual freedom” be limited by the whims of university administrators, as JCU is arguing? Or should it be wide enough to allow for the kind of controversial, but honestly held opinions for which Ridd was ultimately sacked?
The Federal Court’s answer to that question is deeply disturbing. In its judgment last week, the majority seemed to suggest that free speech on campus is past its use-by date.
“There is little to be gained in resorting to historical concepts of academic freedom,” scoffed justices Griffiths and Derrington. For good measure, the majority judgment quoted — arguably out of context — from an academic textbook outlining “a host of new challenges”, like “the rise of social media” and “student demands for accommodations such as content warnings and safe spaces”.
If nothing else, the Federal Court has exposed just how much our public institutions have been corroded by modern cancel culture. The free speech crisis at our universities has been apparent for years, but now the hypersensitivity of woke undergraduates is being taken seriously by our penultimate court. It sets a precedent, and a dangerous one. While The Australian does not suggest the judges acted improperly, it is worrying that the idea the boundaries of free speech should be defined by self-appointed cultural arbiters and anonymous Twitter mobs is on the verge of formal legal recognition.
This is not about the polite notion of so-called “acceptable limits” to free speech. It is a radical departure from how our society treats knowledge. Former opinion editor Bari Weiss recognised this dynamic in her sensational resignation from The New York Times recently: “I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history,” Weiss wrote. “Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing moulded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.”
You could replace the words “journalism” and “history” with almost any intellectual discipline. Woke revisionism has trashed the humanities faculties almost beyond repair. Now it is creeping into the “hard sciences”. That is how we have arrived at a situation in which a respected academic such as Ridd is put through hell for offering a critique of the “settled science” of climate change.
If our judicial system lets JCU get away with it, every academic in the country — present and future — will be forced to choose between speaking the truth and putting bread on the table.
Full post ($)
* * * Please support Peter Ridd's Legal Action Fund!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund-2019
9) And Finally: Climate Hysteria On Stilts: Labour Council Bans Meat
Gaia Fawkes, 28 July 2020
An eco-warrior administration at Enfield Council is set to become the first elected body in the UK to ban meat in an attempt to tackle climate change.
Gaia Fawkes, 28 July 2020
An eco-warrior administration at Enfield Council is set to become the first elected body in the UK to ban meat in an attempt to tackle climate change.
Buried on page 36 of their “Enfield climate action plan 2020” it is spelt out that from December 2020 onwards, “all events held by Enfield Council where catering is provided [will] offer only vegan or vegetarian options”. Guido will be sure to turn down any Enfield Council soirée invitations in future…
The new plan, written by the Labour council’s Deputy Leader Ian Barnes, clearly took inspiration from some hard left universities like Goldsmith’s, who are currently the only public bodies to have implemented such authoritarian policies. Guido understands the council gave minor lip service to taking public views on the plan, holding a consultation for less than a month in the middle of the Coronavirus lockdown. The council cabinet agreed to the plan on 15th July…
Mo Metcalf-Fisher of the Countryside Alliance is unimpressed with the move, telling Guido:
“It’s telling that those behind this illogical proposal have sought to bury what they know will be an incredibly unpopular policy deep within a lengthy document. Banning meat is completely the wrong approach and demonstrates no understanding of how meat in this country is produced, which thanks to UK farming practices, is among the most sustainable in the world.
Full story
The new plan, written by the Labour council’s Deputy Leader Ian Barnes, clearly took inspiration from some hard left universities like Goldsmith’s, who are currently the only public bodies to have implemented such authoritarian policies. Guido understands the council gave minor lip service to taking public views on the plan, holding a consultation for less than a month in the middle of the Coronavirus lockdown. The council cabinet agreed to the plan on 15th July…
Mo Metcalf-Fisher of the Countryside Alliance is unimpressed with the move, telling Guido:
“It’s telling that those behind this illogical proposal have sought to bury what they know will be an incredibly unpopular policy deep within a lengthy document. Banning meat is completely the wrong approach and demonstrates no understanding of how meat in this country is produced, which thanks to UK farming practices, is among the most sustainable in the world.
Full story
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.
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