UN chief says natural disasters have quadrupled since 1970

He quotes no facts and figues or research evidence of any kind so let me mention just one statistic that upsets his applecart.  The Bhola Cyclone in 1970 killed 500,000 people in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. He picked a bad year to start his big lie

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the number of natural disasters has nearly quadrupled since 1970 and the United States has experienced the most disasters since 1995 followed by China and India.

The UN chief told reporters Tuesday that in recent days the world has seen the “dramatic aggravation” of climate change with “unprecedented events” caused by flooding from Texas to Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sierra Leone.

He said that last year 24.2 million people were displaced by sudden disasters — “three times as many as by conflict and violence.”

Guterres said before the current floods, preliminary reports said 2,087 people died this year from natural disasters. He said scientists say “extreme weather is precisely what their models predict will be the new normal of a warming world.”

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Sea Level Manipulation

Nils-AxelMörner

Abstract:

Sea level changes is a key issue in the global warming scenario. It has been widely claimed that sea is rising as a function of the late 20th’s warming pulse. Global tide gauge data sets may vary between +1.7 mm/yr to +0.25 mm/yr depending upon the choice of stations. At numerous individual sites, available tide gauges show variability around a stable zero level. Coastal morphology is a sharp tool in defining ongoing changes in sea level. A general stability has been defined in sites like the Maldives, Goa, Bangladesh and Fiji. In contrast to all those observations, satellite altimetry claim there is a global mean rise in sea level of about 3.0 mm/yr. In this paper, it is claimed that the satellite altimetry values have been “manipulated”. In this situation, it is recommended that we return to the observational facts, which provides global sea level records varying between ±0.0 and +1.0 mm/yr; i.e. values that pose no problems in coastal protection.

INTRODUCTION

The Mail recently had a benchmark article where Dr John Bates was allowed to present a remarkable documentation of the manipulation of NOAA’s temperature measurements in order to provide the impression that global temperature is keeping on rising over the last decades [1]. This manipulated record was forced to appear in time for the COP21 decision in Paris 2015. The true temperature record provide an 18 year long temperature pause, despite the fact that global atmospheric CO2 content has kept on rising [2]. This sheds serious doubts on the core notion of the COP21 decision claiming the CO2 is the cause of recent global warming.

In a follow-up article [3], David Ross posed the core question: How can we trust them? The present paper will reveal another case of “manipulation”. It refers to the core issue in horror scenarios claiming that sea level is in a very rapidly rising mode, and that low-lying coasts and islands will soon be flooded [4].

OBSERVATIONAL FACTS

In the period 2000-2005, I led an international sea level project in the Maldives. By observational facts collected along the shores of a large number of islands, we were able to demonstrate that, indeed, there is no flooding going on, rather the sea level has remained stable over the last 40 years [5-8]. Therefore, in 2007, I wrote a booklet entitled “The Greatest Lie Ever Told” [9]. The same absence of any present sea level rise has now been documented also in Bangladesh, Goa in southern India, Qatar, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Fiji, French Guiana and Venice. In all those places (and their surroundings) sea level has remained virtually stable over the last 40-50 years [10-13]. In Northwestern Europe with a very long history of recording local uplift and subsidence, we have quite consistent records of a mean rate of sea level rose over the last 125 years of 1.0 ±0.1 mm/yr [11-12, 14].

A summary providing a congruent picture of observed sea level changes over the globe is given in [15- 16]. It implies that global sea level changes vary between 0.0 mm/yr to +1.0 ±0.1 mm/yr, which is far less that what is proposed by satellite altimetry (below). Furthermore, such rates pose no problems in coastal management.

International Journal of Engineering Science Invention. Vol 6 Issue 8 August 2017  PP. 48-51

Morner goes on to show that the rise in the satellite data is all "adjustments".





A Review of the Regional Green Gas Initiative

The nearly decade-old Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was always meant to be a model for a national program to reduce power plant carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explicitly cited it in this fashion in its now-stayed Clean Power Plan. Although the RGGI is often called a “cap and trade” program, its effect is the same as a direct tax or fee on emissions because RGGI allowance costs are passed on from electric generators to distribution companies to consumers. More recently, an influential group of former cabinet officials, known as the “Climate Leadership Council,” has recommended a direct tax on CO2 emissions (Shultz and Summers 2017).

Positive RGGI program reviews have been from RGGI, Inc. (the program administrator) and the Acadia Center, which advocates for reduced emissions (see Stutt, Shattuck, and Kumar 2015). In this article, I investigate whether reported reductions in CO2 emissions from electric power plants, along with associated gains in health benefits and other claims, were actually achieved by the RGGI program. Based on my findings, any form of carbon tax is not the policy to accomplish emission reductions. The key results are:

There were no added emissions reductions or associated health benefits from the RGGI program.

Spending of RGGI revenue on energy efficiency, wind, solar power, and low-income fuel assistance had minimal impact.

RGGI allowance costs added to already high regional electric bills. The combined pricing impact resulted in a 13 percent drop in goods production and a 35 percent drop in the production of energy intensive goods.

Comparison states increased goods production by 15 percent and only lost 4 percent of energy intensive manufacturing. Power imports from other states increased from 8 percent to 17 percent.

The regional program shifted jobs to other states. A national carbon tax would shift jobs to other countries.

A better policy to reduce CO2 emissions is to encourage innovation rather than rely on taxes and regulation. The United States has already reduced emissions 12 percent from 2005 to 2015, more than any other developed country with a large economy, mainly through innovations in natural gas drilling techniques. There are many other opportunities to invest in innovation, for example, improved solar photovoltaic cells, more efficient batteries, small modular nuclear reactors, and nascent technologies that use fossil fuels without emitting CO2.

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Integrating the supposed "social cost of carbon" into wholesale power markets

The Brattle Group released a report on Friday solicited by the New York Independent System Operator and the state's Department of Public Service that examines the impact of integrating carbon pricing into the organized power markets.

Commissioned in 2016, the study outlines market design options that would integrate the social cost of carbon into wholesale power markets, and explores how carbon pricing can align market structures with state policies.

NYISO CEO Bradley Jones told a House subcommittee last month that the grid operator planned to integrate a price on carbon into its market dispatch within three years after it published this Brattle Group report.
Dive Insight:

The study comes after a technical conference held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to see how state incentives, such as nuclear subsidies and renewable energy portfolio standards, affect the organized market structure. Leaders of the seven organized wholesale power markets in the U.S. told the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy Subcommittee that the market transition to a cleaner power mix did not threaten grid reliability.

While testifying to the reliability of the grid, PJM Interconnect, and NYISO told the subcommittee they are drafting carbon pricing proposals that would incorporate state environmental goals into wholesale power markets.

PJM is reviewing its carbon pricing proposals, and NYISO just published the results of their years-long study on Friday. The idea of integrating carbon pricing into the organized market is not new. Amid anxiety over state policies and decarbonization at FERC's technical conference in May, a consensus emerged over carbon pricing. Stakeholders, including generators, academics and consultants, agreed there was a need to price carbon in wholesale power markets.

New York, in particular, crafted ambitious renewable energy and carbon reduction goals within the past five years. For instance, the state's Clean Energy Standard established a goal to hit 50% renewable energy by 2030, and guarantee nuclear subsidies for three of its struggling facilities. The state's Reforming the Energy Vision is another wide-ranging initiative that would revamp the utility business model to align earnings with social goals.

To meet those targets, the grid operator wants to examine implementing carbon pricing in its wholesale power markets.

"The NYISO and DPS agree that, in order to be successful, any carbon pricing proposal must contribute to achieving New York State’s public policies, while providing the greatest benefit at the least cost to consumers while also providing appropriate price signals to incentivize investment and maintain grid reliability," the operator wrote in a press release.

SOURCE





Hidden consequences of intermittent electricity production

Abstract

The hidden consequences of a massive use of intermittent renewable energy systems for electricity production are highlighted, using existing electricity production data from Germany from the last 5 years, where presently a system is in operation with an installed capacity of about 50 GW in wind turbines (sum of onshore and offshore wind) and 40GW in photovoltaic panels.[1] This fleet of intermittent renewable systems produces more than half of the yearly renewable electrical energy of Germany, the rest being produced by hydro, so-called ‘biomass’ and a very small fraction of geothermal sources.

The high variability of both sun and wind leads to periods of massive overproduction as well as renewable power shortages. To compensate this, ideally, both storage and backup power should be able to deliver at any moment nearly the full load of the grid. However, storage at the scale required for a hypothesized 100% renewable system is not feasible with current technologies. Battery storage is totally insufficient and will need a substantial technological breakthrough.  

Power-to-gas(methane)-to-power has a low overall efficiency (~15%) due to the various transformations involved and thus wastes essentially most of the carbon-free excess power.

Hydropower systems require huge volumes of water with a height difference of a few 100 meters, and options for such storage locations are nearly exhausted throughout Europe. Trying to reduce storage using cogeneration of power and heat plants has the drawback that such systems often produce heat when only power is needed or power when only heat is needed. It is clear that there is an urgent need for a critical assessment of the practical feasibility of a 100% renewable power system with due consideration of the required backup/storage system.

If the outcome of these studies is that the required huge storage systems are unfeasible and that at the same time fossil and nuclear options are rejected, the only solution is to adapt the activity of the society to the availability of electricity and to restrict power availability to part of the population/activities during periods of darkness or absence of wind. If badly planned, we risk entering a new era where daily life could depend again on the variability of the weather, as it was centuries ago.

SOURCE

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