Can Solar & Wind Fix Everything (e.g., Climate Change) with a battery break-through?
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There’s Nothing “Scientific” About Climate Models
On Sunday’s BBC Politics, Luke Johnson asked for evidence that the recent Dubai flooding was due to climate change. Chris Packham glibly responded: “It comes from something called science.”This simply highlighted his poor scientific understanding. The issue is his and others’ confusion over what scientific modelling is and what it can do. This applies to any area of science dealing with systems above a single atom – everything, in practice.
My own doctoral research was on the infrared absorption and fragmentation of gaseous molecules using lasers. The aim was to quantify how the processes depended on the laser’s physical properties.
I then modelled my results. This was to see if theory correctly predicted how my measurements changed as one varied the laser pulse. Computed values were compared under different conditions with those observed.
The point is that the underlying theory is being tested against the variations it predicts. This applies – on steroids – to climate modelling, where the atmospheric systems are vastly more complex. All the climate models assume agreement at some initial point and then let the model show future projections. Most importantly, for the projected temperature variations, the track record of the models in predicting actual temperature observations is very dubious, as Professor Nicola Scafetta’s chart below shows.
For the climate sensitivity – the amount of global surface warming that will occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations over pre-industrial levels – there’s an enormous range of projected temperature increases, from 1.5° to 4.5°C. Put simply, that fits everything – and so tells us almost nothing about the underlying theories.
That’s a worrying problem. If the models can’t be shown to predict the variations, then what can we say about the underlying theory of manmade climate change? But the public are given the erroneous impression that the ‘settled science’ confirms that theory – and is forecasting disastrously higher temperatures.
Such a serious failing has forced the catastrophe modellers to (quietly) switch tack into ‘attribution modelling’. This involves picking some specific emotive disaster – say the recent flooding in Dubai – then finding some model scenario which reproduces it. You then say: “Climate change modelling predicted this event, which shows the underlying theory is correct.”
What’s not explained is how many other scenarios didn’t fit this specific event. It’s as if, in my research, I simply picked one observation and scanned through my modelling to find a fit. Then said: “Job done, the theory works.” It’s scientifically meaningless. What’s happening is the opposite of a prediction. It’s working backwards from an event and showing that it can happen under some scenario.
My points on the modelling of variations also apply to the work done by Neil Ferguson at Imperial College on catastrophic Covid fatalities. The public were hoodwinked into thinking ‘the Science’ was predicting it. Not coincidentally, Ferguson isn’t a medical doctor but a mathematician and theoretical physicist with a track record of presenting demented predictions to interested parties.
I’m no fan of credentialism. But when Packham tries it, maybe he needs questioning on his own qualifications – a basic degree in a non-physical ‘soft’ science then an abandoned doctorate.
The War On Cars
As you know, I have been warning about this for years:
In a fit of self-loathing, the European Union has begun to destroy the economic engine that pays its bills. Some of this is well known, but some is not, and it will astonish you.
Only nine of the EU’s 27 member states are net budget contributors, and Germany pays the most – around €25bn (£22bn) in 2021. Without the generosity of the Bundesrepublik, the European Commission would struggle to keep the lights on at the Berlaymont.
In turn, that wealth comes from its manufacturing industry. Specifically, from strong global demand for the German vehicles which account for almost three-fifths of Europe’s car exports. As recently as a decade ago, the streets of Shanghai and Shenzhen teemed with German brand SUVs.
So you would think that the regulators in Brussels would show some care to the delicate vase they’re carrying across the room. But not a bit of it.
French, German and Italian automakers are now caught in a pincer. In order to meet climate targets, vehicles powered by conventionally-refined hydrocarbons will be phased out, while much cheaper battery-powered (BEV) competition from China floods in.
The industry won’t be permitted to sell the product that European customers do want, but can’t compete on price with a product it appears to have enough of. So far, so (depressingly) obvious.
But what is little known is how specific and vindictive the EU has become in its attack on the car.
For this is not actually a war on the combustion engine, so much as a war on personal mobility. The EU has relaxed its dogmatic insistence on alternative hydrocarbons for maritime and aviation – but not for road vehicles.
To understand this, recall that the phrase “fossil fuel” is actually very misleading. Hydrocarbons are not only dug up and refined – they can also be made from scratch, using biology or chemistry.
The most “organic” method is to use algae. But you need a lot of it, and attempts to engineer them to produce higher yields have failed to scale.
Then there’s chemistry. The Fischer-Tropsch process converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into a complex hydrocarbon – an e-fuel that can replace petrol.
You do need energy both to unlock the hydrogen, and then to create sufficient temperatures for the process itself to work. However, if these inputs are “zero carbon” then so is the e-fuel that emerges.
In December, I reported how Porsche is using wind power in Patagonia to produce petrol and diesel. Or, if we had lots of nuclear capacity, we’d use the off-peak electricity. By day the plants would keep us warm and at night they could create the petrol, diesel and oil we need.
In fact, Japan’s HTTR reactor design even produces the required hydrogen as a by-product.
In short, in fields where hydrocarbons are superior or simply irreplaceable, we can swap the ones we dig up with ones we make and still hit climate targets. And the infrastructure of pipelines and filling stations is already in place, which cannot be said for hydrogen or electric charging.
Industry is responding. Infinium, which is backed by both Amazon and Bill Gates, recently broke ground on a new plant that uses both carbon capture and renewables to create hydrogen. There are many more. But the EU is stubbornly refusing to allow cars and trucks to use them.
It’s baffling, because the Eurocrats at ‘DG-MOVE’ (the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport) have already conceded that synthetic hydrocarbons are green.
In July, the EU permitted the maritime sector to use “renewable fuels of non biological origin (RFNBO)”, as it calls e-fuels. In October, it allowed the aviation sector to use them too.
Perhaps it’s ignorance, or simply dogma. However opposition to the car has become one of the sustaining grievances of modern policy making.
Just look at how vehemently our councils, our planners and our architects detest four wheel freedom, too. A low-intensity civil war is breaking out over low traffic neighbourhoods, or zoning schemes as in Oxford.
Nicholas Boyes Smith, the design czar for whom the “Office of Place” was created, issues a stream of anti-car Tweets.
Fifteen minute cities are “a timeless Scrutonian ideal” he argues. There is no garden city or new town movement today. In the 1960s, bureaucrats bulldozed neighbourhoods to ensure that cars were convenient. Now they destroy neighbourhoods by inhibiting their use – or stop them being built at all.
“Planning is now about the rationing of materials and resources and space, rather than their deployment. It’s subtractive, not additive,” says architect critic Tim Abrahams.
“Constraint is the watchword, not opportunity.”
The Malthusians want fewer of us, and ideally we’d be going nowhere, except by bike or on foot. Car companies are facing prejudices from all corners, but it’s the EU’s ban on green fuel that is the most urgent.
No wonder Renault chief executive Luca de Meo, in an open letter to the EU published last month, bemoaned the lack of joined up thinking or strategy.
In contrast to the US and China, the Commission passes rule after rule, an incoherent mess. EU rules alone have made passenger cars 60pc heavier on average, he wrote.
Switzerland, which is in the European Economic Area but not the EU, has blessed e-fuels.
Like the Swiss, we also have an outstanding chemicals industry. The lunacy of aligning ourselves with Brussels, now we have left, has never been more apparent.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/22/eu-war-on-cars-destroying-economic-foundations
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Solar Wizard
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Nope. I said this over 3 years ago and got banned from Facebook for a spell because it. The Dipshit washington state governor did exactly what I said and thats the above.
They want it so bad.
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
I'm in the auto industry. I'm convinced that most definitely in the US (and probably in Europe) the automakers are doomed. In Europe they're going to make sure the peons aren't independently mobile. The US is headed for the same if we don't boot the communists. And if we do the auto industry is stilled screwed as they've already dumped most of the products and engineers that design the ICE vehicles that customers actually want.
42OhmsPA
What's in a title?
Agreed. It's sorta scary how slow the industry is this time of year. My department has worked 0 hours of OT since December; we were averaging ~300 hours / week. Unfortunately I see the layoffs being much worse,during the normal planned shutdown times for re-tooling, than they are currently...
The head count reductions have been eye opening.
The amount of talent being lost to retirement with no hope in the pipeline is down right scary...
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
My employer has been reducing calibration headcount through attrition for 4 years now, but that wasn't fast enough so they fired 200 of the engine calibrators a few weeks ago. Calibration is roughly at half the headcount they had in 2019...
42OhmsPA
What's in a title?
Glad I'm hunting for used vehicles... I wouldn't buy new seeing the cost savings "optimizations" taking place this year.
Boeing of auto industry coming up
Not to mention "always on internet connected" cars where you can not disable the SIM card (and the comm module has 3-4 LTE antennas that are very difficult to physically unplug - they back each other up with the final antenna being built into the comm module). I am sure its all for our convenience.
And then there was that remote disconnect feature every single car 2024+ must have that our friendly uniparty signed into law recently.
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Solar Wizard
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I was wondering about this. I got a new little Mazda that came with an app for remote start, fuel level, maintenance monitoring, unlock etc.
It's nice but now they have permanent access to my car.
Hopefully it can be disabled after the free trial period runs out.
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Solar Wizard
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Given that electric cars do last longer, even over 2 million kilometres and battery prices tumbling with all the new battery factories coming on-line, you might well find a decent bargain. In Europe people are delaying purchasing new cars because they expect electric to drop dramatically and they are worried about the economy with current world developments. Things like trade war with China, Russia invading it's neighbours and even the US election.
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Really? Energy is just too expensive. EU needs more wars now Africa and Russia (napoleon, hitler, UK) are lost. EV’ are a hoax. A battery and 3 million miles?
Petrol is about 2 dollars a litre in Sweden (where 2 out of 3 new cars are electric) while electricity is 24 cents per kWh, a litre of gasoline contains about 9kWh of energy, and the internal combustion engine has an efficiency of about 33%, wile an electric car is about 90%. That means you'd need 3kwh of electricity. for a car of the same weight. Electric cars are heavier, but even so an electric car is far cheaper on energy, at current energy rates. IF your concern is energy prices, an electric car would be cheaper. It would be even cheaper if you can feed it with solar from your own system. Now if you lived in Venezuela, where petrol is supposedly about 1 cents per litre and electricity 5 cents per kWh, I could not justify switching to electric.
Personally I would not even buy a car, autonomous driving cars will likely make car ownership (600 - 1000 dollars per month in the US) even more uneconomic in comparison than it already is.
Personally I would not even buy a car, autonomous driving cars will likely make car ownership (600 - 1000 dollars per month in the US) even more uneconomic in comparison than it already is.
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
- South Koreans sue government over climate change
- Republicans are trying to snuff out climate embers
- NASA chief asks nations to work together on climate change
- Trump downplays climate change and promises to roll back progress
- Tesla fast-tracking $25,000 Model 2 and Model Y Juniper for late 2024
I Watched The Climate Deniers’ New Movie So You Don’t Have To
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Solar Wizard
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Svetz, next time warn everyone that you're a libtard rather than pretending you're an objective, intelligent observer.
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