Low wind pushing up household energy bills, says power giant
Weird. We keep being told that renewable energy leads to lower bills. The cope is going to be that this is due to global warming, so we need even more renewable energy to reverse it
Why the Government doesn’t want you to have aircon - "Sweltering nights have left many longing for air conditioning, but just 5pc of British homes have it, according to a government report. This is far lower than the European average of 20pc and nothing compared to the US, where nine in 10 homes have AC. British government policy discourages built-in air conditioning at every level, argues Sam Dumitriu, of the think tank Britain Remade. Obtuse planning rules mean new-build developers must exhaust all methods of so-called “passive cooling” before considering AC, and those in older homes risk torpedoing their home’s energy rating if they install it. Planning laws force new-build developers to demonstrate that “all practicable passive means of removing excess heat have been used first” before installing AC. For the most part, this means new-builds have tiny prison-style windows that let in little sunlight and are not much help when the air outside is already warm... In the meantime, many households rely on portable AC units. It is not uncommon, Dumitriu says, to walk around new-build estates and see “lots of little tubes poking out of windows”, dubbed by some online as “Nozzle Britain”. Christian Deilmann, of smart energy firm Tado, says demand for portable units is soaring. But, he warns, “they can be some of the most energy-intensive appliances in the home”. The issue is at its most acute in London, adds Dumitriu, “where instead of recognising the policy is bad, they double down”... Most people switching their gas boiler for a heat pump opt for an air-to-water model, which extracts the heat from the air and uses it to heat the water in radiators. The lesser-known air-to-air heat pump can reverse this process, heating homes in winter and cooling them in summer. But it does not create hot water, meaning you would have to have a regular boiler or other heater installed alongside. And, crucially, it is currently excluded from the £7,500 boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) grant... But installing an air-to-air heat pump could backfire on homeowners by tanking their energy performance certificate (EPC) score. Dumitriu says: “EPCs are based on primary energy use, which naturally discourages electricity. In the case of air-to-air heat pumps, if you’ve not ripped your boiler out and you’ve kept it for hot water, the EPC treats the heat pump as a secondary heating system, so that hurts your score.” Dropping an EPC band can hit your house price and can limit the availability of cheaper mortgages. A landlord whose property drops from a C to a D will be banned from letting it to tenants from 2030 under laws proposed by Miliband and Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary. “A lot of the data we use to grade the efficiency of a heat pump is completely out of date and inaccurate,” says Dumitriu."
People are going to die from the heat because of virtue signalling that doesn't help on climate change
Poilievre says Liberal EV mandate akin to 'banning rural life' - "Canadians are growing skeptical of the EV sales mandate. The poll found that an increasing majority of Canadians view the federal government’s goal of all zero-emission vehicles by 2035 as “unrealistic” and believe the rule ought to the scrapped... 71 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that “the target is unrealistic and will cost too much. It should be rolled back,” Leger said."
Climate change hystericists will continue to pretend that this will stop climate change
Wall Street Apes on X - "Philadelphia Democrats bought 25 new battery-powered buses that cost $24 million dollars That’s 1 million dollars per bus They didn’t work so the city quietly put them into a lot and decommissioned them. The lot caught fire and destroyed them. Amazing “A massive fire broke out that destroyed dozens of the buses parked here and revealed a major boondoggle that the city had been trying to keep quiet. So this story starts back in 2019, when Philadelphia bought 25 new battery powered buses that cost $24 million.” Ohh and you paid for them, this was a federal grant Democrats took and chose to use on electric busses that didn’t work"
Tony Heller on X - "In 1924, Glacier National Park was melting so fast that experts predicted the ice would be gone by 1950 @GlacierNPS"
Glacier National Park is replacing signs that predicted its glaciers would be gone by 2020 - "The signs in the Montana park were added more than a decade ago to reflect climate change forecasts at the time by the US Geological Survey"
Weird. We keep being told that the models are extremely accurate and climate change is actually happening even faster than they predicted. If you don't trust the Science of climate change, you are a Climate Change Denier
Jordan Weston: America keeps profiting off natural gas while Canada refuses to take full advantage of its much larger reserves - "Canada’s natural gas endowment is much bigger than that of the United States. Today Canada has enough natural gas reserves to last over 300 years at the current rate of extraction. Yet our actual production has been much slower. Our collective failure to develop these resources to meet our own domestic needs and supply the world with relatively clean energy is a massive opportunity cost... Between 2010 and 2020, Canada's natural gas production declined 10 percent, from 6.1 Tcf to 5.44 Tcf. Natural gas production in the United States, meanwhile, grew 52 percent from 22.9 Tcf to 34.9 Tcf... The difference in performance of the natural gas industries between the two countries isn’t due to capacity to perform. Canada not only has more natural gas reserves than the U.S., but it also has a lot of well-financed firms and technical expertise to develop them. The differing performance can be boiled down to government policy. Where is the long-term strategy to grow the Canadian economy, increase global standing by helping allies, and reduce the global environmental footprint? It is time for the Canadian government to unlock the handcuffs holding back its energy industry’s success."
Time to 'tax the 'rich'' to pay for more and unlimited social spending
Chris Martz on X - "CBS News warns that if we don’t stop burning ancient carbon, 25% of Florida will soon be underwater. Oh wait, silly me, this was broadcast 43 years ago."
Canada should stop imitating EU emissions policies - "While Europe realizes it needs to boost its anemic economic growth, it has consistently prioritized carbon cuts and ever-more expensive energy, often through less reliable wind and solar power. This climate crusade is a master class in self-sabotage, chaining the continent’s economy to ruinous policies while preaching moral superiority. In 2024 alone, the EU splurged US$381 billion on solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and the like. That’s more than its entire spending on defence. The effect is skyrocketing electricity bills — last year they were nearly two-and-a-half times higher than in Canada and more than three times the cost in China. Such stringent policies push energy-intensive industries to dirtier, cheaper sources: for instance, many electric car batteries are produced in China using coal. While the EU believes its “carbon border taxes” will prevent such offshoring, the breakdown in trade they are likely to cause will lead to even higher prices inside the union. The rest of the world, powered by fossil fuels and growth, will sail past the EU. Europe once dominated emissions, but it is no longer central to the climate story. Nor is Canada. Most current and future emissions will come from China, India, Africa, Brazil, Indonesia and many other countries clambering out of poverty. One recent scenarioshows that with current policies, the EU and the U.K. will contribute just over four per cent of all emissions in this century, just short of the United States’ 4.9 per cent. Developing nations need affordable, dependable energy. China, India, and Africa won’t kneel at the altar of Europe’s green dogma. They are building coal and gas plants like there’s no tomorrow. Poorer nations don’t want to emulate Germany’s sky-high electricity prices or Spain’s green blackouts. Many observers try to call China green. But although it does use solar and wind extensively it relies much more on coal, oil and gas. From 1971 to 2023, according to the International Energy Agency, China went from getting 40 per cent of its energy from renewables to just 10 per cent. India, Africa and the rest of the developing world are likely to follow suit. In the end, the climate impact of the EU’s policies will be next to nothing. If you plug both the promised 90 per cent reduction by 2040 and net zero by 2050 into the United Nations’ own climate model, the reduction in global emissions through the end of the 21st century is just three per cent. Because the EU now matters so little to global emissions and has already cut them significantly, the temperature difference in 2050 is a vanishing 0.01°C. Even by 2100 the impact will be an impossible to measure 0.04°C. Though the benefit of strict emissions policies is small their cost is very high. Models show that for the EU it could be more than US$3 trillion every year by mid-century — more than all current EU public spending. Such a high-cost, low-impact policy is clearly not something the rest of the world will emulate... In the long run, EU voters are unlikely to tolerate either ever-higher energy costs or the politicians whose climate policies are generating them... Europe’s 90 per cent pledge isn’t progress. It is economic suicide dressed in eco-virtue."
The cope about "historic emissions" (even though China's historic emissions have already overtaken the UK) proves that it's just about virtue signaling, hating the West and destroying the economy
Surely this will make their welfare states more sustainable
Meme - "JULY 1980 *~85 degrees F on thermometer*
IT'S GONNA BE A HOT SUMMER JUST LIKE THE LAST ONE!
July 2025 *~85 degrees F on thermometer*
CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW MUCH HOTTER THE SUMMERS ARE NOW BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE?"
Bill Gates might save mankind from climate fanaticism - "Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone with a penchant for fashionable causes, he was for a time lured into the dark depths of climate change fundamentalism. A book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, outlined his strategies for net-zero emissions. He also reportedly backed Kamala Harris to the tune of a $50 million. That’s a lot of Microsoft Excel licences. So it has come as a huge shock that, ahead of the COP 30 environmental meeting in Brazil, Gates has published an essay that The Guardian notes is “at odds with [the opinion of] António Guterres, the UN Secretary General”. It came after the UN chief warned this week that humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately. So what, exactly, did Gates write in his controversial note? After first rejecting the “doomsday view” of climate change, he declares: “Although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise. “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future. Emissions projections have gone down, and with the right policies and investments, innovation will allow us to drive emissions down much further.” Gates’s piece actually reads like something put out by the excellent Net Zero Watch, a campaign group that scrutinises ruinous energy policies. He makes the point that a decade ago, the International Energy Agency estimated that the world would be producing 50 billion tonnes of CO2 every year by 2040. However, that prediction has already dropped to 30 billion, and the IEA thinks it will be even lower by 2050 – which means a projected emissions cut of 40 per cent. This is due of course due to innovative new tech, rather than caving to the demands of Extinction Rebellion/Green Party types who want us eating bugs. Among other things, Gates mentions that putting additives into livestock food will reduce the amount of methane that cows produce, and notes that clean cement companies can scale up to be market leaders. This kind of thing shows that market forces are the way to get to a clean energy future. Gates’s candour is deeply humiliating for the eco fanatics who seem to believe that net zero will be a great “opportunity” for the birth of some other kind of political system. The hope must now be that a pillar of the progressive international community saying what was previously unsayable causes what Timur Kuran would call a preference cascade. Focus can be returned to scientific breakthroughs and market solutions, net zero self-harm economies like Britain and Germany can be reversed and billions in waste can be averted."
Bill Gates has just demolished the fallacy at the heart of net zero - "Gates has drawn criticism for arguing that a “metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change [is] improving lives. Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.”... The correlation between energy consumption and economic prosperity is striking. According to data that Gates cites, countries use more energy as they get wealthier, but they also get richer as they use more energy. The genuine inequity, he contends, lies in human development disparities. A child born in South Sudan faces mortality risks 39 times higher before age five compared to a Swedish child. These vulnerable populations require enhanced access to energy, nutrition, and healthcare infrastructure. The relationship between economic development and energy consumption is unequivocal: no nation has achieved high per capita income with low per capita energy usage, and conversely, no country maintains high energy consumption alongside persistent poverty. Increased energy access facilitates improved living standards through enhanced productivity, agricultural advancement, and household consumption, thereby reducing dependence on subsistence farming. Energy availability either provides farmers with modern agricultural technologies or enables them to pursue alternative livelihoods. High-energy nations also tend to benefit from superior healthcare infrastructure and water sanitation systems, resulting in reduced maternal and child mortality rates. They are likely to have a greater capacity for environmental protection measures, too. We have seen strong evidence of this in the past week. Hurricane Melissa’s destruction in Jamaica illustrates how natural disasters inflict disproportionate damage on developing nations, due to disparities in energy infrastructure, resilient construction, and recovery capabilities. Affordable energy access is essential to addressing these inequalities. In his new approach, Gates has found a perhaps unlikely ally: President Donald Trump... Many of the 140 private banks from 44 countries that participated in the United Nations Net Zero Banking Alliance have suspended their commitments to restrict fossil fuel financing. The World Bank, which historically discouraged much fossil fuel lending while prioritising renewables, may reassess its position. This policy shift will enable developing nations to secure financing for conventional power plants, transmission infrastructure, distribution networks, and household connections. Importantly, this change should diminish China’s strategic advantage in lending to African and Latin American nations – often securing ports and other assets as collateral. Gates’s reversal in the climate debate challenges the international community to confront an uncomfortable reality. While climate conferences convene in developed nations with generally reliable electricity and healthcare systems, billions lack access to the energy that makes such gatherings possible."
Climate change hystericists don't care about improving lives, so
The week Bill Gates backtracked on climate change – and sent eco fanatics into meltdown - "Although Trump has been especially outspoken about tearing up environmental policy and returning to coal, the US is far from alone in abandoning the landmark 2015 accord. Last week, the UN reported that of the 195 nations that were party to the agreement, only 64 have submitted updated plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is becoming less pressing for voters, too. Polls in the United States have found that while it remains an issue, particularly for Democrats, climate and the environment is not perceived as a priority to address. In Britain, Kemi Badenoch, as Tory leader, has pledged to scrap Britain’s legally binding target to reach net zero by 2050; Reform has called the target “impossible” and “mad”. Between the cost of living, high energy prices, crime, migration, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the labour market, there is a growing sense that the climate is perhaps not the most urgent spending priority. According to the most recent edition of YouGov’s tracker of “most important issues”, published in April, while 84 per cent of the population believe the climate is changing, only 15 per cent consider the environment/climate change to be a top national problem, down from 40 per cent in 2021 and its lowest level since 2019. The same month, the Tony Blair Institute published a report, The Climate Paradox, that made similar points to Gates’s, arguing that the debate over climate change was “riven by irrationality”. As almost two thirds of global emissions by 2030 will come from India, China and South-East Asia, “any strategy based on ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is […] doomed to fail”. Instead, the report argued that lawmakers should focus on creating abundant renewable and nuclear energy and embracing carbon capture technology. Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scientist and the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, says: “Instead of talking about temperatures and emissions and all this stuff that we normally talk about, we should get back to asking the simple question that we ask of every single policy that we talk about: is this going to improve human welfare? Is this going to make people better off? Is this going to make for a better world?... “Climate change has slipped down the list of concerns from the hysteria that moved public discourse in 2018-19, with Extinction Rebellion and all those declarations of emergencies,” says Mike Hulme, a professor of human geography at University of Cambridge. “When Theresa May put net zero by 2050 into law, it was on the back of the rising crescendo of voices that said it was an existential threat. That was never the case. Reality is pushing back.” He adds that a kind of nihilism can set in if people hear too much doom and gloom. “There was a particular phenomenon that affected young people on the back of Greta Thunberg, with eco-anxiety and depression and mental health,” he says. “A certain tenor of environmental rhetoric has always thought the end of the world is nigh. It has always done more harm than good.” Studies have shown that it is better to try to harness optimism rather than pessimism. Prof Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist and long-time critic of alarmism, believes that Gates may have other incentives to change his position. “If Microsoft is to continue with AI, they’re going to need a huge amount of energy, and the climate agenda is going to destroy Microsoft,” he says. “So he’s become more cautious about it.”"
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "If you adjust China's emissions to eliminate everything produced for overseas consumers, it's actually not a massive reduction. They still produce as much as the EU and US combined. This is a map of CO2 emissions based on consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions"
So much for the cope that China's carbon emissions are only high because the West has offshored its emissions to it
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "But their emissions per capita is relatively low especially for a manufacturing economy . The only country with a fairly large population AND ridiculously high emissions per capita considering relatively low manufacturing sector is the US. That is the only country that needs to be focused on, practically speaking."
"No because if you reduced the US by half, it would have way less impact than reducing China by half."
If per capita emissions are so important then climate change hystericists shouldn't go after the US, because it's not the top per capita by a long way. But left wingers want to have their cake and eat it because they just want to hate on the West and especially the US
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "we should start by the biggest polluters historically."
"You’re trying to assign blame. I’m trying to solve the problem."
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "Now do per capita"
"Even per capita China emits more than several western countries now, such as the UK."
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "If you want a good picture of a nation's total impact, you do full historic value, per capita... in which case China now barely breaks the top 10. It also appears last year will be their emissions peak, so it's likely they'll never make the top of the list."
"This comment reveals all the hypocrisy of environmentalists. For them, we've reached the point of no return to save the planet, but they always find excuses to defend China and throw shit at the West."
Left wingers just keep shifting the goalpost, because they want to destroy the West
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "China is already the second largest contributor of all time, and, while may never surpass the US, will almost certainly get close. Also, all-time emissions of the “developing world” is expected to surpass the all-time emissions from the developed world in the next several years."
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "You say it would cripple humanity if everyone lived at a Western standard. But this would grow the economy by an order of magnitude, if every person could produce as much as the average American. If every country produced as many novel and useful products, scientific innovations and knowledge as the western world, we would be able to solve a lot more problems. You cant just assign the consumption without assigning the production."
World Carbon Emission Comparison : r/Infographics - "I don't think the historic data is that relevant, given the huge population booms and the rise of consumerism. At the height of the Industrial Revolution, Britain was producing 50% of the world's manufactured goods (considerably higher than China's current 30% share) and doing this with exclusively coal power. Despite this, China produced more CO2 in 8 years than the UK managed from the start of the Industrial Revolution to today. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2022/11/07/china-pumps-pollution-eight-years-uk-since-industrial-revolution/ Per capita data would be more useful, and data on the consumption of the Chinese (and other) goods being manufactured."
redpillbot on X - "How to be a good climate activist:
Step 1 - own a private jet
Step 2 - lecture the poor
Step 3 - fly to Davos
Step 4 - give yourself an award
Step 5 - make rules to make the poor even poorer
Step 6 - don't follow the rules yourself."
Bjorn Lomborg on X - "Green hype vs reality
New York Times: Green China pulling away
Reality: In 1971 China was 40% renewable (biomass, hydro, solar, wind etc) because poor (wood, dung). As average Chinese got 35x richer over the period, fossil fuels maxed at 92% in 2011, now 87% in 2023. China is predominantly fossil fuel-powered, as is the rest of the world"
Sanjay Narayan on X - "The climate alarmist agenda always extolls the supposed virtue of increasing use of 'renewables,' without ever pointing out that the reason countries reached self-sufficiency and rose out of poverty was on the back of cheap, reliable, abundant fossil fuels."
What Are the ‘Hidden Costs’ of Renewable Energy? - "Solar and wind are reliable only when the sun shines or the wind blows. Adding battery energy storage systems provides energy backup when weather conditions interfere with generation. Still, when low renewable production is prolonged, such as during winter or a storm, natural gas power plants must be fired up to fill the energy gaps. The report claimed the variability of renewables reduces energy efficiency because power plants need to ramp up and down auxiliary power to balance the fluctuations of wind and solar generation. These “hidden costs” are passed onto users, resulting in increased electricity prices. Electric bills in Texas have increased by nearly 20% over the past three years. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) used one year, 2023, to calculate the cost of renewable energy fluctuations and market price spikes. Inflation and delivery costs accounted for part of the increase, but wholesale electricity prices were also responsible. In 2023, natural gas prices were near historic lows, but Texas prices were 38% higher for electricity. The report finds that renewable energy was a significant factor in cost increases. Wind and solar energy accounted for 42% of ancillary services in 2023. Ancillary services include strategies to ensure grid reliability, such as load and frequency regulation, voltage support, replacement reserve, and black starts after an outage. These ancillary costs negate renewables’ lower operating costs, the TPPF claims. Considering ancillary costs, natural gas plants are more efficient and cheaper to operate than wind or solar facilities, according to the report. The TPPF used the UPlan Network Power Model (UPlan-NPM), which combines physical and economic models that simulate the market for ERCOT, which covers more than 90% of Texas. The analysis considered energy generator types, locations, sizes, transmission lines, and load locations. This model determines energy prices based on the marginal cost of each generator. The TPPF modeled four scenarios: the base case for 2023, without solar, without wind, and without either renewable. The model excluded energy storage systems used with renewable energy facilities. For each scenario, natural gas generation was modeled to replace the removed renewable source."
Carney government plans to spend millions convincing young Canadians about ‘climate emergency’ - "Ironically, if the goal is to improve environmental literacy, one of the first things the government should do is stop saying “climate emergency”—a wholly inaccurate phrase meant to increase alarm. The evidence simply does not support claims of a climate emergency. Indeed, relative to a hypothetical planet without climate change, even worst-case scenarios suggest climate change would likely only reduce global per-person GDP (an indicator of living standards) by something like 16.5 per cent by 2200... Descriptions of the 17 projects further erode claims about an emergency. One project set to receive $939,592 in taxpayer money “will provide environmental knowledge, service-learning, and leadership opportunities for young Canadians, particularly Indigenous, BPOC, 2SLGBTQ+ youth and other underserved communities. This project will engage youth in community-based actions linked to the major environmental crises and provide training for educators to best integrate environmental education into their teaching.” Imagine a real emergency for which you dial 9-1-1—say, an apartment building consumed in fire. You simply want the firetruck to arrive and firefighters to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible. You do not care if the firefighters are Indigenous, Black or from a sexual minority. Similarly, if climate change was really an emergency, government would direct all the resources towards whoever and whatever could mitigate it most effectively, as opposed to distributing resources according to racial or other diversity targets. Other taxpayer-funded projects include $782,922 to help children and youth in northwestern Ontario and eastern Manitoba “become climate leaders in their communities.” And $342,524 to give young people, particularly in Alberta, “perspectives to help them overcome current environmental challenges and participate in eco-advocacy.” Another $396,213 will go towards an organization that will create “Indigenous-led environmental literacy material to support kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers in Six Nations and Hamilton schools to ground youth environmental literacy in Haudenosaunee cultural perspectives.” According to that organization’s blog, “climate resilience” demands that we should be “rejecting capitalism and heteronormativity” and “environmental racism.”"
Time to "tax the 'rich'" to pay for indoctrination and radicalisation
The Jesuits would approve
The left wing agenda is all linked
Meme - Chris Martz @ChrisMartzWX: "The Guardian reports that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free within the next four years. Never mind, this was written nearly 13 years ago. 🫣"
"Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years. As sea ice shrinks to record lows, Prof Peter Wadhams warns a'global disaster' is now unfolding in northern latitudes"
Trust the Experts! Trust the Science!
Germany’s household power prices 5th highest in the world – report - "Only four countries in the world had higher household electricity prices than Germany in the first quarter of 2025, according to an analysis by price comparison website Verivox. German consumers paid an average of 38 euro cents per kilowatt hour at the start of the year. Households in Bermuda paid the most for electricity in an international comparison – almost 42 cents. Denmark followed in second place with almost 41 cents. Ireland ranked third with a little over 39 cents and Belgium came forth with slightly above 38 cents, according to the report, which is based on data on 143 countries from energy service provider Global Petrol Prices."
Time for even more renewables, since everyone knows they are cheaper!
Zero-emission trucks are ready, but Europe is not - "Adequate grid connections remain challenging, competitive charging prices, CO2-based road user charges, and targeted incentives are either delayed or under immense political pressure."
When you need government coercion and support to have a viable business case
