Climate Change, Heat Pumps & EVs.

[Diasi]

I watched a two-part documentary called Heat Pumps - What They Mean For You, the first part was about EVs & the second part about heat pumps, with alternatives being explored.

The sheer stupidity & downright lying by the climate change lobby was breathtaking.

If you're going to say that the recent temperatures are due to man-made climate change, which is really the correct title, then it's a bit daft to say it was the hottest since 100,000 years go because it gives me the chance to ask why was it hotter 100,000 years ago.

Archaeologists aren't digging up 100,000-year-old cars & gas boilers.

Then they never explain what happens if we increase our wind & solar to provide, on paper, all the power we need & then we get a month of little or no wind & sun.

Then, if the UK does become a 100% EV & heat pump country,  there's the issue of getting the huge amount of extra power into the grid which will mean thousands of miles of pylons (underground cable is prohibitively expensive apparently) so we'll end up with a country where there will be no landscapes where the view doesn't include a turbine & a pylon.

[JBR]

I agree.
It is all nonsense.
Climate change?  Yes, the climate does change, and has been doing so for millions of years.  Whatever steps we take to prevent it, it will continue to do so.

As for cars, the government's silly proposal to ban ICE cars in 2030 or 2035 is utter nonsense.
At the same time, they are dragging their feet on increasing nuclear power generation, especially SMRs, which we are already capable of constructing.

Home heating is similarly poorly thought out.  In a way, I'd like to see the Conservatives remaining in government for the next two terms or more, because the outcome on all counts will result in them ending up with egg on their faces.  Lots of it!

[klondike]

2030 is 6½ years away. There is zero chance of the necessary infrastructure being in place by then. 

They had to fire up coal powered stations this winter just gone because they thought there was a chance that there would not be sufficient capacity and that was a relatively mild winter. Each of the next 6 years are going to see more EVs and more heat pumps. Will we be seeing more backup capacity for when the wind doesn't blow? I don't think so but those coal fired stations will be decommissioned or so I read.

There are often periods where wind is providing less than 10% of the energy being used. The grid needs more capacity yet so far as I can see all they plan to increase is demand and renewables. They said recently the target still stands. Doubtless so that it will be Labour that eventually has to move it and get any blame from those brainwashed into believing that the apocalypse is coming. 

[Diasi]

The answer is so easy, a mix of nuclear, hydrogen & carbon capture.

[JBR]

The answer is so easy, a mix of nuclear, hydrogen & carbon capture.

We should have expanded our nuclear capability long ago.
We were one of the first countries to develop nuclear-powered electricity generation.

Now, the world and its mates all seem to have overtaken us!  Politicians, neither use nor ornament.

[Michael Rolls]

Absolutely agree - there was a smug reader's letter in the paper the other day saying how everyone should stop using cars and rely on public transport (he say that that needs improving!) The silly sod lives in Surbiton. I used to live there - excellent public transport lots of buses, fast trains - Surbiton to Waterloo in 18 minutes on the fastest. Typical townie!

[Diasi]

Absolutely agree - there was a smug reader's letter in the paper the other day saying how everyone should stop using cars and rely on public transport (he say that that needs improving!) The silly sod lives in Surbiton. I used to live there - excellent public transport lots of buses, fast trains - Surbiton to Waterloo in 18 minutes on the fastest. Typical townie!

Where we live the nearest place of any size is Lincoln, but you couldn't go to an evening function without travelling by car as you couldn't get home. 

[klondike]

You should just stay home. Shivering.

[Michael Rolls]

that's what these green idioits would prefer us to do

[Ashy]

Yes it's all a scam. EVs may have a role but for a general purpose vehicle they are impractical whilst the petrol engine is cleaner than ever before. Hydrogen sounds good but they get it from oil using electricity. Battery constituents are bad for the environment and the miners. Windmills are unreliable and dangerous to wildlife, and apparently in Scotland they have cut down millions of trees to accommodate them.

On the other hand the climate scammers want us to believe that carbon dioxide causes the climate to change, well it doesn't. We have virtually no control over atmospheric carbon dioxide, whilst it's only a trace gas, 99.96% of it occurs naturally and yet it is essential to life. If anything, more of it would be better.

The climate is controlled by the sun, the moon, and the orbits of heavenly bodies.

[Michael Rolls]

very true

[klondike]

The climate is controlled by the sun, the moon, and the orbits of heavenly bodies.

Virtually all the energy on earth comes from the sun. There is a minor amount from heat leakage from the core which is residual and topped up slightly by radioactive decay. None of those things are remotely within our control.

How much heat that earth gains from the sun gets re-radiated into space depends mostly on the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect. It is certain that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and equally certain that humans produce some. What gets ignored is that the percentage  produced by humans is tiny and there are other greenhouse gasses. Some of those greenhouse gasses have far more impact than CO2 and are produced by natural processes such as volcanos. 

I read this the other day and didn't bother posting it as it's of minority interest here.

Massive Water and Cloud Boost From Tonga Eruption Could Explain Recent Unusual Weather Patterns

The accurate satellite record confirms that last month was an unusual weather period with higher than normal temperature recordings on both land and at sea. It was the warmest July since 1979, it tied with March 2015 for the second warmest departure from the norm and it was the warmest month for tropical land. Of course, the climate alarmists had a field day, with 'global boiling' now making an official UN appearance. Inexplicably missing from all the hysteria, however, was any mention that NASA scientists have recently confirmed that the Tonga volcanic eruption in January last year boosted water content in the stratosphere by a massive, and weather-changing, 10%.

Scientists have been shocked by the dramatic increase in water vapour spread around the globe by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano. Water vapour is the most powerful of all the greenhouses gases since, unlike the others, it traps heat across a wide part of the infra-red spectrum. It accounts for about 4% of all atmospheric gases, compared to 0.04% for carbon dioxide, but its effect is relatively short-lived since it re-enters the natural hydrological cycle. Nevertheless, Tonga water vapour and its associated clouds could last in the atmosphere for a few years, and scientists suggest both temperature increases and disturbed weather patterns will continue.

A group of NASA scientists have published a paper noting Tonga's "high impact" consequences. Unlike most volcanic eruptions, Tonga released few aerosols such as dust and ash into the atmosphere which cause temporary falls in temperature. In 1815, Mount Tambora exploded on the island of Sumbawa causing widespread cooling and a subsequent "year without a summer". In Tonga's case, specific geological conditions threw vast amounts of super-heated water up to 50 kilometres into the air. Such is the "unprecedented" amounts of water involved, the NASA scientists believe it could remain in the atmosphere for serval years. The scientists say they will continue to monitor volcanic gases from this eruption, along with future ones, "to better quantify their varying roles in climate".

Lots more if anybody does want to read it - 
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/08/04/massive-water-and-cloud-boost-from-tonga-eruption-could-explain-recent-unusual-weather-patterns/

[Michael Rolls]

The Tonga eruption demonstrates just how impotent mankind is faced with such natural phenomena. Even more dramatic was the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa which caused a drop in winter Northen temperatures of 0.4C for a couple of years. And we have tge green lobby thinking that by making life more difficult and more expensive for all normal people in Britain somehow we wiil 'save the planet'. Idiots

[JBR]

Nil desperandum!

After Labour gets into government next year, and following the predictable further ruin of our country for four or five years, I have every confidence that people will finally realise that they really need to elect a competent group of people to become the next government, and of course that excludes the 'three main parties'.

Of course, so much damage will have been done to the country by then that it would be highly unlikely to restore even what we still have today.

I shall be 76 (if still here!) and Marge will be 67.  Too late to do anything about it by then, so we'll have at least had a good time for most of our lives.
Must try to be positive!

[Michael Rolls]

I'm positive about the future - positive that it will be disaster!