Energy bills will soar as green policies shut coal-fired power stations and cause an “electricity supply crisis”, experts say. Prices will be forced up as the UK has to import more power, according to a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers today. –Craig Woodhouse, The Sun, 26 January 2016
The UK is heading for a severe electricity supply crisis by 2025, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) is warning today. IME, which has more than 112,000 members in 140 countries says the closure of coal and nuclear plants would lead to a 40-55% shortfall amid growing demand. And the group’s new report ‚Äì Engineering the UK Electricity Gap ‚Äì also says plans to plug the gap by building combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants are unrealistic as the UK would need about 30 of them in less than 10 years. IME head of energy and environment Jenifercorr Baxter, lead author of the document, said: “The UK is facing an electricity supply crisis. As the UK population rises and with the greater use of electricity use in transport and heating, it looks almost certain that electricity demand is going to rise.” –Keith Findlay, Energy Voice, 26 January 2016
David Cameron’s decision to close coal-fired electricity stations and scale back nuclear investment will lead to massive power shortages and hike energy bills over the next decade, industry leaders have warned. Growing electricity demand will leave the UK facing a 40 per cent to 55 per cent electricity supply gap, according to a new report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. It says plans to plug the gap by building Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plants are unrealistic, as the UK would need to build about 30 such plants in less than 10 years. According to the report, the country has neither the resources nor enough people with the right skills to build this many power stations in time. –Andy Richardson, The Northern Echo, 26 January 2016
Senior lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling bloc (CDU/CSU) called for limits on subsidies for renewable energy in Germany as output expanded faster than the electricity grid can absorb the additional flows. Progress in building a new grid “Autobahn” to take wind and solar power from northern Germany to factories in the south is slow, according to the letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg News. Germany faces “massive network problems,” it said. “Gigawatt targets can’t be chiseled in stone.” Steps taken in 2015 to maintain grid stability cost power consumers more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), said the lawmakers. –Brian Parkin, Bloomberg, 22 January 2016
In 2009 Nigel Lawson established the Global Warming Policy Foundation; and he then set up for it, principally as a review body for publications, an Academic Advisory Council. Both Bob Carter and I were founder members of this body, and as its chairman I had frequent interactions over the following five years with the more active of my new colleagues among whom Bob was numbered. He also became a GWPF author, in a report (co-authored with Willem de Lange) which Andrew Montford has rated as ‘one of the best things GWPF has published’. What he did for the Foundation was the more notable because it represented an additional task: it has to be seen in the context of his continuing major contributions of which others have written. –David Henderson, Global Warming Policy Forum, 24 January 2016
Surface temperatures are indeed increasing slightly: They’ve been going up, in fits and starts, for more than 150 years, or since a miserably cold and pestilential period known as the Little Ice Age. Before carbon dioxide from economic activity could have warmed us up, temperatures rose three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit between 1910 and World War II. They then cooled down a bit, only to warm again from the mid-1970s to the late ’90s, about the same amount as earlier in the century. Whether temperatures have warmed much since then depends on what you look at. –Patrick J. Michaels, The Wall Street Journal, 25 January 2016
“Climate change might have killed most extraterrestrial life forms in the universe, with planets burned by greenhouse gases and frozen by a harsh environment.” Underlying this arrant tripe is obviously the warning that we will render ourselves extinct, thus falling in line with the other unfortunates of the Universe. That this comes from the land of Lewandowsky is clear from the description above: “Despite lack of concrete proof that extraterrestrial life exists, astronomers at the Australian National University (ANU) think climate change contributed to the extinction of life forms on other planets.” –Tom Fuller, The Lukewarmer’s Way, 24 January 2016
