Spring Temperatures & First Flowering Dates In The UK
By Paul Homewood
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/04/01/rspb.2010.0291
My attention was drawn to the above paper today which was originally published in 2010. As the title infers, it investigated first flowering dates in the UK, and came to the conclusion that flowering has been getting earlier, as temperatures in February to April have increased.
This is the Abstract:
The International Energy Agency
By Paul Homewood
The IEA has been in the news recently, so perhaps it’s time we looked at what it exactly is and how it’s run.
This is what it’s website says:
Organisation and structure
What is the IEA?
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an autonomous organisation that works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 29 member countries and beyond. Founded in response to the 1973/74 oil crisis, the initial role of the IEA was to help countries co-ordinate a collective response to major disruptions in oil supply through the release of emergency oil stocks to the markets. While this continues to be a key aspect of the Agency’s work, the IEA has evolved and expanded to encompass the full mix of energy resources. It is at the heart of global dialogue on energy, providing authoritative and unbiased research, statistics, analysis and recommendations.
What were the main objectives of the IEA when it was founded?
- maintain and improve systems for coping with oil supply disruptions;
- promote rational energy policies in a global context through co-operative relations with non-member countries, industry and other international organisations;
- operate a permanent information system on the international oil market;
- improve the world’s energy supply and demand structure by developing alternative energy sources and increasing the efficiency of energy use;
- promote international collaboration on energy technology; and
- assist in the integration of environmental and energy policies.
What is the relationship of the IEA with the OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development)?
The IEA is an autonomous body within the OECD framework.
How is the IEA funded?
The IEA is funded by its 29 member countries and the revenue it generates from its publications. The 2016 annual budget is EUR 27 461 886. Assessed contributions for member countries are based on a formula that takes account of the size of each member’s economy. For 2016, revenues from the Agency’s publications will finance more than one-fifth of the annual budget. With the approval of the IEA Governing Board, countries and other energy stakeholders may make voluntary contributions to support and strengthen a wide range of activities in the IEA Programme of Work and Budget; in 2015, 29% of IEA spending was financed by voluntary contributions, most of which came from government sources although the Agency does receive some funding from private sources. The Agency also receives contributions in-kind, especially in the form of Staff on loan.
How is the budget managed?
The size of the IEA budget and the scope of its work (also known as the Programme of Work and the budget) are determined every two years by member countries. The IEA operates within the financial framework of the OECD. Independent external auditing of the Agency’s accounts and financial management is performed by a Supreme Audit Institution of a member country, appointed by the OECD Council.
Does the IEA dispense grants or make loans?
No, unlike the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the IEA does not dispense grants or make loans.
What is the role of the Governing Board?
The Governing Board is the main decision-making body of the IEA and is composed of energy ministers or their senior representatives from each member country. The Governing Board holds three to four meetings at the Director General (or equivalent) level each year, at which it discusses global energy developments, as well as recent and future of work of the Agency, with the Executive Director and other senior Secretariat staff. The outcomes of Governing Board meetings are Conclusions, binding on all member countries.
The Governing Board also has final responsibility for administrative matters of the IEA, including approving the biennial Programme of Work and the budget.
Once every two years, ministers from member countries gather for the IEA Ministerial meeting. This meeting sets broad strategic priorities for the IEA, alongside directions offered at the regular meetings of the Governing Board. Although ministers may instruct the IEA to focus on a specific issue, the direction they provide also comes through the discussions that ensue at these meetings. Through the IEA Ministerial, the Secretariat develops ideas for existing or new work programmes, which it then discusses with member countries in various IEA committees and ultimately presents to the Governing Board for approval. The outcomes of each Ministerial are not fixed; however, some sort of political statement or communiqué is issued.
The 2015 Ministerial meeting, whose first plenary session opened with Mexico’s formal declaration of interest in becoming an IEA member, led to the activation of Association status available to non-member countries (with China, Indonesia and Thailand the first to have the status) as well as member countries’ declaration of an Energy and Climate Statement. The Chair of the Ministerial, US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, issued a summary at the conclusion of the meeting.
http://www.iea.org/about/faqs/organisationandstructure/
Although it claims to be autonomous, this is far from the truth. It’s members are countries, ie effectively governments.
Its Governing Board is composed of energy ministers, and the bulk of its funding comes from member governments.
It is hardly surprising then that its objectives, policies and strategies dovetail so closely with those of its member governments. As we have seen, it is quite happy to run a fervently pro-renewables agenda, even to the extent of putting out blatantly misleading press releases.
It is also significant that member countries have to be a member of the OECD, and as the list shows are nearly all well developed countries. Also note that most are EU nations, along with Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and the US.
Unsurprisingly the IEA mirrors the western world’s political viewpoint, and notably fails to protect or represent the interest of developing and third world countries.
You are no more likely to get objective and impartial information from the IEA than you would from the EU.
How many scientific papers just aren’t true?
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
A very pertinent article by Donna Laframboise in the Spectator:
We’re continually assured that government policies are grounded in evidence, whether it’s an anti-bullying programme in Finland, an alcohol awareness initiative in Texas or climate change responses around the globe. Science itself, we’re told, is guiding our footsteps.
There’s just one problem: science is in deep trouble. Last year, Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, referred to fears that ‘much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue’ and that ‘science has taken a turn toward darkness.’
By Paul Homewood
Just returning to yesterday’s story, these are the simple facts, rather than the hype from the IEA that gullible little Emily Gosden naively reported:
| TWh | 2014 | 2015 |
| Wind | 717 | 841 |
| Solar | 191 | 253 |
| Total Electricity | 23894 | 24098 |
| Solar/Wind as % | 3.8% | 4.5% |
http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Globally, the share of wind and solar in the electricity mix has limped upward from 3.8% to 4.5%.
For some reason Emily did not think to mention the fact.
FOOTNOTE
It seems it is not only little Emily that got hoodwinked! CNBC, and no doubt many others, have also fallen for the IEA’s propaganda:
Steven Capozzola has done a good job of debunking this as well at Climate Change Dispatch:
CNBC viewers are being snookered.
The business news network featured an article in the “Sustainable Energy” section of its Website that proclaimed: “Renewables surged past coal in 2015 to become world’s biggest source of electricity: IEA.”
In reading that headline, one might get the impression that wind turbines and solar panels produced more electricity last year than coal. But the fine print actually reveals a very different picture.
The opening paragraph of the article by “Freelance digital reporter” Anmar Frangoul gives a clue as to the sleight of hand being used. Frangoul cites the International Energy Agency (IEA) as reporting that “Renewable energy moved past coal in 2015 to become the biggest source of global electricity capacity.” The key word there is “capacity.”
What’s noteworthy is that capacity is far different from actual production. The average wind turbine has a maximum rated capacity of roughly 2 megawatts. That means, if the wind is blowing between 26-56 mph, the turbine can spin up to its peak generating capacity. In such moments, the wind turbine can produce its full 2 megawatts.
However, wind turbines, like solar panels, offer only intermittent power generation. Wind turbines can only produce power when there is sufficient wind—and when they are not shut down due to cold weather, repairs, or high winds. And solar panels only produce electricity during periods of direct sunlight. Thus, while a wind turbine can have a maximum capacity of 2 megawatts, its typical output may often be far less, or even 0 megawatts (on a windless day).
In contrast, and as the IEA itself notes, coal provided 40.8 percent of worldwide power generation in 2014. The renewables that Frangoul crows about—defined by the IEA as “geothermal, solar, wind, heat, etc.”—produced only 6.3 percent of all power.
Thus we see some of the misleading language in the CNBC article.
Frangoul talks about renewables producing 23 percent of world power generation in 2015—which is only possible when hydropower’s robust 16.4 percent is added to renewables’ paltry 6.3 percent share. And while the IEA says that “renewables represented more than half the new power capacity around the world” in 2015, one has to remember their frustrating intermittency. Wind turbines only generate roughly 20 percent of their installed capacity, and solar panels yield an even more meager 10 percent.
So, while Frangoul is happy to tout all of this new power plant construction, one has to consider that it represents investments that will often sit idle.
Such imprudence might seem naive. But the IEA astutely notes that “renewable power expanded at its fastest-ever rate in 2015, thanks to supportive government policies.”
Indeed, it is these very subsidies that have triggered a rush to wind and solar, despite abundant evidence of their limitations. It would be interesting, then, for reporters like Frangoul to further examine these much-touted renewable projects, and see if “capacity” actually meets expectations.
http://climatechangedispatch.com/cnbc-misleads-on-renewable-energy/
Emily Gosden Spins The IEA’s Misleading Propaganda
By Paul Homewood
Dear little Emily really does not get it does she?
By Emily Gosden, Energy Editor ,
25 October 2016 • 7:01pm
Global renewable electricity capacity has overtaken coal to become the world’s largest installed power source for the first time, after a record-breaking year in which half a million solar panels were installed every day.
Some 153 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity – more than the total generation capacity of Canada – was installed during the course of 2015, making it the fastest-growing electricity source, the International Energy Agency said.
This was primarily due to unprecedented expansion of solar and onshore wind, with two new wind turbines installed every hour in China, which was the “undisputable global leader of renewable energy expansion”.
As a result, worldwide renewable capacity hit 1,985 GW, or about 31pc of global power capacity, just pipping coal-fired power, which stands at 1,951 GW, the IEA said.
Half a million solar panels were installed every day last year, the IEA estimates Credit: China Daily
However, the actual amount of power produced by renewable electricity generators was still significantly lower than that from coal, accounting for 23pc of global power production, compared with almost 40pc from coal plants.
This is because power plants do not generate at their full capacity all the time, with sources like wind and solar able to generate at their maximum capacity only when the wind blows or the sun shines.
The IEA forecast that renewables expansion would continue apace, with 825 GW expected to be built by 2021 – 13pc more than the IEA had forecast just a year ago – “driven by policies aimed at enhancing energy security and sustainability”.
That should help boost the share of renewable power in the global electricity mix to 28pc by 2021, “rapidly closing the gap with coal” in the medium term, the IEA said.
You would be forgiven for thinking that the world will soon be able to rely on little else but renewable energy! At least, until you’ve checked the actual facts anyway.
Despite all of the hype, last year renewable energy, excluding hydro, still only supplied 7% of the world’s electricity. This includes wind, solar, biomass and geo.
http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Hydro electricity is shown separately for two very good reasons:
1) Most of it has been around for a number of years. A decade ago, for instance hydro supplied 16% of global electricity, just as it does now (although of course total output of both have risen).
2) There is very little scope worldwide for any more significant amounts of hydro capacity to be built.
For those pushing other forms of renewable energy, it is a common trick include hydro in total renewable output, in order to give the impression that wind and solar power are much more significant than they actually are.
The article then repeats the usual scam of talking about “capacity”, rather than “output”, although Emily Gosden does briefly touch on the issue further into the article. Nevertheless the headline and main section of the story will leave an extremely misleading impression on most people, many of whom won’t even bother to read to the end.
The IEA forecast that an extra 825 GW of renewable capacity will be built by 2021, yet, based on a realistic 15% capacity utilisation, this will only yield an extra 1084 TWh a year. Based on current electricity generation, this would increase renewables share from 7% to 11%. However, since it is likely that total generation will continue to grow, renewable share will be much less than that.
Unsurprisingly, the article is little more than a cut and paste of the IEA’s press release here. The IEA probably used to be an impartial source of energy data and projections. Unfortunately, for a while now, it has been politicised, and is no more than a pawn in the push for renewable energy and decarbonisation.
FOOTNOTE
Having taken another look at the BP figures, the reality that our dear little Emily alludes to, is that non hydro renewables contribution to global electricity generation has increased from 5.9% in 2014, to 6.7% last year.
Truly astounding, I am sure you would agree!!!!
The Climate Truth File From CFACT
By Paul Homewood
https://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CFACT-Climate-Truth-File-2016.pdf
I recommend you bookmark this.
From CFACT:
The full analysis is here.
It gives a point by point rebuttal of every climate alarmist argument.
NOAA: U.S. has gone 11 years without a major hurricane strike
By Paul Homewood
http://et-advisors.com/wp-content/uploads/ETA-Asia-Coal-Juggernaught_final.pdf
So much for Paris!
The above analysis is from Energy Transition Advisors, a green propaganda group, who are, somewhat naively, alarmed about what is going on in China and India.
According to their Global Coal Plant Tracker, this is the coal fired capacity in the pipeline:
| GW | China | India | Total |
| Announced | 232 | 56 | 288 |
| Pre-Permitted | 147 | 78 | 225 |
| Permitted | 26 | 43 | 69 |
| Construction | 205 | 65 | 270 |
| Total | 610 | 242 | 852 |
GW New Pipeline Coal Plant Capacity
Ed Davey Risks Sleepwalking Into Blackouts, Britain Warns!!
By Paul Homewood
h/t climanrecon
Well, some of us have been warning about this for years!
Dear little Emily writes in typically uncritical fashion:
Wikileaks: Soros Stooge Trashes Climate Scientist’s Career to Brown-Nose Billionaire Hillary Donor
By Paul Homewood
h/t Athelstan
From Breitbart:
The editor of ThinkProgress, the Soros-funded attack dog site, has been caught boasting to a billionaire liberal donor about how a smear campaign by one of his minions helped damage the career of a reputable climate scientist.
In the latest Wikileak, Judd Legum of ThinkProgress is revealed to have written in a 2014 email to green activist billionaire and Hillary Clinton bagman Tom Steyer:
I think it’s fair say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538. He would be providing important cover for climate deniers backed by Silver’s very respected brand. But because of our work, he is not.
Legum is referring to an incident which caused a big stir in both new media and climate science circles, not long after the launch of Nate Silver’s 538.
We covered this story at the time under the headline Now Nate Silver Capitulates, Throws Staffer To Green Activists – because that’s basically what happened. Amid much fanfare, Silver had set up his journalism site FiveThirtyEight – which made a big deal of being “data-driven” and therefore above the political bias of other web-based news media. One of his star writer recruits was climate expert Roger Pielke Jr. A former Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, Pielke is not an out-and-out climate sceptic but a self-described “luke-warmer.” That is, he believes in the science of man-made global warming. But he doesn’t believe in exaggerating the case.
Pielke’s mistake was to write a piece for FiveThirtyEight stating what he thought was a fairly unarguable, scientifically grounded truth: that there has been no increase in “extreme weather events” as a result of supposed man-made climate change.
Almost instantly, Pielke found himself viciously attacked from a number of quarters, everywhere from The Guardian and The Week to the Columbia Journalism review, not to mention FiveThreeEight’s comments section, where he was accused of writing “propaganda for big oil.”
Pielke Jr was so mortified that he never wrote on the subject of climate change for the site again and was subsequently dropped as a writer by Silver.
Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know that the dark agent behind this monstering, was Climate Progress – the eco-fascist sub-section of ThinkProgress, run by Joe Romm, devoted to promulgating green propaganda and smearing sceptics.
Unsurprisingly, it now emerges that one of Climate Progress’s donors is Tom “rhymes with liar” Steyer, whose epic disgustingness I have previously chronicled here and here.
No doubt Steyer – and Soros – more than get their money’s worth: smearing and misinformation, after all, are what political attack dog sites are paid to do.
The key question is, though, how does this square with the environmental movement’s claim to hold the moral high ground?
If the “science” is as settled as it frequently claims, why is it necessary to orchestrate attacks on any scientist who speaks even slightly out of turn?
