Now they tell us: Wind power giant says it was a mistake to say renewables would only get cheaper

by Jo Nova

For years they told us that the green transition would deliver cheap energy, and that if we just subsidized them enough, prices would keep falling. The promise of free energy on the horizon led whole nations (stupidly) to believe that closing coal plants was viable. But now that damage is done, suddenly the Vestas chief admits that telling people that wind can only get cheaper “was a mistake”.

Vestas CEO says industry went too far with cheap-energy pledge”

There is carnage in Europe. Orders and profits are collapsing. The largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world has already raised prices by more than 30% this year but despite that, expects its profit margins to shrink to “minus five percent”.

Lucky their orders are down since they are losing money on every turbine.

The fall in sales landed as inflation bites, supply lines are squeezed and their costs are rising. (After all, wind turbine factories can’t run off wind turbines, they’re paying for expensive electricity too). So suddenly Vestas need to raise their prices even more, and their CEO is hoping a belated apology will somehow bring their market back.

Renewable Power’s Big Mistake Was a Promise to Always Get Cheaper

Bloomberg

Manufacturers such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S are seeing losses pile up as orders collapse at a time when they should be capitalizing on the turmoil in natural-gas markets. To blame — at least in part — is the industry’s insistence that clean electricity can only get cheaper, according to Henrik Andersen, chief executive officer of the Danish wind giant.

“It made some people make the wrong assumption that energy and electricity should become free,” Andersen said in an interview in London. “We created the perception to some extent. So we are to blame for it. That was a mistake.”

How pathetic the truth is — that it takes a war to pump up fossil fuel prices to the point where “wind is competitive”:

To be sure, wind power remains competitive with other energy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up prices for fossil fuels. But government auctions for new wind farms put pressure on companies to keep prices low, while costly and lengthy processes to gain planning permission continue to inhibit growth.

Shucks. The industry that lives off Big Government suffers some red tape. Cry me a river. The same corrupt bureaucracy that created the wind industry in the first place will mismanage them right off to China.

It’s a “transition” the solar industry has already suffered, and the wind industry has been fearing for months.

worth $170 billion,

9.9 out of 10 based on 69 ratings

62 comments to Now they tell us: Wind power giant says it was a mistake to say renewables would only get cheaper

  • #
    Wet Mountains

    If you take the vaccine you will never have Covid… Follow the money. PT Barnum was right.

    [[But we don’t want every thread to be a covid thread. Please. – Jo]

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    Yonason

    Cervantes having crazy Quixote obsessed with attacking monster windmills now seems impressively prescient.
    https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/images_users/tiny_mce/shcherbak/phpD9XcRO.jpeg

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    How pathetic the truth is — that it takes a war to pump up fossil fuel prices to the point where “wind is competitive”:

    pity it isn’t true, even in. 2017 wind was as cheap or cheaper than coal according to this analysis

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    • #

      But never on a national level eh Peter. Or Denmark would have the cheapest electricity on Earth.

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      • #
        Graeme#4

        And South Australia’s energy costs are almost the same as Denmark’s, some of the highest energy costs in the world.

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        IWick

        The real fun is yet to start. The wind and solar fantasy will push off alternative generation sources during the day to probably make them economically non viable. Those assets will then be closed and withdrawn. Black and brown outs will follow with huge price spikes and people will come to learn the meaning of ‘intermittency’.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Sorry, but again not true , wind met Denmark’s national needs. And wind is by far the cheapest source of energy in Denmark

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        • #

          And if you read my blog you’d know how wrong you are:

          Nations with more renewables have more expensive electricity. Denmark leads the way. The only assessment of cost that matters is the total cost of the system, and the more intermittent renewables a nation has the more hideous their electricity bills are.

          Renewables are the vandals of a cheap grid. They force every other part of the grid to run less efficiently, and the true cost of backup and storage and lines is always underestimated and only revealed in the total retail costs.

          Read my site Peter. But thank you for tossing the easy balls we can hit out of the park.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Peter, it disturbs me that you appear not to be a troll and you actually believe your own BS.

      But unlike Leftists, conservatives and fellow travellers are not terrified of alternative opinions and so you are welcome to post here, as Jo wishes, unlike us who are censored and banned on “your” platforms for expressing opinions contrary to the narrative.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Firstly I’m censored here most of the time, secondly, why the ad Homs, I’ve never said any like that about you. Or is that where you want the discussion to go?

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        • #

          You don’t even know what censorship or ad homs are Mr Fitzroy.

          David was implying you sincerely believe what you write, and you know perfectly well I’ve posted nearly everything you have submitted. All 4,351 comments.

          Your “censorship” stacks up as well as your favourite energy sources do. But you are taking this thread off topic. Is that your aim?

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        • #
          wal1957

          Firstly I’m censored here most of the time

          So you start out with an obvious provable lie as Jo has stated and then expect us to take you seriously?

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    • #
      Yonason

      Denmark, Germany and S.A. have the most costly energy production of major countries. One thing keeping prices from going higher is cheap child slave labor in mining the essential metal constituents of the bat and rare-bird abattoirs.

      Pity P.F. isn’t more invested in reality.

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    • #
      Graeme#4

      Peter, the reference provided mentions that subsidies are included in the cost comparisons, the first distortion. A second and major distortion is using LCOE instead of FCOE costings. LCOE costings don’t take into account the need to replace renewables at least once, if not twice, during the longer lifetimes of coal, gas and nuclear. When you correctly compare costs using FCOE over the longer lifetimes, and take into account the lower CFs of wind and solar, plus their need for firming, coal, gas and nuclear come in at half the cost of wind and solar. And I can backup these claims with actual cost data.

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    • #
      wal1957

      Some people believe that men can get pregnant.
      Some people believe that unreliables are cheap.

      Reality says otherwise in both of these cases.

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    • #
      Rupert Ashford

      If those were to be credible we would not be here debating this, mate. You can “report” anything based on believes or feelings, but the facts don’t care and you will be found out.

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    • #
      DLK

      pity it isn’t true, even in. 2017 wind was as cheap or cheaper than coal according to this analysis

      if renewables are as cheap or cheaper than coal, why has the cost of electricity been spiraling out of control ever since renewables were added to the grid.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The wind might be “free” but it costs an enormous amount of money to collect it. And it is unreliable so forget about having any schedule of availability.

    Just ask any sailboat owner.

    As part of the general dumbing-down of the education system, are people (present company excepted) unfamiliar with the terms “becalmed” and “the doldrums”? Sailors were once terrified of entering the Sargasso Sea, for example.

    These terms have powerful connotations for sailors. That’s why sailors of yore were elated when the first viable marine steam engine and steamship was developed in the early 1800’s.

    Fortunately, nowadays, sailing is only* for recreational purposes as it has no commercial viability. (Incidentally, modern large marune diesels are amazing engines.)

    Australia the US, Canada, Europe and other nations “led” by Leftists are undergoing a deliberate technological reversion from steam back to pre-early-1800’s wind power. China is forging ahead with the steam age.

    *There are some certain-to-fail attempts to reintroduce commercial cargo sailing vessels however. But they will fail just like windmills for electrity generation.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    The smarter, better informed Leftists (which isn’t many) are starting to beg for a “pandemic amnesty”.

    The above article is a sign that the Left may soon be asking for an “expensive unreliables amnesty”.

    Don’t forgive.

    Don’t forget.

    How many times can you tell and prove to somebody they are wrong, and when they do it anyway, they expect to be forgiven? That’s why we have gaols (US=jail).

    Reference for pandemic amnesty: (E.g. see https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/)

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  • #
    Robber

    The true costs of intermittent wind and solar must include the costs to deliver electricity 24×7.
    That means factoring in the costs of standby diesel and gas generators as SA discovered, or batteries or hydro.
    Coping with 25% intermittents in the grid is barely manageable (at a cost) because there is sufficient hydro and peaking gas turbines to cover the no sun, no wind regular events.
    But as AEMO is now warning, when baseload coal drops below 50% that will happen with the next couple of closures, wind and solar without new backup will not be able to keep the lights on.
    In the last 12 months, coal delivered 59% of electricity supply.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Those are just the direct costs.

      There are even higher costs such as general destruction of the economy and lowering of the standard of living.

      Plus keeping Africa from developing at all as the World Bank won’t fund proper electricity generation for Africa, just the unreliables fantasies of rich Elite Leftists.

      In any case, it won’t matter soon as China is systematically colonising Africa. They will no doubt build proper power generation in the colonies just as Europeans did before them, but without the freedom and good governance (with some exceptions) offered by the Europeans.

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    • #
      It's all BS

      Without reading the article, I can guess it’s content by what you have said David, and by who the publisher is. If I am right, these people confuse forgiveness with no punishment. The two can be, or are, exclusive. The law does not forgive. Individuals can. And individuals can forgive at anytime whether there is a punishment awarded by the law or not. Those who are seeking amnesty should be held to account for their decisions and let the law determine whether punishment should be awarded. The rest of us can chose to forgive if we wish.

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    • #
      Muzza

      The true costs must also include the additional ‘poles and wires’. This otherwise unnecessary infrastructure must be massively overbuilt to cater for the rare occasion that the unreliables deliver nameplate output. Guesses of $100 bn for these unnecessary, ugly, environmentally devastating additions needed to be added to the costs…….

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      • #
        Ross

        All true. CSIRO did their GENCOST costings for all types of electricity generation. Then the likes of Larry Marshall (CSIRO head) went around spruiking these figures on shows like Q&A/ABC, as if they were gospel. But, as pointed out by a number of JoNova correspondents its full of wrong assumptions and costings. The calculations are for LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy), not full cost (FCOE), and are only taken over 30 years, where they falsely claim that solar and wind won’t need replacing over that time period. The costs don’t include firming/backup for solar and wind. When the costs are properly compared over the longer lifetimes of coal, gas and nuclear, solar amnd wind come out at over twice (2X) the cost. That’s without including the requirements for more longer transmission lines. Additionally, there are many other basic wrong assumptions in GenCost. For example, they use the (wrong) capacity Factor (CF) figure of 35%, whereas Australia’s wind CF is 27-> 30%. All the ludicrous claims of S & W being cheapest made by Bowen and Albanese are based on this analysis.

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        • #
          Graeme#4

          Absolutely correct Ross. And these statements have NEVER been challenged by renewables enthusiasts when they have been published. I’m guessing it’s because they can be backed up by actual calculations and data, unlike the GenCost figures, most of which is claimed to be derived from Aurecon modelling. Yet even the Aurecon data seems to be derived from somewhere else, or dubious modelling. The trick about modelling is that they can bury all their assumptions within their model so that nobody can check them.

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          • #
            Ross

            It’s amazing this concept of “modelling”. As soon as politicians or experts mention the word “modelling”, it’s like the process provides the absolute truth, no contention possible. Climate change, COVID, energy and an array of other policies based on modelling. Journalists or the media just accept the findings as gospel. Yet, in those subjects they have mostly been/are horribly wrong. Modelling works quite well in a lot of tech areas. In Agriculture we use a lot of models for disease and insect pressure forecasting. They’re great, but they were developed over a long period, tweaked from time to time and then field tested over many years. But, even then they are only used as a guide. If any of the underlying assumptions are wrong, the output is crap. Its all just estimated guessing, which at the end of day is just guessing.

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  • #
    another ian

    Remember the conclusion from

    Monday Open #9.1.2 and #9.1.2.1 that

    “Wind power.

    It’s got nothing to do with generating power

    It’s all just a subliminal advertisement for ….. Mercedes Benz!!”

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  • #
    Neville

    Just a few points about all this BS and fraud.

    There was never a climate crisis or EXISTENTIAL THREAT EVER.

    Since 1970 the Human population has increased by 4.3 billion and life expectancy has increased by about 16 years today. That’s 56.5 to 73 years.
    And the poorest continent’s population has added another one billion people and their life expectancy has increased by about 18 years today.
    That’s 46 years to 64 years . THINK.

    Obviously the climate has been very BENIGN over the last 50 years and also the last 70 years.
    But the liars and con merchants at COP 27 are now telling us we’re on the “HIGHWAY to HELL” and all of the usual silly idiots are lining up to support them.
    Never forget that UNRELIABLE, TOXIC S & W have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years and end up in landfill forever.
    The cost is staggering and yet these COP 27 idiots want us continue with these polluting disasters and REPLACE them every 15 to 20 years and for ZERO change to the temp or CLIMATE.
    All of the points above are unbelievable but TRUE.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      we’re on the “HIGHWAY to HELL”

      The fact that there’s a highway to hell but only a stairway to heaven tells you something about anticipated traffic numbers

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      • #
        Neville

        Very clever comment David , although I don’t believe in the highway or the stairway. But that’s just my opinion and I’m sure I would’ve BELIEVED in both destinations if I lived a few hundred years ago.

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        • #
          David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

          I have no trouble in believing we’re on the “Highway to Hell”. And I also have no trouble that the COP speaker who enunciated it is also the driver, and navigator, who put us on to that road at unstoppable (?) speed.
          Cheers
          Dave B

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    • #
      Paul Siebert

      This stuff kind of works if nine of ten of us just go away.

      00

  • #
    Ross

    The area I live in Central Victoria is festooned with wind turbines. I can drive 30 mins in any direction and go past some wind turbines. They’ve been installing them here since the late 1990’s. Mostly on farmers land who benefit from the annual turbine rents. Originally those rents were in the $5-10k/turbine/ annum range. Last couple of years I had heard prices in the $20K-$30k/turbine/ annum range. 3 weeks ago I was talking to 2 farmers who had been approached to participate in a small 8 turbine installation. They had both been offered annual rents greater than $30k/turbine/annum ( even approaching $40k). Both farmers knocked back the offers because they had heard all the horror stories of the installation process. The workers and engineers just run roughshod over farmers land. Access roads wreck paddocks ( drainage etc), gates left open and stock escaped. Also , just the attitude of the workers who basically have the attitude ” well, we’re paying you some hefty fees, so we can do whatever we like”. So, the good news is I think the onshore installations are getting harder to be approved and built for wind. The proposed power line links are also facing a lot of protests from farmers and residents. Everything is now slowed down significantly. The bad news is that I think the focus will now switch to off- shore as is already happening in Victoria with Labor proposing mega projects off the Gippsland coast.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Dictator Dan made it compulsory to accept windmills on your land. He is a communist after all, he doesn’t respect property rights.

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      Tides of Mudgee

      Ross, I heard some time ago via a fellow who works for a wind farm company that in small print in the contract it states that the owner of the land is responsible for the disposal of the turbine when it reaches the end of its life. Are the landowners made clearly aware of this? Are they giving informed consent? Now where have I heard that line before? ToM

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      • #
        Ross

        Tides, don’t know, but will ask my farmer mate next time we meet. Both the farmers didn’t get anywhere near a contract, so wouldn’t have seen the fine print.

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  • #
    Ronin

    “The largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world has already raised prices by more than 30% this year but despite that, expects its profit margins to shrink to “minus five percent”. ”

    That’s music to our ears.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      That’s music to our ears.

      Maybe not. Because that means our electricity prices might triple instead of “just” doubling.

      These companies have been rendered immune to market forces and given legal monopoly status by government legislation.

      They will keep rolling out this defective technology, especially in countries like Australia which are among the more fanatical followers of UN decrees and the anthropogenic global warming fraud, until something really bad happens.

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  • #
    Neville

    Here’s Lomborg’s latest article about the present and future climate change and of course all Humans will be much HEALTHIER and WEALTHIER by 2100.

    “BJORN LOMBORG: SUPPRESSING GOOD NEWS IS SCARING OUR KIDS WITLESS”

    noviembre 7, 2022

    15/09/2022 | By Bjorn Lomborg | Financial Post

    “You might be hearing nothing but bad news but you aren’t hearing the full story”

    “Polar bears were once used to highlight the dangers of climate change, but polar bear numbers have been increasing.

    Polar bears were once used to highlight the dangers of climate change, but polar bear numbers have been increasing. PHOTO BY COURTESY DENNIS FAST

    It’s easy to believe life on Earth is getting ever worse. The media constantly highlight one catastrophe after another and make terrifying predictions. With the never-ending torrent of doom and gloom about climate change and the environment, it’s understandable why many people — especially the young — genuinely believe the world is about to end. But the fact is that though problems remain the world is getting better. We just rarely hear about it.

    We are incessantly told about disasters, whether it is the latest heat wave, flood, wildfire or storm. Yet the data overwhelmingly show that over the past century people have become much, much safer from all these weather events. In the 1920s, around half a million people were killed by weather disasters, whereas in the last decade the death toll averaged around 18,000. This year, like both 2020 and 2021, is tracking below that. Why? Because when people get richer, they get more resilient.

    Weather-fixated television news would make us think disasters are all getting worse. They’re not. Around 1900, about 4.5 per cent of the land area of the world burned every year. Over the last century, this declined to about 3.2 per cent In the last two decades, satellites show even further decline: in 2021 just 2.5 per cent burned. This has happened mostly because richer societies prevent fires. Models show that by the end of the century, despite climate change, human adaptation will mean even less burning.

    And despite what you may have heard about record-breaking costs from weather disasters — mainly because wealthier populations build more expensive houses along coastlines — damage costs are actually declining, not increasing, as a per cent of GDP.

    But it’s not only weather disasters that are getting less damaging despite dire predictions. A decade ago, environmentalists loudly declared that Australia’s magnificent Great Barrier Reef was nearly dead, killed by bleaching caused by climate change. The Guardian newspaper even published an obituary. This year, scientists revealed that two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef shows the highest coral cover seen since records began in 1985. The good-news report got a fraction of the attention the bad news did.

    Not long ago, environmentalists constantly used pictures of polar bears to highlight the dangers of climate change. Polar bears even featured in Al Gore’s terrifying movie An Inconvenient Truth. But the reality is that polar bear numbers have been increasing — from somewhere between five and 10,000 polar bears in the 1960s up to around 26,000 today. We don’t hear this news, however. Instead, campaigners just quietly stopped using polar bears in their activism.

    There are so many bad-news stories that we seldom stop to consider that on the most important indicators, life is getting much better. Human life expectancy has doubled over the past century, from 36 years in 1920 to more than 72 years today. A hundred years ago, three-quarters of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today, less than one-tenth does. The deadliest environmental problem, air pollution, was four times more likely to kill you in 1920 than it is today, mostly because a century ago people in poverty cooked and heated with dung and wood.

    Despite COVID-related setbacks, humanity has become better and better off. Yet doom-mongers will keep telling you the end is nigh. This is great for their fundraising but the costs to society are sky-high: we make poor, expensive policy choices and our kids are scared witless.

    We also end up ignoring much bigger problems. Consider all the attention devoted to heat waves. In the United States and many other parts of the world heat deaths are actually declining, because access to air conditioning helps much more than rising temperatures hurt. Almost everywhere, however, cold quietly kills many more people than heat does. In the U.S., about 20,000 people die from heat every year, but 170,000 die from cold — something we rarely focus on. Moreover, cold deaths are rising in the U.S. and our incessant focus on climate change is exacerbating this trend because politicians have introduced green laws that make energy more expensive, meaning fewer people can afford to keep warm. Lacking perspective means we don’t focus first on where we can help most.

    On a broader scale, global warming prompts celebrities and politicians to fly around the world in private jets lecturing the rest of us, while we spend less on problems like hunger, infectious diseases and a lack of basic schooling. When did politicians and movie stars ever meet for an important cause like de-worming children?

    We need balance in our news, but that doesn’t mean ignoring global warming: it is a real problem humanity has caused. We just need perspective. To know what to expect from a warming planet, we can look at the damage estimates from the economic models used by the Biden and Obama administrations, which reveal that the entire, global cost of climate change — not just to economies, but in every sense — will be equivalent to less than a four per cent hit to global GDP by the end of the century.

    Humanity is getting more prosperous every day. The United Nations estimates that without global warming the average person in 2100 would be 450 per cent better off than today. Global warming means people will only be 434 per cent richer instead. That is not a disaster.

    Climate change fear is causing life-changing anxiety. You might be hearing nothing but bad news but you aren’t hearing the full story”.

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      Ross

      I gave up on Lomborg years ago. He presents a beautiful argument about the idiocy of mankind’s response to “climate change”, particularly in terms of emissions reductions. But he’s still a warmist and believe man’s CO2 emissions are contributing to the effects of climate change. He does this to be allowed to remain in the CC debate. So, that he’s not censored or ostracised. So that he retains his role in Danish academia. He’s in the same club as Steve Koonin and even Lord Monckton. What’s worse Lomborg ( and to a certain extent Monckton) they have been at it for nearly 30 years now. Has it made any difference? Not one jot, because nobody in the climate alarmist brigade listen to them anyway.

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      • #
        Chad

        Much like this blog then ?
        Lots of us repeating over and over the same information and debates, but no body outside the blog is listening or taking any notice .!
        The only way i can see things will change is when there is a major, long term, total blackout that stops the economy dead and likely result in mass deaths !

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        Neville

        Ross part of me agrees with you a little bit, but we need Lomborg to be in the game and keep hitting them/us with the real UN data that nobody else wants to write about.
        See his last 3 paragraphs AGAIN and try to be a little more optimistic. Yes the first is contestable but he then uses the UN data to throw in their faces and I’m very happy that he does so.

        “We need balance in our news, but that doesn’t mean ignoring global warming: it is a real problem humanity has caused. We just need perspective. To know what to expect from a warming planet, we can look at the damage estimates from the economic models used by the Biden and Obama administrations, which reveal that the entire, global cost of climate change — not just to economies, but in every sense — will be equivalent to less than a four per cent hit to global GDP by the end of the century”.

        “Humanity is getting more prosperous every day. The United Nations estimates that without global warming the average person in 2100 would be 450 per cent better off than today. Global warming means people will only be 434 per cent richer instead. That is not a disaster”.

        “Climate change fear is causing life-changing anxiety. You might be hearing nothing but bad news but you aren’t hearing the full story”.

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    Centuries-old whaling logs are filling gaps in our climate knowledge

    Researchers believe that these handwritten whaling logbooks could be novel guides to understanding the course of climate change. By seeing how the climate once was, they can better understand where it’s going. “This is the language of the sea,” said Timothy Walker, a historian at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “The whaling industry is the best documented industry in the world.” Walker and Caroline Ummenhofer, an oceanographer and climate scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, are working with a team of scientists and volunteers mining archival documents to help inform temperature and weather models — weaving records from a nearly-obsolete industry with modern climate predictions.

    Analyzing nearly 54,000 daily weather records from whaling ships, the Woods Hole historic whaling project has mined 110 logbooks to date, from a total cache of about 4,300. The data includes everything from latitude and longitude to ship direction, wind direction and speed, sea state, cloud cover, and general weather.

    The records are housed in private and public collections across New England, once a key hub for whaling ships returning from across the globe. Those results have been codified and added to a database that cross-compares the data points from these records with modern global wind patterns, doing things like compiling wind observations made in a specific area during a clear period of time. Large-scale wind patterns influence rainfall, drought, floods, and extreme storms — and more accurate measures of these patterns increases the accuracy of today’s forecasts.

    “Whalers go to places where other ships don’t go. The whalers are going out in the middle of nowhere,” said Walker. “That’s great from the perspective of weather data collection, because they’re often the only people reporting weather from 200 or 300 years ago, from the regions where they happen to be hunting whales.”

    Walker says they’re currently using these documents to identify geographic ranges where the strongest winds were encountered by whalers and comparing the strength of those wind patterns in the same areas in recent years.

    With that data, the team hopes to establish a baseline for long-term wind patterns in remote parts of the world where “very few” instrumental data sets prior to 1957 exist. Currently, the project is only focused on wind data, but they hope to eventually focus on other information in the logs such as rainfall, cloudiness, the condition of the sea, or whether the surface was choppy or calm on a given day. The more data points they collect, the better the accuracy of existing climate models — a 2020 study published in the journal Nature found that a lack of predictability in wind patterns above many of the world’s oceans has led to unreliable rain forecasts.

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      David Maddison

      Let’s hope the original data is not fraudulently altered as Australia’s “The Bureau” does when they “homogenise” historical data.

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    David Maddison

    The expression “throwing the dead horse overboard” comes from the days of sail when sailors were becalmed in the doldrums +/-5 degrees from the equator or, alternatively, the “horse lattitudes” +/-30 degrees about the equator, and killed and threw overboard any horses they had, to save drinking water.

    Hence also the name “horse lattitudes”.

    Nowadays, it’s we, the people, who are metaphorically killed and thrown overboard.

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    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    “For years they (Al Gore and his climate doomsayer cronies) told us that the green transition would deliver cheap energy….” I hope that Al Gore is looking up from his smug photo in the previous post to see the headline for this post. But the chances of Al Gore taking note of the ‘cheap’ power from renewals fiasco are nil.

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    Mike-SMO

    The working guts of the windmills have a service life of 20-25 years, at which point, you get to build over with all that steel, concrete, and polymers. The blades fatigue, and the mechanical parts wear. You can be sure that there will be no one with replacement parts. Just wasted energy making parts for the land fill. The copper windings and the “rare earth” materials might be recycled to build something new.

    00