Climate Policy Meets Bitter Cold Reality In Europe
European leaders at the United Nations last week applauded themselves as they doubled down on their pledges to slash CO2 emissions.
And Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the U.K. “will lead by example, keeping the environment on the global agenda and serving as a launchpad for a global green industrial revolution.”
Such vows of carbon chastity are, to say the least, ironic as Europe grapples with a severe energy shortage and surging prices wrought by its green industrial revolution.
In the past decade, the U.K. and Europe have shut down hundreds of coal plants, and Britain has only two remaining; West Burton and Kilroot in Northern Ireland. Spain shut down half of its coal plants last summer.
European countries have spent trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables, which last year for the first time exceeded fossil fuels as a share of electricity production.
But renewables don’t provide reliable power around the clock, and wind power this summer has waned across Europe and in the U.K., forcing them to turn to gas and coal for backup power.
Yet demand for these fossil fuels is also surging across Asia and South America, where drought has crimped hydropower. There, manufacturers are also consuming more energy to supply Western countries with goods.
Japan has become especially dependent on liquefied natural gas imports since it shut down most of its nuclear power plants after Fukushima in 2011.
Even China has been forced to ration electricity to energy-hungry aluminum smelters because of a coal power shortfall. This has sent global aluminum prices soaring.
Increased global demand has caused the price of coal to triple and the price of natural gas to increase fivefold over the past year. Europe’s cap-and-trade scheme has pushed prices even higher.
Under the program, manufacturers and power suppliers must buy carbon credits on an open trading market to offset their emissions.
The price of credits has spiked this year as demand for them from coal plants and other manufacturers has increased while government regulators have tightened supply.
Russia is exploiting Europe’s energy difficulties by reducing gas deliveries, perhaps to pressure Germany to complete certification of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine.
Russia’s Gazprom has booked only a third of the available transportation capacity through its Yamal pipeline for October and no additional deliveries via its Ukraine pipeline.
Europe has become ever more dependent on Russia—the world’s second-largest gas producer, after the U.S.—for energy because the U.K. and Germany have banned hydraulic fracturing, letting their rich gas shale resources go to waste. Meantime, the Netherlands is shutting down Europe’s biggest gas field.
In short, all of Europe’s green chickens are coming home to roost. Several U.K. retail electricity providers have collapsed in recent weeks because of the surging price of gas.
Energy experts warn that some German power suppliers are in danger of going insolvent. Germany’s electricity prices, which were already the highest in Europe because of heavy reliance on renewables, have more than doubled since February.
Skyrocketing power prices have caused U.K steelmakers to suspend production. A former energy adviser to the U.K. government warned last week that the country’s energy shortage this winter could prompt a ‘three-day week’ – a reference to the coal and rail worker strike in 1974 that caused the government to ration energy for commercial users.
The European Steel Association has warned that the Continent’s producers are becoming globally uncompetitive. Fertilizer producers, which use gas as a feedstock, are raising a fuss.
Norway’s Yara International plans to curb 40 percent of its fertilizer production capacity in Europe. U.S.-owned CF Industries earlier this month halted operations at its fertilizer plant in northeast England, threatening downstream businesses.
Beer and soda manufacturers use the carbon dioxide that is generated as a byproduct of fertilizer production for fizz. Carbon dioxide is also used to stun livestock before they are slaughtered, as well as for vacuum packs and dry ice to store frozen foods.
The U.K.’s Food and Drink Federation has warned that consumers might soon notice products missing from supermarket shelves from the carbon dioxide shortage.
The warning prompted the U.K. government last week to lend financial support to CF Industries. European metals producers are asking governments for aid.
There will be more bailouts as European energy demand heats up this winter. These energy woes will only get worse in the coming years as governments push harder to purge fossil fuels.
U.S. gas and coal producers have benefited from rising prices in Europe. Growing exports, however, are pushing up prices that Americans pay for energy because domestic production lags pre-pandemic levels.
Natural gas prices in the U.S. have doubled since the spring, and some coal power plants are scrounging for fuel.
Europe offers a portent of the havoc to come under the Biden administration’s policies that aim to shut down fossil-fuel production and power the U.S. grid exclusively with renewables.
Democrats won’t succeed in banishing fossil fuels. Instead, the U.S., like Europe, will need more gas and coal to back up renewables, and the U.S. will become dependent on adversaries like Russia for energy.
See more here: climatechangedispatch.com
Header image: Birmingham Mail
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.
A Reasonable Man
| #
Here in USA we get very little reporting on UK EU issues. Is the majority of the British population just going to accept this? What is the feel for this issue from those of you that live in the UK? Here in US not is had, but getting there. Thanks
Reply
Andy
| #
It would appear the majority of Brits do not believe the climate lies, but we are powerless to stop it, as all political parties have signed up to the ‘net zero’ disaster.
Reply
lloyd
| #
Time to dig out the smuggled Soviet Block AK-47s and revolt.
Reply
Alan
| #
Boris’s policy – first destroy everything that works, then build back until we are broke.
Reply
nohomehere
| #
Three words corruption corruption corruption our leaders are reprobate and people make warped choices by way of corrupt echo chamber peer review science.
All civilizations have high points and I suppose the low is not trailing to far behind!
Reply
Bevan
| #
Now retired from exploration geophysics, I have applied my skills to the study of climate data for the past 25 years. My conclusion is that the Sun determines the temperature of the Earth which then determines the rate at which atmospheric CO2 is generated through the myriad of life forms on the Earth.
CO2 has not, does not and cannot cause warming of the Earth’s surface. That is contrary to the Theory of Thermodynamics that heat does not flow from cold, the atmosphere, to hot, the Earth’s surface.
The concentration of atmospheric CO2 will continue to increase until such time as the temperature falls to the point of zero rate of generation which may be zero degrees Celsius when water freezes and is no longer available to life.
The UN aim of destroying capitalism is well underway. Hopefully it will destroy the UN as well
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Bevan,
It is energy, not heat, that flows from higher to lower. Since the sun is the source of Earth’s energy and all matter, including O2 and N2, absorb radiated energy the gas molecules higher in the atmosphere, being closer to the source, must have more energy than the gas molecules lower n the atmosphere. That is why the density of the atmosphere decreases with increasing altitude (ideal gas law).
In the troposphere the transfer of energy is by convection (collisions), not radiation. Since with collisions the law of conversation of momentum (M1V1 + M2V2 = M1V3 + M2V4) applies and energy will flow from the object with more energy to the object with less energy, regardless of mass. This means an object with more mass and kinetic energy (hotter) can gain energy (be heated) by an object with less mass and less kinetic energy (cooler) if that object has more energy.
Herb
Reply
Bevan
| #
Herb,
The UN IPCC claims that atmospheric CO2 absorbs and re-radiates back to the Earth some of the heat emitted by the Earth’s surface (which has been warmed by the Sun) thereby making the Earth’s surface hotter.
For the average Earth surface temperature of 15.5 deg.C, 99.83% of the emitted photons that could be absorbed by the atmospheric CO2 are in the 15 micron wavelength band. This is the peak radiation intensity from a surface temperature of -79.5 deg C, the minimum temperature occasionally experienced in Antarctica. This back-radiation definitely does not cause the Earth’s surface to increase in temperature as that frequency band, 20 Tera Hz, is already fully occupied by molecules vibrating at that mode. Only radiation from a source hotter than that of the Earth, that is a peak wavelength of less than 10.04 microns, can increase the vibrational energy of the surface molecules thereby causing it to radiate at a higher temperature.
Conclusion: atmospheric CO2 has not, does not and cannot cause the Earth surface to warm.
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Bevan,
The Earth absorbs visible and IR radiation which the atmosphere does not. Since the gases in the atmosphere must absorb radiated energy they are absorbing UV (95%) and converting it to kinetic energy. During a solar minimum there are few solar flares emitting UV and the Earth cools, even though the amount of visible light and IR heating the Earth doesn’t change.
You cannot use a thermometer to give an accurate measurement of the KE of a gas, since it measures the momentum of the molecules striking it and the number of molecules (mass) changes as the energy of the molecules increase. This is why even though hot air rises, the bottom of the Grand Canyon is 10 F hotter than the top of the canyon, more molecules transferring energy.
The same inaccuracy is evident in a barometer which also measure the momentum of the molecules striking it. How can a warm air mass, which is less dense, have greater weight per area than a cooler denser air mass when they are composed of the same gas molecules?
Herb
Reply
T. C. Clark
| #
Why do you continue with Herbphysics?….why not search …maybe Wikipedia has it…the difference between mechanical energy and heat energy?
Herb Rosr
| #
Why don’t you try thinking instead of just searching for answers. You believe Wikipedia that the temperature is the mean kinetic energy of the medium being measured. What part of the thermometer calculates the mean? None. It just absorbs the energy being transferred to it by air molecules and equalizes with the energy it radiates, producing a temperature. Since at different altitudes there are different number of molecules striking it, if fewer molecules record the same reading those fewer molecules must have more kinetic energy. Not hard to figure out unless you are a Wikipediot and cannot believe that the “experts” could ever be wrong even though history shows that they have always been wrong..
T. C. Clark
| #
I have read Herb Rose and Rosr and I prefer conventional physics to Herbphysics…just for giggles…tell us what happens to an inflated balloon…about 1 foot in diameter…when you apply pressure with your hands…what is temp and pressure change inside the balloon?
Herb Rose
| #
Ignoring any transfer of heat from your hands, when you apply external pressure to the balloon the volume of the balloon will decrease. The gas molecules inside the balloon will collide more often with the skin of the balloon raising the pressure and transferring more energy to the skin, raising the temperature. Your hands have not increased either the number of molecules in the balloon, the gas constant for those molecules, or the kinetic energy of the molecules.
The universal gas law is not an equation but a statement of the macro properties of a gas resulting from the properties of its components, If you add more molecules, change the gas constant for those molecules, or increase the kinetic energy of those molecules the volume, pressure, or both for the gas as a whole will increase. A change in one of the macro properties will not translate into changes in the component properties but in a change in the other macro property.
Think (if that’s possible) of a chamber divide in half by a ball valve. One half is pressurized and contains a thermometer. When you open the ball valve the gas will expand into a larger space and fewer molecules will strike the thermometer. Even though the opening of the valve did not do anything to the gas molecules both the pressure and temperature in the one section will decrease as fewer molecules are transferring energy.
When you fill scuba tanks from a large compressed air tank, even though both tanks and the air they contain have the same initial temperature, the scuba tank must be cooled to reach pressure as the increasing number of molecules striking the walls of the tank transfer more energy causing it to heat up.
Alan
| #
Heat is thermal energy transferring from high to low temperature.
Your last sentence is meaningless.
Reply
Max DeLoaches
| #
“This means an object with more mass and kinetic energy (hotter) can gain energy (be heated) by an object with less mass and less kinetic energy (cooler) if that object has more energy.” No way. This violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, heat transfer is only from warm to cold. An ice cube cannot heat my hot chocolate.
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Max,
You are thinking that the transfer of energy by radiation and by conduction are the same, they aren’t> The transfer of energy by radiation is a slowing process dependent on the difference in energy of the objects. during equalization. In conduction the equalization occurs immediately and is a function of both the energy and the mass of the objects. Since mass doesn’t change in a collision energy will flow from the object with more velocity/energy to the object with less velocity/energy, regardless of mass. It follows the law of conservation of momentum.
An example: A small fast moving car crashes into the rear of a large slower truck. Even if the truck is so heavy that it has more kinetic energy than the car, the collision will cause the velocity/energy of the truck to increase as the car loses velocity/energy. If the transfer was from the object with more kinetic energy to the object with less kinetic energy the collision would cause the car to speed up and the truck to slow down.
In the troposphere the primary transfer of energy between objects is done by conduction, not radiation.
Herb
Reply
Geraint Hughes
| #
This was their plan all along. Make it so that people cant afford to keep warm, then the “unwanted” will die off.
Reply
Alan
| #
Unfortunately, the “unwanted” will turn out to be the most useful, even to the elites.
Reply
Reg
| #
The German government advised people to use candles during electricity shortages. Candles are predominantly made from fossil fuels. To solve this crisis, we need to go back to hunting whales. Problem solved 🙂.
Reply