Bishop Hill Sex and the Guardian
As sure as the sun rises every morning, the Guardian's front page will be a mass of distortions, misdirections and misconceptions. Today's effort is about fossil fuels again, and claims that they are "subsidised" to the tune of $10m a minute. Read a little further, and you discover that when they say "subsidy" they mean something rather different.
The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused to local populations by air pollution as well as to people across the globe affected by the floods, droughts and storms being driven by climate change.
In similar fashion, you can be fairly sure that when the Guardian says "black" it means what people usually refer to as "white", "yes" probably means "no", and that when a Guardian journalist tells you that he "didn't have sex with that woman" the truth is probably entirely indecent.
Reader Comments (55)
FFS it's the Guardian so you should expect twisted propaganda.
- In Orwell's Animal Farm the pigs became nastier than the humans they were saving the animals from
- In the media world the Guardian became nastier than the demon of Fox News they think they are saving the public from.
PROJECTION means that activists often become themselves worse than the caricature of their enemies.
..hence climate activists both shut down free speech and harm the environment.
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS are the 3 words that belong with any project, but you never see them mentioned in connection with saving CO2 via using Magic renewables like solar & wind.
- Actually yes capitalists should be responsible for the full extra damage their product causes. Now for the fossil fuel industry, this would mean climate activists going to court and PROVING the cost of CO2 output, not just taking a long a cherry picked expert who will say that he thinks this will be the cost. Obviously the activists CAN'T PROVE their case so instead of charging the fossil fuel biz they have to get their politician friends to order a subsidies to be paid to renewunables biz.
News : SSE is closing Ferrybridge C Power Station by March 2016 ..the TINY new Multifuel venture next door will continue
There were 4 units at 500MW each, 2 closed long ago, one had a fire last years so onjly 1 is left.
FM1 & FM2 (68 MW & 50MW) "The multifuel power station produces low carbon electricity and heat by burning waste derived fuel from various sources of processed municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial waste and waste wood."
haha low carbon as in "uses up more carbon"
But Phil Whitehurst, national officer of the General, Municipal and Boilermakers' Union (GMB) said the closure would be "devastating news".
He said: "The power station has years of life left to supply electricity at a fraction of the price of other energy suppliers.
"As things stand the only thing consumers will get from some of these suppliers are higher bills.
"Unlike Ferrybridge, none of the components and little of the labour will be sourced from the UK."
What's going to happen to the £250m Carbon Capture project at Ferrybridge (opened on 30 November 2008, Chris "the liar" Huhne) ?
..I guess it closes too ..All its websites are already dead
@RobertC mentioned Jeff Howell
a line on his website says "My own opinion is that injecting insulation into an existing cavity wall is a bad idea, with the potential to create problems whose rectification costs will far outweigh any savings in fuel costs, or corresponding environmental benefits. The best way to add thermal insulation to the walls of an existing home is on the outside or the inside, where the installation can be carried out under controlled site conditions, and any subsequent defects easily spotted and rectified."
"I believe CWI problems are vastly under-reported, and that many more will come to light in the coming years.
Most dampness problems do not show up in the first few weeks following installation – they become apparent after two or three winters"
"The UK Government claims it is currently well on track to meet its Kyoto targets by 2020, and CWI plays a big part in that estimate. But, supposing it were to emerge that half of the houses included in the Government’s calculations had not been properly insulated at all? "
His Telegraph article sums up his opinion
..And he says someone called "Amber Rudd" * doesn't take the problem seriously on account of her believing the industries over optimistic figures
* since then she has been promoted to Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
SandyS
I am aware of both of these insulation technologies for solid walls. I'm also familiar with external wall insulation techniques. As it happens, I have both applied at different parts of my solid-wall house. But these techniques are messy to do, cause a lot of disruption, are of dubious cost benefit. In my case I applied them because there were other savings as well as those of energy. As I said above, these techniques are not low-lying fruit.
Anyone for ripping up their concrete floors to install insulation?
Timmy is all over this one.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/05/19/imf-report-on-5-3-trillion-in-energy-subsidies-careful-its-not-quite-what-you-think/