Utopia, you are standing in it!

BBC staffers were recently taught how best to push messages about climate doom. So much for impartiality. Licence payers never agreed to this condescending nonsense.
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Climate change is once again dominating the news agenda, says The Spectator (via Climate Change Dispatch).

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that even if emissions are cut rapidly, the effects of global warming will be felt across the world.

The report – which Boris Johnson has declared sobering reading – leads the news today, with the BBC dedicating seven stories on its homepage today to climate change.

The true cost of chaotically intermittent wind power is staggering; the cost of offshore wind power is astronomical.

The capital cost of spearing these things offshore is multiples greater than doing so and some dimwitted farmer’s back paddock. Recouping that capital cost means that offshore wind power is 25 times more expensive than coal, gas or nuclear.

Jonathan Lesser runs the numbers below, in relation to a herd of colossal white elephants just waiting to be let loose along America’s Atlantic coast.

Offshore wind power vast boondoggle that New York can no longer afford
New York Post
Jonathan Lesser
30 July 2020

Offshore wind is the renewable-energy industry’s shiny new toy. Led by New York, seven Atlantic-coast states have now imposed mandates to expand offshore wind use over the next decade, with the Empire State last week soliciting bids for an additional 2,500 megawatts of offshore power, on…

The true cost of wind power is staggering – the cost of offshore wind power is astronomical: the latter is more than six times the cost of gas-fired power.

The operating cost of maintaining any industrial machine in a marine environment starts out high and only increases over time, thanks to the corrosive power of saltwater and salt-laden sea air.

Take a machine that, at best, has an economic lifespan of around 12 years and it doesn’t take long before the cost of operating a wind turbine offshore gets out of control.

Andrew Montford runs the numbers on what is a staggeringly expensive way of generating a trivial amount of sporadically delivered electricity.

The levelised cost of floating offshore wind
Global Warming Policy Forum
Andrew Montford
29 July 2021

We present what may be the first estimate of the levelised cost of floating offshore wind.

Last year, I wrote a…

The headlines said it all.

“High power demand forces blackouts in some areas”: Radio NZ.

“Things are running tight this morning: Transpower boss’ warning to Kiwis”: NZ Herald.

“’So Third World’ : Government faces pressure after power blackout” : Stuff

But doesn’t NZ have plenty of energy? After all, the Ardern government – in 2018 – could rule out any further offshore exploration for oil and gas.

And Energy Minister Megan Woods, more recently, has been complaining that wholesale power prices are too high.

It all hit home with dismaying force this week when – for the first time in several decades – NZ experienced enforced power blackouts.

As Stuff reported:

“The government is facing serious pressure after rolling power blackouts on one of the coldest nights of the year, with National saying the situation is ‘third world’.”

While his competitors continue to fumble around with much delayed, modest successes like getting spaceships into sub-orbital flights, Elon Musk’s SpaceX corporation continues to power ahead with stuff that’s at least a decade in front of them, not to mention national space agencies like China’s and NASA.

Following the successful atmospheric test flight of Starship SN15 – after a few catastrophic landings for earlier models – the next test ship, SN16, was simply scrapped while work moved ahead on a sub-orbital / orbital test vehicle.

This is entirely in keeping with SpaceX’s iterative development process of rapid design-build-test prototyping.

Only a few days ago, it was observed that the Super Heavy Booster (formerly called the BFR), the 1st stage of the Starship system, had been moved to its launchpad in Texas.

But just the other day, it was seen that an actual Starship sub-orbital/orbital model, SN20, was lifted…