Climate News Round-Up
The latest science-driven news and analysis to counter the cult of climate catastrophe
“£1.5 billion package announced to help Britain switch to electric vehicles” – Despite the massive tax rises expected in the Budget, Labour is reported to be planning to announce a further £1.3 billion for the Electric Car Grant, along with £200 million to speed up the rollout of thousands of charging points across the UK, bringing the total investment to £1.5 billion, reports Sky News.
“Is The Gulf Stream Really Collapsing? Debunking Another Climate Doomsday Claim” – In the No Tricks Zone, Pierre Gosselin debunks the claim that global warming could paradoxically shut down the Gulf Stream, plunging Europe into a new cold spell.
“Solar panel companies shut down for ‘exploiting’ vulnerable pensioners” – Two solar panel companies have been shut down after “deliberately exploiting” vulnerable pensioners, reports the Telegraph.
“Miliband says COP30 was ‘step forward’ despite lack of explicit fossil fuel plan” – Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he “would have preferred a more ambitious agreement” at COP30 in Brazil, reports the Independent.
“EV drivers to be bombarded with in-car adverts” – Drivers of electric cars are being hit with a wave of in-car digital advertising as vehicles’ large touch-screens become a route for brands to reach more eyeballs, says the Telegraph.
From the Climate Skeptic today
“Exposed: How Green ‘Philanthropy’ Gives Scripts to ‘Clean Air’ Activists” – Ben Pile highlights the work of Charlotte Gill exposing how green ‘philanthropy’ gives scripts to activists pushing ‘clean air’ schemes like Ulez as blatant proxies for the climate agenda.
I think it makes sense to build in cold climates, but not the ocean.
Regardless of what you pay for electricity, all of it turns into heat.
In warm climates and in the ocean that heat is just waste that must be dumped into the environment at additional expense. And the ocean has the additional disadvantage that the data center must be water tight and expensively maintained. People can’t breathe underwater. Computers don’t work underwater. And mussels and barnacles grow on all surfaces under the sea, including the heat exchange surfaces of a submerged data center. So any installations under water are going to be more expensive to build and maintain than one on land.
But in cold climates the heat is a valuable resource that can be sold, eliminating the cost of paying for that energy in the first place. For example, has no one ever thought of using a data center to heat a greenhouse? Seems like a no brainer to me, when the only alternative for fresh winter fruit is importing it from thousands of km away.
All you have to do is raise the humidity of the data center’s intake air to 25% (simple and cheap, because a spray of water will evaporate on its own), and then pass the exhaust (heated) air into a green house (with a second uptake in humidity for the plants). Modern LED lighting is very energy efficient and will provide light for growing fresh tomatoes in Winnipeg in January.
Oh, who am I kidding. In Canada, you would grow cannabis and make more money selling weed than the data center could ever make. Come to think of it, you could dry the buds on top of the data center’s computers to raise the humidity to a safe level.
So building where electricity is cheap and the waste heat can be sold makes perfect sense. So build in places like Manitoba and Quebec, both of which have brutal winters and are mass exporters of inexpensive, non-polluting hydroelectric power.