[Current image of the sun with virtually blank conditions; courtesy NASA/SDO]

Overview
The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun’s X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. We are currently more than six years into Solar Cycle 24 and the current nearly blank sun may signal the end of the solar maximum phase. Solar cycle 24 began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009 which included more spotless days on the sun compared to any minimum in almost a century.

Solar maximum
The smoothed sunspot number (plot below) for solar cycle 24 reached a peak of 81.9 in April 2014 and it is looking increasingly likely that this spike will be considered to be the solar maximum for this cycle. This second peak in the cycle surpassed the level of an earlier peak that reached 66.9 in February 2012. Many solar cycles are double peaked; however, this is the first one in which the second peak in sunspot number was larger than the first peak. Going back to 1755, there have been only a few solar cycles in the previous 23 that have had a lower number of sunspots during its maximum phase.

[Sunspot numbers for the prior solar cycle (#23) and the current solar cycle (#24) with its two peaks highlighted; courtesy Hathaway, NASA/ARC]

Consequences of a weak solar cycle
First, the weak solar cycle has resulted in rather benign “space weather” in recent times with generally weaker-than-normal geomagnetic storms. By all Earth-based measures of geomagnetic and geoeffective solar activity, this cycle has been extremely quiet. However, while a weak solar cycle does suggest strong solar storms will occur less often than during stronger and more active cycles, it does not rule them out entirely. In fact, the famous “superstorm” Carrington Event of 1859 occurred during a weak solar cycle (#10) [http://vencoreweather.com/2014/09/02/300-pm-the-carrington-event-of-1859-a-solar-superstorm-that-took-places-155-years-ago/]. In addition, there is some evidence that most large events such as strong solar flares and significant geomagnetic storms tend to occur in the declining phase of the solar cycle. In other words, there is still a chance for significant solar activity in the months and years ahead.

Second, it is pretty well understood that solar activity has a direct impact on temperatures at very high altitudes in a part of the Earth’s atmosphere called the thermosphere. This is the biggest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere which lies directly above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation and are highly dependent on solar activity.

Finally, if history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a cooling impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere – and where we all live. There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first period is known as the “Maunder Minimum”, named after the solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and it lasted from around 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the “Dalton Minimum”, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, and it lasted from about 1790 to 1830 (below). Both of these historical periods coincided with colder-than-normal global temperatures in an era now referred to by many scientists as the “Little Ice Age”. In addition, research studies in just the past couple of decades have found a complicated relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays, and clouds on Earth. This research suggests that in times of low solar activity where solar winds are typically weak; more cosmic rays reach the Earth’s atmosphere which, in turn, has been found to lead to an increase in certain types of clouds that can act to cool the Earth.

[400 years of sunspots with “minimum” periods highlighted; map courtesy wikipedia]

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2) Oops: Nations Fail To Meet UN Climate Fund Deadline
Agence France-Presse, 30 April 2015

Nations missed a self-imposed deadline to firm up pledges worth $4.7 billion (4.2 billion euros) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) by Thursday, mustering arrangements for less than $4 billion, the fund said.

This leaves it short of the threshold to start funding projects to curb dangerous climate change, GCF executive director Hela Cheikhrouhou told journalists by teleconference from Songdo, South Korea.

“The fund has successfully signed agreements for close to $4 billion from 21 countries, representing 42 percent of the amount ($9.3 billion) pledged at our pledging conference in Berlin” last November, she said.

The 30-odd funder nations had agreed that 50 percent of the $9.3 billion Berlin pledges should be converted into “contribution agreements”, with timetables for payment, by close of business Thursday.

“The 50 percent figure was necessary to enable the fund to start its programming activities, meaning to commit financial resources to mitigation and adaptation projects and programmes,” said Cheikhrouhou.

The figure achieved was “not sufficient,” she said, and urged “all remaining contributors to turn their pledges into signed agreements at their earliest opportunity.”

Countries that have not signed include the United States, which had pledged $3 billion, Japan ($1.5 billion), Canada ($277 million) and Australia ($187 million), said a GCF document.

The fund was created after developed countries agreed at a UN climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 to mobilise $100 billion annually by 2020 for climate aid to developing countries.

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3) Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats Demand Lowering German Climate Target
Rheinische Post, 1 May 2015

The Economic Council of the ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU) wants to water down Germany’s current climate target for 2020.

The Economic Council of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) is questioning the current climate target of Germany’s federal government in response to plans by Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democratic Party) to impose a climate levy on older coal power plants. “It was a mistake not to reduce the CO2 target  to 30 percent by 2020 while phasing out of nuclear energy, ” the Secretary General of the Economic Council, Wolfgang Steiger, criticised.

The CDU business wing fears the loss of thousands of jobs and an “accelerated de-industrialization” of Germany should Gabriel prevail with his planned carbon tax. Gabriel is considering to tax coal power plants in order to save 22 million tons of CO2 emissions. The federal government’s coal is to reduce CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020.

The CDU’s Economic Council Secretary is now proposing a reduced climate target: “A realistic target corridor of 35 to 40 percent now needs to be established.”

4) Wolfram Weimer: The Madness Of Germany’s Energy Socialism
Wirtschafts Woche, 24 April 2015

Germany’s energy revolution is getting more and more absurd. After nuclear power and gas, coal power is about to be phased out. The madness is reaching new proportions.

Thirty years ago, he would have certainly been honored as “Master Architect of Socialism” or “Chief Activist of Socialist Labour” – east of the Elbe. Sigmar Gabriel is doing everything possible to re-establish a comprehensive planned economy in Germany: the green energy transition pushes the gates to energy-socialism far open.

His latest coup: the German coal mining industry should be subjected to a national climate change regime and should submit to bureaucratic CO2-tonnes planning and arbitrary special levies. The German economy, the coal-states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg, and the unions are up in arms. Verdi boss Frank Birske sees up to 100,000 jobs at risk and calls for mass demonstrations. The unfortunate RWE CEO Peter Terium warns desperately: “The levy would mean the immediate end for much of lignite mines and coal-fired plants.” And the Christian Democrat’s Armin Laschet warns:” With its special tax on coal the Minister of Economy purges the last subsidy-free, economic and import-independent domestic energy source from the German electricity market.”

In fact, the new coal plan is just another step in the great socialist power master plan that Sigmar Gabriel is rolling out all over Germany. Already a whole republic of Green electricity councils establishes determined plan-prices, solar and wind comrades produce arbitrary amounts of power, the population pays compulsory levies, supply and demand are suspended and party politics determine plan fulfilment figures. In this eco-socialism, everybody who produces electricity from renewable sources receives a nationally defined “energy feed-in tariff” (the very word sounds like it comes from East Berlin) according to plan specifications. This has as much to do with free market prices for electricity as Stasi boss Erich Mielke had to do with the freedom to travel – nothing.

What was once launched as a – well-intentioned – green energy revolution has now mutated into a giant VEB [i.e. East German state company]. In Gabriel’s system electricity production is no longer determined by demand – as is usual in a market economy. It is not demand that determines supply – but the subsidy billions. Produced is only what wind and solar power and feed-in tariffs expensively allow, not what the public and the economy need – cheap energy. In Gabriel’s national energy system there is an ideological distinction between “good” (green) and “evil” (traditional) energy. Therefore, even profitable and clean gas power plants are switched off – as just happened to Europe’s most modern gas-fired power plant in Irsching. Instead, new subsidy-fed projects are connected to the grid without the necessary network capacity and without the necessary storage technology. For these intermittent power plants, coal power plants have to be kept running as backups, which in turn emit a lot more CO2, which now are also extra-taxed. It all feels like socialist self-perpetuating: this energy revolution cannot be stopped.

Environmental Destruction

The eco-guaranteed prices already lead to all sorts of classic features of a planned economy all of which are well known from the Soviet bloc economies: unprofitable excess capacity, for example. Meanwhile, 1.4 million photovoltaic panels have been installed in the rather shady Germany. No other country in the world has built up such a tremendous and wholly unprofitable contingent. With around 25,000 wind turbines as well as thousands of biogas plants we are world leader. Like in the five-year plans of the socialist German Democratic Republic, quotas, objectives, and targets are prescribed by central ministries.

The new eco-planned economy devours vast billions in subsidies, not less than 22 billion euros total EEG feed-in tariff per year – and yet electricity from renewable sources, even after more than ten years of continuous subsidies, is more expensive than that from coal, oil, nuclear energy and gas. Rather than terminate the subsidy socialism, however, a parasitic mix of funding application experts, investors, plant manufacturers and subsidy distributers continues to drive the industry forward. They have created an eco-industrial complex, which performs perfect lobbying in Berlin, but which also ruins the country with windmills and fleeces it with collective money, because on top of that the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (Credit Bank for Rebuilding) grants the green lobby subsidised loans to ensure that the planned economy is also financially rounded.

The wrong-headed system is so expensive that only a very rich country like Germany can afford this large-scale experiment. Around 100 billion euros have already been burnt by this subsidy socialism. Currently the green energy levy costs 56 million euros every day. The expanding eco-socialism has turned energy providers to state combines of the Federal Grid Agency. Because this agency determines which prices may be charged for electricity transmission, it allows subsidies and authorised returns on investments. Because the industrial electricity prices are the second highest in Europe, energy-intensive businesses are gradually saying good-bye to Gabriel’s energy-socialism.

The fact that the colossal construction of wind turbines and solar installations also causes dramatic landscape blight is the sad irony of this green story. A journey through Gabriel-Germany is now like a green tunnel of horror, a roller-coaster ride through vast tracks of destroyed nature, a subsidy-grave filled with turbines and panels.

That’s why – rather than chasing coal off the market too – the green command and control economy needs to be reformed fundamentally. It has set in motion the biggest rip-off subsidy of recent history and has damaged the environment, it burdens the economy and forces all consumers to suffer from rising electricity prices. The worst distortions of the market have to be balanced by more and more new regulations. In this way, one government intervention justifies the next. Germany’s ‘real existing socialism’ has been history since 1989, thank God. The energy-existing Gabriel-socialism, however, is on the rise.

Translation Phillip Mueller

Coal To Remain Predominant Fuel For India and Japan’s Energy Plans
Business Standard, 30 April 2015

India and Japan have emphasised that coal will continue to be the predominant fuel for energy production for both the Asian countries. India’s energy consumption is likely to double.

India, which has doubled its coal thermal capacity since 2007, is looking towards greater emphasis on clean coal technologies while Japan will add another 7200 mw of coal capacity in the next five to seven years.

Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said that India will keep in mind the environment concerns and look for technologies for clean coal.

“We will look for technologies for clean coal as this will be the mainstay in India’s fuel mix even as we strive to address climate concerns,” Goyal.

Reiterating the importance of coal, visiting Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yoichi Miyazawa said, “Coal is geographically available and will remain an important energy source.” […]

“Japan has realized it is important to have thermal coal and is looking at putting in place 7200 MW over the next five years. We are looking at doubling our generation from one trillion to two trillion and our reliance on coal will continue…We will be happy to take up the best technology to bring down the impact of coal on the environment,” Goyal said.

Emphasising on the continued importance of coal, Goyal said that together Japan and India will lead the way and show the world how to have clean energy coming from coal based plants.

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