tomo - although I've had a lot of comments on my essay, so far there's been no 'shrill name calling' nor any 'contrived emotive claims'. That's probably because my audience has so far been largely sympathetic. But I do regularly make some of my points in places that are far from sympathetic and, on the whole, I find that opponents just go quiet. And that, I think, is simply because I try to confine my comments to easily verifiable fact. Name calling (shrill or otherwise) just looks silly in response to my observation, for example, that there are far too few skilled electrical engineers to meet Net Zero's requirements or that the extensive mining and mineral processing operations required for renewables are causing dreadful human suffering throughout the world.

I feel strongly that, as it’s possible to make an irrefutable case for abandoning Net Zero without, as I said to Robert, going anywhere near the ghastly and highly emotional area of climate change science, that must be the way to go. Otherwise you'll be dismissed as a 'denier' giving your opponents the perfect excuse for ignoring your views on the practicalities of the policy. And it's those views that matter: the overriding priority must be to get rid of this disastrous policy.

Robert: I've had a bit of that. My answer:

'I daresay you’re right – I’m not a scientist so I don’t know. But what I do know is that, if it’s possible to make an irrefutable case for abandoning net zero without going anywhere near the ghastly and highly emotional area of climate change science ‘debate’, that’s the way to go. This essay is an attempt to achieve that.'

tomo,
Thanks for the links. Owens Magnetic was interesting, though I'd have liked to have had more detail on what those various settings actually did. Were they just changing the current to fixed electromagnets, or were they bringing other sets of magnets into play?

Hadn't previously seen the Robin Guenier article. I wish him well with it. I'm afraid our side is a little prone to the "Judean People's Front" problem where unless you argue the case on the exact points I argue it on, you're part of the problem. I anticipate Robin will get a fair bit of Yeah Net Zero's rubbish, but why push that when CO2 isn't a problem anyway.

Listened to John Anderson interviewing Helen Joyce on the mad business of "transitioning" children. It was already fairly familiar from a number of Brendan O'Neill interviews, but there was one bit that gave me a wry laugh. Apparently, the NHS embeds your sex in your personal identifier(*). People who "transition", are therefore issued a new NHS id, which (madly enough) makes all their previous records inaccessible. Researchers are unable to do before and after comparisons of the person's state of physical or mental health. I suspect this amnesia was accidental, to begin with, but now seen as a convenience.

(*)Embedding attributes inside an identifier is generally a bad idea because attributes can change and you don't want to be changing identifiers; in their defence, the original devisers of NHS identifiers probably thought sex wouldn't be changing.

Had a skim around for info on Toyota's turbine hybrid work. It seems to be one of those circular topics where all the articles have a lot in common. Anyhow, this one gets it across reasonably well.

Now fit modern developments in batteries and electric motors to that setup and it could have a lot of appeal. Might even work for heavy transport.

tomo,
That presentation didn't grab me all that much. Lots of "never mind the bureaucracy" and "what we'll be able to do ..."; not much more than a confident sales spiel. OTOH, at least they haven't gone the in-vogue plan of storing energy as hydrogen.

Liquid fuel always made more sense as a target, but I would like to have a better understanding of the path to it. That presentation was ok for how do we get hydrogen, but was a bit armwavy about the other feedstocks for their "Syntholene". He says "All we need is water and heat" — seems improbable.

tomo,
Helicopter graphical presentation was enjoyable, but it also led me to a comment somewhere (another video I think) mentioning that, before Toyota developed the petrol/electric hybrid setup in the Prius (etc.), they experimented with a electric-only drive with a dedicated little turbine engine doing the generating.

Hadn't heard about that before (and haven't looked any further into it). Sounds a very interesting idea. My wild guess is that emission control was a likely concern, with all the petrol/diesel stuff already being well advanced, and turbines not having had much development for road use.

Those One Nation cartoons are pretty well done. Pauline Hanson, even after all these years, is not a polished politician. She's always had a knack for striking the right notes and then landing a clanger or two. But she's been schooled in hard political knocks: Jailed for a legalistic excuse (but really for being too popular) in the '90s, then later having her political party taken over by activists. Maybe her party will rise in the manner of Wilders or Meloni. The establishment will raise quite a fuss if that happens.

John Campbell talking to Aussie activist lawyer Julian Gillespie on the battle to hold the authorities to account for the, er... shortcuts, taken in testing and approving the mRNA vaccines. Pretty long, but interesting story. I think I first met the phrase "circling the wagons" at Climate Audit, but I've had it in mind plenty of times since then. This might turn out to be the biggest one yet.