Tesla model s electric car bursts into flames. Two teenagers dead!

The Tesla does not use a gasoline-powered engine and is powered by a battery. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday to investigate, to “primarily focus on the emergency response in relation to the electric vehicle battery fire, including fire department activities and towing operations.”

The NTSB said it has a history of investigating emerging technologies to understand their effect on transportation accidents.

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Back-seat passenger Alexander Berry, of Fort Lauderdale, was ejected from the car. Firefighters took him to Broward Health Medical Center, where he was in fair condition Wednesday, the hospital said.

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The chemicals inside battery cells can be corrosive and flammable, said Karl Brauer, executive publisher for Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. “Electric vehicles are not more prone to fire, but batteries can burn hotter fires that are harder to extinguish,” he said. “Once there is a fire and you melt the battery pack, chemicals come out and when those chemicals come out, the fire can start, even without a spark.”

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-sb-engulfed-flames-car-crash-20180508-story.html

Claire Perry MP defends renewables. The truth is the opposite.

The Energy minister Claire Perry MP on a visitto Glasgow defended renewables.   The truth is somewhat different:

Wind power output amounted to 16.8 TWh last year in Scotland, most of which is onshore. Subsidies for this, via the Renewable Obligation system cost £816 million.

This equates to £154 for every man, woman and child in Scotland, or would do if it was not for the fact that the bill is shared out amongst everybody in the UK.

On top of this come the costs for building hundreds of miles of transmission cables, to carry electricity from remote Highland areas to where it is actually needed. Total costs are unknown, but will most certainly run into billions. In 2011, for instance, the BBC reported that the cost of the Beauly Denny power line alone was £600 million.

Then there is the cost of constraint payments to wind farm owners, when there is too much wind power on the system.

Despite these massive costs and subsidies, generation in Scotland has actually been falling in recent years. In fact, generation is now at its lowest level since at least 2004, when BEIS records begin.
Acknowledgements :  Not a lot pf people know that blog.

Sun spots vanishing fast. The real cause of climate change

           Dr Tony Phillips,  Nasa Spaceweather reports that so far in 2018 the sun has been blank almost 60% of the time with whole weeks going by without sunspots.  The second  graphic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun without sunspots.  The current solar cycle 24 is coming to an end.   NOAA`s Space Weather Prediction Center April 26th shows observed sunspot numbers in blue with the official forecast in red.

         The first graphic shows the sunspot number progression.   The actual monthly sunspot number is significantly lower than the predicted number..  The official forecast comes from Noaa`s Solar Cycle Prediction Panel. (acknowledgements to Anthony Watts of WUWT).  we are faced with a "cold" sun.   The last time the sunspots on the sun disappeared was the Mauder Minimum of the 17th century when the earth temperature dropped significantly. (a coming ice age?).