The entire European grid almost collapsed last winter because of a long episode of Dunkelflaute.
The Norwegian Energy Minister States It Bluntly: "It's an absolute shit situation."
Producing energy when it's not needed and failing to produce it when it is needed is an environmental tragedy at the highest level.
The carbon intensity of the antinuke coal burning assholes in Germany over the last 12 months is 285 g CO2/kWh compared to France's 19g CO2/kWh.
The trillions of dollars squandered on the useless "solar will save us" fantasy has done nothing to address the rising use of dangerous fossil fuels, and, in fact, it was never intended to attack fossil fuels. It was, and still is, almost entirely about attacking the only sustainable form of energy that was available to humanity, nuclear energy.
The only result of the successful attack on nuclear energy represented by unsustainable wind and solar garbage talk, thus preventing it from doing what it might have done, is to result in things getting worse faster.
New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 430.86 ppm
Most of the time I produce posts in this series, I refer to increases of the 1 year week to week comparators, generally when one of the readings among the 2,571 week to week comparators recorded at the observatory appears in the top fifty. For this week, week 18 of 2025, the increase over week 18 of 2024, the increase is 3.96 ppm higher, which places it as the 41st highest out 2571 data points of annual week to week comparators going back to the mid 1970's.
This is the 3nd reading to exceed 430 ppm in the history of the Observatory. The first reading to exceed 400 ppm took place not so long ago, the week beginning May 26, 2013, week 22 of that year, when the reading was 400.03 ppm.
Four of these readings exceed increases of 5.00 ppm, three of which were in 2024. Of the top 50 week to week/year to year comparators 25 have taken place in the last 5 years of which 13 occurred in 2024, 3 in 2025, 40 in the last 10 years, and 46 in this century.
Of the five readings from the 20th century, four occurred in 1998, when huge stretches of the Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests caught fire when slash and burn fires went out of control. These fires were set deliberately, designed to add palm oil plantations to satisfy the demand for "renewable" biodiesel for German cars and trucks as part of their "renewable energy portfolio." The only other reading from the 20th century to appear in the top 50 occurred in the week beginning August 21, 1988, which was 3.91 ppm higher than the same week of the previous year. For about ten years, until July of 1998, it was the highest reading ever recorded. It is now the 45th highest...
...An interesting and disturbing thing about this week's reading is where it stands among comparators with the reading of ten years previous. It is 26.57 ppm higher than week 18 of 2015. Of all such ten year comparators among the 2088 comparators week to week comparator over a ten year period, this is tied for the 20th highest ever recorded. The highest, 27.65 ppm occurred in 2024, in the week beginning February 4, 2024, week 5, which also gave the highest single year comparator, that with week 5 of 2023, where it was 5.75 ppm higher.
All of the top 50 highest comparators in week to week comparisons with that of ten years earlier have taken place since 2020. Of the top 50 such data points, the 10 highest have occurred since January 1st 2024. Overall, 15 of the top 50 occurred in 2025, which of course is not done yet. All of the top 50 such readings have taken place in this decade, 29 of them in 2024.
There is a lot of statistical noise in these readings. Week 13 of 2025 for instance, was anomalous given that it was one of the now rare readings to be less than 1.00 ppm higher than Week 13 of 2024, 0.94 ppm higher to be precise. This kind of event is relatively rare in these times, the last time having occurred in 2023 in week 7 of that year. In 1975, the first year available as data at the Mauna Loa observatory, 44% of the readings were lower than 1.00 ppm compared to the previous year.
Because of statistical noise, in my spreadsheet I keep a 52 week running average of the week to week comparators with those of ten years earlier. Five weeks ago, week 12 of 2025, this running average hit 26.00 ppm for the first time. As of week 18, it is now 26.12 ppm/10 years. This is the highest value ever obtained...
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to celebrate in connection with solar energy. As its use depends on access to dangerous fossil fuels to bridge not just Dunkelflaute, but also the widely reported occurrence of an event called "night," it is a disaster, an unsustainable affectation that is popular only as a function of mass insanity.
To my mind, the only acceptable amount of fossil fuels to be burned is 0%. Neither, solar nor wind, functions of the reactionary call for dependence on the weather for energy, are capable of reaching this goal. Nuclear energy, invented by the finest minds of the 20th century, might have succeeded at this, but fear and ignorance triumphed, leaving us with a burning planet. (It is now too late to save much of what is left to save or to restore what might have been restored.)
History will not forgive us, nor should it.
Have a pleasant Sunday.
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