This document is part of an archive of postings on Greenie Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written
This is a backup copy of the original blog
30 November, 2023
Eat Less Meat Is Message for Rich World in Food’s First Net Zero Plan
UN’s FAO is set to publish plan for food’s climate transition
Food expected to take more focus at COP28 summit in Dubai
The world’s most-developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat as part of the first comprehensive plan to bring the global agrifood industry into line with the Paris climate agreement.
The global food systems’ road map to 1.5C is expected to be published by the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization during the COP28 summit next month. Nations that over-consume meat will be advised to limit their intake, while developing countries — where under-consumption of meat adds to a prevalent nutrition challenge — will need to improve their livestock farming, according to the FAO.
From farm to fork, food systems account for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and much of that footprint is linked to livestock farming — a major source of methane, deforestation and biodiversity loss. Although non-binding, the FAO’s plan is expected to inform policy and investment decisions and give a push to the food industry’s climate transition which has lagged other sectors in commitments.
The guidance on meat is intended to send a clear message to governments. But politicians in richer nations typically shy away from policies aimed at influencing consumer behavior, especially where it involves cutting consumption of everyday items.
“Livestock is politically sensitive, but we need to deal with sensitive issues to solve the problem,” said Dhanush Dinesh, the founder of Clim-Eat, which works to accelerate climate action in food systems. “If we don’t tackle the livestock problem, we are not going to solve climate change. The key problem is overconsumption.”
North America Has Biggest Appetite for Meat
The average American consumes about 127 kilograms of meat a year compared with 7 kilograms in Nigeria and just 3 kilograms in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the FAO data. The Eat-Lancet Commission recommends people consume no more than 15.7 kilograms of meat a year.
The Rome-based UN agency, tasked with improving the agricultural sector and nutrition, is seeking to strike a balance between the climate transition and ensuring food security for the growing global population. So as well as calling for less meat consumption for the world’s well fed, the plan would also encourage farmers in developing countries to bolster productivity of their livestock and supply more sustainably.
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UK: The Tories have capitulated to green extremists
The Green Blob’s iron grip is squeezing the life out of our economy
We have long been told that the costs would be taken into account along with the benefits. We have been reassured that the burden would be eased on households and small businesses. And, more recently, we were led to believe that some of the more draconian measures would be scrapped.
Following Rishi Sunak’s reset of some net zero plans earlier this year, there was optimism that the Government was no longer capitulating to the more extreme wing of the green movement.
Yet, in the last week alone, we have heard reports of bans on gas hobs, a change to the rules to encourage uptake of heat pumps that no one wants, closures of refining plants and demands for even more taxpayer cash for electric vehicles.
In reality, the iron grip of the Green Blob is as tight as ever – and until the Conservatives find a way of breaking free, it will squeeze the life out of the economy.
By now, the UK was meant to have switched from the camp of the net zeros to that of the net sensibles. The Prime Minister had, quite rightly, recognised that turning a nation which accounts for only 1pc of global carbon emissions into a global leader on fighting climate change was becoming increasingly unaffordable.
The costs for hard-pressed households and small businesses, in particular, were simply too high.
He pushed back the deadline for banning the sale of petrol-driven cars from 2030 to 2035 (bringing it in line with the EU), relaxed the target for phasing out gas boilers, and scrapped plans to start fining landlords if they didn’t pay for expensive energy-saving upgrades.
Instead of leading a green crusade, the UK would sensibly assess the costs and benefits of each plan, wait to see what worked in the rest of the world, and then decide what would be cost effective in this country.
Yet in the last week alone, we have witnessed another whole series of crazy green targets.
In Oxford, the local council has unveiled plans to ban gas cookers and boilers in new homes from 2025, a decision that will drive up the cost of building in a part of the country where extra housing is desperately needed (and where life sciences and tech companies could be thriving if only people had somewhere to live).
If that goes ahead, we can be confident that virtue-signalling councillors will mimic the policy right around the country.
On heat pumps, rules have been relaxed so that people can place the cumbersome beasts closer to boundary walls regardless of how much noise it might cause to neighbours.
Instead of waiting for a better carbon-neutral technology to arrive, and there are plenty in development, the Government is insisting that we press on with a vastly expensive switch to heating systems that hardly work and no one wants.
In an Autumn Statement that was meant to be pro-business and pro-investment, the Chancellor still felt compelled to dish out another Ł2bn in subsidies to the auto industry for the switchover to electric vehicles.
That is despite falling sales to private buyers, as it becomes increasingly clear they may well be the wrong way of switching to carbon neutral transport.
Huge new subsidies have been offered earlier this month to the wind industry to keep it afloat, even though we have been lectured for years that it is the cheapest form of energy there is. It is hard to see how any of that fits into a strategy of switching to a more moderate policy on net zero.
In reality, the green fanatics are just as influential as they have ever been. The Government has managed to chip away at it very slightly. But it is having only a marginal impact.
The problem is profound and far-reaching. A range of bodies, where greenery is institutional, have taken control of the climate change agenda and keep ramping up every existing target.
The devolved administrations appear more interested in appeasing their green allies and supporters than protecting jobs and the local economy. And civil servants simply shrug off the change of government policy as irrelevant, while the legal system has been used by climate activists to impose mandated targets.
No one – well, almost no one – disagrees that climate change is important nor that we need to reduce carbon emissions. But that doesn’t mean that it can be achieved without taking full account of all the costs.
It doesn’t mean that the Government, despite its dire track record, should choose which technologies are best to achieve that. And it doesn’t mean that it should be done by picking arbitrary targets out of thin air at a climate change conference and sticking to them even when it is glaringly obvious that they are no longer realistic.
Under Sunak’s brief reset, the UK had an opportunity to embrace a more sensible approach, as indeed President Macron is doing in France, with plans to ramp up nuclear power, and even the Social Democrat-Green coalition in Germany, with old coal mines reopened as a backup for intermittent wind power.
We could have settled on a steady reduction in carbon emissions, but combined it with energy security, and made sure that costs were kept under control for households, and that industry had the power it needed to remain competitive on the global market.
Instead, the Green Blob has doubled down on a headlong rush towards net zero regardless of the expense.
Until that changes, the economy will keep on getting crushed by extreme environmentalism – and whatever ministers promise there is very little sign of that changing any time soon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/25/tories-have-capitulated-to-heat-pump-extremists/
***************************************Siemens Energy plans to withdraw from wind power
As a consequence of the escalated ongoing disaster, Siemens Energy is considering a partial withdrawal from its onshore wind turbine business.
Christian Bruch illustrates the dimensions of the crisis. “We have the largest order backlog in the energy technology industry, and the success of the energy transition will require Siemens Energy,” emphasised the head of the DAX group during a memorable balance sheet presentation in Munich.
Until the evening before, the federal government and banks, Siemens Energy and parent Siemens had been negotiating to secure state guarantees that were vital for survival. Final details are still open, Bruch's answers showed. What is clear, however, is that the crisis-ridden company has reinsured 7.5 billion euros of the twelve billion euros that banks guarantee for major Siemens Energy projects and Siemens is liable for another billion euros. But everything is still far from good.
Siemens Energy does not want to supply the entire world with wind turbines in the future
As a consequence of the escalated ongoing disaster, Bruch is considering a partial withdrawal from the onshore wind turbine business where existing problems are concentrated. “When an area loses so much money, you have to question the strategy,” the manager realised after a three-year decline. In the past 2022/23 financial year alone (as of September 30th), the net loss was 4.6 billion euros on sales of 31 billion euros, after previous years had already seen lower red figures.
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Australia: Former Letist cabinet minister lashes government over green litigant funding
Former Labor cabinet minister Joel Fitzgibbon has lashed the Albanese government over its decision to hand millions of dollars to help green litigants, accusing Labor of “financing job destroying legal challenges”.
In a speech to forestry industry leaders, the former Hunter MP said Labor had “handed taxpayers’ money to activists”.
The attacks come after Labor fulfilled its election promise to reverse funding cuts to the Environmental Defenders Office, providing $10m in funding to the community legal centre over the forward estimates.
The EDO is an legal organisation well known for its environmental advocacy, running high-profile cases against coal and gas developments.
Mr Fitzgibbon, the chair of the Australian Forest Products Association, said it made no sense for the government to fund activists to take legal action “against the very government that gave them the money”.
“Activists funded by rich donors - and indeed governments through the Environmental Defenders Office - are challenging value-creating projects in the law courts,” Mr Fitzgibbon said, in a speech delivered earlier this month that has been obtained by The Australian.
“In a wealthy, liberal democracy it makes sense to use taxpayers money to ensure all Australians have legal representation when they face a criminal conviction. But it makes no sense to hand taxpayers’ money to activists so they can take legal action against the very government that gave them the money.
“To challenge in the courts approvals processes the government rightly argues are as robust as any in the world.”
Labor pledged to reinstate funding for the EDO ahead of the last election in order to enable Australians to have access to the law.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek told The Australian Labor was “proud to be restoring funding to the Environmental Defenders Office, reversing cuts made by the Abbott government.”
“Every section of our community deserves legal advocacy. As does our previous environment. Unlike the Liberals and Nationals, we are not afraid of scrutiny and accountability,” Ms Plibersek said.
Government officials pointed out that the EDO was also funded under the Rudd and Gillard governments of which Mr Fitzgibbon was a Cabinet minister.
The Abbott government cut funding to the organisation following allegations of activist lawfare.
The EDO, first established in NSW in 1985, has used the courts to delay or squash major projects including the Adani coalmine in central Queensland, Santos’ Barossa gas proposad and forestry developments in Tasmania.
The body has received grants from groups including the Myer Foundation.
In a wide-ranging speech, Mr Fitzgibbon also attacked “extreme environmental activists” who he said “would destroy our sovereign capability in this country and destroy the jobs of the people who provide it”.
“AFPA provides me with an opportunity to do another thing I did for many years in politics – to take on the extreme environmental activists who, given the chance, would destroy our sovereign capability in this country and destroy the jobs of the people who provide it,” he said.
The EDO was contacted for comment.
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29 November, 2023
Germany's green debt emergency
It looks like the government has found the most obvious solution to the problem: declare another state of emergency to allow more borrowing for the Green agenda.
While North American newspapers frown with concern at the resounding Dutch election victory of Geert Wilders, an arguably more interesting crisis in neighbouring Germany is being somewhat overlooked.
In 2021, Germany held a Bundestag election that led to an awkward coalition government, with participation from the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Euro-liberal Free Democrats (FDP). The FDP normally gets somewhere between five and 12 per cent of the vote in Germany, and more often than not is in a position to swing the national government either to the centre-left Social Democrats or the centre-right Christian Democrats.
This time out, the chairman of the Free Democrats, Christian Lindner, was handed the finance portfolio and promised to rein in the spending impulses of the Reds and the Greens.
The German Constitution has an unusual rule that was introduced in 2009: a “debt brake” that limits the federal deficit in any given year to 0.35 per cent of gross domestic product. This is a pretty tight limit, which can be waived only if there is a recession, or the government declares a public emergency. (The analogous figure for the Canadian federal government was 0.6 per cent for the second quarter of this year and 1.2 per cent for the first.)
The debt brake helped Germany (and Chancellor Angela Merkel) establish a reputation for marvellous fiscal rectitude in the decade after it was created. But the multiple blows heaped on German public finances by COVID and the Russo-Ukrainian war (when do we start capitalizing the W?) began to add up.
The previous German government declared an emergency in 2020 and created a coronavirus relief fund that was outside the envelope imposed by the debt brake. In December 2021, with lots of credit left in the COVID instrument, the new part-Green German government decided, hey, looks like we’ve got some free money we can invest in green energy measures.
It decided to put 60-billion euros (about C$90 billion) of the COVID fiscal room into encouraging electrified home heating and transport. But opposition politicians naturally saw this as an unconstitutional swindle and an abuse of emergency powers. The constitutional status of the debt brake allowed them to sue in federal court — and last week they won. Pretty resoundingly, as it happens.
This punched a huge hole in German finances, and on Tuesday a humiliated Lindner announced an immediate freeze on federal spending. Meanwhile, the coalition could no longer paper over its fundamental differences.
The Greens hate the debt brake and would like to see it eliminated — but the necessary constitutional change would require the support of two-thirds of the Bundestag, which ain’t happening. The Social Democrats, leading the coalition but floundering in the polls, are naturally reluctant to raise taxes to meet the crisis. Lindner and the Free Democrats would prefer to stand up for austerity, but not at the expense of their own popularity.
As of this writing, it looks like the triad has found the most obvious solution to the problem: declare another state of emergency to allow more borrowing for the Green agenda.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/germanys-green-debt-emergency
**********************************************The Dutch revolt against Net Zero
One of the big losers of this week’s Dutch elections, in which right-winger Geert Wilders romped to victory, was Frans Timmermans, leader of a newly formed alliance of the Labour and Green parties. Timmermans is best known internationally as the former vice-president of the European Commission, where he was the architect and face of the EU’s flagship climate policy, the European Green Deal. To fans, he was hailed as the EU’s ‘climate pope’. Yet it is no exaggeration to say his stringent climate targets are set to impoverish Europe.
It seems the European mainstream media are finally taking note of the disastrous consequences of Timmermans’s Net Zero zealotry. Last week, Politico warned that his EU climate policies could be about to set off a wave of deindustrialisation on a scale we haven’t seen in 50 years.
The report asked the question: ‘Does the architect of Europe’s Green Deal truly understand what he’s unleashed?’ The answer can only be a resounding ‘Yes’.
The truth is that Timmermans is simply indifferent to deindustrialisation in the EU. Indeed, as noted in Politico, he ‘has been candid about the cost of his revolution’ and has warned that ‘the journey will be harder on some than on others’. Back in 2020, Timmermans admitted to the European Parliament that his wild goose chase for Net Zero would be ‘bloody hard’.
So who, precisely, is Timmermans asking to make sacrifices? Most of the burden of his green schemes will fall on the working class – both through job losses from factory closures and from ever rising energy costs.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/24/the-dutch-revolt-against-net-zero/
*********************************************The Green Energy Wall gradually coming into focus
It’s been obvious for many years that electricity generation from the intermittent wind and sun would never work to power a modern economy. But how would the infeasibility of the proposed energy transition finally manifest itself to put an end to the madness?
A couple of years ago I began writing about the the upcoming “Renewable Energy Wall,” for example in this piece from December 2021 titled “Which Country Or U.S. State Will Be The First To Hit The Renewable Energy Wall?” I called for readers to place their bets as to which among various jurisdictions would be the first to recognize that it could never achieve the net zero goal. But what would be the aspects of reality that would put an end to further renewable development? Would it be the soaring costs? Or perhaps the spreading blackouts? Or maybe the voters wising up? Or maybe other things that nobody had yet guessed?
Over the past few weeks and months, several parts of the coming Green Energy Wall have started to come into focus. The two factors that are emerging most significantly at this early stage are (1) voters starting to catch on, and (2) the inability of wind and solar developers to deliver projects at costs that are at all workable for consumers.
In the voter category, many places, particularly in Europe, have long had an all-party political consensus in favor of “climate action,” or some such nonsensical slogan, thus making it almost impossible for citizens to use their vote to push for any kind of sensible energy policies. But suddenly that is changing. First we had Argentina a week ago electing as President an avowed climate skeptic, Javier Milei.
And then on Wednesday, the Netherlands followed suit, giving the biggest bloc of seats in its Parliament to the party of another avowed climate skeptic, Geert Wilders. Wilders’s Freedom Party delivered a drubbing to both the “center right” party of the current Prime Minister Mark Rutte, as well as to a Labor/Green coalition headed by Frans Timmermans, who is the European Commission’s Vice President and a face for the EU’s noxious climate agenda.
Euro News today has some quotes from the manifesto of the Freedom Party:
[T]he PVV manifesto . . . declares: "We have been made to fear climate change for decades... We must stop being afraid." “The climate is always changing, for centuries,” the document goes on to say. "When conditions change we adapt. We do this through sensible water management, by raising dykes when necessary and by making room for the river. But we stop the hysterical reduction of CO2, with which, as a small country, we wrongly think we can "save" the climate.” The manifesto also calls for more oil and gas extraction from the North Sea and keeping coal and gas power stations open.
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Some better ways to net zero
Australia’s ALP/Green government and their media mates are using subsidies, taxes, and propaganda in a lemming-style attempt to move the whole country to 82 per cent ‘renewable’ energy by 2030 and ‘Net Zero Emissions by 2050’. Canny Aussies are buying diesel generators.
If they persist in their rush to Net Zero, we have a few ‘Net Zero’ suggestions for them.
‘Net Zero Immigration’
Every migrant adds to Australia’s emissions by consuming food, electricity, transport fuels, and housing. Thus, to reach Net Zero emissions, the rest of us must be rationed further to cope with these additional emitters.
‘Net Zero Tourists’
Every tourist adds to our emissions for transport, food, electricity, and accommodation. To achieve Net Zero emissions in the face of millions of immigrants, tourists, and foreign students will need slick carbon accounting, or penury for the rest of us. Victoria’s Dan Andrews was accidentally right for once – he cancelled the Commonwealth Games.
‘Net Zero growth of welfare and the bureaucracy’
Net Zero will not allow us to import hundreds of foreign workers for our mines, factories, and farms while we maintain battalions of bureaucrats shuffling files in air-conditioned ivory towers in the capital cities. Nor can we accept growing armies of able-bodied idlers sipping green smoothies at the beach.
We must get all healthy Aussies into real jobs.
‘Net Zero growth in locked-up land’
Wind and solar energy are sterilising huge and growing areas of land to produce their intermittent electricity. This greatly reduces the land available to grazing, forestry, fishing, exploration, and mining.
It’s time to call a halt.
There must be a net zero increase in land devoted to national parks, marine parks, world heritage playgrounds, locked-up Native Title area, or carbon credit and green energy wastelands.
‘Net Zero lies about electric vehicles’
They have a fanciful plan to replace our petrol and diesel cars, trucks, dozers, and tractors with fleets of yet-to-be-built battery or hydrogen powered vehicles. Where are the fast-refuelling stations for them all? And who has counted the extra emissions to mine and refine the metals for batteries, electric motors, turbines, and power lines? And where will we get the extra electricity for overnight re-charging of battery-powered vehicles as coal generators close, the sun sets, and the wind drops? (They have discovered the answer in ever-green California – electric powered trucks are being recharged with diesel generators.)
‘No Subsidies for Hydrogen’
In this unplanned rush to all-green energy some extol the coming of hydrogen powered vehicles. To produce green hydrogen requires large amounts of electricity plus nine tonnes of water for every tonne of hydrogen produced by electrolysis. Some even think that it makes sense to use large amounts of electricity to desalinate sea water to make green hydrogen. Such a process is not even ‘net zero’. It is hugely energy negative. Obviously the main goal is to harvest green subsidies or votes.
‘No Subsidies for ‘Pumped Hydro’
Greens think taxpayers should fund giant dams and turbines to generate electricity when green energy is on strike – at night, on cloudy days, and during wind droughts.
Does that mean that Greens believe we can steal water from every river system for green energy stabilisation while reducing the water stored for towns, farms, and orchards?
Let’s have the first dam on the Franklyn River in Tasmania (they want to be ‘the battery of the nation’).
‘Full Accounting of all Emissions’
Who is counting all the emissions being generated to manufacture, transport, and erect an ugly intrusive spider-web of roads and power lines to collect intermittent solar and wind energy from mountains, flats, seas, and roof-tops? Where is the carbon and dollar accounting for the metals, concrete, and hydrocarbon fuels that are needed?
We must also count the emissions to manufacture and erect all their planned green energy stabilisation schemes involving pumped hydro and giant batteries. All of this is a dash into the unknown without a coherent plan of how it will all work, or its full cost.
‘We need a Climate-Exit Referendum’
We are locked into never-ending climate conferences and all the costs and eco-babble generated by Paris Climate Agreement.
They want us locked into 15 minute cities with bicycles, walking shoes, oat-milk coffee, and fake meat burgers while they jet off to a new well-fed tourist destination every year. We have copped these annual climate-fests for 26 years now. The last one catered for about 40,000 delegates and hangers-on for 2 weeks of talk-fest that achieved nothing useful (as usual).
Let’s have a Clexit (Climate Exit) Referendum and abandon all liabilities under the Kyoto and Paris Climate Agreements.
‘The Net Zero Prize’
Our reward for reaching our 2030 Net Zero Emissions targets will be a precarious population with industry operating on the whims of the weather and an angry, urbanised, locked-down population faced with food, fuel, and electricity rationing.
There is no global warming crisis, but Blackouts Bowen (Australia’s Minister for Climate Panics and Zero Energy) is determined to create an electricity crisis. Power grid failure will be followed quickly by failure of food and water supplies to cities. Hopefully Canberra, (Australia’s Green Capital) will be the first to suffer.
The rest of Australia must vote no to this dangerous Net Zero delusion.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/the-net-zero-lemmings-rush
**************************************************28 November, 2023
ROWAN ATKINSON: Our honeymoon with electric vehicles is over so, for now, my advice is to hang on to your old petrol motor
His point about old cars is well taken. These days there is rarely any need to buy a new car. My 2004 Toyota Echo still runs like a watch and has never let me down. It has only ever needed wear and tear items replaced and routine maintenance
I love electric vehicles — and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped.
Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV. There are sound environmental reasons not to jump just yet.
Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master's in control systems.
Combine this, perhaps surprising, academic pathway with a lifelong passion for the motorcar, and you can see why I was drawn into an early adoption of electric vehicles.
I bought my first electric hybrid 18 years ago and my first pure electric car nine years ago and (notwithstanding our poor electric charging infrastructure) have enjoyed my time with both very much.
Electric vehicles may be a bit soulless, but they're wonderful mechanisms: fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run. But increasingly, I feel a little duped. When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn't seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.
As you may know, the Government has proposed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The problem with the initiative is that it seems to be largely based on conclusions drawn from only one part of a car's operating life: what comes out of the exhaust pipe.
Electric cars, of course, have zero exhaust emissions, which is a welcome development, particularly in respect of the air quality in city centres. But if you zoom out a bit and look at a bigger picture that includes the car's manufacture, the situation is very different.
In advance of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are nearly 70 per cent higher than when manufacturing a petrol one.
How so? The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they're absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of ten years.
It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile's fight against the climate crisis.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of effort is going into finding something better.
New, so-called solid-state batteries are being developed that should charge more quickly and could be about a third of the weight of the current ones — but they are years away from being on sale, by which time, of course, we will have made millions of overweight electric cars with rapidly obsolescing batteries.
Hydrogen is emerging as an interesting alternative fuel, even though we are slow in developing a truly 'green' way of manufacturing it. It can be used in one of two ways. It can power a hydrogen fuel cell (essentially, a kind of battery); the car manufacturer Toyota has poured a lot of money into the development of these.
Such a system weighs half of an equivalent lithium-ion battery and a car can be refuelled with hydrogen at a filling station as fast as with petrol.
If the lithium-ion battery is an imperfect device for electric cars, concerns have been raised over their use in heavy trucks for long distance haulage because of the weight; an alternative is to inject hydrogen into a new kind of piston engine.
If hydrogen wins the race to power trucks — and as a result every filling station stocks it — it could be a popular and accessible choice for cars.
But let's zoom out even further and consider the whole life cycle of an automobile.
The biggest problem we need to address in society's relationship with the car is the 'fast fashion' sales culture that has been the commercial template of the car industry for decades.
Currently, on average we keep our new cars for only three years before selling them on, driven mainly by the ubiquitous three-year leasing model.
This seems an outrageously profligate use of the world's natural resources when you consider what great condition a three-year-old car is in.
When I was a child, any car that was five years old was a bucket of rust and halfway through the gate of the scrapyard. Not any longer. You can now make a car for Ł15,000 that, with tender loving care, will last for 30 years.
It's sobering to think that if the first owners of new cars just kept them for five years, on average, instead of the current three, then car production and the CO2 emissions associated with it, would be vastly reduced.
Yet we'd be enjoying the same mobility, just driving slightly older cars.
We need also to acknowledge what a great asset we have in the cars that currently exist (there are nearly 1.5 billion of them worldwide).
In terms of manufacture, these cars have paid their environmental dues and, although it is sensible to reduce our reliance on them, it would seem right to look carefully at ways of retaining them while lowering their polluting effect. Fairly obviously, we could use them less.
As an environmentalist once said to me, if you really need a car, buy an old one and use it as little as possible.
A sensible thing to do would be to speed up the development of synthetic fuel, which is already being used in motor racing; it's a product based on two simple notions: one, the environmental problem with a petrol engine is the petrol, not the engine and, two, there's nothing in a barrel of oil that can't be replicated by other means.
Formula One is going to use synthetic fuel from 2026. There are many interpretations of the idea but the German car company Porsche is developing a fuel in Chile using wind to power a process whose main ingredients are water and carbon dioxide.
With more development, it should be usable in all petrol-engine cars, rendering their use virtually CO2-neutral.
Increasingly, I'm feeling that our honeymoon with electric cars is coming to an end, and that's no bad thing: we're realising that a wider range of options need to be explored if we're going to properly address the very serious environmental problems that our use of the motor car has created.
We should keep developing hydrogen, as well as synthetic fuels to save the scrapping of older cars which still have so much to give, while simultaneously promoting a quite different business model for the car industry, in which we keep our new vehicles for longer, acknowledging their amazing but overlooked longevity.
Friends with an environmental conscience often ask me, as a car person, whether they should buy an electric car. I tend to say that if their car is an old diesel and they do a lot of city centre motoring, they should consider a change.
But otherwise, hold fire for now. Electric propulsion will be of real, global environmental benefit one day, but that day has yet to dawn
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Federal Energy Efficiency Requirements Are Outdated and Should Be Repealed
Americans have experienced appliance inflation over the past few years, and it could be about to get worse as the Biden administration continues its onslaught of appliance regulations.
While blaming Washington bureaucrats is always a reasonable response, in this case, any problems that they are causing is a result of them exercising the authority granted to them by legislation passed at the height of the 1970’s energy crisis—the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act.
The act gives the Department of Energy authority to regulate nearly everything in a household that uses energy. While it doesn’t require the Department of Energy to continuously impose ever stricter standards, the reality is this is precisely what it does. Worse, this trend has worsened in recent years as the Biden administration freely uses the act to advance its extreme agenda with ever stricter government standards, using climate change as a primary justification.
While the Energy Policy and Conservation Act does grant the secretary of energy broad authority, current law also requires that certain factors, like the effect on cost and competition, the amount of energy saved, and the need for energy conservation in general, be taken into account. Unfortunately, Washington bureaucrats not only routinely ignore these requirements in any meaningful way but choose instead to focus on extraneous alleged benefits like climate change.
This could be expected, perhaps, because the underlying justification for the efficiency regime established by the act has largely dissipated over time. The act was born out of a time of perceived energy scarcity. But today, America has hundreds of years of known energy reserves, and new technology is allowing for new discoveries and more efficient use of existing reserves all the time.
In justifying the policies that act ultimately set in place, President Gerald Ford laid out three broad policy objectives. These included reducing oil imports, ending American vulnerability to economic disruption by foreign suppliers, and developing energy technology and resources to supply a significant share of the free world’s energy needs.
In each case, America has achieved Ford’s objectives.
The Energy Policy and Conservation Act Has Lost Relevancy
In 1975, net imports of crude oil were close to 6 million barrels per day. By 2020, the United States had become a net exporter.
Geopolitical shocks and cartels, specifically the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, which produces about 40% of the world’s crude oil, can still have a near-term impact on American energy prices. However, due to the large amount of energy on global markets, energy disruptions do not present the sort of systemic threat that policymakers feared in the 1970s.
The extent to which the United States economy remains vulnerable is purely a function of energy restriction policies—like Biden’s recent decision to ban energy development in parts of Alaska—and have nothing to do with energy efficiency. Further, American technologies like fracking, the nation’s vast coal resources, and commercial nuclear reactors not only can keep America energy independent but also grow its role as a global supplier of energy.
Further, appliances of all sorts are becoming more efficient because that is what people want. While the consuming public considers many attributes of the purchases they make, including capability and upfront cost, efficiency is clearly something Americans value. The government does not need to compel efficiency; the market demands it.
America Is in an Era of Energy Abundance, Not Scarcity
America has ample energy reserves. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, in 2020, the United States held over 373 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude oil reserves, which would provide the U.S. with over 50 years of supply. The same is true for natural gas. The agency estimated in 2020 that the U.S. held 2,925.8 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas. At current consumption levels, that equates to nearly 100 years of supply.
Further, new discoveries are always occurring that would expand this supply over time, which is demonstrated by the growing availability of unconventional sources like oil shale. According to Energy Information Agency, the U.S. currently holds 195.5 billion barrels of crude oil and 1,712.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in unconventional reserves.
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UK: Proposed Zero Emission Mandate part of
‘war on the car’
Net Zero Watch is warning that the new ‘Zero Emission Mandate’ is just the latest in a series of blows that the political establishment has struck at motorists, and says it will not be the last.
The mandate, currently being debated in Parliament, will see car manufacturers fined Ł15,000 for each car they sell above a prescribed quota, but with the scheme allowing unsold quota to be sold to other companies in the market, the effect will be a huge transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
Motoring journalist James Ruppert says:
“Rich people, who can afford a Tesla, will be heavily subsidised by poor people who can’t. It’s a shameful idea.”
Ruppert’s comments coincide with the publication of his new paper for Net Zero Watch. Entitled The War on the Car, it is a brief history of how the political establishment has tried to force ordinary people out of cars, using a variety of tricks, from low emissions zones, to ever reducing speed limits, to the ongoing attempts to irritate motorists with driver ‘aids’.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
“James Ruppert’s paper shows that the campaign to take away our cars is just part of wider struggles: the attritional war of decarbonisation, and behind it the guerilla campaign to take away our hard-won freedoms. The writing is on the wall.”
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Australian government throws more cash at renewables, but taxpayers foot the bill
The idea that Australia can become an energy superpower is impossible to square with taxpayers stumping up billions of dollars to subsidise renewable energy. If renewable energy is really so cheap – the cheapest form of generating electricity, according to embattled Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen – why would the operators need a guaranteed flow of funds from taxpayers? That’s not how markets work.
To be blunt, Australians have been sold a pup when it comes to the energy transition and the benefits that would flow from it. The notion it would be good for the economy, the climate and consumers is disingenuous – and that’s the best you can say. What has been obvious for some time but has dawned on Bowen only recently is that Labor’s grand plan to have 82 per cent of electricity generated by renewable sources by 2030 had become unachievable.
The commissioning of new large-scale renewable energy projects has slowed to a crawl and the rollout of the required new transmission lines is mired in local resistance, escalating costs and delay. The hope of the side – offshore wind turbines – also is looking forlorn.
Shadow Climate Change and Energy Minister Ted O’Brien has… clashed with Chris Bowen after the Labor MP refused to reveal the “true cost” of the expanded Capacity Investment Scheme. The Climate Change and Energy Minister announced the scheme last Thursday which will underwrite 32 gigawatts of new electricity, which More
The real tragedy of this story is the failure to appreciate the complicated features of the electricity grid and how government intervention generally worsens rather than improves outcomes.
In particular, the downside of large proportions of intermittent generation has been vastly underestimated. There is also a wilful ignorance of the vital role played by dispatchable 24/7 generation.
What has emerged is essentially two markets: a day market and a night market. During the day, it’s common for electricity prices to be negative, mainly as a result of the widespread and somewhat unexpected expansion of domestic rooftop solar panels. At night, prices are much higher and it’s when dispatchable power comes to the fore, particularly if the wind is not blowing.
Another important change has been to interest rates. When interest rates were extremely low, the cost of capital to investors was extremely low as well. Now that interest rates have returned to more normal levels, the cost of capital has increased markedly, particularly for renewable energy installations carrying a lot of debt. Add the escalation in the cost of hardware and the shortage of workers, and the result has been an uncongenial backdrop to large-scale renewable energy investment.
This combined with the fact several coal-fired stations are heading towards closure has led to a degree of panic by state energy ministers as well as Bowen. It is surely ironic that the Victorian Labor government, which frequently proclaims its green credentials, is financially supporting the continuation of two brown-coal-fired electricity plants at unknown expense to the taxpayer.
(Note here that coal-fired plants are not a good fit with intermittent energy as they work on the basis of constant spinning. The cost curves of these plants resemble a bath tub: they decline in their early years and rise sharply towards the end of their lives. For instance, it has been estimated that the annual maintenance bill for the Yallourn power station in Victoria is close to $200 million.)
The mistakes made in managing and attempting to transform the east coast grid are too many to list. Mainly driven by politics rather than engineering and economics, the result has been a fiasco.
One example is the planned Marinus Link connecting Tasmania and Victoria. Because of huge cost overruns, the link has been halved and won’t be completed until the next decade. The federal government has agreed to take on a larger share of the cost, relieving the Tasmania government from some of the burden.
We are told six wind farms in Tasmania won’t be viable with this smaller link. But here’s the thing: what made sense was for Tasmania to supply dispatchable power to Victoria to underwrite its renewable energy folly, not to incentivise more renewable energy on the Apple Isle. It’s just one example of woolly, flawed thinking.
So, having come to a clear fork in the road, Bowen has decided the government must direct even more money at renewable energy.
The capacity mechanism known as the Capacity Investment Scheme will be used to spur more investment in renewable energy.
It’s worth describing here what the normal role of capacity mechanisms is. They are used in several places overseas to provide dispatchable power to grids when intermittent sources of power are unavailable. They are small relative to the size of the grid but involve gas and coal-fired plants being kept on standby.
The owners of these plants are paid to do so as well as for the power they generate if called on. There are several coal-fired plants in Britain, for instance, that are used in case of power shortages.
In what can be described only as an irrational decision, driven particularly by Victoria, our capacity mechanism includes only renewable energy and batteries, specifically barring coal and gas. It makes no sense at all and was driven entirely by ideology.
Bowen is proposing to lift the CIS from 6 gigawatts to 32GW using reverse auctions to underwrite the returns of renewable energy operators, with taxpayers picking up the tab. Where prices are below the strike price, operators will be compensated, but if the prices rise above that level, refunds are payable. The contracts may last for up to 15 years. It’s just another form of government subsidy following on from the Renewable Energy Target.
The key here is that Bowen wants taxpayers to bear the cost year in, year out – total dollar outlays unknown – of this intervention and thereby shield electricity consumers from even higher prices. It’s essentially smoke and mirrors because the costs still have to be borne one way or another. It’s astonishing that Jim Chalmers is going along with this proposal given the pressures the Treasurer faces to manage the budget better lest ongoing inflationary pressures persist.
There is a fair chance that Bowen’s plan B won’t work even though the higher subsidies should induce some additional renewable energy investment. The growing local resistance in the regions and the rapidly rising costs of renewable energy projects are counter forces. It’s why the minister has an equivocal position in respect of gas because open-cycle gas peaking plants are the obvious complement with renewable energy to firm the system.
It also opens the door to the Coalition to make the case for nuclear. It’s a centralised system that can use existing sites and transmission lines. It also provides prized 24/7 power. Other countries are accelerating their investments in nuclear power. We need to take note.
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br/> 27 November, 2023
Historic Dutch election results are a victory for climate realism
The historical victory of the PVV (Party for Freedom) in the Dutch General Elections of November 22nd was primarily linked to the theme of immigration. But let’s not forget that the PVV has also been a climate sceptic party for years now. The party doesn’t want money-consuming climate plans (i.e. CO2 reduction). Here’s what the party manifesto says:
“For decades now, we have been frightened by predictions of climate change doom. And although the projected disaster scenarios – about the world coming to an end – grew more extreme over the years, none of them ever become true.
We should stop being scared. The Netherlands is a smart country: we have the best water engineers in the world. Many years ago, our Delta Commissioner said we live in the safest delta in the world, we are well protected and there is no reason for panic.
The climate always changes and has been changing for centuries. When circumstances change, we adapt to them. We do that through sensible water management, by raising dikes when necessary and by giving rivers more space. But we should stop the hysterical reduction of CO2, an action we, a small country, wrongly think can ‘save’ the climate.
The Netherlands is responsible for less than half of a percent of the total global emission of CO2. In answer to questions of the PVV, the Minister (of Climate) admitted that his climate program with 122 measures, would only lead to a reduction of global warming by 0,000036 degrees. The amount of CO2 that The Netherlands avoids emitting with these measures, is compensated by the amount that China emits in less than one day. And the cost of all this is 28 billion euros! This has nothing to do with reality, it is all about climate ideology and delusions of grandeur.
And for this unaffordable insanity, we should change our entire way of living: our coal-fired power plants are being closed, while there are hundreds of them built in Asia as we speak. Our houses will no longer use natural gas, at the cost of tens of thousands of euros, while natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. Our country is being crammed with dismal wind turbines, while local residents literally get sick because of them. They want us to use heat pumps and electric cars, while our power grid – that used to be one of the most reliable in the world – can’t cope with demand. We must fly less, eat less meat; it never stops.
The PVV says: there is no way we are going to do that! The Climate Law, the Climate Agreement and all the other climate measures will go directly to the paper shredder. No more wasting of billions of euros for pointless climate hobbies, but more money for our people.
The energy bill has risen to record highs over the past few years. Many hundreds of thousands of people live in energy poverty. This year, the average energy bill will rise by many hundreds of euros. More than half of that is due to higher taxes! The Dutch energy tax on natural gas, is amongst the highest in all Europe. The Dutch are being squeezed. That’s why the PVV wants to lower the energy tax and VAT on energy.”
Five years ago, FvD (Forum for Democracy) won the local (Provincial) elections, with climate as an important theme. This year BBB (Farmer-Citizen Movement) won the Provincial Elections with their critical views on nitrogen. There are enough clues that lots of citizens have had enough of the unrelenting nagging about climate and nitrogen fertilizer, despite the massive media support of climate alarmism day after day.
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Offshore Wind Cannot Be Justified
Offshore wind facilities are enormously expensive and environmentally destructive. The primary purported justification for constructing them is to reduce “carbon” (carbon dioxide or CO2) emissions and save the planet from “catastrophic climate change.” However, this justification is not just built on a false premise; adding offshore wind to a state’s energy mix will most likely increase global CO2 emissions. That means the net emission benefits are hugely negative, as are other net environmental and economic effects.
This study finds that carbon dioxide reductions from local (state and national, as opposed to global) wind power generation are greatly overstated. For starters, any CO2 decrease will be small at best, largely because the intermittency of necessary wind speeds forces backup gas-fired power emissions to increase when the wind isn’t blowing. (Sufficient backup electricity from battery modules is also hugely expensive, heavily reliant on raw materials that are in short supply, and likely a decade or more away.)
The net result is that adding offshore wind to the existing coal, gas and nuclear and/or hydroelectric power system, though modestly lowering emissions at first glance, does little to reduce local power emissions overall because of the gas (or coal) backup generation now needed to maintain a stable grid.
But the story gets worse.
Often overlooked are the other factors associated with wind energy that actually drive up emissions. For example, supply chain emissions from constructing offshore wind facilities to replace existing generation facilities will be very large. Supply chain emissions include those arising from all the steps required to create an offshore wind facility: mining and processing the necessary metals and minerals, manufacturing components, constructing turbines and substations on site, and operating, maintaining, replacing, and ultimately decommissioning and landfilling worn out, damaged and obsolete equipment. They also include the myriad transportation steps along the way, via ship or truck.
These supply chain emissions are global and add to the global atmosphere. Thus, the net result of combining small local CO2 reductions with large increases in emissions via the supply chain is not a reduction in global atmospheric CO2, but an overall increase of atmospheric CO2.
In short, the “emission reduction” justification touted by proponents of building offshore wind facilities is simplistic and false.
Finally, another justification for building wind farms is that they benefit local job creation. This too is by-in-large false. One reason is that such jobs are subsidized by local electric power ratepayers that will likely see their electricity prices soar, leading to layoffs in many businesses and the closing of businesses and entire industries – making the net benefit minimal, zero or even negative. Even worse, much of the ratepayer and taxpayer money behind offshore wind facilities will go overseas, because that is where the supply chain exists. In short, the jobs created by wind energy should be viewed as costs, not benefits.
Moreover, few local jobs will be created directly by offshore wind energy facilities, because building them is a simple assembly project, not a construction project. This is because the parts being assembled are primarily manufactured and fabricated overseas. These include the towers, turbines, blades, connecting cables, substations and transformers. Adding insult to injury, assembling offshore turbines is typically done by highly specialized ships primarily provided by foreign nations.
Local or US jobs are likely to be relatively few and even low-paying installation, maintenance, repair, decommissioning and recycling/landfilling jobs. Factory jobs manufacturing offshore wind turbine components will likely disappear, because US factories will no longer have reliable, affordable power in a wind-solar-battery-backup-gas-turbine economy; will be faced with hiring highly paid American workers; and thus will not be able to compete with Asian and other foreign competitors.
Also on the local level, once the actual overseas emission increases and local reductions are known, it is possible to calculate a cost per ton of carbon dioxide reduction. This number is likely to be very large, certainly in the thousands of dollars per ton and possibly much more. Moreover, supply chain costs will almost assuredly grow because critical raw material shortages are predicted as demand increases.
This study is only and initial examination of the complex issues surrounding the alleged justification for massive offshore wind development. For illustrative purposes, we have used a few simple examples, such as New Jersey’s 11,000-MW offshore wind target and emissions created along the supply chain for installing mostly monopile turbines.
However, our findings are more general in scope and application. In brief, for all offshore wind installations:
A. Local power system emission reductions will be small.
B. Supply chain emissions will be large.
C. Global emissions will therefore increase, not decrease.
Conclusion 1: There are no carbon dioxide emission reduction benefits, and thus no manmade climate change amelioration justifications for offshore wind development.
Our secondary findings explain in greater detail why this is so.
A. Any local jobs created will be exorbitantly costly when US wage scales, “clean energy” subsidies and ratepayer increases are factored in, and thus are likely to be relatively few and low-paying.
B. Many existing local jobs will disappear, as electricity costs replace fossil fuel costs and rise steadily – resulting in layoffs in many economic sectors and reduced spending by cash-strapped families.
C. Supply chain costs are bound to go up due to rising US and global demand for and looming shortages of essential metals and minerals.
Conclusion 2: Offshore wind projects and infrastructure are tremendously expensive, will provide pricey intermittent electricity, and thus will destroy numerous American jobs while supporting few long-term jobs that offer similar wages.
Conclusion 3: Offshore wind projects and infrastructure inflict numerous other costs that thus far have not been factored into any cost-benefit analyses for the industry.
Conclusion 4: The net “carbon” (carbon dioxide) reduction effects of offshore wind development are thus hugely negative and cannot justify further investments in this industry.
https://heartland.org/opinion/offshore-wind-cannot-be-justified/ ?
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Mounting Evidence That ‘Net-Zero’ Carbon Emissions Isn’t Achievable
Arizona State University President Michael Crow believes we are in such danger that we should amend the U.S. Constitution to empower the government to deal more expansively with climate change. Crow’s view that constitutional protections of our liberties should be eliminated when they become inconvenient wouldn’t square with the founders, but his estimate of the dangers and required remedies for our changing climate are quite mainstream in our society.
“Net zero by 2050” has become an article of faith among our corporate and academic elites, no longer requiring proof or intellectual defense. The notion that we must eliminate or “offset” all carbon emissions by mid-century if we want to save the planet is the organizing principle for ESG investing. ESG is the consideration of environmental issues, social issues, and corporate governance issues when deciding what companies to invest in. In 2022, it was mentioned more than 6000 times in corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC has “helpfully” proposed climate disclosure rules for companies to help investors “evaluate the progress in meeting net-zero emissions and assessing any associated risk.” Skeptics are sidelined as “climate deniers.”
But mounting scientific evidence suggests that net zero is wildly impractical and probably not even achievable. In September, the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm of the U.S. electric power industry (which would seem to be naturally inclined to support proposals that increase reliance on electricity), released a sober report on the practicality of net zero.
Their study concluded that “clean electricity plus direct electrification and efficiency … are not sufficient by themselves to achieve net-zero economy-wide emissions.” Translation: it can’t be done. No amount of wind turbines, solar panels, battery power, fossil fuel, or other available technologies will achieve net zero by 2050.
Furthermore, even “deep carbonization”—drastic reductions in atmospheric carbon levels—is an impossible dream. With natural gas and nuclear generation forced to the sidelines, that would require options like carbon removal technologies, which would cost a quadrillion (million billion) dollars, which would … well, you get the picture.
Finally, the report concludes living in a net-zero world may not be all that great. Supply chains operating only on electricity and the reliability and resiliency of a net-zero electricity grid could be highly problematic.
The response to this nonpartisan and obviously consequential report was silence. There has been essentially no media coverage. No climate activists rushed to dispute the methodology nor challenge the conclusions.
This is a significant tell. You could assume if the eco-activists were genuinely concerned about our climate future, they would have some interest in responding to this major challenge to their assumptions. But they ignored it to cling to their groupthink.
Yet other indications that the transition to renewable fuels is already off the tracks keep coming. The government-certified North American Electric Reliability Corporation recently issued its 2022 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. It concluded that fossil fuel plants were being removed from the grid too quickly to meet electricity demand, putting us at risk for energy shortages and even blackouts during extreme weather.
But wait, there’s more.
PGM International, a large grid operator in the Northeast, recently released projections indicating it will soon lose 40,000 megawatts, or 21% of its generation capacity. The looming plant closures are mostly “policy-driven” by onerous Environmental Protection Agency regulations and mandatory ESG commitments.
Renewables, although lavishly subsidized by government to replace the lost electricity, consistently underperform and will be able to produce—at most—half of the electricity lost. Meanwhile, the government is perversely mandating electric vehicles, appliances, and whatever that will drain more electricity from the grid precisely when the grid has less to give.
Finally, the repeated assertions of “settled science” when it comes to climate change were unsettled by 1,609 scientists and professors worldwide signing a “No Climate Emergency” declaration. The document was issued by Climate Intelligence or Clintel, a nonpartisan, self-funded, independent organization of scholars whose only agenda is “to generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change and climate policy.”
The scholars point out that there is no basis for claiming an upcoming existential crisis. Carbon dioxide is not primarily a pollutant but a necessary basis for life. Moreover, there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying natural disasters. Panic is dangerous, with the potential to plunge us into perpetual poverty.
They charge that climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on unsubstantiated beliefs, not on “self-critical science.” Historians of the future, reflecting on our era of hyper-politicized science, will undoubtedly agree.
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Australian Left takes on Greens over gas with deal to add supply, lower price
Australians will be promised a boost to gas supply in a Labor move to ease pressure on energy prices, setting up a test for the Coalition and the Greens to back the federal changes or be blamed for deepening the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.
The federal government will reveal two energy deals to fix a looming gas shortage under an industry regime the Greens are seeking to block, raising the stakes in a Senate vote on Monday on the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.
In a spate of domestic policy moves, the government is also poised to announce a deal to increase environmental flows in the Murray-Darling river system, claim a $250 million consumer saving from its changes to medicine prescriptions and unveil draft law to reform the Reserve Bank.
Parliament meets on Monday for the final sitting fortnight of the year with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seeking a focus on domestic policy after arguments with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton over China, the release of detainees from indefinite detention and the response to conflict in the Middle East.
With retail energy prices rising, the government has been under pressure to boost gas supplies using the code it introduced this year to fix prices at $12 per gigajoule and force producers to meet local demand, in tandem with separate restrictions on coal.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has struck deals with gas exporters Senex and Australia Pacific LNG to divert 300 petajoules to the domestic market over the next six years, with both commitments starting this month.
The gas will be supplied under enforceable undertakings that exempt Senex and APLNG from the price cap but expose them to action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission if they do not meet their pledges.
With about 140 petajoules promised by the end of 2027 under the new deals, the outcome initially adds 35 petajoules to the domestic market on average every year. The ACCC estimates household, commercial and industrial demand adds up to 447 petajoules each year.
The Greens are seeking to halt the gas code by moving a motion in the Senate to disallow the regulations Bowen put in place in July, which will force Labor to rely on the Coalition to keep the code in place. The Coalition voted against the legislation to set up the regime last December, making the disallowance motion on the code another test of its stance.
Greens treasury spokesperson Nick McKim has welcomed measures to cut prices but accused the government of encouraging new gas fields to be developed under the code.
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26 November, 2023
Experts Raise Alarm After Biden Strikes Agreement With China To End ‘Fossil Fuels’
U.S. energy experts are warning of the economic and national security implications of President Biden’s pact with China this week to move towards shutting down ‘fossil fuel’ production in favor of ‘green’ energy
The State Department announced this week it had struck a deal with its Chinese counterparts pledging to “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation” with ‘green’ energy sources like wind and solar power.
The nations, which account for nearly half of global ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, also agreed to “deepen policy exchanges” on reducing ‘carbon’ emissions in various sectors, like power, industry, buildings, and transportation, across their economies.
But the agreement — in which the nations further pledged to “sufficiently accelerate renewable energy deployment in their respective economies through 2030” — was criticized over its potential impact on U.S. consumers.
Experts also noted that China has rarely followed through on international accords and stands to financially benefit from such an agreement since it controls much of the world’s green energy supply chain.
“The agreement speaks heavily about advancing — doubling down and tripling down on renewables, wind and solar. The majority of them are made in China,” Daniel Turner, the founder and executive director of Power The Future, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“So, you’re basically writing an agreement that guarantees China a customer and guarantees their manufacturing sector decades of purchasing. Of course, China would love this agreement. And their obligations — they’ll just ignore that. They’ve ignored every other obligation,” Turner added. “It is basically guaranteeing China decades of wealth, guaranteeing America is going to buy their products.”
In addition, the U.S. and China pledged under the agreement Tuesday to advance five large-scale carbon capture, utilization, and storage projects by the end of the decade.
‘Carbon capture’ is a nascent and expensive technology that is designed to catch a power plant’s emissions before they can enter the atmosphere, but it hasn’t been deployed at any power plant nationwide.
The agreement was finalized during Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s meeting with Chinese Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua in Sunnylands, California, last week. And it came shortly before Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco.
“The cooperative initiatives outlined by the State Department will create make-work for bureaucrats, subsidies for rent-seekers, photo ops for local politicians, and new opportunities for Chinese agents of influence and industrial spies,” Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Marlo Lewis told Fox News Digital.
“The effect on climate change, if any, will be negative, as the ‘cooperation’ will nudge the United States closer to Beijing-style central planning, production quotas, and groupthink,” he continued.
Overall, while the U.S. is the largest global producer of oil and gas, which still drives every major industry from transportation and power to manufacturing and construction, Chinese companies have established a major foothold in green energy markets.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China produces about 75 percent of all lithium-ion batteries, a key component of electric vehicles (EV), worldwide. The nation also boasts 70 percent of [cathode production capacity] and 85 percent for anodes, two key parts of such batteries.
In addition, more than 50 percent of lithium, cobalt, and graphite processing and refining capacity is located in China, the IEA data showed. Those three critical minerals, in addition to copper and nickel, are vital for EV batteries and other ‘green’ energy technologies.
Chinese investment firms have also been aggressive in purchasing stakes in African mines in recent years to ensure firm control over mineral production.
China also continues to dominate the global solar supply chain even as Western nations attempt to increase domestic manufacturing capabilities.
According to a July 2022 IEA report, China has a greater than 80 percent share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels [production].
China further produces a staggering 95 percent of all global polysilicon, ingot, and wafer supplies necessary for solar products.
“After ESG extremists like Larry Fink met with Chinese Dictator Xi Jinping this week, the Biden Administration reaffirmed its commitment to China to push climate policies that will effectively destroy the U.S. energy industry in favor of ‘green’ energy initiatives that rely on China’s production of solar panels and batteries,” Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, an advocacy group, told Fox News Digital.
“Consumers are fed up with EV mandates, gas appliance bans, and other climate initiatives the Biden Administration continues to peddle,” he said.
“Clearly, climate alarmism remains a higher priority to President Biden than ensuring American consumers have access to affordable energy and consumer goods. Consumers’ Research will continue to call out these ideologically-driven policies that hurt American consumers while helping the Chinese Communist Party.”
While China has established a stranglehold of green energy supply chains, it has also led a massive expansion of coal power to sustain its massive economy.
In 2022, the nation permitted a whopping 106 gigawatts of new coal power capacity, roughly quadrupling the amount permitted in 2021, an analysis published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor showed.
According to the American Geosciences Institute, burning coal produces more ‘carbon’ emissions compared to burning any other ‘fossil fuel’. Coal power can have as much as twice the ‘carbon footprint’ of natural gas.
China already accounts for about 27 percent of total global ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, according to Rhodium Group. The nation’s emissions output is equivalent to triple the total of the U.S., which is the world’s second-largest emitter.
“The Sunnylands agreement is nothing more than political sop from Communist China to try to help Biden and Kerry politically, and to keep the America-hurting climate hoax going,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told Fox News Digital. “The agreement does not bind China to cut emissions or to do anything else of importance.”
“But keeping the climate hoax alive is very important to China for three reasons: 1) climate spending and climate regulations hurt the U.S. economy and help the Chinese economy; 2) mandates for green technology deepen U.S. dependence on China for that technology; and 3) both of the aforementioned compromise US national security and further China’s goal of becoming the lone global superpower by 2049,” Milloy continued.
And Jason Isaac, the CEO and founder of The American Energy Institute, told Fox News Digital that the agreement was “laughable” since it states China remains committed to the 2015 Paris Accords.
“Not a single country complies with the Paris Agreement, not even France. The Paris Agreement is based on the false premise that CO2, a trace gas that makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere, is causing catastrophic warming,” Isaac said.
“It’s not, and China knows it. That’s why the global consumption of coal in 2022 increased by 9%, and China built two coal plants per week to generate affordable, reliable electricity.”
“Xi knows that the grid in America is getting crushed under the weight of a so-called energy transition. Over 80 percent of our reliable thermal generation from natural gas and coal will age out in the next two decades,” he added. “Instead of aging out, we need to build new generation more than ever.”
“Yet, the current administration is making new, reliable electric generation construction nearly impossible. Biden’s bailout of China has turned our foreign policy to ‘China first, America last.’”
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Heating Your Home: More Difficult, More Expensive
Remember when we said government bureaucrats were coming for our gas stoves? Remember how they insisted up and down they weren’t going to do it?
“To be clear,” said Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric at the time, “[we are] not looking to ban gas stoves, and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.” Turns out it wasn’t an outright ban, but a regulatory squeeze that would act in the same manner.
Later, during the summer, we revealed that Congress was on to the ruse. “There are other rulemakings under consideration for dishwashers, refrigerators, water heaters, furnaces, air conditioners, and other household appliances under the guise of improving energy efficiency as proscribed by the Environmental Policy and Conservation Act,” explained Texas Congressman Pat Fallon, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs.
As winter approaches, though, many Americans rely on their furnace to keep their homes warm. For many in urban areas, that furnace burns natural gas to provide the heat, while rural areas generally have a propane system. In both cases, consumers have essentially decided that they prefer the warmth of a gas furnace, but that’s not good enough for the regulatory do-gooders in the Biden administration. Back in September, the Department of Energy proposed stringent new regulations that would eliminate much of the current gas furnace technology by 2028.
That was step one. Now, in the wake of the most recent National Climate Assessment — an assessment rigged to make it appear we’re in a crisis — the regime has decided to dust off the 1950 Defense Production Act to reward the makers of electric heat pumps to the tune of $169 million in “investments” and game the home heating market still further.
“Today’s Defense Production Act funds for heat pump manufacturing show that President Biden is treating climate change as the crisis it is,” says ancient bureaucrat and longtime Beltway insider John Podesta, who was once chief of staff for Bill Clinton and is now our nation’s “clean energy czar.” “These awards will grow domestic manufacturing, create good-paying jobs, and boost American competitiveness in industries of the future.” This might almost make sense, except the funds are going to several multinational corporations — meaning there’s no real guarantee of domestic job creation.
It didn’t take analysts long to put two and two together. As energy expert Robert Bryce pointed out: “Some of America’s richest NGOs are pushing policies that ban the direct use of natural gas in homes and businesses. While they claim the ban on gas is needed to address climate change, these bans will result in dramatic increases in energy costs and impose a regressive tax on the poor and the middle class.” Bryce also cited Energy Information Administration data stating that average homeowners who heat with electricity will pay a 77% premium this winter over those homeowners who can heat with gas. For a home in the snowy Northeast, the electricity toll is $1,465, compared to just $761 for gas. These are the numbers provided by the same federal government that’s trying to regulate away both gas furnaces and the production of electricity from natural gas sources. Yet natural-gas-powered electricity is still necessary as a backup plan if the favored “renewable” wind and solar power isn’t available.
Furthermore, “Biden’s action to promote heat pumps was ‘necessary’ because Biden’s new regulations on gas furnaces will make them unaffordable where they aren’t unavailable,” explained PJ Media’s Stephen Green. “When the new regs go into effect in 2028, Biden’s rules mandate that all new gas furnaces operate at 95% efficiency, up from today’s 80%. The non-condensing furnaces used in most homes almost certainly won’t make the cut.”
While there are already duly efficient gas furnaces on the market, the difference comes from the expensive process of sealed combustion. This brings outside air directly into the furnace via additional retrofitted ductwork, which is required to convert an 80% efficient furnace to a 95% one.
So here’s the bottom line: Through the onerous power of regulation, the Biden administration is trying to eliminate natural gas as a fuel source. Why? Because it’s inexpensive and reliable and was once considered “clean” but has fallen out of favor with environmentalists, who now prefer that we use less reliable but more profitable solar and wind power, for which components are generally not available domestically but are sold to us by a nation with missiles pointed at us — China.
As we see it, this is awe-inspiring stupidity. But elections have consequences.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102310-heating-your-home-more-difficult-more-expensive-2023-11-21
****************************************************Unrealistic Plans to Crack Down on U.S. Power Plant Emissions Won’t Work
The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a new plan that would limit carbon emissions from power plants, despite rising electricity demand. Its stated intention is to force utilities to rely much more heavily on hydrogen and other green fuels, coupled with carbon capture technologies, to generate electricity.
The EPA’s proposed rule would force power plant owners to decide virtually overnight whether to install unproven and absurdly expensive carbon capture technologies or close their plants altogether to meet emission reduction targets—an unreasonable choice that’s being presented at a time when the U.S. Energy Department estimates that the U.S. will need to double its generating capacity by 2050 just to keep up with soaring electricity demand.
The likely consequences couldn’t be clearer. As James Robb, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, recently warned at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) annual reliability conference, the “rapid, often disorderly transformation of the generation resource base” has increased the potential for “more frequent and more serious long-duration reliability disruptions, including the possibility of national-consequence events.” Translation: The rush to eliminate fossil fuels from the electric power mix could potentially expose America to large-scale brownouts or blackouts.
We’ve been down this road before
President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, promulgated in 2015 under the authority of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (as amended), sought to replace coal-fired electricity with renewables and more environmentally friendly natural gas. Last year, a six-to-three Supreme Court majority struck down that plan, ruling in West Virginia v. EPA that the plan overstepped the EPA’s regulatory authority.
Going further than Obama’s original Clean Power Plan, which at least acknowledged the importance of natural gas, the Biden administration’s response to such worries has been to double down on restrictions: proposing to eliminate the coal and gas-fired power plants that keep America’s machines running and our lights on.
This, Clair Moeller, president and COO of Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., told the FERC conference, “is bringing about a level of complexity and risk that is unprecedented.”
Given current technologies, the presumption that renewables can entirely replace coal’s baseload power is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are intermittent, whereas coal plants supply electricity around the clock, day in and day out. Moreover, power from coal-fired plants is dispatchable on demand because many utilities maintain large coal supplies on-site.
Green dreams and extravagant flops
The current debates about power generation focus on its environmental impacts rather than on the reliability of the grid that delivers power to homes and businesses. Coal and natural gas-fired generators not only are essential for supplying reliable baseload power but also as backup power sources when renewables are offline. The efficiency of solar panels degrades in extreme heat or cold. Windmill blades spin only when air is moving past them, and despite its greenness, nuclear power cannot be ramped up or down quickly in response to changes in electricity demand.
That’s why utilities and major grid operators are voicing concerns about grid reliability and the prospect of significant power shortages.
Green dreams aside, coal continues to generate a significant proportion of America’s electric power—about 19% overall. In some states the percentages are much higher: 74% in Missouri, 57% in Indiana, 70% in Kentucky, 41% in Colorado, 42% in Wisconsin, 61% in Utah, and 90% in West Virginia. All told, coal is the most important source of power generation in 18 states.
Another part of the story is that the U.S. currently lacks the infrastructure (transmission capacity) for carrying wind and solar energy from rural areas or offshore sites to population and manufacturing centers. Building out the needed infrastructure will require significant spending, which ultimately will rest on the shoulders of taxpayers or utility customers.
For years, NERC officials have been warning that the rapid loss of baseload power plants poses risks to America’s reliable electricity supply. The question now is how many shuttered coal plants will have to be brought back into operation—as Germany has been forced to do to keep people there from freezing in the dark during the winter—to reduce the gap between electricity demand and supply.
Just because a technology for generating power is technologically feasible doesn’t make it economically viable. Even a billion-dollar subsidy didn’t stop the giant Danish energy conglomerate, Řrsted, from walking away from a major wind farm project off New Jersey’s shores.
One of the lessons learned from that extravagant flop is that fossil fuels will be essential for the foreseeable future despite the administration’s unrealistic plans.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14737&omhide=true&trk=title
***************************************************Australia’s regulatory environment ‘killing’ $91bn LNG industry, says Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher
Australia’s $91bn LNG export industry is being “killed” by regulatory ambiguity that has been used by opponents to hinder work on several gas developments and deterring much-needed inward investment, the chief executive of energy giant Santos has warned.
Environmental advocates have in recent months won a spate of legal victories to suspend work on new gas developments – a tactic that has badly affected Santos especially.
The company’s $5.3bn Barossa development has been hampered by two legal challenges that threaten the production timetables for a project that Santos has earmarked to fuel future growth.
Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher said the legal challenges have been permitted by regulatory ambiguity around who a company must consult and consider when developing environment plans, and that threatens Australia’s broader LNG market.
“Nothing will drive investment away faster than this regulatory environment,” Mr Gallagher said. “The uncertainty is killing us.”
The warning to Australia’s $91bn LNG export industry is the latest in a string of alarms raised by Australia’s gas industry, which has claimed legal-induced delays to projects will threaten local and regional energy security and inflame diplomatic tensions.
Nations in Asia that are energy resource poor – notably Japan, Korea and China – are major buyers of Australian LNG shipments and have moved to lock in supplies with co-investments in new projects.
But Australia’s perceived willingness to allow legal blocks to new developments had potentially dire consequences for the region. Japan’s former ambassador, Shingo Yamagami, said Australia in March was “quiet quitting” LNG.
Anthony Albanese insists his government understands the vital role of gas to the country’s $2.5tr economy but critics said its lack of urgency in limiting legal avenues to slow LNG developments indicates its commitment to the fuel source.
The federal government insists it will move on the issue, and earlier this month The Australian exclusively earlier revealed that Labor was considering narrowing the criteria about who must be consulted prior to works beginning, but any regulatory changes will not occur before late 2024.
The changes, however, will come too late to ease the legal burden on the Barossa project.
Drilling work at the Santos gas project in the Timor Sea has been suspended since 2022 after the Federal Court found the oil giant failed to consult local Indigenous people adequately on the development.
Adding to its woes, a second Federal Court ruled Santos could not complete works on an undersea pipeline until January 2024 at the earliest, following claims by a Tiwi Islands traditional owner Simon Munkara that the 262KM pipeline would cause irreparable harm to traditional owners’ connection to sea.
To resume drilling, Santos must receive approval from regulator NOPSEMA for its amended environment plan. Mr Gallagher said that if the company can resume operations by the end of the year then it can meet its timetable, but conceded delays and potential cost blowouts could occur if the company continues to await regulatory approval.
Further issues could also occur should the Federal Court rule in favour of Mr Munkara and Santos is forced to submit a new environmental plan.
The previous version of the plan, developed after Santos was barred from drilling, took more than a year to establish.
Mr Gallagher said Santos will vigorously defend itself at a hearing scheduled next month, but warned the company has little wriggle room left.
“We had some contingency in the project, but that has largely all gone now,” Mr Gallagher told investors.
The regulatory environment, Mr Gallagher said, will not only define the Barossa project but potential other investments that Santos could make in Australia.
“It will be very difficult for us to take [final investment decision] on projects in Australia.”
Mr Gallagher said the regulatory environment in Alaska and Papua New Guinea, where it is developing two other LNG projects, is far more amenable to further investment.
Santos has the option to progress its Dorado project in WA, but Mr Gallagher said the company’s appetite for that investment would be limited without legislative changes.
Santos is under pressure to spur future growth, with a group of investors in October urging the company to split the business to create a single LNG entity to unlock share growth.
Mr Gallagher told investors he was frustrated with a stagnant share price, and the board would consider all proposals.
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23 November, 2023
Scapegoating ‘Climate Change’ For Every Disaster Hides The Real Culprits
Blaming the climate for every tragic weather event is easy and convenient. However, this can be a dangerous oversimplification that ignores the role of policy and infrastructure failures in exacerbating these disasters
For instance, the devastating floods in Germany in 2021 were not caused by ‘climate change’, but by the failure of local and regional governments to adequately manage floodplains and build resilient infrastructure.
Similarly, the wildfires in Maui in 2023 were fueled by a combination of failed infrastructure and poor land management practices.
Flooding In Germany In 2021
In July 2021, Germany experienced one of the most severe natural disasters in its recent history. Heavy rainfall triggered catastrophic floods, particularly in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, leading to widespread destruction.
Almost 200 people lost their lives, and more than 700 were injured.
While ‘climate change’ was initially blamed for the intensity of the floods, a more in-depth examination reveals a complex narrative deeply intertwined with infrastructure failures and inadequate policies.
Despite the intense rainfall being forecasted, many residents in the affected areas did not receive adequate warnings about the impending danger.
There was a significant failure in communicating weather forecasts to residents, highlighting a disconnect between weather predictions and actual warnings provided to the public.
Germany’s flood protection systems were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of water, highlighting the shortcomings of existing infrastructure.
Dikes and levees failed to hold back the floodwaters, inundating towns and villages along the riverbanks. The lack of adequate flood barriers and warning systems left many communities vulnerable, and unable to respond effectively to the rapidly rising water levels.
Over the years, urban development has encroached upon floodplains, increasing the risk of flooding.
As more buildings and infrastructure were constructed in areas prone to inundation, the natural capacity of these areas to absorb rainwater was diminished.
Germany’s policies and strategies for adapting to extreme weather events have been inadequate.
The country has been slow to implement measures to reduce flood risk, such as improving flood forecasting and warning systems, investing in resilient infrastructure, and promoting land-use planning that avoids floodplains.
While changing precipitation patterns may have indeed played a part in intensifying the rainfall, it’s important to acknowledge that human activities and lapses in policy are essentially the cause of the flooding.
Fires In Maui In 2023
The 2023 Maui Wildfires was a series of wildfires that broke out in the U.S. state of Hawaii, predominantly on the island of Maui, in early August 2023.
The wind-driven fires prompted evacuations and caused widespread damage, killing at least 100 people and leaving four persons missing in the town of Lahaina on Maui’s northwest coast.
The proliferation of the wildfires was attributed to dry, gusty conditions created by a strong high-pressure area north of Hawaii and Hurricane Dora to the south.
Maui’s dry, leeward side, particularly the region of Lahaina, has a long history of invasive grasses, primarily Guinea grass, introduced for cattle grazing.
These non-native grasses, adapted to the region’s arid climate, flourished, creating a vast fuel load that turned into a tinderbox when ignited.
For years, experts warned of the fire hazard posed by the overgrown grasslands, urging authorities to implement mitigation measures. However, these warnings fell on deaf ears, and the grasslands remained unchecked, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
When the wildfires broke out, firefighters faced a severe challenge: an inadequate water supply. The region’s water infrastructure, primarily designed for domestic and agricultural use, was ill-equipped to handle the demands of firefighting.
Water pressure was insufficient, hydrants were scarce, and water sources were often too far from the fire lines. These shortcomings severely hampered firefighting efforts, allowing the flames to spread rapidly and cause widespread damage.
Maui’s power grid, operated by Hawaiian Electric, was also a contributing factor to the disaster.
The aging infrastructure, prone to breakdowns and outages, was particularly vulnerable to high winds, a common occurrence in the region.
During the wildfires, high winds caused power lines to snap, sparking new fires and complicating evacuation efforts. The lack of grid modernization, despite repeated warnings from experts, exacerbated the situation.
In the aftermath of the wildfires, ‘climate change’ was often cited as the primary culprit. While the current extended dry period undoubtedly contributed to the severity of the fires, the underlying causes were clearly rooted in human actions and policy failures.
Blaming ‘climate change’ alone overlooks the critical role of infrastructure shortcomings, poor land management practices, and inadequate preparedness measures.
By focusing solely on ‘climate change’, we risk overlooking the immediate and actionable steps that can be taken to prevent future disasters.
In Conclusion
Pointing fingers at ‘climate change’ as the sole culprit for every natural disaster is often a scapegoat to sidestep accountability for human errors and oversights. Such a stance is not only unjust, but it’s also a futile effort to avert future calamities.
Blaming ‘climate change’ alone is akin to attributing a house fire solely to the spark while ignoring the flammable materials, faulty wiring, and absent fire alarms.
It is a convenient excuse that absolves us of our culpability and diverts attention from the real solutions.
We must shed the comfortable cloak of complacency and confront the hard truth: many of the natural disasters we face are the result of our shortsightedness and negligence.
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Why Is EU Trying to Block Poland’s Move Toward Clean Nuclear Energy?
Poland lives in a rough neighborhood, sharing borders with Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine—with the historical scars to prove it. Indeed, few countries suffered more at the hands of tyrants than Poland did in the last century.
That’s one reason why Poland’s economic rise since the end of the Cold War is so remarkable. By 2022, the nation grew its gross domestic product to $627 billion from $181 billion just 23 years earlier.
It is obvious that transitioning away from a centrally controlled economy operating under Soviet authoritarian rule to a market economy was key to this success. However, this growth would never have occurred if Poland didn’t have access to affordable, reliable energy to fuel its economy—energy it has largely enjoyed since it gained independence in 1989.
Coal, natural gas, and oil have provided the preponderance of Poland’s energy for decades, and coal specifically remains the primary fuel for the electricity sector, providing around 72% of the nation’s electricity. This energy mix has been a winner for Poland with life expectancy as well as per capita GDP dramatically increasing since the end of the Cold War.
Despite efforts to the contrary, Poland is being forced to change what works by the European Union and its drive toward net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 to fight so-called climate change. The EU requires a series of complicated mandates, directives, and carbon credit systems.
Unfortunately, Polish leaders don’t have the luxury of “greenwashing” their future with grandiose ideas of replacing coal, oil, and natural gas with wind and solar as do their rich Western European colleagues.
First, despite its meteoric economic rise, Poland has some catching up to do to be among the wealthiest EU states. Second, given its history and geographic location, few countries have a greater appreciation for maintaining secure access to energy resources, which had traditionally been anchored in its tremendous domestic coal reserves.
With the EU’s mandate to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (read: reject coal) combined with Poland’s desire to keep growing economically while also maintaining energy security, the nation made the rational decision and decided to go nuclear.
In total, Poland plans to build two nuclear power plants with three large reactors at each plant for a total of 6-9 gigawatts of electricity. For comparison, a gigawatt is roughly enough power to supply a medium-sized city. Poland hopes to get its first new plant online by 2033, with subsequent reactors beginning operations every two to three years afterwards.
While these plants will not replace coal and natural gas in Poland’s energy mix, they will bring valuable diversity while also helping to meet its European Union carbon dioxide emissions obligations.
The Polish government understood that it would be necessary to collaborate with foreign reactor companies to construct the new plants, so it began communications with French, South Korean, and American firms. Upon consultation, the Polish government chose the American firms Westinghouse and Bechtel as partners for the initial plant construction.
This should be the end of the story. Poland is building a strong and secure energy economy, and the EU is getting massive reductions in carbon dioxide, which, by all appearances, is the union’s primary goal.
Win. Win.
But not so fast.
The European Union is now threatening to block Poland’s nuclear plans behind accusations that Poland may not have followed European competition rules, which require multiple bidders be considered and treated equally.
Such threats are counterproductive, potentially corrupt, and juvenile.
They are counterproductive because they hinder Poland’s energy security and the EU’s stated climate agenda.
They are potentially corrupt because the EU apparently wants a French firm to build the first plant, and France has close ties with the Brussels bureaucrats.
They are juvenile because the accusations seem to be more about hurt feelings and protectionism than fair play.
Though the exact details regarding the precise nature of Poland’s consideration of each bidder is not clear from media reports, what is clear is that Poland considered projects from at least three different groups.
Further, making any such determination about fair competition is nearly impossible when it comes to nuclear energy (or nearly any project within Europe). The entire process is crafted by state-run agencies and state-owned industries. And that is layered on top of a state-mandated energy policy to cut carbon dioxide, which is bolstered by any number of state-funded programs that distort the underlying economics of energy. Thus, for a state-owned nuclear company to bring accusations of unfair competition is beyond ironic.
Unfortunately, fair competition in energy markets is long gone in Europe.
But making the claim even more dubious is the “wink and nod” suggestion by EU bureaucrats that any EU efforts to block the Westinghouse/Bechtel deal could go away should Poland clarify that additional nuclear plants would be built by EU companies. In other words, the European Union just wants to make sure a European company gets a cut of the Polish business, regardless of actual “competition rules.”
Ultimately, however, none of this should really matter.
Poland is a sovereign country that has found a pathway to meet its requirements for secure access to energy resources and to help meet the EU’s climate goals. The EU should support Poland’s progress and respect its right to choose whomever they want to build their reactors.
And Poland must stand firm and move in whatever direction it deems best serves its long-term security and economic health.
Of course, no one knows that better than the Poles.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/15/eu-shouldnt-block-polands-move-toward-nuclear-energy
**********************************************Antarctica's ozone hole may not be mending as well as we thought: study
The hole has been at its largest in some recent years. Trying to find a shrinking trend is just imagination
The hole in the ozone layer, which was discovered almost 40 years ago, may not be recovering as quickly as projected, according to a new study.
The implications of the paper are being debated by other scientists as the research questions well-established views on ozone recovery.
Since ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were banned from manufacturing in 1987, it's been thought the ozone layer — which sits between 15 and 30 kilometres above Antarctica — has been slowly but surely bouncing back.
But in a study in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Otago suggest the hole's repair isn't as pronounced as we thought, and the swirling mass of cold air around the South Pole might be involved in its delayed recovery.
"That's something that's not thoroughly understood yet, and we have more work to do to understand the mechanism," study lead author and PhD student Hannah Kessenich said. "I think if we're projecting a timeline of recovery it's important to know all the key players impacting the ozone hole today."
Factors influencing ozone
A decade before the hole was confirmed in the 1980s, scientists discovered chemicals used in aerosols and fridges could deplete Earth's ozone layer, which protects us from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation.
CFCs in the atmosphere influenced the annual thinning of ozone over Antarctica, which can have major impacts on weather in the southern hemisphere.
The hole, which grows in August every year before shrinking again in December, can modify wind and rain patterns and contribute to drier conditions in places like Australia.
This year the hole reached 26 million square kilometres in size, about 3.4 times the land area of Australia.
The ozone layer above Antarctica is expected to recover to pre-1980s levels by 2066.
But the new research suggests that recovery trends are not as clear cut when looking at what's called "total column ozone" — all the ozone in the atmosphere above a select point on Earth — over the past two decades.
For instance, Ms Kessenich said there was less ozone around the core of the hole which hovers near the South Pole.
The core is in the middle of the stratosphere, a layer of Earth's atmosphere found about 10 to 50 kilometres above the ground.
"If you separate out by altitude, we see there are regions where the ozone is recovering over Antarctica and regions it is not," Ms Kessenich said.
She said there appeared to be ozone recovery in the upper stratosphere and in some of the lower stratosphere around September, but that "we see at high latitudes, more towards the pole, there is a large region in the middle stratosphere where the ozone is declining".
They calculated the ozone around the hole's core dropped by more than 26 per cent since 2004.
This drop was linked to changes in the mesosphere — the atmospheric layer above the stratosphere — when it descends into the area of rotating cold air around the South Pole called the polar vortex.
New research scrutinised
University of NSW atmospheric scientist Martin Jucker, who was not involved in the paper, questioned the study's conclusions. He said the results relied heavily on the large ozone holes from the past three years. "Existing literature has already found reasons for these large ozone holes," he said.
"Smoke from the 2019 bushfires and a volcanic eruption, as well as a general relationship between the polar stratosphere and El Nińo Southern Oscillation.
"We know that during La Nińa years, the polar vortex in the stratosphere tends to be stronger and colder than usual, which means that ozone concentrations will also be lower during those years."
Dr Jucker said the study also didn't include data from 2002 and 2019 when there were so-called stratospheric sudden warmings. Stratospheric sudden warming is a phenomenon more common in the northern hemisphere. It's caused by waves in the atmosphere, called planetary waves, which move cool air towards the equator and warm air to polar regions.
"Those events have been shown to have strongly decreased the ozone hole size, so including those events would probably have nullified any long-term negative trend in ozone concentrations," Dr Jucker said.
But University of Leeds atmospheric scientist Martyn Chipperfield, who was also not part of the research, said the paper showed changes in atmospheric dynamics may affect Antarctic ozone.
"The atmosphere is a complex system and many factors can lead to changes in the thickness of the ozone layer," he said.
"We need to remain vigilant on ... [ozone-depleting] compounds but, as the paper shows, also be aware of the impact of other factors such as climate change."
Professor Chipperfield also noted the research used an instrument on NASA satellite Aura which would be decommissioned in coming years without a plan for replacement. "Without a suitable replacement we will lose the ability to detect and understand processes such as this," he said.
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Autralia: Billionaire Gina Rinehart gives grim warning: Says climate costs cripple food production
Gina Rinehart has issued a grim warning that Aussies face huge price hikes and fresh food shortages unless the burden of climate change policies are lifted from farmers.
During an address in Bali on Tuesday, the mining magnate made the ominous forecast to mark National Agriculture & Related Industries Day, of which Ms Rinehart is the founding patron.
Australia's richest person, who owns millions of farming hectares, said governments need to cap what agriculturalists spend on achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions to $200,000 - or the entire nation faces dire consequences.
'Otherwise, farmers will have to leave agriculture, and as a consequence, Aussies will see huge food price increases and fresh food shortages,' Ms Rinehart said.
Ms Rinehart, who is the executive chairman iron ore exporting giant Hancock Prospecting, said Australia's agriculture is the 'envy of much of the world' but is 'haunted' by the cost of climate change policies.
'Don't blame the farmer for needing to try to pass on to Australian householders the multi-millions of costs they'll each face, for installing solar power, batteries and multi millions for electric vehicles, and fines,' she said.
The mining billionaire claimed the burden government over-reach and interference fell most heavily on the 'essential' primary industries of agriculture and mining.
She also expressed fury at not being able to clear land, normally for environmental reasons, in a way that might curb bushfires, due to government red tape.
'Government tape drowns us, won't even let us keep our families, staff, pets, homes and investment safe through adequate fire breaks, my blood boils over on this one,' she said.
'Fines and even jail if we try the bureaucracy blocks us or hinders us at every opportunity. Projects succeed not because of government but in spite of it.'
Ms Rinehart said governments continuing to focus on the wrong things were hurting Australia.
'Pandering to minority group activism, the Left and the Greens abetted by virtue signalling, effects political decisions and policy, instead of costs, common sense and economics,' she said.
'Unfortunately, politicians too often forego common sense and real leadership, for noisy public activism.'
She painted a picture of Australia being the 'cusp of greatness' in the late 1960s to early 1970s.
'Government was wary of taking on debt, our nation was developing well, migrants were arriving from Italy and Greece especially, and settling in well, working and contributing, in numbers that worked, bringing with them a desire to succeed in their new country, not wanting Aussie taxpayers' welfare,' she said.
'Our population was educated, skilled and industrious. Government was far, far less intrusive and the welfare state as we know it today did not exist.'
However, she argued that all changed with the election of the Whitlam Labor government in 1972.
'Trade unions impatient to claim an even greater share of what they saw as this prosperous future, helped to elect a socialist government led by Gough,' she said.
'Policies were put in place that favoured trade unions and popular agendas rather than common sense.'
In the speech, she also called for an end of 'discriminatory limit on work hours' to let pensioners, uni students, veterans, disabled and nonviolent non-dangerous prisoners help fill labour shortages'.
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22 November, 2023
Why climate activists love to hate Israel
Climate activists have been busy since 7 October. The demands for ‘action now’ on global warming continue, but affairs in the Middle East are proving to be a distraction for Just Stop Oil. Cries of ‘free Gaza’, ‘ceasefire now’, and even ‘from the river to the sea’ – a chant, purported to be a cry for peace and ‘solidarity’ with Palestinians, but used by those who want to wipe Israel off the map – have now joined, and at times drowned out, the usual green slogans.
Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists took part in a sit-in protest at London’s Waterloo station on Saturday to demand a ceasefire, despite Hamas continuing to hold hundreds of Israelis hostage. The group’s eco-warriors have also been waving placards, condemning Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack: ‘Stop murdering children, free Palestine, end apartheid’. Of course, what JSO won’t tell you is that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians, and particularly children; Palestine/Gaza is in chains thanks to its own theocratic, fascist government – Hamas – and Israel does not operate ‘apartheid’.
He was told by Greta Thunberg to ‘calm down’ as he was dragged off stage
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is also distracted from the looming climate apocalypse. Its website tells how ‘parents from Extinction Rebellion placed hundreds of empty childrens’ shoes’ in Trafalgar Square ‘to represent all the young Israeli and Palestinian lives lost in the ongoing fighting’. While XR does commemorate the 26 Israeli children killed by Hamas attacks on Israel, too many of the placards wielded by climate activists in recent weeks ignore the horrors done to Israel and the children who were attacked, many of whom are still trapped as hostages in Gaza. Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ murder of civilians is instead the usual target of activists.
For some people keen on the climate cause, this focus can be bewildering. At a 70,000-strong climate protest, at which a keffiyah-sporting Greta Thunberg spoke, the crowd chanted ‘Palestine will be free’. As Greta prepared to speak, a man got on stage and tried to wrestle her microphone away from her, before telling the crowd: ‘I have come here for a climate demonstration, not a political view’. He was told by Thunberg to ‘calm down’ as he was dragged off stage. A ‘No climate justice on occupied land’ chant drowned out his protest.
One might well wonder why some of those passionate about saving the planet have such an interest in events in the Middle East; why the battle against carbon emissions and Israel’s just self-defence following an attempted second Holocaust might be linked. According to XR, ‘Countries at war are less able to cope with the effects of climate change because their ability to adapt is undermined by internal divisions or ongoing violence.’
This seems vague, to say the least. What is clearer is that the climate movement has long prioritised populist, anti-progress, anti-humanist politics over facts, science, or reality. This is an ideological backdrop that can all too easily descend into plain-spoken anti-Semitism and an unhealthy fixation on the alleged evils of Israel.
Not all climate protesters are anti-Semitic, of course, and most would probably be horrified at the suggestion. Regardless, in the case of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, truth, facts and history are brushed over by some protestors to make way for a discourse that tallies with many old anti-Semitic tropes, such as that Jews murder children for kicks. For a few activists, the spurious fixation with ‘climate justice’ itself is a device for pitting the oppressed ‘global south’, which Palestinians represent, against the carbon-spewing, greedy, cruel and racist, rich global north (Israel). Never mind that Israelis and Palestinians live in the same place.
What unites the climate movement is the insatiable desire to blame and ban those things associated with power, profit and greed: free movement in the form of planes and cars; capitalism and the pursuit of wealth for ‘killing the planet’. For Jews like me, there is unease in the climate movement’s disgust of people who travel, whose families and professional interests are dispersed, and who thus constitute a rootless cosmopolitan elite. Ditto the yodelling for persons-of-the-land, communitarian life, the condemnation of those who don’t stay local, who are ‘nowheres’ instead of ‘somewheres’ as David Goodhart’s book put it. Jews generally haven’t had the privilege of digging into earth and soil, of being ‘folk’, and many slurs against cosmopolitans have, over the bloodthirsty years, been directed at us.
Green politics does attract people in good faith, who genuinely see climate change as a worry aside from highly politicked ideas of social justice and ‘equity’. But it is no surprise so many eco-warriors refuse to condemn Hamas, wear keffiyehs and relentlessly attack Israel – easily one of the greenest and most eco-forward states in the Middle East. For enemies of prosperity and the West, Israel – and its legitimate exercise of self-defence – are an irresistible target.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/why-climate-activists-love-to-hate-israel
*************************************************UK Energy Minister Claims Allowing Wind Farms To Hike Prices Will Reduce Bills
Campaign group Net Zero Watch has ridiculed UK Energy Minister Claire Coutinho’s claim that handing a price increase of 66 percent to wind farm operators is part of her plan for ‘bringing bills down for families.’
Net Zero Watch Director Andrew Montford said:
“Poor Claire Coutinho has only been on the job for a few weeks, and her civil servants have already made her look foolish.
The idea that you can double prices paid to generators and at the same time reduce electricity bills is simply preposterous.“
Net Zero Watch’s statement comes after the energy minister announced an astonishing round of price increases, with offshore wind offered at 66%, floating offshore wind at 52 percent, geothermal at 32 percent, solar at 32 percent, and tidal at 29 percent.
The prices for some of these technologies are now up to six times higher than long-term market averages.
Since Contracts for Difference are index-linked, claims that these increases address recent inflationary effects are simply implausible.
As work by numerous researchers has shown, the renewables industry in general, and the offshore wind industry, in particular, has been less than candid about its true capital and operating costs, and the earlier low bids in the CfD auctions were a market positioning and PR gesture that did not reflect the true cost of generation.
We have long predicted that the wind industry would be back with its begging bowl. It is disappointing in the extreme that the government has betrayed consumers by giving in to this blackmail.
Worse still, the 66 percent increase is a minimum: the government is offering wind farm operators ‘more money’ ‘if they reduce carbon emissions in their supply chains and demonstrate positive social impact on communities’.
How much money is not specified, leaving the cost to consumers and taxpayers open-ended.
And Mr. Montford has slammed Whitehall officials for misleading the public over renewables costs and has warned that consumers should expect hefty price increases.
“Just a few months ago, Whitehall was telling us that offshore wind was extraordinarily cheap.
That was a lie, and we are now seeing the truth emerging, with the Government’s complete surrender to green lobbyists.
Consumers and businesses should expect yet more increases in their electricity bills. When will this end?”
In light of today’s cave-in, Net Zero Watch is calling for DESNZ to withdraw its Generation Costs report, which continues to insist that offshore wind is cheap – less than half the figure offered to developers today.
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Taxpayers Are Subsidizing Rich Electric-Vehicle Owners—To the Tune of Billions
EV proponents often claim they’re cheaper to own than conventional gas- or diesel-powered vehicles, but that’s simply not true after accounting for the billions of dollars in costs government subsidies and mandates quietly conceal.
The stark reality is the average EV costs at least $53,000 more over 10 years than conventional vehicles, effectively doubling the price of the average new car.
But $22 billion in government handouts to EV owners and manufacturers absorb the extra expense at every stage of the vehicle’s life, from raw-material sourcing to battery charging.
Examining the numbers behind recharging makes this very clear.
While EV advocates claim charging costs are equivalent to $1.21-per-gallon gasoline, the real amount is an order of magnitude more.
Including the charging equipment, subsidies from governments and utilities and other frequently excluded expenses, the true cost of charging an EV is equivalent to $17.33-per-gallon gasoline—but the EV owner pays less than 7% of that.
Over 10 years, almost $12,000 of costs per EV are transferred to utility ratepayers and taxpayers, effectively socializing the price of recharging an EV while keeping the benefits private.
Due to high entry price points—the average EV costs $58,000, the average gas vehicle $33,000—most EV consumers are affluent.
This is socialism for the rich: a transfer of costs from higher net-worth individuals to middle- and lower-income taxpayers.
It’s the equivalent of levying taxes and fees on public-transportation users and those who walk or bicycle to work and using the money to reduce the price of gasoline.
Everyone without a car would be furious if they found out their money was effectively being given away like this. But that’s precisely what’s happening with EVs.
One reason EV recharging costs so much is the tremendous energy density of gasoline and diesel.
A single horsepower is 746 watts, so the engine in a typical American sedan is strong enough to provide more than the maximum amount of electricity four typical American homes are wired to handle.
Conversely, recharging a typical EV at home can consume 10,000 watts at any given time, roughly eight times the power an American home consumes on average.
Not only does recharging an EV require a large amount of electricity; it requires infrastructure capable of handling that much power.
Both are very expensive, and America’s electrical grid needs billions of dollars in additional upgrades to support more EVs.
Most major utilities have already conceded they won’t be able to meet the significant capacity additions needed to support proposed EV mandates.
Instead, utilities are reduced to begging customers to recharge during off-peak hours, often offering incentives like lower rates or bill credits.
Both the vast subsidization of EV recharging and the impracticality of making it a widespread practice are emblematic of the production and sale of EVs as well.
Average direct subsidies from federal and state governments amount to almost $9,000 per vehicle over 10 years while direct subsidies from utilities push the amount over $10,000.
But manufacturers receive subsidies too, and regulations force them to produce more and more EVs, even if the vehicles aren’t profitable.
The regulatory environment is so onerous and blatantly favors EVs, auto manufacturers can’t meet a range of federal requirements without shifting an increasing percentage of production toward EVs, even if consumers don’t want them.
Between corporate average fuel economy standards and Environmental Protection Agency rules, “EVs receive nearly seven times more credit,” the Texas Public Policy Foundation report notes, “than they provide in actual fuel economy benefits.”
Thus EVs have become the only way for auto manufacturers to comply with increasingly stringent regulations that will soon make conventional vehicles illegal—no matter how much consumers would rather have a gas- or diesel-powered vehicle.
Subsidies and regulatory credits amount to almost $50,000 per EV over a decade.
Amazingly, even with all these subsidies, mandates and other incentives, the report points out manufacturers are still losing tens of thousands of dollars per EV; consumers clearly don’t want them in the volume they’re being produced. That’s why they’re piling up on dealer lots.
The lack of demand has led GM and Ford to recently announce they must reduce battery production.
What’s even more amazing is the report actually underestimates the total cost of converting America entirely to EVs because it doesn’t attempt to measure many other additional costs.
These include billions of taxpayer dollars spent on electric buses, charging stations at airports, city taxpayer-funded subsidies and California-specific subsidies.
There are also many indirect costs like the disproportionate road damage caused by EVs, which are heavier than conventional vehicles.
Politicians can hide behind words like they hide the true cost of EVs behind subsidies and handouts, but the numbers don’t lie: EVs can cost twice as much as conventional vehicles, and that’s a losing deal for the taxpayers funding these money pits.
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An Australian Government (NSW) rejects call to ban offshore gas projects
Environment groups have condemned the state government for its refusal to support legislation to make projects like the controversial PEP11 gas exploration project illegal in NSW waters.
A report from the parliamentary inquiry set up to examine the Opposition's Offshore Drilling and Associated Infrastructure Prohibition bill acknowledged significant community concerns about the environmental impacts of projects such as PEP11.
But it found that key aspects of the bill may be constitutionally invalid or have unintended consequences.
"The focus of this inquiry has been to examine the environmental impacts of offshore drilling and also identify risks with passing the legislation. The inquiry has revealed that the legal framework regulating offshore activities in the state is complex and there are serious risks that could result in negative consequences for the State," committee chairman Clayton Barr said.
"Amendments to the Bill were also considered. However, the majority of the Committee is of the view that amendments would undermine a core purpose of the Bill. Therefore, the Committee has recommended that the Bill not pass."
Rather than ban new projects, it recommended that existing environmental assessments standards be reviewed.
Shadow energy and climate change minister James Griffin said the Liberal's bill was designed to ensure offshore drilling would be banned for good in NSW.
"But once again, NSW Labor under Chris Minns has put the environment last. We call on the Albanese Government to step in and protect NSW coastal waters," Mr Griffin said on Tuesday night.
The Surfers for Climate group, which gave evidence to the inquiry, said the report's key recommendation was disappointing and surprising given the community support to ban all new offshore oil and gas projects in NSW waters.
"We have yet to read in full the report's findings released earlier today. However it is clear this recommendation goes against everything the people of NSW want. The Government needs to tell us: Why isn't it stopping PEP11?," Surfers for Climate co-founder Belinda Baggs said.
"Sea temperatures are rising, pollution levels are increasing and low lying coastal towns are under threat from erosion and flooding because of climate change."
Marque Lawyers partner Hannah Marshall disagreed with the report's findings that the bill may be constitutionally invalid.
"We disagree that the Bill carries any significant Constitutional risk. It does not create any new inconsistency with Commonwealth laws," she said.
"NSW already controls activity in NSW coastal waters. Activity in the offshore areas falls under federal authority. NSW can already 'impair' offshore exploration and drilling activity by denying licences for infrastructure in NSW coastal waters. It is already the NSW policy position not to support new offshore drilling activity. If the idea was that the Commonwealth retain control over infrastructure in state coastal waters, the law could say that. But it doesn't."
A recent Surfers for Climate survey by of more than 1,700 people across Australia, found 98 per cent of respondents "strongly supported" the proposed bill.
According to the survey, the top three reasons respondents gave for supporting the Bill were to conserve the oceans and marine life for future generations, protect beaches from pollution and to create more clean energy jobs.
"Given the Government is serious about climate change, we look forward to it banning offshore oil and gas. We urge Premier Chris Minns, the Climate Change Minister and Resources Minister to draw a line on all new offshore oil and gas projects for good," Ms Baggs said.
The Wilderness Society said many of the risks identified in the report were either hypotheticals that were unlikely to occur, or could be remedied with minor amendments. "We are disappointed by the recommendation, and urge the NSW government to find a way forward and secure a gas-free coastline in step with what coastal NSW communities have been calling for," a spokeswoman said.
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21 November, 2023
Saharan Expert Says Climate Tipping Points ‘Complete Nonsense’
Dr. Stefan Kröpelin is an award-winning geologist and climate researcher at the University of Cologne and specializes in studying the eastern Sahara desert and its climatic history
He’s been active out in the field there for more than 40 years.
In an AUF 1 video interview, Dr. Kröpelin contradicts the alarmist claims of growing deserts and rapidly approaching climate ‘tipping points’.
He says that already in the late 1980s rains had begun spreading into northern Sudan and have since indeed developed into a trend.
Since then, rains have increased and vegetation has spread northwards. “The desert is shrinking; it is not growing.”
Kröpelin confirms that when the last ice age ended some 12,000 years ago, the eastern Sahara turned green with vegetation, teemed with wildlife, and had numerous bodies of water 5000 – 10,000 years ago
Later in the interview, Kröpelin explains how the eastern Sahara climate was reconstructed using a vast multitude of sediment cores and the proxy data they yielded.
According to the German geology expert: “The most important studies that we conducted all show that after the ice age, when global temperatures rose, the Sahara greened”… “the monsoon rains increased, the groundwater rose.”
This all led to vegetation and wildlife taking hold over thousands of years. Then over the past few thousands of years, the region dried out. It didn’t happen all of a sudden like climate models suggest.
Modelers Don’t Understand Climate Complexity
When asked about dramatic ‘tipping points’ (8:00) such as those claimed to be approaching by the Potsdam Institute (PIK), Kröpelin says he’s very skeptical and doesn’t believe crisis scenarios such as those proposed by former PIK head, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber.
He says people making such claims “never did any studies themselves in any climate zone on the earth and they don’t understand how complex the climate is.”
Except for catastrophic geological events, “it’s not how nature works,” Kröpelin says. “Things change gradually.”
The claim that “we have to be careful that things don’t get half a degree warmer, otherwise everything will collapse is, of course, complete nonsense.”
“I would say this concept [tipping points] is baseless. Much more [evidence] indicates that they won’t happen than that they will happen.”
Late last year in Munich, he called the notion of CO2-induced climate ‘tipping points’ scientifically outlandish.
He also called the prospect of the Sahara spreading into Europe preposterous.
https://principia-scientific.com/saharan-expert-says-climate-tipping-points-complete-nonsense/
******************************************FAIL: LA Times Botches the Difference Between “Average Temperature Anomaly” & “Absolute Maximum Temperature””
In the most recent LA Times article hyping “the hottest October on record” the Times can’t seem to get it right in understanding the critical differences between “average temperature anomaly” and “maximum absolute temperature” data.
The Times article references the global average temperature anomaly graphic noted below which shows the October 2023 global value.
NOAA has also released its October 2023 Contiguous U.S. average temperature anomaly outcome of 1.35 F (shown below – degrees F on the left hand scale) which climate alarmists have ignored and instead erroneously hyped the global wide October average temperature anomaly outcome as representing the maximum absolute temperature that applies to the Contiguous U.S. region.
The U.S. Contiguous average temperature anomaly value is defined using the USCRN temperature network of measurement stations that commenced operation in 2005 that are specifically determined to meet siting standards that preclude urban heat island impacts from distorting temperature measurements as occurs on the majority of USHCN temperature stations.
The NOAA October 2023 Contiguous U.S. average temperature anomaly value is only the 7th highest average anomaly value measured with prior year measurements for years 2016 (3.44 F), 2015 (2.72 F), 2021(2.29 F), 2014 (2.23 F), 2007 (1.85 F) and 2010 (1.46 F) all exceeding the October 2023 measured average temperature anomaly result.
The L A Times article shown below once again misunderstands and misuses (as discussed in a prior WUWT article found here) the critical difference (yet again) between average temperature anomaly data and absolute maximum temperature data by erroneously claiming that the October 2023 average temperature anomaly represents the “the hottest October on record” (note the Times articles photo caption) without understanding that such claims can only be determined by use of absolute maximum temperature data versus average temperature anomaly data.
Average temperature anomaly data represents a measure of the statistical difference between a specific month’s average temperature and the long-term average temperature of that same months’ prior measurements over a defined period of years.
Average temperature anomaly data does not represent maximum absolute temperature values with these latter measurements being required to support claims of “the hottest October on record” as hyped by climate alarmists.
The global wide average temperature anomaly data represent the combined average of hugely varying global regional average temperature anomaly values that cover the entire earth’s surface with about 70% of that surface being over the world’s oceans and about 30% being over the far-flung continents which are separated by tens of thousands of miles.
The land area of the contiguous U.S. region represents less than 1.9 % of the earth’s surface and lies between a specific and defined region of latitude (about 25.84 degrees N to 49.38 degrees N) and longitude (about 66.96 degrees W to 124.67 degrees W) in the northern hemisphere.
Attempting to utilize a global wide average temperature anomaly value to determine what absolute maximum temperature outcomes occurred in various defined regional global areas is absurd and invalid.
If the L A Times wants to address “the hottest October on record” it needs to use absolute maximum temperature data records instead of average temperature anomaly data.
NOAA’s Contiguous U.S. October maximum temperature data for the period 1895 to 2023 (shown below ) clearly establishes that October 2023 was only the 94th highest October maximum temperature out of 129 recorded maximum temperatures with the highest ever measured October valueoccurring in 1963.
Looking at NOAA’s Contiguous U.S. maximum temperature data for all months between 1895 and 2023, as shown below, establishes that the October 2023 maximum temperature was only the 867th maximum temperature month out of 1546 recorded maximum temperature months.
If the L A Times wants to make claims of “the hottest month on record” then it must use absolute maximum temperature data to do so and stop erroneously using invalid global average temperature anomaly data to falsely support its flawed “the hottest month on record” claims.
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US Appeals Court Orders Biden Admin to Conduct Gulf Oil, Gas Auction Within 37 Days
A federal appeals court in New Orleans gave the Biden administration 37 days to move forward with the sale of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, dismissing challenges from environmental groups in a ruling on Tuesday.
The decision comes after a series of legal battles, primarily citing concerns over endangered whale species.
The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the attempts by environmental groups to block the leases, which had been delayed due to legal challenges related to whale protections.
The pending sale, initially announced in March, faced delays from its original date on Sept. 27, extending to Nov. 8 amid ongoing legal disputes. In late October, the appeals court further postponed the sale pending arguments specifically addressing endangered whale species, scheduled for Nov. 13.
President Joe Biden had temporarily suspended federal drilling auctions early in his term as part of his climate agenda. However, the lease sales were compelled by the Inflation Reduction Act, mandating their occurrence in September.
In August, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) sought to modify the leases, reducing the available area by 6 million acres from the original 73 million acres to 67 million acres.
The changes also included restrictions on vessel speeds and additional requirements for personnel on industry vessels within certain leased areas. These alterations resulted from an agreement reached between federal agencies and environmental groups that sued in 2020, citing insufficient safeguards for whales.
The state of Louisiana, along with industry giants such as the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, and Shell, filed a lawsuit aiming to reverse the acreage reduction and block the inclusion of whale-protective measures in the lease sale provisions. They argued that these actions by the administration violated the Inflation Reduction Act, which not only incentivized green energy but also promoted new drilling opportunities in the Gulf.
A lower court had ruled in favor of the industry groups, directing the Biden administration to proceed with the sale promptly. The administration and environmental groups both appealed, with the former seeking additional time and the latter advocating for the whale-protection measures.
The appeals court granted the administration a 37-day extension to carry out the sale.
However, the court dismissed the environmental groups' challenge on Tuesday, asserting that they lacked standing in the case as they did not demonstrate a "certainly impending" injury or the likelihood of the court resolving such issues.
Environmental groups expressed disappointment and concern over the ruling, warning of potential consequences for the endangered Rice's whale.
“This disappointing and unjustified ruling could be the death knell for the nearly extinct Rice’s whale,” said George Torgun, an attorney with Earthjustice, in a written statement.
“The oil industry fought tooth and nail to tear up basic measures to save one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. This could be the difference between doing the bare minimum to save this species, and allowing it to vanish,” he added.
On the other hand, the American Petroleum Institute hailed the decision as a victory, emphasizing the importance of the Gulf of Mexico in maintaining affordable and reliable American energy production.
"Today’s decision creates greater certainty for the essential energy workforce and the entire Gulf Coast economy," Ryan Meyers, the group’s senior vice president and general counsel, said in a written statement.
The Biden administration has declared that it will sell only three offshore oil and gas leases over the next five years as part of its climate agenda.
In a Sept. 29 statement, the Department of the Interior said that between 2024 and 2029, it would engage in "a maximum of three potential oil and gas lease sales” in the Gulf of Mexico region, scheduled for 2025, 2027, and 2029.
The three sales represent “the fewest oil and gas lease sales in history,” the department claims.
Meanwhile, no oil and gas lease sales will happen in the Atlantic, Pacific, or Alaskan waters during this period, according to the statement.
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The electric dreams of the Australian Left are running on empty as new car sales tank
Australia must be running out of elitists with money to burn
Chris Bowen’s electric vehicle strategy is on track to fail after government department officials predicted fewer than a third of new car sales would be battery-operated by 2030, casting doubt on Labor’s modelling underpinning its green agenda.
The latest estimates from the federal transport department are that electric cars will make up 27 per cent of new car sales by 2030, well below the 89 per cent forecast in Labor’s pre-election modelling that helped boost its 43 per cent emissions reduction target.
The 89 per cent prediction in Labor’s modelling conducted by RepuTex was based on Anthony Albanese’s pre-election policies that have been implemented since the government was elected, including exempting electric cars from import tariffs and fringe benefit taxes.
The department also estimates electric cars will account for 5 per cent of nation’s small vehicle fleet by 2030, a third below Labor’s pre-election modelling of 15 per cent.
Mr Bowen, the Climate Change and Energy Minister, waited until after the election to unveil plans to implement vehicle efficiency standards but this was not part of the modelling that formed the basis of Labor’s targets that are now Australia’s international commitments.
The RepuTex modelling predicted Labor’s policies would lead to 82 per cent of Australia’s electricity being powered by renewables by the end of the decade and a $275 reduction in household energy bills by 2025, with analysts arguing Australia is not on track to meet these forecasts halfway through the government’s term.
Energy experts cast doubt over Labor’s electric car projections before the election but Mr Bowen refused to release the detailed modelling that underpinned the assumption.
RepuTex head of research Bret Harper told The Australian that the government’s electric car sales forecast “seems about right”, despite being less than half predicted by his company ahead of the election.
Mr Harper said his modelling included plug-in hybrid sales in its figures – but federal Labor agreed to end tax breaks for all hybrid cars by 2025 under a deal struck with the Greens.
“A few years ago plug-in hybrids would have been considered a green vehicle but since then it has been ruled out because it has a combustion engine and runs on fossil fuels,” Mr Harper said.
“The department figures sound perfectly plausible, anything in between the 20 to 30 per cent range seems about right.”
Ahead of the election, the Prime Minister said Labor did not make a political decision about landing on an emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030, despite it being marginally below the uncosted 45 per cent target that hurt the party in regional areas in the 2019 election. Instead, Mr Albanese said RepuTex modelled the party’s policies announced in opposition and that figure came out as 43 per cent.
“What we didn’t do was adopt a target and then work back,” Mr Albanese said after announcing Labor’s 43 per cent target in 2021. “What we did was work through what are the good policy mechanisms … and then see where that came up through the modelling.”
Mr Harper revealed Labor workshopped its policies with the modelling agency and “settled” on a suite of measures that would lead to an emissions target the party was confident of taking to an election.
He said the ALP were interested in “the outcome of each of the models individually” with some having a larger impact on emissions reductions than others.
“They gave us the policies and we gave them the outcomes, there were lots of different iterations and then we settled on one,” Mr Harper said.
“Lots of different policies were considered and they were making decisions about which ones would be worth it for them.
“In an election campaign they wanted to keep their policies focused and wanted to get good bang for their buck in terms of what they committed.”
In a Senate estimates hearing last month, officials from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts revealed their latest forecasts found electric vehicles were on track to make up 27 per cent of new vehicle sales by 2030.
“In 2030, it’s forecast that electric vehicles will make up (5 per cent) of the total vehicles on roads and 27 per cent of new car sales,” Surface Transport Emissions and Policy first assistant secretary Paula Stagg told estimates.
When Greens senator Janet Rice noted this was “way short of 89”, Ms Stagg said: “Yes it is”.
A spokesman for Mr Bowen said Labor’s electric vehicle strategy was “off to a flying start” with EVs jumping from 2 per cent of new car sales in May last year to almost 9 per cent.
The spokesman said the department’s forecasts did not take into account “all policies under the National Electric Vehicle Strategy, including the government’s decision to introduce fuel-efficiency standards to improve Australians access to cleaner, cheaper-to-run cars”.
The ALP is expected to introduce fuel efficiency standards – which set obligations for car suppliers to lower the total emissions of their stock to meet a national goal — by the end of the year.
Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien seized on the modelling discrepancies between RepuTex and the government, saying Labor had “failed to deliver against its own targets and promises”.
“This is what happens when you pluck arbitrary political targets out of thin air and then refuse to have Treasury or the Department assess them,” Mr O’Brien said.
“Its 43 per cent emissions reduction target, 82 per cent renewable energy target, 89 per cent electric vehicle target and the all-important $275 reduction in power bills are all set to fail.”
The opposition last year raised concern a key plank of Labor’s plan to wave import tariffs on electric cars was redundant, with more than 70 per cent of car imports being exempt from tariffs under free trade deals.
Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood warned Labor would be unable to meet its target without stronger policy levers including fuel efficiency standards.
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20 November, 2023
Trudeau’s Attack on Canadian Farmers Will Raise Food Costs
A recent article at The Post Millennial (PM), “Trudeau’s war on farmers could create catastrophe as food prices soar,” claims that the Canadian government’s suppression of fertilizer use combined with heavy handed climate regulations are causing the price of food to rise in Canada. This is true, and is the standard and by this point expected result of environmental policies that target fossil fuels and farmers.
PM writer David Krayden says that the agriculture department in Canada wants Canadian farmers to reduce their use of fertilizers by 30 percent by 2030, while Trudeau claims the effort is voluntary, Krayden writes that “[t]here has been nothing voluntary about any of Trudeau’s climate change initiatives,” thus far.
Krayden is right to point that out. Allegedly a voluntary effort on the part of farmers, it will likely become mandated if the Trudeau government doesn’t get what they want. That is what happened in the Netherlands, when farmers voluntarily reduced nitrogen runoff by 70 percent, the government demanded another 50 percent, “voluntary or else.” Farms were bought out by the government, or seized, when they couldn’t meet government demands. Climate Realism discussed this issue, as well as similar attacks on agriculture in the name of climate change in other countries like those of the United Kingdom, in greater detail here, and here.
Trudeau’s government also has imposed federal carbon taxes on gasoline, natural gas, and propane, which Krayden writes “will cost farmers $978 million by 2030.” These numbers may well be underestimated, since farmers rely heavily on fuel for all their work, from planting to harvest to processing, not to mention transportation costs.
Krayden reports that Canadian farmers have already felt the burden of Trudeau’s climate policies, writing that “the net income for Canadian farmers fell 8.3 percent in 2022 and the expense of running a farm increased by 21.2 percent in 2022, the largest gain since 1974, when it was 22 percent.”
That date lines up well with the oil embargo of 1973-74, during which time the United States, Canada, among other countries, were targeted with an oil embargo by the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, and oil prices shot up 300 percent.
This time, though, Canada’s cost troubles are self-inflicted, driven by government climate policy.
Alarmists often claim that agriculture is a major cause of climate change, particularly livestock raising, and anything having to do with synthetic fertilizer use. The alarmists are wrong. One study, referenced by Climate Realism here and here, found that in the United States, cattle and livestock ranching was responsible for only 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Crops were responsible for only 10 percent. Canada’s own government admits that, according to their calculations, Canada emits only 1.5 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. If Canada’s agriculture sector is comparable to the United States’, that would mean Canadian agriculture’s contributions to global emissions is practically nonexistent already.
Recently, as Krayden explains in the PM article, the Liberal government passed a carbon tax bill through the House of Commons and included carve outs for farmers, but “the legislation was gutted by a Parliamentary committee and could be approved by the Senate of Canada without offering any financial relief to farmers.”
That bill could now include a tax on the heating and cooling of barns and greenhouses, meaning Canadian farmers may be limited in what they can grow, at reasonable cost, during their long northern winters.
Trudeau has also called for a “tax” on grocery stores in order to lower food prices, Krayden writes “without explaining what kind of tax it would be or how it would work to reduce prices.” However, Krayden says that obviously grocery stores will “certainly pass that shortfall onto farmers.” Increasing the tax burden on grocery stores, which already operate at very slim margins, will certainly not decrease the price of food. If those costs are somehow placed on farmers, like grocery stores demanding lower prices of produce, at the same time that the government is making it more expensive to operate a farm, food shortages and even higher prices are the only possible outcome.
The Canadian government is dead wrong to go after Canadian agriculture in order to stop climate change. Not only will their efforts, even if successful in reducing emissions, have no impact whatsoever, but they will only serve to raise food prices, put farmers out of business, and generally make Canadians suffer. The Post Millennial was right to hammer on this issue, hopefully the Canadian government takes note and removes the burdens on their farmers.
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Misguided environmentalists have made our cities filthy
If you’ve visited a big city in recent years, you’ve probably noticed that the streets are strewn with trash, litter is scattered all over the sidewalks, the buildings are covered in graffiti, and off-putting smells seem to emanate from every corner.
Take San Francisco for example, which not that long ago was considered one of the most beautiful cities in America. Today, the Golden City is one of the filthiest, with a “dirtiness index of 189.03, ranking 9th among the 40 cities included in the report” and a “litter index of 210.2,” which ranks fifth.
San Francisco’s streets are riddled with garbage, needles, and human feces. Its sidewalks are overrun with homeless encampments. And its public spaces, once enjoyed by tourists, have become open-air drug markets in which vagrants can do as they please.
This week, San Francisco is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which means the city will be in the international spotlight as scores of dignitaries and high-ranking officials, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, travel to the city for a week of meetings.
In the days leading up to the summit, Gov. Gavin Newsom -- who also happens to be the former mayor of San Francisco -- launched a massive campaign to clean the host city, telling reporters, “I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town,’ That’s true, because it’s true.”
On one hand, I give Newsom credit for his honesty in admitting that the only reason he ordered the deep-cleaning of San Francisco was due to the APEC summit. It is quite rare when politicians, especially one with his eyes on a future presidential run, actually tell it like it is.
On the other hand, I think Newsom’s superficial, last-minute attempt to sanitize San Francisco symbolizes the superficiality of the modern environmental movement and the misplaced priorities of climate change crusaders.
When I was a kid, I remember Earth Day and the environmental movement in general focusing more on cleaning up the environment and less on climate change alarmism. In grade school, I recall picking up garbage near my school and learning why it is wrong to litter. I also vividly remember my teachers telling us that it is our civic responsibility to keep our neighborhoods clean. One year, we even planted trees around town so that we could watch them grow and become part of the landscape as the years went by.
However, that was a long time ago. In the intervening years, mostly beginning with the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, the environmental movement has become much less concerned with maintaining a clean and beautiful environment and almost totally consumed with pushing climate change alarmism and green energy boondoggles.
San Francisco, for instance, has spent $40.8 billion in climate mitigation efforts over the past five years. In the meantime, it spends only $16.7 million per year on its entire streets and sanitation department.
In recent years, things have gone from bad to worse, as “climate and environmental justice” are now the focal points of those who claim to carry the environmentalist mantle. In fact, the environmental movement has been hijacked by social justice-oriented fanatics who are using environmentalism as a guise to push radical policies that have nothing to do with environmentalism but everything to do with increasing government power over the people and corporate control over the economy.
I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of Americans support clean cities, roads that aren’t filled with litter, and beautification efforts to enhance public spaces. This is what the environmental movement should focus on.
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Unrealistic plans to crack down on U.S. power plant emissions won’t work. We’ve been down this road before–and so have others
The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a new plan that would limit carbon emissions from power plants, despite rising electricity demand. Its stated intention is to force utilities to rely much more heavily on hydrogen and other green fuels, coupled with carbon capture technologies, to generate electricity.
The EPA’s proposed rule would force power plant owners to decide virtually overnight whether to install unproven and absurdly expensive carbon capture technologies or close their plants altogether to meet emission reduction targets–an unreasonable choice that’s being presented at a time when the U.S. Energy Department estimates that the U.S. will need to double its generating capacity by 2050 just to keep up with soaring electricity demand.
The likely consequences couldn’t be clearer. As James Robb, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, recently warned at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) annual reliability conference, the “rapid, often disorderly transformation of the generation resource base” has increased the potential for “more frequent and more serious long-duration reliability disruptions, including the possibility of national-consequence events.” Translation: The rush to eliminate fossil fuels from the electric power mix could potentially expose America to large-scale brownouts or blackouts.
We’ve been down this road before
President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, promulgated in 2015 under the authority of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (as amended), sought to replace coal-fired electricity with renewables and more environmentally friendly natural gas. Last year, a six-to-three Supreme Court majority struck down that plan, ruling in West Virginia v. EPA that the plan overstepped the EPA’s regulatory authority.
Going further than Obama’s original Clean Power Plan, which at least acknowledged the importance of natural gas, the Biden administration's response to such worries has been to double down on restrictions: proposing to eliminate the coal and gas-fired power plants that keep America’s machines running and our lights on.
This, Clair Moeller, president and COO of Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., told the FERC conference, “is bringing about a level of complexity and risk that is unprecedented.”
Given current technologies, the presumption that renewables can entirely replace coal’s baseload power is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are intermittent, whereas coal plants supply electricity around the clock, day in and day out. Moreover, power from coal-fired plants is dispatchable on demand because many utilities maintain large coal supplies on-site.
Green dreams and extravagant flops
The current debates about power generation focus on its environmental impacts rather than on the reliability of the grid that delivers power to homes and businesses. Coal and natural gas-fired generators not only are essential for supplying reliable baseload power but also as backup power sources when renewables are offline. The efficiency of solar panels degrades in extreme heat or cold. Windmill blades spin only when air is moving past them, and despite its greenness, nuclear power cannot be ramped up or down quickly in response to changes in electricity demand.
That’s why utilities and major grid operators are voicing concerns about grid reliability and the prospect of significant power shortages.
Green dreams aside, coal continues to generate a significant proportion of America’s electric power–about 19% overall. In some states the percentages are much higher: 74% in Missouri, 57% in Indiana, 70% in Kentucky, 41% in Colorado, 42% in Wisconsin, 61% in Utah, and 90% in West Virginia. All told, coal is the most important source of power generation in 18 states.
Another part of the story is that the U.S. currently lacks the infrastructure (transmission capacity) for carrying wind and solar energy from rural areas or offshore sites to population and manufacturing centers. Building out the needed infrastructure will require significant spending, which ultimately will rest on the shoulders of taxpayers or utility customers.
For years, NERC officials have been warning that the rapid loss of baseload power plants poses risks to America’s reliable electricity supply. The question now is how many shuttered coal plants will have to be brought back into operation–as Germany has been forced to do to keep people there from freezing in the dark during the winter–to reduce the gap between electricity demand and supply.
Just because a technology for generating power is technologically feasible doesn’t make it economically viable. Even a billion-dollar subsidy didn’t stop the giant Danish energy conglomerate, Řrsted, from walking away from a major wind farm project off New Jersey’s shores.
One of the lessons learned from that extravagant flop is that fossil fuels will be essential for the foreseeable future despite the administration’s unrealistic plans.
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A Rough Road Ahead for EVs
There’s a lot of talk these days about electric vehicles. People say EVs are good for the environment. They’re breaking our dependence on fossil fuels. They’re fast and cool. But they’re also expensive — so expensive, in fact, that EV automakers are worried about the massive amount of money they’re losing.
“Ford lost an estimated $36,000 on each of the 36,000 electric vehicles it delivered to dealers in the quarter — even more than its estimated $32,350 loss per EV in the second quarter,” according to Reuters. “During Ford’s second-quarter earnings briefing in July, Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said the company would slow the ramp-up of money-losing EVs, shifting investment to Ford’s commercial vehicle unit and citing plans to quadruple sales of gas-electric hybrids over the next five years.”
Losing that much money on every EV is bad news for Ford, but it’s even worse for General Motors, which postponed the construction of a $4 billion electric vehicle plant in Michigan. “GM now plans to begin construction of its next-generation EVs at Orion Assembly in suburban Detroit by late 2025 instead of next year,” reports CNBC. “The factory currently produces Chevrolet Bolt EVs, which GM will cease producing at the end of this year. The delay is the latest sign of potential trouble for the ambitious multi-billion-dollar plans of traditional automakers to move to electric vehicles.”
GM remains committed to producing EVs exclusively by 2035, but that seems like a pipe dream the way the EV market is trending.
The big automakers didn’t pledge to go electric because they care about saving the planet. It’s all about government regulations and mandates. If they can make money off the latest fad, they’ll jump on board regardless of its impact on Mother Earth. Now that it’s not turning out to be profitable, well…
It’s not only the Big Three that are taking a financial hit. The sophisticated guy sipping a caramel latte and plugging his Tesla into an EV station at the local convenience store looks like he’s on the cutting edge of a technological and social revolution. But there’s a higher overall cost than the construction worker pumping gallons of 89 octane into his 2015 Ford F-150.
In a report titled “Overcharged Expectations: Masking the True Costs of Electric Vehicles,” the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that it costs the equivalent of roughly $17 per gallon to charge an electric car due to pressure on the energy grid caused by charging stations and the large federal subsidies helping to lower vehicle costs.
“The cost of electricity for EV owners is equal to $1.21 per gallon of gasoline,” the report says, “but the cost of charging equipment and charging losses, averaged out over 10 years and 120,000 miles, is $1.38 per gallon equivalent on top of that.” That’s where government steps in to hide the true cost, but the Texas Public Policy Foundation pulls back the curtain: “Adding the costs of the subsidies to the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to an EV owner paying $17.33 per gallon of gasoline. And these estimates do not include the hundreds of billions more in subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) for various aspects of the EV supply chain, particularly for battery manufacturing.”
As for the batteries, the report also discovered that the decade-long downward price trend of lithium-ion battery costs “has largely ended.” That’s bad news, too. EV drivers who need to replace their car battery will get a rude awakening. “Electric car batteries degrade over time,” reports automotive writer Madison Cates, “and while gas-powered car batteries can easily be replaced for $100-$200, it’s not that simple for electric cars. A Swedish car owner experienced this the hard way this week when they received a repair bill for $21,000 for their Tesla battery. Electric car batteries are not built to last; when they go out, you can expect a hefty repair bill.”
But wait — there’s more. Buyers willing to fork over the extra money for an EV will indeed have something of a novelty, but perhaps not for long. As a study by ISeeCars found, “While the average 5-year depreciation for all vehicles is 38.8 percent, electric vehicles are more than 10 percentage points worse at 49.1 percent.”
According to iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer, “Between incentives that effectively lower an EV’s price before it’s even purchased and concerns about battery replacement costs, used electric vehicles have always suffered higher depreciation than equivalent gasoline cars,” and “this pattern will continue until electric vehicles don’t require heavy incentives to sell and consumers gain confidence in their long-term ownership costs.”
It’s no surprise, then, that EV sales are slumping. Consumers were understandably caught up in the hype, but hype isn’t enough when reality sets in.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102218-a-rough-road-ahead-for-evs-2023-11-17
***************************************19 November, 2023
EU approves controversial weedkiller glyphosate for another 10 years
A win for sanity. Because it is cheap and very effective the Green/Left have long hated it and tried to drum up evidence of its harmfulness. The big problem is that it is NOT harmful in normal use. Lawsuits have however cost Monsanto a lot of money. Background on the campaign against it below
https://antigreen.blogspot.com/2019/03/rounding-up-roundup-racket-matt-ridley.html
The European Commission has approved the use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate for another decade, with a spokesperson for Australian growers backing the move as good news for exports.
Authorisation in European Union countries was set to expire on December 15, after a one-year extension was given last year.
Without access to the chemical, which kills a broad spectrum of weeds, farmers claimed food production would have been affected.
The weedkiller is also widely used among the broader population by backyard and professional gardeners.
Farmers globally were worried the commission would not renew its approval, given strong pressure from anti-glyphosate campaigners, and claims that glyphosate is a health hazard.
But the commission defied those expectations in a split decision this week, after key member states France, Germany and Italy abstained from voting.
Earlier this year, a class action lawsuit was launched against the makers of glyphosate by people diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma who used or were exposed to Roundup.
In September, a preliminary nine-week trial in the Federal Court in Melbourne heard from expert witnesses about whether glyphosate is carcinogenic to humans.
Closing submissions in that trial are scheduled for January.
Research on glysophate 'intensifying'
In a statement, the European Commission said the approval was "based on comprehensive safety assessments carried out by the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency, together with the member states".
It said there was "no evidence to classify glyphosate as being carcinogenic".
In granting a 10-year extension, rather than the usual 15-year time frame, the commission said research on glyphosate was "intensifying".
"New insights on the properties of glyphosate relevant for the protection of human health and environment can be expected," it said.
It also said the 10-year approval came with several new conditions, including the prohibition of use as a desiccant, or drying agent, and the setting of maximum application rates.
The European Union's (EU) chemical regulation system is a two-step process, meaning member states have the right to ban products even if approved at EU level.
Shona Gawel, chief executive of peak body GrainGrowers, said a glyphosate ban in the EU would have been bad news for Australian growers. "I don't like to speculate on exactly what it would have meant but … it could have impacted on exports," she said.
"There are also other countries that watch the EU fairly closely, so we suspect that would mean they might have started to reflect the EU requirements."
Ms Gawel said Australia's chemical regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), had ruled glyphosate to be non-carcinogenic.
"I know the APVMA scientists have reviewed close to 4,800 peer-reviewed articles and datasets around glyphosate usage, so I think we have to trust the science," she said.
Ms Gawel said that while farmers do use chemicals that are harmful to human health, it was done in a safe way.
"It's a little bit like with our family pets at home — if we give them a flea treatment, if we used a chemical like that outside of the way the label dictates, it would be harmful," she said.
"So it's the same approach when it comes to the use of chemicals on farms, that growers have training and they use chemicals in compliance with labels."
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While Hamas Planned Its Attack on Israel, Biden’s Intel Community Was Focused On Climate Change
As the Israel-Gaza conflict enters its second month, congressional leaders are beginning to examine whether the Biden administration’s intelligence shift—which included adding a climate scientist to his Intelligence Advisory Board, a task force that tracks national security issues, and executive orders that required the intelligence community to assess security threats posed by climate change—may have contributed to America’s failure to spot Hamas’s planning beforehand. Hamas had been planning the attack for over a year, according to reports.
"The world faces unprecedented threats from Communist China, the Iran regime, and Russia yet the Biden administration is shifting intelligence and defense assets to focus on climate change," Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Washington Free Beacon. "Just this past March, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified before Congress that climate was an intelligence priority. The blatant political posturing on climate change within our intelligence community endangers the U.S. and our allies by sidelining other threats."
In January, President Joe Biden signaled his administration’s shift to climate change when he appointed the first-ever climate scientist to his Intelligence Advisory Board, a decades-old task force that tracks national security issues across the globe. Brown University professor Kim Cobb, an "expert on climate extremes and coastal flooding," was tasked with reviewing "the work of U.S. spy agencies to make sure they are considering threats from all angles," as well as policing the board "to make sure that the intelligence offered to the president is taking into account climate-related security issues," the Washington Post reported.
Biden followed this with several executive orders that reportedly "required the intelligence community to assess the national security threats posed by climate change." Biden’s focus on climate change also extended to the American military, with the Pentagon classifying these issues in 2021 as "a critical national security issue."
The American intelligence community’s pivot to climate issues is under renewed scrutiny from Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress in the wake of Hamas’s slaughter of more than 1,200 Israelis—an attack that has raised many questions about how the United States failed to spot Hamas’s military buildup in advance. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said during an Oct. 11 press briefing that the attack was "a massive intelligence failure."
The Biden administration’s focus on climate change was on full display during Haines’s testimony earlier this year in front of Congress.
"Climate change remains an urgent threat that will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount over the global response to the challenge," Haines said.
The State Department, America’s diplomatic face across the world, followed the intelligence community’s lead when it appointed John Kerry as its first special presidential envoy for climate, a position that has enabled the former secretary of state to cut deals with China on issues like carbon emissions.
The administration’s focus on what Republicans view as far-left priorities may have diverted America’s intelligence capabilities, leading to what even the White House admits was a significant intelligence failure on Oct. 7, according to one congressman.
"Joe Biden is pushing to publicly release the Pentagon’s carbon emissions, needlessly gifting our adversaries valuable intelligence on U.S. military strength. At the same time, he’s telling American intelligence officials to focus on phantom weather risks instead of the growing and all-too-real threats of Iranian-backed terror and Communist China," Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon.
"The administration’s obsession with putting leftist politics before our national security has had disastrous effects on morale, public trust, recruiting, overall readiness, and even intelligence collection," Banks said. "Our adversaries are laughing at us."
The politicization of America’s intelligence bodies was also spotlighted during a recent conversation between Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Rick Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence during the Trump administration.
"How on Earth did we get to a point where we missed the boat?" Cruz asked Grenell during an episode of his podcast, referring to the United States’ failure to detect Hamas’s months of planning.
"I actually don't believe that we didn't know that Iran and Hamas were planning, there's just no possible way that we didn't have pieces of raw intelligence," Grenell told Cruz. "I think one of the crises that we have within the intelligence world right now is we have too many people playing politics that are analyzing the information."
With Hamas, those analyzing the raw intelligence failed to connect the dots, Grenell said.
"I actually believe that the United States and the Israelis, of course, had the raw intelligence, that the analytical people just didn't put it together," he said. "They didn't want to assume that Hamas was going to make such a jump."
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The Global South (and China) Say Nyet to Net Zero
Like the biblical “voice crying in the wilderness,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner this week left Green Party activists and others enamored by the green religion gnashing their teeth.
“Until it is clear,” said Lindner, “that energy is available and affordable, we should end dreams of phasing out electricity from coal in 2030. Now is not the time to shut down power plants.”
Lindner also urged Germans to expand domestic production of natural gas as well as production of renewable energies. Germany’s cost for electricity has doubled in the past 20 years, such that the nation now pays some of the world’s highest prices to turn on the lights.
Over in London, British purists are set to celebrate the long-anticipated end to all use of coal for electricity by next October, a year ahead of earlier schedules. Already, there is very little coal being delivered to or from Newcastle.
British electricity prices have soared in recent years, with the average net selling value (pence per kilowatt-hour) to all consumers (scaled to 1990 GDP) rising from 2.28 pence in 2000 to 12.43 pence in 2021 and 21.77 pence during the energy crisis in 2022.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., President Biden (or those who may really be in charge) continues to rail against not just coal, but oil and gas, as if generating electricity and fueling motor vehicles were only uses America has for those “fossil fuels.” Electricity prices in the U.S. vary widely from state to state, but overall have risen at rates above the inflation rate during the 21st Century.
Biden’s EPA has threatened to dismantle 60 percent of the U.S. power supply nearly overnight. The U.S. coal fleet is facing six rules designed to work in unison to accelerate plant closures. Biden’s Clean Power Plan 2.0 has even his own Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman, Willie Phillips, saying, “I am extremely concerned about the pace of retirements we are seeing of generators which are needed for reliability.”
The Biden Administration is also spending U.S. tax dollars to bribe other nations to cut their use of coal. Last November, Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) accepted a $20 billion commitment by the Biden White House via a “just energy transition partnership” toward a goal of capping carbon dioxide releases from its electricity sector at 290 megatons by 2030.
The JETP says it will cost $600 billion to wean Indonesia from coal by 2050 – five years earlier than its previous proposal. Indonesia, with 25 billion tons of coal reserves (11th largest in the world), is today the world’s fifth largest coal producer, using about 100 million tons domestically and sending 400 million tons abroad. Don’t bet on Indonesia to quit coal soon.
In India, by contrast, the coal ministry just announced plans to increase the nation’s coal production to 1.404 billion tonnes by 2027, with an eye to further increase production to 1.577 billion tonnes by 2030. That’s a big jump from current production totals of 1.0 billion tonnes.
Currently, coal-fired power plants in India are using about 821 million tonnes per year, but the ministry is anticipating major growth in coal demand in coming years. To meet demand, the ministry is planning to open new coal mines, expand existing mine capacities, and better utilize captive and commercial mines.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom the coal-hating President Biden is meeting this week, in April 2021 pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects” in China – with his fingers crossed. In the real world (not the green fantasy world), the Chinese government continues to grow the nation’s coal industry.
In the two years prior to Xi’s pledge, China approved 127 coal plants with a combined capacity of 54 gigawatts. Since the pledge, that number has risen to 182 plants with 131 gigawatts of coal power. The upshot – China has over doubled its new coal power capacity while the U.S. and European nations have shrunk theirs.
Irish journalist Thomas O’Reilly predicts that “the growing divide” between the West, China, and the Global South will be a hot topic at the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP 28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The self-named “High Ambition Coalition” of European Union member states and the United Kingdom is expected to push for a global commitment to phase out new coal production worldwide despite its being the fuel of choice in much of Asia and the developing world. [Coal is plentiful and affordable, qualities critical for energy development in poor nations.]
The representatives of rich, mostly former colonial, nations wants to force other nations to adopt more aggressive climate goals. They flatly oppose the use of carbon capture technologies by developing nations, one way these nations try to appease the ravenous West’s demands for obedience to their diktats.
A more likely outcome at Dubai is that China will lead its own coalition of coal-using and coal-producing nations to tell the Europeans (and Biden Democrats) to pound sand.
China, along with India, Russia (which is also ramping up coal production, even in heavily snow-covered Elga, Siberia), and South Africa (the world’s fifth largest coal producer), are bonded together in the BRICS bloc. Even founding member Brazil is the world’s 25th largest coal user – but its coal reserves are the world’s 15th largest.
BRICS just added six countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE (host to COP 28) to its membership. None of these nations appears eager to kowtow to the EU or U.S. The harder the West stamps its Rumpelstiltskin-like feet, the less likely Net Zero will remain a global vision. The world wants and needs more energy and will not let the decadent West dictate just what energy is “acceptable” and what is not.
But the West, too, would do well to abandon the “impossible dream” of decarbonization of a society comprised of carbon units (humans).
Emeritus British engineering professor Michael Kelly says while, technologically, the West MIGHT achieve Net Zero with a vast fleet of wind farms and a gigantic store of green hydrogen, barring a series of dramatic tehnological breakthroughs the costs of getting there would make Britain’s recent energy price crisis “look like nothing.”
With China, India, and much of the developing world saying “Nyet to Net Zero,” maybe it is time for the “virtuous” coalition (the West) to put a stop to its own wishful thinking.
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More fearmongering from the federal government, with the only solution being to give Washington and the climate cultists more power.
The sky is falling, but there’s still time to hand over more control of the U.S. economy to a bunch of federal bureaucrats to slow its falling. That in a nutshell summarizes the recently released National Climate Assessment.
The report, compiled by 14 federal agencies with the input of some 700 scientists, is little other than a climate alarmist’s gospel. Yet the compilers of the twice-a-decade report appear keenly aware that Americans have become less impacted or alarmed by the apocalyptic predictions that never quite materialize.
In an effort to scare Americans into buying the Left’s climate alarmism, which dubiously and tellingly can only be addressed through ever more government control of the economy, the report warns of the astronomical cost of climate change without massively expensive government intervention.
According to the report, climate change is costing the U.S. economy $150 billion annually. How, exactly? Well, climate change supposedly makes for more severe weather events (except when it doesn’t because they tell us climate change has little to do with the weather), therefore costing Americans even more of their hard-earned cash.
Then again, $150 billion annually is a bargain compared to the Democrats’ desired Green New Deal. That had an original price tag of $93 trillion over 10 years.
The climate report also claims that “while some economic impacts of climate change are already being felt across the country, the impacts of future changes are projected to be more significant and apparent across the U.S. economy.” Be afraid, folks, because it’s only going to get worse! Droughts, hurricanes, floods, and fires will be rising in frequency — that’s the dire prediction of the climate alarmists.
Never mind the historical data that simply doesn’t back up those alarmist claims. The fact of the matter is that coping with events has always been a reality for humanity. Furthermore, as the climate warms, it actually has benefited humanity in key ways, such as food production.
Another is reducing death. A related study claims that heat-related deaths could quadruple without certain “action” on climate change. What they don’t tell you is that cold kills nine times more people than heat.
Demonstrating just how woke the National Climate Assessment is, there are entire sections focused on promoting the Left’s favorite issues of diversity and equity. It even has a section ridiculously asserting that indigenous people had developed a holistic earth-friendly culture that can be harnessed to better react to climate change. It’s that old trope that everything was perfect, peaceful, and harmonious in North America before those foolish and reckless white Europeans arrived.
This is not science; it’s a cult.
The report focuses on the inequitable impact of climate change on lower-income people and minorities. When in the history of the world has the climate not had an inequitable impact on people with lower incomes? This is not due to climate change but is purely the economic reality of the haves and the have-nots.
Solomon Hsiang, a lead assessment author and climate economist at the University of California, Berkeley, states the obvious: “The research indicates that people who are lower income have more trouble adapting [to climate change], because adaptation comes at a cost.” He then adds, “If people can’t pay for it, then [they] can’t protect themselves.”
The great irony is that Joe Biden’s administration is making everything cost more via product regulations on everything from stoves to air-conditioners to lightbulbs to vehicles. If it wasn’t for the regulatory commissars making the cost of goods rise, then it would be easier for lower-income Americans to afford to adapt to a changing climate.
The report attempts to connect all of Americans’ lives to climate change, claiming that everything from their emotional well-being to their physical health to their bank accounts are under dire threat thanks to climate change. One of the report’s authors insists that climate affects “every sector of human and natural society.” If that isn’t cultish thinking, then what is?
In the end, the biggest bogeyman is the fossil fuel industry, which is essentially blamed for everything to the point that the language of social justice is applied as if it’s a battle of good verses evil.
The truth is, without fossil fuels, life on planet earth would be much more difficult. Lives would be shorter and death would be much more common, and all the wonderful technologies that we take for granted, like readily available clean water, would not be possible. Indeed, the actual injustice is the concerted effort by climate cultists to demonize fossil fuels, which still provide the only cost-efficient means for humanity to adapt to a changing climate.
As the climate changes — which it has throughout earth’s history — humans are far better suited to adapt through the free market than under the tyranny of government
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102189-national-climate-alarmism-assessment-2023-11-16
***************************************16 November, 2023
Weird, It’s Cold In Winter Again
If the continental United States had on Nov. 1 been on average 11°F warmer than normal, or even if on Halloween North Dakota alone had been 44°F warmer, the usual suspects would have no difficulty explaining the phenomenon
Instead it’s that much colder (as North Dakota was 44°F below average on Oct. 31) prompting National Geographic to scratch its wise old head and wonder if cold weather can come out of nowhere, even brutally.
As we’ve observed before, the science is totally settled on climate while weather is mysterious.
And thus it is that NG, shivering in the unseasonable cold, rediscovers the unspeakably frosty winter of 1709. They write “In today’s newsletter, we examine our early chill and the mystery freak winter of 1709” that “disrupted two wars, broke church bells, froze Venice’s canals, and turned the Baltic Sea into horsepaths.”
And the punchline? “What caused it? We still don’t know for sure.” Whereas the hot summer of 2023 was just like totally certainly ‘man-made climate change’.
As the link from that newsletter to the main story asks of the sudden, severe, protracted cold spell in 1709: Could it happen again?” Of course the answer ought to be no. The air is full of “heat trapping” man-made “carbon pollution” thus heating the place to the global boiling era of fire.
And if it turns out to be yes, well, don’t worry, the theory is obviously right, it’s just the facts that are mysteriously wrong.
We would like to gloat briefly here, because we actually wrote about that winter a year ago.
We can’t taunt them too much, though, because we did so because of a piece in, um, National Geographic. Which we noted at the time, “in a rare nod to reality” admitted that unusually cold weather is a catastrophe causing famine and disease, a stark departure from orthodoxy that says warmth is horrible in every dimension from agriculture to health (despite abundant evidence to the contrary) and gosh if only it hadn’t warmed up since pre-industrial times.
On the plus side, we can taunt them a bit because they recycled the same story because, well, gosh, the fall of 2023 is turning out to be extremely cold in North America. Exactly as the global warming theory NG is normally all in on didn’t predict.
As we have suggested, standard global warming theory did not predict this summer’s conditions and could not. It pounced on them once they hit, of course. But its take is that there’s something like a linear relationship between atmospheric CO2 and warming, so a sudden discontinuity either way doesn’t fit.
Don’t take our word for it. Well, do. But not ours alone. In a different context, responding to man-made warming icon James Hansen’s claim that warming is accelerating and is about to accelerate as well, no less a man-made warming icon than Michael Mann insisted that it’s not what the theory says:
“Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said that Hansen and his co-authors are ‘very much out of the mainstream’ in identifying an acceleration in surface heating that has ‘continued at a remarkably constant rate for the past few decades’.”
Well OK then. If it’s been remarkably constant, and in a stable relationship with atmospheric CO2, what explains the apparent spike this past summer? And a strong possibility for the unusual warmth this past summer is that the early 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano underwater filled the air with water vapour, the most important greenhouse gas.
Such an event certainly could cause a temperature spike lasting somewhere between half a year and two years, as powerful above-ground eruptions can cause similar temperature drops.
If so, the effects would be fading away now, and if they are, the summer of 2024 won’t be as warm. (That’s called a testable prediction, folks, of exactly the sort the AGW enthusiasts routinely fail to make.)
It’s also possible that this coming winter will be colder than expected, because of the fading of that effect, some other cause, or both.
Unlike climate, which always does what the computer models say even if you have to torture the data to make it confess, weather is unpredictable.
Finally, we note with a sour smile that the piece also says of 1709 that:
“In the absence of weather forecasting, the authorities had no time to prepare for what became known as ‘Le Grand Hiver,’ and thousands succumbed to hypothermia before measures could be taken to help them.”
Nowadays of course with modern scientific modeling, we have no idea what it will be like in three days except the conditions forecast in our ubiquitous pocket telephone weather apps will not arrive as forecast.
https://principia-scientific.com/weird-its-cold-in-winter-again/
*****************************************************The Impact Of ‘Green’ Energy On Wildlife And The Environment
We’ve been told repeatedly by the media that electricity produced by ‘renewables’ is clean, essentially free energy, better for the environment than traditional sources such as coal and natural gas
But is that true? Maybe we should look at the facts.
Wind turbines injure, maim, and kill hundreds of thousands of birds and bats each year in clear violation of federal law.
The Golden Gate Audubon Society in California reported that the wind farm at Altamont was killing about 10,000 birds, including over 1,100 birds of prey, each year.
Strangely, wind farm enthusiasts ignore the numbers and types of birds killed by wind turbines, even those who call themselves “environmentalists”.
Offshore wind turbines have similar impacts on marine birds, and, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, offshore wind farms also impact fish and other marine wildlife.
Currently, the construction of an offshore wind farm about 15 miles off the coast of Massachusetts is underway. The foundations for the huge wind turbines, called monopiles, are being driven into the seafloor by pile drivers.
Pile-driving noise can deafen, injure, or even kill marine mammals. At least fourteen dying humpback whales were recently washed up on beaches in this area.
The people building these projects are fully aware of the damage to marine life that they are causing and will cause.
Although killing such creatures is illegal, these companies have been given special permission by the government to injure or kill hundreds of whales and thousands of other marine mammals, including dolphins.
“It is hard to see how this hell can be allowed under present laws, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act,” noted David Wojick of the Heartland Institute.
In May of 2022, Sean Hayes, a NOAA scientist, issued a warning that “the development of offshore wind poses risks to these species [whales]” and that “these risks occur at varying stages, including construction and development, and include increased noise, vessel traffic, habitat modifications, water withdrawals associated with certain substations.”
Steve Gray, a former congressional candidate, wondered:
”Where are the environmentalists? No outrage. No protests against a Democrat-led Government backing offshore windmills.
The hypocrisy is deafening. Fourteen dead whales and counting.”
As if this isn’t bad enough, hundreds of square miles of forests have been clear-cut to provide space for wind farms, causing extensive environmental damage. It’s been estimated that wind and solar farms require 400 – 800 times the amount of land to produce the same amount of power as conventional power plants.
Modern wind turbines depend on rare earth minerals mined primarily in China, which has a poor record of environmental stewardship. The process of extracting these minerals imposes wretched environmental and public health conditions on China’s people.
It takes a tremendous amount of material to produce one wind turbine. A typical wind turbine, over 500 ft. (50 stories!) tall, contains more than 8,000 different parts, made of steel, fiberglass, cast iron, concrete, and oil.
One important component is a magnetic material made from neodymium and dysprosium, mined almost exclusively in China.
In the Chinese village of Dalahai, where the dumping of waste materials occurred, villagers’ teeth had begun falling out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases.
Children were born with soft bones, and cancer rates had skyrocketed. There were also unusually high rates of cancer, osteoporosis, and skin and respiratory diseases reported. The nearby lake’s radiation levels were ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside.
An article in the Daily Mail stated that every wind turbine contributes to “a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.”
Added to these problems are the adverse health effects of living anywhere near these wind turbines.
The incessant grinding noises they make have been known to cause tinnitus [ringing in the ears], vertigo, panic attacks, migraine headaches, sleep deprivation, and even heart disease, according to Dr. Nina Pierpont, a leading New York pediatrician.
The construction of photovoltaic panels also causes great harm to the environment. An estimated 70 percent of the world’s photovoltaics are made in China, much of it with slave labor in Uighur Muslim concentration camps.
The New York Times reported in 2014, “Although China may be a cheaper place than Europe for producing solar panels, the savings come at a higher cost to the environment.”
“Sometimes the environmental costs of solar panel production can be lost among the drive to encourage the development of clean energy,” declared Huang Xianjin, a Nanjing University professor who studies land use.
Huang and two other professors submitted a letter to the journal Nature arguing that China needed to take significant action to offset the environmental damage the solar industry is causing there.
A solar panel manufacturer in Zhejiang Province halted its operation after residents complained about serious air and water pollution caused by their production.
The Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Company produces a highly toxic byproduct of polysilicon used in solar panels called silicon tetrachloride.
“The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place… It is like dynamite — it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it,” declared Ren Bingyan, a professor at Hebei Industrial University in China.
Due to lax standards, these companies are cutting corners with hazardous waste disposal. Although polysilicon producers in other parts of the world recycle this compound, Chinese companies prefer to dump it to avoid the high cost of recycling.
Michael Shellenberger expressed his concern about environmental hazards resulting from discarded solar panels. Typically they contain cadmium, lead, and other toxic chemicals that can’t be extracted without taking the whole panel apart.
Such panels left in landfills break apart and release toxic waste into the ground or bodies of water. In a 2016 study, the Electric Power Research Institute concluded, “Solar panel disposal in regular landfills [is] not recommended in case modules break and toxic materials leach into the soil.”
Over a while, rainwater will wash cadmium out of solar panels and into the environment. This fact was brought up when local people in Virginia rejected a proposal to construct a 6,350-acre solar farm in Spotsylvania County.
Sean Fogarty of Concerned Citizens of Fawn Lake stated, “We estimate there are 100,000 pounds of cadmium contained in the 1.8 million panels.”
Mining and processing the materials needed for lithium-ion batteries used in EVs is also an environmental disaster.
Producing just one EV battery requires 25 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds of cobalt, and 200 pounds of copper, in addition to 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic.
The production of this one battery requires 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for the copper, all of which takes about half a million pounds of the Earth’s crust.
In Indonesia, where nickel for EV batteries is produced, polluted air and water reportedly cause respiratory problems and destroy forests and fisheries.
Lithium mining is one of the most ecologically destructive activities on the planet. At just one lithium mine, 35-40 Caterpillar trucks use nearly 18 million gallons of diesel per year.
Battery-powered vehicles (EVs) use much more aluminum than conventional vehicles. Ford’s F-150 battery-powered truck contains 682 lbs of aluminum, mostly mined and refined in Brazil.
There is a class action lawsuit going on there against Hydro, a Norwegian company. Here bauxite [aluminum ore] is mined and converted to alumina, a toxic residue that leaches into rivers and creeks.
“The alumina made here is produced at the cost of a lot of misery,” proclaimed Ismael Mores, a lawyer working on this lawsuit.
Because lithium-ion batteries are full of toxic chemicals, they can’t just be dumped into landfills. Like solar panels, they require recycling, a complicated process. If this isn’t properly done, the heavy metals involved will contaminate water and soil.
Another fact hidden from the public: extracting lithium from a used battery is five times as expensive as the cost of mining it. Does anyone think these batteries will be recycled?
This article has just scratched the surface of the disaster facing the world. Considering these facts, it is incomprehensible that anyone embracing these ‘climate change’ ‘solutions’ could ever be called “green”.
We need to stop referring to these people as “Green”. We must get this information to as many people as possible, especially our elected representatives.
https://principia-scientific.com/the-impact-of-green-energy-on-wildlife-and-the-environment/
*****************************************************Bad climate data from urban heat islands leads to wrong conclusions
Two new internationally peer-reviewed studies published in major scientific journals have documented misleading Northern Hemisphere temperature data and attribution analyses indicating inadequate considerations of Urban Heat Island (UHI) influences on climate records and dominant influences of the sun in producing warming and cooling changes.
Published in August by the journal Climate, the first of these studies concludes that global warming influences on people could be mostly an urban problem associated with a well-known UHI phenomenon whereby structures, including paved surfaces and concrete buildings, absorb heat during the day and release it at night.
Although urban areas account for less than 4% of the global land surface, they contain many of the weather stations where temperatures are collected, which substantially skew the bigger record picture.
Whereas the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that UHI accounts for less than 10% of global warming, the new study suggests that urban warming might account for up to 40% of the recorded change since 1850.
To arrive at this assessment, 37 scientists from 18 countries led by Dr. Willie Soon at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES-science.com) deleted temperature data from Northern Hemisphere cities and towns and concentrated attention on “uncontaminated” rural temperatures, which collectively show a rather small overall warming for the past 150 years.
As expected, the records showed routine episodes of both warming and cooling throughout the mid-to-late 19th century, 20th century, and first quarter of the 21st century.
The CERES research team reached conclusions similar to a separate scientific peer-reviewed study involving many of the same co-authors published in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, which took a different approach to analyzing climate changes during the same general period.
The team of 20 climate researchers from 12 countries led by Dr. Ronan Connolly, also at CERES, concluded that in addition to contaminated urban warming bias based largely upon weather station locations, the IPCC may have substantially underestimated the sun’s natural role in climate changes since the 1850s.
Whereas the IPCC only considered one estimate of solar activity for its most recent (2021) evaluation of the causes of global warming, Connolly and colleagues compiled and updated 27 different estimates along with three additional temperature estimates that were used by the scientific community.
Several of these different solar activity estimates suggested that most of the warming observed outside urban areas (in rural areas, oceans, and glaciers) could be explained in terms of the sun, along with some estimates suggesting a mixture of human and natural factors and others that agreed with IPCC findings.
When the authors analyzed the temperature data only using the IPCC’s solar dataset, they could not explain any of the warming since the mid-20th century.
On the other hand, different solar activity estimates applied by the broader scientific community revealed that most rural warming and cooling trends could be explained in terms of the sun’s influence.
As lead CERES investigator astrophysicist, Dr. Soon points out, “The Sun is the sole energy giver to all things on Earth, including the energy for photosynthesis and all the energy to drive the air and water and vegetation.
So it is without a doubt that any, however small, changes in the Sun will lead to consequential effects on Earth’s weather patterns and climate change. In addition, computer climate modelers have yet been unable to fully account for the slow changes in the orbital motion of the Earth around the Sun.”
Whereas changes in the Sun’s output were able to explain most, if not all, changes in rural temperatures based upon uncontaminated heat island records, CERES researchers were unable to correlate any influences of rising atmospheric CO2 with patterns of warming and cooling over the past 150-170 years.
Given that humans have no apparent influence over the Sun, conclusions of these two studies should give reasonable people pause in declaring that “the science is settled” regarding a human-caused climate crisis warranting draconian limits upon the sorts of energy we use and dictates regarding the cars we drive.
Dr. Soon of the first study emphasizes that using bad data that are swarmed by UHI effects will not only be scientifically misleading but, in fact, cause pain and chaos in everyone’s lives — especially in terms of increasing costs for food and heating and cooling our home as well as paying for the gasoline for our cars and other transportation.
He states: “If the IPCC had paid more attention to open-minded scientific inquiry than trying to force a premature ‘scientific consensus,’ then the scientific community would be a lot closer to having genuinely resolved the causes of climate change. Hopefully, our new analysis and datasets can help other scientists to get back to doing real climate science.”
Dr. Connolly, lead author of the solar study, agrees: “In scientific investigations, it is important to avoid beginning your analysis with your conclusions decided in advance. Otherwise, you might end up with a false sense of confidence in your findings. It seems that the IPCC was too quick to jump to their conclusions.”
As CERES co-author professor Ana Elias, director of the Laboratorio de Ionosfera, Atmósfera Neutra y Magnetosfera (LIANM) at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina, explained: “This analysis opens the door to a proper scientific investigation into the causes of climate change.”
That proper scientific investigation is long overdue.
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Australia’s energy system can handle extreme summer if system holds up, market operator concludes
No reserves
Australia’s energy system faces a once-in-a-decade spike in electricity demand this summer – as well as an increased bushfire risk and extreme heat – as the country’s market operator warned the system cannot afford any unexpected outages or supply shocks.
The Australian Energy Market Operator in August warned the country’s energy system could be stressed to near breaking point as soon as this summer, and Victoria and South Australia could both experience blackouts as there was a heightened threat that there would be insufficient generation to meet demand.
The warning had triggered emergency measures, which the AEMO said has eased the shortfall threat, but there is little capacity for any unexpected problems to Australia’s ageing coal generators.
The AEMO’s executive general manager operations, Michael Gatt, said months of planning with industry has gone into preparing the nation’s power systems for a possible summer of extreme demand.
“Our extensive planning with industry, governments and network businesses aims to have enough generation and transmission available year-round to meet consumers’ electricity needs,” Mr Gatt said.
“This year’s summer forecast is for hot and dry El Nino conditions, increasing the risk of bushfires and extreme heat, which could see electricity demand reach a one-in-10-year high across the eastern states and in Western Australia.”
The AEMO said in September it had asked for commitments of extra generation for both SA and Victoria, and tenders from heavy users who could be paid to lower demand when the grid was strained so much that blackouts could occur.
The AEMO said it is also bolstered by additional capacity as major generators return to operations. The market operator said an extra 1500MW of scheduled generation will be online this summer compared to the previous one, and it now expects an extra 2000MW generation capacity from new wind and solar projects will be available.
In WA, the market operator said nearly 50MW of extra scheduled generation is expected to be available. “The increase in generation availability and additional reserves being procured will help navigate reliability pressures, should they eventuate,” Mr Gatt said.
The additional capacity will largely come from Queensland and NSW, with several major generators on course to complete repairs and maintenance.
Coal is still the dominant source of electricity, providing around two-thirds of the nation’s power. But many of the coal generators are approaching the end of their technical lifespan, leaving many exposed to faults.
Many of Australia’s largest power station operators have undertaken intensive maintenance to ready their units for the spike in demand, but industry sources said recent history showed a spate of issues.
The Callide C power station, one of Queensland’s largest coal power plants, is on course to come back in January, the plant’s operator said earlier this year, while AGL Energy’s Bayswater and Origin Energy’s Eraring coal power stations are both set to return to full capacity after units were taken offline for required maintenance.
However, while the increased generation will ease concerns about insufficient electricity supplies, the AEMO said there remains an elevated threat as an El Nino weather system is expected to bring soaring temperatures and a significant rise in demand for electricity for cooling.
Australian authorities have warned of a heightened risk of bushfires, which could damage or destroy high-voltage transmission lines, which could create serious problems for the nation’s electricity grid.
Elevated demand could also cause further pain to Australian households. While AEMO said it now expects to have enough electricity generation to meet demand, increased usage will likely push up wholesale electricity prices.
Wholesale prices – the cost of electricity – are the biggest component in how much household and business bills rise by in 2024.
Australian households, struggling under high inflation and 13 interest rate rises in little more than a year, have endured two years of electricity and gas price increases of more than 20 per cent.
A record number of Australians are already struggling to pay their electricity bills, and further increases will prove deeply unpopular, and will not be welcomed by the federal Labor government, which has seen its polling slide substantially amid the cost-of-living squeeze.
Increases in utility bills could also fuel inflation, forcing yet more interest rate rises from the Reserve Bank of Australia, which has vowed to bring inflation back to its target by the end of 2025.
Energy market executives fear continued increases in electricity bills will also temper public support for Australia’s energy transition.
Labor has set the ambitious target of having renewable energy generate more than 80 per cent of the country’s electricity by the end of the decade, a key pillar in the plan to reduce emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.
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15 November, 2023
Defining a visual metonym: A hauntological study of polar bear imagery in climate communication
A VERY intellectual story below about images of polar bears. The Green/Left for a long time claimed that the bears were dying out so the bears became a symbol of global warming. Now, however, they are mostly a symbol of climate fraud. Why? The bears are NOT dying out. They are increasing in overall numbers, if anything. Pesky!
Abstract
From television news bulletins, newspapers and magazines, documentaries and films, social media memes and cartooning, to protest and art – even to the images that spontaneously come into our minds – polar bears are now ubiquitously associated with climate change. Indeed, polar bear visuals now often mean nothing but climate change. Why do polar bear images, as a particular type of climate change imagery, continue to thrive and to circulate – and indeed, to haunt – our imaginings of climate change? This paper seeks to understand the tangled social, cultural, political, and scientific histories of polar bear visuals through defining a new concept, a ‘visual metonym’. This concept is worked through using a longitudinal analysis of visual evidence arising from political, social, scientific, and cultural domains and using a hauntological approach that is sensitive to the spectre-like nature of polar bear imagery. This reveals three periods in which the work that polar bear visuals has undertaken has changed: polar bear (1990s–mid-2000s), political bear (mid-2000s), and climate bear (mid-2000s onwards). By the time of the ‘climate bear’ period, polar bear images had become entrenched and irreducible from (i.e., they haunt) climate change. As polar bear images came to stand in for much wider debates – of climate scepticism and political (in)action – they became a visual metonym. The paper concludes by presenting the visual metonym concept as a way to explore and understand how particular image types gain power, agency, and meaning and how they come to act as signalling devices representing complex engagements with contemporary issues. The visual metonym concept can be used to understand, interrogate, and critique naturalised and pervasive issue-led imagery.
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tran.12543
*****************************************************Funding For The Climate Scam Soars As ‘Green Transition’ Collapses
In December 2016, Donald Trump had just been elected President. He had been widely accused of calling the climate scare a “hoax”
In a post titled “The Impending Collapse Of The Global Warming Scare,” I went out on a limb predicting that the change of administration could bring about the rapid demise of the climate scare.
The post reported the then-increasing focus of the environmental movement on the climate issue, and ended with this prediction:
The environmental movement has climbed itself way out onto the global warming limb.
Now the Trump administration is about to start sawing off the limb behind them.
Well, that didn’t happen. In the event, the Trump Administration was mostly a disappointment to us climate skeptics. Yes, they did take on a few significant regulatory matters, like rescinding the so-called Clean Power Plan (which forced the closure of fossil-fuel power plants).
But they never tackled the Endangerment Finding (labeling CO2 a “danger” to human health and welfare); nor did they make any meaningful pushback against the activist bureaucracies or scientific societies; nor did they cut funding for the climate alarm movement to any significant degree. [Except here.]
So we have been left to wait for the climate scare and the energy transition to collapse under the weight of the combination of their scientific absurdity, physical impossibility, and crushing costs. It has been a long wait.
But you have likely seen over just the past few months that the supposed green energy transition — widely hyped and massively subsidized for two decades — has suddenly started to crumble on multiple fronts.
We are rapidly approaching the green energy wall. And yet at the same time, the promoters of the climate scare are not backing down. Not in the least.
To the contrary, the New York Times reports just today that the major environmental NGOs are in the process of cutting their funding for their most basic programs, like dealing with toxic chemicals to double down and focus even more on the one big issue — climate change.
More on that in a minute. But first, a small update on the approach of the green energy wall. Here are just a few of the latest data points on the supposed green energy transition not happening due to issues of cost and physical impossibility:
• From the New York Times, November 2:
“Wind Power, Key to Democrats’ Climate-Change Goals, Faces a Crisis.” The article recounts the developers backing out of four big offshore wind projects off New York a couple of months ago, followed by an overlapping group of developers backing out of two big wind projects off the coast of New Jersey just a few days ago (November 1). (See also my post of October 5 as to other cancelations of offshore wind projects off the mid-Atlantic and New England.).
For New York, where offshore wind is supposed to be the magic elixir that will enable us to close all our natural gas plants and at the same time electrify all buildings and cars, we are left with exactly one offshore project currently moving forward, with all of 12 turbines.
Excerpt from the Times piece:
“Instead of gathering momentum as the long-promised benefits of offshore wind farms are about to be realized, the industry is now mired in an existential crisis. An assortment of recent obstacles to projects in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are almost certain to delay — and possibly derail — Northeastern states’ grand ambitions to harness the winds blowing over the Atlantic Ocean.”
• The darned fossil fuels just won’t go away. From the New York Times today: “Nations That Vowed to Halt Warming Are Expanding Fossil Fuels, Report Finds.” Excerpt:
“In 2030, if current projections hold, the United States will drill for more oil and gas than at any point in its history. Russia and Saudi Arabia plan to do the same. They’re among the world’s fossil fuel giants that, together, are on course this decade to produce twice the amount of fossil fuels than a critical global warming threshold allows, according to a United Nations-backed report issued on Wednesday.”
• Values of stocks of wind and solar developers have been crashing. Jo Nova reports today that the Invesco Solar ETF is down 40 percent year-to-date. She previously produced this chart of the stock price of Siemens Energy, with two dramatic drops in the past few months tied to announcements of losses in the wind energy business:
• The Germany-focused website No Tricks Zone keeps us updated on Germany’s ongoing deindustrialization due to soaring energy costs resulting from going all-in on wind and solar. Today’s post has the headline “Green Economic Collapse: 1/3 Of Germany’s Automotive Suppliers Considering Moving Abroad.”
This brings us to the other New York Times article from today, headline: “Environmental Groups Cut Programs as Funding Shifts to Climate Change.”
Even as everyone can see that this whole green energy thing is just not going to work, the Times reports that the entire environmental movement is doubling down, cutting other programs and focusing their funding on ‘climate change’ to the exclusion of everything else:
A significant shift in donor contributions to nonprofits fighting climate change in recent years has left some of the nation’s biggest environmental organizations facing critical shortfalls in programs on toxic chemicals, radioactive contamination, and wildlife protection.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is shutting down its nuclear mission and has laid off its top lawyer in the field. …
The NRDC is not alone. The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Environmental Working Group, which have been at the forefront of efforts to clean up wastewater, regulate pesticides and adopt tougher standards for atomic power plants, are facing similar financial problems.
All the funders and the activists care about anymore is ‘climate change’:
Meanwhile, global spending to fight climate change by environmental groups and other nonprofits reached $8 billion in 2021, most of it in the United States and Canada, according to a survey released in September by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. …
“Funders that had a nuclear program or a toxics program have left those fields entirely and have gone to climate change,” said Marylia Kelley, senior adviser and former executive director of a citizens oversight group. …
I’d be surprised if the total annual funding of all climate skeptic organizations is as much as $25 million.
Well, alarmists have religious fervor and fanaticism on their side, but we have reality.
https://principia-scientific.com/funding-for-the-climate-scam-soars-as-green-transition-collapses/
*************************************************Another Setback for Biden’s Green Dream
The only truly viable means of replacing fossil fuel-based power production is via nuclear power. Of course, the conundrum for the climate cultists is the fact that their denunciation of nuclear power is almost as pronounced as their objection to fossil fuel.
Nevertheless, Joe Biden was so determined to push his “net-zero emissions by 2050” green dream that his administration was willing to embrace nuclear power — at least behind the scenes.
Yet Biden’s green dream once again has been hit by a cold dose of reality.
It all started two weeks ago when Danish wind energy company Řrsted announced that it was pulling the plug on its massive wind farm projects off the coast of New Jersey. Dubbed Ocean Wind I and II, the wind farms were part of a massive green energy initiative for New England that was projected to produce enough electricity to power 10 million homes.
The reason given by Řrsted had everything to do with costs, as the company said the project was no longer financially feasible, even with taxpayer dollars. One wonders if it ever could have been financially feasible without massive government handouts.
Now, Biden is getting more bad news. Oregon-based nuclear power company NuScale Power, the only company in the U.S. to have a certified design for the building of small modular reactors (SMRs), has just canned its years-long project to construct six SMRs at the Idaho National Laboratory. The first-of-its-kind nuclear power plant would have provided power to more than 300,000 households.
The Biden administration had intended for NuScale Power’s SMR plant, which had been slated to come online by 2029, to replace several coal-fired plants that are scheduled for closure. The advanced nuclear power plant would have provided needed supplemental support for wind and solar operations being developed.
Before shuttering those coal-fired power plants for good, the Biden administration might want to make sure it actually has the capability to produce reliable energy to meet the nation’s growing power demands. SMR technology does offer promising and exciting electricity-producing potential, and nuclear power has long been a proven energy-producing technology.
The trouble is the amount of government red tape. The regulatory costs associated with the development and construction of nuclear reactors has been nearly cost prohibitive. But investing in nuclear technology makes a whole lot more sense for true environmental and energy stewardship than does relying on the inherently and notoriously unreliable wind and solar power sources.
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The ocean isn’t rising, your island is sinking
Studies using 40 years of satellite imagery of more than 1,100 coral atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans have shown that most coral atolls have been growing in area, especially large atolls such as at Tuvalu. A few were static and some smaller atolls decreased in size. Some atolls had decreased in size because of compaction, extraction of coral for roads, airports, buildings and cement manufacture and groundwater extraction. Again, these satellite measurements confirm earlier theories that coral atolls grow when there is a relative sea level rise.
There is absolutely no science whatsoever to support the view that Tuvalu, or any other island nation, will be inundated by a speculated sea level rise. Only the contrary. The past shows that a relative sea level rise results in a growth of atolls. This has been known for nearly 200 years. The cash grab by the island atoll nations’ unctuous politicians and the UN should be called out for what it is. Maybe younger folk educated on Rugby Australia scholarships and with a Christian ethical foundation could change political thinking in the Pacific island atoll nations upon return to their homelands.
Come on Australia. Break away from your woke chains. Rather than hand out shedloads of cash to Pacific island nations for some silly hypothetical future catastrophe
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/bring-back-blackbirding
***************************************14 November, 2023
Most Of Antarctica Has Cooled By Over 1°C Since 1999
We hear a lot about Arctic warming, Greenland in particular. How come we don't hear much about Antarctic cooling? Could there be a natural balancing going on that nobody wants to talk about?
New research indicates West Antarctica’s mean annual surface temperatures cooled by more than -1.8°C (-0.93°C per decade) from 1999-2018. In spring, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) cooling rate reached -1.84°C per decade.
Not only has the WAIS undergone significant cooling in the last two decades, but most of the continent has also cooled by more than 1°C.
Of 28 CMIP6 models, none captured a cooling trend – especially of this amplitude – for this region. This modeling failure “implies substantial uncertainties in future temperature projections of CMIP6 models.”
The post-1999 cooling trend has not been confined to Antarctica.
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Eastern and Central Pacific (south of 25°N) also cooled from 1999-2018 relative to 1979-1997.
This cooling encompasses nearly half of the Southern Hemisphere’s SSTs.
The 1999-2018 mean annual surface temperature cooling of the Antarctic continent and nearly half of the Southern Hemisphere’s SSTs do not support the claims that surface warming is driven by human emissions of ‘greenhouse gases’.
After all, if the increase in ‘GHG forcing’ can’t explain the widespread cooling, why would the same concentrations of ‘GHG’s explain the areas with warming temperatures?
https://principia-scientific.com/most-of-antarctica-has-cooled-by-over-1c-since-1999/
************************************************Are We Really In An Unprecedented Time Of Warming?
Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events are one of the most striking discoveries in earth science related to past climate. They are named after the two climatologists, Willi Dansgaard and Hans Oeschger, who were instrumental in their identification.
These events are rapid climate fluctuations that occurred frequently during the last glacial period, illustrating a planet capable of swift and dramatic temperature shifts.
The discovery of D-O events can be traced back to the ice core drilling projects in Greenland in the late 20th century.
Analysis of the isotopic composition of ice cores, particularly the ratio of oxygen isotopes 18O and 16O, revealed evidence of abrupt climatic changes.
These isotopes served as proxies for past temperatures, with higher ratios indicating warmer periods.
The meticulous work of Dansgaard and Oeschger, along with their colleagues, in the 1980s led to the recognition that the Earth’s climate has not always been steady, but has seen dramatic swings, especially during the last glacial period around 115,000 to 11,700 years ago.
Comparison of temperature proxies for ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland for 140,000 years. Greenland ice cores use delta 18O, while Antarctic ice cores use delta 2H. Note the Dansgaard-Oeschger events in the Greenland ice core between 20,000 and 110,000 years ago, which barely register (if at all) in the corresponding Antarctic record. GRIP and NGRIP data is on ss09sea timescale, Vostok uses GT4, and EPICA uses EDC2. Source
One of the most well-known D-O events is the Břlling-Allerřd interstadial, a warm period that occurred around 14,700 years ago, punctuating the last glacial period with a rapid shift to warmer conditions.
It was followed by the Younger Dryas, a sudden return to glacial conditions before the onset of the current Holocene epoch.
These episodes are recorded in Greenland ice cores, with corresponding evidence found in ocean sediment cores, showing worldwide effects.
Another notable example is the Older Dryas, which marked a brief return to colder conditions within the general warming trend of the last deglaciation.
Each D-O event is represented in the ice core data by a rapid warming transition, followed by a more gradual cooling period.
The evidence for D-O events primarily comes from the analysis of ice cores, where they are marked by layers containing different isotopic compositions, suggesting rapid temperature swings over decades or centuries.
For instance, the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) and the Greenland Icecore Project (GRIP) have provided detailed and high-resolution data that chart these fluctuations (refresher on oxygen isotopes).
Sediment cores from the North Atlantic also offer support, as they display changes in the deposition patterns, which coincide with the warming and cooling phases of D-O events.
D-O events are critical to our understanding of the Earth’s climate system. They serve as a reminder that climate can change abruptly and with significant global impacts.
While these events occurred during a glacial period, and their direct applicability to our current interglacial climate is debatable, they highlight the roles that oceanic and atmospheric circulations play in global climate and how these systems can undergo rapid transitions.
Modern warming of approximately 1.1°C since 1880 is rather mild when compared to past natural fluctuations like D-O events.
https://principia-scientific.com/are-we-really-in-an-unprecedented-time-of-warming/
***************************************************Another Statistician Becomes A Climate Skeptic
In 2015 the BBC ran a program called “Climate Change by the Numbers”, in which they picked three numbers they thought were representative of the ‘climate change’ issue and handed them to three professors previously uninvolved with that topic and asked them to spend half an hour explaining what they meant
The numbers were: the average warming since 1880 (0.85C), the degree of certainty that at least half the warming since 1950 is man-made (95 percent) and the cumulative amount of ‘carbon’ that can be emitted if warming is to remain below “dangerous levels” (one trillion tonnes).
The 95 percent certainty number was handed to Dr. Norman Fenton, a now-retired Professor of Risk at Queen Mary University and author of over 350 peer reviewed articles in probability and statistics.
He spent his half hour not discussing climate change, which he was not familiar with, but how models are constructed for other kinds of analysis like football scores, which he happened to be working on at the time.
He said it was an analogy for how climate science worked, only there wasn’t enough time to look at the topic in detail, but he assumed that somebody somewhere has shown that scientists are 95 percent certain etc. etc.
Some time later, however, he finally had the time to study it, and in a new report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation he says he got it wrong, the IPCC made a mistake and the 95 percent certainty claim is baseless.
Wanna bet the BBC won’t be asking him back?
The problem, explains Professor Fenton, is one that is sufficiently familiar to have a name, “The Prosecutor’s Fallacy”. It happens when people reverse the condition and the conclusion, and is also called the “fallacy of the transposed conditional” by professional philosophers trying to repel their audience with the same skill sometimes displayed by statisticians.
But here’s Fenton’s plain-language illustration:
“If an animal is a cat, there is a very high probability that it has four legs. However, if an animal has four legs, we cannot conclude that it is a cat.
It’s a classic error, and is precisely what the IPCC has done.”
In this case if warming is man-made, there is a very high probability that it is unusual. But just because it is unusual, we cannot conclude that it is man-made.
The logic in the IPCC report begins with the claim that, according to models, most warming is man-made. And if that proposition is true then, if there was no man-made impact, there would be less than a five percent chance of seeing the warming that has happened since 1950.
But since we see the warming, it means there is less than five percent chance there was no man-made impact, hence a 95 percent chance most of the warming was man-made.
Wrong, says Fenton. Backwards, in fact:
“The problem is that, even if the models were accurate (and it is unlikely that they are) we cannot conclude that there is at least a 95 percent chance that more than half the warming was man-made, because doing so is the fallacy of the transposed conditional.
All we can conclude is that there is at least a 95 percent probability we would not observe the warming we have seen based on the climate change model simulations and their multiple assumptions.”
But we have to take account of the possibility the models are wrong, he says, or that something other than ‘greenhouse gases’ can cause warming.
And just because there’s only a one-in-twenty chance of something happening, it doesn’t mean if it did happen it had to be man-made. It just means it was unlikely.
But unlikely things happen quite often; given how many things happen, it is highly unlikely that a lot of them wouldn’t be unlikely.
As Fenton adds, however unlikely warming may be, it has happened frequently in the past. And of course:
“previous periods of warming certainly could not have been caused by increased ‘greenhouse gases’ from humans, so it seems reasonable to assume – before we have considered any of the evidence – that the probability humans caused most of the recent increase in temperature to be very low; only the assumptions of the simulation models are allowed, and other explanations are absent.
In both of these circumstances, classical statistics can then be used to deceive you into presenting an illusion of confidence when it is not justified.”
The IPCC’s conclusion is just circular reasoning. All warming is man-made, we see warming, therefore it’s man-made. Unless it isn’t.
If Professor Fenton keeps digging he will find that the IPCC has already dealt with this objection about past warming by wiping out past climatic changes and making it look like temperatures never did anything until Henry Ford invented the Model T.
Although he seems to be aware of that issue too because he makes an offhand reference to the hockey stick and the statistical problems that have been identified with it.
It’s too bad that it took eight years for Professor Fenton to realize his error, but better late than never, and kudos to him for coming forward about it.
It may be too late to save the UK from freezing this winter with their heat pumps and their iced-over solar panels but at least it’s a step in the direction towards sanity.
https://principia-scientific.com/another-statistician-becomes-a-climate-skeptic/
***********************************************Greenie Billionaire Funds Khan’s low emissions tyranny
One of Britain’s wealthiest men has been bankrolling the campaign for low-emission zones and has made a Ł46 million donation to a climate network chaired by Sadiq Khan, The Telegraph can reveal
Sir Christopher Hohn, a financier whose investments include a stake in the owner of Heathrow Airport, has donated more than Ł670 million to climate campaigns via his philanthropic fund in less than a decade.
He is one of a handful of billionaires ploughing money into civil society organisations that lobby local and national governments to enact net zero or clean-air policies.
Sir Christopher and Michael Bloomberg, a former New York mayor, are “strategic funders” of C40 cities, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities who are united in action to confront the ‘climate crisis’.
Khan, the London mayor and chairman of the group, which has called for people to eat less meat, give up their private cars and take only one flight every three years.
Since 2013, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), co-founded and chaired by Sir Christopher, has given nearly $57million in grants to C40 cities, and Mr Bloomberg has donated $45 million to the organisation that he used to chair.
The London Mayor has been the C40 cities chairman since 2021, and a source at City Hall said that its more radical proposals were made before he was in post and were not targets.
CIFF is also a major funder of the Clean Air Fund and has donated more than Ł17 million to it. The lobby group claims on its website that it:
“drove the creation or expansion of eight Clean Air Zones (CAZ) in Bath, Brighton, Portsmouth and the London Ultra Low Emission Zone – with the potential to save millions of lives.”
Mr Khan has previously been accused of manipulating the Ulez public consultation by excluding 5,000 responses from the final consultation.
The funding details are revealed in a report on the Clean Air campaign, seen by The Telegraph, which calls for the public to be included in debates about radical policies.
Its authors, from Together and Climate Debate UK, say not enough is known about the funding behind organisations pushing through policies that have a major impact on people’s lives. Their report alleges that “undue proximity between billionaires and the centre of political power” excludes the public from conversations.
It suggests that “seemingly localist civil society organisations”, including the UK100 coalition of local councils, which has “lobbied for anti-car and air pollution policies”, are funded by billionaires and there “are no grassroots air pollution campaigns of consequence”.
It alleges “grants from fewer than 10 philanthropic foundations account for well in excess of a billion dollars of climate grant making per year”. This dwarfs funds available to grassroots campaigns and research and the amounts spent by political parties on campaigning.
The Telegraph has previously revealed that Sir Christopher, personally and through his philanthropic organisation, was a major funder of Extinction Rebellion. His hedge fund, TCI Fund Management, owns shares in Airbus and Ferrovial, which partially owns Heathrow Airport.
It can now be revealed that CIFF, his philanthropic arm, has funded a number of projects that have involved City Hall, including the Breathe London air monitoring project, which places sensors around the capital.
Shirley Rodrigues, Mr Khan’s deputy for environment and energy, joined City Hall from CIFF, where she had held a number of roles, including ‘acting executive director for climate change’.
The Telegraph has previously revealed that Ms Rodrigues has been accused of attempting to “silence” scientists who were critical of the impact of the Ulez, a charge she denied.
An earlier report by the campaign groups accused Mr Khan of misleading the public when he claimed pollution was responsible for the deaths of 4,000 Londoners a year to justify imposing the Ulez scheme.
Mr Khan did not respond to questions about billionaires’ funding, but City Hall officials insisted that all eligible Ulez consultation responses had been taken into account.
Since 2013, CIFF has donated $827 million to climate related causes and Mr Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies has given $502 million. The foundations work internationally.
There is a “money-go-round” where donations are passed from one organisation to another, and the funding of campaign groups is often unclear, says Ben Pile, a report author.
“Policies such as the Ulez should be driven by the public, not by billionaires whose interests have not been properly explored,” said Mr Pile.
A similar organisation to the global C40 cities network exists for local councils. The UK100 Cities Network requires authorities that join it to pledge to go further and faster than the Government on Net Zero.
It is active in more than 100 councils.
An earlier version of its website stated it has received financial support from CIFF and the European Climate Foundation, which has in turn received money from Sir Christopher’s fund.
The report’s authors said:
“The public must be at the centre of political decision-making across all policy domains.
Though air pollution policies may seem to have been driven by grassroots campaigns and scientific evidence, we have investigated these organisations and found that they are in fact almost exclusively supported by a small number of philanthropic foundations that are active in climate change lobbying, which have made air quality a proxy issue for the same agenda.
The public has simply not been consulted, much less been free to participate in discussion about or vote on important questions.”
https://principia-scientific.com/xr-funder-billionaire-also-funds-khans-ulez-network/
***************************************13 November, 2023
University of Copenhagen study says Greenland's glaciers melting at five times previous rates over the last 20 years
Here we go again! La de da de da. Once again no mention of Greenland's subsurface volcanoes. The galoots below admit that the warming has been uneven -- which is consistent with the erratic nature of volcanoes, not the even effect that would be expected from global warming
Global warming has increased the speed at which glaciers in Greenland are melting fivefold over the last 20 years, according to scientists from the University of Copenhagen.
Greenland's ice melt is of particular concern, as the ancient ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by at least 6 metres if it were to melt away entirely.
A study of a thousand glaciers in the area showed the rate of melting has entered a new phase over the last two decades, Anders Anker Bjřrk, assistant professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen, told Reuters.
"There is a very clear correlation between the temperature we experience on the planet and the changes we observe in how rapidly the glaciers are melting," Dr Bjřrk said.
The glaciers on average decrease by 25 metres annually, compared with 5-6 metres two decades ago.
Scientists reached their conclusion after studying the development of the glaciers over 130 years through satellite imagery and 200,000 old photos.
The University of Copenhagen said the study was the most comprehensive monitoring of Greenland's glaciers to date.
Only one of the country's 22,000 glaciers has been monitored continuously since the mid-1990s. Others seemed unaffected by rising temperatures just a few years ago.
"Previously, we saw areas in northern Greenland, for example, that were lagging behind and melting less compared to the hardest hit glaciers," Dr Bjřrk said.
"This generated a bit of doubt about how serious things were in these areas.
"At the same time, no one before us had ever shed light on such a long period of time, which precipitated doubts as well.
"But now, the picture is conclusive: The melting of all glaciers is in full swing, there is no longer any doubt."
The Greenland ice sheet contributed 17.3 per cent of the observed rise in sea level between 2006 and 2018 and glaciers have contributed 21 per cent.
Ice sheet expected to melt further as temperatures rise
The world has already warmed by nearly 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures.
This year was "virtually certain" to be the warmest in 125,000 years, scientists from the European Union said earlier this month.
Climate scientists issue warning over Antarctic sea ice levels
Scientists say warming ocean temperatures are having an alarming impact on Antarctic sea ice levels, with currently 1.5 million square kilometres less sea ice than is typical at this time.
Lowering temperatures would require a global effort to minimise greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, said Jřrgen Eivind Olesen, Institute Director of the Climate Institute at Aarhus University.
"I believe we can prepare for those glaciers to continue to melt at increasing speeds," he said.
Glaciers in Greenland have often been used to anticipate the effects of climate change on Greenland's ice sheet.
"If we start to see glaciers losing mass several times faster than in the last century, it can make us expect that the ice sheet will follow the same path, just on a slower and longer time scale," William Colgan, senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, said.
Dr Bjřrk said the research was "quite disturbing". "Because we're well aware of where this is headed in the future," he said. "Temperatures will continue to rise and glaciers will melt faster than they do now.
"But our study also shows that glaciers respond to climate change very quickly, which is in itself positive because it tells us that it's not too late to minimise warming.
"Everything that we can do to reduce CO2 emissions now will result in slower sea level rise in the future."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-13/greenland-ice-sheet-glacier-research/103097030
********************************************CFACT President Craig Rucker has blown the whistle on Federal plans to put hundreds of floating wind generators off the Oregon coast
Floating wind is the latest green energy fantasy, taking its place along with hydrogen, EVs, battery storage, and net zero.
The idea is that where the water is too deep for conventional offshore wind generators, we will simply put these huge towers and turbines on floats. Pretty much all of the West Coast fits this bill, as does most of Maine.
Responding to a Federal request for comments on a big floating wind proposal for Oregon, Rucker explains clearly that the technology needed to do this does not exist and may never exist in an economically feasible form. The federal agency is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The plan is to designate hundreds of thousands of ocean acres as Wind Energy Areas and then start auctioning them off to floating wind developers.
First, let me say that, sure, we can put huge turbine towers on floats. Our fighter jets take off from and land on floats, right, floats called aircraft carriers. But they are really big, hence expensive. The same is true for floating wind, albeit at a somewhat smaller scale.
Look at it this way. Suppose you took a sailboat and put a 600? tall mast on it. At the top, you put an 800-ton turbine with three 500? long wind-catching blades. How big would that boat have to be not to blow over when hit by severe wind and waves?
The answer is very big indeed, in fact, huge. Now compare this huge float with the simple monopile that conventional offshore generators sit on. The monopile is a simple steel tube, maybe 30? in diameter and a few hundred feet long, driven solidly into the ocean floor.
Compared to the huge float, the monopile is small and cheap. But simple monopile base offshore wind facilities are already tremendously expensive. Floating wind is projected to cost much more, from 2.5 to 3 times more, in fact.
In addition to the huge float holding up the turbine tower, there have to be a bunch of monster mooring chains anchored firmly to the ocean floor in all directions to keep the float from rocking too much in heavy seas or from capsizing. Then, too, the power lines taking off the electricity have to somehow get from these bobbing floats to the distant shore.
The highly specialized fabrication facilities and work boats required to make and install all this stuff in deep water do not exist. Given that over 50 vastly different floating wind designs have been proposed, we do not even know what to build.
I say projected because no utility-scale floating wind facility exists in the world today. BOEM is talking about quickly building thousands of Mega Watt (MW) of floating wind. Five leases pegged at 3,600 MW have already been sold off California. But as Rucker points out, the biggest facility in the world today is an experimental 88 MW and that just fired up a few months ago.
Those five California leases are, in effect, experimental. The developers are each going to try to produce an economically viable floating wind facility. As things stand, the odds are very long against them. I can hardly wait to see the Construction and Operations Plans, which are the first required step in the long road toward project approval.
But the ultimate crunch point is selling the juice via a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). If costs run three times regular offshore wind, which is already extremely expensive, then the required PPAs might simply be unobtainable.
However, California just passed a law allowing the State to directly buy offshore wind energy. Perhaps the plan is for the State to buy horrendously expensive electricity, sell it to the utilities at the much lower going wholesale rate, then let the taxpayers eat the losses. It is, after all, Crazy California.
Mind you, this silly game is being played around the world. Several countries have launched similarly speculative large-scale floating wind projects, and many more are talking about it. Of course, they are also talking about mass-scale hydrogen, EVs, and net zero. It is all part of the same green nonsense.
https://www.cfact.org/2023/11/09/cfact-blasts-feds-floating-wind-fantasy/
**************************************************Coal jobs hit record levels in Australia, as China demand returns
NSW coalminers – who now employ a record 25,170 workers and are set to eclipse Queensland as Australia’s coalmining powerhouse – are cashing in on Beijing’s removal of export bans after shipping $3.3bn worth of coal to China in eight months.
After two years of zero coal exports, NSW miners sent 21 million tonnes of coal to China between January and August, and are projecting a bumper year after lifting exports to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India during the Chinese ban.
A new report released by the NSW Minerals Council on Monday reveals that at the end of July there were 25,172 coalmining workers in the state.
The workforce is more than double 1998 levels and surpasses the previous 2012 record of 24,972 jobs. Just under 8000 NSW workers are employed in the metals mining sector.
In the NSW Hunter region, coalmining jobs surged to more than 15,100, with workforces in Gunnedah and the state’s western region remaining at near record levels.
NSW miners are pushing to fast-track 15 coal projects under assessment, with the state now boasting greater job forecasts in mining and stronger investment interest than Queensland, where the Palaszczuk government has imposed crippling royalty taxes on miners.
The projects, which are mainly seeking to extend existing operations, represent almost $3.7bn in investment opportunities for the regions and would create or protect almost 10,000 jobs.
Amid calls from the Greens and climate activists to phase out coal and gas, NSW Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee said “these job numbers highlight the need to support mining communities”.
After BHP sold its coal assets in Queensland last month and lashed the state’s tax grab, Mr Galilee said “NSW coalmining is playing a critical role in the budget repair task being undertaken by the state government”.
In Chris Minns’ first budget in September, the NSW government imposed a royalty hike from July next year to raise an extra $2.7bn over four years.
“Although the increase in royalties will add to the cost burden for NSW coal producers, the NSW government at least consulted constructively with the industry prior to making a final decision,” Mr Galilee said. “By contrast, the Queensland government completely ambushed coal producers in that state with a massive royalty hike that has put jobs and investment at risk. We may now be seeing the impact.
“The record number of people working in the NSW coalmining sector shows that over the last 25 years, coalmining has become increasingly critical to regional communities and the state economy.”
The Department of Industry and Resources September quarterly report said thermal coal exports to China had returned to pre-ban levels of 2019-20. The report warned thermal coal exports were forecast to fall from $66bn in 2022-23 to $36bn in 2023-24 and $28bn the following year. Metallurgical coal exports are projected to fall from $62bn in 2022-23 to $41bn in 2024-25.
Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane last week released a report warning that Queensland coal producers will pay an extra $6.5bn over two years under the Palaszczuk government’s royalty regime.
“The state government’s short-term thinking for short-term gains is killing the golden goose and doing long term damage to Queensland by deterring investment in new, greenfield projects and drying up that pipeline of future projects,” he said.
“The loss of investment confidence threatens new projects across all commodities, including battery minerals and renewable energy projects, so the impact is broader than the coal sector.”
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The Australian Greens are, by sins of omission, soft apologists for Hamas
It has been a wild old time in Australian politics. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more off-piste, we find ourselves in a weird kind of parallel universe in which the Australian Greens want to help run the country. The Greens, regardless of what you thought of them back in the day, once stood for something meaningful under former leader Bob Brown. More recently, though, they have morphed into this country’s most ungrateful, juvenile, destructive and mean-spirited group of underachievers. Yet somehow they think they should be in the starting line-up.
You can argue the ALP already is dancing with this particular devil, but a couple of weeks ago news broke that the Greens want Anthony Albanese to sign a public power-sharing deal with them and offer cabinet positions in the event of a minority government at the next election. Can you imagine the likes of Lidia Thorpe (yes, she’s no longer a Green but she was) and Mehreen Faruqui in the federal cabinet? The idea should fill all sensible folk with a sense of impending doom.
ACT Greens leader and Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury is the party’s most senior MP. He argues federal Labor will do better by welcoming the Greens with open arms, formally. And while they’re at it, they may as well throw in a few lazy cabinet roles as well.
Some of you will dismiss this as a pie-in-the-sky kind of deal. I can almost hear some of you saying, “Yeah it will never happen, it’s just politics. Just part of the game.”
Maybe some of you also thought there’d never again be a time when Jewish Australians didn’t feel safe in their own neighbourhoods. Life moves pretty fast, so the saying goes.
Back to the Greens. The elite of the mediocre.
Perhaps let’s judge them for a moment on what they’ve delivered in terms of value to the Australian people. You know, those of us who pay their wages.
Nothing. Not a thing. You see, they can afford to be absolutists; they have the luxury of being able to be as hardwired and hard left as they like. They don’t have to listen to the broader community. They can say and do as they please because there is never any accountability. They don’t have to be inclusive. They don’t have to do anything other than preach to their own choir and bargain with the government for power.
This week’s walkout of the federal parliament in protest against the government’s position on Israel is a powerful validation of this view. Like a bunch of petulant four-year-olds, the Greens stormed out of the chamber, all bluster, piss and wind, because they want an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and they can’t get what they want.
Apart from the fact the collective IQ of the federal parliament immediately and exponentially increased, it’s a shame we couldn’t just lock the door behind them and be done with it.
Walking out delivers nothing. Adds nothing. Brings nothing. Proves only that those who take their metaphorical toys and leave aren’t capable of the debate of ideas. Not capable of holding a mature discussion. All it proves is their disdain and disrespect for the parliament and the government.
On this issue, the Greens are, by sins of omission, soft apologists for Hamas. They have nothing meaningful to say about the confirmed testimony and evidence of the massacres. Of women being raped, mutilated and shot. Parents being mutilated while still alive, in front of their children. The absolutely unthinkable, inhuman barbarism perpetrated by Hamas.
Grudgingly, they say: “Well, look it’s wrong – but occupation!”
Spare me the hypocrisy. Did they walk out of parliament when thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered by the Syrian regime in 2020? Of course not. Because the Assad regime is not an easy target for the ideologically obsessed.
Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt said on social media platform X this week that he was proud of Faruqi for leading the walkout. Imagine being proud of someone for having a tantrum.
I tell you what, send the parliamentary Greens to Gaza and give them a real chance to live their truth.
The deeper issue here is, of course, the dilemma for the Albanese government. It is a friendly bedfellow with the Greens. Perhaps not yet sharing a marital bed, more like bunking in together. Shared room, shared bathroom, twin-share type situation. Labor can protest as much as it likes but in the pitched battled between perception and reality we know who the winner will be, and for the federal government that’s a problem.
In issues beyond Israel’s sovereignty and its right to defend itself, the problem for the federal government is closer to home. The Greens’ stated policy positions reads like a celebration of victimhood for all, wrapped in delusion fit for a university Trotsky club. I urge you to invest the 15 minutes it takes to read it all. It’s terrifying in its lack of sophistication. Everybody wins, everything, all the time!
The Greens in the ACT where Rattenbury reigns want children as young as 14 to have access to euthanasia. They boasted about “quietly” decriminalising drugs such as MDMA, cocaine and ice. They are, by every metric imaginable, out of step with sensible people of all backgrounds, creeds and colour.
They wrap themselves in words such as diversity yet tolerate no divergent view. They talk about ending violence against women but have nothing to say about the rape and mutilation of Jewish women in this pogrom. They embody ideological hypocrisy. They want to shut down our mining industry, get rid of the military and believe in some kind of universal income paid for with fairy dust.
There is nothing like the cowardice of those who never have to face accountability, and this is the party that fancies itself as the co-pilot of the good ship Australia.
The Prime Minister best be careful. As my Nonna Pina used to say: Gemma, you lie down with dogs, you start to bark.
This is the time for clear, strong and forthright leadership. Not the time for entertaining folly such as this. This government has a choice to make about who it aligns with. For a party that’s defined by the phrase “Whatever it takes” this will be a telling period indeed.
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12 November, 2023
Onshore wind projects in England stall as no new applications are received
More taxpayer money needed
The government has received no new applications for onshore wind farms in England since cabinet ministers eased planning rules earlier this year – in a further sign that Rishi Sunak’s anti-green policy shift is driving investment abroad.
So far this year, only one new project, with a single turbine, has become fully operational in England, with many more being built in the EU – and in Scotland and Wales, where planning rules are less burdensome. This is despite renewables being seen as the cleanest and safest form of power, and having wide public support.
Since early September, when the communities secretary, Michael Gove, and energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, introduced changes to planning rules, claiming these would boost onshore wind investment, there have been no applications to local authorities, according to the industry’s representative body, RenewableUK, which has studied data held by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
International competition is intense: other countries are seeking to lure developers away from the UK to work elsewhere
The fall-off in onshore wind projects in England contrasts with rapid increases in investment in Germany, France and Sweden.
The collapse will add to growing unease in Whitehall after no one bid for licences in the latest auction for offshore wind projects because the price companies could charge for the energy was set at too low a rate.
The Observer understands that, with panic setting in behind the scenes, ministers will announce a new framework of pricing within days to try to attract more investment into the sector before it is too late. There is also dismay among civil servants and government advisers, past and present, over the effect that recent government pronouncements on the green agenda have had on companies’ investment thinking.
In last week’s king’s speech, the government announced an energy bill with plans for a new annual system of oil and gas licences, despite the UK’s commitment to net zero targets, prompting outrage from the green lobby. Coutinho said more oil and gas “wouldn’t necessarily bring bills down”.
Sam Richards, a former climate and energy adviser in No 10, who now runs Britain Remade, a campaign group promoting economic growth, said recent anti-green rhetoric from the government risked lasting damage to the UK’s bid to be in the vanguard of a green industrial revolution.
“Unfortunately, the government has been sending mixed messages to industry about the net zero transition – which could mean we lose out on the cheaper [energy] bills and good jobs that will come from building the industries of the future here in Britain,” he said.
James Robottom, head of policy at RenewableUK, the body representing about 500 companies in the sector, said other countries were doing far more to maximise opportunities. “Unprecedented financial incentives are being offered to renewable energy developers by the US and the EU,” he said. “International competition to secure private investment in clean energy projects is intense as other countries seek to lure developers away from the UK to work elsewhere”.
He added: “The government’s very slight changes to the planning system aren’t going to bring about a significant increase in the number of new onshore wind farms in England. There are still restrictions to onshore wind that aren’t faced by any other infrastructure – despite widespread cross-party support to end the de facto ban – which is dampening the confidence of investors who would otherwise be interested. Local communities that support onshore wind are being denied the chance to benefit from cheap clean power.”
In 2015, before the government changed planning rules to make it easier for local people to block onshore wind farms in their areas, there were 158 new onshore projects in England, involving the construction of 228 new turbines. By last year, only two projects, involving four new turbines, were built in England.
Ed Miliband, Labour spokesperson for energy security and net zero, said: “The British people are paying the price of this government’s dogmatic, ideological and self-defeating opposition to home-grown clean power – in higher bills, energy insecurity and failure on climate.
“The Conservatives presented an energy bill that won’t bring bills down. Their supposed lifting of the onshore wind ban doesn’t do anything of the kind and it is costing families Ł180 every year on their bills.”
The government said that across the whole of the UK – not just England – substantial progress was being made. “The last Contracts for Difference round saw a record number of successful projects across renewables, including onshore wind projects.
“The streamlined National Planning Policy Framework aims to make it easier and quicker for onshore wind projects to come forward where there is local support.”
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Rough Seas Ahead for Offshore Wind
Last year, the Biden administration fooled enough lawmakers to pass the deceitfully named Inflation Reduction Act, which was more of a Mini Green New Deal in disguise. Within it were the makings of, among other things, an administration plan to have 30 gigawatts of electricity harvested from wind power by the year 2030.
Prior to that, however, there were already several offshore wind projects in the planning stages. Two of the most important ones were slated for construction off the coast of New Jersey by the Danish company Řrsted — projects that were slated to create nearly 200 wind turbines over a vast 250-square-mile swath of the Atlantic Ocean in a territory that came as close as nine miles offshore. The first project, dubbed Ocean Wind I, had just been approved by the Biden administration in July despite local opposition.
But a funny thing happened on the way to green energy independence: Last week, Řrsted abruptly canceled the plans for Ocean Wind 1 and 2. Citing the uncertainty of a supply chain and high interest rates, the company pulled the plug on the project while still trying to get out of a $300 million guarantee promised to New Jersey if the project didn’t go forward. That’s small potatoes compared to the $4 billion Řrsted was writing off when it stopped working on the deal, though, and as Andrew Stuttaford writes at National Review, the Dutch company isn’t the only one feeling the heat: Siemens Energy and BP are also questioning their continued involvement in various projects, both here and abroad. Those companies again blame the economic, er, headwinds of supply chain issues and high interest rates, although Siemens also notes its competition from China.
The demise of Ocean Wind 1 and 2 also egged the face of New Jersey Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, who had just signed a deal that would have allowed Řrsted to keep its tax credits for the project rather than use them to give ratepayers relief. As The Wall Street Journal eloquently put it: “Phil Murphy huffed and he puffed, and a giant wind boondoggle blew the New Jersey Governor down. That’s the story of another failed green-energy project, as the follies keep being exposed.”
Yet continued failure of government-favored industries can only mean one thing: a bailout. Several Democrat governors with offshore wind-energy projects in their jurisdictions recently penned a letter to the Biden administration begging for assistance. “Without federal action,” complained the governors of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, “offshore wind deployment in the U.S. is at serious risk of stalling because states’ ratepayers may be unable to absorb these significant new costs alone. Absent intervention, these near-term projects are increasingly at risk of failing.” In other words, it’s time for taxpayers to start paying through the nose for “free” wind energy.
Kevin Dayaratna, a senior research fellow and data analyst for The Heritage Foundation, deserves the last word on the argument. “If wind power is as great as advocates claim it is, then it should not need a federal bailout. These discussions about potentially bailing out the wind industry merely illustrate the industry’s incapability of being a reliable form of energy that can stand on its own.”
These are rough seas for offshore wind, whether it’s the high costs, the lack of reliability (as fossil-fueled backup sources of power need to be on standby), or the intrusion of thousand-foot towers and blinking nighttime lights on oceanside vistas. And those most affected are the ones with the deepest opposition.
The question is: Will Joe Biden and his Green New Dealers take “no” for an answer?
https://patriotpost.us/articles/101915
****************************************************Wind farms need to be in the ocean, not onshore, says Australian pioneer
Andy Evans has been beating the drum for offshore wind farms for more than a decade. He and his two co-founders launched Star of the South – an ambitious off-shore wind farm project, off the coast of Gippsland – back in 2012.
“We were the guinea pigs. When we set up the project, it wasn’t a strong time to be discussing renewable energy anywhere in Australia,” Evans says. “Realistically, though, offshore wind is just another large major infrastructure but it is out in the ocean with green benefits. It’s just taken a long while to get that narrative.”
For Evans, offshore wind farms just make sense: “Rather than building a lot of onshore wind farms, you can build them offshore because the wind is a lot stronger, it blows more frequently and we can build bigger projects.”
His role in renewables has seen him included in Australia’s 100 Top Energy Players, released in The Australian’s special magazine, The List.
Evans and his co-founders ran Star of the South for six years before handing the project over to the world’s largest green investment firm, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). Evans’s team then went on to found Oceanex Energy, an offshore wind farm developer responsible for locating potential sites for new infrastructure.
He’s the first to admit that it’s been a slow journey but is optimistic that offshore wind is finally starting to gain momentum. In June 2022, the government passed legislation to allow offshore wind farm development. “Now we’re in the middle of making applications for the seven-year feasibility licences to do the assessment work to hopefully then build a project,” Evans explains.
Oceanex Energy has earmarked five potential locations around Australia, including one off Bunbury in Western Australia and four in NSW, including in the Hunter and Illawarra regions. The team also has plans to expand into New Zealand.
Local communities are divided on the wind farms, citing potential negative impacts to the marine environment and fishing industries. These concerns will all be considered as part of the lengthy approvals process that includes community consultation and environmental impact studies.
What isn’t in dispute is the financial benefits of offshore wind farms to regional communities. “During the construction phase, which is three to four years, there will be at least 3000 direct jobs,” Evans explains. “Once construction is finished, for the next 30 years there will be 300 permanent jobs. And they’ll all be local because it’s 24/7 machinery that needs maintaining.”
While wind farm roles won’t directly replace traditional energy jobs, Evans sees the opportunity for transition of employees. “When we look at coal, in NSW in particular, the last coal generator will shut by about 2033 and the NSW [wind farm] projects will realistically come on from 2030,” he says. “There will be a lot of jobs that are not exactly the same but they’re also not that different.”
Action on offshore wind farms may finally be moving forward but that doesn’t mean turbines will be floated tomorrow. “There will be no turbines in the water anywhere in Australia until about 2028 and that will be in Gippsland with the Star of the South,” says Evans, who is a shareholder in the project.
The slow pace of affairs hasn’t deterred Evans, who in November is releasing a documentary called Planet Wind: The Global Story of Offshore Wind to further educate people on why he thinks this is the way forward for Australia. (The feature will open the 2023 Offshore Wind Australia Conference in Sydney.) Rather, he is optimistic about our green future.
“This is an incredible economic and social opportunity for Australia,” he says.
“We’re one of the very few countries that’s blessed with so many resources where the supply of the resources outweighs the demand for it. Our population is tiny compared with the resources we’ve got at our disposal. I think we should be taking our resources and smarts to the world.”
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Looking for the Net Zero exit sign
Let’s get serious about planning an orderly exit from Net Zero. We need a plan ready to go before a government comes to power with the desire to exit, only to find they are short on time.
Any government wishing to exit Net Zero will have to mandate it during their first term of office. That means the leadership has 18 months to set things in motion before our short election cycle returns their attention to the polls.
Instead of this, commentators are talking about an orderly exit from coal while most Australian governments and AEMO prescribe an insane stampede away from reliable fossil fuels.
You might think they realise the lights will go out unless we keep the coal fires burning, but unfortunately they are still inhabiting a parallel universe governed by the Net Zero delusion. Their intention is merely to slow down the retreat from coal operating under the belief that there will soon be enough renewable energy installed to take its place.
The ‘accelerating exit of coal’ in Australia, and everywhere else, is not happening for three very good reasons.
The transition to intermittent sources of energy has become functionally impossible in practice due to the combined effect of wind droughts and the lack of grid-scale storage.
Power is becoming more expensive and the price will continue to escalate as long as we spend billions, running into trillions, of dollars on assets that will be stranded in the absence of subsidies and mandates.
The unreliable energy industry leaves a trail of human, social, and environmental damage. It is a disaster from the exploration and mining of its raw materials to disposal of toxic junk at the end of the road.
The Net Zero program is not going to work, and Terry McCrann reminded us last Thursday that there is a way back to a future with cheap and reliable power from a mix of coal, gas, and nuclear. To this we can add hydro and off-grid wind and solar wherever it makes sense.
At the same time, McCrann put a damper on the prospects of nuclear power in the near future, with the story of the attempt to build a low-grade, mostly medical waste plant in the outback. Planning began in the 1980s when Hong Kong started construction on its second airport. Hong Kong finished their airport by 1998, but we still don’t have the nuclear waste disposal facility.
Zealots of the wind and solar industries will contest my call to exit Net Zero because they are animated by ideological, political, and financial motives that have nothing to do with good science and engineering principles, or even concern for the planet.
Trillions of dollars are in play in what many describe as a gigantic renewable energy ponzi scheme. Billions will be made by well-placed players before it collapses.
Looking on the bright side, in a macabre kind of way, the collapse of Net Zero may not be far away as more states and nations reach the inflection (tipping) point where conventional power capacity runs down to the point where wind droughts pose a mortal threat to the power supply. See Texas in 2021.
The call to exit Net Zero will appeal to those who face fuel poverty at home or the collapse of their profit margin at work. At this point, the case to leave Net Zero will need to be explained to the public. No doubt communities left in darkness will already be applying social pressure to politicians. There is always a point at which public outrage cancels out the vested interests puppeteering politicians.
Any public education campaign will be challenging due to the existing fortress of Net Zero zealots ensconced in mainstream media, the ABC, universities, and the corporate world.
The exit will need a clear majority in favour of the community and bipartisan support from the major parties. Forget about the Greens and the Teals.
Support in the major parties will have to be based on strong support in the party rooms, in the face of the influences that are currently driving both parties.
The party that comes into office with a mandate to exit Net Zero will need to spend some years in advance of their election to power working on the plan to get over the resistance from the myriad of departments, quangos, and other government-funded agencies that are currently dedicated to Net Zero.
The reform program must minimise failures that discredit the whole enterprise, in the way that Hewson failed to sell the GST and Whitlam’s hasty ‘across the board’ tariff reduction in the 1970s received negative press coverage which set back the push for deregulation.
In addition to the plan, prospective Cabinet ministers will have to be trained and prepared to go head-to-head with their departments and they will need alternative advisors. Gladys Berejiklian as NSW Transport Minister could serve as a role model because she spent years in opposition learning the trade and researching public transport systems around the world. She came in with a plan and she could not be easily snowed by the bureaucrats.
At the moment, talking about exiting Net Zero is just that… But the first step is to start the public discussion. Much depends on the capacity of the journalistic classes to stop endorsing and spreading misinformation about firming unreliable energy with more unreliable energy and puny storage devices. The debate will be transformed when reporters start asking the usual suspects, the energy ministers and Daniel Westerman and their associates, how that is going to work.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/looking-for-the-net-zero-exit-sign/
***************************************10 November, 2023
Imposing Climate Emergency Powers in America Will Usher in China’s Social Model: Marc Morano
The ruling class wants to impose COVID-like emergency powers to deal with climate change, but its ultimate goal is to control every aspect of the life of society, said Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot.
“Their goal all along has been to evolve us to something related to what China has been following,” Mr. Morano said in an interview on EpochTV's "Crossroads" program.
The ruling class liked the COVID-19 emergency declaration because it bypassed people in making the most consequential decisions about their lives without allowing for even “an ounce of democracy,” Mr. Morano explained.
COVID-19, especially COVID lockdowns, “brought the once free West to emulate one-party rule in China,” said Mr. Morano, author of the book “The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown.”
Similarly, the climate emergency declaration will give the establishment emergency powers in general, which will allow it to control American society in the same way as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls the Chinese people, according to Mr. Morano.
“It's deep within our political psyche and our ruling class that they should be a more dominant and forceful ruling class," he said. “They love crises, whether it's terrorism, war, viruses, climate—they're not going to let it go.”
John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate in the Biden administration, drew a parallel between COVID-19 and climate change, Mr. Morano said.
In April 2020, Mr. Kerry said in his opinion piece for The Boston Globe: “You could just as easily replace the words ‘climate change' with ‘COVID-19’; it is truly the tale of two pandemics deferred, denied, and distorted.”
Jamie Margolin, climate activist and founder of the organization Zero Hour, wrote for Teen Vogue: ”The way the world has been able to mobilize itself and shut down in the blink of an eye to properly respond to the coronavirus is proof that political leaders actually do have the ability to make rapid change happen if they want.”
“The COVID-19 world response has proven that rapid change and disruption of business as usual is possible” to effect “transformation to halt climate change,” Ms. Margolin said.
Mr. Morano cited several comments and statements by government officials, business leaders, journalists, scholars, and activists praising the Chinese one-party authoritarian rule model for years.
It is "documented—the major figures all saying it out loud,” Mr. Morano said.
Justin Trudeau said in 2013, two years before his tenure as the Canadian prime minister, that he admired China's basic dictatorship.
Mr. Trudeau, the then-leader of the Liberal Party, said at a fundraising event, according to a CBC report: “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China. Because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm praised the Chinese regime’s efforts to counter climate change at the annual SXSW conference in March. China has been very “sensitive ” to climate change and “has actually invested a lot in their solutions to achieve their goals," Ms. Granholm said in an interview at SXSW Studio.
"So we’re hopeful that we can all learn from what China is doing,” Ms. Granholm said. “The amount of money that they’re investing in clean energy is actually encouraging."
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Forbes in 2017 that what the Chinese government was doing for the environment “aligned completely with Apple's values. “They're very fixated on doing the right things to avert climate change,” Mr. Cook explained.
In a paper published in March 2020, Andrew Harmer from Queen Mary University of London and other European scientists argue that the WHO should treat climate change “in the same way as global threats from specific diseases.”
Many of these people, who advocate emergency powers and tight control of society, truly believe that people are “unwashed masses” and that every aspect of their life needs to be regulated and guided by experts; otherwise, the masses "will create inequity, racism, environmental destruction, and a climate crisis,” Mr. Morano said.
The ruling class believes that “they're saving the world,” Mr. Morano said. “They may not see the climate crisis as real, but they just see it as a more orderly society.”
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Bidenomics Can’t Save Unreliable Clean Energy and EVs
Many have long cautioned lawmakers - namely those in the Biden administration - against the forceful adoption of solar, wind, and electric vehicles due to their lofty costs, unreliability, and adverse environmental impacts.
Democrats have largely downplayed criticism and, instead, restored to gaslighting their way into enacting, with urgency, the forceful transition to solar, wind, and electric vehicles to fight the “climate crisis.”
The Green New Deal-lite “Inflation Reduction Act”, passed in the summer 2022, promised billions of “incentives” to spur investment in so-called clean energy technologies and projects. A year later, all those lofty promises of decarbonizing our grid and our vehicle fleet - unsurprisingly - fizzled out and, insulted, have resulted in greater unreliability and energy insecurity.
Offshore Wind Can’t Be Saved
The most recent positive development to derail the Biden administration’s goal of dispatching 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030 came with the announcement of Orsted, a Danish wind giant, canceling two offshore projects in New Jersey.
Recent cancellations - including these two New Jersey projects - amount to stopping “nearly one-fifth of President Joe Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030.” This means the U.S. will fail to meet its 2030 goal. That is good news for our oceans, marine life, and beach communities.
The company cites inflation, supply chain issues, and insufficient federal subsidies as factors that imperiled their projects. In 2023 alone, Orsted’s stock is down 60%.
One financial analyst issued this dire warning about wind’s profitability going forward: “The wind power sector has stalled, with virtually no companies in the industry now turning a profit.” And analyst and former clean energy advocate Brian Gitt, tweeted, “In 2021, Biden announced a target of 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power capacity by 2030. The gap between wishful thinking & reality is obvious now. Over 50% of US offshore wind power contracts have been canceled or are at risk of cancellation.“
“Řrsted has taken the decision to cease the development of the Ocean Winds 1 and 2 projects,” the company announced. “This is a consequence of additional supplier delays further impacting the project schedule and leading to an additional significant project delay. In addition, Řrsted has updated its view on certain assumptions, including tax credit monetization and the timing and likelihood of final construction permits. Finally, increased long-dated US interest rates have further deteriorated the business case.”
Six Northeastern Democrat governors r– along with Orsted - are begging the Biden administration for a bailout and hiking IRA subsidies to cover 50% of offshore wind development costs.
“Absent intervention, these near-term projects are increasingly at risk of failing,” the governors said in a statement to Associated Press. “Without federal action, offshore wind deployment in the U.S. is at serious risk of stalling because states’ ratepayers may be unable to absorb these significant new costs alone.”
California Curtailing Renewable Power - Especially Solar
On Halloween, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) - an Independent System Operator operating in the Golden State - is curtailing clean energy power—namely solar— due to the “increased congestion” of these sources.
EIA said, “In 2022, CAISO curtailed 2.4 million megawatt hours (MWh) of utility-scale wind and solar output, a 63% increase from the amount of electricity curtailed in 2021. As of September, CAISO has curtailed more than 2.3 million MWh of wind and solar output this year. Solar accounts for almost all of the energy curtailed in CAISO—95% in 2022 and 94% in the first seven months of 2023. CAISO tends to curtail the most solar in the spring when electricity demand is relatively low (because moderate spring temperatures mean less demand for space heating or air conditioning) and solar output is relatively high.”
As I noted at IWF this week, Congestion results from “a higher demand and a lack of supply to meet said demands. Unsurprisingly, congestion-related curtailments—especially those involving solar—have drastically increased since 2019. Curtailment of solar, in this case, usually occurs in spring when electricity demand is significantly lower…”
I added, “As recently as April 2023, the agency curtailed a whopping 703,000 megawatts of electricity. And the previous April, it was reported over 596,000 megawatts of electricity were cut.
E.V.s Won’t Ever Be Ready for Primetime
Let’s not kid ourselves: Organic, widespread EV adoption is never happening.
An April 2023 Gallup poll found the majority of Americans won’t ever buy one, while a July 2023 Pew Research Center survey found a greater share – 63% of Americans – will never buy nor are ever likely to buy an EV.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) published a new study detailing the true costs of EVs and found, minus subsidies and perks, the cost totals about $50,000–about $4,600 more than a standard gas-powered car. More concerning, the hidden costs of fueling an EV amounts to a whopping $17 per gallon. (I’ll keep my gas-powered, environmentally-friendly Subaru Forester, thank you very much.)
Manufacturers who followed along are finally conceding defeat here.
GM and Honda are scrapping a joint “affordable” EV venture. Ford Motor Company said it lost $37,000 on EVs sold in the last three months. And Mercedes said EVs are “a pretty brutal space” to occupy today.
Conclusion
Everything Bidenomics touches collapses and crumbles – including its beloved “clean energy” industries and projects.
The market has clearly spoken: forcibly scaling up solar, wind, and EVs is unsustainable, costly, and impractical.
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Texan Turbine Graveyards Becomes Latest ‘Green’ Tourism Venture
A while back, wind industry spinners reckoned tourists would flock to see a few of these whirling wonders in action, now they’re flocking to their graveyards
Texans now have the opportunity to visit the growing piles of toxic turbine blades and other junk left over after these things give up the ghost.
James Morrow and Ron Kendall have put together a video tourist brochure, propounding the latest in ‘green’ tourism.
Independent journalist Ron Kendall Jr warns of “turbine graveyards” which have been popping up over the US state of Texas as turbine blades reach their useful life.
Texas is home to more than 15,000 wind turbines and has been dubbed a “clean energy powerhouse”.
In a documentary produced by Yucca Films, Mr Kendall Jr investigates the lifespan of the turbines and where they go once used.
“Once they reach their useful life we are seeing more of these, I like to call them turbine graveyards, popping up throughout the state, some to the scale of over 20 to 40 acres of maybe ten tall stacked up,” he told Sky News host James Morrow.
“It doesn’t seem like there was much thought into the end of life for a lot of these renewable energy sources.”
Mr Kendall Jr added many blades are being replaced within two years on some of the newer facilities.
https://principia-scientific.com/texan-turbine-graveyards-becomes-latest-green-tourism-venture/
************************************************What Happened on an Electric Google Bus Was Laughably Predictable
Electric vehicles are the future, says the car industry. It’s why they’ve poured billions into research and development to roll out a line of electric cars that no one wants. Ford has lost billions with this silly vanity project that only the wealthy can afford. The cost of the electric vehicle, plus buying two charging stations—one for the workplace and the other for your home—and upgrading one’s residential power grid is too costly for most working families. It’s a $100,000-plus purchase, and it’s laughably unreliable.
Once the cold and snow hit, the batteries’ charge degrades exponentially to the point where trips that aren’t local shouldn’t even be considered. One man in Canada discovered that the hard way, leading him to declare the electric vehicle craze the greatest scam of the modern era. In San Francisco, a Google bus trip turned chaotic when it lost power going up the steep hills that dot the city. It resulted in a crash that sent one person to the hospital (via KTVU):
An "electric" shuttle bus operated by Google collided with multiple vehicles in San Francisco on Monday morning, sending one person to a hospital.
The crash happened near Castro and 20th streets at approximately 8:45 a.m., according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Multiple vehicles were damaged after the bus collided with them, police said.
A person inside one of the involved vehicles sustained injuries and was transported to a hospital. The extent of their injuries has not been disclosed.
The crash was initially reported on Twitter by Xian Ke (@xianke).
[…]
Google confirmed that the bus involved is part of the company's shuttle fleet.
"The safety and wellbeing of everyone involved is our highest priority while we work with local authorities to understand what happened," Google said in an email to KTVU.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. Neither the SFPD nor Google explained what caused the collision.
But according to Ke, the bus lost power while ascending a hill, rolling backwards and smacked into multiple cars.
A gas-powered bus wouldn’t have led to this crash. That is a fact.
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9 November, 2023
Republicans have filed a bill to block President Joe Biden's Climate Corps
A new House Republican bill targets President Joe Biden’s $30 billion taxpayer-funded plan for a Climate Corps.
If Biden’s initiative succeeds, the Climate Corps will train 20,000 young people “for jobs in the clean energy economy” focused on “advancing environmental justice, deploying clean energy, implementing energy-efficient technologies, and tackling climate change,” according to the White House.
However, Republicans have slammed Biden’s initiative as an attempt to deploy a “climate army.”
Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who introduced the No American Climate Corps Act on Friday, said it is another example of the Biden administration “furthering its radical anti-American energy agenda.”
“Americans are struggling to make ends meet because of Bidenomics. Instead of recognizing that family budgets are already stretched thin by sky-high energy prices, President Biden is focused on deploying a climate army that will increase regulatory burdens on business owners and drive inflation across the economy even higher,” said Good.
The bill “prohibits any federal funds from being used for the purposes of creating an American Climate Corps or a similar program,” according to a one-pager explaining Good’s bill.
Biden announced his Climate Corps program Sept. 20 after a group of left-wing politicians had urged him to establish the program through executive action. Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., joined with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Judy Chu, D-Calif.; and Joe Neguse, D-Colo., in leading 44 of their colleagues on the effort.
Members on the Right, like Good, say they believe initiatives like this inflict hyperinflation, increase consumer costs, and deplete American energy capacity.
Good’s one-pager explains the initiative as an “attempt to mimic” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, which expanded government in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
“President Biden and Democrats’ continued climate change-fueled war on American energy independence will cost over $500 billion in climate spending with the passage of bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Acceleration Act,” Good’s one-pager warns.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/03/biden-focuses-deploying-climate-army-republicans-warn/
***************************************************Washington, DC, ‘Energy Efficiency’ Program Forcing Locals to Reduce Energy Use by 20%
Everyone wants to pay lower electricity bills, and construction companies can insulate newer residential and commercial buildings to lower heating and cooling costs while those in existing structures may choose to install upgrades to create greater energy efficiency. So, why is it then that local Washington, D.C., officials are imposing draconian building efficiency mandates on district citizens, substantially raising the costs for families and businesses?
These mandated standards, which came into effect this year, are enforced through the Building Energy Performance Standards program, which requires that building owners establish energy-use benchmarks based on recent energy use or Energy Star scores (a federal energy efficiency scoring program).
These benchmarks and the Energy Star scores are reported to the district government, which then uses them to set the efficiency requirements. These standards require each building to reduce energy use by 20% or to meet a set Energy Star score for buildings of similar types. This process is conducted over six-year cycles, the first of which is underway. Standards will become more stringent with each cycle that is concluded.
All private and district-owned buildings over 10,000 square feet are subject to the mandate, regardless of age. This means that older, less efficient buildings, including multiuse housing and schools, will be held to the same standards as newly constructed buildings, which will result in much higher costs for existing structures to come into compliance. As pointed out in a recent study on decarbonization efforts in New York, retrofitting existing structures is significantly more expensive than the upfront costs for building to the standards in new construction.
Even something as simple as replacing old windows with Energy Star-compliant ones can cost up to $2,000 per window. Another study estimates that the cost of retrofitting to achieve energy consumption reductions similar to what will likely be required by the Building Energy Performance Standards would be between $2.50 and $3.75 per square foot for residential buildings and up to $8.50 per square foot for commercial ones. Other studies show costs can be much, much higher.
According to the district’s Department of Energy and Environment, the goal of the standards is “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption by 50% by 2032.” The first question needs to be, to what end? According to the Sustainable DC 2.0 Plan website, the objectives are twofold. The first objective is to address climate change. The second is to address the economic and social needs of residents.
Let’s look at climate first. According to one analysis, the standards would result in an annual “greenhouse gas” reduction of 1.05 million tons of carbon dioxide. That might seem like a lot until you compare it the 6,340.2 million metric tons emitted by the United States each year.
Still, one could argue that the district should do its part and if everyone in the country reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by half, as called for by the the district’s plan, then we could make a real difference.
But they would be wrong.
According to an analysis by The Heritage Foundation’s chief statistician, Kevin Dayaratna, eliminating all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would reduce temperatures by less than 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2100—and that’s assuming one accepts the underlying assumptions of global warming alarmism.
In other words, despite the district’s official rhetoric, neither its building efficiency standards nor anything else in its extremist agenda would have any effect on global warming whatsoever.
But even if the standards were to reduce global warming, it is important to understand how the building efficiency standards would affect the economic and social needs of district residents.
Affordable housing is a growing problem in Washington and one that Mayor Muriel Bowser has prioritized. That’s good news given that the district has the fourth highest cost of living among America’s 100 largest cities. The bad news is that building efficiency standards will raise the cost of housing significantly.
According to a recent study that analyzes a similar mandate in Canada, the standards would increase home construction costs there by tens of thousands of dollars. Multiple studies show the same trajectory. The bottom line is that efficiency mandates increase property prices. Even the Energy Star program reports that such upgrades can result in rent increases of up to 16% and property sale prices increasing by up to 31%. Whether the district’s bureaucrats like it or not, efficiency mandates drive property prices higher, and housing costs will be sure to follow.
This is not because efficiency is bad but because mandates don’t allow property owners to choose the most cost-effective efficiency upgrades. A third-party study presented by the district’s Department of Energy and Environment shows that space heating upgrades can provide 32% of the Building Energy Performance Standards program’s projected savings while accounting for only 11% of projected costs. This would be an economically rational upgrade that doesn’t need a mandate because many people would voluntarily do it to save money. Air conditioning upgrades, on the other hand, provide only 6.5% savings at 16% of costs and would likely enjoy a much narrower market appeal.
Yet both are presented as contributing to meeting the energy standards mandate. Essentially, the most economically efficient upgrades would subsidize the more costly ones. The perverse result is that the less cost-effective options will likely never become more affordable because people will be forced to purchase them whether they make sense or not.
And if you fall under the energy standards and decide not to comply, the city could fine owners of its largest buildings up to $7.5 million. In other words, the district government’s efficiency ideas are so good that they are forcing citizens to comply—and if citizens don’t comply, they will pay dearly.
Everyone wants our cars to be fuel efficient and our homes to be energy efficient. These are preferences that nearly everyone shares.
But efficiency is often not free. It’s often the case that consumers pay more up front to achieve greater efficiency savings over time. For many families and businesses, the near-term costs are worth the long-term savings. However, it’s also true that many consumers, especially those with less financial flexibility, could use those extra dollars in the near term for more vital needs like food and housing. Additionally, as stated previously, some so-called efficiencies take much longer to pay for themselves, if they ever do.
Because greater efficiency is broadly desired, manufacturers will continue to work to bring costs down so that greater efficiency becomes more generally available and they can sell more products. Over time, products of all sorts become more efficient and less expensive. The benefits are obvious, and, left alone, the system works extraordinarily well.
But that is not what the district’s program is offering. By imposing efficiency mandates, the program will drastically increase the costs for new buildings and make owning older buildings much more expensive, raising rents and mortgage payments and upgrade costs for families and businesses alike.
And make no mistake, while the current program only applies to buildings of 10,000 square feet or larger, this program will expand to eventually include all buildings and homes.
The new standards are big government paternalism at its worst. They raise costs on individual families and businesses and empower district bureaucrats and special interests. But unlike when Washington imposes such measures on all Americans, district residents can vote with their feet.
Based on Washington’s failure to entice businesses and workers back into downtown post pandemic, that seems to be exactly what is happening.
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Behind a $500 Million Donation to ‘Finish the Job on Coal’
Billionaire philanthropist and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $500 million in September toward shifting electricity production in the United States to wind and solar energy and shutting down its coal- and gas-fired plants.
However, some experts say that Bloomberg’s millions, together with the billions being spent by the Biden administration, are paving a road to ruin.
“With 372 of 530 coal plants announced to retire or closed to date—more than 70 percent of the country’s coal fleet—this next phase will shut down every last U.S. coal plant,” Bloomberg Philanthropies stated.
The effort also aims to “slash gas plant capacity in half, and block all new gas plants.”
Many of those who study America’s electric infrastructure say this is taking us down a dangerous path.
“We’re following people here that are pied pipers,” physicist and energy analyst John Droz told The Epoch Times, referring to the literary character who led children to their doom through delusive enticement.
“This whole business of promoting renewables as a solution is completely unproven, scientifically.”
The transition is destabilizing America’s power grid, which could damage transformers and cause long-term outages, according to Steven Milloy, energy expert, news commentator, and publisher of Junkscience.com.
“We are in this nonsensical, headlong rush to wreck our grid,” he told The Epoch Times.
What's overlooked in this drive to close coal and gas plants is America’s ability to keep the lights on. And while neither the Biden administration nor Mr. Bloomberg has produced a cost-benefit analysis for their plans, analysts say we can look to places such as Germany and Texas, which have taken the lead in transitioning to wind and solar, for a preview of what's in store.
German energy economist Lars Schernikau has assessed the results of his country’s “Energiewende” (energy transition) and warns Americans to not follow Germany’s example.
"Wind and solar do not seem to work; otherwise, after 20 years of ‘Energiewende,’ power prices would be lower and Germany would not be in trouble,” he told The Epoch Times.
Germany spent hundreds of billions of euros to build wind and solar facilities since 2002, doubling its power generation capacity and boosting the share of renewables to 60 percent from about 10 percent. However, its electricity production has been flat, while the cost of electricity skyrocketed.
Wind and solar don't increase output proportionately because of their significantly lower “capacity factor,” or the percentage that's actually generated versus capacity built.
The capacity factor for wind and solar is about 35 percent and 25 percent, respectively, compared to roughly 92 percent for nuclear and 50 percent for coal and natural gas. That many utilities prioritize buying power from wind and solar facilities rather than from coal and gas plants artificially inflates the capacity factor for wind and solar, even from these low levels.
For all the billions spent, Germany’s “Energiewende” has delivered an increasingly unreliable electric system at a cost to consumers that's higher than virtually every other developed country.
The process of shuttering coal and nuclear plants has left the country at the whim of the weather and unfriendly neighbors, such as Russia, and also dangerously short of dependable power that can be adjusted to meet fluctuations in demand.
Before the current trend of closing coal plants, electric utilities in the West typically ran their power generation systems with a 20 percent installed reserve margin over expected peak demand, to ensure that they could always meet consumers' needs.
That margin ensured that the electric grid would still function even during unpredicted events, such as a winter freeze in Texas or a summer heat wave in California.
Depleting Reserves to Balance Renewables
The transition to renewables is now eroding that safety margin. Germany, where peak demand is around 80 gigawatts, once had about 100 gigawatts of reliable, dispatchable capacity; now, reliable capacity is down to 80 to 85 gigawatts, according to Mr. Schernikau.
“That means they are actually at the margin," he said. "As soon as you get close to the margin, whether your reliable power supply equals or is barely above your peak power demand, you're running into trouble, which is exactly what Texas has done.”
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Costing the earth: support for climate action and renewable falls
It might be tempting to look down from on high in the renewable energy transition on the protests of ordinary people worried about the cost and discomfort of change, but evidence is growing that this would be a mistake. Cost overruns and delays are making the federal government’s target of achieving 82 per cent renewables by 2030 appear increasingly unlikely. Together with engineering and financial concerns, there is a public revolt by those who feel they can neither afford it nor understand the need to destroy their piece of nature to save the planet.
This is a phenomenon not confined to Australia. It has been a feature of renewable energy deployment from the start. What has changed is the scale of the ambition and the pushback. It is important that government and industry understand what is happening and where it might lead. Early signs of unravelling are snowballing through Europe where governments in Britain, Germany and France are walking back their ambitions on net-zero, which peaked in the lead up to the 2021 Glasgow climate conference.
Cambridge University academic and social commentator Rob Henderson has explored the concept of “luxury beliefs”, which he says are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while often inflicting costs on those less well off. Henderson is controversial for his views on a range of issues but it is possible to see the public swell of support both for renewable energy and climate-change action in terms of them being a luxury belief. Pro-climate action helped propel the Albanese government, together with a raft of climate-focused independents, most notably the Teals, into office. The danger for the political class is that once a specific luxury belief loses social value, people are eager to discard it.
Public protests at the rollout of large-scale renewable-energy projects and the transmission lines needed to support them is a reflection of social licence under strain. Rising energy costs and less-certain supplies of electricity are now firmly a mainstream concern. Henderson argues that a core feature of a luxury belief is that once a believer is no longer insulated from the consequences of his or her belief, it dissipates. So, does greater public awareness of the size and cost of the challenge involving action on climate change signal the souring of a luxury belief?
For evidence, despite publicity about extreme weather events and negative impacts of climate change, research by global analytics firm Dynata holds some uncomfortable truths. It finds that Australia has one of the largest proportions of people globally who report not being worried about global warming. More than half of Australian consumers (58 per cent) are also unwilling or slightly unwilling to adopt a more climate-friendly lifestyle if it costs more money.
Compared with 12 months ago, about the time of the election of the Albanese government, 41 per cent of those surveyed said they were less interested in buying a hybrid or electric car and 36 per cent were less interested in renewable energy. Rising cost-of-living pressures can help explain the change in sentiment. Older generations said they were less likely to make financial sacrifices to adopt a more climate-friendly lifestyle: 65 per cent of Gen X and 69 per cent of Baby Boomers were unwilling or slightly willing. When it comes to adopting climate-friendly behaviours, people said they were more willing to sacrifice time and convenience than money. This was especially the case for younger generations.
Dynata’s research report draws on responses from 11,000 consumers across 11 countries including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, China, Japan and Australia. The results show that waning interest is not confined to Australia. In the US, 44 per cent of respondents strongly or slightly agree that they are less interested in buying a hybrid or electric car than a year ago because of inflation and rising costs. Forty two per cent strongly or slightly agree that they were less interested in renewable energy than a year ago.
In the United Kingdom, 43 per cent of respondents were less interested in buying a hybrid or electric car and just below one third (28 per cent) were less interested in renewable energy than a year ago. And if it cost more money, 57 per cent were slightly willing or not at all willing to make lifestyle changes.
The trend is also true in China where 37 per cent were less interested in buying a hybrid or electric car and 35 per cent were less interested in renewables. If it costs more money, 35 per cent of Chinese respondents were slightly willing or not at all willing to make lifestyle changes. The fall in support explains why Chinese president Xi Jinping puts energy security and coal-fired power ahead of environmental posturing and British Prime Minister Riki Sunak has applied the brakes to the UK’s net-zero transition. Political leaders in Germany and France have been quick to follow Sunak’s lead.
Implicit in Sunak’s retreat was a recognition that elite opinion had lost touch with the average person. “What I have concluded during my time so far as prime minister is that those decisions can be so caveated, so influenced by special interests, so lacking in debate and fundamental scrutiny that we’ve stumbled into a consensus about the future of our country, that no one seems to be happy with,” he said.
Sunak said Westminster’s politicians did not have the courage to look people in the eye and explain what was really involved. Plans included a ban on gas heating, mandatory home upgrades for property owners, taxes on eating meat and compulsory car sharing if you drive to work. “Now I believe deeply that when you ask most people about climate change, they want to do the right thing, they’re even prepared to make sacrifices,” Sunak said. “But it cannot be right to impose such significant costs on working people, especially those who are already struggling to make ends meet, and to interfere so much in people’s way of life without a properly informed national debate.”
Australian politicians must closely watch what is happening abroad. Many of the imposts, including gas prohibitions and mandatory building regulations, are being introduced by state governments. New building regulations in NSW that mandate higher levels of insulation and double glazing that took effect on October 1 increase the cost of building a home by up to $50,000 at a time of rising political concern about a housing shortage.
Those pushing net-zero can expect the same sort of political disruption evident in Europe. Already there are signs the issue of nuclear power has become more pressing. Public sentiment is changing. And there is reason for government to take notice. In the 2023 update to its Net Zero by 2050 Roadmap, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said much of the momentum was in small, modular clean-energy technologies such as solar PV and batteries, but these alone were not sufficient to deliver net-zero emissions. “It will also require large new, smarter and repurposed infrastructure networks; large quantities of low-emissions fuels; technologies to capture CO2 from smokestacks and the atmosphere; more nuclear power; and large land areas for renewables,” the IEA said.
Globally, electricity transmission and distribution grids will need to expand by approximately two million kilometres each year to 2030. Investment will need to climb to about $US4.5 trillion a year by the early 2030s from the current $US1.8 trillion. Despite the level of investment, carbon emissions from the energy sector reached a record high of 37 billion tonnes in 2022, one per cent above their pre-pandemic level.
Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen attend the opening of the Sun Drive Solar Manufacturing Facility in Kurnell, Sydney.
Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen attend the opening of the Sun Drive Solar Manufacturing Facility in Kurnell, Sydney.
For Australia, a sobering statistic is that China is building enough new coal-fired electricity capacity every six months to equal Australia’s total coal-fired capacity. Australia is only at the beginning of its journey to net-zero. Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen is developing plans for decarbonisation across the economy. Areas include electricity and energy, industry, the built environment, agriculture and land, and transport and resources.
Bowen says the “level and quality of dialogue and collaboration with industries, experts and citizens will set these plans apart from anything that’s been done before”.
“This is a shared endeavour: we must work together to do what’s both possible and practical to stop dangerous climate change and realise the economic opportunities of net zero,” he says. “The end result will be six net-zero sectoral plans that are robust, ambitious but achievable, and accepted by the broader community.”
Evidence abounds that maintaining public support is becoming the priority challenge.
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8 November, 2023
Climate policies are collapsing around the world
On the United Nations’ official website for this month’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai, about four hours by plane from Gaza, the countdown is underway. At about the time this column was published, the official UN wait time for the opening of COP28 would have been 28 days, 12 hours, 39 minutes and 12 seconds. That’s not much time to overcome the current collapsing state of climate policy around the world.
The reasons for policy turmoil are at once global, national and local across a range of developments and complications. They include the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, national policy meltdowns over carbon taxes, and major issues related to technology, science and economics.
On Monday in Dubai, the head of the COP28 event — United Arab Emirates Industry Minister Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber — called for international co-operation and compromise in the face of growing political and economic divisions over the UN plan to phase out the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
Al Jaber’s concerns were echoed with stronger language of doubt from the European Union’s Climate Action Commissioner. Wopke Hoekstra said the only real item on the COP28 agenda is to reach a consensus on phasing out fossil fuels. Given the “geopolitically very troubling times,” it has never been harder to reach an agreement, he said.
Any review of developments over the past weeks points to a declining national and international climate policy environment that could lead to some kind of breakup. Such a prediction could be wrong, of course, but consider the following evidence from all over. In the G7 alone, the political climate in four member nations — Canada, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom — is uncertain and filled with conflict over climate policy.
* In Canada, the ruling Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week launched a pullback in carbon taxation that most observers believe could undermine and even kill the Canadian carbon tax. Premiers and businesses are calling for scaling back on the tax. Even the carbon tax enthusiasts on the Globe and Mail’s editorial board see doom ahead. “Why would anyone make a costly energy-saving investment when the Liberals have begun to erode carbon pricing?”
* In coming days, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to deliver a major speech announcing a significant pullback in climate change policies. The United Kingdom’s wind farm strategy is in tatters. In Germany, the government is reportedly in talks “to provide a multibillion-euro bailout to the engineering company Siemens Energy to shore up its balance sheet amid increasing problems at its wind turbine division.” In August, a German company began dismantling a wind farm in Westphalia to make way for a coal mine expansion.
* Electric vehicle economics keep getting rattled by weak prices and low demand. Ford CFO John Lawler said the company will delay some of its planned multibillion-dollar investment in new EV and battery production capacity, citing “tremendous downward pressure” on prices. Ford lost US$37,000 on each EV sold in the past quarter. General Motors is also making grim statements about the EV market, reflecting a major industry problem. EVs are the focus of multibillion-dollar government-backed investments in technologies, batteries and essential minerals — all of which could come under heavy questioning if the current price and demand trends are not reversed. But how could they be?
* While the goal is to end fossil fuel production, the oil industry is booming. Oil and gas prices are rising, with oil near 10-year highs and generating third-quarter profits for such giants as Exxon (US$9.1 billion) and Chevron (US$6.5 billion). The profits are down from the all-time highs of 2022, but the fossil fuel sector is still booming. Both Exxon and Chevron are also closing in on US$110 billion in takeover deals. Investor skepticism hangs over the deals. Still, the pro-fossil-fuel trends seem to be in place.
* Nobody likes fossil fuels — except many national governments around the world, if not most governments that represent most of the world’s population. Nations within the European Union are divided, with several countries (Poland, the Czech Republic and others) fighting to keep fossil fuels and, as reported by Reuters, forcing the EU to adopt a vague plan for COP28 filled with exemptions and with no end date to fossil fuel use. In China, new coal plants have been approved through 2023 at the rate of two per week. China now has 243 GW of coal power capacity, which experts say make it unlikely the country will be able to meet its 2060 fossil fuel control targets.
* A new joint report this week from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the COP28 organization starts off with a grim outlook. Despite all the policy moves, subsidies, regulations and corporate buy-ins, “the energy transition remains off-track and global greenhouse gas emissions have reached record levels.” As is typical of such reports urging decisive action, the IRENA paper is filled with urgent language on the need to “double down and triple up” the transition to renewable power by 2030.
But the IRENA report, like all the gung-ho calls for action at COP28, were produced before the Gaza attacks and before it became obvious that the climate crisis has been overtaken by wars and other crises — including inflation and recession risks that in the public mind rank way above changing the climate in 2050.
https://financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-real-world-crises-to-beset-cop28-climate-confab
*****************************************************EU abandons another costly Net Zero reform
Now the EU has ditched its concrete demands for building renovations. As our lofty aspirations run up against our self-imposed deadlines, they are steadily modified downwards, but never abandoned altogether.
Everything that comes out of Brussels is a foul multilayered onion. On the outside is the laughable impossible childish utopian idealism. As you peel back the layers of abstract aspirations for the concrete prescriptions underneath, you become steadily more terrified. Thus the European Green Deal, proposed by the European Commission in 2019 and approved in 2020, promised to show member states the way to climate neutrality by 2050. A key component of this Deal – one layer deeper – is a legislative package called Fit for 55, which sounds like a diet plan for menopausal women, but which in fact aims to reduce EU emissions by 55% by 2030. This is starting to sound bad, and our creeping suspicions are confirmed when we go deeper still to this thing called the Buildings Directive, which regulates building energy efficiency in the EU. In 2021, the European Commission proposed extensive revisions to bring this Directive into alignment with its ‘Fit for 55’ aspirations.
The climate neutrality envisioned by the Green Deal simply won’t happen, but the proposed changes to the Buildings Directive were both realisable and for precisely that reason deeply alarming. The Eurocrats had worked out that the building sector is responsible for 36% of all emissions in member states. To meet their 2030 goals, they decided that each member state should be required to divide their existing structures into nine efficiency classes, and to impose “Minimum Energy Performance Standards” – that is, mandatory and ruinously expensive renovations – on the two least efficient classes.
Now, there are a lot of very dumb things about this. As far as I can tell, the climate-neutral utopia of 2050 is supposed to be an all-electric world, in which we’ll travel in electric cars and harvest organic corn with electric tractors and heat our homes with electric heat-pumps. All this extremely abundant and cheap electricity will be generated by fields upon fields of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. How the energy efficiency of buildings will matter for emissions at all in this electrical utopia is a hard thing to understand.
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Australia: Fight over cow burps looms as farmers face forced emissions cuts
Fewer cows, dearer milk??
A fight over plans to cut farming’s greenhouse footprint from methane-burping livestock looms for the Albanese government, with Agriculture Minister Murray Watt declaring the sector must reduce its emissions as the National Farmers Federation campaigns against the government’s renewable plans.
Watt declared the industry cannot rely only on carbon offsets and must change practices as he launched consultation on Tuesday on the government’s agriculture and land plan, which will guide cuts to emissions from agriculture in line with the national target to hit net zero by 2050.
The Albanese government has launched a controversial reform, which will result in a sector wide plan for agriculture to cut its greenhouse emissions, which are mostly generated by methane-laden burps from livestock.
The Albanese government has launched a controversial reform, which will result in a sector wide plan for agriculture to cut its greenhouse emissions, which are mostly generated by methane-laden burps from livestock. CREDIT:STEVEN SIEWERT
The government is also committed to the global pledge to cut methane by 30 per cent from 2020 by 2030.
That is a big task for graziers as sheep and cows’ gassy burps are loaded with the greenhouse gas – a byproduct of digesting grass. Livestock methane makes around two-thirds of agriculture’s greenhouse emissions.
New Zealand has imposed a tax on farm methane emissions that kicks in from 2025, but in news that will be welcomed by Australian farmers, Watt has already ruled this out.
Watt said the reforms “will be done without a methane tax or ag sector emissions target” but government would work industry to develop a plan.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has teamed with other ministers to draw up plans for emissions reductions in six sectors of the economy. Agriculture, which generates 17 per cent of the nation’s greenhouse footprint, is first cab off the rank.
“It’s really important that agriculture does reduce its emissions,” Watt said told the ABC.
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Australian Greens in Senate walkout over Albanese government’s Israel response
The Greens have accused the Albanese government of “being complicit in the massacre of innocent Palestinians” and “aiding and abetting Israel”, after the party staged a free Palestine protest in the Senate chamber.
Attempting to ratchet up pressure on the government to “show some guts” over the Middle East conflict, Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi demanded Labor endorse the United Nations’ call for Israel and its allies to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and “condemn Israel for its war crimes”.
In an attack the Jewish community said showed the Greens to be the enemies of peace, Senator Faruqi said: “History will judge the Labor Party and the Labor government for staying silent, or even being complicit in the massacre that is happening in Palestine at the moment. History will remember them as warmongers, history will remember them as aiding and abetting Israel in the massacre of Palestinians. And the people will not take kindly to it.
“What we are seeing now, we have not seen for many years, the way that thousands of innocent people are being killed indiscriminately, the way that families are being blown up to bits, whole families are being blown up to bits by the bombing of Israel. That’s what we want to stop.”
Trade Minister Don Farrell, who represented Anthony Albanese in the upper house on Monday with Senate leader Penny Wong in Beijing, said innocent civilians should not pay for the horrors perpetrated by Hamas.
“Of course we have all witnessed devastating loss of innocent life in the Middle East that all started with the attack by Hamas on innocent civilians in Israel. We as a government have affirmed Israel’s right to defend themselves after that horrific attack,” Senator Farrell said.
“We also said this, I saw the Foreign Minister (Senator Wong) reiterate that this weekend, that it also matters how Israel responds to this completely unjustified attack by Hamas. This means that Israel must observe international law and the rules of war.
“Nobody wants to see innocent lives lost in this terrible set of circumstances. And it matters that innocent civilians should not pay for the horrors perpetrated by Hamas. And it also matters for Israel’s own security, which faces grave risk if this conflict spreads and I think we’ve already seen over the weekend the potential that it’s spreading in the north and in the east.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the Greens’ inability to condemn the mass atrocities of October 7 “without attempting to justify crimes that no decent person would ever justify, destroyed what little human rights credentials they had”.
“The Greens have shown themselves to be the enemies of peace and launderers for antisemites at home and murderous thugs abroad,” he said.
“Their continued patronage of anti-Israel rallies with their genocidal chants and incitement to violence has endangered Australian Jews and our society. They pose as pacifists but they know that a ceasefire will hand victory to Hamas and encourage more jihadism in the West.”
Greens foreign affairs spokesman Jordon Steele-John said his party had repeatedly condemned the acts of terrorism perpetrated by Hamas last month because of a “shared commitment to humanity”.
During Senate question time, Senator Faruqi made a statement about the government’s “heartless, gutless, powerless” response to what was happening to Palestinians before raising her fist and declaring: “Today, we bring the people’s protest into parliament. Free, free Palestine.”
She then left the chamber, followed by her colleagues.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said at least 9770 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in more than four weeks of war, sparked by a terrorist attack in Israel on October 7 that left more than 1400 dead.
The Prime Minister has endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself while also expressing concern for Gaza civilians.
Six of Australia’s former prime ministers - every living leader except Paul Keating - co-signed a letter last week affirming their joint stance on the war, expressing their support for Israel and condemning Hamas for the October massacres.
The letter called for an end to anti-Semitic hate speech and endorsed a two-state solution as the basis for “long-term lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples”.
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7 November, 2023
The case for wind power was built upon a myth
We keep being told that it will continue to get cheaper. Now the truth has been revealed
Wind is already the cheapest form of power and will save us a fortune in future. We know this because the green energy lobby keeps telling us so. But it is hard to square with the words of Tom Glover, chair of energy company RWE’s UK arm, last week.
No more offshore wind farms will be built, he said, unless the Government hikes the guaranteed long-term prices offered to their operators by as much as 70 per cent.
The energy “market” is not really much of a market at all, not when it comes to green energy. The Government underwrites wind and solar through “contracts for difference” – guaranteeing operators a minimum “strike price”, rising with inflation, for every megawatt-hour of electricity they generate over 15 years.
The trouble is that wind farm developers will no longer accept the strike prices offered. Last time the Government held an auction for the right to build offshore wind farms, in September, it received not a single bid.
The maximum strike price the Government offered was Ł44 per MWh. According to RWE it won’t receive any bids until this is raised to between Ł65 and Ł75.
How come, when the cost of wind energy is supposed to be falling year on year? True, the cost did fall sharply up until 2019. But this then went into reverse thanks to higher commodity prices and interest rates. With renewable energy, most of the costs come upfront – which makes it particularly reliant on cheap debt.
But this is only half the story. If we are going to have a grid based on intermittent renewables, it is no use looking just at the cost of generation. We have to add on the cost of energy storage, or some other kind of back-up – or else build so many wind and solar farms that we have just enough power at the worst of times, and a super-abundance of it at other times.
All are likely to be horrendously expensive. Storing energy in lithium batteries, for example, can cost around six times as much as generating it in the first place. Using gas as back-up – as we do now – means we have gas power stations sitting idle for some periods, pushing up the unit cost of generation when they are needed.
As for super-abundance, we would end up with masses of idle wind turbines and solar panels instead. They would only get built if their owners were bribed with huge compensation for being unable to supply all their power to the grid.
Wind farms already do receive such “constraint payments”, which inevitably end up on our bills. In 2022, energy consumers – unknowingly in most cases – had to pay Ł215 million to wind farm owners to turn off their turbines. This is a bill that is surely only going to rise as more and more wind farms – and far too few energy storage facilities – are connected to the grid.
Remember how, last summer, the renewables lobby was trying to tell us that wind energy was “nine times cheaper” than gas? It was a blatantly false comparison between long-term strike prices for wind and “day ahead” prices for gas – ie the inflated prices we have to pay the owners of gas power stations to turn them on for a few hours at short notice when wind and solar are in short supply. We are paying more than we need to for gas power because we are using it to balance renewables.
So, no, don’t be fooled by the PR. RWE has let the cat out of the bag. Renewables never were particularly cheap – and they are likely to get a lot more expensive.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/the-case-for-wind-power-was-built-upon-a-falsehood/
******************************************************Uber Driver's Tesla Model 3 Battery Dies After 120,000 Miles In 15 Months
There's probably no better way to convince people that electric vehicles are as good as internal combustion cars for every use case scenario than having EVs undergo tough trials, and ride-hailing vehicles have it tougher than most. So can a Tesla Model 3 handle that kind of punishment long-term?
Yes and no, according to Dobson, a Model 3 owner who has used his car for Uber duty for almost a year and a half now. YouTube creator Kim Java first featured him in one of her videos in July 2022, when he traded in his Toyota Camry for a slightly used 2019 Tesla Model 3 to use as an Uber car. He spent $53,000 on the Tesla – more than he had ever spent on a car – but he immediately started making savings in fuel and maintenance. The savings added up to $10,000 since he bought it, which is impressive. However, he was unlucky to make the purchase before the EV maker started cutting prices like crazy. Had he waited a few more months, he would have gotten a much better deal on his Model 3 Standard Range Plus.
Alas, that is not his main problem with the Tesla. Dobson covered 120,000 miles since July 2022, which is a lot for a regular user but quite normal for an Uber driver who drives six days a week, more than 300 miles a day, and supercharges twice a day.
The big problem is that the high-voltage battery pack of his Model 3 died recently, and he claims it's because Tesla didn't prepare the Model 3 for the daily grind a ride-sharing vehicle typically has to deal with. The battery died suddenly, Dobson says, and not through progressive degradation.
In a previous video shot when the car had covered 90,000 miles, the battery showed degradation of 11 percent, but after crossing the 110,000-mile mark, he began to see a quick drop in degradation and driving range – down to 170-180 miles at 100 percent SOC.
There may have been something wrong with the battery because a Tesla should lose only about 12 percent of battery capacity after 200,000 miles, according to the EV maker's 2022 Impact Report.
Dobson claims Tesla told him the degradation was attributed to regular wear and tear, but he didn't agree with that, arguing that the degradation was too rapid. It's not clear if the fact that he typically did two Supercharging stops a day, often charging to 90 or 95 percent state of charge, was a factor in the demise of the Model 3's battery.
A typical ride-sharing EV covers more miles in a week and goes through more charging cycles than most EVs for private use cover in months. Some claim that frequent Supercharging, especially when done over a recommended limit, can put significant stress on the battery, though a recent Recurrent study showed little to no difference in battery degradation between frequent fast charging and rare fast charging on Tesla EVs.
Whether or not Supercharging was to blame, one day the Uber driver charged the car overnight at home and had 170 miles of available range, but when he used a Supercharger later in the day, the range didn't go past 35 miles. At that point, he received a notification from Tesla to bring in the car for a check.
He took the car to Tesla Service for an evaluation and was later told that it would cost $9,000 to replace the battery. He accepted that, and he now limits charging to 80 percent at Tesla's recommendation, typically getting 160-170 miles of range from that.
Tesla gave him only a one-year warranty on the new battery, leading Dobson to suspect the battery was not new but refurbished. He also believes that because his car's fully charged battery theoretically offers 207 miles of range at 100 percent SOC, which is 14 percent less than what an identical Tesla Model 3 with a brand-new battery would get.
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Assault on farmers, fishers and foresters will only harm the environment
Governments across Australia are forging ahead with their attacks on farmers, fishers and foresters, with the latest blow aimed against the Murray-Darling irrigators after the federal government recently passed legislation through the lower house cutting their water allocations.
The inevitable result of such legislation will be a fall in food and fibre production. In addition, the east coast Barramundi gillnet fishery is to be phased out by 2027, and two major agricultural dams in Queensland (Hells Gate and Urannah) have been shelved as a bribe to delay UNESCO declaring the Great Barrier Reef endangered.
The Queensland mackerel fishery was cut by 70 per cent in July, the Victorian hardwood forestry industry is facing closure in the next few years, and the West Australian hardwood forestry industry will go next year. As for the future, there is also the push for low-emission agriculture as part of Australia’s net-zero pledge. This is targeting methane emissions from livestock and the supposed problem of nitrogen in fertiliser.
But damaging these industries perversely increases environmental harm. For example, the continuously tightening regulations on Australia’s fish catch resulted in Australia becoming a net importer of seafood in 2007, and we now import well over 60 per cent of our seafood. By importing fish from countries such as Thailand that have far less strict environmental guidelines, damage from overfishing is far more likely.
Similarly, restricting or banning hardwood forestry simply means we must import from countries where sustainable forestry, which has been practised in this country for decades, is merely a dream. There is also a major environmental and biosecurity risk with importing fish and timber from overseas. The 2016 outbreak of white-spot disease in prawns is a good example of this.
Sadly, the rationale for most of these assaults on agriculture is based on poor quality-assured science. For example, cuts in Murray-Darling irrigation water are intended in part to allow more freshwater to reach Lake Alexandrina at the mouth of the river in South Australia. It is claimed the lake needs more water or it will go saline – like an estuary. But the lake was salty until the 1930s when the dams were built at the mouth of the Murray to stop the salt coming in from the sea. So, farmers are forced to cut water consumption partly to maintain a fiction that the lake is naturally, and should always be, freshwater.
Similarly, it was claimed that the Hells Gate and Urannah dams needed to be cancelled to help the Great Barrier Reef. But, if anything, the dams will stop sediment and nutrients reaching the sea – and UNESCO and most of the science institutions have been telling us the sediment is bad for the reef. For some reason, the government and UNESCO now prefer to wash the sediment into the sea.
Equally ridiculous is the promise by federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to restrict fishing in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, supposedly to protect the Great Barrier Reef, which is 800km away on the other side of Cape York. That is farther than the distance between Sydney and Melbourne.
Plibersek claims this is to protect fish that move between the Gulf and the Great Barrier Reef through the Torres Strait. I suppose that all creatures on Earth are interlinked in some way, but there is no evidence of any problems with the Gulf fishery or of there being a significant ecological link between the Gulf and reef.
After all, for most of the one-million-year history of the Great Barrier Reef, the Torres Strait was a land bridge, so to go from the Gulf to the reef one had to take the long way around Australia. And the reef did just fine.
At least for the Murray-Darling farmers there is one thing going in their favour – rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. It is beyond dispute that most food crops and trees grow much faster in an atmosphere with double the amount of the carbon dioxide – for wheat about 30 per cent faster and they need less water. And no Australian government can cut carbon dioxide concentrations because Australia’s emissions are negligible compared with those of China and India.
Other than that, politically harmful decisions have been based on poor advice from science organisations that have become ideological and hostile to the productive heart of the Australian economy. Not only does this harm the Australian economy but closing down agriculture, fisheries and forestry will simply export jobs and increase environmental costs in other countries. This is NIMBYism on a national scale.
We are witnessing a widening disconnect between the productive rural regions and the city nobility. We need a fresh start, beginning with a review of the science behind agricultural policy.
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Australians unlikely to give up meat, become vegetarian to help environment, study shows
Probably even more so in the USA
A La Trobe University study asked more than 700 Facebook account users who lived in Australia about their beliefs on climate change, the impact of meat consumption on the environment, and their meat intake.
The report found respondents, who were aged between 18 and 84, believed reducing and eliminating meat intake were ineffective ways to address climate change.
They reported low willingness to engage in either action, despite participants showing increased awareness of meat-eating impacts on the environment.
"Although past research has shown that animal agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, our participants believed reducing and eliminating meat intake to be some of the least effective actions against climate change," co-author and provisional psychologist from La Trobe University Ashley Rattenbury said.
Australians are among the biggest meat-eaters in the world, a trend the study highlighted.
In 2020, the World Economic Forum reported that Australia had the world's second-highest annual meat consumption per capita in 2018, behind the United States.
Two thirds of the La Trobe University study participants said having limited options when eating out was a barrier to adopting a vegetarian diet.
"[The sentiment] 'I like eating meat' was the most common barrier," co-author Matthew Ruby, from La Trobe's School of Psychology, said.
"That maps on to many other past studies that [have found] most people eat meat because they like it.
The La Trobe research was compared to a similar study conducted in 2003 by Emma Lea and Anthony Worsley, from Deakin University, which asked hundreds of Australians for their beliefs about barriers and benefits to vegetarianism.
Only one third of Lea and Worsley's participants agreed that limited options when eating out were a barrier, despite there being far fewer vegetarian options available 20 years ago.
Other 'green' actions favoured over vegetarianism
The La Trobe University study also asked participants about their perceptions of the effectiveness of stopping or reducing meat consumption, compared to how willing they would be to engage in other actions that benefited the environment.
"Participants thought that cutting back on meat and stopping eating meat were the least effective things they could do and as such were the least willing to do those, particularly to stop eating meat," Dr Ruby said.
"They are very happy to get more energy from renewable resources, to recycle things more, to buy fewer new things — which all do have an impact.
"But considering the amount of meat that the average Aussie eats, cutting back on meat would have more of an impact than some of those in terms of emissions."
Researchers hoped the findings would help organisations and campaigners better understand attitudes around environmental dietary behaviours.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-06/la-trobe-univerity-meat-consumption-study/103065134
***************************************6 November, 2023
The crippling problem of renewable green energy cannot be solved
In a Net Zero world, what will we do when the wind isn’t blowing? Environmentalists like to point out that we will have solar power as well, but of course the sun doesn’t shine at night, so windless nights are a big problem.
Next, it is suggested that we can store electricity. But in winter we frequently get long wind lulls, and with the sun low in the sky, there will be little or no solar power either. These so-called “dunkelflautes” mean little or no electricity supply from the renewables fleet.
A dunkelflaute can last for weeks. That means you need huge, unfeasible quantities of electricity storage. The Royal Society recently concluded we’d need enough to cover more than two months’ demand, and, whatever storage technology is adopted, this isn’t going to be affordable or probably even possible. The Royal Society’s numbers suggest we’d need to deliver a project equivalent in size to HS2 every year, forever. Worse, that number is likely to be hugely understated, because the report’s authors used extraordinarily optimistic projections of what might happen to costs and efficiencies in the next 25 years. Using assumptions grounded in the technologies and costs prevalent today, we’d conclude that we’d need six months’ storage, and would have to settle ongoing annual bills equivalent to five HS2 projects per year.
It’s a huge problem, which makes the idea of Net Zero a hard sell. One of the wheezes dreamt up by the greens to make the costs look a bit smaller is to assume that we will get a significant proportion of our electricity down the “interconnectors” – the big cables that connect the UK grid to our European neighbours, or which would stitch together the various grids of North America. There are already several international interconnections in operation – from the UK to Norway, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands – as well as others bringing power from region to region. More are on the way.
However, as with so much of the energy “transition”, there is a lot of wishful thinking going on.
Firstly, it is glibly assumed that the electricity delivered down interconnectors is zero-emission. Remarkably, this is the case, no matter how many coal-fired power stations are in operation on the continental grid at the time. In other words, replacing an idle wind farm in the UK with a coal-fired power station in Belgium would be assumed to represent an emissions-reducing move.
Secondly, it is assumed (in equally glib fashion) that the continental grid will always have power to spare for the UK, and that there will always be power to spare somewhere in the USA. This is simply not the case. Firstly, if it is midnight in the UK, it is dark across the whole of Europe. If it is two AM in New York it is midnight in Los Angeles, so nobody is going to be generating any solar power.
Secondly, although we are frequently told that “the wind is always blowing somewhere”, weather systems are extremely large things and they frequently affect whole continents. As a result, wind speeds are highly correlated across any continent; if there’s no wind in the UK, the chances are high that it’s not windy anywhere nearby either.
Even if the continent is windy when it’s calm in the UK, or if it’s windy in Texas when it’s calm in California, the ability to send power where it’s needed depends on there being surplus generating capacity in the precise place where the wind is blowing.
If, say, it’s windy in Scandinavia but the rest of Europe is experiencing a lull, you need enough spare windfarms in the Baltic and Nordic seas to meet demand from almost half a billion people. That’s a huge amount of windfarms. Then again, the windy spot might be in the Atlantic, off the coast of Iberia. So you’d need to build the same enormous number windfarms again, this time off the coast of Portugal. The again, and again – basically every local neighbourhood would have to have enough capacity to supply the entire continent. Hopefully this shows that the idea is rather ridiculous.
The same arguments apply to the idea of getting power from further afield. There is a currently a proposal to build an interconnector to Morocco, where the stiff breezes found in the seas off the Atlantic seaboard and deserts full of solar panels will, it is claimed, deliver an electricity bonanza. Unfortunately, as I write, wind speeds are rather low across most of Europe, while off the Western seaboard of Morocco they are ... even lower. It’s gusty off Portugal though.
A lack of generating capacity in the right place is only one of the problems with interconnectors. They also turn out to be rather unreliable. For example, the Western Link, one of the interconnectors from England to the South of Scotland has failed regularly in its short lifetime, going down for months at a time, causing nightmares for grid managers tasked with making up the difference. Similarly, the IFA1 interconnector to France was hit by a fire in 2021, losing half of its capacity for a period of more than a year. Of course, any part of the electricity grid can suffer an outage, but the loss of an interconnector can take out a significant proportion of supply for long periods.
Worse still, interconnectors represent a risk to security of supply in other ways. Those long cables, hidden deep beneath the waves, are an inviting target for hostile powers. Just last week, a small flotilla from the navies of several European nations was scrambled to an area adjacent to the East Anglia One windfarm, after a Russian vessel was seen to be hanging around the area. We can’t know if it was sizing up the windfarm’s grid connection or the adjacent gas pipeline, but the point is the same; it is very hard to protect subsea infrastructure from sabotage (and impossible when it is a thousand-mile cable from here to Morocco).
The problem of what to do when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining is all but insurmountable. In technological terms, the only feasible solution is a vast fleet of windfarms and a gigantic store of green hydrogen, along the lines envisaged by the Royal Society. However, barring a series of dramatic technological breakthroughs, the costs would make the recent energy price crisis look like nothing.
It’s high time to put a stop to the wishful thinking on Net Zero.
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German Finance Minister Casts Doubt on 2030 Coal Exit
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner on Wednesday called into question the government's aim to end coal use in Europe's largest economy by 2030.
"Until it is clear that energy is available and affordable, we should end dreams of phasing out electricity from coal in 2030," Lindner said in an interview with the German daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger.
"Now is not the time to shut down power plants," he added.
Germany ought to "enable the expansion of renewable energies more quickly" and expand domestic gas production, said Lindner, who also leads the pro-business FDP party.
Lindner's comments threaten to deepen division within the ruling coalition between Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, the Greens and the FDP, where ministers have clashed over how to respond to higher energy prices while reducing fossil fuel usage.
The coal exit date is a plank in Germany's project to produce 80 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030 and the coalition aims "ideally" to close all coal-fired plants within the same timeframe.
The agreement brings forward the exit date agreed by the government of former Chancellor Angela Merkel's to quit coal by 2038.
Germany's plans to decarbonize energy production were thrown into disarray by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent cut to sorely needed gas supplies from Russia.
The turn of events, punctuated by the sabotage of a key pipeline, sent energy prices soaring and left Germany looking for new sources of energy.
The government brought mothballed coal plants back online to take the pressure off of gas-based electricity production, with the reactivated fleet available through March 2024.
At the same time, Berlin has pledged to cut red tape for installing wind turbines to meet the ambitious target, but observers say the pace is still too slow.
Germany also shut off its last remaining nuclear power plants in April this year, a long-planned step, which some critics said could make it harder to hit climate targets.
https://www.voanews.com/a/german-finance-minister-casts-doubt-on-2030-coal-exit/7337035.html
***************************************************Europe’s new road rules are making driving a nightmare for tourists
“Where’s your Crit’Air sticker?” I’m just about to enter the parking area outside my Airbnb in Rouen, in France’s Normandy, and the parking officer has me stumped. I haven’t got a clue what he’s talking about. “What’s a Crit’Air sticker?” I ask. It’s a permit to drive in a low-emission zone he tells me, haven’t I seen the signs?
That rings a bell. I’ve seen a road sign with a red circle and something about emissions, and a warning popped up on the GPS. The fine for entering a low-emission zone (LEZ) without a permit is €68 ($112) he says, and I can be fined multiple times. Mine is a hire car that I picked up in Amsterdam I tell him, and I can see he’s wavering. In the end he lets me off with a caution. Who knew?
France’s low-emission mobility zones
France’s zones ŕ faibles émissions mobilite (ZFE-m), its clean air scheme for vehicles, has been in existence since January 2017, when the government introduced windscreen stickers as a legal requirement in some of its cities. The stickers identify a vehicle’s emissions levels and, in some cases, restrict access in the quest for less polluted cities. Rouen is one of a number of French cities that require motorists to have a Crit’Air sticker, but from 2025 all cities with a population over 150,000 will be required to introduce a LEZ. France is gradually ratcheting up the requirement, making it tougher for the older, more polluting Crit’Air 4 and 5 vehicles to enter the LEZs.
All of Paris is now a LEZ. Only vehicles with a Crit’Air 3, 2 or 1 sticker are allowed to enter. From June 1, 2025, the restrictions tighten and only Crit’Air 2 vehicles will be allowed in. Starting from 2030, all of Paris will be a zero-emission zone, no petrol or diesel vehicles allowed. Only electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be permitted to enter the city on weekdays.
The Citroen C4 I’m driving falls into Crit’Air 1, the least-polluting category apart from electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles. All petrol-powered vehicles made after 2011 are Crit’Air 1. If this was a diesel-powered vehicle it would need a Crit’Air 2 sticker. Most hire cars registered in France come with a Crit’Air sticker, and that’s where my problem arises. Since mine is registered in the Netherlands, hired from Amsterdam and driven across Belgium and into France, it doesn’t have a Crit’Air sticker.
Getting a Crit’Air sticker is straightforward. You go to the relevant French Government website (entreprendre.service-public.fr) pay €3.72 ($6) which covers the application cost plus postage and within 10 days your sticker will arrive through the post. But here’s the rub, the sticker can only be sent to the vehicle’s registered postal address. It is impossible for anyone driving a hire car to obtain a Crit’Air sticker.
If the ZFE-m scheme means lower emissions and a cleaner, healthier planet I’m all for it, but how are you supposed to be across all this? Of course, ignorance of the law is no defence. It’s not just France. Many other parts of Europe also require emissions stickers, and this could create problems for anyone driving a hire car across borders.
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Australia: Labor’s renewable ‘investments’ are just blowing in the wind
The floundering offshore wind turbine industry received some welcome news from Australia last week with a strong hint from Jim Chalmers of more sugar on the table for renewable energy.
The promise of what the Treasurer euphemistically called “more decisive action across all levels of government” is a sign of increasing desperation as the government’s emissions-reduction timetable falls hopelessly behind.
The giant boring machine crawling beneath the Snowy Mountains is an apt metaphor for the government’s progress towards its 2030 target. Both projects were based on heroic assumptions, neither were adequately surveyed, and both have turned into giant sinkholes for capital that could be better spent elsewhere.
Joe Biden’s dream of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind turbines by 2030 is in tatters after a string of cancelled projects. Last week, Danish wind energy company Orsted dropped two projects that would have installed more than 200 giant turbines off the New Jersey coast. Orsted’s stock has fallen 60 per cent this year and The New York Times estimates it will have to write off billions of dollars in investments in the two projects. Orsted is not the only company encountering headwinds.
Britain’s target of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 can only be met with substantial subsidies and revenue guarantees. The Swedish company Vattenfall abandoned a giant offshore wind project off the Norfolk coast earlier this year, blaming a 40 per cent rise in costs. The latest auction for offshore wind licences failed to attract a single bid.
Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP’s head of low-carbon energy, told a Financial Times conference on Wednesday that the US offshore wind industry was “fundamentally broken” and required a “fundamental reset” to help the nascent market grow. Mounting problems included approval delays, long timelines and escalating interest rates that have caused financing costs to soar.“There’s really not a Plan B right now,” environmentalist Jeff Tittel told the New York Times. “It’s a political disaster.”
Enter Energy Minister Chris Bowen who told the Asia Pacific Offshore Wind and Green Hydrogen Summit in August that Australia had big ambitions for offshore wind. “We aren’t just building an industry from scratch,” he said. “We are building an industry in which we want to be a world leader.”
Bowen has announced five offshore wind zones in the past year, with a sixth between Bunbury and Perth expected to be formally announced this month.
The numbers, sprinkled like fairy dust in the minister’s press releases, are too silly to believe. The Hunter, Illawarra and Southern Ocean zones alone will provide enough electricity to power 16 million homes, according to the minister. In a country of 9.7 million households, that would be impressive if it were true, rather than a scribble on the back of an envelope.
We are told that the energy capacity of the five offshore wind zones in the eastern states will be 43GW. That means constructing 5400 turbines with a boilerplate capacity of 8MW, or one a day for the next 15 years. On a conservative installation cost assumption of $US1.3m a megawatt, that would require a capital investment of $86bn.
“We need you,” Bowen told the industry gathering. “We need your capital. We need your investment. We need your experience.
“The Australian government is deadly serious about our journey to become a renewable energy superpower.”
Reducing emissions is not as easy as Labor seemed to assume when it announced its 82 per cent renewable-energy target two years ago. The construction of onshore wind, grid-scale solar and transmission lines has fallen way behind the government’s timetable. Offshore wind, with its long lead time and significant capital costs, is an even larger challenge.
Yet building the extra generation capacity to meet the government’s 2030 target is only the beginning. The additional power that would be needed to manufacture green hydrogen on an industrial scale has barely been discussed. Yet the amount is considerable.
Plans for the proposed renewable energy hub in Gladstone, Queensland, for example, include a facility to export 4MT of green hydrogen a year. That would require 110GW of renewable energy capacity, according to a presentation by Gladstone Ports Corporation chief executive Craig Haymes at a recent engineering conference. It means an extra 10,000 wind turbines or 2500sq km of solar panels, an area the size of Fraser and Mornington Island combined.
Some attendees thought Haymes may have been trying to can the project by putting the figures on the table. Yet in a statement, the Corporation said Haymes had merely wanted to illustrate “the potential for renewable energy for Queensland and the opportunities this presents”.
Green hydrogen is at a nascent stage. It is an inefficient and hazardous way of storing electricity, and there is no serious industrial demand. It comes with huge capital constraints.
Yet governments in the US, Europe and Australia are investing billions of dollars of seed capital into hydrogen produced by renewable energy without a care in the world as to where the energy will come from.
In a speech to The Australian’s Economic and Social Outlook Conference last week, Chalmers flagged a “uniquely Australian” revamp of energy policy to prize an extra $225bn in capital from the hot little hands of private investors. He promised measures in the 2024-25 budget “to get private capital flowing towards our priorities effectively and efficiently”.
The hubris in this statement bodes poorly for our future prosperity. Diverting the flow of such huge sums of private capital to government pet projects, however noble the intentions, is the road to economic ruin. The investors withdrawing from renewable energy projects are responding to price signals. Private investors have a keen nose for snake oil. They are trading off costs and benefits and assessing the technical feasibility of projects with rigour this government has failed to match.
“Australia is, to be honest, a bit like the kid who forgot to study for an exam early in the process and is pulling all-night study sessions,” Bowen told the August conference. “But now we are working 24/7 to catch up.”
The tragedy is that Australia was gifted the chance to learn from the mistakes of others. Bowen’s obstinacy comes at a price.
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5 November, 2023
Unplug the Green Boondoggle
Many groups and countries are lining up for new handouts by Congress, now that it is functioning again with a new Speaker. Among those with their hats in their hands for billions of dollars is the green energy industry of windmills and battery-powered cars.
Fortunately, newly inducted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is fully supported by conservative lawmakers in the House who want separate votes on spending-neutral bills. First out of the gate is a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel that is funded by repealing part of Biden’s $80 billion IRS expansion.
On Monday, Biden’s Treasury Department announced that it will borrow the most ever for a fourth quarter: $776 billion. The multi-billion-dollar cost of the Leftist green agenda is not something we can afford to ignore anymore.
Ask Ford Motor Company. Since last Thursday afternoon, Ford’s stock has fallen by 14% in three business days on news of its losing a more-than-expected $1.33 billion in its electric vehicle (EV) unit for the third quarter, which translates into an average loss of $36,000 on every EV it sold.
Once a preeminent American corporation, Ford’s value has fallen to only $38 billion in market capitalization, and it cannot survive annual losses of $5 billion on EVs. A sharp increase in costs for raw materials needed by the batteries in EVs has cast doubt on if and when electric cars would ever be profitable to sell, despite mandates by Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
As found by a new study released by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, “the average EV accrues $48,698 in subsidies and $4,569 in extra charging and electricity costs over a 10-year period, for a total cost of $53,267.” When converted into an equivalent subsidy per gallon of gasoline, it’s as though the government paid an extra $16.12 per gallon for a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle.
Hertz took a hit in its latest earnings report due to unexpected losses from operating the largest EV fleet in the rental car industry. Hertz announced a pause in its acquisition of more EVs.
Another green energy money pit is the wasteful spending on wind power, as illustrated by the often-idle giant wind turbines visible from many highways. Despite decades of effort and billions of dollars in spending, wind power is still unable to pay for itself.
Record cold temperatures across the United States this Halloween include October snow showers in eight midwestern states. The 20 and 30-degree drops in temperature being felt from Dallas to the East Coast require affordable energy or else there will be another jolt to inflation.
In August 2000, General Electric was the most valuable company in the world, having a market capitalization of $601 billion. Today, as it loses $1 billion annually on its offshore wind farms that blight the ocean view for many Americans, the value of the company founded by Thomas Edison has fallen by more than 80%, to just $116 billion.
Wind turbines fail to produce power when it’s needed most, such as on very hot or very cold days, and their maintenance expenses are exorbitant. The inconsistent supply of energy from wind turbines causes spikes that harm the energy grid.
Rising interest rates have laid bare the billions of dollars in operating losses generated by the noisy and ugly windmills. Since low-interest loans are no longer available, green energy companies will be forced to seek billions more in subsidies from the federal government to offset mounting losses.
As the funding of the federal government expires on November 17, the liberal wastefulness of green energy will be one of many senseless entitlements seeking new handouts in the next fiscal year. “Government is too invested to let these companies go bust, and taxpayers will be charged for the repair job,” the Wall Street Journal warned last weekend.
The real federal deficit has doubled from $1 trillion (not just billion) to $2 trillion in merely one year, while Biden demands another $100 billion to spend on no-win foreign wars. House Speaker Johnson wisely separates a vote on emergency aid to Israel from a vote on the much larger spending package demanded by Zelensky in Ukraine with the support of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) despite rising conservative opposition.
A financial collapse, typically unpredictable in its timing, becomes increasingly likely under the weight of this crushing debt. Ending subsidies for green energy and foreign wars is a great place to start to save our economy.
Due to inflation caused by the wasteful government spending, the interest costs alone on the mountain of debt run up by Biden will soon exceed our total spending on our national defense. With a new Speaker, conservatives in the House have a golden opportunity to realign our nation’s priorities.
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnandandyschlafly/2023/11/01/unplug-the-green-boondoggle-n2630624
**************************************************Witch Hunts and Climate
European witch hunts of the 15th to 17th centuries targeted witches that were thought to be responsible for epidemics and crop failures related to declining temperatures of the Little Ice Age.
A belief that evil humans were negatively affecting the climate and weather patterns was the “consensus” opinion of that time. How eerily similar is that notion to the current oft-repeated mantra that Man’s actions are controlling the climate and leading to catastrophic consequences?
The first extensive European witch hunts coincided with plunging temperatures as the continent transitioned away from the beneficial warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1250 AD). Increasing cold that began in the 13th century ushered in nearly five centuries of advancing mountain glaciers and prolonged periods of rainy or cool weather. This time of naturally-driven climate change was accompanied by crop failure, hunger, rising prices, epidemics and mass depopulation.
Large systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s and were advanced later in the century by an Alsatian Dominican friar and papal Inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer. At Kramer’s urging, Pope Innocence VIII issued an encyclical enshrining the persecution and eradication of weather-changing witches through this papal edict. The worst of the Inquisition’s abuses and later systemic witch hunts were, in part, empowered by this decree.
This initial period of cooler temperatures and failing crops continued through the first couple of decades of the 16th century, when a slight warming was accompanied by improvements in harvests. Clearly, the pogrom against the weather-changing witches had been successful!
Unfortunately for the people of the Late Middle Ages, the forty years or so of slight warming gave ground to a more severe bout of cooling.
The summer of 1560 brought a return of coldness and wetness that led to severe decline in harvest, crop failure and increases in infant mortality and epidemics. Bear in mind that this was an agrarian subsistence culture, nearly totally dependent on the yearly harvest to survive. One bad harvest could be tolerated, but back-to-back failures would cause horrific consequences and, indeed, they did.
Of course, the people’s misfortunes were attributed to weather-changing witches who had triggered the death-dealing weather, most often in the form of cold, rain, frost and devastating hailstorms. Horrific atrocities were alleged of the witches, including Franconian witches who “confessed” to flying through the air to spread an ointment made of children’s fat in order to cause a killing frost.
Across the continent of Europe, from the 15th to the 17th centuries there were likely many tens of thousands of supposed witches burnt at the stake, many of these old women living without husbands on the margins of society.
The worst of the witch hunts occurred during the bitter cold from 1560 to about 1680. The frenzy of killing culminated in the killing of 63 witches in the German territory of Wiesensteig in the year 1563 alone. Across Europe, though, the numbers of witches continued to increase and peaked at more than 500 per year in the mid-1600s. Most were burned at the stake; others were hung.
The end of the witch hunts and killings tie closely to the beginning of our current warming trend at the close of the 17th century. That warming trend started more than 300 years ago and continues in fits and starts to this day.
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Witch-Hunts-and-Climate.html
****************************************************California’s EV Conundrums
As California is attempting to lead the world toward no crude oil production, worldwide efforts to meet the supply chain demands of extracting 4 billion gallons of crude oil every day from this planet, there may be shortages and inflation in perpetuity to continue to make all the products of our materialistic society, being enjoyed by the current residents in the wealthier countries on this planet.
Meanwhile, the list of conundrums to California’s EV mandate is growing:
Lack of sufficient number of buyers, outside the elite profile of existing EV owners
The Governments’ lack of ethical, moral, and social responsibilities, by encouraging the social injustice of subsidies for well-off people who can afford EVs, continues exploiting the human rights of workers with yellow, brown, and black skin in the supply chain that are mining for exotic minerals and metals in poorer developing countries to support the green movement in wealthy countries.
Conditions have grown so dire for the supply chain of raw materials needed for EV batteries that Washington is cracking down on EV components that have links to Chinese Uyghur slave labor that are helping to build EV’s.
Due to EV battery fire potentials, questionable means of transporting EV’s from foreign manufacturers to the USA consumers.
Concerns about occasional electricity from wind and solar being able to charge EV batteries.
The limited life of the EV battery compared with conventional vehicles, the limitations of EVs during emergencies such as fires, floods, and power blackouts.
China restricting exports of graphite, a key mineral used for making EV batteries.
Auto makers will continue to face challenging supply chain issues to make all the parts and components of EV’s as the supply of oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil will be in shorter supply. The typical car today is made with about 260 pounds of plastics.
The crude oil industry’s time in California is limited, and the oil-refining industry is behaving as any industry would in comparable circumstances, by transitioning its operations away from gasoline to activities that will prove to be more profitable in the long run. And as crude oil supply falls further, much higher gasoline prices will become a way of life for Californians, as the conundrums associated with EV mandates may be growing.
Standard economic logic indicates that high California gas prices should encourage fuels supply to be shipped to California from other states. But this doesn’t happen because no other state formulates California’s unique gasoline blend.
In addition, the West Coast fuels market is isolated from other supply/demand centers as California is an energy island. The Sierra Mountains are a natural barrier that prevents the state from pipeline access to any of that excess oil. As such, the West Coast is susceptible to unexpected outages from West Coast refineries as it is unable to refill an unexpected loss in supply by quickly supplying additional products from outside of the region.
If gasoline is imported into California, which does occur when a California refinery goes offline for repair or maintenance, California typically imports gasoline via marine shipments, which usually take three to four weeks to deliver. To meet the demands of the fourth largest economy in the world imports of gasoline into California come from sources that include India, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Russia, and New Brunswick, Canada. This process is expensive and takes weeks for the fuel to arrive at California ports.
California’s regulatory and tax landscape has led to a steady drop in the number of California refineries. In the early 1980s, when California’s population was 24 million, there were 40 operating refineries in the state, which refined over 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day. Forty years later, with a population of 39 million, the number of refineries dropped by 14, which refines less than 2 million barrels of crude oil per day currently. The reality is that gasoline and diesel supply is decreasing while demand is increasing, is fuel (no pun intended) for continuous price increases.
Refineries are also shutting down because California has imposed a new regulation that bans the sale of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035 and the State requires 35 percent of new car sales to be zero-emission vehicles by 2026. It makes no economic sense to invest in new capacity in a state that has de facto outlawed the industry’s existence in a few years.
In addition, refineries are also shutting down because there are incredibly lucrative state and federal tax incentives to produce biofuels, totaling a whopping $1 per gallon, and cease the manufacturing of gasoline and diesel. A Marathon refinery that had a crude oil refining capacity of 166,000 barrels per day is being retrofitted to produce biodiesel and is expected to be producing biofuel next year. Similarly, Global Clean Energy is converting a 66,000-barrel-per-day-capacity refinery in Bakersfield to biodiesel, and World Energy has invested $350 million to convert a 50,000-barrel-per-day-capacity refinery to biodiesel.
California regulators and legislators are getting what they want: less crude oil produced and consumed. And Californians, particularly low- and middle-income households, are paying a dear price for the preferences of those Tesla-driving legislators and regulators as fuel demand remains against a diminishing supply of gasoline and diesel.
You cannot build something from nothing. Thus, the California’s EV conundrums will most likely grow as everything that needs electricity, and every infrastructure, has parts and components that are made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, and all the parts of toilets, spacecraft, and EV’s.
https://www.cfact.org/2023/11/01/californias-ev-conundrums/
******************************************************Rare profit miss reveals Macquarie’s green energy indigestion
For years Macquarie was seemingly able to defy gravity, but it seems even the investment bank can’t outrun the bigger forces upending green energy markets.
Indeed, the first-half profit was down 39 per cent on the year to $1.4bn, hobbled by surging staff costs, softer revenue and writebacks. The profit collapse makes Macquarie more like a sleepy big four bank rather than a global cash machine commanding a sharp share premium.
One of Macquarie’s core businesses - the buying and selling big infrastructure and energy assets has ground to a halt, given the slowdown in dealmaking globally as markets globally hobbled by the prospect of higher for longer interest rates. The uncertainty on global outlook and higher financing costs has kept buyers away, leading to more assets sitting on the books than what it would normally want.
And green energy, an area where Wikramanayake has staked ground as an early mover by driving big bets on offshore windfarms and solar projects around the world, is delivering a new problem for the bank.
The economics of renewables is starting to become deeply challenged and this is having a dramatic impact on the value of projects springing up around the world.
As more renewables flood the grid it is becoming clear they produce much of their electricity, usually at a time when it is not needed. This is seeing the unit pricing for green electricity projects collapse, particularly in Europe, although the cost of building remains sky high.
Headwinds
In recent weeks oil major BP has written more than $US540m from two US offshore wind projects with inflation-linked construction costs soaring but offtake pricing collapsing. The cost of wholesale pricing on offer in the UK has come down 65 per cent in a short space of time, leaving few willing buyers to commit capital for new projects.
Macquarie has some $2.1bn of green energy investments underway with two-thirds of this at development stage which also means it is exposed to construction risk. Most of the funds are allocated to offshore wind and the rest is mixed between solar and small allocation to battery.
Wikramanayake acknowledges there is some concern about the direction of the green energy book given where unit pricing is going. She says Macquarie has taken a conservative view on projects and much of its offtake agreements underpinning projects were pitched pre-Covid when prices were higher.
Macquarie is confident about demand for its green energy and other infrastructure assets in the coming six months.
Macquarie is confident about demand for its green energy and other infrastructure assets in the coming six months.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian, Wikramanayake is still a believer in green energy with the longer term thematics stronger than ever. There’s still massive demand among governments and other operators to move out of carbon producing coal into green energy. The UK government wants 50 gigawatts by 2030 and have so far only hit less than half that. In the US, the Biden administration is targeting 30 gigawatts.
“This journey will not be a straight line like every other journey. But I think the important thing is a structural response needed, and the opportunity remains,” Wikramanayake says.
The recent shake-up in pricing has “given a bit of a wake-up call to people that are putting these off-take (agreements) in place that if they’re going to get the supply, they’re going to need to offer pricing that will attract private capital”.
She is more confident about demand for Macquarie’s green energy and other infrastructure assets in the coming six months, adding the bank is prepared to wait out the downturn.
“Plainly, we don’t want to sell these assets at less than their fair value. We don’t we don’t feel like we need to sell them if we feel like they’re good quality assets.”
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3 November, 2023
The Coming Reliable Energy Crisis Is Entirely Avoidable
Right now, a storm is brewing over America’s power grid. Everything we use in our daily lives - from our smartphones to our household appliances to the cars we drive - is consuming more and more electricity, yet our nation’s supply of abundant and reliable energy is dwindling. In just a few years, blackouts and brownouts could become an increasingly common and exceptionally disruptive occurrence as we try to power our homes or run our businesses. However, this darker future can be avoided if our lawmakers step up to ensure the power grid remains resilient.
In a recent congressional hearing, the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C) Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Reliability hosted top energy sector leaders to discuss the factors impacting grid reliability and the available solutions to prevent disaster. One of the key takeaways from these industry leaders was that government policies at the state and federal level are shutting down long-standing sources of energy, namely coal, faster than newer technologies can adequately replace them.
They are absolutely right. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, roughly half of the coal-powered energy facilities operating in 2011 will be closed by 2026, and roughly 40% of the facilities operating today will be closed by the end of this decade. This ultimately amounts to a significant loss of energy output that Americans need to power their lives.
Environmental activists in the Biden administration and state governments will say that Americans have nothing to fear from the elimination of coal power because renewable energy resources like wind and solar are coming online to replace them. While it’s true that America has stepped up production of renewable energy, the pace of renewable energy growth lags far behind the pace that coal plants are shuttering.
In the House E&C hearing, Frederick Bresler from PJM, one of the nation’s largest energy transmission organizations, noted that the “rate of retirements of fossil fuel resources largely due to state and federal policies is clearly outpacing construction of new renewable resources.” Given that demand for energy is expected to rise as much as 15% in the next several decades, the deep imbalances between coal plant closures and renewable energy production will ultimately strain our power grid to the breaking point - and leave many Americans in the dark.
Even if America could boost renewable energy production enough to be on pace with coal plant closures, there are still significant doubts that a renewable-powered energy grid would be as reliable as we’ve come to expect. Nor do experts anticipate they will be as cost-efficient for consumers. At the E&C hearing, Richard Dewey, President and CEO of New York ISO, which transmits power to millions of New Yorkers, said “It is not possible to run a reliable electric system on just wind and solar.” Unlike coal, these resources are largely dependent on weather, and coupled with the fact that most power lines are not equipped to transmit energy from renewable sources, it is simply impossible for renewable energy to fully meet our growing demand in so short a period.
As it stands, America is headed for an energy crisis where Americans will find themselves without reliable power more frequently and facing skyrocketing utility bills - but it doesn’t have to be that way. Our lawmakers at the federal and state levels should realize that energy production isn’t a zero-sum game; we must maintain a robust and durable coal fleet while continuing to invest in renewable energy technology to make our grid even stronger.
Americans rely on energy to live their daily lives, and only a mix of traditional sources like coal and new resources can meet their demand. Let’s make sure we give Americans a power grid they can truly rely on.
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Biden climate czar quietly met with flailing EV company dependent on taxpayer handouts
John Podesta, President Biden's clean energy czar, quietly assembled with the head of an electric vehicle (EV) company that relies heavily on taxpayer handouts and has floundered financially since its inception, White House visitor logs reviewed by Fox News Digital show.
According to the records, Podesta privately met with Rivian Automotive CEO Robert "RJ" Scaringe; the company's senior policy director, Chris Nevers; its senior public policy manager, Corey Ershow; and Izzy Klein, a lobbyist for the EV maker, at the White House in June. It is unclear what Rivian officials discussed with Podesta, and both the company and the White House didn't respond to requests for comment.
"Well, Podesta has the largest slush fund, un-appropriated, probably in American history. As soon as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed, Biden and company announced it was actually an investment in green energy and yet it's not appropriated to anything," Daniel Turner, the executive director of Power the Future, told Fox News Digital. "So, it makes sense that Rivian and other failing green energy companies are knocking on John Podesta's door."
"The problem is that it will be sold to the American people as investment, it will be sold to the American people as combating the climate crisis," Turner added. "But it is just another example of corrupt government paying off people who fund their campaigns and deciding winners and losers when, at the end of the day, the real losers are the American people who are paying astronomical amounts for basic necessities because of this Biden economy."
Biden appointed Podesta in September 2022 to lead the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation. Among its main tasks, Podesta's office has begun implementing programs in the IRA, Democrats' $739 billion climate and tax bill which enables the government to distribute more than $350 billion worth of loans and grants to green energy projects nationwide.
Department of Energy Inspector General Teri Donaldson warned during a Senate hearing last week that the IRA's unprecedented level of green energy funding brings "tremendous risk to the taxpayers" and was ripe for abuse and exploitation by foreign adversaries.
"You have massive amounts of money moving quickly," Donaldson said. "All of these things happening at once create a level of risk that may, candidly, be unprecedented in terms of amounts of federal money moving in such a complicated landscape."
Meanwhile, Podesta's gathering with Rivian, which has gone unreported, occurred as the California-based company has hemorrhaged money on its zero-carbon vehicle production and turned to government entities for financial support in the form of credits and subsidies. Financial filings reviewed by Fox News Digital show the company, which was founded in 2009, has lost billions of dollars since it went public in 2021.
In 2022, Rivian lost a staggering $6.8 billion; in 2021, it lost $4.7 billion; and in 2020, it shed another $1 billion, according to the filings. And the company reported it produced 24,337 vehicles and delivered 20,332 vehicles last year, meaning the company lost $33,087 per car delivered over the course of the entire year.
Overall, Rivian's share price has nosedived more than 87% since its initial public offering in late 2021.
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RGGI Halted in Pennsylvania
A proposed carbon tax -- known as the Regional Greenhouse Initiative (RGGI) opposed by the CO2 Coalition has been killed by Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court.
In deciding a case that had been pending for months, the court found that former Gov. Tom Wolf's unilateral action to have Pennsylvania join the RGGI regional consortium of states constituted a tax that required legislative approval and was in violation of Pennsylvania's constitution. The current administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro has 30 days to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
"We are gratified by the court's decision and pleased to have been part of the widespread opposition to RGGI," said Gregory Wrightstone, CO2 Coalition executive director. "Our analysis found RGGI to be unscientific, unnecessary, economically damaging and of no environmental benefit.
"RGGI, like all so-called green initiatives, is based on the false premise that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity is overheating the planet. CO2 is in fact an essential plant food, and modern increases in atmospheric levels of the gas have contributed to record crop harvests and an overall greening of Earth. The decision to kill RGGI is a vote for benefiting humanity and a prospering economy.
CO2 Coalition findings of RGGI's shortcomings were sent in a 2021 report to more than 400 Pennsylvania leaders in business, labor and government. Wrightstone and other CO2 coalition representatives testified against RGGI
in committee hearings in the Pennsylvania House and Senate and before the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission.
Others opposing RGGI included Power PA Jobs Alliance, an organization of business and labor groups, and Republican members of the Pennsylvania Legislature. Suits filed in Commonwealth Court by various parties, including members of the legislature and power plant owners, led to the court's nullification of RGGI.
RGGI would have imposed a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants that burn coal and natural gas to generate electricity, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to energy costs and destroying thousands of jobs in the state's energy sector. The 2019 proposal of Gov. Wolf is believed to have accelerated the July closing of the state's largest coal-fired power plant at Homer City and to have discouraged the development of new fossil fuel-fired generation in the state.
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/RGGI-Halted-in-Pennsylvania.html
*********************************************Australian Left prioritizing "clean-energy"
At midterm, the elements of Albonomics are falling into place.
Anthony Albanese’s governing mission is to build economic self-sufficiency at home, “resilience” as he puts it, while trying to set the nation up for opportunities as a “renewable energy superpower”.
In the Prime Minister’s schema, the market alone can’t be trusted to deliver the transition to clean energy and secure the net-zero emissions target by 2050, Labor’s top-shelf priority in its pitch to voters for a second term.
So, spend big, and multiply, with Canberra’s guiding hand.
Albanese’s government is laying the foundations for a green new deal, with a honey pot of subsidies for investors who meet more rigid tests and a group of chosen industries that are seemingly born ready for this almighty industry policy heave-ho.
Business is on board, for two reasons, other than the national interest: one, there will be an immense amount of public money up for grabs, and two, Joe Biden has forced the rest of the rich world to respond. The US Democrat’s game-changing and limitless green-dream Inflation Reduction Act could eventually be worth $US1 trillion.
In terms we can all understand, that’s the Australian dollar equivalent of all the goods and services we produce in eight months.
We can’t get under the IRA, we can’t go over it, but we have to do something about it.
Albanese fuses a global emissions reduction obligation with abundant natural advantages staring us in the face, but no economy-wide pricing of carbon pollution to direct investment to its best uses.
We’re in the world of “second-best” policy and yet we must stay the course.
Coming off a big personal and psychological loss on the voice, with a community cranky with the nation’s establishment powers, Albanese faces a fatigued electorate; it can only absorb so many big bets, where the outcome is not assured but the journey will involve “value destruction” as well as “value creation”, as economist Pradeep Philip described it.
The key message out of Thursday’s The Australian-Melbourne Institute outlook conference is that a public battered by rising living costs, falling real wages and housing stress must deal with even more disruption in what Jim Chalmers has branded the “defining decade”, these “turbulent ’20s”.
We need more economic dynamism, as it is called, which involves risk-taking and failing, to fashion a high-performance economy to be able to nail the energy transformation and fund the kind of welfare state that is our entitled destiny with a rapidly ageing society.
But to get rich, and hit the nirvana of full employment and low inflation, we’re going to have to get out of the comfort zone, not simply rely on governments to do the heavy lifting, as Westpac’s chief economist Lucy Ellis declared.
Labor’s new growth model is not yet settled, but the moving parts are steadily locking in, as the Treasurer acknowledges.
We’ll need to be smart, as well as lucky, and adaptable to change and, as Michele Bullock put it the other day, “shock after shock after shock”.
Albanese is playing to the conditions, hoping the times will suit him and his government long enough to at least snag a second term.
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2 November, 2023
GOP Lawmakers Call for Repeal of Biden Natural Gas Tax
Numerous Republican lawmakers have written to the newly elected speaker of the House asking him to repeal an emissions-reduction program from the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, wrote the letter, which urges House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program natural gas tax before the year’s end by including its repeal in a possibly forthcoming legislative package.
Pfluger and other prominent Republican signatories, such as Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida, and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, slammed the Methane Emissions Reduction Program as an excessive and unwieldy regulation that would stymie innovation and drive up costs for the American energy industry.
“The [Methane Emissions Reduction Program] is an inappropriate and highly unworkable tax on methane emissions,” the letter states.
“If implemented, the ill-conceived natural gas tax will handicap technological innovation, reduce supplies of affordable energy, and increase both costs and emissions,” the letter continues, adding that “in order to lower costs for American families, we must repeal burdensome regulation, secure supply chains and unleash American energy.”
The Methane Emissions Reduction Program imposes a tax on emissions beyond 25,000 annual tons of carbon dioxide or an equivalent amount of pollution, according to the letter. Companies will be forced to collect the relevant data and pay a fee of $900 for every metric ton above 25,000 starting in 2024, which increases to $1,200 per extra metric ton in 2025 and then $1,500 per extra ton in 2026 and beyond.
The tax is a “statutory codification” of the forced collection of emissions data under a specific sub-section of the Clean Air Act, according to the letter. The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to overhaul that particular section of the Clean Air Act such that the agency can increase the scope and costs of the Methane Emissions Reduction Program.
New fees or taxes on energy companies will raise costs for consumers, creating a burden that will fall most heavily on lower-income Americans,” the letter states. “In fact, this tax alone will drive up the cost of household energy bills for the 180 million Americans and 5.5 million businesses that rely on natural gas. At a time of persistent inflation and record energy prices, this increase is unthinkable for consumers.”
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/30/gop-lawmakers-call-for-repeal-of-biden-natural-gas-tax
****************************************************Five years later, evidence of fracking’s safety is stronger than ever
Five years ago, The Heartland Institute set out to correct some misperceptions about the hydraulic fracturing process (commonly known as “fracking”) that had gained traction in the opinions of a not-insignificant number of people across the country: It pollutes water! And the air! And causes cancer! And birth defects! And asthma! And earthquakes! All at once!
Of course, none of these things, as we’ll show in a bit, are true, but the unscientific stories with their sensationalist headlines written and promoted by anti-fracking activists have done much damage. According to polling, a strong plurality of people in 2023 still oppose this method of extracting oil and natural gas. In a small (but hopefully significant) effort to combat these misperceptions, we have decided to update our 2018 paper with the studies and data that have been published in the past five years subsequent to the original paper’s release. Safe to say, the evidence is still on our side.
Is fracking polluting the water? Short answer, no. Why is that? Because fracking wells are located thousands of feet beneath the Earth’s surface. Water wells and drinking water sources are typically no more than a few hundred feet deep. Despite fear-mongering to the contrary, there is no evidence that seepage of fracking fluids, oil, or natural gas from fracking wells contaminate water sources.
Since 2010, there have been more than two dozen peer-reviewed studies and assessments from experts determining the fracking process is not a systemic threat to groundwater. Some of these come from prestigious research institutions like Yale University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Others come from nonprofit agencies, and others still come from state and federal agencies.
Most notably, the Obama-era U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed these findings in 2016 with its own $29 million, six-year study of the impacts on groundwater located near 110,000 fracked oil and natural gas wells in use across the country. That report concluded, “Hydraulic fracturing operations are unlikely to generate sufficient pressure to drive fluids into shallow drinking water zones.”
What about air quality? Again, studies from across the country reveal that air pollution near fracking operations is typically no danger to human health. These include investigations by health and air quality agencies in Colorado, Utah, and West Virginia, and various university research departments. The EPA reports the decades-long decline in national air pollution has continued unabated since fracking became more widespread.
The same holds for health issues like asthma, birth defects, infant mortality, and cancer. If fracking causes asthma, one would expect asthma to have become more common and severe during the past decade, as fracking has become much more prevalent. This has not occurred. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), asthma prevalence rates and the number of asthma sufferers reporting an attack have fallen significantly since 2006.
For example, Pennsylvania, which ranks second nationally in natural gas and total energy production, has the sixteenth-lowest asthma mortality rate, lower than neighboring New York, which banned fracking in 2014. Age-adjusted asthma hospitalization rates in Pennsylvania decreased by 58 percent from 2010 to 2019, and the commonwealth’s six largest shale-producing counties have experienced lower asthma hospitalization rates during the same period, and all six counties have lower rates than the commonwealth average.
In Pennsylvania, the infant mortality rate declined 8.8 percent from 2014 to2021, and decreased more than 26 percent from 2005, when there was no fracking happening in the commonwealth at all. A review of 25 different studies published from 2000 to 2018 from around the country, by the Health Research Institute’s Energy Research Committee, could not find a definitive link between fracking and low birth weights, birth defects, pre-term births, and fetal and infant mortality.
Numerous studies demonstrate there is no evidence that the miniscule amounts of chemicals present in fracking fluids cause cancer, including most recently a four-year, $2.5 million study from the University of Pittsburgh that found “no associations between unconventional natural gas development activities and childhood leukemia, brain and bone cancers, including Ewing’s family of tumors[.]”
Well, fracking is still causing earthquakes, right? Not really. A global database that tracks earthquakes triggered by human activity reveals only 44 earthquakes in the database’s history, which dates back to the nineteenth century, have been caused by fracking. Only nine of these fracking-induced earthquakes occurred in the United States. Just three of the earthquakes in the United States were strong enough to be felt on the surface. Considering there are around 1.2 million active fracking wells in the United States, this number is miniscule.
In light of the immense number of studies showing fracking is relatively safe and provides substantial economic benefits, lawmakers should not ban or place moratoriums or onerous regulations on fracking and drilling activity. No data have emerged since our brief was originally published five years ago to detract from that statement. Of course, this does not mean energy companies shouldn’t continue to develop technologies that make the fracking process safer or more efficient. Nothing in our updated policy brief is meant to suggest there are zero risks associated with fracking or other drilling operations. However, those risks are quite small compared to the enormous benefits fracking continues to provide to the United States
https://www.thecentersquare.com/opinion/article_09d30806-729e-11ee-aa08-5b121f0ea0c3.html
*********************************************************House to defund Biden ESG regulations and investments in federal employee retirement plan, end SEC Climate Disclosure Rule
Provisions in two upcoming appropriations bills would defund Labor Department regulations allowing employer-based retirement investments into Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds, prohibit federal employee retirement investments by the $800 billion Thrift Savings Plan into ESG funds and would defund implementation of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Climate Disclosure Rule.
With a little more than two weeks left to go until a Nov. 17 funding deadline, the U.S. House is continuing to consider a flood of appropriations bills, including the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education funding bill, which addresses the Labor Department rules, and the Financial Services and General Government funding bill, which addresses the Thrift Savings Plan and Climate Disclosure Rule.
Republicans’ brand-new policy riders attack so-called “woke” investments that seek to address climate change, social justice and equity via caps on carbon emissions and racial and gender hiring quotas (dubious under a textual reading of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act) by concentrating capital investments into certain companies that meet the ideological goals of being green and implementing diversity and inclusion human resources policies.
ESG investments in the U.S. have grown to $8.4 trillion in 2022, according to the latest data by the USSIF, The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.
A 2020 regulation by the Trump Labor Department watered down a regulation by the Barack Obama Labor Department in 2015 allowing ESG investments into tax-deferred, employer-based retirement savings accounts like the $6.3 trillion 401(k) market and other defined benefit and defined contribution plans totaling $11.9 trillion.
The 2020 effort mirrored a 2008 regulation by the George W. Bush Labor Department, but was promptly overturned via a May 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden defining climate change a financial risk under ERISA and affirmed later via a 2022 regulation by the Biden Labor Department. And the 2008 regulation was a revision of a 1994 regulation by the Bill Clinton Labor Department, which in turn were revisions to the rules made by prior administrations.
All of these rules are based on the fiduciary duties and obligations defined under federal law in 29 U.S.C. Section 1104, which states, “a fiduciary shall discharge his duties with respect to a plan solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries and… for the exclusive purpose of … providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and … defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan; … with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent man acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims; … by diversifying the investments of the plan so as to minimize the risk of large losses, unless under the circumstances it is clearly prudent not to do so; and … in accordance with the documents and instruments governing the plan insofar as such documents and instruments are consistent with the provisions of this subchapter and subchapter III.”
So far, Republican administration attempts to hold back ESG had depended on fiduciary rules, that state as long as investments remain profitable commensurate with other non-ESG investments, then environmental, social and other factors may be taken into consideration when making economically targeted investments.
In this case, Congressional intervention appears to up the GOP’s ante on the issue, instead seeking outright prohibitions on these investments, including on investments into the aforementioned $800 billion federal Thrift Savings Plan that President Biden greenlighted in 2022 via the Financial Services appropriations rider.
It is a limited approach. The Labor Department rule only touches employer-based defined benefit and defined contribution plans, which total about $11.9 trillion currently, but only make up 36.8 percent of the $32.3 trillion retirement savings market nationwide.
These Congressional defunds, for example, do not necessarily impact the $11.7 trillion Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) market or the $10 trillion in state and local government retirement investments, including state government employee retirement funds in California, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland and Oregon.
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'Utterly irrational': Abbott slams net zero plans
Former [Australian] prime minister Tony Abbott has slammed the government’s plan for net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 as “not just utterly irrational but actually impossible”, in his most critical comments on climate policy since declaring climate change science was “absolute crap” in 2009.
Speaking at the launch of an Institute of Public Affairs report on Australian energy security, Mr Abbott predicted Australia would not meet any of the Albanese government’s legislative targets for renewable energy supply recently enshrined in legislation, for both scientific and political reasons.
“The climate cult will eventually be discredited, I just hope we don‘t have to endure energy catastrophe, before that happens,” he told an audience in Westminster, London on the sidelines of the inaugural Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference.
Launching a report by engineer and economist Stephen Wilson entitled Energy Security is National Security, Mr Abbott said Australian voters had and would continue to put their economic well-being ahead of demands to slash emissions in line with government plans to lift renewable energy to 82 per cent of national supply by 2030.
“The anthropogenic global warming thesis, at least in its more extreme forms, is both ahistorical and utterly implausible,” he said, arguing periods of significant climate change throughout history, including the Roman warm period and the Medieval Warm period followed by the Little Ice Age, had nothing to do with human activity.
Mr Abbott led the coalition to federal election victory in the 2013 on a promise to reverse Labor’s emissions trading scheme, which has not be reintroduced since.
The former Liberal party leader and prime minster until 2015 also decried how Australia exported large quantities of coal, gas and uranium, but was reluctant to use them for its own domestic energy needs.
“My country should be an energy superpower, not a green energy superpower, but an energy superpower,” he told the supportive audience, including senator Matthew Canavan.
Last year the government legislated to reduce Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, without recourse to nuclear power, including a reduction in emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, in line with internationally agreed plans.
Over 150 countries have committed to net zero by 2050, including almost all major economies and the majority of Australia’s trading partners, the government said in May, as it legislated to create a National Net Zero Authority to coordinate the shift to majority renewable power.
Mr Abbott said the infrastructure requirements to meet Labor’s 2030 targets were unrealistic, requiring “in the words of the incoming energy minister, the construction of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 14 large wind turbines every month for eight years, plus the construction of up to 10,000 kilometers of new transmission lines”.
The ARC conference featured speakers who similarly criticized the likelihood and desirability of moving towards net zero emissions by 2050, including from President Obama’s former undersecretary for science professor Steven Koonin, who denied there was a “climate emergency”.
“There is scant support for the notion of a climate catastrophe, climate emergency… we need to cancel the climate crisis,” he said.
“The notion of an emerging energy revolution is just an oxymoron if you try and push things too fast,” he added, warning governments not to repeat the mistakes of Germany, which has spent trillions of euros in its quest to shift to renewable energy without obvious success.
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1 November, 2023
The Great 'Green Energy Transition' That Wasn't
One of the textbook marketing flops of all time was the Ford Edsel sedan, which was heralded as the hot new car in the late 1950s. All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can't-miss. Henry Ford (the car was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales.
But one big thing went wrong: Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what they thought of the new car. As it turned out, they hated it. So instead of sales of 400,000, Americans bought 10,000, and the model was embarrassingly discontinued.
The obvious lesson for the industry: You can't bribe Americans to buy cars they don't want. Given the all-in approach to electric vehicles at Ford and General Motors, it's clear that Detroit never got the message.
Last week, Honda and GM announced an end to their two-year collaboration in building a platform for lower-cost EVs. Honda execs said it was too hard.
Amazingly, less than 10% of all new car sales over the last two years were EVs. This is despite the fact that the U.S. government is writing a $7,500 check to people for buying an EV, and some states are kicking in $5,000 more. The Texas Policy Foundation calculates that all-in EV subsidies can reach $40,000 per vehicle. It would practically be cheaper for the government to purchase a new gas vehicle for every American car buyer.
Energy expert Robert Bryce estimates that Ford has lost $62,000 for each EV it has rolled off the assembly line. That's hardly a road to profitability.
Meanwhile, the news is even worse for wind and solar power. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "clean energy" investment funds are tanking, with some down as much as 70% in recent months. Solar has been one of the worst-performing industry stocks this year.
This collapse is happening right when Exxon and Chevron have engineered a combined $110 billion blockbuster acquisitions to expand oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin in Texas, one of the biggest oil fields in the world. This year, they both reported their largest profits ever.
They and their investors are looking at the real-world data, not green energy propaganda. In 2023, the world is guzzling oil and gas like never before. Global consumption of fossil fuels was higher in 2022 than at any time in human history, even as the developed countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to stop oil, gas and coal.
Despite the $370 billion green energy slush fund stashed in the federal budget, almost 80% of our energy still comes from old-fashioned fossil fuels. We're a long, long way from "net zero." And remember: Unlike green energy, fossil fuels get almost no subsidies. In fact, they pay taxes.
All of this is to say that there is no "global energy transition" going on. If there is one, it's away from green energy, not toward it.
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Climate Change Hysteria and the Rise of the Religious Left
The climate catastrophe crusade has been joined by a new regiment of converts: the religious left wing. The troop strength has been building over recent decades; the last few years, however, have seen a surge in the power of this cohort.
The religious contingent is imbued with a spiritual fervor. Unfortunately for the Christian faithful, the spirit consists of the spirit of this age, or, as the apostle Paul might put it, “this present evil age.” And unlike Paul, who announced that his job was to preach “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” the climate crusader’s job is to preach the word of Jesus and his calling for climate action.
Background on some of the most recent efforts of what appears to be an alignment with the religious left can be found in a book by Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, vice president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. The book is “Following Jesus in a Warming World: A Christian Call to Climate Action” (IVP, Downers Grove, Illinois, February 2023).
The urgency expressed in the book is based on the standard left-wing mantra of weather disasters that supposedly represent proof of a present and future climate danger brought about by culpable humans living comfortably via fossil fuels.
Yet the author would do well to expand his scientific perspective by learning about climate change from qualified experts in the field with a different and quite reasonable viewpoint — renowned scientists such as Steven Koonin, former undersecretary of science in the Department of Energy under former President Barack Obama; Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
From a spiritual perspective, to gain a better understanding of one major reason why the U.S. is going through dissolution as it turns from “in God we trust,” you need to read only the first six pages of “Following Jesus in a Warming World.”
The Christian theological foundations of a book are shaky when the author feels compelled to apologize for employing masculine pronouns when referring to God. As Mr. Meyaard-Schaap asserts on page 6: “All human language used to describe God is analogical, which means we should always hold all God-talk loosely. This is especially true of socially constructed categories like gender. There is nothing essential in God’s nature that requires God to be male — the Godhead transcends gender.”
And so the author identifies the Holy Spirit as a “her” in a later chapter.
The author’s misunderstanding of Christian theology regarding gender confusion also suggests his bewilderment over the hard (not “social”) sciences, such as biology.
Simply put, if your understanding of basic science is perplexed by the number of genders — two sexes equal two genders, as in God’s biologically constructed categories: “He created them male and female” — then the more complex sciences, like climatology, would have to be a downright impenetrable mystery to you. It follows that this mystery could be breached only by science and political wizards that can mislead you into a “proper” revelation.
For instance, although apparently more of a political wizard than a person with any considerable depth in atmospheric science, former Vice President Al Gore may be responsible for much of the original proselytizing of charismatic Christians into the cult of climate catastrophe. Viewing or attending an in-person presentation of Mr. Gore’s diatribe, “An Inconvenient Truth,” could have planted seeds of doubt in some of the faithful relative to God’s love and care and determined ability to maintain His creation.
This is the kind of willful maintenance expressed in “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night, Shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22, NASB). And what God wills, He does (Isaiah 46:10).
God’s focus is on people — “you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31) — while knowing and caring for all that He created with a plan to restore all to glory (Acts 3:21). From Genesis to Revelation, God is a people person. He wants the best for people and a creation in tune with their needs.
Of course, Christians and all concerned people must care for the environment, use natural resources wisely, and avoid trashing the planet’s life support system of clean air, water, and land — common sense.
More importantly, the natural world is sacred and designed to benefit even the downtrodden — those looked down upon by the materially comfortable elite.
Those in abject poverty must be afforded meaningful assistance to access their own reliable, inexpensive natural resources that could greatly alleviate their misery and raise them to much-needed comfort. Instead of cooking over fires fueled by wood and dung, millions of destitute souls would benefit from relatively clean, accessible, and inexpensive fossil fuels.
A true Christian concern for the whole person bolsters sensible, compassionate solutions. But it seems that the religious left has left authentic practical Christianity behind. Spirit-led Christians must lovingly and thoughtfully challenge the self-serving thrust of the religious left for the sake of all Earth’s inhabitants in God’s bountiful creation.
https://cornwallalliance.org/2023/10/climate-change-hysteria-and-the-rise-of-the-religious-left/
*****************************************************EIA projects global energy consumption will continue to rise
In our International Energy Outlook 2023 (IEO2023), we project that global energy-related CO2 emissions will increase by 2050 in a number of IEO2023 cases as global population growth and higher living standards push growth in energy consumption beyond advances in energy efficiency.
In all IEO2023 cases, we expect global primary energy consumption to increase through 2050. Our expectations of global population growth, increased regional manufacturing, and higher living standards indicate that global energy consumption will grow faster than advances in energy efficiency. Non-fossil fuel-based resources, including nuclear and renewables, produce more energy through 2050, but in most of the IEO2023 cases we examined, that growth is not sufficient to reduce global energy-related CO2 emissions under current laws and regulations.
In our IEO2023, we explore long-term world energy trends and present an outlook for energy markets through 2050. We use different scenarios, called cases, to understand how varying assumptions about technological advancement and economic growth affect energy trends. The IEO2023 Reference case—which serves as a baseline, or benchmark—and six side cases consider only the laws and regulations adopted through March 2023. The six side cases in IEO2023 explore differing assumptions of economic growth, crude oil prices, and technology costs.
U.S. projections in IEO2023 are the published projections in the Annual Energy Outlook 2023 (AEO2023), which assumed that U.S. laws and regulations as of November 2022 remain unchanged.
Some key takeaways from our IEO2023 include:
Increasing population and income offset the effects of declining energy and carbon intensity on emissions.
In all IEO2023 cases, global energy consumption increases, with the fastest growth in the residential and industrial sectors. Global consumption of liquid fuels increases through 2050, and industrial applications, such as chemical production, account for the fastest growth in liquid fuels consumption. Economic growth and increased disposable income increase demand for transportation in all IEO2023 cases. Although electric vehicles gain a larger share of the global transportation fleet, reducing transportation sector petroleum consumption, the industrial sector offsets those declines as its share of petroleum and other liquid fuels consumption rises.
The shift to renewables to meet growing electricity demand is driven by regional resources, technology costs, and policy.
Across IEO2023 cases, global electric-power generating capacity increases by a range of 50% to 100%, and electricity generation increases by 30% to 76% by 2050, depending on the IEO2023 case. Zero-carbon technologies account for most of the growth in both global capacity and generation. Electricity generation from renewables and nuclear could provide as much as two-thirds of global electricity generation by 2050, according to the projections. Battery storage capacity grows significantly in all IEO2023 cases, increasing from less than 1% of global power capacity in 2022 to a range of 4% to 9% of global power capacity by 2050, depending on the case.
Energy security concerns hasten a transition from fossil fuels in some countries, although they drive increased fossil fuel consumption in others.
Energy trade of fossil fuels will continue to evolve as emerging economies demand more energy and the world continues to adapt to current geopolitical events. In nearly all IEO2023 cases, energy production from zero-carbon technologies grows faster than from fossil fuels, but that dynamic varies from region to region. The Middle East and North America increase natural gas production and exports to meet growing demand, and Western Europe and Asia remain natural gas importers in all IEO2023 cases. Energy demand from China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa will motivate major crude oil and natural gas producers to keep producing.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=60642&mc_cid=b8e6cdffc5&mc_eid=7ee7e56bba
**********************************************Australian Farmers’ lobby swings behind conservatives on campaign against wind farms
The powerful national farm lobby is siding with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as he backs locals fighting renewable energy projects crucial to the Albanese government’s clean energy election commitments.
The National Farmers Federation created waves in 2020 when it outflanked the federal Coalition government on climate policy to set an industry-leading target to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 for the nation’s agriculture sector.
But the peak agriculture lobby last week launched a “Keep Farmers Farming” campaign, warning that renewables projects coupled with a vast array of transmission lines to link them to the cities are damaging primary production.
Dutton has been travelling the east coast to visit local campaigns against offshore wind projects, which are crucial to Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s plans to create new, clean blue-collar jobs in Australia’s old industrial heartland in the Latrobe Valley, Wollongong, Newcastle and Central Queensland.
The slowdown of the rollout puts at risk the government’s pledge to ramp up clean energy in the electricity grid to bring power bills down by $275 by 2025.
Government-commissioned modelling shows the share of renewables in the grid needs to dramatically rise to 82 per cent by 2030. It is currently comprised of 57 per cent coal power, 5 per cent gas, 7 per cent hydro, 18 per cent solar and 13 per cent wind.
David Jochinke last week replaced Fiona Simson as National Farmers’ Federation president. In Simson’s tenure the traditionally conservative lobby group broke ranks with the rural Nationals party with its net-zero commitment, prompting former Agriculture Minister David Littleproud to accuse the federation of “blindly setting a course” on emissions reduction.
Both Jochinke and Dutton stress they support renewable energy to cut emissions and tackle global warming, but they are championing campaigns that threaten the government’s goals.
Jochinke is calling for governments to improve consultation between landholders and project proponents over issues such as power line routes, and for prime farmland to be protected from harmful development.
“We’re seeing more and more communities reach breaking point because they’re being stepped over in the energy transition,” Jochinke said.
“We just want them to regulate how energy companies are engaging with landholders and communities so they’re treated fairly. It’s clear the current system of trying to bulldoze through communities is putting everything in the slow lane.”
The federal government has created five offshore wind zones where developers can make a development application: Wollongong and Newcastle in NSW, the Southern Ocean between the Victoria and South Australian border, Bass Strait and the Gipplsand coast near the Latrobe Valley.
Dutton, who promotes uncommercial but emerging nuclear energy technology to supplement renewable energy, visited the Newcastle region twice in the past few weeks and claimed the push for an offshore wind industry could become a national scandal.
“I think the rising level of anger here is something that Australians really should take note of,” he said at a press conference in Nelson Bay last week.
“The consultation needs to be redone so that the local concerns can be properly understood. I think if the local concerns are properly understood and acted on, I’d be very surprised if this project goes ahead.”
Industry advocates say offshore wind can supply baseload-like power to revitalise manufacturing in former regional industrial hubs.
Beyond Zero Emissions found that offshore wind precincts at old industrial centres could generate 45,000 new and ongoing jobs by 2032 and generate $13 billion in annual revenue, with growth in green steel, hydrogen and cement manufacturing.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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