FoS Extracts - 2022

By: Ian Cameron                 TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

2022-12-08

 

Western Canadian Premiers Push Back Against Trudeau’s Devastating Green Agenda

In its seven years in power the Trudeau government, in pursuit of its green agenda, has done all it could to gut the Canadian natural resources industry, which have traditionally and constitutionally been under provincial control. This includes, of course the oil and gas industries of Alberta and Saskatchewan and, since last summer, an announcement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer use by an arbitrary 30% in the agricultural sector.

Saskatchewan and Alberta are now in league to challenge and resist Ottawa's "net-zero" policies that threaten their resource-based economies. Saskatchewan's Premier Scott Moe has introduced the Saskatchewan First Act to confirm the province's autonomy and exclusive jurisdiction over its natural resources, including:

This Master Resource article quotes some excerpts from a speech by Mr. Moe to the Saskatchewan legislature opposing federal policies to shut down coal-fired power generation, natural gas and restrict fertilizer use.

In Alberta Premier Danielle Smith introduced an Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act that could be used to push back on federal legislation and policy that is unconstitutional or harmful to Alberta, its people and economic prosperity. This could include areas such as firearms, energy and natural resources and Covid healthcare decisions.

 

Dr. Steve Koonin: Three Debates, Three Wins

Dr. Koonin, a former Undersecretary for Science, US Department of Energy in the Obama Administration and the author of Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, debated three climate alarmists over a span of three days. The Steamboat Institute, as part of its Fall Series Campus Liberty Tour 2022, hosted the debates on October 25-27 at the University of Maryland, University of Dallas and Oklahoma State University's Hamm Institute for American Energy. The resolution for the debates was: "Climate science compels us to make large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions," with Dr. Koonin arguing the negative.

Arguing the affirmative were Daniel Schrag, Ph.D, Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment,  Gernot Wagner, Ph.D, Climate Economist at Columbia Business School and  Andrew Dessler, Ph.D, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Texas A&M University; Director, Texas Center for Climate Studies. Each of the debate videos is about 1-1/2 hours in length. Based on a comparison of pre- and post-debate polls, Dr. Koonin won all three by increasing the percentage of the audience in favour of the negative, while the positive side decreased.

 

GOP Midterm Gains Quash Hopes of US Paying Climate Reparations

With the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in the recent midterm elections and even though the Democrats retained control of the Senate, the chances of the US delivering on its climate pledges has diminished. At COP27 President Joe Biden promised $11.4 billion/year by 2024 to support climate action in developing countries, including an overdue $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund. However, the president's landmark climate bill, the $370 billion Inflation Reduction Act, will likely survive since undoing legislation is as difficult as passing it.

In the case of the climate reparations agreed to at the conclusion of COP27, both liberals and conservatives have reservations. The climate hawks argue that the deal doesn't go far enough, since there's no call for phasing out fossil fuels, and details of how the reparations fund will work and how much should be paid have been put off until next year. Conservatives consider that reparations amount to an international slush fund for rich nations to fork over billions of dollars each year to poor countries.

 

The Net-Zero Absurdity on the Back of an Envelope

Christopher Monckton has done some "back of the envelope" calculations to answer four questions:

  1. How much global warming would net zero by 2050 abate? (0.375°C, using the IPCC's 3.0°C value of equilibrium climate sensitivity which assumes no natural climate change in the past or future and no urban heat island effect).
  2. How much would net zero by 2050 cost the world? ($1 billion for each one five-millionth of a degree Celsius).
  3. How much adjustment for the IPCC's over-predicted warming? (In 1990 the IPCC predicted warming of 0.34°C/decade for 1990-2030, but the observed satellite warming for 1990-2022 was only 0.14°C/decade).
  4. How much adjustment for developing nations' exemption? (0.05°C of averted warming for all the expenditures by the West in bankrupting itself over net zero. Thus, there is nothing that the West can do on its own to stop global warming.)

Using official sources (NOAA, the IPCC, McKinsey, University of Alabama in Huntsville, BP Annual Energy Review) Lord Monckton derived the above answers to each of these questions using 1-4 slides, together with some explanatory text. In the accompanying 40-minute video he provides more detailed explanations for a South American audience.

The presentation about the calculations ends at 27 minutes and then Lord Monckton discusses geometallurgy — the resources that the world is going to need, such as lithium, copper, cobalt, and rare earth metals. There isn't enough of these metals to get even to the first generation of replacement of coal, oil, and gas.

 

“There’s No Emergency” – Dissident Climatologist Dr Judith Curry on Climate Change

Dr Judith Curry, Professor Emeritus and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has become known as one of the outspoken scientists who doubt the “scientific consensus” on climate change. As a result, she was “academically, pretty much finished off” and “essentially unhirable”. In this 36-minute interview (also available here) for BizNewsTv she explains her objection to the "manufactured consensus of scientists at the request of policymakers" and how far the reality is from the grim picture painted by environmental activists.

Currently Dr. Curry is president of Climate Forecast Applications Network, providing data for people having to make real decisions, such as electricity providers, insurance companies and farmers in Pakistan and India. In the interview she discusses the sociology of why certain people like herself have been separated out has heretics and deniers. While agreeing that the climate has warmed recently, that human emissions of CO2 have increased and that CO2 acts to warm the Earth, the amount of warming due to human causes is debatable. The earlier messages about global warming have shifted to extreme weather events and heat waves, which are part of natural climate variability.

In Dr. Curry's view, the biggest climate risk today is the transition risk — rapidly getting rid of fossil fuels when running an industrialized economy on wind and solar is impossible. Rather, there should be technological improvement and experimentation to see what works. Climate became a political agenda with the formation of the UN Environmental Program in the 1980s. The UN wants world government, power for themselves, and global warming is the issue to get that. The IPCC was told to frame the problem in terms of dangerous human-caused global warming, not investigate natural causes. Now children like Greta Thunberg are being indoctrinated to believe they don't have a future.

 

The 15-Minute City and Climate Lockdowns

The "15-minute city" is a UN and a WEF plan whereby everything we need — workplaces, shops, parks, schools, recreation — should be accessible within 15 minutes by walking or bicycle. It would see the city become less centralized and result in less use of cars, less roads and more green space, bike lanes, sports, and leisure activities. According to the WEF it's all about climate: "As climate change and global conflict cause shocks and stresses at faster intervals and increasing severity, the 15-minute city will become even more critical."

This message has been received in the UK, where the Oxfordshire County Council wants to divide the city of Oxford into six "15-minute" districts so that most household essentials will be accessible by a 1/4-hour walk or bike ride — all seemingly benign. But then, as Joanne Nova writes, comes the coercive edge in the form of traffic filters that, during times of operation, will prohibit private cars from driving through the filters. Also, certain areas will be designated as low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs).

After conducting a public consultation, where one of the supporting documents discusses the climate impact, the council voted on November 29 to implement a trial scheme beginning in January 2024. Oxford's 150,000 residents will have to register their cars with council so they can be tracked by automatic number plate recognition cameras as they pass through the filters. If anyone drives outside their designated district more than 100 days/year, they could be fined £70. The city expects to make £1.1 million from these fines. Drivers can apply for exemption from the 100-days rule.

 

The Largest Public Policy Disaster Is Getting Rammed Down Our Gullets

Ian Plimer, author of Green Murder and who according to Wikipedia "rejects the scientific consensus on climate change", rebuts the breathtakingly shrill predictions of forthcoming climate-change disasters that preceded COP27. In this Climate Change Dispatch article he recites a few cold hard facts.

Green activists have seized the debate on climate change, telling us that the science is settled and therefore no need for any debate. They have captured the language with terms like climate crisis, climate emergency, decarbonization, carbon capture, transition, and net zero, yet fly around the world to lecture their moral inferiors. They support wind and solar power and EVs as a means of transferring money from the poor to the rich via high electricity costs, inflation and unemployment. And they are happy with the pollution associated with wind and solar installation.

Climate change activism has nothing to do with the environment or the climate.

 

2022-11-19

 

The Economist: Global Warming Cannot Be Limited to 1.5°C

COP21, the 2015 climate conference and its resulting Paris Agreement, enshrined the goal of "pursuing efforts to limit the increase" in global warming to 1.5°C. Seven years of rising emissions since then have convinced The Economist, a steadfast promoter of climate action, to admit that there is no way that the Earth can avoid a temperature rise of more than 1.5°C. The newspaper is left hoping that the "overshoot may not be too big, and may be only temporary, but even these consoling possibilities are becoming ever less likely."

The Economist is now calling for "a dose of realism." Activists should admit that 1.5°C is a lost cause because failing to do so only prolongs a false hope. Cutting emissions is going to require a lot more money — triple today's $1 trillion/year, to be concentrated in developing countries, which generate most of today's emissions. To deal with the intermittency of wind and solar, grids need to be built (in a nod to realism, there's no mention of battery storage.) Rich countries will have to provide concessionary lending and aid as a "moral imperative." In turn, developing countries "will have to cede some control over energy policy" (as if African countries, let alone India and China will agree).

The Economist admits that fossil fuels won't be abandoned overnight, and that natural gas is necessary for citizens in poorer countries to get life-enhancing electricity. Because 1.5°C will be missed adaptation, the neglected stepchild of climate policy, is needed. Finally, the newspaper also urges policymakers to consider ways to consider ways to cool the plant, such as sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and "solar geoengineering."

 

Catherine McKenna Ups the Price for Making Net-Zero Promises

In March the UN appointed a High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities (HLEG), headed by former Canadian Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna. HLEG's task is to combat greenwashing, thereby ensuring that "all commitments to be transparent, credible, backed by robust implementation plans, and converted into real emissions cuts as rapidly as possible." On November 8, after seven months of consultations and just in time for COP27, the group delivered its first report: Integrity Matters: Net Zero Commitments by Businesses, Financial Institutions, Cities and Regions. The report has ten recommendations urging entities making non-zero commitments to align their activities with "pathways" — as determined by the IPCC and the International Energy Agency — to hold global warming to 1.5°C.

Unlike The Economist the UN cannot give up on 1.5°C because that's the rationale underpinning net zero by 2050. (The IPCC's SR15 report of 2018, Summary for Policymakers, paragraph C1 states that the pathway to 1.5°C is for emissions to decline 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.) If anyone's allowed to slack off and act in any way inconsistent with 1.5°C, the contagion will spread.

Some findings from the HLEG report and a related story by the National Observer:

As conflicts arise among the growing number of UN-affiliated climate organizations and as the net-zero agenda confronts physical, political and legal (in the case of banks) realities, the UN may come to regret some of its creations.

 

Canadian Bank under Investigation over Alleged Greenwashing

Canada's largest bank, RBC, is under investigation by the Competition Bureau of Canada for allegedly misleading Canadians about its climate performance. The application for inquiry, brought by six individuals (p.5), asks the Commissioner of the Competition Bureau to conduct an inquiry into RBC's representations concerning actions to address climate change. It states that RBC, while declaring that it supports reducing greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change, is taking action to increase emissions by providing tens of billions of dollars annually in fossil fuel financing. For example, in October 2021 RBC joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and committed to aligning its lending and investment portfolios with the 1.5°C goal and followed up by providing $10.2 billion in lending and underwriting to fossil fuel companies within three months. The 47-page application contains screenshots of RBC's climate action representations, descriptions of its climate finance initiatives and a table of its fossil-fuel financing data (pp.36-46).

On September 29 the Bureau sent a letter informing Ecojustice, the author of the application, that the Commissioner has started an inquiry. If the inquiry finds that RBC made materially false and misleading representations to the Canadian public (see the Bureau's publication on environmental claims and greenwashing, something which apparently had escaped notice by RBC's lawyers) the applicants want the Bureau to require RBC to (p.34):

Ecojustice issued a press release stating that if the Bureau finds RBC's statements are misleading and false, "RBC could be forced to stop advertising itself as supporting the principles of the Paris Agreement and aiming to achieve net-zero emissions targets by 2050." If this happens, it would have the salutary effect of forcing other Canadian corporations to curtail their "green" messaging, as well.

 

Data Show that Trudeau’s Climate Emergency Isn’t Happening

On June 17, 2019 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, introduced a motion in the House of Commons recognizing that "climate change is a real and urgent crisis, driven by human activity" and to "declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires, as a response, that Canada commit to meeting its national emissions target under the Paris Agreement and to making deeper reductions in line with the Agreement's objective of holding global warming below two degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius." The non-binding motion passed 186 votes to 63.

In Climate Change Dispatch, guest writer Ron Barmby points out the amount of scientific evidence that disproves the Trudeau notion of a climate emergency, highlighting two areas of study: extreme weather trends and thermometer data. Regarding weather trends, Italian physicist Gianluca Alimonti led the authoring of a paper that used public databases to find that heatwaves, tropical storms, tornadoes, precipitation events, floods and droughts have not shown any trends indicating a climate emergency.

For temperatures, Mr. Barmby used the United States Climate Reference Network for the continental US (since 2005), which shows no warming for at least 18 years. For global temperatures he relied on Dr. Roy Spencer's satellite measurements of the lower troposphere, finding no global warming for 25 years. The longest continuous thermometer data is from central England, starting in 1659, showing temperature changes greater or on par with current changes in the three centuries before significant CO2 emissions.

The Trudeau government accepted the hyperbolic mainstream media reporting about short-term extreme weather events as symptomatic of extreme climate change, which they aren't. It viewed climate change as a political tool instead of a scientific issue.

 

USA Facing a Dangerous Shortage of Heating Fuel

The United States is facing a dangerous shortage of diesel fuel and heating oil, the result of anti fossil-fuel politicians, who:

Diesel is the fuel of heavy-duty vehicles and railroads. In the northeast many homes use fuel oil for heating. Prices are high and increasing because of the lowest October inventories of distillate fuel oil since 1982 and uncertain ability to import diesel.

During the recent campaign for the US mid-term elections, President Joe Biden gave a speech in which he declared "no more drilling."

 

Inside the Black Box Climate Models

All the predictions about global warming come from climate modelling. In this essay, Watts Up With That? blogger Greg Chapman, a former computer modeller, explains for the non-expert how climate models work. They represent the Earth as a 3-dimensional grid of about 2 million cells from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere. Typically, cells have a surface of 100 km x 100 km, which is too coarse to represent the atmospheric variations, but the resolution is constrained by available computing power. Within each cell each of the physical properties (e.g., pressure, temperature, wind vectors, humidity, aerosols, and clouds in the atmosphere) have to be represented by a single value at any given time.

After the complicated process of initialization, the models go through a series of time steps, which can be as short as half an hour. At each step the models compare the properties between adjacent cells to determine new values for the next time step. Some properties, such as changes in temperature and pressure, can be calculated according to the laws of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. Others, such as cloud cover, aerosol impacts, storms, and ocean eddy currents, have to be parameterized and averaged over the whole grid cell. Tuning hundreds of parameters to get the models to match history is more a qualitative than a quantitative process, which modellers themselves describe as an art.

When forecasting the IPCC uses an ensemble of climate models, which produces a "shotgun" result — the longer the forecast, the more disperse it becomes. The IPCC then averages the results, which as Mr. Chapman observes: "You can't improve the accuracy of garbage by averaging it."

Climate modellers claim that their models can't match history without CO2 forcing. As an alternative, Mr. Chapman suggests an analytic (as opposed to numeric) approach using models based on analysis of historic climate cycles without depending on CO2 effects. One such model he cites produces a better match to recent history than the IPCC ensemble, showing that it's possible to explain temperature changes as the result of natural variation.

 

2022-11-05

 

UK Trapped in Green Energy Cul-de-sac

Being in a cul-de-sac means you are trapped with no evident way of getting out, which is the situation that the UK finds itself in today. For more than a decade it has been aggressively and intentionally pursuing the green energy fantasy and making Net Zero mandatory by legislation in 2019. It put up hundreds of wind turbines and solar panels, closed coal mines and almost all the coal power plants, and is dependent on natural gas to back up the intermittent renewables. In 2019 it imposed a moratorium on fracking. With production from the North Sea gas fields declining, the UK must buy gas on the European market.

With the cutoff of Russian gas supply average UK residential energy bills have gone from around £1,000 early this year to £3,000 in October and are projected to be has high as £5,000 next spring. Only now is it apparent that there's no good exit strategy from the effects of years of prohibiting what's needed to maintain a low-cost energy system. Some of the exit possibilities for the next decade or so:

For now, all the UK government can do is hand out hand out hundreds of billions of pounds of subsidies to utilities to bring the costs to households down below the £5,000 annually otherwise projected.

 

COP27: Africa's Chance to Break from Climate Colonialism

The African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, said that African countries will use the COP27 climate talks to advocate for a common energy position that sees fossil fuels as necessary to expanding economies and electricity access the continent. In sub-Saharan Africa 600 million people lack access to electricity and use fuelwood and charcoal for cooking and heating indoors with horrendous impacts on respiratory health and mortality. Yet Western countries tell African policy makers to shun fossil fuels since wind and solar will power the continent’s quest for industrial development and higher standards of living. This advice is backed up by coercion via vetoes in public finance and against investment in fossil fuel projects by multilateral development agencies including the World Bank. Now that Europe needs natural gas it is perfectly alright to override the World Bank’s refusal to fund fossil fuel investments in the continent.

The Executive Chairman at the African Energy Chamber, is forthright in his view: “Africans don’t hate Oil and Gas companies. We love Oil and today we love gas even more because we know gas will give us a chance to industrialize. No country has ever been developed by fancy wind and green hydrogen. Africans see Oil and Gas as a path to success and a solution to their problems. The demonization of oil and gas companies will not work.”

The West’s carbon imperialism, the corollary of the climate alarmist and Net Zero movements that has reigned in Western capitals over the past two decades, is increasingly challenged by developing countries.

 

Rishi Sunak U-turns: Will Attend COP27 After All

On October 27 just after being appointed as UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak pulled out of attending COP27 due to "other pressing commitments." This decision drew strong criticism from politicians and climate activists. Former PM Boris Johnson — whose allies are plotting his return as PM — added pressure by announcing his attendance at the conference. So, on November 2 Mr. Sunak did a U-turn and said that he will be at COP27 after all, tweeting: "There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change. There is no energy security without investing in renewables. That is why I will COP27 next week: to deliver on Glasgow's legacy of building a secure and sustainable future."

Perhaps Mr. Sunak's initial reluctance to attend was fear of criticism over Britain's failure to pay $300 million in promised climate funds prior to COP27.

 

Why Greta Thunberg Isn't Going to COP27

Having attended COPs 24-26, Greta Thunberg has opted out of No. 27, dismissing the upcoming climate summit as an opportunity for "people in power to [use] greenwashing, lying and cheating." The conferences, she adds, “are not really meant to change the whole system”, but instead encourage gradual progress. So, as it is, the COPs are not really working, unless of course we use them as an opportunity to mobilize.”

On October 30 Ms. Thunberg told an audience in London for the launch of her The Climate Book that climate activists must overthrow "the whole capitalist system," which she says is responsible for "imperialism, oppression, genocide... racist, oppressive extractionism."

 

EU Heads to COP27 as Countries Switch from Gas to Coal

The EU has long been considered a reliable advocate for the green transition, adopting far-reaching policies and enshrining its 2050 climate neutrality goal in law. The bloc has become a sort of experimental laboratory for climate legislation, with other countries looking to see what works and what does not. At COP26 last year in Glasgow the EU led efforts to slash methane emissions, protect tropical forests and support South Africa's decarbonization.

Now EU leaders are heading to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh during a severe energy crisis that threatens to bring industry to a standstill and households under financial stress. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece and Hungary have all announced plans to extend the lifetime of coal plants, re-open those that have been closed or lift the cap on coal-burning hours. Austria, which closed its last gas plant in 2020, plans to re-activate its system to cope with energy shortages. The International Energy Agency estimates the EU's coal consumption rose by 10% in the first six months of 2022, driven mostly by electricity demand, and will continue to increase as winter nears, with Germany accounting for the largest additional consumption. The IEA’s executive director asserts that the “good news” is that we can tackle both the “global energy crisis and the climate crisis” at the same time.

 

WMO Head: "From climate perspective, the war in Ukraine may be seen as a blessing"

Professor Petteri Taalas has been the Secretary-General of WMO since January 2016. With the world facing a shortfall in energy needs, prompted by sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, Prof. Taalas commented: "From the five- to 10-year timescale, it’s clear that this war in Ukraine will speed up our consumption of fossil energy, and it’s speeding up this green transition. So, we are going to invest much more in renewable energy, energy-saving solutions, and some small-scale nuclear reactors are likely to come online by 2030 as part of the solution. So, from climate perspective, the war in Ukraine may be seen as a blessing."

Eric Worral, writing in Watts Up With That? responds to Prof. Taalas' misanthropic opinion about how good the war is. From Mr. Worral's "human perspective" the war is a terrible tragedy causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people caught up in the conflict, as well as civilians murdered by missile strikes against homes, shopping centres, hospitals and schools.

 

"We own the science" Brags UN Chief Who Works with Google to Suppress Climate Skeptics

Melissa Fleming is the UN's Under Secretary-General for Global Communications. In an interview she said: "We partnered with Google. For example, if you Google ‘climate change,’ you will, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources. We started this partnership when we were shocked to see that when we Googled ‘climate change,’ we were getting incredibly distorted information right at the top. So, we’re becoming much more proactive. We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do. But again, it’s a huge, huge challenge that I think all sectors of society need to be very active in."

The bragging took place at the World Economic Forum.

 

2022-10-10

 

Mark Carney's GFANZ Facing Trouble Ahead

In April 2021 UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney and the COP26 presidency, in partnership with the UNFCCC Race to Zero campaign, launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. The purpose of GFANZ is to "expand the number of net zero-committed financial institutions and to establish a forum for addressing sector-wide challenges associated with the net-zero transition, helping to ensure high levels of ambition are met with credible action." Its membership includes more than 500 financial firms from over 45 countries. One of the sector-specific alliances under GFANZ is the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, whose 117 members include all the big Canadian banks, the major Wall Street banks (Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo), but none from China and India.

In September the Financial Post and Climate Change Dispatch reported that, after "tense meetings in recent months", some of the Wall Street banks (including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America) are threatening to leave the alliance because they fear being sued over increasingly stringent decarbonization requirements coming from the UN. According to one US banking executive: "I’m not going to allow third parties to create legal liabilities for us and our shareholders. It is immoral and irresponsible … What if we get it wrong, make a mistake or someone lies? Then the bank can be sued, that is an unacceptable risk.” European banks, including Santander Bank, have also expressed misgivings.

Canadian banks have so far been silent about leaving GFANZ, but a Greenpeace report states that the UN has given Canada's big five banks until June 15, 2023 to "get serious about phasing out fossil fuels or be kicked out of the net zero club." However according to a Corporate Knights article an unnamed group of Canadian banks are threatening to leave the alliance anyway over legal concerns and the requirement to withdraw funding from fossil fuel companies.

The banks’ biggest concern is over strict targets on phasing out coal, oil and gas introduced over the summer by the Race to Zero campaign, a UN-led net zero standard-setting body that accredits pledges made by Carney’s alliance. This body will soon be able to take action against financial companies for failing to hit targets.

In an essay, Trouble ahead for GFANZ, Tom Gosling of the London Business School and ECGI says asset managers need to figure out how to align membership in GFANZ with fiduciary duty to clients. Asset managers who sign up for GFANZ also join the Net Zero Asset Managers subgroup, which includes making the following pledge: “… my organization commits to support the goal of net zero greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions by 2050, in line with global efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C (‘net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner’). It also commits to support investing aligned with net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.”

For Mr. Gosling the problem is that rich-world governments "show little appetite to do what is required to limit global warming to 1.5°C," but the banks signed up for GFANZ are committed to aligning their investment and lending goals specifically to that 1.5°C scenario, regardless of what governments may do.

 

The Atlantic: What Many Progressives Misunderstand About Fighting Climate Change

In this Atlantic article, author Alec Stapp, a co-founder of the Institute for Progress, argues that progressives are inhibiting the green transition by putting more effort into fighting corporations than helping them build green infrastructure. Even though private investment in clean-energy technology is increasing, prominent environmentalists see this as an opportunity to remake society. This raises the question: Is the real goal stopping climate change or abolishing capitalism?

Mr. Stapp writes that decarbonizing the economy means replacing in a few decades fossil-fuel infrastructure built up over centuries. In the US this will require hundreds of thousands of square miles of wind and solar farms, enough battery storage to keep the power flowing and doubling the country's transmission line capacity. Now, the same laws that environmental groups have used to block fossil-fuel projects are being exploited to slow down the transition to clean energy.

Two years ago, in an essay titled Bright Green Impossibilities, Willis Eschenbach calculated what we will need to build every day to take the world to net zero by 2050 — one 2.1 GW nuclear plant, or 4,000 two-megawatt wind turbines plus one 2.2 GW nuclear plant, or 250 km2 of solar panels plus one 2.2 GW nuclear plant.

 

Coca-Cola Slammed for Sponsoring COP27

On September 28 Egypt's foreign ministry and the Coca-Cola Company signed a cooperation protocol introducing the company as the provider and supporter of COP27 to be held in Sharm El-Sheik from November 6 to 18. At the signing ceremony Michael Goltzman, global vice president of public policy and sustainability at Coca-Cola said: "We know that global challenges like plastic waste, water stewardship, and climate change are far too great for any single government, company, or industry to solve individually."

This was too much for the ENGO Break Free From Plastic, which in a 2021 brand audit report, wrote: "The Coca-Cola Company has retained its dirty crown as the world’s top polluter for the fourth year in a row, despite voluntary commitments started in 2018 to collect one bottle for every one sold." A Guardian article quoted one of the ENGO's: "Coca-Cola sponsoring the COP27 is pure greenwash." According to a BBC News report more than 5,000 climate activists have signed a petition calling for the decision to be reversed.

 

African Countries to Push for More Fossil Fuel Projects at COP27

Amani Abou-Zeid, the African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy said that at the COP27 climate talks next month African countries will adopt a common energy position. This will see them advocate for fossil fuels as necessary for expanding their economies and electricity access. At the sidelines of an oil and gas conference Ms. Abou-Zeid said: "We recognize that some countries may have to use fossil fuels for now, but it’s not one solution fits all. It is not time to exclude, but it is the time to tailor solutions for a context. Our ambition is to have fast-growing economies, competitive and industrialized." Outside the conference venue Cape Town convention centre, a handful of Extinction Rebellion activists poured a reddish, oily mixture over their heads to protest.

Seen as a renewable hub given its vast solar, wind and hydrogen potential, Africa also has around 600 million people in its sub-Saharan region living without electricity and almost 1 billion citizens without access to clean energy for cooking.

 

Truss Climate Policy Threatens Legacy of UK's COP Presidency

During COP26 in Glasgow last year, as the talks went long past the official deadline, the UK host negotiated a deal with a fragile coalition of developed and undeveloped countries over phasing out/phasing down coal use. Next month the UK's COP presidency will end when Egypt takes over as host of COP27. However, rifts within the UK cabinet over climate policy and who will attend COP27 threaten to cast a pall over the UK's achievements. First, the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has not said whether she'll attend, but her business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg will go. Mr. Rees-Mogg supports fracking, expanding oil and gas production, and has even cast doubt on the official climate science (starting at 2:30 of this podcast).

Moreover, PM Truss advised climate advocate King Charles, despite his presence at previous COPs as Prince of Wales, to turn down an invitation to attend COP27. Cabinet minister Alok Sharma, who was president of COP26, has broken ranks and called for the King to attend anyway. The Egyptian government has pointedly re-extended its invitation to King Charles.

 

Bureaucratic Fingerprints All Over the Biased IPCC Climate Reports

Jason S. Johnston is the author of a report issued by the Fraser Institute titled The Hand of Government in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr. Johnston's 27-page essay explains the origins, structure, process and output of the IPCC, thereby showing that it is not, and never has been, an objective science assessment organization. Rather, it is a creature of, and controlled by, governments of countries seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through international regulation. Dr. Johnston makes frequent reference to the IPCC's latest assessment, AR6, to support his observations.

The IPCC began as a result of climate change meetings during the 1980s, jointly sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environmental Program. Environmental activists took over what was originally a series of science-focused recommendations to make calls for "immediate action... to counter the ongoing degradation of the atmosphere" (p.7). In 1988 UN General Assembly Resolution 43/53 established the IPCC, giving it a mission to "assess" climate change and to link its assessments to the goal of future international policy action on climate (p.8). In practice governments, not scientists, control every aspect of the process to produce IPCC reports (p.8).

For example, government representatives determine line-by-line the content of the all-important Summaries for Policymakers for IPCC reports, and these summaries contain exaggerated claims not supported by the full assessment reports (p.11). The IPCC's review process is, in fact, self-review by science advocates (pp.12-15). Since inception the IPCC has claimed it finds and expresses "consensus" regarding climate change, which means ignoring any uncertainties that cast doubt on the desired policy-relevant conclusions (p.18).

 

Net Zero Risks Terminal Depletion of Critical Metal Resources

In a paper Net Zero climate remediations and potential terminal depletion of global critical metal resources: A synoptic geological perspective, published in Geosystems and Geoenvironment, geologists from the State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes at the China University of Geosciences, the Department of Earth Science at Adelaide University and the Faculty of Science at Kochi University in Japan make three conclusions about the consequences of the rush to Net Zero:

The paper lists 15 critical and other metals needed for solar power, wind power and electric vehicles, together with the countries with major resources of these elements. Modelling of the nexus between wind and solar development and the critical metals required indicates that many metals (e.g., cobalt, nickel, copper, selenium, silver, cadmium, indium, tellurium, and platinum) would be severely to terminally depleted by 2060. There has been minimal recycling and no consensus that recycling can replace critical metal stocks.

The above, combined with the manageable slow incremental changes related to climate change, promote the concept of a pause to reconsider global Net Zero ambitions.

 

2022-09-21

 

21 million German Households, Industry Suffer Body Blow as Green Energy Scheme Disintegrates

At the UN General Assembly in 2018 US President Donald Trump warned Germany saying that it would become "totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course." The German diplomatic delegation at the UN laughed at these words. Russia has now made it clear that it will no longer deliver gas to Europe until the West lifts its sanctions, and 21 million German households heated by natural gas are threatened with exorbitantly high additional payments for their gas. Companies across Germany have been impacted, with as many as 16% having to shut down or drastically reduce production, because they can't pass on high gas prices to their customers.

Germany has been spoiled by cheap, plentiful gas flowing from Russia, enabling it to shut down its coal and nuclear power plants and dogmatically plunge into volatile green energy. The disaster predicted by Mr. Trump has now arrived, and there's a risk of things getting really ugly this winter.

 

Gazprom Taunts Europe with Video

On September 5, three days after announcing the indefinite shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany, Gazprom released a taunting video showing a worker turning off the gas flow, thereby sending the needle of a pressure gauge to zero. This is followed by icy clouds, shots of European capitals, gas pipeline installations, wind and solar generators, and ending with a view of the Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg. Accompanying the video are the melancholy music and selected lyrics from Yuri Bizbor's song А зима будет большая (And the winter will be long) with English subtitles. The complete lyrics are found here.

Clicking on the "more" link below the video reveals a description of the video, together with the text of the lyrics in English and Russian. If the above video link is unavailable, this Daily Mail story has link to another version of the video.

 

UK Government Must Decide: Save the Economy or Save Net Zero

Net Zero Watch, directed by Dr. Benny Peiser, said that the new UK prime minister has a choice between reducing astronomical borrowing costs for payments to limit consumer energy bills, or reducing energy costs. It suggests a three-step approach to achieve the latter:

  1. Suspension of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.
  2. Restriction of trade over the gas and electricity interconnectors to the EU to emergency aid and system balancing only.
  3. Reduction of the value of the Renewable Obligation certificate to zero (a renewable energy subsidy is unnecessary at current high market prices).

Together with other suspensions, such as subsidies to electric vehicles and heat pumps, these policy changes could deliver savings in the region of £1500 per household in the coming winter, and a further £1200 in the winter of 2023/24.

Gordon Hughes and Andrew Montford prepared a fact sheet detailing the concrete steps that the UK government could take to reduce energy prices over the next two winters, which they call "unapologetically radical."

 

The Tide May Be Turning for Dutch Farmers

Since July Dutch farmers have been protesting against their government's plan to cut use of ammonia-based fertilizers and cull livestock to curb emissions of nitrogen oxide. They now appear to have had some success with the resignation of the government's agricultural minister, Henk Staghouwer, who told the Dutch cabinet that pushback from farmers had meant he would not be able to meet a September deadline for rolling out the government’s radical green policy.

 

How India Views Europe’s Climate Hypocrisy

In this 7:38 video from Indian multinational WION (World Is One News) the narrator notes how last year's COP26 in Glasgow gave developed nations a platform to list the sins of the developing world, set targets for others, and goals to be achieved by 2050 — chief among them phasing out coal. Europe pledged to lead the way in getting rid of coal, but one year on is leading the march in the opposite direction. Due to Russia cutting gas exports and the resulting energy crisis it is ramping up coal use and reactivating old power plants.

Having cut its coal production from 277 Mt in 1990 to 57 Mt in 2021, Europe now has to get its coal from Columbia, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Namibia, Nigeria, Mozambique, and the US. Next year EU coal use will rise by 43%, releasing an additional 10 Mt of CO2.

WION understands that Europe's desperate situation requires a desperate remedy and needs to keep the lights on. However, developing nations also need power to keep their factories going and don't have the same access to alternative sources as Europe. It is thus sanctimonious for Europe to lecture the global south to ration coal and rely on solar and wind while the rich Europeans allow themselves to buy coal whenever they need it. Moreover, at climate conferences the rich countries refuse to take responsibility for historical emissions as witnessed by last June's climate talks in Bonn where they blocked any discussion about "loss and damage." The video concludes: "The lecturers in the West have no leg to stand on."

 

Climate Change Transformed India into an Agricultural Superpower

During 1960-65 India suffered famine due to poverty and scarcity of food grains, and similar calamities had killed tens of millions over the centuries. Things changed in the 1970s when India’s government invited American agronomist Norman Borlaug to work alongside Indian scientists to introduce genetically modified crop varieties that were more resistant to diseases and produced higher yields. These yields were also boosted by moderate increases in both temperatures and CO2 levels.

Contrary to the popular narrative of a changing climate being an “existential threat,” Earth’s green plants have been recovering from the “browning” of the Little Ice Age, which occurred from the 14th to 19th centuries. Modern warmth and CO2 levels are facilitating a greening that shows up on satellite photos and contributes to record crop harvests.

Despite its population doubling to 1.3 billion since the 1960s, India can now produce enough food crops for both domestic needs and exports. In fact, since 2017, the country has been registering successive record harvests of food crops. For the 2021-22 crop year it had a record output of 316 million tons, 5 million higher than the previous year. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported: "India is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses, and jute, and ranks as the second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, fruits, and cotton. It is also one of the leading producers of spices, livestock, and plantation crops."

Today’s warmth and CO2 levels are a boon to human civilization, not a bane.

 

Vancouver’s New Virtue-Signaling Fire Engine

Vancouver is giddy about being the first city in Canada to receive an all-electric fire truck. The new e-vehicle cost $300,000 more than a comparable diesel model, pumps 40% less water, and has a short range of 30 km because of its enormous weight. It also features backup diesel power. The city points out that their new truck won't give off diesel fumes and will be much quieter.

 

Electric Cars Are Not “Zero-Emission Vehicles”

By 2035 100% of new cars and light trucks sold in California must be "zero-emission" vehicles, like electric cars. However, the notion that electric vehicles are "zero-emission" is a deceptive narrative. Instead, it is necessary to perform a life-cycle analysis to determine the cumulative environmental impacts (e.g., raw material extraction, material transportation, ultimate product disposal, etc.). In 2021 the Journal of Cleaner Production did such an LCA for conventional, electric and hybrid vehicles in Spain. This LCA found that manufacturing, charging, operating, and disposing of electric vehicles produces more of every major category of pollutants than conventional cars.

A 2018 report by the European Environmental Agency warned that studies on the “human toxicity impacts” of electric vehicles were “limited” and that electric cars “could be responsible for greater negative impacts” than conventional cars. A 2018 article by the Journal of Cleaner Production stated that a failure to account for the “environmental implications” of mining lithium to make batteries for electric cars “would directly counter the intent” of “incentivizing electric vehicle adoption” and “needs to be urgently addressed.”

In summary, switching to electric cars transfers pollution from urbanites in wealthy nations to poor countries that mine and manufacture their components and to communities with power plants and disposal sites. Using cheap labour and lax environmental standards, China dominates the global supply chains for green energy components — 78% of the world's solar cells, 80% of its lithium-ion battery chemicals and 73% of finished battery cells.

A 2019 study published by the Ifo Institute in Germany found that  an electric Tesla Model 3 emits 11% to 28% more CO2 over its lifespan than a diesel Mercedes C220D. In summary, there is no reliable evidence that greenhouse gas reductions from electric cars will benefit anyone.

 

Media Can’t Agree on the Number of Climate Tipping Points, Much Less When

On September 8 The Guardian published a story titled World on brink of five 'disastrous' climate tipping points, study finds. (Tipping points occur when global heating pushes temperatures beyond a critical threshold, leading to accelerated and irreversible impacts, sometimes in a domino effect.) However, the model-based study itself identifies nine "core" tipping elements, seven regional "impact" tipping elements, with more becoming likely at increasing global warming thresholds.

As Anthony Watts writes in Climate Realism, numerous media outlets picked up the Guardian theme and ran their own stories, but could not agree on the number of tipping points. Mr. Watts notes that the present claims are no more likely to be true or supported by evidence than previous claims. Using Google research, he found well over a hundred of them and describes some examples.

Mr. Watts concludes: "Asserted disastrous “tipping points” may make for good headlines and story leads, but there is no evidence any exist. Also, with the tremendous adaptability humans have shown to changing climate conditions across the course of time and widely varying environments, and the consistent progress society has displayed accompanied by revolutionary technological innovations, there is no reason for believing that humans face any catastrophic tipping points now."

 

2022-09-06

 

Biden And Trudeau Disappoint Europe on Natural Gas Relief

Immediately following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared committed to expanding oil and gas production at home to help their allies abroad. Now it's clear that neither leader has delivered on their promises. In late August German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Canada to beg Mr. Trudeau to export more natural gas to Europe saying: "As Germany is moving away from Russian energy at warp speed, Canada is our partner of choice. For now, this means increasing our LNG imports. We hope that Canadian LNG will play a major role in this."

Mr. Trudeau rejected the idea saying that there has "never been a strong business case" for LNG exports from Canada's East Coast to Europe. Instead, he wants Canada to produce and export hydrogen. As Michael Schellenberger points out, this is ridiculous, as hydrogen accounts for less than 2% of Europe's energy consumption and 96% of that hydrogen is made from natural gas. Natural gas makes up 24% of Europe's energy mix. Regarding the business case, the price of natural gas in Europe is 18 times the Canadian price ($90/MMBtu vs $5/MMBtu).

As former Canadian finance minister Joe Oliver writes in the Financial Post, the actions of Mr. Trudeau and his green militant environment minister have stranded the bulk of Canada's oil and gas reserves, cost jobs and growth across the country, undermined national unity, jeopardized energy security, deprived Indigenous communities of transformative economic opportunities and now precluded assistance to allies in dire need.

In Climate Change Dispatch author Ron Barmby observes that Canada, by its recent actions, meets Vladimir Putin’s definition of “useful idiots” — enemies who, while standing on their self-perceived high moral ground, make idiotic decisions that benefit Russia and unwittingly undermine themselves. Mr. Barmby also explains why hydrogen is a bad choice to replace LNG.

 

Canadian Ex-Minister Catherine McKenna Named to Head UN Greenwash Watchdog

Ms. McKenna, a former environment minister, has been appointed to chair the UN's High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities (HLEG). In announcing the group. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Governments have the lion’s share of responsibility to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century. Especially the G20. But we also urgently need every business, investor, city, state and region to walk the talk on their net-zero promises."

The group’s 16 members include climate campaigners, scientists, energy analysts, businesspeople, economists, finance experts, bankers and former politicians and civil servants. It is perfectly gender balanced with eight men and eight women, as well eight members from each of the developed and developing worlds.

To combat corporate greenwashing, the group will focus on the over-use of carbon offsets and unrealistic dependence on carbon removal technology. An area of interest will likely be "scope three" emissions from the use of a company's products, for example when Shell was ordered by a Dutch court to be responsible for reducing the emissions of its customers who are using Shell products.

Commenting on the McKenna appointment, Financial Post columnist Matthew Lau notes that the Canadian government has complemented the UN initiative by rolling out its Net-Zero Challenge to induce businesses to develop and implement plans to transition their operations to net zero by 2050, set interim targets and submit annual progress reports to the government. The challenge has 12 founding participants. While corporate participation is currently voluntary, Mr. Lau expects it is unlikely to remain so for long.

 

‘Political Suicide’: Germany Will Shutter Nuclear Plants Despite Looming Winter Shortages

On August 21 German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a member of the Green Party, said that his government is unlikely to delay shutting down the country's three remaining nuclear plants, which are scheduled to close at the end of this year. Mr. Habeck said that keeping the plants open would save only 2% of gas use. However,  Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats, also part of the governing coalition, reiterated his stance that it would be better to extend the lifespans of nuclear plants for a limited time than to bring coal plants back online.

In early September the issue will be resolved when the results of a stress test will show if the nukes will be needed to ensure the stability and supply of the electricity network in winter.

 

Europe’s Alarming New Trend: Rapid De-Industrialization

In Germany and the rest of Europe evidence of rapid de-industrialization is mounting:

Neither France nor Germany seems interested in fracking and Germany remains committed to closing down its last nuclear plants, and the European leadership has committed to "doubling down on renewables." Europe lacks both energy and time. Winter is coming.

 

Why You Can Be Sure that Net Zero Will Never Be Achieved

The Manhattan Contrarian's Francis Menton identifies three indicators why net zero in electricity generation will not be achieved by 2050 or any time close to that:

The few places that have made attempts at fully wind/solar/storage systems have fallen woefully short, and at this point are not even trying to bridge the remaining gap to get to Net Zero. If net zero emissions electricity generation could be achieved for a major economy like the US or Germany or the UK or Japan by 2050, or for that matter by 2035, there would be a functioning demonstration project operating today that achieves that goal.

Nobody builds any wind turbine or solar panel on the usual motivation of making a profit by satisfying consumer demand. Instead, crony capitalists (rent seekers) build them to collect the subsidies, and they have no incentive to put together all the elements of a system that works.

Germany and the UK have plenty of "nameplate" wind and solar capacity to supply all the electricity they need — when the wind is blowing and the sun shining, and even excess in times of full wind and sun. But they have no non-fossil fuel plan for times of low wind and sun, and the problem can't be solved by building more wind and solar generation.

 

Congress, Carmakers Love EVs, but Americans Aren’t Thrilled

While the White House appears to have convinced Congress to spend big on electric vehicles, there is a hurdle — convincing tens of millions of motorists to buy them. Americans view EVs as inefficient, awkward to charge, and expensive. Even with the $7,500 tax credit for an EV under the Inflation Reduction Act, the vast majority of EV purchases won't qualify because the battery must be built in North America with minerals mined or recycled on the continent.

As reported by the Washington Post, in states like West Virginia there is a lack of fast chargers. Even in California the cars are so expensive that getting drivers into them is tough even with state and federal subsidies for low-income motorists that will soon add up to as much $17,500 for the purchase of a used model. There are 2.5 million registered EVs in the US, an expensive and resource-intensive undertaking. Still, only 5% of new cars sold are electric, of which half the sales take place in California.

 

California Asks Residents to Avoid Charging Electric Vehicles due to Blackout Risk

Days after the California Air Resources Board issued new rules requiring 100% of new vehicles to be zero emissions by 2035, officials are asking residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles so as not to overwhelm the power grid. The Western United States is facing a prolonged wave of temperatures up to 115°F (46°C) and the California Independent System Operator is seeking to bring all available resources online to handle higher electricity demand and expects to issue “voluntary energy conservation” notices over the Labor Day weekend.

 

The Energy of Nations

In this essay published in Quillette, the authors, John Constable and Debra Lieberman, make four observations:

 

2022-08-23

 

Peddlers of Environmental Doom Have Shown Their True Totalitarian Colours

Jordan Peterson wrote an essay with the above title for the Telegraph (paywalled), but it is freely available as a summary on the Daily Sceptic, in complete form by Watts Up With That?, or read by Dr. Peterson himself in a 26-minute video. The central point of the essay is that the global political and business elites are promoting an unworkable net zero agenda that will fuel misery and civil unrest. An exemplar of the corporate utopians is Deloitte, a worldwide behemoth with 1/3 million professionals working on audit, consulting, danger advisory, tax and legal services, and providing authoritarian options to crises, in particular to climate change. Deloitte is the author of The Turning Point - A Global Summary that inspired Dr. Peterson to write the essay.

Deloitte's models posit that unchecked climate change could cost us $178 trillion over the next 50 years. Even Deloitte admits there will be a short-term cost to implementing the cure (net zero by 2050), which it expresses in consultant-speak: "During the initial stages the combined cost of the upfront investments in decarbonization, coupled with the already locked-in damages of climate change would temporarily lower economic activity, compared to the current emissions-intensive path." To justify this Deloitte writes: "… those most exposed to the economic damages of unchecked climate change would also have the most to gain from embracing a low-emissions future." Those "most exposed" means peoples in developing nations who want to be lifted out of poverty by coal and natural gas.

To achieve the low emissions future that Deloitte proposes: "Existing industries would be reconstituted as a series of complex, interconnected, emissions-free energy systems: energy, mobility, industry, manufacturing, food and land use, and negative emissions" — all to be accomplished in a few short decades. The alarming part is the totalitarian how: "a coordinated transition" that "will require governments, along with the financial services and technology sectors to catalyze, facilitate and accelerate progress; foster information flows across systems; and align individual incentives with collective goals."

Instead, what Dr. Peterson proposes is to make the inhabitants of poor nations rich (as well as healthy and productive) and the planet will improve. The elites should lead by example and obtain consent from those affected (e.g., farmers, truckers and working-class people) who have turned in desperation to figures like Donald Trump.

 

Trudeau’s Irrational and Immoral Emissions Plan Will Have Dire Results

The Trudeau government's 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan targets different segments of the Canadian economy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This analysis by Ron Barmby in Climate Change Dispatch examines two parts of the plan that work against each other with foreseeable but dire consequences. In one sector of the economy (transportation) the government is seeking CO2 cuts by promoting increased use of ethanol in gasoline and biodiesel in diesel, while in another (agriculture) it wants to reduce nitrous oxide emissions by cutting use of fertilizers. There are four consequences to this policy.

The first consequence is that if you use less fertilizer then crop yields for food go down, and if you increase production of ethanol and biodiesel from crops the amount left over for human consumption is reduced. Secondly, ethanol and biodiesel do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When fuel, whether petroleum-based or biofuel, is burned to produce a given amount of energy the same amount of CO2 is emitted. The fiction that ethanol reduces CO2 is based on the premise that its emissions are offset by photosynthesis caused by the growth of the crops used to make the ethanol. This premise is false because either the corn used for ethanol would have been grown anyway, or some other plant (crop, forest or natural ground cover) would have grown there instead.

Consequence No. 3 is that if farm yields are reduced due to less fertilizer, then the amount of photosynthesis caused by the crops will also diminish. The fourth consequence is that use of corn for fuel increases global human suffering by driving up the price of corn, especially in developing countries.

 

COP27 to be a Battle Over Climate Change Compensation

The COP27 climate summit will begin on November 7 in Sharm El Sheikh. Tensions are mounting as developing countries ramp up demands for climate change compensation from rich nations, specifically "loss and damage." So far, wealthy countries have failed to deliver on the $100 billion/year by 2020 to help poor countries lower emissions and adapt to climate change. Compensation for loss and damage would be in addition to the $100 billion.

The loss and damage issue was not added to the pre-COP27 talks in Bonn, as rich economies have historically resisted steps to assign legal liability or agree to compensation. Putting the topic on the COP27 agenda could open up discussions about where the money would come from, how it would be distributed or even how to define climate-induced losses, which some research suggests could reach $580 billion/year by 2030.

Egypt, the COP27 host, is pitching for $11.4 billion in new investments for $17.4 billion to be allocated to its own climate projects, divided into six categories: energy and transport, agriculture and land, digital transformations, carbon credit markets, blue economy and water and cities. Of this amount, $10 billion is to replace 17 fossil-fuel power plants (7.5 GW total) with 11.3 GW of wind and solar.

 

UN, IMF Disagree over Who Should Foot the Bill of the Energy Crisis

UN chief António Guterres called for windfall taxes on oil and gas, arguing it is “immoral” for fossil fuel companies to reap record profits while ordinary people suffer from a cost of living squeeze. “This grotesque greed is punishing the poorest and most vulnerable people, while destroying our only common home,” Mr. Guterres said during a media briefing. “I urge all governments to tax these excessive profits and use the funds to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.”

The International Monetary Fund agreed that governments should shield the most vulnerable from price hikes but discouraged broader consumer subsidies. The assistant director of the IMF's European department wants policymakers to allow the full increase in fuel costs to pass to end-users, to encourage energy savings and move away from fossil fuels. The IMF favours market solutions, whereas the UN is siding with climate activists and politicians who are making a moral case for taxing fossil fuel companies amid the cost-of-living crisis.

 

“Don’t Pay UK” Green Energy Bill Strike Gathers Momentum

In the face of skyrocketing green energy bills, a group called Don't Pay UK is promoting the idea of mass non-payment. The Don't Pay group's plan:

The CEO of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Ofgem, in a BBC interview pleaded with people not join the campaign as it "it will drive up costs for everyone across the board." After his interview, Don’t Pay tweeted: "Boss of Ofgem on £300,000 a year tells us to suck it up."

According to CNN Business, nearly one-third of UK households will face poverty this winter (income less than 60% of the UK median of £31,000/year), with an average annual energy bill of £3,582 from October and £4,266 from January.

 

Nearly Everyone Claims to Believe the Big Green Lie

The Big Green Lie — that CO2 is a pollutant — is so pervasive that even those considered as skeptics generally adhere to the orthodoxy, differing only in how bad a pollutant it is. Thus, the debate over climate policy is not about whether there's a problem, but how and how urgently it needs to be addressed. With the lack of public discourse across the political spectrum on whether curbing CO2 is a good thing, trillions of dollars are wasted pursuing Alice-in-Wonderland delusions.

Contradicting the Big Green Lie are certain facts:

 

The Completely Fraudulent "Levelized Cost of Electricity"

LCOE is a measure of the average net present value of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime and is used to compare different methods of electricity generation on a consistent basis. However, as Francis Menton argues, it is completely inapplicable and invalid for comparing dispatchable versus non-dispatchable generators. The LCOE metric assumes that wind and solar generators are essentially the same as dispatchable fossil-fuel plants. Moreover, wind and solar require more infrastructure — backup generators and/or batteries, more transmission lines — that could multiply the cost of electricity to the consumer by a factor of five to ten. As there is no fully functioning demonstration project, nobody knows any reasonably precise costs for the LCOE of wind and solar power.

 

South America's "Lithium Fields"

Lithium is now widely used in electric devices from mobile phones and laptops, to cars and aircraft and is considered crucial in the transition to renewables. Aerial photographer Tom Hegen has been documenting the traces left on the earth's surface by lithium mining in the "Lithium Triangle," where the borders of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia meet, a region rich with natural deposits of the metal. Here in the arid salt flats are evaporation ponds that use a lot of water (2.2 million litres to produce one tonne of lithium) causing conflicts as scarce water is diverted away from local communities.

Other lithium hot spots are the US, Australia and China, with smaller reserves in Zimbabwe, Brazil and Portugal. As reserves of lithium and cobalt are not sufficient to meet future demand, an alternative is iron-flow technology that's cheaper than lithium (though it will be heavier).

 

2022-08-05

 

Can the New UK Prime Minister Survive the Winter?

Climate and energy issues have been peripheral so far to the leadership campaign to replace Boris Johnson. The two candidates who indicated any reassessment of the net-zero targets have been eliminated and the two finalists (Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak) are offering only a program of dull continuity of Mr. Johnson's green policies. Yet, as witnessed by events in The Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Germany, Spain, Italy, Argentina and some African countries, there is a wave of civil unrest over food and energy. In Britain half the population is cutting back on food as they struggle to pay energy bills. Europe is facing the possibility of rolling blackouts this winter, over even people being unable to heat their homes. In October the UK's price cap goes up another £1000 for an average household.

Thus, the new prime minister will face a crisis of historical proportions upon taking office in September. Whoever it is must decide whether to stick with net zero, come what may, or free the economy from the green shackles threatening to bring the country to its knees. According to Climate Home News, both candidates for PM have poor climate records. Though they have said that they're committed to net zero by 2050, that could change once in office and facing pressure from climate-skeptic elements within their own party. According to a BBC report, Mr. Sunak has largely avoided talking about net zero, and Ms. Truss committed to the policy during leadership debates, but added that “we need to find better ways to deliver net zero that won’t harm people and businesses.”

 

Russian Gas Flow Too Low to Fill Europe's Storage

On July 25, Russia tightened the squeeze on Germany when Gazprom said it needed to halt the operation of a turbine and dropped the flows on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity from July 27. But even before July 25 announcement, Germany's energy network regulator had said the country would struggle to meet its storage target. While the EU plans to refill storage to 80% of capacity by November 1, Germany's target is 95%.

LEG Immobilien, one of Germany's largest residential landlords, wants to restrict supply to its tenants this winter and is calling on politicians to legalize the move. The firm's CEO warned that many smaller property rental companies would be left fighting for survival since they had to make advance payments on behalf of tenants, up to 20% of whom could struggle to pay their energy bills. The German chancellor promised that relief measures will be in place to help cushion high energy bills.

 

Declaring a National Climate Emergency

After congressional action on climate change stalled, on July 20 US President Joe Biden called climate change an "emergency" and promised to use executive powers to "combat the climate crisis." Climate activists are pressuring US President Joe Biden to declare a climate change a national emergency. Such a declaration would give the executive branch new powers to fight climate change, including: halting exports of crude oil and offshore drilling; directing military funding to the construction of renewable energy projects; and imposing trade penalties on countries that permit deforestation. Such a creative use of federal law would trigger lawsuits from fossil fuel companies and Republicans.

Washington Examiner columnist James Rogan argues why a climate emergency declaration under the National Emergencies Act would be ill-advised. For example, the definition of "emergency" is a serious, unexpected, often dangerous situation that requires immediate action, but climate change is not unexpected, nor does it require immediate government action. Moreover, whatever the US does at home will have no material effect on the global climate but would result in a weaker US economy. A climate emergency declaration is a "signaling" device only.

 

Ireland to Target Farmers with CO2 Emissions Cuts of 28%

Ireland's government is set to impose an emissions cut of about 28% on the nation's farmers. Officials within the government have been haggling over how badly to hammer agriculture, despite the visceral reactions of farmers in the Netherlands. According to a report, Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, has already agreed to force a cut of either 27 or 28 percent on the country’s farming sector, a move that would cause significant disruptions to local businesses. In addition, there is pressure on Mr. McConalogue to implement a curb of 30%, a move that would result in a massive cut in cattle numbers.

 

What the Future Holds for Our Climate Leaders

The Manhattan Contrarian's Francis Menton has had occasion to look carefully into the plans for many countries and US states that claim to be "leaders" in climate virtue, specifically with regard to the generation of net-zero electricity generation. These include Europe, Germany, the UK, California, and New York. All these jurisdictions share a single universal failure — lack of any pursuit of a working prototype of a net-zero electricity system before committing the entire jurisdiction to the project.

Instead, our politicians have become so filled with hubris that they think they can order a functioning wind/solar electricity system and assume that backup energy storage devices will get invented, work fine and not be financially ruinous.

In 2014 a net-zero demonstration project was attempted on the island of El Hierro (one of the Canary Islands) with the installation of wind turbines and pumped storage/hydro reservoir as backup. It struggles to achieve 50% of electricity from wind/storage over the course of a year and needs a diesel generator for the rest. Electricity costs on El Hierro are €0.80/kWh, subsidized by the EU and Spain.

California or Germany would require at least 25,000 GWh of storage to back up a fully wind/solar generation system with no use of fossil fuels. According to a Wood Mackenzie report, Germany plans 9 GWh of added storage capacity over 2022-2031. New York and California plan to acquire 24 and 42 GWh, respectively. A report by Energy Innovation Policy & Technology LLC, Achieving an Equitable and Reliable 85 Percent Clean Electricity System by 2030 in California, pp.32-38, relies on something called "demand response." In effect this means "we’ll turn off your electricity at random times when we feel like it."

 

Europe's Green Experiment: A Costly Failure in Unilateral Climate Policy

In a 78-page report the Global Warming Policy Foundation's John Constable surveys the failures of 30 years of EU climate leadership, which the war in Ukraine has brought into sharper focus and sooner than might have been expected. The resulting policies attempted to create an incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, hoping to encourage the rest of the world to do likewise and giving EU member states, Germany in particular, a commanding lead in the new green economy. While achieving the principal goal of reducing GHG emissions across nearly all sectors, these policies have:

Despite clear evidence that climate policies have resulted in falling productivity in the energy sector, the European Commission (the EU's executive) shows no sign of even recognizing the facts or having learned from experience. Instead, in December 2019 the Commission declared that member states would achieve climate neutrality by 2050, which subsequently became EU law and resulted in a packet of policies called the European Green Deal. Based on evidence from policy outcomes since 1990, the deal seems all but certain to break European economic and socio-political power. An eventual reversal of direction and retreat from renewable energy, seems certain. The claim that renewables would diversify supply and increase security has been falsified.

The current high prices for fossil fuels do not reflect their underlying costs of production, which remain low, but are the result of intense competition for superior and highly desirable sources of energy. The appearance of a sustained move to renewable energy in Europe will be revealed as a mirage of policy, which will come as a shock to the Commission.

 

2022-07-22

 

Trudeau's Nitrogen Policy Will Decimate Canadian Farming

The Counter Signal describes how the Trudeau government's plan to reduce nitrogen emissions from fertilizer will affect Canadian farming. A news release from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada states: "Fertilizers play a major role in the agriculture sector’s success and have contributed to record harvests in the last decade. They have helped drive increases in Canadian crop yields, grain sales, and exports. However, nitrous oxide emissions, particularly those associated with synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use have also grown significantly. That is why the Government of Canada has set the national fertilizer emissions reduction target, which is part of the commitment to reduce total GHG emissions in Canada by 40-45% by 2030..."

The fertilizer emissions reduction target, which AAFC calls "voluntary", is 30% below 2020 levels by 2030. Currently AAFC is conducting virtual discussions with producers, processors, and others to "continue the conversation on the emission reduction target." Fertilizer Canada, an industry association, is one of the participants in the discussions and has issued its own report on the 30% target, including:

Fertilizer Canada and the farming industry favour the "4R" (right source, right rate, right time and right place) Nutrient Stewardship program to optimize yields while reducing emissions.

 

Dutch Farmers’ Protests Against Emissions Cuts Spread Across EU

In a show of solidarity with Dutch farmers who have been protesting government restrictions on livestock numbers and fertilizer use [FoS Extracts 2022-07-08], German, Italian, Spanish and Polish farmers have launched protests, in what is fast becoming an EU-wide campaign against “anti-farming” policies. These farmers fear that they could be next if their governments seek to impose similar climate policies to comply with EU rules.

Rebel News has been has been covering the Netherlands farmer rebellion and publishing reports at FarmerRebellion.com. Among the limited coverage of Dutch farmers' rebellion in North American mainstream media, the National Post's Rex Murphy opines that if something similar happened in Canada, especially in Ottawa, it would be deemed an "insurrection", perhaps driving the government to invoke the Emergencies Act.

 

Be Proud that We Excel

Guus Berkhout is a retired professor of geophysics from the Technical University of Delft and a co-founder of CLINTEL. In this essay he recalls how the Netherlands became prosperous by excelling in many sectors — a well-educated population, efficient public transport and energy sectors managed by professionals, and an agricultural sector seen worldwide as a textbook example of how to farm intensively in an increasingly sustainable way.

Recently, that all changed due to ignorant and naïve ministers who became prey for militant groups and lobbyists. The public sector's motto is now: "We are forbidden to think, we only use protocols and check items off lists." The Netherlands is a small and crowded nation that requires maximizing farm yields per km2, but country's government is imposing a 50% cut in CO2 emissions by 2030 and an equally unrealistic nitrogen limit of 0.9 g/ha. These have nothing to do with objective science, just manufactured crises by climate and nitrogen fanatics controlled by The Hague and Brussels.

To reverse the Dutch decline Prof. Berkhout calls for a recovery cabinet of business-project ministers who know their portfolios and who are not the playthings of fanatics, rent-seekers, and lobbyists.

 

Green Dogma behind the Fall of Sri Lanka

The current rebellion in Sri Lanka saw the resignation of its prime minister and the fleeing of its president. The rebellion has two main causes, the first being the global Covid lockdowns that devastated the country's tourist industry and impacted supplies of food and essentials. The other was eco-ideology, which Michael Schellenberger describes in his blog. The country's leaders fell under the spell of Western green elites peddling organic farming and ESG. Indeed, Sri Lanka has a near perfect ESG emissions score of 98, higher than Sweden (96) and the US (51).

In April 2021 the government banned chemical fertilizers, resulting in one-third of Sri Lanka's farmlands becoming dormant. Rice production fell 20% and prices increased 50%. Before the ban tea production generated $1.3 billion in exports and paid for 71% of the nation's imports. The ban caused these exports to crash, destroying the ability of Sri Lanka to pay for food and fuel, and service its debt.

Bjørn Lomborg points out two harsh truths revealed by Russia's war in Ukraine: (1) The basic reality that fossil fuels remain crucial for the majority of global energy needs; (2) The emerging food crisis shows that organic farming cannot feed the world. Environmental activists have peddled the idea that organic agriculture can solve hunger, and the EU is pushing for a tripling of organic farming in Europe by 2030. However, organic methods produce between a quarter and a half less food than conventional, scientific-driven agriculture — which makes organic food more expensive and requires more land. The catastrophe unfolding in Sri Lanka provides a sobering lesson of this truth.

 

Energy Crisis Threatens Civil Unrest in Europe

Frans Timmermans is the EU's Executive Vice-President and is responsible for all matters related to climate. In an interview with The Guardian Mr. Timmermans warned that Europe is in danger of highly damaging “very, very strong conflict and strife” this winter over high energy prices, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and should make a short-term return to fossil fuels to head off civil unrest. “I’ve been in politics long enough, over 30 years, to understand that people worry most about the immediate crisis and not about the long-term crisis and if we don’t address the immediate crisis, we will certainly be off-track with the long-term crisis,” he said.

Mr. Timmermans also dampened expectations for the next global climate summit (COP27) this coming November in Sharm el-Sheikh. He referred to failure of COP26 to produce national emissions-cutting plans in line with the 1.5°C limit and two weeks of climate talks in Bonn last month that ended in acrimony between developed and developing countries over cash for climate damage.

It is Germany, home of Energiewende ("energy transition"), that is most vulnerable to what Mr. Timmermans fears. Here, energy prices could triple as Russian gas supplies dwindle and there are calls for an energy price cap to avoid social unrest. Before the war in Ukraine Germany got 55% of its natural gas imports from Russia, which are now under threat of curtailment or cutoff. As a result of Germany's big bet on intermittent and energy-diffuse wind and solar power, together with shutdown of its nuclear power plants, renewables have effectively locked the country into dependence on fossil fuels. As the cost of natural gas and oil for heating soars, Germans are turning to firewood, but this is getting scarce, too.

Hungary has declared a state of emergency in response to supply disruptions and rising energy prices in Europe. The chief of staff to the country's prime minister said that there is "unlikely to be enough gas in Europe for the autumn and winter heating season." Budapest will boost its production of natural gas, extract more coal, restore a lignite-fired power plant, and ban energy exports.

 

Europe’s Rush to Buy Africa’s Natural Gas Draws Cries of Hypocrisy

Nigeria has 3% of the world's proven gas reserves, but what has been extracted goes mostly to Europe, which wants to import even more to make up for loss of supply from Russia. Meanwhile, Nigerians living by the gas plants use black-market kerosene and diesel, because rich countries are reluctant to fund gas pipelines and power plants in Africa due to emissions. At last month's G7 meeting leaders made an exception for projects that would allow more shipments of LNG to their countries. In another climbdown the EU voted to classify gas and nuclear energy projects as "green."

African leaders, such as Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari are irked by this. Mr. Buhari wrote: "We need long-term partnership, not inconsistency and contradiction on green energy policy from the UK and European Union. It does not help their energy security, it does not help Nigeria’s economy, and it does not help the environment. It is a hypocrisy that must end." According to the energy minister of Equatorial Guinea: "They cannot just come and say, ‘We need your gas, I’ll buy your gas and we’ll take it to Europe.' They need to give something back to us."

European leaders want Africa to move straight to clean energy sources, but that's not viable unless rich countries, private investors, and development banks help with funding. Rich nations have yet to deliver on a promise to deliver $100 billion/year in climate finance.

 

Federalism Is the Key to Demonstrating the Disaster of Green Central Planning

The Manhattan Contrarian's Francis Menton writes that central planning always fails, and when it does its utopian visionaries cannot admit fault and so, must find a scapegoat. For example, US President Joe Biden blames current price and supply issues in the energy markets on Vladimir Putin and companies running gas stations, not his administration's efforts to suppress fossil fuels. The green central planners can maintain their narrative as long as they can impose their control widely enough that their subjects are unaware of successful alternatives. Under the US federal system this control paradigm fails.

New York and California can forge ahead with legislation to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity generation and then force all energy consumers to use only electricity for their supply. If this works, then these states will be a model for the rest of the country. If the result is soaring energy prices, shortages and blackouts, the failure will become obvious, and not the fault of "saboteurs", "wreckers" or "price gougers."

Despite its recent Supreme Court defeat in W. Virginia v. EPA, the Biden administration continues to issue executive orders aligning with its Net-Zero targets — which exist only by virtue of a press release. Fortunately, the red states will not go along with this anymore, and Mr. Menton is betting that the red states will prevail in cratering green energy.

 

2022-07-08

 

Germany to Fire Up Coal plants as Russia Curtails Gas 

Last April, Germany's Economy Minister Robert  Habeck, a member of the Green Party in a three-party coalition (with the Social Democrats and Free Liberals), presented a legislative package of measures to increase green energy from 40% of electricity generation now to 80% by 2030.

Then on June 19 Mr. Habeck announced that, because of a further cut in natural gas supply from Russia, Germany must limit the use of gas for electricity generation and prioritize filling of storage facilities. The minister's statement said: "To reduce gas consumption, less gas must be used to generate electricity. Coal-fired power plants will have to be used more instead. Otherwise, it will be really tight in winter."

On June 23 the German government triggered the "alarm stage" (Phase 2) of its emergency gas plan. Since March it had been at Phase 1, which includes stricter monitoring of daily flows and a focus on filling gas storage facilities. In Phase 2 the market is still able to function without the need for state intervention that would kick in the final emergency stage.

The EU has also signaled a temporary return to coal as its climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said that ten member countries have issued an "early warning" on gas supply. "The risk of full gas disruption is now more real than ever before," he said. Gas storage levels in the EU have rebounded from ~26% in March to ~55% currently. The EU aims to reach 80% capacity in November as European leaders scramble to find alternatives to Russian gas.

 

EU Parliament Declares Gas & Nuclear Power as "Green"

In the EU Parliament on July 6, MEPs voted in favour of plans to award a green label to investments in nuclear and gas power projects. Before the measure becomes law, it faces a vote in the EU Council of Ministers, representing the 27 EU member states. Here, a majority of 20 countries is needed to veto the proposal, a highly unlikely prospect.

There were loud protests from green activists in the chamber denouncing the "betrayal" of MEPs' climate commitments. Greta Thunberg tweeted that the vote will delay the green transition and deepen Europe's dependency on Russian fuels.

 

US Supreme Court Curbs EPA Authority to Regulate Emissions

In 2015, during the Obama Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, citing the Clean Air Act, adopted the Clean Power Plan regulation, giving the EPA authority to restrict the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity. The idea of the CPP was to pressure states into shutting down coal generation and eventually natural gas, in favour of renewables.

In 2019 the Trump administration rescinded the CPP, replacing it with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which focussed on modest emissions improvements at coal plants. On the last day of the Trump presidency the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the rule, but the Biden administration asked the court to delay reinstating the CPP while it contemplated a new rule. Then states, led by West Virginia, appealed to the Supreme Court, which on June 30 ruled that the EPA lacked statutory authority for the CPP.

This decision is in line with recent decisions striking down regulations on the grounds that agencies had usurped power from Congress and the judiciary. The EPA powers at issue are central to President Biden's climate agenda. The court's full decision is here and a summary here.

The EPA's administrator, Michael Regan, reacted to the setback saying that the agency will "come back with a counterpunch. We're going to move forward with every legal authority to regulate climate pollution and protect communities that we have." He admitted that the Court’s ruling is a hurdle to meeting the Biden administration’s pledge to cut US emissions to 50% of the 2005 level by 2030.

 

Two Scientists Tell Court that Social Cost of Carbon Regulation “Scientifically Invalid”

As part of the ongoing litigation brought by a group of US states led by Louisiana, challenging the Biden administration's use of the social cost of carbon [FoS Extracts 2022-06-16] two physics professors (Dr. William Happer and Dr. Richard Lindzen), together with the CO2 Coalition, filed an amicus curiae brief. The 28-page brief makes three main statements:

  1. Reliable scientific theories come from validating theoretical predictions with observations, not consensus, peer review, government opinion or manipulated data (p. 4).
  2. Science demonstrates that there is no climate-related risk caused by fossil fuels and CO2, and therefore no reliable scientific evidence supporting the proposed rule (p. 6).
  3. If the rule is adopted there would be disastrous consequences for the poor, people worldwide, future generations and the United States because it would reduce CO2 and the use of fossil fuels (p. 24).

Under statement 2 the brief includes 13 supporting lines of evidence, including lack of urgency, level of atmospheric CO2, recent warming periods, the IPCC and its models, the lack of scientific validation for SCC, impact of "net zero" on temperatures, manipulated data in climate science, bias in climate science publishing and the logarithmic forcing from CO2. Under statement 3 are discussions about how CO2 is essential to life, photosynthesis, warming benefits of greenhouse gases and the social benefits of fossil fuels.

In view of the US Supreme Court's quashing of the EPA's Clean Power Plan regulation, the prospects for overturning the SCC rule look brighter

 

Net-Zero — The Impossible Scheme

The Financial Post's Terence Corcoran traces one possible origin of the net-zero movement to a 2013 meeting of a group of women, led by Christina Figueres, then head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who hashed out the founding political principles of net-zero emissions to ignite action at the upcoming 2015 Paris climate conference. One of the activists, Jennifer Morgan, now head of Greenpeace International, was an advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

At a G7 meeting in 2015 Ms. Merkel convinced the group to issue a joint declaration stating that "deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonization of the global economy over the course of this century." With that G7 blessing 200 nations at the Paris climate conference later that year committed to "to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century."

Another history of net zero by three British environmental scientists traces it back to the 1990s. Early suggestions included mass planting of new forests, which wouldn't be sufficient, according to the models. Further modelling solutions postulated carbon capture and storage as well. The scientists conclude that net-zero was really conceived as a way to protect business as usual, not the climate.

Mr. Corcoran agrees that there is some truth in that conclusion. The current net-zero environment is still being driven by computer models managed by armies of corporate economists, financial experts, and academics, with McKinsey being one of the leaders in the field. A recent McKinsey report The net-zero transition: What it would cost, what it could bring estimates the cumulative capital spending to cancel and/or capture 35 billion tonnes/year of emissions at about $275 trillion. Shortly after the report came out Russia invaded Ukraine, to which McKinsey in a follow-up commentary said the war "will complicate the transition to a net-zero economy."

Mr. Corcoran concludes that the net-zero concept, born in easier times, is in trouble and moving further out of reach.

 

Green Elites’ Contempt for the Working Class

With Americans facing skyrocketing oil, gas, and electricity prices, the obvious solution of more drilling for oil and gas and building power plants is off the table. President Joe Biden praised high gasoline prices as part of an "incredible transition." Then, seeing how the political winds were blowing, he called for a gasoline-tax holiday and his administration advised motorists to buy an expensive (and hard to find) electric car.

The reason the environmental faction favours high energy prices is that it wants to force people to switch to renewables. A California environmental lawyer, Jennifer Hernandez, calls the calls the state's policies "Green Jim Crow". Strict environmental rules keep out industrial jobs, the traditional leg up for the working class. Ms. Hernandez observes: "What the soaring environmental rhetoric of the state’s affluent, largely White technocratic leadership disguises is a kludge of climate policies that will only, under the best of circumstances, partially decarbonize the state’s economy while deepening the state’s shameful legacy of racial injustice."

Today, as energy prices soar while the well-off warn us about climate change via private jet, they’re not thinking about the little people.

 

Dutch Farmers and Fishermen Protest Job-killing Climate Policies

Dutch farmers, angry at government plans to slash emissions, used tractors and trailers to blockade supermarket centres on July 4, with fishermen blockading some ports in a show of support. These actions are part of ongoing protests against a government proposal to cut emissions of nitrogen oxides and ammonia 50% by 2030. In areas close to nature conservation areas the government plans to cut nitrogen emissions by more than 70%. Nitrogen oxides are greenhouse gases and are produced by ammonia-based fertilizers and cattle.

The farmers argue that they are being unfairly targeted as the measures could lead to culling 30% of livestock. The Finance and Agricultural ministries have published two proposals for the cull: forced sale of farmland and mass disposal of livestock. Anger intensified after the government revealed that the same nitrogen cuts, being proposed in the name of fighting climate change, won’t be applied to the airline industry.

 

2022-06-16

 

Memo to the Bank of Canada: Your Target Is Inflation, Not Carbon

The Bank of Canada has failed to deliver on its core responsibility — controlling inflation — but still plans to save the world from climate change. The bank's latest annual report mentions "inflation" 38 times, but "climate" appears 78 times. Inflation got out of control last year but, in his foreword to the report the bank's governor notes that the bank improved its understanding of the financial system risks associated with climate change.

As Matthew Lau points out, any climate-change risk has a much longer time horizon than the typical five-year term of a mortgage loan in Canada. In fact, any risk to the financial system comes from bad government behaviour (haphazard government regulation and spending in the name of fighting climate change), not climate change itself.

 

Drink Not to the Birth of Climate Panic

Fifty years ago, in Stockholm the 1972 UN Conference on Human Environment became the launchpad for five decades of climate alarmism that still animates policymakers. As Terence Corcoran writes, Stockholm was followed 20 years later by the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, out of which came Agenda 21, a 351-page blueprint to impose “sustainable development” on the world economy via central planning mechanisms.

Canada's Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault marked the 50th anniversary with a speech hailing the Stockholm Declaration and mentioning Maurice Strong the late Canadian international political schemer who was the lead organizer of the 1972 summit. Mr. Corcoran recalls how in 1992 he wrote about Mr. Strong as “Canada’s contribution to back-door central planning and global income redistribution,” including the grand objective of institutionalizing “sustainable development.” 

Today, even followers of green economics concede that Stockholm and Rio have not exactly turned the world around, as a chasm exists between the intent in 1992 and the delivery since. Perhaps in 2050 journalists and analysts will be writing articles about the vision and intent of net zero — while lamenting its failure.

 

Supreme Court Hands Biden Admin Win Over Social Cost of Carbon

On January 20, 2021 US President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis. Section 5 of this order requires that federal permitting use the social cost of carbon (as well nitrous oxide and methane), while taking global damages into account. Ten states, led by Louisiana, filed suit in April 2021 arguing that including these social costs in the order was an example of executive overreach and required congressional approval. The states' suit prevailed at the District Court, but was overturned at the Court of Appeals, which ruled the plaintiff states lacked standing.

On April 27, 2022 the states petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case to overturn the Court of Appeals decision, but on but May 26, the high court denied the petition with a one-sentence order. It's possible that this abrupt rejection may be because the Court is about to release a decision in West Virginia v. EPA, a petition by coal companies and Republican state attorneys general to bar the EPA from writing a rule to require more energy be derived from low-carbon sources like wind, solar and nuclear, and less from coal.

The West Virginia v. EPA decision could go well beyond whether the EPA has the power to regulate CO2 emissions and rule on the murky doctrine of "nondelegation". The US Constitution gives Congress alone, not federal agencies, the power to make laws, and regulations have the force of law.

 

Biden’s Climate Czar Urges Big Tech to Censor Climate Debate

First progressives wanted social media platforms to silence critics of climate alarmism. Now White House national climate advisor Gina McCarthy wants the platforms to censor content on the costs of a green-energy transition. In effect the progressives are moving to censorship phase two by shutting down debate over climate "solutions."

In an interview on Axios (video starting at 5:45) Ms. McCarthy, beginning at 8:40, accuses fossil fuel companies of switching from denying the problem of climate change to spending "dark money" in seeding doubt about the costs of wind and solar. At 11:10 she calls on tech companies to "stop allowing specific individuals" to spread misinformation.

 

EU Parliament’s CBAM Spat Could Delay a Carbon Border Tax by Years

On June 8 Green and centre-left members of the European Parliament defeated three climate-related proposals: an EU carbon border tax (carbon border adjustment mechanism), revising the EU emissions trading system (ETS), and creating a social climate fund. The CBAM was intended to prevent "carbon leakage" (shifting of production outside the EU) by applying a levy on all imported goods with a higher carbon footprint than equivalent EU-produced goods. Until now the main method of protecting European companies was to give free allowances in the ETS to industries at risk from carbon leakage. These free allowances were supposed to be phased out as the CBAM took effect. The social climate fund was designed to shield consumers from the cost of an increasing carbon price under the CBAM and ETS.

During the parliamentary process centre-right MEPs managed to get an amendment granting a longer extension to the phase-out of free allowances, which the Green and centre-left MEPs refused to support. As a result, the ETS proposal is going back to committee, thereby delaying votes on all three measures until an unspecified future date. As well, there has been intense pressure from Washington to delay the CBAM, pending action on a US equivalent. Moreover, the European Council (heads of state or government of the EU member states), which favours less ambitious legislation, will have a stronger hand in negotiating with a divided Parliament on this issue.

 

The Revenge of the Fossil Fuels

Thanks to record crude oil prices shares of companies like ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco have soared as countries around the world struggle with energy price spikes and shortages, while energy security and affordability are propelled to the policy centre-stage after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. It would be myopic to view the price spikes as just the result of the Russian invasion. Rather, they are the cumulative result of Western government policies based on speculative, model-based forecasts of the climate impacts of CO2 emissions. The vilification of fossil fuels by the climate industrial complex has starved the oil, gas and coal sectors of capital investments while diverting trillions of dollars of public funds to subsidize wind, solar and electric vehicles.

The revenge of the fossil fuels is not limited to ExxonMobil's stock value, but also to countries leading "energy transition" efforts. These are facing potential blackouts as aggressive retirements of nuclear, coal, and gas-fueled plants have been replaced by unreliable renewables over the past two decades. The International Energy Agency's executive director warned that Europe could be forced to ration energy next winter. In May 2021 the IEA published, with great fanfare, its Net Zero "roadmap" calling for global cessation of all new investments in fossil fuels.

In the five-year period to 2019 developing countries accounted for almost 90% of global demand growth for primary energy, three-quarters of it in Asia. It is encouraging that global asset managers are still dumping tens of billions of dollars into new coal projects and hundreds of millions into oil and gas companies.

 

Continued Use of Combustion Vehicles Leads to Lower Lifetime Emissions than Driving EVs

It has long been assumed that replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with electric vehicles (EV) leads to lower CO2 emissions. However, a study that included calculations of the cumulative CO2 emissions of two comparable cars — the VW Golf VII  — one with a combustion engine and the other with an electric motor found that the EV version emits only 8% less CO2 over its lifetime than the ICE one, in a country with an electric grid mix like Poland's.

The average annual driving distance in Europe is 7,500 km/vehicle. At this rate it would take 12 years for the same EV (assuming no replacements) to realize less CO2 emissions than an equivalent ICE. In fact, nearly all EV owners purchase replacements well before 12 years of use. If the ICE vehicle is driven only 4,000 km/y there is no scenario where replacing it with an EV will ever realize a CO2 savings.

 

Why Wind and Solar Will Never Meet the World's Energy Needs

Currently oil, natural gas and coal provide 84% of the world's energy, down two percentage points from two years ago. Oil powers 97% of all transportation. After two decades and five trillion dollars of government "investment" in green energy, we've barely moved the needle. The claims that we're rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels are just not happening. In a 5:30 video Mark Mills, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute explains why.

In a word the reason why is "rocks": To get the same energy from solar and wind that we now get from fossil fuels, we're going to have to massively increase mining — by more than 1,000%. The minerals needed include copper, silicon, iron ore, nickel, chromium, zinc, cobalt, lithium, graphite, and rare earth metals like neodymium. These minerals then have to be turned into motors, turbine blades, solar panels, batteries, and hundreds of other industrial components using processes that take lots of energy, thus requiring even more mining. Raw materials account for 50%-70% of the cost of solar panels and batteries.

If we sharply ramped up mining for these minerals, most of the new mines would be in China, currently the single largest source for our critical energy materials. On the other hand, the US depends on imports for 100% of 17 critical minerals. In fact, all the minerals needed are available in North America, but mining proposals everywhere meet fierce opposition and outright bans. The environmentalists and green politicians who tout the benefits of electric cars are the same people who make mining the materials essential to their manufacture all but impossible.

Furthermore, future energy demand will be far greater than today's, due to more: people, innovations, human prosperity, air travel, hospitals, cloud computing, etc. To supply the energy needs of today and tomorrow, we'll need fossil fuels, nuclear energy, as wells as wind and solar power.

 

2022-05-26

 

Climate Skeptic HSBC Banker Suspended for Honesty

On May 19 Stuart Kirk, global head of responsible investing at HSBC Asset Management, gave an amusing 16-minute speech at a Financial Times Moral Money event. The speech's title: "Why investors need not worry about climate risk." Mr. Kirk begins by attacking the constant reminders of climate doom "so hyperbolic that no one knows how to get anyone's attention at all" (2:00). It's not so much the message that annoys Mr. Kirk, but the amount of work he and his team have had to spend dealing with climate risk 20-30 years hence when there are more important and immediate problems (e.g., the current market fall, the China problem, interest rates and inflation both going up.)  At 3:30 Mr. Kirk puts up his "fun slide just to annoy people" showing the more "climate catastrophe" gets mentioned in the press, the higher risk asset prices go. To explain this, he offers three reasons:

On May 22 HSBC suspended Mr. Kirk for his heresy, pending an internal investigation. Joanne Nova's blog called Mr. Kirk's speech "so good he was sacked." Roger Pielke Jr. analyzes some of the important points of Mr. Kirk's speech, including:

 

Bjørn Lomborg: UN Disaster Report Is a Reporting Disaster

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has issued a fresh report claiming that humanity is stuck in a "spiral of self-destruction." In the forward to the report UN Secretary-General António Guterres notes that, among the recommendations to reduce risk and increase resilience, "We must limit global heating to 1.5°C, which entails reducing emissions to 45% below 2010 levels by 2030."

Mr. Lomborg reviewed the report and found that the UN made an error in counting all the catastrophes recorded in a respected international disaster database, which showed they were increasing, and then concluded that the planet must be doomed. This is incorrect, because disaster reporting has been improving, and the database's own experts warn amateurs that an increase in registered disasters does not mean that there are more disasters in reality. Instead, Mr. Lomborg suggests counting major losses of life as they have registered consistently over the past century. He includes a chart of climate-related death risk for 1920-2020, which shows that these climate disasters now kill 99% fewer people than 100 years ago. This is because wealthier countries have become better at protecting citizens.

Moreover, the report includes a count of "global disaster-related mortality" that found, contrary to the database, that deaths are higher than ever before. It got this result by lumping in Covid deaths with those from hurricanes and floods. In fact, Covid killed more people in 2020 than all the world's other disasters in the previous half century. Mr. Lomberg recommends that "Instead of headline-chasing with dodgy math and frightening language, the UN should do better — and it should be focused on championing innovation and adaptation in order to save more lives."

 

A "Plan B" for Addressing Climate Change and the Energy Transition

Judith Curry wrote this article for the latest issue of International Affairs Forum, which included 20 articles on the subject of Climate Change and Energy. Dr. Curry's thesis is that we've vastly oversimplified the problem of climate change and its solutions, such that we've come to a point where we have an alleged future crisis and the primary solution (Plan A) — rapid reduction of global emissions — is all but impossible. Despite the numerous UN treaties and agreements to reduce emissions over the past two decades, the atmospheric CO2 concentration continues to increase. The 2050 global emissions will be dominated by whatever China and India have done or failed to do.

Dr. Curry's Plan B envisions a more pragmatic approach that drops timelines and emissions targets in favour of energy innovation, such as small modular nuclear reactors. Moreover, climate isn't the only problem facing the world. A better objective is to improve human well-being (focusing on food, energy, water, and ecosystems) in the 21st century, while protecting the environment as much as we can. Unlike the top-down Plan A mandated by the UN, Plan B Plan B focuses on local solutions that secure the common interest, thus avoiding political gridlock.

The vast sums spent on attempting to prevent climate change represent funds that could have been used to counter other potential 21st century threats, such as solar electromagnetic storms that take out space-based electronics and the electric transmission lines, future pandemics, global financial collapse, a mega volcanic eruption, or a thermo-nuclear war.

 

Vaclav Smil: Antidote to Magical Thinking

Magical thinking is captured in this Guardian article: "… the technologies and policies necessary to adequately address climate change exist, and the only real obstacles are politics and fossil fuel interests", together with more funding for social sciences. Vaclav Smil, environmental professor emeritus from the University of Manitoba, responds to this thinking in an interview about his latest book, which examines what he calls the “four material pillars of modern civilization": cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia (for making nitrogen fertilizers).” Creating these requires burning huge amounts of fossil fuels. At present, there is no widely available, commercial-scale way of making these materials with electricity alone, no matter how green it is.

Given this reality, Prof. Smil maintains, we are not going to achieve decarbonization by 2050, much less 2030. “What’s the point of setting goals which cannot be achieved?” he asks. “People call it aspirational. I call it delusional.” Prof. Smil reminds us of what matters:

 

Parker Gallant: Why do we subsidize Michigan while its governor tries to shut down Line 5?

On May 7, a mild and windy day, Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator accepted 26,259 MWh of wind generation at $135/MWh and "curtailed" (refused to accept) another 36,200 MWh for which it paid $120/MWh anyway. The same day IESO sold 34,500 MWh of surplus generation to Michigan at $0.50/MWh. During 2020 Mr. Gallant calculates that Michigan paid $137 million for electricity exports that cost Ontarians over $1 billion.

What Ontario gets from Michigan in return for this generosity is an effort by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to shut down the Line 5 pipeline that carries light crude oil and natural gas liquids south into Michigan via a tunnel under the Mackinac Straits joining Lakes Michigan and Huron and into Ontario. If she gets her way, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ontario and Quebec would experience a 14.7-million-US-gallons-a-day supply shortage of gas, diesel, jet fuel and propane. Mr. Gallant proposes that if Line 5 is cancelled, IESO should be instructed to stop shipping Michigan clean and cheap Ontario electricity, which will drive up Michigan's emissions and electricity costs.

 

Wind Power’s ‘Colossal Market Failure’ Threatens Climate Fight

Wind power heavyweights Vestas, General Electric and Siemens are facing high raw material and logistics costs, changes in clean power subsidies, pressure on wind turbine prices, and an expensive arms race to build ever bigger machines. The CEO of the Global Wind Energy Council  said: "What I’m seeing is a colossal market failure…The risk is we’re not on track for net zero [emissions] -- and the other risk is the supply chain contracts, instead of expanding." Wind turbine companies say they’ll compete for fewer projects in fewer markets, raise prices, streamline their product lineups, and cut manufacturing costs. Governments have cut back on subsidies, while permitting for new projects is constraining the wind market.

In 2021 turbine manufacturers raised prices the most since 2014, and wind farm developers expect to reverse the decade-long trend of falling costs for wind power. A quick influx of bigger, more powerful machines has strained the manufacturers and their supply chains. The new boss of GE's energy-related business has called for a slowdown of this "arms race" and instead build more standardization into the industry's products

 

Time Is Wrong – Climate Change Will Not Make Us Hungry

In its April 29 edition Time ran a story titled The Ukraine Food Price Crisis is Just a Preview of What Could Happen as Climate Change Worsens that focuses on Ukraine and then proceeds with a series of alarmist claims that the impact of climate change on food prices will be far worse. In the real world, output of cereal crops has tripled since the 1960s and set another record in 2020. Even with the hit to crop yields due to the current heatwave in India, that country's government has cut its forecast harvest from a record 111 million tonnes to 100 million, which would still be the third highest on record.

Weather events have always disrupted food production somewhere in the world, but the combination of better technology, bioengineering, longer growing season and higher levels of CO2 will continues to lead to every higher food production and reduced hunger around the world.

 

2022-05-11

 

Oil Is Here for the Long Haul

The New Climate Bargain, or How Canada Can Manage Energy & Environmental Security is the latest report in RBC Economics and Thought Leadership's climate series. In view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine the report tries to square pressures to alleviate rising energy prices by increasing oil and gas production with ambitious emission reduction plans (e.g., net-zero by 2050). It concludes that "both goals are within reach—but at significant cost." The report's key findings:

An earlier RBC report estimated that it would cost Canada $2 trillion to reach net-zero by 2050.

 

Terence Corcoran: Which Energy Assets Will Be Stranded?

Since 2015 Mark Carney, former central banker, has been warning of a stranded asset scenario for oil and gas stocks, telling banks to get out of oil and gas investments while promoting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. However, Warren Buffet, apparently not a follower of Mr. Carney, has been unloading bank and investment stocks while taking new multi-billion stakes on computing companies and energy stocks such as Occidental Petroleum and Chevron. Mr. Buffet is not alone, as global banks have poured $750 million into fossil-fuel companies.

Alberta energy writer David Yager summed it up in a recent commentary: “Rendering fossil fuels obsolete was conceived in a different environment than the one we live in today. That was Mark Carney’s world, and he was a star. But in our tumultuous new world, does Mark Carney’s stranded asset definition still mean anything?”

Mr. Corcoran wonders if governments will continue to fund wind and solar projects and massive expansions of their electricity grids in an attempt to knock out fossil fuels that are now in high demand. Also at risk is the money-losing carbon storage industry.

 

IPCC Scientists: Climate Change Doom is Doomier than People Realize

The Summary for Policymakers for the latest IPCC report says: "Global greenhouse gases are projected to peak between 2020 and at the latest by 2025, in global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C." Many media outlets, including the BBC, interpreted this to mean that emissions could continue to rise until 2025 and the world could still stay under 1.5°C.

IPCC lead author Glen Peters from the Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo tried to counter this impression, saying: "When you read the text as it's laid out, it does give the impression that you've got to 2025 which I think is a very unfortunate outcome. It's an unfortunate choice of wording. That is, unfortunately, going to potentially have some rather negative consequences."

The confusion arose because the climate models used to project temperatures work in 5-year increments, and any modelled 1.5°C scenario requires emissions to drop from 2020 to 2025, and even for 2.0°C scenarios. Also, because of Covid there was a delay in publishing the IPCC report, so the headline statement couldn't say emissions should have peaked already (i.e., by 2020) as IPCC reports are supposed to be policy prescriptive. This led to a lengthy debate during the two-week approval session over the choice of the exact words to use, with terms like "now" and "immediately" being discarded because they are meaningless when read in the future.

 

China Ignores Climate Pledges, Tops List in Building New Coal Plants

Despite pledges to reach net-zero emissions by 2060, China is still leading the world in building new coal plants, according to the Global Energy Monitor's eighth annual survey of the world’s coal plant pipeline. China has just over half the number of coal plants in the world, which it relies on to generate 60% of its electricity. At the end of 2021 a total of 176 GW of coal capacity was under construction in 20 countries, of which China accounted for 52%. Other Asian countries made up another 37%.

In April 2021 China's president announced that his country will “strictly limit the increase in coal consumption” in 2021–25 and “phase it down” in 2026–30 as part of the country’s pledge to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and to be carbon-neutral by 2060. In the second half of 2021, China experienced a coal and coal-power shortage, leading to electricity rationing.  Pro-coal interests used the crisis to rewrite the country's energy policy, resulting in a resumption of coal plant permits in early 2022.

 

Low-cost Power Pledge Is Blown Away by Wily UK Wind Farmers

UK government ministers promised that a new generation of "low-cost" wind farms would get power bills down. Several GW of offshore wind farms in the North Sea are either under construction or newly completed, all of them with agreements to sell power to the grid at low fixed prices under the government's Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. However, since the start of the current energy crisis newly completed wind farms have delayed taking up their CfDs because they can get higher prices on the open market.

For example, the 950 MW Moray East wind farm off the Scottish coast recently reached full capacity and then announced that it was delaying taking up its CfD until 2023. As a result, consumers will pay an extra half billion pounds during the first 12 months of operation. Since energy prices soared last autumn, every CfD renewables generator that was supposed to take up a contract in 2022 has delayed until next year.

 

Metal Supplies Needed to Meet EU's Climate Neutrality Goal

Eurometaux, an association of European non-ferrous metal producers commissioned a study by the Belgian university Katholieke Universiteit Leuven on the supply of metals needed for Europe's energy transition away from fossil fuels. The study found that, by 2050, meeting the continent's plans for clean energy technology will require annually:

Around 2030 Europe could face global supply problems for five metals especially: lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths, and copper. Coal-powered Chinese and Indonesian metal production is projected to dominate global refining capacity growth for battery metals and rare earths in the next decade. In the spotlight after the Ukraine invasion, Europe also relies on Russia for much of its imported supply of aluminum, nickel and copper.

However, by 2050 local recycling could produce three quarters of Europe-made battery cathodes, all its plans for permanent magnets production, and significant volumes of aluminum and copper. 

 

Little Climate Foot Soldiers

UK blogger Laura Dodsworth comments on a study Young People's Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon that was conducted by the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations. The study surveyed 10,000 young people in ten countries regarding their thoughts and feelings on climate change, and on government response. Although the study purports that young people are frightened about climate change, the research only sought agreement with very negative statements such as “the future is frightening” and “humanity is doomed”. Respondents were not asked to agree with any neutral or positive statements. The report concludes that “There is an urgent need for further research into the emotional impact of climate change on children and young people and for governments to validate their distress by taking urgent action on climate change.”

As Ms. Dodsworth comments: "Most of the young respondents are very unlikely to have experienced any dangerous effects of climate change in the real world. What is creating emotional impact is media coverage, political rhetoric, and alarmist education in schools. Distress doesn’t need to be ‘validated’ by policy and should not dictate it. The distress felt by children and young people could be managed by more careful, considerate, and contextual communication…Children are not climate foot soldiers. Activists and politicians should fight their own battles."

 

Matthew Lau: Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic … and environmental racism

Financial Post columnist Matthew Lau takes aim at a woke classroom guide put out by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario titled Creating Environmentally and Socially Active Communities. The guide begins with: "Climate justice is racial justice. Climate change is a consequence of a colonial and capitalist system which has exploited people and the environment. The two struggles are inseparable."

The guide defines "environmental racism" as "… how Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) experience a disproportionate share of environmental burdens (e.g., air and water pollution, proximity to chemical plants and waste sites) as well as the discriminatory systems that have perpetuated those inequities." The guide (p.3) recommends incorporating environmental racism into the primary, junior and intermediate school divisions (omitting it only for kindergarten.)

Mr. Lau points out that the environment is obviously not racist and that ordinary people in free economies enjoy the best access to clean water, abundant food, and protection from natural disasters. The worst environmental calamity is the absence of capitalism.

 

2022-04-26

 

Friends of Science 19th Annual Event with Dr. Ian Plimer and Joanne Nova

Net-Zero + Green Grid = The Great Regret. This FREE virtual live-stream event will be presented in two parts. Each part consists of a live introduction by host, Michelle Stirling of Friends of Science Society, followed by a playback of the pre-recorded video of our speaker presentation, and then the viewing audience can join in the live question and answer session moderated by our host. See the Event Promo video. See our Event Page for more information.

Part 1; Dr. Ian Plimer, May 2, 2022, at 6 P.M. MDT (UTC – 6 hours)
Title: Climate change: The past is the key to the present

Part 2; Joanne Nova, May 9, 2022, at 7 P.M. MDT (UTC – 6 hours)
Title: How to destroy a perfectly good electricity grid in one million expensive steps

China Continues to Laugh at Western "Green Energy" Foolishness

Despite a cost-of-energy crisis now striking Europe and the US, Western governments are almost universally pursuing rapid elimination of the use of fossil fuels to "stop climate change" and "save the planet." Despite ~20 years and trillions of dollars of subsidies for "green energy" schemes, there has been only marginal reductions in the share of final energy consumption from fossil fuels. Led by China fossil fuel usage in the rest of the world is soaring.

Two recent reports, the International Energy Agency's Global Energy Review: CO2 Emissions in 2021, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation's China's Energy Dream, underscore the complete absurdity of Western green energy foolishness. The IEA report notes that global CO2 emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes increased 6% or 2.1 Gt from 2020, the largest year-on-year increase in absolute terms. China's emissions increased by 750 Mt over the two years since 2019.

According to the GWPF report coal accounted for 57% of China's energy consumption in 2020 and last year it added 38.4 GW of coal-fired power stations, three times as much as the rest of the world. Another 247 GW is in planning or development. According to the report's author: "The pursuit of CO2 reductions within China would serve neither the goal of preserving Communist rule nor becoming the world’s foremost superpower by 2049. To China’s leadership, it is a no-brainer. Carbon dioxide reductions only make sense for those it wishes to harm and supplant."

Killing Eagles is Fine, Just Get Your Permit First

The wind turbines of US company ESI Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nextera Energy Resources, killed 150 eagles over the past ten years, and on April 5 the company was fined $8 million, or $53,300 per carcass. It also agreed to spend $27 million during a period of probation to implement measures to minimize additional eagle deaths and payment of compensation for those deaths.

The fine was not for killing the 150 birds, but because ESI neglected to get permits for the slaughter beforehand. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits the "taking" of migratory birds, including eagles, without a permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which can issue eagle take permits. ESI deliberately elected not to apply for any ETP despite knowing that its facilities would be killing eagles.

In February 2022 the FWS, relying on greater population estimates since 2009, quietly announced increased bald eagle take limits from 3,731 to 15,832.

Fossil Fuels vs Renewable Energy

This essay in Not a Lot of People Know That by Paul Homewood provides a simple-to-understand comparison of fossil fuels vs wind and solar from the UK perspective. There, the transition to renewable energy has been slow and extremely expensive. After two decades of effort wind and solar supply only 3% of the UK's total energy consumption, with subsidies expected to cost £12 billion in 2021-22. This does not include indirect costs for grid balancing.

Claims that offshore wind costs are down to ~£40/MWh, but that is based on agreed prices for Contracts for Difference. (The CfD guarantees generators an agreed "strike price" by subsidy if the market reference price is less than the strike price. Conversely, if the market reference price is higher than the strike, the generator pays the difference to the government.) However, capital costs for offshore wind farms have not fallen in recent years, and true running costs are around £100/MW.

Solar power costs have come down, but the technology is at a dead end in the high-latitude UK. There, in winter solar farms typically output 2% of their nominal capacity. Even in sunny India, the government realizes that they can't run an electricity grid on intermittent power and project only 11% of their energy from renewables by 2040.

Using hydrogen extracted from natural gas as a renewables backup in the UK would be at least twice a costly as using the gas directly.

Besides intermittency, there is the matter of balancing seasonal supply and demand. In winter gas consumption peaks at around 350 GW, and current government plans target wind capacity of 45 GW by 2035, which on average is 15 GW and often as little as 2 GW.

"Green" Dreams and Agriculture

While the war between Russia and Ukraine dominates the headlines, and is disrupting global petroleum supplies, more significant is the war's impact on agriculture, as Ukraine and Russia are two the top grain-exporting countries. Meanwhile, environmentalists are doing their best to reduce agricultural output. In Sri Lanka to government mandated organic farming, resulting drastically declining yields and skyrocketing prices. In the UK carbon offset schemes are causing hedge funds to buy up farmland to plant trees and claim carbon offset credits.

The US produces more food than anyone, but countless acres of farmland are being taken over for wind and solar installations. In response to this and Moscow's aggression, Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany has introduced the Future Agricultural Retention and Management (FARM) Act that would prevent government subsidies from destroying farmland. According to Rep. Tiffany: "Some critics have argued that this bill is anti-wind and anti-solar. But that simply isn’t true. If electric companies want to build wind turbines or solar panels, nothing in the bill prevents them from doing so. But it does prevent taxpayer funds from tipping the scales in favor of wind and solar development at the expense of food production."

Sweden’s Arctic Paradox: "Green Industry Wants to Take Our Land"

In Sweden radical environmentalists are joining Sami reindeer herders against the "green" industry that wants to take their ancestral land. The semi-nomadic Sami are the EU's only remaining indigenous people. Their land in Sweden's far north is currently undergoing a "green transformation" to help the country become a world climate leader. Projects include CO2-free steel production (using hydrogen-reduced iron), an electric-vehicle battery "gigafactory" and vast wind farms to power it all. These projects, intended as solutions to a claimed climate breakdown, are making the Sami herding lifestyle harder by taking away grazing land.

Environmentalists opposing these developments are Forest Rebellion (an offshoot of Swedish Extinction Rebellion), Greenpeace activists, and Greta Thunberg. They and the Sami agree that "green industry" is a contradiction in terms, a belief that that same industry the caused the climate crisis and get us out of it.

Why Don't the Media ever Ask Why Previous IPCC Predictions Have Been So Wrong?

On April 4 the IPCC released its latest report, which found that nations are falling short on pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that the IPC considers necessary to avoid 1.5°C of global warming. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report: "… a litany of broken climate promises. It is a file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world."  In response Jack Hellner in the American Thinker poses five simple questions that the media won't ask:

 

Why Renewables Can’t Solve Europe's Energy Crisis

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine the EU started planning to replace its 155 billion cubic meters/year of pipelined Russian gas with LNG  imports, coal and even fuel oil, but with a relatively small amount of gas to be replaced by wind and solar. Due to supply constraints and increasing prices for copper, steel, polysilicon and other metals and minerals, stepping up construction of new wind parks and solar farms is not feasible in the short term. A breakdown of the EU plan to replace the 155 billion m3:

 

2022-04-04

 

Ross McKitrick: The 2030 Emissions Plan: Canada’s gift to Putin

The Canadian government has just released a 271-page Emission Reduction Plan (ERP) that calls on the country’s oil and gas sector to cut emissions by 31% below 2005 levels in the next eight years, which is 42% below current levels. It also wants the sector to get to “net-zero” by 2050. As Dr. McKitrick's argues, that means either ceasing operations altogether or using production methods that will price producers out of the world market. This would leave a clear field for Russia to expand its dominance in world markets, without causing any decline in world emissions, as people will get their energy from dictators while democracies like Canada exit the market.

The ERP is ideologically-driven with proposed new regulations, restrictions, targets and taxes, but with no analysis of what it will cost Canadians. The document claims that there's a climate emergency to be addressed (deadly heat waves and devastating wildfires and flooding), which Dr. McKitrick disproves with statistical charts. The ERP will have no impact on extreme weather.

 

Net-Zero and ESG Are Worsening the Energy Crisis – and Weakening the West

In a speech on March 8 US President Joe Biden announced a ban on imports of Russian oil, natural gas and other forms of energy. The next day a group of eleven powerful European investment funds that includes Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager, outlined plans to force Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, to cut its lending to oil and gas companies. Thus, at the same time as the Biden administration is sanctioning Russian oil and gas producers, Western investors are sanctioning Western producers—under the banner of ESG investing to create an artificial shortage of oil and gas in the West.

In fact, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told an audience filled with energy firm executives that their investors are demanding climate action. To ESG investors, climate action means deliberately starving oil and gas producers of capital for non-financial reasons, leading to under-investment and rising prices. In contrast the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said: "This is not a clean energy crisis, or a renewable energy crisis. These claims are irresponsible and are being used to attack public support for the net zero transition." The IEA’s net zero scenario for 2050 relies heavily on “ever-cheaper” wind and solar.

 

Putin's War Shakes Europe's Climate Agenda

Before Russia's war in Ukraine, Europe’s most pressing energy policy goal was climate change and reducing CO2 emissions. Russian President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine has forced officials to fixate on rapidly reducing the continent's reliance on Russian oil and natural gas. To do this Europeans will have to burn more coal and build more pipelines and terminals to import hydrocarbons from elsewhere. On March 25 the American and European officials announced a plan under which the US and other nations will increase liquefied natural gas exports to Europe this year. Germany, which lacks LNG receiving terminals, is promoting two of them on its North Sea coast. Spain wants to extend a gas pipeline across the Pyrenees to France. The German and Czech governments are contemplating extending the life of coal-fired power plants.

Despite the EU's pledge, enshrined in law, to reduce CO2 emissions by 55% below 1990 levels, the rapid pursuit of energy independence from Russia means that Europe will undergo "a slight increase" in emissions, but the hope is that in the long term, there will be more investment in renewables and energy efficiency.

 

Biden’s Commitment for US LNG to Supply Europe Faces Strong Headwinds

On March 25 US President Joe Biden committed the US liquefied natural gas industry to supply an additional 15 billion tonnes of LNG to Europe for the rest of 2022. However, it turns out that, before making the commitment, the president did not talk to the LNG industry, which was caught off guard.

Since the industry is privately owned, the only way the president could order it to conform its business operations to meet a national agenda would be by invoking emergency powers, such as the Defense Production Act. For example, former President Donald Trump used the DPA to speed the production of critical equipment and medicines during the Covid pandemic. In the present situation, many of President Biden's Democratic constituencies have signaled that they would oppose such a move. Thus, it seems that the president has has made a commitment on behalf of a competitive, capitalist industry that he has no non-emergency authority to fulfill.

 

Biden to Use Wartime Powers to Produce Minerals Needed For Green Energy

Responding to pressure from Democratic lawmakers and green energy interest groups, US President Joe Biden is poised to invoke the Defense Production Act to produce more minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Batteries and renewable energy technologies require these metals to operate. A range of interests has urged Mr. Biden to use the DPA to accelerate battery, wind turbine and solar panel building as a means of easing the strain on consumers and shifting the economy away from fossil fuels. Even some Republican senators are joining in the call to use the DPA to improve mineral production and reduce imports.

 

Aussie Noise Nuisance Court Defeat Is Panicking Renewable Energy Investors

A ruling by the Australian State of Victoria's Supreme Court could have “dramatic” and chilling effects on the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. The court found that the noise from the Bald Hills Wind farm created a nuisance to its neighbours ordering damages and an injunction. Two landowners took civil action against the wind farm last year, telling the court that "roaring" intermittent noise from the wind turbines caused health problems and loss of sleep.

In a precedent-setting decision, Justice Melinda Richards said the company had not complied with its noise permit conditions and ordered a permanent injunction over the wind farm, with an initial three-month period to fix the issue. The injunction will require the Bald Hills operators to "take necessary measures to abate" emitting loud noise at night. And if they don't, the wind farm will not be able to operate at night.

 

UN Secretary General Lashes Out at “Climate Holdout” Australia

After scolding the entire G20 for failing to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, UN Secretary-General António Guterres criticized Australia for not keeping up with the climate efforts of other G20 nations. He called Australia a “holdout” after its Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, refused to strengthen that nation’s 2030 emissions reduction target. Mr. Guterres said: “A growing number of G20 developed economies have announced meaningful emissions reductions by 2030 – with a handful of holdouts, such as Australia."

The Secretary-General may get his way if the governing Aussie Conservative coalition, which is doing badly in the polls, loses to a green Labor coalition in this year's federal election.

 

MSM Scares Themselves, Confuse ‘Unprecedented’ Weather Model Temperature Spikes with Actual Temperatures

Two mainstream media papers, The Guardian and the Microsoft News/Washington Post, published stories about unprecedented temperature spikes in the polar regions during late March. The Guardian piece, with the headline, Heatwaves at both of Earth's poles alarm climate scientists, said that temperatures in Antarctica reached 40°C above normal in places, while weather stations near the North Pole showed temperatures 30°C above normal. What The Guardian failed to mention is that the closest weather station to the North Pole is at Alert, Nunavut, 817 km from the pole.

The MSN/WaPo story, It's 70 degrees warmer than normal in Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted, claimed that parts of eastern Antarctica had temperatures 70°F (40°C) above normal for three days. This story included a graphic map of Antarctica showing colour-coded temperatures for March 18, which when clicked on to enlarge, displays the text: "Simulation of temperature differences from normal centered over Antarctica from America (GFS) model."

Surface temperature measurement at both poles is difficult. In the Arctic ice floats on the ocean, is unstable, moves and breaks up in the spring, making it impossible to keep a weather station in place. In Antarctica, the harsh environment buries weather stations in snow. Therefore, meteorologists rely on mathematical simulations to "guess" at the polar temperatures.

 

2022-03-12

 

Michael Shellenberger: The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin

While Vladimir Putin's motive for attacking Ukraine is to make it part of Russia rather than the West, in deciding to do so he shows that he understands the material reality and economics of energy better than Western leaders. He knows that Europe produces far less oil, natural gas, and coal than it uses, and thus depends on Russia for 20%, 40% and 20%, respectively of its requirements. It was the West's focus on healing the planet with renewables and moving away from natural gas and nuclear that allowed Mr. Putin to gain a stranglehold on Europe's energy supply.

Europeans—led by figures like Greta Thunberg and European Green Party leaders, and supported by Americans like John Kerry—believed that a healthy relationship with the Earth requires making energy scarce, and pretending that you can power a whole grid with solar and wind. So, when the sanctions against Russia were announced in early March, few voices called for hitting Russia where it really hurts: cutting off energy imports. That’s because European countries have no other good options right now, after green activism’s attacks on nuclear, fracking in Europe and importing fracked gas from America.

Mr. Schellenberger offers three solutions:

It’s not too late for the rest of the West to save the world from tyrannical regimes that have been empowered by our own energy superstitions.

 

Biden Administration Deals Blow to Gas Pipelines

On February 17 the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued new guidance for natural gas projects, adding new considerations for landowners, environmental justice communities and other factors. However, the most significant part is a new carbon emissions “threshold”, asserting that projects emitting over 100,000 tonnes/year of CO2 equivalent would “have a significant impact on the environment.” Projects that emit more than the threshold could still be approved if the benefits are found to outweigh the costs, for which the FERC would have to conduct an environmental impact statement that is more rigorous than the normal environmental assessment.

The FERC, with a 3-2 Democratic majority under the Biden administration, voted along party lines. One of the dissenting commissioners, Mark Christie, pulled no punches in criticizing the majority for assuming the power to rewrite both the Natural Gas Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, thereby usurping Congressional powers not delegated to the FERC. Mr. Christie added: "Preventing the construction of any new natural gas project is the overt public-policy goal of many interest groups who are conducting a national campaign of legal warfare, ‘lawfare’ for short, against every single natural gas project.  There is no doubt about that campaign.  And today’s new policy, whatever the intent, will have the undeniable effect of advancing that policy goal."

In recent years, environmentalists have successfully targeted the natural gas sector by dragging pipeline projects through lengthy and expensive legal battles.

 

EU Climate Chief: Temporarily Burning Coal In Line with EU's Climate Goals

Frans Timmermans is the EU's Executive Vice President, responsible for leading the European Green Deal and other climate-related activities. Yet, during a radio interview on March 3 he said that burning coal as an alternative to Russian gas would be in line with the EU's climate goals. More than 1/3 of Europe's gas comes from Russia. Some quotes from the broadcast: “Things have changed. I mean, history has taken a very sharp turn a week ago, and we need to come to terms with that historic change … Poland and several other countries had plans to transit out of coal, and then temporarily use natural gas and then move to renewables. If they stay longer with coal, but then immediately moved to renewables, it could still be within the parameters we set for our climate policy.”

Mr. Timmermans said that while some countries might seek to burn coal now, the response should “not slow down our transition to renewables, because that's what we need to avert the other mortal danger we are facing, which is the climate crisis.” He gave the example of Germany, which is drafting plans to sharply ramp up its renewable goals. Climate and Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Sunday did not rule out delaying the country's coal and nuclear phaseouts, telling German public television that there were "no taboos."

 

Roger Pielke Jr.:  ‌The IPCC Goes All-in with Implausible Scenarios and Political Exhortation

On February 28 the IPCC issued its Working Group 2 report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. WG1's report on the physical sciences was released last year and WG3's report on economics and mitigation will come later this year. These three WG reports make up the IPCC's sixth assessment report (AR6). As Roger Pielke Jr. writes, WG2 has strayed from its purpose of assessing and surveying scientific literature to becoming an advocate for emissions reduction. Previous WG2 reports focused exclusively on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, but the new one emphasizes mitigation (i.e., lowering emissions) rather than adaptation. One notable non-sequitur: “Successful adaptation requires urgent, more ambitious and accelerated action and, at the same time, rapid and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Dr. Pielke cites an example of WG2 claiming that flood risks and societal damages will increase with global warming as something that is not represented by the three papers cited by WG2 to justify the claim. Moreover, each of the papers used the out-of-date and implausible extreme RCP8.5 scenario. In fact, this scenario is infused throughout the WG2 report.

As an expert in several of the areas covered by WG2, Dr. Pielke is familiar with its work, but the overt advocacy stance led him to distrust the report. WG2 should have played things straight and leave mitigation to WG3.

 

Global Energy-related CO2 Emissions Grew to Record High of 36.3 Gt in 2021

Last year emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes rebounded to reach their highest level ever. Global economic output jumped 5.9% in 2021 and CO2 emissions increased by 6%, or 2.1 Gt over 2020 levels, reaching a record level of 36.3 Gt, more than offsetting 2020's pandemic-induced decline. These figures are from an analysis by the International Energy Agency, which blamed emissions from coal and complained: "The world has not heeded the call for a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 crisis." The IEA exhorted the world to ensure that the emissions rebound in 2021 becomes a one-off by accelerating deployment of clean energy technologies in 2022.

 

350.org Laid Low by Budget Crunch

In the early 2010s, 350.org, led by Bill McKibben a famed environmentalist and author, was the environmental movement’s driving force. Its guerrilla-style protests over causes, including blocking the Keystone XL pipeline, captured the public’s imagination. 350.org started with eight founding members in 2008 and had grown to 165 full-time employees—not including its many contractors—by 2019. In March of that year staff travelled to Killarney, Ireland, to attend a $800,000 retreat at a five-star resort.

At the Killarney retreat May Boeve, the executive director and one of 350.org’s founders, announced that she’d hiked the organization’s annual budget to $25 million, even though revenue had never exceeded $20 million. She told staff to dream big. She revealed plans for nearly 130 new hires to make a splash at global climate strikes that September—part of an envisioned revamp to improve the organization’s diversity and equity. When it became clear that the revenue projection was too optimistic there were mass layoffs, departures, exhaustion, distrust and a labour battle that persists to this day. The organization's US program office fell from 50 staff in 2019 to nine by the end of 2021.

But for all its success, the group struggled to overcome its founding by a group of white people. The organization's power centre was run by white officials at the top as the lower ranks were filled with people of color, who appear to have suffered disproportionally from the layoffs. Last year the racial justice organization Action Center on Race and the Economy walked away from a $100,000 grant that 350.org offered to partner on a campaign. In December 2021 an email from several staffers to executive leadership complained that 350.org's restructuring had already caused attrition as employees left after learning that they would drop multiple levels of seniority and pay, shift onto new teams, or move out of managerial roles entirely. Ms. Boeve, however, sees light at the end of the tunnel and a more diverse and equitable organization in the future.

 

Green Civil War: Renewable Energy vs Wilderness Preservation

People who actually care about animals and trees are finally pushing back and winning, against the wholesale wilderness destruction renewable energy supporters are attempting to inflict on green spaces. In Minnesota land was leased for a copper mine that would have provided a domestic source of minerals crucial for renewable energy production and storage (copper, nickel, platinum, palladium, gold and silver). For example, electric vehicles use up to ten times the amount of copper needed for internal combustion vehicles (183 lb. vs 18-49 lb.) A 2020 study predicted increased demand between 2015 and 2060 of 87,000% for EV batteries, 1,000% for wind power and 3,000% for solar cells and photovoltaics. This will increase lithium demand 40 times, followed by graphite, cobalt and nickel (around 20-25 times).

Development of the Minnesota mining leases would likely have been a disaster for the wilderness: the odds are high that the sulfide-ore mining would eventually result in acid mine drainage and the leaching of toxic metals into protected waterways on which a diversity of life depends, in an area with a substantial and established recreating economy. As a result, the Biden administration cancelled the leases.

In the American West there are other mining projects in the works with similar conflicts between the necessity of obtaining minerals for the renewable energy economy and preserving ecologically intact landscapes, sometimes with implications for local and indigenous peoples.  These include a cobalt mine near the Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho, a lithium mine opposed by Indigenous groups near Thacker Pass in Nevada, a gold and antinomy mine in Idaho that may adversely impact fisheries utilized by the Nez Perce, and there are potential rare earth mines scattered throughout remote parts of the West and Alaska.

One environmental group, the Audubon Society, has offered qualified support for bird-chopping wind turbines, provided they’re “properly sited.”

                                                  

The Largest Lithium-Ion Battery in the World Keeps Melting

On February 13 ten battery packs at an energy storage facility owned by Vistra Energy in Moss Landing, California caught fire and melted. The facility’s fire suppression system was activated and had successfully cooled the batteries by the time fire fighters arrived. This is the second time in five months that the 300-megawatt facility has gone offline due to battery issues. The plant was less than a year old when the first incident took place in September, setting off sprinklers that damaged around 7,000 batteries, or 7 percent of the facility’s nearly 100,000 battery modules. 

The most recent incident highlights how fragile battery storage systems are: Lithium-ion batteries ignite easily and the fires they generate are difficult to contain. Water only reacts with lithium—it doesn’t put lithium fires out. 

 

2022-02-17

 

Court Ruling on Social Cost of Carbon Deals Blow to Biden’s Climate Efforts

A ruling by a federal district court in Louisiana has dealt a blow to one of US President Joe Biden's key climate initiatives. The story begins on January 20, 2021 when Mr. Biden signed an executive order that determined (Sec. 5, Accounting for the Benefits of Reducing Climate Pollution) that there were "social costs" of carbon, nitrous oxide and methane (SCC, SCN and SCM) — estimates of the monetized damages associated with incremental increases in greenhouse gas emissions. The order directed all government agencies to use these social costs when conducting cost-benefit analyses of regulatory and other actions. The order also directed an Interagency Working Group (IWG) on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases to develop a methodology and publish values for SCC, SCN and SCM that "reflect the interests of future generations in avoiding threats posed by climate change." The order specified that the calculation of SCC, etc. had to take global damages into account. This June 2020 (Trump Administration) report shows the difference in SCC when calculated on a global or domestic basis ($50/t or $7/t in 2020, respectively when using a 3% discount rate.)

In April 2021 Louisiana and nine other states challenged the order in court alleging that it violates earlier regulation regarding calculation of SCC, etc., in particular not using discount rates of both 3% and 7% (the higher the discount rate the lower the SCC), and not calculating the social costs only on a domestic basis, which makes the SCC negative (in other words each tonne of CO2 emitted causes a net benefit to the US.)

On February 11 Judge James D. Cain, Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana ruled that:

Dr. Patrick Michaels of the Competitive Enterprise Institute calls this sweeping decision "the biggest ruling ever against the global warming alarmism that has been thriving in Washington for decades" and predicts that it will hold even if appealed to the Supreme Court.

 

Greens Fear Boris Johnson's Downfall

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing an investigation into allegations of lockdown-busting parties as well as Conservative MPs angry over energy price increases that could topple him if 15% of the MPs trigger a vote of no confidence. If Mr. Johnson loses that vote by a simple majority, the MPs will hold a series of votes to determine two final candidates. The wider party membership will then choose between the two finalists.

Currently, the two favorite successors are Chancellor (finance minister) Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Mr. Sunak’s ambivalence towards the green agenda has been well-documented. At a party conference last fall he failed to mention climate change once. He is also aware that the cost of net-zero has become a bone of contention about his party's backbench MPs. In previous cabinet jobs Ms. Truss opposed the UK's bid to host COP26 and allowed Australia to strip out climate change commitments from a free-trade agreement.

Bob Ward, the policy director at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at the London School of Economics, warned of attempts to undermine public support for climate action. “The growing crisis around energy prices threatens to delay implementation of the policies necessary to make the net zero target credible,” he said. “There is a small but noisy group of Conservative MPs, whose voices are being amplified by the usual suspects in parts of the media, who are attempting to mislead the public about the roots of the current crisis, blaming green energy policies rather than the true cause: wholesale prices of natural gas.”

 

New German Leader Proposes "Climate Club" to Punish Free Riders Like Australia

The new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, wants the G7 nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the US and the UK) to become founding members of an international "climate club" to coordinate shared climate policy standards and impose costs on countries that don’t meet them. The chancellor made the proposal during a speech on January 19 to the World Economic Forum where he said: "We will use our Presidency of the G7 to turn that group into the nucleus of an International Climate Club. What we want to achieve is a paradigm shift in international climate policy: we will no longer wait for the slowest and least ambitious."

Australia, having promised to cut emissions by 26-28% compared to the G7's ~50%, is widely seen as a free-rider in rich-country climate efforts.

 

Germany Clearing "Undisturbed" 1,000-Year-Old Forest for Wind Park

The government of the German state of Hesse has approved the clearing of 20 million m2 (2,000 ha) of the 1,000 year-old "fairy tale" Reinhardswald forest located in the hilly region west of the city of Göttingen for a massive wind power development. The project will include the construction of 14 km of new and upgraded roads capable of carrying heavy loads in the valuable eco-system of the forest.

According to the environmental protection group Aktionsbündnis Märchenland: "The decision to grant construction permission in the Reinhardswald forest, which is known far beyond the state and even federal borders, is considered by the Action Alliance group to be shockingly wrong, exclusively politically motivated and, moreover, highly endangering confidence in the implementation of the transition to green energies. We are already announcing that we will document all events in the Reinhardswald and make them public, as well as all existing expert reports and expert authority statements. In addition, we are already asking all supporters who take photographs and film to contact us so that we can coordinate the work if necessary. The clearing began immediately today as over one hundred-year-old beech trees have already fallen."

 

Bjørn Lomborg: Electric Cars Won't Save the Planet

Twenty years ago, the UK government announced a new car tax system favoring diesel vehicles over gasoline because of their lower CO2 emissions. Over a decade and a half the number of diesel vehicles on British roads quadrupled. Then it emerged that diesel engines emit greater quantities of nitrogen oxides and particulates that damage air quality and impact human health. Now diesel is a dirty word, and many countries penalize drivers with extra duties and congestion charges. Now the UK government is banning the sale of all new fossil-fueled vehicles after 2030 while extolling electric cars as the future.

However, electric vehicles also cause more particulate pollution from brake linings, tires, and road surfaces due to the heavy weight of their batteries. From the owners' perspective EVs have higher upfront costs than gasoline-powered ones, limited range and take more time to "refuel." Governments face the infrastructure costs of charging points and the extra power to supply them, as well as costly purchase subsidies and loss of fuel and other taxes. A study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that EV subsidies go to the wealthiest 20%, for whom the purchase of an extra car is little sacrifice. In addition, 90% of these buyers have a fossil-fueled vehicle for longer journeys.

Finally, EVs won't save the planet. The International Energy Agency estimates that if every nation achieves its ambitious targets on increasing electric car ownership, it will reduce CO2 emissions in this decade by 235 million tonnes, which, according to the IPCC's standard climate model will reduce global temperatures by 0.0001°C by 2100. Then there are the devastating ecological side effects of mining and processing the needed minerals, as well as associated human rights abuses.

 

Why Global Warming Is Good for Us

In this essay Matt Ridley argues that global warming is real and mostly beneficial — something that is kept from the public by alarmists and their media allies who are determined to use the language of crisis and emergency. Among the benefits of global warming and/or CO2 emissions:

 

Fact Checkers Defend Activist Scientists Because They Agree with Them, Not Because They're Right

Susan Crockford's writings refuting claims about global warming being a threat to polar bears has made her a target of fact checkers trying to insist one side of the debate is wrong and another is right because they happen to agree with one side. In this article Dr. Crockford lists ten facts to support her thesis, together with links provided for additional reference.

Specifically, Dr. Crockford responds to a post by AFP Fact Check titled Online posts mislead on threat to polar bears, which contends that there is not enough data to show a rising trend in polar bear numbers.

 

Paid Press Releases Now Officially the News

On February 15 AP announced that it is assigning more than two dozen journalists across the world to cover climate issues. The money for these journalists will come from an $8 million grant over three years donated by five foundations: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quadrivium, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. To justify its acceptance of this "mutually beneficial" paid journalism AP points to The New York Times undertaking grant-funded projects and the Ford Foundation giving $32.5 million last year for journalism projects. 

According to Marc Morano the media's coverage of climate change "has sunk to a new journalistic low" as "the AP will be parroting what the ideological activist groups’ funding pays for, while actual news will be tossed aside." The Society of Professional Journalists has issued its Code of Ethics for journalists, from which Mr. Morano quotes key excerpts and "reality checks" of how the code will fare under the new paid journalism regime.

 

2022-02-02

 

How Norway Affords Its Massive EV Subsidies

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate announced that 2021 was a "great year" for oil and gas in Norway as both demand and prices increased. In the final quarter of 2021, revenues were $11.5 billion/month. Norway has now extracted approximately half of all oil and gas resources available on its continental shelf.

Despite all the oil and gas revenue Norwegians pay more for gasoline ($8.23/US gal.) than almost every other nation. Norway compensates for this exorbitant price by massively subsidizing electric vehicle purchases, e.g., no purchase/import taxes nor 25% value-added tax; 50% rebate on ferry fares, road tolls and parking fees; access to bus lanes. As a result, sales of EVs rose by 48% last year, such that almost 2/3 of new vehicles were battery powered, with Tesla becoming the best-selling brand.

Norway needs to sell over 100 barrels of oil (which emit 40 tonnes of CO2) to pay for the tax breaks it gives EVs to avoid emitting one tonne of CO2. Since nearly all Norway's electricity comes from cheap ($0.14/kWh) hydropower, an EV's emissions come only from its manufacture and shipping. Overall, Norway's EV subsidies result in the export of 45-73 tonnes of CO2 emissions for every tonne of avoided domestic emissions, which is good business for Norway.

 

Build Back Cheaper: US Fossil Fuel Production to Hit Record Highs in 2023

America’s production of fossil fuels is expected to hit a record high in 2023, as continued improvements in drilling efficiency in oil and gas and high enough oil prices will support increased output of all fossil fuels, including coal, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on January 21. Production of natural gas, crude oil and coal in 2021 rose by 2% to 77.14 quadrillion (1015) British thermal units. The EIA expects US hydrocarbon output to continue rising this year and reach a new record in 2023.

At 46% natural gas accounted for the largest share, with crude oil at 30%, coal at 15% and natural gas liquids at 9%. Last year coal production jumped 7% last year due to higher demand for electricity generation.

 

Global Warming Saved 500,000 Lives in England and Wales in the Last 20 Years

The UK's Office of National Statistics ran a study to estimate the change in deaths and hospital admissions associated with rising temperatures in England and Wales for 2001 to 2020. The ONS found "… relatively little increase in deaths caused by warmer weather and a reduction in deaths caused by cold winters, leading to a net decrease in deaths; in contrast, there was a net increase in hospital admissions linked to warmer weather, especially from injuries." Over the 20-year period "… the estimated change in deaths associated with warm or cold temperature was a net decrease of 555,103, an average of 27,755 deaths per year. A decrease in deaths from outcomes associated with cold temperature greatly outnumbers deaths associated with warm temperature."

 

The 1970s Cooling Scare Was Real

In this 13-minute video Climate Discussion Nexus' John Robson describes the first climate scare of recent times: the Cooling Scare of the early 1970s, which often featured stories about a coming Ice Age. While current-day climate activists like Andrew Weaver concede there was hype in the popular media about cooling back then, it wasn't reflected in scientific journals. However, a 1985 study found that many articles on global cooling did appear in scientific journals, and that cooling would result in more extreme weather, just like today's predictions of warming leading to extreme weather.

Scientists like Reid Bryson and Steven Schneider attributed the downward trend in temperatures since the 1940s to particulate matter (aerosols) from industrial pollution, which cause cooling, overwhelming the warming effect of CO2 emissions. In December 1972 two prominent climate scientists wrote to then US President Richard Nixon reporting on a conference attended by 42 top American and European investigators, warning: "The present rate of the cooling seems fast enough to bring glacial temperatures in about a century, if continuing at the present pace." However, among today's scientific activists the 1970s cooling scare appears to be disappearing down the same memory hole as the Medieval Warm Period.

 

The Backlash Against Wind and Solar in the US

Robert Bryce has been writing about the energy business for three decades. In this 10-minute video he explains how power density determines the size and shape of our energy networks, which he condenses into the "Iron Law of Power Density" (the lower the power density, the higher the resource intensity). The current push to "electrify everything" means moving our energy systems from reliable, dispatchable high power-density sources to unreliable, non-dispatchable low power-density sources that require far more input resources.

Mr. Bryce has compiled a database documenting US wind and solar rejections or restrictions since 2015. All of these are the result of 323 communities from Hawaii to Maine protecting themselves against Big Wind.  The database also includes 13 Big Solar projects that were rejected in 2021. Rural America is largely invisible to journalists at most big-city news outlets, as well as to rich activist groups like the Sierra Club and their allies in academia, so these rejections get ignored by most media outlets.

Mr. Bryce's preferred energy strategy is "N2N", natural gas to nuclear.

 

Henry Geraedts: What really happened in Glasgow

At Glasgow according to Mr. Geraedts, "Net Zero’s magical thinking met unyielding global energy realities and it lost, leaving the Paris Accord’s climate ambitions withering on the vine." As evidence he points to how governments representing most of the world's population put Western "climate leaders" on notice that hydrocarbon energy is indispensable for economic prosperity and political stability. Developing countries will focus on climate adaption, not mitigation.

He notes that as people realize how directly Net Zero will hit them, they shorten their horizons. Climate politicians should realize that elections are won or lost in voters' wallets. It took politicians years to finally abandon the Kyoto Protocol, and time will tell how long it will take them to deal with Glasgow's new realities and recognize that hydrocarbons are an indispensable, long-term energy source and a cornerstone of our national prosperity.

 

World Risks More Years of High Energy Prices and Emissions: IEA

The International Energy Agency has published its semi-annual Electricity Market Report, stating that the world faces years of high electricity prices and related emissions, following a 6% increase in demand last year. In absolute terms the increase was more than 1,500 TWh, the largest ever. As the Executive Summary to the IEA report states, over half this increase took place in China, which experienced a 10% growth. Coal-fired electricity generation grew by 9%, that fastest since 2011 and gas-fired by 2%. Electricity from renewables grew by 6%, despite growth being limited by unfavorable weather conditions. In Europe average wholesale electricity prices in the fourth quarter of 2021 were four times the 2015-2020 average.

For 2022-2024 the IEA forecasts renewables to almost match moderate demand growth of 2.7%/year and fossil-fuel generation to stagnate. It notes that today's policy settings are insufficient to cut emissions, so those from the power sector will remain at around the same level for the next three years.

 

Half of Remaining UK Energy Firms "About to go bust"

At the start of 2021 roughly 70 companies were supplying energy to UK households, but most have become insolvent, with their customers transferred to surviving suppliers. The UK accountancy firm Price Bailey checked the credit risk scores and balance sheet information for the  remaining 22 domestic electricity and gas licensees registered with Ofgem , the regulator for electricity and gas markets (excluding the Big Six and two businesses with suppressed risk scores). Price Bailey found that 12, or 55%, of the remainder have negative assets on their balance sheets.

According to a Price Bailey partner: "The winter of discontent for the energy supply sector is unlikely to end soon. Around half of suppliers have already gone bust and at least another half are technically insolvent and at imminent risk of collapse. These businesses will find it almost impossible to access extra funding unless directors provide personal guarantees, and few are likely to do so in the current climate. We are seeing a domino effect. Every time a small energy retailer goes bust, that increases the financial strain on the rest of the ecosystem, making those businesses more vulnerable to collapse."

 

2022-01-24

 

Germany Will likely ‘miss its 2022 and 2023 climate targets’, Vice-Chancellor Says

German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck is also co-leader of that country's Green Party, which forms the "traffic-light" coalition with the socialist SPD and the liberal FDP parties. On January 11 Mr. Habeck presented Germany's 2021 climate account, stating that the country missed its emissions target due to exceptionally low winds, coupled with recovery from the drop caused by Covid-19 restrictions. “The climate protection measures taken to date are inadequate in all sectors,” he said, adding that Germany would likely “miss its 2022 and 2023 climate targets.” To get back on track he promised to "triple the pace of our emissions reductions and do significantly more in less time." Specifically, Mr. Habeck will present two climate protection packages, in April and sometime in the summer.

The Vice-Chancellor has outlined seven priority measures he hopes will be adopted by summer:

Industry groups are waiting to see how Mr. Habeck’s measures will be translated into concrete terms.

 

Bloomberg Finally Admits Renewables Mania Caused Europe’s Energy Crisis

Michael Schellenberger, author of Apocalypse Never, noticed that Bloomberg, one of the biggest boosters of natural gas and renewables, has published an article titled Europe Sleepwalked Into an Energy Crisis That Could Last Years, which substantiates what Mr. Schellenberger has been saying about unreliable and expensive renewable power generation. He notes that Bloomberg misdescribes the situation in some ways, such as labelling the deployment of renewables as an "energy transition" and failing to acknowledge the energy-dilute physics of renewables.

With New England now at grave risk of energy shortages for the same reasons as Europe, Mr. Schellenberger says it's time for the American people and their representatives to realize that modern societies cannot rely on unreliable renewables.

 

The Economist: It's Not Cheap Being Green

Like much of the mainstream media The Economist never misses an opportunity to work climate change into any story and use the occasion to stress the necessity of rapidly transitioning primary energy sources from hydrocarbons to renewables (wind and solar). However, current state of the energy market in Britain has forced The Economist to confront the inescapable, painful reality of the transition to "green."

The British rely on gas for 40% of electricity generation and heating 85% of houses, and its price has trebled in the past year. Squeezed by government-imposed cap on retail prices, two dozen energy companies have gone bankrupt. The UK government's drive to decarbonize electricity has led to a sharp rise in unreliable wind and solar on the grid, but the past few months have been some of the stillest in decades, forcing increased use of thermal generation. As more renewables are added to the system, more gas plants will be needed as expensive backup. To decarbonize electricity generation by 2035 means that these gas plants will be fitted with carbon-capture technology, further raising the cost of power. As The Economist's piece concludes: "One way or another the public will pay, whether through higher bills, higher taxes or a combination of both."

 

The Cost of Net-Zero Electrification of the US

On December 21 Ken Gregory, a Friends of Science director, published a report on the cost of net-zero electrification of the US using wind and solar generation with backup by fossil-fuel generation and/or batteries. This work builds on an October 2020 report by Thomas Tanton, president of energy consultant T2 & Associates, who calculated that the electrification would cost $18 to $29 trillion in first costs. The Tanton report concluded that electrification costs would be greater than the estimated social cost of carbon for the resulting avoided emissions and recommended less costly and more efficient means to reduce atmospheric CO2, including carbon capture.

Mr. Gregory used the Excel file provided with the Tanton report to review its assumptions and calculations, finding several deficiencies, the major one being that the battery storage costs for cases without fossil-fuel backup were too low.  He then created a new spreadsheet correcting these deficiencies using the actual 2019 and 2020 solar and wind production profiles and assuming 0% - 60% of the fossil-fuel power generation (with carbon capture and storage) would be used with the remainder replaced by wind and solar. According to Mr. Gregory's calculations the total cost of electrification without fossil-fuel backup would be $386 trillion to $433 trillion, the latter being equivalent to 20 times the 2019 US GDP.

Francis Menton, writing in the Manhattan Contrarian, noticed Mr. Gregory's analysis and congratulated him for a "highly competent and useful piece of work." Mr. Menton predicts that, even if few pay attention to costs of wind and solar electrification now, eventually reality will win out.

 

As Coal Use Surges, America Finds It's hard to Unplug from Carbon

In 2021 US coal consumption jumped 17% above 2020 levels, largely driven by increased natural gas prices, which averaged $4.93 per million BTU last year. This shows that (1) coal remains an essential fuel for electricity producers in both the US and around the world, and (2) the Biden administration's pledge to decarbonize the grid by 2035 is wishful thinking. Coal's necessity was displayed at COP26 where India, China and other developing countries rejected a deal calling for a "phase-out" of coal-fired power plants in favour of a "phase-down."

Decarbonizing the electrical grid will require finding economically viable and socially acceptable substitutes for coal and natural gas. Politically popular wind and solar are facing a backlash by communities because of land-use conflicts. In the case of solar, nearly half the world's supply of polysilicon, a key ingredient for solar panels, comes from China's Xinjiang province, where the Chinese government has a program of systematic repression and forced labour.

While it's easy for politicians to vilify hydrocarbons and hype renewables, it's clear that economics matter.

 

Google "Demonetizes" Another Climate Skeptic Website

Each month the University of Alabama Huntsville's Dr. Roy Spencer publishes the latest satellite-based update of global temperatures, while monetizing his website using Google AdSense. This month, after warning about unspecified "policy violations" Google notified Dr. Spencer that it is demonetizing DrRoySpencer.com for "unreliable and harmful claims." Upon reflection Dr. Spencer realized that that Google's action is related to its announced policy of demonetizing climate skeptic websites. He determined that the monthly global temperature update pages, being the most frequented on his website in terms of ads, were what drew Google's ire.

Dr. Spencer decided that appealing Google's decision would not be worth the aggravation, stating: "I can’t expect their liberal arts-educated 'fact checkers' to understand the nuances of the global warming debate."

 

Cambridge University is Explicitly Pushing for Political Authoritarianism in the Name of Climate Change

A recent paper published by the Cambridge University Press titled Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change explicitly advocates that society must prioritize climate action over democratic principles and adopt an authoritarian government if society fails to politically act on climate change. The author, Ross Mittiga, assistant professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, uses the legitimacy of governments' response to the Covid-19 pandemic by imposing severe limitations on free movement and association. Since, in his view, climate change poses an even greater threat to public safety, an authoritarian response is similarly legitimate.

Writing in Climate Realism, Anthony Watts notes that the Mittiga paper offers no evidence that a "climate crisis" exists but assumes it to be so based on the frequency of political discussions using the term. If the alleged "crisis" were affecting public safety, then there would be an increase in global deaths related to supposed climate events. Mr. Watts refers to a chart of 1920-2021 climate-related deaths prepared by Bjørn Lomborg, which shows a clear downward trend.

As Mr. Watts concludes: "Sadly, and frighteningly, as illustrated by Mittiga in the Cambridge University Press the green socialist left is increasingly embracing tyranny in the form of authoritarian power to act on their viewpoint on climate change. But clearly, real-world data don’t support their viewpoint let alone their call to action."

In The Federalist Justin Haskins argues that the Mittiga paper is an example of a growing movement among some in academia and environmentalist groups wanting to use Covid-style tyranny to "flight climate change." He notes that Prof. Mittiga suggests censorship of climate denialism and misinformation in the public media and a "climate litmus-test" for candidates running for public office. Unlike Covid, once climate authoritarianism is in place, it might never go away.

 

2022-01-05

 

It's All Over for Biden's Climate Agenda

On December 19 Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced that, after months of negotiations, there is no way that he can support the massive $1.75 trillion social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act, a key legislative objective for President Joe Biden's administration. The BBBA includes $555 billion under "Climate" for renewable electricity generation and transmission, battery storage, electric vehicles and making communities more resilient to climate disasters. Although the BBBA has already passed the House of Representatives, Sen. Manchin's vote is critical to getting it approved in the 50-50 Senate.

The senator released a statement on why he opposes the BBBA. In it he notes that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined that the bill's true cost would be upwards of $4.5 trillion. The national debt is $29 trillion, and inflation is harming Americans with no end in sight. Moreover, the bill, if enacted, would risk the reliability of the electric grid and increase dependence on foreign supply chains.

 

Countries' Climate Pledges Based on Flawed Data

An investigation by The Washington Post found that many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions to the UN. Over a total of 196 country reports the global gap ranges from 8.5 billion to 13.3 billion tonnes/year. At the low end the gap is larger than the annual US emissions, and at the high end it comprises 23% of the global total.

The UNFCCC collects country reports and oversees the Paris Agreement. The UN agency attributed the gap that The Post identified to “the application of different reporting formats and inconsistency in the scope and timeliness of reporting (such as between developed and developing countries, or across developing countries).”

The Post's analysis found that 59% of the gap stems from how countries account for emissions from land. Land can draw in CO2 as plants grow and soil stores it, or it can return to the atmosphere as forests burn down or are logged and as peat-rich bogs are drained. More controversially, UN rules allow countries such as China, Russia and the US to offset emissions from fossil fuels by claiming that CO2 is absorbed by land within their borders. For example, Malaysia released 422 Mt of greenhouse gases in 2016, putting it among the top 25 emitters, but claimed 341 Mt of offsets from its trees and reported just 81 Mt.

Methane is the second source of underreporting, in the oil and gas sector, agriculture and human waste. Fluorinated gases used in air conditioning, refrigeration and the electricity industry, are often not reported at all.

 

US Shale Gas to Rescue of Fuel-Starved Europe

Facing a winter shortage and little relief from the continent's main supplier, Russia, natural gas in Northwest Europe is trading for about $57.54 per million British thermal units, up almost a third from a week earlier. That’s roughly $24 higher than Asian prices and more than 14 times higher than gas being sold on US benchmark Henry Hub. Out of 76 US LNG cargoes in transit, 10 tankers carrying a combined 1.6 million cubic meters of the heating and power plant fuel have declared destinations in Europe. Another 20 tankers carrying an estimated 3.3 million cubic meters appear to be crossing the Atlantic Ocean and are on a path to the continent.

 

Tesla: Nothing Says Customer Satisfaction Like 30 kg of Dynamite

The power train warranty, including battery, on a Tesla varies by model. For a Model S/X it's 8 years/150,000 miles, whichever comes first, but for a Model Y/3 Short Range it's 8 years/100,000 miles (120,000 miles for the Long Range). During the covered period Tesla guarantees 70% battery retention and will replace the battery if it drops below this capacity.

However, in Finland Tuomas Katainen was the owner of at 2013 Model S that had its battery pack fail after the warranty expired. The Tesla dealer informed him that the only option was to replace the whole battery cell. According to Mr. Katainen: "The cost would be at least Euro 20,000 and permission for the operation has to be asked from Tesla. So, I told them that I'm going to explode the whole car away because apparently there was no guarantee or anything."

Mr. Katainen made good on his promise by reaching out to YouTuber Pommijätkät, a channel known for blowing things up, to strap 30 kg of dynamite to the vehicle with a dummy of Elon Musk in the driver's seat, and detonate it while filming the event. They did remove the battery pack and motor beforehand. Electrek's story, while sympathetic to Mr. Katainen's plight, warns against EV naysayers using it as "proof" that EVs don't work, saying that batteries in higher-volume vehicles like the Model 3 and the Model Y should be cheaper to replace.

 

EU Energy Crisis Deepens as France and Germany ‘make a mockery' of Green Transition Plan

In late December across Europe electricity prices exceeded €300/MWh, except for Poland and Scandinavia. These shocking prices come as the European commission delays the announcement of the highly anticipated green taxonomy list, partly due to bickering between France and Germany. The EU taxonomy system was created to determine which investments are environmentally sustainable and help prevent "greenwashing". Particularly contentious is whether to include natural gas (favored by Germany) and nuclear (championed by France) as "green" investments.

The European Commission is facing a backlash after finally releasing draft rules allowing gas and nuclear to be included in the EU “taxonomy of environmentally sustainable economic activities.” Germany’s economy and climate action minister said the plans “water down the good label for sustainability” and questioned “whether this greenwashing will even find acceptance on the financial market.” Austria’s government repeated its threat to sue the commission if the plans go ahead. France’s European affairs minister said the proposal was good on a technical level and the EU could not reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 without nuclear power.

 

Despite Energy Crisis Germany Closes Three Nukes

As Europe faces one of its worst ever energy crises, on December 31 Germany shut down three nuclear power plants in in Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen. The decommissioning process will take two decades and cost €1.1 billion per plant. The three remaining nukes — Emsland in Lower Saxony, Isar in Bavaria and Neckarwestheim in Baden-Württemberg — will go offline at the end of 2022. A recent survey showed that half of Germans said they were in favour of reversing the nuclear shutdown due to the recent rise in energy prices.

Other European countries, including France, are continuing to push for nuclear, especially small modular reactors.

 

Net Zero 2050: Rhetoric and Realities

Henry Geraedts, adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan's graduate school of public policy, argues that the Canadian government's Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (which intends to move the economy to net-zero by 2050) is like setting a goal and assuming that doing so makes it therefore inevitable — an example of wishful thinking. The pseudo-scientific hyperbole framing net-zero politics is an example of Goodhart's Law (every measure that becomes a target becomes a bad measure.)

"Green" technologies compound two fatal flaws — high materials density and high input energy requirements — into a third one: unreliable, high-cost, low energy-density output. The reality is that hydrocarbons are nature's most efficient source of primary energy, with a combination of high energy density, abundance, stability, safety, portability and affordability unmatched by any other source.

The International Energy Agency estimates that the materials density issue alone will precipitate 700% - 4,200% increases in demand for critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and rare earths, amplifying geopolitical risks and environmental, economic and human rights impacts. All "green" energy technologies entail growing negative environmental impacts. Neither turbine blades nor solar panels nor lithium-ion batteries are economically recyclable, and their materials end up in landfills, leaching toxic chemicals.

The growing realization that wind, solar, hydrogen and batteries are incapable of insuring adequate, reliable and affordable energy means that electrification of key economic sectors can occur only through next-generation nuclear power. And hydrocarbons, already built into the core of our societies, will continue to remain key to the energy mix.

 

Daniel Yergin: Why the Energy Transition Will Be So Complicated

Mr. Yergin, author of The New Map: Energy, Climate, and Clash of Nations; The Quest and The Prize, explains why the degree to which the world depends on oil and gas is not well understood. He begins with an example of the "politically-aware" clothing manufacturer North Face refusing to sell its jackets to an oil and gas company. This, even though 90% of the materials in North Face's jackets are made from petrochemicals and its owner has just built a hanger to house its hydrocarbon-fueled corporate jets.

COP26 included pledges of transitioning to carbon neutrality by 2050, but as the North Face example shows, this is more complicated than may be recognized. The first big energy transition started in 1709 when a metalworker discovered that he could make better iron using coal, rather than wood, for heat. However, coal did not overtake wood as the world's No. 1 energy source until the beginning of the 20th century. Oil was discovered in 1859 but did not surpass coal until the 1960s. Even so, the world uses almost three times as much coal as it did in the 1960s.

The coming energy transition is meant to be a complete switch of the energy basis of today's $86 trillion world economy (possibly $185 trillion in 2050), which gets 80% of its energy from hydrocarbons. The transition is about more than shifting energy sources, but also about the way we use plastics and other oil and gas derivatives essential for consumer and medical products. It also threatens to create a new "North-South Divide" as populous countries like India and Nigeria, where immediate priorities require growing use of hydrocarbon energy. Also, they are worried about international financial institutions "banning" the financing of hydrocarbon development.

 

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