Energy Policies

Net Zero Not Only Inhuman, It’s Also Ecocidal

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Roger Palmer speaks quietly, but with the force of knowledge and logic on the subject of global warming/climate change.  Two expressions of his perspective are presented here: firstly a brief video and transcript, and secondly excerpts from his 2024 paper. Transcript in italics with my bolds and added images.  H/T Raymond Inauen

1. Trust Climate History, Not Hysteria

I’m Roger Palmer, a retired engineer living in Victoria, British Columbia. Today I want to talk about climate change hysteria. The popular press is overflowing with sensational but scary headlines: the hottest day on record, sea levels are rising, climate catastrophe. It’s never been like this before, climate change is an existential threat, we are declaring a climate emergency, it’s man’s fault.

These hysterical messages are reinforced at disruptions organized by career demonstrators and professional protesters. Politicians are falling over themselves to agree with these claims and position themselves as the only viable saviors of mankind who are able to stop the climate from changing. You can’t get elected if you are perceived as being soft on climate change.

The authors of all this spurious noise unfortunately do not have a good understanding of science or the historical paleoclimatic record. These people are so arrogant and self-centered that they believe that man can control the solar system and somehow cancel the naturally occurring climate cycles, so that the earth’s climate stays just the way they want it.

Let’s start the discussion by outlining a difference between weather and climate. When a person speaks about weather they are referring to how the atmosphere is behaving over the short term hours or days and usually over a small area. The term climate refers to the statistics of weather over a defined large region over a long period of time, decades or more. the atmospheric characteristics being described include temperature, winds, moisture, clouds and precipitation.

But it is the temperature that most people seem to focus on. In the 1970s the concern was about global cooling, but it has now shifted to global warming. An example of a weather statement is: “It will be cooler and windy in downtown Ottawa tomorrow.” An example of a climate statement is: “North America will be warmer over the next two decades.”

Reliable equipment for measuring temperature has been available since the early 1800s, but unfortunately the number and placement of temperature recording stations has changed considerably over time. So it is often difficult to get a complete and consistent record for a specific area temperature history. The period preceding the 19th century must be inferred by analyzing ice cores, tree growth rings, sediments and corals. Ice cores typically from Greenland, Antarctica or the Arctic are the most commonly used proxies. And it is possible to infer temperatures from thousands or millions of years ago. It is also possible to use ice cores to estimate the historical composition of the atmosphere.

Although surface temperature is what humans actually feel on a day-to-day basis, that data can be contaminated by urban heat islands. So it is sometimes more meaningful to talk about the temperature of the troposphere, which is the lowest layer of the earth’s atmosphere about 20 kilometers thick and is where all the weather takes place; the clouds, precipitation, storms, winds etc.  Temperatures in the troposphere can be directly measured by balloon-borne radiosondes or inferred from satellite radiometry.

Geological records show that the earth’s average temperature has varied cyclically for many millions of years. Sometimes it has been much hotter than today and sometimes much cooler. This graph estimates variations in temperature during the last 500 million years. The earth is approximately four and a half billion years old; predecessors of man have been on earth for about two and a half million years; and modern homo sapiens have been around for about two hundred thousand years.

Here is what the earth’s temperature has been doing over the past five hundred thousand years and here is the temperature record for more recent times; the last 11, 000 years otherwise known as the Holocene era.

The earth would be a much cooler place if it did not have an atmosphere. The atmosphere contains a number of gases that warm the earth by what is called the greenhouse effect. Which is when solar radiation from the sun can easily pass through the gases to the earth, but outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface is partially blocked from radiating off into space by these same gases. Further details of this mechanism are given in the references.

There are several different greenhouse gases but everyone seems to focus on just one of them: carbon dioxide known as CO2. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is sometimes thought to be the driver of the earth’s temperature, but the geological record shows that there has been no correlation.

The absolutely dominant greenhouse gas is water vapor. The earth’s glaciers and ice caps have grown and shrunk cyclically over time. The earth recently exited the Little Ice Age and is currently warming just as in previous cycles. There is definitely a new ice age coming, but none of us will live to experience it. We are currently in an interglacial, which is a period between ice ages.

As shown by the earlier graphs the earth’s climate is not being driven by changes in the co2 level. Indeed changes in the atmospheric CO2 concentration are probably a result of changes in the earth’s temperature as oceans and land masses release stored CO2 resulting from long-term temperature changes. As the glaciers and ice caps cyclically build and recede, there are corresponding changes in the sea level. The sea level has cyclically varied from today’s levels by as much as plus or minus 200 meters. And these fluctuations are expected to continue for thousands of years to come.

So what is causing these long-term cyclical changes in the earth’s average temperature? A recently posted youtube series entitled Paleoclimatology parts one through three gives an in-depth analysis of the factors at work. Here is a summary of just some of the main factors:

♦  Continental drifts as result of plate tectonics has caused very long-term climate changes as the ocean’s heat carrying currents have been forced to take different paths;

♦  Milankovitch cycles due to changes in the earth’s tilt, precession and orbital eccentricity and cyclical changes in the solar system’s orbital alignments have demonstrably produced corresponding changes in the earth’s climate over both the long term and the short term;

♦  Cyclical changes in the sun’s total output radiated power. cyclical changes in the sun’s output spectral distribution especially the ultraviolet component

♦  Variations in the earth’s magnetic field resulting in changes in the magnitude and position of the earth’s magnetosphere which shields us from incoming cosmic particles and the solar wind

♦  Variations in upper level bacteria which serve as nucleation sites for clouds and precipitation

♦  Changes in the earth’s average cloud cover as a result of changes in many of the factors just mentioned

♦  Changes in the earth’s upper atmospheric wind currents that are used to distribute heat energy throughout the pallet of the planet

Note that carbon dioxide concentration is not a significant cause of these natural cyclical changes. CO2 has some effect on long-term climate changes but it is not the dominant determinant of global temperature. Then why are the agitators and politicians so obsessed with this and why are they arbitrarily blaming man-made CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels as threatening disruptions to their climate nirvana?

Perhaps there’s a hidden agenda. Current proposals to decarbonize the earth by eliminating fossil fuels will have a minor effect on climate, but will cause extraordinary economic harm. Maybe the true goal of the protesters is to destroy capitalism in the western world.

CO2 is a clear odorless gas. Atmospheric CO2 levels have been much higher in the past and were sometimes much lower. CO2 is not a pollutant–it is essential to life. If the atmospheric CO2 concentration were to drop below 150 parts per million, the earth’s vegetation would not be able to survive and the earth would become a barren wasteland.  There have been proposals to use large-scale geoengineering to alter the earth’s climate, such as by surrounding the earth with orbiting reflective particles or mirrors. But such schemes are fraught with political as well as technical dangers.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change known as the IPCC is often identified as the final authority when it comes to questions about the earth’s climate.  However the IPCC does not conduct research; it merely reviews papers in the field. And the IPCC should not be considered as unbiased. Because when they were created by the United Nations they were specifically charged to investigate how mankind is causing the earth’s climate to change.

In other words the conclusion had already been reached that man was to blame before any investigations were performed. The IPCC is a political animal; nothing is published before it has been approved by the representatives of all the participating countries to make sure that it aligns with their governments’ objectives and policies. IPCC has published numerous forecasts of ever increasing global temperatures being driven by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. But these are based on incomplete and inaccurate computer models and they have all drastically overestimated the forthcoming temperature rise.

These computer models ignore or inadequately account for many factors, including clouds and solar variations. It is claimed that 97 % of scientists agree that man-made emissions of CO2 are having significant negative effects on the earth’s climate. However consensus is not a valid way to conduct scientific research. Group think is a major problem in this field. Remember Galileo was able to prove that the earth orbited the sun rather than the other way around. But public opinion and the church forced him to recant his findings. Consensus overruled scientific evidence just like it appears to be doing today.

The earth is getting warmer and it will continue to do so until the temperature trend reverses sometime in the future and we head into the next ice age. Mankind needs to recognize that we are an observer of naturally occurring climate cycles. There is very little that we can do to stop, change or influence these cycles. The best thing that man can do is learn to adapt to these natural cycles. Stop wasting our money and damaging our economy on futile and inefficient schemes to reduce man’s CO2 emissions, appearing to be trying to thwart what are perfectly natural cyclical changes of the earth’s climate.

Learn to live with these changes. Mankind has to adapt. Have a nice day and enjoy the warmth while we have it. Here are links to references providing more details on many of these points

2. Net Zero is Both Suicidal and Ecocidal

Source: Roger Palmer publication  Understanding Climate Change.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Net Zero

As mentioned above, many governments have decided to pursue the goal of becoming “Net Zero” by 2050 (or possibly later). This means that they want all CO2 emitted by man’s activities either to be eliminated or somehow compensated for by 2050 in the belief that this will slow the current rise in global temperatures, and limit the rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

As discussed in previous sections, CO2 concentration is not the primary driver of global temperature, and indeed, rising CO2 levels might actually be a result of warming due to entirely natural factors. Despite the dubious scientific justification, politicians and special-interest groups have embraced the “Net Zero” battle cry, and are falling over themselves with announcements, proclamations, and protests as they attempt to destroy the world’s economy.

The concept of Net Zero is that any continuing emissions of CO2 need to be “offset” by actions to remove the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. These “offsets” could be the planting of trees that absorb CO2, or they could involve operating actual equipment that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and then sequesters it in a safe storage facility (this is called CCS, which stands for Carbon Capture and Sequestration). A marketplace has now developed whereby “carbon credits” are bought and sold, and some rather flimsy schemes have been created.

As an example of how ludicrous this churning process is, consider the example of the DRAX power plant that is located in the U.K. This power plant was built in 1974, and burned coal to generate electricity (in a conventional steam turbine system). Starting in 2013, this power plant was converted to burn compressed wood pellets. The pellets are manufactured in Canada, and shipped to the UK from the port of Prince Rupert, BC. The pellets were originally supposed to use scrap wood left over from existing logging operations, but demand eventually required that trees be specifically grown to feed the process. It was claimed that the entire process (growing trees, converting the wood to pellets, transporting them between continents, and then burning them in a thermal power plant) was “sustainable”, because new trees were planted to replace those that were cut down!

Direct Carbon Capture(DCC)

There are several companies developing technology and equipment for actually extracting (“capturing”) CO2 from the air. The CO2 is then stored (“sequestered”) either as a gas, or converted to some other form. The justification for doing this is that governments and agencies mistakenly believe that CO2 emissions from human activities is causing the world to warm, and that not only must these emissions stop, but some of the CO2 must be removed in order to lower the concentration in the atmosphere, thereby supposedly preventing future temperature rises.

The processes used for DCC are complex, and require large amounts of energy to operate. It is claimed that the energy will come from “sustainable” sources (hydro, solar, wind, nuclear), so the whole process will help a country reach the goal of “net zero”. Funding for these projects effectively comes from selling “carbon credits”, because governments have inadvisably placed a dollar value on CO2.  If these proposed projects go ahead, the scale and costs involved will be enormous. And remember, lowering the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by 1 ppm will only potentially reduce the temperature by between 9 and 15 thousandths of a degree C!

Energy and Transortation

As part of the charge toward the Holy Grail of “Net Zero”, the entire transportation infrastructure is being forced to dispense with the burning of fossil fuels. Governments apply so-called “Carbon Taxes” on the sale of hydrocarbon fuels, and the tax rates are methodically being increased as time goes by, in an effort to get users to switch to another type of energy.

Oil has been a major energy source for over two centuries. It has a high energy density (ie: a small and light weight amount of the substance has the potential to create a large amount of energy). A few decades ago, there was worldwide concern that we were running out of these fuels and only had a limited supply, but new exploration/extraction techniques, combined with more efficient energy use have allayed those concerns.

Fossil fuels are converted to energy by the process of combustion. Almost 40% of the material’s potential energy is extracted in modern gasoline or diesel engines, and almost 55% in modern combined-cycle gas-fired power plants. The remaining energy is turned into waste heat. In building heating applications, the fossil fuel is burned to directly create heat: this process can have efficiencies of over 95%. All of these combustion processes generate CO2, and this is the main focus of politicians, scientists, and environmentalists, despite evidence (as outlined earlier) that climate change is not being primarily driven by increases in CO2 concentration.

Wind turbines and solar cells have received most of the publicity in recent years as large arrays of these devices have been installed around the world. The biggest problem is the intermittent nature of their output. To compensate for this, excess generating capacity has to be installed, and very large energy storage devices (batteries, pumped water, etc) have to be included to ensure a reliable source of supply. If electricity is produced by techniques (such as hydro, solar, wind, or nuclear) that do not emit any greenhouse gases, there is strong political motivation to convert existing consumers of fossil fuels to use electricity as their energy source. Transportation has been a major user of fossil fuels, and the sector is highly visible to the public, so there is considerable pressure to electrify it.

Fossil fuels are an ideal way to power mobile devices (especially road vehicles, aircraft, and ships): the energy density (KW-h per Kg) is very high, and it is easy to quickly refuel as required. There has been much development in electrical technology for road vehicles, but the major problem has been the availability of electrical energy storage devices (primarily batteries) that are small and light enough to fit into the vehicle, and that have sufficient capacity to provide decent range between charges. The energy density (KW-h per Kg) of modern Li-ion batteries is about 2% that of gasoline or diesel fuel. Some electric cars have met with market success, but battery technology needs to develop a major increase in battery energy density before they are considered viable for mainstream applications, and then the problem will be one of installing enough charging infrastructure to allow for unimpeded travel without the drivers suffering from “range anxiety”.

Ships, highway trucks and airliners pose their own problems, and are unlikely to be weaned off of fossil  fuels for some time to come. These applications need energy storage devices that have much higher density (both by volume and by weight) than batteries – the use of hydrogen (produced by electrolysis of water) and fuel cells is being vigorously pursued. Hydrogen can also be burned directly in modified jet engines or even reciprocating engines, but hydrogen has storage issues that need to be addressed.

Hydrogen’s energy density (KW-h per Kg) is quite high, but it occupies a large volume, so must be stored at very high pressures if storage tanks are to be kept to a reasonable size. Hydrogen can also be stored in a liquid form, but the extremely low cryogenic temperatures required (-253°C) present significant
challenges.

If it were possible to convert all power generation, heating, and transportation applications to non fossil fuel technology, it would be possible to reduce the total amount of man-made CO2 emissions by over 50%, but this would have a negligible effect on global temperature. It would of course still be required to extract oil and natural gas from the ground for the manufacture of synthetic materials, plastics, asphalt, lubricants, and pharmaceuticals.

Summary and Conclusions

The material reviewed so far in this paper confirms that there are a large number of factors that affect the earth’s climate. Many of these are poorly understood by man, and there are some factors that probably haven’t even been discovered yet. A number of conclusions can be taken away from the information presented so far in this document:

a) Climate change is a naturally-occurring, cyclic phenomena, and it has been going on for millions of years.
b) Climate change is primarily driven by changes in the energy of the sun that impinges on the earth. The dominant factors driving this are variations in the sun (total output power, spectral distribution, sunspot cycles) Milankovitch Cycles, variations in ocean currents (ENSO, PDO, and AMO). Other factors include the effect of varying cosmic particle influx and high altitude bacteria, causing changes in cloud cover.
c) The primary greenhouse gas is water vapour. The effect of atmospheric CO2 on global temperature change is much less. Because of the non-linear effect of CO2 concentration, increases beyond the current level will have a decreasing effect on the earth’s climate.
d) Man-made CO2 does have a minor effect on global temperature changes, but it is not the dominant factor. A reduction of man-made CO2 emissions would have a negligible effect on global temperature.
e) Man’s understanding of the various climate-influencing factors is very limited.
f) Climate models are not effective at forecasting future long-term global temperatures.
g) There is very little that mankind can do to affect global temperature change. It does not make sense to introduce regulations that will have a negative impact on Western economies in a pointless attempt to change the natural rate of global climate change.
h) Mankind will have to learn to adapt to future climate changes. If mankind is still around in a few thousand years, they will then have to adapt to global cooling and glaciations!

Any legislative efforts to limit man-made carbon dioxide emissions at the local, regional, provincial, or federal levels may be well-intended, but are ultimately futile, and potentially dangerous. These efforts will harm the economy, waste resources, and not significantly affect the naturally-occurring cyclic climatic changes.

 

 

Delusions of Davos and Dubai

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Edward Ring dispells the smoke and mirrors surrounding renewables in his American Greatness article The Delusions of Davos and Dubai – Part Two: Can Wind & Solar Energy Expand 50-100 Times? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Procuring 90+ percent of global energy from wind and solar energy is a fool’s errand.

In the most recent “Conference of the Parties,” otherwise known as the United Nations extravaganza that convenes every few years for world leaders to discuss the climate crisis, several goals were publicly proclaimed. Notable were the goals to triple production of renewable energy by 2030 and triple production of nuclear energy by 2050. Against the backdrop of current global energy production by fuel type, and as quantified in Part One, against a goal of increasing total energy production from 600 exajoules in 2022 to at least 1,000 exajoules by 2050, where does COP 28’s goals put the world’s energy economy? How much will production of renewable energy have to increase?

To answer this question, it is necessary to recognize and account for the fact that most renewable energy takes the form of electricity, generated through wind, solar, or geothermal sources. And when measuring how much the base of renewables installed so far will contribute to the target of 1,000 exajoules of energy production per year in order to realize—best-case scenario—800 exajoules of energy services, the data reported in the Statistical Review of Global Energy is profoundly misleading.

[ Ring is referring to the fanciful projections compared to realities reported in the 2022 consumption statistics from Energy Institute. For example, from that report

The graph shows that global Primary Energy (PE) consumption from all sources has grown continuously over nearly 6 decades. Since 1965  oil, gas and coal (FF, sometimes termed “Thermal”) averaged 88% of PE consumed, ranging from 93% in 1965 to 82% in 2022.  Note that in 2020, PE dropped 21 EJ (4%) below 2019 consumption, then increased 31 EJ in 2021.  WFFC for 2020 dropped 24 EJ (5%), then in 2021 gained back 26 EJ to slightly exceed 2019 WFFC consumption. For the 58 year period, the net changes were:

Oil        194%
Gas      525%
Coal     178%
WFFC  239%
PE        287%]

If we’re setting a goal of 1,000 exajoules of ultimate world energy production and assuming 80 percent of that 1,000 exajoules of energy input shall be realized as end-user energy services, then we have to examine how much usable energy wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear are actually being generated today. That means we need to know how much electricity they actually generate and send into the grid. An imputed, grossed-up number is not helpful.

It must be again emphasized that it is an extraordinary assumption to project an 80 percent retention of energy from input into the grid to actual end use. For example, we might assume that from the generating plant, 5 percent was lost in transmission, another 5 percent lost from charging and subsequently discharging the electricity to and from utility-scale storage batteries, another 5 percent in the charge/discharge cycle through an onboard battery in an EV, and another 5 percent converting that electricity into traction from the electric motor. Those are extraordinarily optimistic numbers, using a best-case example.

The point here is 1,000 exajoules represents the absolute minimum to which global energy production must grow in the next 25 years if every person on earth is to have access to enough energy to enable prosperity and security. How do we get there? Let’s take the experts at their word and assume that use of coal, oil, and gas will be completely eliminated by 2050.

On the chart below, the assumptions governing the future mix of fuels worldwide adhere to the resolutions just made at the recent Conference of the Parties. That is, nuclear energy will be tripled, and use of oil, natural gas, and coal will be eliminated. To take some of the pressure off of the required expansion of solar and wind energy, for this analysis, the sacrilegious assumption is made to double hydroelectric capacity, double geothermal production, and double biofuel production. It won’t matter much. Here goes:

There’s a lot to chew on in these data, but it’s worth the effort. Because the facts they present are immutable and carry with them significant implications for global energy policy. The first column of data shows how much fuel was burned or generated worldwide in 2022—the raw fuel inputs, which total 604 exajoules.

The second column of data shows the number of energy services that reached end-users in 2022 in the form of heating, cooling, traction, light, communications, etc. It is clear that for thermal sources of energy, the lower numbers reflect the currently estimated degree of conversion efficiency worldwide, about 40 percent. But for non-thermal sources of energy (appended to the right with “gen,” signifying generated energy), these numbers are based on terawatt-hour reports featured in individual sections of the Statistical Review dedicated to those sources of energy. Converted from terawatt-hours to exajoules, these are the actual amounts of electricity that went into transmission lines around the world to be consumed by end users.

The third column of data calculates a hypothetical 2050 global fuel mix based on the agreed COP 28 targets. As seen in column 4 “multiple,” nuclear energy is tripled in accordance with COP 28. Also, in accordance with COP 28, use of coal, oil, and gas is eliminated. Not agreed to at COP 28, but to help reach the 1,000 exajoule target, production of geothermal and biofuel energy are both doubled. That leaves the remainder of the needed power to be provided (in this example) equally by wind and solar. It is reasonable to assume, based on everything they’re saying in Dubai and Davos, that this is the model. This is the logical realization of what they’re calling for.

These calculations yield an overwhelming reality check.
Yet what assumption is incorrect?

The target of 1,000 exajoules is almost certainly too low. Nuclear power is tripled, and hydropower and biofuel are both doubled. None of that is easy; in the case of biofuel, it could be an environmental catastrophe. But even if those other non-thermal sources of energy were to increase two to three times, without coal, oil, and gas, a stupefying expansion of wind and solar would be required. “Tripling” these renewables doesn’t even get us into the ballpark.

To deliver 1,000 exajoules of power to the world by 2050, for every wind turbine we have today, expect to see more than 60 of them. For every field of photovoltaics we have today, expect to see nearly 100 more of them. Is this feasible? Because from Dubai to Davos, this is what they’re claiming we’re going to do.

Confronted with these facts, even the most enthusiastic proponents of wind and solar energy may hesitate when considering the magnitude of the task. Eliminating production of fossil fuel entirely by 2050 ought to be seen, for all practical purposes, as impossible. The uptick in mining, the land consumed, the expansion of transmission lines, the necessity for a staggering quantity of electricity storage assets to balance these intermittent sources, the vulnerability of wind and solar farms to weather events including deep freezes, tornadoes, and hail, and the stupefying task of doing it all over again every 20-30 years as the wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and storage batteries reach the end of their useful lives—all of this suggests procuring 90+ percent of global energy from wind and solar energy is a fool’s errand.

The Key to Energy IQ

Posted on by Ron Clutz

This brief video provides a key concept in order to think rationally about calls to change society’s energy platform.  Below is a transcript from the closed captions along with some of the video images and others added.

We know what the future of American energy will look like. Solar panels, drawing limitless energy from the sun. Wind turbines harnessing the bounty of nature to power our homes and businesses.  A nation effortlessly meeting all of its energy needs with minimal impact on the environment. We have the motivation, we have the technology. There’s only one problem: the physics.

The history of America is, in many ways, the history of energy. The steam power that revolutionized travel and the shipping of goods. The coal that fueled the railroads and the industrial revolution. The petroleum that helped birth the age of the automobile. And now, if we only have the will, a new era of renewable energy.

Except … it’s a little more complicated than that. It’s not really a matter of will, at least not primarily. There are powerful scientific and economic constraints on where we get our power from. An energy source has to be reliable; you have to know that the lights will go on when you flip the switch. An energy source needs to be affordable–because when energy is expensive…everything else gets more expensive too. And, if you want something to be society’s dominant energy source, it needs to be scalable, able to provide enough power for a whole nation.

Those are all incredibly important considerations, which is one of the reasons it’s so weird that one of the most important concepts we have for judging them … is a thing that most people have never heard of. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the exciting world of…power density.

Look, no one said scientists were gonna be great at branding. Put simply, power density is just how much stuff it takes to get your energy; how much land or other physical resources. And we measure it by how many watts you can get per square meter, or liter, or kilogram – which, if you’re like us…probably means nothing to you.

So let’s put this in tangible terms. Just about the worst energy source America has by the standards of power density are biofuels, things like corn-based ethanol. Biofuels only provide less than 3% of America’s energy needs–and yet, because of the amount of corn that has to be grown to produce it … they require more land than every other energy source in the country combined. Lots of resources going in, not much energy coming out–which means they’re never going to be able to be a serious fuel source.

Now, that’s an extreme example, but once you start to see the world in these terms, you start to realize why our choice of energy sources isn’t arbitrary. Coal, for example, is still America’s second largest source of electricity, despite the fact that it’s the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive way to produce it. Why do we still use so much of it? Well, because it’s significantly more affordable…in part because it’s way less resource-intensive.

An energy source like offshore wind, for example, is so dependent on materials like copper and zinc that it would require six times as many mineral resources to produce the same amount of power as coal. And by the way, getting all those minerals out of the ground…itself requires lots and lots of energy.

Now, the good news is that America has actually been cutting way down on its use of coal in recent years, thanks largely to technological breakthroughs that brought us cheap natural gas as a replacement. And because natural gas emits way less carbon than coal, that reduced our carbon emissions from electricity generation by more than 30%.

In fact, the government reports that switching over to natural gas did more than twice as much to cut carbon emissions as renewables did in recent years. Why did natural gas progress so much faster than renewables? It wasn’t an accident.

Energy is a little like money: You’ve gotta spend it to make it. To get usable natural gas, for example, you’ve first gotta drill a well, process and transport the gas, build a power plant, and generate the electricity. But the question is how much energy are you getting back for your investment? With natural gas, you get about 30 times as much power out of the system as you put into creating it.  By contrast, with something like solar power, you only get about 3 1/2 times as much power back.

Replacing the now closed Indian Point nuclear power plant would require covering all of Albany County NY with wind mills.

Hard to fuel an entire country that way. And everywhere you look, you see similarly eye-popping numbers. To replace the energy produced by just one oil well in the Permian Basin of Texas–and there are thousands of those–you’d need to build 10 windmills, each about 330 feet high. To meet just 10% of the country’s electricity needs, you’d have to build a wind farm the size of the state of New Hampshire. To get the same amount of power produced by one typical nuclear reactor, you’d need over three million solar panels, none of which means, by the way, that we shouldn’t be using renewables as a part of our energy future.

But it does mean that the dream of using only renewables is going to remain a dream,
at least given the constraints of current technology. We simply don’t know how
to do it while still providing the amount of energy that everyday life requires.

No energy source is ever going to painlessly solve all our problems. It’s always a compromise – which is why it’s so important for us to focus on the best outcomes that are achievable, because otherwise, New Hampshire’s gonna look like this.

Addendum from Michael J. Kelly

Energy return on investment (EROI)

The debate over decarbonization has focussed on technical feasibility and economics. There is one emerging measure that comes closely back to the engineering and the thermodynamics of energy production. The energy return on (energy) investment is a measure of the useful energy produced by a particular power plant divided by the energy needed to build, operate, maintain, and decommission the plant. This is a concept that owes its origin to animal ecology: a cheetah must get more energy from consuming his prey than expended on catching it, otherwise it will die. If the animal is to breed and nurture the next generation then the ratio of energy obtained from energy expended has to be higher, depending on the details of energy expenditure on these other activities. Weißbach et al. have analysed the EROI for a number of forms of energy production and their principal conclusion is that nuclear, hydro-, and gas- and coal-fired power stations have an EROI that is much greater than wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrated solar power in a desert or cultivated biomass: see Fig. 2.

In human terms, with an EROI of 1, we can mine fuel and look at it—we have no energy left over. To get a society that can feed itself and provide a basic educational system we need an EROI of our base-load fuel to be in excess of 5, and for a society with international travel and high culture we need EROI greater than 10. The new renewable energies do not reach this last level when the extra energy costs of overcoming intermittency are added in. In energy terms the current generation of renewable energy technologies alone will not enable a civilized modern society to continue!

On Energy Transitions

EV Push Imploding

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Levi Russell writes at Heartland The Rush to Force Everyone into Electric Vehicles is Imploding. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

A recently published article in the peer-reviewed academic journal Transportation Research tells us that cars, even the supposedly anointed battery electric variety, are far too convenient and that the state must be empowered to “restrict car use.” The authors tell us that converting car lanes to bus lanes have reduced car use in Oslo. No surprise there. The fact that academia is floating this sort of policy should concern anyone who has any inkling of mistrust of the federal government.

Truly our freedom of movement is in peril.

Electric vehicles are not nearly as popular as their advocates would have had us believe, as sales are now slumping in the face of rising interest rates and a lack of so-called fast chargers. As we begin to bump up against mined mineral constraints and international relations complications, there’s no doubt the cost of making these glorified toys will continue to rise. A recent Consumer Reports publication shows that, over the last 3 model years, electric vehicles are less reliable than normal gasoline and diesel vehicles. So, several states want to ban the sale of reliable, inexpensive gas and diesel cars and force us to buy less reliable electric cars. Note well that the superior reliability of hybrids is likely down to the fact that car makers who are better known for their reliability make more hybrids. There’s nothing inherent to a hybrid that would make it more reliable than a gasoline engine vehicle.

[And in addition: No one wants to buy used EVs and they’re piling up in weed-infested graveyards Fortune magazine. No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too Bloomberg ]

Even our ability to travel using air travel is under the gun. A CNN op-ed recently floated the idea of limiting air travel through the use of carbon (read: sin) passports. We will be limited to traveling based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the flight. The author wants this applied to cruise ships as well. It’s not hard to see this applied to your car as well.

Of course, such rules will not apply to the super-wealthy climate grifters.
They’ll be jetting all over the globe for their very important climate conferences.

And it’s not just transportation. In September, Reuters “fact checked” a claim that US cities had agreed to limit meat consumption, finding the claim false. And yet, we are told on a nearly daily basis that eliminating beef consumption is necessary to save the planet. The sin of using coal (but not apparently to create steel) has become the sin of eating a steak. What’s next? Rice? Pork?

Beginning in 2024, the German government will empower local electricity providers to limit the flow of electricity to heat pumps and electric cars. Such limits were the stuff of alleged conspiracy theories mere months ago. Now they’re a reality. Germany’s suicidal attempt to power their grid with nothing but wind and solar, killing off their own nuclear power generation over the last 20 years, has led to energy rationing. It’s not as if this is unpredictable. The unreliability of so-called renewables is common knowledge among energy experts.

It’s sensible for those who are concerned about their ability to choose where and when they travel, what they eat, and when they turn on their heaters and air conditioners to be skeptical of every single attempt to accrue more power by state and federal governments. That skepticism should turn into activism against these power grabs. Anyone who tells you these power grabs aren’t coming is telling you not to believe your own eyes.

Postscript Absurdum

Canada poised to pass rules that all new vehicles must be zero-emissions by 2035 Source Financial Post

The act to be announced in coming days aims
to phase out the sale of new combustion vehicles

The new rules will require zero-emissions vehicles — which include battery electric, hydrogen and plug-in electric vehicles — to make up 20 per cent of all new car sales in 2026, 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035, the reports said.

 

After COP28: What Transition From Hydrocarbons?

Posted on by Ron Clutz

How Do You Want Your Energy ‘Transition’?

Mario Loyola wrote at The Wall Street Journal The Impossible Energy ‘Transition’.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

After two weeks of negotiation, the United Nations climate conference in Dubai agreed last week to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Left unanswered is whether governments are supposed to do that by reducing supply, reducing demand or both. A lot rides on the answer, but neither would affect the climate much.

In the demand-side scenario, technology saves the day with cost-competitive renewables. This is the vision of the International Energy Agency, according to which the more rapid the transition from fossil fuels, the more precipitous the decline in fossil-fuel prices. In its “Net Zero Emissions” scenario, oil demand drops faster than supply this decade, pushing oil prices below $30 a barrel soon after 2030, which corresponds to $1-a-gallon gasoline.

Yet even with fossil-fuel prices near historic highs, effective renewable substitutes are nowhere near cost-competitive. They’d have to get cheaper still to compete with $30-a-barrel oil. And in developed countries, especially the U.S., it’s impossible to get permits quickly enough for the staggering amount of renewable capacity that would be needed.

In the supply-side approach, governments would slash oil production or impose rationing, hoping to make fossil fuels so expensive that renewables are the only option. This is the dark vision of “Stop Oil” and Greta Thunberg. But as long as renewable substitutes aren’t immediately available and oil and gas remain necessary, a small reduction in supply causes prices to soar. That means windfall profits for energy companies, scarcity for everyone else, and electoral danger for the governments responsible. Ms. Thunberg claims that climate change is a “death sentence” for the poor, but the poor are far more vulnerable to disruptions in energy supply. In the 1970s, an oil boycott aimed at the U.S. caused famines in Africa.

Putting into context the desire to stop consumption of fossil fuels. The graph shows that global Primary Energy (PE) consumption from all sources has grown continuously over nearly 6 decades. Since 1965 oil, gas and coal (FF, sometimes termed “Thermal”) averaged 88% of PE consumed, ranging from 93% in 1965 to 82% in 2022. Note that in 2020, PE dropped 21 EJ (4%) below 2019 consumption, then increased 31 EJ in 2021. WFFC for 2020 dropped 24 EJ (5%), then in 2021 gained back 26 EJ to slightly exceed 2019 WFFC consumption. (Source: Energy Institute)

While the stop-oil view was popular at Dubai, there were enough adults in the room to keep the conference from committing to it. “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5 C” (the Paris Agreement’s proposed limit on 21st-century temperature increases), said conference president Ahmed al Jaber, “unless you want to take the world back into caves.” Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman dared countries to try to choke off the oil supply: “Let them do that themselves. And we will see how much they can deliver.”

Poor countries are clear-eyed about the danger of energy poverty. “We are not going to compromise with the availability of power for growth,” said India’s minister for power, R.K. Singh. China has more coal plants under construction than are in operation in the U.S. Few rich countries have announced plans to stop drilling for oil or gas, and none of those are major producers. Even President Biden ran away from increasing the gasoline tax as soon as prices went above $3 a gallon in the summer of 2021.

The administration’s answer to this conundrum is to defer political consequences via the regulatory state. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to require that all coal and natural-gas plants shut down or adopt unproven zero-carbon technologies by 2038. Another EPA proposal would require 62% of all cars sold in America to be fully electric by 2032.

Assuming they survive court challenges and future administrations, they would impose soaring prices and reduced mobility on Americans. They would have almost no impact on global temperatures unless other countries, including China and India, also commit to energy poverty. The question is how much damage these policies will do before they’re abandoned.

Mr. Loyola teaches environmental law at Florida International University and is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Foornote:  Advice from Berkeley Earth

COP28 Optics: Deal to “Transition Away” not “Phase Out” Fossil Fuels

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Once again equivocation rules climatists.  After the uproar over demands to “phase out” hydrocarbon fuel, the wording was changed to say “transition away.”  Thus the divide is papered over while alarmists claim agreement was reached to “leave it in the ground.”  Others will point to language such as “transition away in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”  Just like Paris COP, everyone pledges and celebrates as though something has changed

David Blackmon explains the wordplay in his Forbes article COP28 Offers ‘Transition Away’ From Fossil Fuels But No ‘Phaseout’.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

COP28 just concluded feverish negotiations in its final hours—actually, beyond its scheduled final hours—with the announcement of a final agreement Wednesday that includes language committing its near-200 participating nations to “transition away from” fossil fuels. That is the language negotiators landed upon to replace the previous language pledging to “phase out” the use of coal, oil and natural gas across the coming decades preferred by energy transition boosters.

Many observers are no doubt left wondering what the real difference is between the two phrases, other than that the “transition away from” language was found to be less offensive to big producers and users of these energy resources than a phasing-out turned out to be. It isn’t a bad question, to be sure.

Advocates for this final language claim it is “historic” in that it is the first time any of the 28 UN Conference of the Parties climate summits have overtly mentioned moving away from the use of fossil fuels in a final agreement. But it is fair to note that countries across the globe have invested many trillions of dollars—much of it funded by costly debt—in efforts to “transition away from” fossil fuels over the last three decades now and little has changed. The world still gets roughly 80% of its primary energy from coal, oil and natural gas, only a sliver less than it did at the turn of the century. The world will use record volumes of all three fossil fuels in 2023, and most experts project it will do so again in 2024 and beyond.

So, while this language may well be “historic,” it is also merely a restatement of commitments many of the signatory governments have already embarked upon for years and failed to achieve. Honestly, it is difficult to envision how what amounts to yet another COP-generated word salad will do anything to change the undeniable global dynamic.

Reuters quotes Anne Rasmussen, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, assessing the language as uninspiring. “We have made an incremental advancement over business as usual, when what we really need is an exponential step change in our actions,” she said.

But COP conferences involving more than 190 participating countries with widely disparate economic and energy security priorities and 70,000+ attendees are not really designed to produce exponential step changes, are they? COP rules requiring unanimous consent to all language included in each subsequent final agreement ensure that commitments will inevitably be watered down with qualifying language designed to enable each country to act upon its own unique interpretation of what phrases like “transition away from” actually mean.

Those are bold words, but everyone should recognize that “real-economy outcomes” in, say, Peru or Uganda are likely to look entirely different than those in Belgium or Canada. The same is likely true of the respective outcomes we will see in the coming years in India as compared to the United States.

The Bottom Line

As an example: If China wished to signify a zeal to “transition away from” its own massive use of fossil fuels, it might decide to cancel its new program going into effect January 1, 2024, which will subsidize the building of hundreds more coal-fired power plants. Does anyone involved in COP28 expect that or any similar action by the Xi Jinping government as a result of its signing off on this agreement? Of course not. Beijing will interpret the phrase “transition away from” as it sees fit and continue to prioritize its national energy security over any climate commitments.

At the end of the day, this final agreement from COP28 seems destined to be remembered in the same vein as all previous COPs other than COP3 (Kyoto) and COP21 (Paris) are remembered—as, to paraphrase William Shakespeare, a lot of sound and fury signifying not much at all.

Footnote:  Let the Blame Games Go Onto Steroids.

 

Inside the Hydrogen Fuel Project Bubbles

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The map above from IEA shows almost 2000 hydrogen fuel projects around the world, intending to replace hydrocarbon fuels to save the planet.  They dream of being operational by 2030 claiming that real world obstacles will be overcome if enough taxpayer dollars are thrown at the problems.  The whole notion is fantastic (in the literal sense) for reasons detailed in a previous post.

Replace Carbon Fuels with Hydrogen? Absurd, Exorbitant and Pointless

But realities be damned, there’s virtue to be displayed, money to be made and no accountability for failure, so the charade will go on.  On the map are some bubbles off the coast of Canadian maritime provinces, so let’s take a peek into how these projects are conceived and realized. Rod Nickel reports at the Globe and Mail Canadian wind-hydrogen project delayed one year in race to first European exports.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Green Hydrogen Project in Atlantic Provinces Delayed

One of Canada’s first projects to produce emissions-free hydrogen with wind energy has delayed its start by one year because operator World Energy GH2’s European customers need more time to develop special infrastructure to handle the product, the company said.

The delays illustrate the difficulties companies face in introducing a nascent product to replace high-emitting forms of fuel for transport, industry and homes. [The background post above notes how hydrogen makes containers and conduits brittle, not to mention its explosive potential.]

Have we learned nothing from the Hindenburg Disaster?

Half a dozen companies are advancing projects in the gusty Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to harness winds to power production of Canada’s first exports of emissions-free hydrogen. Canada signed a non-binding agreement in 2022 to ship green hydrogen to Germany starting in 2025.

But World Energy GH2, an affiliate of Boston-based renewable fuels producer World Energy, won’t make that timeline, managing director Sean Leet told Reuters.

“The offtakers are not going to be ready to accept product within 2025, actually not until 2027,” Leet said, referring to buyers who would pre-purchase some of the project’s hydrogen.

The challenges for prospective buyers involve developing new technology to ship, further process and transport the hydrogen by pipeline at its last destination, Leet said.

World Energy GH2 now hopes to start production in late 2026, he said. It requires approval from Newfoundland’s environmental department and strong pre-purchase interest to attract financing before starting production.

Those buyer commitments hinge on the Canadian government
finalizing details of a tax credit for up to 40% of the
capital cost of building hydrogen plants, Leet said.

The company intends to build three onshore wind farms in Newfoundland to power production of 250,000 metric tons per year of hydrogen, at a total cost of $12 billion.

Advocacy group EnviroWatch NL, however, questions the efficiency of building wind turbines in Canada to produce hydrogen that will ultimately generate power for Europe thousands of kilometres away.

EverWind Fuels is on track to start production in Nova Scotia in 2025, said CEO Trent Vichie.  Its plant, a converted fuel storage facility, would eventually produce 1 million metric tons annually of ammonia, a compound that is a practical form of transporting hydrogen.

EverWind, which declined to disclose the project’s capital budget, expects to strike firm buyer agreements in the first half of 2024, a spokesperson said, and has memorandums of understanding to sell hydrogen to German power companies Uniper and E.ON.

The Canadian government agreed in November to loan EverWind $125 million to build its project, which still requires provincial approval of its wind farms. EverWind’s hydrogen plant has already received environmental approval.

Germany-based ABO Wind is applying for permits and land for a Newfoundland onshore wind farm that will provide electricity to produce hydrogen for Braya Renewable Fuels’ refinery as early as 2027, Robin Reese, director of development for ABO Wind Canada said.

Newfoundland selected EverWind, World Energy GH2, ABO and Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corp in August to proceed with their wind-hydrogen projects on government land.

U.S.-based Pattern Energy plans to secure European buying agreements in mid-2024 and start construction in 2025 for its wind-hydrogen project on private land in Newfoundland, Canada country head Frank Davis said.

Some Skeptical Comments on the article

EnviroWatch is asking the right question. Why use all this great wind energy to electrolyze water to make hydrogen to convert it (presumably) to ammonia for shipping to Europe to produce energy. It makes absolutely no thermodynamic sense whatsoever. I highly doubt ANY of these projects get built. To quote Susan Powter from the 90s, “Stop the insanity!”.

It makes no economic, thermodynamic or business sense. But it’s great politics.

I’m not thinking Billions but rather Trillions to be wasted on wind power before the world comes to its senses! Twenty- thirty years of spending. Reminds me of the treasure supposedly buried at Oak Island!

Problem is, the alternatives are all expensive mega-projects. Darlington was 5 years late and $10 billion over budget, and we haven’t built a new nuclear plant since then (30 years ago). New hydro dams have similar problems. Wind is small and cheap enough to actually get built in large numbers. Have to expand the energy supply somehow.

The actual Darlington nuke plants were 20% over budget not bad for a first of a kind. The rest was caused by government foolish delays in a high interest rate environment. The next 8 Candu’s were built on time in under 4 years and on budget at under $2/watt average the latest just completed in India.

The $25B refurb project is also on time and under budget.

Actually wind is of little use in Canada as it disappears in summer doldrums and winter cold snaps but maximizes during springtime when hydro flows max out. Its intermittancy makes it 10 times the cost of Candu. 

Fighting Global Warming: All Cash, No Cooling

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Through Dec. 12, the “Climate!” crowd is swarming COP28, Dubai’s carbophobia cavalcade. The fact that these global-warming alarmists are surrounded by Earth’s deepest pools of fossil fuels makes their Hajj infinitely ironic.

Also astonishing is the nearly immeasurable impact of these people’s gyrations. They blow trillions of dollars, bludgeon human freedom, and yet do shockingly little to fix their vaunted “climate crisis.”

One practically needs an electron microscope to find their promised
reductions in allegedly venomous CO2 or supposedly lethal temperatures.

According to #ActInTime’s Climate Clock, high above Manhattan’s Union Square, humans have — at this writing — five years and 227 days until we boil to death in a cauldron of steaming carbon. Since The End is scheduled for Saturday, July 21, 2029 (mark your calendars!)

Big Government Democrats offer jaw-droppingly paltry climate benefits,
despite their spine-chilling predictions and unbridled interventionism.

Clean Power Plan Cost/Benefit

Obama-Biden’s proposed Clean Power Plan was a diamond-encrusted specimen of do-nothingism. According to a May 2015 analysis by their own Energy Information Agency, between 2015 and 2025, the CPP would have slashed real GDP by $993 billion, or an average of $39.7 billion per year.

It would have sliced real disposable income by $382 billion, or $15.3 billion annually. It also would have chopped manufacturing shipments by $1.13 trillion, or $45.4 billion per year.

EIA forecast a decrease of 0.035° Fahrenheit. This would have cranked a thermometer from 72° F way down to 71.965°.  As Billy Joel once sang, “Is that all you get for your money?”

IRA Funded Green Energy Projects Cost/Benefit

Biden’s blessed Inflation Reduction Act budgeted $369 billion for green-energy projects. Goldman Sachs subsequently slapped a $1.2 trillion price tag on the IRA.

Danish environmental expert Bjorn Lomborg ran the IRA through the United Nations’ climate models. “Impact of new climate legislation,” Lomborg specified.  “Unnoticeable: 0.0009°F to 0.028°F in 2100.”  This would chill thermostats from 72° to 71.9991°. If we get lucky: 71.972°.

Biden said on Jan. 31 that “if we don’t stay under 1.5° Celsius” or 2.7° Fahrenheit, “we’re going to have a real problem.” If a 0.0009° F reduction costs $369 billion, then Biden’s 2.7° F goal would devour — brace yourself — $1.107 quadrillion — with a Q.

Biden EV Mandate Cost/Benefit

Emperor Biden’s electric-vehicle decree would require that at least 67% of new cars sold in 2032 be electric. This edict already is stalling the auto industry. On Nov. 29, 3,902 U.S. car dealers in all 50 states wrote Biden. Message: Stop tailgating!  “Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers complained.  “The majority of customers are simply not ready to make the change.”

This chaos aside, Biden’s mandate would limit CO2 by 10 billion tons through 2055. Alas, China is expected to generate 320 billion tons of carbon in the next 32 years. So, Biden’s “savings” will asphyxiate in a giant Chinese carbon cloud.

Holman Jenkins of The Wall Street Journal calculates that Biden’s EV order will decrease planetary emissions by a whopping 0.18%. “The climate effect of the extravagantly expensive Biden plan will steadily approach zero,” Jenkins anticipates.

Bans on Gas Stoves and Heaters Cost/Benefit

Rather than jail criminals or deport illegal aliens, Governor Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., bans gas stoves and demands that gas heaters yield to electric heat pumps — never mind that her constituents freeze to death during post-blizzard blackouts.

“The global effect of the costly program of compulsory electrification will be a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of less than 0.05%,” the Empire Center for Public Policy calculates.

Summation

Obama, Biden, Hochul and their comrades might respond that no single bauble will fix everything, and every shiny object helps.  Maybe.  But these four schemes alone carry an enormously high price in shredded freedom and incinerated taxpayer dollars, yet still leave at least 99.82% of emissions untouched.

To quote another Briton, William Shakespeare, perhaps this “sound and fury, signifying nothing” is not about cutting emissions or curbing Earth’s temperatures.

Maybe it’s designed to help Democrats spend trillions of dollars to signal virtue, bark orders at the American people, and lavish taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on their politically connected pals — from the Potomac to the Persian Gulf.

Footnote:  

The estimates of lowering temperatures come from IPCC-approved models, which presume that Global Mean Temperature (GMT) rises in response to rising atmospheric CO2.  In fact that premise is itself dubious since basic physics requires that a cause precede an effect in time. The evidence points to changes in CO2 lagging rather than leading GMT changes.  This is true on all time scales, from last month’s observations to ice cores spanning millenia.

Confirmed: Temperature Drives CO2, not the Reverse

Biden’s Desperate Wartime Climate Policy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Mark Krebs writes at Master Resource “Wartime” Climate Policy vs. Natural Gas: Biden Gets Desperate.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

“While gas appliances may presently be losing some market share to electricity due to Green New Deal discrimination, there are also increasing indications that the public is both weary and wary of such ‘watermelon’ policies. It’s not about saving the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels; it’s about enslaving the planet by banning fossil fuels.”

Yes, the President of the United States has pulled out a Korean War authority (Defense Production Act) to fight against American energy that Americans prefer. It is an overreach that is being noted widely, as outlined below as well as here and here.

The American Gas Association (AGA) started this latest flurry with a press release November 17, 2023. The same day, Reuters and Fox News published their articles. Epoch Times published its article (and video) on November 20, 2023. The Reuters article most noteworthy contribution is that it names recipients of the Biden Administration’s [mis]appropriations of DPA funding. Both the Reuters article and Fox News article cite the AGA’s press release.

The AHRI data clearly shows that gas appliances are losing at least some ground to electric equivalents as evidenced by the above graphs. Moreover, this trend appears to have accelerated under the Biden Administration. AHRI’s discussion of the IRA and DPA is non-committal advocacy (an oxymoron?).

Conclusions

“While gas appliances may presently be losing some market share to electricity due to Green New Deal discrimination, there are also increasing indications that the public is both weary and wary of such ‘watermelon’ policies. It’s not about saving the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels; it’s about enslaving the planet by banning fossil fuels.”

The eighteenth-century naval hero John Paul Jones was doing battle with a British ship when his own ship was badly damaged, and the British commander called over to ask whether Jones had surrendered. He answered, “I have not yet begun to fight.” He and his crew then captured the British ship. While regulatory capture of the “administrative state” appears to be the rule and not the exception at present, this bit of history should be remembered so we do repeat it and recapture a government “for the people” as our Founding Fathers intended.

Washington Examiner reports Biden’s war on energy: President invokes wartime powers to speed up end to gas-powered home appliance.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

President Joe Biden allotted $169 million for electric heat pump projects with his emergency authority on the basis of climate change.

This is the first time a president classified climate change as an emergency by utilizing the Defense Production Act, which was established during the Cold War. Now, the money stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act will be divided among 15 sites dedicated to manufacturing the necessary parts and entire units of a variety of heat pumps.

“The President is using his wartime emergency powers under the Defense Production Act to turbocharge U.S. manufacturing of clean technologies and strengthen our energy security,” Biden’s National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said in a statement.

John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, similarly celebrated the move, applauding the president for “treating climate change as the crisis it is.”

However, American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert disagreed with the recent move from the White House, writing in a statement, “We are deeply disappointed to see the Defense Production Act, which is intended as a vital tool for advancing national security against serious outside threats, being used as an instrument to advance a policy agenda contradictory to our nation’s strong energy position.”

“Increased use of natural gas has been responsible for 60% of the electrical grid’s CO2 emissions reductions. This vital tool for emissions reductions and energy system resilience should not be unfairly undermined through misuse of the Defense Production Act.”

Among the facilities, two new factories will be constructed: a Treau, Inc. DBA Gradient plant in Michigan and a Mitsubishi Electric plant in Kentucky. Neither company has announced exact locations yet. Treau will receive over $17 million, and Mitsubishi will receive $50 million toward construction.

The Energy Department predicts roughly 1,700 jobs will be created in the various projects to promote more heat pump products. All the sites are centered in “disadvantaged communities” for their benefit.

Last year, the Energy Information Administration reported that natural gas was the water and space heating source of about 42% of U.S. residential spaces. The residential sector makes up 15% of overall natural gas consumption. However, heating and cooling across residential and commercial buildings drive more than 35% of the country’s energy consumption.

Footnote on Declaring Climate Emergency for Spending Purposes

This report on the German High Court ruling on this matter Europe Plunges Into Chaos After Germany Freezes Public Spending Following Shock Top Court Decision.  Excerpts in italiics with my bolds.

Germany’s economy, Europe’s largest, is contracting as surging energy prices and trade tensions cast doubt on its export-oriented business model. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had been counting on that old virtue signaling switcheroo – a flood of spending on “green-energy projects and technology”, from chips to batteries, to revive the old model. That way, if anyone asks why Germany is deficit-spending its way to mercantilist utopia, Berlin could always lie and say it was doing the right thing for the world and wasn’t interested in a debt-funded stimulus. Alas, now the “Cardinals of Karlsruhe” have made this impossible.

Berlin’s decision to freeze all federal spending for the rest of the year came after the court defunded the government’s €60 billion —the equivalent of more than $65 billion—green-transition project. The court said Berlin couldn’t repurpose unspent credits originally earmarked to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic to fund environmental and energy projects. It said Berlin was bound by the country’s constitutionally enshrined fiscal rules that limit budget deficits to 0.35% of gross domestic product in normal times.

Senior government officials said one option under consideration would be to retroactively declare a state of budgetary emergency for 2023, invoking a clause in the fiscal rules that allows for a suspension of the spending limits in exceptional circumstances. Previous governments invoked the exception during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, for Germany’s stimmy-starved politicians, the plan is fraught with legal difficulties, in part because the constitutional court prepared for just this eventuality when it raised the bar for declaring such emergencies, according to Lars Feld, an economist who advises the government.

Strengthening resilience and transforming the economy amid geopolitical crises and climate change was seen as a necessity that required taking on debt, but the court ruling has challenged those assumptions, Feld wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.

Hilariously, the court said that unlike war and natural disasters, climate change was a foreseeable crisis that had been long in the making and could no longer justify emergency spending. Which, however, means that all Germany will have to do is politely request that the CIA start a new war… or that Fauci mail orders a new virus from Wuhan.

Yellow Brick Road to Green Dystopia

Posted on by Ron Clutz

J. Peder Zane warns us that green dreamers will destroy social wellbeing in his Real Clear Investigations article Let’s Count the Ways RCI Has Exposed the Green Pipe Dream.  Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds and added images.

While brandishing the moral cudgel with full force – President Biden describes climate change as “an existential crisis,” i.e., every person and puppy will die if we don’t submit to his agenda – the left also suggests the transition will be easy-peasy: Just build some windmills, install some solar panels, and swap out your car, stove, and lightbulbs for cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

The up front gold is clear and costly, the end of the road in shadows.

Though much of the cheerleading media downplays this fact, it is already clear that Biden’s enormously expensive, massively disruptive goal is a pipe dream. In a recent series of articles, my colleagues at RealClearInvestigations have reported on several of the seemingly intractable problems that the administration and its eco-allies are trying to wish away.

The dishonesty begins with the engine of the green economy – the vast array of wind and solar farms that must be constructed to replace the coal and gas facilities that power our economy. James Varney reported for RCI that the Department of Energy’s official line is that the installations required to meet Biden’s goal of “100% clean electricity” by 2035 will require “less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area” – or roughly 15,000 of the lower 48’s roughly 3 million square miles. However, Varney noted, “the government report that furnished those estimates also notes that the wind farm footprint alone could require an expanse nine times as large: 134,000 square miles. That is equivalent to the land mass of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky combined – plus all of New England.

Convert Albany county New York into a wind farm required just to replace the now shuttered Indian Point nuclear power plant.

Echoing the 19th century adage that figures don’t lie, but liars figure, the discrepancy mostly involves estimates of what can be built around the windmills. Each turbine’s footprint is relatively small, but they have to be spaced far apart. The DOE’s smaller number is based on the fanciful assumption that all the surrounding land can be used for agriculture and other purposes, while the larger figure assumes none of it will. The truth probably is somewhere in between. That the government is trumpeting the impossibly small number – while ignoring the additional land needed to build transmission lines which will carry the current to end users – is telling and troubling.

Given Biden’s aggressive timeframes for the build-out – 2035 is a mere dozen years from now – one might expect that the administration has a master plan detailing where and when these green farms will be constructed. It does not. And, as Steve Miller reported for RCI, this challenge already seems insurmountable given the “grassroots resistance … coalescing in varied new state laws and local ordinances that threaten to bog down solar and wind development in a multi-front legal and regulatory war on a scale not seen before.”

In a stinging irony, opponents are routinely invoking arguments regarding
endangered species and wetlands that environmentalists have long deployed
to kneecap pipelines, gas fields, and other fossil fuel projects.

Another largely ignored problem area is charging stations for electric vehicles. John Murawski reported for RCI that California’s first-in-the-nation move to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars after 2035 is highlighting an array of challenges and dislocations. To keep electric cars rolling, the state “may need to install at least 20 electric chargers for every gas pump now in service to create a reliable, seamless network” – or more than 2 million new stations during the next decade, which is about 10 times as many EV ports as gas station nozzles.

It might be hard to convince private businesses to house the chargers, because, as a 2022 report from the California Energy Commission noted, “Revenue from electricity sales alone is often not enough today for chargers to be profitable, especially for stations with lower utilization.” That’s why California is investing at least $14 billion to subsidize this fantasy.

Even if the EV infrastructure gets built, it will require a massive change in behavior. The days of fill ’er up once or twice a week will likely become a distant memory. Most public stations will only be able to provide between five and 60 miles of range for an hour hook-up. Private citizens will need to pony up for their own charging infrastructure at home, while renters and low-income drivers will have to rely on employer and municipal largesse to supply chargers.

The green dream also involves knotty geo-politico issues. Ben Weingarten reported for RCI that America’s transition to renewables is empowering its most formidable economic adversary. “China currently holds a commanding position in the clean energy industry, controlling the natural resources and manufacturing the components essential to the Biden administration’s desired alternative energy transition,” Weingarten wrote. “Energy experts believe that its dominance will become more entrenched in the years ahead because of domestic environmentalist opposition to perceived ‘dirty’ mining and refining operations, and the Biden administration’s ‘clean energy’ spending blitz – which could provide Chinese companies and subsidiaries billions in subsidies.”

What’s more, if the U.S. slows its production of oil and gas in the coming years, hostile or problematic nations that continue to drill – including Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Venezuela – will reap the benefits should renewables fail to become a reliable source of power.

Finally, the systematic erasure of these and other consequential questions
is part of a broad effort to quell dissenting views.

While climate action advocates in the government, media, and academia argue that the science is settled, Murawski reported for RCI that a growing number of experts are courageously challenging this orthodoxy. In August, for example, “more than 1,600 scientists, including two Nobel physics laureates, signed a declaration stating that there is no climate emergency, and that climate advocacy has devolved into mass hysteria,” Murawski wrote. “The skeptics say the radical transformation of entire societies is marching forth without a full debate, based on dubious scientific claims amplified by knee-jerk journalism.”

In detailing the central arguments of these skeptics, Murawski reported that few fall into the camp of “climate deniers” – itself a shameful label used to equate climate change with the Holocaust. They acknowledge the Earth is warming. Some, however, question whether human activity is to blame and, if it is, whether the massive human interventions being demanded can make much difference. Others say that the money spent retooling the economy would be better spent spurring economic growth that will allow people to adapt to a changing world.

Murawski reported that many dissenters believe that “[S]logans such as ‘follow the science’ and scientific consensus’ are misleading and disingenuous. There is no consensus on many key questions, such as the urgency to cease and desist burning fossil fuels, or the accuracy of computer modeling predictions of future global temperatures. The apparent consensus of imminent disaster is manufactured through peer pressure, intimidation, and research funding priorities, based on the conviction that ‘noble lies,’ ‘consensus entrepreneurship,’ and ‘stealth advocacy’ are necessary to save humanity from itself.”

A lie is rarely noble. It is almost always evidence of a weak argument and contempt for those it seeks to influence. Those who see climate change as an urgent danger and believe they know how to counter the threat should make their case forthrightly instead of recycling tired myths. Our democracy faces an existential threat when the will of the people gives way to the coercion of the masses.