Ronald Stein’s article at Eurasia Review is America’s Energy Scam: A Deliberate Exploitation Of Humanity That Only Increases Emissions.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.  H\T John Ray

America is aggressively pursuing “green” electricity and actively phasing out of crude oil to reduce emissions generated in America by deliberately increasing worldwide exploitations of humanity, environmental degradation, and increased emissions.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, President Joe Biden, and world leaders are not cognizant enough to know that wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity and are unable to manufacture tires, cable insulation, asphalt, medicines and the more than 6,000 products now made from the petrochemical derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

Without a replacement for those petrochemical derivatives manufactured from crude oil, phasing out oil would phase out the Medical Industry, Militaries, Transportation, Communications, and the Electrical Power industries, none of which existed before the 1800’s.

Climate changes may impact millions, but without fossil fuels and the infrastructures and products we have today that did not exist before 1800’s, we may lose BILLIONS from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths.

Eradicating the world of crude oil usage would ground the 20,000 commercial aircraft, and more than 50,000 military aircraft in the world and leave the 50,000 merchant ships tied up at docks and discontinue the military and space programs! Without a backup plan to replace crude oil, the 8 billion on this planet will face the greatest threat to humanity without jets, merchant ships, and space programs.

America’s climate policies being introduced are particularly harmful for developing countries. America is probably the most environmentally controlled county in the world, but by deliberately relying on poorer developing countries for our fuels and products, we are “leaking” to other countries:

• • Leakage of emissions to countries with minuscule environmental laws.
  • Leakage of the exploitations of people with yellow, brown, and black skin to counties with minuscule labor laws.
  • Leakage of environmental degradation to landscapes in developing countries where there are minuscule environmental laws.

In the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis in 1977, the Department of Energy was established to lessen our dependence on foreign oil but today, with its 14,000 employees and a $48 billion dollar budget the D.O.E. continues to remain dead silent and has allowed California, the 4^th largest economy in the world to increase imported crude oil from 5 percent in 1992 to almost 60 percent today of total consumption. 

California is home to 9 International airports, 41 Military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping ports in America. California’s growing dependency on other nations is a serious national security risk for America!

China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are great War historians. As World War I and II historians, Russia, China, and OPEC know, the country that controls the minerals, crude oil, and natural gas, controls the world!  It’s shocking that of all the Generals that report to President Biden (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Program), NONE have asked the President how are we going to run our military ships, planes, vehicles, and supply products to our troops WITHOUT oil?

It’s a no-brainer that an attack on the ports at San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Long Beach could paralyze the American economy with huge reductions in fuels for California’s in-state infrastructures and stagnate the supply chain of products for the entire country.

Meanwhile, California continues to constantly reduce in-state refining capacity that refines fuels and petrochemicals for the materialistic demands of society and continue its growing dependency on foreign oil.

A few notes about ELECTRICITY:

• Everything that needs electricity, like the basic light bulb, computers, iPhones and iPads, televisions, washing machines, X-ray equipment, etc., are all made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

• Every method of generating electricity, like wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric, nuclear, coal, and natural gas power plants all exist only because all the parts and components of the generation system are made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

Renewables, like wind turbines and solar panels, only generate occasional electricity from inconsistent breezes and sunshine, but manufacture no products for society. 

Fossil fuels, on the other hand, manufacture everything for the 8 billion living on this planet, i.e., products, and transportation fuels.

And MOST importantly today, there is a lost reality that the primary usage of crude oil  is NOT for the generation of electricity, but to manufacture derivatives and fuels which are the ingredients of everything needed by economies and lifestyles to exist and prosper. Energy realism requires that the legislators, policymakers, and media that demonstrate pervasive ignorance about crude oil usage understand the staggering scale of the decarbonization movement. 

The ruling class and powerful elite have yet to identify the replacement for the oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products and all the fuels for the merchant ships, aircraft, military, and space programs that support the 8 billion living on this planet?

The American government provides incentives and tax deductions to transition society to EV’s, but those incentives are financial incentives for the continuation of Child Labor and Ecological Destruction “Elsewhere”. Is it ethical and moral to provide financial support to the developing countries that are mining for exotic minerals and metals to build EV batteries for Americans? 

We’ve become a very materialistic society over the last 200 years, and the world has populated from 1 to 8 billion because of all the products and different fuels for planes, ships, trucks, cars, military, and the space program that did not exist before the 1800’s. Until a crude oil replacement is identified, the world needs a back-up plan that replaces crude oil that will support the manufacturing of the products of our materialistic society.

Today’s materialistic world cannot survive without crude oil!  Conversations are needed to discuss the difference between just ELECTRICITY” from renewables, and the “PRODUCTS” that are the basis of society’s materialistic world. Wind turbines and solar panels are themselves MADE from oil derivatives, and only generate occasional electricity but manufacture NOTHING for society.

How dare the ruling class, powerful elite, and media, avoid energy literacy conversations about the “Elephant in the Room”, as the end of crude oil that is manufactured into all the products and transportation fuels that built the world to eight billion people, would be the end of civilization as “unreliable electricity” from breezes and sunshine cannot manufacture anything.

Background Post

Four Ways Net Zero Ruins Us

 

 

 

 

Parker Gallant explains the cash flow and the grid decay in his blog article Industrial Wind Turbines demonstrate their Unreliable and Intermittent Nature From 2% to 80% of Capacity  H/T John Ray.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

IWTs Generating 1.8% of their Capacity then jumping to 80.4% only a few days later

Yesterday, February 9^th, 2024, those IWT spread throughout Ontario were impressive generating 94,605 MWh or about what 3.1 million average households would consume in a day suggesting they are the panacea to stop climate change!  Mere days before on February 3^rd and the first seven hours on February 4^th they generated only 2,673 MWh which was 1.8% of their capacity in those 31 hours.

As the expression goes; they continually demonstrate their “traditional yo yo” tendencies as the following screenshot from IESO February 5^th to the 10^th demonstrates. They are the “green” in the chart which basically shows their intermittent and unreliable nature whereas the dark blue is natural gas which has the ability to ramp up and down as demand changes and to keep our grid from failing and causing blackouts.

Wind in green, NatGas in dark blue, Hydro in light blue, Nuclear in orange

So, the question one should ask, was the power delivered by
those IWT on the 9^th of February needed here in the province? 

As it turns out 65.8% of the IWT generation or 62,259 MW were not really needed as IESO’s intertie data (net-exports) shows it went to our neighbours in Quebec, New York and Michigan and the average sale price over the 24 hours was $19.42/MWh and well below what we Ontario ratepayers/taxpayers paid for it.  If we assume it was all surplus IWT generation those net-exports, we paid those contracted parties $135/MWh for; suggests the total cost of what was sold to our neighbours came to $8,404,965 but the price we were paid by our neighbours was an average of only that $19.42/MWh. Using the latter average price received over the 24 hours means we earned only $1,227,774!

The net result is we Ontario ratepayers/taxpayers have to eat the loss of $7,177,218 for just that one day’s IWT generation.  The foregoing is not the exception particularly when Ontario’s peak demand is relatively low as it was yesterday reaching only 17,057 MW at hour 19.

For the foregoing reasons, we should wonder why the Ontario Minister of Energy is instructing IESO to extend the IWT contracts when their 20-year terms are up as they do nothing but increase our electricity costs.  Those costs will be exacerbated by the addition of BESS (battery energy storage systems) as the latter will simply add another costly layer in an attempt to keep our grid reliable!

The IESO  current Contracted Generation List associated with BESS (battery energy storage systems) suggests they are expecting to contract for 1,140 MW!  BESS are able to provide their rated capacity for four hours meaning the 1,140 MW could provide 4,560 MW before needing to be recharged. It is humorous the megawatts those BESS units may be able to provide is only slightly more then the IWT provided during their peak generation hour yesterday. Today (Feb. 19) at Hour 9 those IWT only generated 316 MW!

At this point we should wonder if the batteries to be utilized by those BESS contracted generators will include CATL batteries, manufactured in China and now banned in the USA as pointed out in a recent article. If so, Canada could be in trouble with its neighbour, the USA, who have security concerns about CATL batteries. That may have a negative impact on our intertie connections with US States, amusingly, where much of our surplus IWT generation went to yesterday!

Oh, what tangled webs we weave!

Footnote More Grid Corrosion from Wind and Solar

Not mentioned above is a slow deterioration of baseload electricity because of renewables  unreliables.  Gail Tverberg explains in the background post below:

In fact, I have come to the rather astounding conclusion that even if wind turbines and solar PV could be built at zero cost, it would not make sense to continue to add them to the electric grid in the absence of very much better and cheaper electricity storage than we have today. There are too many costs outside building the devices themselves. It is these secondary costs that are problematic. Also, the presence of intermittent electricity disrupts competitive prices, leading to electricity prices that are far too low for other electricity providers, including those providing electricity using nuclear or natural gas. The tiny contribution of wind and solar to grid electricity cannot make up for the loss of more traditional electricity sources due to low prices.

Climateers Tilting at Windmills Updated

 

 

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.

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

Tsvetana Paraskova writes at Oil Price   Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

• A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit shows global energy consumption rising by 1.8% in 2024, hitting a new record high.
• Despite high prices and supply disruptions, the report shows crude oil and natural gas demand climbing in 2024.
• Demand for renewable energy is also expected to rise in 2024, climbing by 11%

Global energy and fossil fuel consumption is set to defy wars and high prices and hit a record high level in 2024, led by strong Asian demand, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a new report on Wednesday.  Next year, global energy consumption is expected to increase by 1.8%, according to the EIU report.  

“Despite still-high prices and unsolved supply chain disruptions, demand for fossil fuels will reach record levels, but demand for renewable energy will rise by 11%,” the authors of the report wrote.

Oil demand alone is expected to increase by 1.7% next year, per the report. Natural gas demand is set for 2.2% growth, led by Asia and the Middle East, while Europe will continue to see depressed demand as it looks to save gas and energy.

Renewable capacity additions are set for a record high this year at around 400 gigawatts (GW) and will continue to rise in 2024, according to the report. [Note that electricity generated is much lower than capacity ratings.]

Global oil demand is set to rise by 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) to a new record-high this year and by another 2.2 million bpd next year amid an improving Chinese economy, OPEC said in its latest monthly report earlier in October, leaving its demand forecast for both 2023 and 2024 unchanged, despite fears of slowing economies and demand destruction. World oil demand is set to reach a record average of 102.1 million bpd in 2023, driven by a 2.3-million-bpd demand increase in the non-OECD region, OPEC noted.

Coal demand globally is also expected to remain at record-high levels this year, said none other than the International Energy Agency (IEA) earlier this year.

IEA Tries Self Fulfilling Prophecy Against Carbon Fuels

The IEA Reiterates Its Peak Oil Demand Prediction by Irina Slav.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

• In its latest World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency has reiterated its claim that crude oil, natural gas, and coal will peak before 2030.
• The agency sees the emergence of a new clean energy economy as providing hope for the way forward, emphasizing the economic case for clean energy technologies.
• The report focuses on the importance of resilience and energy security, particularly due to the geopolitical developments currently disrupting energy markets.

Demand for oil, natural gas, and coal is set to peak before 2030, which undermines the case for increasing investment in fossil fuels.  This is one of the outtakes from the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, released earlier today.  While the agency does admit that investment in fossil fuels will remain necessary, it claims the growth era is over.

Last month, the agency’s head, Fatih Birol, wrote in an op-ed that
oil, gas, and coal demand were all going to peak before 2030
thanks to the increase in EV adoption and slower Chinese GDP growth.

According to the IEA, “The economic case for mature clean energy technologies is strong” and energy security is an increasingly important consideration, too.

“In 2020, one in 25 cars sold was electric; in 2023, this is now one in 5,” the report also said as part of its case for EVs. However, an EV sales database reveals that for the first half of this year, sales of battery electric vehicles, the true EVs, only represented a tenth of total sales. Combined with plug-in hybrids, EV sales accounted for 14.1% of total sales.

OPEC Takes a Different View

When Birol first mentioned peak oil, gas, and coal, he prompted an immediate reaction from OPEC, which slammed the head of the IEA for making unwise predictions that could threaten the world’s energy supply security.

“Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly. It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world,” OPEC secretary-general Haitham al-Ghais said in September.

The release of the World Energy Outlook may now prompt a similar response from OPEC, which forecast recently that demand for oil is going to continue rising at least until 2045.

 

 

 

 

Irina Slav lists the rules strictly followed by leaders of the Great Energy Transition at her substack Irina Slav on Energy.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

We call them climate crusaders, climateers, a cult, and other, less polite words. Essentially, however, the transition leadership is a club and I only say this because I’m in a good mood this week, seeing as the local case of global boiling has ended for the year.

Like every club, Transition Club has rules and we all must give its members top marks for following these, not least because following these rules is often quite challenging. Here’s why.

Rule #1: We do not talk about the problems. (Unless we absolutely have to.)

The IEA this week made its fans happy by releasing a new report that said the world needed to replace and build 50 million miles of transmission lines to make the transition work.

This would only take $600 billion annually by 2030, which is double the current investment rate for transmission lines. For context, the global transmission line network is half the length the IEA says we need right now.

The expansion needs to take place by 2040 because Climate Targets. In other words, the world needs to double its transmission line network in a matter of less than 20 years… after it took a century to build all the lines we currently have. Realistic, right?

In fairness, the IEA does hint that there might be a slight problem with securing all of the raw materials necessary for this enormous undertaking. It absolutely had to admit it, what with miners crying shortage all the time, annoying people. But that cannot stop the transition. Else we get global broiling.

Rule #2: Facts are obsolete. Only the transition matters. (Until facts punch you in the face.)

The UK government had a plan to replace gas heating systems in homes with hydrogen. It even scheduled local trials to see if it would work. I know, that’s almost unheard of in transition circles but they did.  Following massive opposition from the target community, the government ditched the trial plan and started mumbling that maybe hydrogen for heating is not such a marvelous idea.

The facts: hydrogen — green hydrogen, that is — is expensive.
All hydrogen is also dangerous, which makes
the green variety even more expensive.

At the time the plans were made, these facts were shunned. The opposition of the locals in the village of Whitby, however, prompted their return to the scene, ultimately leading to this piece of news: Hydrogen for UK home heating should be ruled out, says infrastructure adviser

Summed up, the match between facts and fantasy in hydrogen sounds like this, per the FT: ““We do not see any role for hydrogen in the future of home heating,” said Nick Winser, NIC commissioner, arguing it was “simply not ready at scale” and risked being an inefficient use of green electricity.”

Rule #3: Tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it

Okay, this one is from a quote and here’s the whole quote:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

It kind of feels I can add nothing constructive to this description of the climate change narrative, especially if you consider the source, which appears to be (though not verbatim, I understand) a little book called Mein Kampf. I mean, if a tactic was tried in one context and it worked splendidly, you can totally make it work in another, and I’m not being ironic. The tactic does work.

It’s only too bad “the State” cannot shield the people from
the consequences of the lie for very long.

In Europe, we are witnessing in real time how the consequences, from which governments have been unable to shield their populations, are causing a turning political tide, with voters electing parties that do not prioritise the transition.

Rule #4: If it’s failing, double down

The countries with the greatest wind and solar power generation capacity in the EU also have some of the highest electricity prices. This is a mystery to absolutely no one with rudimentary mental acuity. And yet the billions continue flowing into wind and solar. And then, once a gas crunch hits, they start flowing into households.

Wind and solar clearly cannot work at the scale their fans want them to work. It is physically and financially impossible for them to make sense at that scale at this point in time. The evidence is there on a daily basis, courtesy of Electricity Maps and, I’m sure, other real-time tracking websites.

Transition Club has no truck with evidence, however, unless it’s the right kind of evidence, such as record-setting wind/solar output for some day or another. The rest is dismissed as irrelevant, disinformation, or simply ignored. And the billions keep flowing because there are targets to be hit in wind and solar installations. Whatever it takes.

Rule #5: Words and numbers are weapons

Old but gold and put to good use by the Club. All the talk about global boiling, the highway to hell, the accelerating extreme weather, the climate catastrophe and all the rest of it are water to the Transition Club agitprop mill. It keeps the lie going.

Numbers are even better: from the 99% of climate scientists who are in agreement about the climate and related catastrophies to all the CO2 emission updates and the horrific temperature readings from this summer we get actual numbers that stoke up fears that the planet is dying and we’re on our way out with it unless we kill the oil and gas industry and go full-wind/solar.

Or unless we check how the authors of the 99% consensus study came to their conclusion and what their sample size was, what the significance of those emission updates is for the total content of CO2 in the atmosphere, and how those temperatures were measured during the summer.

Rule #6: Questions are denial

This rule evolved organically from following all the others and sprouted actual disinformation laws, at least in the EU, for now, and not-so-official reporting rules for the media that require the climate narrative to be reported as fact despite evidence to the contrary, said evidence being dismissed as science denial and denialist propaganda, even when — and perhaps especially when — it comes from actual scientists.

Apparently, these days there are two kinds of scientists,the right and the wrong kind.
The wrong kind are those asking questions,  even though
science is by definition a process that involves a lot of question-asking.

Per the Oxford Dictionary science means “the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”

Not in the transition era, it doesn’t. In the transition era, there is a right kind of observation and computer modelling to replace experimentation and testing of theories against evidence. Then there is the wrong kind, which is any systematic study of the physical and natural world that questions the right kind, using evidence.

Glory be to the transition.