Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
As you can see, he is getting very worked up about “climate disinformation” in social media. His study goes on to analyse where all of this supposed disinformation is coming from.
But I have a simple question for Mr. Pogson – what do you classify as “disinformation”?
This was posted on Facebook in 2019 by the professional group, Friends of Science. The post concerned an article by the Volunteer Firefighters Association in New South Wales, which reported on all of the forest mismanagement and the role this had played in the wildfires there that year.
Following a “factcheck”, all you get now when you click on the link is this:
There was nothing unfactual in the article, never mind false, and it was written by experts. It was taken down for the simple reason that it did not support the claims of climate alarmists.
Or maybe, Mr. Pogson, it might be this sort of Facebook post which is all too common nowadays:
It is totally untrue that weather emergencies are on the rise, whether climate related or not. Yet we see junk like this posted everyday on social media.
For some reason it is never “factchecked”.
Pogson’s conclusions give the game away. It was never about “facts” or “truth”, it is about “politics”, and censoring inconvenient truths:
Wind is among the most popular renewable energy sources, but the truth is, wind power really blows. From collapsing or burning turbines, to snapped lines, to plastics pollution and the need to burn fossil fuels to keep turbines running, Wind Power is failing on every front except government funded subsidies.
Wind is among the most popular renewable energy sources, but the truth is, wind power really blows. From collapsing or burning turbines, to snapped lines, to plastics pollution and the need to burn fossil fuels to keep turbines running, Wind Power is failing on every front except government funded subsidies.
It was recently discovered that in Scotland, several windfarms were connected to diesel generators to keep turbine blades spinning during cold weather to prevent bearings from freezing up. The irony is thick, and there are even more examples that we will cover.
On this week’s episode of Climate change Roundtable, Host Anthony Watts is joined by H. Sterling Burnett and Linnea Lueken to dive into the folly of wind energy.
Tune in to Climate Change Roundtable live every Friday at 1PM EST 12pm CST.
According to the “experts” at the Met Office, summer rainfall was forecast to decline sharply, down by 17 to 23% by the 2080s. Even by now, for instance, rainfall in the SW should already be 7% down.
It turns out that the clowns could not even get the sign right! Average summer rainfall is actually 10% higher then the 1961-90 baseline, and it is also at a similar level to the mid 20thC, showing little signs of a long tern decline.
They also forecast large increases in winter rainfall of over 20% in much of England and Wales.
At least they managed to get the sign right this time, as winter rainfall has increased very slightly, up by 6%. But there is little indication of this increase being sustained, and current long term averages are barely higher than they were in the early 20thC:
Scientists have combined remote sensing data with machine learning to determine the Venice coast “is stable, or mainly subjected to accretion in the period 2015-2019.”
Scientists have combined remote sensing data with machine learning to determine the Venice coast “is stable, or mainly subjected to accretion in the period 2015-2019.”
Venice has been sinking into the sea (subsidence) at a rate of ~24 cm per century since the 19th century.
Fortunately, in recent decades the regional sea level rise has rapidly decelerated. The sea level rise rate was +2.5 mm/yr from 1872-1969 along the Venice coast, but then from 1970-2000 the sea level rise rate slowed to just +0.7 mm/yr (Munaretto et al., 2012).
In the last few years (2015-2019) 83 km of Venice’s considered shoreline has been stable (36%) or growing (52%) in size (Fogarin et al., 2023). Just 5% of the Venice coast has been subjected to erosion.
Coastal expansion trends have also been observed in the Aegean Sea along the border between Greece and Turkey. From 1975 to 2021, accretion processes have dominated, allowing the shoreline to expand seaward by about 3 m per year since 2000. There has been a total of 66 m of coastal expansion over this 46-year period (Kilar et al., 2023).
Another new study (Foti et al., 2022) from this region (Calabria, southern Italy) indicates coastal expansion has only begun in the last few decades. Prior to the 21st century the coast had been retreating into the sea. The trend reversal to shoreline advancement has been abrupt.
Net coastal expansion has been ongoing across the globe, not just in the Mediterranean region. The global rate of shoreline growth has been 0.26 m/yr for the 3.5 decades from 1984 to 2019 (Mao et al., 2021).
This good enough plan may get you to net zero before the more ambitious ones. It is likely to have less carbon emissions than the more aggressive plans over time. It certainly will be more reliable and affordable.
Electric generation plans need to be well crafted and carefully considered. Because of concerns around climate change many politicians have become galvanized to hastily enact legislation to target net-zero anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The authors argue that the more seriously you take climate change, the more important it becomes that you have a good plan for electric generation in the near and midterm planning arena. Taking foolish actions in the near to mid-range time periods will not help with CO2 reductions or climate change and may be far worse than doing nothing. Maybe we all could compromise and find a less grand strategy that has more likely benefits with far fewer threats to reliability, affordability, and overall environmental impacts.
Utilities used to look at 30-year time periods in developing their generation expansion plans. This was not because they believed anyone could forecast what might happen 30 years into the future, but rather because of the recognition of the futility of such efforts. Decisions were made about the next ten years or so, but the later years tested the flexibility of the plans. Because power plants have a long life, many different scenarios were studied in the additional 20 years or so after the plant addition. Commercial technologies were supported by more dependable cost and performance estimates than what could be obtained for newer technologies, but it was recognized that all parameters could change across any technologies. Scenarios would vary fuel prices and availability, potential environmental requirements, as well as other varying system requirements. Back then, no one had the hubris to say this is what the system would, or should look like 20 or 30 years from now. Planners sought to make decisions that would be flexible enough to work well across a variety of future potential scenarios. The hope was for this plan to work with and adapt to the emerging future.
Some jurisdictions have made commitments to completely transform their electric generating systems in less than 30 years. Rather than intending to be flexible in the mid to long term, these plans are often overly prescriptive. This post addresses the potential consequences and suggests a less risky approach.
New York Climate Act
New York’s Climate Act is a good example of prescriptive net-zero legislation. Implementation to meet the following inflexible targets has begun:
Reduce GHG emissions to 60 percent of 1990 emissions levels by 2030;
Zero GHG emissions from electricity production by 2040; and
Reduce GHG emissions to less than 15 percent of 1990 emissions levels by 2050, with offsets to reduce net emissions to zero.
New York passed the Climate Act in 2019, effective 1/1/2020. The legislation established a Climate Action Council to prepare the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040. The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. The Final Scoping Plan was completed at the end of 2022. In 2023 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Legislature are supposed to promulgate the necessary regulations and legislation to fulfill the recommendations in the Scoping Plan.
There are deep flaws in the New York implementation process. The Scoping Plan is just an outline list of control strategies that NYSERDA claims will reduce emissions as needed and provide reliable electricity. NYSERDA, New York State Independent System Operator (NYISO), and New York State Reliability Council (NYSRC) have not done a consolidated feasibility analysis that addresses the fundamental question: will it work? There are significant differences between the Final Scoping Plan and NYISO 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook. The following figure from the Resource Outlook summarizes the key findings that are applicable to any net-zero by 2050 initiative. Our biggest concern is that both resource projections rely on untested technology. The Resource Outlook notes:
“By 2040, all existing fossil generators are assumed to be retired to achieve the Climate Act target for a zero-emission grid and are replaced by Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFRs). These resources represent a proxy technology that will meet the flexibility and emissions-free energy needs of the future system but are not yet mature technologies that are commercially available (some examples include hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and small modular nuclear reactors).”
What are the characteristics of Good Plans versus Bad Plans?
In this section we consider the characteristic and provide commentary in italics relative to the New York Scoping Plan.
Bad plans assume that critical elements of the future are all known. Bad plans are narrowly constructed to a specified future. They risk not allowing the flexibility to adapt when things turn out differently than planned. Good plans look at their impacts or current decisions across a wide variety of potential futures. Good plans provide flexibility and nimbleness for when future conditions change.
The NY Climate Act electrifies as much as possible to decarbonize and presumes all the elements necessary to accomplish the transition are known. The critical element of future expected load must be well known to determine generation resource requirements. Future net-zero load is a function of increased electricity for heating, cooking, water, and electric vehicles at the same time there is increased emphasis on energy efficiency and conservation. Projections in this instance are anything but well known.
Good plans understand that the power supply system and power grid are very complicated systems requiring careful design, construction, and operation. Great consideration is given to the architecture of the system and how it will work. A poor plan leaves the power system and grid as an unplanned afterthought. It specifies some goals and ingredients but ignores the greater system.
Bad plans are one-size fits all. They employ a presumption of what is best and fail to take in the particular specific considerations that can vary across time and place. Good plans recognize that what works in one area, may be less appropriate in another. Good plans seek to capitalize on differing advantages wherever and whenever they may occur.
The New York electrical grid is pretty much two different grids. There is a traditional grid Upstate but there are unique problems in New York City. Experience has shown that sufficient in-city generation must be available to account for the loss of a transmission line into the New York City load pocket or blackouts can occur. The Scoping Plan does not adequately address these differences in their on-size fits all plan.
Good generation plans recognize how people prefer to use electricity. If behavior needs to be changed, they are sensitive to the capabilities and limits of incentives. Depending on the generation mix the value of electricity will likely vary considerably across hours, days, months, and seasons. Good plans will seek to provide value. Bad plans tend not to differentiate between when and how energy might be supplied. Plans crafted based on just average use and average costs will likely not have good results. Traditionally generation planning recognized baseload, intermediate and peaking needs. While many seem to forget these distinctions when comparing alternatives, their importance has not diminished.
The New York plan presumes that net-zero transition to net-zero required changes to personal energy choice preferences will be universally accepted. The behavioral changes required by the Scoping Plan are massive (e.g., type of vehicles, heating your home, and cooking your food). Furthermore, there may be limits on the timing of electric usage. Modeling assumptions on the effects of these changes to personal habits are important for planning but also very uncertain if people do not make the changes expected. It is highly unlikely that load shifting and energy conservation will prevent a markedly higher electric load peak in winter mornings. The Scoping Plan compounds these issues because it does not adequately address the baseload, intermediate and peaking requirements naively arguing that “smart” planning will mitigate issues associated with them.
Good plans look at major environmental impacts across the production and lifetime of a resource. Bad plans tend to look only at marginal impacts when the facilities are operating. Tremendous resources and costs are incurred just getting a generating resource in place. Generally, the longer that resource can operate, the better its average environmental impact might be. Good plans should consider the realistic lifetime of potential resource. Many “green” resources projected to last 30 years fall far shy of 20 years. Conventional resources typically are capable of lasting many years beyond the thirty-year study life.
The Climate Act takes this concern to a higher level. Many life-cycle environmental impacts of fossil generating resources are considered. None of the life-cycle environmental impacts of wind, solar, and energy storage are considered. The Integration Analysis assumes that all wind, solar, and energy storage resources keep operating from the present until 2050. Furthermore, the Climate Action Council has tried to appease climate justice advocates who fervently believe that the risks of fossil-fired generating resources are so great that existing resources must be shut down as soon as possible. Their concern is at odds with consideration of environmental impacts across the production and lifetime of all resources.
Good plans rely on proven technology that can fulfill the specific requirements. For example, providing power for periods of peak load is required for reliable power when it is needed most. Peak loads are typically associated with the hottest and coldest periods of the year when electricity is used for cooling and heating. Typically, those periods occur less than 5% of the time so a technology should be as low cost as possible to keep the price of electricity down during peak loads. A good plan would make the sensible decision to keep an old fossil fired plant around to help the system meet peak loads. Fossil-fired steam boiler electric generating units are a proven technology that can be used to meet this need.
For many years New York City peak load requirements were met with simple-cycle gas turbines installed in the early 1970’s. However, those units were old, inefficient, and had unacceptably high emission rates so, after a multi-year process of reliability planning the State has instituted a regulation to phase them out. After the regulation was promulgated the Environmental Justice (EJ) community glommed on to the issue of peaking power plants: “Fossil peaker plants in New York City are perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today”. Even though the poorly controlled peaking turbines are being phased out, the issue remains a point of contention. Now the EJ organizations are demanding that all fossil-fired power plants in New York City be shut down including the remaining steam boilers even though they meet all emission limits and do not contribute to the alleged health benefits in disadvantaged communities near the facilities. The proposed solution to use renewable energy and energy storage replaces proven technology with one that has not been proven on the scale necessary to keep the lights on in New York City.
Bad plans presume that a new technology can fulfill specific needs. A necessary component of any future system is dependable emergency capacity. For example, a system might need emergency capacity once every five years due to extreme weather either causing very high loads, an unexpected long-term outage of existing resources, or because of an extended drought of wind and solar resources. A bad plan proposes a new technology for this emergency requirement. In order to provide capacity in a zero-emissions electric system a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) has been suggested to keep the lights on during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability.
In Wyoming, PacifiCorp’s 2021 integrated resource plan (IRP) includes a resource labelled as “non-emitting peaker plants” that is unexplained but appears to be the same as DEFR. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2021-2040 System Resource Outlook states:
“DEFRs that provide sustained on-demand power and system stability will be essential to meeting policy objectives while maintaining a reliable electric grid. While essential to the grid of the future, such DEFR technologies are not commercially viable today. DEFRs will require committed public and private investment in research and development efforts to identify the most efficient and cost-effective technologies with a view towards the development and eventual adoption of commercially viable resources. The development and construction lead times necessary for these technologies may extend beyond policy target dates.”
In both instances, no specific technology has been specified. The New York Scoping Plan DEFR placeholder is producing and storing “green” hydrogen for use when needed.
This is the fatal flaw of the New York Scoping Plan. The NYISO 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook states that “To achieve an emission-free grid, Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFRs) must be developed and deployed”. This magical resource does not exist! The Scoping Plan uses “Green” hydrogen as a placeholder for the technology and predicts that it will be used on average around 3% of the time. The fantasy of the Scoping Plan is that developing the infrastructure to produce hydrogen, store it, and then produce electricity in hydrogen fuel cells can provide affordable and reliable energy to keep the lights on. The costs will be astronomical for a resource used so little presuming that the technological issues can be overcome.
What are the ingredients of a compromise plan?
As mentioned above, good plans recognize how people prefer to use electricity. Electricity usage across a region rarely drops to zero, but at times demand peaks for limited periods of time. It may make sense to build high fixed cost, low variable cost resources (Nuclear, Coal and Combined Cycle) to meet the baseload needs of system. If the plant can run all the time with low variable cost, the higher investment cost can be justified. It does not make sense to put in such facilities to serve load levels that only occur rarely. For this component of the load it makes more sense to put in low cost infrastructure that might have higher marginal costs. Between these two conditions there are loads levels that may be present for a few hours a day. To meet these loads, it is usually better to put in plants with moderate costs and moderate marginal costs. This is the thinking behind traditional utility planning which looked at peaking, intermediate and baseload needs in terms of generation fitted for those specific characteristics. There is one other type of generation: intermittent. Intermittent typically was low-cost generation that although it could not be counted on, it could be used to back off generation using higher priced fuels. In looking at the ingredients below it will helpful to consider where they may be most appropriate.
Wind, Solar and Batteries can work to displace fossil fuel generation. With backup from batteries, the energy provided can be made to have more value. Unexpected and innovative changes in the capabilities of batteries could be a game changer, but it is too soon to count on timing in this arena. The narrative that these “zero-emissions” resources have zero downsides is false. The construction of wind and solar takes a lot of resources; their construction has a lot of environmental consequences; and fabrication uses a lot of energy that will be difficult to displace away from fossil fuels (making steel for example).
Nuclear power works well to meet baseload needs. It also supports the transmission system by providing needed electrical characteristics commonly called Essential Reliability Services. Nuclear plants can be planned and operated to provide some ramping and load following capabilities. Nuclear offers the best opportunity to reduce dependence upon fossil fuels for electric generation because it is the only proven technology with no emissions that can be scaled up in the immediate future.
Hydro expansion is very unlikely. Environmental considerations make it unlikely that additional locations for hydro generation could be developed. Similarly, there are limited opportunities for additional pumped storage, but there may be some areas where such might be pursued. Finally, geothermal plants when feasible are a good resource, but opportunities for exploiting this resource are limited.
Natural Gas combustion turbines and combined cycle are best suited to fill in the gaps when reliable and functional generation additions are needed. As more environmentally desirable units become capable of doing the job, eventually new construction should be halted and existing units phased out as they age. Keep in mind the US through fracking reduced CO2 more effectively than Germany did with their massive expenditures on “clean” resources.
Existing resources such as coal- and oil-fired boilers should not be ignored for future plans. It is extremely unlikely that new plants burning those fuels will be built in the US in the foreseeable future. Clean coal was on the table a few years back, but highly visible failures coupled with environmental concerns have closed this door for a while. The cost differential between oil and natural gas as well as the efficiency relative to a combined cycle combustion turbine precludes construction of oil-fired boilers. However, the existing fleet of these plants could be kept around for limited peaking power needs, emergency power, and long-term temporary system needs.
Other potential ingredients for a future plan include technologies currently on the drawing board. Examples include tidal energy, biofuels, fusion, big HVDC ties and so on. These new technologies will have to prove themselves before they are employed as anchoring technologies in good plans. Most new technologies will not prove themselves in the next 10 to 20 years if history is a guide. But some might. While we can’t dependably plan on unproven technology, we must be ready to jump on anything valuable that works. Such technology will likely be available and workable in niche applications many years before they can be deployed more broadly in long term plans.
Smart Grids have also been touted as a component of future electric systems. This is a favorite approach of visionary academics, to concerns about observed and emerging grid problems. In the New York net-zero transition planning process, many issues were dismissed with a call for “Smart Grids” as if that would magically solve everything. Modern grids are “smart” but as with any “smart” technology there are all kinds of applications that could be adopted, so of course it is not a panacea for future grid plans.
Energy Efficiency is another favorite future grid resource for the naïve. When concerns about peak loads and the necessary infrastructure are raised, the response is to double down on energy efficiency and energy conservation programs to flatten the peak loads. Of course, if the goal is to decarbonize by electrifying everything, then the load will have to increase to cover building heating, cooking, and hot water. Add in battery electric vehicles and this approach can only hope to reduce the peak but it will never eliminate the need for a peaking power generation resource.
A Good Enough Plan
Assuming the plan is a compromise between net zero and a working power system, the biggest step would be to commit to getting as much nuclear power as possible into the mix as soon as possible. This best supports the grid and reduces CO2. We need to figure out how to get plants built more efficiently and quickly. Adding nuclear must be the centerpiece and driver for meeting emerging generation needs. Under reasonable regulations, it is the only zero-emissions technology that can be scaled up and provide reliable and dispatchable power.
The continued massive ramp up of wind and solar does not make sense currently. There are major reliability concerns which would emerge with the introduction of high level of intermittent asynchronous wind and solar power. Such programs distract from the needed focus upon nuclear programs. As technology improves and better resource choice emerges, large scale existing wind and solar that requires some sort of dispatchable emissions-free resource are likely to become dinosaurs.
At this time, it appears that plans for the addition of fossil-fired plants would center around the gaps where new nuclear power cannot be made available or meeting peak demand levels not met by current resource plans. Natural gas plants will be a good compromise. Lower cost combustion turbines will have long term value to aid with ramping, meeting peaking needs and providing emergency power. Higher cost and more efficient combined cycle plants will make sense the longer the delay for nuclear development. They can serve variable load levels that occur regularly but vary considerably day to day.
The potential for additional hydro is low, but any ability to effectively exploit remaining opportunities should be considered. Additionally, some areas may offer the potential for the addition of pumped storage hydro or geothermal power Hopefully battery technology will improve and its ability to support energy needs and the grid can be expanded and amplified.
The authors have recognized for years that the economics, even without all the environmental and regulatory considerations, will not support building a new steam boiler plant in the US. Gas is just too cheap in the US compared to coal or oil. New coal is a non-starter given the need for elaborate and expensive pollution controls. However, this does not mean it makes sense to retire functioning coal, gas, and oil plants. In many cases they will be the best emergency back resource available across the board when considering economics, environmental impact, and reliability.
There is another economics aspect of our ‘good enough’ plan that needs to be stressed. The plan does not require the development and deployment of the magical dispatchable emissions-free resource that is a necessary component in a electric system that relies on wind, solar, and energy storage. Eliminating the cost of a brand-new resource to fulfill a very limited role will make this approach cheaper than any net-zero alternative.
There is a segment of society that is invested in the need to do “something” about climate change by mitigating emissions. A good enough plan would support R&D on clean technologies for future generation, energy storage, and transmission system support. Currently, these clean technologies are simply not ready to provide reliable and affordable energy. The developing world will not use zero-emission technologies until they can provide electricity cheaper than existing resources so this R&D is necessary for a global solution. In addition, if the full life-cycle impacts of those technologies are considered, then they are not nearly as “clean” as commonly portrayed.
Conclusion
The proposed ‘good enough’ plan provides direction but is not overly constraining. It’s hard to know the future, but it’s a safe bet that any plan will not anticipate some critical twists that will emerge down the road. This plan would lay a strong foundation. A major shift to the nuclear plants that are the obvious best choice for baseload power, supplemented with natural gas units, and retention of on the ground facilities should be the framework of a good enough plan. Good enough plans are also flexible so integration of newer technologies when and as warranted is a reasonable attainable path without major downsides. This good enough plan may get you to net zero before the more ambitious ones. It is likely to have less carbon emissions than the more aggressive plans over time. It certainly will be more reliable and affordable.
The price of gasoline is ticking higher now that President Biden has depleted our emergency strategic oil supply to artificially bring down sticker shock and help Democrats in the midterm elections.
But it’s the other gas — natural gas — that is surging in price, ballooning not just home and business heating and operations costs but also electricity rates. Gas is the U.S.’s lead energy source to power the plants that feed electric grids that light our way of life. Natural gas makes electric vehicles, like the $100,000 model Mr. Biden tweeted on Jan. 30, run.
Natural gas used to be thought of as “clean energy.” Not anymore. Mr. Biden and his climate warrior campaign donors have declared war. It’s as odious to them as oil, the most hated substance since Fritz Haber developed Germany’s World War I poison gas arsenal.
The dynamo tandem of petroleum/natural gas fueled the world’s great advances last century in wealth, technology, health care, transportation, space exploration, life expectancy and nutrition.
But Mr. Biden is sidelining Earth’s bounty, without which we would live and die in physical and mental darkness.
The president’s allies are pressing financial institutions to stop funding fossil fuel production, though the banks would have to shut down without it, making 1929 look like a wonderful life. I don’t think there is one banker rising high on the virtue pedestal who has any idea how the firm would operate without them. But the climate warrior status is too good to resist — and you get the all-important positive press.
Mr. Biden says the answer to filling the natural gas gap is to put thousands of windmills out to sea. We are finding out they may well be killing sea life. We know they shred birds and beneficial insects. The carnage used to drive environmentalists to protest and block and burn. But now, they say, windmills kill far fewer birds than house cats, so who cares.
In 2006, Sen. Ted Kennedy blocked windmills off Cape Cod that would spoil his vacation home view. Whale watchers need a new champion.
From the starting gate, Mr. Biden targeted the natural gas industry. In January 2021, giddy over the thought of more campaign donors after spending over $1 billion to win the election, he signed executive orders making public land off-limits to exploration.
When the president high-fives the death of fossil fuels, its price sat at $2.71 per million BTUs, according to U.S. government stats. By year’s end, the cost nearly doubled to $5.05. In 2022, the spot-check price reached $8.81 in August before falling back to $5.53.
Washington Gas, the supplier for “swamp” creatures, has raised the per-therm, or TH, consumer costs by 50%.
This goes unnoticed by the super-rich lobbyists, PR types, federal contractors and lawyers who encircle our government.
But regular people are noticing.
In San Diego, for example, KUSI News reported on a diner that saw its gas bill shoot up from $2,200 to over $8,000. KUSI said that climate warriors are to blame.
“State and city politicians move to ban natural gas, and suddenly small businesses are choking on their energy bills,” said the report, filmed while fired-up stoves cooked diner fare.
According to government figures, the average price of natural gas per “therm” rose from $2 in December 2021 to $2.38 a year later.
In 2021, the average annual price at the Henry Hub trading site in Louisiana for wholesale natural gas was $3.91 for 1 million BTUs. The average in 2022: $6.48, a 66% increase.
In 2019-20, when Donald Trump was president, the average price was $2.08. Post-Biden throttling, the price sat at $4.51 in 2021-22 — more than doubling.
For natural gas-powered electricity, the kilowatt-hour (KWH) rate paid by homeowners and businesses was 0.136 cents in January 2021, when Mr. Biden began his energy magic.
By next January, the price was .147 cents, and by the end of the year .165 cents.
Higher gas-electric bills all around.
Washington Gas gives these reasons for price increases: “This year, natural gas market prices are higher based on many factors such as the economic recovery from COVID-19, increased natural gas demand from last winter, and slower than anticipated production.”
Got that. “Slower than anticipated production.”
I asked the Natural Gas Supply Association, the people keeping us warm as climate change failed to stop what we call “winter,” if the drilling ban hinders production.
A spokesperson said the big drawback right now: pipelines. As stated earlier, Mr. Biden doesn’t want them. Deep-blue states who like banning stuff followed his lead.
“The greater challenge by far for the industry is a lack of sufficient pipeline capacity in specific regions of the country, Northeast; California,” the association says. “Boston/NYC area — we need more pipeline capacity up in that area, but New York keeps canceling and stalling natural gas pipeline permits.”
The association put together a graphic headlined “Cancelled, Delayed Pipelines Continue in Northeast.”
It says 7 billion cubic feet per day of lines have been stalled or canceled since 2018. It won’t surprise you that the majority, 5 BCFD, happened on Mr. Biden’s watch. Our energy infrastructure is shrinking versus demand.
Look at this stat: “The lack of pipeline capacity means that on the coldest days, there’s a rush to compete for natural gas. For example, today it is cold in the Northeast, and the regional price of natural gas in Boston went from $12 [per unit] to $66 overnight.”
That’s a fivefold increase, compliments of Mr. Biden.
To bat away questions, he lies. Asked about his role in creating inflation, he said it “was already there when I got here.”
The inflation rate when he took office was a healthy 1.2%. He blew it up by curtailing energy production, driving up costs that migrate through prices for everything.
Mr. Biden’s fantasy biography has told of many heroic feats. I want him to tell us at some public event about the day he got a supersonic jet fighter in the air on windmill fuel.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
If the mob are in on it, you can be sure there’s a fast and easy buck to be made, which is why Sicily’s Cosa Nostra long-ago infiltrated Italy’s wind and solar industries. No doubt, providing added valuable protection, wherever it’s needed; no doubt ensuring premium prices for an inferior product.
If the mob are in on it, you can be sure there’s a fast and easy buck to be made, which is why Sicily’s Cosa Nostra long-ago infiltrated Italy’s wind and solar industries. No doubt, providing added valuable protection, wherever it’s needed; no doubt ensuring premium prices for an inferior product.
You know, the kind of offer you just can’t refuse?
Although he may have been rattled by that financial raid back in 2013, Denaro wasn’t about to lie down; he was involved in plans to kill the prosecutors and informants within the ranks who threatened his liberty and lavish lifestyle.
Denaro remained at large until a few weeks ago, when the Carabinieri finally collared him, presumably this time for keeps.
But, you can’t keep a good mobster down, not for long, anyway, with the new blood determined to pour even more effort and (ill-gotten) cash into Italy’s wind and solar scam.
Mafia goes green Daily Star Brendan McFadden 20 January 2023
The Sicilian Mafia reckons it can recover from losing its Godfather by going green.
Newly-promoted Dons are turning to environmentally-friendly schemes to make dough for their organised crime empire.
Cops say despite the arrest of Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, this week, the battle against Cosa Nostra is not over because it is earning billions of euros each year creating solar and wind farms.
They are investing in renewable energy to make cash alongside their more traditional interests in construction and waste disposal.
Top cop Antonello Parasiliti Molica said: “There is still a huge amount to do. While Denaro’s capture marks the end of an era, the Mafia has been reorganising for some time.
“There are now less deaths but more underground activity and more money laundering.”
Investigators previously found links between Sicily’s Mafia and wind farms in Italy – a country where wind energy sells for a higher price than anywhere in the world.
Investments in Italy’s green industries more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2017 and most of its 900,000 green energy generating systems are solar power plants. Denaro, dubbed the last “godfather”, once bragged he could “fill a cemetery” with his victims.
The Sicilian mafia plans to come back stronger after their Godfather was caught by turning green.
Mess with them and you’ll be sleeping with the sustainably sourced fishes!
“… If we use technologies like aircon to avoid dealing with the root causes of climate change, we are in denial. …”
The new climate denial? Using wealth to insulate yourself from discomfort and change
Published: February 7, 2023 3.48pm AEDT Hannah Della Bosca PhD Candidate and Research Assistant at Sydney Environment Institute, University of Sydney
While the days of overt climate denial are mostly over, there’s a distinct form of denial emerging in its stead. You may have experienced it and not even realised. It’s called implicatory denial, and it happens when you consciously recognise climate change as a serious threat without making significant changes to your everyday behaviour in response.
Much research has focused on how we intellectually distance ourselves from the unpleasant realities happening around us. What requires greater attention is how we may engage in climate denial by seeking out spaces of sensory comfort and using them to shield ourselves as the world unravels outside our window.
Denial, thought of in this way, is entirely sensible. My colleagues and I asked residents around the Western Sydney suburb of Penrith – famously the hottest place on Earth during the Black Summer of 2019-20 – about their experiences during heatwave conditions. Unsurprisingly, sensory denial is central to how they cope with extremes – primarily by using air conditioning.
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Why does this matter?
If we use technologies like aircon to avoid dealing with the root causes of climate change, we are in denial.
As the world heats up, demand for air conditioning has skyrocketed. The International Energy Agency has estimated that by 2050, up to two-thirds of the world’s households will have installed aircon, particularly in China, India and Indonesia.
Is wearing clothes or lighting a fire to stay warm in winter also a form of sensory climate denial?
If we were all truly exposed to our local climates, without clothes or blankets or any other form of personal climate modification, I suspect most of us would rapidly conclude the planet is way too cold for humans.
Correction (EW): h/t Nick – The Conversation, not SMH. I blame Climate Change… 😉
That the weather is often unpredictable is well known. What may surprise you is that it will always be that way, especially long range weather, like a season or year ahead.
That the weather is often unpredictable is well known. What may surprise you is that it will always be that way, especially long range weather, like a season or year ahead. And since climate is just average weather, it too will always be unpredictable. More on that later.
Before we look at why long range weather is perfectly unpredictable, let’s acknowledge that there are a lot of people selling long range weather and climate forecasts.
They often disagree with one another, which is a strong hint that it can’t be done. Given a lot of different predictions, someone is likely to be right but that is like winning the lottery, pure luck. But there is no money in unpredictability, so the paid-for forecasts keep coming.
Do not rely on them, because relying on a bad forecast is often worse than relying on none.
Now to the perfect unpredictability. It is a matter of math. Not that we are going to do any math, but I am going to describe what is says and why, in very nontechnical ways.
In fact the math has a nontechnical name, which is “chaos”. Its technical name is “nonlinear dynamics” but we will not go into that.
Lots of things in the world fit the math of chaos and they are said to be chaotic. A rushing mountain stream is a good example. Throw something small into such a stream and it may go far before it stops, or hardly move at all, or something in between. Where it ends up is unpredictable. And so it is with weather.
We live at the bottom of an ocean of air and that air is typically moving. Warm air is trying to rise, and cool, often creating clouds and rain or snow when it does. The cool air then tries to fall, often creating clear skies.
Here on the surface we experience sunny highs (high pressure) and stormy lows (low pressure). Highs are air falling while lows are air rising. In between we get wind as air also is forced to flow horizontally from low to high pressure. The result is a great deal of motion, made much more complex because it all happens on a spinning globe warmed by a single sun.
Predicting the weather means correctly saying what all this complexity will look like for some period of time, some time from now.
Will next winter be cold or mild and how snowy? Will next summer be hot or not, wet or dry?
How about next year, or just next month?
The complexity makes forecasting difficult, but not impossible. After all we have giant computers to model the weather and satellites taking data, around the clock and around the world.
What makes prediction impossible is the math. Not that the math is difficult or complex, so it is not the doing of the math that makes long term prediction impossible.
Rather it is what the math tells us. Let me explain. To begin with, imagine we are going to do a computer weather forecast. We first enter a lot of data describing what and where the weather is now.
This is mostly stuff like temperatures, pressures, wind and precipitation. These are are called the “initial conditions”.
The computer then operates on these initial conditions to produce a forecast for the next day. Then it repeats the process, taking that day as the initial conditions to produce a forecast for the next day.
This step by step process is repeated, going as far into the future as needed for the desired forecast. In some cases the step interval is longer than a day, especially if we are doing a long range climate forecast, which can go out hundreds of years.
For simplicity let’s talk about six month forecasts. Suppose we do multiple runs, say with different initial conditions or on different computers, so getting different forecasts.
This often happens, especially if the initial conditions are very different.
Now at last we get to chaos.
The math says that under certain circumstances something very strange happens. It is called “extreme sensitivity to initial conditions”.
What this means is that the slightest change to the initial conditions dramatically changes the forecast. This strangeness applies to weather forecasts. It might change a winter forecast from cold to mild, or vice versa.
Same for wet versus dry, windy versus not so much, and so on for all the forecast features. Moreover these great differences show up quickly, in many cases in just a week or two, changing the entire forecast.
What makes it really bad is that these differences in initial conditions, that create very different forecasts, are so small they are undetectable.
In the math they are called “infinitesimal” meaning infinitely small. In fact they are so small that we cannot tell what the real initial conditions actually are.
That is, suppose we use a temperature somewhere of 53.6 degrees, but the actual value is 53.6000002. This tiny difference in initial conditions is enough to quickly throw our forecast way off. In fact an error if a millionth of a degree is enough to give us a very false forecast.
In short the only way to get an accurate forecast is to know things we cannot possibly know because they are too small to measure.
Thus chaos makes even roughly accurate forecasting impossible. The technical term for this is “intrinsically unpredictable”.
Beyond a week or two, weather is simply intrinsically unpredictable. Note that weather is still theoretically predictable, but you would have to know the exact initial conditions and this is impossible as a practical, real life matter.
Moreover, given that climate is defined as average weather, it too is intrinsically unpredictable. All the dire climate predictions we hear about are done by computers that either ignore chaos or keep it unrealistically small. We should not believe these forecasts. The future could be fine.
In summary, intrinsic unpredictability due to chaos makes accurate long range weather and climate forecasting impossible. Do not act on these forecasts.
Reprinted with added stuff from RANGE magazine, Spring 2023 issue. For more information see http://www.rangemagazine.com.
Electricity is the lifeblood of the country. If it stops flowing, the economy immediately starts to decay. The average citizen notices it immediately when the electricity stops flowing, because the kettle does not work, and the lights go out. So there is an instant public reaction.
The public demands; ‘a solution’.
So people look for a ‘quick-fix’.
Unfortunately it is not so easy, it is far more difficult to generate electricity than people realise. Coal power stations are huge; you can park a couple of Boeings inside one, easily.
But the public wants a quick-fix to an electricity shortage so they jump at apparent solutions, such as solar panels and wind turbines. These renewable energy devices are not equal to a huge coal power station, not by any stretch of the imagination. There is also the added problem that solar is only available for part of the day, and not at night at all. Wind is only available when the wind blows, and you don’t know when that will be.
Imagine that you have just undergone open heart surgery and you’re in the Intensive Care Unit; ask yourself; would you rather have the Intensive Care Unit attached to solar and wind power, or attached to coal and nuclear power?
If you are a miner working two or three kilometres underground in an inherently hot, dusty gold mine, that same question is most important too!
Deep in a South African gold mine. It is dangerous to be 2 or 3 km underground if the electricity fails
People these days are constantly coming up with all sorts of ideas for quick-fix energy, even though very many of the people concerned have no technology training. They say; sea-wave energy; tidal energy; a wind energy device which works like a rotating washing line; use hydrogen; geothermal, as if all of these are ingenious new ideas. They are not; they are all very old ideas and were not adopted on a large scale, for very good reasons.
Mostly they were not adopted because they cannot produce large compact power, and also because they are very unreliable.
Here we have so far considered only technological questions, and the results for the ‘renewables’ are not so good. But now, unfortunately for renewables, if you add in economic factors, the renewables become worse.
If society wants a continuously-running lifeblood of electricity, then the electricity must still flow when the Sun is not shining and when the wind drops. What this means is that when a solar and wind combination is used, there must always be a reliable continuous alternative supply on standby; such as coal and nuclear.
But if a coal power station is standing idle much of the day, because solar is being used and the wind is blowing, the staff at the coal station are still being paid. The costs at the coal station are still mounting. Those costs of idled coal plants must be added to the apparent costs of solar and wind, but that is generally not done. One has to ask: where do the costs of a coal-fired power station being kept in reserve in idle mode get added into the financial equation.
There are definitely valuable applications for solar and wind, but driving an electric train across the vast and arid South African Karoo, or operating a gold mine, are not for them. Wind turbines can be used for pumping water up into a dam. Solar can be used for an application which only needs power over lunchtime.
The challenge is to find technologically sensible and economically viable applications for all energy sources. One has to remember that large wind and solar power generation came about as an apparent significant force as a result of political fears about possible climate change, and that climate may be altered by carbon dioxide emitted by industry.
One has to ask; what if that idea is actually wrong?
What if we have been led by the nose down the wrong path?
This is a question which needs serious consideration
Realities of Africa
Let us now digress to consider the real size of Africa. Believe it or not but Africa is larger than the United States, China, Europe, the UK, and India; added together. South Africa alone is the same size as the whole of Western Europe added together, with the distance from Pretoria to Cape Town being the same as that of Rome to London.
The point is that solutions which may work for Europe, or appear feasible for Europe, are not necessarily at all applicable to African countries. African countries have to make their own decisions about their future. They have to choose energy systems which work for them.
The real size of Africa. The continent is larger than China, the US, the UK, Europe and India added together.
African countries must not be persuaded by other countries to follow energy policies dictated by them, particularly when they are mainly in the interests of the ‘donor’ countries.
In the case of South Africa, which relies on coal for by far the largest fraction of its electricity, the coalfields are all in the far north east of the country. So in transmitting electricity from the coalfields to the Cape area, the distance is further than Rome to London.
As a consequence, about half a century ago, South Africa decided to build a nuclear power station on the southern tip of Africa, near Cape Town.
The Koeberg power station started operating in 1984 and supplies about 50% of the electricity of the Western Cape Province.
A really important factor in the case of nuclear energy is that so little fuel is required, so the transportation of fuel is not an issue in the slightest. In contrast, coal has to arrive at a coal station continuously, so coal plants need to be sited near to a coal mine. From a fuel delivery point of view you can position a nuclear plant anywhere.
Illustration of the energy density of Uranium in comparison to commodities like coal and petrol
During the later 1960’s and the 1970s there was significant building of nuclear power stations in numbers of advanced countries, but this construction slowed down primarily due to vociferous anti-nuclear propaganda which was stirred in many countries around the world.
But in fact in reviewing in the 2020’s the decades of past world nuclear power performance it is clear that nuclear has turned out to be the cheapest, safest, cleanest, and greenest, of any energy source ever.
Reactors built in the 1970’s are still running today, producing inexpensive reliable electricity. Koeberg produces South Africa’s cheapest electricity.
Nuclear is safe
Contrary to much public belief, not a single person was killed by nuclear radiation at Fukushima, and in fact not a single person was even injured by nuclear radiation during the much publicized incident.
The Fukushima incident was an amazing demonstration of a massive amount of power going out of control under the worst possible circumstances, and nuclear radiation did not harm anybody, or any private property.
The Fukushima story was twisted
The Fukushima incident could not have been a worse collection of factors all coming together… yet the drama unfolded such that one could not have had a better nuclear safety experiment had it been intentionally designed.
The reactors were old, early models of Generation II, and they were sited on a dangerous coastline, a known area for earthquakes. Then the largest earthquake on record struck. That produced a massive tsunami. The size of the tsunami exceeded the height of the defensive barrier wall.
The tsunami also wrecked the entire district, for kilometres around. There were some bad management decisions at the plant, and Japanese procedure in certain respects was poor. What a combination of factors!
So what happened?
What few people know is that there were two different Fukushima nuclear power stations; Fukushima Daini (meaning Number 1), and Fukushima Daiichi (meaning Number 2). The drama happened at Daiichi. When the earthquake struck, the ground shook. Automatic detectors at both Daini, and a few kilometres away, at Daiichi, triggered plant shutdowns, as per design.
At both sites all the operating reactors shut themselves down successfully. The operators at both Daini and Daiichi must have breathed a sigh of relief. The fellows at Daini were justified, because at their plant reactors all closed down, and everything was fine.
But at Daiichi … 55 minutes later the tsunami’s wall-of-water arrived, and it was higher than the anti-tsunami protection wall. No such water arrived at Daini.
When a reactor shuts down in emergency mode, cooling-water pumps have to run for about five days to remove residual heat from the reactor. With some motor cars when they are switched off after a long hot run, the radiator fan keeps running for a while, to cool the hot engine slowly and carefully. That is the exactly the same reason that a nuclear reactor needs some days of cooling; to remove residual heat.
However reactor cooling pumps run off incoming electricity, supplied from the municipality. But the local Fukushima municipality had been smashed up by the tsunami. There was no incoming electricity, so the electrical pumps failed. No problem, diesel backup pumps kicked in. But there had been a poor management design decision and the diesel supply tanks had been placed outdoors. They were washed away, so the diesel pumps only ran for a while, on the fuel which was already inside the building. Then it ran out.
So the third level of protection kicked in, the reactors switched to battery power. But the batteries had only been designed to last 8 hours. And we can go on… the roads were smashed up, so no Police; Fire Brigade; Army; Air Force; help was going to arrive. But those services had also been smashed up in any event. World news reporters were screaming for answers, every few minutes.
There were more unfortunate factors too, like a highly formalised internal reporting structure, yet in spite of all this, nobody was injured by nuclear radiation.
That is an incredible indication of just how safe a nuclear plant really is.
Modern Nuclear technology is far advanced
Nuclear power technology has advanced dramatically over the past couple of decades, since the earlier boom in nuclear reactor construction of the 1970’s.
Of course, by world technological standards, the 1970’s were a very long time ago, and technology has advanced considerably. Back then the internet did not exist; nor did email; there were no cell phones; there was no personal GPS; no non-stick frying pans; and no 2-in-1 shampoo….
Technological advances since then which are less visible to the public include the development of advanced metal alloys; composite materials; and electronic controls. Such developments have enabled huge advances in solar and wind technology, which is undeniable, but equally there have been huge technological advances in nuclear power, which strangely, huge sectors of society overlook, and even try to ignore.
Indication of the standards of life of decades ago.
It is not reasonable to compare standards of the 1970’s with those of the 2020’s
Does one really imagine that a nuclear reactor designed and built after, say 2010, is the same as one designed and built during the couple of decades after 1960? Are modern nuclear reactors really still stuck in a pre-internet, pre-cell phone era? Clearly not!
So if nuclear power performance has been so good over the past half-century, it will be even better during the coming half century.
South Africa built the Koeberg nuclear power station to supply electricity from the South ‘upwards’ to complement the coal-supplied electricity coming from the North ‘downwards’, but there is still a huge space in-between which includes points of high electricity consumption such as large mining complexes and major manufacturing centres.
So in 1993 a decision was made to start investigating the potential in developing a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) to be placed in South African areas in which there were no major supplies of water. South Africa has minimal spare inland water.
So South Africa became the first country in the world to start designing a commercial SMR. The project grew to a significant size, with a total workforce of some 2,000 people, and by 2008 the reactor was ready to be built. The pressure vessel was ordered and it arrived in South Africa.
But 2008 was an ominous year.
That was the year of the great US-induced international financial meltdown when major US banks went bankrupt, and it was only a few months later in the following year that South Africa had an abrupt change of government. Those factors, and a few others, led to the PBMR project to be put into a ‘Pause mode’ not long after, from which it never emerged. Anti-nuclear propaganda worldwide was also in full swing, which very much influenced decisions.
The HTMR-100 Emerges
What positive action did happen as a result of the PBMR programme is that a group of engineers and scientists from the PBMR project started their own project to design a cheaper, simpler, and faster-to-build reactor as a derivative of the PBMR.
It was called the HTMR-100.
The HTMR-100 was designed for conditions like a typical South African mining community.
The HTMR-100 is half buried underground.
The Ventilation Stack stands on ground level. (Red Line)
Over the following number of years the HTMR-100 was designed to the point at which it has been ready to build since 2020. The HTMR-100 is privately owned but requires significant funding to move into construction of the First Of A Kind (FOAK) model.
Meanwhile the team continues to work, while also carrying out other nuclear development for foreign countries.
International opinion changes
A strong positive is that from about 2020 the international political climate started to swing in favour of nuclear, and during 2022 the swing accelerated dramatically towards nuclear.
A number of world leaders then found the courage to stand up in public and declare that their countries would move towards nuclear power and start new nuclear projects. Some African leaders stood up and announced that they saw nuclear power as the future for their countries. They are totally correct.
The realisation started to sink in that the world could not make progress into the future without the reliability of substantial nuclear power.
Journalists and youth groups have also come out pro-nuclear.
Even the European Union declared nuclear to be green for taxonomy purposes, thereby making nuclear not only respectable in the eyes of many EU politicians, but also opening up avenues for green funding which previously had not been available.
President Emmanuel Macron of France announces details of a French SMR programme. February 2022
Nuclear Fuel Development
South Africa also developed the fuel for the HTMR-100 reactor. It is known as TRISO fuel. The fuel was extensively tested in a number of countries over a 10-year period and it passed all the stringent tests.
Stratek Global Director : Commercial Francois Reyneke holding a TRISO Fuel Ball fabricated in Pretoria.
A TRISO fuel assembly now stands in Pretoria in a Care and Maintenance state waiting for customers.
Meantime fuel development work continues for foreign clients.
Chemical Engineer Zak Madela in front of a portion of the TRISO fuel plant in Pretoria.
African Readiness
African countries and others around the world became interested in nuclear power as they realised the importance of solutions which really work for African conditions, or for the local conditions of diverse countries. A few African leaders have made powerful public statements about their intention to take their countries down a nuclear path. That is totally reasonable, by using Small Modular reactors which do not need large scale water cooling.
African countries can also easily form a collaborative ‘club’ to link to each other with daily operations, training, and regulatory oversight, amongst other functions. Such an approach will lower costs further and also induce a spirit of cooperation which will be beneficial to all.
Advanced countries have also shown great interest in SMR systems to use in specific applications, or for smaller areas such as municipalities, or specific industrial applications.
The HTMR-100 is now ready to build.
Investors need to have the confidence in an advanced energy solution development coming from Africa. Some established mindsets need to change. The SMR from South Africa is an investment opportunity waiting for people with vision, and some courage, and who also have some self-confidence, and a belief in abundant and reliable green power for the future.
Dr Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and is Chairman of Stratek Global (Pty) Ltd, a nuclear development company based in Pretoria. Stratek Global is developing a South African SMR and carrying out project planning in a wide variety of fields for diverse clients.
Dr Kelvin Kemm
Chairman: Stratek Global (Pty) Ltd
This article was derived from a presentation given at an energy conference held in Cape Town by The Afrikaner Action Initiative.
The conference was sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
Engineering graduate students deep underground, visiting a South African mine
The Heartland Institute
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