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.
The September 17, 2023 edition of the L A Times published the latest China Watch section (shown below) which highlights a large Solar PV project in Chongqing where a 37 MW facility on the rooftop of a large car manufacturing company went into operation in April of this year.
The September 17, 2023 edition of the L A Times published the latest China Watch section (shown below) which highlights a large Solar PV project in Chongqing where a 37 MW facility on the rooftop of a large car manufacturing company went into operation in April of this year.
This large PV project is touted as being able to save 264,500 short tons of coal use over its planned 25-year life.
Energy Institute data shows that China’s coal energy use increased by about 1% between 2021 and 2022 representing a growth in coal consumption from 4.68 billion short tons in 2021 to about 4.73 billion short tons in 2022 with further growth expected to occur through at least year 2030.
In year 2018 China consumed about 4.38 billion short tons of coal which has now increased during the 5-year period through 2022 by about 350 million short tons according to EIA and Energy Institute data.
The 25 year expected savings in coal consumption of this PV project represents about 0.5% of the yearly coal use increase that occurred between 2021 and 2022 and about 0.075% of the 5-year increase in coal use that occurred between 2018 and 2022.
Stated another way it would take about 200 PV projects like this each operating for 25 years to save an amount of coal equivalent to the yearly increase of China’s coal use just between 2021 and 2022.
Given the continuing growth of China’s huge coal use that has occurred over the last 5 years it is abundantly clear China will continue to depend and rely upon coal as its primary energy resource for the foreseeable future.
Rishi Sunak’s ‘watering down’ of certain Net Zero targets is the first time that the green policy agenda has had ANY scrutiny of any consequence, despite many failures, starting with the ruinously expensive Renewable Obligation, extending into the totally failed CfDs that allowed wind farm developers to lie to achieve planning consent over rival generators and technologies. Not one part of the green policy agenda has lived up to any promise to deliver good to the British public.
Rishi Sunak’s ‘watering down’ of certain Net Zero targets is the first time that the green policy agenda has had ANY scrutiny of any consequence, despite many failures, starting with the ruinously expensive Renewable Obligation, extending into the totally failed CfDs that allowed wind farm developers to lie to achieve planning consent over rival generators and technologies. Not one part of the green policy agenda has lived up to any promise to deliver good to the British public.
It was the mildest possible reversal. It is in fact an attempt to SAVE Net Zero, not roll it back. Complaints that it has left Britain without an ‘industrial policy’ or has left ‘investors’ without ‘confidence’ are for the birds. It has put the UK in the same policy position as the EU (more on which in a bit), and there is no evidence of green policies having delivered any significant industrial development to these shores. No green jobs. No green growth. No green industrial revolution. Not even a BritishVolt. It is a farce.
Politicians, who know nothing of the subject in fact, have been misled into believing that strong climate targets encourage domestic manufacturing. That is a lie. The main beneficiary of UK & EU climate laws has been China, of course, which benefits from cheaper energy prices (among other things) precisely because China does not have energy policies like ours. Strict targets are not industrial policy. Nobody was looking to develop ‘Gigafactories’ in the UK for the fact of the UK having the earliest ICE car sales ban. It’s a nonsense. Sunak has taken stock of the simplest elements of green policy failure:
1. No politician has any clue how to realise Net Zero targets. To understand this, you need to drill down into the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) advice to Parliament, and advice from wonks and academics to the CCC itself. They speak more candidly the deeper you investigate. The promises of upsides are simply lies. There are no drop-in replacements for the things that make our lifestyles today. That is why the CCC told Parliament that up to 62% of emissions reduction is going to come from ‘behaviour change’, which is to say that Net Zero requires government to use the criminal law and price mechanisms to regulate what people can do. That is what Sunak means when he says that previous governments have not been straight with the public. It is fact.
2. The green lobby has LONG promised lower prices and greater energy security but has failed to deliver. There have been many claims that the costs of wind power have fallen based on low ‘strike prices’ offered by wind farm developers since the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme was introduced in 2017. None of those miraculous strike prices have been achieved. The wind farm developers simply reneged on them. They were never going to take them up. They calculated that they would never have to. This came to crunch in the latest auction, when the government removed the wind farm operators’ ability to walk away from the contract — they called the wind sector’s bluff. No bids were offered. The major promise of renewable energy has been utterly debunked by the green lobby’s own actions.
3. Behind the scenes, the failure of both global and national climate policy has been known for a long time — since the Paris Agreement (PA) at the latest. The PA is not in fact a ‘global agreement’; it allows countries to determine their own commitment. And all that has done in turn is reignite the talking point that beset global climate policymaking in the 1990s and 2000s: the ‘free rider’ problem. Some emerging one-time ‘developing’ economies, are now booming, whereas much of the West/G7 is stagnant and facing deindustrialisation, precisely as critics of climate policy had argued, decades ago. This is why there has been so much emphasis since the PA on LOCAL government, such as LTNs/ULEZ/CAZs, using ‘air pollution’ as a proxy battle in the climate war. This was encouraged by central government, which accelerated this fake ‘localism’ during lockdowns by making large grants available to local authorities to restrict private car use. Sunak has seen the robust response to this in London, in Wales, and in cities that have adopted them, and has realised that the public has been setting down its own red lines. The green agenda is now visible to all and politically toxic.
4. Despite claims that other countries are steaming ahead with boiler bans, car bans, heat pumps, and championing Net Zero policies, especially in Europe, they are in fact creating deep schisms between and within EU member states. Auto manufacturers in Germany are warning that they cannot compete with Chinese rivals. Germany, struggling to find energy, itself is racing towards deindustrialisation, threatening the economic foundations of the Union. Its boiler ban, advanced by psychopathic Greens threatens to destabilise its own political centre of gravity, with a huge surge of interest in the AfD, now biting on the heels of the CDU in the polls. This risks not only the destabilisation of Europe, but geopolitical schism that could ultimately undermine NATO. Poland is pushing back against EU climate targets. The Netherlands, having overextended its green agenda looks set to oust its political establishment at the November election following the growth of the BBB movement, and the even newer New Social Contract party. There is the obvious polarisation of French politics, which needs no repetition here. And there is the case of Sweden’s new right-of-centre government abandoning its Net Zero targets in favour of a technology-first approach. Sunak can see all this green policy failure *everywhere* that green blobbers point to, while claiming such chaos is success.
5. ESG is failing. Former BoE governor Mark Carney, who just this week ranted against Liz Truss, disgraced his former office. Carney was appointed by Johnson to lead the The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which claimed to have aligned financial institutions with $130 trillion AUM. Vanguard and BlackRock seem to be reversing out of the Alliance. And a number of major insurance firms, including Munich Re and Zurich too, have joined the backlash. And Sunak knows about markets.
6. Ukraine, Russia, and the realignment of geopolitics. Who really believes that Western diplomats now have any chance of bringing Russia, China, and India into the Net Zero suicide pact? The drawbridge is up. And the G20 meeting saw Modi humiliate the entire green movement. Sunak offered the climate fund £1.6 billion — roughly speaking a quid per Indian. And as many Indians said “What?!! We’re going to the Moon, mate!”
Sunak can see all of these problems. And none of them are going to be solved by banning petrol and diesel car sales in 2030, or by banning boilers. The world is a fundamentally different place now, post-Brexit, post-covid, post-Russia-Ukraine, after 15 years of Climate Change Act failures, and the deindustrialisation of the West. All that carrying on with Net Zero as usual is going to do is, far from strengthening Britain’s position on the ‘world stage’, is further undermine our economy and industries, and political stability. Nobody else, except countries facing equivalent problems, perhaps, cares about our degenerate political class’s ideological fantasies. Global climate policy is collapsing as global politics shifts, whereas the basis for the UK’s draconian domestic climate policy agenda was ALWAYS global political institutions: the EU & UN etc, not domestic popular support. It’s not 2008 any more. Neither the ROW nor the UK public are as tolerant of being pushed around. And utopian, technocratic, supranational political ambitions look like so much cynical build-back-better bullshit that simply do not wash.
The histrionics that are now the counterpoint to Sunaks mildest possible Net-Zero flip-flop are the chorus of an extremely small, but extremely noisy and over-indulged part of British society that has got far to used to not being slapped down by reality, and, like spoilt infants, they are determined to find the boundaries of their behaviour. They are utterly deranged by ideology, and incapable of allowing their claims to be tested by simple arithmetic. They speak glibly in the most superficial terms about things they know nothing about: how the world must be organised; how the entire economy will be powered; how ordinary people’s lives will be managed. They lie. They try to tell people that banning things and imposing expensive restrictions will make them better off, make them safer and ‘create jobs’. From bottomless bank accounts, they commission idiot wonks at remote think tanks to produce glossy ideological bunk.
Sunak could not have done less to correct this mess. But what he has done is a good thing. And it includes setting a trap for the eco-catastrophists. The more they howl and wail, the more they will expose their utter contempt for ordinary people. It is not in Sunak’s gift, even if he wanted it, to reverse the entire sorry policy agenda. Too much stands in his way. But every scream and tantrum from the blobbers will bring that possibility closer to him or a successor. Because no person with a functioning brain believes that banning the boiler later, rather than earlier, is a good thing. And so the blobbers are set to out themselves, for the duration of this controversy, as brainless ideological zombies. Long may it continue.
Governor Glenn Youngkin and the Virginia Air Pollution Board have wisely taken steps to protect Virginia’s future energy needs by withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The usual suspects have brought a lawsuit in an attempt to stop them.
Governor Glenn Youngkin and the Virginia Air Pollution Board have wisely taken steps to protect Virginia’s future energy needs by withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The usual suspects have brought a lawsuit in an attempt to stop them.
There is more to it than that.
Dominion Energy has acknowledged that wind and solar projects are insufficient to keep Virginia’s lights on and has requested that natural gas plants and modular nuclear reactors be built as backup. CFACT delivered written testimony to the State Corporation Commission in support of Dominion’s plan, urging them to go further still by making natural gas the primary instead of the backup power source of electricity generation.
A Dominion spokesman conceded in an email that “renewables alone cannot reliably serve the unprecedented growth in customer demand expected over the next 15 years.”
If cutting greenhouse gas emissions is your thing, natural gas should be your hero. America’s ample supply of low-emissions, domestically produced natural gas permitted the U.S. to dramatically reduce its emissions as the rest of the world, including Europe, flatlined or increased.
Mathematician David Wojick did a brilliant job in CFACT’s submission of crunching the numbers that prove how crucial it is to Virginia to secure reliable power.
Central to Wojick’s thesis is that wind and solar are intermittent sources of power, and the infrastructure to store the energy they produce is prohibitively expensive, does not exist, and is not about to.
“Consider the simple case of a 12-hour night with low wind fulfilling that load.” CFACT’s submission explains, “The storage requirement is 60,000 MWh, over six times the proposed storage capacity. Even if the batteries had a 10-hour capacity, they would not come close to meeting the need… Even worse, this simple case is far from the worst likely to occur. Multiple cloudy, hot and cold days with low wind are common in Virginia. Detailed historical analysis will be needed to estimate the likely maximum required storage capacity correctly, and it will certainly be in the hundreds of thousands of MWh. Even assuming huge battery price reductions, this much storage would be prohibitively expensive. Gas-fired backup power is a better option.”
Wojick then leads CFACT’s submission to a more powerful conclusion, “Instead of building new gas-fired generating capacity to backup renewables, it will be far more cost-effective to use gas as a primary energy source. Having gas capacity sit idle simply because the wind is blowing or the sun is shining for part of the day is redundant and expensive.”
Natural gas and nuclear power plants cannot be quickly turned off and on like a light switch. The power grid is undependable without them. The generating plants must, therefore, operate continually.
The smartest move is to cut the redundant and unreliable wind and solar out of the picture and use what works.
British bird lovers will see a very different pattern of species as the climate warms, according to scientists.
They say climate change is bad news for birds, but locally we will see “winners and losers”.
Migrants seldom seen on British shores, such as black-winged stilts and bee-eaters, are delighting bird watchers.
But populations of cuckoos are “in freefall” as UK wildlife struggles to cope with multiple pressures.
In nature-depleted Britain, almost half of all bird species are in decline due to a host of pressures – from the loss of meadows, hedgerows and other natural land to climate change and the use of pesticides.
The number of wild birds in Britain has fallen by 73 million since 1970, according to the British Trust for Ornithology, which studies birds in the British Isles.
The above graph has no relevance whatsoever to the issue of migratory birds. And since most of the decline occurred in the 1970s & 80s, it clearly has nothing to do with climate change either. As the article itself admits, bird populations have been declining for decades because of things like loss of habitat and pesticides. You do not need to invoke the climate bogeyman at all, particularly since there is zero evidence that climate has made any difference at all.
As for this supposed “freefall”, all the BBC can point to are cuckoos and willow warblers.
The Woodland Trust make clear that, while willow warbler populations have been dropping in southern England, they have been increasing in the north.
As willow warblers like open woodland and eat mainly insects, it is highly likely that changes to habitat are the cause of these shifting patterns.
The BBC’s claim that “Climate change is one of the biggest pressures that all species are facing, but particularly migratory species, because they have to worry about the climate conditions not only where they’re breeding, but also where they’re wintering and the areas that they’re travelling through to get here, which can be thousands of kilometres”, clearly is not supported by the ability of the bird to thrive in Scotland.
As for the cuckoo, this is what the Woodland have to say:
In scaling back many Net Zero policies Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the most radical climate policy decision a UK government has made in years. It dominated the evening news and if you watched the reports, as I did, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone speaking up to support the government.
In scaling back many Net Zero policies Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the most radical climate policy decision a UK government has made in years. It dominated the evening news and if you watched the reports, as I did, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone speaking up to support the government.
What might be surprising to some is that the best of the night’s efforts was, I thought, from the BBC, principally because they excluded its climate editor Justin Rowlatt, whose barely suppressed anger the previous evening made a mockery of balanced reporting. One good point in the BBC’s six o’clock news and BBC News at Ten was the inclusion of Jacob Rees-Mogg as the lone voice supporting the changes in policy.
ITV’s news at 18.30 had Robert Peston who casually linked global warming with weather extremes, thereby showing he didn’t know the science of global warming or the difference between weather and climate. Never mind, others did the same.
The subsequent report on News at Ten brought in the business backlash at the start. It only mentioned the comments made by the Ford motor company who were critical of the changes, but failed to mention supportive statements by Toyota and Jaguar-Land Rover who said they were in favour and Vauxhall who said the changes would make no difference to them. Again no one was included who spoke-up for the new proposals. Curiously, there was an interview with Gill Nowell who was described as being an electric vehicle owner. No mention was made that she is a green campaigner.
But the hostility of Channel 4 News was beyond the pale. It had a backdrop that read, “Emergency on Planet Earth,” which told you all you needed to know about the report. After critical comments by Ford, it was the turn of Emily Shuckburgh the Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge’s climate change initiative, to attack Rishi Sunak. Sir Simon Clarke MP followed with his criticism and then Sharon Lane of Tees Components (also against Sunak). Then the report moved to a motor leasing conference from which it included Tony Poston of the British Vehicle Retail and Licensing Association (against Sunak) and Marc Palmer of Autotrader magazine (also against Sunak.)
So far the Channel 4 News coverage was quite evidently partisan, an impression confirmed by an interview with Chris Skidmore MP (strongly against Sunak) who was handed soft questions by Krishnan Guru-Murthy. By this time I was thinking that surely someone would be brought on who actually supported Sunak’s reforms.
Enter George Eustace MP who did but he was harangued by Guru-Murthy and given a much tougher time than Skidmore. Guru-Murthy made a serious blunder by confusing suggestions made by the Climate Change Committee which Sunak rejected with adopted government policies that would now be cancelled.
At the end of the interview George Eustace said Sunak still wanted to get to Net Zero but what he had done was a refinement of the course. At this Guru-Murthy laughed in a mocking way and turned back to the camera with a smile leaving viewers with no doubt how ridiculous he thought that answer was.
Next against a backdrop of flames, Guru-Murthy turned to reporter Alex Thompson who said he would look at the physics of the announcement. This was accompanied by his description of a series of catastrophic images on the screen being with the floods in Libya and the smoke in Manhattan from Canadian bush fires. The recent flood in Libya has nothing to do with climate change and was all to do with a lack of maintenance of the now burst dams. The same goes for the Canadian fires whose cause can be laid at poor forrest maintenance policies and arson. He also mentioned Zack Goldsmith (against Sunak), Sir Alok Sharma MP (against Sunak) and Lord Deben (you can guess his position). Nobody was in favour of the new proposals.
All things considered it was a classic night of one-sided and hyped up climate reporting. The prize for most biased climate bias goes to Channel 4 News, with a special commendation for Krishnan Guru-Murthy’s mocking laughter.
Germany’s recent energy debacle serves as a glaring testament to the dangers of delusional virtue signaling in the realm of energy policy. As the nation grapples with the consequences of its ill-conceived “Energiewende” transition, observers might be forgiven for experiencing a touch of schadenfreude. After all, the pitfalls of such a hasty and unpragmatic shift were evident to many from the outset.
Germany’s recent energy debacle serves as a glaring testament to the dangers of delusional virtue signaling in the realm of energy policy. As the nation grapples with the consequences of its ill-conceived “Energiewende” transition, observers might be forgiven for experiencing a touch of schadenfreude. After all, the pitfalls of such a hasty and unpragmatic shift were evident to many from the outset.
Germany’s Self-Inflicted Energy Wound
The AP News article paints a grim picture of Germany’s self-inflicted energy predicament:
The nation’s hasty transition away from reliable energy sources, driven by collective alarmist groupthink, has left it exposed to the whims of nature and geopolitics.
The Russian Gas Dependency
Germany’s misguided energy strategy has ensnared it in a web of dependency on Russian gas:
This reliance, coupled with Russia’s recent maneuvers, has placed Germany in a precarious position, a situation that could have been avoided with a more balanced and pragmatic energy approach.
The Fallacy of Green Ambitions
Germany’s delusional push towards renewable energy sources has been nothing short of a masterclass in how not to approach energy policy:
The irony is inescapable. In its misguided bid to appease the altar of green energy, Germany has ironically tethered itself even more to fossil fuels. The intermittent nature of renewables, such as wind and solar, has only highlighted the folly of Germany’s energy decisions.
A Hearty Dose of Schadenfreude
For those who have consistently pointed out the inherent flaws in Germany’s energy transition, there’s a hearty dose of schadenfreude in witnessing the unfolding crisis. It serves as a stark reminder that energy policy should be rooted in reality, not swayed by popular but misguided narratives. Energy decisions, especially for a powerhouse like Germany, should be pragmatic, not driven by hypothetical fears and groupthink.
Conclusion
Germany’s energy quagmire offers a cautionary tale for the world. While some may be swayed by the siren song of renewable energy and alarmist rhetoric, it’s imperative to ensure energy security and stability. Over-reliance on any single energy source, especially a non-dispatchable, weather-dependent one, in the name of virtue signaling, is a perilous path. As Germany confronts its energy challenges, one can only hope that it serves as a lesson for other nations to prioritize pragmatism over popular but misguided narratives.
Dumpster Diving NASA Scientist Peter Kalmus: ‘Biden must declare a climate emergency’ – Admits he has ‘bottomless grief’ because ‘we are losing Earth’ & seeks to ‘end’ fossil fuels
Peter had been pleading, begging for people to pay attention to the global emergency. “Is this my personal hell?” he tweeted this past fall. “That I have to spend my entire life desperately trying to convince everyone NOT TO DESTROY THE FUCKING EARTH?”
Jane Pauley: “Searing heat, massive wildfires, catastrophic flooding. Unequivocal evidence the United Nations says that climate change is real and that human activity is its primary cause. So how bad can it get?” Pauley asked. “According to some scientists, the possibility of worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction isn’t out of the question. It’s a harsh warning to say the least.”
Jane Pauley features NASA scientist Peter Kalmus who declares “I do want people freaking out.” on climate.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab climate scientist Peter Kalmus: “Here’s why race justice and climate justice are one & the same: The oppressive extractive plutocracies that colonize and kill black bodies and colonize and kill our planet are one and the same.”
Business Insider:Two climate scientists were kicked out of a major science conference in Chicago on Thursday. NASA’s Peter Kalmus and Rose Abramoff went onstage to urge other researchers to take climate action. They told Insider the American Geophysical Union told them they’d be arrested if they returned. …
NASA’s Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, shouted during his onstage disruption: “Our science is showing that the planet is dying. It’s terrifying. Everything is at risk. As scientists, we have tremendous leverage, but we need to use it. We can wake everybody up.”
Kalmus blames “capitalism” for the alleged climate crisis. “Can’t you all see? The real villain was capitalism all along.” Watch: Peter Kalmus weeps over climate in April 2022: “We have been trying to warn you guys for so many decades that we are heading towards a F*cking catastrophe.” – “We are going to lose everything. And we are not joking. We are not lying. We are not exaggerating.” – We have to stop financing of fossil fuels. We have to stop new fossil fuel projects. we don’t have any carbon budget left.” – “It is going to literally take us to the brink of civilizational collapse. and we have to stop it right now.”
2022: UK Independent: Nasa climate scientist Peter Kalmus breaks down in tears at protest after chaining himself to doors of JPMorgan Chase – Peter Kalmus and others were later arrested after blocking the entrace to a JP Morgan-Chase building in LA – His protest in LA involved scientists chaining themselves to the doors of a JPMorgan Chase building…“We’re going to lose everything,” Kalmus said in a video of the moment. “And we’re not joking, we’re not lying, we’re not exaggerating.” Dr Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, was participating in a protest organized by Scientist Rebellion as part of a global day of action by scientists around the world. His protest in LA involved scientists chaining themselves to the doors of a JPMorgan Chase building.
Hallie Jackson of NBC – Aug. 22, 2023:“So what would that even do? Declaring an emergency can unlock special powers for a president in a crisis without needing approval from Congress, thanks to a law passed nearly 50 years ago. Since then, every President has declared at least one emergency during their time in office. Former President Trump for example, signing one in the pandemic. Former President George W. Bush declaring one after 911.”
“Now 57% of voters support the naming of a new national emergency on climate if Congress doesn’t do more, according to recent polling.”
“If President Biden were to do that it could mean new incentives for example, to cut greenhouse gas emissions, speed up EV production and build more renewable energy centers.”
Germany and Australia share delusional obsessions with wind and solar power; but they also share a desperate demand for reliable coal-fired power. Hidden from sight, both Germany and Australia have recognised (albeit a little too late) that the only way of delivering 24 x 365 power, whatever the weather at prices everyone can afford is by using coal-fired power plants.
Germany and Australia share delusional obsessions with wind and solar power; but they also share a desperate demand for reliable coal-fired power. Hidden from sight, both Germany and Australia have recognised (albeit a little too late) that the only way of delivering 24 x 365 power, whatever the weather at prices everyone can afford is by using coal-fired power plants.
As to Germany, Bridget Ryder take a look at moves by Germany’s RWE to demolish wind turbines to allow it to access more of Germany’s brown coal. That move doesn’t sit with the narrative about Germany transitioning to an all wind and sun powered future.
Nor does the next story from The Australian. Where reality is pressing upon those who claim that Australia is already well on its way to running on nothing but sunshine and breezes.
China and Germany: Firing Up Coal Power While Wind Takes a Back Seat The European Conservative Bridget Ryder 9 September 2023
Germany is dismantling a wind farm to make way for more coal mining, while China is on a spree to open new coal mines.
So goes the global push for renewable energy and decarbonisation, another sign of the reality check facing the proposed energy transition away from fossil fuels to ‘renewable’ energy such as wind.
The German energy giant RWE announced in October 2022 that it was removing a wind farm to expand its open lignite mine in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia. The first wind turbine has already been felled, and another seven are slated to be removed. The company will then have room to excavate some 15-20 million tonnes of lignite.
Lignite, also called brown coal, is the least efficient and therefore the most carbon-emitting form of coal. But it’s also abundant in western Germany, and according to the German government, it’s needed now more than ever.
The German government and RWE brokered the expansion of the lignite mine last fall because of the energy crisis engendered by the war in Ukraine and Germany’s subsequent loss of the Russian gas and oil it had relied on.
In exchange for permission from the German government to expand lignite mining for the moment, the company promised to ultimately phase out coal in 2030, eight years before the previous deadline.
With that caveat, the German government touted the deal as “a good day for climate protection,” though it seems there is little reason to believe that it wouldn’t once again prolong coal mining in 2030 should the need remain.
In fact, Germany’s attempt at switching to wind-sourced energy has proven a disaster. It is already far behind on its goals while facing increasing resistance from local communities to the installation of wind parks.
In another example of the schizophrenic tension between environmental rhetoric and political-economic reality, China has also abandoned its pledges to cut back on coal and has instead embarked on a coal burning spree.
In raw numbers, in the first six months of 2023, China approved 52 gigawatt (GW) of new coal power, began construction on 37 GW of new coal power, announced 41 GW of new projects, and revived 8 GW of previously shelved projects. About half of the plants permitted in 2022 had started construction by summer. One gigawatt of energy is equivalent to one large coal-fired power plant.
While not as ambitious as the EU, China has pledged to level off CO2 emissions by 2030 and reach net zero in carbon emissions by 2061.
Ironically, China is both the world’s largest producer of renewable energy, including wind, solar, and hydroelectricity, and simultaneously the world’s biggest carbon emitter, pumping out almost a third of the world’s carbon emissions in 2020. It’s not surprising, as in many regions, the Chinese infrastructure to store and distribute wind and solar energy has not kept pace with the production of these ‘renewable’ energies, meaning the electricity produced can’t be integrated into the grid and used. At the same time, for example, the fabrication of wind turbines, in which China is also a global leader, is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants.
But most tellingly, according to analysts, the coal-powered projects are largely being approved where there is already excess coal-fired power. This indicates that China is prioritising economic recovery and energy security over ecology.
“There is more development than there is need for development,” Cory Combs, an analyst at Trivium China, said. “When we look at it from an energy security perspective, they [provincial-level governments] are putting an extremely high premium on short-term energy security. I don’t mean systemic issues; [I mean] even making sure there’s not even a two-hour power shortage. That’s taken over everything else, including the financials, but certainly decarbonisation.” The European Conservative
Australia must slow coal exits to safeguard affordability Alinta Energy CEO urges The Australian Colin Packham 15 September 2023
Australia must slow the closures of coal power stations to prevent surging power bills damaging households and businesses already battling a cost of living crisis, the head of the country’s fourth largest electricity and gas retailer has urged.
Australia has set an ambitious target of having renewable energy generate more than 80 per cent of the country’s power needs by 2030, a central pillar in the country’s plan to be net zero by 2050.
In comments that will intensify debate about the cost of the energy transition, Jeff Dimery – chief executive of Alinta Energy – said slowing the closures of coal power stations must be prioritised or households will endure more and more pain.
“I think we must slow down the pace of closing existing coal power stations a little bit. We are very good at taking higher emitting baseload generation out of the system but not so great at replacing it, and the economic signal is not strong enough at this time,” Mr Dimery told The Australian.
“Let’s not increase the burden on the consumer because prices are rising.”
Australia is battling a cost of living crisis that is weighing on support for the federal Labor government, but there is growing pressure on the country to achieve its net zero aspirations.
Mr Dimery said Alinta shares the government‘s ambitions but said there is undeniable evidence of the economic toll of rising prices.
“We have millions of people relying on subsidies and support to pay their energy bills, and I agree we had to do it but we can‘t be subsidising forever,” said Mr Dimery.
The Australian Energy Regulator in June revealed the number of households on hardship payment plans to repay electricity bills surged by 19 per cent during the first quarter of 2023, underscoring the impact of recent increases in bills.
The surge came before many households endured an increase of more than 20 per cent, the second such rise in as many years.
The comments came as Mr Dimery shared the stage with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at News Corp’s Future Energy event in Sydney.
Coal is still the dominant source of electricity in Australia, with the 20GW of capacity accounting for about 60 per cent of the country’s power. To replace coal, however, Australia will need to build significantly more capacity than the amount of coal already in the system due to the intermittent source of renewable energy.
The government believes the transition to renewable energy can be accelerated by building new transmission lines.
About 10,000km of new lines must be built before 2030, but their development has been hampered by funding constraints and community opposition.
The federal government has said its $20bn Rewiring the Nation, which offers cheap loans and concessional finance to transmission developers, will break the bottleneck.
Mr Dimery, however, said Alinta supports the build for transmission lines, but the costs will eventually flow through to consumers – and when comparing new renewable energy projects – it must be done on a like-for-like basis. The Australian
It may therefore be that, behind the scenes, the Government has finally realised that Net Zero is unachievable. It is more than likely that disastrous polling, and the failure of the recent renewables auction, have forced a (very belated) confrontation with the facts. The speech could well be the first step on the road back to rational policymaking.
My immediate reaction to Rishi Sunak’s Net Zero speech yesterday was to be somewhat underwhelmed. However, on reflection I think it may be extremely important. Not because of what it said about specific policies, but because of the change of tone and emphasis, and because of what the Prime Minister said about the behaviours of previous governments.
Consent not imposition
The natural authoritarianism of the environmental movement has been visible in the ranks of Conservative cabinets for many years. Net Zero policies have been, almost universally, coercive to one degree or another. Ban this, tax that, regulate the other. You will have a heat pump and you will have an EV (or you will take the bus). So Mr Sunak’s “new approach” was, he said, to eschew such unpleasantness. Having expounded on the sacrifices being demanded of public, he observed, quite correctly, that there was a risk that public consent would be lost, ending in a widespread rejection of the net zero goal.
Instead, he said, he was going to allowing people freedom to choose. “Consent, not imposition” he said. This all sounded great, until you saw the specific policy measures he was proposing, with the imposition of heat pump and petrol car bans only being put back five years, rather than being done away with entirely. It was as St Sunak had prayed “Lord make my policies liberal, but only for a bit”.
Honesty not obfuscation
Another significant development in the speech was Mr Sunak’s confession that successive governments had not been honest with the public about the costs of the Net Zero project. He also spoke of a lack of debate and scrutiny. All this would change too, he said. “Honesty, not obfuscation” was how he put it.
The immediate change that came out of this part of the speech – a demand that Parliament should consider plans to meet the carbon budget at the same time as approving the budget itself – seem unobjectionable, and indeed entirely sensible. However, he then rather blotted his copybook by claiming the cost of offshore wind has fallen “by 70% more than we projected in 2016”. As GWPF readers know, the cost of offshore wind is very high and has barely fallen at all. Are we going to see an honest appraisal of the numbers, or are we going to continue to rely on Whitehall – at best shonky and at worse entirely shameless? We will have to wait and see.
Little meat
Apart from that, there was little by way of new policy, apart from ruling out a whole series of wheezes dreamt up by green extremists: taxes on meat and flying and so on.
The general theme then, was one of trying to deliver Net Zero in a better way. That said, there were plenty of suggestions of “business as usual”: a huge increase in grants for heat pumps (almost the definition of dishonest obfuscation), and continuing to cover the country in windfarms and electricity pylons.
Likely outcome
So was Sunak’s Net Zero speech all just empty rhetoric? In fact I don’t think so. We have had two decades of hysteria-driven policy; the Climate Change Act is a case in point, requiring decarbonisation without regard to the costs. Indeed, the bill to be paid is only ever mentioned in throwaway terms – “It will be cheap” – and nothing more. Sunak’s admissions – that the public has been misled about the costs, and that the current policy trajectory is likely to end in a complete loss of public support – represent a major change in tone.
It may therefore be that, behind the scenes, the Government has finally realised that Net Zero is unachievable. It is more than likely that disastrous polling, and the failure of the recent renewables auction, have forced a (very belated) confrontation with the facts. The speech could well be the first step on the road back to rational policymaking.
We can hope so, but there is a long road to travel first. The Conservative Party remains divided, and there is every prospect that Labour will form the next government. That almost certainly means a retrenchment of environmental extremism, and hardship on a scale not yet dreamt of. But at least, if the truth has dawned amongst the Tory heirarchy, we might get a debate on the facts, and the facts are not in favour of Net Zero.
“According to Reuters, China is justified in burning massive amounts of coal because it uses some of that electricity to charge EVs, enabling it to reduce its crude oil imports, which is even more evil than coal. The world can continue to ignore the fact that China and the other countries in Asia emit more CO2 than the rest of the world combined.”
“According to Reuters, China is justified in burning massive amounts of coal because it uses some of that electricity to charge EVs, enabling it to reduce its crude oil imports, which is even more evil than coal. The world can continue to ignore the fact that China and the other countries in Asia emit more CO2 than the rest of the world combined.”
We are constantly told that burning coal must be eliminated because it contributes to climate change. Coal is so bad that the EPA has proposed rules that will force the closure of all U.S. coal-burning power plants, as well as natural gas generators by 2040, if not sooner. U.S. power grids are showing the effects of the early retirement of coal power generation plants, meanwhile, and grid operators are demanding that the EPA stop their proposed regulations. But the war on coal is unabated.
Apparently, the war on coal plants does not apply to China. According to an article this week in Reuters by Clyde Russell, “China’s Huge Coal Plant Building Has Weird Climate Logic,” China’s CO2 emissions from its massive coal-burning power plant program pose little problem on the road to solving “climate change.”
His article begins by explaining that China is indeed the world’s largest coal-burning country in the world and is building more quickly:
China is building two-thirds of the coal-fired electricity generation capacity currently under construction globally, and this may not be as disastrous for the climate as it sounds (emphasis added).
The world’s largest producer and importer of coal has 136.24 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired generation under construction, according to data released in July by the Global Energy Monitor.
This represents 66.7% of the global total of 204.15 GW, and China is streets ahead of second-placed India, with 31.6 GW being built and third-placed Indonesia with 14.5 GW.
These three countries represent 89% of the coal-fired plants currently under construction, and it’s not a coincidence that all of them have large populations, growing energy demand and vast domestic coal reserves.
China’s under-construction coal generation is about 12% of its existing capacity, and adding more coal-fired power would seem incompatible with the stated goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2060.
So the energy elephant in the CO2 mitigation room is to be papered over? Given a pass with COP28 coming up? We can ignore everything we’ve ever heard or read about “planet-destroying CO2 emissions from coal plants” because:
The large coal-fired construction programme can be seen in the wider context of China’s rapid shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and away from internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and trucks.
This is a strange detour. China’s massive fleet of coal-burning power plants are saved by coal-based EVs, what Amory Lovins called emission elsewhere vehicles? The article doesn’t mention that China has been unsuccessful in forcing its population to purchase EVs, so massive numbers have been left to rot in fields.
Never mind this detail because this all leads to the not-so-obvious conclusion that China’s use of coal-fired electricity to charge their EVs will enable them to reduce their imports of crude oil, which is much worse for the environment than coal. Continuing the apologetics:
While it would obviously be better for the environment for China to stop building coal-fired power plants and instead accelerate the deployment of renewables, there is some logic to the current policy.
Using mainly domestic coal and some relatively low-cost imports will allow China to lower crude oil imports over time, increase the penetration of EVs and have a lower emissions profile than if it carried on with a predominantly ICE vehicle fleet.
There you have it. According to Reuters, China is justified in burning massive amounts of coal because it uses some of that electricity to charge EVs, enabling it to reduce its crude oil imports, which is even more evil than coal. The world can continue to ignore the fact that China and the other countries in Asia emit more CO2 than the rest of the world combined:
The fact that China’s carbon dioxide emissions are being ignored while U.S. energy policies are destroying the reliability of its power grids and undermining its energy independence is telling. This suggests that the war on fossil fuels is a dangerous diversion from the actual agendas, which could include eliminating the dominance of the United States, establishing global governance, population control, and more.
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Ed Ireland, adjunct professor at TCU’s Neeley School of Business, received his B.S. from Midwestern State University and Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. This analysis was originally posted at Thoughts About Energy and Economics.
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