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.
In Episode 390 of District of Conservation, Gabriella welcomes back Margaret Byfield of American Stewards of Liberty to deconstruct natural asset companies (NACs). Tune in to learn about NACs, an SEC rule to empower them, how this is an ESG work-around, how private and public land access will be affected, and how you can educate yourself on them.
“NACs will be corporations that hold the rights to the ecological performance ( i.e., the value of natural assets and production of ecosystem services) produced by natural or working areas, such as national reserves or large-scale farmlands, and have the authority to manage the areas for conservation, restoration, or sustainable management. These rights can be licensed like other rights, including “run with the land” rights (such as mineral rights, water rights, or air rights), and NACs are expected to license these rights from sovereign nations or private landowners.”” — Federal Register, SEC Rule on NACs
In Episode 579 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discusses the permitting reform bill – aka BAAJA – that is gaining traction in Congress now. The Senate will hold a cloture vote starting at 3:30pm ET in a motion to proceed. Gabriella discusses the status quo without permitting reform, how BAAJA is good for the environment and affordability. Tune in!SHOW NOTESBipartisan Policy Center: BAAJA ExplainerEstimating the US Energy System Impacts of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
The reporter claimed that up to 1.5 million UK properties face the increased risk of flooding because of “rising seas triggered by melting Arctic sea ice”. (At 7.05 am)
They seemingly are not aware that melting sea ice does not contribute to sea level rise!
She has filed a complaint, but Talk TV seem slow in responding. I suggest we all bombard them with complaints as well, it might wake them up!
A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit shows global energy consumption rising by 1.8% in 2024, hitting a new record high. Despite high prices and supply disruptions, the report shows crude oil and natural gas demand climbing in 2024. Demand for renewable energy is also expected to rise in 2024, climbing by 11%.
A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit shows global energy consumption rising by 1.8% in 2024, hitting a new record high.
Despite high prices and supply disruptions, the report shows crude oil and natural gas demand climbing in 2024.
Demand for renewable energy is also expected to rise in 2024, climbing by 11%
Global energy and fossil fuel consumption is set to defy wars and high prices and hit a record high level in 2024, led by strong Asian demand, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a new reporton Wednesday. Next year, global energy consumption is expected to increase by 1.8%, according to the EIU report.
“Despite still-high prices and unsolved supply chain disruptions, demand for fossil fuels will reach record levels, but demand for renewable energy will rise by 11%,” the authors of the report wrote.
Oil demand alone is expected to increase by 1.7% next year, per the report. Natural gas demand is set for 2.2% growth, led by Asia and the Middle East, while Europe will continue to see depressed demand as it looks to save gas and energy.
Renewable capacity additions are set for a record high this year at around 400 gigawatts (GW) and will continue to rise in 2024, according to the report. [Note that electricity generated is much lower than capacity ratings.]
Global oil demand is set to rise by 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) to a new record-high this year and by another 2.2 million bpd next year amid an improving Chinese economy,OPEC said in its latest monthly report earlier in October, leaving its demand forecast for both 2023 and 2024 unchanged, despite fears of slowing economies and demand destruction. World oil demand is set to reach a record average of 102.1 million bpd in 2023, driven by a 2.3-million-bpd demand increase in the non-OECD region, OPEC noted.
Coal demand globally is also expected to remain at record-high levels this year, said none other than the International Energy Agency (IEA) earlier this year.
IEA Tries Self Fulfilling Prophecy Against Carbon Fuels
In its latest World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency has reiterated its claim that crude oil, natural gas, and coal will peak before 2030.
The agency sees the emergence of a new clean energy economy as providing hope for the way forward, emphasizing the economic case for clean energy technologies.
The report focuses on the importance of resilience and energy security, particularly due to the geopolitical developments currently disrupting energy markets.
Demand for oil, natural gas, and coal is set to peak before 2030, which undermines the case for increasing investment in fossil fuels. This is one of the outtakes from the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, released earlier today. While the agency does admit that investment in fossil fuels will remain necessary, it claims the growth era is over.
Last month, the agency’s head, Fatih Birol, wrote in an op-ed that oil, gas, and coal demand were all going to peak before 2030 thanks to the increase in EV adoption and slower Chinese GDP growth.
According to the IEA, “The economic case for mature clean energy technologies is strong” and energy security is an increasingly important consideration, too.
“In 2020, one in 25 cars sold was electric; in 2023, this is now one in 5,” the report also said as part of its case for EVs.However, an EV sales database reveals that for the first half of this year, sales of battery electric vehicles, the true EVs, only represented a tenth of total sales. Combined with plug-in hybrids, EV sales accounted for 14.1% of total sales.
OPEC Takes a Different View
When Birol first mentioned peak oil, gas, and coal, he prompted an immediate reaction from OPEC, which slammed the head of the IEA for making unwise predictions that could threaten the world’s energy supply security.
“Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly. It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world,” OPEC secretary-general Haitham al-Ghais said in September.
The release of the World Energy Outlook may now prompt a similar response from OPEC, which forecast recently that demand for oil is going to continue rising at least until 2045.
Alaska grift is reaching new levels to comport with the Inflation Reduction Act (aka Green New Deal). Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, all-in with Green Globalism, has appointed a energy security task force of cronies who lack real experience in or affinity with the state’s oil and gas sector.
“Why is a conservative pro-development governor pushing for policies that are counterproductive to natural resource development?”
“The Alaska Energy Security Task Force report does not mention maximizing the use of the abundant energy sources we have in our state today, such as coal, in-state refining, or the incentivization of production in the Cook Inlet where, according to the USGS, we are not in a natural gas shortage situation.”
Alaska grift is reaching new levels to comport with the Inflation Reduction Act (aka Green New Deal). Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, all-in with Green Globalism, has appointed a energy security task force of cronies who lack real experience in or affinity with the state’s oil and gas sector. Instead of inciting investment in Alaska’s prolific resource base, Biden’s obstruction and subsidy bribery will risk making the state a federal enclave, with its top import being federal dollars. With the feds owning 60 percent of the land in the state, they have a club in the closet.
“I think what we’re seeing from the federal government is an elevation of climate change and other sorts of ideological considerations over an acknowledgement of the need for energy security and affordability in Alaska,” stated Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle, who pointed to the feds as “squarely responsible” for the lack of investment in the state and for “intimidating industry.”
Governor Dunleavy followed up by saying:
What we are seeing is a forced conversion to another type of approach to energy that is not being market driven.
and
When you sell uncertainty across the board, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that investors are hesitant to invest, especially in a place like Alaska.
These quotations sound nice, but on closer examination Governor Dunleavy is of a different stripe, and certainly out of step as a Republican in the state. In fact, Alaska politicians are working with Washington to implement Biden’s whole-of-government approach to climate and energy. At the same time, the state faces a growing scarcity of natural gas and increasing energy prices because of a lack of incentives for reinvestment in Alaska’s huge resource base.
Both the Governor and the Commissioner referenced the federal cancellation of leases in 2021 in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a factor in industry hesitation to move forward with investment in the Cook Inlet. The two faces of the administration are on full display.
On February 23, 2023, Governor Dunleavy issued an administrative order establishing the Alaska Energy Security Task Force to
develop a comprehensive statewide energy plan that will evaluate energy generation, distribution, and transmission for the State of Alaska and its communities. The development of this plan will include collaboration with public and private stakeholders.
This task force, and the subcommittees within it, held a series of meetings between April 25 and October 3, 2023, when the initial draft was first published.
Although it was not written into the administrative order, Dunleavy charged the task force with creating a plan that gets Alaskan electricity rates to 10¢/kWh. (The 10¢/kWh goal is referenced in the draft plan.)
Much of the concern around Alaska’s energy security has been centered on the notion that the natural gas supply in the Cook Inlet, supporting 80 percent of the power generation for the largest population center in Alaska, is declining.
The report is broken into 6 different focus areas – Railbelt, Coastal, Rural, State Energy Data, Incentives-and-Subsidies, and Statutes-and-Regulations.
The Railbelt proposed actions include adopting clean energy standards and significantly increasing load to drive down energy rates.
Within the Coastal areas: Actions include integrating heat pumps, moving industrial data centers near to hydropower facilities, incorporating battery energy storage systems, strengthening net metering, streamlining regulatory and land use administrative processes, prioritizing state funding to match federal dollars, establishing another bureaucratic entity “Alaska/Federal Renewable Energy Policy Force” to advance renewable energy transmission lines in federal lands and to foster, support and assist hydropower development.
Within the Rural areas: Actions include funding and constructing opportunities to connect rural communities through transmission lines and other shared projects and exploring opportunities to modernize rural grids.
The State Energy Data, Incentives-and-Subsidies, and Statutes-and-Regulations sections make up a little less than half of the entire report. The State Energy Data section proposes more government, e.g., a new Data Department and a data governance committee. Incentives and Subsidies has the highest count of action items listed under it and includes Establishing a state and/or federal Alaska Clean Energy and Transmission Line Fund or Alaska Energy Transition Fund to “Overcome the tyranny of distance.” It also includes the suggestion to “strengthen state and local procurement policies to provide preference for affordable and clean energy projects,” as well as establishing a Green Bank.
The Statutes and Regulations section recommends: “Maximize future optionality for use of Alaska sourced fossil fuels by monitoring and evaluating third party development of carbon capture and sequestration technologies and passing legislation establishing a regulatory framework for the geologic storage of carbon.” And of course they want to codify the clean energy standard, as well as codify the additional state spending to “Create a Data Department with the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA), using statute as necessary.”
Aside from the mention of an extraordinarily expensive long-shot LNG export pipeline, the Alaska Energy Security Task Force report does not mention maximizing the use of the abundant energy sources we have in our state today, such as coal, in-state refining, or even the incentivization of production in the Cook Inlet, where, according to the USGS, we are not in a natural gas shortage situation.
Inner Debate
The meeting minutes captured some of the disconnect between means and ends.
Mr. [Tony] Izzo [of Matanuska Electric Association] explained that he understood the discussion of 10 cents per kWh energy by 2030 to be a vision, similar to the vision of putting a man on the moon safely by the end of the decade.… Mr. Izzo gave the example that he believes that 10-cent power could be achieved for the majority of the Railbelt in 2024 with a large down payment of over a billion dollars to pay off debt and an annual subsidy of approximately $500 million to pay for the fuel.
He gave as another example that if MEA no longer had employee payroll, including himself, the price per kWh could decrease by 1.7 cents, from 20 cents to 18.3 cents, but the lights would probably not be on very often because no one would be there to run the plant or to conduct maintenance. He discussed that the more common sense recommendation could be to use the borrowing power of the annual payment to build an infrastructure….
So there is an imaginary billion dollars laying out there to do this? How does this result in 10¢/kWh power? I would love to have a $20 house payment if someone would just give me $600k.
The first round of public testimony on this plan was held on October 10, 2023. It was a two-hour session in the middle of a workday and only three members of the public testified. There were concerns about the condensed timeline and the unrealistic expectation of the public reading a one-hundred-and-thirty-page document over the weekend to present meaningful comments by the following Tuesday.
On October 20th, the draft plan was updated with significant changes, again leaving only a weekend for the public to figure out what had changed from the original.
The second round of testimony on October 24th, held after the workday, had far more participation. Much of the testimony centered around the timeline for review, with others (including myself) calling out the absurdity of missing cost analysis, any resemblance to the real world, and hypocrisy of leaving out maximizing the use of abundant sources of energy we have in our own state. This is nothing other than Inflation Reduction Act implementation plan based on wild suppositions and conditions that do not exist.
State residents are obviously not very interested in “energy transition investments” (coming in at #13 out of #17) versus affordable, reliable energy for economic and personal progress.
One notable testifier, John Hendrix, owner of the only Alaska-owned oil and gas company currently operating and largest acreage position in the Cook Inlet, commented that he had not been approached by the committee to talk about the looming gas shortage in the Cook Inlet. He expressed concern on the makeup of the task force – appointed members that are not part of the production process. He spoke about renewables and all the federal money as a threat and asked the committee why he should invest if they – Alaska and the feds – want to get rid of us? He commented for the record that 65 percent of the world’s fertilizer comes from natural gas and asked – “who dies and who doesn’t?”
Two-faced Governor
Governor Dunleavy’s press conference materials mentioned a Cook Inlet volume gap only to say that production would be incentivized to a profit share (from a royalty share) and only for new development, not existing.
Considering the plans from his State of the State address in January when he introduced the carbon management legislation, he made his intentions clear on the fate of the Cook Inlet: hydrogen and carbon sequestration. [1]
Governor Dunleavy has never stated he would change his mind if presented different facts. He sells his Biden bias with talk about an ‘all in’ energy strategy. Make no mistake: all-of-the-above is code for politically correct energies crowding out the economic. And who other than our governor gave a keynote speech at the SuperReturn International Conference for Private Equity in Germany on Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG).
Dunleavy blames the feds for overreach and on the other hand appoints a task force all about gobbling up federal dollars from the IRA in the name of Alaska’s energy security, not to mention the carbon management legislation. His dog whistle is in part damage control with the average voter. Why is a conservative pro-development governor pushing for policies that are counterproductive to natural resource development?
Third Draft Revision Needed
Interestingly, Governor Dunleavy had a press conference yesterday (10/26) to discuss the energy security for the Railbelt and to incentivize natural gas production in the Cook Inlet. A release to the media included thoughts around the Cook Inlet natural gas gap due to an looming shortage, the announcement that legislation was coming next session, and shared that there was a change in the upcoming lease agreement, a change from royalty share to profit share.
Oddly, existing leases are not affected. If this was truly about increasing production, why would they exclude existing leases from this royalty change? After the hundreds of hours spent in the task force meetings and the resulting draft of a master energy plan, this issue as discussed in the press conference was not mentioned one time. Was this meant as a surprise announcement or was this a knee-jerk reaction to the scathing testimony on the draft plan? Will there be a third revision to the draft plan?
Conclusion
Alaska is on a troubled energy path. Specifically, our state government has unanimously codified promising to “coordinate governmental functions” by “actively collaborating with federal agencies to achieve the state’s energy goals and to meet emissions, renewable alternative energy, and energy production targets” (see Appendix below). A reversal is required, and transparency and publicity will awaken our citizens to achieve just that.
Action Needed – The Alaska Energy Security Task Force is taking written comments through October 30th, 5 PM AKST – info@akenergysecuritytaskforce.com
[1] After giving lip service to oil and gas, Governor Dunleavy stated “… our potential will allow us to emerge as the global leader in new forms of low- and no-carbon energy…. With support for our carbon monetization bill, we’ll change the conversation about new revenue from the tired thinking of the past. Experts in this emerging industry have informed us that we can realize revenue to the tune of billions of dollars per year by creating a carbon management system. We’ve been told by some that we can generate as much as $30 billion or more over 20 years, just from our forest lands. That’s an absolute game-changer.”
APPENDIX (AS 44.99.115)
The State of Alaska recognizes that the state’s economic prosperity is dependent on available, reliable, and affordable residential, commercial, and industrial energy to supply the state’s electric, heating, and transportation needs. The state also recognizes that worldwide supply and demand for fossil fuels and concerns about global climate change will affect the price of fossil fuels consumed by Alaskans and exported from the state to other markets. In establishing a state energy policy, the state further recognizes the immense diversity of the state’s geography, cultures, and resource availability. Therefore, it is the policy of the state to
(1) institute a comprehensive and coordinated approach to supporting energy efficiency and conservation by
(A) encouraging statewide energy efficiency codes for new and renovated residential, commercial, and public buildings;
(B) decreasing public building energy consumption through conservation measures and energy-efficient technologies; and
(C) initiating and supporting a program to educate state residents on the benefits of energy efficiency and conservation, including dissemination of information on state and federal programs that reward energy efficiency;
(2) encourage economic development by
(A) promoting the development of renewable and alternative energy resources, including geothermal, wind, solar, hydroelectric, hydrokinetic, tidal, and biomass energy, for use by Alaskans;
(B) promoting the development, transport, and efficient use of nonrenewable and alternative energy resources, including natural gas, coal, oil, gas hydrates, heavy oil, and nuclear energy, for use by Alaskans and for export;
(C) working to identify and assist with development of the most cost-effective, long-term sources of energy for each community statewide;
(D) creating and maintaining a state fiscal regime and permitting and regulatory processes that encourage private sector development of the state’s energy resources; and
(E) promoting the efficiency of energy used for transportation;
(3) support energy research, education, and workforce development by investing in
(A) training and education programs that will help create jobs for Alaskans and that address energy conservation, efficiency, and availability, including programs that address workforce development and workforce transition; and
(B) applied energy research and development of alternative and emerging technologies, including university programs, to achieve reductions in state energy costs and stimulate industry investment in the state;
(4) coordinate governmental functions
(A) by reviewing and streamlining regulatory processes and balancing the economic costs of review with the level of regulation necessary to protect the public interest;
(B) by using one office or agency, as may be specified by law, to serve as a clearinghouse in managing the state’s energy-related functions to avoid fragmentation and duplication and to increase effectiveness; and
(C) by actively collaborating with federal agencies to achieve the state’s energy goals and to meet emissions, renewable and alternative energy, and energy production targets.————————-
Kassie Andrews is a long time Alaska resident with a particular interest in natural resources and energy policy. Also see her earlier blog at MasterResource, Alaska Energy vs. Woke Government.
Change is typically slow, steady, and gradual. There may be catastrophes including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and floods, but these are strictly local.
There is a tendency, that must be resisted, for 21st century Western scientists to claim every discovery of mass death as a catastrophe and unprecedented – to imagine that the entire Earth is convulsing, when it is not. I am thinking of coral reef scientists such as Terry Hughes from James Cook University who fly in airplanes at great altitude over corals that show signs of bleaching and announce that this is equivalent to the Louvre in Paris burning – the Mona Lisa lost forever.
In fact, the processes that impact the natural world today are arguably no different to what has occurred through geological time – and it is the case that the same coral reef Hughes claimed as being lost forever back in March 2020 was fully recovered within three months, though that was never reported.
Whether it be bleaching of corals at the Great Barrier Reef, or even the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai Hunga Tonga volcano in the South Pacific on January 15, 2022, there is reason for Western scientists to show more humility in their interpretation of natural phenomenon.
This current excursion to London to be part of the very first conference held by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) has caused me to remember the humility of the 19th Century biologists including Charles Darwin and arguably his greatest advocate Thomas Huxley.
Huxley, was not a Christian. He nevertheless famously wrote in a letter to nineteenth century Anglican priest, Charles Kingsley,
My business [which is science] is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my aspirations.
Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this. [End quote]
The eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano was unprecedented in that it injected more water vapour into the stratosphere than have ever been observed, at least since the satellite record began. A recently published paper in Science explaining the work of Stephanie Evan, concludes that this eruption has caused very rapid depletion of ozone with implications for climate change. I am wondering whether this ozone depletion has contributed to the recent spike in global temperatures as reported by the satellite monitoring program lead by John Christy and Roy Spencer.
We had been warned repeatedly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that rising sea levels would very gradually wipe small Pacific Island nations from the map of the world thanks to climate change; that they are particularly vulnerable to human-caused emission of carbon dioxide.
Not so the island of Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai. It wasn’t overtaken by rising sea levels. Rather it blasted itself into the sky! Obliterated in an instant. The massive volcanic eruption caused sonic booms, tsunami waves, spectacular lightning bolts, and a giant umbrella cloud that rose to a height of 30 kilometres and reached 500 kilometres in diameter in less than 2 hours. It also caused a dramatic drop in stratospheric temperatures; has this translated to a spike in global surface and tropospheric temperatures that may persist for some years – but not forever?
I am reminded of the exhaustingly long novel Hawaii by James Michener who was my favourite author growing-up – it begins with comment about the relentless surge of the universe, the violence of birth, the cold tearing away of death; and yet how promising was the interplay of forces as an island struggled to be born, vanishing in agony.
Yet since the twentieth century a hubris has developed within scientific communities in the West, and they now tell us that an extraordinary commitment from humanity is needed to save the Earth from imminent catastrophe. In particular, we are told that the processes driving climate change today are fundamentally different from anything that has ever occurred in the past.
The idea that something is fundamentally different in nature to anything that has gone before, and particularly with concern to climate, is a bold claim. Not least of all because it is possible to find evidence of tremendous upheavals in the strata of the earth’s crust including extensive ridges of dead coral stretching almost the length of Queensland, the gigantic bones of extinct dinosaurs from a time when the Earth was warmer and sea levels higher, and in more recent strata the bones of giant also now-extinct wombats from a time when it was much colder and sea levels were 120 metres lower that was also when there really was so much mass death of corals.
There were nineteenth biologists, working within the Judeo-Christian cultural tradition including Thomas Huxley (who did not identify as Christian), who went to great lengths to differentiate themselves from the then ‘catastrophists’ by insisting that the causes now in action are sufficient to explain the current distribution of living organisms, fossils and rocks and landforms – even huge erratics whose distribution had previously been used as evidence for supernatural intervention causing mass flooding.
The principle became known as uniformity as champion by the geologist Charles Lyell, who had a tremendous influence on the work of Charles Darwin. These Christian scientists (who include Charles Darwin but not Thomas Huxley), attempted to explain geological and evolutionary change in terms of existing causes.
Twentieth century evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, suggested this was in essence an acceptance that natural processes are constant across time and space: the past is to be explained by processes acting currently in time and space rather than inventing extra esoteric or unknown processes without good reason, otherwise known as parsimony or Occam’s razor.
Change is typically slow, steady, and gradual. There may be catastrophes including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and floods, but these are strictly local. They neither occurred in the past nor shall happen in the future, at any greater frequency or extent than they display at present. In particular, the whole earth is never convulsed at once!
To understand this requires some humility and also some patience and attention to detail. And also, a capacity to organise the evidence in such a way that the recurrent cycles have an opportunity to emerge, which they do most often first regionally. But this is becoming more and more difficult to discern as the official data, especially the measures of global temperature, are continually remodelled or otherwise corrupted.
I am now in London after a somewhat challenging and long plane trip that began with the notification that the first, of my three flights, was delayed. In fact, it would arrive in Brisbane sometime after the scheduled departure of my second flight. On the Qantas app I was assured that his discrepancy had been noted, and that the team at Qantas was monitoring the situation. Monitoring?
Such was the situation Friday night, as I attempted a few hours’ sleep before my Saturday morning departure from Rockhampton, a regional centre just a little to the west of Keppel Island, part of the Great Barrier Reef fringed by those corals that Terry Hughes flew over back in March 2020 making the false analogy with the Louvre burning.
Saturday morning, I awoke to the news that rather than reconciling the discrepancy in departure and arrival times into Brisbane, Qantas had decided to not even continue to monitor, it was now cancelling my entire schedule of flights to London and return, and was instead offering me a refund; if only I would click the relevant button. That I knew would be the end of this opportunity to visit London and learn about ARC and the emerging politically conservative leadership hoping for a revival of some of the best in the Western Christian tradition.
I had just learnt that one of the founding members of ARC, Mike Johnson, a committed Christian, originally a southern Baptist, now described as an evangelical Christian, was the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States. He is a man fearful that our moral, cultural, spiritual, and economic heritage needs renewal – or it will be replaced. He is also a foundation member of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) though I am not sure he will be in London for this first conference.
The ARC website repeats the claim that,
The arc of the moral universe is long, but bends toward justice.
It has emerged as one of their guiding principles.
If this is indeed the case, then the deceit that has overtaken Western science over the last 100 years can perhaps be reversed. Not only could there be an acceptance that evolution is real, but that science can not be successful and also downstream of a culture that has no regard for integrity and in particular reliability. There will begin to be a realisation amongst my colleagues, I hoped, that we must even unpack and examine the official temperature statistics, and also what it is to be a woman.
The corruption as it pertains to the historical empirical temperature data, must stop along with the increasing unreliability even of what is understood by biological gender. There will need to a differentiation of what is real and what is fiction. This is fundamental to science and also the survival of Western cultural traditions that facilitated the birth of modern Western science as well as the Louvre and all its art work.
If a new movement of conservatives is to save Western civilisation, it will need to acknowledge the central role that science has played as a force for good over the last four centuries and that this has always involved immersion in the detail. Always.
Central to science is evidence, and it has never been found in official statistics. Conservative economists and scientists need to accept this and desist with their claims that we must work from the official science, from the official statistics. This has been long been a claim of Bjorn Lomborg and implicit in his work, so far.
That I query and reject many of the official climate statistics has caused many to suggest that I am lost down rabbit holes, not seeing the wood from the trees, as the Louvre burns.
I would argue that there can be no denying the official global temperature reconstructions that have become the symbol of catastrophism. They must be unpicked, however, tedious that undertaking because it is being repeatedly claimed that there is no greater moral issues confronting the West today, than climate change, with the global temperature reconstruction showing continuous warming since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution a rallying symbol. This issue of understanding and addressing rising temperatures is claimed to be paramount to addressing issues of justice as well as economics. So, we must have our own story as it relates to the historical temperature record.
It is not enough, as so many sceptics try and explain otherwise to me, that I should accept the current official temperature measurements because we can still use them to show there is nothing exceptional about the current rate and magnitude of climate change; work from the remodelled data or otherwise using the satellite record of temperature change even if it only begins in 1979. I reject this approach. There must be integrity from the beginning, and the beginning must go back more than 100 years, and after that more than 1,000 years, and after that more than 140,000 years. (I will explain the significance of this in Part 3, if not Part 2 of this new series.)
Unpicking that which is unreliable will require some patience and a new plan with a new beginning. And so, I was determined to be patient, and did not click the refund button on my Qantas app. As I watched and waited, and refused to admit defeat, my Qantas app eventually came up with an alternative, it would reroute me via Dubai.
I did eventually arrive here in London. Qantas eventually transferred my booking to Emirites – but only after I first flew to Brisbane on trust. When I got to London, I was so tired I decided to get into a taxi rather than try and remember from which train station I would need to transfer from the Elizabeth line if I was to make it to Docklands – only for the Motorway as we exited Heathrow to be suddenly closed to traffic from the south; that is rare commented my London cabbie. But apparently not unprecedented. There must have been a fatality, he commented, but hopefully not mass death I thought.
I made it to the hotel, eventually, only to be told there was no booking, at least not under my name. But eventually I was given a card to a room. I’m hoping tomorrow will be better. I am hoping that I will find John Roskam in the foyer of this hotel bright and early. He tells me he knows how to get a tube to the ARC conference venue, you can find some of the program for the next three days here.
If only I can now get some sleep except it is already 5 am in London, even if it is still dark. The Sun will hopefully be shining tomorrow, eventually.
… a perspective, tonight, from London.
* I have only just posted this note, my part 1, and I have an email already protesting that, ‘The whole earth was convulsed at once when the dinosaurs died. … that event was caused by an object from space that shifted the crust of the earth. Before that event, all land was tropical …’ Perhaps. I encourage discussion in the thread following. And for me discussion is best when it includes detail. What do I mean by ‘at once’. How long is a time frame that refers to ‘at once’?
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has warned ferry operators about the risk of high-voltage shocks, toxic gas leaks and explosions, and direct jet flames. It warns of the danger posed by thermal runaway, whereby excess heat building up in the battery causes a chemical reaction that is fuelled by more heat.
Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority has issued a domestic commercial vessel safety alert on the risks of ferrying battery powered cars (EVs), download it here. Each ferry operator must conduct a risk assessment for their vessel to ensure that they are capable of dealing with potential EV fires. They list the risks of carrying EVs as follows:
High voltage shocks
Direct jet flames
Fires develop in intensity quickly and rapidly reach their maximum intensity (typically within 2-3 minutes)
Toxic gases
Gas explosion (if the released gas accumulates for a while before being ignited)
Long lasting re-ignition risk (can ignite or re-ignite weeks, or maybe months after the provoking incident)
Once established fires are difficult to stop/extinguish
Thermal runaway
They go on to add that EVs are approximately 25% heavier than vehicles with internal combustion engines. This should be considered when placing the vehicles on the ferry or ship to minimize the potential impact on vessel stability.
Lithium-ion batteries have been known to suffer from spontaneous thermal runaway fires. The lower the charge retained by the vehicle’s battery the lower the likelihood of a thermal runaway fire, checking the charge on each vehicle can help in assessing the risk.
Some battery powered vehicles have a lower ground clearance than internal combustion engine vehicles. This means they are more susceptible to damage from ramps during boarding. Care should be taken in identifying these vehicles before boarding to ensure damage is not sustained to the battery. Any damage to any part of the battery increases the risk of fire. Physical damage to the battery can lead to thermal runaway. EVs which have been damaged should not be loaded. Charging the battery while onboard is very dangerous and can increase the likelihood of a thermal runaway fire, do not allow charging any EV on your vessel.
Fumes given off by lithium-ion batteries are toxic, gas masks are necessary when fighting the fire. When fighting a lithium-ion battery vehicle fire with water, substantially higher quantities of water are required in comparison to an internal combustion vehicle fire. The water must also be applied for a longer period. There is also a risk of re-ignition. Using other methods such as a car fire blanket designed to extinguish EV fires can help. A damaged high-voltage battery can create rapid heating of the battery cells. If you notice hissing, whistling, or popping, a possible sweet chemical smell, then black “smoke” (nanoparticles of heavy metals, not smoke) then white vapor coming from the high voltage battery assume that thermal runaway has occurred. Directly attacking the fire with water hoses and breaking open the battery requires specialist training and equipment. Do attempt this without extensive training and practice.
EVs are in real trouble. EV insurance rates are higher than for internal combustion engine (ICE) cars due to the risk of intense fires, higher cost of repairs, and the cost of replacement batteries. EVs are much more likely to be totaled after an accident and repairing them takes much longer than for an ICE. Be very careful about putting an EV in your garage, especially with a built-in charging station.
Ignacio Galán, the chief executive of Spanish utility Iberdrola, said in 2018, that the renewable industry was facing a possible “Enron” style collapse. The era of cheap money is gone, and the new higher interest rates will shake out any weak renewable companies, as well as weak EV manufacturers. From an investor point of view be very careful. EV bankruptcies have already occurred (also see here), and more are on the way. Solar startup bankruptcies are increasing (see also here and here). Wind power isn’t doing much better, Siemens is in real trouble (see here). My state of Texas is also hurting. We all eventually have to pay the piper.
Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest says the newly announced critical minerals and clean energy compact between Australia and the US could get Australia over the line in its shift to 82 per cent renewables by 2030 – and if it doesn’t, “we’re toast.” Well done Twiggy, all your b*shit renewable and firming projects just kept the lights on for 6 minutes, when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing.
Essay by Eric Worrall
Andrew “Twiggy” Forest is an iron ore billionaire who is mounting a crusade against climate change. He also owns Squadron Energy, a major Aussie provider of renewable “solutions”.
Inside Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s urgent global climate campaign
Outside, it is one of those perfect Sydney spring days, 26 degrees and a breeze that’s soft on the face.
But I’m under a red light inside a heat chamber in a University of Sydney laboratory experiencing what a potentially lethal temperature feels like, and for this, I blame Australia’s richest man, Fortescue chairman Dr Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
…
Forrest described calls for everyone to do their bit to tackle climate change as flagrant greenwashing, arguing that there are about 1000 people in the world culpable for climate change and capable of fixing it.
He asked that when it was time to “put heads on spikes, start with mine, but please don’t forget the other 999”.
At another point, he grabbed an audience member’s hand and explained how he had once done the same thing to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modhi, telling him that if he did not address climate change he would have blood not just on his fingers, but all the way up his arm.
The talk had baffled some of those who attended. Why was an iron ore magnate lecturing academics, including health and climate specialists, on health and climate? And what was the urgency of Forrest’s race around the world with this DIY Ted Talk?
Lucky Indian Prime Minister’s Modhi’s supporters weren’t in the room when Twiggy manhandled their hero, if this is what happened. Modhi has a loyal following, much like Donald Trump, and Modhi’s followers would have responded pretty much the same as Trump’s supporters would have, if some jerk started manhandling Trump on stage.
But Twiggy has more to say on climate change.
“Savagely imperfect:” Forrest lets fly at coal, nuclear and ex-Snowy boss Paul Broad
Challenged by 2GB’s Ben Fordham to explain why – if coal power supplied 78% of New South Wales electricity demand in the last 24 hours – government would be pushing to switch coal plants off, Forrest’s response was swift.
“Oh mate, because if we don’t, we’re toast,” he said, referring to the threat of irreversible dangerous climate change.
…
But has Forrest considered nuclear power?
“It’s not a solution for Australia,” he says.
“If you’ve got 20 years, that’s fine… But when I build iron ore projects, I build them in three years, right? When I’m building renewable energy projects, you can kick them off in three months. It’s such a quick, energetic, inexpensive solution.
“Now, nuclear power plants, if they already exist … you can [use them for] firming power, do that. Do that kind of cyclical power, but don’t do baseload power. Let the punters out there enjoy lower power costs through renewable energy for all their baseload.”
So Twiggy’s firming projects deliver enough energy to power the grid for:
7.2 x 1013 ÷ 6 x 1018 = 0.000012 years = (x 365.25) 0.004 days = 378 seconds of firmed renewable energy.
Well done Twiggy, all your b*shit renewable and firming projects just kept the lights on for 6 minutes, when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing.
OK, I didn’t count his hydrogen electrolysis storage plant – but is there a point to counting the hydrogen? If hydrogen worked at scale, nobody would bother with battery packs. And full disclosure, I included all energy use in that 6000 Petajoule figure including oil and gas not used for generating electricity, because you know, electrify everything. And last year was 5700 Petajoule – though at least one previous year was higher than 6000.
Is 6 minutes enough? Anyone who thinks a nation as big as Australia can’t lose all wind energy at night , that a few minutes or hours backup would be enough, needs to look at the image below.
Blocking high pressure system which covered Australia on 16th June 2022. Very little wind blew that night. Source Bureau of Meteorology / JoNova, Fair Use, Low Resolution Image to Identify the Subject
Remember June is southern hemisphere winter, and in winter blocking high pressure systems produce cloudless, bitterly cold nights. According to a Guardian article published that very day, Australia was experiencing the coldest start to winter in decades. So on the night wind power dropped to zero across most of the country, a large percentage of Australia’s population was cranking up their home heating to ward off the bitter cold.
Twiggy, given blocking high pressure systems which kill wind power for days or weeks over the entire continent are a fact of life, too bad you didn’t give reliable 24×7 zero carbon nuclear reactors a chance. Large regions of Australia can also suffer wind droughts which last for months, as South Australia discovered in 2017.
Renewables, even “firmed” renewables, are a nonsense solution to a climate non problem – even if your name is Twiggy.
The BBC’s director general will be taking on personal responsibility for the overseeing of the company’s complaints unit, the broadcaster has announced.
The Scientific Method requires that questions be asked, observations made, and hypotheses formulated, tested, and proven or rejected. Conclusions are always subject to challenges with new evidence and insights.
As a physicist, John Droz holds in high regard the Scientific Method, a 400-year-old approach to investigating reality. Rooted in Isaac Newton’s work, which included creation of the calculus, the Scientific Method has long underpinned examination of the physical world and technological advancement.
Quite understandable it is, then, that Droz, who holds degrees in mathematics and physics, was prompted to do some investigating of his own after learning that his state of North Carolina had abandoned the teaching of the Scientific Method for the promotion of a faddish theory of entirely unscientific inquiry.
“Upon reading a review of the North Carolina K-12 Science Standards, I was concerned that nowhere was the Scientific Method even mentioned,” says Droz, who retired at 34 as a successful investor and launched a 40-year career as a “citizen advocate” of wide-ranging pursuits.
Having a particular concern about the current state of critical thinking, Droz ultimately filed a written complaint with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
“They subsequently said that they had received some 14,000 inputs on the Science Standards, and apparently, I was the only one bringing up the issue,” said Droz, whose varied interests include climate science and election integrity.
The controversy had its beginnings in 2012 when a newly formulated Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) began nudging out the Scientific Method from much of public education. Politically inspired by progressive ideology and backed by the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the NGSS gained favor with the education bureaucracy of 45 states. The Scientific Method was replaced by something called “Science and Engineering Practices.”
Much of the public might not appreciate the implications of the Scientific Method’s fading from public education’s officialdom, but the loss is no less than a disaster to scientists and adherents of the traditional tenets of critical thinking.
The Scientific Method requires that questions be asked, observations made, and hypotheses formulated, tested, and proven or rejected. Conclusions are always subject to challenges with new evidence and insights.
The NGSS scraps this centuries-old process for computer models whose products are proof of nothing unless they are verified against real-world data and survive the challenges of new information. However, those criticizing the findings of this corruption of objective inquiry are often dismissed as “science deniers.”
Nowhere have the dangers of this travesty been more manifest than in climate science where a paganistic fervor has supplanted rigorous investigation and open debate. Challengers of the status quo are more likely to be met with ad hominem than data. Ideologically driven activists use flawed computer models to justify political actions like banning gas-powered cars, shutting down pipelines and spending trillions on “green” energy subsidies that provide no benefit to society.
In classrooms, students are encouraged by the NGSS to conform to politically correct views: Solar and wind energy are good. Fossil fuels are bad. Catastrophic global warming is the future. Carbon dioxide, a gas necessary for life itself, is pollution. Computer models that fail to predict weather days or months in the future can divine the behavior of the climate, Earth’s most complex system, in the next century. Questioning the most absurd of hypotheses is heresy.
Fortunately for North Carolina students, two members of the 18-person State Board of Education embraced Droz’s view that the Scientific Method should be restored to the state’s Science Standards, which it was in July. Droz said the support of the board members was instrumental in correcting the deficiency in state standards.
“I’m optimistic that the Department of Public Instruction will soon address my second major concern that the state Science Standards need more specificity regarding critical thinking,” says Droz. “It should be clear that there is an intimate connection between critical thinking analysis and the universal problem-solving procedure of the Scientific Method.”
John Droz’s example of standing for scientific integrity is an inspiration to the CO2 Coalition, of which he is a member. Determined to reverse the education establishment’s degradation of science teaching, the CO2 Coalition has created educational materials for students and educators.
The CO2 Learning Center’s books, videos and lesson plans are free for the asking. The cost of failing to repel the modern attack on rational thought is incalculable.
The realities of physics and engineering mean that politicians pushing for an all-EV future run a high risk. Quite aside from the eventual discovery that EVs will disappoint with only a tiny impact on global CO2 emissions, the bigger impacts will come as consumers find vehicle ownership costs and inconveniences both escalating.
This essay is based on the opening remarks delivered at a recent SOHO Forum Debate on electric vehicles.
If we could imagine a time machine bringing to New York City an American citizen from the 19th century, odds are the one thing that would seem the most amazing about our time would be the proliferation of the personal automobile. Big buildings, big cities, roads, and nighttime illumination would all be imaginable, even if different looking and greater in scale. But the one thing radically different about modern daily life is the convenience and freedoms that come from a car.
Yes, that 19th-century citizen would probably be puzzled by people staring at glowing rectangles in their hands. In fact, the personal computer and the personal car are co-equal in their transformative impacts. MIT historian Leo Marx put it well when he wrote that: “To speak . . . of the ‘impact’ of … the automobile upon society makes little more sense . . .than to speak of the impact of the bone structure on the human body.”
The centrality of the car in the social and economic structure of society is evidenced by how citizens have voted with their pocketbooks. A car is the single most expensive product that 98% of consumers ever purchase. Over 90% of American households own or have access to a car. Average household spending on personal mobility is the second biggest expense after mortgage or rent.
And there’s nothing to the trope that the rising generations will abandon automobiles. A recent MIT analysis found Millennials exhibit no difference in “preferences for vehicle ownership” and, in fact, drive more miles per year than Boomers. As for Gen Zs, the share of cars bought by that cohort has increased five-fold in the past five years.
Finally, to finish framing why cars matter, let’s consider what used to be called telecommuting, Zooming, and remote working, especially following the epic exodus caused by the destructive Lockdowns of 2020. Surveys show the lockdowns accelerated a trend that was already underway, one of a huge swath of Americans moving to suburbs or rural areas. It’s a trend that invariably leads to a greater need for cars and distances driven.
Now come politicians in a dozen states — and the EPA via a creative exercise of regulatory authority —with plans to ban the right to purchase a car with an internal combustion engine, the kind of car that 98% of Americans own and the kind of car that 98% of average-incomed Americans still buy. The goal of the bans is not, we’re told, to deny any citizen the ability to own or afford a useful car. Instead, as everyone knows, it is in service of the goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by mandating the use of so-called zero-emission electric vehicles. EVs for all. The process of “transitioning” to EVs for everyone, everywhere, we’re also told, will be painless because EVs are inevitably taking over the entire automobile market because they are — it is said — simpler, better, easier to use, and “cleaner.”
And now the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) promises a gusher of money to induce that transition. Let’s stipulate the obvious – one doesn’t need subsidies and mandates to convince people and businesses to buy products that are inherently radically better and cheaper.
But, assuming that the inflationary legislation isn’t reversed by a future Congress, the IRA’s push for an energy transition will deploy $2 to $3 trillion (when it’s fully ‘costed’ to include unfunded mandates and in-perpetuity subsidies), half of which will be for EVs and related infrastructures. You can buy a lot of obeisance with that kind of money. With so much money combined with political mandates and PR momentum, we should not be surprised to find no automaker dares avoid genuflecting to the grand vision of an all-EV future. But money can’t buy a change in the laws of physics and underlying engineering realities.
The ostensible inevitability, the enthusiasm, the subsidies, and the mandates for EVs are anchored in three claims:
That EVs will radically reduce global CO2 emissions.
That EVs are cheaper and easier to fuel because, well, you can “just plug them in,” and
That EVs will soon be cheaper than conventional cars because they are inherently simpler.
All three of these claims are simply wrong.
Start with the core claim that “they’re simpler.” Yes, conventional cars have complex thermo-mechanical systems. Engines and automatic transmissions are made from hundreds of components, although mated with a very simple fuel system, a tank holding a liquid with a one-moving-part pump. EVs, inversely, have a simple motor made from a few parts. However, the EV fuel tank is a complex electrochemical system made from hundreds, sometimes thousands of parts, including a cooling system, sensors, safety systems, and a boatload of power electronics. EVs aren’t simpler; they’re just differently complex.
The illusion of EV simplicity has relevance to the strike underway by the United Autoworkers Union. EVs do not entail less labor to build but instead shift where the labor takes place. The data show that, overall, while about 80 people are employed per 1,000 conventional cars produced, Tesla, the world’s biggest EV maker—for now—employs about 90 people per 1,000 cars produced per year.
Seem strange? Consider just the labor to make the two different drive trains. Again, take Tesla and specifically its trend-setting Nevada “gigafactory” where public data shows about 8 people are employed per 1,000 EV drivetrains produced – that’s electric motor plus battery. The combined employment at conventional engine and transmission factories is just 4 people per 1,000 drivetrains. That’s the inverse of the EV labor argument. And there’s more to the labor story, realities that have implications for emissions and costs.
Look upstream at the primary materials sent to the factories to fabricate the vehicles. Steel and iron make up about 85% of the weight of a conventional car. That upstream supply chain requires less than one person per 1,000 vehicles produced. Meanwhile, most of the weight of an EV is found in more exotic, so-called energy minerals, from copper and aluminum to, obviously, lithium, and also nickel, cobalt, manganese, and rare earths like neodymium. That upstream supply chain employs roughly 30 people for every 1,000 EVs. Of course, all that labor is elsewhere since the mines and refineries are not in America.
But before turning to cost and emissions implications of the upstream realities, we need to address the claim that EVs are simpler to fuel.
It’s obvious that the imagined all-EV future requires on-road fast charging. First, the total labor to deliver the same energy to EV fueling stations is greater than it is for the gasoline infrastructure… something that will necessarily, ultimately, impact costs. But setting that aside (and that’s a lot to set aside), the lie of the simpler-to-fuel is in the nature of electrical engineering for fast-charging batteries. The so-called superchargers offer, instead of overnight fueling, 80% charge in 30 to 40 minutes. This is only fast if it’s not compared to the 3 to 4 minutes it takes to fill up a gasoline tank. Long refueling times will translate into long lines at EV fueling stations, as well as the need for five to 10 times more charging ports than fuel pumps.
That won’t be convenient, simple, or cheap. Each supercharger costs two to three times more than a gasoline pump. And, because superchargers necessarily operate at 100 times the power level of an overnight home charger, that translates into staggering requirements for grid infrastructure upgrades. Today, roadside fuel stations have the electric demand of a 7-Eleven, but convert those to EV fueling stations and every one of them will have the electric demand of a steel mill – and highways will need thousands of them.
Enthusiasts are either unaware of or profoundly naïve about the time and cost challenges of all that. The naivety extends in particular regarding the materials demands for the quantities of copper needed for all the wires and transformers that will be required to replace cheap steel pipes and tanks. And the metal demands of the electric infrastructure will necessarily be piled on top of an unprecedented increase in demand for metals and minerals to fabricate the EVs.
While copper is the long pole in the tent, it is only one of the mineral challenges. The realities of costs and emissions for EVs are dominated by a simple fact: a typical EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds to replace the fuel and the tank, weighing together under 100 pounds. That half-ton battery is made from a wide range of minerals, including copper, nickel, aluminum, graphite, cobalt, manganese, and, of course, lithium. And to get the materials to fabricate that half-ton battery requires digging up and processing some 250 tons of the earth somewhere on the planet. Those numbers, it’s important to understand, are roughly the same no matter what the specific battery chemical formulation is, whether it’s lithium nickel, manganese, or the popularly cited lithium iron phosphate.
And yes, that EV tonnage should be compared to the combined tonnage of metals and the weight of the oil used to produce and fuel a conventional car. Even if you compare those numbers, over a 10-year lifespan of both kinds of cars, the EV still entails a ten-fold greater extraction and handling of materials from the earth and far, far more acreage of land disturbed and, unfortunately, often polluted.
The astronomical quantity of materials needed for EVs has led proponents to claim that there are, after all, enough minerals on the planet and there’s nothing to worry about. And anyway, they say, we can recycle to reduce the monumental materials requirements. But recycling will be irrelevant for a long time since manufacturers claim EV batteries will last a decade. That means there won’t be anything significant available to begin recycling until the early 2030s, long after the world has had to face up to the biggest expansion of global mining in history.
As for the underlying geological resources to supply the suite of energy minerals, of course, there are enough of all those on planet Earth and even in America. That’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that the data show that, overall, the mines operating and planned can’t supply even a small fraction of the 400% to 7000% increase in demand for minerals that will be needed within a decade to meet the ban-the-engine goals. What’s relevant is that the IEA has told us we’ll need hundreds of new mega-mines and that it takes 10 to 16 years to find, plan, and open a new mine. You can, as they say, do the math on that.
The need to supply astonishing quantities of battery materials is also where we find the core problem with the claims for big EV emissions and cost savings.
Since over 70% of the price of an EV battery comes from the costs of just buying the basic materials needed – that means the future price of EVs is dominated by the future costs of those basic materials and is dependent on guesses about the future of foreign mining and minerals industries, not the labor and automation prowess at domestic assembly plants. Over the past half-dozen years, the often-cited long-run, rapid decline in battery costs has slowed dramatically. And now prices have increased some 20% since 2021. So far, that’s with EVs still under 10% of total vehicle production. We’re still in the early days of mineral demands.
And it’s with the acquisition of key materials where we find flaws with the core claims for emissions. The energy used and thus emissions from producing a pound of copper, nickel, and aluminum, for example, is two to three times greater than for steel. The numbers are higher for the other minerals. Importantly, as researchers at the Argonne National Labs have pointed out, relevant data for all the battery materials “remain meager to nonexistent, forcing researchers to resort to engineering calculations or approximations.”
That means every emissions claim is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, assumptions, or aspirations. There are huge variables and uncertainties in the emissions from energy-intensive mining and the processing of minerals used to make EV batteries. The simple fact is that no one knows how much CO2 emissions will decline as materials production rises to build more EVs. And all of the key variables point to higher, not lower, emissions in the future.
The energy used to obtain a pound of metal depends on the size, nature, and location of the mine. For copper, that number can vary at least two-fold, and for nickel by three-fold. Getting accurate information is complicated by the fact that 80%–90% of relevant minerals are mined and refined outside the U.S. and E.U. and will be for a long time regardless of subsidies. And, since China refines 50% – 90% of the world’s suite of energy minerals for EVs, it’s relevant that its grid is two-thirds coal-fired — and will be for a long time.
There is a dishonesty at the center of all the facile claims about big EV emissions reductions. In fact, nearly all studies making emissions claims are worse than guesses; the estimates frequently cherry-pick low numbers for what’s really happening upstream. A meta-study of 50 different technical studies found the estimates of emissions varied by over 300%. And, worse, that analysis exposed the fact that most emissions claims were based on assuming the use of a small 30 kWh battery. That’s one-third the size of batteries actually used in most EVs. Triple the battery size, and you triple the upstream emissions – and you triple the demand and thus price-pressure for the minerals.
Upstream minerals emissions not only offset the savings from not burning gasoline but, as the demand for battery minerals explodes, the net emissions savings shrink and could even vanish. Reasonable, even likely scenarios will lead to EVs causing a net increase in global emissions. Geologists have long documented that ore grades have been and will continue declining. That’s because global ore grades are declining – for the non-cognoscenti, that means for each new ton of mineral, there’s a steady and unavoidable increase in the quantity of rock dug up and processed. A decrease of just 0.4% in copper ore grade will require seven times more energy to access the copper.
Unlike cars with internal combustion engines, it’s impossible to measure an EV’s CO2 emissions. And, unlike cars, where those emissions are the same wherever or whenever the car is made or used, EV emissions vary wildly depending on how it’s made and where it’s used. While, self-evidently, there are no emissions while driving an EV, emissions occur elsewhere — not only upstream before the first mile is ever driven but also when the vehicle is parked to refuel. The latter, emissions from the grid, is also far more complex than simplistic forecasts assume. Real-world emissions from charging depend on precisely where and exactly when it’s done. The refuel emissions can vary from near zero on a sunny day in some states and, in other states and times, to the same or more than would have come from burning gasoline.
None of this means that the lithium battery doesn’t deserve a pivotal place in history. Its invention was consequential for many reasons, nearly all of which have little to do with EVs. Nor do the inconvenient complexities of mining and grids mean there won’t be many more EVs in the future. Today’s fleet of nearly 20 million EVs globally — notably half of which are in coal-burning China — will doubtless balloon to hundreds of millions of EVs on global roads in the coming couple of decades. But even such dramatic growth would mean that EVs would by then account for barely 15% of all consumer vehicles and far smaller share of industrial and commercial vehicles.
By way of analogy, the future of EVs in land transportation ecosystems will end up echoing, in market share terms and for similar operational reasons, the role of helicopters in aviation. Helicopters offer very different and, in many applications, far more useful, even essential, features compared to conventional fixed-wing aircraft. That’s why there’s a very significant $60 billion a year global market for helicopters. Even so, helicopters are only 15% of the overall global aircraft market. While helicopters, like EVs, are useful for a large number of applications, one would no more expect all aviation to use helicopters than for all drivers to use EVs.
The realities of physics and engineering mean that politicians pushing for an all-EV future run a high risk. Quite aside from the eventual discovery that EVs will disappoint with only a tiny impact on global CO2 emissions, the bigger impacts will come as consumers find vehicle ownership costs and inconveniences both escalating. That will lead to unhappy voters motivated by the key underlying reality: A car is the single most expensive and critical product used by the overwhelming majority of citizens.
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