Day: November 21, 2023

Green Bloodbath: Chemical company Bayer plans massive job cuts

FILE – In this April 28, 2010 file photo a vessel passes by the plant of chemical giant Bayer AG at the rive Rhine in Leverkusen, western Germany. German drug and chemicals company Bayer AG confirmed Thursday, May 19, 2016 it has entered talks with the Monsanto Company about the possible acquisition of the U.S.-based specialist in genetically modified crop seeds. Leverkusen-based Bayer said in a short statement that its executives had met recently with their Monsanto counterparts “to privately discuss a negotiated acquisition of Monsanto Company.” (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The Leverkusen-based pharmaceutical and agrochemical group Bayer is planning a major restructuring process. By the end of the year, the Group intends to reduce several management levels, which will lead to a significant reduction in the workforce. This step is considered necessary due to the current business performance (rp-online: 09.11.23).

Major restructuring of the Bayer Group: CEO unveils plans for structural changes in March

Chief Executive Officer Bill Anderson said during the presentation of the quarterly results that the company is thoroughly reviewing its structural options. The exact details of this restructuring will be announced by the Board in March next year. However, Anderson stressed that the company’s performance so far this year has not been satisfactory, as it has not generated positive cash flow despite a turnover of almost 50 billion euros.

Major corporate restructuring at Bayer: CEO unveils plans for structural changes.
Image: Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cash flow, an important financial indicator for Bayer, describes the company’s ability to self-finance and liquidity. It is based on deposits and withdrawals within a certain period of time.

Bayer Plans Radical Group Restructuring: What Can Employees Expect?

Anderson ruled out splitting the group into pharmaceuticals (with prescription and over-the-counter drugs) and agrochemicals. Instead, there could be a separation from over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin and Bepanthen, or from agrochemicals, including the seed business. Analysts and investors expect these structural changes to boost the share price.

The new corporate structure will be leaner, with fewer hierarchical levels between management and customers. However, the Executive Board has not yet announced the exact number of management levels that will be eliminated and the impact on the workforce.

Bayer Revolutionizes Corporate Structure: Focus on Agile Teams and Financial Challenges

In order to increase efficiency, agile teams with more decision-making freedom and self-organization are to be set up in the future. These teams will take care of customers and products directly, with 95 percent of decision-making power to be shifted to employees.

Although sales remained stable in the third quarter, earnings declined due to billions of euros in write-downs in the Crop Science agrochemicals division caused by higher capital market interest rates. During the year, sales fell by 3.2 percent to 35.78 billion euros. Special charges, especially at Crop Science, totaling 7.2 billion euros, led to a net loss of 4.28 billion euros. Bayer continues to face lawsuits for damages in connection with the weed killer glyphosate. Despite some court defeats, the company emphasizes the safety of the product.

Originally published by Germany’s “Blackout News”.

Milei’s climate scepticism and the plight of Argentina’s poor

From Net Zero Watch

By Andrew Montford

Argentinian presidential elections don’t often grab the headlines in the UK, but the eccentric character and unusual political platform of the man just elected to the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires has attracted huge attention, here and across the world.

Physically, Javier Milei has much of the Boris Johnson about him, with a mop of unkempt hair adorned with a pair of enormous sideburns, together with a familiar ability play the fool while somehow still managing be taken seriously. His lifestyle, at least as a young man, seems to have much in common with Mr Johnson too (or indeed an earlier British liberal, John Wilkes), resembling, not so much the economist that he became as an archetypal 1970s rock star. His ability to communicate with the man in the street is similarly developed too.

With libertinism running in Milei’s blood, it is unsurprising that his political platform is similarly unusual (at least for a successful politician), straddling the ground between libertarianism and outright anarchocapitalism. More interestingly, for readers here, he is apparently an avowed global warming sceptic, having apparently described climate change as “a socialist invention”.

Milei, it is fair to say, is not keen on socialism, seeing its prevalence in Argentine society as the root of his country’s long decline from being one of the richest societies on Earth to its current position as a prominent economic basket case. On the hustings, he has promised to sweep leftism aside, cutting spending freeing the private sector, with a programme of dollarisation to deal with runaway inflation.

However, once he has taken the reins of power, the truth is that Milei will have to move carefully. With the Argentinian state living a hand-to-mouth existence in a desperate bid to fend off its creditors, its new president does not have a free hand. Dollarisation has been a success in El Salvador and other places in Latin America, but could still go painfully wrong. The goodwill of creditor nations will therefore be important. This is a problem, because they are unlikely to be happy with many of the other things Milei might do to ease the plight of Argentina’s poor. For example, expanding production at the massive Vaca Muerta shale play could reduce energy bills (or the burden of providing fuel subsidies), but would not go down well with the green lobby.

A sane energy policy for Argentina may therefore have to wait. This may explain why the domestic renewables industry has reported productive meetings with Milei’s energy advisor, Eduardo Rodríguez Chirillo. One of those who attended has reported that there will be no deviation from the Paris goals. An emissions trading scheme has apparently been mooted too, and an energy transition undersecretariat will be formed by the new Government, or so it is said.

If this is true, then it may be that the climate movement is already a major barrier to improving the lives of Argentina’s poor, and potentially even an insurmountable one, for all Milei’s big talk on the campaign trail.

Climate change: Fewer wild swans returning to UK in winter–BBC

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Guest post by Ian Magness

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67407574 

Ian’s Response:

Let’s start with the title “Climate change: Fewer wild swans…”. What we are strictly dealing with here are the numbers of Bewick’s swans. However, that’s not what the title says so lets’s look at the bigger picture. To do this, we must look at the Bewick’s very close relatives the Whooper swans. Certainly in terms to the whole of southern and central British Isles, both birds are strictly non-breeding winter visitors. Both breed in Arctic wastelands and just come here when weather and ground/feeding conditions become untenable in October or November. Both would SURELY follow similar overall population responses to global warming, other factors being equal.

Below is a screenshot from the BTO website. It shows Whoopers gaining in UK winter population hugely in the period 95/96 to 20/21. It is regarded as an “Amber list” (some concern in population) bird in the UK but, globally (IUCN designation), it is of “least concern”. Around 20,000 are believed to have visited our shores in 2015/16 and the number is increasing, with the statistics indicating that the rise in Whoopers outweighs the decline in Bewick’s.

So, what of Bewick’s?  You will note that Briggs claims that “the global population is declining fast”. Really? That’s not what the BTO website tells us – at all. Photo 0474 (also BTO) shows that Bewicks are also of IUCN “least concern”. They are now red-listed in the UK as the wintering population has been declining since around the turn of the century.  The BTO reckons that there are perhaps around 3,500 birds now visiting and this compares to over 7,000 in around 1999/2000 (see photo 0470 from Birds of Wiltshire, 2007). However, it is also notable from Birds of Wiltshire that the UK population was a mere 1,500 or so around 1950. It thus appears that the UK population is still over double that in 1950, despite all that dreadful global warming. Funny the BBC didn’t mention that….

The next BTO screenshot may have the answer to Slimbridge’s population issue. The map shows gains in the east as well as losses in the west. The point is that western Britain is on the edge of the swans’ palearctic range. There we have it yet again – bird populations waxing and waning on the edge of their ranges – twas ever thus.

So, “fewer wild swans”? I don’t think so, just normal adjustments.

What about the late Bewicks’ arrivals this year? The next screenshot has the answer – most of the time, relatively few birds arrive in October. November sees the big arrivals and major variations due to both Arctic and northern European autumnal weather conditions will occur. Off-topic but the summer swifts got hammered in Wiltshire in 2023 due to the abysmal July. Almost our entire population disappeared by end-July – weeks earlier than normal and early-September birds wouldn’t be surprising. So significant weather-related bird migration changes are entirely normal.

Overall, I just don’t buy all this “climate change is to blame for stopping our Bewick’s coming here” nonsense. Historical evidence, as ever, is far more nuanced and shows population distribution p

atterns far from convincingly following global warming, or indeed Keeling Curve, patterns.

Finally, this makes my blood boil:

Kane Briggs, senior research officer at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve, said the “saddest fact” was one day the swans may never return to Britain.

“This is happening right in front of our eyes,” he said. “Climate change is playing its part here.”

ABSOLUTE CRAP on all fronts! Our children will not know what a Bewick’s looks like. File that one with snow.

Green Bloodbath: Electricity prices in Germany three times higher than in the USA

 “If renewables are so gosh-darn cheap, why does Germany now have the highest electricity prices in Europe?”  In fact, the average cost of electricity is nearly 30 cents per kilowatt hour, almost three times higher in Germany than it is in the United States.

The price of electricity in Germany is three times higher than in the USA. Criticism of Germany’s energy policy is being voiced, reports Blackout News.

Financial expert Jan Viebig criticises the fact that the phase-out of coal and nuclear energy is not well coordinated with the European Union. Energy policy has three main objectives: low prices, security of supply and environmental protection with regard to CO₂ emissions. German energy policy performs poorly in all three areas (focus: 03.11.23).

Germany has the highest electricity prices in Europe and the world

Energy prices in particular are high. There are differences in the prices of fuel, natural gas, heating oil and electricity, depending on contracts and volumes. But overall, prices in Germany are the highest in Europe and among the most expensive in the world. For example, average prices for corporate customers in Germany are 42 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is more than three times higher than in the US.

Germany has the highest electricity prices in Europe and the world. The supply is dependent on foreign countries and CO₂ emissions remain high

Germany’s dependence on foreign suppliers and the risks to security of supply

Germany fares slightly better here, although it is still dependent on foreign suppliers. Germany has coped well with the loss of Russian natural gas supplies, mainly through the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Federal Network Agency says that security of supply is guaranteed. However, in the fall of 2022, the four grid operators had to undergo a stress test, during which Economy Minister Robert Habeck noted that under certain scenarios, such as very cold winters and large outages of nuclear power in France, there could be a threat of shortages that lasted for hours.

Failure of German energy policy: CO₂ emissions rise despite high subsidies

Despite the federal government’s efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions, they increased in 2021 and 2022. According to the Federal Environment Agency, the generation of one kilowatt hour of electricity caused an average of 434 grams of CO₂ in 2022. Due to its heavy dependence on fossil fuels, Germany has a worse carbon footprint in the electricity industry than most European countries. In short, German energy policy is currently receiving little praise and is poorly coordinated with its partners in the European Union.

Germany’s electricity market on the verge of collapse? Subsidies as a bailout or a risk?

The German energy market is highly regulated, and due to high electricity prices and decreasing security of supply, the exodus of energy-intensive industries could continue to increase. Industry associations, trade unions and, last but not least, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy are therefore considering limiting the price of electricity for companies with high energy consumption and compensating for the difference to the market price through subsidies.

However, flat-rate subsidies mean a departure from market-based principles in the energy market. Experts such as Veronika Grimm, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts, emphasise the importance of the price mechanism in order to promote energy savings or alternative energy sources in the right places.

Further subsidies could lead to necessary adjustments being postponed into the future. A capped industrial electricity price shifts the problems and burdens the state budget as well as taxpayers. It’s also unclear who should and shouldn’t benefit from government support. This could lead to political conflicts and market distortions.

European Energy Union: Joint solution or national unilateralism?

The idea of a European Energy Union is seen as sensible. It makes little sense for Germany to shut down its nuclear power plants while France is building new nuclear reactors in Flamanville on the English Channel and examining the possibility of small nuclear power plants, so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMR). France operates 56 nuclear power plants while investing in offshore wind farms and photovoltaics. As Germany increasingly relies on wind and solar energy, it must not be forgotten that conventional energy sources are needed when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.

In Europe, we are a long way from the contractually agreed solidarity between Member States in energy policy. Mistakes in one country’s energy policy also affect other EU members. Deep integration of national energy markets is necessary to ensure security of supply, increase energy efficiency, reduce the carbon footprint and enable more competitive energy prices in Europe. Stronger European integration reduces the risks of national unilateralism, or even wrong decisions.

At The New York Krazy Klimate Konference

From The MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

On Thursday (November 16) a publication called City & State (specializing in covering New York state and local government) put on a conference they called the “2023 Clean Energy in New York Summit: New York’s Path to Sustainability.” Let’s call this the New York Krazy Klimate Konference. I showed up to observe and report on the festivities, along with another prominent skeptic, Roger Caiazza of the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York blog.

The Krazy Klimate Konference featured a gaggle of high-ranking New York bureaucrats and legislators, there to report on New York’s exciting progress toward Net Zero nirvana; plus an even larger gaggle of grifters and parasites looking to cash in on the big piles of government loot sure to get passed out along the way. The co-Chair of New York’s Climate Action Council — Doreen Harris — gave the Keynote address. Other presenters included several members of the State Assembly, as well as bureaucrats in charge of the so-called “energy transition” on the Governor’s staff, at the State Energy Research & Development Agency (NYSERDA), at the City Department of Environmental Protection, at the City Department of Buildings, and so forth. Wind and solar energy grifters were also prominently featured.

As readers here likely know, the first big step in New York’s transition to carbon-free energy is supposed to be the construction of some 9000 MW nameplate capacity of off-shore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island. Contracts for about half of that have been issued after a competitive bidding process. Unfortunately, between July and October, nearly all of the contractors for the off-shore wind announced that they were walking away from the deals, absent massive price increases. The Public Service Commission thereupon rejected the price increases, but as of the time of the Konference nobody had figured out the next step. Thus, as we listened to the speakers, New York’s headline initiative to move toward carbon-free energy was literally dead in the water.

You might think that the focus of a Konference like this would be addressing the very serious obstacles that stand in the way of the hoped-for energy transition. These issues include not only the escalating costs of constructing wind turbines that had led to the contract cancellations, but also things like dealing with the intermittency of wind and solar electricity generation, and solving the energy storage problem. If you think that this Konference might have grappled in even a semi-serious way with any of those issues, you would be wrong.

Instead, it was essentially all mindless happy talk.

As mentioned, the first speaker was one Doreen Harris. Here is a picture I took as she began her address:

As I took the picture, Ms. Harris was uttering the words “I co-chaired our Climate Action Council.” That’s the Council that last December issued the so-called “Scoping Plan” telling us how to achieve carbon-free energy — a “Scoping Plan” that in 700 or so pages couldn’t even figure out that energy storage needs to be measured in watt-hours rather than watts. To an endeavor that cries out for hard-headed engineering expertise, Ms. Harris brings a head full of air. Here are a few scattered excerpts that give the flavor of her presentation: “We are leading the nation. . . . We see industry responding in an extraordinary way. . . . There are near term challenges [no mention of what those might be]. . . . We’re looking at a massive build-out of the grid. . . . We need lots of wind and solar. . . . We have a 10-point plan to see these challenges through. . . .” Harris’s speech was sprinkled with lines intended to draw applause (“Who doesn’t love heat pumps?!”), so I took those opportunities to boo loudly. In a speech of about 25 minutes, Ms. Harris managed barely a couple of lines on the subject of the recent cancellations of all the off-shore wind projects. Her contribution was that “we have issued two RFIs [requests for information]” to potential bidders, and “we expect responses soon.”

That puts Ms. Harris way ahead of Gregory Lampman, the Director of Offshore Wind at NYSERDA. NYSERDA is the state agency that is in charge of the off-shore wind endeavor, and that issued the contracts that all just got canceled. Somehow, Lampman managed to get through an entire presentation (“We’re the leader. . . . We have a bias toward action. . . . long term sustainability . . . something we can be proud of”) without ever mentioning that his whole program just got canceled without any idea of what the next step will be. To his credit, although in a very softball manner, the moderator asked Mr. Lampman to address the subject of the cancellations. Lampman responded that even as the Konference was going on, his staff back at the office was hard at work on figuring something out. He also said that he had discussed the subject with his 6 year old son, who had responded, “Dad, you got this.”

For me, the high point of the Konference came during an afternoon panel, featuring a presentation from a guy named Luke Falk, identified as COO of something called Clean Path NY, which appears to be developing transmission lines to shuttle wind and solar generated power around the state. Falk started talking about how great it would be when everybody converted their homes to electric heat, because that would provide a use for the vast amounts of wind and solar electricity that would soon be forthcoming. At that point I lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. After his panel, Falk came up to me and accused me of being rude. I responded that I thought the whole point of a comedy routine was to get audience members to laugh.

From the evidence of this Konference, it it completely clear that the people running New York’s supposed energy transition do not have the slightest hint of competence. I suppose that’s for the better, because people who were actually competent could keep the charade going for a much longer time. With this crowd, the collapse will come sooner, although not nearly soon enough.