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.
At meetings of energy regulators, policymakers, consumer advocates, and industry this summer, the content and tone of the conversations around electric system reliability have changed dramatically. Executives from across the industry all agree that dispatchable generation is needed now and will be needed for many years to come.
At meetings of energy regulators, policymakers, consumer advocates, and industry this summer, the content and tone of the conversations around electric system reliability have changed dramatically. Executives from across the industry all agree that dispatchable generation is needed now and will be needed for many years to come.
Most prominently, the realization and willingness to say publicly that dispatchable resources like natural gas-fired generation will be needed as the energy expansion continues and load growth accelerates for the first time in decades is a welcome admission.
For several years the discussion around the future of the electrical grid was about how inexpensive it will be and how “out of political favor” resources would be moved off the grid in favor of politically favored ones without creating any disruptions or reliability challenges. And just like that, the story has changed – dramatically. Why?
First, load growth – and a substantial amount of it is expected in the short term. The second is the pace of dispatchable generation retirements, without replacement generation with similar performance characteristics. The third is consistent and increasing warnings coming from reliability organizations and grid operators that a crisis is coming and coming quickly if system planning does not improve.
What does this mean? In short, it is a long-awaited recognition of the reality of grid operations combined with the acknowledgment (albeit grudgingly in some circles) that dispatchable resources, like natural gas, will need to be retained and operated for a longer time horizon than many were willing to admit. This recognition matches the significant number of credible studies, including work done by McKinsey and EFI, that all said dispatchable natural gas generation would be needed even in a high renewable resource penetration scenario.
As the reality of load growth, supply chain issues, permitting, siting, and construction challenges impacting all types of resources settled in and the sharp warnings of imminent reliability issues combined, it became clear that the rhetoric was far ahead of reality. Recognizing the problem is the first step in solving it.
Because all resources are now accountable for reliability, including dispatchable, intermittent, and storage resources, the requirement to acknowledge and adapt to grid realities is no longer optional – it’s mission critical. The retirement of significant amounts of dispatchable resources without adequate replacements has pushed us ever closer to a system with zero margin of error.
To correct this situation, policymakers and regulators should take steps to minimize the risk to customers. First, the timing gap between retirements and additions to the system must be addressed; we can’t let existing resources off the grid before the replacements are ready. The process for connecting new generation to the grid must be reformed to ensure projects match system needs, not just policy pronouncements. Permitting and siting reforms are needed so we can deliver development of all types of energy projects.
Second, policymakers must temper enthusiasm and set goals that align with the reality of system needs and operational constraints. This could mean pausing policies that hinder the deployment of needed resources or including offramps in legislation to ensure grid reliability.
Third, grid operators must move more quickly to adjust markets to send the appropriate signals that will drive investment of the required resources. States must recognize the broader benefits of market participation and positive outcomes for their constituents and stop merely demanding grid operators do what one state wants to the detriment of another. States must again appreciate that the benefits of their utilities joining markets far outweigh their ability to dictate resources and timelines and then disclaim responsibility for the issues those decisions create.
To close, lest anyone accuse market participants of not wanting to reduce emissions or only wanting to profit from their current resources, this reality check in no way means walking away from striving to meet policy goals. Bottom line – we can set goals, but they must be tethered to operational reality to ensure success and reliability are both achieved.
Todd Snitchler is President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA)
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
Thanks to the New York Times, in an article in the EAT section, we have the news that “those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 11 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 16 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease during the study period”.
The article is written by Alice Callahan and titled: “Are Some Ultraprocessed Foods Worse Than Others?”
Thanks to the New York Times, in an article in the EAT section, we have the news that “those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 11 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 16 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease during the study period”.
“The researchers also combined their findings with those from 19 other studies, for a separate analysis of about 1.25 million adults. They found that those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 17 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, 23 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease and 9 percent more likely to have a stroke compared with the lowest consumers.”
What is the evidence presented in the Lancet paper [Mendoza et al. 2024]? Here’s the money chart:
Now, before I say anything further about the study, the results, and those Hazard Ratios — the original study states the following in its Summary:
“Interpretation
Total UPF intake was adversely associated with CVD and CHD risk in US adults, corroborated by prospective studies from multiple countries, also suggesting a small excess stroke risk.”
Take a look at the hazard ratio chart again with that interpretation in mind. What do you think?
Give us your view in the Comment section – now — before I give my take on the study findings.
# # # # #
Let me start again.
There is a new study in The Lancet titled as an “analysis of three large US prospective cohorts and a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies” that dealt with the relationship between “ultra-processed foods and cardiovascular disease”.
Here are their findings, in a chart showing their findings as Hazard Ratios for adverse conditions based on the uptake (consumption) of various categories of ultraproccessed foods (UPFs):
If this was a display on a digital whiteboard, projected on the giant screen at a conference, I’d do the following:
I have circled the ONLY findings that are even close to being clinically significant.
Notice that the majority of the hazard ratios, for most categories of UPFs, are less than 1 – usually interpreted as being, in this case, beneficial – preventative of the harm. Many of those that are greater than 1 have uncertainty/error bars that include ‘1’, which is correctly interpreted as ‘no effect’. Only those circled in red could even be considered statistically to be harmful, associated with the adverse effect, in any way.
Using the logic of the authors of this paper, all those below boxed in blue could be considered to prevent the ‘bad thing’ – CVD, CHD, Stroke:
To complete the set of images:
The highlighted values, though positive, include ‘1’, the unity, which fall under this general rule:
As for the bottom two items, ASBs – artificially sweetened beverages, it seems that the failure to find a positive enough hazard ratio may have led them to recalculate the HR “adjusting for dieting behaviours and time-varying BMI”. They still end up as a nothing done.
Now, consider again the statement made by the authors – the plain language Interpretation of their findings:
“Total UPF intake was adversely associated with CVD and CHD risk in US adults, corroborated by prospective studies from multiple countries, also suggesting a small excess stroke risk.”
# # # # #
Junk Science:
Only “sugar-sweetened beverages” and “processed red meat, poultry, and fish” show ANY adverse association with CVD and CHD. The lead author of the study is quoted in the Times as saying “When these two categories were excluded from the data, most of the risk associated with ultraprocessed food consumption disappeared…”. That is exactly correct. In fact, whatever ‘risk’ remained would be tiny, with uncertainty overlapping ‘1’, and not be even statistically significant, and never could be properly considered either clinically significant or a “minimal clinically important difference”.
So, the interpretation offered by the study’s authors is just not true in plain language – they did not find UPF consumption associated with CVD and CHD, but only consumption of the two of the ten categories to be so associated.
Scientific Controversies:
Both categories that were found to have an associated adverse effect are themselves Modern Scientific Controversies: the War on Sugar and the Meat Wars.
The NY Times article and the study in TheLancet are prime examples of how junk science findings are transformed into actionable science. Findings with tiny questionable effects are elevated by the study authors to apply widely (in the Interpretation, to apply to all UPFs as a broad category of foods) and then again elevated by the media to be important to the lives of everyday people.
Studying UPFs is a new Science Fad with study after study desperately trying to find that “UPFs are bad for you”. UPFs are not even a distinct category of food by ingredients or type – only by the fact of how they are produced (yes, really).
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
I have been collecting material on UPFs for a couple of years, towards writing a new Modern Scientific Controversies segment on the topic. Coming soon-ish.
There are total diets that do not promote good health. These certainly include diets with excessive amounts of sugars of all types. The case against excessive sugars depends exclusively on the perceived relationship between sugars and diabetes and obesity, both of which are controversial. Exactly what constitutes ‘excessive’ is the open question, but you’ve seen men and women walking and driving drinking from refillable giant convenience-store soda cups, 44-52 oz, full of what is essentially sugar syrup. Big box stores have hundreds of feet of shelf space dedicated to extra large containers of candies in huge bags and large square plastic jars.
The case against meats and processed meats is far less clear and may be even non-existent – maybe entirely an example of prevailing bias.
I have long maintained that diet is a personal and cultural choice, that diets should be well-rounded and varied, including a wide range of vegetables and fruits and grains. Personally, my religious health code calls for meats to be eaten “sparingly”.
The black line is the one to keep an eye on, as this nets SMB gains with losses from calving and basal melt (a small amount at the bottom of the glacier melts under pressure).
It is easy to recognise that net losses in the 1930s, 40s and 50s ran at a similar level to the last couple of decades. This is unsurprising since we know that temperatures in Greenland in those earlier decades were also similar to now.
I have updated the graph to December 2023 now, and added a 10-year average:
Since 2020, ice sheet losses have tended to decline, and there is a clear reduction in melt since the peak of 2012.
Periods of ice loss and gain are both associated with the AMO, so it is likely there will be a period of little or no loss when the AMO turns negative in due course.
In summary, ice losses are not accelerating, and are simply part of a much longer climate cycle, going back to the Little Ice Age and beyond. The idea that the icecap will quickly melt away is twaddle.
According to the NOAA US weather agency, the hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30 of each year. During this time, the conditions needed for extreme areas of pressure to build up prevail. First and foremost, the water temperature of the Atlantic is decisive, but so is wind shear.
Storms were actually predicted for this year too. However, there have been almost no storms so far.
“Science is still far from reaching the end of its knowledge”
Symbol image. Source: NASA
According to the NOAA US weather agency, the hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30 of each year. During this time, the conditions needed for extreme areas of pressure to build up prevail. First and foremost, the water temperature of the Atlantic is decisive, but so is wind shear.
Storms were actually predicted for this year too. However, there have been almost no storms so far.
At X, US meteorologist Ryan Maue ponders the possible reasons and asks colleagues to think about why the models have failed so far this year. Some storms moved far from land to the north, where they weakened and only affected parts of the east coast of the US or Canada. At some point, they arrived in Europe as an area of low pressure.
Sahara dust
Maue suspects various reasons: The eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano or a lot of Saharan dust over the Atlantic. Maue notes that the absence of hurricanes does not completely contradict the conventional theories on climate change. Fewer storms are expected, but possibly more severe ones. They have so far failed to materialize, which is a blessing for the people who may be affected. The Sahara itself is also currently experiencing a very rare weather phenomenon. It is raining heavily for the conditions there. Meteonews.ch:
The reason for this precipitation pattern can be found in the so-called Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). An area around the equator where the trade winds from the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere meet. The winds are weak here, but the humidity is very high. This zone is known for its heavy rainfall and thunderstorms, which occur when the warm, moist air rises, cools and then falls back to earth as rain. The ITCZ is a kind of low-pressure trough that stretches around the globe and follows the zenith of the sun with a delay of around 3 to 4 weeks. Depending on the ratio of land and water masses, the ITCZ is deflected regionally more to the north or south. As land masses have a significantly lower heat storage capacity compared to water masses, the land warms up faster than the sea and the ITCZ meanders more strongly here.”
On the hurricanes that have failed to materialize, the site writes:
Normally, wave-like weather systems (so-called African Easterly Waves, AEW) develop at this time of year, which move from east to west and typically move from the Guinea Highlands across the equatorial Atlantic and act to spawn hurricanes. Currently, this process is somewhat suppressed, which is currently reducing tropical activity in the Atlantic. At the beginning of the hurricane season, a much more active season had been forecast for this year due to the high water temperatures and the transition to La Niña conditions.”
Both events are good evidence that science is still far from reaching the end of its knowledge in this area and that research remains important.
The Heritage Foundation’s 922-page Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project) prominently includes political prescription for various energy and environmental reforms in the U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Interior, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The Heritage Foundation’s 922-page Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project) prominently includes political prescription for various energy and environmental reforms in the U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Interior, and Environmental Protection Agency.
While Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from the document, it is virtually certain that if elected, he would move swiftly to try to implement the blueprint. Many of its authors were his appointees in his administration and likely would lead his government beginning in 2025.
The Heritage project for the Interior Department programs and policies is back to the future. Essentially, the chapter wants to erase the Biden administration’s policies and actions, many of which replaced Trump administration policies.
After describing the roles of the far-reaching agency, the chapter lays out its goal:
Given the dire adverse national impact of Biden’s war on fossil fuels, no other initiative is as important for the DOI under a conservative President than the restoration of the department’s historic role managing the nation’s vast storehouse of hydrocarbons, much of which is yet to be discovered.
William Pendley
The author of the chapter, William Perry Pendley, 79, was a chief architect of some of the Trump administration’s Interior Department activities, which often themselves overrode actions by prior Democratic and Republican administrations.
After law school, Pendley joined the new conservative “public service” Mountain States Legal Foundation, founded by fellow Cowboy State native James Gaius Watt (1938–2023). The foundation was a leading advocate of the Sagebrush Rebellion, a movement to turn over federal lands to local ownership.
When Ronald Regan named Watt as his first Interior secretary, Pendley became Watt’s deputy assistant secretary for energy and minerals. He was forced out as a result of the department selling Powder River Basin coal leases at rock-bottom prices after the agency’s minimum bids had been leaked to the coal industry. The scandal also resulted in Watt’s defenestration after he bragged that the panel he appointed to dissect the lease sale was balanced because it consisted of “a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple.”
Pendley again ran into trouble in the Trump administration where he was Interior’s Bureau Land Management deputy director and named acting director in 2019. As acting director, he ordered most of the BLM’s Washington-based workforce to relocate to Grand Junction, Colo. The Interior secretary extended Pendley’s “acting” status repeatedly, avoid Senate confirmation, which he likely would have lost, as had five Trump nominations since 2017. In Sept. 2020 a federal judge in Montana ruled that Pendley “has served and continues to serve unlawfully as the Acting B.L.M. director.” The ruling became moot when Biden won the 2020 presidential election.
Among the notable 2025 Heritage recommendations related to energy:
A “new Administration must immediately roll back Biden’s orders, reinstate the Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda, rescind Secretarial Order (SO) 3398, and review all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and similar agency actions made in compliance with that order…. The April 2021 order by Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, titled ‘Revocation of Secretary’s Orders Inconsistent with Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,’ rolled back much of Trumps’ overturning previous DOI policies and practices.”
“Review all resource management plans finalized in the previous four years and, when necessary, select studied alternatives to restore the multi-use concept enshrined in FLPMA and to eliminate management decisions that advance the [climate policy] 30 by 30 agenda.”
In one of the longest sections in the chapter, labeled IMMEDIATE ACTIONS, “BLM headquarters belongs in the American West. After all, the overwhelming majority of the 245 million surface acres (10 percent of the nation’s landmass) managed by the agency lies in the 11 western states and Alaska: A mere 50,000 surface acres lie elsewhere. Moreover, 97 percent of BLM employees are located in the American West.” Pendley’s initiative to move BLM to Grand Junction “was the epitome of good governance….”
“Reinstate the 2020 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by secretarial order and lift the suspension of the leases.”
Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning monstrosity that it has become….The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must be restored immediately.”
“Relocate the [Office of Surface Mining] Reclamation and Enforcement headquarters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to recognize that the agency is field-driven and should be headquartered in the coal field. Reduce the number of field coal-reclamation inspectors to recognize the industry is smaller. Reissue Trump’s Schedule F executive order to permit discharge of nonperforming employees.”
In an “American Indians and U.S. Trust Responsibility” section, the report says, “End federal mandates and subsidies of electric vehicles.” The rationale for this broad recommendation? EVs, “because of their remote locations, the absence of increased electricity demands for charging electric vehicles nearby, and the distances to be traveled, are not a choice for Indian communities.”
Reform is in the air. Expect major changes should Trump be elected come November, as with energy and the environment otherwise.
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Kennedy Maize blogs at The Quad Report, from which this post was adapted. Maize has been a Washington-based journalist covering energy and environmental topics for more than 40 years.
Wind turbines are inefficient, intermittent, expensive, carry a heavy environmental footprint, and are not up to the task of powering the future.
July 8, 2013 – Windfloat Floating Offshore Foundation and Vestas V-80 2MW Offshore Wind Turbine, Povoa de Varzim, Portugal. (Photo by Senu Sirnivas / NREL)
Wojick reports that “the offshore wind facilities will consist of great numbers of “floating turbines” operating at a scale and degree of reliability that hasn’t been verified to work.
in the real world. Such an assumption makes the entire plan not only technologically speculative but also enormously risky.”
In addition to these turbines being a poor energy solution that will be vulnerable to hurricanes and other Maine’s massive floating wind folly storms, they pose a serious potential threat to marine mammals, including the highly endangered right whale. Regulatory environmental impact studies have been dangerously incomplete.
Wojick’s report concludes that “the Environmental Assessment does include the leasehold sonar surveys prior to construction. Recent analysis has determined that such surveys are responsible for numerous whale deaths along the Atlantic Coast. It is therefore imperative the BOEM and NOAA carefully assess the potentially lethal impact of leasehold surveys on whales before any surveys are approved.”
The Biden/Harris Orwellian-named “Inflation Reduction Act”, will spend $891 billion, including billions, for these energy boondoggles. Climate ideologues and profiteers will do anything to get their hands on these funds, including floating vulnerable, inefficient wind turbines smack in the middle of the Right Whale’s migration path.
Some things you know best by experiencing them; hearing about them, being warned about them, is a start, but sometimes you don’t really know something until you ‘feel it in your bones’. The old adage about not touching a hot stove is one. Children hear that and obey it to the extent they ever obey their parents, but the real education comes at the moment they do indeed touch the stove. Things become quite clear then.
There are a few ways to “know things”. You know how to read, you know how to add, probably, and you know many things.
Some things you can “know” without having to formally learn or experience them. You probably know it would hurt to get shot, though unless the demographic around here has changed significantly you’re not likely to experience that.
Some things you know best by experiencing them; hearing about them, being warned about them, is a start, but sometimes you don’t really know something until you ‘feel it in your bones’. The old adage about not touching a hot stove is one. Children hear that and obey it to the extent they ever obey their parents, but the real education comes at the moment they do indeed touch the stove. Things become quite clear then.
So it goes on the energy front. So much has gone on in the past decade that is enthusiastic speculation about what people think they know, particularly about energy transitions, and not only that but energy itself – where it comes from, how it gets there, who is responsible, how tough it really is to provide.
New Zealand recently gave us a wicked lesson in the process of understanding the gap between being told not to touch the stove and touching the stove.
A few years back, their youthful, idealistic, and globally exuberant leader, Jacinda Ardern, enacted a ban on petroleum exploration in New Zealand. The legislation was cutting-edge energy policy thinking, in alignment with many global leaders whose ears had been stuffed with talk about how oil and gas properties were quickly going to become stranded assets. These policy advocates “knew” this, and passed their knowledge on to leaders who would be visionaries. Want to be in effect a department store manager, running a country like one, or…do you want to go down in history as one of the brave that saved the world from rising temperatures? Appealing to political egos is shooting fish in a barrel, and so off they went, legislating anti-hydrocarbon agendas hither and yon with joyous abandon.
Fast forward a few years, and New Zealand has touched the stove. You can see the minute that it happened. In a June 9 article entitled “Government to reverse oil and gas exploration ban” (thanks to Dan Tsobouchi for flagging; his research and output is invaluable), the NZ government spoke of a startling discovery: that oil and gas fields deplete over time. As they put it: “When the exploration ban was introduced by the previous government in 2018, it not only halted the exploration needed to identify new sources, but it also shrank investment in further development of our known gas fields which sustain our current levels of use…Without this investment, we are now in a situation where our annual natural gas production is expected to peak this year and undergo a sustained decline, meaning we have a security of supply issue barrelling towards us.” In another document, the government put it this way: “The latest petroleum reserves data show gas reserves are declining. There is less natural gas available to produce than previously thought. This drop in natural gas reserves (called Proven plus Probable reserves) is the result of producers lacking certainty that they can economically extract the natural gas in their fields…”
Better late than never, I guess. But this newly-lit lightbulb is only a part of the equation. NZ’s path illustrates just how wrong many energy assumptions are.
The west has been somewhat successful in reducing emissions, which is taken by some as evidence that the ‘energy transition’ is working. It is true that there is a significant amount of renewable energy produced, which is helpful in reducing consumption of other fuels.
But it is more complex than that. The US reduced emissions significantly by replacing coal-fired power with natural gas-fired. That’s not part of the energy transition. Well, it is part of a logical energy transition, but that is not what the Ardern’s of the world intended.
Another confounding factor is that while the west’s emissions may have been reduced, and energy usage has not increased materially (more on that in a minute), the fact is that our consumption patterns remain as formidable as ever; that Walmart remains chock full of everything, that Amazon can get a mind-boggling array of pretty much anything to your doorstep in 24 hours…all this points to the not-much-discussed fact that we simply farmed everything out to developing countries to produce, and then we get annoyed when they construct the power supplies to do so in a way that works for them. A lot of globalists don’t seem all that good at global thinking.
Then, as we saw with NZ, the west’s leaders simply don’t understand energy production at all, at least not hydrocarbon production. There is an assumption that oil companies can be hounded/sued/regulated/protested and that they will continue to invest enough to maintain production (even as the IEA states that no new investments can be permitted to meet climate goals). Wrong. Hydrocarbon companies will not invest in jurisdictions that make their life too miserable. Hence NZ’s about face.
More significantly than depletion though is blind eye given to the trajectory of global energy consumption. Not just oil and gas consumption, but energy consumption, from all sources. It is important to keep these trajectories in mind when considering energy policy.
Here are some fascinating statistics from Our World in Data. From 1965 to 2023, some random reference points for annual energy consumption change over the period:
Vietnam from 786 kWh -> 13,744 kWh or +1,648%
India from 1,239 kWh –> 7,586 kWh +512%
China from 2,122 kWh –> 33,267 kWh +1468%
Consider that Africa and Asia together represent about 6 billion people, and they are not just mining/manufacturing everything for the west, but growing their own consumption as well. Look at Africa’s still-meagre total; one gets the feeling that that situation is not a welcome one, and that the economically-rising continent would love to post numbers like everywhere else.
We can see the impact of the west’s energy/emissions farmout, for the same time period:
Our World in Data breaks it out into digestible and pertinent bigger categories to make the point even more clear:
High income countries: 38,446 kWh –> 52,831 kWh +37%
Lower-middle income countries 926 kWh –> 6,067 kWh +555%
Upper-middle-income countries 8,373 kWh –> 29,987 kWh +258%
While the west seems to have taken a breather compared to the rest of the world, that may be about to change again, and the west might start another growth spurt. We do love our data/videos/Instagram/you name it. Take Texas, for example. As Kinder Morgan pointed out in their Q2 conference call transcript, Texas’ grid operator (the US’ largest power market) predicts that it will need 152 GW of power generation by 2030, a 78 percent increase from 2023’s peak of 85 GW. What’s startling about this increase is that just last year, ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, predicted that 2030 demand would ‘only’ be 111 GW. That’s some adjustment, in just one year.
Over the past 20 years, US electrical demand has grown at about half a percent per year. Recent estimates have US power demand growing by anywhere from 2.6 to 4.7 percent per year through the decade. As a result, according to a Gas Daily report that KIM quoted, US utilities plan to add 133 new gas plants over the next several years. On top of that, gas exports to Mexico are expected to increase by 50 percent in coming years, and US LNG export to grow by some 15 bcf/d in addition to AI forecast gas demand of somewhere between 5 and 15 bcf/d.
The developing world will meet their growing energy requirements any way they can, and not apologize for it. India recently (and proudly) announced record coal production, because they need it, and in addition the us EIA is forecasting that India’s natural gas consumption will triple by 2050, going from about 7 bcf/d in 204 to almost 24 bcf/d.
Here in the west, not only are we getting AI to do everything, but we also see random weirdness that no one saw coming, for example: Chick-fil-A, the huge and delicious fast food purveyor, is launching a streaming service with ‘family-friendly and mostly unscripted programming.’ Just what you’ve all been waiting for: ChickenTV! Because we can!
That’s what us humans do when we have ample affordable energy – we do it all. And when we think we’ve done it all, someone goes and invents ChickenTV. And so will almost every human being that gets the chance. Wealth brings optionality, in many things…even the drive for simplicity. A wealthy enlightened westerner that decides to live ‘off the grid’ will expend hundreds of thousands to build/equip their modern lair with every comfort as well as solar and battery pack arrays. It need not be pointed out that these lifestyle choicers bear little in common with say an African villager who also lives ‘off the grid’ for the reason that there is no grid. Not picking on anyone here; the point is that no one that can afford it will go back to a life of true scarcity that actually reflects a lack of energy as opposed to lower energy consumption in daily life.29dk2902lhttps://boereport.com/29dk2902l.html
Well-meaning people often jump into the fray here, and point out that such consumption patterns are unsustainable. I have no idea whether that is true or not; it seems most likely that we will exhaust some critical materials, and that we need to be very careful with water and habitat management. But simply screaming into the social media void that we need to stop it all is not going to achieve anything at all except cause more nervous breakdowns. Some aspects of humanity are just what they are, and we need to run in the same direction to change the direction of the herd. Go ahead and stand in front of it if you want, best of luck.
What the world desperately needs – energy clarity. And a few laughs. Pick up The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity, available at Amazon.ca, Indigo.ca, or Amazon.com.
Read more insightful analysis from Terry Etam here, or email Terry here.
A new study analyzes paleo atmospheric CO2 levels using the modern-day observation that oceans release more CO2 as they warm and less CO2 as they cool – a reference to Henry’s Law.
“…sea surface temperature has been the primary determinant of baseline atmospheric P(CO2) across the entire Cenozoic” – Frank, 2024
A new study analyzes paleo atmospheric CO2 levels using the modern-day observation that oceans release more CO2 as they warm and less CO2 as they cool – a reference to Henry’s Law.
“…ambient CO2 is released or dissolved only after a positive or negative change in global mean ocean temperature.”
Application of Henry’s Law allows for the calculated interpretation that the reconstructed 100s of ppm (±200-800 ppm) CO2 variations over the last 66 million years (the Cenozoic), as well as throughout the last 420,000 years of ice core records, are driven or “primarily determined” by sea surface temperature (SST).
“Temperature-driven re-equilibration of carbon dioxide across the sea surface can explain the rise and fall of atmospheric P(CO2) throughout the 420 kYr glacial record of the VOSTOK ice core. The correspondence implies a glacial-interglacial global mean SST range of 11°C (280-291 K)…”
The study introduces undersea tectonics variability as a explanatory mechanism for warm and cool periods. High magma activity periods warmed the oceans, and the additional warmth led to elevated (>1000 ppm) atmospheric CO2 levels (net outgassing) as a consequence. During less active magmatic activity periods, the oceans cooled, and this cooling drove the drawdown in atmospheric CO2.
A Henry’s Law SST-induced CO2 concentration record implies glacial-interglacial global mean sea surface temperature amplitudes reached 11°C (280 to 291 K) over the last 420,000 years. 291 K is a few degrees warmer than the modern temperature calculation (288 K).
“…the general decline in SST across the Cenozoic may reflect a relative quiescence of submarine magmatism and thus of magmatic heating, rather than being caused by a secular decline in the radiative forcing of atmospheric CO2.”
“…the most parsimonious interpretation of the Cenozoic record is that ocean temperature rose with large-scale magmatic activity and fell in its absence. P(CO2) followed. In this light, atmospheric CO2 has been a molecular spectator of the changing climate.”
The presence of a geothermal mechanism explaining warm vs. cold SST periods precludes the need for orbital factors, such as the Milankovitch cycles, to drive glaciations and deglaciations.
“Milankovitch orbital forcing must have been present during the late Cretaceous and throughout the Cenozoic, but did not produce glaciations.”
CO2 radiative forcing is also not considered an explanatory factor in global climate changes over the last 66 million years.
“The notion of exogenous CO2 forcing adds no additional explanatory value.”
“A generalizing conclusion is that the dogma of atmospheric CO2 as the predominant driver of global surface temperature should be set aside.”
So, to summarize, temperature variations are the “primary determinant” of CO2 variations, with CO2 variation a consequence rather than a causal factor in climate. Atmospheric CO2 is thus a (1) “molecular spectator,” (2) has “no explanatory value” in ocean temperature variability, and (3) “should be set aside” as a considered causal factor in glaciations and deglaciations.
It may be important to note that approximately 15-20% of current global warming (0.095 W/m² of the 0.48 W/m² heating rate) can be attributed to geothermal heat fluxes through the sea floor that “persistently heat the ocean” (Gebbie, et al., 2021). The value attained for geothermal heating of the ocean, 87 mW/m², is similar to that which is required to end a glacial period (melt ice sheets) and transition into an interglacial. In other words, a bottom-up ocean-warming mechanism is ongoing.
A magmatic ocean-warming mechanism driving glacial-interglacial transitions is supported by the conclusion that the ocean bottom waters warmed 2°C from 19,000 to 17,000 years ago. This is about 1000 years before the surface warmed and CO2 began rising (Stott et al., 2007), So, consistent with the conclusions of the new Dr. Frank study, geothermal heat fluxes can thus potentially explain a large portion of glacial-interglacial transitions – as well as millennial-scale global ocean temperature changes.
Volvo has ditched plans to sell only electric cars by 2030 amid waning demand for battery powered vehicles.
Volvo has ditched plans to sell only electric cars by 2030 amid waning demand for battery powered vehicles.
The Swedish carmaker blamed the move on changing market conditions, amid fears many of the public continue to prefer petrol and diesel models.
It comes as major carmakers grapple with slowing demand for electric vehicles because of a lack of affordable models and the slow rollout of charging points needed to support electric vehicles.
Jim Rowan, chief executive of Volvo, said: “We are resolute in our belief that our future is electric.
“However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption.”
The company, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding, is also bracing for the effects of European tariffs on electric cars made in China.
The decision to scale back its ambitions comes three years after Volvo announced plans to go fully electric by 2030.
Volvo is now aiming for between 90pc and 100pc of cars sold to be fully electric or plug-in hybrid models by the end of the decade.
The Chinese-owned automaker said that its new target would also allow for up to 10pc of its sales to include a limited number of so-called mild hybrid models if needed.
The insane Net Zero revolution is starting to devour its own children. The latest technology to fall foul of the zealots passionate hatred of all things hydrocarbon is carbon capture, a process that consumes billions of dollars, often fails to meet expectations and, horror of horrors, justifies the continuing activities of oil and gas companies. Green Blob-funded Oil Change International (OCI) has released a report entitled ‘Funding Failure: Carbon capture and fossil hydrogen subsidies exposed’.
The insane Net Zero revolution is starting to devour its own children. The latest technology to fall foul of the zealots passionate hatred of all things hydrocarbon is carbon capture, a process that consumes billions of dollars, often fails to meet expectations and, horror of horrors, justifies the continuing activities of oil and gas companies. Green Blob-funded Oil Change International (OCI) has released a report entitled ‘Funding Failure: Carbon capture and fossil hydrogen subsidies exposed’. In an article circulated by Blob-funded Covering Climate Now and published by DeSmog – recently given £400,000 by the Rowntree Trust to continue running a grubby ‘blacklist’ of so-called climate deniers – carbon capture is said to be a “colossal waste” with the United States leading the way in public spending on “false climate solutions”. Perhaps not such good news for the Mad Miliband’s £8 billion GB Energy operation which will act as a state-run subsidy fund for numerous wacky green projects including carbon capture and hydrogen.
The zealots are correct about carbon capture and hydrogen. They both use vast amounts of energy to little effect. But there are few ‘green’ solutions in town to back up intermittent wind and solar power, so to date it is any port in a storm. But capturing carbon dioxide from combusted material or the atmosphere and compressing it to store underground for eternity is crazy. The old saying, ‘fools and their money are easily parted’ springs to mind. As an alternative to natural gas and a solution to electricity grid-scale storage, hydrogen – expensive, dangerous and lacking in kinetic energy – has almost nothing to offer.
Other major disadvantages of hydrogen have recently been discussed. The Daily Sceptic reported on a science paper that noted the higher combustion temperature of hydrogen can produce more polluting nitrogen dioxide. If runaway global ‘heating’ is your fear, the paper calculated that, pound for pound, escaping hydrogen causes 37 times more warming than CO2since it produces ozone in the troposphere and water vapour in the stratosphere. All the past observational evidence points to the conclusion that the warming properties of gases ‘saturate’ at certain atmospheric levels, but for alarmists it seems that backing hydrogen is an increasingly bad look.
If the figures presented by OCI are correct, the scale of the waste is truly colossal. Since the 1990s an estimated $83 billion has been “invested” in carbon capture, but it has failed to make a dent in carbon emissions. “Carbon capture projects consistently fail, overspend or underperform,” the report claims. Over 80% of projects in the U.S. are said to fail due to technical issues, over-investment and a lack of financial returns. Even if the projects functioned as planned they would only capture 0.1% of emissions.
No doubt OCI is worried about taxpayer money being hosed away on useless projects, although greens usually take a relaxed view of such matters. But the real hatred for capturing CO2 is that it is used to enhance oil and gas production. The gas is sometimes pumped underground to extract the last barrels of oil from an exhausted field. Carbon capture subsidies are said to enhance fossil fuel extraction and boost oil industry profits.
The money wasted to date on carbon capture and hydrogen is appalling, but it is a fraction of the amount of public money made available to spend in the near future. OCI claims that policies announced since 2020 could amount to over $230 billion. The table below shows the range of potential government expenditures with uncertainties due to potential tax credit claims.
One obvious take-away from the table is the ludicrous amounts of money committed by the United Kingdom, a legacy of Buffo Boris and recent Net Zero-obsessed Conservative governments. For hapless British taxpayers, Mad Miliband is just the latest in a long line of politician removing cash from the wallets of working people and putting it in the hands of subsidy hunting, planet-saving spivs where it is thought to most properly belong.
In the U.K., as elsewhere, the Net Zero madness has exploded as a political issue with citizens slowly realising what is being planned. None of this will come as a surprise to regular readers of the Daily Sceptic. We have aimed to report on what the zealots have been writing and planning. Government-funded U.K. FIRES takes a realistic look at a future without hydrocarbons and envisages a 2050 world without meat, personal travel and buildings made of compacted earth. Britain could lose 75% of its energy supply by 2050 and the “whole excitement” of U.K. FIRES’s work has been to recognise that such a shortfall “is close to a certain reality”.
Meanwhile, the green billionaire-funded C40 group, chaired by Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, raises the possibility of heavy reductions of personal transport and the imposition of Second World War-style rations with 44 grams of meat a day. This “pioneering piece of thought leadership” was said to seek a “radical, and rapid, shift in consumption patterns”. Needless to say, none of this stuff gets a mention in mainstream media, but it is always a good idea to discover what the true zealot is actually planning. Few clues as to their plans are available while they are seeking political power, as we saw in the recent British General Election. In the current U.S. Presidential campaign, Vice President Giggles is following a similar path, secure in the knowledge that carefully selected poodle journalists will not ask inconvenient questions.
The OCI report and its coverage via well-funded activist networks gives a valuable insight into the mindset of the true Net Zero zealot. There is no back-up to intermittent wind and solar and medicines, fertilisers and plastics will all disappear in an absolutist Net Zero world. But they don’t care. Their new religion is saving the planet from an invented climate crisis and their work for the new god pays little heed to the colossal damage that will be caused.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
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