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.
No civilised country has ever powered itself entirely with wind and solar; no country ever will. And yet the grand wind and solar ‘transition’ – being peddled by rent-seekers and crony capitalists – is still taken as an article of faith by the naïve and gullible.
No civilised country has ever powered itself entirely with wind and solar; no country ever will. And yet the grand wind and solar ‘transition’ – being peddled by rent-seekers and crony capitalists – is still taken as an article of faith by the naïve and gullible.
What is evident is the direct and unassailable relationship between intermittent wind and solar, rocketing power prices, load shedding and, ultimately, mass blackouts.
In this piece from September last year, Isaac Orr, Mitch Rolling and John Phelan rich precisely that conclusion in relation to plans by Governor Tim Walz to permanently unhitch Minnesota from reality and reason.
The High Cost of 100 Percent Carbon-Free Electricity by 2040 American Experiment Isaac Orr, Mitch Rolling, John Phelan 12 September 2022
The 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040 mandate proposed by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would cost the state $313.2 billion through 2050 and lead to devastating blackouts.
Governor Walz’s Proposal would commit the state to obtaining 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free energy sources by 2040, but his proposal would not legalize the construction of new nuclear power plants in Minnesota or allow the hydroelectric electricity generated in Canada that Minnesotans already purchase to count as “carbon-free.” As a result, the Walz Proposal is essentially a wind, solar, and battery storage mandate.
We also investigated another scenario, called the Lower Cost Decarbonization (LCD) Scenario, that uses new nuclear power plants, coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) equipment, battery storage, and Canadian hydro and found that this suite of technologies would reduce emissions for a much lower cost.
This report is the most robust modeling on the true cost of attempting to power our state using wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage technology. Our study finds:
Minnesota electricity customers will see their electricity expenses increase by an average of nearly $3,888 per year, every year, through 2050.
The Walz Proposal would reduce the reliability of the grid by making the state more vulnerable to fluctuations in output from weather-dependent energy sources like wind and solar.
Shockingly, Minnesota would experience a devastating 55-hour blackout in late January if wind and solar output is the same as it was in the year 2020, and electricity demand was the same as 2021.
These are just a few of our findings. By contrast, embracing a diverse portfolio of reliable technologies, including new nuclear power plants, coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration equipment, battery storage, and large hydroelectric power facilities in Canada, would reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the electricity sector by 98 percent. This portfolio would cost $224 billion less than the Walz Proposal and not cause blackouts.
Sustainable tech company Jump has been awarded a £690,000 contract from NHS England to develop a healthcare-specific carbon engagement tool designed to encourage NHS staff to reduce their carbon footprints.
The NHS is in crisis. Waiting lists are at record levels, ambulances routinely queue outside A&E departments, and nurses and paramedics are pursuing industrial action.
But the NHS has bigger fish to fry!
Sustainable tech company Jump has been awarded a £690,000 contract from NHS England to develop a healthcare-specific carbon engagement tool designed to encourage NHS staff to reduce their carbon footprints.
The funding has been awarded as part of the second phase of a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare competition, an Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) initiative championed by Academic Health Science Networks. The competition was run in partnership with the Greener NHS programme.
The new tool will be a healthcare-specific development of Jump’s existing employee engagement platform, which is currently used by 22 NHS trusts in the UK.
Being healthcare-specific, the new development will allow greater participation from the workforce and data tracking within the NHS. It will also help the NHS reach its goal of going net zero by 2040.
Graham Simmonds, chief executive at Jump, said: “We are delighted to have won this contract which will enable us to accelerate our work with NHS Trusts across the country.
“The potential for increased carbon savings through more effective employee engagement is very exciting and it will be great to see the new tool motivating colleagues across the NHS play their part in the journey to net zero.”
The development will see Jump tailor the users’ journey based on their specific working role within the NHS. It will deliver motivating positive actions that are individually tailored to roles, which can help reduce carbon impact in a range of areas including energy use, water use and waste reduction.
The NHS will be able to track employee engagement in the programme, as well as a range of environmental data such as carbon savings of KwH reduced via the platform’s dashboard.
In addition, the carbon calculator will allow staff to calculate the emissions of the individual working role and their actions at home, allowing them to see a split between workplace and home emissions.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the five NHS trusts within the Dorset Integrated Care System will trial the carbon engagement tool. Following this, it will be available to NHS trusts through Jump’s bespoke sustainability engagement platforms.bespoke sustainability engagement platforms.
Libby Sutherland, head of sustainability at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “This innovation will allow the NHS to track its scope 2 and 3 carbon emissions in a way that is not currently possible and will enable us to reach our goal of net zero by 2040 much faster.
“Working with Jump on the initial development phase of the project has been really exciting and I am confident that colleagues and teams across our five hospitals in Leeds will really get behind the new tool.”
A recent article at OilPrice.com explains how wind power is unprofitable, going into detail on some of the economic hurdles that industrial wind power development has encountered. Supply chain problems, inflation, likely the high price of fossil fuels, and other issues have resulted in billions of dollars in losses.
A recent article at OilPrice.com explains how wind power is unprofitable, going into detail on some of the economic hurdles that industrial wind power development has encountered. Supply chain problems, inflation, likely the high price of fossil fuels, and other issues have resulted in billions of dollars in losses. Despite this, wind power companies are unconcerned about going bankrupt, due primarily to the fact that governments are mandating that increasing numbers of wind turbines be added to the electric grid pursuit of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions policies, complete with generous subsidies.
The author of the OilPrice.com article, “Wind Power Has A Profitability Problem,” Felicity Bradstock, points out that despite massive investments and mandated construction by governments leading to growth in the wind power industry, “companies are realizing that it is difficult to translate wind power into profits.” Bradstock says the return on investment has not been what companies expected, writing:
In June last year, there were reports that some of the world’s biggest wind energy companies were battling heavy losses. Vestas Wind Systems, General Electric Co., and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy all faced extremely high raw material and logistics costs following the pandemic when supply chains were disrupted. This came after an arms race in which wind majors were competing to build the tallest, most powerful wind turbines at whatever cost would put them ahead of the rest.
Losses were seen across the board in 2022, to the tune of $2 billion for GE’s renewables division, $1.68 billion for the largest turbine manufacturer Vestas, and Siemens Energy lost $943.48 million.
Apparently, though companies are optimistic, in no small part because governments are requiring the use of their products through renewables mandates, “promising” high demand, and “new grants and subsidies are keeping the wind energy industry’s spirits high, and we can expect more incentives for new wind capacity worldwide as other countries and regions introduce their own climate policies.”
The wind industries’ losses are not all that surprising, given the unreliability of the product itself. In multiple posts, Climate Realism has discussed, here, here, and here, for example, wind power’s failure to provide the promised energy to customers.
Climate alarmists and renewables advocates frequently cite the claim that wind power, or renewables in general, are cheaper than fossil fuels, but the reality is different. The intermittent nature of wind power leads to higher grid operating costs. Additionally, the lifespan of these turbines is a lot less than manufacturers claim. In the case of one of Oregon’s largest wind power facilities, Bigelow Canyon, the turbines break down so often that they only survive for half of their purported lifespans. The facility averages at 27.6 percent of its rated production capacity. Also, when wind turbines aren’t operating, the power must be supplied from elsewhere, most often from fossil fuel powered plants, yet the costs of keeping such plants idled or operating as less than peak levels isn’t charged against the wind facilities, as it should be.
What is clear, is that wind facilities have tremendous upfront capital costs during the construction and installation of the turbines. The OilPrice.com article also confirms that these costs are rising quickly, due to higher materials costs, higher energy costs, supply-chain, and global trade issues.
Despite their tremendous losses, these companies continue to exist, entirely due to intervention by federal and state governments in the form of mandates, tax credits, property tax abatements, subsidies, guaranteed costs pass throughs to ratepayers, and other types of support. As Climate Realism discusses here, “without government subsidies and mandates, wind and solar power would largely be a boutique power supply for the wealthy.”
The public owes news outlets like OilPrice.com a debt of gratitude for reporting on the high costs and limited benefits of wind power. Sadly, most media outlets report on wind power through “rose-colored lenses,” which distort the true costs of wind power. If the technology was really so great, it would be able to compete in the marketplace without continuing government support.
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.
While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”
But the issue of grid capacity is a real one, and not just for rural areas. This is yet another example of successive governments trying to things on the cheap, and avoid paying the bill for this green nonsense themselves.
Households are being blocked from making net zero upgrades to their homes due to lack of electricity supply, the energy watchdog has warned.
Residents of rural villages have been told by network operators there is not enough grid capacity to support electric upgrades, despite government plans which will require homes to install heat pumps and electric car charge points.
The Government wants 600,000 heat pumps to be installed every year from 2028, while an estimated eight million electric vehicles (EVs) will be registered by 2030. This comes on top of a planned ban on heating oil from 2026.
Roughly four million households in Britain are not connected to the gas grid and will have to switch to electric heating as part of the Government’s net zero drive.
In one remote Norfolk village, visited by this newspaper, local residents said they were unable to make even the most basic upgrades to their homes due to a lack of supply.
Residents of East Ruston revealed they had been unable to install more energy efficient heat pumps or replace older oil boilers with modern electric systems.
Local homeowners told how power cuts were a common occurrence following minor “gales” and how energy providers have said their plans to upgrade properties were impossible, given the lack of power able to supply their homes.
Ofgem, the regulator, said on Tuesday that the expansion of supply into rural areas was “a massive project over the next decade” as the industry frantically tries to remove bottlenecks and accelerate grid connections.
A spokesman said: “The big policy promises are empty words if communities can’t get connected to the grid wherever they live and when they need it – especially in the countryside.”
A source at the regulator added: “The current electricity grid has not got the capacity. The problem is easier to diagnose than the solution: to date, there is no financial incentive for the energy distributors to invest in rural grids.”
Industry experts say a lack of grid supply is an issue “everywhere”, even in built up areas like West London, where large data centres have stretched local capacity to the point that developers face a potential ban on new housing projects.
Ofgem said the “big issue” was rising waiting times for electricity grid connections due to a dramatic increase in demand, especially from large developments like data centres, energy storage, and electric vehicle hubs. Some areas in Britain faced connection dates as far away as 2035, the regulator added.
Let’s ignore the silly claim that these villagers would love to install green heating systems. Most don’t and would much rather stick with what works, oil boilers.
But the issue of grid capacity is a real one, and not just for rural areas. This is yet another example of successive governments trying to things on the cheap, and avoid paying the bill for this green nonsense themselves.
And it is another good reason why Net Zero plans should be put on the back burner until all of these problems are addressed.
The closer to a “tragedy of the commons” situation we get, the more valid the whataboutism. At the other extreme, if we bear all the costs and reap all the benefits of a policy, whataboutism is not at all valid.
Climate change: multi-country media analysis shows scepticism of the basic science is dying out
Well, maybe it is dying out, or maybe it is being wiped out. For there is a difference between changing your mind and not being willing/allowed to speak your mind, I think you’ll agree.
The article gets off on the wrong foot as far as I am concerned with its reckless use of the pejorative “denialism”. It even has “climate change denial” as one of its tags. The author, James Painter, describes how he and his team watched TV, scouring news coverage for any sign of climate scepticism.
Well, they found some, although the spin they are putting on it is that the deniers have given up arguing that climate change is not real, happening now, and human-caused (note to Painter: this denier has never denied that). Instead they/we have switched to denying that the proposed actions to “tackle” climate change have any merit. The deniers argue that such actions will have marginal benefit and eye-watering costs.
With good reason in my estimation. And in particular they engage in “whataboutism” by pointing to China and making the claim that, since China is refusing to join the decadent West on its self-destructive path, we ought to pull on the reins a little. In the realm of the climate enthusiasts, this rejoinder is considered a logical fallacy, which can therefore be summarily dismissed.
We found a wide variety of claims, but the most common concerned the high cost of taking action and “whataboutism” (typically questioning the need to take action when other countries such as China were not doing enough).
In the source article that Painter is promoting, this is said (quotes below are also from this paper or its SI):
The two main discourses on right-wing channels were economic cost (6 out of 11 programs—55%) and questioning the need to take action when other countries such as China were not doing enough (6 out of 11 programs—55%), often described colloquially as “whataboutism”
Don’t get me started on “right-wing” channels. OK, do. In the UK, four channels were surveyed. Three in the “mainstream” – BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 – and one “right-wing” – GB News. There is apparently no such thing as a “left-wing” broadcaster. In the article’s SI, of the mainstream channels, it is said:
The three stations are regulated by Ofcom for impartiality.
No such disclaimer is applied to GB News, a potentially misleading omission. This “right-wing” channel employed some guy called Farage and had some denialist organisation called the GWPF on one day:
In March 2022 Farage called for a referendum on the UK’s Net Zero Policy. In its first week, the channel gave space to groups exhibiting climate skepticism including representatives of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who stressed the costs rather than the benefits of taking climate action.
Wow. On one rainy Tuesday, someone stressed the costs of climate action. How very farouche of them. How about every channel regularly discussing the costs AND benefits of climate action rather than ignoring the former and exaggerating the latter?
I could go on, but I won’t. I will close this part of my diatribe by clipping out a frankly hilarious development in denialism – the denialism of silence:
It is also worth highlighting that Fox News unexpectedly displayed a relative absence of coverage [of IPCC AR6 WG1]. This finding is supported by other research, which suggests that other right-wing media outlets in the USA were unusually quiet on the report. Qualitative (interview) work would be needed to corroborate whether this “denialism by silence” was an intentional editorial policy.
LOL, as the young folk have it.
Anyway, back to whataboutism. Enthusiasts do like to accuse sceptics of this, often puffing out their chests, having scored a telling rhetorical point. Unfortunately for them, “whataboutism” is not always a logical fallacy. Take the climate sceptics’ favourite proposal/whatabout pair:
“We should be doing more on climate change.”
“What about China?”
Is the rejoinder valid? This is an important question, since the sceptics’ reference to China is typically labelled as whataboutism as an attempt to invalidate their argument without having to actually discuss it. The result sceptics fear is irrational policies crashing through with all opposition silenced.
Here’s another, similar couplet, proposal and whataboutism response:
“We should be doing more on workers’ rights.”
“What about the slavery of the Uyghurs in China?”
Valid retort, or not valid?
Well, since we can do nothing about the Uyghurs, it sounds like the sceptic here is arguing that it is right that we should do nothing for our workers’ rights either. That is clearly nonsense, because we (as a nation) can only benefit from improved workers’ rights as they apply to our workers. In other words, our actions benefit us in this example if they are good. Our workers’ rights can be discussed in isolation of the workers’ rights of any other country.
Now back to the climate whataboutism. Here, the sceptic’s rejoinder is valid – obviously so. This is because our action on climate does not only benefit ourselves, but the cost is all ours. Whatever (I think hardly measurable) climate benefit our individual action achieves, it will be spread across the surface of the globe. Thus China will benefit from our actions, and we will benefit from China’s. (In fact, it’s obvious that China will benefit more from our actions than we will!)
It is therefore valid to demand either that similar actions to ours are taken globally, or that we reduce our own ambition to match that of the international community. If we take radical action to reduce a small part of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions, this will result in a tiny and probably too-small-to-measure climate benefit, which will nevertheless be distributed among all peoples, whether they are the subset suffering the concomitant pain of these actions or not. It is obviously only fair if we all move together to the same target at a similar pace.
Taking a third example, whatabout local pollution, like phosphorus? Phosphorus is mined and used in fertilisers and then for one reason or another ends up polluting watercourses.
“We should take action on phosphorus pollution in our rivers.”
“What about China?”
In this case the criticism is not valid, because we benefit from our own actions to reduce pollution locally. We both bear the cost, and reap the rewards, of our policy. Therefore, if the policy offers a net benefit, we should adopt it. The retort makes no sense.
Perhaps you are wondering, why didn’t Jit use the example of CFCs? They spread generally, like CO2, and yet they were banned under the terms of the Montreal Protocol, so would our sceptic have been right in 1986 to respond to the proposal:
“We should take action on the ozone layer.”
With the whatabout:
“What about China?”
Well, yes: if China was planning on greatly increasing its use of CFCs while the UK was planning on adopting the ban unilaterally. But even if that had been the case, the sceptic’s whataboutism would still have been weak here, because there are adequate replacements for refrigerants like freon, so that unilateral adoption by the UK would not have mortally wounded us. But China, like all countries, signed the Protocol, and CFCs were banned, and the ozone hole disappeared, and Greenpeace members hung up their placards and took up gardening, or something.
In other words, it will always be legitimate to point out the slackers in a communal effort, no matter the scale. The closer to a “tragedy of the commons” situation we get, the more valid the whataboutism. At the other extreme, if we bear all the costs and reap all the benefits of a policy, whataboutism is not at all valid.
So, whataboutism is a valid criticism of policy under some conditions. To fail to see that takes some effort by the climate enthusiasts. Wielding the term as a pejorative feels to me to be an attempt to dismiss an argument with an arm-wave, to declare it not valid, and move on as if the criticism had never been made. I have the sense that for some folk, there is no possibility that a criticism of climate policy can ever be a valid one. That does not make for good policy.
An entire branch of science seems to have sprung up, devoted to rubbishing the arguments of climate denialists by hook or by crook. One only has to skim through Painter et al’s references to see that. One does wonder whether perhaps the denialologists could be doing something more useful.
Do let me know in comments if my reasoning is faulty.
Featured Image
The featured image is what Dall.e came up with for “tragedy of the commons.” One might also see it as a portent about what life might be like in the UK in 2050 if we stay on the Net Zero course.
“… social pressure had the strongest effect on behavioral change. Such pressure can take passive forms, … or more active ones, such as home energy reports that compare our energy use with our neighbors …”
What Makes People Act on Climate Change, according to Behavioral Science
To get people to shift to more climate-friendly behavior, what works best? Education? Payments? Peer pressure?
Though education can be necessary to make the public aware of a problem in the first place, “we find over and over again that it’s not very effective” at actually changing behaviors, says study co-author Magnus Bergquist, a psychologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. It’s similar to how knowing that we should exercise more or drink less alcohol doesn’t mean we will do so, he explains. “Just knowing what’s right, or healthy, or environmentally friendly isn’t really a sufficient model for changing behaviors,” Bergquist says.
On the flip side, the new research found social pressure had the strongest effect on behavioral change. Such pressure can take passive forms, such as the sight of a larger number of our neighbors adding solar panels to their houses or purchasing electric cars, or more active ones, such as home energy reports that compare our energy use with our neighbors’.
Can you smell the whiff of Chinese social credit systems – in which the government increasingly becomes involved in bullying people who don’t conform to the direction of their leaders?
What’s next? Fines and withdrawal of privileges if you don’t reduce your energy to levels dictated by local politicians, or swap your ICE automobile for an EV? Neighbourhood interventions, in which all your neighbours visit in a group to explain about their climate anxiety, about all the misery and distress your non compliance is causing? A “climate inquisition”, which coerces ordinary people reported by their neighbours into publicly confess their climate sins, and promising to do better in the future?
How could such a thing happen in America, or in any Western country?
Right now, today, such cruelty until recently was a far-fetched joke, a subject for comedy sketches about un-American behaviour. The right to make your own choices, freedom from social bullying, is a defining difference between free societies like America and communist tyrannies like Communist China.
But the climate bullies are deadly serious. Nobody will be laughing if the climate bullies get their way (h/t CTM).
Authors of stories like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “If this goes on” fantasised about the threat of religious fanaticism overthrowing the Republic, about the USA becoming a Iranian style religious dictatorship, but they picked on the wrong religion. It is the climate religion which is the real and present threat to Western liberty.
Green zealotry, with its demands that everyone abide by its tenets regardless of whether you believe, with its intolerance for freedom and non-conformity, this is the religion which threatens to deliver us all into tyranny and subservience to the state, unless we push back against its autocratic demands.
One thing is clear. If such intense social pressure is required to reduce energy use, to achieve net zero goals, the claim that renewable energy is better and cheaper than coal is a complete nonsense. You don’t need to ration energy at this level of intensity in a society powered by coal, gas or nuclear. If the energy runs short in a society with a sane energy policy, you don’t force people to swap out all their light bulbs or organise neighbourhood shaming committees to coerce energy rationing, you just build another power plant.
Energy history brings perspective and caution to the real-world prospects of dilute, intermittent energies becoming 21st century mainstays. The wisdom of history also checks the notion that solar (and wind) are infant industries in need of ‘temporary’ government subsidies.
“The supply of coal and oil, [Frank Shuman] opined, would eventually be depleted.‘One thing I feel sure of,’ he wrote prophetically in a 1914 Scientific American article, ‘is that the human race must finally utilize direct sun power or revert to barbarism.’”
Energy history brings perspective and caution to the real-world prospects of dilute, intermittent energies becoming 21st century mainstays. The wisdom of history also checks the notion that solar (and wind) are infant industries in need of ‘temporary’ government subsidies. [1]
I recently encountered a history piece about an early solar entrepreneur, Frank Shuman, written by Christopher Dougherty nine years ago for a Philadelphia magazine. Excerpts from Frank Shuman: Finding The Future In Tacony, A Century Ago follow.
Nearly a century ago, Philadelphia solar energy pioneer Frank Shuman toiled in obscurity, dreaming–and building–a solar powered device he felt would change the way the world made energy and did work…. Shuman’s “Sun Engine” is a poignant reminder that while humanity has been slow to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we have certainly not lacked the technology, or foresight, to do so. On the expansive lawn between an ivy-covered house and workshop at Disston and Ditman Streets, Shuman integrated his deep knowledge of glass, optics, and convection heating to create a powerful array capable of doing actual work.
Shuman, a consummate inventor with 64 patents to his name, closely followed international developments in solar power. In 1906, he set the controls for the heat of the sun … he insulated boxes, built semi-convex reflectors around them to concentrate the sun’s rays, put them on swivels to follow the sun’s track, placed his water in a vacuum to lower its boiling point and—in a major breakthrough—attached a low pressure steam engine to the array.
In the early 20th Century, Philadelphia was an unlikely seat of solar technology; arguably for most of the 19th Century, the city was an R&D hub for fossil fuel utilization as well as a primary consumer of coal and producer of refined oil products. Beginning in the early part of the 19th Century the two seats of scientific wisdom, the American Philosophical Society and Franklin Institute popularized new techniques and methods of burning the ever-abundant anthracite coal….
For Shuman, to fail to embrace solar power was to invite social calamity. The problem was simply mathematical: there are finite resources like coal and oil whereas the sun’s power was infinite. The supply of coal and oil, he opined, would eventually be depleted.“One thing I feel sure of,” he wrote prophetically in a 1914 Scientific American article, “is that the human race must finally utilize direct sun power or revert to barbarism.”
Based on the output of his device, he reasoned that an array covering 20,250 square miles in an unpopulated portion of Africa’s Sahara Desert would produce the same amount of energy as all of the coal mined in 1909. Displaying an understanding of the social value of solar, he urged “…all far-sighted engineers and inventors to work in this direction” not only for their own profit but “the eternal welfare of the human race’.”
Frederick Blount Warren, writing for Technical World Magazine in 1907 after a visit to Tacony, was more expansive in tabulating the benefits of solar:
And now, suppose a moment is given to contemplation of the changes that will have been wrought when solar-power has been developed as fully as the steam engine is at the present time… Mankind might then begin to receive its birthright of an uncontaminated atmosphere, health and purity would once more find a foothold in the constitutions of future generations….
Engineering News profiled Shuman in 1909, Nature magazine did so in 1912, and in a 1911 feature, the New York Times proclaimed [a] “Method to Harness the Sun is Found; Engineer says that Frank Shuman of Philadelphia has solved the problem.” ….
Final Comment
Hope springs eternal. The notion that the sun’s energy can be converted into electricity because it is just there to be concentrated is naivete. There is such a thing as physics to explain how the sun’s work over the ages has created a dense, reliable stock of potential energy versus a dilute, intermittent flow from the sun.
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[1] As Milton and Rose Friedman warned: “The infant industry argument is a smoke screen. The so-called infants never grow up.” Free to Choose (1979), pp. 5–6.
Two days ago I posted what I thought would be quite an innocuous twitter thread about the implications of the U.K. Government’s target of ‘Net Zero’ by 2050.
1. Reminder of what ‘net zero’ really means. This graphic from UK Govt FIRES project. Key points: all airports except Heathrow, Belfast & Glasgow to close by 2030. NO FLYING at all by 2050. No new petrol/diesel cars by 2030; by 2050 road use restricted to 60% of today’s level. pic.twitter.com/0s0dI9kAHK
Specifically, I showed this graphic from the U.K. Government-funded FIRES project that summarised its recommended necessary strategy to achieve Net Zero by 2050 based only on evolutionary technological developments (the report it’s from has been around since 2021 and I’ve even posted about it before).
Now, for clarification ‘Net Zero’ means total greenhouse gas emissions (including methane) must be less than their removals (such as from planting trees). The FIRES report instead focused on an absolute zero target because they recognise the absence of novel revolutionary scalable technologies for 1) capture and removal of these gases and 2) non-fossil fuel mass transportation and energy production. In other words, if you realistically want to achieve the Net Zero target by 2050 you essentially have to go for absolute zero.
My twitter thread highlighed the eye-watering points that the strategy required:
All airports in the U.K. except Heathrow, Belfast and Glasgow to close by 2030.
No flying at all by 2050.
No new petrol or diesel cars by 2030.
By 2050 road use restricted to 60% of today’s level.
Food, heating and energy restricted to 60% of today’s level by 2050.
Beef and lamb to be phased out by 2050.
I said that, apart from the extreme limitations on personal freedom and travel, this means either a colder, hungrier population or massive depopulation.
Within less than 24 hours the tweet had amassed well over three million impressions (by far the highest I’ve ever achieved).
And, whereas three years solid work undertaking Covid data analysis and exposing the manipulation and flaws of the entire ‘official’ narrative had never led to a single mainstream media article or interview, I was invited on to Laura Ingraham’s popular Fox News show last night to speak about this.
(The interview was actually pre-recorded an hour before it was aired and quite a lot of what I said for context, such as the Covid lockdown trial run and new technology challenges, didn’t make the cut.)
So, although the FIRES report is not new it seems that finally people are waking up to the lunacy of the Government’s Net Zero target and why it is doomed to fail (as explained by Professor Michael Kelly).
But it’s still a surprise that it is a surprise to so many. All of this is consistent with UN/WEF Agenda 21, the UN ‘World at 2050′ agenda, and the WEF Great Reset with its ‘Build Back Better’ in which you’ll “own nothing and be happy”, and eat bugs instead of meat. Of course ’15 minute cities’ now being pushed everywhere are key to all of this (everything that’s happening now in that respect and how it fits into Agenda 21 was explained in Rosa Koire’s 2011 book). As I said in 2021, the Covid lockdowns were always going to be the precursor for climate lockdowns.
Until he retired in January, Norman Fenton was Professor in Risk Information Management at Queen Mary University of London.
Cost of achieving net-zero carbon emissions would be staggering for neglible climate impact.
Despite Germany’s last-ditch attempt at realism, the European Union recently approved a 2035 ban on gas-powered cars, moving ahead with its “net zero” emissions agenda.In the U.S., the cost of achieving net-zero carbon emissions would be staggering – $50 trillion if the goal is reached by 2050 – as would the demand for raw materials, which in most cases would exceed current annual worldwide production.
Global critical metal demand for wind and PV
The impact on world climate, however, would be negligible. Emissions in developing countries will continue to increase as those countries’ focus is economic growth for their citizens, not permanent economic misery to “save” the climate.
Although a recent Washington Post article suggests that wealth be viewed in terms of “joy, beauty, friendship, community, [and] closeness to flourishing nature,” impoverished individuals who cook with animal dung – such as 80% of the population in the African nation of Burkina-Fasso – aren’t likely to find much joy and beauty in economic misery. Granted, having to cook with animal dung ensures “closeness to nature,” although probably not the one the article’s author envisions.
Rather than approaching energy policy clearly, the U.S. (and most of the western world) is pursuing so-called “net zero” energy policies aiming to fully electrify western economies, while relying almost entirely on wind and solar power.
The additional required electricity – after all, the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun sets nightly – would supposedly be supplied by energy storage batteries or hydrogen-powered generators.
Second, these policies are driven by old-fashioned greed. Green energy subsidies, which were already large, have been hugely expanded under the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The IRA is a virtual smorgasbord of green energy subsidies for offshore wind, solar power, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure. The green energy pork, which relies on climate alarmism for its justification, is increasing electricity costs and reducing standards of living, such as in Europe, where deindustrialization is taking place because of unaffordable energy costs. Even progressive California admits its zero-emissions goals primarily will benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
Although the author of the Washington Post article may think differently, modern society requires ample supplies of reliable and affordable energy. A modern society that runs solely on electricity must have a foundation built upon three key pillars.
First, it must provide lots of electricity, far more than is generated today, because U.S. electricity consumption accounts for only about one-fifth of total energy consumption. Second, all of that electricity must be available 24-7.
Third, it must be affordable. Those pillars cannot be supported by reliance on intermittent wind and solar power and huge banks of batteries to store electricity when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Nor will those pillars be based on technologies that don’t even exist, such as generators that run on pure hydrogen.
Even if one believes that addressing climate change is crucial and that low- or zero-emissions technology will yield worldwide benefits, the current approach is the most expensive way to achieve it.
Despite the hyperventilation of some politicians, such as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s predictions of doom, climate change need not entail economic suicide. A far better approach is adaptation to and mitigation of potential future damages that may be caused by a changing climate, such as gradual sea level rise and slightly warmer temperatures.
It is doubtful the U.S. will adopt this approach in the near future, because political expediency nearly always beats rational economics. But as economist Herb Stein said long ago, something that cannot go on forever, won’t. The unrealistic energy policies in place today eventually will collapse under their own weight. The resulting costs to U.S. consumers and businesses will be staggering.
See also Series of Four Posts– World of Hurt from Climate Policies
Part 1, Zero Carbon Means Killing Real Jobs with Promises of Green Jobs
Part 2, Reducing Carbon Emissions Means High Cost Energy Imports and Social Degradation
Part 3, 100% Renewable Energy Means Sourcing Rare Metals Off-Planet
Part 4, Leave it in the Ground Means Perpetual Poverty
As immutable laws, solar output collapses when the sun sets and wind power output collapses when calm weather sets in (and when wind speeds hit gale force and turbines automatically shut down). No amount of spin doctoring, varnishing or linguistic invention can undo them.
As immutable laws, solar output collapses when the sun sets and wind power output collapses when calm weather sets in (and when wind speeds hit gale force and turbines automatically shut down). No amount of spin doctoring, varnishing or linguistic invention can undo them.
Rafe Champion builds on those laws with his ‘iron triangle of energy realism’.
He starts with the fact that irrespective of the number of turbines or solar panels, there will be occasions when wind and solar inevitably produce nothing, at all. See above – courtesy of Aneroid Energy – the output delivered by Australian wind power outfits to the Eastern Grid during May last year. Spread from Far North Queensland, across the ranges of NSW, all over Victoria, Northern Tasmania and across South Australia the entire capacity of the Eastern Grid’s wind fleet routinely delivers just a trickle of its combined notional capacity – back then 8,587 MW, now, 10,277 MW.
The iron triangle of energy realism Spectator Australia Rafe Champion 28 February 2023
Possibly the most powerful argument against the quest for Net Zero can be briefly stated using the Iron Triangle of Power Supply, bearing in mind the logic of testing (or falsification, as Karl Popper called it).
The three aspects of the triangle are:
Continuous input of power to the grid. Adequate input is required all the time, not just most of the time or almost all the time.
Wind droughts and especially windless nights break the continuity of input from wind power when there is no solar.
There is effectively no storage to bridge the gaps (despite all the talk about batteries and pumped hydro).
Consequently, the proposition that the grid can run on wind and solar power is falsified (ruled out) and there is no justification for the decision to contaminate the grid with subsidised and mandated intermittent input from environmentally ruinous wind and solar facilities.
In defiance of the Iron Triangle, the official position is that we just need more installed wind and solar facilities, and more storage. That is stated by the Prime Minister, the Climate and Energy Minister, and the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). It is dutifully repeated by all the usual suspects in the ABC and the mainstream media, although over a hundred leading journalists have received the briefing notes from the Energy Realists of Australia over the last three years.
The briefing notes were compiled by an elite squad of almost-dead white males and Ben Beattie, recruited to work with The Energy Realists of Australia – joking, of course.
What is the point of more wind and solar capacity? Wind and solar can displace coal (to a point that we have almost reached), but they can’t replace it.
The rate of exit from coal is not accelerated by increasing penetration on good wind and solar days, it is limited by the lowest level of output on nights with little or no wind, as a convoy travels at the speed of the slowest vessel, the water penetrates the levee at the lowest point, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link and stock get out of the yard through gaps in the fence even if the rest of the fence is built to the sky.
What storage? Batteries can be dismissed very quickly by comparing the capacity of the biggest batteries in the world with the amount of power required to get through a windless night. Journalists don’t help by reporting the capacity of batteries in MW instead of MWh (megawatt hours). Scribes who report MW instead of MWh should be promptly escorted from the building with their personal effects thrown into the street after them.
More words are required to describe the inadequacy of pumped hydro because there are many large schemes around the world, and there are some small ones in Australia already. However, I am not aware of any large scheme that runs on wind and solar alone. The largest facility at Bath, Philadelphia (US), runs entirely on coal and nuclear power to enable those plants to run continuously at their optimum output.
Conclusion We need to keep enough conventional power, mostly coal power, to meet the highest levels of demand at dinner times in high summer and deep winter, until we have nuclear power on deck.
A note on the logic of testing that was mentioned at the start of this piece. It has gone missing in science (on walkabout?) since it became generally accepted in the 1960s that Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm theory (science by consensus) had superseded Karl Popper’s critical approach (forming a preference after rigorous testing and comparison of rival theories.) That is an important topic for another day. Spectator Australia
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