“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit. –– Warren Buffett
“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” –– Top Google engineers
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The ultimate irony of ironies?
After spending upwards of half a trillion euros of taxpayers money on useless UNreliables (windmills and mirrors), ‘green’ Germany is now resorting to bulldozing an Energiewende wind ‘farm’ in order to expand a ‘dirty’ brown (lignite) coal mine to keep the lights on.
What a hot mess this ‘green’ ideology has now become.
German energy company RWE has begun dismantling a small wind farm to make way for the expansion of an adjacent lignite coal mine, a move the company willingly acknowledges as “paradoxical”.
RWE has already dismantled one of the wind turbines at the Keyenberg wind park in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The remaining seven turbines are expected to be dismantled throughout next year, as RWE expands its operations at its Garzweiler coal mine.
“We realize this comes across as paradoxical,” RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen said in a statement. “But that is as matters stand.”
The driving factor behind the decision is the fear of energy shortages driven by the Russia invasion of Ukraine, and the lack of imported fossil gas from Russia.
RWE decided in late-September to reactivate three coal-fired power plants that were previously on standby. The three plants, each with a capacity of 300MW, would resume operations “to strengthening the security of supply in Germany during the energy crisis and to saving natural gas in electricity generation.”
“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. – James Hansen (Former NASA-climate chief)
“It is so easy to be wrong —and to persist in being wrong— when the costs of being wrong are paid by others. – Thomas Sowell
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If there was ever a better (scientific) advertisement for the uselessness of UNreliables (wind and solar) then it is this.
According to economist Jeff Currie of Goldman Sachs, over the past decade, nearly four-thousand-billion-dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on windmills and mirrors to reduce fossil fuel energy consumptionby 1 percent from 82 to 81 percent of overall global energy consumption.
How many more pristine landscapes, wildlife, and taxpayer bank accounts need to be decimated to realise the fanciful “NetZero2050” target, or even a 10% “transition” toward industrial wind and solar?
The mind boggles.
CNBC Squawk Box:
"At the end of last year, overall fossil fuels represented 81% of energy consumption. 10 years ago, they were at 82%," says Jeff Currie. "$3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuels from 82% to 81% of the overall energy consumption." pic.twitter.com/VhQN0S9oo9
Economist Jeff Currie of Goldman Sachs (Global Head of Commodities Research in the Global Investment Research Division):
“Here’s a stat for you, as of January of this year. At the end of last year, overall, fossil fuels represented 81 percent of overall energy consumption. Ten years ago, they were at 82. So though, all of that investment in renewables, you’re talking about 3.8 trillion, let me repeat that $3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuel consumption from 82 to 81 percent, of the overall energy consumption. But you know, given the recent events and what’s happened with the loss of gas and replacing it with coal, that number is likely above 82.” … The net of it is clearly we haven’t made any progress.”
It is hard to get your head around the fact that $3.8 trillion has been spent with so little results. A lot of that money has been going to Crony Capitalists through subsidies and tax forgiveness.
That they have not made any progress replacing fossil fuels is understandable and that it is unlikely that wind and solar ever will. Their lack of dispatchability will forever prevent wind and solar from being the main source of power. Long term, nuclear power will have to be the main source of power with wind and solar playing second fiddle.
An HTMR-100 cannot melt down. If the worst possible event were to occur, the reactor will just shut itself down. If all cooling stops, the reactor will heat up a bit for 24 hours and then over the next 4 to 5 days will just cool down with no incident. That is ‘walk away safe’.
Nuclear power is the future of mankind. The world’s electricity insecurity experienced since 2020 has shown the way forward with great clarity.
Furthermore, nuclear is the only known efficient, reliable, safe, continuous and truly ‘green’ energy technology:
“In the four years I have been keeping these daily data records for wind generation, the power generated from all wind plants in Australia has never been lower than it was on this day. That total generated power of 15.74GWH gave wind an average for the day of 656MW, and that was at a daily operational Capacity Factor of just 6.66%, an absolutely pitiful result from 76 wind plants with a total Nameplate of 9854MW, and around 4500 individual wind turbines…”
This Post details the daily wind power generation data for the AEMO coverage area in Australia. For the background information, refer to the Introductory Post at this link.
Each image is shown here at a smaller size to fit on the page alongside the data for that day. If you click on each image, it will open on a new page and at a larger size so you can better see the detail.
Note also that on some days, there will be a scale change for the main wind power image, and that even though images may look similar in shape for the power generation black line on the graph when compared to other days, that scale (the total power shown on the left hand vertical axis) has been changed to show the graph at a larger size to better fit the image for that…
“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. – James Hansen (Former NASA-climate chief)
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Quality analysis from a quality journalist of the traditional Left, Chris Uhlmann.
Uhlmann’s well considered article ends here for mine …
“Germany stands as a stark testimony. It has spent more than €500 billion ($743 billion) transitioning its electricity system, boosting wind and solar to more than 45 per cent of generation since 2000. But it had to keep 89 per cent of its fossil-fired capacity to deal with the problems caused by calm, dark days. It now boasts Europe’s most expensive retail power and is strategically exposed because the country can’t function without imported gas.”
Electricity generation represents only 19 per cent of the world’s final global energy consumption.CREDIT:BLOOMBERG
“We have no readily deployable commercial-scale alternatives for energising the production of the four pillars of modern civilisation solely by electricity,” Smil writes.“This means that even with an abundant and reliable renewable electricity supply, we would still have to develop new large-scale processes to produce steel, ammonia, cement and plastics.”
The IEA notes that getting the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050requires transition-related investment to rise to around $US4 trillion a year by 2030, “but only a minority of these investments immediately deliver zero emissions energy or energy services”.
The energy transition is inevitable, but it will be a lot harder than politicians, activists, service sector chief executives and billionaire energy hobbyists would have you believe. In trying to solve the current crisis, the political class should keep one thing in mind, no one ever won an election by promising to make voters colder, poorer and hungrier.
“An HTMR-100 cannot melt down. If the worst possible event were to occur, the reactor will just shut itself down. If all cooling stops, the reactor will heat up a bit for 24 hours and then over the next 4 to 5 days will just cool down with no incident. That is ‘walk away safe’.”
“Nuclear power is the future of mankind. The world’s electricity insecurity experienced since 2020 has shown the way forward with great clarity.”
Hear, hear.
Furthermore, nuclear is the only known efficient, reliable, continuous and truly ‘green’ energy technology:
• Zero CO2 emissions, if you believe that invisible trace gas and plant food CO2 is destroying the planet.
• Zero particulate (smog) pollution.
• The least land-intensive energy technology for both plant exposure and the mining required for key resource uranium.
• ~60 year lifespan.
A win, win for both the environment and for humanity.
The first two decades of the 21st Century will go down in history as a time of amazing world confusion about energy supplies, particularly electricity.
This is all due to electricity planning being done too much at a political policy level, and not by engineers and scientists. This in turn was linked to an inordinate fear of supposed man-induced climate change linked to fossil fuels, primarily driven by extreme green activist groups. Sadly, much scientific logic was trampled under the feet of street demonstrators, clamoring for Mother Nature’s natural energy: wind and solar.
The result has been soaring electricity prices in many countries, and power shortages leading to blackouts, resulting in major economic and social upheaval.
There has also been significant interference from European countries in the affairs of African and other countries around the world, insisting that developing countries adapt their energy usage…
While we banned plastic straws, Russia drilled and doubled nuclear energy production.
How has Vladimir Putin—a man ruling a country with an economy smaller than that of Texas, with an average life expectancy 10 years lower than that of France—managed to launch an unprovoked full-scale assault on Ukraine?
There is a deep psychological, political and almost civilizational answer to that question: He wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants it to be free. He is willing to risk tremendous loss of life and treasure to get it. There are serious limits to how much the U.S. and Europe are willing to do militarily. And Putin knows it.
Missing from that explanation, though, is a story about material reality and basic economics—two things that Putin seems to understand far better than his counterparts in the free world and especially in Europe.
Putin knows that Europe produces 3.6 million barrels of oil a day but uses 15 million barrels of oil a day. Putin knows that Europe produces 230 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year but uses 560 billion cubic meters. He knows that Europe uses 950 million tons of coal a year but produces half that.
The former KGB agent knows Russia produces 11 million barrels of oil per day but only uses 3.4 million. He knows Russia now produces over 700 billion cubic meters of gas a year but only uses around 400 billion. Russia mines 800 million tons of coal each year but uses 300.
That’s how Russia ends up supplying about 20 percent of Europe’s oil, 40 percent of its gas, and 20 percent of its coal.
The math is simple. A child could do it.
The reason Europe didn’t have a muscular deterrent threat to prevent Russian aggression—and in fact prevented the U.S. from getting allies to do more—is that it needs Putin’s oil and gas.
The question is why.
How is it possible that European countries, Germany especially, allowed themselves to become so dependent on an authoritarian country over the 30 years since the end of the Cold War?
Here’s how: These countries are in the grips of a delusional ideology that makes them incapable of understanding the hard realities of energy production. Green ideology insists we don’t need nuclear and that we don’t need fracking. It insists that it’s just a matter of will and money to switch to all-renewables—and fast. It insists that we need“degrowth” of the economy, and that we face looming human “extinction.” (I would know. I myself was once a true believer.)
John Kerry, the United States’ climate envoy, perfectly captured the myopia of this view when he said, in the days before the war, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine “could have a profound negative impact on the climate, obviously. You have a war, and obviously you’re going to have massive emissions consequences to the war. But equally importantly, you’re going to lose people’s focus.”
But it was the West’s focus on healing the planet with “soft energy” renewables, and moving away from natural gas and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain a stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply.
As the West fell into a hypnotic trance about healing its relationship with nature, averting climate apocalypse and worshiping a teenager named Greta, Vladimir Putin made his moves.
While Putin expanded Russia’s oil production, expanded natural gas production, and then doubled nuclear energy production to allow more exports of its precious gas, Europe, led by Germany, shut down its nuclear power plants, closed gas fields, and refused to develop more through advanced methods like fracking.
The numbers tell the story best. In 2016, 30 percent of the natural gas consumed by the European Union came from Russia. In 2018, that figure jumped to 40 percent. By 2020, it was nearly 44 percent, and by early 2021, it was nearly 47 percent.
For all his fawning over Putin, Donald Trump, back in 2018, defied diplomatic protocol to call out Germany publicly for its dependence on Moscow. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump said. This prompted Germany’s then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, who had been widely praised in polite circles for being the last serious leader in the West, to say that her country “can make our own policies and make our own decisions.”
The result has been the worst global energy crisis since 1973, driving prices for electricity and gasoline higher around the world. It is a crisis, fundamentally, of inadequate supply. But the scarcity is entirely manufactured.
Europeans—led by figures like Greta Thunberg and European Green Party leaders, and supported by Americans like John Kerry—believed that a healthy relationship with the Earth requires making energy scarce. By turning to renewables, they would show the world how to live without harming the planet. But this was a pipe dream. You can’t power a whole grid with solar and wind, because the sun and the wind are inconstant, and currently existing batteries aren’t even cheap enough to store large quantities of electricity overnight, much less across whole seasons.
In service to green ideology, they made the perfect the enemy of the good—and of Ukraine.
Take Germany.
Green campaigns have succeeded in destroying German energy independence—they call it Energiewende, or “energy turnaround”—by successfully selling policymakers on a peculiar version of environmentalism. It calls climate change a near-term apocalyptic threat to human survival while turning up its nose at the technologies that can help address climate change most and soonest: nuclear and natural gas.
At the turn of the millennium, Germany’s electricity was around 30 percent nuclear-powered. But Germany has been sacking its reliable, inexpensive nuclear plants. (Thunberg called nuclear power “extremely dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming” despite the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change deeming it necessary and every major scientific review deeming nuclear the safest way to make reliable power.)
By 2020, Germany had reduced its nuclear share from 30 percent to 11 percent. Then, on the last day of 2021, Germany shut down half of its remaining six nuclear reactors. The other three are slated for shutdown at the end of this year. (Compare this to nextdoor France, which fulfills 70 percent of its electricity needs with carbon-free nuclear plants.)
Germany has also spent lavishly on weather-dependent renewables—to the tune of $36 billion a year—mainly solar panels and industrial wind turbines. But those have their problems. Solar panels have to go somewhere, and a solar plant in Europe needs 400 to 800 times more land than natural gas or nuclear plants to make the same amount of power. Farmland has to be cut apart to host solar. And solar energy is getting cheaper these days mainly because Europe’s supply of solar panels is produced by slave labor in concentration camps as part of China’s genocide against Uighur Muslims.
The upshot here is that you can’t spend enough on climate initiatives to fix things if you ignore nuclear and gas. Between 2015 and 2025, Germany’s efforts to green its energy production will have cost $580 billion. Yet despite this enormous investment, German electricity still costs 50 percent more than nuclear-friendly France’s, and generating it produces eight times more carbon emissions per unit. Plus, Germany is getting over a third of its energy from Russia.
Germany has trapped itself. It could burn more coal and undermine its commitment to reducing carbon emissions. Or it could use more natural gas, which generates half the carbon emissions of coal, but at the cost of dependence on imported Russian gas. Berlin was faced with a choice between unleashing the wrath of Putin on neighboring countries or inviting the wrath of Greta Thunberg. They chose Putin.
Because of these policy choices, Vladimir Putin could turn off the gas flows to Germany, and quickly threaten Germans’ ability to cook or stay warm. He or his successor will hold this power for every foreseeable winter barring big changes. It’s as if you knew that hackers had stolen your banking details, but you won’t change your password.
This is why Germany successfully begged the incoming Biden administration not to oppose a contentious new gas pipeline from Russia called Nord Stream 2. This cut against the priorities of green-minded governance: On day one of Biden’s presidency, one of the new administration’’s first acts was to shut down the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. in service to climate ideology. But Russia’s pipeline was too important to get the same treatment given how dependent Germany is on Russian imports. (Once Russia invaded, Germany was finally dragged into nixing Nord Stream 2, for now.)
Naturally, when American sanctions on Russia’s biggest banks were finally announced in concert with European allies last week, they specifically exempted energy productsso Russia and Europe can keep doing that dirty business. A few voices called for what would really hit Russia where it hurts: cutting off energy imports. But what actually happened was that European energy utilities jumped to buy more contracts for the Russian oil and gas that flows through Ukraine. That’s because they have no other good options right now, after green activism’s attacks on nuclear and importing fracked gas from America. There’s no current plan for powering Europe that doesn’t involve buying from Putin.
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We should take Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a wake-up call. Standing up for Western civilization this time requires cheap, abundant, and reliable energy supplies produced at home or in allied nations. National security, economic growth, and sustainability requires greater reliance on nuclear and natural gas, and less on solar panels and wind turbines, which make electricity too expensive.
The first and most obvious thing that should be done is for President Biden to call on German Chancellor Scholz to restart the three nuclear reactors that Germany closed in December. A key step in the right direction came on Sunday when Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, the economy and climate minister, announced that Germany would at least consider stopping its phaseout of nuclear. If Germany turns these three on and cancels plans to turn off the three others, those six should produce enough electricity to replace 11 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year—an eighth of Germany’s current needs.
Second, we need concerted action led by Biden, Congress, and their Canadian counterparts to significantly expand oil and natural gas output from North America to ensure the energy security of our allies in Europe and Asia. North America is more energy-rich than anyone dreamed. Yes, it will be more expensive than Russian gas sent by pipeline. But it would mean Europe could address Putin’s war on Ukraine, rather than financing it.
Exporting gas by ship requires special terminals at ports to liquify (by cooling) natural gas; environmentalists oppose these terminals because of their ideological objection to any combustible fuel. So it’s a good sign that Chancellor Sholz announced plans on Sunday to build two of these terminals to receive North American gas, along with announcing major new military spending to counter Russia.
Third, the U.S. must stop shutting down nuclear plants and start building them. Every country should invest in next-generation nuclear fuel technology while recognizing that the current generation of light-water reactors are our best tool for creating energy at home, with no emissions, right now. What you’ve heard about waste is mostly pseudoscience. Storing used fuel rods is a trivial problem, already solved around the world by keeping them in steel and concrete cans. The more nuclear power we generate, the less oil and gas we have to burn. And the less the West will have to buy from Russia.
Putin’s relentless focus on energy reality has left him in a stronger position than he should ever have been allowed to find himself. It’s not too late for the rest of the West to save the world from tyrannical regimes that have been empowered by our own energy superstitions.
Michael Shellenberger
Best-selling author of “San Fransicko” (HarperCollins, 2021) “Apocalypse Never” (HarperCollins 2020) :: Time Magazine “Hero of Environment” :: Green Book Award winner :: Founder and President of Environmental Progress
Wind power is, by definition, a wholly weather-dependent power source. So, it should come as no surprise that – whenever a burst of calm-weather hits – those charged with responsibility for delivering power, as and when we need it, scramble to obtain it from any convenient and, more importantly, reliable source. Which is why Germany and the UK have reverted to reliance on their ‘dreaded’ and purportedly ‘dirty’ coal-fired power plants.
Back in January this year, the Germansmandated the closure of 11 coal-fired power plants(with a total combined capacity of 4.7GW). But the legislative shutdown barely lasted a week, with all of those plants being hastily brought back online in response to an outbreak of, you guessed it, calm weather.
Likewise, the Brits have been forced to bring old (thought to be redundant) coal-fired power plants…
There may even be ample room to facilitate future UN COP meetings next to, said, kiddies playparks if “Net Zero” requires such intesne and massive deforeastion to house industrial wind and solar ‘playparks’.
Oh, the irony… kids and globalist bureaucrats all playing (and paying) together in the future playparks of denuded-forest-gulags.
Windy Standard wind farm, Scotland [credit: RWE.com] Ideas, opinions, feedback etc. are invited here. It could be said they’ve already had decades to think about this, but any negativity will no doubt be ignored. Existing uses include children’s play areas and bike sheds, but there’s only so many of those that would find a place.
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One wind farm company is looking for imaginative ways to repurpose turbines at the end of their lives, says BBC News.
When Windy Standard was built in Dumfries and Galloway in the mid-1990s, it was Scotland’s second largest wind farm.
Now it is coming to the end of its functional life and the old turbines are set to be replaced by more powerful machines.
But what happens to the original turbines? Owner Fred Olsen Renewables wants to find creative and sustainable ways to ensure they do not end up in…
“California was the experiment, and now it is the proof: environmentalism is worse for ‘social justice’ than any degree of climate change is.
Environmentalism is the indulgent fantasy of remote political elites and their self-serving business backers. If California doesn’t prove this, what would?”
The heatwaves and the fires are natural – the electricity blackouts are not.
Events leading up to today’s power cuts follow a bizarre history. The fact that advanced economies need a continuous supply of power is well understood. Yet for three decades, the political agenda, dominated by self-proclaimed ‘progressives’, has put lofty green idealism before security of supply and before the consumer’s interest in reasonable prices. Even if the heatwaves experienced by California were caused by climate change, are their direct effects worse than the loss of electricity supply?
California’s green and tech billionaires, and its business and political elites, certainly seem to think so. But they are largely protected from reality by vast wealth, private security, gated estates, and battery banks. The high cost of…
By Anton Lang ~
By Dr. Kelvin Kemm ~
The result has been soaring electricity prices in many countries, and power shortages leading to blackouts, resulting in major economic and social upheaval.
Windy Standard wind farm, Scotland [credit: RWE.com] Ideas, opinions, feedback etc. are invited here. It could be said they’ve already had decades to think about this, but any negativity will no doubt be ignored. Existing uses include children’s play areas and bike sheds, but there’s only so many of those that would find a place.
California’s green and tech billionaires, and its business and political elites, certainly seem to think so. But they are largely protected from reality by vast wealth, private security, gated estates, and battery banks. The high cost of…
Climatism 
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