“To get the same amount of energy from solar and wind that we now get from fossil fuels, we’re going to have to massively increase mining.
By more than 1000%.
This isn’t speculation. This is physics.”
This post is well worth your time, either through viewing the video presentation, or for a more devastating effect, via the transcript.
How an ideology can take such a fervent foothold and do so much damage to civilisation, at rapid pace, is perhaps, an inferior question to how the physics of UNreliables were/are so casually overlooked as to render current civilisation, inoperable.
Are we heading toward an all-renewable energy future, spearheaded by wind and solar? Or are those energy sources wholly inadequate for the task? Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Cloud Revolution, compares the energy dream to the energy reality.How Much Energy Will the World Need?
Video Transcript
We’re headed toward an exciting all-renewable energy future. Wind and solar will power the world of tomorrow.
And tomorrow isn’t far off!……..
…It’s time to wake up.
You’re having a dream.
Here’s the reality.
Oil, natural gas, and coal provide 84% of all the world’s energy. That’s down just two percentage points from twenty years ago.
And oil still powers nearly 97% of all global transportation.
Contrary to headlines claiming that we’re rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels, it’s just not happening. Two decades and five trillion dollars of governments “investing” in green energy and we’ve…
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of UNEP
“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)
•
‘Green’ Germany is considering support for at least 10 foreign ‘dirty’ fossil fuel projects worth over €1 billion ($1.5B AUD), despite its pledge to end international funding for coal, oil and gas.
Nothing like an energy crisis to change sentiment!
Germany is considering support for at least 10 foreign fossil fuel projects worth over €1 billion ($1bn), despite its pledge to end international funding for coal, oil and gas.
In response to a parliamentary question from a left-wing German lawmaker, the state secretary at the ministry of economic affairs and climate action Udo Philipp said the government is considering 10 applications for export credit guarantees for fossil energy projects in Brazil, Iraq, Uzbekistan, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
A breakdown of the projects accompanying the response shows that €419 million ($442m) or around 40% of the funding, could go to a single project in Brazil. Three of the projects totalling €340m ($359m) are located in Iraq and four are in Cuba.
Other fossil fuel projects could be under consideration by the German state-owned investment and development bank KfW. The bank does not disclose projects it hasn’t decided to support.
Germany was among 16 countries to sign a pledge at Cop26 in Glasgow last year to end international funding for fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022.
Ten have published policies showing how they will restrict funding to coal, oil and gas. But Germany has not adopted a policy because of internal divisions over exemptions for gas.
Reality bites.
And, how many more taxpayer-trillions need to be torched at the alter of ClimateChange™️, scarring the land with useless, industrial eco-crucifixes and mirrors, before the suicidal ‘fog of Green’ clears?
Drax power station, generating 7% of Britain’s needs, is partly converted to burning imported woodchips. Staying warm, or even alive, takes priority over tedious climate dogma. Energy policy related to electricity generation is exposed as pitifully inadequate when the wind dies down and the days are short. The demise of cold spells in winter has been greatly exaggerated.
– – –
Emergency plans to fire up old coal plants have been triggered by National Grid as cold weather sparked fears of a supply shortage, says Energy Live News.
Two coal-fired generation units at Drax power station in Yorkshire have been instructed to be warmed up and ready for potential usage today.
“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
•
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
•
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:
During Orwellian (energy) times, it may be prudent to look to wiser heads for clarity.
“If a private enterprise is a failure, it closes down—unless it can get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions.”
— Milton Friedman
“When the government makes loans or subsides to business, what it does is to tax successful private business in order to support unsuccessful private business.”
— Henry Hazlitt
The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was being generous by describing interventionism’s nasty side-effects as “unintended.” Some younger interventionists are naïve, and know not what they do, but the older, street-smart captains of progressive politics understand the harms their policies entail. For them, the adverse consequences are features, not bugs.
The only downside is the risk of political retribution at the polls.
That’s the predicament in which the Biden administration now finds itself. It is also the theme of “Energy Inflation Was by Design,” a new report by supply-chain consultant Joseph Toomey.
[Synopsis is in previous post Energy Inflation Playbook]
President Biden and congressional Democrats want to replace fossil fuels with a “zero-carbon” energy system. Their
“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…
“While America’s unabated movement toward electricity from breezes and sunshine have transferred the countries’ fossil fuel demands onto foreign countries, the data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that the growing demands of societies for petroleum-based liquid fuels will remain strong — and in fact grow — through at least 2050 as America, like much of the European Union, places more reliance on hostile foreign powers for its energy security.”
Not only is the climate-obsessed West suffering from a dangerous deficit of cheap, reliable energy, but also a deficit in reason, common sense, logic, and debate.
Putin has been emboldened to invade Ukraine, not because he’s a “murderer and a war criminal” but because the indolent and ideological West has become so weakened in their obsession with ridding the world of invisible, odourless trace gas and plant food, Carbon Dioxide.
Why attack Carbon dioxide? Because it’s the byproduct of ~80% of the world’s cheap, reliable energy supply — fossil fuels/thermal energy.
Control CO2 and you control the world and the lives and livelihoods of every single person on the planet.
This *is* the ClimateChange™️ agenda.
This is what it’s always been about — power and control over you.
China and Russia are great War historians of WWI and WWII, and know that the countries that controls the minerals, crude oil, and natural gas, controls the world! Biden has done an excellent job of relinquishing “CONTROL” for the “green” materials to China, and relinquishing “CONTROL” of the crude oil to OPEC and Russia! God help America!
“Engineers have always played a leading role in the development of powerful adaptation technology. Engineering education should therefore stay far away from ideology-driven computer models. These models steer them in the wrong direction. That is my message to the Academies of Engineering and the Universities of Technology.”
I’ll take the undeniable power, safety and consistency of technical-based decisions made through reason, data and the scientific method (engineering) over politics, ideology, UN climate models and fact-free emotions any day.
Professor Guus Berkhout has published a challenge to the engineering community, to step up and make the Western energy transition work. He emphasizes that reliable and affordable energy is the key to future prosperity and well-being. So, if the transition fails then the Western world will fall back into poor economies without any power and authority. His opening call is pointed and clear:
“Experienced Engineers must take the lead in the Energy Transition. Green politicians made a big mess of the energy transition and climate scientists encouraged them with their computer models. Putin and Xi JinPing must have watched the self-destruction of the Western World with utter amazement and gratitude. Experienced engineers must pick up the pieces soonest.”
Berkhout says there are actually three distinct challenges, all engineering intensive. One is developing the technology needed for adaptation to climate change, whatever the cause of…
Like the entire #UkraineRussiaWar (real-energy War) isn’t a result of the indolent West’s capitulation to UNreliable ‘green’ energy ideology and it’s, subsequent, TOTAL dependence on Russian fossil-fuels!
Cognitive dissonance on steroids.
Though, completely unsurprising. And, completely by design.
Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com] More doom-laden propaganda, pretending climate theories are facts and so on.
– – –
The UN Secretary General says the rush to use fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine is “madness” and threatens global climate targets.
The invasion of Ukraine has seen rapid rises in the prices of coal, oil and gas as countries scramble to replace Russian sources, says BBC News.
But Antonio Guterres warns that these short-term measures might “close the window” on the Paris climate goals.
Drax power station, generating 7% of Britain’s needs, is partly converted to burning imported woodchips.
By Anton Lang ~
By Ronald Stein ~
How is it possible that America has allowed itself to become so dependent on authoritarian countries like China, Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia over the 30 years since the end of the Cold War? The weaponization of energy by China and Russia have been extensively discussed in the three books co-authored by Ronald Stein and Todd Royal, including the 2022 Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy.
By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~
Berkhout says there are actually three distinct challenges, all engineering intensive. One is developing the technology needed for adaptation to climate change, whatever the cause of…
Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com]
Climatism 
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