Richard Greene
Bingham Farms, Michigan
BS State University of New York, at Albany
MBA Stern School of Business, at New York University
TBW (Trained By Wife)
Audiophile, since 1965
My favorite song today:
"Breakdown"
by Grace Jones
Saturday, December 4, 2021
The House Build Back Baloney Act Damages the Oil and Gas Industry, Provides Huge Incentives for Renewables
Source:
"CONCLUSION:
Despite high gasoline prices stressing the U.S. consumer and home heating prices expected to soar this winter, the House Democrats are hiking fees and increasing red tape on the U.S. oil industry.
The House Build Back Better bill provides oil and gas provisions that are punitive measures, including arbitrary new fees that would add millions of dollars in annual operating costs, pricing out U.S. production on federal lands and waters and taxing methane emissions from all production, even on private lands.
These provisions are a gift to higher emitting producers like Russia and China that wield their energy resources as a geopolitical tool and would fundamentally weaken one of America’s most important economic, energy, emissions and national security assets.
At the same time, it would give renewable technologies subsidies that they have been receiving for decades to replace efficient and affordable energy from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power.
The result of the Build Back Better Bill is not better energy or a better life style for Americans.
Rather, it is a costly measure, increasing transportation fuel, heating, and electricity bills for Americans.
DETAILS:
On November 19, the House of Representatives passed a $2 trillion budget bill with a long list of increases in federal royalties and fees, plus new fees, new taxes, and barriers to leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf of Mexico.
It passed on a party-line vote of 220-213 and was sent to the Senate, where changes are expected.
It contains a long list of higher costs for oil and gas companies, especially those operating on federal lands.
The arbitrary new fees would add millions of dollars in operating costs, pricing out U.S. production.
This bill taxes American energy, restricts access to resources owned by Americans and advances ‘import-more-oil’ strategy that the Biden administration has been promoting
—all of which will cost Americans more to heat their homes with natural gas and fill their tanks with gasoline.
On the other hand, the bill contains some $300 billion in spending for renewable energy—by far the largest component of the climate spending in the package.
It would expand tax credits for renewable power, electric vehicles, biofuels and energy efficiency.
The credits could accelerate investments in both utility-scale and residential renewable energy as well as electricity transmission, power storage and “clean-energy” manufacturing.
Thus, the bill uses taxpayer funds to promote “green” causes that cannot efficiently and affordably supply energy to the American public.
Source: House Rules Committee; Novogradac
Build Back Better Act Attacks the Oil and Gas Industry
The bill ups the royalty rate for all new onshore oil and gas leases on federal lands to 18.75 percent, up from the 12.5 percent minimum currently.
For offshore, the minimum would be 14 percent, and the policy option of royalty relief for economic reasons would be terminated.
Royalties for natural gas would cover all natural gas, including gas vented, flared, or leaked from onshore and offshore operations in the upstream, with an exception only for 48 hours of emissions during an emergency.
Onshore minimum bids and rental rates would increase, and the primary term for onshore leases in the 48 contiguous states would be limited to 5 years.
An “expression of interest fee” of $15 to $50 per acre would be added to Department of Interior costs.
A new annual “conservation of resources fee” would be set at $4 per acre onshore and offshore, and a new annual “speculative leasing fee” would be set at $6 per acre for new non-producing leases.
No noncompetitive leasing would be permitted. Bonding to cover potential costs would need to be updated by Interior.
Offshore inspection fees are specified, while onshore inspection fees would be required from the Department of Interior.
A severance fee would be collected by Interior at a rate of $0.50 per barrel of oil equivalent produced.
An annual fee would be levied for “idled” wells—idled for at least 2 years—and for which there is no anticipated beneficial future use.
An annual fee would be imposed on offshore pipeline owners: $1,000 per mile in waters less than 500 feet deep and $10,000 per mile in deeper waters.
The leasing program for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be repealed, and all payments made for leases would be returned to lessees.
New exploration and production would be barred in the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico—a codification of what has been the status quo for many years.
A new methane “waste emissions charge” would apply to all onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration and production work, as well as oil and gas gathering lines, upstream and midstream gas pipeline transmission, gas pipeline compression, onshore gas processing, underground storage, liquefied natural gas storage, and LNG import and export equipment.
In other words, it will not just apply to operations on federal lands.
The fee would be $900 per ton for methane emissions in 2023, $1,200 in 2024, and $1,500 thereafter.
For production sites, the new fee would apply to emissions that exceed two-tenths of 1 percent of the natural gas sent to sale, though an alternative calculation also is provided.
For natural gas transmission, upstream from retail utility operations, the fee would apply to emissions that exceed 0.11 percent of the gas sent to sale.
At the COP26 meeting in Scotland, the United States announced it will participate in the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions 30 percent by 2030.
The methane fee in the Build Back Better bill is part of Biden’s commitment to reach that goal.
But, two of the world’s biggest methane emitters — China and Russia — refused to sign the Global Methane Pledge.
Here again Biden wants to use Americans as examples without concern about what the financial outcome would be to American energy expenses.
Renewable Energy Benefits
The proposed bill includes a variety of renewable energy tax incentives.
It would structure various credits as tiered incentives, providing either a base rate or a bonus rate of five times the base amount for projects that meet certain prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements.
An additional increased credit amount could be claimed in certain cases if projects comply with domestic content requirements, such as ensuring that any steel, iron, or manufactured product was produced in the United States.
The production tax credit (PTC) for energy facilities that produce electricity from renewable energy sources would be extended through 2026 and increased for facilities in energy communities where a coal mine or a coal-fired electric generating unit has been shut down.
The PTC for solar facilities would also be reinstated through 2026.
The investment tax credit would be extended through 2026 for most property and increased for projects in energy communities and for solar and wind facilities that serve low-income communities.
The PTC would consist of a base credit rate of 0.5 cents per kilowatt hour and bonus credit rate of 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour through 2026.
The renewable energy investment tax credit (ITC) includes projects that begin construction before the end of 2026 and then would phase down over two years.
The ITC would be expanded to include energy storage technology and linear generators.
These technologies would be eligible for a 6 percent base credit rate or a 30 percent bonus credit rate.
It would provide an additional 20 percent credit for the ITC if the solar facility was placed in service in connection with a qualifying low-income residential building/low-income benefit project, or an additional 10 percent credit if the facility is located in a low-income community.
The production tax credit and investment tax credit would be available after 2026 and phased out beginning in 2031 or when U.S. emissions targets are achieved.
Other provisions include:
A new investment credit for electric transmission property that would apply to facilities placed in service through 2031.
A new zero-emission nuclear power production credit for facilities that produce electricity, available through 2027.
A new credit for producing clean hydrogen, based on lifecycle greenhouse gas emission rates, through 2028.
An investment tax credit for advanced manufacturing facilities that start construction before 2026 and a production tax credit for eligible components that would begin to phase down in 2027.
A credit for the domestic production of clean fuels that would be based on their lifecycle carbon emissions, which would also be phased out beginning in 2031 or when emissions targets are achieved.
Electric Vehicle Tax Credits
Under the Build Back Better bill a $7,500 consumer tax credit would be made refundable and expanded by $4,500 for cars assembled domestically by plants represented by unions.
An additional $500 bonus would be added for vehicles that use batteries made in the United States for a total of $12,500.
The legislation also would create a new $4,000 tax credit for the purchase of used electric vehicles.
The new tax-credit package also eliminates the 200,000-vehicle cap, making GM and Tesla vehicles eligible again.
More expensive vehicles would not qualify for the tax credit under the current proposal.
Sedans and smaller cars would only be eligible if they cost less than $55,000.
For sport-utility vehicles and trucks, the sticker price would have to be under $80,000 to qualify.
The proposed tax credit includes an income cap. Individuals have to make under $250,000 annually to be eligible for the credit.
For households, the cap is $375,000 for a single-income family and $500,000 for a dual-income family.
The $2 trillion tax and spending bill, passed by the House, would significantly expand the nation’s demand for lithium batteries and provide opportunities for Chinese electric vehicle supply chain leaders including the Contemporary Amperex Technology Company (CATL).
Based in the southeastern province of Fujian, CATL is the world’s largest manufacturer of power batteries and materials. Auto giants Daimler, BMW, and BAIC Motor Corp are customers."
Build Back Better Act Attacks the Oil and Gas Industry
The bill ups the royalty rate for all new onshore oil and gas leases on federal lands to 18.75 percent, up from the 12.5 percent minimum currently.
For offshore, the minimum would be 14 percent, and the policy option of royalty relief for economic reasons would be terminated.
Royalties for natural gas would cover all natural gas, including gas vented, flared, or leaked from onshore and offshore operations in the upstream, with an exception only for 48 hours of emissions during an emergency.
Onshore minimum bids and rental rates would increase, and the primary term for onshore leases in the 48 contiguous states would be limited to 5 years.
An “expression of interest fee” of $15 to $50 per acre would be added to Department of Interior costs.
A new annual “conservation of resources fee” would be set at $4 per acre onshore and offshore, and a new annual “speculative leasing fee” would be set at $6 per acre for new non-producing leases.
No noncompetitive leasing would be permitted. Bonding to cover potential costs would need to be updated by Interior.
Offshore inspection fees are specified, while onshore inspection fees would be required from the Department of Interior.
A severance fee would be collected by Interior at a rate of $0.50 per barrel of oil equivalent produced.
An annual fee would be levied for “idled” wells—idled for at least 2 years—and for which there is no anticipated beneficial future use.
An annual fee would be imposed on offshore pipeline owners: $1,000 per mile in waters less than 500 feet deep and $10,000 per mile in deeper waters.
The leasing program for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be repealed, and all payments made for leases would be returned to lessees.
New exploration and production would be barred in the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico—a codification of what has been the status quo for many years.
A new methane “waste emissions charge” would apply to all onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration and production work, as well as oil and gas gathering lines, upstream and midstream gas pipeline transmission, gas pipeline compression, onshore gas processing, underground storage, liquefied natural gas storage, and LNG import and export equipment.
In other words, it will not just apply to operations on federal lands.
The fee would be $900 per ton for methane emissions in 2023, $1,200 in 2024, and $1,500 thereafter.
For production sites, the new fee would apply to emissions that exceed two-tenths of 1 percent of the natural gas sent to sale, though an alternative calculation also is provided.
For natural gas transmission, upstream from retail utility operations, the fee would apply to emissions that exceed 0.11 percent of the gas sent to sale.
At the COP26 meeting in Scotland, the United States announced it will participate in the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions 30 percent by 2030.
The methane fee in the Build Back Better bill is part of Biden’s commitment to reach that goal.
But, two of the world’s biggest methane emitters — China and Russia — refused to sign the Global Methane Pledge.
Here again Biden wants to use Americans as examples without concern about what the financial outcome would be to American energy expenses.
Renewable Energy Benefits
The proposed bill includes a variety of renewable energy tax incentives.
It would structure various credits as tiered incentives, providing either a base rate or a bonus rate of five times the base amount for projects that meet certain prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements.
An additional increased credit amount could be claimed in certain cases if projects comply with domestic content requirements, such as ensuring that any steel, iron, or manufactured product was produced in the United States.
The production tax credit (PTC) for energy facilities that produce electricity from renewable energy sources would be extended through 2026 and increased for facilities in energy communities where a coal mine or a coal-fired electric generating unit has been shut down.
The PTC for solar facilities would also be reinstated through 2026.
The investment tax credit would be extended through 2026 for most property and increased for projects in energy communities and for solar and wind facilities that serve low-income communities.
The PTC would consist of a base credit rate of 0.5 cents per kilowatt hour and bonus credit rate of 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour through 2026.
The renewable energy investment tax credit (ITC) includes projects that begin construction before the end of 2026 and then would phase down over two years.
The ITC would be expanded to include energy storage technology and linear generators.
These technologies would be eligible for a 6 percent base credit rate or a 30 percent bonus credit rate.
It would provide an additional 20 percent credit for the ITC if the solar facility was placed in service in connection with a qualifying low-income residential building/low-income benefit project, or an additional 10 percent credit if the facility is located in a low-income community.
The production tax credit and investment tax credit would be available after 2026 and phased out beginning in 2031 or when U.S. emissions targets are achieved.
Other provisions include:
A new investment credit for electric transmission property that would apply to facilities placed in service through 2031.
A new zero-emission nuclear power production credit for facilities that produce electricity, available through 2027.
A new credit for producing clean hydrogen, based on lifecycle greenhouse gas emission rates, through 2028.
An investment tax credit for advanced manufacturing facilities that start construction before 2026 and a production tax credit for eligible components that would begin to phase down in 2027.
A credit for the domestic production of clean fuels that would be based on their lifecycle carbon emissions, which would also be phased out beginning in 2031 or when emissions targets are achieved.
Electric Vehicle Tax Credits
Under the Build Back Better bill a $7,500 consumer tax credit would be made refundable and expanded by $4,500 for cars assembled domestically by plants represented by unions.
An additional $500 bonus would be added for vehicles that use batteries made in the United States for a total of $12,500.
The legislation also would create a new $4,000 tax credit for the purchase of used electric vehicles.
The new tax-credit package also eliminates the 200,000-vehicle cap, making GM and Tesla vehicles eligible again.
More expensive vehicles would not qualify for the tax credit under the current proposal.
Sedans and smaller cars would only be eligible if they cost less than $55,000.
For sport-utility vehicles and trucks, the sticker price would have to be under $80,000 to qualify.
The proposed tax credit includes an income cap. Individuals have to make under $250,000 annually to be eligible for the credit.
For households, the cap is $375,000 for a single-income family and $500,000 for a dual-income family.
The $2 trillion tax and spending bill, passed by the House, would significantly expand the nation’s demand for lithium batteries and provide opportunities for Chinese electric vehicle supply chain leaders including the Contemporary Amperex Technology Company (CATL).
Based in the southeastern province of Fujian, CATL is the world’s largest manufacturer of power batteries and materials. Auto giants Daimler, BMW, and BAIC Motor Corp are customers."
No warming in Tokyo for many decades !
Tokyo in the month of November (chart 1) and in the Fall (chart 2) , followed by the rural
Pacific island of Hachijojima, 275 km off the Japan mainland, in the Fall (chart 3):
Saturday morning climate rap; Teaching youngsters about climate change ... and life
Climate science can be explained simply to young people.
But even simple science is not the top priority.
The top priority is teaching children that adults sometimes say things that are not true.
And that includes their teachers and government scientists.
Predictions of the future are almost always wrong.
"Climate change" is nothing more than a prediction of the future climate.
A coming climate crisis has been predicted for the past 64 years, but never shows up.
That is typical of predictions.
In fact, every prediction of a coming environmental crisis since the 1960s has been wrong. And that includes every prediction made by climate scientists.
You know adults who want youngsters to do as they say. They include your parents and your teachers.
There are other adults who want the same thing.
But they are not your parents or teachers. So they trick you by claiming a disaster is coming in the future. And only they can save you. So you must do as they say !
But the future can’t be predicted. And that means they are lying to you. And you should not do as they say when they try to trick you by predicting a coming climate disaster that will never show up.
Concerning climate science:
The climate is always changing: In fact, you have been living with global warming for your entire life. It has been harmless. Did you even notice?
Most of the warming since the 1970s was in colder nations, mainly in the colder months, and mainly at night.
Did you know that Canada was covered with a miles thick ice glacier 20,000 years ago. By 10,000 years ago it had melted, with NO burning of fossil fuels.
Did you know that CO2 levels increased, with no global warming, from 1940 to 1975?
Did you know there was global warming from 1910 to 1940, with almost no increase of CO2?
Did you know Earth has existed for 4.5 billion years?
Did you know there's no evidence CO2 levels controlled the temperature in those 4.5 billion years, until the 1970s?
Did you know that current CO2 levels are low when compared with the past 4.5 billion years?
Climate science is a lot more complicated than always wrong predictions of a coming climate crisis.
But predictions of a climate crisis are mainly what you are told. Predictions that are always wrong.
Don't you want to know the whole story about Earth’s climate?
Actual climate in the present and past?
Or do you prefer guesses of the climate in the future, very likely to be wrong, because all predictions of the future climate have been wrong so far !
The history of Earth's climate is more interesting then scary fairy tales of a coming climate crisis. Unfortunately, many adults like to tell scary stories. They probably liked hearing scary stories when they were children, and now they like to tell you scary stories about an imaginary future climate crisis. That's entertainment, not science !
"Japan Is Backing Oil and Gas Even After COP26 Climate Talks"
Source:
"Another wheel falls off the COP26 Bandwagon!
It’s been less than a month since world leaders pledged to combat climate change at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, yet Japan is already showing signs of putting the brakes on divestment from fossil fuels.
Government officials have been quietly urging trading houses, refiners and utilities to slow down their move away from fossil fuels, and even encouraging new investments in oil-and-gas projects,
according to people within the Japanese government and industry, who requested anonymity as the talks are private.
The officials are concerned about the long-term supply of traditional fuels as the world doubles down on renewable energy, the people said.
The import-dependent nation wants to avoid a potential shortage of fuel this winter, as well as during future cold spells, after a deficit last year sparked fears of nationwide blackouts.
Japan joined almost 200 countries last month in a pledge to step up the fight against climate change, including phasing down coal power and tackling emissions.
However, the moves by the officials show the struggle to turn those pledges into reality, especially for countries like Japan which relies on imports for nearly 90% of its energy needs, with prices spiking partly because of the world’s shift away from fossil fuel investments.
The nation has been slow to make any concrete commitments to phase out coal in the near term, and has often been criticized for its funding of overseas power plants that use the dirtiest burning fossil fuel.
The government has also avoided joining efforts by developed nations to reduce consumption of natural gas.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry declined to comment directly on whether it is encouraging industries to boost investment in upstream energy supply, and instead pointed to a strategic energy plan approved by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s cabinet on October 22.
That plan says “no compromise is acceptable to ensure energy security, and it is the obligation of a nation to continue securing necessary resources.”
That latest strategy calls for the share of oil and natural gas produced either domestically or under the control of Japanese enterprises overseas to increase from 34.7% in fiscal year 2019 to more than 60% in 2040.
Japanese officials plan to convey to other nations the importance attached to continued investments in upstream supply, the people added."
That plan says “no compromise is acceptable to ensure energy security, and it is the obligation of a nation to continue securing necessary resources.”
That latest strategy calls for the share of oil and natural gas produced either domestically or under the control of Japanese enterprises overseas to increase from 34.7% in fiscal year 2019 to more than 60% in 2040.
Japanese officials plan to convey to other nations the importance attached to continued investments in upstream supply, the people added."
'CLINTEL trilogy calls on heads of government, young people and climate scientists to wake up", by David Wojick, Ph.D.
Source:
CLINTEL (Climate Intelligence) has produced a very interesting trio of open letters, with one each to heads of government, young people and climate scientists.
Most open letters that challenge alarmism are focused on their content, so are written for a general audience.
Others are to a specific person, regarding a specific issue.
In contrast, these CLINTEL letters speak to specific groups that play important roles in the climate debate.
Nominally each letter is to members of these groups that attended COP 26, where each group was prominent, but each message is valid for the entire group, worldwide.
Each calls out for action.
How to address the members of these key groups is something we need to think more about.
These letters are in that sense important precedents.
In particular I do not think I have ever seen a letter like this to young people.
Have heard a great many complaints about how alarmism is terrorizing children, making them hate the past and afraid of their future.
But actually speaking to them about this in pointed detail is new.
Here are some excerpts to give you the flavor:
“Please, don’t act like a parrot.
Be critical against the many false prophets who are trying to take advantage of you and set you up against what your parents and grandparents have achieved.
The information these prophets tell you is one-sided and misleading.
Their information comes from faulty science, wrong model predictions and extreme scenarios.”
“Do you know that the difference between the mean annual temperature in cold Finland and warm Singapore is more than 20 degrees?
Yet, both these countries are very successful.
Declaring current global warming of 0.14 degrees C per decade a catastrophe is totally out of proportion.
Think about that, while you are protesting.”
“Did your teachers ever tell you that CO2 is a blessing for everything that lives on our planet?
Far from being pollution, CO2 is the molecule of life, providing food for plants.
Without plants there would be very little animal life and no human life at all.
Think about that as well, while you are protesting.”
The letter to climate scientists will be more familiar, but the clarity is exceptional.
Here is a good excerpt:
“Sound scientific research is open-minded and is characterized by a wide variety of viewpoints without dogmas and prejudices:
Within the established climate science, curiosity and diversity are being suppressed and the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) dogma is ruthlessly enforced. However, science is neither a religion nor a political faction.
Science advances not by chanting “We believe” but by asking “I wonder”.
Funding for CAGW-critical research is nonexistent today.
Censorship complicates and all too often prevents the publication of critical articles in mainstream peer reviewed scientific journals.
Again, the CAGW-models are considered to be the truth.”
In fact the letter to climate scientists is more about freedom of inquiry and expression than about climate science.
For instance, it is also applicable to medical scientists.
The message to heads of government is stop focusing on fear and invest in adaptation.
Here are two succinct excerpts:
“Hard facts show that global warming is NOT catastrophic, and therefore, there is NO climate crisis.
Stop your fear-mongering messages.
Fear leads always to wrong decisions and above all, it destroys the minds of our youth. Instead, inspire them with a positive outlook!”
“Please, stop slavishly following the Paris Climate Accord of 2015.
It is fear-based and will only impoverish world nations.
Instead, develop concrete climate adaptation plans, in collaboration with the regions.
Global mitigation policies cost an exorbitant amount of money (many trillions) and they have never saved one life.
National adaptation plans work, whatever the causes of climate change may be.”
The title of the overall 9 page trilogy is “Climate change is much more than CO2, and CO2 is much more than climate change”, which really says it all.
This important set of messages is here:
https://clintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Clintel_message_2021_V3_trilogie.pdf
I urge people to use these messages and pass them on, as well as adding to them.
In particular we need to reach out to the young people and give them back their future."
Friday, December 3, 2021
Friday afternoon climate rap: Five surprises about "climate change" -- the crisis that is always coming, but never arrives !
In my 24 years of following climate science and "climate change" five things have surprised me the most:
CNN and Other Media Outlets Are Admitting Madagascar’s Food Crisis Is Not Caused by Climate Change, by H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D.
Source:
"As far back as June, corporate media outlets, for instance, CNN, began publishing stories claiming Madagascar’s ongoing hunger crisis is due to a climate change induced drought and resulting crop failure.
Climate Realism repeatedly refuted that claim.
Citing data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Climate Realism provided evidence Madagascar has repeatedly set records in recent decades for crop production, so any present food supply shortages are due to political or economic factors not declining crop production.
While news outlets ignored the evidence Climate Realism presented proving climate change is not behind Madagascar’s present drought and associated famine, they are now admitting this truth based on a new study.
CNN, the Associated Press and others are all carrying stories today admitting climate change isn’t behind Madagascar’s problems.
In her story, titled “Madagascar’s food crisis has been blamed on climate change.
These scientists say that’s wrong,” CNN International Climate Editor Angela Dewan writes:
The UN’s World Food Programme and multiple media organizations have been warning that the African island nation of Madagascar is on the brink of the world’s first climate-change-induced famine.
But a new study says the human-made climate crisis has had little to do with the current food scarcity in the country.
Consecutive years of low rainfall have led to a prolonged drought that has shaken Madagascar’s food security and has already pushed tens of thousands of people into famine-like conditions.
A study by scientists at the World Weather Attribution initiative, an international collaboration led by Imperial College London and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, found that a natural variation in the climate was most likely the main reason for the drought.
The group said that poverty, poor infrastructure and a high level of dependence on rain for agriculture were also behind the country’s food crisis.
This conclusion sounds amazingly similar to what was reported by Climate Realism earlier:
History shows back to back droughts are not unprecedented in Madagascar’s history.
The current drought is serious.
However, … Madagascar had a similar drought forty years ago, at a time when scientists were warning of a coming ice age, not global warming.
Peer reviewed research shows Madagascar’s large megafauna declined sharply, with many species going extinct during previous extended droughts.
Research indicates Madagascar suffered extended droughts nearly 6,000 and again nearly 1,000 years ago.
A drought, approximately 950 years before present, triggered a large transformation in vegetation, an increase in wildfires, and a sharp decline in the island’s megafauna.
Madagascar’s current drought is hardly unique and as dire as the present food shortage its people face may be, there is no evidence supposed human caused climate change is to blame.
[A]ny food supply shortages are due to political or economic factors not declining crop production.
It is good that CNN and other mainstream media outlets are finally catching on to the truth that Madagascar’s hunger crisis is not a result of climate change.
Climate Realism pointed this fact out since Madagascar’s famine first began making headlines."
" India PM Slams Pressures On India Over Climate Pledges"
Source:
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Constitution Day speech on Friday called for erasing a "colonial mindset" that only exists to "thwart India's growth".
This was PM Modi's second speech on Friday - the first at the central hall of parliament where he criticised as the biggest threat to democracy, a party run by the same family generation after generation.
He spoke for a second time in Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan in the presence of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana.
In the second speech, PM Modi took a swipe at developed nations that have been trying to persuade India to cut down carbon emissions,
when these nations have themselves been the biggest emitters of carbon
and have benefitted from fossil fuel-powered industrial growth, long before emerging economies could see proper growth.
"The colonial mindset hasn't gone.
We are seeing from developed nations that the path that made them developed is being closed for developing nations...
If we talk about absolute cumulative (carbon) emissions, rich nations have emitted 15 times more from 1850 till now," PM Modi said.
"The per capita emission is also 11 times more in the US and the EU."
In the COP26 climate talks held in Scotland earlier this month, India had asked developed nations that have "enjoyed the fruits of energy" to reach net zero faster so that emerging economies use some "carbon space" to drive growth.
'Net zero emissions' refers to achieving an overall balance between greenhouse gas emissions produced and greenhouse gas emissions taken out of the atmosphere.
PM Modi also criticised people who he said "stall development" unnecessarily.
"Sadly, we also have such people in our country who stall the development of the nation in the name of freedom of expression without understanding the aspirations of the nation.
Such people don't bear the brunt, but those mothers who get no electricity for their children bear it," the Prime Minister said.
Constitution Day, also known as National Law Day, is observed on November 26 to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution of India.
It is in this context PM Modi addressed the judiciary today."
"Rising Lithium Prices Risk Pushing Electric Vehicle Dreams Off The Road"
Source:
"As demand for electric vehicles grows amid a push for a greener economy, carmakers globally are grappling with rising prices of everything from semiconductor chips to copper and aluminum.
Now the expense of lithium, a metal found in every commercial electric battery, is starting to bite as a lack of mining capacity strains supplies.
Experts say it is likely to get worse and more investment in production is needed to meet electric vehicle supply chain needs.
While alternatives such as sodium exist, they are some years away from mass manufacture and demand will only grow.
New mines take years to develop, while countries are promising to stop the sale of petrol and diesel engines – in Britain’s case by 2030.
Pricing and analysis firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence estimates lithium carbonate prices could push up the production costs of electric batteries, especially mass-market models, by 16 percent or more.
Lithium carbonate, which is often used to make cheaper electric cars, is up 289 percent so far this year to about $24,000 per tonne, while lithium hydroxide, used in longer-range motors, is up 192 percent to about $26,000 per tonne, according to figures from Benchmark.
“I think it’ll go higher,” says chief executive Simon Moores.
“Long-term lithium demand is locked in; the question is how much you get out of the ground and into EVs as quickly as possible.”
Among the two, lithium carbonate is starting to be more widely used by electric vehicle makers, making its rising costs a headache.
It is used to make lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries that do not need cobalt, an element found largely in The Democratic Republic of Congo where mining is tainted by accusations of human rights abuse.
The batteries are also considered to be safer, albeit with a shorter range.
Tesla told customers in October to expect more LFP batteries in its standard-range models.
Demand is being driven in China, Tesla’s fastest-growing market and home to one of its Gigafactories in Shanghai.
It comes as the Asian nation tries to clean up its carbon act and push ahead with homegrown electric cars from the likes of Nio and Xpeng.
Carmakers worldwide are lining up to commit billions of pounds to electrify their fleets, and all will need thousands of tons of lithium.
In July Fiat and Vauxhall owner Stellantis committed £26bn to electric vehicles and software developments in the next four years, while Nissan pledged £13bn last week to a program that will see it decarbonize by 2050.
A limiting factor for battery makers is that while a Gigafactory can be built in a couple of years, it will immediately need a source of the metal.
A new mine, however, requires five to seven years before production can begin.
The mine must also produce a certain quality of the commodity, which can slow things down further, according to Benchmark’s Moores.
Australia is currently the biggest producer, having mined almost half the world’s lithium in 2020, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), while second-in-line Chile holds the largest reserves.
China, a top 10 producer and with the fifth most reserves, owns many of the processors that turn the metal into batteries.
While lithium is not scarce – more reserves are being found as exploration grows – the capacity to pull it out of the ground is limited.
More than 70 percent of the mined metal goes towards being used in batteries, the USGS noted.
And as its price rises, the portion of a car’s cost from lithium has gone from 1.5 percent to 4 percent since the start of the year, according to Moores.
So far, consumers are being cushioned from the metal’s price rises. As carmakers’ margins become more squeezed, however, buyers may end up absorbing the extra expense in the coming months.
This is because many carmakers have signed long-term deals with battery makers and lithium processing companies but not at a fixed price, says Scott Yarham, head of battery metals pricing at S&P Global Platts.
“Their involvement with lithium hedging is still in its infancy—and the same applies to all other stages of the supply chain, which still didn’t embrace hedging for the most part,” he said.
Rising lithium, however, isn’t the only worry.
Andrew Bergbaum, a partner and car expert at consulting firm AlixPartners, says its swing in price is symptomatic of a broader problem carmakers face as other components suffer price jumps and supply droughts.
Copper and aluminum, for instance, reached 10-year highs in the spring.
“While lithium price hikes are likely to impact car prices to some degree, there is a much bigger concern at play here,” he says.
“The battery of an electric vehicle only contains around 40-60kg of lithium, but the price hikes that we’re seeing across a broader range of materials could send the cost of a car soaring by thousands.
“It has never been more important for manufacturers to be able to pivot rapidly in the face of disruption and for the industry as a whole to find new ways to innovate.”
While lithium dominates today’s car batteries, it is far from the only solution.
Sodium, found in seawater, could eventually ease the car industry’s reliance on its fellow metal.
Sodium technology could be about up to seven years from mass production and could replace lithium-based batteries for cheaper cars, says Prof David Greenwood, a battery development expert at the University of Warwick, although this depends on how much is spent on its development.
“From our perspective, we think we see sodium ion as being a chemistry that the UK could do pretty well at, but which isn’t quite ready for mass production yet,” he says.
“Lithium mining is confined to certain geographies.
Sodium isn’t, it’s way cheaper, is much more sustainable, and it doesn’t have the geopolitics around it” since anyone can obtain it.
Prof Greenwood adds, however, that lithium is likely to come up trumps in the making of premium long-range vehicles.
But until a viable alternative is produced to ease constraints or miners dig more out of the ground, the price of lithium looks set on rising.
With demand moving in the same direction, carmakers’ electric dreams risk veering off track."
COP 26: India’s net zero pledge -for 2070 -- Does it really mean anything?
Source:
"As the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came to an end last week,
India became something of a whipping boy in the mass media, accused of being the “last-minute spoiler” by forcing the summit communique to water down language on “phasing out” coal to merely “phasing down.”
It also earned notoriety by demanding $1 trillion of public cash for itself before the end of the decade, to be put up by the wealthy countries if they want India to steeply cut emissions in order to avoid the “climate crisis.”
Let’s put some context to the hyperbole that has marked much of the popular press coverage as the summit wound down.
Net Zero by 2070
In early 2021, speculation abounded in the Indian media about the government’s plans for a net-zero goal.
One report indicated 2047 – the centenary of India’s independence from British colonial rule – as a possible target.
With China announcing a net-zero target of 2060, and other large emitters such as the EU, U.S., Japan, and South Korea having made their net-zero-by-2050 pledges,
India saw a slow but steady ratcheting of diplomatic pressure to announce a net-zero target in the months leading up to the global climate summit in Glasgow.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry visited India twice in 2021, in April and September.
Kerry’s visits focused on raising climate ambitions ahead of COP26.
He proposed collaboration on a 2030 agenda for clean and green technologies and met ministers, policymakers, and business and civil society leaders.
During his interactions, Kerry tried to pressure India to agree to a net-zero-by-2050 target. In September, Kerry attended the launch of the U.S.–India Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue as part of the U.S.–India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership, announced by President Biden and Prime Minister Modi during the Leaders’ Summit on Climate 2021.
During his visit, Kerry continued to attempt to raise climate ambitions ahead of COP26.
COP26 president Alok Sharma had also visited India for discussions with ministry, industry, and civil society leaders in August 2021.
During Modi’s visit to Washington in late September 2021, the White House released a joint statement of the leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States (called “the Quad”), discussing the aim of achieving global net-zero emissions by 2050.
Just before the start of COP26, India’s environment secretary R.P. Gupta rejected calls for his country to announce a net-zero carbon emissions target.
“It is how much carbon you are going to put in the atmosphere before reaching net-zero that is more important,” he said.
Earlier, at an April meeting organized by the International Energy Agency to discuss climate ambitions, India’s power minister Raj Kumar Singh called the “net zero by 2050” mantra pushed by the EU and the U.S. “pie in the sky
. . . you have 800 million people who don’t have access to electricity.
You can’t say that they have to go to net zero, they have the right to develop, they want to build skyscrapers and have a higher standard of living, you can’t stop it.”
However, at the COP26 Summit, Modi surprisingly pledged to cut India’s emissions to net zero by 2070.
The pledge was one of five that he made, which included a promise for India to get 50% of its energy from renewable resources by 2030,
reduce its total projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tons from 2021 till 2030,
build 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, and
reduce emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030.
The mixed international media response to Modi’s net-zero-by-2070 announcement is instructive.
Some in the press were scathing, pointing out that the target was two decades behind the 2050 commitments made by the EU, UK, U.S., and Asian OECD members Japan and South Korea, and a decade behind China’s 2060 target.
Others found it promising that even recalcitrant India wanted to commit to a net zero target.
To hard-bitten observers of realpolitik in international negotiations, inured to long-term promises by politicians in office (elected or otherwise), the response might well be that “if you can believe that China will be net zero by 2060, then you can believe India will be so by 2070.”
In any credible long-term scenario, developing-country governments face the imperative of meeting the aspirations of their citizens to climb out of poverty and deprivation and ascend into the comparative Valhalla of middle-class comfort.
India, like China, is decades away from peaking in terms of its emissions, or – what amounts to much the same thing – its use of fossil fuels.
The Limits of Renewable Energy
India’s non-fossil-fuel-installed power-generating capacity (excluding nuclear energy) currently stands at 38.3%, consisting of 149.56 GW of hydro, wind, solar, and other renewable resources.
India’s fossil fuel capacity is 234 GW.
The country’s target of 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030 was considered easily achievable, with several ministers and industry bodies making confident assessments.
However, as renewable energy (primarily solar and wind) is gradually being increased in India’s stretched and under-capitalized electricity grid, challenges have emerged.
The scale-up of renewable across the country coupled with the inherent nature of intermittent supply (as a function of weather) has meant that supply curtailment
– a purposeful reduction in electricity output below the levels that could otherwise have been produced
– to ensure grid stability has been increasingly common.
A study conducted by Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) projected that the grid would have to curtail up to 50% of solar generation in 2030 with 450 GW renewable energy to keep the grid stable.
With 500 GW of non-fossil energy, including nuclear and hydro power, being envisaged by 2030, the costs of integrating intermittent solar power would be even higher.
The massive costs of integrating unreliable, weather-dependent power into existing grids have already been made apparent in countries or U.S. states that have gone furthest in adopting renewable – such as Germany and California.
California’s situation increasingly resembles that of developing countries, with frequent blackouts;
it would be ironic if India – no stranger to erratic electricity and blackouts itself, given its creaky, capital-starved power infrastructure – adopted policies leading to more such power shortages.
Indian renewable energy output and generation capacity has been increasing impressively at an annual growth rate of 18% and 22%, respectively, but this growth comes on a very small base.
Meeting the 500 GW non-fossil-fuel target may seem to be within the realm of possibility.
But given the current near-bankrupt status of many, if not most, state power utilities, the imposition of intermittent power may well prove to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back of India’s power sector.
Increased dependence on renewable energy, as promised by India’s “nationally-determined contributions” to COP26, would only add to the burdens that have long afflicted the country’s power-distribution companies.
These include multiple constraints on cash flow, such as political compulsion to subsidize power (making it “free”) for favored constituencies such as farmers, labor unions’ ability to block privatization, the inability to hike tariffs to reflect input cost increases, and theft and line losses aggravated by poorly maintained infrastructure.
Reflecting these weaknesses of India’s power utilities, renewable-energy developers are currently facing issues of grid access and congestion, land availability, delayed payments for their generation, supply chain issues, and reduced investor confidence.
We Want Real Electricity!
Perhaps the question about what India’s promise to get to net zero by 2070 really means can be answered by a real-life parable from one of India’s multitudinous villages – the village of Dharnai, in the state of Bihar, one of India’s poorest states.
The village lacked access to the country’s electricity grid.
In 2014, to much fanfare, Greenpeace activists set up a solar-powered microgrid for the village.
Problems emerged almost immediately with the load put on the village solar “grid,” as households began hooking up appliances such as television sets, electric water heaters, irons, and air conditioners.
On the day of inauguration of the solar power system in the village, its inhabitants protested with banners saying, “we want real electricity, not fake electricity.”
As a reporter explained:
“By ‘real,’ they meant power from the central grid, generated mostly using coal.
By ‘fake,’ they meant solar.”
In a wonderful irony, embarrassed VIPs present for the gala opening of the Greenpeace-promoted solar showpiece ensured that the village was soon connected to the coal-fired power grid.
Having grown up in the small town of Vadnagar in northern Gujarat, the son of a street merchant who struggled to support his family, Prime Minister Modi is well aware of the struggles of the poor to uplift themselves.
While visiting Glasgow for COP26, surrounded by the glitz and glamour of the world’s plutocrats
– all flying in on fossil-fuel-guzzling private jets to “fight climate change”
– the politically savvy prime minister will almost certainly have had the energy needs of villages such as Dharnai, and so many others like it, in the back of his mind."
Off Topic Science: COVID CASE COUNTS: PCR inventor Kary Mullis (1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) vehemently opposed using PCR to diagnose diseases
Everyone interested in science will enjoy this long, but easy to read, article by a UK scientist. A history of the PCT test:
https://electioncircus.blogspot.com/2021/12/covid-case-counts-pcr-inventor-kary.html
Thursday, December 2, 2021
"Record Cold Grips Siberia (-68.3F) + Canada Sees Lowest November Temp Since 2004 (-45.6F)"
Source:
"Last winter (2020-21) held historically cold across vast swathes of transcontinental Russia — it went down as northern/central Asia’s ‘longest and harshest’ winter on record.
But now this year, the chill has started even earlier…
Extreme frosts have struck Siberia this week.
A low of -55.7C (-68.3F) was observed in Delyankir on December 1.
Such a reading would be considered rare for January or February, let alone the first morning of December.
It’s also one just 0.7C and 2.8C above the city’s all time November and December low temperature records, respectively.
In addition, Delyankir’s high for the day reached only -48.2C (-54.8F) — a new record low-maximum.
Schools in the region have been cancelled –as is the law whenever temps drop below -50C– which, as noted by mkweather.com, is remarkably early:
“frosts below -55C are usually coming only in late-December, January, or early February”
…and this is… “one of the earliest occurrences of frost below -55C in the region in history!”
Elsewhere, Oymyakon reported a minimum temperature of -54.4C (-65.7F) in the early hours of Wednesday morning;
Yurty hit -54.3C (-65.7F); and the infamous Verkhoyansk registered -50.1C (-58.2F).
... Northern Hemisphere Snow Mass Marches On
Snow mass across the entire Northern Hemisphere is progressing incredibly well this season, and currently stands at more than 250 Gigatons above the 1982-2012 average–an impossibility under the original global warming theory:
this was the base’s coldest November temperature since 2004’s -43.3C (-45.9F), and before that you have to go back to 1989’s" ... But also in the winter, too:
... In Canada’s northernmost weather research base, Eureka, a low of -43.1C (-45.6F) was registered on November 28 (with a windchill of -59C (-74.2F) —
"The sinister nature of electric cars"
Source:
"The Democrats are doing everything they can to get Americans into electric cars.
However, those cars come with the risk of a serious loss of power — not just for the car, but for those who buy those cars.
We have to begin with asking, why is the governing pushing electric vehicles?
And it's not just cars; it's also trucks.
Why are they ignoring hybrid vehicles?
If something happens to the electric guts of a properly designed hybrid car, the vehicle can limp along with its smaller gas engine until it reaches safety.
What happens to a fully electric vehicle if its electrical system fails?
Nothing, of course! You're stuck.
All you have is a hunk of metal and plastic.
And if you run out of electricity while driving, you can't just get a gallon gas can to fill the tank until you get to the nearest service station.
Again, you're stuck.
The next question is, "Are electric cars cheaper than gas cars?"
No, they cannot be cheaper, and that's even if you run them on renewables.
Take solar energy, for example.
Even if sunlight is free, the laws of thermodynamics still control.
Every time energy changes form, there is a loss factor.
Sunlight impinging on solar cells changes only 14–47% of the energy to electricity.
The forty-seven percent figure is state-of-the-art, so it is not available for everyday use.
Electricity is then stored in chemical-based car batteries (with a loss).
And then chemical energy is reconverted back to electricity (with a loss) and finally to mechanical energy, where the tire rubber meets the road (with a loss).
At a guess, not more than 5% of the original sun power turns the wheels of an E.V.
That's awful.
What this means is that it is more efficient to run a gas-powered vehicle.
You can do similar analyses with other renewables, whether wind or water power.
They simply aren't efficient.
Moreover, renewables are available intermittently (when the sun shines, the wind blows, or the water flows).
Because we want to drive when those power sources aren't immediately available, we will have to store excess sunlight in chemicals or in other ways,
always remembering that storage and later reconversion is never free.
And we will always have to maintain fossil fuel backup plants in case of renewables' failure.
This energy loss is not a secret.
Smart people know about energy losses.
Why, then, do so many favor a less efficient mode of transportation?
This analysis begins by recognizing that these smart people are fully aware of the above two points
— namely, that fully electric vehicles are a riskier transport system compared to hybrids,
and renewable power is a less efficient use of limited energy resources than gasoline.
Given this information, it is time for our conspiracy theory.
By favoring a transportation system that can fail at a single point, we confer upon those in power the ability to shut down an entire civilization.
And even if they don't completely shut it down, the price of electricity will be centrally controlled, allowing a chokehold on all the people all the time.
Redundancy is more expensive than efficiency, but redundancy at least leaves options.
With our advanced understanding of complex systems today, no engineer would knowingly structure a system where failure at a single point makes everything inoperative for the foreseeable future.
... Remaking a resilient transportation system is a herculean task.
The proper conclusion here is that society, meaning each and every one of us, should fight like hell before we allow such catastrophic vulnerabilities to be built into our future.
... Why would anyone trust the government to look after our welfare?
Just don't do it.
Just don't allow it!
Just say no to E.V.s!
Long live carburetors!"
"The comic cries of climate apocalypse — 50 years of spurious scaremongering", by Bjorn Lomborg
Source:
"The recent UN climate summit in Glasgow was predictably branded our “last chance” to tackle the “climate catastrophe” and “save humanity.”
Like many others, US climate envoy John Kerry warned us that we have only nine years left to avert most of “catastrophic” global warming.
But almost every climate summit has been branded the last chance.
Setting artificial deadlines to get attention is one of the most common environmental tactics.
We have actually been told for the past half-century that time has just about run out.
This message is not only spectacularly wrong but leads to panic and poor policies.
Two years ago, Britain’s Prince Charles announced that we had just 18 months left to fix climate change.
This wasn’t his first attempt at deadline-setting.
Ten years earlier, he told an audience that he “had calculated that we have just 96 months left to save the world.”
In 2004, a major UK newspaper told us that without drastic action, climate change would destroy civilization by 2020.
By that time, it foretold, major European cities would be sunk beneath rising seas,
Britain would be plunged into a “Siberian” climate as the Gulf Stream shut down and mega-droughts and famines would lead to widespread rioting and nuclear war.
Not quite what happened last year.
And these predictions have been failing for decades. In 1989, the head of the UN’s Environment Program declared we had just three years to “win — or lose — the climate struggle.”
In 1982, the UN was predicting planetary “devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust” by the year 2000.
Indeed, at the very first UN environment summit in Stockholm in 1972, almost 50 years ago, the organizer and later first UN Environment Program director warned that we had just 10 years to avoid catastrophe.
In 1972, the world was also rocked by the first global environmental scare, the so-called “Limits to Growth” report.
The authors predicted with great confidence that most natural resources would run out within a few decades while pollution would overpower humanity.
At the time, Time magazine described the future as a desolate world with few gaunt survivors tilling freeway center strips, hoping to raise a subsistence crop.
Life magazine expected “urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution” by the mid-1980s.
The scares were, of course, spectacularly misguided on both counts.
They got it wrong because they overlooked the greatest resource of all, human ingenuity.
We don’t just use up resources but innovate ever-smarter ways of making resources more available.
At the same time, technology solves many of the most persistent pollution problems, as did the catalytic converter.
This is why air pollution in rich countries has been declining for decades.
Nonetheless, after 50 years of stunningly incorrect predictions, climate campaigners, journalists and politicians still hawk an immediate apocalypse to great acclaim.
They do so by repeatedly ignoring adaptation.
Headlines telling you that sea-level rise could drown 187 million people by the end of the century are foolishly ignorant.
They imagine that hundreds of millions of people will remain stationary while the waters lap over their calves, hips, chests and eventually mouths.
More seriously, they absurdly assume that no nation will build any sea defenses.
In the real world, ever-wealthier nations will adapt and protect their citizens ever better, leading to less flooding, while surprisingly spending an ever-lower share of their GDP on flood and protection costs.
Likewise, when activists tell you that climate change will make children face twice as much fire, they rely on computer models that include temperature but ignore humans.
Real societies adapt and reduce fire because fires are costly.
That is why global fire statistics show less burned area, not more, over the past 120 years.
Perhaps not too surprisingly, the activists’ models even get the past wrong, but when has that ever stopped the righteous?
These unsubstantiated scares have real-world consequences.
An academic study of young people around the world found that most suffer from “eco-anxiety,” with two-thirds scared and sad, while almost half say their worries affect their daily lives.
It is irresponsible to scare youths witless when in reality the UN Climate Panel finds that even if we do nothing to mitigate climate change, the impact by the end of the century will be a reduction of an average income increase from 450 percent to 438 percent — a problem but hardly the end of the world.
Moreover, panic is a terrible policy-adviser.
Activist politicians in the rich world are tinkering around the edges of addressing climate change, showering subsidies over expensive vanity projects such as electric cars, solar and wind,
while the UN finds that it can’t identify an actual impact on emissions from the last decade of climate promulgations.
Despite their grandiose statements of saving the world, 78 percent of rich countries’ energy still comes from fossil fuels.
And as the Glasgow climate summit showed (for the 26th time), developing nations — whose emissions over the rest of this century matter most — cannot afford to similarly spend trillions on ineffective climate policies as they help their populations escape poverty.
Fifty years of panic clearly haven’t brought us anywhere near solving climate change.
We need a smarter approach: one that stops scaring everyone and focuses on realistic solutions such as adaptation and innovation.
Adaptation won’t make the entire cost of climate change vanish, but it will reduce it dramatically.
And by funding the innovation needed to eventually make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels, we can allow everyone — including developing countries — to sustainably go green."
"Is There Enough Coal to Supply Power This Winter?"
Source:
"CONCLUSION:
The U.S. coal fleet supports grid reliability and resilience, helps keep electricity prices affordable, provides fuel security, and serves as an insurance policy when other electricity sources are not available or are too expensive.
Yet, the Biden Administration wants to phase out all coal plants by 2035 when the President says the U.S. electricity grid should be carbon neutral.
President Biden’s Climate Envoy, John Kerry, said the United States would not be using coal by 2030.
It is clear to all bystanders that China and India will not comply with the aims of the U.S. and European leaders
and instead recognize that they have growing populations and economies requiring more power and that all energy sources will be needed to continue their growth.
European and U.S. policy makers need to wake up to the reality of what is happening around the globe lest they unilaterally disarm their nations’ economies and create unnecessary hardship for their people.
DETAILS:
"Despite the United States having the largest coal reserves in the world—almost as much as China and India’s coal reserves combined
—under the scrutiny of the Biden administration, utility companies are wondering whether they will have enough coal supplies to last the winter.
Coal demand at electric utilities has risen due to increasing natural gas prices caused in part to Biden’s anti oil and gas policies.
Now that coal is in demand, coal-fired power plants are struggling to replenish stockpiles because of post-COVID supply chain issues and because coal mines have closed as the Obama/Biden administration pursued its war on coal.
Energy markets are facing shortages of transportation and labor, including truck drivers, railroad personnel, and coal miners.
Coal stockpiles, which in October stood at 87 million tons, are down 35 percent from a year ago, when 133 million tons were available going into winter.
Current inventories are 18 percent below the lowest level in the past five years, and are projected to get as low as 65 million tons and not recover in 2022.
Declining Coal Stockpiles
Monthly coal stockpiles have fallen below the normal range, and are forecast to remain below normal through the end of 2022.
Due to low coal stockpiles at power plants, the regional electric grid operator, PJM Interconnection, has taken steps to prevent a system collapse this winter similar to the one in Texas in February.
PJM imposed new rules on power plants in 13 states and the District of Columbia to make sure electricity generators do not run short of fuel during a cold snap.
The rules would allow some coal generators to curtail operations to build up emergency reserves, increasing electricity prices, which are already rising.
Increasing energy prices this year have made coal more competitive.
Federal energy officials estimate that coal power plants will generate about 160 billion kilowatt hours more electricity this year, a 21 percent increase from 2020.
Coal’s share of the nation’s power mix is expected to increase from 19 percent last year to 23 percent this year.
While there is still plenty of coal in the ground in the United States, coal producers have been dis-incentivized by policy makers to invest, which would increase the reliability of the grid.
Policy makers no longer seem to value reliability and resilience as they seek to add intermittent wind and solar power plants to the grid through mandates and subsidies.
As such, the coal industry is wary about making the financial investments to ensure the supply chain remains healthy and able to provide reliable and resilient electricity.
PJM attempted to address incentives with its temporary rules requiring coal generators to keep larger stockpiles on hand this winter.
After the Polar Vortex of 2014, it also adopted “capacity performance” rules to pay power producers to winterize their plants and fuel supplies, and also enacted severe penalties on producers that failed to perform as promised.
American producers of coal, natural gas, oil, and propane are also facing increased demand for energy overseas, particularly in China and India.
China’s still-expanding coal fleet of 1,080 gigawatts is as large as the entire U.S. electricity generation capacity combined, including gas, nuclear, renewables, petroleum and coal.
China’s coal-power capacity is five times bigger than the U.S. coal fleet.
COP26 Hypocrisy
Achieving climate goals requires India and China, the largest and third largest emitters of greenhouse gases, to stop producing and using fossil fuels.
But, both China and India have populations and economies that are pushing the demands on their power systems as they seek to break free from poverty.
While these countries continue to use coal-fired power plants and to continue to build them, the Biden-Harris administration is expecting the American public to believe that they will eventually comply with their outstanding climate agreements.
China’s premier has already indicated that it can change its commitments at will, and tear up its 2030 commitment to peak carbon dioxide emissions.
Further, India had the language limiting coal energy in the draft COP26 agreement changed. India pushed the other nations to use terminology related to slowing coal power usage rather than deliberately transitioning away from it.
These climate change deals are one-sided, unilateral agreements that nations break at will and with impunity."
"No $4,500 Electric Car For You"
Source:
"If electric cars are so very necessary to prevent “climate change” – that imminently looming apocalypse – then why is the government that’s pushing them so hard refusing to allow the ones people could afford on the market?
In China, one can buy various electric cars for less than $10,000 – just as one can buy useful not-electric little trucks like the $9,000 Zhengtu pick-up truck made by GM’s Chinese subsidiary, Wuling, that Americans aren’t allowed to buy . . . in America.
How about an EV that costs about what three iPhones cost?
That would be the $4,500 Wuling Hongguang Mini.
Also made by GM’s Wuling Chinese subsidiary.
It is the best-selling EV, in China – outselling Tesla, one of the government-mandated EVs Americans are allowed to buy.
If they can afford to buy it.
Which most Americans can’t because most Americans cannot even consider spending – financing – a car that will cost them close to $50,000 – plus interest.
Tesla founder Elon Musk claims he’s developing an EV that will cost less than $30,000 but he also claims he’ll be space-touristing people to Mars
and even if his promise regarding a $30k-ish EV ends up being fulfilled, $30k-ish is still at least $10,000 less affordable than a non-electric economy car such as a Toyota Corolla or Hyundai Accent
and $25,000 less affordable than the Wuling and other Chinese-available EVs that are unavailable in America.
But made by American corporations, such as GM.
Consider that.
Ask yourself . . . why is that?
... over there – is an electric car practically anyone could afford.
An EV many high school kids could afford to pay cash for.
An EV that makes financial sense, an attribute no EV available in America can tout.
The Wuling isn’t ludicrously fast, of course.
Because it’s meant to be ludicrously easy to buy.
So as to encourage as many people as possible – especially young people – to buy one.
It’s small and light – just under 1,500 pounds.
For that reason, it only needs a 17.4 horsepower electric motor powered by a 9.2-13.8 kilowatt-hour battery pack that weighs a fourth what a Tesla’s 1,000 pound battery pack does.
A Tesla is designed for ludicrous speed, to make up for the fact that it isn’t affordable – its speed being responsible for that (and its absurd weight)
in a ludicrous feedback loop that makes no sense unless the point of electric cars like the Tesla is to make sure most people cannot afford to drive one.
Another factor driving that is the expectation that all EVs sold in America be capable of high speed, highway driving
– which drives up the cost of the EVs available in America by at least doubling the size and capacity of the battery pack needed to make that possible . . . sort of.
Even with 1,000-plus pounds of batteries, a Tesla can only go about as far as the gas-hoggiest non-electric cars, such as the Dodge Challenger Hellcat (also capable of ludicrous speed, just without the wait).
One hogs gas – the other hogs energy.
The little Wuling three-door hogs neither.
Its not a highway car.
It cannot go 150 miles down the highway at 70-plus MPH.
The top speed of this little EV is 62 MPH and its maximum range is just over 106 miles on a charge.
But that is plenty of speed – and range – for millions of Americans who might want a car they could just buy, without making payments.
Which also recharges faster using less energy because there’s less to recharge.
But it’s not “saaaaaaaaafe”!
So emanates the squeal of apologia for the Wuling – and similar EVs available in China and other places – not being allowed here.
What they mean is, it’s not compliant – with the litany of federally mandated rules and regulations pertaining to how a car must absorb impacts in a crash;
that it must be fitted with air bags (which have recently proved to be very unsafe) and other such that may indeed lower the risk of being injured or killed . . . if the car is involved in an accident.
It does not mean the car will be or is more likely to be involved in an accident.
This is an important distinction.
According to the rules and regulations currently applicable to all new cars, a circa 2005 Mercedes S-Class sedan is not “safe,” either.
But a 2022 Toyota Corolla is.
Which would you rather be inside of in the event of an accident?
A new Tesla is also very “safe” – unless of course it catches fire.
Which it is more likely to, on account of its 1,000-plus pounds of extremely high voltage batteries that must absorb 400-plus volts of electricity, to “fast” charge.
It also has a tendency to have accidents, so it’s probably a good thing that it is “safe” – or rather, compliant.
The little Wuling would not do as well in a crash as a new Tesla, but since Americans aren’t allowed to buy the Wuling, it hardly matters.
Just as it hardly matters that a Tesla is “safe” – that is, compliant – since few Americans can afford it.
If the American government – the bureaucrats and apparatchiks who are the government – were truly motivated by the “climate crisis” rather than using the “climate crisis,” they would open America to affordable, sensible little EVs like the Wuling.
After all, it might “save the planet.”
It appears that the Chinese government is more interested in getting its people behind the wheel – about half a million of them over the past 12 months – while this government wants them somewhere else."