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Europe Turned an Energy Crisis Into a Green Energy Sprint

An illustration of a window showing green gradients moving past with a radiator in the foreground.
Credit…Ibrahim Rayintakath

This was supposed to be a winter of energy crisis in Europe. Beginning last spring, not long after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fear of gas shortages spread across the continent, along with fears of what might follow. The coming winter crunch was compared to wartime, with energy experts less focused on whether it would bring rationing than how much. Others suggested that spectacular price spikes would mean suspensions of energy markets and that the continent as a whole would experience not a “cost of living crisis” but a crisis of “molecules” — in which there wasn’t enough energy to be had, no matter the price. A recession was simply taken for granted among the commentariat — almost like a badge of honor demonstrating the moral valor of standing up to Vladimir Putin.

Europe as a whole has indeed endured a lot through the cold months: dramatic spikes in energy prices, with wholesale prices for electricity and gas growing as much as 15-fold, often accompanied by similar spikes in government relief. Countries from Germany to Denmark and Italy spent more than 5 percent of G.D.P. to shield citizens from the crunch, enacting public conservation measures that darkened city streets and limited power use in other ways. In Britain, average bills were expected to grow by 80 percent before the government artificially lowered the average annual household energy bill to about $3,000. Across the continent, people turned their thermostats down and snuggled with hot water bottles at night. Industry was dialed back in places but also often found alternative power supplies.

All told, though, the worst has not come to pass. There were no blackouts, as experts were warning as recently as December…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Green Transition is Physically Impossible

The Green Transition is Physically Impossible

The Dark Agenda Behind the WEF’s Green Energy Push

The Dark Agenda Behind the WEF’s Green Energy Push

Recently, the COP27 meeting concluded in Egypt with the World Economic Forum laying out 40 metrics the world must accomplish by 2030, including the below ones that I thought were the most revealing of the ones they outlined:

(1)   Shut down 925 average-size coal plants a year;

(2)   Increase public transportation infrastructure 6X’s faster than the current rate to decrease individual driving;

(3)   Lower CO2 from cement production 10X’s faster than the current rate;

(4)   Reduce the rate of deforestation 2.5X’s faster;

(5)   Shift to plant-based diets 5X’s faster (call for a drastic reduction in beef consumption per capita in developed nations); and

(6)   Phase out oil subsidies 5X’s faster

The above policy directives are interesting for Directives (1) and (6) obviously feed into WEF’s agenda of

greatly increased reliance on inefficient expensive green energy, a policy agenda that will cause energy prices around the world to soar into unaffordable price levels for many people and create a decision in many households between feeding one’s family or heating/cooling one’s home during winter/summer seasons. Directive (2) is about reducing our rights to privacy and to future car ownership, an iteration of Klaus Shwab’s declaration that “you will own nothing and be happy”.  At first glance, Directive (3) seems to be a call for massively decreasing the levels of building construction in large cities around the world and stymying any commercial real estate growth, but new methodologies of fabricating cement that rely on electrolyzers and no CO2 production, if perfected, could accomplish Directive (3) without calling for a massive decrease in the rate of all commercial real estate growth.

Directive (4) is somewhat of a shock to me, because as you know, in this article, I called out the extreme hypocrisy of the WEF and other man-made climate change advocates in their dismissal of the massive contribution of rainforest destruction to increased levels of CO2 by these 13 companies:

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Addressing Climate Change Will Not “Save the Planet”

Addressing Climate Change Will Not “Save the Planet”

The dismal reality is that green energy will save not the complex web of life on Earth but the particular way of life of one domineering species.

A boiler tower surrounded by mirrors at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert, Calif., on Aug. 26, 2022. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY FINDS itself in a terrifying place today, witness to mass extinction, helpless to stop the march of industrial Homo sapiens, the pillage of habitat, the loss of wildlands, and the impoverishment of ecosystems. Many of its leading figures are in despair. “I’m 40 years into conservation biology and I can tell you we are losing badly, getting our asses kicked,” Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Barack Obama, told me recently. “There are almost no reasons to be optimistic.”This might explain the discipline’s desperate hitching of its wagon to the climate movement. Climate, after all, is the environmental cause du jour, eclipsing all other sustainability concerns, increasingly attractive as a rallying cry for a public that has canonized it as one of the major political, social, and economic issues of our time. Mainstream climate activism of the Bill McKibben variety points toward a grandly hopeful end within the confines of acceptable capitalist discourse: decarbonization of the global economy, with technologies driven by profit-seeking corporations subsidized by governments. Taking up this banner of optimistic can-do-ism, the environmental movement has convinced itself, and sought to convince the public, that with a worldwide build-out of renewable energy systems, humanity will power its dynamic industrial civilization with jobs-producing green machines while also — somehow — rescuing countless species from the brink.

“But this happens to be a lie,” Ashe told me. “The lie is that if we address the climate crisis, we will also solve the biodiversity crisis.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Rise of Public Health and ‘Green’ Police: Securitization Theory

The Rise of Public Health and ‘Green’ Police: Securitization Theory

Policing has come a long way since the days of good ole boy Barney Fife.

Once upon a time, cops were tasked primarily with things like catching murderers and rapists and protecting property.

They were always used, of course, whenever necessary, to protect state interests – but, then again, the state’s interests weren’t always so obviously nefarious and illegitimate as they are today.

Law enforcement’s purview expansion is explained in large part by securitization theory.

As a result of the this process, peculiar new breeds of law enforcement – Public Health© officers and green police – have sprung up throughout the West.

Securitization theory: the advent of new security threats

The basic premise of securitization theory in political science is that, given the opportunity, a state will endlessly concoct new security “threats” as a justification to exercise greater power outside of the constraints of the normal political process:

“Securitisation theory shows us that national security policy is not a natural given, but carefully designated by politicians and decision-makers. According to securitisation theory, political issues are constituted as extreme security issues to be dealt with urgently when they have been labelled as ‘dangerous’… by a ‘securitising actor’ who has the social and institutional power to move the issue ‘beyond politics’.”

The process, in a nutshell, works like this:

  • The government identifies a new existential “threat,” either legitimate or overblown, either naturally occurring or cynically engineered by the state itself.
  • The corporate media and corporate state stoke fear about the threat into the hearts and minds of a gullible public
  • In the fog of panic, the state slyly provisions itself with new authority and resources to combat the threat, thereby increasing its power

The threats change, but whether “domestic terrorism,” COVID-19, or climate change, the process largely remains the same.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Global Water Crisis Could Crush The Energy Industry

The Global Water Crisis Could Crush The Energy Industry

  • Water is growing more scarce due to climate change.
  • Water scarcity could derail the green energy boom, and even hinder fossil fuel production.
  • With rising concerns over water scarcity, mainly due to climate change, there are fears that the big transition to renewable energy will be hindered even further.

For years, the energy sector, and almost every other sector, has taken water for granted, viewing it as an abundant resource. But as we move into a new era of renewable energy, the vast amounts of water required to power green energy operations may not be so easy to find. And it’s not just renewables that are under threat from water scarcity, as it also hinders fossil fuel production and threatens food security.

In recent months, we have seen extreme droughts across Europe and the U.S., which are finally making people realise the significance of water security. Stefano Venier, CEO of the Italian energy infrastructure company Snam, highlights the huge impact recent droughts have had on both food security and energy production. Labelled as ‘Europe’s worst drought in 500 years’, the low water levels have restricted shipping capabilities, as well as drying up soil and reducing summer crop yields.

Venier explains, “For a long time, water was considered [as being] for free, as something that is fully available in any quantity.” He went on to say, “Now, we are discovering that with climate change … water can become scarce.” And so, “we have to regain the perception of importance, and the value [that] … the water has, also, with respect to … energy production… we have discovered that without water, enough water, we cannot produce the energy we need, or we can’t ship the fuels for filling the power plants,” he added.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Germany’s energy suicide: an autopsy

Germany’s energy suicide: an autopsy

When Green fanatic Robert Habeck, posing as Germany’s Economy Minister, said earlier this week “we should expect the worst” in terms of energy security, he conveniently forgot to spell out how the whole farce is a Made in Germany cum Made in Brussels crisis.

Flickers of intelligence at least still glow in rare Western latitudes, as indispensable strategic analyst William Engdahl, author of A Century of Oil, released a sharp, concise summary revealing the skeletons in the glamour closet.

Everyone with a brain following the ghastly Eurocrat machinations in Brussels was aware of the main plot – yet hardly anyone among average EU citizens. Habeck, Chancellor “Liver Sausage” Scholz, the European Commission (EC) Green Energy VP Timmermans, EC dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen, they are all involved.

In a nutshell: as Engdahl describes it, this is about “the EU plan to de-industrialize one of the most energy-efficient industrial concentrations on the planet.”

That’s a practical translation of the UN Green Agenda 2030 – which happens to be metastasized into crypto Bond villain Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset – now renamed “Great Narrative”.

The whole scam started way back in the early 2000s: I remember it vividly, as Brussels used to be my European base in the early “war on terror” years.

At the time, the talk of the town was the “European energy policy”. The dirty secret of such policy is that the EC, “ advised” by JP MorganChase as well as the usual mega speculative hedge funds, went all out into what Engdahl describes as “a complete deregulation of the European market for natural gas.”

That was sold to the Lugenpresse (“lying media”) as “liberalization”. In practice, that’s savage, unregulated casino capitalism, with the “free” market fixing prices while dumping long-term contracts – such as the ones struck with Gazprom.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dead of Winter

Dead of Winter

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” – Henry Kissinger

In the United Kingdom, a grassroots protest movement has broken out in response to the ongoing energy crisis. With the bill from its failed national policies coming due, ordinary citizens are organizing campaigns to ensure they are not the ones left holding the bag. The mission of Don’t Pay UK is to gather at least one million commitments from Her Majesty’s loyal subjects to simply stop paying their energy bills as of October 1, 2022. At the time of this writing, Don’t Pay UK has passed 130,000 signatures. We expect that number to grow.

In reading a recent profile of the movement by Euronews Green, we were struck by the framing of the crisis by some of the movement’s organizers. This quote from the piece and the photo we have reproduced below caught our attention (emphasis added throughout):

Lewis Ford, an organiser from Hull, agrees the movement is ‘a lot about solidarity’, especially for those forced to choose between heating their home and feeding their family.

‘We’re already talking about the idea of setting up warm banks, which is an absolutely preposterous idea,’ the 31-year-old IT consultant tells Euronews Green. ‘We’re one of the richest nations. So, it’s not like there’s no money, it’s the fact that the money is being kept in one space.’”

Unicorn hunter | Euronews Green

Sadly for Mr. Ford and the well-intended but totally naïve young woman holding out hope that the unicorn concept of “cheaper cleaner greener” energy is actually a thing, they are both victims of insidious propaganda…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Big Green Lie Almost Everyone Claims to Believe 

The Big Green Lie Almost Everyone Claims to Believe 

Almost every member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, pays homage to the Big Green Lie. So do all the past and remaining Conservative candidates vying to be prime minister of the UK and every candidate currently vying for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. So does virtually all of the mainstream press.

The Big Green Lie—that carbon dioxide is a pollutant—is so pervasive that even those considered skeptics—including right-wing NGOs and pundits—generally adhere to the orthodoxy, differing not in their stated belief that CO2 is a pollutant but only in how calamitous a pollutant it is.

Because everyone now participates in the “CO2 emissions are bad” lie, the debate over climate policy hasn’t been over whether a CO2 problem exists but over how urgently CO2 needs to be addressed, and how it should be addressed. Do we have eight years left before Armageddon becomes inevitable or decades? Do we get off fossil fuels by building nuclear plants or wind turbines? Should we change our lifestyles to need less of everything? Or should we mitigate this evil—the view of those deemed climate minimalists—by shielding our continents from a rising of the oceans by enclosing them behind sea walls?

With almost everyone across the political spectrum publicly agreeing that curbing CO2 is a good thing, the debate has been between those who want to do good quickly by reaching net-zero in 2040 and sticks in the mud who want to slow down the doing of a good thing. With discourse careening down rabbit holes, almost everyone gets lost pursuing solutions to Alice-in-Wonderland delusions—and wasting trillions of dollars in the process.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Lowdown on the “Climate Act”

THE LOWDOWN ON THE “CLIMATE ACT”

This past week the media announced an historic climate legislation deal was struck in the Senate. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, ( a misleading title because the Act will do nothing to tame inflation) will allocate $370 billion in spending toward a “Green Energy” future.

Where is the money going?

According to the Wall Street Journal it would subsidize  “wind, solar, critical minerals, biofuels, hydrogen, carbon capture, nuclear, ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel, lithium-ion batteries, electric-vehicle charging stations and more.” Additionally there will be $80 billion in rebates for home improvements and electric vehicles, $20 billion in inexpensive federal loans to build “clean vehicle” factories among other allocations.

The money we carry around in our wallets, purses and resides in our bank accounts is used to buy goods and services. Money represents and is a medium of exchange for  minerals, metals, biomass and energy.

$370 billion from this Act will be deployed in the economy to extract, manufacture, fabricate and deliver those materials to shift us from an energy source that emits carbon.

The International Energy Agency states that an electric car takes six times more mineral inputs than a car. And according to the Manhattan Institute, building wind turbines and solar panels requires ten times more materials compared to machines that burn fossil energy.

And many of the minerals and chemicals used in the processing of solar panels such as phosphine, arsenic, lead, chromium, trichloroethane, stannic chloride, and others are highly toxic to humans.

The overwhelmingly enormous amount of mining and future wastes will create unprecedented long term pollution and destruction of tens of millions of acres of habitat and fresh waterways, endangering human and planetary health.

Additionally if this Act makes buying energy and materials cheaper for the average American what will they do with those savings?…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Carbon Neutral Myth: Why the Green Tech Revolution Will Not Solve Climate Change

Carbon Neutral Myth: Why the Green Tech Revolution Will Not Solve Climate Change

The Price of Green Energy

The Price of Green Energy

https://youtu.be/CqSqNIsC04g

Limits to Green Energy Are Becoming Much Clearer

Limits to Green Energy Are Becoming Much Clearer

We have been told that intermittent electricity from wind and solar, perhaps along with hydroelectricity, can be the basis of a green economy. Things are increasingly not working out as planned, however. Natural gas or coal used for balancing the intermittent output of renewables is increasingly high-priced or not available. It is becoming clear that modelers who encouraged the view that a smooth transition to wind, solar, and hydroelectric is possible have missed some important points.

Let’s look at some of the issues:

[1] It is becoming clear that intermittent wind and solar cannot be counted on to provide adequate electricity supply when the electrical distribution system needs them.

Early modelers did not expect that the variability of wind and solar would be a huge problem. They seemed to believe that, with the use of enough intermittent renewables, their variability would cancel out. Alternatively, long transmission lines would allow enough transfer of electricity between locations to largely offset variability.

In practice, variability is still a major problem. For example, in the third quarter of 2021, weak winds were a significant contributor to Europe’s power crunch. Europe’s largest wind producers (Britain, Germany and France) produced only 14% of installed capacity during this period, compared with an average of 20% to 26% in previous years. No one had planned for this kind of three-month shortfall.

In 2021, China experienced dry, windless weather so that both its wind and hydroelectric power were low. The country found it needed to use rolling blackouts to deal with the situation. This led to traffic lights failing and many families needing to eat candle-lit dinners.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rushing headlong into electrification, the West is replacing one energy master with another

Global Coal Power Demand On Track For Record As Green Energy Transition Crumbles

Global Coal Power Demand On Track For Record As Green Energy Transition Crumbles

There’s no question that the ‘greenification’ of the global economy has returned many industrial countries to coal in 2021. New data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that the amount of electricity generated worldwide from coal is on track to hit a record high.

IEA’s Coal 2021 report says global power generation from coal soared 9% in 2021 to an all-time high of 10,350 terawatt-hours. The rebound comes amid a rash of green policies and stupid political choices, such as decommissioning oil and gas-fired power plants and fossil fuel exploitation projects, ironically resulting in an energy crisis worldwide.

“The rebound is being driven by this year’s rapid economic recovery, which has pushed up electricity demand much faster than low-carbon supplies can keep up,” IEA said. Also, the dramatic rise in natural gas prices forced power plants to source coal as a cheaper alternative.

Overall coal demand, including energy-intensive industries such as cement and steel, is expected to increase 6% this year. Though it shouldn’t surpass the record consumption levels of 2013/2014, IEA said. It added coal demand could hit a new record high in 2022. 

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the increase was “a worrying sign of how far off track the world is in its efforts to put emissions into decline towards net zero.”

The IEA said that China is responsible for half of the coal-fired power generation worldwide and will increase by 9% year-on-year increase.

“The pledges to reach net zero emissions made by many countries, including China and India, should have very strong implications for coal – but these are not yet visible in our near-term forecast, reflecting the major gap between ambitions and action,” said Keisuke Sadamori, Director of Energy Markets and Security at the IEA.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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