green energy – Page 2

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

September 28, 2022

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

September 26, 2022

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

September 10, 2022

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

September 1, 2022

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.’”

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

August 11, 2022

Wind turbines are silhouetted against the sun at Black Law wind farm, in Black Law, Scotland, on Jan. 29, 2010. (Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

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”

August 4, 2022

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

March 1, 2022

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

The Price of Green Energy

February 15, 2022

The Price of Green Energy

https://youtu.be/CqSqNIsC04g

Limits to Green Energy Are Becoming Much Clearer

February 10, 2022

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

January 9, 2022

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

December 17, 2021

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…

Bright Green Lies

November 24, 2021

Bright Green Lies

Used Car Battery Problems Take Shine Off China’s ‘Green’ New Energy Vehicles

November 17, 2021

Workers assemble electric cars in a factory in Zouping, east China’s Shandong Province on Sept. 16, 2014. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

Used Car Battery Problems Take Shine Off China’s ‘Green’ New Energy Vehicles

In the last decade, China has rapidly expanded its “green” new energy vehicle (NEV) industry but recycling and disposing of hundreds of thousands of tons of used car batteries has become a pressing issue due to environmental concerns.

Growth in China’s NEV industry took off in 2014 when nearly 78,500 NEVs were produced and some 75,000 were sold. As of September of this year, China’s NEV registration reached 6.78 million, of which 5.52 million are fully electric vehicles.

The NEV industry predicts that its production and sales growth rate will remain above 40 percent in the next five years prompting the question of how to best manage the growing numbers of discarded lithium batteries from the NEVs.

Industry data shows that the service life of lithium batteries used in electric vehicles is generally 5 to 8 years, and the service life under warranty is 4 to 6 years. That means, tens of thousands of electric car batteries will soon need to be discarded or recycled, and millions more down the road.

According to the latest data from China Automotive Technology and Research Center, the cumulative decommissioning of China’s electric car batteries reached 200,000 tons in 2020 and the figure is estimated to climb to 780,000 tons by 2025.

Presently, most end-of-life batteries are traded in the unregulated black market, raising serious environmental concerns. If such batteries are not handled properly, they could cause soil, air, and water pollution.

“A 20-gram cell phone battery can pollute a water body equivalent to three standard swimming pools. If it is buried in the ground, it can pollute 1 square kilometer (247 acres) of land for about 50 years,” Wu Feng, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, once publicly stated.

Electric car batteries are many times larger than cell phone batteries.

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

Wood for the Trees: rush to green hydrogen masks mammoth plans to wood-chip the forests

November 16, 2021

Wood for the Trees: rush to green hydrogen masks mammoth plans to wood-chip the forests

biomass, green hydrogen, logging, wood chips — Biomass projects entail wood chips. Image: @john_kinnander, Unsplash

Is green hydrogen yet another spin with catastrophic consequences for the environment? Sue Arnold looks behind the greenwash to find wide-scale plans for logging for wood-chips.

Dominic Perrottet and his new Treasurer, Matt Kean, enthusiastically unveiled their $3billion “world leading” green hydrogen strategy for NSW last month, with promises of $80 billion in private investment and more than 10,000 jobs created.

What the two politicians didn’t say was that NSW forests would be the source feedstock for the so-called “renewable energy”. Nor did they detail that this latest effort to convince the public their government is “serious” about net zero commitment, is in fact yet another massive money pit labelled “renewable energy”. A green light to the corporate cowboys waiting to cash in on the net zero train.

One of the first cabs off the green hydrogen rank is the old coal-fired Redbank Power Station near Singleton. It is now owned by Verdant Earth Technology, previously known as Hunter Energy. The project plans to convert the station into a 150-megawatt biomass plant to generate 1,00,000 MWh of green baseload power, equivalent to supplying 200,000 homes with net zero CO2 emissions.

Pending approvals, Verdant plans to be operational with 16 tonnes of hydrogen production per day by the end of 2023.

What exactly is biomass? ScienceDirect’s definition is useful:

Forest residues are a by-product from forest harvesting, which is a major source of biomass for energy. This includes thinning, cutting stands for timber or pulp, clearing lands for construction or other use that also yields tops and branches usable for bioenergy. On top, stands damaged by insects, diseases or fire can be an additional sources of biomass.

Killing trees is not curbing emissions

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

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