Sweden Dumps Climate Agenda, Scraps Green Energy Targets

Sweden has just dealt a severe blow to the globalist climate agenda by scraping its green energy targets.

In a statement announcing the new policy in the Swedish Parliament, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson warned that the Scandinavian nation needs “a stable energy system.”

Svantesson asserted that wind and solar power are too “unstable” to meet the nation’s energy requirements.

Instead, the Swedish Government is shifting back to nuclear power and has ditched its targets for a “100% renewable energy” supply.

The move is a major blow to unreliable and inefficient technology.

Countries are being pushed toward “renewable energy” to meet the goals of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) green agenda.

The WEF’s green agenda is being heavily pushed by the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), Paris Climate Agreement, World Bank, and Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration.

Announcing Sweden’s new policy, Svantesson said: “This creates the conditions for nuclear power. “We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system.”

Environmental campaign group Net Zero Watch has welcomed the move. The group argues that the Swedish decision is “an important step in the right direction, implicitly acknowledging the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.”

Under its new direction, Sweden now views nuclear power as being critical to the nation’s “100% fossil-free” energy future. Sweden can “afford to reject fossil fuels, relying on nuclear and hydro and biomass,” Net Zero Watch suggests.

Svantesson also sent a warning to other Western nations who are blindly pushing to meet the energy requirements of the WEF’s green agenda.

In “substantial industrialized economies… only a gas to the nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive,” Svantesson noted.

Experts have argued that lowering carbon dioxide emissions is not really a worthwhile goal for an individual country or globally. The potential harms of the gas are uncertain and exaggerated while the benefits are overlooked.

Dr. John Constable, Net Zero Watch’s Energy Director, said that “living close to Russia focuses the mind.”

The Swedish people wish to “ground their economy in an energy source, nuclear, that is physically sound and secure, unlike renewables which are neither,” he explains.

Other world governments are continuing “to live in a fantasy” about meeting the green agenda goals, Constable added. “But we are coming to the end of the green dream.

https://slaynews.com/news/sweden-dumps-climate-agenda-scraps-green-energy-targets/ ?

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NYC rules crack down on coal, wood-fired pizzerias — must cut carbon emissions up to 75%

Historic Big Apple pizza joints could be forced to dish out mounds of dough under a proposed city edict targeting pollutant-spewing coal-and-wood-fired ovens, The Post has learned.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted new rules that would order eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by up to 75%.

“All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality,” DEP spokesman Ted Timbers said in a statement Sunday. “This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible.”

The rule could require pizzerias with such ovens installed prior to May 2016 to buy pricey emission-control devices — with the owner of one Brooklyn joint saying he’s already tossed $20,000 on an air filter system in anticipation of the new mandate.

“Oh yeah, it’s a big expense!” said Paul Giannone, the owner of Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint. “It’s not just the expense of having it installed, it’s the maintenance. I got to pay somebody to do it, to go up there every couple of weeks and hose it down and you know do the maintenance.”

Giannone added that while the air filter is “expensive and it’s a huge hassle,” it also has some upsides. “My neighbors are much happier. I had a guy coming in for years complaining that the smoke was, you know, going right into his apartment and I haven’t seen him since I got the scrubber installed.”

Other iconic pizza joints facing the heat include Lombardi’s in Little Italy, Arturo’s in Soho, John’s of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, Patsy’s in Turtle Bay and the Upper West Side and Grimaldi’s near the Brooklyn Bridge — that pride themselves on having their pies baked in coal-and-wood-fired ovens.

A city official said that under 100 restaurants total would be impacted.

One pizza restaurateur, who requested anonymity, told The Post that sensitive negotiations are currently taking place with DEP officials on whether to grandfather in or exempt the dozens of coal-and-wood-oven-fired pizza joints from the mandate.

He said politicians and bureaucrats should stop messing with their crust. “This is an unfunded mandate and it’s going to cost us a fortune not to mention ruining the taste of the pizza totally destroying the product,” the restaurateur, who has a coal-fired oven, fumed.

“If you f—k around with the temperature in the oven you change the taste. That pipe, that chimney, it’s that size to create the perfect updraft, keeps the temp perfect, it’s an art as much as a science. You take away the char, the thing that makes the pizza taste great, you kill it,” he claimed.

“And for what? You really think that you’re changing the environment with these eight or nine pizza ovens?!” the restaurateur added.

Some crusty customers also told city officials not to tamper with their slice. “I’m all for responsible environmental practice but tell Al Gore to take one less private jet or something. Give me a break!” said Brooklyn Heights resident Saavi Sharma, 32, a financier who brought her parents and cousin visiting from India for their first slice at Grimaldi’s, referring to the former vice president and climate change activist.

“I’ve been bragging about this pizza to my family for like five years,” Sharma said Sunday. Don’t mess with this!”

https://nypost.com/2023/06/25/nyc-rules-crack-down-on-coal-wood-fired-pizzerias-must-cut-carbon-emissions-up-to-75/

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The UK still needs fossil fuels, whether activists like it or not

The Supreme Court is hearing a case today that, if successful, could mean the end of new fossil fuel projects in the UK on climate grounds.

The justices will decide whether to reverse approval for oil extraction at Horse Hill based on downstream emissions from the use of the oil. Whatever the outcome, this case is a damning indictment of the UK’s absurd climate laws.

This is a long-running affair. Horse Hill was first test drilled in 2012 and permitted by Surrey County Council to expand to a commercial scale in 2019. This is the teeth of opposition from local campaigners, including the Weald Action Group, Friends of the Earth, and the litigant Sarah Finch.

The activists want to stop all domestic fossil fuel production, regardless of the harm this would do to our energy security and bills. To achieve this goal, they have been using judicial review, rooted in their interpretation of the Climate Act and a raft of complex planning, permitting and environmental protection laws, to delay and obstruct developments. They have been appealing and escalating at every turn. Consequently, four years into what should be a simple planning matter – to allow a legal business to expand – the case reaches the Supreme Court. No wonder the UK’s economic growth is anaemic.

The central legal point is whether Surrey County Council should have required the developer to report consumption (or Scope 3) emissions and test them against a retained EU Directive and the UK’s climate commitments. But this outcome would be absurd. Holding a producer to account for the downstream climate impact makes no sense.

In the first instance, an oil producer cannot accurately predict the future emissions profile of their product, which could be used anywhere in the world. It is highly dependent on ever-changing use cases and the pace of technological development (e.g. an oil producer 30 years ago would have failed to predict how much more fuel-efficient cars are today). These estimates may be of interest to climate nerds; but they are not relevant considerations for development, at least not in a country serious about its energy security.

In practice, we either drill here or rely on imports from allies like the USA, dodgy Opec regimes, or even Russian exports

More importantly, there is a large substitution effect. If we don’t get oil from Horse Hill, it will simply come from somewhere else and at a higher cost for consumers and the environment. Stopping Horse Hill would prove nothing more than a pyrrhic victory.

The UK is still 75 to 80 per cent dependent on fossil fuels for our power, heating, transport and industrial needs. Whatever happens to the pace of our future energy transition, we will remain dependent on oil and gas at least to some extent for at least 20 to 30 more years, and likely longer. Furthermore, cheap energy remains an essential feature of a thriving economy and, as we have discovered over the past year, a lack of energy has dire consequences for households and businesses.

In practice, we either drill here or rely on imports from allies like the USA, dodgy Opec regimes, or even Russian exports (filtered through third parties like China and India). These imports will be more expensive and environmentally damaging. For example, Liquid Natural Gas, which requires condensing, shipping and expanding, is 2 to 3 times riskier to the climate than home extraction.

It is self-evident that oil not drilled in Horse Hill will increase imports, with the near certainty of a higher emissions profile. It might feel nice for activists to export our emissions, but it does little good.

Blame for this mess lies less with the campaigners – bar their failure to understand trade-offs – than with the politicians creating laws that enable them to cripple the country’s energy supply. The creation of a legal target means subverting pragmatism to ideological purity. It hands the power to disruptive activists to delay genuine projects and ultimately to judges to make complex trade-offs. This reduces democratic accountability. Even when nakedly political cases fail, the risk of expensive and lengthy disputes creates a chilling effect on investment.

It may already be too late for oil and gas in the UK. The Conservatives and Labour are competing to introduce new obstacles to ‘dirty development’; from fracking bans onshore to development moratoriums offshore and random windfall taxes. They both talk about reforming planning rules to enable renewables, an unreliable alternative. But even here the pace is glacial and the detail scant, while the logic of general planning reform to get everything built faster escapes them.

If the campaigners win, however, the collapse of investment will be faster. The developers only won by a 2 to 1 margin at the earlier Court of Appeals stage. If your business can be shut down by activist judges, or neutral ones struggling to cope with laws so complex there is no clarity, there will be no business. The onus then falls on the politicians to understand and fix the mess that they have created. The alternative is more emissions, higher costs and greater risks of blackouts, freezeouts and queues at the pumps.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/the-uk-still-needs-fossil-fuels-whether-activists-like-it-or-not/

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The Tough Case for Electric Trucks

Elon Musk’s trick with Tesla was not making a good electric car. That isn’t enough. What made Tesla so successful is that he built a car that was better than any of its competitors, and happened to be electric. He pulled this off with the Model S premium sedan; then repeated it with the smaller Model 3; and repeated it again with crossover Model Y, which became the best-selling new car in quarter one 2023.

In 2019, Mr. Musk promised to pull off the same trick for the pickup market, with his futuristic, polygonal Cybertruck. The thesis was simple. An electric powertrain is more space efficient than a diesel engine yet mechanically simpler, far more powerful, with instant torque, and low running costs. It made business sense too.

The Ford F-150 remains America’s best-selling vehicle, and potential customers aren’t concerned by the added weight and loss of driving dynamics that comes with batteries. Though the Cybertruck is still yet to release, Ford, GM, and Rivian all bought in, and have brought electric trucks to the market.

But the reality of pickup is not that simple, and flaws of electric power become unignorable when faced with the loads, tows, and rough roads of trucking. Put simply, if you need a pickup for work, your old Ram will still outshine the brightest new EV option.

To the layman, an electric truck makes a lot of sense. A pickup consists of two long rails, with wheels and suspension bolted to the bottom of them, a cabin and engine to the front, and a bed at the rear. That’s strikingly reminiscent of the ‘skateboard’ model that underlies most electric cars — motors on the corners, a bed of batteries in the floor, with a body on top. Simply fill those rails with a bed of batteries, replace the engine with electric motors, and voila.

But three chief problems remain. Electric trucks are more expensive to buy, far more extensive to repair, and have worse, less reliable range.

For the first: a combustion F-150 starts at $33,695 but an electric F-150 Lightning will set you back, minimum by more than $59,564, if you wait until next year. And it only gets worse when looking at competitors.

Rivian announced their R1T would start at $67,500, but when production started, this had soared to almost $80,000. Though GM and Ford both promise to make sub-$50,000 versions of their EV trucks, they’re not there yet. General Motors’ debut EV pickup was the $112,596 Hummer EV ‘Edition 1.’ And none of this accounts for dealer markups.

And what do you get for this EV premium? More technology, which need not be EV exclusive, and more problems, which are.

You don’t need a Tesla for semi-autonomous driving, given that Cadillac pairs their Super Cruise system with their gas devouring Escalade, and large touch screens are coming to all cars — sadly.

However, though electric vehicles are theoretically easier to repair than their combustion engine equivalents, the reality is that batteries age, particularly with heavy use. Battery exchange systems — like swapping out a barbecue’s gas cylinder — have yet to take off, so electric cars are ticking down to an eventual, inevitable multi-thousand dollar battery replacement bill, or a premature relocation to the scrapheap.

This is concerning for commuter cars, but the average driver changes cars roughly every seven years, upgrading to something newer, fancier, or more accommodating to their current lifestyle. By contrast, you may use the same truck for twenty years; and as the battery weakens, the range will too.

More than either the price or the eventual repair bill, the range issue is the biggest problem; and the most impermeable. On paper, an F-150 Lightning may go further on a full charge than a competitor with a full tank, but electric range is far more sensitive to circumstances.

Lightning owners report their range sometimes halving when the temperature drops, and heavy payloads and towing noticeably eat into it too. As a Ford representative reportedly told Neal Pollack in the Observer, “The 300-mile range is assuming you’re floating on marshmallows while tugged along by a unicorn.”

Given that towing and hauling are the main functions of a working truck, and unicorns and marshmallow floats are in short supply, the risk of running out of charge is often a dealbreaker. Fast charging stations are almost as rare as the aforementioned unicorn, and if you find one, it’s usually accompanied by a long queue or an “Out of Order” sign. And even so, it’s still a lot faster to stop at a gas station

Will it always be the case that electric pickups are far inferior to their combustion powered cousins? No.

Battery technology continues to improve at a rapid pace, the price of EVs will fall with further adoption, and charging networks continue to grow. Even without incoming bans on new combustion-powered cars, there’s a lot of inherent promise in pairing EV systems with utility vehicles.

Without a large engine to account for, the newly announced Telo MT1 has its cabin shifted right to the front, allowing for a full-size bed in a pickup the size of a Mini Cooper. That’s great, but it’s just a computer render with a pre-order page, and who knows if it ever releases.

Nikola Motors and Lordstown Motors were once the next big EV start-ups, promising to bring electric trucks to market with better technology and lower prices than the big players. Last month, both companies faced NASDAQ delisting, after their share prices fell beneath a dollar. In October, Nikola’s founder, Trevor Milton, was found guilty on three federal charges of wire and security fraud.

It’s only a matter of time before electric trucks work as well as they do on paper. But it will take time. Put simply, if you’re happy with your F-150, don’t trade it in for an electric version.

At least not yet.

https://www.nysun.com/article/the-tough-case-for-electric-trucks

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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

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