Wednesday, September 13, 2023
The Biden Administration Misleads the Public on the Vast Expanses of Land Needed for 'Net Zero'
The Department of Energy’s official line – echoed by many environmental activists and academics – is that the vast array of solar panels and wind turbines required to meet Biden’s goal of “100% clean electricity” by 2035 will require “less than one-half of one percent of the contiguous U.S. land area.” This topline number translates into 15,000 of the lower 48’s roughly 3 million square miles.
However, the government report that furnished those estimates also notes that the wind farm footprint alone could require an expanse nine times as large: 134,000 square miles.
Even that figure is misleading because it does not include land for the new transmission systems that would connect the energy, created by the solar panels carpeting the ground and skyscraper-tall wind turbines filling the horizons, to American businesses and homes.
“It’s hundreds of thousands of acres if not millions for transmissions alone,” said David Blackmon, an energy consultant and writer based in Texas. “The wind and solar farms will take enormous swaths of land all over the country and no one is talking about that.”
And these vast plots, along with the chains of transmission towers, do not include other aspects that would take up even more land: nationwide vehicle charging stations, mines for rare-earth minerals, maintenance space for huge propeller blades and panels, and so forth.
In addition, all projections increase substantially if the U.S. were to meet Biden’s larger goal of aligning the nation with a global plan, set by the International Energy Association and pushed by the World Economic Forum of Davos, dubbed “NetZero 2050.”
Professor Jesse Jenkins at Princeton University, whose work is often cited by renewable energy advocates, did not respond to RCI’s questions, but he detailed the scope of the challenge in the May/June issue of progressive Mother Jones magazine. He urged the U.S. to embark on a moon-shot level transformation of its energy sector, using hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars that Biden provided for the renewable sector in the spending bill that Democrats named the Inflation Reduction Act.
“We’ll have to build as much new clean generation by 2035 as the total electricity produced by all sources today, then build the same amount again by 2050,” Jenkins wrote. “This could ultimately require utility-scale solar projects that cover the size of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined, and wind farms that span an area equal to that of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.”
Given the ambitious goals and tight time frames Biden has committed the nation to, it seems natural to assume there would be a master plan detailing where and when this renewable infrastructure will be built and come online. Yet despite strong resistance by many communities across the country to serve as hosts for these massive projects, there has been no robust public debate about how all the necessary land will be acquired – and whether, for example, it will include the taking of private property through eminent domain or use of national park lands, an idea the government officially dismisses.
************************************************
How the Wheels Came Off Energy Secretary Granholm's Electric Vehicle Roadtrip
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, for whatever reason, decided that she would take a summer road trip — something that, along with everything else in Biden's America, has gotten more expensive — and declared that she would do it in an electric vehicle in an apparent attempt to show their capabilities and somehow convince Americans to drop some major moola on new EVs for their own lives. Things, however, did not go according to plan. In fact, they went so horribly bad that at one point police had to be called.
These revelations come courtesy of a National Public Radio reporter who gleefully joined Sec. Granholm for her EV roadtrip. As NPR explained, "Granholm's trip through the southeast, from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., was intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars."
Instead, Granholm's publicity stunt drew attention to the trials and tribulations of electric vehicle ownership — especially for those with non-Tesla EVs.
"I rode along with Granholm during her trip, eager to see firsthand how the White House intends to promote a potentially transformative initiative to the public and what kind of issues it would encounter on the road," NPR's Camila Domonoske effused. "Granholm is in many ways the perfect person to help pitch the United States' ambitious shift to EVs," she gushed, tossing her partially taxpayer-funded NPR objectivity out the EV's window.
But even NPR could not avoid retelling what happened when the trip intended to show off EVs had its proverbial wheels come off:
Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.
Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.
That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?
In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.
The sheriff's office couldn't do anything. It's not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge.
While highlighting one set of issues with the Biden administration's attempts to force an energy "transition," Granholm showed why such attempts to force Americans into buying only government-approved items — cars, appliances, food, etc. — don't go well. Without the free market moving along with demand from consumers, the system just won't work.
As the NPR reporter noted, "EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem." That's because Tesla has seen wild success without — and even in spite of — a lack of public support from the Biden administration which seems to go out of its way to avoid even mentioning Elon Musk's success getting Americans to switch to EVs without forcing them to do so.
As more people bought Teslas, more charging stations were established, contributing to more people buying Teslas, and even more chargers being added. The market met demand from consumers and the system works. But the clumsy and overreaching federal government is attempting to bind Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and force the market and consumers to follow its will. That just doesn't work, as Granholm discovered and demonstrated.
***************************************************
The Coming Eco-Totalitarianism
The Government’s plans to force Britain to achieve ‘Net Zero’ CO2 emissions by 2050 seem to be falling apart. Few people seem interested in buying expensive, range-limited electric vehicles. Even fewer want to replace their cheap efficient gas boilers with expensive and poor-performing heat pumps. Offshore windfarms were a key part of our Government’s ‘Net Zero’ decarbonisation plans, yet there were no companies bidding for the recent group of offshore windfarm contracts. And our rulers seem unable to make up their minds about which technology to choose for Britain’s new generation of SMRs (small modular nuclear reactors) even though Rolls Royce has already developed a version which can work in the hostile underwater operating environment of nuclear-powered submarines and so could be quickly and inexpensively adapted for use on dry land.
However, having realised that it cannot provide sufficient electricity to power Britain as a supposed ‘renewable energy superpower’, the Government has come up with a brilliant solution – force us to use much less electricity.
I recently wrote an article for the Daily Sceptic explaining some of the more worrying aspects of the Energy Bill currently approved by a massive majority in the Commons and likely to be enthusiastically passed with a similar massive majority in the Lords.
In my article I quoted several sections from the Energy Bill. However, as these were written in almost incomprehensible legalese, I though it might be useful to describe three common scenarios which will arise once the Energy Bill has become law.
First, there is the replacement of existing electricity and gas meters. Our electricity and gas meters have a registered lifetime of anywhere between 10 and 25 years depending on the type of meter. Once a meter’s lifetime has expired, it should be replaced. Under the terms of the Energy Bill, someone from your power supplier will have the right to enter your home to replace your current meter with a smart meter. If you refuse him entry or try to refuse having a smart meter installed, he can legally return with police back-up, force entry into your home and use what is called “reasonable force” to restrain you while he rips out your old-fashioned meter and replaces it with a smart meter. “Reasonable force” might just mean handcuffing you during the installation or could even mean detaining you in a cell at the local police station while your meters are changed.
Second, there is what happens when you wish to rent or sell your home or another property. It seems likely that we will be banned from renting out or selling any residential property unless it has an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating of ‘C’ or above. Currently there are just over one million home sales a year in Britain. Of these home sales, around 41% have an EPC rating of ‘C’ or above. This means that under the terms of the Energy Bill, over 590,000 homes a year would have to have alterations made to improve their EPC rating before they could be rented out or sold. These alterations could range from just installing double glazing or adding a little loft or wall insulation to spending tens of thousands of pounds installing a heat pump which would include replacing all the pipes and radiators in a home and could even require ripping up carpets and floors to install underfloor heating.
Third, there are what are known as Energy Saving Opportunity Schemes (ESOS), where “opportunity” has a distinctly Orwellian flavour. With ever more homes having smart meters, energy suppliers will be able to identify towns, neighbourhoods, streets and even individual homes which Government ‘experts’ consider to be using too much electricity. The Energy Bill introduces ESOSs, which would give the legal right for energy inspectors to enter any home, using “reasonable force” if necessary, in order to make an energy-saving assessment and propose ways the homeowner could improve the property’s energy efficiency.
In all three of the above three scenarios, refusal by the homeowner to comply with the Government’s requirements would be a criminal offence with penalties of fines of up to £15,000 and imprisonment of up to one year. That a supposedly “Conservative” Government would use its parliamentary majority to introduce such intrusive and oppressive eco-totalitarianism is something that few of us would have imagined possible.
**********************************************
Australia: Energy lawyers experience record boom as renewables transition takes hold
An explosion of green tape under the Albanese government’s energy reforms has sparked a race between top law firms to hire energy transition and construction lawyers, with one international firm poaching a full nine-person team from a rival practice.
As top-tier law firm Baker McKenzie acquires a whole team of partners, associates and paralegals from competing practice Norton Rose Fulbright, lawyers across the country are taking on mammoth caseloads, hiring in record droves, and paying high sums for top quality talent who are across the growing number environmental and energy matters.
When Anthony Albanese at the G20 Summit committed to tripling Australia’s renewable energy technology capacity, and a global emissions peak by 2025, lawyers were keenly listening in.
Newly appointed Baker McKenzie construction boss Emanuel Confos told The Australian the interest in the renewables sector had increased at an incredible pace, to the point that “everybody wants to get a piece of the energy market”.
“This is a booming industry. In the same way any industry booms, there are people out there making a lot of money,” said Mr Confos, who has more that 20 years experience in the fast-growing energy and renewables sector.
“There is getting approvals to build a solar farm, getting an offtake agreement to sell the electricity, package it up and sell it on. This is a big industry gain.”
Mr Confos said when the first large scale solar farm was built in Australia in 2010, “no one was really interested”.
“Now, every place I go, people want to hear about energy work,” he said. “It is at the forefront of everything. The stockmarket is interested, investment houses are interested. Everyone wants to get a piece of the energy market.”
Since Labor has come to power, the government has legislated Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target as 43 per cent below the 2005 level, and are targeting net-zero emissions by 2050.
The government also introduced a safeguard mechanism to force the nation’s 215 biggest-emitting facilities to cut nearly 5 per cent of their emissions each year until the end of the decade.
Baker McKenzie partner Aylin Cunsolo said federal government policies were boosting work levels across both the public and private sector. “It’s a policy decision to achieve net-zero emissions, and that is a policy decision both at a government level but also at the private sector level. Part of that is driven by global targets, as well as shareholder pressure,” she said.
Ms Cunsolo said the firm had landed deals with major brands such as Aldi and Fujitsu to assist in securing power purchase agreements that allow the companies to contract directly with a renewable energy project to acquire electricity and green products.
Her colleague, energy partner Harriet Oldmeadow, agreed, saying community expectations had contributed to the booming market. “In Australia, there is 100 per cent an expectation that we turn ourselves to net zero,” she said.
“One of the most critical things for our clients … is ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and advising clients on how they meet their ESG (targets).”
Pinsent Masons construction partner Rob Buchanan told The Australian there would be an international shortage of energy transition, construction and infrastructure lawyers as the sector continued to heat up.
“The level of work in Australia in the infrastructure space – including energy and road infrastructure – has resulted in lawyers like that becoming more sought after and attracting better salaries,” he said. “I think globally there is going to be a shortage of high-quality lawyers that service the energy community.”
Mr Buchanan said the bulk of the work coming from the public sector related to issues with network transition as coal-fired stations power down and clean energy gears up.
“In Australia, we’ve seen the initial wave of solar and wind go in, and it’s become apparent because Australian is much bigger and the population density is lower and a lot of these installations are going in the middle of nowhere, and so we’ve seen a lot of novel problems come out of that,” he said.
“The main one is the problem with our transmission network which was designed to hold stable, coal-power generated electricity with no variations.”
Herbert Smith Freehills partner Nick Baker said there is an “incredible demand at the moment for people with deep energy sector experience.”
“We have seen a significant increase in energy work coming from all parts of sector. Renewables remains hot while energy security and storage related transactions and issues have emerged and are dominating headlines,” he said.
“These trends are driving M&A, project development, environment and planning, social licence, and disputes work, although finance is slower to take off.”
***************************************
My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment