The Great 'Green Energy Transition' That Wasn't
One of the textbook marketing flops of all time was the Ford Edsel sedan, which was heralded as the hot new car in the late 1950s. All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can't-miss. Henry Ford (the car was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales.
But one big thing went wrong: Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what they thought of the new car. As it turned out, they hated it. So instead of sales of 400,000, Americans bought 10,000, and the model was embarrassingly discontinued.
The obvious lesson for the industry: You can't bribe Americans to buy cars they don't want. Given the all-in approach to electric vehicles at Ford and General Motors, it's clear that Detroit never got the message.
Last week, Honda and GM announced an end to their two-year collaboration in building a platform for lower-cost EVs. Honda execs said it was too hard.
Amazingly, less than 10% of all new car sales over the last two years were EVs. This is despite the fact that the U.S. government is writing a $7,500 check to people for buying an EV, and some states are kicking in $5,000 more. The Texas Policy Foundation calculates that all-in EV subsidies can reach $40,000 per vehicle. It would practically be cheaper for the government to purchase a new gas vehicle for every American car buyer.
Energy expert Robert Bryce estimates that Ford has lost $62,000 for each EV it has rolled off the assembly line. That's hardly a road to profitability.
Meanwhile, the news is even worse for wind and solar power. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "clean energy" investment funds are tanking, with some down as much as 70% in recent months. Solar has been one of the worst-performing industry stocks this year.
This collapse is happening right when Exxon and Chevron have engineered a combined $110 billion blockbuster acquisitions to expand oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin in Texas, one of the biggest oil fields in the world. This year, they both reported their largest profits ever.
They and their investors are looking at the real-world data, not green energy propaganda. In 2023, the world is guzzling oil and gas like never before. Global consumption of fossil fuels was higher in 2022 than at any time in human history, even as the developed countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to stop oil, gas and coal.
Despite the $370 billion green energy slush fund stashed in the federal budget, almost 80% of our energy still comes from old-fashioned fossil fuels. We're a long, long way from "net zero." And remember: Unlike green energy, fossil fuels get almost no subsidies. In fact, they pay taxes.
All of this is to say that there is no "global energy transition" going on. If there is one, it's away from green energy, not toward it.
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Climate Change Hysteria and the Rise of the Religious Left
The climate catastrophe crusade has been joined by a new regiment of converts: the religious left wing. The troop strength has been building over recent decades; the last few years, however, have seen a surge in the power of this cohort.
The religious contingent is imbued with a spiritual fervor. Unfortunately for the Christian faithful, the spirit consists of the spirit of this age, or, as the apostle Paul might put it, “this present evil age.” And unlike Paul, who announced that his job was to preach “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” the climate crusader’s job is to preach the word of Jesus and his calling for climate action.
Background on some of the most recent efforts of what appears to be an alignment with the religious left can be found in a book by Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, vice president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. The book is “Following Jesus in a Warming World: A Christian Call to Climate Action” (IVP, Downers Grove, Illinois, February 2023).
The urgency expressed in the book is based on the standard left-wing mantra of weather disasters that supposedly represent proof of a present and future climate danger brought about by culpable humans living comfortably via fossil fuels.
Yet the author would do well to expand his scientific perspective by learning about climate change from qualified experts in the field with a different and quite reasonable viewpoint — renowned scientists such as Steven Koonin, former undersecretary of science in the Department of Energy under former President Barack Obama; Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
From a spiritual perspective, to gain a better understanding of one major reason why the U.S. is going through dissolution as it turns from “in God we trust,” you need to read only the first six pages of “Following Jesus in a Warming World.”
The Christian theological foundations of a book are shaky when the author feels compelled to apologize for employing masculine pronouns when referring to God. As Mr. Meyaard-Schaap asserts on page 6: “All human language used to describe God is analogical, which means we should always hold all God-talk loosely. This is especially true of socially constructed categories like gender. There is nothing essential in God’s nature that requires God to be male — the Godhead transcends gender.”
And so the author identifies the Holy Spirit as a “her” in a later chapter.
The author’s misunderstanding of Christian theology regarding gender confusion also suggests his bewilderment over the hard (not “social”) sciences, such as biology.
Simply put, if your understanding of basic science is perplexed by the number of genders — two sexes equal two genders, as in God’s biologically constructed categories: “He created them male and female” — then the more complex sciences, like climatology, would have to be a downright impenetrable mystery to you. It follows that this mystery could be breached only by science and political wizards that can mislead you into a “proper” revelation.
For instance, although apparently more of a political wizard than a person with any considerable depth in atmospheric science, former Vice President Al Gore may be responsible for much of the original proselytizing of charismatic Christians into the cult of climate catastrophe. Viewing or attending an in-person presentation of Mr. Gore’s diatribe, “An Inconvenient Truth,” could have planted seeds of doubt in some of the faithful relative to God’s love and care and determined ability to maintain His creation.
This is the kind of willful maintenance expressed in “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night, Shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22, NASB). And what God wills, He does (Isaiah 46:10).
God’s focus is on people — “you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31) — while knowing and caring for all that He created with a plan to restore all to glory (Acts 3:21). From Genesis to Revelation, God is a people person. He wants the best for people and a creation in tune with their needs.
Of course, Christians and all concerned people must care for the environment, use natural resources wisely, and avoid trashing the planet’s life support system of clean air, water, and land — common sense.
More importantly, the natural world is sacred and designed to benefit even the downtrodden — those looked down upon by the materially comfortable elite.
Those in abject poverty must be afforded meaningful assistance to access their own reliable, inexpensive natural resources that could greatly alleviate their misery and raise them to much-needed comfort. Instead of cooking over fires fueled by wood and dung, millions of destitute souls would benefit from relatively clean, accessible, and inexpensive fossil fuels.
A true Christian concern for the whole person bolsters sensible, compassionate solutions. But it seems that the religious left has left authentic practical Christianity behind. Spirit-led Christians must lovingly and thoughtfully challenge the self-serving thrust of the religious left for the sake of all Earth’s inhabitants in God’s bountiful creation.
https://cornwallalliance.org/2023/10/climate-change-hysteria-and-the-rise-of-the-religious-left/
*****************************************************EIA projects global energy consumption will continue to rise
In our International Energy Outlook 2023 (IEO2023), we project that global energy-related CO2 emissions will increase by 2050 in a number of IEO2023 cases as global population growth and higher living standards push growth in energy consumption beyond advances in energy efficiency.
In all IEO2023 cases, we expect global primary energy consumption to increase through 2050. Our expectations of global population growth, increased regional manufacturing, and higher living standards indicate that global energy consumption will grow faster than advances in energy efficiency. Non-fossil fuel-based resources, including nuclear and renewables, produce more energy through 2050, but in most of the IEO2023 cases we examined, that growth is not sufficient to reduce global energy-related CO2 emissions under current laws and regulations.
In our IEO2023, we explore long-term world energy trends and present an outlook for energy markets through 2050. We use different scenarios, called cases, to understand how varying assumptions about technological advancement and economic growth affect energy trends. The IEO2023 Reference case—which serves as a baseline, or benchmark—and six side cases consider only the laws and regulations adopted through March 2023. The six side cases in IEO2023 explore differing assumptions of economic growth, crude oil prices, and technology costs.
U.S. projections in IEO2023 are the published projections in the Annual Energy Outlook 2023 (AEO2023), which assumed that U.S. laws and regulations as of November 2022 remain unchanged.
Some key takeaways from our IEO2023 include:
Increasing population and income offset the effects of declining energy and carbon intensity on emissions.
In all IEO2023 cases, global energy consumption increases, with the fastest growth in the residential and industrial sectors. Global consumption of liquid fuels increases through 2050, and industrial applications, such as chemical production, account for the fastest growth in liquid fuels consumption. Economic growth and increased disposable income increase demand for transportation in all IEO2023 cases. Although electric vehicles gain a larger share of the global transportation fleet, reducing transportation sector petroleum consumption, the industrial sector offsets those declines as its share of petroleum and other liquid fuels consumption rises.
The shift to renewables to meet growing electricity demand is driven by regional resources, technology costs, and policy.
Across IEO2023 cases, global electric-power generating capacity increases by a range of 50% to 100%, and electricity generation increases by 30% to 76% by 2050, depending on the IEO2023 case. Zero-carbon technologies account for most of the growth in both global capacity and generation. Electricity generation from renewables and nuclear could provide as much as two-thirds of global electricity generation by 2050, according to the projections. Battery storage capacity grows significantly in all IEO2023 cases, increasing from less than 1% of global power capacity in 2022 to a range of 4% to 9% of global power capacity by 2050, depending on the case.
Energy security concerns hasten a transition from fossil fuels in some countries, although they drive increased fossil fuel consumption in others.
Energy trade of fossil fuels will continue to evolve as emerging economies demand more energy and the world continues to adapt to current geopolitical events. In nearly all IEO2023 cases, energy production from zero-carbon technologies grows faster than from fossil fuels, but that dynamic varies from region to region. The Middle East and North America increase natural gas production and exports to meet growing demand, and Western Europe and Asia remain natural gas importers in all IEO2023 cases. Energy demand from China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa will motivate major crude oil and natural gas producers to keep producing.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=60642&mc_cid=b8e6cdffc5&mc_eid=7ee7e56bba
**********************************************Australian Farmers’ lobby swings behind conservatives on campaign against wind farms
The powerful national farm lobby is siding with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as he backs locals fighting renewable energy projects crucial to the Albanese government’s clean energy election commitments.
The National Farmers Federation created waves in 2020 when it outflanked the federal Coalition government on climate policy to set an industry-leading target to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 for the nation’s agriculture sector.
But the peak agriculture lobby last week launched a “Keep Farmers Farming” campaign, warning that renewables projects coupled with a vast array of transmission lines to link them to the cities are damaging primary production.
Dutton has been travelling the east coast to visit local campaigns against offshore wind projects, which are crucial to Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s plans to create new, clean blue-collar jobs in Australia’s old industrial heartland in the Latrobe Valley, Wollongong, Newcastle and Central Queensland.
The slowdown of the rollout puts at risk the government’s pledge to ramp up clean energy in the electricity grid to bring power bills down by $275 by 2025.
Government-commissioned modelling shows the share of renewables in the grid needs to dramatically rise to 82 per cent by 2030. It is currently comprised of 57 per cent coal power, 5 per cent gas, 7 per cent hydro, 18 per cent solar and 13 per cent wind.
David Jochinke last week replaced Fiona Simson as National Farmers’ Federation president. In Simson’s tenure the traditionally conservative lobby group broke ranks with the rural Nationals party with its net-zero commitment, prompting former Agriculture Minister David Littleproud to accuse the federation of “blindly setting a course” on emissions reduction.
Both Jochinke and Dutton stress they support renewable energy to cut emissions and tackle global warming, but they are championing campaigns that threaten the government’s goals.
Jochinke is calling for governments to improve consultation between landholders and project proponents over issues such as power line routes, and for prime farmland to be protected from harmful development.
“We’re seeing more and more communities reach breaking point because they’re being stepped over in the energy transition,” Jochinke said.
“We just want them to regulate how energy companies are engaging with landholders and communities so they’re treated fairly. It’s clear the current system of trying to bulldoze through communities is putting everything in the slow lane.”
The federal government has created five offshore wind zones where developers can make a development application: Wollongong and Newcastle in NSW, the Southern Ocean between the Victoria and South Australian border, Bass Strait and the Gipplsand coast near the Latrobe Valley.
Dutton, who promotes uncommercial but emerging nuclear energy technology to supplement renewable energy, visited the Newcastle region twice in the past few weeks and claimed the push for an offshore wind industry could become a national scandal.
“I think the rising level of anger here is something that Australians really should take note of,” he said at a press conference in Nelson Bay last week.
“The consultation needs to be redone so that the local concerns can be properly understood. I think if the local concerns are properly understood and acted on, I’d be very surprised if this project goes ahead.”
Industry advocates say offshore wind can supply baseload-like power to revitalise manufacturing in former regional industrial hubs.
Beyond Zero Emissions found that offshore wind precincts at old industrial centres could generate 45,000 new and ongoing jobs by 2032 and generate $13 billion in annual revenue, with growth in green steel, hydrogen and cement manufacturing.
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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
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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