Monday, January 23, 2023
UK: Keir Starmer to BAN new investment in North Sea oil and gas and focus on renewable energy instead
Labour plans to ban new investment in North Sea oil and gas fields in a major change from current Government policy. Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said the UK must instead focus on renewable energy such as wind farms.
But his pledge during the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday will spell uncertainty for thousands employed in the once-thriving sector – as well as investors currently looking at new projects.
Sir Keir said during a panel discussion at the event: ‘There does need to be a transition. Obviously it [oil and gas] will play its part during that transition but not new investment, not new fields up in the North Sea... we need to ensure that renewable energy is where we go next.’
He is in Davos with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves as the party seeks to portray the pair as ambassadors for the UK on the world stage – in the absence of Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt at the event. Sir Keir said Labour would seek a ‘closer economic relationship with the EU’, although Ms Reeves later insisted this would not mean rejoining the single market or customs union.
The new stance on the North Sea was described by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), which represents the industry, as ‘deeply upsetting to the many workers and communities’ which had been ‘central to the UK’s energy security for five decades’. Jenny Stanning, external relations director at OEUK, said: ‘It will also further damage investor confidence.’
The industry directly employed 28,000 people in 2021 and supported 200,000 jobs, according to OEUK figures. The announcement comes after the Tory government recently held a new round for oil and gas exploration licences.
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The real winners of Net Zero: China's cheap EVs will swamp Europe's car market
Chinese carmaking giant BYD Co. will start selling vehicles this quarter in the UK, where electric cars are seizing a growing share of the market.
The automaker backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has appointed four UK dealer partners in Pendragon Plc, Arnold Clark Automobiles Ltd., Lookers Motor Group Ltd. and LSH Auto Holdings, according to an emailed statement. BYD’s debut model will be the Atto 3 sport utility vehicle, and it will announce more dealer partners and pricing in the coming weeks.
While the UK remains one of Europe’s biggest car markets, automakers have struggled to revive sales since the start of the pandemic, with registrations slumping to a 30-year low in 2022. EVs have been a bright spot, with battery-electric models accounting for around 17% of deliveries last year, overtaking diesel for the first time.
Shenzhen-based BYD has been expanding in Europe, having already set up shop in countries including Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium. The group — which also has been making a big push into other markets around Asia, including Thailand and Australia — may even pass up Tesla Inc. in global EV sales this year by expanding its model lineup and manufacturing capacity, according to BloombergNEF.
When including its plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, BYD already outsold Tesla in 2022, and its sales of fully electric vehicles soared to around 911,000 last year, from 321,000 in 2021.
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German electricity to be rationed as EVs and heat pumps threaten collapse of local power grids
The Federal Network Agency is planning to ration the power supply to heat pumps and EV charging stations in order to protect the distribution grids from collapse. Charging times of three hours to charge electric cars will be allowed so that they can cover a distance of 50 kilometers.
Electric cars, heat pumps and private solar systems are booming. This is pushing the power grids in cities and communities to their limits.
An expert quoted by the “FAZ” warns that the local power grids are in danger of becoming the bottleneck for the energy transition. According to estimates, expanding it would cost a three-digit billion amount.
The Federal Network Agency wants to ration electricity for consumers to prevent a collapse in supply.
Electric cars are booming, as are heat pumps and private solar systems on roofs. This should only be the beginning of the energy transition in Germany. But the energy industry is already warning that the local power grids in cities and communities are reaching their performance limits. This has been reported by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ). According to the report, the Federal Network Agency is planning to temporarily ration the power supply to heat pumps and charging stations in order to protect the distribution grids from overload.
A year ago, the network agency confirmed a “network development plan” in which up to seven million heat pumps in households are expected for 2035. So far there have been around one million heat pump systems.
Enormous growth is also expected in electric vehicles. For large network operators such as Eon, the current figures are a challenge. “The applications for the connection of new systems are going through the roof, and we assume that the growth rates will continue to grow,” said Eon board member Thomas König. According to the “FAZ”, the electricity supplier registered around 100,000 new charging stations for electric cars in 2021.
Local power grids threatened to become the bottleneck for the energy transition, Krzysztof Rudion, professor at the Institute for Energy Transmission and High Voltage Technology at the TU Stuttgart, told the newspaper. “The expansion of the distribution network simply cannot keep up with the boom in heat pumps, electric cars and solar systems.”
In order to arm the distribution grids, between 100 and 135 billion euros would have to be invested in Germany in the next decade and a half, the FAZ reports, citing a new study by the management consultancy Oliver Wyman.
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Hydrocarbon Fuels? We don’t need no Stinking Hydrocarbon Fuels!
Words have meaning. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas can have spectacularly bad consequences.
The best of the Left’s latest bad ideas is to ban gas stoves. It was supposedly coughed up by Richard Trumka, the Biden Commissioner of Product Safety. The rather questionable rationale advanced was that gas stoves can contribute to asthma and other health problems. Within hours his suggestion was being repeated by leading liberals like so many mockingbirds on a telephone line.
In delicious irony (and a fast look-back at social media) it was quickly discovered that many of those same parroters, like Kamala, Dr. Jill, Native-American Senator Warren and even the righteous AOC herself had been shamelessly photographed smiling next to their gas stoves. Who knew? Mr. Trumka quickly and quietly withdrew the proposal…for now.
Anyone with an IQ in triple digits could see that this was but the latest attack on the well known fossil fuel, natural gas. Since the Left has successfully demonized the term and fossils may have had nothing to do with its formation, may we please start calling it hydrocarbon fuel? It is more accurate.
By the way, hydrogen and carbon are among the most common elements in the universe and they are constantly being combined or broken apart. Levels of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere have varied widely over the eons, predating even the assent of gas stoves. Remember also that carbon is constantly being absorbed by plant life. In fact it is essential. Our Sun is primarily a giant ball of hydrogen. The radiation from its nuclear fusion makes life on our blue marble possible.
Hydrogen and carbon are not bad elements.
It cannot be said enough that a major reason we enjoy the standard of living we do is because we have mastered the efficient use of a hydrocarbon fuels. Our economy runs on affordable, abundant energy. Western civilization has been migrating from dirtier to cleaner burning fuels for centuries. We’ve moved from dung to wood to coal to natural gas without the heavy hand of government. One great thing about a free market is that it rewards efficiency. Ironically, we might actually be moving toward cleaner energy solutions faster if the government would simply get out of the way and stop trying to pick winners.
Natural gas is an abundant, clean and affordable source of energy, especially here in North America. Sadly the gas industry has done a miserable job of telling their story. As many other industries have learned (to their peril) if you’re not doing a good job of telling your story, the Left will tell it for you. You won’t like their version. They are not slavishly bound by the facts and are deadly serious concerning their war on hydrocarbon fuels. Witness the first salvo fired at defenseless gas stoves.
The primary ingredient in natural gas is methane. The chemical makeup of methane is four atoms of hydrogen held together with one of carbon (CH4).
So when we burn natural gas we are burning about 80% hydrogen. Any first semester chemistry student should know that when we burn hydrogen the principal byproduct is water vapor.
Yes, burning methane also produces some CO2. But any farmer knows that good crops need water and CO2. Crops absorb and sequester lots of carbon. In a lengthy study done at South Dakota State, crops were found to remove tons of carbon."The carbon stored in South Dakota's 12 million acres of cropped land over this 25 year study period is equal to the carbon emitted from 17.8 billion gallons of gasoline," according to professor of plant science at SDSU, Gregg Carlson.
If the warmists are correct and water vapor and CO2 levels will increase as global temperatures rise by one degree over the next century, won’t that also lead to greater crop production worldwide? And doesn’t that mean a more abundant and affordable food supply to feed a hungry humanity? And won’t greater crop production also mean even greater carbon sequestration? Finally, wouldn’t it be great if the the hydrocarbon energy industry with their enormous advertising budgets would begin sharing these facts and questions with consumers?
Apparently their overpaid execs are far too woke for that to happen.
These bad ideas like the war on natural gas are having dire consequences. The anti-hydrocarbon policies are needlessly driving prices higher. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a staggering 22% of American households were unable to pay a heating bill last year. Millions more scrimp and cut elsewhere to keep the family from freezing. We can expect those numbers to grow significantly this year as the latest EIA projection estimates that natural gas prices will rise 28% over last year. Precisely what the Green New Dealers want.
Yes, bad ideas have can have very negative consequences. Outlawing natural gas stoves is but the tip of a very cold iceberg. The warming warriors will be back.
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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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Sunday, January 22, 2023
Resist the ‘Climate Change’ Power Grab
The World Economic Forum insect overlords have convened in Davos, Switzerland for their annual confab this week, and once again, their focus is “crisis.”
Everything is a “crisis” for the WEF and their minions seeded throughout the world’s governments and corporate leaders, and those crises are always “unprecedented.” But this year, they’re trying to foment even more global panic; they’ve declared 2023 to be the “year of the ‘polycrisis.’” In other words, multiple crises at the same time. (Which is the same thing they’ve been saying for years, but with a new, scary epithet attached to it.)
Also consistent with their previous messaging is that those in power need much “more” to accomplish their goals. More power, more government and corporate control, and much more money. Former Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech in Davos on Tuesday in which he warned that “saving the planet” will take “money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money.”
Where is all this money going to come from? Why, from you, of course -- the average citizen -- from whom everything will be taken; not only your money but your car, your single-family home and yard, your food and your freedom. But it’s fine, because we’ll have utopia when the central planners are finished.
Everything about this reeks of fraud, deceit, massive miscalculation and manipulation. And we’ve seen this movie enough times before to be suspicious of everything we’re being told.
First, the science is questionable. A basic tenet of the scientific method is that if your predictions don’t happen, your hypotheses are flawed. The climate catastrophe Cassandras have been wrong for decades. In the 1960s, professor Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb,” predicted widespread starvation for most of humanity. Didn’t happen. In the 1970s, the “experts” were predicting a new “ice age.” Didn’t happen. “Global cooling” became “global warming” and Al Gore, one of its most famous prophets, relied on computer models to predict that arctic ice would be melted by 2013. Didn’t happen.
Second, science doesn’t become “settled” just because scholars who challenge prevailing theories are silenced. Professor Michael Mann, another renowned expert in climate science, authored the “hockey stick” graph in 1998 that purported to show a huge spike in global temperatures attributable to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But when other scholars pointed out gaps in Mann’s data (he ignored the Medieval Warm Period and the so-called Little Ice Age) and flaws in his methods, Mann attacked them and the journals that published their critiques.
Third, politicized science is both suspect and dangerous. In 2019, Dr. Paul Offit published “Pandora’s Lab,” a hard-hitting account of seven instances of “science” that shaped disastrous shaped public policies, including eugenics, the war against pesticides, the use of lobotomies to treat mental illness, and the aggressive promotion of trans fats instead of natural dairy products. Just two weeks ago, Joanne Silberner wrote a powerful article for Bari Weiss’ new online magazine The Free Press, in which she lays out how the same phenomena Offit exposed have impeded real progress on the search for a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Offit’s book and Silberner’s essay expose two ugly realities: When politicians build their campaigns on sketchy or unproven scientific theories, they have a vested interest in making sure that facts that disprove those theories never see the light of day. And scientists -- whose research money the government controls -- then have a vested interest in making those politicians happy.
Truth may be the first casualty of war, but it is a later casualty of government research as well.
Fourth, rampant hypocrisy gives a glimpse into the dystopic future these megalomaniacs are planning. The seas are supposedly rising, but they own beachfront properties. You shouldn’t be driving a car, but they fly everywhere -- including into Davos -- on private jets. Your modest family home is a problem, but they own multiple mansions that sit empty most of the time.
The deceit and propaganda campaigns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic followed this same template. There were hysterical predictions about lethality based upon inadequate information. Our government lied about its role in the development and funding of the virus, and government policies were clearly designed to maintain -- and exploit -- public ignorance. Scholars, scientists, physicians and other medical experts who pointed to the facts suggesting a lab leak; who argued in favor of inexpensive and readily available drugs to treat symptoms of the virus; who questioned the safety of experimental viruses and called attention to grave side effects and deaths likely caused by the “vaccines” were called kooks and conspiracy theorists. We now know that the government worked with social media to silence these brave people and keep the truth from the public. And while the rest of us were locked down, powerful politicians got special trips to the hair salon, enjoyed maskless parties, dinners at expensive restaurants and vacation trips.
The WEF want total power to address “crises.” We must remember that throughout history, the worst crises faced by humanity -- wars, famines, plagues, starvation, slavery, death on a widespread scale -- were either caused by those in power or exacerbated by them. Those horrific results need not be motivated by malevolence; mere error can do as much damage. Tens of millions of Chinese people died in the famine that was caused by the policies in Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.”
Once the central planners are in complete control, you’re just as dead if they’re accidentally wrong as you would be if they intended it.
Politicized science coupled with propaganda is a recipe for disaster. In the hands of those who seek global power in the name of “climate change,” it is a prescription for an actual catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.
Keep power and control out of the hands of the WEF (and everyone who thinks like them) now, or live to regret it later.
https://townhall.com/columnists/laurahollis/2023/01/20/resist-the-climate-change-power-grab-n2618519
***************************************************The hysteria and doom-mongering that now surround any debate about climate change risk doing more harm than climate change ever could
By ROSS CLARK
Fear is very easy to spread. Make a television documentary in which footage of extreme weather events is overlain with vague statements about climate change, and you sow the idea in viewers’ minds that we are headed for a hellish future.
There can never have been a time when some part of the world was not in a heatwave, another part was not flooded, another suffering unusually high temperatures and another unusually low temperatures.
Yet if you report on every extreme event and throw in the term ‘climate change’, you will very rapidly plant the idea that the world is in some freakish transformation.
Even when it demonstrably isn’t. A Pentagon report that came to light in 2004 claimed that by 2007 large parts of the Netherlands would be rendered uninhabitable by flooding and that by 2020 Britain would have a ‘Siberian climate’ as the system of atmospheric circulation broke down.
In his 2006 climate change film An Inconvenient Truth, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore asserted that the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro would be gone ‘within the decade’. While there has been some continued erosion in the mountain’s glaciers, they are very much still in existence.
Certainly, there is ample evidence that the Earth is warming, and there are potentially many negative consequences from that. Yet hyperbole now rules so much coverage of climate change. Changes which are benign are regularly hyped up into something ominous.
On July 19 last year, Britain experienced its highest-ever recorded temperature: 40.3c (104.5f) at Coningsby, Lincolnshire. This was the fourth time Britain’s maximum temperature record had been broken since 1990 and is consistent with a warming climate.
Yet did that justify the reporting which framed it as an ‘apocalypse’ with predictions of 10,000 excess deaths from that summer’s heatwave? In the event, excess deaths came to less than a third of that. Moreover, the middle of 2022 witnessed a large unexplained number of excess deaths beginning in March, long before the heatwave.
Let us accept, though, that heatwaves are a danger to health and that climate change is making them more common and more intense. Yet the increased risk must be balanced against a fall in deaths from the cold — which is a much bigger killer in Britain’s climate.
Official figures from the ONS (Office for National Statistics) show that over the first 20 years of this century, the upward trend in temperatures in England and Wales resulted in just over half a million — 555,103 to be precise — fewer temperature-related deaths. The headlines ought to read ‘Climate change saves half a million lives’, yet this real-word data seemed to tease out some rare scepticism from news outlets more used to presenting doom-laden forecasts and scenarios as established fact.
BBC climate editor Justin Rowlatt began his analysis of the study with the words ‘statistics can be slippery’. In effect, he was saying, I’m choosing not to believe this particular set of data.
But there were no such doubts in the media when, at around the same time, the Government estimated that climate change was going to cost the UK economy up to £20 billion a year by 2050 — even though there is no way of knowing what kind of weather or economy we will have in 30 years’ time.
Rarely is it admitted that there might even be some benefits from a warming climate. The Government’s own climate change risk assessment did identify some of these, such as the ability to grow a richer variety of crops in Britain, but this tended to go missing from the reporting.
Moreover, some of the dangers identified made you wonder: are we really so helpless as to be unable to cope? It cited ‘risks to human health, wellbeing and productivity from increased exposure to heat in homes and other buildings’. Yet people already live and work quite happily in climates far hotter than Britain will experience even in the most dramatic scenarios of climate change.
They manage to do this thanks to properly designed buildings, insulated from heat as well as cold, aided by proper ventilation and air-conditioning.
The trouble is that in Britain we have been putting up poorly engineered new buildings which are designed to cut carbon emissions to the exclusion of all other considerations, such as the comfort of their occupants.
They are stuffed with insulation and sealed against draughts — yet have inadequate ventilation and insufficient means to disperse heat from the sun and other sources. Occupants of new homes are wilting not because of climate change but, perversely, because of building standards designed to avert climate change. Yet nuances such as this are lost as we are fed a diet of ever-greater climatic doom.
There seem to be very simple rules behind the narrative being spun to the public. First, that climate change offers nothing positive, only harm. Second, that the only way to tackle that harm is to end climate change. The idea of adapting to it is considered sacrilege.
We end up not with managed changes to the climate that might improve the situation but cataclysms beyond human ingenuity. And apparently also beyond the ability of the natural world to cope.
Climate change is apparently going to kill off plants which rely on birds to spread their seeds. It is going to kill off insects — except for mosquitoes and locusts, whose numbers are going to explode
Some of what passes for warnings on climate is sheer flight of fancy. In January last year a study funded by the Met Office and written by academics at Exeter and Edinburgh universities presented five scenarios as to what might happen by the year 2100, depending on what actions are taken now.
One of them, in which the Government carried on exploiting fossil fuel, bizarrely had Britain descending into hunter-gathering and feudal warfare. Another, where green policies were adopted, resulted in the eradication of poverty by the end of the century.
This is not climate science, nor science of any kind; it is science fiction, dreamed up to serve a particular political outlook.
None of this is to say that climate change is not happening and is not a problem. The world is warming and there are many reasons why we should want to cut carbon emissions and adopt cleaner forms of energy.
But we are not having a reasoned debate as to the choices and balances which that entails. Instead, we are presented with hysteria, with terms such as ‘heat apocalypse’ being thrown about. That belongs to the movies, not real life.
Worryingly, there is now a growing divide between the statements of climate campaigners who claim to have science on their side and what scientific data actually says. At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, everyone was banging on about ‘the science’, a supposed set of truths which could not be challenged. But it was noticeable how few actual climate scientists were there delivering lectures.
Certainly not the ones who compiled the report of the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published three months earlier, which pointed to some interesting and some conflicting changes in the climate but hardly to doomsday.
Its worst-case scenario — a global temperature rise of 4c, wind speeds in the strongest tropical storms up 5 per cent and rainfall from tropical storms up 12 per cent, as well as sea level rises of a metre by 2100 — would present serious challenges in many places. But even that would hardly amount to a ‘cataclysm’ for human civilisation.
We have lived through many ice ages, with rapid warming and cooling of the climate occurring over a few decades. Surely, an advanced industrial civilisation can find ways to cope with all these changes.
Yet climate change is a world that has come to be controlled by activists and campaigners who claim to be on the side of science and reason but who are really spinning narratives which suit ulterior motives.
And they get away with it because sceptical views have been all but banned from many newspapers and news channels.
In 2018 BBC news staff were asked to go on a one-hour course on reporting climate change, in which it was made clear that interviewees who were sceptical about man-made climate change were no longer regularly to be invited on to BBC news programmes. It went further: sceptics were now branded as ‘deniers’ — an emotive term coined by climate activists to try to compare their opponents to Holocaust deniers.
‘To achieve impartiality,’ BBC news staff were told, ‘you do not need to include outright deniers of climate change in BBC coverage, in the same way as you would not have someone denying that Manchester United won 2–0 last Saturday. The referee has spoken.’ In practice it isn’t just ‘outright deniers of climate change’ who have disappeared from the BBC. I struggle to recall a single case where a dissenting opinion has been expressed on the subject over the past five years.
Yet there appears to be no parallel ban on the views of people who exaggerate the findings of the IPCC or other scientific sources. On the contrary, such people have continued to appear on the BBC, their assertions unchallenged.
In September 2021, for example, an activist with Insulate Britain, which was then causing havoc by blocking motorways, claimed on the Today programme that climate change would lead to ‘the loss of all that we cherish, our society, our way of life and law and order’, that the economy was ‘in serious danger of collapse’ and that climate change was ‘endangering billions of people’s lives’.
On none of these claims was she challenged.
There is a drive on the part of some activists to go further than simply banish sceptical opinion from the airwaves. Trygve Lavik, a philosopher at the University of Bergen, has suggested that climate change ‘denialism’ be made illegal on the grounds that it is a ‘crime against present and future generations’.
This tougher tone in the media is partly down to an organisation called Covering Climate Now, an initiative by the Guardian and other outlets with Left-liberal leanings, to which some very high-profile news organisations, such as Bloomberg, Reuters, the Daily Mirror and Newsweek, have signed up.
It offers support to journalists to ‘forge a path towards an all-newsroom approach to climate reporting’. Its guidance includes: ‘Remember, an extreme weather story that doesn’t mention climate change is incomplete and potentially even inaccurate.’
For example, when reporting a hurricane, they were urged to add that ‘this comes at a time when human-caused climate change is consistently making storms more intense’.
Storms more intense? This is not the conclusion that would be reached by a reporter who bothered to do their own digging and came across a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has done more research into this than anyone. It affirms that ‘there is no strong evidence of century- scale increasing trends in major hurricanes’.
As for the IPCC, it found that Australia is currently experiencing the lowest frequency of tropical cyclones in the past 550 to 1,500 years, while the northern Indian Ocean is seeing an increased intensity of the most severe storms but a decrease in frequency. The data tells us that, no, rising global temperatures have not unleashed lethal hurricanes and other storms which otherwise wouldn’t have occurred, and in some parts of the world there is even a downward trend in storm activity.
Yet that is not the picture that viewers, listeners and readers will have picked up from reports of extreme weather events.
Rather, they are urged to believe that the world is already in the grip of mad winds whipped up as a result of human influence on the climate, that when anyone dies or is made homeless in a hurricane they are victims of man-made climate change and that things are only going to get worse unless we take drastic action now.
Were the public to be fed a calmer, more even-handed reporting of the data, we might have a more rational debate over net zero.
So what is really going on with the climate? What, exactly, is at stake when people assert that climate change is so dire a threat that we have no option other than to eliminate all net greenhouse emissions by 2050?
The evidence from the IPCC shows that the Earth is warming, leading to a rise in extreme high temperatures and a fall in the number of extreme low temperatures over most of the globe.
The world is also seeing higher and heavier rainfall, although this is not translating into greater flood risk in most cases. A study of more than 2,000 rivers over half a century, quoted in the most recent IPCC report, found that in only seven per cent of them was there an increasing trend in maximum annual flood levels.
Storm tracks in some parts of the world have shifted, leading to a rise in storms at high latitudes and a fall elsewhere. There is no increase in tropical storms, although they may be dumping more rainfall in some places.
Some places are suffering more drought, others are seeing less dry conditions. Fire risk has increased in some places but this has not translated into an overall increase in land affected by wildfires.
Data specifically on the UK confirms an upward trend in temperature and rainfall, more heatwaves but also fewer cold spells. There is some evidence of more intense rainfall.
But none of this adds up to the idea that Britain is suffering extreme or ‘violent’ weather, ‘climate breakdown’ or any other of the hysterical claims which are being made every time the country suffers weather-related damage.
If the present trends in temperature and rainfall are maintained throughout this century, Britain will end up with the kind of climate which is already experienced in slightly more southerly latitudes. A further rise of 1.5c in average July temperatures in London, for example, would take us to the current levels experienced in Paris.
But of all the challenges presented by climate change, the most serious for Britain is rising sea levels. Many of the country’s most populated areas are in low-lying coastal locations. London sits at the end of a funnelling estuary vulnerable to tidal surges.
Yet climate change is not the whole story here. Britain sits on a tectonic plate. The South-East of England is sinking — and has been doing so since the last Ice Age. Up to half the change in sea level in the Thames estuary is down to the land sinking rather than the sea rising.
The answer to flooding is better defences. Even in the worst-case scenarios, for the next century at least, we will be able to continue to live where we do now by adopting the drainage and flood defence policies of the Netherlands.
There, a quarter of the land surface already lies below sea level and the lowest point is a full 6.7 metres below sea level. Yet flooding is rare because sea defences are strong and drainage well managed.
None of this is to say that we should not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is very much in our interests to burn less fossil fuel, and to decrease greenhouse gas emissions more generally, even to try to eliminate them eventually.
But the fact is that we are not being fried, frozen, drowned, burned or blown away by human-induced climate change.
That is hyperbole, which is being used to suppress debate over net zero and forcing us into making some very poor decisions.
We need to stop panicking. At the moment we are responding to modelled, worst-case scenarios and to assertions of climatic doom which have no scientific basis, only an emotional one.
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First, Biden came for your gas stove. Next, Democrats will come for your gas heater
The commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Richard Trumka Jr., recently said his agency is considering banning gas stoves because they can cause asthma in children, among other health and respiratory maladies.
Trumka called gas stoves "a hidden hazard," and further said, "Any option is on the table. "Products that can’t be made safe can be banned," he added.
However, after just a few days of intense backlash from Republicans and conservative media, the Biden administration appeared to suddenly reverse course. On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden "does not support banning gas stoves."
It’s good news that the Biden administration appears to have caved on its reckless gas-stove proposal, but not every Democrat is as easily persuaded.
Gas-powered stoves or other appliances and heaters powered by natural gas have been banned in new constructions in nearly 100 cities and counties, including in New York City and San Francisco.
Further, lawmakers in at least 20 states have also proposed similar prohibitions. In 2022, Washington State lawmakers banned natural gas appliances in new buildings in 2023.
New York governor Kath Hochul, a Democrat, recently offered a sweeping proposal to ban both natural gas heaters and all appliances, including stoves, in new buildings in the state. If the proposal is passed into law, the ban on natural-gas-powered appliances would begin its phase-in period in 2025. And starting in 2030, new natural-gas heating systems would also be prohibited.
Unlike with the White House’s recent plan, there’s no sign that most other Democratic proposals will be reversed anytime soon.
Supporters of banning the use of natural-gas-powered appliances often claim it can cause health hazards like childhood asthma, an important assertion because tens of millions of homes rely on natural gas today. More than 40 million Americans use gas stoves, and the US Energy Information Administration reports, "About half of the homes in the United States use natural gas for space heating and water heating."
But do appliances like gas stoves actually present an increased risk of asthma for children or pose other health dangers? In short, the answer is no, so long as proper ventilation is present.
And even when it isn’t, experts are divided and the evidence is mixed when it comes to certain correlations between the use of gas-powered appliances and health problems.
Despite getting a lot of attention, the study cited by the CPSC is a weak meta-analysis of previous studies. The researchers didn’t analyze all of the available research. They cherry-picked data from studies that fit their predetermined conclusion while ignoring other data from studies that did not reiterate their preferred assumptions.
Previous reviews of the available research have found, "It’s not clear whether gas stoves are a significant likely cause of health problems, because households have many other potential sources of indoor pollution too." But even if gas stoves and other gas-powered appliances and heating systems do contribute to the development of childhood asthma or other health issues, there is no reason to ban them.
The study cited by CPSC claims just "12.7% … of current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use," about 762,000 children. The alleged reason for the association is that cooking over natural gas in poorly ventilated kitchens releases respiratory irritants into the air, some of which have been associated with causing asthma.
If this is true — and again, some researchers claim it isn’t — why not fix the alleged problem by improving ventilation? That would not only alleviate fears over childhood asthma and other health problems, it would do so without government bans and restrictions on the free market.
Even those who are concerned about the use of gas-powered appliances acknowledge this is a reasonable approach. For example, the Massachusetts Medical Society, which has published articles claiming that natural gas stoves are connected to pediatric asthma, has also said "simple actions" like "Using exhaust fans that ventilate to the outdoors when cooking with a gas stove" and "Using HEPA air purifiers with carbon filters" would avert the potential health risks associated with natural gas cooking.
So, instead of banning gas stoves and other gas-powered appliances and heating systems, as many Democrats are now suggesting, policymakers should consider changing building standards so that new constructions use better ventilation.
In general, gas stoves and gas-powered heaters are arguably safer and perform better than electric alternatives. For example, gas stoves ignite quickly and heat food faster than electric stoves. And once the burner is shut off, the risk of unintended burn is minimal. Additionally, gas stoves typically work during a power outage, unlike electric stoves, and they are more durable and last longer than their electric counterparts.
It seems obvious that a ban on gas-powered appliances and heating systems is unnecessary. What is the real reason, then, for why Democrats across America are suddenly so interested in banning them?
It could be that Democrats, who have long suggested natural gas is contributing to a dire climate crisis, have chosen to invent new justifications for destroying the natural gas industry. Most American voters don’t view climate change as a top priority, but perhaps Democrats think a good old-fashioned health scare will do the trick.
Whatever the real reasons are behind the sudden urgency to eliminate gas-powered appliances and heating systems, one thing is abundantly clear: there is no good justification for government to take away Americans’ ability to use natural gas, an extremely efficient, reliable, safe source of energy. It doesn’t pose significant health hazards, as some of falsely claimed, and whatever risks do exist can easily be reduced using simple, affordable, common-sense reforms.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/first-biden-came-gas-stove-next-democrats-come-gas-heater
************************************************Solar panels are leading an energy revolution, but recycling them isn't easy
Almost every day, Anthony Vippond's solar recycling plant in Melbourne's north receives dozens of used solar panels.
In the car park, multiple tilting towers of the devices, held together by tie-downs, take up the spaces.
Right now, a lot of them come from schools as the state government upgrades or replaces about 500 solar panel systems.
Others come from businesses, homes or solar farms from rural Victoria.
Some have large holes shot through the middle, others are smashed, but most have no damage at all and have been cast aside because they are not as efficient as they once were.
All those used panels have to go somewhere, and it cannot be landfill; Victoria, South Australia and the ACT have banned solar panels ending up in landfill — they have to be taken to e-waste drop off points to be recycled.
It was a move made to stop heavy metals in the panels from leaching into the earth, and — with roughly 26,000 tonnes of solar panels predicted to be thrown away every year in Victoria from 2035 — to force industry to innovate.
But recycling solar panels is not straightforward. "They are laminate, they're stuck together, they're glued," Mr Polhill says.
To be reused, solar panels need to be broken down so each component — including glass, aluminium, copper, plastic and silicon — can be separated. And that takes a lot of heavy machinery to achieve.
Some of those materials can then be sold and used in new products.
Various companies in Victoria and South Australia are trialling different methods of breaking down solar panels from using chemicals and heat, to dry processes and computerised mechanical systems.
They each say their process is better than the one next door. But all have admitted one thing: the margins are not great.
Most solar recyclers strip and sell the aluminium from the frame, try to extract as many valuable metals as possible, then stockpile the rest.
Mr Polhill says at the moment, "it would be cheaper to put them into landfill than to recover them".
"Over the last few years companies have started to invest in recovering other materials but that is in its infancy and those materials have a very small market," he says.
But, there is one part of a solar panel that could change that: nano silicon. Silicon is found within the black and grey panels that capture sunlight.
And when refined into its purest form, nano silicon, it can sell for about $64,000 per kilogram. It is a ubiquitous substance used in everything from mobile phones and concrete to rubber, plastic, and computer chips.
Until now it has been tricky to reduce silicon down into its nano particles without using harmful chemicals like hydrochloric acid and nitric acid.
But researchers from Deakin University in Geelong say they have figured out a way to do it that is cheap, effective and safe for the environment. Researchers at the university started investigating their theory in 2019 and have repeatedly tested and reviewed the process to prove it can work and be scaled up for commercial use.
"Compared to other processes around the world, my process is really environmentally friendly," Deakin senior research fellow Mokhlesur Rahman says.
Dr Rahman says he's also discovered a way to combine nano silicon with graphite to create longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries for use in products like electric cars.
It is a breakthrough that could make recycling solar panels a far more viable industry.
Back at his recycling plant, Mr Vippond has been trying to create new products like sleepers and furniture from solar panel products, but says a way to easily and cheaply extract and sell nano silicon would be a game changer.
"Getting the best recovery out of the solar panel is probably more paramount than any other product just in relation to that [environmentally conscious] category that it comes from," he says. "Some of the work like Deakin University and others are doing in their research is quite incredible."
But Mr Polhill is sceptical. "How do we take that research and create a business model — that's the real nut to crack in this," he says.
"Recycling solar panels in Australia is in its infancy. So it needs continuous investment from both industry and from government to support this developing market and some of the technologies as well."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-22/solar-panel-recycling-nano-silicon-extraction/101865624
***************************************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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Friday, January 20, 2023
Former VP Al Gore gives 'unhinged' rant about environmental threats including 'rain bombs' and 'boiling oceans' during speech at World Economic Forum
Former Vice President Al Gore gave an 'impassioned' and 'unhinged' speech about climate change while on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The eco-warrior warned the crowd of 'rain bombs' and boiling oceans while discussing the concerns facing Earth if drastic changes aren't made to address the environmental concerns.
Gore, who also voiced support for climate activist Greta Thunberg after her recent arrest for protesting a coal mine in Germany, said the world would soon fall into peril if citizens continue to treat the atmosphere as an 'open-air sewer.'
The video of his speech has ignited criticism online from those claiming the former politician has been 'wrong about everything' and calling him a 'shill.'
The World Economic Forum guest said the situation is more dire than people realize and claimed the current output of greenhouse gases is sending heat into the atmosphere that is equivalent to '600,000 Hiroshima' bombs ever day.
Gore also pointed to 'xenophobia' and 'political authoritarian trends' as contributors to the ongoing climate issues and increase in refugees.
'Look at the xenophobia and political authoritarian trends that have come from just a few million refugees,' the activist said.
'What about a billion?! We would lose our capacity for self-governance on this world! We have to act,' he yelled out, referencing how it's predicted the world will see one billion refugees 'in this century.'
Gore has spent the better half of the last two decades 'sounding the alarm' on how humanity is 'failing' when it comes to climate change.
He says the heat created from greenhouse gases is responsible for the climate disasters the world has seen in recent years.
'That's what's boiling the oceans, creating these atmospheric rivers, and the rain bombs, and sucking the moisture out of the land, and creating the droughts, and melting the ice and raising the sea level, and causing these waves of climate refugees,' Gore exclaimed during the forum.
The environmental activist also mentioned the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, which he calls a 'thin blue line.'
'People are familiar with that thin blue line that the astronauts bring back in their pictures from space? That's the part of the atmosphere that has oxygen, the troposphere, and it's only five to seven kilometers thick,' he says.
'That's what we're using as an open sewer,' Gore continued.
That's the moment when the former vice president shared his a dire warning about the heat created by humans being pumped into the troposphere.
'We're still putting 162 million tons [of greenhouse gas] into it every single day,' he said.
'The accumulated amount is now trapping as much extra heat as would be released by 600,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every single day on the earth,' Gore claimed.
Twitter users were quick to jump on Gore's speech, calling the eco-warrior 'unhinged' and asking 'how does anyone take this stuff seriously?'
'Al Gore goes on unhinged rant, claims we're "boiling the oceans" and creating "rain bombs" and "sucking the moisture out of the land and creating the droughts and melting the ice and raising the sea level,"' wrote Tom Elliot in a tweet.
'He's been wrong about everything. Every prediction wrong. He's a shill and doesn't offer anything worthy of consideration regarding our climate,' claimed one Twitter user.
'How does anyone take this stuff seriously?' asked National Review editor Claude Thompson.
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Russian-British comedian mocks wokeness in Oxford Union speech: 'Trained young minds to forget'
Satirist and podcast host Konstantin Kisin slammed woke culture and argued that it has caused young people to "forget" that the way to "improve the world" and fight climate change is to work, build and create.
During a debate at the Oxford Union Society, Kisin argued that woke culture has gone "too far" and noted at the beginning of his argument that he was attempting to speak to those "who are woke" and "open to rationale argument." He started by saying that the younger generation cares more about climate change than any other generation.
Kisin argued the future of the climate would be decided by "poor people in Asia and Latin America," because "they're poor."
"There is only one thing we can do in this country to stop climate change and that is to make scientific and technological breakthroughs that will create the clean energy that is not only clean but also cheap," Kisin said. "The only thing wokeness has to offer in exchange is to brainwash bright young minds like you to believe that you are victims, to believe that you have no agency, to believe that what you must do to improve the world is to complain, is to protest, is to throw soup on paintings."
Kisin referenced anti-oil protesters who hurled tomato soup at a Vincent van Gogh painting in London's National Gallery.
He argued that those on his side of the debate were "not on this side of the house because we do not wish to improve the world."
"We know that the way to improve the world is to work, is to create, is to build and the problem with woke culture is that it has trained to many young minds like yours to forget about that," he concluded.
Several climate activists across the world have sought to protest climate change by defacing famous works of art. A pair of German climate activists smashed mashed potatoes across Claude Monet’s "Les Meules" at Potsdam’s Barberini Museum in October.
Kisin posted on Twitter that he "didn't hold back."
His speech received plenty of praise on Twitter, including from former Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall.
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NYC’s looming, self-inflicted housing-affordability crisis — thanks to the climate zealots
Happy “State of the. . .” season! That time of year when elected leaders give optimistic enumerations of their plans for the state, city, district or whichever fiefdom they govern. This year, as in the recent past, New York’s housing-affordability crisis will take center stage. Yet despite that, the city is on pace to implement the costliest and most punishing mandates on residents in modern history.
No, I am not talking about the gas-stove ban — but close.
This seldom-discussed policy is Local Law 97, or the Climate Mobilization Act, set to start phasing in next year. When that happens, the only New Yorkers mobilized by this act will be those continuing the flight to lower-cost states down south.
The law demands an unattainable greenhouse-emission standard in existing buildings more than 25,000 square feet, condo and co-op developments more than 50,000 square feet and buildings with up to one-third of units rent-stabilized.
If you’re a New York City apartment dweller, the odds are overwhelming that you’re living in a building targeted by eco-woke zealotry. A 2019 Wall Street Journal survey found that 20% of all buildings would face fines in the law’s first year, a figure that jumps to 80% by 2030.
And the penalties that eventually will be passed down to you are massive.
Failure to comply with Local Law 97 in its first year will result in fines of $268 per metric ton of carbon dioxide over the limit. Within five years, it more than doubles to $583.
What does that mean in practical terms? The Cotocon Group, a noted sustainability consulting firm, published an alarming case study on the law’s fine structure. A sample 150,000-square-foot residential building with a mid-range Energy Star score of 43 will face an annual fine of $167,000 by 2029. Thus if this hypothetical building has 100 condo units, each owner would be responsible for about $1,670 per year.
So much for any promise of alleviating our affordability crisis.
You should also cast aside any hope your building might just squeak by in compliance.
Consider this example. In 2010, One Bryant Park opened its doors as one of the first buildings in the world to earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum status. It was widely feted as the city’s greenest. Al Gore, the godfather of climate alarmism himself, not only cut the inaugural ribbon but leased space in the building to house his eco-friendly investment firm.
Yet despite its accolades and next-generation efficiency, it will be slapped with an estimated $2.5 million annual fine.
That is surely “An Inconvenient Truth” for Local Law 97’s proponents.
The crippling cost of compliance is so severe, the city saw fit to exempt its own buildings, meaning some of the Big Apple’s oldest carbon-challenged structures, including those the New York City Housing Authority owns, are spared. Perhaps the issue is not so urgently existential after all.
But if your building attempts to comply, we aren’t just talking about cutting the pipes to those gas stoves. This law requires massive overhauls of existing structures and HVAC systems.
The board president of Glen Oaks Village, a middle-class Queens co-op with 2,900 units, testified at a City Council hearing last year that the cost to convert their 47 boilers will amount to more than $20 million, or $7,000 per apartment, plus a 5% increase in maintenance costs. Yet even after the change, the law’s emission algorithm would still bang them out for an $800,000-per-year fine.
To make matters worse, many building managers and owners recently incurred massive costs to convert heating units from oil to gas to comply with the previous round of climate mandates. Now those will be noncompliant, even if the boilers aren’t yet paid off.
This is the sort of “Let them eat cake” or “Ban gas stoves” policy that rarely works its way into the “State of” speeches each January, despite affordability and climate resiliency being the topics du jour. And policies like this, once handed over to woke technocrats, only get worse.
The Buildings Department, for example, has so far refused to recognize carbon-capture technology — good enough for submarines and spaceships, mind you — as a valid method to lower building emissions as well as the cost of compliance. If the goal is truly to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this technology should be celebrated. But I suspect punishing us bourgeois fossil-fuel users is the real impetus.
This is where policy must meet politics. Local Law 97 will take effect right around the time Mayor Eric Adams is seeking re-election. Let’s make sure the voices of the climate-change cultists aren’t the only ones he hears. Affordability is the first crisis he must resolve.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/18/nycs-looming-self-inflicted-housing-affordability-crisis/
******************************************************The Australian Labor Party’s new tax on those that wear hi-vis to work
In the past week Greta Thunberg was “arrested” for trying to stop the expansion of a coal mine that would bulldoze the abandoned German town of Luetzerath. While a German Greens Government is desperately trying to increase the supply of reliable energy, even against the wishes of St Greta, our Labor-Greens government announced a $15 billion tax hit on our energy producing and consuming businesses.
The Labor Party does not call it a tax, instead preferring the Orwellian moniker of a “safeguard mechanism”. The safeguard mechanism would make 215 Australian businesses reduce their carbon emissions by 5 per cent a year. They will have to pay a capped price of $75 per tonne to do this.
Over the next 7 years until 2030 these businesses will have to reduce their emissions by 205 million tonnes. At $75 a tonne, which is three times the cost of Gillard’s carbon tax, this amounts to a $15 billion new tax to do business in Australia. (The $75 capped price will probably prevail because in Europe carbon credits trade at over $100 per tonne and in New Zealand the price is already at $70 a tonne.)
Former Labor MP, Joel Fitzgibbon, admitted that Labor’s policy was a carbon tax. Like all carbon taxes it will increase the cost of living. Airlines will be made to pay the tax. You will be made to tick the green box on your plane ticket under Labor.
But this new carbon tax will be paid mostly by the mines and factories in regional Australia. The tax will hit 63 coal mines, 22 iron ore mines, 35 gas production facilities and what is left of our manufacturing of steel, aluminium and fertilisers. It is not a good idea to tax the industries that make our nation prosperous.
Over 84 per cent of the carbon emissions covered by Labor’s carbon tax come from businesses in the regions even though only 30 per cent of Australians live in the regions.
Labor’s new carbon tax is a tax on those that wear hi-vis to work.
Queensland is hit hard by Labor’s new carbon tax. A third of the 215 businesses are in Queensland despite the fact we only have 20 per cent of Australia’s population. Queensland businesses are set to pay an extra $4 billion in tax, a much higher burden than the just $700 million that will be paid by Victorian businesses.
It is Queensland’s mining industry that is keeping our nation afloat. Coal is once again Australia’s largest export but the thanks it gets is to pay more tax to prop up a bloated Canberra bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, Labor’s policy lets the banks off scot-free. Banks are large emitters themselves due to the energy use of their data centres.
However, under Labor’s policy, emissions from the use of electricity is inexplicably ignored. If Labor had included emissions from electricity use, three of the four big banks would have carbon emissions over the 100,000-tonne threshold and have to pay the tax.
So Labor’s climate policy taxes the jobs in the hi-vis industries of mining and manufacturing, while turning a blind eye to the emissions created by jobs in suits.
And those hi-vis industries, guess who they will have to buy the carbon credits from? That’s right, the banks. No wonder the banking industry is one of the loudest supporters of Labor’s climate plan.
Labor has tried to claim that this new tax will not hurt business or jobs because other countries want us to reduce carbon emissions and if we do not we will lose their custom. However, this argument is completely undermined by Labor’s own suggestion that we will now need to introduce carbon tariffs on imported products to offset the costs of their carbon tax on Australian businesses.
If Labor’s new carbon tax actually helps Australian businesses sell products to climate conscious customers, why would we need a tariff to provide them protection against low cost goods from countries that do not impose a carbon tax?
This just proves that this new tax is another blow to Australia’s manufacturing industries. The biggest winner of Labor’s carbon tax will be China, who will take more of our manufacturing jobs as they continue to build coal fired power plants like they are going out of fashion.
***************************************
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
*****************************************
Thursday, January 19, 2023
John Kerry Says WEF Davos Elite Are Like ‘Extraterrestrials’ Here to ‘Save the Planet’ – Touts himself as one of a ‘select group of human beings’
Just a note on the WEF: It is the personal creation of German economist Klaus Schwab. It has gradually gained a following over the last 50 years but is just a talk shop. It has however been very good for the small Swiss resort town of Davos.
Schwab is the son of an industrialist who supplied flame- throwers to the Nazi Wehrmacht and was helping the Nazis to develop nuclear weapons. So his background is pretty authoritarian
John Kerry at the World Economic Forum: "And when you stop and think about it, it's pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings...are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet. I mean, it's so almost extraterrestrial to think about quote 'saving the planet.' If you said that to most people, most people they think you're just a crazy tree-hugging lefty, liberal, you know, do-gooder or whatever, and, and there's no relationship. But really, that's where we are."
Marc Morano comment: "Kerry and the World Economic Forum, the UN, and Al Gore all seem to believe they are the chosen ones to save the planet. But, Kerry actually said something we can all agree with when he noted, 'most people they think you're just a crazy tree-hugging lefty, liberal'. Yes, Kerry is correct, most people do think that.
We have heard this type of elitism before. See: Klaus Schwab At 2022 WEF: ‘The Future Is Built By Us, By A Powerful Community As You Here In This Room’ & Klaus Schwab Opens the 2023 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting with a Call to “Master the Future”
Morano: "The Great Reset crowd assembling in Davos genuinely believe themselves to be above the rest of humanity and are able to own multiple mansions and fly private jets while spewing 'saving the planet' rhetoric or even picking up environmental awards.
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The Recycling Religion
For decades, we've been told: recycle! "If we're not using recycled paper, we're cutting down more trees!" says Lynn Hoffman, co-president of Eureka Recycling.
Recycling paper (or cardboard) does save trees. Recycling aluminum does save energy. But that's about it.
The ugly truth is that many "recyclables" sent to recycling plants are never recycled. The worst is plastic.
Even Greenpeace now says, "Plastic recycling is a dead-end street."
Hoffman often trucks it to a landfill.
Years ago, science writer John Tierney wrote a New York Times Magazine story, "Recycling Is Garbage." It set a Times record for hate mail.
But what he wrote was true. "It's even more true today," says Tierney in my new video. "Recycling is an industry that uses increasingly expensive labor to produce materials that are worth less and less." It would be smarter to just dump our garbage in landfills.
People think landfills are horrible polluters. But they're not. Regulations (occasionally, government regulations are actually useful) make sure today's landfills have protective barriers so they don't leak.
Eventually, landfills are turned into good things: ski hills, parks and golf courses.
But aren't we running out of landfill space? For years, alarmist media said we were. But that's not true.
In 1987, media gave lots of publicity to a garbage barge that traveled thousands of miles trying and failing to find a place to dump its load.
But that barge wasn't rejected because there was a lack of room. States turned the barge away after hysterical media suggested it contained "infectious waste." The Environmental Protection Agency later found it was normal garbage.
Landfills have plenty of room for that. In fact, America has more space than we will ever need. Sometimes states and businesses even compete to get our garbage.
"If you think of the United States as a football field," says Tierney, "all the garbage that we will generate in the next 1,000 years would fit inside a tiny fraction of the one-inch line."
Putting garbage in landfills is often much cheaper than recycling. My town would save $340 million a year if it just stopped recycling.
But they won't, "because people demand it," says Tierney. "It's a sacrament of the green religion."
The religion's commandments are complex. New York City orders me to: "Place recyclables at the curb between 4 PM and midnight ... Rinse plastic containers ... Separate paper from plastic, metal, and glass." Paper must be tied "with twine into bundles no taller than 18 inches," and so on.
"That's one reason recycling fails," says Tierney. "It's so complicated; people never learn the rules."
Worse, some recycling is pointless, or harmful. "If you rinse a plastic bottle in hot water," Tierney points out, "the net result is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than if you threw it in the garbage."
Since most plastic can't be recycled, what's the environmentalists' solution now? "Stop producing it," says Greenpeace's John Hocevar.
Lots of environmental groups now want to ban plastic.
That's just silly. Plastic is useful. Using it often creates fewer emissions than its alternatives. Plastic bags create fewer than paper bags. A metal straw has to be used 150 times before it creates less pollution than a plastic straw.
Environmental groups rarely mention that, or how they misled us about recycling year after year.
"It's appalling that after telling people for three decades to recycle, they don't even apologize for all the time and money that they wasted," complains Tierney. "Instead, they have a proposal (banning plastic) that will make life even worse."
Plastic is not evil. Recycling is no climate savior. When Los Angeles mandated it, they added 400 big noisy garbage trucks. That creates lots of pollution.
But environmentalists still demand we do things like pick through our trash, switch from plastic to paper bags that rip. California even banned small plastic shampoo bottles
"Some of these rules are just so arbitrary and silly," complains Tierney. "It's simply a way for greens and for some politicians to pretend that they're saving the planet."
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2023/01/18/the-recycling-religion-n2618407
********************************************************UK: Do we truly know the cost of net zero?
Just why is Chris Skidmore’s review into the government’s target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 called an ‘independent’ review? It somewhat stretches the definition of the word ‘independent’.
Skidmore was the very minister – the Energy and Clean Growth Minister – who pushed the net zero commitment through the House of Commons in the first place in 2019. He remains a Conservative MP. Putting him in charge of an ‘independent’ review on net zero is analogous to Rishi Sunak putting Boris Johnson in charge of a ‘independent’ review into Brexit. That, of course, would be laughed out of the House of Commons. But things seem to work very differently in the world of net zero.
It is pretty clear that support for net zero drops away rather rapidly as soon as people understand its implications
The legally-binding target to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050 has the most far-reaching consequences of any piece of legislation in recent times. It is far more significant than Brexit, for example, as it requires Britain to adopt multiple new, extremely expensive and unproven technologies. And yet it was passed through the Commons without even a vote. The commitment to net zero didn’t even feature in either the Conservative or Labour manifestos in 2017, the last election before the measure was passed.
But any dissent doesn’t matter, according to Skidmore, because he has held 50 ‘round tables’. He claims, ‘We heard a clear message for businesses, organisations, individuals, and local government across the country: net zero is creating a new era of opportunity, but government, industry, and individuals need to act to make the most of the opportunities, reduce costs, and ensure we deliver successfully.’ Was it really that unanimous, Chris? And if so, who did you invite to your round tables? I guess my invitation got lost in the post.
Skidmore claims there is strong public support for net zero. This might well be the case when people are asked simply about net zero without any context, i.e. what the implications will be for them personally. Polls suggest around 60 per cent of people are generally in favour. But it is a very different matter when people are asked directly about measures which form part of the government’s net zero strategy.
Planting trees (92 per cent approval in a YouGov poll in 2021) and banning single use plastics (81 per cent) are wildly popular. So, too, it seems is ‘only using renewable energy’ (66 per cent). That is perhaps because the cost implications were not explained in the question. A majority, too, backed a frequent flyer levy (60 per cent). Banning petrol and diesel cars, however, was met with approval of 48 per cent, taxing air fares 37 per cent, increasing fuel duty 27 per cent and restricting consumption of meat and dairy 26 per cent.
It is pretty clear that support drops away rather rapidly as soon as people are allowed to understand the implications of net zero. Most support it only as an abstract idea which does not impinge on them personally.
What we really need is a genuinely independent review of this policy which explains very clearly what some of the known costs are and also looks at the many unknown costs of decarbonising food production, industries, backing up intermittent wind and solar, and so on. As Lord Frost suggested in a tweet today, what we could do with is a Red Team review of the review, which asks the difficult questions – the ones MPs failed to ask when they nodded net zero through the Commons. And it needs to be led by someone who really is independent of government.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/do-we-truly-know-the-cost-of-net-zero/
************************************************Australian State loves coal
NSW will introduce a domestic coal reservation policy to keep the lights on and ease an energy crisis gripping the east coast, in a move expected to open a new battle with major coal miners.
The Australian understands NSW Treasurer Matt Kean will issue orders requiring the majority of the state’s thermal coal miners to reserve up to 10 per cent of their output for NSW power stations by the end of the month, under a new clampdown designed to head off potential supply shortfalls this year.
The orders represent an expansion of rules introduced in December requiring only some coal miners to reserve production for the domestic market, included alongside a $125-a-tonne cap on the price of coal sold to local power providers. They could draw in major producers such as BHP, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal.
The reservation scheme will aim to dodge a gas strike by energy producers and retailers, frustrated by a lack of clarity after the Prime Minister imposed a price cap and code of conduct on the industry. However, the move could split the NSW coal industry, with those companies already subject to domestic reservation orders likely to welcome the move. Those not affected by current orders are likely to be outraged by the decision.
“This coal cap scheme will see NSW doing our part at the request of the Albanese government to contribute to the national solution of this national problem,” Mr Kean said.
“I know those currently providing coal for the local market will appreciate that companies enjoying super profits on the back of the war in Ukraine will now do their part for the domestic market. Of course they should provide Australian production for Australian consumers.
“These new arrangements will help even the playing field among coal producers.”
The NSW government is consulting with the additional companies. The new orders are likely to require them to contribute about 7-10 per cent of their production to the domestic market. Coal still provides up to 60 per cent of generation needs in the state even as NSW looks to phase out the fossil fuel and replace it with renewable energy supplies.
The Australian understands NSW estimates its generators will need about 22 million tonnes of coal to keep operating through 2023. About 18 million tonnes of that total is already contracted in long-term supply contracts with a small group of miners, including Glencore, Peabody, New Hope Corporation and Centennial.
Under orders issued in late December those producers were required to offer at least 18.6 million tonnes of coal into the domestic market at a maximum price of $125 a tonne for coal with a calorific value of 5500 a kilogram. That is the equivalent of $136.40 for high-grade coal exported to international markets from NSW mines, which generally grades 6000 calories per kilogram.
Mr Kean, who is also the Energy Minister, has decided to widen the domestic reservation policy to meet a potential supply shortfall, after complaints the December orders put an unfair burden on a small group of producers.
The Australian understands Mr Kean now intends to require all NSW thermal coal producers to supply into the domestic market – effectively establishing a domestic coal reservation policy for the state.
The move is likely to draw in major producers such as BHP, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal, who are not currently required to supply NSW power stations beyond any existing contracts.
Mr Kean’s move is not necessarily a permanent impost on the state’s coal industry, as coal-supply requirements will slowly diminish over the next decade as the state phases out its reliance on coal-fired generation.
It is believed sections of the coal industry have argued that coal is ultimately a state-owned resource, and the burden of supplying NSW power stations should be shared more evenly among the state’s miners.
Most of the mines supplying into long-term contracts with NSW power stations do so as a requirement of deals to privatise state-owned operations in the 1980s and 2000s. Private companies that invested in greenfield operations did so with export markets in mind, and are unlikely to welcome any impost on the price they could receive on international markets.
BHP’s Mt Arthur mine is expected to produce 13 million to 15 million tonnes of coal in the current financial year. Yancoal’s NSW mines produced about 23 million tonnes of coal in 2021.
The Australian understands the new orders will not require miners to break existing export agreements if their mine production is fully contracted, and coking coal mines such as South32’s Illawarra operations and Sanjeev Gupta’s Tahmoor mine are not affected by the new rules. AGL Energy’s Liddell coal plant is due to close in April, with Origin Energy’s Eraring station to shut as early as August 2025.
The final NSW coal power plant will be shut by 2040 at the latest after EnergyAustralia’s decision to bring forward the closure date of its Mt Piper facility by at least two years in a bid to hit new green climate targets.
Coal facilities are increasingly having to switch off during daytime hours when high solar supplies undercut them on price.
Mr Kean has been warning the state’s coal plants will exit early as the fossil fuel struggles to compete.
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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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Wednesday, January 18, 2023
Biden's ESG Investment Rules Threaten Your Retirement Savings
President Joe Biden's Labor Department recently announced a new rule that will permit money managers to play politics with trillions of dollars of people's retirement savings.
The administration is pushing environmental, social and governance investing, which allows retirement fund managers to select stocks of companies based on their positions on social and environmental issues.
Put simply, retirement savings will be used as leverage to force companies to reduce their carbon emissions and establish racial and gender quotas and other social justice fads completely unrelated to securing a high return on workers' lifetime savings.
For example, to reduce greenhouse gases, money managers have divested in traditional oil and gas companies such as Exxon or Chevron. How has that worked out so far? Last year, these were two of the highest-performing stocks.
Socially conscious investing has been around for decades. I have no problem with individual shareholders choosing stocks that comport with their personal values. I have friends, for example, who refuse to invest in Starbucks because the coffee company is fighting unionization by employees. Fine. It's a free country.
But it's an entirely different matter when trillion-dollar investment and retirement funds such as BlackRock inject their own biases into the way they invest people's savings without their knowledge or consent.
It's even worse when these biases rob investors of a high rate of return on their nest eggs.
Terrence Keeley, a former executive at BlackRock, blew the whistle on this scam in the Wall Street Journal by noting that since 2017, when the ESG fad took hold, these funds have had an annual rate of return of 6.3% -- versus 8.9% for the stock market as a whole. Investors lost 2.6% per year on their retirement funds. There goes the down payment on that retirement home in Arizona or Florida.
What is insidious about the new Biden administration ESG rules is that they permit and even tacitly encourage portfolio managers at firms such as BlackRock to violate their fiduciary duty to their clients by allowing ESG factors to trump sound investment decisions. Federal regulators are supposed to be ensuring the soundness of retirement funds, not shrinking them.
To make matters worse, researchers at Columbia University and the London School of Economics found ESG funds may not even be achieving their goals. The study compared the ESG records of American companies in 147 ESG fund portfolios to ones in over 2,000 non-ESG portfolios and found that the ESG companies were often worse when it came to labor and environmental law compliance.
The good news is that there is a backlash emerging against ESG. Late last year, one of the largest money managers, Vanguard, wisely announced it was withdrawing from the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, a major climate change alliance.
Going forward, ESG investment policies should be illegal unless individual investors check the box to have their money invested in such politically motivated investments.
By the way, victims of the law policies are often unionized workers -- America's truckers, factory workers and teachers -- whose lifetime savings are put at risk.
Bravo to Vanguard for pulling out of the ESG scam. If you've invested your money with BlackRock or State Street, you might want to ask why they haven't done the same.
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Skyscrapers in the sea: are they killing our whales?
Offshore wind turbines have a growing list of serious problems undermining their future sustainability, but few things look worse for environmental PR than dead whales.
A humpback whale carcass recently washed up on the beach at Brigantine near Atlantic City, sparking concern over the preliminary work being done for huge offshore wind farms. It was the seventh inconvenient dead whale in a month around the New Jersey and New York areas. While whales do wash up from time to time, seven in a short period has caused concern.
Environmental groups, no doubt panicked about their two favourite projects potentially murdering each other, have stepped up and said concerns regarding the wind farm construction are ‘unfounded and premature’.
Meanwhile, the Marine Mammal Stranding Centre at Brigantine is carrying out a postmortem on the remains. While it was noted that some of the whales looked as though they had been hit by vessels, it is unclear whether their external injuries happened before or after death.
Political panic about the ‘climate crisis’ is routinely used as a justification for corporate behaviour that would otherwise be scorned. An environmental group in New Jersey went so far as to say:
‘The climate crisis demands that we quickly develop renewable energy, and offshore wind is critically important for New Jersey to reach the state’s economic development and environmental justice goals.’
Wind farms (and whatever critical damage they may cause to marine environments around the world) are considered excusable because they are marketed as the only way to avert planetary catastrophe – which is not true. Nuclear energy has long been recognised as a better solution, environmentally speaking.
What is often forgotten about wind turbines is that they are essentially steel skyscrapers, fitted with blades, and affixed to the ocean floor (which is damaged in the process). These ‘cities’ are encroaching on the ocean and carpeting the shoreline, creating constant noise pollution in a sensitive environment full of creatures that use sound to survive.
The end result is a matrix of spinning blades on the surface of the water, disrupting air patterns and massacring marine bird life. Studies on bird behaviour came to the conclusion that wind farms represent lost territory, with many birds choosing to abandon the area entirely. As for how large wind turbines are getting, the tallest offshore wind turbine is GE’s Haliade-X standing at 260 metres – or roughly a 70-storey building.
A group of residents around the New Jersey site where the whales keep washing up have demanded a federal investigation into the deaths which are suspected to be linked to ocean floor scouting activity.
‘We should suspend all work related to offshore wind development until we can determine the cause of death of these whales, some of which are endangered. The work related to offshore wind projects is the primary difference in our waters, and it’s hard to believe that the death of whales on our beaches is just a coincidence,’ said Republican Senator Vince Polistina.
According to OPB.org:
‘The Clean Ocean Action environmental group said such site work typically involves exploring the ocean floor using focused pulses of low-frequency sound in the same frequency that whales hear and communicate, which could potentially harm or disorient the animals.’
Further:
‘At a news conference Monday in Atlantic City, the groups calling on Biden to probe the deaths said offshore wind developers have applied for authorisation to harass or harm as many as 157,000 marine mammals off the two states.
‘NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said 11 such applications are active in the area but involve non-serious injuries and harassment of marine animals, not killing them.
‘“NOAA Fisheries has not authorised, or proposed to authorise, mortality or serious injury for any wind-related action,” agency spokesperson Lauren Gaches said.’
It’s not much of a leap to look toward the wind farms as a possible cause of whale deaths. There have been many studies, particularly in Europe related to North Sea wind farms, about the impact that these forests of steel have on marine life.
In 2017, three minke whales washed up on the UK coast, apparently distressed by the offshore wind farm. It was argued that the sonar communication between the whales was being confused by the turbines.
A 2006 report Effects of offshore wind farm noise on marine mammals and fish, says:
‘McCauley et al. (2006) found strong behavioural reactions in humpback whales to airgun sounds at a received broad-band level of 172-180 dBp-p (duration = 60 ms; frequency range = 0.1 – 2 kHz). This would correspond roughly to a threshold of 166 dB0-p. If we take the broadband value of the pile-driving noise (see Table 6; value ~ 228 dB0-p for 1.5 m piles and ~ 238 dB0-p for larger piles) and calculate transmission loss to be 15 log (r) – we arrive at a 60 km radius for behavioural reaction.’
The report also warned that the noise related to pole-driving for wind turbine bases could result in permanent hearing damage to various whale species and beaching events. Whales are known to be able to detect the operational noises of wind farms over very large distances. With the oceans filling up with wind farms, humans could be driving marine life insane – like trying to live in an apartment underneath a noisy neighbour.
A 2021 study into Taiwan’s ‘Thousand wind turbines project’ in the Taiwan Strait says:
‘The offshore wind farm life-cycle includes planning, construction, installation, operation maintenance, and decommissioning. The noise and vibrations generated by offshore wind turbines during the construction and operation phase have recently been found to negatively impact hearing sensitivity and cause behavioural changes in numerous marine organisms even at ranges many kilometres distance from the wind farm.’
While the noise is most extreme during the construction phase, the operational continuous low-frequency noise irritates marine life. In particular, this study warned about the danger posed to chorusing fish who may struggle to attract mates, spawn, communicate, or function under such condition resulting in ‘cascade effects on behavioural and ecological processes’.
Offshore wind farms have a similar problem to their onshore cousins, with residents and farm animals living near turbines complaining about low-frequency noises that eventually drive people crazy.
A recent case against a wind farm in Victoria was settled in favour of residents who complained about not being able to sleep due to noise from a nearby wind farm. A 2021 study, Effects of low-frequency noise from wind turbines on heart rate variability in healthy individuals, said that low frequency exposure ‘has been found to cause a variety of health conditions’ and that ‘exposure to LFN from wind turbines results in headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, dizziness, tinnitus, aural pain, sleep disturbances, and annoyance’ while it also ‘may cause increased risk of epilepsy, cardiovascular effects, and coronary artery disease’.
In order to ‘save the planet’, environmental movements are in danger of making it less livable. At the very least, we should stop allowing Net Zero and renewables industries to use the threat of apocalypse to justify damage to the environment. This ‘for the greater good’ mentality might very well destroy our oceans.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/skyscrapers-in-the-sea-are-they-killing-our-whales/
************************************************************Climate Activism Isn't About the Planet. It's About the Boredom of the Bourgeoisie
The downfall of capitalism will not come from the uprising of an impoverished working class but from the sabotage of a bored upper class. This was the view of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Schumpeter believed that at some point in the future, an educated elite would have nothing left to struggle for and will instead start to struggle against the very system that they themselves live in.
Nothing makes me think Schumpeter was right like the contemporary climate movement and its acolytes. The Green movement is not a reflection of planetary crisis as so many in media and culture like to depict it, but rather, a crisis of meaning for the affluent.
Take for example a recent interview with Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich on CBS's 60 Minutes. Ehrlich is most famous for his career as a professional doom monger. His first major book, The Population Bomb, gave us timelessly wrong predictions, including that by the 1980s, hundreds of millions of people would starve to death and it went downhill from there. Ehrlich assured us that England would no longer exist in the year 2000, that even modern fertilizers would not enable us to feed the world, and that thermonuclear power was just around the corner.
Ehrlich, who recently turned 90, is in the lucky position to have witnessed the complete failure of all his predictions—only to double down on them in his 60 Minutes interview Ehrlich has been wrong on every public policy issue he pontificated on for almost 60 years, yet the mainstream media still treat him like a modern oracle.
Why?
The best answer to this question comes courtesy of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in 2019 famously said that, "I think that there's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right." In other words, no matter what nonsense one spews, as long as it is "morally right," it does not matter what the facts show.
Like the prophet of any religion, Ehrlich is not there to explain the world but to reinforce the upper class's favorite worldview of the imminent end of the world, something that can only be prevented if we fundamentally change the way we live.
Of course, by "we," they actually mean "you." It's not the Tesla driving AOC or the jet-setting Stanford professor Ehrlich who will adapt their lifestyles, but the rubes of the working- and middle-class who supposedly eat too much meat, drive too many miles on gas-guzzling cars, or even book the occasional flight to go on vacation.
This was perfectly embodied by climate czar and millionaire John Kerry who took his family's private jet to attend a climate change conference in Iceland in 2019. Asked by journalists how to square his climate activism with the use of private planes, he seemed befuddled; after all, Kerry explained, "it is the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle" against climate change.
Even supposed grass-roots movements like "Just Stop Oil" or "Last Generation" (of "tomato soup on paintings" fame) are in fact funded by millionaires, like Aileen Getty, the granddaughter of legendary oil-tycoon Jean Paul Getty, and the Climate Emergency Fund.
Just like Kerry, Ehrlich, and these other groups are not really interested in solving the problem of climate change—for example, promoting research in technologies like nuclear energy, carbon capture technologies, and means of adaptation. Instead, they wish to elevate their struggle to an ersatz-religion that allows them to simultaneously enjoy their wealth and lecture the rest of the world from a position of moral superiority.
They are pouring money into those efforts, as the German journalist Axel Bojanowski pointed out, to a degree that would make the oil lobby blush. At the "Climate Action Summit" in 2018, two dozen billionaire-backed foundations pledged 4 billion dollars for climate-change lobbying. Some of them, like the Hewlett Foundation, are directly funding journalists at the Associated Press for "climate reporting," while foundations associated with the Packard and Rockefeller families have been backing the journalistic endeavor "Covering Climate Now," which "collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to produce more informed and urgent climate stories" and is financing hundreds of media outlets.
One would assume that a journalistic class that constantly prides itself on speaking truth to power would object to talking money from billionaires to promote their peculiar interests, but the opposite is the case. And it makes perfect sense, since the contemporary media is ideologically in the same camp as the billionaire class; they enjoy lecturing the rest of society just as much as Ehrlich and his acolytes.
Contrary to the climate extremists and their virtue signals, the world they are trying to create would be devastating for the poorest people on the planet. The elimination of poverty and the improvement of living conditions is only made possible through access to energy in all forms and the petrochemical processes enabled by fossil fuels—the production of fertilizers for food and plastics needed in medical equipment.
"Just stopping oil" wouldn't stop climate change as swiftly as it would human life. To add insult to injury, this activism seems to have no shred of compassion for all the human suffering caused by their pet projects, from child-labor in cobalt mines (needed for batteries) in the Congo to forced labor in the PV production process in China, to the environmental damage caused by lithium mining in Chile.
This isn't about the planet. It's about the boredom of the bourgeoisie. And they don't care who has to pay to alleviate it.
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The green mining boom is as gritty and dirty as every other boom
Chris Bowen’s ambition to turn Australia into a renewable energy export powerhouse stalled last week when the giant Sun Cable Australia-Asia PowerLink entered voluntary liquidation.
It seems that exporting rays of sunlight to Singapore is as difficult as it sounds. Writing a convincing business plan to install millions of solar panels in the Northern Territory, capturing their intermittent output in giant batteries and sending this through thousands of kilometres of underwater cables is a formidable challenge, even if it’s backed by two renewable energy devotees with very deep pockets.
Australia’s best hope of cashing in on the global clean-energy boom stems not from the thought bubble of a hirsute software entrepreneur, but from the sweat and genius of its mining engineers. Kalgoorlie is at the centre of the so-called green mining boom. It is fast becoming the Dallas of clean energy by doing what it does best: digging up dirt, extracting minerals and sending them to market. The WA outback is to lithium-ion batteries what Texas is to oil. It is rich in deposits of lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements for which global demand is insatiable.
Finding the half tonne of minerals contained in a Tesla battery requires digging up 250 tonnes of dirt, which is good news for a town that makes its money that way. Global car manufacturers have been competing to secure deals with Australian lithium miners. Last July, for example, Ford Motor Co bought up a third of Liontown Resources’ production and threw in a $300m loan facility to expand Kathleen Valley mine, 350km north of Kalgoorlie.
The love for electric vehicles, however, like the love of sausages, is severely tested by seeing how the object of one’s affection is made. The green mining boom is as gritty and dirty as every other boom that has graced the WA goldfields region since the discovery of gold in 1893. Surrounding roads are lined with road trains hauling ore, giant earth movers, chemicals and explosives. Massive new creators are transforming the natural landscape, but this time the wilderness campaigners don’t seem particularly bothered.
The new green job opportunities we have been frequently promised are as dirty and sweaty as the old ones. Ardea Resources plans to employ 500 people over the 25-year life of its Kalgoorlie Nickel Project’s integrated nickel manganese cobalt battery material refinery hub, assisted by $119m in investment by the former federal Coalition government. They will be driving a fleet of 120-tonne excavators and 90-tonne trucks at 13 open-cut sites at Goongarrie Hill, 80km from Kalgoorlie. They will process ore in high-pressure acid-leached autoclaves. The resulting discharge will be filtered and the solids dry-stacked.
This energy-intensive, chemical-thirsty and land-hungry process adds to the substantial carbon debt that is attached to every electric vehicle. If the unrefined ingredients of a single EV battery were to be transported by train to Esperance, they would fill at least four wagons. Figures produced by car manufacturers show an electric vehicle must be driven for approximately 100,000km before its overall emissions are lower than an equivalent diesel or petrol vehicle.
These material realities of the imagined transition to a green economy are discounted by the renewable energy lobby. As US policy analyst Mark P. Mills bluntly points out, no energy system is actually “renewable” since all machines require the continual mining and processing of millions of tonnes of primary materials and the disposal of hardware that inevitably wears out.
Mills estimates that compared with hydrocarbons, the machines to produce renewable energy require a 10-fold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.
Mills calculates that by 2050 the quantity of worn-out solar panels will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste together with more than three million tonnes a year of un-recyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tonnes per year of batteries will become garbage.
The failure to offset the costs against the supposed environmental benefits of renewable energy is part of the dodgy accounting clean-energy advocates would like us to ignore. They turn a blind eye to the 8000 tonnes of steel required to generate a terawatt of electricity with solar panels. They look the other way while 8000 tonnes of concrete are delivered by a conga-line of trucks and poured into the ground to support wind turbines with the same capacity. Coal, gas and nuclear require something less than a tenth of those basic raw materials to generate the same amount of power.
The truth seldom acknowledged by advocates of renewable energy is that reducing dependence on hydrocarbons by shifting to wind, solar and batteries alone will dramatically increase our dependence on minerals. The assumed benefits of decarbonising the electricity grid must be offset against corresponding increases in mining and processing.
In 2005, the mining sector produced 9 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020 it was 20 per cent. While the sector has been making considerable strides in reducing emissions, there is no scalable technology available to achieve the massive gains a target of net zero by 2050 requires.
The task will be even harder if we want to bring more of the processing onshore, as we must if we are to avoid increasing our energy dependence on China, currently by far the world’s biggest processor of lithium and other critical minerals.
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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
