You Can Be Sure That Net Zero Carbon Emissions From Electricity Generation Will Never Be Achieved. Here's Why
The currently-proclaimed goal of the climate movement is to achieve “Net Zero” economy-wide carbon emissions by 2050, if not sooner. The governments of essentially all the Western countries with the most advanced economies have committed, in one form or another, to achieve this goal. (OK, in the EU there are a few laggards among the former Soviet satellites, but then it is questionable how advanced their economies are.). Many of these countries with Net Zero commitments have even earlier goals, often in the 2030s, for achievement of Net Zero emissions from electricity generation. And the electricity generation sector is clearly the easiest part of an economy to get to Net Zero. Surely, if all of the countries with the best technology and the most sophisticated governments say that this Net Zero thing can be done in short order in the electricity sector, then it can be done and it will be done.
In fact, it will not be done. Not just will Net Zero in electricity generation not be achieved worldwide by 2050 or any time close to that, but it also won’t be achieved in any individual country, no matter how committed to the Net Zero goal that country may currently seem to be. If you have any doubt about that, I suggest looking to some of the following indicators:
There is a total absence in the entire world of any functioning Net Zero demonstration project.
It is truly astounding how many seemingly sophisticated governments have made the Net Zero electricity commitment without there existing anywhere in the world a demonstration project showing how this can be done and at what cost. Historically, major innovations in provision of energy have begun with demonstration projects or prototypes to establish the feasibility and cost of the endeavor, before any attempt at widespread commercialization to a full state or country.
Thus in the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity for his new devices like incandescent lightbulbs, he began by building a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct, and followed that with a larger demonstration plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan that supplied electricity to only a few square blocks. Only after those had been demonstrated as successful did a larger build-out begin. Similarly, the provision of nuclear power began with small government-funded prototypes in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed by larger demonstration projects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Only in the late 1960s, twenty years into the effort and after feasibility and cost had been demonstrated, were the first large-scale commercial nuclear reactors built.
Today there is no such thing anywhere in the world and on any scale, whether large or small, as a functioning wind/solar electricity system that functions free of full fossil fuel backup, or even close to that. The few places that have made attempts at fully wind/solar/storage systems have fallen woefully short, and at this point are not even trying to bridge the remaining gap to get to Net Zero.
Commenters on some of my recent posts have referred to the projects on some small islands like El Hierro (one of Spain’s Canary Islands, population about 10,000) or King Island (off Tasmania in Australia, population about 1500). But those projects only serve to illustrate how far short efforts toward Net Zero have fallen, and how enormous would be the costs to go the remaining distance. I have previously covered the El Hierro project multiple times, for example here and here.
The bottom line for El Hierro is that it has wind turbines with supposed “capacity” of more than double average demand (but which operate at annual capacity factors of under 40%), and also a pumped-storage facility with hydro generators for more than double average demand, and also back-up diesel generators for more than double average demand – three separate and redundant systems, all of which must be paid for. And for all that, they struggle to get half of their electricity from the wind/storage system, averaged over the year. And they must retain the full diesel backup, fully maintained and ready to go, for the regular times, even in the windiest months, when the wind fails to blow.
The operator of the wind/storage system on El Hierro, Gorona del Viento, has a website where data from the island are published (although the most recent data are from September 2021). In 2021, the island got 28% of its electricity from the wind/storage system in January (and the rest from the diesel backup), 36% in February, 48% in March, 21% in April, 77% in May, 72% in June, 81% in July, 59% in August, and 34% in September. The cover page of the Gorona del Viento report brags that the island had 1293 hours in 2020 when it got all of its electricity from the wind/storage system. How embarrassing is that? — there being 8784 hours in a leap year like 2020.
If Net Zero emissions electricity generation could be achieved for a major economy like the U.S. or Germany or the UK or Japan by 2050, or for that matter by 2035, there would be a functioning demonstration project operating today that achieves that goal. In fact, there is nothing that comes close, and nothing on the horizon.
Every wind turbine or solar panel that gets built depends on a government subsidy
The U.S. Congress has just passed its big climate subsidy act (is it still called the Inflation Reduction Act?), containing some $370 billion of subsidies of various sorts for “green” energy projects, predominantly wind and solar generation facilities, but also things like electric cars and electric heat systems for homes. Undoubted, this will get a lot of wind turbines and solar panels built, and electric cars bought and heat pumps installed.
But here’s the rub. Nobody builds any wind turbine or solar panel, or any other element of this new “green” energy utopia, based on the usual capitalist motivations of making a profit by fulfilling organic consumer demand. Crony capitalists will undoubtedly emerge to build something to collect the subsidies, but they have no particular incentive to put together all elements of a system that works. Who does have that incentive? Nobody, except maybe government central planners — a category that has never had a success in the history of the world.
For a few examples of bottlenecks to come, here is a piece in something called The Conversation from August 19, title “Big new incentives for clean energy aren’t enough – the Inflation Reduction Act was just the first step, now the hard work begins,” by Daniel Cohan of Rice University. Cohan points to one missing element after another of the supposedly coming new green energy system, each one of which will require its own new massive government subsidies:
Wind and solar farms won’t be built without enough power lines to connect their electricity to customers. Captured carbon and clean hydrogen won’t get far without pipelines. Too few contractors are trained to install heat pumps. And EV buyers will think twice if there aren’t enough charging stations.
Etc., etc., etc. When gasoline-powered cars became a thing in the early 1900s, thousands of entrepreneurs sprung into action, without government subsidies of any kind, to set up gas stations all across the country to keep the cars running. Now, people are waiting around for the government handouts that may or may not come, or may be insufficient, to set up the charging stations. Supposedly the Congress is going to come through with hundreds of billions more in subsidies just when needed for all of these things (and twenty more such that nobody has thought of yet), along with an all-knowing bureaucracy to coordinate it all. No government has that level of competency, or ever will.
We’re watching Europe hit the green energy wall in real time
The major European countries, like Germany and the UK, are just now coming up on the position that El Hierro has been in since its system opened in 2014. That is, Germany and the UK have plenty of “nameplate” capacity of wind and solar generators to supply all the electricity they need when the wind is blowing and the sun shining, and even excess at times of full wind and sun. But they have no non-fossil-fuel plan for the regularly-occurring times of low wind and sun. This problem cannot be solved by building more wind and solar facilities.
Here’s a report on the latest from the UK from City AM, August 17:
Based on current forecasts, clean energy specialist Squeaky has calculated that UK industry could be hit with £49.2bn bill for wholesale gas and electricity costs combined in 2023. Overall, this is a 260 per cent increase from the industry’s energy bill in 2021.
Price increases to consumers for electricity and gas have been even higher in percentage terms. And here’s the latest from Germany, from something called the Local, August 17:
Coal is experiencing a comeback on several fronts in Europe’s top economy. A looming shortage of Russian gas in the wake of the Ukraine war has reignited enthusiasm for this method of heating private homes despite its sooty residue and heavy carbon footprint.
Nobody in Europe thought to make a plan for the non-fossil fuel backup to get to Net Zero electricity generation.
So if you have a chance to make a bet, you’ll be extremely safe betting against Net Zero generation of electricity any time during your life. Nuclear is the only way it could potentially be done, and that’s blocked by regulatory obstruction more or less everywhere.
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UK industry faces energy SHUTDOWN – leaked memo exposes horror scenario for next PM
"Project Shine" was first commissioned by the Treasury last year as fears around rising energy prices began to rise due to the pandemic.
Two sources cited by Bloomberg have now revealed that briefings by the project warned ministers of the approaching disaster in November 2021 - well ahead of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which has exacerbated the crisis.
The briefings informed ministers that industries including chemical and fertilizer manufacturers were particularly at risk, and faced having to slow down their operations or shut down entirely due to increased operating costs.
The warnings raise concerns about Mr Johnson's heeding of their warnings, as well as questions about how the next PM will respond.
British industry is not protected by a price cap on energy like households, leaving heavy electricity users such as shops and restaurants vulnerable to shifts in the wholesale energy market.
Sources add that a plan had been drawn up to extend a subsidy program to alleviate the issue, with funding proposals including through taxation or a levy on household energy bills.
However, it appears neither will be introduced by the current government, with one of the sources claiming it will be up to Mr Johnson's successor to decide whether to make changes necessary to save struggling businesses.
The government this month announced a consultation on other potential ways to reduce electricity bills for industries.
A spokesperson for the Government defended its response to last year's warnings.
They pointed to the £145million of extra support given to energy-intensive industries in April 2022.
This intervention came after the invasion of Ukraine pushed prices even higher.
The spokesperson added: "Ministers and officials continue to engage constructively and regularly with industry and our priority is to ensure costs are managed and supplies of energy are maintained".
Fertiliser industries are of particular concern due to a combination of high prices and lower demand, as well as high manufacturing costs.
For some manufacturers, energy bills take up 12 percent of their cost.
The knock-on effect of higher prices for fertiliser piles on alreayd surging operational costs for farmers - leading in turn to higher food prices.
Ministers were reportedly told that some chemical and fertilizer companies faced site closures or slowdowns without state intervention or a change in circumstances.
Cold storage represents another key issue, due both to the high electricity costs involved and a higher demand for storage in Britain following Brexit.
Frozen and chilled storage were seen as being most at risk, and make up a crucial component for supermarkets transporting perishable goods.
For some supermarkets, electricity makes up 20 percent of their cost.
Ministers were told in the briefings last year that this could lead to higher food prices.
The PM’s spokesperson Camilla Marshall told reporters yesterday: “Households, businesses and industry can be confident they will get the electricity and gas they need over the winter”.
She reiterated that Mr Johnson’s government would be making no announcement on additional support.
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Acedemic fightback aginst climate myth
Professor Dr. Knut Loschke studied crystallography, chemistry, physics, mathematics and computer science. In the course of a long career he founded an IT company, and is an honorary professor at the University of Technology, Economics and Culture in Leipzig. As part of his work at the University, he deals with the energy industry and climate change. He served the German Bundestag as an expert in ‘Artificial Intelligence’. But Professor Loschke is annoyed, very annoyed, as he demonstrated in this recent Facebook post.
I’m sick.
Or, to put it even more clearly: I’m fed up with permanent and increasingly religious climate ramblings, fantasies about the energy transition, worship of electric cars, horror stories and doomsday scenarios from Corona to conflagrations and weather disasters. I can’t stand the people who shout into microphones and cameras, or print it in newspapers every day. I suffer from having to see how science is turned into a whore of politics.
It seems that scientists like Professor Loschke are fighting back, tired of being abused and often ignored for scientific work that fails to conform to a fashionable political narrative. Last week, the Daily Sceptic highlighted the ongoing World Climate Declaration (WCD), now signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals. Headed by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever, the WCD says there is no climate emergency. Climate science is said to have degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound science. Our story about the WCD attracted enormous interest on social media and is one of the most widely read articles we have ever published. Enormous efforts were made to trash the Declaration, and many of the people who signed have been personally abused.
The WCD is signed by no less than 235 professors drawn from a wide variety of scientific and other academic disciplines. Thirteen of the 28 WCD lead supporters are professors, seven out of the 10 Greek signatories likewise, and 11 out of the 24 from Norway. The climate scientist and writer Willie Soon recently listed a number of the academic disciplines that are helpful in studying the changing climate. They include: astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochemistry, paleoclimatology, glaciology, oceanography, ecology and history. It was not a complete lists, he added. The breadth of experience from scientists and non-scientists found in the WCD list encompasses most, if not all of these areas of study. People with thousands of years of cumulative practical experience are calling for the study of climate science to be less political and for governments’ climate policies to be more scientific.
Another German scientist, the distinguished experimental physics specialist Professor Hermann Harde, recently dismissed the idea that humans control the climate via carbon dioxide emissions as an “absolute delusion”. He warned politicians that it would be an irresponsible energy policy to continue to ignore more serious peer-reviewed scientific publications that show a much smaller human impact on climate than previously thought.
We recently reported Harde’s comments and referred to the fact that for years German politicians have been able to make virtuous green noises by banning nuclear and fossil fuel production, while relying on an unstable Russia to make up the energy short fall. The sheer stupidity of that policy is likely to become apparent in Germany this winter. Already problems are mounting, with the German newspaper Handlesblatt reporting that the megawatt price of electricity jumped last week to a new high in daily trading. A megawatt hour cost €563, compared to just €23 a year ago. Of course, the ruinous policies behind Net Zero are responsible for this. In the U.K., the spike in international gas prices, and an increasing reliance on unreliable renewables, means the consumer energy price cap could be raised to £6,000, an amount that is almost certainly beyond the means of a significant portion of the population. Under these conditions, a cold winter could kill thousands of people.
Before he died, the acclaimed physicist Professor Freeman Dyson – a signatory of the CWD – noted that the “people who are supposed to be the experts and claim to understand the science, are precisely the people who are blind to the evidence”. Professor Richard Lindzen, a WCD lead signatory, evidently agrees, having said that the current climate narrative is “absurd”, even though trillions of dollars currently says it is not. It remains to be seen what will run out first – the money, or the tolerance of citizens to become poor under command-and-control, hard-left Net Zero regimes.
For years, green activists and journalists have been able to hide behind the obvious canards that the science surrounding the human involvement in climate change is ‘settled’, and that 99% of scientists agree with that statement. The arrogance behind this political stance is on display with a tweet from the Guardian writer George – “Don’t mention the coral!” – Monbiot, who made an oblique reference to the recent WCD article.
As we have reported before, 48 Italian science professors recently wrote to their Government, stating that human responsibility for climate change is “unjustifiably exaggerated and catastrophic predictions are not realistic”. Activists such as Monbiot regularly traduce ‘deniers’ for their supposed links to funding from oil companies (although he recently dismissed the suggestion that the Guardian’s lavish funding by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation influences its coverage in the slightest). Particular ire is often reserved for geologists, since they are much in employment demand from companies that seek to extract mineral riches from the Earth.
Geology also provides an important insight into the paleoclimatic record. Geologists are often sceptical about claims that humans are causing sudden changes in the climate. One might say that they have seen it all before. The only scientist who went to the moon on Apollo was a geologist called Harrison Schmitt, and his position is that there is “no evidence” that humans cause climate change.
The increasing numbers of scientists prepared to break ranks with the ‘settled’ politicised science of climate change would suggest various causes for their scepticism other than bungs from oil companies.
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E-cars and lithium
Luxury Tesla sports cars are cool. Their instant acceleration that flings iPhones onto the backseat makes for great TV, especially when they’re zipping around the Top Gear racetrack under the [not-so-careful] handling of Jeremy Clarkson.
Lower-end ‘affordable’ European ecars are hilarious to watch as they struggle along motorways, limping toward non-existent recharging stations like ugly, half-squashed bugs.
In the early 2000s, it was a great (if not predictable) gag to take ecars on road trips and watch the tyranny of distance defeat them. Plenty of fossil-fuel-driving hopefuls who claim to desire an ecar of their own (without committing) snottily note, ‘We moved on from horses and carts – this is the next evolution!’ Sure, but at least if a horse breaks down you can eat it. Lifeless ecars quickly become expensive gym sessions.
‘This is the future of motoring here!’ shouted Clarkson, pushing a dead ecar by its door while James May heaved at the back.
It was inevitable that ecar manufacturers would eventually improve their range and expand charging infrastructure as the years passed. Mind you, even the keenest ecar countries are a long way from a genuine ‘transition’. There are engineering roadblocks that will always make ecars unattractive to anyone who has to pay for them with real money (governments and politicians don’t count).
Markets are pretty good at deciding what constitutes a shit or – if we’re going to be kind – unfinished product. People are not buying ecars without serious government subsidies because they are not as good as conventional cars. They don’t go as far or last as long, they cost too much, deteriorate on Australian gravel roads, have zero resistance to floods, take ages to recharge, randomly catch fire, change performance with temperature, and if they break – no one has a clue what to do.
They are also an investment with appalling resale potential. Ecars sit around leaking charge and degrading their batteries in the car park. A 2011 Nisson Leaf’s range drops to 80 per cent in 5 years. A 2017 Chevrolet Bolt warns that 10-40 per cent of battery capacity could be lost over the warranty period. Fast charging (or supercharging) is thought to add an additional 10 per cent drop in range for most ecars. Owners are faced with the prospect of either waiting hours for them to charge or making use of superchargers and copping the irreversible damage. You would never buy a second-hand ecar for the same reason most people aren’t adopting a ten-year-old iPhone.
Within the European Union, customers have to be bribed into taking on the financial risk of an ecar. As of 2020, between 20-17 countries offer significant incentives. Even with this push, they remain a minority purchase at 11 per cent. This huge public cost has caused even the Woke-ist countries like Germany to walk away from throwing money at the ecar industry.
‘We simply cannot afford misguided subsidies anymore. These cars have so far been subsidised over their lifetime with up to 20,000 euros, even for top earners. That is too much. We can save billions there, which we can use more sensibly,’ said German finance minister Christian Lindner.
Unsurprisingly, the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers was furious, calling it a ‘severe breach of trust’. Why? Aren’t they confident that the green virtue of their planet-saving ecars is enough of a draw card for customers?
Norway, one of the only nations with ecars making up a majority of new purchases, has also decided to end most incentives by 2023. Did you do your bit for the environment and buy an ecar? Congratulations. The government in Norway is now going to go ‘more green’ and shift away from private car ownership and instead encourage walking, cycling, and taking the bus. Feel that? It’s the tide of civilisation withdrawing.
There is an enormous ‘buyer-beware’ message sitting in plain sight.
Politicians looking to polish their green credentials stand in front of press conferences and insist that ecars are ‘cheaper!’ and ‘affordable!’ because they are heavily subsidised. But, as purchases grow, governments have to abandon tax perks, handouts, and ‘free parking’ offers which leaves ordinary consumers stuck trying to buy extremely expensive ecars that work about half as well as their old, cheap, fossil-fuel car – which the government has quietly banned to stop the market regurgitating the ecar mistake all over its deceitful ministers.
So yes, green groups will get their wish. Western nations will experience a sudden decrease in private car ownership because of poverty, not choice. You won’t see that on Albanese’s brochure regarding his ecar policy.
Albanese must think Australians are total mugs (perhaps they are, if they fall for this one).
Labor has a bill before Parliament to deepen the deficit by spending (who knows how many billions) on tax concessions for those who purchase new ecars. There’s a reason Australia has less than 2 per cent ecars – they are a terrible fit for the enormous distances that we travel. Of those 2 per cent, most are likely doing loops around Canberra while the rest are the third or fourth luxury vehicle of a virtue-signalling professional in a Teal seat. Not the actual Teal leaders, though. They drive hybrids – which is green virtue with a backup oil rig.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers bravely stated that ecars are, ‘Good for motorists, good for employers and their workers, and good for climate action.’
Notice he didn’t mention ‘good for the energy grid’ because if the predicted 3.8 million ecars fantasied about by the Powering Australia Plan come home and plug in, it’ll be back to the Dark Ages for the rest of us. He also left out the bit about ‘good for child slave labour in the Congo’ and ‘good for China’s barbaric rare earth mining’ and ‘good for the destruction of the ocean floor in the blue economy’. If Chalmers had been feeling especially honest, he might have added ‘good for supply chains with all those extra delays for charging added in’.
Labor’s policy is designed to benefit large corporations who wish to gift a bit of eco-virtue to their employees. If the government was actually interested in transforming the transport grid, they’d stop interfering. It is no accident that Tesla makes the best ecars. They were the one company forced into a situation of ruthless market competition which dramatically increased the quality of their product. Propping ecars up with public money allows them to languish in mediocrity and when the safety net is ripped away, the public will be left with an expensive, undesirable product.
There are a couple of huge lies sitting underneath the push for ecars – lies that will become obvious too late for the public to correct course.
The first is that Labor can power an ecar revolution. Labor is pushing Australia towards a sharp increase in energy requirement that will peak during the night. At the same time, it is closing fossil fuel power stations and putting all of its faith in solar and wind – a pair of power generation technologies that slump in the evening. There are only two ways that Labor can provide enough power to charge its millions of ecars – re-open coal-fired power stations or build nuclear plants. It has dismissed both of these options. Australia was already heading toward an energy catastrophe due to the ‘renewables empire’, ecars will accelerate this problem into a genuine nightmare for everyone.
The second is that ecars are convenient. There is no need to explain this one. Next time you pull into a packed petrol station with four or five cars in front and you’re frustrated that this is going to take 20 minutes! Remember that the fastest supercharger around (of which very few are installed) takes 15 minutes. You’re going to be there for over an hour and shorten the life of your battery.
Lie three is the claim that ecars are environmentally friendly. They are not. The pursuit of ecars is the primary driver behind deep sea rare earths mining – one of the most destructive and damaging mining activities there is. Other rare earths mining done on the surface produces astonishing amounts of radioactive sludge (which is why (environmentally conscious?) China took over their production. At the same time, rare metals like copper are mined in the third world by children. There’s a reason mining companies are ‘going green’ – this misguided obsession with Net Zero technologies has sparked a mining boom. Far from protecting the environment, we have never sought to dig more of it up than we are today.
By far the greatest lie is the promise of lithium. Renewable energy and ecars both contain lithium and act as competing industries for a vanishingly rare resource. The more ecars on the road, the more power is needed to charge them, which means we have to build more wind turbines, solar panels, and battery farms. It is an equation that gets out of control immediately when it comes to the sheer volume of mineral required to meet demand. It is a nonsense waste of a valuable resource that the rest of civilisation needs for phones, computers, and all manner of electrical system.
We are wasting lithium on power generation and ecars when other technologies exist – better technologies – and worse, we are using public money to force a transition that the market clearly doesn’t want.
This is not some kind of Climate Change wishy-washy apocalypse with a shifting end date, critical lithium shortages are expected by 2025, long before the Net Zero 2030 targets come into effect.
Car manufacturers admit that there is only enough lithium for 14 million ecars while the World Economic Forum says the world needs 5 billion to get to Net Zero.
The lithium shortage is about to make phones, computers, TVs, fridges, and all household electrical goods extremely expensive. If you think the cost of living is bad now, wait until the lithium dries up. Lithium used to cost $6,000 per tonne in 2020, in 2022 that figure sits at $78,032 per tonne. And what then? Solar panels, wind turbines, and battery farms have a best-case lifespan of 20 years. Everything that lithium was wasted on is headed for landfill leaving the power grid to be ripped up and replaced by – well – probably nuclear but it will cost more because of the lack of lithium.
As Stuart Crow, chair of Lake Resources, said: ‘There simply isn’t going to be enough lithium on the planet, regardless of who expands and who delivers, it won’t be there.’
It doesn’t help that China owns around 80 per cent of the lithium supply chain, so it can quite literally hold the world to ransom once the ecar and renewables transition has taken place.
Jeremy Clarkson’s original impression of ecars in the 90s was spot on. He’s gone a little green under the wing of Amazon, but in addition to being one of the greatest writers of his generation, he was also prescient.
In 1996, he warned us about the future of the environmental movement. What once read as comedic hyperbole sits as a chilling realisation that the green monster is out of control.
‘Idealists will never go away; they’ll just surface again with a new corporate identity. Now they’re back under the environmentalist banner. Only this time, in their quest to bring down commercialism and give power to the people, they really do seem to have hit a raw nerve. “If we carry on like this, the planet will die. In five minutes of geological time, we have turned paradise into a rubbish dump.” Horse shit. They’re not the slightest bit bothered about the environment; it’s just a weapon that allows them to attack a system that no idealist has ever accepted: democracy.
‘But they’ve had a huge effect. Fearful of creeping sympathy for the so-called Greens, stupid, short-sighted governments all over the world have imposed Draconian environmental laws on what they see as easy meat – the internal combustion engine.
‘…If the environmentalists ever realise their dreams, you can kiss goodbye to free thought and say hello to the Gestapo or the KGB or whatever they decide to call their secret police. In fact, environmentalism is every bit as dangerous as Communism or Fascism.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/lithium-lies/
***************************************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)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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